Democrats in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday unveiled a seven-member team of ‘impeachment managers’ to prosecute President Donald Trump. After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed the articles of impeachment, the managers made a landmark promenade to deliver the papers to the Senate.

House lawmakers on Wednesday voted 228 to 193 to give the Senate, controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, the task of putting him on trial on the two articles of impeachment, i.e. 1) abuse of power for asking Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden; and 2) obstruction of Congress for blocking testimony and documents sought by Democratic lawmakers.

The magnificent seven

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected a team of seven “impeachment managers”, who will act in a prosecutorial role and present the pro-impeachment case before the Senate.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a Trump nemesis who served as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles for six years, was selected to head the team of managers.

“When the managers walk the hall, they will cross a threshold in history, delivering articles of impeachment against the president of the United States for abuse of power and obstruction of the House. Today we will make history.”

“Engrossment”

While many observers delighted in Pelosi’s gesture, others felt it was inappropriate to the occasion.

Immediately thereafter, the impeachment managers made the history-making walk across the marbled floors of the Capitol Building and delivered the articles to the Senate. This was the first time since Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings 22 years ago that this momentous promenade had taken place.

Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, said that the Senate would formally receive the articles Thursday January 16 at midday EST (6pm in Paris, 5pm GMT). Formal opening arguments, both pro-and anti-impeachment, start on Tuesday January 21.

Pelosi launched the impeachment inquiry in September after earlier resisting such a move centred on Trump’s actions to impede a federal investigation that documented Russian interference in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy.

Ball in the Senate’s court

The trial will focus attention on Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate domestic political rival Joe Biden, just as the 2020 presidential campaign heats up.

A fight over witnesses remains unresolved. Senate Democrats in the Republican-controlled chamber want four current and former Trump administration officials to testify, while many Republicans want a speedy trial without witness testimony. Trump has at times said he wants to hear from witnesses, albeit not the same ones the Democrats want to testify. Democrats need at least four Republicans to join them to reach a majority of 51 senators to approve the subpoenas.

The 100-seat Senate is expected to acquit Trump, keeping him in office, as none of its 53 Republicans has voiced support for removing him, a step that under the US Constitution would require a two-thirds majority.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

Queen Elizabeth II and other senior British royals were gathering for a meeting Monday with Prince Harry in an attempt to solve the crisis triggered by his bombshell announcement that he and wife Meghan were stepping back from the royal frontline.

Harry’s father Prince Charles and brother Prince William, with whom he has strained relations, will join the monarch at her private Sandringham estate in eastern England, according to British media.

Charles just flew back from Oman, where he attended a condolence ceremony following the death of Sultan Qaboos.

Meghan is expected to join the meeting via conference call from Canada as they attempt to work out the “next steps” towards a compromise and nip the growing crisis in the bud.

Issues up for debate include how much money the couple will still receive from Charles’s estate, their royal titles and what commercial deals they can strike, according to the Sunday Times.

The newspaper reported that William believes he and Harry are now “separate entities”, breaking the bonds forged following their mother’s tragic death.

“I’ve put my arm around my brother all our lives and I can’t do that any more; we’re separate entities,” the Times reported he told a friend.

The queen attended church at Sandringham on Sunday where supporters expressed sympathy for her, with some members of the public saying Harry and Meghan should not receive any more taxpayer money if they step back from the royal family.

The 93-year-old monarch on Thursday demanded that staff work with the couple to find urgently a “workable solution” that would take into account their demands for more freedom.

Harry, Meghan and son Archie spent Christmas in Canada, with the American former actress returning there this week.

Several Canadian media reported Meghan had returned to Vancouver Island off the country’s Pacific coast, where the family spent the year-end holidays and where baby Archie had remained with his nanny.

Senior royals were caught off guard by Wednesday’s announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex wanted to seek a “progressive new role” and divide their time between Britain and North America.

– ‘Complicated issues’ –

The queen’s office issued a terse statement the same evening, saying there were “complicated issues that will take time to work through”.

Harry and Meghan said they intended to continue to “fully support” the queen and “collaborate” with senior royals.

They also want to keep their home on the queen’s Windsor Castle estate as their British base, while aiming to become financially independent.

Media reports said Harry and Meghan could conduct a potentially damaging television interview if they are unhappy with the outcome of Sunday’s meeting.

