Flynn-Russia calls: Republicans join demands for investigation
Leading members of the US Republican Party have joined calls for a wide investigation into the former national security adviser's links with Russia.
Michael Flynn quit on Monday over claims he discussed US sanctions with Russia before Donald Trump took office.
On Tuesday, a White House spokesman said Mr Trump knew weeks ago there were problems with the Russia phone calls.
But calls for an independent investigation have encountered a cold reaction from some senior Republicans.
The development came as the New York Times reported that phone records and intercepted calls show members of Mr Trump's presidential campaign, as well as other Trump associates, "had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election".
When did fascism become so cool? PewDiePie's antics are the thin end of the wedge
A white guy with a net worth of $124m making poor brown people hold up a sign calling for genocide is pure banter, isn’t it?
Like every young star before him, it was inevitable that PewDiePie would seek to separate himself from the clean-cut image through which he found fame.
For Justin Bieber, it was tattoos and car crashes, and for the 27-year-old YouTube star most famous for his video game reviews, it was a series of anti-Semitic jokes – because you know, laughing about the Holocaust is edgy.
In his videos, followed by 53 million subscribers, he has shown swastika fan art, played the Nazi anthem, and given a brief Hitler salute. What a joker. In the most recent video, PewDiePie, real name Felix Kjellberg (because I can’t bear to type out such a stupid YouTube name ever again) reportedly paid two Indians through a crowdfunding website to hold up a sign which read “Death to all Jews”. A white guy with a net worth of $124m (£100m) making poor brown people hold up a sign calling for genocide is pure banter, isn’t it?
China's military progress challenges Western dominance, says IISS
Chinese military technology is reaching "near-parity" with the West, a new report from the London-based think tank IISS has found. Western dominance in advanced military systems can no longer be taken for granted.
China accounted for a third of Asia's military spending in 2016 and was looking to sell more arms abroad, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said in a report on Tuesday.
China's overall defense budget last year was $145 billion (137 billion euros), 1.8 times higher than South Korea and Japan combined. China's spending was topped only by the United States which spent $604.5 billion (572 billion euros) on defense in 2016.
On air power, China "appears to be reaching near-parity with the West," IISS said, adding that Chinese-made drones had been seen in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
The truth about the battle for Aleppo after the information war dust has settled
Louisa Loveluck
The images broadcast from the Syrian city of Aleppo during the government's final push for control last year seemed to tell a clear story:
A little boy in an ambulance, caked in dust and too stunned to cry.
Streets bombed into an eerie urban wasteland.
After months of crippling siege, more than 100,000 people were trapped in the city's rebel-held east during the final months of last year as government bombs rained down on homes and hospitals and troops moved in after four years of trying. The government's victory in Aleppo dealt the heaviest blow yet to Syria's rebels and marked the start of an endgame for the country's bitter war.
Ecuador's elections: Who are the contenders?
Ecuador heads to the polls on Sunday to pick a new president. The incumbent, President Rafael Correa, will not be running again – at least not this time.
On Feb. 19, Ecuadoreans head to the polls for general elections to choose the president and vice president, along with all 137 seats in the country’s unicameral legislature and five representatives to the Andean Congress. An expected presidential runoff is slated for April 2. The country’s National Electoral Council said about 12.8 million of the country’s 16 million citizens will be eligible to vote this year, including some 380,000 expat voters. Voting is mandatory in Ecuador; turnout in the last general elections in 2013 was just over 80 percent.
For the first time in more than a decade, current President Rafael Correa will not be on the ballot. Although Congress did remove term limits in a December 2015 reform package, the new amendment will not go into effect until after the next president is sworn in – a concession Mr. Correa made to congressional opposition leaders in order to get the amendment passed. That said, he’s hinted several times he’d be game to return to the presidential residence. “If they keep bugging me, I’ll run in 2021 and we’ll beat them again,” he said in a year-end radio broadcast.
The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn’s Lie Committed Serious — and Wholly Justified — Felonies
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S NATIONAL security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Monday night as a result of getting caught lying about whether he discussed sanctions in a December telephone call with a Russian diplomat. The only reason the public learned about Flynn’s lie is because someone inside the U.S. government violated the criminal law by leaking the contents of Flynn’s intercepted communications.
In the spectrum of crimes involving the leaking of classified information, publicly revealing the contents of SIGINT — signals intelligence — is one of the most serious felonies. Journalists (and all other nongovernmental citizens) can be prosecuted under federal law for disclosing classified information only under the narrowest circumstances; reflecting how serious SIGINT is considered to be, one of those circumstances includes leaking the contents of intercepted communications, as defined this way by 18 § 798 of the U.S. Code:
Greece defies creditors over more cuts as economy shrinks unexpectedly
Athens’ refusal to further austerity intensifies standoff over €86bn aid package that requires government to implement economic reformsHelena Smith in Athens
The standoff between Greece and its creditors has escalated, with the embattled Athens government vowing it will not give in to demands for further cuts as data showed the country’s economy unexpectedly contracting.
As thousands of protesting farmers rallied in Athens over spiralling costs and unpopular reforms, the Hellenic statistical authority revealed that Greek GDP shrank by 0.4% in the last three months of 2016.
After growth of 0.9% in the previous three-month period the fall was steep and unforeseen. On Monday the European commission announced that the eurozone’s weakest member was on course to achieving a surplus on its budget of 2.3% after exceeding its 2016 fiscal targets “significantly”.
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