The international campaign against landmines championed by the late Princess Diana has been driven into sharp reverse by the growing use of homemade devices in countries like Syria and Iraq.Mine clearance groups are testing experimental mechanical systems to deal with the issue after Stan Brown, the US state department’s leading authority on landmine clearance, warned that a new generation of improvised explosives are more labour intensive, costly and complex to remove.The marked rise in casualties caused by mines, which follows years of gains in global clearance efforts, has been blamed on semi-industrial production of the devices by Islamic State in Syria and Afghanistan.The international campaign against landmines, which first came to prominence when Diana, Princess of Wales became a figurehead for the movement, has made significant progress in clearing the legacy of mine contamination in countries as diverse as Mozambique, Angola and Cambodia.“We’d seen overall cases of mine casualties, which in the late 1990s were running at 9,000 a year – with 88% of those civilians and 40% children – drop to under 4,000,” said Brown.“But in 2015 and 2016 with Syria, Iraq and Yemen we have seen those figures rising again to 6,000 in 2016.”The annual Landmine Monitor report, released in December by the Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, put the figure even higher, recording 8,605 casualties in 2016, among whom nearly 2,100 people were killed.In December, Loren Persi, of Landmine Monitor, blamed a handful of conflicts for the reversal. “A few intense conflicts, where utter disregard for civilian safety persists, have resulted in very high numbers of mine casualties for the second year in a row,” said Persi.The production and use of landmines have fallen since 1999, when the mine ban treaty came into force, outlawing the use, stockpiling, and transfer of mines. But Syria has not been a signatory country, while non-state groups have increasingly used the devices. Brown maintained that global anti-mining efforts continue to make significant progress in terms of clearing minefields left as the legacy of the cold war, but said the recent increase comes primarily from homemade landmines manufactured by Isis.Containing far larger amounts of explosives than conventional anti-personnel devices – sometimes in the order of 10-15kg in comparison with 200 grams – these homemade incendiaries have been laid in their thousands as barrier mines around locations like the Iraqi city of Fallujah.Though often relatively simple devices, the mines – usually victim detonated by a homemade pressure plate – require far higher investment in clearance training and technology.“One of the of problems of these kinds of improvised explosive devices [IEDs] is that it is difficult to define the scale of the problem.“When you look at expertise required for traditional landmine decontamination, it is straightforward to take local civilians and educate them in clearing.“These kind of IEDs require a much more sophisticated level of knowledge, someone in the explosive ordinance disposal field with many years of experience.”One issue, explained Brown, is that during the period of Isis’s self-declared “caliphate” – covering large swathes of territory, from Mosul in Iraq to Raqqa in Syria – the group was able to produce and deploy huge numbers of its own landmines relatively unmolested.The Halo Trust, the largest organisation working in humanitarian mine clearance, will begin working to clear the huge Isis-created barrier minefield around Fallujah later this summer.Halo, which has in the past largely relied on locally trained mine clearance personnel, is among the groups experimenting with fresh approaches to clearing the new generation of crude mines. The methods under consideration include a modified, reinforced rock crusher, usually used in quarrying. James Cowan, Halo’s chief executive, is anxious to make a distinction between a wider class of IEDs, some of which were built to booby trap buildings and target vehicles, and Isis’s homemade landmines.“What we are seeing in the Middle East and Afghanistan is a proliferation of homemade mines with one factor: the ability of Islamic State, in particular, to produce them in their own factories.“While the Taliban has been a cottage industry, the Islamic State really was semi-industrial.“If you look at Fallujah as an example, there is a 15km long mine belt around it. We are talking about tens of thousands of mines.”Where Cowan disagrees with Brown, however, is over the question of who should be involved in the clearing.“I think donors and the international community are missing a trick by not channelling more support into local people. It is more cost effective, the deminers are more accepted by the local people, and they need less security support than former foreign military personnel who are paid large sums.” Topics Conflict and arms Syria Afghanistan Islamic State Diana, Princess of Wales Middle East and North Africa news

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland—The head of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency said the U.K. had a tough decision to make on whether to allow Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. to supply a 5G mobile network in the country. The remarks from the chief of MI6 come as the U.S. has pressured its European allies not to use Huawei’s 5G technology due to what they see as cybersecurity risks. After...

For people trying to avoid online distractions on their smartphones and computers, a service called Freedom has offered the ability to block certain websites and apps at certain times.Users of the Durham, North Carolina, company’s desktop and smartphone apps or browser extensions can choose to block Facebook during business hours, filter out YouTube after dinner, or lock out the entire internet during a busy workday. But late last month, the company announced that the app had been removed from the iOS App Store, under Apple policies that limit how apps can filter content in other apps.Freedom’s iOS app used the platform’s support for virtual private network technology to block access to internet addresses associated with particular apps. For instance, the app could block connections to facebook.com from the Facebook app or Safari, or it could block addresses used by streaming platforms to serve up content. Unlike traditional VPNs that protect privacy by routing internet traffic through encrypted tunnels to secure servers, Freedom didn’t actually send traffic through its own computers. Instead, explains CEO Fred Stutzman, “It uses the VPN API to basically decide what traffic is going to leave the phone, and what traffic is not going to leave the phone.”Freedom isn’t the only company to have content-filtering software pulled from the App Store. The makers of the ad blocking software AdGuard, which used a similar VPN technique to filter out unwanted ads, discontinued a version of its software in July after receiving a similar rejection. Thomas Reed, director of Mac and mobile at security software company Malwarebytes, tweeted in July that his company had also been affected by the apparent policy shift, though Malwarebytes declined to comment further.And Future Mind, a Warsaw-based company that develops an ad-blocking app simply called AdBlock, has also had to change its product after four years of App Store distribution to comply with Apple’s policies. “At some point, everything changed,” says CTO Tomasz Koperski. “Apple just changed their minds, and there’s no easy solution to this.”Apple stays quietApple didn’t respond to repeated inquiries from Fast Company. Previous reports have indicated that the company has told developers it won’t allow apps that block content in other apps. The Freedom ban fell under a catch-all policy that says, “Apps should use APIs and frameworks for their intended purposes and should indicate that integration in their app description,” according to Apple news site MacRumors. The only apparent exception is for Safari content blockers, which use another iOS API to lock out ads or other unwanted material in the iOS web browser.The policy is consistent with Apple’s general philosophy of “sandboxing” applications on its mobile operating system, so apps have limited ability to interfere with each other or alter the overall workings of the phone. That’s a design decision often praised by security experts, citing the lack of malware issues on the platform.Google’s Play Store, the other major smartphone app market, has long openly banned Android apps that “interfere with” other apps, whether that means blocking ads or enabling cheating in video games. Freedom previously had an Android version of its app and plans to release a new version in the future. Stutzman says the company pulled the app due to technical changes in the Android platform rather than policy changes.Read more: How Google blocked a guerrilla fighter in the ad warBut Apple has also been accused of yanking apps that threaten its bottom line rather than customer devices or sensibilities. “The new guidelines about VPN apps I think are meant to promote the attractiveness of the ecosystem as an ad delivery method,” says Hestres. “It’s an example of Apple exercising control of what users can and cannot do with their devices, perhaps to the detriment of users.”In a recent blog post, Freedom’s Stutzman pointed out that Apple recently released its own tool called Screen Time with a similar function. But, he says, that program is focused more on setting overall limits on daily usage of apps, rather than blocking particular apps at particular times, so it might not be as useful to all of Freedom’s fans.“Of course, it is interesting that Apple is removing us from the store while they’re rolling out features very similar to ours,” he says.It’s possible that Apple is concerned that customers will genuinely be confused by apps using VPN technology to do something other than secure their internet connections.“You could sort of see them saying, ‘You’re potentially being a little bit misleading there,'” says Joseph Jerome, policy counsel on the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Privacy & Data Project.Still, the shift underscores how Apple can, with little advance notice, shift how developers and end users use its products, even after they’ve purchased them.“They are trying to limit the technology that any user should be able to use in any way he wants to,” says Koperski of Future Mind. “They’re trying to control how you use a certain set of features on the device, and I don’t think it’s a good direction.”In a 2013 paper, Luis Hestres, now an assistant professor of communication at the University of Texas at San Antonio, pointed to examples of apps being pulled from the App Store amid external pressure, from ones with politically controversial content to an app that enabled users to create mock driver’s licenses. More recently, the store pulled an app from Infowars, the controversial right-wing media platform led by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Apple has also removed a number of apps from its Chinese app store, including illegal gambling apps and VPN apps that are used to circumvent China’s internet restrictions.Outside of China, apps that provide ordinary VPN service rather than content filtering seem to be safe. Opera, the browser maker, recently discontinued Android and iOS VPN offerings, but there was no sign that was tied to restrictions by Apple or Google. Users were offered discounts to get the service directly from SurfEasy, a company formerly owned by Opera that built the underlying technology and still offers its VPN tool through the App Store and Google Play. Opera, which sold SurfEasy to Symantec last year, didn’t respond to an inquiry from Fast Company.

