Diane is a perfectionist. She enjoys searching the internet for the hottest events from around the world and writing an article about it. The details matter to her, so she makes sure the information is easy to read and understand. She likes traveling and history, especially ancient history. Being a very sociable person she has a blast having barbeque with family and friends.
U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery /
The Italian Senate has voted to allow prosecutors to put far-right leader Matteo Salvini on trial over charges of holding immigrants at sea.
Matteo Salvini, who previously
served as the country’s interior minister, is accused of illegally keeping
people on a boat off Sicily for days in August 2019.
Some 116 migrants remained aboard
the Gregoretti for close to a week.
On February 12, a majority of
senators voted for the trial of Matteo Salvini to go ahead.
The anti-immigration League leader has
repeatedly said he wants to go to court. He told the chamber he wanted “to
tell the world” that his migration policies “saved tens of thousands
of lives.”
He said: “I am absolutely calm and proud of what I have done. And I’ll do
it again as soon as I get back into government.”
Senators from his League party left
the chamber rather than take part in the vote.
Under Italian law, ministers have
parliamentary immunity for actions taken while they were in office. However, a
committee voted last month to strip Matteo Salvini of his immunity – leaving
the final decision in the hands of the Senate on February 12.
An official vote tally is expected by 19:00 local time. If
successfully prosecuted at trial, Matteo Salvini could face up to 15 years in
jail.
For years, some in Italy have complained that the country has taken in a
large number of migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean, and has called for
other EU nations to take their share.
Matteo Salvini in particular took a hard stance on migrant boats while he
was in office, implementing a closed ports policy.
On July 25, 2019, Italian coastguard
ship the Gregoretti picked up about 140 migrants trying to travel to Italy from
Libya.
While the Gregoretti allowed several
people off the ship for medical attention, some 116 people remained on board
for days while Matteo Salvini demanded other EU countries take them in.
The decision drew an immediate backlash.
Prosecutors opened an investigation into conditions aboard after reports that
migrants only had one toilet between them.
After the Catholic Church and a number of states agreed to care for those on board, in a deal which then EU commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos helped to broker, Matteo Salvini eventually consented to let them dock on July 31.
One of the protesters, who shouted
at Juan Guaidó and threw a liquid at him, was wearing the uniform of the
state-owned airline Conviasa, which has been directly hit by US sanctions.
There were also scuffles between the
protesters and supporters of Juan Guaidó, who had gone to the airport to
welcome him.
Lawmakers loyal to Juan Guaidó had
to walk to the airport after the bus they were traveling in was stopped by
police.
Journalists reported being attacked
and having their kit stolen by those who had turned out to boo Juan Guaidó.
His office later said that a
relative who was travelling with him had been held by airport officials, and
had not been seen since.
Meanwhile, without directly naming Juan Guaidó, President Maduro told his
supporters to focus on “defending Venezuela”.
He said at a ceremony that was broadcast on state television: “Let’s not get distracted by
stupidities, by dummies, by traitors to the homeland.”
Nicolas Maduro’s second-in-command Diosdado Cabello also denounced Juan
Guaidó’s three-week tour as a “tourism trip”, and said he did not
expect anything to change after his return.
“He is nothing,”
Diosdado Cabello added.
President Maduro and his officials have threatened Juan Guaidó in the past,
but these threats have, so far, not led to him being harmed or detained.
Despite this being the second time he defied a court-imposed travel ban,
Juan Guaidó was not arrested.
After landing, Juan Guaidó addressed a rally of about 500 people in Caracas,
where he called for renewed protests against the president.
During Juan Guaidó’s visit to the US, President Trump promised to “smash” Nicolas Maduro’s government.
The presidential nominees will be chosen through a series of primaries and
caucuses in every state and territory that began in Iowa on February 3 and ends
in Puerto Rico in early June.
Short of a big shock, the Republican nominee will be Donald Trump. Even
though technically he has two challengers, he is so popular among Republicans,
he has a clear run ahead of him. With that in mind, the Democratic primaries
are the only ones worth watching.
Step
one: The start line
A whole year before the primaries,
the first candidates emerged from hibernation. Over the year, others woke up
and eventually 28 people announced they were running to become the Democratic
nominee for president.
But dwindling funds, luke-warm or
(ice-cold) public reaction and campaign infighting have, to varying degrees,
led to 16 candidates pulling out of the race.
At the start of primary season, 11
people remained in the running. In theory, any one of them could become the
nominee. In reality, only a few have a chance.
Step
two: The Iowa caucuses
The first event of the primary
season isn’t a primary at all – it’s a series of caucuses, in Iowa. These took
place on February 3, in somewhat chaotic fashion.
What are caucuses?
A caucus involves people attending a
meeting – maybe for a few hours – before they vote on their preferred
candidate, perhaps via a head count or a show of hands. Those meetings might be
in just a few select locations – you can’t just turn up at a polling station.
Caucuses used to be far more popular
back in the day, but this year, Democrats are holding only four in US states –
in Nevada, North Dakota, Wyoming and Iowa.
If any candidate gets under 15% of
the vote in any caucus, their supporters then get to pick a second choice from
among the candidates who did get more than 15%, or they can just choose
to sit out the second vote.
Why Iowa caucuses matter?
A win there for any candidate can
help give them momentum and propel them to victory in the primaries.
Why is Iowa first in the primary
calendar? You can blame Jimmy Carter, sort of. Iowa became first in 1972, for
various technical electoral reasons too boring to go into here. But when Carter
ran for president in 1976, his team realized they could grab the momentum by
campaigning early in Iowa. He won there, then surprisingly won the presidency,
and Iowa’s fate was sealed.
Why Iowa caucuses don’t matter?
Iowa doesn’t represent the entire US
– it’s largely white, so the way people vote there is very, very different than
in other states.
The sate’s record on picking the
eventual nominees is a bit rubbish too, at least when it comes to Republicans –
when there’s an open Republican race, Iowa hasn’t opted for the eventual
nominee since 2000. Such names as Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz
have won there in recent years.
Step three: The New Hampshire primary
Eight days after Iowa on February 11, is the first primary, in New
Hampshire. The tiny north-eastern state of only 1.3 million people will once
again become an unlikely hotbed of political activity.
What is a primary?
Unlike a caucus, where voters are expected to turn up at a few limited
locations at certain times and stick around for a while, primary voters can
just turn up at a polling booth and vote in secret. Then leave.
How does a primary work?
The more votes a candidate gets in a caucus or primary, the more
“delegates” they are awarded, and all candidates will be hoping to
win an unbeatable majority of delegates.
The number of delegates differs in each state, and is decided by a
convoluted series of criteria. In California’s primary, for example, there are
415 Democratic delegates up for grabs this year. In New Hampshire, there are
only 24.
