Month: July 2020

It was intended to be a sun-soaked working holiday, a rite of passage between finishing school and starting university. Instead, it turned into a nightmare.

When a British teenager arrived in the hedonistic party town of Ayia Napa in Cyprus in early July, her plan was to get a job, have fun and – in her own words – do some “growing up”.

Hoping to find work in a bar or handing out flyers for the resort’s raucous nightclubs, the 18-year-old found accommodation at the two-star Pambos Napa Rocks Hotel in the heart of Ayia Napa.

It was arranged through a company called Summer Takeover, which promises “heavy nights” and “madness” for youngsters who sign up.

The low-rise hotel, which packs in hundreds…

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US forces began withdrawing from their largest base in northern Syria on Sunday after the Pentagon chief confirmed that nearly 1,000 troops would be relocated to “help defend Iraq” against Isil’s re-emergence.

As President Donald Trump claimed that he was "bringing soldiers home", he was contradicted by his defence secretary, Mark Esper, who said the troops were instead headed for Syria’s neighbour to join an existing US force of 5,000. 

“The current game plan is for those forces to re-position into western Iraq,” Mr Esper said late on Saturday, not ruling out that they would conduct counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria. The timeframe for the transfer to be completed was "weeks, not days,” he added. 

By Sunday afternoon, the relocation had begun, with a first convoy of more than 70 US armoured vehicles escorted by helicopters rumbling out of the Sarrin base in northern Syria and past the town of Tal Tamr.

The withdrawal brings to a close America’s military presence in northern Syria and effectively abandons its ally, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, to Turkish firepower.

Ankara began its cross-border attack on October 9 with the goal of pushing back Kurdish YPG fighters from its border and establishing a Turkish-controlled zone to which it could eventually return Syrian refugees.

The operation unleashed chaos across a part of Syria that has long been relatively stable.

As the SDF came under pressure from the Turkish offensive, non-combat duties such as the policing of Isil detainees were set aside, enabling large-scale escapes of Isil members and families. 

Running out of allies, the Kurds made a previously unthinkable deal with Damascus last week, allowing Syrian troops into areas under their control in exchange for protection from the Turkish attack.

A five-day US-brokered ceasefire, announced on Thursday and only unevenly implemented, aimed to allow Kurdish forces to withdraw from a 120-km (70-mile) strip of land that runs along the Turkish border.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to restart the offensive if Kurdish fighters fail to pull out.

A sticking point has been the besieged border town of Ras al-Ain, held by the Kurds but located in the middle of a future Turkish-controlled border zone.

On Sunday, however, the Turkish defence ministry said that the SDF forces there had withdrawn, a move also confirmed by the Kurdish group. 

In other parts of northern Syria, fighting continued as Turkish warplanes and a motley crew of Turkish-backed troops worked to oust Kurds from long-held positions along the Turkey-Syria border.

Both sides have accused the other of violating the ceasefire, and yesterday Turkey’s defence ministry alleged that one of its soldiers had been killed by Kurdish forces in the Tal Abyad border area.

The dynamics of the conflict’s latest permutation are complex, with the US brokering a ceasefire between its NATO ally and former proxy even as it rolled out of the battlefield to continue the same fight from another front.

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The Turkish defence ministry asserted on Sunday that "there are absolutely no impediments to the withdrawal" of Kurdish forces and that "the activities of exiting and evacuation from the region are firmly coordinated with the US counterparts".

But Mr Trump’s focus appears to be less on the ceasefire and more on the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and the limiting of America’s role there.

After saying last week it was "time to bring our soldiers back home", he continued to claim they were returning to the United States despite being contradicted by Mr Esper. 

On Sunday, Mr Trump referred to his defence secretary on Twitter as "Mark Esperanto” and added that “USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!"

The president’s bizarre comment followed a high-level visit to Jordan led by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic US House speaker, for discussions on the "deepening crisis" in Syria.

The US is sending reinforcements into Syria to secure the oil fields, the Defence Secretary confirmed on Friday, in a reversal of plans to fully withdraw from the conflict.

“We are now taking some actions… to strengthen our position at Deir ez zor, to ensure that we can deny ISIS access to the oil fields,” Mark Esper told reporters during a press conference, using an acronym for Islamic State.

“We are reinforcing that position, it will include some mechanized forces,” Esper said. Mechanized forces usually include tanks and other military assets.  

“We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!” President Trump tweeted on Thursday. 

The White House is reportedly considering options for leaving 500 US troops in the country and sending dozens of battle tanks, as well as other heavy military equipment, to protect the US troops stationed near SDF-controlled oil fields.

