Pelosi sees ‘new dawn’ as diverse 116th Congress begins

She invited scores of lawmakers’ kids to join her on the dais as she was sworn in, calling the House to order “on behalf of all of America’s children.” (Getty Images/AFP)
Updated 04 January 2019
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Pelosi sees ‘new dawn’ as diverse 116th Congress begins

  • Pelosi, elected speaker 220-192, took the gavel saying US voters “demanded a new dawn”

WASHINGTON:  Cheering Democrats returned Nancy Pelosi to the House speaker’s post Thursday as the 116th Congress took office and ushered in a historically diverse class of freshmen ready to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government.
Trump congratulated Pelosi during a rare appearance in the White House briefing room.
The president, who has tangled with Pelosi and is sure to do so again, called her election by House colleagues “a tremendous, tremendous achievement.”
Pelosi, elected speaker 220-192, took the gavel saying US voters “demanded a new dawn” in the November election and are looking to “the beauty of our Constitution” to provide checks and balances on power. She invited scores of lawmakers’ kids to join her on the dais as she was sworn in, calling the House to order “on behalf of all of America’s children.” She faced 15 dissenting votes from fellow Democrats.
The new Congress is like none other. There are more women than ever before, and a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans in the House is creating what academics call a reflective democracy, more aligned with the population of the United States. The Republican side in the House is still made up mostly of white men, and in the Senate Republicans bolstered their ranks in the majority.
In a nod to the moment, Pelosi, the first female speaker, was broadly pledging to make Congress work for all Americans — addressing kitchen table issues at a time of deep economic churn — even as her party is ready to challenge Trump with investigations and subpoena powers that threaten the White House agenda. It’s the first new Congress to convene amid a partial government shutdown, now in its 13th day over Trump’s demands for money for a wall along the U.S-Mexico border.
The House will be “for the people,” Pelosi said. She promised to “restore integrity to government” and outlined an agenda “to lower health costs and prescription drugs prices, and protect people with pre-existing medical conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure from sea to shining sea.”
The day was unfolding as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected lawmakers arrived, often with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. The Democrats promised quick passage of legislation to re-open the government, but without the funding Trump is demanding for his promised border wall.
Vice President Mike Pence swore in newly-elected senators, but Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had no plans to consider the House bills to fund the government unless Trump agrees to sign them into law. That ensures the shutdown will continue, clouding the first days of the new session.
McConnell said that Republicans have shown the Senate is “fertile soil for big, bipartisan accomplishments,” but that the question is whether House Democrats will engage in “good governance or political performance art.”
It’s a time of stark national political division that some analysts say is on par with the Civil War era. Battle lines are drawn not just between Democrats and Republicans but within the parties themselves, splintered by their left and right flanks.
Pelosi defied history in returning to the speaker’s office after eight years in the minority, overcoming internal opposition from Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders. She will be the first to regain the gavel since legendary Sam Rayburn of Texas in 1955.
Putting Pelosi’s name forward for nomination, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic caucus chair, recounted her previous accomplishments — passing the Affordable Care Act, helping the country out of the Great Recession — as preludes to her next ones. He called her leadership “unparalleled in modern American history.”
One Democrat, Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, cast her vote for Pelosi “on the shoulders of women who marched 100 years ago” for women’s suffrage. Newly elected Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, an anti-gun violence advocate, dedicated hers to her slain teenage son, Jordan Davis.
As speaker, Pelosi will face an early challenge from the party’s robust wing of liberal newcomers, including 29-year-old New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to such prominence she is already known around the Capitol — and on her prolific social media accounts — by the nickname “AOC.” She said she’d cast a no vote on a new package of rules to govern the House.
Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals oppose the pay-as-you-go budget provisions in the rules package that would allow restrictive objections to any legislation that would add to federal deficits. They say such restraints would hamstring Democratic efforts to invest in health care, education and develop a Green New Deal of renewable energy infrastructure projects to fight climate change.
Republicans face their own internal battles beyond just the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but as they decide how closely to tie their political fortunes to Trump. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s name was put into nomination by his party’s caucus chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of the former vice president. He faced six “no” votes from his now-shrunken GOP minority.
McCarthy told the lawmakers that voters often wonder if Congress is “still capable” of solving problems, and as he passed the gavel to Pelosi he said this period of divided government is “no excuse for gridlock.”
One office remains disputed as the House refused to seat Republican Mark Harris of North Carolina amid an investigation by state election officials of irregularities in absentee ballots from the November election.
Many GOP senators are up for re-election in 2020 in states, including Colorado and Maine, where voters have mixed views of Trump’s performance in the White House.
Trump, whose own bid for 2020 already is underway, faces potential challenges from the ranks of Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer. Trump had little to say early Thursday as the new Congress was convening, but he did tweet an attack on one of his likely presidential challengers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, mocking her claim to Native American ancestry.
The halls of the Capitol were bustling with arrivals, children in the arms of many new lawmakers. Visitor galleries included crooner Tony Bennett and rock legend Mickey Hart, both guests of Pelosi. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman, sat with Republican leaders.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri, opened the House prayer asking at “a time fraught with tribalism at home and turbulence abroad” that lawmakers “become the architects of a kindlier nation.”
Overnight, Democratic Rep-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted a picture with her family at the airport. The House rules were being changed to allow her to wear a head scarf on the chamber floor. She wrote, “23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress.”


