Cunha, a chief critic of suspended President Dilma Rousseff, had already been suspended "Only my resignation will put an end to the instability," he says Eduardo Cunha, the man who led the charge to impeach Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff, resigned as speaker of the lower house of congress on Thursday. Cunha had already been suspended as speaker in May by the Supreme Court, at the request of the attorney general, who accused him of obstructing justice and hiding millions of dollars in bribes in Swiss bank accounts. Then last month, the congressional ethics committee voted to strip him of his congressional seat. Although resigning as speaker, he still hangs on to the seat, but could be voted out by the plenary in coming weeks. Cunha, who has been widely compared to the character Frank Underwood in the TV series “House of Cards,” teared up Thursday as he announced his resignation. “Only my resignation will put an end to the instability,” he told journalists during brief comments carried live around the country. With Cunha spearheading efforts, congress voted overwhelmingly in April in favor of launching an impeachment trial against Rousseff. With the Senate also voting in favor of a trial a month later, Rousseff was suspended for up to 180 days to defend herself against allegations she broke budgetary laws when she tried to hide a budget shortfall ahead of re-election in 2014. “I am paying a high price for having started the impeachment process. I have no doubt that the main reason for my removal lies in the conduction of this impeachment of the removed president,” Cunha said Thursday. He has been accused of benefiting from a massive bribery scheme involving the state-run oil company Petrobras. The corruption investigation has already brought down some of the country’s top political and business leaders. If congress votes him out, Cunha loses partial immunity from prosecution offered to members of congress and high-ranking politicians. “I will continue to defend my innocence and that I told the truth,” he said. The final decision in Rousseff’s impeachment trial will come after the 2016 Olympic Games end on August 21. Related video Brazil bolsters security after ISIS threat Vice President Michel Temer, who belongs to the same party as Cunha, stepped in as acting president and will take over permanently if Rousseff is impeached. On Thursday, Cunha wished him luck.


Republicans are likely to pick up another Democratic vote against the President’s Iran nuclear deal next week when Sen. Robert Menendez makes his position on the deal official. The New Jersey Democrat’s office said Friday that he will deliver a “major address” on the Iran deal Tuesday in New Jersey, where he will announce his decision on whether to vote for a congressional measure of disapproval on the deal. Menendez is expected to announce he is against the deal. The former Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member has been strongly critical of the deal and the administration’s negotiations with Iran, at one point accusing President Barack Obama of using talking points “straight out of Tehran.” If he announces he is a “no” as predicted, he will join New York Sen. Chuck Schumer as the only Democrats officially against the deal. RELATED: Iran deal Democrat whip list Assuming all Republicans vote against the deal, they will need 13 Democrats to join them in the Senate to override an assured presidential veto on the measure of disapproval. So far, 19 Democrats and independents who caucus with them have said they are in favor of the deal. The House would also need to muster a two-thirds majority to override a veto. Obama picked up two more House Democrats on Friday when Texas Rep. Rubén Hinojosa and California Rep. Jackie Speier announced they will support the deal.


Illegal immigration, the border wall, Democrats, “fake news” and even “Cheatin’ Obama.” These are the base-rallying call signs President Donald Trump has deployed on Twitter in the last week, just as he is facing a rare onslaught of criticism from pockets of his right-wing base over a $1.3 trillion spending measure he signed that didn’t include new border wall funding. The law included about $1.6 billion for border security. The lengthiest of his recent Twitter rants came in the last three mornings, after he spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago venting with allies and fielding the concerns of conservatives who worry he hasn’t done enough to mollify his political base’s demands for action on illegal immigration. Privately, sources close to the President and the White House say Trump is also increasingly turning to the 2018 midterm elections and has focused on how he can help deliver high turnout numbers among his supporters. Motivation his base is something the President and some of his allies believe will be key to keeping Congress in Republican hands and thus help avoid potential impeachment proceedings from a Democratic House. Related article At Mar-a-Lago, Trump hears from immigration hardliners Five sources close to the White House offered varying interpretations of whether there is a strategy behind the uptick in Trump’s tweets. But all agreed the activity has served to energize – or reassure – his political base and provides a preview of how Trump plans to approach the upcoming elections. “He’s only going to rev this up. He’s looking at targets that the base hates,” one source close to the White House said. “The enthusiasm gap between ‘the resistance’ and ‘the base’ is now palpable.” Trump’s weekend at Mar-a-Lago only served to solidify his ruefulness at the massive spending measure he signed a week earlier. There, Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro amplified the criticism of the bill found in some conservative circles where frustration at the lack of funding for a border wall reached a fever pitch. The loudest of those criticisms reached the President through TV screens, where the conservative firebrand Ann Coulter excoriated the President for failing to get border wall funding. One source said Trump was “rattled” by Coulter’s criticism, while another said he was “aggravated.” In its wake, Trump has issued a series of social media invectives to signal his commitment to stemming illegal immigration and building the wall that became as prominent a staple of his campaign as the red “Make America Great Again” hats donned by his supporters. Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL! ...Congress must immediately pass Border Legislation, use Nuclear Option if necessary, to stop the massive inflow of Drugs and People. Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen! Honduras, Mexico and many other countries that the U.S. is very generous to, sends many of their people to our country through our WEAK IMMIGRATION POLICIES. Caravans are heading here. Must pass tough laws and build the WALL. Democrats allow open borders, drugs and crime! “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their jobs at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release,” Trump tweeted on Sunday. On Monday, he lamented the lack of “effective border laws” in the US, warned “our country is being stolen!” and accused Democrats of wanting “No Borders, hence drugs and crime!” On Tuesday – between tweets about “fake news” – he offered still more on the topic: “The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our ‘Weak Laws’ Border, had better be stopped before it gets here.” But if Trump’s aim is to mollify the criticism he is facing from the right, one top Trump ally in Congress predicted that won’t be enough. “Most Republican members are just getting beat up because of the omnibus vote,” said the GOP lawmaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more candidly. “The danger is there was a day in time when a few tweets would reassure conservatives in Trump districts. The vote on the omnibus doesn’t allow for a tweet to reassure them anymore.” Reached by email, Coulter offered a similar analysis: “As I have said, they don’t call it ‘The Great Tweet of China.’ “ In the 11 days since he signed the spending bill that left Coulter and conservatives in Congress upset, Trump has continued to grumble about the lack of funding for the wall and privately blamed both members of his administration and Republican leaders in Congress for negotiating an unsatisfactory bill, three sources close to the President said. “He understands that the building of the wall was a central component of the campaign and it’s very difficult going into the ’18 cycle not having built it,” one source close to Trump said. But a separate source familiar with the conversations said Trump has coupled his frustration with the lack of funding with private insistence that the wall is being built – pointing to the replacement of existing fencing on the southern border – and that it must simply be marketed better to the public. Trump appeared to make an attempt at that last week when he tweeted photos of new fencing being installed on the border and wrote: “Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL!” Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL! pic.twitter.com/pmCNoxxlkH That messaging – from a President who is now without a communications director other than himself – is likely to increase as the midterms near. If not disappointed in the level of action on border security, Trump has worried that some of his supporters may be complacent. “History says that when you win the presidency, that party doesn’t do so well in the midterms because people get complacent. They get complacent,” Trump told a crowd in Ohio last week. “We cannot be complacent.” The President’s advisers inside and outside the White House have convinced him he can be the motivating factor, pointing him to figures that suggest he helped narrow the Republican deficit in a Pennsylvania congressional race by hitting the campaign trail days before the election last month. The Republican candidate still lost the race narrowly, despite the fact that Trump won the district by 20 points. Base-pleasing tweets like he has issued in the last week are likely to play into that effort, sources close to Trump said, noting that the tweets are a tried-and-true playbook of his 2016 campaign. But some allies still hope Trump will also use his Twitter account not just to pump up his base, but also to tout a growing economy and the tax cut bill that Republicans plan to run on as their 2018 platform. “He’s proven that he can drive the news cycle, but drive it for good,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser. “Because if we talk about the economy and where it’s going, we’re not going to lose the House.” Of course, tweets aimed at the base will help too, Bennett said. “What you gotta do is remind them why we’re fighting together,” he said. “It always works.” CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.


