| Mahmoud Dicko: Mali imam challenges President Keïta Posted: 27 Jun 2020 04:13 PM PDT  Mahmoud Dicko is spearheading mass protests against the West African state's embattled president.
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| Biden slams Trump over reported bounties placed on US troops Posted: 27 Jun 2020 03:53 PM PDT  Joe Biden attacked President Donald Trump on Saturday over a report that he said, if true, contains a "truly shocking revelation" about the commander in chief and his failure to protect U.S. troops in Afghanistan and stand up to Russia. The New York Times reported Friday that American intelligence officials concluded months ago that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The report said the Russians offered rewards for successful attacks last year, at a time when the U.S. and Taliban were holding talks to end the long-running war.
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| Malawi opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera wins historic poll rerun Posted: 27 Jun 2020 03:48 PM PDT  Lazarus Chakwera wins nearly 60% of the vote to defeat the incumbent and become Malawi's president.
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| Pence cancels some political events because of virus spikes Posted: 27 Jun 2020 02:46 PM PDT  Vice President Mike Pence called off campaign events in Florida and Arizona this coming week as the states experience a surge in new coronavirus cases. Pence will still travel to those states, which have set records for new confirmed infections in recent days, the White House confirmed, saying he will meet with governors and their health teams. Pence said Friday during a briefing by the White House's coronavirus task force that he would be visiting Florida, Texas and Arizona to receive a "ground report" on spiking cases of COVD-19 across the region.
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| Outrage mounts over report Russia offered bounties to Afghanistan militants for killing US soldiers Posted: 27 Jun 2020 02:40 PM PDT  Fierce response from top Democrats after US intelligence finding was reportedly briefed to Trump in March, but the White House has yet to actOutrage has greeted media reports that American officials believe a Russian intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, including targeting Americans.The story first appeared in the New York Times, citing its sources as unnamed officials briefed on the matter, and followed up by the Washington Post. The reports said that the US had come to the conclusion about the operation several months ago and that Russia had offered rewards for successful attacks last year.The Times wrote: "The intelligence finding was briefed to Trump, and the White House's National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March." White House officials apparently drew up several possible options to retaliate against the Kremlin, ranging from a diplomatic reprimand right through to fresh sanctions. However, the White House has so far not taken any action.It is not clear if bounties were ever paid out for successfully killing American soldiers. The White House denied that either Trump or the vice-president, Mike Pence, were briefed on such a matter.As the news broke it triggered a fierce response from top Democrats, especially those who have long pointed to what they say is Trump's overly close relationship to Russia's autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin.Virginia senator Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016, said: "Trump was cozying up to Putin and inviting him to the G7 all while his administration reportedly knew Russia was trying to kill US troops in Afghanistan and derail peace talks with the Taliban."Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia and a professor of political science at Stanford University, said: "I hope the American people will be as outraged as I am over Trump's complacency. After he knew about these Putin-ordered contracts to kill US soldiers, Trump invited Putin to the G7."John Weaver, a Republican political consultant who helped found the anti-Trump Lincoln Project group, also expressed outrage.> Trump knew Russia was paying bounties on the lives of American servicemen in Afghanistan. He took no action against Putin. Instead, @realDonaldTrump REWARDED Putin by trying to insert Russia back into the G-7. And, not enough, withdrawing 25,000 American troops from Germany.> > — John Weaver (@jwgop) June 27, 2020The news comes after the US reached an initial peace deal with the Taliban, which aimed for the full withdrawal of the US military from the war-torn country within just over a year. The pact was supposed to kickstart talks between the rebels and the Afghan government but they have not materialized.The unit that US officials have reportedly identified as responsible for the bounties has also been linked to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, in Britain in 2018, which triggered a huge diplomatic dispute between Moscow and London.Trump's relationship with Russia has been the source of much scandal and frustration with US allies, especially in Europe.Russia's attempts to interfere with the 2016 US election were part of the basis of the Robert Mueller investigation that dogged much of Trump's time in office. He has repeatedly flown in the face of his own intelligence briefings to say that he believes Russian denials of meddling in US affairs, and has touted his close relationship with Putin as a benefit to the US. He has also pushed for Russia to be allowed back into the G7 group of major industrial powers, while at the same questioning the role of Nato.
