Wednesday, June 1, 2016

House Speaker Ryan of Republican is not ready to support Trump


Ryan, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said conservatives wanted to know if Trump shares their values.
About Ryan
The top elected Republican, Paul Ryan, said on Thursday he was not ready to endorse Donald Trump, a sign of the challenges the party's presumptive presidential nominee faces rallying the Republican establishment behind his White House bid.
Trump, who has built a huge following with an anti-establishment message, shot back at Ryan in a statement.
"I hope to support our nominee, I hope to support his candidacy fully," Ryan said on CNN. "At this point, I'm just not there right now."
"I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people," he said.
"We respect Speaker Ryan’s opinion and believe that since the primary ended early we will have time to unify. We anticipate the two meeting soon to begin to help unite the party," said RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Walters.
The Republican National Committee, under pressure to unify the party or face an electoral rout in the Nov. 8 election, said Ryan and Trump were expected to meet soon. It added that "only a united Republican Party will be able to beat Hillary Clinton."
Many Republicans have grappled this week with whether to support Trump, who has deviated from the party line on trade and upset the party establishment with offensive comments about women and immigrants. Trump on Thursday announced a new campaign finance chairman in response to questions about his readiness for a general election race.
Trump's last remaining rivals in the Republican race, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, dropped out this week, clearing the New York billionaire's path to be picked as the presidential nominee. His will likely face Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, in the Nov. 8 general election.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Breaking News of The Day: Clinton looks to bounce back with Kentucky win

Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton hopes to avoid another round of primary defeats that, while doing little to diminish her delegate lead over Bernie Sanders, magnify her difficulty in unifying the Democratic Party.
Primaries in Oregon and Kentucky, which vote on Tuesday, could extend her losses after the Vermont senator carried Indiana and West Virginia earlier this month.

While Sanders is expected to win in Oregon, the Clinton campaign sees an opportunity in Kentucky, a state she carried easily in her primary campaign eight years ago.
Throughout the campaign, Clinton has struggled with working-class, white voters, however, particularly in communities hit hard by manufacturing job losses in the Rust Belt. It’s a group that's also boosting Republican Donald Trump’s candidacy.

Over the weekend, Clinton made several stops in Kentucky, including drop-ins at churches, and she continued her busy schedule on Monday. Despite an earlier decision to shift resources to general election swing states, the campaign is running television ads in the Bluegrass State.
On Monday, Clinton dropped by a smoke-filled diner in Paducah. “I want to help bring back the kind of economy that worked for everybody in the 1990s,” she told the audience, which included at least one Trump supporter.

Entering Tuesday's contests, Clinton leads Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates. When super delegates — elected officials and party leaders free to support either candidate — are factored in, her lead is much larger and brings her to within 150 delegates away of the 2,383 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination, according to the Associated Press. In the final round of state primaries next month, Clinton holds a 10-point lead in California, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, where 475 pledged delegates will be at stake.

Yet Sanders has repeatedly said he’ll fight all the way to the Philadelphia convention in July. And he’s showing he’ll battle for every last delegate, jetting on Monday to Puerto Rico, which holds a caucus on June 5.
Appalachian states, including West Virginia and Kentucky, had been loyal to Clinton, who won there by big margins over then-senator Barack Obama in 2008. Her husband also carried them in his 1992 and 1996 campaigns, and she’s been placing increased emphasis on his role in a possible Hillary Clinton administration, betting that he remains a popular figure in the region.

“I’ve already told my husband that, if I’m so fortunate to be president and he will be the first gentleman, I’ll expect him to go to work,” she told the Kentucky diners Monday.
On Sunday, she said the former president would be “in charge of economic revitalization,” particularly in hard-hit areas like Appalachian coal country. She’s also touting her plan for coal miners, including investments to create new jobs in infrastructure and repurposing mines and protecting miners’ health insurance and retirement programs.

While the outcome of the Kentucky primary won’t matter much in the overall delegate battle between Clinton and Sanders (Democrats award delegates proportionally), it could highlight the challenges ahead for Clinton in a potential match up with Trump. In exit polls of West Virginia, a third of those who voted in the Democratic contest said they planned to back Trump in November.
Part of Clinton's challenge may stem from comments she made at a town hall meeting in Ohio, when the Democratic front-runner said she would "put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." She would later apologize.

Meantime, Clinton now rarely mentions Sanders in her stump speeches, making clear that her chief target is Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, whom she’s portraying as a “loose cannon.” Separately, the main super PAC supporting her, Priorities USA, is planning to begin $6 million in anti-Trump ads starting on Wednesday.

Other high-profile Democrats have also stepped in to do battle with Trump.
After a commencement address on Saturday at Bridgewater State University, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called Trump “a truly dangerous man.” Warren has also engaged in heated Twitter exchanges with Trump. On Sunday, President Obama, who’s largely stayed on the sidelines until a nominee is official, waded into the race during a commencement speech at Rutgers University.

“In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue,” he said, in an apparent reference to Trump. “That’s not challenging political correctness. That’s just not knowing what you are talking about.’”

Top News Stories of the day: Two bombings in Baghdad kill 44, say police, medical sources

A spokesman for Baghdad Operations Command told state television the attacker in al-Shaab, a predominately Shi'ite Muslim area, had set off an explosives-filled vest in coordination with a planted bomb. Initial investigations revealed the attacker had been a woman, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. Islamic State h
as claimed bombings in and around the capital last week that killed 100 people and sparked popular anger against the government for failing to ensure security.

Two bombings hit Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 44 people and wounding more than 90, police and medical sources said, following the bloodiest week of attacks inside the capital so far this year.
A suicide bombing in a marketplace in the northern district of al-Shaab killed 38 people and wounded more than 70, while a car bomb in the southern neighborhood of al-Rasheed left six dead and another 21 wounded, the sources said.

Security has improved somewhat in the capital in recent years, even as Islamic State fighters seized swathes of the country almost to the outskirts of Baghdad's ramparts.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said a political crisis sparked by his attempt to reshuffle the cabinet in an anti-corruption bid was hampering the fight against Islamic State and creating space for more insurgent attacks on the civilian population.

But the prospect that the capital could return to the days when suicide bombings killed scores of people every week adds to pressure on Abadi to resolve the political crisis.

Breaking News: Transgender bathroom rule a matter of dignity, Obama says

It was his first public comment on the issue since the Department of Education announced the new guidelines last Friday.

"Anybody who has been in school, in high school, who has been a parent should realize that kids who are sometimes in the minority — kids who have a different sexual orientation or are transgender — are subject to a lot of bullying, potentially," Obama told the web site Buzzfeed Monday.

New federal rules on school bathrooms are designed to protect transgender students from bullying, President Obama said Monday.

The federal guidance came the same week that the Department of Justice and North Carolina exchanged lawsuits over that state's new bathroom law. It requires people to use the public restrooms that correspond to the sex observed on their birth certificate.

"They are vulnerable, and I think it’s part of our obligation as a society to make sure everybody is treated fairly, and our kids are all loved and protected, and that their dignity is affirmed," he said.

 But the White House has also acknowledged that Obama was regularly consulted on the guidelines, and they reflect his own values. "I think it is fair to say — and I think it's important — that this kind of announcement reflects the President’s strongly held view about the need to prevent discrimination, but also the need to protect the safety and dignity of every student in America," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said last week.

The new guidelines require schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom and locker rooms that correspond to their chosen gender. And by invoking the sex discrimination law known as Title IX, the rules carry with them the threat of federal enforcement — including a loss of federal education funds. A number of state-level Republican officials have called the move federal overreach that violates the right of each state to determine education policy.