Police chief: "We confirm that we have found a device in the truck that doesn't belong there" The suspect is 39 years old and from Uzbekistan, prosecutor says A man arrested on suspicion of terrorism offenses after the Stockholm truck attack is from the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan and was known to intelligence services, Swedish authorities said. Suspicions about the arrested man have strengthened during the course of the investigation, Dan Eliasson, chief of the Swedish Police told a press briefing Saturday. Police are investigating a “technical device” found in the vehicle used in the attack, he said. “We confirm that we have found a device in the truck that doesn’t belong there. We are now investigating its content,” Eliasson said. “Whether this was a classic bomb or some sort of flammable device is now a matter for our analysis.” Related video Sweden truck attack: What happened Prosecutor Hans Ihrman said the arrested man was a 39-year-old from Uzbekistan. The attack Friday in the heart of Sweden’s capital killed four people and injured about 15 more. Eight of the injured are still being treated in hospital, Eliasson said. Four of the injured, all adults, have serious injuries, Stockholm County Council said earlier. One child suffered minor injuries. Earlier, Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT reported that a bag of undetonated explosives had been found inside the truck, which was stolen minutes before the attack as it made a delivery at a restaurant. The attacker apparently suffered burns caused by the explosives, which did not detonate properly, SVT said. A manhunt was launched immediately after the attack. The suspect was detained in the early hours of Saturday (Friday evening ET) in Marsta, a town about 30 minutes’ drive north of Stockholm near the city’s main international airport. The man has featured in previous intelligence reports from last year, Anders Thornberg, chief of the Security Service told the briefing. However, the security services were not able to confirm that intelligence, so he was not on their radar, he said. Their focus is now to prevent further attacks and investigate if there were other accomplices, Thornberg said. Security has been stepped up and border controls are in place. Eliasson said investigators were examining the suspect’s social media accounts and contacts, but declined to be drawn on whether he had connections to ISIS or other terror groups. “We do not know whether there are further persons involved in this act or not,” he said. “But we are not excluding that. We are still working on a very comprehensive approach to see whether there is any possibility that further individuals are involved.” Eliasson said he saw clear similarities to the attack in London last month, in which a man plowed through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before fatally stabbing a policeman outside the UK Parliament. The prosecutor has until noon Tuesday to ask the courts to detain the suspect, said Karin Rosander, spokeswoman for Sweden’s prosecutor’s office. King Carl XVI Gustaf on Saturday expressed his condolences to the friends and families of the victims. Speaking outside the royal palace in Stockholm, Gustaf said the nation was “shaken up” but urged people to seek peace. “We have experienced other violence acts before and we have survived then, he said. “We will also survive now… Sweden is – has been for a long time – and shall continue to be a safe and peaceful country.” Drottninggatan (Queen Street) remained cordoned off Saturday morning, but the truck had been removed overnight from the building where it had been wedged. Heavily armed officers guarded the area and several police vans were present. Scores of people came to lay flowers Saturday morning at a spot on Klarabergsgaten, near the crash site. The mood was subdued, with people seeming to be in quiet reflection. A post shared by Max Foster (@maxfostercnn) Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel visited the scene mid-morning. Princess Victoria, who was dressed in black and visibly moved to tears, was barely able to speak as she surveyed the area. “I feel an enormous sorrow and emptiness,” she told reporters. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who visited a short time later, said: “The goal is that we are supposed to be afraid, but Sweden has shown itself from its best side. That is a strength that no one can take away from us.” Police consoled one crying man nearby as he walked up with a bouquet.  Several fathers brought their children down to the barrier and explained gently what happened. Habib Jlassi, a 29-year-old night bus driver who was there with his three-year-old daughter, told CNN it was important to pay tribute to those who lost their lives. “I’ve come here to show that we are not afraid,” said Jlassi, who lives in Stockholm and whose eyes appeared red from crying. “We are stronger than them.” Around the corner, in a square outside Stockholm Concert Hall, a flower, fruit and vegetable market was being set up. Some people bought flowers there before walking over to leave them by the cordon. Debris still littered the ground around the crash scene and workers in neon suits carried items to a waiting skip. Some shops opened Saturday morning on streets around Drottninggatan as the city center began to return to normal. CNN’s Lauren Said-Moorhouse and journalist Per Nyberg reported from Stockholm, while CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN’s Max Foster and Mariano Castillo contributed to this report.


Prosecutor announces judicial investigation of child sex abuse claims against French soldiers Soldiers accused of raping, abusing children while deployed in Central African Republic A week after allegations of child sex abuse by French peacekeepers deployed to the Central African Republic rocked France, a Paris prosecutor announced that judges would investigate a number of people in the alleged rape and sexual abuse of minors. The abuses were allegedly committed against a dozen hungry, vulnerable children at a displaced persons camp at M’Poko International Airport in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, between December 2013 and June. In its statement, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced “a judicial investigation against unnamed persons accused of charges of rapes on minors” aged under 15 years, or complicity in this, “by people abusing the authority conferred by their functions.” Investigating magistrates will now continue the investigation, it said. It did not state how many soldiers were under suspicion. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, it was sent a confidential U.N. document by the French Ministry of Defense in July reporting the testimonies of six children ages 9, 11 and 13 about abuses at the M’Poko camp. Four of the children said they were victims of sexual abuse by peacekeepers with France’s Operation Sangaris, and two said they had witnessed abuse. On receiving the document, the military affairs section of the Paris prosecutor’s office immediately launched a preliminary investigation, its statement said, and sent investigators to the Central African Republic for a week in August. They carried out a number of interviews but have not yet interviewed any children in connection with the allegations. The Paris prosecutor wanted to speak beforehand with the U.N. official who wrote the report, the statement said, and she agreed to come to Paris. “The U.N. hierarchy, however, refused this hearing, indicating that the official benefited from an immunity that had to be lifted before any hearing,” the statement said. Eventually it was agreed that the official could complete a written questionnaire, which was returned to the Paris prosecutor’s office last week, it said. The director of an advocacy group that was sent a copy of the leaked U.N. report told CNN last week that French soldiers forced hungry, homeless young boys to perform sex acts on them in return for small amounts of food, water and sometimes some cash. “The children were severely traumatized by the events,” said Paula Donovan, co-director of AIDS-Free World. A French Defense Ministry spokesman told a news conference in Paris last week that the army had not gone public about the case previously because a judicial inquiry was ongoing. In response to the furor, French President Francois Hollande promised heavy sanctions against any soldier found guilty of the allegations. The United Nations confirmed it had suspended a staffer over the leak of the document last summer to the French government. The unnamed staffer is accused of providing an unedited version of the internal U.N. report to French authorities before it even reached senior management in the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mia Farrow: Why children in CAR should matter to us all CNN’s Sarah Oulahna and Ariana Williams contributed to this report.

French soldiers deployed in the Central African Republic


NEW: ACLU: The decision has "huge implications" for Dreamers NEW: "It will set a precedent for other cases like mine," Jessica Colotl says Jessica Colotl says her life flew into turmoil after US officials revoked her protection from deportation last month. She couldn’t work. She was scared to drive. And at any moment she feared she could be deported to Mexico. On Monday, the 28-year-old won a temporary reprieve after a federal judge ordered officials to reinstate her protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program while they reconsider her renewal application. In his order, US District Judge Mark H. Cohen said US Citizenship and Immigration Services officials had not followed proper procedures when they revoked Colotl’s protections under the program last month. Immigrant rights advocates hailed the ruling as a victory that shows officials can’t arbitrarily revoke the protections they granted to so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. “The court’s decision today has huge implications for all Dreamers,” said Lorella Praeli, director of immigration policy and campaigns at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The government can’t just break its promises for no reason.” Colotl was born in Mexico and was brought to the United States by her parents 17 years ago, when she was 11 years old. Her case first drew attention in 2010, when a traffic violation on her college campus landed her behind bars and sparked a national debate about how officials should approach Dreamers’ cases. “Jessica is very excited to see justice prevail in this case, and remains confident that USCIS, when it actually adjudicates the DACA renewal, will, this time, follow the correct procedures in making its decision,” attorney Charles Kuck said in a written statement after the judge’s ruling on Monday. A spokeswoman for the US Department of Justice declined to comment, describing the case as a pending matter. Colotl filed a federal lawsuit last month after officials denied her renewal application and revoked her protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which the Obama administration created in 2012. The DACA program provides so-called Dreamers with temporary work authorization and protection from deportation for renewable two-year periods. More than three-quarters of a million people have been granted DACA status since the program began. Related article DACA: 10 questions on program that protects 'Dreamers' President Trump has sent mixed messages about the program’s future. He decried it on the campaign trail, but struck a softer tone once he took office. To date, the program remains in place. In the first three months of 2017, officials approved more than 100,000 DACA applications, 17,275 initial applications and 107,524 renewals, according to statistics  released last week. And officials have repeatedly stressed that they’re not targeting Dreamers for deportation. Colotl told reporters last week that she was shocked to learn she’d been kicked out of the DACA program. “I was devastated by it, because I knew that it would destroy my life, and it did that,” she said. “I went in a matter of seconds from having a normal life to basically being paralyzed.” Immigration officials initially said Colotl’s protections had been revoked because she admitted guilt to a 2011 charge of making a false statement to law enforcement. Colotl’s attorneys denied that accusation, arguing that the Trump administration had tried to make an example of Colotl, who has become an outspoken advocate for immigrant rights. Government attorneys conceded in court last week that Colotl hadn’t pleaded guilty. But they also argued that doesn’t matter, saying that officials have the discretion to decide who to accept into the program. Related article Sec. Kelly: DHS not targeting 'Dreamers' In his order on Monday, Cohen said officials do have discretion, but also said they must follow their own established procedures as they weigh applications. Colotl described the judge’s ruling as amazing. “It will set a precedent for other cases like mine,” she said. CNN’s Tristan Smith contributed to this report.


