| North Korea says it will send troops to border with South Korea as tensions sizzle Posted: 17 Jun 2020 05:00 PM PDT  Military units "will be deployed in the Mount Kumgang tourist area and the Kaesong Industrial Zone," said a spokesperson for the North Korea army in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, a government mouthpiece. The move came one day after North Korea destroyed the glass-and-steel liaison office — a de facto embassy that opened in 2018 — creating a scene of smoke and ash in the border city of Kaesong. The North Korean government has escalated its provocations for days, hurling insults at its southern neighbor, cutting off communication and threatening military action.
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| Tanzania's Magufuli - taking on coronavirus and imperialism Posted: 17 Jun 2020 04:26 PM PDT  Will Tanzania's President John Magufuli controversial statements help or hinder his re-election campaign?
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| Burundi’s Evariste Ndayishimiye to be sworn in as president Posted: 17 Jun 2020 04:12 PM PDT  Evariste Ndayishimiye's inauguration is fast-tracked following the sudden death of his predecessor.
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| Iran Pushes False COVID-19, Protest Info In Effort To Lift Sanctions Posted: 17 Jun 2020 03:17 PM PDT  For years, Iran has been ramping up its online influence operations. Now, that social media presence is being used to spread messages about the U.S.' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice. "One of the key narratives that Iranian officials, Iranian accounts started to push was that U.S. sanctions were the reason why Iran was unable to sort of handle the COVID-19 outbreak," said Ariane Tabatabai, who tracks social media activity from Iran.
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| Iran Is Spreading False COVID-19, Protest Information Posted: 17 Jun 2020 03:17 PM PDT For years, Iran has been ramping up its online influence operations. Now, that social media presence is being used to spread messages about the U.S.' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice. "One of the key narratives that Iranian officials, Iranian accounts started to push was that U.S. sanctions were the reason why Iran was unable to sort of handle the COVID-19 outbreak," said Ariane Tabatabai, who tracks social media activity from Iran.
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| Vladimir Putin has a coronavirus ‘tunnel’ for disinfecting visitors Posted: 17 Jun 2020 03:13 PM PDT  Anyone wishing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin must pass through a coronavirus "tunnel," according to state media. "In the residence of Putin, a special tunnel was installed to protect against coronavirus," reads the tweeted English translation. While Putin has reportedly tested negative for coronavirus, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov contracted the infection last month.
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| NASA's next Mars rover honors medical teams fighting virus Posted: 17 Jun 2020 02:20 PM PDT  NASA's next Mars rover is honoring all the medical workers on the front lines of the coronavirus battle around the world. With just another month until liftoff, the space agency on Wednesday revealed a commemorative plate attached to the rover, aptly named Perseverance. The rover team calls it the COVID-19 Perseverance plate, designed in the last couple months.
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| Trump signs sanctions law over China treatment of Uighurs Posted: 17 Jun 2020 02:00 PM PDT  US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law an act that authorizes sanctions against Chinese officials over the mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims. Trump's announcement came just as excerpts emerged from an explosive new book by his former national security advisor John Bolton, who said the president told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that he approved of the vast detention camps. Trump was widely expected to sign the Uighur Human Rights Act, which passed Congress almost unanimously amid wide outrage over China's treatment of the minority.
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| Pompeo meets Chinese officials amid Bolton book revelations Posted: 17 Jun 2020 01:35 PM PDT  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was meeting with a top Chinese official in Hawaii on Wednesday as new revelations about President Donald Trump and China rocked Washington. Pompeo and his deputy Stephen Biegun were holding closed-door talks with the Chinese Communist Party's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, according to a senior State Department official on the base.
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| Sudan says talks on Ethiopia's Nile dam fail to produce deal Posted: 17 Jun 2020 01:34 PM PDT |
| Trump news – live: Series of explosive allegations made against president including accusations he asked China to help him win 2020 election Posted: 17 Jun 2020 01:25 PM PDT  Donald Trump has been accused of asking China President Xi Jinping to help with his re-election efforts by purchasing more US farm products, the president's former national security adviser John Bolton claimed in his new book.The explosive account comes after Joe Biden said Mr Trump "waved the white flag" instead of actively addressing the coronavirus pandemic that has taken over the United States. Mr Biden was not the only one critical of the president's response to Covid-19, as Mr Trump now trails the former vice president by 13 points in a new Reuter/Ispos poll released on Tuesday.
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| Trump asked China's Xi for help winning 2020 election, claims Bolton Posted: 17 Jun 2020 01:23 PM PDT  Donald Trump pleaded with China's leader Xi Jinping for help to win re-election in 2020, the US president's former aide John Bolton writes in an explosive new book, according to excerpts published Wednesday. In a meeting with Xi last June, Trump "stunningly turned the conversation to the US presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win," former national security advisor Bolton claims in his upcoming tell-all. In excerpts published by The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Bolton writes that Trump stressed the importance of America's farmers and how "increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat" could impact the electoral outcome in the United States.
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| Trump told China's president that building concentration camps for millions of Uighur Muslims was 'exactly the right thing to do,' former adviser says Posted: 17 Jun 2020 01:14 PM PDT  In a private meeting, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping were only accompanied by their interpreters.
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| Trump cared little about North Korea's nuclear weapons and treated Kim Jong-un summit as publicity exercise, Bolton says Posted: 17 Jun 2020 12:48 PM PDT  Donald Trump cared little about North Korea's nuclear arsenal when he met with Kim Jong Un and was more interested in making friends with the dictator as he treated the historic meeting as "an exercise in publicity," a former senior aide says."Trump told ... me he was prepared to sign a substance-free communique, have his press conference to declare victory and then get out of town," former Trump national security adviser John Bolton writes in a coming book, according to the Washington Post.