" We said it is our view that you should treat these kids with dignity," Obama said. "Ultimately, depending on how these other lawsuits go, courts will affirm or reject how we see the issue."
Obama said that guidance came from the Department of Education in response to questions from schools about how to handle the bathroom accommodations, and was an effort to advise school districts on "best practices" on a range of transgender issues.


Tuesday, May 10, 2016

China scrambles fighters as U.S. sails warship near Chinese-claimed reef

China scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday as a U.S. navy ship sailed close to a disputed reef in the South China Sea, a patrol China denounced as an illegal threat to peace which only went to show its defense installations in the area were necessary.

Guided missile destroyer the USS William P. Lawrence traveled within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-occupied Fiery Cross Reef, U.S. Defense Department spokesman, Bill Urban said.

The so-called freedom of navigation operation was undertaken to "challenge excessive maritime claims" by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam which were seeking to restrict navigation rights in the South China Sea, Urban said.

"These excessive maritime claims are inconsistent with international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention in that they purport to restrict the navigation rights that the United States and all states are entitled to exercise," Urban said in an emailed statement.

China and the United States have traded accusations of militarizing the South China Sea as China undertakes large-scale land reclamations and construction on disputed features while the United States has increased its patrols and exercises.

Facilities on Fiery Cross Reef include a 3,000-metre (10,000-foot) runway which the United States worries China will use it to press its extensive territorial claims at the expense of weaker rivals.

China's Defence Ministry said two fighter jets were scrambled and three warships shadowed the U.S. ship, telling it to leave.

The U.S. patrol "again proves that China's construction of defensive facilities on the relevant reefs in the Nansha Islands is completely reasonable and totally necessary", it said, using China's name for the Spratly Islands where much of its reclamation work is taking place.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the U.S. ship illegally entered Chinese waters.

"This action by the U.S. side threatened China's sovereignty and security interests, endangered the staff and facilities on the reef, and damaged regional peace and stability," he told a daily news briefing.

SENSITIVE AREA

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.

The Pentagon last month called on China to reaffirm it has no plans to deploy military aircraft in the Spratly Islands after China used a military plane to evacuate sick workers from Fiery Cross.

"Fiery Cross is sensitive because it is presumed to be the future hub of Chinese military operations in the South China Sea, given its already extensive infrastructure, including its large and deep port and 3000-metre runway," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.

"The timing is interesting, too. It is a show of U.S. determination ahead of President Obama's trip to Vietnam later this month."

Speaking in Vietnam, Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, said freedom of navigation operations were important for smaller nations.

"If the world's most powerful navy cannot sail where international law permits, then what happens to the ships of navy of smaller countries?," Russel told reporters before news of the operation was made public.

China has reacted with anger to previous U.S. freedom of navigation operations, including the overflight of fighter planes near the disputed Scarborough Shoal last month, and when long-range U.S. bombers flew near Chinese facilities under construction on Cuarteron Reef in the Spratlys last November.

U.S. naval officials believe China has plans to start reclamation and construction activities on Scarborough Shoal, which sits further north of the Spratlys within the Philippines claimed 200 nautical mile (370 km) exclusive economic zone.

A tough-talking city mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, looks set to become president of the Philippines after an election on Monday. He has proposed multilateral talks on the South China Sea.

A Chinese diplomat warned last week that criticism of China over the South China Sea would rebound like a coiled spring.



Source: Reuters

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Trump Won't Rule Out Effort to Remove Ryan as Convention Chairman

Donald J. Trump will not rule out an effort to remove Paul D. Ryan as chairman of the Republican National Convention if he does not endorse Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

Mr. Trump stopped short of calling for Mr. Ryan, the speaker of the House, to step down from his convention role. But in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Trump said there could be consequences in the event that Mr. Ryan continues withholding his support.
“I will give you a very solid answer, if that happens, about one minute after that happens, okay?” Mr. Trump said. “There’s no reason to give it right now, but I’ll be very quick with the answer.”

Mr. Trump has shown little interest over the last few days in placating his critics inside the party, including Mr. Ryan. The Wisconsin lawmaker said on Thursday that he was not ready to endorse Mr. Trump, citing reservations about his political style and policy agenda. The two men are scheduled to meet privately in Washington next week.

But on “Meet the Press,” Mr. Trump struck a dismissive pose toward Mr. Ryan – and responded with outright hostility to other Republican critics who have refused to back his campaign.

Jeb Bush, he said, was “not honorable” for breaking his promise to endorse the party’s nominee. Mitt Romney, he said, was “ungrateful” for the help Mr. Trump gave him in the 2012 election. Mr. Trump referred to Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who said Friday he would never vote for Mr. Trump, as “this lightweight.”

Of Mr. Ryan, he said, “I’d like to have his support. But if he doesn’t want to support me, that’s fine, and we have to go about it.”

Asked about Mr. Trump’s remarks on the convention, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Mr. Ryan, replied, “The speaker looks forward to meeting with Mr. Trump on Thursday.”

Other allies of Mr. Trump have gone further in criticizing Mr. Ryan for declining to issue an immediate endorsement.

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, predicted in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Mr. Ryan would be “Cantored,” a reference to former Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, who was in line to be speaker of the House before losing re-election in a Republican primary in 2014.








Source: msn

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Hillary Clinton Targets Republicans Turned Off by Donald Trump

After a year of staking out liberal positions and focusing largely on minority voters, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is re-positioning itself to appeal to independent and Republican-leaning white voters turned off by the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump.

With the Democratic nomination in sight, Mrs. Clinton has broadened her economic message, devoted days to apologizing for a comment she previously made that angered working-class whites, and has pledged that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who remains widely popular among the blue-collar voters drawn to Mr. Trump, would “come out of retirement and be in charge” of creating jobs in places that have been particularly hard hit.

he move comes at a time when the Republican Party is publicly grappling with whether to embrace its unconventional nominee. The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, on Thursday said he was “just not ready” to back Mr. Trump.

As Mrs. Clinton talks to voters, her campaign is trying to gain endorsements from influential Republican leaders, including former elected officials and retired generals, who can help convince voters that she is their best alternative to Mr. Trump — a striking turn after Mrs. Clinton spent the past year trying to mobilize the liberal wing and labor leaders in the Democratic Party.

But her campaign, confident that the young people and liberals backing Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will come around to support Mrs. Clinton in November, is focusing its efforts on white working-class women and suburban women who tend to vote for Republican presidential candidates, but who polls show hold negative views of Mr. Trump.

“I’m here because I want you to know whether people vote for me or not, whether they yell at me or not, it’s not going to affect what I will do to help,” Mrs. Clinton told residents at a health clinic here on Monday, as protesters’ chants outside of “Hillary, go home!” could be heard.

Mrs. Clinton’s two-day swing across Appalachia this week served as the beginning of the campaign’s full-court press to convince persuadable white voters that she would run a more inclusive campaign than Mr. Trump — and to signal that she would cede no demographic group to him.

“I invite a lot of Republicans and independents who I’ve been seeing on the campaign trail, who’ve been reaching out to me, I invite them to join with Democrats,” Mrs. Clinton told CNN on Wednesday. “Let’s get off the red or the blue team. Let’s get on the American team.”

