Report: Turkey tells U.S. it has audio, video recordings proving missing Saudi journalist was killed
Turkish security officials have told the United States they have both audio and video recordings that definitively prove missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered last week inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, U.S. and Turkish officials told The Washington Post on Thursday.
Khashoggi, a columnist for the Post and a U.S. resident, went to the consulate on Oct. 2 to get a document he needed for his wedding, and he hasn't been heard from since. One official told the Post that on the audio recording, "you can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic," and another said men can be heard beating Khashoggi. After he was killed, Khashoggi was reportedly dismembered. Turkey does not want to release the recordings over fears it would expose how they spy on foreigners in the country, the Post reports.
Saudi Arabia has denied being involved in Khashoggi's disappearance. Prior to his disappearance, the U.S. reportedly intercepted discussions between Saudi officials about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordering an operation to get Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia, where he would be detained. Khashoggi had ties to the royal family, and had been critical of the government, but agreed with some of the crown prince's policies. The crown prince is close to President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and while Trump on Thursday called the suspected murder "a terrible thing," he quickly added that the U.S. will not stop selling arms to the Saudis, because "that doesn't help us — not when it comes to jobs and not when it comes to our companies losing out on that work." Catherine Garcia
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday pushed back on calls for a second referendum on Brexit, the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
May particularly condemned remarks from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said this week a new vote should be considered if "none of the other options work." May accused Blair of "seek[ing] to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum," arguing "Parliament has a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for."
May's proposed Brexit deal with the EU has stalled, lacking support to pass a House of Commons vote. Bonnie Kristian
The North Korean government on Sunday issued a typically dramatic statement condemning the United States' sanction regime and suggesting denuclearization plans are in jeopardy.
Pyongyang accused the U.S. State Department of being "bent on bringing [North Korea]-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire," warning that additional U.S. sanctions would be America's "greatest miscalculation" and would "block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever."
This comes as Pyongyang observes the seventh anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong Il and the rise to power of his son, current leader Kim Jong Un. Bonnie Kristian
Negotiators representing nearly 200 nations in Katowice, Poland, on Saturday agreed to universal greenhouse gas emissions limits intended to mitigate global climate change.
"It is not easy to find agreement on a deal so specific and technical," said Polish economist Michal Kurtyka, who is leading the United Nations negotiations. "Through this package you have made a thousand little steps forward together," he told the assembled delegates. "You can feel proud."
U.S. negotiators sought to label coal a possible source of clean energy but also pushed for transparency and rules which apply equally to all participant nations. "Overall, the U.S. role here has been somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules," Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions told The Associated Press. "[T]he U.S. pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it's largely succeeded." Bonnie Kristian
