Former London mayor Boris Johnson was a leading figure of the Vote Leave campaign [Darren Staples/Reuters]
Boris Johnson, the frontrunner in the race to become Britain’s next prime minister, will be summoned to court over allegations he lied to the public during the Brexit referendum campaign.
Johnson, who claimed the UK “sent” the European Union £350 million ($440m) a week, will be required to attend Westminster Magistrates’ Court for a preliminary hearing, and then the Crown Court for trial.
“Having considered all the relevant factors I am satisfied that this is a proper case to issue the summons as requested for the three offences as drafted,” District Judge Margot Coleman said in a written ruling on Wednesday morning.
Democratic candidates partake in an ABC News-hosted debate in 2015. | Jim Cole/AP Photo
ABC News, in partnership with Univision, will host the third Democratic presidential debate in September, the Democratic National Committee announced Wednesday, saying it was raising both the polling and fundraising bars for candidates to qualify.
The debate is set for Sept. 12 and could extend to a second night, Sept. 13, if enough candidates meet the threshold to participate. The location and moderators have not yet been announced.
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Like the first two Democratic presidential debates — which are set for next month on NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo and for July on CNN — the September debate and a fourth, to be held in October, will cap participants at 10 per night.
But it will be more difficult for the nearly two dozen 2020 Democratic hopefuls to make the stage.
Unlike the first and second rounds of debates, when candidates must cross either a donor or polling threshold to qualify, candidates will need to surpass both bars to make the stage for the third and fourth debates. For the September event, candidates will have to hit 2 percent in four qualifying polls, versus 1 percent in three polls for the first debates, and they will need 130,000 individual donors, up from 65,000.
Although the polling threshold increase is modest, it could represent a significant barrier for many candidates who have struggled to hit that mark in early polling.
According to a POLITICO analysis, just eight candidates have received more than 2 percent of support in four early polls: former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas.
Only polls published between June 28 (the day after the first round of Democratic debates) and Aug. 28 will count toward qualifying for the third debate in September.
Most campaigns have released little information about the number of individual donors they have, besides announcing when they cross the 65,000-donor mark. Sanders, Buttigieg, Harris and Warren have all publicly said they’ve surpassed 130,000 donors.
Other candidates who may have already exceeded that threshold include O’Rourke (who said he had 112,000 unique donors in his first day) and Biden (who had 96,000 donors in his first day).
Erin Hill, the executive director of ActBlue, a Democratic online fundraising platform that will verify donations, said in a statement that “candidates who will be prepared to take on Trump in the general should already be working to build programs that can bring in 130,000 donors by the second round of debates.”
It appears that we’ll have to wait for Samsung’s foldable phone a little while longer.
According to the Korea Herald, who cites anonymous industry sources (via Engadget), Samsung won’t launch the Fold in June.
The same outlet wrote about the Fold in early May, saying that Samsung is close to announcing a launch date for the device, but the May has now nearly expired and Samsung was mum on the matter.
Another Korean outlet, Yonhap, says that while Samsung does plan to launch the Fold in June, this is unlikely to happen due to time-consuming hardware stabilization issues.
Yonhap also cites an unnamed Samsung official as saying that the company now has a bit more breathing room since Huawei’s unlikely to launch its Mate X in July due to the recently imposed U.S. sanctions.
Samsung has until May 31 to announce a new launch date or cancel reservations for the Fold, but it now seems unlikely the company will do so within that deadline. According to Yonhap, Samsung is likely to announce the launch date “in a few weeks.”
After multiple reviewers had found flaws in their Samsung Galaxy Fold units, the company initially claimed it will launch the device on April 26, which was the original launch date for the $1,980 phone. If these recent reports are accurate, the Fold will be at least two months late.
We’ve contacted Samsung about these reports and will update the article when we hear back.
Hong Kong – Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is trying to speed up a lawsuit it has filed against the United States government, it’s latest move to block Washington’s efforts to contain the company on what the US says are national security concerns.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets, fraud and violating US sanctions against Iran. It has banned government agencies from buying Huawei equipment. In a separate move, it has also barred US companies from selling components to Huawei, although that decision has been put on hold until August 19 to give American companies time to adjust.
“Politicians in the US are using the strength of an entire nation to come after a private company,” Huawei’s Chief Legal Officer Song Liuping said during a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen. “This is not normal. Almost never seen in history.”
“The US government has provided no evidence to show that Huawei is a security threat. There is no gun, no smoke. Only speculation,” said Song.
