| General: US committed to Syria fight; Missions up against IS Posted: 25 Jan 2020 03:05 PM PST  U.S. troops at military outposts ín eastern Syria asked variations of the same question to their top commander Saturday: What is our future here? Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S Middle East commander, knows the future is not certain. In an unannounced tour of five military bases in Syria stretching from the northeastern part of the country to the Middle Euphrates River Valley, McKenzie offered reassurances that the U.S. remains committed to its mission in Syria.
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| Israeli aircraft strike Gaza sites after balloon launches Posted: 25 Jan 2020 02:44 PM PST ![Israeli aircraft strike Gaza sites after balloon launches]( "Israeli aircraft strike Gaza sites after balloon launches") Israeli aircraft struck several sites for Gaza militants late Saturday in response to incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian enclave. The Israeli military said the sites belonged to Hamas, the Islamic group ruling the territory, and included weapons manufacturing and intelligence-gathering facilities. There were no reports of injuries from the airstrikes in southern Gaza Strip.
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| China says virus situation 'grave' as Lunar New Year curtailed Posted: 25 Jan 2020 01:52 PM PST  President Xi Jinping warned Saturday that China faced a "grave situation" as authorities raced to contain a virus that has killed 41 people and caused a drastic scale-back of Lunar New Year celebrations. The world's most populous country, which is scrambling to contain the disease that has infected nearly 1,300 people and overwhelmed health facilities, is building a second field hospital and closing more travel routes. After more countries reported cases, Xi said at a Communist Party leadership meeting on the disease that China was "faced with the grave situation of an accelerating spread of the new coronavirus" but that the country will "definitely be able to win the battle," according to state media.
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| Border Patrol allows replanting after bulldozing garden Posted: 25 Jan 2020 01:48 PM PST  The Border Patrol, reacting to a breach it discovered in a steel-pole border wall believed to be used by smugglers, gave activists no warning this month when it bulldozed the U.S. side of a cross-border garden on an iconic bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. On Saturday, after a public apology for "the unintentional destruction," the agency allowed the activists in a highly restricted area to plant sticky monkey-flowers, seaside daisies and other native species in Friendship Park, which was inaugurated by first lady Pat Nixon in 1971 as a symbol of bilateral bonds. The half-acre plaza separating San Diego and Tijuana has hosted cross-border yoga classes, festivals and religious services.
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| In recording Trump asks how long Ukraine can resist Russians Posted: 25 Jan 2020 01:07 PM PST  President Donald Trump inquired how long Ukraine would be able to resist Russian aggression without U.S. assistance during a 2018 meeting with donors that included the indicted associates of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. "How long would they last in a fight with Russia?" Trump is heard asking in the audio portion of a video recording, moments before he calls for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. A video recording of the entire 80-minute dinner at the Trump Hotel in Washington was obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.
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| Trial highlights: Transcript talk, handshakes for defense Posted: 25 Jan 2020 12:43 PM PST  It was the first day of defense arguments in Trump's impeachment trial as the Senate gathered for two quick hours in a rare Saturday session. The White House lawyers had said it would be a "sneak preview" of their defense, continuing Monday, and they spent the morning rebutting the House impeachment managers' arguments by charging that they were politically motivated. To begin, they read parts of a rough transcript of a July call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that is at the heart of the House impeachment case.
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| Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accuses NPR reporter of lying but doesn't deny berating her Posted: 25 Jan 2020 11:45 AM PST  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked a National Public Radio reporter in a blistering statement Saturday after the network said the top U.S. diplomat admonished her using expletives, called her a liar and demanded she find Ukraine on a map. The incident has drawn sharp criticism of Pompeo, but he accused NPR's Mary Louise Kelly of lying, even while not disputing her account of his tirade. Kelly interviewed Pompeo Friday morning at the State Department in Washington, pressing him on the Trump administration's Iran policy before turning to Ukraine and former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
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| Grim Scenes at Chinese Hospitals as Doctors Rush to Treat Deadly Coronavirus Posted: 25 Jan 2020 11:15 AM PST  As a coronavirus outbreak unfolds in China, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping convened a meeting with top officials on Saturday to issue orders that he hopes will contain and reverse the epidemic. He called the virus' spread a "grave situation" and called for a "blocking war" to limit the contagion's transmission.Wuhan, where people who worked at a meat and poultry market were the first to become hosts of the coronavirus, has been hit the hardest.As of a little past midnight on Sunday, 42 people in China have died after being infected with the coronavirus; 38 of them were in Wuhan, the outbreak's epicenter. More than 1,400 infections have been identified within China's borders—though doctors in Wuhan have told Chinese press that the actual numbers could be an order of magnitude higher.Wuhan has a population of 11 million. Like most metropolises, it bleeds into the smaller cities around it. Shutting down the city required a massive mobilization of police and soldiers, who are guarding expressway toll booths, train stations, and other key locations like certain hospitals in the city, some armed with rifles and wearing hazmat suits. To free up manpower, a portion of roads in Hubei, the province with Wuhan as its capital, have been blocked using walls of dirt and large boulders.Service staff working on high-speed trains that normally stop at Wuhan said the line will be skipping the city's station for at least a month. This suggests that the quarantine in Hubei province will last for at least that amount of time.Bus, subway, and ferry services in Wuhan have already been halted. Ride-hailing companies have suspended their services. From Sunday onward, private cars will be barred from roads in the city center. The only way to move around the city is via taxi or special buses arranged by the city government.And for many people, the only destination is their nearest hospital—or any hospital that hasn't been overwhelmed.Medical staff are stretched thin. Most waiting rooms are packed with people who need to be tested for the coronavirus, as well as patients who are already suffering from acute symptoms. Doctors and nurses have been working consecutive shifts for days, with some opting to wear adult diapers so that they can focus on providing medical care.One doctor that treated patients for the coronavirus has died after becoming infected himself.Another doctor in Wuhan wrote an open letter to Chinese officials on the message board of state-run publication People's Daily, calling for an investigation of the Wuhan Health Commission. The doctor said that the commission attempted to cover up the coronavirus outbreak by banning mentions of lung infections in CT scan reports. (The post has been censored.)In the past couple days, some facilities ran out of protective gear—like goggles, medical face masks, rubber gloves, disposable biohazard coveralls, and shoe coverings—so medical personnel have fashioned their own out of soft plastics. But supplies are arriving Wuhan from across the country, and the roads have been cleared to move them to hospitals around the city.Schools and shops are closed. Many hotels have been ordered to turn away visitors, but some still take them in because non-locals, like migrant workers who are stranded in the city, have nowhere else to go.China's Coronavirus Keeps Spreading but the WHO Still Won't Declare a Global EmergencyPeople in Wuhan are desperate, confused, angry. They are unable to leave, and many can't access the medical care that they need. Conditions have been improving over Saturday as supplies and doctors have been flowing in from other parts of the country, but locals still fear that it's late for some of those who have been infected. Even if adults remain at home, they worry that they may carry the virus and infect family members who are more vulnerable, like young children, the elderly, or people with other medical conditions.A new hospital that will specifically house and treat patients infected with the coronavirus is under rapid construction. It will have a maximum capacity of 1,000, and is modeled after a facility constructed in Beijing in 2003 during the SARS epidemic that killed nearly 800 people.Though the people of Wuhan have just one issue on their minds now, the Saturday front page of Wuhan's main newspaper had a banner headline referring to Xi Jinping's Lunar New Year address to the nation: "Continue to create the Chinese nation's mighty history in humanity's great historic time." Reports about the epidemic