TDB Top 5 International Stories: Saturday 8th July 2017

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5:  Welcome to Hell: Photos of the G20 Protests

Both police and protesters had anticipated some violence in Hamburg, but everyone seemed surprised with how quickly it escalated.

On Thursday, around 12,000 anti-capitalist protesters gathered in the streets of Hamburg, to protest just two miles from where world leaders were meeting for the G20 summit.

Local authorities tried to ban the protest in June, and aimed to keep protesters from setting up camp in the city – even clearing out a formally approved camp for protesters earlier in the week. That, of course, didn’t deter protesters, who gathered yesterday for their dramatically named demonstration: “Welcome to Hell”.

Both police and protesters had anticipated some violence, but as far as I could tell, everyone seemed surprised with how quickly it escalated. I was standing in the middle of the crowd before the start of the demo, when it was still quite peaceful. Banners were fluttering and I saw a few girls dancing to music someone was playing. Then, police announced that the demo wasn’t allowed to start until all protesters had removed anything covering their faces, and I heard people in the block next to me complain that they’d never get very far if that was the case. That’s when everything blew up.

Vice News

4:  Qatar rejects Saudi-led group allegations

Qatar has expressed regret over false claims in statements issued by Saudi Arabia and its allies in Cairo and Jeddah, describing the accusations by the anti-Doha quartet as a defamation.

Qatar’s state news agency quoted a foreign ministry source as saying on Friday that the claims by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt about Qatar’s interference in internal affairs of other countries and financing terrorism are baseless allegations.

Aljazeera

3:  Dystopian Nightmare: Eyewitness Decries Police Repression at G20 Summit as 100,000 Take to Streets

Mass demonstrations have erupted across Hamburg, Germany, as world leaders gather for the G20 summit, where President Donald Trump is meeting with other world leaders. About 100,000 protesters took to the streets and have staged sit-ins in an attempt to disrupt the first day of the summit. Police fired water cannons, pepper spray and stun grenades to disperse protesters. Key issues on the G20 agenda include climate change, trade and North Korea. Protesters who gathered say the G20 has failed to solve many issues, including climate change and global economic disparities. We speak with philosopher Srecko Horvat, who is taking part in the G20 alternative summit, known as the Global Solidarity Summit. He is the co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement, also known as DiEM25.

Democracy Now

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2: Rachel Maddow’s Exclusive “Scoop” About a Fake NSA Document Raises Several Key Questions

MSNBC’S RACHEL MADDOW devoted the first 21 minutes of her Thursday night program to what she promoted as an “exclusive” scoop. The cable news host said that someone had sent her a “carefully forged” top-secret NSA document that used a top-secret document The Intercept reported on and published on June 5 as a template. That document — from the June 5 Intercept report — was from an unknown NSA official, and purported to describe Russian attempts to hack election officials and suppliers.

Maddow said her report should serve as a “heads up” to other news organizations that someone is attempting to destroy the credibility of those who report on Trump’s connections to Russia by purposely giving them false information. She suggested, without stating, that this may have been what caused CNN and other outlets recently to publish reports about Trump and/or Russia that ended up being retracted.

The grave tone of cloak-and-daggers mystery Maddow used to tell her story was predicated on her timeline of events. If it were the case that MSNBC had received the purportedly forged version of this document before The Intercept published its own version, that would indeed be a major story. That would mean that the person who sent the forgery to MSNBC was one of a relatively small group of people who would have had access to this top-secret document.

But that’s not what happened. By Maddow’s own telling, MSNBC received the document two days after The Intercept published it for the entire world to see. That means that literally anyone with internet access could have taken the document from The Intercept’s site, altered it, and sent it to Maddow.

Despite the fact that she received the document two days after The Intercept published it, Maddow nonetheless suggested that the document may have been forged before The Intercept’s publication — meaning that the forger had access to the document prior to our publication of it. Her theory, which posits a remarkable scenario, rests exclusively on one claim: that the “creation date” in the metadata of the document precedes The Intercept’s publication by slightly more than three hours.

The Intercept

1: Trump-Putin meeting dominates G20 as Russia denies interfering in US election

Donald Trump began his highly anticipated first meeting with Vladimir Putinsince his election with a direct warning to stop interfering in American elections, the US secretary of state said on Friday.

Allegations that Russia intervened to tip the election in Trump’s favour have dogged the US president since last year. But when the two men met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Putin denied any involvement, secretary of state Rex Tillerson told reporters.

The Guardian