JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
Roman-Era Shipwreck Yields Moon Goddess Statue, Coin Stashes-[LiveScience.com]-Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
One civilization's trash is another civilization's treasure. A ship in Israel's Caesarea Harbor was filled with bronze statues headed for recycling when it sank about 1,600 years ago. Now, thanks to a chance discovery by a pair of divers, archaeologists have salvaged a haul of statuary fragments, figurines and coins from the seafloor.The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced today (May 16) the discovery of the Late Roman-era artifacts, which include a figurine of a moon goddess and a lamp carrying the likeness of a sun god. Archaeologists also found two stashes of coins, still clumped in the shape of the vessel that once carried them."A marine assemblage such as this has not been found in Israel in the past 30 years," Jacob Sharvit, director of the marine archaeology unit of the IAA and Dror Planer, deputy director of the unit, said in a statement. "Metal statues are rare archaeological finds because they were always melted down and recycled in antiquity. When we find bronze artifacts it usually occurs at sea. Because these statues were wrecked together with the ship, they sank in the water and were thus 'saved' from the recycling process." [See Photos of the Roman-Era Shipwreck and Treasures]-The coins found in the wreckage date to the mid-300s A.D. Some show Constantine, who ruled the Western Roman Empire from A.D. 312-324, and who unified the Eastern and Western Roman Empire in A.D. 324; he ruled both until his death in A.D. 337. Other coins show one of Constantine's primary rivals, the Eastern Roman Emperor Licinius, who was defeated by Constantine in A.D. 324.Two divers from the city of Ra'anana, Ran Feinstein and Ofer Ra'anan, discovered the wreck on the harbor floor and reported the find to the IAA, which organized an archaeological investigation. IAA divers found fragments of life-size bronze statues and a bronze lamp bearing the likeness of Sol, the sun god. They found a figurine of Luna, the moon goddess, and a bronze statue of a whale. There was a bronze faucet shaped like a boar with a swan on its head, and a lamp shaped like the head of a slave from Africa."The sand protected the statues; consequently, they are in an amazing state of preservation — as though they were cast yesterday rather than 1,600 years ago," Sharvit and Planer said.The ship appears to have hit stormy weather at the harbor entrance, drifting until it smashed against the seawall and sank. Archaeologists found the ship's iron anchors, which seem to have been hoisted into the sea in an attempt to stop the ship from drifting. They were broken by the wind and waves.The ship wrecked during a key time in Roman history, Sharvit and Planer said. In A.D. 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, making Christianity legal to practice and returning confiscated property to Christians who had been persecuted. Constantine would later support the early Christian church financially and politically, and converted to Christianity himself.In 2015, archaeologists found a cache of gold coins close to the location of the newly found shipwreck.Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
Appeals court delays action on Obama's carbon emissions plan-[Reuters]-By Lawrence Hurley-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Monday delayed consideration of a challenge by 27 states to President Barack Obama's federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions mainly from coal-fired plants, meaning a decision will not come until after the November presidential election.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will now hear the case on Sept. 27. The court was originally due to hear the case on June 2.The court said in a brief order that it made the decision without prompting by the various parties, including the states of West Virginia and Texas.The change appeared to be made so that a larger group of nine judges will hear the case instead of the normal three-judge panel. President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, is a member of the court but the order indicated he will not participate.The plan was designed to lower carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 2030 to 32 percent below 2005 levels. It is the main tool for the United States to meet the emissions reduction target it pledged at U.N. climate talks in Paris in December.It is not currently in effect after the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, put it on hold in February until after the litigation is resolved.(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Ontario Liberals won't confirm published details of Climate Change Action Plan-[The Canadian Press]-Keith Leslie and Allison Jones, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
TORONTO - Ontario's environment minister insists the province won't eliminate natural gas for home heating as part of a soon-to-be-released plan to fight climate change.Glen Murray refused to confirm or deny a Globe and Mail report saying the province would spend $7 billion over four years to reduce its carbon footprint, partly by phasing out natural gas and greatly increasing the number of electric vehicles on the road."Within the next couple of weeks you'll see the entire action plan, supporting documents will be properly released," Murray told reporters.The province's goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, 37 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050.The Globe said it obtained a copy of the Climate Change Action Plan that calls on the province to phase out natural gas for heating, which is currently used in 76 per cent of Ontario homes.It said the government would spend $3.8 billion on grants, rebates and subsidies to retrofit buildings and move them off natural gas and onto geothermal, solar or other forms of energy. The plan would require that all new homes built in Ontario in 2030 or later be heated without the use of fossil fuels.But this year's budget committed the government to extending natural gas to rural Ontario, and Murray insisted it would still be an option for home heating."Natural gas will continue to play a critical role in the energy mix in Ontario in the future, and beyond that you'll have to wait to see the details," he said."But no, we're not banning natural gas or taking it away from people."Union Gas and Enbridge Gas, the two largest suppliers of natural gas in Ontario, expressed concern the province is considering phasing out natural gas for heating."It's not something we were aware they were contemplating, and that is not something we would support," Union spokeswoman Andrea Stass said in an interview."To mandate natural gas out of existence will be very disruptive and expensive for consumers, and the other side of that is moving to an energy system with only one source and no diversification is risky."Enbridge warned phasing out natural gas for heating would be expensive."Converting a home from natural gas to electricity would cost about $4,500, and the heating costs would triple, increasing by roughly $2,000 each year," Enbridge said in a release.Richard Carlson, a senior energy policy associate at Mowat Energy, funded by Enbridge Gas, Union Gas, the Independent Electricity System Operator and Toronto Hydro as part of the Mowat Centre think tank, said having one government agency in charge of the climate change plan would be beneficial.The Ontario Energy Board held hearings last week about extending natural gas to rural communities, noted Carlson."So the Ontario Energy Board is looking to expand the gas grid while the draft (climate change) plan says something different," he said.Murray dismissed suggestions there would be uncertainty in the province's industrial sectors until details of the climate change action plan are released."They have been working with us, the nine large emitting industries, in drafting this plan, so they had a major input into it and they do have a pretty good understanding of what's coming," he said.The Globe said the Liberal plan sets a target of having 12 per cent of all new vehicle sales be electric cars and trucks by 2025, or about 1.7 million vehicles. There are currently only about 5,800 electric vehicles in Ontario.The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association said forcing people to switch to electric cars is not the way to go."The key to advancing electric vehicles is actually creating demand and helping consumers actually want to have these vehicles," said association president Mark Nantais."The infrastructure has to be in place. The recharging infrastructure must lead the introduction of vehicles, so that consumers have that confidence."The Progressive Conservatives said the climate change plan represents a "crushing shift" for Ontario's $16-billion auto industry, and warned it would cost jobs.The province already provides rebates up to $14,000 for every electric vehicle purchased under $75,000, and up to $3,000 for ones priced between $75,000 and $150,000. The government recently announced it will spend $20 million to build nearly 500 electric vehicle charging stations across the province next year.The $7 billion the Liberals plan to spend to on climate change would come from the estimated $1.9 billion they expect to generate each year from a cap-and-trade plan that would see companies buy and trade pollution emission allowances.The government admits its cap-and-trade plan would add about four cents a litre to the price of gasoline, but insisted it would result in lower home heating bills.Ontario plans to join existing cap-and-trade markets in Quebec and California. Manitoba has also signed on to join in the plan with Ontario and Quebec, but will limit it to 20 large polluters in the province.
Ontario MP Michael Chong joins race for Conservative party leadership-[The Canadian Press]-Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
OTTAWA - Michael Chong joined the Conservative leadership race Monday, breaking ranks with the party's long-standing opposition to carbon pricing but falling in line on face coverings — a controversy many believe cost the party votes last October.Chong, a southern Ontario member of Parliament, said with carbon pricing already in effect at the provincial level, the federal Tories must refocus their energies on ensuring the revenues go towards reducing taxes.It's part of a broad rethink of environmental policy Chong, 45, said he will bring to the race — one he considers necessary if the Conservatives are to attract new voters and win back the trust of those who deserted them last fall."We have to attract younger people to our party and that begins by shifting our positions on issues like the environment," Chong told a news conference.The Tories were thrust into a leadership contest after former prime minister Stephen Harper stepped down as party chief on election night.His resignation followed a campaign that critics, and later Conservatives themselves, said was marked too much by divisive policies such as the call for a "barbaric practices" tip line and the relentless push for a ban on wearing face veils during citizenship ceremonies.Chong said he didn't see those two issues as the sole reasons his party was reduced to Opposition status.But while he disagreed with the tip line, he said he does support the face covering ban, though wouldn't necessarily push to have it enshrined in legislation."I agree with the government's decision on the niqab in respect of citizenship ceremonies," Chong said."We live in a free society and people can wear what they want. However, I also believe that in a free and democratic society it is reasonable under Section 1 of the charter for the state to put a limit on that right in very limited circumstances." He called citizenship ceremonies one of those circumstances.Chong, whose father was a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong and mother a Dutch immigrant from the Netherlands, was first elected in 2004 in the riding of Wellington-Halton Hills. He went on to serve in Harper's cabinet as intergovernmental affairs minister.But he resigned from that position in 2006 because he didn't support a motion recognizing Quebecers as a nation, calling it ethnic nationalism. He said Monday he stands by that position even today.From his seat on the backbenches, he spearheaded legislation to give individual MPs more power. A bill to that effect became law last fall.As the child of immigrants, Chong said his decision to run was influenced by his upbringing and his family's past."My family's Canadian story is also the conservative story: it's a story of hard work, of perseverance, of counting your pennies and investing in your children's future," he said.Ontario MP Kellie Leitch and Quebec MP Maxime Bernier are the other two candidates currently in the race but several others are considering putting their names forward as well.The Conservatives will gather at the end of this month for a policy convention and will choose their next leader in May 2017.
