Time Magazine’s selection of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as its Person of the Year underscores the growing clout of youth power—pushing governments to escalate the fight against what many consider a climate crisis. That is also happening in Africa, which is especially vulnerable to climate change. At the Madrid climate conference, Lisa Bryant reports on three young Africans who are making a difference
Rwanda this week (Dec 9) co-hosted the annual Anti-Corruption Excellence Award summit to celebrate and encourage successes against graft, including at home. Transparency International ranks Rwanda as the fourth-least corrupt country in Africa, behind the Seychelles, Botswana, and Cabo Verde. Eugene Uwimana reports from Kigali
A lawyer presenting Gambia’s case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against Rohingya Muslims said Thursday that Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi ignored allegations of mass killings and rape as she led her country’s defense before the U.N.’s top court.
Paul Reichler told the International Court of Justice in The Hague Myanmar was choosing to ignore the alleged sexual violence because “it is undeniable and unspeakable.”
Aung San Suu Kyi told the court Wednesday the mass exodus of the Rohingya minority stemmed from “an internal conflict started by coordinated and comprehensive armed attacks.”
She said that “Myanmar’s defense services responded” to the attacks, creating an armed conflict “that led to the exodus of several hundred thousand Muslims.”
William Schabas, a Canadian attorney defending Myanmar against genocide charges at the U.N.’s International Court of Justice and Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi attend a hearing in a case filed by Gambia, Dec. 11, 2019.
Appearing before the court in her official role as Myanmar’s foreign minister, the Nobel Peace laureate reiterated her government’s claim that the military was targeting Rohingya militants who had attacked security posts in western Rakhine state in August 2017.
Myanmar’s military launched a scorched earth campaign in response to the attacks, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingyas to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. A U.N. investigation concluded the campaign was carried out “with genocidal intent,” based on interviews with survivors who gave numerous accounts of massacres, extrajudicial killings, gang rapes and the torching of entire villages.
The case against Myanmar was brought to the IJC by the small West African nation Gambia on behalf of the 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation. Lawyers for Gambia recounted numerous acts of atrocities committed by Myanmar’s military during the crackdown during Tuesday’s opening session.
Aung San Suu Kyi called the allegations made by Gambia “misleading” during her opening statement.
Gambia’s Justice Minister Aboubacarr Tambadou addresses judges of the International Court of Justice for the first day of three days of hearings in The Hague, Netherlands, Dec. 10, 2019.
Gambian Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou told reporters Tuesday he wants the IJC to order special measures to protect the Rohingyas until the genocide case is heard in full.
“We are signatories to the Genocide Convention like any other state. It shows that you don’t have to have military power or economic power to stand for justice,” Tambadou said.
Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her pro-democracy stand against Myanmar’s then-ruling military junta, which placed her under house arrest for 15 years until finally freeing her in 2010. But her defense of the military’s actions against the Rohingyas has wrecked her reputation among the international community as an icon of democracy and human rights.
The Rohingya were excluded from a 1982 citizenship law that bases full legal status through membership in a government-recognized indigenous group. The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, effectively rendering the ethnic group stateless.
A ruling from the court to approve measures to protect the Rohingya is expected within weeks. A final ruling on the accusation of genocide could take several years.
Shares in Saudi Aramco gained on the second day of trading Thursday, propelling the oil and gas company to a more than $2 trillion valuation, where it holds the title of the world’s most valuable listed company.
Shares jumped in trading to reach up to 38.60 Saudi riyals, or $10.29 before noon, three hours before trading closes.
Aramco has sold a 1.5% share to mostly Saudi investors and local Saudi and Gulf-based funds.
With gains made from just two days of trading, Aramco sits comfortably ahead of the world’s largest companies, including Apple, the second largest company in the world valued at $1.19 trillion.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the architect of the effort to list Aramco, touting it as a way to raise capital for the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which would then develop new cities and lucrative projects across the country that create jobs for young Saudis.
He had sought a $2 trillion valuation for Aramco when he first announced in 2015 plans to sell a sliver of the state-owned company.
International investors, however, thought the price was too high, given the relatively lower price of oil, climate change concerns and geopolitical risks associated with Aramco. The company’s main crude oil processing facility and another site were targeted by missiles and drones in September, knocking out more than half of Saudi production for some time. The kingdom and the U.S. have blamed the attack on rival Iran, which denies involvement.
In the lead-up to the flotation, there had been a strong push for Saudis, including princes and businessmen, to contribute to what’s seen locally as a moment of national pride, and even duty. Gulf-based funds from allied countries also contributed to the IPO, though it has largely been propelled by Saudi capital.
At a ceremony Wednesday for the start of trading, Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, described the sale as “a proud and historic moment for Saudi Aramco and our majority shareholder, the kingdom.”
Five candidates have their eyes on becoming the next president of Algeria — without a leader since April — as voting began in Thursday’s contentious election boycotted by a massive pro-democracy movement.
The powerful army chief and his cohorts in the interim government have promised the voting will chart a new era for the gas-rich North African nation that is a strategic partner of the West in countering extremist violence. Those opposed to the voting fear the results will replicate a corrupt, anti-democratic system they are trying to level.
Tension was palpable on the eve of the vote as protesters in at least 10 towns denounced the elections. In Bouira, east of Algiers, the capital, security forces used tear gas to push back protesters who had invaded a voting station in a high school, according to the online TSA news agency, citing witnesses. Several thousand people demonstrated in Algiers.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and are to close at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT). Results were not likely until Friday, to be announced by a newly created National Independent Electoral Authority overseeing the voting. The body was among the nods of authorities to protesters, like the decision for soldiers to vote in civilian clothes at regular polling stations, rather than in barracks.
