WORLD Not guilty, Trump pleads to election conspiracy cases

WASHINGTON, DC – Former president Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday (Friday, Manila time) to criminal charges he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election and defraud the American people.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, entered his plea during a nearly 30-minute hearing at the same Washington courthouse where hundreds of his supporters have been convicted for their roles in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

“Not guilty,” Trump said after magistrate judge Moxila Upadhyaya read the four criminal counts -- and the potential maximum prison sentences -- in the 45-page indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

The 77-year-old has already been charged in two other criminal cases, and the new conspiracy charges raise the prospect of his being further embroiled in legal proceedings at the height of next year’s election campaign.

Speaking to reporters at Reagan National airport before leaving Washington on his private plane, Trump said the cases brought against him were “persecution of a political opponent.”

“This is a very sad day for America,” he said. “This is the persecution of the person that’s leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading (President Joe) Biden by a lot.

“So if you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him,” he said. “We can’t let this happen in America.”

Later on Thursday, Trump quipped on his Truth Social account that considering he had to journey “to a filthy, dirty, falling apart & very unsafe Washington” for his arraignment, “it was a

Two US Navy men nabbed, suspected spying for China

LOS ANGELES, USA—Two serving members of the US Navy have been arrested on suspicion of spying for China, the Department of Justice said Friday.

The men are suspected to be selling secret information to Beijing that included manuals for warships and their weapons systems, as well as blueprints for a radar system and plans for a huge US military exercise.

“These arrests are a reminder of the relentless, aggressive efforts of the People’s Republic of China to undermine our democracy and threaten those who defend it,” said Suzanne Turner of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, which was involved in the sting.

China “compromised enlisted personnel to secure sensitive military information that could seriously jeopardize US national security.”

In a press release, the Department of Justice said sailor Jinchao Wei, who served on the amphibious assault ship the USS Essex in San Diego, had handed over dozens of documents, photos and videos detailing the operation of ships and their systems. These included technical and mechanical manuals that dealt with the weaponry of his own vessel.

The 22-year-old, who is alleged to have been paid thousands of dollars for the information, faces possible life in jail if convicted. AFP very good day!”

The judge set the next hearing in the high-stakes case for August 28 before US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over the eventual trial.

“I can guarantee to everybody there will be a fair process and a fair trial,” Upadhyaya said.

Security was tight around the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse where the hearing was held, with metal barricades blocking access and police patrolling the perimeter.

Small groups of demonstrators holding placards milled about outside along with curious tourists.

“Jail Trump Forever,” read one sign.

“Trump 24,” read another.

“We wanted to see it,” said Dave Werner, 52, of Houston, Texas, who was visiting the capital with his son Liam, 12. “It’s a little bit being part of history.”

The accusations that Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators plotted to upend the 2020 election are the most serious of the cases threatening to derail his White House comeback bid.

Biden, for his part, was asked during a bike ride while vacationing in Delaware if he would follow the arraignment. His response was a curt “No.”

Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, has charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding and attempting to disenfranchise voters with his false claims that he won the election.AFP

Lebanon marks 3 years since catastrophic blast

BEIRUT—Lebanon on Friday marked three years since one of history’s biggest non-nuclear explosions rocked Beirut.

Yet nobody has been held to account as political and legal pressures suspend the investigation.

On August 4, 2020, the massive blast at Beirut’s port destroyed swathes of the Lebanese capital, killing more than 220 people and injuring at least 6,500.

Authorities said the disaster was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where a vast stockpile of industrial chemical ammonium nitrate had been haphazardly stored for years.

Three years on, the probe is virtually at a standstill, leaving survivors still yearning for answers.

The main activist group representing families of those killed has called for a protest march on Friday afternoon, converging on the port.

“This is a day of commemoration, mourning and protest against the Lebanese state that politicizes our cause and interferes in the judiciary,” said Rima al-Zahed, whose brother was killed in the explosion.

“The judiciary is shackled, justice is out of reach, and the truth is shrouded,” she told AFP.

The blast struck amid an economic collapse that the World Bank has dubbed one of the worst in recent history and which is widely blamed on a governing elite accused of corruption and mismanagement.

Since its early days, the probe into the explosion has faced a slew of political and legal challenges.

In December 2020, lead investigator Fadi Sawan charged former prime minister Hassan Diab and three ex-ministers with negligence.

But as political pressure mounted, Sawan was removed from the case. His successor, Tarek Bitar, unsuc- cessfully asked lawmakers to lift parliamentary immunity for MPs who were formerly ministers.

The powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group has launched a campaign against Bitar, accusing him of bias and demanding his dismissal.

The interior ministry has refused to execute arrest warrants which the lead investigator has issued.

In December 2021, Bitar suspended his probe after a barrage of lawsuits, mainly from politicians he had summoned on charges of negligence.

