The woman tapped to lead the United States intelligence agencies following four years under President Donald Trump is telling lawmakers her first task will be to restore trust, both with the American people and Washington’s key allies. Avril Haines, a former deputy director of at the Central Intelligence Agency and a former White House aide, called reestablishing confidence in the U.S. intelligence community “perhaps the greatest challenge” facing the country’s next top intelligence official, adding it is one she is prepared to take on. “To be effective, the DNI (director of national intelligence) must never shy away from speaking truth to power. Ever. Especially when doing so may be inconvenient or difficult,” Haines told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. “The DNI must insist that when it comes to intelligence, there must be no place for politics. Ever,” she said, adding she believes it is also what President-elect Joe Biden “will expect from us.” “He will want to know what information we have that actually conflicts with his policy positions.” Haines also said that while some of her most pressing priorities involve looking inward, the new Biden administration will also need to face down a combination of traditional and evolving threats. Evolving threats to US Among state actors, she said, countering China will be a prime objective. “Our approach to China has to evolve and essentially meet the reality of the particularly assertive and aggressive China that we see today,” Haines told lawmakers, suggesting Washington must adopt “an aggressive stance.”  Questioned about a possible return by the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Haines urged caution. “Frankly, we’re a long ways from that,” she said, adding Tehran should never be allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal. #Iran – “I don’t believe Iran should ever be allowed to get a nuclear weapon” DNI nominee Haines tells @JohnCornyn— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) January 19, 2021“Iran is a threat and a destabilizing actor in the region,” Haines said, noting concerns about the regime’s support of proxy actor and terror groups, as well as its advancing ballistic missile program. “This is an issue that we need to focus in on,” she said. Haines said other top threats include fallout from global climate change, cyberattacks, terrorism, corruption and disinformation campaigns, including those being waged by Russia and China. And she promised that if confirmed, she would put the weight of U.S. intelligence agencies behind the effort to battle the coronavirus pandemic, “while also addressing the long-term challenge of future biological crises.” Restoring trust in US intelligence Repeatedly, Haines’s testimony returned to the theme of restoring trust and confidence in the U.S. intelligence agencies, which for the past four years have endured an uneasy relationship with the outgoing president. Time and again, Trump clashed with U.S. intelligence officials over their assessments, starting with their unclassified assessment that Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin ultimately used a variety of influence operations in an attempt to help Trump emerge victorious in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The developing animosity even carried over into public spats between Trump and his own intelligence officials; at one point, he rebuked them on social media by saying they “should go back to school!” More from @POTUS on his intel chiefs and #Iran: “Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!” pic.twitter.com/mFKUaGOaiE— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) January 30, 2019More recently, critics have lashed out at Trump for appointing people they see as political partisans to key intelligence roles, a list that includes former acting DNI Richard Grennell, who had also served as ambassador to Germany, and current DNI John Ratcliffe, a former member of Congress. In an apparent rebuke to Trump, Dan Coats, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, appeared Tuesday on Capitol Hill to personally introduce Haines, calling her an “exceptional choice” to lead the U.S. intelligence apparatus. “Given the recent state of affairs in regard to the role and integrity of the intelligence community, Avril has a clear … recognition of the most needed responsibilities for the next director,” Coats told the panel. “Most important to me, as a former director of national intelligence, is her commitment to bringing nonpoliticized truth to power and restoring trust and confidence in the intelligence community and the American public.” Biden, who announced his decision to nominate Haines to the top intelligence role in November, described her at the time as a “fierce advocate of telling the truth.” Avril Haines as leader of @ODNIgov – “I picked a professional” per @JoeBiden “She’s eminently qualified…and a fierce advocate of telling the truth””People will be able to take her word because she always calls it as she sees it”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 24, 2020In addition to Coats, other former U.S. intelligence officials have praised Biden’s selection of Haines for the key intelligence role.  “Her professionalism and competence will play well with our allies and partners overseas that rely on a robust — if secret — relationship with the intelligence community,” said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the CIA who once ran the spy agency’s Russia operations and a frequent Trump critic. “She will be a far better steward of the intelligence community than patently partisan and unqualified people that Trump has put in the DNI position,” he added. Following Tuesday’s hearing, the incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, praised Haines. “I urge the Senate to confirm her without any unnecessary delay,” Warner said in a statement. Lawmakers indicated a vote is unlikely to come before Thursday at the earliest. 
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In the final hours of the President Donald Trump’s administration, the United States Tuesday formally labeled the Chinese government’s policies targeting ethnic Uighur Muslims and other minorities in the northwest region of Xinjiang as “genocide.”“After careful examination of the available facts, I have determined that the PRC [People’s Republic of China], under the direction and control of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement Tuesday.  
 
