Colombian forces kill FARC dissident leader
Fri, July 15, 2022 


Colombian forces have killed FARC dissident leader Nestor Vera and nine other rebels in a raid in the country's southwest, the defense minister said on Friday.

The operation "allowed us to neutralize nine individuals on the FARC dissident frontline as well as... Ivan Mordisco," minister Diego Molano told reporters, using Vera's nom de guerre.

"The last major leader of the FARC has fallen," Molano added, and described this as the "final blow" to the renegade movement.

Hundreds of dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have continued fighting after their comrades lay down arms under a 2016 peace accord that ended more than half a century of armed conflict.


Vera, one of Colombia's most wanted men, recently took command of a group of some 2,000 dissidents, the so-called Armando Rios front, after the presumed death of leader "Gentil Duarte" in fighting with a drug gang in neighboring Venezuela in May, according to Colombian intelligence.

A reward of $700,000 had been on offer for information on Vera's whereabouts.

Some 500 soldiers were deployed in the Colombian jungle several weeks ago on a mission to find Vera, according to General Luis Fernando Navarro.

Vera and his comrades were ultimately killed in an air force-led operation on July 8.

- 'Fundamental blow' -

Just months before the 2016 agreement was signed, Vera became the first FARC leader to renounce the peace process with several of his subordinates.

Despite the agreement, Colombia has seen a flare-up of violence due to fighting over territory and resources among the dissidents, the hold-out ELN rebel group, paramilitary forces and drug cartels.

The government says Vera and his men were engaged in a fierce dispute over drug trafficking routes with another dissident faction called Segunda Marquetalia, led by former FARC chief Ivan Marquez.

Marquez had signed the 2016 peace pact only to take up arms again, in 2019.

Bogota says Marquez was injured in a recent attack in Venezuela, and is hospitalized there, though Caracas said this was mere speculation.

"Today in Colombia there are none of the leaders, the big capos of the former FARC... it is a fundamental blow to the plans they had for regeneration," said the defense minister, Molano.

With no unified command, FARC dissident fighters are thought to number some 5,200 scattered around the country, according to the Indepaz monitoring group.

They are financed mainly by drug trafficking and illegal mining.

The majority are new recruits who were never FARC members, according to Indepaz.

jss/gm/mlr/dw

Dissident FARC leader killed in military raid in Colombia, defence ministry says

Issued on: 15/07/2022 - 
Text by:NEWS WIRES

Nestor Gregorio Vera, who commanded a group of former Colombian rebels who rejected a peace deal and was best known by his alias Ivan Mordisco, died in an armed forces bombing this week, Defense Minister Diego Molano said on Friday.

Mordisco was killed along with nine other fighters last weekend in a jungle area of southwestern Caqueta province, Molano told journalists.

Mordisco's death is the latest in a series of killings of ex-FARC leaders who rejected a 2016 peace deal with the government and instead formed two dissident factions which officials say are involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining.

"The operation had as an objective the neutralization of one of the top commanders of the FARC dissidents who never entered the Havana (peace) accord and whose criminal trajectory of more than 30 years in the south of the country was a scourge of that region," Molano said.

Mordisco was the last great FARC leader, Molano said, and his death is a final stab at the dissidents. Molano said Mordisco had been planning to expand his faction.

According to security sources, Mordisco replaced Gentil Duarte as the leader of their so-called FARC-EP dissident faction after the latter was killed at the end of May in Venezuela, the site of all other recent deaths of dissident commanders.

The FARC-EP faction and its rival the Segunda Marquetalia compete against each other and other armed groups for control of criminal activities in Colombia and Venezuela.

Segunda Marquetalia commander Ivan Marquez, who was a negotiator at peace talks before rejecting the accord, survived a recent attack in Venezuela, according to Colombia's armed forces.

Dissident leaders Jesus Santrich, Romana and El Paisa have also been killed recently in Venezuela.

The Colombian government accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of sheltering Colombian armed groups, which Maduro has vehemently denied.

Extremely rare 'dinosaur' bird brought to UK to save species | SWNS

 

An extremely rare 'dinosaur' bird - the only one of its kind in the UK - is patiently waiting for a lifelong mate to help save her entire species. Abou the female shoebill that has recently arrived at Exmoor Zoo as part of an international breeding programme to save her species. The unique looking bird is just one of eleven shoebills in the world currently in captivity - and now the only one in the UK. They are monogamous and normally only rear one youngster, so combined with threats arising from climate change, they are a species "massively under threat". Abou, who is 14-years-old was born and bred inside Pairi Daiza Zoo in Belgium. The lovesick bird has been greeting her keepers with displays of bowing and spreading her wings - a common courtship ritual. She's been move to the UK to wait while the breeding programme produces a male bird, so the pair can be matched and produce much-needed offspring. Derek Gibson, curator at Exmoor Zoo, says the team are "delighted" to welcome their newest member of the family.

