President Donald Trump was blasted in a New York Timescolumn for losing against Iraq.
"For now we seem to have averted an all-out shooting war between the United States and Iran," Nicholas Kristof wrote. "Yet it’s not over. The world is more dangerous than it was a week ago, and President Trump’s exuberance suggests that he may have learned precisely the wrong lesson from his clash with Iran."
Kristof said that Trump's actions have resulted in him losing against Iran -- seven different ways.
"Iran has cast off nuclear curbs so that it is now potentially within five months of having enough fuel for a nuclear warhead, down from almost 15 years when Trump took office," he noted.
The second loss he cited was that, "United States forces may be pushed out of Iraq, allowing Suleimani to achieve in death one of his foremost goals in life."
"American forces in Syria may be difficult to support without the military presence in Iraq, so some or all of them might pull out as well, another strategic victory for Iran," he continued.
The fourth loss was, "The military campaign against ISIS is on hold, giving terrorists a chance to regroup."
"Iran’s regime, which had been threatened by enormous protests at home and in Iraq, has been rescued by Trump’s actions. Iranians have rallied around the flag, and the Iraqi narrative has changed overnight from the bullying of Iranians to the bullying of Americans," Kristof explained.
"Instead of bringing troops home, Trump has had to deploy more to the Middle East at huge cost. We may think we can’t afford universal pre-K, but we don’t blink at lavishing billions of dollars on these military deployments," he said was the sixth loss.
The losses are so extensive that there are ramifications in North Korea.
"North Korea has gained leverage, because it knows that Trump has little appetite for two international security crises at the same time. Kim Jong-un has also surely absorbed the lesson that he must never give up his nuclear warheads, as Trump will strike countries that lack nuclear weapons while schmoozing with leaders who have them," he noted.
Kristoff blasted the ultimate outcomes of Trump's choices -- and predicted there would likely be violence -- potentially even at Trump Organization properties like Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower.
"My best guess is that Iran will strike back hard in a way that leaves it some plausible deniability. Perhaps it’ll be a truck bomb at a diplomatic mission or Trump property, or perhaps rocket attacks on a military site by a proxy, or a cyberattack on an oil refinery or the power grid, or perhaps mines that damage oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz," he warned.
"So much winning!" he wrote sarcastically.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised that Americans would get sick of winning.
"We're going to win at so many levels. We're going to win, win, win. You're going to get so tired of winning," Trump vowed. "You're going to say, 'Mr. President, please, we don't want to win anymore -- it's too much!'"
Trump is running for re-election in 2020 with the slogan, "promises made, promises kept."
The host played a clip of Lee talking to reporters.
Lee said it was "probably the worst briefing I've seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I've served on the United States Senate."
"What I found so distressing about the briefing is one of the messages we received from the briefers was do not discuss, do not debate the issue of the appropriateness of further military intervention against Iran and if do, you'll be emboldening Iran," he explained. "The implication being we would be less safe by having a debate or discussion about the appropriateness of further military involvement."
Wallace said Lee's outburst was "a huge deal."
"That the guy, right there, Sen. Lee -- he's a Republican!" Wallace noted. "The Republicans in the Senate are by and large zombies, walking along as Donald Trump obliterates things like truth, the rule of law and respect for our institutions," she explained.
"He just left a briefing where he was a little peeved that the party's respect for truth, the rule of law and congressional debate and institutions has been obliterated," she noted.
Wallace said she could not remember seeing anything like this during the Bush administration.
Low confidence in Trump was expressed even before the president escalated tensions with Iran with the assassination of Qasem Suleimani.
Even before President Donald Trump stunned the international community by ordering the assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Sufleimani last week, people around the world had little confidence in Trump's handling of global affairs.
In a Pew survey taken of nearly 37,000 people in 33 countries between May and October 2019 and released Wednesday, 64% of respondents said they did not have confidence that Trump would do "the right thing" when making decisions about relations with other countries.
The Pew Research Center asked respondents whether they favored a number of Trump's most significant decisions up to last year, including his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement, his proposal to build a wall along the southern U.S. border as well as other aggressive anti-immigration policies aimed at deterring immigration, and his decision to increase tariffs on imported goods.
Respondents in Mexico had the least favorable view of Trump. The president was viewed negatively by 89% of people in the country that the president claimed in 2015 was sending its "most unwanted people" including "criminals, drug dealers, rapists" to immigrate to the United States.
