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Every weekend, Asia Pacific Daily will provide you with a run-down of the latest hot news.
This week, the following hot news you should know:
Top 1 | Trump impeachment: Republican Senate 'coverup' prompts backlash
Outraged by what they see as a coverup in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, grassroots activists are planning a massive “payback project” designed to punish Republican senators at the ballot box.
Even as key Republican senators acknowledged Trump’s guilt on charges of abusing power and obstructing Congress, they defied public opinion on Friday by voting to block witnesses and documents, paving the way for the president to be acquitted and claim exoneration.
Republican fealty to Trump has long wearied liberals but the senators’ move appeared to cause a new level of anger. The Indivisible Project, a progressive group, announced it would target nine senators, among them majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, in November’s elections.
Top 2 | Xi talks with Trump over phone on novel coronavirus outbreak
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke over phone with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday morning.
Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus epidemic, the Chinese government and people have been making all-out efforts to battle the disease, Xi said. China, he added, has carried out national mobilization, across-the-board deployment and swift responses, adopted the most comprehensive and rigorous prevention and control measures and launched a people's war against the epidemic.
Noting that China's efforts are gradually yielding positive results, Xi stressed that China has full confidence and capability to prevail over the epidemic and that the trend of the Chinese economy maintaining long-term growth will not change. Xi pointed out that China is dedicated to safeguarding the lives and health of not only its own people but also people all over the world.
Top 3 | Johnson to Hail 'Dawn of a New Era' as UK on Final Lap to Long-Awaited Divorce From EU
The United Kingdom is on the verge of finally leaving the European Union on Friday after 47 years of being part of the bloc and its predecessor organizations. The formal divorce that is to take place at 23:00 GMT, however, will be only the first step toward the next chapter of the EU-UK relationship.
Hours prior to the divorce, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to address the nation, announcing the beginning of a new era for the country.
The prime minister will also have a cabinet meeting in Sunderland - the first city to support the leave motion in 2016, with more than 60 percent of the population voting in favor of Brexit. Following the formal Brexit, the UK will enter an 11-month transition period, during which several aspects of everyday life for UK and EU citizens, such as travel, will remain the same as before.
Top 4 | Trump's State of Union speech exposes bitter US divides
President Donald Trump's State of the Union address became a shocking display of US divisions Tuesday with Democrats protesting the Republican's boasts before their leader, Nancy Pelosi, ripped up her copy of the speech on live television.
The House speaker's gesture at the very end encapsulated the seething atmosphere in the Capitol throughout Trump's one hour and 18 minutes speech. Instead of what traditionally has been an annual moment for the political truce, this State of the Union mirrored the political war raging through the country ahead of November elections.
Trump was still on the podium, having just completed the soaring finale to his speech when Pelosi, standing just behind him, raised the papers and demonstratively tore them to pieces.
Top 5 | Palestinian president says to cut relations with Israel, U.S. over Trump's peace deal
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said here on Saturday that his authority informed the Israeli and U.S. sides that it will "cut all relations" with them over the recently released U.S. peace plan.
"We told the Israelis that we will not have any relations with them or with the United States, including security relations," Abbas told an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League headquarters in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
Announced in Washington on Jan. 28 by U.S. President Donald Trump, in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the U.S. peace plan was rejected by the Palestinians.
Top 6 | Int'l community provides aid to China to support anti-epidemic efforts
The international community has been pouring in aid to China to support its efforts to prevent and control the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
The Pakistani government has allocated 300,000 medical masks, 800 hazmat suits and 6,800 pairs of gloves from the stocks of public hospitals around the nation and transported the aid to China. South Korea also offered large amounts of medical and anti-epidemic materials to China, including 2 million face masks, 1 million medical masks, 100,000 hazmat suits and 100,000 pairs of goggles.
The governments of Russia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Australia, Algeria, Iran and Turkey among other countries have also offered donations of anti-epidemic medical supplies to express their firm support for China's fight against the epidemic.
Top 7 | India says no plans yet to prepare a citizenship registry
India’s ruling Hindu nationalist-led government said Tuesday it was still weighing whether to roll out a nationwide citizenship registry, an exercise it says would weed out illegal foreign nationals, amid ongoing protests against a citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalization for some religious minorities from three neighboring countries but not Muslims.
The official statement, made by lawmaker Nityanand Rai in a written reply to a question in Parliament, is a departure from comments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s senior party leaders, including the home minister, Amit Shah. The BJP’s manifesto for the 2019 national elections, which the party won in a landslide victory, also promised the citizenship registry in India.
Modi, however, recently backed away from the exercise after public pressure mounted with the passage of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act. Millions of people have demonstrated in India’s major cities since the law was passed in December.
Top 8 | Australia's capital braces as hot, windy conditions fuel bushfires
Soaring temperatures and strong winds stoked unpredictable bushfires near Australia’s capital city on Saturday, closing a major highway and prompting warnings for some residents that it was too late to evacuate.
Skies along the Monaro Highway in the Australian Capital Territory turned orange-red as an uncontrolled blaze ballooned to more than 35,000 hectares (74,000 acres) in size. The territory, home to the country’s capital, Canberra, declared a state of emergency on Friday in anticipation of the severely hot and windy conditions that are expected to last through the weekend. It is the area’s first declared emergency since 2003 when four people were killed and almost 500 homes destroyed in wildfires.
A second major uncontrolled fire was burning slightly further south in the Snowy Monaro region of New South Wales state, the same alpine area where an air tanker crashed on Jan. 22 killing three American firefighters.
Top 9 | Record-breaking US astronaut set to return to Earth
US astronaut Christina Koch is set to return to Earth Thursday having shattered the spaceflight record for female astronauts by spending almost a year aboard the International Space Station.
Koch of NASA is expected to touch down in the Kazakh steppes with colleagues Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency at 0912 GMT after 328 days in space.
The 41-year-old Michigan-born engineer by training surpassed the previous record set for a single spaceflight by a woman -- 289 days, held by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson -- on December 28, 2019. Koch had already made history by that point after she became one half of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir in October.
Top 10 | Greta Thunberg Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Swedish Left Party MPs
The Swedish teenage climate activist was also nominated in 2019 and was polling as one of the favourites in the Nobel race, but narrowly missed the prize.
Greta Thunberg and the climate movement Fridays for the Future that she spearheads have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2020. Behind the nomination are two Swedish MPs from the Left Party, Håkan Svenneling and Jens Holm, the newspaper has Aftonbladet reported.
Thunberg's work and her movement have done much to raise the issue of climate change at the highest political level, and without them the issue would not have been as relevant, the two Left Party politicians claimed. They also suggested that climate change is a peace issue because it can spark conflicts and create climate refugees.
Related news:
Brexit trade deal clash: UK and EU begin sparring over rules
Iran's top leader says Trump's Mideast plan to "die soon"
Trump barrels into 2020 campaign, emboldened after acquittal
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