How authoritarian regimes hunt their opponents abroad

Selim SAHEB ETTABA
Fri, July 15, 2022 


The world's authoritarian regimes are persecuting their opponents living abroad more vigorously than ever before and some get away with murder, literally.

A blatant example of the impunity some governments enjoy is Saudi Arabia's de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose country US President Joe Biden labelled a "pariah" over the 2018 murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Yet in June, Saudi made up with Turkey -- where the murder happened -- and Biden decided to include the kingdom on a tour of the Middle East.

Experts say transnational repression of opposition figures is nothing new, but since digital technologies have allowed dissidents to needle authoritarian regimes from across borders more easily, they have stoked the wrath of strongmen like rarely before.

"The threat perception of dictators or these repressive regimes has increased," said Marcus Michaelson, a researcher on authoritarianism at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels.

According to US watchdog Freedom House, there were at least 735 direct, physical incidents of transnational repression between 2014 and 2021, carried out by 36 governments, notably those of China, Turkey, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Rwanda.

Four regimes joined the list in 2021, including Belarus, which diverted an aircraft to arrest an opposition figure.

- 'Harassment to murder' -

Spectacular acts like the poisoning of former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal in Britain in 2018, or the killing in 2019 in Berlin of Georgian Chechen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili -- attributed to Russia -- get the world's attention, but much of the repression happens under the radar.

"The range of tactics goes from harassment to murder," said Katia Roux at Amnesty International France.


Turkish journalist Can Dundar, who runs a website and a radio station aimed at Turkey and the Turkish diaspora from exile in Germany, has become a target for the secret apparatus of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"In the first year we found a Turkish camera crew (...) recording our office and giving all the details of our office, including our address and our daily work schedule, at what time we are there, at what time we are getting out etc, and showing it as the 'headquarters of the traitors' making plans against Turkey," he told AFP.

Turkish intelligence "is very active, especially in Germany and France," he said, recalling the attack by three men on a Turkish journalist in Berlin in July 2021 who warned him to stop writing about certain topics.

Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui, who fled to France after a kidnapping attempt he blamed on his home country's security services, said he still didn't actually feel safe in exile, only "safer".

In 2020 a Pakistani intelligence officer told Siddiqui's parents that "if Taha thinks he's safe in Paris, he is mistaken. We can reach anyone anywhere".

The threat came the same year as the suspicious deaths of a Pakistani journalist in Sweden, and of a Pakistani human rights activist in Canada, and a year before a British court convicted a man for the contract killing of a Pakistani blogger in Dutch exile.

"They have made me paranoid, suspicious, scared, even in exile," said Siddiqui, who has opened "The Dissident Club" in Paris, a bar dedicated to discussion, exhibitions and screenings.

Digital technologies give repressive regimes a whole new toolkit to sidestep the political cost or diplomatic risk that can come with physical action against dissidents, with "almost no consequences", said Michaelson.

They have a "commercial market for surveillance technologies" at their disposal, such as the Israeli-made spy software Pegasus, which are cost-effective, he said.

"So they don't need to invest a lot of manpower or send agents to spy on dissidents abroad," he said.

A telling example is Egyptian opposition figure Ayman Nour, a friend of Khashoggi, and exiled in Turkey.

Citizen Lab, a body for research into technology, human rights and security, said it found two sets of spyware on Nour's mobile phone -- Pegasus and Predator -- operated by two different governments.

- 'You have to stop' -

Calling spying "a form or organised crime", Nour said he always thought of his phone as "a radio that anybody can listen to".

Amnesty International has identified 11 government clients for Pegasus which allows "the surveillance of anybody in a completely invisible and untraceable way", said Roux.

Activists in China defending the rights of the Uyghur minority, against which western countries say China is committing "genocide", often find that digital threats precede physical violence, said Michaelson.

Meiirbek Sailanbek, a member of China's Kazakh community, said he uninstalled all Chinese apps from his phone when he moved to neighbouring Kazakhstan, and deleted the numbers of his brother and sister who still live in Xinjiang, the Uyghur autonomous region in northwest China.

When the Kazakhstan authorities arrested the head of the Atajurt NGO -- which Sailanbek had joined writing social posts under a pseudonym -- he fled the country, settling in Paris.

