French President Emmanuel Macron s government announced reforms to loosen labor regulations and drive down unemployment, drawing criticism from unions but limited support for the street protests that have hindered previous reform bids. After weeks of negotiations with unions over the summer, the centrist government revealed measures including a cap on payouts for dismissals adjudged unfair and greater freedom to hire and fire. The plan would also give companies more flexibility to adapt pay and working hours to market conditions. The labor code reform is the first big test of Macron s drive to re-shape the euro zone s second biggest economy with its near double-digit jobless rate, double that in Britain and markedly higher than Germany. He also seeks a grand bargain with Germany over broader reforms of the euro zone. For decades, governments of the left and right have tried to reform France s strict labor rules, but have always diluted them in the face of street protests. The reform makes no direct reference to France s 35-hour week but gives employers more flexibility to negotiate deals with employees to work around it. Labour Minister Muriel Penicaud described the five decrees laying out the reforms as a transformation of labor rules on an unprecedented scale . Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said they were necessary to fight France s stubbornly high unemployment. The truth is that for bosses, especially of small companies, and foreign investors, the existing labor law is seen as a brake on hiring and investment, Philippe said. Trade unions were less upbeat at what they perceived as the loss of long-cherished workers rights. All of our fears have been confirmed, said Philippe Martinez, head of the hard-left CGT union, after the government presented the decrees to unions and employers. He said the union would press ahead with its plan for a protest on Sept. 12. But Macron s assiduous courting of the unions over the summer appeared to have born fruit. France s biggest union, the reformist CFDT, said it was disappointed with what amounted to a missed opportunity to improve labor relations. But both the CFDT and the smaller Force Ouvriere, one of the spearheads of last year s anti-reform protests, said they would not be joining the CGT s protest. This reform does not rise to the occasion , CFDT leader Laurent Berger told reporters, but he added: Taking to the streets is not the only mode of action for unions. It sets a cap on compensation for a dismissal judged in a labor court to be unfair. This will be set at three months of wages for two years in the company with the amount rising progressively depending on how long a worker was with the firm. In a concession to unions, normal severance pay would be increased from 20 percent of one month s wage for each year in a company to 25 percent. Economists drew parallels with Germany and Spain. This very much resembles the labor reform carried out in Germany in 2004-2005, said Florian Hense, European economist at Berenberg Bank. This could very well propel France to a golden decade like Germany had. Dutch bank ING said: The ceiling on dismissal compensation is a milestone in labor flexibility and a real positive for permanent contract creation. In Spain, a similar reform kick-started an unprecedented labor market recovery. Pierre Gattaz, the head of the MEDEF employers federation, described the reforms as an important first step which would boost confidence within companies. The CPME, a small business lobby, was even more positive. At last!, it said in a statement. After months of negotiations, we got results. The reform we had been waiting for so long is there. The labor reforms comes as the 39-year-old president suffers a steep drop in popularity ratings. Early policy announcements including an overhaul of the wealth tax and cuts to housing assistance have left a swathe of voters feeling his policies favor the rich, pollsters say. The government plans to start talks on overhauling unemployment benefits in October before tackling pension reform next year. Parliament, where Macron s Republic on the Move party has a commanding majority, has already voted to allow the government to issue the decrees without a vote in the assembly. The government plans to adopt the decrees on Sept. 22.


President Donald Trump suffered another legal setback on Monday as a second federal appeals court refused to revive his travel ban on people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority nations in a dispute headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used narrow grounds to reject the Trump administration's bid to undo a Hawaii federal judge's decision blocking the temporary ban. It said the Republican president's March 6 order violated existing immigration law. But the three-judge panel - all Democratic appointees - did not address whether it was unconstitutional discrimination against Muslims. A second court, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge's ruling that also blocked Trump's 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The 4th Circuit had ruled that the ban, which replaced an earlier Jan. 27 one also blocked by the courts, "drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination" aimed at Muslims. The 9th Circuit largely left in place a nationwide injunction by Judge Derrick Watson that stopped parts of the order, which Trump said was urgently needed to prevent terrorism in the United States. That ruling came in a lawsuit challenging the order brought by the state of Hawaii, which stated the ban would harm its universities and tourism industry. Even before Monday's ruling, the case was on the fast track to the Supreme Court, where the administration on June 1 filed an emergency request seeking to reinstate the order and hear its appeal of the 4th Circuit ruling. The Supreme Court could act on the administration's request as soon as this week. Trump has been on the losing side in all four court rulings on the March order. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the administration is reviewing Monday's decision and expressed continued confidence that the order is fully lawful and ultimately will be upheld by the Supreme Court. "I think we can all attest that these are very dangerous times and we need every available tool at our disposal to prevent terrorists from entering the United States and committing acts of bloodshed and violence," Spicer told a briefing. The 9th Circuit upheld the block on Trump's three-month travel ban for the six countries and four-month suspension of all refugee admissions. But the court pared back part of Watson's injunction in order to allow the government to conduct internal reviews on vetting procedures for these travelers. The administration said the travel ban was needed to allow time to implement stronger vetting measures, although it has already rolled out some new requirements not blocked by courts, including additional questions for visa applicants. Rather than focusing on Trump campaign statements as the Virginia-based court did, the 9th Circuit said the language in the executive order itself did not make a rational case for why a travel ban was needed. "The order does not offer a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180 million people on the basis of nationality," the court wrote, referring the combined populations of the six countries. Under immigration law, the administration was required to make findings that entry of the people in question would be detrimental to the United States but failed to do so, the court said. Stephen Vladeck, a professor at University of Texas School of Law, said the 9th Circuit provided an easier path for the Supreme Court to keep the travel ban on hold, because it avoided entirely the controversy over Trump's campaign statements. "It provides a very attractive way to leave the injunction in place without setting broader doctrinal rules about which they may have pause," Vladeck said. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." Monday was the deadline for the ban's challengers to respond to the administration's request that the order be allowed to go into effect. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents people challenging the ban in the separate Maryland suit handled by the 4th Circuit, filed court papers urging the court not to take up the case, saying the order will become moot on Wednesday, 90 days from when Trump issued it. Lawyers for Hawaii called the order a "thinly veiled Muslim ban." Trump's earlier Jan. 27 order also included Iraq among the countries targeted and a total ban on refugees from Syria. The March order was intended to overcome the legal issues posed by the original ban, but was blocked before it could go into effect on March 16. The suits by Hawaii and the Maryland challengers argued that the order violated federal immigration law and a section of the Constitution's First Amendment that prohibits the government from favoring or disfavoring any particular religion. Hawaii's court papers mentioned a series of Trump Twitter posts on June 5. Trump described the order as a "watered down, politically correct" version of his original one.


With the advent of print on demand and e-readers, parents of toddlers have a fantastic tool to help keep their little ones engaged in reading. They have customizable books, featuring their child as the protagonist. There must be some parents of toddlers in the Trump administration. They have discovered that the only way to get their boss to read a security briefing is to treat him just like a toddler by putting his name in the briefing.According to staffers, Trump s attention span, which apparently only extends to about 140 characters, is so short that one personal mention in a brief isn t enough. They need to squeeze his name in as many placers as possible. That s not the only thing they need to do to keep the Commander-in-Chief paying attention. They need to keep them under one page, if possible, and with lots of pictures, charts and graphs. He likes maps too. He likes to visualize things, said a senior administration official. The guy s a builder. He has spent his whole life looking at architectural renderings and floor plans. The details emerged as people close to the President worried that he may not be able to stick to the script and avoid more problems as he heads out on his first foreign trip. Officials are worried that Mr Trump s lack of focus and attention to detail could cause problems as he visits Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Israel and the West Bank, the pope at the Vatican, NATO leaders in Brussels and G7 counterparts in Sicily.Source: IndependentA Republican official expressed concern that Trump was going to be out of his element during his visit to the Middle East (he s just now figuring this out?). This, after Trump insisted that solving the 4,000 year-old conflict is easy. I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians. There is no reason there s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians none whatsoever. Unfortunately, this is Trump in a nutshell. It was easy for him to become rich (he inherited it). It was easy for him to file multiple bankruptcies and pass the losses onto the taxpayers. If something is not handed to him on a gold platter (silver is much too pedestrian), it s not worth the time. Trump is either the laziest or the dumbest man ever to hold the office of the presidency. Hell, why choose? It s clear that he s both.