Lyme disease cases rising in Canada; climate change cited as a probable factor-[The Canadian Press]-Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
TORONTO - More Canadians are contracting Lyme disease and federal health officials are partly blaming global warming for a dramatic uptick in cases.Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which is transmitted to people by black-legged ticks that get infected after biting mice or deer that carry the bug. These ticks are referred to as vectors for the disease."As climates change across the country, that is certainly one of the major factors why we believe that it has spread in recent years," Health Minister Jane Philpott told reporters after addressing a national conference on Lyme disease in Ottawa on Monday."The vectors have spread and we expect it to continue to change and it needs to be monitored closely," Philpott added.In 2015, there were 700 new cases of Lyme disease reported to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), up from 140 cases in 2009. Lyme is now being diagnosed in southern B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.But PHAC chief Dr. Gregory Taylor said those figures are likely under-reported."We have estimates it could be thousands of Canadians getting infected, not just several hundred, and that is worrisome," Taylor said in an interview from Ottawa.Some estimates project that Canada could see from 10,000 to 20,000 a cases a year if the ticks that carry the bacterium continue to expand their range into other parts of Canada.In North America, the disease was first identified as a tick-borne infection in 1978 in the town of Lyme, Conn., and has been endemic in Canada since the early 1980s.Immediate symptoms of Lyme disease include fever, headache, body pain, fatigue and in some cases a bull's-eye rash at the site of the bite. Treatment with a short-term course of antibiotics can cure the illness.But not all of those infected get that tell-tale rash, making it difficult for some patients to get early diagnosis and timely treatment, said Taylor, explaining that many doctors are unfamiliar with the hallmarks of the illness, having never seen a case."And part of what people worry about is that some clinicians think that you must have that rash to have Lyme, which is just not true. We know that not all patients have the bull's-eye rash. They can have a rash that doesn't look like a bull's eye or they can have no rash whatsoever."If not treated promptly or left untreated altogether, Lyme can develop into a "very debilitating" chronic condition marked by lingering muscle and joint pain and neurological disturbances that can last many months.Without a diagnosis based on symptoms, doctors can turn to tests that look for antibodies to the bacterium in a blood sample. But these tests are notorious for false-positive and false-negative results.Some patients who have been told they don't have Lyme — but nevertheless believe they are infected with the tick-borne bacterium — seek tests at U.S. clinics and get "a diagnosis of Lyme disease, which they would not get in Canada," said Taylor, noting that Canadian labs follow the same test-interpreting guidelines used in Europe and by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.That can lead some doctors to prescribe months-long antibiotic treatment, which Taylor said can cause adverse side-effects as well as contributing to drug-resistance by various bacteria, which one day could include B. burgdorferi.Still, he conceded that current blood screens for antibodies are difficult to interpret "at the best of times.... Everyone agrees that we have to have better laboratory testing."The three-day conference has brought together patient groups, researchers and policy experts with the aim of creating a national framework for tackling Lyme disease, including developing better tracking of human cases and the spread of ticks; treatment guidelines; and educating health providers and the public about the disease.Jim Wilson, president of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, told attendees the conference is only a starting point.Patients and the clinical experts who support them must be treated as equal partners in decision-making about guidelines for diagnosing, treating and preventing Lyme, as well as in choosing how best to track its spread and what research into the disease should be funded, he said."We need to truly identify the burden of Lyme borreliosis currently in our chronically ill population, and to find better ways to identify future victims of the disease," said Wilson, whose non-profit organization is dedicated to promoting better diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, as well as research and education."And here we are in 2016 and Canada has no idea how many Canadians now or over the previous decades contracted Lyme disease because the protocols in place for testing and clinical diagnostics have had big gaping holes and still do."— With files from Kristy Kirkup in Ottawa.Follow @SherylUbelacker on Twitter.
Obama says Senate obligated to vote on Supreme Court nominee-[Associated Press]-KATHLEEN HENNESSEY-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Monday he believes the Senate has a constitutional obligation to vote on a president's nomination to the Supreme Court, staking out a position at odds with Republicans and some legal scholars.Obama made the claim in an online video interview about his stalled nomination of U.S. Circuit Court Judge Merrick Garland. Asked if he thought the Constitution's language about "advice and consent" meant the Senate had an obligation to hold a vote, Obama told BuzzFeed News: "I do."The Constitution says the president "shall" appoint judges to the Supreme Court "with the advice and consent of the Senate." Senate Republicans have maintained they are fulfilling their constitutional duty by choosing not to consider Garland at all.The GOP has pointed out that in 2005, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid argued that the Constitution doesn't say the Senate has a duty to vote on presidential nominees.Months of efforts by the White House to build up political pressure on Republicans to relent and hold a vote have so far been ineffective. Although a number of Republicans have met with Garland and a few have expressed openness to hearings, GOP leadership has stood firm behind their insistence that the next president should get to choose a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.Obama also tried to use Donald Trump's ascent as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee as another reason why a Scalia replacement shouldn't wait. With many Republicans openly questioning Trump's temperament and principles, Democrats have said it's too risky to let Trump pick the next justice if he's elected in November."Precisely because this election year has been so crazy, because we have a number of Republicans say that they're concerned about their nominee, it shows why you can't politicize a Supreme Court vacancy," Obama said.In the interview, Obama said erroneously that Garland had been "confirmed unanimously" by the Senate to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Garland was confirmed on a vote of 76-23 in 1997.___Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.
Israel, Palestinians Allow Mine Clearance at Site of the Baptism of Jesus-[Time]-Julia Zorthian-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Jesus was believed to have been baptized at the site of the 136-acre minefield-The HALO Trust, a British organization that clears minefields, will remove mines from the 136-acre Qaser al-Yahud site in the West Bank where Jesus is believed to have been baptized.Seven churches on the site have been inaccessible since the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel mined the area to fend off attacks from Jordan. Both Israeli and Palestinian authorities granted HALO access, along with the seven churches that have neglected structures among the mines, according to a press release.The project is slated to take between 18 and 20 months, and HALO is currently fundraising towards the $4 million in expected costs. Once cleared, the minefield is set to become a national park.For years, buses of tourists have simply driven by the site. Once the minefield is declared safe, visitors should have access to the orthodox Coptic, Ethiopian, Greek, Romanian, Syrian and Russian churches, the Catholic church and a plot of land that belongs to the Armenian Orthodox church.
Openly Gay Pastor Admits He Wrote Homophobic Slur on Whole Foods Cake-[Inside Edition]-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
An openly gay Texas pastor who last month claimed a Whole Foods baker had written a homophobic slur on a cake he ordered has recanted his claim."I want to apologize to Whole Foods and its team members for questioning the company’s commitment to its values," Jordan Brown, pastor of a small Austin church, wrote in a statement. “The company did nothing wrong,” Brown said. "I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story."Read: Anti-Gay Remarks Could Have Caused Man to Commit Suicide on Cruise Ship-In April, Brown made headlines with claims a Whole Foods baker had written "F**" in icing on a cake that he'd asked to read "Love Wins."However, Whole Foods was quick to respond to the claims by releasing surveillance footage that showed the UPC sticker in a different position on the cake box from where it appeared after it had been handled by Brown.The company also revealed that the baker was herself a member of the LGBT community.Brown has apologized to both the baker "who I understand was put in a terrible position because of my actions" and to the "LGBT community for diverting attention from real issues."I also want to apologize to my partner, my family, my church family, and my attorney," she said.As Brown announced he was dropping the suit he'd filed against Whole Foods, the grocery chain announced they've dropped their $100,000 countersuit."We're very pleased that the truth has come to light. Given Mr. Brown's apology and public admission that his story was a complete fabrication, we see no reason to move forward with our countersuit to defend the integrity of our brand and team members," Whole Foods said in a statement.
