Pakistan security forces kill attackers after raid on luxury hotel

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Pearl Continental (PC) hotel in Gwadar, Pakistan April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro/File photo

Gul Yousafzai-MAY 12, 2019

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces have killed three separatist insurgents who had stormed a luxury hotel in the port city of Gwadar 24 hours earlier, the military said on Sunday.

Officials said three gunmen dressed as military officers raided the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel on Saturday, killing three hotel security guards, an employee and a navy soldier in the ensuing gunbattle.

The insurgents had been holed up on the top floor of the hotel after security forces arrived. The forces cleared all guests from the premises while cornering the attackers in a staircase.

“Security forces have completed clearance operation,” the military said in a statement, adding all three attackers had been killed.

The Balochistan Liberation Army insurgent group, which says it is fighting what it sees as the unfair exploitation of the province’s natural resources, claimed responsibility saying in a statement the attack was aimed at “Chinese and other foreign investors”.

Balochistan, which borders both Iran and Afghanistan, is Pakistan’s poorest province but has abundant reserves of natural gas and various minerals.

Gwadar is a strategic port on the Arabian Sea that is being developed as part of the $60 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is itself part of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project.

EXPLOSIVES

Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a statement condemning the attack.

“Such attempts, especially in Balochistan are an effort to sabotage our economic projects and prosperity,” he said.

One of the hotel security guards was killed while attempting to stop the men from entering the hotel.
The military said the attackers disabled CCTV cameras in the hotel and planted explosives at all access points leading to the top floor.

Separatists in Balochistan have for decades been fighting the central government, bombing gas and transport infrastructure and raiding security posts. Islamist militants from various factions also operate in the province.

The separatists have denounced the industrial development plans and vowed to block them while Pakistan has promised China it would protect its investments and Chinese workers.

The Pearl Continental Hotel, on a hillside near the port, is used by foreign guests, including Chinese project staff, but there were none of them in the building at the time of the attack, officials said.

Security across most of Pakistan has improved over recent years following a major crackdown after the country’s worst attack, when 148 people, most of them children, were killed in an assault on a school in the western city of Peshawar in 2014.

But Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, remains an exception and there have been several attacks this year, with at least 14 people killed last month in an attack on buses travelling between the southern city of Karachi and Gwadar.

She was pregnant when NASA offered to send her to space. Anna Fisher didn’t hesitate.

The astronaut made history 14 months after giving birth, becoming the first mom in space almost 35 years ago.

Astronaut Anna Fisher kisses her daughter Kristin after training in Houston for a spacewalk in 1985. (NASA)

By Jessica Contrera-May 11

The moment Anna Lee Fisher had been waiting for came on a hot summer afternoon in 1983. Five years had passed since Fisher and five other women were chosen to become America’s first female astronauts. But she hadn’t yet been to space.

Her boss asked to see her in his office. He requested that her husband, who was also in the astronaut training program, come along, too. They sat down at his desk together.

“I’m thinking,” her boss said, “of sending Anna.”

This was what Fisher, then 33 years old, had wanted. There was only one little thing to consider — and it was currently growing inside her. On the day she was asked to climb into a shuttle and be blasted into the solar system, Fisher was eight and a half months pregnant.

She still didn’t hesitate.

“I wasn’t about to say no,” she said last month in an interview with The Washington Post. “You don’t say no to that offer.”

And that was how Anna Fisher became the world’s first mother to go to space. A few weeks after being chosen for a flight, Fisher gave birth to a daughter, Kristin.

She will soon mark the 35th anniversary of her flight, the day she became an inspirational figure to working moms everywhere — including to her daughter. Kristin is now a D.C.-based correspondent for Fox News and the mother of a 16-month old girl.

Anna Fisher, the first mother to go to space, visits her daughter and granddaughter in Washington. The three generations, pictured from left to right, are Anna Fisher, 16-month-old Clara Fisher Forehand and Kristin Fisher Forehand. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

“I always grew up thinking I could have a demanding full-time job and be a mom,” Kristin said. “The example that she set for me, it was never a question. It wasn’t until I got pregnant and started thinking about the logistics that I started thinking, ‘How did she do this?’ ”

The answer is something Anna Fisher had to figure out fast. She gave birth to Kristin on a Friday. By Monday, she was back at NASA, carrying the doughnut-shaped pillow that would make it possible to sit down for the team meeting.

She wanted to send a message to her male co-workers and bosses: She might have had a baby, but she was still on the job.

“It was worth it just to see the looks on their faces,” she recalled.

[‘First Man’ shows Neil Armstrong mourning his daughter on the moon. But did that really happen?]

Fisher had always planned to have a family and even told the selection committee for the astronaut training program of that plan during her interview. She and her husband, Bill, were emergency room doctors in California in 1977 when they applied to NASA’s open call for potential astronauts. Bill wouldn’t get in for another two years. But Fisher, at 28 years old, made the cut and moved to Houston.