This year is a bit different. Any candidate would need to get at least 15%
of the vote in any primary or caucus to be awarded delegates. There are still
11 candidates in the running – an unusually large number – so there’s a risk
the vote share will be spread out and some of the candidates may struggle to
reach 15%.
After New Hampshire, we could get a clear picture of who is struggling, but
whoever has claimed the most delegates at this stage is still far from
guaranteed to be the nominee.
Even those who are struggling may not drop out right after New Hampshire,
because there is so much at stake on…
Step four: Super Tuesday
A few other states vote in between New Hampshire and the end of February,
but this is when things really start to warm up: Super Tuesday, on March 3.
What is Super Tuesday?
It is the big date in the primary calendar, when 16 states,
territories or groups vote for their preferred candidate in primaries or
caucuses. A third of all the delegates available in the entire primary season
are up for grabs on Super Tuesday. By the end of the day it could be much
clearer who the Democratic candidate will be.
The two states with the most delegates are voting on Super Tuesday
– California (with 415 Democratic delegates) and Texas (228). California is
voting three months earlier than in 2016, making Super Tuesday even more super
than normal.
California and Texas are two states with very diverse populations, so we may
see them going for very different candidates than those chosen in Iowa and New
Hampshire.
Step five: The rest of the race
After hectic Super Tuesday, everyone gets to cool down for a week, before
another busy day on March 10, when six states vote, with 352 delegates
available.
After that, the primary season still has three months left to run, and at
the end, the role of those delegates will become clear…
Step six: The conventions
Donald Trump will almost certainly be sworn in as the Republican nominee at
the party convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, between August 24 and 27.
The Democrats will confirm their candidate at their own convention between July
13 and 16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
What happens in a convention?
Here’s where those delegates come in.
Let’s say that during primary season, candidate A wins 10 delegates. During
the convention, those 10 delegates would vote for candidate A to become the
Democratic nominee. (Any party member can apply to be a delegate – they tend to
be party activists or local political leaders.)
All through the Democratic primaries, there are 3,979 delegates
available. If any one candidate wins more than 50% of those delegates during
primary season (that’s 1,990 delegates), then they become the
nominee in a vote at the convention.
But if we get to the Democratic convention and no-one has more than 50% of
the delegates, it becomes what’s known as a “contested” or
“brokered” convention. This could well happen this year. There are so
many candidates that no one frontrunner emerges in the primaries, and they
split the delegates between them. In that circumstance, a second vote
would follow.
In that second vote, all the 3,979 delegates would vote again, except this
time they would be joined by an estimated 771 “superdelegates”.
These are senior party officials past and present (former president Bill
Clinton is one, as is current Vermont senator and presidential contender Bernie
Sanders), and they’re free to vote for whomever they wish.
If a candidate wins 50% or more in that vote – 2,376 delegates – then they
become the nominee.
This is all thanks to a rule change in 2020: last time around, the
superdelegates voted at the start of the convention, with the delegates. But
many had pledged their support to Hillary Clinton even before the convention,
leading her rival Bernie Sanders to suggest the deck was stacked against him.
Bernie Sanders is the one who campaigned for the change – and it may benefit
him in 2020.
Step seven: The presidency
After inching past Iowa, negotiated New Hampshire, survived Super Tuesday and come through the convention, there is only one step left for the nominee: the presidential election, on November 3.
President Donald Trump has recalled Gordon
Sondland and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, two senior officials who testified
against him at his impeachment trial.
Gordon Sondland, the US envoy to the
EU, said he “was advised today that the president intends to recall me
effective immediately”.
Just hours earlier, Lt. Col.
Alexander Vindman, a top expert on Ukraine, was escorted from the White House.
President Trump is said to desire a
staff shake-up after senators cleared him in the impeachment case on February 5.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s twin
brother, Yevgeny Vindman, a senior lawyer for the National Security Council,
was also sent back to the Department of the Army on February 7.
In a statement issued by his lawyer,
Gordon Sondland said: “I was advised
today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United
States ambassador to the European Union.
“I am grateful to President Trump for having given me
the opportunity to serve, to Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo for his
consistent support, and to the exceptional and dedicated professionals at the
US mission to the European Union.
“I am proud of our
accomplishments. Our work here has been the highlight of my career.”
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman had
reportedly turned up for work at the White House as usual on February 5.
As he left the executive mansion on February
5 for North Carolina, President Trump told reporters: “I’m not happy with him [Lt. Col. Vindman].
“You think I’m supposed to be happy with him? I’m
not.”
President Donald Trump has so far
not commented further.
According to White House sources,
Alexander Vindman had been expecting a transfer. He was telling colleagues for
weeks that he was ready to move back to the defense department, where he still
holds active-duty soldier status.
On February 5, Defense Secretary
Mark Esper told reporters his department welcomes back all of its personnel
from assignment.
He added: “And as I said we protect all of our service members from retribution
or anything like that.”
Testifying in Congress last
November, Gordon Sondland was very clear in his testimony that a White House
visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was conditional on Kyiv
launching investigations that could be politically helpful to President Trump.
He said: “Was there a quid pro quo [a favor granted in return for
something]?
“As I testified previously, with regard to the
requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
Gordon Sondland was at that time
working with President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on Ukrainian
policy at the explicit direction of the president.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman also
testified last November. He said he was “concerned” after hearing
President Trump’s “improper” phone call on July 25, 2019 with
Ukraine’s president.
The call led to Presidnet Trump’s
impeachment in December by the House for abuse of power and obstruction of
Congress.
Democratic lawmakers argued that President
Trump had dangled US aid in exchange for political favors.
When asked how he had overcome his
fear of retaliation in order to testify, Alexander Vindman testified: “Congressman, because this is
America… and here, right matters.”
President Trump mentioned the
Vindman twins in a tirade against his political enemies at the White House one
day before ousting them.
Eliot Engel, Democratic chairman of
the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement: “This is shameful of course.
“But this is also what we should now expect from an
impeached president whose party has decided he is above the law and accountable
to no one. “
However, Republican Congressman
Thomas Massie said he would have fired Alexander Vindman.
He said: “He’s a leaker, not a whistleblower.
“Current Commander in Chief doesn’t take orders from a
Lt Col!”
In his comments to media on February
5, President Trump said reports that his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney would
be fired were “false”.
The president said: “I have a great relationship with Mick.”
North Carolina lawmaker Mark Meadows
is being tipped by the Washington rumor mill as a replacement for Mick
Mulvaney.
Mark Meadows, who is retiring from
the House of Representatives where he led the hardline conservative Freedom
Caucus, traveled with President Trump on Air Force One on February 5.
At a rare White House press conference in October, Mick Mulvaney appeared to
implicate the president in an alleged corrupt deal with Ukraine.
The acting chief of staff told stunned reporters: “We do that all the time.”
President Trump was reportedly outraged by the gaffe.
Mick Mulvaney then walked back his comments in a written statement that said: “Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.”
Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are taking
the lead in the Iowa caucuses, the first vote to choose the Democratic
candidate to run against President Donald Trump in November’s election.
The vote has been chaotic, beset by technical problems and delays in
reporting results.
According to Iowa’s Democratic Party, data from 71% of precincts showed Pete
Buttigieg on 26.8%, with Bernie Sanders on 25.2%.
Elizabeth Warren was third on 18.4% and Joe Biden fourth on 15.4%.
According to the other preliminary results released on February 4 from all
of Iowa’s 99 counties, Amy Klobuchar was on 12.6%, and Andrew Yang on 1%. Tom
Steyer and Tulsi Gabbard were on less than 1%.
However, the state party has still not declared a winner from February 3
vote. Democrats have blamed the delay on a coding error with an app being used
for the first time to report the votes.
Iowa was the first contest in a string of nationwide state-by-state votes,
known as primaries and caucuses, that will culminate in the crowning of a
Democratic nominee at the party convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July.
Eleven candidates remain in a Democratic field that has already been
whittled down from more than two dozen.
The results represent the share of delegates needed to clinch the party
nomination under America’s quirky political system. Iowa awards only 41 of the
1,991 delegates required to become the Democratic White House nominee.
In the popular vote count, partial results showed Bernie Sanders leading
with 32,673 ballots, while Pete Buttigieg was second at 31,353.
However, Pete Buttigieg, 38, came top in certain rural areas with smaller
populations, and so far has more delegates.
Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price told a news conference on February
4 the fiasco had been “simply unacceptable”.
“I apologize deeply for
this,” he said of the turmoil, which has provoked calls for Iowa to
lose its coveted spot atop the presidential voting calendar.
“This was a coding error,”
Troy Price said, while insisting the data was secure and promising a thorough
review.
Elizabeth Warren was third with 25,692, followed by Joe Biden at
16,447 and Amy Klobuchar at 15,470.
State party officials earlier said
the problem was not the result of “a hack or an intrusion”.
Officials were being dispatched
across the Hawkeye state to retrieve hard-copy results.
They were matching those numbers
against results reported via a mobile app that many precinct captains said had
crashed.
The mobile app was developed by tech
firm Shadow Inc., run by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential
campaign.
The app was put together in just two
months and had not been independently tested, the New York Times reported, quoting people briefed on the matter by the
Iowa Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party in Nevada, where
caucuses will be held on February 22, has reversed a decision to use the
company’s software.
Voters flocked on February 3 to more
than 1,600 caucus sites, including libraries, high schools and community centers.
President Trump said earlier that
the Iowa Democratic caucuses had been an “unmitigated disaster”.
If elected, Pete Buttigieg would be
the first openly gay US president.
The 38-year-old is the former mayor
of South Bend, Indiana, a city of just over 100,000 people.
Pete Buttigieg is a former Harvard
and Oxford University Rhodes scholar, who served as a military intelligence
officer in Afghanistan and used to work for global management consultancy
McKinsey.
Rivals say Pete Buttigieg, who is younger than Macaulay Culkin and Britney Spears, is too inexperienced to be US president.
At his annual State of the Union address, President
Donald Trump has hailed the “great American comeback”.
His speech to Congress exposed sharp divisions
at the top of US politics.
President Trump was speaking on the eve of his expected acquittal on
corruption charges in his impeachment trial.
At one point the Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up a copy of
the president’s speech behind him.
Donald Trump delivered the nationally televised speech in the
Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, where he was impeached in
December.
His trial in the Senate culminates on February 5 but with Republicans in
charge there he is all but certain to be cleared and escape being thrown out of
office.
President Trump did not mention
impeachment at all in his speech although he did jab at Democrats.
Republican lawmakers chanted
“four more years” as Donald Trump prepared to speak, urging him on
for November’s White House election.
The State of the Union address is a
speech delivered by the president to Congress towards the beginning of each
calendar year in office.
The speech is usually used as a
chance to report on the condition of the nation, but also allows the president
to outline a legislative agenda and national priorities.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been
one of the president’s fiercest critics – she was the one who first launched
formal impeachment efforts last year. President Trump has frequently taunted
her as “Crazy Nancy”.
It was the first time the two had
come face-to-face since Nancy Pelosi stormed out of a White House meeting four
months ago.
Before President Trump began speaking
at the podium in the well of the House, he appeared to snub the outstretched
hand of Nancy Pelosi, America’s most powerful elected Democrat.
The House speaker, critics noticed,
skipped the traditional introduction welcoming the president as a
“distinct honor”.
When President Trump accused
Democrats of planning to force American taxpayers to provide unlimited free
healthcare to undocumented immigrants, Nancy Pelosi was observed twice
mouthing: “Not true.”
Nancy Pelosi stunned onlookers by
shredding a copy of the president’s remarks as he concluded.
She told reporters afterwards her
gesture was “the courteous thing to do, considering the
alternatives”.
Nancy Pelosi did rise to applaud the
president more than once, including when he promoted his pet project of
infrastructure investment, a possible area of bipartisan co-operation.
President Trump struck an upbeat
note in a speech lasting one hour and 18 minutes that contrasted sharply with
his lament of “American carnage” in his 2017 inaugural presidential
address.
In an implicit rebuke to his
predecessor Barack Obama, President Trump told his audience: “In just three short years, we have
shattered the mentality of American decline and we have rejected the downsizing
of America’s destiny.
“We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable
just a short time ago, and we are never going back!”
President Trump repeatedly swiped at
Democrats, including left-wing candidates such as Bernie Sanders, who are vying
to challenge him for the presidency.
As is tradition, President Trump
invited several special guests, including Venezuelan opposition leader Juan
Guaidó, military veterans and the brother of a man killed by an undocumented
immigrant.
In a move certain to infuriate
liberal critics, President Trump announced he would award the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, to firebrand conservative
radio host Rush Limbaugh, who revealed this week he has lung cancer.
First Lady Melania Trump bestowed
the honor on an emotional Rush Limbaugh as the president spoke.
A protester was escorted from the
chamber while President Trump defended gun rights. It was Fred Guttenberg, the
father of Jaime Guttenberg, a student killed in a mass school shooting at
Parkland, Florida, in February 2018.
Fred Guttenberg was a guest of Nancy
Pelosi.
Each year after the State of the Union speech, a member of the main
opposition party is tasked with responding and this year it fell to Michigan
Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
The governor accused the president of failing to fix America’s problems.
She said: “Bullying people on
Twitter doesn’t fix bridges – it burns them.”
As they did last year, many female Democrats – including Nancy Pelosi – wore
white as tribute to the suffragettes who won the vote for US women a century
ago.
Several liberal Democratic lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of
New York and Maxine Waters of California, boycotted President Trump’s address.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that she would “not use my presence at
a state ceremony to normalize Trump’s lawless conduct & subversion of the
Constitution”.
Other left-wing Democrats, including Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, walked out
during President Trump’s speech.
