Ugandan soldiers entered the home of opposition leader Bobi Wine on Friday, after he said Thursday’s presidential election was marred by widespread fraud. Wine claimed victory and declared himself president-elect, even as early results showed longtime leader Yoweri Museveni ahead 65 to 28 percent. The military moved in just hours after Wine said he would reject final election results – even before they were in — due to what he called the worst fraud in Uganda’s election history. We are under siege. The military has jumped over the fence and has now taken control of our home— BOBI WINE (@HEBobiwine) Election officials count the ballots after polls closed in Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 14, 2021.Wine declared himself president-elect over Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, despite early results from Uganda’s Electoral Commission showing the president with a strong lead over his challenger. “I am very confident that we defeated the dictator by far,” Wine told reporters. “I call upon all Ugandans to reject the blackmail. General Museveni and his small click of oppressors are trying yet again to impose themselves on the people of Uganda.”If authorities had nothing to hide, asked Wine, why did they impose an Internet blackout since Wednesday? “We do not want to deal with speculation and allegations,” Uganda Electoral Commission spokesman Paul Bukenya said, responding to Wine’s allegations. “We’ve not declared the final results and they are already being challenged. So, I think let’s continue with what we are doing and if someone has an issue with them, they can challenge them.”Spokesman for Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement party Emmanuel Dombo said the president’s lead was no surprise.“Given our old track record, we are not surprised that people have continued to trust us. But we didn’t know we would be this overwhelming. And we are grateful to the population for demonstrating that they still love the old man in the hut.”Security forces patrol the streets of Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 14, 2021.If 76-year-old Museveni is declared the winner over Wine, who is half his age, he would enter a sixth, five-year term as president. But it’s not necessarily his last. Uganda removed term limits in 2005. Ahead of the election, U.N. rights officials warned the elections were unlikely to be free and fair due to violence, rights violations, and restrictions on opposition candidates and supporters.
The U.S. Embassy in Uganda declined to observe the election after authorities denied more than 75 percent of their accreditation requests. Sadly, I announce 🇺🇸 decision not to observe #Uganda’s elections due to @UgandaEC’s decision to deny more than 75% of our accreditation requests (see https://t.co/QmNqFHQFmg). A robust contingent of observers, including local entities, promotes transparency & accountability. pic.twitter.com/66nV9M52mU— U.S. Ambassador to Uganda (@USAmbUganda) January 13, 2021
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Month: January 2021
US Vice President Makes Unscheduled Visit to Troops Guarding Capitol
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence made an unscheduled visit to the U.S. Capitol late Thursday and thanked military troops guarding the facility for their service.
Pence talked to several soldiers and thanked them as a group for “stepping forward to provide security at our nation’s Capitol at such an important time in the life of our nation.” He told the soldiers it had been his great honor to serve as their vice president.
Several thousand National Guard troops have been stationed at the Capitol grounds since supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump stormed the building January 6 in an apparent effort to stop the Electoral College certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
Vice President Pence said he expects at least 20,000 total troops will be guarding the Capitol, along with other federal law enforcement agencies by the time Biden is sworn into office on January 20.“We’re going to deliver to the American people a safe inauguration, we’re going to swear in a new president, a new vice president, we’re going to move our nation forward,” he told the National Guard members Thursday. It was Pence’s first visit to the Capitol since the riot. Pence was presiding over the certification process inside the Senate at the time of the siege and was forced to move to a safe location, unable to leave the Capitol until it was determined safe to do so.
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Rare South Sudan Soldiers’ Rape Conviction Raises Hopes for Justice
First, the soldiers stole their belongings. Then they took their food. On their third and final visit, the woman said, the soldiers raped her and her daughter-in-law until they were unable to walk.
What sets these assaults in South Sudan apart from many other rapes by soldiers in the troubled country is this: The women brought the men to court and won.
Ten years after South Sudan gained its independence and two years after its own deadly civil war ended, large-scale fighting has subsided, but clashes continue between communities and between the government and groups that did not sign the peace deal — and the use of rape as a weapon remains rampant. Justice is exceedingly rare, but the September conviction has raised hopes that such crimes will increasingly be prosecuted.
“I was traumatized,” the older of the two women, a 48-year-old mother of eight, told The Associated Press in Yei, a town in the southern state of Central Equatoria where she now lives. The AP does not typically identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they grant permission, and the woman said she continues to fear for her safety and is too afraid, for instance, to return to her home village of Adio.
She said she has found some solace in seeing her two attackers convicted and sent to prison after she reported the rape in May to South Sudan’s army chief when he visited her village. A new army chief of staff, responding to growing frustration with such crimes, sent military judges from the capital, Juba, to oversee the case and those of 10 other women and girls who also came forward.
In the end, 26 soldiers were convicted, some for rape but others for offenses including looting. It was the first time soldiers had been convicted of rape since the 2016 rampage at the Terrain Hotel, where five international aid workers were gang-raped, and a local journalist was killed.
The army hopes the trial will be a warning to its troops.
“We apologize, we won’t let it happen again, and we’ll arrest people who do it,” said Michael Machar Malual, head of civilian-military relations for the army in Central Equatoria state. A government spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The woman hopes the verdict will encourage more survivors to speak up in a country where sexual assault is a scourge.
Some 65% of women and girls in South Sudan have experienced sexual or other physical violence, the United Nations children’s agency said in 2019.
Between July and September, the U.N. reported an 88% increase in conflict-related sexual violence from the previous quarter even as overall violence dropped. It said there were more than 260 “violent incidents” in total during the period, but it did not specify how many involved sexual violence.
The villages around Yei have been hit hard as fighting continues between government forces and the National Salvation Front, which did not sign the peace deal.
Civilians say they are caught in the middle, with women often accused by soldiers of supporting the rebels — and assaulted — especially if their husbands aren’t around.
In February, three women and a 14-year-old girl were raped by soldiers about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Yei, according to a report by the independent body charged with overseeing the implementation of the peace deal. One woman was gang-raped while held at gunpoint, the report said.
When the AP visited Yei in December, civilians and soldiers said the situation was improving and there had been fewer reports of sexual violence since the trial. The once-bustling town and nearby villages are slowly returning to life after the war.
Yet some residents said they feel as unsafe as ever. A group of women walking home from the market said they hide their food in the bushes, worried that hungry soldiers will steal it from their homes. An economic crisis in South Sudan fueled by a drop in oil prices and the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic means soldiers haven’t been paid in months — and experts are warning of famine.
Rights groups have hailed the recent case as important — but only a first step — and are pushing the government for more accountability.
