Countries and companies attending a refugee forum in Geneva this week pledged to boost support for refugees’ access to clean energy, among other goals. Findings show renewables offer multiple benefits, including reducing some of the root causes of displacement. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports on what this means for Africa, which hosts roughly one-quarter of the world’s refugees. …

One day after House Republicans stood in unanimous opposition to impeachment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell positioned his GOP-controlled chamber to second the party’s unapologetic embrace of President Donald Trump, putting the president’s effective takeover of the party on stark display.  McConnell signaled his confidence in Senate acquittal from the “most unfair” charges brought by the House, evidence of the party’s remarkable turnaround from four years ago, when congressional Republicans wanted nothing to do with the insurgent and inflammatory Trump campaign. The party is now bound to a president whose loyalty from his party’s core conservative voters is matched only by his opponents’ loathing for him. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., strikes the gavel after announcing the passage of article II of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 18, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. “They are who they are,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., when asked about the lack of daylight between the president and his party’s rank-and-file. She also questioned GOP lawmakers’ comments during Wednesday’s debate comparing Trump’s impeachment to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. “Something’s strange there,” she said. “Apart from the fact that they want to protect …

Pakistan’s government announced Thursday that it was seeking to disqualify the head of a three-judge panel that ruled that the corpse of convicted former dictator Pervez Musharraf should be “hanged for three days” outside Parliament if he died before his execution.      In its unprecedented short order announced this week, the special court issued a death sentence to the former military ruler for high treason for subverting the country’s constitution in 2007.  Musharraf, 76, has been living in self-imposed exile since 2016 and is undergoing medical treatment in a Dubai hospital. The court has directed law enforcement officials to arrest the “fugitive-convict” to ensure the death sentence is carried out. But “if found dead, corpse be dragged to the D-Chowk, Islamabad, Pakistan, and be hanged for 03 days,” the ruling said, referring to a place just outside the national Parliament.    ‘Despicable order’   Top government officials told a hurriedly called news conference Thursday evening that they had decided to initiate legal proceedings against Judge Waqar Ahmad Seth for issuing a “despicable order” that they said was in violation of the constitution.    “Our plea is that such a judge has got no authority to be a judge of any high court or the Supreme Court … …

The sole Congressman who cast a split vote on the decision to impeach President Donald Trump said he knew the decision might not make him popular in a politically divided time, but he also felt it was the right thing to do. “Here’s the thing. I voted my heart without fear about politics at all,” said Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden, a member of the class of 2018, on Thursday. “My conclusion was that this wasn’t about me. It was about the president and his actions; about our republic and about our Constitution.” Golden joined with almost all of his Democratic colleagues on Wednesday in voting to impeach Trump for abuse of power, but broke with all but two Democrats in voting against impeaching trump for obstruction of Congress. Both articles of impeachment ultimately passed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., readies to strike the gavel as she announces the passage of article II of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 18, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Golden represents a vast, rural, politically mixed district in Maine and is headed into an election year in which he will most likely face a hard fight to stay in Congress. He …

A jailed Catalan separatist leader was entitled to immunity as a member of the European Parliament, the EU’s highest court ruled on Thursday. Oriol Junqueras was sentenced to 13 years in prison in October for his role in a 2017 Catalan independence referendum that was deemed illegal by Spanish courts. He was elected an MEP while in prison awaiting the verdict and has not been able to take up his seat. The EU court ruled anyone elected to the European Parliament “enjoys immunities” to travel and take part in parliamentary sessions and an MEP cannot be subject to detention or legal proceedings because of views expressed or votes cast. The immunity does not, however, apply to an MEP who has committed an offense. The Spanish Supreme Court, which had referred the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), must now decide how to comply with the verdict. Junqueras’ lawyer Andreu Van den Eynde told reporters the ruling should push Spain’s Supreme Court to overturn his client’s conviction and grant his immediate release from jail. “I believe that, one way or another, the State Attorney must accept we are right,” he said at a news conference outside …

