Vladimir Putin says Trump was impeached for 'made-up reasons' - CNN

The House of Representatives voted almost exactly along party lines Wednesday to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump was the third president in US history to be impeached, and he now faces a trial in the Senate that is expected to start next month.

"Regarding the continuation of our dialogue till the end of Trump's presidency, you make it sound as if it's already coming to an end," Putin said answering a question about whether Russia has a strategy for continuing the dialogue with the US until the end of Trump's presidency.

"I actually really doubt that it is ending, it still has to go through Senate where as far as I know the Republicans hold the majority so it's unlikely they will want to remove the representative of their party for some made-up reasons."

Putin's defense of Trump is in line with the unusually-warm relationship the two leaders have formed since 2017. Last year, Trump sided with the Russian President when he declined to endorse the US government's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, saying instead that he believed Putin's denial that his government meddled. Trump has also dismissed credible allegations that Putin uses violence against his opponents, saying in 2015: "I haven't seen any evidence that he killed anybody, in terms of reporters."

Putin added on Thursday: "This is just the continuation of the internal political battle, one party that lost the elections, the Democrats, and are now trying to find new ways by accusing Trump of collusion with Russia. But then it turns out there was no collusion, this can't be the basis for the impeachment. Now they came up with some pressure on Ukraine, I don't know what is the [pressure] but this is up to your congressmen."

In Russia, the impeachment of Trump has drawn less attention than Putin's press conference, which is a major media event for the country. The annual event ran over four hours, with the Russian president taking questions on a range of domestic and international questions.

The question was asked by Dmitry Simes, head of the Washington-based think tank Center for the National Interest, mentioned in the Mueller report for providing advice to Trump's campaign on Russia.

The two articles of impeachment passed against Trump charged him with abuse of power for withholding nearly $400 million in US military aid and a White House meeting while pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate a potential political rival, and obstruction of Congress for thwarting the House's investigative efforts.

CNN's Devan Cole contributed to this report.

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2019-12-19 13:49:00Z
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Vladimir Putin says Trump was impeached for 'made-up reasons' - CNN

The House of Representatives voted almost exactly along party lines Wednesday to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump was the third president in US history to be impeached, and he now faces a trial in the Senate that is expected to start next month.

"Regarding the continuation of our dialogue till the end of Trump's presidency, you make it sound as if it's already coming to an end," Putin said answering a question about whether Russia has a strategy for continuing the dialogue with the US until the end of Trump's presidency.

"I actually really doubt that it is ending, it still has to go through Senate where as far as I know the Republicans hold the majority so it's unlikely they will want to remove the representative of their party for some made-up reasons."

Putin's defense of Trump is in line with the unusually-warm relationship the two leaders have formed since 2017. Last year, Trump sided with the Russian President when he declined to endorse the US government's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, saying instead that he believed Putin's denial that his government meddled. Trump has also dismissed credible allegations that Putin uses violence against his opponents, saying in 2015: "I haven't seen any evidence that he killed anybody, in terms of reporters."

Putin added on Thursday: "This is just the continuation of the internal political battle, one party that lost the elections, the Democrats, and are now trying to find new ways by accusing Trump of collusion with Russia. But then it turns out there was no collusion, this can't be the basis for the impeachment. Now they came up with some pressure on Ukraine, I don't know what is the [pressure] but this is up to your congressmen."

The question was asked by Dmitry Simes, head of the Washington-based think tank Center for the National Interest, mentioned in the Mueller report for providing advice to Trump's campaign on Russia.

The two articles of impeachment passed against Trump charged him with abuse of power for withholding nearly $400 million in US military aid and a White House meeting while pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate a potential political rival, and obstruction of Congress for thwarting the House's investigative efforts.

CNN's Devan Cole contributed to this report.

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2019-12-19 12:38:00Z
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India protests: Internet shut down, protesters detained in Delhi - The - The Washington Post

Adnan Abidi Reuters Demonstrators gather for a protest against a new citizenship law, in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI — Indian authorities clamped down Thursday on demonstrations against a contentious citizenship law, prohibiting public gatherings in two major states and parts of the nation’s capital that are together home to more than 260 million people.

