April 12, 2018
After reading James Comey's autobiography, I wonder whether this might be the final blow to a presidency in crisis
Other presidencies would have found it difficult to survive endless storms and this one may not either – especially with these sorts of revelations, including the accusation of Trump running his office 'like a mafia boss'
Kim Sengupta
From Heathers to Thoroughbreds: Why Hollywood loves a teen sociopath
Klopp on Liverpool facing Roma in the Champions League semi-finals
Liverpool drawn against Roma in Champions League semi-finals
The most embarrassing revelations about Donald Trump from new FBI book
One of the most interesting aspects of James Comey’s highly interesting memoirs is just how fixated Donald Trump apparently was about allegations in Christopher Steele’s dossier that he had used prostitutes while on a visit to Russia.
The claim that the man who is now the US President had hired the women to urinate at a hotel room in Moscow was the most lurid made by the former MI6 agent, and something which was used at the time by his detractors to discredit the report.
Many of the claims made in the Steele document have subsequently turned out to be true. There has not, however, been any proof yet of the “golden shower” (or the alleged filming of it by the Kremlin) which supposedly took place on the bed once used by Barack and Michelle Obama, who Trump hated.
There have been assertions from some intelligence and diplomatic officials that the incident did take place and that Trump had used prostitutes in other occasions in Russia, but these remain unverified.
We also know there are allegations that Trump had affairs with a porn actress and others in the US, and that the woman concerned, Stormy Daniels, was paid off for her silence. This was the reason for the raid by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s on the offices of the President’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. The investigators were reportedly also looking for a tape in which Trump’s advice to a companion on women was “grab them by the p***y”. Separately, Steve Bannon had claimed that “100 women” had been “taken care of” on Trump’s behalf; the number may be a hyperbole, but that is what the President’s former chief strategist said.
All this is still not proof of the Moscow prostitute act, but that is a claim which appeared to have greatly exercised the President. Comey recounts his meeting with the President-elect in January 2017 to discuss the Steele dossier. Trump was quickly focused on the sex. He denied the claim, “asking ---rhetorically I assumed – whether he seemed like a guy who needed the service of prostitutes. He then began discussing cases where women had accused him of sexual assault, a subject I had not raised. He mentioned a number of women, and seemed to have memorised the allegations,” Comey writes.
The conversation, Comey felt, “ teetered towards disaster” until “I pulled the tool from my bag: ‘We are not investigating you, sir.’ That seemed to quiet him”.
Comey’s assurance was technically correct at the time, and had been used by Trump to declare that he is not suspected of any wrongdoing. But since then, of course, the President has become the focus of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, appointed after Comey’s sacking by Trump, into Russian interference in the US election.
It seems the President-elect could not stay quiet for long. Just a week after that meeting, he called Comey to talk about the dossier and moved on, unprompted again, to the sex allegations. He was keen to stress that he had not stayed overnight in Moscow and had only used the hotel room to change clothes. In any event, said the man who was about to take over the most powerful job in the world, “ there’s no way I would let people pee on each other around me. I’m a germaphobe!”
Comey decided it was prudent not tell the President-elect that “the activity alleged did not seem to require either an overnight stay or even being in proximity to the participants. In fact, though I didn’t know for sure, I imagined the presidential suite of the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow was large enough for a germaphobe to be at a safe distance from the activity.”
A week after his inauguration, Trump invited Comey to dinner at the White House. It was an intimate affair with the table set for two. The President spent some time marvelling at the handwriting on the menu and then turned once again to the many sex allegations against him and his answer to them. “There was no way he groped the lady sitting next to him on the aeroplane, and that the idea that he grabbed a porn star and offered her money was preposterous.”
The next month, Trump is said to have telephoned the FBI chief once more to complain about the Russian investigation and again brought up the matter of the Moscow prostitutes. “For about the fourth time, he argued that the golden showers thing wasn’t true, asking yet again, ‘Can you imagine me, hookers?’ In an apparent play for my sympathy, he added that he has a beautiful wife and the whole thing has been very painful for her. He asked what we could do to ‘lift the cloud,’” Comey writes.
That was how some of the interaction apparently went between the new President of the United States and the Director of the FBI. It is a revelation of Trump’s obsession with and, at the same time, worries about the salacious parts of his life and just one grubby part of a presidency which, to Comey, is shorn of integrity, honesty and morality.
In the 290 pages of A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership, the former FBI director charges that “this President is unethical, and untethered to the truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego-driven and about personal loyalty”. Trump’s rule is a “forest fire” which is doing great damage to America.
Comey compares the President to a mafia boss of the type he used to try and put behind bars as a federal prosecutor: “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us versus them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small. In service to some code of loyalty that puts the organisation above morality and above the truth.
“We are experiencing a dangerous time in our country,” he writes, “with a political environment where basic facts are disputed, fundamental truth is questioned, lying is normalised and unethical behaviour is ignored, excused or rewarded.”
But Comey himself has helped to put Trump in the White House and the creation of this toxic and desperate political environment. Just before the election he announced, as head of the FBI, that he was reopening investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. At the same time he failed to mention that Trump had been under investigation for months over his Kremlin connections. The Clinton investigation came to nothing: but her campaign had , by then, been stymied and Trump’s boosted.
Comey tries to defend his action over the Clinton investigation. He says President Obama sat alone with him later in the Oval Office and told him: “I picked you to be FBI director because of your integrity and your ability. I want you to know that nothing — nothing — has happened in the last year to change my view.” Comey, close to crying, told President Obama, “Boy, were those words I needed to hear. . . I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
It is a bit too late for tears now from Comey over Trump, one may think. But this is the second book with hugely damaging revelations, after Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, about an administration, not even halfway through its term, lurching from one severe crisis to another.
Other presidencies would have found it difficult to survive endless storms and this one may not either. The Syria conflict Trump is threatening to start or other foreign adventures which may follow are unlikely to provide a distraction forever.
Friday, April 13, 2018
Nationwide protests planned if Trump fires Mueller or Rosenstein - Reuters
APRIL 12, 2018 / 1:34 AM / UPDATED 20 HOURS AGO
Nationwide protests planned if Trump fires Mueller or Rosenstein
Andrew Hay
(Reuters) - U.S. progressive groups are gearing up for nationwide protests if President Donald Trump fires the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, or replaces the Justice Department official overseeing the probe.
An ouster of Special Counsel Robert Mueller would signal that Trump was acting as if he was above the law, said MoveOn.org, which is planning 800 demonstrations across the country.
Every state will have at least one “Nobody Is Above The Law” rally and at least 320,000 people have pledged to attend so far, according to MoveOn’s website.
Trump would also trigger protests if he fired Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is responsible for overseeing the Russia probe, or if he pardoned associates targeted in the investigation, such as former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort, MoveOn said.
Trump has been critical of the Mueller investigation, calling it a “witch hunt”. He threatened to fire Mueller after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his personal lawyer’s offices on Monday, based partly on a referral by the special counsel.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday he had been assured Trump did not intend to fire Mueller.
Other groups behind the planned protests include Friends of the Earth, the American Federation of Teachers, and veterans organizations, MoveOn said.
“We can’t have the highest office of the land exempt from abiding by the law,” Friends of the Earth U.S. President Erich Picha said by telephone, adding that his group would support impeachment of Trump should he fire Mueller.
MoveOn said Mueller’s firing would create a constitutional crisis and compared the action to President Richard Nixon’s move to oust officials investigating the Watergate scandal.
The White House said on Tuesday that Trump “believes he has the power” to fire Mueller, who has widened his probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.
Russia has denied that it meddled in the election, and Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.
MoveOn is urging U.S. lawmakers to consider impeachment proceedings against Trump should he fire officials involved in the Russia probe, the group’s campaign director David Sievers said by phone.
Reporting By Andrew Hay in New Mexico; editing by Frank McGurty and David Gregorio
Nationwide protests planned if Trump fires Mueller or Rosenstein
Andrew Hay
(Reuters) - U.S. progressive groups are gearing up for nationwide protests if President Donald Trump fires the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, or replaces the Justice Department official overseeing the probe.
An ouster of Special Counsel Robert Mueller would signal that Trump was acting as if he was above the law, said MoveOn.org, which is planning 800 demonstrations across the country.
Every state will have at least one “Nobody Is Above The Law” rally and at least 320,000 people have pledged to attend so far, according to MoveOn’s website.
Trump would also trigger protests if he fired Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is responsible for overseeing the Russia probe, or if he pardoned associates targeted in the investigation, such as former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort, MoveOn said.
Trump has been critical of the Mueller investigation, calling it a “witch hunt”. He threatened to fire Mueller after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his personal lawyer’s offices on Monday, based partly on a referral by the special counsel.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday he had been assured Trump did not intend to fire Mueller.
Other groups behind the planned protests include Friends of the Earth, the American Federation of Teachers, and veterans organizations, MoveOn said.
“We can’t have the highest office of the land exempt from abiding by the law,” Friends of the Earth U.S. President Erich Picha said by telephone, adding that his group would support impeachment of Trump should he fire Mueller.
MoveOn said Mueller’s firing would create a constitutional crisis and compared the action to President Richard Nixon’s move to oust officials investigating the Watergate scandal.
The White House said on Tuesday that Trump “believes he has the power” to fire Mueller, who has widened his probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.
Russia has denied that it meddled in the election, and Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.
MoveOn is urging U.S. lawmakers to consider impeachment proceedings against Trump should he fire officials involved in the Russia probe, the group’s campaign director David Sievers said by phone.
Reporting By Andrew Hay in New Mexico; editing by Frank McGurty and David Gregorio
U.S. officials: Blood samples show nerve agent, chlorine in Syria gas attack - NBC News
U.S. officials: Blood samples show nerve agent, chlorine in Syria gas attack
Two U.S. officials said they were "confident" in the intelligence, though not 100 percent sure.
by Courtney Kube and Ken Dilanian / Apr.13.2018 / 3:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON — The U.S. now has blood and urine samples from last Saturday's deadly attack in Syria that have tested positive for chemical weapons, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence.
The samples suggested the presence of both chlorine gas and an unnamed nerve agent, two officials said. Typically, such samples are obtained through hospitals and collected by U.S. or foreign intelligence assets on the ground. The officials said they were "confident" in the intelligence, though not 100 percent sure.
The Assad regime is known to have stocks of the nerve agent sarin, and has previously used a mixture of chlorine and sarin in attacks, say U.S. officials.
Officials also said that the U.S. has compiled intelligence from the U.S. and other countries, including images, that indicate the Syrian government was behind the weekend attack.
Activists and aid groups say that dozens died in Saturday's airborne assault on Douma, the last rebel stronghold in eastern Ghouta, which has been subjected to intensive bombing by Syria's Russian-backed Assad regime.
Russia and Syria have denied any involvement in the alleged chemical attack.
U.S. officials say the Assad regime has conducted multiple chlorine attacks on rebels during the past six months.
In April 2017, President Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian airfield after victims of an Assad regime attack on civilians in Khan Sheikhoun tested positive for sarin. U.S. officials said the government used a mixture of chlorine and sarin to kill dozens of civilians.
The assessment about the nature of this April's chemical attack and its likely origin with the Assad regime will be presented to the president, said an official familiar with the intelligence. The president is weighing options for retaliation.
Two U.S. officials said they were "confident" in the intelligence, though not 100 percent sure.
by Courtney Kube and Ken Dilanian / Apr.13.2018 / 3:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON — The U.S. now has blood and urine samples from last Saturday's deadly attack in Syria that have tested positive for chemical weapons, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence.
