Impeachment Blind Spots | Africa's Trade War Gets Real

President Trump has earned censure. But Democrats don’t have all the information yet, and that poses some risks.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced a formal impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, so we turned to former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin for his take on this extraordinary development.

OZY: Do you feel like Democrats are rushing into impeachment on this Ukraine call?

McLaughlin: I would not call this a “rush” — a sentiment to do this has been building for a long time — but they are going into this with at least one significant blind spot, as we have not yet seen the whistleblower’s complaint. As this is written, a transcript has been released of the president’s call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. It shows pretty clearly that Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate Vice President Joe Biden and his son’s possible involvement in a Ukrainian corruption case. Our Justice Department says it determined this was not a campaign violation and therefore not illegal. But as it pertains to an impeachment inquiry, the question of legality will be less important than judgments about whether it represents the ill-defined constitutional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” In other words, this will call for a political judgment. But the bottom line is that it’s very difficult to conclude anything other than that the president was pushing for dirt on the person likely to be his main campaign rival.

Escalating economic tensions between South Africa and Nigeria could spill over into neighboring countries.

The demand sounded like an extremist rant from a fringe political force. But the call for Nigeria to nationalize South African businesses in the country and deny South African Airways landing rights came from no less than Adams Oshiomhole, chairman of the nation’s ruling party. It’s just one of many worrying signs of a rapidly escalating economic war between Africa’s two largest economies following attacks on migrants in South African cities earlier this month.

Five people were killed in the xenophobic attacks, the latest in South Africa’s history of targeted crimes against foreign-owned businesses. The attacks sparked protests in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, against South African businesses such as telecom giant MTN — which counts Nigeria as its biggest foreign market — and Shoprite. Since then, the tensions have exploded further.

Helena Roseta has pushed through guaranteed housing in Portugal. Now the rest of the world is taking notice.

As the sun sets over Lisbon, new arrivals rattle their suitcases up a steep spiral labyrinth of roads toward their temporary homes. Sounds of fado, the Portuguese folk music linked to the resistance movements of the city’s poor, break out onto the cobblestone roads of Alfama. But the historic neighborhoods that birthed this music now mainly attract tourists and the Airbnb trade. The original residents left some time ago.

Resistance and neighborhoods are central to Helena Roseta’s life. A member of Parliament, former mayor, housing counselor, president of the Architects’ Association and revolutionary, Roseta witnessed her crowning achievement this month. Portugal’s Basic Housing Law, for which she wrote the framework, went into effect Sept. 3, taking the country’s constitutional right to housing and adding legal teeth to tackle hyper-gentrification for the first time.