In the Democratic primary, Mrs. Clinton has struggled with non-college-educated white voters and self-identified independents, often losing those groups by wide margins to Mr. Sanders. But faced with the choice between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump, 51 percent of independents and 59 percent of moderates favor the former secretary of state, compared with 41 percent and 39 percent for Mr. Trump, according to the most recent CNN/ORC poll.

“If the primary happened to be over already, we feel the coalition we’ve built has the makings of a winning coalition as it is in a general election,” said Brian Fallon, a Clinton spokesman. “But,” he added, “we’re not satisfied with that. We want to make inroads even with populations that aren’t supporting her in great numbers.”

Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, who is supporting Mrs. Clinton, said while campaigning with her at a diner in Athens, Ohio, on Tuesday that the suburban women in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati could ultimately decide the November election. “I think educated suburban white women, to be sure, are going to be turned off en masse and there will be more of that,” he said.

But if Mrs. Clinton’s “Breaking Down Barriers Tour” in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia this week provided a road map for her campaign’s strategy in the weeks ahead, the antagonistic reception she received also highlighted her own vulnerabilities and tendency to divide and incite people — weaknesses Mr. Trump plans to exploit.

At Mrs. Clinton’s event in Athens, a protester, Peter Schmidt, 34 and a miller, held a handmade sign that read “I’d Rather Be Home Reading Your Goldman Sachs Transcripts,” a reference to the paid speeches she delivered to the Wall Street bank. Mr. Schmidt said her tour of Appalachia felt like pandering. “I don’t trust her,” he said. “That’s why I’m holding this sign.”

Mr. Trump, who has proved adept in connecting with white working-class men, also plans to hit Mrs. Clinton on her previous support for global trade deals that many Americans blame for jobs moving overseas. He has giddily seized on a comment she made to CNN in March that “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

The backlash over that remark — made in the context of replacing coal with clean energy jobs — turned Mrs. Clinton’s campaign events into an Appalachian apology tour, as she was repeatedly, and pointedly, forced to explain what she called a “misstatement.”

“I can’t take it back,” Mrs. Clinton told one out-of-work coal industry worker, Bo Copley, 39, a father of three and a registered Republican, when he emotionally confronted her about the comment. “What I want you to know is I’m going to do everything I can to help no matter what happens politically,” she added. “That is just how I am made.”

The Clinton campaign is also moving to exploit the public criticism of Mr. Trump by prominent Republicans.

On Wednesday, the campaign released an online ad that quotes Mr. Trump’s former primary opponents describing him as a “know-nothing candidate,” “a narcissist” and “the most vulgar person ever to aspire to the presidency,” among other epithets.

Priorities USA Action, a “super PAC” supporting Mrs. Clinton, intends to reach out to Republican mega donors disillusioned by their party’s presumptive nominee.

Mrs. Clinton has portrayed Mr. Trump as a “loose canon” on foreign policy and often points to her husband’s record as evidence that she would help blue-collar voters. “The brilliance of Bill Clinton gives her a particular edge,” said Gaston Caperton, a Democratic former governor of West Virginia who supports Mrs. Clinton.

Even with Mr. Clinton in its corner, the Clinton campaign does not expect to win voters like Mr. Copley, who said he is undecided but who generally fits Mr. Trump’s core demographic of supporters. But Mrs. Clinton hopes to make inroads with women like Mr. Copley’s wife, Lauren — voters whom Clinton aides call “megachurch moms” and describe as religious, Republican-leaning women who reject Mr. Trump.

Christine Matthews, a researcher who advises Republicans on how to win female voters, said that portraying Mr. Trump as dangerous on foreign policy could help Mrs. Clinton draw some Republican women whose most important issues are national security and terrorism. “Can she drive moms who have kids who think, ‘Oh my gosh, this is too scary a prospect and our country won’t be safe if he’s elected president?’ ” Ms. Matthews said. “You can imagine that attack ad in your head.”

Democrats acknowledge that the prospect of terrifying skeptical voters into supporting their candidate would not be the most inspirational campaign message.

It is a far bleaker appeal than Ronald Reagan’s message of American exceptionalism and Mr. Clinton’s promise to restore “the forgotten middle class,” both of which inspired white working-class voters to cross party lines.

But Mrs. Clinton’s pitch to Republicans reflects the grim political realities of 2016: More than half of the registered voters who said they would vote for Mrs. Clinton planned to do so in opposition to Mr. Trump, rather than in support of her candidacy, according to the CNN/ORC poll.

“Her bumper sticker for Republicans should be ‘Unified Against Trump’ or ‘Vote for the enemy. It’s important,’ ” said Ben Howe, a Republican and a contributing editor at the conservative online publication Red State, who posted the Clinton campaign’s #I'mWith Her slogan on Twitter after Mr. Trump’s decisive victory in Indiana.

Or, as Jan Franck, 65, a retiree in Charleston, W.Va., put it after hearing Mrs. Clinton speak on Tuesday: “She could be a sock puppet running against Donald Trump, and I’d vote for her.”

Friday, May 6, 2016

Obama scolds media about ‘reality show’ Trump coverage

President Obama warns the media against covering the Trump campaign like a reality show. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Pres. Barack Obama scolded the media on Friday over its coverage of Donald Trump’s unorthodox campaign, entreating reporters to skip “the spectacle and the circus” of the 2016 race.

He urged reporters to instead dig into the candidates’ positions on the economy and the military. As if on cue, he was then asked about the bombastic entrepreneur’s tweet about a taco bowl.

“We are in serious times and this is a really serious job. This is not entertainment, this is not a reality show,” Obama admonished in the White House briefing room. “This is a contest for the presidency of the United States.”

The president went on to take a number of indirect shots at Trump. He said reporters need to apply “genuine scrutiny” about whether candidates offer up “completely implausible” policies or “take a position on international issues that could threaten war or has the potential of upending our critical relationships with other countries or would potentially break the financial system.”
“What I’m concerned about is the degree to which reporting and information starts emphasizing the spectacle and the circus. Because that’s not something we can afford,” he said.

Obama highlighted a debate inside the Republican Party about what it represents, reflecting unease in some parts of the GOP that “their standard bearer at the moment is Donald Trump.” He suggested that Republican women and fiscal hawks should be uncomfortable voting for the wealthy reality show star.

Another reporter later asked if Obama had seen Trump’s Cinco de Mayo tweet of himself eating a taco bowl. The tweet sparked a social media firestorm Thursday afternoon.

Obama sidestepped with evident annoyance.

“I have no thoughts on Mr. Trump’s tweets. As a general rule, I don’t pay attention to Mr. Trump’s tweets,” he replied. “And I think that will be true for, I think, for the next six months. So, if you could just file that one.”

The president also declined to weigh in substantively on whether Sen. Bernie Sanders should concede the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton, who holds a wide lead. “Just let the process play out,” he said.

Obama said “everybody starts getting a little chippy” at this point in the primaries, but Democrats have “a pretty strong consensus” on core issues and only “disagreements about tactics.”

“In terms of the Democratic votes coming up, I’m going to let the voters cast their ballots, and not, you know, not try to meddle in the few primaries that are remaining,” he said. “We will know soon enough. It’s not going to be that much longer.”


Source: Yahoo News

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Trump, lone survivor in Republican White House race, now must unify party

WASHINGTON, Donald Trump on Wednesday became the last man standing in the race for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination and faced the challenge of repairing deep fissures in the party, as his sole remaining rival, John Kasich, ended his campaign.