The samples suggested the presence of both chlorine gas and an unnamed nerve agent, two officials said. Typically, such samples are obtained through hospitals and collected by U.S. or foreign intelligence assets on the ground. The officials said they were "confident" in the intelligence, though not 100 percent sure.
The Assad regime is known to have stocks of the nerve agent sarin, and has previously used a mixture of chlorine and sarin in attacks, say U.S. officials.
Officials also said that the U.S. has compiled intelligence from the U.S. and other countries, including images, that indicate the Syrian government was behind the weekend attack.
Activists and aid groups say that dozens died in Saturday's airborne assault on Douma, the last rebel stronghold in eastern Ghouta, which has been subjected to intensive bombing by Syria's Russian-backed Assad regime.
Russia and Syria have denied any involvement in the alleged chemical attack.
U.S. officials say the Assad regime has conducted multiple chlorine attacks on rebels during the past six months.
In April 2017, President Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian airfield after victims of an Assad regime attack on civilians in Khan Sheikhoun tested positive for sarin. U.S. officials said the government used a mixture of chlorine and sarin to kill dozens of civilians.
The assessment about the nature of this April's chemical attack and its likely origin with the Assad regime will be presented to the president, said an official familiar with the intelligence. The president is weighing options for retaliation.
5 things to know about the expected US strikes in Syria - Al Jazeera
5 things to know about the expected US strikes in Syria
Experts give their assessments of what comes next after US vows to carry out missile strikes against the Syrian regime.
by Tamila Varshalomidze
12 Apr 2018
5 things to know about the expected US strikes in Syria
The US carried out 59 Tomahawk missile strikes in Syria last year after a chemical gas attack it blamed on the Assad regime
US sends mixed signals over military action in Syria
today
Trump cares about firing Mueller more than striking Assad
today
Assad government forces 'take entire' Eastern Ghouta
today
Global chemical weapons watchdog 'on its way to Syria'
today
The United States has vowed to respond to the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Douma with missile strikes.
Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has pledged to retaliate if the Pentagon does carry out strikes for what it described as a "fabrication" chemical gas attack.
Analysts answered five key questions about what to expect next.
What types of US missiles could be fired?
Lawrence Korb, former US assistant secretary of defence, told Al Jazeera the US military is likely to use Tomahawk missiles.
Tomahawks were used in previous US attacks in Syria last year in response to the use of chemical weapons in the rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun town of Idlib province.
The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from two warships in the Mediterranean at the Shayrat airfield in Homs province, targeting a Syrian airbase from where US officials alleged the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack had been launched. Six Syrian military personnel were killed.
This time the Tomahawks may be relied on again, analysts said.
"According to unofficial sources, the US deployed several carriers with cruise missiles in the Mediterranean and Red Seas," said Fuad Shahbazov, a security and military expert based in Azerbaijan.
"Also possible attacks with fighter jets should be considered as the US has huge airbases in the Gulf countries," he added.
What are the likely targets?
The US will most likely strike the Syrian army's command and control headquarters, as well as its chemical weapons storage, according to Shahbazov.
Judging by the current location of US cruise missiles aboard its naval vessels, pro-Assad strongholds along the Mediterranean, in Latakia province, may face attacks from the sea, he said.
But Afzal Ashraf, from the Centre for Conflict Security and Terrorism, told Al Jazeera US President Donald Trump's tweets specifically saying "smart missiles" will be used likely weren't appreciated by his military commanders, and a new strategy may be devised.
"They usually don't like to declare what they're going to do and how they're going to do it beforehand," said Ashraf. "So the US military may decide to use a different method."
What is the objective of the attack?
The main goal of the attack would be the prevention of any further use of chemical weapons, said Korb.
But it remains unclear if the US knows where these are stored in Syria, Ashraf noted.
"If we know where the chemical weapons are then they can be destroyed. If they do attack chemical weapon installations, the question has to be asked why they haven't attacked there before. I doubt there are any chemical weapon installations that the West knows about. So these attacks will be general military targets," he said.
Trump tells Russia to 'get ready' for Syria missile attacks
Ashraf suggested the US would likely keep its warplanes and naval vessels out of proximity to Russian forces.
"What does appear to be coming out is what is known as a 'standoff attack' involving cruise missiles and other missiles to avoid the possibility of engagement between Russian and US-backed aircraft and ships.
"If that happens, a very big red line is crossed and we're into some very difficult territory involving war between Russia and the US, and that's something nobody is really ready for," Ashraf said.
What is Russia's likely response?
Moscow's reaction will most probably be limited to public condemnation, if the US does not target the Russian military, according to Korb.
However, Shahbazov said the Russian defence ministry's warnings about retaliation should be noted.
"[Russia's response] will include missile attacks against opposition forces and military positions of the US special forces," he said, adding a long-term ground operation against the rebels was highly unlikely.
Comparing the April 2017 US Tomahawk strikes, Ashraf noted it was likely the Russians gave the Syrians a warning that the attack was coming.
"The only real difference from last time is that the Syrians were given a tipoff via the Russians and they were able to disperse their assets, so not many people were killed and not much equipment destroyed. This particular case, it sounds as though a warning is not going to be available," he said.
What type of anti-missile systems does Moscow have in Syria? Can they counter US strikes?
Shahbazov said Russia's main anti-missile system in Syria, the S300 Gladiator, was deployed in the country at the end of 2016.
"However, it is also possible that Russia will use its modern S400 system that also has been deployed in Syria for more than a year. This system may challenge all modern fighter jets. But Russia has not used this system in Syria yet," he said.
Korb said it was unlikely that Russia would be able to counter the US attacks.
Ashraf agreed, saying many of the US targets in Syria would likely be hit.
"If the Russians are true to their words, some of those missiles will be intercepted. No air-defence system is full-proof, so I would guess a fairly significant proportion would get through to their targets," he said.
Experts give their assessments of what comes next after US vows to carry out missile strikes against the Syrian regime.
by Tamila Varshalomidze
12 Apr 2018
5 things to know about the expected US strikes in Syria
The US carried out 59 Tomahawk missile strikes in Syria last year after a chemical gas attack it blamed on the Assad regime
US sends mixed signals over military action in Syria
today
Trump cares about firing Mueller more than striking Assad
today
Assad government forces 'take entire' Eastern Ghouta
today
Global chemical weapons watchdog 'on its way to Syria'
today
The United States has vowed to respond to the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Douma with missile strikes.
Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has pledged to retaliate if the Pentagon does carry out strikes for what it described as a "fabrication" chemical gas attack.
Analysts answered five key questions about what to expect next.
What types of US missiles could be fired?
Lawrence Korb, former US assistant secretary of defence, told Al Jazeera the US military is likely to use Tomahawk missiles.
Tomahawks were used in previous US attacks in Syria last year in response to the use of chemical weapons in the rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun town of Idlib province.
The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from two warships in the Mediterranean at the Shayrat airfield in Homs province, targeting a Syrian airbase from where US officials alleged the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack had been launched. Six Syrian military personnel were killed.
This time the Tomahawks may be relied on again, analysts said.
"According to unofficial sources, the US deployed several carriers with cruise missiles in the Mediterranean and Red Seas," said Fuad Shahbazov, a security and military expert based in Azerbaijan.
"Also possible attacks with fighter jets should be considered as the US has huge airbases in the Gulf countries," he added.
What are the likely targets?
The US will most likely strike the Syrian army's command and control headquarters, as well as its chemical weapons storage, according to Shahbazov.
Judging by the current location of US cruise missiles aboard its naval vessels, pro-Assad strongholds along the Mediterranean, in Latakia province, may face attacks from the sea, he said.
But Afzal Ashraf, from the Centre for Conflict Security and Terrorism, told Al Jazeera US President Donald Trump's tweets specifically saying "smart missiles" will be used likely weren't appreciated by his military commanders, and a new strategy may be devised.
"They usually don't like to declare what they're going to do and how they're going to do it beforehand," said Ashraf. "So the US military may decide to use a different method."
What is the objective of the attack?
The main goal of the attack would be the prevention of any further use of chemical weapons, said Korb.
But it remains unclear if the US knows where these are stored in Syria, Ashraf noted.
"If we know where the chemical weapons are then they can be destroyed. If they do attack chemical weapon installations, the question has to be asked why they haven't attacked there before. I doubt there are any chemical weapon installations that the West knows about. So these attacks will be general military targets," he said.
Trump tells Russia to 'get ready' for Syria missile attacks
Ashraf suggested the US would likely keep its warplanes and naval vessels out of proximity to Russian forces.
"What does appear to be coming out is what is known as a 'standoff attack' involving cruise missiles and other missiles to avoid the possibility of engagement between Russian and US-backed aircraft and ships.
"If that happens, a very big red line is crossed and we're into some very difficult territory involving war between Russia and the US, and that's something nobody is really ready for," Ashraf said.
What is Russia's likely response?
Moscow's reaction will most probably be limited to public condemnation, if the US does not target the Russian military, according to Korb.
However, Shahbazov said the Russian defence ministry's warnings about retaliation should be noted.
"[Russia's response] will include missile attacks against opposition forces and military positions of the US special forces," he said, adding a long-term ground operation against the rebels was highly unlikely.
Comparing the April 2017 US Tomahawk strikes, Ashraf noted it was likely the Russians gave the Syrians a warning that the attack was coming.
"The only real difference from last time is that the Syrians were given a tipoff via the Russians and they were able to disperse their assets, so not many people were killed and not much equipment destroyed. This particular case, it sounds as though a warning is not going to be available," he said.
What type of anti-missile systems does Moscow have in Syria? Can they counter US strikes?
Shahbazov said Russia's main anti-missile system in Syria, the S300 Gladiator, was deployed in the country at the end of 2016.
"However, it is also possible that Russia will use its modern S400 system that also has been deployed in Syria for more than a year. This system may challenge all modern fighter jets. But Russia has not used this system in Syria yet," he said.
Korb said it was unlikely that Russia would be able to counter the US attacks.
Ashraf agreed, saying many of the US targets in Syria would likely be hit.
"If the Russians are true to their words, some of those missiles will be intercepted. No air-defence system is full-proof, so I would guess a fairly significant proportion would get through to their targets," he said.
Exclusive: Inside the GOP plan to discredit Comey - CNN Politics
Exclusive: Inside the GOP plan to discredit Comey
CNN Digital Expansion 2017
By Jeff Zeleny, Senior White House Correspondent
Updated 2101 GMT (0501 HKT) April 12, 2018
Trump allies aim to discredit James Comey
Trump allies aim to discredit James Comey 01:58
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's allies are preparing an extensive campaign to fight back against James Comey's publicity tour, trying to undermine the credibility of the former FBI director by reviving the blistering Democratic criticism of him before he was fired nearly a year ago.
The battle plan against Comey, obtained by CNN, calls for branding the nation's former top law enforcement official as "Lyin' Comey" through a website, digital advertising and talking points to be sent to Republicans across the country before his memoir is released next week. The White House signed off on the plan, which is being overseen by the Republican National Committee.
"Comey is a liar and a leaker and his misconduct led both Republicans and Democrats to call for his firing," Republican chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to CNN. "If Comey wants the spotlight back on him, we'll make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility."
While it's an open question how successful Republicans will be in making their case against Comey, given that Trump unceremoniously dismissed him last May 9, there is no doubt that many Democrats remain furious at how the former FBI director treated Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Republicans hope to remind Democrats why they disliked Comey by assailing his credibility, shining a new light on his conduct and pointing out his contradictions -- or the three Cs.
