"If there's any country in the world that doesn't deserve any kind of sanctions relief, it's the Russians," McConnell said McConnell has previously claimed that some voter fraud does occur Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he disagrees with President Donald Trump’s call for a federal investigation of alleged voter fraud, saying any abuse would be best reviewed by individual states. McConnell also split with Trump on repealing the sanctions on Russia placed in the waning weeks of the Obama administration. “I’d be opposed to that,” McConnell said in an interview with National Journal that was released Friday. “I think the first step is to encourage the administration not to use any kind of waiver that may be in the existing law,” McConnell added. “If there’s any country in the world that doesn’t deserve any kind of sanctions relief, it’s the Russians.” Trump has indicated in the past he’s open to lifting sanctions against Russia, though he downplayed the possibility during a White House news conference on Friday, saying it was “too early” to discuss removing sanctions that were issued on Russia under his predecessor, President Barack Obama. McConnell has previously claimed that some voter fraud does occur, though he has expressed skepticism about its frequency. “I can just tell you that on the whole issue of election fraud, which our Democratic colleagues always argue is just a fiction, there are people literally in jail in Kentucky for this kind of activity. It does – it does occur,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday. “There are always arguments on both sides about how much, how frequent and all the rest. But most states have done a better job – most states have done a better job on this front. But the notion that election fraud is a fiction is not true.” But McConnell told National Journal that he didn’t agree with Trump’s proposal, which includes an expansive federal look at what he claims is 3 to 5 million illegal votes cast in the 2016 election. Trump has not provided evidence to support his claim. “I don’t believe the federal government needs to look at this,” McConnell said. “Our whole election system is state-based. There are a number of states who have been concerned about ballot security that have done something about it.”


Take a look at the week in politics from August 20 to August 26. President Donald Trump took a moment as he addressed supporters at a campaign rally on Tuesday night in Phoenix, Arizona, where he defended his response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. In response to a “free speech” rally, thousands of counterprotesters took to the street and marched in Boston. Pictured, one of the protesters took aim at one of the “free speech” supporters while the individual was being escorted by police. Defense Secretary James Mattis attended a welcoming ceremony in Kiev, Ukraine, with his counterpart Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak. While in Ukraine, Mattis reiterated US support for the country in the face of Russian “aggression.” At a briefing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated potential for dialogue with North Korea in the future, pointing to the country’s “restraint” following sanctions that were put in place on August 5. A teleprompter displays a line from Trump’s speech from Monday night, where he announced the new US strategy for Afghanistan. One of the pieces of Trump’s new strategy includes an increase in autonomy for the military. “Micromanagement from Washington, DC, does not win battles,” Trump said. The USS John S. McCain collided with a merchant vessel on Monday, the fourth time a US warship has been involved in an accident in Asian waters this year. The Navy announced it was suspending the search-and-rescue operation for missing sailors on Thursday. Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner traveled to the Middle East, where he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Kushner also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The trip was aimed at beginning the process for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Some of Trump’s supporters who attended a campaign rally he held in Phoenix on Tuesday held a moment of prayer ahead of the event. Demonstrators outside of the Trump rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night were pepper-sprayed by police. Police also used tear gas on protesters outside of the Phoenix Convention Center, in an attempt to manage the crowds. The city of Charlottesville covered confederate statutes, including the one of Gen. Robert E. Lee, on Wednesday to represent mourning for Heather Heyer, who died when a car plowed through a crowd of counterprotesters following a white supremacist rally. While in Arizona, Trump stopped in Yuma and visited with Customs and Border Patrol, where he was shown one of the agency’s aerial drones. Trump was spotted looking up at the sky during the solar eclipse in Washington, DC. Trump and the first family, along with some other administration officials, watched from the White House. After some renovations, the White House gave a glimpse of the new look of the Oval Office, including new wallpaper. See last week in politics


The Chinese artist made the announcement on his Instagram page Wednesday Danish lawmakers have approved a law to allow the government to seize migrants' valuables It also extended the period of time before asylum seekers could apply to be reunited with families Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei announced Wednesday he is closing an exhibition in Copenhagen following the Danish government’s passage of a law empowering it to seize valuables from asylum seekers. The artist made the statement regarding his exhibition at Copenhagen’s Faurschou Foundation, “Ruptures,” on his Instagram account. He wrote that the decision “follows the Danish parliament’s approval of the law proposal that allows seizing valuables and delaying family reunions for asylum seekers.” The statement said that Faurschou Foundation owner Jens Farschou “backs the artist’s decision.” It said Faurschou “regrets that the Danish parliament chooses to be in the forefront of symbolic and inhuman politics of today’s biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe and the Middle East, instead of being in the forefront of a respectful European solution to solve the acute humanitarian crisis.” The “Ruptures” exhibition opened in March last year and was scheduled to run until April. The exhibition documented the many run-ins the artist has had in recent years with the Chinese government. Danish lawmakers passed the new law Tuesday with a vote of 81-27 and one abstention. The law allows the seizure from migrants of valuables worth more than 10,000 Danish kroner (about $1,453) – exempting items of “special sentimental value” such as wedding rings or medals, but including watches and other assets. The new law also tripled the period of time before asylum seekers can apply for separated family members to be reunited with them in Denmark, extending the period from one to three years. Its passage was controversial in Denmark, which has traditionally been seen as a bastion of progressive and socially liberal Scandinavian values. Denmark’s ruling Liberal Party said the asset-seizing provision – which mirrors similar laws in Switzerland and Germany – was designed to ensure that asylum seekers contributed to the costs incurred by the welfare state in meeting their needs. But critics and some backers of the law said it was also designed to deter migrants who have entered Europe’s borders in overwhelming numbers over the past year, creating Europe’s biggest migrant crisis since the Second World War. “We hope this will start a chain reaction through Europe where other European countries can see there’s the need to tighten the rules on immigration in order to keep European culture,” said Martin Henriksen, spokesman for the right-wing Danish People’s Party, which supports the law. Rights group Amnesty International slammed the legislation Tuesday, saying in a statement that it reflected a “dismal race to the bottom” by European countries in response to the migrant crisis. “To prolong the suffering of vulnerable people who have been ripped apart from their families by conflict or persecution is plain wrong,” John Dalhuisen, the group’s Europe and Central Asia director, said in the statement. CNN’s Tim Hume report and wrote from London, and Carol Jordan and Brooke Bowman reported from London.


Turkey's President slams the U.S. for supporting Syrian Kurdish groups he considers terrorist organizations "It is not possible to understand what type of partnership" this is, he says of U.S.-Turkey relations A U.S. official said the U.S. will continue supporting the Kurds, notes the disagreement with Turkey Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had no shortage of harsh, withering words for enemies involved in the bloody civil war in neighboring Syria. Now, he’s turning his verbal barrage on a key NATO ally: the United States. Erdogan ripped into Washington on Wednesday, claiming it’s responsible for a “sea of blood” in Syria for what he called its ignorance about dangers posed by other groups, not just ISIS, in the region. Specifically, he slammed America’s refusal not just to resist branding Syrian Kurdish fighters as terrorists but in supporting them militarily. “I told you many times: Are you with us or with this terrorist organization?” a fiery Erdogan told a gathering of village leaders, according to Turkish state media. Such anger against Washington is noteworthy, though a Turkish leader lashing out at Kurds is nothing new. The ethnic group has been a thorn in Ankara’s side for decades, having been blamed for violence as part of its separatist push. Ankara has fought back and is still fighting back, with the Kurds viewed as a very real threat. Generally, Turkey’s allies haven’t gotten involved in this fight. But what’s happening in Syria – specifically, the rise of ISIS, which is widely regarded as a ruthless and, at times, barbaric terrorist group – has changed the equation. Related video Will Kurds be invited to Syrian peace talks? The YPG, a Kurdish group of some 30,000 fighters, has been among the most successful in taking the fight to the group that calls itself the Islamic State. It’s done so with help from a U.S.-led coalition and despite the fact that Turkey labels it a terrorist group. That’s because the YPG is the military arm of the Democratic Union Party (a.k.a. PYD), a large and well-organized Kurdish opposition party within Syria that’s seen as an affiliate of Turkey’s own Kurdistan Workers’ Party. On the frontlines with Kurdish fighters in Syria Much to Turkey’s chagrin, the PYD could be invited to take park in ongoing Syria peace talks. And on Monday, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby – after first expressing gratitude for Turkey’s contributions in the battle against ISIS – said that the United States does not “recognize the PYD as a terrorist organization” and will not back away from America’s support for the Kurdish group’s fighters in Syria. “We recognize that the Turks do (label the PYD as terrorists), and I understand that. Even the best of friends aren’t going to agree on everything,” Kirby said. “Kurdish fighters have been some of the most successful in going after Daesh (ISIS) inside Syria. We have provided a measure of support, mostly through the air, and that support will continue.” Related video What's it like on the frontlines fighting ISIS? Even before Erdogan spoke, Kirby’s remarks were met with anger in Ankara. Turkey summoned U.S. Ambassador John Bass to its own Foreign Ministry in response, according to a report from Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu news agency. Kurds’ ambitions add explosive element Turkey has become a bigger player in the anti-ISIS fight in recent months, in part due to its decision to let U.S. and allied warplanes launch attacks out of Incirlik Air Base. Now, it’s an open question as to whether that support will be threatened by the United States and others backing Kurdish fighters in Syria. Erdogan suggested he’s not sure after U.S. President Barack Obama’s envoy on ISIS, Brett McGurk, met with PYD leaders in Kobani, Syria. “How will we ever be able trust you?” the Turkish leader said Wednesday about the U.S. government, according to state broadcaster TRT. “Am I your regional partner or are the terrorists in Kobani?” He appeared particularly irked about this meeting and about Kirby’s comments, which came despite the fact Ankara has “warned the U.S. many times” about Kurdish groups that, Erdogan said, couldn’t be relied on to shed their violent, terrorist ways. “They do not say anything to our faces, but they make different statements elsewhere,” Erdogan said about U.S. officials. “It is not possible to understand what type of partnership this is.” Opinion: Who is Turkey really fighting anyway? CNN’s Hamdi Alkhshali contributed to this report.


