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SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017 Adelle Chua, Editor

Opinion

Joyce Pangco Pañares, Issue Editor

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EDITORIAL EDITORIAL

By Leonid Bershidsky

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A LEAKED European Union paper outlining the bloc’s initial negotiating position in Brexit talks hints at a clever zero-sum strategy. The EU’s main goal is to deter other potential exiters and offload all the anxiety about the truly important issues in the divorce on the United Kingdom alone.

The paper (actually called a “nonpaper” in EU parlance because it’s still a draft) makes it clear that the EU wants to negotiate Britain’s departure in stages. Just two contentious issues are to be addressed in Stage One: the treatment of EU citizens now living in the UK and the bill to be settled by the departing country. Essentially, the UK will be told that if it wants any kind of closure on a trade deal, it first needs to take care of the EU migrants and agree to pay a large sum of money (in euros, please) to honor previous commitments and move London-based EU agencies elsewhere.

At the same time, the initial EU position makes agreement on both issues as difficult as possible. For the 3.5 million EU citizens living in Britain, including more than 900,000 Poles and more than half a million other eastern Europeans, the bloc wants a lifelong right to live and work in the UK on the same basis as locals; these EU citizens would also retain the right to claim UK benefits for children living in other countries, bring over relatives and confer resident status on third party nationals through marriage. And they would also be subject to the jurisdiction of European courts.

That won’t be easy for Prime Minister Theresa May to swallow, even if she gets a decisive mandate in the June election. Immigration was a major issue for voters who backed Brexit. The government may argue that “grandfathering” the immigrants already in the UK is the lesser evil, but to the anti-foreigner voters this means the current situation—the one that angered them in the first place—will be frozen for decades.

In the letter May sent EU leaders when activating the Brexit procedure she, too, stressed the need for an early deal on EU citizens in the UK, and UK citizens in the EU—about 1.2 million people, many of them retirees in Spain and France. But the divergent nature of the two groups of migrants makes the EU’s demands far weightier than the UK’s. EU workers in the UK are young, often needy and far more numerous, especially taking into account possible family reunification.

There is no easy compromise to be reached, and that suits the EU fine.

As the bigger trading partner that stands to lose less if there is no resulting trade deal, time is on its side.

Concerning the exit payment, the EU paper also lays out an extreme position: The bloc is going for a onetime pay-out big enough to anchor the expectations of other countries that may try to leave the union; and there’s no mention of handing over its share of EU assets. No future campaign based on promises to invest in health care instead of contributing to the EU budget will fly if negotiators attain this goal.

There is also no reason for EU negotiators to compromise here. Though Brexit leaves a hole in the union’s budget, no political constituency important to the negotiators will be seriously hurt. A strong deterrent to more renegades is more important.

There’s nothing expressly malicious in the bloc’s initial negotiating position. The union is confidently laying its cards on the table; its position will likely be highly public throughout the process (there’s hardly a choice given the many potential sources of

ONE HOME

VERY 22nd day of April since 1970, countries of the world have commemorate Earth Day—a tribute to the planet we live in. Numerous activities across hundreds of countries are organized to emphasize the need to care for it, and arrest its deterioration.

There are global movements with different focuses: protecting forests, advocating green cities, preserving species, and, these days, climate change.

In an encyclical released two years ago, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, said the earth was our common home and as dwellers in this home we have relationships and accountabilities between and among each other.

This notion of the earth not just being our home, but our common home, one we share with billions of other humans, is a good way to honor the earth this year and every year.

After all, when we think of home, we think of comfort. We come to it after a long day at work or school. We rest at home, think, recharge, nurture our personal spaces and also connect with loved ones.

And when we share our home with others we show our respect and consideration both to the people we live with and the home itself that shelters us.

We don’t clean out our room and dump the trash on our housemate’s space. We clear the table after we eat and make sure the dishes are in a location and condition where the next user will likely find them.

If inhabitants of the home live lazy, don’t pick up after themselves, the home will be in disarray, will be infested with insects, will be an eyesore, will depreciate faster than it is supposed to. It will need frequent repairs and might just cause problems when the housemates least expect it.

All these, seen in a much grander scale, can be said of how we make use of and should nurture the planet that houses us. These days, the main concern is whether countries of the world can do enough soon enough to reverse a runaway heating of the planet that will breed stronger, more frequent and more erratic weather patterns— not that we are not seeing and feeling them already.

Celebrating Earth Day does not require us to be scientists who explain complex weather patterns or activists who take to the streets and denounce practices that harm the world.