The president also had low favorability ratings in European countries including the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Germany, and France, with about three-quarters of people in those countries saying they weren't confident in Trump's foreign policy decisions.
In the last year of his first term, Trump's results were similar to those of George W. Bush at the end of his second term as president, five years into the Iraq War and around the time that the speculation on Wall Street sent the global economy into a meltdown.
At the end of President Barack Obama's second term, 79% of international respondents viewed the 44th president favorably.
It is "worth reiterating the damage Trump is doing to our alliances at a moment when we could use steadfast allies," political scientist Brian Klaas tweeted, along with a chart showing the difference between global opinions regarding Obama during his presidency versus those of Trump.
Richard Wike, director of global attitudes research at Pew, wrote that negative attitudes about U.S. leadership plummeted during Bush's tenure due to the perception of the U.S. as an "unchecked superpower," while people today see Trump as isolating the U.S. from the global community by breaching and withdrawing from international agreements.
"In the Trump era, by contrast, critics are less concerned about the exercise of unrivaled U.S. power than they are about a U.S. retreat—from both global leadership and liberal democracy," wrote Wike.
The White House on Wednesday released a photo of President Donald Trump huddled with advisors in the Situation Room on Tuesday after Iran launched ballistic missile attacks against U.S. troops in response to America's assassination of Iranian General Qassim Suleimani.
Questions continue to swill over why Trump assassinated Suleimani, when two previous administrations and Israel had both decided such action would be counterproductive.
The photo shows Trump -- arms crossed tightly -- with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and -- as many internet users noted -- "a bunch old white guys."
Bloomberg News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs posted the picture to Twitter.
Here is some of the commentary on the group of people advising Trump during a military crisis:
There are multiple reports of air raid sirens going off at the United States embassy in Baghdad. In videos, loud pops and explosions followed.
The information hasn't been confirmed by U.S. news outlets or by the White House. The action comes after two U.S. bases were bombed by Iran Tuesday night.
After the U.S. embassy was attacked by protesters last week (pictured above), it was discovered that the entry of the embassy was completely burned.
President Donald Trump has absolutely no strategy in the Middle East, an analyst explained on MSNBC. The point was important enough for him to say three times.
MSNBC's Katy Tur interviewed Mehdi Hasan, a columnist for The Intercept and presenter on Al Jazeera English television shows.
"Today, President Trump announced new economic sanctions on Iran but no further military actions, saying, 'the U.S. is ready to embrace peace.' The trouble is, this president often says one thing and then does another," Tur noted.
"This is far from over," Hasan said. "This mini-crisis of this week might be over, but the broader struggle isn't over."
"We also have to be careful of not falling into the trap Donald Trump sets for us, where he creates an unnecessary and dangerous crisis then steps back from the edge and expects us to give him credit for that, see him as a problem solver when he started the problem in the first place," he explained. "I see no redeeming leadership qualities in a commander-in-chief who wants to be both arsonist and firefighter at the same time."
Tur noted the haphazard nature of Trump's decision making.
"He hasn't stayed on a straight course with his strategy or planning," Tur said. "It seems to be about his personal whims -- or whoever has his ear that day."
"I think you're spot on," Hasan replied. "It is exactly about personal whims, personal prejudices, who has his ear."
He said it was important for journalists to be honest about the situation.
"There is no strategy. There is no strategy. There is no strategy!" Hasan explained. "Trump does not do strategy.
"He couldn't find Iran on a map if his life depended upon it," he added.
Britain's Prince Harry and his wife Meghan will step back as senior members of the royal family and spend more time in North America, the couple said in a historic statement Wednesday.
"We intend to step back as 'senior' members of the royal family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen," they said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace.
"After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution," they added.
"We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America."
The shock news follows a turbulent year for the royal family.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent Christmas in Canada after speaking of the pressure of being in the spotlight following their wedding and son Archie's birth in May.
They had previously announced they would miss Christmas with Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the royal family, choosing to spend it instead with the duchess' mother, Doria Ragland.
One of the world's most famous runestones is now believed to have been erected by Vikings fearing a repeat of a previous cold climate crisis in Scandinavia, a new study said Wednesday.
The Rok stone, raised in the ninth century near the lake Vattern in south central Sweden, bears the longest runic inscription in the world with more than 700 runes covering its five sides.
It is believed to have been erected as a memorial to a dead son, but the exact meaning of the text has remained elusive, as parts are missing and it contains different writing forms.
The stone refers to the heroic acts of "Theodoric," which some scholars believe refers to Theodoric the Great, a sixth century ruler of the Ostrogoths in what is now Italy.
