| 24 organizations urge UN chief to blacklist Saudi coalition Posted: 22 Jun 2020 04:27 PM PDT |
| Eton apologises to Nigerian ex-student Onyeama for racism Posted: 22 Jun 2020 04:22 PM PDT  The first black person to complete his studies at Eton was banned from the school in 1972.
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| Trump rally size raises question about risk in age of virus Posted: 22 Jun 2020 03:13 PM PDT  President Donald Trump's paltry crowd for his weekend campaign rally in Oklahoma raises new questions about politics in the age of coronavirus: Maybe pandemic-scarred Americans just aren't ready to risk exposure for close-up engagement in the 2020 presidential election. Only about a third of seats in the 19,000-seat BOK Center were filled for the rally, despite boasts by Trump and his campaign team that they had received more than 1 million ticket requests. With all 50 states well into reopening their economies, Americans are now creating their own individual risk budgets and calculating what sort of activities are worth hazarding when coronavirus infections are still surging in some areas of the country.
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| With unsubstantiated claim, Trump sows doubt on US election Posted: 22 Jun 2020 02:55 PM PDT  President Donald Trump opened a new front Monday in his fight against mail-in voting, making unsubstantiated assertions that foreign countries will print up millions of bogus ballots to rig the results and create what he called the "scandal of our times." Trump accelerated his attacks following a bruising weekend for his reelection campaign, when a lower-than-expected turnout at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, left him seething, and as he fights for a second term during the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. "It's a way of trying to turn the foreign interference claims that have been made on their head," said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine.
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| Trump Should Not Meet With Venezuela’s Maduro Posted: 22 Jun 2020 02:15 PM PDT |
| Iraq's military: 1 rocket hits near airport, no casualties Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:47 PM PDT |
| Mail voting: Pence, aides embrace practice panned by Trump Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:42 PM PDT  Vice President Mike Pence and a half-dozen other senior advisers to President Donald Trump have repeatedly voted by mail, according to election records obtained by The Associated Press. More than three years after leaving the Indiana governor's residence, Pence still lists that as his official residence and votes absentee accordingly. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has permanent absentee voting status in her home state of Michigan.
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| Trump: US doing 'too good a job' on testing Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:38 PM PDT  President Donald Trump said Monday the United States has done "too good a job" on testing for cases of COVID-19, even as his staff insisted the president was only joking when he said over the weekend that he had instructed aides to "slow the testing down, please." The president's comments at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday brought quick rebukes from the campaign of likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as well as scores of Democratic lawmakers. In an interview with Scripps for its local TV stations, Trump was asked Monday whether he did indeed tell aides to "slow it down."
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| Venezuela accuses US of blocking ability to pay UN dues Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:16 PM PDT |
| Venezuela blames US sanctions for non-payment of UN dues Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:56 PM PDT  Venezuela blamed US sanctions for the non-payment of its United Nations fees, in a letter to the Secretary-General made public on Monday. The outstanding debt has since January prevented Caracas from voting at the world body. Last week, it was the only one of the UN's 193 members not to be allowed to vote for the new head of the General Assembly or in elections for the five new non-permanent members of the Security Council for the year 2021-22.
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| Trump administration extends visa ban to non-immigrants Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:45 PM PDT  The Trump administration on Monday extended a ban on green cards issued outside the United States until the end of the year and added many temporary work visas to the freeze, including those used heavily by technology companies and multinational corporations. The administration cast the effort as a way to free up jobs in an economy reeling from the coronavirus. The ban, while temporary, would amount to major restructuring of legal immigration if made permanent, a goal that had eluded the administration before the pandemic.
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| As Russia reopens, Putin takes a back seat to local leaders Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:03 PM PDT |
| Saudi Arabia to hold 'very limited' hajj due to virus Posted: 22 Jun 2020 11:53 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that because of the coronavirus only "very limited numbers" of people will be allowed to perform the annual hajj pilgrimage that traditionally draws around 2 million Muslims from around the world. The decision comes after weeks of speculation over whether Saudi Arabia would cancel the pilgrimage altogether or allow the hajj to be held in symbolic numbers. It's unclear why the government waited until just five weeks before the hajj to announce its decision, but the timing indicates the sensitivity around major decisions concerning the hajj that affect Muslims around the world.
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| Israel says defense exports were worth $7.2B last year Posted: 22 Jun 2020 10:02 AM PDT |
| In Minneapolis, talk of changing PD means taking on union Posted: 22 Jun 2020 09:51 AM PDT  The fiery leader of Minneapolis' police union has built a reputation of defying the city, long before he offered the union's full support to the officers charged in George Floyd's death. When the mayor banned "warrior training" for officers last year, Lt. Bob Kroll said the union would offer the training instead. When the city restricted officers from wearing uniforms at political events, he had T-shirts made to support President Donald Trump.
