It’s illegal to sleep down town in Las Vegas

Despite protests about a “war on the poor,” Las Vegas officials passed a law Wednesday making it illegal for the homeless to sleep on streets when beds are available at established shelters.

The issue spurred emotion and drama, including the ejection by city marshals of several audience members who Mayor Carolyn Goodman deemed disruptive during a daylong City Council meeting that drew dozens of time-limited comments.

Most people spoke against the law before the 5-2 council vote. The measure will apply to the city’s downtown urban core, not the tourist-heavy Las Vegas Strip, which is overseen by a different jurisdiction.

Goodman, the sponsor of the measure, called it imperfect but necessary to deal with what officials and downtown business owners characterize as a homeless crisis.

“This is flawed but it is a start,” the mayor said after noting Las Vegas’ economy relies on its image as an attractive international tourist attraction.

“We have been having these conversations for 20 years,” she said, “and we must have results.”

Las Vegas becomes the latest city in the U.S. West — from San Francisco and Seattle to Honolulu and Salt Lake City — to try to deal with complaints about homelessness.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a similar law from Boise, Idaho, last year — calling it unconstitutional to prosecute people for sleeping in public places when there aren’t enough shelter beds.

City Attorney Brad Jerbic said the Las Vegas law was crafted to withstand a similar legal challenge, with its “if beds are available” provision.

Opponents rejected city officials’ assurances that there will be enough shelter space when necessary.

The law provides for warnings by public officers, beginning Sunday, for people found “camping, lodging, sitting, lying down, sleeping and similar activities” in most downtown areas.

Those activities become a misdemeanor beginning Jan. 1, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“It’s criminalizing the homeless,” the Rev. Leonard Jackson, associate pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church in North Las Vegas and director of the regional Faith Organizing Alliance said during a morning protest outside City Hall.

About 100 people rallied, chanting, “The war on the poor has got to go,” before taking their protest into the contentious public meeting that lasted more than nine hours.

“If we can build stadiums, then we can build housing for the homeless,” George Allen, a self-described “working homeless” home-care worker, told the council.

Allen was referring to a $2 billion, 65,000-seat football stadium set to open next year for the relocated Oakland Raiders. Taxpayers are contributing $750 million to the project through hotel room taxes.

City officials report spending more than $35 million on homeless-related services last year, including outreach, fire, police and community services.

The camping ban proposal drew opposition from Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Tom Steyer and Julian Castro.

Castro, a former U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary, attended an Oct. 2 protest against the proposed ordinance.

Michael McDonald, head of the Nevada Republican Party, accused the Democrats of “pandering to Las Vegans” and “advocating for the homeless to continue suffering on our streets.”

He noted the proposal requires warnings and offering transportation to a shelter with an available bed before a person would get cited.

An annual survey taken one night in January counted more than 5,500 people on the streets in Las Vegas and surrounding cities and county property. Officials estimate that more than 14,000 people are homeless in and around Las Vegas at some point during the year.

The Review-Journal has tallied about 2,000 beds plus an open-air, 24/7 courtyard offered by the city where officials say more than 300 people stay on any given night. It has 220 sleeping mats.

Afghan Cricket Fan finds the hardest time To Stay in Lucknow

Lucknow For an Afghani man who flew down to watch one-day international cricket series between Afghanistan and West Indies in Lucknow, his 8-feet height became a problem in finding accommodation.

Sher Khan, who is 8 feet and two-inch tall, visited several hotels in search of a place to stay but no hotel allegedly agreed to rent him a room courtesy to his height.

Disappointed and alone in a new city, Sher Khan approached police for help which took him to a Hotel Rajdhani in Naka area where he spent Tuesday night.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the hotel to see the tall man who is a resident of Kabul.

"As many as 200 people have come to see him. He is very disturbed," hotel owner Ranu told ANI on Wednesday.

Due to the people gathered outside the hotel, the police had to escort Sher Khan to Ekana Stadium where the international match is being played.