NASA's first female astronauts, from left: Shannon W. Lucid, Margaret Rhea Seddon, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Judith A. Resnik, Anna L. Fisher, and Sally K. Ride. (NASA)

There were six women in the class of 35 new astronauts — all of whom were determined to ensure their male colleagues treated them as equally qualified. Sally Ride, who would become the first American woman in space, went shopping with Fisher for baggy khaki pants so they would be wearing outfits similar to NASA’s men. Fisher never wore makeup at work. She attended the astronauts’ spouses’ club, so that her colleagues’ wives wouldn’t feel uneasy about a woman working so closely with them.

For 14 months before her flight, Fisher juggled her training and NASA obligations with caring for her new daughter. She and Bill asked her mom for help and hired a nanny. She started pointing out to reporters that the men on her flight were leaving their children behind, too.

Astronaut Anna Fisher suiting up in May 1980 for training on a mock-up of a modular section of the Hubble Space Telescope for an axial scientific instrument change out. (NASA) ( DENNIS KEIM/NASA)

At work, she learned how to serve as “Capcom,” the person in mission control who communicates with the astronauts already in orbit. It was an important role, requiring long, intense shifts — one her commander suggested she might want to give up. “You’ve got Kristin, you’re training, it’s too much,” he said.

Fisher begged him to reconsider, and won. Only when mission control lost the connection with the flight in orbit did Fisher run into the bathroom and pump her breast milk.

“They never had pumping rooms or anything like that,” Fisher remembered. “ It never even occurred to me to ask for one. It never occurred to any of us to ask for special accommodations for anything.”

Soon she was assigned the job of designing the crew patch that would represent her team’s flight, STS-51-A. She put six stars on it: one for each astronaut aboard, and one for baby Kristin.

[‘Houston, we have a problem’: The amazing history of the iconic Apollo 13 misquote]

In the weeks before her launch in November 1984, she recorded dozens of videos of herself with Kristin. In the days before, she wrote her daughter a letter:

“If anything happens to me, just know that I love you so much,” it said. “Your dad and your grandma will take care of you. And I’ll be watching over you.”

Her flight was only NASA’s second trip using the space shuttle Discovery. She understood the risk she was taking.

On the day she walked out to the launchpad in Florida, her husband used his NASA access to make sure that he, Kristin and Fisher’s mom could be there to wave goodbye. Then Fisher climbed aboard Discovery and shot into the sky.

Her flight was a seven-day, 23-hour mission, focused on retrieving and dispatching satellites. Unlike today’s astronauts, who can call and videoconference their children, Fisher had no way of communicating with her family while on board. Instead, she would sit at the window of the spacecraft, looking down at Earth while playing a tape she’d brought in her Walkman. It was a recording of Kristin saying, “I luh, I luh.” I love you.

Astronaut Anna L. Fisher near the aft flight deck of Discovery in 1984 as fellow crew members worked to retrieve two stranded communications satellites. (NASA)

After traveling 3.3 million miles, Fisher returned safely home. She slipped the letter she had written to Kristin in her jewelry box, grateful her daughter would never have to read it — but prepared to write another the next time she went to space.

Within a month, she was assigned to another flight. Six weeks before it was set to occur, the Challenger space shuttle exploded. One of the six people who lost their lives that day was Fisher’s friend Judy Resnik, who’d joined the astronaut program alongside her.

After the Challenger, the shuttle program ground to a halt, and Fisher took a seven-year leave of absence to raise Kristin and have her second child, Kara.

Kara and Kristin Fisher in 1990 in matching NASA space shuttle outfits. (Courtesy of Anna Fisher)

She returned to NASA in 1996 and went on to become chief of the space station branch and one of the longest-serving astronauts in the agency’s history.

Today, 50 American women have been to space, plenty of them moms. Many told Fisher that when they were kids, they wrote to her, and she mailed them a photo and an autograph.

She loved hearing them chatting to each other in NASA’s halls, switching effortlessly from talk of spacewalks and mission controls to pediatricians and play dates.

In 2017, Fisher retired from NASA at age 67. The same year, she became a grandmother, and soon found herself helping her daughter navigate the same worries she had when she was a new mom. Kristin’s job as a Fox News correspondent means she is often asked to go on reporting trips around the country and the world.

“She calls me and asks about traveling,” Fisher said. “I say, ‘Do you remember when I was gone when you were that age?' ”

Anna Fisher at her daughter's home. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Kristin doesn’t. She said her mom always asks, “Are you glad that I did it? That I took the time away from you, took that risk and went into space?' ”

“And the answer,” Kristin said, “is unequivocally, ‘Yes.’ ”

“I told Kristin to not feel guilty for being away,” Fisher said. “If you’re doing something you love, or you’re bringing the money in, you’re doing something important for your child.”

And when she can, Grandma, or “Nana Anna” as Clara calls her, comes to babysit while Kristin works. In April, Fisher came to Washington to watch Clara on the evening Kristin and her husband attended the White House correspondents’ dinner.

They spent the weekend reading some of the books Fisher bought for her granddaughter: “Organic Chemistry for Babies” and “Astrophysics for Babies.” Then they went outside for their favorite activity. Fisher plopped Clara into a baby-size swing. She lifted her backward and began to count.

