Schumer points to White House in leak of Iran vote position

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the lone Senate Democrat to publicly come out against the Iran deal, suggested Tuesday that the White House deliberately leaked his decision to oppose the agreement Thursday night before he had a chance to explain his "no" vote to colleagues.
"I told the president the day before and I don't think he leaked it, but maybe somebody in the White House did, maybe somebody else did. I'm not pointing fingers," Schumer told reporters after a speech at New York University on Tuesday.
Congress will hold a vote on the Iran deal in September. While the White House is confident that they have enough votes to sustain an expected presidential veto should Congress reject the deal, they are counting every body.
Schumer raised the issue of a possible White House leak himself Tuesday in response to a question about the timing of his lengthy post on Medium that outlined his concerns about the deal. The leak of his decision came out in the middle of the Republican presidential debate last Thursday night, presumably when it would receive less attention, and the Medium piece appeared soon after.
The New York Democrat said he planned to publish the piece the day after the GOP debate, but his hand was forced by the leak.
Even though he was the one to aim the blame at the White House, Schumer appeared to downplay the episode Tuesday, saying, "Things always leak in Washington. So I don't begrudge anybody for doing it."
And he also minimized the split with the President. "The President and I had a very serious discussion about it," he said. "We like each other, respect each other, work together on 95% of the issues."
The President's allies, though, are taking the breach seriously. David Plouffe, a former senior official in the Obama White House, continued the Democrat-on-Democrat war against Schumer late on Monday when he tweeted out a link to a story quoting Schumer urging the administration to try to negotiate a better deal.
"Mitch McConnell will have a field day with this kind of naïveté. We will miss Harry Reid," Plouffe tweeted.
The current Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, announced his retirement in March and Schumer quickly locked up commitments from fellow Democrats to ascend to his post in January 2017.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, however, denied the White House had any part in the leak at a press briefing Friday.
An administration source also told CNN on Tuesday that they learned about Schumer's opposition from sources on Capitol Hill before the senator informed them, implying several people knew of his position and raising the specter that others had leaked the information.

Human Rights activist released today.

BEIRUT — Syrian authorities on Monday released an award-winning human rights activist after more than three years in jail in a rare goodwill gesture by President Bashar Assad's government amid intense diplomatic maneuvering to end the country's civil war.
The release of Mazen Darwish was welcomed by activists as a positive development amid Syria's daily carnage. An outspoken critic of the government's crackdown on protests that erupted against Assad's rule in March 2011, he became a symbol of the battle for human rights in Syria following his detention less than a year later.
Amnesty International said Darwish should never have been jailed in the first place and called on the government to halt its campaign targeting those who dare speak about the "appalling human rights violations" in Syria.
Darwish was the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression when he was arrested in February 2012 in a Damascus security raid, along with two of his colleagues, Hani al-Zitani and Hussein Gharir. The organization confirmed his release on Monday but said he is still standing trial and is scheduled to attend a court hearing on Aug. 30. His two colleagues were released last month.
"After an arbitrary arrest that lasted three years, five months and 23 days, Mazen Darwish has been released from prison today," the group said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from the government, which continues to hold thousands of political prisoners, according to human rights groups.
The Syria that Darwish steps into when he leaves prison is drastically different than the one he knew more than three years ago. What began as an Arab Spring-style uprising against Assad's rule became a full-blown civil war and the country has sunk into chaos.
The conflict, now in its fifth year, has killed at least 250,000 people, wounded more than a million and displaced half the population, according to the United Nations. The Islamic State group, which emerged as an al-Qaida splinter group and is now its main rival, has seized about a third of both Syria and Iraq.
Darwish's release comes amid stepped-up diplomatic activity aimed at finding a political way out of the conflict.
Assad's main backers, Russia and Iran, are trying to set the stage — following the Iran nuclear deal — for a political transition in Syria. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia also appear to be more inclined to engage with the Iranian-backed government of Assad on ways to end the war. Although he still clings to power and is unlikely to step aside, Assad's enormous territorial losses may also be pushing him to explore diplomatic options to resolve the crisis.
It was not clear if Darwish's release was directly related to the diplomatic activity. He has been standing trial on charges of "promoting terrorist acts," and his organization said his release followed an amnesty issued last month by Assad that supposedly covered his case. But he still has to appear in court end of the month.

