Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says

Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says
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In this photo illustration, pages are viewed from the unsealed federal indictment of former US President Donald Trump on June 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images North America / AFP)
Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says
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In this photo illustration, pages are viewed from the unsealed federal indictment of former US President Donald Trump on June 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images North America / AFP)
Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says
3 / 5
In this photo illustration, pages are viewed from the unsealed federal indictment of former US President Donald Trump on June 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images North America / AFP)
Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says
4 / 5
In this photo illustration, pages are viewed from the unsealed federal indictment of former US President Donald Trump on June 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images North America / AFP)
Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says
5 / 5
In this photo illustration, pages are viewed from the unsealed federal indictment of former US President Donald Trump on June 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images North America / AFP)
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Updated 10 June 2023
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Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says

Donald Trump described Pentagon plan of attack and shared classified map, indictment says
  • Indictment paints an unmistakably damning portrait of Trump’s treatment of sensitive information
  • Says Trump not only intentionally possessed classified documents but also boastfully showed them off to visitors

MIAMI: Former President Donald Trump described a Pentagon “plan of attack” and shared a classified map related to a military operation, according to a sweeping 37-count felony indictment related to the mishandling of classified documents that was unsealed Friday and that could instantly reshape the 2024 presidential race.

The indictment paints an unmistakably damning portrait of Trump’s treatment of sensitive information, accusing him of willfully defying Justice Department demands to return documents he had taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, enlisting aides in his efforts to hide the records and even telling his lawyers that we wanted to defy a subpoena for the materials stored in his estate.
“I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes,” one of Trump’s lawyers described the former president saying, according to the indictment. He also asked if it would be better “if we just told them we don’t have anything here,” the indictment says.
Noting the “tens of thousands of members and guests” who visited the “active social club” of Mar-a-Lago between the end of Trump’s presidency in January 2021 through the August 2022 search, prosecutors argued that Trump had “nevertheless” stored the documents there, “including in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, and office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.”
The indictment arrives at a time when Trump is continuing to dominate the Republican presidential primary and one day before a scheduled campaign trip to North Carolina. Though other candidates have largely attacked the Justice Department, rather than Trump, for the investigation, the indictment’s breadth of allegations and startling scope will be harder for Republicans to rail against than an earlier New York criminal case that many legal analysts had derided as weak.
The 49-page charging document, alleging that Trump not only intentionally possessed classified documents but also cavalierly and boastfully showed them off to visitors, is startling in scope and in the breadth of allegations. The indictment is built on Trump’s own words and actions as recounted to prosecutors by lawyers, close aides and other witnesses, with prosecutors even using against Trump his own words as a candidate and president professing to respect and know procedures related to the handling of classified information.
The indictment includes 37 counts — 31 of which pertain to the willful retention of national defense information, with the balance relating to alleged conspiracy, obstruction and false statements — that taken together could result in a yearslong prison sentence.
Trump is due to make his first court appearance Tuesday in federal court in Miami, where the case was filed. He was charged alongside Walt Nauta, an aide and close adviser to Trump who prosecutors say brought boxes from a storage room to Trump’s residence for him to review and later lied to investigators about the movement. A photograph included in the indictment shows several dozen file boxes stacked in a storage area.
The case adds to deepening legal jeopardy for Trump, who has already been indicted in New York and faces additional investigations in Washington and Atlanta that also could lead to criminal charges. But among the various investigations he has faced, legal experts — as well as Trump’s own aides — had long seen the Mar-a-Lago probe as the most perilous threat and the one most ripe for prosecution. Campaign aides had been bracing for the fallout since Trump’s attorneys were notified that he was the target of the investigation, assuming it was not a matter of if charges would be brought, but when.
Enumerating the defense and foreign intelligence-related information included in the documents, prosecutors wrote that their “unauthorized disclosure ... could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”
 


Philippines looking into ramming incident in South China Sea – president

Philippines looking into ramming incident in South China Sea – president
Updated 13 sec ago
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Philippines looking into ramming incident in South China Sea – president

