Lebanese security forces arrested 59 people, the police said Wednesday, following clashes overnight outside the central bank as angry protesters vented their fury against the country’s ruling elite and the worsening financial crisis.
    
The hours-long clashes that erupted on Tuesday evening also left 47 policemen injured, the security forces said, as some protesters smashed windows on private banks in Beirut’s key commercial district.
    
Earlier on Tuesday, protesters rallied outside the central bank in the bustling Hamra neighborhood, denouncing the bank governor and policies they say have only deepened the country’s financial woes.
    
The rally turned violent as protesters tried to push their way through the security forces deployed outside the bank. In over five hours of pitched street battles, security forces lobbed volleys of tear gas at the protesters, who responded with rocks and firecrackers.
    
Some protesters, using metal bars and sticks, smashed windows on commercial banks and foreign exchange bureaus nearby. The clashes marked an end to a lull in the three-months-long protests.
    
Lebanon is facing its worst economic troubles in decades. One of the most highly indebted countries in the world, it imports almost all basic goods but foreign currency sources have dried up. The local currency has lost over 60% of its value, dropping for the first time in nearly three decades from a fixed rate of 1,507 pounds to the dollar to 2,400 in just the past few weeks.
    
Meanwhile, banks have imposed informal capital controls, limiting withdrawal of dollars and foreign transfers in the country.
   
 In three months of protests, this was the first time the commercial center of Beirut had become the scene of clashes. The area, which is also home to theaters and restaurants, was left deserted except for protesters, police and smoke from the tear gas.
    
Traffic resumed Wednesday and shops and banks reopened as pavements were cleared of smashes glass.
    
Outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who resigned shortly after the protests first began in mid-October, said the violence in Hamra was “unacceptable” and an aggression on the heart of the capital. He urged for an investigation. A new prime minister designate was named in December but has still been unable to form a new government.

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From: MeNeedIt

Russian President Vladimir Putin has used his annual state-of-the-nation address to parliament to focus on domestic affairs, including measures to counter Russia’s declining population.

In his January 15 speech to Russia’s two-chamber parliament — the Federal Assembly — Putin said that authorities need to do more to raise the country’s birthrate and support young families.

Putin said low incomes remain an obstacle to increase the population, now at about 147 million as the country faces the consequences of the post-Soviet economic collapse that led to a steep drop in the birthrate.

To bolster population growth, Putin promised the government would offer additional subsidies to families that have children.

The speech comes with the country still under Western sanctions for its actions in Ukraine and Syria, as well as its election meddling in the United States.

The sanctions have hampered the country’s economic growth, leading to rising poverty rates and growing discontent highlighted by mass protests last summer in Moscow and other cities.

A poll by a Russian state pollster in May 2019 found public trust in Putin had fallen to its lowest level in 13 years.

Putin, 67, has dominated politics in Russia for two decades, serving as president or prime minister since 1999. In 2018, Putin was reelected to another six-year term.

The address at Moscow’s Manezh exhibition hall is one of three regularly scheduled national appearances the president makes each year — the others being a lavish question-and-answer session with the public and a stage-managed annual press conference.

It is the 16th time Putin has delivered the address before an audience that also includes government ministers, judges from the constitutional and supreme courts, leading regional officials, and other members of Russia’s political elite.

In his address last year, Putin used his 90-minute speech to issue fresh threats against the United States if Washington were to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Europe.

In 2018, Putin focused mainly on claims about breakthroughs in the nation’s military arsenal and unveiled six nuclear-capable weapons that he said were unparalleled in the world.

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From: MeNeedIt

A surge of terrorist violence in Africa’s Sahel region is forcing West African nations to reconsider their strategy and unify military forces. Leaders invited by French President Emmanuel Macron to a G5 summit in the southern French city of Pau on Monday agreed to pursue their engagements with France – and put aside their differences with the former colonial power – to fight against jihadism. For VOA, Daniel Gillet reports from Pau. 
 

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From: MeNeedIt

The fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi called last month’s death sentences for five unnamed assailants a mockery of justice in her first ever English-language interview.

“It’s like a joke to me. It’s unacceptable, really, because we don’t know any details about this investigation,” Hatice Cengiz told Oslo-based Skavlan in a television interview on Sunday.

“They told us of only five men without names,” she said. “And why they are five? More than 10 people came to Turkey!

