Rep. Adam Schiff said Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes is blocking key witnesses Schiff's remarks underscore the political impasse in the House Russia investigation Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that Republicans are blocking dozens of witnesses from being interviewed in the Russia probe, including some who were aware of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting where Donald Trump Jr. was promised dirt on the Clinton campaign. In a briefing with reporters, Schiff accused Republicans of blocking the inquiry from moving ahead, leaving key questions unanswered. He said that the House Intelligence Committee has spoken to 56 witnesses, fewer than half of the number in the Senate Intelligence Committee. Among the witnesses he wants to interview: Ivanka Trump, plus he says the panel should consider issuing a subpoena to Trump Jr. for information he withheld during his classified hearing last year. “We can’t do a thorough and credible investigation unless we obtain these documents – unless we talk to these witnesses,” Schiff said. Schiff placed the blame largely on Republican Devin Nunes, saying the GOP chairman of the committee – who stepped aside from running the investigation for much of last year – has blocked dozens of requests for witnesses and subpoenas, with the support of House Speaker Paul Ryan. The White House declined to comment on Schiff’s accusations. Aides to Nunes and GOP Rep. Mike Conaway, who is running the Russia probe, did not respond to requests for comment. An attorney for Trump Jr couldn’t be reached for comment, and an Ivanka Trump attorney had no immediate comment. “While Mr. Schiff tries to distract from the serious, bipartisan review that’s been underway for nearly a year, we will stay focused on following the facts and working to safeguard the upcoming election,” said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong. The assessment from the committee’s top Democrat underscores the partisan impasse that has plagued the House investigation, with Nunes and House Republicans now focusing on investigating allegations of improper FBI conduct during the 2016 elections and over its Russia probe – while Democrats demand a deeper dive into whether there was any Trump campaign collusion with the Russians. Among the questions Schiff says the probe has not answered: whether the former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos – who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts over Russia – had communications with the Trump campaign about those efforts. Plus, Schiff says there has been scant interest in probing efforts by the late GOP operative Peter Smith, who sought the hacked Hillary Clinton emails during the election year. And Schiff says the committee needs to press Attorney General Jeff Sessions over key questions he did not answer, including whether the President took steps to hinder the Russia investigation. Moreover, Schiff said the GOP has blocked Democrats’ demands to request documents and hold witness interviews about the misleading responses to the news media after the Trump Tower meeting was revealed last summer. And he says the GOP has not supported efforts to get information from the White House about the firing of former FBI director James Comey, saying the White House has ignored bipartisan requests while the GOP has done little to pursue it. Plus, he argued, the House panel needs to subpoena Deutsche Bank for the financial records of the Trump Organization to learn about any financial arrangements with Russian interests. “This investigation has gone about 1/4 of the time of the Benghazi investigations,” Schiff said, referring to the GOP-led inquiries after the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. “But part of the reason why this investigation has taken longer than it should is because the majority has sat on our requests for witnesses for months and months and months.” The GOP has agreed to bring in a handful of witnesses so far this year, including former senior Trump aide Steve Bannon, who is expected before the panel next week. But Schiff says that’s not enough. Among the major topics still of interest to Schiff: the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives that occurred after Trump Jr. was told he would get dirt on the Clinton campaign and that the Russian government wanted to see his father win the presidency. Even though the committee has interviewed nearly all the participants in the Trump Tower meeting, Schiff says there are additional witnesses “who knew the subject” of the Trump Tower meeting that need to be interviewed. He declined to say whom these individuals were when asked. “It may be necessary for us to (release the names) in future if the majority does shut down the investigation or put it in some kind of hibernation,” Schiff warned. “There are witnesses who have knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting and what it was about who have not been brought to our committee – and need to.” Moreover, Schiff contended that Trump Jr. needs to provide more information after he declined to reveal to the panel the contents of a conversation he had with his father in 2016 after the Trump Tower meeting was initially revealed in The New York Times. Trump’s son invoked attorney-client privilege, telling the House panel that he did not want to reveal the contents of their conversation because it was in presence of their lawyers, according to Schiff. Schiff says the GOP should agree to subpoena for that information if Trump Jr. does not provide details to the committee. “Without getting complete phone records .. we will not get a full picture of what conversations may have taken place between the president and his son contemporaneous with the Trump Tower meeting,” Schiff said. Schiff said one of Trump’s daughters – Ivanka – could provide valuable information to the investigation, but he said the GOP has yet to back efforts to request an interview with her. “I think it would be valuable for her to testify and come before the committee,” Schiff said. CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Kara Scannell contributed to this report.


The Chinese jet flew with a "high rate of speed as it closed in" on the U.S. aircraft, according to a U.S. official News of the intercept comes amidst the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue A U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft flying Tuesday in international airspace over the East China Sea was intercepted in an “unsafe manner” by a Chinese J-10 fighter jet, several defense officials tell CNN. The Chinese jet was never closer than 100 feet to the U.S. aircraft, but it flew with a “high rate of speed as it closed in” on the U.S. aircraft, one official said. Because of that high speed, and the fact it was flying at the same altitude as the U.S. plane, the intercept is defined as unsafe. The officials did not know if the U.S. plane took any evasive action to avoid the Chinese aircraft or at what point the J-10 broke away. It is also not yet clear if the U.S. will diplomatically protest the incident. Officials said the RC-135 was on a routine mission. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei responded on Wednesday by saying the U.S. flights are “the source for relevant problems.” “The frequent close-in surveillance by the United States in China’s relevant airspace seriously harms China’s maritime security,” he said. “We demand the U.S. stops these kinds of close-in surveillance activities to avoid such incidents from happening again.” News of the intercept comes as Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are in Beijing for the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Lew is pressing China to lower barriers to foreign business and cut excess steel production, with limited success. The intercept also occurred just days after Defense Secretary Ash Carter and top military officials returned from a regional security meeting in Singapore. At a press conference during that meeting, Carter said the U.S. would not be deterred from maintaining a military presence in the region reiterating “America’s determination to, and resolve to, fly, sail, or operate wherever international law allows.” During that same press conference, Adm. Harry Harris, the head of U.S. Pacific Command, said military relations with China were improving. RELATED: China: “We have no fear of trouble” over South China Sea “We’ve seen positive behavior the last several months with China. Every now and then you’ll have a – you’ll see an incident in the air that we may judge to be unsafe. Those are really, over the course of time, rare,” Harris said. Harris said China and the U.S. both will participate in a major upcoming military exercise. But this latest intercept comes on the heels of another intercept by China last month. In that encounter at least two Chinese J-11 tactical aircraft carried out an “unsafe” intercept of a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft that was conducting a routine mission in international airspace over the South China Sea, according to U.S. officials. The Chinese jets came within 50 feet of the U.S. aircraft at one point during that incident. At the time, Beijing said the U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew close to China’s island province of Hainan and China’s jets “kept a safe distance throughout, without taking any dangerous actions.” “It needs to be pointed out that American aircraft have constantly entered China’s coastal waters conducting reconnaissance, which has posed a serious threat to China’s maritime and air safety,” Hong Lei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, said. CNN’s Steven Jiang contributed to this report.


The Netherlands this weekend barred Turkey’s top diplomat from entering the country to address a political rally. That set off ugly diplomatic feuding, name-calling and popular unrest. The spat erupted as citizens prepare to cast their ballots in votes that could radically alter the political landscape in both countries. What’s going on? Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been intent on rallying the roughly 4.6 million expatriate Turks living in western Europe to vote in an upcoming Turkish constitutional referendum. Related article Tensions rising between Turkish, European leaders before elections If passed, the referendum would transform Turkey’s parliamentary system into a presidential one, effectively consolidating the power of three legislative bodies into one executive branch under Erdogan. Germany, Austria and Switzerland sought to prevent referendum rallies taking place on their soil – citing security and overcrowding concerns. On Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu attempted to enter the Netherlands to address a rally in the port city of Rotterdam. The Dutch barred the diplomat from entering, also pointing to security concerns. Another minister was barred from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. Protests broke out in both countries. Cavusoglu has promised “tenfold” retaliation against the Netherlands Related video Protests after Netherlands bars Turkish FM According to Turkish state-run news, Dutch diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul had been closed off due to security concerns. The Turkish foreign ministry has told the Dutch ambassador, who is presently on leave and out of the country, he need not return “for a while.” Erdogan said the Netherlands is “sacrificing Turkish-Dutch relations.” He accused the country of Nazism and likened the Netherlands to a “banana republic.” He also called for sanctions. “Nazism is still widespread in Europe, ” he said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the remarks were inflammatory and demanded an apology. Turkey’s “current rhetorical attacks” against the Netherlands led Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen to postpone a meeting with his Turkish counterpart. The dispute comes ahead of the Netherlands’ general election Wednesday, with immigration from Muslim countries a key issue. Related article Everything you need to know about the Dutch elections The election campaign has pitted two party leaders against each other, liberal incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte and populist far-right figure Geert Wilders. As leader of the Freedom Party, Wilders wants to stop immigration from Muslim countries, close mosques, ban the burqa and imprison radical Muslims who have committed no crimes on a “preventative” basis. Rutte appears to have pushed himself to the right to compete with Wilders, in January writing an open letter in which he said immigrants who did not assimilate in the Netherlands should “behave normally, or go away.” Freelance journalist Robert Chesal told CNN the Dutch government’s move was effectively “election-time grandstanding.” “Prime Minister Rutte could not possibly allow a huge Turkish campaign to take place in the city of Rotterdam or anywhere else in the Netherlands,” Chesal said. Meantime he said Erdogan was trying to show Turks that he had the power to influence Europe. “So clearly Erdogan is making full use of this to position Europe as an enemy of Turkey to try to gain as much possible support for his referendum for more political power,” Chesal told CNN. European governments have been critical of Erdogan’s commitment to basic freedoms since a failed coup attempt earlier this year. Related article What happens if Turkey votes for Erdogan's 'power bill'? Since then, Erdogan has cracked down on opposition, particularly journalists, academics and the public service sector. Also, nearly 140 media outlets have been shuttered, more than 41,000 people have been arrested and about 100,000 workers have been dismissed from public service positions. The country, a NATO member, jailed more journalists than any other country in 2016, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Critics call the referendum proposal anti-democratic and say it’s indicative of Erdogan’s drift toward authoritarian rule. German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned last week that Turkey’s approach to democracy and the rule of law are “deeply problematic” to the country’s future cooperation with the European Union.