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| Princeton to remove Wilson name from public policy school Posted: 27 Jun 2020 11:32 AM PDT  Princeton University has announced plans to remove the name of former President Woodrow Wilson from its public policy school because of his segregationist views, reversing a decision the Ivy League school made four years ago to retain the name. University president Christopher Eisgruber said in a letter to the school community Saturday that the board of trustees had concluded that "Wilson's racist views and policies make him an inappropriate namesake" for Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs and the residential college. Eisgruber said the trustees decided in April 2016 on some changes to make the university "more inclusive and more honest about its history" but decided to retain Wilson's name, but revisited the issue in light of the recent killings of George Floyd and others.
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| Lebanese judge bans media from interviewing US ambassador Posted: 27 Jun 2020 11:01 AM PDT  A Lebanese judge Saturday banned local and foreign media outlets in the country from interviewing the U.S. ambassador to Beirut for a year, calling a recent interview in which she criticized the powerful Hezbollah group seditious and a threat to social peace. The court decision reflected the rising tension between the U.S. and Hezbollah. It also revealed a widening rift among groups in Lebanon, which is facing the worst economic crisis in its modern history.
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| Opposition wins historic rerun of Malawi's presidential vote Posted: 27 Jun 2020 10:13 AM PDT  The opposition has won Malawi's historic rerun of the presidential election, the first time a court-overturned vote in Africa has led to the defeat of an incumbent leader. Lazarus Chakwera's victory late Saturday was a result of months of determined street protests in the southern African nation, and of a unanimous decision by the Constitutional Court that widespread irregularities in the May 2019 election — including the use of correction fluid on ballots —could not stand. President Peter Mutharika, who had sought a second five-year term, earlier Saturday called the rerun of the election "the worst in Malawi's history."
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| UK can reach 'broad outline' of Brexit political agreement over summer, negotiators to tell EU Posted: 27 Jun 2020 09:16 AM PDT  Britain can agree to the "broad outline of a political agreement" with the European Union over the terms of Brexit this summer, Boris Johnson's negotiating team will tell their Brussels counterparts on Sunday. David Frost, the Prime Minister's chief Brexit negotiator, is arriving in Brussels with a small team of 20 UK negotiators as talks over a deal enter an intensive phase. The news came as Mark Francois, the chairman of the Eurosceptic European Research Group of Tory MPs, warned the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, that a deal selling out UK interests would not be passed by MPs in Parliament. At last week's high-level meeting. both sides agreed to a process of intensified negotiations in the hope of injecting new momentum. The UK now expects those words to be translated into action, officials said. Sticking points remain over the "level playing field" on regulations and access to fishing waters, but a Number 10 source warned that Britain "won't waste time on talks that never move forward". The UK's preparations for leaving the EU without a deal in December are now said to be "well under way". The source said: "The faster we can reach an agreement, the better – and there's no clear reason why the broad outline of a political agreement can't be reached in the summer. "The EU needs to realise that these talks cannot be prolonged into the autumn. This week, Michel Barnier referred to 'the real moment of truth' as October. As we have repeatedly made clear, this is far too late. Businesses need clarity on the terms of transition as quickly as possible."
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| Governors face competing voices as reported virus cases rise Posted: 27 Jun 2020 09:06 AM PDT  As Nevada prepared to start reopening parts of its economy last month, a team of medical experts recommended to Gov. Steve Sisolak that he require people wear masks in public to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. The governor promoted masks but resisted making them a requirement, saying he feared the rule could create a backlash for businesses trying to enforce the order on customers. With reported coronavirus cases rising the past four weeks, Sisolak on Wednesday finally decided to take their advice and impose the mandate, saying it was necessary to protect people and keep businesses open.
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| Yemen president urges separatists to 'stop the bloodshed' Posted: 27 Jun 2020 09:03 AM PDT  Yemen's president on Saturday called on southern separatists to "stop the bloodshed" and abide by a power-sharing agreement, in his first public comments since the secessionists declared autonomy in April. The conflict between the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the internationally recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi constitutes a second front in Yemen, already split by a war between government loyalists and Iran-backed Huthi rebels. "I call on the so-called Southern Transitional Council... to return to the path of the Riyadh Agreement and stop the bloodshed," Hadi said during a meeting on Saturday with high-level government officials, referring to a power-sharing deal for the south struck last November that quickly became defunct.