Report: Ukrainian military spokesman says drills do not pose a threat to Crimea Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 Ukraine carried out missile launches Thursday near Crimea – territory that Russia annexed more than two years ago – as part of military exercises, Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform reported. The drills involve the test firing of medium-range surface-to-air missiles, the news agency said. “Everything goes according to the plan. There is no response from the Russian Federation. Ukrainian military are ready for any developments,” Ukrinform cited military spokesman Volodymyr Kryzhanivsky as saying on Ukrainian TV. Kryzhanivsky reportedly said the drills in southern Ukraine did not pose any threat to Crimea and that Ukraine was acting in accordance with international law. Related video What is life like for NATO troops in Norway Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said Russia would evaluate its response to the drills, Russia’s state-run Tass news agency reported. The transport ministry, Rosaviatsiya, said last week that the planned missile launches were in violation of international agreements and warned they could pose a threat to flights in civil airspace above Crimea, Russia’s state-run Sputnik News reported. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said more missiles would be launched Friday, Tass reported. “Our task is to build the air defense of Kiev and the whole of Ukraine. And no one will stop us,” he is quoted as saying. Russia annexed Crimea, a territory in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, in March 2014 following tensions with its neighbor. Related article Why is there renewed tension in Ukraine? World leaders managed to install a shaky peace deal in 2015. But violence continues in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, and 2016 has seen an increase in casualties. According to the United Nations, the conflict has claimed almost 10,000 lives and left hundreds of thousands displaced. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in October that NATO’s support for Ukraine was “unwavering” and that it did not and would not recognize Russia’s “illegal annexation” of Crimea.


Bugatti Veyron certified world's fastest police car It's just one of Dubai police's fleet of supercars Nowhere else in the world can you hail a police car and snap a selfie with the driver. Nowhere else in the world is that police car likely to be a Bugatti Veyron, Ferrarri FF or Lamborghini Aventador. This is Dubai, where the police force has just been presented with a certificate by Guinness World Records for having the world’s fastest police car in service – a Bugatti Veyron – just one of its 14-strong fleet of supercars. A fleet of luxury supercars may sound outlandish, but it fits perfectly with the ethos of Dubai. In a city where to turn heads your Bentley or Rolls Royce needs to be wrapped in gold, it seems normal for the police force to have a suite of supercars at its disposal. The fleet includes a bespoke Aston Martin One-77, of which only 77 were ever built, a Bentley Continental GT, three hybrid Porsche Panameras and two BMW i8s. But the flagship of the fleet is the Veyron, with a staggering top speed of 253 mph (407 km/h). Its 16-cylinder engine produces 1,000 horsepower, sending it from 0 to 60mph in just two and a half seconds. The previous record holder belonged to the Italian police force – the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, which has a top speed of 230 mph (370 km/h). But Dubai’s police superfleet isn’t used for high-speed chases down Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Boulevard, or very many police duties at all for that matter. Instead, the cars cruise around the Dubai Mall area and Jumeirah Beach Residence in search of tourists and attention. The role of the fleet is to break down barriers between the police and the public, explains Major Sultan Al Marri of Dubai police’s General Department of Transport & Rescue. “We’re not looking to just show off with the car, we’re looking to show tourists how friendly the police is here in Dubai,” Sultan told CNN. “We are looking for ways to connect with people all the time.” Alongside the flashy cars, the Dubai police wants to tout its gender equality credentials by showing off the fact that many of the drivers are women. “The most expensive cars – the Ferrari and the Bentley – are driven by women police officers,” said Sultan. While multilingualism and good communication skills are requirements for the job, drivers also need to have a good sense of humor. Sultan says people often jokingly ask the police to arrest them, so they get to ride in the cars. A post shared by Alexander Smurfit (@alexandersmurfit) The Dubai police has been using its superfleet as a marketing opportunity since 2013 when it first introduced the Lamborghini Aventador. “It was a big hit for us to market our city and our police force,” said Sultan. Since the beginning, car makers have been vying for a spot on the fleet, which they see as an opportunity to market their own brand, according an executive from a premium car manufacturer. “It’s very prestigious to have the Dubai police as your customer, and it’s something that all the dealerships will fight for,” he said. “Once you’ve spent many years trying to get into a fleet, you want to stay in. And everybody else is trying to get in.” When it comes to selecting the cars, Sultan explains that the Dubai police looks for cars that are making a buzz in the media. But in addition to speed, its strategy is to have hybrid or electric cars make up at least 25% of government fleet cars by 2030. Two BMW i8s and three Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrids have already been added to the police fleet. “This will show from our side that the government really cares about the environment,” Sultan said.


Editor’s Note: Steve Pincus is Bradford Durfee Professor of History at Yale University.  He is the author of the award-winning “1688: The First Modern Revolution” (2009) and most recently “The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ case for activist government.”  (2016) The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Steve Pincus: In moments of political bewilderment like these, it is best to return to first principles The Declaration of Independence was Congress' first contract with America, writes Pincus At moments of bewilderment over seismic political realignments it is best to return to first principles.  In the context of an earlier “seismic” moment in American history, Abraham Lincoln declared, “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” But what exactly were these ideas on which the Founders constructed our new republic? Related video Trump outlines policy plan in video address The Founders were deeply committed internationalists.  “We must declare ourselves a free people” so that America could secure trade with France, insisted Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence.  Samuel Adams of Massachusetts agreed that France would only support the American cause “if America would declare herself free and independent.” The Founders knew that to make America great required that the new republic engage with – rather than turn away from – the Old World. The Founders declared their commitment to the free flow of goods and people in our founding document.  Far from wishing to abrogate trade agreements with foreign states, the Founders lambasted the British King George III in the Declaration of Independence for “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.” Benjamin Franklin was typical of those who drew up and signed the declaration in demanding a “free commerce with all the rest of the world.”  Tariffs might become necessary, but only as a last resort. That is why the members of the Second Continental Congress who signed the declaration also drew up the Model Treaty to establish bilateral free trade agreements. Related article We're not just a nation; we're a nation family The patriots who founded the United States also announced their fundamental commitment to easy immigration into the new republic.  In the Declaration of Independence the Founders castigated George III for endeavoring “to prevent the population of these states.” Since 1760, they complained in our founding document, the British monarch had made immigration to America more difficult and less lucrative by “obstructing the Laws for Naturalizing Foreigners.”  George III had reversed longstanding British imperial policy by “refusing to pass” laws “to encourage … migrations hither.”  Arthur Lee of Virginia thought it “madness in the extreme” to try to radically restrict immigration into North America.  “New settlers to America,” agreed Franklin, increased the country’s “strength.” Related article We need to talk about American values in a changing America America’s Founders believed passionately that the government had a special role to play to secure “the unalienable rights” to equality and the “pursuit of happiness.”  Statesmen – maintained the authors of “Cato’s Letters,” an oft-cited authority in colonial America – were responsible for the “wealth, security and happiness of kingdoms.” The Connecticut patriot Levi Watson made the same point when he said “all governments must tend to promote the general welfare.”  “The happiness of society is the end of government,” said John Adams, who played a significant role in drawing up the Declaration of Independence. “The form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or in one word happiness to the greatest number of persons and in the greatest degree” was, in Adams’ view, “the best.”  It was because he believed in an activist government that Adams thought Congress should “encourage arts, manufactures, and agriculture by all means in their power.”  “No expense” should be spared by the state, wrote Adams in 1776, to support “the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people.” Is Trump the Godfather of trade? Andrew Puzder pick is a huge contradictionRomney pick would be a coup for TrumpGhitis: When Trump attacksMichigan’s ‘Springsteen paradox’ The Declaration of Independence was Congress’ first contract with America.  It established the minimal principles by which all American governments must be judged. Though there is much in our founding document that may seem irrelevant today, and there are many things that modern Americans might wish were discussed in this document that are not, our Founders did establish clear principles upon which to create a new republic. Above all, they insisted that our newly independent republic not look inward, but that we instead reach out to foreign governments to establish a free exchange of goods and signal to potential immigrants that they would be welcome here.  This internationalist outlook, our Founders believed, would make it possible to create a government that would actively promote the welfare of all its inhabitants.  These principles are what made America great in the first place. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook


Power is out. Food is short. There’s not enough water to drink, let alone wash. A week after Hurricane Maria smashed Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm, the situation is not much better. In many ways, it’s getting worse. Hospitals that should be saving people are instead unable to provide care. At the Canovanas Medical Center, doctors face a lack of supplies.  Dr. Norbert Seda said they were running out of fuel for the generator and had only two or three days of medicine and supplies left. Puerto Rico in crisis after Maria While residents were prepared for the storm’s arrival and mercifully few were killed directly by the hurricane, the need for medical treatment is getting greater. “We’ve seen a lot of trauma,” Seda said. “We need medication, antibiotics, tetanus shots, we’ve seen a lot of trauma basically, (we need) antibiotics and medication for hypertension.” He’s not encountered people dying because of a lack of power and supplies – yet. “It’s coming. When there’s a shortage of water and sanitation issues, it will come out. We are expecting something like that to happen.” Lack of fuel is the key problem at San Jorge Children’s Hospital in San Juan, according to its executive director, Domingo Cruz Vivaldi. “We are dealing with a crisis right now. The hospital is needing diesel every day – 2,000 gallons a day. Yesterday, we ran out of diesel at 6 a.m. and we were without electricity at the hospital from 6 a.m. through 2 p.m. Eight hours without electricity.” Without power, lifesaving machines like ventilators have to run on emergency backup power. Fears for the future are playing out across Puerto Rico. Misery is stalking each and every one of the more than 3 million Americans there. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz sees a growing need for help for increasingly desperate people. “We are finding dialysis patients that have not been able to contact their providers. We are having to transport them in near-death conditions,” the mayor said. “We are finding people whose oxygen tanks are running out because our small generators now don’t have any diesel.” Most alarming are the SOS messages, she said, “the ones that say ‘Can anyone hear me?’ The ones that say ‘I have no more food and I’m out in the street.’” Yulín Cruz and her teams are out on the streets trying to find the neediest people. But in the mountains south of her city, help is less likely to come. Combat war veteran Miguel Olivera has less than two days’ supply of his lifesaving insulin left. And even that may spoil in his refrigerator with no power. The mayor of his town, Javier Garcia, believes help will come from the mainland and the federal government. The question is when, and whether it will be too late for Olivera and others. The main airport in San Juan is crippled, barely functioning. Those there are hoping to escape a crowded terminal with no air conditioning. On Tuesday, only 10 flights were scheduled. Check-in desks were packed with people waiting in line, hoping for a flight off the island. Fans were running, but keeping no one cool. Hopeful travelers sat in chairs on line and others lay nearby, using their suitcases as pillows. A mother rocked a stroller back and forth to try to calm a child. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday there was food and water on the way to Puerto Rico and added that he would visit the island next week. Until aid arrives, Garcia and his fellows in Aguas Buenas are reverting to an older way of life – hacking coconuts to eat and collecting water from mountain streams. But that can only sustain so many for so long. Twenty-first century help is needed for many, like Miguel Olivera, who rely on medication. And the situation can so easily get worse – mosquito-borne diseases like Zika and Dengue fever are very real fears here. A massive power tower that was toppled in Aguas Buenas will take a helicopter to restore. That’s one very obvious problem. But Puerto Rico’s power grid was a mess well before the storm and it will be months – several months – before electricity is restored across the island. Generators are now essential – and essential to them is gasoline. Gas stations around San Juan do have some supply, but the demand is overwhelming. Long lines of vehicles queue up at the pumps and men with red plastic gas cans wait for up to six hours, hoping to get a few precious gallons. Similar lines grow outside any open grocery store and anywhere that has ice. It’s hot. And it’s humid. Temperature were set to rise to the low 90s on Tuesday. Showers are forecast later this week but they will barely make it any cooler. Puerto Rico’s leaders and many of its people say they are resilient, they will survive, they will rebuild. But signs of desperation are beginning to show. A reporter climbing out of a helicopter is grabbed in a bear hug by a weeping woman in Quebradillas, a cut-off town. The woman doesn’t know who the reporter is, but she is a person from the outside, perhaps someone with news of supplies, who can take a message to family, who can offer something. From the air, you can see people walking along highways, reaching up, searching for a cellphone signal. Floods, storm debris and the ever-present lack of power mean a fleeting phone conversation may be their only link to the rest of the island for some time. The same struggle evident in Quebradillas is playing out across Puerto Rico. Utuado suffered several deaths in the storm itself and saw homes washed away. Rosario Heredia lost her home. She is diabetic and just had surgery. She’s still there, hoping for help, from anyone. But so far, no one has come. Now this community of 30,000 is turning to a pipe, tapped into a mountain spring alongside a highway, for water. Harry Torres said the water is all they have for cleaning and drinking until help comes. He and his fellow residents are just “trying to survive.” “We’re desperate,” Torres said. The situation is dire for those who cannot even make it to that trickling water. The hurricane brought mudslides here, leaving some unable to get to the highway due to blocked roads or lack of gas. Lydia Rivera has two cars, but no gas and cannot reach that pipe for water. Now she’s trying to keep her two grandchildren alive on a ration of crackers and survive on rainwater. In Yauco, already a remote town, all the roads are blocked. The only way in is climbing up a hill, and over many downed trees. Coffee growers Gaspar Rodriguez and Doris Velez have lost just about everything they’ve worked for. But their biggest worry now is how they will survive. They are in desperate need of food. Most of what they have has gone bad. In Yabucoa, which took a direct hit, there is no power and residents say they have also been without fresh water for days. The little food in town is being shared by neighbors. Every single part of Puerto Rico took a hit. From the air it looks brown, not the verdant green of the tropical island it is. Nothing is normal and there is little sign of when any sense of normality will return – from schools opening to hospitals being able to care for the sick. Millions don’t know when they’ll be able to turn on a tap and get water, or flick the switch and have light or cooler air. San Juan resident Sebastián Pérez showed CNN how he’s surviving without running water and power. His fridge is useless for keeping anything cold and he hasn’t driven his car since the storm, wanting to keep the gas for emergencies. “Food-wise it’s getting kind of scary,” he said. “I’m trying to use as less as I can.” “Because I don’t know when it will get better.” CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated throughout to reflect the full last name of San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz.


Pageant runner-up jokes with Harvey during an appearance on his show She says the mixup was like a nightmare, but she's moved on Miss Colombia isn’t holding a grudge against Steve Harvey, despite his mortifying flub a month ago mistakenly naming her the winner of the Miss Universe pageant. She says she isn’t even going to sue him, as some lawyers have suggested. But she does have some advice for the television host. “You need to learn how to read cards,” Ariadna Gutierrez joked with Harvey during an appearance on his talk show scheduled to air Tuesday. During the finale of the December 20 Miss Universe Pageant, Harvey misread the card listing the winner and runners-up; he announced Gutierrez as the winner. Pageant judges had intended for Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach, to win. Harvey’s gaffe resulted in an intensely awkward moment in which the crown was taken from Gutierrez and placed on Wurtzbach. “If you see the videos, I was laughing because I thought you were about to make a joke,” she said. “That would have been the worst damn joke I ever wrote in my life,” Harvey shot back. Will Harvey get another chance at Miss Universe? Gutierrez says the experience felt like a “nightmare” and revealed that several lawyers contacted her, suggesting that she sue. “That’s not me,” she said. “That’s not who I am.” She says she’s moved on now. “This is our destiny,” she said. Harvey, who appeared emotional at times, said the gaffe wasn’t a publicity stunt, as some have theorized. He also revealed that he had received death threats over the mistake. Tuesday’s show is the second part of a two-part special. Monday’s episode featured Wurtzbach. “I was very happy that I won; I was excited,” she told Harvey. “But I was also thinking about (Gutierrez). I couldn’t help but think about how tough this must be for her.” Miss Colombia: ‘It was very humiliating’


Editor’s Note: Timothy Stanley is a historian and columnist for Britain’s Daily Telegraph. He is the author of “Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between LA and DC Revolutionized American Politics.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. This story has been updated to reflect the latest number of fatalities from London Metropolitan Police. Tim Stanley: UK terror attack reminder of threat but also professionalism of police, citizens quick to help each other He says we have seen this violence before, will endure more to come, but won't give in to terrorists The terror attack that left four victims and an assailant dead near the Houses of Parliament in London showed the worst and the best of British life. It was a reminder of the threat we’ve lived under for a very long time. But it also was a demonstration of a professional police service swinging into action and of our citizens rushing to each other’s aid. We have a saying here: Keep calm and carry on. I’m sure that even on a day such as this we’ll live up to it. Britain has been dealing with various forms of political violence since the 1960s, when the sectarian Troubles erupted in Northern Ireland. Last year, one of our members of Parliament, Jo Cox, was murdered by a sympathizer of the racist far-right. And we’ve been on alert against Islamist terrorism since 9/11. On July 7, 2005, 52 people were killed by suicide bombers in London. Our security services are second to none and are believed to have prevented 13 terror attacks since 2013. Their job, however, is made all the more difficult by the situation in the Middle East. The Syrian civil war has radicalized some young Britons; around 850 of them are believed to have traveled to Syria or Iraq to support or join the fighting. About half that number are thought to have returned. Others have tried to travel to the region and been stopped. Related video Police treating UK attack as an act of terror That Britain hadn’t had a significant, successful attack since 2013, when a soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby, was beheaded in the street, is a testament to how well our security agencies have been coping. So was the swift response of London’s police force on Wednesday. We know that one officer lost his life. The officer was given CPR by Tobias Ellwood, an MP and former soldier who lost his brother in a bombing in Indonesia. There’s no greater testament to the strength of Britain’s institutions than the selflessness of our police and the quality of MPs like Ellwood. As for the attacker, there’s a lot of speculation at the moment. But the location of this attack was surely picked to say something about the British state and its vulnerability. Reports indicate that an attacker drove along Westminster Bridge, mowing down tourists, and then into the railings outside the Houses of Parliament. Related video The moment the UK Parliament stopped An attacker then approached the grounds of the Houses of Parliament and stabbed a police officer. This is a place where, as a journalist, I go all the time. My newspaper colleagues were inside the building in the lobby offices. There were MPs at work in the Commons. The Prime Minister was inside the palace grounds. What if the attacker had a bomb? What if he had got farther into the complex? The situation could have been even worse. One piece of good news is that Parliament intends to sit tomorrow, Thursday, and continue its business as normal. That’s how a democracy wins. Britain’s extremist right will demand tough measures – it has always confused me that people who claim to love their country as much as the far-right does are so keen to change it at a moment’s notice. Police name London attackerLondon unites against terrorA city stilled, shocked, enragedOpinion: Attack was long overdueAnalysis: Don’t bet on lone wolf Challenge of low-tech terrorPolitician rushes to victim’s aid Police name London attackerLondon unites against terrorA city stilled, shocked, enragedOpinion: Attack was long overdueAnalysis: Don’t bet on lone wolf Challenge of low-tech terrorPolitician rushes to victim’s aid Modern Britain is defined by tolerance. Please don’t believe the worst that you might read online: We have fine community relations here. We are a generally peaceful and good-natured country. We are also known for our coolness under fire. We have seen this violence before and will endure more to come. But we don’t give in to terrorists. A barbarian cannot change a country as old and civilized as ours.


