U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson secured the support of two more Senate Republicans on Monday, as she cleared a procedural hurdle toward becoming the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s top judicial body.

Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney joined Susan Collins in saying they would vote to confirm Jackson, 51, to a lifetime seat on the court later this week. They also supported a procedural 53-47 vote to bring her nomination to the Senate floor after the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked 11-11 along party lines on whether to advance the nomination.

Murkowski and Romney, who do not serve on the Judiciary Committee, announced their backing of Jackson as the Senate began voting to “discharge” the nomination from the panel, propelling it to the full Senate.

Their endorsement came after Collins last week became the first Republican senator to announce her support for Jackson.

Jackson is expected to win the backing of all 48 Democrats and two independents, giving her a majority of support in the 100-member chamber.

Her confirmation would not change the court’s current 6-3 conservative majority, as she would fill the seat of liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring.

“After multiple in-depth conversations with Judge Jackson and deliberative review of her record and recent hearings, I will support her historic nomination to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court,” Murkowski said in a statement.

The three Republicans voiced concern over the increasing partisanship of the Supreme Court confirmation process.

“While I do not expect to agree with every decision she may make on the Court, I believe that she more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity,” Romney said.

Earlier, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said he will “set in motion” the process that will lead to a final Senate vote later this week to confirm Jackson, a federal appellate court judge, to the lifetime post.

The committee vote followed confirmation hearings last month that again exposed a stark partisan divide toward Supreme Court nominees. Democrats praised Jackson’s qualifications and record while hailing the history-making aspect of her nomination. Republicans often pursued hostile lines of questioning and tried to paint Jackson as a dangerous liberal activist.

Three prior confirmations

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, noted on Monday that the panel had voted to confirm Jackson to three previous posts, and he lamented what he called baseless attacks by some Republicans.

“They repeatedly interrupted and badgered Judge Jackson and accused her of vile things in front of her parents, her husband and her children. There was table-pounding – some literal – from a few of my colleagues. They repeated discredited claims about Judge Jackson’s character,” Durbin said.

Several Republican senators accused her of being lenient on child pornography offenders during her time as a federal trial court judge. Jackson defended her record, saying she did her “duty to hold the defendants accountable.” Sentencing experts called the penalties she imposed within the mainstream among federal judges, while American Bar Association witnesses rejected claims that Jackson was “soft on crime.”

During her confirmation hearings, Jackson pledged independence if confirmed and embraced a limited role for jurists. She also reflected on opportunities she has had that her parents, who grew up in an era of racial segregation in the South, did not.

Senator Lindsay Graham, the committee’s sole Republican to vote to confirm Jackson last June for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, helped seal the committee’s deadlock by deciding to vote no this time.

A final confirmation vote on Jackson was expected for Thursday or Friday.

Source: REUTERS

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday renewed his plea for talks with his Russian counterpart, taking to US television to say negotiations were the only way to “end this war.”

He stressed that he and President Vladimir Putin were the only principles able to thrash out a deal to stop the fighting, now in its fourth week.

But he signaled he would lay down red lines against ceding Ukrainian territory, including two pro-Moscow breakaway regions.

“I’m ready for negotiations with him,” Zelensky told CNN show “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

“I think without negotiations we cannot end this war,” the Ukrainian leader said through a translator.

The reiteration of Zelensky’s call for peace talks came as he and other Ukrainians accused Russia of committing war crimes after authorities said the invading forces had bombed a school sheltering some 400 people in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us,” said Zelensky.

The leader, who has emerged as a national hero for his very public stance against Putin and his forces, has spoken of Ukrainians’ fierce resistance to the invasion and told Russia that several thousand of its soldiers have died in battle so far.

“If there is just one percent chance for us to stop this war, I think that we need to take this chance… to have the possibility of negotiating, the possibility of talking to Putin,” he said.

“Dialogue is the only way out,” and “I think it’s just the two of us, me and Putin, who can make an agreement on this,” Zelensky said.

“If these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third world war.” Zelensky repeatedly has warned of the potential for the Russia-Ukraine conflict to mushroom into an all-out global war.

Last month, in a move seen as precipitating the conflict, Putin recognized two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk, as independent entities, and debate has simmered about whether Zelensky might concede the regions as a way to bring the war to a close.

