NEWS SUMMARY-INTELLIGENCE REPORT TUESDAY 6/18-WEDNESDAY 6/19/2019

(MORE STORIES TO BE ADDED, EDITING ETC. AT INTERVALS UNTIL EARLY WEDNESDAY)



President Trump announcing his re-election campaign for 2020 at a rally in Orlando, Florida Tuesday night.

US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida in attendance and he tweeted this video.....LINK

The race to be the next British Prime Minister now down to five candidates.    Dominic Raab did not receive enough votes from Conservative MP's in the second round of voting Tuesday.   He got 30 votes, three short of the number needed to advance.

At the top of the results was Boris Johnson with 126 votes.    Jeremy Hunt had 46 votes, Michael Gove had 41 votes, Rory Stewart with 37 votes and Sajid Javid just reached the minimum number needed, 33 votes.

Two more rounds of voting Wednesday and Thursday with the final two candidates receiving the most votes going to the whole of the Conservative Party membership for a vote.

President Trump announcing that acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan is leaving and has withdrawn from consideration to be the permanent Secretary of Defense.   The President says that Shanahan wants to devote more time to his family.

Mainstream media reports surfaced in the last 24 hours regarding Mr. Shanahan's family raising issues that he said were:

"painted in an incomplete and therefore misleading way"

Army Secretary Mark Esper taking over as Secretary of Defense.

"a deliberate policy to instigate war"

Those comments from Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov Tuesday regarding the United States policy towards Iran.

Moscow is also saying that Russia's expectation is that Iran will adhere to the JCPOA nuclear agreement of 2015.

Russia also takes the view that any Iranian actions including its increasing stockpile of enriched uranium can be reversed.

The lower house of the Russian legislature, the Duma. passing legislation that suspends Russia's participation in the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) treaty.

The upper house to consider it later.

Russia's move in response to the US decision to withdrawal from the INF treaty in February citing Russian violations of it.

A briefing on the situation in northwestern Syria at the UN Security Council Tuesday.    UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke to reporters Tuesday urging respect for international law even when fighting terrorism.   Guterres urged Russia and Turkey to:

"stabilize the situation without delay"

A United Nations human rights expert probing the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi says there is credible evidence that Saudi officials including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were involved.

Agnes Callamard has released a 101 page report calling for a criminal investigation to follow up the evidence in what is being called an "extradjudicial killing"

The Russian mission in Syria says several settlements in government held areas of northwestern Syria were shelled by jihadist and nationalist opposition forces in the 24 hour period ending Wednesday.

The former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi buried quickly after his death in a courtroom Monday.

There was a police presence as Morsi was buried with his family present at a cemetery in eastern Cairo.

Morsi collapsed during his latest trial, this one on charges of espionage with family members saying he has not received proper medical care during his imprisonment and trials.

Morsi was Egyptian president during the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood in that country.

His wife tweeted that he was a "martyr", a sentiment echoed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.    More on the reaction in Turkey from the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper....LINK

And that's the way it really is as we come into Wednesday morning June 19th, 2019.