Fashion Cities Africa is the first major exhibition of contemporary African fashion in the U.K. It explores street style in four major African cities Sub-saharan Africa's apparel and footwear market is worth $31 billion African fashion has always been known for its daring use of color, from acid oranges to luminous blues. When Michelle Obama wore a top by Nigerian designer Maki Oh during her Africa tour in 2013, it was assumed the world’s eyes were finally on the continent as a serious contender for fashion’s emerging markets. Now, a new exhibition and book explore fashion and street style in four major African cities - Johannesburg, Casablanca, Lagos and Nairobi. “I wanted to capture a sense of the breadth and scope of the African fashion Renaissance through the prism of these four cities,” says the book’s editor, Hannah Azieb Pool. “Lagos, with its love of glamor, is turning into a real fashion powerhouse, Joburg has that edge that makes London look sleepy, Nairobi is super creative and Casablanca’s scene is small but distinctive.” Fashion Cities Africa, which the book is named after, will be the first major exhibition of contemporary African fashion to be showcased in the U.K. Sub-saharan Africa’s apparel and footwear market is reportedly worth $31 billion according to data by Euromonitor. Labels such as Nigeria’s Maki Oh - recently worn by Beyonce, Jewel By Lisa and Ikiré Jones are establishing themselves as international brands beyond the continent. A post shared by Maki Oh Lagos (@maki.oh) Kenya-based designers like Adele Dejak, Anthony Muli and Ami Doshi “are re-framing what it means to be an ‘African’ designer”, explains Pool. “They constantly make beautiful jewelry and accessories that challenge the notion that Africa ‘doesn’t do luxury’”, she adds. How do Africa’s trendsetters compete with the runways of Milan, New York and Paris? Annual events such as Lagos Fashion Week, launched in 2011, provide opportunities for burgeoning talents to present their work to larger markets says Adebayo Oke-Lawal. He is the designer behind Orange Culture, an androgynous Lagos based street wear brand. Oke-Lawal’s self-funded debut at Lagos Fashion Week led to his nomination as one of 30 designers for the LVMH prize in 2014. “Africa is making huge strides in being able to provide a sustainable offering to the fashion industry”, says Oke-Lawal. “People are more willing to support upcoming brands and designers – the Bank of Industry and NEPC for example. Manufacturing has also rapidly improved”, he adds, “textile factories are popping up.” In South Africa, Tanzanian-born Anisa Mpungwe is behind womenswear label Loin Cloth & Ashes. She became the first black woman to win the Elle New Talent Award in 2008. “My views, conflicts and triumphs affect how I conceptualize my clothes. I am modern, liberal and outspoken in one hand but will still kneel when greeting my elders, a custom I never want to rub off. I see Loin Cloth & Ashes story in the same light,” says Mpugwe. Mpugwe believes the continent is “not afraid of patterns and colors, that’s the one thing that we do in our sleep, so we use it to be louder amongst our foreign friends”. Describing Johannesburg’s street style, she says being politically aware about race and sexuality is key: “There is an unapologetic attitude and sense of pride in identity, whether condoned or not”. For those thinking of getting clothes made in Africa, Pool has collated useful advice within the book on navigating its sprawling markets. “Avoid Senegalese tailors in Abidjan. Things are rushed, and not well finished”, according to Nairobi writer Binyavanga Wainaina, “Lagos tailors are the best when you need simple [things] done well and fast - even in front of you. Carry photos and clear drawings of what you need”. ‘Fashion Cities Africa’ by Hannah Azieb Pool (Intellect Press) is out now and the exhibition at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery in the U.K. runs through January 2017.


Donald Trump suggests new screening processes for would-be US immigrants Foreign nationals already face an extensive application process for US visas Donald Trump has outlined a new screening process for would-be immigrants designed to exclude Islamic extremists that he promoted Monday as “extreme vetting.” The policy would attempt to establish whether applicants’ beliefs match US values on gay rights, gender equality and religious freedoms, among others. With little in the way of specifics from the Republican presidential candidate and his senior campaign officials – including whether they would apply to tourists – the proposed vetting reforms have raised questions about how officials would assess the validity of applicants’ responses and whether an overhaul of the immigration screening process would work. As it stands now, the US already has an extenstive system for screening potential immigrants. Here are some key things to know about what the US already does and how Trump’s plan would be different. Related video Trump spells out plan to crush ISIS “It’s easy enough to say whatever you want to say on a questionnaire. Then the question becomes how much time and how intensely is someone going to be scrutinized – what is that going to do to the overall immigration system in the United States?” He added: “It does raise some serious concerns in terms of how one would implement such a policy.” Foreign nationals wishing to relocate to the US already face intense scrutiny and an extensive visa application process. To be eligible for a US immigration visa, applicants usually must be sponsored by a US relative, an existing permanent resident or a potential employer. Related video The GOP frontrunners on immigration: 1980 and today There are exceptions to the rules – for refugee asylum or inter-country adoption, for example. There are also special categories that are largely employment-based and extend to former US government workers such as Iraqi or Afghan translators or contractors. And then there are diversity visas, often referred to as the “green card lottery,” which each year admit a limited number of people from countries “with historically low rates of immigration” to the US. Foreign nationals’ eligibility to apply for an immigrant visa must be confirmed by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services before their paperwork is passed to the National Visa Center. The National Visa Center then begins to process the application – which can take up to three weeks – before handing off documentation to the appropriate US embassy or consulate abroad. At the same time, applicants must pay processing fees and start to collate the visa application form and numerous required documents – including financial records such as bank statements and civil records covering birth, marriage, criminal and military history among others. Administrative processing’ can take months or, in extreme cases, years. Charlotte Slocombe,  a partner at immigration law firm Fragomen It can take as long as six weeks for the National Visa Center to complete its record check and issue an invitation for an interview. Generally these are scheduled within 60 days of complete document submission and one month in advance. Prior to their interviews, candidates must also undertake a full medical exam. Interviews are conducted by a US consular officer abroad, during which time digital fingerprint scans are also taken. Multiple government agencies also conduct security screenings that generally takes one to two weeks, according to Charlotte Slocombe, a partner at immigration law firm Fragomen. “(It) can take considerably longer for applicants of certain backgrounds, particularly applicants from countries known for terrorism or from professions dealing in sensitive technologies,” she told CNN. “This ‘administrative processing’ can take months or, in extreme cases, years.” The new values test would be part of a three-pronged approach to Islamic extremism that Trump unveiled during a major policy address on Monday. Trump’s proposal starts with a ban that would “temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism.” This appears to be the candidate’s latest version of his controversial blanket travel ban on all Muslims entering the US. Related video Watch Donald Trump evolve on banning Muslim immigration Secondly, upon taking office, he would ask that the State Department and Department of Homeland Security provide him with a list of countries where adequate screening “cannot take place.” Trump did not name any countries specifically, and it was not clear what he considers inadequate vetting. Finally, he called for a more stringent immigration test to limit admission to the United State to only “those who share our values and respect our people.” He elaborated, “In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is long overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today. I call it extreme vetting. I call it extreme, extreme vetting.” A Trump campaign official, in providing Afghanistan as an example of a country with many who hold inimical views, said that many individuals there “may have attitudes about women or attitudes about Christians or gays that would be considered oppressive, even violent.” The adviser continued, “We have no reason to bring someone into our country who is going to harbor that hostility. We want to bring in people who are reformers or who support moderation or who embrace or expand pluralistic ideas,” the campaign adviser said. Slocombe said Trump’s proposal would require a wide broadening of the security review process and consequently put a severe strain on the State Department and other government agencies. “It would require a near overhaul of the application form and very likely capture many more thousands of applicants in the ‘administrative processing’ net,” explained Slocombe, describing a need for new application and interview standards – likely causing significant delays “although arguably not adding any greater security checks than already exist.” She added, “US immigration is sometimes criticized for being too subjective, and Mr Trump’s plans may lend greater credence to this charge.” “It does raise some serious concerns in terms of how one would implement such a policy,” said Lanhee Chen, CNN political commentator and previously a public policy director for former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “It’s easy enough to say whatever you want to say on a questionnaire,” he said. “Then the question becomes how much time and how intensely is someone going to be scrutinized – what is that going to do to the overall immigration system in the United States?” Trump’s proposal to screen the ideology of would-be immigrants is not completely without historical precedent. The State Department’s DS-260 form that all prospective immigrants must currently fill out asks screening questions based on actions, like whether the applicant is a member of a terrorist organization, rather than beliefs. But during the 20th Century, the US barred immigrants who believed in communism or anarchism. After President William McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist in 1901, the US passed a law two years later banning anarchists from entry into the US, Philip E. Wolgin, managing director for immigration at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, told CNN. Related article Trump aide: Immigration increases risk of female genital mutilation Wolgin added that the US broadened the restrictions in 1952 to include those affiliated with the Communist Party and other political groups in favor of overthrowing the US government. In addition to some people being barred from coming to the US, others were deported once their affiliation with these political groups was discovered by US authorities. These entry bans were eventually lightened or eliminated during the last years of the Cold War, and the current Immigration and Nationality Act states that no one will be barred from the US for “past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States.” But to this day, US immigration form DS-260 still asks would-be immigrants whether they are a “member of or affiliated with the Communist or other totalitarian party.”

