MAYEGBA'S BLOG ™ ̷̐ ̈́ ̈́ ̈́ ͂ ̷̐ ̈́ ̈́̈́ ͂ ̐

WASHINGTON — President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to disclose what lawmakers called a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" involving a banker who has been accused of links to Russian organized crime, three sources familiar with the matter have said.   An email chain described Aleksander Torshin, a former senator and deputy head of Russia's central bank who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as wanting Trump to attend an event on the side lines of a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016, the sources said. The email also suggests Torshin was seeking to meet with a high-level Trump campaign official during the convention, and that he may have had a message for Trump from Putin, the sources said.   Kushner rebuffed the request after receiving a lengthy email exchange about it between a West Virginia man and Trump campaign aid

Veteran president resists military pressure to step down as army retains control                 Robert Mugabe talks to General Constantino Chiwenga at State House in Harare on Thursday   South African envoys held talks with President Robert Mugabe and his army chief on Thursday as regional powers sought to resolve a stand-off triggered by the military's takeover of Zimbabwe. Hours after Mr Mugabe's motorcade was seen leaving his home in a Harare suburb, The Herald, a state-controlled newspaper, published pictures showing the president meeting with the two South African ministers and General Constantino Chiwenga, the army commander, in State House. The army chief led the military intervention on Wednesday when Mr Mugabe was put under house arrest. The 93-year-old leader, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, has been resisting military pressure to publicly resign, said Ibbo Mandaza, a former senior member of the ruling Zanu-PF party.

                  Pressure intensified on Robert Mugabe to resign as president of Zimbabwe on Saturday as tens of thousands of Zimbabweans flooded the streets of Harare for a mass rally calling for an end to his 37-year rule.The armed forces now in control of the country said it backed the mass demonstration, which some predict will be the biggest public rally since independence in 1980. The police authorities, which for decades have clamped down on non-sanctioned public gatherings, quickly gave permission for the demonstration.In a statement, the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said: "As long as the planned march remains orderly, peaceful and in tandem with the fundamental bill of rights and within the confines of the country's constitution and without hate speech and incitement to cause violence, it fully supports the march."It urged people who were travelling to Harare for the rally, including war veterans, opposition parties and Mr Mugabe's own ruling Zanu-PF

  Civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Friday that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. A neurological disorder with no cure, Parkinson's can cause tremors, stiffness and difficulty balancing, walking and coordinating movement.   "My family and I began to notice changes about three years ago," Jackson wrote in a statement. "After a battery of tests, my physicians identified the issue as Parkinson's disease, a disease that bested my father." Jackson added that "recognition of the effects of this disease on me has been painful."   He also said he sees his diagnosis as "a signal that I must make lifestyle changes and dedicate myself to physical therapy in hopes of slowing the disease's progression."   Born in Greenville, South Carolina, the 76-year-old is a two-time Democratic presidential candidate. Highlights of his career include participating in civil rights demonstrations with the

© Plywood covers one of the windows at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School, Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017, that was shot out during gunman Kevin Janson Neal's shooting rampage at Rancho Tehama Reserve, Calif., Tuesday… RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, Calif. — A neighbor's account indicates that a Northern California shooter who killed five people this week may have targeted an elementary school as part of his long-running feud with neighbors. Shooter Kevin Neal threatened out loud that he was going to kill Danny Elliott and then go to the elementary school to kill Elliott's 7-year-old son, said Johnny Phommathep, a neighbor who lived about 200 feet away from Neal. He'd scream to him, "I'ma kill you, boy. I'ma learn you. Once I kill you, I'ma go kill your son at school," Phommathep told the Record Searchlight of Redding . The Tehama County Sheriff's Office said Neal, 44, killed neighbor Danny Elliott and his mother, Diana Steele, in a

© U.S. Navy crew members stand by an EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft on the deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson during a South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise in seas east of the… A U.S. Navy pilot drew obscene pictures in the sky over Washington state on Thursday, CBS affiliate KREM-TV reports . Viewers contacted the station after watching a plane draw what appeared to be crude depictions of a penis in the sky in Okanogan County, which borders Canada. The station posted pictures of the drawings on its website . (Warning: Some viewers may find the pictures offensive.) A mother in Okanogan, Washington, told the station she was upset because she might have to explain the drawings to her kids. The Navy told the station that the aircraft involved was based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island off the Washington coast. The air station's website describes it as the "premier naval aviation installation in the Pacific Northwest.&

© Lena Dunham "Girls" creator and star Lena Dunham is speaking out in defence of Murray Miller, a former producer and star on her HBO comedy, who stands accused of raping underage actress Aurora Perrineau. "While our first instinct is to listen to every woman's story, our insider knowledge of Murray's situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year," Dunham said through spokesperson. The statement was co-signed by her "Girls" showrunner Jenni Konner. "It is a true shame to add to that number, as outside of Hollywood women still struggle to be believed. We stand by Murray and this is all we'll be saying about this issue," Dunham continued. Perrineau, who starred in Jennifer Lawrence's "Passengers" and is the daughter of actor Harold Perrineau, filed a police report with the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station on Friday say

© Charles Manson sits in the courtroom during his murder trial in Los Angeles in 1970. Mass murderer Charles Manson remained alive Friday, authorities said, but details of the illness that brought him to a Bakersfield hospital remains unclear. Vicky Waters, a spokeswoman with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said that Manson was still living and that the department could not provide any further details. Kern County Sheriff's Lt. Bill Smallwood told The Times earlier this week that Manson was at a local hospital. In January, Manson, 83, was rushed to Mercy Hospital in Bakersfield for what authorities at the time would describe only as a serious medical problem. He was returned to prison a few days later. Though officials cannot comment on where specifically Manson is being treated or why, California Department of Corrections regulations provide a glimpse of how tightly coordinated the process must be. "They remain under CDCR c

