US President Donald Trump denied Tuesday that his speech last week to thousands of supporters, encouraging them to march on Congress, had anything to do with the deadly violence that broke out shortly after.

“They’ve analysed my speech in my words and my final paragraph, my final sentence, and everybody to the tee just thought it was totally appropriate,” Trump told reporters before flying out for a trip to Texas.

On January 6 he told a large crowd in Washington that the presidential election was stolen and that they should march on Congress and show “strength”. The crowd broke into Congress and forced frightened lawmakers to abandon a ceremony putting the legal stamp on Democrat Joe Biden’s election win.

A Capitol police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot a woman during the violence. Three others died in what authorities said were medical emergencies.

As rioters were still in the Capitol, Trump released a video seemingly excusing the events, saying of the rioters: “We love you. You’re very special”.

Impeachment moves causing ‘tremendous anger’

In his first remarks since the January 6 Capitol assault, Trump also blasted the US House plans to remove him from office.

Speaking to reporters as he boarded the Marine One aircraft at the White House for a trip to Texas, Trump called his scheduled impeachment in the House of Representatives on Wednesday a “continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics”.

Trump said the prospect of impeachment was causing “tremendous anger” in the nation. But he said he wants “no violence”.

With only eight days left in his one-term administration, Trump finds himself alone, shunned by former supporters and US businesses, barred by social media, and now facing a second impeachment over his instigation of a riot against Congress.

His trip to Alamo, Texas, where he will tout claims of success in building a US-Mexican border wall, is his first live public appearance since he rallied thousands of followers on the National Mall to march on Congress.

Although this is not the same Alamo as the famous fortress in another part of Texas, the trip marks something of a last stand for the Republican.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres officially declared Monday he is seeking a second five-year term at the helm of the United Nations.

Guterres, whose current term ends next Dec. 31, said in a letter to General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir that “It would be my honour to continue to serve the organization in pursuing its purposes and fulfilling its noble objectives.”

The former Portuguese prime minister and U.N. refugee chief was elected by the 193-member assembly to succeed Ban Ki-moon after a hotly contested and transparent race in October 2016 that initially included 13 candidates — seven women and six men. Guterres took office on Jan. 1, 2017.

“I am available to serve a second term as secretary-general of the United Nations, if that will be the will of member states,” Guterres said in a letter to Bozkir obtained by the Associated Press.

Several diplomats have said Guterres was waiting for the results of the U.S. presidential election and would not have sought a second term if Donald Trump won. But another diplomat familiar with his thinking said Guterres, after more than 40 years of public service, would have felt he couldn’t desert the U.N. if Trump had defeated President-elect Joe Biden who takes office on Jan. 20.

Trump pulled the United States out of the World Health Organization, the U.N.-backed 2015 Paris climate agreement and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and stopped funding the U.N. population fund and the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Biden has said the U.S. will quickly rejoin the WHO and the climate agreement.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres was responding to a letter from Bozkir on Friday asking his “intentions regarding a second mandate.”

The secretary-general spent time over the holidays speaking to his family, Dujarric said, and “I don’t think any particular elections cycle in any particular country impacted his decision.”

Dujarric said Guterres informed the five permanent members of the Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — on Friday. China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun hosted a lunch for the P5 ambassadors, as they are called, with the secretary-general on Friday, diplomats said.

The General Assembly elects the secretary-general on the recommendation of the 15-member Security Council where the five permanent members have veto power, so their support is crucial.

Guterres, 71, got his first key vote of support late Monday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “warmly welcomed the secretary-general’s decision to run for a second term and congratulated him on a successful first term,” his office said following a virtual meeting between the two leaders.

Guterres also spoke to leaders of the U.N.’s regional groups on Friday and sent a letter to the Security Council on Monday, the U.N. spokesman said.

As for next steps, a General Assembly resolution adopted in September 2015 asks the presidents of the assembly and Security Council to “start the process of soliciting candidates for the position of secretary-general through a joint letter addressed to all member states.”

Assembly spokesman Brenden Varma said president Bozkir spoke to Tunisia’s U.N. Ambassador Tarek Ladeb, this month’s council president, on Monday and will meet with him Tuesday, among other things to discuss “the next steps in this process.”

