by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
Washington : US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will spend some time one-on-one next week at their second summit in Vietnam, White House officials said on Thursday.
The summit, scheduled for February 27-28 in Hanoi, will “be similar in format to what you saw last June 12 in Singapore,” an official said in a conference call with reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“There will be an opportunity for the two leaders to see one another one-on-one, to share a meal and engage in expanded meetings of their respective delegations,” the official said, reports Efe.
The White House has not made Trump’s agenda public yet and the source did not specify whether the private meeting — accompanied only by their respective interpreters — would occur at the beginning of the summit, as was the case in Singapore.
In Singapore, the leaders spoke privately for 38 minutes before the formal talks between the full delegations, sparking speculation about the content of Trump’s conversation with Kim.
The joint statement that emerged from the Singapore talks said that North Korea pledged to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” in exchange for unspecified security guarantees from the US.
One goal for next week’s encounter is reaching agreement on a “shared definition” of what denuclearisation means in concrete terms, the US official said.
Trump has also talked lately about North Korea’s economic potential and its advantageous location between Russia and China, so he is expected to expand further on that issue when he sees Kim, according to Efe.
“President Trump is looking to — after really, in some respects, breaking the ice with Kim in June — to talk in more depth about the kind of future that North Korea could enjoy if it follows through on its commitment to final and full denuclearisation,” one of the officials said.
One of the White House officials acknowledged that Pyongyang’s intention remains a mystery.
“I don’t know if North Korea has made the choice yet to denuclearise, but the reason why we’re engaged in this is because we believe there’s a possibility that North Korea can make the choice to fully denuclearize,” the official said.
“And that’s why the president has assigned such a priority to engaging with them,” the official added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
Washington : President Donald Trump on Wednesday had a phone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about the upcoming summit between the US and the North Korea, the White House said.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump and Abe in their phone call reaffirmed their commitment to achieving the final, fully verified denuclearisation of the North Korea and discussed the upcoming Hanoi summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, top North Korea leader, at the end of this month.
Trump and Abe committed to coordinating closely in advance of the US-North Korea talks, according to the statement, reports Xinhua news agency.
“We firmly and closely coordinated our policies in the run-up to the second US-North Korea summit to resolve nuclear, missile and abduction issues,” Abe said after the phone talks with Trump.
Trump announced on February 8 that his second meeting with Kim would take place in Hanoi of Vietnam on February 27-28.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : Sixteen states on Monday evening filed a lawsuit challenging US President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration.
The group of states, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
“We’re going to try to halt the President from violating the Constitution, the separation of powers, from stealing money from Americans and states that has been allocated by Congress, lawfully,” Becerra told CNN.
The attorneys general from Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia joined California in the lawsuit.
It’s the latest challenge to hit the Trump administration, which already faces a litany of lawsuits over the national emergency declaration.
Over the weekend, the Center for Biological Diversity, Border Network for Human Rights, which marched with Beto O’Rourke in El Paso, Texas, last week, and the American Civil Liberties Union all announced lawsuits, reports CNN.
At the core of each lawsuit is the argument that Trump is circumventing Congress to fund the wall along the US-Mexico border by declaring an emergency.
“The Constitution assigns Congress the power of the purse, and no prior president has ever tried to use emergency powers to fund a chosen project — particularly a permanent, large-scale domestic project such as this — against congressional will. This is obviously improper,” said Dror Ladin, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project.
Becerra argued that the states have standing to challenge Trump because money appropriated to them might be at risk.
“If the President is essentially stealing money that’s been allocated to go to the various states for various purposes but no longer will, we’re being harmed, our people are being harmed,” he said.
The wave of lawsuits was expected, though fighting them in court will likely be difficult.
The National Emergencies Act allows the President to declare a national emergency and unlock a stash of funds by invoking certain statutory authority. The President has wide discretion over what constitutes a national emergency. As a result, legal experts argue that fighting the declaration on the basis of the emergency itself will likely be difficult. The other question is whether the statute Trump has invoked — which in this case, requires the use of the armed forces — can be used to fund the wall.
Under the declaration, the administration will tap $2.5 billion of military narcotics funding and $3.6 billion in military construction funding. Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he will start studying which projects to pull from and determine whether border barriers are necessary to support the use of the armed forces.
It’s not just lawsuits that the administration has to face, but also the possibility of a joint resolution put forth by House Democrats to terminate the declaration. The resolution would need to be voted on by the House and then the Senate, before heading to the President’s desk.