The FBI has identified prominent conspiracy theories, including the sprawling rightwing hoax known as QAnon, as motivators for “domestic extremists” to carry out violence in the US.The warning comes from an agency bulletin produced by the FBI’s Phoenix field office, first reported by Yahoo News. It states that “anti-government, identity based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to engage in criminal or violent activity”.The bulletin warns that “certain conspiracy theory narratives tacitly support or legitimize violent action”, and that “some, but not all individuals or domestic extremists who hold such beliefs will act on them”.It further warns that conspiracy theories will continue to spread and incite violence unless social media companies make “significant efforts” to “remove, regulate, or counter potentially harmful conspiratorial content”.Examples given in the report include the October 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre, which the FBI describes as being motivated by the “Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory”; the “Pizzagate”-inspired attack on Washington’s Comet Ping Pong restaurant in December 2016; and an incident in June 2018, when a believer in the “QAnon” conspiracy theory blocked traffic at Hoover Dam in Nevada with an armored truck.In the latter case, the bulletin says that the man “sent letters from jail containing a distinctive QAnon slogan to President Trump”.Elsewhere the report discusses false 2018 claims by a border militia, Veterans on Patrol, that they had discovered a child sex trafficking camp near Tucson, Arizona, and the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, following which “conspiracy theorists who believed the shooting was a government hoax harassed and threatened family members of the slain victims”.Currently, several families of Sandy Hook victims are suing the conspiracy-minded broadcaster Alex Jones for what they say is his role in promoting “false flag” narratives – baseless claims that the shooting was covert operation aimed at deceiving and disarming Americans.The bulletin accords social media a central role in promoting conspiracy theories to a wider audience. It states: “The advent of the Internet and social media has enabled promoters of conspiracy theories to produce and share greater volumes of material via online platforms that larger audiences of consumers can quickly and easily access.”As a result, the bulletin says, “it is logical to assume that more extremist-minded individuals will be exposed to potentially harmful conspiracy theories, accept ones that are favorable to their views, and possibly carry out criminal or violent actions”.The QAnon conspiracy theory, which has emerged in the Trump era, is based on posts by an anonymous user on the 4chan and 8chan websites that believers attempt to decipher. While the QAnon narrative is sprawling and incoherent, many believers hold that Donald Trump is leading a behind-the-scenes fight against elements of the “deep state”, including figures such as Hillary Clinton and the former FBI director James Comey.Recently, Trump has acted in ways that have encouraged believers to think that he is sympathetic to their cause. At a Greenville rally on 17 July, Trump singled out a “beautiful baby” whose jumpsuit was adorned with the “Q” symbol. And earlier this week, Trump retweeted an account that promoted QAnon.FBI critics, though, worry that the bulletin exhibits the same excesses as previous reports identifying threats from so-called “black identity extremists” and other groups.Michael German is a former FBI officer and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. He called the bulletin “troubling”, saying that “it continues to promote the concept of radicalization – that it’s bad ideas that put people on the path to violence”.From the perspective of law enforcement officers, German said, “all it does is ramp up the fear of people whose ideas are strange”.He also said the logic of the bulletin promoted a baseless fear of the internet and further justified mass surveillance: “If the spread of ideas is the problem, then preventing the spread of ideas is the solution.“Are there conspiracy theorists who commit violence? Yes. But you’re talking about a small amount of cases alongside millions of people who believe in conspiracy theories,” German added, saying that such reports “seem to have the function of getting the FBI over the one hurdle the Justice Department has imposed” in protecting first amendment activity.The FBI bulletin concludes with the bleak prediction that “conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace over the near term, fostering anti-government sentiment, promoting racial and religious prejudice, increasing political tensions, and occasionally driving both groups and individuals to commit criminal or violent acts”.It does hold out hope that “significant efforts by major social media companies and websites to remove, regulate, or counter potentially harmful conspiratorial content” might change this assessment. Topics FBI Donald Trump The far right news

(Reuters) - The slaying of two competitors at a Jacksonville video game tournament on Sunday has stirred the long-simmering gun rights debate in Florida on the eve of its hotly contested state and federal primary elections. With Florida voters scheduled to pick candidates for governor and Congress on Tuesday, some Democratic contenders said the shooting was further evidence of the need for stricter gun legislation while other hopefuls canceled campaign appearances. “We as society have to come together and say enough of this,” Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson told reporters in Jacksonville, near the site of the shooting at a Madden 19 online football game tournament. The violence, which also injured 11 people, was the latest in a series of high-profile shootings in the state, following the killing of 17 students and educators at a high school in February and the massacre of 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in 2016. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office identified the shooter, who took his own life, as David Katz, 24, of Baltimore. Witnesses told local media Katz was angry because he lost the tournament. Katz was hospitalized twice as a teenager for mental illness and prescribed anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medications, the Baltimore Sun reported, citing his parents’ divorce filings. Reuters could not independently confirm the report. Nelson’s re-election campaign is facing a November challenge by the state’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, in one of the key races that will determine the balance of power in the Senate. Gun rights, which are covered by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, are one of the most contentious themes of American politics. The debate breaks along party lines, with Republicans typically arguing that better enforcement of existing gun laws is the best way to deter shootings, while Democrats call for more restrictions on weapons ownership. Given the partisan breakdown, the shooting may not change outcomes in Tuesday’s primaries where people will pick candidates from within their own parties. State Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, one of the Republicans seeking to succeed Scott as governor, canceled a campaign event in Jacksonville and on Twitter said his “prayers continue to be with the victims and their families.” Police officers cordon off a street outside The Jacksonville Landing after a shooting during a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida August 26, 2018. REUTERS/Joey RouletteDemocratic front-runner Gwen Graham called on Putnam and his leading Republican rival, U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis, to offer a stronger policy response. “@AdamPutnam and @RonDeSantisFL are avoiding Jacksonville because they are scared to answer questions on gun violence,” Graham said in a Monday Twitter post. DeSantis spokesman Stephen Lawson said it was not the time to talk policy. “We chose not to politicize a tragedy,” Lawson said. “This is a sad attempt to score a quick political point while families are still grieving. Shame on you.” One of the people slain was Elijah Clayton, 22, of Woodland Hills, California, a representative of his family told reporters on Monday. The other was Taylor Robertson, 27, of Ballard, West Virginia, local media reported, citing family members. Robertson, a husband and father, won the tournament last year and Katz won it the year before, according to Madden publisher EA Sports, the unit of Electronic Arts Inc, which sponsored Sunday’s tournament. Katz had two handguns and extra ammunition but appeared to have fired only one gun, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said at a news conference. Katz bought the guns, at least one of which was equipped with a laser sight, legally in Maryland, Williams said. Taylor Poindexter speaks to reporters after witnessing a gunman open fire on gamers participating in a video game tournament outside The Jacksonville Landing in Jacksonville, Florida August 26, 2018. REUTERS/Joey RouletteWilliams said the shooter targeted other gamers. “The suspect walked past patrons who were in other parts of the business and focused his attention on the gamers,” he said. Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Joey Roulette in Jacksonville, Florida; Rich McKay in Atlanta and Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Alison Williams, Bill Trott and Lisa ShumakerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Donald Trump has an endless and varied supply of insults and playground taunts to hurl at opponents but appears to have a one-track mind when it comes to African Americans and women.An analysis of the Trump Twitter Archive website shows that the US president has used the words “dumb” or “dummy” 236 times since 2011, and on 14 occasions since becoming taking office in January last year. He has targeted men and women, black and white.But whereas the likes of James Comey, John McCain and Mitt Romney receive a smorgasbord of other insults, the congresswoman Maxine Waters and TV host Don Lemon, both of whom are African American, appear to be denigrated for their intelligence alone.“Trump’s made the same criticism of black athletes, black journalists and black Members of Congress,” Peter Wehner, a veteran of three Republican administrations, tweeted last week. “He attacks their intelligence. His racist appeals aren’t even disguised anymore.”Trump has reportedly referred to Waters as “low IQ” seven times already this year, often at high-profile campaign rallies, most recently in Ohio, where he called her “a seriously low-IQ person” before a cheering crowd. He has had little to say about other aspects of Waters’ personality or policies.To be sure, it is not the first time he has mocked individuals’ intelligence quotient. When the Hollywood actor Robert De Niro declared “Fuck Trump!” at the Tony awards in June, the president gave a one-off response: “Robert De Niro, a very Low IQ individual, has received to many shots to the head by real boxers in movies.”In 2015 he also wondered why the Washington Post has “low IQ people” and suggested that Governor Rick Perry of Texas “should be forced to take an IQ test”.Perry is now energy secretary.But his attack on Waters’ IQ is by far his most sustained. Michael Cornfield, associate professor of political management at George Washington University in Washington, said: “The strategic value is obvious: Waters is a quadruple-category demon to please Trump’s base, being black, female, leftist and aggressive in her own rhetoric.“But it is short-term and high risk. Should the Democrats take control of the House, Waters is first in line to become chair of the financial services committee. She’ll subpoena his financial records before the sun goes down on the first day of the new session.”As for “dumb”, a word that seldom passed the lips of past presidents, it is clearly one of Trump’s favourites. Five years ago, long before his attack on Lemon, he anointed the TV host and comedian Bill Maher “the dumbest man on television”. Earlier this year he wrote of the former FBI director James Comey: “He’s either very sick or very dumb.” He has come up with myriad other insults for Comey, often not related to his mental capacity.Yet Trump has now called Lemon “dumb” three times, most recently last week, when he also took a swipe at an African American basketball player: “Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!” The controversial post has been retweeted nearly 50,000 times, far more than any other Trump use of “dumb”.The CNN journalist responded on air: “Referring to African Americans as dumb is one of the oldest canards of America’s racist past and present: that black people are of inferior intelligence. This president constantly denigrates people of color and women.”Trump’s attacks on African Americans come in the context of his past as a proponent of the “birther” movement, questioning whether Barack Obama was born in the US, his moral equivocations over white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, a year ago and the dominance of white men in his political and judicial appointments.The New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who is African American, wrote last week: “I believe that the fact that he so often attacks the intellectual capacity of women and minorities exposes a racial and gender bias, one that has a long history and a wide acceptance.”Indeed, Trump has reserved some of his most personal, gratuitous and outrageous insults for women. He wrote of Kirsten Gillibrand, Democratic senator for New York: “Someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them)”. He said of the then Fox News host Megyn Kelly there was “blood coming out of her wherever”.Trump’s use of language, and limited vocabulary, is one more way in which he is upending presidential norms. Cornfield lamented: “Dummy. Dumb. It’s enough to make me nostalgic for the profanities and slurs of Richard Nixon and the vulgarities of LBJ [Lyndon Baines Johnson].”But as Trump’s rallies testify, it appears to connect with the Trump base. Professor David Crystal, a UK-based linguist and author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, said via email: “What’s been interesting is to hear a mode of speech we associate with informal domestic or street exchange being used by someone in high office. That presumably is what made Trump so appealing to so many, avoiding the high oratory of his predecessor. ‘He talks like us,’ I’ve heard people say.” Topics Donald Trump US politics Race news

Establishing a nexus between Mr. Cohen’s efforts to silence the women and Mr. Trump’s campaign is central to making a criminal case of election law violations. That is why A.M.I.’s admission carries so much weight, said Richard L. Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Irvine.“It’s looking a lot like an illegal and unreported in-kind corporate contribution to help the campaign, exposing the Trump campaign and Trump himself to possible criminal liability,” Mr. Hasen said.A.M.I., run by Mr. Trump’s longtime friend David J. Pecker, had previously claimed it had paid $150,000 to the model, Karen McDougal, to secure the rights to publish her story of an alleged affair with Mr. Trump. But the company never published it, and people familiar with its operations had said it was part of a longstanding practice, known in the tabloid trade as “catch and kill,” to suppress damaging stories about favored people.ImageMr. Trump with Karen McDougal, a model who was paid by A.M.I. in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair.Prosecutors said that Mr. Cohen had intended to reimburse A.M.I. for its payment to Ms. McDougal by arranging a bogus $125,000 fee to an A.M.I. affiliate for “advisory services.” Although Mr. Pecker signed off on the deal, he later contacted Mr. Cohen and called it off. He also instructed Mr. Cohen to tear up the paperwork, prosecutors said.In addition to McDougal, Mr. Cohen said he arranged a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress, to squelch her story of an alleged affair with Mr. Trump. He said that he used his own money, but that Mr. Trump had agreed to pay him back, with the reimbursement eventually being couched as legal fees billed to the Trump Organization.A.M.I. was also involved in the early stages of Mr. Cohen’s dealings with Ms. Daniels. Rather than pay her, as it did with Ms. McDougal, the company notified Mr. Cohen that she was trying to sell her story.