An old quotation from Clinton is prominently displayed on the "Lyin'Comey" website, with Trump's former Democratic rival saying that Comey "badly overstepped his bounds."
Comey's media blitz
The Comey memoir, "A Higher Loyalty," is set to be released next Tuesday. His media blitz begins Sunday evening in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, who says Comey compared Trump to a "mob boss."
The President's firing of Comey set into motion a cascading series of events that continue to complicate and cloud the Trump presidency. The Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel in the Russia probe after it was revealed that Trump had asked Comey to drop the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The White House is bracing for Comey to share his story, with aides fearful of how the President will react and how it could influence the escalating Mueller investigation. The well-orchestrated RNC strategy could, of course, be upended by the President himself through a tweet or off-the-cuff comments about Comey.
The exhaustive plan to attack Comey illustrates how seriously Trump's allies are taking the memoir and a round of television interviews Comey is set to give, including on CNN starting next week followed by a town hall April 25.
The Republican plan against Comey is built around several aggressive arguments, according to the plan obtained by CNN, including these:
1) "Comey has a long history of misstatements and misconduct," including damage caused to the FBI because of "bizarre decisions, contradictory statements and acting against Department of Justice and FBI protocol."
2) "Attempts to smear the Trump administration are nothing more than retaliation by a disgraced former official."
3) "Comey isn't credible -- just ask Democrats." The digital ads will show several Democrats calling for Comey's resignation after he injected himself into the 2016 presidential race, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who is shown saying: "All I can tell you is the FBI Director has no credibility."
A image taken from a video that the GOP posted to Youtube.
A image taken from a video that the GOP posted to Youtube.
Political contradictions
The political contradictions surrounding Comey are underscored by how such a central part of the Republican plan is built around reminding Americans of how Democrats had disdain for him, particularly those from the Clinton campaign. Republicans will argue that Comey "repeatedly usurped" the authority of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and violated protocol by "publicly acknowledging the existence of ongoing FBI investigations."
The Republican plan also takes a closer look at Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee last June, when he testified that the President had asked him to stop investigating Flynn. That contradicted a remark he made earlier when testifying that the President did not ask him to stop an investigation for political reasons.
For Comey, who once enjoyed wide bipartisan support in Washington, the book tour comes with high stakes. A former deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to lead the FBI in 2013.
Since Trump dismissed Comey during the fourth year of a 10-year term he has remained largely silent, with the exception of testifying last summer on Capitol Hill and a handful of searing tweets aimed at the President. The memoir's release is the first major opportunity for Comey to speak aloud -- and be subjected to questions -- about his interaction with Trump before being fired.
"Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon," Comey wrote last month on Twitter. "And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not."
The RNC plan, which was approved by the White House, attempts to portray Comey as a man simply out for himself.
"James Comey's publicity tour is a self-serving attempt to make money and rehabilitate his own image," said McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman.
CNN Digital Expansion 2017
By Jeff Zeleny, Senior White House Correspondent
Updated 2101 GMT (0501 HKT) April 12, 2018
Trump allies aim to discredit James Comey
Trump allies aim to discredit James Comey 01:58
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's allies are preparing an extensive campaign to fight back against James Comey's publicity tour, trying to undermine the credibility of the former FBI director by reviving the blistering Democratic criticism of him before he was fired nearly a year ago.
The battle plan against Comey, obtained by CNN, calls for branding the nation's former top law enforcement official as "Lyin' Comey" through a website, digital advertising and talking points to be sent to Republicans across the country before his memoir is released next week. The White House signed off on the plan, which is being overseen by the Republican National Committee.
"Comey is a liar and a leaker and his misconduct led both Republicans and Democrats to call for his firing," Republican chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to CNN. "If Comey wants the spotlight back on him, we'll make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility."
While it's an open question how successful Republicans will be in making their case against Comey, given that Trump unceremoniously dismissed him last May 9, there is no doubt that many Democrats remain furious at how the former FBI director treated Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Republicans hope to remind Democrats why they disliked Comey by assailing his credibility, shining a new light on his conduct and pointing out his contradictions -- or the three Cs.
An old quotation from Clinton is prominently displayed on the "Lyin'Comey" website, with Trump's former Democratic rival saying that Comey "badly overstepped his bounds."
Comey's media blitz
The Comey memoir, "A Higher Loyalty," is set to be released next Tuesday. His media blitz begins Sunday evening in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, who says Comey compared Trump to a "mob boss."
The President's firing of Comey set into motion a cascading series of events that continue to complicate and cloud the Trump presidency. The Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel in the Russia probe after it was revealed that Trump had asked Comey to drop the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The White House is bracing for Comey to share his story, with aides fearful of how the President will react and how it could influence the escalating Mueller investigation. The well-orchestrated RNC strategy could, of course, be upended by the President himself through a tweet or off-the-cuff comments about Comey.
The exhaustive plan to attack Comey illustrates how seriously Trump's allies are taking the memoir and a round of television interviews Comey is set to give, including on CNN starting next week followed by a town hall April 25.
The Republican plan against Comey is built around several aggressive arguments, according to the plan obtained by CNN, including these:
1) "Comey has a long history of misstatements and misconduct," including damage caused to the FBI because of "bizarre decisions, contradictory statements and acting against Department of Justice and FBI protocol."
2) "Attempts to smear the Trump administration are nothing more than retaliation by a disgraced former official."
3) "Comey isn't credible -- just ask Democrats." The digital ads will show several Democrats calling for Comey's resignation after he injected himself into the 2016 presidential race, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who is shown saying: "All I can tell you is the FBI Director has no credibility."
A image taken from a video that the GOP posted to Youtube.
A image taken from a video that the GOP posted to Youtube.
Political contradictions
The political contradictions surrounding Comey are underscored by how such a central part of the Republican plan is built around reminding Americans of how Democrats had disdain for him, particularly those from the Clinton campaign. Republicans will argue that Comey "repeatedly usurped" the authority of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and violated protocol by "publicly acknowledging the existence of ongoing FBI investigations."
The Republican plan also takes a closer look at Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee last June, when he testified that the President had asked him to stop investigating Flynn. That contradicted a remark he made earlier when testifying that the President did not ask him to stop an investigation for political reasons.
For Comey, who once enjoyed wide bipartisan support in Washington, the book tour comes with high stakes. A former deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to lead the FBI in 2013.
Since Trump dismissed Comey during the fourth year of a 10-year term he has remained largely silent, with the exception of testifying last summer on Capitol Hill and a handful of searing tweets aimed at the President. The memoir's release is the first major opportunity for Comey to speak aloud -- and be subjected to questions -- about his interaction with Trump before being fired.
"Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon," Comey wrote last month on Twitter. "And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not."
The RNC plan, which was approved by the White House, attempts to portray Comey as a man simply out for himself.
"James Comey's publicity tour is a self-serving attempt to make money and rehabilitate his own image," said McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman.
"We have the proof" Syria used chemical weapons, French President Emmanuel Macron says - ABC News
"We have the proof" Syria used chemical weapons, French President Emmanuel Macron says
By MOLLY HUNTER LONDON — Apr 12, 2018, 1:35 PM ET
US military awaits Trump's decision on Syria missile strikes
France has evidence that Syria used chemical weapons against its own citizens, French President Emmanuel Macron President said this afternoon, five days after a suspected chemical attack there.
“We have the proof that last week ... chemical weapons — at least chlorine gas — were used by [President Bashar] Assad's regime," Macron told a French today.
As for a response, "We have to make a decision at the right moment, when we will consider it useful and the most effective,” Macron said, adding that he is "working closely" with the United States.
But the international watchdog charged with independently verifying the chemical attack, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), has not yet been given access to the site of the alleged chemical attack in Douma.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives at an elementary school to attend a one-hour interview with French news channel TF1, in Berd'huis, France, April 12, 2018.more +
View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
OPCW
✔
@OPCW
#OPCW will deploy the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) to #Douma, #Syria. Learn more: http://ow.ly/2lgR30jpOBG
1:12 AM - Apr 11, 2018
The OPCW's inspection team is on its way to Syria and will start work Saturday, the organization tweeted today. But getting access to the site may still be a challenge. The Russian military this morning said it was completely in control of the once rebel-held Douma and had raised a Syrian flag in the suburb just outside of Damascus.
The French president's conclusion confirms an independent analysis published Wednesday by a website called Bellingcat, based on open-source material.
Eliot Higgins, a British researcher and independent journalist, runs Bellingcat, which digs into the digital forensics of events mostly inside Syria, focusing on the weaponry used in attacks, both conventional and chemical.
He has become in recent years one of the foremost experts on the munitions used in the Syrian conflict and a vital resource to journalists.
PHOTO: This image released early Sunday, April 8, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, shows a child receiving oxygen through respirators following an alleged poison gas attack in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus, Syria.Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP
This image released early Sunday, April 8, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, shows a child receiving oxygen through respirators following an alleged poison gas attack in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus, Syria.more +
As soon as Higgins saw the reports of a chemical weapons attack rolling in Sunday, he got to work.
"Reports indicated that a significant number of people, including children, had been killed by these attacks," Higgins wrote at the top of his analysis.
Eyewitness accounts from the ground came in the form of disturbing videos showing children frothing at the mouth, unable to breathe.
Frame by frame, Higgins went through the video and photos that emerged, identifying markings on the buildings in order to confirm the video and pictures were from Douma, a suburb outside of Damascus that activists and doctors said was attacked by the Assad regime.
After they had identified the building featured in most of the photos and videos, Higgins' team members were then able to match the video released by the Russian foreign ministry allegedly showing Russian forces visiting the site of the attack to the same building. His team is confident that the videos from activists and the Russian foreign ministry handout video were shot at the same building.
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
10 Apr
Douma chemical attack - The building visited by Russian forces in this video has been geolocated to 33.573900, 36.404831https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QCPj5nUwkg …
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
The entrance of the building they're entering was filmed in another video, showing corpses being removed from the building (graphic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xENU7QxTzS0 … pic.twitter.com/yZl9kiGXLd
8:26 PM - Apr 10, 2018
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
10 Apr
Replying to @EliotHiggins
The entrance of the building they're entering was filmed in another video, showing corpses being removed from the building (graphic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xENU7QxTzS0 … pic.twitter.com/yZl9kiGXLd
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
The same entrance is also visible in this video (graphic), showing bodies inside the apartment building that was hit. It's also possible match corpses filmed inside the building to corpses taken outside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K9H8dh12uE … pic.twitter.com/hojcBFERE8
8:30 PM - Apr 10, 2018
The Russian foreign ministry said their samples were clean. The “Russian specialists” who visited the site “found no traces of chlorine or any other chemical substance used against civilians," according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Higgins sees it differently.
"They went into the building and found nothing,” he told ABC News, noting his concern the Russians may have tampered with evidence the OPCW will need. “We have no idea what they were doing in that building.”
PHOTO: A child cries as they have their face wiped following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters, April 8, 2018.White Helmets/Reuters TV via Reuters
A child cries as they have their face wiped following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters, April 8, 2018.more +
Higgins' team was then able to geolocate another video shot by activists showing a yellow gas cylinder on the roof of the same building where the Russians visited and where activists said the attack happened.
