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March 30, 2016 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:
U.S.
General news
- Native Americans are taking their Voting Rights to court (Mother Jones)
- The Wind Tech by Jim Wiegand, Save the Eagles
- U.S. kills senior ISIS commander: Pentagon (KNSD)
- Legal marijuana is finally doing what the drug war couldn’t (Washington Post)
- Erik Prince in the hot seat: Blackwater’s founder is under investigation for money laundering, ties to Chinese intel, and brokering mercenary services
- North Korean propaganda video depicts nuclear attack on Washington (USA Today)
- Campus assault claims: 75 men sue for putting accusers' rights before theirs (CS Monitor)
- Brussels bomber brothers were on U.S. watch lists before attack: sources (Reuters)
- U.S. Indicts 7 Iranians Accused Of Hacking U.S. Financial Institutions (NPR)
Presidential primary
- Democrats evenly split over Clinton, Sanders in Bloomberg poll (Bloomberg)
- Cruz blames Trump ‘henchmen’ for tabloid story (CNN)
- Bernie Sanders discusses his prospects of beating Donald Trump with the Los Angeles Times editorial board (Los Angeles Times)
- Donald Trump’s shocking ignorance, laid bare (Washington Post)
- Trump feeling female voter backlash (CBS)
- Trump open to nuclear retaliation after Brussels attack (CBS)
WORLD
- State media: Syrian forces capture Palmyra city from ISIS forces (CNN)
- ISIS soccer game suicide bombing kills at least 26 in Iraq (Reuters)
- Nigerian Military Says It Rescued More Than 800 Hostages From Boko Haram (NPR)
- Six arrested in Brussels raid as Paris attack foiled (ABC)
- North Korea warns of strike on Seoul's presidential palace (San Diego Union-Tribune)
- US, Israel denounce resolution passed by rights council (San Diego Union-Tribune)
- Karadzic guilty of Bosnia genocide, jailed for 40 years (Reuters)
- The race against time that Belgium lost (Reuters)
- Suicide bomber kills at least 65, mostly women, kids in Pakistan park (JPost)
- Is China heading in the wrong direction? For once, the West calls Beijing out (Washington Post)
For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.
U.S.
General news
Native Americans are taking their Voting Rights to court (Mother Jones)
On Tuesday night, the long lines of Arizona primary voters highlighted the potentially disastrous fallout from a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The specter of a new disenfranchisement controversy was all too familiar for a group of people who have been fighting for their right to vote in Arizona and much of the West for years: Native Americans.
The Wind Tech by Jim Wiegand, Save the Eagles
"I am an employee at a wind farm. I would like to speak with somebody about eagle deaths that I have seen and reported. Please give me a call back." It was forwarded to me and a meeting was arranged… While he was talking I was shown dozens of eagle carcass images. I commented about how many of these images he had and that the industry does their best to keep them away from the public. He then added that the wind company had thousands of similar images. Thousands of these images from one wind farm?
U.S. kills senior ISIS commander: Pentagon (KNSD)
A top leader for ISIS was killed during an operation this week, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Friday. Carter said Haji Iman, also known as Abu Alaa Afri, was a finance minister who oversaw all the funding for ISIS' operations.
Legal marijuana is finally doing what the drug war couldn’t (Washington Post)
Legal marijuana may be doing at least one thing that a decades-long drug war couldn't: taking a bite out of Mexican drug cartels' profits. The latest data from the U.S. Border Patrol shows that last year, marijuana seizures along the southwest border tumbled to their lowest level in at least a decade. Agents snagged roughly 1.5 million pounds of marijuana at the border, down from a peak of nearly 4 million pounds in 2009.
Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.
North Korean propaganda video depicts nuclear attack on Washington (USA Today)
North Korea released a dramatic propaganda video Saturday called "Last Chance" that depicts a nuclear strike on Washington, complete with animation of a missile slamming into the earth near the Lincoln Memorial.
Campus assault claims: 75 men sue for putting accusers' rights before theirs (CS Monitor)
A legal backlash is growing as college men accused of sexual assault take schools to court. Many schools punish alleged rapists, even if the case isn't reported to police.
