JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A massive cleanup effort is getting underway in Alaska, with tons of marine debris — some likely sent to sea by the 2011 tsunami in Japan — set to be airlifted from rocky beaches and taken by barge for recycling and disposal in the Pacific Northwest.

Hundreds of heavy-duty bags of debris, collected in 2013 and 2014 and stockpiled at a storage site in Kodiak, also will be shipped out. The barge is scheduled to arrive in Kodiak by Thursday, before setting off on a roughly one-month venture.

The scope of the project, a year in the making, is virtually unheard of in Alaska. It was spurred, in part, by the mass of material that's washed ashore — things like buoys, fishing lines, plastics and fuel drums — and the high cost of shuttling small boatloads of debris from remote sites to port, said Chris Pallister, president of the cleanup organization Gulf of Alaska Keeper, which is coordinating the effort.

The Anchorage landfill also began requiring that fishing nets and lines — common debris items — to be chopped up, a task called impossible by state tsunami marine debris coordinator Janna Stewart.

Pallister estimates the cost of the barge project at up to $1.3 million, with the state contributing $900,000 from its share of the $5 million that Japan provided for parts of the U.S. affected by tsunami debris. Crews in British Columbia will be able to add debris to the barge as it passes through, chipping in if they do. Pallister's group has committed $100,000. Delays due to weather could drive up costs, which Pallister said is a concern.

The cost to operate the barge is $17,000 a day, Stewart said.

View gallery

ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY, JULY 12 AND THEREAFTER - In this undated photo provided by the Alaska Department …

Many of the project sites are remote and rugged. Crews working at sites like Kayak and Montague islands in Prince William Sound, for example, get there by boat and sleep onboard. The need to keep moving down the shoreline as cleanup progresses, combined with terrain littered with boulders and logs, makes it tough to set up a camp, Pallister said. There's also the issue of bears.

While relatively few people visit these sites, it's important to clean them, Stewart said. Foam disintegrates, which can seep into salmon streams or be ingested by birds, she said. There's concern, too, with the impact of broken-down plastic on marine life.

What's not picked up can get swept back out, she said.

"It's like it never really goes away unless we get in there and actively remove it," Stewart said.

Alaska has more coastline than any other state. And Alaska cleanup operations often are expensive and dangerous, said Nikolai Maximenko, a senior researcher at the Hawaii-based International Pacific Research Center.

View gallery

In this undated photo provided by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, debris washes …

"Even without the tsunami, Alaska is well-known for being polluted with all these buoys and other stuff from fisheries activity and from other human activities," he said.

It can be hard to definitively distinguish tsunami debris from the run-of-the-mill rubbish that has long fouled shorelines unless there are identifiable markings. But Pallister and others say the type and volume of debris that has washed up in Alaska is different since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which killed thousands in Japan.

Before the tsunami, a lot of old fishing gear would be on the beach. But afterward, the debris included an inundation of Styrofoam and urethane, Pallister said. Objects such as property stakes and crates used by fishermen in coastal Japan also have begun showing up, he said.

Crews plan to do cleanup work in the Gulf of Alaska this summer, which will add to the material that has already been cached in heavy-duty bags above the high-tide line. All this would be loaded onto the barge.

The logistics are complicated.

Dump trucks are expected to ferry the large white bags of debris from the Kodiak storage yard to the barge after it arrives. Tom Pogson with the Island Trails Network, which worked on the Kodiak-area debris removal, said that will be the easy part.

In other locations, the bags will be airlifted by helicopter to the barge, which Pallister expects will be "pretty maxxed out" when the barge, roughly the size of a football field, is fully loaded.

Debris will be sorted for recycling in Seattle, with the remaining debris taken by train for disposal in Oregon, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The jury may be out permanently on the old question of if money can buy happiness, but that hasn’t stopped wealthy Chinese families from trying. There is a growing trend among China’s richest to use their wealth to move themselves and their families abroad. This is done primarily in the form of investment visas.

On the flip side, a number of countries are opening the doors to the estimated 1 million Chinese millionaires … provided they bring their money with them. It’s something of a bidding war in reverse, for which Australia wins the prize:

Other countries are not nearly so greedy, although the different terms on offer make the price of a visa difficult to compare.

The U.S., for example, will take just $1 million for a green card, offering residence. That’s for an investment that generates 10 jobs for at least two years, although under the so-called EB-5 program, investment in a public development project can be a less-risky substitute. This figure halves if the investment is in a rural area or in an industry suffering from high employment.

