Category: Foreign

The Russian government is to resign, hours after President Vladimir Putin proposed constitutional changes that could prolong his stay in power.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the president’s proposals would significantly change Russia’s balance of power.

Putin has asked him to become deputy head of the National Security Council.

The announcement comes four years before Putin’s fourth term of office is due to end.

Under the existing constitution he would not be entitled to another term and the Russian leader said during his speech to both chambers of parliament that there would be a nationwide vote on changes that would shift power from the presidency to parliament.

The government’s resignation came as a surprise. Medvedev has been prime minister for several years. He previously served as president from 2008-2012, switching roles with Putin after he served his first two terms as president.

Russia’s constitution only allows presidents to serve two consecutive terms.

Read Also: Putin caught on camera making fun of Trump with Assad

“These changes, when they are adopted… will introduce substantial changes not only to an entire range of articles of the constitution, but also to the entire balance of power, the power of the executive, the power of the legislature, the power of judiciary,” Medvedev said of Putin’s proposals.

“In this context… the government in its current form has resigned.”

The BBC said the reason why Putin had removed Putin’s comments are likely to reignite speculation about his plans once his current presidential term ends in 2024.

Agency Reporter

The United States (U.S.) House of Representatives has passed a resolution to submit articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate for a trial.

The resolution passed on Wednesday largely along party lines by 228 votes to 193.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will sign a copy of the measure with the newly announced team of lawmakers, who will prosecute the case against Trump.

The House impeached the president last month. The Senate will decide whether to convict and remove him from office.

The Senate trial will be only the third of a U.S. president in history.

While Democrats control the House, Trump’s fellow Republicans hold sway in the Senate 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit him.

Mrs Pelosi appeared earlier at a news conference with the seven “managers” who will lead the Democratic case against the Republican president.

They will be led by Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee.

Read Also: U.S. Senate sets date for Trump’s impeachment trial

The six others are Jerrold Nadler, head of the House judiciary committee, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Zoe Lofgren of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Val Demings of Florida and Sylvia Garcia of Texas.

Mrs Pelosi said on Wednesday morning: “I’m very proud to present the managers who will bring the case, which we have great confidence in, in terms of impeaching the president and his removal.”

During the trial, Mr Trump will be defended by White House lawyers, including Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow.

Trump was impeached by the House on 18 December, on accusations of abuse of power and obstruction of congress.

He denies trying to pressure Ukraine to open an investigation into his would-be Democratic White House challenger Joe Biden.

Trump has been touting unsubstantiated corruption claims about Mr Biden and his son, Hunter, who accepted a lucrative board position with a Ukrainian energy firm while his father handled American-Ukraine relations as US vice-president.

Biden is one of a dozen candidates campaigning for the Democratic Party’s White House nomination.

The Senate trial might still be under way in early February when Iowa and New Hampshire hold the first contests to pick the eventual Democratic presidential candidate.

Agency Reporter

IRAN’S President Hassan Rouhani has said the country’s military should elaborate more on how it shot down a passenger plane by mistake last week.

Separately, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged that Iranians “were lied to” for days afterwards.

He insisted that he and the president were also kept in the dark.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards killed 176 people when they “unintentionally” shot down the Ukrainian aircraft amid escalating tensions with the U.S.

Hours before, Iranian missiles had targeted two airbases in Iraq housing US forces.

Speaking on state television on Wednesday, President Rouhani called on the military to take the next steps of the investigation with “more coordination and monitoring”.

“The first thing is to inform people honestly. People’s grief will alleviate when they know that we feel responsible for what happened and talk with them honestly,” he said.

Read Also: Iran’s Zarif says nuclear pact not dead, wary of ‘Trump deal’

He urged the forces “to explain to people what sessions and meetings were held since the moment that the incident happened”.

Zarif, during a televised interview while on a trip to India, said: “I and the president did not know [what brought the plane down] and, as soon as we did, we communicated it.”

He also praised the military for being “brave enough to claim responsibility early on”. However, critics have decried the three-day delay and said they only owned up after Western authorities claimed to have contrary evidence.

University of Tehran students hold pictures of victims during a memorial after the plane crash

New footage – verified by the New York Times – shows two missiles, fired 30 seconds apart, striking the plane. It was initially thought to have been hit once.

Flight PS752 was brought down after it took off from the capital, Tehran, on 8 January, when the Revolutionary Guards – a force set up to defend Iran’s Islamic system – mistakenly perceived it as a threat amid escalating conflict with the US. Everyone on board died.

The deaths and the apparent initial cover-up – when the act was denied and the crash site was bulldozed – have sparked protests in various Iranian cities.

Agency Reporter

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, said on Wednesday that an existing nuclear deal the country struck with world powers was not dead and that he was unsure if any new pact agreed by U.S. President Donald Trump would last.