Former CIA Director John Brennan testified before the House intelligence committee Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified at the Senate armed services panel Another set of Capitol Hill hearings brought more pain for President Donald Trump Tuesday, as former CIA Director John Brennan told lawmakers there was clear contact between Trump campaign aides and Russian operatives. At almost the same time, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said he would be willing to discuss later whether Trump leaned on him to push back against Russia reports. RELATED: Calculating or naive? Trump caught in cloud of Russia probe revelations Here are the top five things we learned. Brennan, testifying for the first time as a private citizen, offered up a stream of news and developments Tuesday morning, but the biggest was clearly that he saw evidence that Trump aides were being courted by Russian operatives. He refused to name names, but that statement alone was enough. “I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals and it raised questions in my mind, again, whether or not the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of those individuals,” Brennan told the House intelligence committee. He later added that, “these are contacts that might’ve been totally, totally innocent and benign as well as those that might have succumbed somehow to those Russian efforts.” Coats would not answer questions about reports that Trump asked him to publicly deny evidence of cooperation between his campaign and Russia. And he would not say whether he’s spoken about the issue with National Security Agency Chief Adm. Mike Rogers, who Trump also reportedly asked to deny the Russia collusion. RELATED: Trump asked DNI, NSA to deny evidence of Russia collusion “I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to characterize discussions and conversations with the President,” Coats told the Senate armed services committee at a hearing Tuesday. But importantly, Coats said he would be willing to talk about his conversations if asked by both Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional investigators. Coats did open up in one exchange, too, when he was asked to talk about the situation hypothetically. Trump’s intel chief said he’s made clear to the administration he will not politicize intelligence. “I made it clear in my confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that my role and the role of the Director of National Intelligence is to provide information, intelligence information relevant to policy makers so that they can base their judgments on that,” Coats said. “That any political shaping of that presentation or intelligence would not be appropriate. I have made my position clear on that to the administration and I intend to maintain that position.” Chalk up a small win for the White House, during an otherwise grueling morning: Brennan could not definitively say that he saw any evidence of collusion. “If someone left this hearing today and said that you had indicated that those contacts were evidence of collusion or collaboration, they would be misrepresenting your statements, correct?” asked Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican. Brennan responded: “I would say it was not an accurate portrayal of my statement.” But before the White House celebrates, Brennan was also clear that he is not in a position to definitively rule out collusion. “I don’t want to take this out of context. We see contacts, interactions, between Russian officials and US persons all the time. It is when it’s in the context that there’s something else going on. So we knew at the time that the Russians were involved in this effort to try to interfere in our election, so with that backdrop, and increasing indications that they were involved with that, seeing these types of contacts and interactions during the same period of time raised my concern,” he said. Brennan – a former analyst, versed in the recruitment of spies – cautioned that Russian attempts to recruits spies inside the CIA itself has shown what should be obvious: Nobody ever directly announces themselves as a Russian spy when they are trying to recruit someone. “Frequently, people who go along a treasonous path do not know they are on a treasonous path until it is too late,” Brennan said. Brennan did not single out anyone, but his comments were an apparent reference to the Trump campaign. Intelligence sources have previously confirmed to CNN that former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page was being cultivated as a source for a Russian spy – whether he knew it or not. Page has repeatedly denied that charge. Sources: Russia tried to use Trump advisers to infiltrate campaign Trump’s apparent sharing of sensitive intelligence during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak has not set off any alarm bells for the director of national intelligence. RELATED - Sources: Trump shared classified info with Russians New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich said Trump’s sharing would be considered the “mother of all leaks” if he held any position in government besides president, which gives him the authority to declassify whatever he wants. Asked if it was dangerous for Trump to share the info, reportedly from the Israelis, with Russia, Coats responded: “Well I wasn’t in the room and I don’t know what the President shared, though I have read his public comments.” Coats went on to say that he had “no awareness” of whether there was any process that occurred within the intelligence community to clear the sharing with Russia, and he said the intelligence community has not assessed the impact of the release. “We have not initiated an assessment of that,” Coats said. “There are procedures that we go through to determine what assessments have been made or need to be made. There is a process that we go through to my understanding we have not initiated that.”


US easing of sanctions welcomed by businesses Increase in smartphone users Sudan is opening up to the internet economy, thanks to the easing of US sanctions. The country has experienced a growth in e-commerce businesses, such as online shopping platforms and an Uber-style taxi app Mishwar. According to the most recent data from Internet World Stats, internet users made up 29% of the population in 2016 – a notable rise from the 9.3% in 2009. This number is expected to boom even further as Sudan’s young e-commerce entrepreneurs drive customers out of the shops and into the online marketplace. “The reason why e-trade at large is a new phenomenon is that we’ve been allowed to get in touch with the world once again,” said Yousif Ahmed El Tinay, CEO of Sudan’s United Capital Bank. The country, which sits on the crossroads between Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, has gone through decades of isolation. In 1997, the US imposed economic, trade and financial sanctions on Sudan. This made Sudan increasingly reliant on its oil revenue – which accounted for over half of Sudan’s government revenue and 95% of its exports. Related article 44 African countries agree free trade agreement, Nigeria yet to sign But when the south seceded in 2011, Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil reserves, according to an IMF report, which – combined with the sanctions – sent the economy into dire straits and record low GDP Annual Growth Rate of 1.4% in 2012. Related article Africa's top airports revealed “Sanctions have kept us cut (off), not in touch with the world, (which) has meant we have not been able to have access or direct access to the advanced technologies offered,” said El Tinay. But the US government’s decision to lift the trade embargo in October 2017 – giving the country access to previously frozen assets and allowing US goods to be purchased – has brought hope to the nation, despite some restrictive measures remaining. Sudan is still listed on the US state sponsors of terrorism, alongside Iran and Syria. “We have welcomed very positively the lifting of US sanctions and we think this is a great opportunity for such businesses to grow,” said Mazen Magzoub, who co-founded the Sudanese shopping platform, Dukkan, along with Ubabadah Atta in 2016. Related article Music giant Spotify launches streaming services in South Africa It had dawned on Atta that he couldn’t purchase anything from international brands and websites because they don’t deliver to Sudan. “That’s when the lightbulb moment happened,” he said. He and Magzoub made it their mission to provide items – such as clothes, books and electronics – using online payment and delivery services. “We knew there’s a market for this,” Atta added. However, the country’s e-commerce entrepreneurs still face some major hurdles – for instance, how to steer Sudanese people from using cash to paying online? “Consumers are not really used to purchasing online,” says Magzoub. The Sudanese are used to the conventional over-the-counter purchases, and to sway them, e-commerce businesses must earn their trust. Related article Free gift? China extends influence in Africa with $32M grant for regional HQ Take Mishwar, Sudan’s equivalent to Uber, which launched in 2015. Founder Tarig Seifeldin Hamad described the struggle in making it catch on. “At this time, people barely had smartphones,” he said, “so when you want to explain to someone you need a smartphone and you need an app and the app can do this, it’s difficult.” It was only when people saw it in action that the taxi app took off. “We had five trips one month,” said Hamad, “the next we had 100, and then 1,000.” The use of smartphones in Sudan is on the rise, reflecting the wider use across the continent. According to a 2016 report by GSMA, the number of smartphone connections in Africa almost doubled since 2014 to reach 226 million. It predicts a further half a billion smartphone connections by 2020. These connection rates will no doubt boost e-commerce. McKinsey predicts that online shopping could account for up to 10% of retails sales (with a value of around US $75 billion) by 2025, as more Africans gain access to the internet.


"Europe is responsible because it supported terrorism," al-Assad tells Russian media He accuses the U.S. of "willful blindness" over his government's role in the fight against ISIS Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is blaming Western nations for fueling the refugee crisis by supporting opposition groups in his country’s bloody civil war. “If you are worried about them, stop supporting terrorists,” he said in an interview with Russian news organizations. “That’s what we think regarding the crisis. This is the core of the whole issue of refugees.” Europe is struggling to deal with unusually large numbers of migrants arriving at its borders, many of them refugees fleeing the years-long conflict in Syria that has killed more than 220,000 people. Western leaders have criticized al-Assad for presiding over the violent fragmentation of his country, a war that helped spawn the rise of the militant group ISIS and has driven more than four million Syrians to flee abroad. But the Syrian President told Russian media Tuesday that European countries should take the blame. “Europe is responsible because it supported terrorism,” he said in the interview at his home in Damascus, the capital. Related gallery Syria's civil war in pictures It wasn’t clear exactly what actions al-Assad was referring to. The European Union in May 2013 ended an arms embargo on rebel groups fighting the Syrian government. The United States, meanwhile, has been offering limited support to moderate Syrian rebels in the fight against ISIS. “Can you feel sad for a child’s death in the sea and not for thousands of children who have been killed by the terrorists in Syria?” al-Assad said, referring to images of a dead Syrian boy that shocked the world. “And also for men, women, and the elderly? These European double standards are no longer acceptable.” Despite his bitter accusations, al-Assad said he was willing to shake hands with any leader who would join the fight against ISIS and hoped to cooperate with the West and Saudi Arabia in building a “real antiterrorist coalition,” the Russian news agency Interfax reported. Opinion: West reaps what it has sown He said his forces weren’t communicating or cooperating tactically with the U.S.-led coalition that’s carrying out airstrikes against ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq. “They cannot accept the reality that we are the only power fighting ISIS on the ground,” he said in reference to the United States. “For them, maybe if they cooperate with the Syrian Army, this is like a recognition or our effectiveness in fighting ISIS.” He accused the U.S. government of “willful blindness” on the matter. Al-Assad said he would resign if the people of Syria demanded it in a democratic process, but that he would not step down solely under pressure from the United States, the United Nations or any other outside power, according to Interfax. A democratic solution to Syria’s crisis appears impossible at the moment, with control the country divided among different armed groups and more than half of all Syrians driven from their homes by the fighting. Elections held in the past under al-Assad, which he won by huge margins, have been criticized by opposition groups and Western governments. Are countries obligated to take in refugees?