But on Sunday Zelensky stood defiant: “You cannot just demand from Ukraine to recognize some territories as independent republics,” he told CNN.

“These compromises are simply wrong,” he added. “We have to come up with a model where Ukraine will not lose its sovereignty, it’s territorial integrity.”

The crisis in Ukraine, in which Putin has sought to eradicate pro-Western leanings in the ex-Soviet state, has already triggered the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

Source:  AFP

China says it does not want to get caught up in the diplomatic and economic blowback Russia is facing from Western nations over its invasion of Ukraine.

State media said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed his government’s wishes during a lengthy phone conversation Monday with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.

According to a transcript of the phone call published Monday by the Chinese foreign ministry, Wang told Albares that Beijing is “not a party to the crisis” and does not want to be “affected” by the mounting economic sanctions imposed on Moscow over the nearly 3-week-old invasion.

The conversation took place as U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and officials from the National Security Council and State Department met in Rome with China’s top foreign policy adviser, Yang Jiechi. The Biden administration has warned that Beijing would face severe “consequences” if it helps Moscow avoid sanctions.

Media reports emerged Sunday that Moscow has requested military and economic assistance from China for its war in Ukraine.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian Tuesday repeated an accusation leveled by Beijing that the United States is spreading “disinformation” over reports that China has responded positively to Moscow’s request.

Zhao calls the reports “not only unprofessional, but also immoral and irresponsible.”

He told reporters China’s position is “completely objective, impartial and constructive.”

State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday that the United States is watching very closely the extent to which China, or any other country, provides any form of support to Russia.

“We have communicated very clearly to Beijing that we won’t stand by, we will not allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses,” he said.

CNN reported late Monday that the United States told European and Asian allies in a diplomatic cable that China had indicated a willingness to help Russia in the war against Ukraine. CNN said the cable did not state definitively that assistance had been provided and that it warned that China would likely deny any such offer.

Chinese arms sales to Russia would have “a devastating impact on the U.S.-China relationship, because it would clearly align the Chinese with the Russians, against the United States, Europe in a war,” Robert Ross, a political science professor at Boston College, told VOA.

China is in a unique position because of its partnership agreement with Russia, according to Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. He told VOA that China has “considerably greater” leverage over Russia than even Western countries that have implemented “unprecedented sanctions” on Russia.

 “China has something that the West does not have, and that is the partnership,” with Russia, he said.

Source: VOA

Israel’s premier stepped into the role of mediator Saturday as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine intensified, holding a three-hour meeting at the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin before calling Ukraine’s president and flying to Berlin.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s sit-down with Putin was the first by foreign leader since the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine last week, and came after Kyiv had asked Israel to launch a dialogue with Moscow.

Bennett has so far walked a very cautious line on the Ukraine crisis, seeking to preserve delicate security cooperation with Russia, which has a large military presence in Israel’s northern neighbour, Syria.

Bennett has not joined Western leaders — notably key ally the United States — in forcefully condemning the invasion, instead stressing Israel’s strong relations with both Russia and Ukraine.

Ahead of his Moscow trip, Bennett had spoken by telephone repeatedly with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Bennett’s office said he left Israel for Moscow early Saturday, itself an extraordinary move for a religious Jew who does not conduct state business on the Jewish Shabbath, except in extraordinary circumstances.

Bennett and Putin met for three hours, in a visit that was coordinated with the US, Germany and France, an Israeli official said.

Bennett’s delegation included his housing minister, fluent Russian speaker Zeev Elkin, who was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin said “different aspects of the situation in Ukraine” were discussed during “the short working visit”.

After the Putin meeting, Bennett called Zelensky — who is Jewish, has family in Israel and has visited the country many times.

Bennett then headed to Germany for talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz scheduled for late Saturday.

A statement from the French presidency said Emmanuel Macron also spoke to Bennett before he left for Moscow on Saturday, as part of joint efforts to “obtain a ceasefire in Ukraine”.

Iran

While the Bennett-Putin talks were primarily focused on the fighting in Ukraine, the meeting also “touched upon the progress of the (Iran) nuclear talks in Vienna,” the Israeli official said.

Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier Saturday after talks in Tehran that they agreed on an approach to resolve issues crucial in efforts to revive the country’s 2015 nuclear deal.

