Political Misfits Discussion of UK Russian Hacking Report (7/21/2010)

Lebanon Crisis Worsens; UK Report Targets Russia; Trump Sending Federal Agents to Chicago

Dr. Hicham Safieddine, professor of the history of the modern Middle East at King’s College London, has the latest on Lebanon's economic woes. Lebanon has not been spared in the coronavirus crisis, but unluckily for the country, the virus hit amid a slowly building economic crisis that seems to have suddenly hit the gas over the past few months, with electricity being cut to a few hours a day, food prices rising so high and so fast that they’re going beyond the reach of some citizens, the Lebanese pound losing 80% of its value over the course of the last year and the country’s banks and citizens running out of foreign currency. That Lebanon is in a serious crisis seems beyond doubt. But how did the country get here?

Jim Kavanagh, political analyst, commentator and editor of The Polemicist, breaks down a British report targeting Russia. The UK Parliament's cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee has issued a report saying in part that "the UK took its 'eye off the ball' in relation to Russia's attempts to meddle in British politics and deliberately 'glossed over' allegations of a Kremlin-sponsored influence campaign during the Brexit referendum," CNN reported Tuesday. Some are saying that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government does not want to reveal what truly took place, while the report said that "British intelligence agencies didn't investigate as they did not see the security of [the] UK voting process as part of their role because they feared the issue was a 'hot potato,'" CNN noted. What do we make of this?
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