Bernie Sanders says he raised a whopping $25 million in January and will use his presidential campaign’s flush bank account to increase television and digital advertising in 10 states.
The Vermont senator spent $50 million during the final three months of 2019 and finished the year with $18.2 million in cash on hand, putting him in a stronger position than many of his rival candidates even before his latest bonanza last month. Partial results show Sanders in a near tie for first with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, in Monday’s leadoff Iowa caucuses.
New Hampshire hold its primary next Tuesday.Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, announced Thursday that his candidate will immediately increase staffing in states that vote during the Democratic primary’s Super Tuesday, on March 3. The campaign also plans to spend $5.5 million on television and digital ads in eight new states voting then: Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah.
And Sanders will expand ad buys the campaign already made in California and Texas, the two largest states voting on Super Tuesday.“Bernie’s multiracial, multigenerational, people-driven movement for change is fueling 2020’s most aggressive campaign for president,” Shakir said in a statement, saying the campaign is “in a strong position to compete in states all over the map.”January was the Sanders campaign’s best fundraising month to date, featuring donations from 648,000 people, including 219,000 new donors, the statement said. Since announcing his presidential campaign in February 2019, Sanders has raised more than $121 million, built on donations from more than 1.5 million people. That total doesn’t include an additional $12.7 million in transfers all made in 2019 from Sanders’ other federal accounts, the campaign said.
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Month: February 2020
FBI Director Warns of Ongoing Russian ‘Information Warfare’
FBI Director Chris Wray said Wednesday that Russia is engaged in “information warfare” heading into the 2020 presidential election, though he said law enforcement has not seen ongoing efforts by Russia to target America’s election infrastructure.Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that Russia, just as it did in 2016, is relying on a covert social media campaign aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord. That effort, which involves fictional personas, bots, social media postings and disinformation, may have an election-year uptick but is also a round-the-clock threat that is in some ways harder to combat than an election system hack, Wray said.“Unlike a cyberattack on an election infrastructure, that kind of effort — disinformation — in a world where we have a First Amendment and believe strongly in freedom of expression, the FBI is not going to be in the business of being the truth police and monitoring disinformation online,” Wray said.The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are on alert for election-related cyberactivity like what occurred in 2016, when Russians hacked emails belonging to the Democratic campaign of nominee Hillary Clinton and probed local election systems for vulnerabilities.But, Wray said Wednesday, “I don’t think we’ve seen any ongoing efforts to target election infrastructure like we did in 2016.”His appearance came two days after Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa were marred by a malfunctioning app that caused a delay in the reporting of results. Though local and federal officials have stressed that the problems weren’t caused by a foreign intrusion, the error played into existing unease surrounding election security and risked amplifying concerns among American about the integrity of the voting process.Even without signs of election system targeting, Wray said Russian efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation had not tapered off since 2016. He said social media had injected “steroids” into those efforts.“They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other,” Wray said. “And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions, which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in … information warfare.”At another point in the hearing, Wray avoided a direct answer when asked if President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr or other administration officials had asked him for investigations into Trump Democratic rival Joe Biden, his son Hunter, or into any members of Congress.The question was posed by Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee chairman and one of seven House Democratic managers of the impeachment case. He asked whether Trump had requested FBI investigations into the Bidens, lawmakers or former national security adviser John Bolton — who is due out with a book next month said to undercut a key Trump defense — as possible payback for impeachment.Wray initially said: “I have assured the Congress, and I can assure the Congress today, that the FBI will only open investigations based on the facts, and the law and proper predication.”After Nadler said he assumed that answer meant that neither Trump nor Barr nor other administration officials had requested improper political investigations, Wray tried again: “No one has asked me to open an investigation based on anything other than facts, the law and proper predication.”Trump has sought, without evidence, to implicate the Bidens in the kind of corruption that has long plagued Ukraine. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company at the same time his father, as vice president, was leading the Obama administration’s diplomatic dealings with Ukraine. Though the timing raised concerns among anti-corruption advocates, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.Wray’s appearance was his first since a Justice Department inspector general report that sharply criticized the FBI’s surveillance of former Trump campaign aide national security Carter Page. The errors produced rare bipartisan calls for changes to the federal government’s surveillance powers.The report identified what it said were significant errors in applications to eavesdrop on Page, including omitting critical information that cut against the FBI’s original premise that Page was a Russian agent — something he has repeatedly denied.After the report was issued, Wray told The Associated Press that the mistakes were “unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are as an institution.” He repeated that message to lawmakers Wednesday.The then-chief judge of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes wiretapping of subjects on American soil in national security investigations, responded to the report with an extraordinary public rebuke of the FBI and demanded that the bureau report back on what it was doing to fix the problems.The FBI has laid out a series of changes designed to ensure warrant applications are more closely scrutinized before being submitted for a judge’s approval and that they contain accurate information about the reliability and potential bias of sources whom agents rely on. The Justice Department has also said the surveillance of Page should have ended before it did.Wray bristled at the suggestion from some Republican lawmakers that he did not take the report’s criticism seriously enough.“I’ve been a prosecutor. I’ve been a defense attorney, I’ve been an assistant attorney general, I’ve been an FBI director,” Wray said. “To me, candor to the court is sacrosanct, and I don’t think there’s anybody in the FBI who’s belaboring under the misimpression that I think it’s OK to mislead a court.”
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Top US Officials to Spotlight Chinese Spy Operations, Pursuit of American Secrets
An aggressive campaign by American authorities to root out Chinese espionage operations in the United States has snared a growing group of Chinese government officials, business people, and academics pursuing American secrets.In 2019 alone, public records show U.S. authorities arrested and expelled two Chinese diplomats who allegedly drove onto a military base in Virginia. They also caught and jailed former CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency officials on espionage charges linked to China.FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during an oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 5, 2020 in Washington.On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, FBI director Christopher Wray and U.S. counterintelligence chief William Evanina will address a Washington conference on U.S. efforts to counter Chinese “economic malfeasance” involving espionage and the theft of U.S. technological and scientific secrets.
China’s efforts to steal unclassified American technology, ranging from military secrets to medical research, have long been thought to be extensive and aggressive, but U.S. officials only launched a broad effort to stop alleged Chinese espionage in the United States in 2018.