But Kazakhstan's authorities identified him, and since then the Chinese government is threatening his brother and sister with prison if he continues his activism.

"Meiirbek, your sister and brother are in danger, you have to stop," said a message forwarded to him by his mother.

Sailanbek faces arrest if he returns to China or Kazakhstan, but he considers Turkey, Pakistan, Arab nations and Russia to be off-limits too because he believes they would give in to Chinese pressure to hand him over.

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Villages battle wildfires in Portugal; Europe swelters

By HELENA ALVES and JOSEPH WILSON

July 14, 2022

1 of 17

This photo provided Thursday July 14, 2022 by the fire brigade of the Gironde region (SDIS33) shows a wildfire near Landiras, southwestern France, Wednesday, July 13, 2022. A spate of wildfires is scorching parts of Europe, with firefighters battling blazes in Portugal, Spain and southern France. In France, two fires raged out of control in the region around Bordeaux in southwest France for a third consecutive day, despite efforts of 1,000 firefighters and water-dumping planes to contain them. 

(SDIS 33 via AP)


BEMPOSTA, Portugal (AP) — More than 3,000 firefighters battled Thursday alongside ordinary Portuguese citizens desperate to save their homes from several wildfires that raged across the European country, fanned by extreme temperatures and drought conditions linked to climate change.

Central Portugal has been particularly hard hit by a spate of blazes this week. In the village of Bemposta, residents used garden hoses to spray their lawns and roofs in hopes they could save them from the raging wall of red flames that approached through the wooden hills late Wednesday.

“It began spreading towards that way, the wind was blowing that way towards the mountain,” said 88-year-old Antonio Carmo Pereira, while pointing to the flames on the outskirts of his village. “In a few minutes I couldn’t see anything, just smoke.”

“(It’s) dangerous, yes. It’s surrounding all the houses,” he said. “I am afraid, but where can I go? Jump into a water tank? Let me stay here and look.”
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More than 800 firefighters were still fighting blazes in the Leiria district, where Bemposta is located, on Thursday.

Temperatures in the interior of the Atlantic country were forecast to hit 44 C (111 F) as hot, dry air blown in from Africa lingers over the western edge of the Iberian Peninsula. In June, 96% of Portugal was classified as being in either in “extreme” or “severe” drought.

The hot air and parched ground, combined with strong winds, has created the perfect cocktail for severe wildfires.

Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa’s government on Thursday extended a state of alert for wildfires until Sunday due to high temperatures. The week-long alert was originally to run until Friday. The Portuguese government has temporarily barred public access to forests deemed to be at special risk, banned the use of farm machinery and outlawed fireworks.

Costa said firefighters had to respond to 200 different blazes Wednesday and pleaded for his fellow citizens to take extra care when in the countryside.

“More than ever, we are the ones who must be extremely careful,” Costa said. “From a small act of carelessness a great tragedy can be born.”

About 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) have been scorched this week in Portugal, according to the Civil Protection Agency. About 865 people had to evacuate their homes over the past week, although many had returned by Thursday. More than 30 homes and other buildings have been damaged.

Civil Protection commander André Fernandes said 160 people, including at least 70 firefighters, have been injured so far, but there are no confirmed fatalities from the fires in Portugal. Four people, including two firefighters, were seriously injured. Portugal has improved its fire safety since wildfires killed more than 100 people in 2017.

The European Union has urged member states to prepare for wildfires this summer as the continent faces another extreme weather shift that scientists say is being triggered by climate change.

In central Hungary, firefighters discovered a body Thursday where a small forest fire had burned overnight. It was found buried under the collapsed roof of a burned farmhouse near the village of Soltszentimre.

Spain was still combating a fire started by a lightning strike on Monday in the west-central Las Hurdes area that has consumed about 3,500 hectares (8,600 acres). Temperatures in many parts of Spain have been topping the 40 C (104 F) mark for several days and are expected to stay high until next week.

In France, two fires raged out of control in the region around Bordeaux in southwest France for a third consecutive day, despite the efforts of 1,000 firefighters and water-dumping planes to contain them.

The fires have destroyed more than 3,850 hectares (9,500 acres) of forest and grassland, the regional emergency said. It said firefighters struggled to contain the fire because of high winds and the difficulty of accessing the heart of the fires. More than 6,000 people have been evacuated from French campgrounds and villages in recent days.

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Joseph Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Angela Charlton in Paris, Ciarán Giles in Madrid, and Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.

