News in Brief
WASHINGTON (Press TV) – Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney has said that several GOP members of Congress had voted against impeaching Donald Trump out of fear for their own lives. "If you look at the vote to impeach, for example, there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security -- afraid, in some instances, for their lives,” the Wyoming member of the House of Representatives told CNN on Friday."And that tells you something about where we are as a country, that members of Congress aren’t able to cast votes, or feel that they can’t, because of their own security,” she added. Trump was impeached by the House a historic second time for the instigation of the January storming of U.S. Capitol. On January 6, Trump incited his own supporters, including members of Proud Boys, to storm the Capitol building, where lawmakers were in the process of confirming President-elect Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election. Cheney, the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, was one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to hold Trump accountable for the Capitol violence.
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MINDAT (Al Jazeera) – Myanmar’s army battled local militia fighters in the northwestern town of Mindat on Saturday, residents said, to try to quell a rebellion that has sprung up to oppose the junta which seized power in the Southeast Asian country in February. The fighting in Mindat, Chin state, underlines the growing chaos in Myanmar as the junta struggles to impose its authority in the face of daily protests, strikes and sabotage attacks after overthrowing Aung San Suu Kyi. "We are running for our lives,” one resident told Reuters from Mindat, a hill town just over 100 km (60 miles) from the border with India. "There are around 20,000 people trapped in town, most of them are kids, old people,” the resident added. "My friend’s three nieces were hit by shrapnel. They are not even teens.” The junta imposed martial law in Mindat on Thursday and then stepped up attacks on what it called "armed terrorists”. A spokesman did not answer calls requesting comment on the fighting on Saturday.
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KINSHASA (Dispatches) – Thirty people were sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday after a one-day trial for their role in anti-police clashes in the capital, judicial sources said. A policeman was killed in Kinshasa on Thursday as rival groups fought over the right to mark the end of Ramadan at a major sports stadium, officials said. A lawyer for civil parties, Chief Tshipamba, told AFP 30 people were sentenced to death in a trial that had started on Friday, a day after the incident took place. A recording of the proceedings obtained by AFP confirmed the verdict. DR Congo has not carried out death penalties since a moratorium was introduced in 2003. Since then, death sentences are commuted to life imprisonment. The regional government said that in addition to the police officer killed several people were hurt and one police vehicle was burned in the fighting outside the Martyrs’ Stadium.
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Beijing (AP) – Back-to-back tornadoes killed at least 10 people in central and eastern China and left more than 300 others injured, officials and state media reported Saturday. Six people died in the inland city of Wuhan and four others in the town of Shengze, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east in Jiangsu province, local government statements said. A tornado first struck Shengze about 7 pm Friday, toppling factory buildings and damaging electricity facilities, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The Suzhou city government, which oversees the town, said in a social media post that four people had died and 149 others had minor injuries. Shengze is near Shanghai on China’s east coast. A tornado then hit Wuhan about 8:40 p.m. with winds of 86 kilometers (53 miles) per hour, destroying more than two dozen homes and triggering a power outage affecting 26,600 households, Xinhua reported. The Wuhan government said six people had died and 218 were injured.
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KOLKATA (AFP) – An Indian state stricken by coronavirus after mass rallies were held for a key election ordered a two-week lockdown on Saturday in a bid to halt the spread. All offices, stores and public transport in West Bengal were told to close for 15 days after the region reported its biggest spike yet in deaths and infections. West Bengal along with a host of southern states are bearing the brunt of a Covid-19 surge in India that has taken the nation’s infection total to nearly 25 million with more than 265,000 deaths. The strain of the virus responsible has been declared a variant of "global concern” by the World Health Organization. West Bengal accounted for 21,000 of India’s 326,000 new cases reported Saturday and hospitals in the state say they are swamped with patients. Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew tens of thousands of people to rallies in the region last month ahead of state elections in which his ruling nationalist party failed to unseat chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
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MINDAT (Al Jazeera) – Myanmar’s army battled local militia fighters in the northwestern town of Mindat on Saturday, residents said, to try to quell a rebellion that has sprung up to oppose the junta which seized power in the Southeast Asian country in February. The fighting in Mindat, Chin state, underlines the growing chaos in Myanmar as the junta struggles to impose its authority in the face of daily protests, strikes and sabotage attacks after overthrowing Aung San Suu Kyi. "We are running for our lives,” one resident told Reuters from Mindat, a hill town just over 100 km (60 miles) from the border with India. "There are around 20,000 people trapped in town, most of them are kids, old people,” the resident added. "My friend’s three nieces were hit by shrapnel. They are not even teens.” The junta imposed martial law in Mindat on Thursday and then stepped up attacks on what it called "armed terrorists”. A spokesman did not answer calls requesting comment on the fighting on Saturday.
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KINSHASA (Dispatches) – Thirty people were sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday after a one-day trial for their role in anti-police clashes in the capital, judicial sources said. A policeman was killed in Kinshasa on Thursday as rival groups fought over the right to mark the end of Ramadan at a major sports stadium, officials said. A lawyer for civil parties, Chief Tshipamba, told AFP 30 people were sentenced to death in a trial that had started on Friday, a day after the incident took place. A recording of the proceedings obtained by AFP confirmed the verdict. DR Congo has not carried out death penalties since a moratorium was introduced in 2003. Since then, death sentences are commuted to life imprisonment. The regional government said that in addition to the police officer killed several people were hurt and one police vehicle was burned in the fighting outside the Martyrs’ Stadium.
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Beijing (AP) – Back-to-back tornadoes killed at least 10 people in central and eastern China and left more than 300 others injured, officials and state media reported Saturday. Six people died in the inland city of Wuhan and four others in the town of Shengze, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east in Jiangsu province, local government statements said. A tornado first struck Shengze about 7 pm Friday, toppling factory buildings and damaging electricity facilities, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The Suzhou city government, which oversees the town, said in a social media post that four people had died and 149 others had minor injuries. Shengze is near Shanghai on China’s east coast. A tornado then hit Wuhan about 8:40 p.m. with winds of 86 kilometers (53 miles) per hour, destroying more than two dozen homes and triggering a power outage affecting 26,600 households, Xinhua reported. The Wuhan government said six people had died and 218 were injured.
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KOLKATA (AFP) – An Indian state stricken by coronavirus after mass rallies were held for a key election ordered a two-week lockdown on Saturday in a bid to halt the spread. All offices, stores and public transport in West Bengal were told to close for 15 days after the region reported its biggest spike yet in deaths and infections. West Bengal along with a host of southern states are bearing the brunt of a Covid-19 surge in India that has taken the nation’s infection total to nearly 25 million with more than 265,000 deaths. The strain of the virus responsible has been declared a variant of "global concern” by the World Health Organization. West Bengal accounted for 21,000 of India’s 326,000 new cases reported Saturday and hospitals in the state say they are swamped with patients. Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew tens of thousands of people to rallies in the region last month ahead of state elections in which his ruling nationalist party failed to unseat chief minister Mamata Banerjee.