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| Watchdog eyes violent routing of protesters near White House Posted: 22 Jun 2020 09:41 AM PDT  An Interior Department watchdog office will investigate law enforcement and security forces' violent clearing of protesters from a square in front of the White House earlier this month. The Interior Department's U.S. Park Police and other forces released chemical agents and at times punched and clubbed a largely peaceful of crowd of demonstrators to drive the public from Lafayette Square on June 1, during nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Three Democratic lawmakers — Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Reps. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Debra Haaland of New Mexico — had asked Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt to investigate the actions that night of the Park Police, who oversee some of the nation's most iconic national monuments.
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| France's Macron denounces Turkey's attitude in Libya Posted: 22 Jun 2020 09:40 AM PDT  French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that Turkey's attitude in Libya is "unacceptable" as France sees Ankara as an obstacle to securing a cease-fire in the conflict-torn country. Macron spoke at an evening news conference with Tunisian President Kais Saied in Paris. Macron urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to end his country's actions in Libya.
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| Saudis say Yemen's government, separatists agree to truce Posted: 22 Jun 2020 09:37 AM PDT  The Saudi-led coalition embroiled in a years-long conflict in Yemen announced on Monday that Emirati-backed southern separatists and the country's internationally recognized government have agreed to a cease-fire after months of infighting. The agreement aims to close the rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, nominal allies in a war against Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki said delegates from the separatists' Southern Transitional Council and the Yemeni government are meeting in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to push the implementation of a November 2019 deal that ended earlier fighting.
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| Planning for summer beach days? Docs share virus safety tips Posted: 22 Jun 2020 09:25 AM PDT  Warm-weather beach destinations are the most popular vacation searches, with Florida — particularly Key West — Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and San Diego among the top considerations. The good news for beachgoers is that 83% of beaches are now open — up from only 56% two weeks ago, according to the National Recreation and Park Association. Common changes include parking restrictions to control crowds, limits on leisure activities like sunbathing, and nixing coolers, chairs, umbrellas and other gear.
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| Trump likened diplomacy with Kim Jong-un to dating, Bolton says Posted: 22 Jun 2020 09:06 AM PDT  * Trump 'wanted to be the one who broke up with the girl first' * Bolton says failed denuclearization effort a factor in resignation * US politics – live coverageDonald Trump compared his courtship of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to dating and "always wanted to be the one who broke up with the girl first", his former national security adviser John Bolton has claimed.Bolton's memoir, published on Tuesday, is potentially the most devastating account yet written by a member of a sitting president's inner circle. The White House sought to halt publication of the book but a judge refused to block its release, saying it was too late for a restraining order.Bolton was castigated by the judge for his treatment of classified material and Trump has threatened to go after profits from the book while hinting at criminal prosecution.But in the latest interview of his promotional tour, Bolton said the failed effort at North Korean denuclearisation was a major factor in resignation last September. He was asked by National Public Radio (NPR) about his frustrations ahead of an on-off-on summit with Kim in Singapore and how the thrice-married president likened it to his dating life."Well, he said that he always, back in the day, as they say, he always wanted to be the one who broke up with the girl first," Bolton said. "He didn't want the girl to break up with him. And he used that to describe whether he would cancel the summit with Kim Jong-un first or whether we would risk the North Koreans canceling it."And I thought it was an insight into the president, candidly given, that showed how he approached this. As opposed to looking at it from the perspective of what our ultimate strategic interest was, in my view, would have been better not to agree to the summit to begin with."Trump appears to have gone cold on Kim. Noting that last week North Korea blew up a liaison office set up to improve communications with the South, Bolton said "this entire two-year-long effort with North Korea ended in diplomatic failure. But that allowed the North Koreans the time that they need to continue to pursue nuclear weapons and ballistic missile delivery systems."After the historic first meeting in Singapore, Trump and Kim flattered each other's egos despite US critics' warnings that North Korea had more to gain from the exchange. Trump told a rally in West Virginia: "He wrote me beautiful letters, and they're great letters. We fell in love." The Washington Post observed: "Trump gloats about the half-dozen or so letters Kim has written him as if he were a smitten teenager in possession of valentines from a crush."When NPR interviewer Steve Inskeep asked if the president had "a kind of romantic approach to numerous dictators", Bolton agreed: "Yeah, I think that's an accurate description."Bolton is the latest ex-Trump aide to raise grave questions about the president's fitness for office. The Room Where It Happened has initiated rare unity in Washington, with the author condemned by Republicans for divulging the president's private conversations and by Democrats for doing so in a $29.95 book rather than during the impeachment process.Trump was impeached for his attempt to have Ukraine produce dirt on his political rivals. Bolton refused to testify in the House, then offered to do so in the Senate but was not called as Republicans secured a swift acquittal. Bolton discusses the Ukraine affair in his book."This really, in a sense, is a book about how not to be president," he told NPR. "The decision making process was not coherent. It followed episodically and anecdotally on what the president thought. At any given time, decisions could be made and reversed and then reversed again in very rapid fashion. Decisions were made without ultimate objectives and strategies in mind."The former US ambassador to the United Nations who advocated for the Iraq war said he voted for Trump against Hillary Clinton in 2016 but having seen him up close for 17 months, cannot do so again. "I'm planning to write in the name of a conservative Republican identity to be determined yet," he said. "But I will not be voting for Donald Trump and I will not be voting for Joe Biden."The president and his allies have launched a counter-attack in an attempt to steal Bolton's thunder, question his character and undermine his credibility.On Monday the Axios website quoted an excerpt from a forthcoming book by former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. Writing about Trump's state visit to London last year, she claims Bolton "apparently felt too important" to travel with other US officials in a small bus to Winfield House, the US ambassador's residence."Bolton was a classic case of a senior White House official drunk on power, who had forgotten that nobody elected him to anything," Sanders says, in Speaking for Myself."Often Bolton acted like he was the president, pushing an agenda contrary to President Trump's. When we finally arrived at the Winfield House, [then acting chief of staff] Mick Mulvaney, typically laid-back and not one to get caught up in titles or seniority, confronted Bolton and unleashed a full Irish explosion on him."'Let's face it, John. You're a f–– self-righteous, self-centered son of a b––!' … [It] was the culmination of months of Bolton thinking he was more important and could play by a different set of rules than the rest of the team … Bolton backed down and stormed off."In response, Axios quoted Sarah Tinsley, an adviser to Bolton, as saying all arrangements for such travel were handled by the Secret Service, without any input from Bolton.
