Around the World: February 27, 2015

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders eager to avert a partial government shutdown are getting heat from conservative colleagues who ask what the fuss is all about.

 

Numerous House Republicans say it's preferable to let the Homeland Security Department go unfunded for a few days, at least, if that's the cost of undoing a White House immigration policy they consider unlawful. These lawmakers say the impact on national security would be minimal, as would the political risks.

 

"Shutting down" the agency known as DHS "is a set of words that don't really have the meaning that people attribute to it," said Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama. "There was hardly any effect whatsoever on the Department of Homeland Security from the last shutdown, and I would anticipate a similar effect this time."

 

Brooks was referring to the 2013 partial federal government shutdown that Americans blamed mostly on Republicans, and which many GOP leaders have vowed not to repeat.

Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa was equally dismissive.

 

 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington next week on a last-gasp effort to seal what he hopes will become his signature achievement: preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon. But the centerpiece of the visit, a much-hyped speech to Congress arguing against the international community's emerging nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, has been overshadowed by a damaging battle with the White House and electoral intrigue back home.

 

By accepting a back-door invitation from House Speaker John Boehner that bypassed the White House, Netanyahu has inserted himself into the heart of the bitter U.S. partisan divide and seen his already troubled relations with President Barack Obama's administration reach a new low. In exceptionally harsh language, the U.S. national security adviser, Susan Rice, has called the speech "destructive."

 

At home, Netanyahu is being accused of cynically turning the speech into a campaign stop ahead of March 17 elections, insisting on confronting Obama to distract from scandals and domestic issues dogging his re-election bid. The uproar has even pushed aside debate over his key argument that Iran's nuclear weapons-making capabilities will be left largely intact.

 

The Israeli media and political opponents have lambasted the decision to flout the White House, and even some allies who support Netanyahu's message have criticized the approach.

 

The U.S. administration is refusing to meet with him and appears to be considering ways of undercutting him. The White House has already said it is scaling back on the intelligence it typically shares with Israel, some pro-Israel Democrats are skipping his speech and Jewish American groups have spoken out against the visit.

 

 

NOVOAMVROSIIVSKE, Ukraine (AP) — Separatist fighters in east Ukraine moved rocket launchers to a location 70 kilometers (43 miles) back from the front line with government troops Friday in the first confirmed compliance with a cease-fire agreed earlier this month.

 

Associated Press journalists in the morning followed four trucks carrying Grad launchers from the rebel stronghold of Donetsk to a cement factory in the village of Novoamvrosiivske, near the Russian border.

 

The pullback of heavy weapons was supposed to have started over a week ago under a deal agreed by the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to end fighting in Ukraine that has killed nearly 5,800 people since April.

 

The process is being overseen by hundreds of monitors with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has complained that both sides in the conflict have delayed and impeded weapons withdrawal. The four rocket launchers seen being moved by rebel forces Friday represents only a small fraction of the firepower believed to be at their disposal.

 

Separatist officials say that they have been withdrawing arms for several days. There has been no independent confirmation of that claim.

 

 

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — In gunsmith Bahktiyar Sadr-Aldeen's workshop in this Kurdish city in northern Iraq, every weapon has a story. These days, there are lots of stories to tell.

 

Sadr-Aldeen, an Iraqi Kurd, has seen his business shoot up by 50 percent since last June, when the Islamic State group took over the Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Irbil. The Kurdish fighting force known as the pershmerga has been at war against the Sunni extremists ever since, keeping Aldeen busy.

 

"Now the whole of Iraq is in war because of Daesh," said Sadr-Aldeen, using one of the Islamic State group's alternative names.

 

"Weapons naturally break during the fighting, and there's no professional company that can fix these weapons," he said. "That's why I fix them. We can't just throw them away, because we are in war."

 

Just 36 years old, Sadr-Aldeen already has more than a quarter-century of experience, making him the peshmerga's top gunsmith in the region. He says he now fixes eight to 10 weapons a day.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Internet activists scored a major victory after the Federal Communications Commission agreed to rules that would ban service providers from creating Internet fast lanes.

What "net neutrality" means and what is likely to happen next:

 

THE ISSUE

Net neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers won't block or slow Web traffic, instead allowing all data to have equal access to its networks. That means you won't be more inclined to watch a particular show on Amazon Prime instead of on Netflix because Amazon has struck a deal with your service provider to load its data faster.

 

 

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, who had recently launched a Republican campaign for governor, fatally shot himself in what police described as an "apparent suicide," minutes after inviting reporters to his suburban St. Louis home for an interview.

 

Schweich's death Thursday stunned many of Missouri's top elected officials, who described him as a "brilliant" and "devoted" public servant with an "unblemished record" in office. Just 13 minutes before police got an emergency call from his home, Schweich had a phone conversation with The Associated Press about his plans to go public that afternoon with allegations that the head of the Missouri Republican Party had made anti-Semitic comments about him.

 

The state GOP chairman denied doing so in an interview later Thursday.

