Input: Only Russia and Iran can be trusted to honestly and effectively assist Iraq in its targeting and destruction of the ISIS mercenaries, for they are the only countries who have a hatred for them and have n’t used them in previous military secret operations, as the U.S. had in the 1980’s against Russia in Afghanistan. How do you analyze the Turkish stance claiming the right to be involved in Mosul offensive? The Turkish claim to have a right to be involved in the Mosul offensive is a dishonest claim, since Turkey has been financing the ISIS forces through oil smuggling and other human trafficking operations in Syria. Russia has exposed this, and President Vladimir Putin has clearly shown this in the Russian intelligence exposing the Turkish, Saudi, Israeli, Persian Gulf states, and U.S. funding through Swiss Banks such as Union Bank of Switzerland — which was also confirmed by WikiLeaks cables from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, and Britain’s MI6. Turkey’s real agenda is to carve out an area of Iraq that it can use to target Kurds and confiscate land belonging to Iraq and Syria -- all in the name of "countering ISIS”.

smuggling

Turkey

oil


Input: “If somebody said, ‘How you doing?’ you're going to say you're doing good.” Perhaps such dissembling is fine in polite cocktail party conversation, but in the business world it’s called lying. And while Trump is quick to boast that his purported billions prove his business acumen, his net worth is almost unknowable given the loose standards and numerous outright misrepresentations he has made over the years. In that 2007 deposition, Trump said he based estimates of his net worth at times on “psychology” and “my own feelings.” But those feelings are often wrong — in 2004, he presented unaudited financials to Deutsche Bank while seeking a loan, claiming he was worth $ 3.5 billion. The bank concluded Trump was, to say the least, puffing; it put his net worth at $ 788 million, records show. (Trump personally guaranteed $ 40 million of the loan to his company, so Deutsche coughed up the money.

loan

Deutsche Bank

he


Input: She adds that this incident looks like it's "exactly out of the Russian security service's playbook." Why Does The Kremlin Want Trump?" Donald Trump has very long business links to Russia — they know him, he has Russian funding for some of his companies, and he's involved with with Russian oligarchs who have bought his companies," Applebaum says." The Russians like to have relationships with people who they have kind of dirty information on, or inside information, so they wold feel comfortable with him." Just last week, Trump said that, as president, he wouldn't necessarily come to the aid of NATO allies in Baltic States if Russia attacked.

funding

Russian

his companies

Trump

Russia


Input: As the case against Assange stands today, a district court in Stockholm ruled last month that there was still “probable cause for suspicion” against the WikiLeaks founder. The statute of limitations for some of the lesser charges against him is past, put the rape allegation will stand until 2020. Although Ecuador has extended its diplomatic cover to him, Assange fears that if he is forced to return to Sweden, that country might then extradite him, for political reasons, to the United States, where he could face serious charges of espionage or conspiracy, potentially warranting the death penalty, regarding WikiLeaks ' disclosure of the Afghan War Diary and other documents revealing the U.S. government’s purposeful deception in its prosecution of illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regarding the Clinton e-mail scandal, while it seems that the Justice Department is having a hard time collecting and sorting through Hillary’s state department e-mail archive, others are n’t finding the task quite so daunting. On June 13, oilprices.com reported:

death penalty

United States

he

espionage or conspiracy

United States


Input: Donald Trump has been campaigning on a promise to eradicate the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). The Republican presidential nominee regularly makes belligerent statements such as “I would bomb the shit out of..

eradicate

Donald Trump

Islamic State

bomb


Input: Three vans of vegetables crossed into east Aleppo, Abdurrahman said, but this was a symbolic gesture and the corridor is too dangerous for civilians or significant supplies to pass. The United Nations and humanitarian agencies have said conditions in isolated rebel-held east Aleppo have become very concerning." Most recently I'm hearing that the markets are closed and it's next to impossible to purchase food. The UN estimates that collectively all aid supplies in east Aleppo will only last about two more weeks," Christy Delafield, senior communications officer for Mercy Corps, which runs the largest non-governmental aid operation inside Syria, told Reuters. The multi-sided civil war in Syria, which has been raging since 2011, has drawn in regional and global powers, caused the world's worst humanitarian emergency and attracted recruits to Islamist militancy from around the world.

purchase

markets

food

Aleppo


Input: “Given the political moment we are living in,” he said, “a lot of people are not happy with our government, and it definitely plays a role when it comes to believing rumors that blame the government for things that are going wrong.” In December, the Brazilian government introduced a “Facts and Rumors” website that sought to tackle head-on a dizzying variety of far-fetched stories circulating on the Internet. Among them are claims that “an army” of Haitian refugees escaping the devastating 2010 earthquake there sought to overthrow Brazil’s government, that the official retirement age was being raised to 95 and that President Dilma Rousseff was overseeing a plan to insert microchips into Brazilian citizens. “Do not share lies!” warns the website, which asks people to send the authorities the sources of wacky stories they see online. “That way, you’re helping to build a country based on truth and justice.”

escaping

Haitian refugees

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Brazil


Input: And who had nuclear weapons.” Similar miscues on foreign policy are what doomed Carson, who at one time rank neck and neck with Donald Trump in the GOP presidential race, and knocked him out of serious contention for the Oval Office. Sanders has adopted tough rhetoric in vowing to galvanize international allies — particularly Saudi Arabia and other allies in the Middle East — to “crush” ISIS. And he frequently cites his House vote in 2002 against a U.S. invasion of Iraq as evidence of his sound judgment on foreign policy, in contrast to Clinton’s support of the effort to topple Saddam Hussein. Clinton has admitted she was misled by the administration of President George W. Bush in supporting the invasion, but has argued that being right on one vote does n’t qualify you to become the next commander in chief, or assure you have the experience and know-how to deal with international crises.

vowing

Sanders

international allies


Input: Determining a precise number of Americans in the data is difficult. There are at least 200 scanned individual U.S. passports. Some appear to be American retirees purchasing real estate in places like Costa Rica and Panama. Also in the database, about 3,500 shareholders of offshore companies who list U.S. addresses. And almost 3,100 companies are tied to offshore professionals based in Miami, New York and other parts of the United States.

purchasing

American retirees

American retirees

real estate


Input: But if nihilistic jihadis blowing up metro stations and airports does n’t create a sense of solidarity, maybe the possibility of nuclear terrorism will do the trick. We’re about to hear a lot about shared interests as Washington gears up for one of the few items on the security agenda that purportedly interests President Barack Obama — the final Nuclear Security Summit. The president initiated the effort to convene world leaders to focus on improving nuclear security following his 2009 speech in Prague on the subject of nonproliferation. While the process has been valuable, there seems to be little appetite, both in Washington and elsewhere in the world, for continuing Obama’s pet project once he leaves office. So, it’s one last meeting.

convene

The president

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Nuclear Security Summit


Input: “But we live in fear that they’re going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they’re going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you’ll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario.” The United States, Mrs. Clinton said, needs to “do everything we can” to restrain the competitions, including exploring new treaties with Moscow that would go beyond the New Start treaty of 2010, which she helped negotiate. Mrs. Clinton proceeded to praise Mr. Perry, saying the more he spoke out publicly and joined with Republican statesmen in trying to curb nuclear arms, “the better off we’ll be in trying to really cut this off.’ “This is going to be a big issue,” she added.

treaty

Moscow

United States


Input: So why are these attacks still happening? The answer is twofold: The attacks are effective, and the Russian and Syrian governments know they can get away with them. Killing the people who are providing aid to your enemies is effective If you want to completely cripple your enemies and are not concerned with pesky things like basic human decency and morality, bombing hospitals and humanitarian aid convoys is a great idea. After all, they’re providing aid to your enemies.

providing aid

people

your enemies


Input: Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Reuters: “Russian authorities have never cooperated or interacted with terrorists. No interaction with terrorists was possible. Terrorists get annihilated in Russia. It has always been like that, it is like that and it will be in the future.” The Foreign Ministry said claims that Russian law enforcement agencies had helped militants were “without grounds.” It said the agencies take various measures to prevent militants from leaving and to bring to account those who come back.

annihilated

Terrorists

Russia


Input: Ted Cruz has taken time away from campaigning in South Carolina to attend the funeral Mass in Washington for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Republican presidential candidate plans to be back in South Carolina later Saturday to await the results. Voting ends at 7 p.m. The Texas senator has a personal connection to the high court: In the late 1990s, he served as a law clerk for a year to then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist. _ _ _

Voting

presidential


Input: For 20 years, The Independent has regularly referred to the Armenian Holocaust – with a capital ‘H’, the very same word (‘ Shoah’ in Hebrew) used by many ordinary Israelis to describe the slaughter. But not the Americans. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose Sukhoi jet had of course not yet been shot down by the Turks, attended the official genocide memorial day in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, declaring the genocide a fact of history – to the fury of the Turks -- while President Obama skulked in Washington, still too fearful of offending his Nato ally whose airbases – ironically built, in many cases, on lands stolen from murdered Armenians – were so important to the US Air Force which was already supposedly destroying Isis. All in all, then a pretty mess. Kerry tells us that Isis is “genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology and by actions …” as if the destruction of the Armenian people in 1915 was not – and is perfectly happy to label the dark forces of the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ as genocidal themselves – which they clearly are.