“This should be a lesson for those with power, especially those with guns, to know that they are not above the law,” said Riya William Yuyada, executive director of Crown the Woman South Sudan, an advocacy group that has pressed the government for accountability.
A hybrid court is meant to be established as part of the peace deal to try people accused of committing wartime atrocities, but implementation is slow. Nyagoah Tut Pur, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, noted that those convicted of such crimes are often lower-level officers, and senior leaders should be held responsible. She added that accountability must also include compensation and services for survivors.
Some women brutalized by soldiers have taken matters into their own hands.
In 2017, Mary Poni said she watched soldiers decapitate her father and gang-rape three of her sisters until they died, before she was assaulted herself. She has written a book about her experience in the hope that it will be a small step toward reconciliation in her country.
“I want the civilian population to be confident in the army, and the army to be able to protect our women and girls,” Poni said. “Women are living in silent fear, not able to open up about things they went through.”
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Young Poet Amanda Gorman to Read at Biden Inaugural
At age 22, poet Amanda Gorman, chosen to read at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, already has a history of writing for official occasions.
“I have kind of stumbled upon this genre. It’s been something I find a lot of emotional reward in, writing something I can make people feel touched by, even if it’s just for a night,” says Gorman. The Los Angeles resident has written for everything from a July 4 celebration featuring the Boston Pops Orchestra to the inauguration at Harvard University, her alma mater, of school president Larry Bacow.
When she reads next Wednesday, she will be continuing a tradition — for Democratic presidents — that includes such celebrated poets as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.
The latter’s “On the Pulse of Morning,” written for the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton, went on to sell more than 1 million copies when published in book form. Recent readers include poets Elizabeth Alexander and Richard Blanco, both of whom Gorman has been in touch with.
“The three of us are together in mind, body and spirit,” she says.
Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in memory, and she has made news before. In 2014, she was named the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, and three years later she became the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate. She has appeared on MTV; written a tribute to Black athletes for Nike; published her first book, “The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough,” as a teenager, and has a two-book deal with Viking Children’s Books. The first work, the picture book “Change Sings,” comes out later this year.
Gorman says she was contacted late last month by the Biden inaugural committee. She has known numerous public figures, including former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former first lady Michelle Obama, but says she will be meeting the Bidens for the first time. The Bidens, apparently, have been aware of her: Gorman says the inaugural officials told her she had been recommended by the incoming first lady, Jill Biden.
She is calling her inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb” while otherwise declining to preview any lines. Gorman says she was not given specific instructions on what to write, but was encouraged to emphasize unity and hope over “denigrating anyone” or declaring “ding, dong, the witch is dead” over the departure of President Donald Trump.
The siege last week of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election was a challenge for keeping a positive tone, but also an inspiration. Gorman says that she has been given 5 minutes to read, and before what she described during an interview as “the Confederate insurrection” of Jan. 6 she had only written about 3 1-2 minutes worth.
The final length runs to about 6 minutes.
“That day gave me a second wave of energy to finish the poem,” says Gorman, adding that she will not refer directly to Jan. 6, but will “touch” upon it. She said last week’s events did not upend the poem she had been working on because they didn’t surprise her.
“The poem isn’t blind,” she says. “It isn’t turning your back to the evidence of discord and division.”
In other writings, Gorman has honored her ancestors, acknowledged and reveled in her own vulnerability (“Glorious in my fragmentation,” she has written) and confronted social issues. Her poem “In This Place (An American Lyric),” written for the 2017 inaugural reading of U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, condemns the racist march in Charlottesville, Virginia (“tiki torches string a ring of flame”) and holds up her art form as a force for democracy.
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At Least 34 Dead After Strong Earthquake Hits Indonesia
A strong earthquake with a magnitude 6.2 hit Indonesia’s Sulawesi island Friday, killing at least 34 people, destroying residential and commercial buildings and triggering landslides, local authorities said.More than 600 people were injured, and many others were trapped in the rubble of collapsed homes and other buildings, Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency said in a statement.The earthquake, with an epicenter 36 kilometers south of West Sulawesi province’s Mamuju district and at a depth of 18 kilometers struck at 2:18 am local time, the U.S. Geological Survey said.Rescue teams were searching for more than a dozen patients and staff trapped in the rubble of a flattened Mamuju hospital.Landslides occurred in three locations and blocked a main road connecting Mamuju to the Majene district, a spokesperson for the disaster agency said.The Indonesian Red Cross announced its rescue teams were searching for survivors in the rubble and providing first aid.
“This is a most tragic earthquake and our specialist teams have been working through the night to help people amid the rubble,” adding that “these hours are critical for saving lives,” Sudirman Said, the organization’s secretary general said.On Thursday, a 5.9-magnitude undersea quake struck the same region, damaging several homes but no casualties.Earthquakes, volcanos and tsunamis are common in Indonesia due to its location on the “Ring of Fire,” which is one of the world’s most seismically active areas.In 2018, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami that followed in Palu on Sulawesi killed more than 4,000 people.In December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in Indian Ocean and triggered a tsunami that killed about 230,000 people in the region, most of them in Indonesia.
