American President, Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize following his efforts to broker peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The US president’s name has been put forward by Norwegian politician Christian Tybring-Gjedde, according to Fox News.
“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Mr Tybring-Gjedde, a four-term member of parliament, told the channel.
Details shortly…
President Donald Trump’s labeling of Joe Biden’s agenda as “made in China” has provoked a salvo of disparaging responses.
During last night’s Republican National Convention, Trump said no one will be safe under a Biden presidency.
“Joe Biden’s agenda is ‘made in China.’ My agenda is ‘made in the USA’. Joe Biden is not a saviour of America’s soul, he is a destroyer of America’s jobs.”
In a series of tweets on Friday, Biden condemned the President for his comments.
He suggested that Trump’s speech while receiving his party’s nomination was empty.
The former Vice President insisted that statistics oppose Trump’s re-election ambition.
Biden mocked his rival on job claims, adding that the people cannot endure another four years of a Republican administration.
He said: “When Donald Trump says tonight you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America, look around and ask yourself: How safe do you feel in Donald Trump’s America?
“180,000 lives lost; Nearly 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19; Over 25 million Americans out of work; Countless small businesses on the brink of closing. That’s Donald Trump’s America. We’re living it every day. We can’t take four more years.
“When President Trump took office, he inherited a growing economy from the Obama-Biden administration. And just like everything else, he’s inherited in his life, he squandered it.
“Donald Trump calls himself a wartime president. But now, instead of leading the charge to defeat this virus, he’s waved the white flag. He abandoned the American people when we needed him most.
“From the moment COVID-19 emerged, President Trump downplayed the threat it posed, refused to listen to the experts, and failed to take action to contain its spread. Now, we’re paying the price.
“Donald Trump promised to be the greatest jobs president God ever created. Instead, tens of millions of Americans are out of work, and we’re facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. #PromisesBroken.”
Trump, 74, and Biden, 77, will slug it out at the polls on November 3.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order late Thursday to block all U.S. transactions with TikTok’s Chinese parent corporation, Bytedance, the latest move by the administration to force the video-sharing app to sever its ties to Beijing.
Reports say the order would bar “any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with ByteDance Ltd” in an effort to “address the national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain.”
The administration is investigating whether ByteDance is harvesting the data of millions of American users. The U.S. Navy last year urged service members to delete the app from government devices.
The new order bans TikTok under the National Emergencies Act and is set to take effect in 45 days, just after the Sept. 15 deadline set for Microsoft’s proposed purchase of the social media platform. Any company still doing business with TikTok in 45 days is subject to sanctions, according to the order.
U.S President Donald Trump has again defended the use of hydroxychloroquine to ward off the coronavirus, contradicting his own public health officials.
He said the malaria medication was only rejected as a Covid-19 treatment because he had recommended its use.
In May, Trump disclosed that he was taking daily doses of hydroxychloroquine to ward off coronavirus after consulting the White House doctor.
His remarks come after Twitter banned his eldest son for posting a clip promoting hydroxychloroquine.
There is no evidence the drug can fight the virus, and regulators warn it may cause heart problems.
The WHO said there is curently ‘no proof’ that it is effective as a treatment or prevents COVID-19
The United States has formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization.
The withdrawal notification fulfils President Donald Trump’s vow in late May to terminate U.S. participation in the WHO.
The US president has repeatedly criticised the WHO over its response to the coronavirus pandemic and has accused it of bowing to Chinese influence.
However, the pullout won’t take effect until next year, meaning it could be rescinded under a new administration if circumstances change.
The withdrawal notice was sent to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday and will take effect in a year, on July 6, 2021, the US State Department and the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Under the terms of the withdrawal, the U.S. must meet its financial obligations to the WHO before it can be finalised.
The US, which is the agency’s largest donor and provides it with more than $400 million per year, currently owes the WHO some $200 million in current and past dues.
In late May, less than two weeks after warning the WHO that it had 30 days to reform or lose US support, Trump announced his administration was leaving the organisation due to what he said was its inadequate response to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China’s Wuhan province late last year.
Iran on Monday issued warrant of arrest against US President Donald Trump. It also asked Interpol for help in arresting and detaining the US president and dozens of others it believes carried out the drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad.
According to a local Tehran prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr Trump and more than 30 others whom Iran accuses of involvement in the Jan. 3 strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad face “murder and terrorism charges,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Alqasimehr did not identify anyone else sought other than Trump, but stressed that Iran would continue to pursue his prosecution even after his presidency ends.
Interpol, based in Lyon, France, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alqasimehr also was quoted as saying that Iran requested a “red notice” be put out for Trump and the others, which represents the highest level arrest request issued by Interpol. Local authorities end up making the arrests on behalf of the country that request it. The notices cannot force countries to arrest or extradite suspects, but can put government leaders on the spot and limit suspects’ travel.
After receiving a request, Interpol meets by committee and discusses whether or not to share the information with its member states. Interpol has no requirement for making any of the notices public, though some do get published on its website.
It is unlikely Interpol would grant Iran’s request as its guideline for notices forbids it from “undertaking any intervention or activities of a political” nature.
The U.S. killed Soleimani, who oversaw the Revolutionary Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force, and others in the January strike near Baghdad International Airport. It came after months of incidents raising tensions between the two countries and ultimately saw Iran retaliate with a ballistic missile strike targeting American troops in Iraq.
Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
A former United States National Security Adviser says President Donald Trump once argued that the $1.5bn aid given to Nigeria annually should be stopped, while funding for military operations in Afghanistan and Syria should be cut.
