US ambassador Nikki Haley describes Moscow’s use of veto that will let existing inquiry lapse as a ‘shameful’ move
Syrians bury the bodies of victims of a toxic gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, in April 2017. Photograph: Fadi Al-Halabi/AFP/Getty Images
Saturday 18 November 2017 06.31 GMT
Russia cast a second veto in as many days at the United Nations security council on Friday to block the renewal of an investigation to identify those behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
A draft resolution put forward by Japan would have extended the UN-led joint investigative mechanism (JIM) for 30 days to allow time for negotiations on a wider compromise.
But Russia used its veto power to prevent adoption after 12 council members voted in favour, in effect ending the mission. China abstained, while Bolivia voted no.
It was the 11th time that Russia has used its veto power to stop council action targeting the Syrian regime.
“Russia is wasting our time,” US ambassador Nikki Haley told the council after the vote. “Russia has no interest in finding ground with the rest of this council to save the JIM.”
“Russia will not agree to any mechanism that might shine a spotlight on the use of chemical weapons by its ally, the Syrian regime,” she said. “It’s as simple and shameful as that.”
A resolution requires nine votes to be adopted at the council, but five countries – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – can block adoption with their veto power.
Japan put its proposal forward after Russia on Thursday vetoed a US-drafted resolution that would have allowed investigators to continue their work for a year.
A separate Russian draft resolution that called for changes to the JIM failed to garner enough support, with just four votes in favor.
The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said: “Any extension of the JIM’s mandate for us is possible only provided fundamental flaws in its work are rectified.”
After the veto, the council met behind closed doors at Sweden’s request to hear another appeal for a temporary extension, but Russia refused, diplomats said.
Sweden’s ambassador, Olof Skoog, said council members must “make sure that we are absolutely convinced that we have exhausted every avenue, every effort before the mandate of the JIM expires tonight”.
Italian ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, who holds the presidency, said after the meeting the council “will continue to work in the coming hours and days constructively to find a common position”.
The final efforts turned to finding some technical ruse that would have allowed the JIM to avoid shutting down and would not require a resolution, diplomats said.
UN officials confirmed late Friday that the panel would end its work at midnight because there was no decision from the council to keep it in place.
The row over the chemical weapons inquiry came as the UN was preparing a new round of peace talks to open on 28 November in Geneva to try to end the six-year war.
The joint UN-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) panel was set up by Russia and the US in 2015 and unanimously endorsed by the council, which renewed its mandate last year.
Previous reports by the JIM have found that Syrian government forces were responsible for chlorine attacks on three villages in 2014 and 2015, and that Islamic State used mustard gas in 2015.
Nuclear war is absolutely unthinkable. Totally crazy. Yet serious discussion is underway in military and neocon war circles about a nuclear war against North Korea and, even crazier, against Iran and Russia. Welcome home, Dr Strangelove.
by Eric S. Margolis-
( November 18, 2017, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Amidst the rising clamor in the US over groping and goosing, America’s Congress is beginning to fret about President Donald Trump’s shaky finger being on the nation’s nuclear button.
The air force officer that dutifully trails the president carries the electronic launch codes in a black satchel that could ignite a world war that would largely destroy our planet. This is rather more serious than groping and pinching.
The inexperienced Trump has talked himself into a corner over North Korea. He thought bombastic threats and a side deal with China could force the stubborn North Koreans to junk their nuclear weapons. Anyone with knowledge of North Asia could have told him this plan would not work.
Trump threatened North Korea with ‘fire and fury’ – a clear allusion to the use of nuclear weapons. The North Koreans mooned the tough-talking president and went ahead with their nuclear programs. So Trump’s big bluff was called. A huge embarrassment for the amateur president who evaded military service in the 1960’s.
On top of that, the wicked North Koreans referred to Trump as ‘old.’ He riposted that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was ‘short and fat.’ It is to this level of kindergarten invective that we have sunk – idiotic kids armed with nuclear weapons.
The problem for would-be warlord Trump is that he has few options left. His least bad are 1. attacking North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure with tactical nuclear weapons, or 2. laughing off the whole business, backing down and hoping that incoming Christmas and more groping furor will divert public attention.
Nuclear war is absolutely unthinkable. Totally crazy. Yet serious discussion is underway in military and neocon war circles about a nuclear war against North Korea and, even crazier, against Iran and Russia. Welcome home, Dr Strangelove.
Responsible people in government are increasingly worried that President Trump might ignite nuclear war to salvage his bruised ego and to show the Asians who is boss. Trump has already ringed North Korea with heavy bombers, strike aircraft, three heavy aircraft carriers and fleets of warplanes in Japan, South Korea and Guam.
A single incident – a naval clash, a mining, an air encounter – could set the stage for war. Senior US officers have been telling Trump the same message that this column has delivered for years: that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is unlikely to be destroyed by even a surprise nuclear attack.
