Overnight News Digest: Tillerson says Diplomacy has “Failed”, North Korea Warns of War

The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series dedicated to chronicling the eschaton. Please recommend and add stories or items of import or interest.

Washington Post Tillerson says diplomacy with North Korea has ‘failed’; Pyongyang warns of war

Diplomacy has failed and it’s time to “take a different approach” to North Korea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said here Thursday, as the North Korean Embassy in China warned that American military threats were bringing the region to the brink of nuclear war.

Tillerson’s comment — that 20 years of diplomacy have been unable to persuade the regime in Pyongyang to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons — will fuel fears in the region that military options might be on the table to deter North Korea. That could prove devastating for Seoul, where more than 20 million people in the South Korean capital region live within range of North Korean artillery.

Tillerson tells State Department employees that budget cut reflects new priorities

The nine-sentence letter, emailed to State employees as Tillerson was traveling in Asia, came shortly after the administration released a blueprint of plans to cut more than $10 billion, or 28 percent, out of the core budget for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development… 

Tillerson said the lower budget reflects the administration’s expectations that the United States will be engaged in fewer foreign wars…

Federal judge in Hawaii freezes President Trump’s new entry ban

A federal judge in Hawaii on Wednesday issued a sweeping freeze of President Trump’s new executive order hours before it would have temporarily barred the issuance of new visas to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries and suspended the admission of new refugees.

In a blistering 43-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson pointed to Trump’s own comments and those of his close advisers as evidence that his order was meant to discriminate against Muslims and declared there was a “strong likelihood of success” that those suing would prove the directive violated the Constitution.

Trump adviser Flynn paid by multiple Russia-related entities, new records show

Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign as national security adviser amid controversy over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador, collected nearly $68,000 in fees and expenses from Russia-related entities in 2015, a higher amount than was previously known, according to newly released documents… 

The newly released documents show that Flynn was also paid $11,250 that year by the U.S. subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab…

Los Angeles Times Trump takes aim at sanctuary cities with a proposal to cut more than $200 million in local funds

Buried in President Trump's budget proposal released Thursday was an opening salvo against so-called sanctuary cities, local jurisdictions he promised to punish for refusing to cooperate with deportation officers.

Trump wants to slash $210 million in federal reimbursements to state and local jails that hold immigrants convicted of crimes while in the country illegally. The Trump administration called the program "poorly targeted," adding that two-thirds of the money goes to only a handful of states, including California and Illinois, “for the cost of incarcerating certain illegal criminal aliens."

Trump budget proposal would cut NASA's role in climate science

The White House’s proposed budget for NASA would slash Earth science missions and the agency’s entire Office of Education while maintaining the focus on commercial involvement in space exploration and on human missions to space… 

The budget targets the agency’s work on environmental science, cutting funding for Earth science research grants. It would also eliminate several missions that are still in development, including Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, or PACE, which was was intended to monitor the Earth’s ocean health; the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, or OCO-3, an instrument to precisely monitor the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere; and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory, or CLARREO, pathfinder, which would have used a solar spectrometer to produce highly accurate climate projections.

The White House would also cut NASA’s role in the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite that was originally proposed by former Vice President Al Gore, who has long warned of the dangers of climate change.

NOAA’s budget for Earth and ocean sciences would also suffer under the proposal, which eliminates more than $250 million in grants and programs that support coastal and marine management, research and education.

Japan considers more muscular military role to counter North Korea

After seven decades of relying chiefly on U.S. military guarantees, Japan is considering moving its Self-Defense Forces into a more aggressive posture to help counter the growing threat from North Korea and China’s expanding military in the region.

Deutsche Welle European leaders breathe easier as Rutte routs Wilders

With his first-place finish in the Netherlands' elections, Mark Rutte has effectively halted the right-wing populist Geert Wilders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is among the European leaders welcoming the result… 

In what many considered to be a bellwether election for the European Union, the center-right Rutte clearly defeated Wilders in what many saw as a symbolic victory against European populism.

