The Philippine government has ordered the mandatory evacuation of Filipino workers from Iraq and Iran and is sending a coast guard vessel to the Middle East to ferry its citizens to safety in case hostilities between the United States and Iran worsen, officials said Wednesday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said the government has raised the alert level in Iraq to the highest level, requiring Filipinos to leave the country due to escalating security risks. Filipinos can leave on their own or be escorted out with the help of their employers or the Philippine government, officials said.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said Filipino workers should also move out of Iran and Lebanon, adding that the government was indefinitely banning Filipino workers from traveling to the three countries amid fears of more hostilities.
The Philippines, one of the world’s leading labor providers, would face a gargantuan crisis if hostilities between the U.S. and Iran escalate and embroil other Middle Eastern countries that host large numbers of Filipino workers, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“It will be a nightmare, but we are not helpless,” Bello said at a news conference in Manila.
Other Asian nations with large populations of expatriate labor may weigh similar decisions after Iran fired missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces in a major escalation of hostilities. The strikes were retaliation for last week’s killing of Iran’s top general in a U.S. drone attack in Baghdad.
India, which has a large number of workers in the Middle East, advised its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Iraq. It also urged its nationals living in Iraq to remain alert and avoid travel within the country.
There are an estimated 15,000-17,000 Indians now in Iraq, mostly in the Kurdistan region, Basra, Najaf and Karbala. About 30,000-40,000 Indians visit Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf and Samarrah each year for pilgrimages.
Philippine officials have reported differing numbers of Filipinos in Iraq and Iran. The problem has been compounded by the huge numbers of Filipinos who have entered the countries illegally and avoided reporting their presence to Philippine Embassy officials.
Department of Labor records show that 2,191 Filipinos work in Iraq, some in U.S. facilities, while more than 1,180 others are based in Iran, including Filipino women married to Iranians.
There could be more than 2.1 million Filipinos across the Middle East, including many illegal workers, Bello said.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and top officials have been holding emergency meetings since the weekend to discuss evacuation plans.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the plans include the possible deployment of one battalion each from the army and marines to secure and evacuate Filipinos in case of a major flareup of violence anywhere. Navy ships and three air force cargo aircraft were also being readied for possible deployment, the military said.
Duterte said late Tuesday that he has deployed a special envoy to get assurance from the leaders of Iraq and Iran that Filipinos would be spared in case of any major outbreak of violence.
“Just to get the assurance that my countrymen will have the egress just in case hell breaks loose,” Duterte told reporters.
While evacuation plans were being finalized, Manila’s coast guard said a new patrol vessel en route to the Philippines from France has instead been ordered to head to the Middle East in case Filipino workers need to be immediately extricated from any danger. The vessel can ferry up to 500 people at a time.
“In case of conflict, overseas Filipino workers will be brought to safer ports where they may be airlifted, as the need arises,” the coast guard said, adding that an initial plan was for the Philippine vessel to temporarily stand by in Oman or Dubai.
About a tenth of the Philippines’ more than 100 million people have worked abroad for decades, mostly as household help, construction workers, sailors and professionals, to escape grinding poverty and unemployment at home. They are hailed as heroes for sending huge incomes that keep Manila’s economy afloat. Many have risked staying in Middle Eastern nations, where they face abuse and even death and often get caught up in violent turmoil, to provide for impoverished families back home.
Four children were killed and five injured alongside their teacher as an explosion hit while they collected firewood in an area of Myanmar’s Rakhine state beset by fighting between the military and Arakan Army (AA) rebels.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blast or who was behind it.
The conflict has seen scores of civilians killed, hundreds wounded and some 100,000 displaced in the past year as the AA fights for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
The blast happened Tuesday morning in Htaikhtoo Pauk village in Buthidaung township, deputy administrator Hla Shwe told AFP.
A nurse attends to a boy injured by a blast in Buthidaung township, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Jan. 7, 2020. (Photo provided to VOA by source who requested not to be identified)
Local media posted a graphic video on Facebook showing people retrieving the victims’ bodies and carrying the bloodied injured away as distressed crowds gathered.
“They were looking for firewood on the mountainside,” Hla Shwe said by phone, adding the wounded had been taken to nearby hospitals in Buthidaung and Maungdaw.
He declined to say who he thought had been behind the blast.
Military spokesman Zaw Min Tun confirmed the incident and number of victims, accusing the AA of planting a landmine.
The rebels could not be reached for comment but one local village leader, who asked not to be named, told AFP the number of casualties and lack of blast crater made him doubt it had been a mine.
“Some people say a mine explosion, some say this was from heavy shelling.”
The rebels have carried out a series of brazen kidnappings, bombings and raids against the military and local officials in recent months.
The army has hit back hard, deploying thousands of soldiers to the conflict-ridden region.
U.S. officials said Tuesday that Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general the U.S. killed in a drone strike, posed a distinct threat to Americans in the Middle East, but again publicly offered no specific evidence of any attack he was about to carry out.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that “multiple pieces of information” from intelligence sources were given to President Donald Trump before Trump made the decision to target Soleimani in last week’s attack that killed him in Iraq at the Baghdad airport.
National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said Soleimani was plotting to attack American facilities where he would have killed American “diplomats, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.” But similar to Pompeo, O’Brien offered no specifics on the timing of what Trump administration officials have called an “imminent threat” that Soleimani posed.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in an interview on CNN, characterized the evidence of Soleimani’s malign activities in the Middle East as “more than razor thin,” saying Soleimani “was caught red-handed” meeting with a “terrorist leader. This is not an innocent man.”
Later, at a Pentagon news conference, Esper said he believed an attack planned by Soleimani was days away. He encouraged Iran to de-escalate tensions with the U.S. and open negotiations, “where they behave more like a normal country.”
O’Brien said the case against Soleimani was based on “strong evidence and strong intelligence,” while adding, “Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to get into (the) sorts of methods at this time, but I can tell you it was very strong.”
Pompeo said, “We could see clearly that not only had Soleimani done all the things that we have recounted, like hundreds of thousands of massacres, enormous destruction of countries like Lebanon and Iraq, where they denied…people in those two countries what it is they want, sovereignty, independence and freedom. This is all Soleimani’s handiwork. Then we would watch as he was continuing the terror campaign in the region….”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks about Iran at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 7, 2020.
“If you’re looking for imminence, you need look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani,” Pompeo said, including the late December attack that killed an American contractor working in Iraq.
Pompeo added that there were “continuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the death of many more Americans.”
The top U.S. diplomat concluded that the drone attack “was the right decision, we got it right. The Department of Defense did excellent work. The president had an entirely legal, appropriate basis, as well as a decision that fit perfectly within our strategy on how to counter the threat of malign activity from Iran.”
Iran has vowed to exact revenge for Soleimani’s killing, with O’Brien saying, “We take those seriously and we’re watching and monitoring them.” But with Trump threatening to respond to any new Iran attack, O’Brien said, “We hope that they’re deterred, and that they think twice about attacking America and its interests.”
Even as threats and counter-threats ricocheted between Washington and Tehran, O’Brien said he believes the world is a safer place with the killing of Soleimani.
“Look, over, over the past four months, the two greatest terrorist threats in the world, (Islamic State leader Abu Bakr) al Baghdadi and Soleimani, have both been taken off the battlefield,” O’Brien said outside the White House. “I think that makes us safer, and in fact we’ve been congratulated and told that privately by world leaders from every region in the world who’ve reached out to congratulate us for this activity.”
In Iran, officials delayed Soleimani’s burial, state media reported, after more than 50 people were killed in a stampede of mourners and more than 200 others injured.
Coffins of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and others who were killed in Iraq by a U.S. drone strike, are carried on a truck surrounded by mourners during a funeral procession, in the city of Kerman, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered to honor Soleimani in his hometown of Kerman before his planned burial, following similar ceremonies this week in Tehran, Qom and Ahvaz.
Many of the mourners screamed for retaliation against the United States for the killing of Soleimani. “No compromise, no submission, revenge!” they shouted.
Soleimani’s killing has sparked fears of a wider conflict as the United States and Iran threatened strong responses to each other’s actions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif contended in a CNN interview that the U.S. killing of Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, constituted “state terrorism.”
“This is an act of aggression against Iran, and it amounts to an armed attack against Iran, and we will respond,” Zarif said. “But we will respond proportionately – not disproportionately…we are not lawless like President Trump.”
With heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, Washington has denied Zarif a visa to travel to New York for upcoming United Nations meetings. Pompeo refused to spell out the reasons behind the denial of the visa.
Following the airstrike, Iran announced it was further cutting its compliance with the 2015 agreement that restrained its nuclear program. That prompted Trump, who withdrew from the deal and applied new sanctions against Iran, to tweet Monday, “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
Trump also vowed late Sunday that the U.S. will strike “very hard and very fast” at as many as 52 Iranian targets if Iran attacks U.S. personnel or assets. The number 52 represents the number of Americans Tehran took hostage in 1979 for 444 days.
“They’re allowed to kill our people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people and we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way.” Pompeo said the U.S., in any new attacks on Iran, would act according to international legal constraints on warfare, under which attacks on cultural sites are considered a war crime.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rebuffed Trump’s threat on Monday, tweeting, “Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655. Never threaten the Iranian nation.”
