By Jack Kim and Tony Munroe | SEOUL SEOUL North Korea said on Sunday it can test launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time from any location set by leader Kim Jong Un, saying the United States’ hostile policy was to blame for its arms development. Kim said on Jan. 1 that his nuclear-capable country was close to test-launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). (Full Story) […]
President-elect Donald Trump accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia engaged in cyberattacks aimed at disrupting the U.S. elections, his incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus said on Sunday, adding that “actions may be taken” in response. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Priebus said Trump “accepts the fact that in this particular case it was entities in Russia” that were behind the intrusions into the Democratic […]
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. Even when it comes to brutality, little is left to the media imagination these days. The latest example of the decline in consensus about the acceptable involves the Facebook video of a mentally disabled Chicago man who was attacked and […]
Russia has demanded Apple and Google to take down the app of LinkedIn, the professional social networking website that was blocked in the country last year, from local app stores. The move mirrors China’s request for Apple to remove apps by The New York Times from the country’s App Store. LinkedIn Taken Down From App Stores In Russia Smartphones users in Russia, whether they are using iOS or Android […]
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally approved cyber attacks aimed at interfering with last year’s presidential election motivated by “a clear preference” for Donald Trump, according to a newly declassified report by the US intelligence community. “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,” the report concluded. “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate […]
By Roberta Rampton | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Barack Obama said on Friday that criticism from the left wing of his own Democratic Party helped feed into the unpopularity of Obamacare, his signature healthcare reform law. Obama has been spending part of his last two weeks in office urging supporters to speak out against plans by Republicans – who will soon control both the White House and Congress […]
WASHINGTON Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered “an influence campaign” in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election with the goal of undermining the democratic process and denigrating Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, a new, declassified intelligence report said on Friday. “We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the report said. “We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to […]
A round-up of major happenings in Pakistan in the last week. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Credit: PTI Panama Papers investigation After weeks of acrimony, the first day in office for new Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar was an unusually harmonious one, with all parties hailing the constitution of a new bench for the Panama Papers hearings that will resume on January 4. Nisar excluded himself from […]
In recent months, in delivering lectures on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and holding audience discussions, I have asked hundreds of people across Israel a hypothetical question: Assuming that Sergeant Azaria had stuck to his original story and admitted that he knew that the man lying on the ground presented no danger to anyone, but he had nevertheless decided to put a bullet in his head, should he be […]
By Richard Balmforth | PARIS PARIS France’s far-right leader fired broadsides at the European Union and the euro currency on Friday, marking out Europe as a major plank in her programme as the battle lines took shape in the campaign for the presidential election in spring. Marine Le Pen, head of the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front (FN) and seen by pollsters as highly likely to make a […]
When Donald Trump comes to Washington on January 20, his YouTube supporters Diamond and Silk will be travelling to the capital with him. Then, they will turn round and go home. Over the course of the tycoon’s campaign, Diamond and Silk served as two of the president-elect’s biggest surrogates to the African-American community, talking him up on their hit video blogs, speaking alongside him at rallies and […]
A prominent Republican lawmaker is taking another shot at tightening U.S. rules for high-skilled worker visas ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president later this month. Rep. Darrell Issa, one of the highest-profile Republicans in Congress and a supporter of Mr. Trump, said Wednesday in a statement on his website that he is reintroducing a bill designed to “stop the outsourcing of American jobs” and ensure laws are not […]
By Mark Hosenball and Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON There is disagreement within President-elect Donald Trump’s camp about the structure of the top U.S. intelligence agency when he takes office and it is unclear whether his national security adviser will prevail in advocating a reorganization, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday. At issue is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which Congress […]
By Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Senate Democrats on Thursday demanded an ethics probe into Tom Price, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. health secretary, following a report that the fierce Obamacare critic traded in healthcare company stocks while pushing legislation in Congress that could affect those shares. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and others made their comments as congressional Republicans moved ahead with […]
By Dustin Volz and Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The top U.S. intelligence official told Congress on Thursday he was “even more resolute” in his belief that Russia staged cyber attacks on Democrats in the 2016 election campaign, rebuking persistent scepticism from Republican President-elect Donald Trump about whether Moscow was involved. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he had a very high level of confidence that […]
January 5, 2017 by: David J Lynch in Washington and Jessica Dye in New York Senator John McCain joined three top US intelligence officials on Thursday in blaming Russia for election-related cyber attacks which the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called an “unprecedented attack on our democracy”. At an extraordinary Senate hearing called to hear the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in November’s presidential […]
President-elect Donald Trump has begun nominating the people who he wants to represent U.S. interests abroad. But even Trump, who despite his “drain the swamp” mantra has been rewarding major campaign donors with prime positions in his cabinet, will find it difficult to match President Barack Obama’s legacy of sending top political patrons to the world’s poshest capital cities, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis. […]
Submitted by Finian Cunningham via Strategic-Culture.org, The dark, infamous days of American lynch-mob rule and burning witches at stakes are back as never before. But not in backwater enclaves of benighted bigotry. Oh no, the modern lynch mobs are running amok in Washington’s seat of government, across prime TV and on the editorial pages of its supposed finest newspapers. It is the effete, self-regarding ruling US elite […]
By David Brunnstrom and Arshad Mohammed | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON In three words of a tweet this week, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed North Korea would never test an intercontinental ballistic missile. “It won’t happen!” Trump wrote after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Sunday his nuclear-capable country was close to testing an ICBM of a kind that could someday hit the United States. Preventing such […]
WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday an intelligence briefing for him on allegations of Russian hacking of the U.S. election would be held on Friday. “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” Trump tweeted. Trump, who has cast doubt on U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia hacked Democratic Party computers, said over […]
By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The Republican-led U.S. Congress had a rough start to its first session of the Donald Trump era on Tuesday when a public outcry that included a dressing-down from the president-elect prompted the House of Representatives to backtrack on its plans to defang an ethics watchdog. It was supposed to have been a ceremonious beginning in which lawmakers set […]
WASHINGTON Republican U.S. Senator Mike Enzi introduced on Tuesday a resolution allowing for the repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance programme, which provides coverage to millions of Americans, Enzi’s office said in a statement. The move by the Senate’s budget committee chairman on the first day of the new Congress set in motion the Republican majority’s promise to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act, known […]
Via GEFIRA, The rule of law is often invoked by as a Western value that “populist” movements want to destroy, yet the establishment’s own governments have long suspended that very same rule of law when it comes to immigration. The most evident example of this is the immigration policy started by the Italian Letta government in 2013 and continued since then under the Renzi government. In October […]
Seven months after the leak of 11.5 million documents from a law firm in an incident that has come to be known as the “Panama Papers”, the world is right to ask what has been done since to fight global tax evasion and promote financial transparency. As president of Panama, and in particular through my interactions with the international community, it is clear that the affair shined […]