“I’m buying dollars, I’m buying euros,” Roly, 28, whispers furtively to tourists outside a hotel in Havana. Roly, who declined to disclose his last name for fear of reprisals, works as a “mule”, traveling abroad to buy goods to sell back in Communist-run Cuba where the black market booms due to shortages and high prices in the state-run economy. But like many Cubans, he says that he is struggling to acquire the hard currency he needs as it has become near impossible in recent weeks to obtain it legally at the country’s banks and exchange houses. Analysts say the recent elusiveness of hard currency is likely due to a deteriorating economic situation and increased demand as the government steps up moves to end Cuba’s labyrinthine dual currency system. Among those affected are Cubans who want to protect themselves from any kind of possible depreciation this complex process could entail by parking their savings in hard currency and those, like Roly, wanting to travel abroad. Neither of Cuba’s two currencies – the peso or the dollar-equivalent convertible peso (CUC) – are legal tender outside the island, where all financial institutions are state-run. “There’s been no money available at the banks or …

The Turkish fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi this week denounced Saudi Arabia’s human rights record during a visit to Italy and called for action to bring those responsible for the killing to justice. She also said she is “heartbroken” the Italian Super Cup was being played in Saudi Arabia.  Speaking in Turkish at a press conference this week at the Foreign Press Association, Hatice Cengiz said that more than a year after Khashoggi’s death, no European country had yet done anything about this terrible and unacceptable killing.  Cengiz said she asked Italian senators how it was acceptable that no one was punished for the killing. She also asked if they were really prepared to just to let it go away. “This is something really embarrassing for all of mankind,” she said. Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, where he had gone to obtain documents needed to get married to Cengiz. Weeks after Khashoggi failed to leave the consulate, the Saudis admitted he was dead.  Cengiz said that five people were sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for the murder, but that no information has been made available as to …

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent resounding general election victory — the biggest Conservative win since his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 barnstorming success — has made it certain that Britain will part company with the European Union come the end of January, fulfilling the government’s key re-election campaign pledge to “get Brexit done.” Even ardent Remainers, who hoped to engineer a second Brexit referendum to overturn the 2016 plebiscite in which a small majority voted to leave the European Union, have accepted their hope will not become a reality. With a majority of 80 in the House of Commons, Johnson’s withdrawal legislation, which was presented Thursday in parliament, will sail through. So will next year be largely a Brexit-free one? Is the saga of Britain’s departure from Europe to be finally completed more than three-and-a-half years after the country voted to leave? Think again, say analysts. Britain and Europe will shortly enter a second and possibly trickier stage of negotiations over their future political and trade relations, and the stakes are high for both sides. Speaking after his huge Dec. 12 general election win, Johnson said the results of Britain’s third such vote in four years had emphasized the “irrefutable” …

Russia has signaled it will file an appeal against its four-year Olympic ban due to World Anti-Doping Agency sanctions which President Vladimir Putin on Thursday branded “unfair.” The Russian anti-doping agency’s supervisory board voted Thursday to file an arbitration case with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland. WADA last week ruled Russia had manipulated doping laboratory data to cover up past offenses. Putin said it was not fair to threaten Russia with more doping-related punishment, and that any sanctions should be on an individual basis. “I think it is not just unfair but not corresponding to common sense and law,” Putin said. The case will likely be referred to CAS within the next 10-15 days, supervisory board chairman Alexander Ivlev said. After a panel of three CAS arbitrators is chosen, a verdict will be issued within three months. “The ball will be in WADA’s court and the issue will be discussed in a legal context,” Ivlev said. “We consider the argumentation to be fairly strong and we will see how the issue develops.” Thursday’s decision must be approved by another panel of Russian sports and anti-doping figures, but that seems a formality. Most of the panel’s members, …

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it has “neutralized” an unidentified shooter who opened fire near its headquarters in central Moscow on December 19 and confirmed an unspecified number of casualties, in a statement carried by Russian news agencies. “An unknown individual opened fire near building number 12 on Bolshaya Lubyanka Street, there are casualties. The identity of the criminal is being established. The criminal has been neutralized,” agencies quoted the FSB as saying. It was unclear whether the gunman had been killed or detained. It was also unclear whether more than one attacker took part in the incident. Several gunshots in the same area were reported by Reuters after the FSB statement and police expanded the security perimeter. A spokesman for Russia’s Health Ministry meanwhile was quoted by news agencies as saying that two FSB officers “received very serious wounds.” The Izvestia newspaper quoted a source as saying three people had been killed in the incident. It was unclear whether more than one attacker took part in the incident that came on the eve of the Security Services Day in Russia, celebrated on December 20. The RT television channel reported on social media that Russian intelligence services described the …

