U.K.'s top diplomat in U.S. reportedly blasts Trump in leaked memos - NBC News

LONDON — The U.K.'s top diplomat in the U.S. reportedly views President Donald Trump as "inept," "insecure" and "incompetent," according to leaked diplomatic cables.

Kim Darroch, Britain's ambassador to Washington, D.C., made the highly critical comments about the president and his administration in a series of memos to London, according to the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

NBC News has not seen or verified the existence of the cables.

If true, the leaks provide a rare insight into how a key U.S. ally views the Trump administration behind closed doors.

The memos were reportedly critical of Trump's economic policies, claiming they could wreck the world trade system, described conflicts within the White House as "knife fights" and warned "the worst cannot be ruled out" in regard to allegations of Trump's collusion with Russia.

"We don't really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept," Darroch wrote in one of a series of leaked documents covering the period from 2017 to the present.

NBC News has reached out to the White House and U.K. ambassador's office for comment.

The U.K. foreign office defended Darroch in a statement, saying that ambassadors are allowed to be candid about their views.

"The British public would expect our Ambassadors to provide Ministers with an honest, unvarnished assessment of the politics in their country," the statement said, adding an ambassador's perspective is not representative of the views of the government.

The statement did not deny the veracity of the leak, instead condemning the apparent breach of protocol.

"It’s important that our Ambassadors can offer their advice and for it remain confidential," the statement said.

"Our team in Washington have strong relations with the White House and no doubt that these will withstand such mischievous behaviour.”

Kim Darroch, United Kingdom's ambassador to the United States, speaks during a television interview in New York on May 18, 2018.Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

The reported leaks could nonetheless spark a reaction from a president who hasn’t always taken kindly to criticism.

Trump has previously lambasted London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Twitter, calling him a “stone cold loser” who was doing a “terrible job” in response to Khan’s condemnation of Trump's state visit to the U.K.

Darroch reportedly referenced the incident while warning officials of more such outbursts.

“For a man who has risen to the highest office on the planet, President Trump radiates insecurity,” he said, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Interactions between Washington and Westminster have been tumultuous throughout Trump's tenure, despite the countries’ much-lauded special relationship.

Trump previously criticized outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May's handling of Brexit while praising her likely successor, Boris Johnson.

Johnson is the favorite of two candidates competing for the job in a leadership election of Britain's ruling Conservative Party, after May announced her resignation earlier this year.

The winner will be announced later this month.

"I think Boris would do a very good job. I think he would be excellent," Trump told the British tabloid The Sun on the eve of his state visit.

Trump has previously suggested the ambassador’s role be filled by Brexit leader Nigel Farage. He also met with Farage in London during last month's trip.

Farage responded to the reportedly leaked cables on Sunday, calling for Darroch to resign or be fired.

"Kim Darroch is totally unsuitable for the job and the sooner he is gone the better," he said on Twitter.

Linda Givetash

Linda Givetash is a reporter based in London. She previously worked for The Canadian Press in Vancouver and Nation Media in Uganda. 

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2019-07-07 12:56:00Z
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Hong Kong protesters take to Kowloon, in bid to appeal to mainland Chinese tourists - CNN

Sunday's protest was the first anti-extradition demonstration to take place in Kowloon, an area across the harbor from Hong Kong Island and away from the city's financial district.

The choice of location was an attempt by the protesters to appeal to tourists from mainland China, who often go to Kowloon for shopping trips.

Police put the turnout at 56,000, while organizers said 230,000 attended.

The crowds gathered around West Kowloon station, which connects Hong Kong with mainland China. Many of the slogans were chanted partly in Mandarin during the protest so Chinese mainland tourists could understand.

Protesters fear the proposed new law could be used to seize government critics and send them across the border to face trial in a system with a 99% conviction rate and a history of political prosecutions.

The ongoing protests have already forced the government to suspend the bill. Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam previously said there was no timeline for discussions around the bill to resume and indicated it's unlikely to pass this year.

The protesters are demanding Lam retracts the bill entirely, and also called for her to resign.

