Indonesian investigators have successfully recovered data from a crashed passenger jet’s flight recorder, days after the plane with 62 people aboard slammed into the sea, they said Friday.

“(It’s) all in good condition and we’re now examining the data,” National Transportation Safety Committee head Soerjanto Tjahjono said in a statement.

The recorder, which holds information about the speed, altitude and direction of the plane, could supply critical clues as to why the aircraft plunged about 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) in less than a minute before crashing into waters off Jakarta on Saturday.

A rescue party near the capital’s coast has worked for days to salvage human remains and wreckage from the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500, as well as two flight recorders.

More than 3,000 people are taking part in the recovery effort, assisted by dozens of boats and helicopters.

Divers on Tuesday hauled the data recorder to the surface, with the hunt now focused on finding a cockpit voice recorder on the wreckage-littered seabed.

Safety concerns

The 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after setting off from Jakarta, bound for Pontianak city on Borneo island, a 90-minute flight away.

Authorities said the crew did not declare an emergency or report technical problems with the plane before its dive, and that it was probably intact when it hit the water — citing a relatively small area where the wreckage was scattered.

The crash probe was likely to take months, but a preliminary report was expected in 30 days.

Indonesia’s fast-growing aviation sector has long been plagued by safety concerns, and its airlines were once banned from US and European airspace.

In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet crashed near Jakarta.

That accident led to the grounding of the 737 MAX worldwide over a faulty anti-stall system.

The 737 that went down Saturday was first produced decades ago and was not a MAX variant.

(AFP)

New York City will sever three contracts with the Trump Organization, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday, accusing President Donald Trump of inciting the crowds that stormed the US Capitol last week.

“The president incited a rebellion against the United States government that killed five people and threatened to derail the constitutional transfer of power,” de Blasio said in a statement. “The city of New York will not be associated with those unforgivable acts in any shape, way or form.”

On Jan. 6, Trump addressed thousands of supporters, reiterating his unsupported claim that his re-election was stolen. He urged them to march to the Capitol where Congress was affirming Joe Biden’s election by the Electoral College.

The crowd quickly overwhelmed Capitol security, with many of them entering the building and forcing a halt to the proceedings as lawmakers took cover in a secure location. Five people died as a result of the rampage.

A criminal investigation is underway and charges have been filed against dozens of people suspected of having taken part.

The New York-based Trump Organization’s contracts to operate a carousel in Manhattan’s Central Park, skating rinks and a golf course in the Bronx are worth about $17 million a year, de Blasio said on MSNBC.

Cancelling the golf course contracts could take “a number of months”, while the others could be severed in 25-30 days, the mayor’s office said in a statement.

Following the Capitol riot, the PGA of America and the R&A both announced they would shun two golf courses owned by the president.

In addition, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that Deutsche Bank DBKGn.DE will not do business in the future with Trump or his companies.

(REUTERS)

Google-owned YouTube on Tuesday temporarily suspended President Donald Trump’s channel and removed a video for violating its policy against inciting violence.

“In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies,” YouTube said in a statement.

The channel is now “temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a ‘minimum’ of 7 days,” the statement read.

Facebook last week suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following the violent invasion of the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters, which temporarily disrupted the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory.

Twitter went a step further by deleting Trump’s account, depriving him of his favorite platform.

Trump also was hit with suspensions by services like Snapchat and Twitch.

Source: AFP

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told his staff on Monday he was stepping down, the agency said, a move that comes as his department coordinates security for the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration and after a deadly mob attack on the U.S. Capitol last week.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press office said Wolf would leave his post at 11:59 p.m. on Monday.

Pete Gaynor, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will take over as acting secretary, the office said.

In an email to DHS employees on Monday, Wolf said his departure was due to court rulings related to his eligibility for the position.

“I am saddened to take this step, as it was my intention to serve the department until the end of this administration,” Wolf wrote.

The White House declined to comment.