“Five, four, three, two, one,” she said. “Blastoff.”

Then she let go and watched her granddaughter swing toward the sky.

Ann Fisher pushes her granddaughter, Clara, on a swing at her daughter's home. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

May not telling the whole story on NHS funding

By Georgina Lee-10 May 2019

Theresa May fired off a volley of stats about the NHS under the Conservatives at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions.

But some claims only tell half the story about what’s going on in the health service.
Let’s take a look.

Claim 1: The Conservatives “are able to give the NHS the biggest cash boost in its history”

In 2018, the government announced that an extra £33.9 billion will be made available to the NHS in 2023-24. Not accounting for inflation, this is indeed the biggest single cash budget increase for the NHS announced by any government.

But that’s not quite as amazing as it sounds.

Governments almost always increase spending on the NHS year-on-year, and because the value of money almost always falls due to inflation, next year’s total will almost certainly be bigger than the year before in cash terms. So it’s pretty easy to have broken the previous record every year.

That’s why NHS economists insist on talking about funding in real terms, and they often judge governments by the pace at which they are increasing health spending – the annual growth rate.

Mrs May didn’t mention that since taking office in 2010, the Conservatives have been more parsimonious with the NHS than the last government.

As FactCheck found last year, health budgets grew at an average rate of 1.3 per cent a year between 2010 and 2016, compared to an average of 5.6 per cent a year between 1997 and 2010 under Labour.

Looking further back, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says that health spending growth under the first six years of Conservative rule was “substantially below” the historic average between 1955 and 2016, when budgets grew by 4.1 per cent a year.

That extra cash promised by Mrs May will take the annual increase to 3.4 per cent between 2018-19 and 2022-23. This is more generous than previously planned but not particularly impressive in historical terms.

The independent King’s Fund think tank says the money pledged is in line with the “minimum increase needed to maintain quality and access to care given the growing and ageing population and rising burden of chronic disease”.

We looked at these figures in more detail in 2018.

Claim 2: “And who were the only party in government that cut funding for the NHS? The Labour party”

It’s true that in the final years of the last Labour government, healthcare spending dropped by 0.2 per cent in 2009 and 2.1 per cent in 2010.

However, over Labour’s 13 years in power from 1997 to 2010, healthcare budgets grew by 5.6 per cent a year on average.

They grew by 1.3 per cent a year under the Conservatives between 2010 and 2016.

Claim 3: “Is this government giving the NHS £7 billion? No. Is it giving it twice that? £14 billion? No. It is giving the NHS £20 billion.”

Mrs May was referring here to a pledge Labour made back in 2017 to increase spending on NHS England by around £7 billion a year between 2017-18 and 2021-22.

She compared that figure with the amount the Conservatives have promised to spend in 2023-24. As we have seen, in cash terms that sum is an extra £33.9 billion. In real terms – adjusting for inflation, it is indeed just over £20 billion.

Clearly, £20 billion is more than £7 billion, but this is an apples-and-oranges comparison.
Labour’s 2017 manifesto never said what they would spend in 2023-24 – the figures they put out referred to earlier years.

And Labour’s policy was to add £7 billion a year on top of what the government had already committed in plans made in 2015. It’s not clear that the £7 billion and £20 billion figures are starting from the same baseline.

It’s fair to say that Labour have changed their tune on NHS funding. In 2017, they pledged to increase budgets by 2 per cent a year on average, but lambasted the Conservatives in 2018 when the government announced what Labour called an “insufficient” boost of 3.4 per cent.

But Labour have now upped their offer. In 2018, the day after the government’s announcement, Labour promised to increase NHS spending by 5 per cent a year. So the Labour spending promise Mrs May referred to is now out of date.

Will USA Continue To Remain Superpower?

US has to keep it’s fingers crossed whether it can continue to be “America first”.

 

by N.S.Venkataraman-2019-05-11

 

In the last Presidential election in USA, Presidential candidate Trump used the slogan “America first” very effectively, which largely caught the imagination of US citizens and satisfied their ego. Aided by this single slogan, Trump successfully became the US President.

 

In the last several decades after the second world war, US citizens have been believing and have been made to believe by the political leaders in USA that USA is the super power in the world and would remain so for all time to come. This thought process created a sort of superiority complex amongst US citizens in general and many of them even started imagining that God has created USA to police the world.

 

Past challenges :

 

It is not as if the so called superiority of USA has not been challenged on several times in the past. The cold war with Soviet Union was the major challenge and ultimately USA emerged triumphant, with Soviet Union disintegrating and communist movement in the world almost entirely collapsing.

 

While USA tried to dominate the world under the impression that everything in the world should take place only with the approval of USA, this view was challenged by national leadership in a few countries such as Vietnam, Korea, Iraq , Cuba, Iran and others. Of course, in all these cases, US emerged triumphant due to it’s military muscle power and financial strength, backed by a large agricultural base , technological achievements and natural resources.

 

Will USA continue to remain first ? :

 

Will such situation of USA remaining first in the world continue to be prevalent in the coming years ?  Many observers think that it would not be so, as the challenges ahead for USA remaining first in the world will be increasingly become stronger and more severe.

