| McConnell releases impeachment trial rules, sparking new outcry from Democrats Posted: 20 Jan 2020 04:40 PM PST  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released the rules for a Senate impeachment trial on Monday evening.
|
| 2 more inmates killed in troubled Mississippi prison Posted: 21 Jan 2020 09:31 AM PST  Two inmates were killed Monday night at an understaffed Mississippi prison that has been shaken by other deadly violence in recent weeks. The state Department of Corrections confirmed the deaths Tuesday but did not immediately release the names of the latest inmates killed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Department spokeswoman Grace Simmons Fisher verified to The Associated Press that the information is accurate.
|
| Forget North Korea or Pakistan: This U.S. Ally Has a Nuclear Arsenal That Could Kill Billions Posted: 20 Jan 2020 11:55 PM PST  And its all underwater.
|
| Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Unusual, Rustic Island Paradise Posted: 21 Jan 2020 01:51 AM PST  When news broke that Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and baby Archie had escaped the public eye to find shelter on Vancouver Island, I, like most people who have spent a lot of time there, raised an eyebrow. Exotic it is, but it is hardly the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of a royal getaway. I've been to the island dozens of times to visit in-laws, and I can attest that, even in the summer, the weather is gray and the water is always cold. And the unusually snowy 2020 so far has no doubt baptized the couple to what Canadian winters can be like. Even though Prince Harry said baby Archie thought it was "bloody brilliant," it's likely he enjoyed it through double glazed windows beside a roaring fire. The very British city of Victoria, near where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex found refuge in a $15 million mansion owned by the country club where I rather coincidentally had my wedding reception nearly two decades ago, is a mishmash of colonial chic with double decker buses, British flags along the streets, and proper tea rooms. The Empress Hotel is the jewel of the city and as luxurious as it gets, but the city is cozy, not cosmopolitan, and certainly nothing close to the same level of sophistication as London. And the place is hard to get to. It is reachable from the mainland by private jet for royalty, but most people have little option but a two-plus hour ferry, a white knuckle float plane or commuter cigar-plane service from the larger Canadian cities. The rest of the island is a mix of rugged terrain and the largely uninhabited northern reaches are isolated and almost entirely off the grid. Highways are scarce—there is just one major thoroughfare called the Island Highway that cuts a curvy swath along the island's east coast. It was only recently completed all the way to the northernmost town of Port Hardy, and has opened up the most remote areas of the island to tourism and trade which won't make everyone who is settled there happy. The island was a haven for American draft dodgers who settled there during the Vietnam War and who still live there comfortably under the radar.The island is popular with outdoorsy types who favor off-route hiking and those for whom rough camping—read no amenities—is a treat. One of the main tourist attractions during the winter months is storm-watching off the rocky Pacific coast. Hotels like the famous Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino on the island's remote west coast are booked months in advance, especially during the harshest seasons. Microphones set up along the sharp rocks capture the violent crashing sounds of the waves that can be piped into every room in the hotel and take the place of dinner music in the main dining room.Beachcombing here takes on a whole new meaning. Cargo ship wreckage—including cars, containers, and tons of plastic—regularly washes up on the coast line. Over the years, the British Columbia province spent millions to clean up debris that had been swept across the ocean after the 2011 tsunami in Japan that killed more than 15,000 people. I still have a weathered yellow hard hat with Japanese writing inside that rolled up on the shoreline in 2013. The island is also where a number of severed feet in sneakers and leather shoes have washed up on shore in one of the area's most bizarre claims to fame.Another oh-so-Canadian treat is Coombs Old Country Market about halfway up the Island Highway between Nanaimo, with its popular port and world-famous chocolate and custard squares, and the Comox Valley, which is where indigenous Canadians, called First Nations People, first settled the island. The market started as a highway fruit stand in the 1970s and has grown into a bizarre roadside attraction featuring live goats that graze the convenience store rooftop. It's the kind of thing Baby Archie would surely love–I know my kids could never get enough of seeing animals eating the steep rooftop.The island is a commercial fisherman's paradise, offering some of the best prawn, salmon, halibut and crab anywhere in Canada. Whale-watching and bird-watching are regular pastimes, too, but royal-watching is apparently not. Miles Arsenault, the owner and captain of Deep Cove's Bay to Bay Charters near Victoria, said he turned down several British tabloid hacks who descended on the island over the holidays, who tried to get him to take them out for a glimpse of the Sussexes in their hideaway. He said he and other charter boat captains made a pact not to create such a cottage industry. "It's hard to turn down money when you are starting a new business, but this one was an easy choice to turn down," he told the Global News. "Canadians and all of the islanders respect the privacy of others and would not feel good about taking them [paparazzi] out to take pictures of the royals."It is yet unknown whether Meghan and Harry will stay on the island, but it seems more likely they would move to the more glamorous city of Vancouver on the mainland. The city, called Hollywood North, has produced a string of television series and movies in recent years, including Star Trek, X-Files, Deadpool, Tomorrowland, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Godzilla, The Twilight Saga and X-Men. It seems a good spot for the duchess to job-hunt. It is also a great spot for charity work. The Downtown Eastside, where Meghan was photographed just last week at a women's center, is known for the high number of heroin addicts and homeless people who get help from the area's numerous shelters. Already, several real estate companies have started courting the Sussexes with some of the city's best properties on the market. According to one article in the local newspaper The Province, called "Fit For a King: Five B.C. Homes That Could Work for Meghan and Harry," agents have compiled a list of some stunning homes. The most expensive goes for around $30 million and is located in the ritzy First Shaughnessy district, referred to in the listing as, "the traditional seat of power for Vancouver's rich, after being developed by Canadian Pacific Railway for its executives back when Vancouver was a railroad town." The 12,400 square-foot home was built in 1922 and, according to the ad, "stripped to the bones and rebuilt to include all sorts of probably unneeded things like an indoor Koi aquarium and an enormous Cognac Cellar." Another one goes for around $20 million in a district called Surrey. "As Surrey is a very British word, and they don't mind living outside of the city, this 11,000 square foot home on 77 acres of rural land could work," the listing suggests. Whatever they decide to do, they will likely be ignored by the Canadian population, who tend to not meddle as a matter of national pride. Big name celebrities, from Tom Cruise to Demi Moore, have bought property in the area precisely because they are left alone. If that's what the couple formerly known as royals really want, then they will easily find the peace and quiet that countless others love about the area. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| Intelligence officials: New ISIS leader is one of its founding members Posted: 20 Jan 2020 08:37 PM PST  The Islamic State's new leader is Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, one of the terrorist organization's founding members, intelligence officials told The Guardian.Last October, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid in Syria, and officials said Salbi replaced him just hours after his death. Born to an Iraqi Turkmen family, Salbi has a background as an Islamic scholar, and came up with the ISIS religious rulings authorizing the enslavement of Iraq's Yazidi minority. Salbi met Baghdadi in 2004, when both were detained by U.S. forces at Camp Bucca in Iraq.There aren't many founding members of ISIS left, and the group doesn't have nearly as many fighters as it did during its peak in the mid-2010s. ISIS no longer controls vast swaths of Iraq and Syria, but they are still behind assassinations and roadside bombings in northern Iraq, a senior Kurdish official told The Guardian. There are rural networks that "remain very much intact," the official said. "After all, ISIS members in Iraq still receive monthly salaries and training in remote mountainous areas. That network allows the organization to endure, even when militarily defeated."Salbi's whereabouts are unknown, but intelligence officials believe it's likely he is near Mosul, Iraq. There is a $5 million bounty on his head.More stories from theweek.com One of the biggest crime waves in America isn't what you think it is Supreme Court declines to fast track ObamaCare case, won't rule until after 2020 election Trump's approval rating is on pace to be the lowest ever among independents, Gallup poll shows
|
| Schiff joins Schumer in blasting McConnell's impeachment trial rules Posted: 21 Jan 2020 08:49 AM PST  Rep. Adam Schiff joined Sen. Chuck Schumer in slamming the rules unveiled by Republicans for the Senate impeachment trial, calling them "the process for a rigged trial."
