6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2017
WORLD IN BRIEF
harder to independently confirm because of the difficulty in vis-
iting local markets.
Associated Press
Spanish police kill 5 in resort
hours after Barcelona attack
BARCELONA, Spain — Police on Friday shot and killed five
people wearing fake bomb belts who staged a car attack in a sea-
side resort in Spain’s Catalonia region hours after a van plowed
into pedestrians on a busy Barcelona promenade, killing at least
13 people and injuring over 100 others.
Authorities said the back-to-back vehicle attacks — as well
as an explosion earlier this week elsewhere in Catalonia — were
connected and the work of a large terrorist group. Three people
were arrested, but the driver of the van used in the Barcelona
attack remained at large and the manhunt intensified for the per-
petrators of the latest European rampage claimed by the Islamic
State group.
Authorities were still reeling from Thursday’s Barcelona
attack when police in the popular seaside town of Cambrils,
about 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the south, fatally shot five peo-
ple near the town’s boardwalk who had plowed into a group of
tourists and locals with their blue Audi 3. Six people, including
a police officer, were injured, though it wasn’t clear how badly.
Catalonia’s interior minister, Joaquim Forn, told Onda Cero
radio that the five suspects killed in a subsequent shootout with
police were wearing fake bomb belts.
“They were fakes, but very well made, and it wasn’t until the
bomb squad carried out the controlled explosion of one that they
could determine they were fakes,” he said.
Trump defends Confederate
statues, berates his critics
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — With prominent Republicans
openly questioning his competence and moral leadership, Pres-
ident Donald Trump burrowed deeper into the racially charged
debate over Confederate memorials and lashed out at members
of his own party in the latest controversy to engulf his presidency.
Out of sight, but still online, Trump tweeted his defense of
monuments to Confederate icons — bemoaning rising efforts to
remove them as an attack on America’s “history and culture.”
And he berated his critics who, with increasingly sharper lan-
guage, have denounced his initially slow and then ultimately
combative comments on the racial violence at a white suprema-
cist rally last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump was much quicker Thursday to condemn violence in
Barcelona, where more than a dozen people were killed when
a van veered onto a sidewalk and sped down a busy pedestrian
zone in what authorities called a terror attack.
He then added to his expression of support a tweet reviving
a debunked legend about a U.S. general subduing Muslim reb-
els a century ago in the Philippines by shooting them with bullets
dipped in pig blood.
Colleges brace for more violence
amid rash of hate on campus
BOSTON — Nicholas Fuentes is dropping out of Boston
University and heading south, pressing ahead with his right-wing
politics despite receiving online death threats.
The 19-year-old joined a white nationalist rally in Char-
lottesville, Virginia, last weekend and posted a defiant Face-
book message promising that a “tidal wave of white identity is
coming,” less than an hour after a car plowed into a crowd of
counter-protesters.
Now, he’s hoping to transfer to Auburn University in Alabama.
Estimates of N. Korea’s nuclear
weapons hard to nail down
AP Photo/Oriol Duran
Injured people are treated in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday
after a white van jumped the sidewalk in the historic Las
Ramblas district, crashing into a summer crowd of resi-
dents and tourists.
“I’m ready to return to my base, return to my roots, to rally
the troops and see what I can do down there,” Fuentes said in an
interview this week.
At college campuses, far-right extremist groups have found
fertile ground to spread their messages and attract new followers.
The real revolution in NKorea is
rise of consumer culture
PYONGYANG, North Korea — Like all North Korean adults,
Song Un Pyol wears the faces of leader Kim Jong Un’s father and
grandfather pinned neatly to her left lapel, above her heart. But
on her right glitters a diamond-and-gold brooch.
Song is what a success story in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea
is supposed to look like. Just after Kim assumed power in late
2011, she started managing the supermarket floor at a state-run
department store, which has freezers stocked full of pork and
beef and rows of dairy, bakery and canned goods. She watches
as customers fill their shopping carts, take their groceries directly
to be scanned at the checkout counter and pay with cash or bank
debit cards.
Song is part of a paradigm shift within North Korea: Three
generations into the Kim family’s ruling dynasty, markets have
blossomed and a consumer culture is taking root. From 120 vari-
eties of “May Day Stadium” brand ice cream to the widespread
use of plastic to pay the bills, it’s a change visibly and irreversibly
transforming her nation.
While Kim has in recent weeks gained attention for his threat
to fire missiles near Guam, his trademark two-track policy focuses
on the development of both nuclear weapons and the economy.
His acceptance of a more consumer-friendly economy is meant
to foster economic growth and bring profits into the regime’s cof-
fers. But like his pursuit of nuclear weapons, it’s a risky business.
Facing even more international sanctions and a flood of Chi-
nese imports that has generated a huge trade imbalance, there are
good reasons to believe the North Korean economy is in a bub-
ble that could soon burst. Prices for gasoline imports have soared
more than 200 percent in less than six months, the AP has found.
