Duterte wins Philippine presidency in official count

May 27, 2016

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine lawmakers completed the official vote count from May 9 elections on Friday and announced that Mayor Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency by an overwhelming margin, while Rep. Leni Robredo triumphed as vice president.

Duterte, the tough-talking mayor of southern Davao city, received more than 16.6 million votes, 6.6 million more than his closest rival, former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who was backed by outgoing President Benigno Aquino III.

About 81 percent of more than 54 million eligible voters cast ballots for a successor to Aquino and thousands of other national, congressional and local officials whose terms end on June 30, according to lawmakers and official figures released by Congress.

Duterte had led by a wide margin in an earlier unofficial count, and most of his rivals have conceded defeat. The vice presidential race, however, was closely fought. Robredo, who was also backed by Aquino, received more than 14.4 million votes, according to the official count, just 263,000 more than Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of a dictator ousted in a 1986 "people power" revolt sparked by widespread human rights abuses and corruption.

Presidents and vice presidents are elected separately in the Philippines, and often are from different parties. It was not immediately clear if Robredo's victory would be contested by Marcos, who has raised suggestions of election irregularities.

"It was a very divisive and difficult election," Robredo said in a TV interview. "We need to rebuild as one country and President Duterte really needs all our help." Robredo, a lawyer who has helped the poor with free legal services, said she learned of her victory while she was with her daughters at a cemetery in her home province southeast of Manila to mark the 58th birthday of her late husband, a reformist politician who perished in a 2012 plane crash.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, who helped oversee the vote count, said Congress will officially proclaim Duterte and Robredo as winners on Monday. Duterte, 71, who has stayed mostly in Davao city since the elections, did not immediately comment. He has said he does not plan to attend his proclamation as president-elect in metropolitan Manila.

The outcome of the official count cements the stunning political rise of Duterte, who won on an audacious promise to eradicate crime and corruption within six months as president. The pledge resonated among many crime-weary Filipinos, although police officials have said it is impossible to accomplish, noting that crime continues to hound Davao city, where the president-elect has served as mayor on and off for more than 22 years.

Human rights groups have also been alarmed by Duterte, who they suspect instigated the extrajudicial killings of many crime suspects by motorcycle-riding gunmen dubbed the Davao death squads in his city. The suspicions have been bolstered by Duterte's public threats to kill drug dealers and other criminals.

Aquino, the son of democracy champions who fought against Marcos' dictator father, campaigned against Duterte, saying he may become a dictator. Duterte has been likened to presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump because of his brash rhetoric and unorthodox political style. The Filipino politician detests the comparison, saying Trump is a bigot and he is not.

He has said he plans to offer four Cabinet positions to designated allies of communist guerrillas who have been waging a decades-long insurgency in the poor Southeast Asian country.

NASA taking another stab at inflating space station room

May 27, 2016

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is taking a second crack at inflating an experimental room at the International Space Station. Flight controllers, along with the astronauts, will try again Saturday to expand the world's first soft-sided compartment for space travelers. Thursday's effort was halted after the pod barely grew in size when air was let in.

Officials told reporters Friday that friction among the compressed fabric layers likely kept the chamber from expanding to its full 13 feet in length and 10 ½ feet in diameter. In fact, the pod — called BEAM for Bigelow Expandable Activity Module — only swelled a few inches beyond its packed 7 feet in length and 8 feet in diameter. Overnight, it expanded slightly more.

BEAM was launched by SpaceX in April following months of rocket delays and attached to the outside of the station. Because of the postponement, the pod was packed up tight longer than anticipated. NASA relieved some of the pressure inside BEAM on Friday to relax the materials and, hopefully, allow the chamber to expand more easily on the next go-around.

Bigelow Aerospace is behind the technology demonstration. The Nevada company envisions using inflatable spacecraft to house tourists orbiting Earth — founder Robert Bigelow is in the hotel business, after all — as well as astronauts bound for Mars.

Because this has never been done before at a space station, NASA is proceeding slowly and methodically to inflate the room, said mission operations manager Kenny Todd. If too much force was exerted by BEAM on the space station — say by a rapid pressurization — the connecting modules could be weakened.

"To be honest with you, it doesn't surprise me a great deal that we ended up here," Todd said, given the conservative approach. There is no hurry to inflate BEAM, Todd stressed, and it poses no safety hazard to either the space station or its six-man crew. BEAM is supposed to remain at the orbiting outpost for two years, with astronauts only occasionally ducking inside. Sensors will measure temperature and radiation levels, as well as possible impacts by space debris.