|
| China's former Interpol chief sentenced to 13 years in prison Posted: 20 Jan 2020 11:38 PM PST  Former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, who was detained on a visit to China in 2018, was sentenced Tuesday to more than 13 years in prison for bribery in a case that shook the international police organisation. Meng -- a former vice minister of public security -- is among a growing group of Communist Party cadres caught in President Xi Jinping's anti-graft campaign, which critics say has also served as a way to remove the leader's political enemies.
|
| Leopard runs into house before being captured in south India Posted: 20 Jan 2020 06:15 AM PST  A leopard that ran into a house and sparked a frantic search and a frenzy of attention in southern India on Monday has been caught and tranquilized. The big cat emerged from the Kamdanam forest and ran into a house in Shadnagar town in Telangana state, said Dr. Mohammad Abdul Hakeem, a wildlife official. Deadly conflict between humans and animals has increased in recent years in India largely due to shrinking forest habitats and urban expansion.
|
| Iran MP: $3 million reward for 'whoever kills Trump': ISNA Posted: 21 Jan 2020 04:50 AM PST  An Iranian lawmaker offered a $3 million reward to anyone who killed President Trump and said Iran could avoid threats if it had nuclear arms, ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday amid Tehran's latest standoff with Washington.
|
| The Navy Has a Plan to Stop Ship-Killer Missiles Posted: 20 Jan 2020 11:28 PM PST  The threat keeps building from nations like Russia, China, Iran and many others.
|
| Planned Parenthood endorses challenger to Sen. Susan Collins Posted: 21 Jan 2020 03:00 AM PST  Planned Parenthood on Tuesday endorsed a Democratic challenger to Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, saying Collins "turned her back" on women and citing her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as well as other judicial nominees who oppose abortion. Sara Gideon, speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, welcomed the endorsement from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
|
| Mothers who occupied vacant Oakland house will be allowed to buy it Posted: 20 Jan 2020 04:07 PM PST  Intervention of California governor helps Moms 4 Housing group score victory in fight against state's homeless crisisThe homeless mothers who took over a vacant house in Oakland, California, and occupied it for almost two months will be allowed to purchase the property – a major victory in a movement working to keep such homes out of the possession of speculators.The group Moms 4 Housing entered the house on Magnolia Street on 18 November with the intent to stay. The house had sat vacant for more than two years before it was purchased in July at a foreclosure auction for $501,078 by Wedgewood Properties, a real estate investment company with a history of buying up foreclosed-upon houses cheaply, evicting the tenants, renovating the homes and then putting them back on the market at much higher prices.Housing advocates say companies such as Wedgewood fueled the housing crisis that now grips the state, which needs anywhere between 1.8m and 3.5m new housing units by 2025. More than 15,500 units remain vacant in Oakland alone, according to the latest US Census Bureau data, while 4,071 people are homeless. House-flipping has led to rapid gentrification, which then in turn led to the widespread displacement of black residents.In Oakland, 78% of the homeless population reported that their last place of residence before becoming homeless was within county limits. Seventy per cent were black.Moms 4 Housing chose the Magnolia Street house in part to try to force Wedgewood to negotiate the sale of the home back to the community."This is what happens when we organize, when people come together to build the beloved community," Dominique Walker, one of the mothers who lived in the house with her two children, said in a statement, on the day that America marked Martin Luther King Day. "Today we honor Dr King's radical legacy by taking Oakland back from banks and corporations."With the housing and homelessness crisis worsening each day, the mothers received widespread support for their cause, from local lawmakers to California's governor, Gavin Newsom, who praised the activists.Moms 4 Housing had brought the issue to court, but a judge ruled in favor of Wedgewood. Sheriff deputies arrived in the early hours of 15 January to evict them, arresting two of the mothers and two of their supporters.Wedgewood has maintained that the mothers had committed a criminal act in breaking into the house, and the house legally belonged to the company."Wedgewood has always been and continues to be open to thoughtful and purposeful discussions," spokesman Sam Singer said in a statement."After regaining possession of Magnolia Street, we engaged in discussions with governor Gavin Newsom, mayor Libby Schaaf and councilman Larry Reid. These led to progress that everyone should agree is a step in the right direction in helping to address Oakland's homelessness and housing crisis."
|
| Erdogan says Somalia has invited Turkey to explore for oil in its seas: NTV Posted: 20 Jan 2020 04:54 AM PST  Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Somalia had invited Turkey to explore for oil in its seas, after Ankara signed a maritime agreement with Libya last year, broadcaster NTV reported. Turkey has been a major source of aid to Somalia following a famine in 2011 as Ankara seeks to increase its influence in the Horn of Africa to counter Gulf rivals like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
|
| Zimbabwe Opposition Vows Rolling Protests Over Economy Posted: 21 Jan 2020 08:30 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Next Africa newsletter and follow Bloomberg Africa on TwitterZimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change will hold a series of demonstrations this year over the government's failure to address the deteriorating economy.The southern African nation had the continent's fastest-shrinking economy last year, after Libya, and its annual inflation rate was outpaced globally only by Venezuela, International Monetary Fund estimates show. Zimbabwe is grappling with shortages of food, fuel and foreign-exchange, while its inability to pay for adequate electricity imports and breakdowns at power plants have led to outages of as long as 18 hours a day."This year is going to be a year of demonstrations and action," MDC leader Nelson Chamisa told party supporters in the capital, while outlining their plans for this year." This year it must be known that demonstrations are coming. It is time to fight for Zimbabwe we all want and have been dreaming of."Previous protests by anti-government activists have resulted in brutal repression. At least 18 people have been killed in demonstrations since Emmerson Mnangagwa came to power in November 2017.To contact the reporter on this story: Godfrey Marawanyika in Harare at gmarawanyika@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gordon Bell at gbell16@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, Alastair ReedFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Arizona mother admits to killing her 3 young children, police say Posted: 21 Jan 2020 08:35 AM PST  Officials described the mother, who was not identified, as a 22-year-old woman who recently moved to Arizona from Oklahoma.
|
| Asia steps up checks as China virus kills six, infects more than 300 Posted: 21 Jan 2020 09:18 AM PST  Asian countries on Tuesday ramped up measures to block the spread of a new virus as the death toll in China rose to six and the number of cases surpassed 300, raising concerns in the middle of a major holiday travel rush. Nations across the Asia-Pacific region stepped up checks of passengers at airports to detect the SARS-like coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Fears of a bigger outbreak rose after a prominent expert from China's National Health Commission confirmed late Monday that the virus can be passed between people.