“The United States didn’t implement (the existing deal’s) …commitments, now it has withdrawn.

“I had a U.S. deal and the U.S. broke it.

“If I have a Trump deal, how long will it last?’’ Mohammad Javad Zarif said at a security conference in New Delhi.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday called for Trump to replace the 2015 deal with his own new pact to ensure Iran did not get an atomic weapon.

Trump’s administration abandoned the pact aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear programme in 2018 and has since re-imposed economic sanctions on Tehran.

The U.S. president said in a tweet he agreed with Johnson on the need for a “Trump deal”.

Iran is interested in diplomacy, but not in negotiating with the U.S., Zarif said, adding the existing pact was among the “best deals” he could envisage.

Zarif spoke a day after Britain, France and Germany formally accused Iran of violating the terms of that agreement, a move that could eventually lead to the re-imposition of U.N. sanctions.

READ ALSO: U.S. denies Iran’s Zarif visa to attend UN

He said Iran would respond to a letter sent by the three European countries and that the future of the pact, which was “not dead”, rested on Europe.

Iran denies its nuclear programme is aimed at building a bomb but has gradually rolled back its commitments under the 2015 accord since the U.S. pulled out.

It argues that Washington’s actions justify such a course.

Tensions between the two countries have risen following the U.S. killing of Iranian military commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani and a retaliatory missile attack by Iran on U.S. forces in Iraq.

Zarif said Iran had sent a message to Washington through Swiss mediators on the night of the missile strike, calling it an act of self-defence in response to Soleimani’s killing.

He said the commander’s death was a major setback in the fight against Islamic State.

Many in the region, saw Soleimani as a hero for his role in defeating the jihadist group.

(Reuters/NAN)

The impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump in the Senate is likely to begin next week Tuesday with key players sworn in later this week, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

McConnell said he expected the House of Representatives to deliver the articles of impeachment against Trump to the upper chamber today.

“We believe that if that happens — in all likelihood — we’ll go through preliminary steps here this week which could well include the chief justice coming over and swearing in members of the Senate and some other kinds of housekeeping measures,” McConnell told reporters.

“We hope to achieve that by consent which would set us up to begin the actual trial next Tuesday.”

Trump faces charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and the 100 senators will be his judge.

On Thursday or Friday this week, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is expected to be sworn in to preside over the trial, which should last at least two weeks, and could run through mid-February.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, called for a fair trial and demanded the Senate subpoena witnesses and documents from the White House that will be crucial in the trial.

“The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial… The president and the senators will be held accountable,” she added.

Trump will become only the third president in US history to go on trial, risking his removal from office.

But his conviction is highly unlikely, given Republicans’ 53-47 control of the Senate, and the high two-thirds vote threshold required to find him guilty.

But both parties were girding for tense weeks of hearings that could lay bare the US leader’s alleged wrongdoing to the American public on live television.

Pelosi attacked suggestions by Trump and some of his supporters that the Senate, as soon as the trial opens, vote to dismiss the charges. That would only require a majority vote.

“A dismissal is a cover-up,” she charged.

Read Also; Trump talks up killing, insults Soleimani at campaign rally

McConnell, however, pushed back against suggestions that he would try to prevent the trial from going ahead.

“There’s little or no sentiment for a motion to dismiss. Our members feel that we have an obligation to listen the arguments,” he said.

Trump was impeached on December 18 when the House voted to formally charge him with abusing his power by illicitly seeking help from Ukraine for his reelection campaign.

He is accused of holding up aid to Ukraine to pressure Kiev to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

Trump is also charged with obstruction for holding back witnesses and documents from the House impeachment investigation in defiance of Congressional subpoenas.

 

NAN

Agency Reporter

 

A COURT in Pakistan has overturned the death sentence handed down to former president Pervez Musharraf by declaring the legal process unconstitutional.

Gen Musharraf had challenged the formation of special court, which found him guilty of treason last December.

On Monday, the Lahore High Court sided with the exiled general, who seized power in a 1999 coup and was president from 2001 to 2008.

The decision meant Gen Musharraf was “a free man”, one prosecutor said.

Read Also: 26 killed in rain, snow-related incidents in Pakistan

“The filing of the complaint, the constitution of the court, the selection of the prosecution team are illegal, declared to be illegal… And at the end of the day the full judgment has been set aside,” the government prosecutor, Ishtiaq A. Khan, explained to news agency AFP.

He added there was “no judgment against him any longer”.

 

 

Agency Reporter

 

VLADIMIR Putin has been caught on camera making fun of Donald Trump with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who joked the president should follow in the footsteps of one of Jesus’ disciples so ‘everything will become normal with him’.

