U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he had never been told about reports that a Russian military intelligence unit was secretly offering bounties to Taliban militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. soldiers. Trump scoffed at a New York Times report that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and covert operations in Europe aimed at destabilizing the West, had carried out the mission in Afghanistan last year and that he had been briefed about it in late March. On Twitter, he said, “Nobody briefed or told me,” Vice President Mike Pence or White House chief of staff Mark Meadows “about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians, as reported through an ‘anonymous source’ by the Fake News @nytimes. Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us.” Nobody briefed or told me, @VP Pence, or Chief of Staff @MarkMeadows about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians, as reported through an “anonymous source” by the Fake News @nytimes. Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2020 Twenty American troops were killed in Afghanistan last year, but it was not known which killings might have been linked to the alleged Russian bounties. Critics have accused Trump of often being deferential to Russian President Vladimir Putin during his 3 ½-year term in the White House. But Trump tweeted, “Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration,” contending that Russia “had a field day” under former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent in the national November presidential election. The U.S. leader challenged the newspaper to “reveal its ‘anonymous’ source. Bet they can’t do it, this ‘person’ probably does not even exist!” The Fake News @ nytimes must reveal its “anonymous” source. Bet they can’t do it, this “person” probably does not even exist! https://t.co/pdg4AjybOG
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the leader of the Taliban delegation, and Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. envoy for peace in Afghanistan, shake hands after signing an agreement at a ceremony in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 29, 2020.Earlier this year, the U.S. and the Taliban signed an “agreement for bringing peace” to Afghanistan after more than 18 years of conflict. The U.S. and NATO allies agreed to withdraw all troops by next year if the militants uphold the deal. Trump said it had been a “long and hard journey” in Afghanistan, but that, “It’s time after all these years to bring our people back home.” Despite Trump’s denial of the alleged bounties, one of the top-ranking Republican lawmakers in Congress, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, voiced concerns about the report. “If reporting about Russian bounties on US forces is true, the White House must explain: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed?” she said on Twitter.  She asked whether the information was in Trump’s daily presidential briefing. “Who did know and when? What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?” said Cheney, the daughter of former U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney. If reporting about Russian bounties on US forces is true, the White House must explain:
1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed? Was the info in the PDB?
2. Who did know and when?
3. What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) June 28, 2020John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser who now contends in a new book that the president is unfit to run the country, told CNN that Trump’s tweets about the alleged bounties show that he was not concerned about “the security of our forces,” but “whether he was paying attention” to the intelligence report he supposedly was given.  
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Concerns over democratic standards and bread-and-butter issues top the agenda as Poles began voting on Sunday in round one of a tight presidential race that had to be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.Incumbent Andrzej Duda, 48, is campaigning for reelection in a vote that could determine the future of the right-wing government that supports him.Ten candidates are vying to replace him, but opinion polls show that Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, a liberal from the main Civic Platform (PO) opposition party, will enter a neck-and-neck run-off on July 12.Victory for Trzaskowski, also 48, would deal a heavy blow to the Law and Justice (PiS) government, which has relied on its ally Duda to endorse polarizing legislation, especially judicial reforms.While the PiS insists the changes are needed to weed out judicial corruption, critics and the European Union insist they erode judicial independence and democracy just three decades after Poland shed communism.U.S. President Donald Trump, who regards the populist PiS administration as a key European ally, gave Duda his blessing this week.Trump invited him to the White House on Wednesday as the first foreign leader to visit since the coronavirus pandemic began, just four days ahead of election day.Originally scheduled for May, the ballot was postponed due to the pandemic and a new hybrid system of postal and conventional voting was in place on Sunday in a bid to stem infections.While official figures show over 33,000 confirmed cases and more than 1,400 deaths, the health minister has admitted that there are likely up to 1.6 million undetected cases in Poland, an EU country of 38 million people.Anti-gay rhetoricDuda has promised to defend the governing party’s raft of popular social benefits, including a child allowance and extra pension payments — a key factor behind the populists winning a second term in October’s parliamentary election.Bread-and-butter issues are weighing heavily on voters’ minds as the economic fallout of the pandemic is set to send Poland into its first recession since communism’s demise.”I’m happy. I can’t