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President Donald Trump on Tuesday pulled the United States out of the 2015 international agreement aimed at restraining Iran’s nuclear program, contending that it is a “disastrous” pact that won’t keep Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and endangering the world.

The U.S. leader said he is reimposing the “highest levels of economic sanctions” on Iran. Trump said he was open to working with its European allies to negotiate a new deal with the Islamic Republic to curb its ballistic missile tests and military advances in Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Mideast, although Tehran has already declared it is not interested in forging a new accord.

Trump, in a short address at the White House, called the agreement championed by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, “decaying and rotten.”

Watch Trump’s remarks

He said it was “a giant fiction” that Iran only wants to develop its nuclear program for peaceful purposes. “The Iran promise was a lie,” Trump asserted.

In abrogating the deal, Trump lived up campaign vows he made in his 2016 run to the White House. But in doing so, he also rejected pleas from three of the U.S.’s closest allies — Britain, France and Germany — to stay in the deal, which also included China and Russia.

“When I make promises, I keep them,” Trump said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet, “France, Germany, and the UK regret the U.S. decision to leave the JCPOA. The nuclear non-proliferation regime is at stake.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency has certified 10 times that Iran is complying with the deal. The European Commission said Tuesday that “the agreement is working and our commitment to continue with implementation remains.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran will remain in the deal without Washington. 

Hours ahead of his announcement, Trump for the second consecutive day assailed former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, one of the chief architects of the agreement between Iran and the six international powers. Kerry met recently with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in an effort to save the pact.

“John Kerry can’t get over the fact that he had his chance and blew it!” Trump said on Twitter. “Stay away from negotiations John, you are hurting your country!”

A day earlier, Trump said, “The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!” 

The three-year-old agreement called for lifting sanctions on Iran that had hobbled its economy in exchange for Iran restraining its nuclear program, which Iran has claimed was for peaceful purposes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long criticized the deal and in Trump found an ally with similar views.

Among Trump’s chief objections are a lack of provisions addressing Iran’s ballistic missile activity and the fact that Iran’s responsibilities, such as limiting its uranium enrichment, expire after a set number of years.

In his speech, Trump said the current deal would leave Tehran “on the cusp” of a “nuclear breakout.”

The text of the document, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, states in multiple places that Iran would treat the reinstatement of sanctions 
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The White House plans to convene a meeting on Thursday on the future of artificial intelligence in U.S. industry with major companies including Facebook, Amazon.com, Google parent Alphabet and Oracle as well as senior government officials.

Intel Corp CEO Brian Krzanich and the chief technical officers of Ford and Boeing are also due to take part in the event, along with executives from Mastercard, Microsoft and Accenture, administration and industry officials said.

The Pentagon and the U.S. departments of agriculture, commerce, energy, health, labor and transportation are due to take part in the daylong meeting that will look at artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and research and development and removing barriers to its application.

AI and machine learning, with their growing capabilities and application, are expected to have far-reaching implications for a range of industries and the U.S. economy, according to experts.

Dean Garfield, president and chief executive of the Information Technology Industry Council, called the event “an important step to building collaboration between government and industry.”

“The tech sector is committed to ensuring that all Americans reap the benefits of this transformative technology, which has the potential to save lives, improve how we harvest food, transform education and more,” Garfield said.

Britain last month announced a 1 billion pound ($1.4 billion) joint investment in the AI industry, while the European Union announced it would boost AI investment by about 70 percent to 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) by 2020.

Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, said in a Fox News opinion piece published on Tuesday that as AI accomplishes more complex tasks “it will transform economies, industries and our everyday lives. It will also raise questions about its impact on our economy and jobs.”

Professional services firm PwC forecast last year that aggregate worldwide gross domestic product will be 14 percent higher in 2030 as a result of AI and will impact retail, financial services and healthcare.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Acting Director Gina Haspel, has been meeting with senators on Capitol Hill ahead of her confirmation hearing Wednesday. A controversial nominee because of her background in running a secret CIA detention center after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the White House is defending Haspel as the best person for the job. VOA’s Jeff Custer reports from Washington.
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President Donald Trump will award the Medal of Honor to a Navy SEAL who oversaw a daring 2002 assault and rescue mission on a snowy Afghanistan mountaintop.

The White House says Trump will present the award this month to Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Britt K. Slabinski, who was leading a reconnaissance team that came under fire.

The White House says Slabinski “boldly rallied” his team and organized “a daring assault” to rescue a stranded teammate.

It says Slabinski carried a “seriously wounded teammate down a sheer cliff face” while leading “an arduous trek across one kilometer of precipitous terrain, through waist-deep snow while continuing to call fire on the enemy.”