Constitutional challenge
In March, Huawei filed a suit in the US challenging the constitutional validity of Section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act on which the ban on purchases of Huawei equipment by the federal government agencies is based. This week, the company applied for a summary judgment, a move that could help it bypass a trial and speed up the legal process,
Huawei says the rule not only stops US government agencies from buying its equipment and services but also extends the prohibition to companies who want to buy Huawei gear or services.
Huawei is one of the world’s biggest makers of telecommunications equipment and a leader in cutting edge 5G mobile technology. But it relies on providers from overseas, including the US, for key components such as computer chips.
Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown in Shenzhen says the company seems confident of the legal challenge it has filed.
“I think they were trying to demonstrate that in spite of this massive assault they’re currently under from the Trump administration, that this is a company which is not going to crack under pressure. And once more they denied that the company had any connections with the Chinese government, insisting they were not in the pocket of Beijing,” said Brown.
Analysts say Huawei’s move makes sense given its long-term aims.
“[The motion] is the right move for Huawei to assert itself as a legitimate, global telecommunications provider,” Ross O’Brien, principal consultant for telecommunications consultancy Ovum, told Al Jazeera.
‘Geopolitical competitiveness’
O’Brien says the US government’s motivations are more linked to “trade and geopolitical competitiveness than actual security.”
But he is doubtful that that move will ultimately help the company.
“The fact that this has been brought up as a security issue gives the [US] government lots of leeway. I don’t see the judgment coming in Huawei’s favour,” said O’Brien.
A hearing is scheduled for September 19 at the Eastern District of Texas.
Huawei’s legal fight with the US is “just one battle in the wider US-China contest for global tech dominance,” says an analyst [File: Thomas Peter/Reuters]
Kenny Liew, an information and communications technology analyst at Fitch Solutions says the US allegations of Huawei conducting “cyberespionage are still unfounded, and the US hasn’t publicly released proof of its claims.”
“We believe that it is just one battle in the wider US-China contest for global tech dominance,” Liew told Al Jazeera.
Huawei also believes the US has other motives.
“We believe that US politicians are using cybersecurity as an excuse to gain public support for actions that are designed to achieve other goals,” said Song.
Trump recently suggested that the company could become a bargaining chip in future trade talks.
“It’s possible that Huawei even would be included in some kind of a trade deal. If we made a deal, I could imagine Huawei being possibly included in some form of or some part of a trade deal,” Trump said at a White House briefing last week.
The US and China have imposed punitive tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each other’s goods.
“We think Trump’s offer is likely genuine, and his decision to impose restrictions on Huawei is likely a move to pressure China into giving in to key US demands,” said Liew. But he believes that China is unlikely to yield.
Another Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE, faced a similar ordeal last year. It was first banned from operating in the US for seven years after being found guilty of selling equipment to Iran and North Korea in contravention of sanctions. The company was eventually allowed to resume business stateside after a $1bn fine, management shake up and installing a compliance team.
Ovum’s O’Brien thinks it is unlikely that Huawei will similarly agree to a financial settlement as the two companies face different issues.
Yangon, Myanmar – A court in Myanmar has issued an arrest warrant against Wirathu, a notorious Buddhist monk whose hate-preaching sermons against the Rohingya and other minority Muslims have stoked religious tensions.
The monk, who once reportedly dubbed himself the “Burmese bin Laden”, faces up to life imprisonment under the country’s sedition law, which prohibits stirring up “hatred”, “contempt” or “disaffection” towards the government.
Police have so far declined to say why Wirathu has been charged, but the monk recently drew anger from senior officials for a series of speeches in which he attacked Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Wirathu has not yet been arrested and his exact whereabouts are unknown. A police spokesperson did not answer calls from Al Jazeera seeking comment.
He is usually based at his monastery in the city of Mandalay, but a judge has told police to bring him before a court in the country’s main city of Yangon before June 4, the Myanmar Now news agency reported.
Myanmar monk accused of inciting violence (2:11)
Contacted by phone, a man who described himself as a student of Wirathu told Al Jazeera the monk had left Mandalay for Yangon, where he has been summoned to appear before a panel of senior monks on Thursday.
The panel is expected to reprimand him for his involvement in “mundane affairs” after a recent speech he gave defending Myanmar’s military-drafted constitution and railing against Aung San Suu Kyi’s efforts to amend it.
During the speech he said military members of parliament, who are guaranteed unelected seats by the constitution, should be worshipped like the Buddha.
His nationalist followers have vowed to show their support for him with a protest on Thursday near Yangon’s Shwedagon pagoda, the country’s holiest Buddhist site.