complain; I get an extra pension payment and children are getting 500 zloty,” Irena, a 63-year-old pensioner, told AFP in the central Polish town of Minsk Mazowiecki.”I’d like this to continue,” she added, declining to provide her surname.Duda has also echoed PiS attacks on LGBT+ rights and Western values, something analysts see as a bid to attract voters backing a far-right candidate.Campaigning with the slogan “Enough is Enough,” Trzaskowski promises to use the experience and contacts he gathered as a former European affairs minister to “fight hard” for a fair slice of the EU’s 2021-27 budget, and to repair tattered ties with Brussels.He has however vowed to keep the PiS’s popular welfare payments.While many see his PO party as a weak and ineffectual opposition, Trzaskowski supporters regard him as a bulwark against the PiS’s drive to reform the courts, something they insist risks destroying any notion of an independent judiciary.”I’m a lawyer and this (PiS justice reforms) affect me directly,” Marek, 60, told AFP in Minsk Mazowiecki, also declining to provide his surname.”It’s as if a blacksmith would go to a watchmaker’s shop and try to put things in order. People might support it, but in the long run these reforms will have to be reversed.”‘Budapest model’?Since winning power in 2015, both Duda and the PiS have in many ways upended Polish politics by stoking tensions with the EU and wielding influence through state-owned companies and public broadcasters.Some analysts view the election as a crucial juncture: a second five-year term for Duda would allow the PiS to make even more controversial changes while defeat could unravel the party’s power.A win for Duda would pave the way to “bolstering ‘Eastern’ tendencies, like the rise of oligarchs… and a drift to the Budapest model (of Hungary’s Viktor Orban) – that’s the danger,” Warsaw University political scientist Anna Materska-Sosowska told AFP.Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) with an exit poll expected as soon as voting ends.      
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France’s ruling party is expected to be handed a stinging rebuke by voters Sunday in the final round of local elections, the first big political test for President Emmanuel Macron since the coronavirus crisis began to ease.The first round controversially went ahead on March 15 just as the epidemic was gaining deadly momentum, but the second phase scheduled for March 22 was put off to June 28 after France went into lockdown.Analysts are expecting the election will underline the failure of Macron’s centrist Republic on the Move (LREM) party — founded by the president ahead of his 2017 election win — to gain a strong foothold at a local level.Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo is predicted to hold on to the key battleground of Paris, with LREM candidate and former health minister Agnes Buzyn well behind after Macron’s original choice pulled out in a sexting scandal.With a death toll fast approaching 30,000, France has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. While most restrictions have now been eased, there is widespread anger at the government over shortages of protective equipment in the early stages of the pandemic.’No anchor’Paris is now buzzing with speculation that if a poor showing by the LREM is confirmed, Macron will take the chance to announce a major cabinet reshuffle.This could include the post of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who in an oddity of French politics is also campaigning to be mayor of the Normandy port city of Le Havre.During the pandemic, the popularity of Philippe, a technocratic and unshowy figure, has risen to a level much higher than that of the president’s low ratings, raising speculation Macron may prefer to see him work full time in his Norman fiefdom.A poll by Harris Interactive Epoka published Friday showed that 44 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Macron, but 51 percent were positive on Philippe, a jump of 13 points for the premier since the start of the epidemic.”There will not be any significant conquests for LREM,” said Emmanuel Riviere, a pollster who is president of the Kantar Centre on the Future of Europe.”This will deprive the ruling party of a territorial anchor that it could have depended on in future elections,” he said.Greens, left seek successFrance’s next presidential poll will be in 2022 where analysts expect the main challenger for Macron to be far-right leader Marine Le Pen of the National Rally (RN) party.Despite their abysmal performance in the last presidential elections, the Socialists are expected to keep key regional centers.There will also be close attention on performance of the green Europe Ecology — The Greens (EELV) party which as well as seeking to keep the Alpine hub of Grenoble also has its eyes on taking Strasbourg and Lyon.In Marseille, left wing candidate Michele Rubirola wants to cause a major sensation by taking France’s second city from the right after a quarter of a century of control.For Le Pen’s RN, the big prize would be taking the southeastern city of Perpignan, which would be the first time the far-right takes a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants since Toulon in 1995.Over three months after the first round, the vote will take place in 4,820 districts where municipal councils were not elected outright in the previous poll.The only region of France where the vote is not taking place is the overseas territory of Guiana in South America, where the pandemic is still deemed too dangerous to proceed with the vote.With social distancing rules still in place across France, the campaign for the second round has been inevitably low key and a major question will be if the turnout is an improvement on the dismal 44.3 percent recorded in the first round.Wearing a mask will also be obligatory for the 16.5 million people eligible to cast a vote in this round, with polling stations due to open from 0600 GMT. 
