₦airaland Forum

FuerzA:
Sheffield masterclass

hustla:
Lmao you dey quick vex oooo
We fit do comeback na

hustla:
E dey form rotation

I no know why bailly no play smh

China imposed sanctions on former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and other Trump administration officials just as Joe Biden was being inaugurated as president, hitting back at the outgoing team while leaving open the possibility of warmer ties with their successors.

Also on the list of 28 people being sanctioned were former President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and his deputy Matt Pottinger, trade adviser Peter Navarro, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft, according to a statement issued Wednesday by China’s Foreign Ministry as the inauguration for Biden was taking place. They and their families will be banned from entering China, Hong Kong or Macau, or doing business with China.

The officials listed were instrumental in shaping the Trump administration’s more confrontational stance toward China, which included a raft of sanctions and a declaration, on its final day, that the government had committed genocide in its Xinjiang region. Also on the list were former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

The officials “planned, promoted and executed a series of crazy moves which have gravely interfered in China’s internal affairs, undermined China’s interests, offended the Chinese people, and seriously disrupted China-U.S. relations,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The statement didn’t list all the people affected by the restrictions.

Although Biden and his team are unlikely to match the harsh rhetoric leveled by Pompeo and other Trump administration officials, they have indicated they aren’t ready to ease tensions as much as China’s leaders would want.

Retired General Lloyd Austin, Biden’s nominee for defense secretary, said in a written submission for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that the new administration “will view China as our most serious global competitor and, from a defense perspective, the pacing threat in most areas.”

The same day, Biden’s pick for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said at his hearing that China is “the most significant challenge of any nation state to the United States in terms of our interests, the interests of the American people.”

But he said he saw some room for cooperation “when it is in our mutual interest.” Biden’s transition team has said it hopes to forge some agreement with China on climate change and nuclear arms control.

Those targeted by China’s sanctions on Wednesday are likely to wear the restrictions as a badge of honor. Pompeo, who railed against China in a string of tweets in recent days, may boast of his tough stance in a future political campaign.

“I’ve been sanctioned by the Communist Chinese government for ‘nasty behavior,”’ Bolton tweeted Wednesday. “Great news for an inauguration day! I accept this prestigious recognition of my unrelenting efforts to defend American freedom.”

It’s not the first time China has sanctioned top U.S. officials. In July, the country announced sanctions on Republican senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and other officials over what the foreign ministry said was interference in China’s internal affairs.

Hours after he was sworn in, President Joe Biden announced the US plans to reenter the Paris climate accord, the landmark international agreement signed in 2015 to limit global warming, in a sign of Biden's urgency to address the climate crisis.

The US abandoned the agreement late last year on former President Donald Trump's orders. Trump spent much of his time in office weakening many of the country's bedrock climate and environmental guardrails.

Experts say that rejoining the agreement s is a significant step by the Biden administration to reverse the climate policies of the last four years. But now comes the hard work.

As he takes the reins of the executive branch, the challenges that Biden faces rival any confronted by his 45 predecessors -- an out-of-control pandemic, a sputtering economy and the threat of right-wing extremist violence stoked by viral misinformation.

Biden's action sends a strong message that the US is prepared to cooperate in the fight against climate change and seek to reclaim the leadership role it once held, experts say. Under the agreement, countries are expected to enhance their commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions every five years.

"It sends a very important signal to the rest of the world on one of the biggest problems we face," said John Holdren, a professor of environmental science and policy at Harvard University who served as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Barack Obama. "I think it is very important that the US demonstrates once again that it will take the global climate change challenge seriously."

"Welcome back to the Paris Agreement," French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted Wednesday.

Biden is also signing a raft of executive orders aimed at gutting Trump's climate and environmental policies. The orders direct federal agencies to review dozens of rules from the Trump era and aim to reverse any that are "harmful to public health, damaging to the environment, unsupported by the best available science, or otherwise not in the national interest."

He also directed all federal agencies to review the threats posed by greenhouse gas emissions, especially to the poor, communities of color and young people, who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, taking office at a moment of profound economic, health and political crises with a promise to seek unity after a tumultuous four years that tore at the fabric of American society.

With his hand on a five-inch-thick Bible that has been in his family for 128 years, Mr. Biden recited the 35-word oath of office swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” in a ceremony administered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., completing the process at 11:49 a.m., 11 minutes before the authority of the presidency formally changes hands.