The price of rice is also believed to be sharply rising, although
WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence agencies’ assess-
ments of the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal have a wide
gap between high and low estimates. Size matters and not know-
ing makes it harder for the United States to develop a policy for
deterrence and defend itself and allies in the region.
The secrecy of North Korea’s nuclear program, the under-
ground nature of its test explosions and the location of its urani-
um-enrichment activity has made it historically difficult to assess
its capabilities.
Some U.S. assessments conclude North Korea has produced
or can make around 30 to 60 nuclear weapons, said two U.S.
officials who weren’t authorized to discuss sensitive intelligence
matters and demanded anonymity. Such a wide range affects how
the U.S. considers addressing the threat. More North Korean
bombs could indicate second-strike capacity and then there are
questions about how much nuclear firepower the country could
mobilize on a moment’s notice.
Estimates by civilian experts cloud the picture even
further. Most put the arsenal anywhere from a dozen to about 30
weapons.
“The bottom line is that we really don’t know how
many nuclear weapons they have,” said Bruce Bennett, a senior
international and defense researcher at RAND specializing in
northeast Asian military issues. “Does it make a difference?
Absolutely.”
Warship captain in collision
that killed 7 to lose command
WASHINGTON — Poor seamanship and flaws in
keeping watch contributed to a collision between a Navy
destroyer and a commercial container ship that killed seven sail-
ors, Navy officials said, announcing that the warship captain will
be relieved of command and more than a dozen other sailors will
be punished.
Adm. William Moran, the vice chief of naval operations, told
reporters Thursday that the top three leaders aboard the USS Fitz-
gerald, which was badly damaged in the June collision off the
coast of Japan, will be removed from duty aboard the ship. They
are the commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson; the executive
officer, Cmdr. Sean Babbitt; and Master Chief Petty Officer Brice
Baldwin, who as the ship’s command master chief is its most
senior enlisted sailor.
“The collision was avoidable, and both ships demonstrated
poor seamanship,” the Navy’s 7th Fleet said in a statement, not-
ing that “flawed” teamwork among those assigned to keep watch
contributed to the collision.
The actions are being taken by Rear Adm. Joseph Aucoin,
commander of the 7th Fleet, based at Yokosuka, Japan, because
he lost confidence in the three, Moran said.
The Navy said the three had shown “inadequate leadership.”
Separately, seven junior officers were relieved of their duties
because they had shown “poor seamanship” and bad teamwork,
7th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Clay Doss said Friday.
W A NTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
N orth w es t H a rdw oods • Lon gview , W A
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
Clatsop Community College Presents Its
is sponsoring
ANTARCTICA
4 th Annual Conference
on
Extraordinary Living
for people 50+
An Interesting Place
but Why Should
We Care?
Presented by
D R . S COTT B ORG , S ECTION H EAD
Antarctic Infrastructure and Logistics
Offi ce of Polar Programs
Geosciences Directorate at the
National Science Foundation
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27
6 PM (D OORS OPEN AT 5 PM )
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
A STORIA S ENIOR C ENTER
1111 E XCHANGE S TREET
Under Dr. Borg’s leadership, scientists have discovered two
new species of dinosaurs, found 15-million-year-old water
under one-half mile of polar ice, and made signifi cant
contributions toward man’s understanding of the origins
and the nature of the universe. Specifi c topics include:
• An overview of the Antarctic with emphasis on its history
• Geopolitics, e.g., the Antarctic Treaty (who owns Antarctica?)
• A brief introduction to the U.S. Antarctic Program and the
kinds of science it supports
If the entire south polar ice cap were to
melt, it would raise sea levels by 60 meters!
For more information
call Erhard Gross at 503-468-0752 or www.EncoreLearn.org
Free Flu Shots
Lunch Provided
Make Fitness Fun
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 TH
9 AM ؏4 PM
Clatsop Community College·New Patriot Hall
$10 Suggested Donation
Keynote address from Dr. Chris Breitmeyer, Clatsop Community College President
Register by Sept. 8:
Contact Evy at 503-338-2566 or
eberger@clatsopcc.edu or register online at
www.clatsopcc.edu/communityed
12 informative presentations in three breakout sessions. Closing discussion with panel of experts - A Cannabis Discussion
• Wildlife Rescue
Exhibit and Service
Animals
• Disaster Prep/
Stormy Weather: Be
Prepared
• Making Friends of
All Ages
• Exploring Phone
Apps for Seniors
Smartphone
• What is Palliative
Care?
• Happier Body &
Advantages of
Acupuncture
• Genealogy at Your
Fingertips
• Senior Living Care
Options
• Ship Report/KMUN
• Living Well
• North Coast Trails/
Paddling
• Advance Directives/
POLST
• Dancing Your Way
to Fitness
• Advance Directives/
Medical Resources