Enlarge this image The House impeachment inquiry wants to hear from John Eisenberg, the top lawyer at President Trump's National Security Council, but he was instructed to stay away, Eisenberg's lawyer said. Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images The House impeachment inquiry wants to hear from John Eisenberg, the top lawyer at President Trump's National Security Council, but he was instructed to stay away, Eisenberg's lawyer said. Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images Updated at 12 p.m. ETThe impeachment inquiry into President Trump turned its spotlight on Monday on four top White House officials, asking them to testify behind closed doors as Democrats probe whether Trump held up military aid as leverage to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.But none of them showed up, citing legal advice.The House inquiry had lined up a long list of high-ranking Trump administration officials who they want to talk to before moving into the next phase of the probe, which will involve public hearings and the release of transcripts from closed-door depositions.That process began on Monday with the inquiry releasing hundreds of pages of transcripts from Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who testified on Oct. 11, and Michael McKinley, a former adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who testified Oct. 16. Politics READ: Former Ukraine Ambassador Yovanovitch's Testimony To Congress John Eisenberg, the top lawyer at the National Security Council, was directed by Trump and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to stay away from his scheduled closed-door deposition, Eisenberg's lawyer said."Under these circumstances, Mr. Eisenberg has no other option that is consistent with his legal and ethical obligations except to follow the direction of his client and employer, the President of the United States. Accordingly, Mr. Eisenberg will not be appearing for a deposition at this time," William Burck of Quinn Emanuel said in a letter to the impeachment inquiry.Eisenberg is believed to have made the call to lock down records of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in an electronic system meant for sensitive classified information.Eisenberg's deputy, Michael Ellis — who also received a subpoena — will not appear, Ellis' lawyer Paul Butler of Akin Gump told NPR.Butler said he informed inquiry staff that Ellis had been advised by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel "that the failure to include or allow agency counsel to an interview doesn't sufficiently protect the relevant privileges here, especially for a lawyer," referring to both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege. The Office of Legal Counsel deemed the subpoena "invalid," and Butler said Ellis had "been instructed not to appear.""Michael is respectful of the legislative branch and will cooperate with a valid subpoena," Butler said.Last month, head White House counsel Pat Cipollone said that White House officials would not cooperate with the inquiry, arguing that it "violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process" and privilege and immunity for the executive branch of government.Two other White House officials invited to testify on Monday are declining to cooperate.Rob Blair, who serves as an adviser to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on national security issues, will not appear, a source familiar with the situation told NPR.Brian McCormack, an energy official at the White House Office of Management and Budget, also will not testify, a spokeswoman for the OMB confirmed to NPR on Sunday. Trump Impeachment Inquiry Focus on EisenbergEisenberg was named by several witnesses in closed-door testimony to the inquiry. Two NSC officials said they took their concerns about a July 10 White House meeting with Ukrainian officials to Eisenberg. And two officials who listened to the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy said they talked to Eisenberg about their worries.According to multiple reports, it was Eisenberg who put records of that call into a highly secure system meant for sensitive classified information."If he put the president's conversation with the Ukrainian leader on a restricted platform, which I think he did, then he had every good reason to do it," Michael Mukasey, a former attorney general in the Bush administration who worked with Eisenberg, said in an interview with NPR. "Conversations between heads of state generally are the kinds of conversations that neither participant wants to see released to the public."Eisenberg, a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, served in the Bush administration as associate deputy attorney general, working on national security issues. He then worked for law firm Kirkland and Ellis before joining Trump's White House shortly after the president's inauguration.People who have worked with Eisenberg describe him as a competent and careful lawyer who keeps detailed notes. One former colleague in the Trump administration told NPR that Eisenberg would force staffers to leave conversations if they showed up to a meeting without proper clearance. A second former colleague described Eisenberg as a "pretty scrupulous" person who likely would have made a record of why he made the decisions he took.Eisenberg has three titles, which is rare, Mukasey said. "Don't know anybody who's ever been all three," Mukasey said. "And yet obviously people have confidence in his judgment across the board so that he holds all three positions."Eisenberg's lawyer did not rule out an eventual appearance. Burck referenced a lawsuit filed by former deputy national security Charles Kupperman, who is seeking a court ruling on whether he needed to comply with the Congressional request to appear or the White House instruction to stay away."Mr. Eisenberg, as a lawyer and officer of the court, will abide by whatever final decision the federal judiciary reaches on the dispute between the Executive and Congress," Burck said.Other officials who have been called this week are not expected to appear. Michael Duffey, an OMB national security specialist, and acting OMB Director Russell Vought, will decline to cooperate, an OMB spokeswoman said.Energy Secretary Rick Perry's press secretary confirmed on Friday that he would not appear for a closed-door deposition.Lawmakers have also asked to hear from Wells Griffith, an NSC energy specialist, and two State Department officials, David Hale and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.NPR's Roberta Rampton, Lexie Schapitl, Deirdre Walsh and Claudia Grisales contributed to this story.

Enlarge this image Paul Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in a Virginia case. Here he's seen in April 2018 outside the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Paul Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in a Virginia case. Here he's seen in April 2018 outside the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Seven months ago, a jury convicted President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in a bank and tax fraud trial that grabbed the national spotlight. On Thursday, a federal judge is scheduled to sentence Manafort for those crimes. Manafort was found guilty on two counts of bank fraud, five counts of tax fraud and one count of failing to declare a foreign bank account. The jury did not reach a unanimous decision on 10 other charges. Analysis The Big Unanswered Questions After Michael Cohen's Capitol Hill Marathon The verdict marked a dramatic fall for Manafort, a savvy political operative who advised U.S. presidents as well as foreign leaders. For decades, he headlined the glitzy, big-money lobbying game in Washington and raked in tens of millions of dollars along the way.Now Manafort faces as many as 24 years in prison and millions of dollars in financial penalties. The decision on how much to punish Manafort — who turns 70 next month — lies in the hands of Judge T.S. Ellis III. National Security Manafort Allegedly Shared 2016 Polling With Associate Linked To Russian Intelligence The case against Manafort was the first — and only, so far — brought to trial by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his Russia investigation. The charges stem from Manafort's lobbying and consulting work — and the millions of dollars he made from it — in Ukraine. They do not directly address Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.The two-week trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., featured boxes of evidence and testimony from more than two dozen witnesses, including Manafort's former right-hand man, Rick Gates. Manafort Sentencing: What You Need To Know Feds: Don't go easy, judgeMueller's office has not taken a position on a specific sentence for Manafort, but it has made clear that it believes his crimes are serious and merit punishment."Manafort was the lead perpetrator and a direct beneficiary of each offense," the special counsel's office said in its sentencing memo. "And while some of these offenses are commonly prosecuted, there was nothing ordinary about the millions of dollars involved in the defendant's crimes, the duration of his criminal conduct, or the sophistication of his schemes." National Security Manafort Intentionally Lied To Special Counsel, Judge Says The government says Manafort's misconduct involved more than $16 million in unreported income, more than $55 million hidden in foreign bank accounts and more than $25 million secured through lies to banks. "Manafort did not commit these crimes out of necessity or hardship," Mueller's office said. "He was well educated, professionally successful, and financially well off. He nonetheless cheated the United States Treasury and the public out of more than $6 million in taxes at a time when he had substantial resources."Manafort's attorneys: He deserves light punishmentIn their sentencing memo, Manafort's lawyers argue for leniency. Their client, they said, acknowledges that he received a fair trial, accepts the jury's verdict and is "truly remorseful for his conduct." Law Feds Detail What They Call Lies Told By Paul Manafort Since His Guilty Plea They request a sentence "substantially below" the guideline's range of 19.5 to 24 years. He is a first-time offender, suffers from gout and other ailments, has admitted his guilt and has cooperated with prosecutors in a separate but related case in Washington, D.C., they wrote in a memo ahead of the hearing."The special counsel's attempt to vilify Mr. Manafort as a lifelong and irredeemable felon is beyond the pale and grossly overstates the facts before this court," his attorneys said. The Justice Department never presented any case that Manafort had cooperated with the Russian interference in the 2016 election and yet it smeared him anyway, the memo says. National Security Trump: Manafort Pardon Not 'Off The Table' After Briefings From Manafort's Lawyer "The special counsel's conduct comes as no surprise and falls within the government's pattern of spreading misinformation about Mr. Manafort to impugn his character in a manner that this country has not experienced in decades."The special counsel's office replied in a filing Tuesday. It said Manafort "blames everyone from the special counsel's office to his Ukrainian clients for his own criminal choices."Manafort's decisions, Mueller's team said, "were his own and his efforts at misdirection are further proof that he has not accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct." National Security All The Criminal Charges To Emerge So Far From Robert Mueller's Investigation Manafort pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges in a separate but related case in Washington, D.C. He also admitted his guilt in the 10 counts in Virginia on which the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.Under the plea deal in Washington, Manafort agreed to cooperate with investigators. But that agreement collapsed after Manafort was found to have lied to Mueller's team. He is scheduled to be sentenced in the Washington case next week. National Security Here's What May Happen When The Mueller Investigation Is Completed Politics Elderly Trump Critics Await Mueller's Report — Sometimes Until Their Last Breath

