23082019 - Anger, as B-Haram retakes 2 LGAs in Borno

44 — Vanguard, FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019
Russia, China seek U.N. intervention
over U.S. missile developments
RUSSIA and China
have asked the United
Nations Security Council
to meet over “statements
by U.S. officials on their
plans to develop and deploy
medium-range missiles,”
according to the request
seen by Reuters.
Moscow and Beijing want
to convene the 15-member
council under the agenda
item “threats to international
peace and security” and
have requested that U.N.
disarmament affairs chief
Izumi Nakamitsu brief the
body. The Pentagon said on
Monday it had tested a conventionally
configured
cruise missile that hit its
target after more than 500
km (310 miles) of flight, the
first such test since the United
States pulled out Cold
War-era Intermediate-
Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
(INF).
U.S. Defense Secretary
Mark Esper was asked in a
Fox News Channel interview
on Wednesday whether
the test was aimed at sending
a message to China,
Russia or North Korea and
indicated that the main
concern was China. “We
want to make sure that we,
as we need to, have the capability
to deter Chinese
bad behavior by having our
own capability to be able to
strike at intermediate ranges,”
he said.
Esper said on a visit to Australia
this month he was in
favor of placing groundlaunched,
intermediaterange
missiles in Asia relatively
soon. Esper was also
asked about a rocket test
•Putin
accident in Russia this
month which U.S. officials
believe was associated with
the Kremlin’s hypersonic
cruise missile program.
“Clearly they are trying
to expand their strategic
nuclear arsenal to deal
with the United States,” he
said, adding that all such
new weapons would have
to be included in any future
strategic arms reduction
treaty. “Right now Russia
has possibly nucleartipped
... INF-range cruise
missiles facing toward Europe,
and that’s not a good
thing,” he said.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin said on
Wednesday the United
States was in a position to
deploy a new land-based
cruise missile in Romania
and Poland, a scenario he
considered a threat that
Moscow would need to respond
to.
The United States has
said it has no imminent
plans to deploy new landbased
missiles in Europe.
This week’s U.S. test would
have been banned under the
INF, which prohibited landbased
missiles with a range
of between 310 and 3,400
miles, reducing the ability
of the United States and
Russia to launch a nuclear
strike at short notice. China
was not a party to the
INF treaty and has a large
arsenal of land-based intermediate-range
missiles.
Brexit: Backstop indispensable, Macron
tells Johnson
BORIS Johnson has met
Emmanuel Macron in
Paris for Brexit talks, with the
French president saying the
UK’s vote to quit the EU must
be respected.
But he added that the Ireland-Northern
Ireland backstop
plan was “indispensable”
to preserving political
stability and the single market.
The backstop, opposed
by Mr Johnson, aims to prevent
a hard border on the island
of Ireland after Brexit.
2020: Trump seeks to mobilize women in battleground states
PRESIDENT Donald
Trump’s re-election
campaign is hosting events
in 2020 battleground states
on Thursday to mobilize
and train suburban women,
an important voting bloc
that defected from Republicans
during last year’s congressional
contests.
The campaign representatives
- who include conservative
commentators, a
former “Apprentice” contestant,
a beauty pageant winner
and campaign and
White House staff – will try
to persuade women to talk
openly about their support
for Trump and encourage
others to do the same.
Mr Johnson said that with
“energy and creativity we can
find a way forward”.
On Wednesday German
Chancellor Angela Merkel
said the onus was on the UK
to find a workable plan. UK
Prime Minister Mr Johnson
insists the backstop must be
ditched if a no-deal exit from
the EU on 31 October is to
be avoided.
He argues that it could
leave the UK tied to the EU
indefinitely, contrary to the
“We want to empower
women to share their stories
about why they support
President Trump and help
bring more supporters into
the fold,” said Erin Perrine,
a deputy press secretary
who will host an event in
North Carolina.
A campaign official involved
with the planning
said they expect hundreds
of attendees at gatherings
in 13 states including Pennsylvania,
Florida and Ohio.
Much of the talk will focus
on Trump’s economic record
and how he has kept his
promises on issues like immigration
and healthcare,
the officials said.
result of the 2016 referendum,
in which 52% of voters
opted to leave. But the EU
has repeatedly said the withdrawal
deal negotiated by
former PM Theresa May,
which includes the backstop,
cannot be renegotiated
Ḣowever, it has previously
said it would be willing to
“improve” the political declaration
- the document that
sets out the UK’s future relationship
with the EU.
Washington formally
withdrew from the landmark
1987 pact with Russia
on Aug. 2 after determining
that Moscow was
violating the treaty, an accusation
the Kremlin has
denied. Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Geng
Shuang said on Tuesday
that the U.S. test showed the
United States was stoking
a new arms race and confrontation,
which would
have a serious negative impact
on regional and global
security.
A North Korean spokesman
said on Thursday the
U.S. test and plans to deploy
F-35 jets and offensive military
equipment around the
Korean peninsula were
“dangerous” moves that
would “trigger a new Cold
War” in the region. Asked
whether he thought it was
appropriate for Washington
to continue to seek negotiations
with Pyongyang
after its repeated recent
tests of short-range missiles,
Esper said the biggest
U.S. concern was about
North Korea’s long-range
missiles, tests of which it has
frozen since 2017.
“I think you need to take
a look at the bigger picture,”
he said when asked if
recent U.S. statements playing
down the short-range
tests amounted to giving
North Korea permission to
conduct them.
It was not clear how those
discussions will unfold.