Wirathu has described Muslims as “mad dogs” and threatened to use violence to oppose international efforts to bring Myanmar’s generals to justice for the slaughter of thousands of Rohingya in 2017, which United Nations investigators have said may amount to genocide.
In 2003, he was jailed for almost 10 years for inciting deadly riots against Muslims. Last year, Facebook barred him from the platform in response to his incendiary posts about the minority.
THE LISTENING POST: Reporting Myanmar’s Rohingya story (9:53)
Myanmar’s first civilian government in decades, led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, has long regarded Wirathu as a nuisance.
In 2017, a government-appointed committee of top monks barred Wirathu from preaching for a year, stating that he had “repeatedly delivered hate speech against religions to cause communal strife.” In the same year, the committee disbanded Ma Ba Tha, a Buddhist nationalist group in which he was a key figure.
But Aung San Suu Kyi has been unable to shake criticism that she is bowing to pressure from Buddhist hardliners.
David Mathieson, a Myanmar-based analyst, said the sedition charges against Wirathu followed a shift in public opinion towards the monk.
“Wirathu has been widely dismissed inside Myanmar as a buffoonish ultranationalist for a long time now,” he told Al Jazeera. “The authorities may have calculated what remained of his support base would be unlikely to create serious trouble if he was arrested.”
With an election coming up next year, “the NLD may well have calculated moving against Wirathu would generate more popular support, not less,” he added.
Rights groups are uneasy about the decision to target the monk with a sedition law.
“The government’s use of sedition charges raises concerns about the focus of the investigation, which should be squarely on Wirathu’s incitement of violence and hostility,” said Matthew Bugher, head of Asia for Article 19, an advocacy group focussed on freedom of expression.
“Wirathu’s speech is vile and repugnant,” he added. “International investigators have already reported on the apparent links between his words and the violence and discrimination directed at Muslim populations. A criminal investigation into his speech and actions is clearly warranted.”
Instagram may be looking to ramp up its shopping features.
A new “order” sticker recently appeared in the app’s Stories, alongside existing stickers as well as location and music features, according to a screenshot tweeted by social media consultant Matt Navarra.
It’s not clear exactly how it would work, but there is a green dollar sign on the icon, suggesting it could incorporate payments in some way.
Navarra, who has previously spotted unreleased features in Instagram and Facebook, also tweeted a similar screenshot with a “product” sticker appearing in Stories.
An Instagram spokesperson said the company is not testing the “order” feature and is not considering it as an in-app shopping feature. Instagram often experiments with new features, though not all of its tests end up launching.
But Instagram has been pushing harder into shopping in recent months. The app recently introduced a new checkout feature, which lets you buy products without leaving the app, and allows some influencers to sell products directly in their posts. Instagram will also start highlighting dedicated shopping channels in its new Explore section.
Though Instagram has been pretty deliberate about how and where it rolls out new shopping features – most have been limited to a small pool of approved influencers or brands – the company has made it clear shopping will be a major part of its business in the future.
Because Instagram has pretty much maxed out the number of ads in can put in its main feed, and the company is still figuring out how best to monetize Stories, commerce represents a potentially huge untapped source of revenue for the service. Mark Zuckerberg has previously said “advertising is going to be the way that revenue comes in for the foreseeable future” but has said commerce and shopping look promising.
Whether or not that means any account would eventually be able to hawk products, as the appearance of this “order” sticker might suggest, is unclear. If nothing else, it’s yet another reminder that we’re going to see a lot more shopping-oriented features on Instagram.
An estimated 690 million children are being robbed of their childhood today due to conflict, early marriage and exclusion from education among other factors, even as progress was made over the last two decades, according to an international aid group.
In its annual report published on Tuesday, Save the Children, said the overall situation for children has improved in 173 of 176 countries since 2000, but one in four under the age of 18 is still being deprived of the right to a safe and healthy childhood. Those living or fleeing conflict zones are among the most vulnerable, it said.
“While progress has been remarkable, millions of children continue to be robbed of a childhood. We now need to continue to push to reach every last child and ensure they receive the childhood they deserve,” Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the organisation’s CEO, said in a statement.
The study found nearly 31 million children forcibly displaced – an 80 percent increase since 2000 – and an estimated 420 million more living in conflict zones.
Rukayah Sarumi, advocacy manager at Save the Children, said it was a “very clear area of concern”.
“In conflict areas, finding ways to ensure that children are healthy, are able to attend school, their life is free from violence and that their rights are protected becomes even more difficult,” she told Al Jazeera.