Chocolate makers agree to tackle deforestation in Ivory Coast and Ghana

The world's largest chocolate makers - including Nestle, Mars and Hershey - have reached agreement on a landmark initiative to roll back deforestation in the world's top cocoa producing countries - Ghana and Ivory Coast. The two countries are the world’s leading producers of cocoa, accounting for about 60 per cent of total production. Environmental group Mighty Earth claims cocoa farming has had devastating effects on the countries' forests. […]

All told, a dozen cocoa and chocolate companies agreed to "a statement of collective intent" committing them to work to end deforestation and forest degradation in the global cocoa supply chain, with an initial focus on the two west African nations.

SpaceX strikes second GPS satellite launch deal in a year, killing the competition

In the same 24-to-48-hour window that Elon Musk's SpaceX launched EchoStar XXIII, a commercial communications satellite, into orbit, it was also announced that the company had scored its second military deal to launch a GPS satellite. […]

So SpaceX's new deal to launch a GPS 3 navigation satellite in 2019 is worth $96.5 million. And it's also under government contract to send supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). But it has a rival there in Orbital ATK, another American upstart, which plans to launch its seventh resupply mission to the ISS on March 24.

The Guardian Operation London Bridge: the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death

She is venerated around the world. She has outlasted 12 US presidents. She stands for stability and order. But her kingdom is in turmoil, and her subjects are in denial that her reign will ever end. That’s why the palace has a plan.

In the plans that exist for the death of the Queen – and there are many versions, held by Buckingham Palace, the government and the BBC – most envisage that she will die after a short illness. Her family and doctors will be there. When the Queen Mother passed away on the afternoon of Easter Saturday, in 2002, at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, she had time to telephone friends to say goodbye, and to give away some of her horses. In these last hours, the Queen’s senior doctor, a gastroenterologist named Professor Huw Thomas, will be in charge. He will look after his patient, control access to her room and consider what information should be made public. The bond between sovereign and subjects is a strange and mostly unknowable thing. A nation’s life becomes a person’s, and then the string must break.

Senate intelligence chiefs of both parties reject Trump wiretapping claim

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate intelligence committee have rubbished Donald Trump’s incendiary claim that Barack Obama placed Trump Tower under surveillance.

Somali pirates release oil tanker and crew after first hijack for five years

Somali pirates who seized a Comoros-flagged oil tanker have released the ship and its eight Sri Lankan crew, bringing the first hijacking since 2012 to an unusually swift conclusion without the payment of a ransom.

Yemen at 'point of no return' as conflict leaves almost 7 million close to famine

Aid agencies have warned that Yemen is “at the point of no return” after new figures released by the UN indicated 17 million people are facing severe food insecurity and will fall prey to famine without urgent humanitarian assistance.

A total of 6.8 million people are deemed to be in a state of emergency – one step from famine on the five-point integrated food security phase classification (IPC), the standard international measure – with a further 10.2 million in crisis. The numbers reflect a 21% increase in hunger levels in the Arab world’s poorest state since June 2016.

Reuters Iraqi forces besiege Islamic State around Mosul Old City

Iraqi government forces besieged Islamic State militants around Mosul's Old City on Thursday, edging closer to the historic mosque from where the group's leader declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.

The militants, holed up in houses and darting through alleyways, resisted with sniper fire, suicide attacks and car bombs.

Though heavy rain hampered the advance, Federal Police and rapid response unit troops reached points about 500 m (yards) from the centuries-old al-Nuri Mosque by Thursday morning.

The black jihadist flag was clearly visible draped from its famous leaning minaret.

Air strike on mosque near Aleppo in Syria kills 42: monitor

Warplanes struck a mosque in the rebel-held village of al-Jina, southwest of Atarib near Aleppo in Syria, killing at least 42 people and wounding dozens, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Thursday.Nothing to see but comfort for Xi at China's annual parliament

Nothing to see but comfort for Xi at China's annual parliament

China's annual parliament followed a tight script with no surprises and little drama, evidence of President Xi Jinping's ever firmer grip ahead of a party congress later this year that could bring more of his allies into the top leadership team.

Potential successors were kept on the sidelines, foreign journalists often ignored and speculation hushed through the 10 days of the rubber-stamp National People's Congress, which ended on Wednesday, as it began, without incident.

The New York Times Trump Takes a Gamble in Cutting Programs His Base Relies On

The harshest criticism of Mr. Trump’s budget came from Democrats and liberal organizations. But in a city where many federal programs enjoy longstanding bipartisan support, some Republicans also assailed the president’s judgment.

