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Homeland Security secretary names independent panel to review Trump assassination attempt

Homeland Security secretary names independent panel to review Trump assassination attempt
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (AP/File)
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Updated 22 July 2024
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Homeland Security secretary names independent panel to review Trump assassination attempt

Homeland Security secretary names independent panel to review Trump assassination attempt
  • The panel will review the policies and procedures of the Secret Service before, during and after the rally on July 13 where a gunman fired at Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania
  • Among the first panel members are former Homeland Security chiefs under the administrations of former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush 
Updated 22 July 2024
AP
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WASHINGTON: US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has appointed a bipartisan, independent panel to review this month’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, officials said Sunday.
The panel members will have “extensive law enforcement and security experience to conduct a 45-day independent review of the planning for and actions taken by the US Secret Service and state and local authorities before, during, and after the rally, and the US Secret Service governing policies and procedures,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The first people named to the panel are former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Frances Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to President George W. Bush; Mark Filip, a former federal judge and deputy attorney general to President George W. Bush; and David Mitchell, former Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security for the state of Delaware.

Additional experts could be asked to join the group in the coming days, the statement said.
The panel will have 45 days to review the policies and procedures of the Secret Service before, during and after the rally on July 13 where a gunman fired at Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“We formed this bipartisan group to quickly identify improvements the US Secret Service can implement to enhance their work. We must all work together to ensure events like July 13 do not happen again,” members of the independent review panel said in a joint statement.
Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle said she welcomes the review.
“I look forward to the panel examining what happened and providing recommendations to help ensure it will never happen again,” Cheatle said in a statement Sunday. “The US Secret Service is continuing to take steps to review our actions internally and remain committed to working quickly and transparently with other investigations, including those by Congress, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.”
Cheatle is set to testify Monday before the House Oversight Committee.

 

 

 

Topics: Donald Trump Alejandro Mayorkas US Secret Service

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China stops foreign adoptions of its children after three decades

China stops foreign adoptions of its children after three decades
Updated 12 sec ago
Reuters
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China stops foreign adoptions of its children after three decades

China stops foreign adoptions of its children after three decades
  • More than 160,000 Chinese children have been adopted by families across the world since 1992
  • It was not immediately clear what would happen to families who were in the process of adopting children from China
Updated 12 sec ago
Reuters
HONG KONG: China will no longer send children overseas for adoption, the government said, overturning a more than three-decade rule that was rooted in its once strict one-child policy.
More than 160,000 Chinese children have been adopted by families across the world since 1992, when China first opened its doors to international adoption.
Around 82,000 of these children, mostly girls, have been adopted in the United States, according to China’s Children International (CCI).
On Thursday, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning said the Chinese government had adjusted its cross-border adoption policy to be “in line” with international trends.
“Apart from the adoption of a child or stepchild of blood relatives of the same generation who are within three generations of foreigners coming to China to adopt, China will not send children abroad for adoption,” Mao said.
“We express our appreciation to those foreign governments and families, who wish to adopt Chinese children, for their good intention and the love and kindness they have shown,” she added.
It was not immediately clear what would happen to families who were in the process of adopting children from China.
The rule change comes as Chinese policymakers struggle to encourage young couples to get married and have children after the population fell for two consecutive years.
China has one of the lowest birth rates globally and has been trying to incentivise young women to have children. Many, however, have been put off by the high cost of childcare, worries over job security and their future outlook as growth in the world’s second largest economy slows.
China implemented a rigorous one-child policy from 1979-2015 to reduce its population. When families were restricted to having only one child, many opted to keep male children, who are traditionally expected to be the main caregivers for their families, and give up females for adoption.
China’s move to halt international adoptions comes after the Netherlands in May banned its citizens from adopting children from foreign countries. In Denmark, people will no longer be able to adopt children from abroad after the only adoption agency said it was stopping operations.

