TWENTY NINTH DAY

UN inspectors to verify Iran’s claim it has broken nuclear deal

Tehran ramps up level of uranium enrichment and hints at further breaches
Inspectors from the UN’s nuclear watchdog will work to verify Iran’s claim it has broken the
terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said its inspectors in Iran would report to its Vienna
headquarters “as soon as they verify the announced development”. It did not elaborate.
Iran announced on Sunday that it was ramping up the level of uranium enrichment beyond the
3.67% permitted under the deal. On 1 July Iran increased its stockpile of low-enriched
uranium beyond the cap set by the deal.
Iran’s moves have come in response to sweeping US sanctions imposed after Donald Trump
unilaterally withdrew from the deal a year ago.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called on world powers to impose “snapback
sanctions” on Iran in response to its declarations.
Netanyahu said on Sunday that enriching uranium to such levels had only one purpose – to
create atomic bombs. He said western leaders had vowed to impose sanctions the moment
Iran crossed that threshold.
The Israeli leader has been one of the harshest critics of the nuclear deal. Israel considers Iran
to be its most dangerous enemy because of its nuclear programme.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister said his nation would take another step affecting its compliance
with the nuclear deal in 60 days.
Abbas Araghchi told a news conference he could not elaborate on the nature of the next step.
Araghchi said Iran considered the deal with world powers to be a “valid document” and sought
its continuation.
He said Iran was open to negotiations with Europe, which the US could join.
Araghchi also said the Iranian oil tanker that Britain intercepted off Gibraltar on Thursday had
not been headed towards Syria. He said there was no law allowing authorities in Gibraltar to
stop the tanker and the seizure was “piracy”.
Royal Marines and the Gibraltarian police intercepted the supertanker Grace 1 on Thursday,
saying they believed it to be violating EU sanctions by carrying Iranian crude oil to Syria.
Spanish authorities said the seizure had come at the request of the US.
Hong Kong protesters march to train station to send message to China
Demonstrators back on the streets for first time since last week’s storming of
legislature
Tens of thousands of protesters have marched to keep up the pressure on the Hong
Kong government to withdraw the extradition bill that has been the subject of a series of mass
rallies over the past month.
The march on Sunday was the first since the storming of Hong Kong’s legislature by protesters
on Monday, a move that drew strong condemnation from the Chinese and Hong Kong
governments.
The crowds on Sunday were made up mostly of young people but there were also many
middle-aged and elderly protesters. Apart from calling for the full withdrawal of the bill, which
the government has suspended, the demands have broadened to include democratic reforms.
“Hong Kongers, go for it!”, “Retract the bill!”, “Implement genuine universal suffrage!” chanted
the spirited and noisy crowds to the rhythms of drumbeats. Others chanted “There are no
rioters, only violent regimes!”, “Free Hong Kong!” and “Release the righteous fighters!”
Several waved giant colonial-era flags – which include the British union flag – while others held
blue flags emblazoned with “HK Independence”.
“I am here to support the young people. It is our fault that we hadn’t spoken out earlier to fight
for more freedoms so the task is upon the young now. And they’re so desperate and
despondent,” said 68-year-old Mary, referring to last Monday’s storming of the legislature
building.
Hong Kong’s authorities appeared nervous that Sunday’s march might turn violent. Police
erected giant water-filled barricades to lock down the areas around the West Kowloon railway
terminus, where the march was supposed to end, in anticipation of large numbers of
protesters. They also closed and diverted several roads in the area. The railway company
suspended sales of tickets for high-speed trains to and from the terminus on Sunday
afternoon.
Organisers used loudhailers to urge protesters to remain peaceful during the rally, which had
been sanctioned by the police.
Unlike other recent protests, which took place on Hong Kong island where the government
headquarters and the legislature are located, the protest on Sunday took place on the Kowloon
peninsula.
The march started at a park by the harbour front at Tsim Sha Tsui, an area popular with
tourists, and was planned to finish at the West Kowloon railway terminus, where high-speed
trains link Hong Kong with mainland Chinese cities.
Organisers said online that the march was aimed at telling mainland Chinese visitors arriving
at the train station or people travelling to China why they were protesting about the extradition
bill.
Emotions have been running high in Hong Kong over the past month during its biggest political
crisis in decades. Millions of people have thronged the streets to protest against a proposed
law allowing for the extradition of individuals to mainland China, where courts are controlled by
the Communist party.