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| Electoral Commission must be abolished and handed back to councils, says Vote Leave as director speaks out Posted: 27 Jun 2020 09:00 AM PDT  The electoral watchdog should be abolished and its powers handed back to local councils, the three remaining board members of the Vote Leave campaign group have said. The call came as Alan Halsall, one of the directors, spoke out for the first time to lay bare the toll taken by the Electoral Commission's pursuit of him in the years following the 2016 referendum. MPs on the public administration and constitutional affairs committee are due to grill senior officials from the Commission about its work on Thursday. Earlier this month, the Government said it was considering whether to allow the Electoral Commission to have beefed-up powers to undertake its own prosecutions. A review by the committee for standards in public life said it would "consider whether the commission should play a role in criminal prosecutions for breaches of election finance laws". This came despite, in May, police dropping an investigation into Mr Halsall and Darren Grimes, the founder of pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave, for failing to declare a payment related to the campaign. The watchdog said BeLeave "spent more than £675,000 with [Canadian data firm] Aggregate IQ under a common plan with Vote Leave". This spending took Vote Leave over its £7 million legal spending limit by almost £500,000. Vote Leave had said they were given the go-ahead to give the money to BeLeave and had acted within the rules. As large legal costs mounted, Vote Leave paid a £61,000 fine last year but denied any wrongdoing, while Mr Grimes won an appeal against his £20,000 fine. Vote Leave is currently being wound up by its directors Mr Halsall, Jon Moynihan and Daniel Hodson, a legal process that can take months. In a statement to The Telegraph, the trio said: "The Board of Vote Leave is firmly of the belief that the Electoral Commission should be abolished, and its functions returned to the various institutions that have traditionally occupied those roles." Mr Moynihan has suggested that the commission's powers are divided between existing bodies, with Companies House keeping a register of candidates or campaigners. He added that a group of senior council returning officers should regulate referendums and check donations and expenses against the law, while the police would investigate and prosecute infractions. In a submission to the committee, entitled Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? (Who will guard us from the guardians?) Mr Moynihan said the commission was "an experiment that has failed". Mr Moynihan said the commission was set up by Tony Blair's Labour Government in 2000 "as a solution to a perceived problem that all agreed was at worst only a small one – and which in reality didn't exist at all". He added: "The commission's recent actions have created a situation where honest citizens will now understandably fear to engage in the democratic process for elections or referenda, especially if the EC is allowed to continue. "Who, having behaved blamelessly, will want to expose themselves to having years of their life taken away, having to defend themselves against financial sanctions and worse, their reputations attemptedly brought into disrepute?" Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Halsall said: "I am an honest, innocent man who volunteered to help in a campaign that went to the heart of the future of our country. "You may not agree with my opinions, but I got involved with the best of intentions and a desire to play my part in contributing to a democratic debate around Brexit. I ask you, having read this story, would any of you now volunteer to do the same?" An Electoral Commission spokesman said on Saturday: "The Electoral Commission was created to provide integrity and transparency of party and election finance; well-run elections and referendums which produce results that are accepted; and to develop public understanding of the way our democracy works. "These are vital functions, which our democracy cannot be without." Sources pointed out that the commission imposed fines on Vote Leave for breaking electoral law, which have been paid. They added that the commission referred Vote Leave to the police so that potential offences that lie outside oits remit could be properly investigated. These were separate and additional offences to those the commission found Vote Leave had committed. It is right that potential electoral offences are properly investigated by the appropriate authority, they said.
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| Nurses, doctors feel strain as virus races through Arizona Posted: 27 Jun 2020 08:50 AM PDT  They saw the ominous photos: Crowded hospitals, exhausted nurses, bodies piling up in morgues. It was far away, in New York, northern Italy and other distant places. Now, after three months of anxiously waiting and preparing, Arizona nurses and doctors are on the front lines as the coronavirus rips through the state, making it one of the world's hot spots.
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| Spanish colonial monuments fuel race strife in US Southwest Posted: 27 Jun 2020 08:30 AM PDT  Statues of Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Oñate are now in storage after demonstrators in New Mexico threatened to topple them. Protesters in California have pulled down sculptures of Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, and now schools, parks and streets named after Spanish explorers are facing uncertain futures. As statues and monuments associated with slavery and other flawed moments of the nation's history come tumbling down at both the hands of protesters and in some cases decisions by politicians, the movement in the American Southwest has turned its attention to representations of Spanish colonial figures long venerated by some Hispanics but despised by Native Americans.
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| Iran's Khamenei warns economy will worsen if virus spreads Posted: 27 Jun 2020 07:55 AM PDT  Iran's supreme leader warned on Saturday that the country's economic problems would worsen if the novel coronavirus spreads unchecked, as the government launched a mask-wearing campaign. "It is correct to say that something must be done to prevent economic problems caused by the coronavirus," said Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "But in the case of negligence and significant spread of the disease, economic problems will increase, too," he said, according to his official website.