Four hours after first hearing gunfire outside his home, Abu Riwar bundled his wife and six children into his car and drove to a remote village 120 km (75 miles) away. We left with the clothes on our back and nothing else, said Abu Riwar, a member of the Kurdish security forces from the ethnically mixed town of Tuz Khurmato, seized last month by Iraqi troops and Iran-backed Shi ite paramilitaries. If the militias found out I was Peshmerga, they d have slaughtered me. They burned his home to the ground instead, his neighbors, who captured it on camera, told him. Tuz Khurmato was part of disputed territory, outside the Kurdish region of northern Iraq but held by Kurdish forces known as Peshmerga, until last month, when the central government recaptured it in a lightning advance to punish the Kurds for staging an independence referendum that Baghdad called illegal. The majority of Tuz Khurmato s 50,000 Kurds around half of the population of the ethnically mixed city fled the Iraqi advance to Kurdish-held villages and towns in nearby countryside, said Mayor Shalal Abdul. The mayor himself fled to the village of Zinana, 120 km east of Tuz Khurmato, where he spoke to Reuters. Most residents have no plans to return home, citing reports of continuing attacks. We can t cope if it continues like this, said the chief of police in Zinana, adding that the government and aid groups had been too slow to respond. Families have taken over school buildings, houses and the hospital, but we can t turn them out on the streets. According to the United Nations, more than 180,000 people were displaced by the Iraqi government offensive on disputed territories last month. Aid agencies say most of those displaced are Kurds, though members of other minorities, including some of Tuz Khurmato s Sunni Arabs and Turkmen, also fled. Until Baghdad s offensive, Tuz Khurmato had been jointly administered by Kurdish forces, local police and the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) paramilitaries, allied with the town s Shi ite Turkmen population. Though the Turkmen and the Kurds had worked together to push Islamic State militants out in 2014, the town s fragile coalition soon fell apart and led to open hostilities. In the run-up to the Kurdish independence referendum, tension escalated between the communities. In Zinana, displaced Kurds told Reuters stories of abuse at the hands of the Shi ite paramilitaries who captured Tuz. One man showed a video he had filmed depicting the crushed body of a relative. Family members said the victim had been shot in his car, dragged out alive by paramilitaries and run over by a tank. He was crushed to death in front of me, by those monsters, said Abu Alan, the relative who filmed the body. He was a good man from a good family. A video circulated on the internet, apparently of the same incident, shows a tank running over a body while uniformed paramilitaries stand by. The paramilitaries deny carrying out any abuse. Joint patrols by the PMF and government forces are securing the town, to prevent any attacks against Kurds, said Ali al-Hussaini, a spokesman for the PMF in northern Iraq and a commander of the largest of the armed groups, the Badr Organisation. It s our job to keep Tuz safe for all sects. The mayor, who is collecting stories and evidence of abuse, said seven people were killed when the town was captured, including the man who was crushed by the tank and three other civilians. He said he also knew of three women and one man who had been raped. Reuters could not verify those accusations. More than 1,000 businesses and 2,000 homes were looted, burned down or demolished, the mayor said. He showed Reuters images of houses and shopfronts in Kurdish areas, blown up and scorched, their residents belongings being carted away by men in military fatigues. Other pictures showed paramilitaries sitting in the mayor s own office, feet propped up on his desk and on his Kurdish flag. Dozens of people were detained, and some say they were tortured, like Thiaa, a 20-year-old Sunni Turkman from the countryside who had gone to Tuz Khurmato the day after the offensive to check on his sister who was married to a Kurd. They detained me because I don t speak Arabic, so they thought I was a Kurd, Thiaa said. They kept me filthy, hungry and blindfolded in a dark room with three Kurds. They beat us with cables all day long. One night, fighters put a gun in Thiaa s mouth and threatened to kill him, only to burst out laughing at his panicked tears, he said. He was released after seven days and is now recovering at home from his injuries. The Kurds held with him had no such luck, he said. More than five are still missing.


This post was originally published on this site  sott.net/news  © Murad Sezer / Reuters An armored police vehicle drives past by the headquarters of Cumhuriyet newspaper, an opposition secularist daily, in Istanbul, Turkey, October 31, 2016.  Turkish PM Binali Yildirim has responded to concerns expressed by Ankara's EU partners over the situation with the freedom of expression in the country, saying that European standards apparently have no importance for Turkey.  Following Monday's arrests of the editor-in-chief and other top staff of Turkey's opposition Cumhuriyet daily, European Parliament President Martin Schulz harshly criticized Ankara's actions, having called it a part of a "purge… motivated by political considerations, rather than legal and security rationale."  Turkey has once again crossed the "red line" against freedom of expression, the politician wrote on Twitter.  "Brother, we don't care about your red line. It's the people who draw the red line. What importance does your line have. We draw another red line on top of yours," Yildirim told members of his ruling AK Party in a parliament speech.  Implying that its only the people of Turkey who can hold the government "accountable" for its actions, Yildirim said Ankara would not be intimidated by EU's "threats".  Crowds gathered by the Cumhuriyet offices during the night, to express their support for the media, Reuters reported. According to Turkey's journalists' association, 170 media outlets have been shut down following the attempted coup.  "We are not going to learn from you what press freedom is. We support it all the way," Reuters quoted Yildirim as saying.  The new wave of arrests and investigations of the Cumhuriyet staff come under accusations that the media – which has been critical of President Tayyip Erdogan, had assisted a failed military coup in July. Alleging that the journalists played their part in the coup by publishing "subliminal messages" in their columns, according to Turkish Anadolu agency, prosecutors accused them of supporting Kurdish militants and US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. The latter is blamed by the government for orchestrating the coup.  "[Our European friends] always bring up press freedom when we take steps in our fight against terrorism," the prime minister said, adding that Turkey has "no problem with press freedom."  [embedded content]


If you re like me, listening to the sound of Sarah Palin s voice alone, regardless of what she says, is like being stabbed through the skull with a series of high-school geometry class protractors. Only then do I begin to actually absorb the nonsensical content of what she s saying. But, of course, leave it to the internet to take the pain away.A YouTuber called Tronovitch assembled the first what will inevitably be many autotune remixes of Palin s incoherent Trump speech. This one is built around Palin s white trash tendencies, illustrated by the mashed-up use of the phrase hee-haw as well as the 1970s television show of the same name.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cs9jP2ILOw&w=560&h=315]While we re here, is there anyone else in politics who s less self aware than Palin? She seems to believe that liberals and the lamestream media are terrified of her because she goes rogue and challenges the establishment. She appears to be completely unaware of the fact that everyone outside of her retirement-aged fanboys are laughing at her her and her Idiot Strength. Consequently, she doesn t seem to grasp that she s embarrassing herself by going Full Dumbstupid. (You never go Full Dumbstupid.)She seems to believe that her speaking style is a threat rather than a source of accidental self-satire. In other words, every time she appears in public, she ratchets up her act, thinking that it ll totally flummox liberals, but in reality it just comes off as Full Dumbstupid. Frankly, it s one of many tell-tale signs that she s totally ensconced in white-trashery, which is often indicated by poor judgment and horrendously bad taste.Suffice to say, she clearly doesn t know. And if she s been told how insanely ridiculous she sounds, she s not paying attention which is yet another sign of being white trash. Besides, if she stops, the comedy ends. And that d be a tragedy.


