High-altitude object the size of a small car was downed on Friday but its owner and purpose have yet to be identified
Questions remain after the US government shot down two high-altitude objects, one near Deadhorse, Alaska along the north-eastern Alaskan coast and a second near Yukon, Canada, that have yet to be identified.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Saturday afternoon that he ordered the takedown of an unidentified object in Canadian airspace out
Continue reading...Republican extremist appears to reference Chinese surveillance dirigible by parading halls of Congress with white balloon
Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared to tee up a State of the Union stunt on Tuesday, patrolling the halls of Congress with a large white balloon in reference to Republican criticism of Joe Biden over his handling of a flight over US territory by a Chinese surveillance dirigible.
“Just an innocent white balloon everybody,” the Georgia extremist said, hours before Biden’s address to Congress, attempting to keep aloft the balloon saga which ended when it was shot down off the Carolinas on Saturday.
Continue reading...Closed-door session could provide insight into the sensitivity of the documents Trump retained and possibility of indictments
US officials have offered to provide a closed-door briefing to congressional leaders about their review of about 300 classified-marked documents retrieved from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year, sources familiar with the matter said.
The precise nature of the briefing remains unclear. The offer from the justice department and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) was described as unofficial on Sunday and no date had yet been set, though the briefing could come as soon as this week.
Continue reading...Pete Buttigieg says president ‘considered safety of American people’ but Marco Rubio criticizes eight-day wait
The US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, rejected Republican criticism of Joe Biden over the eight-day wait to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon which flew over military sites.
“The president gave instructions to have it shot down in a way that was safe,” Buttigieg told CNN’s State of the Union, of the operation off the Carolina coast on Saturday.
Associated Press contributed to this report
Continue reading...System whereby government classifies 50m documents a year threatens national security and democracy, says Jameel Jaffer
Donald Trump was caught with classified documents and Democrats were outraged. Joe Biden was caught with classified documents and Republicans were outraged. Mike Pence was caught with classified documents and it became clear that there might be a bigger problem here.
America has a crisis of “overclassification”, critics say. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington has been overzealous in defining government secrets. Politicians and officials can too easily fall foul of this secrecy-industrial complex but the biggest losers are the American people denied democratic accountability.
Continue reading...President lauds ‘unflagging commitment to Ukraine’ as officials approve 31 M1 Abrams tanks to add to Germany’s 14 Leopard 2A6s
Joe Biden has approved sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, a significant escalation in the US effort to counter Russian aggression as international reluctance to send tanks to the battlefront falls away.
The reversal of the US’s previous position came after Germany confirmed it will make 14 of its Leopard 2A6 tanks available for Ukraine’s war effort, and give partner countries its permission to re-export other battle tanks to aid Kyiv.
Continue reading...House oversight chair requests Delaware visitor logs as Democrats stress difference from Trump classified records case
Republicans pounced on the discovery on Saturday of more classified documents at Joe Biden’s residence, accusing the president of hypocrisy and questioning why the records were not brought to light earlier.
Biden lawyers have discovered at least 20 classified documents at his residence outside Wilmington, Delaware, and at an office in Washington used after he left the Obama administration, in which he was vice-president.
Continue reading...Lloyd Austin makes remark while Kim Jong-un’s government in Pyongyang has in recent days mounted a number of missile tests
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said on Thursday any nuclear attack on the US or its allies by North Korea would “result in the end of the Kim regime”.
Kim Jong-un’s government in Pyongyang has in recent days mounted a number of missile tests. The South Korean military said a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday may have ended in failure. Japan called the launch “outrageous and absolutely intolerable”.
Continue reading...Revelation about former president’s concern reported in new book The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
In December 2020, Donald Trump told friends he was afraid Iran would try to assassinate him in revenge for the death of Qassem Suleimani, an Iranian general killed in a US drone strike nearly a year before.
The startling news is reported in a new book by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, a husband-and-wife team who write for the New York Times and the New Yorker.
