Thursday, May 9th, 2019
SEBIN agents detain Juan Guaidó’s deputy Edgar Zambrano, the Vice President of the opposition-held National Assembly, and are reported to have taken him to El Helicoide prison. He is the most high profile opposition politician arrested since the presidential crisis began in January. (Deutsche Welle)
House Judiciary Committee holds Barr in contempt of Congress The House Judiciary Committee voted on Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report and underlying evidence. The committee requested Barr send over an unredacted version of Mueller’s report by Monday, but that deadline came and went without a delivery. Barr was also supposed to testify before the committee last week, but bowed out. Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Monday that Congress has “no choice but to initiate contempt proceedings.” Source: ABC News
Venezuelan National Assembly vice president detained by Maduro forces The Venezuelan government’s secret police have “kidnapped” National Assembly Vice President Edgar Zambrano, opposition leader Juan Guaidó said Wednesday. Ever since an uprising against him failed last week, Venezuelan President Nicólas Maduro has been targeting opposition politicians, with at least 10 accused of treason, civil rebellion, and conspiracy. Intelligence agents found Zambrano inside his car, and after he refused to get out, they transported the vehicle to the notorious political prison El Helicoide, The Guardian reports. Guaidó suggested Zambrano was detained in the hopes that this would shatter the opposition-led National Assembly. The U.S. State Department called Zambrano’s detention “illegal and inexcusable,” and said “if he is not freed immediately, there will be consequences.” Source: The Guardian
Facebook co-founder calls for antitrust measures to break up the company Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who left Facebook in 2007, wrote an op-ed on Thursday expressing alarm over CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “unchecked power,” and calling for government intervention to break up the company. Hughes argues that Facebook must be separated into multiple companies, with WhatsApp and Instagram becoming separate entities again. Zuckerberg has a “staggering” amount of influence that is both “unprecedented and un-American,” wrote Hughes, saying his “focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.” Hughes argues that users have no meaningful alternative even if they want to leave Facebook in the wake of the company’s privacy scandals. Zuckerberg himself has backed more government regulation of Facebook, but Hughes says the government must go further. Source: The New York Times
Wednesday, May 8th, 2019
Syrian government forces capture the town of Kafr Nabudah in an ongoing offensive, marking the first major territorial change between government and rebel forces since the start of the demilitarization agreement last year. (Miami Herald)
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, name their son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. (CBS News)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sends letters to the P5+1 leaders of the United Kingdom, China, Russia, Germany, France and the European Unionannouncing the country’s partial withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement. Furthermore, Iran announces that it will stop exporting uranium and heavy water from its nuclear program. (CBS News)
Taiwan passes a law under which Chinese spies would be subject to life imprisonment or even the death penalty. (Mainichi)
President Donald Trump notifies the United States Congress that he will designate Brazil as a Major non-NATO ally in light of recent commitments to increase defense cooperation between both countries. (White House)
Asia Bibi, a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy after spending eight years on death row, has left Pakistan for Canada to be reunited with her daughters. (ABC News)
A man in Los Angeles is arrested after authorities seize more than 1,000 weapons during an ATF raid in his Bel Air mansion. (Fox News)
Voters in South Africa go to the polls to elect new members of the National Assembly and provincial legislatures. (The New York Times)
Tuesday, May 7th, 2019
The Libyan National Army shoots down a pro-GNA Mirage F1 fighter jet over Tripoli, capturing its pilot, claimed to be Portuguese, though the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs couldn’t confirm his identity. Pictures released by the LNA’s media office show the wounded pilot flanked by LNA officials. (The Telegraph)
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who originally expected to be in Berlin today, makes an emergency trip to Iraq amid escalating tensions with Iran. Earlier this week, the U.S. deployed a bomber task force and the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group to the region. In today’s meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and President Barham Salih, Pompeo reaffirmed the longstanding U.S. policy to ensure nobody interferes in their country. (BBC)
