Category: Politics

Trump Jr. releases email chain on conversations with Russian sources

Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday released a stunning chain of emails detailing his conversations about setting up a campaign meeting with a Russian lawyer who had offered compromising information on Hillary Clinton

The information “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father,” reads one of the emails from Rob Goldstone, who acted as an intermediary to set up the meeting.

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Theresa May to launch wide-ranging internet regulation and security changes despite not winning majority

Theresa May looks set to launch wide-ranging internet regulation and plans to fundamentally change how technology works despite not having won a majority.

In the speech in which she committed to keep governing despite calls to stand down, the prime minister made reference to extending powers for the security services. Those powers – which include regulation of the internet and forcing internet companies to let spies read everyone’s private communications – were a key part of the Conservative campaign, which failed to score a majority in the House of Commons.

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London attack: Six killed in vehicle and stabbing incidents

Six people have been killed and at least 48 injured in a terror incident in London in which three male attackers were shot dead by police.
A white van hit pedestrians on London Bridge at about 22:00 BST on Saturday before three men got out and stabbed people in nearby Borough Market.
Police said the three men were wearing fake bomb vests.
One of those hurt is a police officer who was stabbed after going to help. His injuries are not life-threatening.
The Conservatives have suspended national general election campaigning and the prime minister will chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee later.
Theresa May described Saturday night’s events as “dreadful”, while Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called them “brutal and shocking”.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said it was “a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners”, but it remained the “safest global city” and Londoners would not be cowed by terrorism.
More than 80 medics were sent to the scene and the injured, some of them critical, are now being treated in five hospitals across the capital.
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Trump misunderstood MIT climate research, university officials say


Massachusetts Institute of Technology officials said U.S. President Donald Trump badly misunderstood their research when he cited it on Thursday to justify withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Trump announced during a speech at the White House Rose Garden that he had decided to pull out of the landmark climate deal, in part because it would not reduce global temperatures fast enough to have a significant impact.
“Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100,” Trump said. 
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White House has no clear plan for next steps in Syria after missile strike

Tensions mount with Russia as Sean Spicer says Assad must ‘abide by agreements not to use chemical weapons’ but fails to outline US objectives

The White House appeared to back away from wider military involvement in Syria less than 24 hours after launching Tomahawk missiles at one of Bashar al-Assad’s airbases.

The press secretary, Sean Spicer, refused to discuss any next steps – military or diplomatic – by the US in Syria, as the world struggled to understand Trump’s policy toward the grueling civil war.

Meanwhile, Syrian warplanes were reported to have taken off from the airbase targeted by the US missiles, suggesting that the military impact of the overnight attack had been minimal. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that government aircraft had bombed the outskirts of Khan Sheikhun, the town targeted in Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack

Spicer called the missile strike on the airbase “very decisive, justified and proportional” and entirely justified by “humanitarian purposes”.

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Opposition leader Alexei Navalny detained amid protests across Russia

Crowds gather in major cities to protest against corruption in largest anti-government demonstrations for five years, with over a hundred detained

Alexei Navalny is arrested at a rally in Moscow on Sunday.

Police detained over a hundred people in Moscow and dozens in other Russian cities, as some of the biggest protests against the Kremlin in several years were held across the country on Sunday.

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Trump says cyberattacks had “no effect” on election outcome after briefing

Four top intelligence officials briefed the president-elect Friday on a classified report on Russian hacking and interference in the election

 

Top intelligence officials briefed President-elect Donald Trump Friday on Russia’s hacking efforts to interfere with the U.S. election.

Following the briefing at Trump Tower in New York, Mr. Trump released a statement on what he called a “constructive meeting and conversation” saying that the cyberattacks had “no effect on the outcome of the election.”

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German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel calls for ban on Islamist mosques

Social Democrats leader and German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has called for tougher measures against Islamist trends in Germany. His demands come just weeks after the “Islamic State”-claimed terror attack in Berlin.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel

In an interview with German weekly Der Spiegel, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said that “Salafist mosques must be banned, communities dissolved, and the preachers should be expelled as soon as possible.”

“Those who encourage violence do not enjoy the protection of religious freedom,” the leader of the Social Democrats (SPD) added, stressing that he had “zero tolerance” in combating Islamism.

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Vermont power company finds malware linked to Russian hackers

A malware signature linked to ‘Grizzly Steppe’ by the FBI and DHS was found on a single laptop.

Just a few days ago, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing their assessment that Russian hackers were behind a series of attacks on US agencies and citizens. While the Obama administration issued sanctions, code linked to those hackers has been shared with other agencies, and on Friday, the Burlington Electric Department found malware with a matching signature on one of its laptops. The discovery raises more questions than it answers, but with recent reports of Russian hackers attacking the power grid in Ukraine, it obviously has raised alerts all over.

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What’s their angle? Breaking down the Putin, Trump and Obama spy games

A tweet from the Russian government responding to US sanctions is shown.

President Barack Obama and his first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, entered the White House in 2009 with visions of a “Russian reset.” But Obama will leave office next month in the midst of a shadowy Cold War-era fever dream, as Washington and Moscow are, once again, beset by accusations of diplomatic chicanery and outright espionage.

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