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Fresh indictment: Trump ordered to appear in Washington court Thursday

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Former president Donald Trump

Fresh indictment: Trump ordered to appear in Washington court Thursday

Former U.S. President Donald Trump will make an initial appearance in federal court in Washington on Thursday, following his latest indictment by a grand jury for attempting to overturn the 2020 election result.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was appointed by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama.

Trump was indicted on Tuesday, the third time in four months he has been criminally charged even as he campaigns as front runner to regain the presidency next year.

The four-count, 45-page indictment charges Trump with conspiring to defraud the U.S. by preventing Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and to deprive voters of their right to a fair election.

Then-President Trump pushed fraud claims he knew to be untrue, pressured state and federal officials – including Vice President Mike Pence – to alter the results and finally incited a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol in a desperate attempt to undermine American democracy and cling to power, prosecutors said.

The charges stem from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s sprawling investigation into allegations Trump sought to reverse his loss to Biden.

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Despite a dizzying and growing array of legal troubles, Trump has solidified his status as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, according to public opinion polls.

Weeks of assertions that the election had been stolen culminated in a fiery Trump speech on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress met to certify the results.

Soon after, his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to stop Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory.

In a brief statement to reporters, Smith placed the blame for the violence squarely on Trump’s shoulders.

“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fuelled by lies – lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing the bedrock function of the U.S. government,” Smith said.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack.

PHONEY SLATE OF ELECTORS
Trump and others organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven states, all of which he lost, to be certified as official by Congress on Jan. 6, the indictment said.

The indictment lays out numerous examples of Trump’s election falsehoods and notes that close advisers, including senior intelligence officials, told him repeatedly that the results were legitimate.

“These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false,” prosecutors wrote.

When the push to certify the fake electors failed, Trump sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence not to allow certification of the election to go forward, and took advantage of the chaos outside the Capitol to do so, according to prosecutors. During the violence, Trump rebuffed calls from his advisers to issue a calming message.

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“The Defendant attempted to use a crowd of supporters that he had gathered in Washington, D.C. to pressure the Vice President to fraudulently alter the election results,” the indictment reads.

In a statement, the Trump campaign said he had always followed the law and characterized the indictment as a “persecution” reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

“President Trump will not be deterred by disgraceful and unprecedented political targeting!” it added. Later Tuesday, Trump’s campaign sent out a fundraising email referencing the indictment.

The indictment also includes six unidentified co-conspirators who have not been charged.

Based on the descriptions, they appear to include Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who called state lawmakers in the weeks following the 2020 election to pressure them not to certify their states’ results; former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who tried to get himself installed as attorney general so he could launch voter fraud investigations in Georgia and other swing states; and attorney John Eastman, who advanced the erroneous legal theory that Pence could block the electoral certification.

The most serious charge against Trump carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, though sentencing is based on numerous factors and is subject to the judge’s discretion.

MOUNTING LEGAL WOES

Trump already had become the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. He has portrayed all of the prosecutions as part of a politically motivated witch hunt aimed at preventing his return to power.

Fresh indictment: Trump ordered to appear in Washington court Thursday

International

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

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Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

Officials from Canada, Mexico and China have warned US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose sweeping tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners could upend the economies of all four countries.

“To one tariff will follow another in response and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said.

Trump vowed on Monday night to introduce 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on goods coming from China. He said the duties were a bid to clamp down on drugs and illegal immigration.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he spoke to Trump in the hours after the announcement and planned to hold a meeting with Canada’s provincial leaders on Wednesday to discuss a response.

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington DC told the BBC: “No-one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”

The international pushback came a day after Trump announced his plans for his first day in office, on 20 January, in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.

Trudeau said his country was prepared to work with the US in “constructive ways”.

“This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau told reporters.

In a phone call with Trump, Trudeau said the pair discussed trade and border security, with the prime minister pointing out that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared with the US-Mexico border.

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Trump’s team declined to confirm the phone call.

But Trump spokesman Steven Cheung added that world leaders had sought to “develop stronger relationships” with Trump “because he represents global peace and stability”.

Mexico’s President Sheinbaum told reporters on Tuesday that neither threats nor tariffs would solve the “migration phenomenon” or drug consumption in the US.

