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phgq · 4 years ago

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Roque tests positive for Covid-19; regrets not getting vax

#PHnews: Roque tests positive for Covid-19; regrets not getting vax

MANILA – Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Monday announced that he has tested positive for Covid-19 but will continue to work remotely.

“As of 11:29 this morning, nakuha ko po ang resulta na positibo po ako para sa Covid (my results showed I tested positive for Covid)” he said in a virtual press briefing.

He urged those he has had close contact with to undergo isolation and follow minimum health standards.

Roque said he is currently asymptomatic and admitted that he was “shocked” and “surprised” to find out that he was infected with the virus in his last reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.

“It came as a surprise and as a shock na after about 35 tests, nag-positive tayo. Pero sa akin po (that after about 35 tests, I tested positive. For me it’s) almost routine na ito na (that) on a Sunday afternoon preparatory to the Monday evening meeting with the President nagpapakuha ng RT-PCR test (we undergo RT-PCR testing),” he said.

He assured that he tested negative for Covid-19 last March 10, a day before his last interaction with President Rodrigo Duterte.

Roque was among the officials who accompanied Duterte during the inauguration of development projects at Dumaguete-Sibulan Airport on March 11.

“Sa dalas po ng mga pagpupulong namin kay Presidente (Due to frequent meetings with the President), I have had to undergo at least three PCR tests a week,” he said.

He said he is inclined to undergo facility-based quarantine if his wife Mylah tests negative for the virus.

“I’m inclined to go to an isolation facility kasi ang misis ko po meron din pong comorbidity. Nagpapa-test na po siya ngayon (because my wife also has comorbidity. She’s getting tested now). If she turns out also to be positive, mag-i-isolate na po kaming magkasama. Pero (we’ll isolate together. But) if she’s negative today I intend to go to an isolation facility also because we need to walk the talk na (that) as much as possible sa (we are in) facility quarantine tayo,” he added.

Roque said he will continue to discharge his function while under isolation and attend meetings via video conference.

“Wala po tayong deputy spox so habang wala po tayong nararamdaman (I don’t have a deputy spokesperson so while I don’t have any symptoms), I will proceed to discharge my functions while on isolation,” he said.

Regrets not getting inoculated

He admitted that he regretted not getting inoculated with China’s Sinovac-made CoronaVac vaccine when doctors from the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) offered it to him last March 1.

“Nagsisisi nga ako na hindi ako nagpabakuna nung panahon na ‘yan sa PGH. Kung hindi siguro naubusan at nabakunahan ako sa PGH, siguro hindi na ako nadapuan ngayon (I regret not getting vaccinated at PGH. If I didn’t run out of doses, I probably wouldn’t have gotten infected),” he said.

Earlier, Roque said the interim National Immunization Technical Advisory Group’s (NITAG) discouraged government officials to get inoculated until all frontline healthcare workers receive the vaccine.

“I think it was sad na hindi ako nakapagbakuna (that I didn’t get vaccinated) but we also have to follow protocols na unahin ang mga (to prioritize) medical front-liners,” he said.

He urged frontline healthcare workers to immediately get inoculated with available vaccine.

The government will need 3.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for 1.7 million medical workers in the country. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Roque tests positive for Covid-19; regrets not getting vax." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1133629 (accessed March 15, 2021 at 11:12PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Roque tests positive for Covid-19; regrets not getting vax." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1133629 (archived).

#Philippines #News #Filipino #Pinoy #Tourism #Politics #Culture #Editorial #Environment #Society #History

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/white-house-was-warned-giuliani-was-target-of-russianintelligence-operation-to-feed-misinformation-to-trump-thewashington-post/

White House was warned Giuliani was target of Russian intelligence operation to feed misinformation to Trump - The Washington Post

The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and conversations.

The warnings to the White House, which have not previously been reported, led national security adviser Robert O’Brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia, one of the former officials said.

The message was, “Do what you want to do, but your friend Rudy has been worked by Russian assets in Ukraine,” this person said. Officials wanted “to protect the president from coming out and saying something stupid,” particularly since he was facing impeachment over his own efforts to strong-arm Ukraine’s president into investigating the Bidens.

But O’Brien emerged from the meeting uncertain whether he had gotten through to the president. Trump had “shrugged his shoulders” at O’Brien’s warning, the former official said, and dismissed concern about his lawyer’s activities by saying, “That’s Rudy.”

Giuliani visited the White House on Dec. 13, shortly after the House Judiciary Committee voted to proceed with articles of impeachment, and he met with Trump at the president’s resort in Florida eight days later.

Officials’ warnings about Giuliani underscore the concern in the U.S. intelligence community that Russia not only is seeking to reprise the disinformation campaign it waged in 2016, but also may now be aided, unwittingly or otherwise, by individuals close to the president. Those warnings have gained fresh urgency in recent days. The information that Giuliani sought in Ukraine is similar to what is contained in emails and other correspondence published this week by the New York Post, which the paper said came from the laptop of Hunter Biden and were provided by Giuliani and Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former top political adviser at the White House.

The Washington Post was unable to verify the authenticity of the alleged communications, which concern Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China.