The White House said Thursday that new national security adviser John Bolton met with Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov. “Bolton reiterated that it is in the interest of both the United States and Russia to have better relations, but that this will require addressing our concerns regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the reckless use of a chemical weapon in the United Kingdom, and the situations in Ukraine and Syria,” the White House statement said. This was the first meeting between the two in their current roles. Bolton officially stepped into the role of White House national security adviser earlier this month after President Donald Trump announced his appointment in March. The meeting came amid heightened tensions between the two nations over Syria, the poisoning in the UK of a former Russian spy and the ongoing special counsel investigation into  Russian interference in the 2016 election. Last year, Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kisylak, who was Russia’s ambassador to the US at the time. Russian state media posted photos of that Oval Office meeting.


Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and a New America fellow. He is the author of “Jimmy Carter” and “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Julian Zelizer: The world has changed dramatically since Castro first came to power Now it's politically feasible for President Obama to visit Cuba, Zelizer says America's embargo has lost its political rationale, he says This week President Barack Obama is in Cuba, the first commander in chief to visit the country since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. When Coolidge arrived in Cuba, The Saturday Evening Post’s Beverly Smith Jr. later recalled, “The crowds were tremendous and enthusiastic. They cheered themselves hoarse for Presidente Coolidge. They pushed close to his car, blowing kisses, and throwing flowers.” Related video President Obama: This is a historic visit, opportunity During the late 1950s, that kind of trip would become politically impossible. Cuba became a focal point of U.S. foreign policy, a key element of a global political struggle with the Soviet Union. Fidel Castro waged a guerilla war against Fulgencio Batista, the U.S.-backed dictator, from 1956 until the fall of the corrupt and brutal government in 1959. Castro, who established a socialist government and allied himself with the Soviets, faced many decades of efforts by U.S. administrations to oust him. Many elite Cubans fled the country and moved to Florida where they became a powerful political force and pressured U.S. politicians to resist interaction with Cuba, arguing that this remained a central front in the Cold War. Related article The U.S. and Cuba: A love story Democrats were especially nervous given that many Cuban-Americans tended to vote Republican after a disastrous CIA operation in 1961, known as the Bay of Pigs, undertaken under President John F. Kennedy. When he ran for president in 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton appealed to Cuban-Americans in Florida by promising to be tougher with the Castro government. “I think this administration,” he said of President George H.W. Bush, “has missed a big opportunity to put the hammer down on Fidel Castro and Cuba” by not pushing for the Cuban Democracy Act, which strengthened the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Related article Obama's Cuba, Argentina trips hit the mark For Americans over a certain age, the Obama trip is remarkable. For most of their lifetime, normalizing relations with Cuba was a third rail in American politics. Like cutting Social Security, touch it and you die. No president in either party gave serious thought to easing tensions with the Cubans, let alone visiting. That was then, this is now. Obama has fully embraced opening relations with Cuba even though he condemns the human rights violations of the government. For younger Americans, this probably isn’t a very big deal. Cuba is not a major issue anymore, and any lingering tensions are just relics of an older political era. Obama, who did pretty well with the Cuban-American vote in 2012, is not fearful of any serious political fallout from the trip, nor are the Democrats who are running for the nomination. Hillary Clinton supports him, as does Bernie Sanders who has already been to Cuba and is more sympathetic to the government, an issue that came up in the recent debate. Related article Why should Obama visit Cuba? Opposition can still be fierce. Sen. Ted Cruz has strongly opposed these initiatives and is a staunch critic of any effort to work with Cuba. “You know today is a sad day in American history,” Cruz said. “For decades leftists and Hollywood liberals have made the pilgrimage to Cuba to pay homage to Fidel Castro and Raul Castro. It’s very chic, it’s very chichi for leftists to celebrate vicious communist dictators.” There are also some Democrats,  including Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who have criticized Obama’s moves. But it is notable that the current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, only said that he would insist on a better deal. John Kasich has said he would insist on greater changes in the government before normalizing relations but has been lukewarm in his criticism on this issue. Related article The truth about closing Gitmo Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who is with Obama in Cuba, said the trip “signals the beginning of a new era” and that “any Republican administration would be hard-pressed to reverse really any of this. This all feeds on itself.” What happened? How did standing tough against Cuba lose its potency on the campaign trail? There has been a notable thawing of sentiment within the Cuban-American community toward opening economic relations with the Cubans and engaging, even if not accepting, the government. Related article Cuba's Internet isolation beginning to lift The Wall Street Journal reported that in Miami-Dade County, Cuban-American support for the embargo had fallen to 48% by 2014, down from 87% in 1991. Younger Cuban-Americas have been especially uncomfortable with the hard-line views of their elders. There are even high-level Cuban business leaders who for the first time are openly supporting this kind of engagement and the President’s  trip. According to The Miami Herald, 10 prominent Cuban-American businessmen from Miami went to Cuba after Obama’s announcement and returned convinced that stronger ties would be better for the nation. In a letter published in the newspaper, paid for by two Republicans who were part of the travel group, this cohort of business leaders said: “As fellow Cuban-Americans, let us recognize the progress that has been made on both sides of the 90-mile Florida Straits, albeit halting, in the right direction.” Foreign policy changes have also rendered the isolation of Cuba an outdated foreign policy position that no longer carries much weight. The Cold War, which shaped U.S. policy since World War II, gradually came to an end in the 1980s following a historic set of meetings between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. After the two leaders agreed on a major arms agreement in 1987, the Soviet Union eventually collapsed, leaving Cuba basically on its own. The nation lost its centrality in U.S. foreign policy as a result, even though antipathy toward normalizing relations remained strong. Then 9/11 shifted our focus to a different threat. Much of our foreign policy debates revolve as much around issues that have symbolic power with the electorate as they do actual considerations of foreign policy. With foreign policy focused on terrorism, particularly in the Middle East, Cuba doesn’t mean as much to voters. Although some conservatives have attempted to make connections between the Cuban government and Islamic terrorists the case has not been every effective. With the new global economy and Internet age of communication, the notion of true isolation of Cuba until the regime changes its authoritarian ways makes much less sense. And after so many decades of socialist rule, the argument that the embargo could produce change in Cuba’s policies weakened. With corporate interests eager to establish a better presence on the island (Obama is being accompanied by a number of business titans) the supporters of isolation find less support. The model of China has also offered a powerful counterpoint to supporters of the embargo. There, commercial ties with the United States have helped transform the country dramatically in social and economic terms even as older forms of political repression remain in place. Starting in December 2014, the Obama administration decided it was worth taking any potential risk and changing the direction of policy. With a look at the polls the President announced the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and that the administration would ask Congress to end the U.S.  embargo, though it remains in place. Obama’s announcement broke the political ice, enabling other politicians to live with the realities of the new world and accept a status quo that was very different than before. So Cuban politics ain’t want they used to be, and the result is that the President has been freed up to make this political trip with minimal costs to his party politically. The bigger question is not so much about the implications for Obama as for those Republicans and Democrats such as Menendez still holding out for what increasingly looks like an outdated policy rather than joining the emerging consensus to help shape more coherent and effective approaches to handling Cuba today. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.Read CNNOpinion’s Flipboard magazine.


