Big Time News Blog: 07/23/19

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

'Let me guess, you want to nuke them all': Trump constantly baiting John Bolton in front of officials, report says

Donald Trump likes to goad his national security adviser John Bolton about his lust for military action, according to officials who have spoken out on their relationship.As Iran claims to have captured spies working for the US and accuses Mr Bolton of trying to start “war of the century”, new details have emerged of the president’s fondness for baiting his adviser in the company of top officials – including foreign dignitaries.During a White House Situation Room meeting last year, Mr Trump reportedly said to his hawkish national security chief: “Ok, John, let me guess, you want to nuke them all?”According to the report by the Axios website, Mr Trump turned to Mr Bolton in an Oval Office meeting with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar and said: “John, is Ireland one of those countries you want to invade?”Quoting unnamed senior administration officials, the account claimed the president recently joked that “John has never seen a war he doesn’t like”, repeating sentiments made in public. “If it was up to him he’d take on the whole world at one time, okay?” Mr Trump recently told NBC’s Meet the Press.Yet the president is said to get “quite touchy” if critics of Mr Bolton complain the national security adviser could pull the US into unnecessary conflict against Mr Trump’s will. “He doesn't want anyone to believe he’s anybody’s pawn.”Sources said Mr Trump likes to keep Mr Bolton on his team because his aggressive reputation gives the president the opportunity to play “good cop” to his adviser’s “bad cop” routine.“He thinks that Bolton’s bellicosity and eagerness to kill people is a bargaining chip when he’s sitting down with foreign leaders,” said one official. “Bolton can be the bad cop and Trump can be the good cop. Trump believes this to his core.”On Sunday Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif tweeted about the White House hawk as Tehran’s dispute with both the UK and US threatened to escalate over the seizure of a British oil tanker.“Make no mistake. Having failed to lure Donald Trump into a War of the Century, and fearing collapse of his B Team, John Bolton is turning his venom against the UK in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire.”> Make no mistake: > > Having failed to lure @realDonaldTrump into War of the Century, and fearing collapse of his B_Team, @AmbJohnBolton is turning his venom against the UK in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire. > > Only prudence and foresight can thwart such ploys.> > — Javad Zarif (@JZarif) > > July 21, 2019On Monday Iran announced it had arrested 17 people allegedly recruited by the CIA to spy on the country’s nuclear and military sites.Intelligence chiefs said some of the group have already been sentenced to death following arrests made over the past few months. Iranian media published pictures purportedly showing intelligence “officers” working for the US.“The identified spies were employed in sensitive and vital private sector centres in the economic, nuclear, infrastructure, military and cyber areas ... where they collected classified information,” read a ministry of intelligence statement.The US has yet to respond to the claims.

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Syrian state TV reports Israeli attack in southern Syria

Syrian state television said on Wednesday that Israel struck a strategic area in southern Syria overlooking the Golan Heights where Western intelligence sources previously said Iranian-backed militias are known to be based.

from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/30WAzTJ

Scans show changes to brains of Havana U.S. embassy workers who reported illness

Advanced brain scans of U.S. Embassy employees who reported falling ill while serving in Havana revealed significant differences from a control group, according to a new study published on Tuesday.

from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2OphVm2

Pakistan PM says he'll work with US on Afghanistan accord

After years of tension between Washington and Islamabad, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan insisted Tuesday the two are now on the same page and said he will do his best to persuade the Taliban to open negotiations with the Afghan government to resolve the war. The U.S. has been engaging with the Taliban, but so far they have refused to talk directly to the Afghan government, which it sees as a puppet. Afghans are wary of Pakistan's involvement in crafting a future for their country, but Khan said the Taliban need to participate in the next Afghan presidential election in September.

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UPDATE 1-Iran observes all U.S. ships in Gulf region: Iran navy chief

Iran observes all U.S. ships in the Gulf region and has an archive of images of their daily movements, the head of Iran's navy, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, said on Tuesday, according to the Young Journalists Club news site. Iran and the United States came to the brink of war last month after the Islamic Republic shot down a U.S. drone, nearly prompting a retaliatory attack which U.S. President Donald Trump called off at the last minute.

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India launches 'historic' flight bound for the moon

Days after the U.S. celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first human steps on the moon, India launched an unmanned flight bound for the far side.

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World Leaders React to Boris Johnson Becoming the UK's New Prime Minister

Boris Johnson will succeed Theresa May as the UK’s prime minister after he defeating Jeremy Hunt in a Conservative Party leadership race. World leaders have been showing their support on Twitter.

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Trump says he can name 20 more Dems who are like the 'squad'

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he can name at least 20 Democrats who, in his opinion, are worse than the "squad" of four Democratic female lawmakers he's been feuding with over their sharp critiques of his administration. Trump brought up his purported list during a wide-ranging address at a conference for conservative teens during which he sharpened his criticism of Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Trump is trying to turn the group into the face of the Democratic Party heading into the 2020 presidential election, using their views and policy positions to paint the party as extreme and its leaders as wrong for the future of the country.

