New UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is under pressure from lawmakers to reverse British policy and support an independent investigation into alleged Saudi breaches of international law in Yemen.

In a letter to Johnson, Stephen Twigg, the chairman of the International Development Committee, called for an investigation after the Foreign Office made a series of corrections to previous oral and written statements made by ministers in regards to the Saudi military offensive.

While previous statements ensured MPs that Saudi Arabia, a key British ally, had not breached international humanitarian law (IHL) in Yemen, the corrections seemed to backtrack on earlier statements, with the revisions saying the UK government was unable to assess whether such breaches had occurred.

Britain licensed billions in arms sales to its theocratic ally Saudi Arabia in the first year of the war in Yemen despite concerns over civilian deaths, according to Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

Drawing on newly released figures from the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) department, CAAT argues that despite repeated warnings between April 2015 and March 2016, the government has done nothing to stop the trade.

The organization calculates that exports to the Saudi regime include £2.2 billion ($2.9 billion) of 'ML10' licences for military aircraft, £1.1 billion of 'ML4' licenses for munitions such as missiles and bombs and a further £430,000 of 'ML6' licenses for armored vehicles including tanks.

Turkey's Special Forces launched a massive manhunt for 11 missing commandos believed to have been involved in a failed attempt to capture President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the coastal town of Marmaris.

In the aftermath of the failed coup, Ankara has launched an unprecedented crackdown on those suspected of being involved. Over 13,000 people have been arrested, and tens of thousands more suspended from various government jobs.

On Tuesday, a group of 1,000 Turkish security service members attempted to track down 11 soldiers who were allegedly plotting to capture or kill President Erdogan on the night of the coup. Personnel searching on foot were backed by drones, helicopters, and even navy vessels.

A 27-year-old man who worked for the Democratic National Committee was shot and killed as he walked home early Sunday in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C., police and his family said. Seth Conrad Rich died after he was shot multiple times on the 2100 block of Flagler Place NW, three blocks east of Howard University Hospital, police said.

"Worst nightmare," Rich's mother, Mary Rich, said by phone. Mary Rich said police told her family her son may have been the victim of an attempted robbery. He was talking on the phone with his girlfriend when she heard noise on Rich's end of the line, Mary Rich said. Her son told his girlfriend not to worry about it.

"There had been a struggle. His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything," she said. "They took his life for literally no reason. They didn't finish robbing him, they just took his life," Mary Rich continued. "They hurt the community, and they hurt the long-term possibility of what he could have done."

Rich lived in the neighborhood, Acting Capt. Anthony Haythe of the Metropolitan Police Department's homicide branch said at a news conference Monday morning. Fifth District police officers were patrolling the area about 4:20 a.m. when they heard gunshots, police said. Neighbor Mike Mueller said he also heard the shots. "I heard two sharp gunshots, very quickly. I looked at the clock and it was 4:19," he said. When police arrived on Flagler Place, they found Rich suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The Omaha, Nebraska, native was taken to a hospital, where he died. Police have no witnesses and are searching the area for surveillance video footage, Haythe said. The acting captain said he could not comment on whether the killing was related to recent robberies in the area.

Rich worked for the Democratic National Committee, his father said. He graduated from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and previously worked on Democrats' campaigns, for the U.S. Census Bureau and as a boating instructor at a summer camp, according to his LinkedIn page. "I have an enormous interest in public service and working towards making the world a better place," Rich wrote on the page.

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz issued a statement on Monday mourning the death of Rich, who worked as voter expansion data director.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen referred congressional charges of corrupt Clinton Foundation "pay-to-play" activities to his tax agency's exempt operations office for investigation, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

The request to investigate the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation on charges of "public corruption" was made in a July 15 letter by 64 House Republicans to the IRS, FBI and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They charged the foundation is "lawless."

The initiative is being led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who serves as the vice chairwoman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees FTC. The FTC regulates public charities alongside the IRS.

The lawmakers charged the Clinton Foundation is a "lawless 'pay-to-play' enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years and should be investigated."

"Te Urewera is a legal entity, and has all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person." [Source]

The conflict between man and nature can easily be seen in how we treat the natural world, and the norm for centuries has been to exact total dominion over the plant and animal kingdoms. The world's legal systems have long since backed this presumption by granting rights to persons and corporations while asserting that nature has no voice in courtrooms.

This global attitude is ever so slowly beginning to crack, and in recent years India has set an example by granting legal status and full rights to dolphins, signaling an unprecedented sea change in our relationship to the creatures which have inhabited our home since long before civilization.

In another notable act of equality, the small island country of New Zealand has enacted similar legislation, this time granting full rights and powers to a former national park.

"From 1954 to 2014, Te Urewera was an 821-square-mile national park on the North Island, but when the Te Urewera Act took effect, the government gave up formal ownership, and the land became a legal entity with "all the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of a legal person," as the statute puts it." [Source]

As my colleague Glenn Greenwald told WNYC on Monday, while there may never be conclusive evidence that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by Russian intelligence operatives to extract the trove of embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks, it would hardly be shocking if that was what happened.

"Governments do spy on each other and do try to influence events in other countries," Glenn noted. "Certainly the U.S. government has a very long and successful history of doing exactly that."

Even so, he added, given the ease with which we were misled into war in Iraq by false claims about weapons of mass destruction — and the long history of Russophobia in American politics — it is vital to cast a skeptical eye over whatever evidence is presented to support the claim, made by Hillary Clinton's aide Robby Mook, that this is all part of a Russian plot to sabotage the Democrats and help Donald Trump win the election.

The theory gained some traction, particularly among Trump's detractors, in part because the candidate has seemed obsessed at times with reminding crowds that Russian President Vladimir Putin once said something sort of nice about him (though not, as Trump falsely claims, that the American is "a genius"). Then last week, Trump's campaign staff watered down a pledge to help Ukraine defend its territory from Russian-backed rebels and the candidate told the New York Times he would not necessarily honor the NATO treaty commitment that requires the United States military to defend other member states from a direct attack by Russia.

Madeleine Albright, the US' first female secretary of state, accused Russia's president of hacking DNC emails to aid Donald Trump, while praising Hilary Clinton for having "Truman's fighting spirit," which she claims is needed if the US is to be kept safe.

Albright, who made the US home at the age of 11, has spoken out in support of Clinton, urging fellow Democrats to support Hillary as "our next Commander-in-Chief."

Having known the Clintons for over 25 years, Albright is sure that her former boss's wife has "the experience and judgment to keep America strong, secure, and safe."

Ukraine's Finance Minister Oleksandr Danilyuk says he sees no reason why the country should repay the $3 billion debt to Russia.

"It was a political credit which we were forced to take... Our position is that we shouldn't return the money," he told Ukrainian channel Espreso.TV

The minister confirmed the hearings at the High Court in London over the lawsuit brought by Russia concerning Kiev's unpaid debt could take up to two years.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in May approved a bill extending the moratorium on paying off the country's external debt, including the $3 billion Eurobond owed to Russia. The law allows Kiev more time to legally find ways to restructure its external debt.

Ukraine's refusal to pay off its financial obligations to Russia carries appropriate consequences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.

Ukraine's refusal to pay off its $3 billion debt carries appropriate consequences for Kiev's financial obligations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday, adding that Moscow reserves the legal right to respond with legal measures.

Ukraine's Finance Minister Oleksandr Danilyuk outlined Kiev's stance "that we shouldn't return the money" in an interview with local television earlier in the day, citing the reasoning that "it was a political credit which we were forced to take."