 

The three challenges :

 

At present, the three challenges faced by US in maintaining it’s super power status in the world arise largely due to the following factors.

 

1. China is emerging as a strong economic and military power, though not matching USA till now, but likely to do so in not distant future, due to the strong and totalitarian government in China with ambitious leadership. ( somewhat similar to Nazi government in Germany under Hitler’s leadership).

 

2. The steady growth of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic terrorists have now reached alarming proportions, with Muslims constituting around 22% of world population and with steadily increasing population growth amongst Muslims that is likely to touch 50% of world population in the future.

 

September 11 , 2001 attack on World Trade Centre by determined Islamic extremists , killing and injuring thousands of innocent citizens in the heart of USA , clearly exhibited the vulnerability of US to the attack by Islamic extremists. Though attacks of such magnitude have not taken place in USA since then, the threat is real and possible at any time, in spite of the vigilance exercised by US government.

 

3. There is increasingly visible divisiveness and lack of cohesion amongst the US population due to dilution of population caused by steady increase in the influx of Asians, Muslims, refugees / illegal entrants from Mexico, apart from historical blacks and whites divide.

 

4. Such scenario is leading to spread of suspicions and hatred , which is an internal threat that can weaken USA considerably. Of late, shoot outs in universities , shopping malls and other public places have become disturbingly too frequent and US government has offered no tangible explanation for such violent incidents ,which are disturbing social stability. While it is vaguely argued that gun culture is the reason, no efforts have been made by US government to curb the gun culture effectively with the seriousness that it deserves.

 

Are strategies of US government adequate ?

 

Above three challenges to the status of USA as super power in the world is clearly evident and US President is certainly aware of this .

 

US government has taken some definite steps to checkmate China by launching a trade war and is condemning Islamic terrorism around the world. However, many people think that US President’s efforts to control such trends appear to be weak, lack fundamental strength and even look like cosmetic. The forces challenging USA remain growing and strong.

 

The very fact that US President thought it necessary to meet the President of North Korea , which is a weak and isolated country, by travelling to Singapore to talk peace, makes one suspicious whether US lacks confidence that it can continue to browbeat the world.

 

The recent shootings and violent incidents all over USA , though isolated ones , is clearly showing rising trend and nothing worthwhile has been done by US government to solve this issue so far.

 

In the past decades, US was able to manage many challenges largely by using it’s military power and economic strength. In the case of the present three challenges faced by USA, it appears that military supremacy and strong financial strength by themselves, would not be adequate.

 

Whither strategies ?

 

US President Trump gives an impression of remaining confused, not knowing how exactly to go about in meeting the challenges ahead.

 

In the case of trade war with China, both USA and China are losing, in view of the mutual dependence built over the years by way of large scale US investments and technology going into China and US market becoming the largest dumping ground for China.

 

The Muslim terrorists cannot be defeated by a war process and alternate strategies to tackle them are needed and are yet to be evolved.

 

The internal unrest in USA needs a strong, responsive and matured leadership, which present USA does not seem to have.

 

US has to keep it’s fingers crossed whether it can continue to be “America first”.

China’s New Carrier Shows Beijing Is Done Playing Defense

A growing fleet means much bigger regional ambitions.

China's first domestically manufactured aircraft carrier leaves port for sea trials from the northeast city of Dalian on May 13, 2018.-/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

BY SAM ROGGEVEEN

| MAY 10, 2019, 2:51 PM
New commercial satellite photos published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington show what is almost certainly the early stages of construction of China’s third aircraft carrier.

This new vessel will be a major leap in capability compared to the two ships the Chinese navy has sailed so far—and it represents the evolution of Chinese carrier aviation from an adapted Soviet model to a Western-style fleet, one that speaks to China’s ambition to be the leading strategic power in Asia.

Like many facets of China’s modernization, its carrier program is a process of copying, adaptation, and innovation. The copying part came first. China bought the Varyag, a half-finished Soviet-era vessel from the Ukraine—little more than rusting hulk, really—and built a respectable midsize ship, the Liaoning, which is now evolving from a training vessel to one with some operational capabilities. China got the blueprints for the ship from the Ukraine, too, but it didn’t just finish the ship as the old Soviet Navy intended—it adapted and innovated.

Soviet carriers of the late 1980s were not built for the same purpose as U.S. carriers, gigantic floating airfields that allow power to be pushed far overseas. They were constructed with an entirely different operational concept in mind: protecting the near seas against foreign aircraft and surface ships. Soviet ships were smaller and armed with a battery of huge long-range anti-ship missiles under the flight deck. They were cruisers with a couple dozen fighter aircraft on board rather than true U.S.-style super carriers.

One of the first things China’s naval engineers did with their ex-Soviet vessel was to remove the missile battery. So it was clear from the outset that the Chinese navy had a different purpose in mind for the refurbished vessel, not the primarily defensive Soviet model. Removing those missiles meant the refurbished ship would be devoted purely to operating aircraft and would be the centerpiece of the Chinese navy’s ambitions to operate far from shore.