The five candidates, two of them former prime ministers, Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, endured insults and protests during the 22-day campaign. All five contenders have links to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced to resign in April after 20 years in office under pressure from weekly street protests that began in February, with an assist from army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah.
The turnout rate should be a critical indication of whether the contender elected has popular legitimacy. There was no firm indication which of the five had the upper hand ahead of the vote. Opinion polls for elections are not permitted.
Tebboune, 74, was until recently seen as the favorite due to his reportedly close ties to Gaid Salah. However, a 60-year-old former culture minister, Azzedine Mihoubi, a writer and poet, has been touted in the media. Mihoubi has deep ties to the fallen Bouteflika regime. He took over leadership of the National Democratic Rally party, which governed in alliance with the FLN, the sole party for nearly three decades, until 1989, and now in tatters.
Benflis, 75, was making his third attempt at the presidency. A lawyer and former justice minister, he was Bouteflika’s top aide before falling out when he ran against him in 2004. He started his own party.
The other candidates are Abdelaziz Belaid, 56, a former figure in the FLN who started his own party, and Abdelkader Bengrini, 57, a one-time tourism minister and former member of the moderate Islamist party, Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP). He then started his own Islamist party el Bina, which like the MSP, backed Bouteflika.
Gaid Salah, who has emerged as the authority figure in the political vacuum, setting the date for the elections, has maintained that the voting is the shortest and surest way to raise Algeria out of its paralyzing political crisis and give birth to a new era. He was the force behind an anti-corruption campaign that has seen top figures jailed and convicted, including Said Bouteflika, the president’s brother and chief counselor, sentenced to 15 years in prison in September for “plotting against the state.”
Gaid Salah refers to Bouteflika’s entourage as “the gang,” as do pro-democracy protesters who include Gaid Salah among them.
India sent thousands of troops into the northeastern state of Assam Thursday to quell violent protests triggered by a new law that would make it easier for non-Muslims from some neighboring countries to gain citizenship.
Angry protesters defied a curfew imposed in the capital of Guwahati and elsewhere across Assam, setting cars and tires ablaze before being dispersed by security forces. Protesters also attacked the homes of members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party.
Critics say the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which passed the upper house of Parliament Wednesday, would lead to a flood of immigrants into Assam and other northeast states, and would marginalize India’s minority Muslims, which they claim is a goal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist government.
“I want to assure my brothers and sisters of Assam that they have nothing to worry after the passing of #CAB,” Prime Minister Modi said in a statement posted on his Twitter account. “I want to assure them — no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture. It will continue to flourish and grow.”
I want to assure my brothers and sisters of Assam that they have nothing to worry after the passing of #CAB.
I want to assure them- no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture. It will continue to flourish and grow.
Opponents also say the bill is a ploy by Modi and the BJP to weaken the secular foundations of India’s democracy.
The bill will make six religious groups — Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists — who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 31, 2014, eligible for Indian citizenship. The government says it is intended to give sanctuary to minorities who fled religious persecution in these countries.
Voters in Britain are casting ballots Thursday in an early general election that may bring a long-awaited resolution to the departure from the European Union they approved in a 2016 referendum.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson focused his campaigning efforts on a slogan to “Get Brexit Done.” He says a parliamentary majority for his Conservative Party would allow him to push through a previously rejected divorce deal with the EU and carry out Brexit by January 31.
His challenger, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, said if he wins Britain will hold a new referendum to ask if people still want to leave the European Union, or would rather stay in the 28-member bloc.
Johnson took office in July after his predecessor, Theresa May, failed in her repeated attempts to get parliament to approve the deal she reached with the EU. May also tried during her tenure to strengthen her Brexit negotiating position by calling an early election, but the move backfired with the Conservatives losing seats.
Opinion polls ahead of Thursday’s voting suggested Johnson’s party was favored to win, but that the race appeared to tighten in the final days of campaigning.
With a day to go before Britons head to the polls to vote in their third general election in under four years, the question the ruling Conservatives are asking themselves is, will Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s gamble to hold an early ballot pay off?
Will he be able to accomplish what his Downing Street predecessor, Theresa May, failed to do in 2017 with her snap election and secure a large parliamentary majority?
Johnson hopes to achieve what she failed to do — to persuade traditional working-class voters who favor Brexit in the north of England to ditch their lifetime habit of voting Labor. If successful, it would amount to a seismic reshaping of British politics.
Opinion polls suggest the Conservatives may pull off a big win Thursday and secure a sufficient majority for Johnson to end the long-running Brexit mess by taking Britain out of the European Union by the end of January. In the final days of the campaign, Johnson has focused on Labor’s so-called “red wall,” searching for cracks to widen in old towns and farming villages crucial to the Conservatives’ hopes of winning Thursday’s election, warning voters that they face a “great Brexit betrayal,” if they vote for an increasingly metropolitan and southern Labor Party.
Most polls have been giving the Conservatives, also known as Tories, a 10-percent lead over Labor, the country’s main opposition party. But the race appears to have tightened in the final stretch. One poll midweek had the lead cut to 8 percent and a further drop would point to a likely hung parliament. Few pollsters are ready to hazard a firm prediction of a Johnson win. In 2017, the opinion polls were upended by a late surge toward Labor and a high turnout by pro-EU youngsters. Labor has a strong record in getting out their vote.
