WikiLeaks founder in court to face US accusations of stealing military secrets
The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has appeared at the Old Bailey at the start of an extradition hearing on an 18-count US indictment that accuses him of recruiting hackers to steal military secrets.
Wearing a dark suit, tie and white shirt, Assange, 49, sat behind a glass security screen at the back of the court, his glasses pushed back on top of his head.
Continue reading...The California governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency in five counties on Sunday due to wildfires. It was prompted by the Creek fire that started on Friday night, forcing evacuations and road closures in the Fresno area
Continue reading...Why should black founders jump through more hoops to earn funders’ trust?
I was in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, when I heard about the shooting of another black man, Jacob Blake, by US police. Close by is a mural of George Floyd, painted on a wall near where I grew up, a reminder that the current upheaval surrounding race in the US has global repercussions. Just as calls for racial justice echo in American and European streets, government offices and boardrooms, we must not forget that the legacy of racial injustice extends far beyond those borders and any honest reckoning must include open dialogue around race in international development.
In Africa, white-led institutions have shaped the development and social entrepreneurship landscape, deciding who succeeds and who fails. Only recently has there been a growing recognition of these imperialist dynamics, which uplift foreign-led practitioners more than local ones. There is a growing consensus that the future should and must be created and led by Africans, because real progress requires it to be on our own terms. And yet, this is just talk until funders shift resources and power, at scale, towards local solutions.
Continue reading...Michael Cohen alleges Trump had ‘hatred and contempt’ for Barack Obama and 2012 video shows Trump mocking his rival
The impression of Donald Trump’s obsession with his predecessor Barack Obama was fueled by a video from 2012 resurfacing this weekend from a parody in which the now-Republican president mocks his Democratic rival.
Journalists dug up the clip after Michael Cohen, Trump’s disgraced former fixer, shared a photo of it taken from the film to promote his latest book.
Continue reading...California is sweltering under a record-breaking heatwave this holiday weekend, with dangerous conditions that have sparked several new wildfires and raised widespread public health concerns.
Triple-digit temperatures have spread over much of the state, including a record-high of 125F (52C) in Death Valley on Saturday. In southern California, Malibu authorities reported that one hiker died due to heat while on a trail in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Continue reading...Jacob Blake has spoken publicly for the first time since a police officer shot him seven times in the back. The 29-year-old says he is in constant pain from the shooting, which doctors fear will leave him paralyzed from the waist down.
In a video posted on Saturday evening on Twitter by his family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, Blake said from his hospital bed that “every 24 hours it’s pain, nothing but pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side-to-side, it hurts to eat.”
Continue reading...With its cynical disabling of the body politic, the Trump administration has contaminated the well of US independence
Once upon a time, at the start of the last century, PG Wodehouse declared, with the fervour of the convert, that to live in America was “like being in heaven … without the bother and expense of dying”.
America used to do that to a certain kind of Brit, and to those who saw themselves as Greeks to the Americans’ Romans: we’d fall hopelessly in love, however much they abused the relationship.
Continue reading...Significant rise in UK with 2,988 new cases; Netanyahu backtracks on lockdowns for cities with high infection rates; thousands attend protests against measures in Croatia and Italy
More than 200 UN employees have been infected with Covid-19 in Syria, medical workers and UN officials have said.
UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Imran Riza, last week told UN heads of agencies that the global body was close to securing a medical facility for treatment of coronavirus cases.
Up to 300 people who attended a charity football match at a working men’s club on the border of Sunderland and Durham have been asked to self-isolate after 28 tested positive for Covid-19.
Those who attended the event at Burnside working men’s club on 30 August are being told to self-isolate until 13 September.
Breaking: Up to 300 people who were at a charity football match asked to self-isolate, after 28 test positive for #Covid_19
Event was on 30 August at Burnside working men’s club (border of Sunderland and Durham)
Durham & Sunderland Council & @PHE_uk managing response.
White House dismisses as ‘fan fiction’ the tell-all memoir of convicted former fixer who claims Trump is guilty of the same crimes as him
Michael Cohen’s tell-all memoir makes the case that president Donald Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed his former fixer in federal prison, offering a blow-by-blow account of Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scandal that once overshadowed his presidency.
Of all the crises Cohen confronted working for Trump, none proved as vexing as the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and her claims of an extramarital affair with Trump, Cohen writes in Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.