More than two years ago, the man who would export the terror of ISIS to Europe arrived in the Syrian city of Raqqa. His name was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and he was from the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek. Related video Dozens of Brussels and Paris attack suspects at large Abaaoud would find notoriety – and death – in November 2015 as the organizer of the terror attacks in Paris. But long before then, he had outmaneuvered Europe’s intelligence services, dispatching perhaps dozens of fighters to the continent. He seemed obsessed with opening a new front for ISIS in Europe. And long before the Paris attacks, Abaaoud had a network in Belgium. He had served time in jail with Salah Abdeslam, who would join him in attacking Paris. On January 20, 2014, Abaaoud flew from Cologne, Germany, to Istanbul, accompanied by his 13-year-old brother and another would-be jihadist, Yoni Patrick Mayne, also from Molenbeek. Days earlier, according to intelligence documents obtained by CNN, Abaaoud had received a call from a Turkish mobile number. The call was from Mehdi Nemmouche, a French-Algerian who had left to fight jihad in Syria in 2012. Radicalized in jail in France, Nemmouche had become a guard and torturer of foreign hostages in Syria, according to one of the few to survive, French journalist Nicolas Henin. What was said is unknown, but the call confirmed a link between the two. Weeks later, Nemmouche would head back to Europe. He used an elaborate route to disguise his travel from Syria, via Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, before arriving in Frankfurt on March 18, 2014. German authorities notified the French but, perhaps already sensing Europe’s weak security coordination, Nemmouche went to Belgium. And on May 24, he allegedly staged a gun attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels that killed four people. When he was arrested in the French port of Marseille a week later, Nemmouche was in possession of a Kalashnikov rifle and a flag with ISIS rubric. He is still awaiting trial. Nemmouche was the first among French and Belgian ISIS fighters – some encouraged and directed by Abaaoud – to stage an attack in Europe. At the beginning, it was a trickle but gradually it became a stream. ISIS began developing encryption techniques and producing high-quality fake documents for its Europe-bound fighters. Flights were eschewed for sea and land routes that would exploit the migrant flows already stretching European frontier agencies in the summer of 2014. The exact equation between “freelancers” or “lone wolves” inspired by ISIS and those trained and directed by the group remains elusive. Unlike the more hierarchical al Qaeda, ISIS gives its operatives much more autonomy. But by the autumn of 2014, Abaaoud’s determination to export terror – likely endorsed by other French jihadists such as Fabien Clain and Salim Benghalem – appears to have found an audience among the ISIS leadership. The change in sentiment was probably because of the beginning of coalition airstrikes against ISIS – first to defend the Yazidi population in Iraq in August and then to support Syrian Kurds fighting ISIS in Kobani the following month. It was then that ISIS spokesman and leading ideologue Abu Mohammed al-Adnani issued a threat to the “Crusaders.” “O Americans, O Europeans, the Islamic State did not initiate a war against you,” Adnani said. “It is you who started the transgression against us, and thus you deserve blame and you will pay a great price.” Adnani made this threat to Europeans. “You will pay the price as you walk on your streets, turning right and left, fearing the Muslims. You will not feel secure even in your bedrooms. We will strike you in your homeland, and you will never be able to harm anyone afterwards.” By then, according to European counterterrorism officials, some 300 European jihadists were already back from Syria.  And security services were struggling to keep up with the inflow. One official acknowledged to CNN, even before airstrikes began, that “the threat of attacks has never been greater – not at the time of 9/11, not after the war in Iraq – never.” He and others envisaged a flood of small-scale, solo attacks. But he added: “The worry is that Europeans in the group may out of their own initiative return home to launch attacks. The question becomes to what extent will the ISIS leadership try to control this?” The answer would be: to a great extent. As airstrikes intensified, taking out key leaders of ISIS and eroding its control of territory, so did the group’s desire for revenge. What was different was the ambition: no longer opportunistic and individual but complex and directed. Despite an international arrest warrant for terrorism, Abaaoud left Syria at the end of 2014 and sneaked into Greece, moving between apartments in Athens. From there he began to plan attacks in Europe. He later boasted in the ISIS online magazine Dabiq that he had traveled as far as Belgium with two men who were later killed in a shoot-out with Belgian police. “We spent months trying to find a way into Europe,” he told Dabiq … “We succeeded in finally making our way to Belgium. We were then able to obtain weapons and set up a safe house while we planned to carry out operations against the crusaders.” The Belgian security services had monitored calls from Greece to relatives of men planning the attacks in Belgium, before surrounding their safe-house in the town of Verviers on January 15. Two days later, as European intelligence agencies scrambled to find Abaaoud, Greek police raided two apartments in central Athens. They found Abaaoud’s fingerprints but no trace of the man himself. They did, however, according to sources cited by Le Parisien newspaper, discover a computer which contained bomb-making instructions and attacks plans. Intelligence sources say Abaaoud slipped back into Syria to step up the training of foreign fighters for attacks in Europe. There was no shortage of French and Belgian fighters in and around Raqqa who had the language, contacts and local knowledge to survive in Europe. Many ISIS members who had gone to Syria had criminal records; they were street-smart and had long-established underworld contacts in Europe. They knew how to take advantage of borderless Europe even as intelligence services were still in national silos. There were other factors working in favor of Abaaoud’s plans: the Turkish border was relatively open. ISIS had secured a large supply of blank Syrian passports. It also had plenty of cash. Another Abaaoud associate was a 29-year-old Frenchman, Reda Hame.  According to a French investigation document obtained by CNN, Abaaoud provided him with training in Raqqa and pushed him to return to France “to open fire at a concert or in a crowded place where he could take hostages and then stage a suicide attack when police arrived.” Hame traveled via Prague in June 2015 but was arrested soon after he reached France and began cooperating. He provided information on the weapons training he’d received and the encryption software he’d been given to communicate. According to a transcript of his interrogation obtained by Le Monde, Hame said ISIS was now focused on exporting terror to Europe. “All I can tell you is that this will happen very soon. It was a real factory over there, and they are really trying to hit France and Europe. “ By then, European intelligence services were beginning to fear exactly that. But they had inadequate specific, actionable intelligence. There was no cascade of orders to intercept, no obvious money trail. And despite many promises, improving Europe-wide intelligence coordination was lagging. While Hame was being questioned in early August, the cell that would attack Paris three months later and its support structure was already being infiltrated into Europe. On August 4, Salah Abdeslam left a Greek port for Italy in the company of Ahmed Dahmani, who would later be detained in Turkey after leaving Amsterdam the day after the Paris attacks. How many others may have slipped in by land and sea from Syria? Most of the Paris attackers for sure, and at least one of the Belgian bombers, as well as an associate of Abdeslam arrested with him in Molenbeek two weeks ago. Another of those travelers may have been the young man who left Cologne with Abaaoud back in January 2014. Last year, ISIS members posted photos showing the apparently lifeless corpse of Yoni Patrick Mayne in Syria. His mother insists he was killed. The Belgian newspaper Derniere Heure reports that investigators apparently have other pictures of his body than those shared on social media, which were identified by Mayne’s family. And yet a European security bulletin issued after the Brussels attacks and obtained by CNN listed Mayne as one of eight men still wanted in connection with the Paris and Brussels attacks. As the saying goes, perhaps he’s not dead yet. The inside story of the Paris and Brussels attacks And there may be dozens of other ISIS operatives across Europe planning further episodes in the campaign driven by Abaaoud.


A South American sculpture which disappeared mysteriously from a museum almost 80 years ago has been recovered and returned to Colombian authorities. The ceramic piece was identified earlier this year after it was put up for a sale. An art historian with Hampstead Auctions, Beth West, noticed a number of red flags while researching the artifact, which prompted her suspicion, she said. “I noticed that drawn on the base of the figure was a registration number for a museum, thereby denoting that it was part of a collection.” After she contacted the Art Recovery Group, a London-based company that focuses on art repatriation, the process of identifying the item began. The director of Colombia’s National Museum,  Daniel Castro Benítez, confirmed the artifact had indeed been part of a collection on display in the museum. But the museum in Cartagena has no record how the sculpture disappeared in 1939. Distinctive ceramic figures such as these were made by the people who inhabited the hills and valleys of the Cauca River during the centuries prior to the Spanish conquest in the 1530s. Known as slab figures, most were male and ranged in height from four to 20 inches. The septum of the recovered artifact is pierced to hold a now-missing nose ring, likely one of gold. Christopher Marinello, CEO of Art Recovery Group, said while the worth of the piece is estimated at below £10,000 ($13,000), its recovery is still quite significant. “While it is not hugely valuable monetarily, it is quite symbolic of the material that has been stolen from Latin America,” he said. A government official may have had the artifact before it was recovered, he said. “The story told is that the man who had it in his possession received it as a gift from his Colombian girlfriend’s father in 1999. Her father was a very important government official. This is the story we were told,” Marinello said. The vendor, who wishes to remain anonymous, is said to have had no knowledge of the significance of the artifact until earlier this year, and has agreed to the unconditional return of the sculpture to the Colombian authorities. The work was officially returned at a small ceremony at the Colombian Embassy in London earlier this month.


