President Donald Trump, do you ever think about your own funeral? The question is not meant to be morbid or to wish ill upon you. But given how churlishly you have behaved after the death of Senator John McCain - was it really that hard for you to issue a laudatory statement and lower the flag in his honour? - it feels appropriate. Besides, it's only human to wonder how you'll be remembered once you exhale for the final time. Martin Luther King famously mused about his funeral just two months before he was killed. "Every now and then," he told his congregation, "I ask myself what is it that I would want said?" Writer Leonard Pitts Jr wonders who will write Donald Trump's eulogy when his time comes. The band Crash Test Dummies pondered the question in a ballad called 'At My Funeral.' "When my coffin is sealed and I'm safely six feet under," the singer intoned, "perhaps my friends will see fit then to judge me."
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un signed a document on Tuesday asserting that the US president would provide unspecified "security guarantees" to Kim in exchange for the North Korean leader's "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula." The two leaders signed copies of the document, in Korean and English, at a signing ceremony to conclude their summit in Singapore - the first ever meeting of the North Korean and US heads of state. Trump and Kim noted the symbolism of the moment in their document, calling it an "epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities" between the countries. In four bullet points, they laid out goals of future rounds of negotiations without specifying what immediate steps either side would take. Trump said there would be "many meetings" between the two men.
Before US President Donald Trump met Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on Friday, British anti-Trump protesters warned it would not turn out well. Now that the meeting is over, they're counting the ways Trump "insulted" their beloved monarch. And of course the discussion is taking place on Trump's favourite platform - Twitter. It's not enough that massive demonstrations took place in London and elsewhere, complete with a giant "Trump baby" blimp balloon mocking the president from the skies. Trump tormentors - even self-described "non-royalists" - took to Twitter to acidly note moments during the tea-time meeting at Windsor Castle when Trump did something that could be interpreted as a faux pas.
South Africa's government lashed out at US President Donald Trump on Thursday (Friday NZ Time) after he tweeted that his administration would be looking into farm seizures and the "large scale killing of farmers" in the country. The government said Trump's tweet was based on "false information" and reflected a "narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past." It was meeting with the US Embassy as it sought to clarify Trump's remarks. South Africa is in the throes of a racially charged national debate over land reform, a lawful process that seeks to correct the legacy of decades of white minority rule that stripped blacks of their land. Though the ruling African National Congress, which has been in power since 1994, has pledged to close that gap, progress has been slow. In July, President Cyril Ramaphosa said his party would amend the constitution so the state could expropriate land without compensation to speed up the land reform process. Debate over the issue has grown ahead of next year's election. Trump's tweet followed a segment on Fox News on Wednesday (Thursday NZT) in which host Tucker Carlson claimed Ramaphosa had already started "seizing land from his own citizens without compensation because they are the wrong skin colour," calling the alleged seizures "immoral."
Former CIA director John Brennan says he is willing to take Donald Trump to court to prevent other current and former officials from having their security clearances revoked, escalating a battle over whether the US President is misusing the power of his office to retaliate against opponents. "I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future, and if it means going to court, I will do that," Brennan said in an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. Brennan voiced his eagerness to challenge Trump on the same day that national security adviser John Bolton floated the idea of a sweeping review of all security clearances held by those both inside and outside the government. Such a review could affect more than 4 million Americans. Brennan, who is among Trump's most outspoken critics, was abruptly stripped of his clearance by the White House last week. Brennan said on Sunday (Monday NZT) that since then, a number of lawyers have contacted him to offer advice on pursuing an injunction to prevent Trump from taking similar actions in the future.
On one of the worst days of his American presidency, Donald Trump was chatting aboard Air Force One when the conversation took a detour into gallows humour. Trump was returning from a rally in West Virginia just hours after two former members of his inner circle were found or pleaded guilty, when one passenger quipped that a news story would surely soon be breaking about the US president fuming onboard. Everyone laughed, including the president. Despite the momentary levity, though, Trump is increasingly frustrated and isolated as the investigations that have long dogged his White House plunge into the personal territory he once declared off-limits. One by one, the president's men have turned against him.
After 18 months of treating North Korea as the top national security threat, US President Donald Trump has increasingly turned his attention to China, taking a more confrontational approach that experts said shows a risky shift in US policy. From an escalating trade war to a new defence budget that counters Chinese maritime expansion, the Trump administration has taken aim at the East Asian power in a contest of wills that has led to a growing consensus in Beijing that the United States is seeking to contain China's rise. Trump's rhetoric has grown sharper since last year, when he attempted to strike a rapport with his "good friend" President Xi Jinping. Last week, Trump cited the Chinese military as the rationale for creating a new "Space Force" at the Pentagon, and in a tweet on Saturday he injected China into the spectre of foreign influence of US elections.