WASHINGTON: Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, was charged on Monday with money laundering and another onetime aide pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, in a sharp escalation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
Manafort, 68, a longtime Republican operative, and associate Rick Gates were arraigned at a federal courthouse in Washington.
Both men pleaded not guilty to a series of charges in a 12-count indictment, ranging from money laundering to acting as unregistered agents of Ukraine's former pro-Russian government.
The judge hearing the case subsequently ordered that Manafort and Gates be placed under house arrest.
Neither Trump nor his campaign were mentioned in the indictment against the pair. Many of the charges, some of which go back more than a decade, have to do with Manafort's work for Ukraine rather than the Trump campaign.
George Papadopoulos, a former adviser to Trump, admitted that he lied to the FBI about his contacts with Russians. The guilty plea marked the first criminal count that cites interactions between Trump campaign associates and Russian intermediaries during the campaign.
The charges ushered Mueller’s sprawling investigation into a new phase with felony charges and possible prison sentences for key members of the Trump campaign.
Trump quickly tweeted that the alleged misdeeds by his former campaign chairman were “years ago,” and he insisted there was “NO COLLUSION” between his campaign and Russia.
He added, as he has a number of times recently, “Why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????“
Papadopoulos’ plea occurred on Oct. 5 and was unsealed Monday. In court papers, he admitted lying about the nature of his interactions with “foreign nationals” who he thought had close connections to senior Russian government officials
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents working for special counsel Mueller about his dealings with several Russians who were offering “dirt” on Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
The separate charges against Manafort and Rick Gates contend the men acted as unregistered foreign agents for Ukrainian interests. The indictments also include several other financial counts involving tens of millions of dollars routed through offshore accounts.
Manafort’s indictment doesn’t reference the Trump campaign or make any allegations about coordination between the Kremlin and the president’s aides to influence the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor. The indictment does allege a criminal conspiracy was continuing through February of this year, after Trump had taken office.
The indictment filed in federal court in Washington accused both men of funneling payments through foreign companies and bank accounts as part of their political work in Ukraine. Manafort and Gates surrendered to federal authorities Monday, and were expected in court later in the day to face charges brought by Mueller’s team.
The indictment lays out 12 counts including conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, making false statements and several charges related to failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts. The indictment alleges the men moved money through hidden bank accounts in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Seychelles.
In total, more than $75 million flowed through the offshore accounts, according to the indictment. Manafort is accused of laundering more than $18 million.
A spokesman for Manafort did not immediately return calls or text messages requesting comment. Manafort and Gates have previously denied any wrongdoing.
Manafort, 68, was fired as Trump’s campaign chairman in August 2016 after word surfaced that he had orchestrated a covert lobbying operation on behalf of pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. The indictments against Manafort and Gates were largely based on activities disclosed in August 2016 by The Associated Press, which reported that the pair had directly orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling political party.
Citing internal emails, the AP noted that Gates personally directed the work of two prominent Washington lobbying firms. The indictment quotes from some of the same emails the AP had obtained.
The indictment accuses Manafort and Gates of orchestrating a nearly decade-long conspiracy to covertly work for Ukrainian interests and launder millions of dollars through offshore accounts. Specifically, the indictment accuses Manafort of using “his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States, without paying taxes on that income.” That included using offshore accounts to purchase multimillion-dollar properties in the US, some of which the government is seeking to seize.
Mueller was appointed as special counsel in May to lead the Justice Department’s investigation into whether the Kremlin worked with associates of the Trump campaign to tip the presidential election.
The appointment came one week after the firing of James Comey, who as FBI director led the investigation, and also followed the recusal months earlier of Attorney General Jeff Sessions from the probe.
Mueller’s investigators have focused on Manafort for months. In July, they raided one of his homes in Virginia, searching for tax and international banking records.
Manafort joined Trump’s campaign in March 2016 and oversaw the convention delegate strategy. Trump pushed him out in August amid a steady stream of negative headlines about Manafort’s foreign consulting work.
Trump’s middle son, Eric Trump, said in an interview at the time that his father was concerned that questions about Manafort’s past were taking attention away from the billionaire’s presidential bid.
Manafort has been a subject of a longstanding FBI investigation into his dealings in Ukraine and work for the country’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych. That investigation was incorporated into Mueller’s broader probe.
Previously, he denied any wrongdoing related to his Ukrainian work, saying through a spokesman that it “was totally open and appropriate.”