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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

Wildfire threat becomes tool to fight home builders

By MICHAEL PHILLIS and SUMAN NAISHADHAM

July 14, 2022

1 of 4

 Fire crews prepare to defend a home as a wildfire advances Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017, in Bonsall, Calif. Environmental groups have been arguing in California courts that developers are not fully considering the risks of wildfire and choked evacuation routes when they plan housing developments near fire-prone areas. 

\(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

Preston Brown knows the risk of wildfire that comes with living in the rural, chaparral-lined hills of San Diego County. He’s lived there for 21 years and evacuated twice.

That’s why he fiercely opposed a plan to build more than 1,100 homes in a fire-prone area he said would be difficult to evacuate safely. Brown sits on the local planning commission, and he said the additional people would clog the road out.

“It’s a very rough area,” Brown said. “We have fires all the time now.”

Opponents like Brown, a member of the Sierra Club and California Native Plant Society, scored a win last year. A California court sided with a coalition of environmental groups and blocked a developer’s plan called Otay Village 14 that included single-family homes and commercial space. The groups argued the county didn’t adequately consider fire escape routes, and the judge agreed.

That’s not the only time California’s escalating cycle of fire has been used as a basis to refuse development.

Environmental groups are seeing increased success in California courts arguing that wildfire risk wasn’t fully considered in proposals to build homes in fire-prone areas that sit at the edge of forests and brush, called the wildland-urban interface. Experts say such litigation could become more common.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has backed a handful of the lawsuits, putting developers on notice.

“You can’t keep doing things the way we’ve been doing when the world is changing around us,” Bonta said in an interview, adding that he supports more housing. His office has, for example, questioned the increased fire risk of a 16,000-acre (6,475-hectare) project that includes a luxury resort and 385 residential lots in Lake County, roughly 130 miles (209 kilometers) north of San Francisco in an area that has already seen significant fire.

Bonta said his office is working on a policy that will help developers and local officials avoid future opposition from his office. It will provide guidance on evacuation routes, planning for population growth and minimizing fire risk, he said.

Developers say they already consider wildfire risks in their plans, comply with strict fire codes and adhere to state environmental policies, all while trying to ease another one of the state’s most pressing problems: the need for more housing.

Builders also say communities sometimes unfairly wield wildfire risk as a tool to stop development. The AG’s office has weighed in on this side, too. Last year, the city of Encinitas denied permits to an apartment complex citing the possibility of choked outgoing traffic if there were a fire.

Encinitas — a city with a median home price of $1.67 million — was thwarting the state’s affordable housing goals, Bonta’s office wrote. Months later, the commission approved the developer’s plan with some changes.

FIRE AND LAWSUITS

California is withering under a megadrought that is increasing the risk of fire, with 12 of the 20 largest wildfires in its history taking place in the past five years. UC Berkeley researchers estimate 1.4 million homes in California are located in high or very high-risk areas. Activists say the public is increasingly aware of fires.

The result is more lawsuits.

Opponents of the developments are employing the often-hated California Environmental Quality Act against local governments in these lawsuits. That law ensures there’s enough information about projects like Otay Village 14 for officials to make informed decisions and address problems. In 2018, the state strengthened requirements for disclosing wildfire risk, leaving developers more vulnerable to this kind of litigation.

Peter Broderick, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said environmental groups are challenging “the worst of the worst,” large projects in undeveloped, high fire-prone areas that cater to wealthy buyers.

“We’re talking about sprawl,” Broderick said.

Pro-housing advocates have said the state’s policies encourage sprawl.

MAJOR HOUSING NEED

But by fighting big developments, environmental groups are holding up thousands of homes, said Mark Dillon, an attorney who represented the Otay Village 14 builders. New developments take fire risk seriously, employing techniques for fire-resistance and complying with building codes, he said. Otay Village 14 would build its own fire station.

California shouldn’t just focus on building in city centers, Dillon countered.

“We shouldn’t be outlawing the single family home,” he said.

Jennifer Hernandez heads the West Coast Land Use and Environmental Group at Holland & Knight LLP. She said developers are adjusting to changes in the environmental review law but that the attorney general’s office should issue a public policy.

“The ad hoc nature of unexpected interventions by the AG’s office does a policy disservice to California housing needs,” she said.

Hernandez represents an industry group that sued Calabasas, an affluent community of over 20,000 northwest of Los Angeles, arguing that it improperly cited wildfire risk to deny a 180-unit development.

“It’s on the main street of an existing community,” she said. “And why is this a problem?”

Calabasas City Manager Kindon Meik said the project would violate open space rules and was in a high-risk area that had recently burned, adding the city has plans to meet its new housing needs.