“We want real punishment, even for [those who gave the] orders,” she told host Fredrik Skavlan. 

A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death and three others to prison in connection with the October 2018 killing of Khashoggi at Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul.

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Fiancée of Murdered Journalist Khashoggi Denounces Lack of Progress

Hatice Cengiz says she is heartbroken Italian soccer game will go ahead in Riyadh

The brutal murder and dismemberment of the Saudi dissident writer with a bone saw occurred as Cengiz awaited his return outside the consulate walls.

The December 23 Saudi ruling, the outcome of largely secret murder trial proceedings, has been widely dismissed for punishing those who carried out the attack while protecting those who ordered it.

“Bottom line: the hit-men are guilty, sentenced to death, and the masterminds not only walk free, they have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial,” said Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions for the United Nations human rights office.

“That is the antithesis of Justice. It is a mockery,” Callamard said

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UN: Killing of Saudi Journalist Khashoggi Is International Crime

Inquiry finds credible evidence warranting further investigation of high-level Saudi officials’ individual liability, including that of Saudi Crown Prince

Riyadh’s public prosecutor defended the ruling, explaining that death sentences targeted those who committed and directly participated in the murder, while imprisoning others “for their role in covering up this crime.”

Callamard’s June 2019 U.N. probe concluded that 15 Saudi agents “acted under cover of their official status and used state means to execute Mr. Khashoggi.”

The U.N. report also found “credible evidence” linking Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the killing, and a U.S. CIA assessment said the crown prince ordered the killing.

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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House of Representatives will vote Wednesday to send official impeachment charges to the Senate, bringing the start of U.S. President Donald Trump’s historical impeachment trial one step closer to reality.

Pelosi made the announcement in a statement that was released shortly after discussing the impeachment proceedings at a private meeting with House Democrats nearly a month after the Democrat-led House voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.“

The American people will fully understand the Senate’s move to begin the trial without witnesses and documents as a pure political cover-up,” the statement said. ‘(Senate Majority) Leader (Mitch) McConnell and the President are afraid of more facts coming to light. The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial.”

Pelosi said the House would also vote Wednesday to name the impeachment managers.

The impeachment allegations contend Trump abused the office of the presidency by pressing Ukraine to launch an investigation into one of his main 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and obstructing congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.

Choosing managers

Democrats at Tuesday’s closed-door meeting said Pelosi is expected to name House managers for the impeachment case on Wednesday.

Pelosi had delayed sending the articles to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to agree to hear testimony from key Trump aides who were directly involved with the president as he temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigation.

A Wednesday vote would enable the Senate to start the trial as soon as this week. But opening arguments probably won’t be heard until next week at the earliest, as the Senate will likely take several days to complete formalities such as swearing in Chief Justice John Roberts and approving a set of rules.

Trump, only the fourth U.S. president to be targeted with a serious impeachment effort in the country’s 244-year history, has denied any wrongdoing. He has also ridiculed the Democrats’ impeachment effort.

Two other U.S. presidents, Andrew Johnson in the 19th century and Bill Clinton two decades ago, were also impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials, while a third U.S. leader, Richard Nixon, resigned in 1974 while facing a certain impeachment in a political corruption scandal.

Acquittal likely

The Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump, particularly since no Republicans have expressed support for removing him from office.

A two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate would be needed to convict Trump to remove him from office. At least 20 Republicans would need to turn against Trump for a conviction, if all 47 Democrats voted against the president. A handful of Republicans have criticized Trump’s Ukraine actions, but none has called for his conviction and removal from office.

Trump released the military aid to Ukraine in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. Republicans say releasing the aid is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine — the military aid for the Biden investigations.

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From: MeNeedIt

Pakistan’s newly opened southwestern Gwadar seaport has begun handling transit cargo headed to and from landlocked Afghanistan, marking a significant outcome of Islamabad’s multi-billion-dollar collaboration with China.  

Officials said the first ship full of Afghan cargo containers reached Gwadar on Tuesday. The containers will be loaded onto trucks for transport to Afghanistan through the Pakistani border town of Chaman.  

Kabul traditionally has relied on Pakistani overland routes and the two main southern seaports of Karachi and Port Qasim for international trade under a bilateral deal with Islamabad, known as the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA).

