The Jim Bakker Show

U.S. lawmakers search for remedies as government shutdown rolls on

At the end of a stormy day, the setting sun breaks through the clouds to illuminate the White House in Washington, U.S., January 24, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate, after rejecting two shutdown-ending bills, was searching for a way to end a government closure entering its 35th day and threatening the economy, as hundreds of thousands of federal workers missed a second paycheck on Friday.

Republican President Donald Trump was dug in at the White House, continuing to insist on funding for a wall he wants to build on the U.S.-Mexico border, while the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which opposes the wall, had left Washington for the weekend.

On Thursday, a bill backed by Trump to end the shutdown by including $5.7 billion he wants for the wall and a separate bill supported by Democrats to reopen shuttered agencies without such funding did not get the votes required to advance in the 100-member Senate.

Afterward, a bipartisan group of lawmakers said they were introducing an amendment in the Senate to temporarily reopen the roughly one-quarter of the federal government affected by the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Senator Ben Cardin, one of the Democratic co-sponsors, said he did not think it contained any wall funding.

Trump said on Thursday that if Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer reached an agreement to end the shutdown, he would support it.

The president also said, however, that a deal was “not going to work” unless it included “a wall or a barrier.” He said one suggestion was “a pro-rated down payment for the wall.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said a temporary measure to reopen shuttered government departments and agencies must have “a large down payment on the wall.”

A spokesman for Schumer said on Thursday night that Senate Democrats “have made clear to Leader McConnell and Republicans that they will not support funding for the wall, pro-rated or otherwise.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters the possibility of legislation that includes a large down payment on a wall, “is not a reasonable agreement.”

McConnell told reporters on Thursday night: We’re still talking. At least we’re talking. I think that’s better than it was before.”

The Senate was scheduled to work on Friday, but it was unclear whether it might take any action on ending the shutdown.

CNN reported on Thursday that the White House was preparing an emergency declaration that Trump could issue to circumvent Congress if lawmakers do not fund his wall.

Asked about the report, a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “Nothing is off the table, but we still believe the best path forward is working with Congress on a solution to the humanitarian and national security crisis at the southern border.”

An emergency declaration would almost certainly be swiftly challenged on constitutional grounds by Democrats.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Peter Cooney)

NATO, Russia fail to agree over missile breach, U.S. to quit treaty

FILE PHOTO: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a news conference after a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, October 4, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File photo

By Robin Emmott and Vladimir Soldatkin

BRUSSELS/MOSCOW (Reuters) – NATO and Russia failed on Friday to resolve a dispute over a new Russian missile that Western allies say is a threat to Europe, bringing closer Washington’s withdrawal from a landmark arms control treaty.

At a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels, envoys from NATO’s 29 members renewed their call on Moscow’s deputy foreign minister to destroy a nuclear-capable cruise missile system before a Feb. 2 deadline.

Without a breakthrough, the United States is set to start the six-month process of pulling out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), having notified it would do so in early December and accusing Moscow of breaching it.

Russia denies violating the terms of the treaty, which eliminated the medium-range missile arsenals of the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.

“The treaty is in real jeopardy,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. “The sooner Russia comes back into compliance, the better. The treaty has no value if it is not respected, the problem are the Russian missiles in Europe,” he told a news conference after the meeting.

One NATO diplomat said the U.S. ambassador to the alliance told the assembled diplomats and officials that Washington would start the pull-out process from the INF on Feb. 2. The U.S. embassy was not immediately available for comment.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the closed-door meeting that it was the United States that was breaching the treaty, alliance diplomats said.

Ryabkov, who spoke in both Russian and English, cited the U.S.-built NATO missile defense system in Romania as a treaty breach. NATO says the shield is designed to shoot down rockets from Iran, not from Russia.

Separately, the Russian foreign ministry also accused the United States of reviving a Cold War-era plan to deploy a missile defense system in space.

While NATO diplomats described Friday’s meeting as calm and professional, Stoltenberg said Russia had shown no willingness to compromise. But he and some European nations such as Germany held out hope for diplomatic progress during the six-month withdrawal process.