Yet that ambition remains hampered by the limitations of the Soviet-era design, which features a so-called ski jump ramp at the bow of the ship that gives aircraft the extra lift they need to take off from a very short runway. It’s a foolproof system, as it has no moving parts, but it puts big limits on the size of aircraft that can take off from the ship and the amount of fuel and weapons they can carry. That means critical support tasks such as airborne early warning and supply delivery have to be performed by helicopters, which are slower and have less range and endurance.

That distinctive ski jump design was carried over to China’s second carrier, launched last year and now undergoing sea trials. But it is highly likely that the carrier now under construction will abandon that crude system for something more sophisticated and capable. We know from satellite photos that China is working on two different kinds of catapult launch technology, which can fling even large and heavy aircraft off a ship at high speed. One is a steam catapult, used on the current generation of U.S. carriers, and the other is an electromagnetic version, which the United States is now struggling to perfect on its latest carrier, the USS Gerald Ford.

It’s not yet known which of these two systems will appear on the new carrier, but either way, the use of catapults will make this new ship far more combat-capable than its two predecessors. And it won’t be the end of the evolutionary process: China is likely to develop a stealth fighter for its carrier fleet in a similar class to the F-35—an airborne early warning plane that, judging by the drawings and mock-ups seen thus far, will look remarkably similar to the U.S. Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye (more copying and adaptation)—and eventually a nuclear-powered carrier.

So if China is intent on building a U.S.-style carrier fleet, does that mean China has similar ambitions for its military and for its foreign policy? Does China want to become a global strategic power with allies, bases, and security responsibilities around the world?

---

Blue Water Dreams
China’s third carrier will eventually place it among the top end of fleets worldwide—but everyone else is a minnow compared to the U.S. whale.

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping is certainly much more ambitious than his predecessors. Government messaging increasingly emphasizes the idea that China’s development can be a model for the world. Chinese military leaders have also begun talking openly about developing a network of foreign bases to support distant deployments; the single foreign base China currently boasts in Djibouti may be just the beginning.

But that doesn’t mean China’s ambition will match America’s. In fact, Washington should probably hope that Beijing’s ambitions reach that far, because global responsibilities would require China to maintain global capabilities. Unfortunately for the United States, that doesn’t look like it is happening. Despite China’s greater willingness to regularly deploy its navy as far away as the coast of Somalia (for anti-piracy missions), the Chinese navy remains overwhelmingly an Asia-Pacific force. That’s bad news for the United States, because China can therefore concentrate its considerable resources almost exclusively in its own region, where the United States, has been the unchallenged strategic leader since the end of the Cold War.

That period is drawing to a close. China sees itself as a great power and it wants the military resources and recognition to match. It will not be content to play second fiddle to the United States in its own region, and it has the resources to challenge American primacy. While outsiders marvel at the pace and scale of China’s maritime modernization—not just aircraft carriers but cruisers, destroyers, frigates, submarines, and auxiliaries being turned out in a manner reminiscent of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s build-up—we should remember that China is spending only about 2 percent of its GDP on defense.

China has plenty of serious economic problems, but the United States should not pin its hopes on the idea that military spending will distort and ultimately undermine the Chinese economy the way it did in the Soviet Union. Instead, Washington should expect a struggle for regional leadership with an opponent that, with the exception of its nuclear forces, will be more formidable than the Soviet Union ever was. The big question hanging over Asian geopolitics is whether the United States really wants to compete. Former President Barack Obama’s underwhelming pivot fed Asian doubts, and President Donald Trump’s complaintsabout defending allies that are “rich as hell” and probably don’t like the United States much won’t help.

China’s growing carrier fleet embodies Beijing’s ambitions and resources, and it is a signal to its region that China is every bit as big and important as the United States. This is the final and critical lesson to be drawn from the aircraft carrier program: It is ultimately aimed at China’s Asian neighbors, not at the United States. China is not building this fleet so that it can defeat the United States in a Midway-style showdown; carriers are far too vulnerable to modern anti-ship missiles to play that kind of role anymore.

As the United States has learned since the end of the Cold War, aircraft carriers are useful to project force against small countries that cannot threaten them at sea. For China, then, the carrier fleet is for now a symbol of its ambition, but it will truly come into its own when, as Beijing anticipates, the United States decides it is no longer willing to protect its Asian friends and allies.

Philippines votes in polls expected to strengthen Duterte

12MAY2019

Filipinos vote Monday in midterm polls that are expected to strengthen President Rodrigo Duterte's grip on power, opening the way for him to deliver on pledges to restore the death penalty and rewrite the constitution.

Duterte has found international infamy for his foul-mouthed tirades, but remains hugely popular among Filipinos fed up with the country's dysfunction and elite politicians.

He wants to bring back capital punishment for drug-related crimes as part of a deadly crackdown on narcotics in which thousands of suspects and drug dependents have already been killed.

His tough-on-crime platform -- which also includes lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12 -- was key to his landslide election victory in 2016.

