Author: Desmond Butler
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Facebook auto-generates videos celebrating extremist images
WASHINGTON — The animated video begins with a photo of the black flags of jihad. Seconds later, it flashes highlights of a year of social media posts: plaques of anti-Semitic verses, talk of retribution and a photo of two men carrying more jihadi flags while they burn the stars and stripes. It wasn’t produced by…
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Trump seethes over Russia probe, calls for end to ‘SPYGATE’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump escalated his efforts to discredit the Russia investigation Wednesday, saying the FBI has been caught in a “MAJOR spy scandal” over their use of a secret informant to determine whether some of Trump’s campaign aides were working with Russia ahead of the 2016 election. “SPYGATE could be one of the…
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FBI didn’t tell US targets as Russian hackers hunted emails
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EDITOR’S NOTE: One in a series of stories on the findings of an Associated Press investigation of the Russian hackers who disrupted the U.S. presidential election in 2016 Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up.…
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Russian-American lobbyist says he was in Trump son’s meeting
WASHINGTON — A Russian-American lobbyist says he attended a June 2016 meeting with President Donald Trump’s son that was billed as part of a Russian government effort to help the Republican campaign. Rinat Akhmetshin confirmed his participation to The Associated Press Friday. His disclosure marks another shift in the account of the meeting. Donald Trump Jr. did not…
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U.S. firm in Iraq ignores smuggling, security risks for F-16s
WASHINGTON — The two American investigators felt a sense of foreboding that Sunday as they headed to an emergency meeting with their boss on the Iraqi air base. But they didn’t expect to be surrounded by armed guards, disarmed, detained against their will — and fired without explanation. It was March 12 — less than…
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3 face charges in Turkey mine disaster amid anger
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save ISTANBUL — In the face of widespread anger over Turkey’s worst mining disaster, prosecutors arrested three people, including a company manager, on charges of negligence Sunday. The three were also accused of causing the death…
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Political messages penned for Cuba Twitter program
WASHINGTON — Draft messages produced for a Twitter-like social media network that the U.S. government secretly built in Cuba were overtly political and some taunted the Castro family. The Associated Press obtained the messages in internal documents from the program. The new disclosures came as the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development told…
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US secretly created ‘Cuban Twitter’ to stir unrest
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WASHINGTON — In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba’s communist government. McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their mission:…
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Obama calls nuclear strategy ‘significant step’
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to constrain the use of the nation’s Cold War-era nuclear arsenal, part of a bold but politically risky move aimed at discouraging nuclear technology from spreading. Obama’s plan, a sharp departure from his predecessor’s policy, is a bid to play down the threat posed by nations like…
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Obama, Medvedev to meet on nuclear arms
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say that negotiations with Russia to replace an expired Cold War-era arms control treaty are unlikely to conclude by the end of the year as the White House had hoped. As the two sides seek a breakthrough, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev plan to discuss the nuclear…