Author Archives: News Sources

Funding terrorism: Antiquities looted by ISIS are destined to be bought by Western art collectors

The Wall Street Journal reports: A stream of plundered antiquities flowing out of Syria and Iraq to Western art collectors is dependent on men like Muhammad hajj Al-Hassan.

Mr. Al-Hassan, a 28-year-old Syrian, says he started to trade antiquities in 2015 after being contacted by a top official of Islamic State who sought his archaeological expertise to find Western buyers.

Later, he became a cog in an international supply chain smuggling art looted by ISIS.

ISIS’s territorial grip is fading fast: Iraq has declared victory over the terrorist group in Mosul and ISIS is fighting to hold its self-proclaimed Syrian capital Raqqa—the last major city under its control. But the group’s legacy of looting will linger for many years, law-enforcement officials say, in much the same way that art looted by the Nazis continues to surface 70 years later. The ancient statues, jewelry and artifacts that ISIS has stolen in Syria and Iraq, are already moving underground and may not surface for decades, according to these officials and experts in the trade.

Once a smuggled artifact lands with an art dealer in Europe or the U.S., the journey is still not over. To “launder” their origin, smuggled artifacts can be stored in warehouses for years and an ownership history is fabricated, according to a French security official and the Bulgarian report.

In the June House Committee hearing, Mr. Daniels said that it could take six to nine years for the art now being smuggled to hit public sale. A U.S. security official involved in investigations into art trafficking said it could take over 10 years in some cases.

Traffickers often use old typewriters to backdate certificates of ownership, another French official said. Objects are also moved from dealer to dealer to create a fake paper trail that makes their ownership harder to prosecute, said Mr. Danti, the director at the Cultural Heritage Initiatives.

There are around 20 major art galleries and trading houses in Western European cities that offer smuggled artifacts, the Bulgarian report said, without naming them. “The trade’s main target buyers are, ironically, history enthusiasts and art aficionados in the United States and Europe—representatives of the societies which ISIS has pledged to destroy,” Mr. Fanusie told Congress last April.

The FBI has a $5 million reward for any information about looted materials coming into the U.S. from Syria and Iraq. No one has come forward to claim a reward, law-enforcement officials say. [Continue reading…]

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The curious case of ‘Nicole Mincey,’ the Trump fan who may actually be a Russian bot

The Washington Post reports: Early Saturday morning, President Trump tweeted his gratitude to a social-media super-fan, ­Nicole Mincey, magnifying her praise of him to his 35 million followers.

Here’s the problem: There is no evidence the Twitter feed belongs to someone named Nicole Mincey. And the account, according to experts, bears a lot of signs of a Russia-backed disinformation campaign.

On Sunday, Twitter suspended the Mincey account, known as @ProTrump45, after several other users revealed that it was probably a fake, created to amplify pro-Trump content.
The incident highlights Trump’s penchant for off-the-cuff tweeting — and the potential consequences for doing so now that he holds the nation’s highest office. Even as the president has railed against multiple investigations into Russia’s meddling in U.S. politics, he may have become Exhibit A of the foreign government’s influence by elevating a suspected Russia-connected ­social-media user — part a sophisticated campaign to exacerbate disputes in U.S. politics and gain the attention of the most powerful tweeter in the world.

“The president doesn’t know whether it’s a Russian bot or not,” said Clint Watt, a former FBI agent and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, using the term for a fake Twitter account pretending to represent a real person and created to influence public opinion or promote a particular agenda. “He’s just pushing a narrative, whether it’s true or false. This provides a window not just for Russia but for any adversary to both influence the president or discredit him.” [Continue reading…]

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The policies of white resentment

Carol Anderson writes: White resentment put Donald Trump in the White House. And there is every indication that it will keep him there, especially as he continues to transform that seething, irrational fear about an increasingly diverse America into policies that feed his supporters’ worst racial anxieties.

If there is one consistent thread through Mr. Trump’s political career, it is his overt connection to white resentment and white nationalism. Mr. Trump’s fixation on Barack Obama’s birth certificate gave him the white nationalist street cred that no other Republican candidate could match, and that credibility has sustained him in office — no amount of scandal or evidence of incompetence will undermine his followers’ belief that he, and he alone, could Make America White Again.

