09-02-2021

TUeSDAY, feBRUARY 9, 2021
11
Senate Republicans back Trump
as impeachment trial nears
Khagrachari Hill District Council chairman Mongsueprou Chowdhury was greeted by the editor and correspondents
of Alokito Pahar newspaper. The flowers were greeted at 11:30 am on Monday at the Zila
Parishad Chairman's Office. District Council Member Main Uddin, Public Relations Officer Chinglamong
Chowdhury, Adviser to Alokito Pahar Ranjid Dey, the editor of Alokito Pahar and Khagrachhari correspondent
of The Bangladesh Today Mohammad Saju were present at that time. Photo : Mohammad Saju
Longtime ESPN baseball correspondent
Pedro Gomez dies at 58
Pedro Gomez, a longtime baseball correspondent
for ESPN who covered more than 25
World Series, has died. He was 58.
Gomez died unexpectedly at home Sunday,
his family said in a statement. No cause of
death was given.
"Pedro was far more than a media personality.
He was a Dad, loving husband, loyal friend,
coach and mentor," the Gomez family added.
"He was our everything and his kids' biggest
believer."
Gomez joined ESPN as a Phoenix-based
reporter in 2003 after being a sports columnist
and national baseball writer at The Arizona
Republic since 1997. He was best known at the
network for his coverage of Barry Bonds and
his pursuit of the home-run record during the
steroid controversy.
He was a correspondent on ESPN's
"SportsCenter," "Baseball Tonight" and additional
shows, including the network's
"Wednesday Night Baseball" package.
"We are shocked and saddened to learn that
our friend and colleague Pedro Gomez has
passed away," ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro
said in a statement on Twitter and the network's
public relations page. "Pedro was an
elite journalist at the highest level and his professional
accomplishments are universally recognized.
More importantly, Pedro was a kind,
dear friend to us all. Our hearts are with
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Pedro's family and all who love him at this
extraordinarily difficult time."
Gomez grew up in Miami, and said the greatest
game he remembered from his childhood
was the San Diego Chargers win over the
Miami Dolphins in a 1981 AFC divisional playoff
game. He attended the University of Miami
and majored in journalism.
His parents fled Cuba for the United States in
1962. Gomez was part of ESPN's coverage in
2016 when the Tampa Bay Rays faced the
Cuban national team, and shared the story of
taking his father and brother's ashes to Cuba.
While the visit to Cuba was one of his more
emotional assignments, he once said in a network
bio that his favorite event he covered was
Game 6 of the 2003 National League
Championship Series between the Florida
Marlins and Chicago Cubs.
Said Gomez: "After Steve Bartman's attempt
to catch the foul ball over Cubs left fielder
Moises Alou, producer Jim Witalka and I were
whisked from behind the Cubs dugout, where
we were getting ready to do on-field interviews
with the NL Champs for the first time since
1908, to virtually the same spot behind the
Marlins dugout, where we saw Josh Beckett
racing back and forth from the clubhouse to
the dugout while chugging beers and saying,
'Rally Beers, Pedro.' It was a memorable night
at Chicago's venerable Wrigley Field."
e-Tender Notice-03/2020-2021
Chinese medicinal
material price
index remains flat
HEFEI : The Kangmei
Chinese medicinal material
price index, a barometer of
the traditional Chinese medicine
(TCM) material market,
remained flat at 1,360.4
points Sunday, reports BSS.
Covering more than 500
TCM materials including
herbs and minerals from six
major markets nationwide,
the closely-watched index
reflects the overall price
trend in the country's TCM
material market. It is
released daily by Kangmei
Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd,
one of China's major TCM
companies.
The index was approved
by the National
Development and Reform
Commission of China in
2012 to offer more timely
and accurate reference for
TCM material growers,
traders and pharmaceutical
companies.
Traditional Chinese medicines,
often given as oral liquid,
granule and pills, typically
use the combination of
a number of medicinal
materials, mostly herbs, to
address health problems.
France exceeded
CO2 reduction target
in 2019: Macron
PARIS : France outperformed
its target for reducing
carbon emissions in
2019, President Emmanuel
Macron said Sunday, four
days after a court rapped the
state for not respecting its
own climate targets.
"France reduced its greenhouse
gas emissions in 2019
by -1.7%. It is beyond our
objective!" Macron wrote on
Twitter.
