Top News Stories for Today – Feb 18, 2019
Top News Stories for Today – Feb 18, 2019
Heather Nauert withdraws UN nomination
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew her name from consideration for the U.N. ambassador nomination, the department said Saturday. “I am grateful to President Trump and Secretary [Mike] Pompeo for the trust they placed in me for considering me for the position of US ambassador to the United Nations,” Nauer said in the statement. “However, the past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration.
She went on to describe her time working in the administration as being “one of the highest honors of my life.” A State Department source told Fox News that the process, on top of traveling around the world and between Washington D.C., and New York to see family, grew to be too much. Fox News
Legal fights in Trump’s nat’l emergency declaration
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Sunday that a lawsuit against the Trump administration for the president’s recent national emergency declaration would be coming “imminently”, marking one of the many legal challenges the White House can expect in its efforts to fund the president’s long-promised border wall. Becerra told ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanoplous” that the state is “ready to go” with legal action and is expecting to be joined by numerous other state partners.
According to the attorney general’s office, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, New Jersey, Hawaii and Connecticut are among several states that are joining the lawsuit. In addition to California’s lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Mr. Trump’s declaration. Nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen later filed suit, urging the US District Court for the District of Columbia to “bar Trump and the US Department of Defense from using the declaration and funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall.” CBS News
4 Indian soldiers killed in Kashmir gun battle
Four soldiers have been killed in Indian-administered Kashmir in a gun battle with militants, police say. The clash occurred in Pulwama district, where more than 40 Indian paramilitary police were killed in a suicide attack on Thursday, raising tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. A civilian and two alleged militants were also killed as Indian troops searched for suspects.
Meanwhile Pakistan recalled its ambassador for consultations. India had already recalled its top diplomat from Pakistan in the wake of Thursday’s attack – in which it said the Pakistani state was complicit. Pakistan denies any role in the bombing, which was claimed by a group based on its soil – Jaish-e-Mohammad. BBC
China seizes $1.5b in online lending crackdown
Chinese police have investigated 380 online lenders and frozen $1.5 billion in assets following an avalanche of scandals in the huge but lightly regulated industry, the government announced Monday. Beijing allowed a private finance industry to flourish in order to supply credit to entrepreneurs and households that aren’t served by the state-run banking system. But that threatens to become a liability for the ruling Communist Party after bankruptcies and fraud cases prompted protests and complaints of official indifference to small investors.
The police ministry said it launched the investigation because person-to-person, or P2P, lending was increasingly risky and rife with complaints about fraud, mismanagement and waste. The ministry gave no details of arrests but said more than 100 executives were being sought by investigators and some had fled abroad. VOA
EU lawmakers barred from Venezuela
Conservative European lawmakers who were barred from entering Venezuela this weekend are urging the European Union’s top diplomat to suspend contacts with Nicolas Maduro’s government. Esteban Gonzalez Pons, the head of the European Popular Party parliamentary group, is also calling for European sanctions against Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, who had ordered that the lawmakers should be barred on the grounds that they were conspiring against the government.
The five visitors were invited by the opposition-led congress led by Juan Guaido, whom the European Parliament and a majority of the EU’s members recognize as Venezuela’s interim leader. VOA
US asks EU to take back captured ISIS
Donald Trump has told the EU it must take back its 800 Isis fighters captured in Syria by US-backed forces and put them on trial. The president’s call came as he prepared to claim the end of the caliphate in north-west Syria with the fall of the final Isis-held town.
Some EU countries, notably France, have said they are preparing to take back their former jihadists, but the UK has been more resistant: it says the fighters held by the west’s Syrian Kurd allies can only return if they seek consular help in Turkey. The UK government says it faces a dilemma, especially concerning the wives or children of British fighters, and a major challenge either to prosecute the fighters or prevent them from undertaking terrorist acts in their homeland. The Guardian
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