While Trump’s efforts to
build a wall on the U.S.-
Mexican border have
stalled, he has persisted in
a controversial effort to crack
down on immigration, including
separating families.
A promise to lower prescription
drug plans has not
been met, and his hope of
riding a strong economy into
2020 is facing headwinds
from signs a recession may
be looming.
The events, which coincide
with the 99th anniversary
of women suffrage, are
being put together in part
by the Trump Victory Leadership
Initiative, a grassroots
arm of the campaign
that will target key demographic
groups in the
months leading up to November’s
election.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos
poll, conducted this week,
shows 39% of women approve
of Trump’s performance
in office and 56% disapprove.
The numbers
have hovered at these levels
for a year.
Perrine said the numbers
did not reflect the true level
of support from Trump
among women, however.
She noted, for example, that
51% of the donors in the latest
quarter were women.
Tunisian PM delegates his powers
to focus on presidential race
TUNISIAN Prime Minister Youssef Chahed will temporarily
delegate his powers to Public Service Minister
Kamal Morjane to focus on his candidacy for the presidency
and to ensure equal opportunities for all candidates,
he said on Thursday.
The Sept. 15 vote follows the death at age 92 last month
of Beji Caid Essebsi, the first president to be democratically
elected in Tunisia after the popular uprising of 2011.
Chahed is competing in a race crowded with prominent
figures, including the current defense minister Abd El
karim Zbidi, the vice president of Ennahda Islamist party
Abdel Fattah Mourou and former prime minister Mehdi
Jomaa.
Former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki and Nabil
Karoui, a businessman and owner of the private channel
Nessma TV, will also stand. Chahed, Mourou and Zbidi
are likely frontrunners.
“In order to ensure the transparency of the presidential
election and the equal opportunities between all candidates,
I am temporarily delegating my powers until the
end of the campaign for the Minister of Public Service,
Kamal Morjane.”, Chahed said in a speech. The election
campaign runs from Sept. 1 to 13. Tunisia’s president
controls foreign and defense policy, governing alongside
a prime minister chosen by parliament who has authority
over domestic affairs.
Execution set for US killer who
preyed on gay men
A
SERIAL killer who preyed on gay men along the US
east coast is set to be put to death in Florida , barring a
stay by the US Supreme Court.
Gary Ray Bowles admitted to killing six men in 1994 from
Florida to Maryland but was only convicted of three deaths.
Sometimes dubbed the “I-95 killer”, most of his victims were
found nearby to the interstate corridor that spans the entire
eastern seaboard of the US.
The Florida Supreme Court rejected his appeal earlier this
month.
Investigators say the 57-year-old West Virginia native left an
abusive household as a child and worked as a prostitute to gay
men for a number of years before beginning his killing spree.
After two jail sentences for grand theft, robbery, assault and
rape, he moved to Daytona Beach in 1993.
During this time he continued to work as a prostitute, and
was living with a girlfriend who left him after discovering his
sex work.
He later told authorities that he blamed gay men for their
break-up, and was angered to learn that his girlfriend had had
an abortion, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
After a manhunt, Bowles was arrested in Jacksonville while
living under a false identify. He was convicted of killing Walter
Hinton, 47, and given a death penalty.
He also pleaded guilty and was given life sentences for the
murders of John Hardy Roberts, 59, and Albert Alcie Morris,
37
Ḃowles will be the 99th inmate to be put to death in Florida
since 1976 when the death penalty was restored by the Supreme
Court, according to the Daytona Beach New journal.
Man who eat his ex-girlfriend’s
brain, body parts faces trial
THE murder trial has begun for an Indiana man who is
accused of killing his ex-girlfriend in September 2014
and eating her body parts after their breakup.
Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said in his opening
statement on Wednesday that evidence will show old
Joseph Oberhansley, 38, kicked in the door of Tammy Jo
Blanton’s Jeffersonville home nearly five years ago and
stabbed her to death.
Mull said Oberhansley then removed and consumed
parts of her organs, including her brain. ‘Joseph Oberhansley
butchered Tammy Blanton like you wouldn’t kill a
livestock animal,’ Mull said, according to the Courier-Journal.
Mull said Oberhansley had gone to the 46-year-old’s home
to ‘talk some sense into her’ after she broke off their relationship.
He reportedly used an electric jigsaw to open Blanton’s
skull.
The so-called ‘cannibal killer’ had previously admitted to
the crimes including ‘cooking a section of her brain and
eating it’ after his arrest in Jeffersonville, Indiana, police
said. Authorities also said he devoured parts of the victim’s
heart and lung.However, Oberhansley has called the allegations
against him ‘all bull crap lies’ and insists he is innocent.
Blanton had accused Oberhansley of rape the weekend
before her murder. But Oberhansley claims that was also a
lie. In a 10-minute rant at a pre-trial hearing last month at
Clark County Court, Oberhansley claimed Blanton was ‘getting
high and drunk and texting a bunch of bull crap’.
Oberhansley also told the judge that he had uncovered
new evidence that pointed to his innocence.
He suggested detectives had missed the murder weapon
as it could not have been the ‘cheap little knife’ investigators
found. Oberhansley ignored his frustrated lawyers who
warned him to keep quiet. The judge cautioned him to save
his comments for his trial.
But then Oberhansley brazenly tried to hold a news conference
on his way-out of court before sheriff’s deputies led
him away. Oberhansley was found mentally not competent
in October 2017 to be tried. He was hospitalized for more
than six months at Logansport State Hospital after the judge
ruled he wasn’t capable of participating in the trial.
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