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© Carlo Allegri / Reuters
"@CNN is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don't know what to do," Trump tweeted, along with tweets from a number of others panning his critics.
Instead of providing his critics with facts to expose any inaccuracies in their statement, he fired tweets at the network from a number of unverified accounts.
© Tabyidy Kadyebekov/SputnikVoting at the elections to the Russian State Duma of the 7th convocation at polling station.
Yabloko, one of Russia's oldest liberal parties, had filed a lawsuit with the court to recognize as invalid the State Duma elections that took place in mid-September, calling for the results to be declared null and void.
It alleged that the polls could not be considered free and democratic because candidates' access to the media and other means of promotion was not equal, and because of violations registered during the actual voting.
In particular, Yabloko accused Russia's Central Elections Commission of failing to demonstrate an adequate response to fake newspaper reports, with defamation and other damaging lies allegedly distributed by the party's political opponents. It also claimed that the authorities across the country had unlawfully obstructed Yabloko's own campaign and recalled cases of alleged ballot-box stuffing that were circulated on the internet after the polls.
On November 24, the Supreme Court announced that it had completed the investigation into Yabloko's claims and decided that though some of the violations outlined had taken place, they were minor and could neither affect citizens' freedom to vote nor the results of the elections.
© Gleb Garanich / ReutersUkrainian Army T-64 tanks near Artemovsk, Lugansk region. The region rejected the armed coup in Kiev and is partially controlled by rebels at the moment.
Yanukovich, who currently lives in exile in Russia, spoke to RT after a Ukrainian court questioned him via telelink about his part in the Maidan protests, where over 100 people, both protesters and police officers, were killed. The legal proceedings come three years after a mass protest in Ukraine triggered monumental changes in global politics.
In the interview, the ousted leader accused the new authorities of unleashing the national army on the rebellious regions in eastern Ukraine, which has resulted in a civil war that has claimed over 10,000 lives so far.
© Royal NavyHMS Ocean underway.
HMS Ocean, which has a 500-strong crew, including 30 Royal Marine Commandos, is currently in the Gulf to secure the vital trade route through the Strait of Hormuz.
Commodore Andrew Burns is head of the fleet. The group consists of eight ships from France, Britain and the US.
Speaking to the Times on Tuesday, Burns said threats to his command included "an irregular organization, a terrorist organization, who would be operating explosive boats, perhaps explosive UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], and small arms, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] from speedboats, fast boats, operating around my ships."
Threats are also thought to include IS drones and Iranian-operated drone boats packed with explosives.
© Jim Young / Reuters
The Syrian army liberated almost half of Eastern Aleppo from militants, according to the Russian defense ministry. Thousands of civilians can now flee to the safety of government-held areas of the city.
US President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump, who will assume office in January, have different approaches to solving the crisis in Syria and the Middle East in general. Trump's remarks suggest the US doesn't "know who the rebels are," while highlighting the importance of cooperation with Russia to bring about some sense of normalcy in Syria. Meanwhile, some Syrian groups that define themselves as 'moderate' hope that Trump will be able to separate so-called 'rebels' from terrorists.
In a major breakthrough in the government's push to retake the whole city, regime forces captured six rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo over the weekend, including Masaken Hanano, the biggest of those. On Sunday, the 13th day of the operation, they also took control of the adjacent neighborhoods of Jabal Badra and Baadeeen and captured three others.
As is customary, when it comes to describing events in Syria, one has two biased narratives to choose from: one from the perspective of the Western forces, for whom the protagonist are the Syrian rebels, and Assad is the enemy, and then there is the Syrian/Russian point of view, in which the rebels are aligned with the Islamic State (and are supported by the US) and the liberation of the country entails removing both at the same time.
Covering the former "angle" first, Reuters writes that two rebel officials said the insurgents, facing fierce bombardment and ground attacks, had withdrawn from the northern part of eastern Aleppo to a more defensible front line along a big highway after losses that threatened to split their enclave. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - a UK funded "think tank" operated by just one man, who in 2013 was responsible for the Assad "chemical attack" fabricated YouTube clip - said the northern portion of eastern Aleppo lost by the rebels amounted to more than a third of the territory they had held, calling it the biggest defeat for the opposition in Aleppo since 2012.
Comment: Considering the following, the Russian version of events sounds more plausible. Beware of fake news.
And then there's this. Where's all the humanitarian aid from the U.S.?
Putin orders mobile hospitals sent to residents of Aleppo
© Damir Sagolj/ReutersRussia's President Vladimir Putin interacts with Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan
"Such a meeting is being prepared," he told TASS. "There is understanding that it may take place very soon."
However he answered in the negative when asked whether the two leaders may meet before the year ends.
"The volume of our bilateral relations is impressive and we have a lot to restore," he said. "There are expansion plans in many areas. Now, the intergovernmental commission is working on to uplift these plans to the interstate level, to the level of the two countries' presidents.".
Comment: They should have plenty to talk about, especially since Turkey has decided to violate Syria's sovereignty by sending troops in to Syria in order to "end the rule" of Assad." Putin will most likely not be pleased with Turkey's actions against a key ally of Russia in the Middle East.
© Aly Song/Reuters
The legislation, dubbed the 'snooper's charter,' authorizes the government to hack into devices, networks and services in bulk, and allows for large databases of personal information on UK citizens to be maintained.
It requires internet, phone and communication app companies to store customers' records for 12 months and allow authorities to access them on demand.
That data could be anything from internet search history, calls made or messages sent, and will be available to a wide range of agencies, including the Department for Work and Pensions as well as the Food Standards Agency.
Security agencies will also be able to force companies to decrypt data, effectively placing limits on the use of end-to-end encryption.
© Layne Bailey/Charlotte ObserverJohn Allison, the former CEO of BB&T Bank
On Monday, Trump will meet with John Allison, the former CEO of the bank BB&T and of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.
There have been reports that Allison is being considered for Treasury secretary.
Trump's has on the campaign trail questioned the future of the Federal Reserve's political independence, but Allison takes that rhetoric a step further. While running the the Cato Institute, Allison wrote a paper in support of abolishing the Fed.
"I would get rid of the Federal Reserve because the volatility in the economy is primarily caused by the Fed," Allison wrote in 2014 for the Cato Journal, a publication of the institute.
Allison said that simply allowing the market to regulate itself would be preferable to the Fed harming the stability of the financial system.
"When the Fed is radically changing the money supply, distorting interest rates, and over-regulating the financial sector, it makes rational economic calculation difficult," Allison wrote. "Markets do form bubbles, but the Fed makes them worse."
Comment: It will be a gargantuan uphill battle should Trump adopt these ideas. The Fed and fiat currency are the foundation of the elite's ability to economically bleed the populace dry. They will fight tooth-and-nail to keep the current system in place.
Comment: This story sounds familiar...