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| Oxford college recommends removal of Cecil Rhodes statue Posted: 17 Jun 2020 12:36 PM PDT  The governing body of Oxford University's Oriel College has recommended the removal of a statue of Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes that has long been the target of protests — though it won't be taken down immediately. The college's governors met Wednesday and said they had "voted to launch an independent Commission of Inquiry into the key issues surrounding the Rhodes statue." In a statement, Oriel College's governing body, made up of faculty, said they had "expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes" and a plaque to him, adding that "this is what they intend to convey to the Independent Commission of Inquiry."
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| Trump backed Xi over concentration camps for Uighur Muslims, ex-aide Bolton claims Posted: 17 Jun 2020 12:30 PM PDT Donald Trump told the Chinese president Xi Jinping that building concentration camps to "re-educate" Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was the right thing to do, according to sensational claims in a new book by John Bolton, the former US national security adviser.More follows…
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| Bolton’s Bombshell Memoir: Trump Asked China’s President to Help Him Win the Election Posted: 17 Jun 2020 12:27 PM PDT  President Donald Trump appealed to China's President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 election by increasing the Chinese government's agricultural purchases from American farmers, former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his bombshell forthcoming memoir.During a one-on-one meeting at the G20 Summit in 2019, Trump "stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win," Bolton writes, according to an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal.It was one of several disturbing instances Bolton outlines of Trump appealing to foreign dictators for his own gains—a pattern of behavior that he says went far beyond the Ukraine aid saga.Trump was willing to kill off criminal probes against Turkish and Chinese companies to "in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked," Bolton writes, alleging that Trump was willing to intervene in probes against Turkey's Halkbank and China's ZTE to curry favor with either country's leaders."The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't accept," Bolton writes.Several media outlets got their hands on an advanced copy of Bolton's book, The Room Where It Happened, on Wednesday, ahead of its release next week—and despite the Department of Justice's attempts to halt its publication.In it, Bolton paints a picture of his former boss as an idiot who thought Finland was part of Russia, a megalomaniac who governs based on gut instinct, and the butt of jokes from even his most trusted aides. He joked about executing American journalists, delivered an autographed copy of Elton John's Rocket Man to Kim Jong Un and thought invading Venezuela would be "cool," Bolton writes. (Guy Snodgrass, a former speechwriter for former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, later took to Twitter to say he "can confirm" that Trump has made such remarks about journalists. "This sentiment expressed again during Trump's meeting with Mattis in the Pentagon," he said.) 'He is so full of shit'Bolton has no qualms about throwing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo under the bus in the 592-page book. He writes that, during Trump's 2018 meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Pompeo slipped Bolton a note that referred to Trump. It said, "He is so full of shit."Bolton says that he and Pompeo also shared their disdain for the president after Trump had a phone call with South Korea's president in the lead up to the 2018 summit with Kim. Pompeo told Bolton he was "having a cardiac arrest" after listening in on the call. Bolton sympathized with Pompeo, describing it as a "near death experience."In another instance, Bolton writes that Trump once told him that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had used a sexist obscenity to describe Nikki Haley, then the ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton doubted it was true but found it yet another example of Trump trying to pit staff against each other. In fact, Haley was so highly regarded inside the White House that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump floated the idea of her replacing Vice President Mike Pence in the 2020 ticket. Bolton said it would be a mistake, and Trump seemed to agree.Other staff routinely flirted with quitting in disgust. "What if we have a real crisis like 9/11 with the way he makes decisions?" former Chief of Staff John Kelly said as he contemplated resigning one day."He second-guessed people's motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government," Bolton writes, adding that Trump was singularly obsessed with winning a second term. Support for internment camps and foreign interferenceSome of the most damning revelations in the book, however, are Bolton's accusations of Trump's willingness to interfere in criminal investigations and use foreign powers to achieve his domestic aims. In turn, foreign leaders appeared happy to appease the president as a means of manipulation.During the same G20 meeting that he asked for Xi's help to win the election, Trump expressed support for the Chinese government's use of internment camps for 1 million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, the book says. They have repeatedly been exposed as extraordinarily inhumane to China's ethnic minority. "According to our interpreter," Bolton writes, "Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do."Trump Stops Saying 'Wuhan Virus' After Xi Strokes His EgoWhen Xi said he wanted to work with Trump for another six years, Trump replied that people thought the two-term constitutional limit on presidents should be removed. Xi replied that the U.S. had too many elections, and he didn't want Trump to lose. Trump nodded approvingly, Bolton wrote.In another example of foreign manipulation during a 2019 phone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. It was, Bolton writes, part of a "brilliant display of Soviet style propaganda" aimed at boosting support for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. It "largely persuaded Trump," he adds.Bolton says he was so alarmed by Trump's willingness to do favors for dictators like Turkish strongman Recip Tayyip Erdogan and Xi that he discussed them with Attorney General William Barr. For example, Trump told Erdogan that Halkbank's legal issues—related to violating the administration's sanctions on Iran—would disappear once the "Obama people" in the Southern District of New York were "replaced by his people," Bolton writes. Bolton claims that Barr was also worried about Trump's behavior—but it's not clear what resulted from their conversation. 