The Pentagon admits that a ground invasion of North Korea would be far too costly. A decade-old Rand Corp study estimated US losses would be in the range of 250,000 men.
North Korea will probably retain enough nuclear-armed missiles in deep caves after a US nuclear attack to riposte against South Korea and Japan, where there are nearly 100,000 US troops and dependents. Japan, the world’s third most important economic power, is totally vulnerable to nuclear devastation.
Nuclear-armed China and Russia are right next door to North Korea. Trump’s threats to attack North Korea might force them to challenge the US in a major confrontation. The head of South Korea’s ruling party just insisted that the US must not attack North Korea without her nation’s prior consent – which will not likely be given. Interestingly, few Americans know that in wartime, South Korea’s powerful armed forces fall under command of a US four-star general. Such is the imperial order in North Asia.
Washington is planning large, new provocative military exercises around North Korea – just the type of sabre rattling that provoked the current crisis. China urged Washington to call off its warlike actions and, in exchange, for North Korea to stop testing nuclear warheads and missiles.
Sensible, of course, but Chief Crusader Trump rejects such plans and keeps sending mixed messages to the world. If he really wanted peace with North Korea all he would have to do is fly to Pyongyang, bury the hatchet, and shoot some rounds of golf with Kim Jong-un who would be thrilled to pieces.
This is unlikely to happen. Meanwhile, senior military officers and some in Congress who actually mastered high school are trying to figure out how to keep the volatile Trump away from the nuclear trigger.
According to the US Constitution, Congress has the power to declare war. But the president has a residual right to initiate military action in the event of a sudden threat. The fate of the globe cannot be left in the hands of one man. Even Russia and China require some checks and balances before nuclear war is unleashed. The US apparently does not.
Some senior officers say they would refuse to obey an illegal order. But none refused when it came to the unjustified attack on Iraq and war against Syria. In fact, the US nuclear attack system is designed to thwart interference with any orders to unleash war.
A no-first use pledge would be a positive step, to be sure. A better way would be for Congress to mandate a collegial decision to use nuclear weapons that would involve the president, vice president, secretary of state, chief of staff and chief justice. This, of course, would not apply if the US was under nuclear attack. But even certainty of attack can be uncertain, as numerous nuclear crises during the cold war showed.
The urgent message of the day is: President Trump. Step away from that nuclear button and calm down.
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe’s ruling party will dismiss President Robert Mugabe on Sunday and reinstate Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice-president he fired, two party sources told Reuters on Saturday, as ecstatic crowds celebrated the expected downfall.
Mugabe’s 37-year rule has been effectively at an end since the army seized control on Wednesday, confining him to his residence, saying it wanted to target the “criminals” around him.
State television said Mugabe would meet military commanders on Sunday, quoting Catholic priest Fidelis Mukonori, who has been mediating in negotiations with the president.
But hundreds of thousands of people had no need for a formal signal that his time had ended as they flooded the streets of Harare, singing, dancing and hugging soldiers.
In scenes reminiscent of the downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, men, women and children ran alongside the armoured cars and the troops who stepped in this week to oust the only ruler Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980.
Others marched towards his lavish ‘Blue Roof’ residence, but were kept away by soldiers.
Under house arrest in his compound, the 93-year-old has watched support from his party, security services and people evaporate in less than three days.
The sources said a ZANU-PF party central committee meeting scheduled for 10:30 a.m. (0830 GMT) would also dismiss 93-year-old Mugabe’s preferred successor, his wife Grace, from her role as head of the ZANU-PF Women’s League.
Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao, speaking from an undisclosed location in South Africa, told Reuters the leader and his wife were “ready to die for what is correct” rather than step down in order to legitimise what he described as a coup.
Zhuwao also said that only Mugabe, who had hardly slept since the military took over but was otherwise in “good” health, could call a meeting of the central committee.
“TEARS OF JOY”
It was not clear from reading the party’s constitution who is empowered to call such a meeting - but events appeared to have made the issue irrelevant.
On Harare’s streets, Zimbabweans spoke of a second liberation for the former British colony, alongside their dreams of political and economic change after two decades of deepening repression and hardship.
“These are tears of joy,” said Frank Mutsindikwa, 34, holding aloft the Zimbabwean flag. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this day. Free at last. We are free at last.”
Mugabe’s downfall is likely to send shockwaves across Africa, where a number of entrenched strongmen, from Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni to Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila, are facing mounting pressure to step aside.
The crowds in Harare have so far given a quasi-democratic veneer to the army’s intervention, backing its claims that it is merely effecting a constitutional transfer of power, which would help it avoid the diplomatic backlash and opprobrium that normally follows a coup.
The military had been prompted to act by Mugabe’s decision to sack Mnangagwa, Grace Mugabe’s main rival to succeed her husband. The next presidential election is due next year.
Zimbabweans abroad were also hailing the end of Mugabe’s rule, not least the hundreds living in Britain who gathered outside their embassy in central London.