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Turks


Input: For nearly two years before the mid-2010 timeframe, both Uranium One’s shareholders and executives, as well as officials at Rosatom / ARMZ, were contemplating and then executing transactions covered by CFIUS. This brings many of the donations and the negotiations and transactions under question within a year of each other. Politifact Claim: “So there’s evidence showing that one man involved with Uranium One (Telfer) donated millions to the Clinton Foundation at the same time as the deal. That certainly does n’t look good for Hillary Clinton, but it’s a far cry from nine investors funneling $ 145 million.” FACT: As we have seen already the history of negotiations for the Russian purchase of Uranium One extends back to at least July 2008.

donated

one man

Clinton Foundation

Clinton Foundation


Input: China's imports of North Korean coal are up 11.7 percent for the first eight months of the year compared to the same period last year, slightly below the 12.4 percent gain for total coal imports. So far, the big winners among coal exporters to China are Mongolia, with a 50.1 percent year-to-date increase and Indonesia at 18 percent. Top supplier Australia is down 3.6 percent for the first eight months of the year, as higher coking coal exports haven't been enough to offset lower thermal coal shipments. It's difficult to ascertain why China has decided to allow its coal trade with North Korea to continue, and indeed to grow. About 90 percent of Pyongyang's trade is with China, and coal accounts for nearly 40 percent of that in value terms, according to a Sept. 24 report in the Nikkei Asian Review.

shipments

Australia

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Australia


Input: Among the boldfaced names in his client portfolio were Angolan guerilla army leader Jonas Savimbi, and former presidents Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. But those jobs would pale — both in terms of financial reward and degree of difficulty — to the gig to which Akhmetov referred Manafort and his team: returning Yanukovych to power. A former trucking official who had been convicted and incarcerated as a teenager for serious crimes, Yanukovych had become a popular symbol of the corruption that plagues Ukraine after his team tried to rig the 2004 presidential election. A series of protests, which became known as the Orange Revolution, forced a re-vote, which Yanukovych lost. While Manafort initially protested that Yanukovych was too deeply flawed to revive, Akhmetov eventually prevailed upon his American consultant to help Yanukovych and his political party, the Party of Regions, try to make a comeback in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

incarcerated

trucking official

serious crimes

Ukraine


Input: ADVERTISEMENT UN criticizing Norway Last Friday, UNHCR stated that Norway, by returning asylum seekers without actual and individual consideration of their application for asylum, is in violation of the Human Rights Convention, as well as International Asylum Regulations. “We have no problems with return of people that have lived in Russia for ten years. But one have to be sure that they have permanent and legal right to stay there.

asylum

Norway

asylum seekers

Russia

Norway


Input: But we weren't quite expecting to see this significant of a bump in party unity after the Republicans ' convention in Cleveland. A number of Republican lawmakers didn't even attend, so controversial is their nominee. And in the weeks afterward, Donald Trump stumbled into some pretty epic controversies: He: -tangled with the family of a fallen soldier-made comments that some felt suggested violence against Hillary Clinton

stumbled

Donald Trump


Input: Adopting Obama’s ‘violent extremism’ rhetoric Olson used the language of the United Nations-sanctioned “Strong Cities Network” or SCN, which was announced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the U.N. last fall, when she called for building “resilient communities” in the fight against “violent extremism.” Lynch announced the SCN at the U.N. on Sept. 30, 2015, a program that attempts to globalize law enforcement agencies, connecting U.S. agencies with those overseas to combat violent extremism in all its forms. By eliminating the focus on Islamic terrorism, however, many conservatives viewed the SCN initiative as an attempt to single out and silence conservatives under the guise of branding them “right wing extremists.” On July 8, 2015, just over two months before Lynch’s U.N. announcement, Olson said her staff met with representatives from the refugee community, refugee support agencies, the Idaho Muslim community, Boise Police Department, FBI, the Intermountain Fair Housing Council, the ACLU and Stand Up America to discuss community responses to recent incidents in Idaho and across the country.

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Input: In defence of ‘tax havens’: offshore banking is not the same as dodgy dealing | Nigel Green Read more Oxfam contrasted the $ 1.4tn held offshore with the $ 1tn paid in tax by the top 50 US firms between 2008 and 2014. It pointed out that the companies had also enjoyed a combined $ 11.2tn in federal loans, bailouts and loan guarantees during the same period. Overall, the use of tax havens allowed the US firms to reduce their effective tax rate on $ 4tn of profits from the US headline rate of 35% to an average of 26.5% between 2008 and 2014. The charity said this had helped firms spend billions on an “army” of lobbyists calling for greater state support in the form of loans, bailouts and guarantees, funded by taxpayers.

loan

companies

federal loans


Input: She adds that this incident looks like it's "exactly out of the Russian security service's playbook." Why Does The Kremlin Want Trump?" Donald Trump has very long business links to Russia — they know him, he has Russian funding for some of his companies, and he's involved with with Russian oligarchs who have bought his companies," Applebaum says." The Russians like to have relationships with people who they have kind of dirty information on, or inside information, so they wold feel comfortable with him." Just last week, Trump said that, as president, he wouldn't necessarily come to the aid of NATO allies in Baltic States if Russia attacked.

bought

Russian oligarchs

he


Input: Denmark is set to become the first country to no longer define being transgender as a mental illness. Government officials said classifying transgender people as mentally ill was “stigmatising” and they had “run out of patience” with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) work on the definition. Being transgender is officially considered a mental or behavioural disorder by the WHO, although the organisation is currently assessing its guidance.

illness


Input: "But until ops converts it to the unclassified email system, there is no physical way for me to email it. I can't even access it." On a separate occasion, Clinton and Sullivan exchange emails on a set of "tps" -- presumably talking points, which he's trying to send to her on a secure fax line." If they can't," Clinton replies," turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure." There's no indication whether the talking point were classified, but the exchange led to criticism from Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a frequent Clinton critic, who called the chain "disturbing" and asked the former secretary to "come clean."

fax

he

her


Input: It’s one of the many bitter ironies of the moment that the Islamic State-an outfit driven by a puritanical zeal and a nihilistic penchant for violence-has taken root in one of the most archaeologically rich parts of the world. The stretches of northern Iraq and Syria where the group has seized territory are home to many layers of history and the ruins of dozens of ancient civilizations, including some of the world’s first urban societies. The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has used the Islamic State’s razing of the past and ransacking of museums as part of its propaganda. After regime forces recaptured Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, with Russian support this year, the government held a concert in the site’s Roman-era amphitheater. Russian President Vladimir Putin beamed in via video conference and declared the liberation of Palmyra from the Islamic State a “sign of hope in the battle against terrorism.”

ransacking

Islamic State

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Input: Shale has become a dominant source of fossil fuels in the United States, thanks to a controversial process known as fracking. It wrings natural gas out of bedrock in a process that was once not considered profitable for extracting oil or natural gas. The process is efficient enough that the country's dependence on petroleum imports has declined precipitously. We wondered if the Clinton team wants to shut down fracking and the natural gas it produces. Trump's evidence

imports

the country

petroleum

the country


Input: by Hillary Clinton likes to extol her foreign policy credentials, particularly her experience as secretary of state. She attaches herself to Barack Obama’s coattails, pledging to continue his policies. But she is even more hawkish than the president. Like Obama, Clinton touts American exceptionalism, the notion that the United States is better than any other country.

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Input: “Abuse Airplane Mode toggling,” one 4chan user wrote, explaining how Trump supporters could vote again and again in various online polls. And it was successful: Trump ended up winning in the unofficial polls, and then spent the evening tweeting out the poll results, which showed he had won." Great debate poll numbers-I will be on @foxandfriends at 7:00 to discuss," he wrote Tuesday morning." Enjoy!" For Trump, it was the perfect result for a campaign not grounded in facts or reality.

discuss

Trump


Input: The FBI has said it can find no direct link between Mateen and ISIS, even though Mateen pledged allegiance to the terrorists’ leadership during 911 phone calls during the shooting spree. Trump was very clear, however, about his belief that the crime was both motivated by terrorism and hatred for LGBT people, which he blamed on radical Islam. “A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub, not only because he wanted to kill Americans,” he said, “but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens, because of their sexual orientation.” LGBT activists did not welcome an ideological test for entering and remaining the United States, saying it violates American values. Russell Roybal, deputy executive director for National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, told The Advocate it is a form of “thought-policing.”

execute

terrorist

gay and lesbian citizens

shooting

the nightclub


Input: The Islamic State is referred to as ISIL, ISIS and Daesh. “One of Washington’s latest gambits, to do a nuclear deal with Iran, has not shown any evidence of political payback,” wrote Mr. Bryen, an analyst at the American Center for Democracy. “In fact, the latest Russian move, to secure an agreement with Iran for the use of an air base, is shaking up the Middle East.” He said the isolated Hamadan base has the long runways needed to support the heavy Russian Tu-22M3s and that Moscow suspects the U.S. is warning its Syrian allies when long-range bombers leave Russian bases. Now, the time to warn them is about 40 minutes.

agreement

Russian

Iran


Input: At least 80 people were killed and 231 injured when a huge blast rocked a mass demonstration in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Interior Ministry has announced. The attack was claimed by terrorist group Islamic State. The numbers were confirmed to Afghan TOLOnews network and Pajhwok agency, as well as to Reuters.

blast

blast

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Kabul


Input: A notorious runaway robot-that has escaped from its lab twice-has been arrested by police at a political rally. Promobot was supporting Russian Parliament candidate Valery Kalachev in Moscow when authorities attempted to handcuff it and take it away. It is believed that the arrest occurred after a member of public called police as Promobots were recording the opinions of voters on a variety of topics "for further processing and analysis by the candidate's team." A company spokesman told Inverse magazine:" Police asked to remove the robot away from the crowded area, and even tried to handcuff him. (Photo: Promobot)

arrest

Promobots

robot

Moscow


Input: "I grew up in the era of mass incarceration," Garza said." In particular, we had being demonized and being seen as a drain on government resources, and, you know, former Secretary Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, really removed this very robust agenda around criminalizing Black people and they did that in a couple of different ways." "One was by passing and championing this landmark three strikes legislation, which actually incarcerated more Black people than any other time in history, right," she continued." They also did something which was overwhelming, which was to dismantle states supports for families to be able to thrive or just at the very least survive, right. And they did that under this notion, right, that people were taking advantage of the system and that people are not redeemable."