Demanding free elections and an investigation into police misconduct, Hong Kong’s protesters are concerned about much greater issues than shopping. But as demonstrations and clashes with police continue, the escalating turmoil has hit tourism and retail spending hard, hurting global brands that have come to rely on the financial hub as one of the world’s luxury shopping destinations.One example: Burberry. According to financial services firm Jefferies, the brand’s Hong Kong sales are likely to plunge by £100 million ($122.2 million) this year. While it’s expected to recapture half those sales in other geographies, that still leaves a net loss of £50 million.Burberry happens to be particularly vulnerable to troubles in Hong Kong, according to the firm, which offered its forecast in an Oct. 8 research note to clients. It estimates that the British luxury label gets 8% of its total sales from its 10 stores in the city, and much of its stock is seasonal clothing. If it doesn’t sell quickly—and it seems unlikely to—it will have to be discounted or relocated. “The simple solution is don’t deliver stuff to Hong Kong anymore, there’s no point,” Flavio Cereda, an analyst at Jefferies and one of the note’s authors, told the Telegraph. “Or if you’re going to deliver 500 jackets, then deliver 50 instead and ship the rest of them off to mainland China.”A spokesperson for Burberry said it is currently in a closed period as it prepares to report earnings and is unable to provide any updates on its sales in Hong Kong.Burberry isn’t the only vulnerable brand. Investment firm UBS has estimated that Richemont gets about 11% of its sales from Hong Kong, and Swatch about 10%. (Its estimate for Burberry was about 9%.) Hermès, Moncler, Prada, and others also count on the city for a significant piece of their sales. Analysts at Bernstein, meanwhile, attribute between 5% and 10% of the luxury market’s $285 billion in total sales to Hong Kong.Because the protests only began a few months ago, they haven’t shown up fully in company financial results yet. That’s going to change soon. Reuters reported last week that Rogerio Fujimori, an analyst at RBC, believes many brands will see sales fall between 30% and 60% in the third quarter.Luxury spending in the city was under pressure long before the protests started. Much of it has typically come from mainland Chinese taking shopping trips to Hong Kong. In recent years, those trips have shifted toward cities such as Seoul and Tokyo. More Chinese shoppers have also been making their luxury purchases on the mainland, as efforts by the country’s government to get people shopping more at home than abroad have taken hold.But the protests have hammered luxury spending as shopping malls have become battlegrounds and stores in affected areas have been forced to stay closed. The downturn will likely continue even if the protests eventually cease.“We continue to believe the current unrest will result in a permanent contraction in the role of [Hong Kong] as a Luxury hub,” Jefferies analysts wrote in a separate note on Oct. 1. It cited more hostility toward visitors from the mainland, the shrinking price differential on luxury goods between Hong Kong and cities such as Shanghai, and other issues such as stricter border controls. It predicted spending in Hong Kong through October could be down as much as 80%, depending on location, and added, “we do not see scope for a full recovery given dynamics.”

If tech giant CEOs were a high school clique, Mukesh Ambani would be its newest member, and everyone’s invited to a party at his house. India’s richest man, Ambani heads up conglomerate Reliance Industries, whose digital arm, Reliance Jio, is swiftly becoming India’s answer to Amazon, AT&T, and Huawei—all rolled into one.Founded in 1973 by Dhirubhai Ambani, Reliance Industries (RIL) cut its teeth on the oil business, before crushing its competition in India’s telecom sector. Now the company is eyeing India’s 5G market. Last month, Reliance confirmed plans to build its own 5G technology without help from Chinese companies, a development that would make Reliance Jio India’s first telecom firm with 5G capabilities.Industry analysts back Reliance’s 5G claims, though a major chunk of their confidence comes from the company’s strong financial position—$87 billion in revenue—and the fact that Google paid $4.5 billion for a 7.7% stake in Jio Platforms (a wholly owned RIL subsidiary) last month. Google and Jio Platforms also plan to jointly develop an “entry-level affordable” 4G/5G smartphone.Another mark in Reliance’s favor: a reputation for freebies and disruptive pricing. It’s expected that Jio’s 5G services would be 10-15% cheaper to roll out than competitors’, which will help it become a market leader in India. Plus, its China-proof tech will have international appeal.To that end, Reliance couldn’t have better timing. India’s government has reportedly asked telecom firms to avoid using equipment from Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE, and the US, UK, and Australia have all banned Huawei from providing 5G equipment and technology in their countries. Jio would happily join Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson in the quest to fill that void.“I encourage all countries to secure their communication networks by prohibiting untrusted vendors, thereby increasing the attractiveness of their digital infrastructure to outside investment,” US cyber diplomat Robert Strayer said in July. “Investors are more inclined to invest in countries that are secure from interference or disruption by vendors that could be subject to the control of authoritarian regimes.”2002: Dhirubhai Ambani, who founded India’s Reliance Group with just $13, dies without a will in place. His elder son Mukesh becomes chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. Younger son Anil is made vice-chairman.2004: News of a property feud between the brothers surfaces for the first time in public. In a TV interview, Mukesh acknowledges the issue, but says it won’t affect Reliance’s business.2005: The matriarch of the family, Kokilaben Ambani, intervenes to announce a demerger. The split approved by the board allows Mukesh to keep Reliance Industries and Indian Petrochemicals, while Anil gets Reliance Infocomm, Reliance Energy, and Reliance Capital.2008: Anil files a defamation case against Mukesh over a New York Times interview in which Mukesh implies that Anil’s businesses oversaw shady information-gathering on India’s most powerful people.2010: Anil withdraws the defamation case and claims the feud has been resolved.2010: The two brothers scrap all existing “non-compete” agreements, allowing either group to enter sectors that had earlier been reserved for one of them.2011: Mukesh and Anil come together to dedicate a memorial to their father. At the same event, Kokilaben tells the media that “there is love between the brothers,” signaling a reconciliation.2013: The brothers sign a $200 million deal allowing them to run separate telecom companies that share networks to speed up 4G services.2016: With a new venture—Reliance Jio—Mukesh formally enters the telecom sector.2019: Thanks to Jio’s freebies and discounts, Reliance finds itself sitting on a $23 billion pile of net debt. Mukesh promises investors he’ll make the firm net-debt-free within 18 months.January 2020: Jio becomes the biggest telecom operator in India by subscribers and revenue.April 2020: Facebook buys a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms for $5.7 billion.June 2020: Reliance becomes debt-free, much earlier than its deadline of March 31, 2021.July 2020: Google invests $4.5 billion for a 7.73% stake in Jio Platforms.Reliance is the second-largest brand in the world after Apple, according to the FutureBrand Index 2020, a study that reorders PwC’s top 100 companies “by market capital dependent on sentiment quality and not based on monetary quality.” (Reliance ranks 91st on the PWC list.) Samsung comes in third on the FutureBrand Index, followed by Nvidia, Microsoft, and Nike.RIL has over 100 subsidiaries and eight listed firms, but most of its revenue comes from its retail arm, oil and petrochemical businesses, and telecom ventures. The last of those is ascendant: For the quarter ended June 30, RIL’s petrochem arm saw a 33% year-over-year decline in revenue, while revenue at its retail business dropped 17% in the same period. Jio, on the other hand, registered 182% growth.👠 Reliance Retail: India’s largest retailer, with 11,000 stores and $19 billion in 2019 revenue.Partner brands include Diesel, Burberry, Gas, Hamleys, Giorgio Armani, Jimmy Choo, Muji, Michael Kors, Paul Smith, Satya Paul, and Tiffany’s, among others.📱 Reliance Jio (Jio for short):Includes wireless services, home broadband, and enterprise broadband.In 2019, RIL decided to reorganize its telecom and digital-facing business by setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary for digital platform initiatives, Jio Platforms.Jio Platforms include its telecom venture Reliance Jio Infocomm, with a user base of 400 million. Other services include JioTV, JioSaavn, JioMeet, JioHealthHub, and JioMart. All told, Indians can use Jio Platforms for everything from ordering groceries to making calls and handling payments.Recent investors in Jio Platforms include Facebook, Google, Silver Lake Partners, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, and Abu Dhabi investment Authority.💰 A short list of other sectors in which RIL has a presence: polymers, chemicals, polyesters, petroleum retail, textiles, new tech, healthcare, aerospace, media and entertainment, blockchain, education, and agriculture.“Every small business and entrepreneur has the potential in India to become Dhirubhai Ambani or Bill Gates. And that is the power that is what differentiates India from the rest of the world.” — Mukesh Ambani in an interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in February

Watch Tim Scott's full speech at the 2020 RNC11:33Sen. Tim Scott praised President Trump for creating the "most inclusive economy ever" and warned that Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris "will turn our country into a socialist utopia" during his speech to the Republican National Convention.Aug. 25, 2020

“Don’t you worry, you government officials will be in the graves” where they belong, he said, according to court records.Based on the threatening nature of the calls and that Ms. Tlaib was scheduled to speak in Florida on April 20 and 21, law enforcement officials contacted a cellphone company to gain customer information for the phone number where the calls originated, Lacey Evans, a special agent of the United States Capitol Police, said in an affidavit.Information provided by the company revealed Mr. Kless’s address, details of outgoing calls, location updates and current GPS coordinates.Mr. Kless was involved in making harassing calls to Ms. Pelosi’s office in Washington in February, according to court papers. It was not immediately clear what actions, if any, were taken by law enforcement in that case.“This early 2019 case included voice messages by Kless concerning taking away his guns, abortion, illegal immigration and Muslims in Congress,” Agent Evans wrote.Marlene Fernandez-Karavetsos, special counsel to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, said one gun was seized from a backpack of Mr. Kless’s and others from a gun safe at his home. Ammunition was also recovered. Information about the kinds of weapons was not immediately available.United States Magistrate Judge Barry S. Seltzer ordered Friday that bond be set at $25,000. Mr. Kless has until Monday afternoon to post 10 percent of the bond amount, Ms. Fernandez-Karavetsos said. Until then, the judge ordered him released with a GPS monitor. The judge also imposed a curfew and ordered Mr. Kless not to have contact with the officials.

