Drought in Northern China Is Worst on Record, Officials Say
Officials governing a large area of northern China say their region is suffering from the worst drought on record, leading to crops wilting and farmers and herders growing desperate to get water to farmlands, grasslands, animals and their households.
The drought is affecting the northeastern and eastern areas of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, which is near Beijing. In recent years, Chinese scientists have attributed extreme weather patterns in China, and especially in northern China, to climate change. The region of Inner Mongolia and its residents have been hit especially hard by wide fluctuations in the weather.
President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders say climate change is an urgent problem that nations must address together, and they have insisted that countries abide by the Paris climate accord, despite President Trump’s announcement this month that the United States would withdraw from the agreement. The United States is historically the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, while China is currently the largest one.
Hacks Raise Fear Over N.S.A.’s Hold on Cyberweapons
Twice in the past month, National Security Agency cyberweapons stolen from its arsenal have been turned against two very different partners of the United States — Britain and Ukraine.
The N.S.A. has kept quiet, not acknowledging its role in developing the weapons. White House officials have deflected many questions, and responded to others by arguing that the focus should be on the attackers themselves, not the manufacturer of their weapons. […]
In both cases, the attackers used hacking tools that exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. The tools were stolen from the N.S.A., and a group called the Shadow Brokers made them public in April. The group first started offering N.S.A. weapons for sale in August, and recently even offered to provide N.S.A. exploits to paid monthly subscribers.
The Guardian
Trump's Russia lawyer faces conflict-of-interest questions over $296m Kushner deal
The lawyer privately advising Donald Trump on the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election is head of a law firm that was involved in the sale of a prestigious piece of New York real estate to Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law, in a deal that could fall under the spotlight of the same inquiry.
Marc Kasowitz, a member of the New York bar who has represented Trump in his business dealings for 15 years, was brought on board by the president last month to provide personal legal advice relating to the Russian inquiry now being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller. The appointment has placed Kasowitz at the center of the legal maelstrom over the investigation into potential collusion between Russia and elements of Trump’s presidential campaign.
Republican healthcare bill limps into recess with no vote in sight
As senators started to leave Washington for the Fourth of July recess on Thursday, a compromise over the beleaguered GOP healthcare bill that would attract enough votes to pass seemed distant.
Days after the Senate Republican leadership faced a revolt from both wings of their caucus over a draft bill to repeal and replace Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), lawmakers were considering whether to reach out to moderates by keeping the former president’s tax increase on wealthier people’s investments and retreating on cuts for subsidies to the poor and elderly.
Pesticides damage survival of bee colonies, landmark study shows
Widely used insecticides damage the survival of honeybee colonies, the world’s largest ever field trial has shown for the first time, as well as harming wild bees.
The farm-based research, along with a second new study, also suggests widespread contamination of entire landscapes and a toxic “cocktail effect” from multiple pesticides.
The landmark work provides the most important evidence yet for regulators around the world considering action against neonicotinoids, including in the EU where a total ban is poised to be implemented this autumn. The insecticides are currently banned on flowering crops in the EU.
Iraqi forces enter Mosul mosque where Isis declared caliphate
Iraqi forces have entered the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, from where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself leader of Islamic State three years ago. The full seizure of the compound, which Iraqi troops were moving through, now appears imminent and would mark a highly symbolic moment in the war against Isis.
The development means that government troops are now in the heart of the Old City – Isis’s last redoubt in Mosul – and probably within a fortnight of recapturing its entirety. The Iraqi prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, proclaimed the advance towards the mosque as “the end of the Isis state”.
BBC News
'Mother Mushroom': Top Vietnamese blogger jailed for 10 years
One of Vietnam's top bloggers has been jailed for 10 years for distributing propaganda against the state.
Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, who is known as Mother Mushroom, was found guilty after a one-day trial in the central province of Khanh Hoa. Her lawyer told the BBC she had 15 days to appeal.
Rights groups have described as "outrageous" the charges against the writer, who has become an icon for the country's dissident community. Vietnam's one-party communist regime frequently jails its critics.
Paddington Bear creator Michael Bond dies
Michael Bond, the creator of beloved children's character Paddington Bear, has died at the age of 91. He died at his home on Tuesday following a short illness, a statement from his publisher Harper Collins said.
Bond published his first book, A Bear Called Paddington, in 1958. The character, a marmalade-loving bear from "deepest, darkest Peru" who comes to live in London, went on to inspire a series of books, an animated TV series and a successful 2014 film.
'Very strong' climate change signal in record June heat
The June heat waves that impacted much of the UK and Western Europe were made more intense because of climate change say scientists.
Forest fires in Portugal claimed scores of lives while emergency heat plans were triggered in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Britain experienced its warmest June day since the famous heat wave of 1976.