A law firm assistant, Penny Lau, was one of those attending the march on Sunday. The 24-year-old said the protests will go on until the government listens to their demands.

"I definitely do think the protests will continue as long as the government keeps ignoring us," she said.

Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, said Sunday that Lam did not receive any instructions or orders from Beijing to implement the controversial extradition law.

"Chief Executive and the Hong Kong government want to make Hong Kong a safer place, and not a safe haven for fugitive criminals," Liu said in a BBC interview.

The ambassador said China was strongly opposed to what it called the "British intervention in Hong Kong's internal affairs."

London summoned the Chinese ambassador over what it said were "unacceptable and inaccurate" comments made by Beijing regarding the UK's role in ongoing Hong Kong protests.

Beijing has hit out at the UK over accusations of "interference" in the city after British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt expressed support for Hong Kong protesters and said London would stand by the city in preserving its limited democratic freedoms.

The UK handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997. Under an agreement from that time, Beijing agreed the city would be governed under the principle of "one country, two systems" with a high degree of autonomy for the next 50 years.

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2019-07-07 13:36:00Z
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How Britain just inched closer to the US on Iran - Washington Examiner

Deploying Royal Marines from its Gibraltar territory at the Mediterranean Sea gateway, Britain on Thursday seized an Iranian oil tanker it says is breaching European Union sanctions against trade with Bashar Assad's Syrian regime.

This is proof of Britain's increasing alignment with America on Iran.

Britain insists it supports EU efforts to stabilize the Iran nuclear agreement. But London knew full well the fury its seizure would spark in Tehran.

Upset that its global circumnavigation (transiting the Suez Canal would have been quicker than traveling around the Cape of Good Hope!) to resupply Syria has been busted, Iran is warning that unless the tanker is released, it will seize a British tanker in retaliation. This threat should not be judged idle. Iranian hardliners are desperate to increase pressure on the EU to get it to weaken crippling U.S. sanctions. And they will regard Britain's action as a pretext to act.

The British are well aware of this, and their action here cannot be disconnected from its broader strategic environment. With a new prime minister entering office in late July and Iran now overtly breaching the nuclear accord, Britain's Iran policy is ripe for reconsideration. The fact that Assad has used Iranian oil to enable his massacre of hundreds of thousands of Syrians only consolidates British action under international law.

But the headline here is that the fragile coalition holding together the Iran nuclear agreement has suffered another blow. Iran is increasingly isolated.

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2019-07-07 12:30:00Z
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Iran to breach uranium enrichment limits set by landmark nuclear deal - CNN

The announcement means the country is no longer complying with the agreement it signed with the United States and five other nations in 2015.

The move comes after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal and re-introduced economic sanctions in 2018.

Iran announced a partial withdrawal from the deal in May. Sunday marked the end of a 60-day ultimatum the country gave to the European signatories of the deal to ease sanctions on its banking and oil sectors.

Formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord was intended to limit Iran's civilian nuclear program and prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.

Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei said Iran would cross the agreed 3.67% threshold on Sunday. He added that future concentration will be based on Iran's needs.

Keeping uranium enrichment to below 3.67% was one of the commitments Iran made in return for the lifting of economic sanctions in 2015. The level is enough for civil use to power parts of the country, but not enough to build a nuclear bomb.

Iran made two other major commitments as part of the deal. It agreed to reduce the number of its centrifuges, the tube-shaped machines that are used to enrich uranium, by two-thirds, and to slash its stockpile of enriched uranium by 98%.

Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif sent a letter to the European Union's foreign representative Federica Mogherini to inform her Iran would no longer adhere to the deal's commitments, according to the country's Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi.

"We will give an additional 60 days of time starting today before taking further steps," he wrote in Sunday's letter.

An EU spokesperson said the bloc was "extremely concerned at Iran's announcement."

"We strongly urge Iran to stop and reverse all activities inconsistent with its commitments under the JCPOA ... we are in contact with the other JCPOA participants regarding the next steps," the spokesperson said.

