The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has called on Facebook to address the proliferation of undercover law enforcement accounts on the social networking site following a Guardian report that revealed a secret network of accounts operated by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).EFF, a digital civil liberties not-for-profit, said law enforcement agencies are able to create fake accounts to spy on users, despite Facebook’s policy which prohibits all users, including government agencies, from making them. “Facebook’s practice of taking down these individual accounts when they learn about them from the press (or from EFF) is insufficient to deter what we believe is a much larger iceberg beneath the surface,” wrote EFF’s senior investigative researcher, Dave Maass, in a blogpost. “We often only discover the existence of law enforcement fake profiles months, if not years, after an investigation has concluded.”Police departments in Ohio, New York, Georgia and Nebraska have said they have policies allowing investigators to use aliases and undercover profiles on social media. Federal agencies including the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have also been caught impersonating users or operating fake accounts.Though these rules violate Facebook policies, law enforcement have not expressed publicly any significant concern about acting against the social media giant’s rules.Facebook has issued warnings to several agencies caught using undercover accounts. EFF said Facebook turned down its request to confront the San Francisco police department after it was revealed fake accounts were used in criminal investigations.In response to a Guardian inquiry identifying five suspicious profiles linked to the University of Farmington, a fake university Ice created to attract foreign students, Facebook quickly took down the accounts. Several other accounts in that network, which the Guardian did not identify to Facebook or Ice, were also taken down.Facebook said it also contacted the Department of Homeland Security to express concerns about the Guardian’s findings.EFF said Facebook should: Publish data on how many fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts it identifies in its transparency reports. Alert users and groups that interacted with fake/impersonator accounts about those accounts and which agency operated them. Amend its terms with governments to make it explicit that they are not operating fake/impersonator profiles. Review law enforcement policies for social media use and flag instances that permit fake/impersonator accounts. “We speak with the EFF regularly and appreciate their interest in ensuring that law enforcement’s use of social media is transparent and complies with the law and relevant terms of use,” a Facebook representative said.“Law enforcement authorities, like everyone else, are required to use their real names on Facebook and we make this policy clear on our public-facing Law Enforcement Guidelines page. Operating fake accounts is not allowed, and we swiftly act on any violating accounts.”In courts, undercover social media accounts have so far been treated the same as undercover operations conducted in-person. Legal experts say that could change in the near future, in part because fake social media operations are much less expensive to execute and can be done so quickly on a much bigger scale. Topics Facebook Privacy US policing US immigration news

In the West, the images of fleeing Syrian refugees helped empower nationalist politicians from Hungary to the United States, propelling a global trend toward authoritarianism. The multiple conflicts -- diplomatic, political, military -- have contributed to a growing turmoil in global politics, even as the incorrect impression that Syria doesn't matter prevails. Even in Europe, that sentiment seems powerful enough to have so far smothered the instinctive reaction of popular fury that seems to spring to life whenever the United States flexes its military muscle.It's different this time, of course. This is not George W. Bush going into Iraq. It's not even Barack Obama studiously pondering the pros and cons of action. This is Donald Trump, a man some here now say is so disconcerting and disturbing, they have started trying to ignore his rants.JUST WATCHEDPentagon says they hit every target in Syria ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHPentagon says they hit every target in Syria 01:35This time, for a change, he looked serious, thoughtful and calm when announcing military action in Syria in his televised address. It was in sharp contrast with his Twitter rants of the previous days, even the previous hours, when he unleashed a stream of invective, wielding keyboard weaponry, exclamation points, all-caps, multi-tweet attacks, tolash out against James Comey, Assad, Russia and others.It was a gruesome spectacle, and further evidence of the damage his chaotic presidency is doing to America and the world on multiple levels.By the time the attack finally came, the chaos in the White House and Trump's legal and political problems made it inevitable to think about the phenomenon once known as the "Wag the Dog" effect, using military action to distract and build popular support by stoking patriotic sentiment for personal political benefit.JUST WATCHEDFirst look at damage on the ground in SyriaReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHFirst look at damage on the ground in Syria 01:42In this case, Trump's use of force a year ago after Assad used chemical weapons lends some credibility to the latest action, suggesting it is motivated by the US leader's visceral response to the images of the Douma attack, and his determination to define himself as the opposite of Obama. And Obama's greatest failing was not enforcing his own "red line" against Assad's use of chemical weapons. In reality, Trump's action looks in many ways Obamian: measured, splitting the middle, and despite the bravado, hesitant.Trump's latest strikes are not about Syria. They do nothing to change the equation in that malignant conflict. They are an effort to put the genie of chemical weapons back in the bottle. That in itself is a worthy goal, and one wishes Obama had acted on when he had the opportunity.Join us on Twitter and Facebook But Trump's Syrian policy remains a muddle. Barely two weeks ago he announced hewants the small but important US contingent out. A few days later he was threatening to attack, and then he did.After all the tweets, all the bombs, all the speeches, no one is sure what exactly he has in mind. In the meantime, the Syrian war remains as radioactive as ever. It may well spawn a war between Iran and Israel. It is adding to tensions between Moscow and Washington and between Riyadh and Tehran.The latest bombing may change nothing. It didn't seem to change the public's apathy. But it will continue to reverberate in our lives, indirectly, but not subtly.

