World
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2016
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COMPASSION. US actress and UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie talks to children during a visit to a Syrian refugee camp in Azraq in northern Jordan, on Friday. AFP
Kim a ‘nuke maniac’— Sokor dailies
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eoul—South Korean newspapers sounded the alarm Saturday over what one termed the “nuclear maniac” Kim Jong-Un, saying the North Korean leader’s fifth and biggest nuclear test is a game-changer demanding a tougher response. One newspaper urged Seoul to persuade its ally Washington to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons withdrawn from South Korea in the early 1990s. The Joongang Ilbo also urged China to cut off oil supplies to its ally and neighbor. “High time for switching gear in nuclear deterrence against North,” read its front-page headline. Kim had “crossed the river of no return,” it said in an editorial headlined “The North’s fifth nuclear test that expedites its own demise.” The banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo read “South Korea left unguarded before nu-
clear maniac,” Splashed below was a cartoon of Kim mounted on a galloping horse, his face distorted with anger and his hands clasping nuclear missiles. In an editorial entitled “Counter-measures against the North’s nuclear program must change completely,” Chosun said the North had been successful in its “nuclear gambling” but cracks had begun to appear inside its system. “We must set up and actively pursue a strategy to isolate Kim Jong-Un and his clique from within and topple them,” the conservative paper said. The leftist Hankyoreh daily also said it “strongly condemns” the latest nuclear test. But it said the repeated tests reflect a failure in the existing approach to the mounting crisis. “There won’t be any solution in expressing anger to the North and keeping putting pressure on it. We must go beyond Cold War-style confrontation,” it said. “We must stop pinning our hopes on the unrealistic theory that the North is coming close to implosion. Instead, a new, comprehensive strategy is needed.” AFP
SpaceX probes Falcon 9 blast MIAMI—SpaceX appealed for help from the public and US government agencies on Friday in the investigation of what made a Falcon 9 rocket explode last week during a launch test. No one was hurt in the September 1 blast, which happened as the rocket was being fueled ahead of a standard, pre-launch test known as a static-fire at Cape Canaveral, Florida. “Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter. “Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.” Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur who rose to fame as the cofounder of PayPal, added that the
blast happened “during a routine filling operation.” “Engines were not on and there was no apparent heat source.” According to video footage of the incident, the SpaceX rocket and an Israeli communications satellite, Amos-6, suddenly burst into a massive fireball amid what appeared to be a succession of blasts. “Particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off,” Musk wrote. “May come from rocket or something else.” He said “support and advice” from the US space agency NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the US Air Force would
Coldplay rocks India for free
Facebook restores napalm girl photos SAN FRANCISCO—Facebook backtracked Friday on a decision to censor an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing, after its block on the historic image sparked outrage. The online giant stopped short of apologizing, saying the image had been flagged for violating standards regarding inappropriate posts at the world’s leading social network. “An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community Standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography,” Facebook said in a statement. “In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time.” Taken by photographer Nick Ut
Cong Huynh for the Associated Press, the 1972 picture of a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack is considered one of the war’s defining images. It was honored with the Pulitzer Prize. An active social media user, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg defied Facebook early Friday by posting the photograph, helping to bring the weekslong controversy to a head. Her post was taken down several hours later, deleted by Facebook, she said. After Facebook reversed position on the image, Solberg told the BBC she was a “happy prime minister.” “It shows that using social media can make (a) political change even in social media.” Solberg refused to back down,
re-posting the photo on her Facebook page, along with several other iconic pictures with sections blacked out, in an attempt to illustrate the absurdity of censoring historic images. “What Facebook is doing by deleting photos like this, as good as their intentions are, is to edit our common history,” she wrote in a post. Solberg had shared the picture at Facebook in the name of freedom of expression amid a brewing debate in Norway. The row began several weeks ago after Norwegian author Tom Egeland published a post about war photos, illustrated by the picture. Facebook promptly deleted it. Egeland expressed delight in a Twitter message written in Norwegian after the Facebook about-face. AFP
KEYNOTE. Steve Schwarzman, founding trustee of Schwarzman
Scholars delivers a speech during the opening of the Schwarzman college at the Tsinghua university in Beijing on Saturday. AFP
Female jihadists now plot, execute attacks PARIS—Long cast in supporting roles in the shadow of their male counterparts, women are taking an increasingly active role in the organization and execution of attacks by jihadist groups. That much emerges clearly from Thursday’s arrest of three heavily radicalized women plotting an attack in central Paris using a car laden with gas cylinders. Anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins says the wouldbe attackers were guided by the Islamic State group in Syria.
“A terrorist cell made up of young women totally receptive to the deadly ideology of Daesh has been dismantled,” Molins said at a news conference Friday, using the Arabic name for IS. Three women, led by 19-yearold Ines Madani, known to intelligence services after trying several times to travel to Syria, were arrested after the car was found abandoned near Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Sunday. It swiftly emerged there were close links between the trio and
recent jihadist attacks in France. Molins said the foiled plot showed a change in the role of women in jihadist groups. Whereas they were once confined to domestic tasks, that view is now out of date and they are now also viewed as “fighters.” “The terrorist organization uses not only women, but young women, who get to know them and develop their plot from a distance,” he said. He added the women had been guided remotely from “Syria-
be “much appreciated.” The California-based company also issued an appeal to the public. “Please email any recordings of the event to report@spacex.com.” The accident—e second of its kind since SpaceX was founded in 2002—came just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket exploded after liftoff on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station (ISS). Before that, SpaceX had logged 18 successful launches of the Falcon 9—including six of 12 planned supply missions to the ISS carried out as part of a $1.6-billion contract with NASA. AFP
based individuals within the ranks of the Daesh terrorist organization (which) shows that this organization intends to make combatants of women.” While this marks the first time women have assumed the combatant role in France it is not a novel development for the likes of Syria and Iraq. It was 11 years ago, in November 2005, that Muriel Degauque, a Belgian convert to Islam, became the first western female suicide bomber when she detonated ex-
plosives in an attack on an Iraqi police patrol near Baghdad, killing five policemen. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which morphed into the Islamic State, has organized several suicide attacks carried out by female bombers. In Europe, a previous, non-fatal, attack in May 2010 saw student Roshonara Choudhry stab and seriously injure British lawmaker Stephen Timms, admitting she intended to kill him for having voted in favor of military action in Iraq. AFP
NEW YORK—Rockers Coldplay will play their first-ever show in India in a free performance as the anti-poverty Global Citizen Festival on Friday announced an expansion. The festival, which distributes tickets in return for individual actions to fight extreme poverty, said it would release further details Monday. But it confirmed Coldplay’s participation and said the November 19 show in Mumbai would be free after press reports in India said the concert would be exorbitantly expensive. The Global Citizen Festival, established in 2012, takes place each year in New York’s Central Park on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to push world leaders to put anti-poverty efforts high on the agenda. “Just like our annual festival in Central Park, tickets to the Indian festival will be free. Fans will earn them through taking actions in support of education, equality and sanitation campaigns,” the festival said on its website. It noted that the Mumbai concert would take place on World Toilet Day, which draws attention to sanitation problems. While most Coldplay fans likely have indoor plumbing, around half of Indians do not have regular access to modern toilets, presenting a major public health hazard. Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin serves as the creative director of the Global Citizen Festival. India is not a new interest for Coldplay, whose video for “Hymn for the Weekend,” released in January, was shot in the country, although critics said it presented stereotypical images. The latest New York edition of the Global Citizen Festival, to take place on September 24, will feature R&B superstar Rihanna, metal greats Metallica and leading rapper Kendrick Lamar. AFP