The guiding principle in Mr. Trump’s government is to turn the politics of white resentment into the policies of white rage — that calculated mechanism of executive orders, laws and agency directives that undermines and punishes minority achievement and aspiration. No wonder that, even while his White House sinks deeper into chaos, scandal and legislative mismanagement, Mr. Trump’s approval rating among whites (and only whites) has remained unnaturally high. Washington may obsess over Obamacare repeal, Russian sanctions and the debt ceiling, but Mr. Trump’s base sees something different — and, to them, inspiring. [Continue reading…]

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Right-wing militias are now actively supporting some state and local pro-Trump politicians

The Trace reports: Energized by Donald Trump’s coarsely confrontational nationalism, the armed right-wing fringe is doing more than stepping out of the shadows in 2017. Detachments of armed men in fatigues have become fixtures at liberal protests, forming the vanguard of what’s become known in some quarters as the “counter-resistance.”

Now, in a smattering of states with histories of right-wing extremism, chapters of groups like the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters may be emerging as even more direct political players, providing security for local pro-Trump politicians and Republican organizations. In one case, a Three Percenter was found to be employed on a state lawmaker’s staff.

When self-designated patriot groups first emerged during the early ‘90s, they identified as enemies of the “New World Order” heralded by George H.W. Bush, and tended to oppose the government, regardless of which party was in power. But experts say that the recent activity of some militia members could be evidence of a greater shift in political allegiances.

“You can’t be anti-government if your guy has the top job,” said Mark Pitcavage, who researches far-right extremism for the Anti-Defamation League.

With right-wing extremists who venerate the president looking for new enemies, some state and local politicians who are remaking partisanship in Trump’s image may see militias as a way to tighten their grip on power. The brash political style and “America First” agenda ushered into the Republican Party by Trump appeals to people in the militia movement, drawing them toward the political mainstream, said Amy Cooter, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University. Just as important, Cooter said, groups like the Three Percenters are eager for confrontation with anti-Trump liberals, who are themselves taking to the streets. “On the local level, some Republicans appear to be tapping into that agenda.” [Continue reading…]

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‘Good conservative’ Grassley ramps up his panel’s Trump-Russia probe

Bloomberg reports: Donald Trump may have annoyed the wrong man in Congress.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has been ramping up an investigation into possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign, in addition to the president’s dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey.

The plain-spoken Iowa Republican had sharply criticized the administration’s initial failure to respond to many lawmakers’ requests for information. He also hasn’t been shy about other topics, including the use of foul language by the recently dismissed White House communications chief, Anthony Scaramucci.

Grassley’s decision to move full speed ahead on Russia, including threatening Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and others with subpoenas, will likely force a more public — and unpredictable — autopsy of topics the administration would rather fade away. Grassley, working with the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, is pressing to uncover any attempts to obstruct justice or influence the presidential election. [Continue reading…]

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USDA officials advised not to use the term ‘climate change’

The Guardian reports: Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead.

A series of emails obtained by the Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a USDA unit that oversees farmers’ land conservation, show that the incoming Trump administration has had a stark impact on the language used by some federal employees around climate change.

A missive from Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, lists terms that should be avoided by staff and those that should replace them. “Climate change” is in the “avoid” category, to be replaced by “weather extremes”. Instead of “climate change adaption”, staff are asked to use “resilience to weather extremes”.

The primary cause of human-driven climate change is also targeted, with the term “reduce greenhouse gases” blacklisted in favor of “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency”. Meanwhile, “sequester carbon” is ruled out and replaced by “build soil organic matter”. [Continue reading…]

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When Trump’s Mar-a-Lago wants to hire foreign workers, local job seekers are unlikely to see there are vacancies

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club needs to hire 35 waiters for this winter’s social season in Palm Beach, Fla.

Late last month, the club placed an ad on page C8 of the Palm Beach Post, crammed full of tiny print laying out the job experience requirements in classified ad shorthand. “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club,” the ad said. “No tips.”

The ad gave no email address or phone number. “Apply by fax,” it said. The ad also provided a mailing address. It ran twice, then never again.

This was an underwhelming way to attract local job-seekers. But that wasn’t the point. The ads were actually part of Mar-a-Lago’s efforts to hire foreign workers for those 35 jobs.

About a week before the ads ran, the president’s club asked the Labor Department for permission to hire 70 temporary workers from overseas, government records show. Beside the 35 waiters, it asked for 20 cooks and 15 housekeepers, slightly more than it hired last year.

To get visas for those workers, Mar-a-Lago, like other businesses that rely on temporary employees each year, must first take legally mandated steps to look for U.S. workers. That includes placing two ads in a newspaper.