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Expansion of Naval Base Seen Giving China More Power in Disputed Asian Sea
China’s People’s Liberation Army has expanded a navy base on the South China Sea, giving its fleet more clout in a strategic waterway disputed by five other countries and watched closely by Washington, security analysts say.Over at least the past year, China’s navy expanded Yulin Naval Base on the island province of Hainan from a conventional submarine facility into a bay that berths nuclear submarines, military news database GlobalSecurity.org said. Four trestles for submarines, each 229 meters long, can accommodate 16 submarines, it says. Aircraft carriers and remote-sensing equipment are also expected to be based at or near Yulin, the site and other analysts say.“It’s going to be kind of a future-oriented construction,” said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Taiwan’s Tamkang University. “It takes time. It looks like they have all the hardware, all the construction ready, and it’s still going on.”Expansion of the base increases Chinese access to the contested South China Sea, where its coast guard and navy already move through waters claimed by the other countries, analysts believe.The base, on the north end of the sea, places ships near the tiny Chinese-held islets in the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, where the navy can conduct exercises and monitor movements by other countries, analysts believe.“That’s the hub, that’s the base of the south sea fleet, that’s what ultimately controls all the deployments in the Paracels and the Spratlys and it’s where most of the assets that you eventually see out there on the islands start out,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.China cannot easily station vessels permanently on the islets because of rough seas and distance from the Chinese mainland, he said.Wider disputeBeijing claims about 90% of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea, a claim based on what it says are historic usage records. China has used technological and military superiority over the other claimants to develop and occupy some of the islets.Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam contest some or all of China’s claims to the sea that is coveted for fisheries, oil and gas.Last year a Chinese coast guard vessel sank a Vietnamese fishing boat, and a Malaysian ship shadowed a Chinese coast guard vessel. Indonesia, while it does not claim any disputed islets, chased a Chinese coast guard vessel out of the southernmost part of the South China Sea. Indonesia and Vietnam filed notes to the United Nations on the incidents. China held military exercises in the sea in September and November.Washington makes no claim but looks to Southeast Asia and Taiwan to help check Chinese military expansion around Asia. Growth of the Yulin base fits with a broader, 30-year Chinese naval modernization, Poling said.China controls the 130 Paracel islands 340 kilometers southeast of Hainan province and spars there occasionally with Vietnam. One feature, Woody Island, has an airport, hangars and a civilian population of about 1,400. Three Spratly islets support Chinese airports and hangars.The Yulin Naval Base would be the “jumping off point” for the more distant outposts, said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.“We have not yet seen a real permanent deployment, so that only means those forward bases and those further rearwards, such as those in Hainan, will increasingly become more important staging grounds,” Koh said.Navy base improvementsThe Yulin Navy Base, also home to a destroyer fleet, belongs to a wider southern naval command center established in 1951.A base in Hainan province has been “massively improved” over the past year, the U.S. Naval Institute’s news website said in December, without naming Yulin specifically but calling the site connected to the South China Sea. It particularly noted efforts to “strengthen” an aircraft carrier base in the same province.Yulin appears to be especially designed for future aircraft carriers, up to two per dock, Huang said. China’s first homegrown aircraft carrier, the Shandong, will serve the southern command region, “focusing on the South China Sea,” the Chinese state-supervised Global Times said in October. It entered the navy early last year.The South China Sea off Yulin Navy Base averages a depth of 1,000 meters, ideal for submarine activity, GlobalSecurity.org says. Nuclear submarines can travel faster than conventional subs and surface less often.Yulin further supports advanced sensing equipment to process information sent back from the contested sea, Poling said. It’s the “eyes and ears” for China’s holdings there, he said.
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At Military Parade, North Korea Shows New Submarine-Launched Missile
North Korea has unveiled what it says is a new submarine-launched ballistic missile, the latest apparent development in its fast-advancing weapons program.Several of the SLBMs rolled through Pyongyang’s central Kim Il Sung Square during a nighttime military parade, state media said Friday.Using typically flowery language, the state-run Korean Central News Agency called the missile the “world’s most powerful weapon.” North Korea also showed off a new short-range missile during the parade.Wearing a shiny black leather jacket and fur hat, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the Thursday event, which marked the end of a major multiday meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party.It is North Korea’s second military parade in about three months. At an October parade, North Korea showed off its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, which appears designed to overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.The parades are a reminder that Pyongyang continues to develop new nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities despite economic hardships brought on by the coronavirus and international sanctions.Submarine-launched missiles would add an unpredictable component to North Korea’s arsenal. They are mobile, potentially increasing the range of North Korea’s ballistic missile arsenal. They are also easier to hide.Analysts say the new SLBM, labeled Pukguksong-5, appears bigger but looks similar to the Pukguksong-4, which was unveiled at the October parade. But some caution the latest missile may still be under development.“The appearances (of the two missiles) have few differences, so it is highly likely a mock-up — not the real missile,” said Kim Dong Yub, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, in a Facebook post.The rapid development of SLBM technology is puzzling to some defense experts, who point out North Korea does not currently have a functional submarine capable of shooting ballistic missiles while submerged.“The only thing that makes sense to me is that these developments are setting the stage for a solid fuel ICBM. To me that has to be the end game here,” tweeted Vipin Narang, a nuclear specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Kim has promised to develop an ICBM using solid fuel, which would make it more easily transportable and take less time to prepare for launch.The North’s Pukguksong family of missiles are thought to use solid fuel.North Korea last tested an SLBM in October 2019, when it fired the Pukguksong-3 from an underwater platform. Neither the Pukguksong-4 or 5 have been tested, but some fear that could soon change.“Instead of shooting one, they’re showing it to us. And they’re basically telling us what they intend on doing. So, the next obvious step is to demonstrate,” said retired South Korean lieutenant general Chun In-bum, an expert on North Korea’s weapons program.North Korea in August 2019 published photos of Kim inspecting a ballistic missile submarine being built at the Sinpo South Shipyard, though it is not clear how close it is to completion.“What we know for sure is that North Korea is continuing with its nuclear program now to include a submarine-launched ballistic missile with nuclear warheads,” Chun said.“And with that capability they will either have a second-strike capability (the ability after being struck by a nuclear missile to strike back) or to intimidate the United States and its policies toward the Korean Peninsula,” he said.But not everyone agrees with that assessment.“Given North Korea’s resource limitations and the challenges involved in developing such a capability, it is likely a long way from the ability to produce even a single nuclear-powered submarine – much less the infrastructure and expertise necessary to engineer, build, train, and operationally deploy a submarine force capable of continuously holding the continental United States at risk,” Markus Garlauskas, the former U.S. National Intelligence Officer for North Korea, and former U.S. official Bruce Perry said in October.ICBM test coming?North Korea could instead decide to soon test another weapon, such as the massive new ICBM it rolled out in October, analysts warn.Kim said a year ago he no longer feels bound by his self-imposed pause on nuclear and long-range missile tests, raising fears of a return to major tensions on the Korean peninsula.Such a move would be a major foreign policy test for incoming U.S. President Joe Biden. Biden has said he won’t rule out meeting Kim face-to-face, but has suggested that would only come as part of broader, working-level negotiations.North Korea has for months boycotted nuclear talks, frustrated at the U.S. refusal to relax sanctions. U.S. President Donald Trump met Kim three times during his presidency, but the meetings did not lead to North Korea giving up any of its nuclear weapons.
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In Unprecedented Move, US Ambassador to UN Meets Virtually with Taiwan President
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft met virtually with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen Wednesday night after her trip this week was canceled. Ties between the United States and Taiwan have been growing under the Trump administration, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week lifting restrictions on contacts between the two democracies. VOA State Department Correspondent Nike Ching has more on what comes next for the incoming administration.
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A Divided Nation Heads into Tense Transition of Power
In a new CBS/YouGov poll, 21% of Republicans said they approved of the bloody siege on the U.S. Congress by supporters of President Donald Trump. Many more believe the November election was rigged. As the U.S. heads into a turbulent transition of power, Patsy Widakuswara has the story on this divided and angry nation.