came later.The Chinese government has promised to cover the medical expenses of patients who are diagnosed as carriers of the coronavirus. But with diagnostic kits in short supply, and with hospitals turning away people who are seeking help, the financial aspect no longer matters to many in Wuhan. It is the uncertainty of whether their symptoms will worsen that eats at them.There is little doubt that the coronavirus' current footprint is the result of human mismanagement—after the initial outbreak, a potluck gathering organized by the local government involving 40,000 families was not canceled, and tickets for other events organized by city officials were distributed to people. Wuhan's mayor has already been questioned on a program on state-run broadcaster CCTV, drawing intense ire from the public.The United States plans to evacuate 230 people, including American diplomats and citizens, from Wuhan, according to the Wall Street Journal. The plane will take off and head stateside on Sunday with approval from the Chinese foreign ministry and relevant agencies. State Department officials believe that there are about 1,000 Americans in Wuhan.Fifteen other cities have been placed under quarantine or other restrictions. In all, 46 million people have been cut off from the rest of the country.Many other major cities in China have canceled their public events. Venues like the Forbidden Palace and many public museums remain closed, and people are generally discouraged from gathering in large groups. The Beijing city government said it will not allow buses from outside the municipality to enter the capital. Over in Hong Kong, chief executive Carrie Lam declared a "virus emergency," and has halted all official visits to mainland China.On Monday, the Chinese government will suspend all sales of flight tickets and hotel bookings to overseas destinations, but the virus has already reached other parts of Asia, as well as North America, Western Europe, and Australia. So far, the World Health Organization has not declared a global health emergency.Legal professionals in China have suggested that the Chinese government should extend the Lunar New Year holiday by a week or two, delaying the trips of hundreds of millions of people within the country as they head back to work, or at least lowering the number of passengers on trains, planes, buses, and boats.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Small And Deadly: Iran's Speedboats Should Not Be Underestimated Posted: 25 Jan 2020 11:00 AM PST  Iran could put a halt to international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
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| Trump Says He’s Being Treated ‘Unfairly’: Impeachment Update Posted: 25 Jan 2020 10:52 AM PST ![Trump Says He's Being Treated 'Unfairly': Impeachment Update]( "Trump Says He's Being Treated 'Unfairly': Impeachment Update") (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's lawyers began presenting their defense in his Senate impeachment trial Saturday, the beginning of as many as 24 hours of argument before senators will decide whether to call for new witnesses and documents.Here are the latest developments:Trump Says He's Being Treated 'Unfairly' (1:45 p.m.)Trump tweeted after Saturday's two-hour argument by his lawyers to the Senate that he's being treated unfairly by the "totally partisan Impeachment Hoax."He wrote: "Any fair minded person watching the Senate trial today would be able to see how unfairly I have been treated and that this is indeed the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax that EVERYBODY, including the Democrats, truly knows it is. This should never be allowed to happen again!"Schumer Says Defense Shows Need for Witnesses (1:02 p.m.)Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump's defense lawyers "made a compelling case for more witnesses and documents.""They kept saying there were no eyewitness accounts," Schumer told reporters after Saturday's hearing. "But there are people who do know." He said those include acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who are among the witnesses Democrats want to call.Lead House manager Adam Schiff said the president's defense team didn't contest the facts about Trump's pressure on Ukraine.Schiff disputed the defense lawyers' argument that Trump was concerned about getting European nations to take on more of the burden of helping Ukraine.If that was the case, Trump should have said "call Angela," meaning German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Schiff said. "Instead it was call Rudy Giuliani," Trump's personal lawyer, he said. -- Laura Litvan, Billy HouseTrump Team Concludes Opening Arguments (12:03 p.m.)Trump's defense team concluded its opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial, giving an outline of the fuller case they'll be presenting next week when the proceedings resume.White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said House Democrats failed to prove their case that the president deserves to be removed from office and sought to provide a point-by-point rebuttal over about two hours. He said Democrats were attempting to overturn the last election and tear up the ballots for the next one.The case will resume when the Senate convenes at 1 p.m. on Monday. -- Laura Litvan, Steven T. DennisUkraine Didn't Know of Aid Delay, Trump Team Says (11:30 a.m.)Trump's lawyers leaned on questions of timing in his defense against the central Democratic assertion that he held up military aid to Ukraine to pressure its president to investigate Joe Biden and the Democrats.Deputy White House Counsel Michael Purpura argued that the Ukrainians didn't know the aid was being withheld until well after the July 25 call between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He said the Ukrainians never raised any concerns about the aid with U.S. officials until late August or early September, after the delay was publicly reported.However, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington learned in late July that the U.S. had frozen military aid, Bloomberg News has reported. House Democrats also have cited a New York Times story that a Ukrainian deputy foreign minister read a diplomatic cable in July saying that the Trump administration had frozen the aid.Trump's attorneys also underscored repeated assertions by Trump that there was no "quid pro quo" demanded of Ukraine. However, Trump began saying that only after officials started going public with concerns about the aid holdup and as the whistle-blower who set off the probe into the Ukraine issue was emerging. -- Chris StrohmRepublicans React to 'On a Pike' Comment (11:14 a.m.)Key Republican moderate Lisa Murkowski said Saturday she didn't like House manager Adam Schiff's reference to a CBS story saying a group of Senate Republicans were warned their heads would be "on a pike" if they didn't back Trump, though it won't affect her votes in the trial."No," she said when asked if her displeasure over the comment would affect her views on whether to seek new witnesses or documents.GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, cut Schiff some slack."I've been there, it's easy to get a little bit heated. But generally speaking, I thought they did a very good job of presenting their case," Graham said. "I thought they were professional, very, very, very thorough to the point of being too thorough."But Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the GOP leadership, said Schiff's remark was "foolish."Blunt said he didn't know if it would be a turning point in the trial, but he added, "we'd all figured out we were just sitting there so they could talk to whoever was watching television at the time." -- Steven T. DennisTrump Demanded No Quid Pro Quo, Lawyer Says (10:52 a.m.)White House Counsel Pat Cipollone presented a point-by-point defense of Trump and his July 25 call with Ukraine's president.Trump didn't set any conditions for financial aid or a meeting between the two, and financial aid wasn't even mentioned on the call, said Cipollone.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian officials repeatedly said Trump demanded no quid pro quo and put no pressure on them to investigate anything, he said. Ukrainian officials didn't even know the U.S. aid had been put on hold until late August, more than a month after the call, the White House counsel said.Cipollone said "not a single witness" testified that Trump said there was any connection between investigations by Ukraine and U.S. security aid to that country. The U.S. aid was released on Sept. 11 and Trump met with Zelenskiy on Sept. 25 without any announcement of investigations by Ukraine, he said."Finally, the Democrats' blind drive to impeach the president does not and cannot change the fact that is attested to by the Democrats' own witnesses that President Trump has been a better friend, and a stronger supporter of, Ukraine than his predecessor," Barack Obama, Cipollone said. -- Steven T. Dennis, Billy HouseTrump Did 'Nothing Wrong,' His Lawyer Says (10:14 a.m.)White House Counsel Pat Cipollone began Trump's defense by criticizing the House managers' case for removing the president from office."We don't believe that they have come anywhere close to meeting their burden for what they are asking you to do," Cipollone told the Senate. "You will find that the president did absolutely nothing wrong."Democrats are not only asking the Senate to remove Trump from office, he said, "they're asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot" in November's election."They're asking you to do it with no evidence," he added. -- Laura Litvan, Steven T. DennisTrump Team Begins Defense at Senate Trial (10:06 a.m.)Trump's team opened his defense Saturday with what lawyer Jay Sekulow previously said will be about three hours of "coming attractions" for the full presentation planned for next week.The president's lawyers plan to save most of their case for Monday, a person on the president's legal team said, including arguments by celebrity lawyer and Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz. Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr also plans to argue on behalf of the president. -- Laura Litvan, Steven T. DennisTrump Blasts Democrats as Defense to Begin (9:40 a.m.)Trump criticized House and Senate Democrats "& the entire Radical Left" on Twitter as his lawyers prepared to open the case for his defense."Our case against lyin', cheatin', liddle' Adam "Shifty" Schiff, Cryin' Chuck Schumer, Nervous Nancy Pelosi, their leader, dumb as a rock AOC, & the entire Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrat Party, starts today at 10:00 A.M. on @FoxNews, @OANN or Fake News @CNN or Fake News MSDNC!" he wrote. -- Billy HouseHouse Delivers Evidence Record to Senate (9:40 a.m.)House managers transported a 28,578-page trial record to the Senate Saturday that collects together all the evidence that served as the foundation of their impeachment case against Trump.The seven House Democrats who presented the impeachment arguments made a ceremonial procession to the Senate chamber to deliver the file on carts to the secretary of the Senate as the permanent record of the investigation and their case.It also gave Democrats another chance to draw attention to their case before Trump's defense lawyers take center stage in the trial to present their arguments. -- Billy HouseSchiff Seeks to Pre-Empt Trump Defense (6 a.m.)Schiff closed the House Democrats' case Friday night by predicting that Trump's defenders would talk about an unfair process, Joe Biden, the whistle-blower and corruption in Ukraine -- instead of responding to the impeachment charges against the president."If they couldn't get Ukraine to smear the Bidens, they want to use this trial to do it instead," Schiff said. "So let's call Hunter Biden. Let's smear the Bidens."Trump's lawyers will get their first crack when the Senate convenes at 10 a.m. Saturday. Attorney Jay Sekulow said that "with three hours it's probably going to be a bit of an overview" of the fuller case the defense will present when the trial resumes on Monday.Just as the House managers did, the defense will have up to 24 hours over three days to make its case. "If we decide we need the full time we will take it," Sekulow said.Schiff predicted that Trump's lawyers would say House Democrats "hate the president." That argument is "another of the myriad forms of 'please do not consider what the president did,'" the California Democrat said."I only hate what he's done to this country. I grieve for what he's done to this country," Schiff said. -- Laura Litvan, Steven T. DennisCatch Up on Impeachment CoverageKey EventsHere is House Democrats' web page containing documents related to the impeachment trial. House Democrats' impeachment brief is here. Trump's initial reply is here, and his lawyers' trial brief is here.The House impeachment resolution is H.Res. 755. The Intelligence Committee Democrats' impeachment report is here.Gordon Sondland's transcript is here and here; Kurt Volker's transcript is here and here. Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's transcript is here and here; the transcript of Michael McKinley, former senior adviser to the secretary of State, is here. The transcript of David Holmes, a Foreign Service officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, is here.The transcript of William Taylor, the top U.S. envoy to Ukraine, is here and here. State Department official George Kent's testimony is here and here. Testimony by Alexander Vindman can be found here, and the Fiona Hill transcript is here. Laura Cooper's transcript is here; Christopher Anderson's is here and Catherine Croft's is here. Jennifer Williams' transcript is here and Timothy Morrison's is here. The Philip Reeker transcript is here. Mark Sandy's is here.\--With assistance from Daniel Flatley, Billy House and Chris Strohm.To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net;Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert, Laurie AsséoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Israel's Gantz to meet Trump before peace plan unveiling Posted: 25 Jan 2020 10:47 AM PST  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief political rival confirmed Saturday he has accepted President Donald Trump's invitation to Washington, and will meet the president before the unveiling of the administration's long-awaited peace plan. Benny Gantz was initially inclined to accept the joint invitation that Vice President Mike Pence extended to both him and Netanyahu two days ago in Jerusalem. Given the upcoming Israeli election on March 2, and the desire to present a united front to what is expected to be a favorable plan for Israel, Netanyahu said he suggested including Gantz at the summit.
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| Veterans criticize Trump's downplaying of US troops' brain injuries Posted: 25 Jan 2020 10:41 AM PST  Several US veterans' organizations call for president to apologize for remarks about injuries suffered by service members in IraqVeterans of Foreign Wars, a prominent organization advocating for US military veterans, has called for Donald Trump to apologize for remarks downplaying brain injuries recently suffered by nearly three dozen American service members in Iraq.The group was joined by several other US veterans' organizations, criticizing Trump's remarks and saying they showed a lack of understanding of injuries and what US troops face in overseas conflicts.The VFW's statement stems from Trump's remarks on injuries resulting from a 8 January Iranian missile strike on a US base in Iraq. Thirty-four US soldiers suffered from concussion or traumatic brain injury (TBI) after the strike, which was a reprisal for the US drone strike assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. Donald Trump had previously said that the US "suffered no casualties" from the attack."Veterans of Foreign Wars cannot stand idle on this matter," William "Doc" Schmitz, VFW's National Commander, said in a statement. "TBI is a serious injury and one that cannot be taken lightly. TBI is known to cause depression, memory loss, severe headaches, dizziness and fatigue – all injuries that come with both short- and long-term effects.""The VFW expects an apology from the president to our service men and women for his misguided remarks. And, we ask that he and the White House join with us in our efforts to educate Americans of the dangers TBI has on these heroes as they protect our great nation in these trying times. Our warriors require our full support more than ever in this challenging environment," Schmitz said.The statement also also come amid ongoing tension between Trump and military leadership. Multiple reports claim that former commanders – and active duty senior officers – complain that Trump has undermined chain-of-command.Richard Spencer, who was fired as secretary of the navy fired after butting heads with Trump over war crimes cases, for example, said in a Washington Post op-ed "that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices".Trump also became embroiled in controversy over an October 2017 condolence call to the widow of Sgt La David Johnson; she claimed the president said her husband "'knew what he signed up for'" and didn't remember his name.It is now Trump's statements after the Iranian attack which have caused upset."So far, so good", Trump said after the strike. "I'm pleased to inform you the American people should be extremely grateful and happy," Trump said. "No Americans were harmed in last night's attack by the Iranian regime.After the Pentagon announced on 16 January that troops were being treated for concussion symptoms, Trump claimed the discrepancy was because he heard about the injuries "numerous days later". Trump also downplayed the severity, saying, "I heard that they had headaches. And a couple of other things. But I would say, and I can report, it is not very serious.""I don't consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries I have seen. I've seen people with no legs and no arms," he said.Eight of the injured service members were considered in serious enough condition to be moved to the US."The President's comments show a lack of understanding of concussions, TBI, and what our service members face in conflicts overseas," said Jeremy Butler, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America CEO, in an email to The Guardian. "This is why IAVA works so tirelessly to educate the American public, including the president, about the issues facing today's service members and veterans." Joe Chenelly, national executive director of AMVETS, told The Guardian in an email: "We are working with the White House on this to ensure the president is aware of the seriousness of even the slightest concussions, which are in fact brain injuries.""Further, this is an excellent opportunity to raise awareness of the realness and severe impact all invisible wounds can have on humans," Chenelly continued. "We also are pleased the Administration has shown constraint in not escalating the military conflict with Iran." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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| Lebanese protesters rally downtown despite enhanced security Posted: 25 Jan 2020 10:32 AM PST  Hundreds of Lebanese gathered outside Beirut's central government building Saturday to reject the newly formed Cabinet. Protesters breached tight security around the building, removing a metal gate and barbed wire and prompting security forces to respond with water cannon and tear gas. The protesters say the new Cabinet formed this week represents a corrupt long-serving political class they have been protesting against since October.
