Month: July 2020

The man accused of carrying out last weekend’s deadly mass shooting at a Walmart in the Texas border city of El Paso confessed to officers while he was surrendering and later explained that he had been targeting Mexicans, authorities say.

Patrick Crusius, 21, emerged with his hands up from a vehicle that was stopped at an intersection shortly after last Saturday’s attack and told officers, "I’m the shooter," Detective Adrian Garcia said in an arrest warrant affidavit.

Crusius later waived his Miranda rights and agreed to speak with detectives, telling them he entered the store with an AK-47 assault rifle and multiple magazines, and that he was targeting Mexicans.

Twenty-two people were killed and about two dozen were injured. Most of the dead had Hispanic last names and eight were Mexican nationals.

Authorities believe that shortly before the attack, Crusius posted a racist screed online that railed against an influx of Hispanics into the US The document parrots some of President Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric about immigration, but the writer said his views predate Trump’s rise and that any attempt to blame the president for his actions was "fake news."

Many El Paso residents, protesters and Democrats have blasted Trump over his incendiary words, blaming Trump for inflaming political and racial tensions throughout the country. Trump has denied stoking division and violence, contending this week that he "brings people together. Our country is doing incredibly well."

Authorities say Crusius drove more than 10 hours from his hometown near Dallas to carry out the shooting in the largely Latino border city of El Paso. An attorney for the Crusius family, Chris Ayres, told The Associated Press that the rest of the family never heard Patrick Crusius use the kind of racist and anti-immigrant language that was posted in the online screed.

Crusius has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bond. Federal prosecutors have said they are also considering hate-crime charges.

The attack came hours before another mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, in which nine people were killed. The dual shootings, which killed 31 people in all and wounded dozens more, reignited calls for Congress to take immediate action to reduce gun violence.

Trump said on Friday that he believes he has influence to rally Republicans around stronger federal background check laws. But at the same time, Trump said he had assured the National Rifle Association that its gun rights views would be "fully represented and respected."

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Russian media hailed as a national hero a pilot who successfully landed an Airbus A321 with over 200 people passengers in a corn field after the aircraft ‘s engines were shutdown by a flock of birds. 

The incident drew immediate comparisons the 2009 landing of an Airbus A320 aircraft on the Hudson River by pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who saw his story fuel a late night talk show campaign and a movie starring Tom Hanks, called “Sully.” 

The Russian Ministry of Health reported that 23 people sustained injuries during the landing, which was conducted with landing gear down and engines turned off. Videos on social media of the field show a lengthy divet in the landscape dug out by the plane when it hit the dirt. 

“Those who know the captain that emergency landed the Airbus A321 in a corn field, Damir Yusupov, speak with one voice: this feat is absolutely in character,” the Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid said in their story on Thursday. 

On Twitter, another tabloid, Komsomolskaya Pravda, posted a photo of Yusupov and wrote glowingly that “today he saved 233 when masterfully landing the plane without landing gear and a failed engine right on a corn field. Thank you, hero.”

Это пилот Дамир Юсупов, сегодня он спас 233 жизни, сумев мастерски посадить самолёт без шасси с отказавшим двигателем прямо на кукурузном поле 👏👏 Спасибо, герой 💪 pic.twitter.com/y6Y7c0lLKX

— Комсомольская правда (@kpru) August 15, 2019

State television called the manoeuvre “the miracle over Ramensk”.

The Kremlin said it will bestow state awards on two pilots. "We congratulate the hero pilots who saved people’s lives," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The happy ending to what could have been another major Russian civilian airline disaster underscores an unsettling safety record hanging over the Russian airline industry. Though things have notably improved since the Soviet era, the statistics are bleak. 

Russia has the worst air safety record in the former Soviet Union. A 2018 report by a regional air safety authority found that 42 of 58 crashes that year in former Soviet states took place in Russia. It also found that 75 per cent of those accidents could be attributed to pilot error. 

Pilot training in Russia has been under sharp scrutiny since a fiery crash landing of a Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in May that killed 41 people. Officials were quick to question decisions made by the pilot that may have exacerbated the crash.

 

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Incensed Bali officials have warned that misbehaving tourists will be sent home or face purification rituals after a Czech couple filmed themselves splashing each other with holy water from a temple on the Indonesian holiday island.

The Balinese authorities appear to have finally run out of patience after a recent spate of tourist misdemeanours that has included an Australian fly-kicking a man off a motorbike and a Russian visitor who tried to smuggle out a drugged baby orangutan.