Protesters gather calling for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to step down, in Harare, Zimbabwe November 18, 2017. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
“I’m ecstatic to see people give Mugabe a reality check because he has been in his echo chamber for too long, lying to himself that people still want him,” said Ruva Kudambo, 37, who came to study technology and ended up staying.
Tasa, a 36-year-old who refused to give his family name, said he had brought his four young children, aged 5 to 9, to the protest “because they are the future of Zimbabwe”.
NO DIS-GRACE
For some Africans, Mugabe remains a nationalist hero, the continent’s last independence leader and a symbol of its struggle to throw off the legacy of decades of colonial subjugation.
But to many more at home and abroad, he was reviled as a dictator happy to resort to violence to retain power and to run a once-promising economy into the ground.
Political sources and intelligence documents seen by Reuters said Mugabe’s exit was likely to pave the way for an interim unity government led by Mnangagwa, a life-long Mugabe aide and former security chief known as “The Crocodile”.
Stabilising the free-falling economy will be the number one priority, the documents said.
The United States, a long-time critic of Mugabe, said it was looking forward to a “new era” in Zimbabwe, while President Ian Khama of neighbouring Botswana said Mugabe had no diplomatic support in the region and should resign at once.
The Herald, the state newspaper that has served as Mugabe’s loyal mouthpiece, said ZANU-PF had called on Friday for him to go. It said ZANU-PF branches in all 10 provinces had also called for the resignation of Grace, the first lady whose ambitions to succeed her husband outraged the military and much of the country.
To many Zimbabweans, she is known as “Gucci Grace” on account of her reported dedication to shopping, or - in the wake of an alleged assault in September on a South African model - “Dis-Grace”.
STUBBORN
The scenes in Harare reflect the anger and frustration that has built up among Zimbabwe’s 16 million people in nearly two decades of economic mismanagement that started with the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000, the catalyst of a wider collapse.
On January 1 last year, this column drew attention to what was then a subtle move to formalise a new geopolitical region dominated by an alliance between India and the United States. The backdrop was a nascent cold war between the US and China.
Till 2015, the term Indo-Pacific was largely a biogeographic term. The term has now assumed geo-political connotations. During Donald Trump’s recent 12-day Asia tour, the use of the term Indo-Pacific in statements was so profuse that one could not resist the assumption that there are hurried moves to win recognition for the new region. That the term is also being liberally used in political discourses in Japan is no coincidence. The institutionalisation of the new geopolitical region, on the one hand, underlines a ‘rising India’, and on the other, exposes Washington’s eroding power in world affairs and its willingness to work with New Delhi to top up the power deficiency vis-à-vis China: May be it is a readjustment of the US policy giving India an upgraded role.
In recent decades, successive US administrations have been using India as a lynchpin to check China. India, which views China as a frenemy, apparently feels flattered, though it is not unaware that Washington is manipulating it against China. India’s relations with China have been sticky since the 1962 Sino-India border war. Unresolved border disputes, China’s military assistance to Pakistan, its opposition to India’s full membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and China-controlled Maritime Silk Road sea ports in India’s neighbourhood prevent normalisation of ties though trade relations have been growing at a healthy rate.
The formalisation of the Indo-Pacific region also reveals that the United States’ ‘Pivot-to-Asia’ policy, which had originally been devised for the Asia Pacific region, now includes the Indian Ocean region.
Given China’s ambition to extend its Maritime Silk Road all the way to Africa’s western coast and beyond, the term Indo-Pacific may incorporate the Western Pacific Ocean and the entirety of the Indian Ocean, the third largest ocean after the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
More than 80 percent of the world’s seaborne trade in oil transits takes place through Indian Ocean choke points, with 40 percent passing through the Strait of Hormuz, 35 percent through the Strait of Malacca and 8 percent through the Bab el-Mandab Strait. China’s energy security hinges on the stability of Indian Ocean sea lanes, with some 75 percent of its oil imports coming from West Asia and Africa. All China-bound cargo ships from Indian Ocean enter the South China Sea where Beijing is embroiled in territorial disputes with several littoral nations.
Thus, the Maritime Silk Road with a series of Chinese-managed ports in littoral states has a military dimension. It is quite natural for the US and India to entertain serious apprehensions about China’s entry into the waters they have been dominating for decades.
In yet another move to reinforce the Indo-Pacific concept, on the sidelines of last week’s ASEAN plus summit, officials of the United States, India, Japan and Australia held a meeting to revive the ‘quadrilateral military alliance’.
Downplaying the Indo-Pacific concept, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the region remained important and had great potential, regardless of “whatever concept or term is employed”.
However, China’s official English language mouthpiece, the Global Times, saw the development as worthy of an editorial topic.
“Indo-Pacific countries have been strengthening trade and cultural ties with China with the facilitation of the China-led Belt and Road initiative,” the editorial said adding that the US and Japan had little leverage to play geopolitical games in the region, and few countries were willing to fall into the orbit of Washington and Tokyo.
