Here's just how bad the devastating Australian fires are -- by the numbers - CNN

Millions of acres have been torched and entire homes have been swallowed by flames. More than 20 people have lost their lives. About half a billion animals have been killed in New South Wales by one estimate. And the country's summer is only just beginning.

Along with a series of pictures published on his Facebook, Australian politician Leon Bignell called the reality of the fires "ugly."

"We met some of the many families and individuals who are homeless following the fire and we all need to work together to get them back on their feet as soon as possible. The mental scars though may never heal," he said.

Here's a look at just how bad the blazes have scarred the country so far:

By the numbers:

About 2,700 firefighters were battling the blazes as of Sunday.

Three have been killed.

The Australia Defence Force said Sunday it had called 3,000 army reserve forces and others with specialist capabilities to help fight the flames.

There were about 136 fires burning across NSW Monday.

Of those, 69 are not contained, the NSW Rural Fire Service said Monday.

Officials say 24 people have died nationwide this fire season.

The majority of casualties -- 18 -- are from NSW, which has been hit hardest by blazes. Three people have died in Victoria and another three in South Australia.

Two people are also missing in NSW as of Monday.

About 480 million animals have died across NSW, professor Chris Dickman with the University of Sydney, estimates. "The true mortality is likely to be substantially higher than those estimated," the university said in a statement.

Almost a third of koalas in NSW may have been killed in the fires, and a third of their habitat has been destroyed, said Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley.

In December, the smoke in Sydney was so bad that air quality measured 11 times the "hazardous" level.

In total, more than 14.7 million acres have been burned across the country's six states. That's larger than the countries of Belgium and Haiti combined.

Just in NSW, there have been more than 1,300 houses destroyed and 8.9 million acres scorched.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday unveiled a $1.39 billion fund to help rebuild communities hit by the fires.

About $347 million of that will be allocated within this year, Treasurer of Australia Josh Frydenberg added.

The prime minister has already said up to $4,200 will go to each of the volunteer firefighters battling blazes for more than 10 days.

CNN's Isaac Yee, Jessie Yeung and Akanksha Sharma contributed to this report.

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2020-01-06 11:30:00Z
52780530786337

India protests: Masked men storm New Delhi's JNU campus - The - The Washington Post

Adnan Abidi Reuters Police in riot gear stand guard outside the Jawaharlal Nehru University after clashes at the campus Sunday.

NEW DELHI — Dozens of masked men wielding sticks and iron rods attacked students and professors at one of India’s most prestigious universities late Sunday, injuring more than 30 and heightening concerns about law and order in the world’s largest democracy.

Ten eyewitnesses said the group entered Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and shouted a slogan used by India’s ruling right-wing Hindu nationalist party as they roamed the campus beating students, smashing windows and destroying property.

The incident comes at a moment of high political tension in India, where hundreds of thousands of people — including many students — have participated in protests against a controversial citizenship law passed last month. The law creates an expedited path to citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from three countries, a move that critics say is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

The violence at the university was not directly connected to the citizenship law but was rooted in a separate dispute roiling the campus over fees that also pitted student supporters of the government against its opponents.

The accounts of masked men roaming a well-known campus as students cowered in their dormitories and police officers posted at the main gate failed to intervene are inflaming concerns about how Indian authorities treat those they consider adversaries.

Last month, police stormed another university campus in the capital where a protest against the citizenship law turned violent, beating unarmed students and firing tear gas into a library. One student was blinded in one eye. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, police deployed lethal force to put down protests against the citizenship law, leaving at least 19 dead, vandalizing homes and arresting scores of people, most of them Muslims.

[India’s Muslims and activists face mass arrests, beatings amid unrest over citizenship law]

On Monday, fresh demonstrations against the previous day’s campus violence in Delhi took place in at least 19 cities across the country. Some protesters called for the resignation of Amit Shah, India’s powerful home affairs minister who also oversees law enforcement in the nation’s capital.

On Sunday night, several eyewitnesses said police officers stood by as a mob armed with sticks, iron rods and cricket bats entered the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, an influential bastion of left-leaning politics.

The mob yelled “Long live Mother India!” and attacked a meeting led by professors near a main crossroad on campus, hurling rocks at participants, witnesses said. The assailants then smashed through the glass gate at one dormitory, shouting, “We will spare no one today!” Panicked students sent SOS messages to their professors, asking where to hide.

Inside the dorm, Surya Prakash, a visually impaired doctoral candidate in Sanskrit, was sitting at his desk studying. Masked men broke into his ground-floor room and began to beat him with iron rods on his back and arms, he said.

“I pleaded with them that I am blind,” recalled Prakash. “One hit me even harder. There is terror in our hearts.”

Students said that the masked attackers included members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, or ABVP, the student wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Jyoti Kumari, a master’s degree student who filmed some of the violence at the dorm, said she recognized at least five ABVP members in the mob. The ABVP denied the allegation and blamed the violence on “communist goons.”