“PURE SHOW”

Russia stands accused of developing land-based, intermediate-range cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and hitting European cities at short notice, breaching the Cold War-era pact that took such rockets out of Europe.

But the Kremlin, which this week displayed its missiles to foreign military attaches in Moscow, says the missiles’ short-range puts it outside the INF treaty. It says the Novator 9M729/SSC-8 rockets have a maximum range of 480 km (298 miles).

NATO diplomats repeated their view that there was no way of verifying that information because the missiles have only been shown publicly in a “static display” that gives no indication of their flying distance. One NATO diplomat said the Russian display on Wednesday was “pure show”.

Some NATO diplomats believe that Russia may have developed the new missile system, which is mobile and easy to hide in forests and other strategic locations, to counter Chinese missile programs, but that did not justify deploying it.

The 1987 treaty requires the United States and Russia “not to possess, produce, or flight-test” a ground-launched cruise missile with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km (310-3,420 miles) “or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles”.

Russia, the United States, France, Britain and China – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – are due to meet in Beijing on Jan. 30 to discuss arms control, diplomats told Reuters. But it was not clear if the INF treaty would be on the agenda.

(Additional reporting by Peter Maushagen; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Gareth Jones)

U.S. seeks to cut off revenues for Venezuela’s Maduro, aid opposition

People look at damage at a metro station after a protest in Caracas, Venezuela January 24, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Steve Holland and Brian Ellsworth

WASHINGTON/CARACAS (Reuters) – The United States is seeking to ensure that Venezuelan oil revenue goes to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who swore himself in as interim president, and to cut off money from the increasingly isolated President Nicolas Maduro, a top U.S. official said on Thursday.

Although short on details, the announcement signals that Washington is willing to go beyond traditional diplomatic measures and will seek to drain cash from Maduro’s government which is already struggling under an unprecedented economic meltdown.

Such a move would significantly strengthen the hand of Guaido, an opposition leader and head of congress who swore himself in as interim head of state on Wednesday with the support of Washington and nations around the region.

“What we’re focusing on today is disconnecting the illegitimate Maduro regime from the sources of his revenues,” national security advisor John Bolton told reporters at the White House.

“We think consistent with our recognition of Juan Guaido as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela that those revenues should go to the legitimate government.”

Bolton added that the process was “very complicated” and that officials were still studying how this would function.

Venezuela’s information ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the issue. Guaido did not respond to a message seeking comment.

People walk close to a destroyed car in a street, after a protest in Caracas, Venezuela January 24, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

BOLD CHALLENGE

Guaido declared himself interim president on Wednesday with the blessing of the Trump administration and conservative governments in Latin America. That prompted Maduro, Venezuela’s leader since 2013, to break relations with the United States.

Guaido’s swearing-in was the opposition’s boldest challenge yet to the long-ruling Socialist Party and has given Maduro’s adversaries an unprecedented diplomatic platform to press for change in a nation dogged by hyperinflation, rising malnutrition and political conflict.

But Guaido now leads what amounts to a shadow government disavowed by the armed forces and with no influence over day-to-day administration such as importing and distributing food and medicine to a crisis-stricken population.

The 35-year-old industrial engineer who has been catapulted almost overnight to national leader spoke on Thursday by telephone with supportive heads of state from around the world.

“I just received a phone call from (Spain’s Prime Minister) Pedro Sanchez and was able to describe the struggle we are leading together with all of Venezuela, to achieve a transition government and hold free elections,” Guaido wrote via Twitter.

His ascent was greeted with excitement by investors holding Venezuela and state oil company PDVSA bonds, which hit their highest level since 2017 despite being almost entirely in default amid the country’s ongoing economic crisis.

Concerns about potential disruption of Venezuelan crude supplies gave support to global oil prices.

Oil revenues are crucial to the already crumbling Venezuelan economy and routing that money away from Maduro as the United State seeks to do would be a serious blow.

Venezuela on average, exported about 500,000 barrels of crude a day to the United States in 2018, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

Shipments to the United States account for about 75 percent of the cash Venezuela gets for crude shipments, according to a Barclays research note published last week.

WHO IS LEGITIMATE PRESIDENT?

Guaido took the helm of the National Assembly on Jan. 5 with a call for the armed forces to recognize Maduro as a “usurper” after his May 2018 re-election, widely viewed as fraudulent.