incarcerated

legislation

Black people


Input: While mishandling classified information has not proven to be a reliable way to get charged with a crime, lying to the FBI about it, or trying to cover your tracks, is. Many experts believe Petraeus would have escaped criminal charges but for the false statements to the FBI, which may have tipped the case towards prosecution. Just last year, former Naval Reserve Commander Bryan Nishimura was charged with misdemeanor mishandling of classified information he acquired during his service in Afghanistan. He admitted that he often moved classified data, including satellite imagery, to unclassified systems and brought it back to the U.S. when he returned. After coming under investigation, Nishimura threw some of the storage media in a Folsom, Calif. lake.

acquired

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Afghanistan


Input: Russian jets targeted an elementary school and two high schools. Mohammad al-Khatib, a media activist who witnessed the aftermath of the attack, described the scene in vivid detail. “A teacher told me that a massacre happened at the western school after it was targeted with a missile by a Russian warplane, I went there. The missile fell in a classroom that was destroyed completely,” said Khatib. “Residents told me they pulled only four dead bodies and lost about 15 others who were reduced to shreds including the female teacher of the targeted classroom.”

massacre

Russian warplane

western school

missile


Input: “This individual adds that this information provided by the French [intelligence] service indicates that the funding for both attacks originated with wealthy Sunni Islamists in Saudi Arabia. During July and August 2012, these financiers provided funds to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM) contacts in southern Europe, who in turn passed the money onto AQIM operatives in Mauritania. The money was used to recruit operatives and purchase ammunition and supplies.” “In a separate conversation,” Blumenthal’s memo continues, “Algerian DGSE [the state intelligence agency] officers note in private that Libyan intelligence officers tell them that the Benghazi attacks were funded by these financiers in Saudi Arabia.” Alleged Saudi funding of the attack in Benghazi is particularly troubling in light of the mounting suspicions that the 28 censored pages of Washington’s official 911 report spell out the role that powerful officials in Saudi Arabia played in supporting the hijackers who brought down the World Trade Center towers in 2011.

purchase

financiers

AQIM

AQIM

ammunition and supplies

Mauritania


Input: 12/15 Russia and England fans clash at Euro 2016 Supporters clash at the end of the Euro 2016 Group B soccer match between England and Russia, GETTY 13/15 Russia and England fans clash at Euro 2016 Supporters clash at the end of the Euro 2016 Group B soccer match between England and Russia, GETTY 14/15 Russia and England fans clash at Euro 2016 Fans try and escape at the end of the Euro 2016 Group B soccer match between England and Russia, GETTY 15/15 Russia and England fans clash at Euro 2016 england fans clash with police ahead of the game against Russia GETTY President Putin had not commented on the violence directly up until today where he dismissed, and perhaps mocked, the idea that a couple of hundred Russian “fans” were responsible.

escape

Fans

Fans

the Euro 2016 Group B soccer match between England and Russia


Input: Turkey charges that Syrian Kurdish fighters, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, share the PKK’s goal of establishing a separate political entity in Kurdish regions of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. To add to the complexity, Turkey has sent troops into northern Iraq near PKK havens, leading Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to threaten to invite Russian planes to strike in the region. Turkish-Russian relations have been strained since Turkey shot down a Russian jet that strayed into its territory from Syria in November. To assuage Turkey’s concerns about the Syrian border, the Obama administration has pledged that the Syrian Kurdish fighters it supports will not move west beyond the Euphrates River. To secure the remaining 60 miles of border contested with the Islamic State in northwest Syria, Biden plans to firm up U.S. offers of additional equipment and intelligence assistance.

shot

Turkey

Russian jet

shot

Syria


Input: Vox’s Jeff Stein: “Sanders needed to win Kentucky to maintain an increasingly far-fetched path to the Democratic nomination. The fact that he lost — albeit by what appears to have been a very small margin — will only dramatically increase the calls for him to exit the race.” Real-keeping: Sanders is grossly misleading his supporters about his prospects for winning the nomination. — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 18, 2016 If Democratic race was a normal race, it would've been over a while ago.

misleading

Sanders

his supporters


Input: It’s one of the many bitter ironies of the moment that the Islamic State-an outfit driven by a puritanical zeal and a nihilistic penchant for violence-has taken root in one of the most archaeologically rich parts of the world. The stretches of northern Iraq and Syria where the group has seized territory are home to many layers of history and the ruins of dozens of ancient civilizations, including some of the world’s first urban societies. The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has used the Islamic State’s razing of the past and ransacking of museums as part of its propaganda. After regime forces recaptured Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, with Russian support this year, the government held a concert in the site’s Roman-era amphitheater. Russian President Vladimir Putin beamed in via video conference and declared the liberation of Palmyra from the Islamic State a “sign of hope in the battle against terrorism.”

ransacking

Islamic State

museums


Input: "I'm totally against it, he's got exams now — what kind of the month with a pornstar are you taking about? Let them pay us 100,000 rubles instead, we'd be happy … How could they even think about it? All he does is play computer games anyways and buy weapons online." Although his mother is against the idea, Ruslan is excited to meet his "prize." He has already planned what he's going to do with Makarova.

buy

he

online


Input: She said more fighting "is obviously not what we expect." Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said "we have the plan for a cessation of hostilities and I think everybody has to abide by that." Syria's main Kurdish faction, the People's Protection Units, has been most effective in combating the Islamic State group, but Turkey appears uneasy over the group's recent gains. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

combating

People's Protection Units

Islamic State group

Syria


Input: In July, two Russian airmen were killed in the central Homs province when their Mi-25 helicopter was shot down by what the defence ministry said were Isis fighters. Isis also claimed to have shot down a Syrian military jet near Damascus and another Syrian Air Force plane near the city of Deir Ezzor. It was one of several attacks on Syrian jets claimed by Isis, including an attack in July where they later hung a pilot's corpse on display in the streets.

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streets


Input: But such is the conspiratorial atmosphere advanced by the hardline Republican laity that anything goes in the ' ' Hate Hillary'' cause-from attributing cancer and Parkinson's to her to accusing her of being in cahoots with foreign forces. On its part, the Clinton campaign has fueled this rumor-industry with lack of transparency, candor, and clarity, going back to secrecy, obfuscation, and delinquency on the issue of private mail servers and the Clinton Foundation On Tuesday, the liberal media, which has taunted the Trump brigade as wackos and conspiracy theorists, went the same route by airing the views of a Nigeria-born doctor who speculated that Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned, possibly by the Trump-Putin combine. ' ' I must advice [sic] the Clinton campaign to perform toxicologic analysis of Ms. Clinton's blood. It is possible she is being poisoned,'' Bennet Omalu, who has done pioneering work on concussion among American football players, wrote on Twitter Sunday night. ' ' I do not trust Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump. With those two all things are possible,'' he added. Hillary Clinton stayed out of sight, heavily guarded at her Chappaqua, New York, home while all this was happening.

poisoned

Trump-Putin

she

poisoned


Input: This is not his business. He should be more focused on his specific responsibilities." In an April speech at Case Western Reserve University's law school in Cleveland, three months before Republicans held their convention in the city nominating Trump, Zeid said "a front-running candidate to be president of this country declared, just a few months ago, his enthusiastic support for torture," a reference to remarks by Trump in which he pledged to restore waterboarding and even harsher interrogation methods for suspected terrorists. While he didn't mention Trump by name, Zeid said the candidate was engaged in "a full-frontal attack -- disguised as courageous taboo-busting -- on some fundamental, hard-won tenets of decency and social cohesion." Zeid noted he was a Muslim who had studied in the United States and has spent many years living in what he called a country "embodied by its bonds of inclusion, the freedom to be yourself, represented well and served fully by a government transparent and accountable for all its citizens ' individual rights."

pledged

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harsher interrogation methods


Input: Condoleezza Rice, who was secretary of state under President George W. Bush, took her Stanford University students there in 2011. Many high-ranking figures in companies tied to Skolkovo have also donated to the Clinton Foundation. Schweizer cited Andrey Vavilov, the chairman of Skolkovo's nuclear research arm, who donated between $ 10,000 and $ 25,000 to the foundation. Podesta family ties The claim:" Clinton's campaign chairman sat on the board of a Skolkovo-based company that received millions from a Putin-connected investment fund."

donated

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the foundation


Input: Has n’t every candidate? Here again, however, it is grossly inconsistent and hypocritical to consider such social media self-editing "disqualifying" if you support a presidential candidate who deleted emails while under investigation by the FBI (and whose statements about that investigation have sometimes contradicted those of FBI Director James Comey) and who has distorted her record on numerous policy issues. Clinton’s statement that she had always believed marriage should be "left to the states" in a 2014 interview, for example, is belied by her longtime support for the federal prohibition on marriage equality that her husband signed into law. Her stated reasons for opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) today presumably ought to have applied just as strongly back in 2012, when she was promoting the deal as "the gold standard in trade agreements." She was absent from the Fight for $ 15 before she tried to take credit for championing it.