Oil fields in Northeast Syria

Defence officials told CNN that the move is likely to happen “relatively soon”.

Oil fields across Syria and Iraq were a key source of income for Isil. In 2015 the US Treasury Department estimated that the group made nearly $500 million per year from producing and exporting oil. 

Mr Esper said that the troops currently protecting the unspecified oil fields are there “to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities.”

However, it is likely that the decision to “secure the oil” is to stop the Assad regime reclaiming the sought-after territory, rather than the remnants of Isil. 

“Things have been heading in the direction of Assad and Russia taking control of the oil fields in the area,” said Lina Khatib, head of the MENA programme at Chatham House. 

“For the US, having control of the oil fields translates into being able to pressure Iran economically. There is Iranian militia presence in the areas around the oil fields in Deir Ezzor. Were the Assad regime and Russia to advance in that area, it opens up opportunities for these Iran backed groups to also get access to oil revenue which would go against US maximum pressure policy on Iran.”

The modification of US objectives in Syria comes as their abandoned allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are accusing Turkey of violating the ceasefire process that has been in place since Tuesday.  

The spokesperson for the SDF, Mustafa Bali, said on Thursday that Turkey had launched offensives in three villages with “large number of mercenaries and all kinds of heavy weapons”. 

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Australia’s most notorious serial killer, who murdered at least seven people including two British tourists, has died in prison at the age of 74.

Ivan Milat, who was convicted in 1996 of the murders of seven backpackers, died of stomach and oesophageal cancer early on Sunday morning in Long Bay prison’s hospital wing.

He had recently given his brother a sealed envelope to be opened upon his death, telling him it was not a confession, Australian news site 10 Daily reported, citing police sources. It is understood that it contained a one-page letter, but no details are publicly known.

New South Wales Corrections Minister Anthony Roberts issued a statement in which he said Milat “can rot in hell”.

“He showed no remorse,” the minister said.

While Milat maintained he was innocent to the end, police suspected his involvement in a number of other disappearances – including three young women in Newcastle, New South Wales, in the 1970s.

He was serving seven life sentences for the murders of British women Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters; Deborah Everist and James Gibson, a couple from Melbourne; and three German backpackers, Gabor Neugebauer, Anja Habschied and Simone Schmidl.

Ian Clarke, the Northumberland-based father of Caroline Clarke, killed at the age of 21 while travelling with 22-year-old Walters, said: "No matter how Christian one might be, you can’t help but be glad that this has happened."

Milat, who inspired the horror film Wolf Creek, was successfully prosecuted in part due to the testimony of British backpacker Paul Onions, who escaped from the murderer in 1990.

Mr Onions was hitchhiking from Sydney to Mildura, a country town in Victoria, when he met Milat in a shop near Mittagong. Milat, noticing his accent and backpack, offered him a lift.

When approaching Belanglo state forest, Milat slowed the car down and pulled out a gun. Mr Onions leapt out and ran, and Milat fired a shot at him and missed.  The British tourist ran back to the road to flag down another car for help and wrestled with the notorious murderer before breaking free and jumping into the next car. 

Joanne Berry, the Australian grandmother behind the wheel, quickly drove them away from Milat.

Earlier this year, Ms Berry told Seven News that “things could have taken a dramatic turn for the worst”.

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"Looking back now, I can just count my blessings that I was being looked after… Milat could have come after us all,” she said.

After his astonishing escape, Mr Onions reported the incident to police who took his details.

Four years later, when police found bodies in the very same state forest, they revisited Mr Onions’ report and contact him. He identified Milat from a photo and helped seal the case against him.

As well as the life sentences, Milat received an additional six years in prison for the attack on Mr Onions, who reportedly donated the £250,000 reward he received.

The US House of Representatives has voted to move forward its impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, putting a congressional stamp on the historic bid to remove him from office.

The House, where the Democrats hold the majority, voted 232 to 196 on a resolution that spelled out the process for how the impeachment inquiry will progress.

It is the first time in 21 years that the House has backed an impeachment inquiry, something that only three other US presidents have faced in history. 

The vote split down party lines, with every Republican opposing the resolution and all but two Democrats voting for it.

The result means that the impeachment inquiry will soon enter a public phase, with open hearings due to take place with key witnesses in the Ukraine scandal. 

It will also give both Republican and Democrat members the chance to question those people giving testimony while the nation watches. 

Process of impeachment

The resolution was a response to fierce criticism from Republicans, from Mr Trump down, about the behind-closed-doors nature of the probe to date.