Researchers at three Swedish universities now suspect the inscriptions are more of an allusion to an impending period of extreme winter, as the person who erected the stone tried to put their child's death into a larger perspective.
"The inscription deals with an anxiety triggered by a son's death and the fear of a new climate crisis similar to the catastrophic one after 536 CE," the authors wrote.
The sixth century crisis is believed to have been caused by a series of volcanic eruptions which dramatically influenced climate with lower average temperatures, ruined crops and ensuing hunger and mass extinctions.
It has been estimated that as a result the population of the Scandinavian peninsula decreased by at least 50 percent, and the researchers point out that the memory of those events may have been passed down and even influenced the mythology.
- 'Extremely ominous' -
The new interpretation is based on a collaborative approach between researchers from several disciplines, including philology, archaeology and the history of religion.
Passages from the stone suggest the text refers to battles over a hundred years.
But the researchers suggest it could be speaking of a different kind of battle: "The conflict between light and darkness, warmth and cold, life and death."
They also take into account a number of events in the author of the text's lifetime, which could "have seemed extremely ominous."
"A powerful solar storm coloured the sky in dramatic shades of red, crop yields suffered from an extremely cold summer, and later a solar eclipse occurred just after sunrise," said Bo Graslund, professor in archaeology at Uppsala University.
"Even one of these events would have been enough to raise fears of another Fimbulwinter," Graslund added referring to a winter lasting three years in Norse mythology, a sign of the coming of Ragnarok.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) on Wednesday received a briefing on the intelligence reports that prompted President Donald Trump to attack Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Suleimani.
Connolly, who serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, told reporters that the intelligence was “profoundly unconvincing.” He went on to say he remained “utterly unpersuaded.”
"In fact, the evidence pointing to that came as three discrete facts: a) A pattern of travel showing Suleimani was in Syria, Lebanon & Iraq to meet with Shia proxies known to have an offensive position to the US. (As one source said that’s just “business as usual” for Suleimani)," she outlined.
Currently, Trump has a series of national intelligence and security positions open: Director of National intelligence, Dep. Dir. of National Intelligence, Secretary of Homeland Security, Dep. Sec. of Homeland Security, Under Sec. of State for Arms Control and International Security, Under Sec. of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Secretary of the Navy, Director of ICE, Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
It’s unclear if the unfilled positions are preventing the president from receiving expert advice.
One of US President Donald Trump’s central campaign promises was to extricate the US from extended military entanglements. Now, in light of rising tensions with Iran and Iraq, the US is sending over 3,000 additional troops to the Middle East. FRANCE 24 looks at what happened to that campaign promise when Trump ordered the January 3 assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
“All is well!” US President Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday night after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles on Iraqi facilities hosting US-led coalition personnel.
But is it? Nearly 17 years after the United States under George W. Bush invaded Iraq, the military presence in the country has cost America around a trillion dollars and the lives of nearly 5,000 military servicemen, according to the Watson Institute at Brown University in the US. An estimated half a million Iraqis have died.
One of Trump’s central campaign promises in 2016 was to extricate the US from extended military entanglements. “I campaigned on the fact that I was going to bring our soldiers home, and bring them home as fast as possible,” he said in October, after announcing that US forces would be pulled out of Syria.
Now, in light of rising tensions with Iran and Iraq, the US is sending over 3,000 additional troops to the Middle East.
What happened to Trump’s campaign promise when he ordered the January 3 assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad?
Supporters of Trump’s decision say Soleimani had it coming. As the architect of Iran's military and intelligence strategy in the region for the past 20 years, he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq in addition to attacks on US facilities in the country and in the Gulf.
Others suspect that the timing of the attack was no coincidence.
“If there is a Trump doctrine for his foreign policy, it is unpredictability,” says Annick Cizel, associate professor at the Sorbonne Nouvelle university in Paris and a researcher in US foreign policy.
“We need to keep in mind that Trump is running an electoral campaign. He’s not necessarily considering the international consequences of his decision as commander in chief of the US military. He’s thinking in terms of electoral gain.”
The Iraq war officially ended in 2011, when then President Barack Obama ordered the withdrawal of US combat troops, but several thousand US forces and a NATO training mission remained.
Pulling out of Iraq entirely might have been a great victory for Trump. “He’d be outdoing Obama by actually pulling all the troops out,” Cizel said.
