Monday, 9 October 2017

White House Demands Border Wall, Changes To Immigration System In Return For DACA

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White House Demands Border Wall, Changes To Immigration System In Return For DACAWASHINGTON ― The White House told Congress on Sunday night that it wants a border wall and new limits on legal immigration in return for allowing people illegally brought into the United States as children to remain here ― demands top Democrats say renege on a deal President Donald Trump himself made with them last month.




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Turkey urges U.S. to reverse visa suspension, defends arrest of consulate worker

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Turkey urges U.S. to reverse visa suspension, defends arrest of consulate workerTurkey's Justice Minister said on Monday he hoped the United States would review its suspension of visa services to Turkish citizens after the arrest of a U.S. consulate employee last week, saying the case was a matter for Turkey's judiciary. The United States has condemned the charges against its Turkish employee as baseless and said on Sunday it was halting all non-immigrant visa services in Turkey while it reassessed Turkey's commitment to the security of its missions and staff.




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One mass shooting every day: Seven facts about gun violence in America

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One mass shooting every day: Seven facts about gun violence in AmericaStephen Paddock's gun attack at a Las Vegas country music festival has left at least 59 people dead. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, once again highlighting America's extreme rate of gun violence. The frequency of this kind of event risks anaesthetising us to the number of people who die from shootings in one of the world's most developed nations. The numbers are staggering. 1. The Las Vegas mass shooting wasn't the only mass shooting in America on Sunday While the scale of the attack in Las Vegas on Sunday night is unparalleled, it wasn't the only mass shooting to occur in the US that day. Some 13,000 miles away in Lawrence, just outside the University of Kansas in Kansas, two men and a woman were killed and a further two people injured in a mass shooting incident. While none of the three victims were students at the university, all were in their early twenties, with one of the young men recently having become a father, according to the local press. Mass shootings in America - defined as an event where at least four people are shot - are now an every day event. The Las Vegas attack makes October the most deadly month for mass shootings this year - although not by as much as some may think, given the scale of the atrocity. The scale of US mass shootings in 2017 2. One major mass shooting every two months This year's deaths follow a depressing trend, according to data gathered by the Gun Violence Archive. Some 346 people are estimated to have been killed in American mass shootings this year. This compared to 432 in 2016, and 369 in 2015 - more than one person for every day of the year. When it comes to major mass shootings (where more than four people are killed), there have been an average of just 72 days between events during the period of 2010 to 2017 . This is a far more frequent rate when compared to the average gap of 162 days from 2000 to 2010, according to data compiled by Mother Jones. The two worst mass shooting events - this week's Las Vegas shooting and the Pulse nightclub atrocity in Orlando - have occurred in the last two years. More than a person a day have been killed in US mass shootings in recent years 3. Firearms sales go up after mass shootings Data from the FBI shows us that there have been 270million firearms background checks since November 1998 - and the number is increasing as time goes by. Such background checks, initiated through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), do not represent the number of firearms sold - but they do give us an idea as to interest in buying guns across the country. In an alarming pattern identified by the New York Times, the fear of firearms restrictions is a significant driver of gun sales - with mass shootings and other attacks being another, although to a lesser extent. For example, December 2015 saw the highest number of background checks to date - at 3.3m. This followed the San Bernardino terror attack in November, in which 14 people died and after which Obama called for tighter restrictions on the purchase of assault rifles. Firearm checks peak after attacks and potential restrictions 4. 270m guns for 320m people In 2007, the Small Arms Survey estimated that there were between 250m and 290m civilian-owned firearms in the US - a rate of around 90 per 100 people. This was the highest rate of civilian guns for any of the 178 countries that were surveyed and was ahead of Yemen (55 guns per 100 civilians) in second place by quite some distance. Higher rates of gun ownership correlate strongly with occurrences of mass shootings with the US emerging at the top of tree when it came to mass shootings per head in a study by Jaclyn Schildkraut of the State University of New York.  Countries with more guns have more mass shootings 5. Mass shootings are just the tip of the iceberg Between 2001 and 2013, 406,496 people died as a result of gun violence in America according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Of this number the majority - 237,052 - were actually suicides as opposed to homicides. Homicides accounted for 153,144 deaths over this period while the rest comprised 8,383 accidental deaths, 4,778 deaths from police shootings and 3,200 where the cause couldn't be determined.  In this context, mass shootings make up a comparatively small proportion of overall gun deaths in the US, accounting for around three per cent of homicides in 2017 so far according to the Gun Violence Archive. Suicides account for most US gun deaths 6. Texas is often at the frontline of mass shootings In 2015, there were 45 deaths from Texan mass shootings. In 2016, the state saw 39 victims. This year, the running total is 28. While individual large tragedies may skew the data for particular years, Texas is consistently bad for gun violence. After the Las Vegas attack, Nevada has suffered the most deaths from mass shootings this year - at 59 deaths - but it is also top when we make the number proportional to a state's population. It being a small state, Nevada has now had 20 mass shooting deaths per one million of its people - with the next highest rates seen in Mississippi (7.4 per million) and Kansas (3.4 per million). Map: America’s mass shootings hotspots 7. Americans can't agree on gun control The debate over gun rights and restrictions is not a new one in America - and it's opened up every time another mass shooting catches the public's attention.  The latest polling from the Pew Research Centre shows that 47 per cent of Americans support protecting gun rights - compared to 51 per cent who support gun control (6 April 2017). This polling has tightened over the last two decades - when 65 per cent were in favour of gun control in May 1999 - ensuring that the debate continues to rage on. The gun debate is anything but settled At the end of 2016, The Telegraph published a piece called "The face of America's gun problem" which aimed to document all 432 victims of American mass shootings in 2016.