Anointed the presumptive nominee after winning Indiana on Tuesday and driving his closest rival, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, from the race, the 69-year-old New York billionaire planned to set up a vice presidential selection committee and step up efforts to seek unity among a wider group of Republicans ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Trump's win in Indiana cleared the way for him to prepare for a likely general election match-up against Democrat Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state lost the Indiana primary to tenacious challenger U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, but remains on course to become her party's nominee.

Trump told NBC News he would probably work with the Republican National Committee to raise about $1 billion for the general election campaign.

Kasich, the Ohio governor, had stayed in the race in hopes of persuading Republicans to choose him as the nominee at a contested convention in July. He ended his campaign as a clear path emerged for Trump to amass the delegates needed to secure the nomination outright.

"As I suspend my campaign today, I have renewed faith, deeper faith that the Lord will show me the way forward and fulfill the purpose of my life," Kasich said in Columbus, the Ohio state capital.

Some Republican leaders said they would support Trump since he would be the nominee, stressing the importance of defeating Clinton in the general election. But there was no mad rush to support him as is typically the case when a presumptive nominee is crowned.

Former President George W. Bush, whose brother Jeb was defeated by Trump in the primary campaign, made clear he was staying out of the race. "President Bush does not plan to participate in or comment on the presidential campaign," said his spokesman, Freddy Ford.

A similar statement was issued by the spokesman for Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush. "At age 91, President Bush is retired from politics,” spokesman Jim McGrath said.

John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, said he would support Trump. McCain is a U.S. senator from Arizona who is seeking re-election this year and was insulted by Trump last year.

"As John McCain has said, he will support the nominee of the Republican Party, who is now presumptively Donald Trump," said McCain's Senate campaign spokeswoman, Lorna Romero.



Source: Reuters

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Islamic State kills U.S. serviceman in northern Iraq

Islamic State militants killed a U.S. serviceman in northern Iraq on Tuesday after blasting through Kurdish defences and overrunning a town in the biggest offensive in the area for months, officials said.

The dead man was the third American to be killed in direct combat since a U.S.-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014 to "degrade and destroy" the jihadist group, and is a measure of its deepening involvement in the conflict.

"It is a combat death, of course, and a very sad loss," U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters during a trip to Germany.

A U.S. defense official said the dead man was a Navy SEAL. The SEALs are considered to be among the most able U.S. special operations forces and capable of taking on dangerous missions.

A senior official within the Kurdish peshmerga forces facing Islamic State in northern Iraq said the man had been killed near the town of Tel Asqof, around 28 kilometres (17 miles) from the militant stronghold of Mosul.

The Islamic State insurgents occupied the town at dawn on Tuesday but were driven out later in the day by the peshmerga. A U.S. military official said the coalition had helped the peshmerga with air support from F-15 jets and drones.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the man was killed "by direct fire" from Islamic State.

Carter's spokesman, Peter Cook, said the incident took place during an Islamic State attack on a peshmerga position some 3-5 km behind the forward line.
SNIPERS AND SUICIDE BOMBERS

Such Islamic State incursions are rare in northern Iraq, where the Kurdish peshmerga have pushed the militants back with the help of coalition air strikes and set up defensive lines that the militants are rarely able to breach.

The leader of a Christian militia deployed alongside peshmerga in Tel Asqof said the insurgents had used multiple suicide bombers, some driving vehicles laden with explosives, to penetrate peshmerga lines.

The Kurdistan Region Security Council said at least 25 Islamic State vehicles had been destroyed on Tuesday and more than 80 militants killed. At least 10 peshmerga also died in the fighting, according to a Kurdish official who posted pictures of the victims on Twitter.

The peshmerga also deflected Islamic State attacks on the Bashiqa front and in the Khazer area, about 40 km west of the Kurdish regional capital Erbil, Kurdish military sources said.

In mid-April the United States announced plans to send an additional 200 troops to Iraq, and put them closer to the front lines of battle to advise Iraqi forces in the war against Islamic State.

Last month, an Islamic State attack on a U.S. base killed Marine Staff Sergeant Louis Cardin and wounded eight other Americans providing force protection fire to Iraqi army troops.

The Islamist militants have been broadly retreating since December, when the Iraqi army recaptured Ramadi, the largest city in the western region. Last month, the Iraqi army retook the nearby region of Hit, pushing the militants further north along the Euphrates valley.

But U.S. officials acknowledge that the military gains against Islamic State are not enough.

Iraq is beset by political infighting, corruption, a growing fiscal crisis and the Shi'ite Muslim-led government's fitful efforts to seek reconciliation with aggrieved minority Sunnis, the bedrock of Islamic State support.



Source: msn

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Hertha Marks Ayrton: 5 facts about the British engineer and inventor.

Hertha Marks Ayrton was a British mathematician, engineer, physicist and inventor who was awarded the Hughes Medal in 1906 by the Royal Society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water.

Born in Portsea, Hampshire in 1854, she studied at Girton College, Cambridge, and registered 26 patents for mathematical divders, arc lamps and electrodes between 1884 and her death in 1923.

As Google marks what would have been her 162nd birthday with a Doodle on its homepage, here are five facts about the inventor and committed member of the suffrage movement.

1. She was self-sufficient by the age of 16

After her father died in 1861 leaving her mother with seven children to care for and another on the way, Ayrton was tasked with helping to raise her siblings. Her mother, however, was determined this would not stand in the way of her daughter's education. She was taken to London by an aunt who ran a school. By the age of 16 she was working as a governess, but still had a desire to advance her education.

2. She was a keen supporter of women's suffrage

At school she gained a reputation as a intellectual and an activist, going on hunger-strike when accused of something she had not done. This fired a passion for politics and she took part in marches and opened her home to women released from jail after being on hunger-strike, including suffragette leader, Emily Pankhurst.

3. She was friends with the novelist George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans (better known by her pen name George Eliot) was a keen supporter of education for women and she took an interest in Ayrton's efforts to fund a place at Girton College. At the time she was working on Daniel Deronda and there were many similarities between the character Mirah, a dark haired Jew with a distinctive voice, and Ayrton.

4. She was the first female member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers

After reading a paper to the IEE on her work on the electric arc in 1899, Ayrton was elected to full membership two days later. Unlike the Royal Society, the IEE focused on her scientific ability rather than her gender.

5. She used her theories to help the war effort

At the outbreak of First World War, Ayrton put her knowledge of oscillations in water to the movement of air to good use as part of Britain's war effort - once she had convinced the military to consider her idea. After battling to gain acceptance for her Flapper Fan invention, 100,000 were used on the Western Front to clear trenches of poisonous gas. She died from blood poisoning caused by an insect bite in 1923.

