US-Russia relations at an 'untouched low point': Tillerson

WASHINGTON: The US-Russia relationship is at its most reduced point since the finish of the Cold War, secretary of state Rex Tillerson has stated, attesting that President Donald Trump is resolved to raise the present level of trust between the two nations.

"The association with Russia, as he has portrayed and I have depicted too, is I think at a record-breaking low point since the finish of the Cold War, with a low level of trust," Tillerson said in a meeting to "Meet The Press" television show of NBC News.

"I think the world and it's in light of a legitimate concern for the American individuals, it's in light of a legitimate concern for Russia and whatever remains of the world that we accomplish something to check whether we can enhance the connection between the two biggest atomic powers on the planet," he said.

"In this way, the President, I think, has focused on in any event endeavor in such manner and he has unquestionably requested that I attempt too," Tillerson stated, taking note of that association with Russia comes up in his discussion with pioneers of Europe too.

"It is generally seen that it is not beneficial for the world, it is surely not beneficial for us, for the American individuals, our national security interests and something else, for this relationship to stay at this low level," he included.

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The Daily 202: Will Trump deliver the unifying inaugural address that his aides keep promising?

Donald Trump and Mike Pence attend a pre-inaugural dinner in Washington. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
With Breanne Deppisch

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump’s advisers and surrogates keep saying that tomorrow will be the day when he finally – finally! – pivots to become presidential.

Tom Barrack, a longtime friend and business partner of Trump who is running the Presidential Inaugural Committee, said tomorrow’s big speech will focus on “the issues that unite us” and declared that the divisions from the campaign will “vanish.” “What you’ll hear in his address is a switch from candidate to president,” he said on “CBS This Morning.”

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump will emphasize the country’s “shared values.” “He wants to continue to talk about issues and areas where he can unite the country (and) bring it together,” Spicer said.


Source:-Washingtonpost

Nice Attack: Islamic terror, wilful denial and rise of right-wing forces

When a terrorist attack takes place — and most are targeted against unarmed civilians in virtually every sphere of public life — the initial reaction of shock and horror is quickly replaced by anger. Grief needs a catharsis. In absence of the terrorists who have perpetrated the crime, the anger turns towards the political leaders whose job it is to provide security.

The blood has not yet been wiped off the streets of Nice that France has turned against President Francois Hollande. TV channels covering the Thursday night tragedy, showed how unmitigated anger poured out against a President largely seen as effete, ineffective and incapable of preventing waves and waves of terror attacks on French soil.

The attack in Nice was as gruesome a terror strike as any. Latest reports indicate that 84 people were killed when a large white truck, said to be driven by a French-Tunisian citizen, ploughed into a large crowd, who gathered at the beachfront Promenade des Anglais in southern city of Nice for a fireworks display on Bastille Day. Local French media reported that the driver shouted "Allahu Akbar" before taking out his gun and firing several times at the crowd before he was subsequently neutralised.

Bastille Day commemorates the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July, 1789, an important event in the French Revolution. It is marked with a military parade down Paris' most famous boulevard, a presidential address to the nation and a vast fireworks display. Founding values of French Republic, equality, liberty and fraternity, are glorified.

The significance of the day and the fact that a large number of citizens had gathered for celebration — made it a lucrative target. In one fell blow, two purposes were achieved. One, a huge number of people were killed ensuring widespread outrage and non-stop media coverage — aspects which serve as fuel for glorification of terror and draws more and more perpetrators. Two, a symbolic, cruel blow was dealt to the French ideal of syncretism, the bedrock on which the multicultural republic stands.

Source: http://www.firstpost.com

Trump, Clinton campaign will be nasty—and that's good news

As the presidential election looks to be featuring two of the most polarizing candidates in modern American politics, we can expect a hard sell of potential stories and ads to try and make Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton more appealing. But the real deciding factor will once again be an avalanche of negative advertising, designed to tear down the policies and besmirch the personal behavior of the other side. Already, commentators are expecting an historical use of negative campaigning. And voters should be thankful for this.

Appropriately, negative ads and campaigns get a very bad rap. They turn off voters, demonize opponents for perfectly acceptable policy disputes and coarsen the political culture — all of these are legitimate complaints. But negative campaigns are still a breath of fresh air compared to the toxic potential of positive ads.

 Positive campaigns may be loved in theory, but in reality they are not idealized "Lincoln vs Douglas" debates, with each side courteously presenting their argument. They are instead frequently issue-free, focused on the perceived personal benefits of the candidate's previous career and sunny pictures of family.

