Foreign News
House votes to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
The House of Representatives has narrowly voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, making him the first cabinet member to face impeachment in nearly 150 years.
Many Republicans blame Mayorkas for an unprecedented influx of migrants at the US-Mexico border.
The Republican-led chamber voted 214 to 213 for the measure, after the first attempt failed last week. The issue now heads to the Democratic-led Senate, where it is likely to fail.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the vote a “blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship” and a “political stunt”.
Opponents of Mr Mayorkas accused him of not living up to his oath to “well and faithfully discharge the duties” of his office by failing to do more to secure the border.
The vote was largely divided along party lines, with 210 Democrats voting against the impeachment, along with three Republican representatives: Tom McClintock of California, Ken Buck of Colorado and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin.
The three defectors also voted against the first attempt to impeach Mr Mayorkas, saying that impeaching someone who had not committed a serious crime would weaken the constitutional penalty and do little to address the crisis at the border.
More than 6.3 million migrants have entered the US illegally since 2021, making immigration a divisive and politically contentious issue ahead of the November election. The issue is a major focus of Donald Trump’s campaign to oust Mr Biden from office.
In a statement released shortly after the vote, Mr Biden defended Mr Mayorkas, calling him “an honourable public servant”. “He has upheld the rule of law faithfully and has demonstrated a deep commitment to the values that make our nation great,” the president said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Mia Ehrenberg, accused Republicans of spending their time “trampling on the constitution” instead of “working to solve the serious challenges at our border”.
Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Mr Mayorkas “deserves to be impeached”. Over the course of two hearings in January, Republicans charged Mr Mayorkas with failing to enforce immigration policies and lying about the border’s security.
Democrat Al Green, of Texas, appeared unexpectedly after being wheeled into the chamber wearing hospital scrubs to vote against the impeachment. He had been in an emergency room having surgery.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise also cast his vote after missing the last vote because of cancer treatment. His return gave Republicans the margin needed to secure the vote.
Impeachment – a process outlined in the US Constitution – marks the first step in removing a federal official for high crimes or misdemeanours. It requires a simple majority in the House, then a trial in the Senate. A two-thirds majority is needed for that to succeed.
The impeachment effort is unlikely to pass as the Senate is narrowly controlled by the Democrats.
The House is due to present the impeachment articles to the Senate on 26 February.
The last cabinet secretary to be impeached was Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, although he resigned shortly ahead of the vote.
A January poll conducted by CBS – the BBC’s US partner – suggests that nearly half of Americans view the situation at the border as a crisis, with 63% wanting “tougher” policies at the border.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency on Tuesday said border crossings were down 50% in January, attributing the dramatic drop to “seasonal trends, as well as enhanced enforcement efforts”.
Peru’s former president, Ollanta Humala, has been found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
A court in the capital, Lima, said he had accepted illegal funds from the Venezuelan president at the time, Hugo Chávez, and from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to bankroll his election campaigns in 2006 and 2011.
Humala’s lawyer said he would appeal against the conviction.
His wife, Nadine Heredia, was also found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in jail. However, she has been granted safe passage to Brazil after seeking asylum in the Brazilian embassy.
Humala’s lawyer said he would appeal against the conviction.
Unlike her husband, Heredia was not present in court when Judge Nayko Coronado passed sentence – she had entered the Brazilian embassy along with the couple’s son before an arrest warrant could be executed.
Brazil offered her asylum and the Peruvian government said it would honour the 1954 asylum convention to grant both Heredia and her son safe passage.
The former president, 62, was meanwhile taken to Barbadillo prison, where two other former leaders, Alejandro Toledo and Pedro Castillo, are already being held.
Humala was the first of four Peruvian presidents to be investigated in connection with the Odebrecht scandal.
Toledo, who governed from 2001 to 2006, was sentenced last year to more than 20 years in prison for taking $35m (£26m) in bribes from the company.
Alan García, president from 1985 to 1990 and 2006 to 2011, killed himself in 2019 as he faced imminent arrest over allegations he was bribed by Odebrecht. He had denied the accusations.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, in office from 2016 to 2018, faced impeachment proceedings after it emerged that Odebrecht had paid him millions of dollars in his previous government role.
The investigation is ongoing. Kuczynski has always maintained the payments were not illegal.