“The theft of American trade secrets by China costs our nation anywhere from $300 to $600 billion in a year,” Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security
Center, said in advance of Thursday’s conference.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected the U.S. allegation as “entirely baseless.”
“The people-to-people exchange between China and the U.S. is conducive to stronger understanding between the two peoples and serves the fundamental interests of our two countries,” it said in an emailed statement.
Of 137 publicly reported instances of Chinese-linked espionage against the United States since 2000, 73% took place in the last decade, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The think tank’s data, which excludes cases of intellectual property litigation and attempts to smuggle munitions or controlled technologies, shows that military and commercial technologies are the most common targets for theft.
In the area of medical research, of 180 investigations into misuse of National Institutes of Health funds, diversion of research intellectual property and inappropriate sharing of
confidential information, more than 90% of the cases have link to China, according to an NIH spokeswoman.
One main reason Chinese espionage, including extensive hacking in cyberspace, has expanded is that “China depends on Western technology and as licit avenues are closed, they turn to espionage to get access,” said James Lewis, a CSIS expert.
In late January alone, federal prosecutors in Boston announced three new criminal cases involving industrial spying or stealing, including charges against a Harvard professor.Prosecutors said Harvard’s Charles Lieber lied to the Pentagon and NIH about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Plan — a Chinese government scheme that offers mainly Chinese scientists working overseas lavish financial incentives to bring their expertise and knowledge back to China. They said he also lied about his affiliation with China’s Wuhan University of Technology.
During at least part of the time he was signed up with the Chinese university, Lieber was also a “principal investigator” working on at least six research projects funded by U.S. Defense Department agencies, court documents show.
A lawyer for Lieber did not respond to a request for comment.
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China to Cut Tariffs on $75 Billion of US Imports
China says it will cut tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. imports as part of a preliminary agreement between the economic giants to end their trade war. The Finance Ministry released a statement Thursday saying it will cut tariffs on some goods from 10% to 5%, and others from 5% to 2.5%, effective February 14 at 0501 GMT (midnight Washington).The tariff cuts will cover a range of goods from soybeans, pork, fresh seafood, auto parts. The cuts imposed by Beijing will take effect the same day Washington is expected to cut tariffs on $120 billion worth of Chinese imports.The tariff cuts are part of a “phase one” deal signed by negotiators from both nations last month that ended a series of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs that began in June 2018, sparked by President Donald Trump’s initial demand for changes in China’s trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices. The Trump administration says it won an expansion of American agricultural and energy exports to China under the truce agreement.The deal also includes a promise by Beijing to give more protection for American companies’ intellectual property, and halt the practice of forcing foreign companies to transfer technology. It remains unclear how those provisions will be enforced.The U.S. also wants Beijing to curb subsidies to state-owned enterprises and grant American companies greater access to China’s markets.
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North Korea Bars New Foreign Diplomats to Block Virus
North Korea barred new foreign diplomats from entering the country as it intensified efforts to contain the coronavirus.Pyongyang informed foreign embassies of the measure in a diplomatic letter, according to a Russian Embassy post on Twitter and Facebook accounts.“Entry to and exit from the country is forbidden for members of the diplomatic corps as well as for new staffers,” said the Facebook notice posted Tuesday.The Russian Embassy further noted that Pyongyang imposed a 15-day quarantine on foreign diplomatic personnel who need to enter North Korea for unspecified reasons of “necessity.” If they leave quarantine before serving 15 days, they will be requarantined, the embassy said.Intensified measuresKen Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, told VOA on Wednesday that North Korea is taking intensified measures to stop the virus from penetrating into the country because its medical system would not be able to handle the outbreak.“Their tendency is to clamp down and seal off the country,” Gause continued. He added that the response is typical of North Korea where the leadership “knows that if infection gets inside the country, it’s going to be hard to stop.”Quarantine measures imposedNorth Korea also imposed quarantine measures on diplomats and international organization staff working in the country by restricting them to their embassy buildings and residential complexes, according to the Russian news agency Tass. Tass also reported that Pyongyang barred foreigners from hotels and restaurants in North Korea.The new measures come after North Korea temporarily closed its border with China starting Jan. 22 and suspended all air and train links to and from China on Friday. Working with South KoreaIn consultation with South Korea on Jan. 30, Pyongyang closed the inter-Korean liaison office it shares with Seoul in North Korea’s border town of Kaesong. As of Wednesday, South Korea reported 19 confirmed cases of the virus. North Korea’s stepped-up measures come as the number of confirmed cases and deaths increase daily in China. There are no cases of the virus reported in North Korea“Autocratic countries usually have lousy medical infrastructure [and] it’s their natural tendencies to take an action like this,” Gause said.Call for ‘absolute obedience’North Korea has been ruled by three generations of the Kim dynasty that had strict control over its population since 1945. As the regime copes with the threat posed by the coronavirus, it has called on citizens to show “absolute obedience” to its efforts, the country’s official newspaper the Rodong Sinmun said Saturday. On Wednesday, North Korea’s state media Korean Central News Agency said passengers crossing into North Korea’s provinces of Jagang and North Hamgyong along its northern border are being examined at checkpoints. ‘Emergency anti-epidemic headquarters’The KCNA report said the government set up “emergency anti-epidemic headquarters” across the country and that “the Party organizations at all levels and officials in the public health sector are launching a campaign to arouse all the masses to the work for preventing the novel coronavirus infection.”Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said, “I think it is easier for autocratic regimes like North Korea to take swift, stringent measures.” He added, “But I think their efforts to respond to the pandemic are not that different from those of the U.S.”Christy Lee contributed to this report which originated in VOA’s Korean Service.