Concerns over Meng's whereabouts were first raised by wife, Grace, who reported him missing to French authorities in the city of Lyon, where the couple live, last Thursday. She was moved to contact authorities after she received a final text message on September 25, shortly after he arrived in China, with a knife emoji and instructions to "wait for my call." That call never came. The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based newspaper known for its connections inside the Chinese government, said Meng was "taken away" for questioning upon landing last week. The newspaper cited an unnamed source. In a separate development, Interpol said it had received Meng's resignation from the international police agency with "immediate effect" according to statement posted Sunday. It made no mention of the former president's whereabouts or the Chinese investigation.Meng is the latest high-profile figure to be taken into custody following the wide-ranging campaign against corruption undertaken since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.Fan Bingbing: China says missing actress fined for tax evasion The Chinese president promised his government would catch both "tigers and flies" -- the powerful as well as regular citizens -- and has brought down high level officials such as former security tzar Zhou Yongkang. In the statement on Monday, authorities alluded to ties between Zhou and Meng, who rose through the government's security apparatus under Zhou. The statement said Meng's fall highlighted Xi's resolve in cleaning up the ruling Communist Party and stressed the importance of political loyalty to the party's leadership under Xi.The admission by Chinese authorities comes just one week after another prominent Chinese figure on the world stage appeared to vanish after falling foul of Beijing.One of China's best-known actresses, Fan Bingbing, reappeared following a lengthy disappearance in the past week, admitting to tax evasion and promising to pay a large fine."That China feels so emboldened to disappear even one of its most famous actresses ... should be a real wake up call that anyone within China could be next,"human rights advocate Michael Casterwrote for CNN in September.Speculation as to the whereabouts of Meng has dominated international headlines, in the face of an initial stony silence from the Chinese government.Meng has lived in Lyon, where Interpol is headquartered, since assuming the role of president in 2016. In an emotional press conference Sunday, Grace Meng told reporters that concern for her husband is a matter that "belongs to the international community." She added, "Although I can't see my husband, we are always connected by heart."Grace, who waited 10 days before reporting her husband's disappearance to French authorities, told police in Lyon that she has received threats on social media and by telephone.In a statement Friday, the French Interior Ministry confirmed that it was looking into the situation and that a "suitable police mechanism" had been put in place to guarantee Grace Meng's safety.Chinese government admits head of Interpol 'under investigation' after disappearanceFollowing the Chinese official's apparent resignation, Interpol announced South Korea's Kim Jong Yang would serve as acting president until the organization's general assembly picks a permanent president next month.When Meng was chosen as the next president of Interpol in 2016 the move was warmly welcomed by Beijing, who said China was ready to "take on bigger responsibility and make greater contributionto push for global law enforcement."Meng was the first Chinese Interpol president and oversaw the agency's executive committee, which sets overall strategy.However, there were concerns after the announcement was made that having a top Interpol official with a position in the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party could turn the body towards Beijing's aims.

As thousands of Honduran migrants seeking asylum in the United States trek northward through Mexico, President Trump has pledged to stop them at the border by militarizing it with armed federal troops, under the guise of protecting Americans from “criminals” and an “invasion.”What he fails to recognize is that cruelty won’t solve the current refugee crisis. Neither will buddying up with authoritarian leaders in Central America. Instead, those two strategies only deepen the crisis, because criminality and misrule are exactly what the caravan is fleeing.What Mr. Trump calls an invasion is actually the visible face of a deadly crisis of governance and violence in almost all of Central America — a retreat from the rule of law in favor of rule by corruption and criminality abetted by officials with impunity.For example, Mr. Trump supports President Jimmy Morales, his authoritarian counterpart in Guatemala. Mr. Morales is under investigation for possible corruption by the United Nations Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. He has fought back by revoking the visas of many of the commission’s investigators.Currently, violence reigns in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador; the three countries have the world’s highest homicide rates, and the pattern they have set — daily killings, forced gang recruitment, extortion, gender attacks and kidnapping for ransom — may be creeping into Nicaragua.The criminal groups behind this are a legacy of civil wars fought in the 1970s and 1980s, and of past military regimes that left 75,000 dead in El Salvador and 200,000 dead in Guatemala. Honduras, which has been a base for American military operations in Central America for decades, is now considered the most violent. Unlike Guatemala and El Salvador, it has never even had an official counting of the dead.In those three northern Central American countries, military units are entrenched in a complex web of organized crime, drug trafficking, gangs, political parties and corrupt clandestine police groups.The gangs have ties to the police — who hunt gang members if they don’t pay their quota or become liabilities because they know too much after colluding with corrupt police officers. The gangs also have ties to organized crime and drug traffickers who, in turn, have their own ties to the military and the police.In the 1980s, gang members informed the police about factory workers, union organizers, teachers and students involved in political protest. In exchange, the police granted the gangs neighborhood territory for illicit activities. In Guatemala, after peace accords in the 1990s ended a decades-long civil war, clandestine groups with ties to police and army officials used army routes, landing strips and heliports to transport weapons and drugs.Guatemala’s networks illustrate how tightly interwoven those systems can become. For example, gangs pay the police to ignore the gang operations in their territories. Those payments flow upward: Local police officers pay their boss, who in turn pays off his boss. At the higher levels, drug traffickers might buy the services of a very senior police officer, who in turn might then send payments downward, to individual officers.Narcotraffickers and crime syndicates also pay off gang members to support illicit trafficking and to assert their power; the jobs vary from hit man, kidnapper, extortionist, arsonist, carjacker and recruiter of low-level supporters of criminal activities.The interlocking power structures of violence, bribes, threats and patronage make everyday life extremely dangerous for Central Americans. Any interaction between gang members and ordinary citizens carries two meanings. The first: “Will you give me that money?” Answering “no” is seen as a direct challenge to the gang’s power. The second: “Do you accept my control over your life?” Refusing to give up even one dollar can designate a person an enemy of the gang, which is a very dangerous position to be in.Central American governments know all this. Their responses range from turning a blind eye to crime, to corrupt acceptance, to active complicity. Members of the elite work within and dominate these violent power structures. And many of these clandestine groups have ties to Mexico’s horrifically violent drug cartels.This dark picture of what Central Americans seek to escape is not a new experience in American immigration. It recalls other horrors that forced human waves — Irish, Italian, Greek, Jewish, Hungarian, German, Polish and more — to flee parts of Central and Southern Europe for America rather than endure violence, crime, discrimination, misgovernment and hunger in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Did America lose by welcoming them? Think about just how much those grateful newcomers have added to the fabric of American society.Like the great majority of those masses, today’s Central Americans seek merely to live in safety, to work hard and to provide for their families. They are not criminals, as Mr. Trump would have it. They are the victims of criminal enterprises that only pretend to govern.If President Trump, nevertheless, insists on stemming the flow of refugees, he must at least show America’s compassion for them and insist that their home countries adopt reforms that produce honest and law-abiding governments. He should support the efforts of the anti-impunity commission for Guatemala. And he should answer the call of citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua who have sought to expand the commission to a regional United Nations Commission Against Impunity.The Honduran caravan is a call for help in ending violence and impunity, and replacing it with the rule of law. Those are the commission’s goals for Guatemala. Mr. Trump and Congress must strengthen those efforts and help them become a regional campaign to rein in rule by criminal cliques and murderous gangs that make daily life intolerable for the average citizen.Ensuring fair elections is also needed, of course. But elections are meaningless without rule of law.Victoria Sanford is a professor of anthropology and the director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Angela Merkel’s decision not to seek re-election as head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has triggered a fierce succession battle over the party’s future direction that could bring the German chancellor’s political career to an end long before her planned departure date of 2021.Merkel, who has led the centre-right party for 18 years and Europe’s largest economy for 13, announced on Monday she would not stand for re-election at the CDU’s annual conference in December or seek a new mandate as chancellor in the next federal election in three years’ time.She hoped to quell bitter government infighting that has caused support for the party and its coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD), to plunge to historic lows in recent state elections, and – by stage-managing an orderly exit – give the CDU a fighting chance of renewal.But many observers believe she may well be forced out as chancellor as early as next year, with her party’s choice of new leader just one of a number of possible upsets that could further unsettle a country seen as a rock of political stability throughout most of her stewardship.