Terms from other countries vary:

None of these visas are restricted to Chinese nationals. However, China’s the place to find nouveau riche these days, and since being introduced, the programs have all been dominated by potential investors from the Middle Kingdom who want out. Chinese citizens made up eight of 10 investor visas issued by the U.S. State Department last year. George Osborne, the British chancellor of the exchequer, declared that the U.K. would focus on making it easier for Chinese investors to enter the country.

Canada is going in the opposite direction. It canceled its investment visa earlier this year after the process became overrun by Chinese applicants. It was one of the cheapest routes out of China. The Canadian government said the program significantly undervalued Canadian permanent residency. It also provoked local resentment, as wealthy immigrants bid up property prices in places like Vancouver.

Chinese parents are concerned about raising kids in an environment with filthy air and a critical lack of clean water.

What’s in it for Chinese? Foreign markets rebounding from recession can sometimes provide profitable opportunities. They boast an investment environment free from corruption, patronage and government control, at least relative to China.

But realistically, economic opportunities do not top the list for many émigrés. China’s not an easy place to live. Wealthy Chinese parents are becoming increasingly concerned about raising kids in an environment with filthy air, not to mention a critical lack of clean water and constant food and beverage safety scandals.

Calculating prospective parents can also use the visas as a means to obtain foreign nationality for their children, if they’re born abroad. Later, if those children return to China with a foreign passport, they’ll be able to attend international schools, which are off-limits to Chinese nationals. It’s also easier for them to travel and attend university abroad. Unscrupulous businessmen may be looking to escape China with their wealth intact before the government’s current anti-corruption campaign catches up with them.

It all sounds a bit mercantile. But if it’s not happiness they’re buying, sounds like they’re still getting a lot for their money.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Islamic State group released an online audio clip Monday they claim came from the leader of an Afghan affiliate that authorities there say was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

The Associated Press could not identify the man speaking in the clip as Hafeez Sayeed, whom Afghanistan said died Friday in an airstrike in Nangahar province that killed more than 30 militants. The U.S. has said it conducted an airstrike there Friday, without elaborating.

Abdul Hassib Sediqi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, said Saturday that the strike killed Sayeed. Sediqi offered no photographs or other evidence, though he said Afghan authorities verified a corpse from Friday's strike was Sayeed.

Friday's strike comes after Afghan officials earlier said another U.S. airstrike killed the affiliate's second-highest official, Gul Zaman, and six others, including a former Pakistani Taliban spokesman named Shahidullah Shahid who earlier had joined the group.

In the audio, which was posted on known militant websites, a man speaking Pashtun calls on listeners to join the Islamic State group. The man also criticizes the Taliban.

The audio included no time stamps to date it. The Islamic State group's al-Bayan radio identified the man Monday as Sayeed, without elaborating. Sayeed is not well-known in Afghanistan.

Disenchanted extremists from the Taliban and other organizations, impressed by the Islamic State group's territorial gains in Syria and Iraq and its slick online propaganda, began raising its black flag in extremist-dominated areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent months.

___

Youssef reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

Top ISIS Leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan Killed: Reports (video)

For more than four years, the Assad regime in Syria has resisted its people's cry to be freed from dictatorship.

During the last several weeks, the Assad regime has shown signs of vulnerability punctuated by a weakened relationship with Iran. Iranian advisers who had supported Assad for years are now consumed with supporting the Iraqi government in its war against ISIS and the Houthis in Yemen in their war against a Saudi-led coalition of Arab nations. Iran's economy has been damaged severely after a decade of international sanctions and Iran cannot support the Syrian regime financially forever. Hezbollah, the best trained force fighting for the regime, has lost about a thousand of its best fighters in Syria, the very fighters desperately needed to fight ISIS and al-Qaeda in Lebanon.

For these reasons, Syrian government forces have suffered a series of defeats over the last weeks. The Assad regime now controls no more than 35 percent of the country, leaving the rest to ISIS, the Kurds and the other rebel groups like al-Nusra front. Allepo, Syria's largest city is almost surrounded completely by the rebels. The Syrian Kurds have increased the territories they control in the north to include most of the border areas with Turkey. Assad is also the de facto mayor of Damascus and the coastal areas. If this trend continues, which is likely to happen, the Syrian regime will probably fall by the end of this year. The two competing forces to occupy Damascus are ISIS and al-Nusra front.

