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BANGKOK (AP) — The niece of an army conscript who was tortured to death by soldiers was arrested Tuesday on a complaint filed by the Thai military over her internet postings.

Naritsarawan Kaewnopparat last year had posted photos of her uncle’s body and information about the torture he endured. She was arrested at her workplace in Bangkok on charges of criminal defamation and violating the Computer Crime Act.

Military personnel are rarely prosecuted for human rights abuses or other crimes in Thailand, and the military government that seized power in May 2014 has clamped down on free speech.

Naritsarawan won 7 million baht ($200,000) compensation in a malfeasance suit against the army, the defense ministry and the prime minister’s office, but the actual perpetrators went unpunished.

The army’s own investigation concluded Wichian Puaksorn was tortured by about 10 soldiers as punishment when he tried to run away a second time from his camp in the southern province of Narathiwat in June 2011. It said a first lieutenant gave the order and that Wichian was kicked, beaten and dragged across concrete; salt was rubbed in his wounds before he was wrapped in a sheet and beaten again.

“Naritsarawan acted as a representative and advocate in the place of her late uncle’s mother,” said Preeda Nakphew, an attorney for the Cross Cultural Foundation advocacy group. “She fought his case in court and was already paid compensation for his death, so it is unclear as to why the police are acting on this arrest warrant now.”

In a separate case, three human rights activists who were tried on similar charges after being sued by the army will hear the court’s verdict on Wednesday. The charges involve a report the three issued alleging torture by security forces in Thailand’s southern provinces, where a Muslim insurgency has lasted more than a decade. They face the prospect of five years behind bars and a fine of $4,800.

Amnesty International called for Thai authorities to drop the charges and instead investigate the serious allegations the activists’ report raised. “It is the state’s duty to protect human rights activists, not to shield security forces from accountability,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty in a press release.

The report issued in February described acts of torture in the southern provinces as systematic and said that in spite of complaints and campaigns by victims and rights organizations, “the state has not taken any significant action to prevent and address torture.”

Government spokesman Winthai Suvaree said in response to their report that there was no evidence to back allegations of torture.

The post Niece of Thai army torture victim sued for internet postings appeared first on New Europe.

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A Kenyan half-brother of President Barack Obama said Tuesday he supports Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and not the candidate his brother has endorsed, Hillary Clinton.

Malik Obama told The Associated Press he thinks Trump has a lot of energy and is very straightforward.

“Clinton is not honest because she says that she did not reveal any classified information, and she did. And I don’t see that kind of person being the president of the United States,” he said.

Also, “I do not support same-sex marriage,” he said. “I am Muslim, it’s something God would not approve. The Republican Party doesn’t stand for that.”

Malik Obama also expressed disappointment that his half-brother hasn’t done more to support his Kenyan family and the country. The president’s father was Kenyan.

“I am upset and disillusioned. When he became president there was a lot of excitement and there was a lot of hope that he would do many things for us and the country,” he said. “I don’t think he has accomplished that.”

Trump has tweeted his surprise at Malik Obama’s stance: “Was probably treated badly by president – like everybody else!”

Malik Obama, 58, stirred up controversy in 2010 when he took a teenager as his third wife. He ran for governor in his home county of Siaya in 2013 and lost by a landslide. He was unhappy that his half-brother did not endorse him.

The father of President Obama and Malik Obama died in a car crash in 1982, leaving three wives, six sons and a daughter. All his children except Malik and the youngest, George Obama, live in Britain or the United States.

The post Obama’s Kenyan half-brother says he supports Donald Trump appeared first on New Europe.

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Following members of the security forces, teachers and professors, and members of the public administration, the purge in Turkey continues with State Owned companies.

Turkish Airlines fired 211 cabin crew and management as part of the post-coup purge. Turkish Telecom followed with another 200 dismissals.

According to Sabah, many of the employees were sacked because of their alleged links to the network of the US-based cleric Fetullah Gulen.

The post Turkish purge continues with Turkish Airlines and Turk Telecom appeared first on New Europe.

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Two armed men took five hostages at a church in a small town near Rouen in Normandy, northern France on Tuesday morning.

The two men were armed with knives and took two nuns, a priest, and at two worshippers as hostages in the French town of Rouvray, near Rouen, in Normandy, France.

Apparently, one of the nuns escaped and alerted the police.

The police sealed the area. The two men beheaded the 86-year old priest Jacques Hamel before they were shot dead.

Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet says another one of the hostages is critically wounded.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack. President Francois Hollande says “France is ‘at war’ with ISIS.”

There are reports that one of the two assailants was wearing an electronic surveillance tag. The assailant took advantage of a three hour non-surveillance window for this attack.

He had been arrested in Turkey and jailed in France in 2015, while trying to reach Syria.

