US to declassify intelligence about Argentina's 'dirty war'

© AFP/File | A man holds a sign reading "trial and punishment" outside the court after the reading of the sentences against two former dictators for activities during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, in Buenos Aires on July 5, 2012

WASHINGTON (AFP) -  The United States said Thursday it will begin declassifying sensitive military and intelligence records linked to Argentina's "dirty war."
The announcement came days before President Barack Obama's visit to Argentina, which coincides with the 40th anniversary of a right-wing military coup that the US government condoned.
"President Obama -- at the request of the Argentine government -- will announce a comprehensive effort to declassify additional documents, including, for the first time, military and intelligence records," National Security Advisor Susan Rice said.
In 2002, Washington declassified 4,000 diplomatic cables which showed US officials, including then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger, encouraged a crackdown that killed an estimated 30,000 people.
The target of the repression was leftist dissent, real or perceived, against the military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
The intelligence and military documents could shed new light on the depth of US involvement in the coup and in the purges which followed.
They may also shed more light on the extent of US involvement in "Operation Condor," a plan among secret police agencies across the Southern Cone to target communists, leftists and dissidents.
Beginning in the 1970s the United States backed right-wing governments across Latin America in the hope of preventing the spread of communism and Soviet influence.
"This anniversary and beyond, we?re determined to do our part as Argentina continues to heal and move forward as one nation," said Rice.
During his visit Obama plans to visit the Parque de la Memoria to honor the victims of the "dirty war."
US involvement in that dark era remains a difficult subject in Argentina and has left the country with one of the highest rates of anti-Americanism in Latin America.
A 2005 visit by president George W. Bush was marked by mass protests.
Obama advisor Ben Rhodes said Obama would look to engage the controversial issue of US complicity in abuses.
"He believes that part of moving forward in the Americas or any other part of the world involves a clear-eyed recognition of the past," said Rhodes.

© 2016 AFP

Impeachment looming? Brazil political crisis explained

© AFP | Brazilian congressmen show signs against (R) and supporting (L) Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff during the Chamber of Deputies session in Brasilia on March 17, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) -  Complex corruption scandals have plunged Brazil into political instability, with leftist President Dilma Rousseff facing impeachment proceedings and her iconic predecessor and mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva risking jail.
Here is a summary of the crisis and the possible next steps, after lawmakers on Thursday relaunched impeachment proceedings against Rousseff and a judge blocked Lula's nomination to her cabinet.
- What is Rousseff accused of? -
The opposition says she fiddled with government accounts in 2014 to mask budget holes during her reelection campaign. She is accused of breaking the law by taking unauthorized loans from state banks to cover government spending and also continuing this practice in 2015 at the start of her second term.
- What is Lula accused of? -
Lula, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2011, is charged with accepting a luxury apartment and a country home as bribes from executives implicated in a $2 billion dollar corruption scam at state oil company Petrobras. He denies involvement in the scandal.
- What is the state of play? -
Brazil's lower house of congress on Thursday launched a 65-member special committee to draw up a motion on whether impeachment proceedings should be launched against Rousseff.
Lula meanwhile is in limbo after prosecutors called for him to be arrested on corruption charges.
Rousseff moved to make him her chief of staff on Thursday, a position that would make him immune from trial by all but the Supreme Court. But a judge promptly issued a ruling blocking the appointment over allegations that she was trying to protect him from corruption charges.
- What happens next? -
The congressional commission has two weeks to vote on whether to continue impeachment proceedings against Rousseff.
Its recommendation would then go to the full house where two-thirds of deputies -- 342 out of 513 -- are required for impeachment to be upheld.
At this point Rousseff would be suspended and the matter would go to the Senate.
The upper house, overseen by the president of the Supreme Court, then votes, with a two-thirds majority -- 54 of 81 -- needed to force Rousseff from office.
- Is impeachment likely? -
On paper, Rousseff's ruling coalition, with 314 deputies, would easily defeat impeachment.
But congress is split over her performance. On Saturday her major coalition partner, the centrist PMDB party, said it would decide within a month whether to leave the coalition.
Recent opinion polls indicate that 60 percent of Brazilians back her impeachment. Her approval rating is only 10 percent.
The legal issues are not clear, experts say.
"You need a precise crime that can be personally pinned on the president in order to force resignation," said Thomaz Pereira, a law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
He was not sure that standard would be met.
"It's possible the political conditions will be there," he said, "but in our presidential system, impeachment is not to be turned into a vote of no-confidence," a potentially dangerous precedent.

