In the U.S. more than 3 million shelter animals are adopted every year. But if you can’t find the animal you’ve been waiting for at your local shelter locally, or even nationally, you can look even farther afield. Svetlana Prudovskaya met with the people who make these little miracles happen. Anna Rice narrates her story.
…
Syrian government warplanes struck a market and an industrial area Wednesday in the last territory in the hands of rebel groups in the country’s northwest, killing at least 15 people, opposition activists said.
A new cessation of hostilities agreement between Russia and Turkey, who support the opposite sides in the conflict, went into effect last week. But violence has continued.
Yahya Abu al-Yaman, a volunteer with first responders the Syrian Civil Defense, said 15 people were killed and 65 were wounded in the strike. Most were in critical condition after warplanes struck a vegetable market and industrial area in Idlib city Wednesday afternoon. The two areas are a few hundred meters (yards) apart.
The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said one of its volunteers was killed in the strike.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the two areas were crowded with people when the warplanes struck. It also put the death toll at 15.
The Observatory said airstrikes were also reported in other parts of Idlib province, recording at least 42 Russian raids and 33 by government warplanes. The Observatory has a network of activists on the ground and has been monitoring the war in Syria since it began in 2011.
The government also launched several barrel bombs from helicopters in rural Idlib, according to the Observatory. The bombs are rudimentary and inaccurate projectiles that cause massive destruction.
Russia is a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Turkey is a strong supporter of some of the insurgents fighting against him. Moscow blamed the insurgents for violating the truce Saturday.
Idlib is controlled by armed rebel groups, including Turkey-backed opposition groups and al-Qaida-linked militants who are the strongest there. It is also home to 3 million civilians. The United Nations said at least 300,000 have been displaced by the violence in the month between Dec. 1 and Jan. 1.
The international body, which is responsible for delivering most of the aid to Idlib, has warned of the growing risk of a humanitarian catastrophe as people flee the fighting toward the Turkish border.
Cease-fires have failed to quell the violence. A government offensive that began last month appears aimed at reopening the highway linking the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest. The highway has been closed in Idlib since 2012, when insurgents captured several towns along the route.
…
Albania said Wednesday it has ordered the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats and declared them “persona non grata.”
Acting Foreign Minister Gent Cakaj announced the decision in a Facebook post, writing that diplomats Mohammad Ali Arz Peimanemati and Seyed Ahmad Hosseini Alast have conducted “activities in breach of their [diplomatic] status and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”
“The two representatives of the Islamic Republic have been asked to leave the territory of the Republic of Albania immediately,” Cakaj wrote, without offering further details.
Confidential sources within the Albanian government told VOA the two diplomats are being expelled for activity endangering Albania’s national security.
They said that cultural attache Seyed Ahmed Hosseini Alast had previously held high positions with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and that Mohamed Peimanemati had been a member of the operational unit of Iran’s Intelligence Agency, MOIS. The source charged that he was responsible for terrorist acts in European Union countries.
FILE – A picture of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, who was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad airport, is seen on the former U.S. Embassy’s building in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020.The same sources told VOA that the two had been associates of Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike early this month.
Rising tensions
Adrian Shtuni, a foreign policy and security expert in Washington, told VOA the expulsion marks a new low in the already strained diplomatic relationship between Albania and Iran.
“While the specific nature of the actions undertaken by the expelled Iranian diplomats are yet unclear, the justification used by the Albanian authorities, namely ‘activities incompatible with their diplomatic status,’ is a standard euphemism for espionage,” he said.
It is the second time in 13 months that Albania has declared Iranian diplomats “persona non grata.”
In December 2018, Tirana expelled Iran’s ambassador and another diplomat whom the country accused of “damaging its national security.” Following talks with other countries, including Israel, AIbania declared the two diplomats were expelled for “violating their diplomatic status.”
U.S. President Donald Trump subsequently thanked Albania, saying in a letter to Prime Minister Edi Rama that the action “exemplifies our joint efforts to show the Iranian government that its terrorist activities in Europe and around the world will have severe consequences.”
Reaction from Iran
Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the expulsions. Its foreign ministry said Albania “has become an unintentional victim of the United States, Israel and some terrorist groups.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seemed to target Albania in a televised address last week decrying the killing of Soleimani. He spoke of a “small and sinister” country that he claimed “was instrumental in a Western plot to effect violent unrest” in Iran in November. Mass protests swept Iran at that time following an abrupt increase in gasoline prices.
FILE – In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 1, 2020.Albanian President Ilir Meta responded with a statement saying Albania “is not an evil country, but a democratic country that has suffered from an evil dictatorship unparalleled in its kind. [It] therefore considers human rights sacred.” Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha ruled for 40 years years before his death in 1985.