Anthony Acevedo was the first Mexican-American to register as a Holocaust survivor "Never repay evil with evil. Remember what my buddies and I went through." Two dozen veterans held US flags and stood at attention as they and dozens of family and friends bid farewell to one of the nation’s great war heroes. Anthony C. Acevedo’s four children and two grandchildren escorted his flag-draped coffin as he came to rest at Riverside National Cemetery before the Prisoner of War Missing in Action Memorial. Acevedo was a World War II medic and one of 350 US soldiers held in a Nazi slave labor camp. His journal proved critical in documenting the deaths and atrocities inside the camp. He would become the first Mexican-American ever recognized as a Holocaust survivor. He kept one brutality secret, though, until the final months of his life. At 93, his final words were: “How life tells a story.” “Not only is he a great American, but he’s also an icon,” Col. Dan Forden, a chaplain at the VA Hospital in Loma Linda, told the crowd. “He’s the real measure of a man – this is the man we want to be.” Three rifle volleys echoed across the hushed crowd. A bugler played “Taps” as veterans gave Acevedo one final salute. Each of Acevedo’s children were presented with folded flags, including the one from his coffin, before a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.” “If I can describe my father with one word, it would be heart,” Acevedo’s daughter, Rebeca Acevedo-Carlin, said at an earlier memorial service. “What an incredible, genuine man he was,” said his son, Fernando Acevedo. “He would always say have faith, care for others and, more importantly, love one another. I saw my father act with love toward everyone.” His story is one of bravery, honor and heroism – one forever etched in American history. Anthony Claude Acevedo was born July 31, 1924, in San Bernardino, California, to parents who had entered the country illegally from Mexico. The young family moved to nearby Pasadena, where Acevedo attended segregated schools with blacks, Asians and other Latinos. When his parents were deported back to Mexico in 1937, he went with them. But his love for America never wavered. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Acevedo was determined to defend his homeland. At age 17, he crossed back into the United States and enlisted in the Army. He received medical training in Illinois and eventually landed in the European theater in October 1944, where he served as a medic. “Was captured the 6th of January 1945,” he wrote in his first journal entry after being taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge. The next month, 350 US soldiers – Jews and “undesirables,” including Acevedo – were separated from other prisoners of war. They were told they were going to a beautiful camp with live shows and a theater. Instead, they were put on cattle cars and transported to Berga, a slave labor subcamp of the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany where tens of thousands of Jews died. The US soldiers worked 12-hour days in the final weeks of the war, digging tunnels for a sophisticated V-2 rocket factory. Soldiers were starved and brutalized with rubber hoses and bayonets. Some were fatally shot in the head with wooden bullets. The Nazis forced Acevedo to fill the holes in the heads of his fellow soldiers with wax to cover up the killings. Acevedo used a fountain pen to record the atrocities in a diary, noting every US soldier’s death that he saw. About half of the soldiers sent to Berga survived, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. During the next six decades, the US government never acknowledged its soldiers were held in a slave labor camp. But after Acevedo shared his account with CNN in 2008, the story went viral and the public demanded answers. Then-US Reps. Joe Baca of California and Spencer Bachus of Alabama pressed then-Army Secretary Pete Geren to recognize the soldiers. Within months, Army Maj. Gen. Vincent Boles met with six Berga survivors at a POW event in Orlando, presenting them with flags flown over the Pentagon and honoring them for their sacrifice. One soldier received the Bronze Star, one of the nation’s highest medals. “It wasn’t a prison camp. It was a slave labor camp,” Boles told them. “You were good soldiers and you were there for your nation.” Acevedo boycotted the ceremony, saying he felt it should have been held in Washington. In 2010, Acevedo became the first Mexican-American to register as a Holocaust survivor at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, out of 225,000 registered there. Acevedo donated his diary, Red Cross medic’s band, cross and prayer book to the museum. The museum recorded his oral history in English and Spanish. After Acevedo came forward, other Berga survivors did the same, recording their testimonies and donating historical artifacts. Previously, the museum only had a handful of testimonies from Berga; now it could add their stories to its permanent collection. “We were able to finally tell their story in our exhibition for the first time because we now had physical evidence that we could show our visitors,” said Kyra Schuster, a museum curator. View Acevedo’s diary catalogued by the museum Acevedo’s story also allowed Mexican-Americans to connect to the Holocaust in a way they never had before. Schuster still travels the country telling the story of Berga, and she says it’s always incredible when Latinos learn of Acevedo’s survival and courage. When asked why he put his own life at risk by keeping a diary of every US soldier’s death he witnessed, Acevedo told the museum, “It was my moral obligation to do so.” “That’s always stuck with me,” Schuster says, “because I think that defines who he is. “He was this man who, despite the odds against him, despite what he was going through and experiencing, it was still important for him to take care of others, to document what was happening, to make sure the world knew what had happened to them. “That’s why he spoke out later in life. He was always putting other people ahead of himself. That’s how I see him, and that is so admirable.” Proud of his heritage, Acevedo listened with dismay over the last year as the nation’s leaders took a hardened stance toward immigrants. “They don’t know shit from Shinola,” Fernando Acevedo recalled his father saying. His son said Acevedo, a lifelong conservative, would shake his head and change the TV channel from politics to Westerns. He’d then tell Fernando: “Always remember: Never repay evil with evil. Remember what my buddies and I went through. Never treat anybody like they’re below you. We can’t turn a blind eye.” After the war, Acevedo, then 20, returned home and worked as a surgical technician in an ear, nose and throat clinic in Pasadena. Around that time, he took a trip to Durango, Mexico to visit his father – who didn’t believe his account of being held in a slave labor camp. “You’re a coward for allowing yourself to be captured,” his father told him. “You should’ve killed yourself.” Acevedo left his father’s home the next day with only a duffel bag and set off on his own. The two didn’t speak for years. On the train ride back to California he met the woman of his dreams. Eight months later, he and Amparo Martinez were married. Together, they had four children: Tony, Rebeca, Fernando and Ernesto. Acevedo settled into a successful aerospace engineering career, working for North American Aviation, McDonnell Douglas and Hughes Space and Communications, where he retired in 1987 after 35 years as a design engineer. In retirement, the demons of war resurfaced. He would break into a sweat four to five times a day, shaking and trembling as he relived his captivity. At night, he was haunted by nightmares so intense his muscles would constrict and he’d wake up screaming. He’d relive seeing a fellow medic killed by machine gun fire. Germans would shove him with bayonets. A dead comrade would suddenly flash into his mind. To help cope, he volunteered at the VA hospital in Loma Linda. He said he liked spending time with the veterans there because so many died alone. He would share his story with local high school students and was buoyed by his work with the Holocaust museum. “He was the epitome of kindness,” Fernando said. “We should all be that way for fellow man – this power of strength yet gentleness to give to others. That was my dad’s mission.” A corporal, Acevedo served as a medic for the 275th Infantry Regiment of the 70th Infantry Division. Surrounded by Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge, he was captured after days of brutal firefights. He saw one of his fellow medics, Murray Pruzan, gunned down. “When I saw him stretched out there in the snow, frozen, God, that’s the only time I cried,” Acevedo once told CNN. “He was stretched out, just massacred by a machine gun with his Red Cross band. “You see all of them dying out there in the fields. You have to build a thick wall.” Acevedo was first taken to a prison camp known as Stalag IX-B in Bad Orb, Germany, where thousands of American, French, Italian and Russian soldiers were held as prisoners of war. He would be known by the Germans as Prisoner No. 27016. One day, he said, a German commander gathered the US prisoners and asked all Jews “to take one step forward.” Few willingly did so. Jewish soldiers wearing Star of David necklaces began yanking them off. About 90 Jewish soldiers and another 260 US soldiers deemed “undesirables” – those who “looked like Jews” – were selected. Acevedo, who was Catholic, was among them. “They put us on a train, and we traveled six days and six nights. It was a boxcar that would fit heads of cattle,” he said. “They had us 80 to a boxcar.” It was February 8, 1945, when they arrived. The camp was known as Berga an der Elster. The soldiers, Acevedo said, were given 100 grams of bread per week made of redwood sawdust, ground glass and barley. Soup was made from cats and rats. If soldiers tried to escape, they would be shot and killed. Any who were captured alive would be executed with gunshots to their foreheads, Acevedo said. “Many of our men died, and I tried keeping track of who they were and how they died,” he said. “I’m glad I did it.” The names and dates of death were logged in his diary as the days wore on. 32. Hamilton 4-5-4533. Young 4-5-4534. Smith 4-9-4535. Vogel 4-9-4536. Wagner 4-9-45 The main Buchenwald camp was officially liberated on April 11, 1945. But as US troops neared, Nazis emptied the camp and its subcamps of tens of thousands of prisoners and forced them to march. The soldiers held at Berga were no exception. “Very definite that we are moving away from here and on foot,” Acevedo wrote in his diary on April 4, 1945. “This isn’t very good for our sick men. No drinking water and no latrines.” The soldiers’ death march would last three weeks and stretch 217 miles. Acevedo pushed a wooden cart with the bodies of the dead and sick stacked on top of each other. Toward the end of the march, there were as many as 20 bodies on the cart. “We saw massacres of people being slaughtered off the highway. Women, children,” he said. “You could see people of all ages hanging on barbed wire.” On April 13, 1945, Acevedo wrote of the soldiers’ patriotism, even as they were being marched to their graves. “Bad news for us. President Roosevelt’s death. We all felt bad about it. We held a prayer service for the repose of his soul.” His entry that day ended with: “Burdeski died today.” Acevedo kept his diary hidden in his pants. He mixed snow or urine with the ink in his fountain pen to make it last. US troops liberated Acevedo and the remaining prisoners from the Nazis on April 23, 1945. Before returning home, Acevedo signed a US government document that haunted him for decades: “You must give no account of your experience in books, newspapers, periodicals, or in broadcasts or in lectures,” it said. “I understand that disclosure to anyone else will make me liable to disciplinary action.” He had shared his story with students locally for years and had spoken to a couple of authors who wrote books on the Berga soldiers. He decided to speak with CNN in 2008 to make sure the story was preserved in the internet age. “Let it be known,” he said. “People have to know what happened.” The government said the document wasn’t meant to keep the men silent – that it was meant to protect sources in Germany who helped aid liberating troops. Acevedo had a one-word response to that explanation: “Hullabaloo.” The Nazi camp commanders at Berga – Erwin Metz and his superior, Hauptmann Ludwig Merz – were tried for war crimes in Germany in 1946. They gave a much different account of treatment at Berga. They said US prisoners ate better than the guards, had comfortable accommodations and that the Nazis tried to help the Americans as best they could. Surviving US soldiers were not called to testify. Merz described inspecting the soldiers on April 19, 1945, two weeks into the death march. “Roughly 200 prisoners were there, all of whom gave the appearance of being well-rested,” Merz told the court. “I noticed one sick, who was sitting on the ground, because he could not stand up the entire time it took me to make my inspection.” Pressed further, he said, “Among those that I saw, there were no sick except the one I mentioned.” Acevedo’s diary entry from that same day painted a different picture: “More of our men died today, so fast that you couldn’t keep track of their numbers.” Merz and Metz were found guilty and sentenced to die by hanging. But in 1948, the US government commuted their death sentences, and in the 1950s, the men were set free. In explaining its decision, the War Department said, “Metz, though guilty of a generally cruel course of conduct toward prisoners, was not directly responsible for the death of any prisoners except one who was killed during the course of an attempt to escape.” I once asked Acevedo about his feelings toward Metz. He wept for 10 minutes as his muscles tightened and his breathing grew strained, the throes of post-traumatic stress overtaking him. I held him in my arms and told him how much his country loved him. “I’m sorry,” he said, gasping. “I’m sorry. I want to say more, but I can’t.” This past December, Acevedo was hospitalized with heart problems. His son, Fernando, was searching through his father’s military records when he found a psychiatric evaluation from 1996. Fernando’s heart sank as he read through the file. Suddenly, everything made sense – his father’s tremors, his waking in the middle of the night, his screams. The evaluation detailed a war crime his father could not speak about with his son: “He was raped while the Germans laughed and became sexually aroused,” the file said. “He was humiliated and felt violated and infinitesimal, like a toy, not a human being. Veteran had extremely traumatic experiences in combat and in the hands of the Gestapo who were ruthless in their methods.” When his father returned from the hospital, Fernando sat him down and showed him the file. “Oh,” his father said. “I’m glad you found it.” Fernando said his father paused before continuing: “I want you to tell everyone what I went through and how I struggled with the nightmares. I want you to tell everybody.” Acevedo told his son to include the rape in his obituary so the world can understand: “This is how low man can get.” Acevedo took his final breath at 6:28 p.m. on February 11, in the same VA hospital where he’d spent the last two decades volunteering. His body was draped in a US flag and prepared for a traditional honor walk, a way to treat a veteran’s death with dignity. Word spread throughout the hospital that the beloved Acevedo – whose warmth and love cheered up veterans, doctors and nurses alike – was gone. Hallways overflowed with people standing at attention as Acevedo was accompanied by his four children. See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. “They saluted my dad all the way up and down the hallway as we were walking. Four floors like that,” Fernando said. “Nurses, doctors, patients who were able to stand – everyone was standing at attention saluting my dad.” “I tell you, that was really heavy.” Acevedo died with a clear conscience, having told the world about the treatment he and his fellow soldiers at Berga faced. His message was one of love and peace. As he was put to rest Thursday, I couldn’t help but think of his giant smile and gentle voice. “You only live once. Let’s keep trucking. If we don’t do that, who’s going to do it for us? We have to be happy. Why hate?” he once told me. A true national treasure.


