United Kingdom

J.J. Singleton: I dunno know what to do with this guy, Henry. He’s an Irishman who doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and doesn’t chase dames. He’s a grand knight in the Knights of Columbus, and he only goes out to play faro. Sometimes plays 15 or 20 hours at a time, just him against the house.

Henry Gondorff: Roulette? Craps?

J.J. Singleton: He won’t touch ’em. The croupier at Gilman’s says he never plays anything he can’t win.

Henry Gondorff: Sports?

J.J. Singleton: Likes to be seen with fighters sometimes, but he doesn’t go to the fights or bet on ’em.

Henry Gondorff: Jesus. Does he do anything where he’s not alone?

J.J. Singleton: Just poker. And he cheats. Pretty good at it, too.

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Democrats intentionally used disinformation from Russia to attack Trump, campaign aides

By Rowan Scarborough – The Washington Times – Tuesday, July 11, 2017

While the mainstream news media hunts for evidence of Trump–Russia collusion, the public record shows that Democrats have willfully used Moscow disinformation to influence the presidential election against Donald Trumpand attack his administration.

The disinformation came in the form of a Russian-fed dossier written by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. It contains a series of unverified criminal charges against Mr. Trump’s campaign aides, such as coordinating Moscow’s hacking of Democratic Party computers.

Some Democrats have widely circulated the discredited information. Mr. Steele was paid by the Democrat-funded opposition research firm Fusion GPS with money from a Hillary Clinton backer. Fusion GPS distributed the dossier among Democrats and journalists. The information fell into the hands of the FBI, which used it in part to investigate Mr. Trump’s campaign aides.

Mr. Steele makes clear that his unproven charges came almost exclusively from sources linked to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He identified his sources as “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure,” a former “top level Russian intelligence officer active inside the Kremlin,” a “senior Kremlin official” and a “senior Russian government official.”

The same Democrats who have condemned Russia’s election interference via plying fake news and hacking email servers have quoted freely from the Steele anti-Trump memos derived from creatures of the Kremlin.

In other words, there is public evidence of significant, indirect collusion between Democrats and Russian disinformation, a Trump supporter said.

“If anyone colluded with the Russians, it was the Democrats,” said a former Trump campaign adviser who asked not to be identified because of the pending investigations. “After all, they’ve routinely shopped around false claims from the debunked Steele dossier, which listed sources including senior Kremlin officials. If anyone should be investigated in Washington, it ought to be Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Mark Warner and their staffers.”

That is a reference to Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Sen. Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; and Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California, Democrat on the House intelligence panel.

By his own admission, Mr. Steele’s work has proved unreliable.

As first reported by The Washington Times on April 25, Mr. Steele filed a document in a sealed court case in Londonacknowledging that a major dossier charge about hacking Democrats’ computers was unverified. The entire dossier never should have been made public and Fusion GPS should not have passed it around, Mr. Steele said in a filing defending himself against a libel charge.

About Carter Page

Other dossier targets vehemently deny the dirt thrown by the Kremlin sources.

Mr. Steele’s Russian sources accused Mr. Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, of attending a meeting with Russian agents in Prague to cover up their role in Moscow’s hacking. Mr. Cohen has said he has never been to Prague and was in California at the time.

One of the main targets of Mr. Steele’s Russian sources is Carter Page, who lived and worked in Moscow as a Merrill Lynch investor. He had loose ties to the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser and surrogate.

Mr. Steele’s Russian sources accused Mr. Page of a series of crimes: teaming up with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to help Russia hack Democratic computers, meeting in Moscow with two Putin cronies to plot against Mrs. Clinton and working out a shady brokerage deal with a Russian oligarch.

Mr. Page told The Washington Times that he has never met Mr. Manafort, knew nothing about Russian hacking when it was happening, never met the two Russians named by Mr. Steele and never completed the supposed investment deal.

The dossier accusations against Mr. Page surfaced during the campaign in a Yahoo News story, citing not Mr. Steelebut intelligence sources. It then went out on the U.S. government’s Voice of America.

In the meantime, the Clinton campaign used the Yahoo story to attack Mr. Trump: “Hillary for America Statement on Bombshell Report About Trump Aide’s Chilling Ties to Kremlin,” blared the Clinton campaign’s Sept. 23 press release.

Since the dossier was circulated widely among Democrats, Mr. Page said, he believes the Clinton team possessed it and relied on it based on what some of Mrs. Clinton’s surrogates said publicly.

“After the report by Yahoo News, the Clinton campaign put out an equally false press release just minutes after the article was released that afternoon,” said Mr. Page, who has tracked what he believes is a series of inaccurate stories and accusations against him.

“Of course, the [Clinton campaign representatives] were lying about it with the media nonstop for many months, and they’ve continued until this day,” Mr. Page said. “Both indirectly as they planted articles in the press and directly with many TV appearances.”

Democrats cite Russia’s dirt

Even before the Yahoo story, then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, was using the Russian-sourced dossier.

On Aug. 27, with the campaign in high gear and knowledge that Russian hackers had penetrated Clinton campaign computers in the public domain, Mr. Reid released a letter to then-FBI Director James B. Comey.

Mr. Reid called for an investigation into Mr. Page’s trip to Moscow, where he supposedly “met with high-ranking sanctioned individuals. Any such meetings should be investigated and made part of the public record.”

Mr. Reid’s evidence surely came from the dossier and its Russian sources.

In the dossier, Mr. Steele clearly states that his anti-Trump accusations are from the Kremlin, which means some Democrats have been willingly repeating Moscow propaganda for public consumption in Washington.

No Democrats have embraced the Russian-sourced dossier more than members of the House intelligence committee, which is investigating Moscow’s interference in the election.

Mr. Schiff read from the dossier extensively at a March hearing featuring Mr. Comey and Navy Adm. Michael Rogers, who leads the National Security Agency.

As Mr. Schiff and other Democrats were bemoaning Kremlin activities against Mrs. Clinton, they were more than willing to quote Kremlin sources attacking Mr. Trump during the election campaign.

Mr. Schiff lauded Mr. Steele for disclosing that Rosneft, a Russian-owned gas and oil company, planned to sell a 19.5 percent share to an investor and that Mr. Page was offered a brokerage fee.

Trouble is, the 19.5 percent share was announced publicly by Moscow before Mr. Steele wrote that memo. Mr. Page said he was never involved in any talk about a commission.

Mr. Schiff was more than willing to quote Kremlin sources.

“According to Steele’s Russian sources, the campaign has offered documents damaging to Hillary Clinton, which the Russians would publish through an outlet that gives them deniability like WikiLeaks,” he said.

Mr. Schiff also said: “According to Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. intelligence, Russian sources tell him that Page has also had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin, CEO of the Russian gas giant, Rosneft. Sechin is reported to be a former KGB agent and close friend of Putin’s.”

Mr. Page has said repeatedly that he does not know Mr. Sechin and did not meet with him in Moscow.

Meanwhile, Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, another Democrat on the House committee, lauded Mr. Steele’s Kremlin sourcing.

“I want to take a moment to turn to the Christopher Steele dossier, which was first mentioned in the media just before the election and published in full by media outlets in January,” Mr. Castro said. “My focus today is to explore how many claims within Steele’s dossier are looking more and more likely, as though they are accurate.

“This is not someone who doesn’t know how to run a source and not someone without contacts. The allegations it raises about President Trump’s campaign aides’ connections to Russians, when overlaid with known established facts and timelines from the 2016 campaign, are very revealing,” he said.

Rep. Andre Carson, Indiana Democrat, said: “There’s a lot in the dossier that is yet to be proven, but increasingly as we’ll hear throughout the day, allegations are checking out.”

On MSNBC in March, Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, said she believed the dossier section on Mr. Trumpand supposed sex acts with prostitutes in Moscow were true.

“Oh, I think it should be taken a look at,” she said. “I think they should really read it, understand it, analyze it and determine what’s fact, what may not be fact. We already know that the part about the coverage that they have on him with sex actions is supposed to be true. They have said that that’s absolutely true. Some other things they kind of allude to. Yes, I think he should go into that dossier and see what’s there.”

Fusion GPS widely circulated the dossier during the presidential race. The public got its first glance when the news site BuzzFeed posted it online in January, with its editor saying he doubted it was true.

One person who says he knows it is a fabrication is Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev.

The dossier quotes Russian sources as saying Mr. Gubarev’s technology company, XBT, used botnets to flood Democratic computers with porn and spying devices.

Mr. Gubarev is suing Mr. Steele for libel in London and is suing BuzzFeed in Florida.

It is in the London case that Mr. Steele acknowledged that his memo on Mr. Gubarev was unverified.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/11/democrats-spread-false-russian-information-on-trum/

The Trump Dossier Is Fake — And Here Are The Reasons Why

Paul Roderick Gregory ,

CONTRIBUTOR

A former British intelligence officer, who is now a director of a London private security-and-investigations firm, has been identified as the author of the dossier of unverified allegations about President-elect Donald Trump’s activities and connections in Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Christopher Steele, a director of London-based private intelligence company, Orbis, purportedly prepared the dossier under contract to both Republican and Democratic adversaries of then-candidate Trump. The poor grammar and shaky spelling plus the author’s use of KGB-style intelligence reporting, however, do not fit the image of a high-end London security company run by highly connected former British intelligence figures.

The PDF file of the 30-page typewritten report alleges that high Kremlin officials colluded with Trump, offered him multi-billion dollar bribes, and accumulated compromising evidence of Trump’s sexual escapades in Russia. That the dossier comes from former British intelligence officers appears, at first glance, to give it weight especially with Orbis’ claim of a “global network.” The U.S. intelligence community purportedly has examined the allegations but have not confirmed any of them. We can wait till hell freezes over. The material is not verifiable.

President-elect Trump has dismissed the dossier’s contents as false as has the Kremlin. Trump is right: The Orbis dossier is fake news.

I have studied Russia and the Soviet Union professionally since the mid-1960s. I have visited Russia as a scholar, as the head of a multi-year petroleum legislation project, and as a business consultant close to one hundred times. My first visit was in 1965 shortly after Nikita Khrushchev’s removal. I have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in Russia, and I follow the Russian press regularly. I personally witnessed the creation in the early 90s of Russia’s giant energy concerns in the offices of the oil minister. I met with St. Petersburg officials in the early 90s but do not remember meeting then deputy mayor, Vladimir Putin. I have written and co-authored reports for the State Department, Congress, and the intelligence community; so I sort of know how these things work.

With the brief exception of the early to late 1990s, Russia has had a non-transparent system of rule that deliberately reveals little about itself. Both insiders and outsiders must look for subtle signs and signals. Russians and Russian experts are gossip junkies. They recite their tales of who is up and who is down to those foolish enough to listen. Outside researchers must grasp for flimsy straws to write their scholarly articles and books. Despite the greater openness of contemporary Russia, we are back to Kremlinology to learn how Putin’s kleptocracy works.

The Orbis report makes as if it knows all the ins-and-outs and comings-and-goings within Putin’s impenetrable Kremlin. It reports information from anonymous “trusted compatriots,” “knowledgeable sources,” “former intelligence officers,” and “ministry of foreign affairs officials.” The report gives a fly-on-the-wall account of just about every conceivable event associated with Donald Trump’s Russian connections. It claims to know more than is knowable as it recounts sordid tales of prostitutes, “golden showers,” bribes, squabbles in Putin’s inner circle, and who controls the dossiers of kompromat (compromising information).

There are two possible explanations for the fly-on-the-wall claims of the Orbis report: Either its author (who is not Mr. Steele) decided to write fiction, or collected enough gossip to fill a 30-page report, or a combination of the two. The author of the Orbis report has one more advantage: He knew that what he was writing was unverifiable. He advertises himself as the only Kremlin outsider with enough “reliable” contacts to explain what is really going within Putin’s office.

As someone who has worked for more than a decade with the microfilm collection of Soviet documents in the Hoover Institution Archives, I can say that the dossier itself was compiled by a Russian, whose command of English is far from perfect and who follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy reference. The report includes Putin’s inner circle – Peskov, Ivanov, Sechin, Lavrov. The anonymous author claims to have “trusted compatriots” who knew the roles that each Kremlin insider, including Putin himself, played in the Trump election saga and were prepared to tell him.

The Orbis report spins the tale of Putin insiders, spurred on by Putin himself, engaging in a five-year courtship of Donald Trump in which they offer him lucrative real estate deals that he rejects but leaves himself open to blackmail as a result of sexual escapades with prostitutes in St. Petersburg and Moscow (the famous “golden shower” incident). Despite his reluctance to enter into lucrative business deals, Trump “and his inner circle have accepted regular intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals,” according to the Orbis report.

This story makes no sense. In 2011, when the courtship purportedly begins, Trump was a TV personality and beauty pageant impresario. Neither in the U.S. or Russia would anyone of authority anticipate that Trump would one day become the presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party, making him the target of Russian intelligence.

The Orbis report claims, that as the election neared (July 2016), Igor Sechin, Putin’s right-hand man and CEO of Rosneft (Russia’s national oil company) offered Trump a deal that defies belief. I quote:

“Speaking to a trusted compatriot in mid-October 2015, a close associate of Rosneft President and PUTIN ally Igor SECHIN elaborated on the reported secret meeting between the latter and Carter PAGE, of US Republican presidential candidate’s foreign policy team, in Moscow in July 2016. The secret had been confirmed to him/her by a senior member of staff, in addition to the Rosneft President himself…Sechin’s associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate Western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.”

This story is utter nonsense, not worthy of a wacky conspiracy theory of an alien invasion.

To offer Trump either the entirety of, or a brokerage commission on, the market value of 19.5% of Rosneft shares—even a 6 percent commission on $12 billion worth of Rosneft shares would amount to an astonishing $720 million—would deplete the cash that Putin desperately needed for military spending and budget deficits, all in return for a promise to lift sanctions if—and what a big “if”—Trump were elected. Rosneft, as a public company, would have to conceal that the U.S. president was a party to this major transaction. This remarkable secret-of-secrets seems to be bandied about to an Orbis “trusted compatriot,” a senior member of Sechin’s staff, and disclosed by Sechin himself. I guess there are a lot of loose lips in Rosneft offices.

The story of the purported bribe was picked up by the Russian liberal press directly from the Orbis report without comment but with a big question marks in the title “A 10.5 billion Euro bribe? Putin and Sechin gifted Trump 19.5% of Rosneft shares? This story has given Putin’s weak opposition the chance to accuse him of wasting national treasure on a stupid bribe.

The huge bribe for (perhaps) lifting the sanctions makes Nikita Khrushchev’s hare-brained schemes—for which he was fired—look eminently reasonable.

One of the few verifiable facts in the Orbis report is the key role played by Trump’s “personal lawyer” Michael Cohen. Cohen purportedly took over the negotiation of the Sechin deal, and, when the Kremlin got cold feet over its hacking campaign, it turned to Cohen to cover up the operation, meet with the Kremlin’s Presidential Administration, and make illicit payments to shut up and move the hackers to Bulgaria. A key meeting was held in Prague in August of 2016 with Cohen accompanied by three colleagues. The meetings took place in the offices of a Russian quasi-state organization, Rossotrudnichestvo.

Cohen has denied any such meetings with the Kremlin Presidential administration and claims never to have visited Prague. According to the Orbis report, Cohen engaged in potential criminal activities, such as illicit payoffs to hackers and the buying of their silence. I doubt that he will let such accusations pass.

Another noteworthy claim of the Orbis report is that Vladimir Putin personally directed Russia’s intervention in the 2016 campaign: “The TRUMP operation was both supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Its aim was to sow discord both within the U.S. itself, but more especially within the Transatlantic alliance.” The Orbis report claims that Putin personally controlled the dossier compiled on Hillary Clinton and held by his spokesperson, Peskov. He ordered that any disposition of the Clinton file would be decided by him personally.

I have picked out just a few excerpts from the Orbis report. It was written, in my opinion, not by an ex British intelligence officer but by a Russian trained in the KGB tradition. It is full of names, dates, meetings, quarrels, and events that are hearsay (one an overheard conversation). It is a collection of “this important person” said this to “another important person.” There is no record; no informant is identified by name or by more than a generic title. The report appears to fail the veracity test in the one instance of a purported meeting in which names, dates, and location are provided. Some of the stories are so bizarre (the Rosneft bribe) that they fail the laugh test. Yet, there appears to be a desire on the part of some media and Trump opponents on both sides of the aisle to picture the Orbis report as genuine but unverifiable.

After reading the Orbis report I got the queasy feeling that it may have influenced the intelligence community’s unclassified report. Leaks of classified bits by NBCNews and the Washington Post suggest the findings were, in part, based on British intelligence and spies. I wonder if the reference is to Putin’s role, which the intelligence report characterized as direct. This is a matter the new administration must look into.

We have reached a sad state of affairs where an anonymous report, full of bizarre statements, captures the attention of the world media because it casts a shadow over the legitimacy of a President-elect, who has not even taken the oath of office. For example, the Trump dossier is tonight’s lead item on German state television and on BBC. False news has become America’s international export to the world media.

UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect the dual possibility that Trump was offered the brokerage commission of, or the entire value of, 19.5 percent of Rosneft shares.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/01/13/the-trump-dossier-is-false-news-and-heres-why/#3de6e2956867

Researchers say they’ve uncovered a disinformation campaign with apparent Russian link

By David Filipov May 25

MOSCOW — Researchers have discovered an extensive international hacking campaign that steals documents from its targets, carefully modifies them and repackages them as disinformation aimed at undermining civil society and democratic institutions, according to a study released Thursday.The investigators say the campaign shows clear signs of a Russian link.Although the study by the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto does not demonstrate a direct tie to the Kremlin, it suggests that the attackers are aiming to discredit the Kremlin’s opponents. The report also demonstrates overlap with cyberattacks used in the U.S. and French presidential elections, which American and European intelligence agencies and cybersecurity companies have attributed to hacking groups affiliated with the Russian government.

The campaign has targeted more than 200 government officials, military leaders and diplomats from 39 countries, as well as journalists, activists, a former Russian prime minister and a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, according to the report. The attackers seek to hack into email accounts using phishing techniques, steal documents and slightly alter them while retaining the appearance of authenticity. These forgeries, which the researchers have dubbed “tainted leaks,” are then released along with unaltered documents and publicized as legitimate leaks.

“Tainted leaks plant fakes in a forest of facts in an attempt to make them credible by association with genuine, stolen documents,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. “Tainted leaks are a clever and concerning tool for spreading falsehoods. We expect to see many more of them in the future.”

The study details the hack in October of the email log-in details of David Satter, a renowned Kremlin critic who in 2016 published a book that links Putin’s rise to power with a series of deadly apartment bombings in Russia in 1999.

Hackers were able to access Satter’s emails when he clicked on what appeared to be a legitimate link, an attack that the study found to be technically similar to the 2016 breach of the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian intelligence agencies carried out hacks against the Democratic Party on Putin’s orders, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

In studying Satter’s case, the Citizen Lab investigators developed a technique to identify the other phishing links that were being sent as part of the same operation.

[ Declassified report says Putin ‘ordered’ effort to undermine U.S. election and help Trump ]

The study describes how the pro-Russian hacking group CyberBerkut posted Satter’s emails, some of them carefully altered to create a false narrative of a U.S. government plot to plant negative articles about Putin’s regime in the Russian media. These forgeries were then reported by Russia’s state news agency as evidence of a CIA plot to support a “color revolution” in Russia.

The narrative supports a consistent theme of pro-Putin media: that Russia suffers not because of its leadership’s refusal to loosen its grip on power, but because of constant meddling in Russian affairs by the United States and its European proxies.

“The motivations behind Russian cyberespionage are as much about securing Putin’s kleptocracy as they are geopolitical competition,” said Ronald Deibert, professor of political science and director of the Citizen Lab. “This means journalists, activists and opposition figures — both domestically and abroad — bear a disproportionate burden of their targeting.”

Mark Galeotti, who studies Russia’s power structures as a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, called the use of tainted leaks “a step forward in Russia’s use of hacking as a weapon of political subversion.”

“In the case of the [Democratic National Committee] hacks, they leaked secret but real messages,” Galeotti said.

Galeotti said that “tainted leaks” are more likely to be used for domestic consumption, where the Kremlin is starting to feel the pressure from scattered, grass-roots protests, epitomized by the anti-corruption campaign of Alexei Navalny.

“While we’re not talking about the kind of critical mass likely to pose a challenge to Putin’s carefully orchestrated reelection in 2018, there is clearly a growing, generalized dissatisfaction across the country,” Galeotti said. “The attempts to paint Navalny and other critics as pawns of Western subversion suggest a degree of worry, even desperation.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/researchers-say-theyve-discovereda-global-disinformation-campaign-with-a-russian-link/2017/05/25/9a9637f6-414e-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html?utm_term=.42c3d4956d15

A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories

By NEIL Mac FARQUHAR AUG. 28, 2016

Unidentified soldiers overran Crimea in March 2014. Russia reclaimed the territory from Ukraine, and President Vladimir V. Putin later admitted that the troops were Russian special forces.CreditSergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

STOCKHOLM — With a vigorous national debate underway on whether Sweden should enter a military partnership with NATO, officials in Stockholm suddenly encountered an unsettling problem: a flood of distorted and outright false information on social media, confusing public perceptions of the issue.

The claims were alarming: If Sweden, a non-NATO member, signed the deal, the alliance would stockpile secret nuclear weapons on Swedish soil; NATO could attack Russia from Sweden without government approval; NATO soldiers, immune from prosecution, could rape Swedish women without fear of criminal charges.

They were all false, but the disinformation had begun spilling into the traditional news media, and as the defense minister, Peter Hultqvist, traveled the country to promote the pact in speeches and town hall meetings, he was repeatedly grilled about the bogus stories.

“People were not used to it, and they got scared, asking what can be believed, what should be believed?” said Marinette Nyh Radebo, Mr. Hultqvist’s spokeswoman.

As often happens in such cases, Swedish officials were never able to pin down the source of the false reports. But they, numerous analysts and experts in American and European intelligence point to Russia as the prime suspect, noting that preventing NATO expansion is a centerpiece of the foreign policy of President Vladimir V. Putin, who invaded Georgia in 2008 largely to forestall that possibility.

In Crimea, eastern Ukraine and now Syria, Mr. Putin has flaunted a modernized and more muscular military. But he lacks the economic strength and overall might to openly confront NATO, the European Union or the United States. Instead, he has invested heavily in a program of “weaponized” information, using a variety of means to sow doubt and division. The goal is to weaken cohesion among member states, stir discord in their domestic politics and blunt opposition to Russia.

“Moscow views world affairs as a system of special operations, and very sincerely believes that it itself is an object of Western special operations,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, who helped establish the Kremlin’s information machine before 2008. “I am sure that there are a lot of centers, some linked to the state, that are involved in inventing these kinds of fake stories.”

The planting of false stories is nothing new; the Soviet Union devoted considerable resources to that during the ideological battles of the Cold War. Now, though, disinformation is regarded as an important aspect of Russian military doctrine, and it is being directed at political debates in target countries with far greater sophistication and volume than in the past.

The flow of misleading and inaccurate stories is so strong that both NATO and the European Union have established special offices to identify and refute disinformation, particularly claims emanating from Russia.

The Kremlin’s clandestine methods have surfaced in the United States, too, American officials say, identifying Russian intelligence as the likely source of leaked Democratic National Committee emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Kremlin uses both conventional media — Sputnik, a news agency, and RT, a television outlet — and covert channels, as in Sweden, that are almost always untraceable.

Russia exploits both approaches in a comprehensive assault, Wilhelm Unge, a spokesman for the Swedish Security Service, said this year when presenting the agency’s annual report. “We mean everything from internet trolls to propaganda and misinformation spread by media companies like RT and Sputnik,” he said.

The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events — even the very idea that there is a true version of events — and foster a kind of policy paralysis.

Disinformation most famously succeeded in early 2014 with the initial obfuscation about deploying Russian forces to seize Crimea. That summer, Russia pumped out a dizzying array of theories about the destruction of Malaysia Airlines F light 17 over Ukraine, blaming the C.I.A. and, most outlandishly, Ukrainian fighter pilots who had mistaken the airliner for the Russian presidential aircraft.

The cloud of stories helped veil the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the plane with a missile supplied by Russia.

Moscow adamantly denies using disinformation to influence Western public opinion and tends to label accusations of either overt or covert threats as “Russophobia.”

“There is an impression that, like in a good orchestra, many Western countries every day accuse Russia of threatening someone,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a recent ministry briefing.

Tracing individual strands of disinformation is difficult, but in Sweden and elsewhere, experts have detected a characteristic pattern that they tie to Kremlin-generated disinformation campaigns.

“The dynamic is always the same: It originates somewhere in Russia, on Russia state media sites, or different websites or somewhere in that kind of context,” said Anders Lindberg, a Swedish journalist and lawyer.

“Then the fake document becomes the source of a news story distributed on far-left or far-right-wing websites,” he said. “Those who rely on those sites for news link to the story, and it spreads. Nobody can say where they come from, but they end up as key issues in a security policy decision.”

Although the topics may vary, the goal is the same, Mr. Lindberg and others suggested. “What the Russians are doing is building narratives; they are not building facts,” he said. “The underlying narrative is, ‘Don’t trust anyone.’”

The weaponization of information is not some project devised by a Kremlin policy expert but is an integral part of Russian military doctrine — what some senior military figures call a “decisive” battlefront.

“The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness,” Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces, wrote in 2013.

A prime Kremlin target is Europe, where the rise of the populist right and declining support for the European Union create an ever more receptive audience for Russia’s conservative, nationalistic and authoritarian approach under Mr. Putin. Last year, the European Parliament accused Russia of “financing radical and extremist parties” in its member states, and in 2014 the Kremlin extended an $11.7 million loan to the National Front, the extreme-right party in France.

“The Russians are very good at courting everyone who has a grudge with liberal democracy, and that goes from extreme right to extreme left,” said Patrik Oksanen, an editorial writer for the Swedish newspaper group MittMedia. The central idea, he said, is that “liberal democracy is corrupt, inefficient, chaotic and, ultimately, not democratic.”

Another message, largely unstated, is that European governments lack the competence to deal with the crises they face, particularly immigration and terrorism, and that their officials are all American puppets.

In Germany, concerns over immigrant violence grew after a 13-year-old Russian-German girl said she had been raped by migrants. A report on Russian state television furthered the story. Even after the police debunked the claim, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, continued to chastise Germany.

In Britain, analysts said, the Kremlin’s English-language news outlets heavily favored the campaign for the country to leave the European Union, despite their claims of objectivity.

In the Czech Republic, alarming, sensational stories portraying the United States, the European Union and immigrants as villains appear daily across a cluster of about 40 pro-Russia websites.

During NATO military exercises in early June, articles on the websites suggested that Washington controlled Europe through the alliance, with Germany as its local sheriff. Echoing the disinformation that appeared in Sweden, the reports said NATO planned to store nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe and would attack Russia from there without seeking approval from local capitals.

A poll this summer by European Values, a think tank in Prague, found that 51 percent of Czechs viewed the United States’ role in Europe negatively, that only 32 percent viewed the European Union positively and that at least a quarter believed some elements of the disinformation.

“The data show how public opinion is changing thanks to the disinformation on those outlets,” said Jakub Janda, the think tank’s deputy director for public and political affairs. “They try to look like a regular media outlet even if they have a hidden agenda.”

Not all Russian disinformation efforts succeed. Sputnik news websites in various Scandinavian languages failed to attract enough readers and were closed after less than a year.

Both RT and Sputnik portray themselves as independent, alternative voices. Sputnik claims that it “tells the untold,” even if its daily report relies heavily on articles abridged from other sources. RT trumpets the slogan “Question More.”

Both depict the West as grim, divided, brutal, decadent, overrun with violent immigrants and unstable. “They want to give a picture of Europe as some sort of continent that is collapsing,” Mr. Hultqvist, the Swedish defense minister, said in an interview.

RT often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish. On the day President Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention, for example, it emphasized scattered demonstrations rather than the speeches. It defends the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, as an underdog maligned by the established news media.

Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor in chief, said the channel was being singled out as a threat because it offered a different narrative from “the Anglo-American media-political establishment.” RT, she said, wants to provide “a perspective otherwise missing from the mainstream media echo chamber.”

Moscow’s targeting of the West with disinformation dates to a Cold War program the Soviets called “active measures.” The effort involved leaking or even writing stories for sympathetic newspapers in India and hoping that they would be picked up in the West, said Professor Mark N. Kramer, a Cold War expert at Harvard.

The story that AIDS was a C.I.A. project run amok spread that way, and it poisons the discussion of the disease decades later. At the time, before the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, the Kremlin was selling communism as an ideological alternative. Now, experts said, the ideological component has evaporated, but the goal of weakening adversaries remains.

In Sweden recently, that has meant a series of bizarre forged letters and news articles about NATO and linked to Russia.

