Ukrainian police have detained several people suspected of involvement in the slaying of journalist Pavel Sheremet, who died in a car bomb blast in 2016, the country’s leadership announced Thursday. 
 
“Probable killers were detained today,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a press briefing in Kyiv with the interior minister and general prosecutor. 

“But there is another question: Who ordered it?” he added. 

Five accused

Two women and three men, all former veterans of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, are accused of murdering Sheremet with the aim of “destabilizing the situation in the country by killing a famous person,” National Police chief Yevgen Koval said. 
 
Sheremet, 44, an acclaimed Belarus-born journalist with pro-European views, died in July 2016 when his car exploded while he was driving to work in central Kyiv. 
 
The investigation had considered four possible scenarios for the killing: a personal conflict, a killing by mistake, Sheremet’s professional activities and the destabilization theory.  

The two main suspects in the planting of the explosive device under Sheremet’s car are an ex-serviceman in the Ukrainian army, Andriy Antonenko, and a woman named Yuliya Kuzmenko. 
 
Footage from the crime scene that was released after the killing showed a man and a woman acting suspiciously near the car. 
 
Antonenko denied involvement in the incident and on Thursday managed to write on Facebook when police came to arrest him. 
 
“I am being accused of killing Sheremet. Right now (…) Help!” he wrote. 
 
The slaying has been a source of criticism of Ukraine’s interior ministry and security services, which made no progress on the case for years and classified parts of it, which invited suspicions of government involvement. 
 
Zelensky on Thursday said the Sheremet investigation was a “priority.” 
 
“Unfortunately, in our country there are many more cases like this,” he said. 

Respected critic

Sheremet was a columnist for Ukrainska Pravda, a popular online newspaper whose founder, Georgiy Gongadze, was beheaded 16 years ago after he probed alleged crimes of Ukrainian leaders. 
 
Sheremet was respected for criticizing the Kremlin while pointing out Ukraine’s mistakes. His death sent shock waves across Ukraine and is only one in a string of unresolved killings and assaults on members of the media in the country. 
 
On Thursday, Kyiv’s ex-boxer mayor, Vitaliy Klytchko, said a park in the Ukrainian capital would be named after Pavel Sheremet, after a decision by the city council. 
 
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, is 102nd out of 180 countries in a world ranking of media freedom by Reporters Without Borders. 

The European Union says it is taking measures to protect its trade interests in the ongoing row with the United States over the shutdown of the World Trade Organization’s appellate body.

EU trade chief Phil Hogan said Thursday that the 28-nation bloc “cannot afford being defenseless if there is no possibility to get a satisfactory solution within the WTO.”

Since Wednesday the WTO’s appellate body, whose decisions affect billions of dollars in trade, lost its ability to rule on new dispute cases. Without having to worry about possible penalties, countries could use tariffs or be tempted to implement protectionist measures.

Hogan said that with the proposal to change some EU trade rules will enable it to act even when the WTO cannot give a final ruling.

Anticipating the end of the appellate body, the EU and Canada agreed this summer on a new trade dispute resolution system as a temporary backstop. The EU wants to expand it, but it’s unclear how many countries might join.

Central banks in the United States and Europe say they’ve done their part to help the economy for now. The European Central Bank on Thursday decided to leave it stimulus programs unchanged as its new president highlighted signs that the economy has steadied after a period of weaker growth.

ECB head Christine Lagarde said that recent economic indicators are “weak overall” but “point to some stabilizing in the slowdown of of economic growth.”

The decision to keep interest rates low followed a similar move this week by the U.S. Federal Reserve, where officials indicated they expect no change through 2020.

The ECB enacted a stimulus package as recently as September, when it cut a key rate and launched a bond-buying program that pumps newly created money into the economy. Lagarde said that package, decided before she took over from Mario Draghi on Nov.1, would continue to support the economy with easier borrowing terms for companies.

Doubts have grown among some economists about how much good more central bank stimulus can do to support developed economies.

Interest is meanwhile focused on Lagarde, who presided over her first meeting as head of the institution that sets monetary policy for the 19 euro countries that use the euro and their 342 million people. She is well known from her previous jobs as head of the International Monetary Fund and as French finance minister but investors will want to see how she communicates and explains the complexities of monetary policy to markets and voters.

Other themes that were getting attention were Lagarde’s plans for a review of the bank’s monetary policy framework and how it defines price stability, the goal it is supposed to seek under the European Union treaty. There’s also been discussion of whether the ECB should do more to support financing of projects aimed at fighting environmental pollution and climate change.

