BEIRUT The Syrian army and its allies made a sudden advance on Saturday and Sunday into areas held by Islamic State in northwest Syria, a war monitor said, as the jihadist group retreated after losing the city of al-Bab to Turkey-backed rebels on Thursday. The eastwards advance in an area south of al-Bab has extended Syrian army control across 14 villages and brought it within 25km (15 […]
Suppliers to Tesla and other electric carmakers are scrambling to secure shipments of the key battery material cobalt after a group of hedge funds amassed a large stockpile of the scarce metal. In a bold wager on higher prices, half a dozen funds, including Swiss-based Pala Investments and China’s Shanghai Chaos, have purchased and stored an estimated 6,000 tonnes of cobalt, worth as much as $280m, according […]
North Korea is evading international sanctions with a sophisticated network of overseas companies, enabled partly by its continued access to the international banking system, says a forthcoming United Nations report seen by Reuters. North Korea is under heavy U.N. sanctions and a strict arms embargo designed to impede the development of its banned nuclear and missile programmes. The U.N. panel of experts, which produced the 100-page draft […]
In a war in which the United States has sought to minimize its own military footprint, this militia has become the American military’s ally of choice in northern Syria and its best hope of taking Raqqa in the coming months. Continue reading the main story But the budding alliance has drawn the United States deeper into the complex politics of northern Syria and prompted furious objections from […]
By Emily Stephenson and Steve Holland | NATIONAL HARBOR, Md./WASHINGTON NATIONAL HARBOR, Md./WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said he would make a massive budget request for one of the “greatest military buildups in American history” on Friday in a feisty, campaign-style speech extolling robust nationalism to eager conservative activists. Trump used remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an organization that gave him one of his first […]
JERUSALEM — The Israeli government has denied a work visa to an investigator for Human Rights Watch, a prominent advocacy organization, accusing the group of engaging in “Palestinian propaganda.” Human Rights Watch, which has worked in Israel for three decades, denied the accusation, calling the visa rejection “part of a pattern” of actions by the right-wing government in the country to hinder the work of rights groups. […]
John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, will be a contributing columnist at The Washington Post, the newspaper announced today. “No one knows more about how Washington works, how the White House operates, and how policy ideas are translated into reality than John Podesta,” said Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt. “His long experience in Congress, inside two Democratic White Houses and on the front […]
The fundraising gulf over the DGA can be attributed in part to RGA support from a number of high-profile billionaires and millionaires, including hedge fund bosses Paul Singer and Kenneth Griffin, and shipping supply company owner Richard Uihlein. The largest donor to the RGA in 2016, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated more than the top six donors to the DGA combined. Many longtime […]
Many fear electronic voting machines can be hacked and tampered with. Image: iStock The hacking campaign around the US presidential election, cyberattacks against Ukrain’s power grid, and even the internet crippling Mirai botnet DDoS attack all demonstrate how cyberattacks have grown to threaten the very fabric of society itself, NATO has warned. Citing the impact of high profile incidents like these, Jamie Shea, deputy assistant secretary general […]
For the Arab world’s largest country, February 11, 2011, was the moment the 21st-century began. Hosni Mubarak, after decades in power, was finally pushed to step down after millions of people took the streets. Many things were born in Tahrir Square that day. Hope for the future. A new politics led by youth. A revolutionary current, as H A Hellyer puts in his new book A Revolution Undone. […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. A few months ago Vice founder Shane Smith fronted a superior Vice-HBO documentary, “A House Divided,” that detailed the issues, tactics and rancor that dominated Barack Obama’s relations with a Republican-dominated Congress. Now he sees “a perfect storm” that involves […]
SEOUL North Korea blamed Malaysia on Thursday for the death of one of its citizens there last week and accused it of an “unfriendly attitude” in a scenario drawn up by South Korea, which has said Pyongyang agents assassinated the North Korean leader’s half-brother. Malaysia had initially told North Korea that the person bearing a diplomatic passport had died after suffering a heart attack at Kuala Lumpur […]