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| Iraqis flee border areas as Turkey strikes Kurdish militants Posted: 22 Jun 2020 08:57 AM PDT |
| Recreational pot laws may boost traffic deaths, studies say Posted: 22 Jun 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Laws legalizing recreational marijuana may lead to more traffic deaths, two new studies suggest, although questions remain about how they might influence driving habits. Previous research has had mixed results and the new studies, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, can't prove that the traffic death increases they found were caused by marijuana use. One study found an excess 75 traffic deaths per year after retail sales began in Colorado in January 2014, compared with states without similar laws.
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| Putin meets with World War II veterans, visits church Posted: 22 Jun 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday marked the date of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union by meeting with veterans and visiting a new military church. Putin laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin wall and greeted World War II veterans. Nazi Germany invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, starting nearly four years of fighting that killed 27 million Soviet people and left the western part of the country in ruins.
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| Mourners pay respects to Rayshard Brooks at Ebenezer viewing Posted: 22 Jun 2020 08:01 AM PDT  Mourners filed through Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church on Monday for a public viewing of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man whose fatal shooting by a white police officer came amid growing calls for an end to racial injustice after the death of George Floyd. Latoya Spikes, 40, and her daughter, 12-year-old Morgan Green, arrived more than two hours early and were first in line outside the church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once pastor and where Brooks' funeral is set for Tuesday.
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| Merkel condemns 'abhorrent' Stuttgart rampage Posted: 22 Jun 2020 07:50 AM PDT  German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned as "abhorrent" a rampage in Stuttgart where hundreds of partygoers brutally attacked police officers, her spokesman said Monday, as concerns grow that law enforcers are increasingly treated with contempt. Hundreds of people unleashed a riot of an "unprecedented scale" in the early hours of Sunday in the city centre of Stuttgart, attacking police and plundering stores after smashing shop windows. Tensions boiled over shortly after midnight when officers carried out checks on a 17-year-old German male suspected of using drugs, Stuttgart deputy police chief Thomas Berger said.
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| Iran rial plunges to virus-induced lows Posted: 22 Jun 2020 07:45 AM PDT  The Iranian rial plunged to new depths against the US dollar on Monday in what economists said was a slump partly induced by the Middle East's deadliest coronavirus outbreak. At Tehran's foreign exchange hub on Ferdowsi Street, the currency was being traded at around 192,800 to the dollar at midday, according to AFP journalists. The rial has hit rock bottom in the past month, collapsing even below the 190,000 rate it fell to in the wake of the US decision in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions.
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| Italy, Germany, US seek Libya cease-fire after Egypt threat Posted: 22 Jun 2020 07:06 AM PDT |
| Telegram pledges to make anti-censorship tools for Iran and China Posted: 22 Jun 2020 07:00 AM PDT  The encrypted instant messenger Telegram said on Monday it's ramping up efforts to develop anti-censorship technologies serving users in countries where it is banned or partially blocked, including China and Iran. The pledge noticeably came on the heels of the Russian government's decision to lift its ban on Telegram last week.
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| Donald Trump Should Talk to Russia to Thwart China Posted: 22 Jun 2020 06:37 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin is thinking about his country's place in the world. We in America should be thinking about that too, especially as the long-term conflict with China intensifies. This is a chance to focus more on what we might have in common.