Backing for him has come principally from the Western hemisphere. Venezuelan allies including Russia and Turkey – both important commercial partners – criticized Guaido’s rise as a sign of U.S. interference.

“The Russian president has expressed support to the legal Venezuela’s authorities amid a flareup in the internal political crisis, provoked from the outside,” the Kremlin said in statement.

The European Union, which has imposed sanctions on Maduro’s government, noted that Venezuelans had “massively called for democracy and the possibility to freely determine their own destiny,” but stopped short of recognizing Guaido.

Maduro, in a rambling speech, dismissed Guaido’s inauguration and said he himself remained the country’s legitimate leader.

He has relied extensively on the military to maintain power amid annual inflation of nearly 2 million percent and an exodus of Venezuelan refugees into neighboring countries.

Guaido has said Maduro’s Jan. 10 inauguration to a second six-year term amounted to a usurpation of power, as the domestic opposition and numerous foreign governments regard his 2018 re-election as illegitimate. He cruised to victory over a lesser-known opponent amid low turnout and claims of fraud.

The vote was boycotted by Venezuela’s main opposition parties. They pointed out that Maduro’s two most popular rivals were banned from running, that the elections authority heavily favored him, and that the Socialist Party’s aggressive campaigning often bordered on vote-buying.

Guaido and allies argue that the presidency is vacant as a result, and note that the constitution calls for the head of congress to assume the interim presidency in such a situation.

That still leaves Guaido struggling against a state unwilling to recognize him and security forces that could jail him, as they did his mentor Leopoldo Lopez – who is under house arrest for leading anti-Maduro protests in 2014.

“While it’s true that Guaido has been recognized internationally, the real power of the state is still in the hands of Nicolas Maduro,” said Ronal Rodriguez, a political science and Venezuela expert at Rosario University in Bogota.

Protesters clashed with security forces on Wednesday night around the country and in both affluent and working class areas of Caracas, with some demonstrations spilling over into looting of nearby liquor stores and fast-food restaurants.

A total of 14 people have been killed in violence linked to this week’s protests, according to local rights groups Provea and the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in remarks to the Washington-based Organization of American States, on Thursday urged Latin American governments to recognize Guaido.

While the majority of OAS member countries – including Canada, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Colombia and Argentina – have recognized Guaido, others including Mexico, El Salvador and Nicaragua have said they will stay neutral or continue to support Maduro.

Pompeo also wants to brief the U.N. Security Council on Venezuela on Saturday, South Africa’s U.N. envoy Jerry Matjila told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Robert Rampton in Washington, Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Luc Cohen in Bogota, Robin Emmott in Brussels, Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, Karin Strohecker in London and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; Editing by Bill Trott and Alistair Bell)

As world looks on, Venezuela’s Guaido to keep up pressure on Maduro

Juan Guaido, President of Venezuela's National Assembly, holds a copy of Venezuelan constitution during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government and to commemorate the 61st anniversary of the end of the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez in Caracas, Venezuela January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition on Thursday will seek to maintain pressure on isolated President Nicolas Maduro after congress chief Juan Guaido swore himself in as interim head of state with the support of nations around the region.

Guaido won diplomatic backing from the United States, Canada and right-leaning Latin American governments on Wednesday after declaring himself leader before ebullient supporters who thronged the streets of Caracas in hopes of change.

The European Union stopped short of recognizing Guaido as leader but said the democratic will of Venezuelans “cannot be ignored” and called for his “civil rights, freedom and safety” to be respected.

Guaido, 35, an industrial engineer catapulted almost overnight to national leader, has promised free and fair elections, a transition government to revive the hyperinflation-riddled economy and an amnesty for military officers if they help push Maduro from power.

He faces the daunting task of pushing forward the transition plan without control over crucial state institutions and armed forces that have disavowed him.

Military commanders, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, have so far promised to stick with socialist Maduro. Padrino was scheduled to speak on Thursday in support of Maduro, hours after he said the armed forces would not recognize a president “imposed by shadowy interests.”

