Republicans vote for impeachment inquiry into Biden
Washington, Dec 14: The Republican-led US House of Representatives has voted to authorise impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, in a 221-212 vote along party lines. “The impeachment power resides solely with the House of Representatives,” Xinhua news agency quoted Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a hardliner within the Republican party, as saying to reporters after the vote late Wednesday night. “If a majority of the House now says we’re in an official impeachment inquiry as part of our constitutional duty to do oversight, that carries weight. That’s going to help us get these witnesses in,” said the Ohio Republican, one of the leaders of the impeachment push. Republicans hope that the impeachment inquiry vote would give them better legal standing to hold the President’s son Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress should he fail to show. (IANS)
PPP announces Bilawal as PM candidate
Islamabad, Dec 14: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Thursday announced that its chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would be its prime ministerial candidate and his father Asif Ali Zardari the presidential nominee in the general election scheduled to be held on February 8. The announcement comes as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMN-L) party had already announced that its chief and former three-time premier Nawaz Sharif would be the nominee for the post of prime minister. Though Pakistan is a multi-party parliamentary democracy and the election of prime minister and president is indirect based on the number of seats won by a party, the nomination of prime minister or president helps the voters to decide with the knowledge who would be on the top of decision making hierarchy after elections. Addressing the media here, PPP information secretary Faisal Karim Kundi said that Bilawal will be the candidate for the prime minister and “our wish will be that we replay 2008 and make Asif Zardari the president”. Zardari, 68, who had become the President of Pakistan after elections held in 2008, served in the post till 2013. (PTI)
Global Refugee Forum 2023 opens
Geneva, Dec 14: The three-day Global Refugee Forum 2023 (GRF) has kicked off here, with some 4,000 delegates from 165 countries expected to attend the forum. The delegates, including refugee leaders, heads of state, and business leaders, among others, are to address the urgent challenges and long-term solutions needed for the current more than 114 million displaced people, of whom 36 million are refugees, Xinhua news agency reported. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Wednesday that he expects the event to provide an opportunity to “re-commit to some basic actions needed to respond to forced displacement: protecting people forced to flee, sharing the responsibility of those who host them … and striving to tackle the root causes of their flight”. Currently, there are a record 114 million refugees and displaced people in the world, he said, “whom persecution, human rights violations, violence, armed conflict and serious public disorder have forced from their homes.” (IANS)