The former officials said Giuliani was not a target of U.S. surveillance while in Ukraine but was dealing with suspected Russian assets who were, leading to the capture of some of his communications.

Giuliani was interested in acquiring information from his foreign contacts about Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden held a board seat, as well as Biden’s activities in Ukraine, China and Romania, two former officials said. Giuliani’s eagerness was so pronounced “that everybody [in the intelligence community who knew about it] was talking about how hard it was going to be to try to get him to stop, to take seriously the idea that he was being used as a conduit for misinformation,” one former official said.

Earlier in 2019, U.S. intelligence also had warned in written materials sent to the White House that Giuliani, in his drive for information about the Bidens, was communicating with Russian assets.

Several senior administration officials “all had a common understanding” that Giuliani was being targeted by the Russians, said the former official who recounted O’Brien’s intervention. That group included Attorney General William P. Barr, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and White Counsel Pat Cipollone.

Spokespersons for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred inquiries to the White House.

“National Security Advisor O’Brien and White House Counsel Cipollone meet with the President frequently on a variety of matters. Ambassador O’Brien does not comment on sensitive intelligence topics, or on the advice he provides President Trump,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said in a written statement. The national security adviser “can say that the President always treats such briefings with the utmost seriousness. The characterization of the meeting as described in this article is not accurate.”

In a text message on Thursday, Giuliani said that he was never informed that Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian lawmaker in Ukraine whom he met on Dec. 5 in Kyiv, was a Russian intelligence asset. Giuliani said he “only had secondary information and I was not considering him a witness.” But Giuliani met again with Derkach in New York two months later, hosting him on his podcast, and he has promoted Derkach’s unsubstantiated claims about the Bidens, describing Derkach as “very helpful.”

In September, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach for allegedly running an “influence campaign” against Joe Biden, calling the Ukrainian “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who has maintained “close connections with Russian intelligence services.”

In August, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence publicly described Derkach as part of a Russian effort to interfere with the 2020 election by smearing Biden. The office of the DNI accused Derkach of “spreading claims about corruption — including through publicizing leaked phone calls — to undermine” Biden and the Democrats.

For some officials, Trump’s willingness to meet with Giuliani despite warnings about Russian influence smacked of the collusion allegations that dogged the president after the 2016 election. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III said he did not find evidence to substantiate a criminal charge of conspiracy against anyone in the Trump campaign. But his investigation documented numerous instances in which Trump associates knowingly sought damaging information from Russian individuals and their proxies about Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

Giuliani was not shy about his pursuit of information that might damage Biden, taking a documentary film crew from the right-wing One America News to Ukraine in December when he met with Derkach. At the time, Giuliani claimed that Trump had directed him to share his findings with the Justice Department and Senate Republicans.

Officials’ fears about what Giuliani might tell the president were compounded by Trump’s generally furious reaction to negative intelligence about Russia and its efforts to influence U.S. politics.

“Whenever you talk to the president, no matter what your facts are, if you mention Russia, that’s it — you’ve hit the third rail,” one of the former officials said. Trump has called Russia’s documented campaign of election interference a “hoax” that was drummed up to challenge the legitimacy of his election and undermine his administration.

Trump has relied for years on Giuliani’s counsel. But in recent months, as the president has found himself behind in the polls, the former New York mayor has become an even closer confidant, aides and officials said. Giuliani has visited the White House for debate preparations, given the president tips on his response to the coronavirus pandemic, promoted the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid-19 and discussed what political events and rallies he thinks the president should hold.

Giuliani also was a major source of information during the impeachment, when Trump tried to rebut allegations of abuse of power by airing false allegations that Biden, while serving as vice president, had pressed for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to spare his son from being investigated.

During his impeachment trial in the Senate, Trump denied sending Giuliani to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, who was then a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. But after his acquittal, Trump reversed himself, acknowledging in a podcast interview with Geraldo Rivera that he had directed Giuliani to go to Ukraine.

“So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor,” Trump said. “But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers.”

Months earlier, Trump also had told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he should meet with Giuliani.

“Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you,” Trump told Zelensky in a phone call on July 25, 2019, according to a partial transcript released by the White House. “I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.”

That phone call was the centerpiece of the impeachment case against the president.

#giuliani #house #intelligence #russian #target #warned #white #Politics

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losbella · 4 years ago

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ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly · 6 years ago

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The Washington Post

Greg Miller

January 13 at 8:30 AM

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.

As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is thought to be in the final stages of an investigation that has focused largely on whether Trump or his associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. The new details about Trump’s continued secrecy underscore the extent to which little is known about his communications with Putin since becoming president.

After this story was published online, Trump said in an interview late Saturday with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that he did not take particular steps to conceal his private meetings with Putin and attacked The Washington Post and its owner Jeffrey P. Bezos.

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 7 had an undisclosed meeting that followed a first conversation during the G-20 summit in Hamburg. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

He said he talked with Putin about Israel, among other subjects. “Anyone could have listened to that meeting. That meeting is open for grabs,” he said, without offering specifics.

When Pirro asked if he is or has ever been working for Russia, Trump responded, “I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked.”