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| Trump lawyers argue Democrats just want to overturn election Posted: 25 Jan 2020 09:18 AM PST  President Donald Trump's lawyers plunged into his impeachment trial defense Saturday by accusing Democrats of striving to overturn the 2016 election, arguing that investigations of Trump's dealings with Ukraine have not been a fact-finding mission but a politically motivated effort to drive him from the White House. "They're here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history," White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told senators. The Trump legal team's arguments in the rare Saturday session were aimed at rebutting allegations that the president abused his power when he asked Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and then obstructed Congress as it tried to investigate.
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| Xi Jinping warned of the 'grave situation' created by the 'accelerating' spread of coronavirus Posted: 25 Jan 2020 09:13 AM PST  Chinese President Xi Jinping held a special meeting to address the deadly coronavirus outbreak, promising 'prevention and control.'
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| French carmaker to evacuate workers from China amid outbreak Posted: 25 Jan 2020 09:04 AM PST  France and a major automaker said Saturday that they are moving to get citizens out of a locked-down Chinese city where a deadly outbreak of a new virus originated and has spread worldwide. French automaker PSA Group says it will evacuate its employees and their families from Wuhan in central China, quarantine them in another major Chinese city and then bring them back to France. The Foreign Ministry said French officials were studying "eventual options" for all its nationals to leave if they wish.
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| AP FACT CHECK: Trump's impeachment defense and the facts Posted: 25 Jan 2020 08:48 AM PST  President Donald Trump's lawyers opened his Senate impeachment defense Saturday with the false assertion that Democrats tried to shut the president's team out of the congressional inquiry that preceded the charges. Actually, Democrats invited Trump to participate and he declined. Throughout their presentation, Trump's lawyers accused the Democrats on the prosecution team of giving senators selective facts in the episode.
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| Trump defends Sanders, stoking Democratic divisions Posted: 25 Jan 2020 08:20 AM PST  As tensions between Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren rose earlier this month, Sanders found himself with an unusual ally: President Donald Trump. During a raucous campaign rally in which Trump critiqued some of his Democratic challengers, the president launched into an unprompted defense of Sanders. Warren had accused Sanders of telling her that a woman couldn't win the White House in November, but Sanders insisted he would never say such a thing.
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| Pompeo responds to NPR reporter, says story is another example of 'unhinged' media Posted: 25 Jan 2020 08:15 AM PST  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo apparently isn't ready for the story about his post-interview encounter with NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly to go away.Kelly, who asked Pompeo on Friday's episode of Morning Edition about Iran and the ousting of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, said the secretary was angered by her line of questioning and "shouted" at her in a private room following the interview. Kelly also said Pompeo challenged her to point out Ukraine on an unmarked map, which she did.Pompeo didn't deny that the exchange occurred in an official statement released Saturday, but he accused Kelly of lying about the meeting being off the record. Kelly said no request to keep the discussion off the record was made, adding that she wouldn't have agreed to do it anyway. The secretary said Kelly violated the "basic rules of journalism and decency," providing "another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump." > .@SecPompeo doubles down this AM in an extraordinary statement -- issued with the @StateDept seal on top -- accusing @NPRKelly of lying to him twice & claiming it was "another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration" pic.twitter.com/DnHa7Nmot2> > -- Jennifer Hansler (@jmhansler) January 25, 2020He finished the letter with what appears to be a shot at Kelly's geography skills, though several people pointed out that it's unlikely Kelly would have gotten Ukraine's location wrong, especially as wildly as Pompeo insinuated. > Like hell @NPRKelly, who holds a masters in European studies, would confuse Bangladesh for Ukraine on a map. That and the rest of this statement from Pompeo is really quite something. https://t.co/Uy96PaLSB3> > -- Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) January 25, 2020More stories from theweek.com Trump is winning the impeachment battle — but losing the war Trump debuts official Space Force logo — and it's literally a ripoff of Star Trek Despite apparent preference for 'moderate' candidate, Iowans back Sanders in latest poll
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| 'This is huge': Locust swarms in Africa are worst in decades Posted: 25 Jan 2020 07:54 AM PST  The hum of millions of locusts on the move is broken by the screams of farmers and the clanging of pots and pans. The worst outbreak of desert locusts in Kenya in 70 years has seen hundreds of millions of the bugs swarm into the East African nation from Somalia and Ethiopia. "Even cows are wondering what is happening," said Ndunda Makanga, who spent hours Friday trying to chase the locusts from his farm.
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| Politics weigh heavily in Trump's Mideast peace plan Posted: 25 Jan 2020 07:42 AM PST  A blueprint the White House is rolling out to resolve the decades-long conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is as much about politics as it is about peace. President Donald Trump said he would likely release his long-awaited Mideast peace plan a little before he meets Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main political rival Benny Gantz. The Washington get-together offers political bonuses for Trump and the prime minister, but Trump's opponents are doubting the viability of any plan since there's been little-to-no input from the Palestinians, who have rejected it before its release.
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| AP FACT CHECK: Trump's fusillade of misfires on fateful week Posted: 25 Jan 2020 07:20 AM PST  Abroad, at home and in Twitter's ether, President Donald Trump unleashed a fusillade of statements over the past week as the Senate impeachment trial unfolded and the Davos economic forum played out in Switzerland. On impeachment, the state of the country, abortion, pollution and more, Trump didn't tell the story straight. The Pentagon said Friday that 34 service members suffered traumatic brain injury in the attack and half were taken to Germany or back to the U.S. for further observation and treatment.
