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 Bill Clinton ? Former President Bill Clinton  is reportedly facing a new round of charges of sexual assault from four women  who claim the incidents occurred after  Clinton  left the White House in 2001.
Author and journalist Ed Klein reports in the Daily Mail that attorneys have notified  Clinton  that they are preparing to file four separate lawsuits against  him . Klein says a member of  Clinton ’s legal team has confirmed the existence of the allegations to  him .
 Clinton ’s history of sexual misconduct both before and during  his  presidency returned to the spotlight in 2016 and again in 2017 during  his  wife Hillary’s failed presidential bid and more recently amid new allegations of sexual misconduct against a plethora of politicians  journalists  and Hollywood celebrities.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said last week that  Clinton  should have resigned the presidency in the wake of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. It forms part of a broader re-evaluation of  Clinton ’s conduct by Democrats and left-wing media pundits.
Klein  who has written a number of sensationalist books including All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump  reports that the women were employed in “low-level positions” at an organization owned by playboy billionaire Ron Burkle.  Clinton  was hired by Burkle and flew around the world on Burkle’s private jet — which Klein says was known as “Air Fuck One.”
Klein says there is no evidence that Burkle knew anything about the alleged assaults by  Clinton . He also reports that  Hillary Clinton  is “furious” with Bill for getting stuck in another scandal and offered to hire private detectives to dig up dirt on the women — but  Clinton ’s attorneys said no.

SOLUTION: Negative

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 Thomas Frank ? Thomas Frank  had to leave the liberal cable news outlet because of  his  role in a discredited story about Anthony Scaramucciâs alleged ties to Russia  a story CNN had to retract.
Interestingly  it looks like one of  Frank âs first assignments will apparently be to investigate the same storyline that cost the reporter  his  last job â the possible connections between President Trump and  his  associates with Russia.
âThe new hire is  Thomas Frank   late of CNN's ill-fated investigations unit that was disbanded in the wake of the controversial Scaramucci story. Iâm sure youâve read about it â said a statement to staff sent on Monday from Marc Seibel  National Security Editor for BuzzFeed.
The memo states  Frank  will start on Oct. 2 and â his  first order of business will be the Mueller probe into Russian election meddling and possible Trump collusion.â
 Frank  left CNN in June after the network was forced to retract a story connecting Scaramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund.  Frank  authored the story  which cited a single anonymous source. Editor Eric Lichtblau and Lex Haris  who oversaw the investigative unit  also resigned as a result. The story was eventually deleted because it âdid not meet CNN's editorial standards â and an apology was issued to Scaramucci.
The  Frank  hiring is the latest in a series of episodes involving CNN and BuzzFeed. Soon after  Frank âs story was retracted  BuzzFeed ran a story revealing an internal memo from CNNMoney Executive Editor Rich Barbieri warning staffers not to publish content involving potential ties between Trumpâs team and Russia without first coming to him and another CNN vice president.

SOLUTION:
Neutral