By Andrew Osborn | MOSCOW MOSCOW The Kremlin says U.S. intelligence agency allegations it ran an influence campaign to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House are false. But if U.S. spies are right, Moscow may wish it hadn’t bothered to meddle in the first place. The belief, widely held in the West, that the Kremlin helped discredit Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by orchestrating embarrassing media […]
In a story that is getting more surreal by the minute, a post on 4Chan now claims that the infamous “golden showers” scene in the unverified 35-page dossier, allegedly compiled by a British intelligence officer, was a hoax and fabricated by a member of the chatboard as “fanfiction”, then sent to Rick Wilson, who proceeded to send it to the CIA, which then put it in their […]
As CNN reported on a private intelligence report claiming that Russia has dirt on President-elect Donald Trump Tuesday night, BuzzFeed published the basis of the report, a 35-page dossier, online. Both CNN and BuzzFeed pointed out that the documents have been circulating since at least October and that its claims are unverified. BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith explained his choice to publish the dossier in a memo to […]
Wednesday 08:30 GMT Overview European stocks and US index futures are lacking momentum, while government bond yields see minimal moves, as traders appear wary of making bold bets ahead of a press conference later in the day from US president-elect Donald Trump. The dollar is steady against the euro but the Turkish lira has hit another record low. Industrial commodity prices mostly are holding recent gains. Hot […]
By Linda Sieg | TOKYO TOKYO A South Korean political vacuum and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s concerns about his conservative political base have rekindled a feud over wartime history, just as tension over North Korea makes cooperation between the U.S. allies as vital as ever. The row over “comfort women”, as those forced to work in Japanese wartime military brothels are known, coincides with uncertainty over […]
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, The true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it. – Mark Twain, The Czar’s Soliloquy” At this point, pretty much everyone in America has seen the results of Hillary Clinton media pet, John Harwood’s recent Twitter poll. Who do you believe America? — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) January 6, […]
By Jonathan Landay and John Walcott | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Classified documents that the heads of four U.S. intelligence agencies presented last week to President-elect Donald Trump included claims that Russian intelligence operatives have compromising information about him, two U.S. officials said Tuesday evening. They told Reuters the claims, which one called “still unsubstantiated,” were contained in a two-page memo appended to a report on Russian interference in […]
BuzzFeed on Tuesday published a 35-page dossier that summarized damaging allegations about President-elect Donald Trump’s personal and financial dealings. By publishing the entire dossier, which has not been disclosed publicly by U.S. intelligence agencies, BuzzFeed has taken an unusual step. It’s uncommon for public-spirited news organizations to publish explosive, unverified information about public officials without first confirming the details independently. Complicating the situation is the origin of […]
By Jeff Mason | CHICAGO CHICAGO President Barack Obama will give a farewell speech to the nation on Tuesday night, looking back at his legacy as he encourages supporters demoralized by the election of Republican Donald Trump to feel optimism about the future of the country. The Democratic president is feeling some nostalgia as he prepares to leave the White House on Jan. 20 after eight years […]
In a dramatic example of blowback against the establishment in the post-Trumpian world, Hungary announced it plans to crack down on non-governmental organizations linked to billionaire George Soros now that Donald Trump will occupy the White House, according to the deputy head of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party, cited by Bloomberg. The European Union member, and native country of Soros, will use “all the tools at its […]
By Lisa Lambert and Emily Stephenson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday put renewed pressure on congressional Republicans working to repeal Obamacare, insisting that lawmakers pass a replacement for the healthcare law at the same time or soon after they vote to dismantle it. In an interview with the New York Times, Trump said he wanted a substitute for President Barack Obama’s healthcare law […]
By Shadia Nasralla | VIENNA VIENNA Iran decided not to escalate a stand-off over the extension of U.S. sanctions at a meeting of diplomats overseeing the nuclear deal it reached with world powers in 2015, senior Russian and Iranian diplomats said after the session on Tuesday. Tehran threatened last month to retaliate against a U.S. Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), saying it violated […]
