Gentrification had brought him to the Bronx from Brooklyn after his Fort Greene neighborhood changed drastically. Local stores and restaurants closed, replaced by pet shops and boutique pizzerias, while corner delis went upscale, touting gourmet food and organic cookies. Faces in the neighborhood changed.“It started to feel more fragmented, with less of a neighborhood vibe,” said Mr. Lopez, who is among the founders of South Bronx Unite, an activist group that is challenging the pace of development. “And when the neighborhood started changing, people started calling the cops to our apartment because we had music and dancing. When gentrification touched us that way, we knew we had to move.”His Bronx house was a bargain compared with Brooklyn apartment prices, not a small consideration for him, an adjunct professor and musician, and his wife, who runs a cultural center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is sunny, with lots of wood, stained glass panels over the windows and a spacious yard facing a lush wall of ivy. There is room for Xul’s toys, his guitars and a basement recording studio. The kitchen is the heart of the place.But he had inklings of déjà vu in 2006, when Barbara Corcoran, the real estate guru, decreed that the South Bronx was among the five hottest real estate markets in the nation. She said “public money is flowing in” and that the arrival of artists and musicians “can really revitalize an area.” She even advised people to look for expensive coffee as a sign of an area on the upswing.Those comments rankle Mr. Lopez and other residents of the area — located in the country’s poorest urban congressional district — who remember when community activists rallied people to demand that officials address the blight in the 1980s. It also bothers him that creative types are reduced to selling points when the South Bronx has been an incubator for music, art and fashion.

Russia’s defence ministry has tried to pass off what appear to be stills from a mobile phone military simulation game as “irrefutable evidence” of cooperation between US forces and Islamic State militants in Syria. The photographs were appended to social media posts from the ministry’s official accounts posted on Tuesday morning, which accused the Americans of providing air cover for an Isis convoy with the aim of using Isis fighters to further US interests. The ministry said Russian air power had supported Syrian troops in freeing the town of Abu Kamal from Isis, and that “facts of direct cooperation and support provided by the US-led coalition to the ISIS terrorists” came to light during the operation.Russia’s defence ministry said not only did the Americans refuse to carry out a joint operation to strike Isis fighters leaving Abu Kamal but also allowed them to regroup on coalition-controlled territory. Russia said the Americans actively interfered with Russian airstrikes, to provide cover for the Isis fighters.“The US are actually covering the ISIS combat units to recover their combat capabilities, redeploy, and use them to promote the American interests in the Middle East,” said the ministry.The allegations are extremely grave, but may be harder to take seriously given the “irrefutable proof” offered in the form of photographic accompaniment. None of the five photographs attached to the post were what the Russians claimed them to be, said online sleuths, with one photograph apparently a screenshot from the promo for a mobile phone game called AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.Conflict Intelligence Team, a group of Russian online investigators who factcheck claims by the Russian military, said that the other four of the five photographs appear to be taken from 2016 footage released by Iraq’s ministry of defence, depicting the Iraqi air force bombing Isis targets near Falluja.Soon after people noted the dubious origin of the photographs, the defence ministry deleted its tweets, and removed the photographs from the corresponding Facebook posts. However, a cached version of the post is available that shows the post with the photographs.The ministry said it would investigate the incident, which it blamed on a civilian employee. “However, the U.S. command’s refusal to carry out strikes on the convoys of ISIL terrorists retreating from Albu Kamal on November 9 is an objective fact reflected in the transcripts of the talks and therefore, fully known to the U.S. side,” Interfax news agency quoted the ministry as saying. Russia, which entered the conflict in late 2015 on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s government, has long accused the west of backing extremist groups in Syria. In turn, western countries have accused Russian jets of indiscriminate bombing tactics including the deliberate targeting of hospitals. Moscow has never admitted any civilian casualties of its air raids. It is not the first time that the Russian defence ministry has tried to pass off footage of other events as its own. A scene in a documentary about Putin made by the US film-maker Oliver Stone showed Putin playing the director video footage on a telephone of what he said were Russian forces on operations in Syria. The footage appeared to be an exact match for old footage of US forces in Afghanistan.After internet users pointed out the discrepancy, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the footage had been given to Putin by Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s minister of defence.The defence ministry told Russian news agencies on Tuesday evening it was “carrying out checks on a civilian employee who mistakenly added photographs to the ministry’s statement.” Topics Russia Syria Islamic State US military news

The Republican candidate for governor of Kansas, Kris Kobach, who has close ties to the Trump administration, has accepted financial donations from white nationalist sympathizers and has for more than a decade been affiliated with groups espousing white supremacist views.Recent financial disclosures show that Kobach, a driving force behind dozens of proposals across the US designed to suppress minority voting and immigrant rights, has accepted thousands of dollars from white nationalists. Donors include a former official in the Trump administration who was forced to resign from the Department of Homeland Security this year after emails showed he had close ties to white supremacists and once engaged in an email exchange about a dinner party invitation that was described as “Judenfrei”, or free of Jews.Currently the Kansas secretary of state, Kobach is running in a tight race against the Democrat Laura Kelly. The election has drawn the concern of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), after the single polling place located in Dodge City was moved outside the town, in what some claimed to be an attempt to suppress the Hispanic vote.Kobach, who was vice-chairman of the Trump administration’s now disbanded election-fraud commission, is known for his zero-tolerance approach to undocumented migrants and his staunch support for voter ID laws, which critics say unfairly and illegally target minority voters.But Kobach has gained less attention for his long history of associations with groups that espouse white nationalist views and the significant financial support they have given him since he launched his political career in 2004.Public financial records show Kobach received political contributions from US Immigration Reform Pac, a political action committee closely affiliated with John Tanton, a retired ophthalmologist who is known as the founder of the modern American anti-immigrant movement.The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hate groups, studied decades of Tanton’s correspondence. It found Tanton had close contacts with Holocaust deniers, white supremacists and antisemites. In one 1993 letter, Tanton wrote: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”Kobach’s campaign has also received sporadic small donations of hundreds of dollars from Paul Nachman, who is described by the SPLC as a “Montana-based extremist who regularly writes for Vdare, an overtly racist blog that serves as a hub for white nationalists and antisemites”. The blog is named after Virginia Dare, who is believed to have been the first English child born in the Americas. Asked if he considered himself to be a white nationalist, Nachman responded in an email to the Guardian: “So you think someone who’s Jewish is a white nationalist?”Another Kobach backer is Ian Smith, who resigned from the US Department of Homeland Security earlier this year after the Atlantic published a detailed report showing that he had engaged in correspondence with white supremacists and racists. In one 2015 email obtained by the Atlantic, Smith – who did not dispute the authenticity of the emails – said he planned to visit a bar and talk to “people like Matt Parrot”, an apparent reference to a former spokesman for the neo-Nazi Traditionalist Worker Party. Smith could not be reached for comment.Kobach has also accepted financial support from KC McAlpin, executive director of another Tanton-founded organization, US Inc, which produces the Social Contract Press, a racist and anti-immigrant publication. In 2015, Kobach gave a speech at a Social Contract Press’ Writer’s Workshop conference. Approached by the TPM blog about the appearance, McAlpin said it was “absurd” to call the meeting a white nationalist conference and pointed to the presence of “several” individuals who were black, Hispanic and Asian. According to the SPLC, the Social Contract Press was banned as hate literature by Canadian border authorities.Kobach has been careful to avoid overt white nationalist language in his political speech but he is not known to have refused the endorsement of white nationalists or their money. After losing a 2004 bid for Congress, Kobach worked for more than a decade for the legal arm of a Tanton-founded group, the Federation For American Immigration Reform (Fair). Kobach has defended the work, saying the organization simply wanted to enforce strong rules against illegal immigration.When the Guardian called the Social Contract Press to ask about Kobach’s relationship with Tanton, a man who would not identify himself said the pair had “minimal contact”.“I can tell you that by the time Kris Kobach was actively involved in politics, or at least his time at Fair, that John Tanton was not involved,” the man said. Tanton, who is now 84, was suffering from Parkinson’s and living in a nursing home, the man added.Among Kobach’s other supporters is Peter Brimelow, the British-born founder of Vdare.com who in 2016 endorsed Kobach to be Trump’s vice-president.In press reports, Brimelow has been called a “longtime associate” of prominent figures in the white-nationalist movement. He received press attention earlier this year after it was reported in the Washington Post that he attended a party at the home of Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow on 18 August. Kudlow told the Post he would not have invited Brimelow if he had known about his work. Brimelow said the two were friends.Zachary Mueller, who works for the digital communications team at America’s Voice, a group which works for immigration reform, said Kobach has been an important influence on Republican ideas about immigration, which have moved far to the right since the presidency of George W Bush.It was Kobach, Mueller said, who helped propose the idea that life should be made so inhospitable for undocumented migrants that they would “self deport”. The view was adopted as policy by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, though the campaign later distanced itself from Kobach.“Kris Kobach has been a close and early ally of Donald Trump and a lot of his ideas have been adopted,” Mueller said. “I think he is smart enough to know where the lines are in terms of his language because he won’t want to be labeled a white nationalist in public, but we can look at his policies and his friends.”He added: “The white supremacist guys, they love Kris Kobach because he can put on a suit, have the fancy degrees, and translate their ideas into something that is more palatable.”Kobach has degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Yale Law School.A report published in August by the Topeka-Capital Journal said Kobach’s campaign employed three men who were identified as white nationalists, citing two Republican consultants who have worked in Kansas. Kobach’s campaign dismissed the allegation as baseless.Asked by the Guardian to comment on Kobach’s affiliation with white nationalists, spokeswoman Danedri Herbert staunchly denied that he was racist. Her defence of Kobach was entirely centred on the fact that she is African American, and had never heard him use racist language.“I am black and I am his closest staff member,” Herbert said. “I spend more time with him than any member on his staff. He is not a racist.” If you have tips on this story please email the reporter: [email protected] Topics Kansas US midterms 2018 Republicans features