Iranian hostility toward Albania stems in part from the Balkan country’s decision to provide a refuge for 2,500 members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK), a militant Iranian opposition group regarded as terrorists by Tehran. The group was expelled from Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
The U.S. has assisted Albania in its efforts to resettle the MEK, which has supported the U.S. in military operations in the Middle East.
Albanian police disclosed for the first time late last year that they had thwarted a 2018 plot involving a “terrorist cell” of Iran’s elite Quds Force. They said the group was targeting a gathering in Albania that included MEK members.
Three Iranian men and one Turkish man were suspected of involvement in the cell.
…
The U.S. House voted Wednesday to send two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate and approve House prosecutors for only the third impeachment trial in American history.
The nearly party-line vote moved Trump’s impeachment from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic-run House to the Republican-majority Senate, where Trump expects acquittal, even as new evidence is raising fresh questions about his Ukraine dealings.
The vote was 228-193, coming at the start of a presidential election year and one month after the House impeached Trump. The president is charged with abuse of power over his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid to the country as leverage. Trump was also charged with obstructing Congress’ ensuing probe.
“We are here today to cross a very important threshold in American history,” Pelosi said, addressing the House before the vote. Earlier, she declared: “This is what an impeachment is about. The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections.”
Trump, during an event at the White House, rejected the charges as a “hoax.”
The seven-member prosecution team will be led by the chairmen of the House impeachment proceedings, Reps. Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee and Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, two of Pelosi’s top lieutenants for only the third presidential impeachment in the nation’s history.
Ahead of Wednesday’s session, Schiff released new records from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, about the Ukraine strategy. including an exchange with another man about surveilling later-fired Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch.
Schiff said the new evidence should bring more pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is reluctant to allow witnesses to testify.
“If McConnell makes this the first trial in history without witnesses, it will be exposed for what it is and that is an effort to cover up for the president,” Schiff said.
Later Wednesday, the House managers are to walk the articles across the Capitol to the Senate in a dramatic procession. The Senate trial is set to start Thursday.
McConnell opened the Senate dismissing what he called a rushed impeachment that is more about the politics of Democrats who don’t like Trump than the charges against him.
“This isn’t really about Ukraine policy or military money,” McConnell said. “This has been naked partisanship all along.”
During Pelosi’s press conference announcing managers, Trump tweeted that impeachment was “another Con Job by the Do Nothing Democrats. All of this work was supposed to be done by the House, not the Senate!”
Trump’s trial will be only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, and it comes against the backdrop of a politically divided nation in an election year.
The Senate is expected to transform into an impeachment court as early as Thursday, although significant proceedings wouldn’t begin until next Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The Constitution calls for the chief justice to preside over senators, who serve as jurors and swear an oath to deliver “impartial justice.”
The managers are a diverse group with legal, law enforcement and military courtroom experience, including Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Val Demings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Zoe Lofgren of California.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to Capitol Hill reporters following the weekly Senate Republican policy lunch at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 14, 2020.McConnell, who is negotiating rules for the trial proceedings, is under competing pressure from his party for more witnesses, from centrists who are siding with Democrats on the need to hear full testimony and conservatives mounting Trump’s defense.
Senate Republicans signaled they would reject the idea of simply voting to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump, as Trump himself has suggested. McConnell agreed he does not have the votes to do that.
McConnell said Tuesday. “Our members feel we have an obligation to listen to the arguments.”
A mounting number of senators say they want to ensure the ground rules include the possibility of calling new witnesses.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is leading an effort among some Republicans, including Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for votes on witnesses.
Romney said he wants to hear from John Bolton, the former national security adviser at the White House, who others have said raised alarms about the alternative foreign policy toward Ukraine being run by Giuliani.
Democrats have been pushing Republicans to consider new testimony, arguing that fresh information has emerged during Pelosi’s monthlong delay in transmitting the charges.
Republicans control the chamber, 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit Trump. But it takes just 51 votes during the trial to approve rules or call witnesses. Just four GOP senators could form a majority with Democrats to insist on new testimony. It also would take only 51 senators to vote to dismiss the charges against Trump.
At Tuesday’s private GOP lunch, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky warned that if witnesses are allowed, defense witnesses could also be called. He and other Republicans want to subpoena Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was vice president.
McConnell prefers to model Trump’s trial partly on the process used for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999. It, too, contained motions for dismissal or calling new witnesses.
McConnell is hesitant to call new witnesses who would prolong the trial and put vulnerable senators who are up for reelection in 2020 in a bind with tough choices. At the same time, he wants to give those same senators ample room to show voters they are listening.
…
A legal adviser at the European Union’s highest court said Wednesday that the bloc’s data protection rules should prevent member states from indiscriminately holding personal data seized from Internet and phone companies, even when intelligence agencies claim that national security is at stake.
In a non-binding opinion on how the European Court of Justice, or ECJ, should rule on issues relating to access by security and intelligence agencies to communications data retained by telecommunications providers, advocate general Campos Sanchez-Bordona said “the means and methods of combating terrorism must be compatible with the requirements of the rule of law.”
