European leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, marked the 80th anniversary of the start of the second world war in Warsaw on Sunday.
But Donald Trump – who cancelled on his Polish hosts at the last minute last week, citing concerns over a hurricane barrelling towards Florida – was due to spend the day at his golf club in Virginia.
Continue reading...Official briefings have all but been abandoned by a president who prefers to communicate before boarding Marine One
Stephen Colbert, the late night TV host, dubs it “chopper talk”.
Related: Washington's great mystery: Trump’s affinity for Putin and populists baffles experts
Continue reading...As we mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the second world war, with liberal democracies again under siege, Britain should be leading the fight against extremism
Eighty years ago, the start of the second world war saw Nazi Germany invading Poland. Six years later, up to 85 million people were dead. I’m in Poland this weekend to commemorate the start of the bloodiest war in human history.
An entire generation of brave men and women around the globe sacrificed everything to defeat the singular evil of Nazism and fascism.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s offer to talk peace with Iran sent a shiver of alarm through Israel’s political and security establishment last week. With a too-close-to-call general election looming on 17 September, Benjamin Netanyahu is counting on his hardline anti-Tehran alliance with Washington – and fear of conflict – to win him crucial votes. A North Korea-style Trump tryst with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, was the prime minister’s “ultimate horror scenario”, one analyst noted.
Yet after a recent series of escalatory strikes against Iran-linked forces in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, Israel’s voters may reflect that if one thing is worse than peace with Iran, it’s war with Iran. Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran, strongly backed by Netanyahu and fellow Tel Aviv hawks, is placing Israel squarely in the firing line. The intensifying confrontation is also sucking in regional states, notably Iraq.
Continue reading...US president’s release of high resolution photo raises concerns over disclosure of classified information
President Donald Trump has released a photograph of an apparently failed Iranian rocket launch and said the US had nothing to do with it, prompting concerns he disclosed classified information.
Tehran has made no official comment on the indications from aerial photos that a rocket exploded on Thursday on the launch pad at the Semnan Space Center in northern Iran.
Continue reading...Madeleine Westerhout, who had been with Trump since his inauguration, reportedly shared details about his family and the Oval Office
The Guardian is also tracking the progress of Hurricane Dorian, which is expected to become the worst storm to hit Florida’s east coast in more than 25 years.
Hurricane #Dorian Intermediate Advisory 24A: Hurricane Hunters find Dorian a little stronger. https://t.co/CSOdLLF50S? pic.twitter.com/w5pn0XzFu0
Hurricane Dorian is likely to affect the state directly overnight Sunday, with the latest computer modeling predicting it will make landfall in the early hours of Monday, the Labor Day holiday in the US, around West Palm Beach.
But weather experts on Thursday proclaimed the state’s entire east coast at risk.
The Trump administration is exploring how to act on the president’s unfounded claims after mass shootings that more mental institutions would minimize such tragedies.
The AP reports:
When back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, jolted the nation earlier this month, Trump again spoke of ‘building new facilities’ for the mentally ill as a way to reduce mass shootings.
‘We don’t have those institutions anymore and people can’t get proper care,’ Trump lamented at a New Hampshire campaign rally not long after the latest shootings.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has said the newly formed US Space Command will 'defend America's vital interests in space, the next war-fighting domain'. Speaking at a ceremony in Washington, Trump said Space Command would protect US satellites orbiting the planet and detect missile launches abroad, and would be followed by the establishment of the Space Force, 'the sixth branch of the United States armed forces'. Creating a new military branch still requires congressional approval and the matter has met with skepticism from both Democrats and Republicans
Continue reading...Former vice-president disputes report that war story he’s told on the campaign trail contains many falsehoods
Both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are campaigning in South Carolina this evening.
“Donald Trump thinks that climate change is a hoax,” @BernieSanders tells this South Carolina crowd, gathered in Myrtle Beach to hear him discuss climate change. “Well, I think that Donald Trump is a hoax.” pic.twitter.com/Weq4fe4cY4
Hello from Spartanburg, South Carolina.
I’m following Joe Biden as he campaigns in SC today/tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/MRXagp5uP0
A federal judge rejected House Democrats’ effort to expedite their lawsuit to obtain Trump’s tax returns.
“It may be appropriate to expedite this matter at some point, but not now,” said Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump-appointed federal judge in DC.
Related: House lawmakers sue Trump administration for president's tax returns
Continue reading...President detailed operations in ceremony, including defending against Chinese and Russian anti-satellite weapons, and promised space force will soon follow
It was one small step for man, one giant leap for Trumpkind.
Donald Trump made the short journey on Thursday from the Oval Office to the White House Rose Garden, then promised to unleash an army of space warriors to infinity and beyond.