Related: The Merger of ISIS and al-Qaeda Could Cripple the Civilized World

If either of these two terrorist organizations capture Damascus, the world will witness an unprecedented chain reaction. It would be the first time that al-Qaeda or ISIS controlled a national capital. “ISIS's strategic target is to control one of the historical capitals of the Islamic caliphates: Damascus, Baghdad or Samarra. These cities are very symbolic for its followers,” says Hisham al-Hashimi, an expert on ISIS and the author of the book, The World of ISIS.

A possible scenario for the aftermath of the fall of Damascus is the infighting between these two terror groups. If that happens or a new civil war breaks out, the region and the world would be spared an imminent and great danger. But if that infighting doesn’t take place, the world needs to prepare for continued genocides and years of terrorist acts across the continents. The Assads, who have ruled Syria since 1970, are Alawaites — a version of Shiite Islam and a faith that serves 12 percent of the Syrian people. With Russia's diplomatic aid and arms, Iran's economic and military advice, Lebanese Hezbollah and other Shiite Iraqi and Afghan fighters and the use of chemical weapons against its own people, the Assad regime has prevailed. Until now.

After the fall of the Assad regime, the Syrian people's different ethnic and sectarian components would cause the society to fray further. “Imagine that you wake up one day to find out that the ruling party in Damascus is no longer the Arab Baath Socialist Party; it is al-Nusra front.... Imagine you wake up to hear that another caliph has appeared somewhere else.... I say to those who complain about what is going on in our region: you haven't seen anything yet. Civil wars don't end suddenly, unless there is a victory that left many massacred,” says Harith Hasan, a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University who is researching ethnic violence and identity in the Middle East.

View gallery

.

While Syria's Sunnis were the driving force of the Syrian rebels, the other 40 percent of the Syrian people supported the regime. They include Alawite, Christians, Druze, Kurds and others. There is no doubt that the Alawites will suffer the revenge of those whom they suppressed for a half century. “There is a very large revenge between the Sunnis and the Alawite after what the Alawite have done to the Sunnis, which includes killing, torture, displacement and raping of women....We think that Alawite is a sect that has left the religion of Allah and Islam,” said Abu Mohammed al-Julani, the leader of al-Nusra front in a rare TV interview. He added that Christians are supporting the regime.

Related: Why a Military Victory Over ISIS Is Wishful Thinking

Julani's remarks were supported by the massacre of at least 30 Druze by his fighters in Idlib last month. In Qalb Lawza, one of the Druze villages in Idlib, the al-Nusra Front earlier this year forced inhabitants to renounce their faith and accept Sunni Islam. Al-Nusra destroyed Druze shrines and made residents abide by their regulations, such as gender segregation. “These impositions have notbeen cancelled and remain in force to this day,” says Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

The very likely persecution of Syria's minorities under an extreme Sunni Islamic rule enforced by ISIS or al-Nusra front will result in millions of refugees and thousands of people killed, tortured and enslaved. With more than 60 million refugees already displaced by wars, millions more could cause the world relief system to collapse.

How the Dominoes May Fall

Israel: The fate of the Druze has been a main source of debate in Israel. Should Israel depart from its neutral stand regarding the Syrian civil war? Many Druze serving in the Israeli army are pushing for Israeli intervention in Syria to protect the Druze there. But Israel would have to deal for the first time in its history with a neighboring country in an official state of war to confront either al-Qaeda or ISIS or both. If those two groups do not fight each other, it is likely they would fight Israel to take back the Golan Heights that Israel occupied in the 1967 war with the Arabs.

Lebanon:

View gallery

.

But none of these groups was ever a serious challenger to the well-trained and armed Shiite group. Should the regime in Syria be toppled by ISIS and al-Nusra, Lebanon may face civil war similar to the conflicts in1975 and 1989. “The removal of the Assad regime

means the automatic removal of Hezbollah.... Hezbollah realizes that its battle with us [the Syrian rebels] is lost. But it is obligated to fight in this battle to the end to extend the reign of the regime that is supporting it,” added al-Julani.

Related: Yemen’s Civil War Forges Unholy Alliance Between al-Qaeda and ISIS

Iraq: The other country that will suffer the consequences of the fall of the Assad regime is Iraq. With a Sunni-ruled Syria, ISIS and the other Sunni militant groups in Iraq will be encouraged and supported by Syria, which would prolong the civil war in Iraq.