Everyone can simply be a consistently conscientious, considerate inhabitant of this home we all share.

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A WINDOW FOR PUNISHING WIKILEAKS

By Noah Feldman THE US Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to news reports, is re-evaluating whether to charge WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing leaked classified material in 2010. This raises a First Amendment

flag. The department previously decided it wouldn’t proceed because it couldn’t distinguish WikiLeaks from the New York Times or the Washington Post. So what, really, is the difference between unlawfully leaking information to the press and publishing it directly to the public? If one is unlawful, why can’t the other be?

The answer can’t be derived from the language of the First Amendment itself. Only the late Justice Hugo Black has ever come close to saying that the Constitution bars Congress from any kind of restriction of on free speech.

Instead, the legal part of the answer needs to come from the body of

Supreme Court interpretation of the amendment.

The most famous relevant decision is the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, New York Times v. US Daniel Ellsberg, the granddaddy of more recent leakers, was working as an analyst for the Rand Corp. with access to classified documents, including an internally

commissioned Department of Defense history of the US involvement in Vietnam.

Ellsberg photocopied what would come to be called the Pentagon Papers and gave them to the Times. After the Times published its first article based on the material, Richard Nixon’s administration sought a court Turn to B2

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order to prohibit further publication, and the issue went to the Supreme Court.

In deciding in favor of the newspaper, the justices said remarkably little about the fact that the Pentagon Papers were obtained unlawfully. Instead the various opinions—one by each of the nine justices in a 6-3 split—focused on the legality of the government prohibiting the press from publishing something before the fact, a form of censorship that lawyers call “prior restraint.”

Thus, although the Pentagon Papers case is an influential example of the court refusing to bar publication of classified documents that were obtained illegally and then passed to the press, it isn’t a definitive precedent protecting Assange or WikiLeaks from prosecution.

The issue in such a prosecution wouldn’t be prior restraint, but rather the distinct question of whether it can be a crime to publish information that you know was obtained unlawfully.

A version of that question was addressed more directly by the Supreme Court in 1991 in Bartnicki v.

Vopper. There were no national security concerns or classified information in that case. Instead, it arose after someone intercepted a cellphone call between union leaders during a heated teachers’ union negotiation with a school board in eastern Pennsylvania.

After the negotiations were over, a local talk show host broadcast the overheard communications.

A federal law prohibited disclosure of the contents of an illegal wiretap. That put the Supreme Court in the position of having to decide whether the First Amendment protects a publisher of information who “obtained the information in question in a manner lawful in itself but from a source who has obtained it unlawfully.”

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion for the majority. He decided the case by weighing privacy against the public significance of the disclosure.

And he said that “in this case, privacy concerns give way when balanced against the interest in publishing matters of public importance.”

On the surface, this might look like a controlling precedent for Assange and WikiLeaks. Provided they didn’t actively participate in the theft of the classified documents, the government’s security concerns might seem to be outweighed by the public’s interest in knowing.

But that’s not so clear—because of the nature of the balancing test.

Remember that the overheard phone conversation wasn’t classified, and that no one was physically injured as a result of its disclosure.

Some classified information is so important and potentially dangerous that it might outweigh the public interest. As my Harvard Law colleague Charles Fried, a former US solicitor general, put it to me, a newspaper might not be able to publish leaked troop movements in wartime if that would endanger lives.

In a concurrence to Stevens’s opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, wrote separately to say that the majority opinion should be read narrowly in the light of its particular circumstances and did not “imply a significantly broader constitutional immunity for the media.”

Breyer insisted that the court had not created “a ‘public interest’ exception that swallows up the statutes’ privacyprotecting general rule.”

It emerges that prosecuting Assange and WikiLeaks isn’t clearly excluded by this precedent. The so-called New York Times problem—that prosecuting WikiLeaks would allow prosecuting a newspaper—is to some degree more a policy concern than a definitive constitutional one. Bloomberg

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THE EARTH’S RISING FEVER, AND WHY IT’S BAD NEWS FOR ALL OF US

By Pecier Decierdo IN A previous article, I wrote about link between our burning of fossil fuels and climate change. We humans burn fossil fuels to produce energy. We use this energy mainly to generate electricity and power modern transportation such as cars and airplanes.

This burning of fossil fuels also results in the emission of carbon dioxide, which leads to more asphyxiant gas in the atmosphere.

