Top World News

Myanmar’s parliament elects ruling general as president, keeping the army in charge

Myanmar’s parliament has elected Min Aung Hlaing as the country’s new president

ArticleImg
Alleged maple syrup scam in Quebec uncovered by Canadian broadcaster

A Radio-Canada reporter noticed his maple syrup tasted odd; testing revealed it was adulterated with cane sugarAn investigation by Canada’s national broadcaster has found that a major Quebec producer has been diluting its maple syrup with cane sugar and selling the fraudulent product to grocery chains.In a sting operation that involved false identities and covert recordings, journalists from Radio-Canada’s Enquête programme found that a low-cost syrup sold in major grocery store chains was heavily diluted. Continue reading...

Uganda receives first US deportation flight under third-country agreement

Dozen people arrive under new deal but legal challenges expected with scheme criticised as ‘dehumanising process’A flight carrying people being deported from the US has landed in Uganda, as Donald Trump’s administration pushes on with its strategy of expelling migrants to countries they have no ties to.The deported people would stay in the east African country as “a transition phase for potential onward transmission to other countries”, an unnamed senior Ugandan government official told Reuters. Continue reading...

ArticleImg
Trump's obsession with 'stuff blowing up' videos alarms national security experts

National security experts were concerned that President Donald Trump has ignored important briefings and instead prefers to watch videos of explosions from the Iran war, according to an analyst on Thursday. Salon's Chauncey DeVega described how Trump has started to treat the war — which has killed 13 American troops and nearly 1,500 Iranians — as entertainment. In the past, presidents have sought information from daily security briefings. Trump, however, has not followed this method. "As the war progresses, Trump is reportedly being shown daily compilation videos of 'stuff blowing up' — two-minute highlight reels of death and destruction, curated to hold his attention due to his famously short attention span," DeVega wrote. This has impacted how he views the war and what comes next. "Trump’s reliance on the videos risks creating an echo chamber effect where he is not getting the best advice," DeVega wrote. "Pushing back against the reports, the administration claims the president receives advice throughout the day from senior military leadership, the intelligence community, diplomats and foreign leaders. He also watches the news. But this does not appear to be reflected in the planning and execution of the war, or its long-term strategic implications for American power and global stability."NBC News reported that these montages have added to the president's "increasing frustration" with how the media covers the war and skewed his views. "Trump has pointed to the success depicted in the daily videos to privately question why his administration can’t better influence the public narrative, asking aides why the news media doesn’t emphasize what he’s seeing, one of the current U.S. officials and the former U.S. official said," according to NBC News. Steven Cash, the executive director of the nonprofit the Steady State, an organization of more than 360 former national security and diplomacy experts promoting American democracy, told DeVega that Americans expect the president to listen to a range of expert voices to guide military actions. "This does not appear to be what is happening," DeVega wrote. "Instead, the process has been reduced to a closed circle of advisers reinforcing Trump’s instincts while screens display short, dramatic clips of explosions and destruction. War, Cash observed, 'is not a spectacle, and it is certainly not a form of entertainment. Treating it that way is both obscene and dangerous.'"Cash said the repercussions have been clear. "The president has publicly suggested that basic strategic realities — such as the central importance of the Strait of Hormuz to the global economy — were somehow overlooked by ‘the experts,'" Cash said. "That is simply not true. These are among the most well-established facts in international security. When a president appears unaware of such fundamentals, it raises serious concerns about whether he is receiving — or is willing to absorb — the information he needs."

'Shocked!' Financial pundit says Trump's speech 'triggered' 60-cent gas price spike

MAGA financial pundit Eric Bolling revealed that President Donald Trump's Wednesday night address to the nation had likely "triggered" a 60-cent spike in gas prices.During a Thursday interview on the War Room podcast, Bolling said he had been giving MAGA influencer Steve Bannon updates on the oil market as Trump was speaking about the war in Iran.Bolling noted that oil was trading at "$98 a barrel" before Trump started speaking."It really didn't move very much during the speech. I kept updating you. When he talked about the part where he said, we're going to send them back to the Stone Ages, I think that triggered something because that's really where it started to tick up to $99 a barrel, $100 a barrel," he recalled. "When he finished, I think traders were hoping to hear some sort of legitimate off-ramp, and it just spiked 101, 101, 102, 103, 105, 107, 108 or so.""This morning I got up, Steve, and I was just shocked. $11, $12 a barrel, that's $13, $14 a barrel higher," he said. "Unfortunately, that turns into about a 60, 70 cent move up on the pump price just on the overnight alone, what it did overnight."