“She’s determined to stay,” said Josef Janning of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. “But once her successor is chosen, the pressure will be on to allow them to campaign from the chancellery ... She will resist. But no German chancellor has ever been able to choreograph the end of their term.” For the time being, Merkel’s more liberal supporters in the CDU appear to be backing her strategy, believing that abandoning the party leadership could make her more effective as chancellor by placing her above the party’s internal squabbles.The right wing, however, is sceptical. Conservative hardliners have been outspoken in their criticism of Merkel since her 2015 decision to allow more than 1 million asylum seekers into Germany during Europe’s migration crisis, sharpening their attacks after the CDU’s poor results in 2017 federal elections when the party returned its lowest score since 1949.Their opposition has only stiffened since disastrous state election showings by the CDU and its sister party, the Christian Social Union, in Bavaria and Hesse earlier this month. Several, including the rightwing CDU MP Joachim Pfeiffer, are openly calling for a change at the top of government before the next federal poll. “This cannot be business as usual,” Pfeiffer said.How long Merkel manages to remain as chancellor could well depend on her successor. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, widely known as AKK, the current CDU secretary general, is often described as Merkel’s chosen heir and would not pose her any undue problems.Two others who have thrown their hats in the ring, however – the health minister, Jens Spahn, a fierce critic of the chancellor’s refugee policy, and Friedrich Merz, an arch-conservative former head of the CDU parliamentary group and old (and bitter) rival of Merkel’s, who confirmed his candidacy on Tuesday – could make her position so uncomfortable as to quickly become untenable.“If it’s Spahn, it’s really very complicated,” said Alexander Clarkson, lecturer in German and European studies at Kings College London. “He would want to ditch the SPD, go for early elections. She’ll struggle to stay if it’s Spahn.”Amid a continent-wide splintering of Europe’s traditional political landscape, Germany’s conservatives face an existential dilemma.With disgruntled voters abandoning them for both the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the pro-EU, refugee-welcoming Greens, aping the AfD’s nationalist rhetoric – as the CSU attempted in Bavaria – has failed miserably. But defending the liberal centre, as Merkel tried for so long, is plainly not working either.The threat to Merkel’s carefully laid plan comes not just from her own party, but from its coalition partner too. After electoral drubbings in Bavaria and Hesse in which the SPD’s vote shrank by up to half, many party members feel the only way to halt its seemingly terminal decline may be to walk away from government.The conservative German economy minister, Peter Altmaier, predicted on Tuesday the coalition would continue despite its losses. But one poll last week found just 24% of German voters ready to vote for the CDU/CSU in the next federal elections, with 15% backing the SPD. That would put the centre-left party behind both the AfD, on 16%, and the Greens – apparently now supplanting the SPD as the largest left-of-centre political force – on 20%.A score as low as that in next May’s European elections, and in three more crunch state votes due next autumn – all expected to see further gains by the AfD – could put irresistible pressure on the SPD’s leader, Andrea Nahles, to pull the party out of government.“If the SPD falls below 20% in Brandenburg particularly, they could well panic,” said Clarkson. “They know early elections would do them no good; their instinct is to cling on. But a really bad result next autumn could change that.”Nahles said on Tuesday that by September 2019, when the party is due to hold a mid-term review of its role in the coalition, the SPD “will be able to see whether this government is still the right place for us”. Some analysts believe the party has fallen so far out of electoral favour that will never risk early elections, and that Merkel will manage a smooth withdrawal. A great deal, however, could happen to upset that plan before 2021. Topics Germany Angela Merkel Europe Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) news

FILE PHOTO: Members of a migrant caravan from Central America and their supporters sit on the top of the U.S.-Mexico border wall at Border Field State Park before making an asylum request, in San Diego, California, U.S. April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday said it would continue to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to make immigrants who enter the country illegally from Mexico ineligible for asylum, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the policy. Trump cited an overwhelmed immigration system for his recent proclamation that officials will only process asylum claims for migrants who present themselves at an official entry point along the U.S.-Mexico frontier. But civil rights groups sued, and on Monday U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order saying Congress has clearly allowed immigrants to apply for asylum regardless of how they entered the country. The Justice Department on Tuesday said it was “absurd” that Tigar allowed civil rights groups to have the ability “to stop the entire federal government from acting so that illegal aliens can receive a government benefit to which they are not entitled.” The asylum ruling came as thousands of Central Americans, including a large number of children, are traveling in caravans toward the U.S. border to escape violence and poverty at home. Some have already arrived at Tijuana, a Mexican city on the border with California. “We look forward to continuing to defend the Executive Branch’s legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border,” the Justice Department said. In a statement after the ruling, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said Trump’s policy puts people’s lives in danger. “There is no justifiable reason to flatly deny people the right to apply for asylum, and we cannot send them back to danger based on the manner of their entry,” Gelernt said. Tigar, whose decision to block the asylum restriction marked the latest courtroom defeat for Trump on immigration policy, was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama. His Monday order, which took effect immediately, applies nationwide and lasts until Dec. 19, when the judge scheduled a hearing to consider a more long-lasting injunction. Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Tom BrownOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Don McGahn, the White House counsel, will resign from his position later this year, Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday.The US president was reported to have been troubled by the recent disclosure that McGahn had cooperated extensively with Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference. McGahn voluntarily met with the special counsel’s team at least three times over nine months for a total of 30 hours interviews, the New York Times reported, and Trump’s personal legal team never asked for a detailed account of what he said.McGahn worked as an attorney on Trump’s presidential campaign before taking his job in the White House. He is a former federal elections commissioner and a former partner at Jones Day, the powerhouse global law firm.In the White House, McGahn helped Trump install conservative judges in top posts at a record rate, with successful confirmations of 12 appeals court judges, six district court judges and one supreme court justice, Neil Gorsuch.“Don McGahn has led President Trump’s (incredibly successful) strategy on #Scotus and lower-court judicial nominations,” wrote David Lat, founder of the Above the Law blog, on Twitter. “Picking a successor who will continue this work is crucial for this administration.” Trump said in a tweet that McGahn would depart in the autumn, by which time the administration hopes to have installed Brett Kavanaugh on the supreme court. McGahn has taken a leading role in handling Kavanaugh’s nomination.“I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service!” Trump said.While his intentions to step down were an open secret in the White House, McGahn was “surprised” by the timing of Trump’s announcement, the Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed person close to McGahn.Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican chairman of the committee that reviews judge nominations and a noted Twitter user, objected to the announcement.“I hope it’s not true McGahn is leaving WhiteHouse Counsel,” Grassley tweeted at Trump. “U can’t let that happen.”McGahn took a lead role in the Trump administration assault on federal regulations of everything from carbon emissions to banking practices, touting the repeal of an Obama-era regulation preventing coal mine waste from entering waterways and another designed to make it easier for consumers to bring class-action lawsuits against predatory banks and credit card companies.A former colleague of McGahn’s on the federal elections commission warned when McGahn was tapped for the White House post that he was unsuitable for the job, accusing McGahn of undermining the public interest in his time on the FEC. “From the moment he walked in the door in 2008, McGahn made no secret of his disdain for the agency, its mission and the commission staff,” Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, wrote in the Washington Post. “Agency dysfunction was not a byproduct of McGahn’s approach – it was the goal.”As White House counsel, McGahn played a central role in multiple incidents that could be central to the Russia investigation and which he is likely to have already testified about. He was the first White House figure to be warned by the FBI about then-national security adviser Michael Flynn’s suspect contacts with Russian operatives.McGahn also reportedly vetoed an as-yet-unseen letter Trump wrote in May 2017 explaining his original rationale for firing FBI director James Comey. Mueller may want to know whether the letter mentioned Russia as part of his apparently ongoing investigation of alleged obstruction of justice by Trump. Before joining the administration McGahn was a guitarist in a Journey tribute band. Topics Trump administration Donald Trump US politics Brett Kavanaugh news