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| Egypt executes Libyan militant for plotting deadly attack Posted: 27 Jun 2020 07:29 AM PDT |
| Russia Offered Afghans Bounty to Kill U.S. Troops, Officials Say Posted: 27 Jun 2020 07:28 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan -- including targeting American troops -- amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.The intelligence finding was briefed to President Donald Trump, and the White House's National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options -- starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.An operation to incentivize the killing of American and other NATO troops would be a significant and provocative escalation of what American and Afghan officials have said is Russian support for the Taliban, and it would be the first time the Russian spy unit was known to have orchestrated attacks on Western troops.Any involvement with the Taliban that resulted in the deaths of American troops would also be a huge escalation of Russia's so-called hybrid war against the United States, a strategy of destabilizing adversaries through a combination of such tactics as cyberattacks, the spread of fake news, and covert and deniable military operations.The Kremlin had not been made aware of the accusations, said Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for President Vladimir Putin of Russia. "If someone makes them, we'll respond," Peskov said.Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, denied that the insurgents have "any such relations with any intelligence agency" and called the report an attempt to defame them."These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless -- our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources," he said. "That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don't attack them."Spokespeople at the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA declined to comment.The officials familiar with the intelligence did not explain the White House delay in deciding how to respond to the intelligence about Russia.While some of his closest advisers, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have counseled more hawkish policies toward Russia, Trump has adopted an accommodating stance toward Moscow.At a summit in Helsinki in 2018, Trump strongly suggested that he believed Putin's denial that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election, despite broad agreement within the U.S. intelligence establishment that it did. Trump criticized a bill imposing sanctions on Russia when he signed it into law after Congress passed it by veto-proof majorities. And he has repeatedly made statements that undermined the NATO alliance as a bulwark against Russian aggression in Europe.The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the delicate intelligence and internal deliberations. They said the intelligence has been treated as a closely held secret, but the administration expanded briefings about it this week -- including sharing information about it with the British government, whose forces are among those said to have been targeted.The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals. The officials did not describe the mechanics of the Russian operation, such as how targets were picked or how money changed hands. It is also not clear whether Russian operatives had deployed inside Afghanistan or met with their Taliban counterparts elsewhere.The revelations came into focus inside the Trump administration at a delicate and distracted time. Although officials collected the intelligence earlier in the year, the interagency meeting at the White House took place as the coronavirus pandemic was becoming a crisis and parts of the country were shutting down.Moreover, as Trump seeks reelection in November, he wants to strike a peace deal with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan War.Both American and Afghan officials have previously accused Russia of providing small arms and other support to the Taliban that amounts to destabilizing activity, although Russian government officials have dismissed such claims as "idle gossip" and baseless."We share some interests with Russia in Afghanistan, and clearly they're acting to undermine our interests as well," Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., commander of American forces in Afghanistan at the time, said in a 2018 interview with the BBC.Though coalition troops suffered a spate of combat casualties last summer and early fall, only a few have since been killed. Four Americans were killed in combat in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked U.S. positions since a February agreement.American troops have also sharply reduced their movement outside of military bases because of the coronavirus, reducing their exposure to attack.While officials were said to be confident about the intelligence that Russian operatives offered and paid bounties to Afghan militants for killing Americans, they have greater uncertainty about how high in the Russian government the covert operation was authorized and what its aim may be.Some officials have theorized that the Russians may be seeking revenge on NATO forces for a 2018 battle in Syria in which the U.S. military killed several hundred pro-Syrian forces, including numerous Russian mercenaries, as they advanced on an American outpost. Officials have also suggested that the Russians may have been trying to derail peace talks to keep the United States bogged down in Afghanistan. But the motivation remains murky.The officials briefed on the matter said the government had assessed the operation to be the handiwork of Unit 29155, an arm of Russia's military intelligence agency, known widely as the GRU. The unit is linked to the March 2018 nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury, England, of Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who had worked for British intelligence and then defected, and his daughter.Western intelligence officials say the unit, which has operated for more than a decade, has been charged by the Kremlin with carrying out a campaign to destabilize the West through