Bangladesh opens trial of ex-PM Hasina for crimes against humanity

Updated 01 June 2025
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Bangladesh opens trial of ex-PM Hasina for crimes against humanity

  • Hearing broadcast live for first in special tribunal’s history
  • Former home minister, ex-police chief ordered to be in court for second hearing on June 16

DHAKA: Bangladeshi prosecutors on Sunday opened the trial of fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is charged with orchestrating last year’s deadly crackdown on student-led protests.

Peaceful demonstrations, triggered by the reinstatement of a quota system for the allocation of civil service positions, began in early July 2024 but two weeks later they were met with a communications blackout and a violent crackdown by security forces.

In early August, as protesters defied a nationwide curfew, Hasina resigned and fled the country, ending 15 years in power of her Awami League party-led government.

“She unleashed various law enforcement and intelligence agencies against them (the protesting students) … They slaughtered the agitating students, injured them and committed crimes against humanity,” Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor at Bangladesh’s domestic International Crimes Tribunal, told the court in his opening speech.

He charged the 77-year-old with “incitement, aiding and abetting, involvement in the commission of the crimes of murder, attempted murder, torture and other inhumane acts as part of the widespread and systematic attacks on innocent unarmed students and the public.”

The UN’s human rights office concluded in February that between July 15 and Aug. 5, 2024, the former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with “violent elements” linked to the Awami League, “engaged systematically in serious human rights violations and abuses in a coordinated effort to suppress the protest movement.”

It estimated that at least 1,400 people were killed during the protests, the majority by bullets from military rifles.

ICT investigators have collected video footage, audio clips, records of helicopter and drone movements, as well as statements from victims of the crackdown as part of the probe.

They also “seized records of telephonic conversations of Sheikh Hasina, in which she repeatedly confirmed that she ordered all the state agencies to eliminate innocent civilians peacefully protesting for a fair demand, using helicopters, drones and APCs (armored personnel carriers),” Islam said.

Sunday’s hearing was broadcast live for the first in the ICT’s history.

“The court accepted the charges against Sheikh Hasina, former Home Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun. There are five charges against them and the court accepted all five charges. We presented the charges through live broadcast before the nation,” Islam told reporters after the hearing.

Al-Mamun is the only accused who has been detained while the ex-home minister is in hiding and Hasina remains in self-imposed exile in neighboring India.

The next hearing is scheduled to take place on June 16. The tribunal ordered all three accused to be presented before the court.

The International Crimes Tribunal was established by Hasina in 2010 to investigate crimes committed by the Pakistani army and its loyalists during Bangladesh’s independence war in 1971.

Over the years, it grew to be widely seen as the Hasina government’s tool for eliminating political rivals.