Jay-Z from zero to hero

Jay-Z is now the first hip-hop billionaire. Shawn Carter's net worth reflects him knowing his true worth and being brave enough to invest in himself

The rapper Jay-Z has been crowned the first hip-hop billionaire. According to Forbes, his net worth (not income, a la Dr. Dre) is now ten digits. The diverse portfolio of sports, spirits and, of course, music all contributed to Jay-Z's wealth.

His biggest asset, though, is ownership. Like his friend LeBron James, Shawn Carter knows his worth and he keeps it. Your IP, your patent or any original worth you bring should be held and protected.

This is how he became a billionaire. This is how you can succeed, too.

Make value to get value

About a decade ago, a digital publisher called me to license the rights to my best selling book, Damon Brown's Simple Guide to the iPad. "We'd like to do a video book version of it. Who owns the rights?"

"Well, I do," I said. The book was wholly self-funded, developed and published by me.

We negotiated a deal on the spot. The following year, and for years to come, the repurposed book helped feed my family.

About five years ago, a handful of companies contacted my founders and me about acquiring our popular app, Cuddlr. "We'd like to acquire you. How can we further the discussion?"

"Well, we can talk now," we said. The app was wholly self-funded, developed and published by us three co-founders. We grew it to about a quarter million users.

We negotiated a deal through our legal representation. The final acquirer wired us the money just shy of our first anniversary. It was divvied up based on the ownership percentages us founders negotiated at launch.

Know what you bring to the table

This is why Jay-Z sacrificed nearly everything to get back his masters. Legally, owning your master recordings means you decide who does what with your music: You negotiate when and how they are used in commercials, video games or movies; you decide how much to charge for said use; and you get more money when your music is bought, streamed or otherwise enjoyed. The masters alone give Jay-Z about one-tenth of his net worth, and, as long as people listen to his music, they will continue to give his family worth well after he's gone.

But the ownership goes beyond the music he's made.

Instead of hopping on Apple Music or Spotify, Jay-Z bought the streaming service Tidal. He now curates other people's music - and makes money when they are streaming.

Rather than working with the domanate conglomerate Ticketmaster, Jay-Z started Roc Nation and puts other acts on tour.

Even Roc-a-fella Records, the home of Jay-Z's first album Reasonable Doubt, was an indie publisher founded by Jay-Z, Dame Dash and Kareem Burke.

The independent aesthetic has been Jay-Z's blueprint since 1996, just as much as my independent books, mugs and music are a natural part of my business mindset. This is why I respect his hustle and why, I believe, he wouldn't have become a billionaire any other way.

To paraphrase one of his lines, Jay-Z became a check writer instead of a royalty receiver. This is how you bring your worth. This is how you become a billionaire.

But first, you have to know that your work is worth defending. Jay-Z evidently does.

10 Most influential people in Africa (2020)

The Africa Report’s top 10 Africans who control the levers of power across politics, business and the arts: from billionaire barons to unpredictable peacemakers and soft-power superstars.

1. Aliko Dangote

From Nigeria

He’s the richest black man in the world and Africa’s richest man, with an estimated wealth of $10.3bn. Within Nigeria, Senator Ben-Murray Bruce called him “more influential and powerful than (President Muhammadu) Buhari”. 

The billionaire’s latest project is a $10.5bn oil refinery that will be Africa’s largest, so Dangote will not be sitting on the sidelines when it comes to oil-­sector reform debates there. He is investing in the continent’s manufacturing and agribusiness capacity, and plans to launch the long-awaited London IPO of Dangote Cement in late 2019. Meanwhile, his philanthropy is taking flight.

2. Elon Musk

South Africa

The yo-yoing of his company shares, his hirings and firings and off-the-wall tweets keep Musk in the headlines. He may be a maverick but his ideas are shaping the future, from reducing global warming with his electric cars to urban transportation on a cushion of air and plans to establish a colony on Mars. 

His Boring Company could help a boom in urban public transportation, and he is a big pessimist about the impact of AI. He donates to both the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, saying it is necessary to pay up in order to have a voice.