So yes, Republicans largely agree that Trump would be better served sans Giuliani (who told me last Wednesday evening that he is in fact still the president’s personal attorney). But they also agree on something else: Giuliani isn’t going anywhere. According to another senior House GOP aide, “We’re so far beyond that at this point.”Giuliani himself also seems to agree. He told me in a text message that Trump “knows that every one of the stories are false and defamatory and intended to remove me as a defense lawyer for him.” He added: “If I was less effective they would have left me alone. But they, including unethical law enforcement sources, are swinging from their shoe tips and missing … The scandal is not with me or Trump but how the Corrupt Press and their leakers in law enforcement can cover it up for so long.”It’s rare that any of Trump’s associates seems “safe” in his or her standing with the president. (Trump, of course, fired his first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, via a tweet from the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base after just six months on the job, while an unsuspecting Priebus sat in a black SUV nearby.) But current and former White House officials and lawmakers close to Trump told me that Giuliani is uniquely positioned in this moment. He is in many ways Trump’s closest ally apart from his family, having cultivated a mutual affection and trust over several decades. But if scorned, he could also prove to be Trump’s worst enemy—a dynamic that Giuliani himself has been happy to tout in recent media interviews, joking, essentially, that he knows too much for Trump to risk axing him. Added to that, the sources said, is the fact that Trump has dug in his heels on impeachment: To condemn Giuliani, they said, would be to concede that this administration’s dealings with Ukraine were short of, in the president’s words, “perfect”—something Trump and his allies are not at all willing to do.“That line of thinking—that throwing a team member under the bus [will] ‘make the media go away’—is not only foolish, it’s idiotic,” Jason Miller, a former Trump-campaign communications adviser, told me. “All it will do is convince Democrats and certain members of the media that they’re onto something, and the intensity will increase tenfold.”“The damage is done,” added a Republican National Committee official. “Rudy’s been like this forever, and Trump has never wanted to dump him. Plus at this point, it’s like, doesn’t he know too much?”In Giuliani’s eyes, at least, that may well be his saving grace. So far, he’s refused to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify about his dealings in Ukraine and answer questions about what Trump did or didn’t know. In recent days he’s suggested that his testimony would be just as revelatory as Democrats assume. On November 14, in an interview with The Guardian, Giuliani said he wasn’t worried that Trump would “throw him under a bus” as impeachment proceedings move forward. “But I do have very, very good insurance, so if he does, all my hospital bills will be paid,” Giuliani added. (His lawyer quickly interjected that he was “joking.”) Giuliani referenced his “insurance” against Trump again in a Fox News interview last weekend. “You can assume that I talk with him early and often,” he said of his relationship with the president. “I’ve seen things written like he’s gonna throw me under the bus … When they say that, I say, ‘He isn’t, but I have insurance.’”

Donald Trump’s administration has unveiled its new Africa strategy, a three-pronged plan focused on furthering US interests and countering the “great power competitors” of China and Russia.In a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC on Thursday (Dec. 14), national security advisor John Bolton said the US will advance fair trade and commercial ties with African nations, help fight terrorism and militant violence, and provide aid “efficiently and effectively.” On the last point, the administration said it intends to ensure that US taxpayer dollars aren’t used to bolster corrupt leaders and violators of human rights, and will seek to reconfigure or end support for “unproductive, unsuccessful, and unaccountable” peacekeeping operations currently in place in the continent.“Americans are a generous people, but we insist that our money is put to good use,” Bolton said.The crux of the speech, however, singled out Beijing and Moscow’s expanding financial and political influence in Africa. Bolton said the two nations were deepening their reach and investments in the region in the hopes of gaining a “competitive advantage” over the US. He especially criticized China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a multi-billion-dollar program that involves infrastructure development and investments in countries across Asia, Europe, and Africa.“China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing’s wishes and demands,” Bolton said. Bolton borrowed his choice of words from former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who criticized China’s model of economic development in Africa ahead of a visit to the continent earlier this year.China is also exercising major moves as a global military power on the continent, opening up a key military base in Djibouti and deploying peacekeepers in South Sudan, Mali, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Plus, there’s the training and education opportunities it’s providing thousands of African leaders, bureaucrats, students, and business people.Russia has also followed this approach in recent years, signing agreements to establish economic zones in Eritrea, exploring opportunities in accessing minerals across southern Africa, and enhancing military and technical cooperation with nations like the Central African Republic.US officials have grown increasingly worried about what these expansions could mean for their long-term interests in the continent. With its America First mantra, the Trump administration was also initially skeptical of Africa’s place in US foreign policy. Yet to gain leverage over China in Africa, Trump bolstered development via a new agency to $60 billion this year. Trump also named veteran diplomat Tibor Nagy, who has extensive experience working in Africa, to lead the State Department’s strategy there.Bolton’s speech was criticized for its lack of a commitment to advancing human rights and democracy in the continent.“Inclusive, participatory democratic governance and economic opportunities are key to fostering trust between governments and the people they are elected to serve,” Mercy Corps’ director of policy and advocacy Richmond Blake said in a statement. “Alleviating suffering, poverty, and oppression and promoting good governance are essential for preventing and ending conflict and terrorism and must be central to US foreign policy across the continent.”

Facebook's Instagram launched a direct competitor to short-form video app TikTok in 50 countries Wednesday amid antitrust scrutiny.Reels, which is available within Instagram on iOS and Android, lets users edit together 15-second clips with music.Instagram will now include Reels in its Explore page, allowing users to scroll through them vertically, much like TikTok's for you page.The launch of Reels comes as President TrumpDonald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE threatens to block TikTok from operating in the U.S. over its ties to China.The short-form video app's parent company, ByteDance, is headquartered in and operates out of Beijing, though TikTok's American data has been moved to servers in the U.S.Although it is legally questionable whether Trump has he authority to ban an app, the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has reportedly asked ByteDance to sell off TikTok.Microsoft confirmed Sunday that it has been exploring a deal to purchase the app after speaking with Trump.Microsoft said that it would complete discussions with TikTok by Sept. 15. The companies have both provided a notice of intent to the CFIUS to explore a proposal that would give Microsoft ownership of the app in United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The launch of Reels also comes one week after executives from America's biggest tech companies, including Facebook, testified before Congress on competition in the digital marketplace.Mark Zuckerberg was questioned over Facebook's history of adding features nearly identical to those offered by other apps.Facebook has already tried to mimic TikTok's staggering success with Lasso, a separate application with similar features. The app was shut down last month after failing to win over fans in test markets.Instagram has also borrowed from Snap in the past with its Stories feature, that allows users to post videos and pictures that disappear after 24 hours.It is unclear whether any actions being taken by Instagram would violate U.S. antitrust law, which is focused on protecting consumers.The “consumer welfare standard” requires regulators to provide evidence of consumer harm - normally a substantial increase in prices - before an antitrust case can be brought.Given that neither Reels nor TikTok charge fees to its users, proving that kind of harm becomes difficult.Experts and lawmakers have called for overhauling antitrust laws to include consideration of things like data accumulation when evaluating mergers and acquisitions, but any such change is likely to take time and appetite for that sort of reform appears minimal in Congress.ByteDance has been critical of Facebook both for launching Reels and suggesting that Chinese owned apps are not committed to data privacy, saying those claims are "plagiarism and defamation."TikTok, however, debuted its short-form video format years after the launch of Vine, which was shut down in 2017.