Zelensky says Ukraine will send a delegation to Istanbul for talks with Russia on Monday

Updated 01 June 2025
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Zelensky says Ukraine will send a delegation to Istanbul for talks with Russia on Monday

  • In a statement on Telegram, Zelensky said that Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will lead the Ukrainian delegation, stating "we are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people”

KYIV: Ukraine will send a delegation to Istanbul for a new round of direct peace talks with Russia on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, even as Russia pounded Ukraine with a missile strike that killed 12 soldiers and the biggest drone assault of the three-year war.
In a statement on Telegram, Zelensky said Sunday that Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will lead the Ukrainian delegation. “We are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people,” Zelensky said.
Ukrainian officials had previously called on the Kremlin to provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the war before the meeting takes place. Moscow had said it would share its memorandum during the talks.
Russian strike hits an army unit
Russia launched the biggest number of drones on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion three years ago, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday. The air force said 472 drones were launched over Ukraine.
Russian forces also launched seven missiles alongside the barrage of drones, said Yuriy Ignat, head of communications for the Ukrainian air force. Earlier Sunday, Ukraine’s army said at least 12 Ukrainian service members were killed and more than 60 were injured in a Russian missile strike on an army training unit.
The strike occurred at 12:50 p.m. (0950 GMT), the statement said, emphasizing that no formations or mass gatherings of personnel were being held at the time. An investigative commission was created to uncover the circumstances around the attack that led to such a loss in personnel, the statement said.
The training unit is located to the rear of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) active front line, where Russian reconnaissance and strike drones are able to strike.
Ukraine’s forces suffer from manpower shortages and take extra precautions to avoid mass gatherings as the skies across the front line are saturated with Russian drones looking for targets.
“If it is established that the actions or inaction of officials led to the death or injury of servicemen, those responsible will be held strictly accountable,” the Ukrainian Ground Forces’ statement said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian drone strikes were reported deep in Russian territory Sunday, including in the Siberian region of Irkutsk, more than 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) east of Moscow.
It is the first time that a Ukrainian drone has been seen in the region, local Gov. Igor Kobzeva said, stressing that it did not present a threat to civilians.
Other drone strikes were also reported in Russia’s Ryazan region and the Arctic Murmansk region. No casualties were reported.
Northern pressure
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that it had taken control of the village of Oleksiivka in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region. Ukrainian authorities in Sumy ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements Saturday as Russian forces make steady gains in the area.
Speaking Saturday, Ukraine’s top army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area.


Russia and Ukraine step up the war on eve of peace talks

Emergency medics transport a wounded passenger after a road bridge collapsed on top of a passenger train in the Bryansk region.
Updated 01 June 2025
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Russia and Ukraine step up the war on eve of peace talks

  • Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base deep in Siberia on Sunday, a Ukrainian intelligence official said

MOSCOW/KYIV: On the eve of peace talks, Ukraine and Russia sharply ramped up the war with one of the biggest drone battles of their conflict, a Russian highway bridge blown up over a passenger train and an ambitious attack on nuclear-capable bombers deep in Siberia.
After days of uncertainty over whether or not Ukraine would even attend, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Defense Minister Rustem Umerov would sit down with Russian officials at the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday.
The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war — but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting.
Amid talk of peace, though, there was much war.
At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge in Russia’s Bryansk region, neighboring Ukraine, was blown up over a passenger train heading to Moscow with 388 people on board. No one has yet claimed responsibility.
Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base deep in Siberia on Sunday, a Ukrainian intelligence official said, the first such attack so far from the front lines more than 4,300 km (2,670 miles) away.
The official said the operation involved hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds and loading them onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of the air bases.
A total of 41 Russian warplanes were hit, the official said.