The future of the United Kingdom might hang on the application of 13 fateful words in a statute that passed into law with little controversy less than a decade ago. According to section 2(7) of the 2011 Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the date of an early general election can, in particular circumstances, be “appointed by Her Majesty by proclamation on the recommendation of the Prime Minister”.That clause raises the prospect of a perverse Brexit scenario: Boris Johnson loses a confidence vote in the Commons because a majority of MPs do not want Britain to leave the EU without a deal, but he advises the Queen to set an election date after 31 October – so polling day falls once a no-deal Brexit is a legal fait accompli. It would occur while parliament was dissolved.Such an affront to parliamentary democracy would be unthinkable if Boris Johnson were not encouraging the thought. Downing Street this week refused to rule it out, although it is worth bearing in mind that bluff and bluster are the prime minister’s stock in trade. Besides, the sparsely worded law contains gaps for exploitation by MPs determined to obstruct him. The Commons could mobilise in creative ways during the 14-day window that the fixed-term act provides between a confidence vote and dissolution.But the prime minister is not bothered by technical debate over the feasibility of Brexit scenarios. Downing Street is using the idea of crossing the no-deal rubicon in the middle of an election campaign to signal determination to meet the “do or die” pledge that Mr Johnson made during the Tory leadership race. It is a performance of total commitment to the cause with the intent of intimidating opponents – the constitutional equivalent of refusing to rule out deployment of nuclear weapons in a military confrontation.Pro-European MPs are in danger of falling into a trap, with the prime minister’s apparent readiness to do outrageous things as the bait. His ideal sequence of events would be a general election after an orderly Brexit is completed. But if that cannot be arranged – and the odds are against it – the second-best model is an election framed as a contest between a brave Tory leader, determined to fulfil the will of the people, and a cowardly, unpatriotic, arrogant Europhile establishment, holed up in the Palace of Westminster.Arcane rows about precedent and protocol set that contest up nicely. Most voters are unfamiliar with the procedural letter of Erskine May and unbothered if its spirit is flouted. Some might despise Mr Johnson for treating parliament with contempt, but many others think that is exactly what the House deserves. Meanwhile, 31 October gets embedded ever deeper in the minds of Eurosceptics as a sacred appointment with Brexit rapture.In such a climate British politics is collectively losing sight of the fundamental questions: what sort of relationship the country needs to have with the EU and how that might be achieved. It is easy to see why Mr Johnson prefers not to frame the matter in those terms. His rock-hard Brexit model and the confrontational strategy for getting there point the country in the opposite direction to the one that calm, rational judgment would counsel.Downing Street’s position makes more sense as part of a bare-knuckle fight for control of the domestic political narrative. The aim is to cast parliament as the disposable husk of an obsolete, old order, then ask the electorate to replace it with a new cohort, more obedient to the prime minister, styled in presidential terms as tribune of the people. It is a sinister fantasy, made all the more dangerous by signs of economic downturn. Official data on Friday showed growth turning negative in the spring – a development that might once have given government reason to reconsider lining up a gratuitous shock for the autumn.But Mr Johnson is no more interested in sober economic analysis than he is in constitutional propriety. He is not running an administration so much as a rolling campaign. His critics in parliament must understand that they are already the target, regardless of when or how an election date is set. Topics Brexit Opinion Boris Johnson House of Commons Article 50 European Union Foreign policy editorials

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - Aid trucks reached Syria’s eastern Ghouta region on Monday for the first time since the start of one of the war’s deadliest assaults, but the government stripped some medical supplies from the convoy and pressed on with its air and ground assault. The convoy of more than 40 trucks pulled out of Douma in darkness after shelling on the town, without fully unloading supplies during a nine-hour stay. All staff were safe and heading back to the capital Damascus, aid officials said. The Russian-backed Syrian army has captured more than a third of the eastern Ghouta in recent days, threatening to slice the last major rebel-held area near Damascus in two, despite Western accusations it has violated a ceasefire. The United Nations says 400,000 people are trapped inside the besieged enclave, and were already running out of food and medical supplies before the assault began with intense air strikes two weeks ago. “The team is safe, but given the security situation a decision was taken to go back for now. They off-loaded as much as possible given the current situation on the ground,” spokeswoman Iolanda Jaquemet of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in Geneva. Another aid source told Reuters that 10 trucks left the town “fully sealed”, while four more had been partially unloaded. Hours earlier, a senior U.N. official accompanying the convoy said he was “not happy” to hear loud shelling near the crossing point into eastern Ghouta despite an agreement that the aid would be delivered in safety. Related CoverageTurkish offensive in Syria leads to pause in some operations against IS: PentagonAid convoy in Syria's Ghouta retreats due to insecurity, all safe: Red Cross“We need to be assured that we will be able to deliver the humanitarian assistance under good conditions,” Ali al-Za’tari told Reuters at the crossing point. A World Health Organization official said the government had ordered 70 percent of medical supplies to be stripped out of the convoy, preventing trauma kits, surgical kits, insulin and other vital material from reaching the area. The ICRC confirmed some medical equipment had been blocked but gave no details. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said strikes targeted frontlines near the town of Harasta and the villages of Beit Sawa and Hosh al-Ashari. The monitor later said 80 were killed and more than 300 wounded in the highest toll in one day since the U.N. Security Council resolution was adopted 10 days ago. A military media unit run by the government’s ally Hezbollah reported that the Syrian army had taken the village of al-Mohammadiyeh, located on the southeastern corner of the enclave. President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday his forces would continue the push into eastern Ghouta, a densely populated area of farmland and towns just outside Damascus which government forces have encircled since 2013. Many civilian residents have fled from the frontlines into the town of Douma. Assad and his allies regard the rebel groups that hold eastern Ghouta as terrorists, and say a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a country-wide ceasefire does not apply to operations against them. Trucks from Syrian Red Crescent and humanitarian partners are seen in Ghouta, Syria, March 5, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Syrian Red Crescent /via REUTERSA week ago Russia unilaterally announced five-hour daily pauses in the fighting, but clashes have continued during those hours and Western countries dismissed it as inadequate. The fighting in eastern Ghouta follows a pattern used in other areas recaptured by the government since Russia entered the war on Assad’s side in 2015, with sieges, bombardment and ground offensives combined with an offer to let civilians and fighters who surrender escape through “humanitarian corridors”. For the rebels fighting to oust Assad, the loss of eastern Ghouta would mark their heaviest defeat since the battle of Aleppo in late 2016 and end their ability to target the capital. Rebel shelling on Damascus has killed dozens of people during the last two weeks, state-run media has said. The Observatory said government forces had captured a third of the area in their advance from the east. Syrian state television on Monday said the army had made major advances, seizing 40 percent of the area previously held by the rebels. It broadcast live from several captured villages, showing collapsed concrete buildings, rubble-strewn streets, bullet-pocked walls and smoke rising above fields in the distance. Monday’s convoy carrying aid was the first to reach the besieged area since Feb. 14 and only the second since the start of 2018. Za’tari said the shipment had been scaled back from providing food for 70,000 people to providing for 27,500. The United Nations says Syria has agreed to allow in the rest of the food for the full 70,000 in a second convoy in three