John Bolton said on Thursday that his past policy statements are “behind me” and that, after taking over next month as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, “The important thing is what the President says and the advice I give him.” But Bolton’s history of provocative, often bellicose pronouncements, typically in the form of calls to bomb countries like Iran and North Korea – along with his unwavering support, before and after, for the 2003 invasion of Iraq – are impossible to pass off, especially as Trump considers tearing up the Iran nuclear deal and prepares for talks with Pyongyang. What follows is a small sampling of Bolton’s rhetoric, dating back to the post-9/11 period. Back then, while working in the Bush administration, Bolton made the case at home and abroad that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that the US role in the aftermath of regime change in Iraq would be “fairly minimal.” Trump, by the way, has pointed to his own opposition to the Iraq war as evidence of his smarts. Bolton also publicly accused Cuba of providing “dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states.” Years later, after leaving his post as ambassador to the UN, he pushed to expand the Iraq War into Iran. More recently, he’s pushed for unilateral strikes in Iran and North Korea, while casting doubt on Russia’s role in 2016 election-related hacking. Citing preemptive strikes by Israel on Syrian (2007) and Iraqi (1981) reactor sites, Bolton in February of this year – less than four weeks ago – made a case in the Wall Street Journal for a potential US attack on North Korea: “Pre-emption opponents argue that action is not justified because Pyongyang does not constitute an ‘imminent threat.’ They are wrong. The threat is imminent, and the case against pre-emption rests on the misinterpretation of a standard that derives from prenuclear, pre-ballistic-missile times. Given the gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea, we should not wait until the very last minute. That would risk striking after the North has deliverable nuclear weapons, a much more dangerous situation.” In December 2016, Bolton said he wasn’t convinced the Russian had a role in pre-election hacking. “It’s not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation. The question that has to be asked is, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary’s server but their dumb intelligence services against the election?” In an opinion piece filed after special counsel Robert Mueller returned indictments alleging conspiracy to defraud the US against a group of Russian nationals, Bolton wrote: “One way to (deter Russia) is to engage in a retaliatory cyber campaign against Russia. This effort should not be proportional to what we have just experienced. It should be decidedly disproportionate. The lesson we want Russia (or anyone else) to learn is that the costs to them from future cyberattacks against the United States will be so high that they will simply consign all their cyberwarfare plans to their computer memories to gather electronic dust.” Asked by a Fox News host if there were any “diplomatic options” remaining in the nuclear standoff with North Korea, Bolton suggested this: Bolton: “I think the only diplomatic option left is to end the regime in North Korea by effectively having the South take it over. You’ve got to argue with China–” Fox News host Trish Regan: “That’s not really diplomatic! (Laughing) As far as they’re concerned.” Bolton: “Well, that’s their problem, not ours. Anybody who thinks that more diplomacy with North Korea, more sanctions, whether against North Korea, or an effort to apply sanctions against China, is just giving North Korea more time to increase its nuclear arsenal…” In a speech to the American Freedom Alliance conference in August 2016, Bolton drew applause when he said this of Obama at the beginning of a speech on Muslim countries and their politics: “King Abdullah of Jordan, who is not simply the Muslim king of a Muslim country, unlike our president… (laughter and cheers) … King Abdullah and other political leaders in the Middle East have said this is a civil war within Islam.” In Janaury of this year, again in the Wall Street Journal, he argued that the administration take more forceful steps to break the terms of the pact: “Spending the next 120 days negotiating with ourselves will leave the West mired in stasis. Mr. Trump correctly sees Mr. Obama’s deal as a massive strategic blunder, but his advisers have inexplicably persuaded him not to withdraw. Last fall, deciding whether to reimpose sanctions and decertify the deal under the Corker-Cardin legislation, the administration also opted to keep the door open to ‘fixes’ – a punt on third down. Let’s hope Friday’s decision is not another punt.” He also touched on a common theme in his writing, going back at least to former President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech, that connects Iran and North Korea: “Little is known, at least publicly, about longstanding Iranian-North Korean cooperation on nuclear and ballistic-missile technology. It is foolish to play down Tehran’s threat because of Pyongyang’s provocations. They are two sides of the same coin.” Rewind to August 2002 and remarks made during talks between the North and South Koreans, when Bolton defended the expression and insisted “it was factually correct.” This is from the New York Times report: “In a strongly worded speech, the official, John R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control, cited what he said was ‘a hard connection between these regimes – an “axis” along which flow dangerous weapons and dangerous technology.’” Ahead of the Brexit vote in 2016, Bolton wrote in the New York Daily News that the UK would enter potential EU exit negotiations with the upper hand. (Things have been somewhat more difficult than he figured.): “EU stalwarts like German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble have tried to scare Britain by proposing obnoxious exit terms. The rhetoric is hollow bluster. The advantages of free trade and easy movement of goods and financial resources between Europe and Britain, whether or not the latter remains part of the former, will dictate that Britain and the EU negotiate Brexit terms that are mutually advantageous. … There is an inherent economic risk in abandoning arrangements and institutions built up over time. But in the sweep of European history, the EU is a newcomer. It makes sense for Britain exit now rather than wait until disaster strikes.” Shortly before the framework of the Iran nuclear deal was set in place, Bolton wrote a piece headlined, “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” He even considered outsourcing the job to Israel: “Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed. … An attack need not destroy all of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what’s necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.” Bolton became Bush’s under secretary of state for arms control and international security in May of 2001 and remained in the job for about four years, during which time the US invaded Iraq under false pretenses, before taking over as ambassador the United Nations via recess appointment. Asked in 2015 about the decision to go to war, here’s what he told the Washington Examiner: “I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct. I think decisions made after that decision were wrong, although I think the worst decision made after that was the 2011 decision to withdraw U.S. and coalition forces. The people who say, oh things would have been much better if you didn’t overthrow Saddam miss the point that today’s Middle East does not flow totally and unchangeably from the decision to overthrow Saddam alone.” In 2008, Bolton called for strikes inside Iran as part of a bid to cut off Tehran’s aid to insurgents in Iraq. Asked by a Fox News host what he thought would “happen next” if the US attacked, he downplayed the potential for widening the war: “I think the Iranians need to look very carefully at what risk they would run if they were to escalate. The idea here is not to have much larger hostilities, but to stop the Iranians from engaging in the hostilities that they’re already doing against us inside Iraq. And they’re doing much the same by aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. So this is not provocative or preemptive, this is entirely responsive on our part.” In the run-up to the Iraq invasion he made the case for regime change to the BBC. Here’s one of his arguments in favor: “I think the Iraqi people would be unique in history if they didn’t welcome the overthrow of this dictatorial regime. And Iraqi opposition leaders of a variety of positions and views are discussing now what will happen after Saddam Hussein. I expect that the American role actually will be fairly minimal. I think we’ll have an important security role. I think concluding the destruction of the weapons of mass destruction themselves will be important. But I think fundamentally the recreation of a hopefully democratic Iraqi government – that must rest with the Iraqis.”


