Kenya President and opposition leader meet to unify country

March 09, 2018

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya's president and opposition leader said they met for talks Friday, months after the presidential elections sparked turmoil as the opposition charged there was electoral fraud.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga launched a new initiative to unify the country as their rival parties largely divide the country along tribal lines, raising fears of ethnic violence.

It's not known if demands by Odinga for new elections were discussed and journalists were not allowed to field questions when the announcement was made. The meeting did not happen as the result of pressure from Western countries, there was no external pressure on the two leaders from western countries, specifically the U.S, for the leaders to hold the talks ahead U.S. Rex W. Tillerson's three-day visit beginning Friday. "This is a purely domestic initiative," Odinga's spokesman Dennis Onyango said.

Kenyatta and Odinga met publicly at a funeral service where they shook hands earlier this year, but they did not have talks. Odinga said Kenya has never dealt with the challenges "that our diversity (different tribes) was always going to pose to our efforts to create a prosperous and united nation ... The time has come for us to confront and resolve our differences. These differences are becoming too entrenched."

Odinga's and Kenyatta's fathers were allies in the struggle for Kenya's independence from British colonial rule and then became adversaries. Now President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga have extended the family rivalry by ethnic allegiances and personality politics.

The two men, who also faced off in a 2013 election marred by opposition allegations of vote-rigging, are vying for power in East Africa's economic hub that plays a key role in the Western-backed fight against neighboring Somalia's Islamic extremists.

For many observers, the historical divisions between the Kenyatta and Odinga dynasties and the ethnic groups they represent cloud the promise of Kenya's democracy. On Friday, President Kenyatta said he and Odinga had reached an understanding "that this country of Kenya is greater than any one individual. And for this country to come together, leaders must come together."

Odinga pressed a lawsuit challenging Kenyatta's victory in last year's August election and the Supreme Court ordered a new election. Odinga boycotted the repeat election in October, saying adequate electoral reforms had not been made.

On Jan. 30 Odinga held a protest event which was a mock inauguration in which he was sworn in as the "people's president." The government reacted by shutting down some broadcasters and arresting some participants.

Mekong countries' leaders call for $66 billion investment

March 31, 2018

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The leaders of six countries along the Mekong River on Saturday adopted an ambitious investment plan worth $66 billion over the next five years. At least $7 billion will come from the Asian Development Bank and the rest from governments and the private sector.

The plan was adopted at a summit in Vietnam that included the prime ministers of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as a vice president of Myanmar and the Chinese foreign minister. The Greater Mekong Sub-regional (GMS) economic cooperation program was initiated by the ADB in 1992 and has since mobilized $21 billion, with the bulk going to infrastructure projects.

"GMS is starting a new era of development with unprecedented opportunities and challenges which require us to have a creative approach with long term and comprehensive vision in order to tap into the internal power of each country while effectively promoting connectivity to create strength resonance across the GMS for rapid economic growth and harmonizing economic and social development with environmental protection," Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said in his opening remarks.

The five countries along with China's Yunnan province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region with the population of 340 million and combined GDP of $1.3 trillion have recorded one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

Closing the one-day summit, Phuc said cooperation will remain the driving force the region's development. "I believe that given the results we have realized as well as our solidarity and determination, GMS cooperation will continue to be part of the cooperation mechanism of the region and will make concrete contribution to the economic and social development of member countries, promote sustainable development and reinforce the peaceful and stable environment in the region," he said.

In the meantime, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the world's second-biggest economy supports "the multilateral trading system and promotes an open, inclusive and balanced economic globalization that benefits all."

"China has long been an advocate of an open world economy. China is committed to win-win cooperation in opening up and firmly opposes trade protectionism," Wang said. "Protectionism harms others without benefiting oneself — it is a one-way street that leads to nowhere. The right approach to address trade disputes is to conduct consultation in line with international rules and as equals."

President Donald Trump's move last week to impose tariffs on as much as $60 billion on Chinese goods prompted Beijing to consider imposing tariffs on a number of American goods exported into the country.

Philippine leader calls for abandoning Int'l Criminal Court

March 18, 2018

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte asked governments on Sunday to abandon the International Criminal Court, saying the world tribunal — where he is facing a possible complaint for the thousands of killings of drug suspects under his crackdown — is "rude."

Although the Philippine Senate has ratified the Rome Statute that established the ICC, Duterte said in a speech that the treaty was never enforced in the country because it was not published in the government journal, the official gazette, as required by law.

Due to what he said was that flaw, Duterte said the international court can never have jurisdiction over him, "not in a million years." Last month, an ICC prosecutor announced she was opening a preliminary examination into a complaint by a Filipino lawyer of suspected extrajudicial killings under Duterte's anti-drug campaign, which could amount to crimes against humanity.

The move angered Duterte, who announced Wednesday that he was withdrawing the Philippine ratification of the Rome Statute "effective immediately," citing "a concerted effort" by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and U.N. human rights officials "to paint me as a ruthless and heartless violator of human rights."

"You know, if it's not published, there is no law," Duterte said Sunday in a speech before the annual graduation of cadets at the Philippine Military Academy in northern Baguio city. There was no reason to withdraw from "something which is not existing," Duterte said, adding that he announced the withdrawal from the ICC treaty to draw the world's attention to the issue he had with the international court.

"I will convince everybody now who are under the treaty at ICC: 'Get out, get out, it's rude,'" the brash-talking president said. Duterte's action came under fire from human rights groups, which said that the president was trying to evade accountability by backing out of the ICC. Critics say Duterte can't withdraw from the court by himself and may need the approval of the Senate, which ratified the Rome Statute in 2011.

Commission on Human Rights chief Chito Gascon said that the Philippines has historically been at the forefront of the fight for international justice, but that Duterte's decision "constitutes a reversal that will be viewed as encouraging impunity to continue."

More than 120 countries have ratified the treaty that established the court in 2002 in The Hague. The court can intervene only when a state is unable or unwilling to carry out an investigation and prosecute perpetrators of heinous crimes like crimes against humanity, genocide, aggression and war atrocities.

More than 4,000 mostly poor drug suspects have been killed under Duterte's drug crackdown, according to the national police, although human rights groups have reported larger death tolls. Duterte argued Wednesday that the killings do not amount to crimes against humanity, genocide or similar atrocities.

Elon Musk plans to launch spacecraft for Mars in 2019

by Ray Downs
Washington (UPI)
Mar 11, 2018

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Sunday that he is on track to launch a spacecraft for Mars by next year.

"We are building the first ship, or interplanetary ship, right now," Musk said during a question and answer session at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. "And we'll probably be able to do short flights, short up and down flights, probably some time in the first half of next year."

Musk said that his ship -- the Big Falcon Rocket -- will be capable of greatly reducing the average cost of a spaceflight as far as Mars in large part because it will be reusable.

"This question of reusability is so fundamental to rocketry," Musk said. "It is the fundamental breakthrough that's needed."

After a series of short flights, Musk said he hopes to have a cargo mission land on Mars by 2022.

Musk said the goal is to begin a human colony on Mars and the first spaceflights there will begin to plant those seeds.

"Once you can get there, the opportunity is immense," Musk said. "We're going to do our best to get there and then make sure there's an environment in which entrepreneurs can flourish."

In September, Musk said the Big Falcon Rocket could also one day be used for travel to different points on earth, with the possibility of flights from New York City to Shanghai taking less then 40 minutes.

Space bases could preserve civilization in World War III: Elon Musk

Washington (AFP) March 12, 2018 - Bases on the moon and Mars could help preserve human civilization and hasten its regeneration on earth in the event of a third world war, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, said on Sunday.

Musk, the founder of rocket and spacecraft company SpaceX, said the company's interplanetary ship could begin test flights as soon as next year.

There is "some probability" that there will be another Dark Ages, "particularly if there is a third world war," Musk said at the SXSW conference.

"We want to make sure that there's enough of a seed of human civilization somewhere else to bring civilization back, and perhaps shorten the length of the Dark Ages," he said.

"I think a moon base and a Mars base that could perhaps help regenerate life back here on earth would be really important."

Musk said he thinks that SpaceX's interplanetary ship will "be able to do short flights, short sort of up and down flights, probably sometime in the first half of next year."

SpaceX launched the world's most powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy, last month, sending Musk's red Tesla Roadster car toward an orbit near Mars.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Elon_Musk_plans_to_launch_spacecraft_for_Mars_in_2019_999.html.

Buses leave US Embassy in Moscow on expulsion deadline day

April 05, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Three buses believed to be carrying expelled American diplomats departed from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Thursday. Before the morning departure, journalists outside the embassy compound saw people leaving the residences, placing luggage on trucks. Some toted pet-carriers.

