Month: April 2019

A poodle has been rescued from the ashen devastation of Mati in Greece after hiding from wildfires in an outdoor oven. 

Loukoumakis the dog cowered in a corner for two days until he was found by animal rescuers, traumatised and seemingly unable to move.

The white poodle-cross was found singed yellow from the smoke and flames of the wildfires and had difficulty breathing.

"Even its eyelashes are burnt, I wonder how this dog survived," said Diana Topali, 42, who is offering Loukoumaki foster care as the dog sat next to her.

He had crawled into a brick-built hollow behind a garden barbecue area as the inferno raged around him in the town east of Athens last week, killing at least 91 people in one of Greece’s worst natural disasters.

Artemis Kyriakopoulou, an animal rescue volunteer, was out searching with others when she came across him as she tried to gain access to another garden and lured him out with a tin of dog food.

"I saw there was something like an (outdoors) oven, and I figured if anything were alive, it would be in there," Kyriakopoulou, 21, told Reuters Television.

Hundreds of pets and strays are believed to have perished in the blaze, which swept through the seaside town in a matter of hours.

Loukoumakis, as he has been named by a vet, is believed to be a stray, aged about four and a half years. "He just looked like a burnt shaggy rug," Topali said.

Today Loukoumakis has been groomed, is on antibiotics and is slowly recovering. He will stay with Topali until he finds a permanent home.

Sigmund Freud’s secret committee met in Vienna on a spring afternoon in May 1913. 

The psychoanalysis movement which Freud had founded was at a turning point.

His theories about the subconscious were gaining widespread traction and the ranks of his supporters were growing.

But he was also feuding with some of his most important disciples, including Carl Jung, and was anxious about losing control of the discipline he had created.    

In Vienna, he summoned five of his closest followers to chart the future of their movement. During the gathering he presented each man with a signet ring containing an ancient gem carved with a scene from Greek mythology.    

“Freud was thinking about how to build…

Is no deal Brexit possible?

The prospect of a ‘no deal’ Brexit  has loomed ever larger since Parliament voted down Theresa May’s Brexit deal with the Government suffering a huge defeat by a margin of 230, with 202 MPs voting for the PM’s deal and 432 against. 

The European Union is adamant that there is no such thing as a “managed” no deal –  fearful that making a no deal look too comfortable risks turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Michel Barnier, the EU chief negotiator, has insisted there will be no "mini-deals". If the divorce deal falls then “it is over and each side will take its own unilateral contingency measures,” he told MPs in September.

To ram home the point the EU published…

Two elderly rebels broke out of a nursing home in Germany to attend a heavy metal festival over the weekend.

In what could have been a scene straight out of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, the two men were found among the leather jackets and tattoos at Wacken Open Air heavy metal festival.

And according to the police, they were none too happy to be found — so much so that a patrol car had to accompany a taxi sent by the nursing home to make sure they returned.

The two ageing rockers, who have not been named under German privacy laws, went missing from a nursing home in Dithmarschen, close to the North Sea coast.

Staff at the nursing home quickly raised the alarm, but police did not track down the truants until 3am at the heavy metal festival in Wacken, half an hour’s drive away.

“The nursing home quickly organized transport back for the seniors,” police said in a statement. “However, the men were reluctant to go home, so a patrol car accompanied the taxi as a precaution.”

“They obviously liked the heavy metal festival,” Merle Neufeld, a police spokesman, told Norddeutscher Rundfunk radio, adding that they were “disoriented and dazed”.

Wacken Open Air claims to be world’s largest heavy metal festival, attracting 75,000 people over four days. Headline acts this year included Judas Priest, Danzig, Running Wild and Eskimo Callboy.

It is not clear which band the two elderly fans were watching, or whether they were at  the Headbangers Stage, the W:E:T: Stage or the Wasteland Stage.

Police said the sold-out event had passed off peacefully. “A big thank you to metal fans. You may look evil and you’re really loud, but as far as the police are concerned you’re the best fans in the world,” they said in a statement.

The two elderly fans may have had reason to be thankful for this year’s heatwave. In previous years the festival has turned into a mudbath, but this year conditions were dry and clean.

Even by the standards of Indonesia, an archipelago born from a violent conflict between continental plates, the island of Lombok has suffered of late.

On July 29, an earthquake measuring at 6.4 on the Richter scale struck the flank of the Mount Rinjani volcano, a popular tourist climb, killing 16 people and trapping hundreds on the mountain. Last week, a much larger quake rocked northern Lombok, which authorities measured at 7.0. So far, more than 100 bodies have been found, while around 80,000 locals are homeless, traumatised and wracked by terrifying aftershocks.

