Category: Foreign

The U.S. Senate began the first substantive day of the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Tuesday with partisan rancour over how the trial will proceed.

In a lengthy debate that extended well past midnight, the Senate sparred over how the trial would be conducted as the Democrats proposed a flurry of amendments that sought to introduce new witnesses and documents to the trial.

Ultimately, Republicans rallied around Senate leader Mitch McConnell and rejected the Democrats’ proposals in strict party-line votes of 53 to 47.

The Republican majority then voted in favour of McConnell’s rules, which establish the conduct of the trial.

McConnell’s rules set the stage for six days of arguments, split evenly between House impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers, to make the case for and against impeachment.

Democrats decried the rules as an attempt to rush the trial, hide new evidence against Trump, and prevent witnesses from testifying.

Speaking at the Senate, Democrat Adam Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, called McConnell’s rules the “first step orchestrated by the White House to rush the trial.”

“To say let’s just have the opening statements and then we’ll see means let’s have the trial, and maybe we can just sweep this all under the rug,” Schiff said.

McConnell, however, did make a last minute change – extending the days allocated to opening arguments from two to three per side – under pressure from Republican senator Susan Collins, a key moderate swing vote.

Democrats want to question top White House officials and obtain documents that the Trump administration blocked the House from accessing while they investigated Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

The president is accused firstly of having abused the power of his office to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation of his domestic political rival, Joe Biden, in order to potentially help Trump’s re-election campaign.

The second article of impeachment says he obstructed Congress’ investigation of the Ukraine affair.

Both articles were approved last month by the House of Representatives.

READ ALSO: U.S. Senate rejects Democrats’ demand for documents in Trump impeachment trial

The president denies wrongdoing. His legal team said on Monday that the president is the victim of a “rigged process” motivated by politics and that he has done nothing wrong.

Two-thirds of members are required to agree to remove a president from office.

The Senate is controlled by Trump’s Republican party and the most likely outcome is an acquittal.

Pat Cipollone, Trump’s defence attorney, told the Senate his client “has done nothing wrong” and the two articles of impeachment against Trump hold no constitutional merit.

Earlier, the Democrats suggested Cipollone might have a conflict of interest as they believe he is a material witness in the impeachment trial and demanded that he disclose any knowledge of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

The White House called this demand an “utter joke”.

The Senate will convene at 1pm (1800 GMT) on Wednesday for the start of arguments.

While no witnesses or new documents will be introduced prior to the arguments, the Senate will vote on the issue of witnesses likely next week.

The trial could conclude at the end of next week if the Democrats are unable to convince at least four Republicans to side with them and vote in favour of witnesses.

Speaking from the Senate floor, McConnell called the trial rules “fair” and in line with the conduct of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.

Trump is framing the impeachment as an attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2016 election. Democrats say the president’s behaviour is threatening the integrity of the election later this year.

(dpa/NAN)

Britain’s Prince Harry has arrived Canada, where he is expected to spend most of his time after announcing that he wants to “step back” from royal duties.

Sky News and other media showed Harry leaving a plane as he arrived at Vancouver Airport early Tuesday.

Harry’s wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and the couple’s 8-month-old son Archie returned to Canada earlier this month.

Buckingham Palace announced on Saturday that Harry, 35, and Meghan, 38, will be “no longer working members of the royal family.”

They will cease using the titles “royal highness” and “step back from royal duties, including official military appointments [and] no longer receive public funds for royal duties,” the palace said.

READ ALSO: Prince Harry on leaving royal role: ‘There was no other option’

The couple’s decision to live mostly in Canada, where U.S. former actress Meghan had lived while filming the legal drama “Suits,” has sparked a public debate over who should pay for their security.

The government’s response “should be simple and succinct: No,” the Globe and Mail, Canada’s leading newspaper, said in an editorial.

In a letter published on the newspaper’s website on Tuesday, Olga Eizner Favreau argued that Harry’s decision to “defy family tradition should not suddenly absolve [the royal family] of the responsibility to ensure his safety.

“It is the royal family, who should foot the bill for protecting him, not Harry himself – and certainly not Canadian taxpayers,” Favreau wrote.

Harry and Meghan had previously denounced intrusive, inaccurate and hostile reporting in news and social media, including racism against Meghan, whose mother is black.

(dpa/NAN)

Iran said it had asked the U.S. and French authorities for equipment to download information from black boxes on a downed Ukrainian airliner, potentially angering countries which want the recorders analysed abroad.

Canada, 57 of whose citizens were among the 176 people killed in the crash, has said France should handle the flight data and voice recorders as one of the few nations with the capability.

