LONDON—Autocrats just hate to be ignored. And so, President Vladimir Putin had been reveling in his starring role in President Biden’s first international trip. In the build-up to the summit, the Russian media emphasized the fact that it was Biden who asked Putin for the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. In other words, it was the American who was inviting Russia back onto center stage. And sure enough, the first words Putin said to Biden were: “Mr. President, I’d like to thank you for your initiative to meet today.” Putin has reason to be pleased, even President Trump didn’t agree to meet […]
Nico Hines
10 posts
LONDON—The main aim of President Biden’s European tour this week has simply been to show that the United States “is back!” at the heart of the Western diplomatic consensus. Unfortunately, the world is a little more complicated than that. By Saturday night in England, it was beginning to look like the White House had been a little over-confident in just how far the charms of Biden would take him in persuading other G7 leaders to swallow all of his policy positions. Even though he isn’t Donald Trump. The president tried to cajole his colleagues to sign onto a joint statement calling […]
LONDON—A company newly sanctioned by the U.S. over Alexei Navalny’s poisoning attack is tied to the money laundering network that Natalia Veselnitskya tried to cover up at the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, according to financial records obtained by The Daily Beast. Now we know why Vladimir Putin was so desperate to play down the international corruption probes that began when Sergei Magnitsky uncovered a $230 million fraud on the Russian people. For the first time, that dark money network can be linked to the murderous chemical weapons program run by Russia’s notorious intelligence services. After exposing the massive theft of […]
The longtime aide to “Putin’s Congressman” Dana Rohrabacher died suddenly from a head injury over the weekend. Paul Behrends was found by emergency responders close to his home on Friday night with severe head trauma. He was taken to a local hospital where surgeons fought to save him, but he passed away on Saturday, according to a spokesman for Rohrabacher. Behrends was a controversial figure on Capitol Hill who lost his job as staff director for the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee after The Daily Beast reported on his links to Trump Tower lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s operation in the U.S. Rohrabacher’s former […]
LONDON—Just six months after he stepped down as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn has been kicked out of the party as part of a lingering anti-Semitism crisis that sullied much of his leadership. It is the first time a former leader has been kicked out of the party since 1931, as Keir Starmer seeks to reshape the party after four years of Corbyn’s radical left-wing leadership. A report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published Thursday ruled that Labour had breached equality laws under the leadership of Corbyn, who has been accused of failing to stamp out anti-Jewish rhetoric within […]
LONDON—Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who exposed the underbelly of U.S. policy in the Vietnam War, has told a British court that the extradition of Julian Assange is part of an American effort to “crush” future whistleblowers. Ellsberg said the U.S. wanted revenge against the WikiLeaks founder just like the Nixon administration and the CIA plotted vengeance against him for his part in the publication of the Pentagon Papers. A British judge will rule on whether Britain can extradite Assange to the U.S. on 18 charges linked to the leak of hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011. The […]
Doctors treating Putin nemesis Aleksey Navalny in the ICU have told police that the substance which poisoned him is so dangerous they are wearing protective clothing. Ivan Zhdanov, one of Navalny’s fellow anti-corruption campaigners, addressed media outside the hospital to say the authorities were refusing requests to let Navalny fly to Germany for further treatment. They fear the Kremlin has intervened because they do not want foreign doctors to identify the substance which was used against Navalny, who has been targeted for years by Putin for his outspoken opposition to the Russian president. Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s closest aide, said: “The ban on […]
LONDON—Britain’s Conservative government never bothered to find out whether the Brexit referendum was influenced by the Kremlin, according to a scathing report by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. The extraordinary finding was at the heart of a bombshell report that Boris Johnson has repeatedly sought to delay—despite it being ready for publication nine months ago. Kevan Jones, a Labour member of the committee, said it was a “scandal” that No. 10 had never ordered Britain’s extensive intelligence agencies to look into the safety of British elections despite seeing evidence of interference in the 2014 Scottish election and the leak of Democratic […]
LONDON—Police helicopters and emergency dispersal measures were needed in the early hours of Saturday morning as cops battled to stop soccer fans gathering in a known coronavirus hotspot to celebrate Liverpool’s long overdue Premier League title. The grim predictability of fans abandoning social distancing to celebrate their teams’ victories had been one of the major arguments against soccer being allowed to return in England. Prime Minister Boris Johnson ignored the warnings as his government searched desperately for a way out of the monotony of lockdown. As far back as April when up to a 1,000 people were dying every day in […]
Dave Chappelle released an unannounced Netflix special in the early hours of Friday that tears into the media and calls on America to listen to the protest movement that has risen up to demand an end to more than a century of oppression. The comedian said he couldn’t bring himself to watch the killing of George Floyd for a week, but as soon as he did, he understood why the U.S was witnessing one of the most widespread protest movements in 50 years. “This kid thought he was going to die, he knew he was going to die. He called for […]