AFP/Getty Images

Protesters shout slogans outside the Delhi Police Headquarters following clashes at Jawaharlal Nehru University late Sunday.

A senior Delhi police official, Devender Arya, told the television station NDTV that the police responded promptly to calls for help from the university administration and that authorities have begun working to identify the attackers. Arya did not respond to queries about eyewitness accounts of police inaction and allegations that police had also beaten students.

The incident sparked widespread criticism across India’s political spectrum. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar — an alumnus of the university — wrote on Twitter that he condemned the violence “unequivocally” and that it “was completely against the culture and tradition of the university.”

[Why protests are erupting over India’s new citizenship law]

Members of the opposition Congress Party said the brazenness of the attack and the lack of an immediate police response indicated it had some kind of official sanction. “It is an act of impunity and can only happen with the support of the government,” wrote P. Chidambaram, a senior Congress leader.

An official at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, a nearby hospital, said 35 people were admitted with injuries from the incident and that all were discharged by Monday.

Kumari Neelu, who is married to a professor at the university, said she had just stepped outside her home on campus when she saw the approaching mob. As she tried to film them, the men began to run toward her. She fled inside and locked the main door. The mob banged on her door with sticks and rang the bell nonstop. Her husband, Bikramaditya Choudhary, began calling the administration, security officers and the police.

“Nobody responded,” he said. “If the media hadn’t arrived, we may have been butchered.”

Eyewitnesses also alleged that the police not only failed to stop the violence but also beat up students. Vipul Vivek, a master’s degree student in philosophy, watched from behind shrubbery as the violence unfolded. After the mob left, he said, about 30 policemen arrived and beat the students holed up inside the dormitory that was earlier attacked by the mob. He ran toward a forested area and hid for 45 minutes.

“We can’t fight back against the police,” he said.

Tensions also spiked outside the main gate of the university. Hundreds of government supporters assembled and began to shout right-wing slogans in an apparent endorsement of the attack on students.

“Identify the traitors and shoot the bastards!” they yelled. “Get out of India!” At least three journalists were attacked by the same government supporters as they tried to film them.

Amrita Johri, a civil rights activist, said she saw the crowd vandalize an incoming ambulance. “Men whose faces were covered starting hitting and threatening us,” she said. “The police did not intervene even as people pleaded for help.”

 Tania Dutta contributed to this report.

Read more

India’s Muslims and activists face mass arrests, beatings amid unrest over citizenship law

India clamps down on marches, Internet after deadly protests

Protests sweeping India emerge as significant challenge for Modi

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-01-06 11:11:00Z
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Successor to Slain Iranian General Vows Revenge: Live Updates - The New York Times

Here’s what you need to know:

• Teeming crowds chant “Death to America.”
• Trump doubles down on threat to attack Iran’s cultural sites.
• Iran pledges to restart uranium enrichment.
• Oil prices surge to more than $70 a barrel.
• China condemns the U.S. over Suleimani’s death.
• Iraq’s Parliament votes to oust U.S. coalition troops.

Image

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leading a prayer during the funeral of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and others killed with him, in Tehran on Monday.Credit...Office of Iran's Supreme Leader, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Teeming crowds chant “Death to America.”

Throngs of people chanting “Death to America” crowded the streets of Tehran on Monday as the country mourned Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, whose funeral was held in the Iranian capital. The military commander was hailed as a martyr, and his successor swore revenge.

“God the almighty has promised to get his revenge, and God is the main avenger,” vowed Esmail Ghaani, the Iranian general who will take over the Quds Force, the foreign expeditionary arm of Iran’s elite paramilitary organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “Certainly actions will be taken,” he added.

State-run news outlets reported that “millions” had gathered in Tehran, and images showed of a sea of mourners, many wearing black and waving the nation’s flag in an outpouring of grief.

General Suleimani was killed by the United States on Friday in Baghdad in a drone strike. American officials said the general had ordered assaults on Americans in Iraq and Syria and was planning a wave of imminent attacks.

His killing has set off fears of escalating retaliatory actions by Iran and the United States, and of a broader regional conflict. In the aftermath of the attack, Iran said it would no longer abide by a 2015 agreement to suspend uranium production.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, wept openly at the funeral while offering prayers over the general’s coffin. Ayatollah Khamenei had a close relationship with the general, who was widely considered to be the second most powerful man in Iran.

General Suleimani’s daughter, Zeinab Suleimani, said in a eulogy that the United States and Israel faced a “dark day.”

“You crazy Trump, the symbol of ignorance, the slave of Zionists, don’t think that the killing of my father will finish everything,” she said at the funeral.

The general’s funeral was attended by a broad swath of Iranians, including reformers who oppose the government of President Hassan Rouhani but who perceived the killing as an attack on all of Iran.