It was a reference to the U.S. mistakenly shooting down an Iranian passenger jet flying over the Persian Gulf in 1988, killing all 290 people aboard the aircraft. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan expressed deep regret over the incident and the U.S. paid nearly $62 million in reparations to the victims’ families.
Rising tensions between Washington and Tehran are testing whether Joe Biden can capitalize on his decades of foreign policy experience as he seeks to challenge a president he derides as “dangerous” and “erratic.”
Biden is expected to deliver lengthy remarks Tuesday in New York about President Donald Trump’s decision to approve an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The event, which would follow several days of campaigning in which Biden inconsistently highlighted his foreign policy credentials, would be among his most high-profile efforts to articulate his vision for world affairs. It would come less than a month before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses begin Democrats’ 2020 voting.
But the moment presents challenges for a two-term vice president who was elected to six Senate terms. While his resume is longer than any Democratic presidential rival’s, it comes with complications.
Progressives hoping to make American foreign policy less militaristic point to Biden’s 2002 vote authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, suggesting that muddies his recent warning that Trump could push the U.S. into another endless war. Alternately, Trump and Republicans cast Biden as indecisive or weak, seizing on his opposition to the 1991 U.S. mission that drove Iraq out of Kuwait and his reluctance about the raid that killed Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in 2011, when Biden was President Barack Obama’s No. 2.
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator who voted against President George W. Bush’s Iraq war powers request, calls it “baggage.” In a quote that Republicans recirculate frequently, former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in his memoir that Biden, though a “man of integrity,” has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Biden himself has been inconsistent in his pitch to voters, seemingly confident that searing criticism of Trump and implicit contrasts with less-seasoned Democratic rivals are enough to earn another stint in the West Wing.
“I’ve met every single world leader” a U.S. president must know, Biden tells voters at some stops. “On a first-name basis,” he’ll add on occasion. On Chinese President Xi Jinping: “I spent more time with him face to face than any other world leader.” On Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who helped persuade Trump to withdraw U.S. special forces from Syria over widespread opposition in Washington and elsewhere: “I know who he is.”
The Biden campaign’s most viral moment was a video last month, titled “Laughed At,” showing world leaders mocking Trump at a Buckingham Palace reception held during a NATO summit in London. Biden says world leaders, including former British Prime Minister Theresa May, have called him to ask about Trump.
He told reporters last month that foreign policy isn’t in his Democratic opponents’ “wheelhouse,” even if they are “smart as hell” and “can learn.” Demonstrating his knowledge, Biden veered into explaining the chemistry and physics of “SS-18 silos,” referring to old Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. “It’s just what I’ve done my whole life,” he said.
He’s since touted endorsements from former Secretary of State John Kerry and members of Congress with experience in the military and intelligence community.
Yet Biden doesn’t always connect the dots with an explicit appeal to voters.
In Iowa last weekend, Biden called the Iran crisis “totally of Donald Trump’s making,” tracing Soleimani’s killing back to Trump withdrawing from a multilateral deal in which Iran had agreed to curtail its nuclear program. The pact “was working, serving America’s interests and the region’s interests,” Biden said, questioning whether Trump “has any plan for how to handle what comes next.”
Biden told an audience that Americans need “a president who provides a steady leadership on Day One,” but during a 20-minute soliloquy, Biden never discussed his role in the Iran deal or Obama’s foreign policy generally. Days before, prior to the Soleimani strike, Biden didn’t mention the embassy attack at all as he campaigned in Anamosa, Iowa.
The former vice president laments that lack of foreign policy emphasis in a Democratic primary contest that has revolved around the party’s internal ideological tussle over domestic issues including health care, a wealth tax and college tuition assistance. The international arena “isn’t discussed at all” on the debate stage, he told reporters last month, despite what he said is a deep concern among voters.
“Foreign policy, commander in chief is a big deal to people,” he said, less because of a single issue and more because of Trump generally. “They just know something’s not right. It’s uncomfortable.”
Biden in July offered perhaps his most sweeping foreign policy declaration to date, with a speech touting the U.S. as the preeminent world power but one that must lead international coalitions and focus on diplomacy. He pledged to end “forever wars” but did not rule out military force. He made clear he values small-scale operations of special forces while being more skeptical of larger, extended missions of ground forces.
His advisers believe that reflects most Americans. “They don’t want the United States to retreat from the world … but they also don’t want us overextended without any rational strategy or exit plan,” said Tony Blinken, Biden’s top foreign policy adviser, who has worked with him since he was Democratic leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
As vice president, Biden was at Obama’s side for every major national security decision during their eight years in office. Biden led the administration’s efforts to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression. He also took the lead on Iraq as the Democratic administration moved to bring the war it inherited there to an end.
But Biden wasn’t always in lockstep with Obama on major issues. He was among the advisers who argued against the attack on al-Qaida mastermind bin Laden. Biden’s explanation of those debates has changed over the years, varying from saying he recommended that Obama wait for clearer identification of bin Laden at the Pakistan compound where he was killed to later saying he privately told Obama to go ahead. Blinken said Biden was never against pursuing bin Laden, as some Republicans say. Recalling how Biden immediately relayed his final private conversation with Obama, Blinken said Biden told Obama to “trust your instincts.”
Biden also lost an initial debate during lengthy deliberations on Afghanistan shortly after Obama took office. Biden was opposed to the idea of sending surge forces, pushing instead for a focus on counterterrorism that would have required a smaller military footprint on the ground. Obama ultimately ordered 30,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.
That could be viewed as a lesson learned after Biden initially voted to support Bush’s 2002 request to use force in Iraq. Blinken said, though, that didn’t necessarily mean Biden ever changed philosophy. His 2002 vote, Blinken said, was based on the president arguing he needed war power only as leverage for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to accept international weapons inspectors. That worked, Blinken said, then Bush decided to “go to war anyway.”
Ultimately, Biden and his team believe voters are more interested in candidates’ overall profiles than in litigating old debates. They point to the 2004 Democratic primary.
Howard Dean held momentum for much of 2003. Weeks before Iowa caucused, the U.S. captured Saddam. Dean declared that the military victory had “not made America safer,” after having spent months blistering Kerry for backing the same Iraq resolution Biden supported. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who praised Saddam’s capture, went on to win Iowa and steamrolled to the nomination.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara said Monday he intends to modify the constitution ahead of an October presidential election seen as a test of the country’s stability.
A rise in tensions in recent weeks between Ouattara and his political rivals has raised fears of election-related violence in Francophone West Africa’s largest economy, where a disputed 2010 vote set off a civil war that killed 3,000 people.
In remarks to foreign diplomats, Ouattara, who has not yet announced whether he will be a candidate in October, said the proposed revisions were intended to make the constitution “more coherent” but did not provide any details.
He did, however, seek to downplay opponents’ fears that he would try to impose age limits on presidential candidates that would prevent his main rivals, former presidents Laurent Gbagbo and Henri Konan Bedie, from running.
“I wish to make clear that this is not a maneuver to push anyone aside,” he said.
Modifying the constitution requires approval in parliament, which is controlled by Ouattara’s allies.
Ouattara came to power in 2011 after defeating Gbagbo at the polls and Gbagbo’s forces in the ensuing war. He says he wants to step down after a decade in power and turn over the reins to a new generation, but that he will run if Gbagbo and Bedie are candidates.
Some opposition leaders have speculated that Ouattara, who is 78, will reimpose the 75-year age limit for presidential candidates that was removed in a new constitution he championed in 2016. That would exclude himself; Gbagbo, who will turn 75 in May; and Bedie, who is 85.
Candidates uncertain
Ouattara was expected to step down in 2020 but unexpectedly declared in 2018 that the new constitution had reset term limits that would have barred him from running again.
Gbagbo and Bedie have not said whether they will run. Gbagbo was acquitted earlier this year of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court for his role in the war but remains in Europe pending an appeal by the prosecution.
Political tensions in Ivory Coast have risen since last month, when the public prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for presidential candidate Guillaume Soro, a former rebel leader whose forces swept Ouattara to power in 2011.
Soro, who is currently in Europe, denies the charges that he plotted a coup against Ouattara and says they are politically motivated.
If Ouattara does not run, he is widely expected to back his prime minister, Amadou Gon Coulibaly, in the election.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday he does not plan to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas in 2020, according to media reports.
Speculation has swirled for months over whether Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, would run for the seat in his home state.
“He loves doing the job he’s doing right now and feels that things are too volatile with the various situations around the world, particularly with Iran and Iraq, and he wants to make sure he’s in the best spot to serve his country,” a person close to Pompeo told the Wall Street Journal. “He believes that is secretary of state.”
Pompeo’s decision not to run was also reported by the New York Times.
Pompeo and McConnell did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
McConnell had urged Pompeo to run for the seat to help keep the party’s majority after Republican Senator Pat Roberts announced last year he would retire.
The Senate seat might also have been a good fit if Pompeo, who is believed to harbor presidential ambitions, chooses to run for the Republican nomination in 2024.
The deadline for filing to run for the Senate seat is in June.
America’s European allies have urged de-escalation on all sides following Iran’s pledge to retaliate for the U.S. killing of the country’s top general. Qassem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike at Baghdad’s airport Friday. Protests have erupted across the Middle East, and as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, NATO has suspended its training mission in Iraq as fears grow of an escalation in violence.