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| In Limelight Again, Key Impeachment Witnesses Still Experience a Divided Response Posted: 25 Jan 2020 06:56 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- Admirers still stop and thank them on the street and in airports, send fan mail and sometimes even offer to pay for their meals. But supporters of President Donald Trump still insult and threaten them online -- even the ones who work in the White House.The star witnesses of last November's House impeachment proceedings shook the Trump White House and turned a handful of previously obscure government officials into political household names.And just as their names and faces were beginning to fade from public memory, they were resurrected this week in the Senate by the House Democrats presenting their case for convicting the president. The House managers repeatedly played video clips of those witnesses, on large screens set up in the old Senate chamber, to buttress their case that Trump improperly pressured Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, as well as discredited allegations of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election.The effect has cut both ways for these accidental political stars. In some quarters, they are being cheered anew by admirers, while in others they are drawing a new round of insults and invective from supporters of Trump -- and even from the president himself.Some are in the awkward position of carrying on within the government. They include Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, a National Security Council aide, who testified that, when he listened to the president's July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy, he "couldn't believe" what he was hearing.Vindman continues to serve on the National Security Council, but that has not prevented Trump from attacking him. On Friday, Trump retweeted Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who a day earlier had resurrected an October quote about Vindman from his former commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jim Hickman: "Do not let the uniform fool you. He is a political activist in uniform."In response, a lawyer for Vindman issued a statement denouncing Blackburn's "slander" and "cowardice," writing that while the senator "fires off defamatory tweets, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman will continue to do what he has always done: serve our country dutifully and with honor."Also still working in the extended White House complex is Jennifer Williams, a career Foreign Service officer and national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence who testified in November that Trump's July 25 call with Zelenskiy had been "unusual."Williams has not spoken publicly since Trump tweeted on the day of her testimony that "Jennifer Williams, whoever that is" should "meet with the other Never Trumpers" aligned against him and "work out a better presidential attack!" Other witnesses who have returned to their government posts, without public incident, include George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Laura Cooper, who holds an equivalent post at the Defense Department.Then there is the whistleblower whose original complaint about Trump's pressure campaign on Zelenskiy ignited the fuse that led to his impeachment.Each day, the whistleblower goes to his job at the CIA's headquarters and continues to work on intelligence related to Europe and, his expertise, Ukraine, according to people familiar with his work.Although his identity is known by many inside the CIA and other intelligence agencies, supervisors have reminded intelligence officers to respect his public anonymity. As a result, inside the CIA, intelligence officers make no mention of the impeachment proceedings to him. That, according to friends, has allowed the whistleblower to focus on his intelligence work, but it has contributed to a sense of isolation.While the whistleblower remains silent at work, he has discussed the stress of the events and the gravity of impeachment with friends and expressed frustration that his decision to remain anonymous has meant that right-wing attacks on his character and motivations go unanswered.By contrast, Trump's ambassador to the European Union, Gordon D. Sondland, appears to be mounting a public rehabilitation campaign, smiling and schmoozing his way back to normalcy after public testimony that angered Trump.During the House appearance in which he contradicted Trump's prior insistence that the president never sought a "quid pro quo" from Zelenskiy, Sondland made clear his intention to carry on with his diplomatic job. Later, he was seen checking in for his flight at Dulles International Airport and saying that he was "going back to work."And he has. Sondland, a businessman whose main qualification for his job appeared to be a $1 million donation to Trump's inaugural fund, is again posting regularly on an official Twitter feed, smiling broadly alongside a series of foreign officials and working on issues like trade, the Balkans and Iran. He no longer mentions Ukraine, once a cherished part of his portfolio.Radislaw Sikorski, a Polish member of the European Parliament who met last week with Sondland in Strasbourg, France, suggested that the experience had changed him."I've talked with him a year ago, three months ago and last week," Sikorski said. "And he's learned." Before, Sikorski said, "he was borderline offensive, but now he's found a way to not to be so offensive.'"Several other witnesses who provided memorable, and often damning, testimony have left government. Among them is William B. Taylor Jr., who served as ambassador to Ukraine during the Bush administration and as de facto ambassador after Marie L. Yovanovitch was recalled to Washington last spring.Taylor left his post for good on Jan. 2, soon before his temporary appointment was set to expire.A Vietnam War veteran whose commanding voice drew comparisons to famed news anchor Walter Cronkite, Taylor officially remained a State Department employee until Jan. 10. During a visit to the building's cafeteria before his departure, Taylor was seen trying to buy a coffee and scone for breakfast when a well-wisher swooped in and insisted on paying.Taylor is expected to return next month to the federally funded United States Institute of Peace in Washington, where he was working in mid-2019 when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo persuaded him to return to Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, on a temporary basis.Asked about his future plans during an interview with Ukrainian newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli a few days before his departure from Ukraine, Taylor said, "I am hoping that I will have a chance to keep working for the good of the U.S.-Ukrainian relations."Taylor's predecessor in Kyiv, Yovanovitch, is officially still employed by the State Department, which a Fox News reporter spotted her visiting this month. She is also teaching a class, one morning per week, at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and is scheduled to receive an award next week from the university's School of Foreign Service for "Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy."Yovanovitch has remained in the news thanks to texts released this month suggesting that associates of Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani were having her watched in Kyiv. And Friday, ABC News reported the existence of a recording of Trump, in the spring of 2018, saying "take her out," in an apparent reference to Yovanovitch."Get her out tomorrow. I don't care," Trump says, according to the report. "Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it."Trump's former top National Security Council aide for Russia, Fiona Hill, had already left the White House months before she publicly testified about "fictions" involving Ukraine promoted by Trump and his allies. This past week, as the Senate impeachment trial was opening, she returned as a senior fellow to her previous employer of many years, the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.Hill has told friends she is declining speaking engagements, plowing through unopened mail and contemplating writing a book drawn from her past research on Russia.Kurt D. Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, who worked with Sondland and Giuliani, in what Taylor described as a "highly irregular channel" of diplomacy to Kyiv, resigned on Sept. 27.Volker also left the job he retained as executive director of the McCain Institute, but is again an adviser with the Washington lobbying firm GBR Group. He has also returned to the foreign policy circuit, appearing at conferences where he has been a regular over the years.Tim Morrison, who succeeded Hill as the National Security Council's director for Russia affairs, left the White House a day before he testified behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee at the end of October.Morrison has maintained a low profile since then, although on Jan. 15, he was a featured speaker at a dinner panel hosted by the George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs on the future of nuclear arms control. Maintaining his hard-edge position toward Russia, he derided it is as "a Mafia-run gas station with a lot of nuclear weapons."But Morrison avoided discussing National Security Council policymaking and rebuffed efforts to coax him into any conversation about impeachment. On Thursday, he became a nonresident fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Trump Impeachment: Making a Case Against a President, and Against Tuning Out Posted: 25 Jan 2020 06:55 AM PST  They played video. They brought graphics. They cited Alexander Hamilton so many times, they may owe royalties to Lin-Manuel Miranda.The Democratic House impeachment managers, unfolding their case against President Donald Trump, were conducting a TV trial without many of the staples of legal drama, particularly witnesses on the stand. Instead, they relied on multimedia, impassioned speeches and repetition, repetition, repetition -- all in a presentation of 24 hours over three days.If the O.J. Simpson trial was a long-running daytime soap, this was democracy in binge mode.The trial of Trump, as the TV pundits reminded us before, during and after, was an unusual one, in that much of the jury was assumed to already have a verdict in mind. This meant a different dynamic from the usual televised trial, in which the prosecution is speaking to the jury first and the viewing audience second, if at all.Instead, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his team were effectively speaking to the court of public opinion -- home viewers who might bring pressure to bear on certain swing senators or turn against them at the ballot box -- although they had to do so by at least arguing as if the outcome were not a foregone conclusion.So there was the case, and then there was the case about the case. If the Republican majority was going to acquit the president, and if it was going to be voting against calling witnesses and subpoenaing documents that might weaken his defense, the Democrats would make sure that the viewing audience knew it.Their arguments often focused on what the audience wasn't seeing and hearing, because the White House refused it. Wednesday night, Schiff made a refrain of referencing evidence -- a diplomatic cable, a statement attributed to the former national security adviser, John Bolton -- and turning it into a question to the Senate. Wouldn't you like to read them? Wouldn't you like to hear them? "They're yours for the asking," he said.What the three days asked of viewers, largely, was patience. The constitutional stakes were as high as they come. But the dynamics were staid, thanks to Senate rules that limited TV coverage to two cemented-in-place camera vantages that gave the broadcast all the visual verve of a security-camera tape.The managers' most effective tool, both to break out of the visual monotony and substitute for live witnesses, was file video, which they used to string together the words of Trump and his staff into a kind of cinema-verite documentary of the often right-out-in-the-open scandal.There was Trump at a news conference with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Helsinki, Finland, dismissing his own intelligence agencies' findings on Russian hacking. There was his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, regaling Fox News hosts about his Ukraine exploits. There was Sen. John McCain, a frequent critic of Trump, summoned Friday as a posthumous witness.Certain greatest hits went into heavy rotation. The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, seemed to say "get over it" on-screen as often as his boss said "You're fired" on "The Apprentice."The senators were a captive audience, although some ducked out, unseen by the stationary cameras. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., vanished before managers played a video of him, prosecuting the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999, in which he contradicted arguments he's made to defend Trump. (Graham did make himself available to cameras between sessions, as did the Democratic presidential candidates kept off the trail in Iowa by Senate duty.)If any senators weren't keen on their duty, a good chunk of their constituents were willing to volunteer. Eleven million viewers watched the trial's first day -- hardly Super Bowl numbers but more than watched the Clinton trial, although the numbers declined the next day. And the three major broadcast networks aired more of the trial during the daytime than in 1999, although they left the evening portion to cable news.In a way, the Democrats programmed their presentation the way a cable news channel does. They recycled through their arguments and video clips during the daytime, for a home audience watching snippets here and there.Then in prime time, they brought out their centerpiece programming, delivered by Schiff. (This was around where Fox News usually cut away, preferring its own prime-time hosts.) At the end of Friday's session, he stepped back from the specifics of the abuse-and-obstruction cases to argue "moral courage" and putting country over party."Give America a fair trial," he concluded. "She deserves it."The tone wasn't entirely solemn. On Thursday evening, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told a story about a friend who'd just asked him if he'd heard about "the latest outrage." Jeffries assumed this referred to Trump. Actually, his friend said, "Someone voted against Derek Jeter on his Hall of Fame ballot."Jeffries moved on to connect the American pastime of baseball with the American tradition of the Constitution. But his anecdote made another point. The House managers were not just vying with an opposition party and a truculent defender. They were pitted against every other distraction in the mediasphere, every other shiny enticement and new outrage offering a reason to tune out.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| GOP senators upset by Schiff remark, Dems claim 'diversion' Posted: 25 Jan 2020 05:31 AM PST  Senate Republicans said lead impeachment prosecutor Adam Schiff insulted them during the trial by repeating an anonymously sourced report that the White House had threatened to punish Republicans who voted against President Donald Trump. Schiff, who delivered closing arguments for the prosecution on Friday evening, was holding Republican senators rapt as he called for removing Trump from office for abusing his power and obstructing Congress. Doing anything else, he argued, would be to let the president bully Senate Republicans into ignoring his pressure on Ukraine for political help.
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| Substitute teaching a challenge in Jimmy Carter's class Posted: 25 Jan 2020 05:26 AM PST  Every now and then, Sunday school teacher Kim Fuller makes a point during class and the old man sitting on the front pew raises his eyebrows quizzically. Fuller is the eldest daughter of Carter's late brother Billy Carter, and she has served as the regular replacement for the world's best-known Sunday school teacher since Carter underwent brain surgery in November. Out of the hospital and back home in Plains, Georgia, the 95-year-old Carter has been in his regular, front-row seat at Maranatha Baptist Church, along with his wife Rosalynn, each Sunday since Dec. 29.
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| Libya says oil shutdown caused over $255 million in losses Posted: 25 Jan 2020 05:23 AM PST  The closure of Libya's major oil fields and production facilities has resulted in losses of more than $255 million in the six-day period ending Jan. 23, the country's national oil company said Saturday. The closures came when powerful tribal groups loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter earlier this month seized several large export terminals along the eastern coast as well as southern oil fields.