Enlarge this image Street vendors display merchandise featuring former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, just outside the building in Curitiba where the leader served his prison sentence. Henry Milleo/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Henry Milleo/AFP via Getty Images Street vendors display merchandise featuring former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, just outside the building in Curitiba where the leader served his prison sentence. Henry Milleo/AFP via Getty Images Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is a free man once more.On Friday, a judge ordered the release of Brazil's popular former president, who is better known simply as "Lula." The order was handed down just one day after the country's Supreme Court ruled that convicted defendants cannot be jailed until their appeals to higher courts have been exhausted. The court's split decision on Thursday directly applied to da Silva, who on Friday walked out of federal police headquarters in the Brazilian city of Curitiba, where he was greeted with fireworks and flowers, hugs and songs from supporters gathered outside. Da Silva, 74, had spent about a year and a half in prison following his conviction on corruption and money laundering charges.The former two-term president had been ensnared in a massive corruption probe that has transcended national boundaries and felled a number of prominent figures in politics and business across South America — including one of da Silva's successors in the presidency, Michel Temer, who himself was arrested earlier this year. Now, da Silva can remain free as long as appeals of his corruption conviction unfold.His supporters claim the corruption allegations were part of a plot to derail da Silva's bid for a third term in last year's presidential election, in which he had been a runaway favorite before his legal woes knocked him from the race. Instead, far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the presidency.Since his victory, Bolsonaro's tenure has not been free of controversy. He recently attracted international criticism for his handling of a spate of fires across the Amazon rainforest earlier this year.Some 5,000 other prisoners could also seek release because of the Supreme Court ruling, according to Brazilian media.On Friday, da Silva's official Twitter account celebrated news of his release with a workout video of the ex-president set to the song "Eye of the Tiger" — whatever that means.