World’s largest indoor ski resort opens in Shanghai as China logs hottest month

World’s largest indoor ski resort opens in Shanghai as China logs hottest month
Updated 25 min 37 sec ago
AFP
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World’s largest indoor ski resort opens in Shanghai as China logs hottest month

World’s largest indoor ski resort opens in Shanghai as China logs hottest month
Updated 25 min 37 sec ago
AFP

Shanghai: Shanghai opened the world’s largest indoor ski resort on Friday, welcoming visitors in snowsuits to its pistes as China reported its hottest August in 60 years.
This year’s northern summer saw the highest global temperatures ever recorded, and in the faux Alpine square where the resort’s opening ceremony took place, the mercury had already hit 30 degrees Celsius by 9:00 am.
But the temperature plummeted to well below zero inside the cavernous atrium, where visitors switched from sunglasses and T-shirts into padded overalls, some opting for designer goggles or flapping bat-winged helmets.
At the top of a piste, snowboarder Jessica Zhang was unfazed by the August heat record.
“When it comes to climate I feel like you get ups and downs in temperature — maybe every few years a hottest year comes along,” she shrugged.
This year is likely to be the Earth’s hottest ever logged, beating the record set in 2023, according to the EU’s climate monitor.
China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, although in recent years it has also emerged as a global leader in renewable energy.
Climate change has affected traditional outdoor skiing destinations, with ice and snow retreating as world temperatures rise.
“In China, it might have more of an effect in the north because of climate change, there are fewer people doing winter sports there... so some of the snow parks just aren’t operating well, they’re shrinking,” said Zhang Jin, a 48-year-old skier.
“Instead, it’s this kind of thing that’s opening up right now, larger indoor ones, which I think is still pretty good.”
Even as the country warms, huge government support and the interest of an expanding middle class have seen the ski industry coast to new heights in China, particularly after Beijing hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The country leads the world when it comes to indoor ski resort building, boasting half of the world’s top ten based on snow area, according to Daxue Consulting.
On Friday, the Shanghai L*SNOW Indoor Skiing Theme Resort was officially certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest, overtaking the previous record-holder — also in China, in northern Harbin.
Modelled like a glacier, the almost 100,000-square-meter snow world towers over coastal Lingang, about 1.5 hours away from the city center.
Inside, a chairlift, cable car, and a green and red “steam train” ferry visitors to the complex’s four ski slopes and other rides.
“There were no ski resorts around Shanghai before and there was no way to practice in the summer. But now I have the opportunity to do it... so I’m quite happy,” snowboarder Cynthia Zhang told AFP before launching herself down the curving white incline.
A Shanghai government report in August acknowledged that such projects “will inevitably consume a lot of energy.”
Resort executive Yin Kang told AFP that to keep the temperature below zero, 72 cooling machines and 33 snow-making machines worked continuously.
The Shanghai government report said the resort was built to maximize energy reuse, through elements such as its ice storage and waste-heat recovery systems.
Over three quarters of the resort’s rooftop is covered in photovoltaics, or solar panels, which helps counteract its carbon footprint, it said.
“We have taken a lot of energy-saving measures,” Yin told AFP.
The resort’s completion has been pushed back several times. Industry media reported its originally planned opening date to be 2019.
Its soft opening period has not been wholly smooth.
The resort said it would add more safety measures after an accident in which a guest claimed a finger was severed, state media reported Wednesday.

Topics: China

Myanmar communists take in liberated elephants as battle against junta rages

Myanmar communists take in liberated elephants as battle against junta rages
Updated 57 min 44 sec ago
AFP
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Myanmar communists take in liberated elephants as battle against junta rages

Myanmar communists take in liberated elephants as battle against junta rages
Updated 57 min 44 sec ago
AFP