The Syrian civil war, now into its ninth year, contributed largely to the increased displacement.
Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Iraq, Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were ranked the five worst conflict-affected countries for a child.
Over the past two decades, the study found a 49 percent decline in under-five mortality rate, 17 percent decline in child homicide rate, 33 percent decline in children out of school and a 40 percent drop in child labour and 25 percent in child marriages.
Singapore, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Slovenia were ranked the top five countries for children.
Sarumi called on governments to continue their efforts to reduce “childhood enders” and “push for the implementation of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.
“We really continue to call for continued investment and political will at the national level and continued action at the international level, particularly in the areas that we have seen less progress in,” she said.
Child marriage
Compared with 2000, Save the Children documented 11 million fewer child brides today, noting significant progress in countries like India, where child marriage declined by 51 percent.
The group attributed the decline in India to better education for girls, increased public awareness, community-based interventions and proactive government investment.
With three million fewer teen births worldwide each year, the adolescent birth rate also fell by 22 percent.
In a landmark case last year, India’s Supreme Court outlawed sexual intercourse with a wife aged between 15 and 18.
But despite the decrease in the global percentage of child marriages, more than 150 million additional girls will be married before their 18th birthday by 2030, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said in a report last year.
Rachel Yates, interim executive director of Girls Not Brides, an umbrella body of civil society outfits fighting to end the practice, said child marriage is a “complex issue” and there is “no single solution” to eradicate it.
“We need to address head on the belief that girls are not as valuable as boys, and that their only role in society is to become wives and mothers,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Only when we tackle child marriage head-on will all girls be able to live happier, healthier lives of their choosing.”
If anyone’s watching the reviews for Rocketman, it’s Sir Elton John.
The music legend who inspired the musical fantasy film sends daily emails to his onscreen representative, star Taron Egerton, who told Jimmy Kimmel this fact on Tuesday night.
“I try and avoid reviews, but Elton sends me them every day. Every day,” he said. “It’s the same title every time: ‘And another one.’”
Of course, like Kimmel, you’re probably wondering what Sir Elton’s email address is. Is it i_remember_when_rock_was_young@hotmail.com? tinydancer71@live.com? Surely it’s not eltonjohn@gmail.com…
Tuesday’s town hall event was Justin Amash’s first public one since he called for Trump’s removal.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Rep. Justin Amash is a lonely man in Congress, the sole Republican to back Donald Trump’s removal from office. But back home on Tuesday night, the Michigan lawmaker got the red-carpet treatment in his first face-to-face encounter with voters since his call for impeachment.
During a packed town hall in Grand Rapids, attendees in the mostly-friendly audience gave Amash several standing ovations and heaps of praise for his solo rebellion against Trump.
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“I don’t agree with many of your stances, but I applaud your courage and your morality that seems to be lacking in [Washington]. So thank you,” said one woman in the crowd, drawing cheers from the audience.
Tuesday’s town hall marked Amash’s first public appearance since he declared on Twitterearlierthis month that Trump committed impeachable offenses and obstructed justice — a remarkable act of defiance, even for a longtime Trump critic, that has put his congressional career on the line while provoking Trump and the GOP.
It’s unclear how many audience members plan to vote for Amash. Several former Amash supporters stood up to denounce the five-term congressman and express their ire over his constant rebukes of Trump, reflecting a broader frustration in the GOP.
Amash has already drawn two primary challengers, including from Michigan state Rep. Jim Lower, a pro-Trump candidate who vowed to use his support of the president as a key issue in the campaign.
But Amash is swatting down concerns about the potential impacts on his political future, telling the crowd he “has a duty to keep the president in check.”
“It doesn’t matter to me that some people won’t support me. You have to do the right thing regardless,” he said.
Amash, who explains all his congressional votes on social media, said he felt it was important to personally explain his pro-impeachment stance to his constituents. It took the 39-year-old attorney a month to read and analyze the Mueller report before he came to that conclusion.
Hundreds of people packed into a high school auditorium Tuesday night, where one person was seen wearing a red Justin Amash campaign T-shirtand another was wearing a “Mueller Time” T-shirt. Some audience members snapped selfies and shook hands with Amash before the event.
Amash, who has largely avoided the media spotlight over the past week and a half, spent two hours — an hour longer than the town hall was supposed to last — reiterating his support for impeachment, defending his conservative record and taking shots at the president and congressional leaders in both parties.