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| Merkel condemns 'abhorrent' Stuttgart violence after mob attacks police Posted: 22 Jun 2020 06:22 AM PDT  German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country's top security official on Monday decried an outburst of violence at the weekend in the southwestern city of Stuttgart, where hundreds of people attacked stores, vehicles and police officers following a stop-and-search for drugs. Authorities say 24 people were arrested over Saturday night's unrest and 19 police officers were injured. Merkel's spokesman said the scenes "were abhorrent and must be strongly condemned." "Anyone who takes part in such outbreaks of violence, brutally attacks police officers and destroys and plunders shops cannot in any way justify it," Steffen Seibert said Monday. Seibert thanked police officers nationwide, saying they "should know that the German government and millions of people stand behind you." Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who called for "swift and tough" punishment of those responsible, said there had been a broader rise in violence against officers and rescue workers for some time. He complained of "disparagement of the police through words, and disparagement can be just as hurtful as physical violence." Seehofer also suggested he might file a criminal complaint against a left-wing newspaper columnist who had written disparagingly about police recently, but his spokesman later said officials were still examining the legal implications of such a move. Opposition lawmakers warned that government intervention over a newspaper column could be seen as interference in press freedom. The disturbances started after officers stopped a 17-year-old on suspicion of drug possession as several hundred people partied outside around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, police said. Bystanders started throwing stones and bottles, and smaller groups ran through surrounding streets breaking shop windows, according to police. Police said 40 businesses were vandalized, nine of them were looted and 12 police vehicles were damaged before officers brought the situation under control. Police have said the violence had no apparent political motivation. They said the suspect initially stopped was a white German citizen. Of the two dozen people arrested, half held German passports and half were citizens of other countries.
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| Al-Qaida-linked group in Syria detains former commander Posted: 22 Jun 2020 06:20 AM PDT |
| NYPD officer in 'chokehold' video is focus of criminal probe Posted: 22 Jun 2020 06:19 AM PDT  A New York City police officer suspended from duty after he was recorded Sunday putting a man in what the police commissioner said was a banned chokehold could face criminal charges for the second time in his career. Queens prosecutors said Monday they've opened an investigation into Officer David Afanador's actions on the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach, adding that "there must be zero tolerance for police misconduct." Afanador was acquitted in a previous case stemming from allegations he pistol-whipped a teenage suspect in Brooklyn and broke two of his teeth.
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| After splurging on coronavirus, EU seeks state aid compromise with Britain Posted: 22 Jun 2020 06:03 AM PDT |
| North Korea reinstalls propaganda speakers along border with South Posted: 22 Jun 2020 05:41 AM PDT  North Korea is reinstalling propaganda loudspeakers along the border with the South amid growing hostilities between Pyongyang and Seoul, military officials confirmed on Monday. According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the loudspeakers, which were dismantled on both sides during a diplomatic thaw in 2018, have been set up again in "multiple places" inside the demilitarised zone that separates the two nations. "We are closely monitoring the North's moves to wage psychological warfare," an official source told the Yonhap news agency. Since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s until a 2018 agreement, both sides engaged intermittently in blasting propaganda at each other – the North choosing blistering condemnations of Seoul and the South opting for news about democracy, capitalism or popular K-pop songs to encourage defections. The return to the broadcasts marks another escalation in tensions, stemming apparently from Pyongyang's anger over defector groups sending messages and food parcels across the border using balloons. The North retaliated last week by blowing up an inter-Korean liaison office set up in 2018 to foster better relations, and by threatening to send troops back into border areas.
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| For Barr, Standoff With Prosecutor Adds to String of Miscues Posted: 22 Jun 2020 05:25 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- From the onset of his tenure, William Barr has been billed as the attorney general that President Donald Trump was looking for. And Barr has taken some pride in this role, telling Fox News this past weekend that he speaks with the president "very regularly."But for a man who projects unswerving confidence in his political and legal skills, his efforts this month to play presidential intimate have backfired, embarrassing both him and his boss.The month has brought a string of unusually high-profile miscues for the attorney general. He has been at odds with the White House at critical moments, showing how even top administration officials known for their loyalty can fall out of sync with a president laser-focused on his own political popularity.Barr came under fire for his role in ordering federal officers to clear Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1 just before Trump's widely criticized photo op in front of a nearby church.He annoyed some White House officials when he said the Secret Service had earlier ordered Trump to shelter in the building's bunker because of the threat of violence from protesters. That contradicted Trump's explanation that he was merely inspecting the bunker, not seeking protection.And Trump distanced himself almost immediately from his and Barr's decision last week to fire Geoffrey Berman as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, even though he had discussed the move with Barr and a possible successor to Berman, according to two people briefed on the deliberations.Barr asked Berman to leave on Friday afternoon, and he announced the prosecutor's resignation on Friday night after Berman refused to go, essentially firing him in public. Berman then publicly declared that he was not going anywhere. Facing a public relations debacle and legal constraints that made it difficult for Barr to get rid of Berman, the attorney general was forced to ask the president to step in and officially fire him.But soon after Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested he would not merely rubber-stamp an administration nominee to replace Berman, Trump backed away from the whole affair."We spent very little time, we spent very little time talking about it," he told Fox News on Saturday. "But the president has to sign a document or I guess give the OK."The result was that Barr looked as though he had acted without the full backing of the president. He also ended up agreeing to install Berman's deputy, Audrey Strauss, as the acting U.S. attorney instead of his preferred pick, Craig Carpenito, now the top federal prosecutor for New Jersey."As attempted power plays go, this was an abject failure and served only to further undermine the credibility of both the attorney general