US President Donald Trump is pressing Democratic leaders to support his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the Mexico border, threatening to have the military build it “if Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our country”.
True to style, the president tweeted the threat hours before Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi were scheduled to meet him at the White House in an effort to avert a possible partial government shutdown on December 21, when funding for some agencies is scheduled to expire.
In a series of tweets, Trump said immigration and border patrol agents and thousands of active-duty service members he sent to the border had done a “fantastic” job, but “a great wall” would be “far easier”.
“If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall. They know how important it is!” Trump tweeted.
TWENTY million people in war-torn Yemen are hungry – 70% of the population and a 15% increase from last year – and for the first time 250,000 are facing “catastrophe”, the UN humanitarian chief has warned.
Mark Lowcock said there has been “a significant, dramatic deterioration” of the humanitarian situation and “it’s alarming”.
He said that for the first time, 250,000 Yemenis are in Phase 5 on the global scale for classifying the severity and magnitude of food insecurity and malnutrition – the severest level, defined as people facing “starvation, death and destitution”.
The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital of Sanaa by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who toppled the government. A Saudi-led coalition allied with Yemen’s internationally recognised government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 people and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
MEANWHILE, some news straight out of a John Le Carre novel ... In Germany an East German secret police identity card for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was a KGB agent in Dresden in the 1980s, has been found in the Stasi archives.
The Bild newspaper printed a photo of the card issued to “Maj Vladimir Putin”, signed and validated with stamps until the end of 1989. Konrad Felber, who heads the Dresden branch of the authority overseeing the Stasi archives, said the ID would have allowed Putin to enter and leave Stasi offices unhindered and would have made recruiting agents easier because Putin would not have had to tell anyone he worked for the KGB.
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