One forgery, on Defense Ministry letterhead over Mr. Hultqvist’s signature, encouraged a major Swedish firm to sell artillery to Ukraine, a move that would be illegal in Sweden. Ms. Nyh Radebo, his spokeswoman, put an end to that story in Sweden, but at international conferences, Mr. Hultqvist still faced questions about the nonexistent sales.

Russia also made at least one overt attempt to influence the debate. During a seminar in the spring, Vladimir Kozin, a senior adviser to the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank linked to the Kremlin and Russian foreign intelligence, argued against any change in Sweden’s neutral status.

“Do they really need to lose their neutral status?” he said of the Swedes. “To permit fielding new U.S. military bases on their territory and to send their national troops to take part in dubious regional conflicts?”

Whatever the method or message, Russia clearly wants to win any information war, as Dmitry Kiselyev, Russia’s most famous television anchor and the director of the organization that runs Sputnik, made clear recently.

Speaking this summer on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Information Bureau, Mr. Kiselyev said the age of neutral journalism was over. “If we do propaganda, then you do propaganda, too,” he said, directing his message to Western journalists.

“Today, it is much more costly to kill one enemy soldier than during World War II, World War I or in the Middle Ages,” he said in an interview on the state-run Rossiya 24 network. While the business of “persuasion” is more expensive now, too, he said, “if you can persuade a person, you don’t need to kill him.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden-disinformation.html

UK was given details of alleged contacts between Trump campaign and Moscow

In December the UK government was given reports by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele on possible collusion between Trump camp and the Kremlin

Reports of possible collusion between the Trump administration and the Kremlin have led to a political storm in the US. Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP

This article is 2 months old

Julian Borger in Washington

Friday 28 April 2017 13.23 EDTLast modified on Tuesday 27 June 2017 08.37 EDT

The UK government was given details last December of allegedly extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow, according to court papers.

Reports by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, on possible collusion between the the Trump camp and the Kremlin are at the centre of a political storm in the US over Moscow’s role in getting Donald Trump elected.

UK was given details of alleged contacts between Trump campaign and Moscow

In December the UK government was given reports by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele on possible collusion between Trump camp and the Kremlin

Julian Borger in Washington

Friday 28 April 2017 13.23 EDTLast modified on Tuesday 27 June 2017 08.37 EDT

The UK government was given details last December of allegedly extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow, according to court papers.

It was not previously known that the UK intelligence services had also received the dossier but Steele confirmed in a court filing earlier this month that he handed a memorandum compiled in December to a “senior UK government national security official acting in his official capacity, on a confidential basis in hard copy form”.

The December memo alleged that four Trump representatives travelled to Prague in August or September in 2016 for “secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers”, about how to pay hackers secretly for penetrating Democratic party computer systems and “contingency plans for covering up operations”.

Between March and September, the December memo alleges, the hackers used botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs and steal data online from Democratic party leadership. Two of the hackers had been “recruited under duress by the FSB” the memo said. The hackers were paid by the Trump organisation, but were under the control of Vladimir Putin’s presidential administration.

Trump has rejected the allegations of collusion as a smear campaign. His lawyer, Michael Cohen, one of Trump representatives named in the memo, has described the claims in the memo as “totally fake, totally inaccurate”, and has said he had never been to Prague.

Since the memo became public in January, Steele had not spoken about his role in compiling it but he and his company, Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, have filed a defence in the high court of justice in London, in a defamation case brought by Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian venture capitalist and owner of a global computer technology company, XBT, and a Dallas-based subsidiary Webzilla.

Gubarev, who was named along with his company in the December memo as being involved in hacking operation, has denied any such involvement and is also suing Buzzfeed in the US courts for publishing the December memo alongside Steele’s earlier reports on election hacking.

A statement by Steele’s defence lawyers, endorsed by the former MI6 agent, said Orbis was hired between June and November last year by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research consultancy to look into Trump’s links with Russia.

In that period, Steele produced 16 memoranda citing mostly Russian sources as describing a web of alleged contacts and collusion between Trump aides and Russian intelligence or other Kremlin representatives.

The document said that he passed the memos to Fusion on the understanding that Fusion would not disclose the material to any third parties without the approval of Steele and Orbis. They did agree to Fusion providing a copy to Senator John McCain after the veteran Republican had been told about the existence of Steele’s research by Sir Andrew Wood, a former UK ambassador to Moscow and an Orbis associate, at a conference in Canada on 8 November.

Senator McCain handed a copy of the Steele memos to James Comey, the FBI director, on 9 December.

After delivering these reports, the court papers say Steele and Orbis continued to receive “unsolicited intelligence” on Trump-Russia links, and Steele decided that to draw up another memo with this new information which was dated 13 December.

He handed one copy over to the senior British national security official and sent an encrypted version to Fusion with instructions to deliver a hard copy to Senator McCain.

The defence argues that Steele and Orbis were under a duty to pass on the information “so that it was known to the United Kingdom and United States governments at a high level by persons with responsibility for national security”.

Steele and Orbis say they never gave any copies to news organisations although Steele said he gave off-the-record briefings about the dossier to a small number of journalists in late summer and early autumn 2016. The defence brief argues that neither Steele nor Orbis is liable for Buzzfeed’s decision to print the document.

The Steele dossier was referred to in an intelligence briefing provided by the FBI and US intelligence agencies to Obama and Trump in January. Comey has confirmed that counter-intelligence investigations are under way into possible links between Trump associates and Moscow, and CNN has reported that the FBI used the dossier to bolster its investigations.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/28/trump-russia-intelligence-uk-government-m16-kremlin

Donald Trump Jr.’s Emails Sound Like the Steele Dossier

The president’s son offers evidence Trump’s team colluded with Putin’s regime.

DAVID CORNJUL. 11, 2017 2:07 PM

Donald Trump Jr.Saul Loeb/AP, Pool

Smoke, meet gun.

On Tuesday morning, there was a stunning development in the Trump-Russia scandal: Donald Trump Jr. confessed. In yet another bombshell story, the New York Times reported on emails showing that the president’s oldest son had eagerly accepted an offer of help during the 2016 campaign from what he understood to be the Russian government. Trump Jr., the Times disclosed, had set up a meeting with a Russian attorney in the hopes of receiving derogatory information on Hillary Clinton straight from Putin’s regime. As the Times was publishing this story, Trump Jr. tweeted out those same emails.

The emails reveal that top Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner attended the meeting and suggest that all three Trump advisers colluded in what seemed to be a Russian government-backed attempt to hurt Clinton in order to help Trump win the presidency. This new development contradicts the long series of denials from Trump defenders who have claimed that there was no collusion, that there was no evidence Russian leader Vladimir Putin wanted Trump to win, and that the Trump-Russia affair is merely a hoax perpetuated by loser Democrats and fake news outlets.

The Trump Jr. emails also provide partial support for some information within the Steele dossier.

The Steele memos, which Mother Jones first reported on a week before Election Day, were compiled during the campaign by a former British intelligence officer named Christopher David Steele, who was hired by a Washington, DC, research firm retained to unearth information on Trump. The documents contained troubling allegations about Trump and his connections to Russia and relayed unverified salacious information about the candidate. The first memo, dated June 20 and based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, stated, “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It asserted that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.”

Steele made the memos available to the FBI during the campaign, and the bureau investigated some of the information they contained.

The memos made headlines after the election, when CNN reported that Trump, as president-elect, and President Barack Obama had been told about their contents during briefings on the intelligence community’s assessment that Putin had mounted a covert operation during the campaign to hack Democratic targets and disseminate stolen emails in order to benefit Trump.

Trump and his supporters have denounced the Steele memos as unsubstantiated trash, with some Trump backers concocting various conspiracy theories about them. Indeed, key pieces of the information within the memos have been challenged. But the memos were meant to be working documents produced by Steele—full of investigative leads and tips to follow—not finished reports, vetted and confirmed.

One interesting element of the Donald Trump Jr. emails now in the news is that they track with parts of the Steele memos.

In that first memo, dated June 20, Steele wrote that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” The Trump Jr. email chain began on June 3, 2016. This was shortly after Trump had secured the Republican presidential nomination. It was that day that Rob Goldstone, a talent manager for a middling pop-star named Emin Agaralov, contacted Trump Jr. and said Emin’s father, Aras Agalarov, a Putin-friendly billionaire developer, had met with the “crown prosecutor of Russia,” who offered to provide the Trump campaign with negative information on Clinton. The Agalarovs and Goldstone had a close relationship to the Trumps, because they all had worked together in 2013 to bring the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time, to Moscow. (Part of the deal was that Emin would get to perform two songs.) Following that event, both Trumps worked with both Agalarovs to develop a major project in Moscow. (It never happened.)

This email from Goldstone to Trump Jr. led to a meeting six days later, where a Kremlin-connected Russian attorney spoke to Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort about negative information on Clinton. In a statement, Trump Jr. says that what she offered was vague and meaningless, suggesting there was nothing to it. (But Trump Jr. has dissembled repeatedly about this meeting.)

Let’s turn to Steele’s June 20 memo. It stated:

Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years…This was confirmed by Source D, a close associate of TRUMP who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow, and who reported, also in June 2016, that this Russian intelligence had been “very helpful”.

The memo also reported that there was anti-Clinton information that Putin was sitting on:

A dossier of compromising material on Hillary CLINTON has been collated by the Russian intelligence services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls rather than any embarrassing conduct. The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on PUTIN’s orders. However it has not as yet been distributed abroad, including to TRUMP. Russian intentions for its deployment still unclear.

There has been no confirmation that Putin steadily fed information to Trump’s camp or that a Kremlin-controlled anti-Clinton dossier existed. But one of Steele’s overarching points in this memo was that Putin’s regime was funneling derogatory Clinton material to Trump. The Trump Jr. emails suggest that the Russian government was aiming to do that and that the Trump campaign was willing and eager to receive assistance from Putin. So Donald Trump Jr. has done what Steele could not: produce evidence that the Trump campaign was—or wanted to be—in cahoots with a foreign adversary to win the White House.

Donald Trump–Russia dossier

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The Donald Trump–Russia dossier is a private intelligence dossier that was written by Christopher Steele, a former British MI6 intelligence officer. It contains unverified allegations of misconduct and collusion between Donald Trump and his campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the period preceding the election. The contents of the dossier were publicly reported on January 10, 2017.^[1]

The dossier primarily discusses possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The media and the intelligence community have stressed that accusations in the dossier have not been verified. Most experts have treated the dossier with caution, but in February, it was reported that some details related to conversations between foreign nationals had been independently corroborated, giving U.S. intelligence and law enforcement greater confidence in some aspects of the dossier as investigations continued. Trump himself has denounced the report, calling it “fake news” and “phony.”

The dossier was produced as part of opposition research during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The research was initially funded by Republicans who did not want Trump to be the Republican Party nominee for president. After Trump won the primaries, a Democratic client took over the funding; and, following Trump’s election, Steele continued working on the report pro bono and passed on the information to British and American intelligence services.

The 35-page dossier claims that Russia is in possession of damaging or embarrassing information about Trump which could be used for purposes of blackmail to get Trump to cooperate with the Russian government.^[2] The material includes allegations about Trump’s sexual and financial dealings in Russia.^[3] The dossier further alleges that Trump has been cultivated and supported by Russia for at least five years, with Putin’s endorsement, with the overall aim of creating divisions between Western alliances; that Trump has extensive ties to Russia; and that there had been multiple contacts between Russian officials and people working for Trump during the campaign.^[2]^[4]

History

Creation of the dossier

According to reports, the dossier was created as part of opposition research on Trump. The investigation into Trump was initially funded by “Never Trump” Republicans and later by Democrats.^[5]^[6]^[7] In September 2015, a wealthy Republican donor who opposed Trump’s candidacy in the Republican primary hired Fusion GPS, an American research firm, to do opposition research on Trump. For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee in May 2016, the Republican donor withdrew and the investigation contract was taken over by an unidentified Democratic client.^[7]^[8]

In June 2016 it was revealed that the Democratic National Committee website had been hacked by Russian sources, so Fusion GPS hired Orbis Business Intelligence, a private British intelligence firm, to look into any Russian connections.^[7] The investigation was undertaken by Orbis co-founder Christopher Steele, a retired British MI6 officer with expertise in Russian matters. Steele delivered his report as a series of two- or three-page memos, starting in June 2016 and continuing through December. He continued his investigation even after the Democratic client stopped paying for it following Trump’s election.^[7]

On his own initiative, Steele decided to also pass the information to British and American intelligence services because he believed the findings were a matter of national security for both countries.^[9] However, he became frustrated with the FBI, which he believed was failing to investigate his reports, choosing instead to focus on the Hillary Clinton’s email investigation. According to The Independent, Steele came to believe that there was a “cabal” inside the FBI, particularly its New York field office linked to Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani, which blocked any attempts to investigate the links between Trump and Russia.^[9] In October 2016, Steele passed on what he discovered so far to a reporter from Mother Jones magazine.

Shortly after the presidential election, Senator John McCain, who had been informed about the alleged links between Kremlin and Trump, met with former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood. Wood confirmed the existence of the dossier and vouched for Steele.^[9] McCain obtained the dossier from David J. Kramer and took it directly to FBI director James Comey on December 9, 2016.^[7]^[6]

In a court filing in April 2017, Steele revealed previously unreported information that in December 2016 he gave one more report to “the senior British national security official and sent an encrypted version to Fusion with instructions to deliver a hard copy to Senator McCain.” This memo, dated December 13, detailed possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. It described secret discussions between four named Trump representatives, Kremlin representatives, and associated operators/hackers about how to secretly pay the hackers who penetrated the DNC computer system and also how to cover up the operation. Although paid by the Trump organisation, the hackers were controlled by Putin’s administration. “Comey has confirmed that counter-intelligence investigations are under way into possible links between Trump associates and Moscow, and CNN has reported that the FBI used the dossier to bolster its investigations.”^[10]

Early indications of the dossier’s existence

By Fall 2016, many news organizations knew about the existence of the dossier, which had been described as an “open secret” among journalists. However, they chose not to publish information that could not be confirmed.^[7] Finally on October 31, 2016, a week before the election, Mother Jones reported that a former intelligence officer, whom they did not name, had produced a report based on Russian sources and turned it over to the FBI.^[11] The report alleged that the Russian government had cultivated Trump for years:

The “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It maintained that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” It claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.”^[11]

The report further alleged that there were multiple in-person meetings between Russian government officials and individuals established as working for Trump.^[12]^[13] The former intelligence officer continued to share information with the FBI, and said in October 2016 that “there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on.”^[11]

In October 2016 the FBI reached an agreement with Steele to pay him to continue his work, according to involved sources reported by The Washington Post. “Steele was known for the quality of his past work and for the knowledge he had developed over nearly 20 years working on Russia-related issues for British intelligence.” The FBI found Steele credible and his unproved information worthy enough that it considered paying Steele to continue collecting information, but the release of the document to the public stopped discussions between Steele and the FBI.^[14]

Trump and Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier by the chiefs of several U.S. intelligence agencies in early January 2017. Vice President Joe Biden has confirmed that he and the president had received briefings on the dossier, and the allegations within.^[15]^[8]^[16]^[17]

Public release

On January 10, 2017, CNN reported that classified documents presented to Obama and Trump the previous week included allegations that Russian operatives possess “compromising personal and financial information” about Trump. CNN stated that it would not publish specific details on the memos because it had not “independently corroborated the specific allegations.”^[18]^[19] Following the CNN report,^[20] BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier that it said was the basis of the briefing, including unverified claims that Russian operatives had collected “embarrassing material” involving Trump that could be used to blackmail him.^[21]^[22]^[19]^[23] NBC reported that a senior U.S. intelligence official said that Trump had not been previously briefed on the contents of the memos,^[24] although a CNN report said that a statement released by James Clapper in early January confirmed that the synopsis existed and had been compiled for Trump.^[25]

Many news organizations knew about the document in the fall of 2016, before the presidential election, but refused to publish it because they could not independently verify the information.^[26] BuzzFeed was harshly criticized for publishing what Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan called “scurrilous allegations dressed up as an intelligence report meant to damage Donald Trump”^[27] while The New York Times noted that the publication sparked a debate centering on the use of unsubstantiated information from anonymous sources.^[28] BuzzFeed’s executive staff said the materials were newsworthy because they were “in wide circulation at the highest levels of American government and media” and argued that this justified public release.^[29]

Authorship

When CNN reported the existence of the dossier on January 10, 2017,^[30] it did not name the author of the dossier, but revealed that he was British. Steele concluded that his anonymity had been “fatally compromised” and realized it was “only a matter of time until his name became public knowledge,” and, accompanied by his family, he fled into hiding in fear of “a prompt and potentially dangerous backlash against him from Moscow.”^[31]^[32]^[5] The Wall Street Journal revealed Steele’s name the next day, on January 11.^[33] Christopher Burrows, director of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, for whom Steele worked at the time the dossier was authored, and Orbis would not “confirm or deny” that Orbis had produced the dossier.^[30]^[7]

Called by the media a “highly regarded Kremlin expert” and “one of MI6’s greatest ‘Russia specialists”, Steele formerly worked for the British intelligence agency MI6 and is currently working for Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, a private intelligence company Steele had co-founded in London.^[34]^[33]^[35] Steele entered the MI6 in 1987, directly after his graduation from college.^[36]

Former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood has vouched for Steele’s reputation.^[9] He views Steele as a “very competent professional operator… I take the report seriously. I don’t think it’s totally implausible.” He also stated that “the report’s key allegation – that Trump and Russia’s leadership were communicating via secret back channels during the presidential campaign – was eminently plausible.”^[37]

On December 26, 2016, Oleg Erovinkin, a former KGB/FSB general, was found dead in his car in Moscow. Erovinkin was a key liaison between Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, and President Putin. Steele claimed much of the information came from a source close to Sechin. According to Christo Grozev, a journalist at Risk Management Lab, a think-tank based in Bulgaria, the circumstances of Erovinkin’s death were “mysterious”. Grozev suspected Erovinkin helped Steele compile the dossier on Trump and suggests the hypothesis that the death may have been part of a cover-up by the Russian government.^[38]^[39] Mark Galeotti, senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, who specializes in Russian history and security, rejected Grozev’s hypothesis.^[40]^[38]

On March 7, 2017, as some members of the U.S. Congress were expressing interest in meeting with or hearing testimony from Steele, he reemerged after weeks in hiding, appearing publicly on camera and stating, “I’m really pleased to be back here working again at the Orbis’s offices in London today.”^[41]

Veracity of the dossier

Observers and experts have had varying reactions to the dossier. Generally, “former intelligence officers and other national-security experts” urged “skepticism and caution” but still took “the fact that the nation’s top intelligence officials chose to present a summary version of the dossier to both President Obama and President-elect Trump” as an indication “that they may have had a relatively high degree of confidence that at least some of the claims therein were credible, or at least worth investigating further.”^[42]

Vice President Biden told reporters that while he and President Obama were receiving a briefing on the extent of Russian hackers trying to influence the US election, there was a two-page addendum which addressed the contents of the Steele Dossier.^[43] Top intelligence officials told them they “felt obligated to inform them about uncorroborated allegations about President-elect Donald Trump out of concern the information would become public and catch them off-guard.”^[44]

According to Paul Wood of BBC News, the information in Steele’s report is also reported by “multiple intelligence sources” and “at least one East European intelligence service.” They report that there is “more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.”^[45]^[33] He added that “the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat—or compromising material— on the next US commander in chief” and “a joint taskforce, which includes the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money to Mr Trump’s organisation or his election campaign.”^[46]^[47]^[45]On March 30, 2017, Wood revealed that the FBI was using the dossier as a roadmap for its investigation.^[48] On April 18, 2017, CNN reported that corroborated information from the dossier had been used as part of the basis for getting the FISA warrant to monitor former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page during the summer of 2016.^[49]

Former Los Angeles Times Moscow correspondent Robert Gillette wrote in an op-ed in the Concord Monitor that the dossier has had at least one of its main factual assertions verified. On January 6, 2017, the Director of National Intelligence released a report assessing “with high confidence” that Russia’s combined cyber and propaganda operation was directed personally by Vladimir Putin, with the aim of harming Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and helping Trump.^[50] Gillette wrote: “Steele’s dossier, paraphrasing multiple sources, reported precisely the same conclusion, in greater detail, six months earlier, in a memo dated June 20.”^[51]

Susan Hennessey, a former National Security Administration lawyer now with the Brookings Institution, stated: “My general take is that the intelligence community and law enforcement seem to be taking these claims seriously. That itself is highly significant. But it is not the same as these allegations being verified. Even if this was an intelligence community document—which it isn’t—this kind of raw intelligence is still treated with skepticism.”^[42]^[52] Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes wrote that “the current state of the evidence makes a powerful argument for a serious public inquiry into this matter.”^[52]

Former CIA analyst Patrick Skinner said that he is “neither dismissing the report nor taking its claims at face value,” telling Wired: “I imagine a lot more will come out, and much will be nothing and perhaps some of it will be meaningful, and perhaps even devastating.”^[42] Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov writes that while “many of the report’s elements appear hastily compiled”, and there were many “shaky” claims, the document “rings frighteningly true” and “overall … reflects accurately the way decision-making in the Kremlin looks to close observers.”^[53] Soldatov writes: “Unverifiable sensational details aside, the Trump dossier is a good reflection of how things are run in the Kremlin – the mess at the level of decision-making and increasingly the outsourcing of operations, combined with methods borrowed from the KGB and the secret services of the lawless 1990s.”^[53]

Newsweek published a list of “13 things that don’t add up” in the dossier, writing that the document was a “strange mix of the amateur and the insightful” and stating that the document “contains lots of Kremlin-related gossip that could indeed be, as the author claims, from deep insiders—or equally gleaned” from Russian newspapers and blogs.^[54] Former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton stated that certain aspects of the dossier were inconsistent with British intelligence’s understanding of how the Kremlin works, commenting: “I’ve seen quite a lot of intelligence on Russia, and there are some things in [the dossier] which look pretty shaky.”^[55]

On February 10, 2017, CNN reported that some communications between “senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals” described in the dossier had been corroborated by multiple U.S. officials. Sources told CNN that some conversations had been “intercepted during routine intelligence gathering”, but refused to reveal the content of conversations, or specify which communications were detailed in the dossier. CNN was unable to confirm whether conversations were related to Trump. U.S. officials said the corroboration gave “US intelligence and law enforcement ‘greater confidence’ in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents”.^[56]

According to Business Insider, the dossier alleges that “the Trump campaign agreed to minimize US opposition to Russia’s incursions into Ukraine”.^[57] In July 2016, the Republican National Convention made changes to the Republican Party’s platform on Ukraine: initially they proposed providing “lethal weapons” to Ukraine, but the line was changed to “appropriate assistance”. J. D. Gordon, who was one of Trump’s national security advisers during the campaign, said that he had advocated for changing language because that reflected what Trump had said.^[57]^[58]

Responses

Donald Trump called the dossier “fake news” and criticized the intelligence and media sources that published it.^[59] During a press conference on January 11, 2017, Trump denounced the unsubstantiated claims as false, saying that it was “disgraceful” for U.S. intelligence agencies to report them. Trump refused to answer a question from CNN’s senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta on the subject and called CNN “fake news.” In response, CNN said that it had published “carefully sourced reporting” on the matter which had been “matched by the other major news organizations,” as opposed to BuzzFeed‘s posting of “unsubstantiated materials.”^[60]^[20] James Clapper described the leaks as damaging to US national security.^[61] This also contradicted Trump’s previous claim that Clapper said the information was false; Clapper’s statement actually said the intelligence community has made no judgement on the truth or falsity of the information.^[62]

Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov insisted in an interview that the document is a fraud, saying “I can assure you that the allegations in this funny paper, in this so-called report, they are untrue. They are all fake.”^[63] The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, called the people who leaked the document “worse than prostitutes”^[64] and referred to the dossier itself as “rubbish.”^[65] Putin went on to state he believed that the dossier was “clearly fake,”^[66]fabricated as a plot against the legitimacy of President-elect Donald Trump.^[67]

Some of Steele’s former colleagues expressed support for his character, saying “The idea his work is fake or a cowboy operation is false – completely untrue. Chris is an experienced and highly regarded professional. He’s not the sort of person who will simply pass on gossip.”^[68]

Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, in a denial of some allegations, said “I’m telling you emphatically that I’ve not been to Prague, I’ve never been to Czech [Republic], I’ve not been to Russia. The story is completely inaccurate, it is fake news meant to malign Mr. Trump.”^[69] Cohen said that between August 23–29 he was in Los Angeles. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “A Czech intelligence source told the Respekt magazine that there is no record of Cohen arriving in Prague by plane, although the news weekly pointed out he could have traveled by car or train from a nearby EU country, avoiding passport control under Schengen zone travel rules.”^[70]

Among journalists, Bob Woodward called the dossier a “garbage document,” while Carl Bernstein took the opposite view, noting that the senior-most U.S. intelligence officials had determined that the content was worth reporting to the president and the president-elect.^[71]

Ynet, an Israeli online news site, reported on January 12 that U.S. intelligence advised Israeli intelligence officers to be cautious about sharing information with the incoming Trump administration, until the possibility of Russian influence over Trump, suggested by Steele’s report, has been fully investigated.^[72]

Aleksej Gubarev, chief of technology company XBT and a figure mentioned in the dossier, sued BuzzFeed for defamation on February 3, 2017. The suit, filed in a Broward County, Florida court,^[73] centers on allegations from the dossier that XBT had been “using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct ‘altering operations’ against the Democratic Party leadership.”^[74] In the High Court of Justice, Steele’s lawyers said that their client did not intend for the memos to be released, and that one of the memos “needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified.”^[75]

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to CNN’s report of February 10, of a partial corroboration of the dossier, by saying, “We continue to be disgusted by CNN’s fake news reporting.”^[56]

On March 2, 2017, media began reporting that the Senate may call Steele to testify about the Trump dossier.^[76]

On March 27, 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley asked the Department of Justice to initiate an inquiry into Fusion GPS, who initially retained Steele to write the dossier.^[77] Fusion GPS was previously associated with pro-Russia lobbying activities due to sanctions imposed by the Magnitsky Act. Grassley’s committee made direct inquiries of Fusion GPS: “When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics.”^[78] The other basis for Grassley’s concern is the fact that Fusion GPS was working as a pro-Russia lobbyist at the same time it had retained Steele to research and write the Trump dossier.^[79] Grassley was concerned that the FBI was improperly using the dossier as the basis for an investigation into Russian influence of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.^[77]

Useful idiot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In political jargon, a useful idiot is a person perceived as a propagandist for a cause the goals of which they are not fully aware of, and who is used cynically by the leaders of the cause.

Usage in Russian

In the Russian language, the equivalent term “useful fools” (Russian: полезные дураки, tr. polezniye duraki) was already in use in 1941. It was mockingly used against Russian “nihilists” of 1860s who, for Polish agents, were said to be no more than “useful fools and silly enthusiasts”.^[1] The phrase is often attributed to Lenin in the West, and by some Russian writers including Vladimir Bukovsky in 1984.^[2] However, in a 1987 article, American journalist William Safire noted that a Library of Congress librarian had not been able to find the phrase in Lenin’s works.^[3] The book They Never Said It also suggests the attribution is false.^[4]

Usage in English

In the memoir of actor Alexander Granach, the phrase was used in the description of a boyhood incident in a shtetl in Western Ukraine.^[5]

In June 1948, The New York Times used the term in an article on contemporary Italian politics, citing the social-democratic Italian paper L’Umanità.^[6] In January 1958, Time magazine started to use the phrase.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]

In 2016, the term was used by the Editorial Board of The New York Times to describe President-elect Donald Trump.^[13] Michael Hayden, former NSA director and former CIA director, described Trump as a polezni durak, translating the term as “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited”.^[14]

Useful innocents

A similar term, useful innocents, appears in Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises‘ “Planned Chaos” (1947). Von Mises claims the term was used by communists for liberals that von Mises describes as “confused and misguided sympathizers”.^[15] The term useful innocents also appears in a Readers Digest article (1946) titled “Yugoslavia’s Tragic Lesson to the World”, authored by Bogdan Raditsa (Bogdan Radica), a “high ranking official of the Yugoslav Government”. Raditsa says: “In the Serbo-Croat language the communists have a phrase for true democrats who consent to collaborate with them for ‘democracy.’ It is Korisne Budale, or Useful Innocents.”^[16] Although Raditsa translates the phrase as “Useful Innocents”, the word budala (plural: budale) actually translates as “fool” and synonyms thereof.