A Canadian man was found not guilty of rape because he believed he could have sex with his wife whenever he wanted.Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith ruled the prosecution failed to prove the accused man knew his behaviour was criminal.The judge did not dispute that non-consensual sex had taken place multiple times, the Ottawa Citizen reported.The man, from Gaza, was part of an arranged marriage with his wife, a Palestinian who grew up in Kuwait. "Marriage is not a shield for sexual assault," Judge Smith wrote in his decision, according to the newspaper. "However, the issue in this trial is whether, considering the whole of the evidence, the Crown has proven the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt."The name of the accused and the complainant are being withheld due to a publication ban.The judge found the prosecution did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that the man had criminal intent, known as "mens rea" in the law.Both the man and the wife testified that they thought a husband was legally entitled to have sex with his wife whenever he wanted. The wife said she had sex many times with her husband when she did not explicitly give her consent.But when they separated in January 2013, the woman learned that she she had the right to refuse sex with her husband. She told police about an alleged 2002 incident, which eventually led to charges.She alleged that he had pulled her onto the couch, pulled down her pants and had sex with her despite pleading with him to stop at least three times. Her husband told the court he could not have had sex with her at the time because he had just received a hair transplant and he was following his doctor's orders to avoid intercourseThe judge said he found her to be a credible witness and rejected her husband's account, but said he could not find the man guilty of a crime. Advocates against sexual violence were disappointed by the ruling. Carrolyn Johnston, acting executive director of the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, said the ruling reflects myths about sexual assault in our society."Any sexual contact without explicit and ongoing consent is sexual assault - regardless of the relationship," Ms Johnston told the BBC. "He may have believed that he had a right to have sex with her as her husband, but Canadian sexual assault law is clear and was amended to include sexual assault against a spouse in 1983."

Truth spoke to power. And the US Senate finally listened.In the end, after a full day of official Senate hearings, all it took was two gutsy women, Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher, to stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. The two women, who said they were survivors of sexual assault, stubbornly refused to let the elevator doors close as Senator Jeff Flake, the critical swing vote on the Senate judiciary committee, was on his way to cast his vote to advance the supreme court nominee.That was before he got in the elevator. Archila and Gallagher blocked him from scurrying away. Archila, who had never told her story of being raped as a small child, spoke first.“I told it because I recognized in Dr Ford’s story that she is telling the truth,” she told Flake, her voice breaking with emotion. “What you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the supreme court. This is not tolerable. You have children in your family. Think about them.” She wanted him to feel her fury.Then came Gallagher. “I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me,” she said. “I didn’t tell anyone, and you’re telling all women that they don’t matter.” The women protesting with them gained strength as they spoke. The elevator doors began to close but the crowd made sure they didn’t.The two women were part of a large contingent that had been in Washington all week to show support for Dr Christine Blasey Ford and to protest against the Senate’s apparent determination to confirm someone credibly accused of sexual assault. By the time Kavanaugh finished his angry, defiant testimony last night, it looked to many as if their cause was lost. But the women were not disheartened. They were determined.Flake struggled to remain impassive and kept murmuring “thank you”, in a strained attempt to show a modicum of respect. He looked frightened and awkward and must have been praying that the elevator had a trap door. But there was no escape as CNN captured the live encounter.It was thrilling to watch, not because a senator was being put on the spot but because this is what it means for citizens to hold power to account. Anyone needing a lesson in how American democracy should work must watch the elevator video.Flake’s eye darts around, nervously. “Don’t look away from me,” Gallagher demands of Flake. “Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me, that you will let people like that go into the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies.”On the tape, it is impossible to tell what effect the encounter had on Flake. But between the time the elevator doors did finally close and he went to cast his vote, his mind had changed. In a move that stunned his Republican colleagues, Flake said that he would only support a confirmation vote for Judge Kavanaugh after the FBI had been granted at least one week to conduct an investigation. Trump was forced to order the investigation on Friday afternoon as a result. The crucial Senate confirmation vote remains on hold until then.Time is not on Brett Kavanaugh’s side. Although the hearings on Thursday were confined to a single accuser, Dr Ford, more women have emerged with stories about Kavanaugh’s sexual misconduct in high school and college. The eyewitness Dr Ford has named to her assault, Mark Judge, should be subpoenaed if the FBI does a thorough inquiry. Deborah Ramirez’s allegations about Kavanaugh exposing himself and touching her, published in the New Yorker, must be investigated. Dr Ford’s corroborators must be interviewed. New evidence could emerge.But until the women blocked the elevator, none of that was going to happen. After the women confronted Flake, several Democrats did walk out of the committee’s hearing.Archila, Gallagher and other grassroots political activists are reshaping the political landscape this fall. Already, many of them, political outsiders, have won primaries in upsets to the Democratic establishment. It’s been thrilling and uplifting to watch them change our rancid political order.Democratic senators, despite their best efforts, seemed unable to stop Brett Kavanaugh. Archila and Gallagher showed the world what real power looks like. Topics Brett Kavanaugh Opinion US supreme court US politics Activism Protest Law (US) comment