|
| Meet the General Who Ran Soleimani’s Spies, Guns and Assassins Posted: 21 Jan 2020 01:51 AM PST  They're the Quds Force officers who tracked and killed Iraqis working with the U.S.-led coalition, hunted those deemed hostile to Iranian influence through a council of assassins, and smuggled the spies, money, weapons, and secrets into Iraq that sowed chaos across the country during the American occupation. Qassem Soleimani first gained the attention of Western media through his role in instigating a campaign of covert violence against the U.S. in Iraq which cost the lives of over 600 American troops. But underneath the now famous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps icon, other officers managed the war that first made Soleimani notorious. For a period during the mid-2000s, one of those officers was Brigadier General Ahmed Foruzandeh, who rose to command the Ramazan Corps, part of the Guard's elite Quds Force, after cutting his teeth in the unit running guerrilla warfare operations during the Iran-Iraq war.'OK, Now What?': Inside Team Trump's Scramble to Sell the Soleimani Hit to America"Although Qassem Soleimani was the architect of that broader strategy, it was his lesser known lieutenants who ran and oversaw the operations," Dr. Afshon Ostovar, a scholar at the Naval Postgraduate School, said. "Foruzandeh was one of the top Quds Force operatives in the field in Iraq, yet his name was hardly known at the time." Declassified documents obtained by The Daily Beast through the Freedom of Information Act offer new details of Foruzandeh's campaign of violence in Iraq during the latter 2000s. They show how Foruzandeh and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) funneled guns, money, and spies into Iraq and assassinated both Americans and Iraqis. And they offer hints that the man who helped Iran kill hundreds of Americans throughout the Iraq war may not have actually retired years ago as he let on, but continued to consult for his former boss long after the war ended.Iranian and American media alike have treated Foruzandeh's old boss, the former Quds Force commander Soleimani, with something approaching hagiography. In profiles and obituaries, he's cast as a legendary "shadow commander" possessed of superhuman abilities and cunning, a judgment not entirely supported by Soleimani's colleagues. By contrast, declassified documents obtained by The Daily Beast and other sources paint a more prosaic picture of Foruzandeh. Like a number of Quds Force personnel, Foruzandeh's career in Iraq drew on nothing more mystical than relationships and experience. His first brush with the world of covert operations in the Iran-Iraq war met with middling success and the guerrilla warfare effort he supported barely moved the needle in the conflict. But by the time the U.S. showed up on Iran's doorstep, Foruzandeh had been carrying out guerrilla warfare and covert operations across the Iran-Iraq border for nearly 20 years with some of the same people and organizations. "They clearly have, one, home court advantage. Two, these guys have been doing special operations in the region for their entire adult life and they're veterans of the brutal Iran-Iraq war," Doug Wise, a former CIA officer and station chief in Baghdad, told The Daily Beast of Iranian Quds Force officers who worked on Iraq. "These guys are worthy adversaries. They're not 10 feet tall. They have human and physical limitations but extraordinary experience in conducting the operations that they were required to conduct," Wise said. * * *"Big picture," Col. Donald Bacon, then the chief of special operations and intelligence information for the coalition, said in a 2007 press conference, "the Ramazan Corps is the organization that does operations here in Iraq to—they use it to—they're the ones who transit in the weapons, the funding and help coordinate Iraqi militia extremists into Iran to get them training and then get them back into Iraq."Ramazan was the Quds Force unit in charge of causing chaos in Iraq and, at least for a time, Foruzandeh was its commander. The unit, which dated back to the Iran-Iraq war, divided its forces between a handful of sub-commands along the Iraqi border. Foruzandeh had worked in Fajr command, based in Ahwaz, Iran, which handled operations in Basra and southern Iraq, working his way up to deputy commander of Ramazan.By 2007, as violence in Iraq peaked, intelligence reports surveyed Iranian covert operations in Iraq as the U.S. turned its attention away from the Sunni jihadist insurgency and towards the violence instigated by Iran and its proxies. The documents include raw reporting marked as "not finally evaluated intelligence" from sources whose motivations are described as "based on favorable experiences with U.S. forces and desire to rid Iraq of destructive foreign influences" but they track broadly with what U.S. officials have said about Ramazan Corps and its personnel.Taken together, they show a sprawling campaign of covert violence with Foruzandeh and the Ramazan Corps in charge.The documents spend considerable space detailing the elaborate process by which the Iranian-overseen "Golden Death Squad" targeted, approved, and carried out assassinations against Iraqis they viewed as obstacles. The unit, the report wrote, "consists of Iranian intelligence leadership that provide guidance and funding to Iraqis that are recruited from [Jaish al-Mahdi], Badr Corps, the Al-Fadilah Party, and other Shia Iraqi parties and militias that conduct assassination operations against former Ba'ath party members, Iraqis that are working with the [Coalition Forces], and Iraqis that are not supporting Iranian influence in Iraq."Iranian officers shuttled Iraqi members of the assassination teams to Ahwaz, Iran, the headquarters of Ramazan's Fajr command, for training. The 10-day long course included instruction from Iranian officers on "information collection to support the targeting of coalition forces in Iraq, assassinations, and the use of indirect fire systems such as Katyusha rockets and mortars." Iran also trained its proxies in the use of "what is described as very sophisticated explosives that can penetrate [Coalition Forces'] armor," an apparent reference to the notorious Iranian-made explosively formed projectiles which killed and maimed hundreds of American troops. When it came time to decide who would be killed, Quds Force officers set up a process for adjudicating assassination targets, giving Iraqi allies a role in the process, according to the documents. "Iraqis that are agents of the Iranians are allowed to produce lists of Iraqis that are to be assassinated," it notes. "Most of these Iraqis that are authorized to make decisions regarding who is to be killed by the Golden Death Squad are members of the Iraqi government and security forces." Meetings of the hit squad reportedly took place at the Basra governor's office where members of Basra police intelligence would "routinely attend."Iranian intelligence officers also nominated their own targets for assassination. Their names were handed to a member of the Iranian-backed Badr militia. The Iranian officer who passed the targets along—his name is redacted in the report—is described as "a Persian Iranian that is fluent in Iraqi Arabic and has a southern Iraqi accent due to the years he has spent in Iraq."Those slated for assassination included not just former Baathists but Iraqis who worked with the U.S.-backed coalition. The documents recount how one Quds Force officer, assigned to Ramazan's Fajr command in southern Iraq, ran an Iraqi agent who photographed coalition informants for the IRGC. The unnamed Quds Force officer then "passe[d] the pictures to Iraqis that he tasks and funds to kill those identified by [redacted's] reporting and pictures."In at least one case, Foruzandeh reportedly intervened to help one of his militia allies after coalition officials arrested them. Mehdi Abdmehd al-Khalisi allegedly ran the Muntada al-Wilaya militia, a small, Iranian-backed Shiite militia implicated in the murder of a number of former Baathist officials and an attack on coalition troops. When coalition officials arrested al-Khalisi in 2005, senior Iraqi officials began pressuring the coalition to release him. A classified cable leaked by WikiLeaks show that informants told the U.S. that al-Khalisi had been communicating with Foruzandeh about attacks on British forces in Iraq's Maysan governorate via encrypted telegrams as early as 2003. After his arrest, the cable says that an informant of "unknown reliability" reported that Foruzandeh "has authorized an expenditure of up to $500,000 for operations to secure Mr. al-Khalisi's release, and that senior [Iraqi Transitional Government] officials have received telephone calls from the Brigadier requesting assistance." Along with the assassinations came Iranian weapons and trainers. Reporting by the Long War Journal first sketched out Ramazan's "rat lines" in Iraq and documents obtained by The Daily Beast note that the