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China Cuts Tariffs on $75 Billion of US Imports
China cut tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. imports including soybeans, pork and auto parts Thursday in a trade truce with Washington while Beijing struggles with a costly virus outbreak.The cuts follow last month’s signing of a “Phase 1” agreement toward ending a long-running tariff war over Beijing’s technology ambitions and trade surplus. Both sides have made conciliatory gestures, but the lingering dispute threatens to chill global economic growth.The reductions follow American tariff cuts last month on Chinese goods. There was no indication Beijing altered its own cuts in response to the rising cost of efforts to contain a virus outbreak that have depressed business activity by closing factories, restaurants and shops.“The next steps depend on the development of the Chinese-U.S. economic and trade situation,” said a Ministry of Finance statement. “We hope to work with the United States toward the final elimination of all tariff increases.”The tax rate on 916 items including soybeans, pork and fish was cut from 10% to 5%, effective Feb. 14, the ministry said. The rate for 801 items including auto parts will be cut from 5% to 2.5%.Washington hiked tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018 in response to Beijing’s multibillion-dollar trade surplus and complaints it steals or pressures companies to hand over technology. China retaliated by increasing duties on American goods.Under the “Phase 1” deal in October, Washington canceled planned additional tariff hikes and Beijing committed to buy more U.S. farm exports.However, most tariff hikes imposed previously by both sides on billions of dollars of each other’s good are still in place.
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Buttigieg, Sanders Nearly Tied as Iowa Caucus Results Narrow
Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are nearly tied in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, with nearly all results counted in a contest marred by technical issues and reporting delays.The race remained too early to call with 97% of precincts reporting. Party officials were scrambling to verify the remaining results three days after Iowans gathered at caucus sites across the state to begin choosing which Democrat will take on President Donald Trump in November.A new batch of results released early Thursday narrowed the margin between Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Sanders, the progressive senator from Vermont. Buttigieg has a lead of three state delegate equivalents out of 2,098 counted.The deadlocked contest gave both Buttigieg and Sanders a burst of momentum as they seek to pull away from the crowded field. The nearly complete results show them leading Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar trailing behind.Precinct captain Carl Voss of Des Moines displays the Iowa Democratic Party caucus reporting app on his phone outside of the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 4, 2020.But the results in Iowa were muddied by the stunning breakdown of the caucus reporting process in a state that traditionally kicks off presidential nominating contests. Iowa officials initially attributed a delay in reporting results to technical problems with an app that precinct chairs were supposed to use to record votes, then to backlogs as those volunteers tried to call the party to submit their totals.Even as the total number of results ticked up Wednesday, obstacles remained. Some tally sheets were making their way to party headquarters in Des Moines through the mail, which contributed to the delay.Much of the political world has already shifted its attention to next-up New Hampshire, which holds the first primary election in the Democrats’ 2020 nomination fight on Tuesday.The two early leaders — Buttigieg and Sanders — are separated by 40 years in age and conflicting ideology.Sanders, a 78-year-old self-described democratic socialist, has been a progressive powerhouse for decades. Buttigieg, a 38-year-old former municipal official, represents the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party. Buttigieg is also the first openly gay candidate to earn presidential primary delegates.
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Trump Impeachment Acquittal a Watershed Moment for Him, US
U.S. President Donald Trump’s acquittal Wednesday on impeachment charges is a watershed moment in his presidency, exonerating him of wrongdoing just nine months ahead of next November’s national election when he is seeking a second term in the White House. He was found not guilty on the first charge of abuse of power, 52-48; and found not guilty on a second charge of obstruction of Congress, 53-47.Trump’s acquittal likely will have huge long-term implications on politics and the balance of power in Washington with the president’s hand strengthened heading into the campaign season. Only one Republican, Senator Mitt Romney, the losing 2012 Republican presidential candidate, voted to convict the Republican Trump on the first charge of abuse of power, assailing his conduct as “wrong, egregiously wrong”. On the second charge of obstruction of Congress, Romney voted not guilty.Trump is in a position now to make use of Wednesday’s acquittal to his advantage ahead of the election, even as a collection of national polls shows he remains an unpopular president with a job approval rating in the mid-40% range in a politically divided country.”It’s amazing what I’ve done,” he wrote on Twitter as his impeachment trial neared the end, “the most of any President in the first three years (by far), considering that for three years I’ve been under phony political investigations and the Impeachment Hoax! KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”It’s amazing what I’ve done, the most of any President in the first three years (by far), considering that for three years I’ve been under phony political investigations and the Impeachment Hoax! KEEP AMERICA GREAT!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) TTrump adamantly and repeatedly insisted there was no link between the two elements central to his impeachment, denying that he was demanding a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Kyiv, the military assistance in exchange for the Biden investigations. He claimed the “us” in his request to Zelenskiy referred to the United States, not him personally.He described his request to Zelenskiy for the Biden investigations as “perfect.” His Republican defenders said that Trump wanted corruption, broadly speaking, investigated in Ukraine, not just the Bidens, although Trump never raised the issue of corruption generally in the phone call with Zelenskiy, according to a rough transcript of the call released by the White House. Trump supporters also noted that the president released the aid after a 55-day delay without Zelenskiy opening any investigations of the Bidens, proof, they say, that the president had not carried out a quid pro quo deal with Ukraine.But Democratic lawmakers in both the House of Representatives and Senate contended that Trump, despite his denials, had engaged in a deal with Ukraine, seeking to help himself politically while endangering the national security of the United States by denying an ally, Ukraine, vital military aid in its fight against Russia. It was a sentiment that only one Republican, Romney, now a senator from the western state of Utah after losing the 2012 presidential contest, agreed with.Through weeks of testimony in the House impeachment inquiry, however, a string of government officials, some of them appointed by Trump, said they came to understand that Trump wanted announcement of the Biden investigations before the military aid would be released. But, as Trump’s Republican defenders often noted, they had not talked directly with Trump and only assumed he wanted the investigations before the Ukraine assistance would be released.That evidentiary shortcoming possibly changed, however, in the last two weeks as news surfaced of a claim in a new book by former Trump national security adviser John Bolton. In his as-yet unpublished manuscript, Bolton said that Trump told him directly last August that he wanted the Biden investigations before he would release the aid. A month later, Trump ousted Bolton from his key White House position as the two feuded over a host of foreign policy issues.Trump denied Bolton’s Ukraine claim, but House impeachment managers prosecuting the case against the president fought to have Bolton testify at the Senate trial. Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, said the trial could not be considered fair without testimony and Ukraine-related documents they wanted to subpoena from the White House, the State Department and the Defense Department.Trump assailed his one-time security aide and complained again about the Democrats’ conduct of the impeachment investigation and trial.”No matter how many witnesses you give the Democrats, no matter how much information is given, like the quickly produced Transcripts, it will NEVER be enough for them,” Trump tweeted. “They will always scream UNFAIR. The Impeachment Hoax is just another political CON JOB!”No matter how many witnesses you give the Democrats, no matter how much information is given, like the quickly produced Transcripts, it will NEVER be enough for them. They will always scream UNFAIR. The Impeachment Hoax is just another political CON JOB!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2020But Schiff needed the votes of four Republican senators to join with 47 Democrats in the 100-member Senate for a simple majority calling Bolton as a witness. In the end, all but two senators of the 53-seat Senate Republican majority stood with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a staunch Trump ally, and voted against hearing witnesses, including Bolton.With that large hurdle cleared, McConnell moved toward the final stages of the trial on the two impeachment articles, reaching the conclusion with Trump’s acquittal on Wednesday.