signed into law

her husband

federal prohibition on marriage equality


Input: Officials say he has ran up a tab of nearly $ 500,000 with the calls, which are "a deadly and serious offense.” (Martin Weil) -- Police arrested a suspect in the killing of Alonzo Jackson, the 68-year -old who was murdered in cold blood as he pumped gas on the way to take his friend to a doctor's appointment. The suspect, 20-year -old Demarko Wheeler, was charged with first-and second-degree murder. (Faiz Siddiqui and Martin Weil) -- A 36-year -old Brentwood man died of blunt force trauma after leading police on a high-speed chase from Maryland to D.C. and then crashing his car into a tree in Northeast.

murder

Alonzo Jackson


Input: In the late 1990s, Eric Rudolph — raised Catholic and affiliated for a time with a Christian Identity sect — bombed abortion clinics and a gay bar, insisting they were venues of immorality and evil. Last July, an Orthodox Jewish Israeli attacked the marchers in the Jerusalem LGBT pride parade, stabbing six of them, and one of them, a teenager, died of her wounds; justifying his attacks by appealing to Talmudic punishments for homosexuality, he had just been released from a 10-year prison term for doing the same in 2005. Yesterday, a Christian pastor from Arizona, Steven Anderson, praised the slaughter of 49 people in an Orlando LGBT club on the ground that “homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts” and are “pedophiles.” Violent attacks on gay bars in the U.S. have long been common, as sociology professor Greggor Mattson documented today: “The crime blotters of the gay press have always been punctuated by attacks on patrons at gay bars and continue to be today,” including killings.

stabbing

Orthodox Jewish Israeli

the marchers

Jerusalem LGBT pride parade


Input: White blue-collar workers: Often called "Reagan Democrats," the Sanders form of populism has great appeal to this group. He offers strong opposition to insiders, strong support for increased minimum wage and strong opposition to trade agreements that are seen as having lost American jobs. Trump also opposes many of the same trade policies that Sanders opposes, but Trump not only opposes an increase in the minimum wage, he has stated that, in his opinion, American workers are actually overpaid — an absurd notion that is offensive to working-class Reagan Democrats and blue-collar workers generally. In the battle of ideas within the Democratic Party, Sanders runs stronger than Clinton against Republicans while Clinton has been adopting a growing number of Sanders ' themes. In the battle of ideas for the anti-establishment mantle, Sanders is winning by a huge margin over Trump.

overpaid

American workers

American workers


Input: My friend Jonathan Weisman at the New York Times wrote last month about the “anti-Semitic hate, much of it from self-identified Donald J. Trump supporters,” he has received. “[Twitter user] Trump God Emperor sent me the Nazi iconography of the shiftless, hook-nosed Jew. I was served an image of the gates of Auschwitz, the famous words ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ replaced without irony with ‘Machen Amerika Great.’ Holocaust taunts, like a path of dollar bills leading into an oven, were followed by Holocaust denial. The Jew as leftist puppet master from @DonaldTrumpLA was joined by the Jew as conservative fifth columnist, orchestrating war for Israel.” Bethany Mandel, a conservative who is Jewish, wrote that her “anti-Trump tweets have been met with such terrifying and profound anti-Semitism that I bought a gun earlier this month.”

Holocaust


Input: In 2016, capital spending will focus on modernization and further investment in local supply as well as new openings. The U.S. fast-food chain, which has been present in Russia for 26 years, has steadily increased the share of local supply to 85 percent. Khasbulatov said the company hoped to achieve full localization, helping smooth out the impact of currency swings and Russia's food import ban." It's important to localize not only food processing but also production," he said.

import

Russia

food

Russia


Input: after the two allegedly stabbed and injured an Israeli security guard on the light rail near the illegal Israeli settlement of Pisgat Zeev in northern Jerusalem. Israeli forces shot and wounded Muawiya’s 12-year -old cousin Ali Alqam after the two allegedly stabbed and injured an Israeli security guard on the light rail near the illegal Israeli settlement of Pisgat Zeev in northern Jerusalem. Ali, who was shot at least three times on the scene and Ali, who was shot at least three times on the scene and had to undergo surgery to remove a bullet from his stomach, is currently being held at a juvenile rehabilitation center since Israeli authorities decided to uphold his one-year detention in April. Meanwhile, Muawiya has been moved between Israel's Russian Compound, HaSharon, and Megiddo prisons. Meanwhile, Muawiya has been moved between Israel's Russian Compound, HaSharon, and Megiddo prisons.

shot

Ali


Input: OTTAWA – The Trudeau government has yet to respond to an offer by Russia to dispatch massive water bombers and fire fighting specialists to battle the growing inferno around Fort McMurray, Alta. The proposal was made late last week by Vladimir Puchkov, the Russian minister of emergency measures. A spokesman for Russia’s embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said Sunday that they continue to stand “ready to help our Canadian partners to fight the ongoing wildfires in Alberta.”

inferno

Fort McMurray, Alta

Fort McMurray, Alta


Input: Trump also claimed the top American military brass had been “reduced to rubble” and that President Obama’s wrongdoings could be compared to Putin’s. “When he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, OK?” Trump said of the Russian strongman. He also suggested he may purge generals and admirals who disagree with his foreign policy approach, a notion that is likely to rattle the Pentagon, even as commanders know they serve at the pleasure of the president. Commanders are expected to give their best objective military advice and not to be persuaded by the political ramifications of such recommendations. Trump’s decision to praise Putin minutes before criticizing U.S. generals and admirals is likely to draw the ire of the military, which is currently confronting a Russian air campaign on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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Input: But experts told us Trump should n’t bear all the responsibility, as Clinton’s wording suggests, as the majority of bankruptcies happened as the overall casino industry struggled. Clinton:" You even at one time suggested that you would try to negotiate down the national debt of the United States." In two separate interviews in May, Trump suggested that he could do something to negotiate federal debt through "discounting" and that he would "refinance debt" and "buy back debt on — at a discount." But he backtracked after criticism, saying his words had been misinterpreted. We rated Clinton’s claim Mostly True.

negotiate

he


Input: The child has been identified as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, who was injured late on Wednesday in a military strike on the rebel-held Qaterji neighbourhood. ' I filmed the Syrian boy pulled from the rubble-his wasn't a rare case ' Read more The startling image shows him covered head to toe with dust and so disoriented that he seems barely aware of an open wound on his forehead. He was taken to a hospital known as M10 and later discharged. The image is a still from a video filmed and circulated by the Aleppo Media Centre.

wound

him

military strike

the rebel-held Qaterji neighbourhood


Input: The “virtual agent,” which answers questions and carries out basic tasks, is expected to debut at the company's annual developers’ conference. (New York Times) Columbia University is opening a First Amendment War Room, teaming up with the Knight Foundation in a $ 60 million initiative dedicated to expanding the freedom of speech in in the digital age. (New York Times) Republican Senate candidate Jon Keyser submitted the forged signature of a deceased person to get on the ballot, the Colorado Secretary of State announced yesterday, referring the matter to Denver's district attorney. Keyser blames all the forged signatures on an employee hired by a canvassing firm. (Aurora Sentinel) Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) announced that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

deceased


Input: Before that there had been three days of skirmishes between England fans, the police and locals. Concern will now turn to the northern city of Lille, where Russia will play Slovakia on Wednesday before England face Wales in nearby Lens on Thursday. England fans have been officially advised by the authorities to stay away from Lens if they do n’t have a ticket and to head for Lille instead, leading to fears they will again clash with Russia fans. England striker Wayne Rooney is to make a statement on Monday urging fans to be on their best behaviour for the game, with manager Roy Hodgson likely to issue a similar warning on Tuesday. Cazeneuve announced on Sunday that there is to be a ban on alcohol sales and consumption in certain high-risk areas, following the disruption in Marseille.

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authorities

England fans

Lens


Input: Pence clarified that Trump "doesn't particularly like" the way Putin, the Russian president, operates without the same checks and balances that exist in the United States. [Get the latest fact-checking and analysis from the VP debate] Trump regularly praises Putin and has continued to do so while faced with continued criticism for seeming to embrace the Russian leader, a former KGB intelligence officer whose administration has been accused of unfairly jailing and even killing political detractors and journalists. Trump's latest praise came Wednesday night during an NBC candidate forum. [Fact-checking Clinton and Trump in NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum]

accused

administration

unfairly jailing and even killing political detractors and journalists

Russian


Input: Are the Saudis trying to make sure that the candidate of their choice is elected President of the United States this November? Khizr Khan is more than just the father of slain Muslim U.S. serviceman Humayun Khan and the mainstream media’s flavor of the moment in its ongoing efforts to demonize and destroy Donald Trump. As far as the Obama administration and Hillary campaign are concerned, he is a living validation of the success of their strategy against “extremism”: by refusing to identify the enemy as having anything to do with Islam, they draw moderate Muslims to their side and move them to fight against terrorism. By contrast, Trump, in their view, alienates these moderates and drives them into the arms of the terrorists.

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Humayun Khan


Input: A key topic for investigators is how much Mateen's Palestinian-American wife may have known about the plot. An official who was briefed on the case but insisted on anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation said authorities believe 30-year -old U.S.-born Noor Salman knew ahead of time about the attack. Investigators have spoken extensively with her and are working to establish whether she recently accompanied Mateen to the club, said a second official who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. U.S. Attorney Lee Bentley repeatedly refused to say whether charges might be brought against the wife or anyone else. He said authorities are talking to hundreds of people and investigating everyone associated with Mateen, including family, friends and business associates.

