16 NEWS Best articles: International
THE WEEK3August 2019Dark secretshidden in theNevada desertLos Angeles TimesThese are exciting times for UFO believers, says Jonathan Turley. Some two million of them have
signedup toaFacebook campaign, pledging to gather together on 20 September and storm Area 51,
the tightly guarded military installation in the Nevada desert that’s long been rumoured to contain
evidence of alien life. And they’re dead right that the government is trying to hide something, but it’s
not UFOs: it’s evidence of official negligence. In the late 1990s,Iwas the lawyer representing workers
at Area 51 who were suffering from mysterious health issues and wanted to know what chemicals
they’d been exposed to at the site, which was conducting highly classified research into next-
generation aircraft systems. They claimed that officials, rather than disposing of toxic debris in the
proper way, had often just doused mountains of the stuff in jet fuel and burned it in the open. We
sued for information and succeeded in establishing not only that Area 51 existed (officials had until
then refused to acknowledge the “black facility”), but also that it had violated environmental laws.
We never discovered exactly which chemicals workers had been exposed to, as Bill Clinton, then
president, issuedawaiver, exempting the facility from such disclosures. Area 51 might not house
“jars of alien body parts”, but there are secrets there that “should be dragged into public view”.“El Chapo”finally goesdown for goodEl Universal
(Caracas)Drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán escaped twice from jail in Mexico, says Salvador García
Soto. But the good news is he won’t get the chance to stageathird breakout. The Sinaloa cartel leader
was sentenced to life plus 30 years byaNew York court last month, and will end his days inafederal
“supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado. It houses the worst of the worst: men like “Unabomber”
Ted Kaczynski, the Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the 9/11 conspirator Zacarias
Moussaoui. Guzmán, 62, won’t be able to swap stories with these criminals, though, as he will spend
23 hoursaday isolated in his 87-square-metre cell. During his one hour outside, he will be watched
over by snipers–but he may not even want to get out. That part of Colorado has extreme weather:
temperatures soar past 40°C in summer and blizzards bring feet of snow in winter. So yes, Guzmán
will suffer. At his sentencing, he whined about the “mental torture” of solitary confinement. But
Mexicans still living through the drug war he helped start, which has claimed 150,000 lives since
2006, have little pity. Nothing can make up for the “pain and violence he inflicted” on Mexico.It’s high time America lowered its legal drinking age, says Scott Johnston. It’s one of just 12 countries
in the world to insist people can’t drink alcohol until they’re 21. “We’re keeping company with cool
kids on the block like Egypt, Oman and Equatorial Guinea.” To combat drink-drive fatalities the US
raised the age limit to 21 in 1984, and it’s true that the rate of such deaths has fallen 50% since then.
But most of that fall is due to stricter enforcement, increased awareness among drivers of all ages and
the advent of things like Uber. The 21 age limit hasn’t stopped college students drinking, it has just
changed the way they do it–invery negative ways. Where once they all merrily swigged beer at big,
college-wide events, now they sneak off in cliques to load up on spirits, which are easier to hide in
dorm rooms. To steer teens towards safer, more sociable forms of consumption, let’s at least lower
the age limit for wine and beer to 18. Eighteen-year-olds can drive, get married and “takeabullet
in Afghanistan”, but they can’t getabeer. It’s inconsistent, it’s patronising and it needs to change.You can’t haveabeer, but youcan go to warNew York PostUNITED STATESMEXICOUNITED STATES“It wasameeting between two
unpredictable leaders” who had traded
bitter words in the past, said Zahid
Hussain inDawn (Karachi).But in the
event, last week’s Washington summit
between Donald Trump and Pakistan’s
premier, Imran Khan, went remarkably
smoothly, putting relations between
the two countries–sobadly soured
of late–back on track. There’s still
a“huge trust deficit”, but both sides
realise they need each other. Trump is
desperate to extricate the US from an
unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and
wants Islamabad to use its influence
with the Taliban to secureapeace deal.
And Pakistan needs US help to stave off the looming threat of
being blacklisted by the FATF, the intergovernmental watchdog
that combats money laundering and terrorism financing. Last
summer, the Paris-based body placed Pakistan on the grey list
due to its “strategic deficiencies”–promotion to the black list
would dealasevere blow to the country’s struggling economy.Trump has performed quiteaU-turn, said Max Boot inThe
Washington Post.Only last year, he suspended military aid: the
US has given Pakistan more than $33bn over the past 15 years,
he raged, and in return got “nothing but lies and deceit”. Yet
last week he avowed that now “Pakistan never lies”. Really?
Trump hailed as proof of its reformed character the fact that,“afteraten-year search”, Islamabad
had tracked down and arrested the man
accused of masterminding the 2008
Mumbai attack–Hafiz Muhammad
Saeed. Yet Saeed has long been living
quite openly near the city of Lahore,
and has been detained and released
countless times over recent years. “This
is part of the charade Islamabad plays:
it both sponsors and fights terrorism,
depending on which is most
advantageous” at any given moment.
Trump is “being played”.It’s not clear whether Islamabad can be
trusted on terrorism, said Mohammed
Hanif inThe New York Times,but Khan is genuinely trying to
punish corrupt politicians and force them to repay the billions
he says they’ve salted away in Swiss accounts. The problem is,
they’re not coughing up. The former president, Asif Ali Zardari,
who is in jail on money-laundering charges, has refused to strike
adeal: “I won’t give them six dollars,” he says. And there’s little
sign of progress in other areas either. Press freedoms are under
assault, opposition politicians have been jailed on what appear
to be trumped-up charges, the army still calls the shots, and
“the economy has been practically handed over to appointees
from the IMF”. Khan won power last summer on the promise
that he’d createa“new Pakistan”.Ifear the new one looks all
too like the “struggling dictatorship” of old.Mending the “trust deficit”: sweet talk in WashingtonImran Khan: has he played Trump for afool?