Philippines looking into ramming incident in South China Sea – president
  • Three Filipino fishermen died after their fishing boat was rammed by an unidentified foreign commercial vessel
  • Incident occurred on Monday while the boat was moored 15 nautical kilometers northwest of the disputed Scarborough Shoal
MANILA: The Philippines is investigating a maritime incident to find out what killed three Filipino fishermen in a ramming incident that sank their boat in the South China Sea, its president said on Wednesday.
“We assure the victims, their families, and everyone that we will exert every effort to hold accountable those who are responsible for this unfortunate maritime incident,” Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on the X social media platform.
Three Filipino fishermen died after their fishing boat was rammed by an unidentified foreign commercial vessel while it was moored in the South China Sea, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred on Monday while the boat was moored 15 nautical kilometers northwest of the disputed Scarborough Shoal, it said in a statement. Eleven crew members survived when the boat sank.
“The incident is still under investigation to ascertain the details and circumstances surrounding the collision between the fishing boat and a still unidentified commercial vessel,” Marcos said.
“Let us allow the PCG to do its job and investigate, and let us refrain from engaging in speculation in the meantime,” he added, referring to the coast guard.
Tensions around those waters have recently flared up after the Philippines said it removed a 300-meter ball-buoy barrier installed by China’s coast guard near the Scarborough Shoal, a prime fishing spot and one of Asia’s most contested maritime features.
The strategic shoal, named after a British cargo vessel that ran aground there in the 18th century, is in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but was seized in 2012 by China, which has maintained a constant presence of coast guard ships and fishing trawlers there ever since.
China has rejected the Philippines’ version of events over the barrier, while the United States has weighed in with support behind Manila and vowed to honor its treaty commitments to defend its treaty ally if attacked.
The Philippine coast guard did not elaborate on the incident or provide details of the vessel it said had rammed the Filipino crew.

A Nepal town imposes a lockdown and beefs up security to prevent clashes between Hindus and Muslims

A Nepal town imposes a lockdown and beefs up security to prevent clashes between Hindus and Muslims
Updated 48 min 18 sec ago
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A Nepal town imposes a lockdown and beefs up security to prevent clashes between Hindus and Muslims

A Nepal town imposes a lockdown and beefs up security to prevent clashes between Hindus and Muslims
  • Nepal is a Hindu majority country that turned secular just a few years ago
  • Trouble began over the weekend over a status posted on social media by a Hindu boy
Katmandu: Despite quickly escalating tensions between Hindus and Muslims, the night passed peacefully after a lockdown was imposed and security heightened in a city in southwest Nepal, officials said.
Trouble began in the regional hub city of Nepalgunj over the weekend after a Hindu boy posted a status about Muslims on social media. Muslims protested the status inside the region’s main government administrator’s office building, burned tires on the streets and blocked traffic.
A larger Hindu rally was held Tuesday until stones and bottles were thrown at protesters, resulting in a few minor injuries.
The indefinite curfew was imposed since Tuesday afternoon in Nepalgunj, about 400 kilometers west of the capital, Katmandu, directly after the Hindu protest came under attack.
Area police chief Santosh Rathore said officers were patrolling the city and people were not allowed to leave their homes or gather in groups during the lockdown. There were no reports of any trouble overnight, nor on Wednesday morning.
Officials said they needed to impose the stay-at-home order and stop people from gathering together to prevent any more clashes between the two sides.
Communal violence is not common in Nepal, which is a Hindu majority country that turned secular just a few years ago. Muslims make up roughly a third of Nepalgunj’s population, and only about 14 percent of India’s population, which shares a border with the Nepal town and has seen a widening religious divide.

Afghan refugees play the waiting game in Tajikistan

Afghan refugees play the waiting game in Tajikistan
Updated 51 min 41 sec ago
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Afghan refugees play the waiting game in Tajikistan

Afghan refugees play the waiting game in Tajikistan
  • Although Tajikistan has been taking in Afghan refugees since the mid-1990s, they are not allowed to live in any of the major cities

