Russia’s Vladimir Putin is denying that he’s planning to retain his grip on power when he relinquishes his country’s presidency in 2024.

The 67-year-old Putin dismissed accusations that sweeping constitutional changes he laid out in a speech Wednesday would allow him to retain his grip on a country he’s ruled for 20 years.

Speaking Saturday while on a visit to his hometown of St. Petersburg, Putin said he understood peoples alarm but that he doesn’t want Russia to return to the Soviet-era practice of rulers dying in office without a succession plan.“

In my view, it would be very worrying to return to the situation of the mid-1980s when heads of state one by one remained in power until the end of their days, [and] left office without having secured necessary conditions for a transition of power,” Putin said.“

So, thank you very much, but I think it’s better not to return to the situation of the mid-1980s,” he added.

But many of his critics are skeptical of his assurances.

They worry Putin’s proposals, the first significant changes to the country’s constitution since it was adopted under Boris Yeltsin in 1993, are designed to ensure he keeps a grip on the levers of power after he leaves the Kremlin.

Putin’s term in office is set to end in 2024, and he cannot run again as the constitution prohibits anyone serving more than two consecutive terms.

The proposed constitutional changes he unveiled Wednesday, at this stage still vague, could allow him to retain power as national leader either as prime minister, a maneuver he’s used before to circumvent term limits, chairman of the country’s parliament or as head of a revamped but still ill-defined state council, his critics say.

Political foes have dubbed the proposed shake-up a “constitutional coup,” which would see the presidency reduced in importance. Some former Kremlin advisers say none of the powerful factions within the Kremlin or the country’s oligarchs want Putin to go, for fear his departure would trigger internecine warfare within the governing class.

In a recent interview with VOA, before Putin’s announcement, one of his former advisers, Gleb Pavlovsky, said that to a certain degree he’s trapped within the system he created. Putin can’t quit for fear that everything will fall apart, Pavlovsky said.

While Putin’s proposal has prompted outrage from rights activists, liberals and his political foes, ordinary Russians, even those critical of Putin, seem resigned, with many saying they’d never expected he’d relinquish power in four years’ time.

“I feel indifferent,” Ekaterina, a 28-year-old financial adviser told VOA. “Most of my friends are just making jokes about it” because they feel impotent, she added.

In 2011-2012 tens of thousands of people took to the streets following Putin’s return to the presidency for his third term, Ekaterina and others of her age group say they doubt large-scale protests to Putin’s plan will happen now. In August a series of protests were mounted against rigged elections to Moscow’s city council, but they have fizzled.

Some opposition politicians say Putin’s proposals would see Russia gravitate to a Central Asian model of governance. They accuse Putin of wanting to prolong his state leadership by following the model of Kazakhstan, where Nursultan Nazarbayev, left the presidency last year but has maintained his iron grip on his Central Asian country as chairman of an all-powerful Security Council.

“It is a complete ideological switch on the part of the ruling class from a Western ideology to something else — an Eastern one or an Ancient Roman one,” said Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.

The Russian leader’s “reform” proposals include also abolishing the primacy of international law now enshrined in the country’s current constitution. That possible change is alarming Russia’s beleaguered civil society groups, which are already seeing a tightening of restrictions on their work.

“As a member of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia is bound by international standards on human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law — including democratic elections, protections from arbitrary imprisonment, and freedoms of the media, assembly, and association,” wrote opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza in the Washington Post Friday.

Those commitments have long been ignored, “but by establishing the primacy of domestic statutes, the Kremlin intends to free itself from its remaining formal commitments under international law, signaling yet another milestone in its growing isolation,” he said.

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The head of the World Economic Forum says it’s “reassuring” that U.S. President Donald Trump and climate activist Greta Thunberg will both return to its annual meeting in Davos this year, noting that concerns about the environment will be a key topic.

WEF founder Klaus Schwab sees vast changes in business, society and culture over the 50 years since he created the yearly gathering in the Swiss Alps, which initially was a forum for business leaders but now is a key stop for policymakers and activists as well.