North Korean missiles streaking toward Japan. US anti-missile batteries arriving in South Korea. China’s foreign minister fearing a massive military confrontation is about to happen. China’s state news agency openly speculating Asia is on the verge of a nuclear arms race, the likes of which has not been seen since the Cold War. Each one of these things alone would be enough to destabilize the status quo. Taken together, they have placed tensions in North Asia on a knife’s edge. Should they tip over, who would come out on top? What are the strengths and weakness of the forces that would fight a North Asian war. With almost 3 million people in its military, the People’s Republic of China has the world’s largest fighting force in terms of sheer manpower, but most of that won’t come into play in any Pacific conflict. And analysts say manpower plays into one of China’s biggest weakness: The collective lack of combat experience in those forces. China has not fought a conflict since a border war with Vietnam in 1979; the US military, their most likely adversary, has been involved numerous conflicts over those 38 years. “The US and its allies still have a significant edge for now in combat experience and logistical operations,” Corey Wallace, a security analyst at Freie University in Berlin, said in an email to CNN. “The longer any conflict goes on, the greater the advantage for US and its allies.” China would also be hampered by its relative isolation, lacking allies and a network of bases in the region, Wallace said. “It does restrain its ability to project power,” Wallace said. The Chinese navy also has only one active aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, which China bought from Ukraine in 1998, then rebuilt and commissioned in 2012 as a training vessel. In contrast, the US Navy has 10 aircraft carriers in its fleet, including one, the USS Ronald Reagan, based in Japan. China’s main strength lies in its extensive missile program, which features missiles that could hit US air bases in Japan and Guam, experts say. If the US air bases can be taken out, the US’ technologically superior F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters, and its B-1 and B-52 heavy bombers would be low on options to rearm and refuel. A 2016 report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China’s DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile – dubbed by analysts the “Guam killer” – allows China to bring unprecedented firepower to bear on Guam, home to the US’ vital Andersen Air Force Base. China also boasts newly developed air-launched, land-attack cruise missiles which can be fired by its fleet of 36 H-6K long-range bombers. In any Western Pacific conflict, the US military possesses a network of bases where it can position fighting machines technologically superior to what any potential adversary can offer. Those US and allied bases stretch from Misawa Air Base in the north of Japan to installations in Singapore regularly used by US forces. And the US has been positioning some of its newest and most sophisticated weapons at those bases – F-35 stealth fighters, Advanced Hawkeye radar aircraft and Aegis warships in Japan, a littoral combat ship with helicopter drones in Singapore, F-22 stealth fighters in Australia. The sheer breadth of it makes it hard to defeat. “Their positioning is such that a simple attack on Japan will not be enough to permanently destabilize the US operating capacity in the region,” Wallace said. “Neutralizing all of these installations will also require picking a lot more fights with a lot more actors.” That crescent of technology also makes any imminent US conflict with China unlikely, Wayne Mapp, a former New Zealand defense minister, told CNN. “It’s way too early for them to really test US power,” Mapp said of Beijing. “No part of the Chinese military is equal to the US military.” That said, the US does have its vulnerabilities. One of the biggest could be its reliance on aerial refueling and intelligence and surveillance aircraft, analysts say. Long-range air-to-air missiles fired from jets such as China’s new J-20 stealth fighter could knock down unarmed US support jets like KC-135 tankers and E-3A AWACS radar planes. “Long-range air intercept weapons — coupled with the right fighter — could cut the sinews that allow the United States to conduct sustained air operations,” defense editor Dave Majumdar wrote on The National Interest late last year. Some analysts say the US Navy’s aircraft carriers could be a vulnerability as they present large targets and a hit on one could provide a large boost to any adversary’s morale. But Wallace, the security expert, disagrees, saying the US has decades of experience on how to use and protect them. “I’m not convinced they are the sitting ducks many regard them to be – especially compared to fixed bases,” he said. Strikes on those fixed bases could result in devastating casualties to the US military. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the US has more than 47,000 troops stationed in Japan, more than 28,000 in South Korea, 5,000 in Guam and hundreds of other scattered among Pacific allies such as Singapore and Australia. What makes Pyongyang strong? Two things: Kim Jong Un has nuclear capability and no adversary can be sure if he’ll use it. Pyongyang says it successfully tested a nuclear warhead last year. This year missiles it tested fell just 200 miles from the Japanese coast. That has kept leaders in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul guessing as to what Kim will do next, and wary of any pre-emptive strike. “It does make them immune to invasion,” Mapp, the former New Zealand defense minister, says. The rogue state does have another key advantage – the South Korean capital of Seoul is only 35 miles from the border with the North, putting 25 million people there within range of North Korean artillery and rockets and the lead elements of Pyongyang’s military of 1.2 million members, just 100,000 shy of the entire size of the US military. North Korea also has a sizeable tank force of up to 4,200, according to some estimates, but none are believed to be a match for South Korean tanks, which while they number roughly half of the North Korean force, are decades ahead in technology. Pyongyang’s primary disadvantage comes immediately after any first strike. The country is resource poor and in no position to engage in sustained combat with the US, South Korean and possibly Japanese militaries. North Korea has also put itself in a difficult position with long-time ally China. Beijing has called on Pyongyang to stop the weapons tests which have ratcheted up tensions in East Asia. The injection of the US’ THAAD anti-missile system into South Korea in response to Pyongyang’s missile tests has angered Beijing, which sees THAAD as damaging its overall security interests. “(China) may have tolerated a lot from (North Korea) to ensure stability on its borders and a buffer between itself and US forces,” said Wallace. “If the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea] is seen to be working against Chinese security interests, as it arguably is right now, then it might change these calculations.” Seoul has been facing a hostile North Korea since the Korean War armistice in 1953. That, said Mapp, is a key strength, one which has enabled Seoul to develop a formidable military focused on only one thing: not attacking someone else, but protecting themselves. The International Institute for Strategic Studies points out that Seoul has procured or will get advanced weaponry; these include cruise missiles for its F-15 fighters, a fleet of F-35 stealth fighters, new submarines and more Sejong the Great-class guided-missile destroyers, already considered among the world’s most-advanced warships. In fact, the number of South Korea large surface ships – frigates and destroyers – outnumbers North Korea’s fleet 23 to 3, according to globalfirepower.com. That’s a lot of firepower that would be directed at North Korea, but experts say Seoul doesn’t have to worry about anything else because those worries are Washington’s. “South Korea’s strength is the United States. They (South Korea) really don’t do anything else; they only have to worry about” North Korea, Mapp said. But Wallace says it’s another alliance that may prove to be a South Korean vulnerability in the event of conflict. South Korea doesn’t “play nice with Japan on a variety of military and intelligence issues,” he says. Evidence of that may be in the Aegis missile defense system, deployed on South Korean and Japanese warships. South Korean Aegis ships cannot share timely missile intercept information with their Japanese counterparts because Seoul and Tokyo can’t agree on a data encryption system that works between them, said Carl Schuster, a Hawaii Pacific University professor and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center. South Korea seems to be taking steps to address that issue, however. This week a South Korean Aegis destroyer was practicing missiles intercepts with Japanese and US destroyers equipped with the Aegis missile defense system. The trilateral tests were the third in a series aimed at boosting missile defense cooperation among the three allies, US Navy 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. Paul Newell said. While South Korea needs to only concentrate on one adversary, Japan needs to focus on two, North Korea and China. North Korea’s missiles that fell in waters off Japan last week brought new fears in Tokyo as to what might come next from the Kim regime. North Korea said the tests were carried out by the military unit tasked with taking on US military bases in Japan. And Japan and China have locked horns over the Senkaku Islands, the Tokyo-administered chain claimed by Beijing, which refers to them as the Diaoyu Islands. In regards to China, Wallace identifies Japan’s anti-submarine warfare capabilities as key. “Subsurface detection and reaction is a Japanese strength in both technological and operational terms, and a Chinese weakness, even if (China) quantitatively has a larger subsurface fleet,” Wallace said. Japan’s Soryu-class hunter-killer subs are a big part of that strength. Tokyo has 12 of the Soryu-class, the largest subs it has built since World War II, in service or on order, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Analysts say the Soryus are stealthy and can operate effectively close to the seabed, giving them an advantage over a Chinese submarine fleet numbering around 70 vessels, according to experts. The Soryu-class subs become more formidable combined with Japan’s helicopter carriers and sub-hunting aircraft and a surprisingly long history of using them, Wallace said, “even helping the US keep the Soviet Pacific subsurface fleet bottled up in the North (Pacific) during the Cold War.” Japan’s big weakness is its ability to project offensive firepower, analysts say. “They can bomb anyone landing on one of Japan’s main islands… but they can’t strike Chinese or North Korean air bases or missile sites,” Schuster says, pointing out that Japanese warplanes don’t carry the equipment necessary to suppress enemy air defenses. “They can defend but they can’t punch back,” he says.


Earlier this week, longtime Donald Trump adviser Keith Schiller told Congressional investigators that he rejected a Russian’s offer to send five women to Donald Trump’s hotel room during Trump’s 2013 visit to the country. Schiller said in his testimony that he took the offer, which came from a man accompanying Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, as a joke. When he told Trump about it – as they retired to their rooms for the night – the real estate mogul laughed, Schiller said. Schiller was asked about the matter during his testimony in front of the House intelligence committee because of salacious allegations made about the trip, which have not been confirmed and CNN has not reported, in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The dossier, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through their law firm, has been part of the investigation – by Congress and by special counsel Robert Mueller – into Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election and potential collusion with the Trump campaign. Trump has repeatedly insisted the entire dossier – elements of which the US intelligence committee has been able to independently confirm – is fake news and garbage. But, Trump and former president Barack Obama were both briefed about the dossier’s contents in late 2016 by then-FBI director James Comey. Comey, prior to being fired by Trump in May, testified that on two separate occasions Trump denied the salacious allegations in the dossier. So what does the Schiller revelation about the Russian offer of female companionship for Trump tell us? About Trump, not much. He has denied the more salacious allegations in the dossier and, according to Schiller’s sworn testimony, both men took the offer as a joke. But, I think it does tell us something important about how things work in Russia – and the country’s intentions in regard to Trump and his associates. First, remember that the idea of “kompromat” – attempting to put targets into compromising positions to gain leverage over them – is a longtime Russian tactic. “It is very much a part of the way Russia works, that intelligence agencies collect compromising information on individuals and that they’ll use it when it’s to their advantage,” former British Ambassador Tony Brenton told CNN back in January. (For more on “kompromat,” read this.) Second, the offer came from someone accompanying Emin Agalarov, Schiller said, although “Emin has no knowledge of that ever happening,” according to his attorney Scott Balber. That’s important because the pop star is the son of Aras Agalarov, a billionaire developer who is, reportedly, close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Agalarov family also has some relationship with the Trumps; it was the Agalarovs who reportedly requested the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in which Donald Trump Jr. was told he would be receiving negative information on Hillary Clinton. Third, just because Schiller and Trump took the five women offer as a joke doesn’t mean that’s how it was intended. As in: The offer was a real one but, once rejected, was laughed off as a joke. Would it have been a joke if Schiller had expressed interest? Who knows. The broader point here is that Schiller’s acknowledgment that someone seemingly associated with the Agalarovs made an offer of women to Trump through him suggests that the idea that Russia was targeting Trump isn’t just fake news. Now, that’s something entirely – and let me say it again just for emphasis: entirely – different than Trump or anyone in his inner circle being compromised by these Russian overtures. Russia could have tried all sorts of ways to get at Trump and been unsuccessful. But Schiller’s testimony strikes me as a confirmation that someone tried. Which is worth noting.