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has apologised for the crisis, but protesters have demanded
that the government fully withdraw the bill and release all those arrested in previous protests.
They also want the government to launch an independent investigation into the police’s use of
force on 12 June, when teargas, rubber bullets and truncheons were used on largely peaceful
crowds.
Tensions erupted on Monday, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s 1997 return from British to
Chinese rule, when hundreds of angry protesters stormed and vandalised the legislature.
Police fired teargas after midnight to disperse them.
Protesters on Sunday said even though police had started arresting people involved in earlier
protests, it would not dampen their resolve. “We will keep coming out until the government
respond to us. If they keep ignoring us, people can only escalate their fight,” said a young
woman who gave her name as Mimi.
Barcelona mayor promises crackdown on cruise ships
Ada Colau will also oppose airport expansion to curb tourism and pollution
Barcelona’s mayor, Ada Colau, has pledged to restrict the number of cruise ships allowed to
dock in the city and to oppose the expansion of the city’s airport, saying: “We don’t have
infinite capacity.”
Colau said the limits would reduce pollution in the city, where air quality regularly exceeds
World Health Organization limits for nitrogen oxide and PM10 particulates.
Restrictions would also help reduce the number of visitors to the city. Dealing with what most
of its citizens see as an excess of tourists is high on the Barcelona city council’s agenda.
In a survey last year tourism was cited as one of the city’s biggest problems, second only to
the lack of affordable housing, which is itself exacerbated by the rapid spread of tourist
apartments.
Next Wednesday the city will declare a climate emergency in the city and will roll out plans to
extend low emission zones – similar to the one that has just been lifted in Madrid – and a ban
on the most polluting vehicles entering the city except the ring roads.
“In Barcelona we want to act on all fronts,” Colau said, speaking after a visit to the Greenpeace
ship Rainbow Warrior, which docked in the city. This would include reducing plastic use, better
recycling, reducing speed limits and increasing car-free zones, in particular near schools.
Neighbourhood associations and environmental groups have campaigned for years to curb the
number of cruise ships that visit the city. Last year more than 2.5 million people disembarked
from cruises in the city, now Europe’s busiest cruise destination. Opponents argue that they
contribute little, spending on average only €57 each during their brief visit while significantly
adding to the problem of overcrowding.
Gala Pin, a councillor in Colau’s last administration, raised eyebrows when she compared
cruise passengers to “a plague of locusts” who devour the public space and then leave.
Last month, in a report published by a Brussels-based NGO, Barcelona topped the list of 50
European ports for the amount of pollution produced by cruise ships.
The problem Colau faces is that she doesn’t have authority over either the port or the airport,
which last year handled more than 50 million passengers, a 6% increase on 2017. The airports
authority has already approved an €18m terminal extension to cope with growing numbers of
passengers.
The ports are run by central government while Spanish airports are managed by a public-
private company in which the government has a 51% stake.
However, as Colau is governing Barcelona in coalition with the socialists, who are expected to
form the new national government, she may feel she has some leverage in Madrid.
Authorities predict an increase in the number of tourists visiting Spain this year. The country
received 82 million visitors in 2018, almost twice the population, with Catalonia – of which
Barcelona is the capital – receiving the biggest share.
Faith and freedoms: why evangelicals profess unwavering love for Trump
The faithful have been ardent supporters who turn a blind eye to the president’s moral
indiscretions in favor of agenda
When Donald Trump took the stage last month at a mega-conference for the Faith and
Freedom Coalition, the country’s largest organization of evangelical Christians, he was granted
an extraordinary welcome by the group’s chairman, Ralph Reed.
“We have had some great leaders,” Reed said, to cheers. “There has never been anyone who
has defended us and fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J Trump. We have
seen his heart and he is everything he promised he would be, and more.”
Real estate billionaire playboy Donald Trump: the most beloved political leader in the history of
American Christianity?
For skeptics who see Trump as afflicting society’s most vulnerable – immigrants, refugees, the
homeless, racial and religious minorities, single parents, struggling wage-earners – his
popularity on the religious right is baffling, a seeming illustration of the hypocrisy at the core of
America’s evangelical movement. A minority of evangelicals themselves express alarmat
Trump’s appeal in their pews.
But none contests the ardor of the evangelical embrace of Trump. When the Trump re-election
campaign last week leaked details of its plan to supercharge evangelical support for Trump in
2020, there seemed little reason to suspect the effort would fail.
