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

The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it has closed its civil rights investigation into the fatal 2014 shooting by Cleveland police of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black youth, and that no federal criminal charges would be brought in the case.

The announcement came five years after an Ohio grand jury cleared two Cleveland officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, of state charges of wrongdoing in the death of Rice, who was shot in a playground while holding a toy gun capable of shooting pellets.

The slaying occurred when Loehmann, then a rookie on the Cleveland force, rolled up to the park in a police cruiser with Garmback at the wheel, then sprung from the vehicle and fired his gun twice at the youth within seconds, killing the boy.

Both men are white.

The incident was one of a flurry of high-profile killings of African-American people at the hands of U.S. law enforcement in recent years that have fueled protests giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement against racial injustice.

The two officers in the Rice case had been dispatched in response to a 911-emergency call reporting a suspect with a gun near a recreation center.

But crucial information the caller gave dispatchers – namely that the person in question was a juvenile and that the supposed weapon might be a toy – was never relayed to Loehmann and his partner before they reached the scene.

As a result, “the officers believed they were responding to a playground where a grown man was brandishing a real gun at individuals, presumably children,” the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in its six-page statement.

Moreover, security camera video of the November 2014 episode was found to be too grainy and taken from too great a distance to conclusively detail circumstances of the shooting, the statement said.

In closing the case without bringing charges, the department said it lacked sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either officer had willfully broken the law, as opposed to making a mistake or exercising poor judgment.

“Although Tamir Rice’s death is tragic … both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office concluded that this matter is not a prosecutable violation of the federal statutes,” the department said.

Although no criminal charges have been brought, the city agreed to pay $6 million to the boy’s family to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed in his death in April 2016.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors who previously investigated the killing have said Rice had either intended to hand over the toy weapon he was carrying – an Airsoft replica of a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun – or show officers it was not real, but that the two policemen had no way of knowing that.

The Airsoft normally comes with an orange tip on its barrel to distinguish it from an actual firearm, but the one Rice was holding at the time did not, prosecutors said.

The family’s attorney, Subodh Chandra, said Tamir’s mother is profoundly upset by news of Tuesday’s decision.

“Justice for the family would be to prosecute the officers who killed their child,” Chandra said.

Source: REUTERS

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted full pardons to former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former adviser Roger Stone, sweeping away the most important convictions made under the long-running Russia election probe.

Trump also issued a full pardon for Charles Kushner, a real estate developer and the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

It was the second wave of pardons Trump has issued in two days. The announcement came just after Trump arrived in Palm Beach, Florida, for the holiday season, with Jared Kushner on the Air Force One flight with him.

In total, Trump issued on Wednesday full pardons to 26 individuals and commuted part or all of the sentences of an additional three people.

Facing the end of his term on Jan. 20, Trump has now granted full pardons to four major figures from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Besides Manafort and Stone, Trump has pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former adviser George Papadopoulos.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been trying to prosecute Manafort in New York for mortgage fraud and other alleged crimes, said it would continue to pursue an appeal for its case, which was dismissed on double jeopardy grounds.

“This action underscores the urgent need to hold Mr. Manafort accountable for his crimes against the People of New York as alleged in our indictment, and we will continue to pursue our appellate remedies,” said Danny Frost, spokesman for the office.

The Manafort pardon spared the long-time Republican operative from serving the bulk of his 7-1/2-year prison term.

Manafort, 70, was among the first in Trump’s inner circle to face charges brought by Mueller as part of his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In a statement relayed by his lawyer, Manafort expressed his appreciation to Trump.

“Mr. President, my family & I humbly thank you for the Presidential Pardon you bestowed on me. Words cannot fully convey how grateful we are,” he said.

Stone was convicted in November 2019 by a Washington jury of lying under oath to lawmakers also investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Trump commuted his sentence in July, a day before Stone was due to begin serving a term of three years and four months.  Stone, in a statement, thanked Trump for “completely erasing the criminal conviction to which I was subjected in a Soviet-style show trial on politically-motivated charges.”

Charles Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making unlawful campaign donations.

In an unusual twist, the man who prosecuted Charles Kushner was Chris Christie, now the former governor of New Jersey, who also has served as an adviser to Trump.

Christie was quoted by CNN as saying Charles Kushner’s case was “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he prosecuted. During the case, Charles Kushner admitted to smearing his brother-in-law, who had cooperated with prosecutors, by hiring a prostitute to have sex with him in a motel room, then sending a secretly recorded video of the encounter to the man’s wife, Charles Kushner’s own sister.

Source: REUTERS

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected reports that Russia’s security services were behind the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, saying that if they were, the opposition leader would not be alive.

Navalny, 44, fell violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August and was hospitalised in the Russian city of Omsk before being transported to Berlin by medical aircraft.

Experts of several Western countries concluded that the Kremlin critic was poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent — a claim that Moscow has repeatedly denied.

A joint media report this week revealed what it said were the names and photos of chemical weapons experts from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that had tailed Navalny for years.

Speaking to reporters at his annual end-of-year press conference, Putin described the report as “the legalisation of materials from the American special services”, adding that the Kremlin critic “has their support”.