Manafort also recently registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for parts of Ukrainian work that occurred in Washington. The filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act came retroactively, a tacit acknowledgment that he operated in Washington in violation of the federal transparency law.
Mueller’s investigation has also reached into the White House, as he examines the circumstances of Comey’s firing. Investigators have requested extensive documents from the White House about key actions since Trump took office and have interviewed multiple current and former officials.
Mueller’s grand jury has also heard testimony about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower attended by a Russian lawyer as well as Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
In Gates, Mueller brings in not just Manafort’s chief deputy, but a key player from Trump’s campaign who survived past Manafort’s ouster last summer. As of two weeks ago, Gates was still working for Tom Barrack, a Trump confidant, helping with the closeout of the inauguration committee’s campaign account.
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Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker, Stephen Braun, Tom LoBianco and Jeff Horwitz contributed to this report.
Trump's former campaign manager under house arrest, another ex-aide pleads guilty to lying in Russia probe
Trump's former campaign manager under house arrest, another ex-aide pleads guilty to lying in Russia probe
US plane hit by gunfire on Dallas runway: aviation agency
WASHINGTON: A Southwest Airlines plane was hit by gunfire while taking off from an airport in the US city of Dallas on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“While taxiing for takeoff at Dallas Love Field Airport, Southwest Airlines Flight 2494 was reportedly struck by gunfire near the cockpit,” a statement on the FAA’s website said.
“The Boeing 737-800 returned to the gate, where passengers deplaned.”
The incident happened at around 8:30 p.m. Friday (0230 GMT Saturday), with the flight headed from Dallas, Texas, to Indianapolis, Indiana.
There were no reported injuries, according to a statement from Dallas Love Field Airport on social media platform X.
Investigation reveals a Russian factory’s plan to mix decoys with a new deadly weapon in Ukraine
- Unarmed decoys now make up more than half the drones targeting Ukraine and as much as 75 percent of the new drones coming out of the factory in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone
KYIV: A high-tech factory in central Russia has created a new, deadly force to attack Ukraine: a small number of highly destructive thermobaric drones surrounded by huge swarms of cheap foam decoys.
The plan, which Russia dubbed Operation False Target, is intended to force Ukraine to expend scarce resources to save lives and preserve critical infrastructure, including by using expensive air defense munitions, according to a person familiar with Russia’s production and a Ukrainian electronics expert who hunts them from his specially outfitted van.
Neither radar, sharpshooters nor even electronics experts can tell which drones are deadly in the skies.
Here’s what to know from AP’s investigation:
A deadly mix
Unarmed decoys now make up more than half the drones targeting Ukraine and as much as 75 percent of the new drones coming out of the factory in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, according to the person familiar with Russia’s production, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the industry is highly sensitive, and the Ukrainian electronics expert.
The same factory produces a particularly deadly variant of the Shahed unmanned aircraft armed with thermobaric warheads, the person said.
During the first weekend of November, the Kyiv region spent 20 hours under air alert, and the sound of buzzing drones mingled with the boom of air defenses and rifle shots. In October, Moscow attacked with at least 1,889 drones – 80 percent more than in August, according to an AP analysis tracking the drones for months.
On Saturday, Russia launched 145 drones across Ukraine, just days after the re-election of Donald Trump threw into doubt US support for the country.
Since summer, most drones crash, are shot down or are diverted by electronic jamming, according to an AP analysis of the Ukrainian military briefings. Less than 6 percent hit a discernible target, according to the data analyzed by AP since the end of July. But the sheer numbers mean a handful can slip through every day – and that is enough to be deadly.
The drone lab
Tatarstan’s Alabuga zone, an industrial complex about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow, is a laboratory for Russian drone production. Originally set up in 2006 to attract businesses and investment to Tatarstan, it expanded after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and some sectors switched to military production, adding new buildings and renovating existing sites, according to satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press.
In social media videos, the factory promoted itself as an innovation hub. But David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said Alabuga’s current purpose is purely to produce and sell drones to Russia‘s Ministry of Defense. The videos and other promotional media were taken down after an AP investigation found that many of the African women recruited to fill labor shortages there complained they were duped into taking jobs at the plant.
Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal for the Shaheds in 2022, after President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine, and Moscow began using Iranian imports of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in battle later that year. Soon after the deal was signed, production started in Alabuga.
The most fearsome Shahed adaptation so far designed at the plant is armed with thermobarics, also known as vacuum bombs, the person with knowledge of Russian drone production said.