But the US defence department is not running an election campaign. “The Pentagon, they’re doing their job, which is protecting US human resources and national interests. It seems the two missions are diverging a little bit – if we try and follow the incoherence, the many voices that are being heard out of Washington right now,” Cizel said.
Threat of sanctions
But with the killing of Soleimani, Trump has found a way out of that original campaign promise while distracting from the impeachment proceedings against him in Washington.
Trump quickly retaliated by threatening sanctions, saying that if US troops are forced to leave, Iraq's government will have to pay Washington for the cost of a "very extraordinarily expensive" air base in the country. "We will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame," he said.
The possibility of withdrawal gained ground on Monday, when the Iraqis received a letter from the head of US military forces in Iraq, Brigadier General William Seely, saying the US forces would begin preparing for a pullout.
But this was quickly denied by US Defence Secretary Mark Esper and Trump himself, who insisted there were no such plans.
"At some point we want to get out, but this isn't the right point," Trump said on Tuesday. "If we leave, that would mean that Iran would have a much bigger foothold, and the people of Iraq do not want to see Iran run the country. That I can tell you," Trump told reporters.
How Iran gained a foothold in Iraq
The initial 2003 invasion, based on incorrect intelligence information about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and the Baathist party’s supposed ties to al Qaeda, led to a decade-long insurgency by militias and foreign groups opposed to the US-led coalition, and to the long series of provisional Iraqi governments that followed.
The US had overthrown Saddam Hussein and banned the Baath party, ending a decades-long dictatorship and creating a political vacuum. The Iraqi military was also disbanded, leaving a security void, with hundreds of thousands of troops feeling abandoned.
In 2005, after the initial transition period that followed the war, Iraqis voted on a new constitution, which, among other things, promised to protect individual rights, also for religious and ethnic minorities.
After centuries of Sunni domination, a Shiite prime minister was instated. Iraq also got its first Kurdish president.
US troops pulled out in 2011, but were sent in again in 2014 – this time at the invitation of the Iraqi government, following the rise of the Islamic State (IS) group in the region.
“ISIS (an alternative acronym for the IS group) emerged as a potent, long-term threat – not just a movement, but a powerful contender – and not just in Syria and Iraq, but potentially in the entire region and globally,” Cizel said.
The rise of the IS group had to be balanced with the relationship with Iran. “This balancing act places Iran as a foil to ISIS, and places Iran in the position of a truce with Washington, a sort of neutrality zone in their long history of enmity,” Cizel said.
The new American-led global coalition to defeat ISIS was made up of 79 countries – and institutions like the Arab League, NATO and the EU – and it relied on the help of Iran.
“It creates an ironic truce then, because Iran is a bulwark against ISIS. We share a common enemy, which is the primary, short-term immediate emergency enemy, and therefore, at a time when Obama was negotiating the JCPOA [The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal] with Tehran, it ironically enabled Iran to become a regional power again,” Cizel said.
“That’s the irony of the 21st decentralisation away from nation states to those transnational movements like ISIS.”
Missed opportunity
Last October, Iraqis took to the streets to protest against Iran’s increasing control over the country.
The demonstrations were so virulent that Iraqi President Barham Saleh said he was “ready to resign” rather than appoint the candidate of a pro-Iranian coalition for the post of prime minister. The protests spread all the way to the overwhelmingly Shiite south of the country, where the Iranian consulates in the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf were among the targets.
That democratic uprising might have been an opportunity for the US to reconnect with the popular reality in Iraq, writes Jean-Pierre Filiu, a historian and Arab world specialist, in a blog post for French daily Le Monde. But Trump considers Iraq to be no more than a playing field in the struggle against Iran, Filiu says.
Trump’s decision to bomb facilities of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq in retaliation for the death of an American subcontractor in Kirkuk led to the December 31 attack on the American embassy in Baghdad, which was followed by the air strike that killed Soleimani.
That strike swung the pendulum of Iraqi public opinion way back towards Iran. On January 4, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi took part in the homage to Soleimani in Baghdad amid a sea of pro-Iranian militia flags and anti-US slogans.
[rebelmouse-image 24869346 alt="Mourners surround cars carrying the coffins of slain Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and eight others during a funeral procession in the Iraqi central city of Karbala on January 4, 2020. Thousands of Iraqis chanting "Death to America" today as they mourned an Iranian commander and others killed in a US drone attack that sparked fears of a regional proxy war between Washington and Tehran." original_size="1280x720" expand=1]
Mourners surround cars carrying the coffins of slain Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and eight others during a funeral procession in the Iraqi central city of Karbala on January 4, 2020. Thousands of Iraqis chanting "Death to America" today as they mourned an Iranian commander and others killed in a US drone attack that sparked fears of a regional proxy war between Washington and Tehran.Mohammed Sawaf, AFP
Fragile state
Since 2003, US policy in Iraq has been to gradually hand back security and political control of the country to Iraqis, through military training and support. This was also US policy in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and it remains a policy of the Trump administration.
