Category: government corruption

Department of State says diplomats will discuss humanitarian issues and ‘critical interests’ with Afghan group officials. Washington, DC – United States diplomats will meet with Taliban representatives in Qatar this week, the US Department of State has announced, in what will be rare, direct talks between Washington and the ruling Afghan group. The Department of State said on Wednesday that Thomas West and Rina Amiri will hold meetings on Afghanistan in Astana, Kazakhstan, with representatives from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic,…

Former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial on charges of withholding and concealing classified and top-secret documents will begin in Florida on May 20, 2024. That schedule puts the trial at the tail end of the Republican presidential primary process. Trump is currently the front-runner for the GOP nomination and already may have become the nominee by that time. In an order issued in Ft. Pierce, Fla., U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon says the evidence in the case is “extremely voluminous…

Recent developments raise the prospect that British intelligence agents could finally face justice for their little-known role in the CIA’s global torture program. Britain’s foreign and domestic intelligence apparatus is facing scrutiny by a tribunal tasked with intelligence oversight. On May 26, London’s infamously opaque Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) unanimously issued a landmark ruling which means the complaints of two Saudis brutally tortured at CIA black sites and jailed for years in Guantanamo Bay can finally be heard, at least…

“The US Department of State has finally turned into the ‘Ministry of Truth’ predicted by George Orwell and actually dictates to the American media what exactly they should write and say. In June, the Department of State issued instructions to major telecommunications holdings such as AT&T, Comcast Corporation, Graham Media Group, Nash Holdings, Newsweek Publishing, and The New York Times Company to misrepresent events in and around Russia,” the SVR said in a statement, adding that the goal is to…

Conflict-torn Sudan is on the brink of a “full-scale civil war” that could destabilise the entire region, the United Nations warned Sunday, after an air strike on a residential area killed around two dozen civilians. The Ministry of Health reported “22 dead and a large number of wounded among the civilians” from the strike on Khartoum’s sister city Omdurman, in the district of Dar al-Salam, which means “House of Peace” in Arabic. After nearly three months of war between Sudan’s…

This July 3 marks the 10th anniversary of Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah Sisi’s violent seizure of power in Cairo. The first democratically elected leader in 5000 years of Egyptian history, Mohamed Morsi, was swept from office, his supporters were massacred by the hundreds, and he ultimately died in prison. With US and UK support, Sisi quickly reversed any tentative democratic gains made during the country’s brief, difficult transition from the rule of longtime Western-backed autocrat Hosni Mubarak. In…

Last week, in a significant victory for free speech, a federal court stepped in to curb potential overreach by the Biden administration in its collaboration with social media platforms to suppress online content. The court ruling, issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana on Tuesday caused critics to complain that it hinders the administration’s efforts to counter online conspiracy theories and “disinformation.” But in the usual doublespeak in an interview with MSNBC, the former head of the government’s controversial Disinformation Governance…

On Friday, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said that the country opposes the United States sending cluster munitions after the Biden administration announced it was considering it.  According to Reuters, Germany is one of 111 states that are part of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) and the organization also opposes the munitions which are widely denounced for killing and maiming civilians long after a war is over. “I have followed the media reports. For us, as a state party, the Oslo…

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Minister Delegate for the Digital Transition and Telecommunications Jean-Noel Barrot reportedly warned platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter of their responsibility and asked for support identifying users involved in committing offenses. France has been gripped by unrest since June 27, when a 17-year-old boy was shot dead by a police officer for failing to stop his car when ordered to do so in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. The officer who pulled the trigger on Nahel M. has been taken into custody for voluntary manslaughter, but that has not deterred the protesters.

BEIRUT (AP) — A French court Tuesday upheld the freezing of the assets of Lebanon’s embattled central bank governor, rejecting his appeal to have them released, an official close to the investigation said. Several European countries are investigating central bank Gov. Riad Salameh and his associates over myriad alleged financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and laundering of $330 million. A French investigative judge on May 16 issued an international arrest warrant, or Interpol red notice, for the 72-year-old Salameh after…

Monday, 03 July 2023 5:02 PM Turkish authorities say they have uncovered and disrupted a vast “ghost” Mossad spy network centered in Istanbul, following months of surveillance. The substantial efforts by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) exposed 56 operatives allegedly spying on non-Turkish citizens in Turkey in the service of the Israeli spy agency Mossad, Turkey’s Daily Sabah newspaper reported on Monday. MIT and the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the Istanbul Police Department also managed to arrest seven of the suspected…

The United States said Monday that ally Israel had a right to “defend its people” against Islamist militants but called for protection of civilians after a major, deadly raid in the occupied West Bank. “We support Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups,” a State Department spokesperson said. “It is imperative to take all possible precautions to prevent the loss of civilian lives,” the spokesperson added. The United States, Israel’s…

Climate change threatens to deliver a “truly terrifying” dystopian future of hunger and suffering, the United Nations’ human rights chief warned Monday. Volker Turk slammed world leaders for only thinking of the short term while dealing with the climate crisis. Turk told a UN Human Rights Council debate on the right to food that extreme weather events were wiping out crops, herds and ecosystems, making it impossible for communities to rebuild and support themselves. “More than 828 million people faced…

Canada’s banking regulator is cautioning that lenders and borrowers are overly reliant on lengthening mortgage amortizations to help the latter cope with higher interest rates and surging costs. In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail on Friday, Peter Routledge, the head of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), said that borrowers with mortgages in which payments are not high enough to cover the interest portion of the loan could experience a “shock” in significantly higher…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has approved a plan to use phosphogypsum, a radioactive waste material, in “demonstration projects.” Here, signs block a roadway in Boca Raton during a construction project in 2021. Florida is another step closer to paving its roads with phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial bill into law Thursday. Conservation groups had urged DeSantis to veto the bill, saying phosphogypsum would hurt water quality and…

While the US mainstream press has a record of ignoring reports concerning alleged misdeeds by the president and the first son, the NYT has claimed it has a source backing some of accusations voiced by IRS supervisory agent-turned whistleblower Gary Shapley. One of Shapley’s bombshell claims is that US Attorney David Weiss – assigned to conduct an investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes – was reportedly told by the DoJ that he could not bring charges against Hunter in…