California’s housing shortage has made homes unaffordable for many moderate and low-income residents. Researchers, housing policy experts, and others say development at the edge of the forest has been driven in part by these punishing home costs in cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and their suburbs.

In recent years, the state passed measures aimed at ensuring cities build enough new homes, but a recent statewide housing plan said 2.5 million new homes are still needed over the next eight years.

Greg Pierce, a professor of urban environmental policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, said there’s very little land left in California that is undeveloped, cheap and at low risk of fire.

Meanwhile, activists have more projects in their crosshairs.

NeySa Ely of Escondido has a list of items like medicine and dog supplies to grab the next time she has to flee a fire. She had to evacuate in 2003 and 2007. The first time, she remembers driving away and seeing flames in the rearview mirror.

“At that point, I just started sobbing,” Ely said.

Her house survived that blaze, but the memory stuck. So when she heard about plans for Harvest Hills, a roughly 550-home development proposed about a mile from her house, she worked to block it, concerned that more residents and buildings in the area would clog the roads out and increase the chance of fire.

The project hasn’t been approved yet, but if it is, Ely said, “I think it will be heavily litigated.”

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/environment

ZOONOSIS SPILLOVER BUSHMEAT

Outbreaks from animals in Africa surge by 60% in last decade

 Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the first woman to lead the the World Health Organization's regional Africa office, joins Congo's health minister Gilbert Mokoki on a field trip in Brazzaville, Congo, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. The number of outbreaks of diseases that jumped from animals to humans in Africa has jumped by more than 60% in the last decade, the World Health Organization said in a statement Thursday, July 14, 2022, a worrying sign the planet could face increased animal-borne diseases like monkeypox, Ebola and coronavirus in the future.

 (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa, File)


LONDON (AP) — The number of outbreaks of diseases that jumped from animals to humans in Africa has surged by more than 60% in the last decade, the World Health Organization said, a worrying sign the planet could face increased animal-borne diseases like monkeypox, Ebola and coronavirus in the future.

There has been a 63% rise in the number of animal diseases breaching the species barrier from 2012 to 2022, as compared to the decade before, the U.N. health agency said in a statement on Thursday.

There was a particular spike from 2019 to 2020, when diseases originating in animals that later infected humans, made up half of all significant public health events in Africa, said WHO. Diseases like Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers were responsible for 70% of those outbreaks, in addition to illnesses like monkeypox, dengue, anthrax and plague.

“We must act now to contain zoonotic diseases before they can cause widespread infections and stop Africa from becoming a hotspot for emerging infectious diseases,” WHO’s Africa director, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement.

While diseases in animals had infected people for centuries in Africa, recent developments like quicker travel across the continent have made it easier for viruses to cross borders, she said.

WHO also noted that Africa has the world’s fastest-growing population, which increases urbanization and reduces roaming areas for wild animals. Scientists also fear that outbreaks that may have once been contained to distant, rural areas can now spread more quickly to Africa’s large cities with international travel links, that might then carry the diseases around the world.

During the West Africa Ebola outbreak that began in 2014, it was not until the disease arrived in capital cities that its spread became explosive, ultimately killing more than 10,000 people and arriving in several cities in Europe and the U.S.

Until May, monkeypox had not been known to cause significant outbreaks beyond central and West Africa, where it has sickened people for decades. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now more than 11,000 cases worldwide in 65 countries, the majority of which had not previously reported monkeypox.

WHO announced that it will hold an emergency meeting next week to assess if monkeypox should be declared a global emergency. Last month, the agency said the outbreak did not yet warrant the declaration but said it would review issues such as the possibility that monkeypox might be infecting more vulnerable populations like children, and whether the virus is causing more severe disease.

IT'S A KCIA KULT

EXPLAINER: The Unification Church’s ties to Japan’s politics

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

yesterday

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laughs while speaking at the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington on Feb. 22, 2013. The assassination of former Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe has unearthed long-suspected, little-talked-of links between him and a religious group that started in South Korea but has spread its influence around the world. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

TOKYO (AP) — The assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has unearthed long-suspected, little-talked-of links between him and a religious group that started in South Korea but has spread its influence around the world.

Police and Japanese media have suggested that the alleged attacker, Tetsuya Yamagami, who was arrested on the spot, was furious about Abe’s reported ties to the Unification Church, which has pursued relationships with politically conservative groups and leaders in the United States, Japan and Europe. The suspect reportedly was upset because his mother’s massive donations to the church bankrupted the family.