Writing for The Sunday Times, broadcaster Tom Bradby, a friend of Harry and William, said: “I have some idea of what might be aired in a full, no-holds-barred, sit-down interview and I don’t think it would be pretty.”

The younger prince, who has struggled with his role, last year revealed he has been growing apart from his brother, who as second in line to the throne is increasingly pursuing a different path.

Harry has been open about his mental health issues, and he and Meghan last year admitted to struggling with the spotlight following their wedding at Windsor Castle in May 2018 and Archie’s birth a year later.

The couple have also lashed out at negative news coverage — some of which Harry says was racist — in light of Meghan’s biracial heritage.

The British public currently appears to be siding with the family, with a Daily Mail poll showing that a majority believe Harry should give up his right to the throne and be stripped of cash support from the royals or taxpayers.

Source: AFP

Several US lawmakers and officials have dismissed President Donald Trump’s new claim the US assassinated Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani because he was planning an attack on four American embassies in the region, including the one in Iraq.

In an interview on Friday with Fox News, Trump said Iran probably had targeted the US embassy in Baghdad and was aiming to attack four US embassies when it killed Soleimani.

“We will tell you probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad,” Trump claimed. “I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies.”

But two unnamed senior officials, including one in the Defense Department, told The Washington Post that they were aware only of vague intelligence about a plot against the embassy in Baghdad.

Neither official mentioned any threats against other embassies in the region.

A source told the Post that the US embassy in Baghdad was never given a warning “commensurate” with the kind of threat described by Trump, which would have been standard procedure.

US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said nothing about planned attacks on four embassies was revealed to Congress and essentially accused Trump of making up the planned attacks.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called the killing “provocative and disproportionate,” and other members of Congress said they were unconvinced after a closed-door intelligence briefing provided by administration officials.

“President Trump recklessly assassinated Qasem Soleimani,” said US Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state.

“He had no evidence of an imminent threat or attack,” she said.

“Let’s be clear — if there was evidence of imminent attacks on four embassies, the Administration would have said so at our Wednesday briefing,” he tweeted. “They didn’t. So either Fox News gets higher level briefings than Congress … or … wait for it… there was no such imminent threat.”

The Trump administration had earlier claimed it carried out the assassination to avert an “imminent attack,” which has also been met with suspicion and skepticism in the US.

The US military carried out an airstrike on the direction of Trump at Baghdad’s international airport last Friday, assassinating Soleimani and the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, as well as eight other companions.

Early on Wednesday, Iran responded to the assassination, striking the American airbase of Ain al-Assad in Anbar province in western Iraq and another in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

A USA Today/Ipsos poll released Thursday found that Americans, by 55%-24%, said they believe the killing of General Soleimani has made the United States less safe, rejecting a fundamental argument the Trump administration has made that the assassination made the US safer.

Source: Presstv

The vast majority of Americans say the US assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani has made America less safe and shows that President Donald Trump’s behavior with Iran is “reckless,” according to a new poll.

The USA Today/Ipsos poll found that Americans, by 55%-24%, said they believe the killing has made the United States less safe, rejecting a fundamental argument the Trump administration has made.

The poll also found that a majority of those surveyed, by 52%-34%,  called Trump’s behavior with Iran “reckless.”

There was overwhelming agreement among those surveyed that Soleimani’s killing made it more likely Iran would attack American interests in the Middle East (69%), that there would be attacks on US soil (63%), and that the United States and Iran would go to war (62%).

By 47%-39%, those surveyed said Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani in an attempt to divert the focus from his impeachment.

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that T she does not believe Trump had made America safer by assassinating Soleimani, calling the US attack “provocative” and “disproportionate.”

“What happened, in the view of many of us, is not promoting peace, but an escalation,” Pelosi, the highest ranking Democrat in Congress, said at her weekly news conference.

The US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Thursday to stop Trump from further military action against Iran, rebuking the president days after he ordered the strike that killed Soleimani and escalated tensions in the region.

The Democratic-controlled House voted 224-194, mostly along party lines, sending the war powers resolution to the Senate. The fate of the resolution is uncertain in the Senate, where Trump’s fellow Republicans hold 53 of the chamber’s 100 seats,

If passed by the House and Senate, the measure does not need Trump’s signature to go into effect.