The post Islamic Militants kill Catholic priest in Normandy appeared first on New Europe.

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday he hoped to announce in early August details of a plan for closer military cooperation and intelligence sharing with Russia in Syria.

Speaking after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian nations intergovernmental conference in Laos, Kerry said there had been progress in negotiations.

Apparently, bilateral negotiations have yielded a bilateral plan.

Kerry’s proposal envisages Washington and Moscow sharing intelligence and coordinating air strikes against the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front; the plan will also prohibit the Syrian air force from attacking moderate rebel groups.

Kerry is defending the plan amidst deep skepticism among his own ranks. Top American military and intelligence officials, including Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, oppose any cooperation with Russia.

 

The meeting in Laos comes in the aftermath of allegations that Russia is behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) intranet system. A private cybersecurity contractor working for the DNC suggested the hacker is linked to the FSB. Wikileaks released a trove of the e-mails secured via that cyber-security attack on Friday.

Kerry said he raised the issue of the emails with Lavrov during their meeting. Earlier, Lavrov brushed aside the accusations that Russia was involved, saying: “I don’t want to use four-letter words.”

The FBI is still investigating the intrusion at the DNC intra-system.

The post Kerry announces cooperation with Russia in Syria appeared first on New Europe.

Converting gas distribution systems across Europe from methane to hydrogen could cut CO2 emissions from the heating of buildings by more than 70%.  That’s the prospect held out by a new UK case study that might have big implications for EU energy policy.

With the heating and cooling of buildings accounting for half of Europe’s energy consumption there is little prospect of achieving the climate change goals set last year in Paris unless greenhouse gas emissions from this sector are reduced by a very significant margin.  Yet the strategy outlined by the European Commission in its communication six months ago is less than convincing.  Step  changes in thinking and levels of ambition are needed.

The H21 Leeds City Gate project published its findings last month – rather unhelpfully on the same day that the news was dominated by Theresa May becoming British prime minister!  It proposes construction of four conventional steam methane reformers to convert natural gas to hydrogen in the industrial area of Teesside, on the North Sea coast.  From here the gas would be piped south to Leeds, a city with a 660,000 population, or one per cent of the UK as a whole.

A phased conversion exercise, effectively on a street by street basis, would start from 2026 and mimic the operation that took place 60 years before when coal gas was replaced by natural gas.  Boilers in every home would be replaced.  A rolling programme would see the conversion work extended across the entire country by 2050.

The project team says that expense and disruption will be greatly reduced because the work will follow in the tracks of a major operation that is seeing Britain’s old iron gas mains replaced by polyethylene distribution pipes, which are entirely suitable for carrying hydrogen.  The geology of the area is also ideal for the bulk storage of the gas in salt caverns, making it possible to even out the enormous differences in seasonal demand that could defeat the use of electricity for heating on a similar scale.

At least 90% of the CO2 created as a by-product of the hydrogen manufacture will be captured and piped for permanent sequestration deep beneath the North Sea.  Sufficient storage capacity for 90 years of production has already been identified, and the carbon capture and storage (CCS) network would provide the means of decarbonising the Teesside industrial complex.  Storing inert CO2 is strangely controversial in some countries, even when they appear to regard underground storage of inflammable methane as routine, but in the UK the idea is likely to command cross-party support.

As for the costs of all this?  The project team claim (and cynics will argue that they would say this) they are remarkably reasonable, significantly less expensive than the electrification, home insulation or heat pump alternatives, and with potential for achieving great economies of scale.  With expense shared across the national network the difference in household bills, including the boiler replacement exercise, would be very small indeed.

So is this the answer to Europe’s heating dilemma?  It deserves more study.  The gas industry is interested but it has yet to register with governments.  There’s never a single solution for every member state but with CO2-rich natural gas providing 46% of the EU’s heat a move from methane to hydrogen might prove a vital weapon in the fight against climate change.

Chris Davies led on climate and energy issues for the ALDE group in the European Parliament 1999-2014, and is an advisor to FleishmanHillard.

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Bernie Sanders moved to resolutely endorse Hillary Clinton at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia on Monday evening. “Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States,” the Vermont Senator said.

However, anti-unity delegates booed both Sanders and the liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren, rejecting calls to rally behind Hillary Clinton on Monday evening. Some supporters wore duct tape over their mouths and wore t-shirts emblazoned with the words “silenced.”

The rallying of the most progressive elements of the Democratic Party behind Hillary Clinton, only hours after Wikileaks revealed how the Democratic National Convention (DNC) favoured Hillary Clinton, is impressive. The leaks made abundantly clear that top Democrats were anything but neutral and undermined his campaign in more ways than one.

Already on Sunday, the party issued an apology to Bernie Sanders and the chairwoman of the DNC Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign.