“I felt like he was our safety umbrella spread above Iran,” said Amir Ali, 22, a university student. “I felt safe knowing he was out there.”

Trump doubles down on threat to attack Iran’s cultural sites.

President Trump on Sunday doubled down on his threats to attack Iranian cultural sites and warned of a “major retaliation” if the Iranian government planned tit-for-tat attacks in the aftermath of the killing of a senior military commander.

Mr. Trump defended the drone strike that killed General Suleimani.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Trump said in a tweet that the United States had selected 52 Iranian sites, some “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture” to attack in the event of Iranian retaliation.

That prompted the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to say that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime.”

But on Sunday evening, aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump did not back down.

“They’re allowed to kill our people,” he said to reporters. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

Iran pledges to restart uranium enrichment.

Iran’s government said it would no longer abide by a commitment it made under a 2015 nuclear deal, limiting its enrichment of uranium.

The decision to lift all restrictions on the production of nuclear fuel spelled the effective end of the nuclear deal, experts said, though Iran left open the possibility that it would return to the limits if sanctions were lifted.

“It’s finished. If there’s no limitation on production, then there is no deal,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit in Washington.

The announcement came after Iran’s National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the country’s nuclear policy in the aftermath of General Suleimani’s assassination.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will end its final limitations in the nuclear deal, meaning the limitation in the number of centrifuges,” Iran said in a statement. “Therefore Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion.”

The announcement followed several steps by Iran to move away from the terms of the agreement, nearly two years after Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal. Since that renunciation, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s economy.

The nuclear agreement ended some economic sanctions on Iran in return for its verifiable pledge to use nuclear power peacefully.

Iran’s statement Sunday did not include details about its enrichment ambitions. And the country did not say it was expelling the inspectors who monitor its nuclear program.

Oil prices surge to more than $70 a barrel.

Oil prices surged and stock markets in Asia fell on Monday morning, as the impact of General Suleimani’s death ricocheted around the world.

The price of Brent oil, the international benchmark, jumped above $70 in futures trading as markets digested a steady flow of news over the weekend.

The sudden escalation in tensions in a region that supplies much of the world’s petroleum has roiled oil markets. The West Texas Intermediate, the American oil benchmark, rose 1.9 percent to $64.22 a barrel in futures trading.

Analysts at Capital Economics have warned that the price of oil could spike to $150 a barrel if the bellicose rhetoric between the two countries turned into action.

“The price of oil would soar in the event of full-blown military conflict in the Middle East,” said Alexander Kozul-Wright, a commodities economist at Capital Economics.

China condemns the U.S. over Suleimani’s death.

Chinese state-controlled news media on Monday condemned the United States for the killing of General Suleimani, amplifying China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, who warned of a “vicious cycle of confrontation” between the United States and Iran.

“Solving the conflicts between the United States and Iran can’t be achieved through military strikes or extreme pressure,” People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said in an editorial. The editorial appeared under the pen name “Zhong Sheng,” which is widely used to offer the paper’s views on foreign affairs.

The editorial likened the latest crisis to the United States-led occupation of Iraq in 2003 and Western intervention in Libya in 2011.

“The facts prove time and again that unilateral resorts to armed force will not solve problems,” the paper said. “Instead the outcome will be the opposite, leading to a cycle of confrontation that will be difficult to clean up.”

China has been reducing its imports of oil from Iran as United States sanctions have deepened, but it remains heavily dependent on crude from the Middle East, especially from Saudi Arabia. Beijing has also tried to shore up the international agreement that curtailed Iran’s nuclear development.

On Sunday, the Chinese embassy in Washington warned Chinese citizens to be extra careful about their safety in the wake of the crisis with Iran.

Fears of worldwide conflict were shared across social media over the weekend, but Xinhua, China’s main official news agency, published a commentary saying that outright war between the United States and Iran still seemed unlikely.

“Faced with the 2020 election, Trump has deliberately used attacking Iran to shift the focus from domestic tensions and add to his electoral chips,” read the commentary, “but he has no intention of launching a war.”

Iraq’s Parliament votes to oust U.S. coalition troops.

Iraqi lawmakers voted 170-0 on Sunday in favor of expelling American troops from their country.

The vote was not final and many lawmakers did not attend the session. But Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi drafted the language and submitted the bill to Parliament, leaving little doubt about his support.

The drone strike that killed General Suleimani also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias.

The attack was viewed in Iraq as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty, and the country’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it had summoned the American ambassador in Baghdad.

Iraq’s Parliament was divided over demands from angry citizens to expel American troops. Many of its 328 members, primarily Kurds and Sunnis, did not attend Sunday’s session and did not vote. In his speech to lawmakers, Mr. Mahdi laid out two possibilities: to either quickly end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq, or to set a timeline for their expulsion.