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Input: Bahrain Venezuela — Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) October 10, 2016 I've spent lots of time reporting in countries where winners do imprison losing candidates. Believe me, we don't want to go there. — Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) October 10, 2016

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Input: NEW YORK ― Republican nominee Donald Trump cited “freedom of expression” Monday as a potential roadblock in the fight against terrorism, remarks that set a troubling precedent if he’s elected president in November. While speaking about the recent bombings in New York and New Jersey, Trump suggested that press freedom is preventing law enforcement from arresting the publishers of bomb-making instructions. “I see the other day, and they’re all talking about it so wonderfully, because, you know, it’s called freedom of the press, where you buy magazines and they tell you how to make these same bombs that I saw,” Trump said in an interview on on “Fox & Friends.” “Now people will go crazy, they’ll say, ‘Oh Trump is against freedom of the press.’ I’m not against. I’m totally in favor of freedom of the press.

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law enforcement

publishers

bomb-making instructions

New York and New Jersey


Input: Apparently, there is thought to be some good reserves there. And just really go at this in a self interested, smart way. The Russians can only intimidate you if you are dependent upon them."

intimidate

Russians


Input: However, more evidence is emerging that poachers have been passing off elephant tusk ivory as derived from mammoths to get around restrictions currently imposed on elephant tusks. Iris Ho, wildlife program manager at Humane Society International You can sell a mammoth tusk and transport it without any proof of documentation, so you can import and export it very easily. So sellers will ship both elephant and mammoth tusks in the same containers to try and smuggle illegal ivory in with the legal mammoth tusks. Israel has proposed a resolution aiming to curb trade in woolly mammoth tusks that will be voted on at the meeting this month in Johannesburg of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). John Scanlon, secretary-general of CITES The problem is that mammoth ivory gets confused with ivory from endangered elephants.

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containers


Input: Mr. Mueller said that the federal government must act swiftly to prevent such attacks and economic espionage from other countries because they pose a "potentially devastating" threat to the country's businesses and infrastructure." We tend to focus on protecting our databases, protecting our infrastructure, which is absolutely an appropriate focus," he said." But we should not forget that you want to identify these individuals who are responsible for these crimes, investigate them, prosecute them and put them in jail for a substantial period of time." If ISIS is also a cyber threat, then why aren't Democratic superedelegates worried about this terrorist group potentially hacking into Clinton's server? This genuine concern is highlighted in a Fortune article titled For 3 months Hillary Clinton's email access was unencrypted, vulnerable to spies:

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Input: They weren't a secret. This wasn't some nefarious deal." The payment was made on Jan. 17, a day after four imprisoned Americans were freed by Iran and the United Nations lifted sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear weapons programs. The State Department has said that the money was an award from an international tribunal in the Hague to settle a decades-old legal dispute, and the release of the hostages at the same time was coincidental. The "only bit of news" in the payment to Iran is that it was made in cash, Obama said.

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Iran


Input: The group got hold of the emails through a pending legal proceeding against Hillary Clinton. Some might find the 2009 correspondence less than shocking, at least by Washington standards. But the conversations about shared interests and agendas among people who had donated to the foundation underscore existing concerns about Clinton's ethics and transparency. Polls show that doubts about the Democrat's honesty and trustworthiness remain her biggest political albatross. The newly surfaced emails from years ago have been widely reported in the mainstream media and may continue to get substantial coverage (Judicial Watch has promised additional releases).

donated

people

Hillary Clinton


Input: Read Olson’s entire statement on “building resilient communities.” Olson called this meeting and issued her statement ahead of the trial that ended up convicting Fazliddin Kurbanov, a Muslim refugee from Uzbekistan, of conspiring to blow up U.S. military installations with homemade bombs being made in his Boise apartment. An Idaho jury convicted Kurbanov on terror charges in August last year following a 20-day trial and two days of deliberation. Prosecutors also said he tried to provide computer support and money to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which the U.S. government has identified as a terrorist organization. Kurbanov, a Russian-speaking truck driver, is just one of dozens of refugees who have been tried and convicted on terrorism charges.

convicted

jury

Kurbanov

terror charges

Idaho


Input: Some companies that have paid Bill Clinton for speeches have faced scrutiny from federal regulators. Matt McKenna, a spokesman for Bill Clinton, and Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton, declined to comment. Clinton’s income from speaking, unlike that of other former presidents, is detailed in annual public disclosures because his wife has held public office. Both Clintons also give speeches for free. Bill Clinton, for instance, makes frequent visits to the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas — appearances that Skip Rutherford, the school’s dean, called “an Arkansas fringe benefit.”

income

Clinton

Clinton


Input: Burt described his work on behalf of Nord Stream II as, “Making sure the client understands what’s going on in the debate here and providing information to people in the administration on Nord Stream’s views.” “If we want to speak to people in the United States, he helps us set up meetings with people,” said Jens Mueller, a spokesman for the pipeline project, who said the meetings were with “the normal stakeholders involved in the debate: think tanks, embassies.” He said only Burt’s firm is working on the pipeline’s behalf in the United States. The revelation of Burt’s simultaneous lobbying and campaign-advising comes at a time of mounting concerns about Russian attempts to manipulate the presidential election. Private security experts and American intelligence officials have concluded that recent hacks of the Democratic National Committee, state elections systems, and political figures were likely carried out by Russian government hackers. Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly professed admiration for Putin and called into question whether he would honor the United States’ mutual defense obligations to NATO allies should they face Russian invasion.

advising

Burt


Input: The multi-ethnic enclave populated by Armenians and Azerbaijanis has been in political limbo since a conflict between the groups involving tens of thousands of casualties ended in 1994 with the region self-declaring independence. Turkish ally Azerbaijan, however, still claims it as its own, and has not backed off its intention to take back control of the territory. READ MORE: Armenia, Azeri General Staff chiefs agreed Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire in Moscow “I declare for the entire world to hear: there will be no purging or deportation of the Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). We will not allow another Armenian Genocide.

ceasefire

Armenia

Azeri

Moscow


Input: No one should hold their breath thinking that perhaps this is the straw the breaks Hillary’s back and gets her thrown in prison, but again, it goes to the depth of her incompetence and dishonesty which is not befitting one running for President. UrAsia merged with Uranium One and almost immediately the new company began picking up uranium holdings in the United States. The company soon purchased in excess of 38,000 acres of across Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, and other western states as well. Following this large acquisition, Uranium One stated it’s intent on making itself a “powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” reports the New York Times. Between 2008 and 2012, the Clinton Foundation received $ 8.65 million dollars in donations from Uranium One.

purchased

company

Uranium One

38,000 acres


Input: A majority of the dead came from two families wiped out in the airstrikes. The news comes a day after it was revealed that the U.S. has relaxed rules of engagement designed to reduce the risk of civilian casualties as part of its air war against the Islamic State group. According to USA Today, the Pentagon last fall began allowing lower-level commanders to call in airstrikes that threaten to kill innocents and attacks that entail "the probability of 10 civilian casualties are permitted," the paper reported. A U.S .- led coalition began conducting airstrikes against the extremist group in August 2014, a war that has entailed nearly 41,700 missiles being fired and bombs dropped on Iraq and Syria. This month the U.S. also began flying B-52 bombers in Iraq, the first time they have been deployed in the Middle East since the first Gulf War.

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kill innocents


Input: The body said Mr Ali was referred for mental health treatment a year before the alleged murder but that the illness was not mentioned in the court ruling sentencing him to death. In September, the first secretary of Pakistan’s permanent mission to the UN said the government was examining the country’s penal code to determine whether the death penalty could be “narrowed” amid criticism over Mr Ali’s case. More than 400 people have been executed since the government lifted a four-year moratorium on the death penalty in 2014, following the Taliban’s massacre at a school in Peshawar. Capital punishment was initially only restored for terror offences but later reinstated for kidnapping, murder, blasphemy and other capital crimes, leaving more than 8,000 prisoners on death row

executed

government

400 people

death penalty

Pakistan


Input: But it’s starting to creep in that she might have boxed herself in on the issues to such an extent that a retreat will hardly be possible. The global economy is not in stellar shape, global trade growth is sluggish and there is a silent war over whether the West or China will set the rules for the games to come. Much will depend on whether the Obama administration will manage to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal ratified, but if this fails and we are confronted with either a hesitant Clinton or a Donald Trump hostile to trade agreements, things could easily start to go wrong. But for all the questions on Clinton’s vacillations on trade, the policies of a possible Trump administration spark something bordering on outright fear. Some American friends tend to say that the United States is a country with strong institutions, constitutional separation of powers and clear limits on what a president can actually do.

agreements

Clinton

Donald Trump


Input: We traveled together to Haiti as we worked to help that country recover from the devastation of the earthquake. She had a leading role in securing tougher sanctions on Iran. We worked together to successfully overcome obstruction by House Republicans of the funding she requested to improve embassy security around the world. Some of her most important achievements were her steady, methodical efforts, with the President, to help reintroduce America to the world after the diplomatic setbacks under the previous administration. * * *

obstruction

House Republicans

her

the funding she requested

America

Haiti


Input: Clinton still needs them and they should use all the leverage they have to politically diversify the transition team and administration. Senators like Sanders and Warren can send a message to Clinton that they're willing to publicly oppose some of her nearly 1,200 appointments requiring Senate confirmation if she doesn't broaden her transition team and put forth a more politically and socially diverse group of nominees. The progressive movement can make it clear that they will actively oppose a President Clinton if she appoints a corporate centrist administration. The time to act to influence the transition process, and the composition of a potential Clinton administration is now. Once the election is over, it may be too late.