A man whose penis was removed because of cancer has received the first penis transplant in the United States, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Thomas Manning, 64, a bank courier from Halifax, Mass. underwent the transplant operation on May 8 and 9. The organ came from a deceased donor. "I want to go back to being who I was," Mr. Manning said on Friday in an interview in his hospital room. Sitting up in a chair, happy to be out of bed for the first time since the operation, he said he felt well and had experienced hardly any pain. "We're cautiously optimistic," said Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and a leader of the surgical team. "It's uncharted waters for us. " The surgery is experimental, part of a research program with the ultimate goal of helping combat veterans with severe pelvic injuries, as well as cancer patients and accident victims. If all goes as planned, normal urination should be possible for Mr. Manning within a few weeks, and sexual function in weeks to months, Dr. Cetrulo said. Mr. Manning welcomed questions and said he wanted to speak out publicly to help dispel the shame and stigma associated with genital cancers and injuries, and to let other men know there was hope of having normal anatomy restored. "Don't hide behind a rock," he said. He said he was not quite ready to take a close look at his transplant. He will have to take several drugs for the rest of his life. One of them, tacrolimus, seems to speed nerve regeneration and may help restore function to the transplant, Dr. Cetrulo said. Another patient, his penis destroyed by burns in a car accident, will receive a transplant as soon as a matching donor becomes available, Dr. Cetrulo said. Surgeons at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are also planning to perform penis transplants, and have had a combat veteran, injured in Afghanistan, on the waiting list for several months. Dr. Cetrulo estimated the cost at $50, 000 to $75, 000. Both hospitals are paying for the procedures, and the doctors are donating their time. Worldwide, only two other penis transplants have been reported: a failed one in China in 2006 and a successful one in South Africa in 2014, in which the recipient later fathered a child. Veterans are a major focus of transplant programs in the United States because suicide rates are exceptionally high in soldiers with severe damage to the genitals and urinary tract, Dr. Cetrulo said. "They're to guys, and they feel they have no hope of intimacy or a sexual life," he said. "They can't even go to the bathroom standing up. " Given the psychological toll, he said, a penis transplant can be lifesaving. Dr. Cetrulo said the team would most likely perfect its techniques on civilian patients and then move on to injured veterans. It will also train military surgeons to perform the transplants. The Department of Defense, he said in an email, "does not like to have wounded warriors undergo unproven techniques — i. e. they do not want them to be 'guinea pigs,' as they have already sacrificed so much. " His team is working on ways to minimize or even eliminate the need for medicines, which transplant patients typically have to take. That research is especially important for veterans, he said, because many are young and will risk serious adverse effects, like cancer and kidney damage, if they have to take the drugs for decades. From 2001 to 2013, 1, 367 men in the military suffered genitourinary injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense Trauma Registry. Nearly all were under 35 and had been hurt by homemade bombs, commonly called improvised explosive devices, or I. E. D. s. Some lost part or all of their penises. The Massachusetts General team spent three years preparing for the penis transplants. The team did meticulous dissections in a cadaver lab to map out anatomy, and operated on five or six dead donors to practice removing the tissue needed for the transplants. Mr. Manning's operation involved about a dozen surgeons and 30 other health care workers. Dr. Dicken Ko, a team leader and the director of the hospital's regional urology program, said the team had not planned a set number of transplants. Instead, he said, the hospital will evaluate candidates one at a time and decide whether to allow surgery. For now, he said, the transplants will be limited to cancer and trauma patients, and will not be offered to transgender people. An accident at work in 2012 brought Mr. Manning to the hospital, and ultimately to the transplant team. Heavy equipment had fallen on him, causing severe injuries. The doctors treating him saw an abnormal growth on his penis that he had not noticed. Tests revealed an aggressive and potentially fatal cancer. Penile cancer is rare, with about 2, 030 new cases and 340 deaths expected in the United States this year. If not for the accident, Mr. Manning said, "I would've been in the ground two years ago. " Doctors said that to save his life, they would have to remove most of his penis, in an operation called a partial penectomy. Mr. Manning's urologic oncologist, Dr. Adam S. Feldman, estimated that a few hundred men a year needed full or partial penectomies because of cancer. Mr. Manning was left with a stump about an inch long. He had to sit to urinate. Intimacy was out of the picture. He was single and was not involved with anyone when the cancer was found. After the amputation, new relationships were unthinkable. "I wouldn't go near anybody," he said. He continued: "I couldn't have a relationship with anybody. You can't tell a woman, 'I had a penis amputation. '" Some people close to him urged him to keep the operation a secret, but he refused, saying that was like lying, and he had nothing to be ashamed of. "I didn't advertise, but if people asked, I told them the truth," he said, adding that a few male friends made "guy talk" jokes at his expense, but that it toughened him up. "Men judge their masculinity with their bodies," he said. Before he had even left the hospital after the amputation, he began asking Dr. Feldman about a transplant. No one at the hospital was considering the idea yet, and Dr. Feldman admits that he thought it was a bit outlandish. But Mr. Manning never gave up hope. "I kept my eye on the prize," he said. Soon Dr. Cetrulo and Dr. Ko began talking about transplants. About three years later, Dr. Feldman called Mr. Manning to ask if he still wanted the operation. After a battery of medical tests, interviews and psychological grilling — typical for transplant candidates, to make sure they understand the risks and will take medicine — Mr. Manning was on the waiting list. Two weeks later, a donor with the right blood type and skin tone became available. Mr. Manning was stunned that it had happened so fast. Dr. Cetrulo credits the New England Organ Bank, which asks families of some dying patients to consider organ donation. The organ bank said the donor's family wished to remain anonymous but had extended a message to Mr. Manning saying they felt blessed and were delighted his recovery was going well. Organ banks do not assume that families who donate internal organs like kidneys and livers will also be willing to give visible or intimate parts like a face, hands or a penis. Those requests are made separately. Several families have agreed to allow the penis to be removed, and none have declined, said Jill Stinebring, the organ bank's regional director of organ donation services. So far, Mr. Manning has had one serious complication. The day after his surgery, he began to hemorrhage and was rushed back to the operating room. Since then, his recovery has been smoother, he said. He has no regrets. He looks forward to going back to work and hopes to eventually have a love life again. "If I'm lucky, I get 75 percent of what I used to be," he said. "Before the surgery I was 10 percent. But they made no promises. That was part of the deal. "


A research division of the World Health Organization announced Monday that bacon, sausage and other processed meats cause cancer and that red meat probably does, too. The report by the influential group stakes out one of the most aggressive stances against meat taken by a major health organization, and it is expected to face stiff criticism in the United States. The WHO findings were drafted by a panel of 22 international experts who reviewed decades of research on the link between red meat, processed meats and cancer. The panel reviewed animal experiments, studies of human diet and health, and cell processes that could explain how red meat might cause cancer. But the panel's decision was not unanimous, and by raising lethal concerns about a food that anchors countless American meals, it will be controversial. The $95 billion U.S. beef industry has been preparing for months to mount a response, and some scientists, including some unaffiliated with the meat industry, have questioned whether the evidence is substantial enough to draw the strong conclusions that the WHO panel did. In reaching its conclusion, the panel sought to quantify the risks, and compared to carcinogens such as cigarettes, the magnitude of the danger appears small, experts said. The WHO panel cited studies suggesting that an additional 3.5 ounces of red meat everyday raises the risk of colorectal cancer by 17 percent; eating an additional 1.8 ounces of processed meat daily raises the risk by 18 percent, according to the research cited. "For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed," says Kurt Straif, an official with the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, which produced the report. "In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance." About 34,000 cancer deaths a year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meats, according to figures cited by the panel. [WHO says hot dogs, bacon cause cancer. Does this mean we should all become vegetarians?]    The research into a possible link between eating red meat and cancer has been the subject of scientific debate for decades, with colorectal cancer being a long-standing area of concern. But by concluding that processed meat causes cancer, and that red meat "probably" causes cancer, the WHO findings go well beyond the tentative associations that some other groups have reported. The American Cancer Society, for example, notes that many studies have found "a link" between eating red meat and heightened risks of colorectal cancer. But it stops short of telling people that the meats cause cancer. Some diets that have lots of vegetables and fruits and lesser amounts of red and processed meats have been associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer, the American Cancer Society says, but "it's not exactly clear" which factors of that diet are important. Likewise, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the U.S. government's advice compendium, encourage the consumption of protein-containing foods such as lean meats as part of a healthy diet. Regarding processed meats, though, the Dietary Guidelines offer a tentative warning: "Moderate evidence suggests an association between the increased intake of processed meats (e.g., franks, sausage, and bacon) and increased risk of colorectal cancer and cardiovascular disease." The Dietary Guidelines do not assert that processed meats cause cancer. Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, which is updating the Dietary Guidelines with the USDA, have not yet reviewed the WHO report, a spokesperson said. [95 percent of the world's people may be wrong about salt] For consumers, the WHO announcement offers scant practical advice even while casting aspersions over a wide array of foods. Red meat includes beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton and goat. Processed meat includes hot dogs, ham, sausages, corned beef and beef jerky — or any other meat that has been cured, smoked, salted or otherwise changed to enhance flavor or improve preservation. How much of those is it safe to eat? The group doesn't offer much guidance: "The data available for evaluation did not permit a conclusion about whether a safe level exists." Should we be vegetarians? Again, the group does not hazard an answer. And how exactly does red meat and processed meat cause cancer? The group names a handful of chemicals involved in cooking and processing meat, most of them nearly unpronounceable, and some believed to be carcinogenic. "But despite the knowledge it is not yet fully understood how cancer risk is increased by red meat or processed meat," the group wrote. Despite the voids in the science, the WHO findings might cast a pall over diners and those who serve them. At The Pig Restaurant on 14th Street NW in Washington, where the menu includes an array of pork products - kielbasa, prosciutto, pork cheek, etc - a worker sweeping the tables outside encouraged a reporter to look elsewhere for comments about cancer and red meat. Around the corner, outside the Whole Foods grocery, shoppers evinced a weary of fatalism regarding authoritative diet advice. "It makes some sense," said Nassrin Farzaneh, a development consultant, carrying a bag out of the store, said of the WHO finding on processed meat. "But they say one thing and then two or three years later they something that contradicts it. It goes on and on." "Everything causes cancer," said Caroline Rourke, an energy policy analyst, also on her way out of the grocery. "Life causes cancer. Who cares what food does? Life is terminal, isn't it?" [Another food to worry about? Honey not as healthy as we think.] In recent years, meat consumption has been the target of multi-faceted social criticism, with debates erupting not just over its role on human health, but the impact of feedlots on the environment and on animal welfare. The public debate over the WHO's findings will probably play out with political lobbying and in marketing messages for consumers. An industry group, the North American Meat Institute, called the WHO report "dramatic and alarmist overreach," and it mocked the panel's previous work for approving a substance found in yoga pants and treating coffee, sunlight and wine as potential cancer hazards. The WHO panel "says you can enjoy your yoga class, but don't breathe air (Class I carcinogen), sit near a sun-filled window (Class I), apply aloe vera (Class 2B) if you get a sunburn, drink wine or coffee (Class I and Class 2B), or eat grilled food (Class 2A)," said Betsy Booren, vice president of scientific affairs for the group. "We simply don't think the evidence supports any causal link between any red meat and any type of cancer," said Shalene McNeill, executive director of human nutrition at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. But at its core, the issue revolves around science, and in particular the difficulty that arises whenever scientists try to link any food to a chronic disease. Experiments to test whether a food causes cancer pose a massive logistical challenge: they require controlling the diets of thousands of test subjects over a course of many years. For example, one group might be assigned to eat lots of meat and another less, or none. But for a variety of reasons involving cost and finding test subjects, such experiments are rarely conducted, and scientists instead often use other less direct methods, known as epidemiological or observational studies, to draw their conclusions. "I understand that people may be skeptical about this report on meat because the experimental data is not terribly strong," said Paolo Boffetta, a professor of Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine who has served on similar WHO panels. "But in this case the epidemiological evidence is very strong." [Why the Bureau of Prisons stripped pork from the menu for federal inmates] Some scientists, however, have criticized the epidemiological studies for too often reaching "false positives," that is, concluding that something causes cancer when it doesn't. "Is everything we eat associated with cancer?" asked a much noted 2012 paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. That paper reviewed the academic studies conducted on common cookbook ingredients. Of the 50 ingredients considered, 40 had been studied for their relation to cancer. Individually, most of those studies found that consumption of the food was correlated with cancer. But when the research on any given ingredient was considered collectively, those effects typically shrank or disappeared. "Many single studies highlight implausibly large effects, even though evidence is weak," the authors concluded. Although epidemiological studies were critical in proving the dangers of cigarettes, the magnitude of the reported meat risk is much smaller, and it is hard for scientists to rule out statistical confounding as the cause of the apparent danger. Moreover, some skeptics noted that two experiments that tested diets with reduced meat consumption, the Polyp Prevention Trial and the Women's Health Initiative, found that people who reduced their meat intake did not appear to have a lower cancer risk. It is possible, though, that the reductions in animal flesh were too small to have an effect. "It might be a good idea not to be an excessive consumer of meat," said Jonathan Schoenfeld, the co-author of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article and an assistant professor in radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School. "But the effects of eating meat may be minimal, if anything." Was it wrong that the government steered people away from whole milk for decades? How Coca-Cola has tricked everyone into drinking so much of it What Americans do with fish is shocking Why Americans are falling out of love with one of their favorite fruits Whole milk, butter and eggs are now okay to eat. What's next?