Killing Medusas and werewolves: Calgary man admits to stabbing five young people-[The Canadian Press]-Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CALGARY - Friends and family sobbed and gasped with horror Monday as they heard graphic details about how five young people at a house party were slain by a man who believed he was killing Medusas and werewolves for the son of God.Matthew de Grood, 24, admitted in an agreed statement of facts read at the start of his first-degree murder trial that he stabbed his victims. But court heard he told police he didn't take pleasure in it."I stabbed people in the house," the statement quotes de Grood as telling officers."I just want to say that when I stabbed them, I tried to do it mercifully. I aimed for their heart. They put up a struggle which made it hard, but, so you know, it wasn't sadistic or anything," he said."I didn't enjoy killing at all. I said sorry, but the son of God was controlling me."De Grood's lawyer, Allan Fay, pleaded not guilty on his client's behalf. Fay told reporters he plans to argue his client was not criminally responsible for the killings.The stabbings, in what police have called Calgary's worst mass killing, happened at a party being held to mark the end of the university school year in April 2014.Killed were Kaitlin Perras, 23; Lawrence Hong, 27; Josh Hunter, 23; Zackariah Rathwell, 21; and Jordan Segura, 22. Hunter, Hong and Segura all attended the University of Calgary. Perras studied at Mount Royal University and Rathwell was a student at the Alberta College of Art and Design.Prosecutor Neil Wiberg spent more than an hour reading out the agreed statement of facts that contained details from de Grood's interview with police. The judge also lifted a publication ban on material submitted by police to obtain search warrants.The unsealed documents detailed how de Grood, the son of a high-ranking Calgary police officer, was "a good boy, kind and compassionate" until his personality began to change about a month before the stabbings.He began spending time alone and became quiet and withdrawn. He added a number of unusual posts on Facebook, including quotes from Mega Death lyrics, quotes from the Bible and ramblings on reincarnation.A childhood friend invited de Grood to the party. De Grood had just finished a shift at Safeway and wore his uniform. The friend noted how de Grood was acting strange. He made a number of odd rambling statements including "Obama was the Antichrist."The agreed facts said de Grood handed his friend a clove of garlic stating that "he may need it." He also passed him a knife similar to a bread knife with a serrated blade.Once at the party de Grood put on a pair of blue latex gloves.De Grood told police that he felt he had to attack Rathwell, a budding young musician, before Rathwell attacked him. He told police the two had a disagreement over Buddhism. De Grood grabbed a chef's knife with a 21-centimetre blade from a knife block in the kitchen."I asked him to give me my space. We were walking toward the knife block, so I decided to shoot first because I didn't know what he was going to do so I stabbed him," de Grood is quoted in the unsealed documents as telling officers."Then the people on the couch saw and obviously started freaking out, so I killed them from left to right as quickly as I could. The girl ran into the corner so I went and stabbed her. I said I'm sorry I have to do this. Then the guy from the kitchen wasn't dead. I had to hunt him down. Then I just left."De Grood's friend and some others had gone out to get something to eat and came back to chaos."He heard screams from a female believed to be Katie. This was followed by Josh running out of the house with de Grood chasing him," read the court documents.Police received a series of 911 calls beginning at 1:22 a.m.Documents say one of the first officers on the scene described a "large amount of blood and carnage.""Upon entering the front door, there was panic throughout the main floor. Two male victims lying head to head on the floor were motionless in a large pool of blood. People were attending to them but they were deceased," reported the officer."A fourth male victim was found lying in a fetal position on a couch while a male kept pressure to the wound to his neck. This victim was also deceased."De Grood was arrested and taken into custody a short time later and interviewed by police."What I did may seem atrocious but I was killing Medusas, werewolves," he told the officers.He has been undergoing treatment at the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre since his arrest.The victims' families made a statement on the courthouse steps before the start of the trial in which they urged people to focus on their loved ones. De Grood's parents, Douglas and Susan de Grood, were also in court and sat in the front row."The priority for us during this trial is to ensure that our loved ones will be given the full and just attention that they deserve," read Greg Perras, Kaitlin's father. "All we ask is that you remember how they lived — with purpose, with life, with goodness and love for their friends and family."The statement said the last two years have been extremely difficult, incredibly long and anxiety-ridden for the families."There's no such thing as a new normal that some people talk about," Perras said. "There is only existing, surviving, and a series of bitter-sweet events going forward in our families lives such as graduations, weddings and grandchildren."These milestones will be happy and they will be sad."— Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter
Did Ben Carson Just Spill the Beans on Donald Trump's Possible Vice Presidential Picks?-[Mic]-Celeste Katz-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
It's not totally mind-boggling that a man who made his mark examining the workings of the human brain has some interesting thought processes.Ben Carson, the onetime presidential candidate who has now hitched his political star to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, spilled the beans on Trump's short list for a vice presidential running mate during a recent interview — or did he? The Washington Post reported Sunday, having asked Carson about potential Trump running mates: "The most favorably regarded contenders after himself, he was told, were John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Chris Christie." "Those are all people on our list," Carson told the paper.Carson's casual confirmation of the names set off a cascade of followup reports.The Post later updated the story to say Carson then did some backpedaling: "Everybody could potentially be considered, doesn't mean they are on the short list."The doctor was a little more circumspect about the names during a Fox News appearance:@RealBenCarson on @realDonaldTrump VP: "It'll be somebody who loves and honors our Constitution."https://amp.twimg.com/v/63eb0189-37d2-4f53-9912-ff99ae289e47 ...Trump himself — who asked Carson to help mull running mates before putting campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in charge of VP operations — also tamped Carson's Post interview down on Twitter.-The @washingtonpost report on potential VP candidates is wrong. Marco Rubio and most others mentioned are NOT under consideration.Carson, the preternaturally calm pediatric neurosurgeon who enjoyed a burst of popularity early in the frantic GOP primary cycle, seems to enjoy making political pronouncements on car rides.He once told the New York Daily News during a drive from midtown Manhattan to Ground Zero that he had unique ideas for extracting information from terror suspects."I can think of some things that would be much more effective than [waterboarding], that would not be torture, that would take advantage of things that we know about the brain," Carson told a reporter during the trip.Asked by the News to elaborate on those techniques, Carson demurred — Trump style."I'm not going to tell," he said. "I wouldn't put those things out for everybody to know."
Baltimore cop testifies that he arrested, handcuffed Freddie Gray-[Reuters]-By Donna Owens-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
BALTIMORE (Reuters) - A Baltimore policeman testified on Monday that he, and not a fellow officer on trial for the death of black detainee Freddie Gray, was the one who arrested Gray, in testimony that was the first by another suspect in the high-profile case.Under prosecution questioning, Officer Garrett Miller said he and his accused partner Officer Edward Nero had chased Gray after being ordered to do so. Gray's April 2015 death from a broken neck suffered in a police van triggered rioting and protests in the majority black city.Prosecutors contend that Nero, 30, pursued Gray without probable cause and then failed to secure Gray in the van. But Nero's lawyers argue that he had little to do with Gray's arrest and never touched him except when he tried to help Gray, 25, find an asthma inhaler.Asked in Baltimore City Circuit Court whether Nero had put handcuffs on Gray, Miller told prosecutor Michael Schatzow, "No, he did not."Prosecutors rested their case against Nero after calling more than a dozen witnesses. Judge Barry Williams, who is presiding over a bench trial, rejected a defense motion that the charges be dismissed.Miller testified that he and Nero, a fellow bicycle officer, had no idea why Lieutenant Brian Rice ordered them to pursue Gray after he fled unprovoked in a high-crime area.Nero, Rice and Miller are among six officers facing trial for Gray's death. He was bundled into a transport van while shackled and not belted in after officers found a spring-assisted knife in his pocket.The incident involving Gray is one of those highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement. Miller and Nero have pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct.During cross-examination by defense lawyer Marc Zayon, Miller repeated that he was the officer who detained Gray. He testified that the responsibility for securing Gray in the van lay with the driver, officer Caesar Goodson Jr.Miller's testimony came after legal wrangling over prosecutors' efforts to force another officer, William Porter, to testify under limited immunity while his own charges were pending.Maryland's highest court ruled in March that Porter had to testify. Forcing testimony in a co-defendant's trial was seen as unprecedented in Maryland.Defense lawyers had argued against making Porter testify since it would allow prosecutors to compel other officers, such as Miller, to take the witness stand.(Writing by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and James Dalgleish)
Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea Aren’t Enough-[Foreign Policy Magazine]-Julian G. Ku, M. Taylor Fravel and Malcolm Cook-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
International tensions are rising over the shipping lanes and land formations in the South China Sea. Last week, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force scrambled fighter jets in response to a U.S. Navy ship sailing near the disputed Fiery Cross Reef. Sometime very soon, possibly this month, the United Nations is expected to resolve South China Sea claims by the Philippines, where the President-elect, Rodrigo Duterte, is making offers to broker peace in the region. How much has the status quo changed and what will it mean for the counties involved? —The ChinaFile Editors-Julian G. Ku, Professor of Law, Hofstra University:Like the two other recent U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) in the South China Sea, the most recent U.S. FONOP was designed to avoid any conflict with China’s sovereignty claims. Instead, by conducting the operations under the rules of “innocent passage,” the U.S. Navy assumed China might have sovereign rights, but simply challenged China’s domestic law requirement that foreign warships give prior notification before entering what China claims is its territorial sea.Despite this very limited challenge, China’s reaction to the U.S. FONOP has also been largely the same. Fighter jets were scrambled, and naval assets were deployed to shadow the U.S. ship during its passage. But two new aspects to China’s rhetorical response are worth noting. The shift in China’s rhetoric also reveals the limits of the U.S. reliance on FONOPs as a tool to deter Chinese expansionism in the region.First, the Chinese defense ministry has begun to suggest that the continuation of U.S. FONOPs justifies its construction of “defensive facilities” in the South China Sea. Since the most recent round of U.S. FONOPs in the region began in October 2015 (after a four-year hiatus) and the Chinese land reclamation has been going on for almost two full years, this post-hoc justification for Chinese militarization of the region is hard to swallow.Second, the Chinese foreign ministry has started directly engaging with the narrower U.S. legal argument against a prior notification requirement for warships. In fact, it tried to isolate the U.S. legal position. Drawing a distinction between commercial and military vessels, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman stated that “no country, except the United