U.S. Democrats claimed an upset win in Kentucky on Tuesday over a Republican governor backed by President Donald Trump and seized control of the state legislature in Virginia, where anti-Trump sentiment in the suburbs remained a potent force.

The outcomes of Tuesday’s elections in four states, including Mississippi and New Jersey, could offer clues to how next year’s presidential election could unfold, when Trump will aim for a second four-year term.

In Kentucky, Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear, whose father, Steve, was the state’s last Democratic governor, scored a narrow victory over Governor Matt Bevin despite an election-eve rally headlined by Trump.

In a speech in Lexington, Kentucky, on Monday night, Trump – who won Kentucky by 30 percentage points in 2016 – told voters that they needed to re-elect Bevin, or else pundits would say the president “suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world.”

The remarks reflected the extent to which Bevin, 52, sought to nationalize the campaign, emphasizing his support for Trump amid a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry of the Republican president in Congress.

While the result was a significant setback for Trump, who remains relatively popular in Kentucky, it may have had more to do with Bevin’s diminished standing in the state. Opinion polls showed Bevin may be the least popular governor in the country, after he waged high-profile fights with labor unions and teachers.

Beshear’s upset win could also bolster Democrats’ slim hopes of ousting Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is on the ballot himself in the state next year.

At a rally on Tuesday night, Bevin refused to concede, citing unspecified “irregularities,” even as Beshear called on the governor to honor the results.

Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement that the president “just about dragged Gov. Matt Bevin across the finish line” while helping Republicans win several other statewide races.

Meanwhile, Democrats wrested both chambers of Virginia’s legislature from narrow Republican majorities, which would give the party complete control of the state government for the first time in a quarter-century.

Trump has avoided Virginia, where Democrats found success in suburban swing districts in last year’s congressional elections, as they did in states across the country. Tuesday’s election, which saw Democrats prevail in several northern Virginia suburbs, suggested the trend was continuing.

In Mississippi, where Republican Governor Phil Bryant was barred from running again due to term limits, Republican Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves defeated Attorney General Jim Hood, a moderate Democrat who favors gun rights and opposes abortion rights.

Like Bevin, Reeves campaigned as a staunch Trump supporter in a state that Trump easily won in 2016. The president held a campaign rally in the state last week alongside Reeves.

In New Jersey, Democrats were expected to maintain their majority in the state’s general assembly, the legislature’s lower chamber.

Virginia in the spotlight

The Virginia contest drew heavy attention and money from both parties. Former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential front-runner, visited Virginia over the weekend to campaign with several statehouse candidates, and Republican Vice President Mike Pence held a rally on Saturday.

Other Democratic presidential contenders, including U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker, have also campaigned with local candidates.

In one notable race, Democrat Shelly Simonds, who lost a state House of Delegates race in 2017 via random draw after the election ended in a tie, won a rematch against Republican David Yancey.

Virginia’s Democratic gains came despite a year of scandal for the party’s top officials in the state. Governor Ralph Northam barely endured a political firestorm after his yearbook page was shown to have photos of someone in blackface and another person in a Ku Klux Klan costume, while Attorney General Mark Herring admitted to wearing blackface himself in college.

Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, meanwhile, has denied two accusations of sexual assault.

The legislative wins likely mean that Democrats can pass a raft of bills that Republicans had resisted, including new gun limits. Democrats will also control the redistricting process in 2021, when lawmakers draw new voting lines for state and congressional elections after next year’s U.S. Census.

…

From: MeNeedIt

Italy will next year become the world’s first country to make it compulsory for schoolchildren to study climate change and sustainable development, Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti said.

Fioramonti, from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, is the government’s most vocal supporter of green policies and was criticized by the opposition in September for encouraging students to skip school and take part in climate protests.

In an interview in his Rome office on Monday, Fioramonti said all state schools would dedicate 33 hours per year, almost one hour per school week, to climate change issues from the start of the next academic year in September.

Many traditional subjects, such as geography, mathematics and physics, would also be studied from the perspective of sustainable development, said the minister, a former economics professor at South Africa’s Pretoria University.

“The entire ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model,” Fioramonti told Reuters in the interview conducted in fluent English.

“I want to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything we learn in school.”

