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The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Donald Trump visit to Scotland expected to be met with wave of protest
Protest organisers anticipate a wave of resistance to Donald Trump from Ayrshire to Aberdeenshire this weekend as Scots take to the streets to express 'widespread anger' at what they termed the US president's increasingly extreme policies. The US president is expected to arrive in Scotland on Friday for a five-day private visit to his luxury golf resorts at Turnberry in Ayrshire and Menie in Aberdeenshire. While it is not a formal trip, Keir Starmer will hold talks in Scotland with Trump on Monday. No press conference is scheduled, but the media are expected to attend the start of the discussions – opening the possibility for another freewheeling question and answer session by the president. There is no expectation the protests will bring disorder or disruption, the assistant chief constable Emma Bond, Police Scotland's gold command for the operation, insisted at a pre-visit briefing on Tuesday. But the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said the scale of the policing operation would stretch resources and could double the time taken for a police officer to attend an incident elsewhere. The Stop Trump Coalition is organising events in Aberdeen in the city centre and outside the US consulate in Edinburgh on Saturday at midday – similar gatherings during Trump's visit to Scotland in 2018 attracted thousands of protesters. Along with the two main city gatherings, protests are expected around Turnberry and Menie, where Trump is expected to open a new 18-hole golf course named in honour of his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, who was born on the Isle of Lewis. Starmer is likely to travel to Scotland on Monday morning or late on Sunday, after attending the women's Euro final in Switzerland, in which England are playing, although if the White House dinner on Sunday night goes ahead, he might have to change his plans. Downing Street has given little information about the trip and Starmer's role in it, saying that normal protocols do not apply because it is officially a private visit. The White House has already said that a pool of 12 US journalists will be present at the talks with Starmer, and the expectation is that the UK media will aim to be represented as well. While most initial greetings between world leaders are brief and uneventful, Trump has a habit of answering a number of questions shouted out to him, often creating news. Before the last time Trump and Starmer met, at the G7 summit in Alberta, the US president answered questions on subjects including the possibility of tariffs on UK steel, Ukraine, and his stated affection for the prime minister. Connor Dylan, the organiser of the anti-Trump protests in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, said: 'The vast majority of people in Scotland were already opposed to everything Trump stood for when he first visited as president. As we've learned more and more about him and the way he governs, that attitude has only hardened. 'His politics – and those of the people around him – have only become more extreme since then, with once fringe ideas like mass deportations now part of mainstream American politics and being effectively exported to the UK and other European countries by far-right allies.' A fellow organiser, Alena Ivanova, said she had heard from people across the country who planned to protest: 'There's a widespread anger and determination to come out from people across Scotland and calling on our elected leaders not to give Trump the acknowledgement and welcome he wants.' While Police Scotland has pledged a 'positive and engaged approach' to lawful protests, Ch Supt Rob Hay, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents said the visit would require a 'significant operation across the country over many days' which would 'undoubtedly stretch all our resources from local policing divisions to specialist and support functions such as contact, command and control'.
Vox
6 days ago
- Politics
- Vox
How the Jeffrey Epstein scandal became the mother of all conspiracy theories
is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He's worked at Vox since the site's launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker's Washington, DC, bureau. A message calling on President Donald Trump to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein is projected onto the US Chamber of Commerce building across from the White House on July 18, 2025. Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images The political world's frenzy over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal has essentially blotted out the sun. That's even though Epstein has been dead for nearly six years, and the scandal around him has no apparent import to American public policy. So why is the obsession over it so intense? The known facts around Epstein are genuinely mysterious and shocking. He became fabulously wealthy through unclear means, he cultivated a social circle full of powerful elites, he's been accused of sex crimes by dozens of women (many of whom were underage), he owned two private islands, and he died in jail in what the FBI has said was a suicide. But in the minds of many, the scandal has become something far more than the known facts — it's become, basically, the mother of all conspiracy theories. Because a curious aspect to the Epstein scandal is that it has something to captivate just about every political subculture. Depending on which parts of the story you zoom in on or studiously ignore, it can be a Me Too story of women being abused by a powerful man, a MAGA tale of liberal elites' sex crimes, or a #Resistance scandal that will reveal the dark truth about Trump. Those inclined to suspect deep state malfeasance fixate on a cover-up or the hypothetical involvement of intelligence agencies. Antisemites focus on Epstein being Jewish. Particularly, the MAGA right demonstrated extraordinary amounts of compartmentalization by becoming obsessed with Epstein while totally ignoring that the leader of their political movement, Trump, had well-documented ties to the man. The Epstein scandal would, they thought, reveal that Democrats were perverted sex criminals — and Trump would help expose the truth. But any hopes of a revelatory new dump of Epstein info from the Trump administration have been extinguished, and Trump has desperately tried to change the subject to other topics. This may well be because Trump's own name is in there. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that, back in May, administration officials told Trump his name appeared in Epstein case documents, alongside many other people's names — and that the files contained lots of unverified hearsay about these people. Trump and his team's contortions — and the unusual tension between the Trump administration and their base — have spurred a new round of investigative reporting about Trump and Epstein's ties. Democrats, too, have glommed on to the scandal as a way to hurt Trump politically. It's gotten so awkward for Republicans that Speaker Mike Johnson cut short the House of Representatives' work schedule this week, specifically to avoid votes on Epstein disclosures. But so far, every attempt by Trump and his allies to move on from Epstein has only spurred more interest in the topic — and more questions about whether they're trying to hide something. Epstein theories escaped containment on the right, getting out of Trump's control Trump, a longtime fan of conspiracy theories about his political enemies, has generally proved quite skilled at guiding and diverting the MAGA base's attention to his preferred targets — mainly, top Democrats and government officials involved in investigating Trump. But there's always been an element of far-right conspiracy theorizing he couldn't quite control — as demonstrated with Pizzagate and especially QAnon, two made-up theories about Democrats being involved in child sex crimes that were fervently believed by many on the right. With QAnon in particular, Trump never outright endorsed the theory's claims, but he recognized the power it held over many in his base, so he and his team pandered to it in coded ways. The obsession with the idea that Democrats were secret child sex abusers transitioned neatly into the Epstein saga. Epstein was accused of sexually abusing underage girls, he had flown former President Bill Clinton around on his private jet in the early 2000s, and he had many connections in elite liberal circles, including from Hollywood and academia. All this has only heightened suspicions that something is in those files that makes Trump look quite bad. Then, Epstein's 2019 death in jail was the clincher: Clearly, the right-wing base believed he was murdered before his trial to prevent him from implicating other powerful people in his sex crimes. Elements of the government were probably involved in this cover-up, they thought. The belief spread that there was an Epstein 'client list' naming people he supplied underage girls to. It would have been a perfect issue for Trump to use to fire up the base, if not for the inconvenient problem that Trump actually knew Epstein quite well. Trump and Epstein frequently socialized in New York and Florida in the 1990s and early 2000s, Trump flew on Epstein's private jet seven times, Epstein attended Trump's second wedding, and Trump reportedly wrote Epstein a message for his 50th birthday saying they had 'certain things in common' and alluding to a 'wonderful secret.' In 2002, Trump even told a reporter that Epstein was a 'terrific guy' who likes women 'on the younger side.' So Trump would've very much preferred his base not get so fixated on Jeffrey Epstein as the key to all conspiracies. But the president couldn't stop it. Over the past few years, the theory escaped 'containment,' promoted by right-wing commentators, podcasters, and influencers who perceived that it was quite effective at boosting ratings and engagement. They all proved extremely adept at averting their eyes from the well-documented Trump-Epstein connections, but in practice they spurred the MAGA base on to demand the release of the 'Epstein Files' once Trump was back in the White House. Furthermore, Trump chose top law enforcement officials — Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — who were extremely sensitive to how they were portrayed in right-wing media. Their ham-handed efforts to please the base on this topic just resulted in further uproars (and finger-pointing among themselves). Finally, Trump himself stepped in to try to give his base their new talking points: that the Epstein story was a 'Hoax' akin to the Russia investigation, cooked up by his political enemies to make him look bad. 'Let's keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,' he posted on Truth Social. All this has only heightened suspicions that something is in those files that makes Trump look quite bad. After some trepidation, Democrats have now embraced the Epstein scandal In the past, Democrats have had a complicated relationship with the Epstein scandal. In the early 2000s, after Clinton left office, he became friends with Epstein, flying on his private jet several times during that period. Given Clinton's own history of sex scandals, this looked awkward, even suspicious, when the allegations about Epstein started to become known in the mid-2000s. Hillary Clinton was viewed as the party's future, so there was little desire to dwell on what happened with Epstein. That changed during the Me Too era. With a societal reckoning against powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, who abused and mistreated women, Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown delved back into the Epstein case. Brown chronicled his victims' stories and questioned whether prosecutors had given him a sweetheart deal during his first brush with the law. One news 'hook' was that a prosecutor who'd arranged that deal, Alexander Acosta, was then serving in Trump's Cabinet. Brown's reporting helped spur Epstein's indictment and arrest in 2019, and the media prepared for what was sure to be a blockbuster trial. But the trial never happened, because Epstein was found dead in his cell just a month after his arrest. After Epstein's death, the MAGA base's interest in him increased, while Democrats' interest in him dwindled. 'Epstein didn't kill himself' became a common phrase on some parts of the right, but the idea of a secret jail murder conspiracy sounded silly to Democrats' increasingly upscale and educated voter base. What Democrats needed to revive their interest was for the Epstein scandal to become a Trump scandal. And that's what Trump's team has inadvertently brought about. Their botched disclosures and awkward attempts to change the subject spurred new investigative reporting about Trump and Epstein. And it's resulted in a frenzy of public interest that Trump hasn't been able to escape.