States believes in military vessels sailing wherever they want, which is against international law.” The spokesman went on to say the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) “allows innocent passage by foreign vessels through others’ territorial waters, but there is no specific term stating that military vessels have such a right.” China then pointed out that several other countries agree with China on this interpretation of UNCLOS.The Chinese government is correct that some countries have continued to argue that the rights of innocent passage guaranteed by Article 19 of UNCLOS does not apply to warships. The plain language of Article 19 (“ships of all States”) suggests otherwise since the Convention specifies “warships” in other contexts when naval vessels have special treatment. But the disagreement has persisted over the years.China’s shift from complaining about U.S. violations of its sovereignty to dueling interpretations of UNCLOS reflects a possible shift in its rhetorical and diplomatic strategy. While complaining about U.S. threats to sovereignty would only highlight the aggressiveness of China’s territorial claims, complaining about expansive U.S. naval operations is an issue with which other nations can find common ground with China. Indeed, China’s diplomatic corps has been working overtime to line up sympathetic nations to its non-acceptance of the pending UNCLOS arbitral tribunal case brought by the Philippines. Shifting focus toward arcane interpretations of international law is better and more solid ground for China.The United States has the better and more persuasive interpretation of UNCLOS. But if China is able to drag the United States into the technical arguments over UNCLOS, some of the political force of the U.S. FONOPs will inevitably erode. While it should not abandon FONOPs, the United States needs to come up with different ways to challenge China’s land reclamations and expansionism. FONOPs are not going to be enough.M. Taylor Fravel, Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT:I agree with Julian about the limits of FONOPs for deterring China in the South China Sea, but for a different reason.Put simply, FONOPs were never intended to be used as a tool in territorial or maritime jurisdictional disputes involving third parties. The purpose of the program is limited to asserting navigational freedoms that “excessive claims” to maritime jurisdiction by other states would restrict or constrict in ways that are inconsistent with “high seas freedoms” in UNCLOS. They are operational assertions using military vessels to reinforce U.S. declaratory policy on freedom of navigation, not actions to deter how states pursue their claims in maritime disputes. By definition, FONOPs are usually a reaction to claims already made by third parties, to demonstrate that the United States does not recognize them.In the South China Sea, FONOPs can be used to challenge excessive claims from the various land features under dispute. Recently, as Julian notes, FONOPs have been used only to challenge restrictions on the transit of military vessels through a 12 nautical mile territorial sea, such as prior permission or prior notification. Looking forward, they could be used to challenge claims to maritime jurisdiction from some artificial islands that China has created, at least four of which would not be entitled to even a territorial sea because they are artificial structures built upon a low-tide elevation.The recent FONOPs in the South China Sea have been publicized extensively. Paradoxically, such publicity may limit further the effect of FONOPs in a third party’s maritime disputes. Because they are considered to be a military operation, the Department of Defense almost never reveals the details or occurrence of particular FONOPS. Instead, they usually occur out of the public eye. The target of the operation is demarched to explain the excessive claim being challenged and a military vessel then challenges with a predetermined operation. At the end of the year, the U.S. Department of Defense publishes a report listing the countries and excessive claims that are being challenged but does not release information about individual operations.The uncommon and unusual publicity attached to the last three FONOPs in the South China Sea represents a departure from past U.S. practice. Moreover, regarding the dynamics of the disputes in the South China Sea, such publicity may backfire, for two reasons.First, the publicity given to these operations, widely seen as designed to challenge China, invites China to respond. From Beijing’s perspective, FONOPs are viewed (incorrectly) as direct challenges to China’s sovereignty claims and as indirect challenges to China more generally. If China’s leaders do not respond, they risk being viewed domestically as weak or yielding to the United States. Although China’s responses have been measured and largely symbolic, the rhetoric contributes to the hardening of positions and escalation of disputes. Traditional FONOPs conducted out of the public eye would remove these incentives without weakening the content of the operational assertion.Second, the publicity given to these recent FONOPs create strong incentives for China to emphasize its interpretations of the convention that Julian has described. Traditional FONOPs conducted out of the public eye would also remove these incentives without weakening the content of the operational assertion.The United States should continue to perform FONOPs in the South China Sea — regularly but privately.Malcolm Cook, Senior Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute:Julian Ku is certainly right that U.S. freedom of navigation operations conducted under the rules of “innocent passage” will not be enough to challenge China’s increasingly assertive actions on and around the disputed land features in the South China Sea. And tensions could escalate soon. If reports are correct, China’s artificial island building could soon extend to Scarborough Shoal located 123 nautical miles from the main island of the Philippines, 250 nautical miles from the disputed Spratly and Paracel land features, and 530 nautical miles from China’s Hainan Island. This would be a serious escalation on China’s part that would likely sink the incoming Philippine administration’s desire to reduce bilateral tensions over this issue, and lead to more pressure on the United States from concerned states in the region to push back against China.Yet, the biggest shortcoming of U.S. FONOPs as a Chinese behavior-changing effort has nothing to do with the United States. The biggest problem is that the United States alone is willing to conduct these operations and suffer China’s predicted and predictable backlashes. The maritime Southeast Asian states Japan and Australia arguably have more at stake in the South China Sea but are unwilling to conduct their own operations. Maritime Southeast Asian backing for the recent U.S. operations has been ambivalent at best, and offered more in private than in public or in diplomatic forums with China present.This, more than the widely criticized decision by the Obama administration to limit their operations to innocent passage ones, undermines the strength of the FONOPs message sent to China. The lack of active or rhetorical support from other nations undermines these operations’ effectiveness in reflecting that the maritime Southeast Asian states and Japan share with the United States the conviction that China’s claims to maritime rights in the South China Sea are excessive and its artificial island building activities are destabilizing. By leaving the United States alone operationally and often publicly lacking support, it allows China to dismiss these operations as simply part of U.S. efforts to contain China.Future U.S. FONOPs in the disputed waters of the South China Sea may benefit from relaxing the innocent passage restriction, particularly in relation to China’s recently constructed artificial islands. The pending ruling by the Arbitration Tribunal on the 2013 case filed by the Philippines under UNCLOS could rule that some or all of these artificial islands are constructed on low water features with no attendant territorial sea rights. However, the U.S. position in relation to the South China Sea disputes, and those of the maritime Southeast Asian states, Japan and Australia, would benefit more if the United States was not alone in conducting FONOPs. Or, at least, if support for U.S. FONOPs by these like-concerned states was more frequent, more public, and more convincing.
Shell Oil Spill Near Louisiana Dumps 90,000 Gallons of Crude Oil Into the Gulf of Mexico-[Mic]-Jon Levine-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
While stories about each and every little thing Donald Trump said and did dominated the news cycle over the weekend, a major environmental catastrophe unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico — and you probably didn't hear about. Oil company Royal Dutch Shell has begun the massive task of cleaning up nearly 90,000 gallons of crude oil that leaked from a company oil derrick roughly 90 miles off the state's coast, the Associated Press reported Friday. Shell first noticed the leak only after a helicopter reported a 2 by 13-mile sheen across the Gulf of Mexico near the oil giant's Brutus platform.The spill has been contained, a U.S. Coast Guard press release reported Thursday. "The likely cause of the sheen is a release of oil from subsea infrastructure and in response, we have isolated the leak and shut-in production," the company said in a statement, the Wall Street Journal reported. "No release is acceptable, and safety remains our priority as we respond to this incident."Locals around the site of the latest spill remained unconvinced, telling ThinkProgress that the official line from Shell and others was more of the same. "You sit down for dinner and you watch the news and you see another spill with tens of thousands of gallons of oil and reports that no one is hurt or the leak has stopped," Colette Pichon Battle, executive director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, told the progressive advocacy group. "Just from experience, that that's probably not true." She added that the poorest residents of coastal communities and Native Americans were likely to feel the brunt of any damage.The incident was also striking for a comparable lack of coverage it received, especially given its location in the same area where the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion caused immense ecological devastation in 2010. The fallout from the largest oil spill to occur in U.S. waters are still being felt today.
US reveals how much Treasury debt Saudi Arabia owns-[The Canadian Press]-Martin Crutsinger, The Associated Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON - Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose in March, with the Treasury Department revealing for the first time in four decades how much Saudi Arabia owns.In its latest report, Treasury said Monday that that total holdings increased 0.8 per cent to a record $6.29 trillion. The figure climbed even though China, the largest holder of Treasury debt, trimmed its portfolio by 0.6 per cent to $1.24 trillion.For the first time since 1974, when the government began releasing data on foreign ownership of Treasury securities, the report broke out ownership for specific countries that it had always lumped together such as "oil exporting nations" and "Caribbean banking centres."The report showed that Saudi Arabia in March held $116.8 billion in Treasury debt, down 2.5 per cent from February.A Treasury spokesperson said that the decision to start listing Saudi Arabia's holdings separately was not linked in any way to recent warnings from the government of Saudi Arabia. Last month Saudi Arabia said that it could begin selling off its U.S. investments if Congress passes a law allowing the country to be held responsible in U.S. courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The break-out of the investments held by Saudi Arabia makes the country the 13th largest foreign holder of Treasury securities. The Cayman Islands, which previously was included in a grouping of Caribbean banking centres, ranks No. 3, behind China and Japan. It held $265 billion in March, up 3.9 per cent from February.Treasury spokesperson Whitney Smith said de-grouping certain countries is an effort to make the data more useful."We concluded that it was consistent with transparency and the law to disclose the data in a disaggregated fashion," Smith said in a statement.The new report showed that Japan, the second largest foreign holder of debt, increased its holdings by 0.4 per cent to $1.14 trillion in March.The $6.29 trillion in total foreign holdings of Treasury debt was a modest 1.9 per cent higher than a year ago.Of that total, 65 per cent is held by foreign governments, primarily central banks.The national debt now stands at $19.16 trillion. With the federal budget deficit projected to grow over the next decade, the United States will need to see continued strong foreign demand for Treasury debt to help finance its growing borrowing needs.