days. Slideshow (9 Images)Marwa Awad, spokeswoman for the U.N.’s World Food Program, said it had delivered supplies from the trucks after meeting local councils, including food and nutritional assistance. The two-week assault has brought footage of children being carried out of rubble and hospitals being bombed to viewers around the world once again. Since the fall of Aleppo more than a year ago, government forces had focused their efforts mainly on Islamic State-held territory in the more remote east of the country, but they have now renewed their campaign to crush anti-Assad rebels in the heavily-populated west. Moscow and Damascus deny they are killing large numbers of civilians. Assad has dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in eastern Ghouta as “a ridiculous lie”. Additional reporting By Dalhia Nehme in Beirut, Maria Kiselyova in Moscow, and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Peter Graff, William MacleanOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Coroners in two of Ohio’s largest counties have issued drug abuse warnings following the reappearance of an opioid so powerful it’s sometimes used to sedate elephants.Dr Anahi Ortiz is coroner in Franklin county in central Ohio. She said Friday that the county which calls Columbus home had at least three carfentanil-related overdose deaths in January.Ortiz said the county saw six carfentanil-related deaths in all of 2018, with the last in September.Ortiz says the drug is “extremely potent” and almost impossible to detect by sight because it’s often mixed with other drugs such as cocaine or heroin.The Cuyahoga county medical examiner Dr Thomas Gilson issued a similar warning Thursday based on an increase in carfentanil seizures in the Cleveland area this year.Drug overdoses killed more than 72,000 people in the United States last year – a new record driven by the deadly opioid epidemic, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).The CDC estimates that 72,287 people died from overdoses in 2017, an increase of about 10% from the year before. A majority of the deaths – nearly 49,000 – was caused by opioids, according to the new data. Topics Ohio Opioids crisis Opioids Drugs Health

(Reuters) - An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday narrowly recommended prescribing the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, along with addictive painkillers. FILE PHOTO: The drug Naloxone sits on a table during a free Opioid Overdose Prevention Training class provided by Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, New York, U.S., April 5, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew KellyThe panel voted 12-11 in favor of labeling changes for opioids that recommend co-prescribing the overdose antidote, concluding a two-day discussion on ways to make the potentially life-saving drug readily available. The recommendation underscores concerns about the growing opioid overdose epidemic that claimed more than 49,000 American lives last year. When administered quickly, naloxone helps reverse the effects of an overdose and saves lives. The prescription of naloxone could facilitate a healthy dialogue between patients and the healthcare provider, Maryann Amirshahi, a panel member who voted in favor, said. But co-prescribing naloxone to all patients who are prescribed painkillers could increase annual healthcare costs by $63.9 billion to $580.8 billion, according to FDA studies. “I think co-prescribing is an expensive way to saturate the population with naloxone. The at-risk population is not necessarily the ones that are being prescribed new narcotics,” said Mary Ellen McCann, associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, a panelist who voted against the decision. “I’m concerned about a person going in with a broken arm and ending up with $30 of a codeine product and a (naloxone) autoinjector at $4,000 plus.” Branded versions for treating opioid overdose include Adapt Pharma’s Narcan nasal spray and Kaleo Inc’s Evzio autoinjector. Robert Kramer, chief operating officer of Emergent BioSolutions Inc (EBS.N), which bought Adapt Pharma this year, said the FDA’s cost estimates were “inflated”, adding the number includes the price of Narcan and Kaleo’s Evzio, which has a list price of over $4,000. The list price is not necessarily what patients actually pay and “out-of-pocket” costs vary depending on the duration of the treatment and individual healthcare plans. A pack of Narcan containing two doses lists at a price of $125, while generic naloxone retails at around $40 per dose. “A fully implemented co-prescription program targeting opioid prescription associated with the highest risk of opioid overdose would cost an estimated $115 million per year as opposed to the $64 billion number,” Kramer said. Kaleo announced last week an authorized generic of Evzio, which will be available at a list price of $178 for a pack of two doses. Naloxone is currently made available through distribution and prescription programs in pain clinics and opioid treatment centers, as well as “take-home” programs among high-risk patients. Reporting by Saumya Sibi Joseph and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel and Sriraj KalluvilaOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Pro-choice campaigners in Northern Ireland have accused Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt of pandering to religious fundamentalists in the Democratic Unionist party by ruling out any abortion reform for the country.The Conservative leadership rivals were challenged on Tuesday to state whether they would support Westminster bringing in laws to allow abortion in Northern Irish hospitals. Both said they would maintain the status quo if they entered Downing Street.Ten DUP MPs prop up the Conservative government in the Commons and wield parliamentary power that will prove critical in the Brexit process.Emma Campbell, the co-chair of Alliance for Choice, said Hunt and Johnson had “betrayed the women and girls who will travel over to England to have an abortion today, those that will make the journey the next day and the days after that until there is abortion reform”.On the influence held over the Tories by the DUP, which is anti-abortion, Campbell said: “What else could their reticence be about? This is all about Brexit and the support they will need from the DUP. It certainly is not about the rights of women from Northern Ireland.”Grainne Teggart, Amnesty International’s campaign manager in Northern Ireland, said: “Women’s rights will not be sacrificed for political expediency. A majority of the Northern Ireland public want Westminster to legislate on this matter.”The anti-abortion campaign group Both Lives Matter welcomed Hunt and Johnson’s position because, it claimed, the majority in Northern Ireland “don’t want abortion laws imposed by Westminster”.A poll for Both Lives Matter (pdf) last year found that 64% of people in Northern Ireland thought that changing the abortion law should be a decision for the people and politicians of Northern Ireland, not MPs elsewhere in the UK. In contrast, a poll for Amnesty last year found that 66% of people in Northern Ireland thought that, in the absence of a devolved government, Westminster should legislate to reform the law.Hunt and Johnson were speaking in Belfast while canvassing support among 500 Conservatives in Northern Ireland in the contest to succeed Theresa May.Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where the Abortion Act 1967 does not apply, and both women and medics who procure or carry out terminations can be jailed for life. An abortion is only permitted in Northern Irish hospitals if there is a risk to the woman’s life or if continuing the pregnancy will cause her lasting physical damage.Asked whether he was in favour of imposing abortion reform from Westminster in the absence of a devolved government, Johnson said the issue should be debated at Stormont if power sharing is restored, rather than in Westminster.“I don’t think that the UK should be imposing something that should be decided here,” he said.Hunt, asked whether he would be in favour of changing the anti-abortion laws if he was from Northern Ireland, said it should be a devolved matter only.The 1967 act, which allows for abortions across Great Britain up to 24 weeks into pregnancy and beyond that in certain circumstances, was never applied in Northern Ireland. Previous attempts in Stormont to extend the act have been blocked by the DUP. Since the devolved government collapsed in 2017, the Conservative government in Westminster has resisted moves to extend the act to Northern Ireland. Topics Abortion Northern Ireland Northern Irish politics Jeremy Hunt Boris Johnson Conservative leadership Health policy news

Happy birthday, Google! While Google Inc. was officially incorporated on Sept. 4 1998 (and Google search is actually one year older), the company has recently been celebrating its anniversary on Sept. 27. On this day, the tech giant marks the occasion with a special birthday Google doodle on its home page.This year, the company is adding more to the party mix, including surprise spelling suggestions if you type any of the following retro queries into the search bar. These alternatives are reflections of how those phrases and concepts have evolved over the course of 20 years. This unconventional dictionary-of-sorts is both nostalgic and enlightening in how far, for better or for worse, we have come as a society and culture.Mp3 file: Stream musicWatch a DVD: Streaming subscriptionGoogol: GoogleGettin’ jiggy wit it: Floss dancePage me: New phone, who dis?Butterfly clip styles: Top knotSoccer world champions 1998: Soccer world champions 1998 (Hint: Two very good years for the France national team!)Chat room: Text the groupHow to tell someone you like them: Swipe rightLow-rider pants: How to style high wasted pantsDigital pet: Fidget spinnerBaby: Bae143: ILYSMWhat is Y2K?: What is cryptocurrency?Screen name: Social handleClip art: GIFKeepin’ it real: Keep it 100If you want a further and slightly more literal stroll down memory lane, Google Maps will take you around the Google Garage in Street View, just the way it was two decades ago. There’s a lot to discover, including a “Google Headquarters” sign on a white board, a surf-frog terrarium, and a mini dinosaur.

