Times Of Harvard

 International political analysts say the experiences of various countries show contrasting paths – for better or for worse – the American experiment in democracy can travel. It's been nearly two weeks since media outlets called the 2020 presidential race for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. But since then, Trump has refused to formally concede, and has instead filed lawsuits to dispute vote counts in several states. Despite losing the national popular vote by more than 5 million, the president continues to allege without evidence that the 2020 race was fraudulent and that the election was stolen from him. Experts aren't especially concerned about the possibility of Trump refusing to leave office. But there are several factors – especially partisan polarization and disinformation – that democracy scholars say should be cause for concern in U.S. politics. Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University's conservative-leaning Hoover Institution, says polarization has erode...

 President-elect Joe Biden fractured his right foot while playing with one of his dogs, an injury discovered in a scan Sunday and that will likely require him to wear a boot for several weeks, his doctor said. Biden suffered the injury on Saturday and visited an orthopedist in Newark, Delaware, on Sunday afternoon, his office said. “Initial x-rays did not show any obvious fracture,” but medical staff ordered a more detailed CT scan, his doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said in a statement. The subsequent scan found tiny fractures of two small bones in the middle of his right foot, O’Connor said. “It is anticipated that he will likely require a walking boot for several weeks,” O’Connor said. Fractures are a concern generally as people age, but Biden’s appears to be a relatively mild one based on his doctor’s statement and the planned treatment. At 78 he will be the oldest president when he’s inaugurated in January; he often dismissed questions about his age during the campaign. Reporters cov...

 Democrat lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard has urged president Donald Trump to pardon the whistleblower Edward Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Ms Gabbard, representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district and former presidential candidate, called on Mr Trump to reconsider the cases of the two men, both of whom have been charged under the Espionage Act. Her call comes after Mr Trump pardoned his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who twice admitted lying to the FBI. Despite misleading prosecutors about his contacts with Russia, Flynn, 61, later retracted his guilty plea, claiming that he was set up by the federal agency.  Democrats widely condemned Mr Trump’s Thanksgiving Eve pardon, with House speaker Nancy Pelosi branding it a "brazen abuse of power". The pardon did not go unnoticed by Ms Gabbard, who has previously called for the charges against Snowden and Assange to be dropped. "Since you're giving pardons to people," she tweeted o...

 A Toronto restaurant owner has been arrested after defying public health restrictions. Adam Skelly, the proprietor of Adamson BBQ, declared on social media on Monday that he would open his restaurant despite restrictions put in place by authorities to limit the spread of Covid-19. Mr Skelly’s eatery — located in Etobocike, a suburban area of the Canadian city — opened up on Tuesday despite warnings from Toronto health officials to close the doors. The 33-year-old was arrested by police on Thursday and his restaurant was seized by officers who changed the locks, as reported by CP24. He is being charged with one count each of attempting to obstruct police, mischief, failing to comply with a continuing order and failing to leave when directed. Pictures from the scene show groups of people supporting Mr Skelly and holding a number of signs critical of politician Doug Ford, who represents the area in the Ontario Legislature. An online fundraising effort for Mr Skelly has already collec...

 Scientists and public health experts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will vote on Tuesday to decide who will be first people to get a coronavirus vaccine, once one is granted emergency authorisation. The CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices has scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss allocation of Covid-19 vaccines, according to a document obtained by CNN. It is expected that they will decide healthcare workers will be in the first group, along with those most at risk, such as nursing home residents. Members of the committee will discuss who should be in the first group, and clinical considerations for the group. The advisers will also discuss how to monitor safety after allocation of the vaccine, according to the document. Several vaccines - among them ones made by Pfizer and Moderna - have shown encouraging rates of effectiveness in clinical trials. They are currently awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Th...

Iran's top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed Friday in an alleged assassination that the country's foreign minister linked to Israel.  Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered one of the masterminds of Iran's controversial nuclear program, died after his car was apparently ambushed in a district east of Tehran. Photos from the scene showed the shattered windshield of a car, and blood on the road. Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif called the death "cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role."  "Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today," Zarif said in a tweet. "This cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role -- shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators Iran calls on int'l community -- and especially EU -- to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror." Iranian president said it would not slow down the country's nuclear programme. Hassan Rouhani also said Iran would r...