New Russian submarine launched

by Richard Tomkins
St. Petersburg, Russia (UPI)
May 31, 2016

A sixth diesel-electric submarine for Russia's Black Sea fleet was launched Tuesday at a shipyard in St. Petersburg.

The Varshavyanka-class sub, named Kolpino, is an advanced version of what NATO designates as a Kilo-class submarine.

Built under the Russian Navy's Project 636.3, the submarine is between 229 and 242 feet long and has a submerged speed of as much as 25 knots. Weaponry includes torpedoes, mines and missiles.

"It's a big day for the Navy, for St. Petersburg, for the country," Deputy Commander of the Russian Navy Vice Adm. Alexander Fedotenkov was quoted by state-owned Tass as saying.

"The submarine launch is a national event. Admiralty Shipyard is indeed the flagship of the national shipbuilding industry. Your ships are delivered on time and with proper quality."...

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/New_Russian_submarine_launched_999.html.

Dozens in Russia imprisoned for social media likes, reposts

May 31, 2016

TVER, Russia (AP) — Anastasia Bubeyeva shows a screenshot on her computer of a picture of a toothpaste tube with the words: "Squeeze Russia out of yourself!" For sharing this picture on a social media site with his 12 friends, her husband was sentenced this month to more than two years in prison.

As the Kremlin claims unequivocal support among Russians for its policies both at home and abroad, a crackdown is underway against ordinary social media users who post things that run against the official narrative. Here the Kremlin's interests coincide with those of investigators, who are anxious to report high conviction rates for extremism. The Kremlin didn't immediately comment on the issue.

At least 54 people were sent to prison for hate speech last year, most of them for sharing and posting things online, which is almost five times as many as five years ago, according to the Moscow-based Sova group, which studies human rights, nationalism and xenophobia in Russia. The overall number of convictions for hate speech in Russia increased to 233 last year from 92 in 2010.

A 2002 Russian law defines extremism as activities that aim to undermine the nation's security or constitutional order, or glorify terrorism or racism, as well as calling for others to do so. The vagueness of the phrasing and the scope of offenses that fall under the extremism clause allow for the prosecution of a wide range of people, from those who set up an extremist cell or display Nazi symbols to anyone who writes something online that could be deemed a danger to the state. In the end, it's up to the court to decide whether a social media post poses a danger to the nation or not.

In February 2014, when Ukraine was in the middle of a pro-European revolution, President Vladimir Putin signed a bill tightening penalties for non-violent extremist crimes such as hate speech. In July of that year, three months after Russia had annexed the Crimean Peninsula, he signed a bill making calls "to destroy" Russia's territorial integrity a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison. The new amendment makes the denial of Russia's claims on Crimea an even greater offense if the statement is made in the press or online, even on a private social media account.

Many of the shares that led to the recent rash of convictions were of things critical of Russia's involvement in Ukraine. This was true of the articles and images shared by Bubeyeva's husband, a 40-year-old electrician from Tver, a sleepy provincial capital halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

"Andrei Bubeyev thinks that he was charged as an example so that other ordinary citizens would be discouraged from expressing their opinion," said his lawyer, Svetlana Sidorkina. Bubeyev spent a lot of time online, sharing links to various articles on his VKontakte page and engaging in political debates on local news websites, his wife says.

In spring 2015, he left town to work on a rural construction site. After investigators couldn't get through to him on the phone, they put him on a wanted list as an extremism suspect. When Bubeyev stopped by to visit his wife and young son at their country cottage, a SWAT team stormed in and arrested him.

His wife now lives alone with their 4-year-old son in a sparsely furnished apartment on the ground floor of a drab Soviet-era apartment block. After her husband was arrested, Anastasia Bubeyeva, 23, dropped out of medical school because she couldn't find affordable day care for her child, who still wears an eye patch for an injury he suffered when he bumped his head during the raid.

Several months after his arrest, Bubeyev pleaded guilty to inciting hatred toward Russians and was sentenced to a year in prison. His offense was sharing articles, photos and videos from Ukrainian nationalist groups, including those of the volunteer Azov battalion fighting Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Among them was an article about the graves of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine and a video describing Russia as a "fascist aggressor" and showing Russian tanks purportedly crossing into Ukraine.