[A beefed-up White House legal team prepares for battle with special counsel]

Former U.S. officials said that Trump’s behavior is at odds with the known practices of previous presidents, who have relied on senior aides to witness meetings and take comprehensive notes then shared with other officials and departments.

Trump’s secrecy surrounding Putin “is not only unusual by historical standards, it is outrageous,” said Strobe Talbott, a former deputy secretary of state now at the Brookings Institution, who participated in more than a dozen meetings between President Bill Clinton and then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. “It handicaps the U.S. government — the experts and advisers and Cabinet officers who are there to serve [the president] — and it certainly gives Putin much more scope to manipulate Trump.”

President Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin before a meeting in Helsinki. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

A White House spokesman disputed that characterization and said that the Trump administration has sought to “improve the relationship with Russia” after the Obama administration “pursued a flawed ‘reset’ policy that sought engagement for the sake of engagement.”

The Trump administration “has imposed significant new sanctions in response to Russian malign activities,” said the spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and noted that Tillerson in 2017 “gave a fulsome readout of the meeting immediately afterward to other U.S. officials in a private setting, as well as a readout to the press.”

Trump allies said the president thinks the presence of subordinates impairs his ability to establish a rapport with Putin and that his desire for secrecy may also be driven by embarrassing leaks that occurred early in his presidency.

The meeting in Hamburg happened several months after The Washington Post and other news organizations revealed details about what Trump had told senior Russian officials during a meeting with Russian officials in the Oval Office. Trump disclosed classified information about a terrorism plot, called former FBI director James B. Comey a “nut job” and said that firing Comey had removed “great pressure” on his relationship with Russia.

The White House launched internal leak hunts after that and other episodes and sharply curtailed the distribution within the National Security Council of memos on the president’s interactions with foreign leaders.

“Over time it got harder and harder, I think, because of a sense from Trump himself that the leaks of the call transcripts were harmful to him,” said a former administration official.

Senior Democratic lawmakers describe the cloak of secrecy surrounding Trump’s meetings with Putin as unprecedented and disturbing.

Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview that his panel will form an investigative subcommittee whose targets will include seeking State Department records of Trump’s encounters with Putin, including a closed-door meeting with the Russian leader in Helsinki last summer.

“It’s been several months since Helsinki and we still don’t know what went on in that meeting,” Engel said. “It’s appalling. It just makes you want to scratch your head.”

The concerns have been compounded by actions and positions Trump has taken as president that are seen as favorable to the Kremlin. He has dismissed Russia’s election interference as a “hoax,” suggested that Russia was entitled to annex Crimea, repeatedly attacked NATO allies, resisted efforts to impose sanctions on Moscow, and begun to pull U.S. forces out of Syria — a move that critics see as effectively ceding ground to Russia.

At the same time, Trump’s decision to fire Comey and other attempts to contain the ongoing Russia investigation led the bureau in May 2017 to launch a counterintelligence investigation into whether he was seeking to help Russia and if so, why, a step first reported by the New York Times.

It is not clear whether Trump has taken notes from interpreters on other occasions, but several officials said they were never able to get a reliable readout of the president’s two-hour meeting in Helsinki. Unlike in Hamburg, Trump allowed no Cabinet officials or any aides to be in the room for that conversation.

Trump also had other private conversations with Putin at meetings of global leaders outside the presence of aides. He spoke at length with Putin at a banquet at the same 2017 global conference in Hamburg, where only Putin’s interpreter was present. Trump also had a brief conversation with Putin at a Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires last month.

Trump generally has allowed aides to listen to his phone conversations with Putin, although Russia has often been first to disclose those calls when they occur and release statements characterizing them in broad terms favorable to the Kremlin.

In an email, Tillerson said that he “was present for the entirety of the two presidents’ official bilateral meeting in Hamburg,” but he declined to discuss the meeting and did not respond to questions about whether Trump had instructed the interpreter to remain silent or had taken the interpreter’s notes.

In a news conference afterward, Tillerson said that the Trump-Putin meeting lasted more than two hours, covered the war in Syria and other subjects, and that Trump had “pressed President Putin on more than one occasion regarding Russian involvement” in election interference. “President Putin denied such involvement, as I think he has in the past,” Tillerson said.

Tillerson refused to say during the news conference whether Trump had rejected Putin’s claim or indicated that he believed the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered.

Tillerson’s account is at odds with the only detail that other administration officials were able to get from the interpreter, officials said. Though the interpreter refused to discuss the meeting, officials said, he conceded that Putin had denied any Russian involvement in the U.S. election and that Trump responded by saying, “I believe you.”

A White House spokesperson, responding to this detail from the Hamburg meeting, said: “The President has affirmed that he supports the conclusions in the 2017 Intel Community Assessment, and the President also issued a new executive order in September 2018 to ensure a whole of government effort to address any foreign attempts to interfere in US elections.”

Senior Trump administration officials said that White House officials including then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster were never able to obtain a comprehensive account of the meeting, even from Tillerson.

“We were frustrated because we didn’t get a readout,” a former senior administration official said. “The State Department and [National Security Council] were never comfortable” with Trump’s interactions with Putin, the official said. “God only knows what they were going to talk about or agree to.”