Human-related warming made record heat 10 times more likely in parts of Europe the researchers say.
The Washington Post
Senate Democrats shine light on health bill’s longer-term effect on Medicaid
In asking the Congressional Budget Office to take a longer view of Senate Republicans’ troubled health-care plan, the chamber’s Democrats maneuvered to train a spotlight on exactly what the GOP has sought to bury.
The Better Care Reconciliation Act relies on the time-honored political strategy of pressing a bill’s most profound effects years into the future — in this case, in severely constricting the main source of public health insurance for poor and vulnerable Americans.
Until Thursday, that scenario had been cloaked in arcane legislative language about per-capita caps and varying inflation adjustments. What Congress’s nonpartisan budget scorekeepers did, at the prodding of the Senate Finance Committee’s senior Democrat, is make clear that the GOP legislation would squeeze federal Medicaid spending by 35 percent by the end of two decades, compared with current law.
Trump’s voter-fraud commission wants to know voting history, party ID and address of every voter in the U.S.
The chair of President Trump's Election Integrity Commission has penned a letter to all 50 states requesting their full voter-role data, including the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, last four Social Security number digits and voting history back to 2006 of potentially every voter in the state.
In the letter, a copy of which was made public by the Connecticut secretary of state, the commission head Kris Kobach said that “any documents that are submitted to the full Commission will also be made available to the public.”
On Wednesday, the office of Vice President Pence released a statement saying “a letter will be sent today to the 50 states and District of Columbia on behalf of the Commission requesting publicly available data from state voter rolls and feedback on how to improve election integrity.”
As the world tightens the screws on refugees, hundreds of Nigerians are deported to a bombed-out hellscape
President Trump's travel ban, which goes into effect Thursday night, will temporarily bar refugees and some foreign visitors over national security concerns. Other countries are also imposing new restrictions on refugees — in extreme cases, even physically forcing them back over the border.
The United Nations reported Thursday that nearly 900 Nigerian refugees — mostly children — were rounded up in Cameroon this week by the Nigerian military and the Cameroonian police. They were sent in trucks back over the border to a Nigerian city that lacks food and water and where many homes have been bombed into rubble. This was the latest example of the “forced returns” of thousands of refugees who in recent years had fled from Boko Haram's offensive in northeastern Nigeria, in which the Islamist extremist group killed, raped and kidnapped thousands of people, according to the United Nations and aid agencies.
In April, I visited some of the refugees who had been rounded up at gunpoint in Cameroon and returned to the bombed-out Nigerian city of Banki.
Los Angeles Times
Maersk's L.A. port terminal remains closed after global cyberattack
The largest terminal at the Port of Los Angeles remained closed Thursday as Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk continued to grapple with effects of a cyberattack that rippled across numerous countries Tuesday.
The terminal, leased by Maersk, has been closed since early Tuesday, and there is no word on when it will reopen, said Rachel Campbell, a Port of Los Angeles spokeswoman.
Maersk has said that 17 of its shipping container terminals worldwide were hacked and that, in response, the company deliberately shut down a number of its IT systems. It announced Thursday that it was “cautiously progressing toward technical recovery.”
Gorsuch is already pushing the Supreme Court right on religion, guns and gay rights
When Judge Neil M. Gorsuch went before the Senate in March as President Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, he sought to assure senators he would be independent and above the political fray.
“There is no such thing as a Republican judge or Democratic judge,” he said more than once. “We just have judges.”
But in just his first few weeks on the high court, Justice Gorsuch has shown himself to be a confident conservative activist, arguing for moving the law to the right on religion, gun rights, gay rights and campaign funding.
Most new justices are cautious upon arrival, but Gorsuch wasted no time in staking out a strong position to the right of his colleagues, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his former boss and mentor, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
Air pollution exposure may hasten death, even at levels deemed 'safe,' study says
At a time when the Trump administration is moving to delay and dismantle air quality regulations, a new study suggests that air pollution continues to cut Americans’ lives short, even at levels well below the legal limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The nationwide study of more than 60 million senior citizens linked long-term exposure to two main smog pollutants — ozone and fine particulate matter — to an increased risk of premature death. The analysis found no sign of a “safe” level of pollution, below which the risk of dying early tapered off.
Harvard University scientists who conducted the study calculated that reducing fine particle pollution by 1 microgram per cubic meter nationwide would save about 12,000 lives each year. Another 1,900 lives would be saved annually by lowering ozone pollution by 1 part per billion, they found.
The Sydney Morning Herald
Cardinal George Pell, Australia's highest ranking Catholic, has been charged with historical sex offences.
Victoria Police has confirmed Cardinal Pell has been charged on summons over multiple allegations and is due to face Melbourne Magistrates Court on July 26 for a filing hearing.
A statement from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney said Cardinal Pell had been informed of Victoria Police's "decision and action".