Jared Kushner The attorney for Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, is pushing back against the Senate Judiciary Committee after the panel accused Kushner of not disclosing key documents. In a letter Friday to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, attorney Abbe Lowell wrote that there were no "missing documents" as the committee has alleged, while criticizing the panel's leaders for going to the media on Thursday with their accusations. "I would have assumed that, if there were any questions about our productions or exchanges, that would have been communicated to me directly before you made this a media event," Lowell wrote. A day earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee leaders sent Kushner a letter stating that their panel had not been provided documents about WikiLeaks, a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite," and communicat

*Robert Mugabe is an intellectual and liberationist, but he is also a self-made villain. The news of a military coup in Zimbabwe , took me back to a morning on the 25th of January 1971. I was studying at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. I turned on the radio and instead of the news, My Boy Lollipop by Millie was playing over and over again. Then a soldier came on and ordered everyone to stay indoors. Back to Millie. We students saw tanks and felt a heavy silence all around the campus. Field Marshall Idi Amin, an uneducated brute trained by the British, had seized control. The country plunged into the political netherworld until he was deposed in 1979, by a guerrilla army led by the present Ugandan President Museveni. One hopes Zimbabwe avoids that fate. Army takeovers are always disastrous for civilians, human rights and national assets. Look at Egypt today or Myanmar. Zimbabwe has echoes of previous African coups, but each story is distinct, emphatically so. Some commentators are

Sicilian mafioso, arrested in 1993, was serving multiple life sentences. Italy's most infamous and feared mafia boss, Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, has died at the age of 87. Known in Italy as 'the boss of all bosses', he in hospital while serving serving 26 life sentences as the mastermind of a bloody strategy to assassinate Italian prosecutors and law enforcement trying to bring down the Sicilian mafia syndicate Cosa Nostra , Italian media reported on Friday (17 November). Riina died hours after the Justice Minister had allowed his family members bedside visits on Thursday, which was his birthday, after he had been placed in a medically induced coma. Italian media said his health had deteriorated following two recent surgeries. Prosecutors accused Riina of masterminding a strategy, carried out over several years, to assassinate Italian prosecutors, police officials and others who were going after Cosa Nostra. He was arrested in 1993 and incarcerated at a Milan prison be

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho speaks outside the U.N. Plaza Hotel in New York on Sept. 25, 2017.   In the midst of increasing international isolation, North Korea is sending its foreign minister to an old ally: Cuba. In a short message released Friday, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency announced that Ri Yong Ho and his delegation departed on their journey to Havana. The move comes after a number of North Korean trading partners announced that they would be suspending trade with North Korea. Pyongyang's seventh-largest trading partner, Singapore, announced that it would halt its trade ties with the country Thursday. In September, the Philippines — North Korea's fifth-largest trading partner — said it would do the same. In purely economic terms, Cuba is probably of negligible importance to North Korea compared to these nations: Official figures show that Havana fails to crack the top 10 trading partners, and it certainly falls

*Iraqi forces, aided by the US and local tribal fighters, have liberated the town of Rawah in western Anbar. Iraqi forces backed by the US-led coalition retook on Friday (17 November) the last town in the country that was held by the Islamic State (Isis) group, more than three years after the militants stormed nearly a third of Iraqi territory, the Defence Ministry's spokesman said. At dawn, Iraqi military units and local tribal fighters pushed into the western neighbourhoods of Rawah in western Anbar province and after just five hours of fighting, Iraqi forces retook the town, according to Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool. Rawah, 175 miles northwest of Baghdad, lies along the Euphrates River valley near the border town of Qaim that Iraqi forces retook from Isis earlier this month. US-led coalition forces supported the operations to retake Rawah and Qaim with intelligence, airstrikes and advisers, coalition spokesman Ryan Dillon said. Isis fighters swept across Iraq's north and west in

Saad al-Hariri, who sparked a crisis by resigning as Lebanese prime minister on November 4 during a visit to Saudi Arabia, left Riyadh late last night on a flight bound for Paris, a television channel owned by his family said "Mr Hariri left Riyadh airport on his private jet with his wife and is headed for Le Bourget airport", north-east of Paris, announced Future TV around 1:20 am (2320 GMT). A source close to Mr Hariri confirmed the departure of the former prime minister to AFP, adding that the flight would take six and a half hours. Earlier Mr Hariri had tweeted he was on his way to the airport in the Saudi capital, refuting the suggestion he had not been allowed to leave the country. His visit to France with his family to meet President Emmanuel Macron is seen as part of a possible way out of the crisis. Michel Aoun, the Lebanese president, had accused Saudi authorities of "detaining" Mr Hariri and refused to accept his resignation from abroad. Mr Hariri, a dual

Ruling ZANU-PF party to hold rally after calling for Mr. Mugabe's resignation; Army appears to want a transition to former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa. President Robert Mugabe's own ruling ZANU-PF party wants him to step down and plans to hold a rally in Zimbabwe's capital Harare on November 18 to make the point. Mr. Mugabe, at Zimbabwe's helm since independence from Britain in 1980, faces the starkest challenge ever to his rule after the army seized power on November 15, saying it was targeting "criminals" around the nonagenarian leader. ZANU-PF called on November 17 for Mr. Mugabe to resign, the main state newspaper The Herald reported, a clear sign that the ageing leader's authority has collapsed after the Army takeover. The newspaper said that ZANU-PF branches in all 10 Provinces had met and had also called for Mr. Mugabe's wife Grace, whose ambitions to succeed her husband triggered the political crisis, to resign from the party. A senior me