9 takeaways from the House Judiciary Committee's first impeachment hearing
Updated 0037 GMT (0837 HKT) December 5, 2019
On Wednesday morning, the House Judiciary Committee convened its first hearing in the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump -- bringing in four constitutional lawyers to debate what, exactly, constitutes "high crimes and misdemeanors" and whether the President had committed any of those acts.
I watched the hearing and identified key moments and takeaways in real time. They're below.
Radiation hotspots 'found near Fukushima Olympic site'
Greenpeace calls for fresh monitoring of region where nuclear disaster occurred
Greenpeace has said it detected radiation hotspots near the starting point of the upcoming Olympic torch relay in Fukushima.
Japan’s environment ministry said the area was generally safe but it was in talks with local communities to survey the region before the 2020 Games, which open on 24 July.
The government is keen to use the Olympics to showcase Fukushima’s recovery from the 2011 tsunami. It intends to use J-Village, a sports complex located about 12 miles from the nuclear plant that was damaged in the disaster, as the starting point for the Japan leg of the torch relay taking place in March.
Yazidi women rescued from Isis captivity nine months after fall of caliphate
Rescues raise hopes for thousands of missing Yazidi women, captured five years ago
Richard HallBeirut
Three Yazidi women have been rescued from Isis captivity in Iraq and Syria this week, some nine months after the defeat of the terror group’s caliphate.
A 17-year-old woman was found by Iraqi security forces in a desert hideout used by the jihadi group near the city of Ramadi, and two others aged 16 and 20 were found in separate locations in Syria, according to local media.
The discoveries will fuel hopes that some of the thousands of Yazidi women still missing may yet be found in the territory formerly held by Isis.
France looks set for potentially its biggest strike in decades
France is bracing itself for a widespread transport strike starting on Thursday, December 5. This looks set to be the most comprehensive strike the country has experienced in decades. Many are predicting the country will be forced to a standstill. It is possible the strikes could last until Christmas.
France may be a country with a reputation for protest, but this planned walkout is on an large scale and will affect the daily life of many. All public transport systems will be affected. Many trains have been cancelled, others are running at drastically reduced levels.
The last strike of this potential size was in 1995, when the country was frozen for three weeks.
SEVENTEEN YEARS AFTER HIS ARREST, ALLEGED USS COLE PLOTTER IS STILL FIGHTING TO SEE RECORDS OF HIS CIA TORTURE
PROSECUTORS IN GUANTANAMO Bay argued on Tuesday that the government should be allowed to continue withholding underlying source documents about CIA torture from defense attorneys representing the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, even though a judge ruled that the government process of summarizing those documents “produced deletions that could fairly be characterized as self-serving and calculated to avoid embarrassment.”
The arguments came after a 21-month pause in the case of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a 54-year-old Saudi national who stands accused of engineering Al Qaeda’s assault on the Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer that was attacked by suicide bombers while refueling off the coast of Aden, Yemen, in 2000. The attack killed 17 American sailors and injured 39 others, and was one of the major acts of terrorism against United States persons overseas in the pre-9/11 era.
The attacks on Ilhan Omar reveal a disturbing truth about racism in America
A Muslim, a black woman, and a refugee, Ilhan Omar faces Islamophobia, racism, misogyny, and anti-immigration strains in American culture.
By
Want to know how awful racism can still be in America? Look no further than the vitriol directed at Ilhan Omar.
Take, for example, the events of just the past several days. Last week, Twitter finally suspended the account of one of Omar’s Republican challengers, Danielle Stella, after she called for the congresswoman to be tried for treason and hanged if an unproven conspiracy theory that Omar gave sensitive information to Iran were confirmed. And Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Times reported that the campaign of Republican George Buck, a challenger to Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist in Florida, sent out a fundraising letter accusing Omar of secretly working for Qatar and reading, “We should hang these traitors where they stand.”
Racist threats and attacks are nothing new, but against Omar, they’re on overdrive.
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