One civilization's trash is another civilization's treasure. A ship in Israel's Caesarea Harbor was filled with bronze statues headed for recycling when it sank about 1,600 years ago. Now, thanks to a chance discovery by a pair of divers, archaeologists have salvaged a haul of statuary fragments, figurines and coins from the seafloor.The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced today (May 16) the discovery of the Late Roman-era artifacts, which include a figurine of a moon goddess and a lamp carrying the likeness of a sun god. Archaeologists also found two stashes of coins, still clumped in the shape of the vessel that once carried them."A marine assemblage such as this has not been found in Israel in the past 30 years," Jacob Sharvit, director of the marine archaeology unit of the IAA and Dror Planer, deputy director of the unit, said in a statement. "Metal statues are rare archaeological finds because they were always melted down and recycled in antiquity. When we find bronze artifacts it usually occurs at sea. Because these statues were wrecked together with the ship, they sank in the water and were thus 'saved' from the recycling process." [See Photos of the Roman-Era Shipwreck and Treasures]-The coins found in the wreckage date to the mid-300s A.D. Some show Constantine, who ruled the Western Roman Empire from A.D. 312-324, and who unified the Eastern and Western Roman Empire in A.D. 324; he ruled both until his death in A.D. 337. Other coins show one of Constantine's primary rivals, the Eastern Roman Emperor Licinius, who was defeated by Constantine in A.D. 324.Two divers from the city of Ra'anana, Ran Feinstein and Ofer Ra'anan, discovered the wreck on the harbor floor and reported the find to the IAA, which organized an archaeological investigation. IAA divers found fragments of life-size bronze statues and a bronze lamp bearing the likeness of Sol, the sun god. They found a figurine of Luna, the moon goddess, and a bronze statue of a whale. There was a bronze faucet shaped like a boar with a swan on its head, and a lamp shaped like the head of a slave from Africa."The sand protected the statues; consequently, they are in an amazing state of preservation — as though they were cast yesterday rather than 1,600 years ago," Sharvit and Planer said.The ship appears to have hit stormy weather at the harbor entrance, drifting until it smashed against the seawall and sank. Archaeologists found the ship's iron anchors, which seem to have been hoisted into the sea in an attempt to stop the ship from drifting. They were broken by the wind and waves.The ship wrecked during a key time in Roman history, Sharvit and Planer said. In A.D. 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, making Christianity legal to practice and returning confiscated property to Christians who had been persecuted. Constantine would later support the early Christian church financially and politically, and converted to Christianity himself.In 2015, archaeologists found a cache of gold coins close to the location of the newly found shipwreck.Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
Appeals court delays action on Obama's carbon emissions plan-[Reuters]-By Lawrence Hurley-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Monday delayed consideration of a challenge by 27 states to President Barack Obama's federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions mainly from coal-fired plants, meaning a decision will not come until after the November presidential election.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will now hear the case on Sept. 27. The court was originally due to hear the case on June 2.The court said in a brief order that it made the decision without prompting by the various parties, including the states of West Virginia and Texas.The change appeared to be made so that a larger group of nine judges will hear the case instead of the normal three-judge panel. President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, is a member of the court but the order indicated he will not participate.The plan was designed to lower carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 2030 to 32 percent below 2005 levels. It is the main tool for the United States to meet the emissions reduction target it pledged at U.N. climate talks in Paris in December.It is not currently in effect after the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, put it on hold in February until after the litigation is resolved.(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Ontario Liberals won't confirm published details of Climate Change Action Plan-[The Canadian Press]-Keith Leslie and Allison Jones, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
TORONTO - Ontario's environment minister insists the province won't eliminate natural gas for home heating as part of a soon-to-be-released plan to fight climate change.Glen Murray refused to confirm or deny a Globe and Mail report saying the province would spend $7 billion over four years to reduce its carbon footprint, partly by phasing out natural gas and greatly increasing the number of electric vehicles on the road."Within the next couple of weeks you'll see the entire action plan, supporting documents will be properly released," Murray told reporters.The province's goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, 37 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050.The Globe said it obtained a copy of the Climate Change Action Plan that calls on the province to phase out natural gas for heating, which is currently used in 76 per cent of Ontario homes.It said the government would spend $3.8 billion on grants, rebates and subsidies to retrofit buildings and move them off natural gas and onto geothermal, solar or other forms of energy. The plan would require that all new homes built in Ontario in 2030 or later be heated without the use of fossil fuels.But this year's budget committed the government to extending natural gas to rural Ontario, and Murray insisted it would still be an option for home heating."Natural gas will continue to play a critical role in the energy mix in Ontario in the future, and beyond that you'll have to wait to see the details," he said."But no, we're not banning natural gas or taking it away from people."Union Gas and Enbridge Gas, the two largest suppliers of natural gas in Ontario, expressed concern the province is considering phasing out natural gas for heating."It's not something we were aware they were contemplating, and that is not something we would support," Union spokeswoman Andrea Stass said in an interview."To mandate natural gas out of existence will be very disruptive and expensive for consumers, and the other side of that is moving to an energy system with only one source and no diversification is risky."Enbridge warned phasing out natural gas for heating would be expensive."Converting a home from natural gas to electricity would cost about $4,500, and the heating costs would triple, increasing by roughly $2,000 each year," Enbridge said in a release.Richard Carlson, a senior energy policy associate at Mowat Energy, funded by Enbridge Gas, Union Gas, the Independent Electricity System Operator and Toronto Hydro as part of the Mowat Centre think tank, said having one government agency in charge of the climate change plan would be beneficial.The Ontario Energy Board held hearings last week about extending natural gas to rural communities, noted Carlson."So the Ontario Energy Board is looking to expand the gas grid while the draft (climate change) plan says something different," he said.Murray dismissed suggestions there would be uncertainty in the province's industrial sectors until details of the climate change action plan are released."They have been working with us, the nine large emitting industries, in drafting this plan, so they had a major input into it and they do have a pretty good understanding of what's coming," he said.The Globe said the Liberal plan sets a target of having 12 per cent of all new vehicle sales be electric cars and trucks by 2025, or about 1.7 million vehicles. There are currently only about 5,800 electric vehicles in Ontario.The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association said forcing people to switch to electric cars is not the way to go."The key to advancing electric vehicles is actually creating demand and helping consumers actually want to have these vehicles," said association president Mark Nantais."The infrastructure has to be in place. The recharging infrastructure must lead the introduction of vehicles, so that consumers have that confidence."The Progressive Conservatives said the climate change plan represents a "crushing shift" for Ontario's $16-billion auto industry, and warned it would cost jobs.The province already provides rebates up to $14,000 for every electric vehicle purchased under $75,000, and up to $3,000 for ones priced between $75,000 and $150,000. The government recently announced it will spend $20 million to build nearly 500 electric vehicle charging stations across the province next year.The $7 billion the Liberals plan to spend to on climate change would come from the estimated $1.9 billion they expect to generate each year from a cap-and-trade plan that would see companies buy and trade pollution emission allowances.The government admits its cap-and-trade plan would add about four cents a litre to the price of gasoline, but insisted it would result in lower home heating bills.Ontario plans to join existing cap-and-trade markets in Quebec and California. Manitoba has also signed on to join in the plan with Ontario and Quebec, but will limit it to 20 large polluters in the province.
Ontario MP Michael Chong joins race for Conservative party leadership-[The Canadian Press]-Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
OTTAWA - Michael Chong joined the Conservative leadership race Monday, breaking ranks with the party's long-standing opposition to carbon pricing but falling in line on face coverings — a controversy many believe cost the party votes last October.Chong, a southern Ontario member of Parliament, said with carbon pricing already in effect at the provincial level, the federal Tories must refocus their energies on ensuring the revenues go towards reducing taxes.It's part of a broad rethink of environmental policy Chong, 45, said he will bring to the race — one he considers necessary if the Conservatives are to attract new voters and win back the trust of those who deserted them last fall."We have to attract younger people to our party and that begins by shifting our positions on issues like the environment," Chong told a news conference.The Tories were thrust into a leadership contest after former prime minister Stephen Harper stepped down as party chief on election night.His resignation followed a campaign that critics, and later Conservatives themselves, said was marked too much by divisive policies such as the call for a "barbaric practices" tip line and the relentless push for a ban on wearing face veils during citizenship ceremonies.Chong said he didn't see those two issues as the sole reasons his party was reduced to Opposition status.But while he disagreed with the tip line, he said he does support the face covering ban, though wouldn't necessarily push to have it enshrined in legislation."I agree with the government's decision on the niqab in respect of citizenship ceremonies," Chong said."We live in a free society and people can wear what they want. However, I also believe that in a free and democratic society it is reasonable under Section 1 of the charter for the state to put a limit on that right in very limited circumstances." He called citizenship ceremonies one of those circumstances.Chong, whose father was a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong and mother a Dutch immigrant from the Netherlands, was first elected in 2004 in the riding of Wellington-Halton Hills. He went on to serve in Harper's cabinet as intergovernmental affairs minister.But he resigned from that position in 2006 because he didn't support a motion recognizing Quebecers as a nation, calling it ethnic nationalism. He said Monday he stands by that position even today.From his seat on the backbenches, he spearheaded legislation to give individual MPs more power. A bill to that effect became law last fall.As the child of immigrants, Chong said his decision to run was influenced by his upbringing and his family's past."My family's Canadian story is also the conservative story: it's a story of hard work, of perseverance, of counting your pennies and investing in your children's future," he said.Ontario MP Kellie Leitch and Quebec MP Maxime Bernier are the other two candidates currently in the race but several others are considering putting their names forward as well.The Conservatives will gather at the end of this month for a policy convention and will choose their next leader in May 2017.