 The Saudi government’s aim is to win over Saudi Arabia’s youth—two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s population is under the age of 35—and discourage them from challenging the monarchy. It has the additional goal of luring foreign investment to help diversify the economy. Last week, Saudi Arabia became the first Arab nation to host the G-20, the yearly summit of the world’s top leaders to discuss shared economic, political, and health challenges. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son and crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had hoped it would usher in a new chapter in their relationship with the global elite since the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly on the orders of the crown prince. That had caused huge embarrassment and made it harder, at least for Europeans, to justify “business as usual” with the kingdom. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, denied the opportunity for photo opportunities, and the gathering was instead held online. Among Saudis in exile, the cove...

 The US State Department expressed concern, about reports that the cases of Saudi activists, Loujain Al-Hathloul and Samar Badawi, have been referred to the Specialized Criminal Court that handles terrorism cases in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The US State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Office said, through its Twitter account, “We are concerned about reports that the cases of Loujain Al-Hathloul and Samar Badawi have been referred to the Saudi Terrorism Court.” “Activism on behalf of women’s rights is not a crime,” he added, expressing alarm at the allegations of violations against them and the lack of transparency in their trials. Alia Al-Hathloul, Loujain’s sister, said on her Twitter account, Wednesday, that “After nearly 3 years of arrest, and a year from the start of the Lujain courts, the judge at the Criminal Court in Riyadh issued this day his decision not to have jurisdiction and the file of Jane was transferred to the Terrorism Court. “.  The US State Department...

Mohammad Bin Salman who once claimed Saudi women are living in an unprecedented phase of empowerment, his forces arrest women for the NEOM Project. Saudi authorities have carried out a new campaign of arrests against the residents of the village of Al-Kharibat in the northwest of the kingdom.  Informed sources confirmed, the arrest of Saudi forces, Mrs. Halima, wife of the detainee “Abdul Nasser al-Hawiti”, brother of martyr Abdul Rahim al-Hawiti, in addition to his brothers “Abdul Rahim and Mahmoud” as part of a military campaign carried out on the residents of the village of Al-Kharibat . The aim of this campaign is to seize the land in order to complete the construction of the dream bin Salman project Neom.  Saudi security services raided the home of Abdul Rahim al-Hawiti in mid-April after he refused to hand over his house to the Saudi regime. Abdul Rahim al-Hawiti was killed after he posted a video footage  showing the forced displacement of indigenous citizens in th...

MBS has cemented his position with an iron fist, jailing human rights activists; imprisoning, torturing and extorting even the country's wealthiest and most powerful people; and waging a violent campaign against dissidents abroad, including the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The White House has, however, stood by the crown prince, who is widely seen as the power behind his father King Salman's throne. President Donald Trump has publicly supported MBS and prioritized Riyadh's purchase of American weaponry and its support in Washington, D.C.'s efforts to contain Iran. "I don't think it's a secret," Lina al Hathloul, sister of jailed activist Loujain al-Hathloul said, when asked if Trump had facilitated the kingdom's crackdown on dissidents. "MBS couldn't have done so much without the U.S. administration's silence," she added.  Biden has promised to reassess America's ties with the "pariah" state. The president-e...

    The Saudi government has a strong desire to eliminate all domestic forces and voices that advocate for human rights, and it has become customary to criminalize every voice making a demand or a criticism. Because of the flaws in the judicial system and the inability to mount a true legal defence, activists children living abroad speak up against the plight of their parents in Saudi Jails. Following is the video of Abdullah al Awdah, son of prominent Saudi preacher and activist Salman al Awdah, who talks about the plight of his father in jail and questions Saudi judicial system.  

  Former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal Trump critic, on Monday took to Twitter to announce that he now plans “to ignore Trump,” and will “leave his fate to our judicial system, his infamy to history, & his legacy to a trash heap.” “For four years, I spoke out vigorously against Donald Trump’s craven dishonesty, corrupt pursuit of personal interests, & trampling of our democratic principles,” Brennan, who served under the Obama administration, began in a series of tweets. “After serving over three decades in national security, I felt compelled to condemn Trump’s depravity & incompetence.” “My outspokenness has brought criticism, retaliation by the Trump Administration, & threats by those blinded by Trump’s demagoguery,” he continued. “Yes, it is unusual for a former CIA Director to speak out, but when an autocrat descended upon the White House, silence was not an option for me.” “I now plan to ignore Trump,” Brennan added. “I leave his fate to our judicial syste...

