6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2017
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
Nobel Peace Prize awarded to
anti-nuclear campaign group
OSLO, Norway — The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to
an organization seeking to eliminate nuclear weapons through an
international treaty-based prohibition.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee today announced the Inter-
national Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons as winner of the
$1.1 million prize.
The Geneva-based organization ICAN “has been a driving force
in prevailing upon the world’s nations to pledge to cooperate ... in
efforts to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons,” com-
mittee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said in the announcement.
She noted that similar prohibitions have been reached on chemi-
cal and biological weapons, land mines and cluster munitions.
“Nuclear weapons are even more destructive, but have not yet
been made the object of a similar international legal prohibition,”
she said.
US military halts
exercises over Qatar crisis
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military has halted
some exercises with its Gulf Arab allies over the ongoing diplo-
matic crisis targeting Qatar, trying to use its infl uence to end the
monthslong dispute, authorities said today.
While offering few details, the acknowledgement by the U.S.
military’s Central Command shows the concern it has over the con-
fl ict gripping the Gulf, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet and cru-
cial bases for its campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq
and Syria, as well as the war in Afghanistan.
The Qatar crisis began June 5, when Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Ara-
bia and the United Arab Emirates launched an economic boycott
while closing off the energy-rich nation’s land border and its air and
sea routes. The quartet of Arab nations pointed to Qatar’s alleged
support of extremists and overly warm ties to Iran. Qatar long has
denied supporting extremists and shares a massive offshore natu-
ral gas fi eld with Tehran that makes its citizens have the highest
per-capita income in the world.
Initially, U.S. military offi cials said the boycott and dispute
had no impact on their operations. Qatar is home to the massive
al-Udeid Air Base, the forward headquarters of Central Command
which oversees the U.S.-led coalition’s bombing campaign of the
Islamic State group and manages a direct line to Russia to manage
Syria’s crowded skies.
But as the dispute went on, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis trav-
eled to Doha to offer his support. The Trump administration also
agreed to an in-the-works sale of F-15 fi ghter jets to Qatar for $12
billion.
that their beliefs about marriage or other topics are sincerely held.
Under the new policy, a claim of a violation of religious free-
dom would be enough to override many anti-discrimination protec-
tions for LGBT people, women and others. The guidelines are so
sweeping that experts on religious liberty are calling them a legal
powder-keg that could prompt wide-ranging lawsuits against the
government.
Religious liberty experts said they would have to see how the
guidance would be applied by individual agencies, both in crafting
regulations and deciding how to enforce them. But experts said the
directive clearly tilted the balance very far in favor of people of faith
who do not want to recognize same-sex marriage.
In issuing the memo, Sessions, a deeply devout Methodist
from Alabama, is injecting the department into a thicket of highly
charged legal questions that have repeatedly reached the U.S.
Supreme Court, most notably in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case that
said corporations with religious objections could opt out of a health
law requirement to cover contraceptives for women.
Birth control: Trump expands
opt-out for workplace insurance
WASHINGTON — President Trump is allowing more employ-
ers to opt out of providing no-cost birth control to women by claim-
ing religious or moral objections, issuing new rules today that take
another step in rolling back the Obama health care law.
The new policy is a long-expected revision to federal rules that
require most companies to cover birth control as preventive care for
women, at no additional cost. Preventive services are supposed to
be free of charge to employees and their dependents under former
President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Trump’s religious and moral exemption is expected to galva-
nize both his opponents and religious conservatives that back him,
but it’s likely to have a limited impact on America’s largely secular
workplaces. Most women no longer pay for birth control, and advo-
cates immediately announced plans to try to block the new rule in
court.
The administration estimated that some 200 employers who
have already voiced objections to the Obama-era policy would
qualify for the expanded opt-out, and that 120,000 women would
be affected. However, it’s unclear how major religious-affi liated
employers such as Catholic hospitals and universities will respond.