appoints

corporate centrist administration

President Clinton


Input: MOSCOW — Unidentified individuals vandalized Holocaust monuments in Russia and Estonia. The Baltic country’s Jewish community last week reported the drawing of swastikas on the Holocaust monument of the city of Kalevi-Liiva, which lies 10 miles east of the Estonian capital of Tallinn. “It is sad that such incidents are taking place in our country.

vandalized

individuals

Holocaust monuments

swastikas

Russia and Estonia


Input: In fact, the royal court in Riyadh was probably counting on it. It got what it wanted ... Why did Saudi Arabia want this now? Because the kingdom is under pressure: Oil prices, on which the economy depends almost entirely, are plummeting; a thaw in Iranian-American relations threatens to diminish Riyadh's special place in regional politics; the Saudi military is failing in its war in Yemen. In this context, a row with Iran is not a problem so much as an opportunity. The royals in Riyadh most likely believe that it will allow them to stop dissent at home, shore up support among the Sunni majority and bring regional allies to their side.

threatens


Input: At 6.30am this morning WikiLeaks tweeted: ' Julian Assange's internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party ', with conspiracy theorists claiming that it is linked to John Kerry's visit to London to meet Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. WikiLeaks say they ' have activated the appropriate contingency plans ' as they try to restore his internet link. It all began when Anderson paid Assange a visit on Saturday at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been hiding out for more than four years to avoid a rape investigation in his native Sweden. In her hands were two bags from Pret, a popular sandwich shop chain based in the UK. Anderson, an advocate for animals ' rights, later said that she brought Assange ' a nice vegan lunch '.

investigation

Sweden

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rape

Sweden


Input: On July 7, Israel launched a large military operation in the Gaza Strip, dubbed Operation Protective Edge. The Israeli Defense Forces devastated Gaza. For 51 days, Israel bombarded Gaza with more than 6,000 airstrikes. The United Nations Human Rights Council subsequently convened an independent, international commission of inquiry, which concluded that Israel, and to a lesser extent Palestinian armed groups, had likely committed violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, some constituting war crimes. “The scale of the devastation was unprecedented” in Gaza, according to the commission.

bombarded

Israel

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airstrikes

Gaza


Input: He added Democrats may say they are afraid or do not like Trump but deep down they have to love him. “They love him because next to Trump they look like heroes, but next to us, they look like the cowards they are.” A student from DePaul University and organizer with the International Socialist Organization, Sam Piper, addressed the crisis facing students saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of debt from student loans. “Jill Stein is the only candidate in this election, who is willing to abolish student debt and make universities tuition-free.” Stein’s campaign maintains there are 43 million young and “not-so-young people” out there “locked into predatory student loans.” They believe they should be bailed out like Wall Street was bailed out.

addressed

Sam Piper

crisis facing students


Input: — Michael Caputo (@MichaelRCaputo) July 25, 2016 Caputo worked for the Trump campaign until June. Russia's facility with online disruption is established: It reportedly has a vast, sometimes informal operation of people who are employed to wreak havoc online. Last year, the New York Times's Adrian Chen explored the workings of "the Internet Research Agency," as it's known. Hundreds of employees are paid to mix falsehoods with truth on social media to mislead and misinform.

employed

people

wreak havoc online

Russia


Input: Video: UN says Aleppo suffering ' new height of horror ' Meanwhile, Mr Rycroft, Ms Power and French ambassador Francois Delattre walked out of the Security Council when Syria's ambassador was called to speak-in a show of anger and frustration by the West. Syrian rebels had declared the push for peace "futile" after Syrian government and Russian warplanes bombarded Aleppo in the worst surge of violence in the city for years. The 30 rebel groups-including the biggest faction backed by Turkey, Gulf states and the West-said the bombing campaign was "unprecedented", with more than 200 killed in recent days. Efforts to revive such an agreement are now a lost cause unless there is an immediate end to fighting and aid is forthcoming, rebels said.

bombarded

Syrian government and Russian warplanes

Aleppo

bombing campaign

Aleppo


Input: Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: “We came, we saw, he died.”

bombing

NATO


Input: He questioned how the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., would know for certain that the Kremlin leadership was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the emails of Mr. Podesta and Colin L. Powell, one of Mrs. Clinton’s predecessors as secretary of state. The United States has released none of its evidence, so it is unclear if the conclusion was based on an educated guess about Kremlin operations, an “implant” in Russian networks, or a human spy or communications intercept. But it is clear, Mr. Sestanovich said, that Mr. Putin is using this moment of leadership transition to press for any advantage, with methods such as using information warfare techniques on American soil, intimidating Ukraine, and running major military exercises on the border with Norway. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Not surprisingly, some Democrats on the left find all this a bit unnerving.

intimidating

Mr. Putin

Ukraine


Input: The criminal prosecution rhetoric underscores the discomfort many feel with giving Trump — a peevish, resentful narcissist — control over the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA and, of course, the military. Jamie Kirchick argues that the following scenario is not all that far-fetched: Try to imagine, then, a situation in which Trump commanded our military to do something stupid, illegal or irrational. Something so dangerous that it put the lives of Americans and the security of the country at stake. (Trump’s former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio, said the United States could not trust “the nuclear codes” to an “erratic individual.”) Faced with opposition from his military brass, Trump would perhaps reconsider and back down.

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Trump

military


Input: “The response of the past weeks speaks for itself.” On Wednesday, a mortar shell fired from Syria struck the northern Golan Heights. The projectile, the latest of a series of apparently errant rounds to hit Israel in recent days, exploded in an open field near Israel’s border with Syria, causing no casualties or damage, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. It was the sixth such incident this week and came as fighting between President Bashar Assad’s regime and the numerous rebel groups in southern Syria escalated in recent weeks. In response to the incidents, Israeli jets have targeted Syrian regime artillery batteries near the border several times, though there were no reports of any Israeli response in Syria Wednesday.

exploded

Syrian regime artillery batteries

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Syria


Input: Although it’s highly likely Trump would lose a general election, there are no guarantees. Hillary Clinton could be indicted. Terrorists could strike two days before Americans head out to vote. If nothing else, the course of the presidential race so far should instill a healthy modesty in anyone inclined to make blanket assertions about what will happen in six months.

strike

Terrorists


Input: Israeli officials have said they would prioritise tracking the whereabouts of the systems, the position of which in southern Lebanon would pose a potent threat to their air force. The US treasury department sanctioned Badreddine in 2012 for his activities in support of the government of Assad in Syria, along with the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and its head of external operations, Talal Hamiyah. Hezbollah said it would hold funeral services on Friday in honour of Badreddine. In south Beirut, posters of Badreddine, whose image had rarely been published, were being hung from overpasses and lamp-posts. Tens of thousands of mourners are expected to pay their respects at a shrine site for Hezbollah dead, which includes the graves of Imad and Jihad Mughniyah.

funeral

Hezbollah

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Lebanon


Input: And if you believe in the superiority of European culture and white people, then it follows that one of the most important facts you should establish is that you are white yourself. Sometimes these threads are mostly a joke. Much of the alt-right emerged from message boards that highly prize shock value — a joke about a sacred idea or an unspeakable tragedy, something like the recurring line, “The Holocaust did n’t happen, but it should have.” Even people who’ve spent years playing the troll game tell me they often do n’t know whether someone is ironically racist or actually racist. So when someone posts a 23andMe screenshot and asks users to rate his whiteness, it’s meant to be funny, as are comments telling him “gas yourself” because his results show a tiny percentage of Ashkenazi heritage. But sometimes the 23andMe threads devolve into a deep discussion (or a flame war) about what it really means to be white, underscoring what a slippery concept race can be.

Holocaust


Input: Trump, I love you. You’re so incredible. I’m voting for you 100 percent, but could you stop saying you’re going to make our country rich again?” I said, “I understand what you’re saying – it does n’t sound nice. But without being rich again, we ca n’t be great again.” I am going to make our country rich again. We are, the thing I did n’t like about The Washington Post, they did n’t put down my real statements as to Japan and everything else.

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Input: Experts have said that the Guccifer 2.0 persona is acting on behalf of Russia, but it appears mainly to be a conduit of information, and WikiLeaks insists that it has an independent process of vetting the information it receives. The group “has a perfect, decade long record for the accuracy of its vetting process,” a WikiLeaks spokesperson told The Daily Beast, without responding to allegations that it was working to help Russia and Trump. The uncertainty about the site’s allegiances — if any — is unnerving as a steady flow of stolen emails comes from WikiLeaks, including several batches from Podesta’s email that show Clinton spoke more favorably about free trade in paid speeches than she has on the campaign trail. Earlier, the DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks led to the resignation of the committee’s chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and revealed committee staff trying to undermine the campaign of Clinton’s then-rival for the Democratic nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. WikiLeaks has undeniably had an effect on U.S. politics.

paid

Clinton

Clinton


Input: Guns Clinton, pushing for changes to background checks, falsely claimed that the FBI needed “just one more day” to stop Dylann Roof from being able to purchase the handgun that he allegedly used to kill nine people at a church in Charleston, S.C. One more day would n’t have mattered in that case. The FBI director said that clerical errors led to Roof being able to legally purchase the gun in April 2015, and the FBI did n’t confirm that the sale should n’t have been allowed until after the shooting two months later. “Clinton’s ‘Charleston Loophole’ Claim,” Feb. 18 Health Care

shooting

Roof

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Charleston, S.C.


