NATION/WORLD
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Merkel warns against ‘simple answers’ after G7
By DAVID RISING
and GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press
BERLIN — Chancellor
Angela Merkel cautioned
Monday against seeking
“simple answers” to complex
global issues, a day after
suggesting that Europe’s
relationship with the U.S.
had shifted significantly
following NATO and G-7
meetings with President
Donald Trump that produced
disappointing results.
The comments at an elec-
tion rally Sunday in Bavaria,
where Merkel stressed that
“we Europeans must really
take our destiny into our
own hands,” were widely
seen as acknowledgement
from Europe’s most powerful
leader of the changing
dynamic of trans-Atlantic
ties.
Her foreign minister, a
political rival, upped the
rhetoric Monday by declaring
that with Trump’s policies,
“the West has become
smaller.”
Merkel’s remarks came
after a Group of Seven
summit at which the Euro-
peans couldn’t reach an
agreement with Trump on
climate change.
AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Leaders of the G7, from left, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chan-
cellor Angela Merkel, U.S. President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Paolo
Gentiloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
and British Prime Minister Theresa May pose during a group photo for the G7 sum-
mit in the Ancient Theatre of Taormina in Taormina, Italy, Friday.
“The times in which we
can fully count on others are
somewhat over, as I have
experienced in the past few
days,” she said. “And so all I
can say is that we Europeans
must really take our destiny
into our own hands.”
Merkel also emphasized
the continued need for
friendly
relations
with
the U.S. and others. Her
spokesman Steffen Seibert,
said Monday the chancellor
is “a convinced trans-Atlan-
ticist.”
U.S.-German
relations
“are a strong pillar of our
foreign and security policy,
and Germany will continue
working to strengthen these
relations,” Seibert said.
“Precisely because they are
so important, it’s right to
Relative ‘devastated’ after
shooting kills 8 in Mississippi
Associated Press
BROOKHAVEN, Miss.
— Head in hands, his voice
strained, Vincent Mitchell sat
outside his little yellow home
and tried to make sense of
how a family dispute led to
a rampage that killed eight
people, including the deputy
who tried to keep them safe.
“I’m devastated. It don’t
seem like it’s real,” Mitchell
said shortly after the arrest
of his stepson-in-law, Willie
Corey Godbolt. “Him and
my stepdaughter, they’ve
been going back and forth for
a couple of years with that
domestic violence.”
Godbolt showed up
at Mitchell’s home in the
southern Mississippi town
of Bogue Chitto shortly
before midnight Saturday to
demand that his estranged
wife give up their two chil-
dren. She and the kids had
been staying with them for
about three weeks, Mitchell
told The Associated Press.
“He’d come to get his
kids. The deputy was called,”
and asked him to leave, and
it seemed like Godbolt would
comply at first, Mitchell said.
“He acted like, motioned
like, he was fixing to go.
Then he reached in his back
pocket and grabbed a gun,”
Mitchell said. “He just started
shooting everything.”
Mitchell said he escaped
along with Godbolt’s wife,
but Mitchell’s wife, her
sister and one of the wife’s
daughters were killed. Also
slain was Deputy William
Durr, a two-year sheriff’s
department veteran and
former police officer in
nearby Brookhaven, where
authorities said Godbolt fled
and killed four more people
at two other homes.
Authorities on Monday
said Godbolt was related to
or acquainted with all the
victims except Durr. The
Mississippi Bureau of Inves-
tigation identified them as:
Barbara Mitchell, 55; Brenda
May, 53; Tocarra May, 35; a
child who was not identified;
a 17-year-old boy who was
not identified; Ferral Burage,
45; and Shelia Burage, 46.
Police have not said
exactly how Godbolt knew
them. A member of Godbolt’s
church previously told the AP
that everyone but the deputy
was related to Godbolt by
blood or marriage.
Mississippi Bureau of
Investigation
spokesman
Warren Strain said prosecu-
tors plan to charge Godbolt,
35, with one count of capital
murder and seven counts
of first degree murder, but
authorities haven’t discussed
a motive. Strain said those
charges could change as the
investigation continues.