White evangelical America made up one of the most important voting blocs behind Trump in
2016, said Robert P Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)
and author of The End of White Christian America.
“They made up 26% of voters in the last presidential election and they voted 81% for Trump,”
Jones said. “We’ve been tracking his favorability rating among evangelicals since before the
election, and it has been remarkably steady.”

Evangelicals feel Trump has kept his covenant with them by nominating conservative judges to
federal courts and to the supreme court; by tacitly supporting abortion bans; by supporting
Christian universities and organizations that profess a moral objection to same-sex marriage or
contraception; by supporting religious dispensations from anti-discrimination laws; by moving
the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and other measures.
Meanwhile, Trump has addressed a central concern for white evangelicals that they are losing
influence as a group and that the sun is setting on the United States they dream of – a nation
that is white and Christian in its majority and in its essence.
“They’ll look away from the moral indiscretion in order to get their political agenda in place…
they want to reclaim, renew, restore what they believe was a Christian culture, a Christian
America that has been lost,” said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College in
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and the author of Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald
Trump.
Trump’s perceived delivery on that dream overwhelms qualms that many religious voters might
have about sexual assault allegations against Trump, or about his multiple marriages or
worship of mammon, Fea said.
“They don’t see this at all as hypocrisy,” Fea said. “They believe that Trump is appointed by
God for a moment such as this. They believe that God uses corrupt people – there are
examples in the Bible of this, so they’ll call upon these verses.
“They truly believe that ‘God works in mysterious ways. He uses even someone like Donald
Trump to accomplish His will.’”
But some evangelicals go further. They no longer even see such a conflict because they
believe Trump is no longer a corrupt person, because he has had a kind of spiritual awakening
since running for president.
“Donald Trump has changed,” said retiree Nancy Allen, who attends a large Baptist church in
North Carolina and wrote Electing the People’s President, Donald Trump. “I believe that with
all my heart. He has changed. He hasn’t had any more affairs. Now he’s not perfect, but
there’s no perfect person.
“We know that there has been a change in his heart, and he respects our beliefs and values.
And I believe he has some of the same beliefs and values.”
Support among white evangelicals for Trump has shown extreme durability through the most
controversial moments of his presidency, said Jones.
“I think that’s the remarkable thing, is that if there’s a controversy – whether it’s another person
accusing him of sexual assault, whether it’s these heartbreaking images of kids at the border
being separated from their parents and held in horrific conditions, whether it’s any of the other
kinds of controversies that we’ve seen – none of them has shaken white evangelical support
for the president.”
The Trump blueprint to hold evangelical voters in 2020, a campaign adviser told Axios, is to
paint him “as a champion of socially conservative issues and warn evangelical voters that his
defeat could destroy the progress he’s made”.
Then the evangelical leaders who have been some of Trump’s most ardent surrogates –
Reed, Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Jerry Falwell, Jr and Paula White – will encourage
their flocks to vote and bring fellow congregants along.
In the background is the question of just how strong a voting bloc white evangelicals will be
next year. While they have declined in their share of the overall population from 23% in 2004 to
15% in 2018, said Jones, they have not declined in their share of the electorate because they
are among the country’s most reliable voters.
“So even as they’re shrinking, they have maintained their importance at the ballot box,
basically by turning out at higher and higher rates relative to other Americans,” Jones said.
In his speech to the Faith and Freedom crowd, Trump warned the faithful not to grow
complacent.
“You have to go out and vote,” he told them.
Megan Rapinoe attacks Fifa over World Cup schedule clash and prize money
‘Unbelievable’ Copa América and Gold Cup conclude on Sunday
• USA star criticises women’s prize pot of $30m vs men’s $400m
Megan Rapinoe has launched a scathing attack on Fifa, accusing the game’s governing body
of “disrespecting” the women’s game by scheduling the South and North American
confederation men’s finals to take place on the same day as Sunday’s Women’s World Cup
final between the USA and the Netherlands.
“It’s terrible scheduling, don’t you guys feel disrespected?” said the US co-captain. “It is a
terrible idea to put all three on the same day in every way. There are two other finals going on
but this is the World Cup final, ‘cancel everything day’. I don’t know how that happened and I
heard somewhere they just didn’t think about it, which is the problem. When the World Cup is
set so far in advance it’s unbelievable. We don’t feel the same level of respect that Fifa has for
the men or just in general – but good to hear about investment, they should probably double
it.”