The Russian leader said that if Navalny was supported by US special services, then Russia should of course tail him.

“But this does not at all mean that it is necessary to poison him. Who needs him?” Putin said.

If the Russian special services had wanted to poison Navalny, “they would have taken it to the end,” he said.

‘Putin admitted to everything’

The joint report on Navalny led by the investigative website Bellingcat said that the FSB agents had shadowed the opposition leader on a regular basis since 2017.

Bellingcat said it had made the conclusion based on volumes of data, including phone logs and travel records.

The joint report with CNN, Der Spiegel and Russian outlet The Insider did not establish any direct contact between the 44-year-old opposition leader and the named agents.

Navalny said Thursday that Putin’s comments amounted to an admission.

“Putin admitted to everything,” the Kremlin critic wrote on Twitter. “That is, yes, the FSB tailed me for 4 years.”

Navalny had earlier said that Putin was behind his poisoning and that he will return to Russia once he has made a full recovery in Germany.

In response to the poisoning, the European Union has imposed entry bans and frozen the bank accounts of six people suspected of being responsible, including FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov.

Source: AFP

The United States on Wednesday widened its network for administering COVID-19 vaccines to doctors and nurses on the frontlines of a pandemic killing more than 3,000 Americans a day, even as a major storm threatened to slow progress on the East Coast.

While medical professionals at a growing number of hospitals rolled up their sleeves, lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they were nearing a long-elusive bipartisan deal on $900 billion in economic relief to pandemic-hit U.S. workers and businesses.

The aid package, to be attached to a massive spending bill that must pass by Friday to avert a federal shutdown, was not expected to include COVID-relief funds for state and local governments, as Democrats wanted, or protections for companies from pandemic-related lawsuits, as sought by Republicans.

Rollout of the first tranche of 2.9 million doses of a newly authorized vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE was in its third full day, with shipments headed to 66 more distribution hubs nationwide.

A second vaccine from Moderna Inc could win emergency-use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week.

Express delivery companies FedEx and United Parcel Service, sharing a leading role in vaccine shipments, said they were monitoring potential impacts of heavy ice and snow that began to disrupt transport along the Eastern Seaboard.

U.S. Army General Gustave Perna, overseeing the government’s Operation Warp Speed campaign, said FedEx and UPS have developed contingency plans to keep any delayed vaccine shipments secure until they can be “delivered the next day.”

“We are on track with all the deliveries we said we were doing,” Perna told reporters at a briefing. He cited a minor glitch involving four trays of vaccine – two sent to California and two to Alabama – that arrived at temperatures lower than prescribed. The trays in question were shipped back to Pfizer and later replaced, Perna said.

Some 570 other vaccine distribution centers received the bulk of the initial batch of shipments on Monday and Tuesday, and an even larger wave was due for delivery to 886 additional locations on Friday, Perna said.

From each distribution site, vaccine doses were divided up among area hospitals and administered to healthcare workers, designated as first in line to be immunized. Some were also going to residents and staff of long-term care facilities. Later vaccine rounds will go to other essential workers, senior citizens and people with chronic health conditions.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he would get the vaccine publicly to help instill confidence in its safety, is expected to receive his first injection as soon as next week, according to his transition team.

Biden, 78, is in a high-risk category for the coronavirus due to his age.

‘Not over yet’

It will take several months before vaccines are widely available to the public on demand, and opinion polls have found many Americans hesitant about getting inoculated.

Political leaders and medical authorities in the meantime have launched a media blitz assuring Americans that the vaccines are safe while urging them to avoid growing weary of social distancing and mask-wearing while the pandemic rages on.

“It is not over yet,” Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CBS News. “Public health measures are the bridge to get to the vaccine, which is going to get us out of this.”

Data shows surging infections and hospitalizations are driving healthcare systems to the breaking point across much of the country, with many intensive care units at or near capacity.

The United States reported at least 3,459 additional coronavirus deaths on Wednesday alone, a record that marks the fourth time in a week the daily toll has surpassed 3,000, according to a Reuters tally. The seven-day average has topped 2,500 lives lost every 24 hours for the first time this week.

To date, COVID-19 deaths total more than 304,000 nationally, while the mounting case load of 16.7 million known infections represents roughly 5% of the U.S. population.

With hospitalizations setting a record for the 19th day in a row – nearly 113,000 patients under treatment on Wednesday – health experts warn that fatalities will rise higher still in the weeks ahead, even as the vaccine campaign steadily expands.

Another 2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 5.9 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine could be allocated next week, U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar told a conference call. Both require two doses, given three or four weeks apart, for each person inoculated.

In all, the United States has options to buy up to 300 million doses of those vaccines, Azar said, plus hundreds of millions more doses of vaccines yet to receive approval, including some single-dose drugs.

The United States could have a surplus supply of vaccines in the future, if all the vaccines it has secured are authorized for use, Azar said, which could eventually benefit other countries.

The Trump administration was also in talks to secure additional antibody treatment doses from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc and Eli Lilly and Co, Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Moncef Slaoui told the same conference call.

Source: REUTERS