and the president," said Greg Brower, a former federal prosecutor who once headed the FBI's congressional affairs office.A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment for this article.Even when a judge made favorable statements about the possibility of a legal victory for Trump this month, it was eclipsed by the Berman debacle. A federal judge ruled that the former national security adviser John Bolton may be in jeopardy of forfeiting his $2 million advance or even be prosecuted for failing to scrub classified information out of his new book, as Justice Department lawyers had argued that he was legally required to do.But the judge refused to order copies of the political memoir seized, noting that more than 200,000 of them were already in the hands of booksellers by the time the department acted. The reasons the department filed so long after the books had been distributed to booksellers are not clear, but days before the judge ruled, the department's division that was handling the case suddenly found itself rudderless.Joseph H. Hunt, the chief of the civil division, suddenly resigned without even informing Barr, who had sometimes bypassed him to deal directly with his deputies. Barr's penchant for closely managing his staff and impatience with what he sees as too much deliberation have grown in recent weeks, according to department employees who have sat in on meetings with him.Hunt's departure also seemed to emphasize the risks of handling cases involving Trump's associates in Barr's Justice Department. Other federal prosecutors have either resigned or withdrawn from criminal prosecutions of Trump's former aides after Barr intervened to drop charges or seek lighter punishment.The month began with a blast of criticism over the law enforcement response to the protests outside the White House that began May 29 over the death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who died after a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes.While the protest was largely peaceful, some demonstrators threw bricks at the Secret Service, others defaced the Treasury Department building next to the White House with graffiti and several broke through a police barricade before being arrested. Just before Trump set out across Lafayette Square to hold a Bible in front of St. John's Church on June 1, law enforcement officials fired a chemical irritant at the crowd to clear the area.Barr played a far more critical role in the law enforcement response than was initially understood, essentially assuming battlefield control over a hodgepodge of security forces in Washington for days from a command center he set up, according to people who received briefings inside the center. He was effectively the general overseeing the operation that allowed the president his photo op.As criticism deepened over the havoc surrounding the photo op, Barr insisted that he took charge because the protest was turning violent and had to be brought under control -- not to set up a publicity stunt. But his presence at Trump's side that day made him look less like a commander of officers and more like a presidential prop, a situation he privately said made him uncomfortable, according to two people told of those conversations.In a June 5 interview with The Associated Press, the attorney general gave a hairsplitting description of his role in directing the law enforcement actions. He never issued a "tactical command" to clear the protesters from Lafayette Square, he said, but his attitude was that officers needed to "get it done."Barr also insisted two days later in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" that both he and Defense Secretary Mark Esper agreed that as a last resort, the president could invoke the Insurrection Act allowing him to deploy active-duty troops to control protests around the nation, a notion that Esper had previously seemed to disavow.That controversy was still fresh when the Justice Department, under pressure from a federal lawsuit, released some passages last week that Barr and his aides had previously redacted from the 2019 public report by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, about Russian interference in the 2016 election.Although Barr has aggressively challenged the basis for that whole inquiry and defended the president, the newly disclosed text showed that prosecutors questioned whether Trump was telling them the truth in written answers to their questions.The situation with Berman, the top prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, again raised the question of whether Barr was bending over backward to protect the president. A Republican, Berman pursued a string of cases that have rankled Trump, including an investigation of hush payments to a woman whose allegations that she had an affair with him threatened to derail his 2016 campaign.Berman also obtained an indictment of a state-owned bank in Turkey with political connections that had drawn the president's attention. In his book, Bolton wrote that Trump had promised President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in 2018 that he would intervene in the inquiry against the bank for violating sanctions against Iran. Multiple people close to both Berman and Barr said both men felt that charges needed to be brought, but that they clashed over questions of law and strategy.Prosecutors under Berman are scrutinizing whether the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, violated laws on lobbying for foreign entities in his efforts to dig up damaging information in Ukraine on the president's political rivals. If the Trump administration was hoping to exert political pressure to derail that investigation, some former prosecutors said, firing Berman appears to have backfired."The Berman situation was mishandled both procedurally and substantively," said Brower, the former federal prosecutor and senior FBI official. "The Southern District of New York continues to investigate whatever it is investigating, and Barr's preferred new United States attorney doesn't actually get the job."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Small, medium businesses feel brunt of lockdown pain: survey Posted: 22 Jun 2020 05:07 AM PDT  Small and mid-sized businesses around the world are being hit hardest by the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and about a fifth say they risk shutting down permanently within three months, a survey by the International Trade Centre (ITC) showed on Monday. "The lockdown has led to major revenue drops for most and the survival of many is at stake," the 176-page report released by the Geneva-based ITC, a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. In its global business impact survey of thousands of companies in 132 countries between April and June, nearly two-thirds of micro and small firms said they were "strongly affected" by the impact of lockdowns versus 43 percent of large ones.
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| Detained Lebanese woman accused of dealing with Israel Posted: 22 Jun 2020 04:35 AM PDT |
| Putin hails Russian war dead at giant new army cathedral Posted: 22 Jun 2020 04:35 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin paid homage to Russia's World War II dead on Monday as he visited an enormous new Orthodox cathedral built to honour the military. Nearly 100 metres (330 feet) high and crowned by six golden domes, the Cathedral of the Armed Forces in a military theme park outside Moscow is now Russia's third-largest Orthodox Christian church. It sparked controversy earlier this year when it was revealed that it would include mosaics featuring Putin and Soviet-era dictator Joseph Stalin.
