White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 10, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Jamin Ben Raskin (born December 13, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district since 2017. The district is located in Montgomery County, an affluent suburban county northwest of Washington, D.C., and extends through rural Frederick County to the Pennsylvania border. A Democrat, he was a member of the Maryland State Senate from 2007 to 2016.

Prior to his election to Congress, he was a constitutional law professor at American University Washington College of Law, where he co-founded and directed the LL.M. program on Law and Government and co-founded the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project.


Early life
Raskin was born in Washington, D.C. on December 13, 1962 to a Jewish family.[3][4][5] He is the son of progressive activist Marcus Raskin—a former staff aide to President John F. Kennedy on the National Security Council and co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies—and Barbara (née Bellman) Raskin, a journalist and novelist. Raskin graduated from Georgetown Day School in 1979, and received a B.A. from Harvard College (magna cum laude) in 1983 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude) in 1987. He is a past editor of the Harvard Law Review.[6] Raskin served as general counsel for Jesse Jackson's National Rainbow Coalition from 1989 to 1990,[7] and he represented Ross Perot in 1996 over being excluded from the presidential debates, writing a Washington Post op-ed that strongly condemned the Federal Election Commission and the Commission on Presidential Debates.     from Wikipedia

---

 Rep. Raskin on why Trump should be prosecuted though no longer president
Feb 10, 2021
Warning: Some video shown during the trial contains graphic images of violence and profanity. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on Tuesday opened the second Senate impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump, refuting Republicans’ claims that senators do not have the constitutional authority to convict Trump because he is no longer in office. “Their argument is that if you committed an impeachable offense in your last few weeks in office, you do it with constitutional impunity. You get away with it,” Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, said on the Senate floor. “If we buy this radical argument that President Trump’s lawyers advance, we risk allowing January 6 to become our future.” The Senate is holding an impeachment trial to examine Trump’s culpability in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob of his supporters. During his argument, Raskin presented a graphic video timeline of the events of that day before analyzing the Senate’s right to impeach, as designated by the Constitution.

The Biden administration has ask for U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Donald Trump to resign. 

Biden asks Trump-appointed U.S attorneys to resign in Justice Dept. transition

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- The Biden administration on Tuesday asked all but two U.S. attorneys appointed to the Justice Department by the former Trump administration to resign, effective Feb. 28.

Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson confirmed in a statement that the Biden administration and the Justice Department have begun the "transition process for the U.S. attorneys."

"We are committed to ensuring a seamless transition," he said. "Until U.S. attorney nominees are confirmed, the interim and acting leaders in the U.S. Attorneys' Offices will make sure that the department continues to accomplish its critical law enforcement mission, vigorously defend the rule of law and pursue the fair and impartial administration of justice for all."

Most presidential appointees by the Trump administration had already tendered their resignation, he said, adding that one-third of the country's 94 district offices were already led by acting and interim leadership.     more details

---

FEBRUARY 9, 2021 | PART OF U.S. SENATE: IMPEACHMENT TRIAL
U.S. Senate
Impeachment Trial Constitutionality Arguments
The Senate impeachment trial continued with the attorneys for former President Donald Trump presenting their case on the constitutionality of the trial. House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-MD) followed with concluding remarks.

U.S. Navy Drills In South China Sea
Feb. 10 - The U.S. has again sent its warships through the South China Sea in a combat drill - the third sailing since President Joe Biden took over the White House.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Nimitz with their strike groups were involved.

The U.S. Navy said the operation was to support a free and open Indo-Pacific. It said it "conducted a multitude of exercises aimed at increasing interoperability between assets as well as command and control capabilities."

"We are committed to ensuring the lawful use of the sea that all nations enjoy under international law," said Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz carrier strike group.

The drill was the third in Asia since the Biden administration took office.     continue to read

White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 9, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Donald Trump's second impeachment trial set to begin in US Senate

Feb. 9 - The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will begin in the US Senate on Tuesday, with the former president facing a charge of “incitement of insurrection” after his supporters stormed the US Capitol last month and engaged in clashes that left five people dead.

