Category: Politics

{US president says trade could be a lever in getting China to take a tougher stance over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.}

US President Donald Trump held out the possibility on Sunday of using trade as a lever to secure Chinese cooperation against North Korea and suggested Washington might deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes on its own if need be.

The comments, in an interview published on Sunday by the Financial Times, appeared designed to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping in the run-up to his visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this week.

“China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone,” Trump was quoted as saying, according to an edited transcript published by the newspaper.

Asked what incentive the US had to offer China, Trump replied: “Trade is the incentive. It is all about trade.”

Asked if he would consider a “grand bargain” in which China pressured Pyongyang in return for a guarantee the US would later remove troops from the Korean peninsula, the newspaper quoted Trump as saying: “Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.”

It is not clear whether Trump’s comments will move China, which has taken steps to increase economic pressure on Pyongyang but has long been unwilling to do anything that may destabilise the North and send millions of refugees across their border.

It is also unclear what the US might do on its own to deflect North Korea from the expansion of its nuclear capabilities and from the development of missiles with ever-longer ranges and the capacity to deliver atomic warheads.

Trump’s national security aides have completed a review of US options to try to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes that includes economic and military measures but leans more towards sanctions and increased pressure on Beijing to rein in its reclusive neighbour, a US official said.

Although the option of pre-emptive military strikes on North Korea is not off the table, the review prioritises less-risky steps and “de-emphasises direct military action,” the official added, saying it was not immediately known if the National Security Council recommendations had made their way to Trump.

The White House declined comment on the recommendations.

Trump and Xi are also expected to discuss Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year, when they meet on Thursday and Friday. China claims most of the resource-rich South China Sea, while Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims on the strategic waterway.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke on Sunday with China’s top diplomat, State Councilor Yang Jiechi, about Xi’s visit “and other issues of bilateral and regional importance,” a State Department official said on condition of anonymity.

China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday about the call that Yang had described the meeting between Xi and Trump as being of “great significance” for peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large.

Tillerson told Yang that the US would do its utmost to ensure that the meeting had “positive results,” the ministry said.

Trump’s deputy national security adviser, Kathleen Troia McFarland, said there was a “real possibility” North Korea could be capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear-armed missile by the end of Trump’s four-year term, the Financial Times reported.

McFarland’s estimate appeared more pessimistic than those of many experts.

“The typical estimates are that it will take five years or so,” said Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US and a leading expert on North Korea’s nuclear programme.

Such estimates are notoriously hard to make both because of the scarcity of intelligence about North Korea and uncertainty about how high a success rate Pyongyang might want for such missiles.

John Schilling, a contributor to the “38 North” North Korea monitoring project, said Pyongyang might have missiles capable of limited strikes on the US mainland by the end of Trump’s term, but “it will most likely be a bit later than that.”

“I doubt that any missile they could put into service by the end of 2020 will be very reliable, but perhaps it doesn’t have to be – one or two successes out of six launches against the US would be a political game-changer to say the least,” Schilling said.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Right-wing Lasso says he would contest the results after partial counting showed him trailing rival Moreno.}

Right-wing opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso alleged fraud in Ecuador’s presidential runoff election and said he would contest the result after a partial count showed him losing.

Leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno had claimed victory in Sunday’s vote, bucking a shift to the right across South America as Lasso’s supporters took to the streets in protest.

“They’ve toyed with popular will, we are going to defend the will of the Ecuadoran people in the face of an attempted fraud that aims to install what would be an illegitimate government,” Lasso said.

A Moreno victory would come as a relief for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange after Lasso vowed to remove him from the Ecuadorean embassy in London if he won the runoff.

Moreno, a paraplegic former vice-president, had secured 51.07 percent of the votes compared to Lasso’s 48.93 percent, with just over 94 percent of votes counted, according to the electoral council.

It has not yet declared a winner.

Right-leaning governments have come to power in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru recently as a commodities boom ended, economies flagged and corruption scandals grew.

Lasso, a former banker, had promised to denounce embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an ally of Ecuador’s current government.

A bitter Lasso disputed the results on Sunday night.

He cited the first round of the election in February, when final results took days to come out and his supporters massed in front of the electoral council to guard against what they said were fraud attempts.

Moreno won 39.36 percent of the vote in the election’s first round on February 19, falling just short of the 40 percent and 10-point-lead necessary to win outright.

Lasso won 28.9 percent of the first round’s votes, but was expected to pick up more votes after conservative Congresswoman Cynthia Viteri, who finished third in the first round, threw her support behind him.

