Hawaii Residents Hit by Floods from Hurricane Lane as New Storm Forms
29/08/2018
Flash flood warnings were issued on Tuesday for the Hawaiian island of Kauai, with residents on the north coast told to evacuate and others left stranded by high water as the remnants of Hurricane Lane drenched the archipelago and a new storm brewed in the Pacific Ocean.
Hawaii was spared a direct hit from a major hurricane as Lane diminished to a tropical storm as it approached and then drifted west, further from land. But rain was still pounding the island chain, touching off flooding on Oahu and Kauai.
“It has been a steady rain since after Lane but I got up 2:30 a.m. (Hawaiian Standard Time) to the National Weather Service flash flood advisory and that’s when we put out the release as well as an island-wide telephone call,” County of Kauai spokesman Alden Alayvilla said.
The advisory urged residents near Hanalei Bridge on the north side of the island to evacuate their homes due to rising stream levels. A convoy that had been used to escort residents over roads damaged by historic floods in April between was shut down, leaving many cut off.
“Heavy pounding and hazardous conditions are being reported island-wide. Motorists are advised to drive with extreme caution. Updates will be given as more information is made available,” the Kauai Emergency Management Agency said.
A flash flood watch also remained in effect for Oahu, home to the state capital Honolulu and 70 percent of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents.
Micco Godinez, who lives on the north side of Kauai, said he found the only road out of Hanalei, where he lives, barricaded by police vehicles when he tried to leave for work on Tuesday morning. He expected to be stranded for at least another day.
“I can’t get out at all,” Godinez said. “Our little community of Hanalei is isolated and then west of us is even more isolated,” he said.
Even as Hawaii residents sought to recover from Lane, they kept a watchful eye on Tropical Storm Miriam, spinning in the Pacific Ocean some 2,000 miles to the east and expected to become a hurricane by the time it approaches the islands.
“Miriam is supposed to go north and dissipate in the colder waters and drier air, so I’m not really worried about it,” Godinez said. “But it is hurricane season, and there’s another one behind that. You know what they say: Without rain you wouldn’t have rainbows.”
…
China Struggles to Curb Its Reliance on US Buyers, Suppliers
29/08/2018
Faced with plunging U.S. orders, surgical glove maker Ren Jiding is hunting for new markets amid Chinese government calls to reduce reliance on the United States. But no other market can absorb the 60 percent of his sales that went to American customers last year.
“Other countries import much less than the United States,” said Ren, a co-owner of Hongyeshangqin Medical Science and Technology Co. Ltd. in the eastern city of Zibo.
From medical products to smartphone chips to soybeans, Beijing is responding to President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes by pushing companies to trade more with other countries. But there are few substitutes for the United States as an export market and source of technology for industries including telecom equipment makers that Chinese leaders are eager to develop.
Beijing has announced tariff cuts and other changes while rejecting U.S. demands to scale back plans such as “Made in China 2025,” which calls for state-led creation of Chinese champions in robotics, biotech and other fields. American leaders say those violate Beijing’s market-opening promises and might erode U.S. industrial leadership.
The response highlights the cost the ruling Communist Party is willing to pay in lost sales and jobs to stick to plans that are fueling conflict with Washington, Europe and other trading partners.
’Fundamental’ to growth
“China sees its technology and industrial policies as fundamental to its growth,” Tianjie He of Oxford Economics said in an email. “It is thus hard to see China’s leadership committing to significant changes.”
Trump has raised duties on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports, including ultrasound scanners and industrial components that Washington says benefit from improper policies. China retaliated with similar penalties.
The U.S. is poised to raise duties on $200 billion worth of imports, including the gloves made by Ren’s company. Beijing has issued a list of American goods for retaliation.
The impact on China is “small and is containable, at least for the time being,” said Vincent Chan of Credit Suisse. He said the “worst case” outlook if all threatened U.S. tariff hikes go ahead would cut China’s growth by 0.2 percentage point this year and 1.3 percent in 2019.
Chinese leaders have tried to cushion the blow to their own economy by targeting American goods its importers can get from other countries — soybeans from Brazil, gas from Russia, cars from Germany and fish from Vietnam.
Beijing has promised to use revenue from the higher tariffs to help struggling exporters and has ordered banks to lend more freely to them.
The biggest jolt so far came from Beijing’s cancellation of orders for soybeans, the biggest American export to China at $21 billion last year. That hammered farm states that voted for Trump in the 2016 election. It also pushed up prices for Chinese farmers that use soybeans for animal feed and food processors that crush them for cooking oil.
That could be a windfall for Brazil. But China already is its top market and consumes two-thirds of the global supply. Chinese total imports last year of 95 million metric tons were 50 percent more than the South American giant’s entire exports.
Few sources
“The Chinese can talk all they want about finding other sources of soybeans,” but 80 percent come from the United States, Brazil and Argentina, said Michael Cordonnier, president of Soybean & Corn Advisor Inc., a U.S. research firm.
“If you want to import soybeans, it generally must be from one of those three countries,” Cordonnier wrote in an email.
Regulators also cut import duties on automobiles on July 1 but raised them on vehicles from the United States. That helps luxury brands that import from Germany and Japan.
Replacing markets for Chinese exporters that support tens of millions of jobs will be harder.
The United States bought $430 billion of China’s exports last year, or 20 percent of the $2.2 trillion total. The No. 2 market was the 28-nation European Union at $370 billion.
“We can’t afford to lose the U.S. market,” said David Hu, general manager of Sinohood Bags Factory Ltd. in the southeastern city of Yiwu.
Americans bought 40 percent of Hu’s canvas tote bags last year, including the most profitable customized versions with Christmas and other designs.
“What we export to Europe is lower-end products with lower prices,” said Hu. “We could explore the Indian, Vietnamese or Philippine markets. But the prices they offer would be too low.”
Chinese officials point to potential markets in the Belt and Road Initiative, a multibillion-dollar plan led by President Xi Jinping to boost trade by building ports, railways and other infrastructure across Asia to Europe.
That has brought a flood of contracts to Chinese state-owned builders, but complaints about costs have hurt its appeal. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia announced this month the cancellation of plans for Chinese-built projects, including a $20 billion rail line.
“There is potential for development in areas such as Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America. But their problems are development imbalance and economic instability,” said Li Yong, a senior fellow at the China Association of International Trade, an industry group.
Focus on diversification
Local officials have met with exporters to exhort them to “diversify markets,” according to the state press.
Authorities in the central city of Jingzhou visited exporters to help with customs forms, financing and other details, the website China Industry and Commerce News said.
Ren, the surgical glove maker, said his 300-employee company was looking at Europe and developing countries, but demand was sluggish.
Some companies are confident of keeping their U.S. market share. That reflects the possible success of official efforts to develop higher-tech goods instead of competing on price alone.
The general manager of Yihua Electronic Equipment Co. in southern China’s Guangdong said the tariffs should not affect sales of its digital soldering guns, one-fifth of which are sold to the United States.
“With the 25 percent tariffs, ours still are cheaper than similar German- or Japanese-made products,” said the manager, who would give only his surname, Gou. “We are not producing something like shoes and clothing that could be easily replaced.”
Trump’s pressure could encourage Beijing to throw even more resources at nurturing its own technology creators.
China’s search for non-U.S. suppliers could help companies such as Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek Inc. But redesigning a phone or network gear and then gaining regulatory and customer approval can take a minimum of three to five years.
“For now,” said He of Oxford Economics, “China remains technologically dependent on the U.S.”
…
China Struggles to Curb Its Reliance on US Buyers, Suppliers
29/08/2018
Faced with plunging U.S. orders, surgical glove maker Ren Jiding is hunting for new markets amid Chinese government calls to reduce reliance on the United States. But no other market can absorb the 60 percent of his sales that went to American customers last year.
“Other countries import much less than the United States,” said Ren, a co-owner of Hongyeshangqin Medical Science and Technology Co. Ltd. in the eastern city of Zibo.
From medical products to smartphone chips to soybeans, Beijing is responding to President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes by pushing companies to trade more with other countries. But there are few substitutes for the United States as an export market and source of technology for industries including telecom equipment makers that Chinese leaders are eager to develop.
Beijing has announced tariff cuts and other changes while rejecting U.S. demands to scale back plans such as “Made in China 2025,” which calls for state-led creation of Chinese champions in robotics, biotech and other fields. American leaders say those violate Beijing’s market-opening promises and might erode U.S. industrial leadership.
The response highlights the cost the ruling Communist Party is willing to pay in lost sales and jobs to stick to plans that are fueling conflict with Washington, Europe and other trading partners.
’Fundamental’ to growth
“China sees its technology and industrial policies as fundamental to its growth,” Tianjie He of Oxford Economics said in an email. “It is thus hard to see China’s leadership committing to significant changes.”
Trump has raised duties on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports, including ultrasound scanners and industrial components that Washington says benefit from improper policies. China retaliated with similar penalties.
The U.S. is poised to raise duties on $200 billion worth of imports, including the gloves made by Ren’s company. Beijing has issued a list of American goods for retaliation.
The impact on China is “small and is containable, at least for the time being,” said Vincent Chan of Credit Suisse. He said the “worst case” outlook if all threatened U.S. tariff hikes go ahead would cut China’s growth by 0.2 percentage point this year and 1.3 percent in 2019.
Chinese leaders have tried to cushion the blow to their own economy by targeting American goods its importers can get from other countries — soybeans from Brazil, gas from Russia, cars from Germany and fish from Vietnam.
Beijing has promised to use revenue from the higher tariffs to help struggling exporters and has ordered banks to lend more freely to them.
