Our Reporter

America’s Vice President Mike Pence will attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, a source said on Sunday.

It was previously reported that Pence was planning to attend the inauguration, but was waiting on an invitation.

Word of Pence’s intention to watch President-elect Joe Biden take his oath of office in person spread one day after the first major break between Pence and President Donald Trump – when Pence defied the President by performing his constitutional duty to certify the election results.

Pence had faced intense pressure from Trump and his supporters to stop the ceremonial vote counting during a joint session of Congress, although he told the President it was not within his power to do so.

Biden said he was glad Pence would be attending.

Read Also: Biden’s last hurdle

“He’s welcome. I think it’s important that as much as we can stick to what have been the historical precedents of how an administration changes should be maintained. And so Mike, the vice president, is welcome to come. We’d be honoured to have him there, and to move forward in the transition,” Biden said.

President Donald Trump announced on Twitter, before his account was suspended, that he would not be attending.

Biden said Trump’s decision to skip his inauguration is ‘one of the few things he and I have ever agreed on’.

“It’s a good thing, him not showing up. He exceeded even my worst notions about him. He’s been an embarrassment to the country, embarrassed us around the world. He’s not worthy to hold that office,” Biden said.

Agency Reporter

Pope Francis’ personal doctor Fabrizio Soccorsi has died from COVID-19 related complications, the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said at the weekend.

Soccorsi was appointed in 2017. He was 78.

The deceased was hospitalised in Rome on December 26 2020 for a previous oncological disease. It’s unclear when he was last in direct contact with Pope Francis.

In an interview with Italy’s Canale 5 channel on Sunday, Pope Francis said the Vatican will begin COVID-19 vaccinations next week and he is in line to take it

Our Reporter

 

BLACK boxes from the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 passenger plane that crashed into the sea soon after take-off in Indonesia have been located, officials said on Sunday.

Navy divers are confident they will be able to retrieve the two flight recorders when the search operation resumes today.

The Boeing 737 was carrying 62 persons when it vanished from radar on its journey to Borneo.

Head of Indonesia’s Transport Safety Committee Soerjanto Tjahjono said yesterday: “We have located the position of the black boxes, both of them. Divers will start looking for them now and hopefully it won’t be long before we get them.”

Investigators are also analysing items which they believe to be a wheel and part of the plane’s fuselage. A turbine from one of its engines is also among the debris that has been recovered.

Search operation, which was suspended for the night, is due to resume today.

A spokesman for the Jakarta police, Yusri Yunus, said two bags had been received from the search and rescue agency.

“The first bag contained passengers’ properties, another contained body parts. We are still identifying these findings,” he added.

Police are also asking families of victims to provide DNA samples and dental records to help identify the remains.

The missing aircraft is not a 737 Max, the Boeing model that was grounded from March 2019 until last December following two deadly crashes.

Although no one on board has been formally identified, information is however emerging from family and friends. Some of the passengers identified so far are:

Pilot Captain Afwan (54), who left home quickly on the day, according to his nephew, Ferza Mahardhika. “We’re in grief, still praying for the best,” Mahardhika said.

Angga Fernanda Afrion, whose mother, Afrida, is still holding out hope that her 29-year-old son might still be alive.

“Family members who are in Jakarta are searching for information. I want to go, too, but with the pandemic it’s difficult to travel,” Afrida, who lives in West Sumatra, said.

Read Also: Dana deploys Boeing 737

Angga, a seaman, became a father one week ago.

Ihsan Adhlan Hakim and Putri Wahyuni, newly married couple. Ihsan’s brother, Arwin Amru Hakim, said his brother had called from Soekarno Hatta Airport to let the family know their flight had been delayed due to bad weather. The couple were travelling to Kalimantan to hold a wedding party for Ihsan’s extended family who live in Pontianak.

Indah Halima Putri and Muhammad Rizky Wahyudi, with their baby

Indah Halima Putri had returned to her family home in Java to have her baby and was returning home with her husband. She sent a photo of the plane’s wing via whatsapp saying there was heavy rain and asked for the family’s prayers.