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FBI Director: 2019 ‘Deadliest’ Year for Domestic Terrorism
FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Wednesday that 2019 was the deadliest year for domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City truck bombing in 1995, adding that he’d raised combating racially motivated violence to a national priority for the bureau. “The spate of attacks we saw in 2019 underscores the continued threat posed by domestic violent extremists and perpetrators of hate crimes,” Wray said in prepared testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. “Such crimes are not limited to the United States, and with the aid of internet like-minded hate groups can reach across borders.” Construction workers stand near a memorial they are building for the 22 people killed at the Cielo Vista Walmart seen in the background, Nov. 14, 2019, in El Paso, Texas, minutes before the store was reopened.Terror attacks carried out by white supremacists and other domestic extremists have been on the rise in recent years. According to the FBI, domestic violent extremists killed 39 people in five separate attacks during fiscal 2019. That compares with four victims in four extremist attacks during fiscal 2018. In the deadliest attack on Latinos in American history, a 21-year-old white supremacist last August killed 22 people and injured 24 others at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. In April, another white extremist went on a shooting rampage at a synagogue in Poway, California, killing one worshipper and injuring three others. The Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others, remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in modern U.S. history. For years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI was single-mindedly focused on fighting international terrorism — first on threats posed by al-Qaida, and then on Islamic State-inspired attacks. With the fall of Islamic State, domestic terrorism, sometimes mimicking the tactics of its international variety, has grown in lethality. Its underlying drivers range from white supremacy to anti-Semitism to Islamophobia. Internal investigative bodyIn recent years, the FBI has redoubled its efforts to combat domestic terrorism. Last spring, the bureau created an internal investigative body made up of subject matter experts from its criminal investigations and counterterrorism divisions. The bureau’s more than 200 joint terrorism task forces around the country “have domestic terrorism squarely in their sights,” Wray said. In addition, Wray said he has “elevated” racially motivated violent extremism as a national priority on a par with Islamic State during fiscal 2020. The FBI investigates four categories of domestic violent extremism: racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism; anarchism and anti-government extremism; abortion violent extremism; and environmental extremism. Racially and ethnically motivated extremists remain the top threat, Wray said. “[They] were the primary source of ideologically motivated lethal incidents and violence in 2018 and 2019, and have been considered the most lethal of all domestic extremists since 2001,” Wray said. ‘This threat is real’The FBI has more than 1,000 active domestic terrorism investigations in all 50 states. “This threat is real, and it affects communities big and small,” Wray said. Last month, the FBI arrested three members of a violent white supremacist group called The Base. Wray testified before the congressional panel for the first time since a Justice Department inspector general report blasted the bureau in December for its handling of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page’s surveillance in 2016.
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5 Takeaways From Trump’s Impeachment Acquittal
More than four months after House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s conduct, the Senate on Wednesday voted along near party lines to acquit the president of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.The widely expected outcome likely will have far-reaching implications for the government and political system, many experts agree.Here are five important takeaways:Unprecedented partisanship may have made it virtually impossible to remove future presidents from officeThis photo made available by the U.S. National Archives shows a portion of the first page of the United States Constitution.It never was going to be easy to impeach and convict a president. The U.S. Constitution sets a very high threshold for removing a misbehaving president from office — a majority vote of the House and a two-thirds vote of the Senate after conducting a trial. Only three American presidents — Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and now Trump — have been impeached, but none has been convicted. Yet in the current period of deep national ideological and political divisions, it may have become all but impossible to oust a president. As long as the president’s party stands by him and controls the Senate, critics say, he can feel safe from the threat of removal, no matter how egregious his conduct.In this image from video, Republican Senator Mitt Romney speaks on the Senate floor on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.Party fidelity was on full display throughout the Trump impeachment. Not a single Republican joined in the House vote to impeach the president. The Senate acquittal vote was just as divided, with the exception of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah casting the lone Republican vote to convict Trump of abuse of office.In the 1970s, when Congress considered impeaching Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal, the ideological divide between the two parties was nowhere near as rigid. There were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress. Although Nixon ultimately resigned to avoid impeachment, six Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee crossed party lines to recommend articles of impeachment.The 2020 presidential election outcome may validate the wisdom of impeachment — or notWhen Trump was impeached, some wondered if impeachment was going to become the new normal in American politics. Republicans warned that the bar for presidential impeachments had been lowered to the point where Congress could impeach a president over mere policy disagreements. The jury is still out on whether the proceeding against Trump will usher in a new era of perpetual partisan impeachment. A clue to how it plays out could come as early as the November U.S. presidential election, said Peter Shane, a constitutional law professor at Ohio State University. If Trump wins re-election, it could likely blunt congressional appetite for impeachment, he said. On the other hand, a Democratic victory could vindicate the House Democrats’ pushing for impeachment.”If it turns out that Democrats seem to do better in the fall because they’ve gone through this experience, maybe the lesson for future Houses of Representatives is, keep at it, even if you don’t get to remove the president,” Shane said. Trump’s acquittal raises the bar for abuse of power as an impeachable offenseU.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 25, 2019.The first of two articles of impeachment accused Trump of abuse of power in connection with his efforts to persuade the Ukrainian president to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.Republicans acquitted Trump of the charge because they believed the alleged abuse of power did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. Critics say that’s likely to raise the bar for just how serious an abuse a president has to commit in order to face impeachment.The balance of power has swung in favor of the executive branchSen. Angus King, I-Maine, departs the Senate following defense arguments by the Republicans in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, Jan. 25, 2020.The constitutional principle of separation of powers was front and center during the impeachment trial. Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine warned last week that acquitting Trump of obstruction could shift the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch. “It would be the largest transfer of power from Congress to the executive in the history of the country,” King warned.Designed to prevent the concentration of power in any one branch of government, separation of powers is “the reason America is such a free country,” the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once famously said. During the Senate trial, much of the debate over the second article of impeachment — obstruction of Congress and its oversight — revolved around separation of powers. While House impeachment prosecutors warned that acquitting the president of obstructing Congress would lead to an “imperial presidency,” the president’s lawyers insisted that it would undermine executive power.The extent to which the acquittal will affect the balance of power between Congress and the executive is an open question. In recent decades, the balance has swung in favor of the executive, as presidential powers on domestic and foreign affairs have steadily increased.The acquittal “will certainly increase the temptation for future presidents to resist congressional oversight in the way that Trump has because he will, in a sense, have gotten away with it,” Shane said. “It may be that other presidents will feel that intermixing their personal goals with national security goals … is OK.”In the long run, however, “what constrains this whole process is how the people in power think their political fortunes are going to be affected by the public at large,” Shane said.A trial without witnesses may have set precedentFor the first time in more than 200 years, the Senate conducted an impeachment trial without witnesses, despite a dogged Democratic push for testimony. Deriding the break with tradition as a mockery of justice, Democrats warned it would set a dangerous precedent. Republicans countered that they, too, did not wish to set a precedent of sorts by calling witnesses that the House should have summoned in the first place. A precedent has been nonetheless set, experts say, one that will likely influence how Congress in the future approaches impeachment proceedings.