With Iran’s foothold in Iraq strengthening, the policy might now be backfiring.
“Through their efforts to indigenise, to revert Iraq back to its sovereignty and self-determination, political, and national security – which is Trump policy – in order to eventually completely end the Iraq war, are empowering Shia proxies in Iraq and therefore pushing the United States out now,” Cizel said.
After nearly 17 years of US presence in Iraq, the country remains a fragile state – the centre of a tug of war between Iran, the US and the IS group, which continues to carry out attacks throughout the country.
Withdrawing US and NATO troops now would leave Iraq to fend for itself “and either fall as an Iranian proxy or as a failed state”, Cizel says. “The Pentagon is quite aware that this would be an extremely destabilising move for the entire region, and therefore hurt US troops stationed elsewhere in the region.”
In light of this, Trump’s original campaign promise to bring troops home has become untenable.
Instead, Trump appears to have resorted to the age-old tactic of launching military action to distract from political trouble at home – his impeachment proceedings – and to fire up patriotic fervor ahead of the elections.
It remains to be seen whether Iran and Iraq will play into his hands, or whether they will find a way to de-escalate the tension and rob him of that victory.
Nicolas Sarkozy will on October 5 become France's first ex-president to stand trial on corruption charges in a case in which he is accused of trying to obtain classified information from a judge.
The trial will last until October 22, a Paris court said.
This will be the first trial in several graft investigations against Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012.
Jacques Chirac, who died last September, was the first ex-president put on trial but not on corruption charges -- he was found guilty in 2011 of embezzlement and misuse of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris.
Sarkozy, 64, stands accused of seeking to obtain, through his lawyer Thierry Herzog, classified information from then-judge Gilbert Azibert in 2014, about another case that has since been dismissed.
In return, the judge was allegedly offered help to obtain a post in Monaco.
Last June, appeals judges rejected a challenge filed by Sarkozy, Herzog and Azibert against the case for corruption and influence peddling.
Herzog and Azibert will also be tried for breach of professional secrecy. The three men's lawyers declined to comment Wednesday.
Since losing to the Socialist Party's Francois Hollande and leaving office, Sarkozy has fought a barrage of corruption and campaign financing allegations, all of which he rejects.
Last October, a court ruled he must stand trial for illicit financing of his 2012 presidential campaign -- a charge for which he risks a one-year jail term and a fine. No trial date has been set.
In that case, prosecutors say Sarkozy spent nearly 43 million euros ($40 million) on his failed 2012 re-election bid -- almost double the legal limit of 22.5 million euros -- using fake invoices.
- 'Seasoned offender' -
He has said he was unaware of the fraud by executives at the public relations firm Bygmalion, who are among 13 others being pursued in the case.
Sarkozy has also been charged over accusations he accepted millions of euros from the late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi towards his first presidential campaign, in 2007.
Sarkozy retired from political life after he was defeated in the primary round of elections in 2016.
In its indictment for the corruption case, the prosecution service compared Sarkozy's actions to those of a "seasoned offender" and criticised his lawyers' tactics which it said "paralysed" the investigation.
The case has its origins in the interception of telephone conversations between the former president and his lawyer, carried out as part of the probe into the Libyan financing allegations.
Investigators discovered at the time that Sarkozy was using a pre-paid mobile phone card allegedly for the sole purpose of communicating with his lawyer.
The wiretaps were ruled allowable by an appeals court in 2016 but could still fuel a bitter legal battle at trial.
Other senior French politicians charged with financial misconduct have included former prime ministers Edouard Balladur, Francois Fillon and Alain Juppe.
Fillon crashed out of the running for the presidency in 2017 after being charged with using public funds to pay his wife for a fake job as his assistant.
Juppe, a prime minister under Chirac, was given a suspended jail sentence in 2004 over a party funding scandal.
Balladur, 90, faces charges of campaign finance violations.
Eight cases of the Borna virus, transmitted by shrews, have been identified in encephalitis patients who died between 1999 and 2019, researchers said Wednesday.