Commenting on India’s new role, the Global Times said, “India has its own trick to play. In the past, the mainstream media in India was obsessed with competing with China on GDP growth and international status. Now they are keen to compare their country to Australia or Japan to see which can curry more favor from the US. After the US began using the term “Indo-Pacific,” some Indian media outlets were ecstatic that their country had become an important pillar of this new US strategy.”
If we leave aside military aspects, the new region, in an economic sense, is a gold mine of trade opportunities. This is why states like Sri Lanka are advised to stay clear of power games the big nations play and try through bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to promote the region not only as a mega economic zone, but also as a peace zone. In this context, an Asian economic union sans power politics is quite in order. China has openly called for an Asia for Asians and made this week, yet another effort to bring to fruition the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). In what is seen as a victory for China, leaders of 16 countries—ten ASEAN nations plus China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- discussed the RCEP at a meeting in Manila on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit.
The China-led trade deal was once seen as a rival to US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a project floated by the then US President Barak Obama who declared that the laws of the global economy should be written by the United States and not by the likes of China. Some of those countries which took part in the RCEP talks in Manila this week are TPP members. They were left high and dry when President Trump withdrew the US from the TPP.
With Trump trumpeting about his ‘America First’ policy and subscribing to the view that the TPP would be more beneficial to others than the US, trade ministers of the remaining 11 TPP nations held a meeting, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Vietnam last week, to give new life to the grouping with or without the US. It is interesting to note that while Trump at the APEC summit was sending mixed signals to Asian nations, China’s President Xi Jinping was wooing them with economic assistance and a willingness to give leadership to the globalization process.
The US is losing its leeway in the region. With a beleaguered president in the White House, the process will be faster.
The way forward for the states in the Indo-Pacific region should not be one of conflicts. What the region needs is economic prosperity which can come only through peaceful co-existence in keeping with the hallowed Pancha Sheela principles which the countries in the region hold in high esteem. The quadrilateral alliance formation is certainly not a confidence-building measure to keep the Indo-Pacific region as a region of peace. India, Japan and China should give leadership to an Asian economic union – a win-win situation for all -- through mechanisms such as the RCEP to bring peace and prosperity to the region.
The New York Observer, owned by Trump’s son-in-law, was a friendly outlet for the 2016 Russian hackers.
White House senior advisor Jared Kushner at a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Nov. 9 in Beijing, China. (Thomas Peter-Pool/Getty Images)
In the fall of 2014, Julian Assange, the embattled head of WikiLeaks, was meeting with a steady stream of supportive journalists in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had taken refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. Among those seeking an audience with Assange was a freelancer working for the New York Observer, the newspaper owned and published by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and key advisor, Jared Kushner.
Ken Kurson, the newspaper’s editor in chief — along with a freelance writer he’d hired — helped arrange a “no-holds-barred” interview with Assange that October.
“My editor Ken Kurson (kkurson@observer.com) and I are very interested in an interview with Julian Assange. This would be a cover story.… We will be in London the first week of October,” wrote Jacques Hyzagi, a freelance reporter for the Observer, to a press consultant who arranged interviews for WikiLeaks.
Kurson, when contacted by Foreign Policy, said he did not attend that meeting and has never communicated with Assange; he insists that the profile was Hyzagi’s idea. “We ran an interview pitched to us by a freelancer,” he wrote in an email.
“I have never communicated in any way with Julian Assange and this sort of fact-free, evidenceless charge is analogous to pizzagate and other totally ludicrous conspiracies,” he added.
Hyzagi did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.
Yet a series of exchanges between Hyzagi and the WikiLeaks representative indicated that a meeting involving Kurson and Assange was in the works; at one point Leonardo DiCaprio was invited to tag along, according to emails obtained by FP. (DiCaprio did not end up attending.)
After that, the plan was to travel to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor. Snowden’s team declined a request for an interview from Hyzagi, according to Ben Wizner, Snowden’s attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Hyzagi’s meeting with Assange resulted in a friendly feature in the Observer and kicked off a long-running series of laudatory articles about the WikiLeaks founder — many of those stories including exclusive details about the Australian transparency advocate. Later, the Observer also became a favored outlet of Guccifer 2.0, a suspected Russian hacker, who along with WikiLeaks released troves of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). WikiLeaks tweeted some of the Observer’s coverage, including stories expressing doubt that the Russians had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Kushner has long denied any collusion with the Russian government, which is suspected of targeting the 2016 election, but his newspaper proved a favored conduit for hacks, which the U.S. intelligence community says were carried out on Kremlin orders. The Observer was not the only outlet that received exclusive access to Guccifer 2.0 documents — or those from other outlets such as DC Leaks, widely believed to be part of the same campaign — but it was the only one owned by someone who was part of the Trump campaign.
“This would be of significant interest to law enforcement and investigators,” John Sipher, a former CIA officer who worked in Russia, wrote in an email to FP.