Less than two weeks after the verdict, Bubeyev was charged again. This time, he was accused of calling for "acts of extremism" and "actions undermining Russia's territorial integrity." He had shared the picture of a toothpaste tube and also an article under the headline "Crimea is Ukraine" by a controversial blogger, who is in jail now, calling for military aggression against Russia.

"He was interested in politics, read the news, shared things, but he did it for himself. It was like collecting newspaper clippings," his wife said. "His page wasn't popular — he only had 12 friends. He couldn't have aimed to coerce anyone into anything."

The new charges were soon followed by a damning report on local television station Tverskoi Prospekt. The program showed an anonymous blogger complaining about social media users who voiced their support for Ukrainian troops and were "ready to back a coup in Russia and take up arms and kill people as the Nazis did." The television report claimed that the blogger's complaint had prompted the prosecution of the electrician.

On May 6, Bubeyev was convicted and sentenced to two years and three months in prison. Also this month, a court in the Caspian Sea city of Astrakhan sentenced a man to two years in prison for his social media posts urging Ukrainians to fight "Putin's occupying forces."

In December, a court in Siberia sentenced a man to five years in prison for "inciting hatred" toward residents of eastern Ukraine in his video posts. In October, a court in southern Russia sent a political activist to prison for two years for an unsanctioned picket and posts on social media criticizing Putin and calling for southern Russia to join Ukraine.

The articles, photos and videos that landed Bubeyev in prison were posted on his page on VKontakte, Russia's most popular social media network with 270 million accounts. VKontakte founder Pavel Durov sold the site and fled Russia in 2014, claiming that he had come under presser from the security services for VKontakte to disclose personal data of the users of a group linked to a protest movement in Ukraine. The company is now controlled by the media holding of Kremlin-friendly billionaire Alisher Usmanov.

Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the Sova group, says roughly half of the convictions of hate speech online are about posts on VKontakte, which he said might be because its administration might be easier for the Russian police to deal with than that of foreign-owned social media.

Bubeyev's defense claimed that the privacy settlings on his account made the articles he shared available only to him and his 12 friends. Sidorkina, his lawyer, said she has no explanation for how the security services found his posts unless they received the credentials to his account from VKontakte.

VKontakte declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press. Russia faced a surge of racially motivated attacks against Central Asian migrant workers in the 2000s, but the crime rates dropped drastically after dozens of neo-Nazis got lengthy prison sentences for extremism.

Rights activists and lawyers who have worked on extremism cases say the drop in violent hate crimes sent police and investigators scrambling to prosecute people for non-violent offenses to show a solid record of tackling extremism.

The Moscow-based Center for Economic and Political Reform said in a 23-page report on extremism law released this month that most convictions for this type of crime resulted in fines or a few days in custody, with the aim of boosting the crime statistics.

But as tensions with neighboring Ukraine heated up, courts across Russia began to hand out more and more prison sentences for hate speech, the report said. Many of the hate speech convictions do deal with dubious content, but the severity of the punishment doesn't seem to correspond to the level of public danger posed, said Verkhovsky of Sova.

"These cases are very arbitrary because there are lots more people out there who have done the same thing. Such enforcement of the law does not address or combat radical activities," he said. "No one knows where the red line is: It's like roulette."

Putin blasts West on first trip to EU country this year

May 27, 2016

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — On his first trip to a European Union country this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday sharply criticized western policy toward Moscow, describing a newly expanded U.S. missile defense system as a threat to his country's security — and vowing to retaliate.

Putin arrived in Athens on a two-day visit and emerged from talks with the Greek government to lash the United States and NATO allies, also accusing them of stifling trade and energy cooperation with Russia.

Earlier this month, the U.S. program was declared operational at a site in Romania, drawing an angry reaction from Russia. NATO says the system is purely defensive and a response to a growing capability of ballistic missiles globally.

"We keep hearing that it's not a threat against Russia, that it's not aimed at Russia," Putin said late Friday. "Of course it's a threat to us. It can easily be modified to have an aggressive capability," he said.

"And if yesterday some parts of Romania did not know what it means to be targets, we will now be forced to take certain actions which will guarantee our security," he said, but did not elaborate. Putin has made only a handful of visits to EU countries since sanctions were imposed on Moscow two years ago in response to the Ukraine crisis and Russia's annexation of Crimea following an internationally disputed referendum.