The French equivalent, “Innocents utiles” or Useful innocents, was used in a newspaper article title in 1946.^[17]^[18]

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93Russia_dossier

Federal Security Service

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации
Common name	Federal Security Service
Abbreviation	FSB (ФСБ)
Emblem of the Federal Security Service
Flag of the Federal Security Service
Agency overview
Formed	April 12, 1995
Preceding agency	KGB
Employees	around 200,000–300,000^[1]
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Federal agency	Russia
General nature	Federal law enforcement Civilian agency
Operational structure
Headquarters	Lubyanka Square, Moscow, Russia
Website
www.fsb.ru

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB; Russian: Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (ФСБ), tr. Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii; IPA: [fʲɪdʲɪˈralʲnəjə ˈsluʐbə bʲɪzɐˈpasnəstʲɪ rɐˈsʲijskəj fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjɪ]) is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the USSR‘s Committee of State Security (KGB). Its main responsibilities are within the country and include counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance as well as investigating some other types of grave crimes and federal law violations. It is headquartered in Lubyanka Square, Moscow‘s centre, in the main building of the former KGB. The Director of the FSB since 2008 is general of the army Alexander Bortnikov.

The immediate predecessor of the FSB was the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) of Russia, itself a successor to the KGB: on 12 April 1995, Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed a law mandating a reorganization of the FSK, which resulted in the creation of the FSB. In 2003, the FSB’s responsibilities were widened by incorporating the previously independent Border Guard Service and a major part of the abolished Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information (FAPSI). The two major structural components of the former KGB that remain administratively independent of the FSB are the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the State Guards (FSO).

Under Russian federal law, the FSB is a military service just like the armed forces, the MVD, the FSO, the SVR, the FSKN, Main Directorate for Drugs Control and EMERCOM‘s civil defence, but its commissioned officers do not usually wear military uniforms.

Overview

The FSB is mainly responsible for internal security of the Russian state, counterespionage, and the fight against organized crime, terrorism, and drug smuggling. Since 2003, when the Federal Border Guards Service was incorporated to the FSB, it has also been responsible for overseeing border security.^[1] The FSB is engaged mostly in domestic affairs, while espionage duties are responsibility of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. However, the FSB also includes the FAPSI agency, which conducts electronic surveillance abroad. All law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Russia work under the guidance of FSB, if needed.^[1]

The FSB combines functions and powers similar to those exercised by the United States FBI National Security Branch, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Protective Service, the National Security Agency (NSA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, United States Coast Guard, and partly the Drug Enforcement Administration. The FSB employs about 66,200 uniformed staff, including about 4,000 special forces troops. It also employs about 160,000–200,000 border guards.^[1]

Under Article 32 of the Federal Constitutional Law On the Government of the Russian Federation,^[2] the FSB head answers directly to the RF president and the FSB director is the RF president’s appointment, though he is a member of the RF government which is headed by the Chairman of Government; he also, ex officio, is a permanent member of the Security Council of Russia presided over by the president and chairman of the National Anti-terrorism Committee of Russia.

History

Initial recognition of the KGB

The FSB headquarters at Lubyanka Square

The Federal Security Service is one of the successor organisations of the Soviet Committee of State Security (KGB). Following the attempted coup of 1991—in which some KGB units as well as the KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov played a major part—the KGB was dismantled and ceased to exist from November 1991.^[3]^[4] In December 1991, two government agencies answerable to the Russian president were created by president Yeltsin’s decrees on the basis of the relevant main directorates of the defunct KGB: Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR, the former First Main Directorate) and the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAPSI, merging the functions of the former 8th Main Directorate and 16th Main Directorate of the KGB). In January 1992, another new institution, the Ministry of Security took over domestic and border security responsibilities.^[5]Following the 1993 constitutional crisis, the Ministry of Security was reorganized on 21 December 1993 into the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FSK). The FSK was headed by Sergei Stepashin. Before the start of the main military activities of the First Chechen War the FSK was responsible for the covert operations against the separatists led by Dzhokhar Dudayev.^[1]

Creation of the FSB

FSB medal for “distinguished military service”. The FSB had overall command of the federal forces in Chechnya in 2001–2003.

In 1995, the FSK was renamed and reorganized into the Federal Security Service (FSB) by the Federal Law of 3 April 1995, “On the Organs of the Federal Security Service in the Russian Federation”.^[6] The FSB reforms were rounded out by decree No. 633, signed by Boris Yeltsin on 23 June 1995. The decree made the tasks of the FSB more specific, giving the FSB substantial rights to conduct cryptographic work, and described the powers of the FSB director. The number of deputy directors was increased to 8: 2 first deputies, 5 deputies responsible for departments and directorates and 1 deputy director heading the Moscow City and Moscow regional directorate. Yeltsin appointed Colonel-General Mikhail Ivanovich Barsukov as the new director of the FSB. In 1998 Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin, a KGB veteran who would later succeed Yeltsin as federal president, as director of the FSB.^[7] Putin was reluctant to take over the directorship, but once appointed conducted a thorough reorganization, which included the dismissal of most of the FSB’s top personnel.^[1] Putin appointed Nikolai Patrushev as the head of FSB in 1999.^[5]

Role in the Second Chechen War

After the main military offensive of the Second Chechen War ended and the separatists changed tactics to guerilla warfare, overall command of the federal forces in Chechnya was transferred from the military to the FSB in January 2001. While the army lacked technical means of tracking the guerrilla groups, the FSB suffered from insufficient human intelligence due to its inability to build networks of agents and informants. In the autumn of 2002, the separatists launched a massive campaign of terrorism against the Russian civilians, including the Dubrovka theatre attack. The inability of the federal forces to conduct efficient counter-terrorist operations led to the government to transfer the responsibility of “maintaining order” in Chechnya from the FSB to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in July 2003.^[8]

Putin reforms

President Putin meeting with Director of FSB Nikolai Patrushev on 9 August 2000

After becoming President, Vladimir Putin launched a major reorganization of the FSB. First, the FSB maybe was placed under direct control of the President by a decree issued on 17 May 2000.^[5] Internal structure of the agency was reformed by a decree signed on 17 June 2000. In the resulting structure, the FSB was to have a director, a first deputy director and nine other deputy directors, including one possible state secretary and the chiefs of six departments: Economic Security Department, Counterintelligence Department, Organizational and Personnel Service, Department of activity provision, Department for Analysis, Forecasting and Strategic Planning, Department for Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight against Terrorism. In 2003, the agency’s responsibilities were considered considerably widened. The Border Guard Service of Russia, with its staff of 210,000, was integrated to the FSB via a decree was signed on 11 March 2003. The merger was completed by 1 July 2003. In addition, The Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information (FAPSI) was abolished and the FSB was granted a major part of its functions, while other parts went to the Ministry of Defense.^[5] Among the reasons for this strengthening of the FSB were enhanced need for security after increased terror attacks against Russian civilians starting from the Moscow theater hostage crisis; the need to end the permanent infighting between the FSB, FAPSI and the Border Guards due to their overlapping functions and the need for more efficient response to migration, drug trafficking and illegal arms trading. It has also been pointed out, that the FSB was the only power base of the new president, and the restructuring therefore strengthened Putin’s position (see Political groups under Vladimir Putin’s presidency).^[5] On 28 June 2004 in a speech to high-ranking FSB officers, Putin emphasized three major tasks of the agency: neutralizing foreign espionage, safeguarding economic and financial security of the country and combating organized crime.^[5] In September 2006, the FSB was shaken by a major reshuffle, which, combined with some earlier reassignments (most remarkably, those of FSB Deputy Directors Yury Zaostrovtsev and Vladimir Anisimov in 2004 and 2005, respectively), were widely believed to be linked to the Three Whales Corruption Scandal that had slowly unfolded since 2000. Some analysts considered it to be an attempt to undermine FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev‘s influence, as it was Patrushev’s team from the Karelian KGB Directorate of the late 1980s – early 1990s that had suffered most and he had been on vacations during the event.^[9]^[10]^[11]

By 2008, the agency had one Director, two First Deputy Directors and 5 Deputy Directors. It had the following 9 divisions:^[5]

Counter-Espionage
Service for Defense of Constitutional Order and Fight against Terrorism
Border Service
Economic Security Service
Current Information and International Links
Organizational and Personnel Service
Monitoring Department
Scientific and Technical Service
Organizational Security Service

Fight against terrorism

FSB special forces members during a special operation in Makhachkala, as a result of which “one fighter was killed and two terrorist attacks prevented” in 2010.

Starting from the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002, Russia was faced with increased levels of Islamist terrorism. The FSB, being the main agency responsible for counter-terrorist operations, was in the front line in the fight against terror. During the Moscow theater siege and the Beslan school siege, FSB’s Spetsnaz units Alpha Group and Vympel played a key role in the hostage release operations. However, their performance was criticised due to the high number of hostage casualties. In 2006, the FSB scored a major success in its counter-terrorist efforts when it successfully killed Shamil Basayev, the mastermind behind the Beslan tragedy and several other high-profile terrorist acts. According to the FSB, the operation was planned over six months and made possible due to the FSB’s increased activities in foreign countries that were supplying arms to the terrorists. Basayev was tracked via the surveillance of this arms trafficking. Basayev and other militants were preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in Ingushetia when FSB agents destroyed their convoy; 12 militants were killed.^[12]^[13] During the last years of the Vladimir Putin‘s second presidency (2006–2008), terrorist attacks in Russia dwindled, falling from 257 in 2005 to 48 in 2007. Military analyst Vitaly Shlykov praised the effectiveness of Russia’s security agencies, saying that the experience learned in Chechnya and Dagestan had been key to the success. In 2008, the American Carnegie Endowment‘s Foreign Policy magazine named Russia as “the worst place to be a terrorist” and highlighted especially Russia’s willingness to prioritize national security over civil rights.^[14] By 2010, Russian forces, led by the FSB, had managed to eliminate out the top leadership of the Chechen insurgency, except for Dokka Umarov.^[15]

Increased terrorism and expansion of the FSB’s powers

President Dmitry Medvedev meeting with FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov on the way from Moscow to Dagestan‘s capital Makhachkala in June 2009

Starting from 2009, the level of terrorism in Russia increased again. Particularly worrisome was the increase of suicide attacks. While between February 2005 and August 2008, no civilians were killed in such attacks, in 2008 at least 17 were killed and in 2009 the number rose to 45.^[16] In March 2010, Islamist militants organised the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, which killed 40 people. One of the two blasts took place at Lubyanka station, near the FSB headquarters. Militant leader Doku Umarov—dubbed “Russia’s Osama Bin Laden”—took responsibility for the attacks. In July 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev expanded the FSB’s powers in its fight against terrorism. FSB officers received the power to issue warnings to citizens on actions that could lead to committing crimes and arrest people for 15 days if they fail to comply with legitimate orders given by the officers. The bill was harshly criticized by human rights organizations.^[17]

Role

Counterintelligence

In 2011, the FSB said it had exposed 199 foreign spies, including 41 professional spies and 158 agents employed by foreign intelligence services.^[18] The number has risen in recent years: in 2006 the FSB reportedly caught about 27 foreign intelligence officers and 89 foreign agents.^[19] Comparing the number of exposed spies historically, the then-FSB Director Nikolay Kovalyov said in 1996: “There has never been such a number of spies arrested by us since the time when German agents were sent in during the years of World War II.” The 2011 figure is similar to what was reported in 1995–1996, when around 400 foreign intelligence agents were uncovered during the two-year period.^[20] In a high-profile case of foreign espionage, the FSB said in February 2012 that an engineer working at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia’s main space center for military launches, had been sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of state treason. A court judged that the engineer had sold information about testing of new Russian strategic missile systems to the American CIA.^[21] An increasing number of scientists have been accused of espionage and illegal technology exports by the FSB during the last decade: researcher Igor Sutyagin,^[22] physicist Valentin Danilov,^[23] physical chemist Oleg Korobeinichev,^[24] academician Oskar Kaibyshev,^[25] and physicist Yury Ryzhov.^[26] Ecologist and journalist Alexander Nikitin, who worked with the Bellona Foundation, was accused of espionage. He published material exposing hazards posed by the Russian Navy’s nuclear fleet. He was acquitted in 1999 after spending several years in prison (his case was sent for re-investigation 13 times while he remained in prison). Other cases of prosecution are the cases of investigative journalist and ecologist Grigory Pasko,^[27]^[28] Vladimir Petrenko who described danger posed by military chemical warfare stockpiles, and Nikolay Shchur, chairman of the Snezhinskiy Ecological Fund.^[20] Other arrested people include Viktor Orekhov, a former KGB officer who assisted Soviet dissidents, Vladimir Kazantsev who disclosed illegal purchases of eavesdropping devices from foreign firms, and Vil Mirzayanov who had written that Russia was working on a nerve-gas weapon.^[20]

Counter-terrorism

FSB officers on the scene of the Domodedovo International Airport bombing in 2011. Combating terrorism is one of the main tasks of the agency.

In 2011, the FSB prevented 94 “crimes of a terrorist nature”, including eight terrorist attacks. In particular, the agency foiled a planned suicide bombing in Moscow on New Year’s Eve. However, the agency failed to prevent terrorists perpetrating the Domodedovo International Airport bombing.^[18] Over the years, FSB and affiliated state security organizations have killed all presidents of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria including Dzhokhar Dudaev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Aslan Maskhadov, and Abdul-Khalim Saidullaev. Just before his death, Saidullaev claimed that the Russian government “treacherously” killed Maskhadov, after inviting him to “talks” and promising his security “at the highest level”.^[29] During the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school hostage crisis, all hostage takers were killed on the spot by FSB spetsnaz forces. Only one of the suspects, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, survived and was convicted later by the court. It is reported that more than 100 leaders of terrorist groups have been killed during 119 operations on North Caucasus during 2006.^[19] On 28 July 2006 the FSB presented a list of 17 terrorist organizations recognized by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, to Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, which published the list that day. The list had been available previously, but only through individual request.^[30]^[31] Commenting on the list, Yuri Sapunov, head of anti-terrorism at the FSB, named three main criteria necessary for organizations to be listed.^[32]

Foreign intelligence

According to some unofficial sources,^[33]^[34]^[35] since 1999, the FSB has also been tasked with the intelligence-gathering on the territory of the CIS countries, wherein the SVR is legally forbidden from conducting espionage under the inter-government agreements. Such activity is in line with Article 8 of the Federal Law on the FSB.^[36]

Targeted killing

In the summer of 2006, the FSB was allegedly given the legal power to engage in targeted killing of terrorism suspects overseas if so ordered by the president.^[37]

Border protection

Border guards of the Federal Security Service pursuing trespassers of the maritime boundary during exercises in Kaliningrad Oblast

The Federal Border Guard Service (FPS) has been part of the FSB since 2003. Russia has 61,000 kilometers (38,000 mi) of sea and land borders, 7,500 kilometers (4,700 mi) of which is with Kazakhstan, and 4,000 kilometers (2,500 mi) with China. One kilometer (1,100 yd) of border protection costs around 1 million rubles per year.^[38]

Export control

The FSB is engaged in the development of Russia’s export control strategy and examines drafts of international agreements related to the transfer of dual-use and military commodities and technologies. Its primary role in the nonproliferation sphere is to collect information to prevent the illegal export of controlled nuclear technology and materials.^[39]

Claims of intimidation of foreign diplomats and journalists[edit]

The FSB has been accused by The Guardian of using psychological techniques to intimidate western diplomatic staff and journalists, with the intention of making them curtail their work in Russia early.^[40] The techniques allegedly involve entering targets’ houses, moving household items around, replacing items with similar (but slightly different) items, and even sending sex toys to a male target’s wife, all with the intention of confusing and scaring the target.^[40] Guardian journalist, Luke Harding, claims to have been the subject of such techniques.^[40]

Doping scandal

Following allegations by a Russian former lab director about the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, WADA commissioned an independent investigation led by Richard McLaren. McLaren’s investigation concluded in a report published in July 2016 that the Ministry of Sport and the Federal Security Service (FSB) had operated a “state-directed failsafe system” using a “disappearing positive [test] methodology” (DPM) from “at least late 2011 to August 2015.” However, WADA later admitted that there was not sufficient evidence from the report.^[41]^[42]

2016 US presidential elections

On 29 December 2016, the White House sanctioned the FSB and several other Russian companies for helping the Russian military intelligence service, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), to allegedly disrupt and spread disinformation during the 2016 US presidential election. In addition, the State Department also declared 35 Russian diplomats and officials persona non grata and denied Russian government officials access to two Russian-owned installations in Maryland and New York.^[43]

Organization

The reception room of the Federal Security Service building located on Kuznetsky Most in Moscow

This article needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (September 2009)

Below the nationwide level, the FSB has regional offices in the federal subjects of Russia. It also has administrations in the armed forces and other military institutions. Sub-departments exist for areas such as aviation, special training centers, forensic expertise, military medicine, etc.^[5]

Structure of the Federal Office (incomplete):

Counterintelligence Service (Department) – chiefs: Oleg Syromolotov (since Aug 2000), Valery Pechyonkin (September 1997 – August 2000)
- Directorate for the Counterintelligence Support of Strategic Facilities
- Military Counterintelligence Directorate – chiefs: Alexander Bezverkhny (at least since 2002), Vladimir Petrishchev (since January 1996)
Service (Department) for Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight against Terrorism – chiefs: Alexey Sedov (since March 2006), Alexander Bragin (2004 – March 2006), Alexander Zhdankov (2001–2004), German Ugryumov (2000–2001)
- Directorate for Terrorism and Political Extremism Control – chiefs: Mikhail Belousov, before him Grafov, before the latter Boris Mylnikov (since 2000)
- President’s regiment in the Service of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin of the Federal Security Service of Russia^[44] (Russian: Президентский полк Службы коменданта Московского Кремля ФСО России) stationed in Kremlin. Was created on 8 April 1936 as a special regiment (Spetsnaz) for the security of the Kremlin Garrison.
Economic Security Service (Department) – chiefs: Alexander Bortnikov (since 2 March 2004), Yury Zaostrovtsev (January 2000 – March 2004), Viktor Ivanov (April 1999 – January 2000), Nikolay Patrushev (1998 – April 1999), Alexander Grigoryev (28 August – 1 October 1998).
Operational Information and International Relations Service (Analysis, Forecasting, and Strategic Planning Department) – chiefs: Viktor Komogorov (since 1999), Sergei Ivanov (1998–1999)
Organizational and Personnel Service (Department) – chiefs: Yevgeny Lovyrev (since 2001), Yevgeny Solovyov (before Lovyrev)
Department for Activity Provision – chiefs: Mikhail Shekin (since September 2006), Sergey Shishin (before Shekin), Pyotr Pereverzev (as of 2004), Alexander Strelkov (before Pereverzev)
Border Guard Service – chiefs: Vladimir Pronichev (since 2003)
Control Service – chiefs: Alexander Zhdankov (since 2004)
- Inspection Directorate – chiefs: Vladimir Anisimov (2004 – May 2005), Rashid Nurgaliyev (12 July 2000 – 2002),
- Internal Security Directorate – chiefs: Alexander Kupryazhkin (until September 2006), Sergei Shishin (before Kupryazhkin since December 2002), Sergei Smirnov (April 1999 – December 2002), Viktor Ivanov (1998 – April 1999), Nikolay Patrushev (1994–1998)
Science and Engineering Service (Department) – chiefs: Nikolai Klimashin
Investigation Directorate – chiefs: Nikolay Oleshko (since December 2004), Yury Anisimov (as of 2004), Viktor Milchenko (since 2002), Sergey Balashov (until 2002 since at least 2001), Vladimir Galkin (as of 1997 and 1998)

Besides the services (departments) and directorates of the federal office, the territorial directorates of FSB in the federal subjects are also subordinate to it. Of these, St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Directorate of FSB and its predecessors (historically covering both Leningrad/Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast) have played especially important roles in the history of this organization, as many of the officers of the Directorate, including Vladimir Putin and Nikolay Patrushev, later assumed important positions within the federal FSB office or other government bodies. After the last Chief of the Soviet time, Anatoly Kurkov, the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Directorate were led by Sergei Stepashin (29 November 1991 – 1992), Viktor Cherkesov (1992 –1998), Alexander Grigoryev (1 October 1998 – 5 January 2001), Sergei Smirnov (5 January 2001 – June 2003), Alexander Bortnikov (June 2003 – March 2004) and Yury Ignashchenkov (since March 2004).

Directors of the FSB

On 20 June 1996, Boris Yeltsin fired Director of FSB Mikhail Barsukov and appointed Nikolay Kovalyov as acting Director and later Director of the FSB. Aleksandr Bortnikov took over on 12 May 2008.

Nikolai Golushko, December 1993 – February 1994
Sergei Stepashin, February 1994 – June 1995
Mikhail Barsukov, July 1995 – June 1996
Nikolai Kovalyov, July 1996 – July 1998
Vladimir Putin, July 1998 – August 1999
Nikolai Patrushev, August 1999 – 12 May 2008
Alexander Bortnikov, 12 May 2008 – present

Criticism of FSB political role in Russia

The FSB has been criticised for corruption and human rights violations. Some Kremlin critics such as Yulia Latynina and Alexander Litvinenko have claimed that the FSB is engaged in suppression of internal dissent; Litvinenko died in 2006 as a result of polonium poisoning.^[45] A number of opposition lawmakers and investigative journalists were murdered in the 2000s while investigating corruption and other alleged crimes perpetrated by FSB officers: Sergei Yushenkov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Galina Starovoitova, Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Paul Klebnikov (US), Nadezhda Chaikova, Nina Yefimova, and others.^[46]^[47]

The FSB has been further criticised by some for failure to bring Islamist terrorism in Russia under control.^[48] In the mid-2000s, the pro-Kremlin Russian sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya claimed that FSB played a dominant role in the country’s political, economic and even cultural life.^[49]^[50]^[51] FSB officers have been frequently accused of extortion, bribery and illegal takeovers of private companies, often working together with tax inspection officers. Active and former FSB officers are also present as “curators” in “almost every single large enterprise”, both in public and private sectors.^[52]^[53]

Former FSB officer, a defector, Alexander Litvinenko, along with a series of other authors such as Yury Felshtinsky, David Satter, Boris Kagarlitsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky, Mikhail Trepashkin (also former FSB officer) claimed in the early 2000s that the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities were a false flag attack coordinated by the FSB in order to win public support for a new full-scale war in Chechnya and boost former FSB Director Vladimir Putin‘s, then the prime minister, popularity in the lead-up to parliamentary elections and presidential transfer of power in Russia later that year.^[54]^[55]^[56]^[57]^[58]^[59]^[60]^[61]^[62]^[63]^[64]^[65]

In his book Mafia State, Luke Harding, the Moscow correspondent for The Guardian from to 2007 to 2011 and a fierce critic of Russian politics, alleges that the FSB subjected him to continual psychological harassment, with the aim of either coercing him into practicing self-censorship in his reporting, or to leave the country entirely. He says that FSB used techniques known as Zersetzung (literally “corrosion” or “undermining”) which were perfected by the East German Stasi.^[66]

Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy criticised the continuing celebration of the professional holiday of the old and the modern Russian security services on the anniversary of the creation of the Cheka: “The successors of the KGB still haven’t renounced anything; they even celebrate their professional holiday the same day, as during repression, on the 20th of December. It is as if the present intelligence and counterespionage services of Germany celebrated Gestapo Day. I can imagine how indignant our press would be!”^[67]^[68]^[69] In the same time, in 2007, during a memorial to the victims of the 1937 Great Purge at Butovo firing range Vladimir Putin honored the victims of the Stalin’s purge and told the audience that the Great Purge was prepared by the years of the previous hostilities of the Soviet regime including extermination of entire strata of the society: clergy, Russian peasantry and the Cossacks. In his speech Putin mainly criticized the Red Terror under the lead of Felix Dzerzhinsky as the then Cheka head, which resulted in the deaths of thousands, including opponents of the regime and the clergy.^[70]^[71]

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service

The Sting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sting
Theatrical release poster by Richard Amsel
Directed by	George Roy Hill
Produced by	Tony Bill Michael Phillips Julia Phillips
Written by	David S. Ward
Starring	Paul Newman Robert Redford Robert Shaw
Music by	Marvin Hamlisch
Cinematography	Robert Surtees
Edited by	William Reynolds
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	December 25, 1973
Running time	129 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5.5 million^[1]
Box office	$159.6 million^[1]

The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw).^[2] The film was directed by George Roy Hill,^[3] who had directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Created by screenwriter David S. Ward, the story was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man.

The title phrase refers to the moment when a con artist finishes the “play” and takes the mark’s money. If a con is successful, the mark does not realize he has been “taken” (cheated), at least not until the con men are long gone. The film is played out in distinct sections with old-fashioned title cards, the lettering and illustrations rendered in a style reminiscent of the Saturday Evening Post. The film is noted for its anachronistic use of ragtime, particularly the melody “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin, which was adapted (along with others by Joplin) for the movie by Marvin Hamlisch (and a top-ten chart single for Hamlisch when released as a single from the film’s soundtrack). The film’s success created a resurgence of interest in Joplin’s work.^[4]

The Sting was hugely successful at the 46th Academy Awards, being nominated for 10 Oscars and winning seven, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

Plot

The film takes place in 1936, at the height of the Great Depression. Johnny Hooker, a grifter in Joliet, Illinois, cons $11,000 in cash ($189,800 today) in a pigeon drop from an unsuspecting victim with the aid of his partners Luther Coleman and Joe Erie. Buoyed by the windfall, Luther announces his retirement and advises Hooker to seek out an old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago to teach him “the big con”. Unfortunately, their victim was a numbers racket courier for vicious crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Corrupt Joliet police Lieutenant William Snyder confronts Hooker, revealing Lonnegan’s involvement and demanding part of Hooker’s cut. Having already spent his share, Hooker pays Snyder in counterfeit bills. Lonnegan’s men murder both the courier and Luther, and Hooker flees for his life to Chicago.

Hooker finds Henry Gondorff, a once-great con-man now hiding from the FBI, and asks for his help in taking on the dangerous Lonnegan. Gondorff is initially reluctant, but he relents and recruits a core team of experienced con men to con Lonnegan. They decide to resurrect an elaborate obsolete scam known as “the wire”, using a larger crew of con artists to create a phony off-track betting parlor. Aboard the opulent 20th Century Limited, Gondorff, posing as boorish Chicago bookie Shaw, buys into Lonnegan’s private, high-stakes poker game. Shaw infuriates Lonnegan with his obnoxious behavior, then outcheats him to win $15,000. Hooker, posing as Shaw’s disgruntled employee, Kelly, is sent to collect the winnings and instead convinces Lonnegan that he wants to take over Shaw’s operation. Kelly reveals that he has a partner named Les Harmon (actually con man Kid Twist) in the Chicago Western Unionoffice, who will allow them to win bets on horse races by past-posting.

Meanwhile, Snyder has tracked Hooker to Chicago, but his pursuit is thwarted when he is summoned by undercover FBI agents led by Agent Polk, who orders him to assist in their plan to arrest Gondorff using Hooker. At the same time, Lonnegan has grown frustrated with the inability of his men to find and kill Hooker. Unaware that Kelly is Hooker, he demands that Salino, his best assassin, be given the job. A mysterious figure with black leather gloves is then seen following and observing Hooker.

Kelly’s connection appears effective, as Harmon provides Lonnegan with the winner of one horse race and the trifecta of another race. Lonnegan agrees to finance a $500,000 ($8,629,000 today) bet at Shaw’s parlor to break Shaw and gain revenge. Shortly thereafter, Snyder captures Hooker and brings him before FBI Agent Polk. Polk forces Hooker to betray Gondorff by threatening to incarcerate Luther Coleman’s widow.

The night before the sting, Hooker sleeps with Loretta, a waitress from a local restaurant. As Hooker leaves the building the next morning, he sees Loretta walking toward him. The black-gloved man appears behind Hooker and shoots her dead – she was Lonnegan’s hired killer, Loretta Salino, and the gunman was hired by Gondorff to protect Hooker.

Armed with Harmon’s tip to “place it on Lucky Dan”, Lonnegan makes the $500,000 bet at Shaw’s parlor on Lucky Dan to win. As the race begins, Harmon arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan’s bet, explaining that when he said “place it” he meant, literally, that Lucky Dan would “place” (i.e., finish second). In a panic, Lonnegan rushes the teller window and demands his money back. A moment later, Agent Polk, Lt. Snyder, and a half dozen FBI officers storm the parlor. Polk confronts Gondorff, then tells Hooker he is free to go. Gondorff, reacting to the betrayal, shoots Hooker in the back. Polk then shoots Gondorff and orders Snyder to get the ostensibly-respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene. With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Hooker and Gondorff rise amid cheers and laughter. Agent Polk is actually Hickey, a con man, running a con atop Gondorff’s con to divert Snyder and provide a solid “blow off”. As the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, saying “I’d only blow it”, and walks away with Gondorff.