Russia last week ordered 60 American diplomats to leave the country by Thursday in retaliation for the United States expelling the same number of Russians. The moves were part of a deepening dispute over the nerve-agent poisoning in Britain of a Russian former double-agent and his daughter. Britain alleges Russian involvement, which Moscow vehemently denies.

More than 150 diplomats have been expelled by Britain and allies, and Russia has ordered reciprocal moves.

Russia's World Cup drives some students to rare protests

March 31, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Many university students would be delighted to have the World Cup in town, but not Maria Cheremnova. The 20-year-old physics student in Moscow is one of thousands of Russians campaigning against the June 14-July 15 soccer tournament, which will disrupt academic life across the country.

A 25,000-capacity fan zone will be built outside the main building at Russia's prestigious Moscow State University during exam season. In other cities, exams have been brought forward and thousands of police plane to move into dorm room to ensure World Cup security.

The Moscow fan zone — a public viewing area with a big screen, beer and music — is on prime real estate near the vast Luzhniki arena, the Moscow River and the main university building, a Stalin-era colossus that ranks among the Russian capital's most recognizable structures.

The building is also home to around 6,500 students. Residents say it doesn't have great soundproofing. "I came to university to study, not to watch football and listen to that noise," Cheremnova said. "Imagine 25,000 people and the events at night. It'll all be visible, with lights, a big screen, music and fans, who aren't very quiet guys. It's going to stop people from sleeping before their exams. It's just awful."

It will also mean extra strain on Moscow's already struggling transport networks — the fan zone is two subway stops from Luzhniki stadium — and fans could damage a nearby nature reserve, Cheremnova claimed.

Moscow State University students and recent graduates have gathered more than 4,600 signatures demanding the fan zone be moved to another location. They said more students and staff would have signed but feared retaliation from the university administration. When attempting to deliver the petition to the rector's office, security guards blocked the way and elevator access was cut to that floor only, supposedly for repairs.

Russian universities have little tradition of student protest. While they were hotbeds of activism before the Russian Revolution of 1917, in Soviet times access to a college education was closely linked to political loyalty and membership of groups like the Young Communist League.

World Cup organizers have revised earlier plans for Moscow's fan zone to be larger and closer to the university. FIFA said "to lessen the impact of the event on students and the adjacent infrastructure of the university, it was agreed to move the stage away from the main building by several meters, to reduce the capacity to 25,000 spectators and to change access flows."

Across Russia, the tournament has brought upheaval for students. The Russian academic year often runs well into the summer months, and late June is usually the prime time for exams. In most of the 11 World Cup host cities, university dorms are due to turn into temporary barracks for police and National Guard troops brought in from out of town for the tournament.

Many universities are holding exams early, often by more than a month, to avoid the World Cup and free up dorm space for the security forces. That means semesters have been cut short with little warning, forcing students to cram more studies into less time. Cheremnova said some Moscow State University students were told to prepare for earlier examinations, only for the decision to be reversed.

At the Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don, the semesters have run back-to-back, since "the winter vacation was postponed until the summer period," according to spokesman Andrei Svechnikov. What's angering students more than anything else is the prospect of being forced to move out of rooms they've paid for.

Despite promises from the Education and Science Ministry that no students will be kicked out to make way for security forces, more than 2,800 students have signed a petition against alleged removals. "There will be no forced eviction of students under this process," the ministry told The Associated Press, adding that security forces will "not disrupt the learning process."

The AP contacted 17 universities cited in local media reports as planning to evict students for the World Cup. Of those, six said no students would be forced to move, one said a small number would be required to move to other dorms, and 10 failed to reply.

In many cities, students report mixed messages from university officials over accommodation and study schedules. Zhokhangir Mirzadzhanov, a student in the western city of Kaliningrad, said his university initially offered to buy tickets for students to leave the city and free up dorm space for the tournament, but details about the plan remained unclear.

"There are a lot of simple issues that they still can't answer," he said. "What comes next, no one knows."

Grief overwhelms Kemerovo as whole families are buried

March 29, 2018

KEMEROVO, Russia (AP) — A fresh row of graves in a cemetery in Kemerovo attests to the grief of this Russian city. Entire families who died trapped inside the fire-engulfed Winter Cherry mall are buried here: a 5-year-old girl, her mother and grandmother; a mother and a 9-year-old daughter. The graves of young children are covered with flowers and teddy bears.

Distraught relatives on a sunny Thursday afternoon were saying their goodbyes to 10-year-old Vadim Chmykhalov, who was laid to rest amid other graves all marked with the date of the fire, March 25. The boy's aunt, Irina Chumakova, dressed in black and sobbing, said she feels "alone with the grief."

"We want to know the truth," she said. "But who is going to tell us? They are washing their hands of it and shifting responsibility." The city of half a million people, 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, is trying to come to terms with the fire last Sunday that engulfed the mall, killing 64 people, including children locked inside a movie theater.

Some of the families have still to wait weeks before they can bury their loved ones. Igor Vostrikov, who lost his entire family in the fire, said the investigators have not sent released the bodies of his wife, sister and three daughters to Moscow for genetic tests.

"Now I have to wait three weeks because they are burnt so much you cannot identify them," he said. Elsewhere in the city, residents continued to take flowers to a makeshift memorial. The deadly fire caused an outpouring of grief and indignation against local authorities. The Kemerovo governor never visited the site of the fire, while President Vladimir Putin did not announce a period of national mourning until days after the fire.

Many locals mistrust the investigators and fear authorities might be hiding the real scale of the disaster. "We still don't know what really happened, and no one takes the responsibility," said 37-year-old nurse Valentina Skripchenko who brought three roses to the memorial outside the mall.

Tatyana Stupel, whose neighbor's daughter died at the mall, placed a poster at the memorial along with flowers. But moments later an Associated Press reporter saw it removed by a man wearing plain clothes.

She said she had written "No one takes the responsibility" because locals "didn't get the answers" about what happened. So far, investigators have identified a short circuit as a possible cause of the fire and said the emergency exits were locked shut, hampering any evacuation.

Vostrikov told the AP on Thursday that the investigators showed him CCTV footage from outside the movie theater, showing that the doors to the theater were not locked shut until a man came and locked them, supposedly to keep the smoke out until the rescue team arrived. It never did.

On Wednesday, a local court arrested one of the mall's tenants, the mall's technical director, two employees of a company maintaining the fire alarm system and a security guard who the investigators said turned off the fire alarm.

Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this report from Moscow.

Russian shopping mall fire kills 53; more missing

March 26, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — At least 53 people have died and more are missing in a fire at a shopping mall in a Siberian city, officials said on Monday. The fire at the four-story Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo, a city about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, was extinguished by Monday morning after burning through the night. Parts of the building were still smoldering and the floors of the cinema hall had caved in in places, emergency officials said.

The death toll rose to 53 people Monday morning after 14 more bodies were found, Russia's top investigative body, the Investigative Committee said in a statement. Up to 11 people are still believed to be missing, firefighters said.

The Ekho Mosvky radio station quoted two witnesses who said the fire alarm did not go off and that the mall's staff did not organize the evacuation. The shopping center was converted from a former confectionery factory in 2013 and was popular with local residents for its facilities for children, which included a petting zoo.

The Investigative Committee said it has detained four people for questioning, including the mall's tenant, but would not immediately give the cause of the fire, which started on the top floor on Sunday evening.

Russian diplomats head home from Britain after spy attack

March 20, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Nearly two dozen Russian diplomats headed home Tuesday after Britain's prime minister ordered them to leave because of a nerve agent attack on U.K. soil. Several dozen people, including children, emerged from the Russian Embassy in west London with suitcases, bags and pet carriers. Some hugged before they boarded vehicles, including a white minibus, and were driven away. They were expected to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday evening.

On March 14, Prime Minister Theresa May gave the 23 diplomats — whom she said were undeclared intelligence agents — a week to leave Britain. That prompted Russia to retaliate with its own expulsion of 23 British diplomats, who are expected to leave in the coming days.

Tensions between the two countries have risen since the March 4 poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the English city of Salisbury. They remain in critical condition.

Britain says they were poisoned with a Soviet-developed form of nerve agent known as Novichok. Western powers see the attack as a sign of increasingly aggressive Russian meddling abroad. Russia denied involvement, and President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, insisted Tuesday that "Russia has no stocks of chemical weapons of any kind."