The measure approved by Parliament did not include a timeline, and only instructed the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq. Officials said no decision had been made about whether any American troops would be able to stay, or under what conditions.

Iranian officials reacted to the vote with congratulatory messages and said General Suleimani’s death had delivered a huge victory over the United States.

Hesameddin Ashena, a top adviser to President Rouhani, in a Twitter post, said: “Expanding friendship with our neighbors and domestic unity are the best gifts for protecting our national security. America and Israel are the only winners of a rift between neighbors.”

Asked about the vote on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States would continue to battle the Islamic State. “It is the United States that is prepared to help the Iraqi people get what it is they deserve and continue our mission there to take down terrorism from ISIS and others in the region,” he said in an interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

Reporting was contributed by Russell Goldman, Alexandra Stevenson, Farnaz Fassihi, Christopher Buckley, Alissa J. Rubin, Ben Hubbard, Megan Specia, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Vivian Yee, David D. Kirkpatrick, Edward Wong, Tess Felder, Yonette Joseph, Mariel Padilla and Maggie Haberman.

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2020-01-06 10:20:00Z
52780536809258

Successor to Slain Iranian General Vows Revenge: Live Updates - The New York Times

Here’s what you need to know:

• Iranian general’s successor vows revenge.
• Trump doubles down on threat to attack Iran’s cultural sites.
• Iran pledges to restart uranium enrichment.
• Oil prices surge to more than $70 a barrel.
• China condemns the U.S. over Suleimani’s death.
• Iraq’s Parliament votes to oust U.S. coalition troops.

Image

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leading a prayer during the funeral of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and others killed with him, in Tehran on Monday.Credit...Office of Iran's Supreme Leader, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Iranian general’s successor vows revenge.

Thousands of people on Monday attended the funeral of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in Tehran, the Iranian capital, where the military commander was hailed as a martyr, his successor swore revenge and teeming crowds chanted, “Death to America."

“God the almighty has promised to get his revenge, and God is the main avenger,” vowed Esmail Ghaani, the Iranian general who will take over the Quds Force, the foreign expeditionary arm of Iran’s elite paramilitary organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “Certainly actions will be taken,” he added.

General Suleimani was killed by the United States on Friday in Baghdad in a drone strike. American officials said the general had ordered assaults on Americans in Iraq and Syria and was planning a wave of imminent attacks.

His killing has set off fears of escalating retaliatory actions by Iran and the United States, and of a broader regional conflict. In the aftermath of the attack, Iran said it would no longer abide by a 2015 agreement to suspend uranium production.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, wept openly at the funeral while offering prayers over the general’s coffin. Ayatollah Khamenei had a close relationship with the general, who was widely considered to be the second most powerful man in Iran.

General Suleimani’s daughter, Zeinab Suleimani, said in a eulogy that the United States and Israel faced a “dark day.”

“You crazy Trump, the symbol of ignorance, the slave of Zionists, don’t think that the killing of my father will finish everything,” she said at the funeral.

The general’s funeral was attended by a broad swath of Iranians, including reformers who oppose the government of President Hassan Rouhani but who perceived the killing as an attack on all of Iran.

“I felt like he was our safety umbrella spread above Iran,” said Amir Ali, 22, a university student. “I felt safe knowing he was out there.”

Trump doubles down on threat to attack Iran’s cultural sites.

President Trump on Sunday doubled down on his threats to attack Iranian cultural sites and warned of a “major retaliation” if the Iranian government planned tit-for-tat attacks in the aftermath of the killing of a senior military commander.

Mr. Trump defended the drone strike that killed General Suleimani.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Trump said in a tweet that the United States had selected 52 Iranian sites, some “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture” to attack in the event of Iranian retaliation.

That prompted the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to say that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime.”

But on Sunday evening, aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump did not back down.

“They’re allowed to kill our people,” he said to reporters. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

Iran pledges to restart uranium enrichment.

Iran’s government said it would no longer abide by a commitment it made under a 2015 nuclear deal, limiting its enrichment of uranium.

The decision to lift all restrictions on the production of nuclear fuel spelled the effective end of the nuclear deal, experts said, though Iran left open the possibility that it would return to the limits if sanctions were lifted.

“It’s finished. If there’s no limitation on production, then there is no deal,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit in Washington.

The announcement came after Iran’s National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the country’s nuclear policy in the aftermath of General Suleimani’s assassination.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will end its final limitations in the nuclear deal, meaning the limitation in the number of centrifuges,” Iran said in a statement. “Therefore Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion.”

The announcement followed several steps by Iran to move away from the terms of the agreement, nearly two years after Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal. Since that renunciation, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s economy.

