WASHINGTON: Top US intelligence officials will face questions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 US election and fallout from the firing of former FBI director James Comey when they appear at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
The US Senate Intelligence Committee’s open hearing will feature officials closely tied to President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing last month of Comey, which sparked accusations that the Republican president had dismissed him to hinder the FBI probe and stifle questions about possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the second-ranking official at the Department of Justice who signed a letter recommending Comey’s dismissal, will testify, a day ahead of Comey’s own hotly anticipated testimony in the investigation of Russian involvement in the 2016 US election.
Rosenstein’s public testimony will be the first since he appointed — in the face of rising pressure from Congress — former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel investigating possible links between Russia and the election.
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who took over after Comey was fired, will also be at the hearing.
The probe has hung over Trump’s presidency since he took office in January and threatens to overwhelm his policy priorities.
The Kremlin denies US intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Moscow tried to tilt the election campaign in Trump’s favor, including by hacking into the e-mails of senior Democrats. Trump has denied any collusion.
“I know that there are going to be members who want to hear from Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein about his involvement in the (Comey) firing,” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told Reuters.
National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats will also be present at the hearing originally set to discuss a foreign surveillance law.
“My hope will be that Admiral Rogers and Director Coats won’t try to hide behind executive privilege ... about the press reports about the president asking them to downplay the Russia investigation,” Warner said.
The Washington Post reported on May 22 that Trump had asked the officials to help push back against the FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Moscow, citing current and former officials.
The two refused to comply with the request, which they regarded as inappropriate, the Post report said.
The Washington Post separately reported on Tuesday that Coats told associates in March that Trump asked him if he could intervene with then FBI Director Comey to get the FBI to back off its focus on Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, in its Russia probe, according to officials.
The intelligence officials are also expected to defend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA — the stated topic of the hearing — which will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it.
Section 702 allows the NSA to collect digital communications of foreigners believed to be living overseas whose communications pass through US telephone or Internet providers. Information about Americans is also sometimes incidentally gathered, such as when someone is communicating to a foreign target which privacy advocates have long argued evades Constitutional protections against warrantless searches.
US surveillance practices have come under increased scrutiny amid unsubstantiated assertions by Trump and other Republicans that the White House under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, improperly spied on Trump or his associates.
There is no evidence that political motives drove Obama administration officials to request the names of Trump associates in any intercepts. The requests underwent every required evaluation, and they produced nothing out of the ordinary, according to four current and former officials who have reviewed the materials.
US lawmakers to press intel chiefs on Russia ahead of Comey hearing
US lawmakers to press intel chiefs on Russia ahead of Comey hearing
Baby born on migrant vessel in Atlantic: Spanish rescuers
A record 46,843 undocumented migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024
MADRID: Spanish coast guards rescued a baby that was born on an inflatable vessel carrying migrants to the Canary Islands, authorities said on Wednesday.
The newborn was recovered safely along with their mother on Monday, the coast guard service said in a message on X.
They were the latest to make the crossing that has seen thousands drown as migrants try to reach the Atlantic archipelago from Africa.
“Christmas ended in the Canaries with the rescue of a baby born while crossing the sea,” the coast guard said.
A coast guard boat “rescued a mother who had given birth aboard the inflatable craft in which she was traveling with a large group of people.”
The two were taken by helicopter to Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote, it added.
A record 46,843 undocumented migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024 via the Atlantic route, official data showed this month.
Ethiopians celebrate Christmas as natural calamities and conflict take their toll
- The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church called for reconciliation and peace in a nation where conflict has been often fueled by ethnic strife
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians are celebrating Christmas with prayers for peace in the Horn of Africa nation that has faced persistent conflict in recent years.
Ethiopians follow the Julian calendar, which runs 13 days later than the Gregorian calendar, used by Catholic and Protestant churches. They traditionally celebrate by slaughtering animals and joining family members to break the fast after midnight.
The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, in his televised Christmas Eve message called for reconciliation and peace in a nation where conflict has been often fueled by ethnic strife. Different parts of Ethiopia recently have also faced natural calamities, including mudslides. Earthquakes last week in the remote regions of Afar, Amhara and Oromia have displaced thousands.
Despite the signing of a peace agreement to end the armed conflict in the northern region of Tigray in 2022, recurring conflicts in Amhara, Oromia and elsewhere have caused widespread suffering and forced 9 million children to drop out of school, according to UNICEF.
Almaz Zewdie, who was among thousands of Orthodox Christians attending ceremonies in Addis Ababa’s Medhanyalem Church, said she was praying for peace.
She was draped in an all-white traditional attire to mark the end of a 43-day fasting period and the birth of Jesus Christ.