As is traditional during the State of the Union, one member of the president’s
cabinet did not attend the address.
He or she remains at a secret location to make sure the government can
continue should calamity befall the nation’s president, vice-president and
other top leaders.
This time, that person, who is known as the designated survivor, was Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.
Many have spent the past few weeks vigorously campaigning in Iowa, which is
always the first to vote. The primaries contest goes on until early June, and
moves on to New Hampshire next Tuesday.
Polls suggest that Bernie Sanders
has risen to be the favorite in Iowa.
He is one of four senators running
for president who have had to stay behind in Washington to attend President
Trump’s impeachment trial, but his supporters, including Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, a well-known congresswoman, have been energetically campaigning
on his behalf in Iowa.
Four years after losing out to
Hillary Clinton, the 78-year-old is now backed by a huge pot of donations and a
team of hundreds.
Some of the other big names
including Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg will be hoping
Bernie Sanders doesn’t have it all his own way in Iowa.
There are also Republican caucuses on February 3, and two people are running
against Donald Trump, but the president’s popularity within his own party is
such that his nomination is all but a formality.
Iowa, to some extent, provides a glimpse of what went wrong for Democrats in
2016.
In the last election, more than 200 counties flipped from supporting
President Barack Obama in 2012 to backing Donald Trump – and 31 of those
counties were in Iowa.
Democrats will be hoping to lure back those swing voters in 2020.
Howard County in northern Iowa flipped by 41 percentage points in 2016, the largest change in the US.
In a message released on social
media an hour before the UK’s departure, Boris Johnson said: “For many people this is an astonishing
moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come.
“And there are many of course who feel a sense of
anxiety and loss.
“And then of course there is a third group – perhaps
the biggest – who had started to worry that the whole political wrangle would
never come to an end.
“I understand all those feelings and our job as the
government – my job – is to bring this country together now and take us
forward.”
The prime minister said that “for all its strengths and for all its
admirable qualities, the EU has evolved over 50 years in a direction that no
longer suits this country”.
“The most important thing to say
tonight is that this is not an end but a beginning,” he said, and
“a moment of real national renewal and change”.
Brexit parties were held in pubs and
social clubs across the UK as the country counted down to its official
departure.
Hundreds gathered in Parliament
Square to celebrate Brexit, singing patriotic songs and cheering speeches from
leading Brexiteers, including Nigel Farage, the leader of Brexit Party.
He said: “Let us celebrate tonight as we have never done before.
“This is the greatest moment in the modern history of
our great nation.”
Pro-EU demonstrators earlier staged
a march in Whitehall to bid a “fond farewell” to the union – and
anti-Brexit rallies and candlelit vigils were held in Scotland.
Other symbolic moments on January 31
included:
The UK flag was removed from the EU institutions in Brussels;
The Cabinet meeting in Sunderland, the first city to declare in favor of Brexit when the 2016 results were announced;
A light show illuminating 10 Downing Street and Union flags lining The Mall;
A 50p coin to mark the occasion entering circulation.
Standing alongside Israeli PM Benjamin
Netanyahu at the White House, President Donald Trump has presented his
long-awaited Middle East peace plan, promising to keep Jerusalem as Israel’s
undivided capital.
President Trump proposed an independent Palestinian state and the
recognition of Israeli sovereignty over West Bank settlements.
He said his proposals “could be the last opportunity” for
Palestinians.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the plans as a
“conspiracy”.
He said in a TV address from Ramallah in the West Bank: “I say to Trump and Netanyahu: Jerusalem is not for sale, all our
rights are not for sale and are not for bargain. And your deal, the conspiracy,
will not pass.”
The blueprint, which aims to solve one of the world’s longest-running
conflicts, was drafted under the stewardship of President Trump’s son-in-law
Jared Kushner.
Thousands of Palestinians protested in the Gaza Strip earlier on January 28,
while the Israeli military deployed reinforcements in the occupied West Bank.
The joint announcement came as both President Trump and PM Netanyahu faced political challenges at home. Donald Trump is the subject of an impeachment trial in the Senate while the Israeli PM on January 28 dropped his bid for immunity on corruption charges. Both men deny any wrongdoing.
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, said that the timing of the
announcement was not tied to any political development, adding it had been
“fully baked” for some time.
President Trump’s proposals are:
The US will recognize Israeli sovereignty over territory that Donald Trump’s plan envisages being part of Israel. The plan includes a conceptual map that President Trump says illustrates the territorial compromises that Israel is willing to make.
The map will “more than double the Palestinian territory and provide a Palestinian capital in eastern Jerusalem”, where President Trump says the US would open an embassy. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said President Trump’s plan would give Palestinians control over 15% of what it called “historic Palestine”.
Jerusalem “will remain Israel’s undivided capital”. Both Israel and the Palestinians hold competing claims to the holy city. The Palestinians insist that East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, be the capital of their future state.
An opportunity for Palestinians to “achieve an independent state of their very own” – however, he gave few details.
“No Palestinians or Israelis will be uprooted from their homes” – suggesting that existing Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will remain.
Israel will work with the king of Jordan to ensure that the status quo governing the key holy site in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims is preserved. Jordan runs the religious trust that administers the site.
Territory allocated to Palestinians in President Trump’s map “will remain open and undeveloped for a period of four years”. During that time, Palestinians can study the deal, negotiate with Israel, and “achieve the criteria for statehood”.
President Trump said: “Palestinians are in poverty and violence, exploited by those seeking to use them as pawns to advance terrorism and extremism. They deserve a far better life.”
Jeffrey Epstein‘s alleged victims
have urged Prince Andrew to co-operate with an inquiry into the financier.
Attorney Lisa Bloom, representing
five women who say they were abused by the financier, said Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers were “outraged”
by the Duke of York not assisting the US authorities.
It comes after the prosecutor in charge
of the US investigation said Prince Andrew had provided “zero
co-operation”.
The prince has said he did not
witness or suspect any suspicious behavior during visits to Jeffrey Epstein’s
homes.
Prince Andrew has come under fire for his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein – a convicted sex offender who took his own life in a jail cell in August at the age of 66, while awaiting trial on trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Last November, the prince said that
he was willing to help the authorities into the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.
However, attorney Geoffrey Berman
said prosecutors and the FBI have received no reply after contacting Prince
Andrew’s lawyers.
Linda Bloom said the duke should “do the right thing”.
Buckingham Palace said Prince Andrew’s legal team was dealing with the issue
and it would not be commenting further.
Another lawyer representing some of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, Gloria Allred, said she had sent a letter to Prince Andrew’s home urging him to co-operate but hadn’t received a response.
Donald Trump’s lawyers have begun
defending him at his impeachment trial, accusing Democrats of seeking to
overturn the result of the 2016 election.
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone
said: “The president did absolutely
nothing wrong.”
President Trump’s defense will last
three days and follows the Democrats’ prosecution case which ended on January
24.
