Category: Foreign

Our Reporter

THE campaign to vanquish the coronavirus is picking up speed, with Britain beginning to dispense the second vaccine in its arsenal today.

But authorities in France and elsewhere in Europe are coming under fire for slow rollouts and delays.

In the U.S., meanwhile, government officials reported that vaccinations have accelerated markedly after a sluggish start. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said over the weekend that 1.5 million shots were administered in 72 hours, bringing the total over the past three weeks to about 4 million.

Britain became the first nation to start using the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, ramping up its nationwide inoculation campaign amid soaring infection rates blamed on a new and seemingly more contagious variant of the virus.

Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, received the first shot at Oxford University Hospital, saying in a statement: “I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary.”

Britain’s vaccination programme began December 8 with the shot developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

The country has recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus infections a day over the past six days, and deaths have climbed past 75,000, one of the worst tolls in Europe.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a wave of near-lockdowns the weekend before Christmas and warned yesterday that “tough, tough” weeks lie ahead and that tighter restrictions were coming into force: “If you look at the numbers, there’s no question we will have to take tougher measures.”

Our Reporter

TWO Democratic members of the U.S. House on Monday asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to open a probe into outgoing President Donald Trump’s leaked phone call that asked an official of Georgia State to find votes for himself.

“As members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,” Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice wrote in their letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

“We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the president,” they added.

During the one-hour phone call, Trump is heard pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes in order to beat his Democratic opponent Joe Biden to gain victory in Georgia for the 2020 presidential election.

Raffensperger, however, responds, “Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong,” after Trump asks him to announce he has “recalculated” the vote count.

The two lawmakers said “the evidence of election fraud by Mr. Trump is now in broad daylight,” adding: “Given the more than ample factual predicate, we are making a criminal referral to you to open an investigation into Mr. Trump.”

Despite Biden’s victory in Nov. 3 elections, Trump has so far refused to concede in the race, while he has spent the last two months challenging the result.

As Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said Sunday that Trump’s conduct in the phone call was “impeachable,” it reminded many of his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July 2019, asking him to investigate Biden and his son Hunter.

That phone call led the House to start a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump in September 2019, but the president was later acquitted by the Senate.

On Trump’s phone call about Georgia, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement Sunday that Trump “thinks he can use his office to pressure state officials to change the outcome of the election”.

“In threatening these officials with vague ‘criminal’ consequences, and in encouraging them to ‘find’ additional votes and hire investigators who ‘want to find answers,’ the President may have also subjected himself to additional criminal liability,” he added.

Our Reporter

TEN former secretaries of defence are cautioning against any move to involve the military in pursuing claims of election fraud, in an extraordinary rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump

They argued that it would take the country into “dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory”.

The 10 men, both Democrats and Republicans, signed on to an opinion article published Sunday in The Washington Post that implicitly questioned Trump’s willingness to follow his constitutional duty to peacefully relinquish power on Jan. 20. Following the Nov. 3 election and subsequent recounts in some states, as well as unsuccessful court challenges, the outcome is clear, they wrote, while not specifying Trump in the article.

“The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the constitution and statute, has arrived,” they wrote.

The former Pentagon chiefs warned against use of the military in any effort to change the outcome.

“Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory,” they wrote. “Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”

Read Also: Biden accuses Trump of damaging critical security agencies

A number of senior military officers, including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said publicly in recent weeks that the military has no role in determining the outcome of U.S. elections and that their loyalty is to the constitution, not to an individual leader or a political party.

The Washington Post reported that the idea for writing the opinion piece began with a conversation between former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney and Eric Edelman, a retired ambassador and former senior Pentagon official, about how Trump might seek to use the military in coming days.

The 10 former Pentagon leaders also warned in their article of the dangers of impeding a full and smooth transition at Defence Department prior to Inauguration Day as part of a transfer of power to president-elect Joe Biden. Biden has complained of efforts by Trump-appointed Pentagon officials to obstruct the transition.