“While we have a responsibility to reduce our federal deficit, I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the president’s skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive,” said Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky and a former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “We will certainly review this budget proposal, but Congress ultimately has the power of the purse.”

Mexico Seeks to Curtail Citizens’ Rights

The governing party says the bill, labeled a reform to the criminal code, will make “adjustments” to Mexico’s new legal system, a linchpin of cooperation with the United States that was completed last year with more than $300 million in American aid. It is widely considered Mexico’s most important legal advancement in the past century.

But while the American-backed legal system is supposed to enshrine human rights in a nation desperately lacking them, this new bill heads squarely in the other direction. Legal scholars say it will broaden the power of the Mexican government to detain suspects for years before trial, enable the police to rely on hearsay in court and potentially allow prosecutors to use evidence obtained by torture.

In Australia, a Call for Closer Ties to China Gains Support

Trump’s combative phone call with Australia’s prime minister and his rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have left many Australians wondering whether it is time to pay less attention to the United States and engage more with China.

Stephen FitzGerald, Australia’s first ambassador to China, delivered a speech on Thursday that will only amplify that debate, arguing that the world had reached the end of an era defined by European and American leadership. He called on Australia to make China its primary focus of diplomacy and economic policy and to “implant in our education the study of China and Chinese.”

“We are living in a Chinese world,” he said. “But we don’t have a relationship to match it.”

Toronto Star Daughter diplomacy: Trudeau’s unorthodox play for Donald Trump’s approval

Diplomacy is rooted in interests. And Ivanka Trump and Justin Trudeau both have an interest in hanging out with each other.

The prime minister sat with the president’s daughter Wednesday night at the Broadway musical Come From Away, the Canadian show about the Newfoundland town that took in stranded Americans on Sept. 11, 2001. It was his second olive branch to her in just over a month.

Hacker arrests show depth of Trump's isolation when it comes to Russia

President Donald Trump has fallen over himself to defend Russia from allegations of criminal hacking, military mischief and general malevolence.

The rest of the U.S. government has carried on as if he wasn’t around… 

The Department of Justice decision to charge two Russian intelligence officers for a massive hack of 500 million Yahoo accounts came as a result of an FBI investigation. The charges were announced the same day FBI director James Comey briefed top senators on a separate FBI probe into possible links between Russia and associates of the Trump campaign.

BBC News Egypt Pharaoh statue 'not Ramses II but different ruler'

An ancient statue which was pulled from the mud in Cairo is not the Pharaoh Ramses II, but could be another king, Egypt's antiquities minister has said.

Khaled el-Anani told a news conference the statue was almost certainly Psamtek I, who ruled between 664 and 610BC. Experts had thought the statue was Ramses, who ruled 600 years earlier, because it was close to a temple dedicated to the ruler.

But one of Psamtek's five names was found engraved on the huge statue. Even so, the find is still significant, Mr Anani said.

Dozens of rights activists killed in Colombia in 2016

A report on Colombia by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says dozens of rights activists have been killed last year.

It says most victims were human rights leaders or members of leftist political organisations and calls on the government to provide protection.

Areas with illegal drug crops were the most dangerous, it said.

The UN warned that armed groups were moving into territories previously occupied by Farc rebels.

CNN Former Trump pick now lobbying for Ukrainian Oligarch

Trump's original pick for deputy national security adviser is now lobbying for a Ukrainian businessman who once advocated that Kiev acquiesce to Moscow's annexation of Crimea.

Conservative commentator Monica Crowley, who would have served as the administration's national security spokeswoman, withdrew from the transition team in January after a series of CNN's KFILE reports revealed that she had plagiarized parts of Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia University.

According to a Friday filing with Justice Department, Crowley is now lobbying for Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch and former Ukrainian politician.

More than 2 dozen killed in Damascus suicide blasts

Suicide bombings on Wednesday struck a courthouse and restaurant in the capital of Damascus, killing more than two dozen people and injuring others, Syrian state news said.

On Wednesday, at least 25 people were killed at the Palace of Justice, the main courthouse in the city center of Damascus, Syrian state TV reported, citing police.

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Fun Fact: Trump's Budget could save most of the programs and services for arts, poor and elderly if he and his family lived in the WH only.

— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) March 16, 2017