Brexit has turned Britain into a politically tumultuous country — old party allegiances have weakened and a wide generation gap has been exposed, with younger voters shifting left and older voters shifting right. New political groups have emerged; the centrist pro-EU Liberal Democrats have enjoyed a revival thanks to lawmakers defecting to them from Labor and the Tories. Both main parties have lurched toward their extremes, putting off their moderate supporters.
All of that spells the possibility of some big surprises on election night. Twelve percent to 17 percent of Britons apparently are still undecided voters.
The conduct of this election, what has been dubbed Britain’s first post-truth election, has been anything but normal and that could come back to hurt the parties when voters are casting their ballots.
The campaigning has become more toxic as it unfolds. “Fake news” stories have been planted with abandon, and online disinformation and manipulation are being used to rally support by fomenting outrage and anger. Social media have become more influential in the national discourse than the newspapers or the broadcasters. The politicians have been lost in a world of spin, say election critics, playing fast and loose with the facts, determinedly evading serious examination of their policies and plans.
“This election has been marinated in mendacity: big lies and small lies, quarter truths and pseudo facts; distraction, dissembling and disinformation; and digital skulduggery on an industrial scale,” the country’s storied Economist magazine said this week.
The biggest lie by the Tories, say commentators, has been that Brexit can be delivered painlessly and without much disruption. “Get Brexit done” has been Johnson’s mantra throughout. And the Conservatives have stayed relentlessly on message, warning that a vote for anyone but them will condemn Britain to further “dither and delay” in a likely deadlocked hung parliament with a Labor-led coalition government.
“On Thursday, the country has the chance to end the delay, get Brexit done and move on to sorting out all the other things that matter to you,” Johnson has said.
But Brexit will take longer than just a month to sort out and there will be a high economic price to pay in terms of the national debt and deficit, and major disruption for businesses, according to analysts and the Bank of England. The January Brexit deadline Johnson wants to observe is just the start of a long process of negotiations to settle on a future arrangement with Britain’s largest trading partner, the EU. Most observers argue this second stage of negotiations will be tricky and could take years.
If Johnson wins, “Skies will begin to darken as flocks of Mr. Johnson’s chickens will come home to roost,” says Matthew Parris, a former Conservative lawmaker, and now a columnist at The Times newspaper.
Labor obfuscation, say commentators, has come with the party’s radical high-spending plans to re-nationalize the energy, rail and water industries, broadband providers and Royal Mail. It has promised to introduce a four-day work week, redistribute wealth and reinvest in Britain’s crumbling public services, all without increasing taxes except for billionaires. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a respected British research institution, has dubbed those plans as “not a credible prospectus.”
Voters have become angrier and more disillusioned as the election has unfolded, with candidates reporting unprecedented vitriol on the doorsteps. None of the party leaders has impressed the electorate in what has become a “hold-your-nose” election, described as “an unpopularity contest.”
Both Boris Johnson and Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn, as well as the leader of Britain’s perennial third party, the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, have been laughed at and mocked by hostile, disbelieving studio audiences. Johnson is the most unpopular new prime minister since the advent of opinion polls and seen widely as an opportunist. Corbyn is the most disliked leader of the opposition since polls began, and widely regarded as a tired far-left figure from a bygone era.
Their unpopularity goes some way to explain why so many voters are undecided, say pollsters. “We have never seen as many undecided voters this late in the campaign,” according to pollster Paul Hilder. “A much larger Conservative landslide is still possible — but so is a hung parliament,” he added.
As the campaign has unfolded, the Liberal Democrats appear to have failed to fill the gap in the middle of British politics. Their inexperienced leader made what looks like a fatal campaign mistake in deciding to campaign not for a second Brexit referendum, but for a revocation of the 2016 plebiscite altogether.
Labor’s position has been what critics describe as a fudge, involving a pledge to renegotiate another exit deal and then to hold a second referendum. Nigel Farage’s newly-minted Brexit Party has barely figured, having been squeezed by Johnson’s pledge to deliver Brexit.
The Conservatives are banking on voters, even those who would prefer to remain in the EU, of just being sick and tired of the whole Brexit mess, and seeing Johnson as the only escape route.
But if voters are more concerned about the crumbling state of Britain’s public services and the years of austerity under the Conservatives, then Labor could defy the opinions polls. Labor has relentlessly focused on the NHS and issues around social care.
A further high danger for Johnson is tactical voting by pro-EU voters — a strategy that’s been urged on Britons by two former prime ministers, Labor’s Tony Blair and the Conservatives’ John Major, who argue Brexit is toxic for Britain. They have urged pro-EU Britons to back the candidate from either Labor or the Liberal Democrats most likely to defeat the Tories in their constituency.
Ten percent of voters say they plan to vote tactically and the internet is full of helpful interactive maps to assist them. Johnson could technically be denied a majority on Thursday if just 41,000 people voted tactically in 36 out of 650 seats. But some pollsters say so far, the signs are that pro-Brexiters are uniting around the Conservatives, while pro-EU voters are split between opposition parties — and that is the way the Tories want it to remain.
Egypt’s president Wednesday called for “decisive” and “collective” action against countries supporting “terrorism” in an apparent reference to Turkey and Qatar, who back the Muslim Brotherhood group, which is outlawed in Egypt.
The three countries also support opposing factions in the war-torn Libya.