Asked why Russia isn't showing proof of its innocence, he said, "Let's stay sober-minded and first of all wait for proof from Britain" that Russia was to blame. Britain's National Security Council was meeting Tuesday to consider possible further measures against Russia. May and other European Union leaders are due to discuss the poisoning at a summit Thursday. The EU on Monday condemned the poisoning and called on Russia to "address urgently" British questions about the Novichok nerve agent program.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Britain and other EU member states of developing similar nerve agents, and said Britain's government is stirring up "media hysteria" around the case to distract attention from troubles in negotiating the country's exit from the EU.

Russia insists it gave up all its chemical weapons under international oversight. The British military and police are continuing to search for clues around Salisbury into what happened. International chemical weapons experts are due to take samples of the nerve agent.

British police investigators say it may take months to complete the widening inquiry. The focus is on the movement of the Skripals in the hours before they were found unconscious on a bench in the city 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of London. A police officer who came to their assistance is in serious condition.

"This is going to be frustrating for people," said Neil Basu, head of counterterrorism at the Metropolitan Police. "It is going to take weeks, possibly months to do this." Despite the diplomatic tensions, the Russian Interior Ministry said it will continue cooperating with British authorities on security issues.

Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov told Interfax that the Skripal case "won't change anything for us at all."

Lawless reported from London. Associated Press writer Kate de Pury in Moscow contributed.

What to expect from Putin and a resurgent Russia

March 19, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Putin now has a stronger hold on Russia — and stronger place in the world — thanks to an overwhelming mandate for yet another term as president. His domestic opponents are largely resigned to another six years in the shadows. His foreign opponents are mired in their own problems, from Britain's messy exit from the European Union to chaos and contradiction in the Trump administration.

Even widespread voting violations are unlikely to dent Putin's armor. And accusations that he meddled in the U.S. election and sponsored a nerve agent attack in Britain have only bolstered his standing at home.

Here's a look at what to expect from Putin's next six years in power, for Russia's rivals, neighbors and its own 147 million citizens.

NEW COLD WAR?

Relations between Russia and the West are already at their lowest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union 26 years ago.

Despite a friendly-ish relationship with President Donald Trump, Putin's new mandate gives him little incentive to seek entente with Washington, especially as the investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election intensifies.

Putin-friendly leaders have made gains in recent Italian and German elections. Western countries are likely to see more Russia-linked hacking and propaganda aimed at disrupting elections or otherwise discrediting democracy — including the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Since Putin's domestic popularity bumps whenever he stands up to the West, expect more tough talk from Putin the next time he faces threats at home, and bolder Russian vetoes at the U.N. Security Council of anything seen as threatening Moscow's interests.

His claim several weeks ago that Russia has developed new nuclear weapons that can evade missile defenses clearly showed Putin's adamant determination to boost Russia's power to intimidate.

SYRIA AND THE EXTREMIST THREAT

Russian-backed Syrian forces helped rout the Islamic State group from Syria, and Putin argues that Russia saved the day in a conflict that had confounded U.S.-led forces fighting against IS.

Now those Russian-backed Syrian forces are closing in on the last strongholds of Western-backed rebel forces.

Viewing that as a geopolitical and military victory over an illegal Western-led intervention, Russia is unlikely to pull out of Syria anytime soon.

An emboldened Putin could position the resurgent Russian military as a peacemaker in other regional conflicts — for example in Libya, where Russia has oil interests and where a disastrous Western invasion seven years ago left a lawless state now seething with extremists.

RUSSIA'S NEIGHBORS

To Russians, Putin's biggest victory in 18 years in power was annexing Crimea and crushing Ukraine's ambitions to move closer to the EU and NATO.

Putin is frustrated at the resulting U.S. and EU sanctions but appears unwilling to make concessions that would bring them to an end. Ukraine is split between a volatile government in Kiev and a Russia-backed separatist region stuck in a frozen but still deadly conflict that serves Putin's interests.

Moscow's actions in Ukraine sent a warning signal to other countries in Russia's orbit that reaching westward is dangerous. And former Soviet bloc states within the EU are increasingly drifting back toward Moscow, from Hungary and Poland to the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

FELLOW RUSSIANS

Putin's new mandate could theoretically hand him the power to make bold reforms that Russia has long needed to raise living standards and wean itself from its oil dependence.

But Putin has convinced Russian voters that drastic change is dangerous, and that protecting the country from threats takes precedence over improving daily life.

Experts predict he may enact some changes like expanding affordable housing and fighting corruption on a local level.

But less likely are bigger changes such as overhauling the pension system, which is unpopular among a strong Putin voting base, or spending cuts in the security sector, unpopular among the ex-KGB friends in Putin's entourage.

Russia has weathered a two-year recession, and inflation and the deficit are low. But personal incomes have stagnated, the health care system is crumbling and corruption is rife.

HIS OWN FUTURE

The biggest question for Russians over the next six years is what happens after that.

Putin is constitutionally required to step down in 2024, but he could change the rules to eliminate term limits, or anoint a malleable successor and continue to run things behind the scenes.

Asked at an impromptu news conference Sunday night if he would seek the presidency again in 2030, when he would be eligible again, the 65-year-old Putin snapped back: "It's ridiculous. Do you think I will sit here until I turn 100?"

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin's most serious foe, will face further pressure from authorities as he works to expose corruption and official lies.

Other Putin rivals such as candidate Ksenia Sobchak and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky will try to gain a foothold through upcoming local elections and the parliament.

And members of Putin's inner circle will be jockeying for position for the day when he is no longer in the picture.

Putin may revive efforts to promote artificial intelligence and other innovation as part of a focus on the younger generation, whose loyalty he needs to ensure his legacy outlives him.

Russia votes as Vladimir Putin eyes 4th presidential term

March 18, 2018

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AP) — Vladimir Putin's victory in Russia's presidential election Sunday isn't in doubt. The only real question is whether voters will turn out in big enough numbers to hand him a convincing mandate for his fourth term — and many Russian workers are facing intense pressure to do so.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. Sunday in Russia's Far East regions of Chukotka and Kamchatka. Voting will conclude at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT; 2 p.m. EDT) in Kaliningrad, the Baltic exclave that is Russia's westernmost region.

Putin is so certain of winning that authorities are investing instead in massive get-out-the-vote efforts to produce a turnout that would embolden the Russian leader both domestically and internationally.

Yevgeny Roizman, the mayor of Russia's fourth-largest city Yekaterinburg, says local officials and state employees have all received orders "from higher up" to make sure the presidential vote turnout is over 60 percent.

"They are using everything: schools, kindergartens, hospitals — the battle for the turnout is unprecedented," said Roizman, one of the rare opposition politicians to hold a significant elected office.

A doctor at one of the city's hospitals told The Associated Press how one kind of voting pressure works. The doctor, who gave her name only as Yekaterina because of fears about repercussions, said she and her co-workers were told to fill out forms detailing not only where they would cast their ballots, but giving the names and details of two "allies" whom they promise to persuade to go vote.

"It's not something you can argue about," she said at a cafe Saturday. "People were indignant at first, said 'They're violating our rights' ... but what can you do?" Yekaterina said she isn't sure what she'll do with her ballot, musing that "maybe I'll just write 'Putin is a moron.'" But she clearly understands that not showing up at the polling place Sunday will not only endanger her job but will reflect badly on her boss, whom she likes.

The Russian doctor said she wouldn't go to vote if she wasn't forced to. "What's the point? We already know the outcome. This is just a circus show," she said. The eight presidential candidates were barred from campaigning Saturday, but the message to voters was clear from billboards celebrating Russian greatness — a big theme of Putin's leadership — and Kremlin-friendly media coverage.

Putin urged Russians on Friday to "use their right to choose the future for the great Russia that we all love." While Putin has seven challengers, none is a real threat. The last time he faced voters in 2012, he faced a serious opposition movement, but since then he has boosted his popularity thanks to Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria.

More than 1,500 international observers are joining thousands of Russian observers to watch the vote. The government wants to ensure that this election is clean after ballot stuffing and fraud marred the last Russian presidential election in 2012.

A Russian election monitoring group said Saturday it has registered an "alarming" rise in recent days in complaints that employers are forcing or pressuring workers to vote. Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of the independent Golos center, told the AP on Saturday the group has also recorded smaller complaints, such as gimmicks like discounted potatoes for people who vote, or schools holding special performances on Election Day to lure parents to an onsite voting station.

He said his own group has come under increasing pressure as the election approached, and warned that independent observers may be targeted by some kind of "attack" on voting day. He didn't elaborate. As U.S. authorities investigate alleged Russian interference in President Donald Trump's 2016 election, Moscow has warned of possible meddling in the Russian vote.

Turnout-boosting efforts have been the most visible feature of the campaign — and all come from taxpayers' pockets. In Moscow alone, authorities are spending 50 million rubles ($870,000) on balloons and festive decorations at polling stations.

