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A team of investigators led by the World Health Organization visited a virus research laboratory in China's central city of Wuhan and met with a prominent virologist there in its search for clues to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.The experts spent about 3-1/2 hours at the heavily-guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the centre of some conspiracy theories that claim a laboratory leak caused the city's first coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019."Extremely important meeting today with staff at WIV including Dr Shi Zhengli. Frank, open discussion. Key questions asked & answered," team member Peter Daszak said on Twitter.Shi, a well-known virus hunter who has long focused on bat coronaviruses - earning her the nickname "Bat Woman" - was among the first last year to isolate the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.Most scientists, including Shi, reject the hypothesis of a lab leak. However, some experts speculate that a virus captured from the wild could have figured in lab experiments to test the risks of a human spillover and then escaped via an infected staff member."Very interesting. Many questions," Thea Fischer, a Danish member of the team, called from her car as it sped away from the lab following Wednesday's visit, in response to a question whether the team had found anything.Some scientists have called for China to release details of all coronavirus samples studied at the lab, to see which most closely resembles SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease.The WHO, which has sought to manage expectations for the Wuhan mission, has said its members would be limited to visits organised by their Chinese hosts and have no contact with community members, because of health restrictions.While the novel coronavirus that sparked the pandemic was first identified in Wuhan, Beijing has sought to cast doubt on the notion that it originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a possible conduit.The team will spend two weeks conducting field work after having completed two weeks in hotel quarantine after arrival in Wuhan.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/who-team-probing-covid-19-visits-wuhan.html
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Myanmar police have filed charges against ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi for illegally importing communications equipment and she will be detained until Feb. 15 for investigations, according to a police document.The move followed a military coup on Monday and the detention of Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi and other civilian politicians. The takeover cut short Myanmar's long transition to democracy and drew condemnation from the United States and other Western countries.A police request to a court detailing the accusations against Suu Kyi, 75, said six walkie-talkie radios had been found in a search of her home in the capital Naypyidaw. The radios were imported illegally and used without permission, it said.The document reviewed on Wednesday requested Suu Kyi's detention "in order to question witnesses, request evidence and seek legal counsel after questioning the defendant".A separate document showed police filed charges against ousted President Win Myint for violating protocols to stop the spread of coronavirus during campaigning for an election last November.Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won the election in a landslide but the military claimed it was marred by fraud and justified its seizure of power on those grounds.Reuters was not immediately able to reach the police, the government or the court for comment.The chair of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Charles Santiago, said the new charges were ludicrous."This is an absurd move by the junta to try to legitimize their illegal power grab," he said in a statement.The electoral commission had said the vote was fair.Suu Kyi spent about 15 years under house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as she led the country's democracy movement, and she remains hugely popular at home despite damage to her international reputation over the plight of Muslim Rohingya refugees in 2017.The NLD made no immediate comment. A party official said on Tuesday he had learned she was under house arrest in the capital, Naypyidaw, and was in good health.PARTY SAYS OFFICES RAIDEDThe party said earlier in a statement that its offices had been raided in several regions and it urged authorities to stop what it called unlawful acts after its election victory.Opposition to the junta headed by Army chief General Min Aung Hlaing has begun to emerge in Myanmar.Staff at scores of government hospitals across the country of 54 million people stopped work or wore red ribbons as part of a civil disobedience campaign.The newly formed Myanmar Civil Disobedience Movement said doctors at 70 hospitals and medical departments in 30 towns had joined the protest. It accused the army of putting its interests above a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 3,100 people in Myanmar, one of the highest tolls in Southeast Asia."We really cannot accept this," said 49-year-old Myo Myo Mon, who was among the doctors who stopped work to protest."We will do this in a sustainable way, we will do it in a non-violent way...This is the route our state counselor desires," she said, referring to Suu Kyi by her title.The latest coup is a massive blow to hopes that Myanmar is on a path to stable democracy. The junta has declared a one-year state of emergency and has promised to hold fair elections, but has not said when.G7 CONDEMNS COUPThe Group of Seven largest developed economies condemned the coup on Wednesday and said the election result must be respected."We call upon the military to immediately end the state of emergency, restore power to the democratically-elected government, to release all those unjustly detained and to respect human rights and the rule of law," the G7 said in a statement.China has not specifically condemned the coup in its neighbour but the foreign ministry rejected the suggestion that it supported or gave tacit consent to it."We wish that all sides in Myanmar can appropriately resolve their differences and uphold political and social stability," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a