A special centre has been set up at Pontianak Supadio Airport in Indonesia to take DNA samples from close family of those on board to help with identification.

“We have deployed 51 personnel to work with personnel from the Disaster Victim Identification team to collect the samples,” Assistant Senior Commissioner of Police Yani Permana said.

 

CONVICTED former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told an Appeal Court on Saturday that 700 million dinars ($5m; £3m), deposited in his account when he was in office, were proceeds from a sale of gold bars.

He said ‘emirs of the gulf countries’ gave him 60 gold bars which he sold in an underground market.

The former prime minister also admitted to not declaring the proceeds to tax authorities.

Ouyahia was prime minister between 2017 and 2019, but his lingering reputation is from the 90s when he implemented austerity measures.

He famously told Algerians that ‘people do not need to eat yogurt’ in response to opponents contesting his tough economic measures.

Ouyahia and other senior officials who served under ousted President Abdelaiz Bouteflika have been prosecuted and jailed for corruption, money laundering and misappropriation of public funds.

He is currently appealing a charge of corruption and misappropriation of public fund in relation to a scandal involving a car assembling group.

 

Our Reporter

 

THE Ethiopian government has arrested a key founding member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Sebhat Nega.

The Ministry of Defence said Nega, in his 80s, was hiding in a remote area of Tigray.

Since November 2020, Ethiopia’s military has been fighting the TPLF which used to govern the region. Last Thursday, the military said several other senior TPLF members had been killed or arrested.

The United Nations (UN) has described the humanitarian situation in Tigray as dire with 1.3 million people in need of aid as a result of the conflict. It said food supplies are very limited and schools, hospitals and administrative offices have been looted.

 

Our Reporter

President Donald Trump will not attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, and this is official.

Trump, who returned to Twitter on Friday after his Thursday suspension, said: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the inauguration on January 20th.”

Responding to Trump’s comment on Friday, Biden said it was a ‘good thing’ that the outgoing president would not come.

In another tweet soon afterwards, he said: “The 75,000,000 great American patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

This was in contrast to the video he posted on his Twitter handle in which he said he was outraged by the lawlessness of the Congress invaders.

He said those who carried out the assault of “the seat of America’s democracy” would pay for their actions.

His words: “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem.

“I immediately deployed the national guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruder. America is and must always be a nation of law and order.

“The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defied the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in acts of violence and destruction… you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay.

“We’ve just been through an intense election and emotions are high but now tempers must be cooled and calm restored. We must get on with the business of America.

Read Also: Trump surrenders after failed ‘coup’

“My campaign vigorously pursued very legal avenue to contest the election result. My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the election, and in so doing, I was fighting to defend America’s democracy.

“I continue to believe that we must reform our election laws to verify the identity and eligibility above others and to ensure faith and confidence in all future elections.”

“Now congress has certified the results, a new administration will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. My focus now turns to ensuring an orderly and seamless transition of power.

“This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.”

But the exercise was almost aborted by Trump’s supporters who invaded Congress who breached Capitol security.

Trump has railed against the results of the election for the last two months, pushing conspiracy theories and misinformation about voter fraud while insisting he had defeated Biden.

Biden won both the popular vote, with more than 81 million votes cast in his favor, and the Electoral College vote.

Our Reporter

 

President-elect Joe Biden has denounced the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol as “domestic terrorists” and he blamed President Donald Trump for the violence that has shaken the nation’s capital and beyond.

The riot by Trump supporters who breached the security of Congress on Wednesday was “not dissent, was not disorder, was not protest. It was chaos.”

Those who massed on Capitol Hill intending to disrupt a joint session of Congress that was certifying Biden’s election victory over Trump “weren’t protesters. Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob — insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It’s that basic,” Biden said Thursday.

