Gun protests in US at perceived threat to rights

AROUND 100 gun owners from across Kentucky converged on the Capitol building in Frankfort on Friday for a rally in support of the Second Amendment.

Organized by the group We Are KY Gun Owners, the rally included a speech from Dick Heller, a former Washington DC special police officer whose landmark 2008 Supreme Court victory in District of Columbia v Heller overturned the US capital’s gun ban.

Spurred by events in neighbouring Virginia, where the Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both chambers have pushed for a host of gun-control measures, pro-gun advocates in Kentucky have looked to stave off any firearms regulations in their state.

A handful of firearms-related bills have been proposed in the 2020 legislative session. One aims to repeal last year’s passage of a law allowing people to carry concealed guns without a permit; another would require background checks for private firearms sales and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms.

READ MORE: After a volatile week for the Middle East, what's next for the US and Iran?

Iraq names new prime minister after long delay

MOHAMMED Allawi has been selected as Iraq’s prime minister-designate after weeks of political deadlock.

The choice comes as the country weathers troubled times amid ongoing violent anti-government protests, while under the constant threat of being ensnared by festering tensions between the US and Iran.

The selection of Allawi, 66, Iraq’s former minister of communications, to replace the outgoing prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, was the product of many back-room talks over months between rival parties.

Iraqi President Barham Salih gave parliament until Saturday to select a candidate or he would exercise his constitutional powers and choose one himself.

According to the constitution, a replacement for Abdul-Mahdi should have been identified 15 days after his resignation.

Instead, it has taken rival blocs nearly two months to come to an agreement.

Allawi was born in Baghdad and served as communications minister first in 2006 and again between 2010-2012. He resigned from his post after a dispute with former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Parliament is expected to put his candidacy to a vote in the next session, after which point he has 30 days to formulate a government programme and select a cabinet of ministers.

Abdul-Mahdi’s rise to power was the product of a provisional alliance between parliament’s two main blocs – Sairoon, which is led by the outspoken cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Fatah, or the Conquest Alliance, which was created in 2018 and includes leaders associated with the paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Units, a state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of some 40 militias, headed by Hadi al-Amiri.

The National:

Trump served to give DNA as 1990s rape case continues

LAWYERS for a woman who has accused Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s are asking for a DNA sample from the US President.

They are seeking to determine whether his genetic material is on a dress advice columnist E. Jean Carroll says she was wearing.

Her legal team served notice to Trump to submit a sample for “comparison against unidentified male DNA present on the dress”.

Carroll said she and Trump met by chance, chatted and went to a lingerie store for Trump to pick out a gift for an unidentified woman. She said banter about a bodysuit ended in a dressing room, where Trump reached under her black wool dress, pulled down her tights and raped her as she tried to fight him off, eventually escaping.

“The Donna Karan coat-dress still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening,” she wrote.

The National:

Japan to put nuclear water into the ocean

A JAPANESE government panel has provisionally accepted a draft proposal for releasing into the sea massive amounts of radioactive water being stored at the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.

The economy and industry ministry’s draft proposal said releasing the water gradually into the sea was the safer, more feasible option, though evaporation was also a proven method. The proposal will be submitted to the government for further discussion to decide when and how the water should be released, nearly nine years after the 2011 meltdowns of three reactor cores at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The water has been treated, and the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), says all 62 radioactive elements it contains can be removed to levels not harmful to humans, except for tritium.

Experts say there is no established method to fully separate tritium from water, but it is not a problem in small amounts. Government officials also say tritium is routinely released from existing nuclear power plants around the world.

Palestine threat to cut ties with US and Israel

PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to cut security ties with both Israel and the US in a speech at an Arab League meeting in Egypt’s capital which denounced the US plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Donald Trump’s plan would grant the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank, while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem.

The summit of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo was requested by the Palestinians, who responded angrily to the American proposal.

Abbas said he told Israel and the US that “there will be no relations with them, including the security ties” following the deal that Palestinians say heavily favours Israel.

There was no immediate comment from US or Israeli officials.

The Palestinian leader said he would refuse to take President Trump’s phone calls and messages “because I know that he would use that to say he consulted us”.

“I will never accept this solution,” he said. “I will not have it recorded in my history that I have sold Jerusalem.”

He said the Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem.

Abbas also said the Palestinians would not accept the US as sole mediator in any negotiations with Israel.

Trump unveiled the long-awaited proposal in Washington on Tuesday. It would allow Israel to annex all its West Bank settlements – which the Palestinians and most of the international community view as illegal – as well as the Jordan Valley, which accounts for roughly a quarter of the West Bank.

In return, the Palestinians would be granted statehood in Gaza, scattered chunks of the West Bank and some neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem, all linked together by a new network of roads, bridges and tunnels.

Israel would control the state’s borders and airspace and maintain overall security authority. Critics of the proposals say this would rob Palestinian statehood of any meaning.

The Arab League’s head, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the proposal revealed a “sharp turn” in the long-standing US foreign policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a turn which “does not help achieve peace”.