Trump said the pictures of dead children crossed much more than a red line for him The US and Russia are squaring off on Syria at the UN Security Council It was bound to happen. This Syria dispute is virtually guaranteed to break up the Trump-Putin bromance. President Donald Trump’s openness to Putin has been the foreign policy thing that most separated him from the rest of Republicans. But Russia and the US are on opposite sides of so many issues that the White House would certainly have to come to terms with it. Related article Timeline: What we know about the Trump campaign, his administration and Russia The vocal dispute between Russia and the US over Syria complicates what has been a feature event; US political drama for months has been about Russian meddling in US elections and the blowback from Trump. Which Trump campaign staffers met with Russian officials? Which ones have financial ties to Russia? Who is investigating the allegations from the US intelligence community that the Russians were trying to help Trump and hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton? That narrative isn’t going anywhere. The FBI has an ongoing investigation, as does the Senate Intelligence Committee. The House Intelligence Committee is supposed to have an ongoing investigation, too, but that one has been, to put it mildly, troubled. The ties between Trump staffers, past and present, to Russia, was aided by Trump’s willingness to start fresh with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he defended in the US media. Remember when Bill O’Reilly pushed Trump on Putin, saying the Russian was a “killer?” Related article Trump defended Putin: 'You think our country's so innocent?' “You think our country’s so innocent?” Trump shot back at the Fox News host. It’s a relationship both Putin and Trump found valuable during the presidential campaign, when both wanted to see Clinton defeated. With the two finding their interests breaking, it will be interesting to see who gets the better end of the bargain. It was seeing pictures of Syrian children devastated by what officials suspect is sarin gas that led Trump, as President, to do an unabashed about-face on Syria. He had opposed military action there when chemical weapons were used during the Obama administration and criticized former President Barack Obama for making that a “red line.” On Thursday, before the air strikes, Trump said the pictures he saw crossed much more than a red line for him. Related video Meet the key players in Syria's civil war “When you kill innocent children, innocent babies – babies, little babies – with a chemical gas that is so lethal – people were shocked to hear what gas it was – that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line. Many, many lines.” Putin was quick to condemn Trump’s missile strike response, calling it “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law.” The US and Russia are squaring off on the issue in the UN Security Council, where Russia, which has veto power, has stood in the way of international action against Syria. It’s not clear if their opposed views on this issue will sully their nascent world-leader relationship, but it is clear that Trump is now learning why so much of the GOP establishment – John McCain routinely calls Putin a thug and Mitt Romney famously called Russia the United States’ “No. 1 geopolitical foe” in 2012 (and was then mocked for it by Obama). This episode in Syria, which has put new presidential pressures on Trump, could also make him understand the concerns others in his party have long had with Russia.


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: Even without nomination Sanders campaign could change Democratic Party long-term He says he's flipped script on campaign funding, trade, Israel, won grass roots; things won't be the same again With Hillary Clinton’s decisive victories in four of the five primary states Tuesday, the math almost certainly won’t work for Bernie Sanders.  With the results of the most recent primaries, the time has come for Sanders to start winding down his campaign and thinking about what role he can play in the Democratic battle for the White House. Even though he won’t win the nomination, the Sanders campaign has the potential to change the Democratic Party. He will join a long list of failed presidential candidates whose campaigns had a transformative effect on ideas and strategy. A few examples: –In 1928, New York Gov. Al Smith, who lost in the general election to Herbert Hoover, brought urban Americans into a coalition with the South that would become the center of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Related video Sanders: We have bigger lead over Trump than Clinton –In 1964, Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater ran an insurgent campaign arguing that the GOP had to embrace conservatism. Goldwater’s conservative vision was decisively rejected when the nation voted for LBJ in a landslide victory. His ideas, however, would reshape the party. –But Ronald Reagan, who lost in the primaries to President Ford in 1976, brought Goldwater’s ideas back into the mix during the primaries and attracted new voters throughout the sunbelt with his right-wing message. He lost in 1976, but his message became the key to his huge electoral success in 1980 and 1984. –Sen. George McGovern suffered a devastating defeat to Richard Nixon in 1972, but he attracted a coalition of younger voters, African-Americans, anti-war activists and women, who would remain central to the Democratic electorate. Related article Bernie Sanders is not dropping out –And when Vermont Gov. Howard Dean ran in 2004 against John Kerry, he offered a strong critique of Bush’s intervention, introduced new campaign techniques to reach younger voters, establishing the model, and an agenda that shaped Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Sanders will have this same effect. His campaign won’t be forgotten. The most important contribution comes back to his central issue: the role of big money in politics. The Sanders campaign has demonstrated how small donations can be sufficient to fuel a presidential campaign. This development comes at a time when most leading campaign finance reformers have been shifting focus from imposing tighter restrictions on large donations to instead creating incentives for candidates to rely on small donations. Sanders has put forth a small donation model that can become the basis for future campaigns, making the Democratic Party less dependent on large donors. Sanders has also broken with the neoliberal policy orthodoxy that has dominated Democratic politics since the late 1970s, when Jimmy Carter and later Bill Clinton pushed the party toward the center on domestic and foreign policy. Both presidents argued that for Democrats to survive in an increasingly conservative era they would need to shed their attachment to the New Deal and Great Society traditions. They backed a more muscular approach to using military force as a way to push back against Republican claims that their party was weak on defense. Sanders has rejected this outlook about public policy. On domestic policy, he has emphasized the need to use the government to combat inequality and poverty. He has blasted the orthodoxy of free trade. In both areas, he has influenced Hillary Clinton’s policy agenda. And while Democrats have shied away from defending the value of government, Sanders has offered a strong defense of what Washington can do. Related article Clinton-Sanders Israel exchange a real surprise at debate The same is true on foreign policy, in an era when Democrats have been reluctant to challenge the hawkish agenda that Republicans have promoted since Reagan. During the Democratic candidates’ recent debate in Brooklyn, he strongly criticized Israel for its policies in Gaza, which he called disproportionate to the threat that the nation faced, and he called on policymakers to acknowledge the rights and struggles of the Palestinians. By taking all of these stands he has opened the door for future candidates to do the same. The best tribute to his immediate impact on the policy agenda has been that Clinton has absorbed many of his ideas into her own campaign. Related article What Trump, Carson don't get about Harriet Tubman The final, enduring legacy of this campaign will be to reconnect Democratic politicians with grass-roots movements. During the heyday of liberalism between the 1930s and 1960s, political leaders understood that grass-roots movements could be an engine for political success. President Franklin Roosevelt tied his fortunes to the burgeoning union movement and that became the basis of his electoral victory. LBJ likewise harnessed the energy of the civil rights movement to push back against the conservative forces in the country that were behind Goldwater’s election, and to help him build a massive legislative record that he called the Great Society. But for many years Democratic presidential candidates have kept grass-roots movements at arms length. Ever since the late 1960s when the anti-war movement turned against LBJ, the grass roots have been associated with the leftward politics that would be unhelpful to winning. Related article Democrats are the real winners in New York Sanders took a different approach. He has harnessed the immense grass-roots energy that has formed in recent years with movements like Occupy Wall Street. Various unions have also been an essential part of the Sanders mobilization, after many decades when they have felt like second-class citizens in a party that they helped to build. Indeed, his entire campaign has been constructed around a bottom-up, movement-based model. His campaign has excited Americans between the age of 18 to 29 about the possibilities of politics; they find themselves in agreement with many of his core messages. So even if this is the end of the Sanders campaign, the impact of what he has done will continue to be seen for years to come. The campaign tactics, the policy issues and the connections between campaigns and the grass roots will never be the same again. This is why it is particularly important for Sanders and Clinton to form a coalition rather than descend into more bitter division. Doing so will not only create a stronger Democratic ticket against the Republicans in fall, but improves the chances that the party as whole will appreciate what his campaign has offered as a path forward. Related video Hillary Clinton's entire Pennsylvania primary speech In her victory speech Tuesday evening, Clinton said, “I applaud Senator Sanders and his millions of supporters for challenging us to get unaccountable money out of our politics and giving greater emphasis to closing the gap of inequality.  And I know, together, we will get that done.” If Sanders and Clinton can bring a harmonious end to their competition, the party can unite against the Republicans and also absorb the many tactics and ideas that Sanders brought to the table. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.Read CNNOpinion’s Flipboard magazine. 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.


Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN and columnist for USA Today, is the author of “A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.” He formerly was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times in Asia and Europe, and Paris correspondent for CBS News. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAndelman. The views expressed in this commentary are his. David Andelman: It's vital that the Pentagon investigation uncover why American soldiers were vulnerable to an ambush in western Niger He says the Trump administration travel ban needlessly alienated Chad, which has been a partner in fighting militants in Niger's eastern region Just how was it left to Nigerien troops and French helicopters to find and fetch the bodies of our heroic service members killed in Niger? Why did they apparently have so little air or intelligence muscle to protect them in the first place? We could get a final answer after the completion of a Benghazi-style after-action probe by the United States Africa Command, or AFRICOM. At a Pentagon briefing Monday afternoon, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff suggested some of the answers, if only the most basic timeline and structure of the operation. It is still, General Joseph Dunford suggested, too early to assess the full context or broader timeline. What already seems likely is that at least some blame could lie with those who set in motion a bewildering series of actions. The broader timeline begins in the region on September 24, when the Trump administration suddenly and inexplicably added Chad to the list of countries whose citizens would be included in the latest iteration of the president’s travel ban. Chad and its leaders were utterly blindsided as there was no sense whatsoever that this nation has harbored or even encouraged terrorists – certainly no more culpable than such nations as Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, or for that matter Chad’s neighbors Mali, Niger and Nigeria, none of which were included on this list. Related article Trump's new travel ban still doesn't fly Au contraire, Chad’s troops have for some time served as an effective ally in the region – the best fighting force deployed in nearby Niger and Mali, with the best intel and best-trained warriors. They were the best because they were trained by the French and its redoubtable Foreign Legion. I know, because I was there in Chad in 1983 when the French had to send in their forces to backstop them when they thought Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi  might invade from the north. Over the next 30 years, the French turned them into a first-rate fighting force, utterly allied to the Western anti-terrorist effort in the Sahel – itself a desperately critical part of the success of our war against ISIS and against the spread of Islamic terrorism that is threatening to overrun Africa. It’s true that this attack that left the Americans dead occurred in a far distant part of the country from where Chadian troops typically focused their efforts. Chadian troops in Niger have been deployed in the eastern regions of the country near Diffa, which is about 750 miles from where the ambush took place in western Niger. But terror operations and intelligence cooperation are complex, and dramatic shifts with vital allies can have unforeseen consequences. Moreover, the Pentagon and National Security Council have been searching for the next place where, hydra-like, a post-Raqqa ISIS might rise, they need look no further than here in these three West African nations. Chad, Mali and Niger offer a central conduit from north African nations like Libya – quite rightly a fellow member of the Trump travel ban, and potentially the richest recruiting lode for Islamic jihad – to the vastly populous regions of Nigeria and its neighbors. Already, Nigerian-based Boko Haram, a proto-Islamic group comprised more of heavily-armed thugs than confirmed jihadis, has made enormous inroads in this region. Now, ISIS is knocking on the door. Some determinedly anti-jihadist nations like Chad, have stepped up to block these efforts. Related article What we know and don't know about the deadly Niger attack And then Trump went and insulted them. In fact, the September 24 action was only the latest backhanded and ill-informed insult. It seems that US Homeland Security gave all countries 50 days to meet a “baseline” of security conditions, including producing a counterfeit-proof version of their passport to prove that they were reliable enough to allow their citizens into America. But Chad, desperately poor, had quite simply run out of passport paper. They reportedly offered to provide a pre-existing sample of this type of passport. No dice. The next thing they knew they were on the banned list, alongside their arch enemy Libya and other clearly terrorist-driven nations. Barely a week after the announcement of the new travel ban, the Chadian government suddenly began pulling hundreds of their fighters from Niger. There was no immediate explanation, though the nation’s communications minister Madeleine Alingué condemned the Trump administration’s unheralded move, observing that it “seriously undermines” the “good relations between the two countries, notably in the fight against terrorism.”  Hard to be more direct than that. Troops from Niger and Mali are now all that stand between the forces of ISIS and, further afield, Boko Haram and our own military. “We have about 1,000 [American] forces distributed over the Chad Basin, most of them in Niger, but not all of them,” Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, a senior official of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said at a news conference held after the soldiers were ambushed.  Indeed, the United States not only has hundreds of troops but also a major drone operation in Niger. And General Dunford pointed out, another 4,000 French and 35,000 African troops are operating there. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook But now, Chad’s troops, one of the major components of the multinational force operating in some regions of Niger, are largely gone. They had been assembled as part of a multi-national African force that has been charged to patrol, defend and especially understand a vast stretch of largely barren desert that includes Mali and Niger – a combined territory nearly four times the size of Texas. Few could understand it better or be better equipped to fight in many of these regions than the army of Chad. Inexplicably, though, we still sent our small, likely under-armed band of troops into harm’s way. Fifty jihadis, heavily armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, utterly outgunned and outmanned the slim American force they ambushed. And then our boys died there. The backstory is frightful – filled with mindless decisions executed with minimal knowledge and potentially catastrophic results. It’s urgent that we uncover quickly just what led to this terrible disaster, the role played by any misjudgments on or off the battlefield. Mr. President, you must see it as your highest priority to find out what or who is really behind the deaths of these four heroic young men. Editor’s note: This article has been updated to provide context on where the Chad troop withdrawals occurred and with news of Gen. Joseph Dunford’s press briefing Monday on the American troops killed in Niger.