3. Koos Bekker

South Africa

When China-based Tencent sneezed in August 2018, Naspers share price caught a cold. It didn’t last long, but it showed how tied the fortunes of the South African media and entertainment behemoth are to its largest holding (Naspers owns 31% of the Chinese internet giant). Buying a stake in Tencent in 2001 makes Bekker the Buffett of Africa: the initial $32m investment has grown to $116bn since then, and Bekker famously waived a salary to get paid in stock options when he was CEO. With the bulk of South African pension funds invested heavily in Naspers and allegations of Gupta-style influencing in a 2017 broadcasting deal, Bekker said the company would work on its transparency at the 2018 annual general meeting.

4. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nigeria

The Nigerian author-cum-public intellectual continues her stratospheric ascent and is as often seen behind a mic as in print these days – engaging audiences about racism, sexism and the human condition. 

She started the year 2018 slaying a French journalist for her lack of knowledge about Nigeria and ended it on stage with former US first lady Michelle Obama. Who’s next?

5. Trevor Noah

South Africa

One of the US’s most prominent voices critiquing the presidency of Donald Trump, Noah has brought millennial-inspired thinking and an astute outsider’s view to The Daily Show and taught some Americans that Africa is not a country. With the renewal of his contract in 2017 his job is secure until 2022, which will carry him through the febrile US election season. He is also quite funny.

6. Tidjane Thiam

Côte d’Ivoire

Thiam’s turnaround of Credit Suisse since 2016 has left bankers and analysts awestruck. Ignoring naysayers, the Ivorian CEO relegated the derivatives traders and recast the bank as a wealth-management operation focusing on emerging markets. He explained his view to Euromoney: “This is a fabulous bank. Or let me be more precise: it has always had a fabulous bank within it.” But it faces big blowback for its role in the Mozambique tuna bond scandal.

7. Davido

Nigeria

He has riches (he’s worth $16m), good looks, fast cars and political clout. Using his music to inspire Nigerians to vote in the 2019 elections, he also lent his star appeal to presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s campaign, seriously upstaging the 72-year-old politician. His next act will be to crack the tough US market, with his eyes set on a gig at Madison Square Garden, having filled the 15,000-seat O2 Arena in London in January.

8. Enoch Adeboye

Nigeria

In 2017 Pastor Adeboye’s resignation from leading his five-million-member church in Nigeria was greeted with dismay by congregations around the country. Nigeria’s highest-profile pastor, who numbers the Nigerian vice-president Yemi Osinbajo among his followers, had to step down from running the domestic operations of the church he had built up almost from scratch after a new law put a 20-year cap and 70-year-old age limit on the leadership of non-profit organisations. Adeboye could have argued that The Redeemed Christian Church of God was not, strictly speaking, “non-profit”, with Forbes quoting the net worth of the man born into poverty at €39m, but he chose not to.

9. Kumi Naidoo

South Africa

Appointed as secretary general of Amnesty International in August 2018, Naidoo was a youth activist in apartheid South Africa and the first African head of Greenpeace. By making clear the link between environmental crimes and human rights abuses, Naidoo heralds a new era for Amnesty, widening its focus from political prisoners to indigenous peoples and everyone in between. “We need to redefine what it means to be a strong leader. Because strong leaders don’t bully activists. Yet that is exactly what is happening with a global crackdown on NGOs. We need to see less vitriol and more compassion from our leaders,” he explained on Twitter.

10. Abiy Ahmed

Ethiopia

Catapulted into office in April 2018 by the resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Abiy has made a huge splash at home and internationally. In 11 months, he has made peace with Eritrea, released 60,000 political prisoners, calmed ethnic tensions, signed multimillion-dollar infrastructure deals with China, started liberalising the economy, persuaded diaspora Ethiopians to contribute $2.4m to a trust fund, filled his cabinet with women, diffused a potential military coup by doing press-ups with soldiers… and the list goes on.

Terry Fox and the positive attitudes toward cancer

Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada's west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.

While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.

After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 with little fanfare. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran close to 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario.

However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at the age 22.

The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning.

The Terry Fox Foundation

For over 30 years The Terry Fox Foundation has worked to achieve Terry’s vision – a world without cancer. Its researchers, staff and thousands of volunteers are determined to reach that goal. They strive daily to uphold Terry’s ideals and values in everything they do – and always will.