Producer: Bakhtiyar Zamanov
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Impeachment Managers Plan Expansive Case Against Trump
Democratic impeachment managers are planning to showcase President Donald Trump’s role leading up to last week’s deadly rampage at the U.S. Capitol as it tries to convict him of inciting insurrection at a Senate impeachment trial that is set to start soon after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated next Wednesday. Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Colorado told CNN on Thursday that she and other impeachment managers would show video of rioters storming the Capitol shortly after Trump implored them at a rally to walk to the Capitol to “fight” to overturn his election loss to Biden. At the time, lawmakers were in the initial stages of certifying the Electoral College vote showing Biden had won. FILE – Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., walks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 13, 2021.“This is a situation where the president committed his offense right there on national TV. We’re going to be getting footage. We’re going to be telling the story to the senators,” DeGette said a day after the House of Representatives voted 232-197 to impeach Trump. Ten Republican lawmakers turned against Trump, a fellow Republican, joining all House Democrats in the majority. The House vote made Trump the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. In late 2019 he was impeached by the House for soliciting Ukraine’s help in digging up dirt against Biden ahead of the November election, but was acquitted by the Senate last February. DeGette, a lawyer, said impeachment managers are considering calling several witnesses at Trump’s trial, which has yet to be scheduled. She said among the witnesses being considered are victims of the deadly attack, as well as Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official, who Trump pushed days before the January 6 attack on the Capitol to “find” enough votes, more than 11,000, for him to overturn Biden’s victory in the southern state. FILE – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger waves to photographers as he walks to his office in the Capitol Building, in Atlanta, Jan. 4, 2021.“He could talk about his conversation with the president, how the president tried to pressure him to change the legal result of the election,” DeGette said of Raffensperger. The hour-long January 2 call Trump made to Raffensperger is referenced in the impeachment resolution passed by the House on Wednesday that charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection.” FILE – Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., speaks during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, on Dec. 1, 2020.DeGette rebuffed the claim by some Republicans, including Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, that Trump should not be tried after he leaves office next week. No president has ever been tried for impeachment after his White House term ended, although other U.S. officials have been tried after leaving office. “They could prevent him from ever holding office again,” DeGette said of the senators hearing the Trump impeachment case. “They could prevent him from getting all of the perks of a retired president, and it seems to me that given the egregiousness with which he acted, we should take this kind of a step.” A two-thirds vote would be required to convict Trump in a Senate that will be split evenly 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats by the time the trial starts, meaning 17 Republicans would have to turn against Trump for a conviction. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky walks from the Senate floor to his office on Capitol Hill, Jan. 6, 2021.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, has been a staunch ally of Trump during his four-year presidency, but told his Republican colleagues on Wednesday, “I have not made a final decision on how I will vote, and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate.” Shortly after the House vote, Biden said he hoped his initial legislative proposals would not be sidetracked. “I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation,” Biden said. The chief impeachment manager, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, told National Public Radio that he does not consider the case against Trump to be “a punitive instrument. It is a protective instrument, and we need to protect our people.” FILE – Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., left, walks with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 13, 2021.“Right now,” Raskin said, “the same violent white supremacist mobs that attacked us last week have said they’re coming back to Washington” for the events surrounding Biden’s inauguration. “This is a clear and present danger. People who think that we should just, you know, let bygones be bygones are not dealing with the reality of what took place last Wednesday and the continuing violent threat to republican government in the United States.” Raskin said he thinks senators hearing the case against Trump “are going to look very carefully at what took place in this absolutely unprecedented attack on their chamber and on the peaceful transfer of power.” “Remember, all of this took place on Wednesday, January 6, for a reason,” Raskin said. “This was a concentrated, determined attack on our form of government.” But one Trump official, trade adviser Peter Navarro, staunchly defended the president and assailed the impeachment vote. FILE – White House trade adviser Peter Navarro speaks during an interview at the White House, April 6, 2020.“What happened (Wednesday) was a travesty,” Navarro told Fox News. “The Democratic Party did violence to this country by attacking a president who I believe was legally elected on November 3. If the election were held today, he’d be elected again.” “So, I would say to these people on Capitol Hill, knock it off, stop this,” Navarro said. “Let the man leave peacefully, with his dignity. He was the greatest jobs president, the greatest trade negotiator we’ve ever had. This is just wrong what they’re doing.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer rebuffed any challenge to proceeding with the case against Trump. “Make no mistake, there will be an impeachment trial in the United States Senate; there will be a vote on convicting the president for high crimes and misdemeanors; and if the president is convicted, there will be a vote on barring him from running again,” he said.
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Biden Announces $1.9 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Package
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a coronavirus response plan Thursday evening, emphasizing the urgency of passing legislation to help Americans through the pandemic and the economic crisis it has wrought.”During this pandemic, millions of Americans, through no fault of their own, have lost the dignity and respect that comes with a paycheck,” Biden said in an address introducing the American Rescue Plan.Biden’s plan includes a new round of direct payments of $1,400 for most Americans, funding to promote the safe opening of schools and mounting a national vaccine program. Also included is $400 a week in additional unemployment insurance, through September.Providing relief to small businesses, notably those owned by entrepreneurs of color, was also detailed in the plan.The plan, which the transition team described as “ambitious, but achievable,” is estimated to total $1.9 trillion, according to a statement released ahead of Biden’s speech.FILE – Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a hearing about border security, May 8, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.That is a figure Republicans called too large not that long ago.”Remember that a bipartisan $900 billion #COVID19 relief bill became law just 18 days ago,” Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn tweeted.This time, Biden, a Democrat, will have a Democratically controlled House, by a slim margin, and Senate split 50-50 with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris available to break ties.One Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, on January 8 tweeted: “If the next round of stimulus checks goes out they should be targeted to those who need it.”Biden had already set a goal of administering 100 million vaccine shots in the first 100 days after he takes office on January 20. Thursday’s plan included details of a $20 billion national plan that will include funding for community centers and mobile vaccination centers for remote areas, in coordination with state and local governments.FILE – John Lewis, a resident of Harmony Court Assisted Living, waits as Walgreens pharmacist Valencia Carter administers the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Jan. 12, 2021, in Jackson, Miss.”This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts we have ever undertaken as a nation,” Biden said Thursday.”We’ll have to move heaven and Earth to get more people vaccinated,” he added.The U.S. government has approved two different vaccines for emergency use. Both require a two-shot regimen. So far, more than 10 million people have received the first dose.More testingThursday’s plan also emphasizes the need of increased testing to stop the spread of the disease as populations are being vaccinated, employing more people in the public health field to help with efforts to contain the virus. In addition to funding to ensure the safe opening of schools, it details increases to food stamp programs and restrictions against evictions and foreclosures.Biden intends to follow his rescue plan with a recovery package that will extend moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures until September and offer money to help people pay their rent and utilities.FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., meet with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 12, 2020.Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a joint statement Thursday that they looked forward to working with Biden on his plan.“House and Senate Democrats express gratitude toward and look forward to working with the President-elect on the rescue plan,” the statement read.ImpeachmentThe impeachment of President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatens to crowd the Senate calendar, but Biden said he hoped the Senate could balance impeachment with other priorities.The United States has recorded more than 388,000 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, and for more than two months, the nation has been dealing with its worst surge in infections.During the past week, the country has added an average of 245,000 new cases per day with 3,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 are at record highs.