Editor’s Note: Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling is a national security, intelligence and terrorism analyst for CNN. He served for 37 years in the Army, including three years in combat, and retired as commanding general of US Army Europe and 7th Army. He is the author of “Growing Physician Leaders.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely his. Mark Hertling: Idea of rotating a brigade to Eastern Europe has been long in the planning But it's needed at this time to make clear the US defends its alliances, Hertling says In 1975, the Cold War was at its peak. I was a new tank lieutenant starting my career with a three-year assignment in US Army Europe. There were 250,000 US soldiers on the continent, and our job was patrolling the border fences between West Germany and the Warsaw Pact nations and defending Europe from Soviet aggression. Today the Soviet Union is no more, and the United States has only about a 10th of the permanent fighting force in Europe that it had 42 years ago. Still, the mission of defending against aggression remains a priority – as is being made clear this weekend by the arrival of the first rotating US brigade in Poland. This is not something that was recently planned. This is, in effect, the final act of a massive, decade-plus transformation of US force presence in Europe. And whether or not the new Trump administration supports the continued rotations as a counter to Vladimir Putin’s expansionist approach is a key question even as the first brigade begins its nine-month tour in Eastern Europe. In the middle of my second tour in Europe – November 1989 – I was a major and on “border duty” with a cavalry squadron near the West German-Czechoslovakian border. After months of political upheaval, we heard on the radio of the decision to allow unchecked civilian traffic between East and West. That action precipitated a flow of East Germans to freedom and it couldn’t be stopped; within months, the Berlin Wall came down and the various countries of the Soviet bloc began breaking away from the Soviet Union. Soon, we were without an official mission … and the decision makers in Washington issued the orders for the beginning of a drawdown of forces as a result of the peace dividends associated with winning the Cold War. Had it not been for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the force reduction in Europe and the associated return of forces to the United States would have been realized much sooner than later. Related article How Trump's reset with Russia can work But even with the force drawdown delay caused by the war in Iraq (after all, more than 60,000 soldiers from Europe deployed to the sands of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm), the size of the US Army in Europe still began decreasing from a quarter million to about 90,000 soldiers by the end of 1998. US Army Europe would stabilize, but there were still two armored divisions (about 20,000 soldiers, with lots of tanks and related combat power) and a corps headquarters. Forward to 2001. I had just been assigned to the Pentagon when a plane hit the building. We were at the start of what we did not yet know would be a long war. But while US forces were deploying to Afghanistan and a few months short of the US invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued orders to the commanding general of US Army Europe to begin reduction of his force. A number drove the goal: no more than 24,000 soldiers on the continent. Gen. Burwell Baxter “B.B.” Bell had the task of drawing down the force, closing most of the bases (called “kasernes” from the German word for “barracks”), and redesigning the “footprint” for the Army in Europe. In 2003, I left the Pentagon and joined the 1st Armored Division, a unit based in Europe but that had deployed to conduct the attack on Baghdad. After 15 months in combat, our division returned to Germany from Iraq, and I transferred to become the commander of the Army’s European Training Center at Grafenwoehr, Germany. The Army in Europe was in the early throes of transformation to the force designed by Bell, and my job was to train the remaining force, engage and train allied armies, and transform a training center that had been there since 1945. Related article Will 2017 be lucky for Vladimir Putin? At a Land Combat Exposition in Washington in September 2004, Bell outlined the design of the new force to the rest of the Army and to the press in Washington. Since Bell was dual-hatted as commander of NATO Allied Forces Central Europe, he was concerned the force he was ordered to build would not have the number of soldiers needed to contribute both to NATO missions and engage with and help train new Eastern European armies. Bell presented an initiative he called Joint Task Force-East, or JTF-East. The idea was to rotate, rather than permanently assign, a brigade from the United States through two facilities in Eastern Europe; part of the brigade would be in Romania and the other part in Bulgaria. That rotational brigade – a force of about 4,000 soldiers with 90 tanks, 140 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 18 howitzers, 400 other tracked vehicles, more than 900 trucks and Humvees – would come to Europe for about nine months, leaving their families and homes in the United States, and at the end of the rotation they would immediately be replaced by another rotational brigade. They would be temporarily “stationed” within chosen countries, and from there would travel to and conduct training with myriad European allies. This would supplement the end-state European force of 24,000, and the brigade would show the nations who were our NATO partners and our non-NATO allies that we were still defending the alliances. Related article Trump's bromance with Putin will split the West in two The overall transformation design was approved, and I moved from the training center to be Bell’s G3, the equivalent of a chief of operations to his role as commander or chief executive officer. Bell’s job was to drive change; my job was to help him execute it. The transformation efforts were not done in a vacuum. The plan’s timeline was constantly interrupted by many things: the requirement for deploying forces from Europe to Iraq and Afghanistan, the building of new facilities, the consolidation of force at new locations, the bureaucracies associated with both the US and German government approvals. But while often delayed, the transformation continued. In 2007, Bell and I moved to other jobs: He went to command forces in Korea, and I went to command the 1st Armored Division in northern Iraq. We both watched from afar as the transformation of Europe continued. We both wondered whether a rotational brigade would ever deploy to JTF-East. In 2011, I was selected to command US Army Europe. It was a dream job. The command was in its final stages of transformation; the number of soldiers assigned would be closer to 33,000 rather than the 24,000 foreseen during the Bush administration; our units were still training for and participating in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan; and we were actively engaging with the armies of 51 countries on the European continent. Amid all this, I began reporting to my bosses intelligence showing increased terrorist ratlines throughout Europe as well as the increased adventurism of Russia’s Putin. We were still uncertain about whether or not we would see a rotational brigade return to Europe when we opened the new headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, and then put the last US Abrams tank on a boat back to the United States. Both those actions marked the end of transformation. There were still no indicators the Army and Department of Defense would place an end-to-end rotational brigade in Europe. Russian adventurism in Ukraine, Putin’s threat toward the Baltics and Poland, and an increased awareness by the Defense Department and Congress regarding the need for an increased US force presence in Europe has changed all that. Related article Poland welcomes thousands of US troops in NATO show of force On Saturday, the 3d Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Carson, Colorado, participated in the welcoming ceremony for Operation Atlantic Resolve in Zagan, Poland. Now part of something called the European Reassurance Initiative, the brigade is scheduled to train and engage with armies from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland during its nine-month deployment. While long in the planning stage, the physical presence of this small force is welcomed by all the NATO countries as it reassures them of continued US support of the alliance. One soldier once told me “when tanks are on the ground, America means business.” Hopefully, Russia will understand this small brigade combat team from Colorado means commitment to an ideal that has been in Europe for more than 70 years.

US rotational brigade deployment to Eastern Europe


A US official said there's 'little doubt' Russia was behind hacking Democratic National Committee emails Donald Trump said blaming him was a "deflection" There is “little doubt” Russia is behind the hack of Democratic National Committee emails, a US official told CNN on Wednesday. The remarks follow a week-long episode where leaked DNC emails showed Democratic officials giving preferential treatment to Hillary Clinton. The emails inflamed supporters of her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, during the Democratic Party’s national convention, which led to widespread protest and the ousting of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Asked about potential consequences for the hack, the White House described “a full range of options available to us in the government.” “That includes economic sanctions out of Department of Treasury. That includes a number of law enforcement measures that Department of Justice has announced and has taken action on,” said spokesman Eric Schultz. “The United States isn’t going to pull any punches in terms of our response,” he said. The FBI said Monday they were investigating the hack. FBI Director James Comey also said Wednesday morning that some of the main players behind cyber threats are nation states like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, but he did not comment on this specific case. RELATED: Obama says it’s ‘possible’ Putin is trying to sway vote for Trump President Barack Obama said “anything’s possible” when asked by NBC in an interview that aired Wednesday whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to interfere with US presidential politics. Obama also noted that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly praised Putin. Trump said Wednesday that suggestions that Russia orchestrated the DNC hack to help his campaign were “a deflection.” In one breath, the Republican nominee suggested that Russia might not be responsible and in the next he called on Russia to help his campaign by accessing and releasing Clinton emails from her tenure as secretary of state. As Republican Party leaders such as House Speaker Paul Ryan were calling for Russia to “stay out of this election,” according to Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck, Trump was speaking at a Florida press conference and saying, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” Trump said in Miami. The idea that Russia might be acting to help him “is so farfetched, it’s so ridiculous,” Trump said. “Honestly, I wish I had that power. I’d love to have that power.” The House intelligence committee’s senior Democrat,  California Rep. Adam Schiff, charged that Trump’s comments showed “staggeringly poor judgment.” “That he would issue this call at the same time that Russia may have already hacked the Democratic National Committee and released emails in order to boost Trump’s own candidacy is all the more breathtakingly irresponsible,” Schiff said in a statement. When asked about Donald Trump’s comment, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s spokesman Brendan Buck deflected and focused instead on Russia. “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election,” Buck said. Trump went on to emphasize that “nobody even knows” if responsibility lies with Russia. He suggested that another country or even Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook might be the indirect source of the hack. “It’s probably China, or it could be somebody sitting in his bed,” Trump said. And while he denied any connection to Putin, saying, “I never met Putin, I don’t know who Putin is,” Trump added, “There’s nothing that I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now.” Trump returned to a favorite theme, arguing that, “Putin and the leaders throughout the world have no respect for our country anymore and they certainly have no respect for our leader.” The Kremlin has dismissed accusations that its behind the hack, calling them “made-up horror stories.” CNN’s Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.


Hasel Afshar moved from Iran to the US seven years ago as a refugee. In that time, he’s had his share of run-ins with xenophobes who’s yelled at him to go back to his country or threatened him with violence. But none of that prepared him for what greeted him when he came home earlier this week. The house in Troutdale, Oregon, had been ransacked and laced with graffiti. The vandals smashed his door with an ax, slashed his furniture, and spray-painted graffiti everywhere. He found “terrorist” written across the cabinets, “kill you” and “Muslim” scrawled on a bedroom wall, and “die” sprayed on a mirror. Deputies said they also found a note weighed down with seven bullets arranged in the shape of a cross. “The funny thing, I’m not Muslim,” Afshar told KPTV. Afshar is Baha’i, said the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “I was scared when I saw this stuff,” Afshar told the affiliate. “Really scared.” The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office has launched an investigation and have not released any information on possible suspects.  It said the incident has the hallmarks of a bias crime. For his part, Afshar he wishes he could talk to the vandals about their motivation. “You can hate me, that’s your problem, but we can go and sit and talk about it, why you hate me, and maybe you just change your mind,” he told the affiliate.


