TDB Top 5 International Stories: Tuesday 14th March 2017

0
1

5: China Warns U.S. & North Korea Are Set for “Head-On” Collision Amid Rising Tensions & Provocations

The political upheaval in South Korea comes shortly after North Korea test-fired several ballistic missiles. In response, the Trump administration announced it would deploy a missile defense system to South Korea. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of South Korean and U.S. troops, backed by warships and warplanes, are currently engaging in a massive military exercise. Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that the U.S. and North Korea are like two “accelerating trains coming toward each other.” He called on both sides to de-escalate tensions. We speak with University of Chicago professor Bruce Cumings and Christine Ahn, founder and international coordinator of Women Cross DMZ.

Democracy Now

4: A High School Teacher on New Zealand’s Problem With Schoolboy Sexism

The problem is a culture that expects boys to treat women as though they are sexual objects, and makes it clear it is women’s job to prevent this. This is reinforced, not through explicit messages but through the expectations of the staff, the culture of the school, choice of texts, the lack of women and minorities in staff rooms. It’s why in co-ed schools, girls’ clothing is policed with regards to how the boys and male teachers might see it. In education, holding high expectations for students is seen as key to their success. However, we have very low expectations of our sons in terms of their treatment of women. Often, they grow to fulfil those expectations: becoming teens who make threats on social media, who sexually harass women, and who don’t take responsibility for their own actions.

Vice News

3: South China Sea: Japan to deploy largest warship

Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea in May, three sources said, in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War II.

The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and US naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July, the sources told Reuters news agency.

The carrier will then return to Japan in August.

“The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission,” said one of the sources with knowledge of the plan.

Aljazeera

2: Rand Paul Is Right: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

ON SUNDAY’S Face the Nation, Sen. Rand Paul was asked about President Trump’s accusation that President Obama ordered the NSA to wiretap his calls. The Kentucky senator expressed skepticism about the mechanics of Trump’s specific charge, saying: “I doubt that Trump was a target directly of any kind of eavesdropping.” But he then made a broader and more crucial point about how the U.S. government spies on Americans’ communications — a point that is deliberately obscured and concealed by U.S. government defenders.

Paul explained how the NSA routinely and deliberately spies on Americans’ communications — listens to their calls and reads their emails — without a judicial warrant of any kind:

The Intercept

1:  MPs reject Lords amendments on Brexit vote and EU citizens’ rights

MPs have overturned two House of Lords amendments that aimed to protect the rights of EU citizens living in the UK and hand parliament a “meaningful vote” on the final Brexit deal.

Sources have told the Guardian that peers will now accept the supremacy of the Commons, allowing Theresa May’s Brexit bill to clear all hurdles on Monday night, preparing it for royal assent.

The decision means the prime minister will be able to trigger article 50 from Tuesday, but sources have quashed speculation of quick action and instead suggested she will wait until the final week of March.

The Guardian