Following another year of extreme heat, out-of-control wildfires and melting ice sheets, environmental issues are considered to be the top five long-term risks confronting the global economy, WEF said last week, citing a survey of more than 750 decision-makers.

It said catastrophic trends like global warming, climate change and the extinction of animal species would top the agenda at the meeting that begins Tuesday.

The forum is shifting its focus of recent years from how technology is transforming lives to the environment and responsible business practices that promote jobs, fight climate change and work for social good along with profit-making.

The focus on environment could make for an uncomfortable subject for Trump, whose administration has called for expanded use of carbon-spewing coal, stripped away environmental protections and played down concerns among scientists about man-made climate change. Trump has also moved to take the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Paris accord to fight climate change.

Schwab says Trump is welcome because of his role on the world stage while Thunberg will keep the focus on the environment. Both will speak Tuesday on the opening day.

“I think both voices are necessary,” Schwab said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press. “The environment will play a particularly important role during this meeting.”

Schwab pointed to the forum’s 160 “lighthouse” projects on inclusion and equality; economic development; technology governance; regional development; corporate leadership and ecology, including a project to plant a trillion trees.

“So if Greta comes this year, she will see that we have made substantial progress,” he said, alluding to her debut at the forum last year.

Time magazine chose Thunberg as its “Person of the Year” for 2019.

Schwab claimed the forum has helped air concerns about the environment since the 1970s, but said public awareness about climate issues has now exploded.

“Now we have recognized the urgency, because we know the window to act [on climate change] is closing,” he said, adding he hoped to inject “this sense of urgency into the meeting.”

He said many companies are increasingly seeing the benefits of “ESG” — environmental, social and governance — concerns in their business models.

 “Companies recognize … doing good … it’s a precondition for some long-term survival,” Schwab said.

On Friday, Schwab and the chairmen of Bank of America and Dutch nutrition company Royal DSM sent a joint open letter to corporate leaders on hand this year to set “a target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner” if their companies haven’t done so already.

The forum chief said nearly all European Union leaders will be on hand this year, including  German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  He said the EU has a chance to lay out its vision for the future and turn the corner after three years of haggling over Britain’s departure from the bloc, which comes at the end of this month.

He also brushed aside critics who have faulted the forum as an overly exclusive vacation for the world’s out-of-touch elites.

“If I am particularly proud of something during the last 50 years, it is of having created many years ago the community of young leaders,” Schwab said, citing 10,000 young “Global Shapers” in over 400 cities who he said are engaged in issues on the ground. “We try — and I think quite successfully — to integrate the bottom-up, young generation very much.”

The Davos gathering has battled a reputation of being a haunt for the rich, powerful and famous over its five decades. Over the years, the forum has hosted celebrities like Hollywood stars Shirley Maclaine and George Clooney, Nobel Peace Prize laureates Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, and former South African presidents F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, and business gurus like Davos regular Bill Gates.  

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Cameras “miles in the sky,” a countdown and then “boom”: US President Donald Trump has recounted the final moments of Iran’s powerful military leader, Qassem Soleimani, in an American drone strike. 

Trump delivered the account Friday night to Republican Party donors at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, for a fundraising dinner, U.S. media said. 

CNN on Saturday broadcast an audio recording in which the president gave new details about the January 3 strike at the airport in Baghdad. It killed the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander and members of Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary force with close ties to Iran. 

“He was supposed to be invincible,” Trump said. 

Democrats and other critics have questioned the timing of the strike, the month before Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, and the administration’s shifting reasons for launching it. 

In the audio released by CNN, Trump did not refer to an “imminent” attack that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said Soleimani was planning. Nor was there a reference to “four embassies,” which Trump later alleged were being targeted.

‘Saying bad things’ 

“He was saying bad things about our country. He was saying like, ‘We’re going to attack your country. We’re going to kill your people.’ I said, ‘Look, how much of this s*** do we have to listen to?’ ” Trump told his guests. 