The 2015 resolution, which was adopted by consensus, made the previously largely secretive selection of the secretary-general more open and transparent. It allowed the world body’s member states for the first time to see basic information about all candidates, including their resumes, and to meet and question them at open sessions.

Just before Christmas, a group of 25 nations from all regions called the Accountability Coherence and Transparency group wrote to the General Assembly and Security Council urging that the selection process meets “at a minimum” the 2015 standards of transparency and involvement of U.N. members.

Guterres’ election was a disappointment to women, who have never held the U.N.’s top job, and to East Europeans who have never had a secretary-general from the region. It was supposed to be next in the informal geographical rotation for U.N. chief when Guterres, a West European was elected.

Since this will be the first time an incumbent is seeking a second term following the resolution’s adoption, and it isn’t yet known whether there will be any other candidates, the next steps are unclear.

Guterres said in his reply to Bozkir: “In line with the strong interest of the General Assembly regarding transparency and inclusivity, I am ready to fully meet the expectations referred in your letter, notably with regard to the submission of a vision statement and to the participation in an informal dialogue with member states.”

The secretary-general said in the letter that he has worked to reform the United Nations “to meet the aspirations of member states, striving for the dignity and the well-being of people, while ensuring the sustainability of our planet for future generations.”

On the day of his election, Guterres pledged to be “a bridge-builder” and to promote a new “diplomacy for peace.”

But the last four years have seen the United Nations, the global bastion of multilateralism, and its leader trying to deal with an increasingly polarized world facing a pandemic, regional conflicts, a shrinking economy, growing inequality and escalating U.S.-China tensions.

(AP)

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she would push ahead with efforts to remove President Donald Trump from office during the final days of his administration after his supporters’ violent attack on the Capitol.

Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, said there would be a resolution in the House of Representatives on Monday calling for the cabinet to remove Trump as unfit for office under the constitution’s 25th amendment.

If Vice President Mike Pence does not agree, “we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation” to the floor of the House of Representatives, Pelosi said.

“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she said.

“As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”

Trump was already impeached once by the Democratic-controlled House — in December 2019 for pressuring the leader of Ukraine to dig up political dirt on Joe Biden.

He was acquitted by the Republican-majority Senate.

Though time is running short, Democrats likely have the votes in the House to impeach Trump again and could even draw some Republican support for the move.

But they are unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump in the 100-member Senate and remove him from office.

Trump’s successor Joe Biden is due to be inaugurated on January 20.

Source: AFP

President Donald Trump said there would be an “orderly transition on January 20” after Congress concluded the electoral vote count early Thursday, certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, hours after he appeared to excuse the violent occupation of the US Capitol by his supporters. A woman was fatally shot, windows were bashed and the mob forced shaken lawmakers and aides to flee the building, shielded by Capitol Police.

Lawmakers formally certified Biden as the winner of the presidential election Thursday morning, clearing the way for his inauguration on January 20. Republican Vice President Mike Pence certified the Electoral College count of 306 electors in favour of Biden against 232 in favour of Trump.

Trump promised Thursday there would be an “orderly transition on January 20” after Congress concluded the electoral vote count. On Wednesday he told the crowd at a so-called Save America rally that he would “never concede” the 2020 election. He urged supporters to gather at the Capitol building to support the Republican lawmakers who had vowed to challenge Biden’s win.

Trump supporters fought with Capitol police and then forced their way into the building, breaking windows and scaling the outside walls. Several officers were wounded and the National Guards of several nearby US states were mobilised to provide support.

DC police said four people died during the siege – one woman was shot by police and died in hospital while three others had medical emergencies. More than 50 people were arrested.

As Trump supporters besieged the Capitol, President-elect Joe Biden called on Trump to go on national TV to denounce the “insurrection”, calling the scenes “disgraceful”.

Trump eventually gave a statement via a recorded video, repeating his false claim that the election was stolen but asking supporters to “stay peaceful”. Several hours later he called for the crowd to “go home” before adding: “We love you. You’re very special.”

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube removed the video from their platforms over Trump’s false election claim. Twitter said his account would be locked for the next 12 hours and threatened him with “permanent suspension”. Facebook announced it would block him from posting for 24 hours.

Other riots instigated by Trump supporters were staged outside legislatures in states including Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio and California, leading some to be evacuated. Some scuffles broke out but most demonstrations were small and led to only a few arrests.