Commenting on a series of cases from France, the U.K. and Belgium — three countries that have been hit by extremist attacks in recent years and have reinforced surveillance — Sanchez-Bordona said that the ECJ’s case law should be upheld. He cited a case in which the court ruled that general and indiscriminate retention of communications “is disproportionate” and inconsistent with EU privacy directives.
The advocate general recommended limited access to the data, and only when it is essential “for the effective prevention and control of crime and the safeguarding of national security.”
The initial case was brought by Privacy International, a charity promoting the right to privacy. Referring to the ECJ’s case law, it said that the acquisition, use, retention, disclosure, storage and deletion of bulk personal data sets and bulk communications data by the U.K. security and intelligence agencies were unlawful under EU law.
The U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal referred the case to the ECJ, which held a joint hearing with two similar cases from France and another one from Belgium.
“We welcome today’s opinion from the advocate general and hope it will be persuasive to the Court,” said Caroline Wilson Palow, the Legal Director of Privacy International. “The opinion is a win for privacy. We all benefit when robust rights schemes, like the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, are applied and followed.”
The ECJ’s legal opinions aren’t legally binding, but are often followed by the court. The ECJ press service said a ruling is expected within two months.
“Should the court decide to follow the opinion of the advocate general, ‘metadata’ such as traffic and location data will remain subject to a high level of protection in the European Union, even when they are accessed for national security purposes,” said Luca Tosoni, a researcher at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law. “This would require several member states — including Belgium, France, the U.K. and others — to amend their domestic legislation.”
…
Iranians take to the streets in anger. Not against the United States for the targeted killing of an Iranian general. But against their government for its responsibility for the downing of a Ukrainian commercial jet, killing all aboard. Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren examines the turmoil in Iran with VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb; Barbara Slavin, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran initiative; and Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Air date: January 15, 2020
…
Turkey’s state-run news agency said Wednesday that Egyptian police raided its office in Cairo and detained four of its staff members.
Anadolu Agency said it had no information on where its employees, including one Turkish citizen, were taken to following the raid late Tuesday. The Turkish citizen is in charge of the office’s finances and management.
Egyptian security forces shut down the agency’s security cameras and internet and searched the premise overnight, the agency reported. The workers’ passports, cell phones and computers were confiscated, it said, adding that no explanation was given to the agency’s lawyer.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry condemned the raid, demanded the immediate release of the Anadolu employees and summoned the top Egyptian diplomat in protest, a ministry official said.
“The raid last night by the Egyptian security forces on the Anadolu Agency Cairo bureau and the detention of some of the office workers without justification amounts to harassment and intimidation against Turkish media,” the ministry said in a statement.
“We expect Egyptian authorities to immediately release the detained employees,” the ministry added.
It also blamed Western nations for the raid, accusing them of “turning a blind eye” to rights violations in Egypt.
An Egyptian official confirmed the arrests and accused the news agency of operating without a license.
Media are required to have permission to work in Egypt, but that requirement is often used as a pretext to silence reporting the state sees as critical.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under regulations, said security forces raided an apartment in the heart of Cairo that Anadolu used as a makeshift office, confiscating documents and cameras. He accused two journalists of spreading news that distorted Egypt’s image, and said prosecutors were investigating all four employees.
The incident reflects tense relations between Turkey and Egypt. Turkey, which backed Egypt’s deposed former president, Mohamed Morsi, has been a staunch critic of current president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
As part of a broader regional rivalry, Turkey and Egypt back opposing sides in Libya’s chaotic war. In a bid to boost its influence in the eastern Mediterranean, Ankara recently signed security and maritime agreements with Libya’s embattled U.N.-backed government based in Tripoli. The deals prompted particular outrage in Egypt, which supports Gen. Khalifa Hifter’s eastern forces. Egypt sees Turkey as a threat to its drilling, pipeline and other maritime rights in the Mediterranean Sea.
In recent years, Egyptian authorities have jailed dozens of Egyptian reporters and occasionally expelled foreign journalists from the country. Egypt remains among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to The Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based watchdog.
…
2019 was a year of mass protests on the African continent, with demonstrators filling the streets in capitals like Conakry, Harare, Khartoum and Kinshasa. While the causes of their grievances varied, the protesters shared one unfortunate characteristic: a harsh response from security forces. VOA’s Anita Powell brings us this report from Johannesburg.
…
A major U.S. web infrastructure and security company will provide free support to federal election campaigns to help thwart any repeats of the 2016 effort by Russian agents to steal and leak sensitive campaign emails and documents.
San Francisco-based Cloudflare said Wednesday it will be providing to eligible campaigns free access to several of its security services, including enhanced protection of firewalls, which defend systems and networks from unauthorized access. Other services include protection and mitigation of any denial-of-service attacks, which can paralyze a network by overwhelming it with data.
