German prosecutor holds out slim hope Madeleine could still be alive

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German prosecutor holds out slim hope Madeleine could still be alive

Madeleine McCann may still be alive, according to the German prosecutor who previously said police were working on the assumption she was dead.

he investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance from Praia da Luz, Portugal, has attracted renewed attention after authorities announced they were investigating a 43-year-old convicted German child sex offender.

The suspect, who is currently serving a prison sentence, has been named in reports as Christian Brueckner.

Hans Christian Wolters, a spokesman for the Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office, said on Monday prosecutors had some evidence Madeleine was dead but did not have enough for a trial.

But speaking to the Sunday Mirror, he appeared to row back on this.

“Because there is no forensic evidence there may be a little bit of hope (that she is alive),” he told the paper.

“We don’t want to kill the hope and because there is no forensic evidence it may be theoretically possible.

“I know it’s important for the British people when I say she is dead, but I did not know it was so important.”

Mr Wolters added that in Germany it was “more normal” to have a murder investigation in similar cases.

Separately, speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr Wolters said prosecutors were investigating whether a hotel employee may have helped the suspect target the McCanns’ apartment knowing they were at a nearby restaurant.

Brueckner is known to have lived on the Algarve coast and his Portuguese mobile phone received a half-hour phone call in Praia da Luz around an hour before Madeleine, then three, went missing on May 3 2007.

There is no suggestion the member of staff knew about Madeleine’s kidnap in advance, and Mr Wolters said: “The phone call made by the suspect could be between him and a member of staff who told him when to break into the McCanns’ apartment.”

He added that police had not interviewed Brueckner about Madeleine’s murder at the time as they had not traced the person who called him.

This is the evidence we want before we issue an arrest warrant and then interview him for the murder. It would help the case against him – but we would also need more evidenceProsecutor Hans Christian Wolters in the Sunday Times

Mr Wolters told the paper: “The person he spoke to could put the phone in his hand (by confirming that it was definitely Brueckner to whom he spoke), which would mean he was in the area at the time.

“This is the evidence we want before we issue an arrest warrant and then interview him for the murder. It would help the case against him – but we would also need more evidence.”

In the days since the renewed appeal, Scotland Yard said it received nearly 400 tips to its Operation Grange team.

Operation Grange refers to the force’s active investigation, which is still classed as a missing person inquiry because there is no “definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead”, a police spokesman said.

Madeleine vanished soon before her fourth birthday while her parents were eating dinner with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant, and would have turned 17 last month.

PA

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Australia considering shorter Covid-19 quarantine for students and low-transmission countries

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Australia considering shorter Covid-19 quarantine for students and low-transmission countries

Senior Morrison government ministers have flagged shorter quarantine periods for international students and business travellers as part of a suite of measures to reopen Australia to international travel.

On Sunday, the health minister, Greg Hunt, confirmed that modifications to the existing mandatory two-week hotel quarantine could be enacted in addition to travel bubbles with safe countries, such as New Zealand, which would not require quarantine.

The Sunday Telegraph reported the Coalition was considering halving quarantine times to one week for countries with low rates of Covid-19 infection, including Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Asked about the report, Hunt told ABC’s Insiders the government would “overwhelmingly be guided by the medical advice”.

“There are two pathways on international [arrivals] – one is to use our quarantine system with international students and appropriately with people who are delivering national benefit whether it is in business or other areas,” he told ABC’s Insiders.

“Secondly, is where we can have a safe relationship with another country … and New Zealand’s at the top of the list, having a non-quarantine approach which will open up borders.”

Hunt said there was “a bit more work to be done” but the pathways are likely to be available “once our domestic borders are opened up”.

Labor’s health spokesman, Chris Bowen, warned that Australians would not accept “a separate set of rules for business people, for some other others”.

“The border closure is an important part of the response to Covid-19 and any move away must be based on medical advice,” he said. “I’m reluctant to see separate rules for some when it comes to quarantine.”

The trade and tourism minister, Simon Birmingham, told Sky News the government was doing “a lot of contingency work” on scenarios to reopen “all parts of the economy”.

“And of course contingency work occurs in relation to think about how – when the circumstances allow and the health advice permits – we might open up further to other safe countries in the region.”