Lyme disease cases rising in Canada; climate change cited as a probable factor-[The Canadian Press]-Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
TORONTO - More Canadians are contracting Lyme disease and federal health officials are partly blaming global warming for a dramatic uptick in cases.Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which is transmitted to people by black-legged ticks that get infected after biting mice or deer that carry the bug. These ticks are referred to as vectors for the disease."As climates change across the country, that is certainly one of the major factors why we believe that it has spread in recent years," Health Minister Jane Philpott told reporters after addressing a national conference on Lyme disease in Ottawa on Monday."The vectors have spread and we expect it to continue to change and it needs to be monitored closely," Philpott added.In 2015, there were 700 new cases of Lyme disease reported to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), up from 140 cases in 2009. Lyme is now being diagnosed in southern B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.But PHAC chief Dr. Gregory Taylor said those figures are likely under-reported."We have estimates it could be thousands of Canadians getting infected, not just several hundred, and that is worrisome," Taylor said in an interview from Ottawa.Some estimates project that Canada could see from 10,000 to 20,000 a cases a year if the ticks that carry the bacterium continue to expand their range into other parts of Canada.In North America, the disease was first identified as a tick-borne infection in 1978 in the town of Lyme, Conn., and has been endemic in Canada since the early 1980s.Immediate symptoms of Lyme disease include fever, headache, body pain, fatigue and in some cases a bull's-eye rash at the site of the bite. Treatment with a short-term course of antibiotics can cure the illness.But not all of those infected get that tell-tale rash, making it difficult for some patients to get early diagnosis and timely treatment, said Taylor, explaining that many doctors are unfamiliar with the hallmarks of the illness, having never seen a case."And part of what people worry about is that some clinicians think that you must have that rash to have Lyme, which is just not true. We know that not all patients have the bull's-eye rash. They can have a rash that doesn't look like a bull's eye or they can have no rash whatsoever."If not treated promptly or left untreated altogether, Lyme can develop into a "very debilitating" chronic condition marked by lingering muscle and joint pain and neurological disturbances that can last many months.Without a diagnosis based on symptoms, doctors can turn to tests that look for antibodies to the bacterium in a blood sample. But these tests are notorious for false-positive and false-negative results.Some patients who have been told they don't have Lyme — but nevertheless believe they are infected with the tick-borne bacterium — seek tests at U.S. clinics and get "a diagnosis of Lyme disease, which they would not get in Canada," said Taylor, noting that Canadian labs follow the same test-interpreting guidelines used in Europe and by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.That can lead some doctors to prescribe months-long antibiotic treatment, which Taylor said can cause adverse side-effects as well as contributing to drug-resistance by various bacteria, which one day could include B. burgdorferi.Still, he conceded that current blood screens for antibodies are difficult to interpret "at the best of times.... Everyone agrees that we have to have better laboratory testing."The three-day conference has brought together patient groups, researchers and policy experts with the aim of creating a national framework for tackling Lyme disease, including developing better tracking of human cases and the spread of ticks; treatment guidelines; and educating health providers and the public about the disease.Jim Wilson, president of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, told attendees the conference is only a starting point.Patients and the clinical experts who support them must be treated as equal partners in decision-making about guidelines for diagnosing, treating and preventing Lyme, as well as in choosing how best to track its spread and what research into the disease should be funded, he said."We need to truly identify the burden of Lyme borreliosis currently in our chronically ill population, and to find better ways to identify future victims of the disease," said Wilson, whose non-profit organization is dedicated to promoting better diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, as well as research and education."And here we are in 2016 and Canada has no idea how many Canadians now or over the previous decades contracted Lyme disease because the protocols in place for testing and clinical diagnostics have had big gaping holes and still do."— With files from Kristy Kirkup in Ottawa.Follow @SherylUbelacker on Twitter.
Obama says Senate obligated to vote on Supreme Court nominee-[Associated Press]-KATHLEEN HENNESSEY-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Monday he believes the Senate has a constitutional obligation to vote on a president's nomination to the Supreme Court, staking out a position at odds with Republicans and some legal scholars.Obama made the claim in an online video interview about his stalled nomination of U.S. Circuit Court Judge Merrick Garland. Asked if he thought the Constitution's language about "advice and consent" meant the Senate had an obligation to hold a vote, Obama told BuzzFeed News: "I do."The Constitution says the president "shall" appoint judges to the Supreme Court "with the advice and consent of the Senate." Senate Republicans have maintained they are fulfilling their constitutional duty by choosing not to consider Garland at all.The GOP has pointed out that in 2005, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid argued that the Constitution doesn't say the Senate has a duty to vote on presidential nominees.Months of efforts by the White House to build up political pressure on Republicans to relent and hold a vote have so far been ineffective. Although a number of Republicans have met with Garland and a few have expressed openness to hearings, GOP leadership has stood firm behind their insistence that the next president should get to choose a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.Obama also tried to use Donald Trump's ascent as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee as another reason why a Scalia replacement shouldn't wait. With many Republicans openly questioning Trump's temperament and principles, Democrats have said it's too risky to let Trump pick the next justice if he's elected in November."Precisely because this election year has been so crazy, because we have a number of Republicans say that they're concerned about their nominee, it shows why you can't politicize a Supreme Court vacancy," Obama said.In the interview, Obama said erroneously that Garland had been "confirmed unanimously" by the Senate to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Garland was confirmed on a vote of 76-23 in 1997.___Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.
Israel, Palestinians Allow Mine Clearance at Site of the Baptism of Jesus-[Time]-Julia Zorthian-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Jesus was believed to have been baptized at the site of the 136-acre minefield-The HALO Trust, a British organization that clears minefields, will remove mines from the 136-acre Qaser al-Yahud site in the West Bank where Jesus is believed to have been baptized.Seven churches on the site have been inaccessible since the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel mined the area to fend off attacks from Jordan. Both Israeli and Palestinian authorities granted HALO access, along with the seven churches that have neglected structures among the mines, according to a press release.The project is slated to take between 18 and 20 months, and HALO is currently fundraising towards the $4 million in expected costs. Once cleared, the minefield is set to become a national park.For years, buses of tourists have simply driven by the site. Once the minefield is declared safe, visitors should have access to the orthodox Coptic, Ethiopian, Greek, Romanian, Syrian and Russian churches, the Catholic church and a plot of land that belongs to the Armenian Orthodox church.
Openly Gay Pastor Admits He Wrote Homophobic Slur on Whole Foods Cake-[Inside Edition]-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
An openly gay Texas pastor who last month claimed a Whole Foods baker had written a homophobic slur on a cake he ordered has recanted his claim."I want to apologize to Whole Foods and its team members for questioning the company’s commitment to its values," Jordan Brown, pastor of a small Austin church, wrote in a statement. “The company did nothing wrong,” Brown said. "I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story."Read: Anti-Gay Remarks Could Have Caused Man to Commit Suicide on Cruise Ship-In April, Brown made headlines with claims a Whole Foods baker had written "F**" in icing on a cake that he'd asked to read "Love Wins."However, Whole Foods was quick to respond to the claims by releasing surveillance footage that showed the UPC sticker in a different position on the cake box from where it appeared after it had been handled by Brown.The company also revealed that the baker was herself a member of the LGBT community.Brown has apologized to both the baker "who I understand was put in a terrible position because of my actions" and to the "LGBT community for diverting attention from real issues."I also want to apologize to my partner, my family, my church family, and my attorney," she said.As Brown announced he was dropping the suit he'd filed against Whole Foods, the grocery chain announced they've dropped their $100,000 countersuit."We're very pleased that the truth has come to light. Given Mr. Brown's apology and public admission that his story was a complete fabrication, we see no reason to move forward with our countersuit to defend the integrity of our brand and team members," Whole Foods said in a statement.