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White House Official: China Should Join Nuclear Arms Talks With Russia
U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Wednesday that China should join the United States in trilateral arms talks with Russia. “The president believes that it shouldn’t just be the U.S. and Russia. We think that China is going to need to become involved in any serious arms control negotiation, so we’re going to work on those talks in the coming months and year,” Robert O’Brien said in Washington. He told a group of 50 foreign ambassadors that U.S. officials would travel to Beijing to discuss reducing the “existential” threats of nuclear war and nuclear proliferation. “The days of unilateral American disarmament are over,” O’Brien noted in remarks that focused on the Trump administration’s foreign policy. Trump last year said he discussed a new accord on limiting nuclear arms with Russian President Vladimir Putin and hoped to extend that to China, but Beijing has so far refused to take part. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last month that Russia would take part in potential trilateral talks but that he wouldn’t “force China to change” its position. Eye on Chinese buildupWhile highlighting great-power competition as the top priority of the Trump administration, Trump’s national security adviser said the U.S. was keeping a wary eye on China’s military buildup in the Pacific and Indian oceans. O’Brien also pointed to Putin’s huge investment in the Russian military and Moscow’s continuing military involvement in countries like Ukraine, Syria and Libya. In his speech Wednesday, he also stressed the need for Russian and Chinese help in the denuclearization of North Korea. “The Chinese have to enforce the sanctions against North Korea. They’ve got to stop ship-to-ship transfers. … We need the Chinese to assist us with pressuring the North Koreans to come to the table,” O’Brien said. The national security adviser expressed hope that North Korea would meet with the U.S. again in Sweden. Last October, working-level nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang broke down in Stockholm.
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Court Case of 47 Nigerian Men Charged Under Homosexuality Law Delayed Again
A closely-watched trial of 47 Nigerian men charged with public displays of affection with members of the same sex, seen as a test of a law criminalizing homosexuality, was delayed for a third time on Wednesday after a lead witness did not appear.Justice Rilwan Aikawa at the Lagos court warned prosecutors that the adjournment, to March 3, would be the last he granted them. The case was previously adjourned twice after the prosecution failed to produce witnesses.Homosexuality is outlawed in many socially conservative African societies where some religious groups brand it a corrupting Western import.On Tuesday, the prosecution opened its case by producing a police inspector witness who shared only his name, rank and that he knew the defendants from “anti-cultism” work.The lead witness was due to appear on Wednesday but Prosecutor Joseph Eboseremen said the witness had not received a court summons on time.The men, who face a 10-year jail term if convicted, were arrested in an August 2018 police raid on a Lagos hotel. Police said they were being “initiated” into a gay club, but the men said they were attending a birthday party.Police paraded the accused in front of journalists at a press conference held by the state police commissioner the day after the raid.The men pleaded not guilty to the charge last November, and said the prolonged case is causing financial and emotional distress.Onyeka Oghuaghamba, 43, one of the 47 men charged with public displays of affection with members of the same sex, speaks to the media at the Federal High Court in Lagos, Nigeria, Feb 5, 2020.”It’s affecting my life, it’s affecting my work,” defendant Onyeka Oghuaghamba, 43, told Reuters, adding: “I am not coping.”He said he had been forced to take out loans to support his four children and wife because the appearances forced him to skip his work as a long-haul driver. Still, he said he had faith in the court.”I want to prove that my hand is clean,” he said.The trial is a test case for a law banning gay marriage, punishable by a 14-year jail term, and same-sex “amorous relationships.”It caused international outcry when it came into force under former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014.Nobody has yet been convicted under the law, prosecution and defense lawyers in the case told Reuters.But Human Rights Watch and other activists say it has been used to extort bribes from suspects in exchange for not pursuing charges.
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Kenya Fighting to End Female Genital Mutilation by 2023
Despite Kenya’s banning of female genital mutilation in 2011, the tradition has continued in some ethnic communities. President Uhuru Kenyatta vowed to end FGM before 2023, seven years ahead of a U.N. deadline to stop the practice globally. Activists, however, say more needs to be done as millions of girls are still at risk of undergoing the cut. Rael Ombuor reports from Narok, Kenya.