Kushner and his connection to WikiLeaks are now back in the crosshairs of congressional investigations, though there’s no indication his ownership of the Observer is part of that probe. Senate Judiciary Committee investigators are looking into emails Kushner received concerning WikiLeaks and a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite,” according to Politico.
A congressional source told FP that Kushner, during testimony on Capitol Hill, said he never had contact with WikiLeaks or Assange — nor did anyone else on the campaign. In fact, the Atlanticreported this week that Donald Trump Jr. and Assange exchanged direct messages on Twitter during the campaign.
There’s no evidence that Kurson or anyone from the Observer was involved in linking WikiLeaks to Kushner or members of the Trump campaign, however.
A spokesperson for the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to comment on whether the Observer was part of the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the election.
* * *
When Jared Kushner purchased the New York Observer in 2006 for $10 million, the newspaper provided the young real estate magnate with a “voice in New York,” wrote Business Insider, in an article about his media work.
Before the meeting with Assange, the Observer, which focused primarily on New York politics and culture, had dedicated little space to the Australian transparency advocate, who achieved notoriety in 2010 after publishing hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. Rex Reed, in a review for the Observer of an Assange biopic in October 2013, described him as an “Australian cyberpunk” who was “leaking top-secret government documents that endanger the lives of millions under the bogus guise of the public’s right to know.”
That tone changed in 2014, when the Observerpublished a feature story on Oct. 16 by Jacques Hyzagi titled “Free Julian Assange: An Exclusive Interview with the WikiLeaks Founder.” Following that article, there was a major uptick in coverage of Assange’s life and work — almost exclusively in a glowing light.
Kurson maintains that he had no direct connection to Assange and that the contributors who wrote the pieces do not represent the site because they are not full-time employees. “The writers who contacted Assange (first Hyzagi, then Celia Farber) were freelancers,” Kurson wrote. “They were not Observer employees and didn’t operate on Observer’s behalf.”
Sources familiar with the Observer disputed those claims, saying that Kurson selected freelancers and articles for publication. “Ken used to just take control of stuff that other people wouldn’t like,” said one source who worked with him. “He’d show up with the finished product and tell people to run it.”
As the 2016 presidential campaign kicked off, and WikiLeaks started getting sources offering access to emails deep within the Democratic Party, the coverage ramped up. The site gave WikiLeaks credit for proving “the [Democratic] primary was rigged” and for exposing dangerous corruption at the DNC. The Observer published dozens of stories largely celebrating WikiLeaks and the revelations it was helping expose.
Most of those articles were written by Michael Sainato, a regular contributor. Kurson said he never edited Sainato’s work and that he was not a staffer.
Sainato did not respond to request for comment.
Assange has repeatedly refused to discuss his sources for the DNC leaks WikiLeaks published just before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 2016. He suggested that “some” of the leaks could’ve come from Russia but never publicly identified any connection with Guccifer 2.0, who is widely suspected of being connected to the Russian government.
But when Guccifer 2.0 started releasing DNC documents, the Observer was one of the outlets that received the leaks.
Writers working for the Observer trumpeted exclusive access to various DNC hack releases and solicited those leaks openly, describing how they were passed files for news coverage.
Possibly the most controversial piece that the Observer published concerned exclusive documents that supposedly exonerated Assange from allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden. Describing the case against him, which never went to trial, as potential “Nordic neurosis,” the piece argued that the encounters with the two women were simply “fumbling, bleak and unromantic.”
Not all of the Observer’s coverage of the leaks has been positive. Observer contributor and former NSA analyst John Schindler published columns pointing to the Kremlin’s “brazen effort to intimidate American elected officials” by hacking emails and dumping them all over the internet, pandering to journalists craving a new story — while the website he wrote for engaged in exactly that activity.
“I was way ahead of everybody on the WikiLeaks is a Russian front story, The Observer fully supported that,” Schindler wrote in an email to FP. He said he never witnessed any closeness between the outlet and WikiLeaks. “I am not aware of any ‘special’ ties between Ken Kurson or anyone else at The Observer and WikiLeaks. I have no editorial duties, I am a contributor.”
Yet Schindler’s coverage was the exception, as the Observer continued to publish a steady stream of leaks on the Democratic Party.
“Russian hackers now leaking directly to Jared Kushner’s paper. Trump campaign not even being subtle anymore,” tweeted Brian Fallon, then a spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, in September 2016.
When Mother Joneswrote about Fallon’s comments, Sainato responded on Twitter that those claims were “more Red Dawn Russian conspiracies” but admitted he had “asked Guccifer on twitter for docs.” He later deleted that tweet.
Kurson told FP that he wasn’t aware of the tweet or Sainato’s reporting strategies.
As the Observer published leaks targeting the Democratic presidential campaign, Kurson maintained a close relationship with his publisher, Jared Kushner, and the rest of the Trump campaign. According to an interview Kurson gave to Recode Media, Kushner never pushed for certain coverage or political support — but would talk politics with him almost every day.
