TASK DEFINITION: Given a document and an entity the task is to select the author's sentiment towards the entity. Sentiments can be Positive, Neutral and Negative. Select Positive if the article expresses a positive view towards the given entity or praises its quality or skills. Select Neutral if the document expresses no clear view towards the entity or has equal amounts of positive and negative statements or expressing some fact/quote by someone else. Select Negative if the article expresses a negative view towards like harsh remarks, criticizing entities action/decision etc. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Joseph Mifsud ? This mystery professor is likely  Joseph Mifsud of the University of Stirling in Scotland . According to a calendar entry on the Valdai clubâs website   Mifsud  spoke on a Valdai panel on April 19  2016  titled  âWorld Energy: Key Trends and Political Risks.â  Mifsud  grew up in the Mediterranean nation of Malta  where  he  served in various government posts;  he  was the only Londoner and the only professor on the panel. The Mueller legal filing revealed that Papadopoulos had extensive contacts with the professor as part of an effort to set up a meeting between Trump campaign representatives and Russian officials. Papadopoulos told his campaign supervisors about this effort and was encouraged to proceed. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with the professor and others connected to Russia.
The Washington Post noted on Monday that  Mifsud  is probably the professor cited in the Mueller statement. One of the emails quoted in the document  according to the Post  âappears to match one described to the Washington Post in August in which Papadopoulos identified the professor with whom he met as Joseph Mifsud  the director of the London Academy of Diplomacy.â But the Post reported that in August Mifsud told the newspaper he had âabsolutely no contact with the Russian government â and he insisted his ties to Russia were purely academic.
The public record  though  contains information contradicting  Mifsud  and showing that  he  has had contacts with Russian government officials. According to photos on the website of Russiaâs embassy in the United Kingdom   Mifsud  met with embassy representative Ernest Chernukhin in July of this year (weeks before  he  issued  his  denial to the Post). A biography from a 2013 business conference says  Mifsud  âhas advised Governments on international education issues in many countries including Morocco  Syria  Russia  Tunisia  and Italy.â  Mifsud  also met with Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko in May of 2014  according to a 2014 Russian embassy press release.
Additionally  in early 2017   Mifsud  invited Alexey Klishin  a department head and professor in the international law division of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations  a school run by Russiaâs Foreign Ministry  to the London Academy of Diplomacy to present a lecture. Klishin was a former member of the upper house of the Russian parliament. According to a January 2017 press release from the Institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences  âKlishinâs presentation was devoted to international law and national legal systems [and] to their coexistence in the era of Brexit and the new presidency in the United States.â The release noted that Klishin had âvisited the London Academy of Diplomacy at the University of Stirlingâ¦at the invitation of  the Director Joseph Mifsud .â Hereâs a photo with  Mifsud  (second from the right) and Klishin (center) standing next to each other:
 Mifsud  did not respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones.
One obvious question for the professor is why he told the Post he had âabsolutelyâ no contacts with Russian officials when on-line material suggests he has. There are no indication in the Mueller statement whether his team has questioned  Mifsud  about the Clinton âdirtâ or Papadopoulosâs initiative to create a back-channel bond between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putinâs office.
Thereâs another reason why  Mifsud  could be of interest to Mueller and his investigators. In the past year  the New York Times has reported that US intelligence agencies collected information in the summer of 2016 indicating that top Russian intelligence and political officials were looking to gain influence over Trump through his advisers and that US spy agencies had intercepted calls showing that Trump campaign aides and other Trump associates had repeated interactions with senior Russian intelligence officials  perhaps unwittingly. (In June  former FBI chief James Comey  in congressional testimony  disputed the Times story disclosing contacts between the Trump aides and Russian intelligence  but he did not specify what was wrong with the article.) So Mueller is no doubt looking for possible instances of when Russian intelligence infiltratedâor tried to infiltrateâthe Trump campaign  either directly or through witting or unwitting cut-outs. And the Papadopoulos episode could be a case not only of a Trump aide trying to establish a campaign connection with the Kremlin but of Russian intelligence attempting to score a contact within the Trump campaign.

SOLUTION: Positive

PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Juan Orlando Hernandez ? Now  Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez  appears likely to win a second term on Sunday as well as bolstering the strength of  his  conservative National Party across the board.
" Hernandez  is not just trying to win presidential re-election   he 's trying to expand  his  power from top to bottom  including in the legislature and at the mayoral level " said James Bosworth  the founder of Hxagon  a consulting firm that does predictive analysis in emerging markets.
Fears of just that sort of consolidation â but by left-wing rivals â led  Hernandez 's own party to back a military coup in 2009 against a president it accused of plotting to violate Honduras's seemingly iron-clad constitutional ban on re-election.
The country's highest court backed the 2009 ouster of Manuel Zelaya. But the current court â packed with  Hernandez ' supporters â ruled in 2015 that the constitution could not prevent  him  from running again â outraging opposition leaders.
And corruption remains a major problem for Honduras  casting a shadow across  Hernandez 's administration.
And in September  the son of a former president from  Hernandez 's party  Porfirio Lobo was sentenced in New York to 24 years in prison after revealing his role in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy. Fabio Lobo  46  pleaded guilty in May 2016  admitting he worked with drug traffickers and Honduran police to ship cocaine into the United States.

SOLUTION: Neutral

PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Hillary Clinton ? Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain is not letting Hillary Clinton off the hook for her friendship with Harvey Weinstein , the disgraced film producer who is accused of sexually harassing and raping young women in the film industry for decades . 
"Know what Hillary Clinton is NOT ? 
know what Hillary Clinton is NOT ? 
Hillary is CLEARLY not responsible for anything Weinstein Thats screamingly obvious . 
I have met Hillary Clinton .

SOLUTION:
Negative