On Thursday morning, Venezuelan state television broadcast four separate messages from regional military commanders, surrounded by troops, voicing support for Maduro. The recorded messages were broadcast one after the other.

Russia, which has invested heavily in Venezuela’s oil industry and provided support to its armed forces, accused Washington of trying to usurp power in the country and warned against U.S. military intervention.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had not received a Venezuelan request for military help and declined to say how it would respond if it did. But he said Maduro was the legitimate president.

Turkey took a similar line, with President Tayyip Erdogan calling Maduro to offer support.

Among investors holding defaulted debt issued by the government and state-run oil company PDVSA, the political developments fueled hopes that a resolution of the crisis might be coming closer.

Sovereign dollar and PDVSA bonds extended their rally on Thursday, having surged the previous day after Washington backed Guaido. Its 2024 sovereign dollar bond is now at its highest since autumn 2017 when Maduro publicly called for a debt restructuring.

REAL POWER

A total of 14 people were killed in violence linked to anti-government protests on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to local rights groups Provea and the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict. Some of the deaths resulted from looting.

Many opposition sympathizers are concerned Guaido could be arrested like other political activists, including his mentor Leopoldo Lopez, who remains under house arrest for his involvement in street protests in 2014.

“While it’s true that Guaido has been recognized internationally, the real power of the state is still in the hands of Nicolas Maduro,” said Ronal Rodriguez, a political science professor who focuses on Venezuela at Rosario University in Bogota.

With the country’s economy disintegrating and annual inflation approaching 2 million percent, Maduro has relied extensively on the military to maintain power.

Foreign backing could allow Guaido to raise funds abroad to obtain food and medicine for a population struggling under economic crisis, Rodriguez said, but he would face challenges in getting goods through ports controlled by Maduro allies.

Guaido on Wednesday promised that humanitarian aid would be distributed with the oversight of Congress. He did not announce activities for the coming days.

Referring to Wednesday’s anti-government protests, the EU said Venezuela’s people had “massively called for democracy and the possibility to freely determine their own destiny. These voices cannot be ignored.

“The Venezuelan people have the right to peacefully demonstrate, to freely choose its leaders and decide its future,” the 28-nation bloc said in a statement.

The EU has imposed sanctions on Venezuela and boycotted Maduro’s swearing-in for a second term this month following a widely-boycotted election last year that many foreign governments called a sham.

It aims to set up an international contact group with South American nations in February to seek talks between Maduro and the opposition, which diplomats said would need to include Guaido.

European Council President Donald Tusk, who coordinates EU governments from Brussels, took to Twitter to call on “all of Europe to unite in support of democratic forces” in Venezuela.

(Additional reporting by Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Robin Emmott in Brussels, Karin Strohecker in London and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Bill Trott)

U.S. has offered to hold arms control talks with Russia -official

FILE PHOTO: National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has offered to hold talks on arm control issues with Russia on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in Beijing next week, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.

Under Secretary of State Andrea Thompson told reporters the talks almost certainly would include a dispute over a Cold War-era treaty limiting intermediate-range missiles.

Washington has pledged to withdraw from the pact because of what it charges is the deployment by Moscow of a new cruise missile that violates the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty).

Moscow has denied that the missile in question, the Novator 9M729 (called the SSC-8 by NATO), violates the agreement, which bars either side from stationing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.

Moscow says the missile’s range keeps it outside of the treaty and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to leave an accord it wants to exit anyway to develop its own new missiles.

Thompson said the United States has presented Russia with a proposal for a “verifiable” test of the missile’s range but Moscow has not embraced the plan.

Unless the Russians come back into compliance with the INF Treaty, the United States will make good on its decision to suspend its compliance with the pact at the end of a 60-day period on Feb. 2, Thompson said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Next U.S.-North Korea summit must give concrete results: Seoul

By Soyoung Kim and Alessandra Galloni

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – A planned second summit next month between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un must “deliver concrete results on denuclearization”, South Korea’s top diplomat said on Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the two leaders should make “really great big strides” on the road to denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, in line with international demands.

Trump and Kim met in Singapore last June for an unprecedented summit, producing a promise to work toward “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula, but the two sides have since struggled to agree how to implement the pledge.