Donald Trump's proposed immigration screening policy


Israel is removing recently installed metal detectors outside the entrance to the al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced early Tuesday morning. The metal detectors, installed nearly two weeks ago after an attack at the site, have been a source of increased tension in the wider region, including widespread Palestinian protests across Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as diplomatic tension between Israel and Jordan. The decision to remove the metal detectors, made by the country’s security cabinet, was based on the recommendation of Israel’s security agencies, the statement said. Instead of metal detectors, Israel plans to install unspecified advanced technologies and “smart inspection.” The security cabinet decision comes amid high-level discussions between Israel and Jordan aimed at easing tensions between the two countries. The announcement of the removal came only hours after the Prime Minister’s Office said staff of the Israeli embassy in Jordan, including a security guard involved in a deadly weekend incident, returned to Israel on Monday night. The move came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II of Jordan spoke on the phone Monday night in an effort to defuse a diplomatic row in the aftermath of Sunday’s attack on the Israeli embassy in Amman. In Sunday’s attack, an Israeli security guard was stabbed and two Jordanians inside the embassy compound were killed, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The incident strained already tense relations between the two countries. Earlier Monday, Jordan had said all the embassy staff could leave except the security guard. As tensions in the region have escalated, the international community has become involved to find a peaceful resolution. President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, arrived in Israel on Monday afternoon in an attempt to reduce tensions. “We are engaged in discussions with the relevant parties and are committed to finding a resolution to the ongoing security issues,” said a senior administration official. The United States, Russia, United Nations, and European Union – the Quartet – urged all sides to “demonstrate maximum restraint” and “refrain from provocative actions” in a statement released over the weekend. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sunday’s attack unfolded when a Jordanian, who was in the embassy compound for routine furniture replacement, attacked an Israeli security official from behind and stabbed him with a screwdriver. “The security official, who was slightly wounded, defended himself. During the incident, the Jordanian worker was killed, but the landlord was injured as well. He later died of his wounds,” the statement said Monday. The Jordanian Public Security Directorate confirmed on Monday in a statement that the second Jordanian man died. The statement identified him as “a physician who was at the scene of the shooting.” Related video Palestinians killed in Jerusalem clashes “In accordance with the Vienna Convention, the security officer has immunity from investigation and imprisonment,” the Israeli foreign ministry said. King Abdullah and Netanyahu also spoke on Monday about the ongoing tensions at one of Jerusalem’s holiest sites, known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. A statement from Jordan’s Royal Court said King Abdullah II “stressed the need to find an immediate solution and remove the causes to the ongoing crisis” at the site. A significant percentage of Jordan’s population is of Palestinian origin and a Jordanian religious authority, the Waqf, administers the Temple Mount and Noble Sanctuary. On Friday, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets to protest the situation in Jerusalem. Earlier in the weekend, on Friday night, three Israelis were killed in their home in the West Bank settlement of Halamish. Police said a young Palestinian man breached the settlement’s security fence and stabbed them to death. Yosef Solomon, 70, and his son, Elad, and daughter, Chaya, died in the attack. In a statement posted on Facebook before the attack, the assailant said he was motivated by the Israeli government’s recent restrictions on al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, according to an Israeli military spokesman. Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the attack, saying: “We bless the heroic Halamish operation which came as a result to the Zionist occupation violations and crimes against our people in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque,” the group said on Twitter. Netanyahu said Israel would look to destroy the home of the attacker as soon as possible, a routine measure intended as a deterrent against future attacks. The Israeli military arrested more than 20 Palestinians in an overnight sweep on Sunday near the site of Friday night’s attack, according to an Israeli military official. The Palestinians were suspected of preparing attacks in the immediate future or of being members of the militant group Hamas, the official said. Read: Christian man prays with Jerusalem Muslims as religious tensions flare Meanwhile, four Palestinians were killed in ongoing demonstrations against Israeli security forces Friday and Saturday. President Abbas suspended all contacts between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government on Friday in protest of the metal detectors. CNN’s Oren Liebermann reported from Jerusalem, Kareem Khadder reported from Istanbul. Mike Schwartz in Jerusalem contributed to this report.


Yuima Nakazato has long worked at the intersection of fashion and technology. Having made his name through 3D printing and digital fabrication, the Japanese designer is now pushing a new frontier: outer space. His latest collection, Harmonize – which debuted last night at the Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris – is clearly inspired by the aesthetics of space travel. But, according to Nakazato, it also draws on the technology that allows astronauts to live and work in such difficult conditions. “We had a chance to have a discussion with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency),” he said on a video call from his studio in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. “They are researching garments used in (space travel), like spacesuits. “They said that, in the universe, everything has to use a circular system. Whether it’s air or even the materials used in garments, everything has to be based on a circular philosophy. That’s the starting point of the collection.” Nakazato’s goal of “circularity” is articulated, in part, though the use of recycled materials. His new range sees him repurpose parachutes, airbags and discarded industrial materials into T-shirts, jackets, jumpsuits and more. Paris Couture Week: Why fashion's most exclusive event is opening up The 32-year-old designer’s conversation with JAXA also fed into the collection’s overall look, which takes additional cues from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Some items address the cosmic theme head-on, including an all-white spacesuit complete with a transparent domed helmet and a thick, seatbelt-inspired waist belt. Others, such as a paneled dress featuring satellite images of earth, rely on subtler allusions. But it is through high-tech production that Nakazato’s “circular” philosophy truly expresses itself. Directly inspired by spacesuits (which must be long-lasting and multi-functional) the items are made from unique pieces of fabric – or “units” – that can be moved, removed and substituted. Expanding on a method he calls “unit constructed textile,” this process extends garments’ lifespan into a state he calls “semi-permanence.” For the consumer, this means that – whether the result of changing trends or expanding waistlines – they can send the garments back to Nakazato’s firm to be altered in shape, color or even material. And the use of digital fabrication (instead of traditional methods like stitching) means that the clothes can be more easily re-engineered. “Through the ‘unit constructed textile’ (production process), we are able to easily customize or change the shape or sizes to fit the wearer,” Nakazato said. “If it’s stitched together, the fabric can never change shape. It’s very difficult. You have to open the spread, you have to cut and sew it again – a very long process. “But now, if we want to change the color and shape, or even switch logos – everything is possible.” The collection marks the latest step in Nakazato’s ongoing exploration of the relationship between technology and fashion. Among his most noteworthy series is Hologram, which saw him produce radiant shoes, bags and outerwear from thousands of tiny pieces of highly-reflective holographic film. The Chinese master couturier behind Rihanna's most daring look His work has also seen him regularly experiment with 3D printing and body scanners, which can help designers produce better-fitting clothes. His use of digital fabrication arguably runs counter to the traditions of haute couture (which means, literally, “high sewing”), but it is consistent with Nakazato’s vision for the future of fashion. What’s most important about haute couture, he said, is that the clothes are custom-made and one-of-a-kind, even if they’re not hand-made in the traditional sense. Indeed, for Nakazato – who, in 2016, became only the second Japanese designer to present at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week – technology simply makes this goal more achievable, sustainable and accessible. “In the near future, I imagine that (made-to-measure) clothes are just as easy to buy as going to the hairdresser. Everyone has different hair and head shape, but it’s very easy to cut and the hairdresser knows your shape and hair type, so it’s very low-price and very casual. “I imagine (a time when) people are able to buy their clothes like this – you go shopping on the weekend and can order one-of-a-kind clothes that you’re able to quickly buy and wear.” While Nakazato’s eyes are firmly set on the future, his philosophy is rooted in the history and traditions of his home country. In particular, he nods to Japan’s attitude towards kimonos, which are meticulously cared for and, often, passed down from generation to generation. “Similar to the philosophy of kimonos is something we called ‘boro,’” he added, “which is (the custom of) repairing materials if they break. We never throw clothes away – we repair them and keep them for the long-term. If a garment breaks, you only change that part, you don’t need to throw it away.” This approach puts him – by his own admission – at odds with much of the industry he works in. So, as well as capturing the attention of consumers, Nakazato hopes to show fashion industry insiders, the value of long-lasting garments that can survive volatile cycles of changing tastes. “I think my philosophy is quite different, because fashion is very fast,” he said. “Of course, each season has a different theme or concept, but we also have also a long-term vision. That’s the difference (between me and) other designers, I think.”