Analysts are looking also for signs on how she will manage dissent on the ECB’s 25-member governing council. A minority criticized the measures enacted under predecessor Mario Draghi on Sept. 12.

Those included a cut in the deposit rate to minus 0.5% from minus 0.4%. The rate is charged on excess cash left at the central bank overnight by commercial banks, so the negative rate is in effect a penalty that aims to push banks to lend the money to companies. The bank also started 20 billion euros ($22 billion) in monthly purchases of government and corporate bonds.

Taiwan prosecutors say they have detained 10 people, including a former staff member of the China-friendly opposition party, and are investigating them on suspicion of falsifying documents to bring thousands of mainland Chinese to Taiwan, possibly including some who spied on the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.

The investigation comes just weeks before presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan in which Beijing has been accused of intervening in hopes of unseating independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen.

The suspects allegedly sent letters containing false information that allowed at least 5,000 people to visit Taiwan from China between early 2017 and June this year, according to Chen Yu-ping, spokesman for the Taipei city prosecutor’s office.

The letters issued by Taiwanese front companies and civic groups let the Chinese citizens enter for “professional exchanges” as a way around the stricter vetting required had they applied to visit as tourists, Chen said.

Some of the visitors were “high-level” Communist Party officials and intelligence operatives “who would otherwise be barred from visiting,” the Taipei Times newspaper reported Thursday. It said two were connected to the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department dedicated to infiltrating civic groups, ethnic minorities and Chinese communities abroad.

The chief suspect, Hung Ching-lin, worked for the director of the Nationalist Party caucus of New Taipei City, the biggest in Taiwan, in 2008, a party media liaison said. Any work he did after that year was unrelated to the party, the liaison said.

The prosecutor’s office would not rule out Thursday that some arrivals had worked for the government or for China’s Communist Party, Chen said.

He declined to say whether prosecutors were investigating the suspects for evidence of spying or other activities that might hurt Taiwan politically.

China and Taiwan have been separately ruled since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists retreated to the island during the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing insists that the two sides eventually unify and has threatened to use force to bring that about, despite government opinion polls in Taiwan that show that almost 80% of the people on the island reject the idea of unification under China’s authoritarian one_party Communist government.

The risk of spies runs high because hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese invest in China, and mainland Chinese blend in inside Taiwan due to ethnic and linguistic similarities.

Taiwan has allowed tourists from China for the past 11 years as a way to stimulate its economy, but frowns on giving entry to Chinese government officials who could take back sensitive information. Those who visit for professional exchanges, however, can avoid background checks aimed at identifying state or party officials.

Since 2016, Taiwan’s armed forces have stepped up development of submarines and aircraft that could be used to repel any attack from the more powerful China, but the island’s defense remains highly dependent on the armed forces of chief ally, the United States.

Despite their violent history with China’s ruling Communists, the Nationalists advocate close relations with Beijing and advocate eventual unification. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party officially advocates Taiwan’s formal independence and Beijing has sought to increase economic, diplomatic and military pressure on the administration since Tsai took office in 2016.

Taiwanese authorities may never know what the thousands of Chinese did on their trips because they went home months or years ago, analysts said.

“You need to see who each person was and check each one, plus these people already left so there’s some difficulty in checking them out,” said Liao You-lu, professor of department of criminal investigation at Central Police University in Taiwan.

Police also raided three travel agencies in Taiwan before prosecutors took the case this week, Chen said. Hung’s wife and a daughter were among those detained for questioning. Other suspects were connected to travel agencies.

The suspects had earned a combined NT$10 million (US$330,000) by charging NT$1,000 to NT$2,000 fees to get the letters, domestic media said.

The deadly shooting by a Saudi national last week at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida has raised questions about radicalization in Saudi Arabia’s military ranks.

Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, a lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force, opened fire in a classroom at the naval base, killing three U.S. sailors and wounding eight others before he was killed by police.
 
Alshamrani had reportedly shown signs of radicalization and embraced extremist ideology as early as 2016.
 
Vetting process
 
If reports about Alshamrani’s early radicalization are true, “then it raises more questions over what is the vetting process,” said Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center in New York.
 
“Clearly it is not effective enough, because this person would have been identified as someone who was making extremist remarks or holding religiously radical viewpoints,” Clarke told VOA.  
 
