Ties with Saudis at stake as US releases findings on Khashogi killing

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 26 February 2021

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WASHINGTON - US president Joe Biden spoke to Saudi Arabia's King Salman ahead of the release of a potentially explosive US intelligence report which is set to accuse his nephew Mohammed bin Salman of complicity in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Mr Biden, who has already seen the intelligence report, is said to have insisted that he speak to King Salman only - and not to Mohammed bin Salman, his nephew and Crown Prince.

During the presidential election campaign, Mr Biden described Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” and claimed its government had “very little social redeeming value".

Mr Biden's insistence in speaking to King Salman is seen as an attempt to sideline 35-year-old Mohammed bin Salman, who is regarded as the de facto ruler of the country.

“The president’s intention, as is the intention of this government, is to recalibrate our engagement with Saudi Arabia,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said this week, signalling that the Crown Prince could become persona non grata under President Biden.

It is understood the purpose of the call was to brief King Salman of the contents of the report, which is due to be declassified imminently.

The CIA has reportedly concluded that the Crown Prince - who was a close ally of Donald Trump - ordered the killing of Mr Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

The Washington Post columnist, a critic of the Crown Prince, was murdered and dismembered by a team of assassins.

According to US news outlets, the intelligence report will conclude that the Crown Prince both ordered and approved the murder, which is likely to plunge the two countries into yet more severe diplomatic tensions and drastically reshape their relationship.

The conclusion was reportedly based on intercepted phone calls made by the Crown Prince in the days leading up to the murder.

In addition, according to court documents, it emerged that a pair of private jets which flew a Saudi hit squad to Turkey to murder the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was owned by a company that had been seized by the Crown Prince.

The United States has pledged to tell the world its conclusions on what role Saudi Arabia's crown prince played in the brutal killing and dismembering of a U.S.-based journalist, but as important is what comes next — what the Biden administration plans to do about it.

Ahead of the release of the declassified U.S. intelligence report, and announcement of any U.S. punitive measures, President Joe Biden spoke to Saudi King Salman on Thursday for the first time since taking office more than a month ago. It was a later-than-usual courtesy call to the Middle East ally, timing seen as reflecting Biden's displeasure. Still, a White House readout made no mention of the killing or the report.

The conversation was overshadowed by the expected imminent release of findings on whether the king's son approved the Oct. 2, 2018, killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's authoritarian consolidation of power, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in 2018 that the prince likely ordered the killing, a finding reported by news media but never officially released.

The White House said Biden on Thursday discussed with King Salman the two countries' “longstanding partnership” and welcomed the kingdom's recent releases of an advocate for women's rights and some of its other political detainees.

The language came in contrast to Biden's pledge as a candidate to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah” over the killing. The White House offered no immediate explanation for his milder tone with the king.

The kingdom’s state-run Saudi Press Agency similarly did not mention Khashoggi’s killing in a report about the call between Biden and King Salman, instead focusing on regional issues such as Iran and the ongoing war in Yemen.

The king and Biden stressed “the depth of the relationship between the two countries and the importance of strengthening the partnership between them to serve their interests and achieve security and stability in the region and the world,” the report said.

Biden’s inauguration today in Washington as US 46th President

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 20 January 2021

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WASHINGTON - US President Joe Biden will swear the oath of office at noon local time in Washington, DC, on Wednesday to become the 46th president of the United States, taking the helm of a deeply divided nation and inheriting a confluence of crises arguably greater than any faced by his predecessors.

The very ceremony in which presidential power is transferred, a hallowed US democratic tradition, will serve as a jarring reminder of the challenges he faces. The inauguration unfolds at a US Capitol battered by an insurrectionist siege just two weeks ago, encircled by security forces and devoid of crowds because of the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed 400,000 American lives.

Mr Biden will not be applauded, or probably even acknowledged, by his predecessor. Flouting tradition, Donald Trump plans to depart Washington on Wednesday morning ahead of the inauguration rather than accompany his successor to the Capitol, holding his own “farewell” reception as the world turns the page on four years of chaos and division under his leadership.

Senator McConnell said publicly those who stormed Congress were “provoked by the President”

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 19 January 2021

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WASHINGTON - US Senate Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell, said publicly for the first time that the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol were “provoked by the president.”

“The mob was fed lies,” Mr. McConnell said, referring to attempts by President Trump to overturn the election based on bogus claims of voter fraud.

Mr McConnell's remarks in opening the Senate on Tuesday are his most severe and public rebuke of Mr Trump.

The Republican leader vowed a "safe and successful" inauguration of US President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday at the Capitol, which is under extremely tight security.

Mr McConnell said: "The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of branch of the federal government."

Mr McConnell said "we'll move forward" after Mr Biden's inauguration on the Capitol's West Front – what he noted former president George HW Bush has called "democracy's front porch".

Mr Trump's last full day in office is also senators' first day back since the deadly Capitol siege, an unparalleled time of transition as the Senate presses ahead to his impeachment trial and starts confirmation hearings on Mr Biden's cabinet.

Three new Democratic senators-elect are set to be sworn into office shortly after Mr Biden's inauguration at the Capitol, which is under extreme security since the bloody pro-Trump riot. The new senators' arrival will give the Democrats the most slim majority, a 50-50 divided Senate chamber, with the new vice president, Kamala Harris, swearing them in and serving as an eventual tie-breaking vote.

Mr McConnell and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer are set to confer about the arrangements ahead.

The start of the new session of Congress will force senators to come to terms with the post-Trump era, a transfer of power like almost none other in the nation's history. Senators are returning to a Capitol shattered from the riot, but also a Senate ground to a halt by Congress members' own extreme partisanship.

He has indicated privately that he believes that Mr. Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses, but he has said he has yet to decide whether to vote to convict the president.

Republican senators, in particular, face a daunting choice of whether to convict Mr Trump of inciting the insurrection, the first impeachment trial of a president no longer in office, in a break with the defeated president who continues to hold great sway over the party but whose future is uncertain.

Senators are also being asked to start confirming Mr Biden's cabinet nominees and consider passage of a sweeping new 1.9 trillion dollar Covid-19 relief bill.

In opening remarks at his confirmation hearing, Mr Biden's nominee for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, vowed to get to the bottom of the "horrifying" attack on the Capitol.

Mr Mayorkas told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that if confirmed he would do everything possible to ensure "the desecration of the building that stands as one of the three pillars of our democracy, and the terror felt by you, your colleagues, staff, and everyone present, will not happen again".

Five of Mr Biden's nominees are set for hearings on Tuesday as the Senate prepares for swift confirmation of some as soon as the president-elect takes office, as is often done on Inauguration Day, particularly for the White House's national security team.