Attorney General Jeff Sessions prepared these remarks to deliver at the Senate intelligence committee hearing on Tuesday: Thank you Chairman Burr and Ranking Member Warner for allowing me to publicly appear before the committee today. I appreciate the Committee’s critically important efforts to investigate Russian interference with our democratic process.  Such interference can never be tolerated and I encourage every effort to get to the bottom of any such allegations. As you know, the Deputy Attorney General has appointed a special counsel to investigate matters related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.  I am here today to address several issues that have been specifically raised before this committee, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond to questions as fully as I am able to do so.  But as I advised you, Mr. Chairman, and consistent with long-standing Department of Justice practice, I cannot and will not violate my duty to protect confidential communications with the President. Now, let me address some issues directly: I did not have any private meetings nor do I recall any conversations with any Russian officials at the Mayflower Hotel.  I did not attend any meetings at that event.  Prior to the speech, I attended a reception with my staff that included at least two dozen people and President Trump.  Though I do recall several conversations I had during that pre-speech reception, I do not have any recollection of meeting or talking to the Russian Ambassador or any other Russian officials.  If any brief interaction occurred in passing with the Russian Ambassador during that reception, I do not remember it.  After the speech, I was interviewed by the news media, which had gathered as I remember in a different room, and then I left the hotel. Related article Jeff Sessions: Russia collusion claim 'detestable lie' But whether I ever attended a reception where the Russian Ambassador was also present is entirely beside the point of this investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 campaigns.  Let me state this clearly: I have never met with or had any conversations with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election.  Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign.  I was your colleague in this body for 20 years, and the suggestion that I participated in any collusion or that I was aware of any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country, which I have served with honor for over 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process, is an appalling and detestable lie. Relatedly, there is the assertion that I did not answer Senator Franken’s question honestly at my confirmation hearing.  That is false.  This is how it happened.  He asked me a rambling question that included dramatic, new allegations that the United States intelligence community had advised President-elect Trump that “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.”  I was taken aback by these explosive allegations, which he said were being reported in breaking news that day.  I wanted to refute immediately any suggestion that I was a part of such an activity.  I replied, “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities.  I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have – did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.” That was the context in which I was asked the question, and in that context, my answer was a fair and correct response to the charge as I understood it.  It simply did not occur to me to go further than the context of the question and list any conversations I may have had with Russians in routine situations, as I had with numerous other foreign officials. Please hear me now.  It was only in March of this year that a reporter asked my spokesperson whether I had ever met with any Russian officials.  This was the first time that question had been posed.  On the same day, we provided that reporter with the information related to the meeting I and my staff had held in my Senate office with Ambassador Kislyak, as well as the brief encounter in July after a speech that I had given during the convention in Cleveland, Ohio.  I also provided the reporter a list of all 25 foreign ambassador meetings I had held during 2016.  In addition, I provided supplemental testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain this. I readily acknowledged these two meetings.  Certainly nothing improper occurred. Related article Jeff Sessions testifies: Live updates Let me also explain clearly the circumstances of my recusal from the investigation into the Russian interference with the 2016 election.  I was sworn in as Attorney General on Thursday, February 9th.  The very next day, I met with career Department officials, including a senior ethics official, to discuss some things publicly reported in the press and that might have some bearing on the issue of recusal.  From that point, February 10th, until I announced my formal recusal on March 2nd, I was never briefed on any investigative details and did not access information about the investigation; I received only the limited information that the Department’s career officials determined was necessary to inform my recusal decision.  As such, I have no knowledge about this investigation beyond what has been publicly reported, and I have taken no action with regard to any such investigation.  On the date of my formal recusal, my Chief of Staff sent an email to the heads of the relevant departments, including by name to Director Comey of the FBI, to instruct them to inform their staffs of this recusal and to advise them not to brief me or involve me in any such matters. And in fact, they have not.  Importantly, I recused myself not because of any asserted wrongdoing on my part during the campaign, but because a Department of Justice regulation, 28 CFR 45.2, required it.  That regulation states, in effect, that Department employees should not participate in investigations of a campaign if they have served as a campaign advisor. The scope of my recusal, however, does not and cannot interfere with my ability to oversee the Department of Justice, including the FBI, which has an $8 billion budget and 35,000 employees. I presented to the President my concerns, and those of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, about the ongoing leadership issues at the FBI as stated in my letter recommending the removal of Mr. Comey along with the Deputy Attorney General’s memorandum, which have been released publicly by the White House.  It is a clear statement of my views.  It is absurd, frankly, to suggest that a recusal from a single specific investigation would render an Attorney General unable to manage the leadership of the various Department of Justice law enforcement components that conduct thousands of investigations. Finally, during his testimony, Mr. Comey discussed a conversation he and I had about a meeting Mr. Comey had with the President.  I am happy to share with the committee my recollection of the conversation I had with Mr. Comey.  Following a routine morning threat briefing, Mr. Comey spoke to me and my Chief of Staff.  While he did not provide me with any of the substance of his conversation with the President, Mr. Comey expressed concern about the proper communications protocol with the White House and with the President.  I responded to his comment by agreeing that the FBI and Department of Justice needed to be careful to follow Department policies regarding appropriate contacts with the White House.  Mr. Comey had served in the Department of Justice for the better part of two decades, and I was confident that Mr. Comey understood and would abide by the Department’s well-established rules governing any communications with the White House about ongoing investigations.  My comments encouraged him to do just that and indeed, as I understand, he did.  Our Department of Justice rules on proper communication between the Department and the White House have been in place for years.  Mr. Comey well knew them, I thought, and assumed correctly that he complied with them. Related article Judge orders DOJ to produce Sessions' clearance form I will finish with this.  I recused myself from any investigation into the campaigns for President, but I did not recuse myself from defending my honor against scurrilous and false allegations.  At all times throughout the course of the campaign, the confirmation process, and since becoming Attorney General, I have dedicated myself to the highest standards. The people of this country expect an honest and transparent government and that is what we are giving them.  This President wants to focus on the people of this country to ensure they are treated fairly and kept safe.  The Trump agenda is to improve the lives of the American people.  I know some have other agendas, but that is his agenda and it is one I share. Importantly, as Attorney General I have a responsibility to enforce the laws of this Nation, to protect this country from its enemies, and to ensure the fair administration of justice.  I intend to work every day with our fine team and the superb professionals in the Department of Justice to advance the important work we have to do.  These false attacks, the innuendo, and the leaks, you can be sure, will not intimidate me.  In fact, these events have only strengthened my resolve to fulfill my duty to reduce crime, and to support our federal, state, and local law enforcement officers who work our streets every day.  Just last week, it was reported that overdose deaths in this country are rising faster than ever recorded.  The murder rate is up over 10 percent—the largest increase since 1968.  Together, we are telling the gangs, the cartels, the fraudsters, and the terrorists—we are coming after you.  Every one of our citizens, no matter who they are or where they live, has the right to be safe in their homes and communities.  And I will not be deterred, and I will not allow this great Department to be deterred from its vital mission.


