Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Frantic talks after Moscow blocks draft security council resolution and agrees to only one border crossing point
Frantic talks are being held after Russia was accused of a “despicable and dangerous” use of its veto at the UN security council to block a draft resolution that would have renewed cross-border humanitarian aid to civilians in Syria.
The veto came at the close of months of negotiations between security council members over the number of cross-border aid points that should be kept open, a dispute fuelled by the Syrian regime’s determination to control the supply of international humanitarian aid to the country.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says Moscow will respond to Britain’s human rights move
The Kremlin has said it will take countermeasures against the UK after the British government imposed sanctions on Monday against senior Russian officials including a close ally of Vladimir Putin.
Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow would respond to the decision by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to put 25 Russians on a new sanctions list. One of them is Alexander Bastrykin, Russia’s top prosecutor and the head of the investigative committee.
Former journalist Ivan Safronov could face up to 20 years in prison in treason case
Russian security services have opened a treason case against a former journalist who recently began working as an adviser to the head of the country’s space agency.
Ivan Safronov was arrested on Tuesday morning by agents from the FSB, the successor agency of the KGB. He could face up to 20 years in prison.
Measures target individuals in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Myanmar and North Korea
The UK set itself on a diplomatic collision course with one of its key allies after introducing long-awaited sanctions against human rights abusers, including a close aide to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Long-awaited UK government sanctions against human rights abusers, including a close aide to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, have been unveiled by the foreign secretary.
The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has announced sanctions against 49 individuals and organisations accused of human rights abuses from four different countries.
Donald Trump’s claim not to have been briefed about intelligence suggesting Russia paid Taliban-linked militants to kill US soldiers is “just not the way the system works”, former national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday.
Government critic found dead with gunshot wounds near Vienna on Saturday
Austrian police have arrested two Russians from Chechnya over the fatal shooting of a Chechen dissident.
A 43-year-old man was found dead with gunshot wounds in Gerasdorf, near Vienna, on Saturday. Police arrested a 47-year-old in Linz, 125 miles (200km) from the capital. A second Russian, 37, also from Chechnya and living in Austria, was detained on Sunday for investigations into the murder of his fellow Russian citizen.
The former KGB officer, who has ruled Russia for more than two decades as president or prime minister, handily won the controversial plebiscite granting him the right to run for two more six-year terms after the current one ends in 2024. Critics have challenged the result, saying that the voting was rigged to produce a landslide.
US president Donald Trump has played down allegations Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan, claiming it’s a hoax by ‘the newspapers and the Democrats’. Trump initially said he had not been told of the allegations, while the White House later claimed there was no consensus in the intelligence community over the reports’ veracity
Donald Trump is criticizing New York City’s plan to paint “Black Lives Matter” on 5th Avenue outside Trump Tower — calling it a “symbol of hate.”
NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue. This will further antagonize New York’s Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the....
National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has said that both the CIA and Pentagon did pursue intelligence assessments that suggested Russia had offered bounties for killing US troops in Afghanistan, and that US intelligence briefed international allies, as the administration steps up its defense of the handling of the military bounty scandal.
“We had options ready to go,” O’Brien said on a Fox news show. But added: “It may be impossible to get to the bottom of it.”
American servicemembers are being targeted with Russian bounties. As a Marine, I'm disgusted that nothing's been done about it. Mitch, you get regular security briefings. What did you know and when did you know it?
Mike Pompeo opposes lifting embargo, which is due to end in October, citing risk to stability
A US attempt to destroy the Iran nuclear deal, reimpose sanctions and extend a UN embargo on arms sales to Iran risks a “generational setback for the cause of multilateralism and international law”, Iran’s foreign minister has told the UN security council.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN also said the latest US moves to isolate Tehran was like “putting its knee to the neck of the Iranian people”. Vassily Nebenzia described the policy as “a maximum suffocation policy” and said the US’s goal was to make Iran the scapegoat for an uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East.