Since carbon dioxide can trap heat in the atmosphere, this leads to a rise in the average temperature of the world, or what is known as global warming.

Indeed, scientists are seeing an increase in both atmospheric carbon dioxide and the average temperature of the Earth over the years. All lines of evidence point us to humans as the culprits of this observed global warming.

How much global warming are we experiencing right now? According to latest measurements, 2016 was 0.94 degrees Celsius warmer than the average of the 20th century.

That makes it the warmest year on record, beating 2015 (0.90 degrees), which in turn beat 2014 (0.74 degrees).

In fact, all years since 1977 were

warmer than the 20th century average, with the years 2001 through 2016 all being in the top 17 warmest years (1998 is ranked number 7).

The world, as they say, is experiencing a fever, and the fever is only rising. In fact, a fever is a good analogy.

The usually stated normal body temperature ranges from 36.5 to 37.5 degrees Celsius. That depends on many factors, such as a person’s age, exertion, and sex.

It even depends on the time of day.

When we sleep, most of us have a body temperature close to 36.3 degrees C. The moment we wake up, it goes to 36.4. By the time we’re fully awake and going about our daily activities, it goes up to 37.5. When we perform strenuous physical activities such as exercise, it goes further up.

Another thing to note about our bodies’ temperature is that it depends on which body part you are measuring. Some body parts are slightly warmer than others. If you put the thermometer in your armpit, the reading would be slightly different than when you put it in your mouth or when you place it on the palm of your hand.

Your normal body temperature is therefore an average over you entire body over time.

The same goes for the

temperature of the Earth, except the variations in temperature are greater than for the body.

Some parts of the Earth are quite hot while others are freezing cold.

For example, temperature in the Lut Desert, Iran can go as high as 70.7 degrees Celsius during some days, while the temperature in the South Pole can go as low as – 89.2 degrees Celsius during winter.

In the Philippines, the hottest temperature was recorded in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan at 42.2 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the temperature in Baguio dropped to 7.3 degrees Celsius in the morning of Feb. 15, 2017.

The temperature at a given place on Earth also varies throughout the day and year. For example, temperatures in Manila can range from 22 degrees Celsius during some nights in January to 37 degrees during some days in April. Meanwhile in Davao the temperature usually ranges from 24 degrees Celsius (nighttime January) to 33 degrees Celsius (daytime April).

Just as in measuring our bodies’ temperature, we are talking about averages when measuring the temperature of the planet.

The average is both over entire Earth and over the course of a year.

If the normal human body temperature is somewhere

close to 37 degrees Celsius, the average temperature of the Earth during the 20th century (1900s) is 13.9 degrees Celsius.

The Earth’s temperature has not, until very recently, strayed far away from this average over the entire existence of human civilization. Scientists think the relative stability of the world’s temperature in the last 10,000 years is what allowed human civilization to flourish.

The last few decades have strayed dangerously far from the average of thousands of years. The latest one, 2016, was 0.94 degrees warmer. If such a temperature difference from the average were found on a person, the doctor would say that person’s having a fever. It seems that fever is only going to get worse.

As with human fevers, global warming does not mean all parts of the Earth will get hotter by the same amount. What makes a high fever worrying is its disruption of the delicate balance we call health. Similarly, global warming is dangerous because it disrupts the delicate systems that have made Earth favorable for human life and civilization.

Decierdo is resident astronomer and physicist for The Mind Museum.

EARTH DAY AND THE SCOURGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE EVERYMAN

By Heherson T. Alvarez TODAY is Earth Day. Organized through the initiative of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin in 1970, countries around the world bond to celebrate Earth Day on this day to remember and appreciate the life-giving abundance and promote the beauty of the Earth.

On April 4, 1990, a sense of immense hope was raised when our Senate adopted a resolution that I filed urging President Corazon Aquino to declare April 22, 1990 as Earth Day. The resolution was meant to reflect our growing commitment to the conservation of our environment.

That was 27 years ago. Today, however, Earth Day has become an observance of all 194 countries to save Mother Earth from the ultimate disaster—Climate Change—unless mankind can reduce and finally remove carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pointed out a concentration of 3,100 billion metric tons of GHGs in the atmosphere that brought about the overheating of the whole Earth to an average 1.3˚C higher than before the industrial revolution. This overheating is melting the polar caps, the ancient glaciers of the Himalayas, causing the rising of the oceans, and the severe and more frequent typhoons and

storms, and great droughts.

