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Russian investigators summoned a number of opposition politicians for questioning Thursday after the authorities staged night-time raids and jailed top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for 30 days. The crackdown comes as opposition politicians fight to g…
July 25, 2019Read More
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyTEL AVIV—It was already late afternoon Tuesday local time when a call came in from a contact several time zones away. “A strange story is making the rounds in the Iranian press,” said the contact, who tracks s…
July 25, 2019Read More
Donald Trump appeared at a right-wing rally in front of a fake presidential seal, doctored to make apparently satiric references to Russia and golf.The tweaked image flashed up on a screen behind the president as he spoke to a summit hosted by the cons…
July 25, 2019Read More
Former special counsel Robert Mueller told House lawmakers that Russian interference is a continuing threat to U.S. elections. Capitol Hill is focusing new attention on election security.
July 25, 2019Read More
A federal judge in San Francisco blocked a Trump administration rule requiring most asylum-seekers to ask for protection in another country before they cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
July 25, 2019Read More
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told his new top team of ministers on Thursday they had a momentous task ahead and were committed to delivering Brexit by Oct. 31. Johnson, who officially took over from Theresa May on Wednesday and swiftly sacked …
July 25, 2019Read More
Lead negotiators for China and the United States will meet in Shanghai on Tuesday for two days in the next round of trade talks, China’s commerce ministry confirmed. It would mark the first face-to-face meeting between U.S. and Chinese trade teams sin…
July 25, 2019Read More
President Donald Trump on Wednesday vetoed three congressional resolutions barring billions of dollars in weapons sales to countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are engaged in a devastating war in Yemen. The resolutions “would weaken America’s global competitiveness and damage the important relationships we share with our allies and partners,” Trump said in letters to the Senate justifying blocking them. It is the third time the president has employed his veto power since taking office. The measures cleared Congress this month in a strong rebuke to Trump, whose administration took the extraordinary step of bypassing legislators to approve the sales in May. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said the administration was responding to an emergency caused by Saudi Arabia’s arch-foe Iran. But lawmakers including some Senate Republicans said there were no legitimate grounds to circumvent Congress, which has the right to disapprove arms sales. Senator Lindsey Graham delivered a stinging rebuke to Riyadh last month, saying he hoped his vote against the sales would “send a signal to Saudi Arabia that if you act the way you’re acting, there is no space for a strategic relationship.” The senator was referring to last year’s brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey at the hands of Saudi agents, an incident that outraged lawmakers and triggered a full-blown crisis in Riyadh’s relations with the West. Critics also say the arms sales would aggravate the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a US-backed coalition that also includes the UAE in a battle against the Iranian-supported Huthi rebels. The UN says the conflict has triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. But Trump argued Wednesday that barring the sale of US weapons “would likely prolong the conflict in Yemen and deepen the suffering it causes,” and that “without precision-guided munitions, more – not fewer – civilians are likely to become casualties.” The US president also pointed to Iran in justifying blocking the resolutions. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are “a bulwark against the malign activities of Iran and its proxies in the region,” and the arms sale licenses Congress sought to block enhance their “ability to deter and defend against these threats,” he argued. Tensions between Washington and Tehran have soared since Trump pulled the US out of a deal with Iran last year that was aimed at curbing its nuclear program, and imposed punishing sanctions. The US has said it brought down one and possibly two Iranian drones last week, and has blamed Iran for a series of mysterious attacks on tanker ships in strategic Gulf waters. Tehran shot down an unmanned US aircraft in June, after which Trump announced that he had called off air strikes on Iran at the last minute because the resulting death toll would have been too high. Trump has said that the choice between war and diplomacy with Iran “could go either way,” and that he is “okay either way it goes.”
July 25, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — The EU rejected Boris Johnson’s demand that the Irish border backstop should be scrapped after the U.K. prime minister stressed his “absolute commitment” to leaving the bloc on Oct. 31. Johnson, who hopes Brussels will rethink its refusa…
July 25, 2019Read More
The U.S. military could escort American ships through key waterways in the Middle East, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters on Wednesday.”We will escort our ships to the degree that the risk demands it,” Esper said at a Pentagon media availability.However, Esper stressed on Wednesday that he was not announcing that U.S. Navy ships and aircraft would immediately begin escorting U.S. commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz to deter Iranian aggression.”I’m not saying that right now,” Esper said. “I’m just saying this is one of the things I’m going to see with CENTCOM next week as I understand their concept of the operations. Again, to the degree of course United States vessels need an escort, we will be there. We will be available to them.”Iran has recently seized foreign ships as tensions with the United States and Europe have risen sharply over the past few months, prompting U.S. Central Command to announce on July 19 that it was developing Operation Sentinel, a multinational mission to guarantee freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Oman.”This maritime security framework will enable nations to provide escort to their flagged vessels while taking advantage of the cooperation of participating nations for coordination and enhanced maritime domain awareness and surveillance,” a CENTCOM news release says.The U.S. military will determine whether a U.S. commercial ship requires an escort if they face the threat of being stopped or seized, Esper said.Esper said he will discuss with CENTCOM commanders exactly what escorting U.S. commercial ships would involve. He also explained that U.S. warships do not need to be right next to a commercial ship in order to protect it.
July 25, 2019Read More
The United States is considering imposing new sanctions on Russia over its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the White House representative for the South American nation said Wednesday. President Donald Trump’s administration has contin…
July 25, 2019Read More
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