Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the final goal of a Turkish incursion into northern Syria is to clear a 5,000sq-km "safe zone", vowing to press on towards ISIL's self-declared capital in the country, Raqqa.
Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies had entered the centre of the ISIL bastion Al Bab, Erdogan said on Sunday, adding that its capture was just a "matter of time".
"After Al Bab is about to be over, the period following that will be Manbij and Raqqa," Erdogan told journalists before his departure on an official visit to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
"We shared our thoughts with the new US administration and CIA and we will follow the developments in line with our stance," he added.
"The ultimate goal is to establish a safe zone by cleansing a 4,000 to 5,000-sq-km area from the terrorists."
Worse than trump?
The Guardian
Philippine bid to jail nine-year-olds is 'a great child violation', Unicef says
A law proposing children as young as nine be jailed for crimes is “wrong from every angle”, the head of the United Nations children’s agency in the Philippines has warned.
“If they grow up, spending their teenage years in a prison, they most probably will be damaged for life,” Unicef’s country representative, Lotta Sylwander, said in a telephone interview from Manila.
The current age of criminal responsibility in the Philippines is 15. President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies have been pushing to lower it, coupled with another draft bill that would restore the death penalty.
Politicians opposing the bills say their passing could lead to a situation in which a nine-year-old may be sentenced to death.
Duterte won May elections following a campaign in which he vowed to kill tens of thousands of drug dealers and promised to stop traffickers from using minors as narcotic couriers.
But Sylwander said a nine-year-old child is unable to fully comprehend the consequences of a crime, especially if they are coerced by an adult.
The Guardian
Famine looms in four countries as aid system struggles to cope, experts warn
Famine is looming in four different countries, threatening unprecedented levels of hunger and a global crisis that is already stretching the aid and humanitarian system like never before, experts and insiders warn.
Tens of millions of people in need of food aid in Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia are at the mercy not only of an overwhelmed aid system but also the protracted, mainly conflict-driven crises in their own countries, the humanitarian leaders say.
While the generosity of donors has risen sixfold over the past 20 years, unprecedented levels of humanitarian suffering have overtaken financial support. Donor funding reached a record high last year but only half of the requirements were met, according to the UN’s humanitarian chief, Stephen O’Brien.
Gareth Owen, humanitarian director of Save the Children, said: “The potential this year is we may have four famines looming, which is a truly scary thought and will stretch our resources. We are at a critical moment.”
Christian Science Monitor
The new ISIS threat: its soldiers are going home
For nearly three years, the 25-year-old has fought in Syria alongside the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al Nusra, then the Islamic State (IS, or ISIS). After months on the frontlines, Mohammed has a new plan: return home to Jordan.
“There are many of us who have become disillusioned with ISIS, who are injured, who are tired,” Mohammed, who is currently on the Syrian-Jordanian border awaiting entry, said through an encrypted messaging service.
“Soon, the state will have to accept us.”
As coalition and allied forces push through Mosul, Iraq, and close in on the Islamic State's capital of Raqqa, Syria, Arab states are bracing what some are calling a “disaster”: waves of ISIS fighters returning back home.
Buzzfeed
Charleston Church Shooter Dylann Roof Wants A New Federal Trial
Attorneys for the white supremacist who murdered nine people inside a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, are seeking a new federal trial in an attempt to spare him the death penalty.
Dylann Roof was convicted in federal court of 33 counts including hate crimes, then sentenced to death in January for the 2015 massacre at Emanuel AME Church. A trial in state court on murder charges has yet to take place and Roof could again face the death penalty there if he is convicted.
In a motion filed Friday, Roof’s attorneys argued that the trial did not prove certain federal standards related to his death sentence. His attorneys are not challenging the 12 sentences of life in prison without possibility of release that he received.
If the court vacated the death sentence, Roof would serve life in prison, his attorneys said.
NPR
Yale Renames Calhoun College Over Namesake's Ties To Slavery And White Supremacy
Yale University announced Saturday that it will change the name of one of its esteemed residential colleges, Calhoun College, named after ardent supporter of slavery and prominent 19th century alumnus, John C. Calhoun.
The vote by the Ivy League's trustees comes after years of debate and it overturns last April's decision to keep the name. That decision had fueled campus protests from student activists.
The new name will honor computer scientist Grace Murray Hopper*, who graduated from Yale in the 1930s. She's noted for inventing a pioneering computer programming language and being a Navy rear admiral.
In announcing the new name, President Peter Salovey said, "We have a strong presumption against renaming buildings on this campus. ... I have been concerned all along and remain concerned that we don't do things that erase history. So renamings are going to be exceptional.”
* As I was an early programmer, she was one of my heroines. She also invented the word “bug” for a programming error.
N Y Times
Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down
WASHINGTON — These are chaotic and anxious days inside the National Security Council, the traditional center of management for a president’s dealings with an uncertain world.
Three weeks into the Trump administration, council staff members get up in the morning, read President Trump’s Twitter posts and struggle to make policy to fit them. Most are kept in the dark about what Mr. Trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls. Some staff members have turned to encrypted communications to talk with their colleagues, after hearing that Mr. Trump’s top advisers are considering an “insider threat” program that could result in monitoring cellphones and emails for leaks.
The national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, has hunkered down since investigators began looking into what, exactly, he told the Russian ambassador to the United States about the lifting of sanctions imposed in the last days of the Obama administration, and whether he misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations. His survival in the job may hang in the balance.
Although Mr. Trump suggested to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that he was unaware of the latest questions swirling around Mr. Flynn’s dealings with Russia, aides said over the weekend in Florida — where Mr. Flynn accompanied the president and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe — that Mr. Trump was closely monitoring the reaction to Mr. Flynn’s conversations. There are transcripts of a conversation in at least one phone call, recorded by American intelligence agencies that wiretap foreign diplomats, which may determine Mr. Flynn’s future.
L A Times
Evacuations ordered below Oroville Dam after a hole is found in its emergency spillway
Residents of Oroville and nearby towns were ordered to immediately evacuate Sunday afternoon after a hole was discovered at the emergency spillway for the Oroville Dam.
Officials said late Sunday that they will attempt to plug the hole using bags of rocks and try to reduce the water level at Lake Oroville to alleviate stress on the spillway.
They emphasized the situation remains dangerous and urged thousands of residents downstream to evacuate to higher ground.
The National Weather Service initially said the auxiliary spillway at the Oroville Dam was expected to fail at about 5:45 p.m., which could send an “uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville.”
Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said that a hole was developing near the lower edge of the emergency spillway and eroding back toward the face of the spillway “at a rather significant rat
“There was significant concern that [the hole] would compromise the integrity of the spillway, resulting in a substantial release of water,” Honea said. “We had to make a very critical and difficult decision to initiate the evacuation of the Oroville area.”
Those in Oroville, a city of about 16,000 people, were asked to flee northward toward Chico. In Yuba County, those in the valley areas were urged to take routes to the east, south or west.
Besame has a good diary on the situation here. Comments there are current.
This is the tallest dam in the country.
C/Net (Autoplay)
Passengers jailed five days in China for phone use on plane China is way ahead of us here.
The science of whether cell phones affect airplane navigation systems seems muddy at best.
Most people, though, have become used to setting their phones to airplane mode.
In China, though, things are a little different. China.org, three different passengers on flights between January 5 and February 6 were arrested for using their phones on planes.
A woman named Zhang allegedly refused to turn off her phone during take-off and actually made calls during a flight. She was held in jail for five days.