by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
The US Capitol Building
Washington : A partial shutdown of the US federal administration began on Saturday after lawmakers failed to reach a budget agreement over President Donald Trumps border wall funding demands.
Negotiations between the House of Representatives and Senate reached a deadlock over Trump’s demand to include a $5 billion allocation in the budget for his long-promised wall along the Mexican border.
Lawmakers adjourned last-minute talks on Friday evening. This was the third partial shutdown of the Trump administration in 2018 after a three-day deadlock in January and another which lasted a few hours in February.
In the absence of the agreement, funding for about a quarter of all US federal agencies lapsed at midnight, including appropriations for the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and other parts of the government.
In this situation, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will have to work unpaid or be put on temporary leave. This time the President has said that he was ready to face a long shutdown in order to achieve his demands.
In a video address published on Trump’s Twitter account shortly before the shutdown began, the President insisted the onus was on the Democrats to resolve the closure.
Senior Democrats accused Trump of provoking the situation with a “temper tantrum”.
“We’re going to have a shutdown. There’s nothing we can do about that because we need the Democrats to give us their votes,” the President said.
Lawmakers were set to meet again on Saturday.
Trump may see this negotiation as his last opportunity to get funding for the wall — one of his major campaign promises — as the Democrats are set to gain control of the House of Representatives in January.
On Wednesday, a stopgap spending bill was passed in order to keep federal agencies open until February 8, but the agreement did not include funding for Trump’s wall.
The President then insisted funds for the wall must be included for him to sign it off.
The House on Thursday passed legislation that included Trump’s request for $5 billion for the border wall, but it was clear on Friday that that demand did not have the votes needed to pass in the Senate, and was therefore not brought up for a vote — creating more uncertainty on a path forward.
The Democrats remained resolute that US taxpayers should not pay for his plan.
In his Twitter post on Friday, Trump also said that “we don’t want people coming in that aren’t supposed to be there,” and the video appeared to show migrants pushing on a wall while he continued to say “it’s very dangerous out there,” citing drugs, human trafficking and gangs.
He had been criticized in the past for fear mongering.
“We don’t want ‘em in the US. We don’t want ‘em in our country. The only thing that’s going to stop that is great border security. With a wall! Or a slat fence, or whatever you wanna call it,” he said.
The longest administrative shutdown in US history lasted 21 days between December 1995 and January 1996 during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Former President Barack Obama faced a 16-day shutdown in 2013.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
Hua Chunying
San Francisco : Five countries – Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK – have joined the US in accusing China of stealing trade secrets of major companies around the world through its support of a hacker group known as Advanced Persistent Threat 10, or APT 10, a media report said.
The official statements from the five countries are on the supposed involvement of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) in supporting the activity of APT10, CNET’s sister site ZDNet reported on Friday.
The German government also issued a warning on Thursday to local companies about the possibility of their Cloud providers having been hacked, the report said.
The warning came after the US Justice Department charged the two Chinese nationals on Thursday of conspiring “to commit computer intrusions against dozens of companies in the United States and the world” for economic espionage.
China on Friday strongly denied the cyber attack charges by the US and its allies, accusing Washington of making “unfounded” allegations that the Chinese government was behind global hacking.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying asked the US to withdraw the accusations “as soon as possible” and not to prosecute suspected Chinese hackers, Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, Efe news reported.
Hua said China lodged a formal protest with the US and that Beijing “will take the necessary measures” to safeguard its own cybersecurity and interests.
The US government earlier called on China “to act responsibly” in cyberspace after detecting an alleged broad cyberattack campaign against intellectual property and “sensitive” trade data in the US, Europe and Asia.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : The US Senate has approved a short-term spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown during the holidays, but it does not include funds demanded by US President Donald Trump to build the wall along the Mexico border.
The bill, pushed by the Republicans and supported by the Democrats, includes funds to finance the administration for seven weeks from Friday midnight — when the current ones expire — till February 8.
The House of Representatives is expected to approve the bill on Thursday so that Trump can sign it, Efe news reported.
Trump has not yet stated whether he supports the spending bill as it does not include $5 billion he had demanded for the border wall with Mexico.
In fact, at a meeting last week with Democrat leaders in the Congress, Trump said he would be proud to force a government shutdown if the wall were to be financed.
With the approval of the budget, negotiation on funding for the wall would be postponed to 2019 when the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives and can thereby block it easily.
Earlier this year, Trump faced two government shutdowns for lack of funds: The first was in January which lasted for three days while the second in February went on for only a few hours.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Hassan Rouhani
Tehran : Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday said Washington cannot dictate its policies on regional countries for their relations with Iran.
Rouhani made the remarks at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport before leaving for Turkey, Xinhua news agency reported.
He said the US has no longer any influence on relations between countries in the region, and it will no longer be able to dictate its policies to regional states, Press TV reported.
Rouhani left Tehran for Ankara for an official two-day visit at the invitation of his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Rouhani will co-chair the fifth Turkey-Iran High Level Cooperation Council meeting in Ankara.
He also hailed what he called Turkey’s “firm” stance on unilateral US sanctions against the Islamic republic.
Ties of Turkey, as friendly key regional player, are of high significance to Iran, he stressed.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : The Donald Trump-led US administration announced that it has started returning US troops home from Syria after claiming a victory in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) without revealing any detailed timetable.
“We have started returning US home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign,” said White House Spokesperson Sarah Sanders in a statement on Wednesday, claiming that America has “defeated the territorial caliphate”.
Pentagon later echoed the White House claim, saying that the US military has already begun the process of bringing the US forces back while emphasizing the continuity of the campaign, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The Coalition has liberated the IS-held territory, but the campaign against IS is not over,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a tweet.
All US State Department personnel are being evacuated from Syria within 24 hours, informed sources said.
An official also revealed that the time-frame for the troops withdrawal from the war-torn Arab country is expected to be between 60 and 100 days.
However, a senior Trump administration official, during a background briefing held on Wednesday afternoon, did not directly answer reporters’ questions on how the administration intends to withdraw the troops or whether there will a deadline for that.
Sanders’ statement came about one hour after US President Donald Trump hinted in a tweet about imminent US troop withdrawal from Syria.
“We have defeated the IS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning.
Earlier on Wednesday, the US media cited anonymous officials as saying that the US is planning a “rapid” and “full” withdrawal of troops from Syria.
Currently, there are more than 2,000 US soldiers deployed in Syria.
Trump has long voiced his desire to bring the US troops back home when possible, while senior administration officials including Defence Secretary James Mattis have advocated for a longer-term military deployment in Syria to secure a victory against the IS.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s claim about victory against the IS has been questioned.
“I strongly disagree. It has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive,” tweeted British Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood, following Trump’s claim on the social media.
Senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned “devastating consequences” for US troops quitting Syria.
“An American withdrawal at this time would be a big win for IS, Iran, Bashar al Assad of Syria, and Russia,” the lawmaker from the state of South Carolina said in a statement on Wednesday.
—IANS