The plan to develop unarmed decoy drones at Alabuga was developed in late 2022, according to the person with knowledge of Russian drone production. Production of the decoys started earlier this year, said the person, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. Now the plant turns out about 40 of the unarmed drones a day and around 10 armed ones, which are more expensive and take longer to produce.
The vacuum bomb
From a military point of view, thermobarics are ideal for going after targets that are either inside fortified buildings or deep underground. They create a vortex of high pressure and heat that penetrates the thickest walls and, at the same time, sucks out all the oxygen in their path.
Alabuga’s thermobaric drones are particularly destructive when they strike buildings, because they are also loaded with ball bearings to cause maximum damage even beyond the superheated blast.
Serhii Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian electronics expert and more widely known as Flash whose black military van is kitted out with electronic jammers to down drones, said the thermobarics were first used over the summer and estimated they now make up between 3 percent and 5 percent of all drones.
They have a fearsome reputation because of the physical effects even on people caught outside the initial blast site: Collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage, according to Arthur van Coller, an expert in international humanitarian law at South Africa’s University of Fort Hare.
For Russia, the benefits are huge.
An unarmed drone costs considerably less than the estimated $50,000 for an armed Shahed drone and a tiny fraction of the cost of even a relatively inexpensive air defense missile. One decoy with a live-feed camera allows the aircraft to geolocate Ukraine’s air defenses and relay the information to Russia in the final moments of its mechanical life. And the swarms have become a demoralizing fact of life for Ukrainians.
Ten babies die in fire at Indian hospital’s neonatal unit
- The blaze broke out late on Friday at the Maharani Laxmibai Medical College in Jhansi district
LUCKNOW: Ten newborn babies died from burns and suffocation after a fire swept through a neonatal intensive care unit in northern India, a government official said on Saturday.
The blaze broke out late on Friday at the Maharani Laxmibai Medical College in Jhansi district about 285 km (180 miles) southwest of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
Emergency responders rescued 38 newborns from the ward, which housed 49 infants at the time of the incident, said state Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak.
“Seventeen of the injured are receiving treatment in different wings and some private hospitals,” Pathak told reporters in Jhansi. Seven of the deceased infants have been identified, while the authorities are working to identify the remaining three, he said.
One infant remains missing, said a government official who asked not to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to media.
The cause of the fire remains unknown. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences over the “heart-wrenching” incident.
“My deepest condolences to those who lost their innocent children in this,” Modi posted on the X platform. “I pray to God to give them the strength to bear this immense loss.”
Xi, Biden to meet as Trump return looms
- Trump’s comeback has cast a cloud of uncertainty over efforts by Washington and Beijing to ease their tense relationship
Lima: US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will meet for the last time Saturday, a day after both leaders warned of turbulent times ahead for the world as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Their final encounter, taking place on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, has been overshadowed by the prospect of fresh trade wars and diplomatic upheaval when Trump starts his second term.
Trump’s comeback has cast a cloud of uncertainty over efforts by Washington and Beijing to ease their tense relationship, launched in a historic meeting between Xi and Biden in California a year ago.
The White House said Saturday’s Xi-Biden meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit would “mark the progress” in the relationship between the United States and an increasingly assertive Beijing.
But it was also aimed at getting through a “delicate period of transition” and ensuring that competition with China “doesn’t veer into conflict,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Trump’s crushing election win over Kamala Harris has caused shock waves around the globe and dominated the two-day meeting of heads of state of the 21-member APEC group.
The billionaire Republican has in particular signaled a confrontational approach to Beijing, threatening to impose tariffs of up to 60 percent on imports of Chinese goods to even out what he says is a trade imbalance.
He has also named two major China hawks in his top team, including his pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
Xi and Biden, who are meeting for the third time overall, warned separately at the summit on Friday of choppy waters ahead.
The Chinese president raised concerns about “spreading unilateralism and protectionism” in a written speech to the forum, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.
For his part, Biden said the world had “reached a moment of significant political change,” as he met the leaders of Japan and South Korea — key US allies in Asia.
Biden said US ties with the two countries were essential for “countering North Korea’s dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia” as Pyongyang sends troops to fight in Ukraine.
And with Biden racing to salvage what he can of his foreign policy legacy from Trump, he said the three-way alliance he had pioneered was “built to last. That’s my hope and expectation.”
A senior administration official insisted that Trump’s name had not come up during the meeting with the South Korean and Japanese leaders.