The Syrian army has bombarded jihadis and other rebels in the last area outside government control near Damascus, as President Bashar al-Assad moved to strengthen his position around the capital after the defeat of rebels in eastern Ghouta earlier this month.The bombing came as inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) remained stranded in Damascus almost two weeks after a chemical attack on a town in Ghouta that precipitated the rebel collapse.Airstrikes and shelling hit the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp and al-Hajar al-Aswad area, part of a small enclave divided between warring jihadis and other rebels south of the capital. Live state television footage of the area showed a plume of smoke billowing across one district as guns boomed in the distance.The US, British and French missile strikes designed to punish Assad for the use of chemical weapons have done nothing to slow the advance of his forces, now in their strongest position since the early months of the seven-year war. Efforts to investigate the chemical attack in Douma on 7 April have been repeatedly delayed, leading to suspicions that the regime and its ally Russia were stalling the OPCW team into order to tamper with evidence at the site. Russia’s official position, citing the tests done by its own military, is that the attack never took place, and that no one died as a result. Moscow has said that armed rebels forced local residents to take part in staged filming of the alleged attack’s aftermath, including by faking symptoms of chemical poisoning.However, if the inspectors find evidence of chemical weapons, officials are primed to deflect blame from Assad and try to pin the attack on rebels.Russian state media is pushing two lines: that they have spoken to witnesses who deny any attack took place, and that they have found canisters filled with chlorine in Douma, which were used for rebel attacks later blamed on the regime.On Wednesday, Russian state TV broadcast interviews with a Syrian boy it said was featured in a hospital video taken by the Syria Civil Defence, a volunteer organisation known as the White Helmets.The boy, whose name is Hassan Diab, said he was in a bomb shelter with his mother and felt fine, when people on the street told everyone to go to the hospital. There, they were filmed being doused in water and given other simulated medical treatment. A state television reporter, citing Diab’s father, said the boy was given rice and figs for his part in the video.The boy’s father, who was not present at the time of the attack, said he later found his son at the hospital. He said that no chemical attack took place in Douma that night.That contradicts accounts by victims given to a number of western outlets, which put the death toll from the attack at more than 40 people, many trapped in the basement of a three-storey house. CBS News, reporting from Douma, published a photograph of the missile said by locals to have carried the chemical payload lodged in the building’s facade.Doctors responsible for treating patients in the hours after the 7 April attack said they faced government intimidation to stay quiet. The World Health Organisation said that 500 people sought medical treatment with “signs and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals”.“It’s absolute misinformation and a cover-up,” said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, an adviser to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, of the Russian denials. “But I know that a number of samples have gotten out of Syria and have been tested, and I’m hoping they will confirm what happened.”In another Russian state TV programme broadcast one day before Diab’s interview, Russian soldiers on the ground in Douma said they found underground rebel labs for producing chemical weapons, including chlorine. A Russian official showed state journalists chemical equipment and materials, which are needed to produce sulfur and nitrogen mustard gas.Key among the findings was a chemical cylinder, which a Russian official said was filled with chlorine gas, and which was nearly identical to the ones used in the 7 April video that Russia accused of being fake.“Thanks to these instructions, using this equipment, the fighters made the gas they later used in their provocations,” a state TV journalist reported. Later in the report, he referred to the cylinder: “The rebels pumped chlorine into similar vessels, took it to the city, and then presented it all as an attack by the Syrian army.”Russia said that the Khan Shaykhun nerve gas attack, which killed at least 87 people in 2017, occurred because a government airstrike had hit a rebel depot for chemical munitions. The Assad government denied at first that any incident had taken place.In October 2017, the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism found that Assad’s forces launched the attack.One month later, Russia vetoed the renewal of the inquiry, calling it biased. The inquiry had identified multiple instances when the Syrian government stood behind chemical gas attacks in the country, as well as attacks carried out by Isis.With the OPCW fact-finding mission only capable of confirming the use of chemical weapons and not assigning blame, de Bretton-Gordon said Russia’s response was predictable.“The US, the British and the French will have a UN resolution to sanction the Syrians and no doubt the Russians will veto it,” he said. “We’ll be back in our cycle.” Topics Syria Middle East and North Africa Bashar al-Assad Chemical weapons news

Schoolchildren take cover beneath their desks, while a farmer jumps out of his tractor and crouches face down in a field. Off the coast, the crew of a fishing boat hide behind their vessel’s wheelhouse.The characters are fictional, but they are playing out a scenario that in recent months has become frighteningly real: a North Korean missile strike.Weeks after two ballistic missiles overflew their island, authorities in Hokkaido have married geopolitical anxiety with Japan’s love of comic books to produce a short manga advising millions of residents what to do in the event of a test launch, or worse, an attack.The manga opens with depictions of everyday scenes: a woman out for a run, a man in a suit leaving for work, and a farmer tilling his fields.Moments later, a girl is jolted awake by a smartphone alarm warning of a missile launch, while a TV anchor instructs residents to seek shelter. The centre panel shows a North Korean missile blasting off at the start of a flight that will take it east across the sea towards Hokkaido.The four-page survival guide, created by manga artist Manabu Yamamoto, uses a small cast of characters to explain what Hokkaido’s 5.5 million residents should do when they first learn of a missile launch.It advises residents to take cover in sturdy buildings or underground, or, less helpfully, perhaps, to lie face down or cover their heads with their forearms or a cushion.Hokkaido, a sparsely populated, largely rural region in Japan’s far north, probably ranks low on Pyongyang’s list of targets. But Japan has reason to be concerned about the threat, by accident or design, from the regime’s recent volley of missiles.North Korea first fired a long-range missile over Japanese territory in 1998, but under the current leader, Kim Jong-un, the number of test launches has risen dramatically. In August, a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile was sent over Hokkaido, triggering an early-morning test alert. In mid-September, more alerts and sirens were triggered on the island with the launch of a missile that flew further than any tested by the regime to date.A day earlier, North Korea had warned that it would “sink” Japan in retaliation for its support of the US in spearheading tough new UN security council sanctions.“The four islands of the [Japanese] archipelago should be sunken into the sea,” a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency said. “Japan is no longer needed to exist near us.”The colourful manga, titled In Case Missiles Fly Over, was published this month after Hokkaido residents complained that official advice on what to do in the event of a missile attack was confusing.The short distance between the two countries means people have less than 10 minutes to follow official instructions. During recent missile launches, many residents, unsure of how to react, said they had simply carried on as normal.“We decided to release the manga after hearing from residents that the current manual is hard to understand,” Kiyomi Tanabe, a Hokkaido official, told AFP.The local government has posted the manga on its website and sent electronic versions to schools and other public bodies to print and distribute.Japan was bracing for more missile launches earlier this month, when North Korea marked the 72nd anniversary of the ruling Workers’ party.The anniversary passed without incident, but there is speculation that the regime could be preparing to launch a missile in response to joint US-South Korean military drills in waters east of the Korean peninsula, or to coincide with Donald Trump’s five-nation visit to Asia, which begins in Japan on 5 November. Topics Japan North Korea Manga Asia Pacific Comics and graphic novels news

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel signaled on Sunday that it would keep up military strikes across its frontier with Syria to prevent any encroachment by Iranian-allied forces, even as the United States and Russia try to build up a ceasefire in the area. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Abir Sultan/PoolU.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday affirmed joint efforts to stabilize Syria as its civil war wanes, including with the expansion of a July 7 truce in the southwestern triangle bordering Israel and Jordan. A U.S. State Department official said Russia had agreed “to work with the Syrian regime to remove Iranian-backed forces a defined distance” from the Golan Heights frontier with Israel, which captured the plateau in the 1967 Middle East war. The move, according to one Israeli official briefed on the arrangement, is meant to keep rival factions inside Syria away from each other, but it would effectively keep Iranian-linked forces at various distances from the Israel-held Golan as well. Those distances would range from as little as 5-7 kms and up to around 30 kms, depending on current rebel positions on the Syrian Golan, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. Moscow did not immediately provide details on the deal. Israel has been lobbying both big powers to deny Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other Shi’ite militias any permanent bases in Syria, and to keep them away from the Golan, as they gain ground while helping Damascus beat back Sunni-led rebels. In televised remarks opening Israel’s weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not speak about the new U.S.-Russian arrangement for Syria. His regional cooperation minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, sounded circumspect about the deal, telling reporters that it “does not meet Israel’s unequivocal demand the there will not be developments that bring the forces of Hezbollah or Iran to the Israel-Syria border in the north”. “There’s reflection here of the understanding that Israel has set red lines, and will stand firm on this,” Hanegbi said. That was an allusion to Israeli military strikes in Syria, carried out against suspected Hezbollah or Iranian arms depots or in retaliation for attacks from the Syrian-held Golan. In the latest incident, the Israeli military said it shot down a spy drone on Saturday as it overflew the Golan. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman blamed the drone on the Syrian government. Damascus did not immediately respond. Repeating Israel’s warnings to Iran and Hezbollah, Lieberman said: “We will not allow the Shi’ite axis to establish Syria as its forefront base”. Slideshow (2 Images)Russia, which has a long-term military garrison in Syria, has said it wants foreign forces to quit the country eventually. The U.S. State Department official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity on Saturday, said that goal could be served by Russia’s pledge to remove Iranian-linked fighters from the truce zone in southwestern Syria. “If this works, this is an auspicious signal, would be an auspicious signal, that our policy objective - the objective that I think so many of us share, of getting these guys out of Syria ultimately - that there’s a path in that direction,” the official said. Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Richard BalmforthOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