The biggest jolt so far came from Beijing’s cancellation of orders for soybeans, the biggest American export to China at $21 billion last year. That hammered farm states that voted for Trump in the 2016 election. It also pushed up prices for Chinese farmers that use soybeans for animal feed and food processors that crush them for cooking oil.
That could be a windfall for Brazil. But China already is its top market and consumes two-thirds of the global supply. Chinese total imports last year of 95 million metric tons were 50 percent more than the South American giant’s entire exports.
Few sources
“The Chinese can talk all they want about finding other sources of soybeans,” but 80 percent come from the United States, Brazil and Argentina, said Michael Cordonnier, president of Soybean & Corn Advisor Inc., a U.S. research firm.
“If you want to import soybeans, it generally must be from one of those three countries,” Cordonnier wrote in an email.
Regulators also cut import duties on automobiles on July 1 but raised them on vehicles from the United States. That helps luxury brands that import from Germany and Japan.
Replacing markets for Chinese exporters that support tens of millions of jobs will be harder.
The United States bought $430 billion of China’s exports last year, or 20 percent of the $2.2 trillion total. The No. 2 market was the 28-nation European Union at $370 billion.
“We can’t afford to lose the U.S. market,” said David Hu, general manager of Sinohood Bags Factory Ltd. in the southeastern city of Yiwu.
Americans bought 40 percent of Hu’s canvas tote bags last year, including the most profitable customized versions with Christmas and other designs.
“What we export to Europe is lower-end products with lower prices,” said Hu. “We could explore the Indian, Vietnamese or Philippine markets. But the prices they offer would be too low.”
Chinese officials point to potential markets in the Belt and Road Initiative, a multibillion-dollar plan led by President Xi Jinping to boost trade by building ports, railways and other infrastructure across Asia to Europe.
That has brought a flood of contracts to Chinese state-owned builders, but complaints about costs have hurt its appeal. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia announced this month the cancellation of plans for Chinese-built projects, including a $20 billion rail line.
“There is potential for development in areas such as Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America. But their problems are development imbalance and economic instability,” said Li Yong, a senior fellow at the China Association of International Trade, an industry group.
Focus on diversification
Local officials have met with exporters to exhort them to “diversify markets,” according to the state press.
Authorities in the central city of Jingzhou visited exporters to help with customs forms, financing and other details, the website China Industry and Commerce News said.
Ren, the surgical glove maker, said his 300-employee company was looking at Europe and developing countries, but demand was sluggish.
Some companies are confident of keeping their U.S. market share. That reflects the possible success of official efforts to develop higher-tech goods instead of competing on price alone.
The general manager of Yihua Electronic Equipment Co. in southern China’s Guangdong said the tariffs should not affect sales of its digital soldering guns, one-fifth of which are sold to the United States.
“With the 25 percent tariffs, ours still are cheaper than similar German- or Japanese-made products,” said the manager, who would give only his surname, Gou. “We are not producing something like shoes and clothing that could be easily replaced.”
Trump’s pressure could encourage Beijing to throw even more resources at nurturing its own technology creators.
China’s search for non-U.S. suppliers could help companies such as Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek Inc. But redesigning a phone or network gear and then gaining regulatory and customer approval can take a minimum of three to five years.
“For now,” said He of Oxford Economics, “China remains technologically dependent on the U.S.”
…
Pompeo’s Nixed N. Korea Trip Exposes Denuclearization Rift
29/08/2018
The abrupt cancellation of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang reflects growing concern in the Trump administration about North Korea’s unwillingness to denuclearize, experts said.
President Donald Trump on Friday called off Pompeo’s visit to North Korea, days before it was set to begin, because of what the president felt was a lack of progress in denuclearization talks.
“I don’t think the North Koreans were prepared to do what we needed to do. which was to have some kind of declaration [on their nuclear program] or some tangible sign that they were moving ahead,” said Christopher Hill, a chief negotiator with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration.
“They were not moving ahead, so I think rather than having the secretary of state come back empty-handed, the president canceled it,” Hill said.
North Korea is believed to be demanding an official end to the Korean War before taking steps toward denuclearization. The U.S., however, wants North Korea to make concrete steps toward denuclearization, starting with a declaration of its nuclear weapons arsenal, before signing an official peace treaty to end the Korean War. An armistice signed on July 27, 1953, by Chinese, North Korean and United Nations forces ended fighting and established the Demilitarized Zone, which has since separated the two Koreas.
The Washington Post reported Monday that two U.S. officials said Trump canceled Pompeo’s trip after receiving a hostile letter from Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee. He had met previously with Pompeo in New York City and in Pyongyang.
The letter stated Pyongyang could not move forward with denuclearization because the U.S. was not ready to step toward a peace treaty, according to a CNN report Tuesday citing people familiar with the matter.
No ‘meaningful steps’ seen
Rob Rapson, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, said, “The secretary stands ready to go, but only when the other side is ready.” But for now, Rapson said, North Korea is “not yet prepared to take meaningful steps toward denuclearization.”
Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang would have been the fourth this year and the second since Trump’s June summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which has been criticized as having produced no framework for a denuclearization process.
Experts said the lack of movement in the talks resulted from the contrasting expectations that Washington and Pyongyang have about denuclearization.
Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at the Center for Naval Analyses, said North Korea would not relent on its demand for a peace treaty before moving toward denuclearization.
He said Pyongyang would not give up nuclear weapons “within the framework of denuclearization,” and the only way to have North Korea denuclearize was to “couch it in terms of confidence-building measures toward a peace regime.”
Gary Samore, the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction in the Obama administration, said, “It’s not clear … that the Trump administration has been able to come up with new proposals.”
He continued, “As you know, the whole question of issuing a peace declaration is very controversial in Washington.”
When announcing the cancellation of Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang, Trump said China was not helping with denuclearization because of its trade disputes with the U.S.
Although Hill said he thought the canceled trip was not particularly related to China’s stance, he said the U.S. should focus on applying pressure to enforce full implementation of sanctions.
“I think it’s an issue where the U.S. lost a lot of its leverage by focusing on the negotiating track to the exclusion of the sanctions track,” said Hill, stressing, “I think it’s time to work full time on ramping up the pressures. I think they lost too much [leverage] because of Singapore.”
China has been calling for sanctions relief for North Korea since the Singapore summit, and its implementation of sanctions has been relaxed, especially along the border it shares with North Korea.
Resumption of trade seen
William Tobey, who participated in the Six Party Talks with North Korea, said calling for sanctions relief was a sign that China will start trading with North Korea.
“Beijing has mostly coddled its ally, and responded to the Singapore summit by calling for an ease of sanctions, which was probably code for, ‘We are going to resume trade with North Korea.’ ”
Because of “huge, gaping holes” in sanctions enforcement, Gause believes Trump’s maximum pressure policy will not work in denuclearizing the North, and because denuclearization is “not a primary issue for China, he said, expecting China to help solve the denuclearization issue is a “non-starter.”
“They have no incentive even … in normal times to put that much pressure on North Korea. And given the trade war that we have now, they’re going to have even less incentive to play ball on sanctions,” said Gause.
Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, said he thought Beijing, which has quietly eased sanctions and reduced U.S. leverage over Pyongyang, “will not deliver North Korea.”
In a signal of a reversion to its stance before detente with Pyongyang, U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told reporters on Tuesday that there were “no plans, at this time, to suspend any more exercises” on the Korean Peninsula. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises that usually take place in August were halted as a goodwill gesture toward Pyongyang after the summit in Singapore.
Lee Yeon-cheol and Kim Young-nam of VOA’s Korean service contributed to this report.
…
After Flood, Tourism in India’s Kerala Left a Muddy Mess
29/08/2018
More than a week after the floodwater began subsiding, animal carcasses are still floating in Kerala’s backwaters, and in places a nauseating stench rises like a wall when the wake from a passing boat breaks the surface.
These inland lagoons running parallel to the coast are one of the biggest tourist draws in India’s most southwesterly state, but the stain of death and devastation wrought by Kerala’s worst flood in a century will take longer than a season to wash away.
The quaint towns and villages scattered between the lush forests and paddy fields bordering the backwaters are now communities in despair.
Houses in low-lying areas are still submerged, roads are waterlogged and the sewage from drains have washed into channels that are too slow-moving to effectively flush out the effluent.
Sudarsanan T.K., a houseboat owner in the town of Alappuzha, had been looking forward to the peak tourist season, but as his home disappeared under 2.5 meters (8 feet) of water his family now have to live aboard the boat he would otherwise be renting to tourists from Europe, China, Malaysia and India.
“I’ve nothing left, but this houseboat. I don’t know how I can repay my bank loan in this condition. The bank may take back my boat. I will have nothing at all then,” Sudarsanan, a 64-year-old father of two, told Reuters.
Some 1,500 houseboats are tied up at Alappuzha, going nowhere, with many of the owners still paying off loans taken to buy the boats.
Sudarsanan owes about $8,600 on the loan taken eight years ago to buy the boat, and he could have earned up to $7,000 by December if the deluge hadn’t washed away his hopes.
Hundreds of people perished in the flood and more than one million of Kerala’s 35 million people were forced to abandon their homes and take shelter in relief camps.
Blessed with natural beauty, fertile land and bountiful seas, Kerala has been dubbed “God’s own country” by its people, but the Marxists running the state government reckon it will need $3.57 billion to rebuild over the next two years.
“Kerala’s GDP growth may fall by 2 percent,” state Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac told Reuters, forecasting growth of 6 percent for the financial year ending next March.
Crops have been lost, the construction industry was dead for a month, and tourism, which contributes 10 percent of the state’s economy but accounts for about 25 percent of jobs creation, has been badly hit.