The return of Trump’s “America First” policies, however, threatens alliances Biden has built on issues ranging from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to climate change and trade.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly threatened to cut US defense commitments to Asian and European allies if they did not pay a larger share of the financial burden for their protection.
Economists say Trump’s threat of punitive tariffs would harm not only China’s economy but also that of the United States and its trading partners.
It could also threaten geopolitical stability.
China is building up its military capacity while ramping up pressure on self-governed Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory.
Sullivan said Xi and Biden were set to discuss Taiwan and tensions in the South China Sea, where Beijing claims large swathes of maritime territory, he said.
They would also focus on keeping communication channels open, particularly military-to-military hotlines restored last year.
The APEC summit will wrap up on Saturday but Trump’s shadow is still set to cloud the international diplomatic agenda at a G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week.
Biden will also be heading there as part of a swing through Latin America in what is likely to be his last major foreign tour.
He will stop in the Amazonian rainforest on Sunday to highlight the impact of climate change — another key policy area likely to be affected by Trump, who has promised to “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels.
Tens of thousands flee as Super Typhoon Man-yi nears Philippines
- Around 255,000 people have fled their homes ahead of Super Typhoon Man-yi
- It will be the sixth major storm to pummel the archipelago nation in the past month
MANILA: A powerful storm sweeping toward the Philippines intensified into a super typhoon on Saturday, the state weather forecaster said, warning of “significant to severe impacts” from the wind and “life-threatening” storm surges.
Around 255,000 people have fled their homes ahead of Super Typhoon Man-yi, which is expected to make landfall later Saturday or early Sunday, becoming the sixth major storm to pummel the archipelago nation in the past month.
With wind gusts of up to 230 kilometers per hour (about 140 miles per hour), Man-yi was on track to slam into the sparsely populated island province of Catanduanes as a super typhoon or “near peak intensity,” the weather service warned.
Up to 14-meter (46-feet) high seas were expected around Catanduanes, while “significant to severe impacts from typhoon-force winds are possible” in the hardest hit areas, along with a “high risk of life-threatening storm surges” exceeding three meters, the forecaster said.
At least 163 people died in the five storms that pounded the Philippines in recent weeks that also left thousands homeless and wiped out crops and livestock.
The government urged people Saturday to heed warnings to flee to safety.
“If preemptive evacuation is required, let us do so and not wait for the hour of peril before evacuating or seeking help, because if we did that we will be putting in danger not only our lives but also those of our rescuers,” Interior Undersecretary Marlo Iringan said.
In Albay province, Legazpi City grocer Myrna Perea was sheltering with her fruit vendor husband and their three children in a school classroom with nine other families after they were ordered to leave their shanty.
Conditions were hot and cramped — the family spent Friday night sleeping together on a mat under the classroom’s single ceiling fan — but Perea said it was better to be safe.
“I think our house will be wrecked when we get back because it’s made of light materials — just two gusts are required to knock it down,” Perea, 44, said.
“That’s why we evacuated. Even if the house is destroyed, the important thing is we do not lose a family member.”
Scientists have warned climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.
Evacuation centers were filling up on Catanduanes island in the typhoon-prone Bicol region, with the state weather forecaster warning Saturday of “widespread incidents of severe flooding and landslides.”
More than 400 people were squeezed into the provincial government building in the capital Virac, with new arrivals being sent to a gymnasium, provincial disaster officer Roberto Monterola said.
Monterola said he had dispatched soldiers to force about 100 households in two coastal villages near Virac to move inland due to fears storm surges could swamp their homes.
“Regardless of the exact landfall point, heavy rainfall, severe winds, and storm surges may occur in areas outside the predicted landfall zone,” the forecaster said.
In Northern Samar province, disaster officer Rei Josiah Echano lamented that damage caused by typhoons was the root cause of poverty in the region.
“Whenever there’s a typhoon like this, it brings us back to the mediaeval era, we go (back) to square one,” Echano said, as the province prepared for the onslaught of Man-yi.
All vessels — from fishing boats to oil tankers — have been ordered to stay in port or return to shore.
The volcanology agency also warned heavy rain dumped by Man-yi could trigger flows of volcanic sediment, or lahars, from three volcanos, including Taal, south of Manila.
Man-yi will hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season — most cyclones develop between July and October.
Earlier this month, four storms were clustered simultaneously in the Pacific basin, which the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Saturday was the first time such an occurrence had been observed in November since its records began in 1951.