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| English town mourns victims of suspected terror attack Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:58 AM PDT  The English town of Reading mourned Monday for three people stabbed to death as they sat in a park in what is being treated as a terror attack, gathering for a moment of silence as police questioned the alleged lone attacker. More than 100 students lit candles and laid flowers in memory of history teacher James Furlong, who was named as one of the victims. Furlong's friend, Joe Ritchie-Bennett, 39, was named by his family in Philadelphia as the second victim.
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| 3 dead, 6 wounded in shooting at North Carolina block party Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:31 AM PDT  Three people were killed and six others were wounded early Monday when multiple people fired into a crowd at an impromptu celebration in North Carolina, police said. The shooting happened at an impromptu block party in Charlotte that was a continuation of Juneteenth celebrations, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Deputy Chief Gerald Smith said at a media briefing Monday. Police responding to the scene heard shots being fired.
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| World scrambles to fight massive plague of locusts that could leave millions hungry Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:30 AM PDT  The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 450 billion pests have been killed since January, but the battle against the massive, crop-destroying swarms is far from over.
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| Germany: All financial institutions must be ready for a hard Brexit Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:04 AM PDT |
| ‘State-sanctioned violence’: US police fail to meet basic human rights standards Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:00 AM PDT  Report finds not one police department in the 20 largest American cities are compliant with international rights lawsPolice in America's biggest cities are failing to meet even the most basic international human rights standards governing the use of lethal force, a new study from the University of Chicago has found.Researchers in the university's law school put the lethal use-of-force policies of police in the 20 largest US cities under the microscope. They found not a single police department was operating under guidelines that are compliant with the minimum standards laid out under international human rights laws.Among the failings identified by the law scholars, some police forces violate the requirement that lethal force should only be wielded when facing an immediate threat and as a last resort. Some departments allow deadly responses in cases of "escaping suspects", "fugitives", or "prevention of crime" – all scenarios that would be deemed to fall well outside the boundaries set by international law.In other cities, police guidelines failed to constrain officers to use only as much force as is proportionate to the threat confronting them.Remarkably, the researchers from the law school's international human rights clinic discovered that none of the 20 police departments were operating under state laws that were in accord with human rights standards.America's biggest police forces lack legality, the study finds, because they are not answerable to human rights compliant laws authorizing the use of lethal force."The fact that police forces in the biggest US cities don't meet very basic human rights standards is deeply concerning," said Claudia Flores, the clinic's director.The Chicago study underlines how far policing in America is adrift from international norms, making the US a lonely outlier on the world stage. Across Europe, policing policies are much more closely aligned with human rights directives.In Spain, for instance, officers have to use verbal cautions and fire warning shots before they are permitted to aim at anybody. Chokeholds have been banned in Europe for many years.The Chicago researchers conclude too much deadly discretion is given to police officers in the US. The use of force, they say, is a form of "state-sanctioned violence" that society only grants police officers as part of their responsibility "to protect public safety and enforce the law when necessary".The lax framework of US policing has contributed, the authors say, to the spate of police killings of unarmed black people. Victims include George Floyd whose death in police custody in Minneapolis in May sparked weeks of protests around the country.In an interview with the Guardian this week, Agnès Callamard, the UN monitor on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she was "horrified because we are watching people dying in public at the hands of those who are supposed to protect us." Callamard's comments came as the UN human rights council in Geneva held an urgent debate on racism and police conduct in the US.The need for restrictions on police power has been recognized in international law for 40 years. Two basic human rights are involved: the right to life and personal security, and the right of freedom from discrimination. Those rights have also been enshrined in core United Nations standards. All 193 member nations of the UN, including the US, have signed up to a code of conduct for law enforcement officials adopted in 1979.Recent deaths in police custody have underlined the fatal results of officers applying lethal force in situations that do not conform to "last resort". Floyd died after he was pinned down under an officer's knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, though he had not appeared to resist arrest.Rayshard Brooks died when he was shot twice in the back as he was running away from an Atlanta police officer earlier this month, though prosecutors said he posed no threat. The officer, Garrett Rolfe, was charged this week with felony murder.When things go wrong, the Chicago study also found that police use-of-force policies fall woefully short on accountability. All 20 city forces were found to have internal systems for reporting the deployment of lethal force, but only two – Los Angeles and Chicago – require independent external investigations to be carried out in tune with international standards.Houston, San Antonio, San Diego, Austin, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Seattle and El Paso had no external reporting requirements.The Chicago report covers many of the largest and best known police forces in the country. They include the NYPD, which came under the spotlight with the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner; the Chicago PD, whose officer killed Laquan McDonald that same year; and Fort Worth PD, whose officer shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson last October as she was babysitting her nephew in her own home.Of the 20 cities, the police forces of Chicago and Los Angeles are at the top end of the table in terms of the degree to which they comply with human rights laws. At the bottom is Indianapolis, in the state of Indiana whose governor between 2013 and 2017 was Mike Pence, Donald Trump's vice president.The Indianapolis PD ranks so badly because it breaches international standards on numerous counts. It allows the use of lethal force to prevent a felony being carried out – without specifying what kind of felony.Its rules carry no mention of the need for force to be proportional to the danger. It also makes no requirement on police officers to apply an escalating set of measures before they reach the point of lethal force – Indianapolis only talks about issuing a "verbal warning, if feasible".