Festival washout
For discerning tourists looking for a more laid back Indian experience, Kerala has it all — long sandy beaches, lazy waterways, charming, historic towns like Kochi and the cool, forested hills of the Western Ghats.
Kerala doesn’t draw numbers like the northern tourist circuit, the so-called “Golden Triangle” running from New Delhi to the Taj Mahal in Agra, and Jaipur’s palaces in the desert state of Rajasthan, but it has carved out a sizable niche.
Last year, one million foreigners visited Kerala, along with 15 million domestic tourists, but state government and industry officials reckon the flood will result in losses for the tourism sector of $357 million.
The floods struck just as Kerala was gearing up for Onam,
the harvest festival which is one of the highlights of the state’s cultural calendar.
Festivities, including the spectacular Vallam Kali races involving traditional war canoes, some manned by more than 100 paddlers, were postponed.
“Kerala has lost out on one of the best seasons, as the calamity struck during the 10-day run up to Onam,” said Ranjini Nambiar, who heads a travel consultancy.
Thousands of volunteers have joined a clean-up campaign mounted by the state, and Shilendran M., an executive with the CGH Earth luxury hotel chain, expected some kind of order to be restored within the next few weeks.
“The state administration is working on a war footing,” said Shilendran, whose group has more than a dozen properties in Kerala. “We are limping back to normal.”
Hardly anywhere in the state escaped the calamity.
Ernakulam district, the biggest industrial and tourism contributor to Kerala’s economy and home to the historic city of Kochi, suffered major damage, and its busy international airport was shut for nearly two weeks.
Munnar, a hill resort overlooking the tea and cardamom plantations high in the Ghats was cut off, as bridges were washed away and landslides blocked roads.
Once every dozen years a bright purplish-blue bell-shaped flower called the Neelakurinji, blossoms on the slopes around Munnar — and this was one of those years.
The state tourism had marketed 2018 as the Kurunji year, but people in Kerala are more likely to remember the mud.
…
After Flood, Tourism in India’s Kerala Left a Muddy Mess
29/08/2018
More than a week after the floodwater began subsiding, animal carcasses are still floating in Kerala’s backwaters, and in places a nauseating stench rises like a wall when the wake from a passing boat breaks the surface.
These inland lagoons running parallel to the coast are one of the biggest tourist draws in India’s most southwesterly state, but the stain of death and devastation wrought by Kerala’s worst flood in a century will take longer than a season to wash away.
The quaint towns and villages scattered between the lush forests and paddy fields bordering the backwaters are now communities in despair.
Houses in low-lying areas are still submerged, roads are waterlogged and the sewage from drains have washed into channels that are too slow-moving to effectively flush out the effluent.
Sudarsanan T.K., a houseboat owner in the town of Alappuzha, had been looking forward to the peak tourist season, but as his home disappeared under 2.5 meters (8 feet) of water his family now have to live aboard the boat he would otherwise be renting to tourists from Europe, China, Malaysia and India.
“I’ve nothing left, but this houseboat. I don’t know how I can repay my bank loan in this condition. The bank may take back my boat. I will have nothing at all then,” Sudarsanan, a 64-year-old father of two, told Reuters.
Some 1,500 houseboats are tied up at Alappuzha, going nowhere, with many of the owners still paying off loans taken to buy the boats.
Sudarsanan owes about $8,600 on the loan taken eight years ago to buy the boat, and he could have earned up to $7,000 by December if the deluge hadn’t washed away his hopes.
Hundreds of people perished in the flood and more than one million of Kerala’s 35 million people were forced to abandon their homes and take shelter in relief camps.
Blessed with natural beauty, fertile land and bountiful seas, Kerala has been dubbed “God’s own country” by its people, but the Marxists running the state government reckon it will need $3.57 billion to rebuild over the next two years.
“Kerala’s GDP growth may fall by 2 percent,” state Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac told Reuters, forecasting growth of 6 percent for the financial year ending next March.
Crops have been lost, the construction industry was dead for a month, and tourism, which contributes 10 percent of the state’s economy but accounts for about 25 percent of jobs creation, has been badly hit.
Festival washout
For discerning tourists looking for a more laid back Indian experience, Kerala has it all — long sandy beaches, lazy waterways, charming, historic towns like Kochi and the cool, forested hills of the Western Ghats.
Kerala doesn’t draw numbers like the northern tourist circuit, the so-called “Golden Triangle” running from New Delhi to the Taj Mahal in Agra, and Jaipur’s palaces in the desert state of Rajasthan, but it has carved out a sizable niche.
Last year, one million foreigners visited Kerala, along with 15 million domestic tourists, but state government and industry officials reckon the flood will result in losses for the tourism sector of $357 million.
The floods struck just as Kerala was gearing up for Onam,
the harvest festival which is one of the highlights of the state’s cultural calendar.
Festivities, including the spectacular Vallam Kali races involving traditional war canoes, some manned by more than 100 paddlers, were postponed.
“Kerala has lost out on one of the best seasons, as the calamity struck during the 10-day run up to Onam,” said Ranjini Nambiar, who heads a travel consultancy.
Thousands of volunteers have joined a clean-up campaign mounted by the state, and Shilendran M., an executive with the CGH Earth luxury hotel chain, expected some kind of order to be restored within the next few weeks.
“The state administration is working on a war footing,” said Shilendran, whose group has more than a dozen properties in Kerala. “We are limping back to normal.”
Hardly anywhere in the state escaped the calamity.
Ernakulam district, the biggest industrial and tourism contributor to Kerala’s economy and home to the historic city of Kochi, suffered major damage, and its busy international airport was shut for nearly two weeks.
Munnar, a hill resort overlooking the tea and cardamom plantations high in the Ghats was cut off, as bridges were washed away and landslides blocked roads.
Once every dozen years a bright purplish-blue bell-shaped flower called the Neelakurinji, blossoms on the slopes around Munnar — and this was one of those years.
The state tourism had marketed 2018 as the Kurunji year, but people in Kerala are more likely to remember the mud.
…
Liberal Democrat and Trump-backed Republican to Face Off for Florida Governor
29/08/2018
A liberal Democrat backed by Senator Bernie Sanders pulled off an upset in the Democratic primary for Florida governor on Tuesday, setting up a November showdown with a Republican backed by President Donald Trump.
Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, beat moderate Gwen Graham, a former U.S. representative and daughter of a prominent Florida politician, in a surprising victory after running as an unabashed progressive who backed “Medicare for all,” impeaching Trump and standing up to the National Rifle Association.
Gillum, 39, will face Republican U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis in November in one of the top governor’s races in the country, pitting the Democratic Party’s progressive wing against a conservative who won his primary by touting his closeness to Trump.
The race in the political battleground of Florida will be watched closely by both parties as a possible preview of the 2020 campaign, when Trump could be seeking re-election against a liberal Democrat.
Gillum, who would be the state’s first black governor, trailed in the polls through much of the race but surged in the final stages with the backing of Sanders and high-profile liberal donors like George Soros and Tom Steyer.
“We have shown the rest of the country that we can be the David in the situation where there is a Goliath,” he told supporters after his victory. “That you can be the non-millionaire, you can come from a working class family, and you can make your way to the top.”
The conservative DeSantis easily won the Republican primary by highlighting his enthusiastic loyalty to Trump. DeSantis, who was endorsed by Trump, beat state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.
“I am not always the most popular guy in D.C., but I did have support from someone in Washington. If you walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, he lives in the White House with the pillars in front of it,” DeSantis told supporters after his win, noting he had spoken to Trump.
Florida also will host one of the country’s top U.S. Senate races between term-limited Republican Governor Rick Scott, who won the Senate nomination against token opposition, and incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Nelson ran unopposed for the nomination.
Arizona Races
Voters in Arizona were also picking candidates for the November elections, when Democrats will try to pick up 23 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate to gain majorities and slam the brakes on Trump’s legislative agenda.
Republican establishment favorite U.S. Representative Martha McSally has led consistently in opinion polls over former state Senator Kelli Ward and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in a three-way battle to prove which candidate is most loyal to Trump, who won Arizona by 4 percentage points in 2016.
The contest could be critical to the balance of power in the Senate in November. The Arizona seat of retiring Republican Jeff Flake, a Trump critic, is considered one of the two top takeover targets for Democrats, along with Nevada.
McSally is seen as a stronger general election candidate than either Ward or Arpaio, both hard-line conservatives.
McSally has already launched advertising aimed at her likely Democratic opponent in November, U.S. Representative Kyrsten Sinema.
The primaries in Arizona and Florida on Tuesday are the last big day of state primaries before November’s elections. After Tuesday’s primaries, only five states remain to pick candidates before full attention turns to the November election, when all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be at stake.
…
US Congress Skeptical of Trump’s Mexico Trade Deal
29/08/2018
President Donald Trump’s trade deal with Mexico could struggle to win approval from Congress unless Canada comes on board, lawmakers from both parties said on Tuesday, saying support from Democrats would be needed to pass a purely bilateral deal.
Trump unveiled the Mexico deal on Monday and threatened to slap tariffs on Canadian-made cars if Canada did not join the revamp of the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Trump has long criticized.
If Trump, a Republican, tries to get the Senate to vote in favor of a bilateral deal as a replacement for NAFTA, he will face an uphill struggle to win passage, lawmakers said. Some lawmakers said only a trilateral pact would be eligible for fast-track, 51-vote Senate approval.
A bilateral deal, on the other hand, would need 60 votes and that would require some support from Democrats, who likely would be reluctant to help Trump, they said. There are now 50 Republican-held seats in the 100-member Senate.
To get fast-track Senate ratification, “the administration must also reach an agreement with Canada,” said Republican Senator Pat Toomey in a statement.
