Joe Biden called on Americans to overcome divisions as he was sworn into office on Wednesday as the 46th President of the United States. Biden inherits a confluence of crises and his inauguration comes at a time of national tumult and uncertainty, two weeks after rioters opposing his election stormed the US Capitol.

At 78, Biden becomes the oldest president in US history while Harris becomes the first female vice president, the first Black woman and the first Asian-American to hold the office.

More than 25,000 National Guard troops from across the country have been deployed to the US capital, supporting federal and district agencies, for the inauguration.

The FBI has assisted the Defence Department in vetting National Guard troops deployed in Washington DC amid fears of an insider attack following the January 6 storming of the US Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump.

Trump was not present for the swearing-in. However, former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton attended with their wives, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to some restrictions. However, a number of leading performing artists, including Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Tom Hanks took the stage during the ceremony.

Source: FRANCE 24

President-elect Joe Biden made a sober entrance to the nation’s capital Tuesday, ready to assume power as America reels from the coronavirus pandemic, soaring unemployment and grave concerns about more violence as he prepares to take the oath of office.

Biden, an avid fan of Amtrak, had planned to take a train into Washington ahead of Wednesday’s Inauguration Day, but scratched that plan in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

He instead flew into a military airbase just outside the capital on Tuesday afternoon and then motorcaded into fortress D.C. — a city that’s been flooded by some 25,000 National Guard troops guarding a Capitol, White House and National Mall that are wrapped in a maze of barricades and tall fencing.

Shortly before Biden departed for Washington, the U.S. reached another grim milestone in the pandemic, surpassing 400,000 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

“These are dark times,” Biden told dozens of supporters in an emotional sendoff in Delaware before departing for Washington. “But there’s always light.”

Biden, who ran for the presidency as a cool head who could get things done, plans to issue a series of executive orders on Day One — including reversing President Donald Trump’s effort to leave the Paris climate accord, canceling his travel ban on visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries, and extending pandemic-era limits on evictions and student loan payments.

Trump won’t attend Biden’s inauguration, the first outgoing president to skip the ceremony since Andrew Johnson more than a century and a half ago. The White House released a farewell video from Trump just as Biden landed at Joint Base Andrews. Trump, who has repeatedly and falsely claimed widespread fraud led to his election loss, extended “best wishes” to the incoming administration in his nearly 20-minute address but did not utter Biden’s name.

Trump also spent some of his last time in the White House huddled with advisers weighing final-hour pardons and grants of clemency.

Trump plans to depart from Washington Wednesday morning in a grand airbase ceremony that he helped plan himself.

Source: France 24

The world is falling short of promises made under the Paris climate deal to help the most vulnerable nations deal with the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change, according to the United Nations.

Adaptation — reducing the fallout among communities and increasing their capacity to deal with climate-related disasters such as floods and drought — is a pillar of the landmark 2015 accord, which aims to chart a path away from catastrophic warming.

The deal requires signatories to implement adaptation measures through national planning, but also through funding to at-risk countries.

The UN Environment Programme Adaptation Gap report found that the current finance levels of around $30 billion annually for adaptation fell far short of the annual cost in developing nations of $70 billion.

It said the true cost of adapting to climate impacts in these nations could be as high as $300 billion every year by the end of the decade and $500 billion by mid-century.

“The hard truth is that climate change is upon us,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director.

“Its impacts will intensify and hit vulnerable countries and communities the hardest — even if we meet the Paris Agreement goals of holding global warming this century to well below 2C.”

UNEP called for a drastic scale-up of public and private finance for adaptation, as well as increased investment in nature-based solutions such as protecting and sustainably restoring ecosystems.

– Limit losses –

With just over 1C of warming since the start of the industrial era, Earth is already experiencing more intense and frequent extreme weather such as droughts and flooding, as well as storms supercharged by rising seas.

Much of the devastation wrought by climate-linked disasters falls on developing nations, and despite promises to help out financially, richer countries still aren’t hitting their adaptation funding targets.

UNEP said funding for adaptation currently represented just five percent of all climate finance.

With the cost of natural disasters set to skyrocket this century, hard-hit nations are finding it difficult to secure the finance to rebuild after extreme events.

Mozambique, which was battered by twin cyclones in early 2019, said that one year since the disasters it had received less than a quarter of the estimated $3 billion it needed to recover.

The UN report found that cutting greenhouse gas emissions will provide a long-term economic benefit by reducing the costs associated with climate change.