briefing.At the United Nations on Tuesday, its special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, urged the Security Council to "collectively send a clear signal in support of democracy in Myanmar".But a diplomat with China's U.N. mission said it would be difficult to reach consensus on the draft statement and that any action should avoid escalating tension or complicating the situation.U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened to reimpose sanctions on the generals who seized power.U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tried but was unable to connect to Myanmar's military following the coup.The military had ruled the former British colony from 1962 until Suu Kyi's party came to power in 2015 under a constitution that guarantees the generals a major role in government.Her international standing as a human rights champion was badly damaged over the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in 2017 and her defence of the military against accusations of genocide.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/myanmar-police-file-charges-against.html
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WHO team probing COVID-19 visits Wuhan lab, meets 'Bat Woman' https://ift.tt/2YDIMx1
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Myanmar police file charges against Aung San Suu Kyi after coup https://ift.tt/39JrEwv
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Former President Donald Trump faces a deadline on Tuesday to respond to the U.S. House of Representatives' impeachment charging him with inciting insurrection in a fiery speech to supporters before last month's deadly assault on the Capitol.The deadline comes just days after Trump parted ways with his initial legal team amid a reported dispute over how to respond to the charge. Trump is still contending, contrary to evidence, that his election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud.The rampage by Trump followers was intended to stop the Senate from certifying Biden's Nov. 3 election win.Republican Senator John Cornyn - one of the 100 members of the Senate who will serve as jurors in Trump's second impeachment trial - said that argument would be "really not material" to the charge that Trump's remarks urging supporters to "fight" on Jan. 6 led to the attack on the Capitol that left five dead."I think it would be a disservice to the president’s own defense to get bogged down in things that really aren’t before the Senate," Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court judge, told reporters on Monday.One of Trump's recently hired lawyers, David Schoen, called the process "completely unconstitutional" in an interview with Fox News on Monday but did not outline the former president's legal strategy."I think it's also the most ill-advised legislative action that I've seen in my lifetime," Schoen said. "It is tearing the country apart at a time when we don't need anything like that."In addition to Trump's deadline, the nine House Democrats serving as impeachment managers - essentially the prosecutors of the case - need to file their initial briefs on Tuesday, ahead of the trial getting started next week.Convicting Trump, who is just the third U.S. president to be impeached and the first to face trial after leaving office, would require a two-thirds vote, meaning that 17 Republicans would need to join the Senate's 50 Democrats in voting to convict. That presents a daunting hurdle for Democrats.The impeachment managers could disclose on Tuesday whom they plan to call as witnesses, a list expected to be brief as the leaders of both parties have expressed a desire to keep the trial short to allow them to return to legislative business.Trump's first impeachment trial, on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress arising from his phone call urging Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, ended last year in acquittal by the then Republican-controlled Senate .BEING HELD 'TO ACCOUNT'Forty-five Senate Republicans voted last week in support of a measure declaring the impeachment trial unconstitutional since it is occurring after Trump has left office. A conviction could lead to a second vote banning Trump from running for office again.A group of Republican former officials rebutted the argument that the trial was unconstitutional in an open letter released on Tuesday.It is "essential to focus the nation on the gravity of what Mr. Trump did," the group argued in a statement seen by Reuters.The three dozen former officials signing the letter include former Governors Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and William Weld of Massachusetts and Carter Phillips, a veteran Washington litigator and assistant solicitor general in the Reagan administration."It will be a permanent stain on the history of the Republican Party and the legacy of its members in the U.S. Senate if they fail to find a way to hold a president of their party to account for this unprecedented mayhem at our Nation’s Capitol," the group wrote.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/trump-lawyers-to-file-pretrial.html
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Torture and forced labour are rife in North Korea's
prisons, amounting to possible crimes against humanity, the U.N. human rights
office said on Tuesday (February 2), as the Biden administration weighs fresh
sanctions over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
The report, issued seven years after a landmark U.N.
investigation found that crimes against humanity were being committed, also
said that political prison camps run by security forces still persisted,
although information is more scarce.
Michelle Bachelet, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said
in a statement that crimes against humanity continue to be committed in the
country and urged world powers to pursue justice and prevent further
violations. The report called for the U.N. Security Council to refer the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court for
prosecutions or establish an ad hoc tribunal.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking on NBC News on
Monday, said additional sanctions could be used against North Korea in
coordination with U.S. allies as a way toward denuclearization of the divided
Peninsula. Other tools include unspecified diplomatic incentives, he said.