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Report: Africa Delivers Largest Profits on Investment
British companies have made bigger profits investing in Africa than in any other region of the world, according to a new report from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), which urges firms to seek profits on the continent rather than seeing it as a place to do charitable work.With 1.2 billion people and eight of the world’s 15 fastest-growing economies, the ODI says Africa offers world-beating returns on investment.The report looks at investment by British firms in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Its authors say the “young population, growing middle class, and planned industrial growth make the continent a great place to do business.”In 2019, the rate of return on all inward foreign direct investment in developing African countries was 6.5 percent, higher than the rates in developing Latin America and the Caribbean at 6.2 percent, and also higher than the 6 percent return in developed economies.The report was published as Britain formally left the European Union on January 31. The government repeatedly has said its ambition is to create a “global Britain” with new trading partners beyond the European continent. As part of the effort to court new partners, London hosted the Britain-Africa Investment summit last week.Proactive approach neededRecent data from agency the International Trade Center show France and Germany export more than double the value of goods to Africa than Britain does. London must get proactive post-Brexit, according to Lourenço Sambo, director general of Mozambique’s Investment Promotion Center, who spoke to VOA on the sidelines of the summit.FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, center, visits the Pavegen stand, a company that converts footsteps into energy, at the Innovation Zone during the UK Africa Investment Summit in London, Jan. 20, 2020.”Nowadays, we very often say, ‘we are not just talking about Africa, we have to talk with Africa,’ Sambo said. “The UK [Britain] has to talk with Africa. If the UK just sits down, the vessel will go, that train will move.”Nigerian entrepreneur Samuel Onwubu said the days when foreign companies could dictate terms to Africa are gone.”UK companies need to come and work with the African business model,” he told VOA.British companies believe they have an edge against their rivals in the field of technology. The UK Space Agency is backing satellite firms that offer services to African farmers, such as PRISE, or Pest Risk Information Service.”It’s taking terabytes of satellite data and sending out text alerts to farmers, which can tell them when pests might become a problem in the future,” explained Chris Castelli, director of programs at the UK Space Agency.Investment in AfricaAfrican entrepreneurs are seeking investment in proprietary technology. Mobihealth is a mobile app that seeks to offer top-level health care access across Africa. Founder Funmi Adewara believes Britain’s expertise in finance could help.”Ninety percent of our doctors are from Western countries, 10 percent from the rest of Africa,” Adewara said. “They provide video consultation, prescriptions, diagnostic tests. We are looking here to connect with people who can help us to scale up our business and take this global.”The secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Mukhisa Kituyi, told VOA in a recent interview that African nations need to work harder to attract investment.”We need to develop this human resource as a contribution to the world’s economy, we need to create the conditions to make Africa the next factory of the world. Then you can say, can Britain step in, just like any other friend of Africa, and offer some of the solution?”Britain says it can offer solutions. Many analysts warn, however, that negotiations over its future relationship with Europe likely will dominate trade talks in the coming months and years.
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Malaysian Weight Loss Movement Tries to Combat Country’s Obesity Crisis
In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is dealing with an obesity crisis. The issue stems from unhealthy diets and inactive lifestyles. Dave Grunebaum has more on the problem and a program that’s helping people slim down.
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US Blacklists Bulgarian Judge Over Alleged Involvement In ‘Significant’ Corruption
The United States has imposed sanctions on a Bulgarian judge who the State Department says is involved in “significant” corruption in the Balkan country. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in a statement that he was blacklisting Specialized Criminal Court Judge Andon Mitalov because of his involvement in “corrupt acts that undermined the rule of law and severely compromised the independence of democratic institutions in Bulgaria.” The statement added that Mitalov’s wife, Kornelia Stoykova-Mitalova, and his daughter, Gergana Mitalova, were also given “special designation” status, which bars them from entering the United States. Ex-lawmaker’s award from PutinMitalov raised the ire of many within and outside Bulgaria when he allowed Nikolai Malinov, a former Bulgarian lawmaker who is charged with spying for Russia, to visit Moscow, where he received an award from President Vladimir Putin. “This is the first such designation in Bulgaria and reaffirms the U.S. commitment to combating corruption in Bulgaria and globally,” Pompeo said in the statement. “The United States continues to stand with the people of Bulgaria in their fight against corruption. The State Department will use these authorities to promote accountability for corrupt actors in this region and globally.” FILE – Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov arrives at a European Union leaders summit in Brussels, Dec. 14, 2018.The U.S. move came a day after Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said he was “withdrawing my confidence” in the government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, accusing it of failing to tackle endemic corruption. The country has experienced steady economic growth under Borisov, but his government has also been criticized for slow progress in the fight against corruption and a perceived f ailure to hold corrupt officials and businessmen accountable. ‘Acute crisis in governance'”This government and administration are leading to the collapse of the state and depriving us of our future as a nation,” Radev, a former air force commander, said in a live televised address. “Today we are witnessing an acute crisis in governance at all levels, a lack of will to reform and fight corruption.” The European Commission has also slammed Bulgaria over its record in the areas of rule of law and white-collar crime. Malinov has said Bulgarian prosecutors have been targeting him because he openly promotes stronger ties with Russia.
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Venezuelan Opposition Leader Visits Trump at White House
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido meets with U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday at the White House as Guaido tries to rekindle his campaign to depose President Nicolas Maduro.In a statement announcing Guaido’s visit, the White House said, “We will continue to work with our partners in the region to confront the illegitimate dictatorship in Venezuela, and will stand alongside the Venezuelan people to ensure a future that is democratic and prosperous.”Guaido’s visit to Washington comes at the end of a world tour that included visits with European and Canadian leaders in an attempt to revive his campaign after an unsuccessful uprising against Maduro last year.The United States and dozens of other countries recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president. Guaido was a guest at President Trump’s State of the Union speech in Washington Tuesday night.Maduro called for direct talks with the U.S. last month, describing them as a “win-win.” Maduro also suggested U.S. oil companies could benefit financially if the U.S. lifted sanctions against Venezuela, including the OPEC member’s state oil company, PDVSA.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet with Maduro Friday in Caracas in a show of support for the socialist leader.Russia has criticized the U.S. sanctions as illegal and harmful, while the Guaido-led opposition has urged Washington to increase pressure on Moscow for supporting Venezuela diplomatically, economically and militarily.Maduro won a second term in office in May 2018, and Guaido declared himself interim president eight months later.
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US Supports Activists’ Calls for Free, Fair Elections in Venezuela
The United States is calling for international sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his allies to pressure the government to hold free and fair elections this year.