Since contraception became a covered preventive benefi t, the
share of women employees paying their own money for birth con-
trol pills has plunged to under 4 percent, from 21 percent, according
to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Doctors’ groups that were key to derailing Republican plans to
repeal the health law outright expressed dismay over the adminis-
tration’s move on birth control. The American Congress of Obstetri-
cians and Gynecologists said the new policy could reverse the recent
progress in lowering the nation’s rate of unintended pregnancies.
After accusations Hollywood
asks: Is Harvey Weinstein done?
AG’s religious objection order
undercuts LGBT protections
WASHINGTON — In an order that undercuts federal protec-
tions for LGBT people, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a
sweeping directive to agencies today to do as much as possible to
accommodate those who claim their religious freedoms are being
violated.
The guidance, an attempt to deliver on President Donald Trump’s
pledge to his evangelical supporters that he would protect religious
liberties, effectively lifts a burden from religious objectors to prove
LOS ANGELES — Accepting the Golden Globe best actress
award in 2012 for “The Iron Lady,” Meryl Streep took a moment to
thank the almighty — “God, Harvey Weinstein.”
For decades, Weinstein has held a lofty position in Hollywood
as one of the industry’s most powerful fi gures — an old-school,
larger-than-life movie mogul who was never shy about throwing
his weight around. “The Punisher. Old Testament, I guess,” Streep
added that night to laughter and applause.
But Weinstein’s name — such a regular refrain on countless
Oscar nights — on Thursday rang out in a different way. In a bomb-
shell expose, The New York Times reported that Weinstein had
reached at least eight legal settlements with women over alleged
harassment. With allegations levied by actresses including Ashley
Judd and former employees at both the Weinstein Co. and Wein-
stein’s former company, Miramax, the report detailed decades of
abuse.
The 65-year-old Weinstein, in a lengthy written statement, said
he would take a leave of absence from his company. But many in
Hollywood are wondering if Weinstein’s leave might be permanent.
Is this, like the accusations that felled Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes,
the end for the sharp-elbowed independent fi lm pioneer whose edit-
ing-room meddling earned him the nickname “Harvey Scissor-
hands” and whose unprecedented run of Oscar glory made him a
Hollywood deity?
“Harvey Weinstein’s career in Hollywood is likely over,”
declared industry trade Variety.
Eff ort to restrict ‘bump stock’
draws unlikely supporters
WASHINGTON — The National Rifl e Association has joined
the Trump administration and top congressional Republicans in a
swift and surprising embrace of a restriction on Americans’ guns,
though a narrow one: to regulate the “bump stock” devices the Las
Vegas shooter apparently used to horrifi cally lethal effect.
The devices, originally intended to help people with disabili-
ties, fi t over the stock and grip of a semi-automatic rifl e and allow
the weapon to fi re continuously, some 400 to 800 rounds in a sin-
gle minute. Bump stocks were found among the gunman’s weap-
ons and explain why victims in Las Vegas heard what sounded like
automatic-weapons fi re as the shooter rained bullets from a casino
high-rise, slaughtering 58 people in a concert below and wounding
hundreds more.
Thursday’s sudden endorsements of controls came almost
simultaneously from the NRA and the White House.
The NRA, which famously opposes virtually any hint of new
restrictions, said in a statement: “The National Rifl e Association is
calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo-
sives (BATFE) to immediately review whether these devices com-
ply with federal law. The NRA believes that devices designed to
allow semi-automatic rifl es to function like fully automatic rifl es
should be subject to additional regulations.”
Trump, during photo shoot,
talks of ‘calm before the storm’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump delivered a fore-
boding message Thursday night, telling reporters as he posed for
photos with his senior military leaders that this might be “the calm
before the storm.”
White House reporters were summoned suddenly Thursday eve-
ning and told the president had decided he wanted the press to doc-
ument a dinner he was holding with the military leaders and their
wives.
Reporters were led hastily to the grand State Dining Room,
where they walked into a scene of the president, his highest-ranking
military aides and their wives posing for a group photo. The cam-
eras clicked and they smiled. A joke was made about someone’s
face being tired. Live classical music played.
Then, Trump gestured to the reporters in the room.
“You guys know what this represents?” Trump asked. “Maybe
it’s the calm before the storm. Could be the calm, the calm before
the storm.”
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