North Korea denies the existence of political prison camps and
last July denounced Britain for announcing sanctions against two organisations
that the British government has said are involved in forced labour, torture and
murder in the camps.
The U.N. report, citing interviews with former detainees, said
it continued to receive "consistent and credible accounts of the
systematic infliction of severe physical and mental pain or suffering upon
detainees, through the infliction of beatings, stress positions and starvation
in places of detention."
This reconfirmed the 2014 findings of the U.N. inquiry, led by
former Australian judge Michael Kirby, and "indicates that the crime
against humanity of torture continues to take place in the ordinary prison
system," it said.
Forced labour, "which may amount to the crime against
humanity of enslavement" also persists in prisons, it said.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/torture-forced-labour-rife-in-north.html
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The party of Myanmar's detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi called on Tuesday for her immediate release and for the miitary junta that seized power a day earlier to recognise her victory in an election in November.The Nobel Peace laureate's whereabouts remained unknown more than 24 hours after her arrest in a military takeover that derailed Myanmar's tentative progress towards full democracy.A senior official from her National League for Democracy (NLD) said on Tuesday he had learned that her health was good and she was not being moved from the location where she was being held after the coup against her government.She was picked up in the capital Naypyidaw on Monday along with dozens of other allies but her exact whereabouts have not been made public."There is no plan to move Daw Aung San Su Kyi and Doctor Myo Aung. It's learned that they are in good health," NLD official Kyi Toe said in a Facebook post which also referred to one of her allies. An earlier post said she was at her home.Kyi Toe also said NLD members of parliament detained during the coup were being allowed to leave the quarters where they had been held. Reuters was unable to contact him for more information.The U.N. Security Council was due to meet later on Tuesday amid calls for a strong global response to the military's latest seizure of power in a country blighted for decades by army rule.The United States threatened to reimpose sanctions on the generals who seized power.The coup followed a landslide win for Suu Kyi's NLD in an election on Nov. 8, a result the military has refused to accept citing unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.The army handed power to its commander, General Min Aung Hlaing, and imposed a state of emergency for a year, crushing hopes that the country was on the path to stable democracy.The NLD's executive committee demanded the release of all detainees "as soon as possible".In a post on the Facebook page of senior party official May Win Myint, the committee also called for the military to acknowledge the election results and for the new parliament to be allowed to sit. It had been due to meet on Monday for the first time since the election.Various activist groups on Tuesday issued a flurry of messages on social media urging civil disobedience.Suu Kyi, 75, endured about 15 years of house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as she led a democracy movement against the military, which had seized power in a 1962 coup and stamped out all dissent for decades until her party came to power in 2015.Her international standing as a human rights icon was badly damaged after she failed to stop the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims in 2017 and defended the military against accusations of genocide. But she remains hugely popular at home and is revered as the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, Aung San.INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATIONU.S. President Joe Biden called the crisis a direct assault on Myanmar's transition to democracy."We will work with our partners throughout the region and the world to support the restoration of democracy and the rule of law, as well as to hold accountable those responsible for overturning Burma's democratic transition," Biden said in a statement.The United Nations led condemnation of the coup and calls for the release of detainees, in comments echoed by Australia, the European Union, India and Japan as well as former colonial ruler Britain.China did not join the condemnation, saying only that it noted the events and called on all sides to respect the constitution.The streets of Myanmar were quiet, as they have been for weeks because of the coronavirus. Troops and riot police took up positions in Naypyitaw and the main commercial centre Yangon.By Tuesday morning, phone and internet connections were restored and banks in Yangon reopened after halting services on Monday due to poor internet connections and amid a rush to withdraw cash.But Myanmar's international airport in Yangon will stay closed until April or even May, its manager, Phone Myint, told Reuters. He did not say why."IMMEDIATE RESPONSE"One of the first calls for specific action to oppose the coup came from the Yangon Youth Network, one of Myanmar's biggest activist groups.Doctors at a hospital in the city of Mandalay had also begun a similar campaign.Any street protests will raise alarm in a country with a grim record of military crackdowns.China's state Xinhua news agency quoted a military official as saying most regional and state leaders who were detained during the takeover were released on Tuesday.The chief minister of the Sagaing region, Myint Naing, told the BBC after his release that he had been kept in a dormitory and treated well."I worry for the future of the nation. We hoped for the best but the worst is happening," he said.The latest coup marks the second time the military has refused to recognise a landslide election win for the NLD, having also rejected the result of 1990 polls that were meant to pave the way for multi-party government.Following mass protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007, the generals set a course for compromise, while never relinquishing ultimate control.The NLD came to power after a 2015 election under a constitution that guarantees the military a major role in government, including several main ministries, and an effective veto on constitutional reform.Consolidating its position, the new junta removed 24 ministers and named 11 replacements for various portfolios including finance, defence, foreign affairs and interior.Military chief Min Aung Hlaing has promised a free and fair election and a handover of power to the winner but without giving a timeframe.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/suu-kyis-party-demands-her-release-as.html
