Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{Scathing broadside against German chancellor came hours after EU urged Turkish leader to halt inflammatory rhetoric.}

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his rhetorical attacks on European leaders on Monday by accusing German Chancellor Angela Merkel of “supporting terrorists”.

Merkel called the accusations “clearly absurd” after Erdogan made the comments in an interview with Turkey’s A Haber TV.

“The chancellor has no intention of taking part in a game of provocation,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a brief written statement.

Erdogan – whose government is embroiled in a spiraling row with some European governments over the cancellation of political rallies on their soil ahead of an April referendum – had earlier accused Berlin of not responding to 4,500 dossiers sent by Turkey on suspects.

“Mrs Merkel, why are you hiding terrorists in your country? Why are you not doing anything?” Erdogan said. “Mrs Merkel, you are supporting terrorists.”

Erdogan did not cite specifics, but made references to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group deemed a “terrorist organisation” by the Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

The scathing broadside against Merkel came hours after the EU urged him to avoid inflammatory rhetoric in a growing standoff with Germany and the Netherlands over the blocking of Turkish ministers seeking to address rallies promoting a “Yes” vote in the April 16 referendum.

Erdogan has been seeking to harness the Turkish diaspora vote – which numbers as many as 1.4 million in Germany alone – ahead of the referendum on creating an executive presidency and scrapping the post of prime minister.

The president twice over the weekend accused NATO ally Netherlands of acting like the Nazis, comments that sparked outrage in a country bombed and occupied by German forces in World War II.

The row erupted on March 2 when local authorities in the western German town of Gaggenau cancelled a rally which Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag was set to attend, ostensibly for logistical reasons. Other local authorities followed suit, sparking fury in Ankara.

Turkey said on Monday it would suspend high-level diplomatic relations with the Netherlands after Dutch authorities also prevented Turkish ministers from speaking at rallies on Saturday.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, the government’s chief spokesman, also said Ankara might re-evaluate its deal with the EU to halt the flow of migrants from Turkish shores to Europe.

“We are doing exactly what they did to us. We are not allowing planes carrying Dutch diplomats or envoys from landing in Turkey or using our airspace,” Kurtulmus told a news conference.

Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist and visiting fellow at the Freedom Project at Wellesley College, told Al Jazeera that both sides were playing into nationalist emotions ahead of key votes in their respective countries. “Within Turkey this [dispute] has certainly stoked nationalist ambitions and nationalist feelings,” said Akyol. “And even openly President Erdogan’s supporters are saying that this is going to help them in the upcoming referendum in April.”

However, Akyol said that the dispute could ultimately be damaging for both countries.

“This is creating a big rift between Turkey and the West, and that is combined with anti-Turkish or anti-Islamic elements in European politics right now; the far-right and Geert Wilders in Holland. So we are going to a rift and I think that is bad for both sides.”

Source:Al Jazeera

{Rodrigo Duterte orders military to assert ownership of Benham Rise area to Beijing – but in a nice way.}

President Rodrigo Duterte says instructed the military to assert Philippine ownership of a large ocean region off the country’s northeastern coast where China’s survey ships were spotted last year.

However, Duterte said on Monday he ordered the military to claim the Benham Rise area in a friendly way, repeating his country has no option but to be diplomatic because it “cannot match the might of China”.

“My order to my military, you go there and tell them straight that this is ours, but I say it in friendship,” Duterte said in a news conference when asked about the issue in the Pacific Ocean.

The Philippine military spotted the Chinese survey ships suspiciously crisscrossing the Benham Rise waters from July to December last year, defence chief Delfin Lorenzana said last week.

Lorenzana said the government is considering an increase in patrols and the building of territorial markers in the offshore region, which is believed to be rich in mineral resources and a vast coral reef ecosystem.

The Chinese ships’ presence in the area was to be discussed late on Monday at a meeting between National Security Council executive members and Duterte.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it asked China through its embassy on Friday to clarify what the survey ships were doing in Benham Rise.

In 2012, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf declared Benham Rise to be part of the Philippine continental shelf, where the country has exclusive rights to fish and exploit resources, including undersea deposits of oil and gas.

{{‘Innocent passage’
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The Chinese foreign ministry has said its ships have a right to “innocent passage” through the area under international law.

Beijing and Manila have a separate long-running territorial feud in the South China Sea west of the Philippines, but tensions have eased considerably since Duterte took office in June and began reaching out to China.

He has placed the dispute on the backburner while seeking Chinese trade and economic aid, downplaying the issue during his visit to Beijing last year.

Duterte has also shelved plans made under his predecessor for joint Philippine patrols with the US Navy in disputed waters to avoid offending China.

A US Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, has been sailing on a mission to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, claimed virtually in its entirety by China.

“America wants to pick a fight there,” said Duterte, who has openly criticised US security policies. “Why would I get into a trouble in that area?”

Source:Al Jazeera

{Nonpartisan report projects that 52 million people will be uninsured by 2026 if Republican bill becomes law.}

Fourteen million Americans would lose coverage next year under a Republican plan to dismantle Obamacare, according to a government agency tasked with performing cost-benefit analyses of proposals.

The report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released on Monday, dealt a potential setback to President Donald Trump’s first major legislative initiative.

The CBO projected that 52 million people would be uninsured by 2026 if the bill became law, compared with 28 million who would not have coverage that year if the law remained unchanged.

Two House of Representatives committees have approved the legislation unveiled by Republican leaders last week that would dismantle Obamacare.

But it faces opposition from not only Democrats but also medical providers including doctors and hospitals and many conservatives.

The CBO said in its report that the Republican plan would save $337bn in government spending between 2017 and 2026.

The savings would come primarily in reduced spending for Medicaid, an assistance programme for low-income families, and an end to subsidised health insurance, two of the hallmarks of Obama’s policy.

Those changes mean that, by 2018, 14 million more people would be without insurance than if existing legislation was allowed to remain in place. That figure grows to 21 million by 2020 and 24 million by 2026, the CBO reported.

The Trump administration was quick to defend the proposal.

“We disagree strenuously with the report,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said at a briefing.

He said the plan being considered offers greater choice and puts patients and doctors in charge of healthcare, and not the federal government.

Price said numbers would remain up because people would not voluntarily leave Medicaid. However, he also noted that there would be some increase in the number of those not covered because the new law would not require health care insurance, as Obamacare does.

He also noted that the report overlooks the fact that people will have a greater choice under the Republican plan.

“They are going to be able to buy a coverage policy that they want for themselves and their family,” he said.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Izumo carrier will cruise the South China Sea with stops in Southeast Asia before heading to India for US war games.}

Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea in May, three sources said, in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War II.

The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and US naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July, the sources told Reuters news agency.

The carrier will then return to Japan in August.

“The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission,” said one of the sources with knowledge of the plan.

READ MORE: Japan’s new Defence White Paper – Turbulence ahead

“It will train with the US Navy in the South China Sea,” he added, asking not to be identified because he is not authorised to talk to the media.

The 249-metre-long Izumo is as large as Japan’s World War II-era carriers and can operate up to nine helicopters.

It resembles the amphibious assault carriers used by US Marines, but lacks their well deck for launching landing craft and other vessels.

A spokesman for Japan’s Maritime Self Defence Force declined to comment.

China claims almost all the disputed waters in the South China Sea and its growing military presence has fuelled concern in Japan and the West, with the US holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation.

Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Brunei also claim parts of the sea, which has rich fishing grounds, oil and gas deposits, and through which about $5 trillion in global sea trade passes each year.

Japan does not have any claim to the waters, but has a separate maritime dispute with China in the East China Sea.

Source:Al Jazeera