“Jared never — never — asked me or any other Observer reporter to cover Assange, Wikileaks or anything connected to Wiki. There were no ‘exchanges’ with Wikileaks by me or any other Observer staffer, to my knowledge,” Kurson wrote in an email.
He said he did not recall ever discussing the DNC leaks with Kushner during the presidential campaign.
The two did appear to spend significant time together during the campaign. Kurson sat in the Trump family box during the Republican National Convention (RNC) and in March 2016 helped Kushner craft a speech Trump gave at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference.
He later made it a policy at the Observer not to review material for political candidates. Yet the newspaper continued to take positions favorable to Trump — or at least heavily critical of Clinton.
But the connections between Kurson and the Observer with Assange and the Trump campaign simultaneously made some onlookers nervous, looking back.
“When I saw Ken Kurson seated with the Trump family at the RNC, I immediately felt uncomfortable. I had one of those lightbulb moments — then the lightbulb exploded,” said Andy Stepanian, then a public relations specialist for FitzGibbon Media, who helped arrange the interview between Hyzagi and Assange. “I became more and more concerned looking back on the scale of the Observer’s coverage.”
The Observer’s last print edition was on Nov. 9, 2016, just one day after Trump, whom the paper had endorsed in the Republican primaries, was elected president. Kushner gave up direct control of the news outlet when he formally accepted a job in the administration but hasn’t sold it and instead plans to transfer it to a family trust.
Kurson stepped down as editor in chief in May, and no replacement has been named nor is one listed on the masthead.
“I edited the Observer for almost five years and am proud of the work we did there and the 7x growth in traffic,” he told FP. “I resigned because I’d gotten a great offer from a great company and felt that I had accomplished at Observer what I set out to do.”
Christians have traditionally rejected the worship of money, sex and power. Do we still?
Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners, is the host of the new audio series “Jim Wallis: In Conversation” on Audible.com.
President Trump and Vice President Pence leave the Capitol on Thursday after meeting with the House Republican Conference about the tax bill. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
By Jim WallisNovember 17
Many traditions in the history of Christianity have attempted to combat and correct the worship of three things: money, sex and power. Catholic orders have for centuries required “poverty, chastity, and obedience” as disciplines to counter these three idols. Other traditions, especially among Anabaptists in the Reformation, Pentecostals and revival movements down through the years have spoken the language of simplicity in living, integrity in relationships and servanthood in leadership. All of our church renewal traditions have tried to provide authentic and more life-giving alternatives to the worship of money, sex and power — which can be understood and used in healthy ways when they are not given primacy in one’s life.
President Trump is an ultimate and consummate worshiper of money, sex and power. American Christians have not really reckoned with the climate he has created in our country and the spiritual obligation we have to repair it. As a result, the soul of our nation and the integrity of the Christian faith are at risk.
As Abraham Lincoln, a politician with a deep knowledge of Christianity, stated in his first inaugural address, political action can, undertaken rightly, appeal to the “better angels of our nature.” But political action undertaken badly, and reckless inaction, can mislead and dispirit us — and appeal to our worst demons, such as greed, fear, bigotry and resentment, which are never far below the surface.
Trump’s adulation of money and his love for lavish ostentation (he covers everything in gold) are the literal worship of wealth by someone who believes that his possessions belong only to himself, instead of that everything belongs to God and we are its stewards. In 2011, before his foray into politics, Trump said, “Part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich.” And in his 2015 speech announcing his candidacy for president, he said: “I’m really rich. . . . And by the way, I’m not even saying that in a braggadocio — that’s the kind of mind-set, that’s the kind of thinking you need for this country.” Later, during the campaign, Trump suggested that our country must “be wealthy in order to be great.”
Lately, faith leaders have spoken out against the proposed Republican budgets and tax plans. The Circle of Protection , a group of leaders from all the major branches of Christianity, of which I am a part, said in a letter to Congress: “We care deeply about many issues facing our country and world, but ending persistent hunger and poverty is a top priority that we all share. These are biblical and gospel issues for us, not just political or partisan concerns. In Matthew 25, Jesus identified himself with those who are immigrants, poor, sick, homeless and imprisoned, and challenged his followers to welcome and care for them as we would care for Jesus himself.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, too, has rejected the tax plan, calling it “unacceptable as written,” and “unconscionable in parts” as it would enrich the wealthy and shortchange the middle class and the poor. And yet, much Christian support for Trump and his administration continues.
Then there’s sex. Before Trump, Republicans liked to suggest that theirs was a fairly Puritanical party of family values with high standards for its candidates (despite many embarrassing exceptions). But Trump’s boastful treatment of women — including bragging in a video about grabbing their genitals — and his serial infidelity and adultery are clear evidence of his idolatrous worship of sex. And it no longer seems like his is a unique case.
