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

Sudan’s foreign minister says President Omar al-Bashir will attend a summit in Saudi Arabia, where US President Donald Trump will also be present, despite arrest warrants for war crimes and genocide issued by the International Criminal Court against the Sudanese leader.

“I can confirm President Bashir will go … to Saudi Arabia,” Ibrahim Ghandour told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland. “We look forward (to) normalization of our relations with the US,” he added. Trump will start his first ever foreign tour as the president of the United States by visiting Saudi Arabia. He is scheduled to arrive in the kingdom on Saturday.

The summit of Arab and Muslim leaders is expected to include top-level talks the next day. Asked if the Sudanese president is expected to shake hands with Trump, Ghandour said it was impossible to predict, but added that “a handshake doesn’t mean a lot if relations are not (good).”

The Hague-based ICC issued an arrest warrant on July 12, 2010 for Bashir over allegations of genocide committed in Darfur conflict. An earlier arrest warrant for the Sudanese leader was issued in March 2009 by the ICC for charges including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Bashir has strongly denied the allegations against him, dismissing the claims as a Western conspiracy to seize Sudan’s oil, gas and other natural resources. The armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has killed as many as 300,000 people and displaced 2 million, according to the United Nations.

Presstv

A new opinion poll shows that Americans who support President Donald Trump’s impeachment outnumber those who oppose the move. The survey released by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed that 48 percent of the respondents would support Trump’s impeachment, while only 41 percent would opposed it.

The same polling company reported three months ago that Americans were evenly divided on the issue. The Tuesday poll was conducted between May 12 and 14, interviewing 692 registered voters with a minus 3.7 percent margin of error.

According to a Gallup survey released a day earlier, Trump’s job approval ratings after more than 100 days in office were the least among four US presidents. It showed that only 38 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s performance as president, while 57 percent were unhappy with it. Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had an approval rating of 64 percent at this point in his presidency.

The number stood at 56 percent for his Republican predecessor George W. Bush.  At least 12 congressional democrats have called for Trump’s impeachment since he took office in January. The results of both surveys were released after Trump’s controversial dismissal of FBI director James Comey, but before reports that Trump shared classified information with Russians.

The combination of Trump firing Comey while his campaign was under FBI investigation for possible collusion with Russia and the president subsequently admitting that he had done so in part because of his frustrations over the Russia investigation was a key factor for Democrats in US Congress to mull removing Trump from office.

“President Trump has committed an act for which he should be charged by the US House of Representatives. The act is the obstruction of a lawful investigation of the president’s campaign ties to Russia influence in his 2016 presidential election,” said Al Green, a Democratic senator from the US state of Texas. “President Trump is not above the law. He has committed an impeachable act and must be charged. To do otherwise would cause some Americans to lose respect for, and obedience to our societal norms. This is not personal, this is constitutional.”

Additionally, US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that Trump’s intelligence sharing with Russians had exposed Americans to a “greater risk,” and the president had to provide Congress with a transcript of his meeting with top Russian officials after he reportedly discussed highly classified information. “I am calling on the White House to make a transcript of the meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador available to the congressional Intelligence Committees as soon as possible,” Schumer said.

He added that if Trump “has nothing to hide, he should direct that the transcript of the meeting be made available.” Arguing that the Trump administration is in a “crisis of credibility,” the Senate’s top Democrat stressed that the reporting, if accurate, means Trump “may have badly damaged our national security, nothing less, and in several ways.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, however, insisted that Trump’s conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia’s ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, were not intelligence leaks, but rather they discussed common threats to the two countries. Spicer declined to comment on the lawmakers’ demand for access to the transcript of Trump’s controversial meeting.

Source: Presstv

Russian President Vladimir Putin says the conflict between the Israeli regime and Palestinians could only be resolved through political means based on international law. “As a member of the Middle East quartet, Russia together with the US, the UN and the European Union, will continue to prove the necessity of direct dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis,” Putin added at a joint press conference with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Thursday.

Putin also cautioned against taking “one-sided steps” and called for making “mutually acceptable decisions” to try to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel’s continued settlement expansion on Palestinian territories.