Typically, this attempt to recruit U.S. workers is a ritualized failure. Its outcome is usually a conclusion that there are no qualified Americans to hire, justifying the need for the government to issue the visas. [Continue reading…]

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Interactive timeline: Everything we know about Russia and Trump

Moyers & Company reports: From the outset, Donald Trump has called the search for the truth about connections between his 2016 campaign and Russia a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” Along the way, he has taken unprecedented steps to stop it. As President Trump foments chaos and confusion about what actually happened — and what continues to happen — this Trump/Russia timeline seeks to offer order and clarity.

Since we first launched it in February, the timeline has grown from 24 entries to more than 400 — and the saga is far from over. Reading it from start to finish is a daunting task, so we’ve added tools that enable users to narrow its content by individual. And, of course, we’ll continue updating it.

Are several congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller wasting their time on a “hoax” and a “witch hunt”? Review the timeline, follow updates as they appear and decide for yourself. [Continue reading…]

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North Korea vows to retaliate against U.S. over sanctions

BBC News reports: North Korea has vowed to retaliate and make “the US pay a price” for drafting fresh UN sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons programme.

The sanctions, which were unanimously passed by the UN on Saturday, were a “violent violation of our sovereignty,” the official KCNA news agency said.

Separately, South Korea says the North has rejected an offer to restart talks, dismissing it as insincere. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: The U.N. Security Council’s move to block countries from buying North Korean coal plugs a large loophole that allowed Chinese companies to import more North Korean coal after the first U.N. ban in 2016.

Previous bans have allowed Pyongyang to sell coal for “humanitarian” trade, but Saturday’s vote banned all coal sales in an effort to choke off funding for Kim Jong Un’s weapons programs, where much of the money was funneled, according to recent U.S. court filings.

The coal trade cited in the court documents accounted for as much as one-third of North Korean exports and helps explain how North Korea continued to develop its weapons programs despite being impoverished and under trade sanctions. The connections to the military also undermine Chinese claims that their imports were benefiting North Korean civilians. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: A Southeast Asian diplomatic meeting quietly turned into the first real multiparty bargaining session in eight years to tackle North Korea’s nuclear program, as the country’s top diplomat held a rare round of talks with his counterparts from China, South Korea and Russia.

The United States and Japan were the only members of the so-called six-party talks on the North’s nuclear ambitions, which ended in failure in 2009, whose diplomats did not meet this week with Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho of North Korea. But Rex W. Tillerson, the American secretary of state, kept the door open for talks, saying at a news conference on Monday that he had no specific preconditions for negotiating with Pyongyang.

“Well, the best signal that North Korea could give us that they are prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches,” Mr. Tillerson said.

But when asked how long such a pause would have to last before talks could go forward, Mr. Tillerson demurred. [Continue reading…]

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Diplomats question tactics of Tillerson, the executive turned Secretary of State

The New York Times reports: Even skeptics of Mr. Tillerson’s foreign policy credentials thought the State Department, an agency of 75,000 employees, could use some of the management skills he had picked up as the head of a major corporation. Mr. Tillerson was supposed to know that leaders of large organizations should quickly pick a trusted team, focus on big issues, delegate small ones and ask for help from staff members when needed.

He has done none of those things, his critics contend.

Instead, he has failed to nominate anyone to most of the department’s 38 highest-ranking jobs, leaving many critical departments without direction, while working with a few personal aides reviewing many of the ways the department has operated for decades rather than developing a coherent foreign policy.

“The secretary of state has to focus on the president, his policies and the other heads of government that he deals with, which means he cannot possibly run the department operationally himself,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a retired career diplomat and an under secretary of state for President George W. Bush. “He has to delegate, and that’s what’s missing now.” [Continue reading…]

As a $340 billion oil giant, Exxon Mobil might look like the model of success and thus efficiency, but I doubt that oil corporations operating in markets with relatively few competitors are immune to the principle that the larger an organization becomes the greater the amount of inefficiency it can sustain. So why assume that Tillerson’s business experience qualifies him to make the State Department more efficient?

Moreover, a CEO who keeps investors happy has a level of job security and lack of accountability that no secretary of state enjoys. Tillerson is currently operating as though he has no time constraints and yet he’s almost certainly little more than three years away from retirement.

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Gaza’s wasted generation has nowhere else to go

The Washington Post reports: They are the Hamas generation, raised under the firm hand of an Islamist militant movement. They are the survivors of three wars with Israel and a siege who find themselves as young adults going absolutely nowhere.

In many circles in Gaza, it is hard to find anyone in their 20s with real employment, with a monthly salary.

They call themselves a wasted generation.