Killing Medusas and werewolves: Calgary man admits to stabbing five young people-[The Canadian Press]-Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CALGARY - Friends and family sobbed and gasped with horror Monday as they heard graphic details about how five young people at a house party were slain by a man who believed he was killing Medusas and werewolves for the son of God.Matthew de Grood, 24, admitted in an agreed statement of facts read at the start of his first-degree murder trial that he stabbed his victims. But court heard he told police he didn't take pleasure in it."I stabbed people in the house," the statement quotes de Grood as telling officers."I just want to say that when I stabbed them, I tried to do it mercifully. I aimed for their heart. They put up a struggle which made it hard, but, so you know, it wasn't sadistic or anything," he said."I didn't enjoy killing at all. I said sorry, but the son of God was controlling me."De Grood's lawyer, Allan Fay, pleaded not guilty on his client's behalf. Fay told reporters he plans to argue his client was not criminally responsible for the killings.The stabbings, in what police have called Calgary's worst mass killing, happened at a party being held to mark the end of the university school year in April 2014.Killed were Kaitlin Perras, 23; Lawrence Hong, 27; Josh Hunter, 23; Zackariah Rathwell, 21; and Jordan Segura, 22. Hunter, Hong and Segura all attended the University of Calgary. Perras studied at Mount Royal University and Rathwell was a student at the Alberta College of Art and Design.Prosecutor Neil Wiberg spent more than an hour reading out the agreed statement of facts that contained details from de Grood's interview with police. The judge also lifted a publication ban on material submitted by police to obtain search warrants.The unsealed documents detailed how de Grood, the son of a high-ranking Calgary police officer, was "a good boy, kind and compassionate" until his personality began to change about a month before the stabbings.He began spending time alone and became quiet and withdrawn. He added a number of unusual posts on Facebook, including quotes from Mega Death lyrics, quotes from the Bible and ramblings on reincarnation.A childhood friend invited de Grood to the party. De Grood had just finished a shift at Safeway and wore his uniform. The friend noted how de Grood was acting strange. He made a number of odd rambling statements including "Obama was the Antichrist."The agreed facts said de Grood handed his friend a clove of garlic stating that "he may need it." He also passed him a knife similar to a bread knife with a serrated blade.Once at the party de Grood put on a pair of blue latex gloves.De Grood told police that he felt he had to attack Rathwell, a budding young musician, before Rathwell attacked him. He told police the two had a disagreement over Buddhism. De Grood grabbed a chef's knife with a 21-centimetre blade from a knife block in the kitchen."I asked him to give me my space. We were walking toward the knife block, so I decided to shoot first because I didn't know what he was going to do so I stabbed him," de Grood is quoted in the unsealed documents as telling officers."Then the people on the couch saw and obviously started freaking out, so I killed them from left to right as quickly as I could. The girl ran into the corner so I went and stabbed her. I said I'm sorry I have to do this. Then the guy from the kitchen wasn't dead. I had to hunt him down. Then I just left."De Grood's friend and some others had gone out to get something to eat and came back to chaos."He heard screams from a female believed to be Katie. This was followed by Josh running out of the house with de Grood chasing him," read the court documents.Police received a series of 911 calls beginning at 1:22 a.m.Documents say one of the first officers on the scene described a "large amount of blood and carnage.""Upon entering the front door, there was panic throughout the main floor. Two male victims lying head to head on the floor were motionless in a large pool of blood. People were attending to them but they were deceased," reported the officer."A fourth male victim was found lying in a fetal position on a couch while a male kept pressure to the wound to his neck. This victim was also deceased."De Grood was arrested and taken into custody a short time later and interviewed by police."What I did may seem atrocious but I was killing Medusas, werewolves," he told the officers.He has been undergoing treatment at the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre since his arrest.The victims' families made a statement on the courthouse steps before the start of the trial in which they urged people to focus on their loved ones. De Grood's parents, Douglas and Susan de Grood, were also in court and sat in the front row."The priority for us during this trial is to ensure that our loved ones will be given the full and just attention that they deserve," read Greg Perras, Kaitlin's father. "All we ask is that you remember how they lived — with purpose, with life, with goodness and love for their friends and family."The statement said the last two years have been extremely difficult, incredibly long and anxiety-ridden for the families."There's no such thing as a new normal that some people talk about," Perras said. "There is only existing, surviving, and a series of bitter-sweet events going forward in our families lives such as graduations, weddings and grandchildren."These milestones will be happy and they will be sad."— Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter
Did Ben Carson Just Spill the Beans on Donald Trump's Possible Vice Presidential Picks?-[Mic]-Celeste Katz-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
It's not totally mind-boggling that a man who made his mark examining the workings of the human brain has some interesting thought processes.Ben Carson, the onetime presidential candidate who has now hitched his political star to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, spilled the beans on Trump's short list for a vice presidential running mate during a recent interview — or did he? The Washington Post reported Sunday, having asked Carson about potential Trump running mates: "The most favorably regarded contenders after himself, he was told, were John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Chris Christie." "Those are all people on our list," Carson told the paper.Carson's casual confirmation of the names set off a cascade of followup reports.The Post later updated the story to say Carson then did some backpedaling: "Everybody could potentially be considered, doesn't mean they are on the short list."The doctor was a little more circumspect about the names during a Fox News appearance:@RealBenCarson on @realDonaldTrump VP: "It'll be somebody who loves and honors our Constitution."https://amp.twimg.com/v/63eb0189-37d2-4f53-9912-ff99ae289e47 ...Trump himself — who asked Carson to help mull running mates before putting campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in charge of VP operations — also tamped Carson's Post interview down on Twitter.-The @washingtonpost report on potential VP candidates is wrong. Marco Rubio and most others mentioned are NOT under consideration.Carson, the preternaturally calm pediatric neurosurgeon who enjoyed a burst of popularity early in the frantic GOP primary cycle, seems to enjoy making political pronouncements on car rides.He once told the New York Daily News during a drive from midtown Manhattan to Ground Zero that he had unique ideas for extracting information from terror suspects."I can think of some things that would be much more effective than [waterboarding], that would not be torture, that would take advantage of things that we know about the brain," Carson told a reporter during the trip.Asked by the News to elaborate on those techniques, Carson demurred — Trump style."I'm not going to tell," he said. "I wouldn't put those things out for everybody to know."
Baltimore cop testifies that he arrested, handcuffed Freddie Gray-[Reuters]-By Donna Owens-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
BALTIMORE (Reuters) - A Baltimore policeman testified on Monday that he, and not a fellow officer on trial for the death of black detainee Freddie Gray, was the one who arrested Gray, in testimony that was the first by another suspect in the high-profile case.Under prosecution questioning, Officer Garrett Miller said he and his accused partner Officer Edward Nero had chased Gray after being ordered to do so. Gray's April 2015 death from a broken neck suffered in a police van triggered rioting and protests in the majority black city.Prosecutors contend that Nero, 30, pursued Gray without probable cause and then failed to secure Gray in the van. But Nero's lawyers argue that he had little to do with Gray's arrest and never touched him except when he tried to help Gray, 25, find an asthma inhaler.Asked in Baltimore City Circuit Court whether Nero had put handcuffs on Gray, Miller told prosecutor Michael Schatzow, "No, he did not."Prosecutors rested their case against Nero after calling more than a dozen witnesses. Judge Barry Williams, who is presiding over a bench trial, rejected a defense motion that the charges be dismissed.Miller testified that he and Nero, a fellow bicycle officer, had no idea why Lieutenant Brian Rice ordered them to pursue Gray after he fled unprovoked in a high-crime area.Nero, Rice and Miller are among six officers facing trial for Gray's death. He was bundled into a transport van while shackled and not belted in after officers found a spring-assisted knife in his pocket.The incident involving Gray is one of those highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement. Miller and Nero have pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct.During cross-examination by defense lawyer Marc Zayon, Miller repeated that he was the officer who detained Gray. He testified that the responsibility for securing Gray in the van lay with the driver, officer Caesar Goodson Jr.Miller's testimony came after legal wrangling over prosecutors' efforts to force another officer, William Porter, to testify under limited immunity while his own charges were pending.Maryland's highest court ruled in March that Porter had to testify. Forcing testimony in a co-defendant's trial was seen as unprecedented in Maryland.Defense lawyers had argued against making Porter testify since it would allow prosecutors to compel other officers, such as Miller, to take the witness stand.(Writing by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and James Dalgleish)
Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea Aren’t Enough-[Foreign Policy Magazine]-Julian G. Ku, M. Taylor Fravel and Malcolm Cook-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
International tensions are rising over the shipping lanes and land formations in the South China Sea. Last week, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force scrambled fighter jets in response to a U.S. Navy ship sailing near the disputed Fiery Cross Reef. Sometime very soon, possibly this month, the United Nations is expected to resolve South China Sea claims by the Philippines, where the President-elect, Rodrigo Duterte, is making offers to broker peace in the region. How much has the status quo changed and what will it mean for the counties involved? —The ChinaFile Editors-Julian G. Ku, Professor of Law, Hofstra University:Like the two other recent U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) in the South China Sea, the most recent U.S. FONOP was designed to avoid any conflict with China’s sovereignty claims. Instead, by conducting the operations under the rules of “innocent passage,” the U.S. Navy assumed China might have sovereign rights, but simply challenged China’s domestic law requirement that foreign warships give prior notification before entering what China claims is its territorial sea.Despite this very limited challenge, China’s reaction to the U.S. FONOP has also been largely the same. Fighter jets were scrambled, and naval assets were deployed to shadow the U.S. ship during its passage. But two new aspects to China’s rhetorical response are worth noting. The shift in China’s rhetoric also reveals the limits of the U.S. reliance on FONOPs as a tool to deter Chinese expansionism in the region.First, the Chinese defense ministry has begun to suggest that the continuation of U.S. FONOPs justifies its construction of “defensive facilities” in the South China Sea. Since the most recent round of U.S. FONOPs in the region began in October 2015 (after a four-year hiatus) and the Chinese land reclamation has been going on for almost two full years, this post-hoc justification for Chinese militarization of the region is hard to swallow.Second, the Chinese foreign ministry has started directly engaging with the narrower U.S. legal argument against a prior notification requirement for warships. In fact, it tried to isolate the U.S. legal position. Drawing a distinction between commercial and military vessels, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman stated that “no country, except the United States