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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]