“NAFTA was a tri-party agreement only made operative with legislation enacted by Congress,” said Toomey, a member of the committee that oversees trade policy.
“Any change, such as NAFTA’s termination, would require additional legislation from Congress. Conversion into a bilateral agreement would not qualify for … ‘fast track’ procedures and would therefore require 60 votes in the Senate.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about fast track treatment for the Mexico deal. Canada’s top trade negotiator arrived in Washington on Tuesday for talks with her Mexican and U.S. counterparts, in a bid to remain part of the trade pact.
Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said a bilateral deal would face “serious legal concerns,” while he also questioned a lack of details on the terms of the Mexico pact
“I’m a little worried that this one is like North Korea. They have a nice announcement, but then we don’t see the details,” Schumer told reporters in a Capitol hallway. U.S. stock markets surged on Monday after Trump said he had reached an understanding with Mexico. On Tuesday, stocks had given up some of their early gains by the closing bell.
Senator Ron Wyden, the senior Democrat on the trade committee, said: “We know very few details right now. There are real questions about whether this is even enforceable … We are far from being done on this and the fact is you cannot really move this substantively without the Canadians.”
In the House of Representatives, Democrat Bill Pascrell urged Republicans in a statement to convene a bipartisan House trade council to advise the White House.
Умовою діалогу з Додоном є підтримка цілісності України включно з Кримом – Порошенко
28/08/2018
Президент України Петро Порошенко заявив 28 серпня, що підтримує свого молдовського колегу Ігоря Додона в питанні готовності до діалогу. Водночас на нараді з керівниками закордонних дипломатичних установ України Порошенко назвав умови такого діалогу.
«Ми зараз маємо дуже плідні стосунки на міжурядовому рівні. Про це добре відомо молдовському главі держави, які і про очікування президента Порошенка, офіційного Києва на абсолютно чітку підтримку територіальної цілісності незалежності нашої держави, включно з Кримом. Чекаємо відповідної твердої позиції від наших сусідів», – наголосив президент України.
Президент Молдови Ігор Додон відомий своїми проросійськими поглядами і вважається другом російського президента Володимира Путіна.
В інтерв’ю Радіо Свобода минулого тижння Додон заявив, що готовий до «діалогу, будь-яких контактів» з Україною. Під час виборчої кампанії, у листопаді 2016 року, Ігор Додон казав, що Крим є де-факто російською територією.
Читайте також: Від «давно пора» до «виборча технологія»: реакції на ідею розриву «великого» договору з Росією
На нараді з керівниками закордонних дипломатичних установ України 28 серпня президент Порошенко заявив, що чекає від МЗС необхідного пакету документів для початку реалізації процесу припинення Договору про дружбу, співробітництво і партнерство між Україною та Російською Федерацією.
…
Top Court Nominee’s Support for Surveilling Americans Raises Concern
28/08/2018
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has frequently supported giving the U.S. government wide latitude in the name of national security, including the secret collection of personal data from Americans.
It’s a subject Democrats plan to grill Kavanaugh about during his confirmation hearings scheduled to begin next Tuesday. Beyond his writings as an appeals court judge, some senators suspect Kavanaugh was more involved in crafting counterterrorism policies during the George W. Bush administration than he has let on.
Kavanaugh stated in past congressional testimony that he wasn’t involved in such provocative matters as warrantless surveillance and the treatment of enemy combatants in the years immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
But legal experts say he could shift the court on national security issues, if he is confirmed to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor whose expertise includes national security and counterterrorism, cites opinions he says show Kavanaugh “is a lot less willing (than Kennedy) to look at international law as a relevant source of authority and constraint.” He said on matters such as Guantanamo detention, Kavanaugh is “much more deferential to the executive branch in this context than Kennedy would have been.”
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, calls Kavanaugh “incredibly well-qualified.” The former U.S. trade representative and White House budget director knows Kavanaugh from their time together in the Bush administration. He said Kavanaugh “believes strongly in the Constitution” and the Bill of Rights.
“I think he’s in the mainstream with regard to these issues, and frankly, I don’t think it’s a difference with any meaning between where he is and where the court is currently,” Portman said.
Democrats facing an uphill battle in blocking Kavanaugh’s nomination have focused less on his judicial counterterrorism record than whether he misled senators about his role in Bush policies while testifying in 2006 confirmation hearings.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy are among Democrats who want to see more records from Kavanaugh’s White House days, saying news media accounts after he was seated on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia raised new questions.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said Durbin has been doing the misleading by taking Kavanaugh’s answers out of context.
“As several colleagues have stated, and Judge Kavanaugh accurately said in his 2006 testimony, he was not involved in crafting legal policies that formed the rules governing detention of combatants,” Shah said in an emailed statement.
After meeting recently with Kavanaugh, Durbin said the judge “acknowledged that he was involved in conversations involving enemy combatants.”
Shah responded with a tweet saying Kavanaugh was truthful, and that the conversations Durbin referred to “were about public litigation, not the legal framework or policies that formed the rules governing detention of combatants.”
Kavanaugh’s confirmation got past a potential obstacle when libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., endorsed him last month.
Paul had cited Kavanaugh’s 2015 defense of the National Security Agency’s widescale secret collection of telephone metadata — records of callers and recipients’ phone numbers and times and durations of the calls. But after meeting with Kavanaugh, Paul said he’s confident Kavanaugh will “carefully adhere to the Constitution and will take his job to protect individual liberty seriously.”
The NSA program didn’t include capturing conversations themselves, and Kavanaugh wrote that it served “a critically important special need — preventing terrorist attacks on the United States … In my view, that critical national security need outweighs the impact on privacy occasioned by this program.”
Larry Klayman, founder of the conservative group Freedom Watch and lead plaintiff in the NSA case, said Kavanaugh approved what a U.S. district court judge had called government use of “almost Orwellian technology.”
Kavanaugh defended the NSA program in an opinion attached to a procedural ruling in which he and his colleagues agreed not to rehear the case, so there was no pressing need for him to weigh in.
University of Louisville law professor Justin Walker, a former Kavanaugh clerk, said that’s not unusual for the judge. For example, Kavanaugh added his opinion to a procedural ruling in a case that led to a Supreme Court decision for a drug suspect who had a police-placed GPS tracker on his car.
The high court found in USA vs. Antoine Jones that Jones’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated, with a majority opinion that incorporated Kavanaugh’s observation that police intruded on the defendant’s personal property: his car.
“I’ve been surprised that his one short opinion (in Klayman) has not been seen in a broader context with more perspective,” Walker said, adding that when senators study Kavanaugh’s complete record on civil liberties, “they’re going to like what they see.”
But Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to digital privacy rights, worries that “he has a very broad view of the government’s ability to do mass surveillance and specifically in the context where the government is claiming national security.”
Cohn has pursued a lawsuit alleging illegal NSA surveillance of “millions of ordinary Americans,” among cases she said could eventually reach the Supreme Court. She questions whether Kavanaugh supports “real checks and balances on the power of the executive branch” on privacy issues.
Kavanaugh discussed judicial restraint on national security in an 87-page 2010 opinion. That one went against a Yemeni citizen U.S. forces captured in Afghanistan.
“Put simply, Congress knows how to limit the executive’s authority in national security and foreign policy; there is no reason or basis for courts to strain to do so absent such congressional direction,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Vladeck pointed to such cases as Kavanaugh’s 2011 ruling for turning over a U.S. citizen linked to al-Qaida terrorism in Iraq to Iraqi authorities the man said were likely to torture him, and in 2009 joining in a 2-1 vote against plaintiffs who wanted to sue private contractors they accused of beatings, dog attacks and other abuse at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
There are still 40 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. naval base, with the possibility of more.
In a 2013 lecture, Kavanaugh talked about his appeals court’s rulings in cases involving Guantanamo detainees and counterterrorism, saying he disagreed with people who believed “the courts should be creating new rules to constrain the executive — that this new kind of war requires new rules created by the courts.”
“He’s incredibly smart; he’s a thoughtful and thorough judge,” said Vladeck. “He just has pretty exceptionally conservative views about the role of the federal courts in the kinds of cases that I work on.”
Top Court Nominee’s Support for Surveilling Americans Raises Concern
28/08/2018
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has frequently supported giving the U.S. government wide latitude in the name of national security, including the secret collection of personal data from Americans.
It’s a subject Democrats plan to grill Kavanaugh about during his confirmation hearings scheduled to begin next Tuesday. Beyond his writings as an appeals court judge, some senators suspect Kavanaugh was more involved in crafting counterterrorism policies during the George W. Bush administration than he has let on.
Kavanaugh stated in past congressional testimony that he wasn’t involved in such provocative matters as warrantless surveillance and the treatment of enemy combatants in the years immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
But legal experts say he could shift the court on national security issues, if he is confirmed to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor whose expertise includes national security and counterterrorism, cites opinions he says show Kavanaugh “is a lot less willing (than Kennedy) to look at international law as a relevant source of authority and constraint.” He said on matters such as Guantanamo detention, Kavanaugh is “much more deferential to the executive branch in this context than Kennedy would have been.”
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, calls Kavanaugh “incredibly well-qualified.” The former U.S. trade representative and White House budget director knows Kavanaugh from their time together in the Bush administration. He said Kavanaugh “believes strongly in the Constitution” and the Bill of Rights.
“I think he’s in the mainstream with regard to these issues, and frankly, I don’t think it’s a difference with any meaning between where he is and where the court is currently,” Portman said.
