C4
SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2016
World
SPEED. A vintage Alpha Romeo sets the mood at Folktale Winery on Friday in Carmel, California. AFP
Brexit faces challenges in Northern Ireland D
ublin—Britain’s departure from the EU faced two separate legal challenges in Northern Ireland’s High Court Friday.
Lawyers for one group lodged an application with the court to challenge London’s decision to abide by the June 23 referendum result and proceed to leave the European Union. In a letter last month, the group had asked British Prime Minister Theresa May to allow votes on the issue in both the British parliament and in the Northern Ireland Assembly before triggering the formal process to leave. The politicians and activists
bringing the action want May’s government to consider the potential impact on Northern Ireland’s peace process before triggering the formal process to leave the EU. Jones Cassidy Brett, the legal firm representing the group, said: “The various assurances sought by our clients have not been forthcoming and, indeed, the response heightened their concerns about the approach the government was likely to take.”
This legal action was initiated only hours after it emerged that the court had agreed to fast-track a separate challenge by a victims’ rights campaigner, who argues that Brexit would contravene international agreements underpinning peace in Northern Ireland. That case taken by Raymond McCord, 62, will be heard on September 5, the first official day the court is due to sit following the summer recess. His legal team says the promptness of the hearing, and a decision this week to grant public funding to underwrite it, confirm its importance. McCord believes Brexit would
contravene the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which effectively brought an end to the three decades of armed conflict in Northern Ireland. “I am very concerned about the profoundly damaging effect that a unilateral withdrawal of the UK from the EU will have upon the ongoing relative stability in Northern Ireland,” he says in his affidavit to the court. McCord believes the loss of EU funding towards conflict resolution projects in Northern Ireland could jeopardize the ongoing peace process if not replaced. His legal costs will be met from public funds, which his lawyer,
Ciaran O’Hare of McIvor Farrell Solicitors, said were granted “only in cases of merit, complexity and public importance.” Northern Ireland has its own legal jurisdiction within the United Kingdom, as does England and Wales, and Scotland. The British government already faces a legal challenge to stop it beginning the process of leaving the EU without an act of parliament. In the English courts, lawyers at Mishcon de Reya argue that the British government cannot trigger Article 50, the legal process for leaving the bloc, without a parliamentary debate and vote authorizing it to do so. AFP
2 parking spots built in Int’l Space Station MIAMI—With more private spaceship traffic expected at the International Space Station in the coming years, two spacewalking US astronauts installed a special parking spot for them on Friday. Americans Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins floated outside the orbiting laboratory for a spacewalk lasting five hours and 58 minutes to attach the first of two international docking adaptors. The astronauts spent more than two hours tying down the adaptor, after which robotic machinery at the space station completed the hard mate, making the attachment permanent. “With that, we have a new port of call,” NASA commentator Rob Navias said as the space station flew over Singapore at 10:40 am (1440 GMT). During the rest of the spacewalk, astronauts connected power and data cables for the adaptor. The fittings will enable the space station to share power and data with visiting spaceships. The spacewalk was the fourth for Williams, a veteran astronaut who on Wednesday will surpass US astronaut Scott Kelly’s record for the most cumulative days in space for an American. Kelly has 520 days in space over his career. Williams will have 534 days
in space by the time he wraps up his stint at the ISS and returns to Earth in early September. The spacewalk was Rubins’s first. She is the 12th woman to walk in space. NASA describes the docking adaptor as a “metaphorical gateway to a future” that will allow a new generation of US spacecraft -- the first since the space shuttle program ended in 2011 -- to carry astronauts to the space station. The second docking adaptor is expected to be launched in late 2017, Navias said. ISS operations integration manager Kenneth Todd called Friday’s installation a “very significant milestone on the path to establishing commercial crew capability.” Built by Boeing, the circular adaptor measures around 42 inches (one meter) tall and about 63 inches wide. The adaptors will work with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, two spaceships under construction that are planned to ferry astronauts to the space station. The docking adaptor is more sophisticated than past equipment because it will allow automatic parking instead of the current grapple and berthing process, which is managed by astronauts.
BENEFIT. Owners of Pulse Nightclub Orlando Rosario Poma (second from left), Barbara Pomo, and producer Jason Felts arrive at the Benefit for onePULSE Foundation at NeueHouse Hollywood on Friday in Los Angeles, California. AFP
Colombia: A tree for each Civil War victim MITÚ—Colombia launched an initiative on Friday to plant a tree for each of the more than eight million victims of the country’s 50-year armed conflict. President Juan Manuel Santos, whose government is negotiating peace agreements with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), planted the first tree Friday near the southeastern city of Mitú. Trees for the “Forests of Peace” project will be planted throughout the country, sponsored by people around the world via the non-government organization Saving the Amazon website, Santos said. The plan is to “plant a number equal to that of the victims of armed conflict, in excess of eight million,” he said. Bogota on Friday asked the United Nations to supervise Colombia’s ceasefire with the FARC rebels, even before the country votes on a peace deal to end the long-running civil war. The government and the country’s biggest rebel force, the FARC, laid the groundwork for a full peace deal when they signed a definitive ceasefire in June. Meanwhile, Colombia started circulating a new 50,000-peso banknote on Friday bearing the likeness of late Nobel-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The light purple piece of money, worth the equivalent of $17.40, “pays honor to a person who carried Colombia’s name far and wide from the middle of the last century,” the head of the country’s central bank, Jose Dario Uribe, said. AFP
‘Russia just drilling troops in Ukraine’ WASHINGTON—The Pentagon on Friday moved to tamp down talk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying extra troops along the border were associated with a regular military exercise. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday said he could not rule out a “full-scale” Russian invasion. His warning came amid increasing violence in the proMoscow separatist east and accusations that Russia is increasing its forces, replenishing munitions and building up military hardware in the region. Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the United States was concerned by the increasingly strident rhetoric from both Ukraine and Russia. “We are concerned about Russia’s continued occupation of Crimea, and we are concerned about the heightened level of violence in eastern Ukraine,” he said. “What we don’t see (is) this unicorn a lot of people are chasing, this idea that there’s some massive short-term build up or movement about to happen.” Russia holds military exercises in the region each year, with the next one due next month. “I think we are seeing movements associated with the upcoming exercise, we are not seeing this massive buildup of forces that has been suggested,” Davis said, noting that the United States continues to monitor the situation closely. Kiev and its Western allies accuse Moscow of trying to escalate a 28-month conflict in Ukraine’s rust belt that has claimed more than 9,500 lives and began just weeks after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. AFP
Facebook application woos video enthusiasts SAN FRANCISCO—Facebook on Friday took direct aim at videoloving adolescents, and Snapchat, with the release of a new iPhone app that allows teens to watch clips about the lives of their classmates. The app, called Lifestage, was released with no fanfare, and is available for anyone to download on iPhone, although seeing profiles of other users is reserved for
those 21 years of age or younger. The social network allows users to make video clips to describe likes, peeves, dance styles, and other aspects of their character. Those clips are woven together to serve as public profiles that can be viewed by other Lifestage members, provided they are young enough. A tool in the app lets users block and report older folks.
“Lifestage makes it easy and fun to share a visual profile of who you are with your school network,” the app’s iTunes store description says. Once enough students at any given school are on the app, it becomes “unlocked.” “Once your school is unlocked, you can access the profiles of others in your school community (and all over!) so you can get to
know people better in your school and nearby schools,” the description said. Lifestage users are invited to share video snippets whenever they wish. The app comes as a challenge to Snapchat, the vanishing message service that became a hit with teenagers and which lets members share pictures and video clips. AFP