© 2016 AFP

EU agrees migrant deal position to put to Turkey: Luxembourg PM

© AFP/File | Volunteers gesture to guide refugees and migrants on a dinghy as they approach Mytilene on the northern island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on February 19, 2016

BRUSSELS (AFP) -  European Union leaders have agreed a common position to put to Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a bid to curb the migration crisis, Luxembourg's premier said at a Brussels summit early Friday.
"Agreement on EU position, @eucopresident will present it to Turkish Prime Minister before our EU Council tomorrow," Xavier Bettel wrote on Twitter, referring to European Council President Donald Tusk.
A senior EU official said it was "not a deal but a common position" that would allow negotiations to move forward, adding that Tusk had "understood everyone's red lines".
Talks are due to take place later Friday between Tusk and Davutoglu on a possible accord that would include measures designed to stem the flow of migrants coming to Greece from Turkey.
In return, Turkey wants an acceleration of its bid for EU membership, visa free travel for Turks to the EU and a doubling of EU aid for refugees in Turkey.

© 2016 AFP

North Korea ‘fires ballistic missile into sea’

© AFP file photo | A public TV screen showing file footage of a North Korean missile in Seoul on March 4, 2016.

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-03-18

North Korea on Friday fired a ballistic missile into the sea, days after their leader Kim Jong-un ordered tests likely aimed at developing technology it needs to acquire in order to build a reliable missile capable of reaching the US mainland.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile flew 800 kilometers (500 miles) before crashing off the North’s east coast on Friday.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it wasn’t immediately known what type of missile was fired. South Korean media said it was believed to be a medium-range Rodong missile.
On Tuesday, North Korea’s state media said Kim had ordered tests of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying warheads. North Korea also said it simulated test of a re-entry vehicle aimed at return a nuclear warhead into the atmosphere from space so it could hit its intended target.
This led South Korean analysts to suspect that the North would likely fire a missile soon to test the re-entry technology.
Some analysts had also predicted the North might install on a dummy device on a missile or even empty warheads, which contain trigger devices but lack plutonium or uranium, to see if those warhead’s parts can survive the high pressure and temperatures upon re-entry into the atmosphere and if they were able to detonate at right time.
Outside experts said it is the last major technology that North Korea must master to achieve its goal of developing a long-range missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.
South Korean defense officials said North Korea hadn’t yet to acquire the re-entry technology so that it doesn’t yet have a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile.
Friday’s launch came amid a heightened international standoff over the North’s weapons programs in the wake of its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.
In recent weeks, North Korea threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul and test-fired short-range missiles and artillery into the sea in response to tough U.N. sanctions imposed over its nuclear test and rocket launch. The North says it needs nuclear weapons to cope with what it calls U.S. military threats.
(AFP)

Brazil judge files injunction to stop controversial Lula appointment

© Demonstrators gather next to Planalto Palace to protest against the government in Brasilia on March 17, 2016.

Text by Joseph BAMAT

Latest update : 2016-03-17

Supporters of Brazil’s left-wing government clashed briefly with opponents of President Dilma Rousseff and predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva outside the presidential palace on Thursday as the country slipped deeper into a political crisis.

Police used tear gas and stun grenades against some 5,000 anti-government protesters in the capital of Brasilia, while other demonstrators blocked the main avenue in Sao Paulo – Brazil’s largest city.
A federal judge issued an injunction suspending Lula's controversial appointment, citing the risk that his taking office would derail a judicial investigation into money-laundering and fraud.
Lula denies charges that he concealed ownership of a luxury seaside apartment as part of a vast kick-back scheme centred on state oil company Petrobras and contractors.
His supporters had urged Rousseff to give him a ministerial portfolio in order to avoid what they claim amounts to a politically motivated witch-hunt.
Under Brazilian law, senior government officials and members of congress enjoy immunity from federal and state prosecutors, and can only be tried by the Supreme Federal Tribunal, the country’s top court.
But Rousseff and Lula’s opponents accused the pair of political manoeuvring to avoid prosecution and undermine the judiciary.
Calls for impeachment
Meanwhile, Brazil’s currency and stock market gained sharply on Thursday, as a second-consecutive day of protests calling for Rousseff’s dismissal boosted bets on her removal.
Brazil also saw record protests on Sunday, with many calling for Rousseff’s dismissal. The president has not been named in the Petrobras scandal so far, but stands accused of unlawful management of the country’s budget in 2014.
Rousseff has also denied any wrongdoing.
“I expect protests will pick up at high levels, since many see Lula’s appointment as a provocation after historically large protests on Sunday,” Joao Augusto de Castro Neves, a Brazil expert at the Eurasia group think tank, told FRANCE 24.
“Brazil is likely to have a very tense environment in the coming days and weeks,” he said.
An impeachment process was launched against her late last year, but it needs two-thirds support from Congress to pass. The corruption scandal has divided her governing coalition and moved her main partner, the PMDB party, closer to breaking with her government. Pressure from the street could encourage the party to sever ties completely.
Other protesters have openly called for a military coup, but experts said that scenario remained unlikely.
“I would say a military coup is out of the question,” Castro Neves said. “Brazil’s institutions are much more robust than other governments in the region, and the country has the legal channels to avoid such a scenario.”
If Congress were to pass Rousseff’s impeachment, the decision would then need to be approved by a simple majority in the upper-house Senate. Vice President Michel Temer, who is also the president of the PMDB party, would fill in for Rousseff if she is relieved of her duties.
Leaked tapes
In an unexpected twist to the political drama, the judge leading the Petrobras investigation on Wednesday night released tapped phone calls between Silva and prominent public figures.
The calls suggest attempts were made to aid the former leader in his judicial woes, according Judge Sergio Moro.
Moro justified the release by saying democracies “demand that the people know what their officials are doing, even when they attempt to act under the cover of shadow”.
The presidential palace called the release of the tapes an “affront to the rights and guarantees of the presidency" and said "all the appropriate judicial and administrative measures will be taken to repair the flagrant violation of the law and the constitution committed by the judge behind the leak”.

