Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has replaced Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud with his own son, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the deputy crown prince and defense minister.

According to a royal decree, Mohammed bin Salman, 31, was also named deputy prime minister, and shall maintain his post as defense minister, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Wednesday.

Saudi media say King Salman has called for a public pledge of allegiance to the new crown prince in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday night.

The SPA also confirmed that 31 out of 34 members of Saudi Arabia’s succession committee chose Mohammed bin Salman as the crown prince.

Just days ago,  the Saudi king stripped Nayef of his powers overseeing criminal investigations and designated a new public prosecution office to function directly under the king’s authority.

In a similar move back in 2015, the Saudi king had appointed his nephew, then deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef as the heir to the throne after removing his own half-brother Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud from the position.

Under the new decree, King Salman further relieved Mohammed bin Nayef of his duties as the interior minister. He appointed Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef as the new interior minister and Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Salem as deputy interior minister.

Mohammed bin Salman is already in charge of a vast portfolio as chief of the House of Saud royal court and chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs, which is tasked with overhauling the country’s economy.

The young prince was little known both at home and abroad before Salman became king in January 2015.

However, King Salman has significantly increased the powers of Mohammed, with observers describing the prince as the real power behind his father’s throne.

Power struggle in the House of Saud

There had long been speculations that Mohammed’s rise to power under his father’s reign might also accelerate his ascension to the throne.

On Wednesday, a well-known Saudi online activist, known on Twitter as @mujtahidd, predicted that King Salman would renounce power in favor of his son.

The whistleblower has already leaked documents indicating high-level corruption inside the Saudi royal family.

The power struggle inside the House of Saud came to light earlier this year when the Saudi king began to overhaul the government and offered positions of influence to a number of family members.

In two royal decrees in April, the Saudi king named two of his other sons, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Prince Khaled bin Salman, as state minister for energy affairs and ambassador to the United States, respectively.

Mastermind of brutal, futile war

As the defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman has faced strong international criticism for the bloody military campaign he launched against neighboring Yemen in 2015 amid his rivalry with bin Nayef, the then powerful interior minister.

The campaign was launched with the aim of restoring the former Yemeni government, a close Riyadh ally, and crushing the country’s Houthi Ansarullah movement. On the domestic political stage, the offensive was also viewed as an attempt by Mohammed bin Salman to steal the show and sideline the then crown prince.

However, despite spending billions of petrodollars, the Riyadh regime has achieved none of its goals during the campaign, which has killed over 12,000 civilians, left much of Yemen in ruins and empowered the Takfiri terror groups operating there.

On the economic front, Mohammed has been a key backer of the kingdom’s so-called Vision 2030 program, under which the Saudi leaders seek to reduce reliance on oil exports.

The plan is known as the most extensive and jarring economic shake-up of the country in decades, with economy experts describing it as too ambitious.

Mohammed bin Salman, according to analysts, appears to have orchestrated the Persian Gulf diplomatic crisis, which has seen a Saudi-led bloc of countries cutting ties with Qatar and imposed an economic siege on the country.

The diplomatic spat broke out days after a summit in Riyadh attended by US President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Saudi rulers and, in particular, Mohammed bin Salman.

Culled from Presstv

The administration of US President Donald Trump is way behind on filling key positions as hundreds of top jobs sit unfilled nearly 150 days into his term, ABC News reported. Trump has complained that the process of confirming his nominees in Congress is “record-setting long” and has blamed Democratic lawmakers for stalling the process.

However, while the Senate has taken longer to confirm Trump’s nominees than it took with nominees of the previous several presidents, the real problem may be the president’s disorganized and chaotic transition. The groundwork of lining up potential nominees for a new administration usually begins well before Election Day with candidates beginning early to identify people they would want in the executive branch.

But with the Trump election campaign and later the Trump presidential transition almost none of that preparation took place. Previous incoming presidents identified a large group of potential nominees either during the campaign or the transition. But the Trump transition was well behind schedule compared to other recent presidents in lining up candidates for key roles.

The delayed start continues to plague the administration with only 151 nominations having been announced for the more than 500 critical jobs across the executive branch that require Senate confirmation. The Obama administration had announced 284 nominations by this point, and Bush had named 245, according to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.

Trump has signed off on more than 350 nominees, which would mean that more than 200 of these people are currently undergoing a background review. The White House points to the long, behind-the-scenes process of shepherding each nominee from selection to confirmation as a key cause of the current backlog.

“Each nominee must pass a thorough background investigation before they can be officially nominated – everything from standard background checks to careful research and individual outreach to peers and colleagues,” White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters told ABC News.

Once a potential nominee is identified, it can take upwards of 45 days for that person to go through an FBI background check and a review by the Office of Government Ethics, all of which is typically done before the nominee’s name is sent to the Senate for confirmation. Trump’s nominees are taking 43 days on average to be confirmed, about 11 days longer for each person.