First-born, illegitimate son of former leader Kim Jong Il was not considered for leadership Educated overseas, he likely had no relationship with his brother, leader Kim Jong Un In 2001, the North Korean regime, then headed by Kim Jong Il, was dealt an embarrassing if minor setback. The leader’s son, Kim Jong Nam, was caught sneaking into Japan on a fake diplomatic passport – so that he could visit Tokyo Disneyland. His choice of destination wasn’t the only reason for red faces in Pyongyang. More pertinently, it was that he had exposed that members of the regime used fake passports to travel overseas, according to Michael Madden, a frequent contributor to North Korean monitoring organization 38 North and visiting scholar at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University. It was a rare window into the workings of the North Korean elite, seen through the prism of former leader Kim Jong Il’s first-born son, an overweight playboy, but also a smart and open-minded man, according to Yoji Gomi, the author of the 2012 book “My Father, Kim Jong Il, and Me.” Gomi interviewed Kim for the book. Kim Jong Nam was born in 1971, the result of an affair between Kim Jong Il and North Korean actress Song Hye-rim, said Madden. The affair has been widely reported by international media. She was married at the time, though was later compelled to get a divorce, said Madden, who has researched Kim through contact with people who knew him, as well as fellow North Korea watchers and other experts. Because of the conservatism of North Korean society, their illegitimate child was hidden from both the public and, initially, his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, the founder of the DPRK, an acronym the regime uses for North Korea, Madden said. “Kim Jong Il had a standing order to execute anyone who talked about his private life,” Madden said. “North Korea is very conservative so (for people) to hear the news that he had many children from different women would have been tawdry.” Kim Jong Il’s sister, Kim Kyung Hee attempted to adopt the baby shortly after he was born but was overruled. She did remain close to her nephew for the remainder of her life, Madden said. While his father doted on him in secret, he was persuaded to send Kim Jong Nam overseas for his education. The world’s most mysterious family tree In the late 70s, Kim Jong Nam started studying in Geneva, but was later moved to Moscow, which was seen as ideologically more suitable, according to Madden. However, he later completed his schooling in Geneva. In the meantime, Kim Jong Il had started a relationship with a dancer from a dance troupe called Ko Yong Hui, who would later give birth to three children, one of whom was his half-brother and future leader of the country, Kim Jong Un, Madden said. Madden said Kim Jong Nam resented the fact that his father had started a new family. Upon his return to Pyongyang, the rebellious teen was said to have resented having to live behind palace gates, a lifestyle very much unlike that in Switzerland. He was close with his paternal aunt, Kim Kyung Hee, and her husband, Jang Song Thaek, who was one of the few people that knew everything about Kim Jong Il, his brother-in-law. Jang’s execution, ordered by Kim Jong Un in late 2013, would have affected Kim Jong Nam “badly,” Madden said. Brought up by different families, with a 13-year age gap and an extended absence by Kim Jong Nam, Madden said there was “no chance in hell they were raised together in any way.” Gomi, the author of the 2012 book, said that the two brothers never even met because of the ancient practice of raising potential successors separately. The house that Kim Jong Nam grew up, a residence in the Worker’s Party headquarters, was demolished in 2009 or 2010, and is now is the site of the Kim Jong Un’s official residence. “There’s symbolism there, that they wrecked his childhood home,” Madden said. “It was the house that he used when he went back to North Korea.” Kim Jong Un’s mother, Ko Yong Hui, was politically ambitious and, through befriending members of her common-law husband’s inner circle, positioned her sons in the line of succession, Madden said. Out of the picture as his father’s successor, Kim Jong Nam nevertheless maintained a role within the North Korean regime. He was said to have led a network of people who worked for Kim Jong Il, managing accounts worth millions of dollars, and checking up on diplomats. Kim told Japan’s TV Asahi in 2010 that he opposed his family holding onto power for another generation, but had “no objection nor interest” in the matter. He spent much of his time outside of North Korea – he had residences in China, specifically the former Portuguese enclave and Special Administrative Region of Macau. He was “more or less exiled” there, Denny Roy, a North Korea analyst at the East-West Center in Honolulu told CNN in 2011. In a 2012 interview, Kim’s son, Kim Han Sol, spoke of having few friends in North Korea before moving to Macau. “When I was growing up it was very isolated, first of all to keep it very low profile,” his son, Kim Han Sol, told former UN Under-Secretary General Elisabeth Rehn in an interview for Finnish televison. “That’s why I didn’t really have (many) childhood friends from North Korea. That’s why all my friends are from outside, such as Macau.” In the Rehn interview, Kim Han Sol said he usually visits the reclusive country every year to meet relatives. “Kim Jong Nam routinely interacts with (South Korean) tourists visiting China, and gives occasional media interviews,” Madden writes on his blog, NK Leadership Watch. Madden also says that he had ties to “numerous personal and social ties to DPRK elites” as well as the sons of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. He reportedly has at least three children, according to South Korean media.


Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz gathered in South Carolina for CNN's Republican Town Hall on Wednesday CNN's Reality Check team spent the night putting their statements and assertions to the test Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz gathered in South Carolina for CNN’s Republican Town Hall on Wednesday, and CNN’s Reality Check team spent the night putting their statements and assertions to the test. The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN listened throughout the event and selected key statements, rating them true; mostly true; true, but misleading; false; or it’s complicated. Reality Check: Carson on poverty By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney In his 1964 State of the Union address, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty. It was the basis for his Great Society program, which included the creation of food stamps, Medicaid, Head Start and many other initiatives. A little more than 50 years later, Carson said that America has lost the war, adding that people should take care of the indigent, not the government. “By the time we got to the ’60s, LBJ was saying, we, the government, are going to eliminate poverty. How did that work out? … More poverty,” he said. Not quite. In 1964, the poverty rate was 19%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Johnson’s programs did help push poverty down to 11.1% by 1973. The rate bounced around for decades after that, hitting a recent low of 11.3% in 2000, the tail end of the economic heyday of the 1990s. During the Great Recession, it soared to 15.1% in 2010. The poverty rate was 14.8% in 2014, according to the latest Census data available. America has not won the war on poverty as Johnson had hoped, but the poverty rate is lower than it was when he started the battle. Verdict: False. Reality Check: Carson on high school dropout rate By Lisa Rose, CNN Responding to a question from a voter about big ideas, Carson said he wants America to compete with countries like China and India. Education is pivotal, he said. “It doesn’t make sense for us to have 20-plus percent of people who enter high school dropping out of high school in the technological age,” the retired neurosurgeon said. Carson is correct in stating that 20% of high school students don’t graduate, but he left out some crucial context. The number of teens who drop out of high school has been on the decline over the past four years, according to a study released in November by the Alliance for Excellent Education. In 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, the dropout rate was 19.1%. In 2008, it was 25.3%. Although the difference may not sound dramatic, the report says the dropout rate was stagnant between 2001 and 2008, so the improvement in a four-year time window is notable. According to the study, the number of teens who drop out of high school declined from 1 million in 2008 to 750,000 in 2012. While Carson neglected to mention the fact that graduation rates are improving, his estimation that 20% of teens leave high school without a diploma is accurate. Verdict: True. Reality Check: Rubio on entitlements’ impact on the federal budget By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney One of America’s pressing economic problems is the national debt, Rubio said. “In less than five years, 83% of the federal budget will be consumed by Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the interest on the debt,” Rubio said. “That means we will only have 17% of our budget left for everything else, including the military. That’s unacceptable. That’s a debt crisis.” Actually, those three programs and interest payments are projected to make up 60% of the federal budget in 2021, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates. They currently make up 54% of the budget. Rubio may have been referring to all mandatory spending by the government, which includes programs such as food stamps and Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, plus interest payments. All those are estimated to total 74% of the federal budget in 2021. While these numbers are high, they aren’t as steep as Rubio said. Verdict: False. Reality Check: Rubio on Libya post-intervention By Ryan Browne, CNN National Security Producer At the town hall, Rubio stressed his experience and judgment in foreign policy, and highlighted his stance on the 2011 U.S.-NATO intervention in Libya as evidence of his foreign policy judgment. “I have a record of good judgment on those issues,” Rubio said. “In 2011, when Moammar Gadhafi was facing his overthrow in Libya, I argued that if that became a protracted conflict it would leave a vacuum that would be filled by jihadists and that’s exactly what happened.” Rubio was a vocal supporter of the military campaign against Gadhafi, which began in March 2011. In a letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Rubio voiced support for a bipartisan resolution authorizing the military action. He also endorsed regime change, explicitly calling for the removal of Gadhafi and the recognition of the Libyan Interim Transitional National Council. But did Rubio warn against instability in the wake of Gadhafi’s fall? After the Gadhafi regime was ejected from power, Rubio, along with several other senators, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that called for increased U.S. involvement to stabilize Libya. They wrote “We can also help Libya lay the foundation for sustainable security. This requires safeguarding the immense stockpiles of weapons and dangerous materials that exist across the country. It also requires bringing Libya’s many militias under the TNC’s civilian authority, and working toward their demobilization, disarmament and reintegration into Libyan society.” Soon after Gadhafi was killed, Rubio criticized the Obama administration for taking too long to oust Gadhafi and warned that the proliferation of militias and weapons in the wake of Gadhafi’s fall posed a serious threat. He also called for increased U.S. involvement to prevent this from happening. Verdict: True. Reality Check: Rubio on refugee vetting By Laura Koran, CNN Asked by Minister Jason Lee whether he would support letting in more Syrian refugees, Rubio offered a word of caution. “It’s almost impossible to vet people now from that part of the world,” he asserted. “We don’t have a database to rely on. You can’t just call up 1-800-Syria and ask them do you know so and so, and do you know who they are and why they are coming?” “It’s just become harder and harder to vet people from certain parts of the world,” he concludes. Rubio’s analysis about the challenges of vetting Syrian refugees is actually shared by senior officials in President Barack Obama’s administration. “If someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them,” FBI Director James Comey said in congressional testimony last year. Another of Obama’s top officials, CIA Director John Brennan, said his agency was looking for ways to strengthen the process, noting the potential terrorist threat demonstrated in Paris in November. The State Department, for its part, stands by the vetting process they use to screen refugees, with Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner calling it “the most stringent security process for anyone entering the United States.” Applicants are vetted by the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI, as well as the United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees. These agencies use biographical and biometric information about applicants to conduct a background check and make sure applicants really are who they say they are. A senior administration official told reporters in November that the government has benefited from the lessons of past refugee crises – such as including an influx of Iraqi refugees in 2007 – to refine the screening process and develop systems for cases where background information about an applicant isn’t readily available. So while Rubio is correct to say there are challenges involved in vetting applicants from countries where the U.S. doesn’t have an established presence, the administration asserts they have ways to mitigate that challenge through other procedures. Verdict: True, but misleading. Reality Check: Rubio on the Fed’s responsibilities By Sonam Vashi & Tami Luhby, CNN Rubio said, “That’s not the Fed’s job, to stimulate the economy. The Fed is a central bank. It is not some sort of overlord of the economy. They’re not some sort of special Jedi council that can decide the best things for us. The Fed is a central bank. Their job is to provide stable currency, and I believe they should operate on a rules-based system where they have a very simple rule that determines when interest rates go up and when interest rates go down. Today, it’s like a Magic 8 Ball. We don’t know when they’re going to raise interest rates, and it creates an incredible amount of uncertainty in the marketplace.” The obligations of the Federal Reserve go beyond simply providing stable currency. It manages U.S. monetary policy, the aim of which is spelled out in the Federal Reserve Act, which specifies that Fed officials should seek “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” In order to do that, the Fed has to keep watch on the health of the economy. It took extraordinary actions during the Great Recession to keep the country from falling into an even deeper slump. It lowered interest rates effectively to zero and stabilized the financial institutions by allowing them to borrow funds more easily. Rubio also references the Fed’s hesitation to raise interest rates last year. The Fed’s decision to raise interest rates was an assessment of how much the U.S. economy had recovered from the Great Recession. In March 2015, the Fed said it would raise interest rates when it had seen more improvement in employment and was confident of that inflation would move back to 2%. Analysts knew that the raise was imminent in the coming months, and the Fed kept deciding to wait to raise interest rates, creating uncertainty about exactly when it would happen. In December, the Fed finally raised interest rates, the first time in nearly a decade. That judgment was made by a committee using measurements in the unemployment rate and price indices – not by a “Magic 8 Ball.” Verdict: False. Reality Check: Cruz says Bill Clinton put Trump’s sister on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals By Tom LoBianco, CNN Cruz berated Donald Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, calling her a “radical pro-abortion” judge for striking down New Jersey’s partial-birth abortion ban. To cap his point, he said she was appointed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals by former President Bill Clinton. “Last year, not very long ago, when talking about Supreme Court nominees, Donald said his sister – now his sister is a court of appeals judge, was put on the court of appeals by Bill Clinton – he said his sister would make a phenomenal Supreme Court justice,” Cruz said. It is true that Clinton nominated Barry for the appellate court. He did so in 1999. But not mentioned by Cruz is that the president he so often embraces, President Ronald Reagan, is the one who nominated Barry to become a federal judge in 1983 following a career in the Justice Department. Verdict: True. Reality Check: Cruz on Trump and Planned Parenthood By Theodore Schleifer, CNN Cruz said Trump had “explained how many wonderful things Planned Parenthood does” at last weekend’s Republican debate and deemed the controversial organization “the largest abortionist in the country.” Cruz’s argument, which he has amplified in both paid and free media, is that Trump is not as committed to restricting abortion rights as Cruz is. The most explosive exchange in last weekend’s Republican debate may have been when Cruz claimed that Trump “supports federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood,” causing Trump to dub him the “single biggest liar.” Trump explained that while he did not support their abortions, Planned Parenthood does good work on women’s health issues. Trump has repeatedly said that he believes Planned Parenthood should be defunded after controversial videos featuring group officials purportedly discussing the sale of fetal tissue surfaced last summer. Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson told CNN’s New Day after the debate that Trump is “wholeheartedly against abortion funding” but pointed to some services that he favored. “You can talk about life-saving things like cervical cancer screenings without talking about leaving poor women unattended – and still being against abortion,” Pierson told CNN’s John Berman. “And that’s one of the things that Mr. Trump has done in this situation.” So even as he backs defunding the organization like Cruz does, Trump commonly takes pains to praise the organization in general. “It does do wonderful things – but not as it relates to abortion,” he said in the debate on Saturday evening. We find Cruz’s claim that Trump supports Planned Parenthood to be true, but misleading. Reality Check: Cruz on Rubio’s immigration policy By Laura Koran, CNN Cruz once again attacked on Rubio’s record on immigration. “In fact, on ‘Meet The Press’ with Chuck Todd a few weeks ago, Marco said we should grant citizenship to people here illegally even if they have criminal convictions.” Here is the exchange Cruz appears to be referring to: TODD: Let me ask you by the way, quickly on the 11 million, are you still for finding a way for them to legally stay in the United States? RUBIO: Yeah. Look. If you’re a criminal alien, no, you can’t stay. If you’re someone that hasn’t been here for a very long time, you can’t stay. TODD: Wait a minute. Define criminal alien – RUBIO: I do believe we have to have a reasonable solution – TODD: Define criminal alien. Isn’t anybody who’s here – RUBIO: A felon. A felon – TODD: OK, so not – ‘cause some people argue – RUBIO: Well, I know some people have said that before, but I believe – TODD: OK, all right – RUBIO: – the opposite. But – no, but I’ve said that before, Todd. That’s been convinced. I mean, a felon, someone who’s committed a crime, a non-immigration-related – and that’s what I’ve talked about in the past. So I do believe – I don’t think you’re gonna round up and deport 12 million people. Rubio’s somewhat flustered answer on Sunday was a defense of the controversial Gang of Eight bill in 2013, which he supported. That bill would have provided a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants with some misdemeanors, but not those with felony convictions. But the bill never passed and Rubio has since disavowed that bill. However, Cruz’s paraphrasing of Rubio’s remarks suggests Rubio supports a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Verdict: False Reality Check: Cruz on Cuban dissidents being blocked from press conference By Kate Grise, CNN Cruz railed against Obama’s announcement that he would be traveling to Cuba in the near future. He went on to say that the Obama administration has been less than friendly to Cuban dissidents – specifically those who attended a July press conference marking the resumption of normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. “When the Cuban officials came to Washington with the opening of the embassy, a Cuban dissident came to the press conference and wanted to ask a question and the John Kerry State Department said if she asked a question, she would be forcibly and physically removed,” Cruz said. Rosa Maria Paya, a prominent Cuban dissident and daughter of the late Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Paya, and Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, another Cuban dissident and writer, attended a press conference between Secretary of State John Kerry and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez as credentialed members of the press. They claim that they were intimidated by John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, and told that they would be escorted from the conference if they asked questions. Paya tweeted that Kirby asked her not to ask questions at the press conference or they would use force to escort her out of the conference. There is also a video posted to YouTube that shows Kirby speaking with both Paya and Lazo. The edited video was posted by pro-democracy Cuban activist group Cuba Decide, who said the video was taken at the press conference in Washington. Kirby tells Lazo, “If there is any disruption, any speaking out of turn, the security people will come in to escort you out.” Later in the video, Kirby questions Paya’s media credentials. Cruz, along with two other Florida representatives, wrote a letter to Kerry asking him to open an investigation into the treatment that Paya and Lazo received at the press conference. “According to Ms. Paya and Mr. Lazo, when they arrived at the State Department before your press conference with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, they were identified by members of the Cuban delegation. When they entered the briefing room they were confronted by your chief spokesman, Admiral John Kirby, who requested they refrain from asking any questions or they would be forcibly removed,” the letter read. Verdict: True.

Republican politicians (Carson, Rubio, Cruz)


Saudi Arabia has secured funds to build Jeddah Tower, slated to be the world's tallest building The skyscraper will reach 3,280 feet, have 200 floors and cost $1.2 billion It would require 5.7 million square feet of concrete and 80,000 tons of steel The foundations would be 200 feet deep Dubai, long champion of all things biggest, longest and most expensive, will soon have some competition from neighboring Saudi Arabia. Dubai’s iconic Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, could be stripped of its Guinness title if Saudi Arabia succeeds in its plans to construct the even larger Jeddah Tower – a prospect looking more likely as funds for the $1.23 billion project have been secured. A Saudi government press release on Sunday said Jeddah Economic Company and Saudi Arabia’s Alinma Investment had signed a financing deal for 8.4 billion Saudi riyals (or $2.2 billion) to build Jeddah City, including the sky-piercing tower. The project is currently built up to the 26th floor, it added. The 3,280-feet (1 kilometer) skyscraper is scheduled for completion in 2020. The Burj Khalifa, by comparison, stands at a meeker 2,716 feet, or 827 meters. “With this deal, we will reach new, as yet unheard of highs in real estate development, and will fulfill the company’s objective of creating a world-class urban center that offers an advanced lifestyle, so that Jeddah may have a new iconic landmark  that attracts people from all walks of society with comprehensive services and a multitude of uses,” said Mounib Hammoud, Chief Executive Officer of Jeddah Economic Company. Read: The Chinese firm that can build a skyscraper in a matter of weeks Previously dubbed Kingdom Tower, the building will boast 200 floors and overlook the Red Sea. Constructing it will require about 5.7 million square feet of concrete and 80,000 tons of steel, according to the Saudi Gazette. Building a structure that tall, particularly on the coast, where saltwater could potentially damage it, is no easy feat. The foundations, which will be 200 feet (60 meters) deep, need to be able to withstand the saltwater of the nearby ocean. As a result, Advanced Construction Technology Services will test the strength of different concretes. Wind load is another issue for buildings of this magnitude. To counter this challenge, the tower will change shape regularly. “Because it changes shape every few floors, the wind loads go round the building and won’t be as extreme as on a really solid block,” Gordon Gill explained to Construction Weekly. Gill is a partner at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the design architects for the project. Delivering the concrete to higher floors will also be a challenge. Possibly, engineers could use similar methods to those employed when building the Burj Khalifa; 6 million cubic feet of concrete was pushed through a single pump, usually at night when temperatures were low enough to ensure that it would set. Though ambitious, building the Kingdom Tower should be feasible, according to Sang Dae Kim, the director of the Council on Tall Buildings. “At this point in time we can build a tower that is one kilometer, maybe two kilometers. Any higher than that and we will have to do a lot of homework,” he told Construction Weekly. Read: Amazing architecture: Buildings that represent freedom