The prosecution is expected to brandish dramatic footage of the violence at the Capitol on 6 January. The trial is set to strike a sharp contrast of tone with Trump’s first trial in early 2020, at which prosecutors used documents, emails and testimony to tell a complicated story about a Trump pressure campaign in Ukraine.     continue to read

---

Bruce Castor is a magnet for controversy. Naturally, he’s Trump’s impeachment attorney.

Lawyer Bruce L. Castor Jr., the former district attorney of Montgomery County, Pa., has been named one of former president Donald Trump’s impeachment attorneys.

Feb. 9 - "I don't think the case is particularly complicated," said Bruce L. Castor Jr. on Thursday, while driving his Corvette back to his suburban Philadelphia home after being inside the U.S. Capitol for the first time in 15 years.

Castor is defending Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial, scheduled to begin Tuesday, where the former president stands accused of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The attorney was given little more than a week to prepare — during a pandemic.

For the first eight years of the millennium, Bruce Castor was the local evening news here, at 6, 10 and 11. Tall, telegenic, in bold pinstripes that skewed a tad too Dick Tracy but popped on camera, not to mention cowboy boots (curious, those, in the affluent Pennsylvania suburbs), he was the pol at the mic, the swaggering prosecutor cleaning up crimes that the public never tired of following: Mayhem on the Main Line. In one year alone, he racked up five first-degree murder convictions.     continue to read

---

Trump lawyer withdraws request not to have impeachment trial on Sabbath

Feb. 9, (CNN)Former President Donald Trump's lawyer David Schoen is withdrawing his request to not hold the impeachment trial on the Jewish Sabbath, according to a person familiar with trial planning, which had altered the likely schedule for the proceedings.

In a letter written to Sens. Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, Schoen wrote, "Based on adjustments that have been made on the President's defense team, I am writing today to withdraw my request so that the proceedings can go forward as originally contemplated before I made my request. I will not participate during the Sabbath; but the role I would have played will be fully covered to the satisfaction of the defense team."     continue to read

China “expels” US warship from South China Sea, a first under Biden presidency

Feb. 8 - China on Friday said it has expelled a US guided missile destroyer from the South China Sea, a day after the same warship passed through the Taiwan Strait.

The People’s Liberation Army’s southern theatre command issued a statement saying it deployed warships and aircraft to warn and drive away USS John S McCain from near the Xisha Island (Paracel Island in English) in the SCS region.

The US Navy has said it was carrying out a lawful, “freedom of navigation operation”.

Friday’s exchange is part of the war of words that has broken out between Beijing and Washington on the passage of the US warship through the region in the past 24 hours — for the first time since Joe Biden took over as President in January.     continue to read

---

White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 8, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Robert Stephen Ford (born 1958) is a retired American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Algeria from 2006 to 2008 and the United States Ambassador to Syria from 2010 to 2014.

Syria
In 2010, U. S. President Barack Obama nominated Ford as the first U.S. Ambassador to Syria in five years (pending U.S. Senate approval).[6] In December 2010, after the U.S. Senate had failed to act on the nomination, Obama used a recess appointment to secure Ford the position.[7] The Senate then confirmed Ford by unanimous consent on October 3, 2011.[8][9] As a result, Ford no longer was serving under a recess appointment and therefore could have held the position until Obama's term ended in January 2017.

On October 24, 2011, Ford was recalled from Syria; the U.S. State Department cited "credible threats" to his safety.[10] Ford had attracted the ire of pro-Assad Syrians due to his strong support of the Syrian uprising. According to American officials, Ford had been attacked by an armed pro-government mob, and Syrian state television had begun running reports blaming him for the formation of death squads similar to those in Iraq. This led to fears that supporters of the Syrian government might try to kill him.[11]

In August 2013, it was reported by The New York Times that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had recommended that Ford serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, following the incumbent ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, being nominated to serve as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs – the head of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs within the U.S. Department of State, which oversees the Middle East.[12]  On February 4, 2014, officials of the U.S. State Department said that Ford was retiring[13] and on February 28 announced his departure.[14]  The U.S. States Department announced the appointment of Daniel Rubinstein as U.S. special envoy for Syria on March 14.[15]  In December 2018, Ford declared his support for President Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, describing it as "essentially correct."[16]

Actions in Syria
He visited Hama, where he was cheered by protesters.[17]  He met with Hassan Abdul-Azim, and was attacked with eggs and tomatoes by government supporters.[18][19]