The United States has for years criticized China’s detention and reeducation policies in Xinjiang but has held off formally declaring the policies as a genocide.  
 
Reports from non-government organizations, journalists and former detainees have documented a wide-ranging campaign of repression against Uighurs. The United Nations estimated at least one million Muslim Uighurs are held in internment camps.Chinese officials describe them as “vocational education centers” for job training, rejecting any claim that authorities are engaged in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.FILE – Residents line up inside a vocational training center in Artux, in western China’s Xinjiang region, Dec. 3, 2018. Critics say China uses some of these facilities as detention camps for forced labor.Now, senior U.S. officials say the determination will trigger new reviews and visa issues for entry into the United States. It may also expand the number of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials who have been targeted for visa sanctions and financial sanctions for taking part in the human rights abuses in the region. 
The U.S. could also prosecute Chinese officials linked to the genocide in U.S. courts, or bring the issue of oppression against Uighurs before the United Nations Security Council and other human rights bodies.  
 
The U.S. government formally declared China’s repression of Uighurs as genocide only after a broad review of evidence. In recent years, the U.S. government issued genocide determinations for atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2004 and the Islamic State terror group’s targeted killings of ethnic Yazidis in Iraq and Syria in 2016.
 
U.S. officials said exhaustive documentation of the PRC’s actions in Xinjiang confirms that since at least March 2017, local authorities dramatically escalated their decades-long campaign of repression against Uighur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups, including ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Kyrgyz.
 
Tuesday’s determination comes just one day before the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has been critical of Beijing’s Xinjiang policies, is set to take office.”The forced detention of over a million Uighur Muslims in western China is unconscionable. America should speak out against the internment camps in Xinjiang and hold to account the people and companies complicit in this appalling oppression,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations in 2019. 
 
Last year, a Biden campaign spokesperson declared the Chinese action against Muslims in the Xinjiang region as “genocide.”“The unspeakable oppression that Uighurs and other ethnic minorities have suffered at the hands of China’s authoritarian government is genocide and Joe Biden stands against it in the strongest terms,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Politico in a statement.FILE – Ethnic Uighur women are seen during a protest against China near the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Dec. 15, 2019.Refugees International President Eric Schwartz welcomed Pompeo’s statement designating China’s treatment of Uighurs as genocide.
 
“As reflected in numerous reports by journalists and scholars, the evidence of genocide is significant and substantial. The secretary’s statement underscores the importance of appropriate international investigations and prosecutions of officials for the crime of genocide in Xinjiang,” he said in a statement.
 
But Schwartz also questioned why Pompeo has “declined to make a similar finding of genocide against the state of Myanmar for its vicious mass attacks against the Rohingya population beginning in August 2017.”
 
Republican Senator Ben Sasse said the determination is “good and right,” but “late,” and called the Chinese Communist Party a “genocidal dictatorship.”
 
“The United States has an obligation to meet this challenge head on and take the side of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang who are raped and tortured,” Sasse said in a statement.
 