上个月苹果发布了Apple Watch Series 3智能手表，这是苹果推出的首款支持蜂窝网络的手表，不过自发布以来，它一直受到连接问题的困扰 ... 比如，当你离开家里的WiFi时，Apple Watch可能会尝试连接到未经身份验证的公共网络，而不是使用蜂窝网络，这个bug与WiFi和LTE网络之间的切换有关，苹果此前已经承诺修复

US President Donald Trump seemed to shift gear on Syria again this week, warning against a pending government offensive against the last rebel stronghold, in the north-western province of Idlib.Such a "reckless" attack by the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its Russian and Iranian allies, he tweeted, would be a "grave humanitarian mistake" that could kill "hundreds of thousands of people".It would make the world and the US "very, very angry", Mr Trump added later.This came after months of signalling that he was fed up with US engagement in Syria: in April, he began talking about bringing American troops home, and last week, he cancelled $230m (£178m) earmarked for repairing war damage in the country. So was the Idlib intervention just an impulsive tweet, or did it mark a change in strategy? Five reasons why the battle for Idlib matters Why is there a war in Syria? On the one hand, Mr Trump's comments sounded similar to the way he has responded to chemical weapons attacks that have twice led to limited US air strikes on Syrian regime targets. In those cases, he reacted emotionally to the disturbing images of children asphyxiated by poison gas. He was also eager to better his predecessor, Barack Obama, who has been criticised for drawing a red line on Syria's use of chemical weapons and then failing to hold to it. And a focus on chemical weapons has been the centrepiece of a co-ordinated call across the administration, with officials threatening "very strong" action if they were used to retake Idlib. But some Syria experts see something more strategic at play."The crisis in Idlib is a devil's dilemma for the Trump administration," says Middle East military analyst Nicholas Heras, "and how it responds will determine the success or failure of a new Syria policy."The dilemma is that Idlib shelters some three million people, more than a third of whom fled the conflict in other parts of Syria and have nowhere left to run.It is also a hotbed of the armed opposition, dominated by Islamist militants, the most powerful of which is said to have links to al-Qaeda.Russia wants to get rid of these "terrorists", who launch drone attacks on its nearby airbase. So does the US.Turkey, which has backed some of the rebel forces in Idlib, is afraid an all-out offensive against them would drive a massive destabilising wave of refugees north towards the Turkish border. So is the US, and Europe, where many of the refugees might end up.Senior officials, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, are therefore urging Turkey and Russia to reach a compromise that would involve a more narrowly tailored counter-terrorism operation.Russian air power could ensure a Syrian victory, but Mr Heras, who is with the Center for a New American Security, argues Mr Trump's warnings are part of an attempt across the administration to try to strengthen Turkey's hand.More broadly, administration officials are again speaking about an indefinite troop commitment in Syria, aimed not only at ensuring the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group, but as leverage to help shape a political settlement that would stabilise Syria, and to roll back Iran's influence in the country. This is not a new strategy, it is the one that was laid out by the former secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, in January and was subsequently upended by Mr Trump's calls for a quick exit. The president still sees Syria simply through the prism of defeating IS, according to Randa Slim, who leads unofficial dialogues on the Syria conflict for the Middle East Institute. But, she says, his officials have convinced him the fight against the group is not over yet. "I'm hearing that his call for a withdrawal from Syria has been shelved," she says. That is because he has been told IS will be able to return if he pulls the troops out too soon, as Islamist militants did in Iraq after Mr Obama ended America's military deployment there."You don't want to be the Obama of Syria, that's the hook being used to keep him on board," she says. In the context of this overall strategy, the administration sees some value in preventing the Assad regime from gaining complete control of Idlib, which would greatly increase its leverage, Ms Slim told me. But "all of this is contingent on the president staying the course long-term", she says, and he can change "minute to minute". Mr Pompeo has signalled greater engagement by appointing a new state department Syria team headed by a "special representative for Syria engagement", Ambassador James Jeffery. Mr Jeffrey was sent to the region this week to press the case that an Idlib offensive would escalate the Syria crisis, and to convince allies that the US is still in the game. "We're not in a hurry to pull out," Ambassador Jeffrey told reporters on his return. How much difference that will make to their calculations is an open question, given that Russia and the Assad regime seem poised for victory. But there are hundreds of thousands of lives at stake. As Mr Trump has emphasised.

At least 53 civilians have been killed in Russian air strikes in the east Syrian village of Al-Shafah, a monitoring group says.The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 21 of those reportedly killed on Sunday morning were children.The village is in Deir al-Zour, one of the last provinces where Islamic State still holds territory.Initially SOHR said 34 had been killed in strikes on residential buildings.But the monitoring group's head told the AFP news agency it now believed the figure was higher."The toll increased after removing the debris in a long day of rescue operation," Rami Abdel Rahman said. How much success has Russia had in Syria? Why is there a war in Syria? Seeking 'normal life' under siege Earlier Russia confirmed that six long-range bombers had carried out air strikes in the area, but said they had hit militants and their strongholds.Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's long-running civil war.UN-backed peace talks are expected to resume in Geneva next week, but several previous rounds of negotiations have failed.Separately on Sunday, there were reports of 23 people killed in a rebel-held enclave on the outskirts of Damascus. SOHR said several towns in Eastern Ghouta had been hit by air strikes and artillery fire. Neither of the reports have been independently verified.The monitoring group says 120 people have been killed since the Syrian army began its offensive there nearly two weeks ago.After years of siege, conditions for Eastern Ghouta's 400,000 residents are dire, with reports of people dying of starvation.In a report last week, the UN said food was so scarce some residents had been reduced to eating animal fodder and even garbage. Eastern Ghouta is one of several "de-escalation" zones in Syria announced by Russia, Iran and Turkey earlier this year.