Turkey and Jordan: Turkey will be tempted to interfere in Syria as well. The fall of the Assad regime would make the partial autonomy that the Syrian Kurds now enjoy more feasible. The Turkish leadership has never been happy with the gains of the Iraqi and the Syrian Kurds because it feared that these gains would make its own Kurds bolder in their demands for self-rule. Because of this, Turkey has viewed ISIS as the lesser of two evils. It has considered establishing a security zone on the border with Syria to support the Syrian rebels and to curb Kurdish ambitions of independence.

Until now, Turkey's blind eye toward al-Qaeda and ISIS has kept the terror groups from mobilizing the grassroots in Turkey. Yet, a change in official policy would likely mean that the groups would target Turkey as a new recruiting field. The same would likely apply in Jordan.

Related: Why America’s War with ISIS Will Take Years

Global Terrorism: The most alarming reaction to the fall of Damascus to ISIS would be a shockwave of multiple terrorist plots all over the world. Last month, we passed the one-year anniversary of the capture of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city. In that time, ISIS has dominated its mother organization, al-Qaeda, and secured the allegiance of more than 60 worldwide terror organizations.

This organizational change has transformed the local Syrian militia into a terrorist network with a record of attacks in Texas, Paris, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameron, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait and Afghanistan. ISIS is engaged in ground wars with the governments of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Cameron, Niger and Chad and is subjected to air raids by a U.S.-led coalition that includes 60 nations. Despite this, ISIS achieved another strategic victory when it captured the city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's largest province last May.

This record of attacks and plots will become a minor issue if and when ISIS captures Damascus. ISIS operatives and plots will multiply. If ISIS counts tens of thousands of members now, it soon would reach hundreds of thousands. Instead of uploading one propaganda video daily and tweets that reach tens of thousands of Twitter followers, it could increase its reach tenfold.

The Myth That’s Compelling ISIS
Like several other religions, many Muslims believe in an end of time scenario that involves the emergence of a redeemer called al-Mahdi who will rule the world for seven to 19 years and fill it with justice after it was filled with injustice. Al-Mahdi — Arabic for “the guided one” — was never mentioned in the Quran, but some claim that the prophet Mohammed prophesied about him. While many Sunnis — who make up to 85 percent of Muslims — believe that al-Mahdi hasn't been born yet, most Shiites believe that al-Mahdi is the 12th Imam and the descendent of the prophet Mohammed who disappeared in Iraq in 874 A.D.

Related: U.S. Shoots Itself in the Foot by Accidentally Arming ISIS

It is believed that his emergence, or re-emergence, will be the final chapter before the end of time and judgment day. With some oversimplification, the story suggests that al-Mahdi will lead the camp of the righteous against the camp of evil. Jesus — whose soul Muslims believe was saved by God before the crucifixion — will descend from the sky to Damascus and declare his allegiance to al-Mahdi.

View gallery

.

Against the army led by al-Mahdi and Jesus, the camp of evil will have two leaders. A tyrant appears in Damascus called al-Sufyani and an equivalent of the Christian Antichrist called “the one-eyed deceiver” appears in the border area between Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan. Al-Mahdi will appear in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. A war will start that involves the capture of Istanbul and a final battle in a place called Dabiq in northern Syria. ISIS and al-Qaeda believe fully in this final battle. ISIS has chosen the name Dabiq for its online magazine. Al-Mahdi soldiers will be tall, with long black hair and beards, dressed in black and carry the prophet’s black banner, the rationale for ISIS's and al-Qaeda’s choice of these figures in their propaganda videos.

“After the battle of Damascus, I expect that the rhetoric of the caliphate state addressed to the Sunnis of the world will shift from the sectarian provocation to the al-Mahdism narrative...this shift will capture a large part of the attention and the imagination of a Middle East that is so easy to persuade with conspiracy theories and fantasies.... Both the Sunni and Shiite common audiences are prepared to receive these Mahdisim calls...accordingly, we will witness a surge of madness that may last for a period of time and may inflame a great war. These are desperate nations awaiting the magical salvation. They sit on excessive arms and munition and they stand on important international power and transportation lines. Someone will come and tell them -- hurry up and make a stand. The end of time has approached,” says Nibras al-Kadhimi, the fellow at Hudson Institute who is researching the Mahdi phenomenon.

A friend of al-Kadhimi’s on Facebook asked him, “anywhere to escape this madness?” Al-Kadhimi replied, “The south pole. It doesn’t show on the ISIS's world map of its five Dinar currency. See you there!”

Reuters Videos
Greeks fear cost of new deal

By George Georgiopoulos and Matthias Williams

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras flew back to Athens on Monday to try to ram a controversial bailout deal he secured from creditors through parliament, as anger mounted at more painful austerity measures that could fracture his government.