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Turkish-Iranian Rivalry Grows Over Turkish Caucasus Ambitions
The recent arrest by Turkish authorities of an alleged Iranian spy ring is seen as a sign of increasing rivalry between the two neighbors. The arrest comes as Turkey seeks to expand its influence in the Caucasus, an area considered by Tehran as its backyard. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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China Promises Myanmar 300,000 Vaccine Doses
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has promised to provide Myanmar with 300,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine, according to the website of State Counselor and de facto head of state Aung San Suu Kyi.The site said Wang also pledged during a visit to Naypyitaw this week that China will maintain momentum on a number of bilateral projects.Wang’s visit Monday came as part of a Southeast Asia tour extending through Saturday that includes Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines. This was Myanmar’s first diplomatic visit since last year’s election, in which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party secured a majority of seats in the legislature.It was Wang’s fifth visit to Myanmar since the NLD first won elections in 2015. He participated in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit here a year ago, when the two countries signed more than 30 bilateral agreements. China, Myanmar Sign Dozens of Infrastructure DealsDeals reached as Myanmar faces global criticism for targeting minority Rohingya MuslimsA day before the latest visit, Myanmar and China signed a memorandum of understanding to conduct a feasibility study on a 650-kilometer railway project to link Mandalay — Myanmar’s second-largest city — with Kyaukphyu, a major city in Rakhine state.The project is essential to Chinese efforts to gain direct access to the Indian Ocean, including a deep-sea port and the start of a pair of 700-kilometer oil and gas pipelines running from the border with China’s Yunnan province.China Draws Myanmar Closer with Visit from President XiNew deals emphasize China’s tightening links to MyanmarPolitical analysts in Myanmar said that the reasons for this visit were to congratulate the NLD on the election victory, to implement the MOU agreements signed during Xi’s visit, and to supply Myanmar with COVID-19 vaccines. Pandemic diplomacyKhin Zaw Win, director of the Tampadita Institute, a Yangon advocacy organization, told VOA that China wants to sell COVID-19 vaccines to Myanmar before other countries do. “Myanmar first ordered a lot of COVID-19 vaccines from India,” he said, “But, China wants to sell them first.” Myanmar’s embassy in Beijing released a statement December 31 saying Chinese vaccines would arrive early this year. According to the statement, Ambassador Myo Thant Pe met with officials from China National Pharmaceutical Group and Sinovac Biotech, Chinese vaccine producers which received emergency-use approval from Xi’s government in June. The Chinese government and investors have donated medical aid to Myanmar during the pandemic. As of January 12, Myanmar had more than 200,000 reported COVID-19 cases and more than 2,800 related deaths. Biggest creditor, second-largest investorChina is Myanmar’s biggest creditor. Myanmar owes 40% of its $10 billion foreign debt to China. It invests in almost every state and region of Myanmar, mostly in the power sector, which accounts for 57% of total Chinese investment. Many rights groups have raised human rights concerns over China’s investment in Myanmar.More than 50 civil society organizations sent an open letter to Xi during his visit to Myanmar in January of last year. The organizations demanded that Xi review Chinese investment projects and to follow international standards regarding respect for historical and cultural locations, and implementation of a fair border trade policy that doesn’t favor Chinese buyers or sellers.The issue came up because of complaints at the low prices Chinese buyers were willing to pay for Myanmar fruits and vegetables.Equality Myanmar, a human rights organization based in Myanmar, was one of the 52 organizations that addressed an open letter to Xi.Aung Myo Min, the organization’s director, told VOA that Chinese investors “have weaknesses in following the rules and regulations.”“That’s why we are always monitoring Chinese investment companies with human rights concerns,” he said. Wang also met in Naypyitaw with Min Aung Hlaing, the commander in chief of Myanmar’s army, known as the Tatmadaw, which is guaranteed 25% of the seats in the parliament. Myanmar’s chief commander raised allegations about the election, which renewed the NLD’s mandate to form the government. Military officials said Min Aung Hlaing and Wang had discussed “flaws in voter lists” that made “the election unjust.”
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Australia to Kill Pigeon That Crossed Pacific From Oregon
A racing pigeon has survived an extraordinary 13,000-kilometer (8,000-mile) Pacific Ocean crossing from the United States to find a new home in Australia. Now, authorities consider the bird a quarantine risk and plan to kill it. Kevin Celli-Bird said Thursday that he discovered the exhausted bird that arrived in his Melbourne backyard on December 26 had disappeared from a race in the U.S. state of Oregon on October 29. Experts suspect the pigeon that Celli-Bird has named Joe, after the U.S. president-elect, hitched a ride on a cargo ship to cross the Pacific. Joe’s feat has attracted the attention of the Australian media but also of the notoriously strict Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. Celli-Bird said quarantine authorities called him Thursday to ask him to catch the bird. “They say if it is from America, then they’re concerned about bird diseases,” he said. “They wanted to know if I could help them out. I said, ‘To be honest, I can’t catch it. I can get within 500 mil (millimeters or 20 inches) of it, and then it moves.’ ” He said quarantine authorities were now considering contracting a professional bird catcher. The Agriculture Department, which is responsible for biosecurity, said the pigeon was “not permitted to remain in Australia” because it “could compromise Australia’s food security and our wild bird populations.” “It poses a direct biosecurity risk to Australian bird life and our poultry industry,” a department statement said. In 2015, the government threatened to euthanize two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, after they were smuggled into the country by Hollywood star Johnny Depp and his ex-wife, Amber Heard. Faced with a 50-hour deadline to leave Australia, the dogs made it out in a chartered jet. Pigeons are an unusual sight in Celli-Bird’s backyard in suburban Officer, where Australian native doves are far more common. “It rocked up at our place on Boxing Day. I’ve got a fountain in the backyard, and it was having a drink and a wash. He was pretty emaciated, so I crushed up a dry biscuit and left it out there for him,” Celli-Bird said. “Next day, he rocked back up at our water feature. So, I wandered out to have a look at him because he was fairly weak. And he didn’t seem that afraid of me. And I saw he had a blue band on his leg. Obviously, he belongs to someone, so I managed to catch him,” he added. Celli-Bird, who says he has no interest in birds “apart from my last name,” said he could no longer catch the pigeon with his bare hands since it had regained its strength. He said the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union had confirmed that Joe was registered to an owner in Montgomery, Alabama. Celli-Bird said he had attempted to contact the owner but had so far been unable to get through. The bird spends every day in the backyard, sometimes sitting side by side with a native dove on a pergola. Celli-Bird has been feeding it pigeon food from within days of its arrival. “I think that he just decided that since I’ve given him some food and he’s got a spot to drink, that’s home,” he said. Australian National Pigeon Association secretary Brad Turner said he had heard of cases of Chinese racing pigeons reaching the Australian west coast aboard cargo ships, a far shorter voyage. Turner said there were genuine fears pigeons from the United States could carry exotic diseases, and he agreed Joe should be destroyed. “While it sounds harsh to the normal person — they’d hear that and go, ‘This is cruel,’ and everything else — I’d think you’d find that A.Q.I.S. and those sorts of people would give their wholehearted support for the idea,” Turner said, referring to the quarantine service. It is claimed that the greatest long-distance flight recorded by a pigeon is one that started at Arras in France and ended in Saigon, Vietnam, back in 1931, according to pigeonpedia.com. The distance was 11,600 kilometers (7,200 miles) and took 24 days. There are some known instances of long-distance flights, but whether these are one-offs performed by the marathon runners of the pigeon world or they are feats that could be achieved by the average pigeon is not known.