Addressing a two-day forum on peace in Africa in the southern city of Aswan, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also said achieving sustainable development in Africa is needed, along with efforts to fight militant groups in Egypt and the Sahel region that stretches across Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
“There should be a decisive response to countries supporting terrorism and a collective response against terrorism, because the terrorist groups will only have the ability to fight if they are provided with financial, military and moral support,” he said.
The gathering in Aswan is attended by the leaders of Niger, Chad, Nigeria and Senegal along with officials from the U.S., Britain and Canada.
This photo provided by the office of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, dignitaries gather for a photo during a two-day forum on peace in Africa in the southern city of Aswan, Egypt, Dec. 11, 2019.
The Sahel region is home to al-Qaida and Islamic State group-linked militants. El-Sissi said Egypt could help train forces and provide weapons to countries in the region to fight extremists.
Egypt has for years been battling an Islamic State-led insurgency that intensified after the military overthrew an elected but divisive Muslim Brotherhood President Muhammad Morsi in 2013 amid mass protests against his brief rule.
Militant-related violence in Egypt has been centered on the Sinai Peninsula, as well as in the country’s vast Western Desert, which has witnessed deadly attacks blamed on militants infiltrating from neighboring Libya.
Since Morsi’s ouster, tensions have grown between Egypt and Turkey and Egypt and Qatar. The political party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Cairo designated as at terrorist group in 2013.
Upcoming conference
El-Sissi also said a “comprehensive, political solution would be achieved in the coming months” for the conflict in Libya, which descended into chaos after the 2011 civil war that ousted and killed long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi. He did not elaborate.
He said that would put an end to a “terrorist hotbed that pushes militants and weapons to (Libya’s) neighboring countries including Egypt.”
El-Sissi apparently was referring to an international summit in Berlin that aims to reach an agreement on actions needed to end the conflict. The conference had been scheduled for October, but it has apparently been postponed.
After the 2011 civil war, Libya split in two, with a weak U.N.-supported administration in Tripoli overseeing the country’s west and a rival government in the east aligned with the Libyan National Army led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter.
Maritime border agreement
El-Sissi’s comments came amid heightened tensions with Turkey after a controversial maritime border agreement it signed last month with Libya’s Tripoli-based government.
Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, which lie between the two geographically, have denounced the deal as being contrary to international law, and Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador last week over the issue.
Hifter has for months been fighting an array of militias allied with the Tripoli authorities to wrestle control of the capital. He is backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
Russia’s foreign minister is back in Washington to discuss nuclear arms control, the wars in Syria and Ukraine, as well the continuing controversy over Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Patsy Widakuswara reports from the White House, where Sergei Lavrov met with President Donald Trump.
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is polling No. 1 in the key state of Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation caucus in February. He also has risen to the top tier nationally. But criticism that the South Bend, Indiana, mayor has little support from black voters and lacks political experience continues to shadow his political narrative. VOA’s Esha Sarai traveled to South Bend to hear what residents think about his presidential aspirations.
In opting for a narrow rather than a broad set of charges, Democrats sought to blunt Republican criticism that the impeachment proceeding against Trump is a reckless attempt to undo a democratically elected president, according to some experts
As they conducted a two-month-long impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Donald Trump, Democrats considered a range of charges against him, including articles stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and violations of the emoluments clause to the U.S. Constitution.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
In the end, however, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democratic leaders settled on just two charges: abuse of office and obstruction of justice.
In opting for a narrow rather than a broad set of charges, Democrats sought to blunt Republican criticism that the impeachment proceeding against Trump is an illegitimate attempt to undo a democratically elected president, according to some experts.
Kim Wehle, a former associate independent counsel in the Whitewater impeachment investigation against former President Bill Clinton, said the Democrats’ decision is a smart play, if only to make it more difficult for Republicans to be totally dismissive of the historic action.
“If it had been a laundry list of articles of impeachment, the Republicans could say, The Democrats are out of control. This is a witch hunt, or this is overreaching.’ And they can hide behind that rhetoric to basically walk away from impeaching this president,” said Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore.
From left, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Articles of impeachment
Articles of impeachment are similar to criminal charges. The two articles of impeachment revealed on Tuesday are focused on Ukraine and are related to Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival, and a discredited theory about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign and Trump’s subsequent attempt to impede a congressional inquiry.
Though not a criminal offense, abuse of power is a long-running theme in U.S. presidential impeachments, according to Louis Michael Seidman, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University. Obstruction of Congress is less common; Richard Nixon faced a similar charge of contempt of Congress.
Article 1
The first article accuses Trump of using the power of his office to solicit Ukrainian interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. It alleges that the president asked Ukraine to conduct investigations that would “benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States presidential election to his advantage.”
It says that Trump “sought to pressure” Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning nearly $400 million in military aid and a White House meeting between Trump and the president of Ukraine on the investigations.
Throughout the impeachment inquiry, Democrats sought to prove that Trump pushed for the investigations in exchange for military aid and an Oval Office meeting with Ukraine’s president. But establishing an explicit quid pro quo proved more challenging than they’d anticipated. That may explain why the resolution plays down a quid pro quo in making its case.
Article 2
The second article is centered on Trump’s effort to impede the congressional impeachment inquiry. After Democrats announced the investigation in late September, Trump ordered the White House and executive branch agencies not to cooperate with the inquiry.
“In the history of the Republic, no president has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate high crimes and misdemeanors,” the resolution states.
Former special counsel Robert Mueller, checks pages in the report as he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on his report on Russian election interference, on Capitol Hill, July 24, 2019 in Washington.