The ritual transfer of power came shortly after Kamala Devi Harris was sworn in as vice president by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, her hand on a Bible that once belonged to Thurgood Marshall, the civil rights icon and Supreme Court justice. Ms. Harris’s ascension made her the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States and the first Black American and first person of South Asian descent to hold the nation’s second highest office.

“This is America’s day,” Mr. Biden said as he began his Inaugural Address. “This is democracy’s day.”

After a deeply tumultuous transition, including the storming of the Capitol by supporters of now-former President Donald J. Trump, “democracy has prevailed,” Mr. Biden said, in a speech that immediately laid out the contrast between himself and his predecessor.

“Few people in our nation’s history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we’re in now,” Mr. Biden said, before explicitly acknowledging the devastating toll of the coronavirus in a way Mr. Trump never did.

He went on, “To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words and requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity.”

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal,” Mr. Biden said. “We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.”

And four years after Mr. Trump spoke of “American carnage” in his Inaugural Address, Mr. Biden seemed to offer a direct rebuttal.

“Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path,” he said. “Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.”

The ceremony on a chilly, breezy day with a smattering of snowflakes brought to a close the stormy and divisive four-year presidency of Mr. Trump. In characteristic fashion, Mr. Trump once again defied tradition by leaving Washington hours before the swearing in of his successor rather than face the reality of his own election defeat, although Mike Pence, his vice president, did attend.

Mr. Trump flew to Florida, where he plans to live at his Mar-a-Lago estate. But within days, the Senate will open the former president’s impeachment trial on the charge that he incited an insurrection by encouraging the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to stop the final receipt of the Electoral College votes ratifying his defeat. The tumult of the past four years is not at all over.

“Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson,” Mr. Biden said in his address. “There is truth and there are lies.”

But he sought to emphasize the long arc of history.

“Here we stand, looking out on the great Mall where Dr. King spoke of his dream,” he said. “Here we stand, where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. And today we mark the swearing in of the first woman in American history elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don’t tell me things can’t change.”

Mercisharelove:
Remember I belong to the LORD CHRIST JESUS and to no man

Get educated little minds

“Vaccines should not be ordered by any company or corporation. The companies that manufacture the vaccines if they are genuine companies know they have to submit their application to NAFDAC.

MadamExcellency:
That means they are afraid his popularity can win him another presidency.

In other words, this is stupidity. If Trump can win again then the Congress with the lowest approval rating in US history is in no position to impeach a president more popular than them

PDPGuy:
It’s only one Republican Senator that is needed to vote to bar him from holding federal office..But conviction requires 17 Republican senators

She also disclosed that the government released a total of N1.8tn for capital projects within the year. She noted that out of this, up to N118.37bn was released for COVID-19 capital expenditure.

The House voted on Tuesday night to formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment to strip President Trump of his powers after he incited a mob that attacked the Capitol, as lawmakers warned they would impeach the president on Wednesday if Mr. Pence did not comply.

Lawmakers, escorted by armed guards into a heavily fortified Capitol, adopted the nonbinding measure just before midnight largely along party lines. The final vote was 223 to 205 to implore Mr. Pence to declare Mr. Trump “incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting president.”

“We’re trying to tell him that the time of a 25th Amendment emergency has arrived,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the author of the resolution, said before the vote. “It has come to our doorstep. It has invaded our chamber.”

Only one Republican, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voted in favor of the resolution.

The House proceeded even after Mr. Pence rejected the call in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday. “I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation or consistent with our Constitution,” he wrote. “I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our nation.”

With Mr. Pence’s rejection in hand, almost all Republicans lined up in opposition. They did little to defend Mr. Trump’s behavior but argued that Congress had no role telling the vice president what to do.

“The vice president has given you your answer, before you asked the question,” said Representative Dan Bishop, Republican of North Carolina. “Your ultimatum does violence to a core feature of the architecture of the Constitution.”

Democrats planned to reconvene on Wednesday to vote on a single article of impeachment charging Mr. Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States.” The rioters last week ransacked the seat of American government and killed a Capitol Police officer.

Every single Democrat was expected to vote to impeach, and Republicans were bracing for as many as two dozen of their members to follow suit.

Kyase:
Be calming down