Sanders accepted the apology and called on his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton. The question is not whether the 13 million people who voted for Sanders will turn to Donald Trump; that is anything but likely. But, many of his 18-to-29 years old supporters could stay at home rather than vote Clinton.

Speaking on Monday, Sanders said that Hillary Clinton has made significant policy concessions and talked of “the most progressive platform in recent history.” He also pleaded with his supporters to consider the kind of appointments Donald Trump would make to the Supreme Court, tilting the balance of values and policies for decades to come.

Hillary Clinton has committed to an increase in the minimum wage of at least $15 an hour, while Democrats vow to close private detention centers profiting from mass deportations, and to target mass incarceration and racial profiling.

Trump keeps talking about a wall along the Mexican border and commit to limiting employment rights to gay, lesbian and transgender people.

In the coming days President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton will take the stage to talk of a common front against Donald Trump.

A Bernie Sanders supporter holds a sign on the first day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 25 July 2016. The four-day convention is expected to end with Hillary Clinton formally accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party as their presidential candidate in the 2016 election. EPA/ANDREW GOMBERT

The post Sanders rallies supporters behind Clinton despite DNC’s betrayal appeared first on New Europe.

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Two armed men took five hostages at a church in a small town near Rouen in northern France on Tuesday morning; they killed one hostage, a 92-year old priest, before they were shot dead by the police.

Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet says another one of the hostages is critically wounded.

The two men were armed with knives and took two nuns, a priest, and at two worshipers as hostages in the French town of Rouvray, near Rouen, in Normandy, France.

President François Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve are en route to the site of the attack. The event follows the attacks in Nice on July 14, with a toll of 84 people.

The police are examining the church for explosives.

There is no official announcement as to the identity or motive of the assailants.

The post France: Priest held hostage killed, two assailant “neutralized” appeared first on New Europe.

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A man entered a facility for the disabled in Sagamihara, 40 km west of Tokyo, on Tuesday killing 19, nine men and ten women; 26 more were wounded, 20 of whom seriously.

This is the deadliest mass killing since the Second World War in Japan. Gun ownership is very strictly controlled and enforced in Japan, where mass killings are an extremely rare phenomenon. The last similar incident was in 2008 .

The assailant is the 26-year old man Satoshi Uematsu. He entered a police station later in afternoon carrying a bag of knives he apparently used. He told the police “it’s better that the disabled disappear” and delivered a letter in which he outlined his vision for a society in which euthanasia will be acceptable.

Uematsu is a former employee of the the Tsukui Yamayuri En (Tsukui Lily Garden) facility and had worked there since 2012. His motive for the assault remains unclear. It is not known yet whether he was fired or resigned from his post.

He entered the facility on 13.00 on Monday, breaking through a window. By 15.00 he had surrendered to the Sagaminhara police station.

The 30,000-square-meter facility can accommodate up to 160 people. As of recent, it hosted 149 people aged 19 to 75.

The post Man kills 19 disabled people in Japan calling for euthanasia appeared first on New Europe.

On 26 July 2016, the Council adopted a decision establishing a revised order in which the member states will hold the presidency of the Council of the EU until 2030.

Following the UK decision to relinquish the Council presidency in the second half of 2017, the Council decided to bring forward by six months the order of presidencies, starting from 1 July 2017.

It also decided to add Croatia, which was not yet a member state at the time of the original decision, for the period January-June 2020.

The revised order of the presidencies of the Council runs until 2030 (the previous decision covered only until June 2020) and is set out below:

MaltaJanuary-June2017EstoniaJuly-December2017BulgariaJanuary-June2018AustriaJuly-December2018RomaniaJanuary-June2019FinlandJuly-December2019CroatiaJanuary-June2020GermanyJuly-December2020PortugalJanuary-June2021SloveniaJuly-December2021FranceJanuary-June2022Czech RepublicJuly-December2022SwedenJanuary-June2023SpainJuly-December2023BelgiumJanuary-June2024HungaryJuly-December2024PolandJanuary-June2025DenmarkJuly-December2025CyprusJanuary-June2026IrelandJuly-December2026LithuaniaJanuary-June2027GreeceJuly-December2027ItalyJanuary-June2028LatviaJuly-December2028LuxembourgJanuary-June2029NetherlandsJuly-December2029SlovakiaJanuary-June2030MaltaJuly-December2030

Regarding the order of presidencies as from 1 January 2031, the Council is required to take a decision before 31 December 2029.

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Subsidiaries of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 7.3% and water consumption by 7.8% in 2015 compared to the year before, Gazprom’s Coordinating Committee for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency said, following a meeting moderated by Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee and Head of the Coordinating Committee.

