Trump administration sued over transgender military ban

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A sign is pictured with picketers outside the White House on Saturday "gay vet supporting trans rights"Image copyrightAFP
Image captionThe US President said transgender people should not serve in the military 'in an capacity'
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a legal challenge to US President Donald Trump's directive banning transgender service personnel.
The case was filed on behalf of six serving transgender members of the armed forces.
Mr Trump signed a memo to reinstate a ban on transgender people serving on Friday, after announcing it on Twitter last month.
The policy was lifted by Barack Obama's administration last year.
The ACLU argues that the ban is discriminatory and violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection.
It described the ban as "cruel" and being based on "myths and stereotypes" and a "desire to harm transgender people".
It was the second lawsuit announced on Monday, after a separate complaint was filed on behalf of LGBT groups and three other transgender individuals. Two sought to join the armed forces, and a third is already a serving member.
Between 4,000 and 10,000 US active-duty and reserve service members are believed to be transgender.
On a statement on the ACLU website, Joe Block, a senior staff lawyer for the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project said: "Each and every claim made by President Trump to justify this ban can be easily debunked by the conclusions drawn from the Department of Defence's own review process.
"Allowing men and women who are transgender to serve openly and providing them with necessary health care does nothing to harm military readiness or unit cohesion."
a protestor holds a Image copyrightAFP
Image captionLGBT activists have held a number of demonstrations against the military ban
One of the listed plaintiffs in the case has served in the US navy for 11 years, including a stint in Afghanistan.
She, like thousands of others, has been left in limbo after President Trump left Defence Secretary Jim Mattis to decide whether to retain existing transgender recruits.
The recruitment ban was justified on grounds of cost and the memo halts the use of government funds for sex-reassignment surgery for active personnel.
The justification was heavily criticised when it was revealed the US military spent ten times as much on erectile dysfunction medication as it does on transgender healthcare.

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Russia's controversial Crimea bridge gets giant arch

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Railway arch construction on Kerch bridgeImage copyrightMOST.LIFE
Image captionRailway arch: The controversial bridge is a statement of Russian political control
Russian engineers are installing a giant railway arch in the channel between Russia and Crimea, as a 19km (12-mile) road-rail bridge takes shape.
It is a flagship political project, as Russia claims Ukraine's Crimea peninsula - which it annexed in March 2014 - as its own territory.
It will take about a month to fix the arch, weighing 6,000 tonnes, to massive supports in the water.
The road section of the Kerch Strait bridge will also have a giant arch.
The project's official website (in Russian) - www.most.life - says the bridge should be completed by the end of next year, when the first cars will cross it. Then rail traffic will start crossing it in 2019.
The EU and US have ratcheted up sanctions on Russia since first imposing restrictions over the seizure of Crimea.
Western firms and politicians are banned from doing business with the Russian-installed Crimean government, or with Russian economic actors there.
Russia's Vesti TV news says the Kerch Strait bridge will be Russia's longest.
Map showing Crimea and Simferopol
The bridge will not impede shipping, the project website says, as it will stand 35m (115ft) above the water.
The four-lane highway is designed for a capacity of 40,000 vehicles per 24-hour period.
Russia sees the bridge as a key strategic tool for developing Crimea, more efficient than the current ferry service.
Crimea's land border with Ukraine is tense and heavily militarised, making cross-border deliveries slow and difficult.

Crimean Tatars on trial

Ukraine and Western governments accuse Russia of crushing political opposition in Crimea, whose leadership is solidly loyal to President Vladimir Putin. Ethnic Russians are the majority group in Crimea, which used to be part of imperial Russia.
In April 2016 the Crimean Tatars' Mejlis - an assembly representing the ethnic group's interests - was banned by Russia as an "extremist" organisation.
Ruslan Zeytullayev, a Crimean Tatar activist serving a 15-year jail term in Russia's southern city of Rostov, has sent an open letter to the UN, urging international pressure on Russia to get "political" prisoners released. A month ago he went on an indefinite hunger strike.
Russia found him and three other Crimean Tatars guilty of membership in a "terrorist" group - Hizb ut-Tahrir - and jailed them all.
The group is not listed as "terrorist" in Ukraine. Amnesty International said the case raised "numerous fair trial concerns" - notably, several prosecution witnesses had retracted their pre-trial statements.
A leading Crimean Tatar activist and deputy head of the Mejlis, Akhtem Chiygoz, is expected to be sentenced by a Russian court on 11 September. He is accused of organising "mass disturbances" during a pro-Ukrainian rally in 2014 before Russia's annexation of Crimea.

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