Continue reading...Signs Beijing may be importing Iranian oil as Trump’s two biggest foreign policy headaches converge
In early June, a Chinese-owned supertanker abruptly went dark in the Indian Ocean, the tracking system signalling its course apparently deactivated.
It was not the first ship to vanish from the monitors. The deactivation of transponders that generate a unique ID issued to ships by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has become increasingly familiar in recent weeks to the companies that track tankers.
Continue reading...Brazilian and French presidents continue feud over G7 aid package for wildfires raging in Amazon rainforest
Brazil’s far-right president and his backers have escalated their row over the Amazon with Emmanuel Macron, attacking the French president’s “lamentable colonialist stance” as fires continued to rage in the world’s biggest rainforest.
As Brazil said it would reject a $20m (£16m) G7 contribution to fight the fires, Jair Bolsonaro spurned Macron’s criticism of his environmental record and flaunted Donald Trump’s support for his far-right administration.
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In a statement about the the president’s performance at the G7 summit, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned of the potentially devastating effects another four years of Trump could unleash.
“Rather than looking to America for vision, agenda setting, and leadership by example, our closest democratic allies sought to manage and mitigate the damage Trump might do at this year’s G-7,” Biden said.
Taylor Swift surprised some of her fans last night by striking a political tone while accepting the MTV Video Music Award for video of the year.
The pop star encouraged those listening to sign a petition in support of the Equality Act, which would bar discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The Democratic-controlled House passed the bill earlier this year, but it has not yet been taken up in the Senate.
Congrats to @billieeilish and @ArianaGrande for huge wins and @lizzo for an incredible performance at the #VMAs and huge thanks for joining the fight to tell politicians: #BansOffMyBody! Visit https://t.co/RD5uRCwa2y
Continue reading...The fund browbeats poor countries into accepting neoliberal measures that exacerbate inequality and economic distress
When people think of the damage that wealthy countries – typically led by the US and its allies – cause to people in the rest of the world, they probably think of warfare. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died from the 2003 invasion, and then many more as the region became inflamed.
Related: Brexit: EU ‘would block trade deal if Britain reneged on bill’
Continue reading...Hassan Rouhani says US must first lift sanctions before summit can take place
Iran’s president has back-pedalled on possible talks with Donald Trump, saying the US president must first lift sanctions imposed on Tehran, otherwise a meeting between the two would be a mere photo op.
Hassan Rouhani’s change of heart came a day after Trump said there was a “really good chance” the two could meet after a surprise intervention by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, during the G7 summit to try to bring Washington and Tehran together.
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Hello readers, this is Kari Paul in San Francisco taking over the blog for the next few hours. Stay tuned for updates.
That’s it from me today. I’m handing the blog over to my West Coast colleague Kari Paul for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Continue reading...Leaders put on a show of common endeavor with awareness that meeting could be a lot worse next year when Trump will be circus master
If next year’s G7 summit turns out to be a branding event at a Trump golf resort in Florida, with Vladimir Putin as de-facto co-chair, the old guard among America’s allies will look back on this year’s meeting in Biarritz with some nostalgia.
Related: Trump defends bid to host G7 at his Miami resort: 'I don't care about money'
Continue reading...Donald Trump has insisted he is not seeking to profit from the US presidency after revealing a resort he owns in Miami is in the running to host the next G7 summit in 2020. Trump claimed it had cost him '$3bn to $5bn' to be president and suggested hosting the event at his Trump National Doral Miami resort would not make him any money, before reeling off a list of facts about the property
Continue reading...Donald Trump was “crazy like a fox” when he floated the idea of buying Greenland because the move would secure vital strategic interests for the US, a leading presidential ally in the Senate insisted on Monday.
Related: Trump’s bid to buy Greenland shows that the ‘scramble for the Arctic’ is truly upon us
Continue reading...World leaders offer $20m now plus reforestation plan, but critics want major policy shifts
The G7’s pledge of $20m (£16m) to douse the fires in the Amazon has been dismissed as “chump change” by environmental campaigners, as concerns grow about political cooperation on deforestation and other climate issues.
The summit host, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, told reporters he would try to deal with the long-term causes by creating an international alliance to save the rainforest, with details of a reforestation programme to be unveiled at next month’s UN climate meeting in New York.
Continue reading...The US president has accused Iran of being the world's 'number one nation of terror', saying it was 'too soon' for talks between the two countries. He said the US would be willing to 'make Iran rich again' if it halted its nuclear programme. Trump had opted not to meet Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, who made an unscheduled appearance at the G7 summit, in Biarritz, on Sunday
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