The partisan vote reflected the deep divide in Congress over Trump’s Iran policy and how much authority lawmakers should have over the use of the military. Democrats accused Trump of acting recklessly and backed the resolution, while Trump’s fellow Republicans, who rarely vote against the president, opposed it.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran appeared to be “standing down” after missile strikes against Iraqi bases that caused no US casualties, indicating there would be no immediate new military response. 

In a televised address to the nation from the White House, Trump emphasized that there were “no Americans harmed” in the salvo of missiles aimed at two bases.

While he promised to immediately impose “punishing” new economic sanctions against Iran, Trump welcomed signs that Iran “appears to be standing down” in the tit-for-tat confrontation, signalling that the United States did not plan a new military riposte.

Trump closed his remarks by addressing Iranians directly, saying that he was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it”.

However, the US president, facing both an impeachment trial in Congress and a tough re-election in November, touted his decision to order the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani last Friday – the operation that prompted Tehran’s missile strike.

Soleimani, a national hero in Iran, was “the world’s top terrorist” and “should have been terminated long ago”, Trump said.

Although Trump ended his remarks with the call for peace, he opened by stating bluntly that he would never allow Iran to procure a nuclear weapon.

He then urged European allies and other world powers to follow America’s lead in abandoning a teetering international agreement on managing the country’s nuclear ambitions, and negotiate a new one instead.

Revenge ‘another issue’

Iran’s overnight missile strikes targeted the sprawling Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and a base in Arbil, both housing American and other foreign troops deployed in a US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the missiles a “slap in the face” for the United States and indicated that more was to come.

“An important incident has happened. The question of revenge is another issue,” Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The office of Iraq’s premier said it had received advance warning from Iran that a missile attack on US forces was imminent.

“Iraq rejects any violation of its sovereignty and attacks on its territory,” the statement said, without specifically condemning the missile strikes.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh denounced the missile attack, warning against attempts to turn Iraq into a “battlefield for warring sides”.

‘Proportionate measures’

The brazenness of the strike was highly unusual for Iran, which has tended to disguise attacks on US interests or troops through its use of proxy Shiite forces.

“Ballistic missiles openly launched from Iran onto American targets is a new phase,” said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias.

But as the dust settled, it appeared that Iran’s strike – coming soon after the burial of Soleimani at a funeral in front of vast crowds – might have been more symbolic than anything.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps warned any US counter-attack would be met with an even “more crushing response” and threatened to strike Israel and America’s “allied governments”.

However, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to indicate that Iran was satisfied for now.

“Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defence,” Zarif said on Twitter.

Sadr calls for restraint

The strikes sparked worldwide condemnation, including from NATO, Germany, France and the UK.

France said its forces deployed in Iraq sustained no casualties while the UK was concerned about “reports” of victims as British troops are stationed there. The Norwegian military said coalition troops were warned of the attack in advance through intelligence channels.

The apparent de-escalation did not remove pressure from approximately 5,200 US troops stationed across Iraq, where Iran has close links to powerful armed Shiite militias.

And Iranian allies in the country said they still intend to take revenge for Friday’s US attack in which top Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was killed alongside Soleimani.

Paramilitary chief Qais al-Khazali – blacklisted as a “terrorist” by the US – said his side’s response to the United States ” will be no less than the size of the Iranian response.”

Influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the crisis Iraq was experiencing was “over” following de-escalation rhetoric from both Iran and the US, calling on militia groups not to carry out attacks.

“I call on the Iraqi factions to be deliberate, patient, and not to start military actions, and to shut down the extremist voices of some rogue elements until all political, parliamentary and international methods have been exhausted,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The killings of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and a top Iraqi paramilitary chief in a US strike on Baghdad Friday threaten to drag Iraq into the abyss of regional conflict, analysts warned.

The US strike on Baghdad international airport targeted a convoy carrying Soleimani and his top Baghdad-based adviser Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s powerful Hashed al-Shaabi force.

The raid has confirmed the worst fears of many Iraqis: that their homeland will become the main battlefield in a looming conflict between Iran and the United States.

“Iran’s strongest cards are in Iraq, and I think that Iraq will pay the price for this,” said Fanar Haddad of Singapore University’s Middle East Institute.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have been rising for months, as the Washington accused Tehran-backed factions of firing rockets on their troops across Iraq and on their embassy in Baghdad.

But they have soared over the past week.

On December 27, a rocket attack killed a US contractor working in northern Iraq, prompting retaliatory US strikes that killed 25 fighters from Kataeb Hezbollah, a hardline Hashed faction.