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Turkish army launches reconnaissance mission in Syria's Idlib

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Turkish army launches reconnaissance mission in Syria's IdlibThe Turkish army has launched a reconnaissance mission in Syria's largely jihadist-controlled northwestern Idlib province in a bid to create a de-escalation zone, the military said on Monday. "The Turkish armed forces began reconnaissance activities on October 8 (Sunday) to establish surveillance posts as part of the operation to be carried out in Idlib province," the armed forces said in a statement. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday the start of the new military operation inside Syria by pro-Ankara Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish army.




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South of New Orleans, Nate spares parish devastated by Hurricane Katrina

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South of New Orleans, Nate spares parish devastated by Hurricane KatrinaBy Jessica Resnick-Ault BELLE CHASSE, La. (Reuters) - Residents of Louisiana's lower Plaquemines Parish, the swampy peninsula that shadows the Mississippi River as it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, know Nate let them off very easy, certainly when compared with hurricanes of years past. As the Category 1 storm approached this weekend, memories of the devastation of Katrina 12 years ago, and to a lesser extent, Issac in 2012, loomed large in the scattered hamlets that cling to the few spots of terra firma that line the river south of New Orleans. "I had prayed for this - that we would be spared," said Amos Cormier, president of the parish, Louisiana's equivalent to a county.




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Allies desert Syria jihadists before Turkey-backed battle

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Allies desert Syria jihadists before Turkey-backed battleSyria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate was once a key ally for many rebels but they are now abandoning it as the jihadists face a Turkey-backed operation in its stronghold. The Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly known as Al-Nusra Front, is the most powerful faction in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, which remains largely beyond the control of the regime. It heads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham coalition, which brought together an array of sympathetic rebel and jihadist groups and holds sway across Idlib after ousting rival factions earlier this year.




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Dove apologises for advert showing black woman transforming into white model 

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Dove apologises for advert showing black woman transforming into white model Dove has issued an apology for an advertising campaign branded “racist” which included an image of a black woman removing her top to reveal a white model underneath. The series of adverts, which have provoked an outcry on social media after being circulated on Facebook, also showed a third image portraying a caucasian woman transforming into an Asian woman as she undresses. Following the furore, Dove published a statement which stated: “An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of colour thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offence it caused. “As part of a campaign for Dove body wash, a three-second video clip was posted to the US Facebook page. “This did not represent the diversity of real beauty which is something Dove is passionate about and is core to our beliefs, and it should not have happened. “We have removed the post and have not published any other related content. We apologise deeply and sincerely for the offence that it has caused.” The advert was highlighted by Naomi Blake, who posted the images on social media The images first went viral after an American makeup artist, Naomi Blake, shared them with her followers on social media. She said: “What does America tell black people... that we are judged by the colour of our skin and that includes what is considered beautiful in this country. "To know that colorism is a problem in the world, that includes bleaching the skin, and they would put this ad out without a thought... the tone deafness in these companies makes no sense." The controversy comes two years after the cosmetics brand faced a wave of criticism for the product literature on one of its self-tanning products. The “summer glow” lotion, aimed at people with “normal to dark skin”, was labelled racist because it suggested that consumers with darker skin were not “normal”. Meanwhile, in 2011 Dove was again accused of racism for using a before and after image in an advert for its “visiblecare” range, which appeared to place three women on a colour gradient. The image, which portrayed a black, an Asian and a white woman standing together, appeared to suggest that the lightest skinned woman was the end result.




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Nigerian VP Osinbajo says running for presidency not 'on the cards'

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Nigerian VP Osinbajo says running for presidency not 'on the cards'By Libby George and Karin Strohecker LONDON (Reuters) - Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who has served as acting president for much of this year, said on Monday he had not given any thought to contesting the country's next presidential election in 2019. Nigeria has faced heightened uncertainty over whether President Muhammadu Buhari plans to contest the next election. Buhari, 74, took power in 2015 but has been absent for much of this year due to illness.




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Legal Fight Looms Over California's New Drug Pricing Law - Bloomberg

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Bloomberg
Legal Fight Looms Over California's New Drug Pricing Law
Bloomberg
California passed a law requiring pharmaceutical companies to explain their price increases, escalating the state-by-state battle between lawmakers trying to bring more transparency to the industry's practices and drugmakers that oppose the efforts.

and more »


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Seeking to relaunch social agenda, UK's May to address racial disparity

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LONDON (Reuters) - Ethnic minorities in Britain have a lower employment rate than white people and are under-represented in senior public sector jobs, Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Tuesday, releasing the findings of a government audit on racial disparity.


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