Cast

Paul Newman as Henry “Shaw” Gondorff
Robert Redford as Johnny “Kelly” Hooker
Robert Shaw as Doyle Lonnegan
Robert Earl Jones as Luther Coleman
Charles Durning as Lt. William Snyder, Joliet P.D.
Ray Walston as J.J. Singleton
Eileen Brennan as Billie
Harold Gould as Kid Twist
John Heffernan as Eddie Niles
Dana Elcar as FBI Agent Polk, aka “Hickey”
Jack Kehoe as Joe Erie
Dimitra Arliss as Loretta Salino
James J. Sloyan as Mottola
Charles Dierkop as Floyd (Lonnegan’s bodyguard)
Lee Paul as Lonnegan’s bodyguard
Sally Kirkland as Crystal (“Hooker’s hooker”)
Avon Long as Benny Garfield
Arch Johnson as Combs
Ed Bakey as Granger
Brad Sullivan as Cole
John Quade as Riley
Larry D. Mann as Train Conductor
Leonard Barr as Burlesque House Comedian
Paulene Myers as Alva Coleman
Joe Tornatore as Black Gloved Gunman
Jack Collins as Duke Boudreau
Tom Spratley as Curly Jackson
Kenneth O’Brien as Greer
Ken Sansom as Western Union Executive
Ta-Tanisha as Louise Coleman
William Benedict as Roulette Dealer

Production

Filming on location in Pasadena, California. Stand-ins are used to set up the shot.

The movie was filmed on the Universal Studios backlot, with a few small scenes shot in Wheeling, West Virginia, some scenes filmed at the Santa Monica Pier, in Pasadena, and in Chicago at Union Station and the former LaSalle Street Station prior to its demolition.^[5]^[6] Lonnegan’s limp was authentic; Shaw had slipped on a wet handball court at the Beverly Hills Hotel a week before filming began and had injured the ligaments in his knee. He wore a leg brace during production which was hidden under the wide 1930s style trousers. This incident was revealed by Julia Phillips in her 1991 autobiography You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. She stated that Shaw saved The Sting, since no other actor would accept the part; Paul Newman hand-delivered the script to Shaw in London in order to ensure his participation. Philips’s book asserts that Shaw was not nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award because he demanded that his name follow those of Newman and Redford before the film’s opening title.

Rob Cohen (later director of action films such as The Fast and the Furious) years later told of how he found the script in the slush pile when working as a reader for Mike Medavoy, a future studio head, but then an agent. He wrote in his coverage that it was “the great American screenplay and … will make an award-winning, major-cast, major-director film.” Medavoy said that he would try to sell it on that recommendation, promising to fire Cohen if he could not. Universal bought it that afternoon, and Cohen keeps the coverage framed on the wall of his office.^[7]

Roy Huggins, creator and chief writer of the TV western-comedy “Maverick“, noted during interview that the first half of “The Sting” bore resemblance to his script for the episode “Shady Deal at Sunny Acres“.^[8]

Reception

The film received rave reviews and was a box office smash in 1973–74, taking in more than US$160 million ($800 million today). As of October 2016, it is the 22nd highest-grossing film in the United States adjusted for ticket price inflation.^[9] In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #39 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.^[10]

Awards

Wins

The film won seven Academy Awards and received three other nominations.^[11] At the 46th Academy Awards, Julia Phillips became the first female producer to be nominated for and to win Best Picture.^[12]

Nominations

Academy Award for Best Actor—(Robert Redford)
Academy Award for Best Cinematography—(Robert Surtees)
Academy Award for Sound—(Ronald Pierce & Robert R. Bertrand)
Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay—Motion Picture—(David S. Ward)
WGA Award for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen—(David S. Ward)
AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies
AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs
AFI’s 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains:
- Doyle Lonnegan—Villain (Robert Shaw)
AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)

Music

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The soundtrack album, executive produced by Gil Rodin, included several Scott Joplin ragtime compositions, adapted by Marvin Hamlisch. According to Joplin scholar Edward A. Berlin, ragtime had experienced a revival in the 1970s due to several separate, but coalescing events:

Joshua Rifkin‘s recording of Joplin rags on Nonesuch Records, a classical label, became a “classical” best-seller.

The New York Public Library issued a two-volume collection of Joplin’s music, thereby giving the stamp of approval of one of the nation’s great institutions of learning.

Treemonisha received its first full staging, as part of a Afro-American Music Workshop at Morehouse College, in Georgia.

Gunther Schuller, president of the New England Conservatory of Music, led a student ensemble in a performance of period orchestrations of Joplin’s music.

Inspired by Schuller’s recording, the producer of the movie The Sting had Marvin Hamlisch score Joplin’s music for the film, thereby bringing Joplin to a mass, popular public.^[4]

There are some variances from the film soundtrack, as noted. Joplin’s music was no longer popular by the 1930s, although its use in The Sting evokes the 1930s gangster movie, The Public Enemy, which featured Joplin’s music.^{[citation needed]} The two Jazz Age-style tunes written by Hamlisch are chronologically closer^{[citation needed]} to the film’s time period than are the Joplin rags:

“Solace” (Joplin)—orchestral version
“The Entertainer” (Joplin)—orchestral version
“The Easy Winners” (Joplin)
“Hooker’s Hooker” (Hamlisch)
“Luther”—same basic tune as “Solace”, re-arranged by Hamlisch as a dirge
“Pine Apple Rag” / “Gladiolus Rag” medley (Joplin)
“The Entertainer” (Joplin)—piano version
“The Glove” (Hamlisch)—a Jazz Age style number; only a short segment was used in the film
“Little Girl” (Madeline Hyde, Francis Henry)—heard only as a short instrumental segment over a car radio
“Pine Apple Rag” (Joplin)
“Merry-Go-Round Music” medley; “Listen to the Mocking Bird”, “Darling Nellie Gray”, “Turkey in the Straw” (traditional)—”Listen to the Mocking Bird” was the only portion of this track that was actually used in the film, along with a segment of “King Cotton”, a Sousa march, a segment of “The Diplomat”, another Sousa march, a segment of Sousa’s Washington Post March, and a segment of “The Regimental Band”, a Charles C. Sweeleymarch, all of which were not on the album. All six tunes were recorded from the Santa Monica Pier carousel’s band organ.
“Solace” (Joplin)—piano version
“The Entertainer” / “The Ragtime Dance” medley (Joplin)

The album sequence differs from the film sequence, a standard practice with vinyl LPs, often for aesthetic reasons. Some additional content differences:

Selected snippets of Joplin’s works, some appearing on the album and some not, provided linking music over the title cards that introduced major scenes. (The final card, “The Sting”, introducing the film’s dramatic conclusion, had no music.)
Some tunes in the film are different takes than those on the album.^{[citation needed]}
A Joplin tune used in the film but not appearing in the soundtrack album was “Cascades”. The middle (fast) portion of it was played when Hooker was running from Snyder along the ‘L’ train platform.
The credits end with “The Rag-time Dance” (Joplin) medley which features a ‘stop-time’ motif similar to a later work “Stop-Time Rag” (Joplin).

Chart positions

Year	Chart	Position
1974	US Billboard 200	1
1974	Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart	1

Preceded by Chicago VII by Chicago	Billboard 200 number-one album May 4 – June 7, 1974	Succeeded by Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot
Preceded by Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield	Australian Kent Music Report number-one album June 17 – July 28, 1974 August 5–11, 1974	Succeeded by Caribou by Elton John

Sequel

A sequel with different players, The Sting II, appeared in 1983. In the same year a prequel was planned, exploring the earlier career of Henry Gondorff. Famous confidence man Soapy Smith was scripted to be Gondorff’s mentor. When the sequel failed, the prequel was scrapped.

Home media

A deluxe DVD, The Sting: Special Edition (part of the Universal Legacy Series) was released in September 2005, including a “making of” featurette called “The Art of the Sting” with interviews from the cast and crew. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in 2012, as a part of Universal’s 100th anniversary string of releases.

Judiciary

The Supreme Court of India referenced the movie in a judgement involving a sting operation.^[13]

References

^ Jump up to:^a ^b “The Sting, Box Office Information”. The Numbers. Retrieved January 4, 2012.
Jump up^ Variety film review; December 12, 1973, page 16.
Jump up^ “The Sting”. TCM database. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Edward A. Berlin (1996). “Basic Repertoire List – Joplin”. Classical Net. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
Jump up^ “LaSalle Street Station”. Metra. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
Jump up^ “Movies Filmed in Chicago”. City of Chicago. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
Jump up^ Lussier, Germaine (November 21, 2008). “Screenings: ‘The Sting’ as part of Paul Newman Retrospective”. Times-Herald Record. News Corporation. Retrieved November 21, 2008.
Jump up^ “Roy Huggins on the Maverick episode “Shady Deal at Sunny Acres” (video interview, part 6 of 10, 23:05)”. EmmyTVLegends. Retrieved 6 June2017. When I walked into Universal on the morning “Sting” came out, Max Baer Jr. was…outside my office, and he says, “Roy, are you going to sue?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. “What do you mean?” He says, “You didn’t see ‘Sting’?” I say no; he says, “Well see it, because the first half of it is ‘Shady Deal at Sunny Acres’!”
Jump up^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
Jump up^ Savage, Sophia (February 27, 2013). “WGA Lists Greatest Screenplays, From ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Godfather’ to ‘Memento’ and ‘Notorious'”. Archived from the original on August 13, 2006. Retrieved February 28,2013.
Jump up^ “The 46th Academy Awards (1974) Nominees and Winners”. oscars.org. Retrieved October 2, 2011.
Jump up^ “NY Times: The Sting”. NY Times. Retrieved December 29, 2008.
Jump up^ “Rajat Prasad Vs. Respondent: C.B.I.” (PDF). National Judicial Academy. Point 10.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Sting.

Wikiquote has quotations related to:The Sting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sting

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Pronk Pops Show 924, July 6, 2017

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Pronk Pops Show 900, May 25, 2017

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Pronk Pops Show 886, May 4, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 885, May 3, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 884, May 1, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 883 April 28, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 882: April 27, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 881: April 26, 2017

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Pronk Pops Show 879: April 24, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 878: April 21, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 877: April 20, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 876: April 19, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 875: April 18, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 874: April 17, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 873: April 13, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 872: April 12, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 871: April 11, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 870: April 10, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 869: April 7, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 868: April 6, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 867: April 5, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 866: April 3, 2017

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Story 1: President Trump’s Speech In Krasiński Square, Warsaw, Poland — People Who Value Freedom Make A Nation Great — Videos

Image result for map of NATO countries and Russia

“The story of Poland is the story of a people who have never lost hope, who have never been broken and who have never ever forgotten who they are,”

“And when the day came on June 2nd, 1979, and one million Poles gathered around Victory Square for their very first mass with their Polish Pope, that day, every communist in Warsaw must have known that their oppressive system would soon come crashing down. They must have known it at the exact moment during Pope John Paul II’s sermon when a million Polish men, women, and children suddenly raised their voices in a single prayer. A million Polish people did not ask for wealth. They did not ask for privilege. Instead, one million Poles sang three simple words: “We Want God.”

“A strong Poland is a blessing to the nations of Europe, and they know that. A strong Europe is a blessing to the West and to the world. One hundred years after the entry of American forces into World War I, the transatlantic bond between the United States and Europe is as strong as ever and maybe, in many ways, even stronger.”

“Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit, and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies. …”

“…The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?

We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive. (Applause.) If anyone forgets the critical importance of these things, let them come to one country that never has. Let them come to Poland. And let them come here, to Warsaw, and learn the story of the Warsaw Uprising.”

~President Donald J. Trump

Warsaw Rising: The Forgotten Soldiers of World War II

EPIC: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP GIVE A POWERFUL SPEECH at People of Poland GIGANTIC EVENT Melania Trump

Watch Donald Trump’s Keynote Speech In Warsaw, Poland | NBC News

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President Trump Speech in Warsaw Poland Ceremony gets introduce by Melania Trump 7/6/2017

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LOU DOBBS REACTS TO TRUMP’S POWERFUL SPEECH IN POLAND

President Trump: Something has to be done about North Korea

POLISH CROWD CHANTS ‘DONALD TRUMP!’’USA! USA!’

‘It’s such a great honor’

Jul 6, 2017

The Polish crowd attending President Trump’s speech in Warsaw repeatedly interrupted his remarks with chants of “Donald Trump!” and “USA! USA!”

At a wreath-laying ceremony in Krasinski Square, the excited crowd broke out into an American-style, “USA! USA! USA!” chant.

Later, during Trump’s prepared remarks, the crowd repeatedly interrupted the speech with a “Donald Trump! Donald Trump!” chant.

“The story of Poland is the story of a people who have never lost hope, who have never been broken and who have never ever forgotten who they are,” Trump said in Warsaw, before the crowd began chanting his name.

“Thank you so much, thank you,” he replied. “Thank you so much. A great honor.”

Trump’s speech celebrated the United States’ alliance with Poland, and announced the country was purchasing the PATRIOT Air Defense Missile System that the Obama Administration had canceled as a part of his revamped START nuclear treaty.

Trump also thanked Poland for being one of the only NATO members to fully honoring its financial commitment to the Western security alliance.

“That is also why we salute the Polish people for being one of the NATO countries that has actually achieved the benchmark for investment in our common defense,” Trump said. “Thank you. Thank you Poland. I must tell you the example you set is truly magnificent and we applaud Poland.”

Trump also said the United States remains firmly committed to honoring NATO’s Article 5.

“To those who would criticize our tough stance” he’s taken with asking NATO members to honor their financial commitments, Trump said, “I would point out that the United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defense commitment.”

https://news.grabien.com/story-polish-crowd-chants-donald-trumpusa-usa

Here’s the Full Text of Donald Trump’s Speech in Poland

by NBC NEWS

President Donald Trump delivered the following remarks to the people of Poland from Warsaw’s Krasiński Square after being introduced by first lady Melania Trump.

Thank you very much. That’s so nice. The United States has many great diplomats, but there is truly no better ambassador for our country than our beautiful First Lady, Melania. Thank you, Melania. That was very nice.

We’ve come to your nation to deliver a very important message: America loves Poland, and America loves the Polish people.

The Poles have not only greatly enriched this region, but Polish-Americans have also greatly enriched the United States, and I was truly proud to have their support in the 2016 election.

It is a profound honor to stand in this city, by this monument to the Warsaw Uprising, and to address the Polish nation that so many generations have dreamed of: a Poland that is safe, strong, and free.

President Duda and your wonderful First Lady, Agata, have welcomed us with the tremendous warmth and kindness for which Poland is known around the world. Thank you. My sincere — and I mean sincerely thank both of them. And to Prime Minister Szydlo a very special thanks also.

We are also pleased that former President Lech Walesa, so famous for leading the Solidarity Movement, has joined us today, also. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

On behalf of all Americans, let me also thank the entire Polish people for the generosity you have shown in welcoming our soldiers to your country. These soldiers are not only brave defenders of freedom, but also symbols of America’s commitment to your security and your place in a strong and democratic Europe.

We are proudly joined on stage by American, Polish, British, and Romanian soldiers. Thank you. Thank you. Great job.

President Duda and I have just come from an incredibly successful meeting with the leaders participating in the Three Seas Initiative. To the citizens of this great region, America is eager to expand our partnership with you. We welcome stronger ties of trade and commerce as you grow your economies. And we are committed to securing your access to alternate sources of energy, so Poland and its neighbors are never again held hostage to a single supplier of energy.

Mr. President, I congratulate you, along with the President of Croatia, on your leadership of this historic Three Seas Initiative. Thank you.

This is my first visit to Central Europe as President, and I am thrilled that it could be right here at this magnificent, beautiful piece of land. It is beautiful. Poland is the geographic heart of Europe, but more importantly, in the Polish people, we see the soul of Europe. Your nation is great because your spirit is great and your spirit is strong.

For two centuries, Poland suffered constant and brutal attacks. But while Poland could be invaded and occupied, and its borders even erased from the map, it could never be erased from history or from your hearts. In those dark days, you have lost your land but you never lost your pride.

So it is with true admiration that I can say today, that from the farms and villages of your countryside to the cathedrals and squares of your great cities, Poland lives, Poland prospers, and Poland prevails.

Despite every effort to transform you, oppress you, or destroy you, you endured and overcame. You are the proud nation of Copernicus — think of that — Chopin, Saint John Paul II. Poland is a land of great heroes. And you are a people who know the true value of what you defend.

The triumph of the Polish spirit over centuries of hardship gives us all hope for a future in which good conquers evil, and peace achieves victory over war.

For Americans, Poland has been a symbol of hope since the beginning of our nation. Polish heroes and American patriots fought side by side in our War of Independence and in many wars that followed. Our soldiers still serve together today in Afghanistan and Iraq, combating the enemies of all civilization.

For America’s part, we have never given up on freedom and independence as the right and destiny of the Polish people, and we never, ever will.

Our two countries share a special bond forged by unique histories and national characters. It’s a fellowship that exists only among people who have fought and bled and died for freedom.

The signs of this friendship stand in our nation’s capital. Just steps from the White House, we’ve raised statues of men with names like Pułaski and Kościuszko. The same is true in Warsaw, where street signs carry the name of George Washington, and a monument stands to one of the world’s greatest heroes, Ronald Reagan.

And so I am here today not just to visit an old ally, but to hold it up as an example for others who seek freedom and who wish to summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization. The story of Poland is the story of a people who have never lost hope, who have never been broken, and who have never, ever forgotten who they are.

This is a nation more than one thousand years old. Your borders were erased for more than a century and only restored just one century ago.

In 1920, in the Miracle of Vistula, Poland stopped the Soviet army bent on European conquest. Then, 19 years later in 1939, you were invaded yet again, this time by Nazi Germany from the west and the Soviet Union from the east. That’s trouble. That’s tough.

Under a double occupation the Polish people endured evils beyond description: the Katyn forest massacre, the occupations, the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the destruction of this beautiful capital city, and the deaths of nearly one in five Polish people. A vibrant Jewish population — the largest in Europe — was reduced to almost nothing after the Nazis systematically murdered millions of Poland’s Jewish citizens, along with countless others, during that brutal occupation.

In the summer of 1944, the Nazi and Soviet armies were preparing for a terrible and bloody battle right here in Warsaw. Amid that hell on earth, the citizens of Poland rose up to defend their homeland. I am deeply honored to be joined on stage today by veterans and heroes of the Warsaw Uprising.

What great spirit. We salute your noble sacrifice and we pledge to always remember your fight for Poland and for freedom. Thank you. Thank you.

This monument reminds us that more than 150,000 Poles died during that desperate struggle to overthrow oppression.

From the other side of the river, the Soviet armed forces stopped and waited. They watched as the Nazis ruthlessly destroyed the city, viciously murdering men, women, and children. They tried to destroy this nation forever by shattering its will to survive.

But there is a courage and a strength deep in the Polish character that no one could destroy. The Polish martyr, Bishop Michael Kozal, said it well: “More horrifying than a defeat of arms is a collapse of the human spirit.”

Through four decades of communist rule, Poland and the other captive nations of Europe endured a brutal campaign to demolish freedom, your faith, your laws, your history, your identity — indeed the very essence of your culture and your humanity. Yet, through it all, you never lost that spirit. Your oppressors tried to break you, but Poland could not be broken.

And when the day came on June 2nd, 1979, and one million Poles gathered around Victory Square for their very first mass with their Polish Pope, that day, every communist in Warsaw must have known that their oppressive system would soon come crashing down. They must have known it at the exact moment during Pope John Paul II’s sermon when a million Polish men, women, and children suddenly raised their voices in a single prayer. A million Polish people did not ask for wealth. They did not ask for privilege. Instead, one million Poles sang three simple words: “We Want God.”

In those words, the Polish people recalled the promise of a better future. They found new courage to face down their oppressors, and they found the words to declare that Poland would be Poland once again.

As I stand here today before this incredible crowd, this faithful nation, we can still hear those voices that echo through history. Their message is as true today as ever. The people of Poland, the people of America, and the people of Europe still cry out “We want God.”

Together, with Pope John Paul II, the Poles reasserted their identity as a nation devoted to God. And with that powerful declaration of who you are, you came to understand what to do and how to live. You stood in solidarity against oppression, against a lawless secret police, against a cruel and wicked system that impoverished your cities and your souls. And you won. Poland prevailed. Poland will always prevail.

You were supported in that victory over communism by a strong alliance of free nations in the West that defied tyranny. Now, among the most committed members of the NATO Alliance, Poland has resumed its place as a leading nation of a Europe that is strong, whole, and free.

A strong Poland is a blessing to the nations of Europe, and they know that. A strong Europe is a blessing to the West and to the world. One hundred years after the entry of American forces into World War I, the transatlantic bond between the United States and Europe is as strong as ever and maybe, in many ways, even stronger.

This continent no longer confronts the specter of communism. But today we’re in the West, and we have to say there are dire threats to our security and to our way of life. You see what’s happening out there. They are threats. We will confront them. We will win. But they are threats.

We are confronted by another oppressive ideology — one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We’re going to get it to stop.

During a historic gathering in Saudi Arabia, I called on the leaders of more than 50 Muslim nations to join together to drive out this menace which threatens all of humanity. We must stand united against these shared enemies to strip them of their territory and their funding, and their networks, and any form of ideological support that they may have. While we will always welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people, our borders will always be closed to terrorism and extremism of any kind.

We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail. We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent.

Today, the West is also confronted by the powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence, and challenge our interests. To meet new forms of aggression, including propaganda, financial crimes, and cyberwarfare, we must adapt our alliance to compete effectively in new ways and on all new battlefields.

We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes — including Syria and Iran — and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.

Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger — one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.

Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit, and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies.

But just as our adversaries and enemies of the past learned here in Poland, we know that these forces, too, are doomed to fail if we want them to fail. And we do, indeed, want them to fail. (Applause.) They are doomed not only because our alliance is strong, our countries are resilient, and our power is unmatched. Through all of that, you have to say everything is true. Our adversaries, however, are doomed because we will never forget who we are. And if we don’t forget who are, we just can’t be beaten. Americans will never forget. The nations of Europe will never forget. We are the fastest and the greatest community. There is nothing like our community of nations. The world has never known anything like our community of nations.

We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.

We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.

We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success. We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives. And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves.

And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.

What we have, what we inherited from our — and you know this better than anybody, and you see it today with this incredible group of people — what we’ve inherited from our ancestors has never existed to this extent before. And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again. So we cannot fail.

This great community of nations has something else in common: In every one of them, it is the people, not the powerful, who have always formed the foundation of freedom and the cornerstone of our defense. The people have been that foundation here in Poland — as they were right here in Warsaw — and they were the foundation from the very, very beginning in America.

Our citizens did not win freedom together, did not survive horrors together, did not face down evil together, only to lose our freedom to a lack of pride and confidence in our values. We did not and we will not. We will never back down.

As long as we know our history, we will know how to build our future. Americans know that a strong alliance of free, sovereign and independent nations is the best defense for our freedoms and for our interests. That is why my administration has demanded that all members of NATO finally meet their full and fair financial obligation.

As a result of this insistence, billions of dollars more have begun to pour into NATO. In fact, people are shocked. But billions and billions of dollars more are coming in from countries that, in my opinion, would not have been paying so quickly.

To those who would criticize our tough stance, I would point out that the United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defense commitment.

Words are easy, but actions are what matters. And for its own protection — and you know this, everybody knows this, everybody has to know this — Europe must do more. Europe must demonstrate that it believes in its future by investing its money to secure that future.

That is why we applaud Poland for its decision to move forward this week on acquiring from the United States the battle-tested Patriot air and missile defense system — the best anywhere in the world. (Applause.) That is also why we salute the Polish people for being one of the NATO countries that has actually achieved the benchmark for investment in our common defense. Thank you. Thank you, Poland. I must tell you, the example you set is truly magnificent, and we applaud Poland. Thank you.

We have to remember that our defense is not just a commitment of money, it is a commitment of will. Because as the Polish experience reminds us, the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have. The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?

When they do, they should learn about Jerusalem Avenue. In August of 1944, Jerusalem Avenue was one of the main roads running east and west through this city, just as it is today.

Control of that road was crucially important to both sides in the battle for Warsaw. The German military wanted it as their most direct route to move troops and to form a very strong front. And for the Polish Home Army, the ability to pass north and south across that street was critical to keep the center of the city, and the Uprising itself, from being split apart and destroyed.

Every night, the Poles put up sandbags amid machine gun fire — and it was horrendous fire — to protect a narrow passage across Jerusalem Avenue. Every day, the enemy forces knocked them down again and again and again. Then the Poles dug a trench. Finally, they built a barricade. And the brave Polish fighters began to flow across Jerusalem Avenue. That narrow passageway, just a few feet wide, was the fragile link that kept the Uprising alive.

Between its walls, a constant stream of citizens and freedom fighters made their perilous, just perilous, sprints. They ran across that street, they ran through that street, they ran under that street — all to defend this city. “The far side was several yards away,” recalled one young Polish woman named Greta. That mortality and that life was so important to her. In fact, she said, “The mortally dangerous sector of the street was soaked in the blood. It was the blood of messengers, liaison girls, and couriers.”

Nazi snipers shot at anybody who crossed. Anybody who crossed, they were being shot at. Their soldiers burned every building on the street, and they used the Poles as human shields for their tanks in their effort to capture Jerusalem Avenue. The enemy never ceased its relentless assault on that small outpost of civilization. And the Poles never ceased its defense.

The Jerusalem Avenue passage required constant protection, repair, and reinforcement, but the will of its defenders did not waver, even in the face of death. And to the last days of the Uprising, the fragile crossing never, ever failed. It was never, ever forgotten. It was kept open by the Polish people.

The memories of those who perished in the Warsaw Uprising cry out across the decades, and few are clearer than the memories of those who died to build and defend the Jerusalem Avenue crossing. Those heroes remind us that the West was saved with the blood of patriots; that each generation must rise up and play their part in its defense and that every foot of ground, and every last inch of civilization, is worth defending with your life.

Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield — it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls. Today, the ties that unite our civilization are no less vital, and demand no less defense, than that bare shred of land on which the hope of Poland once totally rested. Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory.

And today as ever, Poland is in our heart, and its people are in that fight. Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph.

So, together, let us all fight like the Poles — for family, for freedom, for country, and for God.

Thank you. God Bless You. God bless the Polish people. God bless our allies. And God bless the United States of America.

Thank you. God bless you. Thank you very much.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/here-s-full-text-donald-trump-s-speech-poland-n780046

Trump finally turns on Russia as he warns Putin to STOP his aggression in Syria and Ukraine as he issues full-throated attack on radical Islamic terrorism AND government bureaucracy to delight of thousands of Poles who chant his name

President Donald Trump met with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw
He later questioned during a landmark speech at Krasinski Square whether the West has the ‘will to survive’
Insisted North Korea would face ‘consequences’ and admitted Russia ‘could have’ interfered with the election
Trump hit Russia later for its ‘destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran’
He urged Vladimir Putin’s government to join the U.S. and its allies in the global fight against terrorism
Earlier said he thought Russia had interfered in the election – but that Obama had done nothing about it
Visit to Warsaw came ahead of a journey to Germany for the G20 summit on Friday and Saturday

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com In Warsaw, Poland and Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent For Dailymail.com

PUBLISHED: 03:54 EDT, 6 July 2017 | UPDATED: 15:19 EDT, 6 July 2017

President Donald Trump browbeat Russia on Thursday for its ‘destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran‘ and urged Vladimir Putin‘s government to join the U.S. and its allies in the global fight against terrorism.

Trump had refused earlier in the day to pin election hacking last year in the U.S. on the Kremlin, saying he thinks it was Putin’s government, but it ‘could have been other people in other countries.’

And he did not mention Russia by name in his remarks to the Polish people when he committed the U.S. to making sure Warsaw is ‘never again held hostage to a single supplier of energy.’

But turning to threats against the West later in his speech in front a memorial to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, Trump railed against ‘the steady creep of government bureaucracy,’ along with ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ and ‘powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence and challenge our interests.’

‘To meet new forms of aggression, including propaganda, financial crimes and cyber warfare, we must adapt our lives to compete effectively in new ways and on all new battlefields,’ he said in a direct reference to Moscow’s meddling.

Speaking to thousands of cheering Poles, Trump called their nation ‘the geographic heart of Europe’ and praising their countrymen for shaking off both Nazi oppressors and Russian occupiers in the last century.

‘That’s trouble. That’s tough,’ he exclaimed.

‘In those dark days, you have lost your land but you never lost your pride.’

President Donald Trump questioned if the West has the ‘will to survive’ in a landmark speech in Warsaw on Thursday afternoon. He spoke at Krasinski Square in front of a monument commemorating the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis. The Warsaw Uprising was the largest act of resistance by any nation under the German occupation during World War II and the heroism of the insurgents remains a defining element in Polish national identity

Trump spoke in front of a crowd at Krasinski Square at the Royal Castle in Warsaw on Thursday

Trump participates in a wreath laying ceremony before delivering a speech at Krasinski Square at the Royal Castle

Trump waves next to First Lady of the United States Melania Trump, Polish President Andrzej Duda and First Lady of Poland Agata Kornhauser-Duda before his public speech

People cheer as Trump delivers his landmark speech at Krasinski Square at the Royal Castle on Thursday morning

Ahead of his speech on Thursday, First Lady Melania Trump welcomed the crowd and introduced her husband

Speaking behind bullet-proof glass, the president said Poles are ‘a people who truly know the value of what you defend.’