The nuclear agreement ended some economic sanctions on Iran in return for its verifiable pledge to use nuclear power peacefully. The European parties to the deal, including Britain, France and Germany, as well and China and Russia, also signatories to the deal, had struggled to preserve the agreement amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Iran’s statement Sunday did not include details about its enrichment ambitions. And the country did not say it was expelling the inspectors who monitor its nuclear program.

Oil prices surge to more than $70 a barrel.

Oil prices surged and stock markets in Asia fell on Monday morning, as the impact of General Suleimani’s death ricocheted around the world.

The price of Brent oil, the international benchmark, jumped above $70 in futures trading as markets digested a steady flow of news over the weekend.

The sudden escalation in tensions in a region that supplies much of the world’s petroleum has roiled oil markets. The West Texas Intermediate, the American oil benchmark, rose 1.9 percent to $64.22 a barrel in futures trading.

Analysts at Capital Economics have warned that the price of oil could spike to $150 a barrel if the bellicose rhetoric between the two countries turned into action.

“The price of oil would soar in the event of full-blown military conflict in the Middle East,” said Alexander Kozul-Wright, a commodities economist at Capital Economics.

China condemns the U.S. over Suleimani’s death.

Chinese state-controlled news media on Monday condemned the United States for the killing of General Suleimani, amplifying China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, who warned of a “vicious cycle of confrontation” between the United States and Iran.

“Solving the conflicts between the United States and Iran can’t be achieved through military strikes or extreme pressure,” People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said in an editorial. The editorial appeared under the pen name “Zhong Sheng,” which is widely used to offer the paper’s views on foreign affairs.

The editorial likened the latest crisis to the United States-led occupation of Iraq in 2003 and Western intervention in Libya in 2011.

“The facts prove time and again that unilateral resorts to armed force will not solve problems,” the paper said. “Instead the outcome will be the opposite, leading to a cycle of confrontation that will be difficult to clean up.”

China has been reducing its imports of oil from Iran as United States sanctions have deepened, but it remains heavily dependent on crude from the Middle East, especially from Saudi Arabia. Beijing has also tried to shore up the international agreement that curtailed Iran’s nuclear development.

On Sunday, the Chinese embassy in Washington warned Chinese citizens to be extra careful about their safety in the wake of the crisis with Iran.

Fears of worldwide conflict were shared across social media over the weekend, but Xinhua, China’s main official news agency, published a commentary saying that outright war between the United States and Iran still seemed unlikely.

“Faced with the 2020 election, Trump has deliberately used attacking Iran to shift the focus from domestic tensions and add to his electoral chips,” read the commentary, “but he has no intention of launching a war.”

Iraq’s Parliament votes to oust U.S. coalition troops.

Iraqi lawmakers voted 170-0 on Sunday in favor of expelling American troops from their country.

The vote was not final and many lawmakers did not attend the session. But Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi drafted the language and submitted the bill to Parliament, leaving little doubt about his support.

The drone strike that killed General Suleimani also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias.

The attack was viewed in Iraq as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty, and the country’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it had summoned the American ambassador in Baghdad.

Iraq’s Parliament was divided over demands from angry citizens to expel American troops. Many of its 328 members, primarily Kurds and Sunnis, did not attend Sunday’s session and did not vote. In his speech to lawmakers, Mr. Mahdi laid out two possibilities: to either quickly end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq, or to set a timeline for their expulsion.

The measure approved by Parliament did not include a timeline, and only instructed the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq. Officials said no decision had been made about whether any American troops would be able to stay, or under what conditions.

Iranian officials reacted to the vote with congratulatory messages and said General Suleimani’s death had delivered a huge victory over the United States.

Hesameddin Ashena, a top adviser to President Rouhani, in a Twitter post, said: “Expanding friendship with our neighbors and domestic unity are the best gifts for protecting our national security. America and Israel are the only winners of a rift between neighbors.”

Asked about the vote on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States would continue to battle the Islamic State. “It is the United States that is prepared to help the Iraqi people get what it is they deserve and continue our mission there to take down terrorism from ISIS and others in the region,” he said in an interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

Reporting was contributed by Russell Goldman, Alexandra Stevenson, Farnaz Fassihi, Christopher Buckley, Alissa J. Rubin, Ben Hubbard, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Vivian Yee, David D. Kirkpatrick, Edward Wong, Tess Felder, Yonette Joseph, Mariel Padilla and Maggie Haberman.

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2020-01-06 09:40:00Z
52780536809258

Successor to Slain Iranian General Vows Revenge: Live Updates - The New York Times

Here’s what you need to know:

• Iranian general’s successor vows revenge.
• Trump doubles down on threat to attack Iran’s cultural sites.
• Iran pledges to restart uranium enrichment.
• Oil prices surge to more than $70 a barrel.
• China condemns the U.S. over Suleimani’s death.
• Iraq’s Parliament voted to oust U.S. coalition troops.

Image

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leading a prayer during the funeral of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and others killed with him, in Tehran on Monday.Credit...Office of Iran's Supreme Leader, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Iranian general’s successor vows revenge.