Because of the absence of any reliable record of Trump’s conversations with Putin, officials at times have had to rely on reports by U.S. intelligence agencies tracking the reaction in the Kremlin.

Previous presidents and senior advisers have often studied such reports to assess whether they had accomplished their objectives in meetings as well as to gain insights for future conversations.

U.S. intelligence agencies have been reluctant to call attention to such reports during Trump’s presidency because they have at times included comments by foreign officials disparaging the president or his advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a former senior administration official said.

“There was more of a reticence in the intelligence community going after those kinds of communications and reporting them,” said a former administration official who worked in the White House. “The feedback tended not to be positive.”

The interpreter at Hamburg revealed the restrictions that Trump had imposed when he was approached by administration officials at the hotel where the U.S. delegation was staying, officials said.

Among the officials who asked for details from the meeting were Fiona Hill, the senior Russia adviser at the NSC, and John Heffern, who was then serving at State as the acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment from the interpreter. Heffern, who retired from State in 2017, declined to comment.

Through a spokesman, Hill declined a request for an interview.

There are conflicting accounts of the purpose of the conversation with the interpreter, with some officials saying that Hill was among those briefed by Tillerson and that she was merely seeking more nuanced information from the interpreter.

Others said the aim was to get a more meaningful readout than the scant information furnished by Tillerson. “I recall Fiona reporting that to me,” one former official said. A second former official present in Hamburg said that Tillerson “didn’t offer a briefing or call the ambassador or anybody together. He didn’t brief senior staff,” although he “gave a readout to the press.”

A similar issue arose in Helsinki, the setting for the first formal U.S.-Russia summit since Trump became president. Hill, national security adviser John Bolton and other U.S. officials took part in a preliminary meeting that included Trump, Putin and other senior Russian officials.

But Trump and Putin then met for two hours in private, accompanied only by their interpreters. Trump’s interpreter, Marina Gross, could be seen emerging from the meeting with pages of notes.

Alarmed by the secrecy of Trump’s meeting with Putin, several lawmakers subsequently sought to compel Gross to testify before Congress about what she witnessed. Others argued that forcing her to do so would violate the impartial role that interpreters play in diplomacy. Gross was not forced to testify. She was identified when members of Congress sought to speak with her. The interpreter in Hamburg has not been identified.

During a joint news conference with Putin afterward, Trump acknowledged discussing Syria policy and other subjects but also lashed out at the media and federal investigators, and he seemed to reject the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies by saying that he was persuaded by Putin’s “powerful” denial of election interference.

Previous presidents have required senior aides to attend meetings with adversaries including the Russian president largely to ensure that there are not misunderstandings and that others in the administration are able to follow up on any agreements or plans. Detailed notes that Talbot took of Clinton’s meetings with Yeltsin are among hundreds of documents declassified and released last year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-concealed-details-of-his-face-to-face-encounters-with-putin-from-senior-officials-in-administration/2019/01/12/65f6686c-1434-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html?utm_term=.57611ee589ab

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questlation · 2 years ago

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Transcript of Press Briefing by the Official Spokesperson

A press release was issued on the India-Sri Lanka Joint Statement. In response to questions, the Spokesperson said the following: Asked if the reports on television channels about the Pakistan High Commission staffer being given 7 days to leave India was correct, the Spokesperson replied in the affirmative and added that the Joint Secretary (IPA), Mr. Arun Singh, had called in the Deputy High…

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munispeaks · 2 years ago

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Transcript of Press Briefing by the Official Spokesperson

In response to questions the Spokesperson said the following; Asked to comment about the situation in West Asia, the Spokesperson said that the escalation of violence in West Asia was a matter of concern to India. She added that India has consistently urged all parties to show restraint and to take steps towards normalization in the region. She also said that acts of violence could not be…

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#Transcript of Press Briefing by the Official Spokesperson

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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Flight Records Show That Matteo Salvini’s Close Aide Made A Lot Of Mysterious Trips To Moscow Around The Time Of That Proposed Secret Oil Deal

Stefano Cavicchi / LaPresse / Alamy Stock Photo

Matteo Salvini and Gianluca Savoini.

Gianluca Savoini, the political operative at the center of the storm over a secret plan to fund the far-right party of Italy’s deputy prime minister with Russian oil money, shuttled back and forth to Moscow on multiple mysterious trips last year that raise fresh questions about his links to Russia and the true purpose of his visits.

A joint investigation by BuzzFeed News, the investigative journalism website Bellingcat, and Russian news site the Insider has established that Savoini, a longtime aide to Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, flew to Moscow on three separate occasions in the seven weeks running up to the crucial meeting at the Metropol Hotel in October at which the proposed covert oil deal was discussed. He made a further three trips to Russia in the weeks immediately following.

Salvini did not attend the Metropol meeting, which took place Oct. 18, but he was in Moscow at the time. He has consistently refused to answer questions about whether he knew the meeting was taking place or was aware of the proposed oil deal. He has repeatedly insisted that he did not know what Savoini was doing in Moscow.

But BuzzFeed News, Bellingcat, and the Insider can now reveal that a member of Salvini’s ministerial staff, Claudio D’Amico, was booked on the same Aeroflot flight as Savoini from Milan to Moscow on Oct. 16 — SU2411 — and on the same return flight — SU2414 — the evening of Oct. 18, following the meeting at the Metropol that morning. D’Amico is Salvini’s strategic adviser on international affairs.