The award is given to those who risk their lives and go above and beyond the call of duty.
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Jeremy Wilson knew it was risky renting a home in an area with the highest hazard level for lava flows in Hawaii, but it was all he could afford for his family of six.

Now, with magma spewing from cracks in the earth above and below his 3-bedroom home, he fears it could join the 26 other houses destroyed since the eruption of the nearby Kilauea volcano on Thursday, according to Hawaii County Civil Defense.

“I’m a renter but everything we own is in that house,” said Wilson, a 36-year-old social worker, who moved to the Leilani Estates subdivision four years ago and is among 1,700 residents who have evacuated since the eruption.

The semi-rural wooded area, with dirt roads and many homemade “off the grid” houses, is a landing pad for newcomers to Hawaii’s Big Island who cannot afford real-estate prices elsewhere.

“If you want to live in Hawaii, it’s really your only option,” said Wilson, who has been staying with friends along with his two children, wife, mother-in-law and uncle since they were forced to flee.

Keeping prices low in Leilani Estates is the “Zone 1” (out of nine) hazard rating for lava-flows the U.S. Geological Survey gives the area due to “vents that have been repeatedly active in historical time.”

Reminder of 1955 event

Geologists say this week’s activity is beginning to look like an event in 1955 in which eruptions continued for 88 days in the area and covered around 4,000 acres with lava, though few people lived there back then. More recently in 2014, lava threatened the nearby Puna district and the town of Pahoa.

Jessica Gauthier, 47, a realtor in Leilani Estates, said the eruption of Kilauea, about 12 miles (19 km) distant, was a reality check for new residents.

“People move here thinking it’s paradise, and what they learn is that it’s something different,” said Gauthier. Eruptions of lava and toxic sulfur dioxide gas continued within the subdivision, and larger aftershocks from Friday’s 6.9 magnitude earthquake were expected, the observatory said.

A lava flow advanced about a mile from one of ten vents that have opened. As the lava finds a preferred route, some vents are expected to close, putting pressure on others and shooting magma up to 1,000 feet (305 m) into the air. On Saturday it reached heights of 230 feet.

Some residents saw eruptions as inevitable and said if Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, wanted the land back, then she would take it.

‘No stranger to disasters’

Wilson, who grew up in Springfield, Missouri, was less philosophical. He has been trying to rescue his possessions before they are torched.

He was forced back on Sunday when he saw smoke coming from cracks in the road on the approach to his house.

“I’m from Tornado Alley. So I’m no stranger to disasters, but this is something else,” said Wilson. “This is crazy.”
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The Trump administration sought to distance itself Monday from Rudy Giuliani’s dramatic public statements about Iran and North Korea, saying that President Donald Trump’s new lawyer does not speak for the president on matters of foreign policy.

Since joining Trump’s legal team last month and becoming its public face, Giuliani has raised eyebrows for a series of startling assertions not only about his legal strategy and the special counsel investigation, but also about global affairs and Trump’s policies. That spurred widespread confusion over whether the former New York mayor, now on Trump’s payroll, was disclosing information he’d been told by the president, stating U.S. government policy or merely describing his own impression of events.

“He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration on foreign policy,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Monday.

It was the clearest sign to date that Trump’s administration is seeking to draw a line between itself and Giuliani on matters of government policy, even as he continues to act as his spokesman on matters related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. It comes as Trump prepares for a series of high-stakes moments in the coming weeks on Iran, North Korea and the Mideast conflict — the type of delicate and potentially explosive regions where events can easily be upended by an errant remark by an emissary of the U.S. president.

Giuliani’s perplexing and sometimes conflicting remarks have increasingly become a cause of consternation for Trump’s aides. Asked last week whether Giuliani’s portfolio included foreign policy, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said simply, “Not that I’m aware of.” And Friday, even Trump seemed peeved by the attention Giuliani’s off-message comments were attracting, telling reporters that the former prosecutor had just come on board and was still working to “get his facts straight.”

Trump was referring to his new attorney’s statements about the $130,000 hush payment to a porn star that had contradicted Trump’s past comments.

North Korea, Iran

Yet Giuliani’s remarks have been watched with equal concern at the State Department, the Pentagon and other national security agencies, starting last week when he said on television that North Korea would release three Americans detained in the country.

“We got Kim Jong Un impressed enough to be releasing three prisoners today,” Giuliani told Fox News.