But it is also a symbolic and historic moment, the first time the House has voted on this impeachment inquiry into Mr Trump. 

Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton are the only other US presidents that have faced an inquiry tasked with considering whether they should be removed from office. 

The White House immediately released a statement condemning the vote, indicating it will not change its stance of non-cooperation with the investigation. 

Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, said that Mr Trump had done “nothing wrong” and that the Democrats had an “unhinged obsession” with getting rid of the president. 

“The Democrats want to render a verdict without giving the Administration a chance to mount a defense. That is unfair, unconstitutional, and fundamentally un-American,” she said. 

Minutes after the vote, Mr Trump tweeted: "The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!"

The inquiry, which is investigating whether Mr Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” by urging Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, has been running for 37 days. It was launched by the Democrats without a vote. 

Mr Biden, the former US vice president, is one of the front-runners to win the Democratic presidential nomination for the 2020 election. The winner of that contest will face Mr Trump next November. 

The Democratic leadership will be pleased that all but two of its members backed the resolution to progress the inquiry. Around a third of House Democrats had been against such a move a few months ago.

The two Democrats who voted against the resolution were Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey. Both of their districts voted for Mr Trump in the 2016 election. 

However the White House will take heart from the fact that not a single Republican member backed the resolution. A vote split almost perfectly along party lines will help its attempt to portray the impeachment inquiry as being pursued for political reasons. 

One independent member, Justin Amash of Michigan, voted for the resolution. He was a Republican but left the party in July after repeatedly clashing with the party leadership. 

The debate on the floor of the House on Thursday revealed the wide gap between Republicans and Democrats on the necessity of the inquiry.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, spoke standing next to an American flag as she urged her colleagues to vote to move forward with the impeachment process.

"What is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy. I proudly stand next to the flag,” Ms Pelosi said. "So many have fought and died for this flag, which stands for our democracy.” 

Ms Pelosi, along with many of her Democratic colleagues, said that she took no “glee or comfort” from impeachment, framing the inquiry vote as a “solemn occasion” which amounted to protecting the US Constitution. 

Other Democrat House members argued there was “evidence” that Mr Trump has committed impeachable offences and urged others to consider what people would say in 100 years time if they voted to block the inquiry. 

Where now? | Next steps in the impeachment inquiry

However Republican after Republican used the debate to dismiss the impeachment inquiry as a  “show trial” and a “total sham”, calling the vote a “dark day” for American democracy. 

Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican member in the House, said that Democrats were pushing impeachment in an attempt to “influence” next year’s presidential election. 

"Democrats are trying to impeach the president because they are scared they cannot defeat him at the ballot box,” he said.

He jokingly noted the vote was being held on Halloween as he framed the impeachment inquiry as a fiercely partisan attempt to overturn the 2016 election result.

Steve Scalise, a senior Republican in the House, appeared alongside a red poster bearing a sickle and hammer and Red Square imagery as he derided the “Soviet-style” impeachment proceedings.

Mr Scalise said that the Democrats were abusing their majority on the House committees which are leading the impeachment inquiry to “run roughshod” over convention. 

Mr Trump, who has been defiant in the face of the inquiry, tweeted “READ THE TRANSCRIPT!” as the debate went on. 

He has argued the transcript of a July 25 call he had with the Ukrainian president, where he urged an investigation into Mr Biden, was “perfect”. 

He later tweeted:

The Impeachment Hoax is hurting our Stock Market. The Do Nothing Democrats don’t care!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2019

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Turkey has warned that it will send British Islamic State members back to the UK if they come into the custody of Turkish forces in Syria. 

Suleyman Soylu, the Turkish interior minister, told Britain and other European governments that Turkey was “not a hotel” for foreign jihadists and vowed to send them home.    

“When there is a Daesh member, they cancel his or her citizenship, making the person stateless. Then, they take no responsibility,” Mr Soylu said. "That is not acceptable to us. It’s also irresponsible.”

Tooba Gondal, 25, is the only British Isil member so far known to have ended up in Turkish custody. She and her children escaped from a Kurdish-run facility in northern Syria last month and ended up in the hands of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. 

Ms Gondal was known as “the Isil matchmaker” because she used her social media accounts to try to convince other young British women to follow in her footsteps and become wives to jihadists.

Britain has for years resisted pressure from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to take back Isil members from the UK. 

But it may be more difficult to stave off pressure from Turkey, which in theory could put Ms Gondal on a plane to London or try to hand her over to the British embassy in Ankara.    

