Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
‘History and geography don’t change – I don’t think British destiny is different to ours,’ says French president
Emmanuel Macron has warned that Boris Johnson’s government has to decide who its allies are, insisting that “half-friends is not a concept”.
“What politics does Great Britain wish to choose? It cannot be the best ally of the US, the best ally of the EU and the new Singapore … It has to choose a model,” the French president said, in an interview with the Guardian and a small group of other media.
Analysis: Pompeo’s replacement, Antony Blinken, has pledged to put experts at the center of diplomacy and listen dissenting views
No statues were toppled at the state department after Mike Pompeo’s departure. It was a changing of the guard, rather than regime change. But in one case at least, his legacy was brought down quickly and visibly.
On the day of the inauguration, workmen brought down a giant placard about “professional ethos” that the former secretary of state had erected at the main entrance to mark his first year in office.
There’s been a steady stream of activity on Capitol Hill today, paricularly leading up to the swearing-in of the senators for Trump’s impeachment trial.
At a weekly press conference, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber is prepared to work simultaneously to hold an impeachment trial, approve Biden’s cabinet nominees, and pass additional coronavirus relief.
.@SenSchumer says “a vote on a budget resolution could come as soon as next week.” This would give Dems option to use reconciliation for Covid relief package
McConnell doesn’t say if Trump’s actions were impeachable, saying only that he’ll “listen to the arguments” in the trial.
He says he hasn’t spoken to Trump since the day after he declared Biden had “obviously” won the election (that was 12/15).
Tim Ryan tells reporters on Zoom presser that the order among Capitol Police on Jan. 6 was to not use lethal force unless lives were threatened, as was standard for USCP (he'd asked about it during this morning's closed-door briefing)
Vice presidentKamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, received her second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.
Twenty-eight days after receiving her first shot, Harris removed her jacked, rolled up her sleeve and extended her left arm for the jab.
The US and Russia have agreed to extend an arms control treaty limiting their deployed nuclear warheads after Joe Biden’s first phone call as president with Vladimir Putin.
At the same time, Biden took a firm position on Russian actions that Donald Trump largely ignored, raising concerns about the poisoning and arrest of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, warning Putin that the US supported Ukraine against Russian “aggression”, complaining about Russian interference in last year’s US presidential election, and the “Solar Winds” cyber attack on US government agencies last year.
Chinese foreign ministry announced sanctions against Mike Pompeo and 27 others as Biden was taking presidential oath
China has said it wants to cooperate with Joe Biden’s new US administration, while announcing sanctions against the “lying and cheating” outgoing secretary of state Mike Pompeo and 27 other top officials under Donald Trump.
The move was a sign of China’s anger, especially at an accusation Pompeo made on his final full day in office that China had committed genocide against its Uighur Muslims, an assessment that Biden’s choice to succeed Pompeo, Anthony Blinken, said he shared.
European leaders have voiced relief at Joe Biden’s inauguration, hailing a “new dawn” for Europe and the US, but warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and that transatlantic ties will be different in future.
“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, told MEPs. “Once again, after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”
Analysis: the west has been hampered by the fatal ambiguity of Trump’s US policy towards Moscow
Joe Biden’s accession to the US presidency has spawned a huge body of literature about his intentions towards China, but in his four years out of office Biden has in fact made Russia his primary focus in combatting authoritarianism.
Now, just days from coming into office, the arrest of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has suddenly presented him with a test case, which may also lead to friction with two of his closest allies: Germany and the UK.
The secretary of state has laid political booby traps for Biden in a diplomatic onslaught – with the aim of winning the White House
While all eyes are on Donald Trump and his Capitol Hill mob, a would-be heir and successor is running riot all by himself, storming citadels, wagging the flag and breaking china. No, it’s not Donald Jr, or Ivanka, or Ted Cruz, and certainly not poor, conflicted Mike Pence.
Mike Pompeo may not strike many people as presidential material. But Trump lowered the bar. Make no mistake. America’s snarly, bully-boy secretary of state is focusing not on Joe Biden’s inauguration this week but on how to beat him or any other Democrat in 2024.