Input: (Yamil Lage / AFP / Getty Images) People carry some of their belongings through rubble in Baracoa. (Ramon Espinosa / AP) A man fixes a roof of a partially built house after the hurricane in Les Cayes, Haiti. (Andres Martinez Casares / Reuters) A girl watches as authorities arrive to evacuate people from her house in Tabarre, Haiti. (Dieu Nalio Chery / AP) A structure lays on the ground after being brought down by the winds of Hurricane Matthew in Leogane, Haiti. (Dieu Nalio Chery / AP) People watch from the other side of the La Digue river as water roars past the destroyed Petit Goave bridge in Petit Goave, Haiti.

evacuate

authorities

house


Input: That relationship, where Russia was delivering astronauts to the space station, has really been now cast aside. So SpaceX is going to be the predominant delivery service. This launch failure, with this explosion of the rocket, is really going to put a real crimp in NASA’s launch program.”

explosion

rocket

launch failure

NASA


Input: And the reality is that, yes, we need third parties. And you know what? I would defend the rights — I mean, I’ve gone to jail, frankly, in multiple states defending people’s rights to participate. I believe there should be third parties. I’ve fought for ranked choice voting.

jail

states

I

jail


Input: And I can tell you that the enthusiasm, and the energy, and the expertise, and the dedication of individuals who are newly-minted CIA officers, is palpable. I enjoy that back-and-forth. It seems like just yesterday that it was close to 36 years ago that I was administered the oath of office here at CIA. The time goes by so quickly. And so what I see is whatever amount of time I have left here at CIA, whether it be one year or 10 years, I want to make sure that the next generation of CIA officers are equipped to deal with the challenges that they will face.

oath

I

office

CIA


Input: Trump Jr. is apparently learning from his father, as making ill-advised comments and then later characterizing them as jokes is something Trump Sr. has repeatedly done. In fact, he did it just this morning in response to controversy generated by a Wednesday news conference where he encouraged Russian hackers to find Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails. Other examples include Trump Sr. saying he was “obviously” just joking when he said he could “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I would n’t lose any voters,” that time he said he was “just having fun” when he called Ted Cruz a “pussy,” and another occasion when he told Megyn Kelly many of the horrible things he’s said about women were just examples of him “kidding.”

shoot

he

somebody

5th Avenue


Input: Since late 2015, the Russian Air Force has systematically targeted ISIS oil convoys thus preventing illegal oil exports that mostly travel through Turkey. Now, due to financial issues, the Islamic State has launched a large-scale cyber crowd funding in Europe which is enabled through 46.000 active ISIS social media users. Our partners from www. SouthFront.org have this exclusive news covered:

exports

ISIS

oil

convoys

Turkey


Input: In March 2014, the 193-member United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring invalid Crimea's Moscow-backed referendum seceding from Ukraine. Analysts say the Kremlin would welcome a Trump victory in November because the wealthy New York businessman has repeatedly praised Putin, spoken of wanting to get along with Russia, and has said he would consider an alliance with Moscow against Islamic State. Trump's suggestion that he might abandon NATO's pledge to automatically defend all member states is also likely to have gone down well in Moscow, where the Western military alliance is cast as an outdated Cold War relic. (Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Moscow and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jonathan Oatis)

pledge

NATO

all member states


Input: The trade deficit with China was $ 367 billion in 2015. In his speech, Trump went on to say that “Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs,” and in a tweet on June 21 he directly linked a rise in the trade deficit to the loss of “millions” of jobs. As our fact-checking colleagues at The Washington Post wrote, “[a] billion dollars of exports is estimated to create about 6,000 jobs.” That’s according to a Commerce Department analysis of U.S. jobs supported by exports. So, if one wanted to run a back-of-the-envelope calculation using that formula, the $ 47 billion increase in the deficit over four years would amount to 282,000 jobs. That’s not “millions.”

exports

U.S.


Input: At a news conference after the meeting, Kirill said the discussions were "open" and "brotherly", while Francis described them as "very sincere"." We hope our meeting contributes to the re-establishment of this unity wished for by God," their joint declaration said. The document called on the world community to defend Christians, saying that "in many countries of the Middle East and North Africa whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated." "Their churches are being barbarously ravaged and looted, their sacred objects profaned, their monuments destroyed." At the scene: BBC's Oleg Boldyrev

exterminated

Christians


Input: REUTERS / Carlo Allegri TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY U.S. President Donald Trump holds up a U.S. Air Force Academy football jersey that was presented to him by team captain Weston Steelhammer during the presentation of the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., May 2, 2017. REUTERS / Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the keynote address at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's "Days of Remembrance" ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, U.S, April 25, 2017. REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. first lady Melania Trump, their son Barron and the Easter Bunny arrive for the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2017. REUTERS / Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE

Holocaust


Input: When somebody warns you “you might make Donald Trump get in,” remember this: if we actually get out all the young people who are in debt, who can go check the Green box and cancel $ 35,000 of debt, who in their right mind is not going to come out? I have yet to meet the person in debt who doesn't become a missionary for our campaign once they learn that that can actually be accomplished. So don't let them intimidate you out of your power. We have the power. It's the only way forward.

intimidate

them

you


Input: 6. It’s unclear what Obama’s next steps are. There is talk of new sanctions against Russia, but an official who works on Russia sanctions told me there has been no order from the White House to develop them. If Obama decides that he does want to go down that path, the White House would also need to issue a new executive order delineating these authorities in order not to dilute the sanctions levied against Russia for invading Ukraine. It may also not wish to mix them in with any potential sanctions for Russia’s activities in Syria, which John Kerry called to be investigated as war crimes.

sanctions

Russia


Input: Photos: Hide Caption 1 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 2 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 3 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 4 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 5 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 6 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 7 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 8 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 9 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 10 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 11 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 12 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 13 of 14 Photos: Hide Caption 14 of 14 The message is one that is warmly received on the streets of Moscow." The key thing about him is his willingness for a breakthrough in relations with Russia, maybe they won't get closer but at least there will be a dialogue," said one man said feet away from the Kremlin. Another added," First of all, Trump is a positive guy and he spoke about Putin in a good way. He wants positive changes in America."

dialogue

they

they


Input: "Upon landing, I have received scores of mostly obscene and sick calls, voicemails and text messages. Please be careful not to allow your children or family members to answer your phone or read incoming text messages." Pelosi also advised House Democrats affected to change their phone numbers, following her lead. The information was published to a WordPress blog along with log-in materials for subscriptions the DCCC uses. A phone call was held Saturday evening for members with the House sergeant-at-arms office, and cybersecurity experts who have been investigating the hack.

advised

Pelosi

House Democrats


Input: How did the text of a CNN-TV One town hall question about the death penalty end up in the hands of the Clinton campaign ahead of time? New evidence on Wednesday suggests that TV One co-host Roland Martin may have been the link from the town hall prep process to the Democratic National Committee. In a hacked email published by Wikileaks, Democratic National Committee official Donna Brazile appeared to tell Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri that "from time to time I get the questions in advance."

death penalty


Input: All week, the G-word has been rattling around the foreign ministries of the world. Ever since John Kerry – he of Israeli-Palestinian peace "in six months" fame – announced that Isis was committing genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims, we’ve been trying to work out just what he’s talking about. Even the poor old Canadians and their super-liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau, have since been refusing to recognise the Isis atrocities as "genocide" – the attempt to exterminate an entire race of people – preferring instead to talk about “crimes perpetrated … against religious and ethnic minorities.” Could this be, ask Canadian critics, because Canada last month withdrew the last of its clapped out CF-18 fighter jets from the battle against Isis? More likely the Canadians have caught on to the whole genocide trap. But first: yes, Isis have indeed committed horrific crimes against minorities under their control.

exterminate

Isis

entire race of people


Input: According to the agreement, the Russian Air Force is considered to be on Syrian territory at the request of the Syrian government, and it shall be allowed to utilize the air base at Hmeimim (Latakia province) and the surrounding infrastructure as necessary. The text of the agreement further states that all arms, ammunition, and equipment necessary to sustain the Russian units shall be imported free of any charge. Russian personnel and their family members are granted diplomatic immunity in the agreement, and all transport means used to ship equipment and ammunition to Syria is to be immune from inspections, searches, or impounding. The agreement also states that the Syrian government will not make any legal claims against the Russian government or the personnel of its armed forces serving in Syrian territory.

granted

agreement

Russian personnel and their family members

Russian personnel and their family members

diplomatic immunity

Syria


Input: It includes large sections on survival techniques and warns that Russia would not hesitate to use military force against its neighbours. Tens of thousands of copies of the 75-page guide have been distributed. The government has also launched a telephone hotline for citizens to report anyone they suspect of being a spy." Every Lithuanian citizen can become a target "of spying, said Darius Jauniskis, the head of the state security department. Russia's relations with its Baltic neighbours have deteriorated since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

telephone

citizens

The government


Input: This includes speaking out against the horrible practice of honor killings, where women are murdered by their relatives for dressing, marrying or acting in a way that violates fundamentalist teachings. Over 1,000 Pakistani girls are estimated to be the victims of honor killings by their relatives each year. Recently, a prominent Pakistani social media star was strangled to death by her brother on the charge of dishonoring the family. In his confession, the brother took pride in the murder and said: “Girls are born to stay home and follow traditions.” Shockingly, this is a practice that has reached our own shores.

strangled

her brother

prominent Pakistani social media star


Input: She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary in 2016 and 2001, and in 2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting. In 2010 she won the Arthur Ross award for international commentary from the Academy of American Diplomacy. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a town hall meeting with members of the Hispanic community the morning after his first debate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Sept. 27, 2016, at Miami Dade College in Miami. Even Trump supporters are bemoaning the fact that the Donald refused to prep sufficiently for the first presidential debate. But his lapse was more than a display intellectual laziness.