Allies of slain Putin critic Boris Nemtsov allege cover-up after guilty verdict
A court convicted five men of murdering Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on Thursday, but the late politician's allies said the investigation had been a cover-up and that the people who had ordered his killing remained at large.
Mr Nemtsov, one of President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critics, was murdered in 2015 as he walked across a bridge near the Kremlin after dining with his girlfriend. Aged 55, he had been working on a report examining Russia's role in Ukraine. His killing sent a chill through opposition circles. […]
Mr Nemtsov's supporters gave a muted welcome to the verdict, but said Dadayev and the others were only low-level operatives. The case remained unsolved, they said, because those who had ordered, financed and organised the hit had not been caught.
Deutsche Welle
'Not in my name' – Indians protest vigilante attacks on Muslims
Citizens' groups in India are holding demonstrations in many cities to protest against the so called "beef lynching." Indian PM Modi has finally broken his silence over the issue. Murali Krishnan reports from New Delhi.
Indian civil society groups are protesting against the murder of Junaid Khan, a 16-year-old Muslim boy, who was stabbed to death on a train while he was returning home from Delhi on Thursday, June 22.
The "Not In My Name" demonstrations were held simultaneously in Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Bengaluru on Wednesday. The organizers said the protests reflected "anger and grief" of Indian people irrespective of their religious associations.
Estonia takes EU's helm with focus on digitalization, cyberdefense
Eager to take over the EU Council's rotating presidency, Estonia has said it can help bridge divides among EU members. A digital pioneer, the Baltic nation has much to contribute to the bloc's cyberdefense.
When people talk about Europe's troubles, Estonian Klen Jaarats looks back at the cataclysmic upheavals that shook his own life. At 41, he's gone from collectivism to free economy, dictatorship to democracy and lived through three currencies. He was a twentysomething lawyer when, the Iron Curtain gone, he helped negotiate his country's entry into the European Union, paving the way for a journey culminating with Estonia adopting the euro.
"Estonia still remembers the time when it was already great if nothing bad happened," said Jaarats, the Estonian government's head of European Union affairs.
Germany's top court allows G20 protesters to set up tent camp
Protesters at the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg will be able to camp in the city. The decision by the Federal Constitutional Court is seen as a compromise between the city's stance and Germany's right to free assembly.
The Federal Constitutional Court's decision on Wednesday stated that the establishment of a protest camp during the G20 summit in Hamburg had to be supported by the city under laws governing the right of free assembly. However, the decision also highlighted that measures had to be taken to curb vandalism and other forms of destruction of the city park, where protesters are planning to set up their "anticapitalist camp."
The decision from Germany's highest court also said public funds to ensure the park's integrity had to be kept minimal. This still leaves the city of Hamburg some scope to decide how to limit the protest camp. One of the options that the Hamburg city government might resort to is moving the camp to another site.
Reuters
U.S. senators seek military ban on Kaspersky Lab products amid FBI probe
U.S. senators sought on Wednesday to ban Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab's products from use by the military because of fears the company is vulnerable to "Russian government influence," a day after the FBI interviewed several of its U.S. employees as part of a probe into its operations.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents visited the homes of Kaspersky employees late on Tuesday in multiple U.S. cities, although no search warrants were served, according to two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the FBI probe.
Global cyber attack likely cover for malware installation in Ukraine: police official
The primary target of a crippling computer virus that spread from Ukraine across the world this week is highly likely to have been that country's computer infrastructure, a top Ukrainian police official told Reuters on Thursday.
Cyber security firms are trying to piece together who was behind the computer worm, dubbed NotPetya by some experts, which has paralyzed thousands of machines worldwide, shutting down ports, factories and offices as it spread through internal organizational networks to an estimated 60 countries. […]
A growing consensus among security researchers, armed with technical evidence, suggests the main purpose of the attack was to install new malware on computers at government and commercial organizations in Ukraine. Rather than extortion, the goal may be to plant the seeds of future sabotage, experts said.
Indonesia's gay community driven underground after police raids
When an angry mob of Islamists threatened to burn down a place hosting a gay and lesbian film festival in Jakarta in 2010, Indonesian police came to protect those staging it.
A volunteer at the festival, Adi, 28, now fears that instead of safeguarding their rights authorities are targeting his community, forcing them to hide their lifestyles or even consider moving abroad.
Indonesia's Islamists have long sought to criminalize gay sex. The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), the vigilante group that threatened the now defunct Q! film festival in Jakarta, has previously broken up what they said were gay parties and then urged the police to detain the men. But what is sending a new chill through the gay community is that police seem to have taken on the vice patrol role themselves. In May, officers detained 141 men in a raid on the Atlantis sauna, accusing them of involvement in a gay prostitution ring in a part of Jakarta that is also home to many heterosexual "spas".