'Deeply disturbing' Ukraine allegationsDemocrats and Republicans have been united in their criticism of Bolton, who refused to testify before the House during impeachment proceedings but instead took a $2 million book contract.House impeachment manager Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Wednesday that Bolton "ran and hid" when it truly mattered."It is curious to me that he now has something to say when he could have stepped forward as a patriot when the stakes were high and the president was on trial," he said. "He ran and hid in the other direction."Here's How John Bolton's Lawyer Just Threw Him Under the BusIn his book, Bolton confirms that Trump did explicitly link security aid for Ukraine to investigations involving Biden and Hillary Clinton. Trump said on August 20 that "he wasn't in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over," Bolton writes, adding that Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper tried eight to 10 times to get Trump to release the aid.He calls Trump's decision to hold aid "deeply disturbing" but stops short of supporting impeachment. Instead, he says Democrats badly bungled the impeachment proceedings."I thought the whole affair was bad policy, questionable legally and unacceptable as presidential behavior," he writes.House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) tweeted on Wednesday that Bolton's staff "showed real courage" by testifying during impeachment hearings. "When Bolton was asked, he refused, and said he'd sue if subpoenaed," Schiff said in a statement. "Instead, he saved it for a book. Bolton may be an author, but he's no patriot."Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was one of the few Democratic lawmakers to respond to the substance of Bolton's allegations on Wednesday. In a letter to Alan Garten, chief legal officer at the Trump Organization, Menenedez said that Bolton's description of Trump's talks with Xi "raises new questions about other ways in which President Trump benefits personally, and financially, from the Chinese government, including through ongoing business relationships."Specifically, Menendez asked Garten to provide more details about the Trump Organization's leasing of office space in Trump Tower to a bank controlled by the Chinese government.The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), said in a statement Wednesday that, if accurate, Bolton's account represents "another extraordinary abuse of American foreign policy and national security" by Trump. He said he would be consulting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other chairs about "next steps." During their impeachment inquiry, Democrats called Bolton to testify but never issued a subpoena. Mopping up for Jared and IvankaBolton writes of his disdain for Kushner and Ivanka Trump's constant efforts to insert themselves in foreign policy and domestic affairs.When Bolton learned that Kushner was going to be calling the finance minister of Turkey, he briefed Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin "on this new 'son-in-law channel' and they both exploded." To Pompeo, it was yet another example of Kushner's meddling in international negotiations, as he did with the "never quite ready Middle East peace plan."In late 2018, Trump came under fire for writing a bizarre defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. But, according to Bolton, the main goal of the exclamation point-laden statement was to draw attention away from Ivanka using her personal email for government business."This will divert from Ivanka," Trump said, according to the book. "If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing."Damning books on Trump are hardly rare, but Bolton's book is the first to be written by such a high-ranking administration official, and a lifelong conservative, who was present for some of the most consequential foreign policy decisions. Bolton, a vocal Russia and North Korea hawk, became Trump's third national security adviser in 2018 and had aims of withdrawing the U.S. from several international agreements, like the Iran nuclear deal. He resigned late September after clashing with Trump over several foreign policy directives. Naturally, Trump claimed he fired him.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| North Korea Redeploys Troops To Border Posted: 17 Jun 2020 12:23 PM PDT  This announcement follows the release of a video from the South Korean military in which North Korea can be seen blowing up a joint liaison office near the demilitarized zone. Contains footage from CNN.
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| North Korea Is Sending Soldiers to Joint Borders Posted: 17 Jun 2020 12:23 PM PDT This announcement follows the release of a video from the South Korean military in which North Korea can be seen blowing up a joint liaison office near the demilitarized zone. Contains footage from CNN.
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| Bolton Says Trump Impeachment Inquiry Missed Other Troubling Actions Posted: 17 Jun 2020 12:18 PM PDT  John Bolton, the former national security adviser, says in his new book that the House in its impeachment inquiry should have investigated President Donald Trump not just for pressuring Ukraine to incriminate his domestic foes but for a variety of instances when he sought to intervene in law enforcement matters for political reasons.Bolton describes several episodes where the president expressed willingness to halt criminal investigations "to, in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked," citing cases involving major firms in China and Turkey. "The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't accept," Bolton writes, adding that he reported his concerns to Attorney General William Barr.Bolton also adds a striking new allegation by saying that Trump overtly linked trade negotiations to his own political fortunes by asking President Xi Jinping of China to buy a lot of American agricultural products to help him win farm states in this year's election. Trump, he writes, was "pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome."The book, "The Room Where It Happened," was obtained by The New York Times in advance of its scheduled publication next Tuesday and has already become a political lightning rod in the thick of an election campaign and a No. 1 bestseller on Amazon.com even before it hits the bookstores. The Justice Department filed a last-minute lawsuit against Bolton this week seeking to stop publication even as Trump's critics complained that Bolton should have come forward during impeachment proceedings rather than save his account for a $2 million book contract.While other books by journalists, lower-level former aides and even an anonymous senior official have revealed much about the Trump White House, Bolton's volume is the first tell-all memoir by such a high-ranking official who participated in major foreign policy events and has a lifetime of conservative credentials. It is a withering portrait of a president ignorant of even basic facts about the world, susceptible to transparent flattery by authoritarian leaders manipulating him and prone to false statements, foul-mouthed eruptions and snap decisions that aides try to manage or reverse.Trump did not seem to know, for example, that Britain is a nuclear power and asked if Finland is part of Russia, Bolton writes. He came closer to withdrawing the United States from NATO than previously known. Even top advisers who position themselves as unswervingly loyal mock him behind his back. During Trump's 2018 meeting with North Korea's leader, according to the book, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slipped Bolton a note disparaging the president, saying, "He is so full of shit."A month later, Bolton writes, Pompeo dismissed the president's