"Darwish and his colleagues should never have been in jail in the first place. His release today is long overdue, but comes as a welcome relief after three and half years of anguish and uncertainty," said Said Boumedouha, chief of Amnesty's Mideast and North Africa program.

In October 2014, Indian-born author Salman Rushdie shared the 2014 PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage Award with Darwish. According to the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, Darwish is also the winner of the Reporters Without Borders award in 2013.

http://www.political.jp/walls/#light

Powerful Typhoon Soudelor slams into Taiwan

Taiwan is bracing for a powerful storm that's barreling toward it across the Pacific.
Typhoon Soudelor is expected to slam into Taiwan's eastern coast at around 8 a.m. local time Saturday, bringing fierce winds and torrential rain. Earlier this week, Soudelor became the strongest storm on the planet so far this year, with peak winds at 180 mph (290 kph), according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
The storm has lost some of its earlier force, but its maximum sustained winds when it makes landfall are still forecast to be around 125 mph (200 kph), the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane.
Authorities in Taiwan are preparing for Soudelor, deploying more than 35,000 military personnel to help relocate residents of vulnerable areas.

London Tube strike causes major disruption

Millions of Londoners have been forced to walk, cycle or take packed buses to and from work as Underground staff staged their second strike in a month.
London Underground staff walked out on Wednesday evening and will not return until Friday morning, causing a shutdown of the world's oldest subway network and severely disrupting transport in the capital.
Four trade unions are locked in a months-long dispute with management over London Mayor Boris Johnson's plans to run a 24-hour Tube service on Fridays and Saturdays from September 12.
An extra 250 buses, additional rental bikes and increased river boat services were laid on to help ease the disruption, while overground trains were operating as normal.
But the Tube handles four million journeys every day, meaning many trains and buses were overcrowded on Thursday.
It is the second time the service has shut down in a month, after a similar strike on July 8 and 9 caused the first network-wide closure for 13 years.

Embrace divorcees, pope asks church

"These people are not excommunicated ... And they absolutely must not be treated as such. They are still part of the church,"Pope Francis said at his weekly general audience at the Vatican. Speaking ahead of a highly anticipated global meeting on family life in October, he said "awareness that a brotherly and attentive welcome ... is needed towards those who ... have established a new relationship after the failure of a marriage, has greatly increased".
The church does not recognise divorce but divorcees can still take communion unless they remarry, which is considered to be adultery.

"No closed doors! Everyone can participate some way or another in the life of the church," Francis said, in a clear call for Catholic bishops and priests to treat those in so-called "irregular situations" with greater compassion.
The issue of remarried divorcees is likely to be addressed at the upcoming synod on the family that Francis hopes will help reconcile Catholic thinking with the realities of believers' lives in the 21st century.

A first synod last year saw riled conservative bishops move to block the approval of language heralding an unprecedented opening on the treatment of divorced Catholics, who are unable to take communion.
The Argentine pontiff said the church risked alienating children by treating their parents as outcasts. "If we look at these new relationships through the eyes of young children . we see even greater the urgency of developing in our communities a real welcome towards those who are living such situations," he said.

Children, he said, "are the ones who suffer the most" from broken families.
It would be difficult to call on parents "to do everything to educate their children according to Christian values ... if we keep them at a distance from community life, as if they were excommunicated," he explained.

AFP.

Putin still wants the Arctic regions.

Russia, the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway have all been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to hold up to a quarter of the planet’s undiscovered oil and gas. Rivalry for resources has intensified as shrinking polar ice is opening up new exploration opportunities
Russia has submitted a bid to the UN claiming vast territories in the Arctic.
The country’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia has renewed its efforts to claiming 1.2m sq km (over 463,000 sq miles) of sea shelf extending more than 350 nautical miles (about 650km) from the shore.
Earlier this year, Russia's military conducted exercises in the Arctic that involved 38,000 servicemen, more than 50 surface ships and submarines and 110 aircraft.