The global environment that we sought to enhance has deteriorated—much to the anguish of leaders causing the suffering of populations across the world. Increasing carbon emissions, the result of uncontrolled use of coal and hydrocarbons, are creating climate impacts that are catastrophic.

In Bolivia, Lake Poopo—which used to cover an area of 1,000 square kilometers—has dried up.

In Africa, Lake Chad has shrunk by more than 90 percent since 1963.

Prolonged drought and extreme temperatures are taking terrible tolls on food crops. In sections of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, a three-year drought has led to enormous crop failures and the loss of livestock. We have suffered intermittent droughts in Mindanao and the Cagayan Valley.

Deforestation, removal of vegetation, and exploitative agriculture had degraded lands, turning these into deserts. In China, the deserts have expanded by 21,000 square miles since 1975, crowding out cropland and producing devastating sandstorms. In our own country, this has led to typhoons and tropical storms that are becoming more intense, with higher loss to lives and properties.

As we observe Earth Day 2017, let us recognize that climate change is a threat multiplier. It is undermining economic and political stability of nations. And ecological disasters are wreaking turmoil in many societies to the point where huge numbers of people are being displaced, becoming

“environmental migrants” or “climate refugees.”

Earth Day must be a consciousness awakening to protect life, to reduce CO2, to reduce the overheating of the Earth. Rapid carbon cuts will curb the severe climate change. Governments, communities, individuals, must all join hands to reduce CO2.

We appeal to our people to keep their communities clean, to stop the pollution of our rivers and lakes, to grow trees or mangroves along our coastal areas, and to teach our children to love and protect our environment.

Our government could now ramp-up the transition to a climate economy with our ratification of the Paris Accord that takes effect today (Earth Day). It could begin to promote a systematic shift to alternative fuels mix, and create the infrastructure necessary to encourage and connect a wide range of climate actions.

Unless we reduce CO2 the overheating of the Earth will continue and if it reaches 2˚C mankind cannot stop this heating anymore. It could mean the gradual destruction of our life-support system and inevitably, the human civilization.

Earth Day must be a day to raise consciousness to love and protect Mother Earth, and to save the generations of man! Earth Day must be a celebration of life!

Alvarez is a former secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and chairperson of the Climate Change Commission.

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leaks), while the UK, under more pressure to make compromises, isn’t likely to be as forthcoming.

The longer that game goes on, the better for the EU’s cause of maintaining unity and discouraging further secession. With 27 member states, there’s always a big election somewhere: In France right now, in Germany later this year, in Italy sometime soon. For proEU forces running in these elections, the more uncomfortable Brexit looks, the better.

A temporary extension of the UK’s membership, explicitly mentioned in draft negotiation guidelines the European Commission has written up for the bloc’s Council of Ministers, would be a godsend to these centrist political forces: It would show that leaving is a cumbersome process that’s far easier to initiate than to pursue, and that the two-year time frame that exists for it is unrealistic. A transition arrangement that drags on and becomes semi-permanent doesn’t cost the EU anything, but it will likely hurt May’s government badly.

If the EU knows how to do anything, it’s to draw out inconclusive negotiations. That can be a useful skill.

Bloomberg

PRODUCE GLOBALLY-COMPETITIVE FILIPINOS AS WE brace for this era’s Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIRe), the Philippines must rethink certain regulations on employment and modernize social security systems to enable a generation of globallycompetitive talent, policy experts in a roundtable discussion said.

Dr. Vicente Paqueo and Dr. Aniceto Orbeta Jr., research fellows of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, stressed that this candid continuation of the 1st to 3rd industrial revolution would be a combination of digital, physical, and biological upheavals.

As the phenomenon cited will “fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another,” the Philippines, an emerging economy, is likewise at risk of its unescapable impact.

In their special study “Unlocking the Filipino People’s Potential in

the Next Six Years and Beyond,” a series of researches commissioned

by Philippine-based think tank Stratbase ADR Institute, Paqueo and Orbeta said policymakers should prioritize revving up areas of employment, human development, and social security.

This way, Manila will be able “to achieve rapid and inclusive economic growth that will drastically reduce poverty and allow disadvantaged people to enjoy the benefits of economic and technological progress.”

The experts said it’s now time to adapt with radical advances in science and technology which are siding more on the innovation of efficient labor-saving technologies.

The phenomenon means workers will frequently move from one job to another, thus the need to be highly trainable the same way economies

would also need to be more flexible.

Dindo Manhit, president of Stratbase ADRi, commented that unlike its Asian neighbors, the Philippines has adopted a less competitive regulatory environment.