Godbolt was still hospital-
ized Monday at the Univer-
sity of Mississippi Medical
Center in Jackson. Police
have said Godbolt is being
treated for a gunshot wound.
Godbolt himself shed
some light on what happened,
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Christianna May-Kelly, center, is supported by family
members as she cries after answering reporters ques-
tions outside her parents’ home in Brookhaven, Miss.,
Sunday. May-Kelly said her parents were among the
people gunned down during a shooting in rural Missis-
sippi Saturday night.
Therese Apel/The Clarion-Ledger via AP
Officers arrest suspect Willie Corey Godbolt on Sun-
day, May 28, 2017, following several fatal shootings
Saturday in Lincoln County, Miss., officials said.
Slain deputy had worked in
ministry before law enforcement
BROOKHAVEN (AP) department and even in the
— A Mississippi deputy church he served in.”
killed in a shooting rampage
Durr was married and
had worked in Christian had an 11-year-old son. His
ministry before
mother
spoke
going into law
briefly with the
enforcement,
AP on Monday,
and liked doing
saying that the
puppet shows to
family is still in
deliver uplifting
distress.
messages to chil-
“He was a
dren.
good Christian
Wi l l i a m
man,”
Debbie
Durr, 36, was William Durr
Durr said at her
responding to a
rural home near
domestic-violence call late Brookhaven. “He was a
Saturday when he was shot. youth minister and a pastor
The Lincoln County before going into law
Sheriff’s Department has enforcement.”
about 75 employees and is
Off duty, Durr also was
like a close-knit family, said a ventriloquist who took
Zach Harveston, who has his puppets to schools
worked as a dispatcher there and churches. Two weeks
for two years. Harveston ago, Durr entertained
said he was shaken by preschoolers at Brookhaven
Durr’s death.
Academy, a Christian school
“He loved to lead in town. The message he
children to the good Lord,” shared was that — like fire-
Harveston said. “He was flies — people can use their
just a natural-born servant inner light to help those
of the good Lord here at the around them.
in an interview he gave to
The Clarion-Ledger as he sat
with his hands cuffed behind
his back on the side of a road
in Brookhaven, about 70
miles south of Jackson.
“I was having a conversa-
tion with her stepdaddy and
her mama and her, my wife,
about me taking my children
home,” he said. “Somebody
called the officer, people that
didn’t even live at the house.
That’s what they do. They
intervene.”
“They cost him his life,”
he said, apparently referring
to Durr. “I’m sorry.”
“My pain wasn’t designed
for him. He was just there,”
Godbolt said. “I ain’t fit to
live, not after what I done.”
Godbolt was hospitalized
in good condition with a
gunshot wound, though it
wasn’t clear who shot him.
name differences honestly.”
Where Europe’s relation-
ship with the U.S. during
the Cold War and in its
immediate aftermath had a
strong emotional compo-
nent, Merkel’s comments
suggest she now sees them
as more “pragmatic and
transactional,” said Sylke
Tempel, an expert with the
German Council on Foreign
Relations.
“She feels there is a
turning point — trans-At-
lantic relations won’t be the
relations we’ve seen over the
last decades,” Tempel said.
“Trump accelerates it, but it
was to be expected.”
She also noted that Merkel
is seeking a fourth term as
chancellor in September, and
does not want to be seen as
being too close to an Amer-
ican president who is widely
disliked in Europe.
“You don’t want to be
sitting too comfortably in
Trump’s boat, or in Trump’s
boat at all, because Trump’s
not liked here,” she said.
During a speech Monday
in Berlin, Merkel did not
specifically mention Trump
but quoted a 1963 speech
by former President John F.
Kennedy in Frankfurt, where
he told the audience “those
who look only to the past or
the present are certain to miss
the future.”