Many Japanese have been surprised as revelations emerged this week of the ties between the church and Japan’s top leaders, which have their roots in shared anti-communism efforts during the Cold War. Analysts say it could lead people to examine more closely how powerfully the ruling party’s conservative worldviews have steered the policies of modern Japan


A look at the church and its deep ties to Japan’s governing party and Abe’s own family:

WHAT’S THE UNIFICATION CHURCH?

The church was founded in Seoul in 1954, a year after the end of the Korean War, by the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who preached new interpretations of the Bible and conservative, family-oriented value systems.

The church championed anti-communism and the unification of the Korean Peninsula, which has been split between the totalitarian North and democratic South.

The church is perhaps best known for mass weddings where it paired off couples, often from different countries, and renewed the vows of those already married, at big, open places such as stadiums and gymnasiums. The group is said to have a global membership of millions, including hundreds of thousands in Japan.

The church faced accusations in the 1970s and ’80s of using devious recruitment tactics and brainwashing adherents into turning over huge portions of their salaries to Moon. The church has denied such allegations, saying many new religious movements faced similar accusations in their early years.

In Japan, the group has faced lawsuits for offering “spiritual merchandise” that allegedly caused members to buy expensive art and jewelry or sell their real estate to raise donations for the church.
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WHAT’S THE CHURCH’S LINK TO WORLD LEADERS?

Throughout his life, Moon worked to transform his church into a worldwide religious movement and expand its business and charitable activities. Moon was convicted of tax evasion in 1982 and served a prison term in New York. He died in 2012.

The church has developed relations with conservative world leaders including U.S. presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and more recently Donald Trump.

Moon also had ties with North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un.

Moon said in his autobiography that he asked Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, and that Kim responded that his atomic program was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to “kill (Korean) compatriots.”
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WHAT WAS ABE’S LINK TO THE CHURCH?

Abe was known for his arch-conservative views on security and history issues and also was backed by powerful lobbies such as the Nippon Kaigi. He appeared in events organized by church affiliates, including one in September 2021.

In a video shown on a big screen at the meeting of church-related Universal Peace Federation, or UPF, Abe praised its work toward peace on the Korean Peninsula and the group’s focus on family values. An emphasis on traditional, paternalistic family systems was one of Abe’s key positions.

“I appreciate UPF’s focus on family values,” he said in the video. “Let’s be aware of so-called social revolutionary movements with narrow-minded values.”

Reports of his appearance in the 2021 event drew criticisms from the Japanese Communist Party and cult watchers, including a group of lawyers who have watched the Unification Church activities and supported its alleged victims.

In a news conference Monday after the church’s connection to Abe’s assassination was revealed, the church’s leader in Japan, Tomohiro Tanaka, said Abe supported UPF’s peace movement but that he was not a member.
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Police still have not publicly identified the group cited by the suspect, presumably to avoid inciting violence.

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR JAPAN’S GOVERNING PARTY?

The ties between the church and Japan’s governing party go back to Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who served as prime minister and shared worries with Washington over the spread of communism in Japan in the 1960s as labor union activists gained strength.

Kishi, who was arrested as a war criminal but never charged, was known for his right-wing political views, and the Unification Church’s anti-communist stance matched his views of Japan’s national interests, experts say.

Kishi’s close relationship with the church was publicly known. The church headquarters at one point was housed in a building next to Kishi’s Tokyo residence, and he was seen with Moon in photos taken at the church and published in group publications. Media reports say the suspect believed that Kishi brought the church to Japan.

“Japanese leaders at the time saw the church as a tool to promote anti-communist views in Japan,” said Masaki Kito, a lawyer and expert on religious businesses. For the group, showcasing close ties with prominent politicians was a way to get endorsement for its activity.
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Ties between church-affiliated organizations and LDP lawmakers developed over decades since the church expanded, providing solid political support and votes for the governing party, experts say, though the group denied it.

A survey of 128 lawmakers obtained from police and published in the Weekly Gendai magazine in 1999 showed most attended events organized by the Unification Church’s anti-communism affiliate, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, also funded by Moon, and more than 20 LDP lawmakers had at least one church member in their offices as a volunteer.

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WHAT IS BEING SAID BY THE CHURCH AND ITS CRITICS?

The church denied any favorable treatment by Kishi when it opened a Japan branch. Tanaka said Abe supported current leader Hak Ja Han Moon’s peace movement, but denied any movement of money between the group and the LDP.

The church said Monday it had no records showing that Yamagami was a member. The church said it had had no direct relationship with Abe, although it interacted with other lawmakers through an affiliated organization.