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46 Civilians Feared Killed in Eastern Congo Attack, Official Says
Forty-six civilians are reported to have been killed in an attack by suspected Islamist militants on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a senior provincial official said Thursday. Local security forces have been dispatched to the village in Irumu territory to investigate, Provincial Interior Minister Adjio Gidi said by phone. “The death toll as of this afternoon is reported to be 46,” Gidi said. He said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were behind the raid. The Ugandan armed group is believed to have carried out a string of massacres in eastern Congo, killing more than 1,000 civilians since the start of 2019, according to U.N. figures. After being alerted to the latest violence, troops went to the village and are in the process of recovering bodies, local army spokesman Jules Ngongo said. He did not say how many had been killed. Congo’s eastern borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are home to a constellation of more than 100 different militias, many remnants of its brutal civil wars that officially ended in 2003. On Sunday, unidentified attackers killed at least six rangers in an ambush in eastern Congo’s Virunga National Park, a sanctuary for endangered mountain gorillas. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for many suspected ADF attacks in the past, although U.N. experts have not been able to confirm any direct link between the two groups.
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Watchdog: Justice Department Knew Zero Tolerance on Immigration Would Split Families
A government watchdog report has concluded that leaders in President Donald Trump’s Justice Department were aware that their zero-tolerance policy would trigger family separations but nevertheless moved forward with prosecutions. The report from the inspector general for the Justice Department, released Thursday, found that the agency’s leaders failed to effectively coordinate with other parts of government or manage the outcome. More than 3,000 families were separated, resulting in long-term emotional damage to children who were forcibly taken from their parents by U.S. authorities at the border. The Trump administration policy drew widespread condemnation, with world leaders, elected officials and religious groups denouncing the policy as cruel. The policy was one of several aimed at preventing migrants from entering the U.S. by crossing the southern border the U.S. shares with Mexico. The report details the key role played by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other top Justice Department officials as they were pressured by the White House. Biden plan unclearPresident-elect Joe Biden has said Trump’s immigration policies are destructive, but it is not clear how Biden will address the issue when he assumes the presidency on January 20. FILE – Immigrants seeking asylum who were recently reunited arrive at a hotel, in San Antonio, July 23, 2018.An American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit resulted in families being reunited, but some children remain separated from their families. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told The Associated Press the practice was “immoral and illegal.” “At a minimum, Justice Department lawyers should have known the latter. This new report shows just how far the Trump administration was willing to go to destroy these families. Just when you think the Trump administration can’t sink any lower, it does,” he said. The New York Times on Thursday said a White House spokesperson declined to comment on the report, although Rod J. Rosenstein, a former top Justice Department official involved in the zero-tolerance policy, was regretful about his involvement with the program. Justice Department responseHowever, the report does include a response from the Justice Department, which said, “While the Department does not agree with all of the analysis and conclusions contained in the formal draft report, it does concur with the OIG’s three recommendations.” “Consistent with the OIG’s first recommendation, the Department will examine and modify as necessary its procedures to make certain that prior to issuing a significant policy affecting multiple Department of Justice components, other Executive Branch agencies, or the courts, the Department as appropriate will coordinate directly with affected stakeholders to ensure effective implementation,” the response reads. “Consistent with the OIG’s second and third recommendations, the Department and U.S Marshals Service (USMS) in particular will work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that policies and agreements are in place to facilitate necessary communication between parents and children if parents are separated from associated family unit minors at the time DHS makes a criminal arrest and refers the adults to the Department for prosecution,” the statement added. Hundreds of children remain separated from their parents, who have either been deported or cannot be located.
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Malawian Migrant Workers, Back Home From South Africa, Riot in Quarantine
Malawi is struggling to quarantine migrant workers returning from South Africa who were being tested for the coronavirus. At a facility this week, returnees upset over living conditions clashed with police, and authorities said about 20 returnees escaped.One migrant laborer, Glory Kayira, returned to Malawi after working in South Africa for five years because she lost her job amid the pandemic.A hostel at Mapanga Prison Training School that was torched by returnees protesting poor living conditions there, Jan. 11, 2021. (Lameck Masina/VOA)”As foreigners,” she said, “we were living in rented houses. We were supposed to buy food on our own, but we could not manage that.”Kayira is one of about 600 Malawians who returned Saturday and were quarantined at Mapanga Prison Training School.The facility was set up to stop the importation of coronavirus cases. Migrants returning from South Africa account for 40 percent of Malawi’s caseload.But returnees on Sunday torched buildings to protest the poor living conditions. Police used tear gas to end the riot.’We slept on the floor’Some returnees said authorities did not inform them they were going to be quarantined.Medical workers distribute food to returnees at the quaratine facility in Blantyre, Jan. 11, 2021. (Lameck Masina/VOA)“We slept on the floor,” said returnee Isaac Chikadza. “Mattresses were in short supply.” He said the food was good but the hospitality they received did not meet their expectations.Officials said all returnees were informed of the quarantine and alleged that some might have been seeking to avoid paying taxes.More than 150 of those being held tested positive for the coronavirus and were being isolated.“These people will go home under escort so they will not be missed out in the community,” said Penjani Chunda, the government’s environmental health officer. “Then they will be handed over directly to the respective health office.”Some of the COVID-19-positive returnees at Mapanga Quaratine Centre in Blantyre, Malawi, Jan. 11, 2021. (Lameck Masina/VOA)Malawian authorities were searching for 20 returnees — not yet tested — who escaped during Sunday’s revolt.Major Emanuel Mzima, deputy commissioner for prisons, said he thought the search would be simple “because immigration authorities have their passports, so it’s easy to check and see who is missing.”Thirty-nine other returnees were arrested and charged with planning the scuffle.