Narrow set of charges
In recent weeks, House Democrats seemed divided over the scope of a possible Trump impeachment. Many advocated including a charge of obstruction of justice related to Trump’s alleged effort to interfere with the Mueller probe, a lengthy investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome. That investigation found no evidence of collusion, but cited nearly a dozen instances of possible obstruction.
Others wanted charges of bribery, extortion and campaign finance violations included in the articles of impeachment.
In the end, however, the Democrats opted for a straight-forward case they felt was easy to prove. The decision to drop the extraneous charges won praise from an unlikely critic: Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who was invited by Republicans to testify in the House Judiciary Committee last week.
“While my fellow witnesses made good-faith arguments for those articles, my testimony primarily focused on the legal and constitutional flaws in claiming those criminal acts,” Turley wrote on his personal blog.
George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley gives an opening statement as he testifies during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on the constitutional grounds for the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Rush to judgment
The impeachment proceeding is set to barrel ahead. On Thursday, the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the articles, followed by a vote by the full House next week. Should the House approve one or both articles of impeachment, Trump would become only the third U.S. president in history to be so charged. He then would face a trial in the Senate early next year.
The Democratic push has raised charges that they’re rushing to judgment. Turley told lawmakers last week that while Trump could be impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the Democrats have not fully developed their case.
“The problem is that the House has not bothered to subpoena the key witnesses who would have such direct knowledge,” Turley testified.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 3, 2019.
But Democrats say they don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of subpoenas. Adam Schiff, House Intelligence Committee chairman, noted that it took a federal court eight months to rule in favor of a congressional subpoena for former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify.
Even if takes another eight months to get a second court order, Schiff said, Trump administration officials could still claim executive privilege over certain documents sought by Congress.
“The argument, Why don’t you just wait?’ amounts to this: Why don’t you just let him cheat in just one more election? Why not let him cheat one more time? Why not let him have foreign help just one more time,” Schiff said Tuesday.
Democrats also appear intent on getting impeachment out of the way ahead of the November 2020 election, in part to prevent Democratic senators running for president to be pinned down in Washington during a prolonged impeachment trial.
“But I think the danger is that it could be done so soon that it will be in the rearview mirror (for) most people, most voters, when they actually go to the polls in November,” Wehle said.
Republicans insist Trump has done nothing wrong. They say the president simply asked Ukraine to root out corruption, and that no evidence of a quid pro quo has emerged.
They also defend Trump’s right to bar members of his administration from cooperating with the impeachment inquiry on the grounds of executive privilege.
Ultimately, though, it matters little how strong the impeachment case is. Impeachment is a quasi-judicial and political process. And with Republicans controlling the Senate, it is highly unlikely that Trump will be convicted and removed from office.
Governments around the world must allow the voices of human rights advocates, including young people, to be heard, the U.N. secretary general said Tuesday. The remarks came as the world body marked the 71st anniversary of the United Nations’ World Human Rights Day. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
After a bomb exploded in a downtown Atlanta park midway through the 1996 Olympics, a security guard initially cast as a hero was recast as a villain virtually overnight. More than 20 years later, a movie to be released later this week, “Richard Jewell,” explores the roles played by law enforcement and the media in the guard’s ordeal.
Now the movie is drawing its own share of criticism.
Kevin Riley, the current editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is disputing the film’s depiction of the newspaper’s reporting and decision-making processes, especially the portrayal of reporter Kathy Scruggs, who the movie implies traded sex with an FBI agent for a tip on the story.
In an interview with The Associated Press, director Clint Eastwood dismissed the criticism of his movie, which is based on a 1997 Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner, by saying the paper likely is looking to “rationalize” its actions.
Jewell’s saga began on July 27, 1996, when he spotted an abandoned backpack during a concert in Centennial Olympic Park shortly before 1 a.m. and helped clear the area as federal agents determined it contained a bomb. The explosion about 20 minutes later killed 44-year-old Alice Hawthorne of Albany, Georgia, and injured 111 people, some of them seriously. A Turkish television cameraman died after suffering a heart attack while running to film the explosion’s aftermath.
Jewell, who likely helped prevent many more casualties, was initially hailed as a hero but a few days later was reported to be the focus of the FBI investigation, and the public quickly turned on him.
FILE – Photographers surround Richard Jewell prior to his testifying before a House Judiciary Crime subcommittee hearing, July 30, 1997, on the Olympic bombing in Atlanta.
The park reopened within days, the games continued and Jewell was publicly cleared three months later. But he grappled with the fallout for the rest of his life, and Atlanta lived with the fear and unease of a bomber still at large.
A new book, “The Suspect,” attempts to bring clarity to the aftermath of the bombing. Its authors were in the thick of it: Kent Alexander was the U.S. attorney in Atlanta when the bombing happened and Kevin Salwen led The Wall Street Journal’s southeastern section.
In the frantic days after the bombing, Scruggs confirmed with law enforcement sources that the FBI was focusing on Jewell. The paper published that information three days after the explosion and scores of reporters descended on the apartment complex where Jewell lived with his mother, leaving them feeling as if they were under siege for months.
Jewell had made clear his dream of working in law enforcement and was endlessly mocked as an overzealous but bumbling wannabe cop.
It’s easy to say in hindsight that the investigation focused too heavily on Jewell, Alexander said. But some of Jewell’s actions and tips from people who knew him raised serious questions, the former prosecutor said. There was also the memory of a police officer at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles who was celebrated for disarming a bomb until it emerged that he’d planted it.