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House Democrats unveil more 'realistic' climate change plan

A group of U.S. House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a climate change plan they said featured a "more realistic" goal to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 rather than by 2030 as envisioned under the Green New Deal introduced early this year. Solar and wind companies have criticized the Green New Deal, introduced by Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward Markey in February, as unrealistic and politically divisive. Representatives Frank Pallone, Paul Tonko, Bobby Rush and others said on Tuesday they would draw up legislation late this year that aimed to avoid the worst effects of climate change including intense droughts, storms and floods.

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When ICE Tried to Arrest an Undocumented Man in Tennessee, Neighbors and a Network of Volunteers Formed a Human Chain to Protect Him

The man was with his 12-year-old son

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Drug kingpin 'El Chapo' appeals life sentence

Fallen Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, once one of the world's most powerful and notorious criminals, has appealed his life sentence, court documents published on Monday showed. Guzman, the 62-year-old former co-leader of Mexico's feared Sinaloa drug cartel, was convicted in February of smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. A symbolic 30 years was also added to the sentence and he was also ordered to pay $12.6 billion in forfeiture -- a sum based on a conservative estimate of revenues from his cartel's sales in the United States.

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FBI Director: White-Supremacist Violence Accounts for Majority of Domestic-Terrorism Arrests Since Last October

FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress on Tuesday that the majority of domestic-terrorism arrests since last October have been linked to white supremacy."I will say that a majority of the domestic-terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white-supremacist violence, but it does include other things as well," the FBI chief said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.Wray explained that since October, the FBI has arrested about 100 people on international-terrorism charges and about the same number of individuals on charges related to domestic extremism.The FBI director emphasized that his investigators' "focus is on the violence.""We the FBI don’t investigate the ideology, no matter how repugnant. We investigate violence. And any extremist ideology, when it turns to violence, we’re all over it," Wray said. "We take domestic terrorism or hate crime – regardless of ideology – extremely seriously, I can assure you, and we are aggressively pursuing it using both counterterrorism resources and criminal investigative resources and partnering closely with our state and local partners."President Trump has repeatedly come under fire for using rhetoric that his opponents say encourages violent, racist tendencies. Critics have warned that violence resulting from white-supremacist ideologies has been on the rise since Trump took office.“I don’t, really,” Trump said in March when asked if he thinks white nationalism is a growing threat. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”The highest-profile act of violence perpetrated by a white supremacist over the last few years occurred at a 2017 white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where one of the male rally-goers murdered one counter-protesters and injured dozens of others by mowing them down with his car. The man has received several life sentences for his crimes.

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Hong Kong arrests men with gang links over mob attack

Hong Kong police say they've arrested six men, some with links to triad gangs, following a violent attack on pro-democracy protesters at a subway station over the weekend that saw dozens injured. Senior police official Chan Tin-chu said the men, aged 24-54, were held for "unlawful assembly" and are being investigated for taking part in the attack late Sunday night. Police are still investigating the motive for the attack, Chan said, without providing further details on the alleged links to the triads, which refer to powerful organized crime syndicates in Hong Kong.

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Haiti's president names new prime minister

Port-au-Prince (AFP) - Haiti's President Jovenel Moise on Monday named Fritz-William Michel prime minister, following the resignation of his predecessor who failed to win parliamentary approval for his government. Formerly an executive in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Michel is Moise's fourth head of government in his two-and-a-half years in office. Michel's appointment came after consultations between Moise and the leaders of the two chambers of parliament, signaling a resumption of dialogue between the three political heavyweights after months of turmoil.

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Court orders Canada's elections chief to reconsider changing date of federal vote

A judge said on Tuesday that Canada's chief electoral officer (CEO) must reconsider the Oct. 21 date for the federal election because it coincides with a Jewish holiday, according to a copy of the ruling.

from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2M4OVxc

UPDATE 1-U.S. may have brought down second Iranian drone last week -U.S. general

A U.S. Navy ship may have brought down a second Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz last week, the head of U.S. Central Command said on Tuesday. The United States said on Thursday that a Navy ship had "destroyed" an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz after the aircraft threatened the vessel, but Iran said it had no information about losing a drone. "We are confident we brought down one drone, we may have brought down a second," General Kenneth McKenzie told CBS News in an interview.

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VIDEO: Mother of 2 taken into custody by ICE in Los Angeles as neighbor tries to intervene

A mother of two was taken into custody by ICE agents in the middle of the street in Los Angeles. Her neighbor tried to intervene and captured the dramatic moments on video.

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Kim inspects new sub, wants North Korea's military bolstered

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has inspected a newly built submarine and ordered officials to further bolster the country's military capabilities, state media reported Tuesday, as the North increases pressure on the United States ahead of the possible resumption of nuclear diplomacy. Last week, North Korea said it may lift its 20-month suspension of nuclear and missile tests to protest expected military drills between the United States and South Korea that Pyongyang says are an invasion rehearsal. The submarine report comes as the U.S. and North Korea work to resume talks after a meeting late last month on the Korean border between Kim and President Donald Trump.

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