Considered a major U.S. ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has been sending students to the United States for military training for decades.
 
According to the U.S. State Department, more than 5,500 temporary visas were issued to Saudi military personnel in 2019 alone. As of last week, 852 Saudi nationals were in the U.S. for Pentagon-sponsored training on security cooperation, The Washington Post  reported.
 
In response to the Friday attack, the Pentagon has suspended nonclassroom training for all Saudi Arabian military students presently in the U.S.  
 
U.S. defense officials also have ordered a review of the vetting process for all international students enrolled at U.S. military facilities.
 
Experts charge that moving forward, the vetting process for international military trainees should be more comprehensive to ensure that prospective students aren’t radicalized and don’t have ties with terror groups.
 
“Vetting might have to extend to a close examination of individuals’ social media accounts,” analyst Clarke said.
 
Anti-Americanism
 
Saudi Arabia is a major recipient of U.S. military aid and assistance. Riyadh is the top buyer of U.S. weapons. Between 2013 and 2017, Saudi Arabia’s  purchases accounted for nearly 18% of all U.S. arms sales, or about $9 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

 
But despite this close security cooperation, some experts, such as F. Gregory Gause, a professor of international affairs at Texas A&M University who monitors developments in Saudi Arabia, think there is an anti-American sentiment among many Saudi military personnel.
 
“I would assume that some amount of anti-Americanism is widespread in the Saudi military, as it is in Saudi public opinion and Arab public opinion generally,” he said.
 
Gause told VOA, “The more important question on this particular issue is not anti-Americanism, but radicalization into jihadist beliefs.”  
 
“Saudi government has, since the mid-2000s, been very careful to try to stamp it out at home, through a combination of repression and changed rhetoric,” he added.
 
Religiosity, not extremism
 
While some experts admit that religiosity exists among many Saudi military personnel, they maintain that it is not necessarily linked to extremist ideology.
 
“There is a level of religiosity in the Saudi military because it is part of the Saudi society, which is already religious,” said Abdullah Ghadwi, a journalist at the Okaz newspaper in Riyadh.
 
“However, this does not mean that extremism exists in the Saudi military,” he told VOA. However, “the Florida incident is a unique case.”
 
The Florida shooter was one of the remnants of “jihadist movements that the Saudi authorities are working to eradicate,” Ghadwi noted.
 
Wahhabism
 
Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Wahhabism, a strict Sunni doctrine credited with inspiring the radical ideology of the Islamic State terror group.
 
Analyst Clarke said, “Saudi Arabia is the number one exporter of religious extremism and radical ideology across the world, and every now and then it comes back to bite them or another country, in this case it is the United States.”
 
He said thousands of Saudi nationals have traveled to conflict zones to become foreign fighters with terrorist groups.
 
But in its 2018 Country Reports on Terrorism, released in November, the State Department said, “Saudi Arabia continued to enact domestic religious sector reforms, including the development of more stringent guidance and approval for Saudi religious personnel traveling overseas to conduct proselytization.”  
 
“As part of what Saudi Arabia describes as its ‘moderate Islam’ initiative, Saudi clerics and religious attachés sent abroad were vetted for observance to principles of tolerance and peaceful coexistence and were forbidden from undertaking proselytization efforts beyond host country Sunni Muslim communities,” the report added.
 
Continued cooperation
 
Ghadwi, the Okaz newspaper journalist, said the Pensacola attack could be a way to raise the level of security and counterterrorism cooperation between Washington and Riyadh.
 
“Most likely the Florida shooting incident won’t affect the course of security cooperation between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, rather it increases it,” he said.
 
“Saudi Arabia is affected by this extremist ideology like the United States, and therefore the two parties will continue to eradicate it,” Ghadwi added.

Shares in Saudi Aramco gained on the second day of trading Thursday, propelling the oil and gas company to a more than $2 trillion valuation, where it holds the title of the world’s most valuable listed company.

Shares jumped in trading to reach up to 38.60 Saudi riyals, or $10.29 before noon, three hours before trading closes.

Aramco has sold a 1.5% share to mostly Saudi investors and local Saudi and Gulf-based funds.

With gains made from just two days of trading, Aramco sits comfortably ahead of the world’s largest companies, including Apple, the second largest company in the world valued at $1.19 trillion.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the architect of the effort to list Aramco, touting it as a way to raise capital for the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which would then develop new cities and lucrative projects across the country that create jobs for young Saudis.