Bennett is a staunch opponent of global efforts to revive the agreement which gave Iran relief from sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.

The premier has argued that Tehran will use the revenue boost from the lifting of sanctions to buy weapons that can harm Israel, while still pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, an ambition Iran denies.

Russia, which has itself been slapped with Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, said Saturday that it would seek guarantees from Washington before backing any revived agreement, complicating efforts for a rapid deal.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had requested that the US give it written guarantees that Ukraine-related sanctions “will not in any way harm our rights to free, fully-fledged trade and economic and investment cooperation, military-technical cooperation with Iran”.

There was no immediate comment on any link between the new Russian position and Bennett’s visit.

The meeting with Bennett was the first the Russian leader had scheduled since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin received Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan at the Kremlin on the day the invasion began, in a visit that was long scheduled but widely considered ill-timed.

On Monday, Khan defended the trip — the first by a Pakistani leader to Russia in more than two decades — saying it would prove beneficial in the future.

Source: AFP

Russia’s “reckless” overnight attack on a nuclear power plant in Ukraine is a dangerous escalation that “represents a dire threat to all of Europe and the world,” the US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday.

“By the grace of God, the world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council.

“Russia’s attack last night put Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at grave risk,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

“It was incredibly reckless and dangerous. And it threatened the safety of civilians across Russia, Ukraine and Europe,” she said.

“Nuclear facilities cannot become part of this conflict,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

She urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the invasion of Ukraine.

“Not only has he not listened, we’ve just witnessed a dangerous new escalation that represents a dire threat to all of Europe and the world,” Thomas-Greenfield said. 

“President Putin must stop this humanitarian catastrophe by ending this war and ceasing these unconscionable attacks against the people of Ukraine,” she said. “Mr. Putin must stop this madness, and stop it now.”

Moscow’s ambassador to the United Nations denied accusations that Russian forces had shelled Europe’s largest atomic power plant in Zaporizhzhia.

“These statements are simply untrue,” Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council. “This is all part of an unprecedented campaign of lies and disinformation against Russia.”

He said Russian troops had exchanged small arms fire with Ukrainian forces at Zaporizhzhia but had not shelled the facility in southern Ukraine.

He said the fighting occurred at a training complex “located just outside the territory of the nuclear power plant” and accused “Ukrainian saboteurs” of setting fire to the training facility.

“The operation of the nuclear power plant continues normally,” Nebenzia said. “Nothing threatens the safety of the six power units.

“There is no threat of a release of radioactive material.”

Source: AFP

Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday said US policies are to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling for an end to the war that broke out last week.

“The root cause of the Ukraine crisis is the US and the West’s policies,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech marking a Muslim religious anniversary.

“The United States regime is a crisis-creating and crisis-living one. It feeds on crisis.

“In my opinion, today Ukraine is also the victim of such policy. Today, the Ukraine situation is related to this US policy. The US has dragged Ukraine to this point,” he added.

He accused Washington of meddling in the “internal affairs of the country, setting up demonstrations against the governments, creating velvet revolutions, creating colour coup d’etats”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine last Thursday.

Ukraine says more than 350 civilians have been killed since, and that Moscow is amassing more troops for a possible assault on the capital city Kyiv.

Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran wants the “war to end”, and called for civilians’ lives and infrastructure to be spared during the conflict.

“We are against war and destruction, anywhere in the world,” Khamenei said, adding that “we are against killing people, the destruction of people’s infrastructure”.

The invasion has pushed tensions between Russia and the West to their highest point in decades.

The US, European allies and NATO members have imposed severe sanctions on Moscow and are supplying Ukraine with weapons and defence equipment.

Khamenei said that lessons should be drawn from the war, mainly that “Western powers’ support of puppet regimes and governments is a mirage, it is not real”.

Relations between the US and Iran have been severed since April 1980, a year after the fall of the pro-Western shah.

This was followed by the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran, and the seizing of hostages in a crisis that lasted for more than a year.

The two arch-rivals are currently engaged in indirect negotiations in Vienna to restore a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, from which Washington unilaterally withdrew in 2018.

Iran’s leader, who has the final say in major state policies, called the US a “mafia regime”.

“Political mafia, economic mafia, arms-producing mafia; different types of mafias that control and lead the policies of the country and actually control the country,” he said.