Since the January inauguration of US President Donald Trump, who is a steadfast supporter of Israel, the regime in Tel Aviv has stepped up its construction of settler units on occupied Palestinian land in a blatant violation of international law.

Less than a month before Trump took office, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, calling on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem” al-Quds.

About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds. Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

Abbas, for his part, briefed Putin on the latest Israeli violations of Palestinians’ rights, including continuous settlement building activities, “policies of economic suffocation, and persistence to hold thousands of detainees in Israeli prisons.”

The Palestinian leader added that the Israeli violations will eventually “lead to destroying the chance to create peace in the (Middle East) region,” and “abolish the idea of a two-state solution.”

He further highlighted the importance of fulfilling the humanitarian needs of hundreds of Palestinian inmates, who continue to be on hunger strike in Israeli jails, stating that the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority will exert all efforts possible to secure their release.

Since April 17, more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners have joined the protest action, dubbed the Freedom and Dignity Strike. The strikers are demanding basic rights, such as an end to the policies of administrative detention, solitary confinement and deliberate medical negligence.

Source: Presstv

In a statement on Friday; a day after internet services were restored in the crisis-hit North West and South West regions, the special representative of the U.N Secretary-General for Central Africa said the internet restoration will reduce the tension in the Anglophone regions.

The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Central Africa has said he was relieved to learn that President Paul Biya instructed that full internet services be restored in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon.

“I welcome this measure, which is in line with those recently announced by the government to address the demands of English-Speaking teachers and lawyers,” Francois Lounceny Fall said in a statement.

Mr Fall who also heads the UN Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) noted that the decision, which took effect from 20 April, “will go a long way to help reduce tension and to create conditions conducive for the resolution of the crisis in the two regions.”

He said that he “counts on the Government of Cameroon to continue to promote appeasement and dialogue, and to take all other appropriate measures aimed at a speedy and lasting resolution of the crisis in order to strengthen unity, stability and prosperity in Cameroon.”

The Special Representative of the UN scribe for Central Africa also expressed the wish that “the Cameroonian people will maintain their spirit of patriotism and show restraint during this trying period, including by avoiding the use of the Internet to incite hatred or violence.”

It should be recalled that during a four-day official visit to Cameroon last week, Mr Fall urged government to restore the internet which he described as an “important tool for development, communication and collective development.”

The UN envoy also called on the government to release all detainees of the Anglophone crisis, some of whom he met “including Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla and radio broadcaster Mancho Bibixy.”  He also met with Government officials, members of civil society, opposition leaders, and members of the diplomatic corps and the UN system in a bit to seek lasting solutions to the crisis.

Source: Cameroun Info.Net

Iran has dismissed as “ridiculous” the Jordanian monarch’s juxtaposition of the Islamic Republic with the Takfiri Daesh group in a recent interview with The Washington Post. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi was reacting to King Abdullah’s arguement that Israeli settlements were playing into the hands of Iran and Daesh which has the second or third biggest number of its members from Jordan.

“These issues give ammunition to the Iranians, to [Daesh ringleader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi and ISIS (Daesh),” the Jordanian king said in the interview published on Thursday.  Qassemi said, “Making baseless and ridiculous comparisons between Iran and the ringleaders of terrorist groups, and this being done by the king of an Arab and Muslim country, is unfortunately indicative of the complicated and pathetic situation, which the region is in.” “It seems the Jordanian king is strategically and fundamentally mistaken in his definition of terrorism and his interpretations simply reflect the poor and shallow nature of his perspective regarding the regional developments,” he added.

According to the data from the US House Homeland Security Committee, Jordan exports one of biggest number of Daesh members to Syria and Iraq along with Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.  Last year, The Telegraph said more than 2,000 Jordanians had joined the Takfiri group which follows the extremist Wahhabi ideology preached on Jordan’s doorsteps in key ally, Saudi Arabia.

“It is advisable that the Jordanian king has a passing look first at the statistics released about the Jordanian terrorists joining Daesh and other blood-spilling and ignorant groups and then makes an opinion on Iran which is on the frontline of the fight against terrorism and extremism and striving for reinforcing security in the region,” Qassemi said.