The former NSA, John Bolton, stated this in his highly anticipated book titled, ‘In the Room Where It Happened’.
Bolton, who left Trump’s administration last year, said the President of Nigeria, Maj.Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had confirmed that indeed, Nigeria was receiving a lot of money from the US annually.
Trump, however, lamented that despite all the money Nigeria was receiving from the US, Nigeria was still refusing to buy American agricultural produce.
Bolton further claimed that Trump argued that the US should cut funding to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, while funds should be released for the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border.
He wrote, “Following more chatter, Patrick Shanahan (then US Defence Secretary) turned to the cost reductions that maintaining the counter-terrorism capability would entail. But before he got too far, Trump broke in to complain about Congress’ refusal to fund the Mexico border wall.
“Then he was off, ‘Why can’t we just get out of Syria and Afghanistan? I never should have agreed to the other two hundred (in Syria), and it’s really 400 anyway…Then after literally 45 seconds back on Afghanistan, Trump asked, Why are we in Africa?’
“He soon made it clear he wanted out of Africa altogether, expounding for some time on our $22 trillion national debt, followed by the problems of our balance-of-trade deficits, followed by complaining, again, about how Nigeria received $1.5bn annually in foreign aid, as he said the President of Nigeria had confirmed to him in an earlier visit, even though they wouldn’t buy US farm products.”
Botton left the Trump administration in September 2019 after disagreeing strongly with the President over how to handle major challenges like Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.
In the book, Bolton portrays Trump as an erratic, impulsive and stunningly uninformed leader, who once assumed that Finland was a city in Russia.
President Donald Trump on Friday lobbed barbs at protesters who kneel during the national anthem, after NFL quarterback Drew Brees apologised for remarks he made about the practice.
Brees said this week he would “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag,” referring to the possibility of players kneeling during the “Star-Spangled Banner” in the upcoming NFL season.
Brees apologised on Thursday, saying his words “lacked awareness and any type of compassion or empathy.”
The kneeling pose, popularised by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, has become a symbol of the fight for racial justice in the United States.
Trump tweeted on Friday that Brees “should not have taken back his original stance.
“We should be standing up straight and tall, ideally with a salute or a hand on heart,” Trump wrote. “There are other things you can protest but not our Great American Flag – NO KNEELING!”
The kneeling pose has been seen at protests in cities across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, while in police custody in Minneapolis.
Brees’ initial remarks angered top athletes, who objected to the equating of the protest with disrespecting the American flag.
The New Orleans Saints player responded to Trump Friday night in a lengthy social media post in which he said “we can no longer use the flag to turn people away.
“We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of systemic racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality and judicial & prison reform,” Brees wrote on Instagram.
Kaepernick popularised the move in 2016, appearing on NFL sidelines first sitting and later kneeling during the customary pre-game airing of the U.S. national anthem.
Trump was an early critic of the protest and in 2017, Vice-President Mike Pence walked out of an NFL game when some of the players knelt on the sidelines during the anthem.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to review the social network’s policies, amid heated debate over how social media should handle posts by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The company will review how it handles threats of state use of force and posts that could influence voter participation, the social network’s chief executive said in a post on Facebook.
It will also look into alternatives to simply removing a post or leaving it as it stands.
“I know many of you think we should have labeled the President’s posts in some way last week,” he wrote in a message to employees, but added that he worries such an approach risks leading Facebook to “editorialise on content we don’t like even if it doesn’t violate our policies.”
“So I think we need to proceed very carefully,” he wrote.
Zuckerberg has come under pressure from the public and his own employees after Twitter placed a “public interest notice” on a Trump post for violating the platform’s rules “about glorifying violence,” a move not mirrored by Facebook.
In the tweet, which was also visible on his Facebook page, Trump slammed demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis as “THUGS” and appeared to promote a violent response by saying, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Zuckerberg said last week that the post did not violate Facebook’s guidelines, even if he personally disapproved.
His public position is that internet platforms, including Facebook, should not be “arbiters of truth.”
Facebook largely exempts politicians’ posts from fact checks. (dpa/NAN)
Lady Gaga took to her social media platforms to express her anger over the senseless killing of George Floyd while calling Donald Trump “a fool, and a racist.”
Others entertainers who have spoken out Gaga joins Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Billie Ellish who have also called on fans to make a change.
In her statement, posted late Saturday night, the singer called the president out for inciting racism. Gaga wrote, “He holds the most powerful office in the world, yet offers nothing but ignorance and prejudice while black lives continue to be taken. We have known he is a fool, and a racist, since he took office.” She added, “He is fueling a system that is already rooted in racism, and racist activity, and we can all see what is happening.”
Gaga who just released her latest album, “Chromatica,” expressed her anger and sadness at George Floyd’s killing and that of many before him, saying, “I am as outraged by the death of George Floyd as I have been by the deaths of exponentially too many black lives over hundreds of years that have been taken from us in this country as a result of systemic racism and the corrupt systems that support it.”
Gaga went on to say she recognized herself as a “white, privileged woman” and urged support for the black community. She encouraged people to “speak gently to each other, speak with passion, inspiration, and impress the importance of this issue until the systems that keep us sick die, instead of people we love.”
Calling for change, Gaga wrote, “We haven’t, as a privileged community, done enough to fight racism and stand up for those people who are being killed by it.”
She wrote, “This isn’t justice. This is an epic tragedy that defines our country and has for a long time. I am sad. I am angry. And I will use the words that I can find to try to communicate what needs to change in as an effective and non-violent way as possible for me.”