Fioramonti, 42, the author of several books arguing gross domestic product should no longer be used as the main measure of countries’ economic success, has been a target of the right-wing opposition since becoming a minister in the two-month-old government of 5-Star and the center-left Democratic Party.

His proposals for new taxes on airline tickets, plastic and sugary foods to raise funds for education were strongly attacked by critics who said Italians were already over-taxed.

He then sparked fury from conservatives when he suggested crucifixes should be removed from Italian classrooms to create a more inclusive environment for non-Christians.

Despite the criticism, the government’s 2020 budget presented to parliament this week included both the plastic tax and a new tax on sugary drinks.

“I was ridiculed by everyone and treated like a village idiot, and now a few months later the government is using two of those proposals and it seems to me more and more people are convinced it is the way to go,” Fioramonti said.

ANTI-SALVINI

Surveys showed 70-80% of Italians backed taxing sugar and flights, he said, adding that coalition lawmakers had told him they would table budget amendments to introduce his proposal to hike air ticket prices before the budget is approved by end-year.

Fioramonti said targeted taxes of this kind were a way of discouraging types of consumption which were harmful to the environment or individuals, while generating resources for schools, welfare or lowering income tax.

In this vein, he suggested other levies on various types of gambling and on profits from oil drilling.

His progressive positions on the economy and the environment are the antithesis of Matteo Salvini’s hard-right League, which has overtaken 5-Star to become easily Italy’s most popular party, with more than 30% of voter support.

…

From: MeNeedIt

The Daily Orange isn’t daily anymore.

The student-run newspaper that has covered Syracuse University since 1903, and trained generations of journalists, now prints three issues per week. Editor-in-chief Haley Robertson wonders where she’ll find advertisers, worries about firing friends, and searches for alumni donors who will pay to send reporters on the road to cover the university’s sports teams.

These are problems not unlike those that bedevil executives two or three times her age — evidence of how the news industry’s woes have seeped onto campuses that try to harness youthful energy and idealism to turn out professionals who can inform the world.

Meanwhile, college journalism educators are changing the way they teach in a race against obsolescence. They’re emphasizing versatility and encouraging a spirit of entrepreneurship.

After some brutal years, there are signs of life. Much as the journalistic pursuit of a crooked president in the 1970s inspired a generation, another leader who denounces reporters as enemies on a nearly daily basis has given birth to a new resolve: Enrollment in journalism programs is up.

“When I look at local news and see what’s happening, I’m pessimistic,” said Kathleen Culver, journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “When I look at 18- and 20-year-olds and see what they want to do, I’m optimistic.”

Thousands of young journalists train for the future on a dual track, in classrooms and in student-run newsrooms that are models for the places they hope to work someday.

For Robertson, that means hours a day in a dingy office with yellowed headlines glued to the wall, metal file cabinets signed by editors dating back nearly 50 years and a ripped upholstered couch carried from the Daily Orange’s old office, now a parking lot.

College publications occasionally make national news while chronicling the rhythms of campus life, as happened this fall when Arizona State University’s student newspaper had a scoop on the resignation of Kurt Volker, U.S. envoy to the Ukraine. Volker runs Arizona State’s McCain Institute.

The Daily Orange in 2018 first posted video of racist and sexist comments made at a Syracuse fraternity, leading to embarrassing headlines for the university across the country. Robertson’s managing editor, Catherine Leffert, sat on the floor at a campus meeting as that story swirled, tapping out updates on her mobile phone, and slept on the office couch in two-hour intervals. The fraternity was suspended.

Journalists of all ages understand the adrenaline rush.

“Seeing the layoffs and seeing newsroom cutbacks is really disheartening,” Leffert said. “But what keeps me wanting to be a journalist and wanting to do it here is seeing the effect that the D.O. has. It’s really cool and exciting.”

Few college publications have shut down the way local newspapers in towns and cities across the country have, said Chris Evans, president of the College Media Association and adviser to the University of Vermont newspaper. Many are supported by student fees and pay their staff members little if anything.

Thirty-five percent of school papers say they have reduced the frequency of print issues to save money, according to a CMA survey taken earlier this year. Five percent have gone online-only, as the University of Maryland’s Diamondback said that it would do early next year. Half of the newspapers that haven’t abandoned paper, like the Daily Orange, say they’re not printing as many copies.

