Top News Stories for Today – Feb 27, 2019
Top News Stories for Today – Feb 27, 2019
Trump and Kim kick off second summit
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump met in Hanoi on Wednesday for their second summit, with the US president rejecting any suggestion he was walking back on US demands for North Korea’s denuclearization. Kim and Trump shook hands and smiled briefly in front of a row of their countries’ flags at the Metropole hotel in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. Trump told reporters he thought the talks would be very successful, and asked if he was “walking back” on denuclearization, said “no”. Kim said they had overcome obstacles to hold their summit.
Trump and Kim are scheduled to hold a 20-minute, one-on-one chat followed by a dinner with aides. Trump will be accompanied by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Kim will be joined by his top envoy, Kim Yong Chol, and Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho. On Thursday, the two leaders will hold “a series of back and forth” meetings, the White House said. The venue has not been announced. Reuters via yahoo news
Pakistan shoots down Indian fighter jets
Pakistan says it has shot down two Indian military jets and captured two pilots in a major escalation between the nuclear powers over Kashmir. India says it lost one MiG21 fighter and a pilot is missing in action. Pakistani PM Imran Khan said the two sides could not afford a miscalculation with the weapons they had. India and Pakistan claim all of Kashmir, but control only parts of it. They have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.
The aerial attacks across the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Indian and Pakistani territory are the first since a war in 1971. They follow a militant attack in Kashmir which killed 40 Indian troops – the deadliest to take place during a three-decade insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir. A Pakistan-based group said it carried out the attack. BBC
US House votes to revoke Trump’s emergency
The US House of Representatives voted Tuesday night to block President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency along the U.S-Mexico border. The declaration would allow Trump to use money for a border wall without congressional authorization. Passage in the Democrat-controlled House was expected, and 13 Republicans voted in favor of the measure.
Success in the Republican-led Senate is less assured, even after three Republicans —Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis — said they oppose the emergency declaration. Other Republicans also say they oppose Trump’s action but have not said whether they will vote against it. No Senate vote has been scheduled yet. Even if the bill were to pass there, Trump has promised to veto it. VOA
Cohen testimony on Trump
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, will testify publicly Wednesday that Trump is “a conman” and “a cheat,” say he heard Roger Stone tell Trump that WikiLeaks would dump damaging emails to disrupt the Democratic National Convention, and produce a check he says shows Trump broke campaign finance laws while president, according to a prepared opening statement.
“Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress” about a Moscow Trump Tower, because “that’s not how he operates,” Cohen will say, but Trump “knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” and “in his way, he was telling me to lie,” too. Wednesday’s public testimony is sandwiched between two days of closed-door interviews with the House and Senate intelligence committees. The New York Times, Politico via The Week
More sanctions on Maduro allies
A senior US official said Tuesday the Trump administration would impose more sanctions on Venezuela in the coming days. “We announced some sanctions yesterday, there will be more,” Special Representative on Venezuela Elliott Abrams told reporters at the United Nations.
Abrams also said Washington would bring a draft resolution before the U.N. Security Council for a vote this week, which would call for the entry of humanitarian aid into the country. Both Washington and Moscow have drafted competing resolutions on the issue but have not advanced them to a vote. Russia, a close ally of disputed President Nicolas Maduro, would likely veto a measure put forward by the United States. VOA
Cardinal Pell taken to jail
Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking official convicted of child sexual abuse, has been ordered to jail. Cardinal Pell was taken into custody Wednesday during a pre-sentencing hearing in a Melbourne court after the judge revoked his bail. The jury in his trial announced Tuesday that it had found the 77-year-old Pell guilty of five criminal counts involving the sexual assault of two teenage choirboys in the city’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 while serving as archbishop of the Melbourne diocese.
The jury reached the verdict in December, but the decision had been sealed under a strict gag order imposed by the judge that prevented any details from being released. Pell was facing trial on separate allegations of child sexual abuse dating back to his time as a young priest in his hometown of Ballarat, but prosecutors dropped those charges Tuesday. Pell faces a total of 50 years in prison on the charges. The judge will announce the sentence on March 13. VOA
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