Critics of U.S. efforts say that summit only boosted Kim’s international stature while doing little to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal that now threatens the United States.

After Trump met Pyongyang’s top nuclear negotiator, Kim Yong Chol, in Washington on Friday, the White House announced that the second summit would take place in late February.

The two sides have given no sign of having narrowed their differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program and Pyongyang’s demands for a lifting of economic sanctions and a formal end to the Korean War.

North and South Korea are still technically at war, given the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The North Korean envoy’s recent visit to Washington has put nuclear talks “back on track”, Kang said in Davos. Details of the second summit would continue to be negotiated despite a partial government shutdown in Washington, she added.

Trump did not elaborate on the country chosen to host the summit, but Vietnam has been considered a leading candidate.

Earlier on Wednesday, Kang met with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum to discuss the planned second summit between Washington and Pyongyang, Seoul’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Kono agreed that “concrete results” will have to be made toward denuclearization while stressing that Japan expects close communication and coordination with South Korea on the nuclear negotiations regardless of “several pending issues” between the neighbors, the ministry said.

The two U.S. allies share a bitter history that includes Japan’s 1910-45 colonization of the Korean peninsula and the use of comfort women, Japan’s euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels.

The rows between the neighbors flared again in late October when South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled that Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp must compensate South Koreans for their forced labor during World War Two. Japan maintains that the issue of forced labor was fully settled in 1965 when the two countries restored diplomatic ties, and has denounced the ruling as “unthinkable.”

Wartime history has long been a stumbling block for relations between the neighbors, sparking concern about regional efforts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program.

In the latest escalation of tensions, a Japanese patrol aircraft made an “intimidating” pass over a South Korean warship on Wednesday, in what South Korea’s military said was a “clear provocation” toward a friendly neighbor.

Kang expressed “regret” over the incident and urged defense authorities from the two countries to resolve the issue soon, the foreign ministry said.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim and Alessandra Galloni in DAVOS, Switzerland, Editing by Mark Bendeich, William Maclean)

Democrats push technology as alternative to Trump wall in shutdown impasse

A visitor walks by the U.S. Capitol on day 32 of a partial government shutdown as it becomes the longest in U.S. history in Washington, U.S., January 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Young

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives floated the idea on Wednesday of ending a partial government shutdown by giving President Donald Trump most or all of the money he seeks for border security with Mexico but for items other than a physical wall.

Representative James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, told reporters that Democrats could fulfill Trump’s request for $5.7 billion for border security with technological tools such as drones, X-rays and sensors, as well as more border patrol agents.

Representative Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, also said Democrats would be discussing “substantial sums of additional money” for border security as part of a possible deal. He did not say if it would amount to the $5.7 billion sought by Trump.

Trump has demanded funding for a physical wall in a showdown with Democrats that has left 800,000 federal workers without pay amid a partial government shutdown that entered its 33rd day on Wednesday.

Clyburn’s offer would be a significant monetary increase over bills previously passed by Democrats, which included only about $1.3 billion for this year in additional border security, with none of that for a wall.

“Using the figure the president put on the table, if his $5.7 billion is about border security then we see ourselves fulfilling that request, only doing it with what I like to call using a smart wall,” Clyburn said.

As congressional Democrats and Trump battle over border security and government funding, a parallel controversy continued over the president’s upcoming State of the Union address.

Trump sent a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday saying he looked forward to delivering it as scheduled on Jan. 29 in the House chamber. Pelosi had earlier asked Trump to consider postponing because security could not be guaranteed during the shutdown.

The U.S. Senate has scheduled votes for Thursday on competing proposals that face steep odds to end the shutdown.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to hold a vote on Thursday on a Democratic proposal that would fund the government for three weeks but does not include the $5.7 billion in partial funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Its prospects appeared grim. The House has passed several similar bills but Trump has rejected legislation that does not include border wall funding. McConnell previously said he would not consider a bill that Trump did not support.

McConnell also planned to hold a vote on legislation that would include border wall funding and temporary relief for “Dreamers,” people brought illegally to the United States as children, a compromise Trump proposed on Saturday.

Democrats have dismissed the deal, saying they would not negotiate on border security before reopening the government, and that they would not trade a temporary restoration of the immigrants’ protections from deportation in return for a permanent border wall they view as ineffective.