Robertson touts the transition as a way to follow the industry by going more digital, and the D.O. has an active web site and social media presence. Yet there’s only so much staff members can do. They are students, after all.

The University of North Carolina’s Daily Tar Heel switched to three days a week in 2017 when its directors suddenly realized they were going broke, said Maddy Arrowood, the paper’s editor-in-chief. The newspaper cut the pay of staff members and moved into a new, smaller office above a restaurant.

The Daily Tar Heel is testing out newsletters targeted at people with special interests, and its reporters are trying to attract off-campus readers and advertisers by covering news in the surrounding community of Chapel Hill, N.C.

“I spend most of my time very aware of our financial situation,” Arrowood said. “We’re always trying to tell the newsroom that your goal is to produce the best content that you can and be an indispensable resource for our readers.”

One small victory: last year the Daily Tar Heel reported a tiny profit.

Struggling with a $280,000 debt, the Hilltop at Howard University printed its first edition this semester in mid-October. The Maneater at the University of Missouri used to print twice a week, then once. Now it’s down to once a month. It operates separately from a newspaper run by faculty and students that covers the town of Columbia.

Staff members are now charged annual dues — in other words, they must pay to work there, said Leah Glasser, the paper’s editor. They can avoid the dues if they find an alumni sponsor or sell enough advertising to cover it.

The paper has a web site, and Glasser and her staff are slowly getting used to the new monthly schedule.

“It’s so difficult to hear, `we don’t have enough money,”‘ she said. “We hear that a lot. As a generation, that doesn’t make us turn around and go home.”

Newspapers like the Daily Orange and Daily Tar Heel don’t take money from the university or fellow students, believing that to be a conflict of interest. Most publications do, however. Tammy Merrett, faculty adviser to the Alestle at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, doesn’t know how her paper would survive without it.

Fat with slick ads taken out by military recruiters, Planned Parenthood and local supermarkets, the Alestle’s ad revenue was around $150,000 a year in 2008. Now, the paper struggles to make $30,000 a year in ad sales.

“At some universities, they have to approach student government directly and ask for funds, and there have been some instances where student government doesn’t like the coverage, so they deny it,” Merrett said. “Luckily, that doesn’t happen here.”

Despite the worries, North Carolina’s Arrowood says her experience makes her more interested in a journalism career, not less. Her optimism “comes from knowing that people still need news, they still need information, and I’ve gotten to see that in a lot of ways,” she said. “I’m willing to meet people where they are.

“What I want to do is still something that people need,” she said.

With that, she has to cut the conversation short.

Arrowood has a class to attend.

If they’re being honest, most journalism educators have at some point wondered to themselves: Am I preparing young people for a dying industry? Even if I try to retool for a modern age, who will be interested in my school?

At the turn of the century, Syracuse’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication routinely welcomed 48 new students each year into its master’s program in journalism. A few years ago, that number slipped into the teens, said Joel Kaplan, who runs the program. Nationally, the number of undergraduates in college journalism programs dropped 9 percent between 2013 and 2015, according to the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication.

Newspaper newsroom jobs across the country sank from 52,000 in 2008 to 24,000 now, according to the University of North Carolina. There’s more to journalism than newspapers, of course, but the number of jobs in digital, nonprofit and broadcast newsrooms can’t make up for that kind of contraction.

Try selling a specialized education at an expensive private school to prospective students and parents with those grim statistics as a backdrop.

“It’s one thing to go into debt if you’re an engineer or a graphic artist, because you know the jobs are going to be there,” Kaplan said.

As a school with a broader communications program, Newhouse started emphasizing its advertising and public relations majors. Syracuse used to have a separate newspaper journalism major; now it’s the magazine, news and digital journalism program.
If anyone can adapt, it’s young people.

“My students don’t even remember a day when the paper was delivered to their house,” said John Affleck, a professor of sports journalism at Penn State.

Universities are focusing more on specialized programs like Affleck’s; the University of Florida halted its own decline by starting a sports media program. Several schools invest in data journalism. They’re feeding a greater interest in watchdog reporting.