"The issue of Crimea is over forever, based on the will of the people who live there. Russia will never negotiate on this issue," Putin said. Athens is keen to maintain its traditionally close ties with post-Soviet Russia, despite its participation in EU sanctions against Moscow, and a gas pipeline project designed to limit Russia's regional energy dominance.

Russia is one of Greece's main trading partners, but business has been hit by the sanctions and a drop in commodity prices. Greece is also keen to reverse a slump in tourist arrivals from Russia last year, and attract interest from Russian companies in the planned privatization of rail and other transport services.

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, noted that Putin's visit comes just days after Athens reached a deal with eurozone bailout creditors to continue rescue loans, under a deal that expands power of a state privatization committee.

"Improving relations with Russia on multiple levels is a strategic choice," Tsipras said. "Of course ... when the disagreements exceed our powers, we can act a positive influence within the EU and NATO."

Putin traveled to Greece with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and top executives from state oil and gas companies. Amid heavy security at Athens Airport, air force F-16s buzzed overhead as part of a welcoming ceremony.

"This will be the first time Putin has visited an EU country in the past six months and Russia-EU relations will be definitely on the agenda," said Alexander Kokcharov of the U.S.-based IHS Country Risk group.

"Putin is likely to offer investment projects in Greece, most likely in energy and transport sectors. However, we do not expect that Greece would go against the EU consensus." On Saturday, Putin will visit the autonomous Orthodox Christian monastic community of Mount Athos, joined by the head of Russia's Othodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

Some 2,500 police were providing security for Putin's visit in Athens, and much of the city center was blocked to motorists and public transport. Outside Parliament, a small group of demonstrators from a Greek gay and lesbian rights association gathered in protest against Putin's visit, chanting "Greece, Russia, Homophobia."

Protester Savvas Kleanthous said violence against gays in Russia goes largely unpunished "We're here to support the Russian gay community," he said. "We haven't forgotten them."

Associated Press writers Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow, Alina Heineke in New York, and Costas Kantouris in Mount Athos contributed to this report.

NATO chief says Warsaw summit comes at 'critical time'

May 31, 2016

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A NATO summit set for Warsaw in July comes at a "critical time" as the alliance deals with Russian assertiveness and the threat of terrorism amid other challenges, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday.

Stoltenberg was speaking following talks with Poland's Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, who said that four battalions are to be stationed in Poland and in the three Baltic states, giving the region a greater sense of security. A battalion typically has between 300 and 800 troops.

They were discussing preparations for the July 8-9 summit, which is to decide how many additional NATO troops will be deployed on the eastern flank, and where exactly. Concerned over Russia's actions, Poland has been seeking a significant, permanent NATO presence on its territory and the region.

Stoltenberg said the summit comes amid a "more assertive Russia, intimidating its neighbors, and changing borders by force," violence in North Africa and the Middle east and terrorism, cyberattacks and ballistic missile proliferation.

He said NATO is responding by "implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War." In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said Russia will take measures in response to an increased NATO military presence close to its borders, but did not give details.

"We have to ensure the security of our state," Russia's TASS agency reported Meshkov as saying. NATO's enhanced presence already includes a significant increase in the number of troops ready for quick reaction, speeding up decision-making and holding a greater number of major international military exercises, like Anaconda-16, which will involve some 30,000 troops in Poland in June.

Australia approved for $302 million SM-2 missile deal

by Richard Tomkins
Washington (UPI)
May 31, 2016

Australia has received State Department approval for acquisition of as many as 80 SM-2 missiles through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program.

The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages the program, said the possible deal carries a total value of $302 million and would include vertical launch canisters for the SM-2 Block IIIB missiles, contractor engineering, technical and logistics support services.

"It is vital to U.S. national interests that Australia develops and maintains a strong and ready self-defense capability," the agency said in its notification to Congress. "This sale is consistent with U.S. regional objectives."

Australia plans to use the missiles for anti-air warfare test firings during Combat Systems Ship Qualification Trials for the Royal Australian Navy's three new Air Warfare Destroyers now under construction.

The SM-2 Block IIIB missiles, combined with the destroyers' Aegis combat systems, will provide enhanced area defense capabilities over critical Southeast Asian air and sea lines of communication.

The principal contractors would be Raytheon and BAE Systems.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Australia_approved_for_302_million_SM-2_missile_deal_999.html.