The effort is being offered in conjunction with Defending Digital Campaigns, a nonprofit group that last year received approval from the Federal Elections Commission to provide free or discounted cybersecurity services to federal candidate committees and national party committees.
To qualify, a U.S. House candidate’s campaign must have received at least $50,000 in contributions, with the minimum of $100,000 in contributions for U.S. Senate candidates. In addition, any House or Senate campaign that has qualified for the general election also will be eligible.
“This is our way of providing best practices and no-brainer solutions to not only large campaigns, but also smaller, but equally important campaigns that may have limited resources,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in a statement.
The company said it’s already providing services to eight 2020 presidential candidates. For context, it said it defends an average of 400,000 attacks daily on U.S. election campaigns, which includes the presidential campaigns and at least 23 U.S. Senate campaigns.
Since 2017, Cloudflare also has offered free security services to more than 150 state and local election websites.
…
The Tass news agency reports that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev submitted his resignation to President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
Russian news agencies said Putin thanked Medvedev for his work. They said that Putin will name Medvedev as deputy of the presidential Security Council.
Putin asked Medvedev’s Cabinet to keep working until the new Cabinet is formed.
…
The estranged father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could be called as a defense witness in her lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday newspaper, court papers reveal.
Meghan is suing the newspaper and its parent company Associated Newspapers for publishing a letter she wrote to her father Thomas Markle. The civil lawsuit accuses the newspaper of copyright infringement, misuse of private information and violating the U.K.’s data protection law with the publication of the letter.
Documents filed at the High Court show the newspaper plans to rely on evidence from Markle, stating that he “had a weighty right to tell his version of what had happened between himself and his daughter, including the contents of the letter.”
Papers drawn up by lawyers for the newspaper argue that members of Britain’s royal family “generate and rely on publicity about themselves and their lives in order to maintain the privileged positions they hold and to promote themselves.”
The paper also argues the letter’s publication was in response to a “one-sided” article in People Magazine in February 2019 featuring an interview with five unnamed “close friends” of the duchess which referenced the letter, meaning its existence was in the public domain.
The documents came to light this week amid the firestorm of attention that followed Meghan and Prince Harry’s decision to issue a statement announcing that they wanted to step back from their royal roles, become financially independent and split their time between Britain and North America. Queen Elizabeth II convened a family summit on Monday at her Sandringham estate in eastern England and decided the couple could to live part time in Canada.
Meghan was seen in Canada for the first time since the crisis began when she visited the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre in Vancouver to discuss issues affecting women in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The shelter posted a photograph of the duchess’s visit.
…
Israel’s army intelligence says Iran will have enough enriched uranium to produce one nuclear bomb by the end of the year. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not let Iran become a nuclear power.
Israeli military analysts say that by the end of 2020 Iran will have enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb. The assessment comes after recent tensions between the U.S. and Iran brought them to the brink of war. The United States pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, and Israeli intelligence officials speculated that Iran would resume its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb.
Israeli army intelligence officials based their calculation on their assessment that it takes 40 kilograms of 90-percent enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb. Iran announced several months ago that it no longer considered itself bound by the nuclear deal and would step up enrichment efforts.
At the same time, the Israeli assessment found that Iran does not possess missiles that can carry a nuclear bomb and that as far as they know, Iran is not working on one.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Jan. 5, 2020. (Ronen Zvulun/Pool via AP)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a harsh warning to Iran.
He said that Israel knows exactly what is happening with the Iranian nuclear program and that Israel will not let Iran get a nuclear weapon. He also called on European states to impose new sanctions on Iran for breaching the nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, Syrian state television said that Israeli aircraft fired missiles at the T-4 base near Damascus. The report said that Syrian air defense brought down a number of missiles but that four hit the base, causing some damage but no casualties.
Israeli officials did not comment on the report. Syria has accused Israel of hitting this same base several times in recent months. Israeli military sources said that Iranian forces and allied Shiite militias used the base, and that Iran used the base to transport precision weapons to Iranian backed forces included Hezbollah in Lebanon.
i24news defense correspondent Adi Koplewitz says Iran is continuing its efforts to deliver weaponry despite the U.S. targeted killing of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani.
The taking down of Soleimani doesn’t prevent the Iranians from continuing to try to reinforce their forces all over the region including in Syria. We are already seeing reports that just two hours after the attack last night another Iranian cargo plane landed in the T-4 air base that it is very hard to prevent the Iranians from sending equipment or weaponry all over the region.
In February of 2018, an Israeli F-16 was shot down during an attack on the T-4 base. It made it back to Israel before crashing.
…
Guatemala swears in Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative physician opposed to gay marriage and abortion, as its new president Tuesday while the country’s outgoing leader exits amid swirling corruption accusations.
The 63-year-old Giammattei won the presidency on his fourth attempt in August for Vamos, a party founded in 2017 by politicians, businessmen and military officers on promises of battling poverty and providing better opportunities.