Trump’s plan is “wrapping paper on the same partisan package,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday.

Trump, in a series of morning tweets, pushed fellow Republicans to stand by border wall, which during his 2016 campaign he had said Mexico would pay for. He was scheduled to discuss his immigration plan with local leaders and with conservative leaders at the White House.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Wednesday that Trump also has made calls to Democrats.

Furloughed federal workers are struggling to make ends meet during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Many have turned to unemployment assistance, food banks and other support, or have sought new jobs.

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Roberta Rampton, Eric Beech, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Peter Cooney and Bill Trott)

Daring Pelosi, Trump says he ‘looks forward’ to addressing Congress

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on border security and the partial shutdown of the U.S. government from the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., Jan. 19, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he looks forward to delivering a State of the Union address before the U.S. Congress as scheduled on Jan. 29 in the chamber of the House of Representatives despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s request that he delay it due to the government shutdown.

“It would be so very sad for our Country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location!” Trump wrote, according to a copy of the letter to Pelosi released by the White House.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during a press briefing on the 27th day of a partial government shutdown on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Pelosi on Jan. 16 asked Trump to consider postponing the address, which is traditionally delivered in the House chamber, because part of the U.S. government is shut down. She had cited concerns about security for the event with some personnel furloughed during a month-long shutdown.

Trump, replying to Pelosi Wednesday, brushed aside the security concerns.

He said the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Secret Service had told him there would be “absolutely no problem” with the security for the speech, which is traditionally attended by both houses of Congress, most of the president’s Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and justices of the Supreme Court.

office.

“Therefore, I will be honoring your invitation, and fulfilling my Constitutional duty, to deliver important information to the people and Congress of the United States of America regarding the State of our Union,” Trump wrote to Pelosi. “I look forward to seeing you on the evening of January 29th in the Chamber of the House of Representatives.”

There was no immediate reaction to the letter from Pelosi’s office.

Democratic U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta, asked about Trump’s letter, told MSNBC: “This is just dialing up the rhetoric.”

Panetta said the final decision was up to Pelosi, saying “at this point, I don’t think it’s going to happen if we’re still shut down.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Russia takes wraps off new missile to try to save U.S. nuclear pact

Participants attend a news briefing, organized by Russian defence and foreign ministries' officials and dedicated to SSC-8/9M729 cruise missile system, at Patriot Expocentre near Moscow, Russia January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Tom Balmforth and Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia showed foreign military attaches on Wednesday a new cruise missile that the United States says breaches a landmark arms control pact, billing it as an exercise in transparency it hoped would persuade Washington to stay in the treaty.

Washington has threatened to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), alleging that the new Russian missile, the Novator 9M729 (called SSC-8 by NATO), violates the pact, which bans either side from stationing short and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.

Russia denies that. It says the missile’s range puts it outside the treaty and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to exit a treaty it wants to leave anyway so as to develop new missiles.

The Russian lobbying effort comes as the clock ticks down toward Feb. 2, the date when Washington has said it will begin the process of pulling out of the pact unless Russia verifiably destroys the new missile system altogether, something it has refused to do.

Russia displayed the new missile system at a military theme park outside Moscow to foreign military attaches and journalists. A senior defense ministry official explained the weapon’s characteristics in detail as a soldier highlighted different parts with a laser pointer.

The missile has a maximum range of 480 kilometers (298 miles), which meant it was fully compliant with the INF treaty, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Matveyevsky, head of Russia’s Missile Troops and Artillery, said.

The United States had previously rejected a Russian offer to look at the contested missile, in what is known as a ‘static display’, because it said such an exercise would not allow it to verify the true range of its warheads.

The Russian Defence Ministry said diplomats from the United States, Britain, France and Germany had been invited to attend the static display, but declined to attend.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told a news briefing before the display that the United States had made clear through diplomatic channels that its decision to exit the pact was final and that it was not open to dialogue.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova later said that Russia had suggested the two nations hold talks on the issue on the sidelines of a meeting of the P5 nuclear powers in Beijing later this month, but had not received “a concrete reply”.