Like many Venezuelan mothers she just wants her child to graduate from college, have a career, get married and have kids. But “he needs to fight,” said Theresa, who requested her last name not be published. “I need to support him.” Her only son, who asked to be identified only as Junior, is determined to continue taking part in protests against President Nicolás Maduro’s security forces. CNN in Venezuela: The latest developments He has paid a price for his role in ongoing street battles that have raged since March. He told CNN that national guardsmen recently shot him in the leg with rubber bullets. He doesn’t have enough gauze to cover each wound. “There have been a lot of people injured. Regardless, we’re still fighting on and we’re stronger than ever,” Junior said, his face covered with a mask, helmet and sunglasses. On Thursday, the government upped the ante by issuing a statement banning all demonstrations from Friday onwards. Junior and others are part of the movement known as “La Resistencia,” or The Resistance. It’s made up of mostly young men, many of whom have college degrees and career aspirations. Some – after requesting anonymity – told CNN that they’ve been losing weight due to food shortages. Many have family members who have joined a massive exodus as Venezuelans flee to other countries to escape unrest, uncertainty and the threat of possible violence. But the protesters feel an obligation to stay. “We’re sick of this but we don’t want to leave the streets,” Junior adds. “We’re not going anywhere.” They are some of the faces on the front lines of a bitter battle against a regime that many, including President Donald Trump, say is acting like a dictatorship. How paradise got lost Violent street clashes have persisted since late March when protests were sparked following the Supreme Court’s brief attempt to dissolve the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Over 100 people have died in the protests. The tension seems near boiling point ahead of a nationwide vote on Sunday. Maduro called for the ballot, which would ultimately enable him to rewrite the country’s constitution, stripping away power from his opponents. Related video Former diplomat: Venezuela at brink of civil war Critics say the vote is a sham and would erase any vestiges of democracy in Venezuela. On the streets of Caracas, tear gas, water cannons, tanks and rubber bullets are a daily backdrop for the unfolding crisis. Ant-Maduro protesters use their own makeshift weapons and improvised explosives to retaliate – including Molotov cocktails filled with feces. Resistencia protesters clash with Maduro forces but many say they aren’t aligned with Venezuela’s opposition political party. Political crisis explained They say they represent a youth uprising that is seeking a new political class. They are fatigued by years of government corruption, a humanitarian crisis and the steady flow of peers leaving for other countries in search of a better life. Their actions and reputation are divisive issues. On Wednesday, some Resistencia members attacked a university supportive of the government. They ripped down the gates and set fires in the street. Some onlookers saw them as heroes, sending a message to Maduro. Others called it simple vandalism. Their unity isn’t rock solid either. When one of the Resistencia men grabbed a television from the university, a brief scuffle broke out among them. It’s not just the Resistencia who are the faces of the protests. It’s also volunteer medics like Genesis Franceschi, who treats the wounded. Despite coming from upper-middle-class families, the medics suffer through food shortages while pulling 12-hour shifts with little medical equipment to patch up more and more injured protesters. Some medics are as young as 19. Some have proper training as doctors, some have training as firefighters, all want the same thing, to help the wounded. The medics tell us they help everyone: – protesters, police, national guard, and pro-government people. They don’t discriminate. Maria Cristina Rascos, 23, is worried of what is to come. “The things that could happen are limitless. And it’s worse than it was before. It’s getting worse because there are a lot of gunshots, not rubber.” Related video US sanctions 13 Venezuelan officials “It’s hard, but it’s our work,” says Franceschi, 25. “The weariness, the hours we endure in the street, sometimes we don’t have a consistent food supply, so we eat what we can so we can provide care.” Franceschi and others take pride in their work. Rascos says this work fullfills her. It really means something to the medics to be working in medicine in Venezuela. It 1961 it became the first country worldwide to eradicate malaria, according to the World Health Organization. It beat the US by nine years. Amid medical shortages, malaria cases are now back on the rise in Venezuela. As Sunday’s polarizing vote draws nearer, Resistencia protesters and the medics sense this weekend could be the most violent they’ve seen yet. “We have to prepare for the worst,” says Franceschi. Journalist Stefano Pozzebon contributed to this report.


British Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament on Monday that it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. Below is her address to the House of Commons in full, released by Downing Street: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to update the House on the incident in Salisbury – and the steps we are taking to investigate what happened and to respond to this reckless and despicable act. Last week my Right Honorable Friends, the Foreign and Home Secretaries, set out the details of events as they unfolded on Sunday the 4th of March. I am sure the whole House will want to once again pay tribute to the bravery and professionalism of our emergency services and armed forces in responding to this incident, as well as the doctors and nurses who are now treating those affected. Our thoughts, in particular, are with Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey who remains in a serious but stable condition. In responding to this incident, he exemplified the duty and courage that define our emergency services; and in which our whole nation takes the greatest pride. Mr. Speaker, I want to pay tribute to the fortitude and calmness with which people in Salisbury have responded to these events and to thank all those who have come forward to assist the police with their investigation. This incident has, of course, caused considerable concern across the community. Following the discovery of traces of nerve agent in Zizzi’s restaurant and The Mill pub, the Chief Medical Officer issued further precautionary advice. But as Public Health England have made clear, the risk to public health is low. Mr. Speaker, I share the impatience of this House and the country at large to bring those responsible to justice – and to take the full range of appropriate responses against those who would act against our country in this way. But as a nation that believes in justice and the rule of law, it is essential that we proceed in the right way – led not by speculation but by the evidence. That is why we have given the police the space and time to carry out their investigation properly. Hundreds of officers have been working around the clock – together with experts from our armed forces – to sift and assess all the available evidence; to identify crime scenes and decontamination sites and to follow every possible lead to find those responsible. That investigation continues and we must allow the police to continue with their work. Mr. Speaker, this morning I chaired a meeting of the National Security Council in which we considered the information so far available. As is normal, the Council was updated on the assessment and intelligence picture, as well as the state of the investigation. It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok’. Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations; the Government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Mr. Speaker, there are therefore only two plausible explanations for what happened in Salisbury on the 4th of March. Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country. Or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others. This afternoon my Rt. Hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has summoned the Russian Ambassador to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and asked him to explain which of these two possibilities it is – and therefore to account for how this Russian-produced nerve agent could have been deployed in Salisbury against Mr Skripal and his daughter. My Rt. Hon. Friend has stated to the Ambassador that the Russian Federation must immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok program to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. And he has requested the Russian government’s response by the end of tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, this action has happened against a backdrop of a well-established pattern of Russian state aggression. Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea was the first time since the Second World War that one sovereign nation has forcibly taken territory from another in Europe. Russia has fomented conflict in the Donbas, repeatedly violated the national airspace of several European countries, and mounted a sustained campaign of cyber espionage and disruption. This has included meddling in elections, and hacking the Danish Ministry of Defense and the Bundestag, among many others. During his recent State of the Union address, President Putin showed video graphics of missile launches, flight trajectories and explosions, including the modeling of attacks on the United States with a series of warheads impacting in Florida. While the extra-judicial killing of terrorists and dissidents outside Russia were given legal sanction by the Russian Parliament in 2006. And of course Russia used radiological substances in its barbaric assault on Mr. Litvinenko. We saw promises to assist the investigation then, but they resulted in denial and obfuscation – and the stifling of due process and the rule of law. Mr. Speaker, following Mr. Litvinenko’s death we expelled Russian diplomats, suspended security co-operation, broke off bilateral plans on visas, froze the assets of the suspects and put them on international extradition lists. And these measures remain in place. Furthermore our commitment to collective defense and security through NATO remains as strong as ever in the face of Russian behavior. Indeed our armed forces have a leading role in NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence with British troops leading a multinational battlegroup in Estonia. We have led the way in securing tough sanctions against the Russian economy. And we have at all stages worked closely with our allies and we will continue to do so. We must now stand ready to take much more extensive measures. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday we will consider in detail the response from the Russian State. Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the United Kingdom. And I will come back to this House and set out the full range of measures that we will take in response. Mr. Speaker, this attempted murder using a weapons-grade nerve agent in a British town was not just a crime against the Skripals. It was an indiscriminate and reckless act against the United Kingdom, putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk. And we will not tolerate such a brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil. I commend this Statement to the House.