Editor’s Note: Aaron David Miller is a vice president and distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. He is the author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” Follow him on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Aaron David Miller: Don't expect big changes under a GOP president Republican president might have to live with Iran deal, he says Listening to last night’s two Republican presidential candidate debates, you might have come away with the impression that if a Republican wins the White House, U.S. foreign policy is going to be radically different. The GOP will lead in juxtaposition to President Barack Obama’s abdication, risk ready in contrast to his risk aversion. America – now no longer feared, respected, and admired – will once again stand tall. Having worked as a foreign policy adviser to both Republican and Democratic administrations (and having voted for both, too) I’d suggest laying down until those dizzy feelings of enthusiasm and hope for a radically altered foreign policy for 2017 start to pass. The reality is that politics (campaigning) is about telling people what they want to hear; governing is about what they eventually get. And given the cruel, and unforgiving nature of our world, the impact a predecessor’s policies usually have on their successors, and the risk-aversion of several of the candidates themselves, I’d humbly suggest that a Republican president’s foreign policy will have a lot more continuity than contrast with Obama’s. Here’s why: The Iran deal: To paraphrase Mick Jagger, President Obama got what he needed out of the Iran deal (a smaller, slower, more easily monitored nuclear program for a limited period of time), but Iran got what it wanted (billions in sanctions relief, and legitimacy for a large residual nuclear infrastructure that will leave it a decade from now with the capacity to weaponize should it choose to do so). The flawed nuclear deal has been accepted by the U.N. Security Council and by much of the international community. John Kerry may get the Nobel for it. And by the time 2017 rolls around, the deal will be well on its way to implementation. So Sen. Ted Cruz’s solution (tear it up) or Donald Trump’s (renegotiate it) may neither be feasible nor, for a new president, desirable. Indeed, Gov. John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Sen. Rand Paul actually steered clear of the tear-it-up strategy, and for good reason. Would any new president want a major foreign policy crisis so early in his or her term, especially one that doesn’t have an immediate solution? Of course, if Iran cheats or goes crazy in the region then things could change. But the deal the Iranians got was a very, very good one. Chances are they’ll avoid major violations. Bottom line: A Republican president may have no choice but to live with it. Syria: Building on his repeated comments about sending ground forces to Syria, Sen. Lindsay Graham asserted his intention to do just that. Indeed, most of the Republican candidates took a tough line on the Islamic State, though few were as specific as Graham in wanting to send thousands of U.S. combat troops. Sen. Marco Rubio also implied as much, saying that when we deployed force we needed to be in a position to win. Kasich (and Graham) spoke of a U.S. combat role in conjunction with others as part of an international coalition. Yet their lack of specifics regarding putting boots on the ground speaks volumes about the reality these candidates are all too familiar with. In the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, the two longest wars in U.S. history, the American public and Congress are wary of getting involved in another trillion dollar experiment in nation-building. Barring a major terror IS attack on the homeland, I can see a Republican president increasing the use of air power and providing more assistance to local forces. But this would be an extension of, not a radical shift from, Obama’s approach. Bottom line: The next Republican president knows that Syria and Iraq are hopeless messes that won’t be fixed by thousands more U.S. ground forces. Israel: Here there would be a dramatic change in the U.S. approach, certainly in style and tone. A half a dozen Republicans either declared their support for Israel and/or berated Barack Obama for abandoning America’s closest ally. This isn’t just campaign rhetoric. The Republican Party has emerged as an avid supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and will go to great lengths to minimize tensions with Jerusalem. Indeed, Cruz talked about moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, while Carly Fiorina talked about a phone call to Netanyahu to reassure him about U.S. commitment to its ally, and another to threaten the Supreme Leader over the consequences of Iran weaponizing. There should also be little doubt that a Republican president is unlikely to push Israel on the peace process or settlement activity. A note of caution, however. Some of the worst tensions with Israel have occurred under Republican presidents (see Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush). In fact, there were even tensions with Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, too. Bottom line: Relations will improve. But with Netanyahu as prime minister, there are bound to be tensions too. Putin and Russia: On how to deal with Vladimir Putin, the candidates were all over the parking lot, a sure  indication that few had real strategies for countering Russia’s expanding influence in Ukraine or Syria. Trump asserted he knew how to deal with Putin, while Fiorina opined she wouldn’t talk to him but would strengthen the U.S. position in Europe and the Sixth Fleet. Rubio seemed alarmed by Russia’s expanding influence in Syria. But nobody really offered any ways (sensible or otherwise) about how to check Russian ambitions. Bottom line: If the candidates had a strategy on Russia, they didn’t reveal it. And that reflects a certain reality. Given Russia’s determination to protect interests it considers vital – whether in Ukraine, Crimea or with its traditional client the al-Assads – a new president may well have no better options than the current approach to dealing with Russian ambitions. We’re still a year-and-a-half away from the inauguration of the next president, and a great deal could still happen both to improve the next president’s options or, perhaps more likely, to make them worse. But the inconvenient truth is – Republican or Democrat in the Oval Office – America will face a lot of headaches, long shots and lost causes in the Middle East and with Russia that may well have no real solutions.  And any new president will have to deal with the cruel reality that Obama has set down parameters with Iran and Cuba that may be hard to alter. Already, several of the putative Republican candidates, like Bush, Kasich and even Trump and Fiorina, seem pretty risk averse themselves when it comes to using military force. Bottom line? To paraphrase The Who in one of their better songs, when it comes to foreign policy, the new boss may be pretty similar to the old boss. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion. Read CNNOpinion’s Flipboard magazine.


A special counsel and congressional committees have intensified their focus The reality of impeachment: politics and public opinion count Clandestine meetings. Special counsels. Congressional probes. Sound familiar? The constellation of headline-driving drama in today’s news recalls the machinations that engulfed Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton for years of their respective tenures. Those episodes offer insight to understanding the still fresh events unfolding around the Trump administration. Forty-three years ago this summer, the US Supreme Court forced President Richard Nixon to turn over White House tapes related to a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate building. The unanimous decision, written by a chief justice appointed by Nixon, represented a judicial climax in the Watergate scandal and heightened the political momentum towards Nixon’s Aug. 8 resignation. Related article Exclusive: Mueller asks WH staff to preserve all documents relating to June 2016 meeting The House judiciary committee voted on articles of impeachment three days after the ruling, and soon after Nixon stalwarts such as conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater intervened to persuade the President to go. “There are only so many lies you can take,” Goldwater told Republican colleagues on August 6, 1974. “Nixon should get his ass out of the White House – today!” Now, with energy building in the federal investigations into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion by Trump campaign associates with Russian officials, comparisons to Nixon are growing. Special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees have intensified their focus on a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort had with a Russian lawyer and others. A Monmouth University poll released this week found that 41% of the public think Trump should be impeached and removed from office (53% disagree). That’s a much larger share than supported impeachment for Nixon in July 1973 when much of the evidence related to Watergate emerged. At the time, 24% supported impeachment and 62% opposed it. By the first week of August 1974, Gallup reported that 57% said Nixon’s actions were serious enough to warrant removal from office. Yet, while the Watergate scandal and, to a lesser extent, the Bill Clinton impeachment efforts nearly 20 years ago provide loose templates for how the current controversy might evolve, much more must develop before it’s evident whether this investigation would destroy Trump’s presidency or constitute a short chapter on his overall tenure. Related article For Trump, all roads lead back to his tax returns The bottom line is it depends on the evidence – evidence that is now being collected in secret. And as was plain in the fates of Nixon and Clinton, congressional politics and public opinion matter. President Donald Trump has deemed the Russia-related probe “the greatest witch hunt in American political history.” To last week’s revelations that Trump Jr. met with a well-connected Russian lawyer to gain damaging information on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the President said it was politics as usual. “My son is a wonderful young man. He took a meeting with a Russian lawyer, not a government lawyer, but a Russian lawyer,” Trump said. “I think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting … Politics isn’t the nicest business in the world, but it’s very standard, where they have information and you take the information.” The Democratic National Committee burglary that began Nixon’s downfall was June 17, 1972. And Nixon’s resignation came a year after nationally televised Senate hearings in 1973, during which his role in the Watergate cover-up emerged and the presence of a taping system – which captured Oval Office conversations about the break-in – was revealed. In March 1974, several top aides, including former Attorney General John Mitchell, were indicted on conspiracy, obstruction of justice and other offenses. The Clinton scandal also took years to develop. Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor, was appointed in 1994. His investigation expanded beyond a Whitewater land deal in the Clintons’ home state of Arkansas to Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment, and later to Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern with whom Clinton had an affair. Clinton was not impeached until late 1998. Special counsel Mueller has yet to reveal any results of his Russia-related investigation or possible criminal charges. He was appointed in May after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, who had been overseeing the probe. Comey later testified that Trump had urged him to stop pursuing the Russian connections of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Related article WaPo & NYT: Trump legal team trying to undercut Mueller The Comey firing recalled the October 20, 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre,” when Nixon sacked then-Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, refusing Nixon’s order to fire Cox, resigned that same night. Leon Jaworski took over as special prosecutor and continued to seek the White House tapes. In the July 24 Supreme Court opinion, Chief Justice Warren Burger said the public’s right to evidence outweighed Nixon’s claim of executive privilege: “The very integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the system depend on full disclosure of all the facts.” CNN has reported that Mueller’s investigators are following up on the meeting attended by Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner as part of the broader investigation into Russian meddling. Mueller has asked the White House to preserve all documents related to the meeting. The Senate intelligence committee and other congressional panels are also investigating and seeking the testimony of Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner. Across all fronts, investigators are looking for any Trump campaign involvement with the Russians. The Constitution does not address whether a president may be criminally prosecuted, and the Department of Justice has previously said that the president can be removed only through the impeachment process. In 1974, Nixon was not criminally charged; the grand jury named him as an unindicted co-conspirator. The Constitution says grounds for impeachment are “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” A simple majority is needed in the House for articles of impeachment, but conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds majority (67 votes). Related article Trump reshuffling legal team In Clinton’s case, the Republican-run House passed two articles impeachment in December 1998 related to perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted Clinton in February 1999, failing to reach the necessary two-thirds majority of votes required. (The only other American president to be impeached, Andrew Johnson, in 1868, was not convicted by the Senate either.) Clinton remained relatively popular through the impeachment ordeal. His lowest approval rating in CNN/Gallup/USA Today polling from January 1998 through March of 1999 was 59%. For much of the time the Starr investigation was underway, his approval percentage remained high, in the 60s and 70s. And that is the reality of impeachment: politics and public opinion count. Gallup reported that 37% approve of Trump, 58% disapprove, per their daily tracking poll. Nixon had a 24% approval rating as he resigned, according to Gallup. House impeachment and Senate conviction seemed inevitable. Goldwater, a former presidential candidate and conservative bulwark, told Nixon he lacked the Senate votes for acquittal. Today, Trump has the backing of leaders in the GOP-controlled House and the Senate. Any chance of impeachment appears remote. A more salient question is whether pressure will build, from Mueller, congressional committees, the public, or even the courts, to alter the current dynamic. Correction: This story was updated to reflect that President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868.