Donald Trump faces two charges
linked to his dealings with Ukraine.
The articles of impeachment accuse
the president of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
President Trump is alleged to have
withheld military aid to pressure the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky,
into starting a corruption investigation into Donald Trump’s political rival,
Democrat Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.
Democrats also accuse President
Trump of making a visit by Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House contingent on
an investigation.
The president is charged with obstructing
Congress by failing to co-operate with the House of Representatives impeachment
inquiry.
The trial in the Senate will decide
if Donald Trump should be removed from office. This is unlikely as the
Republicans control the Senate and any such move would need a two-thirds
majority.
Echoing a line heard from many
Republicans, Pat Cipollone said Democrats were “asking you not only to
overturn the results of the last election… they’re asking you to remove
President Trump from the ballot in the election that’s occurring in
approximately nine months.”
“They are asking you to do something very, very
consequential and, I would submit to you … very, very dangerous,” he said.
Much of the abuse of power charge centers on a phone call in July between
President Trump and President Zelenksy.
Donald Trump’s defense lawyer Mike Purpura insisted there was no quid pro
quo – as asserted by the Democrats.
He said: “Zelenksy felt no
pressure. President Zelensky says he felt no pressure. The House managers tell
you they know better.”
In a news conference after January 25 hearing, Adam Schiff, the Democrats’
lead prosecutor, raised the disputed issue of calling witnesses.
He said: “The one question they
did not address at all is why they don’t want to give the American people a
fair trial, why they want this to be the first impeachment case in history
without a single witness and without a single document being handed over.
“That ought to tell you
everything you need to know about the strength and weaknesses of this
case”.
The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, told reporters that President Trump’s defense team had inadvertently “made a really compelling case for why the Senate should call witnesses and documents”.
Donald Trump has become the first US president to attend the March for Life, America’s largest annual anti-abortion rally.
The president addressed thousands of protesters at the annual demonstration
near the Capitol where his impeachment trial is ongoing.
He said: “We’re here for a very
simple reason: to defend the right of every child born and unborn to fulfill
their God-given potential.”
The March for Life first began in 1974 – a year after the Supreme Court
legalized abortion in Roe v Wade.
Until now no president had ever attended the rally, which takes place just
steps from the White House, though previous Republican presidents, including
George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, have addressed the group remotely.
Mike Pence became the first sitting vice-president to attend the rally in
2017.
President Trump’s appearance at the 47th March for Life delighted
protesters.
Voters who support limiting abortion make up a key constituency for
President Trump, who is seeking their support at the polls again in the 2020
election.
On January 24, marchers in Washington shouted “four more years”
and “we love you”.
On the streets surrounding the National Mall vendors selling Trump flags and
Make America Great Again hats were aplenty. Many of the attendees sported
pro-Trump merchandise, though for some, there was a distinction between liking
the president and liking his anti-abortion stance.
President Trump’s appearance on January 24 has already made a difference for
some voters.
In 2016, 81% of Evangelical voters – a group for whom abortion is the biggest
political issue – backed Donald Trump for president. He has continued to court
them as his re-election campaign ramps up.
March for Life president Jeanne Mancini said President Trump and his
administration “have been consistent champions for life”.
However, pro-choice groups said his appearance was a distraction tactic.
Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said it was “a
desperate attempt to divert attention from his criminal presidency and fire up
his radical base”.
America’s two main political parties are more polarized than ever on the
issue of abortion.
Democrats campaigning for November’s White House election are
unapologetically pro-choice – something many March for Life attendees said made
the candidates inaccessible to anti-abortion supporters, even if they disliked
President Trump.
In 2016, the Democratic Party for the first time included in its platform a
call to repeal the Hyde Amendment, a decades-old law that prohibits using
taxpayer money for abortions.
In 2019, leading White House contender Joe Biden was sharply criticized by
his Democratic rivals for initially backing the Hyde Amendment. Amid uproar
from the party’s liberal base, he reversed course in June.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has bolstered support for anti-abortion views within the GOP.
The first day of the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump has begun
with battle over its format.
This is the third such trial in US
history.
So
far the senators have debated the rules under which the trial should be
conducted. No witnesses have yet been authorized to testify.
Despite
efforts by Democrats to force the White House to provide documents, the vote
failed after splitting along party lines.
Republican
Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who sets the rules for the chamber, said he is
hoping the trial will last just 10 days.
He made some last-minute changes to his proposal for how the Senate will
conduct President Trump’s impeachment trial. The House managers and the
president’s defense team now have three days each, instead of two, to present
their opening arguments (although each side’s total time is still capped at 24
hours).
Mitch
McConnell has also changed the rules of evidence somewhat, allowing the House
managers to introduce material gathered during their hearings unless a majority
of the Senate objects.
He
has said he had the Republican votes he needed to pass his rules package, but
perhaps he felt some pressure from within his own ranks to more closely align
his proposal to the way President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial was run in
1998.
However,
Democrats will still be calling for more. They want a guarantee of witnesses,
something that doesn’t seem likely to happen.
Democrat
Charles Schumer said a trial without witnesses or evidence would be “a
cover-up”.
President Trump
is accused of seeking help from Ukraine to get himself re-elected, and of
obstructing Congress.
He has called the investigation a “hoax” and a “witch-hunt”.
Donald Trump is only the third president to face an impeachment trial.
Special prosecutors from President Bill
Clinton’s impeachment will be included in President Donald Trump’s defense team
in his Senate trial.
President Trump will be represented by Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who
investigated President Clinton, and Alan Dershowitz, whose past clients include
OJ Simpson.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Jay
Sekulow will lead the team.
Opening statements in the Trump impeachment trial will begin on January 21.
Ken Starr was the DoJ independent counsel who investigated the Whitewater
affair, a scandal-plagued mid-1980s land venture in Arkansas involving Bill and
Hillary Clinton.
The inquiry ultimately uncovered unrelated evidence that President Clinton
had been having an affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
The investigation culminated in the Democratic president’s impeachment by
the House of Representatives in 1998. Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate.
Robert Ray succeeded Ken Starr as the independent counsel.
Monica Lewinsky tweeted on January 17 shortly after President Trump’s team
was announced: “This is definitely
an ‘are you kidding me?’ kinda day.”
In 2016, Ken Starr was forced out of his position as president of Baylor
University after an inquiry found the school had mishandled rape accusations
against its football players.
He later also resigned from his roles as chancellor and law professor at the
university.
Alan Dershowitz is a retired Harvard University law
professor and constitutional law expert whose past celebrity clients have also
included boxer Mike Tyson.
He said in a statement that he had
also opposed Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and voted for Hillary Clinton in the
2016 election.
Donald Trump sought Alan
Dershowitz’s advice, too, during the 2017-2019 special counsel investigation
into alleged Russian meddling in the presidential election.
Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr both
represented disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein during his 2008 abuse trial.