He then described the scene, relaying the words of the military officers giving live updates to him in Washington. 

“They said, ‘Sir’ — and this is from, you know, cameras that are miles in the sky — ‘they are together, sir. Sir, they have two minutes and 11 seconds.’ No bulls***. ‘They have two minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They’re in the car. They’re in an armored vehicle, going. … Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir … 30 seconds, 10, nine, eight … .’ Then, all of sudden, boom. ‘They’re gone, sir.’ ” 

Trump acknowledged that the U.S. strike “shook up the world” but said Soleimani “deserved to be hit hard” because he was responsible for killing “thousands of Americans.”  

Iran vowed revenge for the U.S. strike, raising fears of war, and later launched missiles at bases in Iraq housing U.S. troops. None were killed. 

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President Donald Trump’s legal team issued a fiery response ahead of opening arguments in his impeachment trial Saturday while House Democrats laid out their case in forceful fashion, saying the president had “abandoned his oath“ and betrayed the public trust. 

The dueling statements previewed arguments both sides intend to make once Trump’s impeachment trial begins in earnest on Tuesday. Both sides are seeking to make their case for a Republican-led Senate and for an American public bracing for a presidential election in 10 months. 

The House’s 111-page brief pulls together the private and public testimony of a dozen witnesses — ambassadors and national security officials at high levels of government — who raised concerns about the president’s actions with Ukraine. Stripped of legalese and structured in plain English, the document underscored the extent to which the impeachment proceedings are a political rather than conventional legal process. The Trump team similarly offered a taste of the rhetoric expected to be deployed by the president’s defenders in the Senate. 

Senate’s responsibility

In their brief, the House managers overseeing the prosecution wrote that it is clear that the “evidence overwhelmingly establishes“ that Trump is guilty of both charges. “The only remaining question is whether the members of the Senate will accept and carry out the responsibility placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and their constitutional Oaths,“ the brief states. 

The Trump team, meanwhile, called the Senate’s formal summons to two articles of impeachment passed by the House last month “a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.” 

“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away,“ the filing states. 

Trump’s legal team, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, is challenging the impeachment on both procedural and constitutional grounds, claiming Trump has been mistreated by House Democrats and that he did nothing wrong. 

Trump’s attorneys argue that the articles of impeachment are unconstitutional in and of themselves and invalid because they don’t allege a crime. Trump was impeached by the House on one count each of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Under the Constitution impeachment is a political, not a criminal process, and the president can be removed from office if found guilty of whatever lawmakers consider “high crimes and misdemeanors.” 

Trump’s answer to the summons was the first salvo in what will be several rounds of arguments before the trial formally begins on Tuesday. Trump will file a more detailed legal brief on Monday, and the House will be able to respond to the Trump filing on Tuesday. 

Two added to defense team

Trump on Friday named Ken Starr, the prosecutor whose investigation two decades ago led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and former Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz to his defense team. 

The additions bring experience in the politics of impeachment as well as constitutional law to Trump’s legal team. Both Starr and Dershowitz have been fixtures on Fox News Channel, Trump’s preferred television network. 

Dershowitz said he would deliver constitutional arguments defending Trump from allegations that he abused his power. Trump is also accused of obstructing Congress as it sought to investigate pressure he applied on Ukraine’s president to announce an investigation into Trump’s political rivals as the president withheld the security aid and a White House meeting as leverage. 

Trump says he did nothing wrong and argues that Democrats have been out to get him since before he took office. 

A legal brief from the White House laying out the contours of Trump’s defense is due by noon Monday, and White House attorneys and Trump’s outside legal team have been debating just how political the document should be. 

Some in the administration have echoed warnings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, that the pleadings must be sensitive to the Senate’s more staid traditions and leave some of the sharper rhetoric exhibited during the House proceedings to Twitter and cable news. 