VAKHDAT, Tajikistan: For Bibikhawa Zaki, whose orange football boots match her headscarf, training on the pitch is the highlight of her complicated life.
Like many fellow Afghan refugees in Tajikistan, the 25-year-old dreams of moving on from the poor Central Asian country to a new life in Canada.
A few months before the Taliban took Kabul in summer 2021, she and her family followed thousands of other Afghans across the mountainous border into neighboring Tajikistan.
“The Taliban attacked my sister-in-law. They issued death threats against my family. We had to leave,” the former English teacher said.
“But when we play football, I’m happy. I don’t think about the other stuff,” she explained.
Bibikhawa Zaki trains with about 50 other young Afghan women at a club set up by her female compatriots in Vakhdat, about half an hour from the capital, Dushanbe.
Most of the country’s Afghan community live in the city, where lampposts and shop windows are plastered with small ads offering Tajiks jobs in Russia.
Although Tajikistan has been taking in Afghan refugees since the mid 1990s, they are not allowed to live in any of the major cities.
The government fears the extremist Taliban’s return to power in Kabul will lead to destabilization at home.
It is the Taliban’s strongest critic in Central Asia and has, for years, had to contend with numerous cross-border skirmishes involving Afghan militants.
Bibikhawa Zaki is from the most recent influx of refugees. Others have been navigating Tajikistan’s red tape for years.
The United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR estimates around 10,000 Afghan refugees, often extremely poor, live in Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
In a country that struggles to provide the basics for its own population, Afghans are often forced to fend for themselves.
Asserting your rights is not always easy in Tajikistan, where freedom of expression is strictly limited.
And they cannot rely on help from their embassy, which still represents the government chased from power by the Taliban in 2021.
Col. Boimakhmad Radjazoda, who heads the refugee department in the Tajik interior ministry, insists that his country is doing all it can for these displaced people.
“Refugees have many of the same rights Tajik citizens,” he said.
“They have access to medical care, we’ve opened a school for Afghans and we can provide them with clothes, food and medicines.”
But many refugees say they cannot afford the $10 monthly fee to send their children to school, so they organize lessons among themselves.
While they are grateful for the welcome they have received in Tajikistan, most do not plan to make a new life here.
Their dream is to reach Canada, which has committed to taking in 40,000 Afghans.
But the wait is long.
“We’ve applied to go to Canada but we still haven’t had a reply,” Bibikhawa Zaki said ruefully.
She doesn’t have a job so while she waits she plays football – three training sessions a week – and reads in English to improve her language skills.
Jawid Sharif’s family survives on the money they earned from selling their house in Kabul.
Tamkin, one of his five children, is also a keen footballer and wants to study art.
“One day, I’ll be a great artist,” she says, pointing to one of her paintings hanging on the kitchen wall.
It’s a portrait of the “Elvis of Afghanistan” – singer and national hero Ahmad Zahir.


At least 23 Indian soldiers missing in flash flood

At least 23 Indian soldiers missing in flash flood
Updated 04 October 2023
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At least 23 Indian soldiers missing in flash flood

At least 23 Indian soldiers missing in flash flood
  • The remote area lies close to India’s border with Nepal, and Lhonak Lake sits at the base of a glacier in the snowy peaks that surround Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain

Guwahati: The Indian army said Wednesday that 23 soldiers were missing after a powerful flash flood caused by intense rainfall tore through a remote valley in the mountainous northeast Sikkim state.
“Due to sudden cloud burst over Lhonak Lake in North Sikkim, a flash flood occurred in the Teesta River... 23 personnel have been reported missing and some vehicles are reported submerged under the slush,” the army said in a statement. “Search operations are underway.”
The remote area lies close to India’s border with Nepal, and Lhonak Lake sits at the base of a glacier in the snowy peaks that surround Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain.
The army said water released upstream from the Chungthang dam meant the river was already more than 4.5 meters (15 feet) higher than usual.
A video released by an Indian army spokesman showed a thick torrent of raging brown water sweeping down a thickly forested valley, with roads washed away and power lines ripped down.
Flash floods are common during the monsoon season, which begins in June and normally withdraws from the Indian subcontinent by the end of September. By October, the heaviest of the monsoon rains are usually over.
Experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.
Other photographs shared by the army showed water submerging the first floor of buildings, and flowing down a street in a town with only the tip of a small construction crane visible poking out.
Local media showed Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang holding an umbrella during a downpour and talking to officials about floods in the town of Singtam, further downstream from where the soldiers are missing.
The monsoon occurs when summer heat warms the landmass of the subcontinent, causing the air to rise and suck in cooler Indian Ocean winds, which then produce enormous volumes of rain.
But it also brings destruction every year in the form of landslides and floods.
Melting glaciers add to the volume of water while unregulated construction in flood-prone areas exacerbates the damage.
Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than ever before due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters.
Glaciers disappeared 65 percent faster from 2011 to 2020 compared with the previous decade, a report in June by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) warned.
Based on current emissions trajectories, the glaciers could lose up to 80 percent of their current volume by the end of the century, it said.


Biden tries to reassure allies of continued US support for Ukraine after Congress drops aid request

Biden tries to reassure allies of continued US support for Ukraine after Congress drops aid request
Updated 04 October 2023
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Biden tries to reassure allies of continued US support for Ukraine after Congress drops aid request

Biden tries to reassure allies of continued US support for Ukraine after Congress drops aid request

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden gathered other world powers Tuesday to coordinate on Ukraine as it battles Russia in a war now almost 20 months long — a deliberate show of US support at a time when the future of its aid is entangled with a volatile faction of House Republicans who want to cut off money to Kyiv.