Israel has already called on European leaders to impose sanctions on Iran. "The enrichment of uranium is made for one reason and one reason only -- it's for the creation of atomic bombs," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a Cabinet meeting Sunday morning.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday its inspectors would verify Iran's announcement.

"We are aware of Iran's announcement related to its uranium enrichment level. IAEA inspectors in Iran will report to our headquarters as soon as they verify the announced development," Fredrik Dahl, the agency's spokesperson, told CNN.

The 2015 deal was signed following two years of intense negotiations by the United States, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom in 2015.

Trump's decision to ditch the deal -- one of the landmark achievements of his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama -- put pressure on the remaining signatories. They could either side with Trump and risk Iran developing a nuclear weapon, or try to save the deal and possibly exposing themselves to potential US sanctions.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Iran on Sunday for breaching the limits, a spokesperson for the Élysée presidential palace told CNN on Sunday.

Macron made a last-ditch attempt to salvage the agreement on Saturday. He discussed the deal with the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a phone call Saturday, according to Iran's official news agency IRNA and the Élysée presidential palace in Paris.

The French statement said Macron agreed with Rouhani to explore options "for a resumption of dialogue between all parties" by July 15.

During the phone call, Macron voiced "his strong concern about the risk of a further weakening of the 2015 nuclear agreement, and the consequences that would necessarily follow."

This story has been updated to correct the position of Seyed Abbas Araghchi.

CNN's Sam Bradpiece, Oren Liebermann, Michael Schwartz, Jennifer Hauser, Sarah El Sirgany, Sara Mazloumsaki and Jennifer Deaton contributed to this article.

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2019-07-07 12:27:00Z
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Greece election: End of the road for Alexis Tsipras's Syriza? - Al Jazeera English

Greeks are heading to the polls to elect a new parliament, in a snap vote that all opinion polls predict will put an end to more than four years of leftist rule.

After a largely lacklustre campaign dominated by disappointment over the pace of the country's economic recovery, polling stations on Sunday opened across Greece at 7am (04:00 GMT). They will close 12 hours later, when initial exit polls will be published.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, 44, called the election three months before the end of his term after his left-wing Syriza suffered a crushing 9.5-percentage point defeat in May's European Parliament elections.

Waiting in the wings to replace Syriza is the centre-right New Democracy party, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the 51-year-old son of a former prime minister and brother of an former foreign minister.

He is seeking an absolute majority in the country's 300-member parliament, a result that will mark a major shift for the crisis-hit country run for nearly a decade by fragile coalitions of ideologically divergent parties united by their stance either in favour or against Greece's bailout deals.

Campaign pledges

Public surveys in the lead-up to Sunday's vote showed New Democracy retaining a firm 8-10 percentage-point lead over Syriza, as well as being able to secure an outright majority.

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The projections, coupled with the fact that the election is being held for the first time in the middle of summer, a time when many Greeks are either on holiday or holding temporary tourism jobs far from their homes, has shifted attention on turnout.

Both Tsipras and Mitsotakis have called on their supporters not to assume Sunday's result is a foregone conclusion and to go out and vote.

Tsipras used the final days of the election campaign on a tour through some of Greece's biggest cities, insisting he can pull off a comeback.

"The upset will come if everyone and each one of us succeeds in persuading another one to come to the ballot box," he told supporters in Heraklion, the largest city on the island of Crete, earlier this week.

For his part, Mitsotakis repeated his call for voters to give him a "strong mandate" that will allow his party to implement its manifesto, which is largely focused on introducing tax cuts, attracting much-needed investments and bolstering security.

"Now is the time for responsibility, rallying together and participation," he said at a campaign rally in Athens on Thursday.

Mitsotakis waves at supporters after voting at a polling station in Athens [Yiorgos Kontarinis/Eurokinissi via Reuters]

Economic complaints

The election on Sunday comes as Greece still struggles to emerge from a nearly decade-long financial crisis that saw its economy shrink by a whopping 25 percent and hundreds of thousands of mostly young people leave the country in the hopes of better opportunities abroad.