Vladimir Chuprov, campaigner for Greenpeace Russia, said:

“The melting of the Arctic ice is uncovering a new and vulnerable sea, but countries like Russia and Norway want to turn it into the next Saudi Arabia. Unless we act together, this region could be dotted with oil wells and fishing fleets within our lifetimes.”

Let's talk about Caspar David Friedrich (1774 – 1840)

Friedrich's paintings commonly employed the Rückenfigur—a person seen from behind, contemplating the view. The viewer is encouraged to place himself in the position of the Rückenfigur, by which means he experiences the sublime potential of nature, understanding that the scene is as perceived and idealised by a human.Friedrich created the notion of a landscape full of romantic feeling—die romantische Stimmungslandschaft.
His art details a wide range of geographical features, such as rock coasts, forests, and mountain scenes. He often used the landscape to express religious themes. During his time, most of the best-known paintings were viewed as expressions of a religious mysticism.

He was one of the first artists to portray winter landscapes in which the land is rendered as stark and dead. Friedrich's winter scenes are solemn and still—according to the art historian Hermann Beenken, Friedrich painted winter scenes in which "no man has yet set his foot. The theme of nearly all the older winter pictures had been less winter itself than life in winter. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was thought impossible to leave out such motifs as the crowd of skaters, the wanderer... It was Friedrich who first felt the wholly detached and distinctive features of a natural life. Instead of many tones, he sought the one; and so, in his landscape, he subordinated the composite chord into one single basic note".

Zimbabwe calls for dentist to be extradited over Cecil the lion.

Zimbabwe government officials are calling for the extradition of the American dentist who has admitted to shooting Cecil the lion earlier this month.
Oppah Muchinguri, the African nation's environment minister, said that Zimbabwe has already started extradition procedures against Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer. She said that the two local guides who helped Palmer hunt Cecil have already appeared in front of local courts.
"Unfortunately it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he had already absconded to his country of origin," Ms. Muchinguri said. "We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he be made accountable."

MH370 search: Reunion debris to be tested in France

Saint-Denis, Reunion Island (CNN) Boeing investigators are confident that debris found on a remote island in the Indian Ocean comes from a 777 aircraft, according to a source close to the investigation.
An international team of aviation experts is trying to determine if that airplane part comes from Malaysia Airlines flight 370, a Boeing 777 that disappeared in March 2014 with 239 people on board.
A match might help solve the mystery of what happened to that airplane, since no other 777s in the world are unaccounted for, according to the Aviation Safety Network, an online database of flight incidents.

Who was Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm, born as Erich Seligman Fromm, was one of the world’s leading psychoanalysts. He was also attributed as a social behaviorist, a philosopher and a Marxist. He was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany on March 23, 1900 to orthodox Jewish parents. The single child of a wine merchant, Fromm was reportedly a somewhat intolerable, phobic child. The fact that his mother was afflicted with depression and his father was characteristically a temperamental man did not really create an ideal childhood situation for him. Although he was given a conservative (and pluralistic) upbringing and education, Fromm eventually turned out to be a rebel, forsaking his religion to become an atheist. He completely debunked religion as the basis of strife, discord and inequality. Religion spewed hatred and since he belonged to an insecure era caught in between the First World War and the coming Second World War, he felt it best to give up religion in favor of more humanitarian and realistic philosophies.

Sunken ‘Russian sub’ in 1916, located off Swedish coast.

A submarine wreck found off Sweden is probably a Russian vessel from World War One, the Swedish military says.
There had been speculation that the remains were much more recent - those of a suspected Russian vessel, spotted near Stockholm last year.
The Swedish Armed Forces examined footage filmed by divers from the Ocean X team who found the remains.
In a statement (in Swedish) the military said the wreckage was probably a Russian submarine that sank in 1916.
The company said the vessel was about 20m (66ft) long and 3.5m wide and was "completely intact", with its hatches closed.
Last October saw Swedish naval vessels and military planes carrying out an extensive search operation after sightings of what was alleged to be a present-day Russian submarine.
The operation was called off after one week and Russia's defence ministry always denied any of its ships were involved.
Russia's annexation of the Crimea peninsula and Moscow's continuing support for separatist rebels in Ukraine have fuelled suspicion about its intentions towards other neighbouring states, notably in the Baltic.