Penn State just hired its first innovator-in-residence, part of a national trend to emphasize entrepreneurial skills to students who may have to create their own career paths.

The school’s Donald Bellisario College of Communications is itself a testament to keeping an open mind professionally, as it’s named for an alumnus who studied journalism and made a fortune creating and producing television dramas like “NCIS.”

Schools are also breaking down internal barriers that once kept writers, broadcasters and photographers separate. University of Maryland journalism school dean Lucy Dalglish just authorized the purchase of 50 new cameras, since all students there must now take at least two classes in video or still photography. Wisconsin’s Culver recalls a student who grumbled about being forced to take a class in digital journalism; she’s now an executive at Facebook.

“How much should the medium dictate the way we educate a student?” she asked. “The answer is, `not much.”‘

Maryland emphasizes creative, real-world experience. A journalism major worked with a computer science student to produce a map of the most dangerous traffic intersections in the state, Dalglish said. Students also collaborated with National Public Radio on a Baltimore project.

Many educators say their schools should be considered by students who don’t necessarily want media jobs. J-school students learn communication, critical thinking and writing while getting a solid liberal arts education, said Marie Hardin, dean of Penn State’s Bellisario College.

David Perlmutter, dean of Texas Tech’s College of Media & Communication bets that a majority of journalism school graduates over age 35 are no longer in the profession but use the skills they learned.

“Personally, I think that’s what’s going to keep the journalism major alive,” he said.

A “Trump bump” is an unexpected positive. Undergraduate enrollment in journalism programs went up nearly 6 percent between 2015 and 2018, the AEJMC said. Journalism is the most popular major for Bellisario’s incoming class at Penn State, after having been surpassed by advertising and PR four years ago.

Kaplan’s master’s program at Syracuse welcomed 35 new students this fall.

“When Trump starts calling journalists the enemy of the people and fake news, these kids get ticked off,” Dalglish said.

Years ago, graduates beat a familiar path into low-level reporter jobs at newspapers or television stations. That still happens, but when Kelly Barnett, head of the Newhouse school’s career counseling program, scrolls down the list of jobs taken by recent alumni, she sees titles like digital editorial assistant, social media producer, video streamer, social media specialist.

So there’s work, but students shouldn’t be blind to the challenges.

“What I’m not going to tell an incoming student or parent is that there are so many kinds of alternatives out there, that there are just as many jobs out there,” Hardin said, “because I don’t think that’s true.”

…

From: MeNeedIt

A radio host who helped spread the word in the fight against Ebola has been stabbed to death at his home in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo, the army said Sunday.

The motive for the murder in the town of Lwemba in the troubled Ituri region was unknown, but it came as health authorities were set to introduce a new vaccine against the disease in unaffected areas.

The attackers killed 35-year-old Papy Mumbere Mahamba and wounded his wife before burning down their home late Saturday, General Robert Yav, the commander of Congolese army forces in the Ituri town of Mambasa, told AFP.

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Ebola Virus in DR Congo Significantly Contained, But Remains Dangerous

The deadly Ebola virus is back where it began, in the town of Mangina, were the outbreak was declared August 1, 2018

Professor Steve Ahuka, national coordinator of the fight against Ebola, confirmed a local worker in Lwemba had been killed.

A journalist at Radio Lwemba, the local radio station where Mahamba worked, also confirmed the details.

“Our colleague Papy Mumbere Mahamba was killed at his home by unknown attackers” who stabbed him to death, Jacques Kamwina told AFP.

The Observatory for  Press Freedom in  Africa (OLPA), based in the DRC, called on the Ituri authorities to conduct a “serious investigation” into the murder.

DR Congo declared an Ebola epidemic in August 2018 in the conflict-wracked eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

The highly contagious haemorrhagic fever has so far killed 2,185 people, according to the latest official figures.

Efforts to roll back the epidemic have been hampered not only by fighting but also by resistance within communities to preventative measures, care facilities and safe burials.

It is the DRC’s 10th Ebola epidemic and the second deadliest on record after an outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014-16, claiming more than 11,300 lives.

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In Congo, an Ebola Survivor With a Motorbike Helps Ease Fear

Germain Kalubenge, 23, is a survivor of the Ebola virus and often is the only driver his community trusts to help if someone suspects they are infected

Health workers have repeatedly come under attack.