Although Trump has hinted that such a move could be coming, there has been no formal announcement by the U.S. government, which is in detailed talks with North Korea to plan a historic summit between Kim and Trump. The detainees have not yet been released as predicted by Giuliani.

Then Saturday, Giuliani caused another stir when he spoke to a group that supports the overthrow of Iran’s government and said that the president was “committed” to regime change in Iran. Although Trump is sharply critical of Iran and preparing for a decision by week’s end about whether to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal, his administration has not called for overthrowing Iran’s government. U.S. officials said they were taken aback by Giuliani’s comments and did not consider them to be consistent with current Trump administration policy.

Blurred lines

In the Trump administration, the lines between official spokesman and Trump confidant have often been blurred, creating frequent questions about who speaks authoritatively for the president.

A long list of allies, friends, lawyers and government officials defend him on television, sometimes conveying information they’ve obtained from Trump that the public is learning for the first time. And when Trump aides leave his service, whether by choice or by firing, they often don’t stray far and continue to advise him informally on key issues, giving them insight into his thinking at any given moment that is later shared on cable news shows or public speeches.

Even among those explicitly authorized to represent U.S. foreign policy, such as Cabinet officials, there has often been confusion about whose version of events most accurately represents Trump’s positions at any given moment. In the foreign policy realm, Trump’s secretary of state, U.N. ambassador and White House press secretary have occasionally seemed to be reading from different scripts, even on sensitive issues like whether Syrian President Bashar Assad must leave power.

The confusion over Giulani’s comments comes amid a broader crisis of credibility for Trump’s White House, exacerbated by the rapidly shifting accounts over the $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Sanders, the White House spokeswoman, has faced a barrage of criticism for giving information to the media that turned out to be incorrect.

For the United States, there’s a risk if world leaders trying to divine Trump’s intentions aren’t sure who to believe, said Ned Price, a former spokesman for the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration.

“You have foreign governments reading the tea leaves based on what people like Giuliani are saying,” Price said, pointing to the former mayor’s declaration about the detainees in North Korea. “Not only does it put their families in this absolutely painful position, but in the worst event it could actually be counterproductive if the North Koreans think we’re spiking the football.”
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Britain’s Foreign Secretary is set to lobby the Trump administration to remain a party to the 2015 agreement struck between Iran and world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Boris Johnson is meeting Monday with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser John Bolton with Iran as one of the top agenda items, according to Johnson’s office.

“The UK, U.S., and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behavior that makes the Middle East region less secure – its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile program, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen,” Johnson said ahead of his visit.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been a frequent critic of what he calls a flawed deal, and has until May 12 to decide whether to renew sanctions waivers linked to the agreement. Trump wants added limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program and objects to the so-called sunset clauses in the nuclear deal that let certain provisions expire after a certain amount of time.

Britain, China, France, Russia, Germany and the United States negotiated the agreement with Iran amid allegations Iran was working to develop nuclear weapons. Iran repeatedly denied that was the case, and has further asserted that it has every right to its ballistic missile program for defense.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that if the United States does withdraw from the nuclear deal, “you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history.”

Britain’s Ambassador to the U.S. Kim Darroch said in an interview Sunday with CBS that Johnson and Trump spoke about the nuclear deal in a phone call Saturday and that the president had likely not yet made a final decision.

“It’s not a perfect deal, no deal is ever perfect, and the president is rightly concerned about Iran’s regional activities, which are malign and damaging to security and stability,” Darroch said.

He added that Britain prefers the United States remain part of the agreement, but that as long as Iran remains in compliance, Britain “wants to stick with it.”
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President Donald Trump’s choice to run the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel, offered to withdraw her nomination last week because White House officials were worried about her role in the harsh interrogation of terror suspects, news reports say.

As first reported by The Washington Post, Haspel was wary of a fierce Senate confirmation hearing that she believes could damage not only the CIA, but also her own reputation.

The reports say senior Trump administration officials rushed to meet Haspel in her office at CIA headquarters to discuss her concerns, and as of late Sunday, her nomination was still on track.

“Her nomination will not be derailed by partisan critics who side with the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) over the CIA on how to keep the American people safe,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said Sunday.

Haspel’s confirmation hearings open Wednesday.

Haspel is currently the acting CIA director and a 33-year veteran of the agency.

Although much of her activities over those years are classified, civil libertarians such as the ACLU and many Democrats say she should be disqualified because she ran a secret CIA detention center in Thailand. Two Islamic terror suspects were reportedly waterboarded there — a practice that simulates drowning, which critics call torture.

The Associated Press reported that in her meetings with senators ahead of her confirmation hearings, Haspel assured them that as CIA director, she would stand up against bringing back such brutal techniques. She is likely to repeat that assurance during the hearings.