The revelation will ratchet up pressure on Salvini to answer questions about what he knew about the Moscow negotiation.

The data comes from analysis of Savoini’s and D’Amico’s flight booking records, cross-referenced with their social media activity. It reveals that Savoini has made an extraordinary number of trips to Russia over the last five years, with at least 14 visits in 2018 alone and a further three in the first three months of this year. On many occasions, he stayed for no more than a night or two, the records show.

It is not known who paid for the flights, whom Savoini met when he was in Moscow, or whether Salvini knew about the visits.

Savoini has worked with Salvini, the leader of the Lega party and Europe’s most powerful far-right leader, for 20 years and has been described as his “sherpa to Moscow.”

It can also be revealed that Savoini’s dozens of travel entries over the past five years do not appear in Russia’s Central Database for the Registration of Foreigners, known as the “migrant database.”

This database is maintained by the Russian interior ministry on the basis of mandatory landing cards that must be filled in by any noncitizens arriving in the country. In accordance with Russian law, any visiting foreigner must be registered into the central database, along with their travel data, such as visa number, passport data, port, and time of entry and exit.

The absence of such data for Savioni suggests either that he had a special status awarded upon arrival to individuals who, for example, don’t have to go through passport control or that the information was wiped from the database.

Last month, BuzzFeed News published the contents of an explosive recording of the Oct. 18 Metropol meeting in which Savoini and five other men — two other Italians and three Russians — discussed in detail the plan to covertly channel tens of millions of dollars from an oil deal to sustain Lega’s European election campaign. BuzzFeed News has also released the entire transcript of the recording.

After the story was published, Italian prosecutors announced that they had been investigating the proposed oil deal since February. According to reports in Italian media, Savoini, who is Salvini’s former spokesperson, is under investigation for international corruption along with the two other Italian men — an international lawyer called Gianluca Meranda and Francesco Vannucci, a consultant and banking expert — who came forward after the BuzzFeed News report was published, saying that they’d attended the meeting at the Metropol Hotel with Savoini. They all deny wrongdoing and say a deal was never completed.

Savoini did not respond to a request for comment and a detailed set of questions emailed to him by BuzzFeed News.

Savoini’s travel to Russia in 2018–19

BuzzFeed News

Source: Flight booking record, Facebook, Twitter.

Savoini’s travel plans were pieced together in meticulous detail from flight booking records, obtained by Bellingcat via sources with access. The data shows that he was booked on flights between Italy and Russia at least five times in 2015, nine times in 2016, and seven times in 2017.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera revealed last month that on the evening before the Metropol meeting, Oct. 17, Salvini had dinner at a Moscow restaurant called Ruski with D’Amico, three other members of his staff, Savoini, and the chiefs of Confindustria Russia, an industry group that hosted an event the Lega leader spoke at earlier that day. Salvini flew back to Italy on the 18th.

The flight records also show that D’Amico was booked on a flight from Milan to Moscow on Oct. 2, just over two weeks before the Metropol meeting, and from the Russian capital to Grozny, in Chechnya, three days later. There is no social media evidence to corroborate whether he made that trip.

It appears to coincide with one of Savoini’s trips. The flight records show that he flew from Milan to Moscow on Oct. 4, and a Facebook post places him in Grozny on Oct. 5.

It is not known whether D’Amico knew about the Metropol meeting. He did not respond to a request for comment from BuzzFeed News.

D’Amico has been booked to travel to Russia four times since joining Salvini’s team last August; in addition to the October flights, he was also booked to fly in January this year, and again in February.

There is no guarantee that Savoini and D’Amico boarded all the flights they were booked on, but the booking records have been cross-referenced with their abundant social media activity, which confirms they were in Russia, often together, on many of those dates.

There is also the possibility that there may be brief gaps in the data because the two men used different passports.

Stefano Cavicchi / La Presse / Alamy Stock Photo

Savoini, Salvini, and D’Amico (far right) meet with Russian officials in Moscow on Nov. 18, 2016.

Another Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, reported in July that Savoini met in Rome with Aleksandr Dugin, a high-profile Russian far-right ideologue and political analyst, on Sept. 25 last year. The newspaper claimed that Savoini traveled to the Italian capital from Moscow the previous day. His flight records suggest that he was booked on Aeroflot flight SU2404, from Moscow to Rome, on Sept. 24.

He was also photographed in Moscow with Dugin the day before the Metropol meeting, and in the audio recording of the meeting he can be heard telling the other Italians that “Aleksandr” had described him as the “total connection” between the Italian and Russian sides.

Savoini joined Salvini on several of his journeys to Russia, including three trips in quick succession between October 2014 and February 2015, as well as trips in November 2016 and in March 2017 to sign a partnership agreement with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, among others. Salvini, Savoini, and D’Amico traveled together to annexed Crimea in 2014 and 2016.