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump attacked James Comey as a “weak and untruthful slime ball” on Friday after the fired former FBI director castigated him as an unethical liar and likened him to a mob moss in a searing new memoir. The president fired Comey last May while his agency was investigating potential collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 U.S. election in a move that led the Justice Department to appoint Special Counsel Robert Mueller to take over a probe that has hung over his presidency. “This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Comey said in the book due out Tuesday, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. Trump has often publicly criticized Comey since firing him, but escalated his attacks in response to the book. “It was my great honor to fire James Comey!” Trump said in one of a series of scorching Twitter messages, adding that Comey - now one of the Republican president’s fiercest critics - had been a terrible FBI director. The tirade followed news accounts of Comey’s book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” which paints a deeply unflattering picture of Trump, comparing him to a mob boss who stresses personal loyalty over the law and has little regard for morality or truth. Mueller is looking into whether Trump has sought to obstruct the Russia probe, and Comey could be a key witness on that front. Comey last year accused Trump of pressuring him to pledge loyalty and end a probe involving former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Moscow. “James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR,” Trump wrote. Trump accused Comey of lying to Congress, but did not specify was he was referring to, and said the former FBI chief should be prosecuted for leaking classified information. Related CoverageTrump's 'slime ball' tweet sparks rush to online dictionaryHighlights from former FBI Director James Comey's new bookTrump has denied any collusion and has called Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt. Comey is conducting a series of media interviews before the book’s official release. Copies of the book were obtained by news outlets on Thursday. The interviews are Comey’s first public comments since he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last June, when he accused Trump of firing him to undermine the FBI’s Russia investigation. Just days after Trump fired Comey, the president said he did it because of “this Russia thing.” Trump has launched a series of attacks since last year against U.S. law enforcement leaders and institutions as the Russia probe pressed forward, in addition to Comey and Mueller. “People will rot in hell for besmirching the reputation the integrity and the professional history of these two men,” Democratic U.S. Representative Jim Himes said on CNN, referring to Comey and Mueller, himself a former FBI director. In an offshoot of the Mueller probe, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer’s office and home were raided by the Federal Bureau on Investigation on Monday. In an interview broadcast on Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Comey discussed his initial encounters last year with Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, 2017. He described Trump as volatile, defensive and concerned more about his own image than about whether Russia meddled in the presidential election. A combination of file photos show U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. April 9, 2018 and former FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria, Jonathan Ernst/File Photos American intelligence agencies last year said Russia interfered in the election through a campaign of propaganda and hacking in a scheme to sow discord in the United States and help get Trump elected. Moscow has denied meddling. Comey said he cautioned Trump against ordering an investigation into a salacious intelligence dossier alleging an 2013 encounter involving prostitutes in Moscow. The dossier was compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele about Trump’s ties to Russia and included an allegation that involved prostitutes urinating on one another in a hotel room while Trump watched. Trump denied the allegations and said he might want the FBI to investigate allegations in the dossier to prove they were untrue, Comey told ABC. “I said to him, ‘Sir that’s up to you but you want to be careful about that because it might create a narrative that we’re investigating you personally and, second, it’s very difficult to prove something didn’t happen,’” Comey said. Asked to describe that Jan. 6, 2017 meeting two weeks before Trump took office, Comey said: “Really weird. It was almost an out-of-body experience for me.” Comey was asked if he believed the dossier’s allegations. “I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” Comey told ABC. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.” Comey said the dossier’s allegations had not been verified by the time he left the FBI. Before Trump and Comey met alone, U.S. intelligence chiefs briefed Trump and his advisers about the Russian election meddling. What struck him most, Comey told ABC, was that the conversation moved straight into a public relations mode, what they could say and how they could position Trump. A copy of former FBI director James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty" is seen in New York City, New York, U.S. April 13, 2018. REUTERS/Soren Larson“No one, to my recollection, asked, ‘So what’s coming next from the Russians, how might we stop it, what’s the future look like?’” Comey said. (GRAPHIC: Major milestones in the Mueller probe - tmsnrt.rs/2GTgtnX) Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington and Angela Moore in New York; Additional reporting by Justin Mitchell in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry and Will DunhamOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Republicans threatened by the imminent release of James Comey’s memoir have launched a campaign to rebrand the former FBI director as “Lyin’ Comey”, in apparent hopes that a nickname (and a slapdash website) are enough to rewrite a reputation built on three decades of public service.No matter that Comey is a Republican who was appointed twice by Republican president George W Bush to top federal posts, or that Comey’s career features a catalogue of prosecutions against targets such as crime syndicates, securities crooks and identity fraudsters.A Methodist convert of Irish descent from New Jersey, Comey made his name cracking down on Virginia gun homicides and prosecuting international terrorism suspects.Like his three main predecessors as FBI director, Comey is a lawyer, having earned his degree from the University of Chicago in 1985. Now 57, he has alternated in his career between big government jobs and lucrative positions in private practice, including with Lockheed Martin, the defense contractor, and Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, with $103bn in assets under management.Before he was FBI director, the defining moment in Comey’s career came in 2004, when he made a dramatic nighttime hospital-room intervention to stop the George W Bush White House from strong-arming the bedridden attorney general John Ashcroft into reauthorizing a controversial surveillance program. But he remained at the justice department after the program – a bulk collection of Americans’ internet metadata – was allowed to move forward under a different legal rubric.Leading up to his remarkably high-profile role in the 2016 presidential election, Comey had long enjoyed a reputation for fairness and public-minded integrity. “He doesn’t care about politics,” said Barack Obama upon nominating Comey to run the FBI in 2013. “He only cares about getting the job done.”Eric Holder, the former attorney general, said in 2003: “Jim is a chess player. He’s thinking: ‘What’s the impact going to be one month, two months, six months from now?’”Fifteen years later, that assessment, of Comey as a far-seeing strategist, has not aged particularly well. In July 2016, the FBI director took the highly unusual step of calling a news conference to discuss an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information over unsecured email. With the presidency seemingly at stake, Republicans howled at Comey’s announcement that the investigation had yielded no grounds for criminal prosecution. Democrats bridled at Comey’s assessment of Clinton’s email hygiene as “extremely careless”.The drama was just getting started. In October 2016, just 11 days before the election, the FBI director was back, with a letter notifying Congress that the bureau was examining newly discovered material in its investigation of Clinton’s email. That sounded pretty bad for Clinton, and it made headlines across the country in the campaign’s home stretch. Then, just two days before the election, Comey sent a final letter, announcing that the new material (which turned out to be mostly old material) contained nothing of prosecutorial significance.In the eyes of the Clinton camp, the result of Comey’s pen pal habit was plain. “James Comey cost her the election,” said Bill Clinton.Donald Trump had a somewhat different take. “I’ll tell you what: what he did, he brought back his reputation,” Trump told reporters of Comey’s October surprise. “He brought it back.”That attitude was not to last. Trump fired Comey as FBI director in June 2017, later saying he was thinking of “this Russia thing” – the investigation into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s possible collusion – when he decided to do so. Comey’s dismissal set in train Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel, and the controversy has trailed Trump ever since.Comey is a father of five and a foster parent, married to his undergraduate sweetheart. He cycles, plays squash and teaches Sunday school. Topics James Comey FBI Donald Trump Hillary Clinton profiles