Birmingham praised the South Australian government for nominating 20 July as the date it will reopen its borders and the Queensland government, which has said it intends to reopen on 10 July.

He told Sky News the government “hopes to see progress on [the trans-Tasman travel bubble] as our states and territories now hopefully move to dismantle their state borders and give New Zealand confidence to open up to Australia”.

Birmingham said it was not possible to “put a firm date” on the trans-Tasman travel bubble opening, citing the fact it would require agreement from New Zealand and further work to prepare airports for arrivals.

Birmingham said the Australian Border Force was considering “green lanes” that would allow passengers from New Zealand to enter while maintaining distance from passengers from “destinations that have not been as successful in maintaining Covid and where citizens from those countries will have to go into the 14 days’ mandatory quarantine”.

On Friday the national cabinet agreed to a pilot to allow international students to come study at approved institutions from as early as July, but student numbers could be hit by warnings from the Chinese education ministry to reconsider travel to Australia.

Birmingham again rejected claims that Australia was “not a safe country for visitors and students to come and live and study” citing claims from the New South Wales police that there was “no material difference in the number of racial incidents” since the start of Covid-19.

There have been numerous anecdotal reports of people of Asian appearance experiencing racist abuse and treatment in Australia during the pandemic, including one survey by the community group Asian Australian Alliance recording 178 incidents in two weeks.

Birmingham said Australia held itself to “a far higher standard than most other nations of the world” and racist incidents were investigated and prosecuted “where they can [be]”.

He also pointed to Australia’s “successful management of Covid-19, [which] once again demonstrates that Australia is one of the safest countries in the world, one of the best-governed countries in the world”.

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New COVID-19 Cases in China | Beijing District in ‘Wartime Emergency Mode’

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New COVID-19 Cases in China | Beijing District in ‘Wartime Emergency Mode’











A Beijing district official said on Saturday the district was in “wartime emergency mode” following a spike in novel coronavirus cases centered around a major wholesale market there. Chu Junwei, an official of Beijing’s Fengtai district, said at a briefing that throat swabs from 45 people, out of 517 tested at the district’s Xinfadi market, had tested positive for the new coronavirus.

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Florida Hits Biggest Daily COVID-19 Jump As It Gears Up For GOP Convention

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Florida Hits Biggest Daily COVID-19 Jump As It Gears Up For GOP Convention

Florida coronavirus cases jumped 35% Saturday over the previous day, smashing a single-day record just as state officials are gearing up to host thousands of visitors for major events of the Republican National Convention in August.

It was the third record jump in three days running of new COVID-19 cases, The Miami Herald noted.

The number of coronavirus cases rose 2,581 Saturday morning from 1,902 Friday to hit a total of 73,552. Deaths among Florida residents reached 2,925, a 1.7% increase from the previous day.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump — has not been a big backer of business and behavior restrictions to stem the spread of the virus. He was one of the last governors to issue a statewide stay-at-home order — on April 1. Florida already began re-opening the economy in early May, and many businesses — including restaurants — are nearly back to normal activity.

On Friday DeSantis shrugged off the continuing increase in the state’s COVID-19 cases. He attributed the rise to more testing at nursing homes and an outbreak of coronavirus among farmworkers.

The state has a record number of residents over the age of 65, who are most vulnerable to COVID-19. DeSantis triggered an uproar in April when he called Florida “God’s waiting room” because of its elderly population.

The key events of the Republican National Convention are now set for August 24-27 in Jacksonville, after convention organizers and the president complained about COVID-19 social distancing requirements in the original location in Charlotte, North Carolina. A limited number of delegates ― about 330 ― will officially nominate the candidates for president and vice president on a single day in August in Charlotte.

DeSantis told ABC affiliate WPLG Local 10-TV that he’s convinced adequate precautions can be taken to protect the health of those attending the convention. People flying into Florida to attend the convention from across the nation will also pose a safety risk to the surrounding community as they pour into shops, hotels and restaurants.

Officials are “really working hard on it,” said DeSantis. “They are working hard with the folks at the White House.”

Trump is expected to give his acceptance speech on August 27 at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, which holds 15,000 people.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to warn against large gatherings as a serious risk for COVID-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said in an interview Friday that any large group remains “risky” and “a danger” at this time. He added that it would be safer if Americans avoided all big gatherings, period.