By now, with a stream of embarrassing sex scandals hitting the papers—and with a grandfatherly former Speaker of the House now serving time due to his action related to sexual assaults—we should hope that voters won't buy into the tightly controlled stories about happy political families. But those stories, and the other inspirational pieces about rising from nothing to seek high office, are all part of the same problem of positive campaigns: They are really designed to tell as little as possible about a candidate's actual policy.



Even when they do manage to deal with issues, positive policy proposals are presented in a facile manner, frequently with untruths and a complete unwillingness to face up to the likelihood of success versus failure. Donald Trump's critics have loudly proclaimed that most of his ever-changing policy proclamations are impossible to carry out.

Trump and his supporters have said the same about some of his competitors' plans, and will undoubtedly try to use the same arguments against Clinton. The only way for voters to actually judge these arguments is negative campaigns. Positive ads will not expose the elisions. Only negative ones have any hope of blasting holes and exposing the policy weaknesses of a candidate's pie-in-the-sky plans.

But that is not the biggest benefit of negative ads. They are simply more truthful and fact-based than negative ones. Vanderbilt University Professor John Geer, the author of In "Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns," has noted that negative ads may be unpleasant but they end up presenting vastly more factual information—60 percent more on average—than the shiny happy positive variety.

What negative ads do is present a strong policy contrast for voters, giving them a chance to draw a real distinction between the two candidates. Negative ads distort information—context is always left out and they take the absolute worst possible interpretation of any action by an opponent. But they are usually very issue-based and much more precise and detailed than the positive and glowing ads in favor of a candidate.


Source: http://www.cnbc.com

Donald Trump the `presumptive` White House nominee as Cruz crashes out

Donald Trump looked all-but-certain of carrying the Republican Party colors in the 2016 presidential election after the billionaire political novice sent his only serious challenger Ted Cruz crashing out of the race.

Addressing jubilant supporters at Trump Tower in New York after romping to his seventh straight state-wide victory in the Indiana primary, the real estate mogul promised them: "We`re going to win in November, and we`re going to win big, and it`s going to be America first."

Tuesday`s contest in the midwestern state was seen as a final firewall by the "stop Trump" movement seeking to prevent him from locking in the party nomination.

But as the race was called overwhelmingly in Trump`s favor, Cruz conceded to supporters in Indianapolis that he no longer had a viable path forwards.

"We left it all on the field in Indiana," Cruz said. "We gave it everything we`ve got, but the voters chose another path."

"And so with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign."

It was a stunning denouement for the arch-conservative Texas senator who had insisted he would press on to the final day of the Republican race.

His departure leaves the low-polling Ohio Governor John Kasich as Trump`s only challenger for the nomination -- making it a virtual certainty that he will go head to head in a general election matchup with the likely Democratic flagbearer Hillary Clinton.

The top echelon of the Republican establishment said as much minutes after Cruz capitulated, with Republican Party chief Reince Priebus declaring Trump the "presumptive" nominee.

"Donald Trump will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton," Priebus said, in an extraordinary move to embrace a candidate the party establishment fought tooth and nail to stop.

Clinton meanwhile suffered an upset in Indiana as her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders mounted a come-from-behind victory, denying the former secretary of state a feather in her cap as she seeks their party`s presidential nomination.

Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, beat Clinton by 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent with about three quarters of precincts reporting -- although Clinton remained well ahead in the overall delegate battle for the nomination.Cruz had been hoping to use the midwestern state to block Trump from receiving the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination ahead of the Republican convention in Cleveland in July.

But the bombastic real estate mogul -- who has thus far defied all political logic to lead the Republican race -- swept the arch-conservative senator aside.

Trump was leading Cruz by about 53 percent to 37 percent, with Kasich languished at less than eight percent.

"Lyin` Ted Cruz consistently said that he will, and must, win Indiana. If he doesn`t he should drop out of the race-stop wasting time & money," Trump taunted in a tweet.

With 1,002 delegates to his name, Trump was already in favorable position to reach the magic number needed to avoid a contested party convention. With Cruz out of the race, crossing the threshold is a foregone conclusion for Trump.

Even before the Indiana results, Trump and Clinton had pivoted toward one another.

"I`m really focused on moving into the general election," Clinton said confidently Tuesday in West Virginia.

"That`s where we have to be because we are going to have a tough campaign against a candidate who`ll literally say or do anything," she said of Trump. "We`re going to take him on at every turn."

Cruz`s exit comes after the primary battle took a nasty turn Tuesday when Trump cited a tabloid report linking Cruz`s father Rafael to John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

Trump raised the recent National Enquirer story in his interview with Fox News.

"This is just kooky," an irate Cruz shot back while stumping in Evansville, Indiana, branding Trump a "pathological liar."

"The man is utterly amoral," said Cruz, adding that "we are staring at the abyss" if Trump wins the White House. Source: http://zeenews.india.com