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UN Refugee Chief ‘Very Worried’ for Eritrean Refugees in Tigray
The chief of the U.N.’s refugee agency said Thursday he remains “deeply troubled” by the humanitarian situation in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, noting the number of Eritrean refugees already at risk there.Filippo Grandi, U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement Thursday that while aid and food have been distributed at a few refugee camps in the region, aid workers have been unable to access at least two camps since unrest broke out two months ago.“I am very worried for the safety and well-being of Eritrean refugees in those camps. They have been without any aid for many weeks,” the statement read. “Furthermore, and of utmost concern, I continue to receive many reliable reports and first-hand accounts of ongoing insecurity and allegations of grave and distressing human rights abuses, including killings, targeted abductions and forced return of refugees to Eritrea.”Approximately 96,000 Eritrean refugees lived in four camps in Tigray prior to the conflict that erupted in November. Many fled the violence to Sudan or to other parts of the country, including the capital, Addis Ababa.On November 4, Ethiopia’s federal government launched what it called a “law enforcement operation” against “rogue” leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s ruling party, after TPLF fighters attacked a federal military base. TPLF leaders called the federal government’s response a war against the people of Tigray.The conflict erupted weeks after Tigray held regional elections in defiance of the federal government.Some 50,000 people from the region have fled to neighboring Sudan, and tens of thousands have been internally displaced since fighting broke out.
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MIT Professor Arrested for Not Disclosing China Ties
U.S. authorities have arrested and charged an MIT professor with accepting foreign money, much of it from China, and not disclosing it.Gang Chen was arrested Thursday at his home and charged with wire fraud, failing to file a foreign bank account report and making a false statement in a tax return, the Department of Justice said in a news release.Chen worked as director of the MIT Pappalardo Micro/Nano Engineering Laboratory and director of the Solid-State Solar Thermal Energy Conversion Center.Since 2013, Chen’s research has been funded by more than $19 million in federal grants, the DOJ said. During that same time, he reportedly received approximately $29 million of foreign funding, including $19 million from the PRC’s Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech).“He was working for the Chinese government while securing U.S. research dollars,” U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling told reporters.Lelling added that “the Chinese government would rather siphon off U.S. technology instead of doing the work themselves.” “It is not illegal to collaborate with foreign researchers. It is illegal to lie about it,” he added.American Professor Pleads Guilty in Connection with China WorkJames Patrick Lewis defrauded his US university in order to work in ChinaThe charge of wire fraud carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Making false statements carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Failing to disclose a foreign bank account carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000, according to the DOJ.
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NATO Chief Calls Last Week’s Attack on US Capitol ‘Shocking’ and ‘Unacceptable’
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Thursday called last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump “shocking” and unacceptable, and he said those responsible must be held accountable.Stoltenberg’s comments were his first public reaction since Trump supporters stormed the Capitol January 6, seeking to stop the U.S. Congress from formally certifying the presidential election. Stoltenberg did comment from his personal Twitter account during the attacks and called for the democratic election to be respected.During a news briefing in Brussels, after being asked for his reaction to the incident, the NATO chief called it a deadly attack on the “heart of the democratic institutions of the United States of America.” He termed it “absolutely unacceptable” and said it is important that those responsible pay the consequences for their actions.
He said, “Democracy must always prevail over violence, and I’m confident that the democratic institutions of the United States will handle this challenge.”
Regarding the incoming administration, Stoltenberg said he looks forward to working with Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. “I know that Joe Biden is strongly committed to our transatlantic cooperation, to NATO. And I know that he also, of course, would strongly support the idea of further strengthening the cooperation between North America and Europe.”
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China Reports First COVID Death in 8 Months
China has reported its first COVID-19 death in eight months amid a surge in the northeast as a World Health Organization team arrived in Wuhan to investigate the beginning of the pandemic. The death, reported Thursday, raises the country’s death toll to more than 4,600, a relatively low number resulting from the country’s stringent containment and tracing measures. China has imposed various lockdown measures on more than 20 million people in Beijing, Hebei and other areas to contain the spread of infections before the Lunar New Year holiday in February. The relatively low number of COVID-related deaths in China has raised questions about China’s tight control of information about the outbreak. A worker in protective coverings directs members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team on their arrival at the airport in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province, Jan. 14, 2021.The investigative team arrived Thursday after nearly a year talks with the WHO and diplomatic disagreements between China and other countries who demanded that China allow a thorough independent investigation. Two members of the 10-member team were stopped in Singapore after tests revealed antibodies, while the rest of the team immediately entered a 14-day quarantine period in Wuhan before launching their investigation. FILE – The Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, where a number of people fell ill with a virus, sits closed in Wuhan, China, Jan. 21, 2020.The coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan in late 2019 and quickly spread throughout the world, resulting in nearly 2 million deaths and more than 92 million cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. Officials said Thursday that infections in the northeastern Heilongjiang province have surged to their highest levels in 10 months, nearly tripling during that period. Elsewhere in Asia, Japanese authorities have expanded a state of emergency to stop a surge in coronavirus cases. Coronavirus infections and related deaths have roughly doubled in Japan over the past month to more than 310,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. The emergency was initially declared a week ago and was expanded to cover seven new regions. The restrictions are not binding, and many people have seemed to ignore requests to avoid nonessential travel, prompting the governor to voice concern about the lack of commitment to the guidelines. FILE – A lab technician works during research on coronavirus, COVID-19, at Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutical in Beerse, Belgium, June 17, 2020.The world appears to be on the verge of another effective COVID-19 vaccine. A study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found that an experimental vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson generated a strong immune response in both young and elderly volunteer participants in early-stage trials. Unlike the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine only requires one dose, making it easier to both transport and refrigerate for long periods of time. The vaccine is currently undergoing late-stage trials involving 45,000 volunteers. Johnson & Johnson is expected to seek emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sometime next month. The company has signed a $1 billion contract with the U.S. government to provide up to 100 million doses of the vaccine once it is granted approval.