subversion, sabotage and assassination. In addition to the 2018 poisoning, the unit was behind an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016 and the poisoning of an arms manufacturer in Bulgaria a year earlier.American intelligence officials say the GRU was at the center of Moscow's covert efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. In the months before that election, American officials say, two GRU cyberunits, known as 26165 and 74455, hacked into Democratic Party servers, and then used WikiLeaks to publish embarrassing internal communications.In part because those efforts were aimed at helping tilt the election in Trump's favor, Trump's handling of issues related to Russia and Putin has come under particular scrutiny. The special counsel investigation found that the Trump campaign welcomed Russia's intervention and expected to benefit from it, but found insufficient evidence to establish that his associates had engaged in any criminal conspiracy with Moscow.Operations involving Unit 29155 tend to be much more violent than those involving the cyberunits. Its officers are often decorated military veterans with years of service, in some cases dating to the Soviet Union's failed war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Never before has the unit been accused of orchestrating attacks on Western soldiers, but officials briefed on its operations say it has been active in Afghanistan for many years.Though Russia declared the Taliban a terrorist organization in 2003, relations between them have been warming in recent years. Taliban officials have traveled to Moscow for peace talks with other prominent Afghans, including the former president, Hamid Karzai. The talks have excluded representatives from the current Afghan government as well as anyone from the United States and at times have seemed to work at crosscurrents with U.S. efforts to bring an end to the conflict.The disclosure comes at a time when Trump has said he would invite Putin to an expanded meeting of the Group of Seven nations, but tensions between U.S. and Russian militaries are running high.In several recent episodes, in international territory and airspace from off the coast of Alaska to the Black and Mediterranean seas, combat planes from each country has scrambled to intercept military aircraft from the other.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Mississippi takes step toward dropping rebel image from flag Posted: 27 Jun 2020 07:19 AM PDT  Spectators at the Mississippi Capitol broke into cheers and applause Saturday as lawmakers took a big step toward erasing the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag, a symbol that has come under intensifying criticism in recent weeks amid nationwide protests against racial injustice. "The eyes of the state, the nation and indeed the world are on this House," Republican Rep. Jason White told his colleagues. On the other end of the Capitol, Sen. Briggs Hopson declared: "Today, you — Mississippi — have a date with destiny."
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| Ireland's Micheál Martin to lead historic govt coalition Posted: 27 Jun 2020 07:16 AM PDT  Centrist politician Micheál Martin became Ireland's new prime minister Saturday, fusing two longtime rival parties into a coalition four months after an election that upended the status quo. The deal will see Martin's Fianna Fail govern with Fine Gael — the party of outgoing leader Leo Varadkar —and with the smaller Green Party. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, bitter opponents whose roots lie in opposing sides of the civil war that followed Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom, have never before formed a government together.
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| What to wear: Feds' mixed messages on masks sow confusion Posted: 27 Jun 2020 06:41 AM PDT  Forgive the American people if they're in a fog about face masks. President Donald Trump and the federal government have done a number on them. Topped off by Trump's stated suspicion that some people wear masks just to troll him.
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| Critics question `less lethal' force used during protests Posted: 27 Jun 2020 06:37 AM PDT  When a participant at a rally in Austin to protest police brutality threw a rock at a line of officers in the Texas capital, officers responded by firing beanbag rounds — ammunition that law enforcement deems "less lethal" than bullets. A beanbag cracked 20-year-old Justin Howell's skull and, according to his family, damaged his brain. Adding to the pain, police admit the Texas State University student wasn't the intended target.
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| AP FACT CHECK: Trump's see-no-evil posture on coronavirus Posted: 27 Jun 2020 05:50 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's persistent see-no-evil posture on coronavirus testing — if you don't look for the virus, the cases go away — defies both science and street sense. Trump contradicted them, saying he wasn't kidding. THE FACT: First, it's not true that he ordered testing slowed.
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| Virus visitor bans renew interest in nursing home cameras Posted: 27 Jun 2020 05:41 AM PDT  Visitation bans at nursing homes have renewed interest in legislation that would allow families to put remote cameras inside the facilities to help see how loved ones are doing. Before the pandemic, cameras were seen as a way to identify elder abuse and neglect.
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| Germany cautions virus risk still high as economies restart Posted: 27 Jun 2020 05:04 AM PDT  German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned Saturday that the coronavirus pandemic is far from over, as regional outbreaks gave rise to fears of a second wave. India reported more than 18,000 new cases, pushing its cumulative total over the half-million mark, the fourth highest globally behind the U.S., Brazil and Russia. Elsewhere, Egypt and Britain said they would ease virus controls, while China and South Korea battled smaller outbreaks in their capitals.