More than 18,000 posts are at stake when polls open for the more than 61 million registered voters at 6:00 am (2200 GMT Sunday), including half of the seats in the upper house Senate.

But for Duterte the key is wresting control of an independent-minded Senate while keeping the House of Representatives in the hands of his allies.

Historically, the nation's 24 senators -- who serve six-year terms -- have had a reputation for being more independent-minded than the lower house.

AFP / Ted ALJIBEMore than 18,000 posts are at stake in Monday's poll, including half the seats in the upper house

Winning a Senate majority, something which independent national surveys indicate is well within reach, would give him legislative backing for his anti-crime proposals and his plan to rewrite the constitution.

The opposition warns that could lead to the single-term limit for the presidency being lifted, allowing him to seek re-election despite his repeated statements that he would stand down at the end of his mandate.

It would also allow him to expand his contentious anti-drug crackdown by bringing back the death penalty, a pledge which the UN Human Rights Council said gave it "deep alarm".

The Philippines outlawed capital punishment in 1987, reinstated it six years later and then abolished again in 2006.

- Family politics -

The 73-year-old hit the campaign trail to get his supporters in the Senate, giving two-hour speeches at late-night rallies and routinely insulting their opponents -- calling one a "faggot" and accusing another of lawyering for communist guerrillas.

The results for municipal and city mayors and councils are expected within hours after the polls close at 6:00 pm Monday, with winners for the Senate and congressional seats scheduled to be declared from Friday.

AFP/File / Noel CELISDuterte's use of violence has been controversial in the Philippines

Even if the presidential term limit is not lifted, the Duterte family looks well-placed to continue after him.

The president's daughter Sara -- tipped by many as the president's potential successor in the 2022 presidential vote -- is running to keep her post as mayor in its southern bailiwick of Davao city.

Her younger brother Sebastian is seeking, unopposed, the city's vice-mayoral seat, while the eldest presidential son Paolo is standing for a seat in the House of Representatives.

Electoral contests in the Philippines have always been bloody, with dozens, including candidates and their supporters, getting killed in the fierce competition for posts that are a source of wealth in a nation with deep poverty.

Police are on full alert to safeguard Monday's balloting as the bloody trend continued this year, with 14 dead and 14 wounded in "election-related violent incidents" since January, according to a grim official count.

As Saudi society liberalises, it reckons with hardline past

A child is seen playing with pigeons in the ground of Al-Quba mosque, after morning prayers during the holy month of Ramadan in Madina, Saudi Arabia May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo

Stephen Kalin-MAY 12, 2019

RIYADH (Reuters) - The Islamist takeover of Mecca’s Grand Mosque in 1979 has been turned into a television drama, spotlighting a controversial narrative Saudi Arabia is using to support social changes once deemed un-Islamic.

A trailer for “Al-Asouf”, meaning “winds of change” in Arabic, features explosions and firefights inside the holiest site in Islam, which Juhayman al-Otaybi and his radical followers occupied for two weeks.

The insurrection sent the kingdom in a more conservative direction as its rulers sought to appease hardliners by ceding control over schools, courts and social issues. Morality police enforced modesty and prayer times while banning music and gender-mixing.

Forty years on, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pledged to revive “moderate Islam”, curbing the morality police and lifting a cinema ban.

He blames Saudi Arabia losing its way on the 1979 uprising and the rise of the Sahwa revivalist movement, which criticised the ruling family for corruption, social liberalisation and working with the West.

While some scholars criticise that portrayal as a rewriting of history which overlooks the government’s involvement, many Saudis who bristle at the ultra-conservative clergy welcomed it.

Alongside Al-Asouf, which debuted last week, a former Sahwa leader’s televised recantation has sparked a rare national discussion about religion and politics.

“I apologise to Saudi society in the name of the Sahwa, those present and absent. I hope they accept this apology,” said the preacher, Ayed al-Garni.

“I am now with the moderate, centrist Islam open to the world, which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has called for. That is our true religion.”

Garni, with 19 million Twitter followers, was banned from preaching in the 1990s and arrested over his views, but later adopted pro-government stances.

He joins a growing list of clerics who have reneged on hardline positions as Prince Mohammed arrests critics of his push to liberalise society.

In 2017, the kingdom’s top clerical body endorsed ending a ban on women driving which they had justified for decades.

Adel al-Kalbani, a former imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque who has long criticised singing, was present in January when the state announced new entertainment offerings, and appears at card game tournaments which hardliners consider illicit.

In March, Kalbani also retracted his position that Shi’ite Muslims are infidels.

STEEP PRICE

Garni’s comments were broadly welcomed, but in a population mostly born after 1979, many Saudis resent how religion has been used to keep them from having fun.

“This apology of yours is not enough, because the price was steep,” tweeted actor Nasser al-Gassabi, the star of Al-Asouf.

A young Saudi agreed, calling it “too little, too late”.

Over nighttime meals during the fasting month of Ramadan and under the Twitter hashtag “Remind generations of the Sahwa’s deeds”, Saudis recounted prohibitions imposed by clerics, both state-linked and nominally independent. Under Prince Mohammed, many edicts have been reversed.