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Lady Gaga to Sing Anthem, J-Lo to Perform at Inauguration
Lady Gaga will sing the national anthem at Joe Biden’s inauguration and Jennifer Lopez will give a musical performance on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol when Biden is sworn in as the nation’s 46th president next Wednesday.
The announcement of their participation comes one day after word that Tom Hanks will host a 90-minute primetime TV special celebrating Biden’s inauguration. Other performers include Justin Timberlake, Jon Bon Jovi, Demi Lovato and Ant Clemons.
At the swearing-in ceremony, the Rev. Leo O’Donovan, a former Georgetown University president, will give the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Andrea Hall, a firefighter from Georgia. There will be a poetry reading from Amanda Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate, and the benediction will be given by Rev. Silvester Beaman of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
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Motivation Behind Malaysia’s State of Emergency Questioned
The Malaysian government’s surprise state of emergency, declared this week to help beat back a surging coronavirus outbreak, may be more of a bid by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to preserve his slipping grip on power, some analysts say.The country’s constitutional monarch, Al-Sultan Abdullah, declared a nationwide state of emergency for the first time in over 50 years on Tuesday at Muhyiddin’s request.Malaysia counted a record 3,309 new COVID-19 cases the same day, in the midst of its worst wave of infections since the pandemic began. The country of 32 million has logged more than 144,000 cases in all to date, over half of them since early December. Pedestrian wear face masks on a shopping district in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jan. 14, 2021.Viral imperativeIn a televised address on Tuesday, Muhyiddin said the outbreak was pushing Malaysia’s health care system to the breaking point. He insisted the emergency declaration was not a coup but added that it would allow the police and military to have extra powers to fight the pandemic.”I implore you to remain calm during the emergency period, as well as all politicians, youths, non-governmental organizations and all levels of society to work as one to fight the pandemic. Hopefully we can level the infection curve and ease the strain on the health care system,” he said.Opposition parties were quick to dismiss the emergency as a ploy to save Muhyiddin’s teetering administration, however, and some analysts say they may be right.The proclamation suspends parliament and blocks any elections until August 1. It also gives Muhyiddin and his cabinet the power to introduce new laws on their own.“It’s more about holding on to power, but the mechanism would not have been possible without the pandemic being there,” said Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate with the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute in Malaysia.The king appointed Muhyiddin prime minister in late February after a sudden shift in political alliances brought down the seated government, ushering in a new ruling bloc of parties without a general election.FILE – Malaysia opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim speaks to media members.Popular opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim also claimed in September to have cobbled together the support of a majority of lawmakers to wrest control from Muhyiddin, but he has yet to prove it.Power play“The catalyst clearly was staying on,” Welsh said of the emergency proclamation.“The sense is that they need to move away from having to constantly be destabilized, so they’re relying on the levers that can potentially give them the space to stay in office. But …the narrative that they’re using is that this will help them with COVID.”Wong Chin Huat, a political scientist at Malaysia’s Sunway University, agreed.“If really you just need to have a bit of extra power, if the current law doesn’t allow you, you can always convene the parliament just to pass through all those,” he said.FILE – Malaysia?s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin speaks during opening remarks for virtual APEC Economic Leaders Meeting 2020, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nov. 20, 2020.“This is not a situation where the whole country is in chaos. So the real reason [for] all this is really for him [Muhyiddin] to keep his power, so that the prime minister doesn’t have to face parliament, and to have a free hand to run the country until the emergency is over.”Others are more cautious.Adib Zalkapli, a director with Malaysia-based consulting firm Bower Group Asia, said it was too soon to brand the emergency order a power grab but added that the narrative that it was could gain traction.“Given the influence of UMNO and also the popularity of the opposition front, in terms of the numbers in parliament and all, it’s a perception that the prime minister has to address. He has to show in his actions moving forward that the emergency declaration is fully about COVID-19,” he said.Gloves offThe government has yet to use its new emergency powers or spell out exactly what dictates could be on the way.Non-government groups have started to raise alarms that those powers may be abused.In a statement Wednesday, Malaysia’s Center for Independent Journalism warned that the emergency order foreshadowed a crackdown on government critics.“People are hoping that they don’t do that, but the problem is that they’re worried that they might because the basic institutional powers protecting democratic governance and providing for checks and balances in the system have been removed,” said Welsh.Muhyiddin’s critics say the space for free speech has been shrinking since he took office, pointing to the spate of investigations police opened last year on journalists, rights workers and lawmakers questioning his government’s tactics.Welsh believes Muhyiddin’s team has nonetheless allowed “a fair amount of openness” on social media and beyond. But she said it may yet be tempted to use its new emergency powers for ill if it fails at using them for good, as promised, to bring the pandemic under control.“The problem is, for any politician in any country, that when they’re not able to deliver on that, they rely on the levers of power,” she said.And with the usual checks and balances now swept aside, she added, “they have those levers at their disposal.”
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Biden to Announce Coronavirus Relief Package
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is set to unveil Thursday a coronavirus response plan that includes boosting the rate of vaccinations and helping counter the economic effects of the pandemic. Biden is scheduled to detail the program in an evening address. He has already set a goal of administering 100 million vaccine shots in the first 100 days after he takes office on January 20, and his plan is expected to include funding to expand the vaccination campaign. FILE – Florida Department of Health medical workers prepare to administer a COVID-19 vaccine to seniors in the parking lot of the Gulf View Square Mall in New Port Richey near Tampa, Florida, Dec. 31, 2020.The U.S. government has approved two different vaccines for emergency use. Both require a two-shot regimen, and so far, more than 10 million people have received the first dose of vaccine. Biden’s plan is also expected to include a new round of direct payments to U.S. households. A previous coronavirus relief bill was delayed last month amid disagreements about how big the stimulus payment should be. FILE – A stimulus check issued by the Internal Revenue Service to help combat the adverse economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic is seen in San Antonio, Texas, April 23, 2020.Biden’s incoming White House economic adviser, Brian Deese, said at a Reuters event Wednesday the proposal would feature aid for small businesses as well. Deese said Biden would ask Congress to focus first on passing the economic stimulus measures and then work on longer-term economic recovery areas such as healthcare and infrastructure. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said passing a coronavirus relief bill would be the first priority when Democrats assume control of the Senate. The impeachment of President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatens to crowd the Senate calendar, but Biden said he hopes the Senate can balance impeachment with other priorities. US House Impeaches Trump for Inciting Deadly Capitol RiotFirst US leader to be impeached twice now faces Senate trial after Biden is inauguratedThe United States has recorded roughly 385,000 COVID-19 deaths, and for more than two months it has been dealing with its worst surge in infections. During the past week, the country has added an average of 245,000 new cases per day with 3,300 deaths. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 are at record highs.
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