Kiev wants the recorders sent to Ukraine.

The U.S.-built Boeing 737 flown by Ukraine International Airlines was shot down in error on Jan. 8.

Tehran, already embroiled in a long-running standoff with the U.S. over its nuclear programme that briefly erupted into tit-for-tat military strikes this month, has given mixed signals about whether it would hand over the recorders.

An Iranian aviation official had said on Saturday the black boxes would be sent to Ukraine, only to backtrack in comments reported a day later, saying they would be analysed at home.

A further delay in sending them abroad is likely to increase international pressure on Iran, whose military has said it shot the plane down by mistake while on high alert in the tense hours after Iran fired missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq.

Iran, which took several days to acknowledge its role in bringing down the plane and faced street protests at home as a result, launched its missiles at U.S. targets in response to a U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander on Jan. 3.

“If the appropriate supplies and equipment are provided, the information can be taken out and reconstructed in a short period of time,” Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation said in its second preliminary report on the disaster released late on Monday.

Its initial report was released just 24 hours after the incident, before Iran’s military acknowledged its role.

A list of equipment Iran needs has been sent to French accident agency BEA and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the Iranian aviation body said.

“Until now, these countries have not given a positive response to sending the equipment to (Iran),” it said.

“It said two surface-to-air TOR-M1 missiles had been launched minutes after the Ukrainian plane took off from Tehran.

Iran’s aviation body said in its report it did not have equipment needed to download information from the model of recorders on the three-year-old Boeing 737.

Iran has for years faced U.S. sanctions that limited its ability to purchase modern planes and buy products with U.S. technology.

Many passenger planes used in Iran are decades old.

Under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, Iran received sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear work.

But Washington reimposed U.S. sanctions after withdrawing from the pact in 2018, a move that led to the steady escalation of tension in recent months between the United States and Iran.

READ ALSO: ‘Iran may review cooperation with IAEA if EU pressure mounts’

Responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign designed to shut off Iran’s oil exports, Tehran has scaled back its commitments to the nuclear accord.

After Iran’s latest move this month to scrap limits on uranium enrichment, a process that can make material for nuclear warheads although Tehran denies any such aim, Britain, France and Germany triggered the nuclear pact’s dispute mechanism.

Launching the mechanism starts a diplomatic process that could lead to reimposing UN sanctions on Iran.

European capitals say they want to save the deal but have also suggested it may be time for a broader pact, in line with Trump’s call for a deal that would go beyond Iran’s nuclear work and include its missile program and activities in the region.

Iran says it will not negotiate with sanctions in place.

The Iranian general killed in the U.S. drone strike, Qassem Soleimani, was responsible for building up a network of militias that created an arc of Iranian influence across the Middle East.

Since the plane disaster, Iran’s judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi has said compensation should be paid to families of the victims, many of whom were Iranians or dual nationals.

Canada, Ukraine, Britain, Afghanistan and Sweden, which all lost citizens, have demanded Iran make the payouts.

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board said two of its investigators had spent six days in Iran and visited the wreckage.
Iranian investigators had been “cooperative and helpful”, it said.

(Reuters/NAN)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government was defeated in parliament on Monday after December election, with the upper chamber voting in favour of a move to protect the rights of EU citizens in Britain after Brexit.

Johnson’s Conservatives won a large majority in the lower chamber, the House of Commons, at the Dec. 12 vote and lawmakers there quickly approved the legislation needed to ratify his exit deal with Brussels earlier this month.

The legislation is now passing through the House of Lords, where the government does not have a majority. While the upper chamber is not expected to block passage of the bill, it is seeking to make changes.

Members of the Lords voted by 270 to 229 in favour of a change put forward by the pro-EU Liberal Democrats which would give eligible EU citizens in Britain an automatic right to stay after Brexit, rather than having to apply to the government to do so.

READ ALSO: UK PM Johnson says Britain will leave EU by Jan. 31

It would also ensure they are given physical proof of their right to remain.

The government has said only that people will be given a “secure digital status” which links to their passport.

Last week, European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said Britain had told him it was looking into the possibility of providing a physical document to EU citizens but Johnson’s spokesman said he was not aware of any plans.

The government is facing a second defeat in the Lords later on Monday, when members vote on an amendment which would ensure protections for child refugees, a promise made by Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, but absent from his legislation.

Any changes to the legislation made by the House of Lords have to go back to the House of Commons to be approved and could still be overturned.
This is the first time Johnson’s government was defeated in parliament since a December election.

(Reuters/NAN)