  Two human rights organizations called on the United Kingdom to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE in light of their ongoing involvement in the war in Yemen. A joint report issued on Monday by Sam for Rights and Liberties (a Yemeni non-governmental organisation based in Geneva) and FSPD (a British non-governmental organisation) said: "The United Kingdom should listen to calls by international organizations (such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in previous statements) to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE." The statement pointed out that "Saudi purchases accounted for 41 percent of the total of British arms exports between 2010 and 2019, while the UK secures 19 percent of Saudi Arabia's arms imports." "Based on data provided by arms ban campaigners, the total value of British export licenses of military products to Saudi Arabia since the start of the bombing in Yemen amounts to £5.4 billion ($7.20 billion), howeve...

Saudi Arabia has put women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul on trial on Wednesday, more than 900 days after she was detained, and just after the country wrapped up hosting duties on a virtual G20 summit, her family have been told. The family of the jailed Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul says her trial has been transferred to a terrorism tribunal. Ms Hathloul's sister Lina said her parents had been informed that the case would be heard by the Specialised Criminal Court. Human rights groups say the SCC, which was set up in 2008 to try terrorism cases, has been used to prosecute peaceful dissidents and that it is notorious for violations of fair trial standards. Wednesday's hearing was the first time since 26 October that Ms Hathloul's family has had any news of her since she went on hunger strike in protest over her conditions in detention. Her sister Lina tweeted that she looked weak and shook uncontrollably when she appeared in court, where the...

 The General Services Administration has declared president-elect Joe Biden the apparent winner of the US election, clearing the way for the formal transition from Donald Trump’s administration to begin after weeks of delay. The GSA said on Monday that it had determined that Biden was the winner of the 3 November race after weeks of Trump refusing to concede and violating the traditions of the transition of power at the White House. Trump said on Twitter he had directed his team to cooperate on the transition, but vowed to continue fighting the election results, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud. Hours later, he said: “Will never concede to fake ballots & ‘Dominion’.” Emily Murphy, who heads the GSA, said she made the determination based on “the law” and “facts.” “Please know that I came to my decision independently, based on the law and available facts. I was never directly or indirectly pressured by any executive branch official including those who work a...

Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) was created by the Saudi Arabia with the help of United States, as an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region, says a Saudi official. Watch:  

 Saudi security forces arrested Mohammed Al Faraj outside a bowling alley when he was 15 years old. The teenager from Qatif, aShia-majority province in the east of the country, was separated from his companions and transferred to a prison for adults in the city of Dammam where he was detained and denied outside contact. When his family was finally able to visit him in October 2017, Al Faraj claimed he’d been beaten and kicked, forced into stress positions for hours and left for days in solitary confinement. Observers say Al Faraj was tortured into confessing to three crimes related to protests in the restive Qatif province, including harbouring a fugitive, attending the funeral of a relative in 2012 and sending WhatsApp messages that could affect public security. The charges carry the death penalty. “He was nine when he committed the earliest alleged crime, attending a funeral in 2012,” says Catriona Harris of human rights non-profit Reprieve. “That’s the youngest age we’ve ever se...

  President Trump took to Twitter on Saturday night to voice frustrations about Joe Biden making Cabinet choices, as Trump's legal team continued to push allegations of election and voter fraud. “Why is Joe Biden so quickly forming a Cabinet when my investigators have found hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes, enough to 'flip' at least four States, which in turn is more than enough to win the Election?” Trump wrote on Twitter. Trump's comments came as Wisconsin continued with its recount, and hours after a Pennsylvania federal judge threw out another Trump lawsuit aimed at preventing the certification of that state's election results. The decision by U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew Brann on Saturday was just the latest disappointment for the Trump 2020 Campaign, which was struggling to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election. “Hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures will have the COURAGE to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Electi...

  Imprisoned Saudi women’s rights activists are tortured and sexually abused by their interrogators at detention centers in the kingdom, a report says. Scottish barrister Baroness Helena Kennedy said in a 40-page report that the female detainees are made to watch pornography, threatened with rape, hung from the ceiling, beaten and suffered electric shocks during interrogation. The human rights lawyer highlighted in the report, entitled A Stain on World Leaders and the G20 Summit in Saudi Arabia, that many of the activists had been “subjected to treatment amounting to torture, including by individuals who are closely connected to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, such as his advisor Saud al-Qahtani and younger brother Khalid bin Salman.” The barrister cited one source which reported that Aida al-Ghamdi had been forced to watch pornography; and several other sources which reported that Loujain al-Hathloul and Eman al-Nafjan had been forced to kiss and perform sexual acts on interroga...