The 77th Golden Globes were meant to be a coronation for Netflix. Instead, a pair of big-screen epics took top honors Sunday, as Sam Mendes’ technically dazzling World War I tale “1917” won best picture, drama, and Quentin Tarantino’s radiant Los Angeles fable “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” won best film, comedy or musical.
The wins for “1917” were a surprise, besting such favorites as Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” (the leading nominee with six nods) and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” Both are acclaimed Netflix releases but they collectively took home just one award, for Laura Dern’s supporting performance as a divorce attorney in “Marriage Story.” “The Irishman” was entirely shut out.
“1917” also won best director for Mendes. The film was made in sinuous long takes, giving the impression that the movie unfolds in one lengthy shot.
“I hope this means that people will turn up and see this on the big screen, the way it was intended,” said Mendes, whose film expands nationwide Friday.
Though set around the 1969 Manson murders “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” was classified a comedy and thus had an easier path to victory than the more competitive drama category. Brad Pitt won for best supporting actor, his first acting Globe since winning in 1996 for “12 Monkeys,” padding his front-runner status for the Oscars. Tarantino also won best screenplay.
“I wanted to bring my mom, but I couldn’t because any woman I stand next to they say I am dating so it’d just be awkward,” Pitt said.
Throughout the night, those who took the stage used the moment to speak about current events including the wildfires raging in Australia, rising tensions with Iran, women’s rights, the importance of LGBT trailblazers, even the importance of being on time.
Patricia Arquette, a winner for her performance in Hulu’s “The Act,” referenced the United States’ targeted killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, saying history wouldn’t remember the day for the Globes but will see “a country on the brink of war.” She urged all to vote in November’s presidential election.
Ricky Gervais, hosting the NBC-telecast ceremony for the fifth time, opened the show by stating that Netflix had taken over Hollywood, a fair appraisal given the streaming service’s commanding 34 nominations coming into the Globes. “This show should just be me coming out going: `Well done, Netflix. You win everything tonight,” he said.
Ricky Gervais, left, and Jane Fallon arrive at the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
As it turned out, he was wrong. Netflix won only two awards: Dern’s win plus one for Olivia Colman’s performance in “The Crown.” It was a definite hiccup for the streaming service, which is aiming for its first best-picture win at the Academy Awards next month.
Instead, the awards were widely spread out among traditional Hollywood studios, indie labels like A24, cable heavyweights like HBO and relative newcomers like Hulu.
Renee Zelleweger (“Judy”) took home best actress in a drama, as expected, notching her fourth Globe. But, as always at the Globes, there were surprises. Taron Egerton, a regular presence on the awards circuit this year, won best actor in a comedy or musical for his Elton John in “Rocketman” – an honor many had pegged for Eddie Murphy (“Dolemite Is My Name”).
Awkwafina, the star of the hit indie family drama “The Farewell,” became the first woman of Asian descent to win best actress in a comedy or musical. “If anything, if I fall upon hard times, I can sell this,” said Awkwafina, holding the award.
The winners were otherwise largely white, something the Globes have been criticized for before – including even in Gervais’ opening monologue, in which he called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association “racist.’’
No other category has been more competitive this year than that for best actor. Joaquin Phoenix won for his loose-limbed performance in the divisive but hugely popular “Joker” in a category that included Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”) and Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”). Phoenix gave a rambling speech that began with crediting the HFPA with the vegan meal served at the ceremony.
Michelle Williams, who won best actress in a limited series for “Fosse/Verdon,” stood up for women’s rights in her acceptance speech.
“When it’s time to vote, please do so in your self interest,” Williams said. “It’s what men have been doing for years, which is why the world looks so much like them.’’
Dern’s best supporting actress award for her performance as a divorce attorney in “Marriage Story,” was her fifth Globe. Her win denied Jennifer Lopez, the “Hustlers” star, her first major acting award.
The first award of the night went to a streaming service series. Ramy Youssef won best actor in a TV series comedy or musical for his Hulu show “Ramy.” Best actor in a limited series went to Russell Crowe for the Showtime series “The Loudest Voice.” He wasn’t in attendance because of raging wildfires in his native Australia.
“Make no mistake, the tragedy unfolding in Australia is climate-changed based,” Crowe said in a statement read by presenters Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge followed up her Emmy haul by winning best comedy series and best actress in a comedy series. She thanked former President Barack Obama for putting “Fleabag” on his best-of-2019 list. With a grin, she added: “As some of you may know, he’s always been on mine.”
Waller-Bridge’s co-star Andrew Scott (of “hot priest” fame) missed out on the category’s supporting actor award, which Stellan Skarsgard took for HBO’s “Chernobyl.”
Stellan Skarsgard, left, and Jared Harris, from the cast of “Chernobyl,” winners of the award for best television limited series or motion picture made for television, pose in the press room at the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards.
HBO was also triumphant in best TV drama, where the second season of “Succession” bested Netflix’s “The Crown” and Apple TV Plus’ first Globe nominee, “The Morning Show.” Brian Cox, the Rupert Murdoch-like patriarch of “Succession,” also won best actor in a drama series. “The Crown” took some hardware home, too, with Olivia Colman winning best actress in a drama series, a year after winning for her performance in “The Favourite.’’
Best foreign language film went to Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” the Cannes Palme d’Or winning sensation from South Korea. Despite being an organization of foreign journalists, the HFPA doesn’t include foreign films in its top categories, thus ruling out “Parasite,” a likely best picture nominee at next month’s Oscars.
“Once you overcome the inch-tall-barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films,” Bong said, speaking through a translator.
Tom Hanks, also a nominee for his supporting turn as Fred Rogers in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” received the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. The Carol Burnett Award, a similar honorary award given for television accomplishment, was given to Ellen DeGeneres. She was movingly introduced by Kate McKinnon who said DeGeneres’ example guided her in her own coming out.
“The only thing that made it less scary was seeing Ellen on TV,” said McKinnon.
Hanks’ speech had its own emotional moment when he caught sight of his wife and four children at a table near the stage and choked up.
“A man is blessed with the family’s sitting down front like that,” Hanks said.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin won the evening’s most heavyweight battle, besting Beyonce and Taylor Swift. Their “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” won best song. “It’s the first time I’ve ever won an award with him,” Elton said of his song-writing partner. “Ever.’’
The Golden Globes, Hollywood’s most freewheeling televised award show, could be unusually influential this year. The roughly 90 voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have traditionally had little in common with the nearly 9,000 industry professionals that make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The HFPA is known for calculatingly packing its show with as much star power as possible, occasionally rewarding even the likes of “The Tourist” and “Burlesque.’’
Sunday’s show may have added to that history with an unexpected award for “Missing Link” for best animated feature film over films like “Toy Story 4” and “Frozen 2.” No one was more surprised than its director, Chris Butler. “I’m flabbergasted,” he said.
But the condensed time frame of this year’s award season (the Oscars are Feb. 9) brings the Globes and the Academy Awards closer. Balloting for Oscar nominations began Thursday. Voters were sure to be watching.
People gathered in Tehran on Monday to mourn top general Qassem Soleimani, as his replacement vowed to take revenge for the U.S. airstrike that killed him, and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to hit Iranian cultural site if Iran does retaliate.
“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people and we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Sunday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic colleagues that the House will vote this week on a war powers resolution “to limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran.”
“It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days,” Pelosi wrote.
US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks alongside a stack of legislation the House has passed as she holds a press conference with fellow Democrats at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, December 19, 2019.
She called last week’s airstrike “provocative and disproportionate,” and said it endangered U.S. troops while escalating tensions with Iran.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Fox, “We’re now headed very close to the precipice of war,” adding “you just can’t go around and kill” world figures the U.S. opposes. “The president is not entitled to take us to war” without congressional authorization.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s Republican allies, said the president “did the right thing” and that his national security team is “doing a great job helping President Trump navigate Iranian provocations.”
Republican Congressman Mike Johnson also backed Trump, writing on Twitter, “Now we must remain united against Iranian aggression while praying and working for de-escalation.”
Trump tweeted Sunday that his social media posts “will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”
Yale University law professor Oona Hathaway told VOA the president cannot notify Congress of his intent to go to war by tweet and said he would be breaking several laws.
“Any time the president involves the armed forces into hostilities, he must — at a minimum — notify Congress within 48 hours,” she said.
Hathaway added that a president is obligated to consult with Congress before putting the armed forces into any hostilities. She said a “disproportionate” response would break international law, which says any action taken in self-defense must be proportionate to the threat.
“That any of this has to be said suggests just how insane this situation has become,” Hathaway said, wondering where are the lawyers from the White House, Pentagon, and State Department.
Trump also told reporters Sunday he “may discuss” releasing the intelligence he used to justify ordering Soleimani’s death.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has so far refused to publicly share the evidence supporting the administration’s claim that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks on U.S. forces and officials in the Middle East.
FILE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks at the State Department in Washington, Dec. 19, 2019.
“There are simply things we cannot make public,” Pompeo told Fox News. “You’ve got to protect the sources providing the intelligence.”
Trump claimed Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, Iraqis and Iranians, saying the longtime Iranian general “made the death of innocent people his sick passion” while helping to run a terror network that reached across the Middle East to Europe and the Americas.