In the past months, labor unions and their political allies have clamored for an increase in the legal minimum wage, and that the same LMWs are applied to all regions.

“Huge increases in LMWs could make the employment of workers less attractive and labor-intensive enterprises less competitive,” Manhit explained.

Meanwhile, there are also demands to end all forms of contractualization.

Ironically, Paqueo and Orbeta said “this could have unintended consequences, including an increased unemployment rate, reduce transition rate from temporary

to permanent employment, and reduced efficiency in the use of human resources.”

To dodge negative impacts, what needs to be reconsidered is the replacement of job tenure with income security concepts and wage subsidies. To sustain this, there must be a mechanism to effectively assist the poor and near-poor so they may survive difficult transitions and even thrive under FIRe. In perspective, Paqueo and Orbeta said both government and the citizens should “critically vet controversial policy ideas to avoid unintended consequences that are detrimental to the poor and vulnerable groups.” Through this and the emphasis of the three core issues, the experts appeased that we can survive globalization in the next six years and beyond.

World CHINA’S FIRST CARGO SPACECRAFT DOCKS WITH SPACE LAB BEIJING, China—China’s first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, successfully completed docking with an orbiting space lab on Saturday, the Beijing Aerospace Control Center said.

The Tianzhou-1 was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province Thursday evening and began to approach the space lab, Tiangong-2, Saturday morning.

It made first contact with the space lab at 12:16 pm on Saturday and docking was completed at 12:23 pm.

Cargo ships bring supplies and fuel into orbit, and the independent development of one is a “crucial step” toward China’s goal of having its own crewed space station by 2022, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The Tianzhou-1 is a tube-like craft which measures 10.6 metres in length and can carry over six tonnes of cargo as well as satellites, Xinhua said.

It will also conduct experiments in space, including one on non-Newtonian gravitation, and will dock two more times with Tiangong-2 before falling back to Earth, Xinhua said.

Beijing sees its multi-billion-dollar space programme as a symbol of its rise and of the Communist Party’s success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

In 2011, the US Congress ruled that Chinese astronauts would not be allowed on the International Space Station because of national security concerns. AFP

IS CLAIMS DEADLY ATTACK ON RUSSIA’S SPY OFFICE WASHINGTON, United States—The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack Friday on an office of Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, in the country’s far east, a US-based monitoring group said.

Amaq News Agency, an IS propaganda arm, made the claim in a brief report in Arabic distributed on the social media application Telegram that cited a “security source.”

According to the text translated into English by the SITE monitoring group, the source said an IS “fighter” attacked an FSB office in Khabarovsk, killing three people and wounding others.

Russian officials say two people were killed in the incident -- an FSB employee and a civilian. One other person was reported wounded.

The assailant was shot dead, the FSB said, adding: “There is information about his belonging to a neo-Nazi group.”

The Amaq report came one day after the Islamic State group claimed an attack in Paris that left a policeman dead and two other officers wounded. AFP

SEX PRANK GETS CANADIAN OFF NEW ZEALAND WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A Canadian man sent out invitations to a fake swingers’ sex party in a desperate attempt to get himself removed from a New Zealand golf club’s mailing list.

Ian Campbell from Toronto was accidentally added to the email list for a Friday group at the Russley Golf Club in Christchurch because he has a similar email address to a namesake member.

Campbell, who runs a home meal service for the elderly in his home city, told the New Zealand Herald newspaper that once he was on the list he couldn’t get off despite several attempts.

“I e-mailed them three times to tell them I wasn’t the right Ian Campbell but kept getting email updates,” he said.

After doing some research, Campbell came across Tawse Manor on the outskirts of Christchurch which advertises itself as an “adult-themed” alternative accommodation venue.

He duly wrote an invitation to a party at the manor and hit “reply all.”

“Just a quick note to our ‘Russley Rounders’; as we did this time last year, a few of us will be meeting up at Tawse Manor around 7pm,” Campbell wrote.

“Last year we had a lot of trouble squeezing 14 people into only two rooms, so this year we have reserved all four rooms and will have the whole manor to ourselves (with the exception of the Play Room from 11pm to 2am, when it is reserved for the Tawse Kink group). AFP

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SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017 mst.daydesk@gmail.com

SOKOR OUTRAGED OVER TRUMP’S CHINA COMMENT

S

eoul, South Korea—Buffeted by the currents of diplomacy, South Korea is sometimes described as a “shrimp between two whales”, and US president Donald Trump has touched nerves with remarks that the peninsula “used to be part of China”.