The United States agrees with Venezuelan activists and opposition leaders that nothing except free and fair elections will end the country’s political crisis. Congressional elections are supposed to take place by the end of the year, but so far, no date has been set.Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido listens as President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 4, 2020.U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Andrew Bremberg says for elections to be credible, they must be open to all parties and candidates, and the independent media must be allowed unrestricted access to cover the event. He is calling on international partners to support opposition leader Juan Guaido.”We encourage partner nations to implement serious travel and financial sanctions against Maduro and his allies. We also ask our partners to call on Russia, Cuba and China to cease providing support to Maduro,” he said.Several Venezuelan parliamentarians in exile and other activists have come to the United Nations in Geneva to raise awareness of the plight of the Venezuelan people and to garner U.N. support for free and fair elections.Miguel Pizarro has been an elected member of Venezuela’s National Assembly since 2010. He was forced to flee the country to Italy last July after being convicted on false charges of conspiracy.He says the U.N. is not toothless. He says it can effect change and already has done so. He notes the U.N. human rights council has succeeded in putting the spotlight on the situation of abuse that exists in Venezuela. Pizarro says U.N. agencies have informed the world about the abysmal humanitarian conditions in the country, which have forced millions of people to flee as refugees. He tells VOA the United Nations has an important role to play both before and after an election.“If we won an election in Venezuela, we will need observation, multilateral observation, because an election is not only because we know for sure, the day we are able to vote is the last day of the regime in the power. And that will need a lot of international support to achieve the transition because it will not be an easy peace,” he said.Pizarro says he appreciates the important role played by the U.N. in regard to Venezuela’s humanitarian and refugee crisis. He says he would like to see the U.N. play a more active role in the political sphere.
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Senegal’s International Airport Defends Against Coronavirus
In Dakar, Senegal’s international airport is taking steps to prevent the coronavirus from entering the country after the first suspected case in Africa was flagged in January. But while the suspected case in Ivory Coast tested negative, Senegal’s Blaise Diagne Airport – West Africa’s busiest regional airport – is preparing just in case. Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.
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Virus Fallout Hits Lake Baikal as Chinese Tourists Stay Away
Winter is high season for tourism around Lake Baikal in Siberia, but the coronavirus outbreak has curtailed its main source of income: Chinese holidaymakers.They account for more than two-thirds of foreign tourists to the world’s largest freshwater lake, a significant part of the around two million Chinese who visited Russia last year, spending more than any other nation in its first three months.Russia has reported just two cases of the fast-spreading virus, but the flow of Chinese visitors to the lake has dwindled as Moscow and Beijing have imposed travel restrictions to stem its spread.”The number of Chinese tourists has fallen dramatically… There’s much less work now. Business is feeling it very badly,” said Anastasia Nikolayeva, a hotel waitress in Listvyanka, a small lakeside town in the Irkutsk region.Flanked by snow-capped hills and woodlands, Lake Baikal contains about one-fifth of the earth’s unfrozen freshwater reserves. It freezes in winter, offering an array of winter sports from skating, skiing, fishing to hovercrafting.That has helped turn it into a popular Chinese New Year destination. More than 49,000 Chinese visited Irkutsk alone in the first quarter of last year, up from 27,000 in the same period of 2017.A similar rush was expected this month after package tours sold out, but fallout from the coronavirus has left the resort’s wood-paneled chalet hotels largely empty. Restaurants have only a fraction of normal business.”It’s New Year in China and we normally have good tours from China in February… This year – just cancellations,” said Artyom Potashov, director of the Krestovaya hotel complex.Boosting what he calls Russia’s still untapped tourism potential is one of a series of targets mentioned in an economic stimulus package that President Vladimir Putin announced last year.Around one in 15 of the 30 million foreign tourists who visited Russia in 2019 were Chinese, so their role in that hoped-for expansion is a big one.But the coronavirus had nipped that in the bud, dealing a setback to the push to increase visitor flows and, for the time being, tour operators in Listvyanka can only guess how long the restrictions will stay in place.”The date when Chinese tourists will be allowed to travel is not yet clear, so we expect the bookings to be canceled at least until March 1,” Yekaterina Slivina, the head of Irkutsk’s state tourist agency said.
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Mainland China Reports New Coronavirus Deaths, Cases
The number of new cases and related deaths from the new coronavirus rose Wednesday in mainland China, Chinese health officials said, while the discovery of new cases outside the mainland indicated the increasing spread of the outbreak.However, despite its increasing detection in numerous countries, the World Health Organization said the outbreak of the new coronavirus has not yet reached the level of a pandemic. Dr. Sylvie Briand, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic diseases, told reporters in Geneva Tuesday the outbreak is at the phase “where it is an epidemic with multiple foci.”As of Wednesday, at least 490 people, the majority in mainland China, have died from the coronavirus since it was first detected in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, with the total number of confirmed infections exceeding 24,000. There are about 150 confirmed cases in 23 other countries, including one death in the Philippines — the first outside of China.The epidemic has also been detected on the high seas. Japanese officials said 10 people tested positive for the coronavirus on a cruise ship quarantined at the Japanese port of Yokohama. They said the more than 3,700 remaining passengers and crew will remain quarantined on board Carnival Japan’s Diamond Princess for further testing.The U.S. Department of Defense said about 350 Americans left Wuhan on Wednesday aboard two charter planes that are scheduled to land later in the day at two military bases in the U.S. western state of California.The U.S. State Department said it may schedule more flights to China on Thursday but did not provide additional information.Two U.S. based airlines on Wednesday announced plans to temporarily suspend flights to Hong Kong. American Airlines and United Airlines said they were halting flights there through February 20.Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks during a press conference held in Hong Kong, Feb. 5, 2020. Hong Kong
Meanwhile, medical workers in Hong Kong staged a second consecutive day of strikes Tuesday as the Chinese territory reported its first death from the coronavirus. Hong Kong shut down nearly all land and sea border crossings with the mainland at midnight local time after more than 2,000 medical workers walked off the job Monday demanding that all border crossings be closed completely. Hong Kong was hit hard by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002-03.Hong Kong health authorities identified the victim as a 39-year-old male with a pre-existing illness who had recently visited Wuhan. Also Tuesday, the Chinese gambling territory of Macau said it will temporarily shut down all casino operations for two weeks to help curb the spread of the virus. Link to bats
A new study published Monday in the journal Nature said experts from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which specializes in the study of viruses, say the new virus is 96% genetically identical to one found in bats in southern China’s Yunnan province.The study said the new coronavirus is 80% genetically similar to the SARS virus that killed more than 800 people in 2002 and 2003.Chinese officials do not know exactly how the virus could have been transmitted from animals to people, but believe open-air markets in China, where wild and domesticated animals are sold, may be a contributor.WHO said it expects the number of cases to grow as test results are returned on thousands of pending cases.Chinese authorities have tried to stop the spread by instituting bans on movement in certain regions, and extending holidays to keep people away from schools and other large gatherings.Travel bans irk Beijing
Beijing, however, is upset that a number of countries are restricting travelers from China from crossing their borders.Government spokeswoman Hua Chunying accused the United States of spreading fear and not offering any substantial assistance in response to the outbreak.She said Washington has “unceasingly manufactured and spread panic,” noting that the WHO has advised against travel restrictions.U.S. President Donald Trump has offered to send experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to China, but Beijing has yet to accept the offer of help.The United States began mandatory 14-day quarantines Sunday for U.S. citizens who had been in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital. But non-U.S. citizens who have been in China over the past two weeks are barred. Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said Monday the United States is already prepared to provide housing for up to 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined. He also said the United States is “always planning for eventualities and how we may be asked by civilian partners to assist.”