Culled from Presstv

US President Donald Trump will announce a significant rollback of former President Barack Obama’s accord with Cuba by imposing travel and trade restrictions on the island nation, according to a new report. Trump will announce the changes to the Obama-era policies that improved US relations with Cuba in a speech in Miami, Florida, on Friday, POLITICO reported on Thursday.

The Trump administration had put the Cuba policy under review upon taking office earlier this year, the report said. The administration aims to reinforce certain aspects of about six-decade-old trade embargo in an attempt of preventing business dealings with companies controlled by the Cuban military, according to a draft version of the directive obtained by POLITICO.

“My administration’s policy will be guided by key US national security interests and solidarity with the Cuban people,” reads the draft. “I will seek to promote a stable, prosperous, and free country for the Cuban people. To that end, we must ensure that US funds are not channeled to a regime that has failed to meet the most basic requirements of a free and just society.”

During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump threatened to “terminate” deals that the Obama administration made with Cuba. “The policy the Trump administration is announcing regarding Cuba based on President Trump’s core conviction that what the Cuban exile community is asking for is right and just,” the White House said in a written statement to POLITICO.

Obama worked to enact several changes to Cuban policy during his tenure in the White House. He re-established diplomatic relations with Havana in 2015 and loosened some restrictions on doing business in the country. Obama also gave illegal immigrants from Cuba a path to legal status and opened travel to the island nation.

Despite Obama’s effort to improve ties, the Republican-dominated Congress has refused to lift Washington’s 57-year-old embargo against Havana, which makes it illegal for US corporations to do business with Cuba. The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 and placed an official embargo against the country in 1962. The two countries became ideological foes soon after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power and their ties remained hostile even after the end of the Cold War.

Culled from Presstv

Republican Senator John McCain has said American leadership was stronger under President Barack Obama, according to a report. McCain made the remarks in an interview with The Guardian published on Sunday while responding to a question.

Asked if America’s stance on the global stage was better during the Obama administration, McCain responded, “As far as American leadership is concerned, yes.”

McCain, the chairman on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has often harshly criticized the policies of Republican President Donald Trump.

Nearly a month after Trump was sworn in as president on January 20, McCain said “in many respects this administration is in disarray and they’ve got a lot of work to do.”

In March, McCain denounced Trump’s claim that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, saying either he has to retract it or provide evidence of the allegation.

But McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, had also been very critical of the Obama administration’s foreign policy agenda.

The Guardian described the Arizona senator as “visibly irked” when he was asked about Trump’s recent Twitter assault  on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, which came shortly after a deadly attack that left eight dead and dozens injured in the heart of the British capital.

“What do you think the message is? The message is that America doesn’t want to lead,” McCain said. “They are not sure of American leadership, whether it be in Siberia or whether it be in Antarctica.”

Trump accused Khan, the first Muslim mayor of the city, of offering a “pathetic excuse” for remarks that the US president misinterpreted about policing in response to the attack that left several people dead.

Trump tweeted that Khan had to “think fast” to excuse comments that Londoners need not be alarmed after the deadly attack.

The US president’s provocative comments caused outrage among top British officials. Even British Prime Minister Theresa May, a Conservative, expressed her support for the mayor, a member of the Labour Party.

Source: Presstv

Millions of British people are preparing to cast their votes in Thursday’s general election, which has defied all initial projections and seems to be much closer than many, including Prime Minister Theresa May, had predicted.

In a time when Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) is a certainty and a round of tough negotiations with the bloc is around the corner, the ruling Conservatives are set to go head to head with a Labour Party that has slowly but steadily become a worthy opponent under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

The Vote

In mid-April, May called for a general election and overstepped earlier pledges of not doing so before 2020. Back then, the move was largely viewed as part of a cheap opportunistic strategy to win a more decisive majority in Parliament given Labour’s state of disarray.

However, Corbyn was able to turn the tide and reduce a 20-point gap with the Tories to well within the margin of error.

The vote owes its significance largely to Brexit. A historic EU referendum in June last year showed that some 52 percent of people in England were in favor of cutting the UK’s decades-long membership in the bloc

Both Corbyn and May, who was then Home Secretary, opposed the divorce but failed to sway voters.

Today, May is leading the country out of the EU and wants a stronger negotiating position after the vote while Corbyn leads a formidable opposition and, much to May’s annoyance, seeks a more active Brexit involvement for the Parliament.

The Campaign

May was off to a bad start by announcing that she would not be participating in any live debates with Corbyn or other party leaders, insisting that direct interaction with voters is more beneficial.

The decision prompted backlash among Tory and other voters alike, who wanted to see if May can handle the popular Labour leader.

The decision helped Corbyn, who took part in a much-anticipated BBC debate and bagged an easy win in a night that May had sent Home Secretary Amber Rudd to represent her.