---

President Joe Biden said of China's President Xi Jinping: 'he doesn't have a democratic, small-D, bone in his body'
President Joe Biden says Xi Jinping doesn’t have a democratic ‘bone in his body’ – and asserts the U.S. can avoid a 'conflict' with China and that he won't 'do it the way Trump did'

Feb. 8 - President Joe Biden signaled he is looking to reset U.S.-China policy from the Trump administration, saying the two nations can avoid a conflict, even as he claimed Chinese President Xi Jinping is lacking a democratic ‘bone in his body.’
Biden said he didn't mean the line as criticism – but he leveled as his administration began to press China on Hong Kong, its handling of Tibet, and its treatment of Uighurs on its western frontier.

Biden acknowledged in an interview with CBS that Xi, who consolidated power in 2018 when the National People's Congress removed term limits and effectively made him president 'for life,'  is no democrat.

But he sought to hold out at least the potential that the U.S. and China could get on a more cooperative footing, even as the two nations clash on trade and China’s ambitions as a rival global power.     continue to read

---

US sanctions on Myanmar would play into China’s hands

Feb. 8 - Directly or indirectly, the military has always called the shots in Myanmar. And now that it has removed the decade-old facade of gradual democratisation by detaining civilian leaders and seizing power, Western calls to punish the country with sanctions and international isolation are growing louder. Heeding them would be a mistake.

The retreat of the ‘Myanmar spring’ means all the countries of continental Southeast Asia—Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar—are under authoritarian rule, like their giant northern neighbour, China. More fundamentally, the reversal of democratisation in Myanmar is a reminder that democracy is unlikely to take root where authoritarian leaders and institutions remain deeply entrenched.

Given this, a punitive approach would merely express democratic countries’ disappointment, at the cost of stymying Myanmar’s economic liberalisation, impeding the development of its civil society, and reversing its shift towards closer engagement with democratic powers. And, as in the past, the brunt of sanctions would be borne by ordinary citizens, not the generals.

This is a realistic scenario. US President Joe Biden has warned that the military’s action ‘will necessitate an immediate review of our sanctions laws’, followed by ‘appropriate action’. But Biden would do well to consider how US-led sanctions in the past pushed Myanmar into China’s strategic lap, exacerbating regional security challenges.     continue to read

---

拜登首场外交政策演说 中国是“对手”也要合作 20210205 |
《今日关注》 CCTV中文国际
Feb 6, 2021

Continue to Next Page

White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 6, 2021

2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, seen introducing President Joe Biden at the State Department on February 4, 2021, has offered a tough tone in his first talks with China

Pompeo to Biden: It's The Obligation Of Every Administration To Protect The Previous Administration

Date Published on Feb. 5, 2021
POMPEO: It's the obligation of every administration to protect the previous administration and -- and all the people who were working on behalf of the United States government. I -- I hope they'll do that.

But, more importantly, more importantly than protecting myself or others, this is bigger. You know, you -- you gave the jobs report as you opened this segment. This policy with China matters about -- to every one of the people who is out there seeking employment. If we get this wrong, Maria, we will live in a world that is so deeply different. We will see these sanctions on our leaders pale in comparison to the pain and the absence of prosperity that will be here in the United States of America if we don't get this right.

It's one of the things that I'm proudest of that we did. We protected American jobs. We protected American businesses. We made sure that our intellectual property was in a better place. These are the things that will ultimately matter.

I hope this administration will hear these voices. The American people are now aware. What happened in COVID didn't have to happen. All the -- the -- the millions of jobs that were lost as a result of the Wuhan virus didn't have to happen. But the Chinese Communist Party acted in a way that created enormous risk, hundreds of thousands of lives lost here in the United States and billions of dollars in personal income for ordinary people all across America. Those are the things I really hope the administration will focus on.     source

Pompeo discusses the importance of standing up against China
Feb. 4, 2021
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discusses the importance of the Biden Administration standing up against China.

Blinken Presses China On Uighurs, Hong Kong In First Call

Feb. 6 - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Beijing on its treatment of Uighurs, Tibetans and Hong Kong in the first conversation between top officials of the two powers since President Joe Biden took office.