Culled from France 24

President-elect Joe Biden and outgoing President Donald Trump held duelling rallies in Georgia ahead of Tuesday’s critical US Senate runoffs that will determine the balance of power in Washington.

The Georgia races pit a pair of incumbent Republicans, Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, against Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively.

Biden wants both Democrats to win so his party will control both houses of Congress when he takes office on January 20. Trump’s team wants Republicans to win so that, with Senate control, his party can block or curtail Biden’s legislative agenda.

Reporting from Atlanta, FRANCE 24’s Kethevane Gorjestani said both races were tight with the polls showing Republican and Democrat candidates within the margin of error, making it hard to say which party had the edge.

“The fact that both, Joe Biden and Donald Trump were here in Georgia with their respective candidates shows how important these two races are. What could be decisive is the turnout,” she noted.

More than 3 million Georgians have already cast their ballots, a state record of nearly 40% of registered voters opting for early voting.

‘Fight for Trump!’

Trump, a Republican who lost the November presidential election to his Democratic counterpart, has not conceded to Biden, and he spent part of his rally remarks in Dalton, a city in Georgia’s heavily Republican northwest, suggesting that he would try to hold on to power.

“They’re not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell,” Trump said to cheers from the crowd, which chanted “Fight for Trump!”

“Donald Trump is showing no signs of giving anything up. Throughout most of his speech during this rally, he attacked again Georgian election officials. He started the rally here with these words, ‘There is no way we lost Georgia’. He’s been attacking the integrity of the election process in Georgia, but at the same time he’s asking his base to come out and vote even though he thinks everything is rigged against him and against the candidates he’s supporting,” explained Gorjestani.

Biden criticised the outgoing administration for its handling of the pandemic and promised a fresh start for the country with Democratic control. More than 350,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the United States, and it is spreading rapidly in most states.

“It’s a new year, and tomorrow can be a new day for Atlanta, for Georgia and for America,” Biden said.

He said the Trump administration had “gotten off to a god-awful start” with the slow rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines. “The president spends more time whining and complaining than doing something about the problem,” he said.

Democratic candidates, if elected, would ensure that $2,000 stimulus checks were delivered to Americans as the economy struggles during the coronavirus pandemic, Biden said.

The outgoing president also put pressure on Vice President Mike Pence, who will receive the results of the state-by-state Electoral College in Congress on Wednesday, to take action in his favour. Biden beat Trump 306-232 in electoral votes and carried the popular vote by more than 7 million ballots.

“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” Trump said, referring to the vice president as a great guy. “If he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much,” Trump said.

Historic shift in Georgia

Long a solidly Republican state, Georgia surprised the nation in November by choosing Biden, the first time it had backed a Democratic presidential candidate in almost three decades.

That has raised liberals’ hopes for Warnock and Ossoff, although they face a tough battle in the still deeply conservative state. About 3 million have already voted.

A win by the two Democrats would hand the Senate to Biden’s party, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would hold the tiebreaking vote in the 50-50 chamber. That would make it easier for Biden to enact further coronavirus relief and tackle climate change, as Democrats also control the House of Representatives.

None of the Senate candidates won a majority in the November 3 election, which spurred the runoff elections.

Trump has continued to assert, without evidence, that his loss in November was the result of widespread voter fraud – a claim that reviews by state and federal election officials, multiple courts and the US Department of Justice have rejected.

In a call on Saturday to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that was recorded, Trump pressured the Republican official to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat, and suggested Raffensperger’s failure to alter the November results could hurt Republican turnout in the Senate runoffs.

Democrats and election experts say Trump’s efforts almost certainly broke the law.

Biden, who won Georgia by almost 12,000 votes, did not mention the call directly in his remarks on Monday.

Loeffler, the senator who is contesting in Georgia, said on Monday night she would object to the certification of the election results in Congress on Wednesday, joining about a dozen other Republican senators and over 100 Republican House members. The move has virtually no chance of overturning Biden’s victory.

It is not clear whether Trump’s actions and his repeated claims of election fraud will affect the outcome of the Senate races. Strategists from both parties say the outcome could likely hinge on how many Republican voters participate on Tuesday, given strong Democratic early voting turnout.