North Korea diplomacy, declaring that there was "zero probability of success."Intelligence briefings with the president were a waste of time "since much of the time was spent listening to Trump, rather than Trump listening to the briefers." Trump likes pitting staff members against one another, at one point telling Bolton that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had once referred to Nikki Haley, then the ambassador to the United Nations, by a sexist obscenity -- an assertion Bolton seemed to doubt but found telling that the president would make it.Trump said so many things that were wrong or false that Bolton in the book regularly includes phrases like "(the opposite of the truth)" following some quote from the president. And Trump in this telling has no overarching philosophy of governance or foreign policy but rather a series of gut-driven instincts that sometimes mirrored Bolton's but other times were, in his view, dangerous and reckless."His thinking was like an archipelago of dots (like individual real estate deals), leaving the rest of us to discern -- or create -- policy," Bolton writes. "That had its pros and cons."Bolton is a complicated, controversial figure. A former official under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush who rose to United Nations ambassador, he has been one of the most vocal advocates for a hard-line foreign policy, a supporter of the Iraq War who has favored possible military action against rogue states like North Korea and Iran.Like Tillerson and other officials who went to work for Trump believing they could manage him, Bolton agreed to become the president's third national security adviser in 2018 thinking he understood the risks and limits. But unlike some of the so-called "axis of adults," as he calls Tillerson and former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who tried to minimize what they saw as the damage of the president's tenure, Bolton sought to use his 17 months in the White House to accomplish policy goals that were important to him, like withdrawing the United States from a host of international agreements he considers flawed, like the Iran nuclear accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and others.Bolton thought Trump's diplomatic flirtation with the likes of North Korea's Kim Jong Un and President Vladimir Putin of Russia were ill-advised and even "foolish" and spent much of his tenure trying to stop the president from making what he deemed bad deals. He eventually resigned last September -- Trump claimed he fired him -- after they clashed over Iran, North Korea, Ukraine and a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan.Bolton did not agree to testify during the House impeachment inquiry last fall, saying he would wait to see if a judge would rule that former aides like him should do so over White House objections. But after the House impeached Trump for pressuring Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, while withholding security aid, Bolton offered to testify in the Senate trial if subpoenaed.Senate Republicans blocked calling Bolton as a witness even after the Times reported in January that his then-unpublished book confirmed that Trump linked the suspended security aid to his insistence that Ukraine investigate his political rivals. The Senate went on to acquit Trump almost entirely along party lines. But Bolton engendered great anger among critics of the president for not making his account public before now.The book confirms House testimony that Bolton was wary all along of the president's actions with regard to Ukraine and that Trump explicitly linked the security aid to investigations involving Biden and Hillary Clinton. On Aug. 20, Bolton writes, Trump "said he wasn't in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over." Bolton writes that he, Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper tried eight to 10 times to get Trump to release the aid.Bolton, however, had nothing but scorn for the House Democrats who impeached Trump, saying they committed "impeachment malpractice" by limiting their inquiry to the Ukraine matter and moving too quickly for their own political reasons. Instead, he said they should have also looked at how Trump was willing to intervene in investigations into companies like Turkey's Halkbank to curry favor with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey or China's ZTE to favor Xi.Bolton does not say these are necessarily impeachable offenses and adds that he does not know everything that happened with regard to those episodes, but he reported them to Barr and Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel. They should have been investigated by the House, he said, and at the very least suggested abuses of a president's duty to put the nation's interests before his own."A president may not misuse the national government's legitimate powers by defining his own personal interest as synonymous with the national interest, or by inventing pretexts to mask the pursuit of personal interest under the guide of national interest," Bolton writes. "Had the House not focused solely on the Ukraine aspects of Trump's confusion of his personal interests," he adds, then "there might have been a greater chance to persuade others that 'high crimes and misdemeanors' had been perpetrated."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Top Democrats Are Trying to Stop This Man From Becoming the Next Ocasio-Cortez Posted: 17 Jun 2020 11:52 AM PDT  Two years ago, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a young, untested democratic socialist, pulled off a shocking upset by defeating the No. 4 House Democrat, Rep. Joseph Crowley. The primary result was a visceral warning to Democratic leadership that it had better quickly reckon with the push for progressive change, and not underestimate the candidates behind it.The Democratic establishment has apparently heeded that lesson.As the June 23 primary nears in New York, another long-tenured Democrat, Eliot L. Engel, is being threatened by a young progressive challenger, Jamaal Bowman. The race has become a focal point for the party's directional battle, with money and marquee endorsements flying around in recent days.The latest big-name endorsements came in a span of 16 hours: On Monday afternoon, Hillary Clinton, making her first endorsement of any Democratic incumbent facing a primary in 2020, backed Engel; the following morning, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts endorsed Bowman.Engel, 73, seems to be the party's most vulnerable incumbent in the nation at the moment, a potential victim of its emboldened left wing, which has grown impatient with the establishment politics that Engel seems to represent.Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a Democratic stalwart, a faithful practitioner of old-school Washington politics, rising in committee ranks and bringing home perks for his diverse and overwhelmingly Democratic district at New York City's northern border.Mustachioed and bespectacled, Engel's most famous trait may be his punctuality: He prides himself on arriving early to each and every State of the Union, to secure a seat to shake the president's hand -- a tradition that he has halted in opposition to President Donald Trump. But in a political landscape upended by the coronavirus and the national reckoning on race and policing, Engel's press-the-flesh approach is at risk of seeming like an anachronism.Bowman, 44, has the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Ocasio-Cortez, the generational tent poles of progressive Democrats, as well as liberal groups like the Working Families Party and political action committees like the Justice Democrats, which jointly pledged to spend more than $500,000 to oust Engel.Warren, the former presidential candidate and possible vice-presidential contender, said on Tuesday that Bowman was "exactly the kind of person we need in Congress fighting for big, structural change."Engel has widespread support from senior House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi; James E. Clyburn, the House majority whip; and Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic Caucus chairman. On Wednesday, he was endorsed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York.But Engel has not exactly helped his cause. In early June, at a news conference in the Bronx devoted to Black Lives Matter, he was caught on microphone suggesting that he was only there because of his contested race. "If I didn't have a primary," he said, "I wouldn't care."Even party veterans cringed. "This is like hanging a sign from your neck saying, 'I've been in office too long,' " tweeted David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist.Asked about the comment, Engel did not address it directly but said that he had "wanted people to know how I feel because I feel so strongly about what happened" in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis."In looking back, I see now that two weeks later that my words have detracted from the protests because they've been taken out of context," he said. "And I want to use my voice to refocus on the fact black lives matter. And they do."Both Engel and Bowman have embraced many of the positions championed by Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a neighboring district in the Bronx and Queens, including the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.Engel's campaign website also cites support for increased funding of public education, $100 billion in new housing, and comprehensive immigration reform. But his opponents have zeroed in on several hawkish positions he took, including rejecting the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and supporting the invasion of Iraq more than a decade before."You know, I'm pretty progressive myself," Engel said in an interview last week from his home in the Bronx. "I have a progressive record down the line for many years in Congress and I'm proud of my record."Despite the recent successes of some progressive insurgents, it is still extraordinarily difficult to unseat a congressional incumbent in a primary; this year, only two have fallen, each under unusual circumstances.In Illinois, Rep. Dan Lipinski, a conservative Democrat who had broken with his party on abortion rights and health care, lost to Marie Newman in a rematch in March; in Iowa, Rep. Steve King, a Republican with a history of racist remarks, lost to Randy Feenstra, a state senator.Bowman is hoping that a different sort of circumstances may catapult him to victory.The coronavirus outbreak and civil unrest after Floyd's killing complicated the campaign for both candidates, forcing the cancellation of in-person events and fundraisers. But they also gave Bowman, who is African-American, a conducive environment to stress the need for change in arenas like criminal justice and health care.Bowman was recruited by Justice Democrats after education activists in New York suggested he could be a potent candidate with a compelling life story: a childhood in public housing in New York City, followed by years as an educator, culminating with the founding of a middle school in the Bronx, the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, where he was the founding principal.Bowman began this campaign last June, with several other challengers, including a lawyer, Chris Fink; Sammy Ravelo, a retired police lieutenant; and Andom Ghebreghiorgis, who dropped out earlier this month and endorsed Bowman, solidifying his support among progressives."We've anchored our race in fighting for racial and economic justice from the very beginning," Bowman said in an interview. "And what COVID and now these protests are revealing is, to the rest of the country, is how broken our system is."The dueling crises also provided Bowman with a powerful talking point accusing Engel of not spending enough time in the district, which includes the northern Bronx and portions of southern Westchester County, a mix of well-to-do neighborhoods like Riverdale and poorer areas.Bowman has repeatedly attacked Engel's staying at a home he owns in Maryland during long stretches of the coronavirus virus outbreak, as well as for much of his time in Washington."He doesn't live in our community," Bowman said in one online testimonial. "I live in our struggles."This argument seems to befuddle Engel, who said he bought the Maryland home after he was first elected in 1988 and had two small children at the time."I work in Washington and he's going to deny me a place to sleep?" Engel said, adding, "You can't stay on the, sleep on the, streets."As the race has intensified, Engel has also fought back, pointing out that election records show that Bowman did not vote in 2012, even as Barack Obama -- still the lodestar of many Democratic voters -- sought a second term. Bowman insists that he remembers voting in Manhattan that year, saying "there must be a problem with the records.""Do you think I wouldn't vote for the first black president?" he said.Engel also highlighted how Bowman only registered as a Democrat in 2018; he was previously registered in the Independence Party. "So he's not really a Democrat," Engel said.Voters in the district have been inundated with mailers and phone calls on behalf of both candidates, who have already spent a combined $2 million on the race, and will likely spend more in the closing days. As of June 3, Engel still had more than $800,000 in hand, compared with Bowman's $345,000.In Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester, Jim Cullen, 57, a self-described moderate Democrat, said he would vote for the incumbent, though he knew his wife and son would vote for Bowman, saying it was good to "preserve the institutional integrity of the Democratic Party at a time when it's under tremendous pressure."But Olivia Lovejoy, 40, said she was ready to embrace Bowman's message."I'm thinking we need change," said Lovejoy, a customer service representative, adding that Bowman's candidacy gave her cause for optimism. "I feel hopeful."For his part, Engel seemed well aware of the tentative nature of his political perch."I never forget for even one moment that this is the people's seat," he said. "And not my seat."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Jobless for years, Tunisians march on capital, demand work Posted: 17 Jun 2020 11:35 AM PDT  Hundreds of unemployed Tunisians from around the country tried to march on parliament Wednesday to demand a law guaranteeing jobs, and skirmished with police who blocked their way. Virus confinement measures are worsening joblessness and poverty in Tunisia, where the economy had already been struggling for years. Unemployment was a key driver of protests that overthrew Tunisia's autocratic president and unleashed the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.