Earlier, Environment
Minister Barbara Pompili
was quoted in an interview
with Le Journal du
Dimanche newspaper on the
figures, saying the reduction
allowed France to exceed the
target of 1.5 percent.
In June 2020, the national
emissions inventory agency
CITEPA estimated that
France produced 437 million
tonnes of CO2 equivalent
in 2019, which represented
a drop of only one
percent from the previous
year.
But the environment ministry
on Sunday said
CITEPA has since revised its
estimate to 441 million
tonnes, a fall of 1.7 percent.
France aims to become
carbon neutral by 2050, but
campaigners accuse it of failing
to respect its own
roadmap on reducing emissions.
On Thursday, a Paris court
found evidence of "negligence"
by the state in its fight
against climate change and
said it was "responsible… for
some of the ecological damage
seen".
The ruling on a case
brought by NGOs was the
second of its kind in recent
months.
In November, the country's
top administrative court
gave the government a threemonth
deadline to show it
was working to meet its targets
on global warming.
WASHINGTON : Donald Trump's
defenders in the Senate on Sunday rallied
around the former president before
his impeachment trial, dismissing it as
a waste of time and arguing that the former
president's fiery speech before the
U.S. Capitol insurrection does not
make him responsible for the violence
of Jan. 6, reports UNB.
"If being held accountable means
being impeached by the House and
being convicted by the Senate, the
answer to that is no," said Republican
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, making
clear his belief that Trump should
and will be acquitted. Asked if Congress
could consider other punishment, such
as censure, Wicker said the
Democratic-led House had that option
earlier but rejected it in favor of
impeaching him.
"That ship has sailed," he said.
The Senate is set to launch the
impeachment trial Tuesday to consider
the charge that Trump's fighting
words to protesters at a Capitol rally
as well as weeks of falsehoods about a
stolen and rigged presidential election
provoked a mob to storm the
Capitol. Five people died as a result of
the melee, including a police officer.
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Many senators including Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell
immediately denounced the violence
and pointed a finger of blame at
Trump. Following the riot, Wicker
said Americans "will not stand for this
kind of attack on the rule of law" and
without naming names, said "we
must prosecute" those who undermine
democracy.
But with Trump now gone from the
presidency, Republicans have shown
little political appetite to take further
action, such as an impeachment conviction
that could lead to barring him
from running for future office. Those
partisan divisions appear to be hardening
ahead of Trump's trial, a sign of
his continuing grip on the GOP.
On Sunday, Wicker described
Trump's impeachment trial as a
"meaningless messaging partisan
exercise." When asked if Trump's
conduct should be more deserving of
impeachment than President Bill
Clinton's, whom Wicker voted to
impeach, he said: "I'm not conceding
that the President Trump incited an
insurrection." Clinton's impeachment,
in 1998, was sparked by his
false denial in a deposition of a sexual
US warns Yemen's Houthi rebels
after terrorism delisting
WASHINGTON : The Biden administration
on Sunday warned Yemen's Houthi rebels
against ongoing attacks against civilians just
48 hours after moving to strike the group
from a terrorism blacklist.
The State Department called on the Iranbacked
rebel group to immediately stop
attacks on civilians and new military operations
in Yemen. The demand came only two
days after the administration notified
Congress that it would remove the Houthis
from its list of "foreign terrorist organizations,"
a designation that comes with severe
U.S. sanctions. It also came just three days
after President Joe Biden ordered an end to
U.S. support for the Saudi-led offensive military
operations against the rebels.
"As the president is taking steps to end the
war in Yemen and Saudi Arabia has
endorsed a negotiated settlement, the United
States is deeply troubled by continued
Houthi attacks," State Department
spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
"We call on the Houthis to immediately
cease attacks impacting civilian areas inside
Saudi Arabia and to halt any new military
offensives inside Yemen, which only bring
more suffering to the Yemeni people."
Friday's delisting had been hailed by relief
agencies who had slammed the Trump
administration for putting the Houthis on
the list in its waning days in office. Critics
said the designation would exacerbate what
the U.N. calls the world's worst humanitarian
crisis by hindering aid shipments to a
population on the brink of famine.
Earlier Sunday, the U.N. special envoy for
Yemen arrived on his first visit to Iran for
talks on the grinding war. Martin Griffiths
was set to meet with Iranian Foreign
Minister Javad Zarif and other officials during
his two-day visit, his office said. The sessions
are part of a broader effort to negotiate
a political solution to the nearly six-year conflict
pitting the Houthis against Yemeni government
forces supported by a Saudi-led
military coalition.