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| Mike Pompeo reportedly angrily challenged a reporter to find Ukraine on a map. She did. Posted: 25 Jan 2020 05:10 AM PST  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who's known for being wary of the press, apparently did not enjoy his latest interview.Pompeo reportedly berated NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly on Friday after she interviewed him about the ousting of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. During Friday's interview, which aired on NPR's Morning Edition, Pompeo said he has "defended every State Department official on his team," but did not provide Kelly with a specific example of how he had defended Yovanovitch. Pompeo complained that he was there to talk about Iran, but Kelly assured him she confirmed with his team that she would ask about Ukraine, as well.Following the interview, Kelly said she was summoned by a Pompeo aide to a private room where Pompeo "shouted" at her, asking if she thought "Americans care about Ukraine" and challenging her to point to the country on an unmarked map, which the well-traveled, veteran reporter was able to do.Journalists like CNN's Jake Tapper defended Kelly's line of questioning, while Democratic politicians blasted Pompeo's behavior. The State Department didn't have much to say on the matter, though.At the end of their encounter, Kelly said Pompeo told her "people will hear about this." They sure did - straight from Kelly. Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com Trump is winning the impeachment battle — but losing the war Trump debuts official Space Force logo — and it's literally a ripoff of Star Trek Despite apparent preference for 'moderate' candidate, Iowans back Sanders in latest poll
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| Impeachment, an Outbreak and a Climate Awakening: Weekend Reads Posted: 25 Jan 2020 05:00 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every day? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.Democrats concluded their arguments in the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, with Republicans shutting down their efforts to introduce new evidence in votes split sharply along party lines.In China, a deadly virus killed dozens of people, spread to other countries, prompted the government to lock down major population centers and triggered protests that the authorities' reaction to the outbreak was too slow.The world's economic and political elite finally put climate change at the top of the agenda at their annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. And in France, President Emmanuel Macron pushed on with a pension reform despite death threats from unions who oppose it.We hope you enjoy these and other stories, and click here for Bloomberg's most compelling political images from the past week.Giuliani's Sidekick Parnas Traces Part of Money Trail to UkraineThe expenses racked up Rudy Giuliani's advance man to Ukraine, Lev Parnas, were so high that some of his Republican donors complained. Read about the new details provided by Parnas about the money web that helped support Giuliani's work in Ukraine for Trump.Sanders Rise Means More Talk About Electability Than RevolutionBernie Sanders, who has campaigned for "radical change" leading to a revolution, is now talking more about how he can beat Trump and has something to offer every voter. Emma Kinery describes the rise in polling and fund-raising for Sanders as he refocuses on electability. It Took 50 Years for Climate Change to Top the Davos AgendaIt took five decades for climate change to dominate the annual meeting of business titans, global leaders and top thinkers in Davos. This year, though, it seemed as if no one there could stop talking about it, Laura Millan Lombrana and Aaron Rutkoff report.Inside China's Virus Zone, Unease Grips a City in LockdownIn Wuhan, the central Chinese city that's ground zero of the deadly new virus, a sense of fear is taking hold. The city's 11 million residents woke to learn they were in lockdown on the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday that unites families for days of feasting.Putin Has a Plan to Keep Running Russia Without Being President Vladimir Putin became Russia's longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin by jumping between the presidency and prime ministership in his two decades in power. As Henry Meyer and Ilya Arkhipov report, he's now got a plan that might keep him in power for life.Italy's Chief Disrupter Is Masterminding His ComebackA college dropout who cracks crude jokes, Matteo Salvini is making a political comeback in Italy. The latest target of the right-wing League party leader is a center-left stronghold he plans to flip in a local election tomorrow, John Follain reports.Tech Giants' Lobby Spending Shows Washington's Growing HostilityThree of the biggest U.S. technology giants boosted lobbying spending last year. Eric Newcomer and Ben Brody give details on their fight against charges of unfair competition, efforts to shape privacy laws and pursuit of public contracts in a hostile Washington.Rio's Dirty, Foul-Smelling Water Renews Privatization PushCloudy, foul-smelling water running from the taps in Rio de Janeiro is the latest crisis to rock the Brazilian city. As Simone Iglesias and Sabrina Valle report, the strain on resources for 9 million people is about to get worse as the city prepares for Carnival next month.Tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.And finally … In 2018, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, met with Amazon.com Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos in an encounter likely weighted with tension. Read this account from David Wainer and Alyza Sebenius about the small dinner in Los Angeles that apparently went well enough that they exchanged phone numbers, a move UN experts said led to a spying attack on Bezos's phone. To contact the author of this story: Michael Winfrey in Prague at mwinfrey@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iranian FM: Tehran still willing to negotiate with US Posted: 25 Jan 2020 04:26 AM PST ![Iranian FM: Tehran still willing to negotiate with US]( "Iranian FM: Tehran still willing to negotiate with US") Iran is not ruling out negotiations with the United States even after an American drone strike that killed a top Iranian general, the country's foreign minister said in an interview released Saturday. Mohammed Javad Zarif told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine that he would "never rule out the possibility that people will change their approach and recognize the realities," in an interview conducted Friday in Tehran. There has been growing tension between Washington and Tehran since in 2018, when President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran.
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| Why is Vladimir Putin racing to amend Russia's constitution? Posted: 25 Jan 2020 04:23 AM PST  Ever since Vladimir Putin announced a dramatic overhaul of Russia's constitution and the removal of his longtime prime minister and cabinet, Russians have been asking themselves a single question: What is Putin up to? Since the Jan. 15 announcement, Putin hasn't slowed down.
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| 4 dead, tents ablaze after Iraq cleric pulls protest support Posted: 25 Jan 2020 01:26 AM PST  Iraq cracked down on anti-government protesters who have been occupying key public squares for months, leaving four demonstrators dead Saturday in a country reeling from political turmoil and violence. Security forces set fire to protesters' tents in southern Iraq and reopened public areas in Baghdad just hours after a powerful Shiite cleric dealt a major blow to the movement by withdrawing his support, prompting his followers to leave the encampments. Security forces fired tear gas and live rounds to disperse protesters in an operation to clear two squares in Baghdad, killing one and wounding 44, medical and security officials said.
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| Earthquake in Eastern Turkey Kills at Least 21 People Posted: 25 Jan 2020 12:44 AM PST ![Earthquake in Eastern Turkey Kills at Least 21 People]( "Earthquake in Eastern Turkey Kills at Least 21 People") (Bloomberg) -- A magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Turkey's eastern Elazig province late Friday killed at least 21 people and injured hundreds. About 30 people remain under the rubble of collapsed buildings, the NTV news channel said on Saturday.Four buildings were wrecked in the Elazig city center, the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD, said in a statement on its website. Twelve of the hundreds of aftershocks had a magnitude of over 4, AFAD said. The Elazig Airport is operative and communication is back to normal after an initial disruption, according to the agency.The earthquake occurred at 8:55 p.m. local time on Friday at a depth of 6.75 kilometers (4.2 miles) on the East Anatolia Fault Line. Tremors were felt in many cities across the region, Turkish TV outlets reported.In a Twitter post, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was following the rescue efforts closely. "We're with our nation, with all our institutions," Erdogan said.Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Environment & Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum and Health Minister Fahrettin Koca were in Elazig on Saturday to coordinate rescue efforts.Turkey is situated in a seismically active area and is among countries, including China and Iran, that can experience catastrophic earthquakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1999, a 7.5-magnitude quake shook the western Marmara region killing thousands of people and damaging more than 300,000 buildings. Turkish GDP contracted 3.4% that year.(Updates with ministers' visit in fifth paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Cagan Koc in Istanbul at ckoc2@bloomberg.net;Taylan Bilgic in Istanbul at tbilgic2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Nathan Crooks, Jacqueline MackenzieFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| How Demographics Could Spark Change in Iran Posted: 25 Jan 2020 12:00 AM PST  For years, Iran's ruling ayatollahs have grappled with a profoundly vexing problem: how best to maintain the loyalty of the country's growing (and increasingly unruly) population. The question isn't strictly a political one. It is also made significantly more complicated by the age of the Islamic Republic's population, which cuts against the regime in key ways.
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| Turkish leader slams 'propaganda' as quake deaths rise to 29 Posted: 24 Jan 2020 11:46 PM PST  The death toll from a strong earthquake that rocked eastern Turkey climbed to 29 on Saturday night as rescue crews searched for people who remained trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings, officials said. Speaking at a televised news conference, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said earlier in the day that 18 people were killed in Elazig province, where Friday night's quake was centered, and four in neighboring Malatya. The national disaster agency later updated the total with seven more casualties.