Source: independent

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Trump routs rivals in Northeast; Clinton carries four states


In a front-runner's rout, Republican Donald Trump roared to victory Tuesday in five contests across the Northeast and confidently declared himself the GOP's "presumptive nominee." Hillary Clinton was dominant in four Democratic races and now is 90 percent of the way to the number needed to claim her own nomination.
Trump's and Clinton's wins propelled them ever closer to a general election showdown. Still, Sanders and Republicans Ted Cruz and John Kasich, vowed to keep running, even as opportunities to topple the leaders dwindle.
Trump still must negotiate a narrow path to keep from falling short of the delegates needed to claim the nomination before the Republican National Convention in July. Cruz and Kasich are working toward that result, which would leave Trump open to a floor fight in which delegates could turn to someone else.
Trump was having none of that. "It's over. As far as I'm concerned it's over," he declared at his victory rally in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York.
With Clinton's four victories — she ceded only Connecticut to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — she now has 90 percent of the delegates she needs to become the first woman nominated by a major party. Clinton kept her focus firmly on the general election as she spoke to supporters Tuesday night, urging Sanders' loyal supporters to help her unify the Democratic Party and reaching out to GOP voters who may be unhappy with their party's options.
"If you are a Democrat, an independent or a thoughtful Republican, you know that their approach is not going to build an America where we increase opportunity or decrease inequality," Clinton said of the GOP candidates. She spoke in Philadelphia, where Democrats will gather in July for their nominating convention.
Sanders, in an interview with The Associated Press, conceded that he has a "very narrow path and we're going to have to win some big victories."
Trump's victories in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island padded his delegate totals, yet the Republican contest remains chaotic. The businessman is the only candidate left in the three-person race who could possibly clinch the nomination through the regular voting process, yet he could still fall short of the 1,237 delegates he needs.
Cruz and Kasich are desperately trying to keep Trump from that magic number and push the race to a convention fight. The Texas senator and Ohio governor even took the rare step of announcing plans to coordinate in upcoming contests to try to minimize Trump's delegate totals.
That effort did little to stop Trump from a big showing in the Northeast, where he picked up at least 105 of the 118 delegates up for grabs. Despite his solid win in Pennsylvania, the state's primary system means 54 of the delegates elected by voters will be free agents at the GOP convention, able to vote for the candidate of their choice.
Cruz spent Tuesday in Indiana, which votes next week. Indiana is one of Cruz's last best chances to slow Trump, and Kasich's campaign is pulling out of the state to give him a better opportunity to do so.
"Tonight this campaign moves back to more favorable terrain," Cruz said during an evening rally in Knightstown, Indiana. His event was held at the "Hoosier gym," where some scenes were filmed for the 1986 movie, "Hoosiers," about a small town Indiana basketball team that wins the state championship.
Trump has railed against his rivals' coordination, panning it as a "faulty deal" and has also cast efforts to push the nomination fight to the convention as evidence of a rigged process that favors political insiders.
Yet there's no doubt the GOP is deeply divided by his candidacy. In Pennsylvania, exit polls showed nearly 4 in 10 GOP voters said they would be excited by Trump becoming president, but the prospect of the real estate mogul in the White House scared a quarter of those who cast ballots in the state's Republican primary.
In another potential general election warning sign for Republicans, 6 in 10 GOP voters in Pennsylvania said the Republican campaign has divided the party — a sharp contrast to the 7 in 10 Democratic voters in the state who said the race between Clinton and Sanders has energized their party.
The exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.
Democrats award delegates proportionally, which allowed Clinton to maintain her lead over Sanders even as he rattled off a string of wins in recent contests. According to the AP count, Clinton has 2,089 delegates while Sanders has 1,258.
That count includes delegates won in primaries and caucuses, as well as superdelegates — party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice, regardless of how their state votes.
Sanders has vowed to stay in the race until voting wraps up in June. He continues to raise millions of dollars and attract big crowds, including Tuesday night in West Virginia, where he urged his supporters to recognize that they are "powerful people if you choose to exercise that power."
While Clinton's campaign expects Sanders to stay in the race, her advisers are eager for the Vermont senator to tone down his attacks on the former secretary of state. She's been reminding voters of the 2008 Democratic primary, when she endorsed Barack Obama after a tough campaign and urged her supporters to rally around her former rival.
According to exit polls, less than a fifth of Democratic voters said they would not support Clinton if she gets the nomination. The exit polls were conducted in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland.




Source: AP

Friday, April 22, 2016

24 dead in Mexico petrochemical plant blast, 8 still missing


The death toll from an explosion that ripped through a petrochemical plant on Mexico's southern Gulf coast is now 24, state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos reported.
Pemex raised the toll late Thursday from the 13 fatalities previously known and said eight workers remained missing. It also said 19 people remained hospitalized, with 13 of them in serious condition.
In a statement, the company said 12 of the bodies had been identified and eight of them delivered to family members.
Earlier in the day, President Enrique Pena Nieto toured the facility in the industrial port city of Coatzacoalcos and met with relatives desperate for word on the fate of loved ones still unaccounted for.
"I understand the anxiety, the worry, the anguish you are going through," Pena Nieto said, assuring them that both Pemex and the Mexichem company, which co-operated the plant, would fulfill their responsibilities and compensate those hurt by the accident.
About 30 families gathered at a plant entrance road, where a sharp chemical smell still hung in the air about 2 kilometers (a mile) from where the explosion occurred Wednesday afternoon. Many wore facemasks to ward off the pungent odor.
Shoving broke out as people unsuccessfully tried to force their way into the installation. Some shouted at marines and soldiers who were called in to guard the facility, and they threw rocks at a white government SUV when it arrived at the scene.
Rosa Villalobos traveled about four hours by bus from the city of Veracruz to scour Coatzacoalcos hospitals looking for her son, Luis Alfonso Ruiz Villalobos, a 25-year-old worker at the plant. When she couldn't find him she showed up at the plant entrance.
"What I want is for justice to be done in my son's case, for there to be no impunity," Villalobos said. "I'm going to stay here. Even though I have no money, even though I have nothing to eat, I'm staying put."
Some volunteers brought food and drink to the families. After a while authorities began taking people inside in small groups to see a list of those confirmed dead. Some left crying after seeing their loved ones' names.
Pemex said Thursday night that it was prioritizing the safety of those inspecting the plant and teams were still gradually gaining access to more parts of the site.
The blast forced evacuations of nearby areas as it sent a toxin-filled cloud billowing into the air and injuring more than 100 workers.
Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya, Pemex's director, told Radio Formula that the explosion was caused by a leak of an as-yet unknown origin.
Antonio Mariche, who accompanied the Villalobos family in search of Luis Alfonso, vowed that the families would demand a full account of what happened.
"To the president, to the state governor, to the head of Pemex, we will not allow any more cover-ups like have happened with previous accidents," Mariche said. "They have covered up the numbers (in the past); there have been people who disappeared and regrettably never appeared. ... We will go to the last consequences to make sure this doesn't keep happening."
The Clorados 3 plant of Petroquimica Mexicana de Vinilo, where the explosion happened, produces the hazardous industrial chemical vinyl chloride.
In early February, a fire killed a worker at the same facility.



Source: AP

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Three dead, dozens injured in blast at chemical plant in Mexico