A coalition of civil society groups called for rallies across the country on Thursday to voice opposition to the law, which opponents say is discriminatory and violates India’s constitution. The law creates a fast-track to citizenship for migrants from six religions who arrived in India by 2014, but excludes Muslims.

In Delhi, hundreds of peaceful protesters gathered near one of the city’s major monuments to begin a march, but police invoked a measure that forbids gatherings of four or more people, effectively making protests illegal. Police detained protesters and took them away in buses.

[Why protests are erupting over India’s new citizenship law]

Internet and phone service was also suspended in some parts of the city. A police order reviewed by The Washington Post instructed cellular companies to shut down service in five areas on Thursday, including the locations of planned protests. India leads the world in the number of Internet shutdowns, which authorities say are a way to prevent violence and unrest.

Pavan Duggal, an attorney and cyberlaw expert, said he could not recall a previous instance when Internet service was cut in India’s capital. Resorting to such severe tactics to control protests is “counterproductive” and sends a signal of panic, he said.

The Delhi police also restricted movement in the capital. More than 15 metro stations were shuttered, and vehicles were prevented from entering the city on several roads from the neighboring suburb of Gurgaon, leading to monumental traffic jams.

Protests against the citizenship law have roiled India in recent days, and some have turned violent. On Sunday, police stormed a university campus in Delhi, striking unarmed students and firing tear gas into the library. The protests are the most sustained show of opposition to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he came to power in 2014.

Adnan Abidi

Reuters

Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest against a new citizenship law at the Red Fort in Delhi on Thursday.

In Bangalore, capital of the state of Karnataka, protesters holding signs were taken into custody by police after authorities invoked the same measure, known as Section 144, to disallow public gatherings. Among those detained was Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s most distinguished historians.

“This is totally wrong,” he said in a video from the scene. “Our paranoid rulers in Delhi are scared” of a peaceful protest.

All of Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state and home to 200 million people, was placed under Section 144 restrictions on Thursday. The state’s director general of police, O.P. Singh, told reporters that no protest would be permitted in the state.

[India passes controversial citizenship law excluding Muslim migrants]

“Parents are advised to counsel their kids and ask them not to participate in any kind of protest, and if they do, police will take action against them,” he said.

Despite the warning, hundreds of protesters took to the streets Thursday afternoon in the old city area of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh. They threw stones at officers, burned several vehicles and torched two police outposts. Police responded by firing tear gas and smoke grenades.

In Delhi, the demonstrations were peaceful through Thursday afternoon, but police in riot gear were present in large numbers. Police detained hundreds of protesters from several locations, including the city’s renowned Red Fort.

The citizenship law is “unconstitutional,” said 24-year-old student Swati Khanna before she was taken away by police officers. “India is becoming a police state, but we will reclaim it.”

Protests took place Thursday in at least six other cities. A large march was expected in the financial capital of Mumbai later in the day. The government of the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located, is not controlled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, and authorities there have allowed the demonstration to proceed.

Tania Dutta in New Delhi and Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow contributed to this report.

Read more

India passes controversial citizenship law excluding Muslim migrants

Why protests are erupting over India’s new citizenship law

India’s Internet shutdown in Kashmir is the longest ever in a democracy

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2019-12-19 11:16:00Z
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Australia declares state of emergency as heatwave fans bushfires - Al Jazeera English

Australia set a record for its hottest day ever for a second straight day with an average national temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 Fahrenheit), a full degree higher than the previous mark.    

The Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday the new nationally averaged maximum was reached Wednesday, topping the 40.9 degrees hit Tuesday, which beat the previous record of 40.3 C in January 2013.

The heatwave has exacerbated an unprecedented, drought-fueled series of bushfires ravaging large areas of Australia.

As the heatwave continued Thursday saw the highest December temperature ever reached in Australia when the West Australian town of Eucla hit 49.8 degrees celsius (121.6 Fahrenheit).

The previous hottest December day was 49.5 degrees celsius in Birdsville, Queensland, in 1972.

Authorities in Australia on Thursday declared a seven-day state of emergency in New South Wales, the second in as as many months, as a record heatwave fanned unprecedented bushfires raging across the region.