PARIS — Behind closed doors in the Louvre’s basements, experts have been scrutinizing a drawing for weeks with one question on their minds: Could this semi-naked, mysteriously smiling lady that looks strikingly like the Mona Lisa be a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci?The Monna Vanna — or “nude Mona Lisa” as the charcoal drawing is nicknamed — has been attributed to Leonardo’s studio since the 20th century, but questions have lingered about the extent of the Renaissance master’s contribution to the work.The 28-by-21-inch drawing has been held since 1862 at the Condé Museum, in the palace of Chantilly, north of Paris. Scientists are now trying to establish exactly who drew it, ahead of an exhibition that is scheduled to open there in 2019 to celebrate the 500-year anniversary of the artist’s death.— Domaine de Chantilly (@chantillydomain) September 28, 2017 Mathieu Deldicque, the Condé Museum’s deputy curator, said in a phone interview that an analysis performed by a dozen experts had showed so far that the Monna Vanna could either be a drawing by one of Leonardo’s students, or one in which he himself had participated.“We are sure of nothing, and if Leonardo participated, it’s not for all the drawing, but for some parts of it,” Mr. Deldicque said. He added that although the drawing had a similar composition as that of the original Mona Lisa, exhibited at the Louvre, the Monna Vanna was a parallel art piece and that the two were distinct.The sketch was originally attributed to Leonardo when the Duc d’Aumale, the son of France’s last king Louis-Philippe, bought it in 1862 for the Condé Museum’s collection.But further analyses in the early 20th century led experts to the view that a student of Leonardo had drawn it, although the creator’s identity remained uncertain. The museum’s curators decided to conduct extended tests on the sketch after new preliminary research, and ahead of the 2019 exhibition, Mr. Deldicque said.Other experts found the potential attribution plausible.“Very often, drawings are resumed, completed, transformed,” said Patrick de Bayser, an expert in old drawings who works at the Galerie de Bayser in Paris and helps auctioneers value these drawings.Mr. de Bayser, who helped discover a Leonardo da Vinci sketch of St. Sebastian in 2016, said that although it seemed unlikely that the entire composition was by the artist himself, testing would help uncover more details about each layer of the drawing, and help determine whether the original one was from da Vinci’s own hand.Scientists have managed to date the Monna Vanna to around the start of the 16th century, which matches the lifetime of Leonardo, who died in 1519.Analyses have also showed that the paper used for the drawing was from the area between Florence and Venice, but a Louvre conservation expert, Bruno Mottin, told the newspaper Le Parisien that he would be cautious about attributing the Monna Vanna to the Italian painter.“The hatching on the top of the drawing near the head was done by a right-handed person,” Mr. Mottin said, adding that da Vinci was left-handed. Scientists have been unable to determine whether the hatches of the lower part of the drawing were done by a right- or left-handed person.“Monna Vanna’s hands look very similar to the hands painted in the first version of Mona Lisa” Mr. Deldicque said.The Renaissance master is said to have painted the Mona Lisa around 1503. It depicts Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine cloth merchant.Around 20 paintings of nude women that bear a resemblance to Mona Lisa are exhibited or stored in museums across the world. One of the most famous, the Dona Nuda, is at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.After experts at the Louvre have finished their analyses, the Monna Vanna is scheduled to be returned to the Condé Museum, where curators are negotiating to borrow some of these other paintings from museums in Germany, Italy and Russia, with the hopes of displaying them for the 2019 exhibition.“So many students of Leonardo have painted naked Mona Lisas or written about it, that we are almost certain that Leonardo painted one,” Mr. Deldicque said.And although scientists may come up with the first conclusions around the “nude Mona Lisa” in the fall, Mr. Deldicque said that he wanted to keep some mysteries for the exhibition.“At least both the Louvre’s Mona Lisa and the naked Mona Lisa have one thing in common: They will always keep a lot of mysteries,” Mr. Deldicque said.

近日，苹果已向一家欧洲机构申请了个人对个人的支付商标，这表面该服务将在今年晚些时候在欧洲部分地区开发。这周早些时候，苹果向欧盟知识产权局提交了一份关于申请“Apple Pay Cash”商标的文件。该消息最早是由荷兰的 LetsGoDigital 所披露。今年夏天，苹果在其全球开发者大会上宣布了支付服务。“Apple Pay Cash”是苹果对其在2014年推出的支付服务（“Apple Pay Cash”）的一次功能上的拓展， iMessage 内部将支持“P2P”转账服务，交易金额会沉淀在苹果手机自带的钱包内部。当然，Apple Pay 在欧洲很多国家是可以使用的，比如瑞士、法国、西班牙、意大利和爱尔兰，而“Apple Pay Cash”将伴随“IOS 11”的操作系统一起推出，给予用户更加方便的支付体验。向欧洲扩展金融服务，被视为苹果进一步增加营收的举措，因为服务类别是苹果收入增长最快的部分。当然，这也是苹果抢占欧洲在线支付市场的信号。在美国本土，虽然 Apple Pay 和 PayPal 占据领先地位，但其他在线支付工具也不遑多让，纷纷占有一定地位。在世界范围内拥有大批“果粉”的苹果，看来是想抢先收割欧洲的用户了。

Last Monday at New York’s Beacon Theatre, Apple unveiled a product it hopes can help the world’s most valuable company maintain its cutting edge: the 71-year-old rock god Patti Smith.Smith and her band took to the stage after a screening of an Apple Music documentary about her classic 1975 album Horses. To a packed house, and under the watchful eye of the outgoing Apple Music executive (and Patti Smith producer) Jimmy Iovine, Smith’s performance – joined by Bruce Springsteen for two numbers – appeared as a foretelling of Apple’s remedial strategy and future direction.The world’s most valuable public company releases its latest results on Tuesday and has no doubt, once again, sold billions of dollars worth of iPhones. But as the iPhone ages, it’s increasingly clear that Apple is looking for new sources of revenue, and Smith is part of that effort.Big tech is moving into content production and distribution. For three years, the company has been hiring from the design and luxury industries – including top executives like Paul Deneve, the former CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, and Angela Ahrendts, the former CEO of Burberry.It hired or consulted with Iovine, Dr Dre and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor after Apple acquired Beats By Dre in a $1bn acquisition and briefly repurposed them for the launch of Apple Music, which has now gained 36 million subscribers and is poised to overtake its music streaming rival Spotify in the US.Rumors have even circulated that Apple is looking to buy parts or all of the troubled magazine publisher Condé Nast, a move that would further its push, initiated with the Apple Watch, to become a luxury fashion accessory, lifestyle and content brand.Can Apple buy its way out of trouble? On the surface that seems a ridiculous question for a company that made $61bn last year and is expected to have sold 54m iPhones in the last three months. But no matter its size, Apple still faces a big test on Tuesday. As the tech giant releases its first-quarter numbers, analysts worry they could expose further weakness in consumer demand for the company’s top-line products. Based on reports from Apple’s Asian supply chain partners, the company could be about to lower production targets for its iPhone X, the $1,000 model that has failed to meet sales expectations. In mid-March, Apple stock peaked at $182; its stock price fell to about $162 last week, dropping over five straight Wall Street trading sessions.“The street has gone into ‘full panic mode’,” the GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives said in a client report. Ives said that bad news from Asian suppliers correlated with “softer demand and $1,000 sticker-shock price points on iPhone X”. The big question, he added, was what demand for Apple’s iPhone range would look like after the company launched its 12th-generation model in September. Patti Smith is a small part of Apple’s plan B. Gene Munster, a longtime Apple watcher and Loup Ventures analyst, estimates the company will ramp up its spending on original content in video, music and publishing to $4.2bn by 2022 from $1bn this year and $500m in 2017.“Historically, Apple has been a platform for distributing content but increasingly they want to create their own content and that changes their whole profile,” said Munster. Apple, he reasons, is in a similar position to Amazon in that it doesn’t want to make a ton of money from content but views it as a means to growth.“We think that content is always king and the tech companies are starting to understand how king content can drive their businesses. In Apple’s case that’s selling iPhones, in Google’s case it’s advertising, and in Amazon’s that’s selling Amazon Prime memberships.”The Condé Nast rumors may stem from Apple’s acquisition last month of Texture, a digital magazine subscription service part-owned by Condé Nast. Senior Apple executives said they were “committed to quality journalism”.Analysts think an acquisition unlikely. “It’s a well-traveled road of rumors of Apple buying content companies, typically a studio,” said Munster. Sadly for Condé, and others, people are less interested in paying for written content than video and music, he said. “It’s within the scheme of them paying for more content, but I think Apple has their sights set on video and music more than the written word.”Apple’s increased spending on content still leaves it short of the subscription darling Netflix ($6.8bn), or the surging Amazon, which is expected to increase its spending on original content from $4.5bn to $8.3bn.“Over the next five years, we think there’s going to be one single offering for video, music and print content. These essentially vertical subscriptions are focused on one type of content – music, video (Netflix or HBO) or print. So the concept is to create all-in-one offerings for different types of media,” said Munster.Apple’s acquisition of Condé Nast, whose US operation is believed to be losing $100m a year while its foreign operation is marginally profitable on similar revenues of around $1bn, would doubtless be a headline-grabbing move. But while media is a growing business for Apple, and it is reported to want to acquire and produce as many as 10 television shows, it has yet to register an original video content hit. Apple’s Planet of the Apps, a reality show about app developers, and Carpool Karaoke, a spin-off of James Corden’s hit late night segment that features celebrities singing in a car together, have not gained traction with audiences. Apple also purchased the rights for a TV project from Damien Chazelle, the Oscar-winning writer and director of La La Land, and a Reese Witherspoon-produced comedy show. “While the reviews have so far been dismal, they have launched their own original content,” said Munster.In music, too, Apple has missed a beat. Its success with Apple Music comes after five years of struggle that led it to rebrand Beats Music as Apple Music and follow Spotify and others as consumers showed more willingness to pay for music on a subscription basis than by the track.A future in which Apple offers video, music and publishing content at $15 a month is probable, Munster says. Like Amazon – or Netflix – Apple sees rich sources of future revenue from subscriptions to content in the cloud.At the Beacon on Monday, Apple learned – as it did when it automatically inserted a free U2 album into customers’ iTunes libraries – that not everyone is grateful for its sponsorship.When Smith thanked Apple during her performance, her gratitude was met with boos. The singer deftly sidestepped the issue, retorting that maybe one of the hecklers needed the bathroom. “I normally just piss in a can or dig a hole,” she added before launching into her Radio Ethiopia track “Pissing in a River”. Topics Apple Apple Music US press and publishing Amazon news

