Section: theSun (Malaysia)
The Russians targeted by new US sanctions over election meddling
MOSCOW: The latest US sanctions against Russians are aimed at punishing those responsible for cyber attacks and attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections. Washington said the issuing of the sanctions was also motivated by other factors, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a nerve...
Sex, money, spying: The Mueller probe has it all
WASHINGTON: Sex. Money laundering. Espionage. The investigation of Washington special prosecutor Robert Mueller is bursting its seams, going far beyond Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. After indicting 19 people so far, Mueller’s team has put on edge many people in President Donald Trump’s orbit, not least Trump...
US hits Russia with sanctions for election meddling
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s administration levied sanctions against Russia’s top spy agencies and more than a dozen individuals Thursday for trying to influence the 2016 US presidential election and two separate cyberattacks. The announcement follows a lengthy delay, which had caused anger on Capitol Hill and raised questions about...
Trump fires top diplomat Tillerson, names CIA chief as successor
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump on Tuesday sacked his top diplomat Rex Tillerson and named current CIA chief Mike Pompeo to succeed him, ending a rocky tenure by the Texas oilman who had frequently been at odds with the mercurial US president. A senior White House official said Trump wanted to reshuffle his team with a view to launching talks with North...
Putin ordered plane to be downed
MOSCOW: Russia’s Vladimir Putin in 2014 ordered a passenger aircraft which was reported to be carrying a bomb and targeting the opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi to be downed, the president said in a film shown on Sunday. In a documentary titled Putin available on Russian social media, Putin told reporter Andrey Kondrashov he...
EU extends sanctions over Ukraine conflict
BRUSSELS: The European Union on Monday extended by a further six months sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian officials over their suspected involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Asset freezes and travel bans now affect 150 individuals, up one from six months earlier, and 38 “entities”, which include businesses,...
Putin says he will ‘never’ give Crimea back to Ukraine
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that under no circumstances would he give Crimea back to Ukraine, speaking in a new documentary released Sunday ahead of his expected re-election in next week’s poll. “What, have you gone mad?” he told a journalist who asked him if there were any circumstances under which the...
Putin: Maybe ‘Jews’ but not Kremlin meddled in US election
WASHINGTON: President Vladimir Putin suggested in a US television interview that Ukrainians, Tatars or “Jews” could have meddled in the 2016 US presidential election – but not the Kremlin. “Why have you decided the Russian authorities, myself included, gave anybody permission to do this?” Putin asked in the often-combative...
Ex-Trump campaign head Manafort pleads not guilty in second case
WASHINGTON: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of bank and tax fraud in special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s sprawling Russia meddling probe. Answering the second set of charges brought against him by Mueller’s team, Manafort asked the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia for a jury...
‘Cyborgs’ war drama replays real-life Ukraine battle
KIEV: A new Ukrainian feature film called “Cyborgs” has become the first to depict the bloody war against Russian-backed separatists, focusing on a battle for a highly symbolic airport. The patriotic drama details the clash for Donetsk airport, a gleaming international hub rebuilt as the eastern industrial city prepared to host the...