In television footage that aired on Russian-1 Sunday, the Russian president is seen laughing with Assad who explains that Paul the Apostle – who persecuted some of Jesus’ disciples – travelled to Damascus to arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem.

However Saint Paul was struck blind by a resurrected Jesus and his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus at the gate of Damascus in the Syrian capital city where the two leaders met on Tuesday.

Paul – previously known as Saul – then began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Jewish Messiah and son of God.

‘If Trump arrives along this road, everything will become normal with him too,’ Assad laughs to Putin during the trip to the Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Damascus.

It prompts Putin to quip that Trump would snap up the offer and if not, he’ll convince him to visit the country’s capital.

Read Also: Putin consoles Iranian President over plane crash

‘It will be repaired… invite him. He will come,’ Putin replies, according to a Twitter video shared online.

When Assad says he’s ready to invite Trump, according to a translation, Putin smiles: ‘I will tell him.’

The group including Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All East John X Yazigi, are seen laughing amid the banter.

Putin had visited Syria amid sky-high tensions in the Middle East.

The Russian president landed on a plane before being driven to the headquarters of Kremlin forces in the country.

 

 

Agency Reporter

 

POLICE in the Iranian capital, Tehran, have denied using live ammunition against protesters outraged by the shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner.

Officers had been given orders to “show restraint”, the chief of police said.

Videos posted online on Sunday recorded what appeared to be gunfire and showed an injured woman being carried away.

Protests erupted on Saturday, after Iran admitted firing missiles by mistake at the Ukraine International Airlines jet that crashed near Tehran.

One of Canada’s top business leaders has lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump over the shooting down of an airliner by Iran last week.

Maple Leaf Foods chief executive Michael McCain said his colleague’s wife and son were among the 57 Canadians who died.

Without explicitly naming Trump, he suggested “a narcissist in Washington” ultimately caused the air tragedy.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has vowed to “pursue justice” with Iran.

In a thread on the company Twitter account, McCain said: “U.S. government leaders unconstrained by checks/balances, concocted an ill-conceived plan to divert focus from political woes.”

Read Also: Nations affected by Ukrainian plane crash to discuss legal action against Iran

McCain, whose company employs more than 11,000 people, said the death of his colleague’s family members was “the collateral damage of this irresponsible, dangerous, ill-conceived behaviour”.

He also criticised U.S. efforts to dismantle the 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran.

On Saturday, Iran said it “unintentionally” shot down the Ukrainian plane.

All 176 people on board Flight PS752, mostly Iranians and Canadians, were killed.

For the first three days after the crash, Iran denied that its armed forces had shot down the plane and suggested there had been a technical failure.

The admission of responsibility, which came in the face of mounting evidence, provoked widespread anger in Iran against the ruling establishment.

 

Agency Reporter

 

UNITED States (U.S.) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to relinquish the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump this week by turning the process over to Mitch McConnell, the powerful Senate leader, who has vowed to help acquit his fellow Republican.

A month after making Trump the third president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives, Democrats will discuss today how to move forward, Pelosi said on Sunday, with the chamber possibly voting to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate that same day.

The jockeying between chambers over impeachment procedure has largely focused on a still unsettled dispute about whether McConnell will allow witnesses to be called during the Senate trial.

McConnell has yet to say definitively how the Senate will conduct the trial, but he has hinted he could skip witnesses and instead oversee a process that quickly dispatches with the charges. The political ramifications of witness testimony could prove to be both beneficial and detrimental for both sides in the run-up to elections in November.

In the Senate, Trump is expected to face friendlier terrain than he did in the House, and ultimately the chamber is expected to vote to acquit the president even though some moderates have bristled over McConnell’s reflexive support for Trump.

Democrats in the House brought the impeachment charges against Trump over his efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open a probe into former Vice President Joe Biden, a possible rival in this year’s presidential election, including in a July 25 phone call between the leaders.

Read Also: Trump ‘shellshocked’ after impeachment, say White House aides

Trump appeared on Sunday to reverse his position on how the Senate should proceed. Initially, he touted a Senate trial as an opportunity for his allies to force his critics to testify under oath, a process he said would benefit him politically.

But on Sunday, Trump wrote on Twitter that a full trial would give the Democrats undeserved credibility, and appeared instead to favour the Senate quickly dismissing the charges.

Pelosi, for her part, has remained involved in the impeachment process longer than expected. The House voted to impeach Trump in mid-December. But instead of quickly sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate to launch a trial, she delayed the process – a move she said was done to give her leverage to try to compel the Senate to hold a “fair” trial.

But after almost four weeks, Pelosi signalled she will relent and anticipates the House will finalise the process.

Critics have said Pelosi failed to gain much by holding onto the impeachment articles. She has said her delay brought some benefits.