“Apologising means turning a page on this experience and not returning to it,” tweeted university professor Abdelsalam al-Wail. “It differs from abandoning a sinking ship.”

Faisal Abbas, editor in chief of English-language newspaper Arab News, wrote that Garni’s remarks came “nowhere close to undoing the harm” and should be the start of “a necessary course correction”.
Some urged humility. “Today the Sahwa got off their (high) horse,” tweeted novelist Badria al-Beshr, calling on people to carry forward reforms instead of attacking the group.

Others highlighted the state’s historical role in empowering clerics it now suppresses. One tweet showed a 1981 speech by the late King Fahd, who was then crown prince, saying: “The Sahwa is not a danger to anyone nor a threat to any society...”

Barricades, tents and community: A guide to Sudan's sit-in

'It's a new Sudan,' protesters tell MEE, as the site of demonstrations has grown in the span of a month into a community of its own

A sprawling site outside Sudan's military headquarters has become the centre for protesters demanding civilian government (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

By Kaamil Ahmed- 12 May 2019

Holding their fingers up to form peace signs, protesters reaching the barricades around the sit-in at the heart of Sudan's revolution raise their arms to be searched by groups of volunteer guards.  

Without a hint of irritation, they go through the safety measures several times, smiling, sometimes dancing every time they reach one of the makeshift checkpoints built from rocks, scrap metal and upturned dumpsters.

The barricades went up a month ago to protect the sit-in that has occupied the sprawling space outside Sudan's military headquarters, where protesters successfully demanded the exit of three-decade ruler Omar al-Bashir - and now want the military who ousted him to hand power over to a civilian government.

Images from the sit-in fail to illustrate the sheer size of the protest area, which can span around a mile and is regularly filled with tens of thousands of people on any given night.

Beyond the barricades are a scattering of rallying points and a main stage, tents for the protesters, hubs for artists, medical services and spaces for prayer and breaking Ramadan fasts.

For many, it has become a community that represents the new Sudan they want to see. 

The barricades

Mohammed Abbas (centre) and the other guards at his barricade (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

During the early days of the sit-in, it was common for Bashir's security forces to raid the site, beating the protesters and firing at them, leading to gun fights between Bashir's security and low-level soldiers stationed around the sit-in who had sided with the protesters. 

A protester arriving during the night is searched at a barricade in Khartoum (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

That quickly led to the erection of the crude barricades, aimed at stopping vehicles used by paramilitaries still loyal to Bashir from entering. 

Mohammed Abbas, 21, is one of the young Sudanese who man those barricades, searching everyone who enters for weapons and apologising for the inconvenience. 

"These barricades are for security, for all the people," he said, describing how, in the early days of the protest, militia fighters regularly tried to enter the protests without uniforms and with concealed guns.

"Now the situation's better...these barricades are so important."

The 'heartbeat'

Most of the half-dozen checkpoints protesters have to pass through to enter the sit-in open up on a central junction, where the sound of iron and steel being clattered has become an unmistakable soundtrack for the protest.

Rhythm of the revolution: The iron heartbeat of Sudan's sit-in

Read More »

"This knocking is like the heartbeat of the collective," said Abdulraziq, 19, from southern Sudan. 

He and others sit atop the railway bridge in the middle of the protest, banging its sides and striking the railway lines to create a never-ending rhythm for the protest movement, to rally demonstrators passing through. 

In the tunnel underneath, more youth strike a different rhythm on sheets of scrap metal; the sounds meld chaotically and the youth see it as a way to signal their resistance to the military council now running the country. 

The military headquarters

Protesters listen to a Friday sermon near the military headquarters (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

On 6 April, the anniversary of the last successful Sudanese uprising in 1985, the protesters who had been demanding Bashir's resignation began their sit-in outside the military headquarters in the capital Khartoum.

The pressure eventually led to military leaders intervening and ousting Bashir - but protesters have demanded that power be handed over to civilians, not kept within the military council the generals had set up. 

So the protesters have refused to move. Throughout the night when - especially during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan - the numbers of protesters multiply, groups of hundreds of youth shuttle up and down alongside the fence of the military headquarters. 

A Sudanese protester calls for a civilian government (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

"Fall, or no fall, we stay here," they chant, stopping momentarily outside the base's gates, facing the soldiers standing guard. 

The image is replicated throughout the protest area, where demonstrators spontaneously burst into chants or charge from end to end, picking up others along the way.

Impromptu speeches or political poetry readings happen on little stages throughout the site, while a large main stage in the centre is used for concerts or to play films documenting the whole protest movement, which began in December.

The tents

A girl eats in a protest tent set up by her family (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

As the sit-in endured, tents sprung up. They belong to various groups of workers who organised to attend together, civil society groups who have been galvanised by the movement and camps of Sudanese who have travelled to the capital from cities further away. 

Each proudly declares the city they travelled from to join the sit-in, creating a common space for the many ethnic groups of Sudan who felt they were divided under Bashir's rule.