Speaking of embarrassing situations, the polls showing that evangelical Christians in Alabama express the most support for Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore — even after seven women have accused him of unwanted advances when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s — may be the most damning testimony as to the politicized moral hypocrisy of white evangelicals. Or as Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore warned his fellow religionists this past week, “Christian, if you cannot say definitively, no matter what, that adults creeping on teenage girls is wrong, do not tell me how you stand against moral relativism.” And yet, according to a new poll, 72 percent of evangelicals now say that “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life,” though only 30 percent thought so a mere six years ago .
Other responses to Roy Moore’s alleged behavior have been even worse than silence. Take Alabama state Rep. Ed Henry, who was also Trump’s Alabama campaign co-chairman, and who tried to discredit and deny the women’s stories, saying: “You can’t sit on something like this for 30-something years with a man as in the spotlight as Roy Moore and all of a sudden, three weeks before a senatorial primary, all of a sudden these three or four women are going to talk about something in 1979? I call bull.” Some have tried to play down Moore’s behavior, like Marion County, Ala., GOP Chairman David Hall, who said: “I really don’t see the relevance of it. . . . She’s not saying that anything happened other than they kissed.” Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler even used a biblical story to legitimize Moore’s alleged offenses. “Take Joseph and Mary,” he said. “Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”
Trump, unsurprisingly, has been coy on the matter. He has not called for Moore to step aside, and the White House press secretary said the president “does not believe we can allow a mere allegation . . . from many years ago to destroy a person’s life.”
When it comes to worshiping power, Republican Christians most obviously stray from scripture in their attitudes on race. When 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump despite his blatant and constant use of racial bigotry for his own political interest, it showed that the operative word in the phrase “white Christian” is “white” and not “Christian.” When white Christians say they did not vote for Trump because of his bigotry but for other reasons, faith leaders of color answer with a damning question: His racial bigotry wasn’t a deal-breaker for you?
Week after week, Trump reveals that his leadership is always and only about himself; not the people, the country or even his party — and certainly not about godliness. During his recent whirlwind trip through Asia, for instance, he bragged constantly about his red carpet treatment, and seemed to thrive on the attention and flattery while putting precious little effort into diplomacy. (“They were all watching,” Trump gushed of people who he said called him in droves to congratulate him on the splendor of his visit to China. “Nothing you can see is so beautiful.”) The conflicts between his money, power and governing are always resolved in the same way — by his selfishness; by whatever happens to appeal to him, and only him, in that moment. Though he ran an anti-interventionist campaign, for instance, Trump reportedly decided to ramp up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan this year after an adviser showed him a picture of Afghani women wearing miniskirts in the 1970s.
All leaders struggle with these temptations, and public figures must wrestle with them the most. Christians, rightly enough, have never expected perfect leaders — just those who can keep up their end of the moral struggle. But for Trump, there is no moral struggle. He is not immoral — knowing what is right and wrong, and choosing the wrong — he rather seems amoral: lacking any kind of moral compass for his personal or professional life. That’s why the Christian compromise with Trump and his ilk has put faithful Americans at such serious risk.
Central to the health of our society is for American Christians to rescue an authentic, compassionate and justice-oriented faith from the clutches of partisan abuse, and from the idolatry of money, sex and power. The word “repentance” in Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions means much more than feeling sorry about the past; it also means “turning around” to equity and healing personally, and systemically in our institutions of policing and criminal justice, education, economics, voting rights, immigration and refugees, racial geography, housing, and more. Making repentance practical is the spiritual task ahead.
Twitter: @jimwallis
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Government soldiers stay in a damaged building in Marawi city, Philippines October 25, 2017. Source: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco
PHILIPPINE troops detained and tortured civilians trying to flee the besieged city of Marawi during a five-month battle with militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) group, Amnesty International alleged on Friday.
In the first human rights analysis of the conflict, the rights group documents how the IS-allied militants targeted Christian civilians for the worst of the abuses, including at least 25 extrajudicial killings, mass hostage-taking, and extensive looting of civilian property.
The report also highlighted the destruction of entire neighbourhoods and death of civilians due to the extensive bombing carried out by the Philippines armed forces. And accused the military of detaining and ill-treating civilians, as well as looting.
Personal belongings are scattered inside a damaged room of an apartment house located in a residential area in Malutlut district, Marawi city, southern Philippines October 27, 2017, which was believed to have been rented by pro-Islamic State militant group leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute before their battle in Marawi city. Source: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco
“Marawi’s civilian population has suffered immensely amid one of the Philippine military’s most intensive operations in decades,” said Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International, in a statement released Friday.
“Displaced en masse when the fighting began in May, thousands of people are now returning to a city that has been utterly destroyed in places, where civilians have been slaughtered by militants, and both sides have committed abuses.”
The conflict in Marawi, the only predominantly Muslim city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, was the country’s biggest and longest battle since World War Two. More than 1,100 people, mostly insurgents, were killed, including 166 soldiers and 47 civilians, according to the authorities.
At least 350,000 people were displaced and large parts of Marawi have been decimated by air strikes.
