After instructing a group of local journalists to “act civilized,” a top US diplomat has sparked outcry and demands for an apology in Lebanon.
After meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut to discuss plans for the disarmament of Hezbollah, American ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack made the remarks.
Barrack, who is Lebanese, chided reporters for yelling questions at once and appeared to link their behavior to Middle Eastern conflict after briefing local media following the meeting.
Please be quiet for a moment while we have a different set of rules, Barrack said.
“And I want to tell you that we are gone as soon as this starts to become chaotic, like animalistic.” You want to know what’s going on, then. Because of the regional situation, act civilized, kind, and tolerant.
We’ll respond to your questions in accordance with your kindness, interest, and thoughtful questions, Barrack continued. We’re gone if that’s not how you’d like to run.”
Commentators accused the diplomat of displaying arrogance and a colonial mentality after hearing Barrack’s remarks in Lebanon and elsewhere.
The Lebanese Presidency expressed regret for the remarks, saying in a statement on X that it “extended its highest regards for all journalists’ efforts and dedication to carrying out their professional and national duties.”
The envoy’s Lebanese and Arab media outlets were instructed to abstain from coverage of upcoming events until he publicly apologizes in person.
The media union said in a statement that Barrack’s comments against journalists reflect an unacceptable superiority in dealing with the media and an implicit disdain for the work of journalists. They are not just a slip of the tongue or a personal stance.
Additionally, his remarks “reflect ing ingrained colonial arrogance toward the peoples of the region” and “represent a blatant violation of fundamental principles of diplomacy, including respect for press freedom and people’s right to know.”
According to Mohamad Hasan Sweidan, a columnist for The Cradle in Beirut, Barrack’s comments reflect Washington’s attitude toward the area, according to Hasan Sweidan.
By defining their actions as animalistic, “Tom Barrack is reminding us how they view people in the region,” Sweidan said.
On Wednesday, August 27, 2018, this is how things are going.
Fighting
In the Donetsk region of Ukraine, governor Vadym Filashkin reported that one person was killed and six others were hurt as a result of Russian attacks.
According to the energy company DTEK, which claimed the attack damaged buildings and caused a power outage, one worker was killed and six others were hurt in a Russian attack on a Ukrainian mine. The company claimed that 146 miners were underground at the time, and that their ascent to the surface is still going on.
According to the newly elected Governor Vladimir Saldo, one person was killed and three others were hurt in Ukrainian attacks in the Russian-occupied Kherson region of Ukraine.
According to the Ukrainian battlefield monitoring organization DeepState, Russian forces have taken control of Zaporizke and Novoheorhiivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine. According to DeepState, Russian forces also advanced close to Ukrainian settlements Shevchenko, Bila Hora, and Oleksandr-Shultyno.
In a single day, Russian air defenses destroyed 191 Ukrainian drones, six guided aerial bombs, and a long-range guided missile, according to the Russian state-run news agency TASS.
Despite the ongoing implementation of martial law, which had previously prevented such movement, Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 22 are now able to cross Ukraine’s borders freely in either direction, according to Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
More than 200 000 cases of soldiers who were absent without leave (AWOL), including some 50 000 who were detained, have been opened, according to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, according to the Ukrainska Pravda news site.
Peace talks
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, said he wants an end to the conflict in Ukraine. “We want an end to it,” he said. Economic sanctions apply. Because there won’t be a world war, I’m talking about economic issues.
In the event of a peace deal with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged governments to work quickly to improve security guarantees for Ukraine. He urged governments to “ensure the highest level of our work and ensure the highest level of transparency and clarity in everything related to security guarantees.”
According to an unnamed source in the United States and an unnamed source in Ukraine, the US may provide intelligence and battlefield oversight to aid Western powers in providing security guarantees to post-war Ukraine and participate in a European-led air defense shield for the nation, according to the Financial Times on Tuesday.
Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s staff, and Rustem Umerov, the head of Kyiv’s national security council, met in Doha for a “substantive conversation” on subjects like “the details of security guarantees for Ukraine,” Yermak wrote on X.
According to a source with knowledge of the secret discussions between Exxon Mobil and Rosneft, the Russian energy company Rosneft and Moscow’s Pacific coast oil and gas production project would resume operations if Moscow and Washington give their consent as part of a peace agreement in Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
diplomacy and politics
Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s veto of a bill granting Ukrainian refugees in his country could cost the country 8 billion zlotys ($2.20 billion), in part because thousands of Ukrainians would lose the right to work legally, according to the Polish Ministry of the Interior.
Sophie Kasaei, a star of Geordie Shore and TOWIE, discussed the moment she almost passed away on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast as she revealed the details of her botched BBL ordeal.
Sophie Kasaei has been sharing her BBL ordeal on the latest episode of Happy Mum, Happy Baby(Image: Instagram)
Geordie Shore icon Sophie Kasaei haș opened up about her harrowing surgical experience, after a botched Brazilian butt lift left her just moments away from death.
