New Caledonia referendum: call to reject 'colonising power' France

theguardian.com - The time has come for New Caledonia to throw off “colonising power” France and take its place on the world stage, the head of the country’s independence coalition has said on a visit to Australia ahead of a referendum to be held in November.

New Caledonian independence from France was inevitable and a “question of dignity” for the nation’s indigenous Kanak people, said Daniel Goa, spokesperson for the independence movement Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS).

“For us it’s just a question of time, and you know that time in Oceania is measured differently,” Goa said in a speech to the Lowy Institute in Sydney last week.

The referendum will be held on 4 November asking long-term residents of the Pacific island whether they want it to become independent from France.

“This date is of capital importance and historic for the Kanak people, because it brings to an end 164 years of uninterrupted struggle for our people,” said Goa.

If successful, FLNKS has proposed the newly formed country might be called Kanaky Nouvelle-Caledonie (Kanak New Caledonia) and has suggested it also adopt FLNKS flag in place of the French flag.

“Internationally we’ll ensure our sovereignty is recognised and we’ll apply for membership of the UN,” said Goa.

Support for independence is split largely along ethnic lines, with indigenous Kanaks in favour and those of European origin opposed. Polls conducted in May suggested the no vote will win, though there is a significant proportion of the population still undecided.

Goa called the referendum a “question of dignity”, saying: “As long as a single Kanak person is standing, he will fight for his freedom. That should tell you the importance of this day, and the symbolism of this referendum.”

There was violent unrest in New Caledonia in the 1980s, as a result of pro-independence sentiment, which resulted in the deaths of 21 people during a hostage crisis in Ouvéa.

If it fails the New Caledonian people will be allowed to hold two further referenda on the question of independence: one in 2020, and if that is unsuccessful, another in 2023.

If successful the FLNKS would like to dismantle the current economic system, which Goa called the “French system”, saying it was “based on an economy of exploitation”.

“We will take back control of our natural resources and our key sectors, currently controlled by French multinational companies, to ensure a more equitable distribution of wealth by exploiting our main resource, nickel, from which we only draw salaries at the moment.”

New Caledonia, which is about two hours by plane from Brisbane, holds about a quarter of the world’s nickel deposits.

Goa also took aim at Emmanuel Macron, who visited New Caledonia in May, saying that “after 164 years of colonisation he recognised that New Caledonia was a jewel”.

However, Goa said that if it became independent he hoped New Caledonia could become “ambassadors for Oceania” to France and Europe and he wanted to “safeguard the status quo with the two regional powers, Australia and New Zealand”.

Related:  'We live in misery': New Caledonia's indigenous people fight for independence from France

Oman says time to accept Israel in region, offers help for peace

MANAMA (Reuters) - Oman described Israel as an accepted Middle East state on Saturday, a day after hosting a surprise visit by its prime minister that Washington said could help regional peace efforts.

Oman is offering ideas to help Israel and the Palestinians to come together but is not acting as mediator, Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the sultanate’s minister responsible for foreign affairs, told a security summit in Bahrain.

“Israel is a state present in the region, and we all understand this,” bin Alawi said.

“The world is also aware of this fact. Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same [as others states] and also bear the same obligations.”

His comments followed a rare visit to Oman by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which came days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas paid a three-day visit to the Gulf country. Both leaders met with Oman’s Sultan Qaboos.

“We are not saying that the road is now easy and paved with flowers, but our priority is to put an end to the conflict and move to a new world,” bin Alawi told the summit.

Oman is relying on the United States and efforts by President Donald Trump in working toward the “deal of the century” (Middle East peace), he added.

Bahrain’s foreign minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa voiced support for Oman over the sultanate’s role in trying to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace, while Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir said the kingdom believes the key to normalizing relations with Israel was the peace process.

The three-day summit was attended by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and his counterparts in Italy and Germany also participated, but Jordan’s King Abdullah canceled his appearance after a flood that hit the Dead Sea region killed 21 people.

Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt welcomed the “warming ties & growing cooperation between our regional friends” in a tweet late on Friday.

“This is a helpful step for our peace efforts & essential to create an atmosphere of stability, security & prosperity between Israelis, Palestinians & their neighbors. Looking forward to seeing more meetings like this!” Greenblatt said. ContinueReading

Related: Oman safest place in world with no terrorism incidents: report

World's oldest intact shipwreck discovered at the bottom of the Black Sea

LONDON – A team of maritime archaeologists, scientists and surveyors has discovered what it believes to be the world’s oldest intact shipwreck – a Greek trading vessel whose design had previously been seen only on ancient pottery.

The Black Sea Maritime Archaeology project says it found the wreck off the Bulgarian coast at a depth of 1.2 miles in oxygen-free conditions that preserved its components. The group says the vessel has been carbon dated to more than 2,400 years ago.

The project has spent three years surveying the area using technology previously available largely to oil companies. It discovered some 60 shipwrecks, including a 17th century Cossack raiding fleet and Roman trading vessels carrying amphorae.

A documentary on the project will open Tuesday at the British Museum.

China opens world’s longest sea bridge and tunnel to connect Hong Kong and Macau to the mainland

abcnews.com - Chinese President Xi Jinping inaugurated China’s latest mega-infrastructure project on Tuesday: The world’s longest sea crossing.

The 34.2-mile bridge and tunnel that have been almost a decade in the making for the first time connect the semi-autonomous cities of Hong Kong and Macau to the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai by road.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge spans the mouth of the Pearl River and significantly cuts the commuting time between the three cities. The previously four-hour drive between Zhuhai and Hong Kong will now take 45 minutes.

One section of the crossing dives underwater into a 4.2 mile tunnel that creates a channel above for large cargo ship containers to pass through.

The project came in over budget -- with Hong Kong alone investing $15 billion in it -- and delayed, as it was originally slate to open in 2016.

At the opening ceremony, Han Zheng, the top Chinese official who oversees Beijing’s at-times tense relationship with Hong Kong, proclaimed that the bridge marked the first time that Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland had jointly cooperated on a major infrastructure project.\

The bridge will help Hong Kong and Macau become more integrated with mainland China, he said.

But for some in Hong Kong, which maintains a separate legal system from China's, the bridge is the just the latest example of Beijing exerting more influence on them. Just in September a high-speed rail-link connected the heart of Hong Kong directly to China’s vast railway network.

Hong Kong lawmaker Claudia Mo has given multiple interviews this year likening the new bridge to a symbolic umbilical cord tethering Hong Kong to the motherland. ContinueReading

Genealogy databases could reveal the identity of most Americans

sciencenews.org - Protecting the anonymity of publicly available genetic data, including DNA donated to research projects, may be impossible.

About 60 percent of people of European descent who search genetic genealogy databases will find a match with a relative who is a third cousin or closer, a new study finds. The result suggests that with a database of about 3 million people, police or anyone else with access to DNA data can figure out the identity of virtually any American of European descent, Yaniv Erlich and colleagues report online October 11 in Science.

Erlich, the chief science officer of the consumer genetic testing company MyHeritage, and colleagues examined his company’s database and that of the public genealogy site GEDMatch, each containing data from about 1.2 million people. Using DNA matches to relatives, along with family tree information and some basic demographic data, scientists estimate that they could narrow the identity of an anonymous DNA owner to just one or two people.

Recent cases identifying suspects in violent crimes through DNA searches of GEDMatch, such as the Golden State Killer case (SN Online: 4/29/18), have raised privacy concerns (SN Online: 6/7/18). And the same process used to find rape and murder suspects can also identify people who have donated anonymous DNA for genetic and medical research studies, the scientists say.