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Rayshard Brooks: protesters set fire to restaurant where black man shot dead

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Rayshard Brooks: protesters set fire to restaurant where black man shot dead

Protesters have shut down a major highway in Atlanta and set fire to a Wendy’s restaurant where a black man was shot by police as he tried to escape arrest.

Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot dead on Friday night after police were called to the Wendy’s over reports that he had had fallen asleep in the drive-through line.

Officers attempted to take him into custody after he failed a field sobriety test, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The incident, which was caught on video, looked set to fuel more nationwide demonstrations about the treatment of African Americans by police in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The unrest broke out after dark in Atlanta on Saturday, where earlier in the day mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she had accepted the prompt resignation of police chief Erika Shields over the death of Brooks.

Images on local television showed the restaurant in flames for more than 45 minutes before fire crews arrived to extinguish the blaze, protected by a line of police officers.

By that time the building was reduced to charred rubble.

Other demonstrators marched onto Interstate-75, stopping traffic, before police used a line of squad cars to hold them back.

Demonstrators block the I75 highway in Atlanta on Saturday. Photograph: Ben Gray/AP

“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer,” Bottoms said at an afternoon news conference.

Authorities have not yet released the names of the two officers involved in the shooting, both of whom were white.

Brooks was the father of a young daughter who was celebrating her birthday on Saturday, his lawyers said. His death from a police bullet came after more than two weeks of demonstrations in major cities across the United States in the name of Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died on May 25 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

Video shot by a bystander captures Brooks struggling with two officers on the ground outside the Wendy’s before breaking free and running across the parking lot with what appears to be a police Taser in his hand.

A second video from the restaurant’s cameras shows Brooks turning as he runs and possibly aiming the Taser at the pursuing officers before one of them fires his gun and Brooks falls to the ground.

Brooks ran the length of about six cars when he turned back toward an officer and pointed what he had in his hand at the policeman, said Vic Reynolds, director of the GBI at a separate press conference.



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Is live streaming the future, or a temporary lifeline for music?

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Is live streaming the future, or a temporary lifeline for music?

For sheer gig opportunities, none can touch Isol-Aid, the rolling Instagram festival that lines up scores of performers in 20-minute bursts each weekend. Booker Emily Ulman cites an “enormous amount of money” raised for industry charity Support Act, though she says community connection is the key success indicator.

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These are mere drops of sustenance, of course, in a suddenly dry ecosystem. In this brutally transformed marketplace, questions swirl about what gives live streaming legs and whether the frantic learning curve has fast-tracked the phenomenon to a permanent place in our diaries.

For Delivered Live producer Leigh Treweek, “the most important thing is sound quality. It’s been difficult for artists because they’re so used to being able to sit there and listen and know what’s happening in the room.

“With live streaming, you have to consider people watching on the big-screen TV at home, turning it up and the quality’s there. We spent a lot of time getting that right, perfecting the technology.”

Simon Myers of St Kilda’s Memo Music Hall is chasing the same ideal. His previous years in TV gave him a weird “back to the future” vibe, where “it doesn’t matter what’s going on on the stage. What’s important is what’s happening on that little monitor.”

HTH Studio, after a clean.

Memo’s Live Stream Series is one of the few that insist viewers pay: their catchphrase is “music has value, so let’s value it”. In return, the high-grade armchair experience involves five cameras and some performer education.

“We’re making sure we’re talking to the musicians beforehand: ‘Look, that camera there, that’s your audience … there’s no applause so you can’t have too much of a break between songs …’ They’re very nervous to start off, but once they finish they’re on a high.”

It’s a far cry from the clunky-but-intimate phone-cam connection of Isol-Aid or The Lounge Room Sessions. But all share the value of real-time communion.

Mushroom’s Sate of Music series, sponsored for six episodes by the Victorian government, instead opted for a largely pre-filmed format to short-circuit inevitable glitches in front of an eventual audience of some two million.

“We wanted quality produced content and we wanted to be able to get multiple artists to come together,” says creative director Tom Macdonald. Given time-lag and buffering, pre-recording remains the only way for Abby Dobson, Ngaiire and Paul Dempsey to harmonise from a distance.