Continue reading...Up to 500 special forces advisers will train Somali forces to combat growing threat of al-Shabaab militants, says White House
The US will send up to 500 soldiers back on full-time deployment to Somalia, to train the country’s army to combat the increasing threat posed by al-Shabaab militants.
The White House insisted that the move, deepening the US long-term military commitment in an intractable foreign conflict, did not contradict Joe Biden’s overall policy of disengaging from “forever wars”, which underlay the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Robert O’Brien told top general shortly before 2020 election that Trump wanted to kill unnamed official, according to Esper memoir
Shortly before the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, “stunned” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff by saying the president wanted to kill a senior Iranian military officer operating outside the Islamic Republic.
“This was a really bad idea with very big consequences,” Mark Esper, Trump’s second and last secretary of defense, writes in his new memoir, adding that Gen Mark Milley suspected O’Brien saw the strike purely in terms of Trump’s political interests.
Continue reading...Memoir from ex-defense chief Mark Esper details extraordinary outbursts he says he helped to defuse
In the heated summer of 2020, thwarted in his desire for a violent crackdown on protesters for racial justice, Donald Trump included his vice-president in a complaint that senior advisers were “losers”.
Trump’s second defense secretary, Mark Esper, details the Oval Office outburst in a new book. A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Defense Secretary in Extraordinary Times, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations warned on Sunday there was little immediate hope of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, as pressure continued to build on the US president ahead of a crucial Nato summit in Europe this week.
Biden, who faces growing dissatisfaction over his approach to the war, will travel to Brussels on Thursday and then on to Poland, it was announced on Sunday night. He will hear a proposal from Poland for Nato to send a peacekeeping force into Ukraine, something Linda Thomas-Greenfield said was unlikely.
Continue reading...Officials say they have evidence of plot to mock up scenes of attack using corpses, Turkish-made drones and actors playing mourners
US officials claim they have evidence of a Russian plan to make a “very graphic” fake video of a Ukrainian attack as a pretext for an invasion.
The alleged plot would involve using corpses, footage of blown-up buildings, fake Ukrainian military hardware, Turkish-made drones and actors playing the part of Russian-speaking mourners.
Continue reading...The US on Sunday made a direct appeal to North Korea to join direct talks with no preconditions about its nuclear and missile programs, after Pyongyang sent a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into space.
“We believe it is completely appropriate and completely correct to start having some serious discussions,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters.
Continue reading...Moscow’s chief negotiator played down chances of a breakthrough as Russian troops conduct live-fire exercise near Ukraine
The Kremlin has said it sees “no significant reason for optimism” about diplomatic solutions for the Ukraine crisis, ahead of a meeting in Brussels between Russia and Nato’s 30 member states.
As Moscow was playing down the chances for success at the negotiating table after initial US-Russian talks in Switzerland on Monday, Russian forces deployed near Ukraine conducted a live-fire military exercise involving 3,000 troops and tanks, in a clear rejection of US demands for a de-escalation in the region.
Continue reading...Russia is “very likely” to invade Ukraine and might only be deterred by “enormous sanctions”, the chair of the US House intelligence committee said on Sunday.
Adam Schiff also said an invasion could backfire on Moscow, by drawing more countries into the Nato military alliance.
Continue reading...Ex-Obama chief of staff will go to Japan after deal for vote on Russia pipeline sanctions ends Republican Senate resistance
The former Obama White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel was among more than 30 ambassadors and other Biden nominees confirmed by the Senate early on Saturday.
The Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, broke a Republican-stoked logjam by agreeing to schedule a vote on sanctions on the company behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.
Continue reading...Joe Biden took a few questions from reporters this morning, as he left the White House to start his trip to Kansas City, Missouri.
Asked about his summit yesterday with Vladimir Putin, Biden said, “I was very straightforward. There were no minced words.”
Continue reading...Iran walked back all compromises made in previous talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, pocketed compromises made by others and asked for more in its latest proposals, a senior US state department official told reporters on Saturday.
Iran continues to accelerate its nuclear program in pretty provocative ways and China and Russia were taken aback at how far Iran had walked back its proposals in talks in Vienna, the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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