A sleep-deprived Tsipras has until Wednesday night to quell dissent within his own ranks -- probably by sacking hardliners -- and get unpopular measures passed that include higher value added tax and pension reforms.

With dozens of potential rebels in the ruling Syriza party, Tsipras will need the support of opposition lawmakers to pass the package, opening doubts over the stability of his government and raising the possibility that he could give way to a caretaker prime minister.

There were no details on when and how the reform laws would be tabled. One obstacle could be the speaker, Zoe Constantopoulou, who is key to the logistics of the voting and who has been one of the creditors' fiercest critics. One -- potentially risky -- move could be tabling a no confidence vote to sack her.

While there was relief that the country had escaped bankruptcy and a collapse of its banking system, Greeks vented their fury at an agreement that ended up much tougher than proposals they had roundly rejected in a referendum on July 5.

View gallery

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras speaks with the media after a meeting of eurozone heads of stat …

Before the final contours of the deal were even known, one of his ministers railed against the deal as being "unviable" and predicted there would be a snap election within months.

On the streets, reaction was equally blunt.

"Listen, it is some sort of victory but it is a pyrrhic victory because the measures are very strict," Marianna, 73, told Reuters on an Athens street.

"People have suffered the past five years and there is more to come now. This is what makes things difficult for us. We wanted to stay in Europe, it goes without saying that we did. But what about the terms?"

View gallery

A man walks past pictures of ancient coins in central Athens, Greece, July 13, 2015. Euro zone leade …

ANGER

Tsipras was meeting his aides and was due to meet the head of his coalition ally, who had declared certain tax hikes and defense spending cuts as so-called "red lines".

Their economy pummeled by years of recession, their banks shut and dozens of businesses closing daily, some Greeks vented their anger on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

Newspapers laced the morning's headlines with references to World War Two and railed against what they see as Berlin's attempts to humiliate Greece as punishment for its resistance to another round of cuts.

"Germany unfortunately for a third time in 100 years is attempting to destroy Europe," Nikos Filis, the parliamentary spokesman for Syriza lawmakers, said on local television.

View gallery

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, speaks with French President Francois Hollande, center, and G …

"Germany attempted to bring the Greek government down and take Greece outside the euro zone," he said. "We had the illusion that democracy works in Europe when it comes to relations between the nations."

In particular, Greeks bristled at Schaeuble's proposal -- not included in the final deal -- for a temporary Greek exit from the euro zone, which many saw as tantamount to expulsion by stealth.

"Greece in Auschwitz, Schaeuble seeking a holocaust in Europe," Demokratia newspaper said.

The German occupation of Greece during the war has become a recurring theme during months of increasingly fractious bailout talks between Athens and its creditors. Constantopoulou at one point demanded war reparations from Berlin and set up a committee calculating the current value of a loan Greece was forced to make to Germany during the occupation.

"Sink the country, Wolfgang Schaeuble orders," the left-leaning daily Efimerida Ton Syntakton said.

View gallery

Pensioners are given priority tickets by a National Bank branch manager (R), as they wait to receive …

REMAIN STUBBORN

Although the country might have pulled back from the brink of financial meltdown, Greeks will have to endure more pain. Capital controls that limit daily withdrawals from bank accounts to just 60 euros will likely to remain in place for some time, and the finance ministry said on Monday banks would remain shut.

"I'm disappointed," said Christina, 43, a private sector employee in Athens. "They (the government) were very dynamic at first. We had a glimmer of hope. We were prepared for something bad to happen and then the worst happened. This is what most people think."

Protesters will gather in central Athens on Monday evening to rally against the agreement, while a union of civil servants announced a 24-hour strike on the day the reforms would be voted on in parliament. Hardliners in the ruling Syriza party were also spoiling for a fight.

"After 17 hours of negotiations, the leaders of the euro zone concluded with an agreement that is humiliating for Greece and its people," the party's hard-left faction said in a statement on its website. "It is a new harsher bailout that re-establishes the troika and maintains the country under a status of a debt colony under German-led EU custody.

"The Greek people must not become disappointed, on the contrary it must remain stubborn, as it did in the referendum and the countrywide protests for a 'No' to the very end. A 'No' to clash with the bailout, neo-liberalism and austerity which are institutionalized in the euro zone."

(Additional reporting by Georgia Kalovyrna, Phoebe Fronista, James Mackenzie, Renee Maltezou, Michele Kambas and Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Philippa Fletcher)