A Cameroonian doctor from the World Health Organization (WHO), Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, was shot dead in April in an attack on a hospital in North Kivu province.

A nurse and a police officer were killed in similar circumstances since the start of the epidemic.

In September, militiamen torched around 20 homes of health workers fighting Ebola in the area around Mambasa.

Dangerous burial traditions

The WHO has warned violence undermines the fight against Ebola, notably impeding safe burials of the highly contagious bodies and the administering of vaccines.

People often refuse to forgo traditional burial rites involving kissing, washing and touching of the dead body.

Funerals can become “super-spreading events” with up to 70 people infected in a single ceremony, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

To prevent contagion, health workers and volunteers form safe burial teams but deep mistrust of outsiders often hinders access to bereaved families.

Many people see Ebola as a hoax invented by medical personnel in order to land well-paid jobs.

New vaccine

On Saturday, the authorities said they had received 11,000 doses of a second anti-Ebola vaccine from Belgium, the DRC’s former colonial power.

The Ad26-ZEBOV-GP vaccine – an experimental product– is to be used to protect those living outside of direct Ebola transmission zones.

The vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson will be administered only to those who want it, the ministry said.

It will complement a first vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV-GF, manufactured by the US firm Merck Sharpe and Dohme (MSD), used in Ebola-infected areas to protect those who may have come into contact with victims of the disease.

Nearly 250,000 people have been vaccinated since the start of the program in August 2018.

…

From: MeNeedIt

McDonald’s chief executive officer has been pushed out of the company after violating company policy by engaging in a consensual relationship with an employee, the corporation said Sunday.

The fast food giant said former president and CEO Steve Easterbrook demonstrated poor judgment, and that McDonald’s forbids managers from having romantic relationships with direct or indirect subordinates.

In an email to employees, Easterbrook acknowledged he had a relationship with an employee and said it was a mistake.

“Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on,” Easterbrook said in the email.

McDonald’s board of directors voted on Easterbrook’s departure Friday after conducting a thorough review. Details of Easterbrook’s separation package will be released Monday in a federal filing, according to a company spokesman. He will also be leaving the company’s board. Easterbrook was CEO since 2015.

McDonald’s would not provide details about the employee with whom Easterbrook was involved, and an attorney for Easterbrook declined to answer questions.

The board of directors named Chris Kempczinski, who recently served as president of McDonald’s USA, as its new president and CEO.

Two weeks ago, McDonald’s reported a 2% drop in net income for the third quarter as it spent heavily on store remodeling and expanded delivery service. The company’s share price has dropped 7.5% since, though it’s still up 9.2% for the year. The burger chain also has been plagued by declining restaurant traffic.

The leadership transition is unrelated to the company’s operational or financial performance, the company said in a news release.

McDonald’s decision to act may be a sign of progress on workplace issues that have come to light in the #MeToo era, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

“Other companies don’t always act on that kind of information or fire their CEO for that, and so it seems like they trying to enforce a pretty strict policy in this situation,” Tobias said.

Among other challenges at its restaurants, McDonald’s has faced workplace harassment charges. In May, McDonald’s said it was enhancing training and offering a new hotline for workers after a labor group filed dozens of sexual harassment charges against the company.

Fight for $15, the group which filed the charges, said McDonald’s response to its sexual harassment complaints has been inadequate, and “the company needs to be completely transparent about Easterbrook’s firing and any other executive departures related to these issues.”

Kempczinski joined McDonald’s in 2015. He was responsible for approximately 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. He was instrumental in the development of McDonald’s strategic plan and oversaw the most comprehensive transformation of the U.S. business in McDonald’s history, said Enrique Hernandez, chairman of McDonald’s board, in a statement.

Kempczinski described Easterbrook as a mentor.

…

From: MeNeedIt

A U.S.-based medical relief group operating in northeast Syria was targeted Sunday in a mortar attack allegedly by Turkish-backed Syrian militia fighters near the town of Tal Tamr, killing one medical worker and wounding at least one other.

David Eubank, founder of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), said the attack targeted his team as they were trying to enter the embattled town.

“Zau Seng was from Burma,” Eubank told local media after the attack, referring to a member of his team.