The latest incident has caused particular outrage as it took place in a temple in Bali’s Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud, a popular attra ction for the millions of tourists drawn to the island’s tropical beaches and lively nightlife.

In a now deleted video by Czech Instagram influencers, Zdenek Slouka is shown lifting up the skirt of his girlfriend Sabina Dolezalova and splashing water on her bottom.

In the ensuing public backlash, Wayan Koster, the island’s governor, said the local government would step up its role in protecting holy sites.

“In the future, if there are tourists behaving like that we should just send them home, they are being disorderly coming to Bali. We will give them this warning,” Mr Koster said in a statement.

The contrite couple tried to make amends on Thursday by taking part in a ritual purification ceremony where they wore traditional clothes and touched pressed hands to their heads as a show of respect.

"I’m really glad that we had the opportunity to purify this place and now I would like to say thank you to all the Balinese people because they were very kind to us," Mr Slouka said afterwards.

Arya Wedakarna, a local senator, suggested the ritual could be made compulsory in future for tourist gaffes.

“They made a mistake sullying our island," he told AFP. "Anyone who violates our traditions must take part in a purification ritual," he added.

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A Mexican court has granted two people the right to carry and use cocaine, though not to buy or sell it, an anti-prohibition organisation has said.

The rulings, the first of their kind in Mexico, would allow the petitioners to "possess, transport and use cocaine," non-profit Mexicans United Against Crime (MUAC), which has for years lobbied for an end to Mexico’s "war on drugs". 

The government crackdown on drug trafficking has seen hundreds of thousands of people killed since it began in 2007, and all drug use is criminalised. 

The amparos – legal tools that grant individuals freedom from arrest – were granted to two individuals whose names were not made public. 

They are similar to those won by people for the recreational use and cultivation of marijuana, granted by the country’s supreme court on the basis of the "right to the free development of the personality."  

The court decision has to be approved by a higher court to come into effect.

The ruling will only take effect if they side with the original decision, and would only apply to the two people who brought the cases.

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"This case represents another step in the fight to construct alternative drug policies that allow (Mexico) to redirect its security efforts and better address public health," MUAC said in a statement.

"We have spent years working for a more secure, just and peaceful Mexico. This case is about insisting on the need to stop criminalizing… drug users and designing better public policies that explore all the available options," said the group’s director, Lisa Sanchez.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican president, announced soon after taking office in December last year that he planned to move towards a non-prohibitionist model on drugs, with a plan to decriminalise their use, if not production. 

His National Development Plan, announced earlier this year, said “the prohibition strategy is unsustainable, not only because of violence that has been generated but because of the damage to public health.” 

Few expected this position to impact anything but marijuana and the recent court decision came as a surprise to observers.

Jaime Lopez, a former government security official and now independent analyst, told The Daily Telegraph that lobbyists are playing a dangerous game.

“It’s a dangerous stunt that may end up emboldening and galvanizing prohibitionists,” he said.

“These people have managed to draw and equivalence between marijuana and cocaine. Nobody can defend cocaine. It’s harmful, non-indigenous, associated with a lot of violence. By using the same reasoning as for marijuana, they are essentially reinforcing the message that to stop marijuana is to stop all drugs.”

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 An Israeli teenager was killed and her father and brother were injured by a Palestinian bomb near a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Israeli officials said.

The family was visiting a spring in a popular hiking area when an improvised explosive device (IED) blew up, the Israeli military and paramedics said.

The Israeli military said it was being treated as a terrorist attack. It was not immediately clear if the device had been planted in advance or thrown.

Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service confirmed that 17-year-old Rina Shnerb had died at the scene and said her father and brother – named by Israeli media as Rabbi David Eitan, 46, and 21-year-old Dvir – were in serious condition.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent condolences to the family and said security forces were pursuing the attackers, adding: "The long arm of Israel reaches all those who seek our lives and will settle accounts with them."

The hilly central region of the West Bank around Dolev is studded with olive groves and orchards.

The area saw clashes last year between Palestinians and Israelis, as Palestinian villagers complained that settlers were trying to take over land, including water sources.

On Friday morning, the Israeli military quickly cordoned off the area around the Ein Bobin spring near the Palestinian village of Deir Ibzi’ while soldiers blocked roads and searched the area.