Donald Trump once described Jamie Dimon as "the worst banker in the United States," but the president-elect has helped make the boss of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) $50 million richer. Dimon is the top beneficiary among the 30 chief executives who run companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average index from a stock rally inspired by Trump's election, according to a Reuters analysis of their option grants. Trump's proposed policies for lower taxes, less Wall Street regulation and more infrastructure spending have energized the U.S. stock market since the real estate magnate's Nov. 8 victory. The post-election rally even resurrected the value of an option award held by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) CEO Lloyd Blankfein that was worthless on the eve of the election. Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, has seen his stock options surge in value by more than $50 million to $146 million since the Republican candidate's White House win. Trump criticized Dimon in 2013 for reaching a $13 billion settlement with the U.S. government over the sale of toxic mortgages instead of fighting the case. Nevertheless, he appointed Dimon to the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of high-profile business leaders he set up last month to advise him on economic growth and job creation. Dimon declined to comment on Trump's criticism or the rise in value of his holdings. Stock options held by Dow 30 CEOs surged in value by 23 percent to about $1 billion in 2016, with most of the gain coming after Trump's election win. The figures reflect outstanding stock options that could be exercised at the end of 2015. Options that expired or vested in 2016 were excluded from the analysis. In a few cases, CEOs exercised some of those options during 2016, U.S. regulatory filings show. Visa Inc (V.N) CEO Charles Scharf did not need a Trump-led stock rally to hit the jackpot. About two weeks before the election, he exercised nearly 800,000 options for gross proceeds of almost $33 million, U.S. regulatory filings show. He resigned from Visa effective Dec. 1. For a look at how the post-election rally has affected Dow 30 stock options, click here (tmsnrt.rs/2iCbvvT) Trump campaigned on the slogan "Make America Great Again," vowing to bolster the prospects of the American working class by preventing jobs from moving abroad, restricting immigration and renegotiating trade pacts. In 2015, Trump called high salaries paid to CEOs a "joke" and a "disgrace" and said these were often approved by company boards stacked with CEOs' friends. PRO-BUSINESS AGENDA To be sure, Trump's election has helped investors big and small. Hopes of a pro-business agenda have driven the Dow 30 close to 20,000 - a level it has never breached - in a boon for workers' retirement plans. "With the recent Trump/Republican win, it appears that investors are getting more excited about potential growth and animal spirits are on the rise," top investment strategists at Morgan Stanley said this month in a wealth management report. "This is likely to lead to the final euphoric stage of this cyclical bull market which could be quite powerful in 2017's first half." Big stock option gains for Goldman Sachs head Blankfein, American Express Co (AXP.N) CEO Kenneth Chenault and JP Morgan's Dimon may be a surprise, given that their companies have reduced or even eliminated option grants in recent years in favor of stock awards tied to hitting financial targets. Blankfein's 322,104 outstanding options, granted in 2007 with a $204.16 strike price, were under water by $7.3 million on the eve of the presidential election. But by the end of 2016, their value had soared to $11.4 million. That was an $18.7 million swing, thanks to the Trump-inspired stock market rally and the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to increase interest rates, a boost for banks and credit card companies. Blankfein declined to comment. Alan Johnson, managing director of pay consulting firm Johnson Associates in New York, said the big gains for the leaders of American Express, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan reflect how stock option compensation can magnify gains in a company's share price. "When the stock goes up, with options, you get more leverage," he said. Critics of stock options say the grants can produce large amounts of wealth for CEOs even with mediocre performance. One reason is that grants often are not linked to any financial performance metric, such as return on equity. And so as the United States nears the eighth year of a bull market, options can increase in value even if the CEOs are running companies whose share price has lagged broad benchmarks during their tenure. For example, shares of Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N) rose 54 percent during Douglas Oberhelman's tenure as CEO of the big equipment maker from mid-2010 to the end of 2016, while the Dow 30 more than doubled during that span. But the value of Oberhelman's options rallied during his last year as CEO, climbing to $20.3 million after being under water by nearly $9 million at the start of 2016. The options' value got a $10.6 million booster shot after Trump's victory. Caterpillar shares rose 36 percent in 2016, making it one of the best performing stocks on the Dow. Trump has said he would use Caterpillar tractors to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Caterpillar and Oberhelman declined to comment. Not all CEOs have been winners, however. Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) CEO Muhtar Kent, who contributed $2,700 to Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic rival for president, saw the value of his options decline by $11.3 million to $143 million. Coca-Cola shares are off 3 percent since Trump was elected amid lingering concerns about consumers cutting their consumption of sugary drinks. A Coca-Cola spokesman declined to comment.


Four U.S. senators introduced a joint resolution on Thursday seeking to block the U.S. sale of $1.15 billion of Abrams tanks and other military equipment to Saudi Arabia, citing issues including the conflict in Yemen. The measure was introduced by Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Democrats Chris Murphy and Al Franken, the latest indication of strong disapproval of the deal among some U.S. lawmakers. "Selling $1.15 billion in tanks, guns, ammunition, and more to a country with a poor human rights record embroiled in a bitter war is a recipe for disaster and an escalation of an ongoing arms race in the region," Paul said in a statement. In August, 64 members of the House of Representatives signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to delay the sale. The Pentagon announced on Aug. 9 that the State Department has approved the potential sale of more than 130 Abrams battle tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implements foreign arms sales, said that General Dynamics would be the principal contractor for the sale. Introducing the resolution, the senators cited the conflict in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition in support of forces loyal to the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who are trying to oust Iran-allied Houthi forces from the capital, Sanaa. Human rights groups have criticized the coalition's air strikes because of the deaths of civilians. "Thousands of civilians are being killed, and terrorist groups inside the country, like al Qaeda and ISIS, are getting stronger. Until the Saudis' conduct changes, the U.S. should put a pause on further arms sales," Murphy said in a statement. Some congressional aides questioned whether Congress had the right to try to block the sale, since it has been more than 30 days since Congress was notified about it. But the four senators said the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 allows senators to force a vote on an arms sale by a president. Human rights activists applauded the resolution. "Congress' silence would signal to the Yemeni people that U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is unconditional – no matter how cruel the parties' methods of warfare or how unwilling they are to make peace," Scott Paul, senior humanitarian policy advisor at Oxfam America, said in a statement.


This is just one more fine example of why we can t allow a radical like Hillary or Bernie to choose our next Supreme Court Justices. Our rights are being threatened more and more every day. America s freedom has never been more at risk than it is today A New Jersey man who s been flying Donald Trump s campaign flag in front of his home since February could face up to a $2,000 fine or jail time when he faces a judge in the case.Joe Hornick has been flying Trump s Make America Great Again flag outside his West Long Branch home on a busy corner near the Monmouth University campus for months.But he got a ticket recently citing him for illegally posting political signage more than 30 days before an election. The New Jersey presidential primary isn t until June 7. I m not a football fan, I m not a sports fan, but I m surely a Donald Trump fan, he told NBC 4 New York.