Some 100 fires have been burning for weeks in the country's most populous state. Half are uncontained, including a "mega-blaze" ringing Sydney and covering Australia's biggest city in a haze of toxic smoke.

More:

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state of emergency was due to "catastrophic weather conditions".

"The biggest concern over the next few days is the unpredictability, with extreme wind conditions, extremely hot temperatures," Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.

A State of Emergency is declared in NSW from today giving Commissioner Fitzsimmons additional powers to deal with the bushfires. Severe weather conditions are forecast for today and will worsen on Saturday. Listen to warnings and be prepared. #NSWfires pic.twitter.com/iIqfFpIQIW

— Gladys Berejiklian (@GladysB) December 18, 2019

There are 2,000 firefighters battling the blazes with the support of teams from the United States and Canada as well as the Australia Defence Force.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said five 100-person "strike teams" were on standby to deploy to the most dangerous fires, "given the enormity of some of these fire complexities and the severity of the forecast weather conditions that are expected to unfold throughout today".

"The worst of the fire weather conditions, the extreme fire danger ratings we are expecting today, are centred around the greater Sydney environment," he added.

Shrouded in smoke

The extreme weather is also causing significant health concerns, with leading doctors this week labelling the smoke haze shrouding Sydney a "public health emergency".

More than 70 fires are also raging across Queensland state to the north of New South Wales, including one at Peregian, near the coastal tourist hub of Noosa, that forced people to flee their homes on Wednesday. Bushfires are also burning in South Australia and Western Australia.

The fires have ravaged at least three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land across Australia in recent months, with six people killed and more than 800 homes destroyed.

Scientists say the blazes have come earlier and with more intensity than usual due to global warming and a prolonged drought that has left the land parched and many towns running out of water.

The fires have sparked climate protests aimed at the conservative government, which has resisted the pressure to address the root causes of global warming in order to protect the country's lucrative coal export industry.

Climate protesters plan to march on Prime Minister Scott Morrison's official residence in Sydney to demand curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and draw attention to his decision to holiday overseas holiday even as large parts of the country burn.

Thick smoke from the fires has turned once blues skies grey, shrouding the city in a toxic smog [File: Rick Rycroft/AP Photo]

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2019-12-19 10:42:00Z
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Citizenship Act protests: Thousands held across India for defying ban - BBC News

Indian police have detained thousands who defied a ban on protests against a controversial new citizenship law.

The ban has been imposed in parts of the capital Delhi, and throughout the states of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

Mobile data services are suspended in some parts of Delhi close to protest sites. There have been days of protests across India, some violent.

The new law offers citizenship to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Among those detained are Ramachandra Guha, a prominent historian and outspoken critic of the government, in the southern city of Bangalore; and political activist in Yogendra Yadav in Delhi.

But tens of thousands of people have still taken to the streets in Uttar Pradesh, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Patna, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Delhi and other cities - civil society groups, political parties, students, activists and ordinary citizens took to social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, asking people to turn up and protest peacefully.

The law - known as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) - has sharply divided opinions in India.

The federal government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says it will protect people from persecution, but critics say it's part of a "Hindu nationalist" agenda to marginalise India's more than 200 million Muslims.

The police chief of Uttar Pradesh, OP Singh, has asked people to stay away from protests. The police order, based on a severely restrictive law, prohibits more than four people from gathering in a place.

Police in other places - such as Chennai (formerly Madras) - denied permission for marches, rallies or any other demonstration. Officials say the restrictions have been imposed to avoid violence.

Police also put up barricades on a major highway connecting Delhi and the city of Jaipur and are checking all vehicles entering the capital. This has led to massive gridlock and many commuters have missed their flights.

A number of metro stations in Delhi have also been shut.

What is the law about?

It expedites the path to Indian citizenship for members of six religious minority communities - Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian - if they can prove that they are from Muslim-majority Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. They will now only have to live or work in India for six years - instead of 11 years - before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship.

The government says this will give sanctuary to people fleeing religious persecution. But critics say its actual agenda is to marginalise India's Muslim minority.

• India's new 'anti-Muslim' law explained
• The protesters standing up to the police

The fears are compounded by the government's plan to conduct a nationwide register of citizens to ensure that "each and every infiltrator is identified and expelled from India" by 2024. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) has already been carried out in the north-eastern state of Assam and saw 1.9 million people effectively made stateless.

The NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Act are closely linked as the latter will help protect non-Muslims who are excluded from the register and face the threat of deportation or internment.

Why are people protesting against it?

Given that the exercise relies on extensive documentation to prove that their ancestors lived in India, many Muslim citizens fear that they could be made stateless.

Critics also say the law is exclusionary and violates the secular principles enshrined in India's constitution. They say faith should not be made a condition of citizenship.

However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the law "will have no effect on citizens of India, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Buddhists".

The prime minister also told his supporters at a rally on Tuesday that the opposition was "spreading lies and rumours", "instigating violence" and "used its full force to create an atmosphere of illusion and falsehood".

Home Minister Amit Shah told media that "both my government and I are firm like a rock that we will not budge or go back on the citizenship protests".

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2019-12-19 09:33:45Z
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Australia declares state of emergency as heatwave fans bushfires - Al Jazeera English

Australia set a record for its hottest day ever for a second straight day with an average national temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 Fahrenheit), a full degree higher than the previous mark.    

The Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday the new nationally averaged maximum was reached Wednesday, topping the 40.9 degrees hit Tuesday, which beat the previous record of 40.3 C in January 2013.

The heatwave has exacerbated an unprecedented, drought-fueled series of bushfires ravaging large areas of Australia.

As the heatwave continued Thursday saw the highest December temperature ever reached in Australia when the West Australian town of Eucla hit 49.8 degrees celsius (121.6 Fahrenheit).

The previous hottest December day was 49.5 degrees celsius in Birdsville, Queensland, in 1972.

Authorities in Australia on Thursday declared a seven-day state of emergency in New South Wales, the second in as as many months, as a record heatwave fanned unprecedented bushfires raging across the region.

Some 100 fires have been burning for weeks in the country's most populous state. Half are uncontained, including a "mega-blaze" ringing Sydney and covering Australia's biggest city in a haze of toxic smoke.

More:

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state of emergency was due to "catastrophic weather conditions".

"The biggest concern over the next few days is the unpredictability, with extreme wind conditions, extremely hot temperatures," Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.

A State of Emergency is declared in NSW from today giving Commissioner Fitzsimmons additional powers to deal with the bushfires. Severe weather conditions are forecast for today and will worsen on Saturday. Listen to warnings and be prepared. #NSWfires pic.twitter.com/iIqfFpIQIW

— Gladys Berejiklian (@GladysB) December 18, 2019

There are 2,000 firefighters battling the blazes with the support of teams from the United States and Canada as well as the Australia Defence Force.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said five 100-person "strike teams" were on standby to deploy to the most dangerous fires, "given the enormity of some of these fire complexities and the severity of the forecast weather conditions that are expected to unfold throughout today".

"The worst of the fire weather conditions, the extreme fire danger ratings we are expecting today, are centred around the greater Sydney environment," he added.

Shrouded in smoke

The extreme weather is also causing significant health concerns, with leading doctors this week labelling the smoke haze shrouding Sydney a "public health emergency".

More than 70 fires are also raging across Queensland state to the north of New South Wales, including one at Peregian, near the coastal tourist hub of Noosa, that forced people to flee their homes on Wednesday. Bushfires are also burning in South Australia and Western Australia.

The fires have ravaged at least three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land across Australia in recent months, with six people killed and more than 800 homes destroyed.

Scientists say the blazes have come earlier and with more intensity than usual due to global warming and a prolonged drought that has left the land parched and many towns running out of water.

The fires have sparked climate protests aimed at the conservative government, which has resisted the pressure to address the root causes of global warming in order to protect the country's lucrative coal export industry.

Climate protesters plan to march on Prime Minister Scott Morrison's official residence in Sydney to demand curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and draw attention to his decision to holiday overseas holiday even as large parts of the country burn.

Thick smoke from the fires has turned once blues skies grey, shrouding the city in a toxic smog [File: Rick Rycroft/AP Photo]

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2019-12-19 08:21:00Z
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The women at the center of viral video say India will not be divided - CNN

But the 22-year-old, along with several other women, is now being praised for her bravery after a video showing them stopping Indian police from attacking her friend went viral on social media.