Good morning, here are our early stories:-- Modest Wage Gains In February As Economy Adds Robust 313,000 Jobs.-- White House Acknowledges Trump Ties To Stormy Legal Battle Over Alleged Affair.-- U.S. Signs Off On Tariffs, Angering Trade Partners.-- Obama In Talks To Produce Shows For Netflix, Report Says. -- ISIS Claims Responsibility For Deadly Attack Aimed At Afghan Hazaras.And here are more early headlines:Paralympics Open Today In South Korea. (USA Today)Former Hedge Fund Manager Shkreli To Be Sentenced. (Washington Post)Female Firefighter To Be Forest Service Interim Chief. (AP)Ryan Bundy To Run For Nevada Governor As Independent. (Review-Journal)Frida Kahlo Descendant Disputes Barbie Doll In Her Image. (AP)Halfway Point At Alaska's Iditarod Sled Dog Race. (Anchorage Daily News)

通用电气公司(General Electric Co., GE)股价周一再遭打击，投资者担心这家昔日“蓝筹股中的蓝筹股”将在巨大挑战面前被迫削减派息。在上周五通用电气公布令人失望的利润数字并下调业绩预期之后，至少六位分析师下调了通用电气的股票评级或未来一年的目标价。通用电气新任首席执行长John Flannery坦言当季业绩令人无法接受，并表示将评估公司每股24美分的季度派息计划。Flannery的表态迫使许多投资者和分析师重估通用电气的盈利能力、销售增速，以及通过股息和股票回购向股东返还现金的能力。...

Unions offer “empty promises and unrealistic expectations” and don’t act with “integrity”, according to internal documents circulated by Verizon’s human resources department and obtained by the Guardian.In documents given to managers and employees the US’s largest wireless provider encourages its own staff to use anti-union rhetoric and disparages previous unionization efforts within the company.Several pages focus on the six Verizon retail stores in Brooklyn that voted to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in 2014, the first Verizon stores to unionize. The union battles at these stores are used to frame unions as a danger to Verizon and its workers.“The employees in Brooklyn were highly influenced into voting for the CWA,” the documents allege. “They were swayed by a good sales pitch through empty promises and unrealistic expectations. Unfortunately, the union does not have to sell with integrity, and it was our Brooklyn employees who paid the price.”“Before you sign anything or even click ‘submit’ online, think hard about joining a union and remember the story of your Brooklyn workers,” the document continues.Verizon pushed for a union decertification vote in their Brooklyn stores, which workers voted against doing in August 2018.In a ‘Questions you may have’ section, Verizon offers further input against unions. The answers claim “the best way to secure jobs is to provide excellent products, services, and customer service,” rather than join a labor union.Verizon also criticized a 2016 strike of workers at their Brooklyn retail stores and nearly 40,000 other unionized employees who work as network technicians and customer service reps, citing its impact on “working conditions for our employees and experience for our customers”.The documents further explain Verizon’s anti-union position. “We don’t believe unions are necessary at Verizon Wireless or that you or your coworkers will be well served by electing a union as your collective voice.” Verizon argues the only difference between unions and non-union-represented employees are the dues union members pay. Verizon defines a union as “an organization whose income comes from taking a portion of the wages from the employees it represents”.Verizon added: “Instead of treating employees as individuals, the company has to negotiate with the union on behalf of all employees collectively.” The documents claim union representation has declined because state and federal labor laws protect workers free of charge.The internal Verizon website, marked “for Verizon Wireless management only, not for distribution to non-supervisory employees”, offers leadership training on how to react to any employees who mention or discuss unionizing.The prompts resemble those offered to Amazon employees in an HR training video leaked in September 2018.The website includes union awareness refreshers and responses to any perceived CWA organizing and union activity, including responses to union flyers on call center closures and offshoring.Verizon has run into trouble for previous attempts to ward off union activity. In December 2018, Verizon finalized a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board after the CWA filed a unfair labor practice charge in response to a Verizon employee in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who experienced interrogation and surveillance by Verizon for engaging in union activity.“When I noticed the change in structure at Verizon, that made me want to start unionizing and organizing two years ago when I took a different position to work at headquarters,” said LaTasha French, an employee for 18 years at the Verizon headquarters in Irving, Texas.She claimed Verizon has sent union busters to harass her, give her misinformation and offer false promises, like the possibility to work from home. French added the way Verizon human resources had handled complaints of harassment she had made, which included a supervisor joyriding in the wheelchair the company provided for her, had also contributed to her involvement in union efforts.“I’m not afraid to go up against them because I know I do my job. I know I’m there and available,” French said. “But what I won’t stand for is you’re making billions of dollars on our head and you treat us as modern-day slaves and uneducated. You’re trying to consolidate other departments and you’re not giving the people who take these additional duties any more pay.”In July 2018, a Verizon retail store in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, successfully voted to unionize. Verizon’s union-busting tactics stopped an effort to hold an election to unionize in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, around the same time.“We ended up pulling the petition,” said Darryl Givens, a Verizon employee at the Wilkes-Barre store. “If we lost, we had to wait a year. It was initially five to four. Two people didn’t want to be involved at all.”He explained Verizon sent executives to the store in response to union activity. “The first thing they do is come and say how awful the union will be for us and if we go union, they can’t do anything special for you. They would come out and, not directly, say ‘unions, sometimes their stores sometimes get closed,’ trying to entice us in any way to vote no,” Givens said. “They would call us in, do forced meetings with us, and go over how awful unions are. Every few days we’d get rotated back in.”According to Tim Dubnau, an organizing coordinator for the CWA, this is the modus operandi of Verizon in response to any perceived union activity.“They distort the truth about unions, they imply union workers make less, they distort the truth about dues and strikes. That’s the union busting 101 when you walk into the door,” said Dubnau. “They have a jump team ready at a moment’s notice to have a forced captive audience meeting to warn about the dangers of unions.”Verizon did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Topics Verizon Communications US unions Telecommunications industry news