An Israeli student, Danny Gonen, was killed at the same spring in 2015 in an attack claimed by a group that said it was affiliated with the Islamist group Hamas.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised the latest attack but did not claim responsibility for it, warning Israel not to "assault our Jerusalem and our sacred sites".

In a speech in Gaza he said: "I bless this operation and I greet the hands of those who executed it. I pray for God to protect those who stood behind it. Regardless of who they are, they are Palestinians."

teenager was killed and her father and brother were injured by a Palestinian bomb near a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Israeli officials said.

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The family was visiting a spring in a popular hiking area when an improvised explosive device (IED) blew up, the Israeli military and paramedics said.

The Israeli military said it was being treated as a terrorist attack. It was not immediately clear if the device had been planted in advance or thrown.

Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service confirmed that 17-year-old Rina Shnerb had died at the scene and said her father and brother – named by Israeli media as Rabbi David Eitan, 46, and 21-year-old Dvir – were in serious condition.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent condolences to the family and said security forces were pursuing the attackers, adding: "The long arm of Israel reaches all those who seek our lives and will settle accounts with them."

The hilly central region of the West Bank around Dolev is studded with olive groves and orchards.

The area saw clashes last year between Palestinians and Israelis, as Palestinian villagers complained that settlers were trying to take over land, including water sources.

On Friday morning, the Israeli military quickly cordoned off the area around the Ein Bobin spring near the Palestinian village of Deir Ibzi’ while soldiers blocked roads and searched the area.

An Israeli student, Danny Gonen, was killed at the same spring in 2015 in an attack claimed by a group that said it was affiliated with the Islamist group Hamas.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised the latest attack but did not claim responsibility for it, warning Israel not to "assault our Jerusalem and our sacred sites".

In a speech in Gaza he said: "I bless this operation and I greet the hands of those who executed it. I pray for God to protect those who stood behind it. Regardless of who they are, they are Palestinians."

Assaults on police officers, firefighters and ambulance crews have reached record levels in France, now averaging 110 a day amid unprecedented public hostility to the security forces.

Assailants pretending to be accident victims in need of urgent help have often ambushed police officers and firefighters.

About 30 attackers hurled stones at firefighters as they tackled a blazing vehicle in the Paris suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie on Saturday.

Forced to retreat, the firefighters abandoned equipment and could not put out the blaze until a police escort was provided 45 minutes later.

More than 23,000 assaults against security forces, firefighters and ambulance crews have been recorded this year, a 15-per-cent rise from the same period in 2018.

Violence against police officers has increased by more than 60 per cent in less than 20 years. 

The Yellow Vest anti-government protests have raised tensions and fuelled animosity towards the police. Senior officers also blame Islamist radicalisation and the perception in many deprived neighbourhoods that the police are the enemy.

Patrice Ribeiro, secretary-general of the police union Synergie-Officiers, said: “There is no longer any respect for authority and the sense of impunity has increased.”

During three weeks of rioting in mainly immigrant French suburbs in 2005, police were more often verbally abused than assaulted, but officers say physical attacks are now more common.

“The radicalisation of behaviour has today reduced part of the population to savagery,” Mr Ribeiro said.

He condemned liberals for attributing the rise in assaults to police brutality. Another police union official said: “Gangs are now assaulting firefighters and ambulance crews, who are hardly likely to use force, just as often as they attack the police.” 

Attacks against police are also rising in Britain, with about 28 officers being assaulted each day, according to statistics published this month.

There were 10,399 alleged assaults causing injuries last year, a 32-per-cent rise from 7,903 recorded the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The number of police suicides in France has also risen to worrying levels, with 47 so far this year compared with an average of about 20 a year previously.

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Long hours and compulsory overtime to deal with the yellow vest protests and the terrorist threat have taken a toll on family life, officers said. 

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New York City is considering banning sales of foie gras, which has been dismissed by critics as an "anti-snob" move. 

The New York City Council is currently considering legislation that would ban sales of force-fed birds as well as all forms of the rich delicacy made from their engorged livers in the city’s restaurants. 

The bill, which more than half the Council has already backed, could be put forward for a vote in the autumn and would see fines of up to $1,000 (£820) or a year in prison for those who break the ban.

The city’s mayor and Democratic presidential candidate, Bill De Blasio, has also voiced support  for the proposal’s intent. 

If successful, the legislation would effectively ban sales of the luxury food item from one of the country’s largest markets for the product. 

Foie gras is often made by duck and geese having tubes inserted into their  throats, forcing them to consume far more grain than they would naturally eat and fattening their livers by up to 10 times their normal size. 