By Julia Edwards Ainsley | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Donald Trump’s candidate for attorney general on Tuesday said he opposed banning Muslims from entering the United States and, taking a tougher stance than the president-elect, said waterboarding is torture and illegal. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, the nominee, responded to questions at a Senate confirmation hearing, the first in a series this week for nominees to serve in the Cabinet […]
The debate about “fake news” has gripped politics since the election of Donald Trump in November and has entered markets as investors spar over a “great rotation” from bonds into stocks. Long predicted by some analysts, expectations of a pronounced rotation out of low-yielding bonds and defensive share sectors into areas of the equity market that prosper from faster economic growth have been heightened by the prospect […]
For more evidence that central bank intervention in the foreign exchange market is increasingly becoming an exercise in futility – look no further than Mexico. The peso briefly sank to a fresh all time low against the dollar on Tuesday, dropping by as much as 1.1 per cent to MXN 21.6227, as concerns continue to mount over incoming US president Donald Trump’s trade rhetoric towards Mexico, report […]
As the Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing continues, Trump’s nominee for attorney general said that he would recuse himself from any potential future investigations or probes involving Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while working as secretary of state, as well as any questions about her family’s philanthropic foundation. Responding to senator Chuck Grassley if he could approach issues involving Trump’s presidential challenger impartially and objectively, […]
MEXICO CITY Mexico’s new Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said there is “no way” his country will pay for the wall that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to build on the United States’ southern border to keep out illegal immigrants. Speaking on Mexican television, Videgaray reiterated the government’s position that it would not pay for the wall, which has been a bone of contention between Trump and […]
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Senior U.S. Republican and Democratic senators will introduce legislation on Tuesday seeking to impose a wide range of sanctions on Russia over its cyber activities and actions in Syria and Ukraine. The legislation is sponsored by 10 senators – Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse and Rob Portman and Democrats Ben Cardin, Robert Menendez, Jeanne Shaheen, Amy Klobuchar […]
By Parisa Hafezi | ANKARA ANKARA The death of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani deprives Iran’s reformers of a powerful ally, boosting anti-Western hardliners before a presidential election which will determine how open Tehran is to the world. The loss of Rafsanjani’s skills as a factional powerbroker also means rivalries in Iran’s unwieldy dual system of clerical and republican rule could grow unchecked, testing the stability […]
Jeremy Corbyn has backed a cap on high earnings as a way to reduce income inequality, as the Labour leader makes a fresh pitch to UK voters. Mr Corbyn told the BBC on Tuesday: “I would like there to be some kind of high earnings cap, quite honestly.” The Labour leader described the UK as a bargain basement economy on the shores of Europe. “We have the […]
Good morning. Elites caught in a bubble? John Oliver and Meryl Streep bashed Donald Trump and praised journalism. Donations soared for two nonprofits praised by them: ProPublica and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Hip, hip, hoorah. Truth and justice win out over the forces of darkness. Or did they? You couldn’t try harder, or be more articulate, than Streep. “It was simply stunning: eloquent and urgent, the […]
January 10, 2017 by: Nicole Bullock in New York US stock market bulls can be forgiven for feeling like Vladimir and Estragon, the two characters in Waiting for Godot. Donald Trump’s promise to cut tax and business regulation sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 8 per cent in quick order following his election in early November. However, it has failed to crack the 20,000 […]
PARIS French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon said on Tuesday he would meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the coming days to outline his plans for Europe. “The election of Donald Trump and the Berlin tragedy change things in Europe,” Fillon said, referring both to the U.S. election and the Berlin truck attack claimed by Islamic State. “For the United States, our continent will likely not be […]
PARIS Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said on Tuesday she would seek to repatriate production of French motor vehicles and other industrial goods – just as President-elect Donald Trump hopes to do in the United States. Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on cars made abroad, saying the practice costs American jobs. He has praised Ford Motor Co’s decision last week to scrap a plan […]