unit oversaw a "complex smuggling apparatus from Ahwaz, Iran into Iraq" that included "weapons, information, financial support, and Iranian intelligence officers." The money, guns, and Iranian personnel began their journey in Ahwaz and were handed off to smugglers at the border with Iraq.Iranian intelligence officers would vet smugglers for loyalty and to ensure that they had a "pre-existing relationship with the [Iraqi border police] because of their tribal relationship"—a relationship that nonetheless "usually involves a pre-arranged bribe." Once across the border, smugglers toting money, guns, and Iranian personnel were "typically met by a reception element that represents a Shia militia group that the operation support package was built for."In the ports of southern Iraq, Ramazan agents smuggled weapons via hidden compartments in the fuel tanks of fishing boats, according to the documents. As violent as Foruzandeh's tenure in occupation-era Iraq war was, he wasn't entirely averse to covert diplomacy. Ahmed Chalabi, the exiled Iraqi lobbyist who helped push the Bush administration to war in Iraq, met with Foruzandeh in the spring of 2004, according to a 2008 biography of Chalabi by journalist and former Daily Beast senior correspondent Aram Roston. At the time, Chalabi had transitioned from pro-war lobbyist to an Iraqi member of parliament and was seeking to accommodate himself to Iran's newfound influence in Iranian politics. Some time after the meeting, the U.S. learned that Iranian intelligence had suddenly realized American spies were reading their cable traffic and had broken their codes. A few months later, American intelligence officials told The New York Times they believed Chalabi had walked into the Iranian embassy in Baghdad and blown the operation to the station chief of Iranian intelligence at the embassy. Chalabi denied any involvement in the leak but the incident led the Bush administration to end its relationship with him.* * *Foruzandeh's father worked for the Abadan oil company and when he left the company, his family of 13 sons and daughters moved to Khorramshahr, just across the border from Basra in Iraq. His son Ahmed was an early supporter of Iran's Islamic Revolution, a stance which earned him a stint in prison at university—thanks to the ruling Shah's secret police—and the revolutionary bonafides that came with it when the Shah's government was ousted.In the early days of the Islamic Revolution, Foruzandeh worked with the IRGC to identify and arrest Arab dissidents in Khorramshahr opposed to the new government. His knowledge of the area, proven commitment to the regime, and background in underground work made him a natural fit for intelligence when the Iran-Iraq war started."After Iraq's invasion, he was the intelligence chief of the Khorramshahr unit that later played a key role in re-taking the city from the Baathists in 1982," Amir Toumaj, an Iran researcher who's written extensively on the Quds Force, explained of Foruzandeh. "His biography states that he started developing a relationship with Hassan Bagheri around the time of Khorramshahr's fall and sent him reports," Toumaj says. Bagheri, the founder of the Islamic Republic's intelligence service, was killed during the war but went on to become one of Iran's most famous "martyrs." His brother, Mohammad, is now Iran's highest-ranking military officer and it was those kinds of connections that would help pave Foruzandeh's ascent to the highest ranks of the IRGC.Trump, Iran, and Where 'The Forever War' Was Always HeadedLater in the war, Foruzandeh left his position in Khorramshahr's 22nd Badr Brigade and joined the Ramazan Corps. The unit was designed to work with dissident groups in Iraq and carry out guerrilla operations behind enemy lines while the otherwise static style of trench warfare that characterized the Iran-Iraq conflict played out. At Ramazan's Fajr headquarters, where Foruzandeh first worked, the unit carried out operations with Iraqi Shiite groups like the Badr Brigade, a group of exiled dissidents and former prisoners of war. The militia was originally "conceived by the Iranians as an adjunct to the IRGC-QF Ramazan Corps," according to a 2005 State Department cable, and drew support from their political arm, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. During the Iran-Iraq war, radio broadcasts from Tehran hailed operations by the "Ramazan Headquarters" which claimed assassination attempts with "Iraqi mujahidin" on Saddam's interior minister Samir al-Shaykhali in Baghdad, the "revolutionary execution" of a Ba'ath Party official in Baghdad's Mansur neighborhood, and having set fire to one of Saddam's Baghdad palaces "used for pleasure by Ba'ath party officials and senior officers of that regime."Ramazan's Fajr headquarters and the Badr Brigade didn't do much to change the tide of the war. It ended in a bloody stalemate in 1988, more of exhaustion than because of guerrilla daring. One of the Ramazan Corps's most valuable relationships actually lay farther north with Kurdish forces from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The group carried out strikes deep into Iraqi Kurdish territory with Ramazan's backing, including a 1986 raid on Iraqi oil infrastructure in Kirkuk (later memorialized in a cheesy Iranian action flick, Kirkuk Operation).But the relationships forged by Ramazan with Iraqi Shia militants would prove useful to both the Revolutionary Guards and Iran years down the road when groups like Badr took on an important role in Iraqi politics and security. When the war ended, both Ramazan Corps and Foruzandeh remained focused on Iraq, particularly during the Shia uprising against Saddam at the end of the Persian Gulf War. One Iranian news account put Foruzandeh in charge of working with Iranian-backed militias to support the uprising "in order to speed up the support of the Iraqi Mujahideen" because his unit, Ramazan's Fajr headquarters, was closest to the revolt in Basra.There's not much evidence about how Foruzandeh spent his time in the interim between America's first two wars in Iraq. The most evidence available is a fragmentary report from Saddam-era intelligence documents captured by the U.S. after the war that shows Foruzandeh running an agent inside a camp for the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, an Iranian dissident cult group which fought on behalf of Iraq during the war and carried out a series of terrorist attacks in Iran.* * *Not many senior Ramazan Corps veterans appear to have retired. Iraj Masjedi, another Quds Force Iraq veteran, took over as Iran's ambassador in Baghdad in 2017. Abdul Reza Shahlai, who served in Iraq during the occupation alongside Foruzandeh, is now at 63 years old reportedly the top Quds Force officer in Yemen and was unsuccessfully targeted in a U.S. airstrike there the same night that special operations forces killed Soleimani.After the U.S. wound down its occupation in Iraq, Foruzandeh, gray-haired and portly, gave every impression of having retired and contented himself with the hobbies of old age, despite a U.S. sanctions designation on him during the war. He told an Iranian news outlet that he'd retired from the Quds Force in 2008, and was working on an oral history project about his hometown. In public, he spent his spent time shuffling between memorial ceremonies for fallen comrades. It doesn't appear to be true.Another declassified intelligence document obtained by The Daily Beast offers hints that Foruzandeh may not have retired after all. The report, an account of senior Iranian officials' participation in a museum project "documenting lessons learned from the Iran-Iraq war," suggests he kept at least a consulting role in Quds Force operations. In describing the background of officials present at the meeting, the report says Foruzandeh still dabbled in "management of personnel and logistic support to IRGC-QF external activities." Iran's Khorasan province "has been recently added to his portfolio." Iran's Khorasan province borders northwest Afghanistan and by 2013, the Obama administration had already been arguing for years that Quds Force officers were secretly supporting the Taliban in order to weaken U.S. and NATO forces in the country. There are some reasons to be skeptical of the declassified report. The sources claim that Foruzandeh was appointed a director of Iran's Iran-Iraq war museum, but he's not listed by the museum as an official or referred to as such in news accounts. It's also dated around the same time Foruzandeh gave an interview to an Iranian news outlet announcing that he was working on a history project about his hometown's role in the Iran-Iraq war.Still, other evidence suggests Foruzandeh was still in the irregular warfare business.In 2014, one of Foruzandeh's closest colleagues in the Quds Force, fellow brigadier general and Ramazan Corps veteran Hamid Taghavi, was killed by ISIS in Iraq. The death came as a surprise, not least because Taghavi was one of the highest-ranking IRGC officers