Angry Hashed supporters laid siege to the US embassy as Washington announced hundreds of new US troops were en route to the region.

– Path to war? –

But Washington delivered its most decisive blow yet early Friday when a volley of strikes hit near Baghdad international airport, leaving two cars torched on the access highway.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed Soleimani was killed in the strike while the Hashed announced Muhandis’s death.

With the two dead, the Quds Force — the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Guards Corps — has been left decapitated and the Hashed lost its de facto chief, too.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe revenge” for the raid and its top security council was meeting to discuss options.

Analysts said the outbreak of a wider conflict was looking increasingly likely.

“If Iran does need to respond and make a performance out of this, the fear is that there will be something more than just loading rockets at embassies,” said Haddad.

“It could set Iraq along the path of internal conflict and that’s something Iran can very easily instigate,” he said.

The nature of the strike is unpredecented because of the seniority of those targeted — making its repercussions hard to picture, said Ramzy Mardini, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace.

“The problem with judging what happens next is a problem of imagination. Nobody thought this was in the realm of possibility,” he told AFP.

“It’s likely that all actors on all sides will be playing things by ear in the short term, which is a recipe for miscalculation,” said Mardini.

– ‘Heads will roll’ –

Friday’s strike had shown that Iran could no longer use its allies in Iraq to carry out attacks against US interests “without risking an American conventional retaliation on Iran,” Mardini told AFP.

“Plausible deniability has gone out the window.”

The US had expressed increasing frustration with the escalating rocket attacks on its 5,200 troops in Iraq and on its embassy in Baghdad over the past two months.

US forces led the 2003 invasion against then-dictator Saddam Hussein and Washington has worked closely with Iraqi officials and commanders since then.

But its influence has waned compared with that of Iran, which carefully crafted personal ties with Iraqi politicians and armed factions, even during Saddam’s reign.

Soleimani was the prime example, sweeping into Baghdad regularly to hold meeting with top Iraqi officials during times of turmoil.

Ranj Alaaldin, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Doha, said that would leave Iran with a range of questions for its Iraqi partners.

“How did the US know of Soleimani’s arrival in Baghdad? Who leaked the intel?” Alaaldin tweeted.

“Watch the Iraqi political space. Heads will roll.”

Source: AFP

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has convened a key meeting of top ruling party officials, state media said Sunday, ahead of a year-end deadline for Washington to shift its stance on stalled nuclear talks.

The plenary session, which opened on Saturday, follows widespread speculation that Pyongyang is preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile — as a threatened “Christmas gift” for Washington.

Kim presided over the meeting which discussed a new “transparent, anti-imperialist independent stand”, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The ruling Workers’ Party of Korea will also “discuss important matters arising… in the building of the state and national defence”, KCNA added.

Talks on denuclearising the Korean peninsula have been largely deadlocked since the second summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump collapsed in Hanoi at the start of this year.

The opening of the plenary comes a week after Kim held a meeting of top defence officials and discussed boosting military capabilities, and ahead of the leader’s New Year speech on January 1, a key political set-piece in the isolated country.

Pyongyang has carried out a series of static tests at its Sohae rocket facility this month, after a number of weapons launches in recent weeks — some of them described as ballistic missiles by Japan and others.

North Korea is under heavy US and United Nations sanctions over its nuclear programme, but it has been frustrated at the lack of relief after it declared a moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests.

Russia and China — North Korea’s main ally — have proposed easing sanctions in a bid to de-escalate tensions.

‘Imminent’ threat 

The ongoing meeting could have Pyongyang announce “major policy shift” from its previous approach with the US, said Hong Min, a senior researcher at the South’s state-run Korea Institute for National Unification.

Earlier this month, North Korean media published pictures of Kim riding a white horse on a sacred mountain, imagery that experts said was heavy with symbolism and may indicate a policy announcement.

“We’ll find out what the surprise is and we’ll deal with it very successfully,” Trump said.

“Everybody’s got surprises for me, but let’s see what happens. I handle them as they come along.”

But Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton — a longtime hawk on North Korea — has sharply criticised the president’s handling of the issue, and claimed that Pyongyang poses an “imminent” threat.

The US president has invested a huge amount of political capital in his attempt to persuade Kim to end North Korea’s isolation and give up its nuclear weapons.

There has been little progress, however, after three face-to-face meetings and numerous letter exchanges.