To date, over $750 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry's name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.

Titanic, wreck will soon disappear in to dusts

The first manned dive to the Titanic in 14 years found a wreck in 'shocking' decay. The photos are spooky.

For the first time in 14 years, divers traveled to the Titanic's final resting place, where they found the storied ship is being devoured by metal-eating bacteria and battered by corrosion and deep sea currents.

A team of explorers made five dives to the wreck, which lies in two pieces at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in near-freezing water 370 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada, according Atlantic Productions, which is producing a documentary about the expedition. They found the hull starting to collapse and the officers' quarters, where the captain had his rooms, beginning to deteriorate.

"The most shocking area of deterioration was the starboard side of the officers' quarters, where the captain’s quarters were," Titanic historian Parks Stephenson said. "Captain’s bath tub is a favourite image among the Titanic enthusiasts, and that’s now gone. That whole deck hole on that side is collapsing taking with it the state rooms, and the deterioration is going to continue advancing.”

The Titanic collided with an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. The ship went under two hours and 40 minutes later; more than 1,500 people died.

Titanic found during secret Navy mission:Previously classified story of Titanic's discovery comes to life

The team laid a wreath at the site and held a short ceremony in honor of those who lost their lives on the ship's maiden voyage.

The expedition was intended to capture footage and computer imagery to assess the Titanic's current condition, and "project its future," along with providing high quality visuals and 3D models of the 107-year-old wreckage. The first 4K visual images will allow the wreck to be seen in augmented and virtual reality.

“The future of the wreck is going to continue to deteriorate over time, it’s a natural process," expedition scientist Lori Johnson said. "These are natural types of bacteria, so the reason that the deterioration process ends up being quite a bit faster, is a group of bacteria, a community working symbiotically to eat, if you will, the iron and the sulphur.”

The bacteria, named Halomonas titanicae after the ship, was first collected in 1991 on iciclelike formations of rust but were not identified until 2010, the BBC reported. The microorganisms can survive at intense pressures in pitch-black water.

National Geographic will produce a documentary with the Titanic footage taken in early August.

Texas equity-firm owner, renowned explorer and founder of Caladan Oceanic, Victor Vescovo, owns a submersible, named the Limiting Factor, and has piloted it on both the Five Deeps Expedition and during the Titanic missions.

“It’s a big wreck; I wasn’t quite prepared for how large it was," Vescovo said in a statement. "It was extraordinary to see it all, and the most amazing moment came when I was going along the side of the Titanic and the bright lights of the submersible reflected off a portal and came right back, it was like the ship was winking at me. It was amazing."

While photos of the ship may look ghostly, oceanographer David Gallo said the deterioration doesn't look much different than when he co-lead a remotely operated expedition to the Titanic in 2010. Gallo stressed that it's too soon to tell how long the ship will take to decay and more research needs to be done.

"I don’t see what was seen as being 'shocking,'" Gallo said. "It's been over 100 years and the ship shows wear, but it certainly looks like it’s going to last another 100 years,"

ISIS confirms new leader after the death of al-Baghdadi

ISIS terrorists say they have appointed a new leader and warned America "not to rejoice" in the killing of former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The Sunni Muslim terrorist group acknowledged today that al-Baghdadi was killed in a US military operation on Saturday.

In a message from the group's new spokesman, Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, ISIS warned America not to celebrate the killing of al-Baghdadi.

It announces Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi is the group's new leader.

ISIS's previous spokesman, Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, was also killed in a military strike this weekend, so this statement in itself also confirms who the new mouthpiece is for the Jihadi terrorists.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid

The group's news agency Amaq released an audio tape confirming the deaths of both figureheads and the appointment of the new leader.

Rita Katz, director of SITE Intelligence Group, said on Twitter that the audio was from "new official spokesman of ISIS , 'Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi."

She said the statement "confirms Abu Hassan al-Muhajir's death, saying that he was a Saudi" and "also confirms death of Baghdadi, announces 'Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi' as new leader".

SITE Intelligence Group is an American company that tracks online activity of white supremacist and jihadist organizations.