In the face of a human catastrophe of such magnitude, it might seem tasteless to consider the impact of the disaster on tourism. Yet tourism is Lombok’s second largest industry after agriculture. A projected two million visitors this year should have supported a boom: not just hotels, restaurants, dive centres, travel agents, speedboats, taxis, guides and souvenir stores but a thriving subsidiary economy.

“Before the earthquake we employed 240 staff: that’s 240 families who depend on the business of the hotel to actually live,” said Stephane Servin, owner of The Santosa Villas and Resort in the beachfront district of Senggigi, who will have to close for around eight months to rebuild. “If the hotel closes, some of the staff will leave: so all the people who rent housing to my staff will lose business. It’s a multi-level impact.”

Over the last couple of decades, Lombok has repeatedly been touted as the new Bali. There are obvious parallels to its sibling across the Lombok Strait: the sacred volcano, the lush rice fields around Tetebatu, the vibrant scene on the tiny, car-free Gili islands off the northwest coast and the sweeping beaches and dramatic promontories of the south coast. Oberoi, Four Seasons and Indonesia’s antique-filled Tugu group have a presence on the mainland, while none other than David Hasselhoff is an investor in a luxury development on the island of Gili Meno.

Yet the quakes – and scenes of panicked visitors jostling for places on craft evacuating Gili Trawangan – could set development back years. “Lombok was very badly affected by the Bali bombings [in 2002],” said Stuart McDonald, publisher of south-east Asia travel website Travelfish.org. “People think of Bali as bearing the brunt of that impact, but it was much more far-reaching on Lombok, particularly in more remote areas.”

Others are more optimistic. “The impact is always less than you would expect,” said Oli Christen, owner of Freedive Flow free-diving school on Gili Air, citing the challenges when Bali’s sacred volcano, Mount Agung, erupted. “When Agung went off in November and the airports [on both Bali and Lombok] were closed, one or two months were affected, but by February it was almost back to normal.” One Gili Air hotelier intended to reopen as soon as power returned: crews from Indonesia’s state electricity company are already on the island.

It is the simple houses of Lombok’s poor inhabitants that were hardest hit by the quake. While poorly built structures toppled rapidly, much of the island’s tourist infrastructure remains more intact than imagery would suggest. At the time of going to press, the Gili islands and Rinjani volcano were closed to visitors, the focus in the north remained on helping disaster victims, but the south coast beaches remained open for business.

“The main port is still working; every harbour is working; the airport is working,” said Taufan Rahmadi, founder of Temannya Wisatawan (Tourism Friends). “The roads are OK.”

Besides donating to organisations such as the Indonesian Red Cross, visitors can help, McDonald argues, by not cancelling their trip. “If I had a trip planned next week, I’d be going to Kuta instead – but it’s certainly not time to cancel your trip to Lombok,” he said. “This is when Lombok needs you.”

Osama Bin Laden’s brother has urged the former Al-Qaeda leader’s son Hamza not to follow in his infamous father’s foot steps. 

Hamza, 29, is widely seen as a possible successor to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian ideologue who took over Al-Qaeda after US special forces killed Osama Bin Laden in a 2011 raid in Pakistan.

After vowing to avenge his father, he has been put in charge of a highly trained group of the terrorist organisation’s fighters in Afghanistan, Western officials told the The Telegraph. In a letter to his mother leaked in the media, Hamza said his 12-year-old son died a "martyr," suggesting he was killed in an airstrike or in fighting. 

"We thought everyone was over this," said Hamza’s uncle Hassan Bin Laden in an interview with the Guardian, referring to Osama bin Laden.

"Then the next thing I knew, Hamza was saying ‘I’m going to avenge my father’… If Hamza was in front of me now I would tell him ‘God guide you. Think twice about what you are doing. Don’t retake the steps of your father. You are entering horrible parts of your soul."

Osama bin Laden’s mother, Alia Ghanem, insisted that the Saudi-born terrorist behind the 2001 World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks had been a good man until he was "brainwashed" in university by ideologues. 

"He was a very good child until he met some people who pretty much brainwashed him in his early 20s. You can call it a cult," she said.

Al-Qaeda had never completely recovered from the death of Osama Bin Laden. His successor, Zawahiri, was seen as less charismatic, and over the past few years many jihadists abandoned the group to join Isil. 

With Isil suffering heavy losses in Syria and Iraq, Al-Qaeda now hopes to woo jihadists back to its fold, and Hamza is seen as key to that effort. 

He has released several audio speeches, including one in 2016 in which he vowed to avenge his father’s death. He has also called for attacks on Jews and Westerners, in an attempt to keep his organisation relevant to jihadists attracted to Isil.

Isil had split from Al-Qaeda and declared its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi "caliph" of the territories it seized across Syria and Iraq in 2014, attracting thousands of jihadists to its ranks. It also fought Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and Yemen. 