Algeria’s new president pledged Thursday to introduce presidential term limits and bring more young people into politics, as he tries to win over a pro-democracy movement that boycotted his election and forced out his long-serving predecessor. The gas-rich North African nation inaugurated Abdelmadjid  Tebboune as president Thursday in a pomp-filled ceremony. Members of Algeria’s governing elite hope Tebboune helps the country turn the page on 10 months of peaceful but persistent protests that have threatened their legitimacy and stalled the economy. Many protesters reject Tebboune as part of a discredited elite, and want a new political system instead. Tebboune, a 74-year-old former prime minister considered close to Algeria’s powerful army chief, reached out immediately to the Hirak protest movement, which helped oust Algeria’s president of two decades, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, from office in April. “The constitution guarantees … the right to protest,” Tebboune said. In his first presidential speech, he promised to tackle the corruption that the protesters decry, and to curtail his own powers. He announced a revision of the constitution to introduce a two-term limit for presidents. Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term — despite being hobbled by a stroke — is what unleashed this year’s protests and led …

Preliminary results from Afghanistan’s delayed presidential polls will be announced in the coming days, an election official said Thursday, after a main candidate ended his boycott of a recount. The country has been stuck in political limbo since the vote, with the two top candidates – President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah – locked in a close race. Independent Election Commission (IEC) spokesman Zabih Sadat told AFP the key recount and audit of votes from the Sept. 28 election had been completed in all but one province. “The recount in one remaining province will be completed today,” Sadat said. “Then we will gather data and announce the preliminary results to the public early next week.” In Afghanistan, Saturdays mark the start of the week. The result was originally due on Oct. 19 but was repeatedly delayed amid technical issues, as well as fraud allegations from Abdullah’s team. Abdullah last month withdrew his team’s election observers from an official recount. His supporters then blocked the process in seven northern provinces, demanding the electoral commission first invalidate around 300,000 “fraudulent” ballots out of a total of 1.8 million. Last Friday, however, Abdullah said the recount could go ahead. Fazel Ahmad …

Queen Elizabeth II formally opened a new session of Britain’s Parliament on Thursday with a speech laying out Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans to use his commanding majority to take the U.K. out of the European Union and shake up the country’s public services. Johnson’s Conservative Party won an 80-strong majority in the 650-seat House of Commons last week on a pledge to “get Brexit done” by leaving the European Union on Jan. 31, and a broad promise to end years of public spending austerity. Now Johnson has to turn his election pledges into political reality. The Queen’s Speech — written by the government but read out by the monarch from atop a golden throne in the House of Lords — rattled through several dozen bills that the government plans to pass in the coming year. The first will be Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law needed to make Brexit a reality. It must become law before Jan. 31 if Johnson is to stick to his timetable, and the government plans to hold the first significant vote on it Friday. The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on Jan. 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by …

Hong Kong police on Thursday said they had frozen HK$70 million ($10 million) from a major fund for donations to help pro-democracy protesters, and arrested its four members for money laundering. Police said their investigation focused on Spark Alliance, a non-profit online platform formed in 2016 that collects donations to provide support to political critics of the city’s pro-Beijing authorities. It is one of two crowd-sourced funding platforms that have collected millions of dollars to provide legal and other help for people arrested in the pro-democracy protests that have upended the city since early June. But police said some of the donations were allegedly used by the fund owners for other investments. “We found the donated money was transferred to a shell company and a significant portion of this money was invested in personal insurance products,” Senior Superintendent Chan Wai-kei told reporters. “The beneficiary of these products is the person in charge of the shell company.” Four people aged between 17 and 50 – three men and one woman – were arrested for money laundering, including the alleged director of the shell company. Chan did not respond directly to questions from reporters on whether donating to legal defense funds for …