Also Sunday, Iran said it is no longer limiting the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium — a virtual abandonment of the 2015 nuclear deal that had constrained its nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.
“Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion,” a government statement said.
Iraq’s Parliament to US Military: ‘Get Out’ video player.
Iran did not make any explicit threats to build a nuclear weapon, something it has always denied it wants to do. It also said it will still cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran has been gradually stepping back from the commitments it made in the 2015 deal since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran. The European signatories — Britain, France, and Germany — have been urging Iran not to pull out.
Iraq has filed an official complaint with the United Nations secretary-general and the Security Council over the missile strike against Soleimani, which was carried out on Iraqi soil.
Five people were killed and about 60 were injured on the Pennsylvania Turnpike early Sunday morning, when a loaded bus went out of control on a hill and rolled over, setting off a chain reaction that involved three tractor-trailers and a passenger car.
The injured victims, ranging from 7 to 67 years old, are all expected to survive, though two patients remain in critical condition, authorities and hospital officials said Sunday afternoon. The crash, which happened at 3:40 a.m. on a mountainous and rural stretch of the interstate about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh, shut down the highway in both directions for several hours before it reopened Sunday evening.
The bus, operated by a New Jersey-based company called Z & D Tours, was traveling from Rockaway, New Jersey, to Cincinnati, Ohio, Pennsylvania State Police spokesman Stephen Limani told reporters.
He said the bus was traveling downhill on a curve, careened up an embankment and rolled over. Two tractor-trailers then struck the bus. A third tractor-trailer then crashed into those trucks. A passenger car was also involved in the pileup.
Photos from the scene show a mangled collision of multiple vehicles including a smashed FedEx truck that left packages sprawled along the highway.
“It was kind of a chain-reaction crash,” Limani said.
FedEx did not provide any other details besides that they are cooperating with authorities. A message seeking comment was left Sunday with the bus company.
Limani would not identify those killed or say which vehicles they were traveling in.
“I haven’t personally witnessed a crash of this magnitude in 20 years,” Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo told WTAE, calling it the worst accident in his decades-long tenure with the turnpike. “It’s horrible.”
Excela Health Frick Hospital in Mount Pleasant said it treated 31 victims, transferring a child and three adults to other facilities.
Hospitals brought in teams of social workers and psychologists to deal with the mental trauma, said Mark Rubino, president of Forbes Hospital, which treated 11 victims.
“The people coming in were not only physically injured but they were traumatized from a mental standpoint as well,” he said. Most were covered in diesel fuel when they arrived. The hospital treated fractured bones, brain bleeds, contusions, abrasions and spinal injuries.
The victims included students and people returning from visiting family in New York City. Many traveling on the bus were from outside the United States, Limani said, some of whom do not speak English and who lost their luggage and passports in the wreckage.
The Tribune-Review reported Leticia Moreta arrived at a hospital about 11:30 a.m. to pick up her children — Jorge Moreta, 24, and Melanie Moreta, 16 — who were on the bus.
She said her children, returning from visiting their father in New York, were in stable condition.
“I was devastated,” she said.
Exactly what caused the crash remains unknown, and Limani said it could take weeks or months to determine. The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team to investigate.
Officials said it was too early to determine if weather was a factor in the crash.
Angela Maynard, a tractor-trailer driver from Kentucky, said the roads were wet from snow but not especially icy. Maynard was traveling eastbound on the turnpike when she came upon the crash site and called 911.
“It was horrible,” she told The Tribune-Review. She saw lots of smoke but no fire. She and her co-driver found one person trapped in their truck and another lying on the ground.
“I tried to keep him occupied, keep talking, until medical help arrived,” Maynard said. “He was in bad shape. He was floating in and out of consciousness.”
The crash left families terrified and scrambling.
“I was crying,” said Omeil Ellis, whose two brothers were on the bus. “I was like crazy crying. I’m still hurt.”
Ellis, from Irvington, New Jersey, told The Tribune-Review that his brothers were traveling to Ohio for work. He was planning to meet them a few days later. But both of his brothers, one of them 39 years old and one 17, were sent to hospitals.
Spain’s Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez failed on Sunday in a first attempt to get parliament’s backing to form a government, leaving him two days to secure support to end an eight-month political gridlock.
Sanchez has been acting prime minister since a first inconclusive election in April and November did not produce a conclusive result. He needed an absolute majority of at least 176 votes in his favor in the 350-seat house to be confirmed as prime minister but failed to get it.
He obtained 166 votes in favor and 165 against, with 18 abstentions, while one lawmaker did not attend.
On Tuesday, Sanchez will only need a simple majority – more “yes” than “no” votes. He is likely to get that after securing a commitment from the 13 lawmakers of Catalonia’s largest separatist party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), to abstain.
Earlier this week, Socialist Party leader Sanchez and Pablo Iglesias, head of the far-left party Unidas Podemos, restated their intention to form the first coalition government in Spain’s recent history.
The two parties together have 155 seats, short of a majority, so Sanchez is reliant on the votes of small regional parties.
In a sign of how close the race could be on Tuesday, a member from the small regional party Coalicion Canaria, Ana Oramas, voted against Sanchez instead of abstaining as her party had agreed on Friday.
During Sunday morning’s debate, Sanchez stressed that a Socialist-Podemos coalition would take a progressive approach.
Sanchez and Iglesias have said they will push for tax hikes on high-income earners and companies and also intend to roll back a labor reform passed by a previous conservative government.
The morning was marked by tension during the speech of Mertxe Aizpurua of pro-independence Basque party EH Bildu.
Aizpurua called the conservative and right wing parties People’s Party, Vox and Ciudadanos “Francoists”, a reference to late dictator Francisco Franco, and criticized the Constitution and King Felipe.
She was met with boos and shouts of “murderers”.
The Senate seems certain to keep President Donald Trump in office thanks to the overwhelming GOP support expected in his impeachment trial. But how that trial will proceed — and when it will begin — remains to be seen.
Democrats are pushing for the Senate to issue subpoenas for witnesses and documents, pointing to reports that they say have raised new questions about Trump’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine.
Once the House transmits the articles of impeachment, decisions about how to conduct the trial will require 51 votes. With Republicans controlling the Senate 53-47, Democrats cannot force subpoenas on their own.
For now, Republicans are holding the line behind Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s position that they should start the trial and hear arguments from House prosecutors and Trump’s defense team before deciding what to do.
But small cracks in GOP unity have appeared, with two Republican senators criticizing McConnell’s pledge of “total coordination” with the White House during the impeachment trial.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by the GOP leader’s comments, adding that there should be distance between the White House and the Senate on how the trial is conducted. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, meanwhile, called the pledge by McConnell, R-Ky., inappropriate and said she is open to seeking testimony.
Democrats could find their own unity tested if and when the Senate reaches a final vote on the two House-approved impeachment charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
It would take 67 votes to convict Trump on either charge and remove him from office, a high bar unlikely to be reached. It’s also far from certain that all 47 Democrats will find Trump guilty.
Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama said he’s undecided on how he might vote and suggested he sees merits in the arguments both for and against conviction.
A look at senators to watch once the impeachment trial begins:
Murkowski
In her fourth term representing Alaska, Murkowski is considered a key Senate moderate. She has voted against GOP leadership on multiple occasions and opposed Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2018.
Murkowski told an Alaska TV station last month there should be distance between the White House and the GOP-controlled Senate in how the trial is conducted.
“To me it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process,” she said.
Murkowski says the Senate is being asked to cure deficiencies in the House impeachment effort, particularly when it comes to whether key witnesses should be brought forward to testify, including White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.
“How we will deal with witnesses remains to be seen,” she said, adding that House leaders should have gone to court if witnesses refused to appear before Congress.
Collins
FILE – Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is surrounded by reporters as she heads to vote at the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 6, 2019.
The four-term senator said she is open to calling witnesses as part of the impeachment trial but calls it “premature” to decide who should be called until evidence is presented.
“It is inappropriate, in my judgment, for senators on either side of the aisle to prejudge the evidence before they have heard what is presented to us,” Collins told Maine Public Radio.
Senators take an oath to render impartial justice during impeachment — an oath lawmakers should take seriously, Collins said.
Collins, who is running for reelection and is considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable GOP senators, also faulted Democrats for saying Trump should be found guilty and removed from office. “There are senators on both sides of the aisle, who, to me, are not giving the appearance of and the reality of judging that’s in an impartial way,” she said.
Jones
Jones, a freshman seeking reelection in staunchly pro-Trump Alabama, is considered the Democrat most likely to side with Republicans in a Senate trial. In a Washington Post op-ed column, Jones said that for Americans to have confidence in the impeachment process, “the Senate must conduct a full, fair and complete trial with all relevant evidence regarding the president’s conduct.”
He said he fears that senators “are headed toward a trial that is not intended to find the whole truth. For the sake of the country, this must change.”
Unlike what happened during the investigation of President Bill Clinton, “Trump has blocked both the production of virtually all relevant documents and the testimony of witnesses who have firsthand knowledge of the facts,” Jones said. “The evidence we do have may be sufficient to make a judgment, but it is clearly incomplete,” he added.
Jones and other Democrats are seeking testimony from Mulvaney and other key White House officials to help fill in the gaps.
Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
Romney, a freshman senator and on-again, off-again Trump critic, has criticized Trump for his comments urging Ukraine and China to investigate Democrat Joe Biden, but has not spoken directly about he thinks impeachment should proceed.
Romney is overwhelmingly popular in a conservative state where Trump is not beloved, a status that gives Romney leverage to buck the president or at least speak out about rules and procedures of a Senate trial.
Cory Gardner, R-Colo.
FILE – Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., listens during a hearing to review the FY 2020 State Department budget request, April 10, 2019.
Gardner, like Collins is a vulnerable senator up for reelection in a state where Trump is not popular. Gardner has criticized the House impeachment effort as overly partisan and fretted that it will sharply divide the country.
While Trump is under water in Colorado, a GOP strategist says Gardner and other Republicans could benefit from an energized GOP base if the Senate, as expected, acquits Trump of the two articles of impeachment approved by the House. An acquittal “may have a substantial impact on other races in Colorado, up to and including Sen. Cory Gardner’s re-election,” Ryan Lynch told Colorado Public Radio.
Martha McSally, R-Ariz.
McSally, who was appointed to her seat after losing a Senate bid in 2018, is another vulnerable Republican seeking election this fall. She calls impeachment a serious matter and said she hopes her constituents would want her to examine the facts without partisanship. The American people “want us to take a serious look at this and not have it be just partisan bickering going on,” she told The Arizona Republic.
Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
A three-term senator and former governor, Alexander is retiring next year. A moderate who’s respected by both parties as an old-school defender of Senate prerogatives, Alexander has called Trump’s conduct “inappropriate,” but says he views impeachment as a “mistake.”
An election, which “is just around the corner, is the right way to decide who should be president,” Alexander said last fall. “Impeachment has never removed a president. It will only divide the country further.”
Somali militant group al-Shabab says it attacked a military base used by U.S. and Kenyan military teams Sunday.
A cloud of black smoke could be seen rising from the military base in the coastal town of Lamu, along Kenya-Somalia border. The base hosts Kenyan and American forces.
Lamu County Commissioner Irungu Macharia confirmed the attack and says the area is not yet secured.
“Between 4 and 5 there was that attack at that military base, that airstrip. Our officers engaged those intruders, and it has continued up to around 6. But now the situation has calmed down, but the area is not still secure for us to go to that place. But normalcy has returned, and our officers are on the ground,” he said.
In a statement, al-Shabab said it had taken control of part of the camp, and it has inflicted casualties in the attack.
Kenya Defense forces in a statement also said they fought off the attackers and four militants were killed.
A Kenyan police officer observes motor vehicle traffic near the scene where armed assailants killed three people and injured two others in Nyongoro area of Lamu County, Kenya, Jan. 2, 2020.
The attack comes days after al-Shabab fighters killed three people on a passenger bus in Lamu County.
The area that borders Somalia has been under security operation in the last five years.
Al-Shabab has carried out wave attacks against Kenyan security forces and civilians in the coast and northeastern region.
American pop singer Pink says she is donating $500,000 to help fight the deadly wildfires that have devastated parts of Australia.
“I am totally devastated watching what is happening in Australia right now with the horrific bushfires,” Pink tweeted Saturday to her 32.2 million Twitter followers. “I am pledging a donation of $500,000 directly to the local fire services that are battling so hard on the frontlines. My heart goes out to our friends and family in Oz.”
The death toll in the wildfire crisis is now up to 23 people. The fires are expected to be particularly fierce throughout the weekend.
The wildfires, which have been raging since September, have already burned about 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land and destroyed more than 1,500 homes.
U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new coalition to secure evangelical voter support for his re-election, delivering a rally-style speech in front of thousands of cheering Christians in a Miami megachurch on Friday.
“We have God on our side,” Trump said at the King Jesus International Ministry, a predominantly Latino church that also goes by its Spanish name Ministerio Internacional El Rey Jesús.
The ministry is one of the largest Hispanic churches in the United States. Trump’s rally there acknowledged the power of evangelical and Latino voting blocs as his campaign tries to shore up support ahead of the November presidential election. Evangelical voters made up a substantial part of Trump’s base in 2016 and could pave the way toward securing the president’s re-election in 2020.
The president hit familiar campaign themes, boasting about policies that further the evangelical agenda, including restricting abortions, appointing conservative judges and his recent executive order to extend Title VI protections to Jews. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in institutions receiving federal funding, including colleges and universities.
Trump also announced that he will soon be taking action to “safeguard students and teachers’ First Amendment rights to pray in our schools.”
Evangelicals for Trump
Politically, evangelicals are relatively homogeneous and unified as they consistently champion four causes: pro-life policies, confirmation of conservative judges to the federal judiciary, religious freedom mainly for Christians and pro-Israel policies, said Professor Quardricos Driskell, an adjunct professor of religion and politics at the George Washington University.
“These four single issues make this group the most active supporters of not only Trump but most conservative Republican voters,” Driskell added.
Yet, like any group, evangelicals are not monolithic. Driskell said that a distinction has to be made between evangelicals and white evangelicals – with a tendency for more “comprehensive group-think” among white evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016 vs. black or Latino evangelicals.
There are also evangelicals uneasy with both the president’s demeanor and policies. After online publication the Christian Post recently issued an editorial supporting Trump, editor Napp Nazworth resigned in protest.
“There is a large contingent of evangelicals who agree that our faith shouldn’t be associated with a president who separates immigrant children from their families, betrays our allies in Syria, inspires racists, and pays hush money to porn stars,” Nazworth said.
Into the fold
Trump has put effort into bringing evangelicals into the fold, including by appointing Paula White, a televangelist from Florida whom he calls a longtime friend and personal pastor, as head of the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative. White introduced Trump at the rally as “a man of God” and lead a prayer session for him.
The “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition launch is yet another effort to solidify backing for the president, even when there are signs of erosion of support, including the explosive December 19 Christianity Today editorial that argued for Trump to be removed from office.
“By branding all evangelicals as Trump supporters, the campaign is trying to force those in that demographic who do not fully agree with the president’s policies to be pulled along because it is better to vote for President Trump than a Democrat,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien who teaches presidential politics at the University of Texas at Austin.
There was no shortage of Trump lines hitting on opposition Democrats, whom he accused of waging war on the faithful.
“Every Democratic candidate running for president is trying to punish religious believers and silence our churches,” Trump said to applause from the crowd, many of them sporting MAGA red caps and Trump campaign attire. “This election is about the survival of our nation,” he said.
Trump also singled out Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, describing them as anti-Semitic. “These people hate Israel. They hate Jewish people,” Trump said.
Critics accuse Trump of weaponizing religion. “Faith and belief are highly personal things that should never be utilized as a partisan tool for electoral advantage,” O’Brien said.
Ahead of the president’s remarks, Florida Democrats issued a letter signed by 12 Christian leaders from five Florida counties that appealed to the president: “We cannot stand idly by while you attempt to co-opt our religion for your political gain and claim support from our community.”
US President Donald Trump said he ordered the Friday’s airstrike that killed a top Iranian commander in Iraq at Baghdad’s airport to prevent imminent attacks against Americans in the region. US analysts discuss the move and its impact on Iran, and US policies in the Middle East region. VOA’s Steve Hirsch has more from Washington
Highlighting his record on religious liberty, President Donald Trump on Friday worked to energize a group of evangelical supporters who make up an influential piece of his political base that could prove vital in battleground states.
Trump spoke to more than 5,000 Christians, including a large group of Latinos, at a Miami megachurch, just days after he was the subject of a scathing editorial in Christianity Today magazine that called for his removal from office. Thousands of the faithful lifted their hands and prayed over Trump as he began speaking and portrayed himself as a defender of faith.
“We’re defending religion itself. A society without religion cannot prosper. A nation without faith can not endure,“ said Trump, who also tried to paint his Democratic rivals for the 2020 election as threats to religious liberty. “We can’t let one of our radical left friends come in here because everything we’ve done will be gone in short order.”
“The day I was sworn in, the federal government war’s on religion came to an abrupt end,” Trump declared. He later added: “We can smile because we’re winning by so much.”
Points of emphasis
Although some of his address resembled his standard campaign speech, Trump cited his support for Israel, installation of federal judges, prison reform and a push to put prayer in public school. Those are issues his Republican re-election campaign believes could further jolt evangelical turnout that could help them secure wins in states like Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.
Friday’s kickoff of “Evangelicals for Trump” will be followed in the weeks ahead by the launches of “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump.“ It also came days after Trump and his wife went to an evangelical Christmas Eve service in West Palm Beach rather than the liberal Episcopalian church in which they were married and often attend holiday services.
Advisers believe that emphasizing religious issues may also provide inroads with Latino voters, who have largely steered clear of supporting the president over issues like immigration. Deep into his speech, Trump touched on the issue by praising his border wall. His aides believe even a slight uptick with faith-focused Latinos could help Trump carry Florida again and provide some needed breathing room in states like Texas.
The president made no mention of the editorial, which ran in a magazine founded by the late Reverend Billy Graham.
People pray together during the “Evangelicals for Trump” campaign event held at the King Jesus International Ministry as they await the arrival of President Donald Trump, Jan. 3, 2020 in Miami.
‘Remember who you are’
“Remember who you are and whom you serve,” the editorial states. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency.”