When Spanish chef Ferran Adria closed the doors of his world-renowned elBulli restaurant in 2011, it was almost a symbolic changing of the guard. Few restaurant industry professionals could have predicted a dozen years earlier, however, that a chef of Macedonian-Danish heritage, with a warehouse restaurant in Copenhagen exploring Nordic terroir, would take Adria’s place as one of the world’s most influential chefs. Nor that his restaurant would become one of the most talked-about in the world. But Rene Redzepi, 37, is a chef who consistently flouts expectations. In 2003, when Redzepi, at the age of 25, opened Noma (an abbreviation of the words ‘Nordic’ and ‘mad’, which means food in Danish), he’d already spent time in the kitchens of elBulli and The French Laundry, both of which were highly influential at the time. Redzepi left elBulli with a passion for experimentation and a love of local seasonal ingredients, while at The French Laundry he was instilled with a commitment to working closely with local suppliers by chef Thomas Keller. What he left behind were the former’s playful deconstruction of dishes and the classical fine dining approach of the latter. Rene Redzepi of Noma answers your questions from Twitter Redzepi wanted to create a cuisine that represented the environment he worked and lived in, giving rise to the term “new Nordic cuisine.” Along with celebrity chef, gastronomic entrepreneur and business partner Claus Meyer, he sought to develop a cuisine that reflected the soil, topography and climate – the terroir – of the place in which they lived. The terroir of his home, however bountiful in the short summer, was barren in the long winter, providing challenges that led Redzepi to forage in fields and the shoreline for ingredients. Though the use of fermentation techniques, he was able to ensure a year-round supply of ingredients. “There’s two ways of foraging,” explains Redzepi. “There’s the romantic way, which is ‘guys let’s go out and be inspired and taste some things and talk about the daily life in the kitchen and so on’.” He says that can be very important if you’re in need of some inspiration. “But most of the times we are out now foraging for work,” says Redzepi. “We go there and it’s like harvest time. It isn’t as romantic as you think where you are with your little wooden basket, picking things while listening to music and soaking in the sun. “Sometimes it’s rainy, pouring down and you’re in your rain suit, mud everywhere and its cold and your fingers are trembling and you have to pick [tiny leaves] and you need a kilo of them.” Meyer and Redzepi initiated a symposium on “new Nordic cuisine” in November 2004 and from this a 10-point New Nordic Cuisine Manifesto was drawn up with an emphasis on seasonality and simplicity. It didn’t stop there. In 2008 they set up the Nordic Foodlab to study Nordic ingredients and share the results of their findings publicly. It was around this time that Redzepi felt that the cuisine of Noma had progressed beyond simply making use of local ingredients and recipes that featured foraged and fermented ingredients and vastly contrasting seasons to become a cuisine that now had its own DNA. Having steadily gained a worldwide reputation among chefs and foodies for forging its own culinary path, Noma climbed to the number 10 spot on the highly regarded San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2008 list. It was only a couple of years later that Noma took the number one spot – making it harder than ever for visitors to score a table at the 45-seat restaurant. “My role at Noma has changed over the years – now 12 years in I focus on the creative side,” says Redzepi. “This is the most important side because it’s much of the reason people are traveling here – they want to see something they haven’t seen before.” By the time Redzepi released his influential book “Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine,” elements of his style were already making an appearance in restaurants around the world. White linen tablecloths and big white plates were being replaced with bare wood and earthy handcrafted ceramics. Service was becoming more relaxed and tattooed chefs doubled as waiters, arriving at tables to expand on the menu’s shorthand listing of ingredients, such as “pumpkin, beechnuts and barley.” This relaxed approach and casual atmosphere, which included eating some dishes with hands, is often cited as a reason that the restaurant has not received its third Michelin star, having held two since 2008. The fact that Redzepi pushes the boundaries with his use of ingredients such as ants and live shrimps has perhaps also left it outside the parameters of what the conservative restaurant guidebook finds acceptable. Yet Redzepi’s adoration and respect for ingredients, his explorations in fermentation, his ability to excite and motivate his team, and his inquisitive personality make him the most inspiring chef of his generation – a generation where chefs of his caliber are treated as rock stars. Today, Redzepi’s fame extends well beyond foodies. The chef not only appeared on Time Magazine’s 2012 list of 100 Most Influential People, with a touching foreword by Ferran Adria, he also graced the April cover. While Adria’s post-elBulli activities have baffled the food world (lots of thinking and little cooking), Redzepi sees no end to the restaurant that put Copenhagen on the culinary map – even if it changes location. In 2012 the Noma team decamped to London for a 10-day pop-up and in early 2015 to Tokyo for two months. Redzepi recently announced that the entire restaurant staff (and families) would be moving to Sydney, Australia, for a 10-week stint at the beginning of 2016. “Traveling for me is vital,” says Redzepi. “I would say it’s everything we are about right now. We try to adapt the best of the ideas from very established food cultures.” Redzepi plans to close the current iteration of Noma in Copenhagen on New Year’s Eve of 2016, reopening sometime in 2017 in a new location in the city with an “urban farm” supplying the kitchen. While it’s a natural move for a chef so invested in the ‘local,” that unforgiving Nordic climate could prove to be the biggest risk he’s taken yet. Lara Dunston is a travel and food writer who has contributed to Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast and Delicious magazines. She also blogs on slow, local and experiential travel at Grantourismotravels.com.


Editor’s Note: Linda Darling-Hammond is president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute and the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University. She is author or editor of a number of award-winning books and more than 500 publications on education policy and practice. The views expressed in this commentary are solely the author’s. Signs from recent teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky – some of them carried by parents and students – tell the stories best: “Speed limit 35. Not class size.” “Do the math: 28 seats, 44 students, 89°, 0 books. CPS classroom.” “Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions.” “Fighting for what our kids deserve.” “Students for teachers: We support our teachers, why don’t they?” “Fund our public schools, we are the dream.” This week’s teacher strikes in Arizona and across Colorado are the latest in a series that have taken place this year. These strikes have been much in the news, and nearly every news story says the same thing: Teachers want better pay and better benefits. While that’s true, there’s more to the story than teachers’ compensation. Teachers – and the parents and students marching alongside them – are demanding better teacher pay and better school funding. They’re striking and protesting to highlight school conditions that have deteriorated badly over the last decade. A nation that under-educates its children in the 21st century cannot long survive as a world power. Prisons – which now absorb more of our tax resources than public higher education did in the 1980s – are filled with high school dropouts and those with low levels of literacy. We pay three times more for each prisoner than we invest in each child’s education annually.  With an aging population and only three workers for every person on Social Security, the United States especially needs all young people to be well-educated enough to gain good work in the complex and rapidly changing economy they are entering. Without their ability to pay the taxes that support the rest of society, the social contract will dissolve Inadequate education funding has created the conditions that make teaching the daily struggle that has finally drawn teachers and families to the picket lines: unmanageable class sizes, inadequate resources and facilities, cuts to essential medical and mental-health school services and more. As child poverty, food insecurity and homelessness have climbed to among the highest levels in the industrialized world (more than one in five live in poverty and in 2014 one in 30 were homeless), schools have been left with fewer resources to address these needs and support student learning. Related video Frustrated Oklahoma teachers run for office During the Great Recession, beginning in 2007, states made deep cuts to their education budgets. Even after the recovery, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, most are still providing fewer school dollars per student than they had in 2008. To be sure, teacher salaries are also a significant concern: US teachers are paid 30% less on average than other college graduates, and in most states, the average teacher heading a family of four qualifies for several forms of government assistance. The children of teachers can themselves be on food stamps at home and qualify to receive free lunch at school. According to the Economic Policy Institute, US teachers’ wages have declined relative to those of other college-educated workers since the early 1990s, when they were at their most competitive – and when teacher attrition was much lower than it is today. When you combine these low salaries with the working conditions most public school teachers now experience – especially in districts serving poor children, who are now a majority of children in public schools – you have a recipe for burnout and attrition. A recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development survey found that US teachers teach more hours per week than teachers in other countries surveyed and have nearly the lowest number of hours for planning. They also have above-average class sizes and teach more low-income students than teachers in other OECD countries. Not surprisingly, as national statistics show, about 8% of US teachers leave each year – most for reasons of dissatisfaction rather than retirement – more than twice the rate of teachers in high-achieving countries like Finland, Singapore and Canada. Related article The West Virginia teachers have launched a movement Because teaching has grown so unattractive as a profession, teacher education enrollments have dropped by more than 30% in recent years while turnover also climbed. As a result, teacher shortages are widespread, and at the beginning of this school year, the United States had more than 100,000 teaching positions that were filled by unqualified candidates. About 90% of those open teaching positions were created by teachers who left the profession. This affects students, who experience canceled courses, larger class sizes and unqualified teachers – many of whom leave quickly, creating churn and instability that further depresses student learning. All of these problems are at their worst in the schools and districts serving the greatest concentrations of students of color and those from families living in poverty, but almost no schools are immune from the acute shortages of special education teachers, as well as teachers of math, science and computer science, bilingual education, and world languages – all essential areas of learning for a nation that would like to compete in the globalized knowledge economy. To solve these problems, the federal government ultimately needs to launch another War on Poverty, as conditions for America’s children are much worse than they were 30 years ago and far below the standards of our peer nations. In addition, low-spending states and those with unequal distributions of education dollars need to increase and equalize school funding so that all children can learn and teachers can teach under reasonable conditions. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook The solutions are not a mystery. Systems in Australia, Canada, Finland, and Singapore have found ways to compensate teachers as professionals and adequately and equitably fund their schools – and their students achieve at higher rates as a result. We can also look closer to home, where high-achieving states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont have not only invested wisely and equitably in their teachers and schools but also in health, early learning and social supports that reduce poverty and support children and families with greater needs. The dedicated individuals who choose the teaching profession don’t do it for the money, but they can’t do it at all without reasonable school funding. As another protest sign put it, “I work to make a living. I teach to make a difference.” Funding our education systems – and the people who make them work – is one way we can all make a difference for our children and our society.