Four people went on trial in Slovakia on Thursday over the alleged contract killing of an investigative journalist and his fiancee, a crime that shocked the country and led a government to fall. The suspects appearing in court in a town near the capital of Bratislava include a Slovak businessman accused of masterminding the double slaying and the alleged hired assassin.  A fifth suspect made an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a lower sentence. The deal has to be approved by a judge, and the other suspects said Thursday they weren’t interested in striking similar deals They were escorted to the court by heavily armed guards. If convicted of last year’s killings of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova, they face potential prison sentences of 25 years or life. Suspects in the 2018 slaying of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova are escorted by armed police officers from a courtroom in Pezinok, Slovakia, Dec. 19, 2019. Kuciak and Kusnirova were killed in their home on Feb. 21, 2018. Slovak authorities said they believed the killings were linked to Kuciak’s work investigating possible widespread government corruption and ties between Slovak politicians and Italian mobsters. The 27-year-old …

Three small explosions went off in a southern Rakhine town in Myanmar Thursday just before civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi landed there in a rare visit to the conflict-ridden state, a local official said. The blasts happened in the normally quiet town of Manaung on an island off Myanmar’s western coast where Suu Kyi was due to open a solar power plant. “There were three explosions, but no casualties,” Win Myint, spokesperson for Rakhine’s regional government, told AFP. He said it happened before Suu Kyi arrived, but since they were on the other side of town the event went ahead as planned and she had since left safely on a flight to Yangon. “This has never happened in Manaung before.” No group has yet claimed responsibility for planting the small bombs, which detonated at the side of a road, photos from local media showed.   The area has remained largely unscathed by unrest further north, where Myanmar’s military is locked in an increasingly vicious conflict with the Arakan Army (AA). The rebel group claims to be fighting for more autonomy and rights for the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and garners sympathy from many local people who have long felt marginalized …

Police detained several hundred protesters in some of India’s biggest cities Thursday as they defied a ban on assembly that authorities imposed to stop widespread demonstrations against a new citizenship law that opponents say threatens the country’s secular democracy. Dozens of demonstrations were planned around the country as opposition widened to the law, which excludes Muslims. The legislation has sparked anger at what many see as the Hindu nationalist-led government’s push to bring India closer to a Hindu state. Historian Ramchandra Guha, a biographer of independence leader Mohandas Gandhi, was among those detained in Bangalore, the capital of southern Karnataka state. The state government issued a ban on groups of more than four people gathering. Reached by phone, Guha said he was in a bus with other detainees and did not know where the police were taking them. In New Delhi, Yogendra Yadav, the chief of the Swaraj India party, was among those detained as protesters demonstrated at New Delhi’s iconic Red Fort and the surrounding historic district. Officials said more than 100 people were detained at the fort. The protesters were loaded into buses and other vehicles. The main roads leading to the fort were blocked off and police …

A Philippine court on Thursday found members of a prominent political clan guilty of carrying out a 2009 massacre that left 57 people dead, including 32 media workers. The Manila court sentenced Andal Ampatuan Jr. and several other family members to life in prison. The case involved more than 100 detained suspects, and dozens were given lesser sentences while others were acquitted for a lack of evidence. Nicholas Bequelin of the London-based rights group Amnesty International said the government must take more steps to achieve justice for the victims with 80 other people accused of taking part in the massacre still at large. The killings took place after gunmen blocked a convoy carrying relatives and supporters of Esmael Mangudadatu. They were traveling to submit forms for his candidacy for governor of Maguindanao province in what was a challenge to the Ampatuan control in the area. The victims and their vehicles were dumped in a mass grave. The trial in the case began in 2010, and throughout the process the Ampatuan family members denied the charges against them. …

A British man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to U.S. charges alleging that he and co-conspirators in an international hacking group called The Dark Overlord stole data from health care and accounting companies in Missouri, Illinois and Georgia and threatened to release the information unless they paid ransom. Nathan Francis Wyatt, 38, was charged in federal court in St. Louis with conspiracy, two counts of aggravated identity theft and three counts of threatening to damage a protected computer, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday. His court appearance came after he lost an 11-month fight to avoid being extradited from Britain to the U.S. The indictment does not name the companies that were allegedly attacked but said they include a health care provider in Farmington, Missouri; a medical records company in Swansea, Illinois; an accounting business in St. Louis; a health care provider in Athens, Georgia; and a health care provider with several locations in Missouri. The indictment also does not name the co-conspirators or provide any details on them. Wyatt’s attorney, federal public defender Kayla Williams, did not immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press. The conspiracy charge alleges that Wyatt and his co-conspirators remotely accessed the companies’ computers …