Genetic data used in research is stripped of information like names, ages and addresses, and can’t be used to identify individuals, government officials have said. But “that’s clearly untrue,” as Erlich and colleagues have demonstrated, says Rori Rohlfs, a statistical geneticist at San Francisco State University, who was not involved in the study.

Using genetic genealogy techniques that mirror searches for the Golden State Killer and suspects in at least 15 other criminal cases, Erlich’s team identified a woman who participated anonymously in the 1000 Genomes project. That project cataloged genetic variants in about 2,500 people from around the world.

Erlich’s team pulled the woman’s anonymous data from the publicly available 1000 Genomes database. The researchers then created a DNA profile similar to the ones generated by consumer genetic testing companies such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA (SN: 6/23/18, p.14) and uploaded that profile to GEDMatch.

A search turned up matches with two distant cousins, one from North Dakota and one from Wyoming. The cousins also shared DNA indicating that they had a common set of ancestors four to six generations ago. Building on some family tree information already collected by those cousins, researchers identified the ancestral couple and filled in hundreds of their descendants, looking for a woman who matched the age and other publicly available demographic data of the 1000 Genomes participant.

It took a day to find the right person.

That example suggests scientists that need to reconsider whether they can guarantee research participants anonymity if genetic data are publicly shared, Rohlfs says.

In reality, though, identifying a person from a DNA match with a distant relative is much harder than it appears, and requires a lot of expertise and gumshoe work, Ellen Greytak says. She is the director of bioinformatics at Parabon NanoLabs, a company in Reston, Va., that has helped close at least a dozen criminal cases since May using genetic genealogy searches. “The gulf between a match and identification is absolutely massive,” she says.

The company has also found that people of European descent often have DNA matches to relatives in GEDMatch. But tracking down a single suspect from those matches is often confounded by intermarriages, adoptions, aliases, cases of misidentified or unknown parentage and other factors, says CeCe Moore, a genealogist who spearheads Parabon’s genetic genealogy service.

“The study demonstrates the power of genetic genealogy in a theoretical way,” Moore says, “but doesn’t fully capture the challenges of the work in practice.” For instance, Erlich and colleagues already had some family tree information from the 1000 Genome woman’s relatives, “so they had a significant head start.”

Erlich’s example might be an oversimplification, Rohlfs says. The researchers made rough estimates and assumptions that are not perfect, but the conclusion is solid, she says. “Their work is approximate, but totally reasonable.” And that conclusion that almost anyone can be identified from DNA should spark public discussion about how DNA data should be used for law enforcement and research, she says. ContinueReading

Former Yugoslav Republic of Croatia celebrates 27th Independence Day

- Croatia celebrates the unanimous decision of the Croatian Parliament back on 8 October 1991 to terminate the link between Croatia and SFR Yugoslavia today on Monday, 8 October 2018.

The Croatian referendum on independence was held in May 1991, with 93% of voters supporting the independence.

On 25 June the Croatian Sabor proclaimed the Croatian independence and seven days later, on 7 July, Croatia and Slovenia signed the Brioni Declaration in which the two countries agreed to suspend all declarations and acts passed by the Croatian and Slovenian parliaments related to those states’ secession from Yugoslavia for a period of three months.

On 8 October, the Sabor decided to end relations with Yugoslavia, in the decision on the termination of the state and legal ties with other republics and provinces of Yugoslavia.

That session was not held in the House of Parliament but instead in the basement of an INA building, because of the possibility of the repeat of an incident such as the bombing of Banski dvori.

Independence Day was celebrated for the first time on 8 October back in 2002. Statehood Day is commemorated on 25 June.

President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović congratulated citizens with this message.

By the decision of the Croatian Parliament on 8 October 1991, following centuries of struggles, finally and irrevocably, under the resolute leadership of the first President Dr. Franjo Tuđman, and thanks to the courage of our defenders, we have realized our historical aspiration for State independence.