He urged them to uphold ‘a future in which good conquers evil.’

They repeatedly chanted ‘USA, USA’ and ‘Donald Trump! Donald Trump!’

Trump had earlier met the Polish president and warned that the future of the West is in doubt.

In a speech to the public he praised Poland’s ‘will to survive’ because they ‘have never, ever forgotten who they are.’

‘The Polish experience reminds us – the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail,’ Trump said.

‘Your oppressors tried to break you, but Poland could not be broken.’

First Lady Melania Trump warmed up the crowd in Poland’s capital city ahead of her husband’s speech, saying that all people should be allowed to ‘live their lives without fear’

The first lady said Thursday that guaranteeing the ‘security’ of the American people is the centerpiece of Trump’s administration

During her introduction speech at Krasinski Square on Thursday Melania Trump said she hoped all around world could share in that safety

First Lady Melania walked alongside President Trump as they arrived at Krasinski Square on Thursday ahead of Trump’s speech

Melania Trump, who is taking a prominent role in her husband’s key overseas trip, also saluted the Polish people and their ‘beautiful country’

Melania donned a navy blue dress with pink and blue stripes for the event on Thursday. She wore purple heels to finish off the outfit

And Trump projected his fight against Middle Eastern terrorism onto the template of Poland’s historic struggles, saying, ‘We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail.’

‘America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We are going to get it to stop,’ he said. ‘While we will always welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people, our borders will always be closed to terrorism and extremism of any kind.’

The president urged European nations to commit more of their money to NATO, as he said the organization’s ‘Article 5’ commitment to mutual defense is an ironclad guarantee.

‘Words are easy but actions are what matters,’ he urged. ‘Europe must do more. Europe must demonstrate that it believes in its future by investing its money to secure that future.’

At a press conference following his private talks with Andrzej Duda, Trump said North Korea would face ‘consequences’ for its intercontinental ballistic missile test.

He also admitted that Russia ‘could have’ interfered with the 2016 election and vowed to work with Poland on addressing threats from the country

Ivanka was beaming as she arrived at the speech hand-in-hand with husband Jared Kushner. The couple arrived in Warsaw on Air Force One with the president and first lady

Ivanka Trump smiles as she arrives in Krasinski Square, in Warsaw, with her husband Jared Kushner, senior adviser of Trump

Ivanka, who has taken a prominent role in her father’s White House administration, arrived in Warsaw on Wednesday evening ahead of Trump’s speech

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump took seats in the front row in Krasinski Square ahead of Trump’s speech, for which Poles from around the country traveled to see

The pair held hands as they listened to the president made his speech, in which he Poland as the ‘geographic heart of Europe’

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump applauded as they listened to Trump’s speech, which he made from behind bulletproof glass

Trump’s whirlwind visit to Warsaw came just before a meeting with Putin. He will travel next to Germany for Friday and Saturday’s G20 summit, where he will sit down for talks with the Russian leader for the first time since taking office.

Trump’s appearance alongside the Polish president will go down badly in Russia.

Trump’s visit to Warsaw was coordinated with the Three Seas Initiative, which is a new 12-nation trade and economic bloc organized in part to limit Russia’s power, especially in ways that diminish its dominance in the region’s energy markets.

‘To the citizens of this great region, America is eager to expand our partnership with you. We welcome stronger ties of trade and commerce as you grow your economies,’ Trump said in his Krasinski Square speech. ‘And we are committed to securing your access to alternate sources of energy, so Poland and its neighbors are never again held hostage to a single supplier of energy.’

North Korea’s ballistic missile test the day the day before Trump left the U.S. moved the threat posed by Kim Jong-un’s illicit nuclear activity up to the top of the American president’s list of shared threats.

Trump spoke from Krasinski Square, the site of a monument commemorating the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis

The Warsaw Uprising (its monument pictured above) was the largest act of resistance by any nation under the German occupation during World War II, and the heroism of the insurgents remains a defining element in Polish national identity

During World War II, the Germans suppressed the rebellion brutally, destroying most of Warsaw and killing around 200,000 people, most of them civilians. Pictured above, Trump and Melania observed the monument for the Warsaw Uprising

Donald Trump shake hands with veteran as dozens of others look on after delivering a speech in Krasinski Square in Warsaw, Poland on Thursday

Dozens of veterans watched Trump’s speech from behind the stage on Thursday, sitting next to a monument for the Warsaw Uprising

At his joint press conference with Duda, Trump called on the global community to ensure there are ‘consequences’ for Pyongyang’s belligerence and warned that he is considering a ‘severe’ response.

‘I call on all nations to confront this global threat and publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for their very, very bad behavior,’ he declared.

‘I have pretty severe things that we’re thinking about,’ Trump said, addressing a question from DailyMail.com, but added: ‘That doesn’t mean that we’ll do them.’

Trump later said that he was working with Poland on addressing threats from Russia and reiterated his calls for NATO members to meet their financial obligations.

Trump said that ‘as a result’ of his administration’s pushing, ‘billions of dollars’ have begun to pour into NATO.

‘In fact, people are shocked. But billions and billions of dollars more are coming in from countries that, in my opinion, would not have been paying so quickly.’

Trump commemorated Polish and Jewish history in his speech as dozens of veterans looked on. Pictured above, Melania, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda listen to Trump’s speech

Trump shook hands with several veterans who listened to the speech as he left Krasinski Square and headed for Germany

Crowds waving US, confederate and Polish flags gathered in and around a Warsaw square where Trump delivered his first public speech in Europe

Some Trump supporters tied a ‘Make America Great Again’ banner to a barrier fence ahead of the speech. Nearby attendees wore hats bearing the same slogan

While some people carried flags, some banners on display in Krasinski Square featured the right-wing, pro-government Gazeta Polska newspaper.

One man kept his supportive sign straight and to the point: He simply carried around a photo of President Donald Trump to the rally

‘To those who would criticize our tough stance, I would point out that the United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defense commitment,’ he said, checking an important box in his remarks for European leaders who have worried about that his warnings to pay up or else meant the U.S. was rethinking its involvement in the international organization.

Trump heaped praise on Poland for paying up.

He told the Polish people, ‘You were supported in that victory over communism by a strong alliance of free nations in the West that defied tyranny. Now, among the most committed members of the NATO Alliance, Poland has resumed its place as a leading nation of a Europe that is strong, whole, and free.’

‘A strong Poland is a blessing to the nations of Europe, and they know that. A strong Europe is a blessing to the West and to the world.’

As Krasinski Square filled with people, crowds are gathered in neighboring streets, where screens have been set up for viewing

In the center of the square, several rows of seats were set up for guests while others sat in nearby bleachers and behind barriers

Former president Lech Walesa is among the special guests in the VIP section. Poland’s leaders promised Trump a warm welcome before he heads to Germany later Thursday for a summit of the world’s developed and developing nations

Trump’s speech came just days after Independence Day in the United States and ahead of his appearance at the G20 Summit in Germany

There were so many attendees at the event that some crowded into a glass-enclosed bus stop to watch Trump deliver his speech

Trump addressed thousands of Poles from Krasinski Square, site of the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation. More than 150,000 Poles died during the struggle to overthrow oppression

Some supporters in the crowd made T-shirts reading ‘Make Poland Great Again’ a phrase that played on Trump’s ‘MAGA’ campaign slogan

Noting the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into World War I, which he will celebrate formally next week in Paris, France, Trump said’ the transatlantic bond between the United States and Europe is as strong as ever and maybe, in many ways, even stronger.’

‘This continent no longer confronts the specter of communism. But today we’re in the West, and we have to say there are dire threats to our security and to our way of life,’ he said. ‘You see what’s happening out there. They are threats. We will confront them. We will win. But they are threats.’

Duda for his part said he believed Trump took Poland’s security seriously.

‘We see ourselves as loyal partners who cooperate on a number of issues, among others on security,’ Duda said at the news conference.

POLAND’S FIGHTING SPIRIT THROUGHOUT HISTORY

As Donald Trump delivered his speech in Warsaw, he praised Poland’s history of fighting for survival, including against Nazi rule during the Second World War.

The President told listeners: ‘Your oppressors tried to break you, but Poland could not be broken.’

In fact, Poland was broken – literally – for a large part of its history. From 1795 until 1918, the country did not exist at all having been partitioned by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy

Following the collapse of these empires at the end of the First World War, Poland was able to reestablish itself having kept its culture alive through 200 years of foreign governance via resistance movements and educational institutions.

While an independent Polish state with access to the sea was established as part of the Treaty of Versailles, various border disputed raged between 1919 and 1921, including one against the Soviets.

In August 1920 the Russian army was advancing on Warsaw having already claimed several victories over the Polish, and looked on the verge of crushing their army and perhaps crumbling the country once more.

But the city marked as far as the Soviets would get – the Polish stopped the advance, forcing the Russian into a messy retreat which saw their army crippled and the war won.

That would not be the last time Poland would have to fight for its survival, however, as it was invaded and occupied by both the Nazis and the Russians during the Second World War.

After Hitler broke his non-aggression pact with Stalin in September 1939, he marched his troops into Poland before the Soviets attacked back later the same month. The two sides eventually reached an impasse, and decided to partition Poland once more between Germany and Russia.

Under the two occupations, Polish citizens suffered enormous human and material losses. It is thought about 5.7 million Polish citizens died as a result of the German occupation and about 150,000 died as a result of the Soviet occupation.

Hitler began the process of hunting down Poland’s Jewish population and putting them to death in concentration camps, with an estimated 90 per cent of Polish Jews, around three million people, murdered.

Meanwhile the Soviets stirred up resentment of native Poles among the Jewish, Ukrainias, Belarusian and Lithuanian minorities and used this to repress them.

Most of those killed were Polish priosners of war who were exterminated in a ‘reign of terror’ perpetrated by the NKVD, or Soviet secret police. The most infamous instance came in 1940, when around 22,000 Polish army officers, police, and intellectuals were murdered in the Katyn Massacre – named after the Russian forest where many mass graves were found.

The country was also the staging point for Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s full-scale Blitzkrieg invasion of the Soviets which began in June 1941. The attack brought Poland wholly under Nazi control from then until 1944, when Stalin began recapturing the territory as he pushed west to Berlin.

For his speech, Trump stood in front of a monument to the Warsaw Uprising which was the largest rebellion against Nazi rule by any resistance group during the war.

The Poles fought against the Germans for 63 days, killing 16,000 Nazi soldiers and destroying hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces, in the expectation that the Red Army would imminently arrive in the city, liberating it.

But Stalin actually halted his advance several miles away, leaving the resistance to fight completely unaided against Hitler’s forces – only moving in after they were destroyed and the city had been raised to the ground.

After the war was over, a deal struck between Stalin and other Allied leaders at the end of the war left Poland under Soviet Union control and Communist rule.

This decision would prove deeply unpopular in the decades that followed, as the country suffered widespread repression by their rulers, which rebuilt themselves after the fall of the Soviet empire as Russia, and watched capitalist Europe advance rapidly while their economy languished.

Russia’s decades-long failure to acknowledge another massacre, this time in Katyn in which 20,000 Poles were killed by Stalin’s secret police, served only to heighten tensions further.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Poland signalled its desire to join both Nato and the EU, pulling rapidly away from the sphere of Kremlin influence.

In 1999 it joined Nato having earlier backed out of the Warsaw Pact, a rival alliance including Russia which collapsed in 1991. Then, in 2004, it became a member of the European Union.

Today it is one of America’s closest allies in Europe, and was supposed to play host to a missile defense installation designed to protect against Russian nukes, a move which greatly angered Moscow.

While that installation was cancelled in favour of a ship-based missile deterrent, Poland will still host an American radar array which is due to be completed next year.

It is perhaps because of this history that Trump used his speech in Warsaw to issue his biggest rebuke to Putin yet – calling for an end to aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

Following his speech, Trump and his wife departed from Warsaw and headed for Germany on Air Force One ahead of the G20 Summit

It was also confirmed that Trump accepted an invitation to visit the small central European nation that is the homeland of his wife Melania following his speech

Demonstrators dressed in costumes resembling those from Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale attended a Trump protest in Warsaw on Thursday

The costumes resemble those worn in a new television series based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel in which women – dubbed ‘breeders’ – are forced to give birth and have no control over their bodies. Poland is currently embattled in a large debate over banning abortion

Poland has month the tightest abortion laws in Europe, and a proposal last year sought to ban all abortions unless a mother’s life was at risk. Demonstrators at Thursday’s protest wore pins that read ‘Together’ in Polish

Dozens of protesters showed up at the speech on Thursday, with some carrying signs that read ‘Trump Not Welcome’ and ‘Dump Trump’

Trump said then that Russia ‘could have’ interfered with the 2016 US presidential election which saw him take victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

He added, however, that he’s not totally convinced that Russia was the sole meddler, contrasting claims from four U.S. intelligence agencies which said the effort was directed by Putin and emanated from Moscow.

‘I think it was Russia, and it could have been other people in other countries,’ Trump said. ‘Nobody really knows.’

He added that the U.S. Intelligence Community has made high-profile mistakes in the past, so ‘nobody really knows for sure.’

The president sought to redirect any scrutiny toward his predecessor, Barack Obama, accusing him of allowing Moscow to meddle on his watch.

President Donald Trump questioned whether the West has the ‘will to survive’ in a landmark speech in Warsaw on Thursday

Trump held a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday after the pair had private talks

At a press conference following his private talks with Andrzej Duda, Trump said North Korea would face ‘consequences’ for its intercontinental ballistic missile test

He also admitted that Russia interfered with the 2016 election and vowed to work with Poland on addressing threats from the country

Though the Obama administration warned Russia publicly and privately before Election Day to stop interfering, questions have since been raised about whether he acted aggressively enough to stop the threat.

‘They say he choked. Well, I don’t think he choked,’ Trump said. ‘I think he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election, and he said, “Let’s not do anything about it”.’

Trump said the CIA had informed Obama about the hacking months before the election but added that ‘mistakes have been made.’.

He also took a question from DailyMail.com about a domestic tempest that developed this week over a video clip he tweeted on Sunday, depicting himself body-slamming a pro wrestling mogul whose face was superimposed with CNN’s logo.

CNN quickly condemned the tweet and assigned a reporter to find out where the viral meme originated.

At a joint press conference between Trump and Duda, the US president called on the global community to ensure there are ‘consequences’ for Pyongyang’s belligerence and warned that he is considering a ‘severe’ response

Trump later said that he was working with Poland on addressing threats from Russia and reiterated his calls for NATO members to meet their financial obligations

Trump’s whirlwind visit to Warsaw comes just days before he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin. He will next travel to Germany for Friday and Saturday’s G20 summit

Trump and Duda shook hands for photo ops several times on Thursday, including after their joint press conference

By Thursday the network was under fire for allegedly threatening to reveal the name of a person it said created the video.

But CNN appears to have gotten it wrong, using the wrong version of the doctored footage as the basis for their interview with the unnamed man.

‘I think what CNN did is unfortunate for them,’ Trump said at the press conference. ‘As you know they have some pretty serious problems.

‘They have been fake news for a long time. They have been covering me in a very, very dishonest way.’

Trump then turned to Duda and asked, ‘Do you have that also, Mr President?’, to which Duda shrugged.

‘What CNN did – and what others did, NBC is equally as bad despite the fact that I made them a fortune with “The Apprentice,” but they forgot that,’ Trump said.

‘What I will say is that CNN has really taken it too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very, very badly. And what we want to see in the United States is honest, beautiful, free, but honest press. We want to see fair press.’

‘I think it’s a very important thing. We don’t want fake news. By the way, not everybody is fake news. But we don’t want fake news. Bad thing. It’s very bad for our country,’ Trump concluded.

Trump talks with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, center right, as they arrive for a group photo prior to the Three Seas Initiative transatlantic roundtable in the Great Assembly Hall of the Royal Castle, in Warsaw

Trump talks to Duda as US ambassador to Poland Paul W Jones looks on during the Three Seas Initiative Summit on Thursday

Duda, center, speaks with Croatia President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic as Trump makes a comment during the Three Seas Initiative transatlantic roundtable in the Great Assembly Hall of the Royal Castle

The group who attended the initiative includes leaders of the Baltic, Adriatic and Black seas nations and aims to expand and modernize energy and trade with the goal of reducing the region’s dependence on Russian energy

While at the Royal Castle, President Trump and Duda (not pictured) attended a meeting together

Following the press conference, Trump attended a meeting of the Three Seas Initiative.

The group includes leaders of the Baltic, Adriatic and Black seas nations and aims to expand and modernize energy and trade with the goal of reducing the region’s dependence on Russian energy.

While at the meeting, Trump pledged that the United States will never use energy to coerce eastern and central European nations, adding that the United States won’t allow other nations to coerce them either.

Trump said he’s proud that the region is benefiting from US energy supplies. Poland received a first shipment of liquefied natural gas from the United States last month.

Trump noted the region’s special significance to him. His wife, Melania, is a native of Slovenia, which belongs to the group.

He then claimed that everyone is benefiting from the thriving US economy except for him.

He bragged of recent stock market gains, but said: ‘Personally, I’ve picked up nothing.’

President Donald Trump is greeted by Polish President Andrzej Duda as he visits Poland during the Three Seas Initiative Summit in Warsaw on Thursday

Poland’s ruling party sees itself as a Euroskeptic regime along the lines of last year’s Brexit movement in the United Kingdom

The US president’s unapologetic brand of nationalism is seen as its idealized complement, aligning Washington and Warsaw in a push against a Berlin-dominated Europe

Trump and Duda shook hands at the Royal Castle in front of a white marble bust of Stanislaw August Poniatowski, the last king of Poland

The leaders then retreated to a room decorated with red walls for their private talks, where they also posed for photos

Asked how he felt about the trip, Trump, who is on a whirlwind 16-hour trip in Poland said ‘Great’

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘Everyone else is getting very rich. That’s OK. I’m very happy.’

Trump gave his two adult sons and a senior executive control of his global real estate, property management and marketing empire when he took office in January. But Trump did not divest his businesses.

Instead he placed his financial assets in a trust that he can seize control of at any time.

Busloads of Trump supporters were sent to Warsaw to see Trump speak on Thursday in Krasinski Square, where a monument stands to a 1944 popular uprising against German occupation.

In every corner of Poland, citizens were offered free transportation to Warsaw if they wanted to be a part of the Trump show.

Polish President Duda gave Trump a tour of the royal castle on Thursday ahead of their joint press conference

Meanwhile, First Lady Melania Trump met with Poland’s First Lady, Agata Kornhauser-Duda at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, visited the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw on Thursday

‘I am here today not just to visit an old ally, but to hold it up as an example for others who seek freedom and who wish to summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization,’ Trump told his fans.

The words ‘courage,’ ‘will’ and ‘civilization’ were capitalized for emphasis in the snippets the White House sent to reporters.

The United States is serious about the security of its ally Poland, Duda said on Wednesday after his meeting with Trump.

‘We see ourselves as loyal partners who cooperate on a number of issues, among others on security,’ Duda told the joint news conference. ‘I have a feeling that the United States is serious about Poland’s security.’

Trump has made a point of attacking what adviser Steve Bannon has derided as ‘the bureaucratic state,’ rolling back regulations that he says are choking free enterprise and dampening the American economy.

Trump will praise ‘the triumph of the Polish spirit over centuries of hardship’ in a landmark speech in Warsaw, the White House said Thursday morning

The two presidents met at the Royal Castle in Warsaw on Thursday morning head of Trump’s landmark speech

Thursday’s joint appearance with Duda at Warsaw’s royal castle was originally billed as a press conference

Trump, like Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, is aligned against the European Union’s bureaucracies

‘The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies,’ Trump’s speech added.

‘Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty,’ he said.

‘We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit, and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies.’

Trump, like Poland’s president, is aligned against the European Union’s bureaucracies.

Flag-waving Poles lined Trump’s motorcade route on Wednesday night, but critics pointed out that the government had paid to bus in thousands from Poland’s far-flung provinces.

Duda’s government had reportedly promised his American counterpart a hero’s welcome as a condition of visiting Poland.

Like the Trump administration, Duda’s government is staking its claim on a desire to limit the numbers of refugees it resettles even as European Union leaders press Warsaw to open its borders

Trump will speak to the leaders of Three Seas Initiative nations and address the Polish people at Warsaw’s Krasinski Square later in the da

The White House later described the meeting as a ‘press event’, which raised concerns that Trump wouldn’t be taking questions from reporters

The pair met between flags of each nation before heading into a discussion about the European Union

Poland’s ruling party sees itself as a Euroskeptic regime along the lines of last year’s Brexit movement in the United Kingdom.

The US president’s unapologetic brand of nationalism is seen as its idealized complement, aligning Washington and Warsaw in a push against a Berlin-dominated Europe.

Like the Trump administration, Duda’s government is staking its claim on a desire to limit the numbers of refugees it resettles even as European Union leaders press Warsaw to open its borders.

‘The Polish government has the same position as Americans – we want strict restrictions on refugees,’ legislator Krzysztof Mróz told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

Thursday’s joint appearance with Duda at Warsaw’s royal castle was originally billed as a press conference.

By Tuesday, however, the White House began describing it in advisories to reporters as a ‘press event’, raising concerns that Trump wouldn’t take reporters’ questions.

Trump (his motorcade pictured above) will speak to the leaders of Three Seas Initiative nations and address the Polish people at Warsaw’s Krasinski Square

Trump’s whirlwind visit to Warsaw comes on the front end of a journey to Germany for Friday and Saturday’s G20 summit

Trump arrives on a state visit at the Okecie Airport, Warsaw President Donald Trump visit to Poland on Wednesday

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive on a state visit at the Okecie Airport in Warsaw on Tuesday evening

Also on the trip to Warsaw were Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner

Trump’s ongoing media war has tended to overshadow talk of his domestic and foreign agendas, a condition he could ill afford as he launched his second diplomacy tour in six weeks.

Duda, too, rolled the dice by allowing American journalists to question his government’s clampdown on press freedoms in the last year.

Protesters blockaded the Polish parliament in December after the ruling Law and Justice party restricted the number of journalists allowed in the building and limited which TV networks could record proceedings there.

European Council President Donald Tusk quickly invoked the word ‘dictatorship’ to warn Duda, as his government blamed protesters for staging an ‘illegal attempt to seize power.’

Demonstrators shouted ‘Solidarity!’ – a throwback to the communist-era movement led by then-dissident trade unionist Lech Wałęsa, who later became president.

Unlike past US presidents, Trump did not meet with him in Poland. Duda’s right-wing government has sought to downplay Wałęsa’s role in Poland’s history.

Wałęsa, however, was in the crowd for Trump’s speech.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4670380/Donald-Trump-Poland-s-president-plot-against-EU.html#ixzz4m5KZezFu

Story 2: President Trump Arrives in Hamburg, Germany, Site of G-20 Summit — Key Issues To Be Discussed Are Trade, Refugees, North Korea, Interference In Elections, and Climate Change — Videos —

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President Trump & Angela Merkel Meet in Hamburg, Germany 7/6/17

President Trump Meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hamburg Hotel Atlantic Festsäle

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What to Know About the Hamburg G20 Summit

The G20 summit comes amid tensions over trade, climate, and refugee policy and increased uncertainty over the U.S. commitment to multilateral institutions.

Backgrounder by James McBride

June 30, 2017

Introduction

The annual summit of the Group of Twenty (G20), a gathering of the world’s largest economies, has evolved into a major forum for discussing the most pressing global issues. One of the group’s most impressive achievements was its robust response to the 2008 global financial crisis, but some analysts say its cohesion has since frayed.

The July 2017 summit in Hamburg, Germany, is the first for U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who has already clashed with many of the group’s members over trade, climate, and refugee policy. While observers will watch the group’s meetings for signs of discord, bilateral meetings taking place on the summit’s sidelines are of particular interest this year, especially because Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet for the first time. There is also the potential for complications between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping over North Korea, as well as between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel over protectionism.

What is the G20 summit and who will be attending?

The G20 comprises the nineteen countries that have the world’s largest economies, as well as the European Union. The countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Every year the heads of G20 members meet to discuss a wide range of issues, with a focus on economic and financial matters, and coordinate policy when possible. Lower-level meetings among finance ministers and other policymakers take place in the run-up to the leaders’ summit. The G20 is not a permanent institution with a headquarters, offices, or staff. Instead, its leadership rotates on an annual basis among its members, its decisions are made by consensus, and implementation of its agenda depends on the political will of the individual states.

In 2017, the rotating G20 presidency belongs to Germany, which will host the two-day leaders’ summit in Hamburg starting July 7. In addition to Trump and Putin, high-profile leaders in attendance are expected to include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump’s aides said a week before the meeting that they had no specific agenda for the Putin talks. That meeting comes as Trump is under domestic political pressure for alleged ties to Russia, which, U.S. intelligence agencies say, mounted cyberattacks on American electoral systems ahead of Trump’s election.

What’s on the agenda?

The G20 initially focused largely on economic policy, but it has expanded its ambit in recent years. Ahead of Hamburg, Merkel stressed the theme of a “networked world,” and the German government laid out a broad agenda.

Topping the list is financial regulation, and in particular addressing what Germany calls “harmful tax competition” between countries—the widespread use by companies and individuals of low-tax countries as tax shelters, as was dramatized by the 2016 Panama Papers leaks. The G20 is also pursuing policies, including information-sharing initiatives, to combat corruption and money laundering.

Germany wants to reaffirm a global commitment to free trade.

Merkel has made ties with Africa a focus of the summit. Her government has presented a “Compact With Africa” initiative that would involve G20 nations bringing private investment, job growth, and new businesses to African states that have committed to economic reforms.

Other trade and economic-growth plans are also high on the agenda. Germany wants to reaffirm a global commitment to free trade and discuss how to implement the UN’s “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” a set of far-reaching goals for eliminating poverty around the world.

Beyond purely economic measures, Germany wants to recommit the G20 nations to meeting their carbon-reduction goals under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, although the U.S. withdrawal from the accord makes it a notable outlier. Germany also aims to expand research and development on combating infectious diseases, and coordinate responses to the migration and refugee crises in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

What are the main points of contention?

Much of the uncertainty surrounding the 2017 summit stems from President Trump’s reorientation of U.S. foreign policy, which has placed the United States at odds with much of the rest of the G20, and especially with its host, Germany.

On trade, the Trump administration has pushed back against the G20 consensus; during preparatory talks, it forced the group to drop its usual commitment to “resist all kinds of protectionism.” In addition to pulling out of the Asia-Pacific Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal that included several G20 members, Trump is considering raising tariffs on steel and other goods, raising alarm in Europe and Canada. Merkel spoke out strongly against protectionism in a speech to her parliament just days before the summit, saying it cannot be an option because it “harms everyone concerned.”
On climate, Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement isolated the United States from the rest of the G20. Germany has expressed displeasure with the move, with Merkel’s environmental minister publishing a “fact check”that heavily criticizes Trump’s arguments for leaving the accord.
Refugee policy could be another point of dispute. Merkel has spearheaded a controversial effort to distribute the many asylum seekers who have crossed into Europe across the EU. Trump, who has been a strong critic of Europe’s openness to migrants and refugees, called Merkel’s role in it “catastrophic.”
The United States’ and EU’s relationship with Russia has become increasingly fraught over allegations of Russian interference in their elections, Ukraine-related sanctions, and differences over the conflict in Syria.
North Korea is a pressing global concern after the country carried out its first successful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test on July 4. Trump used Twitter to criticize fellow G20 member China over what he sees as its support for the North Korean regime, and some observers predict Trump and Xi will clash over this issue at the summit.

Tensions have also arisen between Turkey and its German hosts, most recently over Germany’s denial of a request by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to address Turks at a rally in Hamburg. Meanwhile, embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May will face many of the European partners with whom she is negotiating her country’s exit from the EU. This comes shortly after elections that significantly weakened her position.

What is the importance of the G20?

Taken together, the nations of the G20 account for around 80 percent of global GDP, nearly 75 percent of all global trade, and about two-thirds of the world’s population.

The group was formed in 1999, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, as a new forum that would unite finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s largest established and emerging economies. A decade later, at the height of the global economic crisis, the G20 was elevated to the leaders’ level, to include heads of state and government. President George W. Bush hosted the first such gathering in November 2008. Many experts credit the G20 with quick action that, in the words of CFR’s Stewart Patrick, “rescued a global financial system in free fall.” In 2008 and 2009, G20 nations agreed to spending measures worth $4 trillion to revive their economies, rejected trade barriers, and implemented far-reaching reforms of the financial system.

The nations of the G20 account for around 80 percent of global GDP.

Since then, Patrick and other observers say, the G20 has struggled to achieve similar success on its goals of coordinating their monetary and fiscal policies, achieving higher growth, and rooting out corruption and tax evasion. Geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer has argued against the G20’s utility, saying that there is instead a “G-Zero” world—one in which countries go it alone or form ad hoc coalitions to pursue their interests.