 

Schweich had Jewish ancestry but attended an Episcopal church. Spokesman Spence Jackson said his boss had recently appeared upset about the comments people were supposedly making about his religious faith and about a recent radio ad describing Schweich as "a weak candidate for governor" who "could be easily confused for the deputy sheriff of Mayberry" and could "be manipulated."

 

"The campaign had been difficult, as all campaigns are," Jackson said. "There were a lot of things that were on his mind."

 

 

CAPE LEGOUPIL, Antarctica (AP) — From the ground in this extreme northern part of Antarctica, spectacularly white and blinding ice seems to extend forever. What can't be seen is the battle raging underfoot to re-shape Earth.

 

Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans. As the ice sheets slowly thaw, water pours into the sea — 130 billion tons of ice (118 billion metric tons) per year for the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations. That's the weight of more than 356,000 Empire State Buildings, enough ice melt to fill more than 1.3 million Olympic swimming pools. And the melting is accelerating.

 

In the worst case scenario, Antarctica's melt could push sea levels up 10 feet (3 meters) worldwide in a century or two, recurving heavily populated coastlines.

 

Parts of Antarctica are melting so rapidly it has become "ground zero of global climate change without a doubt," said Harvard geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica.

 

Here on the Antarctic peninsula, where the continent is warming the fastest because the land sticks out in the warmer ocean, 49 billion tons of ice (nearly 45 billion metric tons) are lost each year, according to NASA. The water warms from below, causing the ice to retreat on to land, and then the warmer air takes over. Temperatures rose 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) in the last half century, much faster than Earth's average, said Ricardo Jana, a glaciologist for the Chilean Antarctic Institute.

 

 

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia's most popular tourist attraction — the complex of ancient temples that includes Angkor Wat — is suffering from a form of overexposure: At least five foreign visitors have been arrested and deported this year for taking nude photos at the sacred sites.

 

Authorities have no tolerance for people stripping down at Angkor Archaeological Park, a sprawling, centuries-old UNESCO World Heritage Site that drew 2 million visitors last year. The incidents are also upsetting to ordinary Cambodians, for whom the Khmer-era complex holds enormous spiritual and historical significance.

 

"Angkor Wat is the most famous sacred ... temple in Cambodia, where everyone — not only tourists but also Cambodians themselves — has to pay respect," said Rattanak Te, an administrative assistant who lives in Phnom Penh, the capital. "It definitely upsets me and all Cambodians, because outsiders will think we — Cambodian people — are careless and do not take good care of this World Heritage (site) by allowing these tourists to do such an unacceptable act."

 

This month, guards arrested two American sisters after seeing them snap photos of each other's naked backsides in the temple of Preah Khan, said Kerya Chau Sun, spokeswoman for the Apsara Authority, which manages the temple complex in Siem Reap, in northwestern Cambodia. Lindsey Adams, 22, and Leslie Adams, 20, both of Prescott, Arizona, were each sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence, a fine of 1 million riel ($250), deportation and a four-year ban from the country.

 

In January, three French men in their 20s were deported after they were caught taking nude photographs at Angkor complex. Another photo showing a topless woman at the site has circulated on social media, but officials believe it is fake, according to Chau Sun. Three tourists were also caught riding a motorbike naked near Phnom Penh in January, according to local media.

 

 

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — On the outside, the metal box looks like an oversized bread container. But what's inside could save an abandoned newborn's life.

 

The box is actually a newborn incubator, or baby box, and it could be showing up soon at Indiana hospitals, fire stations, churches and selected nonprofits under legislation that would give mothers in crisis a way to surrender their children safely and anonymously.

 

Indiana could be the first state to allow use of the baby boxes on a broad scale to prevent dangerous abandonments of infants if the bill, which unanimously passed the House this week, clears the state Senate. Republican state Rep. Casey Cox and child-safety advocates say they're unaware of any other states that have considered the issue at the level Indiana has.

 

Cox says his bill is a natural progression of the "safe haven" laws that exist in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Those give parents a legal way to surrender newborns at hospitals, police stations and other facilities without fear of prosecution so long as the child hasn't been harmed.

 

Many children, however, never make it that far. Dawn Geras, president of the Save the Abandoned Babies Foundation in Chicago, said safe haven laws have resulted in more than 2,800 safe surrenders since 1999. But more than 1,400 other children have been found illegally abandoned, nearly two-thirds of whom died.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first peek at a major study of how Americans smoke suggests many use combinations of products, and often e-cigarettes are part of the mix.

 

It's a preliminary finding, but it highlights some key questions as health officials assess electronic cigarettes.

 

"Are e-cigarettes a step toward a cigarette smoker getting off of cigarettes? Or are e-cigarettes a crutch so they can get nicotine in places and times when they wouldn't normally be allowed to smoke cigarettes?" asked Dr. Andrew Hyland of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the primary investigator for a huge government study of trends in smoking and tobacco use.

 

Hyland's study is one of a number of projects that scientists are watching as they explore the public health implications of e-cigarettes.