Rita Katz went on: "The message warns America not to rejoice in killing of its leadership. Asserts ISIS is not limited to Middle East and that it will continue its mission.

"The new message tells followers to continue to follow up on the call of Baghdadi's last audio message (released September 2019) specifically in releasing Muslim prisoners and to make recruitment and outreach.

"Abu Hamza also states that killed spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir was a minister and assistant of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

"Also states the Shura Council of ISIS, after consultation, agreed to act upon Baghdadi's will and pledge allegiance to Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.

"It was a very short message. Essentially just confirmation of recent leadership deaths, threatening continued presence across the world, and calling ISIS supporters to fulfill Baghdadi's calls.

"The speech threatens: 'America, don't you realize that the Islamic State is now at the forefront of Europe and West Africa? It is extended from the East to the West.'"

She added that "as ISIS' online machine is still alive and well, we should expect to see a campaign for this message spanning various platforms, accompanied by pledges from across the world."

She also said that, "as expected" the new ISIS leader is "allegedly from the tribe of Quraysh, which the Prophet Muhammad came from."

But she said that "the speech provides very little information about him."

Worryingly, she writes: "For ISIS supporters, the deaths of Baghdadi and Abu Hassan al-Muhajir were never going to change anything. As I write this, new pledges of allegiance are already being posted across ISIS web venues.

"Based on the reactions that are already pouring in from the ISIS community, it appears these new developments have energized the group's supporters."

SAS troops took part in the mission to hunt down and kill Islamic State commander  Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Saturday.

A small number of men joined the US-led attack on the terror chief’s hideout in northwest Syria after tracking him for a fortnight.

Once at the target,  two landed to dispatch soldiers and third hovered above them with their guns  trained on the compound.

Al-Baghdadi is said to have fled into a tunnel before setting off an explosive vest, killing himself and three of his young children.

A US AC 130 “flying gun” and Reaper drone armed with 500lb bombs then flattened the den after the troops had withdrawn.

Violence increases in the Hong Kong protests “No justice at all”

Johnson Yeung Ching-yin, author of this post, is a human rights advocate in Hong Kong, an exco member of Amnesty International, and former convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front. The post was published by Hong Kong Free Press on 26 October 2019 and is republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement, as well as with the consent of the author.
 On July 21, I was dragging my body back home at midnight after a long day of protests. I lay in my bed. My partner was asleep, and I scrolled up and down the screen of my phone in the dark. My newsfeed was awash with footage of mobs wielding metal rods and hitting train passengers indiscriminately in Yuen Long. These thugs, later confirmed to have triad backgrounds and links to a pro-Beijing lawmaker, were beating people while the police stood by and watched. Some were escorted personally by riot police to safe havens.

 I barely slept that night; the adrenaline in my body kept me awake. My mind kept rehearsing how I would defend the passengers if I had been on the train. The next day, an atmosphere of terror overcame Hong Kong. Shops and malls were closed early, in fearful anticipation of another attack. During lunch, a colleague invited me to a protest at the area where the thugs were based. I agreed immediately, finished my lunch in five minutes, and grabbed a PVC pipe and put it in my backpack. I was ready to get into a scuffle.

Not only was I prepared to fight—I was also looking forward to encountering the thugs so I could mete out justice to them. In the end, I didn’t encounter any thugs that day, but I still remember the impulse to use violence.

 Are the Hong Kong protests becoming more violent? Certainly. And although the demonstrations are largely non-violent, the use of force against the police, vandalism and vigilantism are becoming more frequent. And I have a clear sense of why this is happening: it is because justice has not been served over the past four months. The police have been systematically violating rights and hurting people.

More than 1,000 people have been injured; a journalist will more than likely lose her sight in one eye; one man’s arm was broken during an arrest; others say they were sexually abused by law enforcement. A reporter has been hospitalised after a thug stabbed her in one lung; a teenager could spend his whole life in a wheelchair because hired gangs cut his tendons. And a few days ago, a young girl was injured by a taxi driver who appeared to deliberately run over some protesters.