He had sought a $2 trillion valuation for Aramco when he first announced in 2015 plans to sell a sliver of the state-owned company.

International investors, however, thought the price was too high, given the relatively lower price of oil, climate change concerns and geopolitical risks associated with Aramco. The company’s main crude oil processing facility and another site were targeted by missiles and drones in September, knocking out more than half of Saudi production for some time. The kingdom and the U.S. have blamed the attack on rival Iran, which denies involvement.

In the lead-up to the flotation, there had been a strong push for Saudis, including princes and businessmen, to contribute to what’s seen locally as a moment of national pride, and even duty. Gulf-based funds from allied countries also contributed to the IPO, though it has largely been propelled by Saudi capital.

At a ceremony Wednesday for the start of trading, Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, described the sale as “a proud and historic moment for Saudi Aramco and our majority shareholder, the kingdom.”

Five candidates have their eyes on becoming the next president of Algeria — without a leader since April — as voting began in Thursday’s contentious election boycotted by a massive pro-democracy movement.

The powerful army chief and his cohorts in the interim government have promised the voting will chart a new era for the gas-rich North African nation that is a strategic partner of the West in countering extremist violence. Those opposed to the voting fear the results will replicate a corrupt, anti-democratic system they are trying to level.

Tension was palpable on the eve of the vote as protesters in at least 10 towns denounced the elections. In Bouira, east of Algiers, the capital, security forces used tear gas to push back protesters who had invaded a voting station in a high school, according to the online TSA news agency, citing witnesses. Several thousand people demonstrated in Algiers.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and are to close at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT). Results were not likely until Friday, to be announced by a newly created National Independent Electoral Authority overseeing the voting. The body was among the nods of authorities to protesters, like the decision for soldiers to vote in civilian clothes at regular polling stations, rather than in barracks.

The five candidates, two of them former prime ministers, Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, endured insults and protests during the 22-day campaign. All five contenders have links to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced to resign in April after 20 years in office under pressure from weekly street protests that began in February, with an assist from army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah.

The turnout rate should be a critical indication of whether the contender elected has popular legitimacy. There was no firm indication which of the five had the upper hand ahead of the vote. Opinion polls for elections are not permitted.

Tebboune, 74, was until recently seen as the favorite due to his reportedly close ties to Gaid Salah. However, a 60-year-old former culture minister, Azzedine Mihoubi, a writer and poet, has been touted in the media. Mihoubi has deep ties to the fallen Bouteflika regime. He took over leadership of the National Democratic Rally party, which governed in alliance with the FLN, the sole party for nearly three decades, until 1989, and now in tatters.

Benflis, 75, was making his third attempt at the presidency. A lawyer and former justice minister, he was Bouteflika’s top aide before falling out when he ran against him in 2004. He started his own party.

The other candidates are Abdelaziz Belaid, 56, a former figure in the FLN who started his own party, and Abdelkader Bengrini, 57, a one-time tourism minister and former member of the moderate Islamist party, Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP). He then started his own Islamist party el Bina, which like the MSP, backed Bouteflika.

Gaid Salah, who has emerged as the authority figure in the political vacuum, setting the date for the elections, has maintained that the voting is the shortest and surest way to raise Algeria out of its paralyzing political crisis and give birth to a new era. He was the force behind an anti-corruption campaign that has seen top figures jailed and convicted, including Said Bouteflika, the president’s brother and chief counselor, sentenced to 15 years in prison in September for “plotting against the state.”

Gaid Salah refers to Bouteflika’s entourage as “the gang,” as do pro-democracy protesters who include Gaid Salah among them.

 U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to meet with top trade advisers on Thursday to discuss planned Dec. 15 tariffs on some $160 billion in Chinese goods, three sources familiar with the plans said, as markets braced for potential negative impacts.

Officials circulated talking points downplaying the repercussions such a tariff hike would have on the U.S. economy ahead of Trump’s meeting with Trade Representative Robert

Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and White House advisers Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro.

The senior trade advisers are expected to present divergent views during the high-stakes meeting, but the final decision will be up to Trump, the sources said.

A decision to move ahead with the December tariffs could roil financial markets and scuttle U.S.-China talks to end the 17-month-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies for the remainder of Trump’s term.

Negotiations have failed to produce deals on agricultural purchases by China and tariff rollbacks by the United States since the two countries agreed in October to conclude a preliminary trade agreement.