Source: AFP

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed in principle to a summit over Ukraine, the French leader said on Monday, offering a possible path out of one of the most dangerous European crises in decades.

The office of French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement he had pitched to both leaders a summit on “security and strategic stability in Europe”. The White House said in a statement that Biden had accepted the meeting “in principle” but only “if an invasion hasn’t happened”.

“We are always ready for diplomacy,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. “We are also ready to impose swift and severe consequences should Russia instead choose war.”

Messages seeking comment from the Kremlin and from the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were not immediately returned early on Monday.

Many details about the proposed summit – which was announced after a volley of phone calls between Macron, Biden, Putin, Zelensky and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – are not clear.

Macron’s office and the White House said the substance of the summit would be worked out by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during their meeting planned for February 24. What role Ukraine would play in the summit, if any, was also uncertain.

A Biden administration official said in an email that the summit was “completely notional” as the timing and format had yet to be determined.

Source: AFP

President Joe Biden on Thursday said he plans by the end of February to nominate a Black woman to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a historic first that he called “long overdue.”

Biden appeared with Breyer, whom he has known since the 1970s, at the White House after the 83-year-old justice formally announced his retirement in a letter to the president. Breyer wrote that he plans to depart at the conclusion of the court’s current term, typically at the end of June, assuming his successor has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Biden, who won the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination in large part because of strong support from Black voters, noted that he committed during that campaign to name a Black woman to a lifetime post on the high court and would keep his promise.

“Our process is going to be rigorous. I will select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence and decency,” Biden said, calling the selection of a Supreme Court justice one of a president’s most serious constitutional responsibilities.

“While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decision except one: the person I nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity – and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue, in my view,” Biden said.

Potential nominees include Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer law clerk confirmed by the Senate last June to serve on an influential U.S. appellate court, and Leondra Kruger, who serves on the California Supreme Court. Another potential contender is Michelle Childs, a federal district court judge in South Carolina who Biden already has nominated to the U.S.  appeals court in Washington.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden believes that being a sitting judge is not prerequisite for his nominee and that whether a candidate could draw support from Republicans is not an influencing factor.

Biden said he wants the Senate, which his fellow Democrats control by a razor-thin margin, to “move promptly” once he chooses his nominee. Democrats can confirm a nominee without a single Republican vote because Republicans in 2017 changed the Senate rules to no longer require 60 of the 100 senators to allow Supreme Court nominations to move forward.

While Breyer’s retirement after 27 years gives Biden his first chance to fill a vacancy on the nine-member court, it will not change its ideological balance. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority has shown a growing willingness to reshape the law on contentious issues including abortion and gun rights. Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump appointed three justices during his single four-year term in office.

Breyer, the court’s oldest justice, often found himself in dissent on a court that has moved ever rightward. He spoke at the White House of the importance of a diverse nation like the United States resolving its deep divisions by adhering to the rule of law.

“People have come to accept this Constitution and they have come to accept the importance of the rule of law,” Breyer said, holding a copy of the 18th century foundational document in his hand.

White House reaching out to candidates

White House officials expect to begin reaching out to and potentially meeting with candidates as soon as next week, according to a source familiar with the situation. Biden is expected to work with a list of 10 or fewer people.

Senate Democrats aim to quickly confirm Biden’s nominee in a time frame similar to the one-month process that the chamber’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, used in 2020 to approve Trump’s third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, according to a source familiar with planning.

Republicans are seeking to regain control of the Senate in the Nov. 8 congressional elections, underscoring the need for speed from the perspective of Democrats. McConnell has indicated he would block any Biden nominations to the court if his party regains the Senate majority.

McConnell said in a statement: “The president must not outsource this important decision to the radical left. The American people deserve a nominee with demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our Constitution.”

Trump’s three conservative appointees who McConnell pushed through the Senate came from a shortlist prepared with the input of outside conservative legal activists associated with the Federalist Society.

Biden said he was expressing the nation’s gratitude to Breyer for his “remarkable career in public service” and noted past rulings the justice authored upholding abortion rights, voting rights, environmental measures and religious liberty.

“This is a bittersweet day for me,” Biden said. “I think he’s a model public servant in a time of great division in this country.”

