Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 9, 2016)
9A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2016 WORLD IN BRIEF Associated Press Seoul: North Korea’s ifth nuke test ‘fanatic recklessness’ SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said it conducted a “higher level” nuclear test explosion on Friday that will allow it to inally build “at will” an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons. It was the North’s ifth atomic test and the sec- ond in eight months. South Korea’s president called the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the North’s biggest-ever in explosive yield, an act of “fanatic recklessness.” Japan called North Korea an “outlaw nation.” North Korea’s boast of a technologically game-chang- ing nuclear test deied both tough international sanctions and long-standing diplomatic pressure to curb its nuclear ambi- tions. It will raise serious worries in many world capitals that North Korea has moved another step closer to its goal of a nucle- ar-armed missile that could one day strike the U.S. mainland. Seoul vowed to boost psychological warfare efforts by increas- ing the number of propaganda loudspeakers along the rivals’ bor- der, the world’s most heavily armed, and the number of hours of anti-North Korean broadcasts. Hours after South Korea noted unusual seismic activity near North Korea’s northeastern nuclear test site, the North said in its state-run media that a test had “inally examined and conirmed the structure and speciic features of movement of (a) nuclear warhead that has been standardized to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets.” House conservatives serve notice to Ryan and Clinton WASHINGTON — House conservatives have wasted no time since returning from their summer recess showing just how tough they can make life for Speaker Paul Ryan — and for Democrat Hillary Clinton if she becomes president. Conservatives look determined to force a vote in coming days to impeach the head of the IRS despite deep misgivings among other Republicans about such a pre-election move. They’re pressuring Ryan to oppose a deal taking shape in the Senate on must-pass legislation to keep the government open. And they’re promising to keep investigating Clinton’s email issues even if she ends up in the White House. Some conserva- tives are even saying openly that impeachment hearings should be an option against Clinton. “There probably ought to be,” said Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. Trump supporters court Jewish settlers in the West Bank JERUSALEM — Republican activists are trying to “make America great again” — from inside a Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank. This week, supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump have set up a campaign ofice in the Karnei Shom- ron settlement in the northern West Bank, hoping to tap into the large numbers of American immigrants in the area for support. The ofice is in addition to several Republican outposts set up across Israel to get American expatriates to register to vote. A new location in Gush Etzion, a bloc of settlements near Jeru- salem, is expected to open next week. It’s believed to be the irst time either Republican or the Democrat activists have placed a campaign ofice in the West Bank. Marc Zell, co-chair of Republicans Overseas Israel, said the get-out-the-vote effort is not just for show. His group estimates there are about 300,000 American citi- zens living in Israel, including some 50,000 West Bank settlers. Zell hopes as many as 200,000 of them will register to vote. With the vast majority believed to be Republicans, he said there could be enough votes to inluence results in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida. As hajj nears, questions about deadly 2015 stampede remain DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Marching with thousands of other pilgrims at last year’s hajj in Saudi Arabia, 23-year-old Sobia Noor of Pakistan felt the crowd get tighter and the air grow thicker in the scorching heat. Suddenly, there was shouting and crying along the narrow street bordered by tall metal barriers. She was holding hands tightly with her mother and aunt, but her grip was broken as a push of people struck her like a giant wave. She lost sight of her father. Thrown to the ground with oth- ers on top of her, she couldn’t breathe. The next thing she remembers was being sprinkled with water and pulled from the pile. Then she saw a scene that still haunts her: “There were heaps of bodies all around, and some injured were crying for help,” she said. The stampede and crush on Sept. 24, 2015, along Road 204 in Mina, a pilgrimage route on the outskirts of Mecca, killed at least 2,400 people — a disaster that the kingdom has yet to fully acknowledge or explain. ll Ca ime yt n A Fre e as Est F ima t t es Jeff Hale P ainting • Residential • Commercial •Cedar Roof Treatments • Interior & Exterior Over 20 years local experience 503-440-2169 Jeff Hale, Contractor LICENSED BONDED INSURED CCB#179131 Pelican Brewing Company is NOW HIRING YEAR ROUND POSTIONS Hosts, Bussers, Servers Line Cooks & Dishwashers Tip Share, Medical Benefi ts, 401K Savings Plan APPLY IN PERSON ANYTIME AT: 1371 SW Hemlock, Cannon Beach OR SEND YOUR RESUME TO: Employment@Pelicanbrewing.com www.yourlittlebeachtown.com/employment 9/11: ‘We can’t act like racism hasn’t been a part of all this’ Continued from Page 1A amid economic concerns, a Gallup poll around then found only 43 percent of Americans were satisied with how things were going. Then, in under two hours on Sept. 11, the nation lost nearly 3,000 people, two of its tallest buildings and its sense of impregnability. But out of the shock, fear and sorrow rose a feeling of regaining some things, too — a shared iden- tity, a heartfelt commitment to the nation indivisible. Stores ran out of lags. Americans from coast to coast cupped candle lames and prayed at vigils, gave blood and billions of dollars, cheered ireighters and police. Mili- tary recruits cited the attacks as they signed up. Congress scrubbed parti- sanship to pass a $40 billion anti-terrorism and victim aid measure three days after the attacks, and approval ratings for lawmakers and the presi- dent sped to historic highs. A special postage stamp declared “United We Stand,” and Amer- icans agreed: A Newsweek poll found 79 percent felt 9/11 would make the country stron- ger and more uniied. “I really saw people stand up for America. ... And I was very proud of that,” recalls Maria Medrano-Nehls, a retired state library agency worker in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her foster daughter and niece, Army National Guard Mas- ter Sgt. Linda Tarango-Griess, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004. Now, Medrano-Nehls thinks weariness from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and combative politics have pried Americans apart, and it pains her to think of the mili- tary serving a country so torn. Larry Brook can still pic- ture the crowd at a post-9/11 interfaith vigil at an amphi- theater in Pelham, Alabama. The numbers seemed a tangi- ble measure of an urge to come together. AP Photo/Brennan Linsley Imam Abdur-Rahim Ali, with the Northeast Denver Islamic Center, gives a sermon be- fore Friday prayers in Denver on Aug 19. Now? “I don’t think we’re anywhere close,” says Brook, who publishes Southern Jewish Life magazine. To him, polit- ical partisanship and clashes over Middle East policy are walling off middle ground. Three days after 9/11, Joseph Esposito was at smol- dering ground zero as Republi- can President George W. Bush grabbed a bullhorn and vowed the attackers “will hear all of us soon.” The moment became an emblem of American strength and resolve, and Esposito, then the New York Police Depart- ment’s top uniformed oficer, was struck by “the camarade- rie, the unity” of those days. He remembers the support police enjoyed then, and how much the tone had changed by the time of the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, when police arrested hundreds of demonstrators, many of whom said cops unjustly rounded and roughed them up. Now the city’s emergency management commissioner, Esposito has watched from the sidelines as a national protest movement has erupted in recent years from police killings of unarmed black men, and as police them- selves have been killed by gunmen claiming vengeance. These days, Esposito hopes his job can be unify- ing. He wants people to feel that the city helps neighbor- hoods equally to handle disas- ter. “The 1 percenters should not be better prepared than the 99 percent,” he says. “If everyone feels they’re getting their fair share,” he adds, “it fosters better feelings toward one another.” Ali, who is African-American, believes Muslims and people of color are being demonized with “incendiary and divisive” remarks. “We can’t act like racism hasn’t been a part of all this,” he says. Retribution Can the United States feel united again? Some Americans fear it will take another catastrophe, if even that can shift the cli- mate. Others are looking to political leaders to set a more collaborative tone, or to Amer- icans themselves to make an effort to understand and respect one another. When Sonia Shah thinks about the push and pull of American unity since the attacks that killed her father, Jayesh, at the World Trade Center, she pic- tures a rock hitting a pond. The innermost ripple, that’s the tight circle of support that came together around the peo- ple most directly affected by tragedy. Outside it, bigger and more diffuse, are bands of debate over policies and poli- tics in the wake of 9/11. “We usually see the outer rings of the arguments,” says the Baylor University senior. “But I think there always is a current of unity that goes underneath things.” Getting it back For all the signs of kinship after Sept. 11, the irst retribu- tion attack came just four days later, authorities said. Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot dead while placing low- ers on a memorial at his Mesa, Arizona, gas station. Prosecu- tors said the gunman mistook Sodhi, an Indian Sikh immi- grant, for an Arab Muslim. Seeing hundreds of peo- ple gather in solidarity on the night of his brother’s death showed me “the greatness of unity,” says Rana Singh Sodhi, of Gilbert, Arizona. But in the last two years, he’s felt a “change toward hatred again.” He worries politicians are stir- ring animosity toward immi- grants and minorities. So does Imam Abdur-Ra- him Ali. After 9/11, he invited irst responders for tea and coffee at the Northeast Denver Islamic Center to show appreciation and emphasize that Muslims “are regular Americans.” Now,
