Sunday’s presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump capped an extraordinary weekend that saw top Republicans call on Trump to end his presidential run following the release of a videotape showing Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women. The three-minute video, recorded by NBC’s “Access Hollywood” in 2005, was released Friday by The Washington Post. It opens with audio of Trump and TV host Billy Bush speaking on a bus as Trump prepares to meet Arianne Zucker, star of the soap opera “Days of Our Lives.”
Democracy Now
4: U.S. and U.K. Continue to Actively Participate in Saudi War Crimes, Targeting of Yemeni Civilians
FROM THE START of the hideous Saudi bombing campaign against Yemen 18 months ago, two countries have played active, vital roles in enabling the carnage: the U.S. and U.K. The atrocities committed by the Saudis would have been impossible without their steadfast, aggressive support.
The Obama administration “has offered to sell $115 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia over its eight years in office, more than any previous U.S. administration,” as The Guardian reported this week, and also provides extensive surveillance technology. As The Intercept documented in April, “In his first five years as president, Obama sold $30 billion more in weapons than President Bush did during his entire eight years as commander in chief.”
Most important, according to the Saudi foreign minister, although it is the Saudis who have ultimate authority to choose targets, “British and American military officials are in the command and control center for Saudi airstrikes on Yemen” and “have access to lists of targets.” In sum, while this bombing campaign is invariably described in Western media outlets as “Saudi-led,” the U.S. and U.K. are both central, indispensable participants. As the New York Times editorial page put it in August: “The United States is complicit in this carnage,” while The Guardian editorialized that “Britain bears much responsibility for this suffering.”
The Intercept
3: Republican leader Ryan distances himself from Trump
Paul Ryan, the US House of Representatives speaker, has told Republican legislators he will no longer “defend” or campaign with presidential candidate Donald Trump, focusing instead on maintaining his party’s majority in Congress.
The country’s top elected Republican official made the comments during a conference call with the politicians on Monday, a source familiar with the call told Reuters news agency.
The call was arranged to work out how to handle the fallout from a video that surfaced on Friday showing Trump making indecent comments about women in 2005, including his ability to grab them by the crotch with impunity because, as a celebrity, “you can do anything”.
Aljazeera
2: FBI Hacked Computers in Australia as Part of Global Child Porn Sting
In early 2015, the FBI hacked thousands of computers across the world, based on a single, arguably illegal, warrant.
Now, Motherboard has learned that as part of the same operation, the FBI also hacked computers in Australia, highlighting how law enforcement agencies are increasingly using malware to remotely search computers outside of their jurisdiction.
The case, codenamed Operation Pacifier, revolves around the FBI’s investigation into one of the largest ever dark web child pornography sites, called Playpen. When the FBI seized the site in 2015, instead of shutting it down, the agency briefly ran Playpen from a government server in order to deploy a network investigative technique (NIT)—the agency’s term for a piece of malware—in an attempt to identify its visitors.
The agency’s malware used a Tor Browser exploit, and then grabbed a suspected Playpen user’s IP address, MAC address, and other technical information. As well as obtaining over 1,000 US IP addresses, and distributing much of this information throughout the FBI and to other US-based law enforcement agencies, the FBI also gave details on suspects overseas to foreign agencies.
Vice News
1: Pound continues to fall against dollar amid ‘hard Brexit’ fears
The pound has continued to fall against the US dollar as worries persist over the UK’s economic prospects outside the EU.
Sterling suffered sharp losses last week as ministers at the Conservative party conference signalled they would opt for a “hard Brexit” settlement that sacrifices access to the single market and prioritises stricter immigration controls.
Sterling was under pressure again at the beginning of this week but some calm had returned to markets. The pound fell 0.3% against the US dollar to $1.2395 on Monday. It was flat against the euro at €1.11.
However, the pound’s weakness boosted the UK’s FTSE 100 share index – which features companies that make a significant proportion of their profits in dollars – as it closed at 7,097.5, near its record closing high of 7,104 last year.
The Guardian