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| Seattle will move to dismantle protest zone, mayor says Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:59 AM PDT  Faced with growing pressure to crack down on an "occupied" protest zone following two weekend shootings, Seattle's mayor said Monday that officials will move to wind down the blocks-long span of city streets taken over two weeks ago that President Donald Trump asserted is run by "anarchists." Mayor Jenny Durkan said at a news conference that the violence was distracting from changes sought by thousands of peaceful protesters seeking to address racial inequity and police brutality. A shooting Sunday night was the second in less than 48 hours at the edge of the zone, named for the Capitol Hill neighborhood near downtown that emerged during nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
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| Report: Iran arrests founder of student charity, 2 aides Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:59 AM PDT |
| The Reason Why Team Obama Is Gunning for This Powerful Democrat Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:45 AM PDT  Rep. Eliot Engel and President Barack Obama didn't always see eye-to-eye on issues of foreign policy. The New York congressman, as staunch a Middle East hawk as there currently is in the Democratic Party, was the most high-profile House Democrat to oppose Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, the biggest foreign policy initiative of his presidency. Now, Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is fighting for his political life amid a primary challenge to his left from Jamaal Bowman, a former high school principal. Obama administration alumni want him to know they haven't forgotten his vote—and that they don't especially like what he's gotten done since. As some key figures in the party establishment, from Hillary Clinton to Speaker Nancy Pelosi to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have lined up to support Engel, high-profile former Obama advisers, some of whom have immense sway with liberals nationwide through the popular podcasts from Crooked Media, have joined forces with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in an effort to eject him from the House. "Bowman is the kind of progressive, exciting young leader that Democrats should be electing," said Tommy Vietor, co-host of Crooked's Pod Save America podcast and a former Obama national security spokesman. "I also think that [the Foreign Affairs Committee] should be more progressive when it comes to oversight, fighting annexation [of the West Bank], supporting diplomacy like the [Iran Deal] and unwinding parts of the U.S.-Saudi relationship that allow for the continued humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.""We need fresh thinking on that committee," Vietor wrote in an email to The Daily Beast. On a June 10 episode of "Pod Save the World," co-hosts Vietor and Ben Rhodes, the former top Obama foreign policy hand, encouraged their listeners to check out Bowman. "Despite my briefings—I hope not because of them—he opposed the Iran nuclear deal," Rhodes said of Engel. "He's taken a pretty conventional line on issues related to Iran, Saudi, the Middle East more generally."As Engel's primary becomes the party's next big proxy battle, virtually no one is projecting that if Engel loses on June 23—an outcome seen as increasingly possible in Democratic circles—it will be because of his hawkish foreign policy views. At a June 3 event in his district, Engel was caught on a hot mic saying he "wouldn't be here" if he didn't have a primary. In May, The Atlantic reported that he'd ridden out the worst of COVID-19 in his Maryland home, not in the New York City-area seat he represents, which was one of the hardest-hit places in the country.House Chairman Demands Briefing on Kushner's Trip to Saudi ArabiaThe toppling of the Foreign Affairs Chairman, however, would reverberate far beyond his district. "There's a pretty profound desire in Democratic foreign policy circles for a more progressive approach, and that's not where Eliot Engel is or who he is," a former Obama official told The Daily Beast. "He's not bad—he's not creatively moving us in the direction a lot of us would like to go."Over his 31 years in Congress, Engel has become one of the eminent voices in either party pushing for a hawkish view on Middle East policy. In 2003, he supported the invasion of Iraq. In 2004, he led a group of lawmakers pushing for cuts in the U.S. contribution to the United Nations office that aids Palestinian refugees. In early 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an address to Congress that Democratic lawmakers either boycotted or excoriated as an "insult" to them and to President Obama. Engel, however, called Netanyahu's speech "compelling" and said he communicated "legitimate concerns." When Engel announced his opposition to the nuclear deal later that year, he said that the agreement Obama had worked at "may in fact strengthen Iran's position as a destabilizing and destructive influence." He was one of 25 House Democrats who voted against ratifying it. That record has earned Engel the ironclad support of pro-Israel groups—several of which have rallied to the 16-term incumbent in an expensive last-ditch effort to save him. The political action committee for a group called Democratic Majority for Israel, for example, has dropped over $1 million in ads boosting Engel and attacking Bowman—including a Wednesday spot that hit the challenger over a years-old unpaid tax bill. At least two other pro-Israel groups have run ads in support of Engel on social media. "He's been both a champion and a leader of pro-Israel efforts in the House," said Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel. "He would be much missed and that's why we're making a real effort to keep him in office."Obama's own views and vision on Middle East policy, meanwhile, earned him a famously icy relationship with the right-wing Israeli government and this constellation of American pro-Israel groups—such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has ties to the PAC now bankrolling Engel's rescue. At their annual Washington convention one year during Obama's tenure, AIPAC delegates had to be told not to boo the sitting president. Engel and Obama