In solemn tones, Biden said the actions Trump has taken to subvert the nation’s democratic institutions throughout his presidency led directly to the mayhem in Washington.

“In the past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of law clear in everything he has done,” Biden said.

“He unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy from the outset. And yesterday was the culmination of that unrelenting attack.”

The mob of hundreds of Trump backers broke into the Capitol and roamed the halls looking for lawmakers, who were forced to halt their deliberations and seek safety. The violent protesters were egged on by Trump himself, who has falsely contended that he lost the election due to voter fraud.

Read Also: Biden’s last hurdle

Trump’s claims were repeatedly dismissed in the courts, including the Supreme Court, and by state election officials from both parties, and even by some in his own administration.

But the president went to greater and greater lengths to try to subvert the election, culminating this week in efforts by some Republican members of Congress to object to the certification of the results and the violence at the Capitol.

After the disruption, Congress returned to work late Wednesday and affirmed Biden’s victory early Thursday.

Biden ticked off a list of Trump’s assaults on American norms, including his attacks on the press and the intelligence community and his pressure on state and federal officials and judges to submit to his efforts to overturn the election.

Our Reporter

 

More than 200 members of Congress are demanding Donald Trump be removed from office immediately following the deadly pro-Trump riots at the US capitol on Wednesday.

The lawmakers, almost all Democrats, have either supported impeaching the president for a second time or have called on Trump’s cabinet to remove him under the 25th amendment, NBC News reported.

Only one Republican, Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger, has joined his colleagues on the other side of the aisle in definitively rejecting Mr Trump as president.

The calls come amid rising anger at the violent riots in the Capitol, which has left at least four people dead, including one police officer.

Images being shared on social media also sparked fears some rioters planned on taking hostages after at least two were caught on camera holding large plastic zip-ties often used to handcuff people.

Read Also: U.S. congresswoman, others boost EndSARS movement

The violent assault on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters and his long refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election are said to likely jeopardise his political future and taint prospects for his top lieutenants and family members.

The Republican president has dangled the possibility of running for president in 2024, and political operatives had expected him to exert influence over the Republican Party for years to come.

But his behavior on Wednesday – goading supporters to march on the Capitol to pressure lawmakers to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the election, and then failing quickly to call on them to stand down after violence ensued – has sickened people who work and used to work for him and, they said, changed the equation for his post-presidential relevance.

“It was a dereliction of duty as commander-in-chief and I think he will be mortally wounded from a political career going forward,” one former White House official who worked for Mr Trump said on Thursday. “He has blood on his hands from yesterday. A woman died.”

Our Reporter

 

CHINA has placed 11 million people in the northern city of Shijiazhuang under lockdown after more than 100 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed there.

Residents are banned from leaving the city and schools have also been closed.

More than 5,000 testing sites have been set up so every resident can be tested.

The new figures are the highest China has seen in more than five months. The country has been able to contain such outbreaks by immediately taking tough action.

This has involved consistently using mass testing when new clusters of cases appear, even if they seem relatively small.

Hebei province, where Shijiazhuang is located, reported 120 new cases yesterday and all but one of those infections was in the city. Elsewhere in the country, 22 new cases were confirmed.

The virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 before spiralling into a global pandemic.

Thursday’s lockdown comes just weeks ahead of Chinese New Year, a time when people in China travel en masse to spend the holiday with their families.

Read Also: ‘Let’s avoid another economic lockdown’

But residents in the Gaocheng district of Shijiazhuang, considered to be the epicentre of the outbreak, are now not allowed to leave their local area. Other residents are banned from leaving the city.

In terms of transport, bus travel has been halted and many flights have been cancelled.

In a sign of just how seriously the authorities see the situation, even the postal service in and out of Shijiazhuang has been suspended for three days. And the restrictions are being tightly enforced – police were photographed in protective hazmat suits guarding the entrance to an expressway.

Three officials in Shijiazhuang’s Gaocheng district have been punished for “negligence”, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.