The recent Chinese financial and construction efforts, though, have activated the strategically located Arabian Sea deep-water port of Gwadar, which offers a much shorter overland link, particularly to southern regions of Afghan, for the rapid delivery of goods.

The port is at the center of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is building Pakistani roads, power plants, economic zones and a major airport in Gwadar to improve connectivity between the two allied nations and the region in general.  

The massive project is hailed as the flagship of Beijing’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, which has brought about $30 billion to Pakistan in direct investment, soft loans and grants over the past six years.“

CPEC and the Belt and Road Initiative are promoting regional economic ties,” said the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad while announcing the arrival of the first Afghan cargo containers at Gwadar.  

Officials in Islamabad say Pakistan constitutes roughly 47 percent of total Afghan exports, while some 60 percent of Afghan transit trade goes through the northwestern Pakistan border crossing of Torkham. The Gwadar Port, they say, will increase the transit trade activity between the two countries.

China and Pakistan say they also plan to link CPEC to Afghanistan once the security situation improves in the war-torn neighbor.  

Beijing recently announced it would fund and install modern reception centers, drinking water and cold storage facilities at Chaman and Torkham to better serve the daily movement of thousands of people as well as trade convoys moving in both directions.

China also has initiated a trilateral dialogue to help ease tensions between Kabul and Islamabad to encourage political, security and economic cooperation in the region.  

Critics say Chinese infrastructure investments, however, are burdening economically struggling and debt-ridden economies, like Pakistan, with expensive loans that ultimately would turn into a “debt trap” for these nations. Islamabad and Beijing reject those concerns as misplaced.  

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From: MeNeedIt

The Trump administration is no longer designating China a currency manipulator as it gets ready to sign the first phase of a trade agreement with Beijing.

“China has made enforceable commitments to refrain from competitive devaluation and not target its exchange rate for competitive purposes,” a Treasury Department report to Congress said Monday.

But China will remain on the Treasury’s watch list of countries whose currency practices will be monitored. Others on the list include Germany, Japan, and Vietnam.

Monday’s decision comes five months after the U.S. formally branded China a currency manipulator — the first time any country was given that designation since U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration designated China as such in 1994.

Currency manipulation occurs when a country artificially lowers the value of its money to make its goods and services cheaper on the world market, giving it an unfair advantage over its competitors.

China has always denied the practice.

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From: MeNeedIt

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders calls a report that he told fellow Democrat Elizabeth Warren that a woman cannot be elected president “ludicrous.”

CNN reported Monday that Sanders allegedly made the remark during a meeting with Warren in 2018 when they were talking about their plans to run for president.

According to CNN, Warren told Sanders she will “make a robust argument about the economy and earn broad support from female voters.”

Sanders allegedly replied that he did not think a woman could be elected.

“It is sad that three weeks before the Iowa Caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened,” Sanders responded in a statement to CNN.

“Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course. After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016,” Sanders said.

CNN said its sources for the report were two people who talked with Warren right after the meeting with Sanders and two others CNN said “were familiar with the meeting.”

Warren herself has not commented on the story.

The latest poll in Iowa by CNN and The Des Moines Register newspaper puts Sanders in the lead among likely caucus participants with 20%, followed by Warren with 19%. Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden trail.

Sanders and Warren did share common ground Monday — both thanked Democratic Senator Cory Booker for running a campaign both said was based on love, justice, and equality.

Booker announced Monday he was dropping out of the 2020 presidential race.

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From: MeNeedIt

Contempt for regulators, airlines and their own colleagues coupled with a casual approach to safety: a series of emails by Boeing employees paint an unflattering portrait of a company culture of “arrogance” imbued with a fixation on cost-cutting.

The emails underscore the task awaiting incoming CEO David Calhoun when he takes the company’s reins on Monday, under intense pressure to restore public confidence — and that of aviation regulators worldwide — after two fatal crashes of the 737 MAX aircraft.

The emails were contained in some 100 pages of documents dated between 2013 and 2018 and transmitted to U.S. lawmakers by the Seattle-based aviation giant. The messages were seen by AFP after their release Thursday.

Often cutting, dismissive, mocking or cavalier, the messages show that Boeing’s current difficulties reach far beyond the 737 MAX, shining a light on a level of dysfunction that seems almost unimaginable for a company that helped democratize air travel — and which builds the US president’s iconic Air Force One airplane.