Enlarge this image Angela Hsieh/NPR Angela Hsieh/NPR From a hill overlooking Canberra, Australia's landlocked capital, Clive Hamilton points to the National Carillon, a bell tower that happens to be striking noon, then to a massive glass and concrete monolith."That's where ASIO lives," he says, using the common shorthand for Australia's intelligence agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.He then points out Australia's federal police building and to a compound in the middle, where China built its embassy."They picked that spot, and they have a lot of clout, they have a vast compound, and they kind of get what they want around here," he says.When Hamilton, a professor at Charles Sturt University, first tried to publish his new book, Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia, the fear of China's Communist Party crept in, he says. Hamilton's original publisher, Allen and Unwin, informed him last November that it was canceling the book's publication because it feared legal action from what it called "Beijing's agents of influence." "I was shocked," remembers Hamilton. "I felt betrayed. We knew this was a difficult subject. We knew that Beijing has some powerful friends in Australia. We knew that the Chinese government would be highly critical of the book and of me. Of course, it was great comfort to have a really good, solid publisher behind me, and all of a sudden I was left out there on the battlefield, looking over my shoulder, saying, 'Where is my support?' " Enlarge this image The original publisher of Clive Hamilton's book detailing Chinese influence in Australia canceled publication for fear of legal threats. Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption toggle caption Rob Schmitz/NPR The original publisher of Clive Hamilton's book detailing Chinese influence in Australia canceled publication for fear of legal threats. Rob Schmitz/NPR The episode was a vindication of the central thesis of Hamilton's book — that China's Communist Party has infiltrated Australia — but not one he expected to have to deal with personally."It's a massive red flag," says Hamilton. "And if Australia capitulates on this question, in other words, no book seriously critical of [the] Chinese Communist Party will be published in Australia. I mean, this essentially means we've sacrificed our democratic freedoms."Australia fights backChina's rise under the Communist Party has had a profound impact on Australia. The country is Australia's biggest trading partner by a long shot, accounting for nearly a quarter of Australia's trade. China's demand for commodities like iron ore in the early 2000s fueled a mining boom in Australia that created jobs and steadily pushed up wages. Later, as China's urban consumer class grew, young professionals from Shanghai and Beijing turned to Australian steak, milk and wine. Nearly a third of Australian exports now head to China. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here: China's Expanding Global ReachWealthy visitors from China frequently travel to Australia as tourists or to buy property, leading to a historic rise in home values along the country's coasts.But public intellectuals like Hamilton, and politicians, are beginning to question whether these economic benefits have come at too steep a price. Another Australian publisher eventually released Hamilton's book. But the impact a powerful foreign autocracy had on his work, inside his own supposedly free and democratic home country, left him shaken. It was a reminder, says Hamilton, of how deeply China's Communist Party has infiltrated Australian society.Silent Invasion identifies more than 40 former and current Australian politicians who he says are doing the bidding of China's government, many unwittingly. Several politicians have denied Hamilton's claims.Hamilton says China's Communist Party has infiltrated Chinese-Australian associations devoted to students and scholars, writers and religious activities. "From taking over Chinese associations, buying political influence, promoting Beijing-loyal people into elected political positions, buying influence in universities by sponsoring think tanks, cyber-intrusion operations, you name it, they're doing it," he says.But Australia is beginning to fight back. Last December, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Australia's biggest overhaul in espionage and intelligence laws in decades, after a senator accepted illegal donations from a Chinese businessman with close ties to China's Communist Party. Enlarge this image Australia's former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced his country's biggest overhaul in espionage and intelligence laws in decades last December, after a senator accepted illegal donations from a Chinese businessman with close ties to China's Communist Party. Jack Taylor/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jack Taylor/Getty Images Australia's former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced his country's biggest overhaul in espionage and intelligence laws in decades last December, after a senator accepted illegal donations from a Chinese businessman with close ties to China's Communist Party. Jack Taylor/Getty Images "Foreign powers are making unprecedented and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence the political process both here and abroad," said Turnbull, announcing the bill. New laws, he said, "will protect our way of life, they will protect and strengthen our democracy and they will ensure that Australians make decisions based on the wishes of Australians."The new package of laws, which Australia's Parliament passed in June, will require anyone in Australia working on behalf of a foreign power to declare that connection to the government. But in the case of Chinese citizens, state connections can be tricky to gauge. "China's different in scale and it's different also in that it can integrate the private sector, education, civil society — all arms, if you like — of the state and the community with the objectives of the Chinese Communist Party," says Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University. "We're not really dealing with a normal country here. We're dealing with an authoritarian party state, where in fact Chinese citizens owe a higher loyalty to the party than to the state itself. So what we're dealing with here is the largest secret organization in human history."China's embassy in Canberra has responded to allegations in Australian media of improper influence over Australia as racist attacks on Chinese people."The relevant reports not only made unjustifiable accusations against the Chinese government," a public statement read, "but also unscrupulously vilified the Chinese students as well as the Chinese community in Australia with racial prejudice, which in turn has tarnished Australia's reputation as a multicultural society." Enlarge this image "We're not really dealing with a normal country here. We're dealing with an authoritarian party state, where in fact Chinese citizens owe a higher loyalty to the party than to the state itself. So what we're dealing with here is the largest secret organization in human history," says Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University in Canberra. Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption toggle caption Rob Schmitz/NPR "We're not really dealing with a normal country here. We're dealing with an authoritarian party state, where in fact Chinese citizens owe a higher loyalty to the party than to the state itself. So what we're dealing with here is the largest secret organization in human history," says Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University in Canberra. Rob Schmitz/NPR Medcalf says the problem is not China's people, but its Communist Party. Some of the most vulnerable victims of the party, he says, are Chinese people who left their country to live in democracies like Australia and New Zealand.China's inroads in New ZealandMore than 1,000 miles across the Tasman Sea, Chen Weijian rests on his balcony, listening to the cicadas in a leafy suburb of Auckland, New Zealand.He moved from China in 1991, escaping imprisonment for working on a pro-democracy newspaper. He restarted the newspaper in New Zealand, but even there, Beijing caught up with him, he says: A pro-Chinese Communist Party newspaper in Auckland sued him for defamation after he criticized it for being too pro-Beijing. Ongoing legal fees forced his paper into bankruptcy in 2012."Their paper was funded by businesses supported by China's government," Chen says. "So an overseas Communist Party's propaganda wing crushed our democratic newspaper here in New Zealand." Enlarge this image Chen Weijian fled Hangzhou, China, for New Zealand in 1991, escaping imprisonment in China for working on a pro-democracy newspaper. He says Beijing caught up with him even thousands of miles away and sued his New Zealand newspaper out of existence. Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption toggle caption Rob Schmitz/NPR Chen Weijian fled Hangzhou, China, for New Zealand in 1991, escaping imprisonment in China for working on a pro-democracy newspaper. He says Beijing caught up with him even thousands of miles away and sued his New Zealand newspaper out of existence. Rob Schmitz/NPR Ever since, Chen says, he has watched as China's Communist Party makes deeper inroads into New Zealand's society and government, becoming a major trade partner and expanding beyond trade to finance, telecommunications, military cooperation and cooperation on the Antarctic. Last year, local media reported that a prominent, Chinese-born member of New Zealand's Parliament, Jian Yang, had lied to authorities about his education background on his citizenship application for New Zealand.Yang, a member of the National Party, which led the government from 2008 to 2017, had worked for 15 years in China's military intelligence sector. He studied English at the People's Liberation Army Air Force Engineering University, taught at the college for five years after graduating and then obtained a master's degree at the People's Liberation Army University of Foreign Languages in Luoyang, one of China's best-known military intelligence schools.Later, at the same institute, Yang taught English to students who were studying to intercept and decipher English-language communications on behalf of Chinese military intelligence. Enlarge this image Last year, New Zealand media reported that a prominent Chinese-born member of Parliament, Jian Yang, had lied to authorities about his education background on his citizenship application for New Zealand. He had taught and been a student at a Chinese military intelligence school. Greg Bowker/AP hide caption toggle caption Greg Bowker/AP Last year, New Zealand media reported that a prominent Chinese-born member of Parliament, Jian Yang, had lied to authorities about his education background on his citizenship application for New Zealand. He had taught and been a student at a Chinese military intelligence school. Greg Bowker/AP Yang declined an interview request from NPR. He admitted to journalists last year that he was a member of China's Communist Party, though he insisted he has not been an active member since he left China in 1994. He has steered clear of the media spotlight since the scandal hit."Jian Yang is not just connected to China's Communist Party," says Chen Weijian. "He was sent here by them to spy on New Zealand. But people in Yang's party — the National Party — all think he's good for New Zealand-China relations. A lot of his party's donations come through him, and he often leads government trips to China to make lucrative deals there." China Unbound China Unbound: What An Emboldened China Means For The World Yang, who has served in Parliament since 2011 and remains in office, played a prominent role during official visits to China in 2013 and 2016, sitting alongside then-Prime Minister John Key opposite Chinese leader Xi Jinping and serving at times as interpreter during bilateral meetings.As Yang's political influence grew, so did New Zealand's economic dependence on China. In 2008, New Zealand became the first developed country to sign a free trade agreement with China. As a result, trade between the two economies has tripled in the past decade, largely because of China's thirst for imported New Zealand milk: A quarter of all imported milk in China comes from the tiny island nation."A lot of countries ask: 'Why did China negotiate a free trade agreement with New Zealand? They're so small,' " says Charles Finny, a consultant with the Saunders Unsworth lobbying firm in Wellington who served as the lead negotiator for New Zealand in its free trade agreement with China. "The reason, I think, was that by negotiating an FTA with New Zealand, you learn how to do the negotiation. That's pretty good practice for when you actually get to negotiate with bigger players, and if you make a mistake, it's not going to be fatal for your economy." Enlarge this image Charles Finny served as the lead negotiator in New Zealand's free trade agreement with China. He believes China is using his country as a testing ground for diplomatic relations with other developed nations. "We're small, nonthreatening," he explains. "China, I think, wants to learn from us about how to deal with other, larger players." Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption toggle caption Rob Schmitz/NPR Charles Finny served as the lead negotiator in New Zealand's free trade agreement with China. He believes China is using his country as a testing ground for diplomatic relations with other developed nations. "We're small, nonthreatening," he explains. "China, I think, wants to learn from us about how to deal with other, larger players." Rob Schmitz/NPR Finny believes the same to be true in politics. He says China has most likely been using New Zealand as a testing ground for diplomatic relations with other developed nations."We're small, nonthreatening," he explains. "We're not as close to the United States. China, I think, wants to learn from us about how to deal with other, larger players. It's very common for Chinese leaders when they're just about to be appointed to a big position to come to New Zealand to learn about democracy, to learn about how to deal with the media, to learn there are going to be some protests — all these things that are going to be a much bigger factor in bigger relationships, they get to learn how to deal with it here."A weak link in the "Five Eyes"?After New Zealand's intelligence agency began looking into Yang's background in 2016, he was removed from parliamentary select committees on foreign affairs, defense and trade. But he hung on to his seat in Parliament, leaving some wondering why."The answer to that is not something that can be given today, but it is an answer that will soon have to come from our country and our system as to what our response is," Winston Peters, New Zealand's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, tells NPR. "At that level of growing public interest — and I would think intelligence interest as well — plus the shared intelligence from our closer allies, one would be naive in thinking that our response would not be forthcoming." Enlarge this image Some wonder why Jian Yang still serves in New Zealand's Parliament after questions arose over his connections to China's military intelligence. "The answer to that is not something that can be given today," Winston Peters (above), New Zealand's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, tells NPR. Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption toggle caption Rob Schmitz/NPR Some wonder why Jian Yang still serves in New Zealand's Parliament after questions arose over his connections to China's military intelligence. "The answer to that is not something that can be given today," Winston Peters (above), New Zealand's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, tells NPR. Rob Schmitz/NPR Analysts in the U.S. and Australia have suggested the Yang case is evidence that China is exploiting New Zealand as a weak link in what's known as the "Five Eyes," the intelligence alliance including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This angers Peters. He is the longest-serving parliamentarian in New Zealand's history and has long been vocal about his country's dependence on China, but he draws the line when his country is criticized for being used as a political tool for the Chinese."This country turned up to two world wars, two years before the United States on both occasions," he points out. "So we don't like that sort of talk down here.""To suggest that New Zealand may be naive, well, OK, fine," says Stephen Jacobi, executive director of the New Zealand China Council, a group in Auckland promoting business ties. "We don't have to see the world the same way Americans do, or even Australians do. We're very proud of that."Jacobi says the evidence against Yang — who serves on the board of his organization — is largely hearsay and is not enough to prove that he is working for China's government.In previous positions as private secretary to the New Zealand minister for trade negotiations and executive director of the New Zealand United States Council, Jacobi spent a decade trying, unsuccessfully, to sign a free trade agreement with the government of the United States. "It was the sort of FTA we have with China," he says. "We could not get an FTA with the United States because we're too small." Enlarge this image "New Zealand has to maintain relationships across the board with everybody," says Stephen Jacobi, the executive director of the New Zealand-China Council and a former diplomat. Jacobi worked for years to try to get the U.S. to sign a free trade agreement with New Zealand. In the end, Washington refused, but China signed one. Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption toggle caption Rob Schmitz/NPR "New Zealand has to maintain relationships across the board with everybody," says Stephen Jacobi, the executive director of the New Zealand-China Council and a former diplomat. Jacobi worked for years to try to get the U.S. to sign a free trade agreement with New Zealand. In the end, Washington refused, but China signed one. Rob Schmitz/NPR Jacobi says New Zealand's business community was encouraged when the United States finally joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping trade agreement among economies throughout the Asia-Pacific region that excluded China — only to watch as President Trump withdrew the United States."The Chinese have given us a free trade agreement," says Jacobi. "You won't hear me saying we shouldn't be doing more with the U.S., but New Zealand has to maintain relationships across the board with everybody.""Magic weapons"The work of a fellow New Zealander has shone the brightest spotlight on how cozier relationships with the Chinese government may be threatening New Zealand's democratic system.In a report released last year, Anne-Marie Brady, a University of Canterbury professor in Christchurch, New Zealand, takes a deep dive into the activities of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department — an agency Brady says Chinese leader Xi has revived, directing it to guide, buy and coerce political influence abroad.The report, "Magic Weapons: China's Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping," includes a comprehensive analysis of China's foreign influence operations under the Communist Party."Xi is running China in crisis mode," says Brady, "and China under Xi is following a very ambitious, a very assertive foreign policy. The United Front Work, when aimed at the outside world, is meant to support that."In her report, Brady, a global fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., examines how the United Front operates abroad, helping influence media, politicians and members of the Chinese diaspora. Her detailed investigation of China's influence operations in New Zealand includes discussion of Yang and other Chinese-born members of Parliament and the fundraising efforts they're involved in for their respective political parties. Enlarge this image Chinese President Xi Jinping, shown here during the opening session of the 19th Communist Party Congress in Beijing, "is running China in crisis mode," says New Zealand academic Anne-Marie Brady, "and China under Xi is following a very ambitious, a very assertive foreign policy." Lintao Zhang/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Chinese President Xi Jinping, shown here during the opening session of the 19th Communist Party Congress in Beijing, "is running China in crisis mode," says New Zealand academic Anne-Marie Brady, "and China under Xi is following a very ambitious, a very assertive foreign policy." Lintao Zhang/Getty Images As she began researching United Front activities since Xi Jinping came to power five years ago, she says, she felt an obligation to write her report so other countries would understand the nature of the threat.Brady's report has attracted the attention of governments and policy experts throughout the developed world. Earlier this year, Australia's Parliament invited her to speak, and she gave three talks in one day during a visit to Washington, D.C.Her work may have also attracted the attention of Chinese authorities. When she spoke at Australia's Parliament, Brady announced her office and home had both been burgled and that before one of the break-ins, she received a letter warning that she would be attacked."Items related to my work were taken, while valuables were not. It was a pretty unusual kind of burglary," Brady tells NPR.Brady's laptops, phones and flash drives were stolen — everything, she says, that was directly related to her research into Chinese Communist Party influence operations in New Zealand. But Brady is continuing to investigate China's influence operations."If a country like New Zealand — a fiercely independent, democratic country like New Zealand — if we can't protect sovereignty and uphold the integrity of our political system at the same time as maintaining a positive relationship with China, then we've entered a very dangerous era in global politics," she says. "It should be possible for a small state or a medium-sized state or a large state to say to another state: 'It's not OK for you interfere in my politics' and continue to maintain a positive relationship with that nation."In the summary of her report, Brady writes that democracies have magic weapons, too: the right to choose governments; checks on power; freedom of speech and association and a free press. Now, she writes, is the time to use them.NPR Shanghai bureau assistant Yuhan Xu contributed research to this story.