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh began with protests Tuesday, as Democrats objected to what they say is a lack of critical information about the judge's record and demanded the proceedings be delayed. Interested in Supreme Court? Add Supreme Court as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Supreme Court news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Supreme Court Add Interest After some eight hours of senators sparring, the Judiciary Committee finally heard from Kavanaugh himself late Tuesday afternoon, shortly before the hearing ended for the day. In his opening statement, Kavanaugh outlined his approach to hearing cases, saying that judges should be an "umpire, a neutral and impartial arbiter" and deal in real cases, not abstract theories. He said he doesn't decide cases based on his personal political views. "My judicial philosophy is straightforward. A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret statutes as written. A judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent," he said.Brett Kavanaugh: "As Justice Kennedy showed us, a judge must be independent, not swayed by public pressure" https://t.co/9b6XWKiTbL pic.twitter.com/gCZBUN5WvT— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 4, 2018 He called retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he once clerked and would replace on the court, "a mentor, friend and hero." He appeared to get emotional at one point while saying he was "grateful for my friends." "This past May, I delivered the commencement address at Catholic University Law School," he continued. "I gave the graduates this advice: Cherish your friends. Look out for your friends. Lift up your friends. Love your friends." When questioning begins Wednesday, senators are expected to push Kavanaugh on various issues throughout the week including abortion, executive authority, and the Second Amendment. While Democrats protested not being given what they said was important information from Kavanaugh's background and claimed he would be a politically motivated judge, Republicans said the Supreme Court should be de-politicized. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, called Tuesday the "hypocrisy hearing" and called out Democrats for focusing on Kavanaugh's political views and not his qualifications. "People see through this. You had a chance and you lost. If you want to pick judges from your way of thinking you better win an election," Graham said. Throughout the day on Tuesday, Democrats continued to protest that they haven't been given all the documents they requested related to Kavanaugh's work at the White House under President George W. Bush. The Trump White House withheld some 100,000 pages of documents, citing executive privilege, but Democrats have accused the Republican majority of refusing to release other documents publicly. Members of the committee also said they want Kavanaugh to address the president's attacks against the Justice Department and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and to explain how his view of executive power could affect any votes he might cast in cases involving investigations surrounding President Trump.(MORE: Kavanaugh comments on abortion to be parsed in confirmation hearings) More than an hour after Grassley gaveled in the hearing and with protesters shouting in the background, Democrats objected, saying that a release of additional documents late Monday night did not give them enough time to properly vet the information. Senators on both sides of the aisle said they would be asking Kavanaugh for his views on executive power. Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said the Supreme Court has become a "substitute political battleground." "Ultimately because people can't navigate their way through the bureaucracy, they turn to the Supreme Court," he added. "We look for nine justices to try to right the wrongs from other places in the process," he continued. In multiple decisions about policies, such as an EPA rule intended to fight climate change, Kavanaugh has written that agencies can issue regulations only when authorized by Congress. "The solution here is not to try to find judges who will be policymakers," Sasse said. "The solution is not to try to turn the Supreme Court into an election battle for TV. The solution is to restore to a proper constitutional order with the balance of powers. We need Schoolhouse Rock back, and we need a Congress that writes the laws and then stands before the people, and suffers the consequences," he said in his opening statement.Sen. Ben Sasse says the "deranged comments" criticizing Kavanaugh have nothing to do with him:"The hysteria around Supreme Court confirmation hearings is coming from the fact that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of the role" of SCOTUS in America https://t.co/CvlhDQZlEX pic.twitter.com/qEJBPpZeYg— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 4, 2018 Kavanaugh seemed to agree, saying "the Supreme Court is not a partisan institution. "The Justices on the Supreme Court do not sit on opposite sides of an aisle. They do not caucus in separate rooms. If confirmed to the Court, I would be part of a Team of Nine, committed to deciding cases according to the Constitution and laws of the United States. I would always strive to be a team player on the Team of Nine," he said in his opening statement. But Democrats said that President Trump's attitude toward the judicial branch is cause for even more concern. "You are the nominee of President Donald John Trump. This is a president who's shown us consistently he's contemptuous of the rule of law. He's said and done things as president which we've never seen before in history, Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said. "He dismissed the head of the FBI when he wouldn't bend to his will. He harasses his attorney general on almost a daily basis in the exercise of his office, and I didn't vote for Jeff Sessions, but I have to tell you there should be some respect at least for the office he serves in. And it's that president who's decided you are his man. You're the person he wants on the Supreme Court. You are his personal choice. So are people nervous about this? Are they concerned about it? Of course they are," Durbin said.Sen. Dick Durbin to Brett Kavanaugh: "With authoritarian forces threatening our democracy, with the campaign and administration of this president under federal, criminal investigation, we need a direct, credible answer from you: Is this president or any president above the law?" pic.twitter.com/nDPFcWFolo— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 4, 2018 Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., echoed Sasse's point that judges should interpret the law but not make decisions based on their personal opinions. "The role of the judge is or at least should be to say what the law is. Not what the law ought to be. Now it has become cliche, but cliches become cliches, because ey are true. Judges are not put there to try to bypass the ballot. Courts should not try to fix problems that are within the province of the United States Congress, even if the United States Congress doesn't have the courage to address those problems," Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said. Multiple senators brought up Trump's tweet over the weekend where he questioned the Justice Department over charges against two Republican members of Congress.(MORE: Trump steams at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, reigniting his attacks) "Jeff sessions has resisted pressure from the president to punish his enemies and relieve pressure on his friends. And many of the questions that you will get on the other side of the aisle and from me will be how you view that relationship. Where you believe that the article I powers end and article II powers of the administration begin. So I expect to have a number of questions on that subject," Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said. "You are nominated by that very president who has launched this attack the on our department of justice, on the rule of law, on law enforcement like the FBI law enforcement at every level whose integrity he has questioned and your responses to these questions will be highly enlightening about whether you join us in defending the judiciary and the rule of law.," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. And Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said she is especially concerned that Trump nominated a judge that has written that a president should not be subject to investigation while in office or can disregard a law he or she sees as unconstitutional. "There were many highly credentials nominees like yourself that could have been sitting before us today. But to my colleagues, what concerns me is that during this critical juncture in history, the president has handpicked a nominee to court with the most expansive view of presidential power possible. A nominee who has actually written that the president on his own can declare laws unconstitutional," she said. In her opening statement, the top Democrat on the committee, Dianne Feinstein of California, raised concerns about Kavanaugh's dissent in a recent case from his time on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The issue was whether an undocumented minor in U.S. custody would be allowed to get an abortion. She said his dissent in the case, in which he argued it was not too much of a burden for the young woman to wait to have the abortion until she was moved from the detention facility to stay with a sponsor, mischaracterized Supreme Court precedent on abortion. "The argument rewrites Supreme Court precedent and, if adopted, we believe, would require courts to determine whether a young woman had a sufficient support network when making her decision, even in cases where she has gone to court. This reason we believe, I believe, demonstrates that you are willing to disregard precedent, and if that's the case, because just saying something's settled law, is it really correct law?" Feinstein said. Before the hearing began, Democrats said they were going to the hearings "under protest" as the Trump White House claimed executive privilege in withholding documents from Kavanaugh's time working at the White House under President George W. Bush.(MORE: Democrats raise alarm after 42,000 Kavanaugh documents released night before hearing) "Democrats strongly object to moving forward when so much of his record remains secret. We are shocked at the efforts being taken to jam this nominee through and hide his record from the American public. We go to these hearings under protest," ranking member Feinstein said at a news conference Tuesday morning. After protesters in the audience were removed and the room quieted down, Kavanaugh said, "I am honored to be here today" and introduced his family. Protesters continued to interrupt as committee members delivered their opening statements and late Tuesday U.S. Capitol Police said 61 individuals had been removed from the hearing room. At one point, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked for a "loudmouth" protester to be removed while he spoke and said the committee shouldn't have to "put up with this kind of nonsense."Sen. Orrin Hatch apologizes to Brett Kavanaugh for "nonsense" and "insolence" at hearing: "Unfortunately, we have all these interest groups screaming from the sidelines and putting pressure on my Democratic colleagues to make this hearing about politics" https://t.co/CvlhDQZlEX pic.twitter.com/Msrfl8NHpg— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 4, 2018 Grassley pushed back against the Democrats, saying that it is appropriate to withhold some of the documents from Kavanaugh's time at the White House because he was a senior lawyer whose advice to the president on issues should remain confidential. He said the committee has received 307 of Kavanaugh's written opinions, more than 10,000 pages of his writings, 17,000 pages of speeches, articles and other documents, and 483,000 pages of documents from his work at the White House. "This committee has more materials for Judge Kavanaugh's nomination than we have had on any Supreme Court nominee in history. Senators have had more than enough time and materials to adequately assess Judge Kavanaugh's qualifications and so that's why I proceed," Grassley said. (MORE: Public split on Kavanaugh, views on abortion access shift) Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said the Senate is not being the "conscience of the nation" and is not living up to the responsibility to vet Supreme Court nominees by holding a hearing before senators have seen 100 percent of documents related to Kavanaugh's past work. He called the hearing "a sham." "Judge Kavanaugh there is (sic) so many things wrong with this committee's vetting of your record, it's hard to know where to begin. I've been on this committee on both Republican and Democratic leadership. I never thought the committee would sink to this. In fact, you shouldn't be sitting in front of us today. You should be sitting in front of us only after we've completed a review of your record, your vetting is less than 10 percent complete. In critical ways our committee is abandoning its tradition of exhaustively vetting supreme court nominees," Leahy said.Sen. Patrick Leahy on unreleased Kavanaugh records: "What is being hidden and why?" https://t.co/CvlhDQZlEX pic.twitter.com/0llPdYRoqZ— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 4, 2018 Grassley said it was misleading to argue that the committee did not have enough information to evaluate Kavanaugh's record because senators have more documents than made available for any other Supreme Court nominee, but Democrats argue that it still isn't the full picture. Earlier, Grassley denied a vote on a motion from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to adjourn the hearing, saying that the Democrats are out of order and it was not appropriate to bring up the motion during an open hearing. In his opening statement, Durbin asked Kavanaugh to ask for the hearings to be suspended until Democrats could review his complete record. As Democrats pressed their objections, Sen. John Cornyn, the committee's second-ranking Republican, said this was the first Supreme Court confirmation hearing held "according to mob rule." Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also pointed out that all the Democrats on the committee have already publicly said they will vote against Kavanaugh and that Democrats are just trying to create a distraction because Kavanaugh is unquestionably qualified. "There is an old saying for trial lawyers. If you have the fax, pound the facts. If you have the law, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table. We are seeing a lot of table-pounding this morning. The Democrats are focused on procedural issues because they don't have substantive points strong enough to derail this nomination and substantive criticism with Judge Kavanaugh's actual record so they are trying to divert everyone with procedural issues," he said. ABC News' Megan Hughes and Trish Turner contributed to this report.