Representative Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said the motive behind Wolf’s resignation was “questionable” since a federal judge ruled two months ago that Wolf was unlawfully appointed.

The U.S. Secret Service, which is part of DHS, is the lead agency handling security around President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

That effort is being closely watched after supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol last Wednesday in an assault that led to five deaths, dozens of injuries among law enforcement and the ransacking of lawmakers’ offices.

Wolf said earlier on Monday that due to the “evolving security landscape,” the Secret Service would begin its inauguration security operations on Wednesday instead of Jan. 19.

The FBI has warned of armed protests being planned for Washington and all 50 U.S. state capitals ahead of Biden’s inauguration, according to a federal law enforcement source.

A senior DHS official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the change in leadership would not diminish security for the inauguration.

Some high-level Trump administration officials have resigned in the aftermath of the Capitol incident, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

(REUTERS)

A new poll has shown that a majority of Americans want outgoing US President Donald Trump removed from office immediately.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the US Capitol violence incited by Trump, fifty-seven percent of Americans want the Republican president to be immediately removed.

Trump, who encouraged a protest this week in Washington, DC that escalated into a deadly riot inside the US Capitol, ends his tern of January 20.

However, the majority of Americans who took part in the poll said they wanted Trump to leave office immediately.

Thirty percent of those interviewed said Trump should be removed using provisions in the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution, which allows the Vice President and Cabinet to remove the president if he is unfit to carry out his duties.

Another 27 percent said lawmakers should either impeach and remove Trump from office, or pressure him to simply resign.

Trump, who lost the 2020 US presidential election to Democrat President-elect Joe Biden by about seven million votes, called on his supporters on Wednesday to march on Congress, telling them at a rally that “you will never take back our country with weakness.”

About one-tenth of those participating in the poll  said they supported the the rioters and regarded them  as “concerned citizens”.

A very small minority, five percent, called the rioters “patriots.”

However, the vast majority, seventy-nine percent, which included both Republicans and Trump voters, described the January 6 rioters as either “criminals” or “fools.”

Seven out of 10 of the participants who had voted for Trump on November 3 were opposed to Trump’s actions in the run-up to Wednesday’s assault on on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

The national public opinion poll was conducted on Thursday and Friday online throughout the United States and gathered responses from 1,005 American adults, including 339 who said they voted for Trump. The results have a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 4 percentage points.

The riot, in which a police officer and four others died, has been widely condemned by both US and world leaders.

Mounting pressure on Trump

Lawmakers in both chambers and from both parties vowed on Thursday to find out how those responsible for Capitol security had allowed a violent mob to infiltrate the Capitol.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives announced a “robust” investigation into the law enforcement breakdown while introducing misconduct charges against Trump.

Two sources familiar with the matter said House Democrats could introduce misconduct charges leading to a second impeachment of Trump.

A growing number of lawmakers have expressed support for immediately stripping Trump of his powers.

Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and the first Republican lawmaker to call for invoking the 25th Amendment after the riot.

Trump had “abdicated his duty to protect the American people” by inciting an “insurrection,” he insisted.

“The president has become unmoored, not just from his duty, or even his oath, but from reality itself,” Kinzinger added. “It is time to invoke the 25th Amendment and end this nightmare.”

Gov. Larry Hogan, Republican of Maryland said, “I think there’s no question that America would be better off if the president would resign or be removed from office.”

Representative Steve Stivers, Republican of Ohio, said that he also supported stripping Trump of his powers.

“The cabinet decides on the 25th Amendment, and if the cabinet decided to do that, I would not oppose it,” Stivers, a former chairman of the House Republican campaign arm, said.

“If the President does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi threatened to pursue impeachment if the Trump cabinet did not invoke the 25th Amendment to strip the president of his powers.

One, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, said he supported the invocation of the 25th Amendment; another, Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, said he “would not oppose” the move if cabinet members decided to proceed.

Vice President Mike Pence — who would have to lead that process — was said to oppose invoking the 25th Amendment.

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal editorial board urged Trump to resign to avoid a second impeachment.