United States public education funding and teacher compensation


Woman from Gambia becomes U.S. citizen She was a victim of female genital mutilation while baby in her native country Jaha Dukureh is on a campaign to end the criticized practice From the outside, the immigrant family looks no different than any other about to take the oath of U.S. citizenship this recent Tuesday in Atlanta. Jaha Dukureh, 25, has called the United States home since she was 15 years old, and now, with her husband looking on and the youngest of her three children waving an American flag, the young woman from Gambia is beaming as she prepares to pledge allegiance to the flag she has come to hold so dear. But behind Dukureh’s brilliant smile and quiet elegance lies a tale of horror almost too disturbing to imagine. Dukureh is a victim of female genital mutilation – the idea of which many find so unbearable, that they turn away, cringe, shudder or refuse to allow themselves to comprehend. Yet it is a topic, Dukureh says, that has to be discussed in order for the practice to end, and she faces it head on, unafraid. Dukureh was subjected to female genital mutilation in Gambia when she was a little more than a week old. She came to the United States at the age of 15 for an arranged marriage to a much older man. Only then did she come to understand what had happened to her. Because of the damage done to her body, Dukureh had to endure terrible pain, and undergo surgery to be able to consummate that marriage. The marriage didn’t last. The World Health Organization says female genital mutilation is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. “It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women.” Dukureh has made it her mission to tell her story in hopes of sparing other young girls from a lifetime of pain. She has spoken before the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, in communities across the United States, and in villages and towns throughout Gambia. When asked why she feels compelled to speak out, her answer is easy. “Well, somebody has to do it,” Dukureh says, without a trace of anger or bitterness. “Slavery ended because someone stood up. Foot binding used to be a thing in China, but they were able to end it in 10 years because they stood up and said they wanted it to end. … It takes one person to stand up. Then other survivors come and speak about their experience, and that number will continue to grow.” Dukureh’s story also caught the eye of women’s cosmetic giant L’Oréal Paris, which has featured her in their “Women of Worth” campaign. “We are building a movement,” she declares. For Dukureh, it is family that drives her. Specifically, thoughts of her daughter and the future ahead of her. “Some of the most hurtful things that happened to me, happened because no one spoke out for me,” she says. “If I stay silent, my daughter may face the same fate I faced. But if I speak up and give face to these issues, chances are my daughter will never have to experience that.” “But saving my daughter isn’t enough, it’s all the little girls out there like her.” One of her greatest challenges was returning to the Gambia last year to convince her father, a powerful imam who advocated for the practice, that the time for change has come. “It was one of the hardest things I have ever done,” Dukureh says. “Because I respect my dad a lot and I want him to be proud of me.” Her father listened to her and agreed that her baby sister, who was born during her visit, would not be subjected to genital mutilation. The victory was monumental. “As a result of this conversation with my dad, I was able to save my younger sister, and my brothers are not going to subject their daughters to FGM.” The conversation “ended up giving my dad an opportunity to understand me, and to know where I was coming from wasn’t about disrespecting him or his religion,” Dukureh says. Dukureh is in the process of returning to the Gambia again, this time to implore President Yahya Jammeh to enforce laws that not only make FGM illegal, but are enforceable. Her efforts to raise awareness have gained so much attention, that she is now the subject of an upcoming documentary by award-winning filmmaker Patrick Farrelly, who, after meeting Dukureh, was so impressed that he wanted to tell her story. He and his team have been documenting her life for the past year to bring more attention and awareness to her cause. In the citizenship ceremony, Dukureh leads the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance, takes the oath and watches while a video plays showing the natural wonders of the United States. A performance of “America the Beautiful” brings Dukureh to tears. As she listened to the song, “I thought about my journey and what I have been able to accomplish. The fact that I am now an American citizen and can say what I want, speak freely about these things, and know I am protected by law… it’s great. It’s emotional. It’s the American Dream. It’s that success that all immigrants dream of when they come to the U.S.” With one dream realized, she’s ready to achieve the next. “I want to see FGM ended in my generation. It’s not an easy dream, but I think we can do it. … It’s going to take a collective effort. This is not just a one person issue. It’s not a one-country issue. It’s an issue for humanity and it affects us all in one way or another.”


Editor’s Note: Fred Harris, a Democratic former US senator from Oklahoma and University of New Mexico professor emeritus of political science, is the only surviving member of the Kerner Commission. Alan Curtis is  president of the Eisenhower Foundation. Both are co-editors of “Healing Our Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years After the Kerner Report,” a new book upon which this article is based. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the authors. “A physician’s warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life.” That’s the way the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described the 1968 report of President Lyndon Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (called the Kerner Commission after its chairman, Gov. Otto Kerner of Illinois). President Johnson had appointed this blue-ribbon citizens commission in the wake of the terrible riots that exploded in the black neighborhoods of many American cities during the long hot summer of 1967, with great loss of life, awful human injury and enormous property destruction — causing  shock, fear, alarm, bewilderment and anxiety throughout the country. The worst disorders, in Newark and Detroit, were not finally quelled until the President  sent in US Army troops. President Johnson charged the Kerner Commission to investigate the riots and recommend action, not only from a law and order standpoint, but also in regard to their deeper causes. “Let your search be free,” the President told the commission members. “Find the truth and express it in your report.”  And that is what the commission famously did, which, as it turned out, not only shocked the conscience of the nation, but greatly upset President Johnson, as well. Related article One of today's 'wokest' moments happened in 1968 The Kerner Report condemned violence and lawlessness in the strongest terms, saying they “nourish repression, not justice,” and then came its basic finding: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.” “Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans,” the report stated further, adding, “What white Americans have never fully understood — but what the Negro can never forget — is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” Great and sustained national efforts were required, the Kerner Report said, not only to combat racism, but also to significantly invest in human capital, through programs against unemployment and low wages, poverty, inferior or inadequate education and training, lack of health care, and bad or nonexistent housing. The report also made strong recommendations for improving the conduct of the media and the police, and for the further integration of housing and schools. These recommendations applied to all Americans, “rural and urban, white, black, Spanish-surnamed, and American Indians.” Related video Van Jones on the racial unemployment gap But, misinformed about its contents and distracted by the Vietnam War, President Johnson rejected the Kerner Report (and this is particularly sad because President Johnson did more against poverty and racism than any other president, before or since). However, the report was leaked to the media, with detrimental effect, before the commission could, as planned, background reporters so they would fully understand the reasons for the panel’s findings and recommendations. This leak resulted in hastily written news stories that appeared throughout the country the next morning and which carried shocking headlines, something like: “White Racism Cause of Black Riots, Commission Says.” Many people never learned “the rest of the story.” Not surprisingly, there was considerable backlash in the country. Still, many American leaders spoke out in favor of the Kerner Report, including, in addition to King, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Robert Kennedy. And despite the opposition, America made progress on virtually every aspect of race and poverty for almost a decade after the Kerner Report. The number of African-American and Latino elected officials increased as did their numbers in the middle class and in all aspects of American life. Eventually, we elected an African-American president. Related article 10 quotes from 1968 report on race that resonate today But with jobs alarmingly disappearing through globalization and automation, with conservative political change and, eventually, with unfriendly US Supreme Court decisions and congressional cuts in both taxes for the rich and the big corporations and in programs that benefited poor and middle class Americans, progress was slowed or stopped, and, finally reversed. Some improvement occurred, of course, during the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations, but regression has been the trend  since the mid-1970s, and that is true today. There is still far too much excessive force by police, too often deadly force, especially against African-Americans. White supremacists have become bolder and more violent. Housing and schools have been rapidly resegregating, locking too many African-Americans and Latinos into slums and their children into inferior schools. As the nation has grown, our overall poverty rate has stubbornly remained virtually the same, while the total number of poor people has increased from 25.4 million to 40.6 million.  The rate of child poverty is greater today than in 1968, and the percentage of Americans living in deep, or extreme poverty, has grown since 1975, and “welfare reform” has failed. The African-American unemployment rate has continued to be nearly double that for whites. Latino unemployment remains disproportionately high, as well. Related article Voters of color won't be fooled by Trump's claims on black jobless rate Labor union membership has shrunk from about 25% of private jobs to about 6%. Inequality of income in our country has greatly worsened. In the 1970s, the richest 1% of Americans took home something less than 9% of total national income; by 2016, they took home 24%. Fifty-two percent of all new income in America goes to the top 1%. Rich people are healthier and live longer. They get a better education, and a better education produces greater inequality of income. Then, greater economic power translates into greater political power. While it is true that the racial achievement gap in education has narrowed significantly since the 1970s, it still remains, and must be closed. So, where do we go from here? We know what needs to be done, and we know what works: A more progressive tax system, making rich people and big corporations pay their fair share. Stopping tax and spending subsidies that redistribute wealth and income in the wrong direction. Strengthening unions and eliminating the legal and other barriers that impede the right of workers to organize. Raising the minimum wage to a living wage, which would be a giant boost to the economy and bump up middle class wages, too. We need more affordable housing, and housing and schools integrated by income and race. We also need re-regulation of big banks and big finance. Better incomes for those who can’t work and who can’t find work. A sound, free public education for all — from early childhood through college. Education and training, with special attention to those put out of work by circumstances beyond their control. Health care for all. The basic American principles of equal rights and equal opportunity for all — whatever a person’s social standing, ZIP code, religion, gender, or color. Investment in infrastructure, in science, in alternative energy and in technology. Investment in ourselves. How can we get these things done when present times are so tough? Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook First, we can take heart from the fact that the great civil rights movement, led by King, John Lewis and others, began in the terrible and depressing time of Jim Crow, rigid segregation and the harshest racism — and still they courageously resisted, persisted and ultimately prevailed. We can take heart, too, from the fact that the polls show that the majority of Americans support the measures we must now adopt and the steps we must now take. We can take heart from the fact that we live in a time of unprecedented, growing and powerful people’s activism — with great new efforts and organizations, like the Women’s March, Indivisible, and Black Lives Matter. Finally, the Rev. William Barber of North Carolina, founder of the rapidly spreading Moral Mondays movement and a new Poor People’s Campaign, is right when he says, “We can’t keep fighting in our silos. No more separating issues — labor over here, voting rights over there. The same people fighting one should have to fight all of us together.”  Barber is pointing the way we must go, showing that white, black, Latino and other Americans can join hands in coalition with each other and with women, millennials, seniors, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and others to work for their common interests, because, “Everybody does better when everybody does better!”


Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a professor of practice at Arizona State University and a vice president at New America. He is the author of “Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden – From 9/11 to Abbottabad.” This is an updated version of an article originally published February 19. Peter Bergen: Jihadi John ID'd as Mohammed Emwazi, a well-born Londoner with college degree White House has said terrorism rooted in poverty; Bergen: Typically anti-west jihadists come from money, are educated The ideology of ISIS and like-minded groups is rooted in Salafist ultra-fundamentalist interpretations of Islam This is how top national security reporters Souad Mekhennet and Adam Goldman of the Washington Post, who broke the story that Mohammed Emwazi has been identified as the notorious ISIS terrorist known as “Jihadi John,” describe him: “a Briton from a well-to-do family who grew up in West London and graduated from college with a degree in computer programming.” They go on to say that Emwazi “was raised in a middle-class neighborhood in London” and attended the University of Westminster, which is a university in London that was founded in the early 19th century. Emwazi poses something of a problem for the Obama administration’s narrative about who becomes a terrorist and why. Last week, the administration hosted a three-day conference on “Countering Violent Extremism,” which is a government euphemism for how best to deal with Islamist terrorism. We heard from Obama administration officials and even the President himself that terrorism has something to do with lack of opportunities and poverty. Obama said that “we have to address grievances terrorists exploit, including economic grievances.” He said, “when millions of people – especially youth – are impoverished and have no hope for the future, when corruption inflicts daily humiliations on people, when there are no outlets by which people can express their concerns, resentments fester. The risk of instability and extremism grow. Where young people have no education, they are more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and radical ideas…” The President did acknowledge that terrorists can be rich like Osama bin Laden, who was the son of a Saudi construction magnate and attended the top high school and the best university in Saudi Arabia. It’s hard to imagine someone with more opportunities. Think the Trump family Saudi-style, minus the bling, and throw in a deep admiration for the Taliban. But, in fact, Osama bin Laden is more the rule than the exception. Take not only Emwazi/Jihadi John, but also the notorious British terrorist, Omar Sheikh, who attended the London School of Economics and who kidnapped American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002. Pearl was the first of al Qaeda’s victims to be beheaded. The terrorist who beheaded him was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who attended North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro and studied mechanical engineering. Take Mohamed Atta, the son of an Egyptian lawyer, who had worked on a doctorate in, of all things, urban preservation at a German university and who led the 9/11 attacks. Or the present leader of al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri, a surgeon who comes from a leading Egyptian family that counts ambassadors, politicians and prominent clerics amongst its ranks. Related video Report: Injustice, not unemployment, leads to extremism Nearer to home we can also point to the Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was not only an officer in the U.S. Army and a psychiatrist, but is also from a comfortably middle-class family in Virginia. Let’s also add to the mix Faisal Shahzad, who tried to blow up a bomb-laden SUV in Times Square on May 1, 2010. He had obtained an MBA in the United States and had worked as a financial analyst for the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics company. His father was one of the top officers in the Pakistani military. These are not the dispossessed. They are the empowered. “Who becomes a terrorist?” turns out, in many cases, to be much like asking, “Who owns a Volvo?” Indeed, New America has studied the backgrounds of some 250 U.S.-based militants since 9/11 who have been indicted in or convicted of some kind of jihadist terrorist crime. They are on average middle class, reasonably well-educated family men with kids. They are, in short, ordinary Americans. ‘Who becomes a terrorist?’ turns out, in many cases, to be much like asking, ‘Who owns a Volvo?’ Peter Bergen Similarly, in his important 2004 book “Understanding Terror Networks,” psychiatrist Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, examined the backgrounds of 172 militants who were part of al Qaeda or a similar group. Just under half were professionals; two-thirds were either middle or upper class and had gone to college; indeed, several had doctorates. In a 2006 study, Swati Pandey and this author examined the educational background of 79 terrorists responsible for five of the worst anti-Western terrorist attacks of the modern era – the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, the Bali nightclub bombings in 2002, and the London bombings on July 7, 2005. We found that more than half of the terrorists had attended college, making them as well-educated as the average American. Two of our sample had doctoral degrees, and two others had begun working toward their doctorates. None of them had attended a madrassa. Significantly, we found that, of those who did attend college and/or graduate school, 58% attained scientific or technical degrees. Emwazi/Jihadi John reportedly studied computer programming, which makes him typical of the anti-Western jihadist terrorists we examined. Of course, large-scale insurgent groups such as ISIS and the Taliban recruit foot soldiers who join the cause to get a paycheck. But the people running these organizations are in it for ideological reasons. The diagnosis that poverty, lack of education or lack of opportunities have much to do with terrorism requires a fundamentally optimistic view of human nature. This diagnosis leads to the prognosis that all we need to do to solve the terrorism problem is to create societies that are less poor, better educated and have more opportunities. Related gallery The ISIS terror threat The fact is, working stiffs with few opportunities and scant education are generally too busy getting by to engage in revolutionary projects to remake society. And history, in fact, shows us that terrorism is generally a bourgeois endeavor. This was just as true of the Russian anarchists of the late 19th century as it was of the German Marxists of the Baader-Meinhof gang of the 1970s and of the Japanese terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo in the 1990s. Post-9/11 research demonstrating that Islamist terrorism is mostly a pursuit of the middle class echoed an important study about Egyptian militants that was undertaken by the French academic Gilles Kepel during the mid-1980s. Kepel researched the 300 Islamist militants who were tried in the wake of the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Around one in five were professionals such as engineers, a quarter worked as government employees, just under half were artisans or merchants, one in 10 were in the military or police, and only one in 10 were farmers or were unemployed. Of those who were students, around a third were studying in the elite fields of medicine and engineering. Similarly, the Library of Congress issued a study two years before the 9/11 attacks that asked the question: “Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” The conclusion, based on a survey of all the published literature, was that there were only a few “major exceptions to the middle- and upper-class origins of terrorist groups.” Related video 'Far too easy' to blame UK intelligence for 'Jihadi John' There are, of course any number of exceptions to the prototypical middle-class terrorist. The terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris last month and the Copenhagen café that was hosting the Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks earlier this month were from the margins of society. But for every example of poverty or lack of opportunities as a purported rationale for terrorism, it’s easy to supply important counterexamples. The “underwear bomber” Umar Abdulmuttalab, who tried to set off a bomb on a U.S. passenger jet flying over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, is the son of one of the richest men in Africa and attended University College London, which routinely rates among the best universities in the world. Anwar al-Awlaki, the late leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who tasked the underwear bomber to blow up an American plane over an American city, was studying for his Ph.D. at George Washington University before he took up arms with al Qaeda. Awlaki’s father was a Cabinet minister in Yemen. So if it’s clearly not deprivation that is driving much Islamist terrorism, what is? For that we must turn to ideology, specifically religious ideology. And this is where the Obama administration has to perform some pretzel logic. It is careful to explain that the war on ISIS is not a war on Islam and that ISIS’ ideology is a perversion of the religion. Fair enough. But the administration seems uncomfortable with making the connection between Islamist terrorism and ultra-fundamentalist forms of Islam that are intolerant of other religions and of other Muslims who don’t share their views to the letter. ISIS may be a perversion of Islam, but Islamic it is, just as Christian beliefs about the sanctity of the unborn child explain why some Christian fundamentalists attack abortion clinics and doctors. But, of course, murderous Christian fundamentalists are not killing many thousands of civilians a year. More than 80% of the world’s terrorist attacks take place in five Muslim-majority countries – Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria – and are largely carried out by groups with Islamist beliefs. This week the United Nations released a report showing that civilian casualties in Afghanistan were at the highest level since the organization started counting them six years ago. The Taliban were responsible for three-quarters of these deaths. The Taliban and other Islamist terrorist groups are not, of course, secular organizations. To treat them as if they were springs from some combination of wishful thinking, PC gone crazy and a failure to accept, in an increasingly secularized era, that some will kill in the name of their god, an all-too-common phenomenon across human history. Indeed, while ISIS and like-minded groups and their fellow travelers are not representative of the vast majority of the world’s Muslims, their ideology is rooted in Salafist ultra-fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, and indeed they can point to verses in the Quran that can be interpreted to support their worldview. A well-known verse in the Quran commands Muslims to “fight and slay the nonbelievers wherever you find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem [of war].”  When bin Laden made a formal declaration of war against “the Jews and the Crusaders” in 1998, he cited this Quranic verse at the beginning of his declaration. Related video 'Jihadi John': Behind the Mask ISIS’ distinctive black flags are a reference to a supposed saying of the Prophet Mohammed that “If you see the black banners coming from the direction of Khorasan then go to them, even if you have to crawl, because among them will be Allah’s Caliph the Mahdi.” In other words, coming out of Khorasan, an area that now encompasses Afghanistan, will come an army that includes the Mahdi, the Islamic savior of the world. The parent organization of ISIS was al Qaeda, which, of course, was headquartered in Afghanistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Last year, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi named himself caliph, which means that in his own mind and in the eyes of his followers he is not only the leader of ISIS but the overall leader of Muslims everywhere. These beliefs may seem like a crazy delusion to most of us, but it’s important to understand that they are theological in nature, and this theology is rooted in ultra-fundamentalist Islam. ISIS sees itself as the vanguard army that is bringing back true Islam to the world. This project is of such cosmic importance that they will break any number of eggs to make this omelet, which accounts for their murderous campaign against every ethnic group, religious group and nationality that they perceive as standing in their way. ISIS recruits also believe that we are in the end times, and they are best understood as members of an Islamist apocalyptic death cult. What does that mean for policy makers? It means that the only truly effective challenges to this reasoning must come from Islamic leaders and scholars who can make the theological case that ISIS is an aberration. This, too, is an Islamic project; it is not a jobs project. Read CNNOpinion’s new Flipboard magazine. Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.