Members of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, who watch the church, say they have repeatedly asked Abe and other LDP lawmakers to stop appearing or sending messages to the events organized by the Unification Church or affiliates while ignoring the long-standing church-related problems.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE PARTY?

“The assassination is shedding a light on the Unification Church,” said Koichi Nakano, an international politics professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. “The church’s relationship with the LDP’s right-wing factions and its ultra-right-wing policies could come under close scrutiny,” and lead to a reevaluation of Abe’s legacy.

It could lead to revelations of how the party’s views have distorted postwar Japanese society, while stalling progress of gender equality and sexual diversity issues, Nakano said.

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Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed.

Emmett Till accuser, in memoir, denies wanting teen killed

By JAY REEVES and ALLEN G. BREED

1 of 7

 In this Sept. 23, 1955, file photo, J.W. Milam, left, his wife, second from left, Roy Bryant, far right, and his wife, Carolyn Bryant, sit together in a courtroom in Sumner, Miss. Bryant and his half-brother Milam were charged with murder but acquitted in the kidnapping and torture slaying of 14-year-old black teen Emmett Till in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant. A team searching the basement of a Mississippi courthouse for evidence about the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till has found the unserved warrant in June 2022 charging a white woman in his kidnapping in 1955, and relatives of the victim want authorities to finally arrest her nearly 70 years later. (AP Photo, File)


DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 says she neither identified him to the killers nor wanted him murdered.

In an unpublished memoir obtained by The Associated Press, Carolyn Bryant Donham says she was unaware of what would happen to the 14-year-old Till, who lived in Chicago and was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was abducted, killed and tossed in a river. Now 87, Donham was only 21 at the time. Her then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam were acquitted of murder charges but later confessed in a magazine interview.

The contents of the 99-page manuscript, titled “I am More Than A Wolf Whistle,” were first reported by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Historian and author Timothy Tyson of Durham, who said he obtained a copy from Donham while interviewing her in 2008, provided a copy to the AP on Thursday.

Tyson had placed the manuscript in an archive at the University of North Carolina with the agreement that it not be made public for decades, though he said he gave it to the FBI during an investigation the agency concluded last year. He said he decided to make it public now following the recent discovery of an arrest warrant on kidnapping charges that was issued for Donham in 1955 but never served.

“The potential for an investigation was more important than the archival agreements, though those are important things,” Tyson said. “But this is probably the last chance for an indictment in this case.”

A cousin of Till who leads the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, Deborah Watts, said the memoir is new evidence that shows Donham’s involvement in the case and is particularly important when combined with the arrest warrant.

“I truly believe these developments cannot be ignored by the authorities in Mississippi,” she said.

In the memoir, Donham says she attempted to help Till once he’d been located by her husband and brother-in-law and brought to her in the middle of the night for identification.

“I did not wish Emmett any harm and could not stop harm from coming to him, since I didn’t know what was planned for him,” Donham says in the manuscript compiled by her daughter-in-law. “I tried to protect him by telling Roy that ‘He’s not the one. That’s not him. Please take him home.’” She claims in the manuscript that Till, who had been dragged from a family home at gunpoint in the middle of the night, spoke up and identified himself.





Donham adds that she “always felt like a victim as well as Emmett” and “paid dearly with an altered life” for what happened to him.

“I have always prayed that God would bless Emmett’s family. I am truly sorry for the pain his family was caused,” she says at the end of the manuscript, which is signed “Carolyn” but indicates that it was written by her daughter-in-law Marsha Bryant.

The memoir is remarkable not only because it’s the most extensive account of the sensational episode ever recorded by Donham, but also because it contains contradictions that raise questions about her truthfulness through the years, said Dale Killinger, a retired FBI agent who investigated the case more than 15 years ago.

For instance, Donham claims in the memoir to have yelled for help after being confronted by Till inside the family grocery store in Money, Mississippi, yet no one ever reported hearing her screams, Killinger said. Also, Donham never previously mentioned that she and Roy Bryant chatted about the abduction. Inthe manuscript, she says they did.

“That seems ludicrous,” Killinger said. “How would you have a major event in your life and not talk about it?”

The Justice Department closed its most recent investigation into the case in December and Mississippi authorities haven’t given any indication they plan to pursue the kidnapping warrant or other charges against Donham. But the Till family is pushing authorities to act.

Keith Beauchamp, a filmmaker whose documentary preceded the Justice Department probe in which Killinger was involved and that ended without charges in 2007, said the memoir shows that Donham “is culpable in the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Louis Till and to not hold her accountable for her actions, is an injustice to us all.”