Democrats facing an uphill battle in blocking Kavanaugh’s nomination have focused less on his judicial counterterrorism record than whether he misled senators about his role in Bush policies while testifying in 2006 confirmation hearings.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy are among Democrats who want to see more records from Kavanaugh’s White House days, saying news media accounts after he was seated on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia raised new questions.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said Durbin has been doing the misleading by taking Kavanaugh’s answers out of context.
“As several colleagues have stated, and Judge Kavanaugh accurately said in his 2006 testimony, he was not involved in crafting legal policies that formed the rules governing detention of combatants,” Shah said in an emailed statement.
After meeting recently with Kavanaugh, Durbin said the judge “acknowledged that he was involved in conversations involving enemy combatants.”
Shah responded with a tweet saying Kavanaugh was truthful, and that the conversations Durbin referred to “were about public litigation, not the legal framework or policies that formed the rules governing detention of combatants.”
Kavanaugh’s confirmation got past a potential obstacle when libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., endorsed him last month.
Paul had cited Kavanaugh’s 2015 defense of the National Security Agency’s widescale secret collection of telephone metadata — records of callers and recipients’ phone numbers and times and durations of the calls. But after meeting with Kavanaugh, Paul said he’s confident Kavanaugh will “carefully adhere to the Constitution and will take his job to protect individual liberty seriously.”
The NSA program didn’t include capturing conversations themselves, and Kavanaugh wrote that it served “a critically important special need — preventing terrorist attacks on the United States … In my view, that critical national security need outweighs the impact on privacy occasioned by this program.”
Larry Klayman, founder of the conservative group Freedom Watch and lead plaintiff in the NSA case, said Kavanaugh approved what a U.S. district court judge had called government use of “almost Orwellian technology.”
Kavanaugh defended the NSA program in an opinion attached to a procedural ruling in which he and his colleagues agreed not to rehear the case, so there was no pressing need for him to weigh in.
University of Louisville law professor Justin Walker, a former Kavanaugh clerk, said that’s not unusual for the judge. For example, Kavanaugh added his opinion to a procedural ruling in a case that led to a Supreme Court decision for a drug suspect who had a police-placed GPS tracker on his car.
The high court found in USA vs. Antoine Jones that Jones’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated, with a majority opinion that incorporated Kavanaugh’s observation that police intruded on the defendant’s personal property: his car.
“I’ve been surprised that his one short opinion (in Klayman) has not been seen in a broader context with more perspective,” Walker said, adding that when senators study Kavanaugh’s complete record on civil liberties, “they’re going to like what they see.”
But Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to digital privacy rights, worries that “he has a very broad view of the government’s ability to do mass surveillance and specifically in the context where the government is claiming national security.”
Cohn has pursued a lawsuit alleging illegal NSA surveillance of “millions of ordinary Americans,” among cases she said could eventually reach the Supreme Court. She questions whether Kavanaugh supports “real checks and balances on the power of the executive branch” on privacy issues.
Kavanaugh discussed judicial restraint on national security in an 87-page 2010 opinion. That one went against a Yemeni citizen U.S. forces captured in Afghanistan.
“Put simply, Congress knows how to limit the executive’s authority in national security and foreign policy; there is no reason or basis for courts to strain to do so absent such congressional direction,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Vladeck pointed to such cases as Kavanaugh’s 2011 ruling for turning over a U.S. citizen linked to al-Qaida terrorism in Iraq to Iraqi authorities the man said were likely to torture him, and in 2009 joining in a 2-1 vote against plaintiffs who wanted to sue private contractors they accused of beatings, dog attacks and other abuse at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
There are still 40 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. naval base, with the possibility of more.
In a 2013 lecture, Kavanaugh talked about his appeals court’s rulings in cases involving Guantanamo detainees and counterterrorism, saying he disagreed with people who believed “the courts should be creating new rules to constrain the executive — that this new kind of war requires new rules created by the courts.”
“He’s incredibly smart; he’s a thoughtful and thorough judge,” said Vladeck. “He just has pretty exceptionally conservative views about the role of the federal courts in the kinds of cases that I work on.”
Єльченко розповів, про що Порошенко говоритиме в Генасамблеї ООН
28/08/2018
Президент України Петро Порошенко виступить під час сесії Генеральної асамблеї ООН 26 вересня, заявив постійний представник України в Організації об’єднаних націй Володимир Єльченко.
Про це Єльченко розповів у Києві під час зустрічі з журналістами в рамках щорічної XIII Наради керівників закордонних дипломатичних представництв України, відомої також як Нарада послів.
За словами дипломата, візит Порошенка до Генасамблеї триватиме з 24 по 27 вересня.
«В першу чергу, думаю, буде наголошено на тому, на чому президент наголошує постійно: що ми будемо продовжувати наполегливо вимагати, боротися за ухвалення рішення про розгортання на Донбасі миротворчої операції під мандатом ООН. Питання складне, воно давно обговорюється, але через абсолютно деструктивну позицію Росії, що не дивно, поки що не вдається знайти порозуміння хоча б базових принципів, на яких буде ця операція розгортатися», – сказав Єльченко.
Він також очікує, що президент у своєму виступі згадає Голодомор. Восени цього року Україна відзначатиме 85-ту річницю трагедії, і Єльченко очікує, що Київ буде домагатися схвалення спеціальної декларації Генеральної асамблеї ООН, присвяченої Голодомору.
За словами постійного представника, Порошенко під час свого візиту до Нью-Йорку, де розташована штаб-квартира Генасамблеї, зустрінеться також із генеральним секретарем ООН, матиме низку зустрічей із представникам інших країн, а також керівниками українських організацій у США.
Єльченко також розповів про новий проект резолюції ООН, присвяченому анексованому Росією Криму. Він не став розкривати усі зміни, які передбачені в документі, однак анонсував, що, поміж іншого, резолюція врахує питання політичних в’язнів.
«В цьогорічній резолюції буде кілька нових елементів. Головний із них – це питання політв’язнів як у Криму, так і на території Росії. На жаль, переважна більшість із тих 70 умовного списку наших бранців – це якраз кримчани, починаючи, звичайно, з Олега Сенцова. В нас не було цих положень в аналогічних рішеннях, і тепер ми будемо їх включати в новий текст», – заявив дипломат.
Читайте також: «Порошенко доручив підготувати нову резолюцію щодо Криму для розгляду в ООН»
Першу резолюцію на захист територіальної цілісності України Генеральна асамблея ухвалила ще в березні 2014 року, майже одразу після початку окупації півострова.
З того часу Генасамблея кілька разів підтверджувала свою підтримку територіальної неподільності України – наприклад, ухваленням резолюції щодо прав людини в Криму у грудні 2016 року.
Однак резолюції Генасамблеї не є обов’язковими до виконання, вони декларують ставлення членів ООН до важливих світових проблем. У Раді безпеки, рішення якої обов’язкові до виконання, Росія має право вето і блокує будь-яку критику своїх дій.
…
Єльченко розповів, про що Порошенко говоритиме в Генасамблеї ООН
28/08/2018
Президент України Петро Порошенко виступить під час сесії Генеральної асамблеї ООН 26 вересня, заявив постійний представник України в Організації об’єднаних націй Володимир Єльченко.
Про це Єльченко розповів у Києві під час зустрічі з журналістами в рамках щорічної XIII Наради керівників закордонних дипломатичних представництв України, відомої також як Нарада послів.
За словами дипломата, візит Порошенка до Генасамблеї триватиме з 24 по 27 вересня.
«В першу чергу, думаю, буде наголошено на тому, на чому президент наголошує постійно: що ми будемо продовжувати наполегливо вимагати, боротися за ухвалення рішення про розгортання на Донбасі миротворчої операції під мандатом ООН. Питання складне, воно давно обговорюється, але через абсолютно деструктивну позицію Росії, що не дивно, поки що не вдається знайти порозуміння хоча б базових принципів, на яких буде ця операція розгортатися», – сказав Єльченко.
Він також очікує, що президент у своєму виступі згадає Голодомор. Восени цього року Україна відзначатиме 85-ту річницю трагедії, і Єльченко очікує, що Київ буде домагатися схвалення спеціальної декларації Генеральної асамблеї ООН, присвяченої Голодомору.
За словами постійного представника, Порошенко під час свого візиту до Нью-Йорку, де розташована штаб-квартира Генасамблеї, зустрінеться також із генеральним секретарем ООН, матиме низку зустрічей із представникам інших країн, а також керівниками українських організацій у США.
Єльченко також розповів про новий проект резолюції ООН, присвяченому анексованому Росією Криму. Він не став розкривати усі зміни, які передбачені в документі, однак анонсував, що, поміж іншого, резолюція врахує питання політичних в’язнів.
«В цьогорічній резолюції буде кілька нових елементів. Головний із них – це питання політв’язнів як у Криму, так і на території Росії. На жаль, переважна більшість із тих 70 умовного списку наших бранців – це якраз кримчани, починаючи, звичайно, з Олега Сенцова. В нас не було цих положень в аналогічних рішеннях, і тепер ми будемо їх включати в новий текст», – заявив дипломат.
Читайте також: «Порошенко доручив підготувати нову резолюцію щодо Криму для розгляду в ООН»
Першу резолюцію на захист територіальної цілісності України Генеральна асамблея ухвалила ще в березні 2014 року, майже одразу після початку окупації півострова.
З того часу Генасамблея кілька разів підтверджувала свою підтримку територіальної неподільності України – наприклад, ухваленням резолюції щодо прав людини в Криму у грудні 2016 року.
Однак резолюції Генасамблеї не є обов’язковими до виконання, вони декларують ставлення членів ООН до важливих світових проблем. У Раді безпеки, рішення якої обов’язкові до виконання, Росія має право вето і блокує будь-яку критику своїх дій.