She said Russia remained open to talks anyway. Western diplomats have played down the chances of the two countries resolving their differences at that meeting if it takes place.

(Additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Brussels; editing by Gareth Jones)

U.S. eclipse watchers howl at Blood Wolf Moon but bitter cold cancels other festivities

The Moon is seen during a lunar eclipse in Helsinki, Finland January 21, 2019. Lehtikuva/Jussi Nukari/via REUTERS

By Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – Skywatchers howled at the moon at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles when the full lunar eclipse appeared shortly after 9 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday and our celestial neighbor was bathed reddish-orange during a Super Blood Wolf Moon.

People monitor the moon during a total lunar eclipse in Vienna, Austria, January 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

“Amazing. As you can see, it’s a party atmosphere and everyone is just enjoying the spectacle,” said Rosalind Von Wendt from Los Angeles.

More than 1,500 people gathered at the observatory near the city’s famous Hollywood sign to watch the eclipse.

However, not everyone got to watch the cosmic show, with lunar eclipse parties canceled elsewhere due to a flash freeze across the central and northeastern United States. Icy roadways rather than cloudy skies were blamed by astronomers for spoiling the festivities.

In Los Angeles, where the weather was markedly warmer and skies cleared just in time, skywatchers were treated to a full spectacle of the Earth casting its shadow over the moon’s face.

The moon is seen over “Victoria Alada” statue on the top of Metropoli building during a total lunar eclipse, known as the “Super Blood Wolf Moon” in Madrid, Spain, January 21, 2019. REUTERS/Sergio Perez

“Oh it was fantastic, it was great,” said Brad Mortensen, from Philadelphia, Pa. “This was a great location. The observatory is always fun to visit so tonight when we heard about this we decided to come up.”

The moon did not vanish entirely during the total eclipse but, at its height, the entire lunar surface was bathed in a reddish-orange glow that gives rise to the “blood moon” description.

The reddish color is due to rays of sunlight passing through Earth’s dusty, polluted atmosphere as the moon falls into our planet’s shadow. The shorter, more pliable blue wavelengths of light are scattered outside the Earth’s shadow and the longer, less bendable red wavelengths are refracted toward the moon.

Adding to the visual effect is the fact that the eclipse occurred at a time when the moon reached a point in its orbit putting it close to Earth, an alignment called a supermoon.

It has also earned the name “wolf moon” because it appears in January when wolves would howl in hunger outside villages early in U.S. history, according to The Farmers Almanac.

The first full moon of 2019 rises off the shore of Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Britain January 20, 2019. REUTERS/Rebecca Naden

DEEP FREEZE SPOILS PARTY

Sunday’s eclipse reached its maximum effect over Los Angeles shortly after 9 p.m. Pacific time (0500 GMT Monday), but not everyone on the West Coast had a clear view. It rained in San Francisco and San Diego had cloudy skies.

Astronomy buffs were urged to watch the eclipse live-streamed online at sites such as AstronomersWithoutBorders.org.

It seemed days earlier that cloudy skies would be the biggest threat to the cosmic fun, but it turned out a wet, wide-ranging snowstorm followed by a deep freeze on Sunday made driving and outdoor activities too hazardous.

Eclipse parties were canceled from Indiana’s Lemon Lake County Park to New Jersey’s Rowan University.

“It’s not the snow or cloudy skies but, rather, the extreme cold and what we fear may be hazardous travel conditions,” said Pennsylvania’s Carbon County Environmental Center, which scrapped its party in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, 54 miles (86 km) northwest of Allentown.

The eclipse was otherwise visible to the naked eye by anyone in the United States where skies were clear. That included Atlanta, Ga., where only the determined went outside in freezing temperatures to watch.

Unlike a solar eclipse, which requires eye protection to enjoy the view safely, no extra measures need to be taken for hazard-free lunar eclipse watching.

The next chance for Americans to see a total lunar eclipse is 2022.

The best viewing of the one-hour total eclipse was from North and South America, with as many as 2.8 billion people able to see it from the Western Hemisphere, Europe, West Africa and northernmost Russia.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Steve Gorman, Rich McKay and Rollo Ross; Editing by Leslie Adler, Susan Thomas and Paul Tait)

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