 Will these thugs be brought to justice? I doubt it, as I have seen the police work side by side with them multiple times. Now, 80 per cent of the population are demanding an independent inquiry into police brutality, according to a Ming Pao poll, and the government has responded by invoking emergency powers and banning people from wearing masks. And keep in mind, we didn’t choose the government. The emergency powers have destroyed the very last of the checks and balances that prevent Hong Kong from turning into a truly authoritarian city. It has shut down every single potential peaceful channel to resolve the political crisis.


 The people are not just going to sit there and be butchered. They will resist. Remember how Hobbes describes the state of nature? No government, no laws, no common power to restrain. Sound familiar? That’s Hong Kong nowadays: people concede to the state a monopoly on violence because they trust the state will use violence according to the law—but this social contract has been burnt to ashes by the government. On many occasions, I feel the impulse to throw a petrol bomb. I have pictured in my head how to wrest a pistol from an officer’s holster.

And do you know what is stopping me from doing so? It’s because I am representing my organisation, which is committed to non-violence, and because I believe a largely non-violent movement has a better chance of success.

 Most importantly, I have convinced myself that justice would be served in the long run. That doesn’t mean everyone can and should think as I do. I feel impatient. And there are people who believe seeking justice within the system is a joke. For them, vandalising a store owned by a crony of the government, or hitting a pro-government supporter who attempts to attack others, is a way to find some justice.

 The violence should not be condoned—it should be stopped, starting with state violence. Hong Kong is in a state of emergency, and the law that was once respected by its citizens is melting away. I am not asking you to tolerate violence, I am asking you to understand it. Martin Luther King once said, “Riot is the language of the unheard.” Without understanding where it comes from, you are not hearing what the people are saying. Justice is what we are entitled to, and it should be returned right now.

US museum 'storing remains of Namibian genocide victims'

The remains of victims of concentration camps in Namibia which were gathered by a German racialist scientist for use in experiments have been found in the collection of a major US museum, campaigners claim.

Representatives of the Herero and Namaqua peoples of Namibia say skulls and skeletons dating to the German occupation of south-west Africa in the decades before the first world war are being held by the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Barnabas Veraa Katuuo of the Association of The Ovaherero Genocide said two of the eight human remains in the museum identified as from Namibia were probably those of people who died in concentration camps during an attempt by the German authorities to crush a rebellion by the Herero and Namaqua between 1904 and 1908.

The Germans’ apparent attempt to exterminate entire peoples has led to the killings being described as the “20th century’s first genocide”.

The museum declined to comment.

Historians have described how authorities in Namibia collected and cleaned large numbers of skulls which they despatched to Germany to be used in pseudo-scientific experiments to support racist theories regarding the inferiority of the African races and the superiority of the German peoples.

It is thought some reached the US when the museum bought the private collection of a German anthropologist in the 1920s.

“The discovery of remains at the museum is a highly significant event, in that it shows that the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples in Namibia in the early part of the 20th century involved not only the mass killing of men, women and children, and the confiscation of their lands and livestock, but also ... the desecration of their remains when literally hundreds of skulls and skeletons were carted off to Berlin by German scientists and researchers,” Katuuo said.

Berlin annexed a new colony on the south-west coast of the continent in the 1880s as part of the broader “scramble for Africa” among western imperialist powers. The Herero people – also called the Ovaherero – were subjected to racially motivated violence, rape and murder and rebelled in January 1904. More than 100 German civilians were killed. The smaller Nama tribe joined the uprising the following year.

Lothar von Trotha, the German general sent to quell the revolt, ordered his men to shoot “any Herero, with or without a rifle, with or without cattle”, including women and children. The order was rescinded, but other measures were employed that were equally lethal. Tens of thousands were forced into desert regions where wells were deliberately poisoned and livestock killed.

Survivors were sent to concentration camps, where they were beaten and worked to death in squalid conditions. Half of the Nama population were also killed. The total death toll is thought to have exceeded 100,000.

The remains found in the AMNH were originally collected by Professor Felix von Luschan, a German anthropologist who believed that their shape revealed the characteristics of an individual or “race”.

The killings in Germany’s African colonies are seen by some historians as important steps towards the Holocaust in Europe during the second world war.