The 35 year old reality star, who has always been open about her plastic surgery journey over the years, has undergone numerous procedures and tweakments in her quest to achieve the “perfect” body.
Although the majority of these procedures have been successful, Sophie almost lost her life when she had her BBL procedure.
After a clinic offered to perform it for free, the star traveled to Turkey in 2016 to have the BBL procedure. Following four years of relentless trolling while in the public eye, Sophie realized the procedure would help her regain her confidence and silence her critics.
Geordie Shore star Sophie Kasaei revealed she ‘almost died’ after BBL surgery(Image: Instagram)
READ MORE: Freddy Brazier announces podcast with unseen pics of mum Jade as he tackles addictionREAD MORE: Katie Price reveals taut new post-surgery after ripping out her own stitches
Broaching the subject last year, Sophie told The Sun what had lead up to the decision to undergo surgery, when she explained: “It’s quite sad to think at the age of 24, I had these horrible insecurities that had been drilled into me from the press and public.
They would always say we looked like drag queens because we were “ugly,” fat, a whale, constantly “fat s**g,” and “embarrassed to society,” and they were all being “ugly.” It’s terrible, the list goes on and on.
“I was just growing up in this new world, I wasn’t used to this industry. We didn’t know what social media was, we didn’t know what being in the public eye was.”
However, choosing to have surgery was only the first step, as the free clinic turned out to be far more expensive than she had anticipated, with the results being compared to a “murder scene” in the aftermath of her operation.
Sophie Kasaei needed life saving surgery to treat an abscess following her BBL procedure(Image: sophiekasaei/tiktok)
Images shared online showed the extent of the swelling post-op(Image: sophiekasaei/tiktok)
However, in the most recent episode of the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, Sophie has elaborated a little more on her experience while discussing the nightmare procedure with host Giovanna Fletcher.
“I nearly passed away after getting a BBL.” My left breast cheek actually had an abscess growing on it, Sophie admitted.
“And it took control of my entire body, causing me to momentarily walk away from them and declare my death.”
It was horrifying, I guess. And my family and I both recall spending time in South Shields Hospital’s bed. And I immediately realized, “This is probably my goodbye.” “
“And the doctor arrived. They said, “We’re going to have to rush into surgery right now.” And I thought, “What’s happening? “
They said, “Basically, you were going to die if that abscess bursts inside your body.”
Sophie continued, “So I was like, I was like, All right. “
Even despite facing emergency surgery, Sophie was worried about her appearance(Image: @sophiekasaei_/instagram)
Sophie had a hard time accepting her appearance, so she asked the doctor to try to make the scar as small and clean as possible rather than just to concentrate on her health.
“I remember telling the doctor, Whatever you do, can you make it look like a really clean scar,” he said.
“I was considering doing the magazines and seeing what people thought of my enormous scar,” I said. I was 24 at the time, exactly. I’ve only been here ten years.
A Brazilian buttlift is what?
Brazilian buttlifts, or BBL procedures, are a form of plastic surgery that is performed to make buttocks larger, rounded, or lifted.
To achieve this, surgeons place silicone-filled implants in the body and/or inject body fat from other areas.
Although this may seem simple, the procedure is actually quite complicated and involves a number of risks, including severe bacterial infections, including MRSA, necrosis, tissue death, scarring, wound ruptures, and abscesses.
Due to fat being injected into large veins, which then passes to the major organs, some people have even died during BBLs.
However, despite the risks remaining high, BBL surgery is still becoming more popular, with a 20% increase in demand driving many people to travel abroad because BBLs are not currently recommended in the UK.
Continue reading the article.
Instead, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) advises surgeons to only perform superficial gluteal lipofilling (SGL).
Fat from other body parts is used in this procedure, but crucially, it is only injected below the skin, unlike traditional BBLs, which insert it into the muscles instead.
A right-wing researcher who made false accusations about the 2020 election has been appointed to the position of election oversight in the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Heather Honey, a Pennsylvania activist, is the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans, according to a leadership chart released on Tuesday for the Department of Homeland Security.
The investigative news outlet Democracy Docket reported Honey’s appointment for the first time on Monday.
Due to her involvement in numerous initiatives that led to false research about the 2020 presidential election, her position has raised eyebrows among Trump administration critics.
Trump has repeatedly refuted the claim that his election loss from the 2020 election was the result of massive fraud.
He has placed loyalists in positions of authority since winning a second term in January, raising concerns about the independence of some positions.
He also pushed the country’s electoral system, which is largely run by state and local officials, against his false claims of fraudulent elections.
Critics have warned that openly partisan appointments to posts overseeing elections could undermine voter confidence.
According to David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, “What I’m concerned about is that it seems like the Department of Homeland Security [Department of Homeland Security] is being poised to use the vast power and megaphone of the federal government to spread disinformation rather than combat it,” Becker said.
“It’s going to seriously harm DHS’s overall credibility.”
Heather Honey, who is she?
