America

    With fireworks heralding his big moment, Donald Trump swept into Washington Thursday on the eve of his presidential inauguration and pledged to unify a nation sorely divided and clamoring for change. The capital braced for an onslaught of crowds and demonstrators with all the attendant hoopla and hand-wringing. It's a movement like we've never seen anywhere in the world, the president-elect declared at a celebratory evening concert Thursday night with the majestic Lincoln Memorial for a backdrop. To the unwavering supporters who were with him from the start, he promised: You're not forgotten any more. You're not forgotten any more. I'll see you tomorrow, he called out, and then fireworks exploded into the evening sky. Trump began taking on more trappings of the presi...

    Few people are more eager for Donald Trump's arrival in the White House than those who do business in Russia. Hacking scandals? They expect that to blow over. Conflict in Ukraine? An artificial problem invented by Barack Obama, they argue. Russian magnates and American investors alike are anticipating a Trump administration that removes punishing sanctions, frees up access to capital and encourages U.S. businesses pursuing profits in Russia's vast market  regardless of Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies. This may all be wishful thinking. With relations at a post-Cold War low, the Kremlin is cautious about the unpredictable new U.S. president  not least because of accusations of Russian hacking of the American election campaign. But in the business world, there's a...

    Donald Trump has pledged to secure a rapid trade agreement with Britain as he predicted leaving the European Union would be a great thing for the UK. Donald Trump has pledged to secure a rapid trade agreement with Britain as he predicted leaving the European Union would be a great thing for the UK. In an interview for The Times, the US president-elect said people voted for Brexit because they want their own identity. He also used the interview to signal his desire for a new arms reduction agreement with Russia saying the numbers of nuclear weapons should be reduced very substantially. In contrast to Barack Obama, who said Britain would be at the "back of the queue" when it came to a trade deal with the US, Mr Trump made clear it would be a priority for his administration. ...

    A growing number of US Democratic lawmakers have declared their intent to boycott the inauguration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump in a sharp break with tradition. More than a dozen Democrats in the US House of Representatives have so far issued public announcements stating that they would not attend the January 20 ceremony after an extremely divisive election campaign, according to media reports. It is a departure from lawmakers of both parties putting aside their personal feelings to watch the new president take the oath of office. While the majority of Democrats still plan to attend the event, the fact that even a handful are making a point of boycotting shows the depth of antipathy toward the president-elect. The boycott movement began with Illinois Rep. Lui...

    Donald Trump has suggested he might drop sanctions against Russia and that the communist party rulers in Beijing needed to show good faith on currency and trade practices before he committed to a One China policy on Taiwan. In fresh signs that the US president-elect is prepared to reshape longstanding Washington foreign policy, he told the Wall Street Journal that he would keep sanctions against Russia in place “at least for a period of time”. But he added: If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things? Trump’s policy towards Russia is the subject of intense interest in Washington amid a Senate inquiry into allegations that the Kremlin ordered a hacking operation against the Democratic par...

    Chinese media warns of war with US after Trump's state department pick stirs South China Sea row Blocking Chinese access to islands in the South China Sea would require the US to wage war, an influential Chinese state-run tabloid said on Friday, after US Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson suggested the strategy on Wednesday. The media salvo from China is the latest sign of increased tensions between the countries since president-elect Donald Trump accepted a telephone call from Taiwan's leader, Tsai Ing-wen. Mr Tillerson told his confirmation hearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he wanted to send a signal to China that their access to islands in the disputed South China Sea is not going to be allowed. He did not elaborate. The United States w...

    US President Barack Obama has scrapped rules dating back to the 1960s, which allowed those fleeing communist Cuba a fast track to US citizenship. US President Barack Obama on Thursday ended a decades-old policy that allowed Cuban migrants who arrived illegally on US soil to stay. In one of his final acts before leaving the White House, he scrapped rules allowing those fleeing communist Cuba and reaching American territory a fast track to permanent resident status. Obama said the move would bring greater consistency to our immigration policy. Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal, consistent with US law and enforcement priorities, he said in a statement. T...

    US President-elect Donald Trump has suggested American intelligence agencies may be responsible for releasing an explosive dossier containing allegations that Russia holds compromising information about him. In a dramatic press conference in New York, the billionaire tycoon branded the unverified dossier fake news and said it would be a tremendous blot on the agencies’ reputations if they were shown to have leaked it. He clashed with a correspondent from TV news channel CNN, which thrust the document into the heart of political debate by reporting on Tuesday that intelligence officers had briefed both Mr Trump and President Barack Obama on its contents. Repeatedly refusing to take a question from the CNN reporter, he branded the channel fake news and lambasted news website...

    The extraordinary but unverified documents published on Tuesday on Donald Trump’s ties with Moscow began life as a piece of opposition research, which has become as much a part of US politics as yard signs and coloured balloons. There is a small industry of research and investigative firms in Washington, typically staffed by a mix of former journalists and security officials, adept at finding information about politicians that the politicians would rather stay hidden. The firms often do not know who exactly is hiring them; the request could come from a law firm acting on behalf of a client from one of the parties. In this case, the request for opposition research on Donald Trump came from one of his Republican opponents in the primary campaign. The research firm then hired...