The latest move follows a recent U.S. ban on cotton and tomato-based imports from Xinjiang over concerns of slave labor. Last week, Canada joined Britain in announcing steps to ban the import of goods from Xinjiang over concerns of forced labor and other human rights abuses. 
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President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be his assistant secretary of health, leaving her poised to become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.  
A pediatrician and former Pennsylvania physician general, Levine was appointed to her current post by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in 2017, making her one of the few transgender people serving in elected or appointed positions nationwide. She won past confirmation by the Republican-majority Pennsylvania Senate and has emerged as the public face of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.  
“Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,” Biden said in a statement. “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration’s health efforts.”
A graduate of Harvard and of Tulane Medical School, Levine is president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. She’s written in the past on the opioid crisis, medical marijuana, adolescent medicine, eating disorders and LGBTQ medicine.
Biden and his transition team have already begun negotiating with members of Congress, promoting speedy passage of the president-elect’s $1.9 trillion plan to bring the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 400,000 people in the United States, under control. It seeks to enlist federal emergency personnel to run mass vaccination centers and provide 100 immunization shots in his administration’s first 100 days while using government spending to stimulate the pandemic-hammered economy,  
Biden also says that, in one of his first acts as president, he’ll ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days to slow the virus’ spread.  
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris called Levine “a remarkable public servant with the knowledge and experience to help us contain this pandemic, and protect and improve the health and well-being of the American people.”
Levine joins Biden’s Health and Human Services secretary nominee Xavier Becerra, a Latino politician who rose from humble beginnings to serve in Congress and as California’s attorney general.  
Businessman Jeff Zients is Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, while Biden picked infectious-disease specialist Rochelle Walensky to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vivek Murthy as surgeon general and Yale epidemiologist Marcella Nunez-Smith to head a working group to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines and treatments.  
The government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, will also work closely with the Biden administration.
A transition spokesperson also said Tuesday that Dawn O’Connell will serve as senior counselor for coronavirus response to the health and human services secretary. O’Connell most recently served as director of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and was the senior counselor and deputy chief of staff to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell during the Obama administration.
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A military helicopter search team in Pakistan has found the body of a Russian-American man, who disappeared Saturday, while attempting to climb a mountain in the country’s north. 
Organizers Tuesday said Alex Goldfarb disappeared as he and his Hungarian teammate, Zoltan Szlanko, were scaling an “easy trekking peak” before “launching a fast, Alpine-style ascent” of Broad Peak, the world’s 12th highest mountain at 8,047 meters in the Karakoram range.
 
Goldfarb pressed ahead alone when Szlanko, an experienced climbing instructor and mountaineer, failed to persuade him to turn back amid “too dangerous” winter conditions.
 
“The helicopter search mission has found his body on Pastore Peak, where he is presumed to have fallen off the mountain,” said Laszlo Pinter, spokesman for the Broad Peak Winter Expedition 2021.
 
“We are deeply saddened to have lost our climbing partner and friend,” Pinter said in a statement.
 
Karrar Haidri, a spokesman for the Alpine Club of Pakistan, said the army located and retrieved Goldfarb’s body after a day-long search on Monday.The body of Russian-American mountaineer Alex Goldfarb, who went missing on the Pastore Peak 6209-M, was found by a team of Pakistan Army Aviation.May God give him eternal rest and the family the strength to bear the great pain. Rest in Peace Alex!! Karrar Haidri SecretaryACP pic.twitter.com/yeWECtcmK5— Karrar Haidri (@KarrarHaidri) January 19, 2021 
“Alex is a man who never gives up. He moved to America just after the crumble of the Soviet regime to begin working illegally in a plastic factory and selling his plasma for cash. In just over a decade, he earned 2 PhD’s and was a Professor of Medicine at Harvard,” wrote Levi Goldfarb, the son of the mountaineer, in an obituary about his father. 
The past week has been both pleasant and painful for the climbing community across the globe.
 
On Saturday, 10 Nepalese climbers made history, when they became the first in winter to conquer Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second-tallest mountain at 8,611 meters. 
Later the same day, organizers reported the death of 49-year-old renowned Spanish climber Sergi Mingote, who fell more than 500 meters while descending K2.K2 is known as the “Savage Mountain” among climbers because summit winds reach hurricane force and still-air temperatures are well below -65 degrees Celsius.
 
Located in the Karakoram range along the Chinese border, K2 was the last of the world’s 14 tallest mountains higher than 8,000 meters to be climbed in winter until this past Saturday.
 
International climbers visit northern Pakistan every year to scale peaks. This winter, however, more than 50 mountaineers converged on K2, which is about 200 meters shorter than Nepal’s Mount Everest, which is the world’s tallest peak and part of the Himalayan range.
 
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