Obama administration's narrative on terrorism causes


NEW: 22 dead in clashes between Shiite Turkmen and Kurdish forces in Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq The two groups are allies in the fight against ISIS but have clashed before Iraq's PM has called on both parties to cease hostilities and focus on common foe Twenty-two fighters have been killed in ongoing clashes between Kurdish Peshmerga and Shiite militia members in northern Iraq, local security officials say, a development that complicates the fight against ISIS in the region. Security officials said the latest clashes erupted Saturday night in Tuz Khurmatu amid increased tensions between Shiite militias and Peshmerga forces – uneasy allies in the fight against ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State – in recent days. Nine Kurdish fighters and 13 militia members were killed in the ongoing clashes, security officials said. Twenty people were wounded. Related video Iraqi F-16s take to the skies against ISIS According to officials, the clashes erupted when Shiite militias attacked a house belonging to a Peshmerga officer. Kurdish forces retaliated, and fighting broke out in several parts of the town within hours, officials said. Home to Shiite and Sunni Turkmen as well as Arabs and Kurds, Tuz Khurmatu is an ethnically mixed town 56 miles south of Kirkuk that is claimed by both Iraq’s central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had ordered military commanders to take every measure possible to control the situation in the town. Related video Pentagon: 26,000 ISIS fighters killed in U.S. airstrikes He called on all parties to end hostilities and refocus their efforts on the fight against their common enemy, ISIS, which was repelled when it attempted to infiltrate Tuz Khurmatu two years ago. The latest fighting in the town, which has seen clashes between Kurdish and Shiite forces before, highlights the challenges faced by Iraq, a country riven along sectarian and ethnic fault lines, as it attempts to confront the threat of ISIS. Is ISIS going broke? The Kurds and Turkmen are both minorities in majority-Arab Iraq. The Kurds, who make up 15% to 20% of the population and have their own autonomous region in the north, receive U.S. backing in the fight against ISIS and have proved to be one of the most effective fighting forces against the terror group. Ramadi residents fleeing ISIS: “They wanted to use us as human shields”


Trump wrote in a series of messages Tuesday They responded to Clinton's comments throughout the day President Donald Trump, in a series of late night tweets on Tuesday, both revisited his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton and seemingly slammed the judgment of his own FBI director. “FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign,” Trump wrote in a series of messages. FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony... ...Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign? The tweets come after Clinton blamed her flawed candidacy, Russia’s intervention in the election via WikiLeaks and a letter released by FBI Director James Comey for her 2016 election loss during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour at a Women for Women International event in New York. Comey will appear before a Senate committee Wednesday, where he’ll face questions on Russian interference in the US election and why he decided to announce that the FBI was looking again at Clinton’s emails just days before the election. Hours before Trump tweeted, Clinton welcomed the President’s ire after Amanpour predicted that the Twitter-focused President would respond to his former opponent. Related article Clinton, Trump can't stop airing their 2016 grievances “Fine. Better than the interfering in foreign affairs,” Clinton said of the prospect Trump would tweet about her. “If he wants to tweet about me then I am happy to be the diversion because we have lot of things to worry about.” She added: “He should worry less about the election and my winning the popular vote than doing some other things that would be important for the country.” The event was the latest in which Clinton, in a stinging rebuke to Trump, blamed herself for the 2016 loss but also cast the current President as someone aided by outside factors, including the Russian government. Clinton’s comments about Trump were so direct that it almost seemed a response from Trump was all but certain. Related article Obama on Kimmel's emotional health care monologue: 'Well said' A Clinton spokesman did not respond Tuesday night to questions about Trump’s tweets. Trump has not shied away from knocking Comey and the FBI during his presidency, despite publicly applauding the FBI director during a January meeting in the White House. The President slammed the FBI in February for leaks on possible contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. “The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security “leakers” that have permeated our government for a long time,” Trump tweeted in two messages. “They can’t even find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW.”


Arkansas’ efforts to execute eight death row inmates in 11 days this month has refocused attention on the death penalty. Since peaking in 1999, executions in the US have been gradually declining amid controversy over whether lethal-injection methods are humane. Capital punishment is still legal in 31 US states. But as the drugs needed for execution get harder to come by, states are getting creative. Here’s how we got to this point: In 1994, Gallup found that 80% of Americans supported the death penalty. Fast-forward to today: A poll from October shows support has fallen to 60%. Those are in addition to the 19 states and the District of Columbia, which have outlawed capital punishment. Since 2009 alone, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland and New Mexico have abolished the death penalty. Nebraska repealed it in 2015 but reinstated it last year. Not by a long shot. In just the last six years, 17 states have executed 260 inmates. Three states – Texas, Florida and Georgia – account for more than half of those. Lethal injection is the primary means of execution in all 31 death penalty states. In 1982, Texas became the first state to execute an offender via lethal injection. Since then, the United States has carried out 1,444 executions, and only 171 have relied on another method. Lethal injection initially required a three-drug cocktail: The first (sodium thiopental or pentobarbital) puts the prisoner to sleep, the second (pancuronium bromide) brings on paralysis, and the final agent (potassium chloride) stops the heart. In 2010, European drug manufacturers began banning exports of the cocktail ingredients to the United States. The following year, concerned about the use of sodium thiopental in executions, Illinois-based Hospira stopped making the drug, and Denmark-based Lundbeck banned US prisons from using its pentobarbital. The United Kingdom also introduced a ban on exporting sodium thiopental, and the European Union took an official stance in 2012 with its Regulation on Products used for Capital Punishment and Torture. Death penalty states began looking for alternatives. Among them: procuring the drugs from alternative sources, devising a one-drug method, employing other drugs such as midazolam or propofol, and using controversial compounding pharmacies to manufacture the drugs. Such lawsuits saw a significant uptick in 2014. That’s the same year numerous executions, all employing midazolam, were widely considered botched. In Ohio, Dennis McGuire gasped and convulsed for 10 minutes before dying. In Arizona, Joseph Wood snorted and gulped for air as he died over a period of two hours. In Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett writhed for 43 minutes before succumbing to a heart attack. After each of those cases, states issued holds on capital punishment while their processes were reviewed. Attorneys for death row inmates in several states have also used these botched efforts to challenge the constitutionality of their clients’ executions. But the examples keep coming. In December, witnesses said Ronald Bert Smith Jr. heaved and coughed for 13 minutes during his execution in Alabama. In 2014, Tennessee said that when lethal injection drugs can’t be found, the state can use the electric chair. The next year, Utah successfully passed legislation to reintroduce firing squads. And this month, Arkansas planned to kill 8 men in quick succession before its supply of lethal-injection drugs expires. But a federal judge halted the executions. The state plans to appeal. CNN’s Brandon Griggs contributed to this story.