"I made clear the US will defend our national interests, stand up for our democratic values, and hold Beijing accountable for its abuses of the international system," Blinken said on Twitter of his call with senior Chinese official Yang Jiechi.

Blinken told Yang that the United States "will continue to stand up for human rights and democratic values, including in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong," a State Department statement said of the call, which took place on Friday Washington time.

Blinken also "pressed China to join the international in condemning the military coup in Burma," it said.

The top US diplomat said the United States would hold Beijing "accountable for its efforts to threaten stability in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, and its undermining of the rules-based international system."

The tough tone comes after Blinken in his confirmation hearing said he would continue former president Donald Trump's tougher approach to China in a rare point of agreement between the two administrations.

Blinken has said he agrees with a determination by the State Department under Trump that Beijing is carrying out genocide in the western region of Xinjiang, where rights groups say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people have been rounded up in camps.

Beijing has also ramped up a crackdown in Hong Kong, arresting leading activists, after imposing a new law against subversion following major protests in the financial hub to which it had guaranteed a separate system.     source

---

美欲在台海维持分裂，利用东海南海争端围堵中国
​拜登团队内部仍存分歧 特朗普“政治遗产”将严重影响拜登政府对华政策 |
《今晚》TONIGHT 20210204【东方卫视官方频道】Feb 4, 2021

Myanmar is a member of the East Asia Summit, Non-Aligned Movement, ASEAN, and BIMSTEC, but it is not a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas, and other mineral resources. Myanmar is also endowed with renewable energy; it has the highest solar power potential compared to other countries of the Great Mekong Subregion.[15] In 2013, its GDP (nominal) stood at US$56.7 billion and its GDP (PPP) at US$221.5 billion.[16] The income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government.[17] As of 2020, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar ranks 147 out of 189 countries in human development.     more details


Who is Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing? 5 things to know

Retired diplomat says 'big man management style' sows seeds of arrogance

Feb. 6 - BANGKOK -- On Monday, after months of saber rattling about alleged irregularities in Myanmar's Nov. 8 general election, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing staged the country's third coup since independence from Britain in 1948.
The commander in chief of defense services invoked powers based on Section 417 of the 2008 military-drafted constitution that enables the holder of his office to wrest full legal, judicial and executive power to create an instant dictatorship.     more details

---

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres with CNA's Lin Xueling on "In Conversation" Feb 6, 2021. 

UN chief backs Myanmar people's right to peaceful protest in face of military coup

Feb. 6 - SINGAPORE: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres backed the right of the Myanmar people to peacefully express their rejection of this week's military takeover that displaced the country's elected civilian government.
"Coups are not acceptable in the modern world and I reject and condemn the coup," said the UN Secretary-General on Saturday (Feb 6) in an exclusive interview with CNA.

"I would strongly recommend the people of Myanmar to express their grievances but to do so in a peaceful way." 
Mr Guterres' comments come in the wake of Monday's move during which Myanmar’s military declared a state of emergency and seized power. In an early morning raid, the army detained Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint, and a raft of parliamentarians and activists.

Social media posts from Myanmar show a growing civil disobedience movement from people banging pots and pans every night, to reports of medical staff going on strike.

"BASIC HUMAN RIGHT"

Mr Guterres said the freedom of expression is a basic human right and urged the military "not to have any violence in relation to the people of Myanmar".

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting after news of the military takeover broke and has called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi as well as others detained by the military. But unlike the UN chief, it stopped short of actually condemning the coup.
 
The joint statement by the Security Council had been held up, with one diplomat telling AFP that China and Russia had "asked for more time".
 
China is one of Myanmar’s biggest foreign investors and earlier this week, China’s state-controlled Xinhua news agency downplayed the significance of the military takeover, referring to it as a "major cabinet reshuffle".

The UN chief told CNA they would do "everything possible to make sure that (Aung San Suu Kyi) is released", but admitted the UN is powerless to guarantee that the de-facto leader of Myanmar would not face long-term house arrest again.
Aung San Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years in detention between 1989 and 2010. She has not been seen publicly since the coup. The Myanmar police have charged her with illegally importing communications equipment, after finding walkie-talkies during a search of her home.