Achieving the 2C Paris Agreement temperature rise limit could curb losses in annual growth to 1.6 percent, compared with 2.2 percent for 3C of warming — the current trajectory if nations’ current Paris pledges are upheld.

Under the deal’s “ratchet” mechanism, countries are supposed to file new emissions reduction plans — known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs — every five years.

The deadline for the first round of new NDC submissions was December 31, 2020. However just 71 countries representing under a third of global emissions have done so.

UNEP says global emissions must fall 7.6 percent annually this decade to keep the more ambitious Paris temperature target of 1.5C in play.

Source: AFP

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards test-fired ballistic missiles against targets in the Indian Ocean as they wrapped up a two-day exercise, their official website reported Saturday.

The missiles of “various classes” targeted “the enemy’s battleships and destroyed them from 1,800 kilometres (1,125 miles) away,” according to the Sepahnews website.

The missiles were fired from central Iran with the targets located in the “northern Indian Ocean,” the Guards said.

A video released by state television showed two missiles being launched and targets being hit at sea.

Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri was present on the second day of the drill, alongside Guards chief Major General Hossein Salami and aerospace commander Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh.

Using “long-range missiles for maritime targets indicates that if the enemies … show any ill will towards our national interests, maritime trade routes or territory, they will be targeted and destroyed by our missiles,” Sepahnews quoted Bagheri as saying.

“We do not intend to carry out any attack,” he said, adding that the exercise showed Iran’s readiness to defend itself “with all its strength” against any aggressor.

Dubbed Great Prophet 15, the exercise also featured a drone attack on a missile defence system followed by the launch of a barrage of “new generation” surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.

The war games come at a time of rising tensions with the United States in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration.

It was Iran’s third military exercise in less than two weeks after a naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday and Thursday, and an army drone drill on January 5-6.

The exercises started two days after Iran marked the anniversary of the assassination of revered Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in January last year.

Source: AFP

President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan Thursday to end “a crisis of deep human suffering” by speeding up vaccines and pumping out financial help to those struggling with the pandemic’s prolonged economic fallout.

Called the “American Rescue Plan,” the legislative proposal would meet Biden’s goal of administering 100 million vaccines by the 100th day of his administration, and advance his objective of reopening most schools by the spring. On a parallel track, it delivers another round of aid to stabilize the economy while the public health effort seeks the upper hand on the pandemic.

“We not only have an economic imperative to act now — I believe we have a moral obligation,” Biden said in a nationwide address. At the same time, he acknowledged that his plan “does not come cheaply.”

Biden proposed $1,400 checks for most Americans, which on top of $600 provided in the most recent COVID-19 bill would bring the total to the $2,000 that Biden has called for. It would also extend a temporary boost in unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures through September.

And it shoehorns in long-term Democratic policy aims such as increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expanding paid leave for workers, and increasing tax credits for families with children. The last item would make it easier for women to go back to work, which in turn would help the economy recover.

The political outlook for the legislation remained unclear. In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer praised Biden for including liberal priorities, saying they would move quickly to pass it after Biden takes office next Wednesday. But Democrats have narrow margins in both chambers of Congress, and Republicans will push back on issues that range from increasing the minimum wage to providing more money for states, while demanding inclusion of their priorities, such as liability protection for businesses.

“Remember that a bipartisan $900 billion #COVID19 relief bill became law just 18 days ago,” tweeted Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. But Biden says that was only a down payment, and he promised more major legislation next month, focused on rebuilding the economy.

“The crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight, and there’s not time to waste,” Biden said. “We have to act and we have to act now.”

Still, he sought to manage expectations. “We’re better equipped to do this than any nation in the world,” he said. “But even with all these small steps, it’s going to take time.”

His relief bill would be paid for with borrowed money, adding to trillions in debt the government has already incurred to confront the pandemic. Aides said Biden will make the case that the additional spending and borrowing is necessary to prevent the economy from sliding into an even deeper hole. Interest rates are low, making debt more manageable.

Biden has long held that economic recovery is inextricably linked with controlling the coronavirus.

That squares with the judgment of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful business lobbying group and traditionally an adversary of Democrats. “We must defeat COVID before we can restore our economy and that requires turbocharging our vaccination efforts,” the Chamber said in a statement Thursday night that welcomed Biden’s plan but stopped short of endorsing it.

The plan comes as a divided nation is in the grip of the pandemic’s most dangerous wave yet. So far, more than 385,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. And government numbers out Thursday reported a jump in weekly unemployment claims, to 965,000, a sign that rising infections are forcing businesses to cut back and lay off workers.