The Senate campaigns have obliterated spending records and spurred unprecedented turnout, as political groups have flooded the state with a tsunami of advertising.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

Nancy Pelosi, the only woman to serve as US Speaker of the House, was narrowly re-elected to the position Sunday in a deeply divided new Congress that convened in the final weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Pelosi, 80, faced a scare when five fellow Democrats defected and voted “present” or for someone else during the floor vote.

But the woman who is third in line to the presidency secured her fourth — and perhaps final — non-consecutive term as House speaker by earning 216 votes versus 209 for Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.

In a symbolic gesture beginning the 117th Congress, McCarthy formally handed the speaker’s gavel over to Pelosi, who raised it in triumph as Democrats cheered and applauded.

“We begin the new Congress during a time of extraordinary difficulty,” Pelosi told the chamber, noting the toll of 350,000 dead and 20 million infected by Covid-19.

“Our most urgent priority will continue to be defeating the coronavirus,” a masked Pelosi said. “And defeat it, we will.”

The vote took hours, as lawmakers were required to vote in groups of several dozen due to social distancing rules imposed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Pelosi has been Trump’s chief nemesis in Congress, and the two clashed bitterly over the past two years, particularly as she leveled impeachment charges against the president.

Trump was impeached in December 2019, but the Senate acquitted him early in 2020. His successor, Joe Biden, takes office on January 20.

With Pelosi scrambling to keep her post, it was a handful of progressive lawmakers and members-elect who have been critical of her leadership but ultimately voted for her on Sunday.

Among them was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most high-profile Democrats in Washington, and incoming lawmaker Cori Bush, who is the first African-American woman to represent Missouri in Congress.

There are normally 435 members of the House, but just 427 votes were cast Sunday as a few congressmen-elect are in quarantine due to Covid-19 and a tight House race in New York has yet to be formally decided.

One congressman-elect from Louisiana, Luke Letlow, died of complications from Covid-19 last week, days before he was due to be sworn in.

That leaves Democrats with one of the slimmest House majorities in two decades, 222 to 211 with two vacancies, as they navigate the remaining few weeks of Trump and carry into the Biden presidency.

On a day that was anything but conventional, Republican Chip Roy interrupted the swearing-in process to ask that the delegations from the six swing states where Trump has contested the election results not be seated Sunday as House members.

Pelosi dispensed with the effort by holding a vote that affirmed her right to swear in all members.

(AFP)

President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Friday overrode his veto for the first time in his nearly four years in office, pushing through a bill on defense spending against his strong objections 20 days before he leaves office.

Meeting in a rare New Year’s Day session, the Senate secured the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto with bipartisan support two days before a new Congress will be sworn in on Sunday. Eight previous vetoes have been upheld.

Republican lawmakers have largely stood by the president during his turbulent White House term.

Since losing his re-election bid in November, however, Trump has lashed out at them for not fully backing his unsupported claims of voting fraud, rejecting his demand for bigger COVID-19 relief checks and for moving toward the veto override.

The Republican-led Senate, following the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Monday, passed the measure without his support, voting 81-13.

A U.S. president has the power to veto a bill passed by Congress, but lawmakers can uphold the bill if two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and Senate vote to override it.

The $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) determines everything from how many ships are bought to soldiers’ pay and how to address geopolitical threats, but Trump refused to sign it into law because it did not repeal certain legal protections for social media platforms and did include a provision stripping the names of Confederate generals from military bases.

“We’ve passed this legislation 59 years in a row. And one way or another, we’re going to complete the 60th annual NDAA and pass it into law before this Congress concludes on Sunday,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.

Trump, who returned to Washington on Thursday from his private club in Florida, has ramped up pressure on fellow Republicans and slammed party leadership for failing to do his bidding on the two measures and for not more fully joining his fight to overturn the election results.

As votes were being counted indicating Trump had lost the battle over the bill, the president took to Twitter to tout a protest rally being planned in Washington on Wednesday, the day the new Congress officially tallies the Electoral College votes certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

Some Trump allies in Congress have said they plan to object on Trump’s behalf.

(REUTERS)

US President Donald Trump had predicted that he would lose the November election and pre-emptively blamed his senior White House advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner for trying to promote more coronavirus testing, according to a report.