Many had expected the two sides to reach a deal ahead of the Dec. 15 tariffs, but that prospect now appeared unlikely, according to multiple U.S. and Chinese sources. The question now is whether Washington will delay the tariffs or let them take effect.

“I’m expecting them to raise the tariffs on Sunday,” one source said. “The administration is preparing its talking points about how that’s the right thing to do. The message is that it will not be painful.”

Emails had been circulated among a small group of senior officials in recent days, arguing that previous tariffs had had a muted impact on the U.S. economy, a separate source familiar with the administration’s thinking said.

Navarro, a China hawk, this week circulated a separate memo in favor of continued tariffs, arguing that China had increased its purchases of U.S. pork and soybeans solely because of its domestic swine fever outbreak, and that tariffs were not having a negative effect on U.S. growth or the stock market.

The Navarro-penned document and separate memos said tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on China over the past year-and-a-half had not been as devastating as critics had argued, a view not shared by many economists.

“The message is that it will not be painful,” said the one source familiar with the administration’s thinking. “People have been proclaiming for a year and half that the sky is falling, and the sky isn’t falling yet.”

Trump’s advisers are divided about whether to proceed with the Dec. 15 tariffs and what impact such a move would have on U.S. financial markets, one source familiar with White House trade deal negotiating procedures said.

“When they get in the room, Peter’s going to say: ‘Hit ’em.’ Larry and Mnuchin are going to say: ‘Don’t do it.’ And I think Bob … is hoping he has enough to go on to justify not doing it,” the source said.

Derek Scissors, a China scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who consults with some White House officials, said he believed the likeliest scenario is a delay in the Dec. 15 tariff deadline for up to 90 days.

Some U.S. Democrats from highly competitive districts say they are undecided on how to vote on the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the House of Representatives, a vote that will be historic as well as pivotal for their own political futures.

In conversations in recent days with over a dozen lawmakers from swing districts, only two said they had decided to vote yes — Representative Susan Wild of Pennsylvania and Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota. Both lawmakers replaced Republicans.

“The question before us is there enough evidence to warrant a trial in the Senate? And the answer in my estimation … is yes,” Phillips said. He said he expected to vote “Yes, with a heavy heart.”

Inquiry called a hoax

The two articles of impeachment accuse Trump of abusing his power by trying to force Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to face the president in next year’s election, and of obstructing Congress when lawmakers tried to look into the matter.

Trump denies wrongdoing and calls the impeachment inquiry a hoax.

Aides to House Democratic leaders say they expect the articles of impeachment to pass comfortably in the Democratic-controlled House, sending the matter to the Senate for a trial on whether to remove Trump from office.

But defections would undermine the sense of party unity, potentially a sign of weakness ahead of 2020 elections.

Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey who is serving his second term in a district narrowly won by Trump in the 2016 presidential election, said he did not expect to make a decision until after the House Judiciary Committee approves the articles on Thursday.

He was among about 10 battleground district lawmakers who huddled earlier this week to discuss the possibility of censuring the president, instead of impeaching him. But that option was ruled out months ago by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Democrats in swing districts may see political advantage in signaling the care they are taking to deliberate and limiting time ahead of the vote to be targeted for a position that will be unpopular with some constituents.

The Republican-led Senate is unlikely to vote to remove Trump from office.

‘Serious decision’

“Phones are ringing off the hook” from impeachment supporters and opponents, said Representative Elissa Slotkin, whose Michigan district was a Republican stronghold until she won there last year. Several Republicans have already said they want to challenge Slotkin in 2020.

“I’m going to take the weekend” to look over the articles of impeachment, Slotkin said on Wednesday outside the House. “I just need to like, get a breath. Take a breath. It’s a serious decision for me.”

In the face of solid Republican opposition, Democrats will need 216 votes to approve the articles, meaning they can lose about 17 or 18 Democrats if everyone is present and voting. One independent, Representative Justin Amash, has told CNN he will vote for impeachment.

‘Battleground’ districts

There are dozens of “battleground” districts in the House, and 31 Democrats represent districts where Trump also won in 2016. Some moderate Democrats who represent those districts were among the last in their party to endorse an impeachment inquiry and have been bombarded recently by Republican attack ads.

“We are giving this the level of seriousness that it is deserving. It’s the second most serious thing I could ever do in

this institution,” after declaring war, said Representative Max Rose, who represents part of New York City, including the middle-class borough of Staten Island.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday that he has a possible skin cancer, after a medical visit where he had a mole removed from his ear.