There are believed to be eight British men in Kurdish prisons in northeast Syria, while another 25 women and around 60 children are in Kurdish-run camps. Some of them may end up in Turkey’s custody as the Turkish military continues to attack Kurdish targets. 

Ms Gondal was born in France but moved to London as a child and had British residency. However, the UK government is reluctant to bring her back to the UK.

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Ms Gondal, who married and was widowed three times while living in Isil’s “caliphate”, was banned from re-entering the UK last November by a Home Office exclusion order, but her son Ibrahim, three, is entitled to citizenship because of his British father. 

However, her 18-month-old daughter Asiya’s late father was Russian.

Ms Gondal is today thought to be in one of the new camps for Isil wives set up by Turkey in an area of northern Syria it seized during an offensive in 2017.

Sans projet depuis le (second) échec de son “Don Quichotte”, Terry Gilliam travaille actuellement sur “Mr. Vertigo”, adaptation du roman homonyme de Paul Auster, paru en 1994.

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Cette fois-ci, on y croyait vraiment ! Mais en septembre dernier, Terry Gilliam nous avait annoncé que son Don Quichotte 2.0 était en stand-by, alors qu’il avait réussi à recruter Robert Duvall et Ewan McGregor pour les rôles principaux (voir notre article). Depuis, plus de nouvelles, donc il faut croire que cette adaptation de Cervantes est allée rejoindre celle que devaient interpréter Jean Rochefort et Johnny Depp. Heureusement, le Los Angeles Times nous apprend aujourd’hui que l’ex-Monty Python travaille actuellement sur Mr. Vertigo, d’après le roman homonyme de Paul Auster (Lulu on the Bridge) paru en 1994, et dans lequel il est question d’un orphelin qui apprend à voler grâce à un voyageur mystérieux, et qui traverse les Etats-Unis pour faire face au Ku Klux Klan ou à son oncle alcoolique. Ce qui est sûr, c’est qu’avec un pitch pareil, Terry Gilliam va se sentir comme un poisson dans l’eau, lui qui a souvent emmené des enfants dans des aventures extraordinaires, de Bandits, bandits (1982) à Tideland (2006), en passant par Les Aventures du baron de Münchausen (1989), qui était déjà une adaptation de roman. Espérons que celle de Mr. Vertigo soit moins chaotique…

Maximilien Pierrette avec The Los Angeles Times

Wednesday is the beginning of a new phase of President Donald Trump’s historic impeachment trial as senators will have a total of 16 hours over a two days to question House impeachment managers and the White House defense team about Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine.

In the background of the events unfolding on the Senate floor, debate continues over whether to call witnesses to testify. A specific focus has been placed on the possible testimony of former national security adviser John Bolton.

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The Senate is not expected to resolve the witness issue Wednesday.

The impeachment inquiry centers on whether Trump used the power of his position to solicit a foreign government to influence the 2020 U.S. election. Specifically, he is accused of asking Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, now running for president, while withholding nearly $400 million in military aid approved by Congress.

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — The awkward years of Bernie Sanders and other now-famous Brooklynites are online thanks to a new Brooklyn Public Library archive.

The library on Wednesday released a digital archive of 1,000 high school newspapers from 55 New York City schools, a release states.

Most of those papers are from the 1950s and 1960s, which just happens to be when a young, much less bushy-haired Bernie Sanders attended James Madison High School in Sheepshead Bay.

(Embed by James Madison High School via Brooklyn Public Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Sanders recently made headlines for running at the front of the pack in the Democratic presidential primary race. But back in high school Sanders drew attention for running track.

Sanders counted as one of the track team’s most consistent runners, according to a Dec. 22, 1958 edition of the Madison Highway. His fleet-footedness even earned him a co-captain spot on the team, the paper reported.

His track prowess also led to an intramural basketball victory reported in the same edition.

“Bernie Sanders was the high scorer for the track team with 18 … ,” the paper reported.

The Bernie Sanders editions can be viewed here.

The archive also features high school editions that mention other famous Brooklynites such as Shirley Chisholm, of Girls High, Bobby Fischer, of Erasmus Hall High School, and Janet Yellen, of Fort Hamilton High School, according to a release.

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Note: This interview is from March 3 and was based on conditions then. The situation has changed significantly since. The advice given here was accurate at the time of publication, but some has now become outdated.

NEW YORK CITY — As the new coronavirus spreads across the globe, New Yorkers have been tasked with taking precautions without panicking.

To help with that endeavor, Patch collected information about what New Yorkers can expect to find in city hospitals from the city’s top health officials and medical professionals.