But in a surprise move this January, Bitar resumed investigations after a 13-month hiatus, charging eight new suspects including high-level security officials and Lebanon’s top prosecutor, Ghassan Oueidat.

Oueidat then charged Bitar with insubordination and “usurping power”, and ordered the release of all those detained over the blast. AFP

Russia: Ukraine attacks thwarted on Black Sea naval base, Crimea

MOSCOW—Russia’s defence ministry said Friday it had thwarted overnight Ukrainian attacks on a naval base in the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula.

“Tonight, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the use of two unmanned sea boats, attempted an attack on the Novorossiysk naval base of the Russian Armed Forces,” the ministry said on Telegram.

Russian ships destroyed the naval drones, it said.

The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk hosts the terminus of a pipeline that carries most Kazakh oil exports through Russia.

The fuel artery’s operator Caspian Pipeline Consortium said it was continuing to ship oil to moored tankers at the terminal, Russian state media reported Friday.

Niger junta threatens quick response to any ‘aggression’

NIAMEY, Niger—Niger’s newly installed junta has threatened an immediate response to any “aggression or attempted aggression,, as the clock ticks down on a deadline given by its neighbors to reverse last week’s coup.

It also made diplomatic swipes against international condemnation of the putsch, scrapping military pacts with France and pulling its ambassadors from Paris and Washington as well as from Togo and Nigeria.

On Sunday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gave the junta a week to reinstate democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled by his guard on July 26, or risk a possible military intervention.

Regional military chiefs are in Nigeria’s capital Abuja to discuss the possibility of a such an intervention, but Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on Thursday told the bloc’s delegations to do “whatever it takes” to reach an “amicable resolution”.

Niger’s junta warned it would meet force with force.

“Any aggression or attempted aggression against the State of Niger will see an immediate and unannounced response from the Niger Defense and Security Forces on one of (the bloc’s) members,” one of the putschists said in a statement read on national television late Thursday.

This came with “the exception of suspended friendly countries”, an allusion to Burkina Faso and Mali, neighbouring countries that have also fallen to military coups in recent years.

Those countries’ juntas have warned any military intervention in Niger would be tantamount to a “declaration of war” against them.

Nigeria, West Africa’s pre-eminent military and economic power, is the current ECOWAS chair and has vowed a firm line against coups.

The bloc has already imposed trade and financial sanctions on Niger. AFP

Russian opposition leader Navalny faces 20 more years

MOSCOW—Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was scheduld to face trial again Friday to hear whether he has been found guilty of a series of extremism charges that could see him spend 20 more years behind bars.

He is already serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security prison for “embezzlement”, a charge that his supporters say was trumped up in retaliation for challenging President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny said he expected the court to hand him a lengthy, “Stalinist” prison sentence of about 18 years, and called on his supporters to resist Putin’s rule in a statement Thursday.

“Please consider and realize that by jailing hundreds, Putin is trying to intimidate millions,” he said.

Navalny has a huge following on social media, where he has posted videos exposing alleged corruption among Russia’s elite and mobilized massive anti-government protests.

His court hearing on Friday will be held behind closed doors at the IK-6 penal colony, a maximum-security prison some 250 kilometers east of Moscow, where the 47-year-old has been serving his sentence.

Prosecutors allege that Navalny created an organization that undermined public security by carrying out “extremist activities”.

His Anti-Corruption Foundation, that investigates graft among Russian officials, was banned for extremism in 2021. AFP

But “a temporary ban has been established on the movement of ships in the port”, said the company, as quoted by Interfax news agency.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been targeted since the beginning of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine more than a year ago, but attacks have increased in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has visited a combat zone in Ukraine to inspect a command post and meet senior military officers, the army said Friday.

Shoigu got an update on the situation on the front and “thanked commanders and soldiers... for successful offensive operations” in Lyman in eastern Ukraine, it said, without mentioning when the visit took place. AFP

N. Zealand military ‘not in a fit state,’ says government

WELLINGTON, New Zealand— Facing aging equipment and difficulties recruiting personnel, New Zealand’s military needs a revamp, the government said Friday.

The South Pacific nation’s roughly 15,000-strong defense force “is not in a fit state to respond to future challenges”, according to a policy review presented by Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Defence Minister Andrew Little.

According to the review, New Zealand’s military is designed for a “relatively benign strategic environment” rather than the region’s current predicaments, including climate-fueled challenges and intense strategic competition between China and the West.

Little said New Zealand needs to invest in a “combat-capable” force and cannot count on being protected by its remoteness.

“The changes in the domestic and international security environment mean our response and preparedness must change too,” Little told reporters Friday “We must be prepared to equip ourselves with trained personnel, assets and material, and appropriate international relationships in order to protect our own defense and national security.” AFP