Ten years after Hamas seized control of Gaza, the economy in the seaside strip of 2 million has been strangled by incompetence, war and blockade.

Gaza today lives off its wits and the recycled scraps donated by foreign governments. Seven in 10 people rely on humanitarian aid.

Young people say they are bored out of their minds.

They worry that too many of their friends are gobbling drugs, not drugs to experience ecstasy but pills used to tranquilize animals, smuggled across Sinai. They dose on Tramadol and smoke hashish. They numb.

Hamas has recently stepped up executions of drug traffickers.

Freedoms to express oneself are circumscribed. But the young people speak, a little bit. They say their leaders have failed them — and that the Israelis and Egyptians are crushing them.

Why not revolt? They laugh. It is very hard to vote the current government out — there are no elections.

“To be honest with you, we do nothing,” said Bilal Abusalah, 24, who trained to be a nurse but sometimes sells women’s clothing.

He has cool jeans, a Facebook page, a mobile phone and no money. [Continue reading…]

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Under Trump, coal mining gets new life on U.S. lands

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is wading into one of the oldest and most contentious debates in the West by encouraging more coal mining on lands owned by the federal government. It is part of an aggressive push to both invigorate the struggling American coal industry and more broadly exploit commercial opportunities on public lands.

The intervention has roiled conservationists and many Democrats, exposing deep divisions about how best to manage the 643 million acres of federally owned land — most of which is in the West — an area more than six times the size of California. Not since the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion during the Reagan administration have companies and individuals with economic interests in the lands, mining companies among them, held such a strong upper hand.

Clouds of dust blew across the horizon one recent summer evening as a crane taller than the Statue of Liberty ripped apart walls of a canyon dug deep into the public lands here in the Powder River Basin, the nation’s most productive coal mining region. The mine pushes right up against a reservoir, exposing the kind of conflicts and concerns the new approach has sparked.

“If we don’t have good water, we can’t do anything,” said Art Hayes, a cattle rancher who worries that more mining would foul a supply that generations of ranchers have relied upon.

During the Obama administration, the Interior Department seized on the issue of climate change and temporarily banned new coal leases on public lands as it examined the consequences for the environment. The Obama administration also drew protests from major mining companies by ordering them to pay higher royalties to the government. [Continue reading…]

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Flake extends his attacks on Trump and the GOP — all the way back to the dawn of birtherism

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Jeff Flake has been getting a lot of attention for his attacks on President Trump, Trump the candidate — and the senator’s own Republican Party for abetting both in recent months.

His argument is a wide-ranging conservative manifesto against Trumpism.

Against the president’s “seeming affection for strongmen and authoritarians,” as Flake wrote for Politico this week.

And against the White House’s demonization of Muslims and Mexicans, Flake (Ariz.) writes in his new book, “Conscience of a Conservative.”

And “a far-right press that too often deals in unreality,” and right-wing voters’ celebration of anger and a Republican Party that “abandoned its core principles” in the course of a single year in 2016.

And on and on goes this list of conservative betrayals in the past two years.

But Sunday, as he promoted his book on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Flake took his assault on Trumpism back years further — all the way to the pre-dawn of Trump’s political rise, to “when the birtherism thing was going on,” as Flake put it to host Chuck Todd. [Continue reading…]

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Rosenstein: Special counsel Mueller can investigate any crimes he uncovers in Russia probe

The Washington Post reports: Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein said Sunday that the expanding investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is continuing apace, even as President Trump dismissed the probe as “a total fabrication.”

Rosenstein said special counsel Robert S. Mueller III can investigate any crimes that he might discover within the scope of his probe, but the deputy attorney general would not discuss which individuals are the subject of their inquiry. The interview comes days after Trump said he believes it would be inappropriate for Mueller to dig into Trump family finances.

“The special counsel is subject to the rules and regulations of the Department of Justice, and we don’t engage in fishing expeditions,” Rosenstein said when asked about the probe in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

Rosenstein declined to comment on reports that Mueller is using a grand jury in a court in Washington to aid in his investigation but he said that such a step is a routine part of “many investigations.”

“It’s an appropriate way to gather documents, sometimes to bring witnesses in, to make sure that you get their full testimony,” Rosenstein said. “It’s just a tool that we use like any other tool in the course of our investigations.” [Continue reading…]

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Reporters not being pursued in leak investigations, Justice Dept. says

The New York Times reports: Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, said on Sunday that the Justice Department was not pursuing reporters as part of its growing number of leak investigations, just two days after he and other department officials had appeared to signal a harsher line toward journalists.

