Trump defends Middle East policy, says Islamic State is under control

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his Middle East policy, as he comes under bipartisan criticism over his administration's move to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast Syria and an agreement for a 120-hour pause to a Turkish incursion of the area.

from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/33JanO7

Mexican media reports capture of druglord 'El Chapo' Guzman's son

Mexican security forces captured one of notorious drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's sons on Thursday, media reports said, after rumors of the detention led to fierce gunbattles in the city of Culiacan, a stronghold of the Sinaloa cartel.

from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2OYf8is

Ex-Nazi guard, 93, on trial as accessory to 5,230 murders

Case against Bruno Dey could be one of the last of its kind, which is fine with American plaintiff Judy Meisel – she just wants one answer

Ambassador Sondland Throws Trump Under the Bus

REUTERSGordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, will tell Congress that President Donald Trump told him to help his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani with his plan on Ukraine.In his opening statement, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, Sondland wrote that any plot to encourage a foreign government to influence an American election would have been “wrong.” “I did not understand, until much later, that Mr. Giuliani’s agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son or to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly, in the President’s 2020 reelection campaign,” he will say, according to the written version of his opening statement.Meet the Ukraine Hatchet Man Trump Is Hiding From CongressSondland's role in the pressure campaign on the Ukrainian president was first revealed by The Daily Beast. He and Giuliani encouraged President Volodymyr Zelensky to publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens. It has been alleged that there was a quid pro quo whereby Zelensky would be rewarded by the White House with a meeting between the presidents in return for launching an investigation into one of Trump's potential 2020 rivals.“Please know that I would not have recommended that Mr. Giuliani or any private citizen be involved in these foreign policy matters. However, given the President’s explicit direction, as well as the importance we attached to arranging a White House meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, we agreed to do as President Trump directed,” Sondland wrote.“Based on the President’s direction, we were faced with a choice: We could abandon the goal of a White House meeting for President Zelensky, which we all believed was crucial to strengthening U.S.-Ukrainian ties and furthering long-held U.S. foreign policy goals in the region; or we could do as President Trump directed and talk to Mr. Giuliani to address the President’s concerns.”The testimony describes how Trump's obsession with investigating his political rival put on hold Sondland's efforts to strengthen U.S. ties with Ukraine. Sondland will say he was “disappointed” that Trump wouldn't commit to a meeting with Zelensky until he spoke to Giuliani.“It was apparent to all of us that the key to changing the President’s mind on Ukraine was Mr. Giuliani,” the statement reads. “It is my understanding that Energy Secretary Perry and Special Envoy Volker took the lead on reaching out to Mr. Giuliani, as the President had directed.”According to the testimony, when he spoke to Giuliani it was made clear that Trump wanted a public statement from Zelensky “committing Ukraine to look into anticorruption issues.” Sondland will say: “Mr. Giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two anticorruption investigatory topics of importance for the President.”Burisma was the energy firm where, for five years, Hunter Biden served on the board. Trump has, with no evidence, repeatedly accused former Vice President Joe Biden of acting improperly to protect his son by urging the removal of Ukraine’s former general prosecutor, who was looking into money laundering allegations at the company at the time.Aspects of Sondland’s opening statement raise questions about his candor. The former hotelier portrays Giuliani as the lever to moving Trump on Ukraine policy, something he describes in his statement as a priority of his ambassadorship. Yet he also claims not to “recall having met with Mr. Giuliani in person” and only communicating with him “a handful of times.” Although Sondland describes an investigation of Burisma as important to Trump, as conveyed by Giuliani, Sondland claims not to have known about Hunter Biden’s place on the company’s board. Similarly, Sondland presents his now-famous instruction, revealed in text messages provided by former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, to cease texting about a pressure campaign and to instead talk on the phone, as nothing more than a communications preference, rather than a belated reluctance to create a document of their conversation. “I simply prefer to talk rather than to text,” he says in his statement.Sondland will testify that he was not on the Zelensky call and didn't see the transcript until September, when a truncated transcript was publicly released by the White House. Sondland will say that none of the summaries of the call he received before then mentioned Burisma or Biden, or suggested that Trump had made “any kind of request of President Zelensky.”Sondland will say, “Let me state clearly: Inviting a foreign government to undertake investigations for the purpose of influencing an upcoming U.S. election would be wrong. Withholding foreign aid in order to pressure a foreign government to take such steps would be wrong.”He'll add, “I did not and would not ever participate in such undertakings.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Syria troops fight Turkish forces alongside Kurds: monitor

The Syrian army deployed alongside Kurdish forces on the front line in northern Syria Wednesday but their newfound cooperation saw no let-up in the week-old Turkish invasion, a monitor said. In a rare scene in Syria's eight-year-old civil war, government troops and Kurdish fighters were "fighting together" against Turkey's Syrian proxies northeast of the town of Ain Issa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based monitor reported "violent clashes" near the M4 highway -- a key east-west artery that links the Kurdish heartland in the northeast with Syria's second city Aleppo and the Mediterranean coast beyond.

A homeless man was sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty to cocaine possession — but it turned out to just be powdered milk

Cody Gregg, 29, had his case in Oklahoma City dismissed on Friday, days after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.

Tulsi Gabbard Calls Syria ‘Regime Change War,’ Mayor Pete Buttigieg Says She’s ‘Dead Wrong’

Shannon Stapleton/ReutersIn a tense exchange, the two military veterans in the Democratic primary sparred over President  Trump’s decision to pull back U.S. troops in Syria. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who has long opposed any U.S. efforts to undermine Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime, sparred with Mayor Pete Buttigieg over how the U.S. should extract itself from the long-running conflict.“Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hand, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime change war in Syria that started in 2011, along with many in the mainstream media, who have been championing and cheerleading this regime change war,” she said. Last week, Trump announced that 50 U.S. troops stationed on Syria’s northern border with Turkey would be pulled deeper south into the country. After the announcement, Turkey immediately invaded, slaughtering Kurdish fighters and civilians, and horrifying the international community. The Kurds fought ISIS alongside U.S. troops, and Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. protection for them was widely viewed as a betrayal that seriously harms America’s international credibility. “We need to get out, but we need to do this through a negotiated solution,” Gabbard said. Buttigieg lit into Gabbard.“Respectfully, Congresswoman, I think that is dead wrong,” he said. “The slaughter going on in Syria is not a consequence of American presence, it is a consequence of a withdrawal and a betrayal by this president of American allies and American values. Look, I didn’t think we should have gone to Iraq in the first place. I think we need to get out of Afghanistan, but it’s also the case that a small number of specialized, special operations forces and intelligence capabilities were the only thing that stood between that part of Syria and what we’re seeing now, which is the beginning of a genocide and the resurgence of ISIS.” Gabbard pressed him on his answer, asking if he would keep the U.S. in Syria indefinitely. “You can put an end to endless war without embracing Donald Trump’s policy, as you’re doing,” he retorted.“What is an endless war if it’s not a regime change war?” she replied. “What we were doing in Syria was keeping our word,” he replied. The skirmish encapsulated the tension within the Democratic Party on foreign policy. But neither is wooing voters in an outsize way: Buttigieg polls at just over 5 percent of the Democratic primary vote in the RealClearPolitics polling average, while Gabbard is just under 1 percent.  Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.