In Moscow, first-time voters will be given free tickets for pop concerts featuring some of Russia's most popular artists who have campaigned for Putin. For older voters, Moscow health authorities will be offering free cancer screenings at selected polling stations.

In the southern city of Tambov, the state-sponsored Youth Parliament has backed an Instagram competition. Voters who take selfies at polling stations and post them under the designated hashtag will be able to enter a raffle for high-end electronics, including an iPhoneX.

Election observers and local media have reported threats and coercion of voters to re-register at their place of work and report later that they have voted. Ella Pamfilova, chairwoman of the Central Election Commission who was appointed to clean up Russia's electoral system, vowed to respond to complaints about being coerced to vote.

"No manager has the right to tell them where to vote," she said recently Voters in Russia's Perm region said they were coming under pressure from their employers to vote Sunday — and to prove it. Messages were sent Friday to regional employees, warning that information about their voting habits would be submitted to management.

Putin has traveled across Russia, pledging to raise wages, pour more funds into the country's crumbling health care and education and to modernize dilapidated infrastructure. The presidential vote is set on the anniversary of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Polls show that most Russians continue to see the takeover of that Black Sea peninsula as a major achievement despite subsequent Western sanctions.

Among Putin's challengers is Ksenia Sobchak, a 36-year-old TV host who has campaigned on a liberal platform and criticized Putin's policies. Some see Sobchak, the daughter of Putin's one-time patron, as a Kremlin project intended to add a democratic veneer to the vote and help split the ranks of Kremlin critics.

Putin's main foe, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race because of a criminal conviction widely seen as politically motivated. Navalny has called for a boycott of the vote.

Charlton reported from Moscow.

Vladimir Putin's power: From mean streets to Kremlin

March 17, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — As a kid in a dismal Soviet communal apartment, Vladimir Putin was a scrapper who dreamed of being an operator — diligently training in martial arts and boldly walking into a KGB office to inquire about how to become a spy.

As Russia's leader in the 21st century, he's been the epitome of both traits — fighting Chechen rebels, directing the annexation of Crimea and, allegedly, approving an extensive and devious campaign to undermine American democracy.

It's hardly a surprise that he's expected to easily win election to a fourth term Sunday. The man and the office are indistinguishable. As Russia's leader since New Year's Eve 1999 (he switched to prime minister from 2008-12 but was still seen as being in command) Putin clearly relishes the spotlight. Now 65, his displays of physical prowess such as bare-chested horseback riding have mostly faded away, but the hours-long annual news conferences and call-in shows testify to vigor and discipline. He still enjoys mixing it up in ice hockey games, though he once likened his skating to "a cow on ice."

Few, if any, politicians have stepped more quickly from the shadows into rapt attention at home and abroad. Before being named President Boris Yeltsin's prime minister in August 1999, he had been head of the Federal Security Service, one of the KGB's successor agencies, which inherently is not a high-visibility position.

Many observers pegged him as a gray mediocrity at the time, laughingly suggesting that his service with the KGB on the friendly turf of East Germany suggested he had not been very adroit as an intelligence agent. Yeltsin shuffled prime ministers at an alarming rate, and Putin might have been just the latest through the revolving door.

But the next month, he showed himself when commenting on the early days of the second war against Chechen rebels, saying "if we capture them in the toilet then we will waste them in the outhouse." Adamant, macho, and a touch of crude language — the remark seemed to reveal the essence of Putin that was formed in his youth.

When he became acting president upon Yeltsin's resignation, his language was more refined but his mien just as tough. "I want to warn that any attempts to go beyond Russian law ... will be decisively repressed," he said.

Putin was born Oct. 7, 1952, to factory-worker parents in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, a city pervaded by memories of the horrific suffering of the nearly 900-day Nazi siege in World War II. One of Putin's elder brothers died of diphtheria during the siege and the other died a few months after birth. According to "First Person," interviews published after he became acting president, Putin and his parents lived in a dismal communal apartment with a wretched toilet down the hall.

Putin said he responded to these rough circumstances by becoming a childhood "hooligan," one of the few in his school not allowed into the Communist Young Pioneers. In his early adolescence, Putin channeled his aggressive tendencies into the martial arts, a sport he practiced avidly into late middle-age.

As a teen, Putin aspired to join the KGB — apparently more for adventure than out of ideology — and succeeded after graduating from Leningrad University's law faculty in 1975. Putin worked in counterintelligence, monitored foreigners in Leningrad and in 1985 started his post in Dresden. He returned to Leningrad in 1990 and started work for the city's reformist mayor. Putin resigned from the KGB a year later, on the second day of the abortive coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which was backed by the KGB.

In 1983 Putin married Lyudmila Skrebneva, an Aeroflot flight attendant who later became a university lecturer in German. Thirty years later, the couple appeared on state TV in a faux-casual interview to announce their marriage was ending; Putin was reportedly too devoted to his job to be an attentive husband.

Despite rumors of a dalliance with a female gymnastics star, Putin publicly presents himself as upright and abstemious. He is only rarely seen with a glass of vodka and almost never actually drinking.

Although reports have suggested that Putin has accumulated vast wealth, he shows little taste for real ostentation outside the gilded halls of the Kremlin. His public face is an older, better-fed version of the tough teen from a bad part of town, determined to dominate.

A look at the 8 candidates in Russia's presidential election

March 16, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — There are eight candidates in Sunday's Russian presidential election, including President Vladimir Putin. With his approval rating topping 80 percent and rivals trailing far behind, Putin is set to easily win a fourth term. Putin's most vocal critic, the 41-year-old opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race due to a criminal conviction that he calls politically motivated.

Here is a quick look at the candidates.

VLADIMIR PUTIN

The 65-year-old Russian leader served two four-year presidential terms in 2000-2008 before shifting into the prime minister's seat due to term limits. Putin continued calling the shots during the next four years as his longtime associate Dmitry Medvedev served as Russia's president. Before stepping down to let Putin reclaim the top job in 2012, Medvedev initiated constitutional changes that extended the presidential term to six years.

A Putin victory on Sunday would put him on track to become Russia's longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin. The legal limit of two consecutive presidential terms means that Putin won't be able to run again in 2024, but many observers expect him to continue playing the top role in Russian politics even after that, possibly by abolishing term limits or shifting to another position of power.

KSENIA SOBCHAK

The 36-year-old star TV host casts herself as a choice for those who have grown tired of Putin and his familiar challengers and want liberal changes. The daughter of Putin's one-time patron, the late reformist mayor of St. Petersburg, she has assailed the Kremlin's policies but largely avoided personal criticism of Putin.

Observers believe that Sobchak's involvement in the race will help combat voter apathy and boost turnout to make Putin's victory look more impressive. Some think she also could help the Kremlin counter Navalny's calls to boycott the presidential vote and could split the ranks of the liberal opposition. Sobchak has denied being in collusion with the Kremlin.

PAVEL GRUDININ

The 57-year-old millionaire strawberry farm director has been nominated by the Communist Party, but he's openly proud of his wealth and rejects basic Communist dogmas.

Until 2010, Grudinin was a member of the main Kremlin party, United Russia. He has been openly critical of Russia's current political and economic system, but avoided criticizing Putin. His nomination has been seen as an attempt by the Communists to broaden the party's appeal beyond aging voters nostalgic for the Soviet Union.

Grudinin's popularity has worried the Kremlin, and Russia's state-controlled media ran reports about his alleged Swiss bank accounts in an apparent bid to deflate that support.

VLADIMIR ZHIRINOVSKY

The 71-year-old leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party has won notoriety for his xenophobic statements. This will be the sixth time he has run for president. While Zhirinovsky has catered to nationalist voters with his fiery populist rhetoric, he has steadfastly supported Putin, and his party in parliament has invariably voted in line with the Kremlin's wishes. He won 6 percent of the presidential vote in 2012.

With a typical bravado, Zhirinovsky declared that he would stage the inauguration on his birthday if he wins.

GRIGORY YAVLINSKY

The 65-year-old liberal economic expert ran against Putin in the 2000 election, garnering about 6 percent of the vote. Yavlinsky has denounced the Kremlin's policies and frequently criticized Putin, calling for more political freedoms and a more liberal economic course. His support base is a relatively small number of middle-aged and elderly liberal-minded voters in big Russian cities.

BORIS TITOV

Putin's 57-year-old business ombudsman is running for president for the first time, nominated by a pro-business party. Before becoming an advocate for business, Titov had a successful career dealing in chemicals and fertilizers. His platform has focused on creating a more favorable business environment.