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Trump lawyers to file pretrial documents with U.S. Senate in preview of impeachment defense https://ift.tt/3tdws4K
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Torture, forced labour rife in North Korea, U.N. says as U.S. mulls sanctions https://ift.tt/39DNyks
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Suu Kyi's party demands her release as Myanmar generals tighten grip https://ift.tt/3auVvrB
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Myanmar's military seized power on Monday in a coup against the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in early morning raids.The army said it had carried out the detentions in response to "election fraud", handing power to military chief Min Aung Hlaing and imposing a state of emergency for one year, according to a statement on a military-owned television station.Suu Kyi's party published comments on Facebook that it said had been written in anticipation of a coup, quoting her as saying people should protest against the military takeover.The coup derails years of Western-backed efforts to establish democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma, where neighbouring China also has a powerful influence.The generals made their move hours before parliament had been due to sit for the first time since the NLD's landslide win in a Nov. 8 general election viewed as a referendum on Suu Kyi's fledgling democratic rule.Phone and internet connections in the capital, Naypyitaw, and the main commercial centre of Yangon were disrupted and state television went off air after the NLD leaders were detained.Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other NLD leaders were "taken" in the early hours of the morning, NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt told Reuters by phone. Reuters was subsequently unable to contact him.A video posted to Facebook by one MP appeared to show the arrest of another, regional lawmaker Pa Pa Han.In the video, her husband pleads with men in military garb standing outside the gate. A young child can be seen clinging to his chest and wailing.Troops and riot police stood by in Yangon where residents rushed to markets to stock up on supplies and others lined up at ATMs to withdraw cash. Banks subsequently suspended services due to poor internet connections.The detentions came after days of escalating tension between the civilian government and the military in the aftermath of the election.Suu Kyi's party won 83% of the vote in only the second election since the military agreed to share power in 2011.BROKEN WINGSThe pre-written statement uploaded on an NLD Facebook page quoted Suu Kyi as saying such army actions would put Myanmar "back under a dictatorship"."I urge people not to accept this, to respond and wholeheartedly to protest against the coup by the military," it quoted her as saying. Reuters was unable to reach any NLD officials to confirm the veracity of the statement.Supporters of the military celebrated the coup, parading through Yangon in pickup trucks and waving national flags."Today is the day that people are happy," one nationalist monk told a crowd in a video published on Facebook.But democracy activists and NLD voters were horrified and angry."Our country was a bird that was just learning to fly. Now the army broke our wings,” student activist Si Thu Tun said."The NLD is the government we voted for. If they're unhappy with the result, they can call another election. A coup isn't acceptable," said a woman, who declined to be identified, whose husband works for the military.Senior NLD leader Win Htein said in a Facebook post the army chief's takeover demonstrated his ambition rather than concern for the country.Health Minister Myint Htwe referred in a post to the "evolving situation" and said he was stepping down. He urged colleagues to serve the people, especially with regard to the coronavirus and vaccinations.In the capital, security forces confined members of parliament to residential compounds on the day they had expected to take up their seats, representative Sai Lynn Myat said.'POTENTIAL FOR UNREST'The military, summarising a meeting of the new junta, said Min Aung Hlaing had pledged to practice a "genuine discipline-flourishing multiparty democratic system" and promised a free and fair election and a handover of power to the winning party.It gave no timeframe for an election but the military had already said the state of emergency would last a year.The United Nations led condemnation of the coup and calls for the release of detainees and restoration of democracy in comments largely mirrored by Australia, Britain, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States."The military must reverse these actions immediately," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, while the U.S. embassy in Yangon issued an alert warning U.S. citizens of the "potential for civil and political unrest".In Japan, a major aid donor with scores of businesses in Myanmar, a ruling party source said the government may have to rethink the strengthening of defence relations with the country undergone as part of regional efforts to counterbalance China.China called on all sides in Myanmar to respect the constitution and uphold stability in a statement which "noted" events in the country rather than expressly condemning them.Bangladesh, which is sheltering around one million Rohingya who fled violence in Myanmar, called for "peace and stability" and said it hoped a process to repatriate the refugees could move forward.The Association of South East Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, called for "dialogue, reconciliation and the return to normalcy" while in Bangkok, police clashed with a group of pro-democracy demonstrators outside Myanmar's embassy."It's their internal affair," a Thai government official said of events in Myanmar - a handsoff approach also taken by Malaysia and the Philippines.Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, 75, came to power after a 2015 election win that followed decades of house arrest and struggle against the military, which seized power in a 1962 coup and stamped out all dissent for decades.While still hugely popular at home, her international reputation was damaged after she failed to stop the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims in 2017.Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh also condemned the takeover.The November vote faced some criticism in the West for disenfranchising many Rohingya but the election commission rejected military complaints of fraud.In its statement declaring the emergency, the military cited the failure of the commission to address complaints over voter lists, its refusal to postpone new parliamentary sessions and protests by groups unhappy with the vote."Unless this problem is resolved, it will obstruct the path to democracy and it must therefore be resolved according to the law," the military said, citing an emergency provision in the constitution in the event sovereignty is threatened.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/myanmar-military-seizes-power-detains.html
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Dozens of Republicans in former President George W. Bush's administration are leaving the party, dismayed by a failure of many elected Republicans to disown Donald Trump after his false claims of election fraud sparked a deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol last month.These officials, some who served in the highest echelons of the Bush administration, said they had hoped that a Trump defeat would lead party leaders to move on from the former president and denounce his baseless claims that the November presidential election was stolen.But with most Republican lawmakers sticking to Trump, these officials say they no longer recognize the party they served. Some have ended their membership, others are letting it lapse while a few are newly registered as independents, according to a dozen former Bush officials who spoke with Reuters."The Republican Party as I knew it no longer exists. I’d call it the cult of Trump," said Jimmy Gurulé, who was Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the Bush administration.Kristopher Purcell, who worked in the Bush White House’s communications office for six years, said roughly 60 to 70 former Bush officials have decided to leave the party or are cutting ties with it, from conversations he has been having. "The number is growing every day," Purcell said.Their defection from the Republican Party after a lifetime of service for many is another clear sign of how a growing intraparty conflict over Trump and his legacy is fracturing it.The party is currently caught between disaffected moderate Republicans and independents disgusted by the hold Trump still has over elected officials, and Trump’s fervently loyal base. Without the enthusiastic support of both groups, the party will struggle to win national elections, according to polling, Republican officials and strategists.The Republican National Committee referred Reuters to a recent interview its chair Ronna McDaniel gave to the Fox Business channel. “We’re having a little bit of a spat right now. But we are going to come together. We have to,” McDaniel said, predicting the party will unite against the agenda of President Joe Biden, a Democrat.Representatives for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.A representative of former President Bush did not respond to a request for comment. During the Trump presidency Bush made clear he had “retired from politics."'IT'S APPALLING'More than half of the Republicans in Congress - eight senators and 139 House representatives - voted to block certification of the election just hours after the Capitol siege.Most Republican Senators have also indicated they would not support the impeachment of Trump, making it almost certain that the former president won't be convicted in his Senate trial. Trump was impeached on Jan. 13 by the Democratic-led House of Representatives on charges of "incitement of insurrection," the only president to be impeached twice.The unwillingness by party leaders to disavow Trump was the final straw for some former Republican officials."If it continues to be the party of Trump, many of us are not going back," Rosario Marin, a former Treasurer of the U.S. under Bush, told Reuters. "Unless the Senate convicts him, and rids themselves of the Trump cancer, many of us will not be going back to vote for Republican leaders."Two former Bush officials who spoke to Reuters said they believe it is important to stay in the party to rid it of Trump’s influence.One of those, Suzy DeFrancis, a veteran of the Republican Party who served in administrations including those of former presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, said she voted for Biden in November but that breaking the party apart now will only benefit Democrats."I totally understand why people are frustrated and want to leave the party. I’ve had that feeling for 4 years," DeFrancis said.But she said it’s critical the party unite around Republican principles such as limited government, personal responsibility, free enterprise and a strong national defense.Purcell said many felt they have no choice, however. He referred to Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman Republican congresswoman from Georgia who promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely claims that top Democrats belong to a secret governing cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Another newly elected Representative, Lauren Boebert from Colorado, has also made supportive statements about QAnon."We have QAnon members of Congress. It’s appalling," Purcell said.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/dozens-of-former-bush-officials-leave.html