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
11 Apr
Replying to @bellingcat
It's worth noting that two chemical attacks were reported in Douma on April 7th, one at 4pm local time at Saada Bakery, and a second at 7:30pm local time resulting in 34+ deaths pic.twitter.com/cNEIvVyH59
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
This video filmed on the roof top of the apartment building containing 34+ bodies shows a yellow gas cylinder of a type used on multiple occasions in previous aerial chlorine gas attacks https://twitter.com/SyriaCivilDef/status/983768284133806080 …
7:28 PM - Apr 11, 2018
Inside this building, Higgins' team counted in photos 34 dead bodies throughout the immediate area.
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
10 Apr
Replying to @EliotHiggins
The same entrance is also visible in this video (graphic), showing bodies inside the apartment building that was hit. It's also possible match corpses filmed inside the building to corpses taken outside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K9H8dh12uE … pic.twitter.com/hojcBFERE8
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
There's also a video of a yellow gas cylinder in the roof of the building that we've geolocated to the same apartment building, so it's possible to confirm 100% this building, full of corpses, was hit by a gas cylinder.
8:32 PM - Apr 10, 2018
Additionally “an estimated 500 patients presented to health facilities exhibiting signs and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals,” the World Health Organization said, according to reports from its partners.
"In particular," the WHO statement continued, "there were signs of severe irritation of mucous membranes, respiratory failure and disruption to central nervous systems of those exposed."
ABC News has been unable to independently verify either number but they are consistent with what ABC News has heard from eyewitnesses in Douma. The OPCW will produce the only official report of the incident.
Other video emerged showing the same kind of yellow gas cylinder on a bed in an unknown location.
"The external modifications on the above cylinder are particularly interesting as they are consistent with modifications seen on other gas cylinders used in other reported aerial chlorine attacks,” according to Higgins' analysis.
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
Replying to @EliotHiggins
Here's some examples of the same yellow gas cylinders used in other chemical attacks. February 4, 2018, Saraqib, two cylinders dropped on the town https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/02/14/evidence-february-4th-2018-chlorine-attack-saraqib-idlib/ …
9:04 PM - Apr 9, 2018
Higgins then cited a Human Rights Watch report that collected pictures of the same yellow gas cylinders used in previous chlorine attacks.
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
11 Apr
Replying to @bellingcat
This video filmed on the roof top of the apartment building containing 34+ bodies shows a yellow gas cylinder of a type used on multiple occasions in previous aerial chlorine gas attacks https://twitter.com/SyriaCivilDef/status/983768284133806080 …
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
Despite reports that victims in the building displayed signs of organophosphate exposure and Sarin use, these yellow gas cylinders have not been previously documented outside of aerial chlorine attacks pic.twitter.com/u31XUJi27Y
7:29 PM - Apr 11, 2018
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
Left shows the modified chlorine cylinder used in yesterday's Douma attack, the right hand image is from an August 2017 chlorine attack in Khan Al-Assal. Clear similarities, seems they've strengthened the suspension lugs.
12:08 AM - Apr 9, 2018
Such munitions are dropped by helicopters, Higgins said, and the OPCW has determined that yellow gas cylinders have been dropped by helicopters in previous chemical weapons attacks, according to The Associated Press, which has seen the reports.
But Higgins' team was also able to determine from where the helicopters took off.
"Aircraft observers that are part of the Sentry Syrian network observed two Hip helicopters heading southwest from Dumayr Airbase," Higgins wrote, mentioning a regime airbase, "northeast of Damascus, in the direction of Douma, 30 minutes before the chemical attack in Douma, and two Hip helicopters were observed above Douma shortly before the attack."
But from where Higgins sits, at home in the U.K., there are still unknowns.
"One thing that's confusing," he said, "is that the doctors are all adamant that there are Sarin-like symptoms but this may be because of overexposure to chlorine."
But, he added, "there does seem to be another chemical agent but I don't think it's Sarin."
In the analysis, he wrote "it is important to note that these yellow gas cylinders are not associated with the use of Sarin, and as Sarin is a liquid a compressed gas cylinder seems an unlikely method of delivery for Sarin. Possible explanations for the allegations of Sarin use may be a result of the severity of the symptoms presented, of an undocumented munition being used, or another chemical agent being used that presents symptoms that could be confused with Sarin use."
There are limits to investigating from afar, Higgins acknowledged, which is why it's crucial that the OPCW get to the site and start testing the clothing and blood of victims. Whether they will find another kind of munition that could have carried a different chemical is an open question.
In Higgins opinion, that would be one way to explain an additional chemical and the Sarin-like symptoms.
Higgins' analysis concluded that "based on the available evidence, it is highly likely the 34+ victims killed in the 7:30pm attack on the apartment building near al-Shuhada Square were killed as a result of a gas cylinder filled with what is most likely chlorine gas being dropped from a Hip helicopter originating from Dumayr Airbase."
"The thing is with this," he explained, "there have been constant chemical attacks this year. Five to six already this year. The only thing that's special about this one is that it got noticed.
"If it was dropped just a few meters to the other direction, those people in that building probably wouldn't have died," he added. "A matter of meters between a big news story or just another chemical attack."
By MOLLY HUNTER LONDON — Apr 12, 2018, 1:35 PM ET
US military awaits Trump's decision on Syria missile strikes
France has evidence that Syria used chemical weapons against its own citizens, French President Emmanuel Macron President said this afternoon, five days after a suspected chemical attack there.
“We have the proof that last week ... chemical weapons — at least chlorine gas — were used by [President Bashar] Assad's regime," Macron told a French today.
As for a response, "We have to make a decision at the right moment, when we will consider it useful and the most effective,” Macron said, adding that he is "working closely" with the United States.
But the international watchdog charged with independently verifying the chemical attack, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), has not yet been given access to the site of the alleged chemical attack in Douma.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives at an elementary school to attend a one-hour interview with French news channel TF1, in Berd'huis, France, April 12, 2018.more +
View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
OPCW
✔
@OPCW
#OPCW will deploy the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) to #Douma, #Syria. Learn more: http://ow.ly/2lgR30jpOBG
1:12 AM - Apr 11, 2018
The OPCW's inspection team is on its way to Syria and will start work Saturday, the organization tweeted today. But getting access to the site may still be a challenge. The Russian military this morning said it was completely in control of the once rebel-held Douma and had raised a Syrian flag in the suburb just outside of Damascus.
The French president's conclusion confirms an independent analysis published Wednesday by a website called Bellingcat, based on open-source material.
Eliot Higgins, a British researcher and independent journalist, runs Bellingcat, which digs into the digital forensics of events mostly inside Syria, focusing on the weaponry used in attacks, both conventional and chemical.
He has become in recent years one of the foremost experts on the munitions used in the Syrian conflict and a vital resource to journalists.
PHOTO: This image released early Sunday, April 8, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, shows a child receiving oxygen through respirators following an alleged poison gas attack in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus, Syria.Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP
This image released early Sunday, April 8, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, shows a child receiving oxygen through respirators following an alleged poison gas attack in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus, Syria.more +
As soon as Higgins saw the reports of a chemical weapons attack rolling in Sunday, he got to work.
"Reports indicated that a significant number of people, including children, had been killed by these attacks," Higgins wrote at the top of his analysis.
Eyewitness accounts from the ground came in the form of disturbing videos showing children frothing at the mouth, unable to breathe.
Frame by frame, Higgins went through the video and photos that emerged, identifying markings on the buildings in order to confirm the video and pictures were from Douma, a suburb outside of Damascus that activists and doctors said was attacked by the Assad regime.
After they had identified the building featured in most of the photos and videos, Higgins' team members were then able to match the video released by the Russian foreign ministry allegedly showing Russian forces visiting the site of the attack to the same building. His team is confident that the videos from activists and the Russian foreign ministry handout video were shot at the same building.
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
10 Apr
Douma chemical attack - The building visited by Russian forces in this video has been geolocated to 33.573900, 36.404831https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QCPj5nUwkg …
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
The entrance of the building they're entering was filmed in another video, showing corpses being removed from the building (graphic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xENU7QxTzS0 … pic.twitter.com/yZl9kiGXLd
8:26 PM - Apr 10, 2018
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
10 Apr
Replying to @EliotHiggins
The entrance of the building they're entering was filmed in another video, showing corpses being removed from the building (graphic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xENU7QxTzS0 … pic.twitter.com/yZl9kiGXLd
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
The same entrance is also visible in this video (graphic), showing bodies inside the apartment building that was hit. It's also possible match corpses filmed inside the building to corpses taken outside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K9H8dh12uE … pic.twitter.com/hojcBFERE8
8:30 PM - Apr 10, 2018
The Russian foreign ministry said their samples were clean. The “Russian specialists” who visited the site “found no traces of chlorine or any other chemical substance used against civilians," according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Higgins sees it differently.
"They went into the building and found nothing,” he told ABC News, noting his concern the Russians may have tampered with evidence the OPCW will need. “We have no idea what they were doing in that building.”
PHOTO: A child cries as they have their face wiped following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters, April 8, 2018.White Helmets/Reuters TV via Reuters
A child cries as they have their face wiped following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters, April 8, 2018.more +
Higgins' team was then able to geolocate another video shot by activists showing a yellow gas cylinder on the roof of the same building where the Russians visited and where activists said the attack happened.
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
11 Apr
Replying to @bellingcat
It's worth noting that two chemical attacks were reported in Douma on April 7th, one at 4pm local time at Saada Bakery, and a second at 7:30pm local time resulting in 34+ deaths pic.twitter.com/cNEIvVyH59
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
This video filmed on the roof top of the apartment building containing 34+ bodies shows a yellow gas cylinder of a type used on multiple occasions in previous aerial chlorine gas attacks https://twitter.com/SyriaCivilDef/status/983768284133806080 …
7:28 PM - Apr 11, 2018
Inside this building, Higgins' team counted in photos 34 dead bodies throughout the immediate area.
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
10 Apr
Replying to @EliotHiggins
The same entrance is also visible in this video (graphic), showing bodies inside the apartment building that was hit. It's also possible match corpses filmed inside the building to corpses taken outside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K9H8dh12uE … pic.twitter.com/hojcBFERE8
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
There's also a video of a yellow gas cylinder in the roof of the building that we've geolocated to the same apartment building, so it's possible to confirm 100% this building, full of corpses, was hit by a gas cylinder.
8:32 PM - Apr 10, 2018
Additionally “an estimated 500 patients presented to health facilities exhibiting signs and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals,” the World Health Organization said, according to reports from its partners.
"In particular," the WHO statement continued, "there were signs of severe irritation of mucous membranes, respiratory failure and disruption to central nervous systems of those exposed."
ABC News has been unable to independently verify either number but they are consistent with what ABC News has heard from eyewitnesses in Douma. The OPCW will produce the only official report of the incident.
Other video emerged showing the same kind of yellow gas cylinder on a bed in an unknown location.
"The external modifications on the above cylinder are particularly interesting as they are consistent with modifications seen on other gas cylinders used in other reported aerial chlorine attacks,” according to Higgins' analysis.
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
Replying to @EliotHiggins
Here's some examples of the same yellow gas cylinders used in other chemical attacks. February 4, 2018, Saraqib, two cylinders dropped on the town https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/02/14/evidence-february-4th-2018-chlorine-attack-saraqib-idlib/ …
9:04 PM - Apr 9, 2018
Higgins then cited a Human Rights Watch report that collected pictures of the same yellow gas cylinders used in previous chlorine attacks.