Congratulations to those of you who managed to purchase Apple’s latest designer rectangle, the iPhone X. Hopefully while you were buying your new phone, you either purchased AppleCare, Apple’s extended-warranty service, or a very sturdy case.If you didn’t, you might want to put your phone down somewhere safe and run back to the Apple store. It turns out the iPhone X, which is apparently quite fragile, costs an absolute fortune to fix—on top of the fortune it costs to buy one.Replacing a cracked screen without AppleCare on the iPhone X will set you back $279, according to Apple’s servicing website. Fixing any other damage to the phone—which includes breaking the glass on the back of the device, Quartz confirmed with an AppleCare representative—costs a whopping $549. That’s the same price as a new iPhone 7.Somewhat mercifully, those costs drop to $29 and $99 respectively, if you buy AppleCare for the phone. And if you purchased your iPhone through the iPhone Upgrade Program, the cost of AppleCare is included in your monthly payments.

Two of the most intriguing questions in US national political discourse – what does the special counsel Robert Mueller have on Donald Trump, and what more is he looking for? – were filled in at a remarkable pace this week, as details of highly sensitive documents and internal Trump Organization emails became public for the first time.Taken together, the documents could indicate that the special counsel is looking seriously at whether Trump committed an obstruction of justice on potentially various fronts, legal experts say.Certain additional documents whose existence was revealed for the first time – meeting notes taken by the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and a letter of intent reportedly signed by Trump to build a tower in Moscow – seemed to undercut previous statements by the president, his son and others about relationships now under the scrutiny of Mueller’s team.Mueller is charged with investigating alleged ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russian operatives, and he is believed to be examining the past financial relationships of Trump, Manafort and others.The Wall Street Journal revealed this week that Trump lawyers had submitted memos to Mueller arguing that the president did not obstruct justice by firing the former FBI director James Comey. Those memos were probably not written in a vacuum, said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and legal commentator.“One important implication that you can draw from the fact that they sent the memo is that they believe that Mueller is seriously looking at obstruction,” Mariotti said. “They would not send that memo otherwise.” In any obstruction of justice case against Trump, Mueller might also review reports from this week that Trump had directly contacted the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee after it was announced that Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, was scheduled to speak with the committee, said Mariotti. Mueller might additionally review this week’s report that before pardoning the Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, Trump asked the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, whether it would be possible to drop federal criminal charges against Arpaio. “I think that all goes into the same bucket of things that could be used by Mueller if he’s looking at obstruction of justice,” said Mariotti. The documents were still flowing on Friday afternoon, with a New York Times report that Mueller was in possession of a draft letter explaining Trump’s rationale for firing Comey. The draft was reportedly written by Trump and an aide, Stephen Miller, but rejected by the White House counsel, on unknown grounds. Trump has said he fired Comey while experiencing frustration at the FBI investigation of his campaign’s alleged Russia ties and at Comey’s refusal to publicly exculpate Trump. The firing ironically hastened the appointment of a special counsel, under whom the investigation has expanded.Former US attorneys judged the draft letter and its possession by Mueller as significant. “Logical assumption: If WH Counsel wouldn’t let him send it, [Trump] had improper if not illegal motives for firing FBI Director Comey,” wrote Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor in Birmingham, Alabama, and now a University of Alabama law professor.“Hard to assess significance without knowing the actual contents of the draft firing letter and why WH counsel vetoed it. But can’t be good,” wrote Preet Bharara, the former US attorney for the southern district of New York and now a professor at New York University’s law school.Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the defense department, tweeted that a “big implication” of the draft letter’s existence was that Miller, the aide who helped Trump draft the letter, is “perhaps implicated in conspiracy to obstruct justice”.Other documents revealed a changing narrative in Trump campaign contacts with Russian agents. The Washington Post reported Monday that during the campaign, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen wrote an email to an aide to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, asking for help with a real estate deal.It was further revealed that early on in the presidential campaign, Trump signed a non-binding letter of intent to build a tower in Moscow, Cohen confirmed in a statement to ABC News. Trump claimed during the campaign that he “knows nothing about Russia” and had “no loans” and “no deals” there.In a separate incident, Manafort took notes, since obtained by Mueller, about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower arranged by Trump Jr, who expressed eagerness to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton, NBC News reported on Friday.Manafort’s notes reportedly referred to political contributions and to the “RNC”, or Republican National Committee. The president personally dictated a statement released by Trump Jr saying the meeting “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children”, the Washington Post reported in July.The details of any Trump deal or debt with a Russian connection, if any exist, are not publicly known – but yet another headline this week indicated that Mueller may have gained insight on the subject. According to a Daily Beast report on Thursday, the special counsel has enlisted the help of agents from the criminal investigation unit of the Internal Revenue Service.“I think he got everybody’s tax returns,” said Mariotti, now a defense attorney at Thompson Coburn in Chicago. “I have no professional, personal knowledge of it, but when you’re looking at someone for something unrelated to taxes, still to get tax return information is very valuable information that tells you a lot of valuable things: who owes them money, who they owe money to, and where they keep their money.” Topics Donald Trump Robert Mueller Trump administration US politics US justice system Russia James Comey news