One of the bill’s advocates, the New York State Humane Association, said the life cycle of American foie gras ducks are "short and agonising in the  final weeks". 

"By their last week, the birds have become so ill that their physical  condition and degree of suffering arguably place them in violation of the  state’s anti-cruelty laws" the group said, adding that the industry represents "a minuscule fraction of New York´s agricultural economy". 

However the proposal has come in for criticism, with opponents suggesting  that lawmakers are guilty of focusing on high-end products while overlooking genuine animal welfare concerns in the food production industry. 

Mark Caro, author of The Foie Gras Wars, questions why the rarefied dish  receives so much attention in comparison to supermarkets’ animal produce. 

“If you try to get people to give up their cheap chicken, you would have a  problem, because it would affect their budgets,” he told the New York  Times. “It’s enjoyed by… people most of this country resents. There’s a  definite anti-snob thing going on,” he said of the move. 

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Carlina Rivera, the council member who put forward the bill, has herself  argued that the product is "purely a luxury item" as she campaigns for the  implementation of a ban. 

Hudson Valley Farm in New York State, America’s largest producer of foie gras, says its product is produced by replicating "the natural gorging  process of migratory waterfowl".

The farm also states that all its ducks are cage-free, to minimise stress and encourage social interaction. 

The Artisan Farmers Alliance, which represents America’s foie gras farmers,  has also argued that ducks do not feel pain because they do not have a gag  reflex and have an insensitive, collagen-lined esophagus. 

New York is not the first US state to consider a ban on the product but a similar law in California has faced a series of hurdles.

The state banned sales in 2012, but a legal challenge saw it overturned in 2015, before being reinstated in 2017. That ban has now been reinforced after the US  Supreme Court declined in January to hear a further appeal by farmers and  chefs. 

A Greek request to borrow the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum would only be considered if Greece acknowledges British ownership of the sculptures, the museum said on Tuesday.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s newly-elected prime minister, wants to borrow the marbles and have them put on display in Athens in 2021 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the start of the war of independence against the Ottoman Empire.

But the request would only be discussed in London if Greece acknowledged the British Museum’s ownership of the 2,500-year-old friezes, which were acquired by Lord Elgin from the Acropolis in the early 19th century.

“A pre-condition for any loan is the acceptance of the lending institution’s ownership,” a British Museum spokesperson told The Telegraph.

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“We feel we have legal title to the sculptures that are in the British Museum collection.

“No museum or gallery in the world would loan objects unless the other institution that was borrowing them accepted ownership. There are conditions. They are not specific to the Marbles – they are a basic condition of all loans, not just for us but for all museums."

Mr Mitsotakis, who was elected as head of a centre-Right government in July, said at the weekend that he would be prepared to loan the British Museum artefacts that have never left Greece, in return for the loan of the friezes, known to Greeks as the Parthenon Marbles.

He said he would put the proposal to Boris Johnson.

But the idea was criticised on Tuesday as “naïve” by Alexis Tsipras, his predecessor as prime minister.

Mr Tsipras, now in opposition, said that Mr Mitsotakis’ “naïve initiative allows the British Museum to appear as the rightful owner” of the sculptures, which have been contested by London and Athens for two centuries.

Rather than asking for a loan, the government “should ask for the permanent return of the Parthenon Marbles…with the support of all of us,” Mr Tsipras, the leader of the centre-Left Syriza party, wrote on Facebook.

Government supporters in turn criticised Mr Tsipras, accusing him of having done little to push for the permanent restitution of the marbles to Athens, which has a museum at the foot of the Parthenon awaiting their return.

Greece’s culture minister said that any loan request should have no bearing on Athens’ insistence that the friezes were stolen by Lord Elgin.

"The Greek position has not changed in any way, simply because we cannot accept the theft," said Lina Mendoni.

"A loan, the prime minister’s proposal to exhibit the sculptures in Athens, is unrelated and does not change our long-standing demand. Rights could not arise from theft.”

The museum said no request had yet been received from the Greek government. “If the request is sent, the trustees would consider it,” the spokesperson said.

Last year the museum lent more than 5,000 objects to other cultural institutions and “collaborates with Greek museums and institutions on a number of projects.”

The sculptures once adorned the Parthenon, which was built on top of the Acropolis in the fifth century BC in honour of the goddess Athena.