killed in Iraq since the Iran-Iraq war. Like Foruzandeh, Taghavi was also supposed to have left active duty. Instead, he was in Iraq supporting a Shiite militia loyal to Iran, Sayara al-Khorasani, and organizing Iran's fight against ISIS."Commander Taghavi was retired. No one thought he'd go to Iraq and be able to play a role in the mobilization and organization of the [Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units militia]," Foruzandeh told a meeting of Ahwaz city officials after his death. Taghavi's death hit Foruzandeh hard and he would break down in tears recounting his comrade's life when talking to reporters. In one interview, Foruzandeh suggested he'd been in contact with Taghavi by phone shortly before his death and offered advice for his work standing up pro-Iranian militias after ISIS took Mosul"He came to the place where we were stationed," Foruzandeh said without elaborating. "We told him about the situation in Iraq, the characteristics of the conflict, the various Iraqi groups, and the challenges that existed. The Iraqi forces had deficiencies that needed to be addressed." Taghavi was concerned about Iranian-backed militias' performance during operations in Jurf al-Sakhar, an Iraqi town captured by ISIS and taken back during a brutal operation coordinated by the Quds Force. "He believed that unless these forces received better training they would suffer severe casualties. The casualties these forces suffered were generally due to a lack of proper military training. They didn't know how to move, what to do when they're under fire from the enemy, how to provide cover when attacking, or even how to clear traps and contaminants from an infected area," Foruzandeh recalled.One of the last public glimpses of Foruzandeh comes from an unlikely source: Facebook. Foruzandeh doesn't appear to have a profile, but his acquaintances identified him in pictures during a 2016 visit to meet with Iraqi officials from Maysan Province. The photos show a grandfatherly Quds Force officer with his trademark scowl described as an "advisor" to Iran's Supreme Leader, a tailored visiting dignitary in a place where decades before he was once a spry, hunted guerrilla in hand-me-down fatigues.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| Supreme Court stays out of dispute over grand jury secrecy Posted: 21 Jan 2020 06:57 AM PST ![Supreme Court stays out of dispute over grand jury secrecy]( "Supreme Court stays out of dispute over grand jury secrecy") The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to get involved in a dispute about judges' authority to order the disclosure of secret grand jury material in rare circumstances. The court turned away an appeal from an 82-year-old researcher who is seeking grand jury records from the late 1950s. The justices' order does not affect an ongoing court battle over House Democrats' quest for access to grand jury materials from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
|
| Iran acknowledges Russian-made missiles targeted Ukraine jet Posted: 21 Jan 2020 12:29 AM PST  Iran acknowledged on Tuesday that its armed forces fired two Russian anti-aircraft missiles at a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed after taking off from Tehran's main airport earlier this month, killing all 176 people on board. For days after the Jan. 8 shootdown, Iran denied that it fired missiles at the plane, initially blaming a technical malfunction and engine fire for the crash.
|
| Warren would ask for resignation of all of Trump's political appointees Posted: 21 Jan 2020 06:02 AM PST  Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Tuesday that if elected to the White House she would ask for the resignations of all of President Donald Trump's political appointees on her first day in office, including the 93 United States attorneys. Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts who has made anti-corruption the central theme of her presidential bid, is locked in a tight race for the chance to take on Trump in the November 2020 election with less than two weeks to go before Iowa kicks off the party nominating contests. Warren is in the top tier of 12 Democrats vying for the party's nomination but trails former Vice President Joe Biden and fellow U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in most national opinion polls.
|
| Austria Threatens to Quit Effort to Create an EU Financial Tax Posted: 21 Jan 2020 05:11 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to receive the Davos Diary, a special daily newsletter that will run from Jan. 20-24.Austria's new finance minister dismissed a proposal by his German counterpart on how to tax financial trades in the European Union, throwing the years-long effort into disarray."We want a common, broad financial transaction tax. We're ready to talk, but the current proposal is the opposite of what was originally intended," Austria's Gernot Bluemel told journalists on his way into a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels. Without a new a approach, the country will leave the group of 10 still working on the plan, he said.Germany's Olaf Scholz tabled a "final proposal" for the levy in December that focused on stock purchases, after talks on a broader version of the tax had failed. Bluemel, who was sworn in along with the rest of Austria's new government this month, said this approach would damage the real economy while letting "speculators" off the hook.The European Commission first proposed a financial-transaction tax in 2011 to make sure the industry made a "fair contribution" after taxpayers bore most of the costs of the financial crisis. When some member states opposed the plan, a smaller group sought a compromise under "enhanced cooperation" rules. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain are still at the table.Scholz said he still expects an agreement with other European countries on the issue, indicating that some countries are willing to join the group. After years of discussion, "everybody who's been involved knows what's possible and what isn't," he said. Under EU rules on enhanced cooperation, at least 9 countries are needed for a coordinated approach. Scholz's proposal foresees a tax rate of 0.2%, which would apply to acquisitions of shares issued by companies based in one of the participating countries and whose market capitalization exceeds 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).(Updates with comment from Scholz in fifth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Weber in Brussels at aweber45@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Richard BravoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Photos of starving lions in Sudan spark campaign to save them Posted: 20 Jan 2020 07:35 PM PST  One of the five lions at Khartoum's Al-Qureshi Park is believed to have died.
|
| Security guard 'definitely saved lives' by killing shooter at Kansas City bar, police say Posted: 21 Jan 2020 10:26 AM PST  A Missouri security guard was lauded as a hero after shooting a gunman who killed one person and wounded 15 outside a Kansas City nightclub.
|
| China's Navy Warships Are Now Armed With Land-Attack Missiles Posted: 20 Jan 2020 08:20 AM PST  China says its newest destroyer is capable of launching land-attack missiles.
|
| Dutch farm dad 'beat bad spirits out of kids' Posted: 21 Jan 2020 08:22 AM PST  A Dutchman isolated six of his children in a remote farmhouse from birth and beat them to drive out "bad spirits," prosecutors told a court on Tuesday. Gerrit Jan van D., 67, subjected the youngsters who were found on the farm in the village of Ruinerwold in October to "very serious physical punishment" when he thought they had been made "unclean". One child was tied up by his hands and feet as punishment, while another child was forced to spend an entire summer in a doghouse at the farm in northern Drenthe province, prosecutors said.
|
| Scientists say Australia's rare duck-billed platypuses are being pushed to 'the brink of extinction' — and deadly bushfires are making it worse Posted: 20 Jan 2020 06:56 AM PST  A new report says population numbers of the animal have more than halved since Europeans first arrived in Australia.
|
| Police: Dad strangles coyote to defend family under attack Posted: 21 Jan 2020 06:24 AM PST ![Police: Dad strangles coyote to defend family under attack]( "Police: Dad strangles coyote to defend family under attack") A coyote attacked a pair of dogs, bit a woman and skirmished with a vehicle before being killed by a father defending his family on a walk Monday, police said. The same coyote is likely connected to three attacks that happened relatively close together and throughout the course of an hour, Kensington Police Chief Scott Cain said Monday. Police say they believe the coyote attacked a vehicle on a roadway in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, bit a 62-year-old woman and her dogs on a porch in Kensington and then attacked a family walking on a trail in Exeter.