Dr. Stephen G. Baum, a distinguished professor specializing in infectious diseases at Albert Einstein College in The Bronx, confirmed Tuesday the city’s recommendations that New Yorkers just go about their daily lives.

“I’m going to concerts for which I have tickets and going to restaurants I want to eat in,” Baum said. “Anything you want to do this week, you have my blessing.”

But his advice came with a disclaimer:

“This is a rapidly moving situation,” Baum told Patch. “Any advice may be drastically changed.”

Patch will update this document as needed, but as of March 3, here is what health officials and experts have to say to New Yorkers.

How should New Yorkers be thinking about COVID-19?

Dr: Baum: The more we think of this disease like influenza, the less mystifying it gets. There’s an infinite number of infective agents, and they’re going to surface from time to time. People are understandably agitated and worried about this, but I think it’s a little bit too early to get as agitated as they are.

How will NYC hospitals accommodate COVID-19 patients?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: We have immense capacity …. New York City hospitals have 1,200 beds on reserve for potential COVID-19 patients that won’t compromise other health care services.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals: We have 11 acute-care hospitals, five nursing facilities and 60 outpatient care sites.

Dr: Baum: Most intensive care units are built with negative-pressure rooms (rooms where air rushes inward when the door opens). There are usually not more than four or six in a hospital.

Will COVID-19 strain hospitals once more patients start coming in? And how will hospitals cope?

de Blasio: If lots of people suddenly come in — and, obviously, the vast majority of them, thank God, will not have coronavirus — of course it creates a challenge. But we’ve made a strategic decision to say to people, “We rather you come in.”

Dr: Baum: This is going to become a triage situation. The threshold for who gets in is probably going to get higher as time goes by, as it should. The good news is that it looks like 20 percent of people have severe enough disease to require hospitalization. That 20 percent could be relatively easily accommodated.

Who is most vulnerable, and should those people avoid hospitals for non-urgent care?

Dr: Baum: Older males who smoke a heck of a lot and live in polluted air. (I think that’s why it’s so devastating in China — that’s much of their population.) Those people should avoid crowded areas. That person is definitely at greater risk and facing a worse outcome.

When should New Yorkers go to the hospital, and when should they avoid it?

Dr: Baum: Something that would make you call an ambulance before has got to make you call an ambulance now. If you’re having a heart attack, or anything that would call for a 911 ambulance, I think you must still do that. But if your doctor’s on vacation and you’ve cut your finger, I’d try to go somewhere else other than an emergency room. Find a less-crowded UCG [urgent care group] and get your finger stitched there.

What about New Yorkers without primary care doctors?

Dr: Baum: If you’re using a hospital bed to get your standard care, that’s not a great idea. Those people who don’t have their own physicians, I would prefer going to an urgent care center than a hospital room — although, if they get overcrowded, that recommendation might go.

What’s the criteria for testing for COVID-19 in New York City?

de Blasio: If you have the symptoms and you have a nexus to travel to the affected countries …. You just need to get to health care immediately.

[See how New York City doctors are accessing and managing potential coronavirus cases here.]

What should uninsured and undocumented New Yorkers who fear they have COVID-19 do?

de Blasio: If someone does not know where to turn because they don’t have insurance or they may be undocumented, but they are fearful that they have the condition, they can reach out to 311 and get a location to go to; they can go to any New York City public hospital or clinic.

What precautions should New Yorkers take?

Dr: Baum: Good hygiene for yourself is the most important factor. Try to follow precautions about hand-washing.

Dr. Oxiris Barbot, New York City Health Department Commissioner: It’s the basic messages of hand-washing, covering your mouth when you cough. And if you’re not close to a water source, then you should by all means use alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

[Read the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control preparation recommendations here.]

Should you head to the hospital as soon as you suspect you’ve got COVID-19?

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de Blasio: Hospital is not the first go-to. … [But] get to health care — we will sort it out. Call ahead, when you can, to maximize the protocols.

Dr: Baum: If [hospitals] get filled up with people who shouldn’t be there, things could get messy. We don’t want to make hospitals more of a breeding ground than they need to be.

[The City recommends anyone unsure of whether or not to seek hospital care call 311.]

What’s the test that rules out coronavirus like, and how reliable is it?

Demetre Daskalakis, Health Department deputy commissioner: The doctor will stick an unpleasant swab in your nose and twist it. Then send it to the laboratory to do molecular testing. … Should come back in a matter of hours.

de Blasio: If it’s pneumonia, you do not have coronavirus.

Should New Yorkers cancel upcoming elective surgery?