Thousands of people on Monday attended the funeral of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in Tehran, the Iranian capital, where the military commander was hailed as a martyr, his successor swore revenge and teeming crowds chanted, “Death to America."

“God the almighty has promised to get his revenge, and God is the main avenger,” vowed Esmail Ghaani, the Iranian general who will take over the Quds Force, the foreign expeditionary arm of Iran’s elite paramilitary organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “Certainly actions will be taken,” he added.

General Suleimani was killed by the United States on Friday in Baghdad in a drone strike. American officials said the general had ordered assaults on Americans in Iraq and Syria and was planning a wave of imminent attacks.

His killing has set off fears of escalating retaliatory actions by Iran and the United States, and of a broader regional conflict. In the aftermath of the attack, Iran said it would no longer abide by a 2015 agreement to suspend uranium production.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, wept openly at the funeral while offering prayers over the general’s coffin. Ayatollah Khamenei had a close relationship with the general, who was widely considered to be the second most powerful man in Iran.

General Suleimani’s daughter, Zeinab Suleimani, said in a eulogy that the United States and Israel faced a “dark day.”

“You crazy Trump, the symbol of ignorance, the slave of Zionists, don’t think that the killing of my father will finish everything,” she said at the funeral.

The general’s funeral was attended by a broad swath of Iranians, including reformers who oppose the government of President Hassani Rouhani but who perceived the killing as an attack on all of Iran.

“I felt like he was our safety umbrella spread above Iran,” said Amir Ali, 22, a university student. “I felt safe knowing he was out there.”

Trump doubles down on threat to attack Iran’s cultural sites.

President Trump on Sunday doubled down on his threats to attack Iranian cultural sites and warned of a “major retaliation” if the Iranian government planned tit-for-tat attacks in the aftermath of the killing of a senior military commander.

Mr. Trump defended the drone strike that killed General Suleimani.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Trump said in a tweet that the United States had selected 52 Iranian sites, some “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture” to attack in the event of Iranian retaliation.

That prompted the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to say that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime.”

But on Sunday evening, aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump did not back down.

“They’re allowed to kill our people,” he said to reporters. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

Iran pledges to restart uranium enrichment.

Iran’s government said it would no longer abide by a commitment it made under a 2015 nuclear deal, limiting its enrichment of uranium.

The decision to lift all restrictions on the production of nuclear fuel spelled the effective end of the nuclear deal, experts said, though Iran left open the possibility that it would return to the limits if sanctions were lifted.

“It’s finished. If there’s no limitation on production, then there is no deal,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit in Washington.

The announcement came after Iran’s National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the country’s nuclear policy in the aftermath of General Suleimani’s assassination.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will end its final limitations in the nuclear deal, meaning the limitation in the number of centrifuges,” Iran said in a statement. “Therefore Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion.”

The announcement followed several steps by Iran to move away from the terms of the agreement, nearly two years after Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal. Since that renunciation, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s economy.

The nuclear agreement ended some economic sanctions on Iran in return for its verifiable pledge to use nuclear power peacefully. The European parties to the deal, including Britain, France and Germany, had struggled to preserve the agreement amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Iran’s statement Sunday did not include details about its enrichment ambitions. And the country did not say it was expelling the inspectors who monitor its nuclear program.

Oil prices surge to more than $70 a barrel.

Oil prices surged and stock markets in Asia fell on Monday morning, as the impact of General Suleimani’s death ricocheted around the world.

The price of Brent oil, the international benchmark, jumped above $70 in futures trading as markets digested a steady flow of news over the weekend.

The sudden escalation in tensions in a region that supplies much of the world’s petroleum has roiled oil markets. The West Texas Intermediate, the American oil benchmark, rose 1.9 percent to $64.22 a barrel in futures trading.

Analysts at Capital Economics have warned that the price of oil could spike to $150 a barrel if the bellicose rhetoric between the two countries turned into action.

“The price of oil would soar in the event of full-blown military conflict in the Middle East,” said Alexander Kozul-Wright, a commodities economist at Capital Economics.

China condemns the U.S. over Suleimani’s death.

Chinese state-controlled news media on Monday condemned the United States for the killing of General Suleimani, amplifying China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, who warned of a “vicious cycle of confrontation” between the United States and Iran.

“Solving the conflicts between the United States and Iran can’t be achieved through military strikes or extreme pressure,” People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said in an editorial. The editorial appeared under the pen name “Zhong Sheng,” which is widely used to offer the paper’s views on foreign affairs.

The editorial likened the latest crisis to the United States-led occupation of Iraq in 2003 and Western intervention in Libya in 2011.

“The facts prove time and again that unilateral resorts to armed force will not solve problems,” the paper said. “Instead the outcome will be the opposite, leading to a cycle of confrontation that will be difficult to clean up.”