Under Biden’s multipronged strategy, about $400 billion would go directly to combating the pandemic, while the rest is focused on economic relief and aid to states and localities.

About $20 billion would be allocated for a more disciplined focus on vaccination, on top of some $8 billion already approved by Congress. Biden has called for setting up mass vaccination centers and sending mobile units to hard-to-reach areas.

With the backing of Congress and the expertise of private and government scientists, the Trump administration delivered two highly effective vaccines and more are on the way. Yet a month after the first shots were given, the nation’s vaccination campaign is off to a slow start with about 11 million people getting the first of two shots, although more than 30 million doses have been delivered.

Biden called the vaccine rollout “a dismal failure so far” and said he would provide more details about his vaccination campaign on Friday.

The plan also provides $50 billion to expand testing, which is seen as key to reopening most schools by the end of the new administration’s first 100 days. About $130 billion would be allocated to help schools reopen without risking further contagion.

The plan would fund the hiring of 100,000 public health workers, to focus on encouraging people to get vaccinated and on tracing the contacts of those infected with the coronavirus.

There’s also a proposal to boost investment in genetic sequencing, to help track new virus strains including the more contagious variants identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa.

Throughout the plan, there’s a focus on ensuring that minority communities that have borne the brunt of the pandemic are not shortchanged on vaccines and treatments, aides said.

With the new proposals comes a call to redouble efforts on the basics.

Biden is asking Americans to override their sense of pandemic fatigue and recommit to wearing masks, practicing social distancing and avoiding indoor gatherings, particularly larger ones. It’s still the surest way to slow the COVID-19 wave, with more than 4,400 deaths reported just on Tuesday.

Biden’s biggest challenge will be to “win the hearts and minds of the American people to follow his lead,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a public health expert and emergency physician.

The pace of vaccination in the U.S. is approaching 1 million shots a day, but 1.8 million a day would be needed to reach widespread or “herd” immunity by the summer, according to a recent estimate by the American Hospital Association. Wen says the pace should be even higher — closer to 3 million a day.

Biden believes the key to speeding that up lies not only in delivering more vaccine but also in working closely with states and local communities to get shots into the arms of more people. The Trump administration provided the vaccine to states and set guidelines for who should get priority for shots, but largely left it up to state and local officials to organize their vaccination campaigns.

It’s still unclear how the new administration will address the issue of vaccine hesitancy, the doubts and suspicions that keep many people from getting a shot. Polls show it’s particularly a problem among Black Americans.

“We will have to move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated,” Biden said.

Next Wednesday, when Biden is sworn in as president, marks the anniversary of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States.

(AP)

Indonesian investigators have successfully recovered data from a crashed passenger jet’s flight recorder, days after the plane with 62 people aboard slammed into the sea, they said Friday.

“(It’s) all in good condition and we’re now examining the data,” National Transportation Safety Committee head Soerjanto Tjahjono said in a statement.

The recorder, which holds information about the speed, altitude and direction of the plane, could supply critical clues as to why the aircraft plunged about 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) in less than a minute before crashing into waters off Jakarta on Saturday.

A rescue party near the capital’s coast has worked for days to salvage human remains and wreckage from the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500, as well as two flight recorders.

More than 3,000 people are taking part in the recovery effort, assisted by dozens of boats and helicopters.

Divers on Tuesday hauled the data recorder to the surface, with the hunt now focused on finding a cockpit voice recorder on the wreckage-littered seabed.

Safety concerns

The 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after setting off from Jakarta, bound for Pontianak city on Borneo island, a 90-minute flight away.

Authorities said the crew did not declare an emergency or report technical problems with the plane before its dive, and that it was probably intact when it hit the water — citing a relatively small area where the wreckage was scattered.

The crash probe was likely to take months, but a preliminary report was expected in 30 days.

Indonesia’s fast-growing aviation sector has long been plagued by safety concerns, and its airlines were once banned from US and European airspace.

In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet crashed near Jakarta.

That accident led to the grounding of the 737 MAX worldwide over a faulty anti-stall system.

The 737 that went down Saturday was first produced decades ago and was not a MAX variant.

(AFP)

New York City will sever three contracts with the Trump Organization, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday, accusing President Donald Trump of inciting the crowds that stormed the US Capitol last week.