How has the Trump administration approached other summits?

In his first six months, Trump has unsettled American allies due to his sharp shift in the U.S. approach to multilateral institutions. Throughout his presidential campaign, he criticized members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for spending too little and called the alliance “obsolete.” At his first NATO summit, in May 2017, he conspicuously declined to back the organization’s Article V provision, which commits each member to the bloc’s common defense. At the same time, some experts have credited Trump with helping to spur an increase in defense spending by NATO states that the United States has long sought. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on June 28 that NATO states planned to increase their defense spending by 4.3 percent this year. (Some of the increases were in place before Trump’s election in November.)

Trump’s first G7 summit, which was also in May, further demonstrated his willingness to defy the United States’ traditional allies. There, despite heavy pressure from European leaders, he refused to commit to a common climate policy. Analysts say he also strained relations with German policymakers, and Merkel said that Europe could no longer “fully rely” on the United States.

https://www.cfr.org/blog-post/trump-warsaw-introducing-nationalist-internationalism

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Police clash with G20 protesters as Merkel seeks policy consensus

By Joseph Nasr and Andreas Rinke | HAMBURG

German police clashed with protesters before a G20 summit in Hamburg on Thursday, tarnishing the outset of a meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes will cement her role as a stateswoman as she seeks re-election in September.

Merkel, who is campaigning for a fourth term, can ill afford images of chaos and disharmony. The summit, which starts in full on Friday, is a chance for her to polish her diplomatic credentials but would be disastrous if marred by violence.

She met U.S. President Donald Trump for an hour on Thursday evening, but less than an hour later police clashed with anti-capitalist demonstrators near the summit venue and fired water cannon at black-clad protesters after they threw bottles.

A Reuters eyewitness saw at least one protester with blood on his face being treated. “Welcome to Hell” was the protesters’ greeting for Trump and other world leaders arriving for the two-day meeting.

Merkel has taken a high-risk gamble by choosing to hold the summit in the northern port city of Hamburg, partly to show the world that big protests are tolerated in a healthy democracy.

Before meeting Trump, she struck a consensual tone, holding out hope for agreement on the divisive issue of climate policy and pledging to broker compromises. She pledged to represent German and European interests at the summit, but added:

“On the other hand, as hosts we – and I – will do all we can to find compromises.”

Trump faces a testy confrontation at the summit with leaders of the other big Group of 20 economies after deciding last month to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate deal.

Agreement could yet be found on climate, Merkel indicated.

“There are various options, which can be discussed. We know that the United States have withdrawn. All others … or as far as I know, many many others stand by this agreement,” she said.

As the leaders began holding informal meetings, thousands of protesters from around Europe, who say the G20 has failed to solve many of the issues threatening world peace, poured into Hamburg to join the main demonstration.

Police expected around 100,000 protesters in the port city, some 8,000 of whom are deemed by security forces to be ready to commit violence. Up to 20,000 police officers are on hand.

As summit host, Merkel must seek consensus among the G20 leaders not only on the divisive issue of climate policy but also on trade – an area fraught with risk as Trump pursues his ‘America First’ agenda.

Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said Merkel must be careful not to allow acrimony to undermine the summit.

“There is quite a delicate balance that Angela Merkel will have to navigate in a way, because it is not clear that being confrontational won’t just create even more of a credibility problem for G20 cooperation,” she told Reuters.

Merkel earlier said she was committed to an open international trading system, despite fears of U.S. protectionism under the Trump administration.

“We’re united in our will to strengthen multilateral relations at the G20 summit … We need an open society, especially open trade flows,” Merkel said in Berlin.

She and Trump discussed G20 themes, North Korea, the Middle East, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, a German government spokesman said. Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan is among other leaders Merkel was to meet.

Trump, who earlier in Poland called again on NATO partners to spend more on defense and said he would confront the threat from North Korea, is also due to hold his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit.

Their meeting, scheduled for Friday, will be closely watched at a time when mutual ties remain strained by U.S. allegations of Russian election hacking, Syria, Ukraine and a U.S. row over Trump associates’ links to Moscow.

Ahead of the meeting, Putin threw his weight behind the Paris accord.

“We see the Paris Agreement as a secure basis for long-term climate regulation founded on international law and we want to make a comprehensive contribution to its implementation,” he told German business daily Handelsblatt.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Escritt, Roberta Rampton, Noah Barkin, Andrea Shalal, Emma Thomasoon; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-trump-idUSKBN19R2C0

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The Pronk Pops Show 923, July 5, 2017, Story 1: Chinese Communists Need To Replace North Korean Kim Jung Eng To Stop Nuclear Proliferation Or Face Embargo On All Chinese Goods Going To North America and European Union –Neither Diplomatic Nor Military Options Are Viable — Conventional and Nuclear War Are Not Viable Options — Videos — Story 2: Microsoft’s Founder Bill Gates Finally Gets A Clue — Open Borders Mass Migration Is Not In The Interest of Neither The American People Nor The People of Europe — Bad Ideas Have Negative Consequences — What Is Bill Gates Afraid of? — Videos

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Story 1: Chinese Communists Need To Replace North Korean Kim Jung Eng To Stop Nuclear Proliferation In Asia and Middle East Or Face Embargo On All Chinese Goods Going To North America and European Union –Neither Diplomatic Nor Military Options Are Viable — Conventional and Nuclear War Are Not Viable Options — Videos —

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he current population of China is 1,388,284,755 as of Wednesday, July 5, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
China population is equivalent to 18.47% of the total world population.
China ranks number 1 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
The population density in China is 148 per Km² (383 people per mi²).
The total land area is 9,390,784 Km2 (3,625,800 sq. miles)
59.1 % of the population is urban (819,767,019 people in 2017)
The median age in China is 37.3 years.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/

The current population of the Russian Federation is 143,374,281 as of Wednesday, July 5, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
Russia population is equivalent to 1.91% of the total world population.
Russia ranks number 9 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
The population density in Russia is 9 per Km² (23 people per mi²).
The total land area is 16,299,981 Km2 (6,293,455 sq. miles)
73.2 % of the population is urban (104,883,814 people in 2017)
The median age in Russia is 38.9 years.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-population/

The current population of North Korea is 25,406,349 as of Wednesday, July 5, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
North Korea population is equivalent to 0.34% of the total world population.
North Korea ranks number 52 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
The population density in North Korea is 211 per Km² (546 people per mi²).
The total land area is 120,387 Km2 (46,482 sq. miles)
61.2 % of the population is urban (15,557,359 people in 2017)
The median age in North Korea is 34.1 years.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/north-korea-population/

The current population of the Republic of Korea is 50,706,772 as of Wednesday, July 5, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
South Korea population is equivalent to 0.67% of the total world population.
South Korea ranks number 27 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
The population density in South Korea is 522 per Km² (1,351 people per mi²).
The total land area is 97,235 Km2 (37,543 sq. miles)
81.9 % of the population is urban (41,511,797 people in 2017)
The median age in South Korea is 41.1 years.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-korea-population/

The current population of Japan is 126,041,849 as of Wednesday, July 5, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
Japan population is equivalent to 1.68% of the total world population.
Japan ranks number 11 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
The population density in Japan is 346 per Km² (896 people per mi²).
The total land area is 364,571 Km2 (140,761 sq. miles)
94.5 % of the population is urban (119,160,931 people in 2017)
The median age in Japan is 46.9 years.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/japan-population/

The current population of the United States of America is 326,491,238 as of Wednesday, July 5, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
The United States population is equivalent to 4.34% of the total world population.
The U.S.A. ranks number 3 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
The population density in the United States is 36 per Km² (92 people per mi²).
The total land area is 9,155,898 Km2 (3,535,111 sq. miles)
82.9 % of the population is urban (270,683,202 people in 2017)
The median age in the United States is 38.1 years.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/

Countries in the world by population (2017)

This list includes both countries and dependent territories. Data based on the latest United Nations Population Division estimates.
Click on the name of the country or dependency for current estimates (live population clock), historical data, and projected figures.
See also: World Population

#	Country (or dependency)	Population (2017)	Yearly Change	Net Change	Density (P/Km²)	Land Area (Km²)	Migrants (net)	Fert. Rate	Med. Age	Urban Pop %
1	China	1,388,232,693	0.43 %	5,909,361	148	9,386,293	-360,000	1.55	37	57.6 %
2	India	1,342,512,706	1.18 %	15,711,130	452	2,973,450	-519,644	2.48	27	32 %
3	U.S.	326,474,013	0.73 %	2,355,226	36	9,144,930	1,001,577	1.89	38	82.1 %
4	Indonesia	263,510,146	1.12 %	2,929,046	146	1,811,066	-140,000	2.5	28	53.4 %
5	Brazil	211,243,220	0.8 %	1,675,300	25	8,349,534	3,185	1.82	31	83.5 %
6	Pakistan	196,744,376	2.03 %	3,917,874	255	770,942	-216,384	3.72	23	38.1 %
7	Nigeria	191,835,936	2.59 %	4,848,373	211	910,902	-60,000	5.74	18	47.8 %
8	Bangladesh	164,827,718	1.18 %	1,916,854	1,266	130,175	-445,296	2.23	26	34.5 %
9	Russia	143,375,006	-0.05 %	-64,826	9	16,292,614	223,577	1.66	39	73.2 %
10	Mexico	130,222,815	1.24 %	1,590,811	67	1,943,624	-104,717	2.29	27	77.3 %
11	Japan	126,045,211	-0.22 %	-278,504	346	364,503	70,000	1.4	47	94.3 %
12	Ethiopia	104,344,901	2.45 %	2,491,633	104	1,000,430	-12,000	4.59	19	19.4 %
13	Philippines	103,796,832	1.51 %	1,546,699	348	298,181	-140,000	3.04	24	44.2 %
14	Viet Nam	95,414,640	1.03 %	970,440	308	310,090	-40,000	1.96	30	33.8 %
15	Egypt	95,215,102	1.96 %	1,831,528	96	994,933	-43,136	3.38	25	39 %
16	DR Congo	82,242,685	3.16 %	2,520,061	36	2,265,639	-19,184	6.15	17	38.3 %
17	Iran	80,945,718	1.13 %	902,572	50	1,628,686	-60,000	1.75	30	73.4 %
18	Germany	80,636,124	-0.06 %	-46,227	231	348,621	250,000	1.39	46	77.2 %
19	Turkey	80,417,526	1 %	795,464	105	769,546	400,001	2.1	30	71.2 %
20	Thailand	68,297,547	0.22 %	150,938	134	510,827	20,000	1.53	38	51 %
21	U.K.	65,511,098	0.61 %	399,955	271	241,917	180,000	1.92	40	81.2 %
22	France	64,938,716	0.42 %	270,587	119	547,544	66,311	2	41	80.2 %
23	Italy	59,797,978	-0.01 %	-3,026	203	294,137	105,654	1.43	46	70.7 %
24	Tanzania	56,877,529	3.12 %	1,722,056	64	885,943	-40,000	5.24	17	30.6 %
25	South Africa	55,436,360	0.83 %	457,453	46	1,213,049	120,000	2.4	26	63.4 %
26	Myanmar	54,836,483	0.87 %	473,057	84	653,593	-94,856	2.25	28	34.5 %
27	South Korea	50,704,971	0.4 %	201,038	522	97,229	60,000	1.26	41	81.4 %
28	Colombia	49,067,981	0.85 %	413,589	44	1,110,135	-29,000	1.93	30	78.4 %
29	Kenya	48,466,928	2.57 %	1,215,479	85	568,861	-10,000	4.44	19	25.8 %
30	Spain	46,070,146	0.01 %	5,542	92	498,595	-118,614	1.32	43	82 %
31	Ukraine	44,405,055	-0.49 %	-219,318	77	578,945	39,000	1.49	40	69.8 %
32	Argentina	44,272,125	0.97 %	424,848	16	2,732,847	6,000	2.35	31	88.2 %
33	Sudan	42,166,323	2.41 %	990,782	24	1,764,281	-160,000	4.46	19	32.7 %
34	Uganda	41,652,938	3.3 %	1,330,170	209	199,774	-30,000	5.91	16	16.4 %
35	Algeria	41,063,753	1.7 %	687,799	17	2,387,428	-28,654	2.93	28	71.7 %
36	Iraq	38,654,287	2.95 %	1,106,601	89	434,318	109,733	4.64	19	66.2 %
37	Poland	38,563,573	-0.08 %	-29,588	126	306,303	-14,762	1.37	40	60 %
38	Canada	36,626,083	0.94 %	339,705	4	9,156,521	235,173	1.61	41	81.1 %
39	Morocco	35,241,418	1.22 %	424,353	79	446,094	-62,125	2.56	28	59.2 %
40	Afghanistan	34,169,169	2.4 %	799,224	52	653,330	94,601	5.13	18	26 %
41	Saudi Arabia	32,742,664	1.82 %	584,690	15	2,154,123	170,000	2.85	28	77.4 %
42	Peru	32,166,473	1.23 %	392,248	25	1,281,533	-48,000	2.5	28	77.4 %
43	Venezuela	31,925,705	1.29 %	406,850	36	881,926	-13,824	2.4	27	88.5 %
44	Malaysia	31,164,177	1.34 %	412,575	95	328,390	90,000	1.97	29	75.2 %
45	Uzbekistan	30,690,914	1.29 %	390,468	72	425,671	-39,000	2.48	26	35.8 %
46	Mozambique	29,537,914	2.74 %	786,552	38	785,583	-5,000	5.45	17	30.6 %
47	Nepal	29,187,037	1.17 %	336,320	204	143,355	-74,474	2.32	23	18.7 %
48	Ghana	28,656,723	2.22 %	623,348	126	227,615	-10,000	4.25	21	52.5 %
49	Yemen	28,119,546	2.34 %	641,946	53	527,571	-10,000	4.35	19	32.7 %
50	Angola	26,655,513	3.19 %	824,555	21	1,245,585	20,464	6.2	16	39.5 %
51	Madagascar	25,612,972	2.8 %	697,150	44	582,113	-1,000	4.5	19	34.8 %
52	North Korea	25,405,296	0.49 %	123,969	211	120,404	0	2	34	60.8 %
53	Australia	24,641,662	1.37 %	332,332	3	7,700,519	204,621	1.92	38	88 %
54	Cameroon	24,513,689	2.46 %	589,282	52	472,325	-12,000	4.81	19	53.7 %
55	Côte d’Ivoire	23,815,886	2.42 %	561,702	75	317,969	10,000	5.1	18	50.2 %
56	Taiwan	23,405,309	0.04 %	9,709	661	35,409	0	1.07	40	77.5 %
57	Niger	21,563,607	4.1 %	848,322	17	1,268,447	-5,699	7.63	15	17.7 %
58	Sri Lanka	20,905,335	0.45 %	94,519	333	62,703	-96,954	2.11	32	19.2 %
59	Romania	19,237,513	-0.7 %	-135,221	84	230,114	-87,440	1.48	42	61.2 %
60	Burkina Faso	19,173,322	2.9 %	539,597	70	273,514	-25,000	5.65	17	29.5 %
61	Syria	18,906,907	1.85 %	343,312	103	183,562	-805,999	3.03	21	69.9 %
62	Mali	18,689,966	3.06 %	555,131	15	1,221,566	-60,490	6.35	16	36.5 %
63	Chile	18,313,495	1 %	181,645	25	744,451	40,258	1.78	34	88.5 %
64	Malawi	18,298,679	3.09 %	548,853	194	94,274	-6,000	5.25	17	16 %
65	Kazakhstan	18,064,470	1.17 %	209,086	7	2,696,190	31,961	2.64	29	49.9 %
66	Zambia	17,237,931	3.11 %	520,599	23	743,014	-6,898	5.45	17	38.5 %
67	Netherlands	17,032,845	0.31 %	53,116	505	33,722	22,001	1.75	43	90.2 %
68	Guatemala	17,005,497	1.99 %	332,541	159	107,155	-24,000	3.3	21	51 %
69	Ecuador	16,625,776	1.47 %	240,326	67	248,517	-7,600	2.59	27	63.4 %
70	Zimbabwe	16,337,760	2.32 %	370,950	42	387,151	-43,984	4.02	19	30.6 %
71	Cambodia	16,076,370	1.57 %	249,129	91	176,469	-30,000	2.7	24	20.8 %
72	Senegal	16,054,275	2.98 %	464,790	83	192,497	-19,999	5.18	18	42.2 %
73	Chad	14,965,482	3.23 %	468,743	12	1,257,604	20,000	6.31	16	21.2 %
74	Guinea	13,290,659	2.65 %	343,537	54	245,668	-2,000	5.13	19	35.9 %
75	South Sudan	13,096,190	2.85 %	362,763	21	611,971	173,000	5.15	19	18.2 %
76	Rwanda	12,159,586	2.33 %	276,820	493	24,669	-15,000	4.05	19	31.2 %
77	Burundi	11,936,481	3.32 %	383,920	465	25,681	8,000	6.08	18	11.5 %
78	Tunisia	11,494,760	1.05 %	119,540	74	155,335	-6,588	2.16	31	66.2 %
79	Benin	11,458,611	2.61 %	291,953	102	112,782	-2,000	4.89	19	43.3 %
80	Belgium	11,443,830	0.63 %	71,902	378	30,283	54,000	1.82	42	96 %
81	Somalia	11,391,962	2.82 %	312,949	18	625,932	-80,000	6.61	17	40.2 %
82	Cuba	11,390,184	-0.02 %	-2,705	107	106,450	-16,000	1.63	41	76.1 %
83	Bolivia	11,052,864	1.51 %	164,462	10	1,083,614	-12,359	3.04	24	69.8 %
84	Haiti	10,983,274	1.25 %	135,099	399	27,562	-30,000	3.13	23	58.5 %
85	Greece	10,892,931	-0.24 %	-26,528	85	128,910	-27,260	1.34	44	80 %
86	Dominican Republic	10,766,564	1.11 %	117,951	223	48,324	-30,602	2.53	26	79.9 %
87	Czech Republic	10,555,130	0.07 %	7,072	137	77,214	6,000	1.45	42	74.8 %
88	Portugal	10,264,797	-0.38 %	-39,637	112	91,568	-28,000	1.28	44	66.2 %
89	Azerbaijan	9,973,697	1.07 %	105,250	121	82,632	-3,225	2.3	31	53.4 %
90	Sweden	9,920,624	0.7 %	68,772	24	409,943	54,525	1.92	41	84.6 %
91	Hungary	9,787,905	-0.34 %	-33,413	108	90,545	6,000	1.34	41	72.4 %
92	Belarus	9,458,535	-0.24 %	-22,986	47	202,973	24,107	1.58	40	75 %
93	United Arab Emirates	9,397,599	1.41 %	130,628	112	83,609	81,000	1.82	33	89.1 %
94	Tajikistan	8,858,115	2.18 %	188,651	63	139,939	-23,476	3.55	23	26.7 %
95	Serbia	8,776,940	-0.41 %	-35,765	100	87,420	-20,000	1.56	41	59.5 %
96	Austria	8,592,400	0.27 %	22,767	104	82,382	29,418	1.47	43	66 %
97	Switzerland	8,454,083	0.89 %	74,606	214	39,524	76,453	1.52	42	72.8 %
98	Israel	8,323,248	1.6 %	130,785	385	21,641	3,899	3.05	30	88.9 %
99	Honduras	8,304,677	1.41 %	115,176	74	111,923	-16,000	2.47	23	57.2 %
100	Papua New Guinea	7,933,841	2.03 %	157,726	18	453,362	0	3.84	21	12.8 %
101	Jordan	7,876,703	1.66 %	128,903	89	88,802	45,923	3.51	23	83.3 %
102	Togo	7,691,915	2.6 %	195,082	141	54,398	-1,999	4.69	19	38.7 %
103	Hong Kong	7,401,941	0.76 %	55,693	7,050	1,050	30,000	1.2	43	N.A.
104	Bulgaria	7,045,259	-0.74 %	-52,537	65	108,556	-10,000	1.52	44	74.4 %
105	Laos	7,037,521	1.72 %	119,154	31	230,738	-23,540	3.1	22	40.3 %
106	Paraguay	6,811,583	1.28 %	86,153	17	398,338	-17,340	2.6	25	62.9 %
107	Sierra Leone	6,732,899	2.14 %	140,797	93	72,164	-4,200	4.79	19	38.5 %
108	Libya	6,408,742	1.24 %	78,583	4	1,780,206	-100,338	2.53	28	78.6 %
109	Nicaragua	6,217,796	1.1 %	67,761	52	120,267	-27,000	2.32	25	60.3 %
110	El Salvador	6,167,147	0.34 %	20,728	298	20,723	-48,083	1.97	27	70.5 %
111	Kyrgyzstan	6,124,945	1.51 %	91,176	32	192,005	-22,793	3.12	25	33.9 %
112	Lebanon	6,039,277	0.85 %	51,124	590	10,231	250,000	1.72	29	73.9 %
113	Singapore	5,784,538	1.55 %	88,032	8,264	700	79,587	1.23	40	N.A.
114	Denmark	5,711,837	0.37 %	21,087	135	42,436	19,368	1.73	42	87.4 %
115	Finland	5,541,274	0.31 %	17,370	18	304,466	21,482	1.75	43	83.4 %
116	Turkmenistan	5,502,586	1.18 %	63,916	12	470,306	-5,000	2.34	26	49.8 %
117	Eritrea	5,481,906	2.43 %	130,226	54	100,956	-32,000	4.4	19	29.2 %
118	Slovakia	5,432,157	0.05 %	2,739	113	48,072	240	1.37	39	53.8 %
119	Norway	5,330,800	1.12 %	58,842	15	365,123	47,133	1.8	39	78.7 %
120	Central African Republic	5,098,826	2.01 %	100,333	8	621,808	2,000	4.41	20	38.7 %
121	State of Palestine	4,928,225	2.73 %	130,986	819	6,020	-8,750	4.28	19	71.4 %
122	Costa Rica	4,905,626	1 %	48,408	96	51,047	3,932	1.85	31	80.2 %
123	Congo	4,866,243	2.64 %	125,251	14	342,693	-12,000	4.95	19	64.7 %
124	Ireland	4,749,153	0.75 %	35,160	69	68,928	-28,000	2.01	37	63.9 %
125	Oman	4,741,305	1.87 %	86,834	15	309,889	242,200	2.88	29	71 %
126	Liberia	4,730,437	2.5 %	115,215	49	96,343	-4,000	4.83	19	48.9 %
127	New Zealand	4,604,871	0.87 %	39,686	18	263,135	1,453	2.05	38	87 %
128	Mauritania	4,266,448	2.4 %	99,985	4	1,040,597	-4,000	4.69	20	59.2 %
129	Croatia	4,209,815	-0.36 %	-15,186	75	55,982	-4,000	1.52	43	59.7 %
130	Kuwait	4,099,932	2.32 %	92,786	230	17,818	103,500	2.15	31	88.3 %
131	Moldova	4,054,640	-0.2 %	-8,222	123	32,858	-1,906	1.27	36	38 %
132	Panama	4,051,284	1.53 %	60,878	55	74,335	5,621	2.48	29	66.9 %
133	Georgia	3,972,532	-0.18 %	-7,249	57	69,450	-59,265	1.81	38	58.1 %
134	Bosnia and Herzegovina	3,792,759	-0.25 %	-9,375	74	50,978	-501	1.28	42	40.2 %
135	Puerto Rico	3,679,086	-0.05 %	-1,686	415	8,870	-20,707	1.64	36	93.5 %
136	Uruguay	3,456,877	0.37 %	12,806	20	174,590	-6,000	2.04	35	95 %
137	Mongolia	3,051,900	1.51 %	45,456	2	1,525,950	-3,000	2.68	27	70.7 %
138	Armenia	3,031,670	0.19 %	5,622	107	28,466	-1,975	1.55	35	61.7 %
139	Albania	2,911,428	0.27 %	7,728	106	27,389	-18,350	1.78	34	64.3 %
140	Lithuania	2,830,582	-0.68 %	-19,448	45	62,623	-33,906	1.57	43	70.2 %
141	Jamaica	2,813,285	0.35 %	9,923	260	10,829	-19,400	2.08	29	55.3 %
142	Namibia	2,568,569	2.17 %	54,588	3	828,571	-274	3.6	21	45.2 %
143	Botswana	2,343,981	1.74 %	40,161	4	571,703	4,000	2.9	24	51.1 %
144	Qatar	2,338,085	2.04 %	46,717	201	11,609	72,700	2.08	31	N.A.
145	Lesotho	2,185,159	1.15 %	24,850	72	30,349	-4,000	3.26	21	27.3 %
146	Gambia	2,120,418	3.18 %	65,432	210	10,121	-2,695	5.78	17	57.7 %
147	TFYR Macedonia	2,083,308	0.11 %	2,296	83	25,222	-1,000	1.51	38	57.9 %
148	Slovenia	2,071,252	0.09 %	1,890	103	20,148	865	1.58	43	49.9 %
149	Latvia	1,944,565	-0.57 %	-11,177	31	62,127	-14,688	1.48	43	70 %
150	Guinea-Bissau	1,932,871	2.35 %	44,442	69	28,135	-2,000	4.95	19	47.4 %
151	Gabon	1,801,232	2.16 %	38,090	7	257,319	1,000	4	21	86.9 %
152	Bahrain	1,418,895	1.58 %	22,066	1,867	760	5,983	2.1	30	86.4 %
153	Trinidad and Tobago	1,369,157	0.31 %	4,184	267	5,130	-1,000	1.8	34	8.2 %
154	Swaziland	1,320,356	1.25 %	16,293	77	17,192	-1,200	3.36	21	21 %
155	Estonia	1,305,755	-0.26 %	-3,349	31	42,395	-2,370	1.59	42	66 %
156	Mauritius	1,281,353	0.3 %	3,894	631	2,030	0	1.5	35	38.8 %
157	Timor-Leste	1,237,251	2.15 %	26,006	83	14,871	-10,001	5.91	19	32.2 %
158	Cyprus	1,187,575	0.93 %	10,977	129	9,242	7,000	1.46	36	66.2 %
159	Djibouti	911,382	1.31 %	11,784	39	23,190	-3,199	3.3	24	77.6 %
160	Fiji	902,547	0.56 %	5,010	49	18,270	-5,744	2.61	28	53.8 %
161	Equatorial Guinea	894,464	2.86 %	24,877	32	28,040	4,000	4.97	21	36.8 %
162	Réunion	873,356	0.71 %	6,142	349	2,500	-2,512	2.24	34	98.6 %
163	Comoros	825,920	2.33 %	18,802	444	1,861	-2,000	4.6	20	27.1 %
164	Bhutan	792,877	1.12 %	8,774	21	38,119	2,000	2.1	27	39.1 %
165	Guyana	774,407	0.49 %	3,797	4	198,566	-5,456	2.6	25	30 %
166	Montenegro	626,250	0.02 %	149	47	13,439	-482	1.71	38	63.7 %
167	Macao	606,384	1.55 %	9,258	20,280	30	7,000	1.19	38	97.8 %
168	Solomon Islands	606,215	1.9 %	11,281	22	27,936	-2,374	4.06	20	22.4 %
169	Western Sahara	596,021	2.02 %	11,815	2	270,919	4,752	2.2	29	84.7 %
170	Luxembourg	584,103	1.36 %	7,860	226	2,590	9,741	1.57	39	85.1 %
171	Suriname	552,112	0.82 %	4,502	4	157,746	-1,000	2.4	29	66.1 %
172	Cabo Verde	533,468	1.23 %	6,475	132	4,029	-2,210	2.37	25	63.6 %
173	Guadeloupe	472,462	0.41 %	1,915	280	1,690	-749	2.17	39	98.4 %
174	Brunei	434,448	1.3 %	5,574	82	5,272	420	1.9	31	77.4 %
175	Malta	420,521	0.22 %	906	1,314	320	1,250	1.43	42	98.2 %
176	Bahamas	397,164	1.13 %	4,446	40	10,004	1,934	1.89	32	81.9 %
177	Martinique	396,071	-0.07 %	-293	374	1,060	-1,137	1.95	46	91.2 %
178	Maldives	375,867	1.64 %	6,055	1,253	300	-11	2.18	26	45.1 %
179	Belize	374,651	2.1 %	7,709	16	22,845	1,519	2.64	24	41.6 %
180	Iceland	334,303	0.76 %	2,525	3	101,304	-76	1.96	36	95.9 %
181	French Polynesia	288,685	1.03 %	2,950	79	3,659	-100	2.07	32	55.2 %
182	Barbados	285,744	0.26 %	738	665	430	436	1.79	39	31.8 %
183	French Guiana	282,761	2.57 %	7,073	3	83,165	1,200	3.48	25	80.2 %
184	Vanuatu	276,331	2.17 %	5,861	23	12,173	121	3.41	22	25.8 %
185	New Caledonia	269,736	1.24 %	3,305	15	18,225	1,132	2.13	33	69.9 %
186	Mayotte	253,068	2.67 %	6,572	675	375	-300	4.1	19	44.2 %
187	Sao Tome and Principe	198,481	2.1 %	4,091	207	960	-1,120	4.67	19	68.7 %
188	Samoa	195,743	0.63 %	1,220	69	2,829	-2,538	4.16	21	18.8 %
189	Saint Lucia	187,768	0.74 %	1,385	308	610	8	1.92	31	18.4 %
190	Guam	174,214	1.23 %	2,120	323	540	0	2.42	30	93.4 %
191	Channel Islands	165,235	0.47 %	769	870	190	731	1.46	43	31.4 %
192	Curaçao	159,987	0.85 %	1,352	360	444	1,142	2.1	41	92.9 %
193	Kiribati	116,405	1.75 %	2,000	144	810	-426	3.79	22	40.9 %
194	St. Vincent & Grenadines	109,895	0.23 %	251	282	390	-1,000	2.01	30	50.7 %
195	Grenada	107,850	0.49 %	523	317	340	-855	2.18	27	35.4 %
196	Tonga	107,797	0.82 %	882	150	720	-1,616	3.79	21	23.7 %
197	United States Virgin Islands	106,574	0.15 %	159	305	350	-721	2.3	41	95.8 %
198	Micronesia	105,566	0.57 %	600	151	700	-1,638	3.33	22	22.4 %
199	Aruba	104,588	0.31 %	325	581	180	251	1.68	40	41.2 %
200	Seychelles	97,539	0.53 %	513	212	460	-310	2.33	33	52.4 %
201	Antigua and Barbuda	93,659	0.99 %	921	213	440	-11	2.1	31	23.2 %
202	Isle of Man	89,045	0.71 %	624	156	570		N.A.	N.A.	51.4 %
203	Dominica	73,353	0.46 %	337	98	750		N.A.	N.A.	69.5 %
204	Andorra	68,728	-0.63 %	-437	146	470		N.A.	N.A.	N.A.
205	Cayman Islands	61,557	1.31 %	793	257	240		N.A.	N.A.	98.5 %
206	Bermuda	61,352	-0.5 %	-310	1,227	50		N.A.	N.A.	N.A.
207	Saint Kitts and Nevis	56,780	1.06 %	597	218	260		N.A.	N.A.	31.7 %
208	Greenland	56,239	0.08 %	43	0	562,390		N.A.	N.A.	88.5 %
209	American Samoa	55,653	0.09 %	51	278	200		N.A.	N.A.	87.4 %
210	Northern Mariana Islands	55,567	0.32 %	178	121	460		N.A.	N.A.	89 %
211	Marshall Islands	53,132	0.12 %	63	295	180		N.A.	N.A.	73.2 %
212	Faeroe Islands	48,335	0.2 %	96	35	1,397		N.A.	N.A.	43.3 %
213	Sint Maarten	40,117	1.46 %	579	1,180	34		N.A.	N.A.	N.A.
214	Liechtenstein	38,022	0.65 %	246	238	160		N.A.	N.A.	14.2 %
215	Monaco	38,010	0.39 %	147	25,510	1		N.A.	N.A.	N.A.
216	Turks and Caicos Islands	35,442	1.54 %	538	37	950		N.A.	N.A.	91.1 %
217	Gibraltar	32,472	0.31 %	99	3,247	10		N.A.	N.A.	90.4 %
218	San Marino	32,104	0.48 %	154	535	60		N.A.	N.A.	93.7 %
219	British Virgin Islands	31,200	1.76 %	541	208	150		N.A.	N.A.	43.3 %
220	Caribbean Netherlands	25,699	1.46 %	371	78	328		N.A.	N.A.	58.9 %
221	Palau	21,726	1.05 %	225	47	460		N.A.	N.A.	86.7 %
222	Cook Islands	21,069	0.58 %	121	88	240		N.A.	N.A.	74.3 %
223	Anguilla	14,906	0.97 %	143	166	90		N.A.	N.A.	N.A.
224	Wallis and Futuna	13,090	-0.17 %	-22	94	140		N.A.	N.A.	0 %
225	Nauru	10,301	0.37 %	38	515	20		N.A.	N.A.	98.8 %
226	Tuvalu	9,975	0.32 %	32	333	30		N.A.	N.A.	60.4 %
227	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	6,319	0.29 %	18	28	230		N.A.	N.A.	86.6 %
228	Montserrat	5,179	0.49 %	25	52	100		N.A.	N.A.	9.1 %
229	Saint Helena	3,970	0.35 %	14	10	389		N.A.	N.A.	41.2 %
230	Falkland Islands	2,919	0.24 %	7	0	14,595		N.A.	N.A.	80.5 %
231	Niue	1,614	0.12 %	2	6	260		N.A.	N.A.	33.3 %
232	Tokelau	1,300	1.88 %	24	130	10		N.A.	N.A.	0 %
233	Holy See	801	0 %	0	1,821	0		N.A.	N.A.	N.A.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/