“Our fight will continue until justice is finally served,” Beauchamp said.

It was Beauchamp, along with two of Till’s relatives, who discovered the arrest warrant with Donham’s name on it earlier this month in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse.

Tyson, the historian who provided the roughly 35,000-word manuscript to the AP, helped spur the government’s most recent investigation into the killing by publishing a book in 2017 in which he quoted Donham as saying she lied when she claimed Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances. In the memoir, however, she claims Till did do those things. During the most recent investigation, Donham told the FBI she had never recanted, the Justice Department said.

Tyson said Donham’s statements in the memoir exonerating herself of wrongdoing need to be taken with “a good-sized shovel full of salt,” particularly her claim that Till identified himself to the men who took him from the family home and later admitted killing him.

“Two big white men with guns came and dragged him out of his aunt and great-uncle’s house at 2 o’clock in the morning in the Mississippi Delta in 1955. I do not believe for one minute that he identified himself,” Tyson said.

Neither Donham nor any of her relatives have responded to messages and phone calls from the AP seeking comment. It is unclear where Donham currently lives or if she has an attorney. Her last known address was in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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This story has been edited to clarify that Tyson provided a copy of the manuscript to the FBI for an investigation that ended last year, not in 2007.

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Reeves reported from Birmingham, Alabama. He is a member of AP’s Race and Ethnicity Team.

WIKILEAKS

Ex-CIA programmer convicted of 'brazen' theft of agency secrets


July 13 (UPI) -- A former Central Intelligence Agency software engineer was convicted Wednesday on federal charges stemming from the theft of classified national defensive information that was published by Wikileaks in 2017.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that the theft by Joshua Adam Schulte, 33, was "one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history."

As a CIA programmer, Schulte had access to valuable intelligence-gathering tools used to confront terrorist organizations and others, which he stole and leaked to Wikileaks once he started harboring resentment toward his employer, Williams said, adding the publication of the information made it available to adversaries of the United States.

"Schulte was aware that the collateral damage of his retribution could pose an extraordinary threat to this nation if made public, rendering them essentially useless, having a devastating effect on our intelligence community by providing critical intelligence to those who wish to do us harm," he said.

The New York resident was arrested in August of 2017 on child pornography charges but was later indicted in June the next year on 13 counts in connection to the theft of a trove of classified national defense information.

Wikileaks released the thousands of documents in March of 2017 detailing the CIA's methods to bypass encryption on electronic devices, including cellphones and smart TVs, to access users' personal messages and information.

The controversial anti-secrecy non-profit founded by Julian Assange said publishing the documents meant the CIA had "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal."

On Wednesday, Schulte was convicted on nine counts stemming from the national security allegations during a trial in which he defended himself.

The trial was held after a previous jury found him guilty of making false statements and criminal contempt of court but were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the charges concerning the leak of documents.

Schulte is still facing a slew of charges accusing him of receiving, possessing and transporting some 10,000 images and videos of child pornography.

The conviction against Schulte was handed down as Assange, 51, faces extradition to the United States from Britain.

The controversial Australian has been in a London jail for three years after being arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy where he sought refugee from the U.S. legal system.

He has been charged in an 18-count indictment for his alleged involvement in what prosecutors have said is one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.

U.S. signs off on American Airlines flights to Cuba

The U.S. Transportation Department has approved American Airlines request to resume flights to five Cuban cities. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo


July 14 (UPI) -- The United States has approved a request from American Airlines to resume passenger flights to Cuba, the latest measure by the Biden administration to improve relations with Cuban citizens.

The Transportation Department announced the decision to grant the approval from American Airlines on Wednesday, stating the flights will fly from Miami to Camaguey, Holguin, Matanzas/Varadero, Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba.

Under terms of the approval, American Airlines is required to begin its service within 90 days, the department said, adding that all flights will have daily service to four of the cities with Santa Clara's service being twice daily.

"This change will make it easier for families to visit their relatives in Cuba and for authorized U.S. travelers to engage with Cuban people, attend meetings and conduct research," the department said in a statement.

The approval comes two months after the Biden administration said it would allow flights to Cuban cities to resume and more than 2 1/2 years after the Trump administration suspended commercial flights to the island nation in 2019.

The Biden administration has sought to soften the United States' stance toward Cuba in contrast to the strict Trump administration, which saw relations between the two nations sour.

Along with axing the flights, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Cuba, returned it to the State Department's state sponsor of terrorism list and suspended a family reunification program.

Among the changes made under the Biden administration was its decision in May to reinstate the family reunification program.