With everyone from Neil Finn (above) to the Berlin Philharmonic vying for bandwidth and eyeballs, the streaming market is clearly in flood

With everyone from Neil Finn (above) to the Berlin Philharmonic vying for bandwidth and eyeballs, the streaming market is clearly in floodCredit:Rick Clifford

But can that content stand out in the ocean of permanently available online video?

“If you want to get people to stay on the live stream, you have to engage them in real time,” Macdonald says. “We’ve done things like live Q&As where viewers can be a part of the moment … If you’re just putting content that’s pre-recorded into the stream … it’s easy for people’s attention spans to jump.”

With everyone from Neil Finn to the Berlin Philharmonic vying for bandwidth and eyeballs, the streaming market is clearly in flood. The Lounge Room Sessions plans to scale back soon. The similarly named LoungeRoom Live company lasted just one weekend in April, when an ambitious Festival Hall set-up proved “unviable”. Plans are afoot to relaunch elsewhere, when real-life payers are allowed on the premises.

Most parties believe live streaming can continue to flourish, even as punters return to venues, despite the fierce online competition for eyeballs and clicks. They’ve learnt that a vast, forgotten audience has always existed, beyond the sightlines of the stage.

“It might be the tyranny of distance or mental health or disability or financial disadvantage or family commitments,” says Leigh Treweek, “but we’re getting [feedback] from a huge number of people who are getting access to music that they didn’t have before.”

Emily Ulman agrees: “There will always be barriers − physical, psychological, geographical − and these things should not be impediments to enjoying music.”

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Protesters Light Fire Inside Wendy’s Where Atlanta Police Killed Black Man

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Protesters Light Fire Inside Wendy’s Where Atlanta Police Killed Black Man

Atlanta continued to be rocked by turmoil Saturday as protesters demand justice for Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by police the previous day. 

Brooks was killed outside Wendy’s after police claimed he resisted arrest after they found him sleeping in his car. But video posted to social media showed him running away before he is shot off-screen. 

Brooks had allegedly fallen asleep in his car and blocked the restaurant’s drive-through when Atlanta police were called. Police said he failed a sobriety test.

Police Chief Erika Shields resigned earlier in the day Saturday.



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Iraqi army says 2 rockets hit base near Baghdad

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Iraqi army says 2 rockets hit base near Baghdad

By: AP | Baghdad |

Published: June 14, 2020 8:09:28 am





A statement from Iraq’s joint operations command following the attack said orders had been given to launch an investigation (File/AP)

Two rockets hit an Iraqi base frequented by US troops north of Baghdad late Saturday without causing any casualties, Iraq’s military said, the third such attack this month and just days after Washington and Baghdad launched strategic talks.

The Katyusha rockets struck Camp Taji and caused minor damage but no injuries, according to the Iraqi military statement. In March, two Americans and one British soldier were killed following a barrage of rockets on Camp Taji, which has been used as a training base for a number of years.

The first session of the much-anticipated strategic talks between the US and Iraq began Thursday, and is to lay the agenda for the months ahead, including the presence of US troops in the country, Iran-backed militia groups acting outside of the state and Iraq’s dire economic crisis.

Read| A shocked Iraq reconsiders its ties with US

US Assistant Secretary of State David Schenker, in comments to reporters in Washington following the session, said Iraq had committed to “moving ahead and undertaking their obligations,” with regards to militia attacks targeting the American presence.

Saturday’s attack appears to have been a test of this commitment.

A statement from Iraq’s joint operations command following the attack said orders had been given to launch an investigation “to reveal these entities that, despite our warnings to them, seek to weaken Iraq.” A day before the talks began, a rocket landed a few hundred meters (yards) from the US Embassy in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

Another rocket attack on Tuesday struck the periphery of Baghdad’s airport, which includes a military base used by US troops. There were no reported casualties or damage.

 

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MLB issues statement to players, notes disappointment in halted talks – Sportsnet.ca

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MLB issues statement to players, notes disappointment in halted talks – Sportsnet.ca

After the Major League Baseball Players’ Association made a public statement that it will no longer negotiate terms for a 2020 season with the league, MLB came back with comments of its own Saturday.