The world’s 10 biggest economies in 2017

Kayakers take in the last of the day's light as they paddle past a ship anchored off Cape Town, May 1, 2011. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings (SOUTH AFRICA - Tags: IMAGES OF THE DAY SOCIETY) - RTR2LVIK

09 Mar 2017

Alex GrayFormative Content

Travis Bradberry · LinkedIn 05 Jul 2017

Demographics

	North Korea	South Korea
Population	24,851,627 (July 2014 est.)	49,039,986 (July 2014 est.)
Age structure	0-14 years: 21.5% (male 2,709,580/female 2,628,456) 15-24 years: 16.3% (male 2,041,861/female 1,997,413) 25-54 years: 44% (male 5,465,889/female 5,456,850) 55-64 years: 8.6% (male 1,007,667/female 1,127,455) 65 years and over: 9.7% (male 826,175/female 1,590,281) (2014 est.)	0-14 years: 14.1% (male 3,603,943/female 3,328,634) 15-24 years: 13.5% (male 3,515,271/female 3,113,257) 25-54 years: 47.3% (male 11,814,872/female 11,360,962) 55-64 years: 12.4% (male 3,012,051/female 3,081,480) 65 years and over: 12.7% (male 2,570,433/female 3,639,083) (2014 est.)
Median age	total: 33.4 years male: 31.8 years female: 35 years (2014 est.)	total: 40.2 years male: 38.7 years female: 41.6 years (2014 est.)
Population growth rate	0.53% (2014 est.)	0.16% (2014 est.)
Birth rate	14.51 births/1,000 population (2014 est.)	8.26 births/1,000 population (2014 est.)
Death rate	9.18 deaths/1,000 population (2014 est.)	6.63 deaths/1,000 population (2014 est.)
Net migration rate	-0.04 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2014 est.)	0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2014 est.)
Sex ratio	at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female 0-14 years: 1.03 male(s)/female 15-24 years: 1.02 male(s)/female 25-54 years: 1 male(s)/female 55-64 years: 0.94 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.51 male(s)/female total population: 0.94 male(s)/female (2014 est.)	at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female 0-14 years: 1.08 male(s)/female 15-24 years: 1.13 male(s)/female 25-54 years: 1.04 male(s)/female 55-64 years: 1 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.69 male(s)/female total population: 1 male(s)/female (2014 est.)
Infant mortality rate	total: 24.5 deaths/1,000 live births male: 27.18 deaths/1,000 live births female: 21.68 deaths/1,000 live births (2014 est.)	total: 3.93 deaths/1,000 live births male: 4.13 deaths/1,000 live births female: 3.73 deaths/1,000 live births (2014 est.)
Life expectancy at birth	total population: 69.81 years male: 65.96 years female: 73.86 years (2014 est.)	total population: 79.8 years male: 76.67 years female: 83.13 years (2014 est.)
Total fertility rate	1.98 children born/woman (2014 est.)	1.25 children born/woman (2014 est.)
HIV/AIDS – adult prevalence rate	NA	less than 0.1% (2009 est.)
Nationality	noun: Korean(s) adjective: Korean	noun: Korean(s) adjective: Korean
Ethnic groups	racially homogeneous; there is a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese	homogeneous (except for about 20,000 Chinese)
HIV/AIDS – people living with HIV/AIDS	NA	9,500 (2009 est.)
Religions	traditionally Buddhist and Confucianist, some Christian and syncretic Chondogyo (Religion of the Heavenly Way) note: autonomous religious activities now almost nonexistent; government-sponsored religious groups exist to provide illusion of religious freedom	Christian 31.6% (Protestant 24%, Roman Catholic 7.6%), Buddhist 24.2%, other or unknown 0.9%, none 43.3% (2010 survey)
HIV/AIDS – deaths	NA	fewer than 500 (2009 est.)
Languages	Korean	Korean, English (widely taught in junior high and high school)
Literacy	definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 100% male: 100% female: 100% (2008 est.)	definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 97.9% male: 99.2% female: 96.6% (2002)
Education expenditures	NA	5% of GDP (2009)
Urbanization	urban population: 60.3% of total population (2011) rate of urbanization: 0.63% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)	urban population: 83.2% of total population (2011) rate of urbanization: 0.71% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)
Drinking water source	improved: urban: 98.9% of population rural: 96.9% of population total: 98.1% of population unimproved: urban: 1.1% of population rural: 3.1% of population total: 1.9% of population (2012 est.)	improved: urban: 99.7% of population rural: 87.9% of population total: 97.8% of population unimproved: urban: 0.3% of population rural: 12.1% of population total: 2.2% of population (2012 est.)
Sanitation facility access	improved: urban: 87.9% of population rural: 72.5% of population total: 81.8% of population unimproved: urban: 12.1% of population rural: 27.5% of population total: 18.2% of population (2012 est.)	improved: urban: 100% of population rural: 100% of population total: 100% of population0% of population 0% of population 0% of population (2012 est.)
Major cities – population	PYONGYANG (capital) 2.843 million (2011)	SEOUL (capital) 9.736 million; Busan (Pusan) 3.372 million; Incheon (Inch’on) 2.622 million; Daegu (Taegu) 2.447 million; Daejon (Taejon) 1.538 million; Gwangju (Kwangju) 1.503 million (2011)
Maternal mortality rate	81 deaths/100,000 live births (2010)	16 deaths/100,000 live births (2010)
Physicians density	3.29 physicians/1,000 population (2003)	2.02 physicians/1,000 population (2010)
Hospital bed density	13.2 beds/1,000 population (2002)	10.3 beds/1,000 population (2009)
Obesity – adult prevalence rate	3.9% (2008)	7.7% (2008)
Contraceptive prevalence rate	68.6% (2002)	80% note: percent of women aged 15-44 (2009)
Dependency ratios	total dependency ratio: 44.9 % youth dependency ratio: 31.1 % elderly dependency ratio: 13.8 % potential support ratio: 7.2 (2014 est.)	total dependency ratio: 37.1 % youth dependency ratio: 19.9 % elderly dependency ratio: 17.2 % potential support ratio: 5.8 (2014 est.)

Source: CIA Factbook

http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/north-korea.south-korea/demographics

Story 2: Microsoft’s Founder Bill Gates Finally Gets A Clue — Open Borders Mass Migration Is Not In The Interest of Neither The American People Nor The People of Europe — Bad Ideas Have Negative Consequences — What Is Bill Gates Afraid of? — Videos

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Bill Gates in HUGE borders U-turn: ‘Brussels must make it HARDER for migrants to reach EU’

BILL GATES has made a massive open-borders U-turn and urged Brussels to make it more “difficult” for migrants to reach Europe.

By JOEY MILLAR

He had previously called on countries to take in more migrants but now appears to have completely reversed his view.The Microsoft chief said instead of opening the European Union borders, Brussels should fix the push-factors at the source by sending more foreign aid.He said: “On the one hand you want to demonstrate generosity and take in refugees, but the more generous you are, the more word gets around about this – which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa.

“[Germany cannot] take in the huge, massive number of people who are wanting to make their way to Europe.”He said instead the EU must make it “more difficult for Africans to reach the continent via the current transit routes” while also relieving “enormous pressure” by sending foreign aid.

596 migrants rescued in the Med

Sat, June 10, 2017

Mayhem broke out in the Mediterranean on Friday as more than 900 migrants set off from Libya to reach Europe in just 24 hours.

Nearly 1,000 migrants leave Libya bound for Europe in just 24 hours

The 61-year-old said it was “phenomenal” German Chancellor Angela Merkel is currently spending 0.7 per cent of the country’s GDP on foreign aid and urged others to follow its example.Last year Mr Gates, who is worth an estimated 60 billion pounds, called on America to open its doors to Syrian migrants.

And he said Germany and Sweden were “to be congratulated” for opening its doors during the migrant crisis.He said the USA “had the capacity” to follow suit, claiming: “The total number of refugees is not a world record.”

Bill Gates migrants GETTY

Bill Gates called on Europe to open its borders to migrants last year

Bill Gates migrants GETTY

Last year Bill Gates praised Germany and Sweden’s approach to the migrant crisis

Mr Gates’ warnings came days after Italian interior minister Marco Minniti held emergency talks with his French and German counterparts regarding the migrant crisis.More than 80,000 migrants have already arrived in Italy this year, a rise of nearly one-fifth on the same period last year.

Bill Gates warns that Germany’s open door policy to migrants will overwhelm Europe and urges leaders to ‘make it more difficult for Africans to reach the continent via current routes’

Bill Gates warned of ‘huge’ number of migrants waiting to come to Europe
He said generosity of European leaders will only encourage more to come
61-year-old said Europe must make it more difficult for people to cross border
Instead he suggested spending more money on foreign aid to treat the problem

By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline

PUBLISHED: 12:04 EDT, 4 July 2017 | UPDATED: 06:05 EDT, 5 July 2017

Bill Gates has warned that European leaders risk deepening the migrant crisis by being too generous to those arriving on the continent.

The Microsoft founder said countries such as Germany will not be able to handle the ‘huge’ numbers of migrants waiting to leave Africa and find a better life overseas.

Instead, the 61-year-old suggested spending more on foreign aid to treat the root causes of migration, while making it more difficult for people to reach the continent.

Bill Gates warned European leaders they will worsen the migrant crisis by being over-generous to those arriving on the continent, and suggested spending more on foreign aid instead

Mr Gates said countries such as Germany cannot handle the ‘huge’ numbers of people wanting to travel to Europe (pictured, migrants arrive in Munich)

Speaking in an interview with the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper, with a translation published by Breitbart, he said: ‘On the one hand you want to demonstrate generosity and take in refugees.

‘But the more generous you are, the more word gets around about this — which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa.

‘Germany cannot possibly take in the huge number of people who are wanting to make their way to Europe.’

Mr Gates praised Chancellor Merkel’s commitment to spending 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid as ‘phenomenal’, and asked other European leaders to follow suit.

But he added: ‘Europe must make it more difficult for Africans to reach the continent via the current transit routes.’

His own foundation has spent years and invested hundreds of millions of dollars to fight poverty and disease in Africa.

Mail Online contacted the foundation for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Mrs Merkel has been heavily criticised for her previous policy of open-door migration which saw 1million people arrive in Germany in a single year.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been criticised for her previous policy of open-door migration. Italian interior minister Marco Minniti raised the prospect of closing ports to private ships helping migrants ashore earlier this week

It is thought that 82,000 migrants, largely from North Africa, have arrived in Italy since the start of the year, with 2,000 drowning in their efforts to cross

At the time conservative European politicians warned that providing migrants with an open door into Europe would make the problem worse.

Mr Gates’ comments came as Italian interior minister Marco Minniti held emergency talks with his French and German counterparts over the migrant crisis.

Mr Minniti has threatened to close Italian ports to privately-funded vessels helping to rescue migrants from ships in the Mediterranean.

He said that other European nations must agree to shoulder some of the burden, or Italy will cut funding to those refusing to help.

An estimated 82,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, up 19 per cent on previous year, The Telegraph reports.

A German government report which leaked to the Bild newspaper suggests there could be up to 6.6million people trying to get into Europe, including 2.5million waiting to cross from North Africa.

It is thought that 2,000 people have lost their lives making the crossing since the start of the year.

Mr Gates’ comments also came after the G20 Africa Conference which took place in Berlin last month.

The summit aimed to discuss ways to improve economic growth, develop infrastructure, and strengthen private investment across the continent.

Austrian troops lock down border

Austria is sending 750 soldiers to its border with Italy in order to head off and expected influx of migrants.

The troops will join four armoured personnel carriers already stationed at the Alpine Brenner Pass to impose checks on those trying to cross.

The move comes after 82,000 migrants landed on Italian shores in the first six months of this year, and the country’s government demanded that other EU nations share the burden.

Austria is sending 750 troops to its southern border with Italy in order to head off an expected influx of migrants (pictured, riot police face off against protesters over the last time border checks were imposed)

‘I expect border controls will be introduced very soon,’ Defence Minister Peter Doskozil said on Tuesday.

Both Italy and Austria are members of the European Union’s Schengen open-border zone, but free movement has been jeopardised by the reimposition of controls at many crossings across the bloc since the surge in migrants seen in 2015 and 2016.

There was no immediate comment from Italy or EU officials, but Doskozil’s spokesman said there was no concrete timetable for the new controls.

The spokesman added: ‘We’ll see how the situation in Italy is becoming more acute and we have to be prepared to avoid a situation comparable to summer 2015.’

Armoured vehicles were used by Austrian authorities during the migrant influx of 2015 to block roads and stem the flow, and would be used in a similar way this time around, authorities said.

Meanwhile the 750 troops would be able to descend on the region within 72 hours should the need arise.

The troops will join four armoured vehicles in the areas around Brenner Pass (pictured) and would be used to block roads and impose checks on arrivals

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4665198/Bill-Gates-warns-open-door-migration-overwhelm-Europe.html#ixzz4lzmvTBwo

Bill Gates: Europe Will Be Overwhelmed Unless It Stems Flow of Migrants

by VIRGINIA HALE4 Jul 20173,322

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has warned that Africa’s population explosion will overwhelm Europe unless the continent makes it more difficult for migrants to reach its shores.

The American billionaire’s comments come as European leaders discuss what to do about the surging number of Africans arriving in Italy each week, with Rome calling for other European Union (EU) nations to open their ports to docking migrants so as to ease pressure on the Mediterranean nation.

In an interview with the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Gates said massive population growth in Africa will result in “enormous [migratory] pressure” on Europe unless countries increase overseas development aid payments.

Praising Germany having achieved its commitment to devote 0.7 per cent of GDP to foreign aid as “phenomenal”, the 61-year-old called on “other European nations to follow its example”.

But Gates also spoke of a dilemma caused by ‘the German attitude to refugees’, referring to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open Europe’s borders to illegal migrants arriving from the third world.

“On the one hand you want to demonstrate generosity and take in refugees, but the more generous you are, the more word gets around about this — which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa,” Gates told the Sunday newspaper.

“Germany cannot possibly take in the huge, massive number of people who are wanting to make their way to Europe.”

Because of this, Gates stressed that “Europe must make it more difficult for Africans to reach the continent via the current transit routes”.

Italy is demanding that other EU nations open their ports to migrants ferried from Libya as the country struggles to cope with having already received over 80,000 people this year.

Calling for African newcomers to be spread throughout Europe, the Mediterranean nation’s globalist centre-left government insisted that the EU migrant relocation programme — which is largely limited to people from Eritrea and Syria — should be expanded to include other nationalities, such as Nigerians.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, on Saturday decried an “unfolding tragedy” in Italy.

“Without a swift collective action, we can only expect more tragedies at sea,” he declared, noting that around 2,000 migrants have lost their lives on the sea route from Libya to Italy this year.

The Italian diplomat repeated calls for an “urgent distribution system” for incoming migrants and asylum seekers, and “additional legal pathways to admission”.

05 July 2017 – 05H40

Bye-bye locals: Europe’s city centres sound alarm

© AFP / by Daniel Bosque and Michaela Cancela-Kieffer | Barcelona’s picturesque Gothic Quarter has gone from residential district to tourist magnet, as deserted buildings full of history make way for quaint hotels

BARCELONA (AFP) – Memories of the past come flooding back as Manuel Mourelo strolls through Barcelona’s picturesque Gothic Quarter: children playing, fun with the neighbours, traditional bars… But now, “all of that has disappeared.”

Hordes of tourists fill the narrow, winding alleys on guided tours, bike and Segway rides, while residents have deserted buildings full of history to make way for quaint hotels and tourist rentals — an issue that affects popular spots Europe-wide.

Last year, Mourelo himself joined the exodus out of a district he had lived in since 1962 when he came to the Spanish seaside city from Galicia in the northwest.

The flat he had been renting for 25 years was sold to an investor and he was evicted. Having paid 500 euros ($560) a month in rent, he was unable to find anything else affordable in the area.

“They were asking for 1,000, 1,200, 1,500 euros,” says the 76-year-old, his face framed by thick glasses and a bushy moustache.

“This was my village. I had it all here, my friends, my shops, I got married here, my children were born here, and I thought I would die here.

“I feel displaced,” he adds, his eyes welling up.

– ‘Emptying out’ –

According to the city hall, the fixed population in the Gothic district so loved by tourists has dropped from 27,470 residents in 2006 to just 15,624 at the end of 2015.

Now, 63 percent are “floating” residents — tourists or people in short-term lets.

At the same time, according to real-estate website Idealista, rental prices in Ciutat Vella, where the Gothic Quarter is located, have gone from 14.4 to 19 euros per square metre in just two years.

Rising rental prices, noise and crowds jostling for space in the streets and the disappearance of traditional, everyday stores have all contributed to forcing people out for economic reasons… or due to sheer frustration.

The arrival of Airbnb and other such home-renting platforms has only aggravated the problem, locals say.

“We’re not talking about gentrification, about substituting the original population by another more wealthy one,” says Gala Pin, a councillor in Ciutat Vella.

“We’re talking about the historic centre emptying out.”

For sociologist Daniel Sorando, co-author of “First We Take Manhattan,” an essay that analyses the phenomenon in various cities, the trend is towards “urban centres conceived as machines to make money while the working classes are displaced outside.”

– Paris, Amsterdam, London –

The problem also affects cities further afield.

In Paris, concerned residents of the 4th district, where Notre-Dame Cathedral is located, organised a symposium on the “invisible desertification” of city centres in March.

The city hall in the French capital said earlier this year that it had lost 20,000 housing units in five years, partly to tourist rentals.

This contributes to a “rise in prices” and a “drop in the population,” Ian Brossat, in charge of housing for Paris’ city hall, told AFP.

In Amsterdam, meanwhile, the ING bank found that owners could earn 350 euros more per month with seasonal rentals, pushing the prices up, Senne Janssen, author of the study, told AFP.

To try and remedy the situation, Paris, London and Amsterdam want to regulate the duration of rentals and register all flats and houses being used for short-term lets in order to better control them.

In Berlin, people are only allowed to rent out one room in their home since last year, and the whole flat or house if it is a secondary or occasional use pied-a-terre.

– ‘Too few to impact’ –

Barcelona, whose mayor Ada Colau is a former anti-eviction housing activist, has chosen to be even more strict.

The city hall last year imposed a 600,000-euro fine on home rental platforms Airbnb and HomeAway for marketing lodgings that lacked permits to host tourists.

But Airbnb Spain says housing problems existed before.

In Ciutat Vella, for instance, “there is three times more empty accommodation (that is not being rented out) than accommodation ads on Airbnb,” says Spain spokesman Andreu Castellano.

And research in cities like Berlin, Los Angeles, London and Barcelona into occupancy shows that “the amount of accommodation put online for purely professional use (rented out more than 120 days a year) is too low to have an impact,” Airbnb adds.

– ‘Tourism fast food’ –

Hard data on the impact of seasonal rentals on accommodation prices are few and far between, but all experts questioned by AFP said these could worsen the situation in already saturated areas.

Barcelona has been particularly hard hit by a rise in prices as investors are attracted by the profitability of a city that sees some 30 million visitors annually.

Sergi Leiva, of real-estate firm MK Premium, says half of his clients are foreigners, who are looking for a second home or a good investment.

And for those who hold on tight despite the prices, life is far from peaceful with the crowds, noise and lack of convenience stores.

“If the prices don’t throw you out, daily pressure does,” says Marti Cuso, a 27-year-old local activist in Barcelona.

Raised in the district, he is the only one among his friends to still live there.

For Socorro Perez, an expert in human geography, the outcome is “cities without residents, dead districts.”

“Cities transform into ‘clusters’ of entertainment and consumption, into tourism fast food.”

by Daniel Bosque and Michaela Cancela-Kieffer

http://www.france24.com/en/20170705-bye-bye-locals-europes-city-centres-sound-alarm

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The Pronk Pops Show 909, June 12 2017: Story 1: American People March Against Sharia Law — Videos — Story 2: President Trump On New Infrastructure and Regulation: Public Private Partnerships or Crony Capitalism?

Posted on June 12, 2017. Filed under: American History, Blogroll, Breaking News, Coal, Countries, Crime, Defense Spending, Donald J. Trump, Elections, Government Spending, History, Human, Iran Nuclear Weapons Deal, Iraq, Islam, Islamic Republic of Iran, Islamic State, Law, Libya, Life, Middle East, Natural Gas, News, Obama, Oil, People, Photos, Politics, Polls, President Trump, Pro Life, Progressives, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Religion, Resources, Rule of Law, Success, Terror, Terrorism, United Kingdom, United States Constitution, United States of America, Videos, Violence, War, Wealth, Wisdom, Yemen | Tags: 12 June 2017, March Across America, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Sharia Law |

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Story 1: American People March Against Sharia Law — Vidoes —

What Is Sharia Law?

What Is Sharia?

Sharia Law 101 – the essential statistics

Sharia Law In America‽

Before and After Sharia Law: A Cautionary Tale

TRUMP SUPPORTERS ENGAGE ANTIFA IN SAN BERNARDINO. SAY NO TO SHARIA LAW

San Bernardino March Against Sharia

San Bernardino March Against Sharia 2

Brigitte Gabriel: “We will not be silenced”

Sharia Law In America‽

BREAKING : Trump Voters UNITE to Stop Sharia Law. Will You Support?

1400 shocking years of Islam in 5 minutes – Muslims are scared of this!!!

ACT for America Stages Marches Against ‘Sharia Law’ Nationwide, Arrests Made

by SAFIA SAMEE ALI, ALI GOSTANIAN and DANIELLA SILVA

Demonstrations against Islamic law led to arrests, tense confrontations and physical fights in some U.S. cities Saturday amid several rallies sponsored by ACT for America, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designates as an anti-Muslim hate group.

The “March Against Sharia” was scheduled to take place in more than 20 cities, including New York, Dallas and Atlanta, and was projected to be ACT for America’s largest protest against Islam.

Cathy Camper, of Tacoma, Wash., wears a stars-and-stripes cowboy hat as she protests against Islamic law at a rally on June 10, 2017, in Seattle, as counter-protesters demonstrate across the street.Ted S. Warren / AP

In some cities, the rallies were met by counter-demonstrators. Seven people were arrested during demonstrations at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, but no injuries were reported, state police said.

In Seattle, police said officers deployed pepper spray to “break up a large fight” and arrested three near Occidental Park following the protests downtown.

At the end of the rally, a group returned to the park where the melee erupted, according to a police statement. Officers used pepper spray to disperse the crowd and arrested one woman and two men for obstruction, it added.

NBC affiliate KING 5 reported that hundreds of demonstrators had marched in downtown to support Muslims and confront a few dozen people who took part in the ACT for America demonstration at City Hall.

“We are not anti-Muslim. We are anti-radical Islam,” said a March Against Sharia speaker outside City Hall, according to the station.

The other group, Seattle Stands with our Muslim Neighbors, began their demonstration in Occidental Square before making their way to City Hall.

“Muslims are welcomed here,” some chanted.

In New York City, about 100 protesters and more than 200 counter-protesters traded words in downtown Manhattan as police officers stood between the groups. While they were speaking, counter-protesters were trying to drown them out using bullhorns and noise makers.

ACT for America says that Sharia law — or Islamic law — is incompatible with Western democracy, and that the marches “are in support of basic human rights for all.”

The organization said this week it was canceling an event in Arkansas “when we became aware that the organizer is associated with white supremacist groups.”

“This is against all of our values,” ACT for America said in a statement Thursday. It said the Arkansas event may go forward anyway, but should not be considered sanctioned by the group.

The nationwide “March Against Sharia” first gained widespread attention when Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, moved to stop the local chapter from rallying. Wheeler’s decision came after two men were fatally stabbed as they tried to protect two women — one of whom was wearing a headscarf — from an anti-Muslim tirade.

Image: Counter-protesters hold signs and shout slogans during an anti-Sharia rally in Seattle — Counter-protesters hold signs and shout slogans during an anti-Sharia rally in Seattle, Washington, on June 10, 2017.David Ryder / Reuters

The organizers of Portland parade eventually changed the venue to Seattle, citing “safety concerns” in Oregon’s largest city.

In front of the Trump building in downtown Chicago, about 30 protesters and President Donald Trump supporters shouted slogans and held signs reading “Ban Sharia” and “Sharia abuses women,” according to the Associated Press. About twice as many counter-protesters marshaled across the street.