SERGEI BABURIN

The 59-year-old legal expert played a prominent role in Russian politics in the 1990s, opposing the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union and becoming one of the leaders of a parliament rebellion against President Boris Yeltsin in 1993. He spent several stints in parliament and served as a deputy speaker of the lower house in the 1990s and the 2000s. After failing to make it to parliament in 2007, he left politics and served as the rector of a Moscow university. He has been nominated for the presidential race by a fringe nationalist party.

MAXIM SURAIKIN

The 39-year-old has been nominated by the Communists of Russia, a fringe group that casts itself as an alternative to the main Communist Party. He was trained as an engineer and ran a small computer business. In 2014, Suraikin ran for governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, getting about 2 percent of the vote.

Suraikin grabbed attention this week when he attacked Grudinin's representative during a TV debate, yelling "I will break your jaw, you scum!"

Russia's rebel mayor calls for presidential election boycott

March 16, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — In Russia, where all governors and mayors are either Kremlin nominees or hail from Kremlin-friendly parties, Yevgeny Roizman cuts an odd figure. The mayor of Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city with 1.4 million people, is the only top regional official to openly criticize President Vladimir Putin. He has also called for a boycott of Sunday's presidential vote, a move advocated by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is banned from running.

Yet Roizman still epitomizes the helplessness of Russia's opposition in the face of Putin's well-oiled government machine. Roizman is an outlier in Putin's system of government, where every official — from a village chief to the governor — explicitly answers to and serves the Russian president.

While millions of public workers are busy rooting for Putin and urging residents to vote, Roizman has dismissed the presidential vote as sham. "You can ask anyone and everyone will tell you who is going to win this election. What's the point in going to vote then?" he told The Associated Press.

But making public statements is the only thing Roizman is free to do. In the president's "power vertical," as Putin once named it, if those who oppose him are not already sidelined or jailed, they simply have no executive powers or budgets to take on the Kremlin.

A former convict and leader of a vigilante anti-drug movement, 55-year-old Roizman might seem unelectable. But in his hometown of Yekaterinburg in the Urals, he won a tight mayoral race against a pro-government candidate in 2013.

A visitor to Roizman's office is immediately struck by the glaring absence of the one requisite symbol of power in Russia: a portrait of Putin. On his first day, Roizman hung a portrait of dissident poet Josef Brodsky. His office is open, and his hour-long interview with the AP was interrupted when a retiree stepped in to complain about his low pension.

When Roizman ran for office, one of his campaign promises was to improve the quality of water in this industrial city. But once elected, Roizman realized he was unable to do that. "I have no budget to spend," Roizman said. "The city has been stripped of its major powers, its major sources of income."

Like other regional capitals, Yekaterinburg in the 2000s fell victim to Putin's "power vertical" concept, which was presented as an antidote to lawlessness and the lack of coordination between the federal government and regional authorities.

But in the end, that policy simply forced Russian regions to send most of their revenues to Moscow. Now they receive back only a fraction. The system was supposed to help economically struggling regions like the North Caucasus, but it has angered wealthier cities like Yekaterinburg and Kazan, which feel they are paying for corruption and mismanagement several time zones away.

Roizman's background reflects Russia's ups and downs since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. He spent more than two years in prison in the 1980s for robbery and fraud, something he describes as a youthful mistake.

After stints making jewelry and researching local history, Roizman made his name by forming a volunteer group to stem a drug epidemic in the Urals. Official estimates in 2003 put the number of drug users in this region of 4 million at 235,000 people.

"We had a drug catastrophe," Roizman recalled. "Ambulances were driving around picking up corpses from the sidewalks." Yekaterinburg, which still has some of Russia's highest HIV rates because of the '90s drug epidemic, lies on the drug route that ran from Afghanistan and Central Asia to Europe. It's about 1,050 miles (1,700 kilometers) east of Moscow. He says the police were at best helpless to deal with the drug dealers, and at worst profiting from the drug business.

Roizman and his colleagues began to track down and round up drug dealers and set up private rehab clinics to which desperate families sent their addicted relatives. Many credit the City Without Drugs foundation for fighting Russia's narcotics epidemic, but others remember reports of drug users locked up in rehab clinics against their will.

Roizman vehemently denies any wrongdoing and says he saved the lives of "thousands." His 2013 win was also improbable because of his scathing criticism of the Kremlin. Bashing the Kremlin from the sidelines is dangerous, but doing so within the system is almost impossible. Two other regional opposition leaders have been imprisoned on charges seen as retribution for their lack of compliance.

Nikita Belykh, former governor of the Kirov region who once employed Navalny as an unpaid aide, was arrested and sentenced this year to eight years in a high-security prison for accepting 600,000 euros ($740,000) in bribes.

Yevgeny Urlashov, who won a landslide victory in Yaroslavl's mayoral race in 2012, was arrested a year later and spent three years in jail before being found guilty of accepting bribes and sent to prison for 12 1/2 years.

The popular Urlashov, who criticized the federal government for taking away the city's taxes, posed a tangible threat to the Kremlin, Roizman said, because he convinced supporters to take to the streets.

"That scared them," Roizman said. Urlashov would not cooperate with local pro-Kremlin elites, so Moscow retaliated by cutting back the city's budget. A year later, the mayor was slapped with bribery charges that many considered fabricated.

Roizman was going to run for governor of the Yekaterinburg region last year, a position that would give him a budget to spend, but he failed to gain enough required votes from local pro-Kremlin lawmakers to field his candidacy.

Roizman says he's glad he didn't get to run and win because of the inevitable Faustian bargains that he says all Russian politicians face under Putin. What would happen, he asks, if Kremlin authorities summoned him and offered to build the city a second subway line in exchange for his public support of the presidential election?

"What would I do?" Roizman said. "I'm ashamed to say it but I know what I would do: I would cast my eye and say 'Everyone should to go to vote.' I would trade it for the second metro line." Now, in a visible though largely powerless position, the only thing left for Roizman to do is "stay true to myself" and call for a boycott of Sunday's presidential election.

"There will never be a fair election under this government," he said. "They have only one goal: to stay in power forever."

Breaking mold, some Russian youth speak out against Putin

March 15, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — When Stepan Mikhailov, a 19-year-old linguistics student, talks about his lifetime spent under Russian President Vladimir Putin, a troubled look passes over his face. "I don't think I have a single friend who thinks that Putin is good," he says from the kitchen of his dusty, bohemian Moscow apartment. "I think he is an evil character who only takes care of himself and his inner circle."

Putin's legacy depends not only on winning Sunday's election — which he will, overwhelmingly — but also on ensuring that today's first-time voters stay loyal to his vision. That is not a foregone conclusion. Nationwide, young people are among his most ardent supporters. But in the Russian capital, many twenty-somethings — still in diapers when Putin first came to power in 2000 — were involved in recent opposition demonstrations and share Mihailov's frustrations.

Putin meets Thursday with young volunteers, computer programmers and others seeking to join the civil service as part of a government outreach program to improve opportunities for talented youth. Lusiya Shtein, a 21-year-old political activist, sees the past 18 years as the era of Putin and "his bandit friends." She was elected as a local councilor when she was just 20, and is now working on TV star Ksenia Sobchak's presidential campaign.

Shtein knows that there won't be substantial change soon — but she is busy preparing the ground for when the time comes. "I wanted to turn words into action, and I became an elected official so I could influence life in my district and improve it."

Technology student Maxim Manolov, 20, feels his generation has been deprived of any real choice. Until his penultimate year of high school, Manolov had no interest in politics. Then Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists in eastern Ukraine. "It was the events in Ukraine that really politicized me," he said. "I have lots of relatives connected with the region and we started to argue and discuss what was happening."

Outside a Moscow fashion show, one teenager says she likes Sobchak because she wants to legalize marijuana, while a fashion blogger says it's time for new faces. But polls show Moscow's metropolitan, middle-class youth are far from representative of Russia as a whole.

A survey in December by the independent Levada Center found 86 percent of 18-24 year old Russians approve of Putin as president, compared to 81 percent of the general public. Some 67 percent of younger voters surveyed believed Russia was going in the right direction, compared to 56 percent of all adults.

Many young Putin supporters feel they have more opportunities in Putin's Russia compared with their parents. "Our generation is really lucky because we can do absolutely everything that we want," said Anna Lichaeva, 19.

Like many other Russians, Lichaeva also supports Putin because he represents stability. "In the next six years, I am sure that nothing extraordinarily bad will happen," she said during a pro-Putin youth event in central Moscow.

She does not, however, think that the president is without criticism. She believes Putin's foreign policy is "too strong," and finds it difficult to reconcile official rhetoric with what she has seen on her travels abroad.

"On TV they say that (the West) is bad and that they hate us," she said. "But I'm sure that between people there isn't such animosity." A larger problem for Russian democracy is the political apathy that is rife among the country's youth.