“He was hit in the head by shrapnel and in the back. He died right away.” Eubank said. The wounded volunteer is an Iraqi national, he added.  

The attack occurred outside the northeastern Syrian town of Tal Tamr, where Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been fighting Turkish-backed Syrian militia fighters.

FBR, which is active in several conflict zones, has been involved in humanitarian work in northeast Syria since the beginning of Turkey’s military incursion in the region on October 9.

“Yesterday we took out two wounded [civilians] and today we were there. The Free Syrian Army [Syrian rebels] and the Turks were mortaring in front of us… this mortar came behind us and hit this vehicle,” Eubank, a U.S. Special Forces veteran, said on Sunday.  

He noted that the wounded medics were immediately taken to a nearby hospital run by the Kurdish Red Crescent.

An official at the Kurdish Red Crescent confirmed the news to VOA.  

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t save one of them. His wounds were too deep,” said Kemal Dirbas of the Kurdish Red Crescent, adding that they “don’t have the right medical supplies and equipment for such cases.”

Dirbas added that FBR has done a “unique job to save civilians lives in this conflict.”

“The FBR has been doing a brave work in our region,” he said. “Its volunteers go to very dangerous places to rescue civilians caught in the fighting. They go to frontlines to carry out their humanitarian mission. They face death every day.”

Medical workers have been targeted since the beginning of the Turkish offensive into northeast Syria.

On October 14, a doctor with the Kurdish Red Crescent was reportedly killed in a Turkish airstrike near the town of Tel Abyad.

On the same day, at least four other medical workers were kidnapped by Turkish-backed fighters as they were on way to rescue wounded people, local news reported at the time.

Turkey defends its military operation in Syria and charges that its objective from the ongoing incursion is to remove Syrian Kurdish forces, considered as terrorists by Ankara, from the Turkey-Syria border area.

The United Nations says the Turkish offensive has forced more than 180,000 Syrian civilians to flee the border areas, including into neighboring Iraq.

Local doctors in northeast Syria say at least 206 civilians have died in the fighting, with another 1,086 people injured.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, more than 850 medical workers have been killed throughout the country, medical groups estimate.

…

From: MeNeedIt

The transfer of migrants from overcrowded camps on the islands to the Greek mainland continued over the weekend, with authorities saying 415 arrived at the port of Eleusis west of Athens Saturday afternoon and another 380 expected around noon Sunday.

The migrants had been living on the island of Lesbos, at the Moria camp where almost 15,000 migrants still live in a space designed for 3,000. They were being transported by Greek Navy ships usually used to transport tanks.

A senior government official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about certain aspects of government policy told The Associated Press that the government plans to move 5,000 migrants to the mainland over the next 15 days.

The official said the migrants will be housed in hotels, as the peak tourist season is over. He said some parts of the mainland, such as northern Greece, will be exempted because there are many migrant camps, or hotspots, there already.

He added that the government would cap the number of migrants at 0.8 percent of the local population per prefecture. He did not mention whether more permanent locations would be used in the future.

Greece is divided into 54 prefectures, but about half of them would be exempted from the migrant resettlement scheme, including all islands.

Several of Greece’s eastern islands, all close to the Turkish coast, as well as the land border with Turkey in the northeast, are migrants’ preferred entry points.

The large presence of migrants on those islands – about 35,000 in all – has aroused the hostility of parts of the local population. Local authorities complain the islands are turning into dumping grounds for migrants while the processing of asylum requests is very slow and expulsions of those deemed ineligible for asylum very few. The government has promised to speed up both processes.

Early Saturday, inhabitants of the eastern island of Kos, led by their mayor, prevented 75 migrants from disembarking from a regularly scheduled passenger ship that had picked them up from the remote island of Kastellorizo.

The municipality had blocked the landing with tractors and other vehicles. The mayor said that the government should transfer some of the 4,500 migrants already on the island instead of sending new ones.

…

From: MeNeedIt

The United Nations and human rights defenders are calling for greater protections for journalists as the world observes this year’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

The gruesome murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul last year is a textbook case of impunity. The Saudi Arabian assassins and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who allegedly commissioned the killing, have paid no price for this crime.