A massive explosion rocked a major petrochemical facility of Mexican national oil company Pemex in the Gulf state of Veracruz on Wednesday, killing at least three people, injuring dozens more, and pumping a cloud of noxious chemicals into the sky.
Luis Felipe Puente, head of federal emergency services, told Reuters that three people had died in the blast. The governor of Veracruz state, Javier Duarte, later said 105 were hospitalized, including 58 Pemex workers, according to his official Twitter account.
Pemex said the explosion, which sent a huge, dark plume of smoke billowing upwards, occurred just after 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) at the facility's chlorinate 3 plant near the port of Coatzacoalcos, one of the company's top oil export hubs.
Local emergency officials said hundreds of people had been evacuated from the site. Television footage showed an initial burst of flames followed by a tower of thick smoke. A company official said local oil exports were unaffected.
What caused the blast was unclear, but Pemex warned local residents to keep away from the site due to what it described as a dissipating cloud of toxic fumes. TV footage showed rainclouds gathering above the plant as evening fell.
Pemex Chief Executive Jose Antonio Gonzalez was traveling to Coatzacoalcos late on Wednesday to oversee the response.
Petroquimica Mexicana de Vinilo, or PMV, a vinyl petrochemical plant that is a joint venture between Pemex's petrochemical unit and Mexican plastic pipe maker Mexichem was the facility hit by the blast.
Operated by Mexichem, the plant lies within Pemex's larger Pajaritos petrochemical complex. Mexichem said in a statement the explosion occurred in an ethylene unit at the plant. The company could not be immediately reached for further comment.
In February, a fire killed a worker at the PMV plant, which makes vinyl chloride monomer, also known as chloroethene, an industrial chemical used to produce plastic piping.
The incident occurred just weeks after three workers were killed and seven injured when a fire broke out on a Pemex oil-processing platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
It also came as Pemex implements deep cost cuts to cope with the rout in oil prices, and seeks to stem a slide in output. Mexico is in the midst of a historic push to lure private investors to revive its oil industry.
Pemex, which enjoyed a decades-long monopoly over Mexico's oil and gas industry until an energy reform opened up the sector in 2014, has experienced a series of high-profile accidents.
In 2013, at least 37 people were killed by a blast at its Mexico City headquarters, and 26 people died in a fire at a Pemex natural gas facility in northern Mexico in September 2012.
A 2015 fire at its Abkatun Permanente platform in the oil-rich Bay of Campeche affected oil output and cost the company up to $780 million.
Pemex said last year it had reduced its annual accident rate in 2014 by more than 33 percent. But a Reuters investigation found that Pemex was reducing its accident rate by including hours worked by office staff in its calculations.



Source: Reuters

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Trump, Clinton win big in NY, push closer to nomination


Front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton swept to resounding victories in Tuesday's New York primary, with Trump bouncing back convincingly from a difficult stretch in his Republican campaign and Clinton pushing tantalizingly close to locking up the Democratic nomination.
"The race for the nomination is in the home stretch, and victory is in sight," Clinton declared to cheering supporters.
Trump captured more than 50 percent of the vote in New York and was headed toward a big delegate haul in his home state, a commanding showing that keeps him on a path to the GOP nomination if he continues to win. He claimed at least 84 of the 95 delegates at stake Tuesday, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich winning at least two and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in danger of getting shut out.
Track the Republican delegate count
Track the Democratic delegate count
A confident Trump insisted it was impossible for his rivals to catch him. Indeed, Cruz's poor showing in New York left him without any mathematical chance of clinching the nomination before the Republican convention in July, though Trump could still end up short of the needed 1,237 needed to seal victory before the gathering.
"We don't have much of a race anymore," Trump said during a victory rally in the lobby of the Manhattan tower bearing his name. He peppered his brash remarks with more references to the economy and other policy proposals than normal, reflecting the influence of a new team of advisers seeking to professionalize his campaign.
Clinton's triumph padded her delegate lead over rival Bernie Sanders and put her 80 percent of the way to clinching the Democratic nomination that eluded her eight years ago. In a shift toward the general election, she made a direct appeal to Sanders' loyal supporters, telling them she believes "there is more that unites us than divides us."
Exit polls suggested Democrats were ready to rally around whoever the party nominates. Nearly 7 in 10 Sanders supporters in New York said that they would definitely or probably vote for Clinton if she is the party's pick.
Sanders energized young people and liberals in New York, as he has across the country, but it wasn't enough to pull off the upset victory he desperately needed to change the trajectory of the Democratic race. Still, the Vermont senator vowed to keep competing.
"We've got a shot to victory," Sanders said in an interview with The Associated Press. However, his senior adviser Tad Devine said later that the campaign planned to "sit back and assess where we are" after a string of contests next week.
Of the 247 Democratic delegates at stake in New York, Clinton picked up at least 129 while Sanders gained at least 98.
The fight for New York's delegate haul consumed the presidential contenders for two weeks, an eternity in the fast-moving White House race. Candidates blanketed every corner of New York, bidding for votes from Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs to the working class cities and rural enclaves that dot the rest of the state.
The nominating contests will stay centered in the Northeast in the coming days, with Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania all holding contests next week. Sanders spent Tuesday in Pennsylvania, as did Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's closest rival.
Cruz panned Trump's win in New York as little more than "a politician winning his home state," then implored Republicans to unite around his candidacy.
"We must unite the Republican Party because doing so is the first step in uniting all Americans," Cruz said in formal remarks.
Trump needed a strong showing in New York to keep alive his chances of sewing up the GOP nomination before the party's July convention — and to quiet critics who say the long primary season has exposed big deficiencies in his campaign effort.
Having spent months relying on a slim staff, Trump has started hiring more seasoned campaign veterans. He's acknowledged that bringing new people into his orbit may cause some strife, but says the moves were necessary at this stage of the race.
Cruz is trying to stay close enough in the delegate count to push the GOP race to a contested convention. His campaign feels confident that it's mastered the complicated process of lining up individual delegates who could shift their support to the Texas senator after a first round of convention balloting.
Kasich, the only other Republican left in the race, bested Cruz on Tuesday and is refusing to end his campaign despite winning only his home state.
Trump's political strength, though he boasts of drawing new members to the party, has left some Republicans concerned that his nomination could splinter the GOP. Among Republican voters in New York, nearly 6 in 10 said the nominating contest is dividing the party, according to exit polls.
Still, about 7 in 10 New York Republicans said the candidate with the most votes in primary contests should be the Republican presidential nominee
The surveys were conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.
Trump now leads the GOP race with 804 delegates, ahead of Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 144. Securing the GOP nomination requires 1,237.
Among Democrats, Clinton now has 1,887 delegates to Sanders' 1,174. Those totals include both pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses and superdelegates, the party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice regardless of how their state votes. It takes 2,383 to win the Democratic nomination.



Source: AP

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

North Korea could be preparing for fifth nuclear test, South Korea’s Park warnsa


North Korea appears to be preparing to conduct another nuclear test, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Monday, citing signs of increased movement near the North’s nuclear test site.
With a much-hyped congress of the communist Workers’ Party to be held early next month, Kim Jong Un appears to be trying to burnish his credentials, and analysts say a fifth nuclear test would be a sure way to do that.
“Recently, signs of preparations for a fifth nuclear test have been detected,” Park said during a meeting with her aides Monday. “We are in a situation in which we cannot predict what provocations North Korea might conduct to break away from isolation and to consolidate the regime.”
This came after the South Korean Defense Ministry said that North Korea’s next underground nuclear test may be of a miniaturized warhead, rather than of the standard atomic devices it is thought to have detonated ­previously.
“Given the latest developments, North Korea could carry out an underground nuclear warhead test, and we are keeping close tabs on it,” Moon Sang-gyun, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters in Seoul on Monday.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported last month that Kim ordered “a nuclear warhead explosion test and a test-fire of several kinds of ballistic rockets able to carry nuclear warheads” to be carried out “in a short time.”
North Korea claims that it has mastered the technology to make nuclear weapons small and light enough to fit on a missile, but there has been no proof. But an increasing number of military top brass and private-sector analysts think that North Korea either will have made or will be on the brink of making such a technological advance soon.
South Korean officials warned Sunday that they had detected a noticeable increase in vehicles and people moving about the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, particularly near its north portal tunnel.
Analysts at 38 North, a website devoted to watching and analyzing North Korea, said that they also saw, in satellite imagery, increased movement around the north portal but that there was little evidence that Pyongyang was planning an imminent nuclear test.
“Nevertheless, that possibility cannot be entirely ruled out since the North may be able to conduct a nuclear test on short notice with few indications that it intends to do so,” Jack Liu, a military analyst, wrote in a note on the site.
A fifth nuclear test would create another conundrum for the international community. Kim’s regime has proved impervious to coordinated efforts to change his calculus when it comes to the country’s nuclear program.
Last month, the U.N. Security Council passed the toughest sanctions yet against North Korea as punishment for its January nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch in February.
Yet Kim has remained defiant, issuing an almost daily barrage of threats and continuing to launch rockets and short-range missiles. An attempt to launch a previously untested intermediate-range ballistic missile last week was deemed to have failed.
At a forum in Seoul, Lim Sung-nam, South Korea’s vice foreign minister, said that more pressure and punishment against North Korea is needed.
“We can no longer afford to be pushed around by North Korea’s deceit and intimidation,” Lim said. “The leadership in Pyongyang must be pressed much harder until it changes its fundamental calculation regarding the value of its nuclear arsenal and delivery capabilities.”
In addition to supporting the tough U.N. resolutions, Park’s government has brought in unprecedented bilateral sanctions against North Korea, closing an inter-Korean industrial park and cutting off all humanitarian aid except to babies and pregnant women.