Besides Corbyn, leaders of other parties have also deemed May’s decision as a sign of weakness and fear. The string of bad luck continued for May and her party as she was forced to reverse many of the unpopular pledges the Tories had made in their election manifesto, “Forward Together.”

Corbyn, on the other hand, scored big with voters by making popular pledges in his “For the Many not the Few” in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. The issue of security was a key debate point in the wake of the recent wave of terror attacks that rocked the UK.

The Outcome

This is arguably one of the most unpredictable UK elections in a long time. It has seen many traditional Tory and Labour supporters jump ship, with former Labour leader Toby Blair openly campaigning against his own party and in favor of the Liberal Democrats.

The fierce campaign has also drawn a clear line between the wealthy and the average class, with the former leaning towards May and her team.

Meanwhile, a surge in young voter registrations has tipped the scale in favor of Corbyn, who has attracted the most supporters in the 18-24 age bracket. The June 8 vote is certainly a milestone that sets the UK’s economic and political paths for the years coming.

Source: Presstv

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has harshly criticized Donald Trump, saying the US president’s actions have “weakened the West” and his “short-sighted” policies have hurt European Union interests.

Gabriel made the scathing remarks on the sidelines of the third round-table discussion on refugees in Berlin on Monday, after Trump concluded his first official tour abroad, which took him to Saudi Arabia, Israeli-occupied territories, Belgium and then Italy for a G7 summit.

The highlight of his multi-faceted trip was a 110-billion-dollar arms deal between Washington and Riyadh, which included the sale of ships, tanks and anti-missile systems to the kingdom.

“Anyone who accelerates climate change by weakening environmental protection, who sells more weapons in conflict zones and who does not want to politically resolve religious conflicts is putting peace in Europe at risk,” the German foreign minister said.

“The short-sighted policies of the American government stand against the interests of the European Union,” he said, adding that, “The West has become smaller; at least it has become weaker.”

Gabriel also called on Europe to stand up to the new US administration and not shy away from making criticism. “The Trump administration wants to terminate climate agreements, wants to enforce military action in crisis regions and won’t allow people from certain religious circles to enter the US,” he said.

“If the Europeans are not resolutely opposing to this right now, the migration flow to Europe will continue to grow. Those who do not oppose this US policy are guilty,” Gabriel noted. Days earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed frustration at the way Trump handled a debate on climate change in the G7 summit by refusing to sign up to upholding the 2015 Paris climate accord.

During his presidential campaign, Trump had vowed to revise US commitments under the Paris Agreement, saying the deal, which he had branded as a Chinese hoax, would seriously harm jobs inside the United States while it hugely benefits countries like China. Trump and European governments have clashed on other issues, including Trump’s criticism that NATO allies have repeatedly failed to meet the alliance’s military spending commitment of 2.0 percent of GDP.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump and his advisers are considering a major shakeup of senior White House staff in an attempt to contain the growing political and legal threat from the escalating Russia controversy.

Trump returned home on Saturday from a nine-day foreign trip that provided a respite from the crisis in Washington. As the president met with leaders and diplomats in the Middle East and Europe, senior aides met in the White House to discuss damage control.

The White House now plans to more aggressively combat the revelations about contacts between people involved in the Trump presidential campaign and Russia, including his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, The Washington Post reported.

Kushner has recently become the focus of federal investigations into possible collusion between Moscow and Trump’s campaign and transition teams.

The 36-year-old has reportedly played an active role in the effort to reshape the president’s communications team and develop an internal group to respond to the flurry of negative stories over the Russia inquiry.

Led by New York attorney, Marc E. Kasowitz, the president’s private legal team is preparing to meet in Washington to discuss new revelations about contacts between Kushner and representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Washington Post reported separately that Kushner tried to establish secret and secure communications with the Kremlin during Trump’s transition.

According to The New York Times, the channel was meant to allow then-national security adviser Michael Flynn to communicate with Moscow directly about Syria and other security issues.

Trump might personally meet with Kasowitz as early as Sunday, and his aides have recruited a number of prominent lawyers for the president to interview in hopes that they could join the legal team.

White House ‘war room’

Aides are also considering creating a White House “war room” to more aggressively push back against the Russia controversy as well as the fallout of Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI director James Comey earlier this month. Comey has authored a memo that suggested Trump asked him to drop an inquiry about Flynn’s ties to Moscow.

The damage-control plan also includes the return of some of Trump’s more combative campaign advisers, including Corey Lewandowski, who was fired as campaign manager nearly a year ago, and David N. Bossie, a former deputy campaign manager.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, has contacted people from Trump’s campaign team, asking them to be more involved in supporting the president.

The US intelligence community concluded in January that Russia tried to influence the presidential election in favor of Trump, including through an aggressive hacking campaign against senior Democrats.