|
| Migrants tear-gassed as they try to storm into Mexico Posted: 20 Jan 2020 02:21 PM PST  Hundreds of Central Americans from a new migrant caravan tried to storm into Mexico Monday by fording the river that divides the country from Guatemala, but National Guardsmen fired tear gas trying to force them back.
|
| How Trump Twisted Iran Intel to Manufacture the ‘Four Embassies’ Threat Posted: 20 Jan 2020 06:04 PM PST  When President Donald Trump publicly claimed earlier this month that he had seen intel showing Iran's now-deceased top military leader Qassem Soleimani was plotting attacks on "four [American] embassies," senior officials in Trump's national security apparatus shook their heads. They weren't sure exactly why the president leaned on that particular talking point, and scrambled in the following days to formulate answers to a barrage of questions from the media on exactly what the president had meant. Other officials wondered aloud whether the president had misrepresented the intelligence. "There were definitely questions [at the time, internally] about whether he had just made it up on the spot," recalled one White House official.It turns out Trump—technically—didn't get his eyebrow-raising claim out of nowhere, The Daily Beast has learned. According to three sources familiar with the matter, the president had simply seized on a small part of what he'd heard in private briefings, exaggerated that aspect of the intelligence, then began sharing the inflated intel to the American public during his post-Soleimani victory lap. In doing so, President Trump generated yet more confusion and discord among the national security brass that had already struggled to sell the American people on its case for the strike that just brought Iran and the United States to the precipice of all-out warfare. For weeks the Trump administration had struggled to get on message in talking about why the U.S. decided to strike Soleimani and what it would do in the future to manage any diplomacy with Tehran. Trump's embassy claim didn't help, officials said.The White House did not comment on the record for this story.Shortly before he began announcing to the media and rally-goers that the Iranian general was planning assaults on multiple U.S. embassies, the president received briefings at the White House from both national security officials and communications staffers. The purpose of some of these meetings were to prepare Trump on how best to talk to the press regarding his administration's justifications for killing Soleimani. The president received a briefing shortly before he entered the Roosevelt Room Jan. 9 and said Iran was "looking to blow up our embassy." According to two people familiar with this briefing, Trump was told the pre-strike intelligence showed that Iran could lash out against American assets in the region. The president was again told this in a subsequent briefing that day, one of these sources added. However, embassies were a part of a long list of American outposts and bases potentially under threat from Iran but sources familiar with those internal briefings do not remember the number four ever being specified, and they certainly do not recall any imminent danger to those embassies.When administration officials briefed Trump, they mentioned possible targets for Iranian assaults; they were not discussing intel on what anyone in the regime was actively plotting against U.S. interests, the sources noted.However, the moment he heard the word "embassies," Trump immediately chimed in, interrupting the meeting to grill his briefers on that issue, according to one U.S. official. From there, he began to treat this possible threat as a near-certain danger. Trump received another intelligence briefing shortly before his interview with Fox's Laura Ingraham Jan. 10 where he repeated the claim that Iran probably would have attacked four embassies. When the president started publicly trotting out his claims of "four embassies," national security aides were dumbfounded. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump's "four embassies" talking point clashed with intelligence assessments from Trump's own officials. CNN also reported that security officials at the State Department weren't even notified of an imminent danger to any specific set of four American embassies.Secretary of Defense Mark Esper himself admitted during an interview on the CBS Sunday show Face the Nation that while "the president said that he believed that it probably could have been attacks against additional embassies," Esper personally "didn't see [a specific piece of evidence] with regard to four embassies."Esper added, "What I'm saying is I shared the president's view that probably, my expectation is they were going to go after our embassies."At that point, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad had of course already been stormed by an Iranian-supported militia, but that was prior to Soleimani's death.Senior Trump administration officials have canceled several of their past scheduled briefings with Congress on specific threats to U.S. embassies pre-Soleimani strike. Briefers were also supposed to delve into more detail about what exactly U.S. intelligence said prior to the strike. The administration has held two briefings so far with both the House and the Senate, but sessions left lawmakers frustrated and overwhelmingly uninformed. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rescheduled his briefing on the embassy threats with the House Foreign Affairs committee for next week.'OK, Now What?': Inside Team Trump's Scramble to Sell the Soleimani Hit to AmericaBut people close to Trump say his embassy fixation lies in his obsession with avoiding the kind of catastrophes that befell his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush. President Trump, who has long bashed Obama for the 2012 Benghazi attack and Bush for the Hurricane Katrina response, is particularly concerned with opening himself up to accusations of having suffered "Trump's Benghazi" or "Trump's Katrina," according to two sources who've spoken to the president about this. "Multiple times I've heard him talk about how you don't want a Katrina moment," said a former senior White House official. "You can't do anything about what weather is going to do, but you can certainly manage the response and the optics of what you're doing in addition to the substance of what you're doing."With Trump's shambolic, even scandalous, handling of the response and relief efforts to the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico, this president seems to have already had his "Katrina." He is, however, determined not to experience a direct parallel to Benghazi. Indeed, on New Year's Eve, the president took to Twitter to enthusiastically brand the embassy attack that occurred on his watch "The Anti-Benghazi!" UPDATE 1/21/20: The story has been updated to clarify the timing of one of Trump's intelligence briefings on Iran.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| Taiwan president complains to Pope Francis about Chinese pressure Posted: 21 Jan 2020 01:58 AM PST ![Taiwan president complains to Pope Francis about Chinese pressure]( "Taiwan president complains to Pope Francis about Chinese pressure") Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has written to Pope Francis to complain about Chinese pressure on the island Beijing claims as its own, saying China seeks to threaten its democracy and freedom. The Vatican is one of just 15 countries that has diplomatic ties with Taiwan and the only one in Europe.
|
| 'I Dare You to Mock Me.' Capt. 'Sully' Sullenberger Defends Joe Biden Against Attacks on His Speech in New York Times Op-Ed Posted: 19 Jan 2020 01:22 PM PST  Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger opened up about his past struggles with stuttering in defending Biden and his speech.
|
| Migrants Headed to U.S. Clash With Mexican Forces at Guatemalan Border Posted: 21 Jan 2020 06:25 AM PST  Thousands of Central American migrants clashed with Mexican authorities on Monday as they attempted to cross the Mexico-Guatemala border despite being denied in their requests to continue traveling toward the U.S.The caravan consisted of roughly 4,000 migrants who began traveling last week Honduras last week. Some members of the group forced their way through a border gate while others waded through the shallow waters of the Suchiate River. Many are fleeing violence and poverty in their native Central American countries.The caravan, now on Mexican soil, is currently being blocked from traveling through Mexico by Mexican National Guard members, some in riot gear. Over the weekend, authorities used pepper spray to deter migrants and both sides were seen throwing rocks at each other.Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised the Trump administration that Mexico would enhance its efforts to prevent the mass migration of undocumented immigrants, most from Central America, which overwhelmed authorities last spring. Mexico has stepped up security at its own southern border, adding checkpoints and deploying the national guard to increase border control.The leaders of the Honduran caravan wrote a letter to the Mexican president requesting that "all the members of the caravan receive the permission to move freely through Mexican territory. We are committed to you and your government to maintain order and discipline in the places where we transit."Mexico originally sent mixed messages to the migrants, Obrador saying that more than 4,000 jobs were available to them in Mexico, but later stating that most migrants would be deported who turned themselves in to authorities.President Trump has pointed to the large caravans of undocumented migrants from Central America traveling to the U.S. as a reason to build his long-promised border wall, especially after the flow of asylum seekers surged at the U.S.-Mexico border during the spring.In September, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the vast majority of migrant families who enter the country illegally will no longer be eligible for so-called "catch and release" due to the implementation of the "Migrant Protection Protocols," which require that migrants wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are being adjudicated.