Given her prominent role in spreading false information about the 2020 election, Honey’s appointment in particular has prompted election experts and local officials to speak out.
For instance, Democrat secretary of state Adrian Fontes told the news outlet ProPublica that Honey has a “well-documented history of spreading election lies.”
Honey is the owner of Verity Votes, a consulting firm that was involved in “audits” of elections that experts believe were flawed, as well as another company called Haystack Investigations, which also claims to conduct election research.
In their efforts to stifle the 2020 election results, Trump and his supporters have drawn lessons from the findings of her companies.
For instance, Honey’s organization falsely claimed that Pennsylvania, a significant swing state, had more votes than voters in 2020 when reclaiming incomplete voter data.
Verity Vote claimed that Pennsylvania sent mail-in ballots to voters who omitted necessary identification two years later, in 2022.
Verity Vote, however, was accused of misleading Verity Vote’s voting system’s “not verified” designation.
The Pennsylvania Department of State stated in press that it communicates to local authorities that a voter’s identification needs to be verified using the “not verified” tag. According to the statement, the designation serves as a “security feature” for voter applications and does not suggest that absentee voters could cast ballots without proper identification.
In the 2020 election, Democrat Joe Biden edged out Trump by less than 1%, giving him a slim majority in the state.
Honey participated in a partisan audit of election results in Maricopa County, a populous area home to the city of Phoenix, in another important swing state that Trump lost in 2020.
The audit found no proof that Biden’s victory was erroneous despite searching for fraud for almost six months. Experts continue to claim that the audit contained biased methodology and errors.
Republican former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer has since reported to The Associated Press that he has received numerous requests for public records in relation to Honey’s election-related requests.
According to Richer, these requests took up “scores of hours of staff time,” and he served in the position between 2021 and 2025.
He claimed that Honey was “not a serious auditor” and that he was surprised to learn that she had such “authority and responsibility.”
Honey’s appointment as president comes not as widely as the first time she is under fire for her work in his administration. Emil Bove and other appointees have been the subject of serious public debate over whether they would prioritize their loyalty to Trump over their commitment to government ethics.
Trump has opened investigations into critics and government officials who made false allegations about the 2020 election since his victory in the 2024 election.
After receiving a wildcard from Canada’s Leylah Fernandez, Venus Williams will compete in the women’s doubles at the US Open.
Williams, 45, made her 25th Grand Slam appearance earlier this week, which was a record-extending 25th.
She will return to the Flushing Meadows courts with Fernandez, who is 23 years her junior, after a gallant first-round defeat suffered by Czech 11th seed Karolina Muchova on Monday.
In the first round, they will face Australian Ellen Perez and Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok, the second seeds.
Serena and Williams’ younger sister Serena won the US Open doubles titles in 1999 and 2009.
There aren’t enough words to express how proud I am of you, Serena wrote on Instagram earlier on Tuesday in tribute to her sibling.
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Williams, who had spent the entire year without competing, was declared an inactive player earlier this season.
Then, out of nowhere, she announced she was ready to play again at the Washington Open after receiving training from the tennis world for Wimbledon.
Williams whets her appetite for more competitive action by defeating Peyton Stearns in her Washington comeback.
Williams, a two-time champion and champion of the US Open singles, was given a wildcard despite her opening defeat in Cincinnati.
She reflected on how she has fought the odds in her 6-3, 2-6, 6-1 defeat to Muchova as she considered how she has overcome serious health issues to push the world’s best players.
Williams was identified with Sjogren’s syndrome, an unremarkable autoimmune condition that causes pain, numbness, and fatigue in 2011.
She revealed last month how painful fibroids, which are abnormal growths that develop in the uterus, had also had an impact on her.
Fernandez, 22, defeated compatriot Rebecca Marino 6-2 6-1 in the first round of the women’s singles in New York, which ranks her 31st.
Syrian state media reported that six Syrian army officers had been killed by Israeli drone strikes south of Damascus, according to Syria’s state-run El Ekhbariya TV, a day after Syria condemned another Israeli “military incursion” outside the capital.
Early on Wednesday, the broadcaster reported that Israeli drones were attacking Syrian army positions in the Damascus countryside close to al-Kiswah.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes across Syria that target military installations and assets since the Bashar al-Assad regime was overthrown last December.
Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights was also widened by annexing the demilitarized buffer zone, which was in violation of Syria’s disengagement agreement from 1974.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday that it had sent 60 soldiers to take control of a mountain range near the Syrian border near Beit Jinn, which is strategically located close to Lebanon’s southern border. Israel did not respond to the accusation right away.
Asaad al-Shaibani, the minister of foreign affairs in Syria, claimed that Israel had “established intelligence facilities and military posts” in demilitarized areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month shared his vision for a “Greater Israel,” a concept supported by ultranationalist Israelis who claim occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan.
The Arab League and 31 Arab and Islamic nations argued that their position “blatantly and dangerously violates international law and the foundations of stable international relations.”