Campaign officials said the Miami event was in the works well before the op-ed, and they trotted out several high-profile evangelical pastors to defend the president.
“I think his record in the past three years is rock-solid in things that the faith community cares about him,“ said Jentezen Franklin, a pastor to a megachurch in Georgia. “We used to see politicians once every four years, but this one is totally different in constantly reaching out to the faith community, and we even get a chance to tell him when we disagree.“
The event came on the heels of a new poll showing that white evangelical Protestants stand noticeably apart from other religious people on how the government should act on two of the most politically divisive issues at play in the 2020 presidential election.
Asked about significant restrictions on abortion — making it illegal except in cases of rape, incest or to threats to a mother’s life — 37% of all Americans responded in support, according to the poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Those abortion limits drew 39% support from white mainline Protestants, 33% support from nonwhite Protestants and 45% support from Catholics, but 67% support from white evangelical Protestants.
LGBTQ protections
A similar divide emerged over whether the government should bar discrimination against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in workplaces, housing or schools. About 6 in 10 Catholics, white mainline Protestants and nonwhite Protestants supported those protections, compared with about a third of white evangelical Protestants.
White evangelicals were also more likely than members of other faiths to say religion should have at least some influence on policymaking.
But Democrats have shown strong interest in connecting with voters of faith, even evangelicals whom Trump is often assumed to have locked down. And some religious leaders believe people of faith may be turned off by Trump’s personal conduct or record.
“Friday’s rally is Trump’s desperate response to the realization that he is losing his primary voting bloc — faith voters. He knows he needs every last vote if he wants a shot at reelection, as losing just 5% of the faith voters ends his chances,” said the Reverend Doug Pagitt, the executive director of Vote Common Good. “In addition, he is trying to use this part of his base to give cover for his broken promises and immoral policies.”
The IRGC was founded in 1979, shortly after the Islamic Revolution. The core task of its estimated 150,000 ground forces, navy and air units is to protect Iran’s Islamic system and revolutionary values.
After Friday’s targeted killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, newsrooms struggled with the question: Had the United States just carried out an assassination? And should news stories about the killing use that term?
The AP Stylebook, considered a news industry bible, defines assassination as “the murder of a politically important or prominent individual by surprise attack.”
Although the United States and Iran have long been adversaries and engaged in a shadow war in the Middle East and elsewhere, the U.S. has never declared formal war on Iran. So the targeted killing of a high Iranian state and military official by a surprise attack was “clearly an assassination,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, an expert in international law and the laws of war at the University of Notre Dame School of Law.
Just as clearly, the Trump administration doesn’t agree.
Burning debris is seen on a road near Baghdad International Airport, which according to Iraqi paramilitary groups was caused by three rockets, Jan. 3, 2020. (Social Media/Reuters)
Self-defense or not?
Though a statement issued by the Pentagon said the attack was specifically intended to kill Soleimani and that it was ordered “at the direction of the President,” it also characterized the killing as defensive, to protect U.S. military forces abroad, and stated that Soleimani was actively developing plans “to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” Subsequent statements by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump also characterized the killing as punishment of Soleimani for past blood on his hands.
O’Connell’s counter argument: Whether the killing is framed as part of an armed conflict between two states or as a police action intended to deter terrorism, it cannot be characterized as an act of self-defense because there was never a full-fledged and direct attack on the United States by Iran. The United States’ legal reason for being in Iraq is to deter the Islamic State group, not to fight against Iran, she noted, and the attacks against the U.S. by Iranian-backed militias in recent months have been intermittent and relatively limited.
‘‘Assassination is prohibited both in peacetime law as well as on the battlefield,” she said.
“We have really moved to a nearly lawless state,” she said. If the justification for a military response is self-defense, the response should be “necessary and proportionate.” But that would not justify individual targeted killings, she said.
Prohibited by law
The premeditated killing of a specific individual commander for what they have done on the battlefield or what they may do has been prohibited by the law of armed conflict dating from the Hague Conventions of 1907, and by a protocol of the Geneva Convention in 1949 saying “it is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by perfidy,” she added.
International war law aside, there also has been a U.S. executive order in place since 1976 forbidding the U.S. from carrying out political assassinations. The order came into being after revelations that the CIA had organized or sanctioned assassination attempts against foreign leaders including Fidel Castro.
The current version of the executive order states: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”
It does not however define what constitutes an assassination, and has been generally interpreted to mean an unlawful killing of a political leader in peacetime. For instance, during the “war on terror” since 9/11, the United States is believed to have conducted a number of secret drone strikes targeting individuals, such as the attack against al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in 2011 in Yemen.
Military leader
Soleimani, however, was a military leader. If he was leading forces against the United States, under the international laws of war as enunciated in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, he and his forces could be considered legitimate battle targets during any actual war or armed conflict, declared or undeclared.
The AP has mostly refrained from describing Soleimani’s death as an assassination, both because it would require that the news service decide that the act was a murder, and because the term is politically freighted.
Duke University Professor of Law Madeleine Morris, an expert on international criminal law, said the law is not terribly clear in this area.
She said that under the United Nations Charter, there is a clear right of self-defense in response to armed attacks. She noted that some might argue that the attacks the U.S. has experienced in this case do not meet at a threshold of gravity to justify this sort of targeted killing, while others would argue to the contrary that there is no explicit threshold — that if attacked a country has an absolute right to respond militarily.
“There is no obligation to kill a lot of people rather than a single person,” she said.
The question then would be whether the act of war was legal, allowed as self-defense, or would it be considered an illegal act of aggression? That would depend on the intelligence evidence offered by the United States and the imminence of any planned attack.
“The problem is that governments have good reason to make very little public in this situation, which makes it very difficult to evaluate the situation politically or legally,” she said.
The United States struck a significant and potentially risky blow against Iran, killing the leader of the nation’s elite Quds Force in an airstrike in Iraq.
The Pentagon confirmed the death of Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani in a statement late Thursday, saying the strike was launched, “at the direction” of U.S. President Donald Trump.
It further described the strike as a “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad.”
“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the statement said.
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” it said. “The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.”
Baghdad airport
The Defense Department statement shared few details of the strike itself, but Iraqi officials said a rocket struck a convoy traveling near Baghdad International Airport early Friday local time.
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, also died in the strike, Iraqi officials said, adding other top officials may have been killed, as well.
Even before the U.S. Defense Department confirmed the strike on Soleimani, photos claiming to show the Iranian general’s lifeless body were circulating on social media.
FILE – These photos show Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, left, in Tehran; and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, right, a commander in the Popular Mobilization Force.
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, as well as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, also quickly confirmed the deaths of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, blaming the United States.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the U.S. strike an “act of terrorism,” tweeting it was an “extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation.”
The US’ act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General Soleimani—THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al—is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation.
The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism.
Iran Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for three days of national mourning and warned, “All Enemies should know that the jihad of resistance will continue with a doubled motivation, and a definite victory awaits the fighters in the holy war.”
President Trump did not immediately comment but tweeted a picture of the U.S. flag late Thursday.
Just days earlier, Trump warned Iran he was holding its leaders accountable for a series of repeated attacks by members of Iranian-backed militias on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
“They will pay a very big price. This is not a warning. It is a threat,” he tweeted. But he told reporters Tuesday that he did not foresee the U.S. going to war with Iran.
“I don’t think Iran would want that to happen. It would go very quickly,” he said.
U.S. Army paratroopers of an immediate reaction force from the 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, board their C-17 aircraft at Fort Bragg, N.C., Jan. 1, 2020.
Paradigm shifts
The U.S. has already deployed 750 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait to help bolster the defense of U.S. bases and personnel in the region. Defense officials said Thursday more troops would be sent as needed.
Among analysts and onlookers, though, there is a sense that whatever happens next, the paradigm between the United States and Iran has changed.
“The strike was a clear signal from the U.S. that the parameters of our confrontation with Iran have shifted fundamentally,” said Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, in a message to VOA Persian. “Quite simply, the U.S. has demonstrated that it is no longer prepared to exercise restraint in the face of repeated Iranian provocation, the way it has in the past.”
“There is significant risk here,” Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told VOA, calling the strike that killed Soleimani, “the most significant” since the U.S. killed al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.
“Soleimani and Muhandis were revered by the Iraqi Shia militias. They will want blood,” he said. “It is unclear if the Iraqi security forces are able or even willing to do anything to prevent it.”
Troops in the region
The United States has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 55,000 more across the Middle East, all of whom could potentially be targeted by Iran.
“The key question is whether this will ultimately lead to sustained military confrontation — even war — between the U.S. and Iran and Iran and Israel,” former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator, Aaron David Miller, tweeted. “Matters will get worse before they get worse.”
Suleimani’s assassination is among the most consequential in Middle East in decades.The key question is whether this will ultimately lead to sustained military confrontation — even war — between the US and Iran and Iran and Israel. Matters will get worse before they get worse.
U.S. officials have repeatedly voiced concern about Iran’s military reach, warning Tehran’s forces are capable of targeting personnel and assets throughout the Middle East.
Some of that concern has focused on Iran’s ballistic missile technology and on Iran’s naval prowess. This past July, Iran also disrupted naval traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, seizing several oil tankers.
But there is also concern that Iran’s proxy forces, like the militias it supports in Iraq and Syria, are capable of inflicting considerable damage.