Many other killings of journalists also go unpunished.   In his message on this International Day, U.N. Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, deplores the rise in the scale and number of attacks against the physical safety of journalists and media workers in recent years.

Rheal LeBlanc, the U.N.’s chief of press and external relations in Geneva, told VOA that Guterres warns that world leaders who vilify journalists as purveyors of so-called fake news put the journalists’ lives and liberty in danger.

“I think he said on many, many occasions how it is important for all leaders to show respect for the freedom of the press and all the social tolerance and respect for the work that journalists are doing … Freedom of expression and free media are essential to our democracies.”

UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, reports 1,360 journalists have been killed since 1993.  The non-governmental Press Emblem Campaign reports 65 journalists worldwide have been killed so far this year.  In addition, it notes that journalists in many countries are regularly molested, injured, harassed, detained and prevented from doing their work.

The campaign supports the enactment of an international convention for the protection of journalists to combat impunity more effectively.  It cites the case of Mexico as a country where impunity is almost total because of the corruption of local authorities.  

It says most crimes against journalists in other countries, such as Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Iraq, go unpunished because of the lack of an independent judiciary. It argues that independent international investigation and prosecution mechanisms are needed to identify those responsible for these crimes and bring them to justice.

…

From: MeNeedIt

An aid group estimates that more than 1 million people in East Africa are affected by flooding after higher-than-normal rainfall.

Parts of the region are bracing for a tropical storm that could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.

The International Rescue Committee on Friday said many people had been reeling from an earlier period of severe drought.

The rains in parts of Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya are expected for another four to six weeks.

South Sudan’s president earlier this week declared a state of emergency in 27 counties because of the flooding. 
 
Experts say the floods are a worrying sign of how climate change is affecting already vulnerable communities. 
 

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From: MeNeedIt

Experts warn that climate change is speeding up melting on Earth’s frozen peaks, threatening the planet’s long-term water supply. 

The more than 150 global mountain experts attending the first High Mountain Summit warn time is running out for the world’s glaciers. They say climate change is causing temperatures to rise in Earth’s frozen zones, leading to a rapid melting on vital peaks.

For example, scientists say Swiss glaciers have lost 10 percent of their volume in the past five years. The disappearance of hundreds of small glaciers in the Alps was dramatized when hundreds of mourners recently attended what was dubbed a “funeral” to mark the loss of Switzerland’s Pizol glacier.

The World Meteorological Organization reports international observers show an acceleration in the retreat of 31 major glaciers in the past two decades. They include mountains in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush regions and Tibetan Plateau in Asia.  

Summit co-chair, Canadian John Pomeroy, a water resources and climate change expert, said the loss of water resources in mountain ranges around the world is devastating the communities in those areas.  He said it also is destabilizing vast populations downstream.

“Around half of humanity relies upon water and rivers that originate in the high mountains. And, so this is used for irrigation. It is used for power production, hydroelectricity. It is used for our urban and community water supplies and it provides essential water for ecosystems from the mountaintop down to the sea.”  

Pomeroy added the rapidly melting mountain glaciers are contributing to rising sea levels. He notes cities along the ocean such as Miami, Venice and Jakarta already are in big trouble.  

“For the high mountain communities or valleys in north India, Pakistan, central Asia, their irrigation is the only source of water for agriculture that is currently provided by ice melt from glaciers,” Pomeroy said. “And the glaciers are retreating … In the Western U.S., 90 percent of the water supplies are from the high mountains and they drive the economy.”  

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which measures the impact of global warming, predicts snow cover, glaciers and permafrost will continue to decline in almost all regions throughout this century.

The summit is calling for urgent action to support more sustainable development in both high-mountain areas and downstream. That will involve disaster risk reduction measures, better early warning systems, climate change adaptation and investment in infrastructure to make communities safer.
 

…

From: MeNeedIt

As hot, dry Santa Ana winds whipped up wildfires in Southern California this week, 300 unlikely heroes were being credited with helping save the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

Three hundred goats, that is.

That’s because in May, 300 goats were brought to the library to eat all the brush around the complex.

“We actually worked with the Ventura County Fire Department in May and they bring out hundreds of goats to our property,” Melissa Giller, a spokeswoman for the library, told ABC. “The goats eat all of the brush around the entire property, creating a fire perimeter.