"At that moment, I wanted to save my brother, so in order to do that I wanted to make these people (go) away," she told CNN on Tuesday.

Renna was among 2,000 people demonstrating at the prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi on Sunday against a controversial law that offers a path to citizenship for non-Muslim religious minorities from select countries.

Images of the protest shared widely online show Renna and fellow student protester Ladeeda Farsana standing above protesters with their hands raised, leading many to embrace the pair as figureheads of the movement.

Hundreds of people were injured in the protests, with students telling CNN they were beaten by police with sticks and batons. Dozens have been arrested. Delhi Police said they were unarmed and used minimum force to bring the crowds under control.

Since the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) was passed into law by Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, protests have broken out across nine states, including in major cities such as Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and the capital New Delhi, mostly around university campuses. Meanwhile, ongoing protests in Assam, in India's northeast, turned violent, with at least five people killed, police said.

Renna has been in hiding since the incident on Sunday, when the demonstrations were broken up by police who forced their way into her university library, firing tear gas.

In the viral video, police can be heard telling the young women -- who had taken shelter in a nearby house -- to come outside. The women tell the police to leave before the officers grab their friend and drag him onto the sidewalk, where they beat him with batons.

The women then put themselves in front of the police batons to shield their friend from the blows, shouting at the officers to leave.

"We didn't think about it, we just wanted to save our brother," said Farsana, a 22-year-old Arabic student at Jamia university and one of the women who intervened.

The man targeted by police, Shaheen Abdullah, 24, said the group was running to get away from a stampede of people who fled the university once police moved in, but the group of officers had chased them.

"These brave girls, they came out and were trying to shield me," Abdullah said. "I was like no, no! It should be the other way!"

Renna said that she doesn't fear police violence, "because the most fearful thing is the government's action against the minorities."

Anger has been growing nationally over the CAA, which promises to fast-track citizenship for religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who arrived in India before 2015.

But the exclusion of Muslims -- which Modi said is because they are not minorities in India's neighboring countries -- has raised concerns about the bill's constitutionality and the growing anti-Muslim rhetoric in India.

"This act is clearly against Indian Muslims, it's against the constitution. So we want to save our constitution," Farsana told CNN. "We want to fight for our right."

The passing of the new law has also raised fears among many of India's 200 million Muslims that their own citizenship could be called into question in the not too distant future.

Many have linked the new law to Indian Home Minister Amit Shah's repeated promise to implement a nationwide register of citizens, a process by which residents will need to provide the government with evidence that they are living in India legally. The government has insisted that the policy is intended only to root out illegal immigrants.

So far the registry has only been implemented in Assam, where earlier this year, an estimated 1.9 million people were excluded from the list -- the majority of whom were Muslim, and therefore not protected under the new law.

"We will be physically turned out," said Abdullah. "There is no other country we can go. This is our land and we have to stay here and we have to fight for that."

Modi has sought to reassure Indian citizens that the new citizenship law will "not affect any citizen of India of any religion," he said in a statement on Monday.

"This act is only for those who have faced years of persecution outside and have no other place to go except India," Modi said.

But critics say the citizenship legislation is part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) agenda to push Hindu nationalism onto secular India. The BJP has its roots in India's right-wing nationalist Hindu movement that promotes a vision of a Hindu nation.

Protesters have continued to stage rallies across the country.

A partial curfew was imposed in the district of North East Delhi on Wednesday after protests against the citizenship law turned violent. Delhi police spokesperson Arun Mittal, told CNN that a ban on large public gatherings has been put in place.

Indian police and protesters clashed in the district on Tuesday, with protesters pelting stones and police firing tear gas in the area of Seelampur, Mittal said. Six people were arrested.

Meanwhile, India's Supreme Court has been asked to rule on whether the law is unconstitutional.

Abdullah said they will not stop protesting.

"We will regroup and we will protest again. We are not planning a riot but we need to show them that we are not going to step back," he said. "We can't just step back and wait for something to happen."

Renna said that the government will not succeed in dividing the country.

"India will be united always," she said. "India will be one."

CNN's Swati Gupta and Manveena Suri contributed reporting.

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2019-12-18 12:57:00Z
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