Giammattei was scheduled to be sworn in before several Latin American leaders, among them Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Ivan Duque of Colombia and Lenin Moreno of Ecuador.
One of the early challenges facing Giammattei will be an Asylum Cooperation Agreement signed by his predecessor with the United States government. There was significant opposition to the deal inside Guatemala. The U.S. began sending Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers to Guatemala under the agreement in November and recently said it would expand it to Mexicans. A similar deal signed with Honduras could send Guatemalan asylum seekers there.
Giammattei inherits a country with grinding poverty: Fifty-nine percent of Guatemalans live below the poverty line, according to official figures, while nearly 1 million children below age 5 are estimated to live with chronic malnutrition.
He has proposed to build what he calls a “Mayan Train,” high-speed rail with a line for cargo and another for passengers. The name mirrors a planned train project for neighboring Mexico that will travel between coastal resorts, cities and Mayan ruins in that country’s southeast.
Giammattei will be working without a majority in Congress. His party captured 17 seats.
The surgeon suffers from multiple sclerosis, a disease of the nervous system, and uses crutches to walk. He has also worked as a business consultant in the private sector.
In 2006, Giammattei was the head of the country’s prison system when the interior ministry carried out a raid on the Pavon penal farm to regain control from the inmates. Thousands of police, soldiers and armed civilians raided the prison overnight and several inmates died in the operation.
Authorities, bureaucrats and private citizens were arrested, tried and imprisoned for the raid, including Giammattei. After several months in jail awaiting trial he was acquitted and released.
He takes over from President Jimmy Morales who spent much of his four-year term dodging corruption charges.
The former television comedian who campaigned on a promise of “not corrupt, not a thief” will possibly be most remembered for kicking out a U.N. supported anti-corruption mission that was closing in on him and members of his family.
Juan Francisco Sandoval, head of the special prosecutor against impunity office, said he hopes the future will be better without Morales. “He was the roadblock for the fight against corruption and impunity.”
…
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday on whether to send the articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump to the Senate.
The measure in the Democratic-controlled House is certain to pass easily, opening the door for an impeachment trial to begin next week.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the announcement Tuesday after meeting with fellow Democrats, nearly a month after the House impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Pelosi said the House would also vote Wednesday to name the impeachment managers — lawmakers who will act as prosecutors in a Senate trial.
Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would run through “housekeeping measures” later this week. Those measures will include approving a set of rules, as well as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swearing in senators before opening arguments begin next week.
“We’ll deal with the witness issue at the appropriate time during the trial – both sides will want to call witnesses they want to hear from,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
The impeachment allegations contend Trump abused the office of the presidency by pressing Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden and that the president obstructed congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.
Pelosi had delayed sending the articles to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader McConnell to agree to hear testimony from key Trump aides who were directly involved with Trump, as his administration temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks in Kyiv, Dec. 4, 2019.Democrats have called for testimony from current and former Trump administration officials, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Republicans have countered by saying they will call their own witnesses including Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter Biden had business dealings with a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was serving as vice president.
Democrats said late Tuesday they will include new evidence in the impeachment articles provided by Florida businessman Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
The evidence is expected to include a screenshot of a previously undisclosed letter Giuliani sent in May to the then President-elect, introducing himself as Trump’s “personal counsel” and requesting a meeting with Trump’s “knowledge and consent.”
Parnas apparently played a part in the firing U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich who balked at Trump’s demand for an investigation of the Bidens.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and ridiculed Democrats’ impeachment efforts.
This is the third time in the country’s 244-year history a U.S. president has been impeached and targeted for removal from office.
Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were both impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 in the face of certain impeachment in a political corruption scandal.
The Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump, particularly since no Republicans have expressed support for removing him from office.
A two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate would be needed to convict Trump to remove him from office. At least 20 Republicans would need to turn against Trump for a conviction, if all 47 Democrats voted against the president. A handful of Republicans have criticized Trump’s Ukraine actions, but none has called for his conviction and removal from office.
Trump released the military aid to Ukraine in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter’s work for the Ukrainian gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. Republicans say releasing the aid is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine — the military aid in exchange for the investigations.
…
The United States and China are due to sign an initial trade deal Wednesday to resolve some of the issues at the heart of an economic standoff that has persisted between the world’s two largest economies for the past 18 months.
U.S. President Donald Trump is hosting Chinese Vice Premier Liu He for a signing ceremony at the White House.
The sides agreed to what they are calling the Phase 1 agreement in mid-December.
It calls for China to boost its purchases of U.S. goods, halt the practice of forcing foreign companies to transfer technology, and to not manipulate its currency in order to makes its exports cheaper.
The United States has already removed its designation of China as a currency manipulator, and under the trade deal it is halting plans to add new tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods, while cutting in half tariffs on about $110 billion of Chinese products.