Prosecutors said that Humala and his wife, with whom he co-founded the Nationalist Party, had accepted $3m in illegal contributions from the firm, which they used to finance his 2011 presidential campaign.
They also accused of taking $200,000 from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez to bankroll the 2006 campaign.
The couple have always maintained that they are the victims of political persecution.
Humala’s lawyer, Wilfredo Pedraza, also said that their 15-year sentence was “excessive”.
Prosecutors had asked for 20 years for the ex-president and 25 and a half years for Heredia.
[BBC]
More than a thousand people have been left with respiratory problems after a sandstorm swept across Iraq’s central and southern parts of the country, health officials said.
One official in Muthanna province reported to the AFP news agency at least 700 cases of what they said was suffocation.
Footage shared online showed areas cloaked in a thick orange haze, with local media reporting power cuts and the suspension of flights in a number of regions.
Dust storms are common in Iraq, but some experts believe they are becoming more frequent due to climate change.
Pedestrians and police wore face masks to protect themselves from the dust and paramedics were on site to assist people with difficulty breathing, according to AFP.
Hospitals in Muthanna province in southern Iraq received at least “700 cases of suffocation”, a local health official said.
More than 250 people were taken to hospital in Najaf province, and at least 322 patients including children were sent to hospitals in Diwaniyah province.
A further 530 people reported breathing issues in Dhi Qar and Basra provinces.
The sandstorm blanketed Iraq’s southern provinces in an orange cloud that reduced visibility to less than one kilometre (0.62 mile).
The authorities were forced to shut down airports in the provinces of Najaf and Basra.
Conditions are expected to gradually improve by Tuesday morning, according to local weather services.
Iraq is listed by the UN as one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change as it encounters regular sandstorms, sweltering heat and water scarcity.
A severe sandstorm in 2022 left one person dead and more than 5,000 needing treatment for respiratory illnesses.
Iraq will be experiencing more “dust days” in the future, according to its environment ministry.
[BBC]
Indian businessman Mehul Choksi has been arrested in Belgium following India’s request for his extradition.
Choksi, who left India in 2018, was arrested on Saturday, his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal told the BBC on Monday.
The diamond merchant is wanted by India for allegedly defrauding one of the country’s largest banks of nearly $1.8bn (£1.3bn).
Choksi has not commented publicly on the case, but his lawyer said they would appeal against his detention and also oppose his extradition to India.
“These are the obvious grounds on which we will argue the case, that he is not a flight risk and secondly, that he is extremely sick. He is undergoing cancer treatment,” Mr Agarwal said. He added that they would “contest the extradition on grounds that there isn’t enough evidence against him and the extradition request is politically motivated and the trial in India may not be fair”.
The BBC has reached out to India’s foreign ministry and financial crimes agency – the Enforcement Directorate (ED) – for comment.
According to a Times of India report, Choksi was arrested on the basis of two non-bailable warrants issued by an Indian court in 2018 and 2021 – although it’s not clear why the action came now.
Mehul Choksi and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are wanted by Indian authorities in connection with a $1.8bn fraud case at Punjab National Bank (PNB).
Niray Modi, who’s also been living abroad since 2018, is lodged in a prison in London and is awaiting extradition to India.
Both were high-profile diamond traders. Modi’s jewellery was worn by several Hollywood celebrities such as Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet. One of the biggest Bollywood stars, Priyanka Chopra, was his company’s brand ambassador. Choksi, meanwhile, was the owner of Gitanjali Gems, an Indian jewellery retailer which once had about 4,000 stores across India.
The ED has accused Choksi and Modi of colluding with some employees of PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai city to get fraudulent advances for payments to overseas suppliers of jewels.
These funds were then allegedly diverted and laundered.
Choksi and Modi have denied the allegations against them.
After leaving India, Choksi reportedly travelled to the US and later to Antigua – where he has citizenship. In 2021, he was reportedly arrested in Dominica and deported back to Antigua.
Hariprasad SV, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur who had in 2016 alerted authorities about the alleged scam at PNB, said Choksi’s arrest was “great news”. “Apart from bringing him back, the most important thing is to get back all those billions of dollars he looted from India,” he told ANI news agency.
[BBC]
Peru’s ex-president and first lady sentenced to 15 years in jail
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