Dershowitz is a constitutional expert whose expansive views of presidential powers echo those of Trump. Starr is a veteran of Washington’s partisan battles after leading the investigation into Clinton’s affair with a White House intern. The House impeached Clinton, who then was acquitted at his Senate trial. Trump is expecting the same outcome from the Republican-led chamber. 

Still, the lead roles for Trump’s defense will be played by Cipollone and Sekulow, who also represented Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. 

Dershowitz sought to play down his role in the case in the hours after he was named to the team, saying he would be present for just about an hour to make the constitutional arguments. 

“I’m not a full-fledged member of the defense team,“ he told “The Dan Abrams Show“ on SiriusXM. 

Epstein association

White House lawyers succeeded in keeping Trump from adding House Republican lawmakers to the defense team, but they also advised him against tapping Dershowitz, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions. They’re concerned about the professor’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who killed himself in a New York City jail cell last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. 

A Fox News host said on the air that Starr would be parting ways with the network as a result of his role on the legal team. 

Other members of Trump’s legal defense include Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general; Jane Raskin, who was part of the president’s legal team during Mueller’s investigation; Robert Ray, who was part of the Whitewater investigation of the Clintons; and Eric D. Herschmann of the Kasowitz Benson Torres legal firm, which has represented Trump in numerous cases over the last 15 years. 

Giuliani, a former New York-based federal prosecutor as well as the city’s former mayor, told The Associated Press the president had assembled a “top-notch” defense team and he was not disappointed at being excluded from it. 

Giuliani, who many in the White House blame for leading Trump down the path to impeachment by fueling Ukraine conspiracies, had previously expressed interest in being on the legal team. But he said Friday that his focus would be on being a potential witness. 

Trump was impeached by the House in December. Senators were sworn in as jurors Thursday by Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the trial. 

Starr, besides his 1990s role as independent counsel, was a U.S. solicitor general and federal circuit court judge. 

Removed at Baylor

More recently, he was removed as president of Baylor University and then resigned as chancellor of the school in the wake of a review critical of the university’s handling of sexual assault allegations against football players. Starr said his resignation was the result of the university’s board of regents seeking to place the school under new leadership following the scandal, not because he was accused of hiding or failing to act on information. 

Dershowitz’s reputation has been damaged in recent years by his association with Epstein. One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has accused Dershowitz of participating in her abuse. Dershowitz has denied it and has been battling in court for years with Giuffre and her lawyers. He recently wrote a book, Guilt by Accusation, rejecting her allegations. 

Giuffre and Dershowitz are also suing each other for defamation. 

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Canada’s federal government will help Newfoundland on the Atlantic coast dig out in the wake of a massive winter blizzard that buried cars and left thousands without power, a Cabinet minister said Saturday.

The storm dumped as much as 76.2 cm (30 inches) of snow on St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland, and packed wind gusts as high as 130 km per hour (81 mph). The snowfall was an all-time record for the day for St. John’s International Airport.

St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen said earlier that a state of emergency declared Friday remained in effect. Businesses were closed, as was the international airport.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said military reservists might be called in, but details of the assistance had yet to be worked out. The immediate priority will be snow removal and clearing roads to the snowbound hospital, he said.

“We have a real issue right now with access to the hospital,” O’Regan told reporters in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is meeting for two days in what it has called a retreat.

Commenting on the scale of the blizzard, O’Regan said: “It’s snow and a hurricane, and snow and a hurricane shuts down a city.”

The public safety and defense ministers, who were en route to Winnipeg, would be able to provide more details later, O’Regan said. Earlier, the provincial premier asked the government for support, including “mobilizing the Canadian Armed Forces.”

Thousands remained without power, and social media showed people had begun to literally dig out of their homes after snowdrifts blocked their doorways.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) confirmed a report of an avalanche slamming into a home in St. John’s Battery neighborhood, which sits at the entrance to the city’s harbor on the slopes of a steep hill.

A picture of the home on Twitter showed the living room filled with snow. The CBC also said a 26-year-old man has been reported missing after having set out to walk to a friend’s house on Friday during the blizzard.

