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North State Journal for Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Nation & WORLD
week in images
ANDREW RINGUETTE | reuters
STRINGER | reuters
A rider rides a motorcycle in the air during a competition at Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China.
Trump says concerns about Iran driving Israel, Arab states closer Trump takes aim at Iran support for “terrorists and militias” and pays historic visit to Judaism’s Western Wall
2 Tel Aviv 3 Jerusalem 4 Bethlehem
By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland Reuters ERUSALEM — President Donald Trump said on Monday that J shared concern about Iran was
MANCHESTER from page A1 ain for 12 years. Prime Minister Theresa May called it an act of “sickening cowardice” targeting “defenseless children and young people.” ISIS, now being driven from territories in Syria and Iraq by Western-backed armed forces, claimed responsibility for what it called a revenge attack against “Crusaders,” but there appeared to be contradictions in its account of the operation. It suggested explosive devices were placed “in the midst of the gatherings of the Crusaders.” “What comes next will be more severe on the worshippers of the cross,” the posting said. It did not name the bomber, which it usually does in attacks it has ordered, and appeared also to contradict a posting on another Islamic State account, Amaq, which
Motorist who ran amok in Times Square says he tried ‘to get help’ New York The U.S. Navy veteran charged with killing a young woman and injuring 20 others by speeding down a crowded Times Square sidewalk in his car said in published remarks on Saturday that he had sought psychiatric care beforehand, to no avail. “I was trying to get help,” Richard Rojas, 26, was quoted as telling the New York Post in a tearful jailhouse interview two days after the carnage in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. “I wanted to fix my life. I wanted to get a job. Get a girlfriend.”
William Nylander and goalkeeper Henrik Lundqvist of Sweden celebrate the 2017 IIHF World Championship victory.
driving Israel and many Arab states closer and demanded that Tehran immediately cease military and financial backing of “terrorists and militias.” In stressing threats from Iran, Trump echoed a theme laid out during weekend meetings in Saudi Arabia with Muslim leaders from around the world, many wary of the Islamic Republic’s growing regional influence and financial muscle. Trump has vowed to do whatever necessary to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, dubbing a peace accord “the ultimate deal.” But ahead of his Holy Land visit, he gave little indication of how he could revive talks that collapsed in 2014. Trump met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Tuesday and the Abbas said he hoped the meeting could be “useful and fruitful ... (and) will bring results.” But in the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians rallied against Trump and burned his picture and an effigy of him. Trump received a warm welcome in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from Arab leaders, especially over his tough line on Tehran, which many Sunni Muslim Arab states regard as seeking regional control. In Jerusalem, in public remarks after talks with Israeli leaders on the first day of his two-day visit, Trump again focused on Iran, pledging he would never let Tehran acquire nuclear arms. “What’s happened with Iran has brought many of the parts of the Middle East toward Israel,” Trump said at a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. In his comments to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump mentioned a growing Iranian influence in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where it either backs Shi’ite fighters or has sent its own forces.
the BRIEF
1 Riyadh
Trump’s first visit to Middle East May 20-21 1
Rayidh
May 22-23 2
Tel Aviv
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Jerusalem
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Bethlehem SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
Trump said there were opportunities for cooperation across the Middle East: “That includes advancing prosperity, defeating the evils of terrorism and facing the threat of an Iranian regime that is threatening the region and causing so much violence and suffering,” he said. He also welcomed what he said was Netanyahu’s commitment to pursuing peace and renewed his pledge to achieve a deal. Netanyahu, in his remarks, did not mention the word “Palestinians,” but spoke of advancing “peace in our region” with Arab partners helping to deliver it. Israel shares the antipathy many Arab states have toward Iran, seeing the Islamic republic as a threat to its existence. “I want you to know how much we appreciate the change in American policy on Iran which you enunciated so clearly,” Netanyahu, who had an acrimonious relationship with former President Barack Obama, told Trump at his official residence. Trump, who is on his maiden foreign trip since taking office in Janu-
ary, urged Iran to cease “its deadly funding, training and equipping of terrorists and militias.” Iran’s newly re-elected, pragmatist president, Hassan Rouhani, said regional stability could not be achieved without Iranian help, and accused Washington of supporting terrorism with its backing for rebels in Syria. He said the summit in Saudi Arabia “had no political value, and will bear no results.” “Who can say the region will experience total stability without Iran? Who fought against the terrorists? It was Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Syria. But who funded the terrorists?” Rouhani noted the contrast between young Iranians dancing in the streets to mark the re-election of a leader seeking detente with the West, and images of Trump meeting with a galaxy of Arab autocrats, some of whose countries have spawned the Sunni militants hostile to Washington and Tehran alike. He also said Iran would continue a ballistic missile program that has already triggered U.S. sanctions,
saying it was for defensive purposes only. Trump’s foreign tour comes in the shadow of difficulties at home, where he is struggling to contain a scandal after firing James Comey as FBI director nearly two weeks ago. The trip ends on Saturday after visits to the Vatican, Brussels and Sicily. In Jerusalem’s walled Old City, Trump toured the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and became the first sitting president to visit the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest place where Israel allows Jews to pray in a city sacred to three religions. Trump will have visited significant centers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity by the end of his trip, a point that his aides say bolsters his argument that the fight against Islamist militancy is a battle between “good and evil.” On Wednesday Trump is scheduled to meet at the Vatican with Pope Francis and Italian leaders. He then heads to Brussels for talks with European Union and NATO chiefs. He will return to Italy Thursday for a summit of major industrialized nations.
