Author Archives: markdowe1

Government, Islamic State, National Security

UK security services lack resources to monitor jihadists

BRITAIN

MORE than 3,000 jihadis are in the UK – stretching the country’s security services to breaking point.

Spies and counter-terror police are struggling to monitor a flood of suspects, mainly radicalised men and women in their early 20s.

About 850 Britons are thought to have gone abroad to fight with so-called Islamic State as they took control of large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

But with the terror group being pushed out, extremists with British passports are fleeing back to the UK where authorities fear they may unleash a new wave of attacks.

Although more than 100 have been killed, around half have returned home with battle experience and training in the use of explosives and firearms.

The security services have also foiled at least 13 planned attacks in the past four years. Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, Acting Deputy Met Commissioner Mark Rowley, has revealed.

The figures lay bare the scale of the terror threat facing the country from extremists.

The flood of new jihadists is stretching the UK’s security services to breaking point, with up to 30 officers required to provide 24-hour monitoring of just one suspect. Restricted resources mean MI5 can watch around 50 terror suspects around the clock.

As well as sophisticated plots to bomb transport hubs and shopping centres, jihadists are being groomed – often online – to carry out ‘lone wolf’ attacks using knives and vehicles.

A chilling report also revealed that the wives and children of Islamic State fighters in Syria could be brainwashed into carrying out attacks after returning to Britain. Europol, the EU’s police intelligence agency, said many posed a grave danger because they had been radicalised and desensitised to extreme violence.

In 2016-17, there were 380 terrorism-related arrests in the UK, compared to 307 in the previous 12 months – a rise of nearly 25 per cent. Anti-terror police stepped up arrests after Muslim convert Khalid Masood killed four pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in March before stabbing a police officer to death. Meanwhile, in the past three years there were 386 terror-related convictions, according to figures from Scotland Yard.

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Foreign Affairs, United States

President Trump pledges peace push after talks with Pope Francis

Pope Francis meets with President Donald Trump for a private audience.

AMERICAN PRESIDENT MEETS POPE FRANCIS 

Donald Trump has vowed to use his US presidency to promote peace around the world after what he depicted as an inspirational meeting with an initially grim-faced Pope Francis.

Meeting face-to-face for the first time, the two leaders sidestepped profound differences over a string of issues ranging from the environment to the plight of migrants and the poor.

And the US President emerged from a half-hour meeting at the Vatican gushing with enthusiasm about the 80-year-old pontiff, to the point of the former TV star appearing slightly star-struck.

“Honour of a lifetime to meet His Holiness Pope Francis,” Trump wrote on Twitter before leaving Rome for Brussels and the next leg of his first overseas trip as president.

“I leave the Vatican more determined than ever to pursue PEACE in our world.”

On leaving Rome, Mr Trump headed for Brussels, a city he once dubbed a “hellhole”, ahead of his first summits with wary leaders of NATO and the European Union.

Trump’s declaration of intent followed a keenly-anticipated encounter between the billionaire businessman and the former Jesuit priest who has made championing the poor and the third world major themes of his papacy.

In their world view and tastes, the Argentine pontiff who eschews the use of the palaces at his disposal and the luxury hotel tycoon appear worlds apart.

But if there was any friction when they finally met, it occurred behind closed doors. In front of the cameras, both men were mostly all smiles, relaxed and even jovial.

“He is something,” Trump later said of his host. “We had a fantastic meeting.”

The Vatican described the discussions as “cordial” and emphasised the two men’s joint opposition to abortion and shared concern for persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

The pope had presented Mr Trump with a medallion engraved with an olive tree, the international symbol of peace.

Pope Francis also gave President Trump copies of the three major texts he has published as pontiff, including one on the environment which urges the industrialised world to curb carbon emissions or risk catastrophic consequences for the planet.

Mr Trump, who has threatened to ignore the Paris accords on emissions and described global warming as a hoax, vowed to read them.

A Vatican statement on the meeting highlighted “the joint commitment in favour of life, and freedom of worship and conscience.”

The American President told his host as he left, “Thank you. Thank you. I won’t forget what you said.”

“I give it to you so you can be an instrument of peace,” he said in Spanish. “We can use peace,” Trump replied.

Trump’s gifts included a collection of first editions by Martin Luther King and a bronze sculpture.

Trump’s administration has pleased the Roman Catholic Church by axing rules protecting tax-funded financing of family planning clinics that offer abortions.

Accompanied by his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka, Mr Trump met Francis in the private library of the Apostolic Palace, the lavish papal residence that the current pope eschews in favour of more modest lodgings.

Afterwards, the first couple were given a private tour of the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica.

While Mr Trump dropped in on Italy’s President and met Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Melania visited a children’s hospital and Ivanka met women trafficked from Africa for the sex trade.

In Brussels, he will meet EU President Donald Tusk and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, having previously backed Britain’s shock Brexit vote and saying the EU was a doomed would-be superstate.

He will then hold his first summit with the 28 leaders of the NATO military alliance, which he dubbed “obsolete” on the campaign trail, where he is expected to press them to join the US-led coalition against Islamic State in the wake of the Manchester attack in Britain.

Pope Francis and Trump’s past spats include the pope describing plans for a border wall with Mexico as not Christian and Trump evoking a possible Islamist attack on the Vatican which would make the pontiff glad to have him as president.

But there have also been conciliatory moves. In 2013, Trump tweeted that “the new pope is a humble man, very much like me” while Francis had promised to judge the man not the image.

Trump’s Vatican visit was the third leg of his overseas trip, after stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The high-profile trip has diverted attention from Trump’s domestic pressures over alleged campaign collusion with Russia.

With his poll numbers at a record low for a recently-elected president, he will be hoping for a boost after rubbing shoulders with the popular pope.

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Arts

Ancient Greek (Roman) Sculpture: Discobolos

Discus

The original Greek Discus-Thrower statue was made in bronze and only known to have existed because of later copies made by Romans. Created by the sculptor Myron in the 5th century BCE, the original captured the moment in which an athlete was about to release a heavy disc, or discus, in an attempt to throw the farthest.

The Discobolos, a Greek sculpture, was originally sculpted in bronze in about 450 BCE by Myron.

The Discobolos is an exemplar of action statuary of the Classical period. The athlete is poised at the moment of highest tension, when he has swung his arm back and is about to fling the discus. The musculature of his body is beautifully incised and he looks like a coiled spring. His face, however, does not reflect this tension, but rather is expressionless. In the typical severe style, the facial features are simplified and emotionless. The statue is therefore exemplary of both Severe and High Classical attributes.

The moment thus captured in the statue is an example of rhythmos, harmony and balance.

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