Amnesty International interviewed 48 survivors and witnesses in September 2017, one month before the conflict was declared officially over. Multiple witnesses described 10 separate incidents where militants killed a total of at least 25 civilians, most were targeted because they were Christians.
Hassan, a driver and shop-owner in his thirties, witnessed militants kill six people by cutting their throats. He believes the victims were Christian carpenters.
“I was in Banggolo market [making a delivery], when I saw six men lying face down on the ground,” Hassan told Amnesty International.
“It was very awful. [The militants] stepped on their heads and they grabbed their hair and then they shot them. … After they shot them, [the militants] started shooting in the air.”
Damaged houses, buildings and a mosque are seen inside Marawi city, Philippines, October 25, 2017. Source: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco
Witnesses also described efforts to hide their Christian neighbours and attempts to smuggle them out of the city in a bid to save their lives.
Aden, in his twenties with four children, told Amnesty International that when he returned to his home in Marawi on May 23, his neighbour asked him to help evacuate eight Christian workers.
“When we got to [neighbourhood] Emie, the ISIS stopped the car and made the Christians line up…and shot them. I saw it,” Aden said.
“They killed them one by one… Before getting out of the car they were asked by the ISIS [fighters] to say Takbeer [Allahu Akbar], and the Christians could not recite it… Then [the fighters] said [to me and my friend], ‘how can you save these Christians, you are Muslims’, then [the fighters] took the car and told us to go back [to Marawi City].”
Aden told Amnesty International that all the men were forced to crouch down with their hands on their head, and then they were shot in the head. All eight were killed by the same fighter.
In some instances, members of the Philippine military treated civilians who escaped militant-controlled areas with suspicion, detaining them and subjecting them to treatment that violated the prohibition of torture.
Members of the armed forces detained numerous people and accused them, without evidence, of being
militants, the report said. Detainees were allegedly then subjected to various forms of ill-treatment including sustained beatings and threats of execution.
Amnesty International interviewed eight victims of such abuse at the hands of the Philippine armed forces. Seven of them were Christian construction workers who had been trapped in Marawi city because they feared being captured or killed by militants if they tried to escape.
“The Philippine authorities must bring those responsible for torture and other violations to justice and ensure that the victims receive adequate reparations,” said Amnesty’s Hassan.
“They must also initiate a prompt, effective and impartial investigation into whether its bombing of civilian neighbourhoods was proportional under international humanitarian law.”
Saturday 18 November 2017 06.31 GMT
term is also being liberally used in political discourses in Japan is no coincidence.
 group, Amnesty International alleged on Friday.In the first human rights analysis of the conflict, the rights group documents how the IS-allied militants targeted Christian civilians for the worst of the abuses, including at least 25 extrajudicial killings, mass hostage-taking, and extensive looting of civilian property.The report also highlighted the destruction of entire neighbourhoods and death of civilians due to the extensive bombing carried out by the Philippines armed forces. And accused the military of detaining and ill-treating civilians, as well as looting.image: https://cdn.asiancorrespondent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-10-27T102802Z_1980279410_RC11857B1F90_RTRMADP_3_PHILIPPINES-MILITANTS-HIDEOUT-1024x744.jpgPersonal belongings are scattered inside a damaged room of an apartment house located in a residential area in Malutlut district, Marawi city, southern Philippines October 27, 2017, which was believed to have been rented by pro-Islamic State militant group leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute before their battle in Marawi city. Source: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco“Marawi’s civilian population has suffered immensely amid one of the Philippine military’s most intensive operations in decades,” said Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International, in a statement released Friday.“Displaced en masse when the fighting began in May, thousands of people are now returning to a city that has been utterly destroyed in places, where civilians have been slaughtered by militants, and both sides have committed abuses.”The conflict in Marawi, the only predominantly Muslim city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, was the country’s biggest and longest battle since World War Two. More than 1,100 people, mostly insurgents, were killed, including 166 soldiers and 47 civilians, according to the authorities.At least 350,000 people were displaced and large parts of Marawi have been decimated by air strikes.Amnesty International interviewed 48 survivors and witnesses in September 2017, one month before the conflict was declared officially over. Multiple witnesses described 10 separate incidents where militants killed a total of at least 25 civilians, most were targeted because they were Christians.SEE ALSO: Marawi evacuees start returning to city in shamblesHassan, a driver and shop-owner in his thirties, witnessed militants kill six people by cutting their throats. He believes the victims were Christian carpenters.“I was in Banggolo market [making a delivery], when I saw six men lying face down on the ground,” Hassan told Amnesty International.“It was very awful. [The militants] stepped on their heads and they grabbed their hair and then they shot them. … After they shot them, [the militants] started shooting in the air.”image: https://cdn.asiancorrespondent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-10-25T101510Z_1726552251_RC15B13C1EB0_RTRMADP_3_PHILIPPINES-MILITANTS.jpg)
A year into Trump’s presidency, Christians are facing a spiritual reckoning