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Centrist politician Micheál Martin became Ireland’s new prime minister Saturday, fusing two longtime rival parties into a coalition four months after an election that upended the status quo.The deal will see Martin’s Fianna Fail govern with Fine Gael — the party of outgoing leader Leo Varadkar — and with the smaller Green Party. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, bitter opponents whose roots lie in opposing sides of the civil war that followed Ireland’s independence from the United Kingdom, have never before formed a government together.”I believe civil war politics ended a long time ago in our country, but today civil war politics ends in our parliament,” said Varadkar, who became Ireland’s youngest and first gay prime minister three years ago. “Two great parties coming together with another great party, the Green Party, to offer what this country needs, a stable government for the betterment of our country and for the betterment of our world.”The Dail, the lower house of Ireland’s parliament, elected Martin by a vote of 93-63, with three abstentions. Martin later met with Irish President Michael D Higgins to receive his seal of office.Under the plan approved by the parties’ memberships, Martin became Taoiseach, or prime minister. He will serve until the end of 2022 and then hand the job back to Varadkar.Sinn Fein shut outThe left-wing nationalist party Sinn Fein was shut out of the new government even though an electoral breakthrough saw it win the largest share of the votes in February’s election. Despite coming out ahead, Sinn Fein was unable to assemble enough support to govern.The two centrist parties have long shunned Sinn Fein because of its historic links to the Irish Republican Army and decades of violence in Northern Ireland. But in protracted negotiations further complicated by the COVID-19 outbreak, the two rival centrist parties opted for unity.Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald said Fianna Fail and Fine Gael conspired to exclude her party and the voices of more than half a million people who voted for her party. She called the coalition a “marriage of convenience.””Faced with the prospect of losing their grip on power, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have circled the wagons,” McDonald said.Fianna Fail holds 38 seats in the 160-seat Dail, Sinn Fein has 37 and Fine Gael has 35, while the Greens have 12 seats.Homelessness, housing, healthThe election campaign was dominated by domestic issues. Ireland has a growing homelessness crisis, house prices that have risen faster than incomes and a public health system that hasn’t kept up with demand.Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the country’s problems. Underscoring the changes the virus has wrought, the Dail’s session Saturday was held at the Dublin Convention Centre rather than lawmakers’ permanent chamber to allow for social distancing.  Martin said that dealing with the pandemic would be the centerpiece of his leadership.  “The struggle against the virus is not over,” he said. “We must continue to contain its spread. We must be ready to tackle any new wave, and we must move forward rapidly to secure a recovery to benefit all of our people.”  The son of a former Irish international boxer, Martin, 59, had initially embarked on a career as a secondary school teacher before devoting himself to politics.He’s had a number of roles in more than 30 years of public life, including serving in four Cabinet posts. In his speech, he described being named Taoiseach of a free republic as being the greatest honor one could achieve. He thanked those who voted for him.”Most of all I want to thank my family and my community,” Martin said. “Without them I could have achieved nothing.”
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Several dozen women demonstrated Saturday in support of French police in central Paris, to counter public discontent over the perceived way law enforcement treats minorities.The demonstration of support surfaced as local governments across France attempt to change law enforcement practices and punish officers suspected of racism following the death of African American George Floyd while in the custody of officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Police officers and their unions in France accuse governments of blaming police for deep-rooted social ills in an attempt to deflect public anger.Among the women supporting police outside the Paris police headquarters Saturday were wives and partners of officers. One carried a message for Interior Minister Christophe Castaner that read “Respect our Police.”Castaner infuriated police this month when he acknowledged there were cases of racism in the police force and proposed sentences for officers found guilty of “proven suspicions of racism.”Police themselves have been protesting efforts to change their practices and punish them. Hundreds of officers rallied Friday night outside Paris’ Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people were killed in a terrorist attack by Islamist militants in 2015.  Protests erupted around the world following U.S. outrage over the May 25 death of Floyd, a 46-year-old black man. City lawmakers Friday unanimously advanced a proposal that could lead to the dismantling of that city’s police department.
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