Without mentioning a specific example, the former defence secretaries wrote that transfers of power “often occur at times of international uncertainty about U.S. national security policy and posture,” adding, “They can be a moment when the nation is vulnerable to actions by adversaries seeking to take advantage of the situation.”

Our Reporter

CHINESE State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Wang Yi is in Nigeria on a two-day working visit.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Spokesman, Ferdinand Nwonye, who confirmed Mr. Yi will be in Abuja between on Monday and today, said the visitor’s delegation includes a number of high-ranking Chinese government officials.

He said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, will receive his “Chinese counterpart in audience and they will discuss a number of issues relating to strengthening Nigeria/China relations, and the promotion of common interests in the multilateral fora”.

“It is expected that the Ministers of Transportation, Trade and Investment, Health and Defence, to mention a few, will participate in the bilateral discussions,” Nwonye added.

He said the ministers will hold a joint news conference, adding that Onyeama will accompany his Chinese counterpart to pay a courtesy visit on President Muhammadu Buhari.

The visit is part of a wider China Foreign Minister official visit to other African countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Botswana and Seychelles from January 4 to January 9.

The visit to African countries at the start of the year is a tradition that dates back to January 1991 and is aimed at cementing ties between African countries and China. Wang’s trip is a striking example of a relationship built through constancy.

The Chinese minister said: “First of all, this is based on the special feelings of friendship from generation to generation and sharing weal and woe between China and Africa. China-Africa friendship has a long history. Especially in modern times, the two sides fought together for national independence and liberation, shared weal and woe, supported each other, formed a brotherly friendship, and became each other’s’ trusted good friend.

“In the period of development and construction, we joined together again and made progress hand in hand, and became good partners for mutual benefit and win-win progress. For decades, no matter how the international have changed, the friendship between China and Africa has become even stronger, and the torch has been handed down on and on. Our relations have stood up to the test, eliminated the disturbance, and become a model for international relations and South-South cooperation.

Read Also: Onyeama resumes after testing negative

“China is the largest developing country, and Africa is the continent where developing countries are most concentrated. We are natural partners, complementary to each other’s advantages, and have unlimited cooperation space and potential.

“In recent years, we have achieved results such as the establishment of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the consensus of building a community with a shared future, the co-construction of “Belt and Road Initiative” and China-Africa pilot projects for production capacity cooperation, and so on. All of which have brought groundbreaking influence in the history of China-Africa relations, and helped push China-Africa cooperation into a new era.”

Agency Reporter

All 10 living former US defence secretaries, including two Donald Trump appointees, have warned against involving the military in the US presidential transition.

In an essay published in The Washington Post, Ashton Carter, Leon Panetta, William Perry, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, Donald Rumsfeld, James Mattis, and Mark Esper urged the Pentagon to commit to a peaceful transition of power.

“Efforts to involve the US armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful, and unconstitutional territory,” they said, adding that officials who sought to do so could face serious professional and criminal consequences.

Referring to the election process and peaceful transfers of power as “hallmarks of our democracy,” the secretaries noted that other than Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 that ultimately led to the pro-slavery South seceding and the US Civil War, the country has had an unbroken record of peaceful transitions.

“This year should be no exception,” they wrote.

The secretaries, who come from both US political parties with Esper and Mattis both appointed by Trump, pointed out that all legal challenges to the presidential election results had been dismissed by the courts, and the votes certified by state governors.

It is time to formally certify the Electoral College votes, they said.

They also called on acting defense secretary Christopher Miller and all defense department officials to facilitate the transition for President-elect Joe Biden’s administration “fully, cooperatively and transparently.”

“They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team,” the essay said.

Trump, who is refusing to acknowledge his election loss to Biden, until recently held back from allowing government agencies to cooperate with Biden’s team, as is the custom.

In late December, Biden said that political appointees at the Pentagon, which Trump has packed with loyalists since the election, have refused to provide a “clear picture” on troop posture or budgeting.

“It is nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, warning that US adversaries could take advantage of the transition.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)