Australia’s most populous state of New South Wales declared a seven-day state of emergency Thursday as oppressive conditions fanned around 100 wildfires. Around 2,000 firefighters were battling the blazes, half of which remain uncontrolled, with the support of U.S. and Canadian backup teams and personnel from the Australian Defence Force. The last state of emergency ran for seven days in mid-November amid “catastrophic” fire risk and was the first implemented in New South Wales since 2013. Central Sydney reached a maximum of 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) on Thursday, while outer suburbs scorched at 42 Celsius (108 F). A statewide total fire ban announced on Tuesday will remain in place until midnight on Saturday. Around 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land has burnt nationwide during a torrid past few months, with six people killed and more than 800 homes destroyed. The annual Australian fire season, which peaks during the Southern Hemisphere summer, started early after an unusually warm and dry winter. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said authorities were concerned with the unpredictable conditions. “With extreme wind conditions, extreme hot temperatures, we have a good idea, a good sense, of where the most concerning areas are, but …

The Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump Wednesday. Lawmakers passed charges he abused the power of the presidency to benefit himself politically by a 230-197 vote, with one present. Charges Trump obstructed Congress’ efforts to investigate him also passed by a 229-198 vote, with one present. The historic vote fell almost entirely along party lines, sending the case for removing Trump from office to the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill …

Minutes after the House impeached President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw uncertainty into the process by refusing to say, repeatedly, when or whether she would send two articles to the Senate for a trial. Her comments came as a surprise in a news conference late Wednesday that was intended to express Democrats’ somber closing message after voting to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. She started by praising her fellow Democrats for having “moral courage” and said it was “a great day for the Constitution of the United States of America.” But then she declined to say when she would send the articles to the Republican-led Senate. Until the articles are submitted, the Senate cannot hold the trial that is nearly certain to acquit the president. Pelosi said House Democrats could not name impeachment managers — House prosecutors who make the case for Trump’s conviction and removal from office — until they know more about how the Senate will conduct a trial. “’We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side,” Pelosi said. “And I would hope that that will be soon. … So far we haven’t seen …

A year after the United Nation’s General Assembly adopted the Global Refugee Compact to deal with the world refugees crisis, world leaders gathered in Geneva to weigh the progress made, and pledged more than $3 billion to support refugees and about 50,000 resettlement communities. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the Global Forum on Refugees divvied up the responsibility for dealing with the 25.9 million refugees who have fled war and persecution, mainly exiled in poor neighboring countries. In addition to the $3 billion, Grandi said Germany, which has hosted hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, pledged about $1.9 billion. The Inter-American Development Bank pledged $1 billion to communities hosting refugees in Latin America. The World Bank also increased its funding for projects supporting refugees by 10%, to $2.2 billion. At the end of 2018, nearly 71 million people were living in forced displacement due to war, violence and persecution, including the nearly 26 million who had fled to other countries as refugees. The meeting this week in Geneva stressed the need to share the economic and societal burden of nearly 80% of the world’s refugees living in poor and developing countries. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose …

The first-ever Global Refugee Forum has ended with more than 770 pledges worth billions of dollars in financial, technical, material, legal and other assistance in support of millions of refugees and the communities that host them.  The biggest single contribution came from the World Bank, which pledged $2.2 billion. This was matched by pledges of more than $3 billion dollars in additional resources by states and $250 million from private corporations. However, the total value of the pledges made at the forum will not be known for some time. This is because many of the contributions come in the form of projects run by corporations, aid agencies, civic, faith-based and other organizations. Many involve beneficial projects for refugees by creating jobs and livelihoods, enhancing employment for women, educational opportunities for children, pro bono legal services and the like. UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi says everything will be quickly analyzed and monitored. “It is difficult to add up the different type of contributions, but…we want to monitor the implementation of these pledges altogether and we want to measure impact as soon as possible. We have developed with states a set of indicators that will give us progressively a sense …