The comments came after Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida.

As the pair discussed ways to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions amid mounting tensions, Trump told the Wall Street Journal, Xi “went into the history of China and Korea.

“And you know, you’re talking about thousands of years... and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China,” Trump went on.

Beijing is Pyongyang’s sole major ally and Washington wants it to do more about the North’s nuclear and missile programmes, while the US has a security alliance with Seoul and stations more than 28,000 troops in South to defend it.

The exact details of what Xi said and whether Trump accurately rep-

resented him are not known, but South Koreans are wary of Chinese expansionism, and politicians, historians and citizens have been outraged.

The Korean peninsula has been heavily influenced by China politically and culturally for centuries.

But while its ruling kingdoms sometimes paid tribute to their giant neighbour, South Korean historians stress they did not come under its territorial control, despite repeated invasions.

Seoul’s foreign ministry spokesman countered: “The fact that Korea was not part of China for thousands of years... is a clear historical fact acknowledged by the international community.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang declined to confirm the details of Xi’s wording, saying

that: “The Korean people should not be worried about it.”

But Seoul’s major JoongAng Ilbo daily said South Koreans had been “dumbfounded” by the Chinese leader.

“If Trump really conveyed Xi’s words correctly, it is nothing but a grave challenge to the identity of the Korean people,” it said.

South Korean historians and activists rallied outside the Chinese embassy on Friday to protest against Xi’s “absurd remarks”, Yonhap news agency reported.

Seoul and Beijing are at loggerheads over the deployment of the US missile defence system THAAD to the South to guard against threats from the North, infuriating China, which sees it as weakening its own capabilities.

Beijing has imposed a series of moves including a ban on group tours to the South and suspensions of South Korean businesses in China, which are seen by Seoul as economic retaliation.

South Korea’s top-selling Chosun newspaper turned on both leaders, castigating Xi for his “premodern expansionist view” and Trump for a lack of awareness of diplomatic sensitivities.

“The fact that Trump publicly disclosed such a remark (by Xi) demonstrates that he is completely ignorant about the history of the Korean peninsula,” it said in an editorial Friday. the row came after South Koreans were dismayed by the revelation that the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and a supporting battle group were still thousands of kilometres (miles) from the peninsula, despite the White House saying it was dispatching them to the area as tensions mounted with the North.

Trump had described the vessels as an “armada” and “very powerful” and the revelation drew jeers and disappointment.

“What Mr Trump said was very important for the national security of South Korea,” conservative South Korean presidential candidate Hong Joon-Pyo told the Wall Street Journal.

“If that was a lie, then during Trump’s term, South Korea will not trust whatever Trump says.”

The series of missteps demonstrate lack of communications within Trump’s nascent administration, said Bong Young-Shik, analyst at the Yonsei University’s Institute for North Korean Studies. AFP

This image obtained from the US Navy shows the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (L) leading the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Michael Murphy (C) and the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain in the Indian Ocean on April 14, 2017.

The US supercarrier Carl Vinson will arrive in the Sea of Japan in days, US Vice President Mike Pence said in Australia on April 22, 2017, amid high tensions with North Korea. AFP

VENEZUELA BRACES FOR NEW PROTEST IN WAVE OF UNREST

WEED LOVER. Payaso, of Lamar, Colorado, holds a bag of marijuana with his teeth during the Denver 420 Rally at Civic Center Park in Denver, Colorado. The rally, held annually, is a celebration of both the legalization of cannabis and cannabis culture. Colorado is one of twenty-six U.S. states along with the District of Columbia that has legalized the use of cannabis either recreationally or medically. AFP

CARACAS, Venezuela—Venezuela braced for new marches Saturday against President Nicolas Maduro, after the death toll climbed to 20 in three weeks of violence at protests demanding the leftist leader’s ouster.

The opposition called for protesters to march in silence to the Catholic Church’s episcopal seats nationwide in a show of condemnation of Maduro’s government.

It will be a test of the authorities’ tolerance for peaceful protests, after days of running battles pitting riot police and pro-government vigilantes against protesters hurling stones and Molotov cocktails.

The last protests, on Thursday, descended into a night of riots and looting that left 12 people dead in Caracas.

After Saturday’s show of silent defiance, the center-right opposition plans to return to a more confrontational strategy on Monday, when it is calling for Venezuelans to block roads in a bid to grind the country to a halt.