“When you’re dealing with groups like this, they are a hell of a lot more threatening and a hell of a lot more organized than anything we’ve seen out of many Sunni jihadist groups,” said Phillip Smyth, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“It doesn’t operate the same way you might think of, let’s say, the Islamic State,” he said. “You’re dealing with a far more organized apparatus.”
Despite the risk, some key Republican lawmakers praised the U.S. strike against Soleimani.
“President Trump has been clear all along — the United States will not tolerate Iran spilling American blood, and tonight he followed his words with action,” Republican James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said in a statement late Thursday.
“The President made the brave and right call, and Americans should be proud,” Republican Senator Benn Sasse, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. “General Soleimani is dead because he was an evil bastard who murdered Americans.”
Former U.S. Vice President and current presidential candidate for the Democratic Party Joseph Biden was more cautious. While admitting Soleimani “deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against American troops and thousands of innocents throughout the region,” Biden in a written statement said President Trump owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep American servicemen and diplomats and allies safe at home and abroad.
“I hope the administration has thought through the second- and third-order consequences of the path they have chosen. But I fear this administration has not demonstrated at any turn the discipline or long-term vision necessary — and the stakes could not be higher,” he said.
Although Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRGC] and Quds Force are part of the Iranian military, the U.S. State Department designated them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations this past April because of their ties with Middle Eastern terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
The U.S. also blames the IRGC and Quds Force for the death of more than 600 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.
At the time, @SecPompeo was asked if the US would target #Quds Force Cmdr Qassem Soleimani like it would an #ISIS leader
“I don’t have comments…when you say “target,” you’re usually talking about things that the Department of Defense does. I’ll allow them to respond ” he said pic.twitter.com/PPDtucbHHX
Earlier Thursday, top U.S. defense officials said Iran’s targeting of Americans had resumed.
“There’s been a sustained campaign at least since October,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.
“We know the intent of this last attack [on a base in Kirkuk, Iraq] was, in fact, to kill American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines,” he added. “Thirty-one rockets aren’t designed as a warning shot.”
Speaking alongside Milley, Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned the United States was also ready to take “preemptive action” against Iran.
“The game has changed. We’re prepared to do what is necessary,” he said.
VOA Persian Service and White House Senior Correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report.
For Iranians whose icons since the Islamic Revolution have been stern-faced clergy, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani widely represented a figure of national resilience in the face of four decades of U.S. pressure.
For the U.S. and Israel, he was a shadowy figure in command of Iran’s proxy forces, responsible for fighters in Syria backing President Bashar Assad and for the deaths of American troops in Iraq.
Soleimani survived the horror of Iran’s long war in the 1980s with Iraq to take control of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, responsible for the Islamic Republic’s foreign campaigns.
FILE – Gen. Qassim Soleimani attends a meeting of a group of the Guard members with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 2, 2019. Authorities said Soleimani survived an attempt on his life in September 2019.
US helps build his mystique
Relatively unknown in Iran until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Soleimani’s popularity and mystique grew out of American officials calling for his killing. By the time it came a decade and a half later, Soleimani had become Iran’s most recognizable battlefield commander, ignoring calls to enter politics but becoming as powerful, if not more, than its civilian leadership.
“The warfront is mankind’s lost paradise,” Soleimani said in a 2009 interview. “One type of paradise that is portrayed for mankind is streams, beautiful nymphs and greeneries. But there is another kind of paradise. … The warfront was the lost paradise of the human beings, indeed.”
A U.S. airstrike killed Soleimani, 62, and others as they traveled from Baghdad’s international airport early Friday morning. The Pentagon said President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to take “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing” a man once referred to by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “living martyr of the revolution.”
Many rumors of his death
Soleimani’s luck ran out after being rumored dead several times in his life. Those incidents included a 2006 airplane crash that killed other military officials in northwestern Iran and a 2012 bombing in Damascus that killed top aides of Assad. More recently, rumors circulated in November 2015 that Soleimani was killed or seriously wounded leading forces loyal to Assad as they fought around Syria’s Aleppo.
Iranian officials quickly vowed to take revenge amid months of tensions between Iran and the U.S. following Trump pulling out of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. While Soleimani was the Guard’s most prominent general, many others in its ranks have experience in waging the asymmetrical, proxy attacks for which Iran has become known.
“Trump through his gamble has dragged the U.S. into the most dangerous situation in the region,” Hessameddin Ashena, an adviser to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, wrote on the social media app Telegram. “Whoever put his foot beyond the red line should be ready to face its consequences.”
FILE – Iranian Revolutionary Guard members attend a ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Feb. 11, 2019, at the Azadi, or Freedom, Square in Tehran, Iran.
Joining Revolutionary Guard
Born March 11, 1957, Soleimani was said in his homeland to have grown up near the mountainous and the historic Iranian town of Rabor, famous for its forests, its apricot, walnut and peach harvests and its brave soldiers. The U.S. State Department has said he was born in the Iranian religious capital of Qom.
Little is known about his childhood, though Iranian accounts suggest Soleimani’s father was a peasant who received a piece of land under the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but later became encumbered by debts.
By the time he was 13, Soleimani began working in construction, later as an employee of the Kerman Water Organization. Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution swept the shah from power and Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard in its wake. He deployed to Iran’s northwest with forces that put down Kurdish unrest following the revolution.
Soon after, Iraq invaded Iran and began the two countries bloody eight-year war. The fighting killed more than 1 million people and saw Iran send waves of lightly armed troops into minefields and the fire of Iraqi forces, including teenage soldiers. Solemani’s unit and others came under attack by Iraqi chemical weapons as well.
Amid the carnage, Soleimani became known for his opposition to “meaningless deaths” on the battlefield, while still weeping at times with fervor when exhorting his men into combat, embracing each individually.
Close to Khamenei
After the Iraq-Iran war, Soleimani largely disappeared from public view for several years, something analysts attribute to his wartime disagreements with Hashemi Rafsanjani, who would serve as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997. But after Rafsanjani, Soleimani became head of the Quds force. He also grew so close to Khamenei that the Supreme Leader officiated the wedding of the general’s daughter.
As chief of the Quds — or Jerusalem — Force, Solemani oversaw the Guard’s foreign operations and soon would come to the attention of Americans following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
In secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, U.S. officials openly discussed Iraqi efforts to reach out to Soleimani to stop rocket attacks on the highly secured Green Zone in Baghdad in 2009. Another cable in 2007 outlines then-Iraqi President Jalal Talabani offering a U.S. official a message from Soleimani acknowledging having hundreds of agents in the country while pledging, “I swear on the grave of (the late Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini I haven’t authorized a bullet against the U.S.”
U.S. officials at the time dismissed Soleimani’s claim as they saw Iran as both an arsonist and a fireman in Iraq, controlling some Shiite militias while simultaneously stirring dissent and launching attacks. U.S. forces would blame the Quds Force for an attack in Karbala that killed five American troops, as well as for training and supplying the bomb makers whose improvised explosive devices made improvised explosive device (IED) a dreaded acronym among soldiers.
In a 2010 speech, U.S. Gen. David Petreaus recounted a message from Soleimani he said explained the scope of Iranian’s powers.
“He said, ‘Gen. Petreaus, you should know that I, Qassem Soleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan,’” Petraeus said.
Syrian civil war
The U.S. and the United Nations put Soleimani on sanctions lists in 2007, though his travels continued. In 2011, U.S. officials also named him as a defendant in an outlandish Quds Force plot to allegedly hire a purported Mexican drug cartel assassin to kill a Saudi diplomat.
But his greatest notoriety would arise from the Syrian civil war and the rapid expansion of the Islamic State group. Iran, a major backer of Assad, sent Soleimani into Syria several times to lead attacks against IS and others opposing Assad’s rule. While a U.S.-led coalition focused on airstrikes, several ground victories for Iraqi forces came with photographs emerging of Soleimani leading, never wearing a flak jacket.
“Soleimani has taught us that death is the beginning of life, not the end of life,” one Iraqi militia commander said.
The United States killed Iran’s top general and the architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East in an airstrike in Baghdad Friday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was among the first Friday to react to the assassination of Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani, saying it would strengthen resistance against the United States and Israel in the region and the world, Iranian state television reported.
“The brutality and stupidity of American terrorist forces in assassinating Commander Soleimani … will undoubtedly make the tree of resistance in the region and the world more prosperous,” Zarif said in a statement.
On Twitter he said the assassination of Soleimani was “an extremely dangerous and foolish escalation. The U.S. bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism.”
FILE – Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and other Democrats respond to questions from reporters, May 6, 2019, on Capitol Hill.
Senators weigh in
In the U.S., Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said President Donald Trump owes a full explanation to Congress and the American people.
“The present authorizations for use of military force in no way cover starting a possible new war. This step could bring the most consequential military confrontation in decades,” Blumenthal said.
But Trump allies were quick to praise the action.
“To the Iranian government: if you want more, you will get more,” tweeted South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said that while Soleimani was “an enemy of the United States,” the killing could put more Americans at risk.
“One reason we don’t generally (assassinate) foreign political officials is the belief that such action will get more, not less, Americans killed,” Murphy said on Twitter. “That should be our real, pressing and grave worry tonight.”
President Trump is bringing our nation to the brink of an illegal war with Iran with no congressional approval.