Energy saving and energy efficiency are key to Gazprom’s environmental activities, Gazprom said in a press release. In 2015, the Company saved 2.7 million tonnes of fuel equivalent on fuel and energy resources, including 2.255 billion cubic metres of natural gas, 260.6 million kWh of electricity, and 205,000 Gcal of heat. The total cost of the resources saved in 2015 equaled 7.8 billion rubles, exceeding the level of 2014 by over 0.6 billion rubles. In 2015, Gazprom’s Environmental Inspection Service conducted 539 environmental compliance inspections in 52 subsidiary companies and organisations of Gazprom, the press release read. In addition, 544 inspections were carried out in 29 subsidiary companies and organisations with the purpose of monitoring the efficiency of natural gas use.

The post Gazprom boosts fuel, energy resources savings appeared first on New Europe.

On 26 July 2016, Ms Kirsi Henriksson, a senior diplomat from Finland, was appointed Head of the European Union mission in Niger, EUCAP Sahel Niger. She will take up her duties on 1 September 2016. She will replace Mr Filip de Ceuninck who had been in the position since 2013.

EUCAP Sahel Niger was launched in 2012 to support capacity building of the Nigerien security actors. The mission provides advice and training to support the Nigerien authorities in strengthening their security capabilities.  It contributes to the development of an integrated, coherent, sustainable, and human rights-based approach among the various Nigerien security agencies in the fight against terrorism and organised crime. On 18 July 2016 its mandate was amended to also assist the Nigerien central and local authorities as well as the security forces in developing policies, techniques and procedures to better control and combat irregular migration. 

Since 2014, Ms Henriksson has been the Deputy Head of Mission for EUCAP Sahel Mali. She has a background both from civilian CSDP, Crisis Management Centre Finland, Ministry of Interior and from academia. She has previously held positions such as: Acting Chief of Staff EUBAM Libya (May-Aug 2014); Head of Planning and Evaluation, EUBAM Libya (2014); Planning and Evaluation Officer, EUBAM Libya (2013-2014); Rule of Law expert, Evaluation and Best Practice Officer, EUJUST LEX Iraq (2010-2011); Head of Development, Crisis Management Center Finland (CMC Finland), Ministry of the Interior (MoI); Researcher, CMC Finland, MoI (2007); Researcher and lecturer at the Department of History and Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, University of Tampere, Finland (1996-2006). She speaks Finnish, English, French, Swedish, German, and has a basic knowledge of Arabic.

The decision was taken by the Political and Security Committee.

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Thomas Friedman defends that we need a Multi World in a time of crescendous competition in the Global Economy, He proposes new collaborative platforms between the different actors, with the strategic challenge of reinforcing the central competences of society and qualifying them as the unique ways of creation of value and modernity. The Multi World is facing also a unique opportunity. There is more and more a sense that the World is not flat and we effectively need new answers to the complex problems we face.

The challenge of a Multi World demands an effective Partnership Contract between all the actors (States, Universities, Companies, Civil Society), in order to build a real Strategy of Confidence in the implementation of the different policies. The focus on Innovation and Knowledge as the drivers of creating added value with international dissemination is a unique challenge that may be the answer to a new way of interaction between those who have the responsibility of thinking and those that have the responsibility of producing goods and services.

The Multi World demands for an active entrepreneurial culture and attitude – “social active classes” in the World have most of the times  an effective negative attitude towards the financial risk, the focus on innovation and the share of a culture of positive dynamic. We need  World  to have a new challenge. Europe must be able to be the real Platform of a more Entrepreneurial Society, centered in new areas of knowledge and new sectors of value. In a World  3.0 Society, the key word is Co-creation. To promote a dynamic and active creation process involving each citizen is the big challenge for the next years in Europe. 

In a complex time of uncertainty,  the Multi World must be the most complete example of positive attitude towards the future. The Talents must be the new competitive advantage of this new Distinct World pushed by the “enablers” of  Modernity, Added Value and Excellence. A very clear idea that suits the big challenge that our society really faces and that requires new answers for different questions. The act of global  participation in such a demanding society is an exercise of commitment between the individual creativity and the collective cooperation. This is the key for the right future for Europe.

It´ s time to believe in a new cycle for our World. These are in fact the “drivers of change” for the World and civil society must be able to understand this new challenge and address effective answers to the different stakeholders of the system. The challenge of the Multi World  is in a large sense giving a new opportunity  to a new ambition. The Reinvention of World is the reinvention of its people and institutions. It ´s the conviction that in fact we have a future as individuals and society.

The post Good morning, world! appeared first on New Europe.

A Syrian man blew himself up and injured 15 others outside a music festival in Ansbach on Sunday. The authorities suspect the blast was Islamist motivated. After the axe attack in a regional train and the killing spree in Munich this latest attack has only compounded the state of shock in Germany. Commentators ask what impact all this will have on the country's attitude to refugees.