Hillary Clinton should file a lawsuit against Fox News and Rudy Giuliani for this lie.During an appearance on Fox News with Bill O Reilly, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani blamed Hillary Clinton and President Obama for the rise of ISIS and actually had the gall to claim that Clinton is a founding member of the terrorist organization. If you re talking about doing what she wants to do, which is to rally our forces against ISIS, you gotta come back to the White House, you gotta sit in the Situation Room, and you can t leave until you come up with a plan, Giuliani said.O Reilly then whined about President Obama not dropping everything to go back to Washington once news broke of the terrorist attack on Brussels.Ever since the attack, which killed over 30 and injured hundreds, conservatives have been unfairly criticizing President Obama for not canceling his trip in Cuba to hole up in the Situation Room.The problem is that President Obama can t really do anything beyond offering condolences and assistance if Belgium asks for help. Obama offered both in the aftermath of the attack. Conservatives have also said President Obama should go to Belgium, but that would only distract the first responders and police officers from doing their job since security of the president would require lots of preparation and man power.Giuliani then went off the rails into accusations that are nothing short of slander. She helped create ISIS, Giuliani bellowed. Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS. When asked how Clinton created ISIS, Giuliani told O Reilly that she did so by being part of an administration that withdrew from Iraq and by being part of an administration that allowed Maliki to run Iraq into the ground. O Reilly really didn t do much to challenge Giuliani either, which is yet another example of the lack of journalistic ethics that he and Fox News are known for.In the end, Giuliani said Clinton should have resigned as Secretary of State because that s what a patriot does. Here s the video via YouTube.The fact is, however, that it was President Bush who signed the withdrawal of forces agreement with Iraq and helped install Nouri al-Maliki as the Iraqi Prime Minister in 2006.And let s not forget that Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in the first place, which destabilized the region by removing Saddam Hussein, a traditional enemy of Iran, from power. That alone caused a power vacuum in the region which allowed Iran to have more influence in the region while creating the conditions for ISIS to rise.Bill O Reilly ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing Giuliani to make such outrageous claims, and Hillary Clinton should smack Giuliani with a lawsuit because she clearly has a case against him for slander. Clinton is NOT a member of ISIS and she certainly did not create ISIS. Giuliani, however, is a lying asshole.


Donald Trump appeared on Fox News on Monday night, only to be embarrassingly stumped by Bill O Reilly.O Reilly wanted to know if Trump plans on taking military action against Iran if he becomes president, and Trump totally demonstrated his lack of foreign policy knowledge by dodging the question and ranting about things he really doesn t understand. If you re elected president are you going to take military action against Iran? O Reilly asked. Are you going to do something to that country? Well, I would want to help Saudi Arabia, Trump replied with what seems to be a reference to Iranians attacking the Saudi Arabian embassy in retaliation against a mass execution the Saudis recently committed on New Year s Day in which 47 were killed, including a Shiite cleric. I would want to protect Saudi Arabia, Trump claimed. But Saudi Arabia is going to have to help us economically Trump suggested that he might attack Iran if Saudi Arabia offered the right price but remained largely unwilling to say one way or another whether he would get America involved in yet another costly and bloody war in the Middle East.O Reilly continued to press Trump for an answer, calling him out for dodging the question.Trump then went on a tirade against the Iran nuclear deal, calling it a disastrous deal that Iran has already supposedly broken before claiming that Iran will have a nuclear weapon very soon. Clearly, Trump is not aware of the fact that Iran recently surrendered their entire stockpile of enriched uranium to the Russians, which is definitive proof that the Iran nuclear deal is a success because it is doing exactly what it was designed to do.The Iran nuclear deal stands as one of President Obama s greatest achievements, and should not be abandoned in favor of war when diplomacy is working. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is nothing more than ISIS posing as a legitimate nation. They use Sharia law and behead so many people every year that ISIS leaders must be envious. The only reason our government has failed to call the Saudis out for their horrible human rights record is because they control the second largest oil reserves in the world.This is why it is not only important for the United States to reject military action in the Middle East, we need to become energy independent so that we no longer have to rely on Saudi Arabia for our energy needs. Frankly, the United States government should grow a pair and strongly condemn Saudi Arabia right now for behaving like a terrorist organization.The bottom line, however, is that Donald Trump is unfit to be commander-in-chief. He not only wants to send American troops to die needlessly in Iran, he wants to make Saudi Arabia pay for it. Basically, Trump would turn America into a puppet for the Saudis. But more likely, he would damage relations with both nations and put America squarely in the middle of a potential conflict that could easily turn into World War III.America does not need more war. We need peace. And as O Reilly pointed out, voters have the right to know what Trump plans to do, even if Trump thinks they have no right to know at all.Here s the video via YouTube.


Donald Trump is going to throw the mother of all temper tantrums when he learns about this.If you are sick and tired of Trump and you need a way to take out your frustrations, you ll be happy to know that Mexico has just the thing for you, and it s not only useful, you ll be helping people by purchasing it.Antonio Battaglia originally meant the idea to be just a joke but now it s catching on as a full-fledged product that is gaining in supply and demand.Battaglia is a corporate attorney and while he isn t giving up his day job, he will be involved in making sure the people of the world get his Trump toilet paper.That s right. You can now order toilet paper with Trump s name on it, and all while knowing that your purchase will help the people Trump hates the most: Immigrants. I felt the need and obligation of raising my hand against such dangerous nonsense that was putting at risk my country and people, Battaglia told Newsweek.When Trump first announced his candidacy in 2015, he began by branding Mexico as a haven for murderers and rapists and promised to build a useless expensive wall to keep them out of the United States.Trump effort to build his wall has stalled out, but his assault on immigrants continues on as his deportation squads roam the nation looking for innocent immigrants to bully and persecute.Battaglia decided that his joke product could be put to better use as way to help immigrants in need. Once he won, we had to stop the fun approach and focus seriously on developing a product not based on a mockery but based on a response to an insult, based on helping migrants, he said.Indeed, every time someone buys the Trump toilet paper 30 percent of the profits will go to non-profit organizations that help immigrants.So this is a good way for anti-Trump Americans to fight back against Trump s policies while also telling him what they think about him.The packaging even features a roll of toilet paper that looks like Trump and even mocks Trump s wall.And in another jab at Trump, Battaglia trademarked the word trump just for his products.Battaglia went on to say how much he appreciates the American people and how much he loves the United States.After all, he was brought to our country as a child and is a lawyer today because he was able to get an education here and return to Mexico to use his skills there. I am very grateful to U.S. people and feel strongly bounded to them, Battaglia said. He hopes Americans will purchase the toilet paper to help them overcome this daylight nightmare called Donald Trump. The operation is in the beginning stages but the toilet paper will soon be coming to a store near you. Be sure to get in line early, because Trump s popularity is so low that demand is sure to outpace supply.Featured Image: Facebook


A voice of reason speaks out! Mike Huckabee told Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro that he has a special repulsion for white supremacists and that Trump did the right thing in his statements about Charlottesville. It s part because I m white, he elaborated. It s part because I have seen this evil and hateful attitude that elevates some people above others. And as a believing Christian, I m especially offended because anybody who believes The Bible, especially the gospels, will have to accept that there is no way that God is a respecter of persons- as scripture makes clear, He doesn t love some people more than others because of their color, because of their affiliation, even with Him. He mentioned that because he believe in the gospels that every person has equal worth, that makes him pro-life.Pirro asked Huckabee if the outrage over the president s remarks are just Trump haters who will look for any reason to dump on him. Well it seems like a lot of them are, I don t know what they expect the president to do, Huckabee responded. At the time that he made the comment, the driver of the car had not even been identified. That s exactly right! Pirro exclaimed. And so what is he supposed to say? Huckabee continued. Is he supposed to do what Barack Obama used to do and jump to conclusion and make a decision like he did in Ferguson. Missouri, which turned out to be totally untrue? The president has to be careful in taking steps. I thought what he condemned was what we all could immediately condemn and that was the violence, the car some coward in a car drove into innocent people to try and kill them. And he condemned that! What else is he supposed to do at that point? Amen!


Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said on Wednesday she has faith in the United States justice system to do the right thing after last week s indictment of Paul Manafort, the man who helped bring her arch enemy to power. A political survivor and the strident voice of Ukraine s 2004/2005 Orange Revolution, Tymoshenko was jailed during the pro-Kremlin presidency of Viktor Yanukovich in 2011 in a case condemned by Western leaders as selective justice. According to the indictment of Manafort, who was a consultant to Yanukovich s Party of Regions before becoming Donald Trump s campaign manager, Manafort used offshore accounts to secretly pay $4 million for a report on her imprisonment. Ordered under house arrest as he awaits trial, Manafort has pleaded not guilty to a 12-count indictment on charges that include money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent of Yanukovich s government. Money laundering allegations against Manafort are not new: Tymoshenko herself made them in a legal case she filed in New York against Yanukovich, Manafort and others that was dismissed in September 2015. As a result of the work of Yanukovich and his circle, I ended up in prison, the 56-year-old Tymoshenko said in an interview, in her first public comments about Manafort since his indictment. She said Yanukovich spent huge sums to blacken her name, ... without doubt this affected my life and that of my family and team in a certain way, and Ukraine as well, she said. That is why I believe that U.S. justice will deal with the details, including our claims, and we will get a ruling from one of the most effective legal systems in the world - the U.S. system. Manafort joined the Trump presidential campaign in March 2016 and later became campaign manager, but he was forced to resign in August as questions emerged about his previous work for Yanukovich s party. She used her fiery brand of oratory to try to humiliate Yanukovich, but he proved her nemesis after beating her in a 2010 election for president. She was charged with abuse of power in relation to a gas import agreement signed with Russia in 2009 as prime minister and was jailed. She was freed from prison in February 2014 after Yanukovich fled into exile to Russia during the pro-Western Maidan protests and she addressed crowds from a wheelchair on Kiev s Independence Square because of chronic back trouble. The crowd s sympathy for her condition did not help her though to regain a place in the new pro-western leadership and she lost to President Petro Poroshenko in the 2014 election. But the two-time prime minister who still sports a trademark peasant braid in her hair is now Poroshenko s main challenger at presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2019, according to opinion polls. Tymoshenko said Kiev should have a new type of agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which has propped up Ukraine s economy with a $17.5 billion aid program conditional on economic reforms and tackling entrenched graft. The IMF program is in choppy waters: as of now Ukraine has refused to implement a sharp hike in gas prices it had previously agreed to, while the Fund is also studying whether recently passed pension changes pass muster. When I served as prime minister I cooperated with the IMF and I believe that Ukraine can have positive cooperation with the IMF, she said, when asked whether she would do as the IMF says or abandon the program. But it seems to me that there needs to be a different emphasis in this cooperation. She said the program should be focused not on what she termed a reduction in social spending, but instead on tax reform and reducing the size of Ukraine s shadow economy.