The two sides blame each other for the unrest.

The government accuses the opposition of hiring armed agitators to sow violence, while the opposition says it is the government using hired thugs and ordering the police and army to repress peaceful protests.

Vice President Tareck El Aissami ac-

cused the opposition of sponsoring a “spiral of terrorism” to trigger a coup.

Senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles fired back that the government’s “savage repression” was causing the violence.

-Fourth week on edge Protesters blame Maduro -- heir of the leftist “Bolivarian revolution” launched by the late Hugo Chavez in 1999 -- for an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

Maduro says the protests against him are part of a US-backed coup plot.

Pressure on the socialist president has been mounting since 2014, as falling prices for Venezuela’s crucial oil exports have sent the once-booming economy into a tailspin.

The crisis escalated on March 30, when the Supreme Court moved to seize the powers of the legislature, the only lever of state authority not controlled by Maduro and his allies.

The court partly backtracked after an international outcry. But tension only increased when the authorities slapped a political ban on Capriles on April 7.

According to pollster Venebarometro, seven in 10 Venezuelans disapprove of Maduro, whose term does not end until 2019.

The opposition is demanding elections to exit the crisis. AFP

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SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017 Cesar Barrioquinto, Editor

World

/ Joyce Pangco-Pañares, Issue Editor

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TALIBAN KILLS OVER 100 IN AFGHANISTAN M

azar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan—More than 100 Afghan soldiers were killed and wounded in a coordinated Taliban attack on an army base in northern Afghanistan, the country’s defence ministry said Saturday.

It is the latest in a string of deadly assaults against Afghan military sites, which underscores rising insecurity as Afghanistan braces for an intense spring fighting season.

The ministry did not give a breakdown of the casualties in the attack near Mazar-i-Sharif city on Friday, which lasted several hours and targeted soldiers at a mosque and dining facility.

The US military has said that “more than 50” Afghan soldiers were killed in the assault, while an Afghan army source who was on the base at the time put the death toll as high as 150, with dozens more wounded.

Two of the attackers blew themselves up in the raid, which was claimed by the Taliban late Friday.

All were dressed in Afghan army uniforms and arrived in military

vehicles, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity and adding that no civilians were killed.

The defense ministry said Afghan forces had killed all the attackers, without specifying how many there were. Earlier it had said one of the assailants had been detained.

The military source at the base said there were at least 10 attackers, adding that the soldiers were “young recruits who had come for training”.

The toll could change, the defence ministry said in a statement, adding it would provide more information once an investigation was completed.

Afghan officials have been known to minimise casualty figures in some major attacks on mili-

tary sites, such as in early March when gunmen disguised as doctors stormed the country’s largest military hospital in Kabul, killing dozens.

Afghan officials put the death toll in that attack at 50, but security sources and survivors told AFP more than 100 were killed in the brazen and savage assault.

Military targets General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, praised Afghan commandos for bringing the “atrocity to an end”.

Afghan security forces, beset by killings and desertions, have been struggling to beat back insurgents since US-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in December 2014.

According to US watchdog SIGAR, casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 percent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed.

The attack on the Kabul hospital in March came a week after 16 people were killed in simultaneous Taliban suicide assaults on two security compounds in the capital.

More than a third of Afghanistan is outside government control and many regions are fiercely contested by various insurgent groups, as Kabul’s repeated bids to launch peace negotiations with the Taliban have failed.

Nicholson in February told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that he needed “a few thousand” more troops to help train and assist the Afghan forces.

The US has around 8,400 troops in the country with about another 5,000 from NATO allies assisting a much larger Afghan force in the war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

Earlier this month the US military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State group hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, killing nearly a hundred militants.

The attack triggered global shockwaves, with some condemning the use of Afghanistan as what they called a testing ground for the weapon, and against a militant group that is not considered as big a threat as the Taliban. AFP

Afghan security personnel arrive at the site of an ongoing attack on an army compound in Dihdadi District of Balkh province on April 21, 2017.

At least eight Afghan soldiers have been killed and 11 wounded during an ongoing Taliban attack on their base in northern Afghanistan, the defence ministry said.†”Gunmen wearing Afghan army uniforms have launched a complex attack on an army compound in the outskirts of Mazar-eSharif”,capital of Balkh province, ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri told AFP. AFP

FRANCE ON EDGE AS PRESIDENTIAL VOTE LOOMS

FOR SCIENCE’S SAKE. Supporters of science and research gather for the March for Science protest in Sydney on April 22, 2017. Thousands of people rallied in Australia and New Zealand on April 22 in support of science, the first of more than 500 marches globally triggered by concern over the rise of “alternative facts”. AFP

PARIS, France—France was on edge Saturday on the eve of its most unpredictable presidential election in decades, which will take place under heightened security after the jihadist killing of a policeman.

