Israel, Winnie Mandela, Seduction: Your Tuesday Briefing
So began a tweet from the European Union’s delegation in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that he had reached a surprise deal with the United Nations refugee agency to resettle thousands of African migrants in Western countries.
But Mr. Netanyahu suspended the deal hours later, after facing a barrage of outrage from his conservative coalition partners angry that half the migrants would be allowed to stay in Israel. His opponents on the left described the reversal as cowardly.
The deal, which had brought Israel some short-lived international good will after a deadly clash with Palestinians last week, was intended to avoid a contentious Israeli plan that had offered the migrants a stark choice: forced deportation to Africa or prison.
• His favorite script: insulting people his supporters love to hate, like the liberal elite.
No, we’re not talking about President Trump’s tweets.
Befitting the current era of strongmen, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey also has a well-honed strategy for winning public support. He gives up to three speeches every weekday — two a day on weekends — broadcast live on multiple channels.
Another of his preferred targets? European leaders.
What do a pair of Belarusian sex instructors detained in Thailand have to do with the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential race?
Alexander Kirillov and Anastasia Vashukevich, above, say they have evidence showing Russia interfered, and they claim to be the targets of a covert Russian plot to silence them because they know too much.
That might seem far-fetched, but the seduction coaches have powerful Russian enemies. And the F.B.I. says it tried to talk to them, suggesting that American investigators had not entirely dismissed their story.
Afghan military helicopters bombed a religious ceremony in the country’s north, killing at least 70 people and wounding 30 others at a mosque. Witnesses said that many children were among the victims. Above, a young victim at a hospital.
The military said it was targeting Taliban militants.
The group’s fighters have increasingly gone high-tech, carrying out attacks using night-vision goggles and lasers that American military officials say were stolen or bought on the black market.
Charming, intelligent, complex, fiery and eloquent.”
That’s how our obituary describes Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a leader in South Africa’s fight against apartheid, known to most of the world through her marriage to Nelson Mandela.
She died early Monday at the age of 81.
“In time,” our former international correspondent wrote, “her reputation became scarred by accusations of extreme brutality toward suspected turncoats, misbehavior and indiscretion in her private life, and a radicalism that seemed at odds with Mr. Mandela’s quest for racial inclusiveness.”
The world’s first ban on “fake news.”
The lower house of Malaysia’s Parliament passed a bill that allows for up to six years in prison for publishing or circulating misleading information, and its upper house is expected to rapidly follow suit. Above, an advertisement discouraging the spread of fake news, at a train station in Kuala Lumpur last month.
Critics say the law is intended to stifle dissent before elections.
In the U.S., dozens of local TV anchors gave the same speech denouncing fake news recently. It turned out they were doing a “forced read” of a corporate script from the country’s largest broadcaster, Sinclair. Critics have accused the company of using its stations to bolster public support for President Trump.
Source:-https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/briefing/israel-winnie-mandela-seduction.html