U.S. tariffs will remain in place on about $360 billion of imports from China.
The agreement also does not address China’s subsidies to state-owned companies, an issue likely to be discussed in the next phase of trade talks.
Additional negotiations are not expected anytime soon.
“I think both sides are reasonably happy with this compromise even though it doesn’t really tackle the core issues,” Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA.
He said the deal amounts to a “modest win-win for both sides” with China gaining a reprieve from the trade war that has harmed its economic growth and the Trump administration getting to set aside a major issue until after his re-election campaign.
“From President Trump’s perspective, it gives him a victory of sorts,” Alden said. “His strongest card in November is the U.S. economy. He doesn’t want to do anything to upset the stock markets, so a period of kind of calm on the U.S.-China front also serves the administration’s interests at this point.”
…
The killing by the United States of Iran’s most powerful general has increased tensions between the two countries and raised concerns of all-out war. It was a key topic in Tuesday’s Democratic debate in Des Moines, Iowa.
Questions over the killing of Gen. Qassem Suleimani quickly led to a broader conversation about the president’s ability to take unilateral military action. Unless an imminent threat required a quick response, all six Democratic candidates pledged to seek congressional approval. But, not all candidates agreed over the removal of troops in the region.
Here’s what the candidates had to say:
Former Vice President Joe Biden:
His response to U.S. President Trump’s decision to kill Iranian Soleimani without first going to Congress:
“I ran the first time as a 29-year-old kid against the war in Vietnam on the grounds that the only way to take a nation to war is with the informed consent of the American people.”
“We’re in a situation where our allies in Europe are making a comparison between the United States and Iran , saying both ought to stand down, making a moral equivalence.”
“We have lost our standing in the region. We have lost the support of our allies.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar:
Klobuchar said U.S. President Donald Trump’s move in the killing of Soleimani was to blame Iran for “starting to enrich uranium again.” She said he is “taking us pell mell toward another war.”
“We just found out today that four Republicans are joining Democrats to go to him and say you must have an authorization of military force if you’re going to go to war with Iran. That is so important because we have a situation where he got us out of the Iranian nuclear agreement I worked on for a significant period of time.”
Responding to a question on foreign policy, Klobuchar said she would leave some U.S. combat troops in Iraq, but qualified her answer, saying, “I would leave some troops there, but not in the level that Donald Trump is taking us right now.” She added that, if elected, she would keep a small number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, performing counterterrorism and training duties.
Sen. Bernie Sanders:
On the recent events in Iran:
“… right now, what I fear very much is we have a president who is lying again and could drag us into a war that is even worse than the war in Iraq.” He added, “We have got to undo what Trump did, bring that coalition together and make sure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.”
Sanders agreed that Trump’s decision to not inform Congress on killing Soleimani was wrong:
“We cannot keep acting unilaterally, as you know, the nuclear deal with Iran was worked on with a number of our allies,” he said. “The American people are sick and tired of endless wars.”
Tom Steyer:
The billionaire hedge fund manager and environmentalist said Trump “obviously has no strategy” in dealing with Iran and agreed with Biden that it would take the efforts of an international coalition to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
Senator Elizabeth Warren:
Sen. Warren of Massachusetts said she would move to bring thousands of U.S. troops home from the Middle East: “We have to stop this mindset that the answer” to the world’s trouble spots is to send U.S. troops overseas. Asked whether she would leave some combat troops in the Middle East, she replied: “No, we have to get them out.”
Pete Buttigieg:
The former South Bend, Indiana Mayor tied Trump’s decision to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal with the stand-off following the drone strike that killed Soleimani, saying the move “set off the chain of events that we’re now dealing with as it escalates even closer to the brink of outright war.”
When asked about the role of the U.S. Congress in authorizing war, Buttigieg said there should be a three-year sunset on such authorizations, a frequent campaign trail talking point.
“If our troops can summon the courage to go overseas in harm’s way, then we have to make sure that congress has the courage to take tough up or down votes,” he said.
…
Democratic presidential contenders clashed over a number of issues in their latest debate Tuesday, held less than three weeks before voters in Iowa head to the polls to kick off the 2020 primary season. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on the debate held in Des Moines, Iowa, and sponsored by CNN and The Des Moines Register newspaper.
…
Iranian students have staged noisy rallies at four Tehran universities in a fourth day of protests against Iran’s Islamist rulers after they admitted to mistakenly shooting down a passenger jet full of Iranians.
Video clips obtained by VOA appeared to show dozens of students chanting anti-government slogans in Tuesday protests at Tehran University, Amirkabir University of Technology, Shahid Beheshti University and Tehran University of Art. VOA could not independently verify the authenticity of the clips.
There were no immediate reports of Iranian police action against any of the student demonstrations, which appeared to be peaceful.