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| Satellite image: Iran blast was near suspected missile site Posted: 27 Jun 2020 04:17 AM PDT  An explosion that rattled Iran's capital came from an area in its eastern mountains that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites, satellite photographs showed Saturday. What exploded in the incident early Friday that sent a massive fireball into the sky near Tehran remains unclear, as does the cause of the blast. The unusual response of the Iranian government in the aftermath of the explosion, however, underscores the sensitive nature of an area near where international inspectors believe the Islamic Republic conducted high-explosive tests two decades ago for nuclear weapon triggers.
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| EU narrows down border list, US unlikely to make the cut Posted: 27 Jun 2020 03:37 AM PDT  European Union envoys are close to finalizing a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter Europe again, possibly from late next week, EU diplomats confirmed Saturday. Another key condition is whether the country has a ban on citizens from European nations. President Donald Trump also suspended the entry of all people from Europe's ID check-free travel zone in a decree in March.
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| ASEAN takes position vs China's vast historical sea claims Posted: 27 Jun 2020 03:29 AM PDT  Southeast Asian leaders said a 1982 U.N. oceans treaty should be the basis of sovereign rights and entitlements in the South China Sea, in one of their strongest remarks opposing China's claim to virtually the entire disputed waters on historical grounds. The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations took the position in a statement issued by Vietnam Saturday on behalf of the 10-nation bloc. ASEAN leaders held their annual summit by video on Friday, with the coronavirus pandemic and the long-raging territorial disputes high on the agenda.
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| US imposes visa restrictions on Chinese officials over Hong Kong national security law Posted: 27 Jun 2020 02:30 AM PDT |
| Trump bruised as polls favour Biden – but experts warn of risk of dirty tricks Posted: 27 Jun 2020 02:00 AM PDT  The president has had a difficult period and is trailing his rival by double digits. But he has time to fight back – and fight dirtyIt was the death of a salesman. With tie undone and crumpled "Make America great again" cap in hand, Donald Trump cut a forlorn figure shambling across the White House south lawn on his return from his failed comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some observers likened him to Willy Loman, the tragic protagonist of Arthur Miller's benchmark drama.The US president, critics say, has spent years selling a bill of goods to the American people. Now they are no longer buying.The thinly attended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last weekend was the physical manifestation of what poll after poll is showing: Trump is trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden by double digits and seemingly on course for a historic defeat in November's presidential election.But seasoned commentators warn against complacency. Trump still has time to fight back – and fight dirty."You look at the polls and think 'he can't win'," tweeted Bill Kristol, who served in two Republican administrations. "But Trump's path to victory doesn't depend on persuading Americans. It depends on voter suppression, mass disinformation, foreign interference, and unabashed use of executive branch power to shape events, and perceptions, this fall."It was a reminder that the polls only tell part of any election story. In 2016, Trump nearly always appeared to be heading to defeat by Hillary Clinton. This time polls appear to point to a Biden landslide. The former vice-president leads Trump by 14 percentage points in a national survey of registered voters by the New York Times and Siena College.As expected, the poll showed Biden well ahead among women, young people and African American and Hispanic voters. Alarmingly for the president, Biden had also drawn level among white voters, men, and middle-aged and older voters – typically the pillars of Trump's support. This and numerous other polls also show Trump trailing badly in six swing states likely to decide the all-important electoral college.At the start of the year Trump was confident of victory, but the research suggests voters are punishing him for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, exacerbation of the economic crisis and violent response to Black Lives Matter protests. This week he continued to downplay the virus, and staged campaign events with few face masks and little physical distancing, even as the daily infection rate soared to an all-time high of more than 40,000.But Trump's foes have learned to write him off at their peril. He once famously boasted that he could shoot someone on New York's Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. He still has the significant advantages of incumbency and, opponents say, of being entirely untroubled by a moral conscience: the president will stop at nothing to cling to power.Kristol, editor at large of the Bulwark website and director of the advocacy organisation Defending Democracy Together, said in an interview: "The special circumstances with Trump are his total abandonment of any constraints and even more important, perhaps, his having people around him who've abandoned any constraints on the way in which they'll use the federal government, the executive branch, to say things, do things, pretend to do things."Richard Nixon did a little of that in 1972, and of course presidents always tout good news in the months before the election. But this time, it's the degree to which you could have a real sustained effort to suppress minority voting and not make it easy for young people to vote."It's the degree to which you could have foreign intervention and also Trump colluding, not in the sense of coordinating but just welcoming it and making it easier. It's the degree to which you could have Putin deciding if he wants Trump re-elected, to give Trump a 'foreign policy victory' weeks before the election, which will turn out to be not a real victory months later."Kristol added: "It's the use of loyalists at the office of the Director of National Intelligence and to some degree the state