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Adidas Closes ‘Considerable’ Number of Stores in China Due to Coronavirus
German sportswear company Adidas on Wednesday said it was temporarily shutting a “considerable” number of its stores in China due to the coronavirus outbreak which has killed nearly 500 people and infected thousands.The company said the fast-spreading virus was having a negative impact on its business but added that it could not yet assess to what extent.Adidas has around 12,000 outlets in China, including franchise stores.Adidas saw sales growth slow to 11% in China in the July-September period from 14% in the second quarter.Several retailers have warned that coronavirus is taking its toll, including Nike Inc and Hugo Boss, which have both closed some stores in China.Adidas’s German rival Puma on Wednesday declined to comment on whether coronavirus has hit its business in China.
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Tunisia’s Next Government Must be Broad-Based, says Leader of Biggest Party
Tunisia’s new government must be broad-based to implement sorely needed reforms, the leader of the largest party in parliament said on Wednesday, in comments that signaled the country could face a snap election.
Tunisian politicians have been struggling to build a new government since an inconclusive election last October. Tunisia also faces pressing economic problems, nine years after the overthrow of veteran autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
Prime Minister-designate Elyes Fakhfakh wants to exclude from his proposed coalition the second biggest party in parliament, the secularist Heart of Tunisia, saying it is not aligned with the values of the uprising that toppled Ben Ali.
But the leader of the biggest party, the moderate Islamist Ennahda, said parliament would not back such a government.
“If the prime minister-designate excludes the Heart of Tunisia party, the government will not… gain the confidence of parliament,” said Rached Ghannouchi, who is also the speaker of parliament.
“Ennahda wants a unity government that does not exclude any party because the next government needs wide partisan support to implement urgent reforms,” he said.
Ennahda has been the most consistently powerful force in Tunisian politics since the 2011 revolution that introduced democracy, playing a major part in successive governments and coming first in several elections.
However, its vote share and number of seats declined in the October election and its efforts to shape a new governing coalition came to nothing last month.
Fakhfakh, a former finance minister, was nominated by Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, an independent.
Ghannouchi said on Wednesday the choice of Fakhfakh was not the best. He also criticized the president for not taking part in a conference in Berlin on Libya’s future or in the annual gathering of global business leaders in Davos.
Analysts said the comments suggest Ennahda fears that Saied will replace the party as the most influential actor in Tunisian politics. Saied won last year’s presidential election with a low-key campaign that stressed his personal integrity at a time of public anger over perceived corruption among politicians.
If Fakhfakh is unable to forge a new government, Tunisia will have to hold another parliamentary election, further delaying efforts to tackle the country’s economic problems.
Unemployment stands at more than 15% nationally, and is as high as 30% in some cities, while inflation is high, the currency is weak and successive governments have struggled to rein in high fiscal deficits and control the public debt.
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China Criticizes Australia’s Coronavirus Travel Ban
The Chinese embassy in Canberra has criticized Australia’s coronavirus travel ban. It is preventing entry to all foreigners traveling from mainland China for at least two weeks. An eight-year-old boy in Queensland state has become the 13th confirmed Australian case of the disease. Two Australians are among the 10 people who have tested positive for the virus onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan.Officers in protective gear escort a person (under the blue sheet) who was on board cruise ship Diamond Princess and was tested positive for coronavirus, in Yokohama, south of Tokyo in this photo taken by Kyodo, Feb. 4, 2020.More than 100,000 Chinese students will not be able to start their university and college courses in Australia because of the travel ban put in place to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus. They will miss the opening weeks of classes for this semester, and will have to study online back home instead. The restrictions saw about 70 Chinese students detained at Australian airports at the weekend and their visas cancelled.Chinese diplomats say travelers were not given enough warning of the ban, with many already in the air when the ban came into effect on February 1.Wang Xining is the deputy head of mission at the Chinese embassy in Canberra.“We are not happy about the situation because they were not alerted. There is not enough time to be alerted about the restriction,” said Wang.Education for international students is Australia’s third largest export, and officials hope the ban is lifted soon. That depends on when the global spread of the coronavirus can be slowed, and eventually stopped.Dozens of Australians airlifted from the virus epicenter in Wuhan, China, remain in quarantine on the Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island.A general view of the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre, where Australian citizens and residents flown out of Wuhan, Hubei province, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, will spend 14 days in quarantine, Feb. 4, 2020.A group of New Zealanders, and other foreign nationals, including those from Britain, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Samoa, have also been flown out of Wuhan on a 12-hour flight to Auckland, where they will be put into isolation for two weeks.The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus outbreak a global emergency.Mild cases of the virus can cause cold-like symptoms, while severe infections can cause pneumonia, kidney failure and death.
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