At a rally on the steps of the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg, the atmosphere was tense, according to Reuters.

Barricades and a heavy police presence, including officers mounted on horses, separated about 60 anti-Sharia demonstrators from an equal number of counter-protesters, most of them in black masks and hoods, Reuters reported. Nearly a dozen men carrying sidearms belonging to the anti-government Oath Keepers were on hand, invited by ACT to provide security.

ACT for America, which has over 525,000 members and has boasted of its close ties to President Donald Trump, is organizing the marches. It has been considered a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center for several years.

Counter demonstrators yell towards a nearby rally protesting Islamic law Saturday, June 10, 2017, in New York.Craig Ruttle / AP

“ACT demonizes all Muslims as terrorists who want to subvert the political system in this country,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. They disseminate lies and fallacies about Muslims to spread fear about the religion, she added.

The Islamaphobic organization has gained significant momentum since its founding in 2007 by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese immigrant who has openly called Islam inconsistent with U.S law.

“A practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Quran to be the word of Allah … who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day — this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States,” said Gabriel during a course at the Department of Defense’s Joint Forces Staff College in 2007.

ACT for America did not return requests for comment from NBC News.

“These marches are concerning because of what they will mean to the Muslim community,” Beirich said. “When an organization propagandizes an entire community, it tends to embolden some people to commit hate crimes.”

But ACT, which brands itself as “the NRA of national security,” protecting “America from terrorism,” said in a statement that the upcoming march is about “human rights” and protecting women and children from Sharia — or the religious principals forming part of the Islamic tradition — which they say is quietly taking a hold of U.S law.

ACT initiated the “Stop Shariah Now” campaign in 2008. The SPLC said the group’s website described its mission “to inform and educate the public about what Shariah is, how it is creeping into American society and compromising our constitutional freedom of speech, press, religion and equality what we can do to stop it.”

More than 13 states have introduced bills banning Sharia law as a result of the campaign, Beirich said.

“It is absolutely impossible for any religious law to take over U.S. law,” Beirich said. “The Constitution stops it, there is a separation of church and state,” she said.

Image: Brigitte Gabriel speaking for ACT for America. — Brigitte Gabriel, head of the organization, speaking for ACT for America.ACT for America via Facebook

Another staple of the group is the Thin Blue Line Project, which is a “Radicalization Map Locator” that lists the addresses of almost every Muslim Student Association (MSA) in the country, as well as a number of mosques and Islamic institutions. The project, accessible only to pre-registered law enforcement, describes itself as a “one-stop internet resource for information concerning the perceived threat of Muslim infiltration and terrorism in the country,” according to the SPLC.

The organization also forbids any interfaith dialogue with Muslims based on their suspicion that all members of the faith are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, an established international political Islamist group founded in 1928.

“If you or someone you know is aware of a church or synagogue involved in or considering interfaith outreach, please warn them about organizations and individuals connected to the Muslim Brotherhood,” the organization said in a 2012 statement.

The group campaigned hard for Donald Trump, and after he won the election, they boasted of having a “direct line” to the president.

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?app_id=&channel=http%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2Fr%2F0F7S7QWJ0Ac.js%3Fversion%3D42%23cb%3Df3cf26bdc5c130c%26domain%3Dwww.nbcnews.com%26origin%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nbcnews.com%252Ff2503410f4b1c7%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=350&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Factforamerica%2Fphotos%2Fa.441861226363.238280.50783931363%2F10153252037226364%2F%3Ftype%3D3%26theater&locale=en_US&sdk=joey&width=350

Gabriel even visited the White House and tweeted she was going there for a meeting.

The White House did not return requests confirming a meeting with Gabriel.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and current Trump adviser Walid Phares are ACT board advisers, according to the organization. And CIA director Mike Pompeo is “steadfast ally,”said Gabriel in a letter to her base.

The nationwide march is one of the largest coordinated efforts by the ACT, despite a small expected turnout based on the event’s Facebook page.

As of Friday afternoon, only 50 individuals said they are going in Atlanta, 64 in Indianapolis, and 68 in Chicago, on the event’s social media page.

The largest number of people interested are in San Bernardino, with 231 slated to join.

“The protest being planned … by a designated hate group are only designed to fan the flames of hatred and promote xenophobia incidents like what happened in Portland across this country. This is not a rally FOR anything; it’s a rally AGAINST Muslims and American values,” said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

“We know that the views expressed by these hate groups do not reflect the vast majority of Americans,” she added, “and we know that groups like this are only blinded by their extreme hate and ignorance.”

Story 2: President Trump On New Infrastructure and Regulation: Public Private Partnerships or Crony Capitalism?

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

~President Ronald Reagan

January 20, 1981: From Reagan’s Inaugural Address.

“Prosperity is the best protector of principle.”

~ Mark Twain

President Trump’s Plan to Rebuild America’s Infrastructure

Donald Trump: An American Crony Capitalist?

Is Trump’s $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan A Scam?

How Trump’s Trillion-Dollar Infrastructure Plan Could Succeed

Trump launches week focused on improving US infrastructure

President Trump Participates in the Roads, Rails, and Regulatory Relief Roundtable

President Trump Full Speech @ Department of Transportation 6/9/17

Trump’s full Transportation Department speech

President Trump Hosts Infrastructure Summit with Governors and Mayors

Vice President Pence Gives Remarks at an Infrastructure Summit

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Image result for 2015 america's infrastructure report card

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The Pronk Pops Show 908, June 9, 2017, Story 1: Cover His Assets Comey Leaked Documents To Friend Who Leaked Them To Press — Crime of Mishandling Government Documents with Confession and Evidence — “I Could Be Wrong.” — Trump Winner and Big Lie Media and Lying Lunatic Left Losers — President Trump: No Investigation, No Collusion, No Obstruction, No Evidence — Videos — Story 2: Will Prime Minister May Remain Prime Minister? Yes, But Not For Very Long — Videos — Story 3: President Trump On New Infrastructure and Regulation — Videos

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Pronk Pops Show 896, May 18, 2017

Pronk Pops Show 895, May 17, 2017

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Image result for cartoons jame comey is a leaker

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Story 1: Cover His Assets Comey Leaked Documents To Friend Who Leaked Them To Press — Crime of Mishandling Government Documents with Confession and Evidence — Videos —

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His prepared testimony shows why he deserved to be fired.

June 7, 2017 7:31 p.m. ET

The Senate Intelligence Committee released James Comey’s prepared testimony a day early on Wednesday, and it looks like a test of whether Washington can apprehend reality except as another Watergate. Perhaps the defrocked FBI director has a bombshell still to drop. But far from documenting an abuse of power by President Trump, his prepared statement reveals Mr. Comey’s misunderstanding of law enforcement in a democracy.

Mr. Comey’s seven-page narrative recounts his nine encounters with the President-elect and then President, including an appearance at Trump Tower, a one-on-one White House dinner and phone calls. He describes how he briefed Mr. Trump on the Russia counterintelligence investigation and what he calls multiple attempts to “create some sort of patronage relationship.”

But at worst Mr. Comey’s account of Mr. Trump reveals a willful and naive narcissist who believes he can charm or subtly intimidate the FBI director but has no idea how Washington works. This is not new information.

When you’re dining alone in the Green Room with an operator like Mr. Comey—calculating, self-protective, one of the more skilled political knife-fighters of modern times—there are better approaches than asserting “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” Of course the righteous director was going to “memorialize” (his word) these conversations as political insurance.

Mr. Trump’s ham-handed demand for loyalty doesn’t seem to extend beyond the events of 2016, however. In Mr. Comey’s telling, the President is preoccupied with getting credit for the election results and resentful that the political class is delegitimizing his victory with “the cloud” of Russian interference when he believes he did nothing wrong.

Mr. Comey also confirms that on at least three occasions he told Mr. Trump that he was not a personal target of the Russia probe. But Mr. Comey wouldn’t make a public statement to the same effect, “most importantly because it would create a duty to correct” if Mr. Trump were implicated. This is odd because the real obligation is to keep quiet until an investigation is complete.

More interesting is that Mr. Trump’s frustration at Mr. Comey’s refusal raises the possibility that the source of Mr. Trump’s self-destructive behavior isn’t a coverup or a bid to obstruct the investigation. The source could simply be Mr. Trump’s wounded pride.

The most troubling part of Mr. Comey’s statement is his belief in what he calls “the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch,” which he invokes more than once. Independent? This is a false and dangerous view of law enforcement in the American system.

Mr. Comey is describing an FBI director who essentially answers to no one. But the police powers of the government are awesome and often abused, and the only way to prevent or correct abuses is to report to elected officials who are accountable to voters. A director must resist intervention to obstruct an investigation, but he and the agency must be politically accountable or risk becoming the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover.

Mr. Comey says Mr. Trump strongly suggested in February that he close the Michael Flynn file, but after conferring with his “FBI senior leadership” he decided not to relay the conversation to Attorney General Jeff Sessions or any other Justice Department superior. If he thought he was being unduly pressured he had a legal obligation to report, and in our view to resign, but he says he didn’t because “we expected” that Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from Russia involvement.

Well, how did he know? Mr. Sessions didn’t recuse himself until two weeks later. Mr. Comey also didn’t tell the acting Deputy AG, who at the time was a U.S. attorney whom Mr. Comey dismisses as someone “who would also not be long in the role.”

This remarkable presumptuousness is the Comey mindset that was on display last year. He broke Justice Department protocol to absolve Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified material, without the involvement of Justice prosecutors or even telling then Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Mr. Comey’s disregard for the chain of legal command is why Mr. Trump was right to fire him, whatever his reasons.

Also on Wednesday two leaders of the intelligence community told the Senate Wednesday that they had not been pressured to cover up anything. “I have never been pressured—I have never felt pressured—to intervene or interfere in any way with shaping intelligence in a political way or in relation to an ongoing investigation,” said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers added that he never been asked “to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump announced that he is nominating respected Justice Department veteran Christopher Wray as the next FBI director. Let’s hope Mr. Wray has a better understanding of the FBI’s role under the Constitution than Mr. Comey does.

Appeared in the June 8, 2017, print edition.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-independent-mr-comey-1496878266

COMEY SAYS HE WAS FIRED BECAUSE OF RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

BY ERIC TUCKER AND ERICA WERNER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey asserted Thursday that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election and its ties to the Trump campaign.

“It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Comey told the Senate intelligence committee in explosive testimony that threatened to undermine Trump’s presidency.

“I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted,” Comey testified under oath. “That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me.”

Comey also accused the Trump administration of spreading “lies, plain and simple” about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing last month, declaring that the administration then “chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI” by claiming the bureau was in disorder under his leadership. And in testimony that exposed deep distrust between the president and the veteran lawman, Comey described intense discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos.

“I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document,” Comey said. “I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI.”

The revelations came as Comey delivered his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with Trump, speaking at a packed Senate intelligence committee hearing that brought Washington and parts of the country to a standstill as all eyes were glued to screens showing the testimony. The former director immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Trump interfered in the bureau’s Russia investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his “loyalty” and directly pushed him to “lift the cloud” of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign’s Russia ties.

Comey said that he declined to do so in large part because of the “duty to correct” that would be created if that situation changed. Comey also said in his written testimony that Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia asked Comey the key question: “Do you believe this rises to obstruction of justice?”

“I don’t know. That’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out,” Comey responded, referring to the newly appointed special counsel who has taken over the Justice Department’s Russia investigation.

In a startling disclosure, Comey revealed that after his firing he actually tried to spur the special counsel’s appointment by giving one of his memos about Trump to a friend of his to release to the press.

“My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square,” Comey said.

Trump’s private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, seized on Comey’s affirmation that he told Trump he was not personally under investigation. Though Comey said he interpreted Trump’s comments as a directive to shut down the Flynn investigation, Kasowitz also maintained in his written statement that Comey’s testimony showed that the president “never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go.'”

The Republican National Committee and other White House allies worked feverishly to lessen any damage from the hearing, trying to undermine Comey’s credibility by issuing press releases and even ads pointing to a past instance where the FBI had had to clean up the director’s testimony to Congress. Republicans and Trump’s own lawyer seized on Comey’s confirmation, in his written testimony, of Trump’s claim that Comey had told him three times the president was not directly under investigation.

Trump himself was expected to dispute Comey’s claims that the president demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Flynn, according to a person close to the president’s legal team who demanded anonymity because of not being authorized to discuss legal strategy. The president has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Comey’s accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes'” of the conversations.

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey remarked at one point Thursday, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over any claims from the president.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California asked the question that many Republicans have raised in the weeks since Comey’s firing as one media leak followed another revealing Comey’s claims about Trump’s inappropriate interactions with him.

Discussing the Oval Office meeting where Comey says Trump asked him to back off Flynn, Feinstein asked: “Why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong,’?”

“That’s a great question,” Comey said. “Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in.”

The hearing unfolded amid intense political interest, and within a remarkable political context as Comey delivered detrimental testimony about the president who fired him, a president who won election only after Comey damaged his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the final days of the campaign. Clinton has blamed her defeat on Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement that he was re-opening the investigation of her email practices. “If the election were on Oct. 27, I would be your president,” Clinton said last month.

Thursday’s hearing included discussion of that email investigation, as Comey disclosed that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch instructed him to refer to the issue as a “matter,” not an “investigation.”

“That concerned me because that language tracked how the campaign was talking about the FBI’s work and that’s concerning,” Comey said. “We had an investigation open at the time so that gave me a queasy feeling.”

Many Democrats still blame Comey for Clinton’s loss, leading Trump to apparently believe they would applaud him for firing Comey last month. The opposite was the case as the firing created an enormous political firestorm that has stalled Trump’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill and taken over Washington.

Under questioning Thursday, Comey strongly asserted the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election.

“There should be no fuzz on this. The Russians interfered,” Comey stated firmly. “That happened. It’s about as unfake as you can possibly get.”

Trump has begrudgingly accepted the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia interfered with the election. But he has also suggested he doesn’t believe it, saying Russia is a “ruse” and calling the investigation into the matter a “witch hunt.”

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_COMEY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-06-08-12-37-50

7 takeaways from Comey’s opening statement

by Sarah Westwood | Jun 7, 2017, 4:07 PMShare

Former FBI Director James Comey’s planned testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday will provide President Trump’s opponents with plenty of opportunities to attack his conduct, while also giving his supporters the context they need to defend his actions.The seven-page opening statement Comey provided to the committee this week sheds new light on a series of private conversations and meetings between the president and the former FBI director that had previously been described only through anonymous leaks to the press.However, the statement contained few new revelations, and GOP allies — including the Republican National Committee quickly seized on the document to argue Trump had done nothing wrong.Here are seven takeaways from Comey’s opening statement, which he is slated to deliver before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning.Comey really did tell Trump he was not under investigation three times.In his letter last month asking Comey to resign, Trump thanked the former FBI director for telling him, on three occasions, that he was not personally the subject of an FBI probe.On Jan. 6, according to Comey’s statement, the former FBI director sought permission from the bureau’s “leadership team” to inform the president-elect that he was not under investigation.

“That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him,” Comey wrote. He noted the team concluded that he should indeed tell Trump he was not under investigation “if circumstances warranted” during a “sensitive” conversation at Trump Tower about an unverified dossier of salacious allegations against the president-elect.

“During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance,” Comey wrote.

Then, during a Jan. 27 dinner at the White House, Comey cautioned Trump against calling publicly for an investigation of the salacious dossier by warning him that doing so “might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t.”

Finally, during a March 30 phone call, Comey again told the president he was not the subject of an investigation.

“I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that,” Comey noted.

The former FBI director noted, however, that counter-intelligence investigations and criminal investigations differ in their scope and methods.

Comey had far more contact with Trump than with Obama.

The former FBI director noted that he decided to document his conversations with Trump shortly after their first meeting on Jan. 6 at Trump Tower.

“Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward,” Comey wrote in the statement. “This had not been my practice in the past.”

Comey said he had spoken with former President Obama alone just two times throughout his presidency, and said he did not feel compelled to take notes about either encounter.

“I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone,” Comey wrote.

Comey did not perceive any interference on the Russia front.

After a Feb. 14 conversation with Trump in the Oval Office, Comey said he felt uncomfortable with comments the president made about his former national security adviser, Gen. Mike Flynn.

Trump asked Comey to “let this go,” referring to an investigation into whether Flynn made misleading statements to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Comey said.

But the former FBI director clarified that he did not believe the president was asking him to abandon the bureau’s probe of Russian meddling in the presidential race.

“I did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign,” Comey noted.

Comey never told Sessions about his concerns.

The former FBI director defended his decision not to alert the attorney general to his concerns in February about Trump by arguing that he did not expect Attorney General Jeff Sessions or the acting deputy attorney general beneath him to remain involved in the Russia investigation for much longer.

“We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.),” Comey noted.

However, Sessions did not recuse himself until his campaign-era contact with the Russian ambassador surfaced in news reports.

Trump told Comey “it would be good” to find out whether his associates “did something wrong.”

Rather than press Comey to close an investigation of his more distant associates, Trump told the former FBI director he would prefer to learn whether any had committed a crime.

“The president went on to say that if there were some ‘satellite’ associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren’t investigating him,” Comey wrote in his opening statement.

Several of Trump’s former campaign advisers — such as Carter Page, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort — have come under scrutiny for their activities during the presidential race. All three were dismissed from the campaign long before Trump won the White House in November 2016.

Yet one former campaign hand, Flynn, joined Trump in the administration and has since emerged as a top target of investigative focus. And the president did suggest Comey end his efforts to probe Flynn, although the former FBI director suggested the request fell short of obstruction.

Comey does not describe nearly half of his interactions with Trump.

Although the former FBI director claims he interacted one-on-one with Trump on nine separate occasions, his opening statement describes only five of those conversations.

Comey described all three in-person encounters in the statement he provided to the Senate. However, he described just two of the six phone calls he says he had with Trump between Jan. 6 and April 11, the day Comey said he last spoke with the president.

Comey feared Trump wanted a “patronage relationship.”

Comey said Trump’s unexpected move to host him for a private dinner at the White House on Jan. 27 “was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.”

The former FBI director based that assessment on “[m]y instincts.”

Comey went on to describe an “awkward” moment that occurred when the president described his desire for “loyalty.”

“[T]he president said, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’ I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner,” Comey noted.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/7-takeaways-from-comeys-opening-statement/article/2625257

Obstruction of justice

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Criminal law

Elements

Scope of criminal liability

Severity of offense

Felony
Infraction (also called Violation)
Misdemeanor

Inchoate offenses

Offence against the person

Crimes against property

Crimes against justice

Victimless crimes

Adultery
Apostasy
Blasphemy
Buggery
Providing contraception information (Comstock law)
Dueling
Fornication
Gambling
Incest
Lewd and lascivious behavior
Masturbation
Creation of obscenity
Prostitution
Recreational drug use (including alcohol, when prohibited)
Sale of sex toys
Sodomy
Suicide

Crimes against animals

Defences to liability

Other common-law areas

Portals

The crime of obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of obstructing prosecutors or other (usually government) officials. Common law jurisdictions other than the United States tend to use the wider offense of perverting the course of justice.

[hide]

Legal overview

Generally, obstruction charges are laid when it is discovered that a person questioned in an investigation, other than a suspect, has lied to the investigating officers. However, in most common law jurisdictions, the right to remain silent can be used to allow any person questioned by police merely to deny answering questions posed by an investigator without giving any reason for doing so. (In such a case, the investigators may subpoena the witness to give testimony under oath in court, though the witness may then exercise their rights, for example in the Fifth Amendment, if they believe their answer may serve to incriminate themselves.) If the person willfully and knowingly tried to protect a suspect (such as by providing a false alibi) or to hide from investigation of their own activities (such as to hide their involvement in another crime), this may leave them liable to prosecution. Obstruction charges can also be laid if a person alters, destroys, or conceals physical evidence.^[1]Obstruction charges may also be laid in unique situations such as refusal to aid a police officer, escape through voluntary action of an officer and refusing to assist prison officers in arresting escaped convicts.

Obstruction can include crimes committed by judges, prosecutors, attorneys general, and elected officials in general. It is misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance in the conduct of the office. Most commonly it is prosecuted as a crime for perjury by a non governmental official primarily because of prosecutorial discretion.

Notable examples

Richard Nixon was being investigated for obstruction of justice for his alleged role in the cover-up of the break-in at the Watergate hotel during his re-election campaign in 1972. Although it is unknown whether Nixon had foreknowledge of his re-election committee’s “dirty tricks” campaign against Democratic presidential candidates that led to the break-in, he was aware of it after the fact and paid money to keep the participants quiet.
Former Vice-Presidential adviser I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice in March 2007 for his role in the investigation of a leak to reporters that named a CIA agent, Valerie Plame. His prison sentence was commuted by President George W. Bush in July 2007, so that Libby was no longer required to serve a two and a half year prison sentence, but was still required to pay a $250,000 fine, be recorded as a convicted felon, obey probation terms, and be disbarred.
Conrad Black was convicted of obstruction of justice in July 2007^[2] for removing 13 boxes containing financial records from his office in Toronto after they had been sealed by a court order, returning the boxes a few days later.
Barry Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice on April 13, 2011 for his testimony in front of the grand jury during the BALCO steroid scandal.^[3] The conviction was later overturned by an appellate court.^[4]
In United States v. Binion, malingering (feigning illness) during a competency evaluation was held to be obstruction of justice and led to an enhanced sentence.^[5]

Obstruction trends

“Anticipatory obstruction of justice” has recently appeared on the horizon in cases such as US v. Wolff.^[6] However, the operative section, 1519, passed in 2002, has thus far languished in quasi-obscurity. Titled “Destruction, Alteration or Falsification of Records in Federal Investigations and Bankruptcy,” the provision was passed under Section 802 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

The text of the statute is relatively straightforward:

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsified, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under Title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Aside from Section 1519’s 20-year maximum prison sentence (no small benefit to the government in big-dollar fraud loss cases such as Wolff), its primary appeal is that it uniquely removes certain key proof burdens from prosecutors’ collective shoulders.

Prosecutors charging violations of Section 1519 must still establish both of the following:

The accused knowingly directed the obstructive act to affect an issue or matter within the jurisdiction of any U.S. department or agency.
The accused acted at least “in relation to” or “in contemplation’” of such issue or matter.

Not on the list, however, is the requirement that prosecutors demonstrate to the finder of fact which specific “pending proceeding” the accused attempted to obstruct. That is a significant benefit to the government.^[7]

Footnotes

Jump up^ “18 U.S. Code § 1519 – Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy”. LII / Legal Information Institute. Retrieved 2016-09-13.
Jump up^ Siklos, Richard (2007-07-14). “Conrad Black Found Guilty in Fraud Trial”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-08-31.
Jump up^ Dolan, Maura (April 13, 2011). “Barry Bonds convicted of obstruction of justice in performance-enhancing-drugs case”. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
Jump up^ Mintz, Howard (April 22, 2015). “Barry Bonds conviction overturned”. San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
Jump up^ “Behavior of the Defendant in a Competency-to-Stand-Trial Evaluation Becomes an Issue in Sentencing”. Journal of the American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved October 10, 2007.
Jump up^ “FindLaw’s United States DC Circuit case and opinions.”. Findlaw. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
Jump up^ See generally T. Markus Funk, “Charges that Sting: ‘Honey Laundering’ and the New Era of Obstruction Prosecutions,” 25Westlaw Journal – White Collar Crime 6 (March 2011)

External links

Obstruction of Justice: an Overview of Some of the Federal Statutes that Prohibit Interference with Judicial, Executive, or Legislative Activities, Congressional Research Service, December 27, 2007
Obstruction of Congress: A Brief Overview of Federal Law Relating to Interference with Congressional Activities, Congressional Research Service, November 5, 2010

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice

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By Reuters

PUBLISHED: 20:24 EDT, 8 June 2017 | UPDATED: 04:44 EDT, 9 June 2017

LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May faced calls to quit on Friday after her election gamble to win a stronger mandate backfired as she lost her parliamentary majority, throwing British politics into turmoil and potentially disrupting Brexit negotiations. Below is a running total for how many seats each party holds. May is unable to get the 326 seats her Conservative party needs for an outright majority. She would need nine more seats, with only two more seats left to declare Party Seats so far Conservative 317 Labour 261 Lib Dems 12 SNP 35 Greens 1 UKIP 0 DUP 10 Other 12 Unreported 2 (Reporting by Alistair Smout and Georgina Prodhan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-4586860/TABLE-British-election-results-seats-far-party.html#ixzz4jY3jgxZV

Humbled Theresa May says losing Tory candidates ‘didn’t deserve it’ but vows to be PM for five more years with support of the DUP… but do her rivals have other ideas?

Prime Minister Theresa May has lost seats in the general election in a stunning reversal of her hopes
Ashen faced Mrs May vows to stay on despite hammering insisting she can provide ‘certainty’ for the country
Mrs May said her government will keep Britain safe by cracking down on terrorism in the recent attacks
Serious questions remain over how terrorists behind the atrocities slipped through the net on her watch
She has struck a deal with the 10 MPs from the DUP and is going to see the Queen to ask to form government
But Tories are already breaking ranks to make clear that Mrs May must consider her position after the result
Mrs May is expected to reshuffle her cabinet this evening in an attempt to keep a grip on power
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has demanded that Mrs May ‘go’ and make way for government led by him
With just one seat left to count, Conservatives are down from 330 to 318, and Labour up from 232 to 262
Ministers including Jane Ellison and Ben Gummer have been ousted in a surge by Mr Corbyn’s party
The US woke to the news of a Tory humiliation and President Donald Trump said the result was ‘surprising’
Fully 23 hours after polls closed across UK, Kensington was claimed by Labour to draw a line under the results

By James Tapsfield, Political Editor and Tim Sculthorpe, Deputy Political Editor and Martin Robinson, Uk Chief Reporter For Mailonline

PUBLISHED: 17:00 EDT, 8 June 2017 | UPDATED: 18:29 EDT, 9 June 2017

Theresa May has finally apologised to the Tory MPs who lost their seats overnight but refused to say if her election disaster had weakened her hand in Brexit negotiations

A humbled Theresa May has finally apologised to defeated Tory MPs and pledged to stay for five more years – but is now too ‘weak’ to sack rivals including Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson, it was revealed today.

The Prime Minister’s political career is hanging by a thread after she promised to offer ‘certainty’ for Britain as PM – despite the Tories suffering humiliating losses when her election gamble backfired.

She will now rely on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland to prop her up when she had hoped for a landslide victory.

Mrs May has said Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Brexit Secretary David Davis and Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon – five favourites to replace her as leader – will keep their jobs.

The Chancellor and Foreign Minister could have been ‘goners’ but she is now ‘too weak to sack them’, a source said, while another expert suggested she has has been ‘taken prisoner’ by her Cabinet colleagues.

Earlier Mrs May stood in Downing Street and declared her determination to carry on for a full five-year term after getting permission from the Queen to form a government, even though she spectacularly lost her Commons majority overnight.

Incredibly she failed to mention that she had humiliatingly lost seats to Labour after calling the election three years early in a bid to capitalise on sky-high poll ratings.

Around two hours later she appeared on TV again and apologised to defeated Tory MPs after she was accused ‘lacking humility’.

Mrs May acknowledged that she had called an election three years early hoping for a ‘large’ majority, adding: ‘That was not the result that we secured’.

She said: ‘As I reflect on the result, I will reflect on what we need to do in the future to take the party forward.

‘I am sorry for those candidates and hard-working party workers who weren’t successful but also particularly sorry for those colleagues who were MPs or ministers who had contributed so much to our country and who lost their seats and didn’t deserve to lose their seats.’

Mrs May today refused to say if her election disaster has killed off Britain’s chances of a good deal to leave the EU – with former Chancellor George Osborne saying: ‘Hard Brexit went in the rubbish bin last night’.

Senior MPs such as Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan have openly called for Mrs May to step aside – with the latter suggesting she should go within ‘weeks or months’ because her credibility is shot.

One senior Tory MP told ITV News: ‘We all f***ing hate her. But there is nothing we can do. She has totally f***ed us’.

+36

Mrs May declared her determination to carry on in Downing Street after going to see the Queen to request permission to form a government – even though she has lost her Commons majority

+36

The PM was flanked by husband Philip on the steps of No10 as she delivered her statement after seeing the Queen today

+36

Mrs May was welcomed back into Downing Street by staff after the Queen gave her permission to form a new government

But the Tory leader looked slightly awkward being clapped by No10 staff after her poor showing in the general election

ELECTION 2017 RESULTS

UK results

Show

SeatsVotes

650 of 650 seats declared 326 seats needed for majority

Con Theresa May (48.92%)

318

8short

Prev. held: 331

Lab Jeremy Corbyn (40.31%)

262

64short

Prev. held: 232

SNP Angus Robertson (5.38%)

291short

Prev. held: 56

Lib Dem Tim Farron (1.85%)

314short

United Kingdom

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