The WSJ editorial board excoriated Trump for “an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election” and said “this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure.”

“If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign,” the Journal wrote, concluding, “It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.”

John F. Kelly, a former chief of staff to President Trump who has criticized him on several occasions since leaving his post two years ago, said on Thursday that if he were still in the cabinet, he would vote to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare that Trump was “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

“I don’t think it’ll happen, but I think the cabinet should meet and discuss this, because the behavior yesterday and the weeks and months before that has just been outrageous from the president,” Kelly said on CNN. “And what happened on Capitol Hill yesterday is a direct result of his poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the frauds.”

Former Attorney General William P. Barr said Thursday that President Trump betrayed his office by encouraging a mob of supporters to intimidate Congress into overturning the election results by storming the Capitol.

Trump’s conduct betrayed “his office and supporters” and that “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable,” said Barr.

Joe Biden calls Trump “unfit”

Biden said on Friday that Trump wasn’t “fit for the job” of US President.

However, Biden refused to endorse growing calls by lawmakers to impeach Trump for a second time.

Addressing reporters in his home state of Delaware after an event introducing some of his Cabinet choices, Biden noted that a key reason he ran for president was because he’d “thought for a long, long time that President Trump wasn’t fit for the job.”

“I’ve been saying for now, well, over a year, he’s not fit to serve,” Biden said. “He’s one of the most incompetent presidents in the history of the United States of America.”

But he refused to back efforts to remove Trump from office now and said he was focused on the start of his own administration on Jan. 20.

Biden suggested that a key hurdle to removing Trump was that he has less than two weeks remaining in his term.

“If we were six months out, we should be doing everything to get him out of office. Impeaching him again, trying to evoke the 25th Amendment, whatever it took,” Biden said.

“But I am focused now on us taking control as president and vice president on the 20th and to get our agenda moving as quickly as we can,” he pointed out.

He said his top three priorities were beating back the coronavirus, distributing vaccines fairly and equitably and reviving the struggling economy.

Biden, nonetheless, admitted that Trump had “exceeded my worst notions about him. He’s been an embarrassment” and likened the “damage done to our reputation around the world.”

COVID kills more than 4,000 Americans in single day

The US set yet another record for the number of fatalities from the coronavirus-borne illness COVID-19 and recorded the highest number of new cases since the start of the outbreak, with the latest numbers exceeding even the worst case scenario forecasts of health experts.

More than 4,000 Americans died of COVID-19 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, and at least 280,292 new cases were recorded.

In the past week, the country has averaged 237,635 cases a day.

The US continues to lead the world by cases, at 21.7 million, or more than double the next worst tally, followed by India with 10.4 million, and by deaths, at 366,664, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. With 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for about 20% of reported fatalities.

Source: Presstv

Images of a mob of Donald Trump supporters surging past overwhelmed police to storm the US Capitol have shocked the world. Many have also asked why they bare such a stark contrast to the heavy police presence and violent tactics deployed when Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets of Washington DC last year.

“This is a complete disgrace. Over the summer we saw federal law enforcement use tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber bullets on Black Lives Matter protesters without provocation. Where are the riot squads now? Are they standing down as white supremacists attempt a coup?” asked DC Council member Janeese Lewis George on Twitter.

“Let’s face the truth: If not for #whiteprivilege, the armed pro-Trump insurrectionists today would have endured the same police brutality that peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters faced last spring,” Human Rights Campaign tweeted.

In June last year, peaceful demonstrators protesting after the death of George Floyd were removed with teargas and rubber bullets so that Donald Trump could pose for a photo op in front of a church, while the National Guard was called in to protect the capital’s monuments.

Between May 30 and June 2, 2020, 427 were arrested during the DC protests, including 24 juveniles.

On Wednesday, guarding the US Capitol was left to the Capitol Police, who number around 2,000.

It took around two hours for reinforcement to arrive and restore order and just 52 of the rioters have been arrested so far, while one person was shot dead by police.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network labelled the police response on Wednesday a case of “hypocrisy”.