In 2016, Savoini and D’Amico cofounded a company in Russia called Orion, company registration data shows. D’Amico is also listed as the company’s director, which is seemingly at odds with a filing of external interests with the local council where he works in Italy. In that document, D’Amico stated he has been the firm’s director since 2018.

egrul.nalog.ru, Provided

Orion’s company registration documents show that D’Amico cofounded the firm in 2016 and has been a director since then. His declaration of external interests filed this year states that he has been a director since 2018. In his 2017 filing, Orion isn’t mentioned at all.

D’Amico did not respond to specific questions about the discrepancy between these two dates.

He joined Salvini’s team as a strategic adviser on international affairs in August of last year, a document dated Jan. 30, 2019, shows. The €65,000-a-year appointment was made through a decree of the deputy prime minister.

D’Amico is also listed on the team page of the pro-Kremlin organization Lombardy-Russia, headed by Savoini.

Both Savoini and D’Amico sat in on Salvini’s official meetings with the Russian interior minister, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, last July — even before D’Amico had officially joined Salvini’s staff.

Salvini, who is also Italy’s interior minister, has long denied that Savoini was a member of his official delegation to Moscow on that trip. But these denials were directly contradicted by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte during a parliamentary debate last month after BuzzFeed News revealed the recording of the Metropol meeting. Conte told MPs that Savoini was on Salvini’s official delegation to the Russian capital, yet Salvini’s transparency filing for last July doesn’t disclose any trips, costs, or external participants on his delegation.

Salvini did not respond to a request for comment and a detailed set of questions emailed to his office this week, including whether the government had funded Savoini’s or D’Amico’s participation in his delegation to Moscow last July. BuzzFeed News also asked Salvini again whether he knew about the Metropol meeting. He ignored that question, too.

The Lega leader has so far refused to address Parliament and answer MPs’ and reporters’ questions about what he knows of the Metropol negotiation. He has consistently and vehemently denied ever taking any funding from Russian sources. ●

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Pentagon briefing drought nears 1-year mark amid Iran tension

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/pentagon-briefing-drought-nears-1-year-mark-amid-iran-tension/

Pentagon briefing drought nears 1-year mark amid Iran tension

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford Jr. briefs the media Oct. 23, 2017. Friday will mark a year since a Defense Department spokesperson held an on-camera briefing. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

defense

Celebrities such as Gene Simmons and Gerard Butler have showed up in the briefing room, but Pentagon spokespeople haven’t briefed on camera since May 2018.

The mood in the Pentagon briefing room was tense Friday when officials went on the record for the first time to blame Iran for recent flare-ups in the Middle East.

Two high-ranking Pentagon officials told reporters that U.S. intelligence had linked Iran to attacks on oil tankers near the Persian Gulf and in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The duo, speaking after weeks of anonymous leaks, did not provide any direct evidence or reveal sources who could back up the claim.

Story Continued Below

“That sounds like WMD,” Task & Purpose reporter Jeff Schogol said, referring to the case the George W. Bush administration made for war before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

One of the pair, Vice Admiral Michael Gilday, replied that officials had learned through “intelligence reporting” that Iran was responsible, according to a transcript of the session, which was on the record but not on camera. New York Times reporter Helene Cooper responded, “So, we have to take your word on it?”

The Pentagon press corps has chafed for months at what reporters see as a sharp decline in access to information, including limited access to officials during trips. Celebrities such as Kiss rocker Gene Simmons and actor Gerard Butler have showed up in the briefing room, but Friday will be a year since the Pentagon held an on-camera briefing with any department spokesperson.

Last week’s exchange, which came amid escalating tension with Iran and the deployment of additional troops to the Middle East, showed frustration spiking in the Pentagon press corps. Reporters are growing concerned that the U.S. will end up in a military confrontation without the Trump administration ever having to sufficiently — and publicly — defend its case for it.

“We’re talking about some sort of strike on another country and nobody knows why,” said one Pentagon reporter who was not authorized to speak publicly.

“This is not just about having things on camera,” the reporter added. “But the reason we push on-camera is we want people to publicly stand by their decisions to send other people’s children into harm’s way.”

Defense Department spokesman Tom Crosson said that while spokespeople have not taken questions on camera, other department officials have in recent months. “It depends what your definition of a briefing is,” he said, adding that traditional briefings with spokespeople could return at some point.

More broadly, he defended the department’s engagement with the media, noting last week’s off-camera briefing on Iran, and said a contingent of journalists is traveling with acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan in Asia.

The White House has defended its own scaling back of traditional on-camera news briefings by highlighting how often President Donald Trump takes impromptu questions from the news media. And critics of the briefings say they are generally an opportunity for the administration to push talking points.

Those justifications haven’t quelled frustrations among White House reporters over the rarity of on-camera briefings — it’s been 79 days since the last one — especially since Trump’s comments on Iran sometimes seem at odds with what others in his administration are saying.

Reporters who have pushed for more briefings are still pursuing other avenues of reporting, particularly at the Pentagon, where they have more freedom to roam the building and knock on doors than journalists at the White House do.

But they say regular briefings on camera force the administration to put names and faces to its policies. There’s a record of Bush administration officials touting flimsy Iraq intelligence in briefing rooms, on TV news shows and, infamously, at the United Nations.