Pollsters predict that many young Putin supporters won't vote. They know he'll win again, and some don't see a reason to take part in a system without much choice. With his preferred candidate, Alexei Navalny, barred from the presidential race, Mikhailov won't be voting in this election. Meanwhile, art history student Maria Pogodina, 19, will be supporting the boycott Navalny has called as an alternative.

Pogodina was unhappy about what she described as "absurd" news flashes, blocked domain names and an atmosphere of heightened pressure in her country. "We spend a lot of our conscious life on the internet and it now feels really controlled and unpleasant," she said.

Unfortunately for Putin, many Internet-savvy millennials read independent news channels, and are increasingly vocal against corruption and propaganda. Ivan Apostolov, a political science student and Communist Party member, thinks inequality is the most pressing issue in Russia.

"The economy is stagnating and people are poorer than ever before," said Apostolov, an ardent supporter of Pavel Grudinin, the strawberry tycoon and second most popular presidential candidate after Putin.

When exit polls come in Sunday night, the Kremlin will be watching closely to see how many young people voted for Putin, and how many bother to cast ballots at all. Putin "has maintained stability and a generally peaceful situation. Given the politics that is going on in the world, it's very good that there has been no conflict," said Putin supporter student Ilya Krupenkov, 21, walking hand in hand with his girlfriend toward Red Square.

"I think that most people our age really don't care and will not vote," says Krupenkov. "Or they'll vote just like us."

Can Zuckerberg's media blitz take the pressure off Facebook?

March 22, 2018

NEW YORK (AP) — In the wake of a privacy scandal involving a Trump-connected data-mining firm, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg embarked on a rare media mini-blitz in an attempt to take some of the public and political pressure off the social network.

But it's far from clear whether he's won over U.S. and European authorities, much less the broader public whose status updates provide Facebook with an endless stream of data it uses to sell targeted ads.

On Wednesday, the generally reclusive Zuckerberg sat for an interview on CNN and conducted several more with other outlets, addressing reports that Cambridge Analytica purloined the data of more than 50 million Facebook users in order to sway elections. The Trump campaign paid the firm $6 million during the 2016 election, although it has since distanced itself from Cambridge.

Zuckerberg apologized for a "major breach of trust," admitted mistakes and outlined steps to protect users following Cambridge's data grab. "I am really sorry that happened," Zuckerberg said on CNN. Facebook has a "responsibility" to protect its users' data, he added, noting that if it fails, "we don't deserve to have the opportunity to serve people."

His mea culpa on cable television came a few hours after he acknowledged his company's mistakes in a Facebook post , but without saying he was sorry. Zuckerberg and Facebook's No. 2 executive, Sheryl Sandberg, had been quiet since news broke Friday that Cambridge may have used data improperly obtained from roughly 50 million Facebook users to try to sway elections. Cambridge's clients included Donald Trump's general-election campaign.

Facebook shares have dropped some 8 percent, lopping about $46 billion off the company's market value, since the revelations were first published. While several experts said Zuckerberg took an important step with the CNN interview, few were convinced that he put the Cambridge issue behind hm. Zuckerberg's apology, for instance, seemed rushed and pro forma to Helio Fred Garcia, a crisis-management professor at NYU and Columbia University.

"He didn't acknowledge the harm or potential harm to the affected users," Garcia said. "I doubt most people realized he was apologizing." Instead, the Facebook chief pointed to steps the company has already taken, such as a 2014 move to restrict the access outside apps had to user data. (That move came too late to stop Cambridge.) And he laid out a series of technical changes that will further limit the data such apps can collect, pledged to notify users when outsiders misuse their information and said Facebook will "audit" apps that exhibit troubling behavior.

That audit will be a giant undertaking, said David Carroll, a media researcher at the Parsons School of Design in New York — one that he said will likely turn up a vast number of apps that did "troubling, distressing things."

But on other fronts, Zuckerberg carefully hedged otherwise striking remarks. In the CNN interview, for instance, he said he would be "happy" to testify before Congress — but only if it was "the right thing to do." Zuckerberg went on to note that many other Facebook officials might be more appropriate witnesses depending on what Congress wanted to know.

At another point, the Facebook chief seemed to favor regulation for Facebook and other internet giants. At least, that is, the "right" kind of rules, such as ones requiring online political ads to disclose who paid for them. In almost the next breath, however, Zuckerberg steered clear of endorsing a bill that would write such rules into federal law, and instead talked up Facebook's own voluntary efforts on that front.

"They'll fight tooth and nail to fight being regulated," said Timothy Carone, a Notre Dame business professor. "In six months we'll be having the same conversations, and it's just going to get worse going into the election."

Even Facebook's plan to let users know about data leaks may put the onus on users to educate themselves. Zuckerberg said Facebook will "build a tool" that lets users see if their information had been impacted by the Cambridge leak, suggesting that the company won't be notifying people automatically. Facebook took this kind of do-it-yourself approach in the case of Russian election meddling, in contrast to Twitter, which notified users who had been exposed to Russian propaganda on its network.

In what has become one of the worst backlashes Facebook has ever seen, politicians in the U.S. and Britain have called for Zuckerberg to explain its data practices in detail. State attorneys general in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey have opened investigations into the Cambridge mess. And some have rallied to a movement that urges people to delete their Facebook accounts entirely.

Sandy Parakilas, who worked in data protection for Facebook in 2011 and 2012, told a U.K. parliamentary committee Wednesday that the company was vigilant about its network security but lax when it came to protecting users' data.

He said personal data including email addresses and in some cases private messages was allowed to leave Facebook servers with no real controls on how the data was used after that. Paul Argenti, a business professor at Dartmouth, said that while Zuckerberg's comments hit the right notes, they still probably aren't enough. "The question is, can you really trust Facebook," he said. "I don't think that question has been answered."

Cambridge Analytica headquarters in central London was briefly evacuated Thursday as a precaution after a suspicious package was received. Nothing dangerous was found and normal business resumed, police said.

AP reporters Danica Kirka and Gregory Katz in London and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this story.

Myanmar swears in Suu Kyi loyalist as new president

March 30, 2018

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — A longtime Aung San Suu Kyi loyalist vowed to prioritize the rule of law, peace and reconciliation Friday after being sworn in as the country's new president, who will continue his predecessor's deference to her as the de facto national leader.

Win Myint, 66 and the former lower house speaker, took his oath of office during a joint session of Parliament, pledging loyalty "to the people and the republic of the Union of Myanmar." First vice president Myint Swe, a military nominee and second vice president Henry Van Tio, an upper house parliament nominee, took oaths alongside him.

Suu Kyi and the powerful army chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing watched the swearing-in. For many years a political prisoner under the military that then ruled Myanmar, Suu Kyi cannot become president because the junta-drafted 2008 constitution bars those with foreign family, which directly aimed to bar Suu Kyi from becoming head of state. Her two sons are British.

Myanmar's military ruled with an iron fist before handing power to a civilian government led by Suu Kyi in 2016. The military still holds considerable power, with control of national security and other government functions and a quarter of the seats in Parliament.

Suu Kyi became foreign minister and state councilor, a position created for her, and said when her government took office that she would be "above the president." She led the government in that manner during the presidency of her close friend, Htin Kyaw, who retired last week because of ill health.

In his inaugural speech, Win Myint vowed to work on amending the constitution. "As part of the priorities of the union government, amending the constitution is the most fundamental to build the federal democratic government," Win Myint said, "I will prioritize to implement the rule of law, for the improvement of people's life, national reconciliation and internal peace."

Myanmar's civilian government has come under international pressure for its handling of a crisis in northern Rakhine state, where security forces have been accused of ethnic cleansing and serious human rights violations that have caused about 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

"We are facing pressure, criticisms and misunderstandings at the international fronts and our country and our people are facing many challenges," Win Myint said in his speech. "Though everything will not be solved easily, I will try my best to solve the problems and prioritize them."

Southeast Asia leaders use Australia meet to talk NKorea

March 18, 2018

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia's prime minister said Southeast Asian leaders were using their meeting Sunday to discuss the "deadly threat" posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Australia is hosting a two-day summit in Sydney of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, and Sunday's agenda had the leaders discussing economic and security issues.

"We'll discuss some of the region's most pressing security challenges, including how to respond strongly and effectively to the deadly threat posed by North Korea," Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in opening remarks.

Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have eased recently amid plans for a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but Asian nations are still wary of any potential conflict in the region.

The leaders on Saturday signed an agreement on regional cooperation against violent extremism aimed at boosting counterterrorism capability throughout Southeast Asia. The issue is of particular concern as the region braces for the return of local militants who had gone to fight with the Islamic State group in the Middle East and are now fleeing losses there.