When the American artist Kehinde Wiley – known by many for his presidential portrait of Barack Obama – walked into a Little Caesars restaurant in St Louis, he didn’t know he’d walk out with models for his next painting.He saw a group of African American women sitting at a table and was inspired to paint them for Three Girls in A Wood, a painting on view at the St Louis Art Museum. It’s part of Wiley’s exhibition Saint Louis, which runs until 10 February, where 11 paintings of St Louis locals are painted in the style of old masters, a comment on the absence of black portraits in museums.“The great heroic, often white, male hero dominates the picture plane and becomes larger than life, historic and significant,” said Wiley over the phone from his Brooklyn studio. “That great historic storytelling of myth-making or propaganda is something we inherit as artists. I wanted to be able to weaponize and translate it into a means of celebrating female presence.”It all started last year when the museum invited Wiley to create an exhibition, which prompted Wiley to visit the museum’s sprawling collection. Noticing the lack of people of color on the walls, he ventured out into the suburbs for subjects to paint, including Ferguson, a hub of the Black Lives Matter movement since the police shooting of Mike Brown. (“There’s a very strong dissonance between this gilded museum on a hill and the communities in Ferguson,” Wiley recently said). He put out a public call and personally invited locals for a casting inside the museum.“From the beginning, it was about a response to the museum as a strange metaphorical divide between the culture, not only in St Louis, but in America at large,” he said. “The kind of inside-outside nature of museum culture can be alienating and St Louis has one of the best American collections of classical works, so I wanted to use the poses from these paintings for potential sitters from the community.”Wiley has painted St Louis natives as stately figures, wearing their day-to-day garb, even showing women in traditionally male poses. Shontay Hanes from Wellston is painted in the pose of Francesco Salviati’s Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman, while her sister Ashley Cooper’s pose is similar to that of Charles I in the portrait by Daniel Mytens the Elder.As the models posed for him, Wiley took hundreds of photos, which he took back to his New York studio. He picked the photos that had the strongest presence and painted them. “My process is less about the original sitter, nor is it entirely about the individual,” he said. “It’s a strange middle space that is marked by a kind of anonymity, standing in for a history that is not your own. A pose that is not your own. There is a kind of complexity there that is not reducible to traditional painting.”There is also a painting in the exhibit which mimics Gerard ter Borch’s portrait of Jacob de Graeff, which inspired Wiley’s portrait of Brincel Kape’li Wiggins Jr, who is wearing a Ferguson hat as a way of showing the city in a positive light.Wiley, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s, had an a-ha moment when he first saw the works of Kerry James Marshall in a museum when he was young – it proved to him that African American figures belonged on museum walls, too. He studied painting in Russia at the tender age of 12, chased down his Nigerian father at 20, graduated from Yale in 2001 and has been painting African Americans – including a commissioned portrait of Michael Jackson – as old masters icons since the early 2000s.“When you think of America itself and its own narratives, there are inspiring narratives and the notion of American exceptionalism,” said Wiley. “It’s the place where the world looks to for the best of human aspirations. That narrative is highly under question at this moment.”Despite becoming royalty in his own respect, as Wiley’s star-studded lifestyle has him posing for selfies alongside Naomi Campbell and Prince Charles on Instagram, he sees his country differently now, compared with when he started painting professionally. “By virtue of our strength, we’re at this point of weakness and inability to see a lot of the folly that is set in the country,” he said. “I think there is an overbuilt privilege that starts to come into play and inability to feel empathy for perceived outsiders.”Since his leafy Obama portrait was unveiled last year, his life has drastically changed. “I don’t have to explain what I do any more,” he said. “It makes it a lot easier, ‘He’s the guy who did that.’ It’s going to be on my headstone.”As for his painting of three women he found at a pizza parlor, it’s a departure from where he first began – which was classically trained painting of white women. “So much of my upbringing as an artist was painting white women often displayed nude,” he said. “When I first started painting black women, it was a return home.”While Wiley is known for choosing models that stand out to him, he can never predict what will work in the studio. But he does know one thing. “I think the starting point of my work is decidedly empathy,” he said. “All of it is a self-portrait. I never paint myself but, in the end, why am I going out of my way to choose these types of stories and narratives?“It’s about seeing yourself in other people,” he said. “People forget America itself is a stand-in for a sense of aspiration the world holds on to. It’s a really sad day when the source of light criticizes light itself.” Topics Art interviews

Football fans should “think twice” about travelling to the World Cup in Russia this summer as consular services are threatened by the diplomatic crisis between Vladimir Putin and the west, a senior White House official has warned.The tournament kicks off on 14 June under the shadow of tit-for-tat expulsions and what some describe as a new cold war. Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, has suggested Putin will seek to exploit the showpiece in the way Adolf Hitler milked the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936.The White House official warned anyone planning to attend: “I would think twice because we won’t have the same ability to protect our citizens or even just dealing with the regular consular affairs when we’re there. And the other countries too. You would have that concern in any country about having the lack of consular support.”England have qualified for the finals but the USA have not. The UK Foreign Office says consular teams were available around the clock to assist the 20,000 England fans who visited Brazil for the last World Cup in 2014. The provision of such support will be more difficult in Russia in the present climate, the senior Trump administration official said.“If you get into any kind of difficulty there, we just won’t have the wherewithal. People have accidents. They get ill, they need to be medevacked out. We’re not suggesting that there are going to be some major sets of incidents but it’s just those larger concerns.“We’re trying to work with the Russians on counter-terrorism as well. Any large sporting event, no matter what country now, is a target. And so we’ve now got less ability to be able to do that with the Russians than before because they’ve decimated the counterparts who would be dealing with this kind of thing, for the UK and the US.”The official made clear that the US shares the UK conclusion that Russia was behind the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were found poisoned on 4 March.A former army colonel sentenced to jail in Russia for spying for Britain, Skripal arrived in the UK as part of a spy swap in 2010. The official said: “I think for our colleagues who work on intelligence, that was a definite rupture of the rules of the game. When you do a spy swap, you don’t expect then that they will be bumped off later.”The official believes Moscow was trying to send a “very big signal, [a] chilling effect for anyone who might be contemplating similar action … or thinking about… criticising the government”.The Trump administration reacted to the Skripal affair by expelling 60 Russians it accused of being spies under diplomatic cover; Moscow retaliated with diplomatic expulsions. Washington struck Putin’s inner circle on Friday, imposing sanctions on seven oligarchs. The White House also singled out Russia’s attempts to subvert western democracies. November’s midterm elections loom as another potential target.The official said: “We’re extremely worried about the potential for their interfering, just like we’re finding out in Britain that perhaps they had some role in the Brexit campaign. The Spanish have already covered all kinds of evidence of how the Russians interfered [in the independence referendum in Catalonia]. We haven’t seen any diminution of attempts. The Department of Homeland Security has a very robust programme now working with state and local governments.”Another official said: “If you look back at 2016, around this time was when a lot of the initial penetrations occurred but the releases of John Podesta’s emails didn’t happen until later. So lack of any sort of overt activity now doesn’t mean that they’re not preparing the battleground for the months ahead.”Donald Trump, however, has consistently and conspicuously declined to condemn Putin while deriding as a “hoax” and “witch-hunt” special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and links between Trump aides and Moscow.The senior official said: “In the case of Russia, this is a very hierarchical society. If you’re going to get anything done with the Russians you have to talk to the guy on top and the president clearly – as we see with China and North Korea – understands that you have to be able to talk to the person on the very top.”Whereas Trump has taken a hard line with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, the official said, he has “always been extraordinarily careful and very respectful in the way that he’s talked about President Xi [Jinping] and he’s taken that approach with Putin. Putin is somebody who is quick to take an insult. He is the leader of a major nuclear superpower.“If you look at that in the past, back to Reagan and Gorbachev and other leaders, there’s always been a lot of care and attention paid to treating with due respect the leader on the other side, to be able to have that chance to sit down across the table. Now, we can criticise that approach. But this is a president who has actually adopted that really in his business dealings as well.”Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said on Monday Trump and Putin had discussed meeting in the “not-too-distant future” at potential venues including the White House. The official continued: “Right now, the relationship between the US and Russia isn’t at rock bottom actually … but we’re in the midst of a forest fire so, sweeping things away, we may have to be starting from scratch.“The UK government, as we understand, is going to go down pretty hard and heavy in some of the ways that we have as well, and we’re going to have to at some point sit down … and just thrash this out and figure out where we’re going to go from here. Theresa May’s going to have to do that too.” Topics Russia Vladimir Putin World Cup 2018 World Cup Donald Trump Trump administration US foreign policy news