On January 17, President Trump
shared Alan Dershowitz’s comments criticizing a Government Accountability
Office ruling that the White House had broken the law by withholding aid to
Ukraine.
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has also been asked to join the
team.
Pam Bondi, a longtime Trump ally, joined the White House communications team
last November to focus on “proactive impeachment messaging”.
Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, a central figure in the
Ukraine investigation, had also hoped to join the defense, but he did not make
the cut.
Rudy Giuliani told CBS he might be called as a witness in the impeachment
trial and “understood this may happen if I uncovered the 2016 Ukrainian
corruption”.
The former NYC mayor was apparently
referring to a discredited theory that Ukraine intervened in the last White
House election.
One of Rudy Giuliani’s associates,
Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas, has said he went to Ukraine to
pressure local officials on behalf of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.
President Trump’s allies have
rubbished Lev Parnas’ claims, pointing out that he is facing unrelated campaign
finance charges.
Last month, Donald Trump was impeached
by the House on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Democrats have accused the president of withholding military aid to Ukraine to pressure the country into investigating his political rival, former VP Joe Biden. President Trump denies the claims, and calls the impeachment proceedings a partisan “hoax”.
Russian PM Dmitry Mevedev has announced that
his government is resigning, hours after President Vladimir Putin proposed
sweeping constitutional changes that could prolong his stay in power.
If approved by the public, the proposals would transfer power from the
presidency to parliament.
President Putin is due to step down in 2024 when his fourth term of office
comes to an end.
However, there is speculation he could seek a new role or hold on to power
behind the scenes.
President Putin put forward his plans in his annual state of the nation
address to lawmakers. Later, in an unexpected move, PM Dmitry Medvedev
announced that the government was resigning to help facilitate the changes.
Vladimir Putin said during a speech
to both chambers of parliament that there would be a nationwide vote on changes
that would shift power from the presidency to parliament.
Constitutional reforms included
giving the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, “greater
responsibility” for the appointment of the prime minister and the cabinet.
Currently, the president appoints
the prime minister and government ministers, and the Duma approves the
decision.
Presidnet Putin also suggested an
increased role for an advisory body called the State Council. The council,
which is currently chaired by Vladimir Putin, comprises the heads of Russia’s
federal regions. President Putin said it had proved to be “highly
effective”.
Other measures include:
Limiting the supremacy of international law
Amending the rules that limit presidents to two
consecutive terms
Strengthening laws that prohibit presidential
candidates who have held foreign citizenship or foreign residency permits
PM Dmitry Medvedev made his announcement on state TV with President Putin sitting next to him.
He said: “These changes, when they are adopted… will introduce
substantial changes not only to an entire range of articles of the
constitution, but also to the entire balance of power, the power of the
executive, the power of the legislature, the power of judiciary.
“In this context… the government in its current form
has resigned.”
Vladimir Putin thanked Dmitry Medvedev
for his work but said “not everything” had been accomplished.
He asked the prime minister to
become deputy head of the National Security Council, which is chaired by the
president.
Vladimir Putin later nominated tax
service chief Mikhail Mishustin to replace Dmitry Medvedev as prime minister.
Dmitry Medvedev has been prime minister for several years. He previously
served as president from 2008-2012, switching roles with Vladimir Putin – a
close ally – after the latter served his first two terms as president. Russia’s
constitution only allows presidents to serve two consecutive terms.
Even when he was prime minister, Vladimir Putin was widely seen as the power
behind then President Medvedev.
Opposition leader and leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he believed
that any referendum on the constitutional changes would be “fraudulent
crap”. He said Vladimir Putin’s goal was to be “sole leader for
life”.
The last time Russia held a referendum was in 1993 when it adopted the
constitution under President Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin’s predecessor.
Vladimir Putin became acting president following Boris Yeltsin’s resignation in 1999 and was formally inaugurated a year later. He has held the reins of power – as president or prime minister – ever since.
Democrats have announced the House will
vote on January 15 on sending articles of impeachment against President Donald
Trump to the Senate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told
fellow Democrats she would also name the House managers who will prosecute the
case against President Trump in the Senate trial.
Nancy Pelosi has been withholding
the articles of impeachment in a row with Republicans over allowing witnesses.
Donald Trump was impeached by the
Democratic-led House last month.
The president is accused of abuse of
power and obstruction of Congress.
He denies trying to pressure Ukraine
to open an investigation into his would-be Democratic White House challenger
Joe Biden.
President Trump has been touting
unsubstantiated corruption claims about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who
accepted a lucrative board position with a Ukrainian energy company while his
father handled American-Ukraine relations as US vice-president.
The impeachment trial by the Senate
will be only the third ever of a US president.
Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans
control the chamber 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit him.
Once the resolution is approved, the
House managers will walk to the Senate and formally present the articles of
impeachment in the well of the chamber, escorted by the sergeant-at-arms. The
articles of impeachment will be read out.
On January 14, Senate leader Mitch
McConnell met Republican senators behind closed doors to map out the ground
rules.
He said the trial was likely to
begin in earnest on January 21.
The first couple of days will
involve housekeeping duties, possibly later this week.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Roberts will be sworn in to preside, and he will administer an oath to all 100
senators to deliver “impartial justice” as jurors.
Lawmakers may hear opening arguments
next week. The House managers will lay out their case against President Trump,
and his legal team will respond.
The trial is expected to last up to
five weeks, with the Senate taking only Sundays off.
President Trump suggested over the weekend that he might prefer simply
dismissing the charges rather than giving legitimacy to the “hoax”
case against him.
Moderate Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah
have made clear they would oppose any such motion.
On January 14, the White House said the president is “not afraid of a
fight” in his trial.
Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said President Trump was in fact eager
for witnesses to testify that “this man did nothing wrong”.
One of the biggest sticking points between House Democrats and Senate
Republicans has been whether testimony will be allowed during the trial.
Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Mike Rounds said on January 14 the
Senate’s trial plan will guarantee votes on whether to call witnesses and hear
new evidence.
It takes just 51 votes to approve rules or call witnesses, meaning four
Republican senators would have to side with Democrats to insist on testimony.
The White House is understood to have identified several possible defectors
in the Republican ranks, including Susan Collins and Mitt Romney.
The others are Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Cory Gardner of Colorado
and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who is retiring this year.
Republicans say that if witnesses are allowed, they may try to subpoena Joe Biden and his son, and the unidentified government whistleblower whose complaint about President Trump sparked the whole impeachment inquiry.
At least 6 people have been killed and other 16
injured after an enormous sinkhole swallowed a bus and a number of pedestrians
in central China.
The incident occurred on January 13, in the evening, outside a hospital in
Xining, the capital of Qinghai province.
CCTV footage showed an explosion inside the sinkhole shortly after the bus
and bystanders fell inside.
In recent years, several deadly sinkholes have been reported in China.
The footage from the latest incident shows the moment people waiting at a
bus stop are forced to flee as the ground underneath the bus starts to cave in.