The sessions also allow for a series of questions and clarifications that might have helped “avoid the confusion we’ve had in the past two weeks about the Iran news,” Defense One Executive Editor Kevin Baron said.

“No reporter is sitting in the briefing room waiting for a camera to turn on,” he said. “But details about Iran troop movements are not supposed to come from leaks and background whispers.”

Pentagon reporters have made their displeasure known on Twitter.

“Gene Simmons delivers briefing at Pentagon podium that has not seen a spokesperson in almost a year,” veteran CNN correspondent Barbara Starr tweeted on May 17.

Days later, her CNN colleague Jim Sciutto tweeted, in response to news that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had canceled a trip, that “in a normal world, there would be an on-camera pentagon briefing in which reporters could ask our military leaders why and the American public would get answers.”

The briefing room is getting some unconventional use these days, reporters say, for happy hours and farewell parties for colleagues. A second Pentagon reporter told POLITICO: “It’s become kind of like a glorified events room as opposed to a briefing room.”

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phgq · 4 years ago

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Nat'l athletes allowed to resume training for Tokyo Olympics

#PHnews: Nat'l athletes allowed to resume training for Tokyo Olympics

MANILA – National athletes are now allowed to resume training for the Tokyo Olympics in a “bubble-type” setting amid the prevailing coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, Malacañang announced Tuesday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has approved the recommendation of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) to allow national athletes to resume training under IATF Resolution No. 88.

“The request of the Philippine Olympic Committee to resume the training of national athletes vying for the Tokyo Olympics in a ‘bubble-type’ setting is approved,” he said in a Palace press briefing.

The “bubble-type” setting is patterned after the National Basketball Association (NBA) model, wherein all players from every team including staff, officials, and other people involved will have no physical contact with other people outside of it, including their families.

Earlier, the PSC released safety rules and protocols to be followed inside the bubble.

Among others, testing as an adjunct to preventive measure, should be implemented at all times in a sporting environment.

For close contacts of positive cases, quarantine and monitor daily temperature and symptom, and consider test out of quarantine every day.

Prior to the athletic gathering, two swab tests six days before the event should be performed.

Asymptomatic athletes should consider an immediate retest and immediate repeat testing of the initial sample.

If the athlete has symptoms, the test should be positive. If symptoms are present and the test is negative, repeat the test within 24 to 48 hours. If negative, consider alternative diagnosis.

Unusual test results should be discussed with the expert group. The test should be repeated as soon as possible within 24 to 48 hours.

For post Covid-19 infection, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test should be maintained as positive for months, repeat testing is not recommended within 90 days after infection. Antibody testing should be considered two to three weeks after the initial infection.

Should there be a positive case in the sporting bubble, the case should be isolated as well as the close contacts. The cases should also be discussed with local public health officials. They should also consider RT-PCR testing for asymptomatic contacts. All close contacts should be considered to be tested.

Gymnast Carlos Yulo, pole vaulter Ernest John “EJ” Obiena, and boxers Eumir Marcial and Irish Magno have already earned slots to play in the Tokyo Olympics.

The Japanese government has earlier committed to hold the Tokyo Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games next year. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Nat'l athletes allowed to resume training for Tokyo Olympics." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1124787 (accessed December 15, 2020 at 10:58PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Nat'l athletes allowed to resume training for Tokyo Olympics." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1124787 (archived).

#Philippines #News #Filipino #Pinoy #Tourism #Politics #Culture #Editorial #Environment #Society #History

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years ago

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/breaking-james-comey-testimony-major-takeaways/

Breaking down James Comey testimony, major takeaways

Former FBI Director James Comey spent three hours on Thursday answering questions, while also consistently defending himself against the recent onslaught of President Donald Trump's attacks on his character. The main takeaways from his testimony were expected as he had released his written testimony on Wednesday. He just filled in plenty of blanks on Thursday. You can read the full transcript of Thursday's hearing here. It's a long one, but you can see a pattern with several Republican Senators along with the Democrats. Someone at the White House must have wrestled Trump's phone from him as he remained Twitter silent for all of Thursday.

"Lies, plain and simple."

Comey testified that President Donald Trump lied when announcing the firing of the then-FBI director due to low morale. Comey testified his firing was due to his refusal to drop the Russia investigation and for not pledging his loyalty to the president. “Those were lies, plain and simple,” Comey testified. “The president and I had had multiple conversations about my job, both before and after he took office, and he had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job, and he hoped I would stay.” The White House adamantly denied both of Comey’s accusations ever taking place.

Unprecedented meetings… and detail.

Comey said as FBI director, he felt the need to chronicle his private meetings with Trump in unprecedented detail. While meeting with President Barack Obama twice in three years and with President George W. Bush once, the FBI director met with Trump a total of nine times, Comey testified. A meeting on Jan. 6 at Trump Tower to brief the president on the Russia investigation led to Comey feeling “compelled” to document their conversations, since the investigation was related to his campaign. “First, I was alone with the president of the United States, or the president-elect, soon to be president, and then the nature of the person," Comey said. "I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it important to document. That combination of things I had never experienced before, but had led me to believe I got to write it down and write it down in a very detailed way.”