Trump was broadly opposed to Kushner’s strategy on fighting the pandemic and did not want the information on how many people were infected to become public, The New York Times revealed on Thursday.

At one point, Trump had suggested that the US should “do what Mexico does” and not administer tests to anyone who was not gravely ill with the virus.

“Mr. Trump never came around to the idea that he had a responsibility to be a role model, much less that his leadership role might require him to publicly acknowledge hard truths about the virus — or even to stop insisting that the issue was not a rampaging pandemic but too much testing,” said the report.

Trump had also dismissed a Japanese study, presented to him by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in the fall, that had documented the effectiveness of wearing facial masks.

During a meeting of senior aides in the White House on August 19, Trump grew angry with increased COVID-19 testing which he blamed for higher cases. “You’re killing me! This whole thing is! We’ve got all the damn cases,” Trump reportedly yelled at Kushner.

“I’m going to lose. And it’s going to be your fault, because of the testing,” he complained to his son-in-law.

Trump was also furious with America’s doctors and scientists, accusing them of conspiring with Democrats to undermine him during the election campaign.

Throughout the late summer and fall and in the heat of his reelection campaign, the president was frequently criticized over his erratic and unsteady handling of the pandemic and in the face of mounting evidence of a surge in infections and deaths far worse than in the spring.

Trump eventually lost to his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, with opinion polls naming the coronavirus and the economy as being two of the major factors weighing on the voters’ minds.

Trump has refused to concede the election to Biden and has explored multiple options to overturn the results.

Source: Presstv

Israel will hold a snap election in March after parliament failed on Tuesday to meet a deadline to pass a budget, triggering a ballot presenting new challenges for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Campaigning in Israel’s fourth parliamentary election in two years gets underway with Netanyanu facing public anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and while he is engaged in a corruption trial, the first against an Israeli prime minister.

Israel’s longest-serving leader will also have to contend with a new rival from the right, Gideon Saar, a defector from Netanyahu’s Likud party who an opinion poll on Israel’s Kan public TV on Tuesday showed was drawing even with him.

Netanyahu, who has denied any criminal wrongdoing, and the current defence minister, centrist politician Benny Gantz, established a unity government in May after three inconclusive elections held since April 2019.

But they have been locked in a dispute over passage of a national budget key to implementing a deal in which Gantz was to have taken over from Netanyahu in November 2021.

The Speaker of Parliament declared its dissolution late on Tuesday in a session broadcast on live television, saying a snap election was automatically triggered by its failure to approve a budget.

Source: REUTERS

US President Donald Trump has launched his latest long-shot effort to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, saying he would again ask the Supreme Court to overturn results from the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Trump’s campaign said it filed a petition asking the high court to reverse three rulings by a Pennsylvania state court interpreting the state’s rules for mail-in ballots.

The campaign said a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases “illegally changed Pennsylvania’s mail balloting law immediately before and after the 2020 presidential election.”

“This petition follows a related Pennsylvania case in which Justice Alito and two other justices observed ‘the constitutionality of the [Pennsylvania] Supreme Court’s decision [extending the statutory deadline for receipt of mail ballots from 8 pm on election day to 5 pm three days later] … has national importance, and there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution”, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani said in the campaign statement.

The actual rulings include prohibiting election officials from checking whether signatures on mail-in ballots are genuine during canvassing on Election Day and eliminating the right of campaign’s to challenge mail ballots during canvassing for forged signatures and other irregularities.

“Collectively, these three decisions resulted in counting approximately 2.6 million mail ballots in violation of the law as enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature,” Trump’s attorney John Eastman wrote in the filing.

Congress is set to formally tally the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 and Biden will take office on Jan. 20.

The petition came days after Democrat Joe Biden won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232 and defeated the Republican president by more than 7 million ballots in the popular vote. A candidate needs 270 of those votes.

Trump has refused to concede and continues his battle to overturn election results in several battleground states.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 11 rejected a lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by Trump seeking to throw out voting results in four states, including Pennsylvania that went for Biden.

Trump says widespread electoral fraud has taken place and has tried but failed to overturn Biden’s victory, pressing state officials, lawmakers and governors to throw the results out.

Several senior Republican US senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have acknowledged Biden as the country’s president-elect after the Electoral College affirmed his victory.

Source: Presstv