On Sunday, White House adviser Stephen Miller indicated that Trump would cast the first veto of his presidency if lawmakers tried to terminate the declaration.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The international community has strongly condemned the terror attack by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 45 CRPF personnel, with US President Donald Trump asking Pakistan to “end immediately” the support and safe haven provided to all terrorist groups operating on its soil.
“The US calls on Pakistan to end immediately the support and safe haven provided to all terrorist groups operating on its soil, whose only goal is to sow chaos, violence and terror in the region. This attack only strengthens our resolve to bolster counter-terrorism cooperation and coordination between the US and India,” Trump’s Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
“We express our deep condolences to the victims’ families, the Indian government and the Indian people for the loss of life in this brutal attack,” the statement added.
China’s Foreign Ministry on Friday also denounced the attack, hoping that “relevant regional countries will cooperate to cope with the threat of terrorism and jointly uphold regional peace and stability”.
It added that the “JeM has been included in the UN Security Council terrorism sanctions list and that China will continue to handle the relevant sanctions issue in a constructive and responsible manner”.
An operative of the JeM group crashed a car bomb into a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Pulwama district on the Srinagar-Jammu Highway on Thursday, making it the worst ever attack on security forces on any single day since a separatist campaign broke out in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989.
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah stressed the “need for solidarity and closer cooperation of countries in the fight against this common enemy”.
“Terrorism is a cancer in the region and it requires collective efforts to root it out,” Ghani said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the “brutal crime” and said that “the perpetrators and sponsors of the attack, undoubtedly, should be duly punished”.
Putin reiterated Moscow’s “readiness for further strengthening counter-terrorist cooperation with Indian partners”.
The European Union in a statement said that “as a strategic partner of India, the EU reaffirms its full solidarity at such a difficult moment”.
Saudi Arabia also denounced the “cowardly” attack and said it stands with India against terrorism and extremism.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said her country “remains steadfast in its support of the global fight against terrorism,” reaffirming a resolve “to prevent radicalization and defeat terrorism in all its forms”.
Indonesia and Australia also slammed the strike.
The attack further damaged the already tense India-Pakistan diplomatic relations, with New Delhi saying it had evidence of Islamabad’s involvement in the carnage. It also withdrew the Most Favoured Nation trade status it had granted to Pakistan in 1996 under the World Trade Organization rules.
However, Pakistan dismissed accusations that it has links with the militants who carried out the attack. “We strongly reject any insinuation by elements in the Indian government and media circles that seek to link the attack to the State of Pakistan without investigations,” said the country’s Foreign Ministry in a statement.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Beijing : Talks aimed at ending the trade war between China and the US made important progress this week, President Xi Jinping told top US trade negotiators on Friday, adding that efforts to resolve the issue would continue in Washington next week.
“Both sides will meet again next week in Washington. I hope you all will make persistent efforts and try to reach a mutually beneficial agreement,” the Chinese President was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
Negotiators from the two countries have been trying to strike a deal before March 2, when the US government is due to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10 per cent to 25 per cent if no agreement is reached.
The world’s top two economies imposed tariffs on huge swathes of each other’s exports last year, causing major disruptions for businesses, rattling financial markets and endangering global growth.
The US delegation was led by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who were here for the two-day talks that started on Thursday. Vice Premier Liu He was China’s top negotiator in the negotiations.
Mnuchin tweeted that the two sides had “productive meetings”, while the White House in a statement confirmed that the next round of talks will be held in Washington next week, CNN reported.
According to the state media, Xi met Lighthizer and Mnuchin after a full week of trade negotiations at senior and deputy levels in Beijing and called for a deal that both sides could accept.
“These days, the world’s attention is cast on Beijing. The negotiations of two sides have again achieved important and steady progress,” Xi said, adding, “I hope you make persistent efforts and push for a mutually beneficial consensus.”
Calling the China-US ties one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world today, Xi said the two countries share broad common interests and shoulder important responsibilities in safeguarding world peace and stability as well as promoting global development and prosperity.
“It serves both peoples’ fundamental interests and meets the expectations of the international community to maintain sound and stable development of the China-US ties,” the Chinese President said.
Xi said he met with US President Donald Trump in Argentina last December and reached important consensus as both countries agreed to jointly advance their ties.
“I hope that both teams will strengthen communication, focus on cooperation and manage differences in the principles and directions set by President Trump and I, so as to promote the sound and stable development of the China-US economic and trade cooperation and bilateral ties.”
Washington and Beijing carried out intensive and conducive consultations since last December, Xi said, adding that “cooperation was the best choice for both sides”.
—IANS