It has since lost most of its territory in Iraq and Syria, and many of its members have been killed or captured. 

Britain has announced £10m of emergency food aid to Afghans facing starvation as a result of the country’s worst drought in decades.

An estimated 1.4 million are at risk after reduced snow and rainfall have seen agriculture collapse in parts of the country, raising fears of a massive displacement of people.

Tens of thousands are being driven from their rural homes to cities and others are heading abroad.

Penny Mordaunt, International Development Secretary, said: “The drought in Afghanistan is an unfolding crisis, with 1.4 million people’s lives at risk when this year’s harvest fails in only a matter of weeks.

“The UK continues to stand by the government of Afghanistan and we have taken decisive action to step in early before the worst of the drought strikes to help prevent needless pain and suffering.”

Officials said the aid package would help feed 441,000 people as part of a World Food Programme campaign.

Rainfall is down by as much as 70 per cent this year in a drought blamed on the La Nina Pacific weather system. Previous dry years mean the water table is low and wells have run dry. The drought has struck 20 provinces, with the worst affected in the north and west.

More than 50,000 have already been driven off the land to the city of Herat.

Families fleeing the drought last week told the Telegraph the crisis was likely to drive more Afghans abroad to seek a better life.

The drought comes on top of worsening violence in the country’s long-running conflict and a struggling economy.

Large numbers of livestock have died and families have little to eat, while the harvest is expected to fail totally in weeks.

One farmer called Ghulam told the Telegraph he was facing catastrophe and would consider joining a militant group if it meant his son would not starve.

“ I can assure you that some nights, none of these families have even bread to eat, and they go to sleep hungry. If we don’t get help here, we will be forced to go to Iran or Pakistan.

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security 

The White House on Thursday declared that a “vast government-wide effort” was underway to stop foreign powers meddling in upcoming midterm elections in the US, reassuring voters and rebutting recent criticism. 

The most senior figures in America’s intelligence and national security agencies made a succession of speeches from the White House press briefing podium accusing Russia of continuing to pursue a “pervasive” campaign to "weaken and divide the United States”. 

Ahead of November’s midterms, they warned that American democracy was in the “crosshairs” of foreign adversaries and that on-going action was needed to protect the country’s “free and fair” elections.

And they said that while current Russian interference was not as sizable as that seen before the 2016 presidential election, it was only "one keyboard click away” from escalating. 

The comments came alongside a letter from John Bolton, the White House national security adviser, to Democrat senators outlining what was being done by the government.

The intervention appeared designed to both reassure the public they could have confidence when they head to the ballot box in a few months’ time and counter criticism that the Trump administration is not being proactive enough to protect the election process. 

Last month Donald Trump, the US president, failed to say that the Kremlin was behind the 2016 election interference during a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in Helsinki.

The stance directly clashed with his own intelligence agencies’ assessment and triggered a wave of criticism. Mr Trump later walked back the remarks, saying he meant to say there was no reason Russia “would not” be behind the attacks rather than “would”. 

Mr Bolton said in his letter published by the White House: “President Trump has not and will not tolerate interference in America’s system of representative government. 

“He has directed a vast, government-wide effort to protect electoral procedures and processes while investigating, prosecuting, and holding accountable those who  illegally attempt to interfere.” 

Dan Coats, director of national intelligence – America’s most senior intelligence official – said that Mr Trump had “specifically” tasked agencies to make stopping election meddling a “top priority”. 

He warned: "We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.” 

Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said the agency was working with “fierce determination and focus” to counter the threat, which he warned was “not going away”. 

Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of Homeland Security, said that “free and fair elections” were the “cornerstone” of America’s political system, adding: “Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs”.

  In America, elections are administered by states and local bodies, while the central government takes on a supporting role.

Some of the efforts going on to increase resilience to foreign meddling were outlined on Thursday.

Cyber security advice is being given to ensure that online databases of voter details are as protected as possible.

Election officials are also being trained up to learn best practices and spot suspicious activity. 

The threat of election meddling was broadly split into two categories – spreading disinformation to influence voters and direct attempts to hack into parts of the election machinery, such as voter databases. 

Officials said that they are seeing more of the former than the latter in the run-up to the November mid-terms. They also stressed that the 2020 presidential election could be vulnerable to meddling. 

During the briefing, Mr Wray, the FBI director, brushed off criticism of his department from Mr Trump, saying he could reassure Americans that agents would continue to “do our jobs”. 

Officials also declined to explain why Mr Trump had failed to make clear he blamed Russia for the 2016 election meddling when standing alongside Mr Putin at the Helsinki summit.

Instead they simply said that the president believes Russia was to blame for the interference.