The presidential office, however, said there is no sign that Bolsonaro has a cancer, adding that the president had been to a hospital in Brasilia in the afternoon. “The president is in good health, without any indication of a skin cancer and is keeping his appointments for this week,” said the statement.

Earlier, Bolsonaro also said he had been advised to cancel a trip to Salvador, in the state of Bahia, due to suffering from exhaustion.

Noor Alexandria Abukaram, a 16-year-old runner living in the U.S. state of Ohio, was recently disqualified from a race because she wore a hijab. Now, Abukaram is fighting to get the rules changed. VOA’s Mohammad Jafar Haand visited the runner in her hometown and filed this report. 

Haiti is already the western hemisphere’s poorest country. Things are getting worse. Plugged In examines the political, economic and social collapse of a country has yet to recover from a devastating earthquake nearly 10 years ago. Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse and opposition leader Reginald Boulos answer our questions about their plans for the future. US Ambassador to the organization of American States, Carlos Trujillo discusses the US policy toward the Caribbean island nation. Haitian-Americans Albert Decady, Executive Director of the Haitian United Front of the Diaspora and Cleve Mesidor, Founding member of LOGOS and U.S. Haiti Technology Association provide a look to the future. Hosted by Mil Arcega. Air date: December 11, 2019.

House Democrats will vote on two articles of impeachment early next week, charging President Donald Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — two offenses they say should remove him from office under the standards laid down by the U.S. Constitution. 
 
Trump is the third president in history to face impeachment based on a specific charge that he abused the power of his office. The Constitution does not directly mention abuse of power among the reasons that Congress can impeach a president. Instead, “treason, bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors” are listed. 
 
Democratic lawmakers, legal experts and precedent support the approach. 
 
Trump has said he did nothing wrong and that House Democrats’ allegations are “flimsy, pathetic, ridiculous articles of impeachment.”  

What do the articles of impeachment say about Trump’s abuse of power? 
 
The abuse of power charge is centered on the allegation that Trump predicated the release of $391 million of congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy upon an announcement by Ukraine that Joe Biden, a potential 2020 election rival of Trump, and Biden’s son Hunter would be investigated. 

“President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of political benefit,” said the first article of impeachment introduced Tuesday by House Democrats. “In so doing, President Trump used the powers of the presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the nation.” 
 
Why would ‘abuse of power’ fall under ‘high crimes and misdemeanors?’
 
While the framers of the Constitution did not specifically mention abuse of power as an impeachable offense, House Democrats argued this week that Congress was given the power to remove presidents from office for this very kind of conduct. 
 
“The framers of the Constitution recognized that someday a president might come to office who would have used that office, betrayed the public trust and undermined national security to secure foreign help in his reelection,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California said Tuesday while introducing the articles of impeachment. “They recognized this danger, and they prescribed a remedy, and that remedy is impeachment.” 
 
Some experts say the fact that the aid to Ukraine was approved by another branch of the U.S. government makes this a clear-cut case of abuse of power. 
 
“He really had no say constitutionally on whether it should be given to Ukraine. Right there, he’s in violation of constitutional norms and practices and the law,” said Barbara Ann Perry, presidential studies director at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Perry said Trump further abused the power of the presidency by tying the holdup in aid to an investigation into his political rivals. 
 
How do the charges against Trump compare with charges against past presidents? 
 
Lawmakers in previous impeachments have used the broad outlines of “high crimes and misdemeanors” to include charges of abuse of power against presidents. 
 
“The central kind of problem that impeachment is directed toward is that somebody who achieves the status of president, and then instead of using that power for the American people and to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, uses it for illicit purposes,” said Louis Michael Seidman, professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center. “That’s a theme that runs through all presidential impeachments.”  

President Bill Clinton faced four articles of impeachment in December 1998, but the charge that he abused the power of his office while covering up an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky did not pass in the House of Representatives. 
 
In August 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned rather than face a vote on articles of impeachment in the House, including a charge he abused the power of his office by directing government agencies to target citizens with investigations. 
 
President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for multiple offenses related to his use of executive powers. But he did not face a specific charge of abuse of power. 
 
Why do House Democrats believe Trump’s dealings with Ukraine constitute an abuse of power? 
 
Trump’s conduct “strikes at the heart of our democracy — the ability of people to elect their own leaders,” Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, head of the House Democrats’ communications arm, told reporters Tuesday. “There’s no higher crime than dragging a foreign government in to corrupt our elections.” 
 