…
Представництво України при СНД закрилося в серпні – голова виконкому організації
28/08/2018
Представництво України при статутних органах Співдружності Незалежних Держав (СНД) було закрито в серпні, заявив голова Виконавчого комітету – виконавчий секретар СНД Сергій Лебедєв 28 серпня у Мінську, повідомляє «Інтерфакс».
Водночас голова виконкому зазначив, що контакт з Україною залишається.
«Ми здійснюємо його в Мінську через посольство України в Республіці Білорусь. Там є спеціальний співробітник», – пояснив голова виконкому СНД.
За його словами, десять років тому подібна ситуація була – тоді радник одного з посольств поєднував свою діяльність у дипмісії з представленням інтересів своєї країни при статутних органах СНД.
«Я все-таки сподіваюся, що Україна збереже свою присутність у Співдружності», – наголосив С.Лебедєв.
При цьому він заявив, що Україні буде направлене запрошення для участі в засіданні ради глав урядів СНД, яке відбудеться в Астані 2 листопада.
«Україна не вийшла зі складу Співдружності, вона де-юре залишається державою-учасницею, тому ми всі документи їй направляємо і запрошення», – наголосив Сергій Лебедєв.
Читайте також: СНД: прощання України з порожнечею
19 травня Президент України Петро Порошенко підписав указ, яким увів в дію рішення Ради національної безпеки і оборони України про остаточне припинення участі України у роботі статутних органів Співдружності незалежних держав (СНД).
Україна не є державою-членом СНД (Співдружність незалежних держав – організація, яка складається з деяких колишніх радянських республік), має статус держави-засновниці та держави-учасниці СНД. Після того, як СНД усунулася від схвалення політичних рішень щодо анексії Криму, з квітня 2014 року співпраця України в рамках СНД зведена до мінімуму.
…
Представництво України при СНД закрилося в серпні – голова виконкому організації
28/08/2018
Представництво України при статутних органах Співдружності Незалежних Держав (СНД) було закрито в серпні, заявив голова Виконавчого комітету – виконавчий секретар СНД Сергій Лебедєв 28 серпня у Мінську, повідомляє «Інтерфакс».
Водночас голова виконкому зазначив, що контакт з Україною залишається.
«Ми здійснюємо його в Мінську через посольство України в Республіці Білорусь. Там є спеціальний співробітник», – пояснив голова виконкому СНД.
За його словами, десять років тому подібна ситуація була – тоді радник одного з посольств поєднував свою діяльність у дипмісії з представленням інтересів своєї країни при статутних органах СНД.
«Я все-таки сподіваюся, що Україна збереже свою присутність у Співдружності», – наголосив С.Лебедєв.
При цьому він заявив, що Україні буде направлене запрошення для участі в засіданні ради глав урядів СНД, яке відбудеться в Астані 2 листопада.
«Україна не вийшла зі складу Співдружності, вона де-юре залишається державою-учасницею, тому ми всі документи їй направляємо і запрошення», – наголосив Сергій Лебедєв.
Читайте також: СНД: прощання України з порожнечею
19 травня Президент України Петро Порошенко підписав указ, яким увів в дію рішення Ради національної безпеки і оборони України про остаточне припинення участі України у роботі статутних органів Співдружності незалежних держав (СНД).
Україна не є державою-членом СНД (Співдружність незалежних держав – організація, яка складається з деяких колишніх радянських республік), має статус держави-засновниці та держави-учасниці СНД. Після того, як СНД усунулася від схвалення політичних рішень щодо анексії Криму, з квітня 2014 року співпраця України в рамках СНД зведена до мінімуму.
…
Демократія має недоліки – посол України у Великій Британії прокоментувала антиукраїнську пропаганду
28/08/2018
«Протистояння буде продовжуватись»
…
Tributes for McCain Pour in, Trump Reaction Criticized
28/08/2018
A group of current and former U.S. officials from across the political spectrum is set to take part in Saturday’s memorial service for Senator John McCain, one of the last in a string of services honoring the longtime lawmaker who died Saturday at the age of 81.
The service at the National Cathedral in Washington will feature eulogies by former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Former Senator Joseph Lieberman will also speak.
Serving as pallbearers will be former Vice President Joe Biden, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Senators Gary Hart, Russ Feingold and Phil Gramm.
McCain will be buried Sunday at his college alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
The tributes will start however in Arizona, the state he represented first in the House of Representatives for two terms beginning in 1983 before moving to the Senate in 1987. McCain will lie in state in the Arizona State Capitol on Wednesday.
Since his death, world leaders and McCain’s former colleagues in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, have shared their favorite memories of McCain, and extolled his status as a senior statesman on the world stage. They have remembered his military service as a naval aviator, especially his valor in enduring beatings and torture during 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war at the hands of North Vietnamese captors at the height of the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
But U.S. President Donald Trump, who frequently engaged in political taunts with McCain and three years ago said McCain was only deemed a hero because he was captured as a POW, was criticized after his initial reactions to McCain’s death only expressed condolences to his family and didn’t mention his military service or political career.
The White House, according to a Washington Post report Monday, prepared a statement extolling McCain’s life and calling him a hero, but Trump rejected issuing it.
Flags at the White House were lowered to half-staff over the weekend in McCain’s honor, but back at full-staff on Monday. Trump ignored reporters’ repeated questions about McCain at White House gatherings on Monday, but late Monday afternoon the flags were lowered again to half-staff.
At the same time, the White House released a statement from the president in which Trump said that, despite differences on policy and politics, he respects McCain’s service to the U.S. and ordered flags be flown at half-staff until his internment.
The statement also said Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence to offer an address at a ceremony honoring McCain on Friday, and that three cabinet members represent the Trump administration at services for McCain later this week.
At a dinner Monday night, Trump included a brief mention of McCain in his remarks, saying “we very much appreciate everything that Senator McCain has done for our country.”
As he prepared for the end of his life, McCain said he did not want Trump at his funeral, instead favoring attendance by Pence, with whom he served in Congress.
McCain, even as he neared death, disparaged Trump’s presidency, rebuking the U.S. leader for his seeming embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position at last month’s Helsinki summit that Russia had not meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump, when he returned to Washington, altered his stance, but almost daily assails the investigation into the election interference.
“The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate,” McCain said at the time. “But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.”
Previously, the White House posted tributes from numerous Trump officials praising McCain, who as the Republican nominee, lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama. The tributes singled out McCain’s military service and heroism as a POW and his independence as a political leader.
All five living former U.S. presidents issued statements praising McCain.
Outside the United States, world leaders lauded McCain’s role and presence abroad.
“John McCain was a true American hero,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “He devoted his entire life to his country. His voice will be missed. Our respectful thoughts go to his beloved ones.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May said McCain “embodied the idea of service over self.”
McCain for years has promoted closer ties between Vietnam, which imprisoned him, and the United States.
WATCH: John McCain obit
On Monday, Vietnam Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh wrote in a condolence book at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, “It was he who took the lead in significantly healing the wounds of war, and normalizing and promoting the comprehensive Vietnam-U.S. partnership.”
A monument to McCain on the shores of the Hanoi lake where was he was captured after his plane was shot down in 1967 has turned into a de facto shrine to him as news of his death reached Vietnam. Flowers, incense, flags and other tributes to McCain have been laid there.
…
Tributes for McCain Pour in, Trump Reaction Criticized
28/08/2018
A group of current and former U.S. officials from across the political spectrum is set to take part in Saturday’s memorial service for Senator John McCain, one of the last in a string of services honoring the longtime lawmaker who died Saturday at the age of 81.
The service at the National Cathedral in Washington will feature eulogies by former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Former Senator Joseph Lieberman will also speak.
Serving as pallbearers will be former Vice President Joe Biden, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Senators Gary Hart, Russ Feingold and Phil Gramm.
McCain will be buried Sunday at his college alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
The tributes will start however in Arizona, the state he represented first in the House of Representatives for two terms beginning in 1983 before moving to the Senate in 1987. McCain will lie in state in the Arizona State Capitol on Wednesday.
Since his death, world leaders and McCain’s former colleagues in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, have shared their favorite memories of McCain, and extolled his status as a senior statesman on the world stage. They have remembered his military service as a naval aviator, especially his valor in enduring beatings and torture during 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war at the hands of North Vietnamese captors at the height of the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
But U.S. President Donald Trump, who frequently engaged in political taunts with McCain and three years ago said McCain was only deemed a hero because he was captured as a POW, was criticized after his initial reactions to McCain’s death only expressed condolences to his family and didn’t mention his military service or political career.
The White House, according to a Washington Post report Monday, prepared a statement extolling McCain’s life and calling him a hero, but Trump rejected issuing it.
Flags at the White House were lowered to half-staff over the weekend in McCain’s honor, but back at full-staff on Monday. Trump ignored reporters’ repeated questions about McCain at White House gatherings on Monday, but late Monday afternoon the flags were lowered again to half-staff.
At the same time, the White House released a statement from the president in which Trump said that, despite differences on policy and politics, he respects McCain’s service to the U.S. and ordered flags be flown at half-staff until his internment.
The statement also said Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence to offer an address at a ceremony honoring McCain on Friday, and that three cabinet members represent the Trump administration at services for McCain later this week.
At a dinner Monday night, Trump included a brief mention of McCain in his remarks, saying “we very much appreciate everything that Senator McCain has done for our country.”
As he prepared for the end of his life, McCain said he did not want Trump at his funeral, instead favoring attendance by Pence, with whom he served in Congress.
McCain, even as he neared death, disparaged Trump’s presidency, rebuking the U.S. leader for his seeming embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position at last month’s Helsinki summit that Russia had not meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump, when he returned to Washington, altered his stance, but almost daily assails the investigation into the election interference.