“When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets. Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear gassed, battered, and perhaps shot.”

Source: France 24

The tattoo-chested man in a horned headdress, the middle-aged intruder with his foot on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk and the woman shot dead by police: Their images have been beamed around the world but who are the Donald Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol?

Pro-gun campaigner

Richard Barnett, 60, from Gravette in northwest Arkansas, barged into the office of House Democrat leader Pelosi where he was photographed leaning back in a chair with his left foot on her desk.

Barnett, known locally for hosting the pro-gun Facebook group 2A NWA STAND!!!, told Arkansas news channel KFSM 5News that he somehow ended up there by accident.

“I didn’t break the doors. I was shoved in. I didn’t mean to be in there. Hell, I was looking for the bathroom,” said Barnett.

He added though that he had every right to be in Pelosi’s office.

“My desk. I’m a taxpayer. I’m a patriot. It ain’t her desk. We loaned her that desk.”

Before leaving, Barnett stole an envelope and left Pelosi a note calling her a “bitch,” he told KFSM 5News.

Shirtless, sporting face paint and a fur hat complete with buffalo horns, Jake Angeli is a prominent supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.

He describes himself as a “digital soldier” of the movement that claims Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal cult of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

The 33-year-old Angeli presented himself as a “shamanist and consultant for the Trump supporters” when he was photographed by AFP at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona in November. He was wearing his headdress then too.

“We’re patriots on the front lines in Arizona who wish to take our positive energy to DC,” he wrote on the ultra-conservative social network Parler in December.

Social media users noted similarities between Angeli’s look and that of 1990s  Jamiroquai singer Jay Kay, forcing the jazz-funk performer to assure fans that he wasn’t in Washington on Wednesday.

Neo-Nazi

Photographed standing alongside Angeli was 29-year-old Matthew Heimbach, “considered by many to be the face of a new generation of white nationalists,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Heimbach was one of the organizers of the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, on the sidelines of which a woman was killed by a neo-Nazi.

Military veteran

Ashli Babbitt was named by police as the woman shot at close range by a police officer as she tried to climb through a broken window in the hallway of Congress.

The 35-year-old from San Diego later died from her injuries. KUSI-TV quoted her husband as saying she had been a staunch Trump supporter and “a great patriot.”

Babbitt was a US Air Force veteran who described herself as a “Libertarian” on her Twitter page.

On Tuesday she tweeted: “Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!”

Lectern thief

Looking particularly pleased with his day’s efforts was a man in a Trump winter beanie hat smiling and waving at cameras as he carried Pelosi’s lectern.

Local media identified him as 36-year-old Adam Johnson, a father of five from Parrish, Florida.

(AFP)

World leaders reacted with shock to the storming of the US Capitol building by enraged supporters of US President Donald Trump who are unable or unwilling to accept that he lost the November 3 election to Democrat Joe Biden. The Congress was in the process of certifying Biden’s win, with some objections from Republicans, when the siege began.

Leaders around the world condemned the storming of the US Capitol building by supporters of President Donald Trump on Wednesday, expressing shock at the chaos unfolding in a country long known for its peaceful transfers of power.

“Disgraceful scenes in US Congress,” tweeted Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, a staunch ally of the United States over generations. “The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.”

President of the European Parliament David Sassoli, who leads one of the largest legislatures in the world, also denounced the scenes at the Capitol. The European Union has spent four cantankerous years dealing with the Trump administration and its top officials have repeatedly said they are looking forward to a better relationship under President-elect Joe Biden.

“This is insurrection. Nothing less. In Washington,” tweeted Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden.

‘The looting of democracy’

French President Emmanuel Macron published a video on Twitter, criticising the violence in while reiterating his faith in the US democratic process.

Macron ended the video with a brief statement in English, which carried the hashtag “#WeAreOne.”