Here is MLB’s statement, in full:

“We are disappointed that the MLBPA has chosen not to negotiate in good faith over resumption of play after MLB has made three successive proposals that would provide players, Clubs and our fans with an amicable resolution to a very difficult situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The MLBPA understands that the agreement reached on March 26th was premised on the parties’ mutual understanding that the players would be paid their full salaries only if play resumed in front of fans, and that another negotiation was to take place if Clubs could not generate the billions of dollars of ticket revenue required to pay players.

The MLBPA’s position that players are entitled to virtually all the revenue from a 2020 season played without fans is not fair to the thousands of other baseball employees that Clubs and our office are supporting financially during this very difficult 2020 season. We will evaluate the Union’s refusal to adhere to the terms of the March Agreement, and after consulting with ownership, determine the best course to bring baseball back to our fans.”

The league’s statement follows a statement by the MLBPA that said further dialogue between the parties would be “futile” and that it’s “time to get back to work.”

MLB Network’s Jon Heyman added late Saturday that some owners around the league are fine with scrapping the season.



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Electoral reform allowing independent candidates is long overdue – The Mail & Guardian

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Electoral reform allowing independent candidates is long overdue – The Mail & Guardian

COMMENT

On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court ruled the Electoral Act unconstitutional for not making allowance for independent candidates at provincial and national levels.

The Constitution is silent on details of the electoral system, only requiring that it “results, in general, in proportional representation”. At municipal level, this is still required by the Constitution, but with the addition of ward councillors.

The 2003 Van Zyl Slabbert Commission traversed some of the issues of electoral reform, including a constituency system at national and provincial levels, with proportional top-up, much as with municipal voting, but did not address independent candidates.

At municipal level, independent candidates can stand, but only in wards. That leads to a defect in proportionality: in an extreme case, independent candidates could be the biggest voting bloc and not win any wards. Because independent candidates do not have a proportional-representation vote, they are not represented in any top-up to correct the ward result. This violates the principle of proportionality required at all levels by the Constitution.

In addition to the Constitutional Court judgment being implemented at national and provincial levels, this defect should be remedied at municipal level too.

The proportional representation system we currently use is a closed list. The party decides on the order of the list and the voter gets to decide only which party to support. By contrast, an open list system is any design that gives voters some say on the candidates, as well as the party.

Within the current proportional representation design of our electoral system, addressing the defect found by the Constitutional Court would be difficult, because independent candidates would have to agree on a list.

Let’s start by trying to remedy this in the existing municipal system, then generalise to other levels.

If proportional representatives were based on candidates who received the most votes but not enough to win a ward, that would remove the need for independent candidates to agree on a list. A simple model would be to work out how many councillors the independent candidates should have collectively, and construct a proportional representation list of independents who did not win a ward. The order: from the highest vote for independents who did not win a ward, down.

In national and provincial elections, a similar principle could apply. If, for example, independent candidates around the country (with a similar principle applying to provinces) collectively scored 10% of the vote, equating to 40 seats, the 40 independents who scored the most votes would be elected. That could be done in the current pure proportional representation system. Almost: I will get to the caveat later.

The next question: how to qualify as a candidate. Because a candidate can only win one seat, a deposit far lower than that required for a party to register nationally would be fair. This would be refunded to candidates above a certain vote threshold. A new party also requires signatures of 500 voters to register for the first time and a similar requirement for an independent candidate could be considered. The same fee that applies for a party to nominate could also be considered — currently R500.

All of that can be done as a minor tweak to the electoral system; the bar for independent candidates to nominate needs some thought, because setting it too low will result in a flood of candidates; setting it too high will exclude those without resources. To avoid a massive national ballot, an independent candidate should appear on the ballot only in a particular geographic area.

However, this could be a good moment to revisit the Van Zyl Slabbert report and reconsider the value of a constituency plus proportional system at all levels. The Van Zyl Slabbert report recommends a multi-member constituency system with a similar party list to the kind we currently have — closed lists, drawn up by each party.

However, if my idea for accommodating independent candidates is adopted, it is not compatible with a closed list, because the order of my proposed list depends on votes for candidates.

Given that our closed list system has proved to blur lines of accountability — working a party patronage network can get you a higher place on a list with no reference to public preference — we should also reconsider that.

Rather than make the minimal fix to the Electoral Act to accommodate independent candidates, this would be a great opportunity for real electoral reform in which voters are given much more say about who represents them.

Philip Machanick is an associate professor of computer science at Rhodes University



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