“We don’t prosecute journalists for doing their jobs,” Mr. Rosenstein said on “Fox News Sunday.” “That’s not our goal here.”

He had declined to answer such a question on Friday, telling reporters who asked whether the department would prosecute reporters that he would not “comment on any hypotheticals.”

Mr. Rosenstein’s appearance on Fox came two days after administration officials heralded a new and stiffer posture on government leaks, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions telling reporters that leak investigations had tripled under the Trump administration.

“We will not allow rogue anonymous sources with security clearances to sell out our country any longer,” Mr. Sessions said at a news conference at the department on Friday. He said he had opened a review of department rules governing when investigators may issue subpoenas related to the news media on leaks.

“The attorney general has been very clear that we’re after the leakers, not the journalist,” Mr. Rosenstein said on Fox. “We’re after the people who are committing crimes.” [Continue reading…]

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Israel moves to close Al Jazeera, ban its journalists

Al Jazeera reports: Israel plans to revoke media credentials of Al Jazeera journalists and close the network’s office in Jerusalem, the country’s communication minister has announced.

Ayoub Kara made the announcement on Sunday during a press conference in Jerusalem, where Al Jazeera was barred from attending.

“We have based our decision on the move by Sunni Arab states to close the Al Jazeera offices and prohibiting their work,” Kara said, adding that the channel is being used by groups to “incite” violence – an accusation the network has denied.

Kara said he expects Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to consider his request in the next session.

“I will go through the legislatory mechanism to create the authority in which I can act freely. We will try to end it as quickly as possible.” [Continue reading…]

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Putin critic Alexei Navalny thinks there’s a 50/50 chance he’ll be killed

CBS News reports: Russia’s main opposition figure thinks there’s a 50 percent chance he will end up dead for speaking out against President Vladimir Putin, a fate that has befallen many of the Kremlin’s enemies in recent years.

Alexei Navalny, 41, is Russia’s most outspoken critic of the Putin regime, and is campaigning to challenge Putin in Russia’s presidential election in 2018, even though he is officially barred from the ballot.

Correspondent Ryan Chilcote spent a week with Navalny for the second episode of “CBSN: On Assignment,” ahead of mass protests in June against government corruption. Thousands of young people took to the streets in cities across Russia, with protesters marching through Moscow carrying signs that read “Navalny 2018” and chanting “Putin is a crook.” More than 1,000 people were arrested, including Navalny, who spent 25 days in jail.

A lawyer by training, Navalny has been convicted three times over the past five years as his anti-corruption campaign has attracted the wrath of the Kremlin. Both he and his brother Oleg were convicted of embezzlement in 2014 and sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.

After widespread protests against the conviction, Alexei’s sentence was suspended. Oleg, however, remains in prison.

Alexei said he “absolutely” feels responsible for Oleg’s prison sentence, saying the Kremlin targeted Oleg to punish Alexei for speaking out against the regime. [Continue reading…]

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Jeff Sessions’ attack on the media is worse than you think

Kel McClanahan writes: Attorney General Jeff Sessions held a press conference to announce how avidly the Department of Justice was going to investigate and prosecute leakers of classified national security information. From now on, he said, “the Department of Justice is open for business.” (An odd statement, to be sure, suggesting that it was previously closed.) Much of what he said was nothing new—really, administrations have been going after leakers for decades—but the way he said it was clever, and not for the reasons one might think.

It is important to remember that this speech is supposed to be about leaks to the media. The title of the official transcript of his remarks is “Attorney General Jeff Sessions Delivers Remarks at Briefing on Leaks of Classified Materials Threatening National Security.” He starts out his remarks by condemning “the staggering number of leaks undermining the ability of our government to protect this country,” and explains that “no one is entitled to fight their battles in the media by revealing sensitive government information.” So, he’s obviously talking about leaks to the media, right? That’s what the briefing’s about: fighting leaks to the media. We’re all on the same page.

Except that it’s not about leaks to the media. For almost all of the remainder of his time, Sessions talks about “unauthorized disclosures of classified national security information” in general and mentions offhand that this term “includes leaks to both the media and in some cases even unauthorized disclosures to our foreign adversaries.” But he never mentions the media again until the very end, and all the middle is spent talking about criminal referrals involving unauthorized disclosures, featuring the remarkable statement, “And we have already charged four people with unlawfully disclosing classified material or with concealing contacts with foreign intelligence officers.” And it is that single sentence that makes Sessions’ push against leaks new, and very insidious. [Continue reading…]

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