Brussels bomber brothers were on U.S. watch lists before attack: sources (Reuters)
Two brothers who carried out suicide bombings in Brussels this week were known to U.S. government agencies before the attacks, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
U.S. Indicts 7 Iranians Accused Of Hacking U.S. Financial Institutions (NPR)
The Iranians allegedly carried out cyberattacks against U.S. financial institutions between 2011 and 2013. One of them is accused of remotely accessing the control system of a small dam in Rye, N.Y.
Presidential primary
Democrats evenly split over Clinton, Sanders in Bloomberg poll (Bloomberg)
More than halfway through a nomination race that she entered as the clear favorite, Hillary Clinton finds herself deadlocked with Bernie Sanders among Democrats.Even after more than two dozen primaries and caucuses in which Clinton’s amassed a commanding lead in votes and in delegates needed to win the nomination, a Bloomberg Politics national poll found that Sanders is the first choice of 49 percent of those who have voted or plan to vote in this year’s Democratic contests, while the former secretary of state is preferred by 48 percent.
Cruz blames Trump ‘henchmen’ for tabloid story (CNN)
Bernie Sanders discusses his prospects of beating Donald Trump with the Los Angeles Times editorial board (Los Angeles Times)
The following is a transcript of Bernie Sanders’ meeting with the Los Angeles Times' editorial board on March 23, 2016.
Donald Trump’s shocking ignorance, laid bare (Washington Post)
Donald Trump’s ignorance of government policy, both foreign and domestic, is breathtaking. The Republican Party is likely to nominate for president a man who appears to know next to nothing about the issues that would confront him in the job…. read the transcript of Trump’s hour-long meeting with the editorial board of The Post…
Trump feeling female voter backlash (CBS)
… A CBS News/New York Times poll in October found that 57 percent of registered women voters had an unfavorable view of Trump. Now, it's up to 63 percent.
Trump open to nuclear retaliation after Brussels attack (CBS)
Donald Trump is not ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to an interview with the GOP front-runner that aired on Bloomberg TV Wednesday
WORLD
State media: Syrian forces capture Palmyra city from ISIS forces (CNN)
Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra from ISIS on Sunday, months after the city fell to the Islamic extremist group, state media reported.
ISIS soccer game suicide bombing kills at least 26 in Iraq (Reuters)
The United States has condemned a "cowardly" suicide attack that targeted a crowd at a soccer game near Baghdad, killing at least 26 people and wounding 71.
The blast rocked Iskandariya, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim town 25 miles south of the capital…
Nigerian Military Says It Rescued More Than 800 Hostages From Boko Haram (NPR)
There's no word yet about whether that included any of the 200 kidnapped schoolgirls that sparked the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
Six arrested in Brussels raid as Paris attack foiled (ABC)
Six people have been arrested in a large police operation in Brussels, a Belgian prosecutor said Thursday night, as two suspects in the deadly Brussels bombings remain on the loose.
North Korea warns of strike on Seoul's presidential palace (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Upping its rhetoric, North Korea warned Saturday that its military is ready to attack Seoul's presidential palace unless South Korean President Park Geun-hye apologizes for "treason" and publicly executes officials responsible for what Pyongyang says are plans to attack its leadership…. / It also came shortly after a North Korean propaganda outlet posted a video depicting a nuclear attack on Washington, D.C.
US, Israel denounce resolution passed by rights council (San Diego Union-Tribune)
The U.S. government is decrying a resolution passed by the Human Rights Council that calls on the U.N. human rights chief to set up a database of businesses operating in settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights.
Karadzic guilty of Bosnia genocide, jailed for 40 years (Reuters)
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was convicted by U.N. judges of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst war crime in Europe since World War Two, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The race against time that Belgium lost (Reuters)
When Brussels police caught Salah Abdeslam, suspected sole survivor of November’s suicide assault on Paris, they knew they were in a race against time to stop a new Islamic State attack.
Suicide bomber kills at least 65, mostly women, kids in Pakistan park (JPost)
The park had been particularly busy on Sunday evening due to the Easter holiday weekend.
Is China heading in the wrong direction? For once, the West calls Beijing out (Washington Post)
Not since the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests has there been this much diplomatic concern about the direction China is taking. And for once, in a highly unusual show of frustration and unity, Western nations are speaking out in concert. In the past two months, the United States has been joined by European nations, Canada and Japan in a series of strongly worded joint statements expressing deep concern about where China is headed.
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