“Help is on the way,” Trudeau tweeted.
 

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It looks like any other cooking class in yuppie Tel Aviv. Sleek kitchen utensils, baskets of fresh vegetables, participants sipping wine and beer. The first hint that this is a little different is the beer Asmara from Eritrea.

Yael Ravid, co-director of Kitchen Talks, explains how her cooking events make a special connection between Israelis and the Africans seeking refuge in their country.

“As we cook together shoulder to shoulder, we literally break bread, not as a metaphor but as a real happening together. I’m hoping they will enjoy the holiday feast we’re preparing for the Eritrean Christmas and they will get a chance to know Asmayit, our Eritrean cook, and to ask her questions about her life, her home kitchen, how she grew up, how she came here,” she says.

Chef Asmayit Merhatsion is a 30-year-old asylum seeker from Eritrea. As she chops and stirs, she tells her story, starting with her imprisonment in Eritrea.

“When I was in college I was arranging for women or girls to pray. They catched [caught] us and asked who organized? I organized. They are thinking our meeting is political but it’s not political, it’s religious. That’s why I was in prison,” she explains.

After two short stints in prison, she escaped to Sudan, then to Libya, hoping to make it to Europe. But after Europe closed its doors, she decided on Israel, paying smugglers to get her across the Sinai desert.

That was almost nine years ago. Today she is married and has a young daughter. She works for the AIDS task force. And she is a chef with Kitchen Talks to share her love for Eritrean food and culture.

“It’s a vegetarian dish, five types of food we do and the traditional bread we have here I make it at home. This one is not bread it’s injera, it’s made of teff flour growing in Eritrea or Ethiopia…it’s non gluten, its healthy, that’s why we are not fat,” she says.

Participants paid about $50 for the collaborative cooking event and were enthusiastic when they tasted the results. Many said it was their first time meeting with an asylum seeker and eating their exotic food.

“You can form an opinion based on things that you don’t know or things that you fear. Then once, like even seeing here people interacting, and then once you know somebody, like get to know them and speak with them, and all of a sudden you’re like, they’re people just like me and deserve rights just like I do’,” says Adi Cydulkin, a cooking class participant.

“They are here, they exist here, we can’t ignore it, we should help especially the young children to become good citizens here in Israel,” says Eli Levy.

Participants agreed that they will take home, not only empathy for African asylum seekers like chef Asmayit, but also some of her tasty recipes they learned tonight.

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Thousands of women are planning to march in cities across the United States Saturday for the fourth annual Women’s March to advocate for a host of issues, including gender equality and women’s human rights.

Rallies are planned in dozens of cities, including Washington, where the first Women’s March in 2017 drew hundreds of thousands of people the day after President Donald Trump was sworn into office.

The march has included a political message since it began three years ago when many protesters wore the knitted pink hats that have become a symbol of women’s anti-Trump sentiments.

Politics continued to be a strong theme at the Women’s March in all subsequent years, including in 2018 when the organizers moved the march to Nevada, a battleground state for the midterm elections that year, as well as in 2019 when the march returned to Washington and heralded the record 102 women who had been recently elected to the House of Representatives.

Several of the Democratic candidates for president in 2020 are planning to attend Women’s March events across the country this year. Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will attend the Women’s March in Reno, Nevada, while former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is planning to be at a rally in South Carolina. Senator Michael Bennet and businessman Andrew Yang will attend Women’s March events in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively.

Since its first march, the Women’s March has faced controversy, including its leaders facing accusations of anti-Semitism. The organizers have repeatedly denied the claims. Three of the four original co-chairs of the organization have left the group, and the organization has appointed a new board that includes three Jewish women.

Current co-president of the Women’s March, Isa Noyola, noted in a statement ahead of this year’s march that it will be the last march before the 2020 election.“

In 2020, we have a chance to finish what we started three years ago and remove Trump from office,” she said.

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