Other items likely to be raised are the plight of Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya and China's overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea with several ASEAN nations. Both are thorny issues for the bloc, which operates on a policy of non-interference in members' domestic affairs and can only issue statements approved by all.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told the summit on Saturday that refugee crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh was no longer solely a domestic issue for Myanmar, as fleeing Rohingya could be prime targets for terrorist radicalization.

"Because of the suffering of Rohingya people and that of displacement around the region, the situation in Rakhine state and Myanmar can no longer be considered to be a purely domestic matter," Najib said as Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi looked on.

Turnbull is under pressure to raise the Rohingya crisis when he holds a bilateral meeting with Suu Kyi on Monday. The leaders are not expected to issue a closing communique at this summit, but past meetings have seen the nations butt heads over language on the South China Sea, which China claims in almost its entirety. China is the regional bloc's largest trading partner, but its growing assertiveness in the disputed waters worries some ASEAN members.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, whose nation is not an ASEAN member, told reporters outside the meeting that the region's leaders were clear-eyed about their own interests, particularly in relation to China as a crucial trading partner and source of infrastructure funding. However, progress had also been made recently on negotiating a code of conduct on the South China Sea, she said.

"We are not a claimant, but we reject any unilateral action that would create tensions, and we want to ensure that freedom of overflight and freedom of navigation, in accordance with international law, is maintained, and the ASEANs all back that same position," she said.

On economic matters, Turnbull urged ASEAN leaders to support the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership deal, which is under negotiation between interests including Australia, the ASEAN bloc, China and India.

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long, the current chair of ASEAN, said there was hope the deal could be finalized this year. "This is a historic opportunity to establish the world's largest trade bloc," he told the leaders meeting on Sunday morning, adding that it would cover 45 percent of the world's population.

In addition to Singapore, the other ASEAN nations are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Stephen Hawking, best-known physicist of his time, has died

March 14, 2018

LONDON (AP) — Stephen Hawking, whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space though his body was paralyzed by disease, died early Wednesday, a University of Cambridge spokesman said. He was 76 years old.

Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge, England. The best-known theoretical physicist of his time, Hawking wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes that his book, "A Brief History of Time," became an international best seller, making him one of science's biggest celebrities since Albert Einstein.

"He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years," his children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement. "He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humor inspired people across the world. He once said, 'It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.' We will miss him forever."

Even though his body was attacked by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, when Hawking was 21, he stunned doctors by living with the normally fatal illness for more than 50 years. A severe attack of pneumonia in 1985 left him breathing through a tube, forcing him to communicate through an electronic voice synthesizer that gave him his distinctive robotic monotone.

But he continued his scientific work, appeared on television and married for a second time. As one of Isaac Newton's successors as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics — a "unified theory."

Such a theory would resolve the contradictions between Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.

For Hawking, the search was almost a religious quest — he said finding a "theory of everything" would allow mankind to "know the mind of God." "A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence," he wrote in "A Brief History of Time."

In later years, though, he suggested a unified theory might not exist. He followed up "A Brief History of Time" in 2001 with the more accessible sequel "The Universe in a Nutshell," updating readers on concepts like super gravity, naked singularities and the possibility of an 11-dimensional universe.

Hawking said belief in a God who intervenes in the universe "to make sure the good guys win or get rewarded in the next life" was wishful thinking. "But one can't help asking the question: Why does the universe exist?" he said in 1991. "I don't know an operational way to give the question or the answer, if there is one, a meaning. But it bothers me."

The combination of his best-selling book and his almost total disability — for a while he could use a few fingers, later he could only tighten the muscles on his face — made him one of science's most recognizable faces.

He made cameo television appearances in "The Simpsons" and "Star Trek" and counted among his fans U2 guitarist The Edge, who attended a January 2002 celebration of Hawking's 60th birthday. His early life was chronicled in the 2014 film "The Theory of Everything," with Eddie Redmayne winning the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of the scientist. The film focused still more attention on Hawking's remarkable achievements.

Some colleagues credited that celebrity with generating new enthusiasm for science. His achievements and his longevity helped prove to many that even the most severe disabilities need not stop patients from living.

Richard Green, of the Motor Neurone Disease Association — the British name for ALS — said Hawking met the classic definition of the disease, as "the perfect mind trapped in an imperfect body." He said Hawking had been an inspiration to people with the disease for many years.

Although it could take him minutes to compose answers to even simple questions Hawking said the disability did not impair his work. It certainly did little to dampen his ambition to physically experience space himself: Hawking savored small bursts of weightlessness in 2007 when he was flown aboard a jet that made repeated dives to simulate zero-gravity.

Hawking had hoped to leave Earth's atmosphere altogether someday, a trip he often recommended to the rest of the planet's inhabitants. "In the long run the human race should not have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet," Hawking said in 2008. "I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket until then."

Hawking first earned prominence for his theoretical work on black holes. Disproving the belief that black holes are so dense that nothing could escape their gravitational pull, he showed that black holes leak a tiny bit of light and other types of radiation, now known as "Hawking radiation."

"It came as a complete surprise," said Gary Horowitz, a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "It really was quite revolutionary." Horowitz said the find helped move scientists one step closer to cracking the unified theory.

Hawking's other major scientific contribution was to cosmology, the study of the universe's origin and evolution. Working with Jim Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Hawking proposed in 1983 that space and time might have no beginning and no end. "Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one mile north of the North Pole," he said.

In 2004, he announced that he had revised his previous view that objects sucked into black holes simply disappeared, perhaps to enter an alternate universe. Instead, he said he believed objects could be spit out of black holes in a mangled form.

That new theory capped his three-decade struggle to explain a paradox in scientific thinking: How can objects really "disappear" inside a black hole and leave no trace, as he long believed, when subatomic theory says matter can be transformed but never fully destroyed?

Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, in Oxford, and grew up in London and St. Albans, northwest of the capital. In 1959, he entered Oxford University and then went on to graduate work at Cambridge. Signs of illness appeared in his first year of graduate school, and he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease after the New York Yankee star who died of it. The disease usually kills within three to five years.

According to John Boslough, author of "Stephen Hawking's Universe," Hawking became deeply depressed. But as it became apparent that he was not going to die soon, his spirits recovered and he bore down on his work. Brian Dickie, director of research at the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said only 5 percent of those diagnosed with ALS survive for 10 years or longer. Hawking, he added, "really is at the extreme end of the scale when it comes to survival."

Hawking married Jane Wilde in 1965 and they had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy. Jane cared for Hawking for 20 years, until a grant from the United States paid for the 24-hour care he required.

He was inducted into the Royal Society in 1974 and received the Albert Einstein Award in 1978. In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Companion of Honor, one of the highest distinctions she can bestow.

He whizzed about Cambridge at surprising speed — usually with nurses or teaching assistants in his wake — traveled and lectured widely, and appeared to enjoy his fame. He retired from his chair as Lucasian Professor in 2009 and took up a research position with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Hawking divorced Jane in 1991, an acrimonious split that strained his relationship with their children. Writing in her autobiographical "Music to Move the Stars," she said the strain of caring for Hawking for nearly three decades had left her feeling like "a brittle, empty shell." Hawking married his one-time nurse Elaine Mason four years later, but the relationship was dogged by rumors of abuse.

Police investigated in 2004 after newspapers reported that he'd been beaten, suffering injuries including a broken wrist, gashes to the face and a cut lip, and was left stranded in his garden on the hottest day of the year.

Hawking called the charges "completely false." Police found no evidence of any abuse. Hawking and Mason separated in 2006. Lucy Hawking said her father had an exasperating "inability to accept that there is anything he cannot do."

"I accept that there are some things I can't do," he told The Associated Press in 1997. "But they are mostly things I don't particularly want to do anyway." Then, grinning widely, he added, "I seem to manage to do anything that I really want."

Stephen Hawking, tourist of the universe, dead at 76

March 14, 2018

PARIS (AP) — In his final years, the only thing connecting the brilliant physicist to the outside world was a couple of inches of frayed nerve in his cheek. As slowly as a word per minute, Stephen Hawking used the twitching of the muscle under his right eye to grind out his thoughts on a custom-built computer, painstakingly outlining his vision of time, the universe, and humanity's place within it.

What he produced was a masterwork of popular science, one that guided a generation of enthusiasts through the esoteric world of anti-particles, quarks, and quantum theory. His success in turn transformed him into a massively popular scientist, one as familiar to the wider world through his appearances on "The Simpsons" and "Star Trek" as his work on cosmology and black holes.