Nearly 1 billion phones can be hacked with 1 text

A mobile security researcher has uncovered a flaw that leaves as many as 95% of Android devices—that’s 950 million gadgets—exposed to attack. The computer bug, nicknamed “Stagefright” after a vulnerable media library in the operating system’s open source code, may be one of the worst Android security holes discovered to date. It affects Android versions 2.2 and on.
Should a hacker learn someone’s cell phone number, all it takes is for that person to send a malware-laced Stagefright multimedia message to an affected phone in order to steal its data and photos or to hijack its microphone and camera, among other nefarious actions. Worse yet, a user might have no idea that his or her device has been compromised.
Joshua Drake, vice president of research and exploitation at the mobile security firm Zimperium zLabs, says an attacker can delete the message before a victim has any idea.

“This is Heartbleed for mobile,” said Chris Wysopal, chief tech and information security officer at the application security firm Veracode. These vulnerabilities “are exceedingly rare and pose a serious security issue for users since they can be impacted without having clicked on a link, opened a file or opened an SMS.”

Drake plans to present his research at the Black Hat and Def Con security conferences in Las Vegas next month.

why can't we just get along?

Turkish fighter jets have entered Syrian airspace and launched a fresh attack on Islamic State targets - less than 24 hours after their first airborne attack on the militants.
More than 250 suspected terrorists were rounded up across the country earlier in the day.
Three F-16 jets were involved in the early morning strike which used laser-guided bombs launched from inside Turkish territory. 

The attack was the first time Turkish planes have attacked the group.
Two IS headquarters and an "assembly point" were targeted near the village of Havar - but Syrian airspace was not violated, said a government official.
Tensions have increased over the past few days after IS militants fired at a Turkish border position in Kilis on Thursday, killing a soldier and wounding two others.
Turkish tanks returned fire, reportedly killing one militant.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey's strikes were the "first step" and that action against IS and Kurdish militant groups would continue.

President Obama starts two-day Kenya visit

President Obama's Air Force One touched down at Nairobi's international airport shortly before 20:10 local time ( 17:10 GMT). He was greeted by President Kenyatta with a handshake and embrace. Ahead of Mr Obama's arrival, the Kenyan capital was in lockdown with many streets closed and people opting to stay at home. The US president will hold talks on trade and investment, and also security and counter-terrorism. Mr Obama will also become the first US leader to address the African Union when he travels on to Ethiopia on Sunday.

"I'll be the first US president to not only visit Kenya and Ethiopia, but also to address the continent as a whole, building off the African summit that we did here which was historic and has, I think, deepened the kinds of already strong relationships that we have across the continent." President Barack Obama.

Financial Times sold to Japanese media.

John Fallon, Pearson’s chief executive, said: “Pearson has been a proud proprietor of the Financial Times for nearly 60 years. But we’ve reached an inflection point in media, driven by the explosive growth of mobile and social. In this new environment, the best way to ensure the FT’s journalistic and commercial success is for it to be part of a global, digital news company.

“Pearson will now be 100% focused on our global education strategy. The world of education is changing profoundly and we see huge opportunity to grow our business through increasing access to high quality education globally.

“Nikkei has a long and distinguished track record of quality, impartiality and reliability in its journalism and global viewpoint. The board and I are confident that the Financial Times will continue to flourish under Nikkei’s ownership”.

One journalist on the paper said: “It is safe to say we are very concerned about this development. It’s been announced very quickly. There was talk of both potential buyers [Axel Springer and Nikkei] but there wasn’t time enough to form an opinion.” Barber is due to address staff on the paper at 4pm.

Nikkei is one of the largest media companies in Japan, spanning newspapers, broadcasting, magazines and digital media. The group includes flagship newspaper Nikkei, which has 3 million subscribers, English language business title Nikkei Asian Review, TV Tokyo and finance and business news channel, Nikkei CBNC.