18:49 | 10/31/17 | NR | CC Sayfullo Saipov, 29, identified as suspect in New York City vehicle attack; Trump's attorney reacts to Russia investigation charges Continue Reading

(Reuters) - Former FBI director James Comey on Tuesday told late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert that the way U.S. President Donald Trump leads is “strikingly similar” to a mob boss. A combination of file photos show U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. April 9, 2018 and former FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria, Jonathan Ernst/File PhotosComey appeared on “The Late Show” on CBS to promote his tell-all memoir, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” which went on sale at midnight on Tuesday. Colbert asked Comey about how he described in the book the people around Trump as having a mob or a “Cosa Nostra” quality. “The leadership style is actually strikingly similar,” he told Colbert. “I don’t mean it in the sense that Donald Trump is out breaking legs or shaking down shop keepers. I mean it in the sense that (when) he leads, it’s all about the boss.” Comey said that Trump appears to lack external reference points in his life, such as religion or history, necessary to be an ethical leader. Comey added that Trump could be a more ethical leader if he surrounded himself with people who could serve as external reference points. “But, I wouldn’t be optimistic,” said Comey, who appeared relaxed as he was dressed in a black shirt, slacks and a gray blazer. Comey was fired by Trump in May last year as the Federal Bureau of Investigation was probing possible connections between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election. Referring to Comey’s sacking, Colbert asked him if he was surprised that he got “whacked.” “I actually was quite surprised because I thought ‘I’m leading the Russia investigation’,” Comey replied after laughing. “Even though our relationship was becoming strained, there was no way I was going to get fired or whacked.” Russia has denied interfering in the election and Trump has denied any collusion or improper activity. Conservative commentators, such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have attacked Comey as partisan and indecisive in his handling of the email scandal that dogged Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Others, like former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, have denounced Comey for leaking memos about his discussions with Trump. For his part, Trump has repeatedly hurled insulting tweets at Comey, such as calling him a “slime ball,” in the run-up to the release of his book, challenging accusations made in the book and the author’s integrity. “He’s Tweeted at me probably 50 times. I’ve been gone for a year,” Comey said. “I’m like a breakup he can’t get over.” Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Michael PerryOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nov. 10, 2017, witnessed a gross and unconscionable abuse of power by the chief justice of India, justice Dipak Misra, unparalleled in the history of the supreme court of India. As other commentators have pointed out (here, here, here, and here) it is, if not the lowest, then certainly one of the lowest points in the history of an institution that ordinary citizens of India look up to. The credibility of the institution, built up over several decades and already under stress in the last few years, crumbled in two hours of high drama. It is important to remember how we got here, why the chief justice of India’s actions are so unpardonable, and why things may never be the same again.The immediate sequence of events leading up to the events of Nov. 10, 2017, are detailed here, but some more background is needed to understand it fully. The story really starts with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) arrest of a hawala operator who led them eventually to a retired judge of the Orissa high court, IM Quddusi, who, it was claimed, had taken money from a medical college with a promise to help them get a favourable judgement from the supreme court on the question of permissions to admit students for the 2017-18 academic year from the Medical Council of India.The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms led by Prashant Bhushan and, later, Kamini Jaiswal, filed a petition asking for a supreme court monitored supervision of this ongoing investigation into possible judicial corruption. On Thursday, a bench led by justice J Chelameswar directed that a constitution bench be formed of five senior-most judges to deal with Jaiswal’s petition. The order said that the bench should consist of the five senior-most judges of the supreme court. But on Friday, this order was nullified by a fresh constitution bench led by Misra and a new bench set up by him.The medical college in question, run by Prasad Education Trust, had approached the supreme court earlier this year in a case which was heard by a bench of Misra, justice Amitava Roy, and justice AM Khanwilkar. It cannot be missed that both justices Roy and Khanwilkar were also on the “constitution bench” that Misra set up on Friday.No complaint can be made against a supreme court judge without the written permission of the CJI.It is true that the names of Misra or his two colleagues on the bench are not mentioned in the first information report (FIR) filed by the CBI. But we must remember that according to the judgement of the supreme court of India in K Veeraswami vs Union of India, no complaint can be made against a judge of the supreme court without the written permission of the chief justice of India, and if the complaint is about the chief justice of India, then permission has to be obtained from such judge or judges of the supreme court as the union government sees fit. The CBI thus could not, by itself, have named any supreme court judge in the FIR, without the government taking the requisite permissions.The alleged offence of bribery of a public official does not actually name a specific public official yet. The investigations have not made any progress on the involvement of any sitting supreme court judge yet. It is public knowledge that the writ petition filed by the other accused, for permission, was heard by Misra, Roy, and Khanwilkar on July 26, and an order was passed on Aug. 01 asking for a fresh decision to be taken regarding permission denied to petitioner colleges. Crucially, it was heard as part of a batch of matters challenging decisions of the union government and the committee overseeing the functioning of the Medical Council of India in respect to permission given to medical colleges.The obvious questions arise: Would it not be the most logical thing to do to include the above judges in the ongoing investigation, after going through the proper procedures? Does this not warrant an inquiry into the functioning of the supreme court? Is it not reasonable to investigate if the alleged bribery in the Prasad Education Trust case was a one-off or could there be more such cases? Would it not have been advisable for Misra to have welcomed such a probe as it would have once and for all cleared all controversy?These questions have no answers, and thanks to Misra’s actions on Friday, the truth looks further away than ever.While Chelameswar’s orders for the early listing of the petitions by CJAR and Kamini Jaiswal and reference to the Constitution Bench of five senior-most judges were debatable, they did not per se cause any prejudice to anyone, and may have been warranted to ensure that justice was not only done but seen to be done.The chief justice of India, like the chief justice of any high court, is the “Master of the Rolls”—the judge with the power to decide the roster of the court: who hears which case and when. This was never in dispute. The “order” passed by the “constitution bench” reiterating the legal position makes no reference to the facts which prompted these proceedings. The writ petition was filed given that Misra’s conduct was in question and, when it came to a judicial inquiry about the same, he cannot be allowed to be a judge in his own cause. This cardinal principle of natural justice, the cornerstone of any independent and impartial judiciary, and one which courts in common law jurisdictions have recognised for over 400 years, was violated with impunity. While the order cites case-law and precedent to assert his powers as a master of the rolls, it does not, even in passing, address the argument made by Prashant Bhushan and the petitioners that Misra, as chief justice of India, should have recused from hearing this case.Misra also deliberately avoided including any of the next six senior-most judges in the “constitution bench” he set up, suggesting that he had either no faith in his fellow judges to be neutral and impartial in this matter or he feared any neutrality and impartiality in this matter. Neither bodes well for the judiciary.There have been past instances where the chief justice’s conduct was in question before the concerned high court or the supreme court. A writ of quo warranto was filed in the Madras high court alleging that the then chief justice S Ramachandra Iyer had given a wrong date of birth and should have retired earlier. He was forced to resign before the case was decided but the case was listed and heard before another judge without any interference on his part. Likewise, all the four so-called judges’ cases did not feature the chief justice of India since the powers of the office were in question, and it may be recalled that justice AR Dave had to recuse from the bench hearing the challenge to the National Judicial Appointments Commission, as he had become part of the commission whose validity has been challenged.The judiciary has always asked the public to trust them.On matters of integrity and accountability, the judiciary has always asked the public to trust them. Judges appoint judges. Judges decide whether judges face any consequences for misconduct. Judges decide whether judges have committed an impeachable offence. Judges decide whether judges will be named in a criminal offence. At all times, the claim has been raised that the institution of the judiciary is too precious, too fragile, and too important to allow anyone but judges to safeguard it. What Misra’s actions show is that judges don’t trust other judges to safeguard the institution of the judiciary, and, more importantly, the public cannot trust the judges to safeguard the institution either.Just as shameful is the role of several advocates who had gathered in Court No. 1 of the supreme court on Friday. They had nothing to do with the case and represented no parties. They, including some executive members of the Supreme Court Bar Association, behaved in a despicable manner—all in the defence of a judge trying desperately to hold on to his authority in the face of serious questions against his integrity. Whatever may have been the merits of justice Chelameswar choosing to hear the case and referring it to a constitution bench, it was incumbent upon Misra’s bench to have not permitted advocates to disparage him thus in open court and show such open disrespect to their colleagues.This is the gravest crisis the judiciary and the legal profession have ever faced in India. Both have been beset by problems, big and small, over the years. What the events of Friday show is the institution’s unwillingness to even address the most basic questions of institutional integrity. It would be a mistake to see this as just Misra exceeding his powers as the chief justice of India. He had the help and support of several judges on the bench. He had the active connivance of members of the Bar with many years of standing in the profession. How can the public possibly retain any shred of faith in the honesty and neutrality of the judiciary when the highest judicial body and the highest judicial authority does something like this?Alok Prasanna Kumar is senior resident fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms.This piece first appeared on Scroll.in. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