Revolutionary youths: why French students protest like no other

© Martin Bureau, AFP | French students vote on renewing their strike during a general assembly, at the Paris X University near Paris, in November 2007.

Text by Benjamin DODMAN

Latest update : 2016-03-17

The French government’s clumsy attempts to reform the labour market have revived the spectre of unwieldy student protests and prompted comparisons with past debacles.

In the early months of 2003, as Britain and the US lurched irresistibly towards their catastrophic invasion of Iraq, students in the UK played a prominent part in the biggest protest movement the country had seen in decades. Among those who took part in a million-strong march in London on February 15, there was a palpable feeling that history was in the making. Tony Blair, the UK’s leader at the time, thought otherwise.
If British students had wanted to know what else they might have done to try to stop the war, they need only have looked at what was going on across the Channel. Anti-war protests in French cities had been almost as big, and far more vociferous – despite the fact that France had never even contemplated joining the invasion.
Three years later, a much vaster protest movement against an obscure labour reform, known as the CPE, saw French students and teenage pupils block schools, universities, roads, railways and motorways. Clashes with riot police turned emblematic sites like the Sorbonne University into war zones, thick with tear gas. As the crisis worsened, the government eventually backed down. By the end of the tussle, Jacques Chirac had been reduced to a lame-duck president, while the career of his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, never recovered.
With students back in the streets this month, again spurred into action by controversial reforms aimed at introducing greater flexibility in the labour market, France’s current Socialist government is desperate not to suffer a similar fate. This week it announced it was diluting the legislation. It also promised greater financial aid for youths, without detailing how it plans to fund the measure. One moderate student union welcomed the changes, but the bigger ones called for more protests. On Thursday, they were back in the streets, though it was not clear whether the movement would run out of steam following the government's partial climbdown.
Protesting for fun?
Ever since the May 1968 protests that paralysed France and precipitated the fall of President Charles de Gaulle, French governments have been terrified by the prospect of facing a united front of workers and student protests. “Far more than workers in the streets and students in the streets, it is the convergence of the two that haunts governments,” says Ludivine Bantigny, a historian of student movements at the University of Rouen.