Connecticut native, Hope Hicks, who had been serving as the interim White House communications director, is getting the job full-time, Bloomberg first reported Tuesday.Of course, the left immediately bombarded twitter with negative comments. They failed to note that this is the first time the communications team at the White House is two women. Nope, no mention of Hicks and Huckabee Sanders as a dynamic duo for President Trump. They re just taking bets on how long she lasts. What they failed to note is that Hicks has been with the campaign since day one .Her twitter bio :At age 28, Hicks will be the youngest person to hold the job, and it will mark the first time women have concurrently held the positions of communications director and White House press secretary, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders in the latter.Hicks replaces Trump s campaign donor Anthony Scaramucci, who held onto the job for just 10 days, and the low key Mike Dubke, the administration s first communications director, who left the White House in May.Hicks was one of Trump s originals, when his campaign was just a rag tag team of aides.Hicks is a Southern Methodist University graduate. She had been working for the first daughter, doing public relations for Ivanka Trump s brand, when the businessman brought her in to handle press requests for his young presidential campaign. She started off with us right from day one, President Trump told supporters at a rally last year, beckoning Hicks to come onstage. She used to be in my real estate company, he explained. I said, What do you know about politics? She said, Absolutely nothing, Trump said. With that, Hicks was hired.


Austria s anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO) expelled one of its officials in Tyrol province over reports that he had displayed Nazi paraphernalia in the back of his pharmacy, a party spokesman said on Wednesday. The FPO, which is fighting with the Social Democrats for the second place in parliamentary elections on Oct. 15, has on previous occasions expelled provincial officials for owning Nazi-related objects, which is illegal in Austria. In Germany s election on Sunday, the FPO s sister party AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote, becoming the third-largest group in parliament and the first from the far right to win seats in the Bundestag since the 1950s. Austria s FPO is poised to become kingmaker as a junior coalition party, with conservative front-runner Sebastian Kurz expected to gain around a third of the vote with his tough rhetoric on fighting immigration and Islamic parallel societies . Martin Hochstoeger stepped back from his post as a member of the FPO Tyrol party executive after pictures were spread in Austrian media of a marble slate engraved with a quote by Adolf Hitler, a swastika and a tally of a local vote in 1938 favoring Austria s annexation by Nazi Germany. Based on current media reports ... I had to expel Dr Martin Hochstoeger last night after internal deliberations, said the head of the FPO in Tyrol, Markus Abwerzger, citing potential danger for the party s ethos. A spokesman for prosecutors in Tyrol s main city, Innsbruck, said they were looking into the case. Public broadcaster ORF said on its website Hochstoeger had declined to comment. Austria long presented itself as the first victim of the Nazis, a narrative initially supported by the Allies, even though large parts of Austrian society celebrated the 1938 annexation and many took on roles in the Nazi war effort and the Holocaust.


FBI Director James Comey was driven in part by a fear of leaks from within his agency when he decided to tell Congress the FBI was investigating newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton, law enforcement sources said on Thursday. The examination of the email traffic is now being carried out under the tightest secrecy by a team at Federal Bureau of Investigations headquarters in Washington, the sources said, requesting anonymity because of the inquiry's sensitivity. Several sources said it was unclear whether the FBI would make any further public disclosures about its latest review before Tuesday's presidential and congressional elections. Two sources said such disclosures were unlikely. Another source, recently in contact with top investigators, said: "It depends on how it goes and what they find." The source said that, as of Thursday, "nobody really knows" whether the FBI will have anything further to say before the election. Dropping like a bombshell on the U.S. presidential campaign, Comey's disclosure last Friday in a letter to senior lawmakers just days before the elections raised questions about his motives and drew criticism from some over his timing. Comey disclosed that the FBI was looking at emails as part of a probe into Clinton's use of a private email system while secretary of state, without describing the emails' content or how long the inquiry might take. The FBI normally does not comment on ongoing inquiries. The latest emails examination was moving forward "expeditiously," said one source close to the review. The new emails turned up as FBI investigators were examining electronic devices used by former Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner in connection with an alleged "sexting" scandal. Weiner's estranged wife, Huma Abedin, is a Clinton confidante. Two law enforcement sources familiar with the FBI's New York Field Office, which initially discovered the emails, said a faction of investigators based in the office is known to be hostile to Hillary Clinton. A spokeswoman for the FBI's New York office said she had no knowledge about this. Democratic Party sources said such a faction was likely responsible for a recent surge in media leaks on alleged details of an ongoing FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation. The FBI has made preliminary inquiries into Clinton Foundation activities and alleged contacts between Trump and associates with parties in Russia, according to law enforcement sources. But these inquiries were shifted into low gear weeks ago because the FBI wanted to avoid any impact on the election. The FBI previously had spent about a year investigating Clinton's use of the unauthorized server at her home in Chappaqua, New York, instead of the State Department system after classified government secrets were found in some of her emails. Comey had said in July that while there was "evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."


KABUL, Afghanistan — As heavy snow fell on the muddy arena in northern Afghanistan where a traditional game of buzkashi — two teams of horsemen fighting for a dead goat — was underway on Friday, a scuffle broke out near the stands. It was not just another group of hotheaded fans going at it. The man who had thrown the punch is the vice president of Afghanistan, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. And he did not stop there: To drive the humiliation home, he put his foot on the chest of his downed victim, a political rival named Ahmad Ishchi, who was then beaten by the general's bodyguards, thrown into the back of an armored vehicle and taken away, said several of Mr. Ishchi's relatives, many of them speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. "Dostum came there, and he walked around the stadium, — then he called Ahmad Ishchi over to him," said Gulab Khan, a relative of Mr. Ishchi who was among about 5, 000 spectators at the game. "After talking with him for a couple of minutes, he punched him, and his bodyguards started beating him with . They beat Ahmad very badly and in a barbaric way. " The account of General Dostum's actions — while not unexpected for a former warlord with a history of accusations of human rights violations and abuse, including physical acts of retaliation against allies and rivals — underscores fears about someone a heartbeat from the presidency. With President Ashraf Ghani traveling on an official visit to Central Asia, General Dostum is technically the acting president. For more than two days, he has held a political rival hostage in one of his properties, with members of Mr. Ishchi's family increasingly concerned about his health. On Sunday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the vice president's pink palace in the northern city of Shibarghan, pleading with him to free Mr. Ishchi. The protesters remained all day, but General Dostum did not meet with them. His guards simply told the protesters that the general was busy or resting. Spokesmen and advisers to General Dostum did not respond to requests for comment, despite promises from several of them. Aides who had accompanied the general to the game, and who were shown at his side in official pictures, flatly denied they had been there. Lutfullah Azizi, the governor of Jowzjan Province, which includes Shibarghan, said on Sunday that he was away from his office on a visit to Kabul, the capital, but was trying to calm the situation. "I organized the tribal elders and sent them to talk with General Dostum to release Ahmad," Mr. Azizi said. "They are currently meeting General Dostum, and we are emphasizing Ahmad's release tonight, as he is sick. " While the two men have a long history of not getting along, a senior Afghan official who also spoke on the condition of anonymity said Mr. Ishchi had shown some sign of disrespect at a very vulnerable time for the general. General Dostum has increasingly felt marginalized and humiliated by Mr. Ghani in Kabul. He has spent more time away from his office — he is often seen in uniform on the battlefields of his northern stronghold — than behind his desk. Mr. Ishchi has been involved in politics in the north for decades and helped General Dostum found the Junbish party, which he leads now. A former labor leader during the Communist regime, he rose to serve in senior provincial government positions. One of his sons was a district governor in Jowzjan, and another is a member of the provincial council there. A third son has become rich in recent years through businesses he has in Turkey. The senior Afghan official said that although Mr. Ishchi had little power compared with General Dostum, the general considered the Ishchi family a threat to his own dynasty as he groomed his children to inherit his party and influence. The confrontation happened soon after General Dostum returned to the country from an absence that followed another outburst aimed at Mr. Ghani, in which he threatened to cause trouble if he was not taken seriously. The general was angry at the lack of help from the central government when his convoy was ambushed by the Taliban during a military operation in Faryab Province, killing many of the men who had been at his side for years. At Friday's game, General Dostum arrived in a convoy of black armored vehicles. Before the goat was slaughtered to start the action, a video of the event showed, local musicians sang a tribute to the recent martyrs as the general wept. His trembling lips pushing out deep breaths of pain, and with snow gathering on his shoulders, he wiped his tears with a white tissue. Then he took it out on Mr. Ishchi.