Comey leaked his own story to the press

Arguably the most damning moment was when Comey said he leaked contents of a memo about his conversation with Trump to the New York Times through a friend, later identified as Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman. Comey wanted to get his account out, encouraging the appointment of a special prosecutor, now former FBI director Robert Mueller. “My judgment was, I need to get that out into the public square,” Comey testified. “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel." The president’s lawyer is accusing Comey of "unauthorized disclosures” and will "leave it the appropriate authorities" to determine whether the leak should be investigated.

Grilling across party lines

Both Republicans and Democrats intensely questioned Comey about his private interactions with Trump. Comey testified the president asked him to drop the FBI investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who resigned over engagements with Russia. A gross conflict given the FBI is obligated to remain independent of the White House. “Why didn't you stop and say, ‘Mr. President this is wrong’?” asked Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-California. “It's a great question. Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took in,” Comey testified. “Maybe if I did it again, I'd do it better.” https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes”

It’s still unknown if there are recordings of Comey’s private meetings in the Oval Office. Trump eluded to the possibility in a tweet last month. During Thursday’s testimony, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” A White House spokesperson said she had "no idea" if the president is taping his Oval Office conversations, but sarcastically said they will "try to look under the couch." The White House's statements were "lies, plain and simple." Comey took notes on their conversations because he worried the president "might lie" later. After a while, he said, he so distrusted the man running the country that he did not want to be left alone with him. It was a riveting, televised portrait of President Donald Trump, one unrivaled in recent memory for its potential to undermine the presidency. Comey's message, delivered in meticulous detail, amounted to a challenge to lawmakers, the public and the special counsel now investigating possible links between Trump's campaign and Russia: Whose account do you believe - the nation's former top law enforcement official testifying under oath or a president with a record of skirting the truth on issues big and small? The answer to that question ultimately may not impact the outcome of the FBI and congressional Russia probes, and it may not move Republican lawmakers any closer to a dramatic break from their party leader. But it could leave the president in a perilously weak political position not yet five months into his term. "A president cannot communicate effectively if their trust tank is full of holes and credibility has leaked out all over the political landscape," said Matthew Dowd, who served as chief strategist for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign. A Gallup poll conducted in April found that just 36 percent of Americans found Trump "honest and trustworthy" - down from 42 percent in February. The White House and the president's personal lawyer vigorously vouched for Trump's integrity, saying he did not try to get the FBI to end the Michael Flynn investigation and also did not seek a loyalty pledge from Comey. Both were quick to note that Comey validated one Trump claim: that Comey had told him three times that he was not personally the target of the investigation. "I can definitively say the president is not a liar, and I think it's frankly insulting that question would be asked," spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. Comey himself is a controversial figure. He outraged Democrats last year with his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices, including the decision to publicly disclose the potential of new information 10 days before the election. During his final appearance on Capitol Hill as FBI director, he vastly overstated the number of emails that were uncovered late in the campaign, prompting the bureau to correct his testimony. Still, it was telling that few Republicans who don't work for Trump stepped in to defend the president's version of his contacts with the former FBI director. The toughest questioning of Comey by GOP lawmakers on the Senate intelligence committee focused more on whether the interactions he described amounted to legal trouble for Trump than on whether he was telling the truth about the nine meetings and phone calls he had with the president. Instead, some supportive GOP lawmakers simply argued that Trump's action were a result of well-meaning inexperience or dedication to his aides. "I'm frankly proud of him for standing up for someone who was as loyal as Mike Flynn was throughout the campaign," Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., said of Comey's dramatic depiction of an Oval Office meeting in which Trump allegedly said he hoped the FBI would let the Flynn investigation go. Collins spoke after the prepared text of Comey's opening statement was released Wednesday. House Speaker Paul Ryan also did not dispute Comey's assertions. He vouched for the importance of the FBI's independence and excused Trump's blurring of that line as missteps by a man who isn't "steeped in the long-running protocols" that govern the relationship between the White House and the law enforcement agency. "The president's new at this. He's new at government," Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill as Comey's dramatic testimony unfolded. "He's learning as he goes." Yet, Trump's own track record - as president, a candidate and private citizen - make the questions about the veracity of his own words impossible for the White House to avoid. He memorialized his approach to accuracy in his 1987 book "The Art of the Deal," writing: "People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole." Trump's shift from real estate mogul and reality TV star to political powerhouse was driven in part by his campaign to spread the lie that President Barack Obama was born outside the United States. He spent his first full day occupying the world's most powerful office inflating the size of the inaugural crowd and demanding that his advisers do the same. Last month, he created a voter fraud commission to investigate "millions of people who voted illegally," despite there being no proof of such fraudulent voting. The president's abrupt firing of Comey on May 9 - and the White House's bungled handling of the controversial move - has intensified questions about Trump's credibility. At first, the White House cited a harsh memo about Comey's performance from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as the justification, though Trump later said he would have fired Comey regardless of what the Justice Department recommended. When Comey allies began fighting back with negative stories about Trump in the press, the president issued a startling warning on Twitter: "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" The White House has avoided all questions about whether such tapes exist. But Comey confidently asserted that if there are recordings, they will back up his testimony. "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey said.

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#Donald Trump #James Comey #Russia

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