(AFP)

The US Senate remains deadlocked over how to proceed with an impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, more than a week after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached the Republican president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, is waiting until she receives more clarity from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, about what an impeachment trial will look like.

McConnell, however, says he wants to start the Senate trial as soon as lawmakers return from the holiday recess in January.

Democrats are also outraged over McConnell’s pledge to coordinate the trial with the Trump administration and do everything he can to acquit the president.    

Impeachment begins in the House. If the lower chamber of Congress approves articles of impeachment, a vote is then held in the Senate. A two-thirds majority vote would be needed in the Senate to remove the president from office.

Trump became the third president in US history to be impeached, following the impeachments of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Neither Johnson nor Clinton were convicted by the Senate.

With Republicans in control of the Senate, Trump’s acquittal also seems likely.

In 1974, then President Richard Nixon resigned during his second term after it became certain he would be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate over the Watergate scandal.

To formally launch a trial in the upper chamber of Congress, the 100-member Senate must pass a resolution with a simple majority authorizing the proceeding. But in order to do that, the House must first transmit the articles of impeachment. 

Pelosi, however, says she will not deliver the documents until Democrats “know what sort of trial the Senate will conduct.” McConnell is refusing to agree to any of that in advance and cites the 1999 Clinton trial as a precedent. 

In their dispute over how to move forward, both parties are citing the 1999 impeachment trial of Clinton, accusing each other of departing from what they view as precedents set by that trial.

Clinton’s trial in the Senate began on January 7, 1999, more than two weeks after he was impeached by the House on charges of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice with regard to a sex scandal investigation.

Trump is showing signs of increasing frustration with the uncertainty surrounding his Senate trial. He spent the Christmas holiday complaining and blasting Democrats over the impeachment.  

The House approved two articles of impeachment against Trump on December 18 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

An impeachment probe was launched in September after an anonymous intelligence community whistleblower accused the president of pressing Ukraine’s president to investigate Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, as well as a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

Source: Presstv

Almost US$1 billion was spent on political advertising this year in the United States, according to a report.

The company Advertising Analytics said on Friday that of the $998.4 million was spent on political advertising, while $351 million was spent on the 2020 presidential primaries.

Advertising Analytics predicted that a total of $6 billion will be spent during the 2020 election cycle. Over a dozen Democrats and three Republicans are competing in the 2020 presidential election.

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has alone spent about $124 million in advertisements since joining the presidential race last month.

Democratic candidate businessman Tom Steyer spend the second most, purchasing $83 million worth of ads, according to Politico.

Some 485 million was spent on political advertising in Washington D.C.

According to former US Democratic senator Mike Gravel, US politics is dominated by big money and its role.

American political writer Stephen Lendman has said that the United States is controlled by big money, wealthy people whose interests are served by the government and other public institutions at the expense of ordinary Americans.

In the 2010 Citizens United case ruling, the US Supreme Court allowed unlimited independent spending by corporations in elections.

According to a study published by the New York Times, wealthy individuals and corporations have begun to replace powerless people as direct beneficiaries of the US political system and the Constitution.

Source: Presstv

US Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has overtaken former Vice President Joe Biden in head to head matchup with President Donald Trump, a new poll shows.

The survey, conducted between December 18 and 19 by Ipsos/Reuters, found that 39 percent of US voters favored Sanders over Trump, compared to 37 percent who preferred Biden over the Republican president.

Biden has maintained a steady lead in national polls over other top candidates for several weeks, but primary voters have far from made up their minds.

Recent surveys have determined that Sanders enjoys more support among Hispanic voters and young people between 18 and 29 years old, demographics likely fueling his late-stage surge to the top of the Democratic field.

In the past, Sanders has criticized Biden for his views on domestic issues and foreign policies towards other countries.

Sanders began to eclipse Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts after the fourth Democratic debate, when multiple candidates attacked Warren on how she would fund her health care plan.

In the Ipsos/Reuters poll, Sanders is supported by more independents (21 percent) and Democrats (74 percent) than both Biden and Warren in matchups against Trump.

Sanders, 78, would become America’s first Jewish president if elected. Nonetheless, he has called on the US government to withhold military aid to Israel if it continues to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank in Palestine.

“I would use the leverage, $3.8 billion is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to Israel,” Sanders said in November at the annual convention of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group.

“I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza,” Sanders added, referring to the annual amount of military aid that the United States currently gives to Israel.

Source: Presstv