US military has launched formal investigation into multiple airstrikes Local officials report that over 100 bodies have been recovered from area An investigation into a US airstrike that coincided with civilian deaths in Mosul, Iraq, on March 17 has now expanded into a more formal review of all airstrikes in the area over a period of several days, the US military said Thursday. Col. Mohammad Shumari, head of civil forces working in the area, told CNN that 141 bodies had been removed from the location of the March 17 strike in the al-Resala district of Mosul’s al-Jadidah neighborhood. The military investigation was ordered by Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of US and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria. It will look into US airstrikes that took place over several days – roughly between March 14 and March 23. “Since we believe a coalition strike contributed in at least some way to the civilian casualties, Lt. Gen. Townsend has directed that the civilian casualty assessment move directly to a formal 15-6 investigation for all allegations in the al-Jadidah neighborhood on or around March 17,” Col. Joseph Scrocca said when he briefed reporters Thursday via a phone call from Baghdad. A “15-6” is the designation of the Army regulation that governs such an investigation. The inquiry will be led by Brig. Gen. Matthew Isler, who helps oversee air support operations in Iraq. Related article 'Sorrow doesn't help, does it bring someone back? It doesn't.' “Obviously this is a very serious incident, we want to make sure we get it right and the best way is to have a general officer look at all of this holistically and answer the questions the commanding general wants answered,” Scrocca said. A defense official told CNN that Townsend decided to order the investigation after the military’s forensic team returned from the site. The team went to the exact grid, saw the house and determined that there was evidence the US was in part responsible for bringing the house down, because the US did strike the house. The official said they are looking at any other factors that might have played into this. The US is well aware ISIS tries to deceive US targeting. Now that this has occurred the US believes it can develop some ‘indicators” of when civilians are present, but the official declined to specify details due to security concerns. The more formal investigation announcement was first mentioned by Gen. Joseph Votel during his Wednesday testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Related article Will Iraq survive victory over ISIS in Mosul? A person familiar with a Wednesday phone call between President Donald Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi, said the Iraqi premier did raise the subject of the strike and civilian deaths. However, this person would not say whether Trump apologized or expressed regret for the incident. The White House’s official readout of the call did say the President “praised the remarkable bravery and sacrifices of the Iraqi people in our shared fight against terrorism.” A senior military official who briefed reporters Wednesday said that in the last week alone, coalition aircraft had dropped over 700 munitions and coalition artillery had fired some 400 rounds in support of Iraqi troops battling ISIS for Mosul. Military officials have pointed to a new ISIS tactic of forcing civilians into buildings as one of the reasons for the potential recent increase in civilian casualties. Related article Trump: US troops 'fighting like never before' in Iraq “What you see now is not the use of civilians of human shields, now it is something much more sinister,” Scrocca said. “ISIS is smuggling civilians into buildings so we won’t see them and trying to bait the coalition to attack, to take advantage of the public outcry and deter action in the future.” Scrocca said that the coalition had observed this tactic Wednesday via video surveillance. “For the first time we caught this on video yesterday as armed ISIS fighters forced civilians into a building, killing one who resisted, and then used that building as a fighting position against the (Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service),” he said. Scrocca said that the coalition was making adjustments in the wake of this new threat but would not elaborate due to operational security reasons. CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Ghazi Balkiz, Muwafaq Mohammad and Mohammad Jambaz contributed to this story


Some people set records by jumping the highest or running the fastest. But for Jessica Nabongo, a UN employee turned travel blogger, it’s by becoming the first black woman of African descent to visit every country on Earth and document it. Having already been to 60 countries, in 2016 she set out to visit all 193 countries in the world. On October 6, she claimed on her Instagram page to have arrived at the last on her list, Seychelles. “Welcome to the Seychelles!! Country 195 of 195! So much to say but for now I will just say thank you to this entire community for all of your support. This was our journey and thanks to all of you who came along for the ride!!,” she wrote. Nabongo’s claim that she is the first black woman to visit every country isn’t without controversy. Another globetrotter, Woni Spotts, says she became the first African-American woman to visit 195 countries and territories after completing her 40-year mission earlier in September 2018. Spotts has said she can verify her travels via a video project, verification from guides and documentation including tickets and passport stamps and State Department records. A post shared by Jessica Nabongo 🇺🇬 (@jessicanabongo) Born in Detroit to Ugandan parents and holding two passports, Nabongo’s epic odyssey hasn’t just been about getting her name in a record book. She’s hoping to pave the way for women and people of color to do the same. Although she felt like she’d achieved “the American dream” by landing a six-figure job at a pharmaceutical company after college and buying her own place in the Motor City, the work didn’t satisfy her. She began renting out her condo to make money, then hit the road – first, teaching English in Japan, then grad school at the London School of Economics, followed by a job at the United Nations that took her to Benin and then Italy. But that wasn’t enough to sate the travel bug. But simply being able to afford a ticket doesn’t mean that travel is easy or seamless. Nabongo’s experience traveling the world undercut many of the exhortations travel brands have to “live like a local,” being able to seamlessly blend in anywhere simply by changing clothes or ordering coffee a certain way. Often, as the only person of color in a crowd, she stood out whether she wanted to or not. Nabongo also has dark skin and shaves her head. To date, there are about 150 known people who have been to every country, the majority of whom are white men traveling on European passports – the ones who have the option to “blend in” in more places. A post shared by Jessica Nabongo 🇺🇬 (@jessicanabongo) As of April 2018, there were 193 recognized countries in the United Nations, plus two with “non-observer status.” Nabongo says she’s visited them all. Her passports have stamps from places as far-flung as Nigeria, Cuba, Turkey and Laos. And this year's world's best city is ... To support her travel habits, she founded a company called Jet Black, which organizes custom itineraries for small group trips in Africa, plus sells travel gear like branded T-shirts and passport covers. As an influencer, she also works with hotel and hospitality brands, some of whom offer up free stays in exchange for social media posts. She also accepts donations on a GoFundMe page. “Navigating the world as a woman can be very difficult,” Nabongo told CNN Travel in 2018. “I’ve had a pretty wide range of experiences. I’ve been accused of being a prostitute. I’ve had men chase me before. I’ve been assaulted on the street.” In one particularly horrible incident, a driver/fixer Nabongo had been working with and had grown to trust invited her to an “Easter orgy” just before he was due to pick her up to go to the airport. “That is something a man will never have to deal with.” And despite being a self-identified African, that didn’t mean everything was smooth sailing when Nabongo traveled around  Africa. A few times, she watched in frustration as she was forced to wait behind white tourists or forced to pay bribes in order to cross borders that should have been open to her. “The discrimination that I faced in South Africa was ridiculous. Not only from white South Africans, which many would expect, but also from black South Africans,” she said. A post shared by Jessica Nabongo 🇺🇬 (@jessicanabongo) However, some countries were better than others: “Senegal, it’s amazing. You don’t see them privileging white people over Africans. They treat everyone the same. Same in Ghana.” Adding to the challenge of seeing the world is the fact that Nabongo often travels solo. She generally eschews Airbnbs for hotels, where she can count on a 24-hour front desk to keep her feeling secure. She prefers to bring friends along to share the experience when possible. Sometimes, though, the tables turn and Nabongo finds herself abroad speaking on behalf of Americans. This is particularly likely in countries that have warned their citizens against traveling to the United States or have concerns about gun violence. “While I’ve been abroad, I’ve had people ask me about how safe is the US, especially for people of color,” Nabongo said. “And you know, I have to tell them, ‘Yes, there is a high risk for you in particular in urban areas. But then also in rural areas because you’re a minority.’ It’s a very strange and difficult thing to navigate.” Still, comments and questions like those only emphasize the importance of Nabongo’s work. While she does not identify as an activist, sometimes her mere presence is enough to make a difference or cause a person to see things differently. This is a common sentiment echoed by many women of color: Simply being who you are is a statement. Delicious African foods you should try Whether counseling a person of color who’s afraid to travel or a local who thinks it’s okay to try and touch her head without asking, Nabongo serves a cultural ambassador role that may not be visible behind those colorful shots she posts on Instagram. Speaking of Instagram, Nabongo has some words of caution for travelers who use African people as objects, props or backdrops in their photos, something she encounters way too often online. “Instagram is great. I love it. It’s obviously given me a platform so that I can educate people about different places in the world,” she said. “But it’s also a very dangerous and disgusting place as well because a lot of people want a bigger following. They want the likes. They want pictures that go viral. So they’re willing to use anybody and anything.” “We cannot negate the optics of whiteness in Africa. We can’t,” she said. Ultimately, Nabongo says her quest was not just about crossing countries off a list. It was about changing the perception of female travelers, of travelers of color and of anyone who doesn’t have the option of passing for a local in a given community. “Racism is a thing. There’s nothing we can do to get around that. History has made it that way. I exist as a black person in this world and I’m not going to let that hinder me from going anywhere I want to go. Namely, everywhere.” Clarification: This story has been amended to acknowledge the claim by Woni Spotts as the first black woman to travel to every country. Spotts’ claim, if verified, would make Nabongo the first black woman of African descent to do so.