The British Museum has consistently ruled out giving back the marbles, saying they were acquired legally and are viewed by millions of visitors a year, free of charge.

“The sculptures in London, sometimes known as the ‘Elgin Marbles’, have been on permanent public display in the British Museum since 1817,” the museum says on its website.

“Here they are seen by a world audience and are actively studied and researched by an international community of scholars, to promote understanding both of ancient Greek culture and its role in the cultures of the world.”

Italy’s new pro-European coalition government was sworn in on Thursday, ending a month-long political crisis and heralding a fresh start for the eurozone’s third-largest economy.

Prime minister Giuseppe Conte and his ministers from the populist Five Star Movement and the centre-Left Democratic Party (PD) raised their hands before President Sergio Mattarella at the 16th century Quirinale Place in Rome.

"We’re ready to give our utmost for the country," said Luigi Di Maio, the Five Star leader who has been appointed foreign minister.

The cabinet includes 10 ministers from the Five Star Movement and nine from the Democratic Party, one from the small left-wing Free and Equals party and a new interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, who has no party affiliation.

She replaces Matteo Salvini, the outspoken, anti-immigration head of the far-Right League party, which had previously governed with Five Star until the coalition collapsed over the summer.

Unlike Mr Salvini, a prolific Twitter user, Ms Lamorgese has no social media accounts and will adopt a much lower profile than her predecessor as she looks to work with Brussels on drawing up new migration rules. 

Mr Salvini was sceptical about how long the new coalition would last. "The government of holding onto positions, of recycled people and European vested interests will not have a long life," he tweeted. 

Mr Salvini is still polling at over 30 percent after his failed bid to force snap elections in August. While the new government won immediate endorsement from Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, Mr Salvini was not the only one to question how long the coalition would last. 

“This government is beginning with several very visible elements of fragility,” said Professor Giovanni Orsina from Rome’s Luiss University. “They are two different parties and each one is divided internally.” 

The new coalition’s priority will be the 2020 budget, which has to be submitted to parliament by the end of September and to Brussels by October 15.

The appointment of European MP, Roberto Gualtieri as finance minister was hailed as "extremely positive, especially for the relationship with the EU" by Lorenzo Codogno, former chief economist at the Italian Treasury Department. 

The previous coalition had fought bitterly with the European Commission over its large budget, and the markets responded positively to the new government.

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The government will not be fully operational until it wins confidence motions in the lower and upper houses of parliament slated for Monday and Tuesday respectively.

Mr Conte is expected to win both votes, but his government will only have a slender majority in the upper house Senate which could come back to haunt him when sensitive legislation is put before the house.

Greenpeace has complained of a disproportional use of force after heavily armed and masked Polish border guards bordered one of the organisation’s vessels moored off the port of Gdansk in a night-time raid.

Video released by the environmental campaign group shows the guards in special-forces-style uniforms and equipped with automatic weapons smashing cabin windows with sledgehammers while ordering the crew to put their hands up and lie on the ground.

The ship, the Rainbow Warrior, has been in Gdansk blocking the unloading of coal from a Mozambique cargo ship. Greenpeace is protesting against Poland’s continued reliance on coal as an energy source. Last year, the group says, Poland imported around 20 million tons of coal despite the environmental costs associated with the fuel.

“We believe that we have the right to peaceful protest, we were in touch with the authorities telling them we are peacefully protesting against the further use of coal,” Katarzyna Guzek, from Greenpeace Poland, told The Telegraph.

“We were very surprised to see armed guards and the disproportionate measures taken against the people on board Rainbow Warrior. We are a peaceful organisation so we were surprised by what happened.”

Marek Jozefiak, a co-ordinator of Greenpeace Poland’s climate and energy campaign, said that it was “unacceptable” that activists had been “threatened with machine guns”.

A border guard commander said that 18 Greenpeace activists were held for questioning after the raid, and sixteen were later released.  The remaining two, including the ship’s captain, a Spanish citizen, were detained as an investigation continued into possible violations of shipping safety regulations.

The Rainbow Warrior had arrived in Gdansk on Monday as part of concerted effort by Greenpeace to draw attention to Poland’s heavy use of coal and to make the country coal-free by 2030.  Poland burns more hard coal than any other EU state and around 80 per cent of Polish electricity is still generated from burning the fossil fuel.

Despite mounting concerns over coal’s contribution to climate change and air pollution in Poland, the Polish government remains committed to the fuel, and has plans to build more coal-fired power stations. 

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