department and justice department. It's the degree to which we'll get 'new' news about Biden and [his son] Hunter Biden, sort of based on something but wildly exaggerated and trumpeted and on Fox News."If you put all that together and you have a circumstance where someone is really shameless and a lot of the normal constraints have weakened, it's conceivable that the reluctant Trump voter from 2016 who's become a reluctant Biden voter in 2020 goes back to being a reluctant Trump voter. That's what worries me the most."Voter suppression has haunted US elections for decades but the pandemic presents Trump with new opportunities. States are seeking a massive expansion of mail-in ballots so people do not have risk their health by queuing and voting in person. The president has intensified claims that this will lead to widespread cheating, even though several studies have shown that voter fraud is extremely rare."RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS," was a false claim he tweeted this week in capital letters. "IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!"His wild words are often backed by organizational muscle and action. The Republican National Committee has devoted $20m to opposing Democratic lawsuits across the country seeking to expand voting. Republicans are also reportedly aiming to recruit up to 50,000 people in 15 key states to serve as poll watchers and challenge the registration of voters they believe are ineligible.Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York, said: "What we're seeing in some primary states is the closures of polling places in African American dominated areas and mistaken purging of Democrats from the voter rolls. Some of this is anecdotal, but it is worrying all the same. And it will, no doubt, continue through the general election."Only three incumbent presidents have been defeated for reelection since the second world war: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush. Trump has the advantages of the bully pulpit, support from Fox News and other conservative media, a huge data harvesting operation and more cash than Biden. He is traveling the country, throwing virus caution to the winds, as the Democrat remains mostly confined to his basement.But critics fear that the president could also bend state apparatus to his advantage, noting the loyalty of officials such as attorney general Bill Barr, who ordered security forces to use tear gas against peaceful protesters outside the White House so his boss could stage a photo op.Trump has repeatedly asserted a baseless conspiracy theory called "Obamagate", claiming that former president Barack Obama and Biden concocted fake allegations about Trump's links to Russia in a "coup" to deny him the White House. He could pressure Barr and Republicans in Congress to focus on this, as well as on Biden's son Hunter's business activities in Ukraine, as election day nears.Lawrence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said: "He could announce, perhaps without any basis at all, in mid-October that a new vaccine has been found, and he could pressure the FDA [Food and Drug Administration]to approve it and that could mess with the vote. He could get help of the sort he has already asked for from China and Russia to interfere with the vote.""He could engage in conspiratorial vote suppression in which a number of people are prevented from voting by a sudden announcement that there is a spike in the coronavirus in certain jurisdictions. The power that he has as president to both manipulate the votes actually cast, and in addition to that, to launch challenges where his manipulation has not been sufficiently successful is enormously broad."Tribe added: "If we know nothing else about this man, we know that his priorities are entirely personal and narcissistic. We know that he is not worried about the stability or the safety of the country and, given that set of psychological realities, it would take a much more ironclad process than we have to warrant any degree of confidence that we will have a smooth and peaceful transition to a new president next January."Another of Kristol's warnings is about foreign interference.Special counsel Robert Mueller identified 272 contacts between Trump's 2016 campaign team and Russia-linked operatives, including at least 38 meetings. Last year, asked by ABC News if he would take dirt on an opponent from a foreign source, the president said candidly: "I think I'd take it."Trump was impeached for asking the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden on baseless charges in return for $400m in military aid. And in his new memoir, former national security adviser John Bolton alleges that Trump pleaded with China's president Xi Jinping to help him get re-elected by buying more US agricultural products.Neil Sroka, a spokesperson for the progressive group Democracy for America, said: "We already know he's actively solicited the help of a foreign government in this election from the Bolton book."And concerns persist that social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are still doing too little to weed out foreign-based accounts that spread disinformation aimed at dividing Americans and potentially helping Trump.Sroka added: "I don't think we have any reason to believe that foreign actors would be successful in intruding in our voting systems, which means that the way in which they have an impact is through disinformation and trying to stoke up divides within ourselves. That's another reason why it's so important that we make sure we win big."Scarred by 2016, Democrats know their greatest threat could be complacency, especially among younger voters who might decide to stay at home on a rainy day and not get around to voting. Biden, who held a virtual fundraiser with Obama this week, tweeted: "Ignore the polls. Register to vote."With four months to go, anything could happen.Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in Columbia, South Carolina, agreed that Trump should not be underestimated. "We should adopt the philosophy that there's no education in the second kick of the mule," he said. "If someone finds success in something before, they're going to try to use those same ingredients to find success again. He is willing to do, to say, to have and be a part of anything that will position him to come across the finish line first, even if it means doing what is not in the long term best interests of this country."