meeting

Donald Trump

Hispanic community

Miami Dade College


Input: That was fun. But then my housemate started playing the album regularly, all the while laughing at its corniness. So one night when he was out, the other guy and I took it to the end of the block and threw it into the ocean like a Frisbee. We had peace and quiet for a while. But then our housemate came home with another copy of the album.

threw

the other guy and I

it

ocean


Input: Earlier today, the Erik Wemple Blog spoke with someone wishing to bat down the implications of an email that then-CNN contributor Donna Brazile sent to the Clinton campaign back in March. “From time to time I get the questions in advance,” read the subject line of the email, which was sent on March 12. In the email was a question about the death penalty. The next evening, Clinton faced a question about the death penalty at a CNN-TVOne town hall event at Ohio State University. TVOne host Roland Martin introduced Ricky Jackson, who had been wrongly convicted of murder back in the 1970s, when he was a teenager.

death penalty

email


Input: Some fans walked through the city bare-chested and with blood dripping from head wounds. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said one British citizen was ' ' seriously injured ' ' in the clashes. ' ' Once again, as over the last 30 years, an international football competition has been the scene of clashes between violent people claiming to be supporters of their national team, ' ' Cazeneuve said in a statement. Amid the broken beer bottles and gray clouds of tear gas that filled the air during the afternoon, families and tourists walked around the picturesque port, sometimes forced to skirt around lines of riot police leaning on their shields. Groups of people watched the chaos from the rear decks of two gleaming white yachts.

clashes

people


Input: Video The United Nations said on Thursday that the Islamic State has committed genocide against the Yazidi minority in Iraq and Syria. GENEVA — Islamic State forces have committed genocide and other war crimes in a continuing effort to exterminate the Yazidi religious minority in Syria and Iraq, United Nations investigators said on Thursday, urging stronger international action to halt the killing and to prosecute the terrorist group. The investigators detailed mass killings of Yazidi men and boys who refused to convert to Islam, saying they were shot in the head or their throats were slit, often in front of their families, littering roadsides with corpses. Dozens of mass graves have been uncovered in areas recaptured from Islamic State and are being investigated.

exterminate

Yazidi religious minority

Syria and Iraq


Input: But I would — I would suggest to you what we need to do is assert a stronger leadership at the national level to support law enforcement. You just heard Senator Kaine reject stop-and-frisk. Well, I would suggest to you that the families that live in our inner cities that are besieged by crime — SEN. TIM KAINE: Elaine, let me — let me — ELAINE QUIJANO: Governor, the question was about Senator Scott.

suggest

I

you


Input: The president formally owned nothing, they added, but was able to draw on the wealth of his friends, who now control practically all of Russia’s oil and gas production and industrial resources. Guys, to be honest I am not ready to give comments now Sergei Roldugin In 2014, after Russia seized Crimea, the White House imposed sanctions on leading members of Putin’s circle, including Kovalchuk, citing their close ties to “a senior official of the Russian Federation” – a euphemism for Putin himself. The Panama Papers reveal that the Putin group appeared to have become nervous for unclear reasons after October 2012. Sandalwood was closed down and its operations switched to another offshore entity registered in the BVI, called Ove Financial Corp.

seized

Russia

Crimea

Russia

Crimea

Crimea


Input: Turkey and Armenia have long been at loggerheads over the World War I-era massacre. Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart and have sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide." It's about rendering historical justice, it's an obligation of the entire international community towards the memory of the victims of the genocide," Armenian foreign ministry spokesman, Tigran Balayan, told AFP. He added that recognition is "important for the prevention of genocides in future". Modern Turkey, the successor state to the Ottomans, rejects the claim, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

genocide

Ottoman Empire

victims

genocide

Armenia


Input: Rebels chafed at the restriction, complaining that it left them vulnerable to air attack by Assad and, more recently, Russia. The Plan B proposal envisioned a compromise in which the CIA and its partners would deliver truck-mounted antiaircraft weapons that could help rebel units but would be difficult for a terrorist group to conceal and use against civilian aircraft. As the Russian pounding of Aleppo intensified, horrific images of injured children and destroyed hospitals put new pressure on Obama to authorize expanded weapons shipments to besieged opposition groups. Plan B was raised during a series of weekly White House meetings and was finally put to Obama during an Oct. 14 session with the National Security Council. Carter has for months favored a “doubling down” of the CIA program, officials said, to inflict higher costs on Moscow for its intervention, while opposing using U.S. military force out of worry that it would divert resources from the campaign against the Islamic State.

shipments

Obama

Aleppo


Input: The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem said 27 people lived in the demolished structures, of whom 16 were minors. They all lost their homes in previous demolitions in the same village, its statement said. In April, six EU-funded modular homes were demolished in Umm el-Kheir. B’Tselem said Tuesday morning’s demolitions “demonstrate that the Israeli government continues its policy of destruction of Palestinian communities in favor of expanding [Jewish] settlements, a policy that drew international criticism in a recent Quartet report.” That report by the Middle East Quartet — representatives of the US, UN, EU and Russia — released in early July, accused Israel of undermining a two-state solution by making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to build in Area C, while allowing the expansion of Israeli settlements in the area.

demolished

homes

Umm el-Kheir


Input: The campaign marks the first time the Pentagon has publicly announced that it’s using its own cyberweapons to go after an adversary — previous attacks, like the Stuxnet worm that targeted Iranian nuclear centrifuges, were conducted in secrecy. But as reported by The Washington Post, the operation, which would support the U.S.-led coalition’s airstrike campaign, has gotten off to a slow start, as the Pentagon hires up for the effort and stockpiles weapons to use against the group. Of course, this is a whole lot more detail than Trump was ready or willing to take on in his interview this week. Political analysts, security experts, and even the nominee’s own ghostwriter are wringing their hands over the thought of the lasting, catastrophic damage Trump could inflict with access to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The potential that he’d misuse the government’s secretive stockpile of viruses and malware is only slightly less worrisome.

interview

Trump


Input: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether classified material was mishandled during Clinton's tenure at the State Department from 2009 to 2013. The letter sent by McCullough — who revealed shortly after the probe began in August that two top-secret emails had been found on Clinton's server — was sent days after reports emerged that the FBI was widening its probe into Clinton's emails to determine whether any public-corruption laws were violated during her time at the State Department. The FBI has reportedly been investigating a possible overlap of the Clinton Foundation charity with State Department business, Fox reported earlier this month, citing three unidentified intelligence officials. Facing criticism last year for exclusively using a private server during her time as secretary of state, Clinton handed over about 30,000 work-related emails for the State Department to make public. She deleted about 31,000 more emails she says were personal in nature.

investigating

FBI

Clinton Foundation

public-corruption laws

State Department


Input: The federal interior minister also said the man had twice attempted to take his life and had been in psychiatric treatment. [Deutche Welle] There has been a spate of violence in Germany recently including the mass shooting in Munich, a machete attack and a stabbing on a train. Two of the four incidents, the train stabbing and the nightclub bombing were inspired by IS while the machete and nightclub attacks were carried out by Syrians-one a migrant. How does this play out for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, given her welcoming policy for Syrian refugees which has cost her support in Germany?

stabbing

train


Input: Putin’s popularity among large swathes of Russian society is genuine. He has seduced even elderly and fairly respectable cultural figures who are putting their reputation and legacy on the line to express their respect for the national leader. Trump is a relatively new love object for his followers: none was aware of him until he raised the issue of Barack Obama’s birth certificate in 2011, and most current acolytes saw the light only after his speech about Mexican rapists, which inaugurated his presidential bid. Yet, support for Trump promptly became a cult reminiscent of the love for some strongman in a Third World country. His rightwing supporters have borrowed some tactics from radical terrorist movements such as al Qaeda and ISIS: their attacks on Trump critics are for now mostly restricted to social media, but the hatred they breathe is no less passionate than that of religious fanatics.

inaugurated

presidential bid

Trump


Input: The UK has given £ 1bn in aid toward refugee camps in the countries neighbouring Syria. Mr Hammond brought an offer this week of £ 380,000 for a community policing project being overseen by former British police officers in Zaatari, which is now the fourth largest city in Jordan. But Jordan says it is already hosting 1.27 million refugees and wants to construct more well-made camps like Zaatari. More than 20,000 Syrians are now trapped at Jordan’s border without sanitation or medicine, desperate to enter the country properly as it permits only a trickle to do so. Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour has said there were now grave security concerns about those seeking to come.

construct

Jordan

camps

Zaatari


Input: One Russian spy ring was uncovered operating in Lithuania in December 2014, when an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, known as FSB, was identified as seeking to influence senior Lithuanian government officials. Russian spies and intelligence officers were uncovered in Germany (2015), Poland (2014), the Netherlands (2012) and the United States (2015). “Russia has also repeatedly attempted to acquire U.S. military technology, including an FSB-directed operation in Houston that shipped $ 50 million worth of microelectronics and other sensitive technologies to Russian military and intelligence entities between 1998 and 2012,” the report said. INF TREATY BREACH IGNORED The Obama administration continues to ignore Russia’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

acquire

Russia

$ 50 million

Houston


Input: AAP Bomb blasts have killed more than 100 people in the Syrian coastal cities of Jableh and Tartous, monitors said, in a government-controlled area that hosts Russian forces. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in the Mediterranean cites that have up to now escaped the worst of the conflict, saying it was targeting supporters of President Bashar al-Assad. Scores were wounded in at least five suicide attacks and two car bombs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, the first assaults of their kind in Tartous, where government ally Russia maintains a naval facility, and Jableh.

Bomb

Islamic State

supporters of President Bashar al-Assad

blasts

Jableh and Tartous