“The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate,” McCain said at the time. “But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.”
Previously, the White House posted tributes from numerous Trump officials praising McCain, who as the Republican nominee, lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama. The tributes singled out McCain’s military service and heroism as a POW and his independence as a political leader.
All five living former U.S. presidents issued statements praising McCain.
Outside the United States, world leaders lauded McCain’s role and presence abroad.
“John McCain was a true American hero,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “He devoted his entire life to his country. His voice will be missed. Our respectful thoughts go to his beloved ones.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May said McCain “embodied the idea of service over self.”
McCain for years has promoted closer ties between Vietnam, which imprisoned him, and the United States.
WATCH: John McCain obit
On Monday, Vietnam Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh wrote in a condolence book at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, “It was he who took the lead in significantly healing the wounds of war, and normalizing and promoting the comprehensive Vietnam-U.S. partnership.”
A monument to McCain on the shores of the Hanoi lake where was he was captured after his plane was shot down in 1967 has turned into a de facto shrine to him as news of his death reached Vietnam. Flowers, incense, flags and other tributes to McCain have been laid there.
…
Balkan, Caucasus Nations Mourn Loss of Close Friend McCain
28/08/2018
The death of Senator John McCain after a year-long battle with brain cancer has drawn an outpouring of condolences from every corner of the globe, some of the most poignant and diverse of which came from southeastern Europe, where the Arizona Republican’s unique brand of personal diplomacy forged bonds with democratic leaders and irritated illiberal regimes.
Known for packing Congressional recesses with extensive global travels, McCain, a war hero, statesman, and international human rights advocate, used his office to shed light on conflicts underreported by major Western news outlets.
“If I learned one thing from John it’s that you cannot protect America sitting in Washington,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who accompanied McCain on nearly 50 trips to Iraqi and Afghan war zones, told Josh Rogin of The Washington Post. “You can’t learn how this world works watching cable news.”
His August 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “We Are All Georgians”—published upon the ceasefire that followed Russia’s invasion of Georgia’s breakaway enclave of Abkhazia—was a dire warning against Western diplomatic complacency.
“For anyone who thought that stark international aggression was a thing of the past, the last week must have come as a startling wake-up call,” he said of the first major cross-border military invasion on European soil in nearly half a century. “The world has learned at great cost the price of allowing aggression against free nations to go unchecked.”
Penned in the latter stages of his last failed presidential bid, the editorial proved prescient in Ukraine upon Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“Sad news for all Ukrainian people—a great friend of Ukraine, Senator John McCain, has died,” tweeted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, whose nation routinely hosted the U.S. legislator.
“We will never forget his invaluable contribution to the development of democracy and freedom in Ukraine and the support of our state.”
Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman lauded McCain as “a real friend and the embodiment of a principled politician,” and Oleksandr Turchynov, Ukraine’s Secretary of National Security and Defense, credited McCain with Kyiv’s ongoing U.S. aid.
“It was thanks to his efforts that Ukraine finally began to receive military aid from the U.S. He was strong and honest person, he always professed his beliefs. We will always remember,” he tweeted.
Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili called the Arizona senator “a national hero of Georgia whom our people will never forget.”
Margvelashvili’s top diplomat, Davit Zalkaliani, called McCain “a defender of small countries worldwide, fighting for freedom, peace, security and democracy,” echoing sentiments conveyed by Georgia’s ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who issued a video condolence calling McCain’s passage “an unbelievable loss for Georgia, and a very huge lost for the world.”
“If 1/3 of the leaders of the west had such a strong willpower [and] bravery, no Russian aggression would have followed in Ukraine and Syria,” tweeted Grigol Vashadze, a presidential candidate for Tbilisi’s opposition United National Movement.
In Moscow, often the target of McCain’s ire, social media commemorations by state officials ranged from stoically frank to outright pugnacious.
“He was neither a friend nor ally of Russia, on the contrary, he was our ardent opponent,” said Russian parliamentarian Leonid Slutsky, a subject of U.S. sanctions, according to The Washington Post. “McCain was an outstanding American hawk.”
Russian legislator Alexei Pushkov used McCain’s own words to ridicule the late senator’s calls to oust Syrian autocrat Bashar al Assad.
“‘Gaddafi is on the way out, next in line with Bashar Assad,’ John McCain said 7 years ago, in August 2011,” wrote Pushkov. “Assad’s overthrow and death did not wait for McCain. Politics and fate decided otherwise. McCain’s plans to restructure the world under the total hegemony of the United States will not come true.”
McCain’s support for expanding NATO by adding members from eastern Europe – some former Warsaw Pact nations while under Soviet control – won him friends there as well.
“The Senator’s bravery and wisdom were inspiring for Montenegro and a big voice of support in the period when we were making democratic progress towards NATO membership,” said Prime Minister Duško Markovic in an official statement. “Senator John McCain was first of all a sincere friend of Montenegro and we will be forever grateful to him.”
Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who is currently pushing for the passage of a referendum that would open the doors to NATO membership, posted comments on Facebook, lamenting that the world has “lost one of the most dedicated politicians who truly believed in democracy.”
Bosnian Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic offered condolences to McCain’s family on Twitter, while Sarajevo’s Mayor Abdulah Skaka vowed to organize a formal commemoration of the later senator.
“The Bosnian people especially remember his noble engagement to stop the Bosnian war,” Skaka said. “When he called things by their real names, when he asked for just solutions. We highly appreciate his contribution to the overall help that the U.S. provided for Bosnian people.”
“People of #Kosovo & myself join the family, friends of @SenJohnMcCain, as well as entire American nation, in mourning his passing,” tweeted Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi. “One of his last foreign trips was in 2017 in #Kosovo, when I bestowed him our highest order of merit. He was one of the last true heroes of our era.”
Albanian President Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Edi Rama said Albanians were also mourning the loss of a good friend.
“Sen. McCain was a staunch supporter of Kosovo’s freedom and independence,” he wrote on Facebook. “He was one of the main supporters of Albania joining NATO. … Albanians will be forever grateful to him.”
This story originated in VOA’s Eurasia Division.
Kenyatta: Kenya Wants to Boost Trade, Investment Partnership With US
28/08/2018
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta says his country wants to increase bilateral trade with the United States and attract more U.S. investors. U.S. President Donald Trump received Kenyatta at the White House on Monday for talks that focused on trade and security. Ahead of the talks, Kenyatta told VOA African Service in an interview that his country is battling corruption and boosting security to create the right environment for foreign investment. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…
Kenyatta: Kenya Wants to Boost Trade, Investment Partnership With US
28/08/2018
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta says his country wants to increase bilateral trade with the United States and attract more U.S. investors. U.S. President Donald Trump received Kenyatta at the White House on Monday for talks that focused on trade and security. Ahead of the talks, Kenyatta told VOA African Service in an interview that his country is battling corruption and boosting security to create the right environment for foreign investment. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…
Five Key Takeaways From Trump’s US-Mexico Trade Deal
28/08/2018
The United States and Mexico agreed on Monday to a sweeping trade deal that pressures Canada to accept new terms on autos trade, dispute settlement and agriculture to keep the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the White House was ready to notify the U.S. Congress by Friday of President Donald Trump’s intent to sign the bilateral document, but that it was open to Canada joining the pact.
The 24-year-old NAFTA is a trilateral deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico that underpins $1.2 trillion in North American Trade.
Here are some of the main issues at the heart of the negotiations:
Autos Dominate
The new deal requires 75 percent of the value of a vehicle to be produced in the United States or Mexico, up from the NAFTA threshold of 62.5 percent.
The higher threshold is aimed at keeping more parts from Asia out, boosting North American automotive manufacturing and jobs. Even if more plants are built in Mexico, jobs will grow in the United States due to high levels of integration, with studies showing that U.S. parts make up 40 percent of the value of every Mexican-built car exported to the United States.
The pact also requires greater use of U.S. and Mexican steel, aluminum, glass and plastics.
The provision started out as a U.S. demand for 85 percent regional content, with 50 percent coming from U.S. factories.
That plan was vehemently opposed by Mexico, Canada and the auto industry. It later morphed into the U.S.-Mexico deal’s requirement of 40 to 45 percent of a vehicle’s value to be made in high wage areas paying at least $16 an hour, requiring significant automotive production in the United States.
Although full automotive details have not yet been released, auto industry officials say it will allow Trump the ability to impose higher national security tariffs on vehicles that do not comply with the new thresholds.
Most Mexican auto exports are in a position to comply with the new limits, the country’s economy minister said.
No Sunset
Trump backed off from an initial U.S. demand for a “sunset” clause that would kill the pact unless it was renegotiated every five years and which businesses said would stymie long term investment in the region.
Canada and Mexico were strictly opposed to the clause.
Instead, the United States and Mexico agreed to a 16-year lifespan for NAFTA, with a review every six years that can extend the pact for 16 years more, providing more business certainty.
Dispute Settlement
Mexico agreed to eliminate a settlement system for anti-dumping disputes, NAFTA’s Chapter 19.
The move, sought by the United States, puts Canada in a difficult position because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had insisted on maintaining Chapter 19 as a way to fight U.S. duties on softwood lumber, paper and other products that it views as unfair. Ottawa now has less than a week to decide to accept a deal without that provision.
A settlement system for disputes between investors and states was scaled back, now only for expropriation, favoritism for local firms and state-dominated sectors such as oil, power and infrastructure.
Agriculture, Labor
The new deal will keep tariffs on agricultural products traded between the United States and Mexico at zero and seeks to support biotech and other innovations in agriculture. It lacks a previous U.S. demand to erect trade barriers to protect seasonal U.S. fruit and vegetable growers from Mexican competition.