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| Egypt eases restrictions despite surge in virus infections Posted: 27 Jun 2020 12:42 AM PDT  Egypt on Saturday lifted many restrictions put in place against the coronavirus pandemic, reopening cafes, clubs, gyms and theaters after more than three months of closure, despite a continued upward trend in new infections. Authorities also allowed the limited reopening of mosques and churches, and lifted the nighttime curfew. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi's government has been keen to save the Egyptian economy that was hit hard by the virus outbreak.
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| In Belgian town, monuments expose a troubled colonial legacy Posted: 27 Jun 2020 12:16 AM PDT  For a long time, few people in the small Belgian town of Halle paid much attention to the monuments. It depicts a naked Congolese boy offering a bowl of fruit in gratitude to Lt. Gen. Baron Alphonse Jacques de Dixmude, a Belgian soldier accused of atrocities in Africa. Protests sweeping the world that followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed last month by Minneapolis police, are focusing attention on Europe's colonial past and racism of the present.
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| Democrats warn against overconfidence in fight against Trump Posted: 26 Jun 2020 09:17 PM PDT  President Donald Trump is entering the final four-month stretch before Election Day presiding over a country that faces a public health crisis, mass unemployment and a reckoning over racism. Biden and his leading supporters are stepping up warnings to Democrats to avoid becoming complacent. Former President Barack Obama and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insist that plenty could change between now and Nov. 3 and that the party must be vigilant against Trump, who knows few boundaries when it comes to his political foes.
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| American jailed in Spain was unwitting drug mule, US says Posted: 26 Jun 2020 09:08 PM PDT  Victor Stemberger wasn't about to ignore the emails inviting him into a multimillion-dollar business opportunity, so he pitched himself as perfect for the job. Today Stemberger sits in a Spanish jail, one year after flying into the country with 2.4 kilograms (more than 5 pounds) of cocaine expertly sewn into bubble jackets in a bag. Federal officials have for years warned about scams that lure elderly Americans or those with diminished mental capacity — Stemberger had a significant brain injury nearly 15 years ago — into becoming drug couriers.
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| Congress stalls out — again — dealing with national trauma Posted: 26 Jun 2020 09:05 PM PDT  For a moment, Congress had a chance to act on policing reform, mobilized by a national trauma and overwhelming public support. It's latest example of the ways hyper-partisanship and deepening polarization on Capitol Hill have hamstrung Congress' ability to meet the moment and keep up with public opinion. As a result, police reform seems likely to join gun control and immigration as issues where Americans overwhelmingly support changes to laws that elected representatives are unable or unwilling to pass.
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| Brazen ambush of Mexico police chief leaves few options Posted: 26 Jun 2020 09:02 PM PDT  The dramatic assassination attempt on Mexico City's police chief was just the latest and clearest sign that Mexico's powerful criminal element is bringing the violence it has unleashed on the general population directly to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's door. Police Chief Omar García Harfuch was nearly added to this year's murder total Friday when more than two-dozen gunmen executed a carefully coordinated plan to intercept his armored vehicle at dawn with grenades, assault rifles and a .50 caliber sniper rifle on the capital's grand boulevard. García survived with three bullet wounds and within hours blamed the Jalisco New Generation Cartel for the attempt that killed two of his bodyguards and a bystander.
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| Coronavirus task force briefs — but not at White House Posted: 26 Jun 2020 08:42 PM PDT  There was no presidential appearance and no White House backdrop when the government's coronavirus task force briefed the public for the first time since April — in keeping with an administration effort to show it is paying attention to the latest spike in cases but is not on a wartime footing that should keep the country from reopening the economy. The Friday briefing at the Department of Health and Human Services was held as the number of confirmed new coronavirus infections per day in the U.S. soared to an all-time high of 40,000 — higher even than during the deadliest stretch in April and May. In light of the new surge, task force briefers chose their words carefully to update the public about COVID-19, which has become both a public health and political issue. Vice President Mike Pence had the most delicate line to walk.
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| Judge: US must free migrant children from family detention Posted: 26 Jun 2020 04:57 PM PDT  A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of children held with their parents in U.S. immigration jails and denounced the Trump administration's prolonged detention of families during the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee's order applies to children held for more than 20 days at three family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Citing the recent spread of the virus in two of the three facilities, Gee set a deadline of July 17 for children to either be released with their parents or sent to family sponsors.
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