The emails show that Boeing tried to play down the role of its MCAS flight-control system in order both to avoid the costs involved in having to train pilots on the system in flight simulators and to speed the federal green-lighting of the MAX plane.

Investigators singled out the role of the MCAS (the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) in the fatal crashes of MAX planes flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air (Oct. 29, 2018) and Ethiopian Airlines (March 10, 2019).

Those crashes claimed 346 lives and led to the plane’s worldwide grounding last March.

“I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required,” one Boeing employee messaged a colleague on March 28, 2017, a few months before the MAX received federal certification.

The message went on: “Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face-to-face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”

A few months later, the same employee — a test pilot — bragged about having “save(d) this company a sick amount of $$$$.”

The names of most of the employees who sent the messages were blacked out.

‘I wouldn’t’

In 2018, several employees working on the MAX simulators complained of encountering numerous technical difficulties.

“Would you put your family on a MAX simulator-trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” said a message sent in February 2018, eight months before the first crash.

“No,” a colleague agreed.

Two other employees said they were concerned about the impact on Boeing’s image at a time, they said, when the company’s leaders seemed obsessed with the idea of gaining ground on Airbus’s narrow-body A320neo.

“All the messages are about meeting schedule, not delivering quality,” one employee said.

A colleague replied: “We put ourselves in this position by picking the lowest-cost supplier and signing up to impossible schedules.

“Why did the lowest-ranking and most unproven supplier receive the contract? Solely because of the bottom dollar.”

Robert Clifford, a US lawyer representing victims’ families from the Ethiopian Airlines crash, said the Boeing culture led to “unnecessary and preventable deaths.”

“Excuses will not be heard,” he said in a statement on his law firm’s website.

‘Ridiculous’

The documents also show Boeing employees questioning the competence of the company’s engineers.

“This is a joke,” an employee wrote in September 2016, in a reference to the MAX. “This airplane is ridiculous.”

“Piss poor design,” said another, in April 2017.

And yet for decades Boeing was seen as representing the very best in aerospace engineering and design. It developed the 747, nicknamed the “queen of the skies,” and contributed to the Apollo program that sent man to the moon.

The aerospace company and its huge network of suppliers are goliaths of the U.S. economy.

In June 2018, one employee messaged his own analysis of the problem: “It’s systemic. It’s culture. It’s the fact that we have a senior leadership team that understands very little about the business and yet are driving us to certain objectives” while not “being accountable.”

Michel Merluzeau, an analyst with Air Insight Research, said, “Boeing needs to re-examine an operational culture from another era.”

Greg Smith, Boeing’s interim chief executive officer, insisted that “these documents do not represent the best of Boeing.”

In a message to staff sent Friday and seen by AFP, he added, “The tone and language of the messages are inappropriate, particularly when used in discussion of such important matters.”

Some emails are dismissive of federal regulators, starting with those from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who approved the MAX.

“There is no confidence that the FAA is understanding what they are accepting,” an employee wrote in February 2016.

Nor were airlines spared.

“Now friggin’ Lion Air might need a sim(ulator) to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity,” an employee wrote in June 2017, more than a year before a 737 MAX crashed near Jakarta. “Idiots!”

Yet another employee, this one more somberly, wrote in February 2018: “Our arrogance is (our) pure demise.”

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From: MeNeedIt

Libya’s rival governments committed to an internationally brokered truce that took effect Sunday, though immediate reports of violations by both sides raised concerns it might not stick.

The truce, which was proposed by Russia and Turkey, could be the first break in fighting in months, and the first brokered by international players. It comes as Libya is on the brink of a major escalation, with foreign backers of the rival Libyan governments stepping up their involvement in the oil-rich nation’s conflict.

It also comes amid a broader diplomatic push for a political solution to Libya’s war, which has crippled the country for more than seven years. The war has displaced hundreds of thousands and left more than a million in need of humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.

The United Nations and European powers, along with Libya’s allies in the region, have been calling for a peace summit to happen in Berlin early this year that would bring together the leaders of the rival governments, and possibly move the country closer to nationwide elections.

But it’s proven difficult to stop fighting on the ground.

The country’s U.N.-supported government said that it had recorded “violations” of the ceasefire minutes after it was supposed to take effect in the early hours of Sunday. The government did not specify what kind of violations in its written statement.