Continue reading...Sentenced to death in China, American Mark Swidan hopes for a permanent reprieve but his fate may hinge on an easing of diplomatic tensions
When Chinese police raided the Guangzhou hotel room of Mark Swidan and arrested him on 13 November 2012, he was on the phone to his mother, Katherine. Swidan had been in China sourcing building materials for his business , Katherine says, and they were discussing booking his ticket home to Houston, Texas, for his wedding, when he said there was a knock at the door.
“I heard banging, then I didn’t hear anything after that,” she recalls.
Continue reading...Parks in California are seeing double or even triple the usual number of campers, who can bring trash and unsafe behavior
Chris Giesige thought planning a camping trip would be simple. He’s a regular, often heading out into the wilderness several times per year. But when he recently tried to reserve a campsite online in Yosemite, then Mammoth, then Whiskeytown Lake, he was shocked to see they were all booked for weeks. Twice he thought he’d found an open spot, only to see it get snapped up moments later.
“I know May, June and July are busy camping months, but I don’t remember it being like this,” he says. “I have never had as much trouble before in trying to find a campground.”
Continue reading...In stark contrast to right-wing claims, 93% of demonstrations have involved no serious harm to people or property
The vast majority of the thousands of Black Lives Matter protests this summer have been peaceful, with more than 93% involving no serious harm to people or damage to property, according to a new report tracking political violence in the United States.
But the US government has taken a “heavy-handed approach” to the demonstrations, with authorities using force “more often than not” when they are present, the report found.
Continue reading...The US president declined to accept the German government's assessment that the Russian opposition leader was attacked with a nerve agent. This week the chancellor, Angela Merkel, revealed that tests at a military laboratory had identified unequivocally that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned with novichok
Continue reading...PM is intrigued by Trump’s ‘relationship with the truth’, Kim Darroch writes in new book
Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, has said Boris Johnson is fascinated and inspired by Donald Trump, and is intrigued by the US president’s patchy relationship “with the facts and the truth”.
In a new book serialised in the Times, Lord Darroch said Johnson must share the blame for his resignation as ambassador to Washington, which followed the leaking of diplomatic cables disparaging Trump.
Continue reading...As summer ends, and as deaths near 200,000 amid severe economic damage, experts say the next few months are vital
Even with three decades of experience in the travel industry, Jorge Pesquera has never seen a downturn in business like this one.
Related: Could western Pennsylvania win Trump a second term?
Continue reading...Jorge Castañeda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, looks at the neighbour to the north – and where it might be heading
In 1830, Lorenzo de Zavala, the principal author of the 1824 Mexican constitution, found himself in exile. So decided to visit a nation he had long admired.
Related: 'Trump has a different leadership style': David Rubenstein plays it by the book
Continue reading...President says US must look seriously at case but suggests media should be looking into China
President Donald Trump said the United States must look “very seriously” into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but that his administration had not yet seen any proof.
“I think we have to look at it very seriously, if it’s the case,” he said, before talking at length about his diplomatic efforts in North Korea and nuclear non-proliferation in Russia. “I don’t know exactly what happened. It’s tragic. It’s terrible, it shouldn’t happen. We haven’t had any proof yet, but I will take a look.
Continue reading...Robert O’Brien didn’t provide any details, also claiming Beijing had ‘the most massive program’ to influence US politics
China has taken the most active role among countries seeking to interfere in the US election and has the biggest program to influence domestic politics, the US national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said on Friday, without providing any details.
“We know the Chinese have taken the most active role,” O’Brien told reporters at a briefing.
Continue reading...Majority-Muslim Kosovo will recognise Jewish state, while Serbia promises to relocate embassy to Jerusalem
Israel scored two diplomatic gains on Friday when majority-Muslim Kosovo agreed to recognise the Jewish state and Serbia said it would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
The decisions came after a White House-brokered agreement between the two Balkan arch-rivals to normalise economic relations two decades after they fought a bitter war.
Continue reading...
Jennifer Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, said she has confirmed reporting by The Atlantic with two former senior Trump administration officials.
One former official told her: “When the President spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, ‘It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker.’”
This former official heard the President say about American veterans: "What's in it for them? They don't make any money." Source: "It was a character flaw of the President. He could not understand why someone would die for their country, not worth it."
Regarding McCain, "The President just hated John McCain. He always asked, 'Why do you see him as a hero?" Two sources confirmed the President did not want flags lowered but others in the White House ordered them at half mast. There was a stand off and then the President relented.
Continue reading...