|
| 6 people have now been killed by a mysterious virus in China, with authorities saying that almost 300 people are infected Posted: 21 Jan 2020 02:29 AM PST  The World Health Organization is considering declaring a public health emergency around the globe.
|
| Panama begins exhumation of victims from 1989 US invasion Posted: 20 Jan 2020 02:53 PM PST  Forensic workers took preliminary steps Monday for digging up the remains of some victims of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, an effort that has lifted the hopes of Panamanians who had relatives die or disappear and have lived with unanswered questions about their fate for 30 years. Authorities gave the approval for exhumation of the 19 bodies buried in a Panama City cemetery after a truth commission set up three years ago documented about 20 disappearances from the U.S. military action to topple strongman Manuel Noriega. Prosecutor Maribel Caballero told reporters the remains will be compared to a database of DNA from relatives in 14 cases.
|
| India Made a Big Mistake: Buying an Aircraft Carrier from Russia Posted: 20 Jan 2020 10:30 PM PST  Key Point: What could go wrong? Well, everything.
|
| Impeachment Anticipation Builds in Washington Ahead of Trial Posted: 19 Jan 2020 04:26 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Anticipation is building in Washington ahead of the nation's first impeachment trial in 20 years even as Democrats and Republicans continue to squabble about everything from the length of trial days to calling witnesses. The Democratic House impeachment managers held meetings for much of Sunday. They're expected to do a formal walk-through of the Senate chamber on Monday morning, open to the public, to get their bearings. Each of the seven managers will have their own role in the proceedings. Both sides on Sunday stuck to familiar positions, reflecting legal filings made on Saturday. For Democrats, Trump is a "threat to the nation and the rule of law." For Republicans, Democrats are staging a "brazen and unlawful" attempt to overturn the 2016 election. Alan Dershowitz, a member of Donald Trump's legal team, said earlier he sees no grounds for the impeachment of the president. "If the allegations are not impeachable, then this trial should result in an acquittal, regardless of whether the conduct is regarded as OK by you or by me or by voters," Dershowitz said on ABC's "This Week." "That's an issue for the voters." 'I'm the Kicker' Dershowitz, a constitutional law expert whose clients have included accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, will be part of what he characterized Sunday as "special teams" on the Trump legal roster. "I'm the kicker, and I can kick the field goal that wins the game," Dershowitz said on CNN's "State of the Union."An initial six-page response from Trump's legal team on Saturday took aim at the House Democrats who investigated the president. "Well-founded articles of impeachment both allege that crimes were committed and those are the types of crimes that constitute an abuse of the public trust," said Robert Ray, another member of the president's legal team and former Whitewater independent counsel.Abuse of power alone has been tried in the past, "but they have not fared well," Ray said on "Sunday Morning Futures" on Fox News Channel.The process starting Tuesday will be the Senate's first impeachment trial in two decades. Democrats have called on senators to conduct a fair trial as part of the oath they took this week to "do impartial justice."Trump's legal team will be led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump's private attorney, Jay Sekulow. Other team members, including Dershowitz, expect to give discrete presentations on specific topics.Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is leading the Democrat's impeachment team with six colleagues. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected him in September after she decided to move forward with the investigation.Debate continued Sunday about the rules that will apply to the trial, including whether to call witnesses and whether Republicans will move to dismiss the case altogether."We do not know what the rules are going to be at this moment. We certainly look forward to being able to review the resolution," Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, one of the impeachment managers, said on "Fox News Sunday." No DismissalThe idea of dismissing is "dead for practical purposes," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on "Fox News Sunday." "We don't have the votes for that.""Dismissing this case is a much less attractive option than rendering final judgment and acquitting the president," Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said on "Sunday Morning Futures" on the Fox News Channel. "A dismissal doesn't reach the merits. An acquittal, a verdict of not guilty, that verdict stands for all time."Impeachment Arguments Open With Dueling Filings: Key TakeawaysThe impeachment managers, who represent the geographic and demographic diversity within the Democratic Party, walked the articles of impeachment across the Capitol to the Senate chamber last week, kicking off the symbolic start to the Senate process.The managers, effectively serving as prosecutors, will spend the first days of the trial outlining the articles to the senators, who'll be required to be present in the chamber. The trial, slated to begin at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, is expected to last for weeks.Only a few Republican senators have been open to the idea of calling witnesses, which Graham opposes. "What they're doing here is, they've got a railroad job in the House and they're trying to fix it in the Senate, and I'm not going to be part of that," he said.Cruz also said that it witnesses are called, the trial could extend from a potential one to two weeks to six or eight weeks or longer.Open Mind"If the Senate decides, if Senator McConnell prevails and there are no witnesses, it will be the first impeachment trial in history that goes to conclusion without witnesses," Schiff said on ABC. Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, also on ABC, said he was keeping an open mind on the need for witnesses."What we do this week and what we hear and what are the facts that we hear will probably meet the test and determine whether we get additional witnesses that will help us make a relevant and a fair decision," Shelby said.Senator David Perdue, a Georgia Republican, also is open to calling witnesses, but "only within the scope" of the impeachment articles, he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."Some Senate Republicans have called for former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter to be deposed if former National Security Adviser John Bolton testifies, as Democrats want. \--With assistance from Billy House.To contact the reporters on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net;Laura Davison in Washington at ldavison4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Double trouble: Sri Lanka's twin gathering marred by overcrowding Posted: 20 Jan 2020 07:19 PM PST  Thousands of twins packed two-by-two into a stadium in Sri Lanka's capital on Monday - so many that officials struggled to count them in time to prove they had organised a record-breaking gathering. Huge queues built up at the open-air venue in Colombo as sets of siblings waited to get their birth certificates checked. The last record was set in Taiwan in 1999, when 3,961 sets of twins, 37 sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets gathered outside Taipei City Hall.
|
| S. Korea naval unit to expand operations to Strait of Hormuz Posted: 20 Jan 2020 10:52 PM PST  A South Korean anti-piracy unit has temporarily expanded its mission to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil route at the center of soaring tensions between Iran and the United States. South Korea's Defense Ministry announced the expansion Tuesday, saying it was meant to help ensure the safe passage of South Korean vessels and nationals through the waterway. South Korea has conducted anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden since 2009 and is expanding to the strait that connects the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf.
|
| Puerto Ricans discovered a warehouse full of unused food, water, and supplies from Hurricane Maria, resulting in the firing of the island's emergency manager Posted: 19 Jan 2020 02:28 PM PST  The supplies, including food, water, cots, and diapers from 2017's Hurricane Maria, were discovered Saturday following earthquakes in Puerto Rico.
|
| China confirmed that the deadly Wuhan virus sweeping the country can spread from human to human, increasing the risk of an epidemic Posted: 20 Jan 2020 12:48 PM PST  The spread could accelerate as hundreds of millions of people travel home for Lunar New Year this week.
|
| Signs of life at 'no-man's land' around Philippine volcano Posted: 20 Jan 2020 11:48 PM PST  A desolate landscape of ash dunes and bare trees left by the eruption of the Philippines' Taal volcano lay in contrast with a few signs of life at ground zero of the disaster on Tuesday. The island site was buried by massive deposits of ash when Taal erupted last week and remains under a mandatory evacuation order due to a feared bigger blast. Authorities have said any outward signs of an imminent eruption have been weak over the past several days.