Reading from a letter that she said she would send to Trump, Sheinbaum also warned that Mexico would retaliate by imposing its own taxes on US imports, which would “put common enterprises at risk”.

She said Mexico had taken steps to tackle illegal migration into the US and that “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border”.

The issue of drugs, she added, “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society”.

Sheinbaum, who took office last month, noted that US car manufacturers produce some of their parts in Mexico and Canada.

“If tariffs go up, who will it hurt? General Motors,” she said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told the BBC that “China-US economic and trade co-operation is mutually beneficial in nature”.

He denied that China allows chemicals used in the manufacture of illegal drugs – including fentanyl – to be smuggled to the US.

“China has responded to US request for verifying clues on certain cases and taken action,” Liu said.

“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

President Joe Biden has left in place the tariffs on China that Trump introduced in his first term, and added a few more of his own.

Currently, a majority of what the two countries sell to each other is subject to tariffs – 66.4% of US imports from China and 58.3% of Chinese imports from the US.

Speaking in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Trudeau told lawmakers that “the idea of going to war with the United States isn’t what anyone wants”.

He called on them to not “panic”, and to work together.

“That is the work we will do seriously, methodically. But without freaking out,” he said.

The leaders of Canadian provinces suggested that they would impose their own tariffs on the US.

“The things we sell to the United States are the things they really need,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday. “We sell them oil, we sell them electricity, we sell them critical minerals and metals.”

America’s northern neighbour accounted for some $437bn (£347bn) of US imports in 2022, and was the largest market for US exports in the same year, according to US data.

Canada sends about 75% of its total exports to the US.

Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said on Monday the proposed tariff would be “devastating to workers and jobs in both Canada and the US”.

“To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” said Ford.

Ford was echoed by the premiers of Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, while a post on the X account of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledged that Trump had “valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border”.

The Canadian dollar, the Loonie, has plunged in value since Trump vowed to impose tariffs on Canadian imports come January.

The Canadian dollar dipped below 71 US cents, the lowest level the Loonie has fallen to since May 2020, when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods during his first stint as US president. The Mexican peso fell to its lowest value this year, around 4.8 cents.

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

BBC

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Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon 

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Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon 

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will bring a US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon to his government for approval as soon as Tuesday evening.

He said in a televised address that he would put “a ceasefire outline” to ministers “this evening”.

He however did not say how long the truce would last, noting “the length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon”.

But it later learnt that the ceasefire would is for 60 days.

During the period, Hezbollah fighters are expected to retreat 40 kilometres from Israel’s border, with Israeli ground forces withdrawing from Lebanese territory.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm, we will strike,” Netanyahu warned.

Key Israel backer the United States has led ceasefire efforts for Lebanon alongside France.

US President Joe Biden is optimistic the deal will lead to a “permanent cessation of hostilities”.

Biden added that the US would lead another push for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“In full coordination with the United States, we are maintaining full military freedom of action,” Netanyahu said, outlining the seven-front war Israel says it faces in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

Even as Netanyahu spoke about the ceasefire, the Israeli military carried out multiple strikes on heart of Beirut while the army said some 15 projectiles had entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon.

Demonstrators raise placards and Israeli flags during a protest in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in the coastal city Tel Aviv on November 26, 2024, against a possible ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. – Israel’s security cabinet has started discussing a proposed ceasefire deal in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Israeli official confirmed to AFP on November 26. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)

The war in Lebanon escalated after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah, which said it was acting in support of Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.

The war has killed at least 3,823 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.

On the Israeli side, the hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.

Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow Israel to focus on “the Iranian threat” and ramp up its fight against Hamas in Gaza.

“With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own,” he said.

“We will increase our pressure on Hamas and that will help us in our sacred mission of releasing our hostages.”

During last year’s Hamas attack, militants took 251 hostages, of whom 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the army has declared dead.

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Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

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Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes pounded a densely-populated part of the Lebanese capital and its southern suburbs on Tuesday, hours ahead of an anticipated announcement of a ceasefire ending hostilities between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

A strike on Beirut hit the Noueiri district with no evacuation warning and killed at least one person, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a preliminary toll.

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Minutes later, at least 10 Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs. They began approximately 30 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for 20 locations in the area, the largest such warning yet.

As the strikes were under way, Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the air force was conducting a “widespread attack” on Hezbollah targets across the city.

 

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

ARAB NEWS

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