5: The FBI Launches a Criminal Investigation to Find Source of the CIA Leak
The US intelligence community is scrambling to find the source of the massive leak, which lay out the tools the CIA uses to conduct covert monitoring of electronic devices.
The FBI and CIA have launched a criminal investigation after confidential documents were published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday. Federal authorities plan to interview hundreds of agents as part of their search to find the person responsible for providing a huge cache of top secret documents to the whistleblowing site, with initial investigations focusing on the possibility that an insider was responsible for the leaks.
Vice News
One of New York’s best-known immigrant rights advocates joins us on what might be his last day as a free man in the United States. Ravi Ragbir is executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City. This morning, right after our broadcast, Ravi heads for a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He plans to go to the meeting, even though he may not be released. Ravi legally immigrated to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago more than 25 years ago, but a 2001 wire fraud conviction made his green card subject to review. Even though he is married to a U.S. citizen and has a U.S-born daughter, the government refuses to normalize his status. Just last month, Ravi was recognized with the Immigrant Excellence Award by the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators, given to those who show “deep commitment to the enhancement of their community.”
Democracy Now
3: Women and Children in Yemeni Village Recall Horror of Trump’s “Highly Successful” SEAL Raid
ON JANUARY 29, 5-year-old Sinan al Ameri was asleep with his mother, his aunt, and 12 other children in a one-room stone hut typical of poor rural villages in the highlands of Yemen. A little after 1 a.m., the women and children awoke to the sound of a gunfight erupting a few hundred feet away. Roughly 30 members of Navy SEAL Team 6 were storming the eastern hillside of the remote settlement.
According to residents of the village of al Ghayil, in Yemen’s al Bayda province, the first to die in the assault was 13-year-old Nasser al Dhahab. The house of his uncle, Sheikh Abdulraouf al Dhahab, and the building behind it, the home of 65-year-old Abdallah al Ameri and his son Mohammed al Ameri, 38, appeared to be the targets of the U.S. forces, who called in air support as they were pinned down in a nearly hourlong firefight.
The Intercept
2: UN proposes steps to curb sex abuse by peacekeepers
The United Nations has unveiled a new strategy aimed at stamping out sex abuse by its peacekeepers with measures that include withholding the salaries of the soldiers who are under investigation for such crimes and directing them to a victims’ trust fund.
Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, said on Thursday in an annual report that there had been a total of 145 cases of sexual exploitation and abuse involving troops and civilians across all UN peace missions in 2016 – up from 99 in 2015.
The increase is partly explained by the fact that more victims are coming forward, said the report.
Aljazeera
1: Arrival of US troops intensifies struggle for influence in Syria
US forces have rolled into northern Syria to keep the peace between two allies that have fought each other for a week, further complicating Washington’s battle against Islamic State and underscoring a messy regional struggle for influence across what remains of the ravaged north.
Armoured trucks conspicuously flying large US flags arrived on Tuesday in a cluster of villages west of the town of Manbij, where the Euphrates river has demarcated Kurdish-backed forces to the east, whom Washington supports, and Arab-backed forces directed by Turkey, farther west.
The Guardian