“The firefighters on the property said that the fire break really helped them, because as the fire was coming up that one hill, all the brush has been cleared, basically,” she said.

The caprine contractors are part of an 800-head herd from 805 Goats, a Southern California company that offers a “sustainable, ecologically friendly” way to reduce fire danger and manage lands.

Scott Morris, the owner, said he charges $1,000 per acre of land to allow the goats to graze.

Vincent van Goat, Selena Goatmez, Goatzart and Nibbles were among the goats in the herd brought in to clear about 13 acres at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Morris said goats, which have voracious appetites, prefer to graze on weeds over grass. As for how it works: The goats are brought to the property and turned loose.

The company’s website said, “Goats will consume the noxious weed vegetation first, consisting of eating all the flower heads and leaves, with only bare stock remaining. With the elimination of the flower heads, the natural progression of the cycle is stopped immediately.”

Morris said his year-old company is busy with clients that include cities, homeowners associations and golf courses.

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From: MeNeedIt

TC Energy’s Keystone pipeline has leaked an estimated 383,000 gallons (1.4 million liters) of oil in northeastern North Dakota, marking the second significant spill in two years along the line that carries Canadian tar sands oil through seven states, regulators said Thursday.

Crews on Tuesday shut down the pipeline after the leak was discovered, said Karl Rockeman, North Dakota’s water quality division director. It remained closed Thursday.

The Calgary, Alberta-based company formerly known as TransCanada said in a statement that the leak affected about 22,500 square feet (2090 sq. meters) of land near Edinburg, in Walsh County.

The company and regulators said the cause was being investigated.

“Our emergency response team contained the impacted area and oil has not migrated beyond the immediately affected area,” the company said in a statement.

TC Energy said the area affected by the spill is less than the size of a football field and that the amount of oil released — 9,120 barrels — would approximately half fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.  

North Dakota regulators were notified late Tuesday of the leak. Rockeman said some wetlands were affected, but not any sources of drinking water.

Regulators have been at the site since Wednesday afternoon monitoring the spill and cleanup, he said.

Crude began flowing through the $5.2 billion pipeline in 2011. It’s designed to carry crude oil across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri on the way to refineries in Patoka, Illinois and Cushing, Oklahoma.

It can handle about 23 million gallons daily.

The pipeline spill and shutdown comes as the company seeks to build the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline has drawn opposition from people who fear it will harm the environment.

President Donald Trump issued a federal permit for the expansion project in 2017, after it had been rejected by the Obama administration.Together, the massive Keystone and Keystone XL network would be about five times the length of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

The original Keystone has experienced problems with spills in the past, including one in 2011 of more than 14,000 gallons (53,000 liters) of oil in southeastern North Dakota, near the South Dakota border. That leak was blamed on valve failure at a pumping station.

Another leak in 2016 prompted a weeklong shutdown of the pipeline. The company estimated that just under 17,000 gallons (64,350 liters) of oil spilled onto private land during that leak. Federal regulators said an “anomaly” on a weld on the pipeline was to blame. No waterways or aquifers were affected.

In 2017, the pipeline leaked an estimated 407,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of oil onto farmland in northeastern South Dakota, in a rural area near the North Dakota border. The company had originally put the spill at about 210,000 gallons (795,000 liters).

Federal regulators said at the time that the Keystone leak was the seventh-largest onshore oil or petroleum product spill since 2010. Federal investigators said the pipeline was likely damaged during installation during 2008 and may have occurred when a vehicle drove over the pipe, causing it to weaken over time.

North Dakota’s biggest spill , and one of the largest onshore spills in U.S. history, came in 2013, when 840,000 gallons (3.1 million liters) spilled from a Tesoro pipeline in the northwestern part of the state. The company spent five years and nearly $100 million cleaning it up.

The Sierra Club said the latest spill was an example of why the Keystone XL should not be built.

“We don’t yet know the extent of the damage from this latest tar sands spill, but what we do know is that this is not the first time this pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last.”

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took to Twitter on Thursday to condemn the pipeline and Trump for supporting the extension of it.

Sanders said he would shut down the existing pipeline if elected.

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From: MeNeedIt