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump's unprecedented second impeachment trial takes shape this week, as Democrats outline their case and Trump scrambles to prepare a defense amid disarray on his legal team.Trump is due to file a response to the impeachment charge on Tuesday but replaced his lead legal counsel over the weekend.His new team, led by lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor, will have just over a week to get ready before the trial begins Feb. 9.Even so, Democrats seeking his conviction on one count of "incitement of insurrection" face an uphill climb.They must convince at least 17 of the U.S. Senate's 50 Republicans that Trump is guilty of inciting supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's victory in November's presidential election. Five people died in the chaos.As Trump left office on Jan. 20 , a vote to convict would have little practical impact. But it could clear the way for a vote to prevent him from holding public office in the future.House Democrats, who will be prosecuting the case in the Senate, will submit a pre-trial brief laying out their case against Trump. They are also due to indicate as soon as Tuesday whether they plan to call witnesses - a flash point in last year's impeachment trial.Trump's response to the charge likely will indicate whether he will continue to argue without merit that he lost the presidential election because of widespread voter fraud. Numerous federal and state courts have rejected those claims.Following the riot on Capitol Hill, stunned Republicans struggled over how to respond to Trump's role and his failure to try to quell the violence as it was unfolding.Most Republican senators now are lining up against conviction. While few defend his actions, many argue that Congress does not have the power to impeach a former president. They also have maintained that another trial will hurt efforts to unify the country in the post-Trump era.Republican Senator Rob Portman, who last week said he would not seek re-election amid the nation's deep political divisions, signaled that it would not help Trump if his defense is simply reasserting the former president's unfounded claims of election fraud."If the argument is not going to be made on issues like constitutionality, which are real issues and need to be addressed, I think it will not benefit the president," Portman said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.Trump's legal team could also argue that Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment right to free speech on Jan. 6 when he addressed his supporters outside the White House before they marched to Capitol Hill.Schoen previously represented Trump's longtime advisor Roger Stone, who was convicted in November 2019 of lying under oath to lawmakers who were investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump pardoned Stone in December.Castor is a former Pennsylvania district attorney known for his decision to not prosecute entertainer Bill Cosby in 2005 after a woman accused Cosby of sexual assault. In 2017, he sued Cosby's accuser in the case for defamation, claiming she destroyed his political career in retaliation.Whichever tack defense lawyers take, the 100 Democratic and Republican senators who will serve as jurors are anticipating a trial of possibly only a few days, far shorter than Trump's first trial, which lasted three weeks.With the exception of Senator Mitt Romney, Republicans stuck with Trump during that trial. He was acquitted on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress stemming from his attempt to pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden.Trump labeled that episode a Democratic "witch hunt." And while the circumstances were far different from this second impeachment, they share the same underlying accusations that Trump was resorting to extreme and impeachable actions to win re-election in 2020.Last year, Republicans who then controlled the Senate blocked witness testimony or the introduction of additional evidence against Trump.Democrats, who currently hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate, will have more say over how this trial will be conducted. But they are not expected to win enough Republican votes to secure Trump's conviction.Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an ardent Trump supporter, said on Fox News last week that Republicans would prolong the trial for "weeks if not months" if Democrats called witnesses - which could impede Biden's legislative agenda.Some Democrats and Republicans have suggested the Senate should reprimand Trump, rather than convict him.Republican Senator John Cornyn warned against that as well."It used to be that losing an election was considered to be punishment, at least in the political sense," Cornyn told reporters last week.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/02/trump-faces-tuesday-deadline-to-deliver.html
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Myanmar military seizes power, detains elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi https://ift.tt/3oBw8cz
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Dozens of former Bush officials leave Republican Party, calling it 'Trump cult' https://ift.tt/3j7j911
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Trump faces Tuesday deadline to deliver formal response to impeachment as trial looms https://ift.tt/3r61Pw8
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The United States will likely start vaccinating children by late spring or early summer, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said on Friday, as studies are underway to test the safety and effectiveness of Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccines in children under 16.“Over the next couple of months, we will be doing trials in an age de-escalation manner so that hopefully by the time we get to the late spring and early summer we will have children being able to be vaccinated according to the FDA guidance,” Fauci said, speaking at a White House press briefing.
http://drasifshahid.blogspot.com/2021/01/us-likely-to-start-covid-19-vaccination.html
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