The Nation Newspaper

Category: Foreign

  • Republican lawmakers move to overturn Biden’s election

    Republican lawmakers move to overturn Biden’s election

    A growing number of United States (U.S.) Republican lawmakers are joining President Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn the election, pledging to reject the results when Congress meets this week to count the Electoral College votes and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

    Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday announced a coalition of 11 senators and senators-elect, who have been enlisted for Trump’s effort to subvert the will of American voters.

    This follows the declaration from Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to buck Senate leadership by saying he would join with House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.

    Vice-President Mike Pence yesterday welcomed an effort by a group of senators to refuse to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election win.

    According to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, over 100 members of the House of Representatives plan on objecting to electoral votes during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress

    “We’re now at well over 100 House members and a dozen Senators ready to stand up for election integrity and object to certification. It’s time to fight back,” Meadows wrote in a tweet late Saturday.

    Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat is tearing the party apart as Republicans are forced to make consequential choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era.

    Hawley and Cruz are both among potential 2024 presidential contenders.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged his party not to try to overturn what nonpartisan election officials have said was a free and fair vote.

    The 11 senators largely acknowledged on Saturday they will not succeed in preventing Biden from being inaugurated on January 20 after he won the Electoral College 306-232.

    But their challenges, and those from House Republicans, represent the most sweeping effort to undo a presidential election outcome since the Civil War.

    “We do not take this action lightly,” Cruz and the other senators said in a joint statement.

    They vowed to vote against certain state electors on Wednesday unless Congress appoints an electoral commission to conduct an audit of the election results. They are zeroing in on the states where Trump has raised unfounded claims of voter fraud. Congress is unlikely to agree to the demand.

    Biden’s transition spokesman, Mike Gwin, dismissed the effort as a “stunt” that won’t change the fact that Biden will be sworn in on January 20.

    Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials and even Trump’s attorney general that there was none.

    Of the roughly 50 lawsuits, the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped.

    Trump has also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the panel overseeing the Electoral College count, said the GOP effort to create a federal commission “to supersede state certifications” is wrong.

    The convening of the joint session to count the Electoral College votes is usually routine. While objections have surfaced before — in 2017, several House Democrats challenged Trump’s win — few have approached this level of intensity.

    On the other side of the Republican divide, several senators spoke out Saturday against Cruz and Hawley’s effort.

    Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a statement that she will vote to affirm the election and urged colleagues in both parties to join her in “maintaining confidence” in elections “so that we ensure we have the continued trust of the American people.”

    Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.

     

  • US states shut down prisons as guards contract COVID-19

    US states shut down prisons as guards contract COVID-19

    Our Reporter

    Local jails and state prison systems around the United States of America (USA) on Saturday  commenced shutting down completely and transferring their inmates elsewhere, due to the ravaging wave of coronavirus infections and deaths in prisons.

    The New York Times reported that officials resorted to this decision as a drastic strategy to keep the virus at bay as so many guards have fallen ill with the virus and cannot work.

    “From California to Missouri to Pennsylvania, state and local officials say that so many guards have fallen ill with the virus and are unable to work.

    ”Thus, abruptly closing some correctional facilities is the only way to maintain community security and prisoner safety,” said the Times report.

    The paper quoted experts as saying that the fallout is easy to predict because jails and prisons that stay open will probably become even more crowded.

    They will also be unsanitary and disease-ridden, and the transfers are likely to help the virus proliferate both inside and outside the walls.

    There have been more than 480,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and at least 2,100 deaths among inmates and guards in prisons, jails and detention centres across the nation.

    According to a NYT database, among those statistics are the nearly 100,000 correctional officers who have tested positive and 170 who have died.

    Read Also: Former PDP spokesman Metuh leaves Kuje prison

    “Early in the pandemic, some states tried to ward off virus outbreaks by releasing some offenders early and detaining fewer people awaiting trial in order to reduce their populations.

    ”However, those efforts often met with resistance from politicians and the public,” said the report.

    More recently, as arrests in many areas have increased, jail populations have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

    This is according to data collected by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York-based non-profit research and policy group.

    “That fact, combined with widespread infections among correctional officers, staffing shortages stretching back many years and strains on prison medical facilities, have pushed states.

    This is as the pandemic progresses toward more concentration and crowding, rather than less, in part through closure of strained facilities,” said the Times report.

    Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 20 million as of Friday as the discovery of a highly contagious new virus strain in the country has increased pressure to speed up the vaccination process.

  • Japan to consider new COVID-19 emergency declaration

    Japan to consider new COVID-19 emergency declaration

    Our Reporter

     

    JAPAN will consider issuing a new emergency declaration after governors in the capital region urged action to tackle a record surge in COVID-19 cases, the head of the nation’s pandemic response said on Saturday.

    The government needs to consult with health experts before deciding on a new declaration, Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters after a meeting with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and leaders from three neighbouring prefectures.

    “The national government and the three governors shared the view that the situation in the Tokyo area is getting more severe such that an emergency declaration may be necessary,” Nishimura said.