Human rights groups and activists have intensified calls to boycott the Group of 20 (G20) summit hosted by Saudi Arabia this weekend, demanding the kingdom release jailed activists. The summit, held virtually this year amid the Covid-19 pandemic, is an annual meeting of the world's 20 largest economies. Pointing to issues from a lack of accountability for 2018 murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to the country's continued imprisonment of activists, rights groups have launched powerful campaigns calling on the international community to hold the kingdom accountable. 'Hypocrisy of the highest order' On Friday, the UK-based Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR), along with the families of three womens' rights activists imprisoned in the kingdom, took out full-page advertisements in some of the world's leading newspapers, including the Washington Post, LA Times, the Guardian, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Canada's Star.   "Wh...

  Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has said that Riyadh is looking for a way to resolve the three-year rift with its Gulf neighbour Qatar. Commenting on the dispute on Saturday, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said Saudi Arabia is continuing to find a way to end the blockade on Qatar, but he added it remains conditional on addressing security concerns. The dispute dates from 2017 when Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and non-GCC member Egypt imposed a boycott on Qatar, severing diplomatic and transport ties, and accusing it of supporting “terrorism”. Qatar denies all allegations against it. Last month, Prince Faisal said Saudi Arabia was committed to finding a resolution. “We continue to be willing to engage with our Qatari brothers and we hope that they are as committed to that engagement,” he said. “But we do need to address the legitimate security concerns of the quartet and I think there is a path toward that” with a solution “in the relatively near future...

 President Donald Trump’s desperate bid to overturn the November 3 election results was dealt a double blow on Friday after officials in the battleground state of Georgia certified Joe Biden’s win and top Republican legislators in Michigan said they had no information that would warrant reversing the outcome of the vote in that state. While Biden is preparing to take office on January 20,Trump has refused to concede and his team is seeking to invalidate or reverse the results through lawsuits, recounts and undermining the certification of results in some states, claiming – without proof – widespread voter fraud. Trump’s critics have called the effort an unprecedented push by a sitting president to subvert the will of the voters. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Friday that a manual recount and audit of all ballots cast in the southern state had determined that Biden was the winner. Biden is the first Democrat to carry Georgia since 1992. “The numbers refle...

  New York city will temporarily close all schools for in-person learning beginning Thursday, after showing the country – at least for eight weeks – that a big city school district could safely welcome students back to their classrooms. The city had been flirting with a seven-day average positivity rate of 3%, the threshold that triggers a stoppage of in-person instruction in schools city-wide based on the school reopening agreement city officials brokered with the city's teachers and principals unions. "The city has now reached this threshold of test positivity citywide and, as a result, the [New York City Department of Education] will temporarily close down all public school buildings for in-person learning," New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza wrote in a letter to principals Wednesday. "This action, along with other city-wide measures, is a key component to address the concerning rise in COVID-19 transmission rates." The closing of the country...

  Australia said on Thursday that its special forces were suspected of being responsible for 39 unlawful killings in Afghanistan, as it released a long-awaited report into alleged war crimes committed in the South Asian nation. Australia launched the inquiry in 2016, amid reports from whistle-blowers and in the local media of the alleged killing of unarmed men and children that the government initially tried to suppress. Detailing the findings, General Angus Campbell, chief of the Defence Force, said the investigation found evidence that members of the Australian special forces had killed prisoners, farmers or other civilians, and offered his unreserved apologies to the people of Afghanistan for any wrongdoing. The report “found there to be credible information to substantiate 23 incidents of alleged unlawful killing of 39 people by 25 Australian special forces personnel predominantly from the Special Air Service Regiment,” Campbell told reporters. “These findings allege the most s...

 In an extensive piece for the New York Times Magazine, author Jonathan Mahler makes a persuasive case that, not only should Donald Trump face criminal charges after he leaves office, but that it is necessary for the country to heal, knowing that future Trumps will have been put on notice that they won’t be able to use the presidency as a shield against corruption charges. Pointing out that incoming President Joe Biden declared it a “time to heal,” in his first address to the nation after the election was called in his favor, the author said that president elect’s words echoed those of former President Gerald Ford when he pardoned disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon. However, he noted, Donald Trump is a whole different situation. “As the election approached and the polls pointed to a Trump defeat, there was a growing sense that his moment of reckoning was coming. He was, after all, already the subject of a criminal investigation by the district attorney of Manhattan as well as ...