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
11 Apr
Replying to @bellingcat
This video filmed on the roof top of the apartment building containing 34+ bodies shows a yellow gas cylinder of a type used on multiple occasions in previous aerial chlorine gas attacks https://twitter.com/SyriaCivilDef/status/983768284133806080 …
Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
Despite reports that victims in the building displayed signs of organophosphate exposure and Sarin use, these yellow gas cylinders have not been previously documented outside of aerial chlorine attacks pic.twitter.com/u31XUJi27Y
7:29 PM - Apr 11, 2018
Eliot Higgins
✔
@EliotHiggins
Left shows the modified chlorine cylinder used in yesterday's Douma attack, the right hand image is from an August 2017 chlorine attack in Khan Al-Assal. Clear similarities, seems they've strengthened the suspension lugs.
12:08 AM - Apr 9, 2018
Such munitions are dropped by helicopters, Higgins said, and the OPCW has determined that yellow gas cylinders have been dropped by helicopters in previous chemical weapons attacks, according to The Associated Press, which has seen the reports.
But Higgins' team was also able to determine from where the helicopters took off.
"Aircraft observers that are part of the Sentry Syrian network observed two Hip helicopters heading southwest from Dumayr Airbase," Higgins wrote, mentioning a regime airbase, "northeast of Damascus, in the direction of Douma, 30 minutes before the chemical attack in Douma, and two Hip helicopters were observed above Douma shortly before the attack."
But from where Higgins sits, at home in the U.K., there are still unknowns.
"One thing that's confusing," he said, "is that the doctors are all adamant that there are Sarin-like symptoms but this may be because of overexposure to chlorine."
But, he added, "there does seem to be another chemical agent but I don't think it's Sarin."
In the analysis, he wrote "it is important to note that these yellow gas cylinders are not associated with the use of Sarin, and as Sarin is a liquid a compressed gas cylinder seems an unlikely method of delivery for Sarin. Possible explanations for the allegations of Sarin use may be a result of the severity of the symptoms presented, of an undocumented munition being used, or another chemical agent being used that presents symptoms that could be confused with Sarin use."
There are limits to investigating from afar, Higgins acknowledged, which is why it's crucial that the OPCW get to the site and start testing the clothing and blood of victims. Whether they will find another kind of munition that could have carried a different chemical is an open question.
In Higgins opinion, that would be one way to explain an additional chemical and the Sarin-like symptoms.
Higgins' analysis concluded that "based on the available evidence, it is highly likely the 34+ victims killed in the 7:30pm attack on the apartment building near al-Shuhada Square were killed as a result of a gas cylinder filled with what is most likely chlorine gas being dropped from a Hip helicopter originating from Dumayr Airbase."
"The thing is with this," he explained, "there have been constant chemical attacks this year. Five to six already this year. The only thing that's special about this one is that it got noticed.
"If it was dropped just a few meters to the other direction, those people in that building probably wouldn't have died," he added. "A matter of meters between a big news story or just another chemical attack."
Fast-Talking Trump Flip-Flops Into Policy Jams - Bloomberg
Fast-Talking Trump Flip-Flops Into Policy Jams
By Brendan Scott
April 13, 2018, 8:11 PM GMT+10
Does FBI Raid of Trump's Lawyer Change the Course of Mueller Probe?
Does FBI Raid of Trump's Lawyer Change the Course of Mueller Probe?
Want to receive this post in your inbox every morning? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.
For decades, Donald Trump has been talking himself out of jams. In his second year as U.S. president, the ones he’s talked himself into are mounting.
Take trade. With a pen stroke, Trump jilted U.S. allies from Australia to Japan last year and withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Now that he wants help pressuring China— he yesterday opened the door to rejoining the pact -- the allies are skeptical. “There may be a different statement the next day,” Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said today.
Similarly, Trump's Twitter warning for Russia to “get ready” for missiles coming at Syria drew criticism that he violated his own complaints about telegraphing moves to the enemy. Yesterday he tempered his threat, saying a strike “could be very soon, or not so soon at all.”
Trump’s penchant for popping off could prove most consequential in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. The president’s denials about payoffs to purported mistresses, for instance, may have increased his lawyer Michael Cohen’s legal exposure before an FBI raid this week that's tied to that investigation.
And his repeated attacks on “leakin’ James Comey” did little to silence the ousted FBI director, who’s about to release a tell-all book comparing the president to a mob boss.
Trump. Shahien Nasiripour and Patrick Clark take a closer look at how the president's paltry approval ratings are creating new challenges for plans to expand Trump hotels.Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Global Headlines
May talks tough | U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May won support at an emergency cabinet meeting to declare it’s “vital” to respond to an apparent chemical weapons attack in Syria. The statement came as Trump softened his tone on imminent military action, telling reporters after meeting with his national security team yesterday that he was looking “very closely at that whole situation, and we’ll see what happens.”
Trump eases off | Trump met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein yesterday, an encounter that advisers hoped would cool tensions over Mueller’s investigation. The meeting came a day after Trump had discussed firing Rosenstein with aides amid his dissatisfaction with how the Russia probe has unfolded, and followed his declaration that he had “full confidence” in White House lawyer Ty Cobb, who’s advised Trump to cooperate with the investigation.
Too big to punish | U.S. officials considered blacklisting two of China’s biggest banks for doing business with North Korea last summer amid growing tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, Christian Berthelsen reports. But the idea of a U.S. ban on the Agricultural Bank of China and the China Construction Bank was soon shelved mainly because of fears that it would send shock waves through the global financial system and prompt retaliatory measures from Beijing.
Africa’s graft fight | Corruption used to be so widespread in Angola that the common term for bribe is “gasosa,” the Portuguese word for fizzy drink. Now, President Joao Lourenco is on a drive to stamp it out, and the son of his predecessor could soon go on trial, Henrique Almeida and Pauline Bax report. Angola is one of several key African countries, including South Africa, whose new leaders are pushing prosecutors to target corrupt officials.
Iran optimism | U.S. and EU officials are increasingly confident they can persuade Trump not to tear up an international agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. In talks in Washington this week, they made progress on revisions to the 2015 accord between Iran and six world powers, Margaret Talev and Nick Wadhams report. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, also told senators he’s committed to “fix” the deal before and after a May 12 deadline set by the president.
Swedish battleground | The next test of the populist wave sweeping politics could be Sweden. Polls show the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats may win close to 20 percent in September’s general election, leaving it a potential king-maker between the two establishment blocs, Amanda Billner and Hanna Hoikkala report. Party leader Jimmie Akesson says his starting point for any agreement will be “who's prepared to go furthest to meet our demands” for halting in the inflow of foreigners.
And finally...Once a byword for corruption and delays, Pakistan’s colonial-era rail network is undergoing a renaissance. Chris Kay and Ismail Dilawar took a journey on the Green Line as Beijing prepares to finalize an $8 billion loan to Pakistan to upgrade 1,163 miles of track that runs from Karachi to Peshawar near the Afghan border. It's another piece of China's Belt and Road trade initiative — the grand $1 trillion plan to construct trade routes through Asia to Europe.
By Brendan Scott
April 13, 2018, 8:11 PM GMT+10
Does FBI Raid of Trump's Lawyer Change the Course of Mueller Probe?
Does FBI Raid of Trump's Lawyer Change the Course of Mueller Probe?
Want to receive this post in your inbox every morning? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.
For decades, Donald Trump has been talking himself out of jams. In his second year as U.S. president, the ones he’s talked himself into are mounting.
Take trade. With a pen stroke, Trump jilted U.S. allies from Australia to Japan last year and withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Now that he wants help pressuring China— he yesterday opened the door to rejoining the pact -- the allies are skeptical. “There may be a different statement the next day,” Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said today.
Similarly, Trump's Twitter warning for Russia to “get ready” for missiles coming at Syria drew criticism that he violated his own complaints about telegraphing moves to the enemy. Yesterday he tempered his threat, saying a strike “could be very soon, or not so soon at all.”
Trump’s penchant for popping off could prove most consequential in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. The president’s denials about payoffs to purported mistresses, for instance, may have increased his lawyer Michael Cohen’s legal exposure before an FBI raid this week that's tied to that investigation.
And his repeated attacks on “leakin’ James Comey” did little to silence the ousted FBI director, who’s about to release a tell-all book comparing the president to a mob boss.
Trump. Shahien Nasiripour and Patrick Clark take a closer look at how the president's paltry approval ratings are creating new challenges for plans to expand Trump hotels.Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Global Headlines
May talks tough | U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May won support at an emergency cabinet meeting to declare it’s “vital” to respond to an apparent chemical weapons attack in Syria. The statement came as Trump softened his tone on imminent military action, telling reporters after meeting with his national security team yesterday that he was looking “very closely at that whole situation, and we’ll see what happens.”
Trump eases off | Trump met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein yesterday, an encounter that advisers hoped would cool tensions over Mueller’s investigation. The meeting came a day after Trump had discussed firing Rosenstein with aides amid his dissatisfaction with how the Russia probe has unfolded, and followed his declaration that he had “full confidence” in White House lawyer Ty Cobb, who’s advised Trump to cooperate with the investigation.
Too big to punish | U.S. officials considered blacklisting two of China’s biggest banks for doing business with North Korea last summer amid growing tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, Christian Berthelsen reports. But the idea of a U.S. ban on the Agricultural Bank of China and the China Construction Bank was soon shelved mainly because of fears that it would send shock waves through the global financial system and prompt retaliatory measures from Beijing.
Africa’s graft fight | Corruption used to be so widespread in Angola that the common term for bribe is “gasosa,” the Portuguese word for fizzy drink. Now, President Joao Lourenco is on a drive to stamp it out, and the son of his predecessor could soon go on trial, Henrique Almeida and Pauline Bax report. Angola is one of several key African countries, including South Africa, whose new leaders are pushing prosecutors to target corrupt officials.
Iran optimism | U.S. and EU officials are increasingly confident they can persuade Trump not to tear up an international agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. In talks in Washington this week, they made progress on revisions to the 2015 accord between Iran and six world powers, Margaret Talev and Nick Wadhams report. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, also told senators he’s committed to “fix” the deal before and after a May 12 deadline set by the president.
Swedish battleground | The next test of the populist wave sweeping politics could be Sweden. Polls show the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats may win close to 20 percent in September’s general election, leaving it a potential king-maker between the two establishment blocs, Amanda Billner and Hanna Hoikkala report. Party leader Jimmie Akesson says his starting point for any agreement will be “who's prepared to go furthest to meet our demands” for halting in the inflow of foreigners.
And finally...Once a byword for corruption and delays, Pakistan’s colonial-era rail network is undergoing a renaissance. Chris Kay and Ismail Dilawar took a journey on the Green Line as Beijing prepares to finalize an $8 billion loan to Pakistan to upgrade 1,163 miles of track that runs from Karachi to Peshawar near the Afghan border. It's another piece of China's Belt and Road trade initiative — the grand $1 trillion plan to construct trade routes through Asia to Europe.
Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Personal Data - TIME
Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Cambridge Analytica Acquired His Personal Data
Posted: 11 Apr 2018 08:33 AM PDT
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told a Congressional committee on Wednesday that his own personal information was among the large sum of data wrongfully obtained by political analysis firm Cambridge Analytica.
Zuckerberg is on Capitol Hill for the third consecutive day, testifying Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about Facebook’s failures to protect users from outside political interference and data misuse ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Wednesday’s conversation, as with Zuckerberg’s testimony before a joint Senate committee the prior afternoon, centered largely on Cambridge Analytica, which acquired the data of approximately 87 million Facebook users from a researcher who created a personality quiz on the site.