Her high school is more than 1,600 miles from the US-Mexico border – and the immigration debate was far from most of her classmates’ minds. So Brandi Marsch decided to bring the border to them. The 17-year-old senior at Baldwin High School in Pittsburgh created an art installation in a stairwell at school, an interpretation of the struggle of people who try to cross the border. She used barbed wire to symbolize security, hung flowers from the ceiling to recognize the immigrants who die on the difficult journey, and she placed copies of green cards around a fence to highlight the people who make it. Marsch was born in the United States and says she doesn’t have a personal connection to the immigration issue. But what she learned through this project surprised her. “I didn’t understand the amount of effort it took to come into the country itself,” she said. “I didn’t understand the sacrifices people have to make.” It started out as a class assignment. Cheryl Foote, Marsch’s art teacher, asked her students to think about a local or global social issue and create a project to display at school. Marsch is a member of Global Minds, an organization that meets after school to discuss world issues. They’d been discussing immigration, and it sparked the idea. The project took her months to complete. She watched documentaries, read articles about immigration and talked to some of the students at school. “More people should be educated about it,” she said. Foote told CNN she tried to be as hands-off as possible, but she did help Marsch out when she got stuck. “I love how current her piece is and I think it’s so great that the high school students have this artwork that serves as an intro to a conversation,” the art teacher said. Baldwin High School has a large number of students who have moved to the US from another country or who speak English as their second language. Minorities make up 16% of the student population. “It’s relevant to them,” Foote said. When Marsch finally got the principal’s permission to install her project, she set it up in a stairwell at the school in mid-February. Students at Baldwin call it “the cage.” Boxes, suitcases and clothing thrown around within the cage are meant to represent items belonging to people who may have perished crossing the border. Marsch also included stats and facts about immigration to make sure the project was serving its intended purpose: to raise awareness about the issue. She says she’s gotten praise and some criticism of her work – including some people who complained about getting their clothing snagged on the barbed wire. But she’s proud of her project. “Some people didn’t agree with my viewpoint on it, which is totally fine,” Marsch said. CNN’s Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.


U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the Russian foreign minister on Saturday, the State Department reported Kerry said a Russian military buildup in Syria "could further escalate the conflict," the State Department said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday to discuss reports of an imminent Russian military buildup in Syria, according to the State Department. If such a buildup occurred, it “could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIS Coalition operating in Syria,” the State Department said in a written statement. Kerry and Lavrov agreed to continue their discussion of Syria in New York later this month, the statement said. The Los Angeles Times, citing unnamed United States officials, reported that U.S. intelligence has captured evidence Russia is increasing its military presence in Syria’s civil war. The evidence reportedly includes satellite images of what looks like a base under construction that could be used for staging troops and heavy equipment, the officials told the newspaper. Elise Labott, CNN’s global affairs correspondent, said Russia and the United States had been talking about finding a political solution in Syria, which is gripped by a deadly civil war and threatened by ISIS. “If the Russians are indeed increasing their military presence in Syria, that would certainly complicate that,” Labott said. She said Russia might be escalating air strikes against ISIS but that the real concern is that the Russians are increasing their activity on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition. Or, said Labott, the Russians  “could be taking steps to secure their own position if the Assad government falls.”


"Why would anybody have sanctions if somebody's doing some really great things?" Trump said "I understand that they would like to meet, and that's absolutely fine with me," he added President-elect Donald Trump suggested Friday he is open to lifting sanctions on Russia, though he plans to keep them for “at least a period of time.” He told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday evening that he might do away with them if Russia helps the US battle terrorists or with other goals important to the US. The sanctions were implemented by the Obama administration last month in response to alleged Russian hacking during the election. “If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?” he said in the interview. Trump’s remarks to the Wall Street Journal come after CNN reported classified documents presented to President Barack Obama and Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Trump. He has vehemently denied the allegations. Speaking to the Journal, Trump said he’s prepared to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin after he takes office. Biden confirms Obama, VP were briefed on unsubstantiated claims against Trump “I understand that they would like to meet, and that’s absolutely fine with me,” he said. When asked about China – specifically if he supported the US “One China” policy on Taiwan, which says the province is part of China – Trump responded, “Everything is under negotiation, including One China.” In early December, Trump took a call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, the first publicly reported call between a US President or President-elect and the leader of Taiwan since Washington established diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979. Trump said during the election that when he took office, he would label China as a currency manipulator. However, he didn’t go that far in his interview with the Journal. “I would talk to them first,” he said, later adding: “Certainly, they are manipulators. But I’m not looking to do that.”


Tunisia, Emirates airline in dispute over air service Flights temporarily suspended Tunisian authorities say their decision to suspend all Emirates airline flights into the country “cannot be described as a diplomatic crisis” between the North African country and the United Arab Emirates. A tit-for-tat dispute began on Friday when Emirates prohibited female Tunisian passengers from being able to board flights to the UAE – without giving a reason. Speaking Tuesday, Tunisian presidential spokeswoman Saida Garrach said the UAE had “voiced fear that an attack will probably be committed by Tunisian women or women with Tunisian passports.” The travel ban triggered confusion and anger at the Tunis airport and on media. In response, the Tunisian transport ministry on Monday suspended all Emirates flights into Tunis. Emirates employees were first informed of the news the night before in an internal company email that read: “Any passengers holding TUN as final destination are not to be accepted for travel at point of origin.” Emirates announced on Twitter that the Dubai-Tunis service had been stopped “based on instructions by the Tunisian authorities.” Emirates will stop services between Tunis and Dubai, as instructed by the Tunisian authorities, with effect from 25 December 2017بناء على تعليمات السلطات التونسية، وابتداء من اليوم الاثنين، تعلق طيران الامارات رحلاتها من تونس واليها، وحتى اشعار آخر The Tunisian transport ministry has said the suspension would remain in effect until the airline “finds a suitable solution to operate its flights in accordance with laws and international agreements.” Tunisian state media reported that a task force had been set up in Tunisia’s consulate in Dubai and the UAE’s Northern Emirates to monitor the situation of Tunisian expatriates seeking to depart from Dubai airport. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash, had first suggested on Sunday that the airline’s initial decision to temporarily ban female passengers from boarding Emirates flights was a security measure. He wrote on Twitter that “security information” had led to “limited and circumstantial measures” that were communicated to the Tunisian government. “We respect Tunisian women, value their pioneering experience and consider them a safety valve,” Gargash wrote. “Together, let’s avoid attempts of misinterpretation.” CNN’s Mohammed Tawfeeq and Karen Smith contributed to this report.


Enforcement officers from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office early Saturday finished searching the London offices of Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy company accused of manipulating Facebook data during the 2016 US election, an ICO spokesman told CNN. The raid comes four days after Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham announced plans to search the offices. A judge approved the ICO’s request for a search warrant Friday evening. “The warrant to inspect the premises of Cambridge Analytica was executed at 20.00 on 23 March 2018. Our investigators left the premises at about 03.00,” the ICO spokesman said. Last weekend The New York Times and UK’s The Observer newspaper (the Sunday edition of The Guardian) reported that Cambridge Analytica harvested information of more than 50 million Facebook users. The data “allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President (Donald) Trump’s campaign in 2016,” the Times reported. Inside the Trump campaign’s ties with Cambridge Analytica Facebook said the data in question was properly gathered a few years ago by psychology professor Aleksandr Kogan, who said he was using it for academic purposes. But in 2014, it wound up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, which was working to develop techniques that could be used to influence voters and was later hired by Trump’s campaign. “We will now need to assess and consider the evidence before deciding the next steps and coming to any conclusions. This is one part of a larger investigation by the ICO into the use of personal data and analytics by political campaigns, parties, social media companies and other commercial actors,” the ICO spokesman told CNN. In a statement Friday, Cambridge Analytica reiterated its previous claims that it did not use any of the data during its work for Trump. The firm also said it is “now undertaking an independent third-party audit” to verify to the public it complied with a Facebook request in 2015 to delete the data.


Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of the new book “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” Clinton delivers blistering foreign policy speech in San Diego After that, it's fair to ask what kind of a commander in chief she would be, writes Peter Bergen In what may have been the most forceful speech of her career, Hillary Clinton said in San Diego on Thursday that electing Donald Trump as commander in chief would be “an historic mistake” because of his “dangerously incoherent” foreign policy ideas and his “temperament.” This raises the question: If Clinton were to become president, what kind of commander in chief would she be, and how might her approach differ from Trump’s? Clinton, unlike Trump, has an extensive foreign policy record to examine based on her four-year tenure as secretary of state, which can help us understand how she might operate as commander in chief. As secretary of state, for example, she presided over the effort in 2010 to significantly tighten sanctions on Iran, which helped to bring the Iranians, eventually, to the negotiating table on their nuclear program. This diplomatic effort resulted in a 12 to 2 vote in the U.N. Security Council to enhance sanctions against Iran, “one of her major achievements as secretary of state” according to New York Times’ reporter Mark Landler in his excellent new book “Alter Egos.” Related article Hillary Clinton's evisceration of Donald Trump This move highlights what could perhaps be most distinctive about Hillary Clinton as president: her refusal to be typecast as either hawk or dove. Instead, she has long been resolutely both, advocating for military interventions in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria while also being unafraid to express her support – as in one noteworthy 2011 episode in which she and then-CIA director Leon Panetta got into a shouting match over CIA drone strikes in Pakistani territory – for critiques of the use of force. It is this record as both hawk and dove that suggests some of the contours of what a Clinton foreign policy would look like. What is also very clear from her record is that Hillary Clinton is now and presumably would continue to be as president a hawk who is also willing to negotiate. When it comes to foreign policy, these are the qualities we should most associate with effective commanders in chief. As president, either Clinton or Trump will have to navigate the two big ideas in American foreign policy: isolationism and interventionism. As was memorably defined by U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in 1821, isolationism means: “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” In other words, the United States will not become embroiled in foreign conflicts over ideals like “freedom” and “democracy” and will instead concentrate on strengthening itself at home. Related article Big security decision facing the next president By contrast, interventionism stipulates that the United States needs to uphold – and even enforce – global order and liberty not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s very much in America’s own interests, a view best expressed by John F. Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural address at the height of the Cold War when he said, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Over the past century the United States has swung back and forth between periods of isolationism and interventionism. Isolationism kept America out of World War I until the end of the conflict and it was relatively late to send troops to join the alliance fighting the Axis powers during World War II.  After that war, America emerged as the dominant world force of interventionism, spearheading the global architecture of NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that has helped to sustain America’s position as the world’s only superpower. Then the George W. Bush administration came into office promising a period of relative isolationism and opposition to “nation building.” Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security advisor, had famously opined, “We really don’t need the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten.” Related article Could we trust Trump with U.S. foreign policy? 9/11, of course, changed all that. The Bush administration engaged in long and protracted multi-trillion-dollar nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. So how do Clinton and Trump fit into this long history of American isolationism and interventionism? Related article The pitfalls of a narcissistic foreign policy To the extent that Trump has laid out his vision of foreign policy, he is a neo-isolationist. He has famously called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, proposed building a wall along the Mexican border, and suggested a rethinking of the NATO alliance, which he described as “obsolete” to The New York Times in April. He also explained to the Times, “We cannot be the policeman of the world.” Trump is also an “America first” populist who has said he would torture terrorism suspects, kill their families and “bomb the s..t out of ISIS,” in so doing indiscriminately bombing the cities in Iraq and Syria into which ISIS fighters have burrowed themselves.  These kinds of actions are deemed to be war crimes by, among many others, the U.S. military. Clinton, on the other hand, is very much part of the American foreign policy establishment, which for the past several decades has viewed the United States as an “exceptional country,” a phrase that Clinton used in her San Diego speech on Thursday. This view of the United States’ proper role in the world also comes freighted with responsibilities to act around the globe to promote both American values and interests. In Clinton’s 2014 book “Hard Choices,” about her time as secretary of state, she recounted the attacks two years earlier on the U.S. diplomatic outpost and CIA facility in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed. Clinton concluded that despite the tragic losses of life, “Retreat is not the answer; it won’t make the world a safer place, and it’s just not in our country’s DNA.” Clinton’s record at the State Department demonstrates that she is an interventionist who is quite comfortable with the use of American military power, but at the same time she is willing to pursue negotiations with traditional American rivals such as Iran and the Taliban whenever the right kind of openings seem to present themselves. Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War in 2003 when she was a senator is, of course, Exhibit A in any discussion of her record on national security. In “Hard Choices” she stated clearly,  “I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple.” Her vote on the Iraq War, however, did not make Clinton skeptical of the efficacy of American military power when the occasion seemed to merit it. The first big national security decision the Obama administration faced in early 2009 was what to do about the worsening situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban were gaining ground. The U.S. military advocated a substantial surge of troops to blunt the Taliban’s momentum. Clinton sided with the generals arguing for a well-resourced counterinsurgency campaign (over the objections of Vice President Joe Biden) and endorsed a surge of 40,000 troops. Related article Surprising truth about Clinton, Trump foreign policy In the end, Obama authorized 30,000 troops, but also ordered their withdrawal after 18 months, disclosing a timetable that Clinton says she was uncomfortable with. As she put it in “Hard Choices,” “I thought there was a benefit in playing our cards closer to our chests.” Clinton’s embrace of the generals’ plans for Afghanistan underlines her warm – and, to some, surprising – relations with some of the more hawkish officers in the U.S military, chief among them retired Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News analyst, who played an important role in helping lay the groundwork for George W. Bush’s surge of troops into Iraq in 2007 and who, according to Times reporter Landler, is “perhaps the greatest single influence on the way Hillary Clinton thinks about military issues.” Clinton also took a hawkish position when Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi threatened to exterminate swaths of his population in 2011, playing the lead role in cobbling together an unusual coalition of NATO and Arab states that ended up removing Gadhafi from power. This would turn out to be the Obama administration’s largest unforced error overseas,  because – just as was the case in Iraq in 2003 during the overthrow of Saddam Hussein – there was not enough consideration given to what “the day after” would look like. Libya today is mired in a nasty civil war in which ISIS has gained a significant foothold. Related article What the MRI of Donald Trump's soul reveals Clinton was unafraid to promote hawkish positions even to a reluctant President Obama. Early on in their fight against the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in 2012 Clinton urged the arming of “moderate” Syrian rebels.  At the time, Obama nixed this idea but later he would come to embrace it. Another substantive difference with Obama is Clinton’s advocacy of a “no-fly” zone in northern Syria to protect Syrian citizens from Assad’s air force, which enjoys total air superiority and has killed untold thousands in indiscriminate airstrikes on civilian areas. Most memorably, Clinton was the most senior official in Obama’s Cabinet urging that U.S. Navy SEALS be deployed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. On April 28, 2011, Obama’s war Cabinet gathered in the Situation Room for the final meeting to consider the potential bin Laden raid. Obama asked his senior advisers for their views. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged caution and advised against the SEAL raid. So, too, did Vice President Biden. Clinton said the raid was the best option on the table. Yet Clinton is far from merely a hawk. Clinton’s director of policy planning at the State Department, Jake Sullivan, played a key role in secret back-channel negotiations with the Iranians beginning in 2011 that were facilitated by the Sultan of Oman. These negotiations eventually bore fruit four years later with Iran’s agreement to suspend its nuclear weapons program. Less successful were similar back-channel peace negotiations with the Taliban overseen by veteran U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, whose office at the State Department opened up secret talks with representatives of Taliban’s leader Mullah Omar that largely fizzled. And it was Clinton who oversaw the rapprochement with the pro-Chinese military junta ruling what they termed Myanmar and the rest of the world knows better as Burma. That rapprochement, beginning in 2011, set the condition for elections four years later that brought to power in a landslide the Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who had spent a decade and a half under house arrest and with whom Clinton enjoys a particularly warm relationship. With these experiences to draw upon, what would a President Clinton’s foreign policy look like? To a degree, she would probably be somewhat more interventionist than the Obama administration has been. On Afghanistan, where the Taliban is again taking territory, she would likely not follow what has (until recently) been the Obama administration’s policy, which is a withdrawal of U.S. forces. On ISIS and Syria, she would not send in a large American Army. “I do not believe that we should again have a hundred-thousand American troops in combat in the Middle East,” she said in November. She would, as she explained in her San Diego speech, “step up the air campaign” against ISIS, while also continuing the Obama administration’s policy of strangling the sources of ISIS finances, its propaganda arm in cyberspace, and its flow of foreign recruits. Related article Opinion: Separate ways? Donald Trump's approach to China 'stuck in the 1990s' On China, Clinton has very nuanced views. In “Hard Choices” she wrote, “This isn’t a relationship that fits neatly into categories like friend or rival, and it may never.” She therefore would likely continue to shore up American alliances with China’s neighbors such as Burma, but she would also not needlessly antagonize the Chinese. They are, after all, effectively America’s bankers since the United States owes Chinese banks more than a trillion dollars. Would a President Clinton invoke some kind of “red line” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, such as incursions by Russian proxy forces into any of the Baltic states? It’s not clear from her public pronouncements, but her San Diego speech left no doubt of her lack of patience for Trump’s tendency to “praise dictators like Vladimir Putin and pick fights with our friends – including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the President of Mexico and the Pope.” Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.Read CNNOpinion’s Flipboard magazine. Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of the new book “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.”