NEW YORK/MONTREAL (Reuters) - The U.S.-China trade war has triggered a seafood supply chain shake-up, with U.S. importers scrambling to stockpile frozen Chinese squid and tilapia ahead of looming price increases while Canada exports more lobsters to China. A fishmonger places a Canadian lobster into a display tank at St. Lawrence Market South in Toronto, Ontario, Canada September 27, 2018. Picture taken September 27, 2018. REUTERS/Chris HelgrenA series of retaliatory tariffs between Beijing and Washington has led to a shift in global trade, creating winners and losers in sales of commodities from soya to seafood to pork. About $3 billion worth of Chinese seafood imported into the United States is now subject to a 10 percent tariff that began this week, with the levy rising to 25 percent on Jan. 1. In July, China imposed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. seafood, hitting lobster, a delicacy for the Asian country’s burgeoning middle class. As a result, Chinese demand for lobster from Canada has increased, with airports in the country’s eastern provinces adding cargo flights to accommodate higher exports. At Halifax Stanfield International Airport, total cargo soared 42 percent in July, and 55 percent in August, compared with the same months a year earlier, fueled by Chinese demand for seafood, said Glen Boone, the airport’s director of cargo and real estate. Canadian shipments of live or fresh lobster to China nearly doubled to 1.25 million kilograms (2.76 million lbs) in July, their highest level in at least six years, according to data from Statistics Canada. In 2017, Canada exported C$174.6 million ($134.06 million) worth of live or fresh lobster to China. Stewart Lamont, managing director of exporter Tangier Lobster in Nova Scotia, said his Chinese sales are up 30 percent since July on an annual basis. “The tariff factor has really redirected business to Canada,” he said. For U.S. seafood importers, alternatives are pricier and more difficult to source. U.S. companies stocked up on Chinese seafood before the tariffs were imposed. But China is the source of much of the seafood found in low-cost frozen products sold by mass discounters such as Walmart Inc (WMT.N), and stockpiles could soon be running low. U.S. importers bought 6 percent more frozen tilapia from China, the biggest seafood import from the country, by dollar value in June and July of 2018 compared to the same months in 2017, according to the latest IHS Markit data available. Imports of frozen salmon, another major Chinese import, jumped 20 percent in dollar value. Pacific American Fish Company Inc imported about 20 percent more scallops and calamari in recent months to stock up before the new duties go into place, said Chief Executive Peter Huh. The seafood importer and distributor may add to stockpiles to bypass the looming additional 15 percent tariff coming next year, he said. “That’s the only option we have,” said Huh, explaining why he hoarded higher-value products to maximize his savings. Four other seafood importers said they were also bulking up their purchases ahead of time. Jim Heston of the Great Fish Company said the Winter Haven, Florida, importer added to its inventory to meet demand from customers who hoped to buy early fearing the new costs. The tariff dispute has also delivered some supply-chain surprises, with increasing Canadian demand for lobster from the state of Maine, the biggest U.S. harvester of the crustaceans, according to industry groups, wholesalers and exporters on both sides of the border. Slideshow (19 Images)Stephanie Nadeau, owner of The Lobster Co, a Maine wholesale distributor, has seen a 40 percent drop in her overall sales in September as Chinese buyers look to Canada to satisfy its demand for the crustacean. Yet prices remain stable in Maine for lobster harvesters, she said, because of demand from north of the border. “The Canadians have stepped in,” Nadeau said. Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Caroline Hroncich in New York and Allison Lammpert in Montreal; Additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Tom BrownOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The bombing of Syrian government targets by the United States, Britain, and France is a disgraceful and ineffectual act masquerading as a noble gesture. Far from preventing a more vicious war, the bombing instead legitimizes the continuation of the conflict. In fact, what this barrage of weapons really reveals is how little interest the global powers have in ending Syria’s ghastly war.Similar to the attacks on Syrian government targets that Donald Trump ordered just over a year ago, the airstrikes this time will not seriously damage Bashar al-Assad’s larger military capacity, nor are they intended to. Instead, we’re told that the western bombing campaign has specifically aimed munitions at locations where the storage and testing of chemical weapons occurs.But wasn’t last year’s attack meant to put an end to Assad’s use of chemical weapons, and aren’t these the weapons that he was supposed to have destroyed under international auspices in 2014? At this rate, should we expect that an aerial bombing mission to finally and completely destroy Assad’s chemical weapons will be launched every April?The question is ridiculous, of course, but so is the idea that this attack will accomplish anything beyond boosting the war-making egos of its protagonists and enabling Assad, his reprehensible regime, and his allies to complain of being the perpetual victims of western aggression. Beyond the bombast on both sides, Syria’s daily misery will continue.These strikes mark the first time Theresa May of Britain and Emmanuel Macron of France have committed their respective militaries into combat, and they have done so, according to May, “to protect innocent people in Syria from the horrific deaths and casualties caused by chemical weapons, but also because we cannot allow the erosion of the international norm that prevents the use of these weapons.”May’s words might sound more intelligent than those of Donald Trump, who in his statement about the attacks told the American people: “Hopefully, someday we’ll get along with Russia and maybe even Iran, but maybe not.” But what May’s words really reveal is not the ethical reasoning of a head of state but the devastating lack of moral concern by the international community when it comes to the people of Syria.The fact that three of the world’s most powerful militaries have now been mobilized into action, even for a limited campaign such as this one, to prevent “the erosion of the international norm” of using chemical weapons is far from comforting. Since the war began, Assad’s regime has engaged in the repeated and dreadful use of barrel bombs and mass starvation, the systematic torture of thousands of citizens and the laying siege to multiple cities, the killing of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of more than half the population. Yet, all of this horror does not seem to “erode an international norm” and certainly has not motivated these western leaders to any meaningful action to end the war.On the contrary, regional and global powers now exploit Syria for their own advantage and apportion out its territory for repeated bombing. At this point, the country has been bombed by the Assad regime, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and the UAE.Rather than limiting war, this latest bombing of Syria normalizes the war’s ongoing brutality. Forget the chemical weapons for a moment. The bombing of Syria by the western powers essentially and unconscionably establishes near total warfare on civilians as an acceptable “international norm”. Our politicians will wallow in their most recent action, calling the bombing a great success for our civilization. In fact, it’s much more akin to our demise. Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist Topics Syria Opinion Bashar al-Assad US foreign policy Middle East and North Africa comment