In a tense exchange between Zuckerberg and Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, the 33-year-old Zuckerberg admitted that his data was among the information acquired by Cambridge Analytica.
“Was your data included in the data sold to the malicious third parties?” Eshoo asked.
“Yes,” Zuckerberg responded.
Her follow-up: “Are you willing to change your business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy?”
Zuckerberg’s answer was more equivocal. “Congresswoman, I’m not sure what that means,” he said.
The House is often more fiery than the Senate, and Wednesday’s hearing in a crowded meeting room of the Rayburn House Office Building was decidedly more heated than the occasionally tedious Senate hearing sixteen hours earlier. At one point, Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, compared Facebook to COINTELPRO, the covert F.B.I. surveillance program that targeted activist groups in the mid-twentieth century, and asked Zuckerberg if a parallel between him and notorious former F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover was warranted.
The heat was, in any event, an effective strategy on the House’s part. Zuckerberg’s testimony revealed more than Tuesday’s meandering conversation. For instance, Zuckerberg said that user interaction on Facebook has not dropped in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He also suggested that legal regulation of Facebook and similar social media platforms was an inevitable outcome of the current scandal.
Mark Zuckerberg Leaves Washington With Bumps and Bruises, but Nothing Worse - TIME
Mark Zuckerberg Leaves Washington With Bumps and Bruises, but Nothing Worse
Posted: 11 Apr 2018 03:09 PM PDT
The American attention span is short these days, and so you’re forgiven if you forgot that as recently as January people thought very seriously that Mark Zuckerberg might run for president in 2020. It wasn’t an absurd suggestion: The 33-year-old wunderkind helmed arguably the most important American company since Microsoft, in an industry whose leaders have since the days of Steve Jobs held a revered status in America as forward-thinking arbiters of the future. Zuckerberg’s well-publicized stump tour of the country’s heartland last year certainly didn’t ease the minds of skeptics.
Things change fast, especially in tech. This week, Zuckerberg arrived in Washington under starkly different circumstances to explain to a scowling tribunal of lawmakers on Capitol Hill why Facebook, a company whose user base amounts to a quarter of the world’s population, had systematically failed to protect the private information of its users and to moderate the information to which they were exposed.
Over a collective nine hours of inquisition, an alternately anxious, defensive, bored, and weather-beaten Zuckerberg — who sat on a thick cushion that made him seem taller than his 5 feet, 7 inches — attempted to convince members of Congress that Facebook was sorry for its lapses, actively working to rectify them for the future and open to new laws that would regulate social media companies. The CEO declined to say much about this last point.
Congress was unimpressed. His testimony before a joint Senate panel the day prior had been a low-kilowatt catastrophe: a demonstration, more than anything else, that lawmakers know very little about the social media platforms they hope to regulate. (At one point, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is 84, asked Zuckerberg how Facebook makes its money. “Senator, we run ads,” Zuckerberg replied with a mix of reverence and astonishment. A GIF from that moment is one of many memes that have since gone viral.)
Meanwhile the House watched, eager to avoid the mistakes of their colleagues in the upper chamber. On Wednesday, when they had their chance to grill the social media giant, the several dozen members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee pressed him on a loosely confederated array of topics — from the dearth of racial diversity in Facebook’s C-suite to the fact that the platform was reportedly being used to traffic Fentanyl and recruit young jihadis to ISIS.
It was occasionally crackling theater, but the conversation mostly revolved around the issues that had created the storm clouds of public outrage hanging over Zuckerberg in the first place. Last month, media outlets reported that a shady data-mining firm with links to Republican operatives known as Cambridge Analytica had acquired the personal information of approximately 87 million Americans — information that these users had unknowingly supplied by taking an innocuous personality quiz on the site. This, along with the older news that Russian actors had used Facebook pages and ads to “sow discord” ahead of the 2016 presidential election, fomented the core anxiety of this moment of reckoning: the realization of just how much power sites like Facebook hold in twenty-first-century America.
“Facebook has grown so big, so fast,” Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, said in the first hour of the hearing. “It is no longer the company that you started in your dorm room. Instead it’s one of the great American success stories. That much influence comes with enormous social responsibility, on which you have failed to act and to protect and to consider.”
Rush, who in the 1960s was active in the civil rights movement, also gave a more damning appraisal. “I was personally a victim of COINTELPRO,” he told Zuckerberg, referring to the Cold War-era domestic counterintelligence program that illicitly spied on and smeared individuals and groups deemed subversive, among them civil rights leaders. “Your organization, your methodology in my opinion is similar… Mr. Zuckerberg, what is the difference between Facebook’s methodology and the methodology of the American political pariah J. Edgar Hoover?”
“It’s an important question,” Zuckerberg responded. It wasn’t clear if he was serious.
When Zuckerberg was pressed to explain how the company was responding to address its past oversights, his answers were thin and repetitive. He repeatedly said that Facebook was auditing third-party actors on the site that may have had wrongful access to users’ private data, but could not or would not elaborate. The members of the House committee, many of whom had watched the Senate hearing, exercised little patience for repetition and were quick to call him out.
“We’ve all been sitting here for more than four hours, and some things are striking from this conversation,” Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said in the hearing’s final hour on Wednesday afternoon. “As CEO, you didn’t know some key facts. You didn’t know some court cases against your company’s privacy policy. You didn’t know how many apps you need to audit.”
“Here’s what I do know,” she continued. “You have trackers all over the web. Practically on all websites we go to we all see the Facebook share or like button. It doesn’t matter whether you have a Facebook account. Through those tools, Facebook is able to collect information on all of us.”
Throughout the inquisition, Facebook’s stock ticked upwards. When Zuckerberg left the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, he may have been the pariah du jour in the court of public opinion, but the fact remains that he was departing mostly unscathed. The two days of dialogue between the executive and the lawmakers who could be regulating him had been diffuse and materially unproductive.
Tech watchers noted that Congress’ limited understanding of the subject at hand meant that any meaningful regulation was still far off. Meanwhile, more cynical political watchers observed that many of the lawmakers who engaged in the more fiery exchanges are up for reelection this November and would need good clips for their campaign ads.
“I’m encouraged that Facebook is willing to make changes, but I am concerned that you are only acting now out of concern for your brand,” Rep. Paul Tonko of New York said to Zuckerberg at one point. Indeed.
Beneath the Glitz of a Ford Automobile Launch in China, Fears of a Trade War Remain - TIME
Beneath the Glitz of a Ford Automobile Launch in China, Fears of a Trade War Remain
Posted: 12 Apr 2018 01:05 AM PDT
Sparkling beneath a hundred flashbulbs, Ford’s newest saloon was presented to the world in the central Chinese megacity of Chongqing on Tuesday, in a symphony of polished paintwork and umbrella-twirling dancers.
The unveiling of the next generation Ford Focus is the American automobile giant’s first ever global launch in China, spotlighting the growing importance of the world’s most populous nation for American companies. It comes as fears of a trade war persist despite conciliatory remarks from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump has taken aim at America’s current record $375.2 billion trade deficit with China, zeroing in on the disparity between American and Chinese auto import tariffs — 2.5% versus 25% respectively, Trump tweeted April 9 — as an example of “stupid trade.” He has threatened over $150 billion of tariffs against China over the imbalance and alleged pilfering of intellectual property (IP); the Beijing government denies wrongdoing and has vowed to retaliate.
On Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to “significantly” reduce U.S. auto import tariffs this year, a move Trump tweeted he was “very thankful for.” But rapprochement was short-lived. China reported the U.S. to the WTO that same day over $3 billion of steel and aluminum tariffs Trump imposed last month. Analysts also doubt whether the auto tariff reduction Xi pledged will happen as China has repeatedly reneged on similar promises in the past.
“U.S. automakers are likely to discover quite quickly that their access to the Chinese market is limited,” a China Association of Automobile Manufacturers official told China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper.
China’s autos market is by far the world’s largest, and its manufacturers have a production capacity of 30 million vehicles annually. The stakes for U.S. manufacturers thus couldn’t be higher, casting a shadow over the Ford launch.
“The two governments have a relationship and we would encourage them to work it out, encourage them to come to some agreement,” Trevor Worthington, vice-president of product development for Ford Asia-Pacific, tells TIME in Chongqing.
Ford only has about 3% of the Chinese market, according to Worthington, and for a firm that consistently ranks in the top five automakers worldwide, it “should be doing much better,” he says. Still, American firms made profits of some $4 billion from Sino-U.S. joint ventures in 2016, according to Chinese officials. In addition, China imported around 273,000 cars from the U.S. — around a quarter of all imports — with a reported value of over $13 billion in 2017. Ford has sold 2.6 million Focus models alone since entering the Chinese market in 2005.
The shifting dynamics of China’s car market reflect the U.S.-China trade relationship more generally. A theoretically communist nation that only began to economically liberalize in the 1980s now wields vast geopolitical and economic clout, yet still enjoys significant preferable treatment regarding trade. When the U.S. supported Chinese accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, the deal was that the U.S. would slowly gain access to its markets, partly compensating for American manufacturing shifting to China. In the time since, China’s GDP has soared from $1.3 trillion to $11.2 trillion but market access has barely improved.
As in many priority industries in China, foreign automakers must make a 50-50 partnership with local firms. (Ford principally works with Chongqing-based Changan Automobile.) These partnerships facilitate the transfer of technology and other IP that have benefited a legion of first-rate Chinese competitors.
The world’s largest car market
In 2001, China had fewer than 10 million passenger vehicles for its 1.2 billion population — just one vehicle for every 128 people, or a market penetration equivalent to the U.S. in 1911 — just three years after Henry Ford produced his first Model T. But by 2009, China was the largest car market in the world. Today, it’s bigger than the U.S. and Japan combined. In 2017, 25.4 million passenger vehicles — the vast majority produced by Chinese firms — were sold in China, according to market analysis firm LMC Automotive. (In the U.S., just 17.2 million vehicles were sold last year.)
This is largely due to canny official control over the economy, combined with some equally resourceful gathering of technology. In his acclaimed book Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip, New Yorker journalist Peter Hessler described how the Wuhan city government set up a car company in the late 1990s by hiring a former Volkswagen engineer called Yin Tongyao. Yin bought an assembly line from an obsolete Ford factory in the U.K., blueprints from Volkswagen subsidiary Seat in Spain, and parts through side deals with Volkswagen suppliers in China. By the spring of 2000, that company, Qirui, known in English as Chery, was churning out cars.
Today, Yin is Chery’s President and CEO, and the firm is China’s biggest automotive exporter, boasting factories in Brazil, Iran, Venezuela and Russia. Chery’s success is paralleled domestically, where production and quality have surged in unison. Private companies are meanwhile overtaking state-affiliated rivals and poaching engineers and executives from storied European and American manufacturers and even buying up foreign firms wholesale. Ford sold Swedish firm Volvo to China’s Geely for $1.8 billion in 2010.
“China is no longer able to act the weak victim that’s dependent on others,” says Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese politics at King’s College London. “It is now a country that others are dependent on.”
Today, Chinese automakers control most of the domestic market (as local manufacturers do in the smartphone market — another IP-heavy field). For Ford, protecting over a century of hard-fought IP is paramount.
“We’re pretty careful about the way we manage the key processes and intellectual property,” says Worthington of Ford’s partnership with Changan. “We do have ways of sharing that with our partners but in a very limited way.”
When Changan handles all of Ford’s local sales, marketing and dealer network, there are huge benefits for the Chinese firm, not only in terms of technology, but branding and other aspects of business strategy. And yet it’s difficult to argue that China needs technology transfer any longer. “China is the lead. The market has become sophisticated very quickly,” says Worthington.
U.S. car sales fell 2% in 2017 and are expected to fall again this year. The danger is that Trump’s attempts to coax fairer terms may make things even worse for American automakers by jeopardizing their China business altogether. In addition, foreign firms such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz now produce the majority of their premium SUVs in the U.S., accounting for 60% of all U.S. auto exports to China. A trade war “might compel German brands to transfer their production,” says Alan Kang, senior market analyst with LMC Automotive—at a cost of thousands of American jobs.
American investment in China could also become a glaring target. “Chinese retaliation may come in form of new taxes or greater restriction of profit repatriation that restrict American businesses operating there,” says Jim Nolt, an Asia specialist with World Policy Institute. Fearful of their position, American companies refuse to publicly castigate Chinese trade practices, exasperating U.S. trade officials who complain to TIME of hearing executives’ complaints in private but only platitudes in public.
For Derek Scissors, an economist focusing on China at the American Enterprise Institute, Trump’s tariff approach is unrealistic “because these are key elements of how China engages the world — you don’t get to compete with state-owned enterprises in China, and if you want access to our market, we want your technology.”
Ironically, Trump undermined his best hope to make progress on the IP issue on his first day in office, when he pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That free trade pact between a dozen – now 11 — Asia-Pacific nations contained strong IP protection, and the Obama administration was also separately negotiating toughened IP protocols with the European Union. Raising standards elsewhere, particularly in developing nations with lower production costs than China, would have set the global IP bar higher and thus put pressure on Beijing to reciprocate to stay competitive. (Already, in 2014, China introduced special IP courts that have received positive feedback from U.S. firms.) The sheer size of the Chinese market means other nations will likely only coerce better practices by lobbying Beijing in concert.
In autos, like many industries now, China increasingly writes the rules. Whereas cars were once created for precision cruising at 110 m.p.h. on the German autobahn, today they are designed to sooth drivers navigating the maddening stop-start traffic of Beijing. Worthington says Ford is putting modems and wireless chargers in its latest models, which are linked not only with Apple CarPlay but also Beijing-based tech giant Baidu’s CarLife network. Cars in the West traditionally focus on the driver, with little heed to passenger comfort, but in China they are “a social environment,” says Worthington.
Predominantly single-child families also hit the road with grandparents in tow, likely sitting in the rear either side of the infant, meaning extra space is mandatory in the back seats. “The expectation is that it’s a very comfortable, luxurious experience for your parents, “ says Worthington. Today, all Focus models sold across the globe have a longer wheelbase and roomer back row because of this uniquely Chinese preference. Electric vehicles are also coming on in leaps and bounds, mainly due to the concerted backing of green technology by Beijing.
As in so many relationships, the student is now the teacher. Now all the West has to do is figure out how to do away with China’s student discounts.
Posted: 12 Apr 2018 01:05 AM PDT
Sparkling beneath a hundred flashbulbs, Ford’s newest saloon was presented to the world in the central Chinese megacity of Chongqing on Tuesday, in a symphony of polished paintwork and umbrella-twirling dancers.
The unveiling of the next generation Ford Focus is the American automobile giant’s first ever global launch in China, spotlighting the growing importance of the world’s most populous nation for American companies. It comes as fears of a trade war persist despite conciliatory remarks from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump has taken aim at America’s current record $375.2 billion trade deficit with China, zeroing in on the disparity between American and Chinese auto import tariffs — 2.5% versus 25% respectively, Trump tweeted April 9 — as an example of “stupid trade.” He has threatened over $150 billion of tariffs against China over the imbalance and alleged pilfering of intellectual property (IP); the Beijing government denies wrongdoing and has vowed to retaliate.
On Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to “significantly” reduce U.S. auto import tariffs this year, a move Trump tweeted he was “very thankful for.” But rapprochement was short-lived. China reported the U.S. to the WTO that same day over $3 billion of steel and aluminum tariffs Trump imposed last month. Analysts also doubt whether the auto tariff reduction Xi pledged will happen as China has repeatedly reneged on similar promises in the past.
“U.S. automakers are likely to discover quite quickly that their access to the Chinese market is limited,” a China Association of Automobile Manufacturers official told China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper.
China’s autos market is by far the world’s largest, and its manufacturers have a production capacity of 30 million vehicles annually. The stakes for U.S. manufacturers thus couldn’t be higher, casting a shadow over the Ford launch.
“The two governments have a relationship and we would encourage them to work it out, encourage them to come to some agreement,” Trevor Worthington, vice-president of product development for Ford Asia-Pacific, tells TIME in Chongqing.
Ford only has about 3% of the Chinese market, according to Worthington, and for a firm that consistently ranks in the top five automakers worldwide, it “should be doing much better,” he says. Still, American firms made profits of some $4 billion from Sino-U.S. joint ventures in 2016, according to Chinese officials. In addition, China imported around 273,000 cars from the U.S. — around a quarter of all imports — with a reported value of over $13 billion in 2017. Ford has sold 2.6 million Focus models alone since entering the Chinese market in 2005.
The shifting dynamics of China’s car market reflect the U.S.-China trade relationship more generally. A theoretically communist nation that only began to economically liberalize in the 1980s now wields vast geopolitical and economic clout, yet still enjoys significant preferable treatment regarding trade. When the U.S. supported Chinese accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, the deal was that the U.S. would slowly gain access to its markets, partly compensating for American manufacturing shifting to China. In the time since, China’s GDP has soared from $1.3 trillion to $11.2 trillion but market access has barely improved.
As in many priority industries in China, foreign automakers must make a 50-50 partnership with local firms. (Ford principally works with Chongqing-based Changan Automobile.) These partnerships facilitate the transfer of technology and other IP that have benefited a legion of first-rate Chinese competitors.
The world’s largest car market
In 2001, China had fewer than 10 million passenger vehicles for its 1.2 billion population — just one vehicle for every 128 people, or a market penetration equivalent to the U.S. in 1911 — just three years after Henry Ford produced his first Model T. But by 2009, China was the largest car market in the world. Today, it’s bigger than the U.S. and Japan combined. In 2017, 25.4 million passenger vehicles — the vast majority produced by Chinese firms — were sold in China, according to market analysis firm LMC Automotive. (In the U.S., just 17.2 million vehicles were sold last year.)
This is largely due to canny official control over the economy, combined with some equally resourceful gathering of technology. In his acclaimed book Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip, New Yorker journalist Peter Hessler described how the Wuhan city government set up a car company in the late 1990s by hiring a former Volkswagen engineer called Yin Tongyao. Yin bought an assembly line from an obsolete Ford factory in the U.K., blueprints from Volkswagen subsidiary Seat in Spain, and parts through side deals with Volkswagen suppliers in China. By the spring of 2000, that company, Qirui, known in English as Chery, was churning out cars.
Today, Yin is Chery’s President and CEO, and the firm is China’s biggest automotive exporter, boasting factories in Brazil, Iran, Venezuela and Russia. Chery’s success is paralleled domestically, where production and quality have surged in unison. Private companies are meanwhile overtaking state-affiliated rivals and poaching engineers and executives from storied European and American manufacturers and even buying up foreign firms wholesale. Ford sold Swedish firm Volvo to China’s Geely for $1.8 billion in 2010.
“China is no longer able to act the weak victim that’s dependent on others,” says Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese politics at King’s College London. “It is now a country that others are dependent on.”
Today, Chinese automakers control most of the domestic market (as local manufacturers do in the smartphone market — another IP-heavy field). For Ford, protecting over a century of hard-fought IP is paramount.
“We’re pretty careful about the way we manage the key processes and intellectual property,” says Worthington of Ford’s partnership with Changan. “We do have ways of sharing that with our partners but in a very limited way.”
When Changan handles all of Ford’s local sales, marketing and dealer network, there are huge benefits for the Chinese firm, not only in terms of technology, but branding and other aspects of business strategy. And yet it’s difficult to argue that China needs technology transfer any longer. “China is the lead. The market has become sophisticated very quickly,” says Worthington.
U.S. car sales fell 2% in 2017 and are expected to fall again this year. The danger is that Trump’s attempts to coax fairer terms may make things even worse for American automakers by jeopardizing their China business altogether. In addition, foreign firms such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz now produce the majority of their premium SUVs in the U.S., accounting for 60% of all U.S. auto exports to China. A trade war “might compel German brands to transfer their production,” says Alan Kang, senior market analyst with LMC Automotive—at a cost of thousands of American jobs.
American investment in China could also become a glaring target. “Chinese retaliation may come in form of new taxes or greater restriction of profit repatriation that restrict American businesses operating there,” says Jim Nolt, an Asia specialist with World Policy Institute. Fearful of their position, American companies refuse to publicly castigate Chinese trade practices, exasperating U.S. trade officials who complain to TIME of hearing executives’ complaints in private but only platitudes in public.
For Derek Scissors, an economist focusing on China at the American Enterprise Institute, Trump’s tariff approach is unrealistic “because these are key elements of how China engages the world — you don’t get to compete with state-owned enterprises in China, and if you want access to our market, we want your technology.”
Ironically, Trump undermined his best hope to make progress on the IP issue on his first day in office, when he pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That free trade pact between a dozen – now 11 — Asia-Pacific nations contained strong IP protection, and the Obama administration was also separately negotiating toughened IP protocols with the European Union. Raising standards elsewhere, particularly in developing nations with lower production costs than China, would have set the global IP bar higher and thus put pressure on Beijing to reciprocate to stay competitive. (Already, in 2014, China introduced special IP courts that have received positive feedback from U.S. firms.) The sheer size of the Chinese market means other nations will likely only coerce better practices by lobbying Beijing in concert.
In autos, like many industries now, China increasingly writes the rules. Whereas cars were once created for precision cruising at 110 m.p.h. on the German autobahn, today they are designed to sooth drivers navigating the maddening stop-start traffic of Beijing. Worthington says Ford is putting modems and wireless chargers in its latest models, which are linked not only with Apple CarPlay but also Beijing-based tech giant Baidu’s CarLife network. Cars in the West traditionally focus on the driver, with little heed to passenger comfort, but in China they are “a social environment,” says Worthington.
Predominantly single-child families also hit the road with grandparents in tow, likely sitting in the rear either side of the infant, meaning extra space is mandatory in the back seats. “The expectation is that it’s a very comfortable, luxurious experience for your parents, “ says Worthington. Today, all Focus models sold across the globe have a longer wheelbase and roomer back row because of this uniquely Chinese preference. Electric vehicles are also coming on in leaps and bounds, mainly due to the concerted backing of green technology by Beijing.
As in so many relationships, the student is now the teacher. Now all the West has to do is figure out how to do away with China’s student discounts.
China man caught by facial recognition at pop concert - BBC News
April 13, 2018
China man caught by facial recognition at pop concert
There are an estimated 170 million CCTV cameras already in place in China
Chinese police have used facial recognition technology to locate and arrest a man who was among a crowd of 60,000 concert goers.
The suspect, who has been identified only as Mr Ao, was attending a concert by pop star Jacky Cheung in Nanchang city last weekend when he was caught.
Police said the 31-year-old, who was wanted for "economic crimes", was "shocked" when he was caught.
China has a huge surveillance network of over 170 million CCTV cameras.
Chinese police unveil camera sunglasses
China sets up huge 'social credit' system
Mr Ao was identified by cameras at the concert's ticket entrance, and apprehended by police after he had sat down with other concert goers.