Blaming France's 'bloated' labour code

Bantigny noted that it was much easier to discredit youth movements when they acted without the support of workers. “Politicians and the media are awash with clichés about youths who ‘understand nothing’, are ‘manipulated’, or simply ‘protest for fun’,” she said. “But one need only attend a student assembly to realise the quality of debates and awareness of what is at stake.”
Contrary to common assumptions, the historian argued, “students are very knowledgeable about the labour market”. She pointed out that a quarter of all French students are wage workers. A look at debates on social media also suggests that they are well-read about the subject of labour reforms – often more so than “grown-ups” in a country where few people read newspapers and where mainstream television offers mostly summary news coverage.
Not always left
Bantigny says it is important to qualify the notion of a uniformly politicised student body structured by unions. “There is a plurality of students, only a fraction of which – albeit a sizeable one – actually takes part in protests,” she said, noting that students from the humanities (though not law students) tend to provide the bulk of protesters, and that unions are no longer the sole medium of mobilisation.
She dismissed the assumption that all students are necessarily left-wing, though most still lean to the left. “In fact it is less and less the case,” she argued, pointing to the prominence of youths in the massive anti-gay-marriage movement that swept France in 2013, and the fact that the 18-24 age group now vote for the far-right National Front in larger percentages than other categories.
There are also exceptions to the rule of thumb according to which French students are more prone than others to protesting, Bantigny added. While the “Indignados” and “Occupy” movements drew large crowds on both sides of the Atlantic, they had little impact in France, despite a climate of hostility towards austerity policies and the banking institutions that caused the recent financial meltdown.
Well-drilled repertoire
Robi Morder, who heads the GERME centre for the study of student movements at Sciences-Po Paris, says the greater success of the CPE protests in 2006 and of the current mobilisation reflects the concrete issues at stake. “The proposed legislation touches on contracts, wages, work hours – all of which have a direct impact on youths,” he told FRANCE 24.
Morder also disputes the notion that students might be easy preys to manipulation. “There are plenty of movements that peter out; but if youths come out in droves, it is precisely because the issues are important to them,” he said. “If anything, the manipulation can work the other way, when politicians and unions are spurred into action by the sheer strength of the student mobilisation.”
Despite the rapid turnover of students, most of whom spend between four and seven years in the university system, the basic form of mobilisation tends to follow a similar pattern over the years, suggesting successive generations of students are familiar with a given repertoire. The three-step organisational process generally begins with assemblies of students, who elect representative committees, which in turn appoint delegates to coordinate their activities at the national level.

France's feuding Socialists face meltdown

According to Morder – who spoke to FRANCE 24 from Rennes train station even as a protest by local students was causing significant delays to trains – the more recent practice of “occupying” and “blocking” universities was inspired by the methods of some high-school pupils back in 2005.
Still dreaming
Bantigny described the students’ repertoire of action as both “highly creative and political”. She said the so-called “student coordination”, involving the election of delegates to coordinate actions nationwide, articulating local and national imperatives, constituted a form of direct democracy. While unionists take part in the process, it has a life of its own, independent of union structures.
The historian disputes the notion of a narrowing down of student aspirations. Some analysts have argued that today’s youths no longer dream of changing society as they did in May ’68. The CPE movement has been likened to a rearguard action aimed at clinging to a handful of symbolic labour rights, but devoid of greater vision. According to Bantigny, attempts to discredit today’s protesters as “conservative” and “out of touch with the global economy” follow a similar logic.
“Words have lost their meaning, reforms are no longer synonymous with social progress,” she said, arguing that France’s politicised youths had realised what is at stake: “They don’t want insecure jobs, longer hours and lower wages; they don’t want to be blackmailed by talk of ‘competitiveness’; they don’t want jobs to be the only criteria of social value”. In other words, Bantigny added, “they are still thinking society”.

Simpsons Predicted Donald Trump presidency & hellery is vice president. A.i

  By Ryan Parker, The Hollywood Reporter

(The Hollywood Reporter)It was somewhat of a throwaway line at the time, but make no mistake, it was included very much on purpose.

The now infamous "Bart to the Future" episode of "The Simpsons," which aired almost exactly 16 years ago, on March 19, 2000, predicted a Donald Trump presidency. The outlook was not bright.

"It was a warning to America," writer Dan Greaney tells The Hollywood Reporter.

He adds: "And that just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane."

Hollywood Reporter: TV pilots 2016

In the episode, Bart is shown a vision of his life. As an adult, he is pretty much a loser. Lisa, on the other hand, becomes the first "straight female" president of the United States. Enter the possible prediction.

"As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump," Lisa says to her staff, who inform her the country is broke due to her predecessor. In actuality, Trump will likely be the 2016 GOP presidential nominee.

While Greaney — who still works on the show as a consulting producer — can't remember who exactly pitched the idea, even then, four years before "The Apprentice" would premiere, the line made sense, he says.

"The important thing is that Lisa comes into the presidency when America is on the ropes and that is the condition left by the Trump presidency," Greaney tells THR. "What we needed was for Lisa to have problems that were beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and that's why we had Trump be president before her."

Hollywood Reporter: Hillary Clinton guests on 'Broad City'

Some fans did not like the episode at the time due to the dark outlook for Bart, but in recent months, Greaney — who always has been proud of "Bart to the Future" — has gotten a lot of calls about the episode thanks to the Trump line, he says.

"I am tickled we are getting all this attention, but I don't think it's going to trigger this well-awaited re-evaluation of my episode that I was hoping for," he says, laughing. "The Simpsons has always kind of embraced the over the top side of American culture ... and (Trump) is just the fulfillment of that."

Read the original story on hollywoodreporter.com.