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| Trump's idea of executive power is also impeachment defense Posted: 24 Jan 2020 09:31 PM PST  Donald Trump has always been a man of absolutes. Absolutism was the unwritten credo of his career in business and is the guiding light of his presidency as he makes an assertion rarely heard from an American president: that he can do as he pleases. Now that approach faces its ultimate test as a foundation of Trump's defense in his impeachment trial, namely that he is cloaked with unrestrained authority.
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| 'Give America a fair trial': key takeaways from Democrats' final arguments Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:14 PM PST  House managers spent much of Friday anticipating Republican arguments and giving pre-emptive rebuttals of Trump's defense, which begins SaturdayThe fourth full day of Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the US Senate has concluded. Here are five key takeaways: The prosecution rests… for nowDemocrats completed the presentation of the case against Trump on Friday evening, after taking almost all of their allotted 24 hours. The lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff ended his presentation with an appeal to senators to show the "moral courage" to invite witnesses to testify."Give America a fair trial," Schiff concluded after three marathon days of argument. "She's worth it." Defense preview: 'the president didn't do anything wrong'Previewing Trump's defense in a conference call with reporters on Friday, a source working on the president's legal team said they would roll out a "straightforward" defense on Saturday morning: "the president didn't do anything wrong."The Senate was scheduled to convene at 10am Saturday, with Trump's legal team expected to give an approximately three-hour "overview" of their defense. Defense arguments were to continue on Monday and possibly Tuesday. The silent RepublicansA familiar roster of Republicans spoke to reporters during breaks in the trial to dismiss the Democratic case along various familiar lines: they had seen no new evidence, the Democrats were repeating themselves, the conduct in question is not impeachable.Notably absent from the TV hits, however, were members of a small group of Republican senators who have said they would be open to calling for witnesses at the trial. Their silence left the basic disposition of the trial – and the question of whether it might end next week, or go on much longer – up in the air. Democrats preempt Trump defenseThe House managers spent much of their time Friday anticipating Republican arguments and delivering pre-emptive rebuttals.Schiff skippingly previewed more than a dozen lines of defense mooted by Trump's team and the president himself – from "read the transcript" to "[Joe] Biden is corrupt" to "Obama did it" – and deftly eviscerated each one.Schiff drew laughter from the Senate when he described how Trump's legal team would brandish in the president's defense his statement that he wanted "nothing" from Ukraine – "no quid pro quo". That line of argument, Schiff japed, would be based on "the well known principle of criminal defense" that when someone denies a crime they didn't do it.> .@RepAdamSchiff: "I discovered something very significant by 'mocking the president.' That is, for a man who loves to mock others, he does not like to be mocked. Turns out, he's got a pretty thin skin. Who would have thought?" > > Watch -- https://t.co/jMlsQHAmwE pic.twitter.com/NKNtk8VT7G> > — CSPAN (@cspan) January 25, 2020> Good prebuttal> > — Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) January 25, 2020 Concern in the White House?On Friday evening – apropos of nothing? – the official White House account tweeted a monotone statement delivered by Trump in July 2018 after he returned from a disastrous outing to Helsinki in which he stood next to Russian president Vladimir Putin and credited Putin's assurances that Russia did not hack the 2016 US election.It's too early to know what the tone of Trump's defense will be but the archival statement seemed like an early salvo:> President @realDonaldTrump has unequivocally denounced foreign interference in our elections and accepted the conclusions of the intelligence community. pic.twitter.com/lhdHNbvrLv> > — The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 24, 2020
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| Ukraine's Zelensky weathers crises from Trump to downed jet Posted: 24 Jan 2020 05:49 PM PST  In his first nine months as Ukrainian president, former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky has found himself at the centre of major international crises, including the US impeachment investigation and Iran's downing of a passenger jet. "Fears of his inexperience turned out to be exaggerated," said Oleksiy Melnyk, a foreign policy analyst at the Razumkov Center in Kiev. Polls show most Ukrainians are satisfied with Zelensky's performance.
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| Trial highlights: Dems cry cover-up, Trump hails activists Posted: 24 Jan 2020 04:51 PM PST  From the floor of the Senate, Democratic impeachment prosecutors said Friday that President Donald Trump tried to cover up his actions with Ukraine, another reason to remove him from office. A few blocks away, Trump told anti-abortion activists on the National Mall that he proudly stands with them. "Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House," Trump said as he became the first sitting president to speak at the annual March for Life.
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| Use of 'rescues' by Mexican migration officials criticized Posted: 24 Jan 2020 03:41 PM PST  For many people who watched the moments when hundreds of Mexican national guardsmen with helmets and riot shields confronted hundreds of migrants who had been resting in the shade after walking all morning, "rescues" didn't seem to be the right word. Defenders of migrants' rights say rescues typically don't involve spraying those being rescued with pepper spray.
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| Search continues for survivors after deadly earthquake in Turkey Posted: 24 Jan 2020 01:49 PM PST  An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.7 struck the eastern Elazığ province in Turkey Friday evening, collapsing buildings and killing at least 29 people according to Reuters.The earthquake struck at 8:55 p.m. local time with a depth of 4.2 miles (6.7 km), Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said, followed by around 400 aftershocks according to the AFAD. Although the quake rocked eastern Turkey, the U.S. Geological Survey has recorded reports from people who felt the earthquake from southern Georgia to western Iran to northern Israel.Rescuers continued to search for survivors trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings on Saturday. Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told Reuters an estimated 22 people were still left trapped, and the AFAD stated around 40 people had been rescued so far. Rescue workers search on a collapsed building after a 6.8 earthquake struck Sivrice town in Elazig in eastern Turkey, Friday, Jan. 24, 2020. An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 rocked eastern Turkey on Friday, causing some buildings to collapse and killing at least 14 people, Turkish officials said.(IHA via AP) Videos and photos across social media platforms show five-story buildings collapsed into piles of rubble and emergency responders in the streets in Elazig province. At least 25 people were killed in Elazığ province, and there were four more fatalities in the neighboring province of Malatya, according to the AFAD.More than 1,466 people have been injured with several dozen missing.Soylu described the earthquake as a "Level 3" incident, according to the country's emergency response plan, Reuters said. At this level, the incident calls for a national response but doesn't require international help. People look at a collapsed building after a 6.8 earthquake struck Elazig city centre in the eastern Turkey, Friday, Jan. 24, 2020. An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 rocked eastern Turkey on Friday, causing some buildings to collapse and killing at least four people, Turkish officials said. (IHA via AP) As cleanup and rescue efforts continue, multiple people have been left without homes as temperatures dropped."In our village some people lost their lives. I hope God will help us," a 32-year old man from the town of Sivrice told Reuters. "Our animals died. Our families gathered around the fire to spend the night, covered with blankets."The man, who only gave his first name, Sinasi, told the news organization he and his family tried to stay warm by a small fire."The next few days are expected to be dry and mainly clear with highs reaching the mid-30s F (1-2 C) Saturday but then getting into the lower to middle 40s F (4-8 C) Sunday and Monday," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist John Gresiak said. "Nights will still be cold. The next chance for precipitation, both rain and snow, may be on Tuesday."Ankara Mayor Masur Yavaş tweeted on Friday that emergency staff was ready to move to Elazığ if needed and they were in contact with the authorities.
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