ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

March 21, 2019 (San Diego’s East County) --- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen on important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

• Trump endorses Israeli control of the disputed Golan Heights (New York Times)
• Divided Supreme Court makes it easier to detain noncitizens with criminal records (USA Today)
• Beto O'Rourke Enters the 2020 Presidential Campaign (New York Times)
• Obama officials failed to focus as fentanyl burned its way across America (Washington Post)
• Woman charged with helping ISIS come up with 'kill list' of Americans (ABC News)
•  Immigration Courts Overwhelmed by Indigenous Languages  (New York Times)
• Does it matter where you go to college? Some context for the admissions scandal (NPR)
• Warren calls for ‘full-blown conversation about reparations’ (Politico)

WORLD

• Christchurch shootings: 49 dead in New Zealand mosque attacks (BBC)
• Christchurch shootings: New Zealand to ban military-style weapons, says PM (CNBC)
• U.N. Court sentences Karadzic to life in prison on appeal (Reuters)
• Vietnamese workers, streaming to Japan, face risks as labor system opens up (Reuters)
• Pro-Hezbollah and Iran regime media celebrate rockets over Tel Aviv (Jerusalem Post)
• Israel says it struck 100 targets in Gaza after two rockets were fired at Tel Aviv (Washington Post)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

U.S.

Trump endorses Israeli control of the disputed Golan Heights (New York Times)

President Trump’s statement has no immediate practical effect, but it puts his administration on record as backing a key political priority of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just three weeks before Israel’s national elections.

Divided Supreme Court makes it easier to detain noncitizens with criminal records (USA Today)

The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a victory Tuesday by making it easier to detain noncitizens with criminal records. The justices reversed a lower court decision that required immigration officials to detain noncitizens subject to deportation almost immediately after their release from jail or prison, rather than months or even years later.

Beto O'Rourke Enters the 2020 Presidential Campaign (New York Times)

Beto O’Rourke, the 46-year-old former Texas congressman whose near-miss Senate run last year propelled him to Democratic stardom, announced on Thursday that he was running for president, betting that a broad message of national unity and generational change will lift him above a slate of committed progressives offering big-ticket policy ideas.

Obama officials failed to focus as fentanyl burned its way across America (Washington Post)

 In May 2016, a group of national health experts issued an urgent plea in a private letter to high-level officials in the Obama administration.  “The fentanyl crisis represents an extraordinary public health challenge — and requires an extraordinary public health response,” the experts wrote to six administration officials, including the nation’s “drug czar” and the chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

Woman charged with helping ISIS come up with 'kill list' of Americans (ABC News)

 Authorities said the group posted an online target list of American diplomats.

Immigration Courts Overwhelmed by Indigenous Languages  (New York Times)

United States immigration officials provide interpreters in as many as 350 languages over all, including Mandarin, Creole, Punjabi, Arabic and Russian. But Mam, K’iche’ and Q’anjob’al — all indigenous to Guatemala — have each become one of the 25 most common languages spoken in immigration court in the past few years…. The problems have seeped into the criminal courts as well….

Does it matter where you go to college? Some context for the admissions scandal (NPR)

Here are some key takeaways as the bribery scandal evolves. 

Warren calls for ‘full-blown conversation about reparations’ (Politico)

 In a CNN town hall on Monday night in Jackson, Miss., Warren became the first 2020 presidential candidate serving in the Senate to endorse a House bill that would create a commission to study reparation proposals.  

WORLD

Christchurch shootings: 49 dead in New Zealand mosque attacks (BBC)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described it as a terrorist attack and one of New Zealand's "darkest days".  A gunman identifying himself as an Australian live-streamed the rampage at Al Noor mosque to Facebook. He had espoused racist, anti-immigrant views. Police say a man in his late 20s has been arrested and charged with murder. Two other men and one woman were also detained.

Christchurch shootings: New Zealand to ban military-style weapons, says PM (CNBC)

New Zealand will ban all types of semi-automatic weapons used in the Christchurch attacks, PM Jacinda Ardern has said. The country's gun laws have been in the spotlight since a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques last Friday. Ms Ardern said she expected new legislation to be in place by 11 April. She said a buy-back scheme would be set up for banned weapons, and that measures would be imposed to prevent a run on buying before the law comes in

U.N. Court sentences Karadzic to life in prison on appeal (Reuters)

 U.N. appeals judges on Wednesday sentenced former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic to life in prison for genocide.

Vietnamese workers, streaming to Japan, face risks as labor system opens up (Reuters)

 When a young Vietnamese woman found out late last year that she was pregnant after arriving in Japan on a "technical trainee" visa, she was given a stark choice: "Have an abortion or go back to Vietnam.”

Pro-Hezbollah and Iran regime media celebrate rockets over Tel Aviv (Jerusalem Post)

Pro-Hezbollah and pro-Iran regime media and social media accounts lit up on Thursday night, after two rockets were fred at Tel Aviv from Gaza. 

Israel says it struck 100 targets in Gaza after two rockets were fired at Tel Aviv (Washington Post)

 The Israeli military said that it struck more than 100 targets in Gaza overnight Friday after two rockets were fired toward Tel Aviv …. Seven more rocket launches followed, six of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome. … The escalation on Thursday followed a day of unrest in Gaza, where Hamas, the militant group that controls the Palestinian enclave, had forcibly put down demonstrations against deteriorating living conditions. Some analysts speculated that Hamas might have been trying to cause a distraction.