Passing our bipartisan amendment to prevent unconstitutional war with Iran is urgent. Congress needs to step in immediately. https://t.co/tBFRwQMp51
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley praised the move on Twitter.
Qassem Soleimani was an arch terrorist with American blood on his hands. His demise should be applauded by all who seek peace and justice. Proud of President Trump for doing the strong and right thing. @realDonaldTrump ??
Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, also took to Twitter, saying that Soleimani “joined his martyred brothers, but we will take vigorous revenge on America,” Rezaei is now the secretary of a powerful state body.
The number of deaths in major air crashes around the globe fell by more than half in 2019, according to a report by an aviation consulting firm.
The To70 consultancy said Wednesday that 257 people died in eight fatal accidents in 2019. That compares to 534 deaths in 13 fatal accidents in 2018.
The 2019 death toll rose in late December after a Bek Air Fokker 100 crashed Friday on takeoff in Kazakhstan, killing 12 people. The worst crash of 2019 involved an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane that crashed March 10, killing 157 people.
The report said fatal accidents in 2018 and 2019 that led to the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX raised questions about how aviation authorities approve aviation designs derived from older ones, and about how much pilot training is needed on new systems.
The group said it expects the 737 MAX to eventually gain permission to fly again in 2020.
The report said the fatal accident rate for large planes in commercial air transport fell to 0.18 fatal accidents per million flights in 2019 from 0.30 accidents per million flights in 2018. That means there was one fatal accident for every 5.58 million flights.
The firm’s annual compilation of accident statistics stressed that aviation needs to keep its focus on the basics of having well-designed and well-constructed aircraft flown by well-trained crews.
Last year may have seen fewer deaths but did not equal the historic low of 2017, which saw only two fatal accidents, involving regional turboprops, that resulted in the loss of 13 lives.
This report is based on crashes involving larger aircraft used for most commercial passenger flights. It excludes accidents involving small planes, military flights, cargo flights and helicopters.
Taiwan’s top military officer was among eight people killed Thursday when their helicopter crashed in a mountainous area outside the capital, Taipei.
The defense ministry says the Blackhawk helicopter carrying Air Force General Shen Yi-ming, the chief of Taipei’s general staff, and 12 others took off from an air base in Taipei early Thursday on a flight to visit soldiers at a base in northeast Yilan county. The helicopter disappeared from radar screens just minutes later.
Three major generals were also among those killed in the crash, while five others survived.
Wednesday’s crash happened just nine days before Taiwan’s presidential and parliamentary elections. A spokesperson for President Tsi Ing-wen said she will suspend her re-election campaign until Saturday.
Taiwan has purchased Blackhawk military helicopters from the United States for decades, including a 60 Blackhawks in 2010. Six people were killed in 2018 when a Blackhawk helicopter crashed off Taiwan’s east coast.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday said he will seek immunity from criminal prosecution in three corruption cases dealing with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
The announcement came in a rambling 11-minute press conference carried live on Israel television. Netanyahu insisted that the immunity would be temporary, lasting only as long as the Knesset that grants it stays in office.
According to Israeli law, a prime minister or Knesset member can ask for immunity, although it is rarely done.
Netanyahu was charged in three separate cases with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. In one case, he is accused of accepting valuable gifts from friends and acquaintances of cigars, champagne and jewelry. In the most serious case, which has become known as Case 4,000, Netanyahu allegedly promoted regulations that benefited the Israeli telecom giant Bezeq in exchange for favorable press coverage.
FILE – Benny Gantz, leader of Blue and White party, speaks at the President’s residence, in Jerusalem, Oct. 23, 2019.
Earlier statements on immunity
“I intend to go to court to crush the fabricated tales against me,” Netanyahu said. “The immunity law is meant to protect public representatives from being framed. The law is meant to ensure that public representatives can serve the people according to the will of the people, and not the will of some clerks.”
The announcement, which had been expected, contradicts Netanyahu statements from recent months that he would not seek immunity and intended to prove his innocence in court. It also comes as Israel is at the beginning of its third election campaign in a year after neither Netanyahu nor rival Benny Gantz of the Kahol Lavan party was able to form a majority coalition with 61 out of 120 members of the Knesset.
Netanyahu’s request must first be considered by the Knesset House Committee, which deals with administrative issues, and then voted on by the whole Knesset. However, the current, outgoing Knesset has not formed a House Committee and is not expected to do so before the March elections. That means that Netanyahu’s request for immunity cannot be dealt with until after the March 2 election.
Netanyahu last week won an overwhelming victory in his Likud party’s primaries. He has been Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and in office continuously for more than a decade. The immunity request means he can conduct this latest election campaign without dealing with his upcoming trial.
“I intend to lead Israel for many years to come,” Netanyahu said.
FILE – Israel’s former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman speaks during his Yisrael Beitenu party faction meeting at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem, May 27, 2019.
Gantz, Lieberman opposed
Within minutes of the announcement, Gantz lambasted Netanyahu’s repeated statement during the last election campaign that “there will be nothing because there was nothing,” meaning the police would not find enough evidence against him to charge him.
“Netanyahu knows he’s guilty,” Gantz said. “Whoever thinks ‘there will be nothing because there was nothing’ should not be afraid to face trial.”
Netanyahu’s former ally and current nemesis, Avigdor Lieberman, also said he would act to prevent Netanyahu from getting immunity. Lieberman, who heads the hard-line Russian immigrant Yisrael Beitenu party, could have given his former boss the seats he needed to form a coalition after both of the elections earlier this year.
“Now it’s clear beyond a doubt: the only thing Netanyahu cared for and continues to care for is immunity,” the former defense minister said.
Along with the request for immunity, Netanyahu has launched an all-out attack on Israel’s judicial institutions and press, accusing them of being left-wing and using illegal means to try to stop him from being reelected.
“There are people who, unlike me, did commit grave crimes and they have lifelong immunity,” he said. “They are just on the right side of the media and the left wing.”
Later he accused Gantz and his co-leader, former finance minister Yair Lapid, of vague crimes but did not give details.
Limiting immunity
Netanyahu is being criticized for the immunity request even though it is enshrined in Israeli law.
“Democracies around the world now understand that it is best to significantly limit immunity for elected officials,” the Israel Democracy Institute, an Israeli think tank specializing in issues of democracy, responded.
“In Europe there is a tendency to lessen the scope of immunity and not to expand it. In France and Italy for instance, automatic immunity was abandoned in the 1990s and today it is limited to exemption from arrest and imprisonment. It is also important to note that international bodies like the European Union emphasize that immunity is needed specifically in countries where there is real danger of political persecution against members of the opposition.”
It is too early to tell how the immunity request will affect Netanyahu’s election bid. A poll by the institute after the indictments against him found that 35% of Israelis wanted Netanyahu to step down and stand trial.
Coalition proposals
There was also an idea floated during the last round of post-election coalition negotiations for a unity government between Netanyahu and Gantz. Netanyahu said he would be prime minister for six months and then let Gantz take over for two years while he fought his case in court. If he won, he would then come back for the last 18 months of the government’s term.
Gantz refused, reportedly because he did not trust Netanyahu to step aside as promised.
Another idea that was proposed by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein during the last round of Knesset negotiations was that President Reuven Rivlin would pardon Netanyahu, and that the former prime minister would become the president when Rivlin’s term is up next year.
In 2008, when then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was about to be indicted on corruption charges, Netanyahu insisted he had to resign, which Olmert did. Olmert served 16 months of a 27-month sentence for fraud.
Netanyahu insists he will be Israel’s next prime minister and he still has support from his hard-line base. However, many analysts in Israel say this could be the beginning of the end for Netanyahu.
“Netanyahu knows that the best he can hope for is damage control,” Anshel Pfeffer, a liberal journalist and columnist, wrote in the left-wing Ha’aretz newspaper.
“Few if any politicians have his knack for shifting and shaping media cycles. But he is starting to lose his touch and Kahol Lavan [Gantz’s party] is getting better at dictating events. … Six days ago he won the Likud primary by a landslide and felt he had momentum going into the general election campaign. His plans are already going badly awry,” Pfeffer wrote.
At least 16 inmates in a central Mexico prison were killed and five more were wounded in a riot that closed out a violent 2019 for the country, authorities said.
Zacatecas state security secretary Ismael Camberos Hernandez told local press that authorities had confiscated four guns believed to have been brought into the Cieneguillas state prison during visits Tuesday. He said the prison had been searched for weapons on Saturday and Sunday and that no guns had been found.
The melee broke out around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and the prison was brought under control by 5 p.m., according to a statement from the state security agency. Fifteen of the victims died at the prison and one died later at a hospital.
One prisoner was detained with a gun still in his possession and the other three guns were found inside the prison, the statement said.
Camberos said not all the victims died from gunshot wounds. Some were stabbed and others beaten with objects. No guards or police were wounded, he said.
Camberos did not offer a possible motive for the attacks, but such killings frequently involve score settling between rival cartel members or a battle for control of the prison’s illicit business.
Mexico has a long history of deadly prison clashes. In October, six inmates were killed in a prison in Morelos state.
In September, Nuevo Leon state closed the infamous Topo Chico prison, the site of many killings over the years. In February 2016, 49 prisoners died there during rioting when two factions of the Zetas cartel clashed.