Source: REUTERS

Russia risks becoming embroiled in a “terrible quagmire” if it invades Ukraine, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is to warn Friday in a speech in Sydney.

The UK’s top diplomat will tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that he is on the brink of making a strategic blunder by launching military action and “has not learned the lessons of history.”

According to prepared remarks to the Lowy Institute, Truss will urge Putin to “desist and step back from Ukraine before he makes a massive strategic mistake.”

“Invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya.”

Tens of thousands of Russian troops have massed on Ukraine’s border, and the drumbeat of invasion has been growing for months.

Few military experts believe that Kyiv’s smaller forces could repel an outright invasion.

But Truss will become the latest official to raise the spectre of a protracted and bloody Ukrainian resistance that ensnares occupying Russian forces.

The top diplomat is currently on an official visit to Australia alongside British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

Speaking in Sydney at the conclusion of the talks, Wallace and his Australian counterpart Peter Dutton drew a parallel between rising tensions today and the pre-war 1930s.

Wallace noted the two countries had “fought side-by-side then against authoritarian and totalitarian regimes” during World War II.

“Eighty-one years ago to the day, men of the Australian 6th division and the British 7th division captured Tobruk from the Nazis,” he said.

“We won not just because of the bravery of those men who died, many of them, for the sake of freedom, but because we have an alliance.”

Australian Defence Minister Dutton said: “We would be in a very different situation if, during the 1930s and 1940s, the United Kingdom hadn’t stood up to malign forces.”

‘Step up’

The trip comes as Western officials engage in frantic shuttle diplomacy, in part to prevent war, but also to overcome differences in how to respond to any Russian aggression.

Truss will urge allies to “step up” in the face of the crisis, linking the Ukraine conflict to a slew of increasingly emboldened authoritarian regimes who are looking to “export dictatorship.”

“Together with our allies, we will continue to stand with Ukraine and urge Russia to de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions. What happens in Eastern Europe matters for the world,” she will say.

Truss’ call won support in Australia — which has come under fierce diplomatic, economic and political pressure from China, another authoritarian power, in recent years.

A slew of Australian goods are currently banned from China or under punitive tariffs, following a row over Beijing’s influence in Australia and the region.

Dutton echoed Truss’ call for “the free world to stand its ground.”

“When you see Russia act the way they do, it encourages other bullies and other dictatorships to do the same, and particularly if there’s no pushback from the rest of the world,” Dutton told the Seven Network.

“Thousands of people will die and that is not a circumstance that anyone wants to see prevail. The build-up of the Russian troops is incredibly concerning.”

Source: AFP

U.S. President Joe Biden predicted on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a move into Ukraine and said Russia would pay dearly for a full-scale invasion, with its businesses possibly losing access to the U.S. dollar.

“My guess is he will move in,” Biden told a news conference. “He has to do something.”

The Kremlin has massed some 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, a buildup that the West says is preparation for a war to prevent Ukraine from ever joining the NATO Western security alliance. Russia denies planning an invasion.

Biden told reporters he believed Putin would test Western leaders and he said that the response to any Russian invasion would depend on the scale of Moscow’s actions and whether U.S. allies squabbled over how to react.

“Russia will be held accountable if it invades – and it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and what to not do, et cetera,” Biden said.

“But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing … it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine,” Biden added.

Biden and his team have prepared a broad set of sanctions and other economic penalties to impose on Russia in the event of an invasion.

Biden, pressed on what he meant by “minor incursion,” said NATO allies are not united on how to respond depending on what exactly Putin does, saying “there are differences” among them and that he was trying to make sure that “everybody’s on the same page.”

“Big nations can’t bluff, number one. Number two, the idea that we would do anything to split NATO … would be a big mistake. So the question is, if it’s something significantly short of a significant invasion or … just major military forces coming across. For example, it’s one thing to determine if they continue to use cyber efforts; well, we can respond the same way,” he said.

U.S. officials reject limiting NATO expansion as a non-starter, but Biden suggested there could be a deal under which the West might not station nuclear forces in Ukraine.

Visiting Kyiv in a show of support, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia could launch a new attack on Ukraine at “very short notice” but Washington would pursue diplomacy as long as it could, even though it was unsure what Moscow really wanted.

Source: REUTERS