Trump is the first president to face impeachment charges related to an alleged abuse of power in foreign affairs. Cicilline said the framers of the Constitution were concerned about precisely this kind of situation when they developed the remedy of impeachment. 
 
“This is the president of the United States soliciting a foreign government to corrupt our elections and undermine our democracy. It undermined our national security,” Cicilline said.  

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee that wrote the articles of impeachment, said Tuesday that lawmakers’ actions “distinguish America from every other country. That is that no one is above the law.”   
 
Lee said her committee “looked very keenly at the question of abuse of power, which, if we begin to not mind holding presidents accountable, it sends America down a spiraling path of being like every other country that has had its challenges with leadership. It clearly denotes that we have a president and not a monarch,” Lee said. 
 
When the full House votes next week, lawmakers will also consider if Trump should be removed from office for obstructing Congress’ investigation into potential abuses of power. If one or both of the articles are adopted, the Senate will hold a trial early next year to consider if Trump should be removed from office. 

Jesse Oni contributed to this report.
 

Indian authorities in the far-flung northeast called in troops Wednesday to help contain demonstrators opposed to contentious citizenship legislation expected to be approved by the upper house, officials said.

Troops were deployed to the state of Tripura and were on standby in Assam, a senior army official said, as police battled protesters railing against a bill that will fast-track citizenship claims for immigrants from three neighboring countries — but not if they are Muslim.

For Islamic groups, the opposition, rights groups and others this is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda to marginalize India’s 200 million Muslims — something he denies.

But many in India’s northeast, which on Wednesday was rocked by a third straight day of demonstrations following a general strike Tuesday, oppose the new law for different reasons.

They object because the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) stands to give citizenship to large numbers of Hindus who have emigrated from Bangladesh in recent decades.

Police fired tear gas in different parts of Guwahati, Assam state’s biggest city, as several thousand demonstrators attempted to barge past security barriers to converge on the adjoining state capital Dispur.

Tripura has suspended mobile internet services to stop the spread of misinformation on social media, according to authorities there.

“If the CAB is passed in Rajya Sabha (the upper house) today, we appeal to all the students, civilians, tea garden workers and all sections of the society to come out to the streets again tomorrow to protest,” local activist Akhil Gogoi said.

‘Eerie similarity’ to Nazi laws

The legislation — which Modi’s government tried and failed to get through the upper house in its first term — passed the lower house just after midnight Tuesday following a fiery debate.

Derek O’Brien, an opposition lawmaker in the upper house, on Wednesday said the legislation bore an “eerie similarity” to Nazi laws against in the Jews in 1930s Germany.

“In 1935, there were citizenship laws to protect people with German blood … today we have a faulty bill that wants to define who true Indian citizens are,” he said.

Modi’s government — re-elected in May and under pressure over a slowing economy — says Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan are excluded from the legislation because they do not face discrimination in those countries.

Also left out are other minorities fleeing political or religious persecution elsewhere in the region such as Tamils from Sri Lanka, Rohingya from Myanmar and Tibetans from China.

Many Muslims in India say they have been made to feel like second-class citizens since Modi stormed to power in 2014.

Several cities perceived to have Islamic-sounding names have been renamed, while some school textbooks have been altered to downplay Muslims’ contributions to India.

In August, Modi’s administration rescinded the partial autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, and split it into two.

A citizens’ register in Assam finalized this year left 1.9 million people, many of them Muslims, facing possible statelessness, detention camps and even deportation.

Removing ‘infiltrators’

Modi’s government has said it intends to replicate the register nationwide with the aim of removing all “infiltrators” by 2024.

Amit Shah, Modi’s right-hand-man and home minister, has likened illegal immigrants to “termites.”

“The Indian government is creating legal grounds to strip millions of Muslims of the fundamental right of equal access to citizenship,” Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on Monday termed the bill as a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction.”

India’s foreign ministry retorted that the remarks were “neither accurate nor warranted” and “guided by their prejudices and biases.”

Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has been named Time  magazine’s  Person of the Year for 2019.

Editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal made the announcement Wednesday during an appearance on NBC’s Today   show.

“She became the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet this year, coming from essentially nowhere to lead a worldwide movement,” Felsenthal said.

Thunberg is the youngest person to win the award after quickly evolving into one of the world’s most prominent climate change activists.

Her Friday protests alone outside the Swedish parliament during school hours at age 15 helped trigger a global movement to fight climate change.