The tumult of the past week has fueled a deep and seething anger within President Donald Trump – not an uncommon emotion for the insolent commander in chief – but one that allies and aides say has escalated as he faces a new gauntlet of problems, including the encroaching Russia investigation. His soothing communications guru is leaving. His obstinate attorney general has turned openly defiant. His son-in-law and senior adviser was stripped of his security clearance at the behest of his chief of staff. His Cabinet secretaries keep spending an inordinate amount of taxpayer dollars on luxuries. His most loyal allies in Congress describe his meetings as “surreal.” Allies of Trump’s on Capitol Hill and elsewhere describe a sense of “meltdown” at the White House as the series of unfortunate events unfold. The President, they say, wants to take action to turn the page. Related article Hope Hicks is resigning from the White House Morale in the West Wing, already diminished following the domestic abuse scandal involving Trump’s former staff secretary, has taken a downward turn, people inside and outside the building say. Staff departures are being announced on a near-daily basis as aides become fed up with the constant swirl of tension. And policy announcements that would fulfill Trump’s campaign promises – including a long-awaited decision on steel and aluminum tariffs, gun control measures and an elusive immigration fix – have been caught up in the swirl of uncertainty, leading to questions on how Trump will be able to govern amid the chaos. On Capitol Hill Thursday, chief of staff John Kelly was taciturn but upbeat when asked about the mood inside the White House. “I think pretty good,” he said. “Too much work, too hard. We’re all doing the Lord’s work though.” Others are less glowing. “The morale is terrible,” Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived former communications director, said Thursday morning on CNN. “The reason why the morale is terrible is that the rule by fear and intimidation does not work in a civilian environment.” “People are afraid to talk to each other,” he said. Related article Kelly, Kushner tension simmers amid West Wing uncertainty Inside the White House, aides identify the scandal involving Rob Porter, the staff secretary who departed after being accused of domestic abuse allegations, as the impetus for the latest devolvement in esteem. At the time of his departure, Porter was dating Hope Hicks, the communications director who announced her resignation on Wednesday. Hicks’ departure was weeks in the making, people familiar with the decision said. But it was nevertheless a shock announcement from the aide perhaps closest to the President. “Trump can’t function without her. She is that important,” a source close to the White House said. Advisers wonder now who will step into the role of presidential whisperer – a job ever more important as stumbling blocks continue to arise, including the mounting stack of indictments in Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump continues to describe the probe as a “witch hunt,” and steams over the issue regularly. His anger is bolstered by the deep sense of uncertainty surrounding who will be caught up next. Mueller’s team has operated largely leak-free, and much of the news from his office has caught the White House off-guard. The Porter episode also led to scrutiny over the system of security clearances and questions over accountability at top staff levels. It launched John Kelly’s crackdown on interim security clearances, which last week ensnared Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, along with dozens of other White House officials. The move only heightened the existing friction between Kelly and Trump’s children, who have seen their access to the President restricted under a new system of rigor. Kushner has continued in his role, focusing on domestic issues like prison reform and planning for upcoming political races. Trump has told aides he wants Kushner to remain focused on the Middle East. But the President has grown upset at the perception his son-in-law is somehow in trouble, and has complained to people around him how Kelly can’t seem to stop making enemies. Related article Sessions pushes back on Trump after 'disgraceful' insult Kelly isn’t the only underling in Trump’s sights. The President was fuming Wednesday after Attorney General Jeff Sessions publicly pushed back against him in a rare but pointed statement defending the Justice Department. Sessions’ pushback came after Trump called him “DISGRACEFUL” in a Twitter post. Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL! A source familiar with his demeanor described Trump as indignant. Trump didn’t respond to shouted questions about Sessions at the White House on Thursday. Later, when she was asked whether Trump wanted to dismiss his attorney general, press secretary Sarah Sanders only said: “Not that I know of.” The sense of an administration at odds was fueled by another Cabinet secretary coming under public scrutiny – this time Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. Senior White House aides are furious about a series of negative stories about frivolous spending at Carson’s agency and have taken a more hands-on role in trying to stem the tide of negative news, sources with knowledge of the situation tell CNN. The decision to assert more control came a day after reports that the former chief administrative officer at HUD filed a complaint saying she was demoted after refusing to spend more than was legally allowed to redecorate Carson’s new office. HUD also spent $31,000 last year to replace a dining room set in Carson’s office, according to federal records and a whistleblower. Carson has now said he wants to cancel the order. It was the latest example of a spending indiscretion by one of Trump’s Cabinet officials – incidents that have enraged the President. He fired Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price for excessive use of private and government air travel over the summer. But since then, the travel habits of a number of Cabinet-level officials have come into question. Trump has vented to aides that there’s nothing he detests more than displays of wasteful spending. But firing top-level officials, he’s speculated, would only deepen the impression his administration is in chaos. Instead, Trump is encouraging his team to develop policy announcements that could help distract from the ongoing ruckus. On Thursday he was eager to announce protectionist measures to buffer the US steel and aluminum industries from foreign imports – fulfilling a key campaign promise on which he’s fixated over the past year. The only problem: the policy he wanted to roll out isn’t ready yet, two White House officials said. Aides were sent scrambling late Wednesday to determine what exactly Trump could announce during a meeting with industry executives that was hastily assembled for Thursday morning. Initially the meeting was closed to the press. But Trump called in reporters at the last minute to announce he was imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum “probably” next week. “It’s being written now,” Trump said. CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, Kaitlan Collins, Tal Kopan, Jamie Gangel, Gloria Borger and Pamela Brown contributed to this report.


White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is traveling to Mexico on Wednesday for meetings, including one with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, a senior administration official tells CNN. The timing of the meeting comes amid NAFTA negotiations and questions over President Donald Trump’s tariff proposal. It also comes shortly after Kushner had his security clearance downgraded because he had not obtained his full clearance. The official said “a range of bilateral issues, including security, immigration, trade and economics,” will be discussed. Last month, Peña Nieto called off an official trip to Washington to meet with Trump following a tense phone call between the two leaders, a White House official said. According to The Washington Post, officials from both countries told the paper that Peña Nieto “called off the plan after Trump would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position that it would not fund construction of a border wall.”


Airstrike on camp once again raises questions about Nigeria's ability to defeat Boko Haram But the tragic error also suggests Nigeria's military is taking the fight to the terror group The admission by Nigeria that its air force accidentally targeted a camp for people who have been internally displaced represents a significant change in attitude by the forces fighting the terrorist insurgency known as Boko Haram. In what the Nigerian officials have described as a “regrettable operational mistake,” fighter jets on Tuesday bombed the camp as part of an operation against Boko Haram in Rann in the northeastern Borno state. Mistakenly believing that a gathering of Boko Haram terrorists was in Borno, Nigerian Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor says his forces “got the coordinates and I directed that the air (force) should go and address the problem.” As we now know, the jets hit innocent civilians who had been fleeing Boko Haram attacks, killing at least 70 – including some members of Red Cross staff – and injuring many more. Related video On the run in their own country The airstrike has once again raised questions about Nigeria’s ability to defeat the terrorists. The conflict to date has claimed thousands of lives and displaced more than 2 million people in the northeast of the country, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. This admission of error from Nigerian officials feels a world away from four years ago when the very same military was being accused of abusing the people it was meant to protect – and was being accused of corruptly looting billions of dollars meant to aid the fight against terrorism. For three years, the United States refused to sell arms to Nigeria over these abuse and corruption allegations. The lack of faith in Nigeria’s ability to fight Boko Haram is likely to continue into the next US administration: Trump’s transition team recently asked the State Department why the United States was bothering to fight Boko Haram, and why the Chibok girls had not yet been found, according to a report in The New York Times. The skepticism is in some respects understandable. As Boko Haram wreaked carnage in northeast Nigeria, there was a palpable sense of defeatism among the local population. As village after village was attacked, the armed forces that were supposed to defend civilians instead reportedly dropped their weapons and fled. Announcements have been made about the death or capture of Boko Haram leaders, only for those same leaders to pop up in angry videos, trashing the government claims. Related video Who are Boko Haram? Much of the criticism and pessimism is fair – there certainly have been a number of catastrophic military decisions if Nigeria’s seven-year fight with Boko Haram is taken as a whole. But President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in May 2015 on the promise of taking the fight to Boko Haram. As odd it may seem, the tragic error in Rann suggests that this may be happening. Since Buhari’s election, Nigerian forces have been able to clear Boko Haram out of areas such as Rann. This action has allowed aid groups such as the Red Cross – which tragically lost some of its staff in this week’s attack – to access these places for the first time. They were once off-limits to all but military personnel – and these deaths are a grim reminder that the fight is far from over: As these areas open up to aid organizations, the sheer scale and scope of the humanitarian disaster is becoming apparent for the first time. But the notion that the Nigerian military does not know what it is doing does not stand up to impartial scrutiny, and those quick to blame it ignore the massive changes that this fight has recently seen. As the scale of the tragedy in Rann became clear, Elhadj As Sy, secretary general of the International Federation of the Red Cross, told me from Geneva, Switzerland: “These armies, wherever they may be, will track their enemy and occasionally they will make mistakes and strike the wrong people.” Related video Freed Chibok girls return home for Christmas Boko Haram is no different from Al-Shabaab, ISIS, the Malian jihadists who set off a car bomb Wednesday in northern Mali – they are certainly no more beatable. Buhari has moved his military command from Abuja to the epicenter of the Boko Haram world in Maiduguri, capital of Borno. The move has isolated Boko Haram from the population it had frightened for so long, pushing the militants deeper into impenetrable forests and away from the northeast. In June, his air force bought three Alpha Jets and three M1F7 fighter jets to flash out Boko Haram from the Sambisa Forest, on the edge of the Cameroon, Chad and Niger borders. These countries have now also been dragged into the fight against the terror group. It will get messy, this war, but the fight back has well and truly begun.