Voices from across Brazil’s political spectrum have condemned the son of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, after he suggested hardline dictatorship-era tactics might be needed to crush his father’s leftist foes.Eduardo Bolsonaro made the incendiary remarks – which many observers suspect were a deliberate distraction from renewed media speculation over the family’s links to organized crime – during a softball YouTube interview broadcast on Thursday.In the interview the 35-year-old congressman claimed – without offering evidence – that the recent wave of Latin American protests and the left’s return to power in Argentina were part of a Cuba-funded conspiracy to bring “revolution” to Latin America.“If the left radicalizes to this extent [in Brazil] we will need to respond, and that response could come via a new AI-5,” said Bolsonaro, who is the regional representative of Steve Bannon’s far-right group “The Movement”.Quick GuideBrazil's dictatorship 1964-1985ShowHow did it began?Brazil’s leftist president, João Goulart, was toppled in a coup in April 1964. General Humberto Castelo Branco became leader, political parties were banned, and the country was plunged into 21 years of military rule.The repression intensified under Castelo Branco’s hardline successor, Artur da Costa e Silva, who took power in 1967. He was responsible for a notorious decree called AI-5 that gave him wide ranging dictatorial powers and kicked off the so-called “anos de chumbo” (years of lead), a bleak period of tyranny and violence which would last until 1974.What happened during the dictatorship?Supporters of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime - including Jair Bolsonaro - credit it with bringing security and stability to the South American country and masterminding a decade-long economic “miracle”.It also pushed ahead with several pharaonic infrastructure projects including the still unfinished Trans-Amazonian highway and the eight-mile bridge across Rio’s Guanabara bay.But the regime, while less notoriously violent than those in Argentina and Chile, was also responsible for murdering or killing hundreds of its opponents and imprisoning thousands more. Among those jailed and tortured were Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, then a leftwing rebel.It was also a period of severe censorship. Some of Brazil’s best-loved musicians - including Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso - went into exile in Europe, writing songs about their enforced departures.How did it end?Political exiles began returning to Brazil in 1979 after an amnesty law was passed that began to pave the way for the return of democracy.But the pro-democracy “Diretas Já” (Direct elections now!) movement only hit its stride in 1984 with a series of vast and historic street rallies in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.Civilian rule returned the following year and a new constitution was introduced in 1988. The following year Brazil held its first direct presidential election in nearly three decades.That was a reference to one of the most traumatic events in recent Brazilian history – December 1968’s Institutional Act Number Five (AI-5) - when Brazil’s military rulers moved to extinguish growing political unrest by indefinitely outlawing freedom of expression and assembly and closing congress.“The AI-5 was an instrument intended to intimidate people … It allowed the dictatorship to repress all opposition and dissent,” the historians Lilia Schwarz and Heloisa M Starling wrote in their recent “biography” of Brazil.As a new era of suppression began and dissidents fled into exile, one newspaper tried to skirt the censors with a now famous front page weather forecast that announced: “Stormy weather. Suffocating temperature. Air unbreathable. The country is being swept by strong winds.”“AI-5 was such a symbolic moment because it signalled the intensification of the military movement’s authoritarianism,” Schwarz said.In a country still grappling with the legacy of those grim days of authoritarian rule, Bolsonaro’s provocation – for which he later offered a partial apology – sparked outrage, from left to right.“Declarations such as those of Eduardo Bolsonaro are repugnant,” the speaker of Brazil’s lower house, Rodrigo Maia, tweeted.“The AI-5 … suspended rights and introduced censorship: an authoritarian’s dream. The dream of the [Bolsonaro] clan,” tweeted Joice Hasselmann, a disaffected Bolsonaro ally. “We cannot allow this serious attack on democracy.”Leftwing politicians vowed to seek the politician’s removal from office. “Eduardo is a spoiled brat bawling his authoritarian desires … We will not stand for it,” tweeted the progressive senator Randolfe Rodrigues, summoning Brazilians to a day of “anti-authoritarian” protests next Tuesday.Schwarz called Bolsonaro’s remarks a Trumpian bid to distract from compromising media reports that undermined the Bolsonaro family’s “moral standing”.“It’s a bit like Donald Trump’s tendency: every time you feel a scandal drawing near … you do something to draw attention away from that matter and put it somewhere else,” she said.Foreign observers were also aghast. “I never thought I would … hear such nonsense out of Brazil,” one veteran ambassador told the Brazilian journalist Jamil Chade.The controversy caps an anarchic week in Brazilian politics.In the early hours of Wednesday Brazil’s president launched a furious tirade against the “putrid” press from a hotel room in Saudi Arabia. That outburst came after Brazil’s top broadcaster revealed the investigation into the 2018 assassination of the leftist politician Marielle Franco suggested the suspects had met at Bolsonaro’s compound before the attack.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has stepped down hours after agreeing to call new elections, the New York Times reports. The plan to hold new elections stemmed from a damning report from the Organization of American States (OAS) released Sunday that found “clear manipulations” of the voting process during the country’s October 20 elections. Morales has faced mounting pressure in recent weeks after squeezing out an electoral victory after 24 hours of silence from electoral officials on election night. Questions over how Morales went from facing a runoff before that period of silence to winning the election outright caused leading opposition groups to allege election fraud and demonstrations to unfold in the streets. At least three people have died during the protests. The OAS report found the results had indeed been tampered with: “The manipulations to the [electoral] computer systems are of such magnitude that they must be deeply investigated by the Bolivian State to get to the bottom of and assign responsibility in this serious case,” the OAS report read. The OAS recommended Bolivian officials dissolve the existing electoral body, which has been accused of being run by Morales supporters, and hold another election. Morales said Sunday that he’d abide by those recommendations. Following calls for his resignation by members of the armed forces, opposition leaders, and the public, Morales announced his resignation Sunday evening. The decision follows weeks of raucous antigovernment protests across the country. Demonstrators have burned down the headquarters of local election offices, set up blockades, and paraded a mayor barefoot through the streets after cutting her hair and showering her in paint.On Saturday, police forces refused to crack down on the protests and the military refused to restore order in their place, releasing a statement saying, “We will never confront the people to whom we have a duty and we will always ensure peace, coexistence and the development of our homeland.”Sunday, General Williams Kaliman told reporters, “After analysing the conflicted domestic situation, we ask the president to resign his presidential mandate to allow for pacification and the maintaining of stability, for the good of our Bolivia.”And that resignation was met by widespread celebration: — Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) November 10, 2019 Protesters’ concerns about Morales, Latin America’s longest-standing leader, began well before the October election. Morales is a former union leader who became Bolivia’s first indigenous president, winning election in 2006. He came to power alongside a wave of leftist candidates in Latin America.Under his leadership, lawmakers put together a new constitution allowing a sitting president only one consecutive reelection. Morales called for another election in 2009, won it, and argued it was his first election under the new government — allowing him to run again in 2014. With critics arguing Morales had already illegally won reelection twice, Morales called for a referendum in 2016 asking to change the constitution so that presidents would be allowed three consecutive terms. Voters rejected it, but Morales convinced the country’s top court (packed with his supporters) it was legal to let him run, arguing term limits constitute a human rights violation. Going into the 2019 election, polls indicated Morales wouldn’t be able to receive enough votes to avoid a runoff. A candidate for president in Bolivia needs at least 50 percent of the vote to win, or failing that, a 10 percentage point lead on their nearest rival. Early vote counts indicated Morales would fail to meet either criteria, and as publicly available results seemed to increasingly confirm this, the electoral council abruptly stopped counting votes. A full day later, they announced the results: Somehow, Morales had barely surpassed the amount of votes necessary to avoid a runoff against former President Carlos Mesa, his closest competitor. Mesa called that result a “shameful and crude alteration of the result of our vote” and the OAS said it “generates loss of confidence in the electoral process.” The European Union, United Nations, United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia agreed. Thousands saw the results as clear election fraud and took to the streets, reportedly shouting slogans such as, “No, and no, I don’t want to live in a dictatorship like the one in Venezuela.” The protests make Bolivia the latest Latin American county to become enveloped in demonstrations, as unrest continues in Chile and was recently resolved in Ecuador. That’s a result of a variety of factors, Foreign Policy’s Christopher Sabatini and Anar Bata write, including economic downturns and frustrations over political promises collapsing. The crux of the issue though, they argue, is broad distrust of politicians regardless of party affiliation. A study from Vanderbilt University found that more than 80 percent of people across the region think more than half of their politicians are corrupt — in Bolivia, only around 16 percent trust political parties. It’s not clear yet when the public in Bolivia will have another chance to choose their president. Nor is it clear who the public will have to choose from. Mesa has signaled he plans to run. And Morales will be watching from the sidelines.