Doubts about Jewell’s guilt surfaced quickly, especially once it became clear he couldn’t have made a 911 call reporting the bomb from a pay phone blocks away.
In late October 1996, Alexander took the unusual step of sending a letter to one of Jewell’s attorneys saying Jewell was not a target of the investigation.
“His name had been so badly muddied and tarnished that it just seemed like we should do something, so I did,” Alexander said.
That left authorities sifting through dozens of possible suspects — the actual bomber, anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph, not among them. Rudolph, who was behind two more bombs in Atlanta in early 1997 and another in Alabama in January 1998, was eventually captured in 2003 and pleaded guilty in 2005.
‘Voice of God’
The media frenzy surrounding Jewell drew backlash, and the Journal-Constitution was criticized for the “voice of God” style in its initial story, which carried no attribution and left the origin of the information unclear.
Ron Martz, who shared a byline with Scruggs on the scoop, said questions and rumors swirled in the wake of the horrific attack and he saw it as a public service to let people know where the investigation stood.
Scruggs had solid sources and the story had been through several editors, Martz said. Editors even had him take the highly unusual step of reading the entire story to an FBI spokesman to confirm that the information was correct and to make sure it wouldn’t jeopardize the investigation.
But Martz said he regrets not pushing for clearer attribution on the original story, which could have spared the paper much grief with the addition of just five words: “according to law enforcement sources.”
Once he was effectively cleared, Jewell’s lawyers filed libel suits against numerous news outlets. Most settled, but the Journal-Constitution didn’t. The legal battle continued for more than a decade, beyond Jewell’s death in 2007 at age 44. The courts ultimately ruled the newspaper’s stories weren’t libelous because they were substantially true when published.
Criticism of the newspaper, and particularly Scruggs, was devastating to her, Martz said.
“She felt very hurt by the way she was being portrayed and the fact that this was to be the shining moment of her career and people were going after her personally to get at her professionally,” he said.
Scruggs was a “wild child,” loud, foul-mouthed and often provocative, Martz said, but she was also relentless, hard-nosed and one of the best reporters he ever worked with. She died at 42 in 2001 from an overdose of prescription drugs.
Demand for disclaimer
In an op-ed, Journal-Constitution editor Riley wrote that there’s no evidence Scruggs committed the breach of journalistic ethics implied in the movie and disputed implications that the newspaper’s reporting was sloppy.
Eastwood defended the depiction of Scruggs, saying he’d “read a lot of material” on her that seemed to “corroborate the fact that she was somewhat on the wild side.” He also said the news media sometimes rushes because of competition to be first, and “they pull the trigger before they’re dialed in.”
In a letter sent Monday to Eastwood, a Warner Brothers lawyer and others, a lawyer for the newspaper demands a public statement that dramatization was used in the film’s portrayal of events and characters, and asks that a “prominent disclaimer” to that effect be added to the film.
“It is highly ironic that a film purporting to tell a tragic story of how the reputation of an FBI suspect was grievously tarnished appears bent on a path to severely tarnish the reputation of the AJC,” lawyer Martin Singer wrote.
Warner Brothers fired back, saying that the newspaper’s claims are baseless, that the film seeks to confirm Jewell’s innocence and restore his name.
“It is unfortunate and the ultimate irony that the Atlanta Journal Constitution, having been a part of the rush to judgment of Richard Jewell, is now trying to malign our filmmakers and cast,” the studio wrote in a statement.
In Kenya’s remote island communities near the border with Somalia, the threat from al-Shabab militants has scared away most medical personnel. But one group of volunteers the Safari Doctors – is braving the danger to provide much-needed regular health care to the area’s most vulnerable. Ruud Elmendorp reports from Lamu County, Kenya.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is ready to deploy soldiers to Libya following the announcement of a security agreement with the Libyan government. Ankara has been actively seeking to project its influence across the Mediterranean as a scramble intensifies for the region’s energy resources.
“If Libya were to make a request, we would send a sufficient number of troops,” Erdogan said Tuesday in an address to university students in Ankara. “After the signing of the security agreement, there is no hurdle.”
FILE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan participates in a round table meeting during a NATO leaders meeting at The Grove hotel and resort in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, Dec. 4, 2019.
In what many analysts see as a surprise move, Ankara earlier this month reached two agreements with Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).
“It’s only natural if the Libya government invited Turkey to provide assistance to deploy Turkish forces in accordance with this agreement. It’s entirely normal,” said former Turkish ambassador Mithat Rende. “Because there are so many countries that already are part of the game. This General Haftar is heavily supported by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France, and I also understand, the Russian Federation.”
Khalifa Haftar, the de facto leader of eastern Libya, is currently battling GNA forces for control of Libya. Ankara’s commitment to the Libya Tripoli-based government could put it on a collision course with Moscow. Erdogan suggested Tuesday that any Libya request for military support could be in response to the presence of “Russian Wagner mercenaries.”
FILE – Khalifa Haftar, center, the military commander who dominates eastern Libya, leaves after an international conference on Libya at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 29, 2018.
The Wagner Group is a private security force run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman reported to have close ties to the Kremlin.
“I wish that the matter of Haftar would not create a new Syria in our relations with Russia,” Erdogan said Monday in a television interview. Ankara and Moscow back rival sides in the Syrian civil war. The Turkish president said he plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Libya by phone next week.