In a statement a Fifa spokesperson said: “The scheduling of the different events has gone
through a comprehensive consultancy process that has involved all key stakeholders and
taken into account different aspects of both the women’s and men’s international match
calendars. Fifa and the confederations have discussed the respective match schedules in
general to minimise any potential timing clashes.”
It is rare for current players to criticise football’s governing body, even more so on the eve of
one of the biggest games of their careers. Yet Rapinoe is different. She has been a voice for
equality and social justice for years, from taking a knee in support of Colin Kaepernick to
supporting LGBT rights organisations and raising money for her Redding hometown when it
was devastated by wildfires.
In this tournament her public spat with Donald Trump, after footage emerged of her saying “I’m
not going to the fucking White House”, has made headlines across the world, but she has done
her talking on the pitch too with four goals in two games. The decision to use her platform on
the eve of the World Cup final is a bold one, challenging the powers that be like never before.
Brazil face Peru in the Copa América final and Mexico play USA in the Gold Cup final.
On Friday Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, said the organisation was doubling World Cup
prize money to $60m, having doubled it from $15m before this World Cup. For the men’s
World Cup in 2018, the pot was $400m.
Rapinoe, though, who expects to be fit for the final having missed the USA’s 2-1 semi-final win
over England, believes it does not go far enough. “It’s certainly not fair,” she said. “Double it
now and use that number to double it or quadruple it for the next time.
“That is what I mean when we talk about whether we feel respected. Earlier in the year, I read
Fifa doesn’t care about the women’s game. If you really care about the game in the same way,
why are you letting the gap grow?
“We’re not asking for $450m for lots of different reasons. The men’s game is far more
advanced financially than the women’s game but if you are letting the gap grow and scheduling
three finals [on the same day] are you letting federations play two games in four years between
tournaments?
“No. We need attention and detail and the best minds in the women’s game helping it grow. It
is a very complex problem and thing to be a part of. Resources are there and brainpower is
there – it’s all there. It’s just wanting to do it and caring enough about it to make it happen.
“We are making a World Cup in Qatar happen, that’s how much they care about the men’s
World Cup after everything that is happening there.”
Rapinoe said she feels “like a kid in a candy store” before the reigning world champions take
on the European champions the Netherlands in Sunday’s final.
“This is the absolute best stage,” said the American forward, who has lit up proceedings on
and off the pitch in some style. “We have done a good job as the veteran group with young
players to allow everyone to experience this whole tournament to the fullest ups and downs.
“You can’t be a blank wall all the time that doesn’t exist as a human. We have dug in, looked
each other in the eye in hard moments to get to this final and it’s one more game.”
There has been a lot of debate over the swagger of the USA players around this World Cup;
the term “arrogant” has been used. But it is more well-placed confidence, tinged with a note of
playfulness. There was some criticism of Alex Morgan’s teacup celebration against England.
Rapinoe rather describes it as a “lightness about us that people take as aloof or thinking we
are too good or whatever”.
“But so much of that is because what we have to shoulder all of the time is heavy,” she said in
reference to the pay dispute with US Soccer, and the social responsibilities the team feel.
“There’s no secret we are leaders in lots of different issues: equality, pay. We are open and
willing to get in any equality fight so when we get the chance to play and showcase our skill set
and be free on the field, we work hard and play hard.
“We think the game should be played with exuberance. The point is to score a goal. I get on to
my teammates and say you have got to pick your game up [celebrating goals] as that is the
whole point.
“That dynamic is playing a lot. We have to take on a lot off the field, so when a World Cup
comes every four years – some players might only play in one, you are lucky if you are in
multiple – this is the most incredible stage you could ever be on as a football player. We are
going to enjoy it whatever happens.”
Watching her young teammates has also got the 34-year-old veteran emotional. “They brought
me to tears,” she said. “The highlight for me being old as a captain is seeing younger players
rise. [Rose] Lavelle absolutely balling out, Sam [Mewis], Lindsey [Horan], [Christen] Press
scoring a goal and having a celebration after all she has gone through this year is just
absolutely incredible. Every game there is another special moment.
“I always feel like we can win. We have that blind confidence in ourselves always, whether it is
in a four v four game or a sprint test or a World Cup final, we always have that mindset. We
are here to win the game in front of us.”