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House Votes to Begin Impeachment Inquiry into Biden

Joseph Ziegler, an IRS Agent, seated at left, and IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, right, wait to testify on the Hunter Biden investigation, as the House Ways and Means Committee takes a vote during their hearing, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Joseph Ziegler, an IRS Agent, seated at left, and IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, right, wait to testify on the Hunter Biden investigation, as the House Ways and Means Committee takes a vote during their hearing, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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House Votes to Begin Impeachment Inquiry into Biden

Joseph Ziegler, an IRS Agent, seated at left, and IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, right, wait to testify on the Hunter Biden investigation, as the House Ways and Means Committee takes a vote during their hearing, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Joseph Ziegler, an IRS Agent, seated at left, and IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, right, wait to testify on the Hunter Biden investigation, as the House Ways and Means Committee takes a vote during their hearing, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

All eyes turned Wednesday night to the US House of Representatives which passed a resolution to formally authorize its ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Republicans are stepping up their efforts to formalize an impeachment inquiry into the President.
The Republican-controlled chamber approved 221-212 in a party-line vote, directing three House committees to continue their investigations to support Republicans' claims that Biden was directly involved and benefited from his son and brother's foreign business dealings.
With this move, Republicans officially launch a fierce electoral campaign season ahead of the 2024 elections during which they are expected to accuse the US President of corruption and exploiting his position to enrich his family.
“We’re not going to prejudge the outcome of this because we can’t,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Tuesday when commenting on the House vote. “It’s not a political calculation. We’re following the law and we are the rule of law team and I’m going to hold to that.”
And while the impeachment efforts target the President, the star of the probe remains his son, Hunter. Republicans seek to link Hunter's business deals with foreign countries to decisions his father made during his service as Vice President between 2008 and 2016.
They are therefore eager to question Hunter over his business dealings, and are also interested in the other cases he faces in US courts related to tax evasion and illegal gun possession.
Hunter Biden, who has described his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, has also been the subject of a years-long criminal investigation.
He faces federal charges that he lied about his drug use while buying a handgun and separate charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes. He has pleaded not guilty to the gun charges, and his lawyer says he has repaid his taxes in full.
Earlier on Monday, Hunter Biden defied a committee subpoena to testify behind closed doors — saying he would testify only in public.
Last summer, one of Hunter’s former business partners, Devon Archer, told the House Oversight Committee that Hunter repeatedly put his father, then Vice-President, on speaker phone when talking to his partners, so that he could listen to the content of the conversation.

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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific, where rival China has been seeking diplomatic inroads.
The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Lai would travel from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.
The trip comes against the background of Chinese loans, grants and security cooperation treaties with Pacific island nations that have aroused major concern in the US, New Zealand, Australia and others over Beijing's moves to assert military, political and economic control over the region.
Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day.
Under pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if needed, Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies. However, it retains strong contacts with dozens of other nations, including the US, its main source of diplomatic and military support.
China has sought to whittle away traditional alliances in the South Pacific, signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands shortly after it broke ties with Taiwan and winning over Nauru just weeks after Lai's election in January. Since then, China has been pouring money into infrastructure projects in its South Pacific allies, as it has around the world, in exchange for political support.
China objects strongly to such US stopovers by Taiwan's leaders, as well as visits to the island by leading American politicians, terming them as violations of US commitments not to afford diplomatic status to Taiwan after Washington switched formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
With the number of its diplomatic partners declining under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has redoubled efforts to take part in international forums, even from the sidelines. It has also fought to retain what diplomatic status it holds, including refusing a demand from South Africa last month that it move its representative office in its former diplomatic ally out of the capital.