It contains enforceable labor provisions that require Mexico to adhere to International Labor Organization labor rights standards in an effort to drive Mexican wages higher.
Now Canada
The U.S.-Mexico NAFTA deal opens the door for Canada to immediately rejoin the talks and is a major step forward in updating the accord.
Canada, which sat out the last leg of discussions while the United States and Mexico ironed out their bilateral differences, is now pressured to agree to the new terms on auto trade and other issues to remain part of the three-nation pact.
Trump has presented this as a bilateral deal and threatened Canada with car tariffs. Some lawmakers have said that a bilateral deal would face a higher vote threshold in Congress because the NAFTA fast-track negotiating authority law calls for a trilateral agreement.
…
Five Key Takeaways From Trump’s US-Mexico Trade Deal
28/08/2018
The United States and Mexico agreed on Monday to a sweeping trade deal that pressures Canada to accept new terms on autos trade, dispute settlement and agriculture to keep the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the White House was ready to notify the U.S. Congress by Friday of President Donald Trump’s intent to sign the bilateral document, but that it was open to Canada joining the pact.
The 24-year-old NAFTA is a trilateral deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico that underpins $1.2 trillion in North American Trade.
Here are some of the main issues at the heart of the negotiations:
Autos Dominate
The new deal requires 75 percent of the value of a vehicle to be produced in the United States or Mexico, up from the NAFTA threshold of 62.5 percent.
The higher threshold is aimed at keeping more parts from Asia out, boosting North American automotive manufacturing and jobs. Even if more plants are built in Mexico, jobs will grow in the United States due to high levels of integration, with studies showing that U.S. parts make up 40 percent of the value of every Mexican-built car exported to the United States.
The pact also requires greater use of U.S. and Mexican steel, aluminum, glass and plastics.
The provision started out as a U.S. demand for 85 percent regional content, with 50 percent coming from U.S. factories.
That plan was vehemently opposed by Mexico, Canada and the auto industry. It later morphed into the U.S.-Mexico deal’s requirement of 40 to 45 percent of a vehicle’s value to be made in high wage areas paying at least $16 an hour, requiring significant automotive production in the United States.
Although full automotive details have not yet been released, auto industry officials say it will allow Trump the ability to impose higher national security tariffs on vehicles that do not comply with the new thresholds.
Most Mexican auto exports are in a position to comply with the new limits, the country’s economy minister said.
No Sunset
Trump backed off from an initial U.S. demand for a “sunset” clause that would kill the pact unless it was renegotiated every five years and which businesses said would stymie long term investment in the region.
Canada and Mexico were strictly opposed to the clause.
Instead, the United States and Mexico agreed to a 16-year lifespan for NAFTA, with a review every six years that can extend the pact for 16 years more, providing more business certainty.
Dispute Settlement
Mexico agreed to eliminate a settlement system for anti-dumping disputes, NAFTA’s Chapter 19.
The move, sought by the United States, puts Canada in a difficult position because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had insisted on maintaining Chapter 19 as a way to fight U.S. duties on softwood lumber, paper and other products that it views as unfair. Ottawa now has less than a week to decide to accept a deal without that provision.
A settlement system for disputes between investors and states was scaled back, now only for expropriation, favoritism for local firms and state-dominated sectors such as oil, power and infrastructure.
Agriculture, Labor
The new deal will keep tariffs on agricultural products traded between the United States and Mexico at zero and seeks to support biotech and other innovations in agriculture. It lacks a previous U.S. demand to erect trade barriers to protect seasonal U.S. fruit and vegetable growers from Mexican competition.
It contains enforceable labor provisions that require Mexico to adhere to International Labor Organization labor rights standards in an effort to drive Mexican wages higher.
Now Canada
The U.S.-Mexico NAFTA deal opens the door for Canada to immediately rejoin the talks and is a major step forward in updating the accord.
Canada, which sat out the last leg of discussions while the United States and Mexico ironed out their bilateral differences, is now pressured to agree to the new terms on auto trade and other issues to remain part of the three-nation pact.
Trump has presented this as a bilateral deal and threatened Canada with car tariffs. Some lawmakers have said that a bilateral deal would face a higher vote threshold in Congress because the NAFTA fast-track negotiating authority law calls for a trilateral agreement.
…
Mexico’s Next Leader: NAFTA Deal Preserves Energy ‘Sovereignty’
28/08/2018
Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador welcomed a deal between Mexico and the United States to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that he said preserved Mexican “sovereignty” in the energy sector.
The U.S.-Mexico deal was announced by U.S. President Trump on Monday, putting pressure on Canada to agree to new terms and details that were only starting to emerge. Lopez Obrador said it was important that Canada be part of the deal.
Lopez Obrador, who is scheduled to take office on Dec. 1, said Trump “understood our position” and accepted his incoming administration’s proposals on the energy sector. The text of the new agreement has not yet been made public.
“We put the emphasis on defending national sovereignty on the energy issue and it was achieved,” Lopez Obrador told reporters after arriving in the southern state of Chiapas.
“We are satisfied because our sovereignty was saved. Mexico reserves the right to reform its constitution, its energy laws, and it was established that Mexico’s oil and natural resources belong to our nation,” he said.
Lopez Obrador opposed a constitutional change pushed through by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto that opened production and exploration in the energy sector to private capital.
Mexico has already awarded more than 100 oil exploration and production contracts to private companies.
Lopez Obrador has said he would pour resources into state oil company Pemex while still respecting private sector contracts, as long as a review does not find evidence of corruption.
He is expected to slow down or stall the process of offering more contracts to private players.
Jesus Seade, Lopez Obrador’s designated chief NAFTA negotiator, participated in the latest talks between the current Mexican administration and the U.S. Trade Representative to strike the new NAFTA agreement.
Seade said on Monday that both Pena Nieto’s team and the United States had agreed to change language in a draft proposal of the NAFTA overhaul on energy that had previously been a “cut and paste” from the text of Mexico’s energy reform.
The new language still preserved the same ideas and was consistent with Pena Nieto’s reform, Seade said, adding that Lopez Obrador was not seeking to change the legal framework for private energy projects in Mexico.
While the new administration planned to increase production at Pemex, Seade told a news conference in Washington “there will be areas where cooperation with the private sector is needed.”
…
Dumbo Flies Off for $483,000 in $8.3 Million Disneyland Auction
27/08/2018
An auction of Disneyland theme park vehicles, props and artifacts that turned into a Los Angeles attraction in its own right raised more than $8.3 million, organizers said Monday.
An original Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride car sold for $483,000 — more than four times the pre-sale estimate — while magician David Copperfield nabbed a neon letter D from the Disneyland hotel for $86,250, auctioneers Van Eaton Galleries said.
The 900-item collection was so vast that organizers and collector Richard Kraft staged a “That’s From Disneyland” public exhibit for the month of August in a former sporting goods store in suburban Los Angeles that was visited by tens of thousands of people. One couple even got married there.
Kraft, a Hollywood agent, began collecting 25 years ago spurred by nostalgia for his visits with his late brother to Disneyland in southern California. He kept many of the items, including the Dumbo car, in his own home.
“When I finally decided to let it go it became much more about throwing a grand Bon Voyage party to those magical artifacts than about making projections about their worth,” Kraft said in a statement after the two-day sale at the weekend.
“I’m still in a state of shock that Dumbo, Jose the talking parrot and trash cans from Disneyland could make me feel as if I won the lottery,” he added.
Jose, an animatronic bird from the Tiki Room, sold for $425,000 and the auction shattered several records for Disneyland posters and theme park signs. A Skyway gondola original vehicle from the 1950s, which sold for $621,000, set a new auction record for a Disneyland ride, Van Eaton Galleries said.
Kraft said he will donate a portion of the proceeds to two organizations benefiting children who, like his 4-year-old daughter Daisy, suffer from the rare genetic disorder Coffin-Siris Syndrome, and other special needs.
…
Dumbo Flies Off for $483,000 in $8.3 Million Disneyland Auction
27/08/2018
An auction of Disneyland theme park vehicles, props and artifacts that turned into a Los Angeles attraction in its own right raised more than $8.3 million, organizers said Monday.
An original Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride car sold for $483,000 — more than four times the pre-sale estimate — while magician David Copperfield nabbed a neon letter D from the Disneyland hotel for $86,250, auctioneers Van Eaton Galleries said.
The 900-item collection was so vast that organizers and collector Richard Kraft staged a “That’s From Disneyland” public exhibit for the month of August in a former sporting goods store in suburban Los Angeles that was visited by tens of thousands of people. One couple even got married there.
Kraft, a Hollywood agent, began collecting 25 years ago spurred by nostalgia for his visits with his late brother to Disneyland in southern California. He kept many of the items, including the Dumbo car, in his own home.
“When I finally decided to let it go it became much more about throwing a grand Bon Voyage party to those magical artifacts than about making projections about their worth,” Kraft said in a statement after the two-day sale at the weekend.
“I’m still in a state of shock that Dumbo, Jose the talking parrot and trash cans from Disneyland could make me feel as if I won the lottery,” he added.
Jose, an animatronic bird from the Tiki Room, sold for $425,000 and the auction shattered several records for Disneyland posters and theme park signs. A Skyway gondola original vehicle from the 1950s, which sold for $621,000, set a new auction record for a Disneyland ride, Van Eaton Galleries said.
Kraft said he will donate a portion of the proceeds to two organizations benefiting children who, like his 4-year-old daughter Daisy, suffer from the rare genetic disorder Coffin-Siris Syndrome, and other special needs.
…