    As an interim measure, restaurants and karaoke Parlours in the Tokyo area would be asked to close at 8 p.m., while businesses that serve alcohol should close at 7 p.m., he said.

    Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has resisted calls to reinstate a national state of emergency, which the government had introduced in April during an earlier wave of the pandemic. Suga is next scheduled to speak publicly on Jan. 4.

    It relied on voluntary business closures and travel restrictions rather than the sort of rigid lockdown measures seen in parts of Europe and the United States.

    Read Also: Earthquake strikes Japan, Philippines

    Tokyo raised its COVID-19 alert level to its highest measure on Dec. 17. New infections in the capital hit a record 1,337 on Dec. 31, and on Saturday numbered 814. A nationwide record was also set on Dec. 31 with 4,520 new cases.

    The rise in COVID-19 cases is compounding a seasonal increase in hospitalisations, said Fumie Sakamoto, infection control manager at St Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo.

    “The Japanese government has not done a great deal to control the infection,” Sakamoto said.

    “I would expect the (infection) numbers will get bigger in the coming days, and the emergency declaration should have come earlier, probably during December or November.”

  • Bazoum wins first round in Niger presidential election, heads for run-off

    Bazoum wins first round in Niger presidential election, heads for run-off

    Our Reporter

     

    NIGER Republic’s electoral commission on Saturday declared former minister, Mohamed Bazoum, winner of the first round of the presidential polls with 39.33 per cent of the votes.

    A run-off is scheduled for February 20.

    Bazoum, a close ally of outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou, will slug it out with former president Mahamane Ousmane, who won 16.99 per cent.

    Read Also: Ex-presidential aspirant, Harry Akande, dies at 77

    Former prime ministers Seini Oumarou and Albade Abouba came third and fourth respectively with 8.95 per cent and 7.07 per cent of the ballots, according to figures released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).

    The former interior and foreign minister, 61, had hoped to clinch victory in the first round.

    He is projected to join forces with one or more of the other 29 candidates who ran in last Sunday’s election.

    Bazoum’s ruling Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) is leading in the legislative vote also held on Sunday, with 80 of the 165 seats and five diaspora seats remaining to be decided.

  • 11 US Republican senators to challenge Biden win over Trump

    11 US Republican senators to challenge Biden win over Trump

    Our Reporter

     

    A coalition of 11 Republican senators announced Saturday it will challenge the outcome of the presidential election by voting to reject electors from some states when Congress meets next week to certify the Electoral College results that confirmed President-elect Joe Biden won.

    President Donald Trump’s extraordinary refusal to accept his election defeat and the effort to subvert the will of the voters has become a defining moment for Republicans and is tearing the party apart.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged Republican not to try to overturn the election.

    The 11 senators, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, said they will vote against certain state electors unless Congress appoints an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results. They acknowledged they are unlikely to change the results of the election.

    “We intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed,” they wrote in the statement.

    “We do not take this action lightly,” they said.

    Read Also: Trump’s desperation and the US electoral college

    In response to Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud, bipartisan election officials and Trump’s then-Attorney General William Barr have said there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the election ran smoothly.

    The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome. Biden is set to be inaugurated January 20 after winning the Electoral College vote 306-232.

    Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first to defy McConnell by announcing he would join House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.

    On the other side of the party’s split, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska warned such challenges are a “dangerous ploy” threatening the nation’s civic norms.

    The issue is forcing Republicans to make choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era and an evolving GOP.

    Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure and a lawsuit from Trump’s allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday.

  • Syria blames U.S. for Syrian people’s suffering

    Syria blames U.S. for Syrian people’s suffering

    Agency Reporter

    The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Saturday said the U.S. was fully responsible for the suffering of the Syrian people, the state news agency SANA, said.

    In a statement, the ministry said the Syrian people’s suffering was caused by the U.S.

    According to the ministry, the U.S. support for terrorism and the sanctions it imposed on Syria, “is the cause of the suffering of Syrians’’.

    READ ALSO: Israel Bombs Syria on Christmas Eve

    The ministry’s remarks came as a response to a statement released recently by the U.S. embassy in Syria on its website.

    The U.S. embassy in Damascus had refuted the accusation that the U.S. was responsible for the economic hardship in Syria.

    (Xinhua/NAN)

  • 50 Talibs killed in operation by Afghan forces

    50 Talibs killed in operation by Afghan forces

    By Our Reporter

    Afghan security forces killed 50 Taliban terrorists and injured eight others in an operation in Lashkargah city of southern Helmand and some other districts, the country’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

    According to Pajhwok Afghan News, the Ministry, in a statement, said that the security forces busted Taliban’s hideouts in the operations in Lashkargah, Garamsir and Nawa district.
    The statement said 50 terrorists were killed including a commander who led a group of 100 militants. Eight others were wounded during the round-the-clock operations.