"We urge the Houthis to refrain from
destabilizing actions and demonstrate their
commitment to constructively engage in
U.N. Special Envoy Griffiths' efforts to
achieve peace," Price said in the statement.
"The time is now to find an end to this conflict."
George Shultz, US secretary of state
who helped usher out Cold War, dies
WASHINGTON : George Shultz, Ronald
Reagan's genial secretary of state who identified
a diplomatic opening that helped end the Cold
War but contributed to a new brand of conflict
by advocating preemptive strikes, has died. He
was 100.
An economics professor who saw himself
more as a data-driven expert than an ideologue,
Shultz had the rare distinction of serving in four
different cabinet positions - including Treasury
secretary as Richard Nixon dismantled the post-
World War II Bretton Woods monetary system.
"One of the most consequential policymakers
of all time, having served three American presidents,
George P. Shultz died Feb. 6 at age 100,"
the Hoover Institution think tank said in a statement
on its website.
In the Reagan White House, notorious for
infighting, Shultz was one of the least controversial
figures, cultivating cordial ties with
Congress and the press and, most crucially,
rock-solid backing from the president himself,
who kept Shultz as his top diplomat for six and
a half years.
In early 1983, half a year into his tenure,
Shultz returned from China to a snowed-under
Washington and was invited by Nancy Reagan
to a casual dinner at the White House where he
was intrigued to hear the famously anti-
Communist president sound eager to meet the
Soviets.
"He had never had a lengthy session with an
important leader from a Communist country,
and I could sense he would relish such an
opportunity," Shultz wrote in his memoir,
"Turmoil and Triumph."
Days afterward, Shultz brought the Soviet
ambassador to the White House in an
unmarked car for a secret meeting with Reagan,
who pressed for Moscow to allow the emigration
of Pentecostal Christians who had sought
refuge in the US embassy.
relationship with a White House
intern.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of
Kentucky dismissed Trump's trial as a
farce with "zero chance of conviction,"
describing Trump's words to
protesters to "fight like hell" as
Congress was voting to ratify Joe
Biden's presidential victory as "figurative"
speech.
"If we're going to criminalize speech,
and somehow impeach everybody
who says, 'Go fight to hear your voices
heard,' I mean really we ought to
impeach Chuck Schumer then," Paul
said, referring to the now Democratic
Senate majority leader and his criticisms
of Justices Neil Gorsuch and
Brett Kavanaugh. "He went to the
Supreme Court, stood in front of the
Supreme Court and said specifically,
'Hey Gorsuch, Hey Kavanaugh, you've
unleashed a whirlwind. And you're
going to pay the price.'"
Paul noted that Chief Justice John
Roberts had declined to preside over
this week's impeachment proceeding
because Trump was no longer president.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy
of Vermont will preside over the trial
as Senate president pro tempore.
Corrigendum for E-Tender Notice No: 04/2020-21
Pandemic takes
mental health toll
on US youngsters
NEW YORK : Anxiety,
depression, self-harm and
even suicide: a growing
number of children in the
United States are struggling
with their mental health
during the coronavirus pandemic,
doctors, teachers,
parents and the government
are all warning.
Millions of students have
been attending school virtually
since March last year,
spending hours in front of
computers, without playing
games or chatting with
friends in person and missing
out on sports and faceto-face
art or music classes.
"There's a lot of loneliness
for me and other teens," said
Sarah Frank, an 18-year-old
from Florida, who has not
left home since March
because she lives with relatives
considered high-risk if
they contract Covid-19.
"I have days I feel really
sad, and a bit hopeless. It
feels like a never-ending
nightmare," she told AFP.
Frank co-founded the
State of Mind Project in July,
a website with mental and
physical health tips for
teenagers.
"I missed a lot of a high
school experiences that I'll
never get back. I never went
to a football game, I never
got to go to prom," she said.
Deanna Caputo is a psychologist
and mother of two
children who says she sees
signs of depression in her
10-year-old son since his
class in Arlington, Virginia
became virtual in March.
"He'd wake up in the
morning and go back to
sleep until noon. He was
moody. He started saying
things like 'I am not smart,
I'm not good at anything,'"
said Caputo.
She says knows of other
children even worse off.