Iranians in Tehran and other cities have been holding daily anti-government protests since officials admitted on Saturday that their forces shot down a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 shortly after it took off from Tehran on a flight to Kyiv on January 8. For three days, Iranian leaders insisted that mechanical problems likely caused the crash that killed all 176 people on board, until acknowledging that Iranian military personnel downed the plane after misidentifying it as an enemy threat.
The dead included 82 Iranians and 57 Canadians, many of them Iranian students with dual citizenship who were flying to Kyiv en route to Canada to resume university studies after the winter break.
The pre-dawn crash happened hours after Iran fired missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq and was bracing for a U.S. counterstrike that never came. Iran’s missile attacks, which caused no casualties, were in retaliation for what the U.S. called a self-defensive strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3.
Western news agencies with journalists in Tehran said more than 200 anti-government protesters took part in Tuesday’s rally at Tehran University.
Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.
Embed
Copy
In one clip, students gathered in a large circle near the campus’ science faculty, chanting: “Resign, resign, incompetent officials,” and, “We cry out against so much injustice.”
Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.
Embed
Copy
In another clip, students assembled near the university’s medical school chanted, “Our state television is our disgrace.”
Iranian state TV network IRIB had broadcasted the government’s initial denials that Iran was responsible for the plane crash. Several presenters for the network have since resigned, in a reflection of public anger toward the erroneous denials.
Student supporters of the government also made their presence felt at Tehran University, holding a joint memorial for the victims of the plane crash and for Soleimani at the campus mosque. Images provided by Western news agencies showed some of the pro-government activists also burning American and British flags outside the mosque and chanting slogans vowing never to give in to Iran’s “enemies.”
A video that appeared to be from Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University showed students denouncing government officials who said they were mourning the plane crash while insisting it was not their fault. “If you are grieving, why have you waited for three days?” the students asked.
Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.
Embed
Copy
At Tehran University of Art, students appeared to be chanting, “Death to the liar”, and, “Our hands are bare, so put away your truncheons.”
Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholhossein Esmaili said authorities had detained 30 protesters since the anti-government demonstrations began late Saturday. Widely-circulated online video of Sunday’s protests in Tehran appeared to show people suffering the effects of tear gas fired by police.
Esmaili said authorities were treating the protesters with leniency.
Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.
Embed
Copy
Other video apparently filmed after nightfall Tuesday showed students at Amirkabir University denouncing Iranian security forces as “shameless”.
Earlier Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed to punish those responsible for the “unforgivable” downing of the Ukrainian plane. In a televised speech, he also called for a special court to be set up to handle prosecutions.
Esmaili, the judiciary spokesman, said some of those suspected of having a role in the plane shoot-down had been arrested, but did not say how many or identify them.
This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. VOA’s Extremism Watch Desk contributed.
…
Six U.S. Democratic presidential candidates traded barbs with each other in a tense debate late Tuesday, attempting to make the case to voters in the farm state of Iowa that they alone have the political fortitude and skill to take on Republican President Donald Trump in the November national election.
With heightened world tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist, quickly attacked the foreign policy credentials of the party’s national front-runner for the presidential nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Sanders derided Biden’s 2002 vote authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq on what proved to be erroneous American intelligence that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction, while Sanders opposed the the 2003 invasion.
He said Biden voted for the “worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country.”
Biden, who for years has said his Iraq vote was a mistake, countered that while he had erred, as former U.S. President Barack Obama’s second in command, he worked to bring home more than 150,000 U.S. troops once stationed in Iraq and to end the conflict.
Democratic presidential candidates stand on stage during a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 14, 2020.Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said that she, as a candidate early in her political career, also opposed the Iraq invasion, while accusing Trump of “taking us pell-mell toward another war,” in the current conflict over the U.S. leader’s changing rationale for ordering a drone strike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
A key challenger to both Biden and Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a one-time Harvard law professor, and others said they would move to bring thousands of U.S. troops home from the Middle East, at odds with Trump’s recent dispatch of more forces to the region. Warren said, “We have to stop this mindset that the answer” to world’s trouble spots is to send U.S. troops overseas. Asked whether she would leave some combat troops in the Middle East, she replied: “No, we have to get them out.”
Sanders said, “The American people are sick and tired of endless wars.”
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the only war-time veteran on the debate stage, said he could best serve as the country’s commander in chief, because “the lessons of the past are personal to me.” Wealthy environmentalist Tom Steyer contended that Trump “obviously has no strategy” in dealing with Iran and agreed with Biden that it would take the efforts of an international coalition to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
Tuesday’s debate stage had the fewest number of candidates since the face-to-face encounters began last June. It was also the first with all white contenders, after black, Latino and Asian candidates have either dropped out of the race for lack of voter support and campaign money or failed to qualify for the debate stage.
It was the seventh debate, but the last before Democrats in rural Iowa in the U.S. heartland cast the first votes in the party’s months-long nomination process, at night-time caucuses less than three weeks from now, on Feb. 3.