Syriza, which before the crisis was on the fringes of the country's political landscape, stormed to power in January 2015, replacing a New Democracy-led government amid widespread discontent over years of harsh fiscal measures imposed by Greece's bailout creditors.

But despite its promises to end austerity, the Syriza-led government seven months later caved in to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund's demands, signing onto a third bailout deal and implementing further tax hikes. Still, it managed to regain power in a snap election in September 2015 and form a coalition government with the nationalist Independent Greeks party.

Greece exited its final bailout last year but is still under financial surveillance from its creditors. Its economy is expected to expand by around two percent in 2019 but financial woes remain, including an unemployment rate of 18 percent, the eurozone's highest.

Along with the chronic financial grievances, mainly from Greece's shrinking middle class, Tsipras's government has also come under fire for mismanaging crises, including the response to a devastating fire near Athens last summer that killed 102 people, and for brokering a widely unpopular deal to resolve a decades-long dispute over the name of neighbouring North Macedonia.

'Jury not out'

Panos Polyzoidis, a political analyst in Athens, told Al Jazeera that a New Democracy win could signify "a return to normality ... [and] possibly the end of the crisis, in political terms.

"That crisis has cost most political forces a lot in influence. New Democracy is one of the parties that survived. It also seems that Syriza is a party that came to the limelight because of the crisis and will probably also survive the post-crisis period."

Looking ahead, Polyzoidis said "the jury is not out yet" on the financial front.

"It's very difficult to see where this is heading," he said. "The bailout programmes have ended, but austerity has not ended," Polyzoidis added. "New Democracy has been promising growth-orientated policies, lowering taxes, lowering social security contributions. It all remains to be seen how feasible these are because the fiscal restrains remain."

According to official figures, 9,903,864 people, including nearly 520,000 first-time voters are registered to cast ballots. Greeks living abroad are not allowed to vote.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/voting-greece-snap-elecion-190707052648921.html

2019-07-07 11:14:00Z
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Israel's Netanyahu calls Iran enrichment move a 'very, very dangerous step' - CNBC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on during a weekly cabinet meeting on November 4, 2012 in Jerusalem, Israel.

Sebastian Scheiner | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday an announced increase of uranium enrichment by Iran was an extremely dangerous move and he again called on Europe to impose punitive sanctions on Tehran.

Netanyahu made the remarks after Iran said it is fully prepared to enrich uranium at any level and with any amount, in further defiance of U.S. efforts to squeeze it with sanctions and force it to renegotiate a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

In a news conference broadcast live, senior Iranian officials said Tehran, which has denied seeking nuclear arms, would keep reducing its commitments every 60 days unless signatories of the pact moved to protect it from U.S. sanctions.

"This is a very, very dangerous step," Netanyahu said in public remarks to his cabinet.

"Iran has violated its solemn promise under the U.N. Security Council not to enrich uranium beyond a certain level," he said.

"I call on my friends, the heads of France, Britain and Germany — you signed this deal and you said that as soon as they take this step, severe sanctions will be imposed — that was the Security Council resolution. Where are you?" Netanyahu said.

If any one of the three European parties to the accord believe Iran has violated the agreement, they can trigger a dispute resolution process that could, within as few as 65 days, end at the U.N. Security Council with a reimposition of U.N. sanctions on Tehran.

The other remaining signatories, Russia and China, are allies of Iran and unlikely to make such a move.

"The enrichment of uranium is made for one reason and one reason only — it's for the creation of atomic bombs," said Netanyahu, a strong opponent of the 2015 agreement.

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2019-07-07 09:25:38Z
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Greece election: End of the road for Alexis Tsipras's Syriza? - Al Jazeera English

Greeks are heading to the polls to elect a new parliament, in a snap vote that all opinion polls predict will put an end to more than four years of leftist rule.