believes in military vessels sailing wherever they want, which is against international law.” The spokesman went on to say the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) “allows innocent passage by foreign vessels through others’ territorial waters, but there is no specific term stating that military vessels have such a right.” China then pointed out that several other countries agree with China on this interpretation of UNCLOS.The Chinese government is correct that some countries have continued to argue that the rights of innocent passage guaranteed by Article 19 of UNCLOS does not apply to warships. The plain language of Article 19 (“ships of all States”) suggests otherwise since the Convention specifies “warships” in other contexts when naval vessels have special treatment. But the disagreement has persisted over the years.China’s shift from complaining about U.S. violations of its sovereignty to dueling interpretations of UNCLOS reflects a possible shift in its rhetorical and diplomatic strategy. While complaining about U.S. threats to sovereignty would only highlight the aggressiveness of China’s territorial claims, complaining about expansive U.S. naval operations is an issue with which other nations can find common ground with China. Indeed, China’s diplomatic corps has been working overtime to line up sympathetic nations to its non-acceptance of the pending UNCLOS arbitral tribunal case brought by the Philippines. Shifting focus toward arcane interpretations of international law is better and more solid ground for China.The United States has the better and more persuasive interpretation of UNCLOS. But if China is able to drag the United States into the technical arguments over UNCLOS, some of the political force of the U.S. FONOPs will inevitably erode. While it should not abandon FONOPs, the United States needs to come up with different ways to challenge China’s land reclamations and expansionism. FONOPs are not going to be enough.M. Taylor Fravel, Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT:I agree with Julian about the limits of FONOPs for deterring China in the South China Sea, but for a different reason.Put simply, FONOPs were never intended to be used as a tool in territorial or maritime jurisdictional disputes involving third parties. The purpose of the program is limited to asserting navigational freedoms that “excessive claims” to maritime jurisdiction by other states would restrict or constrict in ways that are inconsistent with “high seas freedoms” in UNCLOS. They are operational assertions using military vessels to reinforce U.S. declaratory policy on freedom of navigation, not actions to deter how states pursue their claims in maritime disputes. By definition, FONOPs are usually a reaction to claims already made by third parties, to demonstrate that the United States does not recognize them.In the South China Sea, FONOPs can be used to challenge excessive claims from the various land features under dispute. Recently, as Julian notes, FONOPs have been used only to challenge restrictions on the transit of military vessels through a 12 nautical mile territorial sea, such as prior permission or prior notification. Looking forward, they could be used to challenge claims to maritime jurisdiction from some artificial islands that China has created, at least four of which would not be entitled to even a territorial sea because they are artificial structures built upon a low-tide elevation.The recent FONOPs in the South China Sea have been publicized extensively. Paradoxically, such publicity may limit further the effect of FONOPs in a third party’s maritime disputes. Because they are considered to be a military operation, the Department of Defense almost never reveals the details or occurrence of particular FONOPS. Instead, they usually occur out of the public eye. The target of the operation is demarched to explain the excessive claim being challenged and a military vessel then challenges with a predetermined operation. At the end of the year, the U.S. Department of Defense publishes a report listing the countries and excessive claims that are being challenged but does not release information about individual operations.The uncommon and unusual publicity attached to the last three FONOPs in the South China Sea represents a departure from past U.S. practice. Moreover, regarding the dynamics of the disputes in the South China Sea, such publicity may backfire, for two reasons.First, the publicity given to these operations, widely seen as designed to challenge China, invites China to respond. From Beijing’s perspective, FONOPs are viewed (incorrectly) as direct challenges to China’s sovereignty claims and as indirect challenges to China more generally. If China’s leaders do not respond, they risk being viewed domestically as weak or yielding to the United States. Although China’s responses have been measured and largely symbolic, the rhetoric contributes to the hardening of positions and escalation of disputes. Traditional FONOPs conducted out of the public eye would remove these incentives without weakening the content of the operational assertion.Second, the publicity given to these recent FONOPs create strong incentives for China to emphasize its interpretations of the convention that Julian has described. Traditional FONOPs conducted out of the public eye would also remove these incentives without weakening the content of the operational assertion.The United States should continue to perform FONOPs in the South China Sea — regularly but privately.Malcolm Cook, Senior Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute:Julian Ku is certainly right that U.S. freedom of navigation operations conducted under the rules of “innocent passage” will not be enough to challenge China’s increasingly assertive actions on and around the disputed land features in the South China Sea. And tensions could escalate soon. If reports are correct, China’s artificial island building could soon extend to Scarborough Shoal located 123 nautical miles from the main island of the Philippines, 250 nautical miles from the disputed Spratly and Paracel land features, and 530 nautical miles from China’s Hainan Island. This would be a serious escalation on China’s part that would likely sink the incoming Philippine administration’s desire to reduce bilateral tensions over this issue, and lead to more pressure on the United States from concerned states in the region to push back against China.Yet, the biggest shortcoming of U.S. FONOPs as a Chinese behavior-changing effort has nothing to do with the United States. The biggest problem is that the United States alone is willing to conduct these operations and suffer China’s predicted and predictable backlashes. The maritime Southeast Asian states Japan and Australia arguably have more at stake in the South China Sea but are unwilling to conduct their own operations. Maritime Southeast Asian backing for the recent U.S. operations has been ambivalent at best, and offered more in private than in public or in diplomatic forums with China present.This, more than the widely criticized decision by the Obama administration to limit their operations to innocent passage ones, undermines the strength of the FONOPs message sent to China. The lack of active or rhetorical support from other nations undermines these operations’ effectiveness in reflecting that the maritime Southeast Asian states and Japan share with the United States the conviction that China’s claims to maritime rights in the South China Sea are excessive and its artificial island building activities are destabilizing. By leaving the United States alone operationally and often publicly lacking support, it allows China to dismiss these operations as simply part of U.S. efforts to contain China.Future U.S. FONOPs in the disputed waters of the South China Sea may benefit from relaxing the innocent passage restriction, particularly in relation to China’s recently constructed artificial islands. The pending ruling by the Arbitration Tribunal on the 2013 case filed by the Philippines under UNCLOS could rule that some or all of these artificial islands are constructed on low water features with no attendant territorial sea rights. However, the U.S. position in relation to the South China Sea disputes, and those of the maritime Southeast Asian states, Japan and Australia, would benefit more if the United States was not alone in conducting FONOPs. Or, at least, if support for U.S. FONOPs by these like-concerned states was more frequent, more public, and more convincing.
Shell Oil Spill Near Louisiana Dumps 90,000 Gallons of Crude Oil Into the Gulf of Mexico-[Mic]-Jon Levine-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
While stories about each and every little thing Donald Trump said and did dominated the news cycle over the weekend, a major environmental catastrophe unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico — and you probably didn't hear about. Oil company Royal Dutch Shell has begun the massive task of cleaning up nearly 90,000 gallons of crude oil that leaked from a company oil derrick roughly 90 miles off the state's coast, the Associated Press reported Friday. Shell first noticed the leak only after a helicopter reported a 2 by 13-mile sheen across the Gulf of Mexico near the oil giant's Brutus platform.The spill has been contained, a U.S. Coast Guard press release reported Thursday. "The likely cause of the sheen is a release of oil from subsea infrastructure and in response, we have isolated the leak and shut-in production," the company said in a statement, the Wall Street Journal reported. "No release is acceptable, and safety remains our priority as we respond to this incident."Locals around the site of the latest spill remained unconvinced, telling ThinkProgress that the official line from Shell and others was more of the same. "You sit down for dinner and you watch the news and you see another spill with tens of thousands of gallons of oil and reports that no one is hurt or the leak has stopped," Colette Pichon Battle, executive director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, told the progressive advocacy group. "Just from experience, that that's probably not true." She added that the poorest residents of coastal communities and Native Americans were likely to feel the brunt of any damage.The incident was also striking for a comparable lack of coverage it received, especially given its location in the same area where the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion caused immense ecological devastation in 2010. The fallout from the largest oil spill to occur in U.S. waters are still being felt today.
US reveals how much Treasury debt Saudi Arabia owns-[The Canadian Press]-Martin Crutsinger, The Associated Press-May 16, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON - Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose in March, with the Treasury Department revealing for the first time in four decades how much Saudi Arabia owns.In its latest report, Treasury said Monday that that total holdings increased 0.8 per cent to a record $6.29 trillion. The figure climbed even though China, the largest holder of Treasury debt, trimmed its portfolio by 0.6 per cent to $1.24 trillion.For the first time since 1974, when the government began releasing data on foreign ownership of Treasury securities, the report broke out ownership for specific countries that it had always lumped together such as "oil exporting nations" and "Caribbean banking centres."The report showed that Saudi Arabia in March held $116.8 billion in Treasury debt, down 2.5 per cent from February.A Treasury spokesperson said that the decision to start listing Saudi Arabia's holdings separately was not linked in any way to recent warnings from the government of Saudi Arabia. Last month Saudi Arabia said that it could begin selling off its U.S. investments if Congress passes a law allowing the country to be held responsible in U.S. courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The break-out of the investments held by Saudi Arabia makes the country the 13th largest foreign holder of Treasury securities. The Cayman Islands, which previously was included in a grouping of Caribbean banking centres, ranks No. 3, behind China and Japan. It held $265 billion in March, up 3.9 per cent from February.Treasury spokesperson Whitney Smith said de-grouping certain countries is an effort to make the data more useful."We concluded that it was consistent with transparency and the law to disclose the data in a disaggregated fashion," Smith said in a statement.The new report showed that Japan, the second largest foreign holder of debt, increased its holdings by 0.4 per cent to $1.14 trillion in March.The $6.29 trillion in total foreign holdings of Treasury debt was a modest 1.9 per cent higher than a year ago.Of that total, 65 per cent is held by foreign governments, primarily central banks.The national debt now stands at $19.16 trillion. With the federal budget deficit projected to grow over the next decade, the United States will need to see continued strong foreign demand for Treasury debt to help finance its growing borrowing needs.