Opponents of Donald Trump’s approach to immigration have lined up to condemn as “inhumane” and “sickening” proposals to facilitate indefinite detention of migrant children and their families.The administration has announced it plans to withdraw from a federal court agreement that strictly limits the conditions under which authorities can detain migrant children. And the government proposed new rules it said would enable it to detain minors during their immigration proceedings.The administration has long targeted the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 1997 federal consent decree that places significant curbs on how long and in what conditions the government can detain migrant children as it seeks to dissuade migrants from crossing the US southern border.If it goes into effect, the regulation would enshrine some of the protections while circumventing other key ones, by allowing the government to detain children in facilities not licensed by state authorities to hold minors.Opponents were outraged. The plan was “inhumane”, said the House of Representatives minority leader, Nancy Pelosi.“This is another inhumane assault on families and children,” she said. “It’s a wrong decision … I completely disagree with what the president has done.”The Trump administration has created an immigration crisis in recent months. It first announcing “zero tolerance” of unauthorized border crossings, regardless of whether people were fleeing violence and wishing to seek asylum in the US, then began systematically and forcibly separating families so it could hold the adults in jail and prosecute them, while taking children and babies to separate detention facilities. After sustained uproar and chaos at the southern border, Trump announced he was ending the policy, but thousands of children remained separated and hundreds are still stranded, with growing fears that some families may never be reunited.Immigrants and their advocates are expected to mount legal challenges to the move. The agreement has been interpreted over the years to set a 20-day limit on detaining children who entered the country without documentation, and also requires facilities that house migrant children to be licensed by a state authority.Trump administration officials have repeatedly referred to the agreement’s standards as “loopholes” that attract migrants by forcing authorities to release people pending their immigration hearings.The secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, repeated that reasoning, saying in a statement that “legal loopholes” prevent the government from detaining and deporting migrant families.“This rule addresses one of the primary pull factors for illegal immigration and allows the federal government to enforce immigration laws as passed by Congress,” Nielsen said.Thursday’s regulatory filing said the government would seek to terminate the Flores settlement, and put forward regulations it said “parallel the relevant and substantive terms” of the agreement.The new rules would ensure “that all juveniles in the government’s custody are treated with dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors”, the regulation said.The American Civil Liberties Union weighed in.“It is sickening to see the United States government looking for ways to jail more children for longer,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s immigrants’ rights project.One significant change would be a new licensing system to allow authorities to hold children in detention centers that are not licensed by state authorities to detain children.The facilities would be licensed by an outside auditor employed by the Department of Homeland Security that would ensure the sites comply with standards established by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the regulation says.The administration earlier this year asked a federal court to ease the limits mandated by the Flores agreement, but the judge overseeing the agreement, Dolly M Gee of the US district court, rejected those requests.The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) noted that the public now has 60 days to comment.“This inhumane policy proposal is further evidence that the Trump administration intentionally seeks to impose cruel and unnecessary hardships on families seeking a better life in this country in order to carry out its racist and anti-immigrant agenda,” said Cair’s national executive director, Nihad Awad. Topics US immigration Donald Trump Trump administration US politics news

An intelligence report produced for law enforcement agencies in the months before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, in which a neo-Nazi killed one protester by driving a car into a crowd, appeared to endorse a view that leftist demonstrators were “terrorists” and at least equally as responsible for street violence as white nationalists, the Guardian can reveal.The report, Antifa/Anti-antifa: Violence in the Streets, was produced by the Regional Organized Crime Information Center (ROCIC) in May 2017. It was obtained with a Foia request from the not-for-profit transparency group Property of the People. Antifa is the name given to groups of leftwing protests who confront white nationalists, often violently.Experts say the report mischaracterizes the dynamics of the street violence that was emerging at that time, and is mistaken in characterizing white nationalist groups as “anti-antifa”, suggesting they act in opposition to leftwing groups or out of a sense of anarchism rather than having their own political and violent agenda.ROCIC is one of six Regional Intelligence Sharing System (RISS) Centers throughout the country. RISS is a federally funded program designed to share intelligence between federal, state and local agencies. ROCIC serves 14 southern states, including Virginia, the site of the 2017 Unite the Right rally.Documents accompanying the Foia request indicate that the US Secret Service was among the agencies that the report was provided to.The report frames political street violence in America as an evenly-poised battle between “antifa’s”, described as “an alliance between anarchists and communists to confront and defeat fascists and white supremacists by whatever means necessary”, and “anti-antifa, a loose collection of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Ku Klux Klanners, white identity groups and a group called the alt-right”.The report blames the two sides equally for the violence, continuing: “So it’s the anarchists versus the nationalists, the communists versus the Nazis, the leftwing extremists versus the rightwing extremists and the confrontations are becoming more violent and destructive.”Michael German, a former FBI agent who infiltrated far right groups in the 1990s, and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the report’s framing was wrong.“Somehow they have this set up almost like antifa is the antagonist, and anti-antifa has developed to resist it,” he said “What it seems to do is completely whitewash the history of white supremacist violence in this country.”German said that framing it this way belies the way in which “far-right groups use these public spectacles as the method to incite violence. And they come knowing that it will attract protest groups from the community.”Such groups “intentionally go to places to provoke protesters to come out, and they go armed for a real street fight”, German said.The report also reproduces an opinion piece by Republican National Committee member Shawn Steel, on clashes at UC Berkeley in February 2017, first published in the conservative Washington Times. The excerpted text reads “the mob of antifa terrorists that violently attacked the [student union] … were as much declaring war on the ideology of the man for whom the building is named (Martin Luther King) and its citizens. America’s left was sending a message: Violence is the answer.”The report takes the description of anti-fascists as “terrorists” at face value, something many experts disagree with.Mark Bray, a lecturer at Dartmouth College and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, said the “anti-antifa” designation for American far-right groups is also potentially misleading.“I don’t get the sense that that is the main source of their self-identification,” he said.The report makes further assertions about the relationship between the groups that experts say are unsupported by facts. At one point, the report says: “The antifa can be considered leftwing anarchism and the anti-antifa can be considered rightwing anarchism.”Bray said: “That’s ludicrous … most of these rightwing groups are not opposed to the state as a form of social organization. Many of them are fascists of some sort or another and believe in a strong state.”Shane Burley, the author of Fascism Today: What it is and how to fight it, agreed, saying that “this idea that it’s rightwing anarchists, that’s not a phenomenon, that’s not a thing that actually exists”.The report is heavily redacted, but spends much of its unredacted length discussing alleged antifascist violence, and sometimes implicitly blames those groups for violence visited upon them.At one point, it focuses in particular on an event in Sacramento in June 2016, which led the FBI to open a controversial investigation on a leftwing group.At that time, groups including By Any Means Necessary (Bamn) organized a counter-protest against a white supremacist rally which included members of the Traditionalist Workers party and the Golden State Skinheads, some of whom were wielding knives. Several people were stabbed at the event, including at least seven counter-protesters.Following this event, California law enforcement cooperated with neo-Nazis to identify counter-protesters, pursued charges against counter-protesters, including stabbing victims and did not prosecute neo-Nazis over the stabbings.In February, the Guardian revealed that the FBI had responded to the event by surveilling and investigating Bamn.In the ROCIC report there is also no discussion of the specific groups actively organizing the Unite the Right rally not long after the report’s publication date. Neo-confederate groups such as the League of the South; neo-Nazi and Identitarian groups such as Vanguard America, the National Socialist Movement, the Rise Above Movement and Identity Evropa; and street-fighting groups such as the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights and the Proud Boys are not mentioned.All of these groups were involved in the demonstration in Charlottesville, which culminated in the killing of Heather Heyer by James Alex Fields, who marched with Vanguard America.The report also extensively sources information from conservative media and rightwing advocacy groups. It quotes a report from Glenn Beck’s the Blaze, which cites the Washington Times, and Laura Ingraham’s conservative lifestyle website LifeZette alongside more reputable sources, including the Guardian.Bray criticized the thinness of the report’s sourcing. “There’s a wealth of literature out there about the nature of far-right politics in Europe and the United States. It just sounds like someone got tasked with Googling this,” he added.Ryan Shapiro, the executive director of Property of the People, which sourced the documents, said: “US intelligence agencies have a long, sad history of targeting progressive movements as threats to American security”Neither ROCIC nor RISS replied to repeated requests for comment on the report. Topics The far right Protest Activism news