“I lost friends and my livelihood,” said Zewdie, a merchant from the tourist town of Gondar, speaking of the toll of the conflict in Amhara, where government troops have been fighting members of a local militia.
Isaias Seyoum, a priest in Addis Ababa’s Selassie Church, said the celebration of Christmas is more than just feasting and merrymaking. It is also a time to share meals with needy people and help those impacted by conflict, including many sheltering in Addis Ababa, he said.
Baroness Warsi accuses UK Conservative Party of demonizing her over Islamophobia claims
- Party recently told Warsi she would not have whip restored in UK’s upper house of parliament
- Internal inquiry clears Warsi of ‘bringing the party into disrepute’ over support for pro-Palestinian protester
LONDON: The UK’s first Muslim cabinet member has accused her Conservative Party of attempting to “demonize” her after she criticized the party over Islamophobia.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi was told recently she was not welcome back into the Conservative Party in the UK’s upper house of parliament, where she holds a seat, The Independent reported on Wednesday.
Warsi resigned from the party in the House of Lords in September, claiming the Conservatives had moved too far to the right.
The former co-chair of the Conservative Party had also come under pressure from senior party members over language used in a tweet supporting a pro-Palestinian protester.
Warsi has now been cleared of being “divisive” and “bringing the party into disrepute” by a disciplinary panel investigating the tweet.
But the Conservatives wrote to Warsi saying that while she could remain a member of the party, they would not restore to her the party whip, meaning she could not be affiliated with the party in the Lords.
In response, Warsi said she had not asked to have the whip restored, and accused the Conservatives of playing games.
She told The Independent that the party was attempting to “demonize” her for challenging the party’s “rising levels of extremism, racism and Islamophobia.”
Warsi was appointed as the first Muslim Conservative Party chair in 2010 by Prime Minister David Cameron as he sought to modernize the party.
But in recent years the Conservatives have shifted further right as they seek to counter the growing popularity of far-right parties.
In March, Warsi said the party had become known as “the institutionally xenophobic and racist party.” She has also repeatedly accused it of failing to tackle Islamophobia within the party and criticized significant figures for their rhetoric over immigration.
In 2014, she resigned as a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office over the government’s “morally indefensible” approach to Gaza.
Warsi’s decision to resign the whip in September was, she said: “A reflection of how far right my party has moved and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of different communities.”
The move came after complaints against her for a tweet congratulating a pro-Palestinian protester acquitted of a racially aggravated public order offense. The protester had used a placard depicting Rishi Sunak, who was prime minister at the time, as a coconut.
Poland shuts consulate in Saint Petersburg on Russian order
- Russia ordered the closure in December after Poland said in October it was closing Russia’s consulate in the Polish city of Poznan
- “The Polish Consulate General in Saint Petersburg was shut down upon Russia’s withdrawal of its consent to the activity of the Polish post,” Poland’s foreign ministry said
WARSAW: Poland announced Wednesday it had shut its consulate in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, after Russia ordered the closure in a tit-for-tat move.
Russia ordered the closure in December after Poland said in October it was closing Russia’s consulate in the Polish city of Poznan, accusing Moscow of “sabotage” attempts in the country and its allies.
“The Polish Consulate General in Saint Petersburg was shut down upon Russia’s withdrawal of its consent to the activity of the Polish post,” Poland’s foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
“It is in retaliation for a decision of the Polish foreign minister to close down Russia’s Consulate General in Poznan in the aftermath of acts of sabotage committed on Polish territory and linked to Russian authorities.”
After Russia ordered the closure, Poland responded that it would close all the Russian consulates on its soil if “terrorism” it blamed on Moscow carried on.
Tensions between Russia and NATO member Poland have escalated since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, with both sides expelling dozens of diplomats.
Poland is a staunch ally of Kyiv and has been a key transit point for Western arms heading to the embattled country since the conflict began.
In one of the largest espionage trials, Poland in 2023 convicted 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine of preparing sabotage on behalf of Moscow as part of a spy ring.
They were found guilty of preparing to derail trains carrying aid to Ukraine, and monitoring military facilities and critical infrastructure in the country.
2 Russian firefighters died in blaze caused by Ukraine drone: governor
- “As a result of the liquidation (of the fire), there are two dead,” said the governor of Saratov region
MOSCOW: Two Russian firefighters died on Wednesday fighting a blaze caused by a Ukrainian drone attack, the local governor said, after Kyiv said it hit an oil depot that supplies Russia’s air force.
“Unfortunately, as a result of the liquidation (of the fire), there are two dead — employees of the emergency situations ministry’s fire department,” Roman Busagrin, governor of the Saratov region where the strike happened, said on Telegram.