MANDALAY: Communist rebels battling Myanmar’s junta have taken in 138 elephants as fighting rages in the jungles and scrubland around Mandalay.
The tuskers have been coming into the rebel camp in twos and threes since July, many led by handlers fleeing the junta-controlled timber camps that employ them.
Others have been taken as spoils in territory captured by the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) as it battles the military and its 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
“We were worried that if no one took control of them, these elephants would fall into the hands of traffickers,” said Ni Ni Kyaw, the general secretary of the CPB’s People’s Liberation Army.
“If these elephants reach the black market or are taken by traffickers, they will have a huge problem,” she told AFP on Thursday.
State timber enterprises in Myanmar are thought to employ around 3,000 elephants, the majority dragging freshly cut trees through the dense jungle to transport hubs and mills.
At one PLA camp last week, around a dozen of the animals knelt in a line alongside their handlers before heading off on a march.
A (CPB) soldier clad in camouflage and carrying a rifle stepped up to the wooden platform on one elephant’s back and the small herd rumbled off into the forest.
In olden times Burmese kings fought their rivals on elephant-back and rode the beasts into battle, according to chronicles.
But Ni Ni Kyaw said it was not certain how the communists would use the animals in their battle against the military.
“We are worried that we are going to lose this treasure of our country, therefore, we will take care of them as best as we can,” she said.
The PLA was providing rice and cooking oil to the elephant handlers — known as mahouts — and their family members, she added.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government and seized power in 2021.
The resulting military crackdown reignited clashes with long-established ethnic minority armed groups, as well as newly formed pro-democracy “People’s Defense Forces.”
The military has lost swaths of territory in northern Shan state and around Mandalay to an alliance of the armed ethnic minority groups and PDFs battling to overturn the coup.
“Even our human beings have many difficulties due to the current fighting and there are a lot of displaced people,” said Ni Ni Kyaw.
“Elephants have big bodies and they eat a lot, so they need a lot of space in the jungle.”
“When the revolution ends one day, we will have a new government and will hand these elephants to the forest department.”

Topics: Myanmar

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NATO chief urges China to stop supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine

NATO chief urges China to stop supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine
Updated 06 September 2024
Reuters
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NATO chief urges China to stop supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine

NATO chief urges China to stop supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine
  • Jens Stoltenberg: ‘China has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine’
  • China has previously described similar statements made by NATO as ‘malicious’ and biased
Updated 06 September 2024
Reuters

OSLO: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday called on China to stop supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine and said Beijing’s assistance has been a significant factor in the continuation of the war.
“China has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Oslo. “China is the one that enables production of many of the weapons that Russia uses.”
Stoltenberg warned that Beijing’s continuous fueling of the war in Ukraine could adversely impact its interests and reputation.
“I call on China to stop supporting Russia’s illegal war,” he said.
China has previously described similar statements made by NATO as ‘malicious’ and biased.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in July he does not want China, which has a “no limits” partnership with Russia, to act as a mediator but hoped Beijing would apply greater pressure on Moscow to end the war.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Russia Ukraine China NATO Jens Stoltenberg

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World food prices ease slightly in August, UN says

World food prices ease slightly in August, UN says
Updated 06 September 2024
Reuters
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World food prices ease slightly in August, UN says

World food prices ease slightly in August, UN says
Updated 06 September 2024
Reuters

LONDON: The United Nations' world food price index eased slightly in August, data released on Friday showed, as lower prices for sugar, meat and cereals more than offset higher dairy and vegetable oil prices.

The price index, compiled by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to track the most globally traded food commodities, slipped to 120.7 points in August from a revised 121 in July.

The FAO index hit a three-year low in February this year as food prices retreated from a record peak set in March 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The August value was 1.1% lower than its level a year ago and 24.7% below its peak from March 2022.

In a separate report, the FAO lowered its forecast for global cereal production in 2024 by 2.8 million metric tons to 2.851 billion tons, putting it almost on a par with the previous year's output.

The decrease largely reflects reduced prospects for coarse grain crops in the European Union, Mexico and Ukraine, thanks to hot and dry weather conditions.

Topics: UN

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