We are proud of our democratic State is known worldwide today thanks to the many international achievements of our citizens. We are a responsible member of numerous international organizations and integrations. Throughout the years of independence, we have achieved brilliant successes in many areas of state and social development, but we know that we have remarkable development potential and that is why we want much more and much better. We want a state in which everyone will be valued on the basis of their work and their contribution to the common good, in which our children and youth will have guaranteed prospects for quality education, employment and equitable pay, and in which families will have all the necessary conditions for having and raising children. We want a Croatia in which there will be more patriotic communion, solidarity and mutual respect.

We have a history that inspires us and a future that commits us.

In the wish to persevere in the realization of the noblest aspiration, to all Croats and to all the citizens at home and abroad, I cordially congratulate Independence Day of the Republic of Croatia.

US VP Pence accuses China of interfering in US policies, politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence is accusing China of trying to undermine President Donald Trump as the administration deploys tough new rhetoric over Chinese trade, economic and foreign policies.

In prepared remarks for an appearance Thursday at the Hudson Institute, Pence says China is using its power in "more proactive and coercive ways to interfere in the domestic policies and politics of the United States."

"China wants a different American president," Pence says.

Pence's speech comes a week after Trump accused China during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council of interfering in American elections to help his Democratic rivals.

"Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election," Trump said. "They do not want me, or us, to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade." As proof, Trump later referenced a paid advertising insert in The Des Moines Register by Chinese government-affiliated entities.

In the prepared remarks provided by his office, Pence charges that China is targeting "industries and states that would play an important role in the 2018 election" as it responds to Trump's protectionist trade tariffs on China. "By one estimate, more than 80 percent of U.S. counties targeted by China voted for President Trump in 2016; now China wants to turn these voters against our administration," Pence says.

U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to boost Trump over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton through hacking and releasing sensitive documents and social media manipulation.

Trump signed an executive order in September authorizing sanctions against those found to be involved in election interference, but U.S. officials have said repeatedly they have not seen nearly the same level of activity by Russia and others in the midterms as in 2016.

Much of Pence's remarks are meant to inform the public of what the U.S. government terms as China's covert and overt influence campaign.

Since Trump took office last year, his administration has escalated pressure on China, most recently with several rounds of tit-for-tat economic trade tariffs on hundreds of billions in goods. And Trump's first national security strategy released last year labeled China a "revisionist power" alongside Russia.

In his prepared remarks, Pence quotes an assessment from the U.S. intelligence community that "China is targeting U.S., state and local governments and officials to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy. It's using wedge issues, like trade tariffs, to advance Beijing's political influence." ContinueReading

Future of Macedonia's name unclear after referendum

cbsnews.com - A referendum to change the name of Macedonia appears to have failed due to low voter turnout. Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev described the referendum to change the country's name to North Macedonia as a clear success, with results showing nearly 90 percent of voters approving the deal.

But only about a third of registered voters cast ballots, and 50 percent turnout was needed.

The vote was part of a deal with Greece to end a decades long dispute over what the country is called, since Greece has its own region known as Macedonia. By changing the name to North Macedonia, Greece would end its objections to Macedonia joining the European Union and NATO.

Opponents to the deal called for a boycott of the vote and celebrated in the street outside parliament when initial turnout figures were announced.

"Part of the problem is that even within Macedonia there's a number of people, the opposition, actually including the president, who boycotted the vote who say 'this is absurd, we shouldn't have to bow to Greek wishes about what we can call ourselves,'" said Alex Kliment of GZERO Media.

Zaev, meanwhile, said the results showed a clear indication of the will of Macedonia's people. He called on lawmakers to support the next step needed to finalize the deal.

There are objections to the referendum outside the country as well. Russia is accused of trying to meddle, in order to prevent the expansion of NATO.

"A few weeks ago there was talk about Russia potentially using misinformation, disinformation campaigns to be involved in the referendum and to boost the no vote," Kliment said. "U.S. Secretary of Defense Mattis was in the region and warned of Russian attempts to meddle in the referendum. Russia of course has totally denied this."