The Kremlin has categorically denied the allegation. Trump has also rejected the accusation as “baseless” and has called the FBI probe a “witch hunt.”

Culled from Presstv

US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and his senior adviser Jared Kushner is under scrutiny as part of the FBI’s investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the US presidential election. Kushner is being probed for his interactions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a banker from Moscow, US media reported Friday.

Federal investigators believe Kushner has significant information relevant to their inquiry into alleged links between Trump’s campaign team and the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential elections. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion between his campaign and Russia and has described the investigation as the “greatest witch hunt” in the US history.

Despite Russia’s alleged cyber attacks of Democratic officials during last year’s presidential race to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, American intelligence officials have acknowledged there is no evidence that hackers altered the election result.

The White House is currently engulfed in crisis over allegations that Trump asked the sacked FBI chief James Comey to drop the inquiry into links between his ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn and Moscow.

Trump has admitted that Comey’s firing had to do with “the Russian thing,” raising the possibility that his son-in-law might have pushed him to dismiss the FBI chief. “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” the Times quoted Trump.

Kushner had also reportedly persuaded Trump to remove Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council‘s principals committee in early April. Trump has seemingly assigned Kushner with taking care of Washington’s affairs in the Middle East. Trump has also tasked Kushner, who lacks political experience, with brokering a peace deal between Palestine and Israel. Kushner also traveled to Iraq in April, reportedly trying to get a better picture of the overall situation in that country and show his support for the Iraqi government.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump’s approval rating has sunk to a record low, standing at 40 percent, a new poll shows.  According to a Fox new poll released on Thursday, 53 percent of voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing. Vice President Mike Pence is also facing the lowest approval rating, 42 percent, and 43 percent disapprove of him.

A similar Fox News poll last month found that only 45 percent of voters approved of Trump’s job performance, and 50 percent approved of Pence’s. The current numbers show a significant drop compared to those from April. The poll numbers also mirror how voters feel about the House Republicans’ latest effort to repeal Obamacare.

Forty percent of Americans approve of the Republican effort to replace the Affordable Care Act, while 53 percent are opposed. Businessman-turned-politician Trump, within hours of taking the oath of office on January 20, fulfilled one of his most impassioned promises he had made during his presidential campaign and signed an executive order to “ease the burden of Obamacare,” which covers some 20 million Americans.

Republicans criticized Obamacare as an excessive government intrusion into the health care market and contended that it was harming economic growth by burdening businesses. Other top issues of the poll included the investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, infrastructure repair, North Korea, and the war against Daesh (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria.

Pollsters also found that voters are most strongly concerned about government spending, with 80 percent saying they were very concerned. The results of the poll, which has a three percent margin of error, are based on interviews with about 1,011 adults.

Source:Presstv

Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan urges US President Donald Trump to engage in talks with Iran rather than retaining his current antagonistic stance towards the Islamic Republic. Trump has adopted an invariably harsh tone when talking about Tehran, calling it the “number one terrorist state” and criticizing his predecessor Barack Obama for being too soft on Iran.

During his recent Middle East tour, the new US president endorsed Saudi Arabia and Israel’s long-drawn-out practice of Iranophobia. Washington agreed to sell the kingdom USD 110 billion worth of arms to “counter” Iran. The Trump administration has also leveled sanctions against the country over its defensive missile work, which Iran asserts only serves the purpose of deterrence.

“It is important to reach out and talk to Iran,” Annan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Iran is part of the solution” to the conflicts in the Middle East, including Syria and Iraq, and “we cannot get away from that fact,” he added.

Iran has been lending military advisory support to the Syrian and Iraqi counter-terrorism operations. It has also been trying successfully alongside Russia, another Syria ally, and Turkey, which backs anti-Damascus militants, to bring the warring sides in Syria to the negotiating table.

Annan said what justified an open approach towards Iran was its reaching out to the world by clinching the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. The former UN chief described the nuclear agreement as “good” and welcomed the re-election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a key architect of the deal “as a sign that the Iranian people clearly desire peaceful relations with the outside world.”

Trump has described the agreement, which was negotiated under the Obama administration, as the “worst deal ever” and threatened to “tear it up” during his election campaign late last year.

Annan added that Washington’s posturing, including labeling Iran the enemy and a purveyor of terrorism, is not going to contribute to the realization of peace in the region in any way. “What is required is steps which diffuse tensions and divisions, and not steps which deepen divisions,” he said. “And we need to be very careful of what action we take, what we say, because words can soothe, they can calm but they can also provoke and they can also excite.”

Annan also recalled Trump’s comments on the possibility of a meeting with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. “Iran has shown more discipline and responsibility than North Korea,” he said. “I can’t understand why he can’t go to Iran, a nation that by signing the agreement is also trying to open up and reach out to the broader world — and that should be encouraged rather than be pushed the other way.”

Culled from Presstv