Time and again, the president has failed to protect military personnel. For Trump, he always comes first, no matter who dies
Donald Trump likes to suggest he has got the back of US soldiers battling America’s foes around the world. It was a big theme of his 2016 campaign and his West Point speech earlier this month. So great was his boundless care for America’s fighting men and women, he said, that he would halt the endless, costly foreign wars prosecuted by his predecessors – and bring them home.
Donald Trump is facing renewed questions over his relationship with Vladimir Putin after reports that he was briefed in writing in February that Russia paid bounties for the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Evidence of alleged plot was in a February briefing, say officials
Trump claimed he was not told because advisers ‘did not find this info credible’
Donald Trump was given a written briefing months ago about intelligence suggesting Russia offered bounties for attacks on US forces in Afghanistan, multiple US media have reported on Monday night. The president said on Sunday he was not told of the allegations because the information was not “credible”.
The New York Times quoted two sources as saying details were included in a daily intelligence briefing the president received in late February. CNN said an official with direct knowledge told them it was included in the briefing – a written document – briefing “sometime in the spring”.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany says there are dissenting opinions within the intelligence community on reports Russia offered a bounty for attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan. US President Donald Trump denied being briefed on the alleged bounty program from Russia, later adding intelligence officials told him the threat was not ‘credible’. He has since by contradicted by McEnany, who said there was no consensus among the intelligence community in a media briefing on Monday
A vigil held in the memory of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old who black man who was killed by police in Aurora, Colorado, turned violent when police pepper began to pepper spray the crowd, saying that those at the vigil were unlawfully gathering in front of a police station.
Here’s a look at the scene:
Jacksonville, Florida, the city that is slated to host the Republican National Convention in August, announced that it will adopt a mandatory mask requirement for all indoor locations where social distancing is not possible.
That makes things a bit awkward since the Republican National Committee actually moved its convention to Jacksonville after the state it was supposed to be held in, North Carolina, said it would likely impose some restrictions to shrink the size of the convention. North Carolina governor Roy Cooper said he could not agree to guarantees Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee were seeking that would allow the convention to be the big, people-packed convention it was planned to be.
At 5 p.m. today, the City of Jacksonville will be adopting a mandatory mask requirement for public & indoor locations, and in other situations where individuals cannot socially distance.
Please continue to practice personal responsibility to help stop the spread of this virus. pic.twitter.com/dcAuolVMyZ
Most visitors from the US are set to remain banned from entering the European Union because of the country’s rising infection rate in a move that risks antagonising Donald Trump.
In an attempt to save the European tourism season, a list of 15 countries from where people should be allowed into the EU from 1 July has been agreed by representatives of the 27 member states.
Norilsk Nickel suspends workers at metals plant who dumped the water in ‘flagrant violation of operating rules’
A Russian mining giant said on Sunday it had suspended workers at a metals plant who were responsible for pumping wastewater into nearby Arctic tundra.
Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta published videos from the scene showing large metal pipes carrying wastewater from the reservoir and dumping foaming liquid among nearby trees.
The Democrats' presidential nominee criticises Trump after reports the US president failed to act on intelligence briefings that Russia was offering bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing US troops. The story was first reported in the New York Times. 'If the Times report is true ... Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin,' Biden said.
The ‘gobocracy’ that surrounds the PM is capable of doing Russia’s work for it
As Boris Johnson is leading Britain’s first government of pundits, “a gobocracy”, if you like, it is worth repeating Humbert Wolfe’s scathing poem on the press: “You cannot hope to bribe or twist,/ thank God! the British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”
In a gobocracy, there’s no need to become too conspiratorial about why a prime minister betrays his country. Put a Telegraph columnist in charge, throw in Michael Gove from the Times and Dominic Cummings from Vote Leave’s propaganda arm, and their bottomless cynicism and instinctive charlatanism will bring ruin with or without foreign assistance.