The movement, which became known as “Fridays for Future,” prompted millions of people in about 150 countries “to act on behalf of the planet,” Felsenthal said.

Felsenthal noted that Thunberg, now 16, “represents a broader generational shift in culture,” with more youth advocating for change worldwide, including during demonstrations in countries such as Hong Kong, Chile, Sudan and Lebanon.

Thunberg’s straightforward speaking style captured the attention of world leaders, resulting in invitations to speak at several high-profile events, including at the United Nations and before the United States Congress.

During her appearance before  U.S. lawmakers, Thunberg, who has Asperger syndrome, refused to read prepared remarks. She, instead, submitted the  U.N.’s 2018 global warming report to them and declared, “I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists, and I want you to unite behind the science.”

One of her most memorable moments came at the  U.N. Climate Change Summit in September, when she berated  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other world leaders, declaring they had stolen her “dreams of childhood” with their “empty words.”

“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction,” she said, “and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

Those words resonated worldwide, energizing climate change activists and sparking a series of prompting scornful reactions from others.

Thunberg’s dedication to fighting climate change also earned her a nomination for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft, which has been grounded since March following two deadly crashes, will not be cleared to fly until 2020, the top US regulator said Wednesday.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Steve Dickson told CNBC the process for approving the MAX’s return to the skies still has 10 or 11 milestones left to complete, including a certification flight and a public comment period.

“If you just do the math, it’s going to extend into 2020,” Dickson said.

Boeing has been aiming to win regulatory approval this month, with flights projected to resume in January.

But Dickson said, “I’ve made it very clear Boeing’s plan is not the FAA’s plan.” He added that “we’re going to keep our heads down and support the team in getting this report done right.”

Boeing and the FAA have been under intense scrutiny following crashes that together killed 346 people and have prompted Boeing to cut production of the top-selling jet while new plane deliveries are suspended.

Dickson was expected to face another round of tough questioning at a congressional hearing later Wednesday. 

Lawmakers have questioned whether the crashes were the result of FAA officials being too cozy with Boeing, leading to lax oversight during the original certification process for the aircraft.

A powerful bomb-and-gun attack on the largest American military base in Afghanistan early Wednesday injured dozens of people, mostly civilians.

Afghan military authorities said a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed vehicle in front of the gate of an unused hospital almost adjacent to the Bagram Airfield in Parwan province.

Four gunmen later entered the vacant health facility before foreign forces engaged them in a gunfight, Alozai Ahmadi, the commander of the Parwan coordination center, told VOA.

A spokesman for the NATO-led Resolute Support military mission confirmed the attack on the medical facility.

“The attack was quickly contained and repelled by our ANDSF (Afghan National Defense and Security) and coalition partners, but the future medical facility was badly damaged. There were no U.S. or coalition casualties and Bagram remained secure throughout the attack,” he said.

Ahmadi said the casualties occurred in the nearby civilian population because the powerful car bomb explosion shattered houses there. He said more than 50 people, including women and children, were injured. Ahmadi said the hospital was built by the Korean government but it had not been in use for four years due to security reasons.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack, though Taliban insurgents routinely fire rockets at the Bagram base.

On November 28, U.S. President Donald Trump made a surprise visit to Bagram, located about 50 kilometers north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, to celebrate Thanksgiving with his troops.

The U.S. Justice Department’s inspector general is due to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his report that found no evidence of political bias in the FBI’s launching of its investigation into Russian election interference.

Michael Horowitz issued the report Monday with findings that amounted to a rejection of President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that the FBI probe was a political witch hunt to undo his presidency.

Trump nonetheless asserted that the report confirmed an “attempted overthrow” of the government far worse than he had ever thought possible.

The president on Tuesday criticized FBI Director Christopher Wray for saying in an interview with ABC News that the investigation “was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.” Wray also noted Horowitz found the FBI made numerous mistakes during its inquiry.

“I don’t know what report the current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but I’m sure it wasn’t the one given to me,” Trump tweeted.  “With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!”

I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

The U.S. military says a suicide bomber attacked a medical facility near the Afghan capital of Kabul Wednesday.

In a written statement issued by the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan, there were no U.S. or coalition casualties as a result of the attack outside the gate of Bagram Air Base, but five Afghans were wounded.

The medical facility, which was under construction to serve local Afghans, was badly damaged.  

No one has taken responsibility for the attack. 

A look at the history, facts and timeline of the war in Afghanistan.