HANGZHOU, China — President Obama sought on Sunday to heal a rift with Turkey, expressing his wholehearted support for its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the wake of a failed effort to oust him and promising America's help in bringing the coup plotters to justice. Mr. Obama's comments, after he met with Mr. Erdogan before a Group of 20 summit meeting here, seemed calculated to smooth over hard feelings in Turkey, where some officials had blamed the United States for fomenting the July 15 uprising by elements of the military. He said nothing about Mr. Erdogan's crackdown after the coup, in which tens of thousands of people were arrested. And his reference to helping Turkey bring the perpetrators of the uprising to justice was not accidental: Mr. Erdogan is demanding that the United States extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania whom he accused of inciting the coup. "This is the first opportunity that I've had to meet face to face with President Erdogan since the terrible attempted coup," Mr. Obama said, facing the Turkish leader across a long table. "We're glad you're here, safe, and that we are able to continue to work together. " He papered over the fact that Turkey's interests have diverged recently from those of the United States, particularly in Syria, where Turkish forces have intervened to prevent Syrian Kurds from making further gains in the northern part of the country. The Kurds are trained and equipped by the United States, which views them as critical in the military campaign against the Islamic State. But Mr. Erdogan fears they are trying to create an unbroken Kurdish corridor just south of Turkey's border with Syria. The Syrian Kurds have links to Turkish Kurds, who have been fighting his government. Mr. Erdogan said it was important for the United States and Turkey to fight against all terrorist groups, not just the Islamic State. He mentioned the acronyms of two Syrian Kurdish groups. "We have to embrace the same stance against all terrorist organizations around the world," he said. "Our hope is never to see a belt of terrorism, a corridor of terrorism emerging in or around our region. " Still, Mr. Erdogan was more conciliatory to Mr. Obama than he had been toward Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. when Mr. Biden traveled to Turkey last month. Mr. Biden apologized for not having visited sooner, but Mr. Erdogan sat complaining that Mr. Gulen used his home in Pennsylvania as a base to destabilize the Turkish government. On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan did not repeat those claims. He merely said that the Turkish government planned to submit additional legal evidence against Mr. Gulen to the Justice Department, which will recommend to a federal judge whether to extradite him. Mr. Erdogan noted that the Justice Department had sent officials to Turkey to investigate the case. Earlier in the day, Mr. Obama held his first meeting with Britain's new prime minister, Theresa May. He reassured her, as he had her predecessor, David Cameron, that Britain's vote to leave the European Union would have no effect on its relationship with the United States.


It s hard to be famous for being a victim in an Arab Gulf state who settles their disputes in a Sharia Court of Law. Someone should have told Clock Boy that being a victim in a country where victims are plentiful isn t really that special. Unlike America, being accused of bringing a fake bomb to school in Qatar isn t likely a guarantee you ll land a visit with their King.Within days of demanding a total of $15 million from the City of Irving and the Irving Independent School District, Clock Boy Ahmed Mohamed announced in a long distance phone interview from Qatar, he is homesick and wants to come home to Texas now.In October, Ahmed accepted a fully-funded education scholarship from the Qatar Foundation, an organization with reputed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, over an invitation to MIT, which is among the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world. The family announced they would relocate to Qatar to accommodate his education, which they did.Happy #Thanksgiving!! Ahmed Mohamed (@IStandWithAhmed) November 26, 2015Dallas KTVT 11 (CBS) interviewed the teen from halfway around the world over Facetime. Now, Ahmed claims he misses Texas. I want to go back to a place where everyone knows me, meaning the kids he grew up with. He also hinted a trip to Dallas may be in the works over the Christmas holiday. He told the CBS affiliate he is ready to come home and wants to do so immediately, but insists last week s armed yet peaceful protest outside the Irving mosque stopped him.Breitbart Texas reported on the small group outside of the Islamic Center of Irving. The organizer released dozens of names and addresses considered Muslim and Muslim sympathizers over social media. The list, however, was posted on the City of Irving s website since March with the information of those who signed up to speak for and against the topic of American laws for American courts at an Irving city council meeting.Ahmed told the TV news outlet: I was scared because I ve heard what happened recently with, like, people with guns going to my local mosque, adding: I mean, they have the right to do that but it s scary because I m afraid, you know. Last week, through West Texas attorney Kelly Hollingsworth, Ahmed s family demanded $15 million plus apologies in letters that asserted they moved to the Middle East because threats and fear drove his family from Texas. However, Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne received serious online threats and remains under fire over decisions made by the Irving ISD and Irving police to detain the high school freshman, who, on Sept. 14, brought into school a makeshift clock that resembled a briefcase bomb.The KTVT reporter pointed out that questioning the teen about the $15 million was something that nearly ended (the interview). He captured Ahmed s metered responses with eyes drifting off camera that appeared to look offside for approval from someone before answering questions. Ahmed first looked away when asked if he wanted to come back to Texas before answering yes with a smile. Clock Boy then told the CBS affiliate he was waiting for people to calm down back home before he returned.In a Christmas season blanketed by the Islamic State attacks in Paris, State Department travel alerts, and Syrian refugees at U.S. borders, sympathy continues to wane for the Islamophobia poster child. Breitbart News reported that the same liberal media that championed the teen s every move, including his Qatar Foundation-sponsored tour of Education City, lost interest.The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette added what little sympathy Americans had for the Clock Boy is gone thanks to a shameless money grab by the teen s family. The newspaper added that the Mohamed family s departure and subsequent demands make them look like opportunists, or worse.