spoke of “a group of attackers.” That reference, however, was later removed. “This attack stands out for its appalling sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenseless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives,” May said in a statement outside her Downing Street office after a meeting with British security and intelligence chiefs. She said security services were working to see if a wider group was involved in the attack, which fell less than three weeks before a national election. The election campaign has been suspended for now as a mark of respect.
indoor arena, full to its capacity of 21,000. “We ran and people were screaming around us and pushing on the stairs to go outside and people were falling down, girls were crying, and we saw these women being treated by paramedics having open wounds on their legs ... it was just chaos,” said Sebastian Diaz, 19. “It was literally just a minute after it ended, the lights came on and the bomb went off.” Desperate parents and friends posted heart-wrenching messages and pictures on social media in the search for their loved ones who had been at the concert by Ariana Grande. “Please...please retweet. Looking for my daughter and her friend,” Michael MacIntyre wrote on Twitter, alongside an image of his daughter Laura and her friend Eilidh. Police raided a property in the
Manchester district of Fallowfield where they carried out a controlled explosion. Witnesses in another area, Whalley Range, said armed police had surrounded a newly built apartment block on a usually quiet tree-lined street.
“Please retweet” Witnesses related the horror of the Manchester blast, which unleashed a stampede just as the concert ended at Europe’s largest
Security stepped up Monday’s attack was the deadliest in Britain since four British Muslims killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London’s transport system in 2005. But it will have reverberations far beyond British shores. Attacks in cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St. Petersburg, Berlin and London have shocked Europeans already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration and pockets of domestic Islamist radicalism. Islamic State has repeatedly called for attacks on western targets. The U.S. Department of Home-
New York governor urges Trump to provide emergency funds for Penn Station Albany, N.Y. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday urged President Donald Trump to treat disruptions in train service at Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station as an emergency and provide federal assistance to fix “deplorable” conditions at the transit hub. Cuomo said 600,000 daily commuters who use rail service at Penn faced a “summer of agony” if essential track repairs were left under the control of Amtrak, which operatesthe nation’s busiest train station. In addition to Amtrak’s intercity service, trains operated by New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road run into and out of the station.
Astronauts make emergency fix during space walk on International Space Station Cape Canaveral, Fla. Two U.S. astronauts completed a hastily planned spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Tuesday to replace a computer that failed on Saturday, NASA said. Station commander Peggy Whitson assembled a new computer from spare parts aboard the station and installed it during a 2.5-hour spacewalk as the orbiting outpost sailed 250 miles over Earth. The 50-pound computer, which is about the size of a microwave oven, is one of two that control equipment, including solar power panels, cooling loops, radiators and robotics gear, on the U.S. side of the station.
American climber dies on Everest Kathmandu, Nepal An American climber on Mount Everest died on Sunday, officials said, one of six deaths on the world’s highest mountain in the past month and raising safety concerns for climbers. Roland Yearwood, 50, from Alabama, perished at an altitude of about 27,500 feet in an area called “death zone” which is known for thin air, Murari Sharma of the Everest Parivas trekking company that sponsored his climb said.
land Security warned that the public may experience increased delays at public events as countries across the world tighten security ahead of major cultural and sports events. New measures are continuing with each attack, raising the costs and the impact to the public. “You can bring back the perimeter, add security gates and as many controls as you want, but that will not change the fact that a determined individual will carry out his act if he is not caught before,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, president of the Centre for the Analysis of Terrorism. “It’s a problem of means, but also a political choice,” said Brisard. “You have to continue living your life despite the attacks and not enter into the terrorists’ game. They want you to change your system so that our society is entirely dependent on a security plan,” he said.