Despite backing rival sides in the Syrian conflict, Putin and Erdogan have built up a good working relationship. Bilateral ties are deepening in the fields of energy and trade, which even extends to Ankara purchasing Russian military hardware — to the alarm of Turkey’s traditional western allies.
Alarm in Greece
Moscow is not the only country, however, that likely is concerned by Ankara’s deepening relationship with Libya. Athens is voicing alarm over Ankara’s Libya agreement to declare an exclusive maritime zone between the two countries.
Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos slammed the agreement Tuesday, claiming it compromised Greece’s territorial waters. “Turkey’s thoughts are on how it imagines it’s imperialist fantasies,” said Pavlopoulos.
FILE – President of Greece Prokopis Pavlopoulos arrives at Rundale Palace, Latvia, Sept. 13, 2018.
Athens and Ankara have engaged in increasingly bitter maritime territorial disputes across the Mediterranean, fueled by recent discoveries of vast natural gas reserves. “The strategy is that Turkey should protect its legitimate rights in the Mediterranean,” said Rende, who is now an energy expert.
“We [Greece and Turkey] have overlapping claims, overlapping declarations of maritime zones, and Turkey is left alone in the Mediterranean. Other countries — Greece, Israel Egypt — have formed gas partnerships forums and so on and Turkey was isolated. So it’s only natural that Turkey concludes agreements to protect its rights in the Mediterranean.”
Adding to Athens’ unease is that Mediterranean waters claimed by Ankara under its Libyan agreement is the only viable route for a planned gas pipeline to distribute recently discovered Israeli and Cypriot gas through Greece to Europe.
“Greek Cypriots, Egypt, Greece, and Israel cannot establish a natural gas transmission line without Turkey’s consent,” Erdogan said Monday.
Ankara’s Libya deal is seen as part of a more assertive regional policy. “It’s part and parcel of a new doctrine,” said former senior Turkish diplomat and now regional analyst Aydin Selcen.
“The first move was challenging the Greek Cypriot over energy searches, in the disputed exclusives economic zones of Cyprus. Then this move with Libya is the second one. It’s extremely important and significant,” said Selcen.
EU sanctions
Ankara is currently deploying research ships searching for hydrocarbons in the disputed waters of the Greek Cypriot government.
“Greece will defend its borders, it’s territory,” said Pavlopoulos, “which are also the European Union’s border … with the help of the international community and the EU.”
The EU is already considering sanctions against Ankara for violating Greek Cypriot territorial waters. “They [the EU] should remain neutral,” said Rende. “If they don’t, Turkey is prepared to face the consequences because what is at stake are Turkey’s national interests, and we don’t give up our national interests.”
Rende insists Ankara is ready to negotiate with Athens. Turkey argues that an agreement with Athens and the Greek Cypriots would pave the way for Turkish territory to provide a route for distributing recently discovered gas reserves.
“The most natural market for this prospective gas is Turkey,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Athens University. “It not just to sell through Turkey. But Turkey is the most reasonable and feasible market to absorb this gas.”
Analysts suggest Ankara’s robust regional foreign policy is part of a broader strategy to remake Turkey as a regional energy hub. Procuring recently discovered Mediterranean gas ultimately could provide Ankara significant leverage with Moscow and Tehran. In the next two years, major Iranian and Russian gas supply agreements to Turkey are due for renewal.
“Turkey’s main strategy is to diversify its energy resource imports and their routes, to enable flexibility of supply,” said Rende.
The Pentagon has denied intentionally misleading the public about the 18-year war in Afghanistan, after The Washington Post published a trove of government documents revealing that officials made overly optimistic pronouncements they knew to be false and hid evidence that the conflict had become un-winnable.
“There has been no intent by DoD to mislead Congress or the public,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell wrote to VOA on Monday.
“The information contained in the interviews was provided to SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) for the express purpose of inclusion in SIGAR’s public reports,” he added.
The Post said the documents contain more than 400 interviews with senior military and government insiders who offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of war.
According to the Post, U.S. officials, most of whom spoke on the assumption that their remarks would not be made public, acknowledged that the strategies for fighting the war were flawed and that the U.S. wasted hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make Afghanistan into a stable, democratic nation.
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, said in 2015, according to the documents. “We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
The Post said the interviews also highlight botched U.S. attempts to reduce corruption, build a competent Afghan army and reduce the country’s opium trade.
U.S. presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all vowed to avoid becoming mired in “nation-building” in Afghanistan. However, the report shows how even from the early days of the war, senior officials in charge of directing U.S. policy in the country expressed confusion about Washington’s basic objectives and strategy for achieving them.
The Post said the interviews “contradict a long chorus of public statements” that assured the U.S. was “making progress in Afghanistan.”
Outgoing Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell, who serves as the senior enlisted adviser to the top U.S. military officer, told reporters on Monday that he “firmly thought the strategy we had in place was working.”
“I feel that we’ve never been lied to, and we are continuing to move forward (in Afghanistan),” Troxell added.
The Afghan war is estimated to have killed more than 150,000 people, including civilians, insurgents, local and foreign troops, since the U.S. and its allies invaded 18 years ago to oust the Taliban from power for sheltering al-Qaida leaders accused of plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes on the U.S.
The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. service members and cost Washington nearly $1 trillion.
The Post waged a legal battle for three years to force the government to disclose the information because of its importance to the public.
The U.S. and the Afghan Taliban restarted peace negotiations on Saturday, three months after Trump abruptly stopped the yearlong process aimed at finding a political settlement with the insurgent group and ending the war in Afghanistan.