A number of people gather to try to rescue the bus passengers, but are
engulfed by the sinkhole as it suddenly widens.
The Philippines’ Taal volcano has
begun spewing lava, as authorities warn that a “hazardous eruption”
is possible “within hours or days”.
In the early hours of January 13 weak
lava began flowing out of the volcano – located some 45 miles south of the
capital Manila.
It comes after Taal emitted a huge
plume of ash, triggering the mass evacuation of 8,000 people from the area.
Taal is the Philippines’ second most
active volcano.
Situated on an island in the middle
of a lake, Taal is one of the world’s smallest volcanoes and has recorded at
least 34 eruptions in the past 450 years.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in a
statement: “Taal volcano entered a
period of intense unrest… that progressed into magmatic eruption at 02:49 to
04:28… this is characterized by weak lava fountaining accompanied by thunder
and flashes of lightning.”
However, Phivolcs director Renato Solidum said that signs of a hazardous
eruption, including “flows of ashes, rocks, gas at speeds of more than 60
kph horizontally” had not yet occurred, according to CNN Philippines.
Phivolcs has now raised the alert level from 3 to 4, out of a maximum of 5.
Authorities have also warned of a possible “volcanic tsunami”,
which can be trigged by falling debris after an eruption, pushing the water and
generating waves.
On January 12, the volcano emitted a giant plume of ash, with rumbling
sounds and tremors also reported.
According to Phivolcs, a total of 75 earthquakes have occurred in the Taal
region, with 32 of these earthquakes ranking 2 and higher on the earthquake
intensity scale.
The Official United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) said more than 450,000 people are estimated to live within the
10 miles danger zone of the Taal volcano.
The Civil Aviation Authority announced on January 13 that it had resumed
“partial operations” as of 10:00 local time for flights departing the
airport and 12:00 for flights arriving.
The Philippine stock exchange also announced it would halt all trading on
January 13.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s office has also ordered the suspension of government work in Manila and of all schools across all levels in the capital.
Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said of Oman has died
aged 79.
He was the Arab world’s longest-serving ruler.
Qaboos deposed his father in a bloodless coup with British support in 1970
and set Oman on a path to development, using its oil wealth.
Widely regarded as popular, Sultan Qaboos was also an absolute monarch and
any dissenting voices were silenced.
No cause of death has been confirmed.
Sultan Qaboos’ cousin, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, has been sworn in as his
successor.
A family council had three days to choose a successor as the sultan had no heir
or publicly designated successor. Instead they opted for opening the sealed
envelope in which Sultan Qaboos had secretly left his own choice.
The sultan is the paramount decision-maker in Oman. He also holds the
positions of prime minister, supreme commander of the armed forces, minister of
defense, minister of finance and minister of foreign affairs.
Last month, Sultan Qaboos spent a week in Belgium for medical treatment, and
there were reports he was suffering from cancer. Images showed a crowd of men
gathered outside the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in the capital, Muscat, where
the coffin had been placed before he was buried in a family cemetery.
In a TV speech after being sworn in, Sultan Haitham – a former culture and
heritage minister who studied at Oxford – pledged to continue his predecessor’s
policies of friendly relations with all nations while further developing Oman.
For almost five decades, Sultan Qaboos completely dominated the political
life of Oman, which is home to 4.6 million people, of whom about 43% are
expatriates.
At the age of 29 Qaboos overthrew his father, Said bin Taimur, a reclusive
and ultra-conservative ruler who banned a range of things, including listening
to the radio or wearing sunglasses, and decided who could get married, be
educated or leave the country.
He immediately declared that he intended to establish a modern government
and use oil money to develop a country where, at the time, there were only 6
miles of paved roads and three schools.
In the first few years of his rule, with the help of British Special Forces,
Qaboos suppressed an insurgency in the southern province of Dhofar by tribesmen
backed by the Marxist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Described as charismatic and visionary, Qaboos pursued a neutral path in foreign
affairs and was able to facilitate secret talks between the US and Iran in 2013
that led to a landmark nuclear deal in 2015.
A degree of discontent surfaced in 2011 during the so-called Arab Spring.
There was no major upheaval in Oman, but thousands of people took to the
streets across the country to demand better wages, more jobs and an end to
corruption.
Security forces initially tolerated the protests, but later used tear gas,
rubber bullets and live ammunition to disperse them. Two people were killed and
dozens of people were injured. Hundreds were prosecuted under laws criminalizing
“illegal gatherings” and “insulting the sultan”.
The protests failed to produce anything in the way of major change. However,
Sultan Qaboos did remove several long-serving ministers perceived as corrupt,
widened the powers of the Consultative Council, and promised to create more
public sector jobs.
On January 11, hundreds gathered to mourn the death of Sultan Qaboos.
More than 170 people died after a
Ukrainian Boeing-737 crashed in Iran on January 8.
Ukraine International Airlines flight
PS752 to Kyiv, carrying 176 on board, went down after taking off from Imam
Khomeini airport in Tehran at 06:12 local time.
According to officials, there is no
chance of finding survivors.
The majority of passengers were from
Iran and Canada.
The embassy of Ukraine in Tehran initially
blamed engine failure but later removed the statement.
It said any comment regarding the
cause of the accident prior to a commission’s inquiry was not official.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr
Zelensky warned against “speculation or unchecked theories regarding the
catastrophe” until official reports were ready.
Iranian media blamed technical
problems and quoted an aviation official who said no emergency had been
declared.
In a sign of the potential difficulties facing crash investigators, Ali
Abedzadeh, the head of Iran’s civil aviation organization was quoted as saying
the Ukrainian plane’s black box would not be handed over, either to Boeing or
the Americans.
Ali Abedzadeh said “terrorism” had played no role in the crash,
Iran’s conservative Mehr news agency reported.
Debris and engine parts from the Boeing 737-800 NG plane were found some 6
miles from the airport and rescue workers with face masks searched the wreckage
for victims.
Throughout the morning, Red Crescent workers laid out a long line of body
bags.
Hours before the plane came down Iran carried out a ballistic missile attack
on two air bases housing US forces in Iraq. However, there is no evidence that
the two incidents were linked.
A series of airlines announced on January 8 that they were avoiding both
Iranian and Iraqi airspace.
KLM and Air France said they would use alternative routes while Lufthansa
said it was also canceling its daily flight to Tehran. Air India, Qantas,
Singapore Airlines, Japan Airlines, and Malaysia Airlines were among other airlines
taking action.
According to Ukrainian Foreign
Minister Vadym Prystaiko, among the victims were 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11
Ukrainians including all nine crew, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Britons and
three Germans,
Ukrainian officials said that 169 people had bought tickets for the flight but two had not boarded the plane.
In a chaotic scene, Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó has forced his way into the National Assembly (the country’s parliament) building after being stopped by troops. The incident occurred as his rival for the position of parliamentary speaker held a session inside.