Source: wp

Monday, April 18, 2016

Quake kills 272 along devastated Ecuador coast

The death toll from Ecuador's biggest earthquake in decades soared to 272 on Sunday as survivors cobbled together makeshift coffins to bury loved ones, lined up for water and sought shelter beside the rubble of their shattered homes.
The 7.8 magnitude quake struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday and was felt around the Andean nation of 16 million people, causing panic as far away as the highland capital Quito and destroying buildings, bridges and roads.
"Ecuador has been hit tremendously hard... This is the greatest tragedy in the last 67 years," said a shaken President Rafael Correa, who rushed back to Ecuador from a visit to Italy.
"There are signs of life in much of the rubble and that is the priority," Correa said in a televised address to the nation.
He confirmed 272 deaths and 2,068 injured and said he feared those figures would increase.
Coastal areas nearest the epicenter were hit hardest, especially Pedernales, a rustic tourist spot with beaches and palm trees now laden with debris from its pastel-colored houses.
Dazed residents recounted a violent shake, followed by a sudden collapse of buildings that trapped people in wreckage.
"You could hear people screaming from the rubble," Agustin Robles said as he waited in a line of 40 people for water outside a stadium in Pedernales. "There was a pharmacy where people were stuck and we couldn't do anything."
Authorities said there were more than 160 aftershocks, mainly in the Pedernales area. A state of emergency was declared in six provinces.
The quake has piled pain on the economy of OPEC's smallest member, already reeling from low oil prices, with economic growth this year projected at near-zero.
RUBBLE, RAIN, PRISON BREAK
As darkness set in and rain began to fall, survivors bundled up to spend the night next to their destroyed homes. Many had earlier queued up for food, water and blankets outside the blue-and-white stadium.
Inside the stadium, tents housed the dead and medical teams treated hundreds of survivors. About 91 people died in Pedernales and some 60 percent of houses were destroyed, according to Police Chief General Milton Zarate.
"We heard the warning so luckily we were in the street because the entire house collapsed. We don't have anything," said Ana Farias, 23, the mother of 16-month-old twins, as she collected water, food and blankets from rescuers.
"We're going to have to sleep outside today."
Other survivors hammered together shelters in empty lots. Police patrolled the dark town, where power remained off, while some rescuers plowed on.
Locals used a small tractor to remove rubble and also searched with their hands for trapped people. Women cried after a corpse was pulled out.
In Portoviejo, around 180 kilometers (112 miles) south of Pedernales, authorities said some 130 inmates escaped from the El Rodeo prison after its walls collapsed. More than 35 have been recaptured.

In Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil, rubble lay in the streets and a bridge fell on top of a car
"It was horrible. It was as if it was going to collapse like cardboard," said Galo Valle, 56, who was guarding a building in the city where windows fell out and parts of walls broke.
"I prayed and fell to my feet to ask God to protect me."
About 13,500 security force personnel were mobilized to keep order around Ecuador, and $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders was immediately activated for the emergency, the government said.
REFINERY SHUT, GALAPAGOS UNSCATHED
It has been decades since the government dealt with an earthquake of this magnitude. In a 1979 disaster, 600 people were killed and 20,000 injured, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
According to the country's Geophysics Institute, 230 aftershocks have been registered after the subduction, an event in which one tectonic plate goes under another.(http://goo.gl/smIFMb)
Venezuela, Chile and Mexico were sending personnel and supplies, the left-leaning Correa government said. The Ecuadorean Red Cross mobilized more than 800 volunteers and staff and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was sending a team from Colombia.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that two Canadians were among the dead and that the "scope of the devastation in Ecuador is shocking."
The U.S. State Department said in an email that it was working to confirm reports of Americans injured in the quake, although it had no reports of any U.S. citizens killed.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry offered assistance.
Although tsunami warnings were lifted, coastal residents were still urged to seek higher ground in case tides rise.
The government said oil production was not affected but closed its main refinery of Esmeraldas, located near the epicenter, as a precaution. It was likely to restart soon.
Residents on the Galapagos islands far off Ecuador's coast, home to numerous rare species, said they had not been affected by the quake.
The Ecuadorean quake followed two large and deadly quakes that struck Japan since Thursday. Both countries are located on the seismically active "Ring of Fire" that circles the Pacific, but according to the U.S. Geological Survey large quakes separated by such distances would probably not be related.
(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Cristina Munoz in Quito, Javier Andres Rojas in Pedernales, Yuri Garcia in Guayaquil, Guillermo Granja in Manta, Girish Gupta in Bogota; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Bill Trott and Mary Milliken)



Source: Reuters

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Major earthquake rocks Ecuador, kills at least 41

Ecuador's strongest earthquake in decades, a 7.8 magnitude tremor, struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday, killing at least 41 people and causing damage near the epicenter as well as in the largest city of Guayaquil.
President Rafael Correa declared a national emergency and urged the Andean nation's 16 million people to stay calm.
"Our infinite love to the families of the dead," he said on Twitter, while cutting short a trip to Italy to return home.
Authorities urged people to evacuate coastal areas for fear of rising tides. Alarmed residents streamed into the streets of the highland capital Quito, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away, and other towns across the nation.
The government said the death toll would likely rise and damages were "serious," especially in the western coastal areas nearest the quake and in Guayaquil.
"Unfortunately, up to the moment there are 41 citizens who have lost their lives," said Vice President Jorge Glas, noting that it was the strongest quake to hit Ecuador since 1979.
Get the latest on Ecuador quake on BreakingNews.com
The quake struck early evening at a depth of 20 km (12.4 miles), and was felt all around the country.
Guayaquil Mayor Jaime Nebot, who was traveling in Spain, said on his Facebook page he would coordinate recovery operations from where he was.
Official details on the damage to Guayaquil, a frequent departure point for foreign tourists visiting the Galapagos islands made famous by Charles Darwin, were slow to emerge.
Social media pictures showed a collapsed bridge in the city and minor damage to the lobby of a hotel, as well as images of a collapsed control tower at an airport in the city of Manta.
"I was in my house watching a movie and everything started to shake. I ran out into the street and now I don't know what's going to happen," said Lorena Cazares, 36, a telecommunications worker in Quito.