Until recently, the episode had been largely forgotten in Germany, but there are now moves under way to atone for the massacres with reparations.

German officials rejected the use of the word “genocide” to describe the killings of the Herero and Namaqua until July 2015, when the Social Democrat foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, issued a “political guideline” indicating that the massacre should be referred to as “a war crime and a genocide”.

A class action lawsuit filed by representatives of the Herero and Nama peoples in New York demands that their representatives be included in negotiations between the government of Namibia and Berlin over reparations.

Berlin has repeatedly refused to pay direct reparations, saying that its development aid worth hundreds of millions of euros since Namibia’s independence from South Africa in 1990 was “for the benefit of all Namibians”.

Tensions surface between UK and US over Iran nuclear deal

Tensions between the US and UK over whether to tear up the Iran nuclear deal were exposed on Thursday when the secretary of state Rex Tillerson said the US viewed Iran in default of the deal’s expectations, but the British foreign secretary Boris Johnson urged the world to have faith in its potential to create a more open Iran.

Tillerson repeatedly emphasised the US decision of whether to end the agreement signed in 2015 will be based on a wider assessment of Iranian behaviour – including in Yemen and Syria – and not just whether Tehran is complying with the strict terms of the deal.

Johnson and Tillerson, speaking at a joint press conference in London, were united in urging the Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out against the massacre of Rohingya Muslims.

But the two men were at odds over Iran. Tillerson said the US government is continuing to develop its policy on the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA.

The Trump administration on Thursday continued the suspension of US nuclear-related sanctions, pending a review of its Iran policy, but it also added eight Iranians to its sanctions list for cyber attacks and one Iranian company on grounds of suspected involvement in trading in restricted goods.

Donald Trump has reportedly expressed his determination to “decertify” Iran’s compliance with the deal – a move that could put him potentially at odds with his European allies, creating a new major transatlantic rift.

The president must certify to the US congress every 90 days whether Iran is adhering to the agreement. If Trump refuses to certify compliance, congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions which were lifted under the agreement.

In April, Trump ordered a broad review of Iranian compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, negotiated under President Barack Obama, and described by Trump as “the worst deal ever negotiated”.

Tillerson stressed that no final decision had been made, but in hawkish tones added: “President Trump has made it clear to those of us who are developing this policy that we must take in to account the totality of Iranian threats, not just Iran’s nuclear capabilities, that is just one piece of our posture towards Iran.”

Tillerson quoted the agreement’s preamble as saying the signatories “anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security.”

He argued Iran was in default of that expectation, saying: “In our view Iran is clearly in default of these expectations through their actions in propping up the Assad regime, by engaging in malicious activity in the region, through its cyber activity, by aggressively developing ballistic missiles.

“We have to consider the totality of Iran’s activities, and not let our view be defined solely by the nuclear agreement”.

Johnson agreed that “the Iranians have got to behave and fulfil their side of their bargain. They have got to be stop adventurist and expansionist plans, causing trouble in Yemen, Syria or anywhere else.”

But in a markedly different tone he added: “On the other side we in the UK feel that Iran a country of 80 million people, many of them young and potentially liberal, could be won over. I think it is important they see there are benefits from the JCPOA, so we in the UK want that alive.”

On Myanmar, Johnson made it clear that he could no longer defend the Nobel peace prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi. Last week he described her as “one of the most inspiring figures of our age”, as he urged her to stop violence against the Royhingha.

In a sign he has lost his patience, he said: “Let’s be clear, she led Burma after a period of decades of repression by a military junta and I yield to no one in my admiration of what she stood for and the way she fought for democracy. I think many people around the world share that admiration.

“But I think it’s now vital for her to use that moral capital and that authority to make the point about the suffering of the people of Rakhine. Nobody wants to see a return to military rule in Burma, nobody wants to see a return of the generals.

“But it is vital for her now to make clear that this is an abomination and that those people will be allowed back to Burma and that preparation is being made and that the abuse of their human rights and the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of killings will stop.”

Attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts last month triggered an army operation that has killed more than 400 people, destroyed over 6,800 houses and sent nearly 400,000 fleeing to Bangladesh.