Michael Behenna, an American soldier convicted of killing an Iraqi prisoner in 2008, is pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump and invited to dinner. (NPR)
At least seven people are killed and another 20 injured in a shooting at Pavón Prison near Guatemala City. The injured have been taken to hospital. Security forces have regained control of the facility. (BBC)
The European Union and leading member states such as Belgium, France and Germany, criticize the Turkish government’s decision to re-run Istanbul’s mayoral election, which was won by underdog Ekrem İmamoğlu of the opposition multi-party Nation Alliance. (BBC)
Myanmar President Win Myint pardons two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been imprisoned at Insein Prison for more than 500 days after being charged with possession of classified documents under the Official Secrets Act. The pair were arrested in December 2017 after they investigated the Inn Din massacre. (Reuters)
Treasury: China tariffs will jump to 25 percent on Friday After President Trump tweeted Sunday that he would increase tariffs on China, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed the revelation in a Monday afternoon announcement. The U.S. will raise tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese goods, Lighthizer said, citing an “erosion of commitments by China.” Still, trade negotiations with China will continue on Thursday and Friday, Lighthizer said. The revelation comes as trade negotiations seemed to be going “very well” between the U.S. and China, as Trump put it two days ago. But Lighthizer pivoted and said China was “retreating from commitments that have already been made” in those negotiations, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin doubling down and saying China was trying to “renegotiate” already agreed-upon terms. Source: CNN
Monday, May 6th, 2019
After a narrow victory of Turkey’s main opposition party CHP against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP in Istanbul’s mayoral election last month, Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council annulled the results and ordered a rerun of the election for the mayor of Istanbul. (The New York Times)
Laurentino Cortizo of the center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party defeats Rómulo Roux of the center-right Democratic Change party in a narrow election to become the next president of Panama. Cortizo receives 33% of the vote to Roux’s 31%, marking the return of the Democratic Revolutionary Party after 10 years out of the presidency. (BBC)
The Attorney General and the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) present a new case of corruption involving the current Economy Minister Acisclo Valladares Urruela, the presidential candidate Estuardo Galdámez of the ruling party National Convergence Front and seven deputies. They also request the revocation of the immunity of these politicians to proceed with their arrest. Galdámez is the sixth presidential candidate who has a process for possible acts of corruption. (elPeriódico de Guatemala)
U.S. President Trump awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian awards in the United States, to Tiger Woods for his accomplishments in professional golf and charitable work. (CBS Sports)
The Syrian Arab Army launches a ground offensive against HTS and NFL-held areas in northern Hama and southern Idlib, after six days of intensive airstrikes on the region. (Reuters)
A fuel tanker lorry has overturned and exploded near the airport in Niamey, Niger, killing at least 58 people. (BBC)
Chinese stocks are down, falling more than 5 percent as of midday, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to raise tariffs against Chinese-made goods on Sunday. The current negotiations for a new deal between the two countries, originally planned for Wednesday, are now in question. U.S. stock futures fell sharply as well. (BBC)
Michael Cohen reports to prison for 3-year sentence Michael Cohen reported to the minimum-security Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, on Monday to begin serving his three-year prison term for violating campaign finance laws and lying to Congress, both done to protect President Trump, for whom Cohen used to work. Cohen, 53, will spend three years without his family or freedom, but it could be worse. Forbes has called Otisville one of “America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons.” Its amenities include tennis courts, horseshoes, and bocce ball. Cohen will be assigned a job, and sleep in a bunk-bed-lined hall. Fellow inmates in the white-collar prison will include Jersey Shore star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland. Source: The Associated Press