China has been reducing its imports of oil from Iran as United States sanctions have deepened, but it remains heavily dependent on crude from the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. Beijing has also tried to shore up the international agreement that curtailed Iran’s nuclear development.

On Sunday, the Chinese embassy in Washington warned Chinese citizens to be extra careful about their safety in the wake of the crisis with Iran.

Fears of worldwide conflict were shared across social media over the weekend, but Xinhua, China’s main official news agency, published a commentary saying that outright war between the United States and Iran still seemed unlikely.

“Faced with the 2020 election, Trump has deliberately used attacking Iran to shift the focus from domestic tensions and add to his electoral chips,” read the commentary, “but he has no intention of launching a war.”

Iraq’s Parliament voted to oust U.S. coalition troops.

Iraqi lawmakers voted 170-0 on Sunday in favor of expelling American troops from their country.

The vote was not final and many lawmakers did not attend the session. But Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi drafted the language and submitted the bill to Parliament, leaving little doubt about his support.

The drone strike that killed General Suleimani also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias.

The attack was viewed in Iraq as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty, and the country’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it had summoned the American ambassador in Baghdad.

Iraq’s Parliament was divided over demands from angry citizens to expel American troops. Many of its 328 members, primarily Kurds and Sunnis, did not attend Sunday’s session and did not vote. In his speech to lawmakers, Mr. Mahdi laid out two possibilities: to either quickly end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq, or to set a timeline for their expulsion.

The measure approved by Parliament did not include a timeline, and only instructed the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq. Officials said no decision had been made about whether any American troops would be able to stay, or under what conditions.

Iranian officials reacted to the vote with congratulatory messages and said General Suleimani’s death had delivered a huge victory over the United States.

Hesameddin Ashena, a top adviser to President Rouhani, in a Twitter post, said: “Expanding friendship with our neighbors and domestic unity are the best gifts for protecting our national security. America and Israel are the only winners of a rift between neighbors.”

Asked about the vote on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States would continue to battle the Islamic State. “It is the United States that is prepared to help the Iraqi people get what it is they deserve and continue our mission there to take down terrorism from ISIS and others in the region,” he said in an interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

Reporting was contributed by Russell Goldman, Alexandra Stevenson, Farnaz Fassihi, Christopher Buckley, Alissa J. Rubin, Ben Hubbard, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Vivian Yee, David D. Kirkpatrick, Edward Wong, Tess Felder, Yonette Joseph, Mariel Padilla and Maggie Haberman.

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2020-01-06 09:02:00Z
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Uproar and consequences mount for Trump after Soleimani killing - CNN

President Donald Trump's claim that the drone strike last week made Americans safer is being challenging by cascading events that appear to leave the US more vulnerable and isolated.

The administration's basis for the attack also came under renewed suspicion after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CNN that it was not "relevant" for him to reveal how imminent the attacks on US interests were that Trump said Soleimani was planning.

In proliferating signs of the deepening crisis, Iran on Sunday announced that it was shaking off restrictions on its uranium enrichment under the Obama-era nuclear deal. Iraq's parliament voted to expel US troops. A US exit could imperil its fight against extremism and consolidate Iranian influence in Baghdad. Dissent emerged inside the administration over the President's vow to strike cultural sites — or civilian targets — if Iran mounts reprisal strikes. Administration claims that the elimination of Soleimani, Iran's Middle East terror chief, sparked celebration in Iran were confounded by Tehran's orchestrating of Soleimani's funeral rites to launch a propaganda campaign to heal national divides.

Washington's European allies, meanwhile, distanced themselves from Trump's assault. The US-led ISIS coalition temporarily stopped action against the terror group to protect Iraqi bases from Iranian-backed militias. And in a new sign of widening gaps between Iraq and the US, Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi said he had been scheduled to meet Soleimani on the day he was killed to discuss an initiative to ease Iran-Saudi tensions.

In Kenya, three Americans were killed in an attack on a military base by Al-Shabaab, a jihadist group. The group follows a Sunni strand of Islam while Iran has a Shiite Muslim majority and there was no immediate link to the killing of Soleimani. But the attack was a reminder of both the vulnerability of US personnel to terror attacks and a sign that other US adversaries might try to take advantage of the tumult for their own ends.

The growing international tumult was matched by a worsening confrontation at home with Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans becoming even more estranged over the President's impeachment trial, a drama that was triggered by Trump's handling of another foreign policy issue -- Ukraine -- and his efforts to use his power to coerce political dirt on his domestic opponents.

Trump strategy under scrutiny

The deepening fallout over Iran renewed a focus on Trump's leadership style and the question of how carefully he had considered the consequences of the attack.

The administration is resisting giving a public accounting of the intelligence that led it to attack Soleimani. Democrats in Congress have said they were not consulted in advance and that the White House has only offered a classified explanation of its action.