    Nawab Shah Zadran, in-charge of the Afghan Army’s 215th Military Corps media office, told Pajhwok Afghan News that security forces on Friday night launched ground and air raids on Taliban in Nawa, Garamsir, Nad Ali districts and Bushran area of Lashkargah, the capital.

    READ ALSO: Militants attack US, NATO base in Afghanistan

    The official said Taliban terrorists had assembled in these areas to plan attacks on security forces.

    He added Mualvi Abdul Salam, a commander of 100 terrorists, who was killed in the operation was among the 50 others killed and three landmine-planters were among the wounded.

    The Taliban have not yet commented in this regard.

    (www.newsnow.co.uk)

  • Eight youths found dead in New Year’s Eve gas tragedy

    Eight youths found dead in New Year’s Eve gas tragedy

    Agency Reporter

     

    Eight men and women have been found dead in a cottage in Bosnia in an apparent carbon monoxide poisoning during a New Year’s Eve celebration.

    Police spokeswoman Martina Medic said officers responded to a call at about 10am local time on Friday and went to a house in Tribistovo where several people were found dead.

    Regional police commissioner Milan Galic later told N1 broadcaster the victims were local residents, four men and four women, aged between 18 and 20.

    “They most probably suffocated but more information will be available after the investigation,” he said.

    Their bodies were discovered on Friday after friends staying in a neighbouring cottage went to wish them a happy new year, according to Vecernji.ba.

    One man reportedly forced entry to the property, where he found the group unconscious on the ground floor.

    Read Also: 2m youths ‘jobless’ as govt suspends SIM card registration

    In a Facebook post, the Posusje municipality, where the village is located – about 90 miles south west of the capital of Sarajevo – mourned “eight young lives lost” and urged local cafes and restaurants to close down to honour the victims.

    Top officials from Bosnia and Croatia offered condolences to their families as a national day of mourning was declared for 2 January.

    The flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be flown at half mast on government buildings and media in the state will adjust its programme schedule for the day, according to the Klix.ba website.

    Bosnian and Croatian media said the eight were high school and university students who died from carbon monoxide leaking from a generator they used for heating as they celebrated New Year’s Eve in a holiday cottage.

    Carbon monoxide is an odourless, colourless and tasteless gas that can cause sudden illness and death.

     

     

    (www.newsnow.co.uk)

     

  • Biden to issue executive order stopping Trump’s ‘Midnight Regulations’

    Biden to issue executive order stopping Trump’s ‘Midnight Regulations’

    Agency Reporter

    n by the Trump administration that will not have taken effect by Inauguration Day,” Jen Psaki, Biden’s pick for White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday during a virtual press conference.

    Psaki gave as an example that the Department of Labor is expected to publish a final rule before Jan. 20 that deals with the classification of independent contractors.

    Biden’s memo “would potentially freeze this rule and not allow it to be implemented,” she said.

    “Issuing a regulatory freeze is standard practice for an incoming administration, but this freeze will apply not only to regulations but also guidance documents, documents that can have enormous consequences on the lives of American people.”

    The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    Biden has declared victory in the 2020 election. President Donald Trump and other Republicans are contesting election results in key battleground states, and are planning to object to electoral votes during the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress.

    According to the conservative American Action Forum, the Obama administration between Election Day in 2016 and Jan. 5, 2017, released 145 regulations. Trump after he was sworn into office issued a memo directing federal agencies to stop processing regulations until a department or agency head appointed or designated by the president reviewed and approved it.

    READ ALSO: Biden accuses Trump of damaging critical security agencies

    Members of Congress have also expressed concern about Trump issuing regulations in the final days of his first term.

    Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and other lawmakers earlier this month introduced the Midnight Regulations Review Act, which would require, among other things, the Government Accountability Office to report to Congress a list of the major rules promulgated during the end of a presidential administration that are subject to repeal by Congress through the Congressional Review Act.

    “The recent actions of the Trump administration have shown us firsthand how outgoing administrations can take advantage of midnight rulemaking for partisan, political gain,” Maloney said in a newsletter to constituents. “Presidential transitions demand rigorous oversight, and midnight rulemaking is no exception.

    (www.newsnow.co.uk)

  • India confirms outbreak of Avian flu

    India confirms outbreak of Avian flu

    Agency Reporter

    Authorities in India have confirmed the outbreak of Avian influenza disease and said the case was being handled by a joint team from the forest and animal husbandry departments.

    After several crows died in Rajasthan’s Jhalawar district on Thursday due to the Avian flu, the district administration imposed emergency measures in the area.

    ”Avian influenza disease has been confirmed. Samples are being sent to National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal for examination.” reports quoted Ngikya Gohain, Jhalawar’s Collector as saying.

    “Section 144 has been imposed in the affected area in the Radi area.

    READ ALSO: Mystery illness baffles experts in India

    ”A Rapid Response Team has been constituted to collect samples from poultry farms and shops,” Gohain said.

    He further said if the flu was found to have infected poultry in chicken farms, all the chickens will have to be culled and suitable compensation would be given to the owners.

    (ANI/NAN)