Havana, Cuba | AFP | From Dwight Eisenhower, who broke US diplomatic relations with Cuba, to Barack Obama, who decided to normalize them, 11 US presidents faced off with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died late Friday. Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961): Provided arms to dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was …
Read More »Trump win breathes life into private detention industry
Washington, United States | AFP | Donald Trump’s White House triumph this month caught the business world by surprise but also breathed life into a little-understood US industry: private prisons and migrant detention centers. Following the Republican’s election, shares in two of the sector’s major players, CoreCivic (formerly known as …
Read More »Putin hands action star Seagal Russian passport
Moscow, Russia | AFP | President Vladimir Putin on Friday personally handed a new Russian passport to US action star Steven Seagal and said he hoped the gesture showed a “normalisation” of strained relations with Washington. Sitting at a round table in the Kremlin at a televised meeting, Putin showed …
Read More »Ivanka Trump separates personal, business social media
New York, United States | AFP | Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, accused of a potential conflict of interest as she helms her own brand while making frequent appearances with her president-elect father, is separating her business and personal social media accounts. In a “letter” that appeared Tuesday on her Twitter …
Read More »New Yorkers still coping with post-Trump shock
New York, United States | AFP | Donald Trump’s election jolted liberal America, but perhaps nowhere more than in his native New York, where city-dwellers are processing their woe with everything from yoga to body art to demonstrations. Many residents of the cosmopolitan cultural mosaic — where 79 percent of …
Read More »Trump declining intelligence briefings
Washington, United States | AFP | Donald Trump has received just two classified intelligence briefings since winning the presidency earlier this month, far less than his immediate predecessors, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The Republican’s limited engagement with his team of intelligence analysts has some officials questioning the real estate …
Read More »Trumps picks women, including a critic, for cabinet
Palm Beach, United States | AFP | Donald Trump began to broaden the base of his future cabinet Wednesday, nominating two conservative women including a critic, after his earlier picks rewarded campaign loyalists. Trump’s nomination of South Carolina’s 44-year-old governor, Nikki Haley, as US ambassador to the United Nations will …
Read More »Chile sues Nestle, Kellogg’s in anti-obesity drive
Santiago, Chile | AFP | Chilean authorities are suing the giant breakfast cereal-makers Nestle and Kelloggs for putting children’s cartoon characters on packets of fattening food in breach of an anti-obesity law, officials said Tuesday. The government’s National Consumer Service said in a statement it had filed a suit against …
Read More »Two weeks on, Trump still Trump
Washington, United States | AFP | Two weeks on from his election victory, Donald Trump shows every sign that he will govern as he campaigned — with late night tweet storms, attacks on the press and a flirtation with the extremes of US political life. True, the president-elect has backed …
Read More »Pentagon softens rules on carrying of firearms in US
Washington, United States | AFP | The Pentagon has softened rules on US troops carrying firearms while at government facilities, an action prompted by a series of deadly attacks on uniformed personnel. Troops already carry weapons as part of certain job functions, but the new rules will allow commanders to …
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