There is also no obvious sign of a long-term strategy to head off Iranian reprisals — apart from Trump's increasingly belligerent tweets.

"These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner," Trump wrote Sunday.

But there was dismay within the administration over Trump's earlier threat to attack "cultural" sites in Iran if the Tehran regime went after Americans to avenge Soleimani. An attack on cultural sites like a religious or historic monument might endanger civilians and could violate several international treaties and would likely be considered a war crime.

"Nothing rallies people like the deliberate destruction of beloved cultural sites," one official told CNN's Jim Sciutto.

But Trump reiterated his threat to reporters on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from his vacation in Florida.

"They're allowed to kill our people, they're allowed to torture and maim our people, they're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people, and we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way," the President said according to a pool report.

Trump also threatened to impose stringent sanctions on Iraq if US troops were forced to leave.

Pompeo, appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," insisted that Soleimani's demise made the world safer — despite the US telling its citizens to leave Iraq.

"The Middle East was unstable. We are creating a place and an opportunity for that stability," Pompeo said.

"I know that the risk to America over the long run is much reduced as a result to the actions President Trump and our administration has taken in these last three years," he said.

The Secretary of State also improbably claimed that the Obama administration "kicked off" a war with Iran with its deal that froze Iran's enrichment activity and halted what the US says was a march towards a nuclear bomb.

"It told the Iranians that they had free rein to develop a Shia crescent that extended from Yemen to Iraq to Syria and into Lebanon, surrounding our ally Israel, and threatening American lives as well," Pompeo said. The Trump administration argues that the nuclear deal was too limited and didn't curtail Iran's support for extremist groups in the Middle East or the threat from the Islamic Republic's missile program.

Critics warned that while Soleimani was a malignant force, as wrangler of Iran's terrorist proxies, and was responsible for advanced weaponry that killed hundreds of US soldiers in Iraq, the costs of killing him may outweigh the benefits.

"I don't know what the President's motivation here is but I think it was a reckless decision that increased the risk to Americans all around the world, not decreased it," House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff told CNN.

Late Sunday evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would introduce a "War Powers Resolution to limit the President's military actions regarding Iran," saying Congress' first responsibility is to "keep the American people safe."

"Last week, the Trump Administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials. This action endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran," Pelosi wrote in a letter to House Democrats announcing the resolution.

But one of Trump's top congressional allies, Sen Lindsey Graham, R-SC, backed the strike, calling Iran the "cancer of the Middle East" in an interview of Fox News.

The administration insists it does not want war with Iran. But its claims it is not seeking regime change were undermined by its elimination of Soleimani — the most powerful Iranian leader barring Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The fear now is that a military response to Soleimani's killing by Iran will set off a cycle of escalation that could lead to the two sides to the cusp of a disastrous war.

Iran crisis abroad, impeachment imbroglio at home

The events of the past few days have seemed inevitable given the hardline Trump policy toward Iran, and the lack of a realistic diplomatic off ramp that might ease tensions.

When Trump took office, Iran's uranium enrichment program was frozen. The President's decision to ditch the nuclear deal and "maximum pressure" campaign brought Iran's economy to its knees. Far from halting what the US says is Tehran's malicious regional activity, the policy seems to have exacerbated it, leading to Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a Saudi oil refinery and a militia strike that killed an American contractor in Iraq and prompted Trump to take down Soleimani.

The showdown with Iran is deepening as another crisis caused by Trump's disruptive choices — his impeachment over his demand for political favors from Ukraine — tests national unity at home.

Recent days have seen a widening dispute between the House and the Senate over the shape of Trump's impeachment trial and damaging new revelations strengthening the case that the President abused his power.

Both crises reflect the trends that drive the Trump presidency -- including questionable administration standards of trust, transparency and truth, a hyper-political approach to foreign policy and the impulsive personality of an commander-in-chief who acts on instinct and accepts few limits on his power.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on Sunday questioned the timing of the attack on Soleimani.

Asked on "State of the Union" whether she believes Trump is trying to distract from his impeachment in Congress, Warren responded: "I think it is a reasonable question to ask particularly when the administration immediately after having taken this decision offers a bunch of contradictory explanations for what is going on."

One of Warren's rivals for the Democratic nomination, former vice president Joe Biden, warned that the President's tweets and threats reflect his unsuitability to be commander-in-chief. And he said he was the most suitable candidate to replace him.

"We need to provide a steady, stable, experienced leadership. With all due respect, I think I'm best prepared than of anybody running for president right now," Biden said at an event in Des Moines, Iowa.

His comments showed how the sudden escalation of the crisis with Iran, along with tensions that are unlikely to quickly ebb, could emerge as a major issue in the Democratic primary race and provide an opening for the party's eventual presidential nominee.

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2020-01-06 07:28:00Z
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