Joe Biden will withdraw all the remaining US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaida terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, a senior administration official has confirmed.
Related: Secretary of state Blinken hits out at China over Taiwan and Covid
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Sunday the US is concerned about China’s aggressive actions against Taiwan and warned it would be a “serious mistake” for anyone to try to change the status quo in the western Pacific by force.
Related: Chaos Under Heaven: Trump as raging bull in a China policy shop
Continue reading...People joked it could be nuclear code but real explanation is every social media manager’s nightmare
The perils of working from home while managing the social media account of a major military power have been thrown into sharp relief after the US Strategic Command tweeted a confusing string of gibberish.
Thirteen mysterious characters long, the tweet – “;l;;gmlxzssaw” – prompted some on social media to jokingly suggest it was confidential information, for example a password or a nuclear launch code, that had accidentally been leaked.
Continue reading...Analysis: About one in five of those charged are current or former members of the armed forces and the Pentagon has warned that white nationalism is a threat within its ranks
If the moustache, trimmed narrowly in the style of Adolf Hitler, don’t give it away, then the antisemitic YouTube rants, the testimony of 34 colleagues and the neo-Nazi reading material certainly do.
Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a US army reservist, is – according to court documents – an “avowed white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer”.
Continue reading...The Chinese threat to invade Taiwan is serious and more imminent than many understand, the US admiral chosen to lead the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific region has warned.
China considers recovering control over Taiwan its “No 1 priority”, Adm John Aquilino, nominated to become commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday.
Continue reading...US military pilots and satellites have recorded ‘a lot more’ UFO sightings than have been made public, John Ratcliffe says
US military pilots and satellites have recorded “a lot more” sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, than have been made public, Donald Trump’s former intelligence director John Ratcliffe said.
Related: The truth is out there … perhaps: CIA releases thousands of UFO files
Continue reading...Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defense, made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, meeting President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul.
Related: Afghan peace summit includes just one female delegate
Continue reading...Asia Pacific commander Philip Davidson says Beijing wants to take Washington’s world leadership role by 2050
China could invade Taiwan within the next six years as Beijing accelerates its moves to supplant American military power in Asia, a top US commander has warned.
Democratic and self-ruled Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, whose leaders view the island as part of their territory and which they have vowed to one day take back.
Continue reading...Joe Biden pledged to combat sexual assault in the US military as he announced the nomination of two female officers, Gen Jacqueline Van Ovost and Lt Gen Laura Richardson, to become four-star commanders. The president, who spoke on International Women's Day, said: "Sexual assault is abhorrent and wrong at any time. And in our military, so much of unit cohesion is built on trusting your fellow service members to have your back – there's nothing less than a threat to our national security"
Continue reading...The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has proposed a series of steps to help restart stalled peace talks between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, according to a letter from Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani published on Sunday by Afghanistan‘s TOLONews.
Related: Afghans dread the ‘danger hours’ as fragile gains of 20 years slip away
Continue reading...Operation, which was approved by Joe Biden, comes after a series of attacks against US targets in Iraq
The United States has carried out airstrikes in Syria targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups.
The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member and other coalition troops.
Continue reading...Mohamedou Ould Salahi and one of his former guards, Steve Wood, reunite in Mauritania 13 years after last seeing each other, rekindling an unlikely relationship that profoundly changed their lives.
Mohamedou was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for 14 years. During his incarceration he was subjected to torture and solitary confinement, but never charged with a crime. His memoir, Guantánamo Diary, became an international bestseller and was adapted into the film, The Mauritanian, starring Tahar Rahim and Jodie Foster.
My Brother's Keeper is BAFTA longlisted for British Short Film 2021.
MP representing most of UK’s Chagossians says failure to use compensation money to help those facing hardship is outrageous
Less than £12,000 of a £40m fund set up to compensate Chagos islanders who were forcibly evicted from their homeland by the British government has reached those living in the UK.
Four years after it was announced, the Foreign Office fund has distributed less than 1% of its budget in direct support to islanders forced from their homes in the Indian Ocean.
Continue reading...The US Senate on Friday confirmed Joe Biden’s nominee, Lloyd Austin, to serve as secretary of defense, making the retired four-star Marine officer the first African American to lead the Pentagon.
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The justice department has said it will not pursue insider trading charges against Republican senator Richard Burr.
The New York Times reports:
The Justice Department informed Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, on Tuesday that it would not pursue insider trading charges against him, according to his lawyer and another person briefed on the decision, quietly ending a monthslong investigation into his dumping of hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock in the turbulent early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision by the department and the Securities and Exchange Commission effectively cleared a cloud of legal jeopardy that has loomed over Mr. Burr since the sales were first disclosed in March. At the crux of the case was whether Mr. Burr, then the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had acted based on nonpublic information about the contagion that he received at senators-only briefings.
California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra launched 9 lawsuits against the Trump administration.
The lawsuits include challenges of:
Continue reading...Thousands of military personnel guarding Joe Biden’s inauguration as US president on Wednesday are being vetted by the FBI amid fears of an insider attack.
Related: Texas woman who attacked Capitol says she was following Trump's orders
Continue reading...Joe Biden will deliver a message of national unity when he assumes the presidency on Wednesday, seeking to begin healing a country fractured by the acrimony of Donald Trump’s administration and ongoing threats of violence by his supporters.
Related: America is broken – can Biden and Harris put it back together?
Continue reading...Islands surrounded by US military study area, including Guam and Saipan, call for activity that harms the whales to stop
In the midst of the western Pacific, flanked by the world’s deepest ocean trench, the waters off the Mariana Islands are home and habitat to whales, dolphins, and countless other marine mammals as they breed and feed.
It’s also where they encounter the might of the US military.
Continue reading...House speaker called Gen Mark Milley, chairman of joint chiefs of staff, ‘to discuss available precautions’
Nancy Pelosi spoke to the head of the US military on Friday, seeking assurance that Donald Trump will not be able to launch a nuclear strike during his last days in office.
Related: Effort to impeach Trump again gathers pace after 'attempted coup' at Capitol
Continue reading...Unprecedented letter calls on voted-out president to accept Joe Biden’s election victory amid growing fears over his behaviour
All 10 former US defence secretaries still living, including two who worked for Donald Trump, have called for the president and his supporters to accept he lost the election and warned against attempts to involve the military in his increasingly desperate efforts to overturn the result.
In an unprecedented joint letter published in the Washington Post, the defence secretaries addressed the worst fears of what could happen in 17 days of Trump’s administration remaining before Joe Biden’s inauguration: an attempt by Trump to foment a crises with the aim of triggering a military intervention in his last-ditch struggle to hold on power.
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