Question: The presidents of the United States and Russia held their summit in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, on Monday 16/7/2018. Does this mean that the tension between the two countries is over? Is there a significance of holding this summit after the summit of the NATO countries on 12/7/2018 and the tension that surfaced […]
On the 14th of July, Jeff Glor of CBS Evening News asked US President Trump to name his “biggest foe globally right now.” Trump’s answer surprised many: “Well, I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think […]
Question: The NATO summit was held in Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the capital of the European Union, on 11 and 12 /7/2018. It was attended by the American president and the leaders of the 29-member states of the alliance. The debate between them and Trump intensified and almost was confined to the issue […]
The NATO Summit Declaration was issued on the first day, and there was nothing surprising in it; the surprises came later. Trump has been chiding European countries for not contributing enough money for their defense since his 2016 election campaign, but at the NATO summit in Brussels on the 11th and 12th of July, he […]
“The trade conflict is really a war against China’s rise, to see who has the greater stamina. This is absolutely no time for irresolution or reticence.” This is how Chinese authorities, in a leaked circular, outlined to state media how they should cover the trade spat with the US. The economic fight of the century […]
Recently, China has accused the United States of starting the “biggest trade war in history”. The Trump administration’s 25% tariffs affect more than 800 Chinese products worth $34 billion such as industrial machinery, medical devices and auto parts [1]. Meanwhile, Beijing has promised to respond in kind. Are we really looking at a large-scale trade […]
Under the American President’s vile ‘zero-tolerance’ immigration policy, around 2000 children, some as young as 4 or 5, of those classified as ‘illegal immigrants’, have been forcibly separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border over the past six weeks alone. They have been placed in wire mesh cages in detention centres, whose conditions have […]
US President Trump hit EU steel and aluminum with import tariffs at the start of June, and European Union countries unanimously backed a plan, on the 14th of June, to impose tariffs on $3.3 billion worth of U.S. products. The following day, Trump called French President Emmanuel Macron to push the European Union to negotiate […]
The US federal government has placed thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children in the homes of sponsors, but last year it couldn’t account for nearly 1,500 of them. Steven Wagner, a top official with the Department of Health and Human Services, disclosed the number to a Senate subcommittee last month while discussing the state of the […]
WASHINGTON: The White House said in a policy statement to lawmakers that it needs extra funds for prison reconstruction. The prisoners at Guantanamo Bay arrived as young men, captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere early in America’s war on terror. More than 15 years later, most of the inmates at the notorious US military prison have […]
According to the Guardian: The European Union is scrambling to arrange a crisis meeting with Iran after Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear agreement, as the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said Europe had a “very limited opportunity” to save the deal. A day after the US president broke with the landmark 2015 agreement and warned […]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent nearly 10 hours testifying at a US Congressional hearing this week. On the 10th of April the Senate questioned him, and on the 11th of April, the House of Representatives got their turn. Democrats complained about Facebook’s role in Trump’s election, while Republicans complained about Facebook being biased against them. […]
Worsening US-Russia relations are “similar, to a large extent, to what we lived during the Cold War,” said the United Nations Chief Antonio Guterres on the 29th of March, after the US announced that it was expelling 60 Russian diplomats. The expulsions were claimed to be in response to the poisoning in the UK of […]
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets in Washington and cities across the globe to take a stance against gun violence. (New York Times, March 24) “I have a dream that enough is enough.” Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s granddaughter Yolanda Renee King was one of several young people to speak against […]
President Trump dismissed his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, by a twitter message on the 13th of March and announced CIA director Mike Pompeo as his replacement. Then, just hours after Tillerson was fired, Steve Goldstein, the State Department’s undersecretary of public affairs was also fired by the White House for publicly contradicting the White […]
A few years ago, it was extremely rare to find articles on America’s decline. Today, the fading of American power seems to be a popular topic. Headlines like “Is the United States in Decline?”, “America is in Warp-Speed Decline…”, “The Future: China’s Rise, America’s Decline”, and “America’s imperial decline may be best hope to save […]
Trump in his State of the Union address promised to fix bad trade deals raising the prospect of protectionist policies amongst allies. He also pledged to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal and instructed Mattis to keep the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay open [1]. However, Trump devoted a great deal of his speech in painting North […]
Americans are divided, and on the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s presidency, the US government was officially shutdown because of failure to agree a new budget with Congress, which means that 750,000 government employees will stay at home without pay. Trump called himself the great dealmaker, who would ‘make America great again’, and now after […]
On the anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration, it was only fitting the US government remained closed as Congress could not agree on a funding bill. President Trump’s approval ratings remain well below most of the presidents who came before him on their first anniversary. A recent Gallup poll put global approval of US leadership at […]
Recently researchers revealed that two security flaws, dubbed Meltdown and Spectre, impact billions of devices globally. The flaws enable hackers to steal passwords and other sensitive user data from almost any device employing Intel, AMD and Arm chips [1]. Intel’s involvement raises awkward questions about whether this was a design flaw or a disturbing ploy […]
A Guardian Newspaper headline reported: “Donald Trump cancels London visit amid protest fears” while CNN reported the same day, 12th of January 2018, that a “US ambassador resigns, saying he can no longer work with Trump”.
Newsweek reported that Trump’s legal team were doing their utmost to block the publication Michael Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury.’ Is That Constitutional? [1]. The book paints a damning picture of Trump’s Whitehouse, and Wolf describes the President as the “least credible person who has ever walked the earth” [2].
The US vision of its place in the world has changed since Obama’s administration published the previous US National Security Strategy in 2015. The US seemed confident two years ago of its leadership in the world: “The United States is stronger and better positioned to seize the opportunities of a still new century and safeguard […]
According to CNBC: U.S. defense modernization efforts are “failing to keep pace” when compared with its two big adversaries, and American forces are “poorly postured to meet key challenges in Europe and East Asia,” according to a starkly worded new report from think-tank Rand.
The challenges to President Trump’s leadership never stop growing and articles of impeachment against him have been drawn. Impeachment is a power given by Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, which states, “The President, Vice-President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and […]
A Virginia school district has placed a teacher on leave for removing a student’s hijab from her head. The student took to Twitter after the incident Wednesday saying that her hijab was “ripped off her head” by a teacher she appreciated and valued, according to WJLA.
A vehicle-ramming attack in New York City has drawn a strong reaction from US President Donald Trump, who called the attacker “very sick and deranged” on Twitter and pledged to step up vetting of those entering the US.
According to CNN reporting on the 12th of October, “President Donald Trump slammed Puerto Rico on Thursday, saying its power grid and infrastructure were a “disaster” before two hurricanes hit last month and he threatened to pull federal emergency management workers from the storm-ravaged island”. Trump’s remarks are the latest in a series of disparaging […]
The US has a long and ugly colonial history, but while most US politicians try to cover the crimes of colonialism, the current US president boasts about them proudly. Following the recent terror attack that killed 13 people in Barcelona, Spain, Trump tweeted: “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when […]
A car driven by a neo Nazi, James Alex Fields Jr., was driven into a crowd of counter protesters during a “Unite the Right” rally of white nationalist and other right-wing groups in the town of Charlottesville, Virginia on the 12th of August, 2017. The attack killed a 32-year-old woman, Heather D. Heyer, and injured […]