“With change comes
insecurity, skepticism ...
and, not infrequently, the
glorification of the suppos-
edly good old days,” Merkel
said. “Particularly in view
of the complexity of global
contexts, a wish for simple
answers spreads. But anyone
who puts on national blinkers
and has no view of the world
around him will ultimately
get lost.”
Her main challenger
in September, the Social
Democrats’ candidate Martin
Schulz, doubled down on
Merkel’s Sunday comments,
saying the summits made it
clear that Trump was a presi-
dent “who wants to humiliate
others, who presents himself
like an authoritarian ruler.”
“Europe is the answer, and
stronger cooperation between
the European countries at all
levels is the answer to Donald
Trump,” Schulz said on ARD
public television. “And above
all else, we must not submit
to Trump’s arms-race logic.”
And Vice Chancellor and
Foreign Minister Sigmar
Gabriel, also a Social Demo-
crat, said Monday that if the
Trump administration “finds
pushing through national
interests more important than
an international order... then I
say that the West has become
smaller — it has at least
become weaker.”
He added, however, that
he hopes “we can win back
the United States one day,
because there are also large
parts of American society
that we must not forget.”
Police seek clues in bomber’s suitcase
LONDON (AP) —
Police in Manchester,
England issued a picture of
the arena suicide bomber
holding a blue suitcase and
asked anyone who might
have seen him with it before
the attack to call a confiden-
tial hotline.
Counter-terrorism squads
are trying to re-create
Salman Abedi’s move-
ments in the days before
he detonated a bomb at
an Ariana Grande concert
in Manchester, killing 22
people. Police believe Abedi
had the wheeled suitcase
with him at two locations in
Manchester.
The suitcase was not
used in the attack, which
was carried out when Abedi
detonated an improvised
bomb minutes after the
concert ended, Greater
Manchester Police Detective
Chief Superintendent Russ
Jackson said.
Jackson tried to reas-
sure nervous residents of
Manchester that the bag
does not pose a risk to public
safety. But if any members
of the public find it, they
should not approach it, but
call police immediately, he
said.
“We have no reason
to believe the case and its
contents contain anything
Greater Manchester Police via AP
This is a handout photo
taken on Monday, May
22, from CCTV in an un-
known location of the
city centre in Manches-
ter, England.
dangerous, but would ask
people to be cautious,”
Jackson said.
He said Abedi may have
had the blue suitcase with
him when he visited the
Wilmslow Road area and the
Manchester city center in the
days before the blast.
“Did you see Abedi with
this suitcase between the 18
and 22 May 2017? Where
did you see him with it
during that time?” Jackson
said.
The bombing investiga-
tion expanded early Monday
when police arrested a
23-year-old man on the
south coast of England,
hundreds of miles south of
Manchester.
Greater
Manchester
Police said the man was
arrested in Shoreham-by-Sea
on suspicion of terrorism
offenses and an address
there was being searched.
The arrest means that 14
men are now in custody in
Britain for suspected roles
in Britain’s worst attack in a
decade.
The suspects have not
been identified or charged.
All are being held on
suspicion of violating the
Terrorism Act.
Police and security
services have said very
little about the network
believed to be behind
Abedi, a Manchester native
whose parents had moved
to Britain from Libya.
Abedi’s elder brother Ismail
is among the suspects
being held in Britain, and
a younger brother and
Abedi’s father have been
detained in Libya.
Britain’s
intelligence
services have launched an
inquiry into how warnings
about the 22-year-old
Abedi’s radical views were
handled amid indications
that vital warning signs
were missed.
L i t t le
D a r l i n gs !
This special section will be fi lled with photos of and
messages for adorable little darlings from Umatilla County.
Families will want to keep this special keepsake for
their child and family for years to come.
PUBLISHES:
June 28, 2017
DEADLINES:
June 08, 2017
Olivia,
t.
I loved you from the very star
heart.
my
ed
rac
emb
,
You stole my breath
un.
beg
just
has
er
Our life togeth
.
You’re part of me, my little one
Love, Mom
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