Then came the allegation of sexual harassment brought by Professor Hill, and everything changed. It is not that Hill wasn’t credible, but it was that Thomas was on the defensive and the image of yet another black man under attack from a group of white men had an eerie echo of King under assault from the L.A.P.D.The hearings that followed, including compelling, credible testimony from Hill and the demeaning way in which she was treated, was extraordinary, must-see television. One poll taken after the hearings by this newspaper found that “nine of 10 people said they had seen at least part of the hearings.”Then, Thomas provoked blacks to circle the wagons when he declared the hearings a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves.” He continued: “And it is a message, that unless you kowtow to an old order you will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”After the hearings, The Chicago Tribune reported on an ABC News-Washington Post poll that showed support for Thomas’s confirmation had actually risen to 56 percent. But as the paper pointed out:Thomas’s support was strongest among blacks, with 70 percent backing his nomination; 50 percent of whites support him. Another weekend poll, conducted by The Los Angeles Times, said 51 percent overall believed the Senate should confirm Thomas, down from 54 percent in September. But when broken down by race, the figures showed 61 percent of blacks backed Thomas’s confirmation, up from 55 percent in September, while only 50 percent of whites said he should be confirmed.Black people, to their everlasting regret, backed Thomas, as did the Senate, over Hill’s warnings.This time, that racial element is absent. The Republicans on the committee, those likely to be hostile to Ford, are all still white men. Ford and Kavanaugh are both white.This is a much more focused battle of testimonies. Either a boy assaulted a girl or he didn’t. Either an older child took advantage of a younger one, or he didn’t.One of these people is lying and in this collision of gender narratives, women will not have to struggle with the choice that black people did. If they believe Ford, they can simply say #metoo.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

They were supposed to usher in the next great disruption in Indian banking.However, three years after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granted in-principle payments bank licences to a bunch of entities, the sector is struggling to come into its own. While a few of those who got the central bank’s nod have completely dropped out, the remaining haven’t gone much far either.Payments banks are organisations that accept deposits of up to Rs1 lakh ($1,456) each but are not allowed to lend.The reasons for their limited impact till now vary from a recent ban on accepting new customers and the imposition of certain penalties to sluggish deposit collection and delayed launches. While profitability pressures were always expected, stringent know-your-customer (KYC) norms and a competitive banking ecosystem, too, have derailed growth, experts say.In August 2015, the banking regulator cleared 11 organisations for setting up payments banks. The idea was to introduce more un-banked or under-banked Indians to formal channels.In the following months, though, Tech Mahindra, Cholamandalam Finance, and the Dilip Shanghvi-IDFC Bank-Telenor joint venture, dropped out. Both Vodafone and Idea had secured approvals, but following their merger, it is likely that Vodafone may surrender the licence.Paytm, Fino, Idea, and Airtel went ahead and launched operations. India Post, the government postal service, is set to kickstart its business later this month. Reliance Jio did a limited launch for its employees this April. National Securities Depository Limited, country’s oldest and largest depository, the last in the race, is expected to join the fray later this year.Last year, Airtel Payments Bank was forbidden from adding new customers for a few months after it was revealed that it had violated certain norms by opening accounts without customers’ consent.Now, Paytm and Fino Payments banks are also in a similar soup.Recently, the central bank declared that the KYC done by these firms before launching their respective banks won’t be valid. This has increased operational costs. “Customer acquisition has become even more difficult now. Earlier it was easy to get customers on-board as the KYC level was really basic. But now things have changed,” said a former executive at a payments bank, requesting anonymity.The competition has turned even more fierce, and not just from rivals.The Narendra Modi government launched the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana in 2014, a financial inclusion scheme aimed at providing bank accounts to all Indians. Since its launch, over 322 million accounts have been opened under the scheme, covering 99.7% of Indian households, government estimates show. So a large section of the unbanked population is already covered by now, narrowing payments banks’ scope.Meanwhile, the evolving digital payments ecosystem has also thrown a spanner in their works.Earlier, payments bank customers were expected to start off with basic digital transactions with payments banks, and graduate to more complex banking, including loans and investments, in the long run. Digital transactions were also expected to reduce their costs.However, with the coming of the government’s Unified Payments Interface and the entry of several other payment firms, the digital edge has been lost. Even existing banks have upped the ante online. And all of them are vying for the same customer pie.“The whole premise of differentiated banking can be questioned now,” believes Ashvin Parekh who runs an advisory services firm and had also helped select payment bank to chalk up their plans. “A lot has changed since the time these banks were first envisioned in 2013-2014.”Certain things that were taken for granted during the planning stage have not come true, added Parekh. For instance, it was assumed that telecom players will have a ready user base which they can turn into their bank customer base. That hasn’t worked out so far.One of the most important concerns is that these banks are not allowed to lend and, therefore, the revenue stream is limited, raising serious doubts over the model’s viability. Also, they are allowed to invest only in government securities which offer lesser returns compared to other avenues such as mutual funds.“The offering is very niche and doesn’t cover the whole gambit of banking services. Therefore, even after a customer has opened an account at a payments banks, they may need to go to another full-service bank to meet some of their banking needs,” Kalpesh Mehta, partner at auditing firm Deloitte India, explained. “Therefore, the appeal is limited.”The next leg of growth for payments banks may now come only by acquiring merchants, explain analysts. But this will require significant investments. Since profitability remains elusive, many may not be keen to pump in more funds at this point.The jury is still out on whether the business is losing out. But clearly, it won’t be an easy ride.

The international community will gather on Tuesday to try to raise more than $4bn to help alleviate the suffering and famine caused by Yemen’s civil war, but will find itself heavily dependent on three combatants in the conflict – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the US – to reach its fundraising target for 2019.The $4.2bn (£3.2bn) target for 2019 – the largest sum sought for any single year since the start of the civil war in 2015 and an increase of 33 % on last year – will be the focus of an all-day pledging conference in Geneva.Yemen has been gripped by hunger since conflict broke out between Iranian-supported Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition supporting the UN-backed Yemen government.The Geneva conference chaired by the UN secretary-general António Guterres comes at a potentially critical inflection point in the conflict, as a UN-brokered phased troop withdrawal agreement – agreed in principle in Stockholm in December – is due to be implemented on the ground for the first time this week. The withdrawals are set to occur in three ports, including the key Red Sea port of Hodeidah.The summit comes after reports that delays to scheduled withdrawals of Houthi troops had led to clashes between the two sides in southern Hodeidah, something that would represent a setback to the Stockholm agreement.The UN says about 20 million people need help to secure food this year in Yemen, including nearly 10 million who are just a step away from famine. Nearly 240,000 are facing “catastrophic levels of hunger”, it says.Last week Mark Lowcock, the UN coordinator for humanitarian relief, told the UN security council: “Among the many challenges the aid operation faces, funding is quickly becoming the biggest. We expect current resources to be used up by the end of March – just six weeks from now”. More than 250 humanitarian organisations are operating in the country.Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) announced at the weekend it would provide a further £200m in 2019, taking its total aid donations to £800m since the civil war started.But it is calculated that in 2018 nearly 60% of the aid to alleviate suffering in Yemen came from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US, the three countries most active in helping the UN-recognised government of Yemen to defeat an Iranian-supported insurgency run by the Houthis.They are likely to be the dominant donors again this year, highlighting the paradox that those leading the aerial bombing campaign are doing most to alleviate some of its consequences.In a statement ahead of the Geneva conference, Unicef’s Middle East and North Africa director, Geert Cappelaere, said: “Not enough has changed for children in Yemen since the Stockholm agreement on 13 December 2018. Every day since, eight children have been killed or injured. Most of the children killed were playing outdoors with their friends or were on their way to or from school.“Mind-boggling violence over the past four years, high levels of poverty; and decades of conflicts, neglect and deprivation are putting a heavy strain on Yemeni society, tearing apart its social fabric – fundamental for any society and especially for children.”Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said: “Yemenis need much more than just money. They need an end to interference in aid delivery, a lifting of the blockade, all ports and airports reopened, public services restored, and a nationwide ceasefire so that talks can bring an end to the conflict.”Yemen’s prime minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed said on Monday that his government was appealing to the international community for support in achieving a just and comprehensive peace.“The war in Yemen will not end until the Houthis are defeated, we hope that the humanitarian agencies will deal impartially with the situation in the country,” Saeed said during a meeting in Geneva ahead of the donor conference. Topics Aid Yemen Middle East and North Africa Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates news

By Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung and Amanda Becker WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fighting to salvage his U.S. Supreme Court nomination, Brett Kavanaugh angrily denied on Thursday a university professor’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her 36 years ago in a day of dramatic testimony that gripped the country. Christine Blasey Ford, her voice sometimes cracking with emotion, appeared in public for the first time to detail her allegation against Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge chosen by President Donald Trump for a lifetime job on the top U.S. court. Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee she feared Kavanaugh would rape and accidentally kill her during the alleged assault in 1982, when both were high school students in Maryland. She said she was “100 percent certain” it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her. Kavanaugh testified after Ford finished her appearance, claiming he was the victim of “grotesque and obvious character assassination” orchestrated by Senate Democrats. He said he “unequivocally and categorically” denied Ford’s allegation and vowed he would not back down. “I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process,” Kavanaugh added. Although they were at no point in the hearing room together, the clash pitted his word against hers. The almost nine hours of intensely emotional testimony came against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault and had millions of Americans riveted to their TV screens and smart phones. Ford has emerged in the eyes of many American women as a compelling figure in the #MeToo movement that is usually associated less with the names of victims and more with a list of high-profile men accused of misconduct. It was not clear, however, if the drama changed the views of any senators. The Senate, controlled 51-49 by Trump’s fellow Republicans, must now decide whether to vote to confirm Kavanaugh after the extraordinary nearly nine-hour hearing. Four senators — Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake along with Democrat Joe Manchin — are seen as possible swing voters whose decisions will determine whether Kavanaugh is approved or rejected. Kavanaugh was nominated by President Donald Trump and his confirmation would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court with disputes over abortion rights, immigration, gay rights, voting rights and transgender troops possibly heading toward the justices soon. The Judiciary Committee, on which Republicans hold an 11-10 majority, was to meet on Friday morning and several senators said they expected it to vote then. The full Senate could vote within days. Writing on Twitter after the hearing, Trump said of Kavanaugh: “His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting. Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!” Kavanaugh at times choked back tears, especially when he mentioned that his daughter suggested they pray for Ford, when he spoke of his father and when he mentioned women friends who had rallied to support him. Kavanaugh sharply attacked Democratic senators, calling himself the victim of “a calculated and orchestrated political hit” fueled by anger on the left at Trump’s 2016 election win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, his conservative judicial record, and revenge on behalf of Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. “I swear today, under oath, before the Senate and the nation, before my family and God, I am innocent of this charge,” Kavanaugh told the Judiciary Committee. Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, said over four hours of testimony that a drunken Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing at a gathering of teenagers when he was 17 years old and she was 15. “With what degree of certainty do you believe Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you?” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin asked Ford. “One hundred percent,” she replied, remaining firm and unruffled even under questioning by a sex crimes prosecutor hired by the committee’s Republicans. When Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein asked her if it could be a case of mistaken identity, as Kavanaugh and some Republican senators have suggested, Ford replied: “Absolutely not” . U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 27, 2018. REUTERS/Jim BourgMurkowski, one of the three moderate Republican senators who have not announced whether or not they will support Kavanaugh, told Reuters: “I find Dr. Ford’s testimony to be credible.” For his part, Kavanaugh testified he was “100 percent certain” none of the alleged incidents of sexual misconduct occurred. Democrats lauded Ford’s testimony as credible, brave and, in the words of Senator Cory Booker, “nothing short of heroic.” “I want to thank you for your courage. And I want to tell you I believe you. ... And I believe many Americans across the country believe you,” Democratic Senator Kamala Harris said. While some Republicans and Trump have called the allegations by Ford and the two other women part of a smear campaign, Ford told the committee she had no political motivation, adding: “I am an independent person and I am no one’s pawn.” Ford was seated at a table in the packed hearing room flanked by her lawyers, facing a bank of senators. She told the senators she was “terrified” to testify but felt it was her civic duty to come forward. “Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was very inebriated and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothing. I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help,” Ford said, adding that Kavanaugh and a friend of his, Mark Judge, were “drunkenly laughing during the attack.” Democratic senators sought to score political points during their five minutes apiece of questioning Ford. The panel’s Republican senators, all men, did not question her, assigning that task to Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor. While Mitchell probed Ford’s account looking for gaps, her questioning seemed disjointed. She took turns with the Democratic senators to ask questions in five-minute segments, disrupting her flow. During Kavanaugh’s testimony, Republican senators sidelined Mitchell and asked their own questions. The bitter fight over Kavanaugh’s nomination is unfolding just weeks before the Nov. 6 congressional elections in which Democrats are trying to seize majority control of Congress from the Republicans. It has also deepened the country’s political polarization. Kavanaugh, sitting alone at the witness table, said he wanted to testify as soon as Ford’s allegation emerged last week and was not surprised other allegations followed. “In those 10 long days, as was predictable and as I predicted, my family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false additional accusations,” he said, as his wife sat behind him. Kavanaugh repeatedly tangled with Democratic senators, interrupting several of them, including Feinstein and Amy Klobuchar, during testy exchanges. When Klobuchar asked him about his teenage drinking, he threw the question back at her, asking her whether she had ever been blackout drunk. He later apologized for the question. Kavanaugh was careful not to denounce Ford, noting he wished her “no ill will.” He said he was not questioning that Ford may have been sexually assaulted by someone in some place at some time, but that he had never assaulted her or anyone else. Some Democrats have called on Kavanaugh to withdraw in light of the allegations. At the hearing, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham castigated Democratic senators, seeking to rally Republicans not to abandon the nominee. “This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics,” Graham said. Ford said Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming during the assault. She added: “This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.” Her strongest memory of the incident, Ford said, was the “uproarious laughter between the two (Kavanaugh and Judge) and their having fun at my expense.” She said the laughter had haunted her ever since. Two other women, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in the 1980s. Slideshow (14 Images)Ramirez accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself during a drunken dormitory party during the 1983-84 academic year when both attended Yale University. Swetnick said she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh and others to get girls drunk at parties so they could be raped. She said Kavanaugh was present at a 1982 party where she was raped. Trump, who has himself faced accusations of sexual misconduct, chose Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired effective in July. Reporting by Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung and Amanda Becker; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Makini Brice, Steve Holland, David Morgan and Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham, Kevin Drawbaugh and Peter CooneyOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.