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| US hits Syria's elite with new economic and travel sanctions Posted: 17 Jun 2020 11:02 AM PDT  The Trump administration on Wednesday increased the pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad, his wife, Asma, and his inner circle with new economic and travel penalties for human rights abuses and blocking a settlement of the country's bloody nine-year conflict. The State Department said it had designated 39 Syrian individuals, including the Assads, as well as members of their extended family, military leaders and business executives. Separately, the Treasury Department said it has imposed penalties on 24 individuals, companies and government agencies that "are actively supporting the corrupt reconstruction efforts" of Assad.
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| George Floyd's family appeals to United Nations for justice Posted: 17 Jun 2020 10:45 AM PDT |
| UAE official: Israel annexation may draw calls for one state Posted: 17 Jun 2020 10:20 AM PDT  A senior Emirati official warned Wednesday that Israel's planned annexation of parts of the West Bank could lead Arab states to call for a single bi-national state for Israelis and Palestinians. The Arab minister's remarks, delivered to an influential Washington think tank, struck a new setback to Israel's hopes of normalizing relations with the Arab world and added to the increasingly vocal international opposition to the Israeli annexation plan. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the strategically important Jordan Valley.
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| AP-NORC poll: Sweeping change in US views of police violence Posted: 17 Jun 2020 10:15 AM PDT  A dramatic shift has taken place in the nation's opinions on policing and race, as a new poll finds that more Americans today than five years ago believe police brutality is a very serious problem that too often goes undisciplined and unequally targets black Americans. The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest the death of George Floyd and the weeks of nationwide and global protests that followed have changed perceptions in ways that previous incidents of police brutality did not. About half of American adults now say police violence against the public is a "very" or "extremely" serious problem, up from about a third as recently as September last year.
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| EU says 'sovereign' UK has taken back control of its fishing waters Posted: 17 Jun 2020 09:59 AM PDT  The European Union has accepted that Britain will take back control of its waters after the end of the Brexit transition period, the president of the European Commission said on Wednesday. Ursula von der Leyen said that all Brussels wanted was a long-term agreement over fishing rights that gave guarantees to EU boats that had fished UK waters for years. The latest hint at an EU willingness to compromise over its demand for a status quo fishing deal "under existing conditions" still ruled out the annual negotiations over fishing opportunities demanded by the UK. "No one questions the UK sovereignty over its own waters," she told the European Parliament in Brussels, "but we asked for predictability and we asked for guarantees for fisherman and fisher women who have been sailing in those waters for decades". She said that Brussels was willing to be creative to find compromises in the trade negotiations after her meeting with Boris Johnson on Monday. Talks will intensify in July after months of deadlock. The former German defence minister was less conciliatory over the governance structure overseeing the free trade agreement, which the EU wants to also include fishing and foreign policy and security cooperation. A single dispute settlement system was vital for all aspects of the future agreement, she said in a signal the EU would not abandon that red line, despite the UK pushing for a different enforcement regime for each separate agreement. "Governance may sound like an issue for bureaucrats, it's not," she said, "It is central for businesses and our private citizens both in the UK, and the European Union. It is crucial to ensure that what has been agreed is actually done." Mrs von der Leyen told MEPs that the transition period would not be extended beyond the end of the year. Failure to reach a deal by then will mean both sides trading on less lucrative WTO terms. "We on our side have always been ready to grant extension, but it needs two to tango," she said. "This means that we are now halfway through these negotiations with five months left to go but we're definitely not halfway through the work to reach an agreement with little time ahead of us," she warned. "No one can say with certainty, where these negotiations will be at the end of the year. But I know for sure that we will have done everything to reach an agreement," she added. Mrs von der Leyen also insisted on the need for level playing field guarantees and a role for the European Court of Justice "where it matters", which the UK resists. . Mrs von der Leyen claimed that the EU's demand for level playing field guarantees for state aid, tax, labour rights and the environment were to ensure fair competition. The commitments, which are meant to prevent the UK undercutting EU standards, are rejected by Britain because they are more stringent than similar guarantees in EU trade deals with Japan and Canada. Brussels counters that the UK is closer to the EU market and is being offered a zero quota, zero tariff trade deal. "We're ready and willing to compete with British firms they're excellent and our firms are excellent too, but it cannot be a downward competition," she said. "It should be a shared interest for the European Union and the UK to never slide backwards and always advance together towards higher standards." Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, accused the UK of attempting to "cherry-pick" the advantage of membership of the bloc without the obligations. "It's up to the UK to choose what it wants, or whether it wants an agreement," he said before warning that Brussels would not strike a deal "at any price". "But I remain convinced, ladies and gentlemen, honorable members, such an agreement is possible for the long term," he said.
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| Merkel urges caution despite fewer coronavirus cases Posted: 17 Jun 2020 09:08 AM PDT  BERLIN, June 17 (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday to remain cautious and stick to social distancing rules, but also added that the number of new coronavirus infections had stabilized at a low level.
