Trump Donald

Obama has approved a proposal to give JSOC independent authority to operate outside the regional commands, essentially as a globalized assassination force. JSOC units will bypass the regional commanders and report directly to Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in the Pentagon.

The 2016 presidential-election campaign was long and arduous. And so too is the ongoing process of counting the roughly 135 million ballots cast in a relatively high-turnout election where most Americans did not vote for Donald Trump. What we have learned as the count continues is that the sweeping “Trump Triumphs” headlines and pronouncements from two weeks ago created Republican delusions of electoral grandeur that are not supported by the actual results.

In other words, the election was a referendum on Obama’s handling of the economy, in which 60 percent of those surveyed, think was a failure. These results also suggest that, had Obama made any attempt to address wage stagnation, shrinking incomes, student debt, or widespread economic insecurity, Hillary Clinton would probably be president today. As it happens, the victory went to the anti-establishment outsider who promised a fundamental change in direction, Donald Trump.

President-elect Donald Trump met with retired General David Petraeus Monday, as a senior official with the transition said the former CIA director is being considered for secretary of state amid open infighting among Trump’s advisers about who to pick for the post. “Just met with General Petraeus -- was very impressed!” Trump said in a Twitter post after

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name former Goldman Sachs partner and Hollywood financier Steven Mnuchin as his nominee for Treasury secretary, a source said on Tuesday, putting a Wall Street veteran in the top U.S. economic Cabinet post. Mnuchin, who was Trump's presidential campaign finance chairman, could be named as early

Blood-curdling proposals for the persecution of Muslims played a central role in Trump’s election campaign. At one moment, he promised to stop all Muslims from entering the US, though this was later changed to “extreme vetting”. The use of torture by water-boarding was approved and applauded, and Hillary Clinton was pilloried for not speaking of “radical Islamic terrorism”.

Thousands of Cubans bid farewell to Fidel Castro on Monday, filing into a plaza where he often railed against American imperialism. The same morning, the first regularly scheduled flight from the United States in more than 50 years landed in Havana, a potent example of the newly opened doors between the former rivals.

In a special UpFront interview, renowned US academic and public intellectual Noam Chomsky sits down with Mehdi Hasan to discuss the implications of a Donald Trump presidency, on both domestic and global issues.

It can be expected that a lengthy period of mourning will take place in Cuba and that his funeral will see the record attendance of many worldwide leaders, President Obama included. The US leader will probably exploit the occasion to promote the rapprochement with Cuba, likely making positive and upbeat remarks about Castro's life and legacy in order to advance his agenda of winning the islanders' support.

On 26 July 1953 an angry young lawyer, Fidel Castro, led a small band of armed men in an attempt to seize the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, in Oriente province. Most of the guerrillas were killed. Castro was tried and defended himself with a masterly speech replete with classical references and quotations from Balzac and Rousseau, that ended with the