Iran a has been lending military advisory support to the Syrian army and the Iraqis in their battle against foreign-backed terrorist groups.  Qassemi also denounced the Jordanian king’s call on Arab countries to unite with Israel against Iran, reminding him of “endless problems which the fabrication of the illegitimate Zionist regime has created for the Muslim world and the regional states.”

In his interview with the Post, Abdullah said, “There are some strategic problems that Iran is involved in in our area. But here, again, is an opportunity: bringing Israel and the Arabs closer together. Because of the Iranian regime’s potential threat to the region, Israel wants to have a relationship with the Arabs.”

“Without a doubt, much of the existing situation in the region is the result of the misguided attitude of certain countries’ politicians toward political developments and the wrong and destructive policies which they have adopted which could push the entire region to the abyss of insecurity and instability,” Qassemi said. “To contribute to regional security, stability and unity, the Jordanian king is advised to take a short time off to study logic, history and geography of the region,” he added.

Presstv

Households in 86 percent of entire counties across the US that voted for President Donald Trump last year earn less income annually than the combined worth of 27 staffers that work for the Trump administration, a report has revealed. Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who currently work for the US president are worth a combined $2.3 billion in properties, investments and huge salaries, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

How much is $2.3 billion, the report explains: “Here’s one way to look at it. Consider the amount of money earned in any county in the country in a year — the number of households in each county times the average household income in the county. In 80 percent of the counties in America, every household combined earns less than $2.3 billion per year.”

In counties that voted for Trump, however, that figure is even higher, the report adds, explaining that “in 86 percent of Trump counties, the total amount of income earned in a year is less than $2.3 billion.” The report further notes that based on 2011 to 2015 five-year estimates from the US Census Bureau, the average annual income in the aforementioned counties stood at $2.1 billion.

Only 8 percent of Trump-voting counties have a cumulative annual income greater than the $3.9 billion Trump himself in worth, as estimated by the financial Forbes magazine, and only two percent earn more annually than the $10 billion Trump claims to be worth. Most counties have small populations — which further explain why, cumulatively, they do not earn as much in income annually. The counties that tend to beat the $2.3 billion in annual income, tend to be the ones that include large cities.

Consequently, a map of where incomes beat the Trump staff’s net worth looks like an electoral map: “Swaths of counties that earn less each year than those 27 people are worth and a few pockets, mostly on the coasts, that are exceptions,” according to the report. It adds that the data – in a broader sense – “reinforces the disconnect between the Trump team and the voters Trump likes to highlight.” A lot of very wealthy people work in the White House. A lot of other houses scattered across the US are relying on those millionaires to boost their own incomes.

Meanwhile, financial disclosures from dozens of top White House officials released Friday night also reveal an administration stacked with millionaires, who’s combined net worth exceeds $12 billion. The filings shed new light on the business webs and conflicts held by a number of Trump’s top aides and advisers when they entered government.

Among the wealthiest members of Trump’s White House are his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, the heir to a vast real estate business, and his top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs. The filings detail the investments, salaries and assets of Trump’s senior staff, opening the personal finances of as many as 180 administration officials to public scrutiny. Trump himself, whose personal wealth is believed to be in the billions, is not included in the releases.

Presstv

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted by the anti-war movement for war crimes committed in Iraq paid a short visit yesterday Wednesday in Lomé and was received by President Faure Gnassingbé. The Communication Directorate of the Togolese presidency revealed that Tony Blair was accompanied by a high level delegation.

Last February, Togo received a Commonwealth delegation and the country is diversifying its partnerships and considering becoming part of the Commonwealth. It is expected that the presence of a former British Prime Minister in Togo will help to advance the process.

The Commonwealth is an intergovernmental organization created in 1949 and is composed of states traditionally made up of former territories under British rule. The Commonwealth has evolved into countries with a sense of peace, freedom and commitment to the values of democracy, human rights, good governance and respect for the principle of non-interference.

Togo’s desire to join the Commonwealth is not new, as the country had submitted its application in 2014. The accession process is continuing and accelerating. The influence of English in the world, especially in the business, is one of the strategic arguments that has pushed the German and French colony to seek membership into the Commonwealth.

By Chi Prudence Asong