Xanda was Cecil the lion's eldest son 6-year-old cub was identified by GPS collar Cecil the lion’s 6-year-old son was shot and killed by a big-game trophy hunter in western Zimbabwe earlier this month, according to a source familiar with the hunt. Xanda had been tracked with a fitted GPS satellite collar since 2015, the same year his father was killed. His death on July 7 was first indicated by a lack of movement data from the collar. The lion, which was in his prime, had roamed outside the bounds of Hwange National Park and into the Ngamo Forest Area – land that offers little to no protection for the lions, as game hunters are legally able to shoot for sport there if they possess the right permits. “He was shot two kilometers from the park boundary in the Ngamo Forest,” said Dr. Andrew Loveridge, a research fellow and project leader with Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit who had fitted Xanda’s GPS collar. “As researchers, we are saddened at the death of a well-known study animal we have monitored since birth,” he added. Related article Treasure or trophy? Legal hunt for big elephants leaves many conflicted According to the source familiar with the hunt, the safari was led by a professional hunter whose client was a Spanish national. The source said the hunt was a legal expedition and that the outfitter had been properly registered. On Friday, Tinashe Farawo, a Zimbabwe Parks & Wildlife Authority spokesman, confirmed the “unfortunate incident” and said that authorities would be issuing a full statement “soon.” The basic circumstances of how Xanda was killed largely mirrors father Cecil’s death just two years ago – one that prompted outrage among animal rights activists and conservationists worldwide. In July 2015, 13-year-old Cecil was lured out of the park boundary with food, shot with a crossbow, tracked for 40 more hours, then finished off with a gun, according to authorities. The big cat was skinned and his head reportedly cut off as a trophy. The killer, Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer, his professional hunter guide and the owner of the land where the hunt took place were initially accused of an illegal hunt under the country’s Parks and Wildlife Act. A decision was made later not to press charges against Palmer. Facebook group Lions of Hwange National Park posted that Xanda had been shot by a trophy hunter several days ago. Facebook post not found. Post has been removed or is no longer public. Facebook post not found. Post has been removed or is no longer public. “We can’t believe that now, 2 years since Cecil was killed, that his oldest Cub Xanda has met the same fate,” the post read. “When will the Lions of Hwange National Park be left to live out their years as wild born free lions should?” Masha Kalinina from Humane Society International condemned the shooting and urged Zimbabwe to trophy hunting altogether, citing Botswana and Kenya’s conservation efforts. “The killing of Xanda just goes to show that trophy hunters have learned nothing from the international outcry that followed Cecil’s death. They continue at a time when lions face a conservation crisis in Africa, with as few as 20,000 lions left in the wild. Xanda was a well-studied lion like this father and critical to conservation efforts in Zimbabwe,” Kalinina said. African lion populations have fallen almost 60% over the past three decades, with fewer than 30,000 African lions - and possibly as little as 20,000 estimated to remain today, according to Humane Society International. CNN’s Zoha Qamar, Marilia Brocchetto, Farai Sevenzo and Columbus Mavhunga contributed to this report.


A Swedish book publisher under house arrest in China was seized by plainclothes police on a train Saturday in front of diplomats, his daughter said, reigniting international criticism of Beijing’s treatment of its critics. Gui Minhai, who wrote and published numerous titles critical of the Communist leadership, was traveling to Beijing to be examined by a Swedish doctor at the embassy when he was taken, his daughter Angela told Radio Sweden on Monday. Gui had been diagnosed with a progressive neurodegenerative disease known as ALS, his daughter said. It’s the second time in just over two years that Gui has been allegedly seized by Chinese agents. He first disappeared in late 2015 from his holiday home in Thailand. “He was escorted on this train journey on Saturday by two diplomats and they were on the train for about five hours,” Angela Gui said from Cambridge, England, where she is studying. “At one of the stops before Beijing, there were about 10 men in plainclothes that came in, and said they were from the police – and just grabbed him and took him away. After that, I have not heard anything.” Sweden’s consul general in Hong Kong, where Gui and his publishing house were based, said her government was “fully aware” of the incident on the train. “We are in constant communication with Chinese officials and we are treating the case with the utmost seriousness,” Helena Storm told CNN on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry repeatedly declined to provide information on Gui’s case, or be drawn on the issue of his citizenship during a regular press briefing Tuesday. “All foreigners in China, including diplomats in foreign embassies and consulates, must not violate international law or Chinese laws,” said Hua Chunying. “That’s common sense and a basic principle.” Chinese police authorities have yet to respond to CNN’s request for comment. Gui, 53, was one of five Hong Kong-based booksellers who disappeared in mysterious circumstances in late 2015 before resurfacing in Chinese police custody. They were all involved in publishing political gossip about China’s Communist leaders, including President Xi Jinping. Amid intense speculation of his kidnapping by Chinese government agents, a tearful Gui was paraded on state broadcaster CCTV in January 2016. During the appearance, he said he had returned to China from Thailand voluntarily to clear his conscience over a fatal drunk-driving accident more than a decade earlier. During the broadcast, Gui, who was born in eastern China but became a naturalized Swedish citizen in the early 1990s, asked the Stockholm government to leave him alone and insisted: “Though I hold a Swedish passport, I still feel I am Chinese.” His televised confession later became a symbol of what human rights advocates say is the Beijing government’s increasingly repressive measures to clampdown on dissent – including overseas abductions, televised confessions, and ignoring counselor rights even for those with foreign citizenship. Since Xi came to power in late 2012, China has rounded up hundreds of activists and lawyers nationwide in what many analysts call the worst crackdown on human rights advocates in decades. Chinese authorities have said Gui fled the country during a suspended sentence over the drunk-driving accident. State media also reported he was under investigation for “operating business illegally.” Gui was released from custody last October but was put in an apartment in his hometown of Ningbo, near Shanghai, and has remained under tight police surveillance, according to his daughter. “I’m not sure why this happened,” she said Monday. “It was quite clear when he was under this form of house arrest in this flat in Ningbo that they weren’t going to let him leave. And it may just be an escalated way of making sure that he doesn’t.” “It’s quite clear this he’s been abducted again, that he’s held somewhere in a secret location,” she added. “Especially given his health status, I think that’s very worrying.” Speaking to CNN Tuesday, Hong Kong-based senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch Maya Wang said the case of Gui Minhai demonstrated the Chinese government’s “deep contempt for the law.” “First, they kidnapped a foreign national from abroad, then they ‘released’ him into custody, and finally, they seized this ‘free’ man while he is being accompanied by foreign diplomats,” said Wang.