An independent counsel’s investigation very nearly brought down a Democratic president nearly 20 years ago. Bear that in mind when reading the news that the top Senate Democrat is calling to potentially reinstate the lapsed office under which Republicans launched the Whitewater investigation. Special prosecutors have a track record of looking for one thing and finding something else. Ken Starr went looking at Bill and Hillary Clinton’s land deals and he ended up with Monica Lewinsky and a President who lied under oath and was found in contempt of court. You know Attorney General Jeff Sessions is facing some real political trouble because even Republicans were calling on him to recuse himself. Sessions did, by the way, in an afternoon press conference. Rep. Jason Chaffetz was the first Republican out of the gate Thursday morning, when he tweeted, “AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself.” AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself That was perhaps smart politics by Chaffetz, putting him on the record about Sessions and setting a tone of accountability. It should be noted, however, that Chaffetz is one of the few Republicans who has the power to launch an investigation into the attorney general’s activity. But Chaffetz won’t be launching any such investigation; House Republicans are relying on their intelligence committee to do that. Democrats have taken note – they repeatedly point out Chaffetz’s committee was more than happy to investigate Democrat Hillary Clinton on both her email server and the Benghazi terror attack. Calls for Sessions’ recusal also raise another interesting question – recuse himself from what? What is a special prosecutor? There is an active FBI investigation – and the FBI director reports to the attorney general – but little has been said publicly about it. At least one Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham, wasn’t completely sure Thursday morning the FBI was investigating anything. Graham met with FBI Director James Comey Thursday afternoon to get some answers. “I just want to know what’s going on,” Graham said before the meeting. “I don’t want to know the details of the investigation. If there is not one, I want to know it. If there is one, I want to know it and the rest of us need to stay out of it if there is.” The South Carolina Republican, who along with Sen. John McCain is known for taking a hard line against Moscow, said Wednesday night at a CNN town hall that Trump has a “blind spot” when it comes to Russia, has launched one of the handful of congressional inquiries regarding Russia. But Graham’s subcommittee is just looking at Russian efforts to meddle in the election. The House and Senate Intelligence Committees are conducting the main congressional investigations, looking concurrently at both potential contacts between political campaigns and the Russians, and at the leaks that brought contacts to light. Their investigation depends very much on the FBI – which is controlled by Comey, who works for Sessions. “We know less than a fraction of what the FBI does,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, after a briefing Thursday. He said the FBI had refused to answer some of lawmakers’ questions on the matter. Committee Chairman, GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, disputed Schiff’s assessment. Still, the intelligence committees are the appropriate place for Congress to act, according to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who also called on Sessions to recuse himself Thursday morning. The intelligence committees, Ryan said, are best equipped to investigate these sensitive issues without compromising US intelligence. “The intelligence committee, just so you know, they’ve been doing an investigation for some time now. They just recently added more scope to that investigation on a bipartisan basis,” he said. Those congressional inquiries aren’t good enough for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had three demands regarding Sessions during his own news conference Thursday. First, he called on the Justice Department to appoint an independent special prosecutor to look into ties between the Trump campaign and White House. Barring that, or if Schumer doesn’t think the potential special prosecutor is independent, he wants to work with Republicans to revive the independent counsel law. And finally, he specifically wants Sessions investigated. Each of those will require cooperation from the GOP, who don’t seem likely to agree. “We don’t even have the law,” Ryan said, when asked about a special prosecutor. Others, like Graham, are more open to the idea. He said if the FBI uncovers any sort of wrongdoing with regard to the Trump campaign and Russia, a special prosecutor would be warranted. Graham – who became a national figure for his role in the Clinton impeachment drama – was not asked about reviving the office of independent counsel. “If there is something there,” he said, “and it goes up the chain of investigation, it is clear to me that Jeff Sessions, who is my dear friend, cannot make this decision about Trump.” McCain said the Senate Armed Services Committee, which he chairs, would look at “certain military aspects” of the Russia affair, but he said the intelligence committees should be given a chance to do their work before any other special investigation is enacted. “I’d like to give them a chance to examine the facts and come up with some conclusions before I leap to the need for a whole new special committee. When you set up a special committee, there has to be – it’s a long process,” he said during the CNN town hall.

special prosecutor / independent counsel


Turkey alleges a Russian warplane flew into its airspace Russia imposed sanctions against Turkey after a disputed shootdown in November Russia planes are striking targets in Syria in support of the government there Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Ankara to protest and condemn what it called a violation of  airspace by a Russian warplane. The Foreign Ministry said the Russian SU-34 fighter was warned by Turkish air radar units, in both English and Russian, before it crossed into Turkish airspace from Syria on Friday. The statement went on to warn that violations “could lead to serious consequences.” The Russian Defense Ministry denied that it violated Turkish airspace and called Ankara’s allegations “unfounded propaganda.’ “There were no violations of Turkish airspace by planes of the Russian air group in the Syrian Arab Republic,” the ministry said on Facebook. The ministry said that the nationality of an aircraft cannot be established on radar. “This is only possible through direct visual contact from another aircraft, which did not take place,” the ministry emphasized. Turkey’s military shot down a Russian plane in November after it ignored several warnings and entered  its airspace, according to Turkish officials. One Russian crew member was killed. Moscow disputed that its crew was given warnings before the F-16 fired and said the Russian plane was over Syria. After the shootdown, Russia imposed a series of economic sanctions on Turkey, banning the import of some goods, imposing restrictions on travel, barring some Turkish companies from doing business in Russia and suspending a $12 billion gas pipeline project between the nations. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called Saturday for “calm and de-escalation.” But he also said Russia should “act responsibly and to fully respect NATO airspace.” An official with the Russian Embassy in Ankara confirmed there was a meeting, Ria Novosti reported, but spokesman Igor Mityakov declined to comment on what was discussed. Russia began airstrikes in Syria, one of Turkey’s neighbors to the south, in September. Moscow has said the missions are in support of the Syrian government’s fight against ISIS and other enemies. Friday’s allegations of an airspace violation came about a week after two U.S. officials told CNN it appeared that Russia could be making moves to establish an air base in northeastern Syria near the Turkish border. The officials said the United States had seen a “limited” number of Russian military personnel, more akin to an exploratory party, looking at an airfield in Qamishli, possibly to determine how they might use the site. U.S. officials: Russia looking at Syria airfield near Turkey CNN’s Gul Tuysuz, Elena Sandyrev and Jamie Crawford contributed to this report.


Leavell has been touring, recording with the Stones since 1982 He says Democrats "have the edge" on protecting the environment Chuck Leavell is a forester, an environmental activist and a rocker. As a musical director and keyboardist for The Rolling Stones, Leavell has been recording and touring with the legendary British band since 1982. He is also a former member of The Allman Brothers Band for which he received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy award in 2012. READ: Get off my song! Rolling Stones to Trump Leavell, who is a member of the Global Restoration Council, told CNN that the cultural revolution of the 60s influenced him and awakened in him a passion for environmentalism that became parallel to his passion for rock and roll. “I was a child of the 60s, okay? So, the cultural revolution that went on at that time — the environment was certainly a big part of it and a lot of us were concerned with the pollution that was rampant throughout that time in our country,” Leavell said. Leavell’s interest in environmental activism escalated in 1981 when his wife, Rose-Lane, inherited about 1,000 acres from her grandmother near Macon, Georgia. “Her family, for generations, have been connected to the land,” Leavell said. “It became our responsibility to carry on that heritage of stewardship.” Leavell got to work and even while on tour, he began educating himself and studying various options of what to do with the land. “After spending a lot of time looking at the options and knowing that I wanted to follow my musical career, forestry really fit the bill,” Leavell said. “It wasn’t so much day-to-day work.” Leavell continued educating himself about forestry by reading books and received an Honorary Ranger award from the U.S. Forest Service. He and his wife have now grown the Charlane Plantation to about 2,900 acres. A post shared by CNN Politics (@cnnpolitics) And last week, as the co-founder of the Mother Nature Network, Leavell hosted the White House Correspondent’s Jam in Washington, along with R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Widespread Panic’s John Bell and the Marshall Tucker Band’s Paul Riddle, to raise awareness about environmental issues. Asked about the presidential election, Leavell said that the environment has only been a focus on “one side” of the aisle. The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, tweeted in 2012 that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” The Rolling Stones are the latest band to ask Trump to stop playing their music during his campaign events and rallies. “The Rolling Stones have never given permission to the Trump campaign to use their songs and have requested that they cease all use immediately,” the British band’s publicist, Fran Curtis, told CNN in a statement Thursday. Leavell declined to comment on the reason for this request but on 2016 and environmental policies he said, “The fact is the environment doesn’t care about party affiliation, whether Republican, Democrat or otherwise.” “My personal opinion is that in general, the Democratic party has the edge on better policies for the environment,” Leavell added. “But it will take all parties in cooperation to get it right.”