Hawking owed one part of his fame to his triumph over amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a degenerative disease that eats away at the nervous system. When he was diagnosed aged only 21, he was given only a few years to live.

But Hawking defied the normally fatal illness for more than 50 years, pursuing a brilliant career that stunned doctors and thrilled his fans. Even though a severe attack of pneumonia left him breathing through a tube, an electronic voice synthesizer allowed him to continue speaking, albeit in a robotic monotone that became one of his trademarks.

He carried on working into his 70s, spinning theories, teaching students, and writing "A Brief History of Time," an accessible exploration of the mechanics of the universe that sold millions of copies.

By the time he died Wednesday at 76, Hawking was among the most recognizable faces in science, on par with Albert Einstein. As one of Isaac Newton's successors as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics — a "unified theory."

Such a theory would resolve the contradictions between Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.

For Hawking, the search was almost a religious quest — he said finding a "theory of everything" would allow mankind to "know the mind of God." "A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence," he wrote in "A Brief History of Time."

In later years, though, he suggested a unified theory might not exist. He followed up "A Brief History of Time" in 2001 with the sequel, "The Universe in a Nutshell," which updated readers on concepts like supergravity, naked singularities and the possibility of an 11-dimensional universe.

Hawking said belief in a God who intervenes in the universe "to make sure the good guys win or get rewarded in the next life" was wishful thinking. "But one can't help asking the question: Why does the universe exist?" he said in 1991. "I don't know an operational way to give the question or the answer, if there is one, a meaning. But it bothers me."

Hawking often credited humor with helping him deal with his disability, and it was his sense of mischief that made him game for a series of stunts. He made cameo television appearances in "The Simpsons," ''Star Trek," and the "Big Bang Theory" and counted among his fans U2 guitarist The Edge, who attended a January 2002 celebration of Hawking's 60th birthday.

His early life was chronicled in the 2014 film "The Theory of Everything," with Eddie Redmayne winning the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Hawking. The film focused still more attention on Hawking's remarkable life.

Some colleagues credited that celebrity with generating new enthusiasm for science. His achievements, and his longevity, also helped prove to many that even the most severe disabilities need not stop patients from achieving.

Richard Green, of the Motor Neurone Disease Association — the British name for ALS — said Hawking met the classic definition of the disease, as "the perfect mind trapped in an imperfect body." He said Hawking had been an inspiration to people with the disease for many years.

Hawking's disability did slow the pace of conversation, especially in later years as even the muscles in his face started to weaken. Minutes could pass as he composed answers to even simple questions. Hawking said that didn't impair his work, even telling one interviewer it gave his mind time to drift as the conversation ebbed and flowed around him.

His near-total paralysis certainly did little to dampen his ambition to physically experience space: Hawking savored small bursts of weightlessness in 2007 when he was flown aboard a jet that made repeated dives to simulate zero-gravity.

Hawking had hoped to leave Earth's atmosphere altogether someday, a trip he often recommended to the rest of the planet's inhabitants. "In the long run the human race should not have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet," Hawking said in 2008. "I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket until then."

Hawking first earned prominence for his theoretical work on black holes. Disproving the belief that black holes are so dense that nothing could escape their gravitational pull, he showed that black holes leak a tiny bit of light and other types of radiation, now known as "Hawking radiation."

"It came as a complete surprise," said Gary Horowitz, a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "It really was quite revolutionary." Horowitz said the find helped move scientists one step closer to cracking the unified theory.

Hawking's other major scientific contribution was to cosmology, the study of the universe's origin and evolution. Working with Jim Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Hawking proposed in 1983 that space and time might have no beginning and no end. "Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one mile north of the North Pole," he said.

In 2004, he announced that he had revised his previous view that objects sucked into black holes simply disappeared, perhaps to enter an alternate universe. Instead, he said he believed objects could be spit out of black holes in a mangled form.

That new theory capped his three-decade struggle to explain a paradox in scientific thinking: How can objects really "disappear" inside a black hole and leave no trace when subatomic theory says matter can be transformed but never fully destroyed?

Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, in Oxford, and grew up in London and St. Albans, northwest of the capital. In 1959, he entered Oxford University and then went on to graduate work at Cambridge. Signs of illness appeared in his first year of graduate school, and he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease after the New York Yankee star who died of it. The disease usually kills within three to five years.

According to John Boslough, author of "Stephen Hawking's Universe," Hawking became deeply depressed. But as it became apparent that he was not going to die soon, his spirits recovered and he bore down on his work. Brian Dickie, director of research at the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said only 5 percent of those diagnosed with ALS survive for 10 years or longer. Hawking, he added, "really is at the extreme end of the scale when it comes to survival."

Hawking married Jane Wilde in 1965 and they had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy. Jane cared for Hawking for 20 years, until a grant from the United States paid for the 24-hour care he required.

He was inducted into the Royal Society in 1974 and received the Albert Einstein Award in 1978. In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Companion of Honor, one of the highest distinctions she can bestow.

He whizzed about Cambridge at surprising speed — usually with nurses or teaching assistants in his wake — traveled and lectured widely, and appeared to enjoy his fame. He retired from his chair as Lucasian Professor in 2009 and took up a research position with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Hawking divorced Jane in 1991, an acrimonious split that strained his relationship with their children. Writing in her autobiographical "Music to Move the Stars," she said the strain of caring for Hawking for nearly three decades had left her feeling like "a brittle, empty shell." Hawking married his one-time nurse Elaine Mason four years later, but the relationship was dogged by rumors of abuse.

Police investigated in 2004 after newspapers reported that he'd been beaten, suffering injuries including a broken wrist, gashes to the face and a cut lip, and was left stranded in his garden on the hottest day of the year.

Hawking called the charges "completely false." Police found no evidence of any abuse. Hawking and Mason separated in 2006. Lucy Hawking said her father had an exasperating "inability to accept that there is anything he cannot do."

"I accept that there are some things I can't do," he told The Associated Press in 1997. "But they are mostly things I don't particularly want to do anyway." Then, grinning widely, he added, "I seem to manage to do anything that I really want."

Weapons imports to Middle East booming

2018-03-12

STOCKHOLM - Weapons imports to the Middle East and Asia have boomed over the past five years, fueled by war and tensions in those regions, a new study showed on Monday.

In the period between 2013 and 2017, arms imports to the conflict-ridden Middle East more than doubled, jumping by 103 percent compared with the previous five-year period, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) calculated.

And the Middle East accounted for 32 percent of all arms imports worldwide.

SIPRI, an independent institute, monitors arms deliveries by volume over periods of five years in order to iron out short-term fluctuations.

Saudi Arabia -- which is waging a war against Shiite Houthi rebels backed by its regional rival Iran -- is the world's second largest importer of arms after India, SIPRI said.

The United States accounts for 61 percent of arms imports to Saudi Arabia and Britain for 23 percent.

On Friday, Britain signed a preliminary multi-billion-pound order from Saudi Arabia for 48 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, military equipment maker BAE Systems announced.

The deal sparked heated debate and protests in the UK where the NGO, Save the Children, placed a life-size statue of a child near parliament "to draw attention to the violence that is being fueled, in part, by British-made bombs."

"Widespread violent conflict in the Middle East and concerns about human rights have led to political debate in Western Europe and North America about restricting arms sales," said senior SIPRI researcher Pieter Wezeman.

"Yet the US and European states remain the main arms exporters to the region and supplied over 98 percent of weapons imported by Saudi Arabia."

- Growing demand in India -

Nevertheless, Asia and Oceania was the biggest region for arms imports, accounting for 42 percent of the global total between 2013 and 2017, the institute calculated.

And India was the world's largest weapons importer, with Russia its main supplier accounting for 62 percent of its imports.

At the same time, arms deliveries to India from the US, the world's top weapons exporter, increased more than six-fold in the five-year period, SIPRI calculated.

"The tensions between India, on the one side, and Pakistan and China, on the other, are fueling India's growing demand for major weapons, which it remains unable to produce itself," another SIPRI researcher Siemon Wezeman said.

"China, by contrast, is becoming increasingly capable of producing its own weapons and continues to strengthen its relations with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar through arms supplies," he added.

Beijing, whose weapons exports rose by 38 percent in the five-year period, is the main arms supplier for Myanmar, accounting for 68 percent of imports.

It also accounted for 71 percent of weapons imports to Bangladesh and for 70 percent of imports to India's nuclear-armed rival, Pakistan.

Myanmar's violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority has caused some 700,000 of the people to flee over the border to Bangladesh since August, taking with them horrifying testimony of murder, rape and arson by soldiers and vigilante mobs.

The atrocities have triggered international condemnations, including EU and US sanctions, against Myanmar.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87635.