All eight cases occurred in southern Germany, mostly among people living in rural or semi-rural areas and in regular contact with animals, they reported in The Lancet, a medical journal.
Carried by the bicoloured white-toothed shrew, the virus triggers an inflammation of the brain, and is known to affect horses and sheep.
The researchers speculated that it could be transmitted by house cats that had come into contact with infected shrews.
Symptoms start with fever, headaches and confusion, and progress to memory loss, convulsions and loss of consciousness.
There is no known treatment for the disease, which gets its name from a town in Germany and was first described in the late 18th century.
In the eight newly identified cases, patients fell into a coma and died 16 to 57 days after hospital admission.
"Our findings indicate that Borna disease virus infection has to be considered a severe and potentially lethal human disease transmitted from a wildlife reservoir," said co-author Barbara Schmidt from Regensburg University Hospital.
"It appears to have occurred unnoticed in humans for at least decades, and may have caused other unexplained cases of encephalitis in regions where the virus is endemic in the host shrew population."
The scientists recommended testing for Borna virus in patients who suffer rapid deterioration of their nervous systems in order to establish the scale of infection among humans.
"It is still relatively rare in absolute numbers, but it might be behind a larger proportion of unexplained severe-to-fatal encephalitis cases," said co-author Martin Beer from the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute.
"Only more tests on patients with severe or even deadly encephalitis will find this out."
The study, led by Hans Helmut Niller of the Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene in Regensburg, examined the brain tissue of 56 patients who developed encephalitis-like symptoms at some point over the last two decades.
The new findings bring the total number of confirmed Borna cases in southern Germany -- all fatal -- to 14.
The researchers were not able to definitively establish how the Borna virus was transmitted to humans, but victims for which such information was available lived in rural settings around animals.
"In at least seven cases, close contact with cats was reported," they said in a statements.
"When cats hunt, they might bring shrews into their homes, exposing humans to them."
The genetic profiles of all eight of the new cases were all distinct and matched the profile of locally infected shrews or horses, suggesting the infections occurred independently.
Uri Geller revealed Wednesday he has applied to work for the British government after Prime Minister Boris Johnson's chief adviser called for "weirdos and misfits" to apply for jobs.
In an application sent to Johnson's unorthodox top aide Dominic Cummings, the British-Israeli spoon-bender offered up the use of his "genuine psychic powers".
"You say you want someone on the 'frontiers of the science of prediction'? Well look no further," Geller, 73, wrote in a cover letter seen by AFP which begins "Dear Dom".
"I have genuine psychic powers -- just ask Mossad, the CIA and the Pentagon," he added, referring to longstanding claims he has worked for US and Israeli intelligence services.
"I am currently busy organizing the opening of The Uri Geller Museum in Israel but would consider a move back to Britain for the right position," the British-Israeli illusionist said.
- 'Weirdos, misfits, odd skills' -
Cummings last week released a 3,000-word post on his personal blog detailing what he said was the need to diversify the skills and backgrounds of UK policy makers and advisers.
The controversial adviser, who headed the 2016 referendum campaign for Britain to leave the EU, said the government wanted to hire "an unusual set of people with different skills and backgrounds".
They include data scientists, software developers, economists, policy experts, project managers, communications experts, as well as "weirdos and misfits with odd skills".
The appeal resonated with Geller, an apparent Johnson supporter and a close friend of the singer Michael Jackson.
In December, he claimed to have helped the prime minister retain power by giving him a spoon fused with "positive energy" which had belonged to former Israeli leader Golda Meir.
In his job pitch, which included an endorsement from current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Geller touted his varied life experience.
He claimed his career as an entertainer -- featuring trademark TV performances of spoon bending and other illusions -- had actually been "the perfect mask" for espionage work.
"In my intelligence work I assisted with Operation Desert Storm, helped to locate secret tunnels in North Korea and used my skills to erase crucial diplomatic discs on their way to Moscow," he wrote.
"While many have doubted my abilities, my achievements cannot be dismissed as trickery or illusions."
Geller suggested his talents could be deployed as Britain enters a year of likely tough negotiations with the European Union over their post-Brexit trading relationship.
"I attended nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia, bombarding their chief negotiator with positive thought waves so that the Soviet delegation would sign the Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty," he noted.
"Perhaps you could have used my abilities in your dealings with Michel Barnier," Geller added, referring to the EU's chief Brexit negotiator.
Geller concluded the 264-word letter, accompanied by his resume, by saying: "Thank you for considering me."
The British government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