He also explained why he is still a registered Republican, saying it’s harder to get on the ballot as an independent, and fielded several questions on other issues including infrastructure, the opioid crisis and climate change.
But not everyone in the crowd was happy with Amash. At one point, a woman wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat sitting nearthe edge of the crowd told Amash she was disappointed in the lawmaker and could no longer support him.The audience tried to boo her down, with some members in the crowd growing rowdy at one point, forcing Amash to ask people to be respectful.
And in another testy exchange, a woman who said she once volunteered for Amash’s campaign accused the Michigan lawmaker of political grandstanding and abandoning his district.
“I’ve changed my position on you. You’ve spent the least two years failing to do your job, which is to directly represent the popular will of your constituents,” said the woman, who later identified herself to reportersas Anna Timmer.
“That’s not my job … my job is to uphold the Constitution,” Amash responded.
“Those are not mutually exclusive,” she shot back.
Amash is no stranger to bucking his own party. The Michigan lawmaker rode the 2010 tea party wave to Congress, where the libertarian and fiscal conservative has built a political brand on being a thorn in the side of GOP leadership and made protecting civil liberties his chief priority.
Amash helped found the hard-line Freedom Caucus as a way to challenge the party’s establishment. And hehas become famous in Washington for his “no” votes, opposing everything from massive spending bills to routine measures.
Amash even once lost a coveted seat on the House Budget Committee for bucking Republicans.
“If you go against the Speaker of the House, and you’re in the majority, you’re toast. And that’s why people don’t do it,” Amash said.
But his penchant for crossing party lines has taken on new meaning in the era of Trump — and potentially put his congressional career in jeopardy.
Lower, who was already planning on running against Amash, accelerated his announcement after the lawmaker’s impeachment comments. Now, Lower plans to make his support of Trump a central part of his campaign.
“It will probably be the No. 1 issue, whether I wanted it to or not,” Lower told POLITICO.
While Amash beat back a primary challenge from an establishment candidate in 2014, he faces a far more uncertain political future in the ageof Trump, where fealty to the president has often become a litmus test in the GOP.
Amash has been frustrated that his Republican colleagues have moved in lockstep with Trump, even on positions once anathema to the GOP, like supporting executive orders to shape immigration policy or legislation that adds to the ballooning federal deficit.
“Under the current administration, spending has skyrocketed. And Republicans, unfortunately, haven’t said that much about it,” he said. “I haven’t changed … I’m a principled, constitutional conservative who has stayed consistent, regardless of whether we’ve had President Obama in office or President Trump.”
Amash also said some of his GOP colleagues agree with his view on the Mueller report, but haven’t had the courage to speak out against Trump.
“A lot of people think I’m right about the Mueller report. They just won’t say it. A lot of Republicans,” Amash said.
Amash has repeatedly defied Trump, voting against the president’s national wall emergency, opposing Trump’s travel ban and questioning Trump’s ex-attorney Michael Cohen in a public hearing instead of attacking him like his GOP colleagues.
But backlash in GOP circles over his impeachment comments has been swift and fierce. Trump ripped into Amash on Twitter, calling him a “lightweight” and “loser,” while House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) accused Amash of seeking attention.
And the DeVos family, who are well-known and powerful mega donors in Michigan, officially ended their support for the Michigan lawmaker.
Not even Amash’s fellow members of the House Freedom Caucus have come to Amash’s defense. The group decided to uniformly oppose his impeachment stance, though they stopped short of kicking him out of the caucus.
Amash, who stopped showing up to House Freedom Caucus meetings this year, actually threatened to quit the caucus last year because they wouldn’t stand up to Trump, even when the president attacked one of their own members. Another Trump critic, former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), ended up losing his primary race to a pro-Trump challenger last year after Trump got involved in the race.
It’s unclear whether the president will get involved in Amash’s race, though some Republicans think it’s likely.
But others think Amash has his eyes set on running for higher office — and his impeachment comments have only further fueled rampant speculation.
Libertarian groups have been trying to draft Amash to mount a third-party challenge against Trump in 2020, which could draw away votes from Trump in Michigan, a key battleground state that Trump barely won in 2016.
Amash was keeping his options open on Tuesday.
“I’ve said many times, I don’t rule things like that out,” Amash said. “If you’re fighting to defend the constitution, if you find a way to do that that’s different and maybe more effective, then you have to think about that.”
![Former London mayor Boris Johnson was a leading figure of the Vote Leave campaign [Darren Staples/Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/5/29/1245936637144e97aabe792acb23d987_18.jpg "Boris Johnson to face court over Brexit 'lies'")
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