Irish Times
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine - a lucid, at times hectoring, short read
A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine Author : Chris Hedges ISBN-13 : 978-1911710226 Publisher : Seven Stories Press Guideline Price : £14.99 Journalist and one-time New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges tackles the war in Gaza , taking a wide-angle look, similar to several other recent publications on the matter. Like many journalists who have covered the Israel-Palestine conflict, Hedges wound up with his sympathies firmly with the Palestinians. His reporting these days, which he combines with his role as a Presbyterian minister, is decidedly more partisan than in the days when he worked for the Times, though not, to be fair, lacking in objectivity. The book's subtitle gives the promise of reporting from Palestine , though there are only a few chapters of that, beginning with the first, where Hedges recounts time spent in the West Bank last year. Even then, he relies heavily on long extracts from his friend Atef Abu Seif's Don't Look Left, a diary, published last year, of Abu Seif's experience of living in Gaza during the first 80 days of Israeli attacks. You presume Abu Seif was happy to have large tracts of his text lifted; those who have already read his book might, however, feel a bit short-changed. The rest of the book is analysis of the decades that have got us to this pass. Hedges looks at the deleterious effects of the occupation of the West Bank and the history of Zionism, which, he says, never had any intention other than dispossession of the Palestinians. He also outlines the murky way in which the Israel lobby in the United States targets and smears pro-Palestinian activists through initiatives such as the Canary Mission and the Maccabee Task Force, using targeted Facebook ads. While the ads are often effective in a localised sense, the Israel lobby also acknowledges it is fighting a losing battle for the hearts and minds of Americans on the subject of Israel-Palestine. READ MORE Hedges makes an impassioned argument for the Palestinians and also excoriates the cowardice and indolence of authorities in the United States (he has little to say about Europe) in their blind support for Israel and their countenancing of the harassment and vilification of pro-Palestinian sympathisers. [ Israeli-American plan seems intended to kill off any hope of a two-state solution by deporting population of Gaza Opens in new window ] A Genocide Foretold is a lucid, if at times hectoring, short book, even if, it must be said, it does not have a great deal to separate it from the many on the same subject that have been recently published.
Al Manar
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Manar
Yemeni Armed Forces Target ‘Israel's' Main Airport with Hypersonic Ballistic Missile
The Yemeni Armed Forces announced Sunday that they conducted a military operation targeting Israel's main a statement, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the spokesperson for the YAF, reported that the Rocket Force targeted al-Lydd Airport, also known as Ben Gurion Airport, located near Tel Aviv. Saree stated the attack was carried out using a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile. Statement by the Yemeni Armed Forces: A military operation targeted Lod Airport in the occupied Yafa area with a hypersonic ballistic missile of the 'Palestine-2' type. — سبأ (@alsyasiah) July 6, 2025 According to Saree, the operation successfully achieved its objective, resulting in a halt to air traffic and causing millions of Israeli settlers to seek shelter. The spokesperson added that the operation was in support of the oppressed Palestinian people and their Resistance fighters, and in response to the ongoing genocide committed by 'Israel' in the Gaza Strip. The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that their operations will continue until the Israeli aggression on Gaza is halted and the blockade imposed on the Palestinian enclave is lifted, Saree stressed, underscoring the YAF's full readiness to respond to any developments in the coming days.
Khabar Agency
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Khabar Agency
National Resistance Thwarts Largest Smuggling Operation of Iranian Weapons to Houthi Militia
The National Resistance announced on Thursday that it had thwarted one of the largest smuggling operations of Iranian weapons to the Houthi militia. The high-profile operation was carried out by its naval forces and intelligence units in mid-June in the Red Sea. In a statement, the military media of the National Resistance reported that the operation took place on **June 27**, resulting in the seizure of a smuggling vessel named **"Al-Sharwa."** The ship was carrying a massive shipment of advanced weapons, estimated at **750 tons**, sent by Iran's Revolutionary Guards to their proxy, the Houthi militia in Yemen. The statement added that the confiscated weapons included: - **Air defense and missile systems** (naval and aerial) - **Attack and reconnaissance drones** - **Advanced radar systems** - **Launching systems** - **Eavesdropping devices** - **Konkurs anti-tank missiles** - **B10 cannons** - **Advanced sniper rifles** - **Tracking lenses** - **Large quantities of ammunition** (including Kalashnikov and "Shiki" rounds) and other military equipment. The Resistance emphasized that this smuggling operation exposes **Iran's ongoing scheme to arm the terrorist Houthi militia**, debunking the group's claims of having "domestic military manufacturing capabilities." It also reveals the extent of the threat posed by the Iranian regime to **international navigation in the Red Sea** through its armed proxies. The statement noted that the weapons were **tightly concealed**: strategic systems were disassembled and hidden inside **electric generators and industrial machinery**, while ammunition was stashed within **large battery compartments** to mislead maritime surveillance units. The military media detailed that the operation began with **precise intelligence tracking** of a suspicious vessel departing from the **coast of the Horn of Africa**, operated by smugglers linked to the Houthi militia. Naval forces of the Resistance then intercepted the ship **west of the international maritime route in the Red Sea**, towing it to a secure area where the cargo was unloaded and documented. The National Resistance stated that it would soon release **confessions from the ship's crew** and broadcast footage showing samples of the seized weapons and equipment.