Goldman Sachs, the last bank on Wall Street to handle significant physical volumes of oil and gas, has pushed back against a planned crackdown on combining finance with commodities trading. The institution warned the Federal Reserve to carefully weigh the effects on markets and companies as it sought to levy steep capital charges against a bank’s holdings of bulk materials. In its letter to the Fed dated […]
The military’s stance softened somewhat in 2015, when an army court ruled that veiled relatives of soldiers could enter military grounds. The army’s cultural shift was also reflected in last July’s failed coup attempt. The government claims that the putsch was organized by an Islamist faction within the military, an institution previously assumed to be staffed mainly by Kemalists — followers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder […]
Republican President Donald Trump’s administration was expected to revoke landmark guidelines issued to public schools in defense of transgender student rights, according to a draft document seen on Wednesday by Reuters. The draft reverses former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature initiative on transgender rights, which instructed public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms matching their gender identity. (Read the draft here: tmsnrt.rs/2kMAGAS) The draft […]
The White House on Tuesday signaled it was preparing to reverse a U.S. policy on transgender rights, raising concern among rights advocates that Republican President Donald Trump is about to revoke a signature initiative of his predecessor. Former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration issued guidance to public schools last May to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity, a move transgender people hailed as […]
By Tom Perry and John Davison | BEIRUT BEIRUT The U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance has crossed into Deir al-Zor province for the first time as part of an offensive against Islamic State, a Kurdish military source said on Tuesday. The advance into the province, most of which is under the control of the ultra-hardline group, is part of an operation to encircle and ultimately capture […]
ROME Michele Emiliano, the leftist president of the southern region of Puglia, said on Tuesday he would challenge former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for the leadership of Italy’s ruling Democratic Party (PD), which faces a damaging split. Emiliano, 57, made the announcement at a meeting of the PD’s executive where he launched a stinging attack on Renzi, who resigned as party leader on Sunday to pave the […]
Photo A session at the International Conference in Support of Palestinian Intifada in Tehran on Tuesday, where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, urged renewal of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, against Israel. Credit Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press TEHRAN — Everything was in place on Tuesday for a gala celebration at Iran’s annual conference in support of Palestine. Awaiting the hundreds of guests was a table piled high […]
Ann Ravel on Sunday fulfilled her promise to quit the Federal Election Commission by May. In doing so, Ravel — who directed her resignation letter at President Donald Trump and including unsolicited advice for new president — leaves behind an agency the outspoken Democratic commissioner says she at once considers “essential” to American democracy and as useful, in its current state, as “men’s nipples.” But Ravel tells […]
When I heard that Donald Trump had branded journalists as “an enemy of the American people,” I had a flashback. It was early in the 1980s, and I was running one of Poynter’s first seminars on media ethics. One evening, with popcorn served, we had a showing of a movie, starring Steve McQueen, called “An Enemy of the People.” No wonder the line was familiar. The movie […]
By Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./BRUSSELS WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./BRUSSELS U.S. President Donald Trump considered his options for a new national security adviser on Monday as his vice president, Mike Pence, said he had been disappointed by the actions of the man ousted from the job and supported his dismissal. Trump asked for Michael Flynn’s resignation on Feb. 13 after reports emerged […]
For President Trump, the designation debate is an election promise made good. He has made no bones about taking an approach to the Middle East that is narrowly focused on counterterrorism, and that plays to domestic supporters who view all Islamist movements — or even all Muslims — as potentially hostile. Continue reading the main story In much of the Middle East, though, the rapid pace and […]
Submitted by Greg Piper via The College Fix, “Affirmative consent” is a fuzzy concept even for adults, which is why one of them taught 10th graders in California that they must say “yes” every 10 minutes during sex or it becomes rape. The concept was enshrined in state law in October 2015, and since then California has remained the only state to legally require “yes means yes” […]