Afghan-born U.S. special reconciliation representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, led his team at a meeting Saturday in Doha, Qatar, where insurgent negotiators are based.
The draft agreement the U.S.-Taliban negotiations had produced before Trump called off the process on Sept. 7 would have set the stage for a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
The Taliban, in return, had given counterterrorism guarantees and promised to engage in intra-Afghan peace negotiations to permanently end decades of hostilities in the country.
Experts say North Korea appeared to have conducted a fuel engine test on the ground, potentially for a long-range missile, in what Pyongyang claimed as “the test of great significance.”
Michael Elleman, director of the Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said it is safe to assume North Korea conducted “a static engine test” but cannot conclude the type of engine tested based on currently available information.
A static engine test means the engine was tested on the ground with a missile component but without launching an actual missile into the air.
“The size of the engine, whether it was based on liquid or solid fuel, or the success of the test are impossible to know without more evidence, photographs,” said Elleman. He added that it is also difficult to determine if the engine tested was “a new type or a test of an existing model.”
North Korea said “a very important test took place at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground” on Saturday afternoon, according to a statement issued on Sunday by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“The results of the recent important test will have an important effect on changing the strategic position of the DPRK once again in the near future,” said a spokesperson for the Academy of the National Defense Science of North Korea. The DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official English name.
Pyongyang did not give further details about the weapon it tested.
People watch a TV screen showing a file image of the North Korean long-range rocket at a launch pad during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Dec. 9, 2019.
Choi Hyun-soo, a spokesperson for South Korean Defense Ministry, on Monday said, “We are aware of North Korea’s announcement” without making a public assessment of the test.
The spokesperson said Seoul is continuing to work closely with Washington to monitor activities around major test sites in North Korea including Dongchang-ri, the site of the Sohae facility.
Bruce Bechtol, a former intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and now a professor of political science at Angelo State University in Texas, said it is difficult to determine what kind of engine North Korea tested because it broke with recent practice and did not release any photos of the test.
Bechtol said the U.S. and South Korea governments may have images of the test. However, they have remained silent on the kind of weapons North Korea tested, he added.
Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), expressed concern that the type of engine North Korea tested is “a larger solid fuel rocket engine” for a long-range missile.
He said the next technology North Korea is probably looking to test is a long-range missile using a solid fuel engine because it had already tested a liquid fuel engine for an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). He said all the short-range missiles North Korea tested this year are propelled by solid fuel engines.
“A big advance to them would be if they could get their longer-range missiles, move them into the use of solid fuel, which makes them much more operationally useful,” said Williams.
Missiles using solid fuel engines are harder to detect because it takes shorter time to prepare than missiles using liquid fuel engines. Two years ago, physicist David Wright wrote that North Korea’s ICBMs are capable of reaching the continental U.S.
Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation, said although it is hard to determine what kind of rocket engine North Korea tested and whether the engine is for solid or liquid fuel, “the test stand that was used [to place an engine for the test] was apparently designed for testing ICBM engines.”
Bennett said, however, the test “does not prove that the North Koreans are building their own ICBM engines, but they certainly want to imply that is the case.”
A man watches a TV screen showing a file image of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at his county long-range rocket launch site during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Dec. 9, 2019.
He added, “If the engine [North Korea] tested this weekend really was of an ICBM engine, and the test succeeded, then North Korea would pose a more serious threat to the United States in the future. And that would change the North Korean strategic position.”
Days ahead of the test, activities were detected at Sohae Satellite Launching Station, according to satellite imagery captured by Planet Lab on Thursday, which was reported by CNN.
North Korea has reportedly rebuilt the launch site after dismantling it partially when denuclearization talks with the U.S. began last year.
The talks remain stalled without much progress made since the Singapore Summit held in June 2018 due to their differences. Washington has been demanding Pyongyang take full denuclearization while Pyongyang wants Washington to relax sanctions first. The two have remained locked in their position since the Hanoi Summit held in February.
The most recent test came as North Korean ambassador to the United Nations said on Saturday that denuclearization is off the table in talks that he described as a “time-saving trick” to benefit a “domestic political agenda” of the U.S.
Prospects for any talks with North Korea seem to be diminishing further as Pyongyang returned belittling U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday.
Calling Trump “a heedless and erratic old man,” former North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Yong-chol said, “We have nothing more to lose.” He continued, “The time when we cannot but call him a ‘dotard’ again may come” through a statement released by the KCNA.
Pyongyang called Trump a “dotard” when it exchanged threats and insults with Washington in 2017 while testing missiles. Trump resorted to calling Kim a “rocket man,” an expression he used in reference to Kim in 2017.
In a separate statement issued by the KCNA on Monday, Ri Su-yong, vice-chairman of the Central Committee of North Korea ruling Workers’ Party, said, “Trump might be in great jitter, but he had better accept the status quo that as he sowed, so he should reap, and think twice if he does not want to see bigger catastrophic consequences.”
Pyongyang’s two statements follow Trump’s Sunday Twitter message. Trump said Kim “has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way” in response to North Korea’s test.
Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way. He signed a strong Denuclearization Agreement with me in Singapore. He does not want to void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere…. https://t.co/THfOjfB2uE
Trump warned Kim not to jeopardize the “special relationship” with him or “interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election in November.
On Monday, a State Department official said the U.S. plans to ask the United Nations Security Council to discuss North Korean provocations including the test on Saturday during its meeting this week.