"The suspect looked completely caught by surprise when we took him away," police officer Li Jin told state news agency Xinhua.
"He didn't think the police would be able to catch him from a crowd of 60,000 so quickly," Mr Li, from Honggutan police station in Nanchang city, added.
Mr Li also told China Daily that there were several cameras at the ticket entrances equipped with facial recognition technology.
'I wouldn't have gone'
Mr Ao had reportedly driven 90km (56 miles) from Zhangshu to Nanchang with his wife specially to catch the concert.
News site Kan Kan released footage that appeared to show the suspect speaking in police custody, saying: "If I knew, I wouldn't have gone [to the concert]."
Jacky Cheung is one of Hong Kong's most famous singers
This is not the first time Chinese police have used facial recognition systems to catch suspects.
In August last year, police in Shandong province arrested 25 suspects using a facial recognition system that was set up at the Qingdao International Beer Festival.
China is a world leader in facial recognition technology and regularly reminds its citizens that such equipment will make it almost impossible to evade the authorities.
The country has been building what it calls "the world's biggest camera surveillance network".
Media captionIn your face: China's all-seeing surveillance system
An estimated 170 million CCTV cameras are already in place and some 400 million new ones are expected be installed in the next three years.
Many of the cameras use artificial intelligence, including facial recognition technology.
China man caught by facial recognition at pop concert
There are an estimated 170 million CCTV cameras already in place in China
Chinese police have used facial recognition technology to locate and arrest a man who was among a crowd of 60,000 concert goers.
The suspect, who has been identified only as Mr Ao, was attending a concert by pop star Jacky Cheung in Nanchang city last weekend when he was caught.
Police said the 31-year-old, who was wanted for "economic crimes", was "shocked" when he was caught.
China has a huge surveillance network of over 170 million CCTV cameras.
Chinese police unveil camera sunglasses
China sets up huge 'social credit' system
Mr Ao was identified by cameras at the concert's ticket entrance, and apprehended by police after he had sat down with other concert goers.
"The suspect looked completely caught by surprise when we took him away," police officer Li Jin told state news agency Xinhua.
"He didn't think the police would be able to catch him from a crowd of 60,000 so quickly," Mr Li, from Honggutan police station in Nanchang city, added.
Mr Li also told China Daily that there were several cameras at the ticket entrances equipped with facial recognition technology.
'I wouldn't have gone'
Mr Ao had reportedly driven 90km (56 miles) from Zhangshu to Nanchang with his wife specially to catch the concert.
News site Kan Kan released footage that appeared to show the suspect speaking in police custody, saying: "If I knew, I wouldn't have gone [to the concert]."
Jacky Cheung is one of Hong Kong's most famous singers
This is not the first time Chinese police have used facial recognition systems to catch suspects.
In August last year, police in Shandong province arrested 25 suspects using a facial recognition system that was set up at the Qingdao International Beer Festival.
China is a world leader in facial recognition technology and regularly reminds its citizens that such equipment will make it almost impossible to evade the authorities.
The country has been building what it calls "the world's biggest camera surveillance network".
Media captionIn your face: China's all-seeing surveillance system
An estimated 170 million CCTV cameras are already in place and some 400 million new ones are expected be installed in the next three years.
Many of the cameras use artificial intelligence, including facial recognition technology.
Russia warns of 'dangerous' escalation over Syria - BBC News
April 13, 2018
Russia warns of 'dangerous' escalation over Syria
Russia is an ally of Syria and gives military backing to its government
Russia has warned the US that launching air strikes in response to a suspected chemical attack in Syria could spark a war between the two countries.
"The immediate priority is to avert the danger of war," Moscow's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Thursday.
He accused Washington of putting international peace at risk and said the situation was "very dangerous".
Western powers are thought to be preparing for strikes but Russia, a Syrian ally, opposes such action.
"We cannot exclude any possibilities, unfortunately," Mr Nebenzia told reporters after a private meeting of the UN Security Council in New York.
He said there was a heightened "danger of escalation" because of the Russian military presence in Syria.
What can Western military intervention achieve?
Why is there a war in Syria?
Are we heading for a third world war?
Senior Russian figures, including the head of the military, have warned that US missiles will be shot down and their launch sites targeted if Russian personnel come under threat.
Mr Nebenzia also called for the UN Security Council to meet again on Friday to discuss the possibility of Western military action.
The White House says it is continuing to assess intelligence and talk to its allies on how to respond.
Meanwhile, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) says experts are travelling to Syria and will start investigations on Saturday.
Why is the West considering military action?
Western leaders have been planning a response to Saturday's suspected chemical attack
The call for action comes after a suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma in the Eastern Ghouta on Saturday, which killed dozens of people, according to opposition activists, rescue workers and medics.
Chemical weapons attacks are suspected to have taken place in Syria before. Last year, the US launched a retaliatory strike against one said to have taken place in Khan Sheikhoun.
President Bashar al-Assad's government - which receives military backing from Russia - has denied involvement in any chemical attack, calling the reports "fabricated".
After six weeks of heavy fighting and an estimated 1,700 civilian deaths in the Eastern Ghouta region, the Syrian government is now said to have control of the area, which lies just outside of Damascus.
The final evacuations of about 4,000 remaining Islamist fighters and civilians continued on Friday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring organisation.
So What can Macron and Trump do?
Firepower of key countries
The significance of Eastern Ghouta's fall
Is there proof of the recent 'chemical attack'?
The Violations Documentation Center (VDC), which records alleged violations of international law in Syria, said bodies were found with foam at the mouth, discoloured skin and burns to the eyes.
On Thursday, unnamed US officials said they had blood and urine samples from victims which had tested positive for chlorine and a nerve agent, according to NBC News.
Syria 'chemical attack': What we know
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Hayley, told the network: "We definitely have enough proof, but now we just have to be thoughtful in our action."
French President Emmanuel Macron also said he had "proof" that the Syrian government had attacked Douma with chemical weapons, without giving further details.
Media captionUnverified video shows children being treated after the alleged gas attack
In the UK, cabinet ministers agreed that it was "highly likely" the Assad regime was responsible for the alleged attack and said the use of chemical weapons must not "go unchallenged".
During a phone call late on Thursday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May and US President Donald Trump agreed on the need to deter chemical weapon use in Syria.
They agreed to "keep working closely" on the issue, Mrs May's office said in a statement.
What has Trump said about the attack?
Media captionTrump: Decisions on Syria will be made "fairly soon"
On Sunday, the day after the attack, the US president said Russian President Vladimir Putin bore responsibility for the "atrocity" in rebel-held Douma, because of his support for the Syrian government.
Mr Trump, who has cancelled a planned trip abroad, has been canvassing support for strikes from the leaders of France and the UK.
On Wednesday he said the missiles were "coming", but on Thursday he tweeted that he had "never said when". It "could be very soon or not so soon at all", he said.
He later told reporters at the White House: "We're having a meeting today on Syria... We have to make some further decisions. So they'll be made fairly soon."
Also on Thursday, US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis told a congressional panel: "I believe there was a chemical attack and we are looking for the actual evidence."
What is Russia's position?
Russia has described the reports of a chemical attack as a "provocation" designed to justify Western intervention.
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he hoped common sense would prevail and that the situation would stabilise.
He added that Russia would "keep all its international obligations in full".
On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich criticised Mr Trump's rhetoric.
"We cannot depend on the mood of someone on the other side of the ocean when he wakes up," the Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
Russia warns of 'dangerous' escalation over Syria
Russia is an ally of Syria and gives military backing to its government
Russia has warned the US that launching air strikes in response to a suspected chemical attack in Syria could spark a war between the two countries.
"The immediate priority is to avert the danger of war," Moscow's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Thursday.
He accused Washington of putting international peace at risk and said the situation was "very dangerous".
Western powers are thought to be preparing for strikes but Russia, a Syrian ally, opposes such action.
"We cannot exclude any possibilities, unfortunately," Mr Nebenzia told reporters after a private meeting of the UN Security Council in New York.
He said there was a heightened "danger of escalation" because of the Russian military presence in Syria.
What can Western military intervention achieve?
Why is there a war in Syria?
Are we heading for a third world war?
Senior Russian figures, including the head of the military, have warned that US missiles will be shot down and their launch sites targeted if Russian personnel come under threat.
Mr Nebenzia also called for the UN Security Council to meet again on Friday to discuss the possibility of Western military action.
The White House says it is continuing to assess intelligence and talk to its allies on how to respond.
Meanwhile, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) says experts are travelling to Syria and will start investigations on Saturday.
Why is the West considering military action?
Western leaders have been planning a response to Saturday's suspected chemical attack
The call for action comes after a suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma in the Eastern Ghouta on Saturday, which killed dozens of people, according to opposition activists, rescue workers and medics.
Chemical weapons attacks are suspected to have taken place in Syria before. Last year, the US launched a retaliatory strike against one said to have taken place in Khan Sheikhoun.
President Bashar al-Assad's government - which receives military backing from Russia - has denied involvement in any chemical attack, calling the reports "fabricated".
After six weeks of heavy fighting and an estimated 1,700 civilian deaths in the Eastern Ghouta region, the Syrian government is now said to have control of the area, which lies just outside of Damascus.
The final evacuations of about 4,000 remaining Islamist fighters and civilians continued on Friday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring organisation.
So What can Macron and Trump do?
Firepower of key countries
The significance of Eastern Ghouta's fall
Is there proof of the recent 'chemical attack'?
The Violations Documentation Center (VDC), which records alleged violations of international law in Syria, said bodies were found with foam at the mouth, discoloured skin and burns to the eyes.
On Thursday, unnamed US officials said they had blood and urine samples from victims which had tested positive for chlorine and a nerve agent, according to NBC News.
Syria 'chemical attack': What we know
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Hayley, told the network: "We definitely have enough proof, but now we just have to be thoughtful in our action."
French President Emmanuel Macron also said he had "proof" that the Syrian government had attacked Douma with chemical weapons, without giving further details.
Media captionUnverified video shows children being treated after the alleged gas attack
In the UK, cabinet ministers agreed that it was "highly likely" the Assad regime was responsible for the alleged attack and said the use of chemical weapons must not "go unchallenged".
During a phone call late on Thursday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May and US President Donald Trump agreed on the need to deter chemical weapon use in Syria.
They agreed to "keep working closely" on the issue, Mrs May's office said in a statement.
What has Trump said about the attack?
Media captionTrump: Decisions on Syria will be made "fairly soon"
On Sunday, the day after the attack, the US president said Russian President Vladimir Putin bore responsibility for the "atrocity" in rebel-held Douma, because of his support for the Syrian government.
Mr Trump, who has cancelled a planned trip abroad, has been canvassing support for strikes from the leaders of France and the UK.
On Wednesday he said the missiles were "coming", but on Thursday he tweeted that he had "never said when". It "could be very soon or not so soon at all", he said.
He later told reporters at the White House: "We're having a meeting today on Syria... We have to make some further decisions. So they'll be made fairly soon."
Also on Thursday, US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis told a congressional panel: "I believe there was a chemical attack and we are looking for the actual evidence."
What is Russia's position?
Russia has described the reports of a chemical attack as a "provocation" designed to justify Western intervention.
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he hoped common sense would prevail and that the situation would stabilise.
He added that Russia would "keep all its international obligations in full".
On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich criticised Mr Trump's rhetoric.
"We cannot depend on the mood of someone on the other side of the ocean when he wakes up," the Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