After a largely lacklustre campaign dominated by disappointment over the pace of the country's economic recovery, polling stations on Sunday opened across Greece at 7am (04:00 GMT). They will close 12 hours later, when initial exit polls will be published.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, 44, called the election three months before the end of his term after his left-wing Syriza suffered a crushing 9.5-percentage point defeat in May's European Parliament elections.

Waiting in the wings to replace Syriza is the centre-right New Democracy party, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the 51-year-old son of a former prime minister and brother of an ex-foreign minister.

He is seeking an absolute majority in the country's 300-member parliament, a result that will mark a major shift for the crisis-hit country run for nearly a decade by fragile coalitions of ideologically divergent parties united by their stance either in favour or against Greece's bailout deals.

Campaign pledges

Public surveys in the lead-up to Sunday's vote showed New Democracy retaining a firm 8-10 percentage-point lead over Syriza, as well as being able to secure an outright majority.

190706104411116

The projections, coupled with the fact that the election is being held for the first time in the middle of summer, a time when many Greeks are either on holiday or holding temporary tourism jobs far from their homes, has shifted attention on turnout.

Both Tsipras and Mitsotakis have called on their supporters not to assume Sunday's result is a foregone conclusion and to go out and vote.

Tsipras used the final days of the election campaign on a tour through some of Greece's biggest cities, insisting he can pull off a comeback.

"The upset will come if everyone and each one of us succeeds in persuading another one to come to the ballot box," he told supporters in Heraklion, the largest city on the island of Crete, earlier this week.

For his part, Mitsotakis repeated his call for voters to give him a "strong mandate" that will allow his party to implement its manifesto, which is largely focused on introducing tax cuts, attracting much-needed investments and bolstering security.

"Now is the time for responsibility, rallying together and participation," he said at a campaign rally in Athens on Thursday.

Mitsotakis waves at supporters after voting at a polling station in Athens [Yiorgos Kontarinis/Eurokinissi via Reuters]

Economic complaints

The election on Sunday comes as Greece still struggles to emerge from a nearly decade-long financial crisis that saw its economy shrink by a whopping 25 percent and hundreds of thousands of mostly young people leave the country in the hopes of better opportunities abroad.

Syriza, which before the crisis was on the fringes of the country's political landscape, stormed to power in January 2015, replacing a New Democracy-led government amid widespread discontent over years of harsh fiscal measures imposed by Greece's bailout creditors.

But despite its promises to end austerity, the Syriza-led government seven months later caved in to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s demands, signing onto a third bailout deal and implementing further tax hikes. Still, it managed to regain power in a snap election in September 2015 and form a coalition government with the nationalist Independent Greeks party.

Greece exited its final bailout last year but is still under financial surveillance from its creditors. Its economy is expected to expand by around two percent in 2019 but financial woes remain, including an unemployment rate of 18 percent, the eurozone's highest.

Along with the chronic financial grievances, mainly from Greece's shrinking middle class, Tsipras's government has also come under fire for mismanaging crises, including the response to a devastating fire near Athens last summer that killed 102 people, and for brokering a widely unpopular deal to resolve a decades-long dispute over the name of neighbouring North Macedonia.

'Jury not out'

Panos Polyzoidis, a political analyst in Athens, told Al Jazeera that a New Democracy win could signify "a return to normality ... [and] possibly the end of the crisis, in political terms.

"That crisis has cost most political forces a lot in influence. New Democracy is one of the parties that survived. It also seems that Syriza is a party that came to the limelight because of the crisis and will probably also survive the post-crisis period."

Looking ahead, Polyzoidis said "the jury is not out yet" on the financial front.

"It's very difficult to see where this is heading," he said. "The bailout programmes have ended, but austerity has not ended," Polyzoidis added. "New Democracy has been promising growth-orientated policies, lowering taxes, lowering social security contributions. It all remains to be seen how feasible these are because the fiscal restrains remain."

According to official figures, 9,903,864 people, including nearly 520,000 first-time voters are registered to cast ballots. Greeks living abroad are not allowed to vote.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/voting-greece-snap-elecion-190707052648921.html

2019-07-07 10:53:00Z
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