“The president incited a rebellion against the United States government that killed five people and threatened to derail the constitutional transfer of power,” de Blasio said in a statement. “The city of New York will not be associated with those unforgivable acts in any shape, way or form.”

On Jan. 6, Trump addressed thousands of supporters, reiterating his unsupported claim that his re-election was stolen. He urged them to march to the Capitol where Congress was affirming Joe Biden’s election by the Electoral College.

The crowd quickly overwhelmed Capitol security, with many of them entering the building and forcing a halt to the proceedings as lawmakers took cover in a secure location. Five people died as a result of the rampage.

A criminal investigation is underway and charges have been filed against dozens of people suspected of having taken part.

The New York-based Trump Organization’s contracts to operate a carousel in Manhattan’s Central Park, skating rinks and a golf course in the Bronx are worth about $17 million a year, de Blasio said on MSNBC.

Cancelling the golf course contracts could take “a number of months”, while the others could be severed in 25-30 days, the mayor’s office said in a statement.

Following the Capitol riot, the PGA of America and the R&A both announced they would shun two golf courses owned by the president.

In addition, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that Deutsche Bank DBKGn.DE will not do business in the future with Trump or his companies.

(REUTERS)

Google-owned YouTube on Tuesday temporarily suspended President Donald Trump’s channel and removed a video for violating its policy against inciting violence.

“In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies,” YouTube said in a statement.

The channel is now “temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a ‘minimum’ of 7 days,” the statement read.

Facebook last week suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following the violent invasion of the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters, which temporarily disrupted the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory.

Twitter went a step further by deleting Trump’s account, depriving him of his favorite platform.

Trump also was hit with suspensions by services like Snapchat and Twitch.

Source: AFP

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told his staff on Monday he was stepping down, the agency said, a move that comes as his department coordinates security for the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration and after a deadly mob attack on the U.S. Capitol last week.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press office said Wolf would leave his post at 11:59 p.m. on Monday.

Pete Gaynor, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will take over as acting secretary, the office said.

In an email to DHS employees on Monday, Wolf said his departure was due to court rulings related to his eligibility for the position.

“I am saddened to take this step, as it was my intention to serve the department until the end of this administration,” Wolf wrote.

The White House declined to comment.

Representative Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said the motive behind Wolf’s resignation was “questionable” since a federal judge ruled two months ago that Wolf was unlawfully appointed.

The U.S. Secret Service, which is part of DHS, is the lead agency handling security around President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

That effort is being closely watched after supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol last Wednesday in an assault that led to five deaths, dozens of injuries among law enforcement and the ransacking of lawmakers’ offices.

Wolf said earlier on Monday that due to the “evolving security landscape,” the Secret Service would begin its inauguration security operations on Wednesday instead of Jan. 19.

The FBI has warned of armed protests being planned for Washington and all 50 U.S. state capitals ahead of Biden’s inauguration, according to a federal law enforcement source.

A senior DHS official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the change in leadership would not diminish security for the inauguration.

Some high-level Trump administration officials have resigned in the aftermath of the Capitol incident, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

(REUTERS)

A new poll has shown that a majority of Americans want outgoing US President Donald Trump removed from office immediately.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the US Capitol violence incited by Trump, fifty-seven percent of Americans want the Republican president to be immediately removed.

Trump, who encouraged a protest this week in Washington, DC that escalated into a deadly riot inside the US Capitol, ends his tern of January 20.

However, the majority of Americans who took part in the poll said they wanted Trump to leave office immediately.

Thirty percent of those interviewed said Trump should be removed using provisions in the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution, which allows the Vice President and Cabinet to remove the president if he is unfit to carry out his duties.

Another 27 percent said lawmakers should either impeach and remove Trump from office, or pressure him to simply resign.

Trump, who lost the 2020 US presidential election to Democrat President-elect Joe Biden by about seven million votes, called on his supporters on Wednesday to march on Congress, telling them at a rally that “you will never take back our country with weakness.”

About one-tenth of those participating in the poll  said they supported the the rioters and regarded them  as “concerned citizens”.

A very small minority, five percent, called the rioters “patriots.”

However, the vast majority, seventy-nine percent, which included both Republicans and Trump voters, described the January 6 rioters as either “criminals” or “fools.”

Seven out of 10 of the participants who had voted for Trump on November 3 were opposed to Trump’s actions in the run-up to Wednesday’s assault on on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

The national public opinion poll was conducted on Thursday and Friday online throughout the United States and gathered responses from 1,005 American adults, including 339 who said they voted for Trump. The results have a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 4 percentage points.