Russia acknowledges air base attacks, says fires put out 
Ukraine did not tell the Trump administration about the attack in advance, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official.
Russia’s Defense Ministry acknowledged on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine had launched drone strikes against Russian military airfields across five regions on Sunday.
It said the attacks repelled the assaults in all but two regions — Murmansk in the far north and Irkutsk in Siberia — where “the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire.”
The fires were extinguished without casualties. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the ministry said.
Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s air force said, the highest nightly total of the war so far. Russia had also launched seven missiles, the air force said.
Russia said it had advanced deeper into the Sumy region of Ukraine, and open source pro-Ukrainian maps showed Russia took 450 square km of Ukrainian land in May, its fastest monthly advance in at least six months.
US President Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace and he has threatened to walk away if they do not — potentially pushing responsibility for supporting Ukraine onto the shoulders of European powers — which have far less cash and much smaller stocks of weapons than the United States.
According to Trump envoy Keith Kellogg, the two sides will in Turkiye present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, though it is clear that after three years of intense war, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart.
Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022.
Trump has called Putin “crazy” and berated Zelensky in public in the Oval Office, but the US president has also said that he thinks peace is achievable and that if Putin delays then he could impose tough sanctions on Russia.
In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.
Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.
According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine’s military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow’s forces, and reparations for Ukraine.
The document also stated that the current location of the front line will be the starting point for negotiations about territory.
Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100 square km, about the same size as the US state of Ohio. 


Russian strike kills 12 Ukrainian soldiers during training: Kyiv

Updated 01 June 2025
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Russian strike kills 12 Ukrainian soldiers during training: Kyiv

  • Kyiv did not say where the strike took place, but stressed the soldiers were not taking part in a “mass gathering” and most were in their shelters during the attack

KYIV: A Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian army training area killed at least 12 soldiers and wounded dozens more Sunday, Kyiv said, in a rare admission of its military losses.
Kyiv did not say where the strike took place, but stressed the soldiers were not taking part in a “mass gathering” and most were in their shelters during the attack.
The Ukrainian army has in recent weeks faced pressure to investigate what some see as glaring lapses in ensuring the safety of training soldiers.
Six soldiers training close to the border were killed by a Russian strike last month, in what one Ukrainian opposition politician called a “crime” by army leadership.
“Today, on June 1, the enemy launched a missile strike on the location of one of the training units of the Ukrainian army,” the Ukrainian army said in a statement.
“As of 12:50 p.m. (0950 GMT), 12 people are known to have been killed and more than 60 wounded.”
“If it is established that the deaths and injuries of the servicemen were caused by the actions or inaction of officials, those responsible will be brought to strict accountability,” it added.
Separately on Sunday, the Russian army said it had captured another village in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, where Kyiv fears Moscow could mount a fresh ground assault.
Russia claims to have captured several settlements in the region in recent weeks, and has massed more than 50,000 soldiers on the other side of the border, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Authorities in the region have evacuated more than 200 villages amid intensified shelling.


China’s Yunnan hit with floods, mudslides from intense rains

Updated 01 June 2025
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China’s Yunnan hit with floods, mudslides from intense rains

  • Over 600 tourists visiting rural scenic spots in the area on Saturday found themselves trapped, according to Xinhua, which reported 500 of them had been rescued by Sunday

BEIJING: Heavy rainfall triggering flash floods and mudslides have damaged roads, destroyed buildings and claimed bridges, wreaking havoc in China’s southwestern Yunnan province on a long holiday weekend.
No casualties were reported but more than 4,800 residents in Gongshan county were affected, with about one-third of them urgently relocated, state news agency Xinhua said.
Over 600 tourists visiting rural scenic spots in the area on Saturday found themselves trapped, according to Xinhua, which reported 500 of them had been rescued by Sunday.
Road access to mountainous sites popular with hikers such as Bingzhongluo town and Yubeng village in neighboring Deqin county were cut off, state broadcaster CCTV.
The Dulong river saw flood waters swell to record levels, according to historical logs from a hydrological monitoring station.
A four-story building set along the river that had been evacuated collapsed, CCTV reported, showing a video of the structure tipping backwards and disappearing into a cloud of dust.
The intense rainfall over a 12-hour period disrupted power supplies. Repair work to roads and power lines was underway, said state media.
Local authorities had issued a red alert ahead of the rainstorm on Friday night but downgraded it to a yellow alert by Saturday morning.
China uses a four-color warning system that escalates from blue, yellow, orange to red according to the level of precipitation and anticipated risks.