Attorney Robert Barnes joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday's Breitbart News Daily to discuss his latest Breitbart News column, "Hawaii Obama Judge Rules Muslim Imam Has Special Constitutional Rights to Bring Anyone from Terror Countries into America. "[Marlow asked Barnes to begin by explaining why Trump's temporary ban on various terror countries was blocked. LISTEN: "The district court judge in Hawaii, who was a fellow law graduate of Harvard law school with former President Obama — and, in fact, Obama was in Hawaii yesterday before the decision was issued, so some people have speculated on the coincidence of that. But he issued a decision that blocks the ability of anybody to enforce the order anywhere," Barnes said. "So he went beyond just the district of Hawaii. He said no state can enforce it. Nobody in any part of the country can enforce it. Nobody anywhere in the administration can enforce it. He issued what's called a nationwide injunction, and it precludes any application of the order, pretty much, on any aspect of the order, pretty much, until there's further review. " "His basis for doing so was an extraordinary interpretation of the right to travel and the freedom of association, which before, has only been associated with U. S. citizens," Barnes continued. "Every court decision in the 200 years prior to this has said that people who are not citizens of the United States, who are not present within the United States, have no First Amendment constitutional rights. The Constitution doesn't extend internationally to anybody, anywhere, anyplace, at any time. Instead, this judge said it did, as long as you had a university here who wanted to assert, the foreigner's rights, or you had some physical person here. In this case, it was one of the leading Muslim imams in Hawaii he wants to bring over various family and friends from the Middle East. " "The Hawaii judge's decision says he has a First Amendment constitutional right to do so because he's Muslim. It was one of the most extraordinary interpretations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ever given, which is that because these are Muslim countries that were banned where the issue of terror arises from that that meant they had a special right to access the country and visit the country," he said. "As long as there is somebody here that wants them here, no president can ever preclude them from coming here. He basically gave First Amendment rights to everybody around the world and gave special preferences to people who are Muslim under his interpretation of the First Amendment," Barnes summarized. "So it's an extraordinarily broad order. Its legal doctrine has no limits. If you keep extending this, it means people from around the world have a special right to access the United States, visit the United States, emigrate to the United States, get visas to the United States. There wouldn't be any limit, and the president would never be able to control our own borders. It would be up solely to the whim of a federal judge who effectively delegated it, in this case, to a Muslim imam in Hawaii," he contended. Barnes noted that the judge did not "cite any prior decision" that has ever established this astonishing new quirk of the Constitution. "Just last year, the Supreme Court implicitly said the opposite, when they said your right to association does not include a right to bring foreigners into the United States, in the Din decision," he pointed out. "Now, there were several concurrences, so the binding precedent of that has been left open, but he does not even reference or mention or discuss the decision. He doesn't even mention the statute, the main statute that gives the president the right to ban any alien from the country, for any reason the president deems appropriate, for any temporary time period, that the president yesterday cited in his national speech. Like the prior Ninth Circuit decision, the Hawaii judge never mentions the decision at all. " "So there's no real legal precedent. He's taking three or four different concepts that have been applied in completely different areas of law, that only ever have historically applied to U. S. citizens, and he's magically adding it to foreigners and acting like that's always been the case when it's never been the case," he said. "It is a product of what I call liberal law school education that was happening when I was in law school, which is they're increasingly teaching lawyers to replace objective analysis with their subjective preference, but to pretend their subjective bias was really objective reality, even when it wasn't," Barnes said. "They basically taught you to lie to yourself about what the law really was and what it really stood for. " "Obama reflects that, and this judge deeply reflects that," Barnes asserted. "He's someone whose opinion would be taken apart. If it was a law school exam, he would get an 'F' because of how badly he misapplied the law. Unfortunately, in the liberal law school mentality, it's what they've taught people to do. This judge, who's a relatively recent judge, he's been on the bench a few years, extended it in that way. " "To give you an idea of how bad it is, yesterday, five Ninth Circuit judges dissented from reviewing the decision about the prior Ninth Circuit decision," he pointed out. "The prior Ninth Circuit decision effectively became moot when President Trump replace his old executive order with the new one, and these five judges said that prior decision was so bad that they needed to vacate the decision and should vacate the prior decision, even though that's very rare under those circumstances. They referred to the obligation to correct the 'manifest many, obvious, fundamental errors' that went against all the precedent the guy overlooked or neglected in the prior panel decision. " "It was one of the harshest condemnations ever issued, and one of its authors was former chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinsky, who is regarded as one of the best and brightest judges from anywhere in the country, even though he's usually more on the liberal side of the spectrum," he noted. "What they all pointed out is it doesn't matter what your politics are, the law is clear. There was no basis for the prior Ninth Circuit decision. Well, this Hawaii decision goes further than any court had ever gone before. Hopefully, it will get reviewed and reversed, but in the interim, the country's safety is put into jeopardy because one federal judge decided to anoint himself the one Supreme Court of the country. " Marlow asked if President Trump had any recourse, other than waiting for a higher court to overturn the Hawaii decision. Barnes suggested he could "always do a true Andrew Jackson, since he was there yesterday," referring to Trump's visit to Andrew Jackson's grave. "When the Supreme Court issued a decision, Andrew Jackson's famous comments were, 'Well, they've issued their decision now, they can enforce it,'" Barnes recalled. "He was the last president to really challenge a Supreme Court usurping authority they did not have. " "In this particular context, because it's a district court decision — Professor Dershowitz even argued this, earlier in the cycle, when the Ninth Circuit even issued its decision — was that because there was a conflict between the courts, because you have a court in Boston that actually approved of the original Trump order, a great detailed order, order, cited by the five Ninth Circuit judges yesterday — the president would be in his legal rights to say: 'There's a conflict between the courts. Until the Supreme Court addresses this, I'm going to do what's appropriate to keep the country safe,'" he suggested. "The flip side is if he did that, the media would go on a field day and say the president thinks he's above the law and is refusing to honor a court order," he acknowledged. "He's more likely to wait for this issue to get adjudicated. It ties his hands, unfortunately, and endangers the country in the interim, but politically speaking, he's sort of put between a rock and a hard place. His only real alternative is to either go full Andrew Jackson or let it play out in the courts, and in the interim, the order is not enforced. " "You definitely can do impeachment proceedings," Barnes said when Marlow asked if there was any course of action that could be taken against the Hawaii judge for abusing his authority. "I do think that all the political pressure put on the courts and all the public criticism by legal scholars and everybody else publicly about these decisions, and how reckless they are, and how dangerous they are to the and safety of the country, and how they are, and how they mirror and reflect the aspects of Obama's shadow government undermining the government through its Deep State connections and its undemocratically elected officials has real value," he said. "That's even reflected in the decision of the five judges yesterday who were so harsh in the criticism of their former colleagues," he pointed out. "They mention that the attention drawn to the court is a particular concern to them in jeopardizing the credibility of the court — because, at the end of the day, America's courts only have power as long as people respect and believe and have confidence in the independence and integrity of those courts. " "As that gets sacrificed, courts lose power, and we may return back to a time and place where someone like President Trump needs to go back to Andrew Jackson and invoke his tradition and legacy in order to challenge judicial usurpation of the safety and security of the country. At the current time, there's not a lot we can do without being willing to go full Andrew Jackson against the court system," he judged. "Impeachment is always an option in the House. Some congressmen could pursue it because of these judges usurping their authority and invading the security and safety of the country, and violating the tripartite branches of power, where the judiciary is always supposed to have respected the president in this area. But right now, there's not a lot we can do under the current political and legal environment," Barnes concluded. He agreed with President Trump's contention that this level of judicial overreach was unprecedented. "When you have law professors like Jonathan Turley or Alan Dershowitz or Jeffrey Toobin saying that the prior Ninth Circuit decision — which did not go as far as this case did, as the Hawaii judge did — saying it basically is bad law, then you know how bad the law actually is," Barnes said. "It's law that has no precedent, that has no historical application. For example, the Supreme Court and our Congress banned anarchists from coming into the country. It banned people that were Communists from coming into the country. We have always been able to use just mere ideology as a test. " "We've also favored several religious groups, disfavored other religious groups," he added, agreeing with Marlow's example of how the Obama administration treated Christian refugees. "This Hawaii judge is close friends with Obama, may have met with Obama before the decision was issued, is here condemning President Trump from just trying to keep the country safe as to who can come in. Well, if you apply his doctrine legally, how was Obama Americans and all kinds of people overseas? So you don't have a right not to be but you have a right to live next to somebody in the state of Hawaii or anywhere else in the country?" he asked sarcastically. "There's no logic. If you start to apply logically all of the consequences of this judge's ideas, it goes to places that would destroy the whole concept of borders, destroy the whole concept of nationhood sovereignty, destroy the presidential prerogative to destroy our borders. There's just no limit to where this judge's decision could go," Barnes warned. He said there is no question executive power has been used in a discriminatory fashion against Christians "for almost the entire Obama tenure, particularly the Syrian Christians and others who were being actually harassed and persecuted. " Barnes said the judicial action against Trump's revised executive order dispelled the notion his first order was merely worded poorly or rolled out in a clumsy manner. "No, the problem is you have Deep State saboteurs, and you have unelected officials who think they're above the law try to create the law, try to change the law, try to rewrite the law. " "The problem wasn't how he rolled out the prior order. The problem is, the opposition are people who don't respect democratic elections and don't respect the limits of their office," he charged. "This problem is now right center with the way this judge issued his decision and particularly applying it nationally. He prevented every other federal judge, every other federal circuit, from weighing in on the decision because he unilaterally opposed it across the whole country — which both the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have said you're not supposed to do, in cases just like this," Barnes said. "Judges think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, however they want. The media will celebrate them. Nobody will do anything negative or adverse to them. And the only person pushing back on it is President Trump," he said. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. Listen to the full audio of the interview above.


Saudi King Salman appointed two new ministers on Saturday to key security and economic posts, removing one of the royal family s most prominent members as head of the National Guard and boosting the kingdom s young crown prince. The king also announced the creation of a new anti-corruption committee chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman which Al Arabiya TV said had already detained 11 princes, four current ministers and tens of former ministers. The suspects were not named. The cabinet reshuffle saw Prince Miteb bin Abdullah replaced as minister of the National Guard by Khaled bin Ayyaf, while Economy Minister Adel Fakieh was removed in favor of his deputy Mohammed al-Tuwaijri, according to a royal decree carried by state-run media. Prince Miteb, the preferred son of the late King Abdullah, was once thought to be a leading contender for the throne before the unexpected rise of Prince Mohammed two years ago. He had inherited control of the National Guard, an elite internal security force built out of traditional tribal units, from his father, who ran it for five decades. Prince Miteb was the last remaining member of Abdullah s branch of the family to hold a position in the upper echelons of the Saudi power structure. The move consolidates Crown Prince Mohammed s control of the kingdom s security institutions, which had long been headed by separate powerful branches of the ruling family. Prince Mohammed, the king s 32-year-old son, already serves as defense minister and was named heir to the throne in a June reshuffle that sidelined his older cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef who had also served as interior minister. He has been responsible at the same time for running Saudi Arabia s war in Yemen, dictating an energy policy with global implications and behind the plans for the kingdom to build a future after oil. Prince Mohammed, who has pledged to go after graft at the highest levels, will now also head up the new anti-corruption body, which was given broad powers to investigate cases, issue arrest warrants and travel restrictions, and freeze assets. The homeland will not exist unless corruption is uprooted and the corrupt are held accountable, the royal decree said. The country s new economy minister, Tuwaijri, is a former Saudi air force pilot and former chief executive of HSBC s Middle East operations who has led the economy ministry s program to privatize some $200 billion of government assets. He replaces Fakieh, who served as the point man for the kingdom s wide-ranging economic reforms since his appointment as economy and planning minister in 2015. A former food executive with a reputation for pushing through politically sensitive reforms, Fakieh had previously served as labor minister, health minister and mayor of Jeddah. Fakieh faced down fierce opposition from the business community as labor minister when he established quotas for foreign workers to boost jobs for Saudis. Under Prince Mohammed, Fakieh led the development of a national transformation plan and privatization drive launched last year to end the kingdom s vulnerability to an unpredictable oil market. His replacement comes as the kingdom makes adjustments to that plan, a process dubbed NTP 2.0. The royal decree did not say whether Fakieh would hold any other government position. Former ministers often serve in advisory roles after leaving their posts.