Mr Guterres assured the people of Myanmar that "we would be doing everything we can in order to make the international community aware".     source

White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 5, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program was an initiative housed within the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The CTR program is better known as the Nunn–Lugar Act based on the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991 which was authored and cosponsored by Sens. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). This Act was created in 1986 in a congressional meeting. According to the CTR website, "the purpose of the CTR Program is to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states." An alternative explanation of the program is "to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union and beyond".[1]
CTR provides funding and expertise for states in the former Soviet Union (including Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan) to decommission nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon stockpiles, as agreed by the Soviet Union under disarmament treaties such as SALT I. This funding totaled $400 million a year for a total of four years. After the nuclear warheads were removed from their delivery vehicles by the post-Soviet successor militaries, Nunn-Lugar assistance provided equipment and supplies to destroy the missiles on which the warheads had been mounted, as well as the silos which had contained the missiles. The warheads themselves were then shipped to and destroyed in Russia, with the highly-enriched uranium contained within made into commercial reactor fuel; which was purchased by the United States under a separate program.

In recent years, the CTR program has expanded its mission from securing WMDs at the root source to protecting against WMD "on the move", by enhancing land and maritime border security in the former Soviet Union.

New U.S. President Joe Biden is pitching a tough stance against Russia.
Biden Says No More U.S. 'Rolling Over' to Russia

Feb. 5 - President Joe Biden said Thursday the United States will no longer be "rolling over in the face of Russia's aggressive actions" and demanded release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

In toughly worded remarks pivoting from his predecessor Donald Trump's muted approach to Moscow, Biden warned of "advancing authoritarianism" in China and Russia.

The speech at the State Department thrust Russia back onto the front burner of the U.S. diplomatic agenda after four years during which Trump largely pushed the worsening relationship with Moscow to the side and consistently refused to criticize Putin.

Biden said that in his first phone call with the Russian leader since taking office on January 20 he "made it clear" to Putin that the relationship was changing.     source

---

The Story Behind U.S. Access to Russian Nuclear Warhead Storage Sites
Under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, nuclear security served as a common objective for the United States and Russia

A key question for the CTR nuclear security program is how Russia allowed access for teams to visit warhead storage sites that went beyond the verification measures of any previous nuclear arms control agreement. The answer is that the United States and Russia rallied around the mission of enhancing nuclear security. Leaders remained focused on encouragement, resources, patience, and support, opening the relationship to cooperation, while the staff was able to focus on the CTR nuclear security mission for years. The CTR Site Access story shows that negotiations do not have to be about extracting concessions but discovering common goals. It is critical to be up front and honest and to present positions consistently, explain the reasons, explain who and why.

Date Published on Feb. 4

It may be surprising to many that the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) nuclear security program attained access to Russian nuclear warhead storage sites that went beyond the verification measures of any previous nuclear arms control agreement.
Arms control treaties provide access for U.S. inspectors to military bases where nuclear delivery systems are deployed and, and under the INF treaty, there was portal monitoring of missile production facilities. Access to the nuclear warhead storage sites, however, where non-deployed tactical and strategic nuclear warheads are stored and maintained, was never authorized under any treaty or agreement – until CTR. These storage sites have long been regarded as among the most sensitive of Russian sites and have come under renewed attention in recent years as the United States and Russia have engaged in discussions on warhead limits. Under the CTR nuclear security program, however, the U.S. was provided unprecedented access to Russian nuclear warhead storage sites from 2003-2012.

So how did CTR program teams gain permission to visit, given the sites’ extreme sensitivity? The answer is that the objective of the CTR program was never to gain site access or gather intelligence on Russian nuclear weapons and weapons storage sites. The objective was to enhance nuclear security – and the United States and Russia were both strongly committed to achieving that goal. As the program matured and more work was needed at the sites, site access was required for the United States to provide installation services at those sites. Russia only approved site access for the purposes of improving nuclear security at their sites after they were convinced that the Americans were truly committed to achieving that goal and not pursuing ulterior intelligence-related motives.

“Secret” Russian Nuclear Warhead Storage Sites
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Russia inherited the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world. Thousands of strategic and tactical warheads were housed in centralized storage facilities and bunkers located on nuclear weapons sites scattered across the former Soviet Union.      continue to read