Can I say in response how welcome it is, even joyful that for the first time in this long saga, this house has actually accepted its responsibilities together, come together, and embraced a deal?I congratulate honourable members across the house on the scale of our collective achievement because, just a few weeks ago, hardly anybody believed that we could reopen the withdrawal agreement, let alone abolish the backstop. That is indeed what they were saying.And certainly nobody thought we could secure the approval of the house for a new deal and we should not overlook the significance of this moment.And I pay particular tribute to those members of the house who were sceptical and who had difficulties and doubts and who decided to place the national interest ahead of any other consideration.I must express my disappointment that the house has again voted for delay, rather than a timetable that would have guaranteed that the UK would be in a position to leave the EU on 31 October with a deal.And we now face further uncertainty and the EU must make up their minds over how to answer parliament’s request for a delay. And the first consequence, Mr Speaker, is that the government must take the only responsible course and accelerate our preparations for a no-deal outcome.

Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, who has become a key witness in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women who say he retaliated against them after they rejected his advances.In one case, a potential business partner recalled that Sondland took her on a tour in a hotel he owned, then grabbed her face and try to kiss her. After she rejected his advances, Sondland backtracked on investing in her business, she told ProPublica, which broke the story on Wednesday.Another woman recounted that Sondland exposed himself to her during a business interaction.And a third woman, 27 years younger than Sondland, said she met him to discuss job opportunities and instead he pushed himself against her and kissed her, so that she was obliged to shove him away, after which he stopped assisting her career.Sondland, who testified last week that he considered Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and the 2016 election as Donald Trump held up the country’s military aid to be a definite case of quid pro quo, denied the allegations in a statement.“These untrue claims of unwanted touching and kissing are concocted and, I believe, coordinated for political purposes,” Sondland said. “They have no basis in fact, and I categorically deny them.”Sondland’s lawyer even suggested the women may be retaliating against the ambassador after failed business opportunities. “Notably, what each of these three women share in common is that they pursued Ambassador Sondland for financial and personal gain – an investment, a job and insurance brokerage work – and he declined their proposals,” said lawyer Jim McDermott.McDermott added that the timing of the article’s publication could be viewed as “veiled witness tampering”, but the authors of the piece noted they began reporting on the story last month.Sondland’s website posted a statement, referring to “underhanded journalism”.The three women accusing Sondland of sexual misconduct all shared their names and allegations on the record with ProPublica.One of Sondland’s accusers is Nicole Vogel, the owner of Portland Monthly, which co-published the report about the allegations against the ambassador. An editor’s note specifies that Vogel was not involved in editorial decisions about the piece.Vogel said Sondland tried to forcibly kiss her when she was raising money to start the magazine in 2003. Sondland, who owns five hotels in Portland, Oregon, with his company Provenance Hotel Group, had already said he would invest in the magazine when he invited Vogel to see one of the rooms at his nearby property.According to Vogel, she lavished praise on the rather mundane room and was turning to leave when Sondland asked for a hug. “And as I pulled back, he grabs my face and goes to kiss me,” Vogel said. “I said, ‘Ooh Gordon, you’re a married man, and you’d just break my heart.’”Vogel then hurried to leave the hotel. A few weeks later, after another uncomfortable encounter in which Sondland put his hand on her thigh, he told Vogel he would not be investing in the magazine after all.Meanwhile, a second woman, Jana Solis, has accused Sondland of exposing himself to her and forcibly kissing her when she was inspecting some of his properties and possessions in 2008.Sondland had asked Solis to evaluate his personal art collection, even though she didn’t have expertise in art valuations. At one point, Sondland asked her to meet him in the pool house.“I get out to the pool house, and he is now naked from the waist down,” Solis told ProPublica.She extricated herself safely and diplomatically from the situation but a few months later while working at a Sondland hotel, he invited her to the penthouse, which served as his private living quarters. Solis remembers Sondland asking her to have a drink on the couch with him, which she agreed to.“The next thing I know, he’s all over me,” Solis said. “He’s on top of me. He’s kissing me, shoving his tongue down my throat. And I’m trying to wiggle out from under him, and the next thing you know, I’m sort of rising up to get away from him, and I fall over the back of the couch.”Solis said Sondland later called her at work to yell about her professional performance, which she blamed on her rejection of his advances.A third woman, Natalie Sept, said Sondland offered to help her with her career in 2010 but he cut off communication after she rejected a forcible kiss from the hotel owner. Topics Trump administration US politics Sexual harassment news

Judge Sunita Mahtabfar, presiding over the El Paso immigration court in south-west Texas, kicked off the hearing by asking the 16 asylum seekers a question.“Is anyone here afraid to return to Mexico?” she said.There was a chorus of “Sí”, at least from the adults. Three of the four children in court dozed, slumped against their parents on the unforgiving wooden benches. They had been up for hours, having been summoned to a meeting point in Juárez at 4.30am. One five-year-old boy was lying on the carpet floor, softly singing as he played with a plastic water bottle.“Let me ask it a different way,” Mahtabfar said. “If anyone here is not afraid to return to Mexico, please raise your hand.”No hands were raised.Most of the 16 people in court had made the long, frequently dangerous, journey from their homes in Central America, hoping to live in the United States.But upon arriving at the US-Mexico border, and attempting to apply for asylum, they had instead been ordered back across the Rio Grande River that forms the border here, to Juárez – one of the most dangerous cities in the world.This was the first hearing in a months-long process to determine whether they will be granted asylum in the US. It got off to an inauspicious start. The court’s computer system was experiencing difficulties. After changing out the desktop computer at the judge’s desk three times, the hearing was eventually switched to a different room. It was 10.30am, two hours behind schedule, before the session began. While they waited for a working computer, the people in court were kept under heavy security. To use the bathroom, each was escorted by security guards, there and back. They would be returned to Juárez immediately after the hearing.Their exile to wait in limbo in Mexico is the result of the Trump administration’s controversial Remain in Mexico, or Migrant Protection Protocols policy, which has turned back tens of thousands of women, men and children since being introduced in March.With little money, these asylum seekers are forced to live in shelters, in abandoned properties or sometimes on the streets just south of the US border, in cities where immigrants have been sexually assaulted, kidnapped and murdered.On 17 July those in the court, a small, windowless room on the seventh floor of an austere building in downtown El Paso, were well aware of the danger in Juárez. Many were terrified of returning.One 24-year-old woman, wearing a grey T-shirt with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, sobbed as she pleaded with the judge to let her stay in the US. She was living in Juárez on her own, she said, and a group of men had been following her in recent days.She said she was aware that she was not meant to enter the US without permission, and had intended to wait in Juárez until she was allowed to enter.“But when I went to work at 8am in the morning there were some people following me,” she said.“So I turned myself in at the bridge.”Another woman, a 26-year-old from Cuba, had tried to enter the US on 4 May, but had been sent back to Juárez. She, too, was in tears as she told the judge she was in danger in Mexico.“I just wanted to tell you I have an affidavit from my family, who are American citizens,” she said through the court translator.“I am over here by myself in Mexico, and it is quite hard for me to be here by myself.”Under Remain in Mexico, the judge told her: “Unfortunately that is not possible.” Both women were told they could have “credible fear” interviews – essentially where a government official gauges how much danger they would be in if they returned to Mexico – but there were no guarantees. The interviews are not open to the press.The Guardian spent two days attending the El Paso federal immigration court, gaining an insight into the fear, confusion and, in some cases, incompetence, that the Trump administration’s immigration policies have led to on the US-Mexico border.Despite the well-documented, appalling conditions in some government detention centers north of the border, there was a stream of people pleading to taken into US custody. One woman, María, said she was afraid to return to Juárez. Two men had been killed two blocks away from where she was staying. A Cuban man said five of his countrymen had been kidnapped in recent weeks.But some of the most harrowing stories coming to light were of the people who had not made it to court.On Wednesday, the attorney for a 19-year-old Honduran told Judge Nathan Herbert that the teenager was unable to make her court date because she had gone missing.The woman had attended court for her preliminary hearing on 22 May. She had told the judge she was afraid to return to Juárez, and was granted a credible fear interview. She was deemed not to be in danger, and was sent back to Mexico, with instructions to reappear in court in July.The 19-year-old has not been seen or heard from since.“The last contact was 22 May,” immigration attorney John Moore said in court.Moore said the day she returned to Mexico was the last day she used WhatsApp, her primary mode of communication, and she never returned to the shelter where she had been staying. Despite hiring a private investigator, Moore had been unable to contact the sponsor the teenager had named in the US, or her family.The judge heard all this on Wednesday afternoon, then tried the 19-year-old’s case in absentia anyway. She was refused entry to the US. Her bid for asylum was denied.In El Paso, where thousands of migrants have arrived in the past few months, few are able to find lawyers amid the chaos.Instead, many attempt to represent themselves – an almost impossible task, given that asylum application papers are legal documents that have to be filed in English, with supporting evidence also translated into English by a certified translator.Until recently, immigration advocates were allowed to speak to asylum seekers in court, before their cases are heard. They could explain what the hearing would entail – many migrants believe that on their first day in court they might be admitted to the US immediately, when in reality it is a months-long, arcane process – and advise them of their rights.But in an example of the on-the-hoof policy introduced in courts, that was abruptly stopped on 24 June.“All these people are at imminent risk of danger and I could be helping them with that, for free,” said Taylor Levy, an immigration lawyer who was in court on Tuesday, and has previously represented immigrants in El Paso pro-bono.Levy said she was given no prior warning by court officials that she would no longer be able to talk to asylum seekers, until the day it happened.A week later, she was told she could no longer give out coloring books and crayons, something she had been doing for months to help occupy children while their parents pleaded their cases during the long hearings in court.Adam Serwer, a staff writer for the Atlantic, coined the phrase “the cruelty is the point” to describe Donald Trump’s approach to politics. The term was swiftly picked up and applied, in particular, to the government’s approach to immigrants: the children in cages, the people crammed in dirty shelters or border detention. And the asylum seekers who have terrifying stories of violence and exploitation in their home countries, then are turned around and sent to wait in fear in Mexico. It was deliberate, some have argued, designed to stop people seeking asylum in the US.There is evidence that the practice might be working.On the Tuesday afternoon, a 30-year-old Honduran man named Darwin sat at the front of the court with his 10-year-old son, Christopher. They had crossed the Rio Grande, at El Paso, on 7 June. He was hoping for a better life, looking “to work, and for him to study”, Darwin said, gesturing towards Christopher.Both looked exhausted, red-eyed and dishevelled. Christopher seemed to be crying as his father spoke, to tell the judge that he had changed his mind about entering the US.“We already spent one month in Mexico,” Darwin said, through the court interpreter.“We haven’t been able to sleep for two nights. Look at him, and look at me.”The judge told Darwin that he and Christopher would be taken into custody, and flown back to Honduras. Despite the gang violence and unemployment that has caused thousands of people to flee their country, both father and son looked relieved to be returning home – at least to bring their ordeal at the US border to an end.Perhaps the cruelty really is the point. Topics US immigration US-Mexico border Texas Law (US) Mexico Americas features