The phone call — convened by the United States and joined by key allies in Europe as well as the leaders of Canada and Japan — was held three days after Biden signed legislation hastily sent to him by Congress that kept the federal government funded but left off billions in funding for Ukraine’s war effort that the White House had vigorously backed.

All the countries that participated in the call stressed that their backing of Ukraine remains unchanged, and no one questioned whether US support of Kyiv was in doubt, according to the White House. But the administration sternly warned Tuesday that Congress must not let the flow of aid be disrupted, lest Russian President Vladimir Putin exploit any lapses to his advantage.

“Time is not our friend,” said John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House. He warned that any gaps in US support “will make Putin believe he can wait us out.”

Kirby said the current tranche of congressionally-approved US aid would be enough to help Ukraine for another “couple of weeks” or a “couple of months,” although the precise estimate would hinge on current battlefield conditions.

The outlook for the future of Ukraine aid has been murky at best after Biden on Saturday signed a bill to fund US government operations through mid-November that ignored the billions in additional funds for Kyiv requested by Biden in late August. The president, as well as congressional Democratic leaders, had stressed after the vote that they had expected then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to follow through on his public commitment to Ukraine aid even as Republican resistance to it continues.

Biden went as far as to imply that e had a deal with McCarthy to move Ukraine aid once the government was funded, although the speaker has denied that is the case and the White House has refused to elaborate on the president’s remarks. Meanwhile, McCarthy signaled over the weekend that he supports linking new Ukraine funding to security improvements at the US border with Mexico. Kirby said Tuesday that the White House supports both issues on their own merits but not tied together.

McCarthy was ejected from his own job on Tuesday in dramatic fashion on the House floor. Even as the White House said it was staying out of his fight to keep the speaker’s gavel, Kirby emphasized that other House GOP leaders support Ukraine aid, not just McCarthy himself.

In Poland, President Andrzej Duda said after the call that Biden had assured the group of continued US support for Ukraine and of his strong conviction that Congress will not walk away.

“Everyone took the floor. The main subject was Ukraine, the situation in Ukraine,” Duda said at a news conference in Kielce, Poland. “President Joe Biden began with telling us about the situation in the US and what is the real political situation around Ukraine. He assured us that there is backing for the continuing support for Ukraine, first of all for the military support.

He said that he will get that backing in the Congress.”

Duda said Biden assured the leaders that support for Ukraine in the US Congress is much broader than media reports suggest. He said Biden called on the participants to continue their support for Ukraine and that everyone assured him that they would.

Kirby added that the other leaders weren’t concerned about whether US would stop backing Ukraine: “They understand what’s going up on Capitol Hill,” he said.

Others on the call included the leaders of Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Romania, Britain, the European Commission and the European Council. France’s foreign minister also participated, the White House said. French President Emmanuel Macron was not available due to scheduling issues, according to a US administration official.

The group also discussed how to provide Ukraine with the weapons support and strengthen its air defenses, as well as shoring up its energy infrastructure as the nation girds for a cold winter. The leaders also strategized on how to marshal private donations to aid Ukraine’s economic recovery, according to a White House readout of the call.

“Everyone was saying that this is the next step that will be necessary and for which preparations should begin now,” Duda said of the leaders’ discussion on helping to rebuild Ukraine.

As the White House made its case for continued aid to Ukraine, lawmakers and military veterans rallied outside the US Capitol to make their own call to keep up the funding. Many argued stopping US support to Ukraine would embolden Russia and other rivals to invade other democratic allies after Ukraine, and draw US forces into direct conflict.

Retired Brig. Gen. Mark Arnold, a veteran of the special forces, told the crowd that “the world is watching this debate about abandoning Ukraine.”

“Retreats to isolationism do not work,” Arnold said. China and Russia and other adversaries “will all rise in strength if Ukraine is defeated.”

The exclusion of money for Ukraine came little more than a week after lawmakers met in the Capitol with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He sought to assure them that his military was winning the war, but stressed that additional assistance would be crucial.

Voting in the House last week pointed to the potential trouble ahead. Nearly half of House Republicans voted to cut from a defense spending bill $300 million to train Ukrainian soldiers and buy weapons. The money later was approved separately, but opponents of Ukraine support celebrated their growing numbers.

The US has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion, totaling about $113 billion, with some of that money going toward replenishment of US military equipment that was sent to the front lines. In August, Biden called on Congress to provide for an additional $24 billion.