Contests in other states are just ahead on the political calendar. But Iowa, even though its predominantly white 3 million population is at odds with the increasingly racially diverse U.S. demographics, draws out-sized national attention because it is first in the once-every-four-years presidential sweepstakes.
Warren and Sanders sparred sharply over a private conversation they had more than a year ago in which Warren claims that Sanders questioned whether a woman can defeat Trump to become the first female U.S. president.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., left, speaks to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right as former Vice President Joe Biden watches Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, during a Democratic presidential primary debate.Sanders denied making the remark and said no one believes a woman can’t win, noting that Democrat Hillary Clinton out-polled Trump by nearly 3 million votes in 2016, while losing the vote in the country’s state-by-state electoral college system of electing presidents.
When she was asked what she thought when Sanders told her a woman couldn’t defeat Trump in 2020, Warren responded: “I disagreed.”
Warren said that the male candidates on the debate stage had collectively lost 10 elections during their lifetimes, while the two women, herself and Klobuchar, are undefeated.
Trump’s incumbent status means Republicans are sure to nominate him to seek a second four-year term in the White House. But the Democratic race is highly unsettled.
Biden, now in his third race for the party’s presidential nomination, leads national polls of Democratic voters, but possibly trails his Democratic opponents in Iowa and some other states. Should he falter early in the nominating process, that could dent his key campaign argument that according to national polls he stands the best chance of defeating Trump.
Last weekend’s Iowa Poll indicates Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has surged to a narrow lead, with 20% support of those who say they will attend a caucus in three weeks. Warren, a progressive representing Massachusetts, is second at 17%, ahead of Buttigieg, who has fashioned himself as a political centrist, at 16%, and Biden, a left-of-center politician through nearly five decades in Washington, at 15%. But more than half of those polled said they could still decide to support a candidate other than the one they now prefer or have yet to make up their mind.
A separate Monmouth University poll showed a similar close contest among the four leaders, but with Biden ahead followed by Sanders, Buttigieg and Warren.
Klobuchar and Steyer both trail the four leaders in the pre-election Iowa polling, but qualified for the debate stage by meeting the polling and fundraising standards set by the national Democratic Party. Other Democratic candidates remain in a crowded field of presidential aspirants, but are not campaigning in Iowa, did not make the cut for the debate or have dropped out, including Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey who left the race on Monday.
Trump has taken note of Sanders’s recent ascent in opinion polls, saying in a Twitter comment over the weekend, “Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!”
Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020
For months Trump had focused singularly on Biden, with occasional barbs against Warren and Buttigieg, as his mostly likely 2020 opponent, to the extent that his concern about Biden is at the center of the impeachment case against Trump. The president’s impeachment trial in the Senate trial is likely to start next Tuesday, only the third such impeachment trial in two and a half centuries of American history.
Trump is accused of trying to benefit himself politically by pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a late July phone call to launch an investigation of Biden, his son Hunter’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to undermine Trump’s campaign. His requests came at the same time he was temporarily withholding $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Trump eventually released the money in September without Zelenskiy launching the Biden investigations. That is proof, Republicans say, that Trump had not engaged in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal, the military aid in exchange for the Biden investigations.
Three of the leading Democratic challengers — Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar — could be directly affected by Trump’s impeachment trial since they will be among the 100 members of the Senate, effectively sitting as jurors, deciding Trump’s fate. That will keep them in Washington six days a week while the trial is going on, and importantly for them, off the campaign trail in Iowa to meet voters.
With a Republican majority in the Senate, Trump is all but assured of being acquitted and allowed to remain in office to face voters in November. But a full-blown trial, if witnesses are called to testify as Democrats and some Republicans want, could infuse unexpected new information about Trump and perhaps Biden into the last weeks of the Iowa contest.
…
The National Security Agency has discovered a major security flaw in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and tipped off the company so that it can fix it.
Microsoft made a software patch to fix it available Tuesday and credited the agency as the flaw’s discoverer.
The company said it has not seen any evidence that hackers have used the technique discovered by the NSA.
“Customers who have already applied the update, or have automatic updates enabled, are already protected,” said Jeff Jones, a senior director at Microsoft, in a statement.
Priscilla Moriuchi, who retired from the NSA in 2017 after running its East Asia and Pacific operations, said this is a good example of the “constructive role” that the NSA can play in improving global information security. Moriuchi, now an analyst at the U.S. cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said it’s likely a reflection of changes made in 2017 to how the U.S. determines whether to disclose a major vulnerability or exploit it for intelligence purposes.
The revamping of what’s known as the “Vulnerability Equities Process” put more emphasis on disclosing unpatched vulnerabilities whenever possible to protect core internet systems and the U.S. economy and general public.
Those changes happened after a group calling itself “Shadow Brokers” released a trove of high-level hacking tools stolen from the NSA.
…