The riot, in which a police officer and four others died, has been widely condemned by both US and world leaders.

Mounting pressure on Trump

Lawmakers in both chambers and from both parties vowed on Thursday to find out how those responsible for Capitol security had allowed a violent mob to infiltrate the Capitol.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives announced a “robust” investigation into the law enforcement breakdown while introducing misconduct charges against Trump.

Two sources familiar with the matter said House Democrats could introduce misconduct charges leading to a second impeachment of Trump.

A growing number of lawmakers have expressed support for immediately stripping Trump of his powers.

Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and the first Republican lawmaker to call for invoking the 25th Amendment after the riot.

Trump had “abdicated his duty to protect the American people” by inciting an “insurrection,” he insisted.

“The president has become unmoored, not just from his duty, or even his oath, but from reality itself,” Kinzinger added. “It is time to invoke the 25th Amendment and end this nightmare.”

Gov. Larry Hogan, Republican of Maryland said, “I think there’s no question that America would be better off if the president would resign or be removed from office.”

Representative Steve Stivers, Republican of Ohio, said that he also supported stripping Trump of his powers.

“The cabinet decides on the 25th Amendment, and if the cabinet decided to do that, I would not oppose it,” Stivers, a former chairman of the House Republican campaign arm, said.

“If the President does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi threatened to pursue impeachment if the Trump cabinet did not invoke the 25th Amendment to strip the president of his powers.

One, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, said he supported the invocation of the 25th Amendment; another, Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, said he “would not oppose” the move if cabinet members decided to proceed.

Vice President Mike Pence — who would have to lead that process — was said to oppose invoking the 25th Amendment.

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal editorial board urged Trump to resign to avoid a second impeachment.

The WSJ editorial board excoriated Trump for “an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election” and said “this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure.”

“If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign,” the Journal wrote, concluding, “It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.”

John F. Kelly, a former chief of staff to President Trump who has criticized him on several occasions since leaving his post two years ago, said on Thursday that if he were still in the cabinet, he would vote to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare that Trump was “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

“I don’t think it’ll happen, but I think the cabinet should meet and discuss this, because the behavior yesterday and the weeks and months before that has just been outrageous from the president,” Kelly said on CNN. “And what happened on Capitol Hill yesterday is a direct result of his poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the frauds.”

Former Attorney General William P. Barr said Thursday that President Trump betrayed his office by encouraging a mob of supporters to intimidate Congress into overturning the election results by storming the Capitol.

Trump’s conduct betrayed “his office and supporters” and that “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable,” said Barr.

Joe Biden calls Trump “unfit”

Biden said on Friday that Trump wasn’t “fit for the job” of US President.

However, Biden refused to endorse growing calls by lawmakers to impeach Trump for a second time.

Addressing reporters in his home state of Delaware after an event introducing some of his Cabinet choices, Biden noted that a key reason he ran for president was because he’d “thought for a long, long time that President Trump wasn’t fit for the job.”

“I’ve been saying for now, well, over a year, he’s not fit to serve,” Biden said. “He’s one of the most incompetent presidents in the history of the United States of America.”

But he refused to back efforts to remove Trump from office now and said he was focused on the start of his own administration on Jan. 20.

Biden suggested that a key hurdle to removing Trump was that he has less than two weeks remaining in his term.

“If we were six months out, we should be doing everything to get him out of office. Impeaching him again, trying to evoke the 25th Amendment, whatever it took,” Biden said.

“But I am focused now on us taking control as president and vice president on the 20th and to get our agenda moving as quickly as we can,” he pointed out.

He said his top three priorities were beating back the coronavirus, distributing vaccines fairly and equitably and reviving the struggling economy.

Biden, nonetheless, admitted that Trump had “exceeded my worst notions about him. He’s been an embarrassment” and likened the “damage done to our reputation around the world.”

COVID kills more than 4,000 Americans in single day

The US set yet another record for the number of fatalities from the coronavirus-borne illness COVID-19 and recorded the highest number of new cases since the start of the outbreak, with the latest numbers exceeding even the worst case scenario forecasts of health experts.

More than 4,000 Americans died of COVID-19 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, and at least 280,292 new cases were recorded.

In the past week, the country has averaged 237,635 cases a day.

The US continues to lead the world by cases, at 21.7 million, or more than double the next worst tally, followed by India with 10.4 million, and by deaths, at 366,664, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. With 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for about 20% of reported fatalities.

Source: Presstv