didn't prioritize the same things when it came to foreign policy, according to a former Obama official, who said that the congressman's opposition to the Iran Deal "colored private perceptions" of him through the end of the Obama presidency. "I think the important thing is what got Eliot Engel to that vote. It was the opposite of what President Obama stood for." And that vote, the official added, "was not the first sour taste he left in the prior administration's mouth."As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Engel has used his perch to contribute to Democratic investigations of President Donald Trump, from the Ukraine-driven impeachment inquiry to probes of Secretary Mike Pompeo's handling of the State Department. That side of Engel's record is the one more frequently touted by big-name endorsers such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the lead prosecutor of the case against Trump in the Senate impeachment trial."Ever since Trump took office, Eliot has helped expose the abuses of his administration, and hold this lawless president accountable," Schiff said in his endorsement of Engel. Bowman, for his part, has not made Engel's foreign policy record a centerpiece of his campaign, though he has criticized the incumbent's positions and has touted endorsements from progressive foreign policy groups that oppose Engel's hardline stances. Ironically, if Engel were to lose, it's possible he'd be replaced as chairman by another hawk, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who also voted against the Iran deal and is currently the next most senior Democrat on the panel. Obama alumni insist that their enthusiasm for ousting Engel is nothing personal; many of them like him. "The real story here is he's got this energetic, charismatic, young challenger who talks about a lot of the issues that are at the heart of today's progressive agenda," said a former administration official. "It's not that he lost people on foreign policy, but despite being chairman… the Obama wonk foreign policy constituency is not lined up for him."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Virus outbreak could spin 'out of control' in South Sudan Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:03 AM PDT  It began with a dry cough, weakness and back pain. For Reagan Taban Augustino, part of South Sudan's small corps of health workers trained in treating COVID-19 patients, there was little doubt what he had. Days later, hardly able to breathe, the 33-year-old doctor discovered just how poorly equipped his country is for the coronavirus pandemic: None of the public facilities he tried in the capital, Juba, had oxygen supplies available until he reached South Sudan's only permanent infectious disease unit, which has fewer than 100 beds for a country of 12 million people.
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| The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton, review: Trump emerges not unscathed, but more human Posted: 21 Jun 2020 11:13 PM PDT  When Donald Trump came to power many conservatives weren't sure what to do. Trump agreed with them on some things but not everything, and while conservatives fancy themselves as natural outsiders, they weren't sure if putting a reality TV star into the White House was a good idea. John Bolton, Trump's former National Security Advisor for 16 months, has written a compelling book that explains why it doesn't work and why he had to resign, although Trump insists that he fired him first. The President calls him "a disgruntled boring old fool who only wanted to go to war." Rumour has it, he also never liked his moustache. Who was right, Trump or Bolton? Bolton is certainly the superior intellect. He's a controversial figure on the US Right – a foreign policy hawk – and when Trump hired him, there was alarm and confusion. Trump had famously denounced the Iraq War and promised to pull out of the Middle East; Bolton backed Iraq and wanted to confront Iran and North Korea. But Bolton is, like Henry Kissinger, a hybrid of an intellectual and a public servant, and insists that he actually went out of his way to put his own views aside and to be his master's voice. He was appointed, one suspects, not for his philosophy but the fact that after several months of trying simply to ignore the Washington bureaucracy, the administration had realised it needed to co-opt and reform it, and Bolton - with years of experience under Reagan and Bush - knew how to get things done. The problem, implies Bolton, was not having a boss he disagreed with but that boss being so dysfunctional that it was impossible to pursue a coherent agenda. Trump could be very rude, with no respect for rank; meetings resembled "college food fights". He had a basic ignorance of the world (he allegedly asked if Finland was part of Russia) and although treaties can take years to negotiate, Trump believed he could solve all problems in a face-to-face meeting in a single day.
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| As virus cases soar, Pakistan says it must keep economy open Posted: 21 Jun 2020 11:08 PM PDT  The coronavirus is spreading in Pakistan at one of the fastest rates in the world, and its overwhelmed hospitals are turning away patients. Further complicating the dilemma, many people are ignoring government calls to wear masks or obey social distancing rules. "I am nervous when I go out because I see our people are still not taking it seriously," said Diya Rahman, a broadcaster at Radio Pakistan in the capital, Islamabad.
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| Trump rally highlights vulnerabilities heading into election Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:56 PM PDT  President Donald Trump's return to the campaign trail was designed to show strength and enthusiasm heading into the critical final months before an election that will decide whether he remains in the White House. Instead, his weekend rally in Oklahoma highlighted growing vulnerabilities and crystallized a divisive reelection message that largely ignores broad swaths of voters — independents, suburban women and people of color — who could play a crucial role in choosing Trump or Democratic challenger Joe Biden. The lower-than-expected turnout at the comeback rally, in particular, left Trump fuming.
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