Study: 1 million species threatened with extinction More than a million species of plants and animals are in danger of extinction, according to a United Nations report released Monday. The study by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services concluded that the threat is due to humans, with species loss now occurring tens to hundreds of times faster than it has in the past. “Humanity unwittingly is attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity’s own future,” said George Mason University biologist Thomas Lovejoy, a biodiversity expert who was not part of the research team. A key reason for the decline is loss of habitat. The report found that more than half a million species on land “have insufficient habitat for long-term survival” and could disappear within decades without habitat restoration. Source: The Associated Press, IPBES
Sunday, May 5th, 2019
Hamas and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip fire rockets at Israel, killing two Israeli civilians in Ashkelon and one in Ashdod. Retaliatory Israeli strikes on Gaza kill at least 23 Palestinians, including a senior Hamas commander. (CNN) (Haartez)
Taliban militants kill 13 and injure 55 people in an attack in Puli Khumri, Afghanistan, using guns and suicide vests. (BBC)
The United States deploys a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East to respond to threats from Iran. A U.S. official told CNN, “… the threats were against both US maritime and land-based forces in the region.” (CNN)
At least 41 passengers are killed after Sukhoi Superjet 100 (flight SU1492), which suffered an inflight fire, is engulfed by fire after an emergency crash landing at Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow, Russia. A five-person crew and 78 passengers were on board. (Aviation 24) (BBC)
The President of the National Assembly of Venezuela Juan Guaidó tells the BBC he is considering formally requesting the United States to launch a military intervention to topple President Nicolás Maduro. Guaidó led a failed military putsch against Maduro last month. (BBC)
Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah announces, via a television broadcast, that he has extended the moratorium on capital punishment for gay sex convictions. No executions have been carried out in Brunei since 1957. There has been overwhelming international backlash against a number of the changes affected by the stricter interpretation of Islamic law published on 3 April 2019. The Sultan also said Brunei will ratify the United Nations Convention against Torture. (BBC)
Saturday, May 4th, 2019
An attack on forces loyal to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in Sabha, Libya, kills at least nine people. ISIL claims responsibility. (AFP via The Times of India)
North Korea fires several short-range projectiles from the east coast city of Wonsan. (Reuters/AP via ABC Australia)
The Israeli Air Force carries out dozens of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in response to a barrage of rockets fired by Hamas militants. The Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency’s media office in Gaza was among those hit by Israeli missiles, prompting outrage from Turkish officials. (Deutsche Welle)
Four Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack on their base in Iraq by Kurdish forces. Twenty PKK members were also killed in the attack. (Reuters)
Vajiralongkorn, King of Thailand since 2016, is officially crowned sovereign. His wife Suthida Tidjai, who he had married only three days prior, is declared Queen consort. (Washington Post)
Interstellar Technologies successfully launches unmanned rocket MOMO-3 from its launch facility in Taiki, Hokkaido, becoming the first commercially developed Japanese rocket to reach the Kármán line. (Deutsche Welle)
In horse racing, Country House wins the 145th Kentucky Derby after Maximum Security is disqualified. The latter horse is the first Kentucky Derby winner ever to have been disqualified for interference. (CBS Sports)
Friday, May 3rd, 2019
Sinclair Broadcast Group buys Fox Sports Networks from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion. Disney was ordered by the U.S. Justice Department to sell FSN as part of its purchase of 21st Century Fox last year due to its ownership of ESPN Inc. (The New York Times)
Documents filed in a United States bankruptcy court indicate that the bankrupt utility company Pacific Gas & Electric has not been able to reach a settlement with its creditors over billions of dollars it owes under power purchase contracts. PG&E wants the issue settled by the bankruptcy court rather than by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (Reuters)
Alton, Illinois, builds a barrier wall as the Mississippi River rises to levels not seen since the historic 1993 floods. (Chicago Tribune)
The Mississippi River rises to its highest level since the 1993 floods at the Quad Cities in Illinois and Iowa. (Chicago Tribune)
Flooding from Michigan to the south damages homes and sends the Mississippi River to a 157-year high in Davenport, Iowa. (Weather Channel)
The California Senate passes a bill that would keep Donald Trump out of the 2020 presidential primaries until he releases his tax returns. (Associated Press)
The Portland Trail Blazers defeat the Denver Nuggets 140-137 in quadruple overtime, making the game the first quadruple overtime game in the playoffs since 1953. (The Guardian)
The End Monday
Zulu Kilo 