TIANJIN, China (Reuters) - China will not stoop to competitive devaluation of its currency, Premier Li Keqiang stressed, hours after China hit back, with a softer punch than the one landed by the United States, in an escalating tariff war between the world’s largest economies. Addressing a World Economic Forum event in the port city of Tianjin on Wednesday, Li did not directly mention the trade conflict but said talk of Beijing deliberately weakening its currency was “groundless.” “One-way depreciation of the yuan brings more harm than benefits for China,” he said. “China will never go down the road of relying on yuan depreciation to stimulate exports.” China will not do that to chase “thin profits” and “a few small bucks”. Li went on to say that the world’s multi-lateral trading system should be upheld, and that unilateral trade actions will not solve any problems. His remarks gave a lift to the yuan [CNY=CFXS], which has lost about 9 percent of its value since mid-April amid the ongoing trade war. On Tuesday, Beijing added $60 billion of U.S. products to its import tariff list in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned levies on $200 billion of Chinese goods. But Beijing is running out of room to respond to any further U.S. tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis, raising concerns it may resort to other measures to weather what could be a protracted trade battle. China has yet to publicly accept an invitation extended last week by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to hold a fresh round of talks, which China welcomed at the time. On Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he had no information on a possible trade delegation and questioned U.S. sincerity about wanting new talks, noting that the last round was followed immediately by the activation of new tariffs. “This has become a kind of U.S. routine,” he said. The United States wants to pressure China to make sweeping changes to its trade, technology transfer and high-tech industrial subsidy policies. Trump had warned that retaliation by China would trigger tariffs on another $267 billion of Chinese goods, on top of duties on $250 billion in imports that are already in place or threatened. China, which bought only $130 billion in American goods last year, has imposed or threatened tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. products. “China are out of bullets. The fight is done and dusted. Now it’s just a question of how the Chinese can save face and say ‘alright we’re going to change, going to open up wider access not only to the U.S. but to the EU and Japan’,” said Christopher Peel, chief investment officer at Tavistock Wealth in London. “Their economy is export-led, they can’t afford for it to go out of control,” he told Reuters. The new U.S. tariffs will begin on Sept. 24 at 10 percent and will increase to 25 percent by the end of 2018, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch forecasting a 0.5 percentage point decline in Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2019 to 6.1 percent. Oxford Economics said in a note that China’s economic growth in 2019 could fall well below 6 percent, and said prospects for near-term easing in tensions were low. But, it added “the likelihood of de-escalation will rise over time as the increasing economic impact in the U.S. will make the Trump team less combative, and China realizes that it will be hard to integrate more into the global economy without some concessions regarding its specific economic model.” Investors were relieved that the latest escalation was less severe than some market participants had expected, with Asian stocks .MIAPJ0000PUS rising on Wednesday and U.S. Treasury yields near four-month highs. China remains unafraid of the “extreme measures” taken by the United States, the People’s Daily newspaper said in a front-page article in its overseas edition on Wednesday. “To deal with the trade war, what China really should do is to focus on doing its own thing well,” said the newspaper, which is published by the ruling Communist Party. “(China) is not worried that the U.S. trade counter measures will raise domestic commodity prices by too much but will instead use it as an opportunity to replace imports, promote localization or develop export-oriented advanced manufacturing,” it said. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang meets with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Director General Francis Gurry (unseen) at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing, China, August 28, 2018. Roman Pilipey/Pool via REUTERSThe Global Times tabloid, which is affiliated to the People’s Daily, said the trade war was a chance to pursue greater global recognition of its financial markets and that it could open its A-share market more to listings by Western firms. Confidence among Asian companies has slumped to the weakest in almost three years as businesses fear collateral damage from the worsening trade war and China’s slowing economy, the latest Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey showed. Chinese firms were the most pessimistic since the poll began in 2009. Additional reporting by Brenda Goh in SHANGHAI, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Helen Reid in LONDON; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Kim CoghillOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

State media reported all four attackers were killed in clashes with security forces Saturday after they opened fire at the parade. Both military personnel and civilians were among the casualties, according to Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). There was confusion on Sunday about whocarried out the attack. Several groups were named in local media, and the separatistPatriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwazissued a denial after IRNA reported it had claimed responsibility.Who attacked Iran's military parade?On Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed "foreign mercenaries" backed by the United States for the attack -- an accusation US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley dismissed onCNN's "State of the Union." Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the attackers were affiliated with a terrorist group supported by Saudi Arabia, according to state-run Press TV. Saudi Arabia has not responded to the allegations. Late Sunday, the United Arab Emirates added its voice to the mix and denied it was involved. "The UAE's stance against terrorism and violence is very clear," Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said on Twitter.

Donald Trump fired the FBI director James Comey in May 2017, citing his handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal. He has since admitted Comey’s refusal to suspend the FBI inquiry into the Trump campaign’s purported links to Russia was a catalyst for the move. Now Comey has written a book that reveals the reality of working with the Trump administration Trump attacks 'slime ball' Comey after new book likens president to mafia boss

New Delhi is choking again, and how.The most recent readings of PM 2.5—the tiny airborne particulate matter that impairs human health—are well beyond the hazardous threshold of 300 and above. In some parts of the city, air quality index (AQI) readings are at 999—the maximum the tracker can measure. In all likelihood, the actual levels are even higher.A blanket of smog descended on the city on Nov. 07. At the reception hosted for Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, the royals were stifled by a dense layer of polluted air. By the next day, the situation became more severe.The reduced visibility has delayed flights from of the city and train services have been suspended. The Indian Medical Association has declared a public-health medical emergency and called to cancel the Delhi half-marathon scheduled for Nov. 19. Schools for younger kids were shut and outdoor activity at high schools have been temporarily halted.Since at least 2011, Delhi has turned into a “gas chamber,” worse than the pollution capital of the world, Beijing. This winter is already turning out to be no different.

India’s supreme court has ruled against a ban on girls and women of menstruating age from entering a prominent Hindu temple in southern Kerala state, upholding rights to equality of worship.The authorities at the Sabarimala temple, which attracts tens of millions of pilgrims every year, have said the ban on women and girls aged from 10 to 50 was essential to the rites related to the temple’s chief deity, Ayyappan, who is considered eternally celibate, and were rooted in a centuries-old tradition.In the supreme court judgment, the country’s chief justice, Dipak Misra, said: “Restrictions put by Sabarimala temple can’t be held as essential religious practice.“No physiological and biological factor can be given legitimacy if it does not pass the test of conditionality.”Stating that society needs to undergo a perceptual shift, Misra said: “Patriarchy in religion cannot be permitted to trump over elements of pure devotion borne out of faith and the freedom to practise and profess one’s religion.”The ruling is the latest in a series of landmark judgments by India’s top court this month, involving some of the most sensitive issues in Indian society.On Thursday, the court struck down a colonial-era law that criminalised adultery, a day after imposing stringent new limits on how information on the database of the world’s largest biometric identity card programme can be used. Earlier this month, it scrapped a law that criminalised homosexuality, sparking celebrations across India and elsewhere in south Asia, where activists hope to push for similar reform.The supreme court has been called into action because of a significant rise in public interest litigation in recent years after heal-dragging by successive Indian governments on decisions relating to social issues.In Thursday’s judgment, Misra said: “The law and the society are bestowed with the Herculean task to act as levellers.”The temple’s authorities said they will appeal before the temple opens to worshippers again on 16 October. Topics India Gender Human rights South and Central Asia Hinduism Religion news