The Islamic State-claimed slaying of the officer on Paris’ Champs Elysees avenue thrust questions of security to the fore of campaigning after nine months of relative calm.

Analysts say Thursday’s attack could shake up the four-way contest between far-right leader Marine Le Pen, centrist Emmanuel Macron, conservative Francois Fillon and Communistbacked firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon.

The top two vote getters in Sunday’s poll will head to a run-off on May 7.

Authorities in Paris have offered additional guards for hundreds of polling stations in the capital, which will come on top of an already major security plan across the country.

“An extra guard or reinforcement of staff will be provided to any polling station that needs it,” Paris town hall official Colombe Brossel said.

On Sunday, around 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers will be deployed to protect voters across France.

Until now, surveys showed the French to be more concerned about jobs and the economy than terrorism or security, though analysts warned Thursday’s shooting could change that.

A note praising IS was found next to the body of 39-year-old gunman Karim Cheurfi, who shot dead an officer and wounded two others before being killed in a firefight that sent tourists on the Champs Elysees rushing for cover.

Le Pen has moved quickly to present herself as the strongest defender against Islamist radicals in a country scarred by a string of attacks that have claimed 239 lives since 2015.

The 48-year-old leader of the antiimmigration National Front (FN) called for France to “immediately” take back control of its borders from the European Union and deport all foreigners on a terror watchlist.

“This war against us is ceaseless and merciless,” she said, accusing the Socialist government of a “cowardly” response to the threat.

Fillon and Macron also hastily convened televised briefings in which they vowed to protect the country. AFP

US NAVAL ARMADA TO ARRIVE IN SEA OF JAPAN IN DAYS SYDNEY, Australia—The US supercarrier Carl Vinson will arrive in the Sea of Japan in days, Vice President Mike Pence said in Australia Saturday amid high tensions with North Korea.

The Trump administration has been trying to clear the waters after sending out confusing messages concerning the whereabouts of the Vinson carrier group that supposedly was steaming toward North Korea last week.

“Our expectation is that they will be in the Sea of Japan in position in a matter of days, before the end of this month,” Pence told reporters in Sydney. “(What) the regime in North Korea should make no mistake about, is that the United States has the resources, the personnel and the presence in this region of the world to see to our interests and to see to the security of those interests and our allies,” Pence said. AFP

MAN HELD FOR KILLING MISS HONDURAS CLAIMS INSANITY TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras— A man suspected of the 2014 murder of Miss Honduras and her sister -- his girlfriend at the time -- declined to testify in a Tegucigalpa court on Friday on grounds of mental illness.

Plutarco Antonio Ruiz, 34, appeared to act oblivious to court proceedings once he was led in by police, court officials said.

He did not respond to questions directed to him in the Supreme Court, as the mother and a sister of the victims looked on.

Prosecutors accuse Ruiz of killing his 24-year-old girlfriend, Sofia Trinidad Alvarado, and her 19-year-old sister, Miss Honduras beauty queen Maria Jose Alvarado, on November 13, 2014.

The women’s bodies were found buried on the banks of a river six days later -- on the date Maria Jose was meant to have flown to London to compete in a Miss World pageant.

Prosecutors believe Ruiz fatally shot the sisters in a jealous rage and then buried them with the help of accomplices. AFP

VIETNAM VILLAGE FREES HOSTAGES HELD OVER LAND DISPUTE HANOI, Vietnam—More than a dozen police and officials held hostage by Vietnamese villagers over a land dispute were released Saturday, state media reported, ending a week-long standoff that had gripped the country.

The rare act of defiance in My Duc, a suburban district of capital Hanoi, was sparked last week by clashes between authorities and villagers who said their farmland was being illegally seized for a military-owned telecoms firm.

After authorities detained a number of local residents protesting the seizure, including an 82-year-old man, villagers retaliated by taking 38 police officers and officials hostage.

Following a week of tension, Hanoi’s mayor Nguyen Duc Chung was welcomed into the community on Saturday. It had been sealed off by barricades made from logs, sandbags and bricks.

After the negotiations “villagers led a working team to the community house to release the 19” remaining hostages, state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. AFP