Outside these tents, and in any free space available, green weaved mats are laid out just before sunset every day. Fasting protesters, drained of their last ounces of energy, gather around to share bowls of traditional meals cooked in makeshift kitchens and excite themselves over the chance to quench their thirst with some of the treasured drinks exclusive to Ramadan. Afterwards the mats, set in rows, are cleared away and used for Ramadan's nightly Taraweeh prayer.

Protesters prepare to break fast after the first day of Ramadan (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

Women selling ginger-infused coffee, tea and Sudan's beloved hibiscus drinks set up for the night, starting up their fires and putting out stalls, benches or simple rugs for their customers. 

"I haven't been outside [of the sit-in since it started] so I don't want to know what it's like outside, but the life inside here is better," says Fatima Ibrahim, 30, who started selling coffee in Khartoum after fleeing conflict in the western Darfur region, where Bashir is accused of war crimes. "Thank god, we've managed to change the situation a bit."

The art corner

A piece of art work on the walls around Khartoum's sit-in (MEE/Kaamil Ahmed)

Hidden away in the northern end of the protest is a corner many have come to cherish. Artists who felt restrained under Bashir now welcome the freedom they have found within the sit-in, painting the walls, setting up exhibitions and putting on nightly performances of art and theatre. 

"We've been suffering for so many of years from not being free," Arif Ibrahim, a photographer exhibiting his pictures, told MEE. "This is the opportunity to show the art and be more open about our art and ideas and send a message."

"We've been suffering and it's time to make a break. It's a new Sudan. For artists and for [all] citizens too."

Protect solar system from mining 'gold rush', say scientists

Proposal calls for wilderness protection as startup space miners look to the stars
Interplanetary mining, as envisaged in the film Alien (1979). Photograph: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock

Ian SampleScience editor @iansample-Sun 12 May 2019 

Great swathes of the solar system should be preserved as official “space wilderness” to protect planets, moons and other heavenly bodies from rampant mining and other forms of industrial exploitation, scientists say.

The proposal calls for more than 85% of the solar system to be placed off-limits to human development, leaving little more than an eighth for space firms to mine for precious metals, minerals and other valuable materials.

While the limit would protect pristine worlds from the worst excesses of human activity, its primary goal is to ensure that humanity avoids a catastrophic future in which all of the resources within its reach are permanently used up.

“If we don’t think about this now, we will go ahead as we always have, and in a few hundred years we will face an extreme crisis, much worse than we have on Earth now,” said Martin Elvis, a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Once you’ve exploited the solar system, there’s nowhere left to go.”

Fledgling space mining companies have set their sights on trillions of pounds worth of iron and precious metals locked up in asteroids, along with valuable minerals and trillions of tonnes of water on the moon. In Britain, the Asteroid Mining Corporation hopes to send a satellite into orbit in the coming years to prospect for nearby asteroids.

Precious metals such as platinum and gold could be ferried back to Earth, but much of the mined material would be used in space to build habitats on the moon and make rocket fuel. The European Space Agency has plans for a moon village that foresees buildings and equipment installed on the lunar surface. Meanwhile water ice, such as that beneath the lunar poles, can be split into hydrogen and oxygen and used to make fuel for probes that launch from space instead of Earth.

Working with Tony Milligan, a philosopher at King’s College London, Elvis analysed how soon humans might use up the solar system’s most accessible resources should space mining take off. They found that an annual growth rate of 3.5% would use up an eighth of the solar system’s realistic resources in 400 years. At that point, humanity would have only 60 years to apply the brakes and avoid exhausting the supply completely.

Because humans might struggle to mine the sun, or extract useful materials from Jupiter, a gas giant with more mass than the rest of the solar system’s planets combined, the researchers see asteroids, the moon, Mars and other rocky planets as the most realistic targets for space miners. Elvis points out that one eighth of the iron in the asteroid belt is more than a million times greater that the estimated iron ore reserves on Earth, which may suffice for centuries.

But which areas to protect from mining is a nuanced decision, the scientists write in a forthcoming issue of Acta Astronautica. The Valles Marineris on Mars, the largest canyon in the solar system, might deserve protection as much as the Grand Canyon is protected on Earth. But there are other sites too, said Elvis. “Do we want cities on the near side of the moon that light up at night? Would that be inspiring or horrifying? And what about the rings of Saturn? They are beautiful, almost pure water ice. Is it OK to mine those so that in 100 years they are gone?”

“If everything goes right, we could be sending our first mining missions into space within 10 years,” he added. “Once it starts and somebody makes an enormous profit, there will be the equivalent of a gold rush. We need to take it seriously.”

Revealed: human rights abuses in Libyan migrant camps

Paraic O'Brien-10 May 2019Correspondent

As many as 70 people have died trying to reach Europe after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea on the way from Libya – the deadliest such accident since the start of the year.

But for anyone who attempts the perilous journey and gets sent back, the reality of what awaits is horrendous too, in what’s effectively a war zone.

Tonight we have first-hand accounts from some of the refugees inside a Libyan migrant detention camp, who describe gun attacks by militia fighters and refugees being pressganged into joining the battle. A warning: you find some of the images in this report by Paraic O’Brien distressing.