The head of China’s state-sanctioned Protestant church has claimed that western forces are trying to use Christianity to influence society and “subvert” the government, saying that Chinese Christians needed to follow a Chinese model of the religion.China’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but since President Xi Jinping took office six years ago, the government has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist party.The government has cracked down on underground churches, both Protestant and Catholic, even as it seeks to improve relations with the Vatican.In a speech on Monday, Xu Xiaohong, the head of the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China, said there were many problems with Christianity in the country, including “infiltration” from abroad and “private meeting places”.“It must be recognised that our movement’s surname is ‘China’ and not ‘Western’,” Xu said, according to remarks reported on Tuesday by the United Front Work Department, which is in charge of co-opting non-communists, ethnic minorities and religious groups.“Anti-China forces in the west are trying to continue to influence China’s social stability and even subvert our country’s political power through Christianity, and it is doomed to fail,” he said, speaking to parliament’s largely ceremonial advisory body.“For individual black sheep who, under the banner of Christianity, participate in subverting national security, we firmly support the country to bring them to justice.“Only by eliminating the “stigma of foreign religion” in China’s Christianity can its believers benefit society, he added.“Only by continually drawing on the fine traditions of Chinese culture, can China’s Christianity be rooted in the fertile soil of Chinese culture and become a religion recognised by the Chinese themselves,” Xu added. “Only by continuously carrying forward and practising the core values of socialism can our Christianity truly be suited to socialist society.”China has been following a policy it calls the “Sinicisation” of religion, trying to root out foreign influences and enforce obedience to the Communist party.Restrictions on religion have attracted particular concern in the US. Last week, during a visit to Hong Kong, the US ambassador for religious freedom called on Beijing to end religious persecution.What China calls a deradicalisation programme in its restive far western region of Xinjiang has also caused widespread opprobrium in western capitals and amongst rights groups, who say authorities have been placing Muslims there in internment camps. The government says they are vocational training centres where people are sent to learn about the law and the Mandarin language.Yang Jie, an imam from Xinjiang, told the same advisory body on Monday that some adherents had poor “religious and civic awareness”, which made them vulnerable to “the temptation and incitement of religious extremist forces”.They mistakenly believed their religion came before their citizenship, and that certain illegal acts were a “firm expression of faith”, Yang said. “This wrong view and behaviour has seriously affected social stability, ethnic unity and religious harmony, and has vilified the social image of the Muslim community and must be resolutely stopped.” Topics China Christianity Asia Pacific Religion news

closeVideoGeraldo Rivera on the DACA 'political football' and debate over DreamersFox News correspondent at large Geraldo Rivera reacts to the Supreme Court ruling on 'Fox & Friends.'Fox News correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera said on Friday that after President Trump tried to negotiate with congressional Democrats on immigration policy, the Supreme Court’s decision on DACA forced the commander in chief to become an “ardent opponent” of the Obama-era program which protects from deportation those who illegally arrived in the U.S. as children.“The president wanted the Democrats' support for his border wall and he was willing to give in on DACA in exchange. The Democrats indicated initially they would go along with it and then they kind of stabbed the president in the back,” Rivera told “Fox & Friends.”TRUMP SIGNS SOCIAL MEDIA EXECUTIVE ORDER THAT CALLS FOR REMOVAL OF LIABILITY PROTECTIONS OVER 'CENSORING'The 5-4 decision, in which Roberts voted with the Court's so-called "liberal wing," found that the Trump administration did not take the proper steps to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) while rejecting arguments that the program is illegal and that courts have no role to play in reviewing the decision to end it.In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas criticized his colleagues for what he called "an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision" and contended that DACA was illegal from the moment it was created under the Obama administration in 2012."The Court could have made clear that the solution respondents seek must come from the Legislative Branch," Thomas wrote. "Instead, the majority has decided to prolong [the Department of Homeland Security's initial overreach by providing a stopgap measure of its own."In the majority opinion, Roberts wrote that the ruling "[does] do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies." While the Department of Homeland Security can try again to end the DACA program, any new order -- and the inevitable legal challenges -- will likely take months or even years to be dispensed with.“I think there is room for a compromise but the president, at the very least, has suffered an abrupt defeat, at least, temporarily by the Chief Justice,” Rivera added.Rivera said that Trump has been shocked by conservative jurists who have taken liberal positions in recent decisions.“He says these people certainly don’t like me. He’s certainly going to campaign on filling whatever empty seats he gets the opportunity to fill if he gets elected a second term,” Rivera said.

SHENZHEN, China—Huawei Technologies Co. may be considered the bogeyman of the global telecom-equipment industry in some Washington circles, but in Mountain View, Wyo., it’s a hero.That’s where Union Wireless, a 103-year-old carrier that provides telephone and wireless service to 50,000 customers in five Western states, is singing its praises. Four years ago, Union turned to Huawei after its previous equipment vendor fell behind schedule on a critical network upgrade, says Brian Woody, customer-relations chief.Huawei “worries about getting the problem fixed first and then worries about getting paid,” Mr. Woody says, which is important to a family-owned business working to maintain communication systems in mountainous territory. “We’ve had many vendors over the years. Huawei has treated us better than anybody.”Huawei appeared shut out of the U.S. six years ago after congressional investigators determined that its equipment could be used for spying or crippling the U.S. telecommunications network. Their conclusions and recommendations, delivered in a report in 2012 just as Huawei was gaining traction in the U.S., effectively killed Huawei’s chances to win business from major U.S. carriers. There was no law saying they couldn’t partner with Huawei, but the political costs could have been steep.Not so for small carriers such as Union Wireless, which fly under the national radar. The Chinese telecom giant has given them a much-needed equipment option in a quickly narrowing field. Four years ago, Mr. Woody says he had about five suppliers besides Huawei to choose from. Today, he has only two.

closeVideoStrassel: IG report a triumph for Nunes, trouble for SchiffThe DOJ inspector general report is a devastating indictment of Steele, Fusion GPS and the 'dossier,' Fox News contributor Kim Strassel says.CNN had to walk back a report the network made back in September 2017 that claimed former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had been "wiretapped" by the U.S. government following the release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz's report on the origins of the Russia investigation.According to the DOJ watchdog, the federal investigators leading the Russia probe "did not seek [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] surveillance of Manafort" and later stressed that "we are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort."But, as pointed out by the Washington Free Beacon, Horowitz's findings contradicted CNN's own reporting and ultimately led to a correction from the 2017 report.DURHAM'S OBJECTIONS TO IG FINDINGS SLAMMED BY CNN, MSNBC PERSONALITIES: 'COULD'VE JUST KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT'"On December 9, 2019, the Justice Department Inspector General released a report regarding the opening of the investigation on Russian election interference and Donald Trump's campaign," an "editor's note" began. "In the report, the IG contradicts what CNN was told in 2017, noting that the FBI team overseeing the investigation did not seek FISA surveillance of Paul Manafort." CNN was forced to correct a 2017 report on Paul Manafort, a former campaign chairman for President Trump. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File, Montage)CNN previously reported that Manafort was wiretapped "under secret court orders before and after the election" according to unnamed sources."Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive," CNN's now-debunked report continued.