Juan Guaido, who was re-elected on January 5 to a second one-year term as head of the opposition-held congress, had pledged to preside over January 7 opening session after security forces blocked him from the building over the weekend to allow allies of President Nicolas Maduro to swear in their own speaker, Luis Parra.
On January 5, security forces blocked him to enter the parliament. He tried
again to break through a cordon on January 7. He and his supporters managed to
push through the riot police. Their arrival prompted pro-government lawmakers
to leave.
Juan Guaidó went on sit down in the Speaker’s chair. He and his supporters
sang the national anthem before he was sworn in as Speaker during a power cut
which forced people to use phone lights.
A series of measures have been
announced by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio to tackle a “crisis” of
anti-Semitic attacks, following a mass stabbing on December 28.
A man brandishing a machete attacked a Hanukkah celebration at the rabbi’s
property in Monsey, north of NYC – an area with a large population of
ultra-Orthodox Jews. The incident happened at about 22:00 on December 28.
The mayor said security would be
stepped up in Jewish areas and schools would teach students to tackle hate.
At least five people were injured in
the knife attack at a rabbi’s house in Monsey.
President Donald Trump called for
unity to fight “the evil scourge” of anti-Semitism following the
attack.
Witnesses said the attacker burst
into the house, which was hosting a Hanukkah celebration, pulled out a large
knife and began stabbing people.
The suspected knifeman, named by
police as 37-year-old Grafton Thomas from Greenwood Lake, NY, has been charged
with attempted murder. The attacker pleaded not guilty, and is being held in
jail with his bail set at $5 million.
Grafton Thomas’ lawyer, Michael
Sussman, issued a statement on behalf of his family which said the suspect
“has a long history of mental illness and hospitalizations”.
The statement said: “He has no history of like violent acts
and no convictions for any crime.
“He has no known history of anti-Semitism and was
raised in a home which embraced and respected all religions and races. He is
not a member of any hate groups.”
Just a day before the attack, Mayor de Blasio had announced extra police
patrols in three areas of Brooklyn with large Jewish populations following a
spate of anti-Semitic incidents.
He told reporters on December 29: “The
spirit we bring today is one of resolve and relentlessness. We will keep adding
as many measures as it takes to end this crisis.”
Bill de Blasio said additional officers would now be deployed to the
districts of Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park.
He said: “People in the community
will see our officers present in front of houses of worship and out on the
streets. We have to give people a sense of security, and we have to show that
this horrible trend we’ve seen over the last weeks will be stopped dead in its
tracks.”
The mayor said changes would be made to the curriculum at schools in Brooklyn starting from next month. He said they would focus on “stopping hate… on building mutual respect, to help young people understand what hate crimes really mean and the dangers they pose to all of us”.
Democratic and Republican leaders in
the Senate have clashed over the rules of President Donald Trump’s impeachment
trial.
Democrats want assurances witnesses
and documents will be allowed, to enable what they term a fair trial.
Chuck Schumer says the recent
release of an “explosive” email about aid to Ukraine is a reminder of
why openness is necessary.
Republican leader Mitch McConnell
says he has not ruled out witnesses.
However, he stopped short of
agreeing ahead of time to take testimony during the trial.
President Trump was formally
impeached by the House last week for abuse of power and obstruction of
Congress.
Donald Trump is the third president
in US history to be impeached. However, he is unlikely to be removed from
office, as his Republican party has a majority in the Senate, where the trial
will be held as stipulated in the US Constitution.
He is accused of pressuring
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to start an investigation into his
political rival, Democratic presidential front runner, Joe Biden.
President Trump is accused of doing
this by withholding military aid and making a White House visit contingent on
co-operation.
The trial is expected to begin next
month, after the holiday break.
However, Democrats have so far
refused to hand over the articles of impeachment voted through in the House –
the charges – to the Senate.
They want assurances from Mitch
McConnell that their chosen witnesses – at least four current and former White
House aides with knowledge of the Ukraine affair – will be allowed to testify.
He suggested holding a trial similar
to former President Bill Clinton’s in 1999, in which senators decided which
witnesses to call after opening arguments and a written question period.
Mitch McConnell accused Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi of holding “an absurd position” for delaying
handing over the impeachment articles and said she is “apparently trying
to tell us how to run the trial”.
Democrats renewed their demand for witnesses over the weekend after an email
emerged suggesting the White House sought to freeze aid to Ukraine just 91
minutes after President Trump spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone in
July. That call is at the center of the allegations against President Trump –
charges he denies.
Chuck Schumer said he and his Republican counterpart remain at an impasse
after holding a “cordial” meeting on December 19 to discuss trial
rules.
During a news conference in New York on December 22, Chuck Schumer said
Republicans “have come up with no good reason why there shouldn’t be
witnesses, why there shouldn’t be documents”.
He added: “We don’t know what the
witnesses will say. We don’t know how the documents will read. They might
exonerate President Trump or they might further incriminate him. But the truth
should come out on something as important as an impeachment.”
Democrats argue that Republicans will not act as impartial jurors during the impeachment trial, after Mitch McConnell pledged last week to work in “total co-ordination” with the White House. Meanwhile, House of Representatives officials raised the possibility of a second impeachment if new evidence of obstruction by President Trump came to light. The suggestion came in court papers filed by Democrats as they seek the testimony of White House counsel Don McGahn.
A newly-released government email
has revealed that the White House sought to freeze aid to Ukraine just 91
minutes after President Donald Trump spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky by
phone in July.
The email, telling the Pentagon to
“hold off”, was sent by a senior White House official.
In the phone call, President Trump
asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate his political rival, Democrat Joe
Biden.
On December 18, President Trump has
been impeached for abuse of power over the issue.
Democrats say the phone call shows
Donald Trump used the office for personal political gain.
A US whistleblower who heard about
the conversation raised concerns, which ultimately triggered the impeachment
inquiry.
The president was formally impeached
by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, but is unlikely to be
removed from office as the case will go to trial in the Senate, where his
Republican party has a majority.
The newly-released email was obtained
by the Center for Public Integrity following a court order in a freedom of
information case.
The email shows that Mike Duffey, a
senior White House official, contacted senior defense officials about
withholding Ukraine’s aid just over an hour-and-a-half after President Trump
ended a call with President Zelensky on July 25.
The transcript shows President Trump
asked Volodymyr Zelensky to “do us a favor” and investigate Joe
Biden, currently a frontrunner to be the Democratic candidate in the 2020 White
House race, and his son Hunter Biden, who had previously worked for a Ukrainian
energy company.
In the email Mike Duffey asks that
the Department of Defense “hold off” on providing aid following the
administration’s plan to review.
The email reads: “Given the sensitive nature of the
request, I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who
need to know to execute direction.”
In a statement released to media on December 22, Rachel Semmel, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, dismissed the characterization of the email.
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