Meanwhile, a general for the opposing east-based forces said that his lines had also been targeted by several missiles. Brig. Gen. Khaled al-Mahjoub, who is in charge of mobilizing the east-based forces, said that some battalions had been the subject of “random” incoming shells. He said that the attacks were not large enough to warrant a response.

The Associated Press could not verify either of the sides’ claims, and as of midday Sunday that ceasefire appeared to be holding, if uneasily.

The last time both sides paused the fighting was for a very brief period in August during a Muslim feast day. But this time, both sides declared they’d observe the truce, with the east-backed forces led by ex-general Khalifa Hifter joining the agreement shortly before midnight on Saturday.

Libya is governed by dueling authorities, one based in the east and one in Tripoli in the west. Each rely on different militias for support. Both sides have different stipulations in order for the fighting to stop.

Fayez Sarraj, who is prime minister of the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli, has previously demanded that Hifter’s forces retreat from the capital’s outskirts and halt their offensive against it. Hifter and his allies, meanwhile, have called for the dissolution of militias fighting for Sarraj inside Tripoli. The conditions of neither are likely to be met.

Al-Mahjoub, who is in charge of mobilizing Hifter’s forces, ruled out any retreat from areas recently captured by their troops.

“Withdrawal is not on the table,” Mahjoub told The Associated Press. He said that group’s fighters will remain on guard in their positions, and will respond to any significant breaches.

Hifter’s east-based forces, the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces, launched a fresh offensive to take the capital of Tripoli in April. The fighting sparked international efforts to try to contain the crisis in the North African nation.

In the last month, Hifter’s forces have made significant advances. Earlier this week, they captured the strategic coastal city of Sirte, the hometown of Libya’s longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin released a joint statement after a meeting in Istanbul calling for a Jan. 12 truce. They did not specify what the conditions would be. Both Russia and Turkey have been accused of exacerbating the conflict in Libya by giving military aid to its warring parties.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission welcomed the prospect of an end to the fighting. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya said in a statement that it hoped all parties would demonstrate “complete adherence” to its terms and stop the violence.

Turkey’s Defense Ministry issued a statement on Sunday saying the situation in Libya was “calm except for one or two isolated incidents.”

The east-based government, backed by Hifter’s forces, is supported by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia. The western, Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.

The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into violent chaos rivaling the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed Gadhafi.

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From: MeNeedIt

World leaders traveled Sunday to Oman to meet the country’s new sultan, named just a day earlier after the death of the nation’s longtime ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince Charles were among those who arrived in Muscat to meet Oman’s new ruler, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said.

Other leaders included Kuwait’s ruling emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, as well as Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and the president of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, also visited.

Sultan Haitham was Oman’s culture minister before being named as the successor to Sultan Qaboos, the Middle East’s longest-ruling monarch whose death was announced Saturday. He died at the age of 79 after years of an undisclosed illness.

Sultan Haitham, 66, has pledged to follow Sultan Qaboos’ example of promoting peace and dialogue in the Mideast. Oman has served as an interlocutor between Iran and the U.S., which are facing a level of unprecedented tensions. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Muscat on Sunday as well to meet Sultan Haitham.

Oman sits on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

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From: MeNeedIt

A first-term lawmaker whose father was Malta’s president has been chosen to be the country’s prime minister. The count on Sunday showed Robert Abela received nearly 58% of votes cast by members of the governing Labour Party eligible to choose the new leader.

Abela, 42, will replace Joseph Muscat, who is stepping down midway through his second term as prime minister amid demands for accountability over the 2017 murder of an anti-corruption journalist.

The date of the premier-designate’s swearing-in hasn’t been announced. He is scheduled to address the party Sunday afternoon.

A close aide to Muscat was questioned in connection with journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, denied wrongdoing and was released while still under investigation. A Maltese hotelier, who denies involvement, has been accused of complicity in the killing. Three other men, accused of triggering the car bomb, are under arrest.
Before being chosen as Labour leader, Abela said he would work to restore Malta’s reputation for rule of law.

European Union lawmakers had criticized the member nation’s judiciary and police.

Muscat had beaten Abela’s father in the race for the party leadership in 2008. George Abela was later appointed president, serving from 2009 until 2014.

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From: MeNeedIt