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| Himalayan flashpoint could spiral out of control as India and China face off Posted: 17 Jun 2020 09:08 AM PDT  At least 20 died after soldiers fought with clubs and rocks along the disputed border, making de-escalation hard for the nuclear statesThe forces of two nuclear weapons states have set about each other with clubs and rocks at one of the most forbidding flashpoints in the world, in a bloody incident that highlights the constant dangers posed by expansionist nationalism.India has confirmed that it lost at least 20 of its men in a clash with Chinese soldiers near the disputed mountain border running along the Ladakh area of Kashmir. It is the first fatal confrontation since 1975 and the most serious since 1967, and so can be expected to have a powerful galvanising effect on the populations of both countries, already primed by a constant stream of nationalist rhetoric.There is a long history of such encounters ever since the two nations fought a short war there in 1962. After that conflict a Line of Actual Control (LAC) was declared, but there is no agreed line and limited control, as the events of recent weeks have confirmed. Thus far at least, both Indian and Chinese forces have stuck to an agreement not to carry firearms on patrol near the LAC.Beijing has put out a string of statements blaming India but giving no hint of Chinese casualties, estimated in the Indian press to total 43, including some deaths. In the past, such accounting has come decades later, if at all, from a regime that tightly controls information. For that reason, the only detailed accounts to have emerged so far have come from the Indian press.What is clear is that there will be more of these clashes without a clear change of direction and an attempt to agree on where the LAC should be, and how both sides should behave around it. Both Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping have built their images as warriors for national greatness.In his remarks on Wednesday, Modi warned the sacrifice of the soldiers would not be in vain and that India is capable of giving a "befitting reply" if provoked.China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, after speaking to his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Wednesday, issued his own warning, that India should not underestimate "China's firm will to safeguard territorial sovereignty".In the broadest terms the deadly brawl in the Galwan valley was the latest symptom of an increasingly aggressive Chinese policy on territory and borders, of the sort that has been playing out among the rocks and reefs of the South China Sea.Over the decades China has been more assertive than India in building infrastructure around the LAC, with roads and bunkers. In recent years, India has been trying to catch up, in particular with a road to the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), the highest airstrip in the world, with feeder roads leading off it. China has been trying to push back against that Indian construction work, so that its creeping occupation of the Galwan valley goes unchallenged.Since May, Chinese troops appear to have stopped their Indian counterparts from approaching areas where both sides have patrolled over the years. And Beijing has sent in reinforcements. What distinguishes the current confrontation from previous incidents is not just the death toll but the fact that there have been standoffs in multiple locations."This kind of territory is incredibly hard to hold, but also to move multiple troops over," said Tanvi Madan, director of the India project at the Brookings Institution. "So it's not considered to be something that just happened on the ground. It's clearly a decision made by the Chinese at a more senior level."It is not just about bragging rights over crags. China has built a road, Highway 219, linking Tibet and Xinjiang, that passes through territory near the LAC that India considers its own. India's foothold at the DBO airfield, on the other hand, allows its forces to look down at the Karakoram highway linking China and Pakistan.The timing of the incident may be connected to the weather. The melting snows of spring provide an opportunity for aggressive moves. The pandemic may also have played a role. It led to India putting off military exercises, and an extra motive for Beijing to look for distractions from its own failures in governance.The deadly clash happened at a time and a place where officers from both sides were trying to negotiate a disengagement of forces. Neither government wants this to escalate, and the foreign ministers on Wednesday agreed on resuming the disengagement process. But the fact that there has been significant loss of life, at least on the Indian side, makes the situation much harder to defuse."Now domestic politics and public opinion, especially nationalist pressure to avenge their deaths and escalate, becomes a dangerous force," Vipin Narang, a security studies professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said. "It will be hard for India at least, with a relatively open media, to de-escalate as easily now."
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| Tshegofatso Pule killing: South African man on murder charge Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:58 AM PDT  A South African man, 31, is charged with murdering the pregnant woman whose body was found last week.
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| Officer charged with murder for shooting Rayshard Brooks Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:52 AM PDT  Prosecutors brought murder charges Wednesday against the white Atlanta police officer who shot Rayshard Brooks in the back, saying that Brooks was not a deadly threat and that the officer kicked the wounded black man and offered no medical treatment for over two minutes as he lay dying on the ground. Brooks, 27, was holding a stun gun he had snatched from officers, and he fired it at them during the clash, but he was running away at the time and was 18 feet, 3 inches from Officer Garrett Rolfe when Rolfe started shooting, District Attorney Paul Howard said in announcing the charges. "I got him!" the prosecutor quoted Rolfe as saying.
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| Watchdog: DEA lacks oversight of money laundering operations Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:48 AM PDT |
| Norway, Ireland win UN council seats in vote amid pandemic Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:32 AM PDT  Norway and Ireland won contested seats on the powerful U.N. Security Council Wednesday in a series of U.N. elections held under dramatically different voting procedures because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the most closely watched race, Canada lost out to the two European countries for two Western seats on the 15-member council. It was Canada's second consecutive defeat in a bid for a seat and a blow to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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| Floyd's brother tells UN 'black lives do not matter' in US Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:32 AM PDT  George Floyd's brother on Wednesday begged the United Nations to help African Americans because "black lives do not matter in the United States", as the UN's rights chief urged reparations for centuries of discrimination. Philonise Floyd made an impassioned speech via video-link to an urgent United Nations Human Rights Council debate on "systemic racism" in the US and beyond. Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the "gratuitous brutality" of Floyd's death in police custody encapsulated racism that harmed millions of people of African descent.