Conflict

When the government reduces people to objects of propaganda in order to sell the idea of war, then, maybe it has gone too far. 
On July 22nd, 2003, U.S. Army Private Jessica Lynch, a prisoner-of-war who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital, received a hero’s welcome when she returned to her hometown of Palestine, West Virginia. The story of the 19-year-old supply clerk, who had been captured by Iraqi forces in March 2003, gripped America and Lynch became an overnight celebrity. Various reports emerged about Lynch’s experience, with some news accounts indicating that even after Lynch was wounded during the ambush she fought back against her captors. However, Lynch later stated that she had been knocked unconscious after her vehicle crashed and couldn’t remember the details of what had happened to her. She also stated that she had not been mistreated by the staff at the Iraqi hospital and they put up no resistance to her rescue. Critics–and Lynch herself–charged the U.S. government with embellishing her story to boost patriotism and help promote the Iraq war.
In April 2007, Lynch testified before Congress that she had falsely been portrayed as a “little girl Rambo” and the U.S. military had hyped her story for propaganda reasons. According to Lynch: “I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary.” She added: “The truth of war is not always easy to hear but is always more heroic than the hype.”

U.S., Cuba re-establish diplomatic relations, reopen embassies

Havana, Cuba (CNN) One bitter holdover of the Cold War slipped into the history books at 12:01 a.m. Monday, when the United States and Cuba re-established diplomatic relations. For the first time since severing ties in 1961, they reopened embassies in each other's capitals.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla traveled to the Cuban Embassy in Washington to raise his country's flag, an event that Cuban government officials said would be broadcast live on the island's state-run TV.

A Cuban delegation of diplomats, artists and veterans of the revolution commemorated the breakthrough with about 500 guests and more than likely down a few celebratory mojitos and shots of Havana Club rum.

U.S. diplomats in Havana have readied everything from new business cards to the embassy sign. But the festivities and flag-raising will have to wait for Secretary of State John Kerry's visit -- the highest-level trip by a U.S. official to Cuba since the 1959 revolution -- for the embassy reopening ceremony in August.

The Philippines

The country's name originated with Ruy López de Villalobos naming both the islands of Samar and Leyte, Las Islas Felipinas after King Philip II of Spain during his failed expedition in 1543. The archipelago was known under various names such as Spanish East Indies, New Castille (Nueva Castilla), Western Islands (Islas del Poniente), the St. Lazarus Islands (Islas de San Lázaro) and others. Ultimately, Filipinas came to refer to the entire archipelago. 

The Philippines consists of 7,107 islands, of which only 2,000 are inhabited. Only about 500 of the islands are larger than a square kilometer and 2,500 of them are not even named. There are over 30 volcanoes in the Philippines, 10 of which are classified as being active. Filipino, is the national language of the Philippines, although many other regional dialects are also spoken; Tagalog is one of the most widely used. English is commonly spoken and is often used in business transactions.

That little thing to make a difference.

In 1883 or 1884 (accounts differ), Hermman Einstein brought home a compass and give it to his four or five years old son, Albert. Young Albert Einstein observed that the compass needle always pointed in the same direction and moved without anything touching it. He later stated it was at that moment he realized "something deeply hidden had to lie behind things".

This haunted Einstein for many years and has been noted as the beginning of his fascination with science. and when describing the achievements of Einstein, it is possible to say, simply, that he revolutionized physics.

Lincoln the only american president with a patent.

Lincoln had a life-long interest in mechanics and inventions. “Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improveshis workmanship,” he noted in an 1858 lecture on inventions. 

Lincoln, who steered flatboats down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in his youth, developed an idea for a device that would help lift boats over sandbars using inflatable bellows attached to the hull. Lincoln and mechanic Walter Davis developed a scale model that Lincoln used to secure Patent 6469 in 1849.  

According to William Herndon, Lincoln foresaw the patent leading to a “revolution” in steamboat navigation. However, the device was impractical and, said Herndon, “was never applied to any vessel, so far as I ever learned, and the threatened revolution in steamboat architecture and navigation never came to pass.”

http://www.google.com/patents/US6469