“I just wanted to express our friendship and our faith in the United States,” he said. “What happened today in Washington DC is not America. Definitely. We believe in the strength of our democracies. We believe in the strength of American democracy.”

Macron: ‘What happened today in Washington, DC, is not America’

Other allies were similarly appalled at what they described as an attack on American democracy, though many said they believed US democratic institutions would withstand the turmoil.

Several leaders blamed Trump directly for the violence, with some warning: “It won’t end today.” 

“This is the widely anticipated outcome of Trumpism,” tweeted a retired Italian centre-left politician, Pierluigi Castagnetti. “And unfortunately it won’t end today. When politics is replaced by deception and fanaticism of the people the drift is inevitable.”

Many Italians watched with shock as the events unfolded in a country that helped Italy after its fascist era during World War II.

Turkey, a NATO ally that has sometimes been at odds with the Trump administration, expressed concern over the images of angry Trump supporters trying to thwart the certification of Biden as the new president. A foreign ministry statement urged all parties in the United States to use “moderation and common sense”.

“We believe that the United States will overcome this domestic political crisis with maturity,” the ministry said.

“Trump and his supporters should finally accept the decision of the American voters and stop trampling on democracy,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wrote on Twitter. “From inflammatory words come violent deeds.”

He added that, “contempt for democratic institutions has disastrous effects”.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country was “deeply disturbed and saddened” by the events in the US, Canada’s closest ally and neighbor.

“Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld – and it will be,” Trudeau tweeted.

Other reactions were not so supportive.

Venezuela, which remains under US sanctions, said events in Washington show that the US “is suffering what it has generated in other countries with its politics of aggression”. President Nicolas Maduro has survived US-backed opposition efforts to oust him despite accusations of human rights abuses and a humanitarian crisis that has seen much of its population descend into poverty and forced millions to flee the oil-rich country.

As his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump issued a lukewarm call for them to “stay peaceful” but did not immediately ask them to disperse. Hours later he urged them to go home but added, “We love you” and called them “very special” people. 

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

Angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol Wednesday, marching through the building, shouting and waving both Trump and American flags, and forcing a halt to congressional deliberations over challenges to Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Senators were evacuated and some House lawmakers tweeted they were sheltering in place in their offices.

US President-elect Joe Biden called on Trump to go on national TV to denounce the “insurrection”, calling the scenes at the Capitol “disgraceful”, that they should “stop now”.

Trump supporters fought with Capitol Police and then forced their way into the building, not long after a rally near the White House, during which Trump had egged them on, saying: “We will never give up, we will never concede … We will stop the steal.”

Multiple police officers have been injured at the Capitol and the National Guard has been mobilised to provide support.

Vice President Pence has called for the violence to ‘stop now’ – but outgoing president Trump has not.

The violence at the Capitol came as Congress sat to certify the election victory of Joe Biden.

Source: France 24

The United States has recorded more than 20 million cases of Covid-19, Johns Hopkins University said Friday in its real-time tally, as the New Year brought another grim milestone underlining the country’s struggle to quell the virus.

The US has so far registered 20,007,149 cases and 346,408 deaths in the pandemic, the Baltimore-based university said, making it the country with by far the highest official number of cases and the highest death toll.

On Wednesday alone, more than 3,900 people died of Covid-19 in the US, a new daily record, and experts believe the worst is yet to come as health care workers brace for a surge in cases and deaths after holiday gatherings.

More than 125,000 people are currently hospitalized with coronavirus — another record — according to the Covid Tracking Project.

The country has begun a mass campaign of vaccinations and nearly 2.8 million people have already received their first jabs, a figure well behind the 20 million inoculations that the administration of President Donald Trump promised by the end of the year.

More than 12 million doses have been distributed nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but efforts to vaccinate health workers and vulnerable people have been hampered by logistical problems and overstretched hospitals and clinics.

President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on January 20, has criticized the troubled vaccine rollout, and this week confirmed that he would invoke the Korean War-era Defense Production Act to force private industry to step up production for the government.

Source: AFP