Trump’s foreign policy chief has pursued confrontation with Iran and other perceived enemies, but his efforts to disrupt diplomacy will end in failure
The finale of Mike Pompeo’s reign at the state department has been as controversial and clamorous as the rest of his 32-month tenure, but it is unclear what traces will remain after he has gone.
The last days of Pompeo have been played out in a blizzard of self-congratulatory tweets, at the rate of two dozen a day, as he seeks to write his own first draft of history.
Mike Pompeo cites US fugitives and support for Venezuela
Move will heap sanctions on Havana before Biden inauguration
Donald Trump has reclassified Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism” in a last-minute move that could complicate efforts by Joe Biden’s incoming administration to re-engage with Havana.
The controversial step was announced by secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Monday, at the start of Trump’s final full-week in office, and places Cuba alongside Iran, North Korea and Syria.
Trump administration’s 11th-hour decision greeted with dismay by aid agencies working in Yemen
The Trump administration has made an 11th-hour decision to designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organisation in a move that is likely to severely worsen the war-torn country’s humanitarian crisis.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, announced the decision late on Sunday, despite bipartisan opposition and months of warnings from UN officials and aid organisations that the designation – part of the White House’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and its allies – would lead to shortages and delays for aid and commercial shipments and undermine the peace process.
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis died in drone strike ordered by US president
A Baghdad court has issued a warrant for the arrest of the US president, Donald Trump, as part of its investigation into the killing of a top Iraqi paramilitary commander.
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s largely pro-Iran Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary network, died in the same US drone strike that killed the storied Iranian general Qassem Suleimani at Baghdad airport on 3 January last year.
Amid US tensions, Revolutionary Guards chief promises ‘reciprocal, decisive blow’ as he inspects forces on key island near Strait of Hormuz
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, has vowed to respond to any “action the enemy takes” during a visit to a strategic Gulf island amid tensions with the US.
Leaders fear Donald Trump and Israel will act against Iran and Hezbollah before Joe Biden’s arrival
For the past four years, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fought a war in Syria, supported Iraqi forces and stage-managed the politics of its homeland, all the while trying to avoid facing off with Israel. Yet its exhausted leaders fear the last gasps of Donald Trump’s presidency could deliver threats that eclipse everything else.
In the organisation’s heartland, Hezbollah members are watching the clock – and the skies. Israeli jets have been streaking overhead for more than a month, and over the past few weeks the frequency of flights has sharply increased, as has security in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the nerve centre of the region’s most powerful militant group.
The massive, ongoing hack of US federal agencies, relations with China and North Korea will be urgent issues for Biden to address
Joe Biden’s foreign policy in-tray is only looking more difficult as he approaches inauguration day – even as the US still confronts the pressing issue of record coronavirus deaths and infections.
US president-elect can help uncover truth about Saudi journalist’s murder, says Hatice Cengiz
Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, has called on the US president-elect, Joe Biden, to release the CIA’s classified report into the Washington Post journalist’s murder once he enters the White House, a move she said would “greatly assist” in uncovering the truth.
The classified intelligence assessment has never been released but media outlets have reported, without providing more details, that it concludes with “medium to high confidence” that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the killing.
Analysis: new president must find a way to contain such hyper-aggressive behaviour from Moscow
It is Joe Biden’s biggest foreign policy headache. As well as confronting the Covid pandemic, the president-elect has to deal with a more familiar problem: Russia. Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election cast a shadow over US politics for four long years.
And now the Kremlin appears to have struck again. This week details emerged of an unprecedented cyber-attack against US government departments. Beginning in March, suspected Russian hackers penetrated Washington’s signature institutions.
US president’s announcement marks fourth Arab-Israel agreement in four months
Israel and Morocco have made a deal to normalise relations, Donald Trump has announced, marking the fourth agreement between an Arab government and the Jewish state this year.
“Another HISTORIC breakthrough today!” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full diplomatic relations – a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!”
Joseph Wu says Beijing is seeking to expand its ‘authoritarian order’ and calls for ‘like-minded’ nations to act together to protect Taiwan
The international community must join together in resisting China’s expansionism and preventing an invasion of Taiwan by sharing intelligence, rethinking Chinese business ties and boosting Taipei’s presence on the world stage, Taiwan’s foreign minister has said.