|
| Twisted Christians Sentenced a Man to 12 Years in Prison Over a Cell Phone Charge in Mississippi Posted: 20 Jan 2020 01:42 AM PST  Brian K. Burns was sworn in as a Mississippi Circuit Court judge in early January, one of the last appointments made by outgoing hardline Republican Governor Phil Bryant. Before becoming a judge, Burns had prosecuted just 11 cases in the entirety of his legal career, leading fellow attorneys from his district to register "grave concerns about Burns's lack of trial experience," according to his hometown newspaper. In one of those cases, he'd succeeded in sending an African-American man to jail for 12 years merely for possessing a cellphone in a local jail—a sentence so extreme that Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Leslie King wrote that it "seems to demonstrate a failure of our criminal justice system on multiple levels." The defendant, Willie Nash, is a 39-year-old father of three currently serving his decade-plus sentence in one of Mississippi's worst prisons. By any reasonable reading of the trial court record, Nash's real crime seems to have been a lack of detailed knowledge about Mississippi's lengthy list of codes and statutes. While in the custody of the Newton County jail after a misdemeanor arrest in August 2017, Nash asked a guard to charge his cellphone. The officer's testimony later affirmed that Nash handed over his smartphone "voluntarily," as if he "wasn't trying to hide anything," and even "said thank you"—unlikely behavior for someone knowingly committing a felony—before also providing his phone's passcode. Officers later discovered, according to court records, that Nash's last outgoing text had been to his wife, informing her that he was "in jail." Nash was then charged with violating a law prohibiting possession of any "unauthorized electronic device, cell phone or any of its components or accessories" in correctional facilities, a statute that carries a penalty of three to 15 years.The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the 2018 decision last week, noting that while the lower court's sentence against Nash's is "obviously harsh," it still "falls within the statutory range." Presiding Justice King wrote a special concurring opinion "to voice [his] concern over this case as a whole." In it, the jurist notes that "Nash's behavior was that of a person who did not know" he was not supposed to have the phone, "as he voluntarily showed the officer his phone and asked the officer to charge it for him." He goes on to point out that it is likely the jail's "booking procedure was not followed"—Nash's intake officer was never called to testify—which explains how Nash entered the jail with a "large smartphone that would have likely been impossible to hide during a strip search." The jurist responds to the lower court's citation of Nash's two previous burglary convictions by noting that Nash had remained out of trouble for a decade after he'd served seven years for the most recent conviction in 2001, which "evinces a change in behavior." While King makes clear he agrees with the state Supreme Court's decision establishing the legality of Nash's sentence, his opinion questions the morality of Judge Mark Sheldon Duncan harsh sentence and prosecutor Burns's pursuit of it. "[Nash] has a wife and three children who depend on him," King writes. "Combining this fact with the seemingly innocuous, victimless nature of his crime, it seems it would have been prudent for the prosecutor to exercise prosecutorial discretion and decline to prosecute or to seek a plea deal. In that same vein, it would have been prudent for the judge to use his judicial discretion in sentencing to sentence Nash to a lesser sentence than that of twelve years. Cases like Nash's are exactly why prosecutors and judges are given wide discretion."That's not how prosecutors and judges in Mississippi have used that discretion.A Justice Department report ranks the state's incarceration rate as the third highest in the country, after Louisiana and Oklahoma. Even as the national prison population has been on the decline, the number of people imprisoned in Mississippi has increased over the last five years, and currently stands at roughly 19,000. One reason for that rise may be the number of former prosecutors who then ascend to Mississippi's bench—from which they continue to prosecute. Like Burns, Nash's sentencing judge, Mark Duncan, is a former prosecutor, who served as District Attorney for Mississippi's Eighth District for nearly 15 years. Additionally, while 38 percent of Mississippi's population is black—the largest share of any state—its prosecutors and judges are white and male, as in the rest of the country. Today, the state that lynched the most African-Americans now locks up its black citizens. According to a 2018 ACLU report, 1 in 30 black men in Mississippi is in jail, while a 2019 report from FWD.us finds that "1 in 7 black Mississippians has a felony conviction." "This is a guy who has no history of violence," said Robert McDuff, director of the Mississippi Center for Justice's Impact Litigation Project. "His only prior criminal convictions were burglary convictions that were nearly 20 years old or older. I mean this guy's obviously not a career criminal. He was in jail on a misdemeanor charge when this cellphone was found…. So, yeah, clearly he's not a violent person—he's not a danger if he's on the streets. It's just ridiculous to be sentencing him to 12 years in prison,". McDuff was also a defense lawyer for Curtis Flowers, a black Mississippi man who has been prosecuted six times for the same crime by Doug Evans, a white district attorney. In December, after 23 years in prison, Flowers's most recent conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that Evans and his team had undertaken a "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals.""In Mississippi we are facing a crisis of overcrowding in the prisons," McDuff told me. "There are not enough guards to supervise the prisoners. This recently has broken out in violence, in chaos, and conditions that are unsafe both for prisoners and for staff. And a large part of the reason for this is because the judges are sending nonviolent people like Mr. Nash to prison when they just don't need to be there."Nash has been imprisoned since December 2019 in the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, which ProPublica described in a 2019 report as "a violent tinderbox." One inmate set another on fire last August, leaving him with second-degree burns. Another inmate described a separate incident in which prisoners begged guards to stop a fight that ultimately ended in the death of an inmate. "We had beat on the cell doors for hours, trying to summon help… all the officer in the tower would do is yell over the P.A. speaker for us to 'shut the hell up.'" The report went on to describe a place where danger is a constant threat, as "the prison struggles to meet the fundamental duties of a correctional facility, with surging violence and, now, a lockdown barring visits entering its seventh month. Rather than counting inmates, as required, some guards are reportedly falsifying those counts, an internal prison memo says. The state has sharply cut its spending on prisons over the last few years. Along the way, the number of guards at the three state-run prisons has plummeted, from 905 in July 2017 to 627 two years later, even as the number of inmates has remained the same. Vacancies abound, largely because the pay is so low. South Mississippi Correctional Institution, known as SMCI, now has an inmate-to-correctional officer ratio of 23 to 1, far higher than that of other states or the federal prison system."On January 3, Burns was officially sworn in as a judge for Mississippi's Eighth Judicial District. The new judge told a local news outlet that in his new job, he planned to rely on one idea above all others. "Prayer," Burns said. "Lean on the lord. Cast all your burdens upon him. Pray, pray, pray. He will provide the answer."It was Duncan—the sentencing judge who told Nash he should "consider himself fortunate" he'd only been sentenced to 12 years, given his long-ago non-violent convictions—who administered the oath to Burns, Nash's zealous prosecutor. At the ceremony, Duncan deemed Burns a "highly intelligent, sharp lawyer" who will make an "outstanding circuit judge." Duncan said that he and Burns had spoken about their shared Christian faith, and how God had "put us there to use the gifts he has given us to administer to those who are around us. Brian and I talked and he agreed with that assessment. He told me he trusted God to put him wherever he was supposed to be." The judge added, "We've enjoyed a lot of great conversations about golf and time on the golf course as well. Golfers will tell you that you can find out a lot about a person on the golf course. Golf has a way of exposing a person's true character. As much as legal skills are required to do the job of judge, a person's character may be even more important." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment