By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said on Thursday that “nothing is off the table” in dealing with Iran following its test launch of a ballistic missile, and his fellow Republicans in Congress said they would back him up with new sanctions. Trump comment was in response to a question about whether he would consider military options to respond to Tehran, a day after […]
La Villette, a corrugated iron convention hall on the northern rim of Paris, was meant to be François Fillon’s launch pad towards the French presidency after winning the centre-right nomination in a landslide. But on Sunday he stood in the packed venue, days after claims emerged that the Republican candidate had allegedly employed his wife in a fake parliamentary job for years and, suddenly, victory seemed to […]
KINSHASA The death on Wednesday of Congo’s opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi leaves opponents of President Joseph Kabila seriously weakened in their bid to force Kabila to quit power after he defied constitutional term limits to stay on last year. Democratic Republic of Congo has never experienced a peaceful transition of power and Kabila’s refusal to stand down when his final term expired in December has raised fears […]
Targeting the weak The us-versus-them dynamic is “easy for many people to rally around,” said Jonathan D. Weiler, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina. Targeting feared or unpopular minorities is a way of “setting a boundary,” said Sheri E. Berman, a political scientist at Barnard College — a way to distinguish between “us” deserving of protection, and “them” who are a threat. Continue reading […]
WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate confirmed Rex Tillerson as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state on Wednesday, filling a key spot on the Republican’s national security team despite concerns about the former Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) chief executive officer’s ties to Russia. In the vote, 56 senators backed Tillerson, and 43 voted no. The tally was largely along party lines, with every Republican favouring Tillerson, along with four […]
Soon after two top Russian cyber crime officers vanished late last year, the rumours began to spread. One newspaper reported that Sergei Mikhailov, head of cyber security at the FSB, the KGB’s successor agency, was abruptly escorted from a meeting with a dark bag over his head. A far-right website suggested that Mr Mikhailov had been plotting to overthrow Russian president Vladimir Putin. In the past few […]
By Lawrence Hurley and Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Neil Gorsuch for a lifetime job on the U.S. Supreme Court, picking the 49-year-old federal appeals court judge to restore the court’s conservative majority and help shape rulings on divisive issues such as abortion, gun control, the death penalty and religious rights. The Colorado native faces a potentially contentious confirmation battle in […]
Photo Refugees at the Ja’adah camp in Iraq. Children who are most in need of assistance come from Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Children who are most in need of emergency international assistance come from five of the seven countries covered by President Trump’s order barring entry to the United States, according to a United Nations report. The […]
The great Trump reflation story, which points to strong equities, weak bonds and a highly valued dollar, is by now thoroughly entrenched in the minds of global investors. Not without reason. But when conviction is near-universal in markets it makes sense to ponder what investors might be missing. For my money the most likely flaw in this narrative relates to the cost of protectionist policies. There is […]
BEIJING China’s second aircraft carrier is “taking shape” after two years and nine months of construction, local media reported, a move likely to further unnerve Taiwan and other neighbours about Beijing’s growing military assertiveness. Construction of The Shandong, named after a province in China’s east coast, began in 2014, the APP of Shandong television and radio said in a report seen on Tuesday. The Shandong, China’s first […]
By Kevin Dougherty | QUEBEC CITY QUEBEC CITY The French-Canadian student charged in a shooting spree that killed six people at a Quebec City mosque was known in online circles as a supporter of far-right French politician Marine Le Pen and described by a former classmate as a “nerdy outcast.” Alexandre Bissonnette, 27, the sole suspect in Sunday night’s shooting, was charged on Monday with six counts […]
By Julia Edwards Ainsley | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. government has granted waivers to let 872 refugees into the country this week, despite President Donald Trump’s executive order on Friday temporarily banning entry of refugees from any country, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document seen by Reuters. A Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the waivers, noting that the refugees were […]
By John Walcott and Julia Edwards Ainsley | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON When Donald Trump’s administration put together its controversial executive order on immigration, it was Steve Bannon – the populist firebrand fast emerging as the president’s right-hand man – pushing a hard line. Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) interpreted the order to mean that lawful permanent residents – green card holders – who hailed […]
In what those with a flair for the dramatic might be allowed to call “mutiny”, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who is the current acting Attorney General, has given orders to the Justice Department not to defend Trump’s executive order. Her just released statement is below: On January 27, 2017, the President signed an Executive Order regarding immigrants and refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries. The order has […]
By Lisa Lambert | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON House Republicans were set on Monday to begin the process of killing five Obama-era rules on corruption, the environment, labour and guns under the first real test of a law intended to keep regulation in check. Republicans put as much urgency on limiting what they consider overregulation that stifles economic growth as they do on overhauling the tax code and dismantling […]
DUBAI // The future of thousands of young people from Muslim countries at universities and colleges in the United States has been thrown into doubt by Donald Trump’s travel ban. More than 16,000 students from the seven banned countries are affected by the president’s executive order: 11,338 from Iran, 1,727 from Iraq, 1,578 from Libya, 792 from Syria, 516 from Yemen, 233 from Sudan and 32 from […]
KINSHASA Two military helicopters crashed in a strife-torn part of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with at least four crew members on board, authorities said on Monday. Government spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters it was not clear what brought down the helicopters on Friday in North Kivu province near the borders with Rwanda and Uganda. Over the weekend, U.N.-sponsored Radio Okapi cited military sources as saying that […]
By Frank McGurty and Nathan Frandino | NEW YORK/WASHINGTON NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Tens of thousands of people rallied in U.S. cities and at airports on Sunday to voice outrage over President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting entry into the country for travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations. In New York, Washington and Boston, a second wave of demonstrations followed spontaneous rallies that broke out at U.S. airports on Saturday […]
By Doina Chiacu and Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump fought back on Sunday amid growing international criticism, outrage from civil rights activists and legal challenges over his abrupt order for a halt on arrivals of refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries. He and senior aides sought to defend the policy and play down the chaos sparked by Friday’s order. But confusion persisted […]
A day after protesters descended on John F Kennedy airport in New York and a judge stayed the executive order temporarily banning entry into the US for people from seven majority Muslim countries, a number of travellers were still being held in custody on Sunday. There were confused scenes at JFK airport, with immigration officials unclear on how the orders should be implemented, according to lawyers helping […]
By Holger Hansen and Andrea Shalal | BERLIN BERLIN Former European Parliament President Martin Schulz vowed on Sunday to shake up German elections and unseat Chancellor Angela Merkel with a campaign aimed at overcoming “deep divisions” that he said had fueled populism in Germany in recent years. Schulz, nominated to lead the Social Democratic Party (SPD), told over 1,000 people at its Berlin headquarters he would fight […]
By Maher Chmaytelli and Lin Noueihed | BAGHDAD/CAIRO BAGHDAD/CAIRO A global backlash against U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration curbs gathered pace on Sunday as several countries including long-standing American allies criticised the measures as discriminatory and divisive. Governments from London and Berlin to Jakarta and Tehran spoke out against Trump’s order to put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily ban travellers […]
BERLIN Germany made mistakes with an open-door policy that saw more than a million migrants enter Germany over the past two years, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble acknowledged on Sunday, but he said Berlin was trying to learn from those missteps. “We have tried to improve what got away from us in 2015,” Schaeuble told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. “We politicians are human; we also make mistakes. […]
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK President Donald Trump’s order to restrict people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States sparked confusion and anger on Saturday after immigrants and refugees were kept off flights and left stranded in airports. In his most sweeping decision since taking office a week ago, Trump, a Republican, put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred travelers from […]