A CIA spokesman said the lawmakers and public will see “the true Gina Haspel” Wednesday and see why, according to the spokesman, she is admired and would make a great intelligence chief.

 
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America’s latest jobs report suggests the country’s longest-ever economic expansion is continuing at a moderate, but steady pace. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, President Donald Trump is trumpeting U.S. economic performance as Washington looks ahead to November midterm elections in which Republicans will be defending majorities in both houses of Congress.
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Nearly a year ago, an investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller was tasked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with exploring any links or coordination between the Russian government and “individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” and, additionally, “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation,” according to the appointment order.

Since the order was issued on May 17, 2017, the investigation has grown into a multipronged effort that has resulted in criminal proceedings against 19 people — five U.S. nationals, 13 Russians and one Dutch national — and three Russian organizations.

Here are four areas of the investigation:

​Trump campaign officials’ business deals involving Russia

Perhaps the most visible results of the investigation so far are the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner, Paul Gates.

On Oct. 30, 2017, Manafort and Gates surrendered to FBI agents to face charges they conspired to launder money, failed to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, acted as unregistered agents of foreign principal, and made false statements, including statements under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. The charges were related to consulting work they did for pro-Russian businesspeople in Ukraine. Gates has pleaded guilty, while Manafort maintains his innocence.

CNN has reported that the FBI is looking for suspicious ties between Trump and Russia in financial records related to the Trump Organization (the collective name of a group of some 500 business entities owned solely or principally by President Trump), Trump himself, his family members, and his campaign associates.

Transactions under investigation include Russian purchases of Trump apartments, a New York City development with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $30 million more than its appraised value.

​Russian campaign contacts

In addition, the probe is looking at contacts between Russian government officials and Trump campaign officials.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty Oct. 5, 2017, to making false statements to FBI agents about contacts he had with agents of the Russian government while working for the Trump campaign in 2016. He is cooperating with Mueller’s investigators.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Dec. 1, 2017, to “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to the FBI about contacts and communications with Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Kislyak returned to Russia in August 2017 and now serves in the Russian legislature.

On Feb. 16, 2018, Mueller issued indictments for 13 Russian citizens and three Russian entities regarding campaign contacts, plus released new charges against Manafort and Gates on February 22.

Russian attempts to influence US voters through cyberspace

In January 2017, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded “with high confidence” that the Russian government interfered with the U.S. election by hacking into the computers of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, campaign chairman for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The hackers then forwarded the contents of the emails to WikiLeaks.

NBC has reported Mueller is assembling a case against Russians who carried out the hacking and leaking of private information “designed to hurt Democrats in the 2016 election.” NBC said potential charges include violations of statutes on conspiracy, election law, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Beyond the targeted hacking, Mueller’s team is investigating at least one Russia-based “troll farm” — a group or organization intentionally posting inflammatory comments on social media to disrupt an online community — known as the Internet Research Agency.

In February, a federal grand jury issued indictments for 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities, alleging they pretended to be Americans online, creating posts that were meant to “sow discord” within the American political system and “spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general.” The eight-count indictment charges that by early to mid-2016, the defendants were using their online identities to support Trump’s candidacy and disparage his challenger, Clinton.

The indictment also alleges the defendants encouraged minorities not to vote, or to vote for a third-party candidate.

On Dec. 14, 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported Mueller had requested that data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica turn over the emails of any of its employees who worked on the Trump campaign.

In 2018, Cambridge Analytica was found to have inappropriately acquired the personal information of more than 50 million Facebook users while working on Trump’s presidential campaign. Having also done work for a pro-Brexit campaign in Britain, the company is now the subject of investigations in both countries.

Cambridge Analytica announced Wednesday it was filing for bankruptcy and shutting down.

​Obstruction of justice

A fourth prong of the special counsel investigation is whether the Trump administration obstructed justice with requests to federal law enforcement agencies to state that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Part of that investigation centers on whether the firing of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 amounted to obstruction of justice, after, according to Comey, Trump tried and failed to get Comey to swear to the president a vow of loyalty and to end an investigation of former National Security Adviser Flynn, who was fired in February 2017.

The Mueller team has Comey’s personal notes on his interactions with the president while head of the FBI, but a federal judge has denied multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to make the notes public.

Meanwhile, Comey has released his own version of what took place between him and the president in a memoir released last month titled, A Higher Loyalty. The volume of preorders drove the book to No. 1 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list, four weeks before its April 17 release.
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