REFINERY CLOSED
Parts of the capital were without power or telephone service, with many communicating only via WhatsApp. Photos on social media showed cracks in the walls of shopping centers.
The capital's municipal government later said power had been restored and there were no reports of casualties in the city.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meter (one to three feet) above tide level were possible for some coastal areas of Ecuador.
State officials said the OPEC nation's oil production was not affected by the quake but that the principal refinery of Esmeraldas, located near the epicenter, had been halted as a precaution.
"At first it was light, but it lasted a long time and got stronger," said Maria Jaramillo, 36, a resident of Guayaquil, describing windows breaking and pieces falling off roofs.
"I was on the seventh floor and the light went off in the whole sector, and we evacuated. People were very anxious in the street ... We left barefoot."
Across the Pacific in Japan, a 7.3 magnitude tremor struck Kumamoto province early Saturday, killing at least 32 people, injuring about a thousand and causing widespread damage, in the second major quake to hit the island of Kyushu in just over 24 hours. The first, late on Thursday, killed nine. (Additional reporting by Cristina Munoz in Quito, Yuri Garcia in Guayaquil; Writing by Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by James Dalgleish and Mary Milliken)



SOURCE: Reuters

Saturday, April 16, 2016

POPE MAKES PROVOCATIVE TRIP TO GREECE AS EU DEPORTS MIGRANTS

Pope Francis is known for his symbolic gestures, but even by his standards, his visit to a Greek refugee detention center as the European Union implements a controversial deportation plan is as provocative as any he has undertaken.
Francis and the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians will spend nearly an hour Saturday greeting some 250 refugees stuck on the Greek island of Lesbos. They will lunch with eight of them to hear their stories of fleeing war, conflict and poverty and hopes for a better life in Europe. And they will toss floral wreathes into the sea to pray for those who never made it.
It's a gesture Francis first made when he visited the Italian island of Lampedusa in the summer of 2013, his first trip outside Rome as pope, after a dozen migrants died trying to reach the southern tip of Europe. He made a similar gesture more recently at the U.S.-Mexican border, laying a bouquet of flowers next to a large crucifix at the Ciudad Juarez border crossing in memory of migrants who died trying to reach the U.S.
"He is slightly provocative," said George Demacopoulos, chair of Orthodox Christian studies at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York. Citing Francis' Mexico border visit in February, in the heat of a U.S. presidential campaign where illegal immigration took center stage, he added: "He is within his purview to do so, but that was a provocative move."
The Vatican insists Saturday's visit is purely humanitarian and religious in nature, not political or a "direct" criticism of the EU plan.
But spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters that Francis' position on Europe's "moral obligation" to welcome refugees is well-known, and that the EU-Turkey deportation deal certainly has "consequences on the situation of the people involved."
The Vatican official in charge of migrants, Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, was even more explicit, saying the EU-Turkey plan essentially treats migrants as merchandise that can be traded back and forth and doesn't recognize their inherent dignity as human beings.
The March 18 EU-Turkey deal stipulates that anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands on or after March 20 will be returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece. For every Syrian sent back, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey for resettlement in Europe. In return, Turkey was granted concessions including billions of euros to deal with the more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living there, and a speeding up of its stalled accession talks with the EU.
Human rights groups have denounced the deal as an abdication of Europe's obligations to grant protection to asylum-seekers.
The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of refugees, the poor and downtrodden the focus of his ministry as pope, denouncing the "globalization of indifference" that the world shows the less fortunate.
Aside from the inherently political nature of the trip, it also has a significant religious dimension. Francis will be visiting alongside the spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and the head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Athens Archbishop Ieronymos II.
Lombardi said the ecumenical significance of such a meeting was "obvious" — and he credited Greece's politicians with their willingness to let the religious leaders take center stage as an "appreciated" gesture of discretion.



Source: AP

Friday, April 15, 2016

Winners and losers from the 9th Democratic presidential debate

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders debated in Brooklyn, N.Y., Thursday night, the first time the two had stood on the same stage in 36 days. I tweeted. The Fix posse annotated. And I also jotted down some of the best and worst from the night that was. Enjoy!
Winners
Hillary Clinton: Clinton didn't knock Sanders out. But she definitely won on points. She was ready when Sanders came at her on her judgment for voting for the war in Iraq, noting that the voters of New York as well as President Obama trusted her judgment. She noted, powerfully, that women's rights had not come up nearly enough in these debates and that Sanders had sought to minimize them as an issue when Donald Trump made his comments about abortion. (Sidenote: That was Clinton's best moment of the night, reminding people watching that her campaign to be the first female presidential nominee for a major party was both historic and unique.)
Most importantly, Clinton drove home -- again and again -- the idea that Sanders talked a good game but couldn't back it up. "It's easy to diagnose the problem," she said at one point. "It's harder to do something about the problem." That's her broader argument in this race -- what Sanders says sounds nice but can't be done -- and she did yeoman's work in making sure anyone watching understood that.
No, she wasn't perfect in the Brooklyn debate. Clinton continues to be evasive and unconvincing when it comes to her refusal to release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. The idea that the Republicans running for president need to release any paid speeches they gave before Clinton will do the same is a cop out. Period.
But, Clinton came into the debate ahead in New York and the race more broadly. Nothing that happened on Thursday night will change that.
WaPo's Fact Checker: I already knew how good the Fact Checker blog -- run by Glenn Kessler with an assist from the terrific Michelle Lee -- was. But, the two candidates are clearly paying a lot of attention to how many Pinocchios this dynamic duo is giving out. From fossil fuels to Clinton's claim about guns in Vermont to Sanders not releasing his tax returns, the candidates just kept citing the Fact Checker. In the words of Charlie Sheen "winning."
John Dingell: If you don't already follow the former and longtime Michigan Democratic congressman on Twitter, you're doing it wrong. Dingell's tweet below was the single best one I saw all night. And I saw A LOT of tweets.
Losers
Bernie Sanders: Let's start with what Sanders did well in the Brooklyn debate: He effectively portrayed himself as the candidate of big ideas and Clinton as a seeker of half-measures, full of caution. And, if you came into this debate liking Sanders, you left it loving him.
Now, to what he did wrong: The sarcasm. He was dismissive to the point of danger, politically speaking, on a number of occasions.
Why? I doubt it was any sort of strategy on the part of Sanders but rather a reflection that he has been running against Clinton for a long time now and is sick of listening to her talking points. Regardless of the reason, Sanders isn't going to win over many converts with that sort of approach to Clinton. And, make no mistake, that is what he needs to do going forward. If the race continues on as it has to date, Clinton will be the nominee. It might not be as smooth a path as she and her team imagined but she will win unless Sanders can start changing hearts and minds. Sarcasm isn't the way to do that.
The audience: I have been on the record in favor of live audiences at political debates. And I've even written favorably about audiences getting a little rowdy -- or at least somewhat actively involved in the back and forth between the candidates. I am now officially flip-flopping. The Brooklyn audience was so over the top, so bent on cheering for their preferred candidate no matter what he or she said that it made it hard to watch and listen to the debate at times. I said aloud several times during the debate "Can everyone quiet down?"; I was sitting alone in my home office at the time.
Yelling: I suppose, technically, yelling should be in the "winners" category since there was so much of it. But, it's my blog so I am putting it as a loser. It felt as though the entire first hour of the debate was Clinton and Sanders shouting at each other. Not great.
Nuance: Debates are where nuance goes to die. On fracking. On the Middle East. On just about every issue, the gray areas present in all of these issues were lost amid opposition research dumps and each side looking for an opening to pry at in a future 30-second TV ad. The Lincoln-Douglas debates these are not.












Source: wp

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