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| Missouri officer accused of striking man with SUV is charged Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:27 AM PDT  O'FALLON, Mo. (AP) — A white suburban St. Louis police detective who was captured on video apparently hitting a black suspect with a police SUV then kicking and punching the man was charged Wednesday with two counts of assault and armed criminal action. Special Prosecutor Tim Lohmar announced the charges against Florissant Detective Joshua Smith, 31, who was fired June 10. The violent arrest June 2 came amid nationwide protests and unrest sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
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| British lawyers launch UN bid to halt Colombian mine operations Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:13 AM PDT  British lawyers have filed a request with the United Nations to halt work at a Colombian mine part-owned by Anglo American over claims it is causing life-threatening pollution and human rights violations. The Cerrejon mine in the northeast of Colombia is one of the biggest coal mines in the world, and a major exporter to Europe. It is joint owned with Glencore and BHP. The indigenous Wayúu community have long argued that the mine has contributed to air and water pollution, and uses up 24 million litres of water a day that could otherwise be used for drinking and subsistence agriculture. More than 4,700 children have died from preventable diseases over the past eight years, which activists say are linked to the pollution caused by the mine. The situation has worsened during the pandemic as residents have not been able to travel to find food and clean water. Lawyers for the community, which is based around the mine, have now written to the UN's Special Rapporteur to ask them to urgently review the evidence and call for work to be immediately halted. "Beyond coronavirus, they are making a call for the end of the operations of these coal mines, because there is already a demonstrated violation of fundamental rights," said Monica Feria-Tinta, barrister at Twenty Essex. The UN's Special Rapporteur can review evidence in a possible human rights violation, and call on member states to follow certain actions. Its findings will also be communicated to the company's shareholders. The move is the latest of several legal challenges against the mine, including a ruling by the country's constitutional court earlier this year which acknowledged it had caused pollution. Among the evidence submitted to the UN are photos of skin diseases and evidence of respiratory conditions in Wayúu children. Reports earlier this year suggested that Anglo American was preparing to exit the South African coal business, and also looking to step back from mining in Colombia, amid a decline in coal in Europe as governments seek to tackle climate change.
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| George Floyd's brother urges UN to probe police killings of black Americans Posted: 17 Jun 2020 08:00 AM PDT  The brother of George Floyd called on the United Nations on Wednesday to set up an independent commission to investigate the killings of African Americans by police. "I am my brother's keeper," said Philonise Floyd, whose brother was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25 by a white police officer who knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. "That could have been me," Floyd told an urgent debate on racism and police brutality called at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
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| Kremlin installs special antiseptic tunnels to protect Putin Posted: 17 Jun 2020 07:55 AM PDT  The Russian government built special tunnels to protect President Vladimir Putin from the coronavirus at home and at work, Putin's spokesman said Wednesday. Reports about tunnels where anyone passing through gets sprayed with germ-killing antiseptics appeared in Russian media on Tuesday night. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that one tunnel was installed at the president's home outside Moscow and two at the Kremlin.
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| Putin's 10-day disappearance raised a grim question: Who will replace him when he's gone? Posted: 17 Jun 2020 07:54 AM PDT  Intelligence and state security sources tell Insider why they believe Putin can never retire.
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| Biden calls on Trump to 'wake up' to havoc caused by virus Posted: 17 Jun 2020 07:49 AM PDT  Joe Biden unleashed a stinging critique Wednesday of President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus, calling on Trump to "wake up" to the havoc caused by the pandemic and do more to prevent further harm. "Donald Trump wants to style himself as a wartime president," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said at a recreation center in the Philadelphia suburbs. Biden has steadily stepped up his attacks on Trump's leadership in recent weeks.
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| Coronavirus: How vulnerable are health workers in Nigeria? Posted: 17 Jun 2020 07:41 AM PDT  Doctors in public hospitals have gone on strike, saying they lack the necessary protective equipment to tackle the pandemic.
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| Defend seafaring workers hit hard by pandemic, Pope says Posted: 17 Jun 2020 07:30 AM PDT |
| Red, white and blue; UK PM Johnson's plane gets a makeover Posted: 17 Jun 2020 06:22 AM PDT |
| The UPS Foundation President Eduardo Martinez Joins World Food Program USA Board of Directors Posted: 17 Jun 2020 06:19 AM PDT  World Food Program USA (WFP USA) has named Eduardo Martinez, president of The UPS Foundation and UPS chief diversity and inclusion officer, to its distinguished board of directors. As a board member, Martinez will support World Food Program USA's mission around the world on behalf of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
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| Racism in US in rare spotlight at debate at UN rights body Posted: 17 Jun 2020 06:10 AM PDT  The brother of George Floyd made a heartfelt plea on Wednesday to the U.N.'s top human rights body, urging it to launch intense international scrutiny of systemic racism, the killing of black people by police and violence against peaceful protesters in the United States. Philonise Floyd, in a video message to the Human Rights Council, backed a call by dozens of African countries hoping to create a Commission of Inquiry — the council's most powerful tool of scrutiny — to report on racism and violence against protesters by police in the U.S. The unprecedented effort to train a potentially uncomfortable spotlight on the U.S., which calls itself the world's "leading advocate" for human rights, comes as it has no voice in the room: The Trump administration pulled out of the 47-member body two years ago.
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| Kim Jong Un has quietly built a 7,000-man cyber army that gives North Korea an edge nuclear weapons don't Posted: 17 Jun 2020 06:05 AM PDT  North Korea's cyber army is trained to find secrets, disrupt critical infrastructure, and steal money to help the isolated country avoid sanctions.
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| EXPLAINER-What Britain and the EU have to sort out to get a trade deal Posted: 17 Jun 2020 05:59 AM PDT |
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