{{Street protests}}

On Sunday, hundreds of Lasso supporters swarmed in front of the electoral council offices in capital Quito and coastal city Guayaquil, Lasso’s hometown, chanting “no to fraud” and “no to dictatorship”.

Al Jazeera’s Daniel Schweimler, reporting from Quito, said Moreno was already celebrating victory.

“Moreno was singing along with the outgoing Rafael Correa. He’s absolutely convinced he is the president-elect,” he said.

“Both sets of supporters are out on the streets and while clashes have been reported, police are keeping both sides apart. Things are tense but relatively peaceful.”

Moreno, who has been in a wheelchair since losing the use of his legs two decades ago after being shot during a robbery, would become one of the world’s rare presidents to use a wheelchair if he takes office on May 24.

“Lenin”, as he is commonly referred to by his supporters, was already celebrating a victory that would extend a decade of leftist rule.

“From now on, let’s work for the country. All of us,” Moreno told flag-waving supporters in the mountainous capital Quito.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Voting in landmark legislative poll begins in first election since the adoption of constitutional reforms.}

Armenians started voting in landmark legislative elections for the first time since the adoption of constitutional reforms aimed at transforming the ex-Soviet country into a parliamentary republic.

Sunday’s election is expected to be a close race between the majority-wielding Republican Party of Armenia, backed by President Serzh Sarkisian, and an alliance of businessman and former world champion arm wrestler Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia party.

The poll election is a key democratic test for the small landlocked nation of 2.9 million, which has no history of transfers of power to an opposition through the ballot box.

But the campaign has already been marred by opposition claims that the government is preparing mass electoral fraud.

Ahead of the vote, the European Union delegation to Armenia and the US embassy said in a joint statement that they were “concerned by allegations of voter intimidation, attempts to buy votes, and the systemic use of administrative resources to aid certain competing parties”.

WATCH: Armenia – Divided Within?

There are also fears of violence after 10 people were killed in 2008 clashes between police and opposition supporters following the election of pro-Moscow President Sarkisian.

This time, the country aims to hold an exemplary vote to elect “a parliament trusted by society,” the president told AFP news agency in an interview in March.

He said his government “has made enormous efforts so that (Sunday’s) milestone vote is flawless”.

The polls come after constitutional amendments initiated by Sarkisian in 2015 that his opponents say were designed to keep the ruling Republican Party in power.

The changes were passed after a referendum, but they also prompted thousands to rally in protest.

The amendments will shift the country away from strong presidency to a parliamentary form of government after Sarkisian’s second and final term ends in 2018.

Two decades in power

The opposition alleges that the changes were made to allow Sarkisian, 62, to maintain his grip on power by remaining party leader after he steps down as president.

“The amendments will perpetuate the rule of Sarkisian and his Republican Party,” which has held onto power for two decades, said Aram Manukyan, an MP from the Armenian National Congress opposition party.

Sarkisian has denied the allegations and defended the changes as “part of Armenia’s democratisation process,” saying they would empower the opposition.

Ahead of the vote – in his first comments on his political future – Sarkisian said that he would remain “active” after he left office and hinted that he would keep influencing Armenia’s politics as leader of the Republican Party.

“When one is leader of a big political party, the scope of one’s responsibility and duties increase,” he said.

“As chairman of the Republican Party, I assume responsibility for my teammates,” he said when asked about his post-2018 future.

A total of five parties and four electoral blocs are running in Sunday’s vote, with 101 parliamentary seats up for grabs under a proportional representation system.

A party needs to clear a five-percent threshold to be represented in parliament, while an electoral bloc made up of several parties needs to garner at least seven percent of the vote.

Voting, which started at 04:00 GMT and ends at 16:00 GMT, will be monitored by international observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Michael Flynn, who resigned over contacts with Russian officials, wants protection against ‘unfair prosecution’.}

Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has offered to testify before congressional committees probing potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia but wants protection against “unfair prosecution,” his lawyer has said.

Flynn was forced to resign as Trump’s national security adviser in February over contacts with Russian officials.

“General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,” said a statement on Thursday from Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner.

Testimony from Flynn could help shed light on the conversations he had with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kisylak last year when he was the national security adviser for Trump’s presidential campaign.

Kelner said discussions had taken place about Flynn’s availability to testify with officials of the intelligence committees of both the US Senate and the House of Representatives.

Both committees are investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the US election campaign last year as well as possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russians.

Trump’s Russia mess: Five things to know

Flynn stepped down after revelations that he had failed to disclose talks with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office about US sanctions on Moscow and mislead Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

Questions remain about the scope of the discussions and what other contacts took place between other Trump advisers with the Russians.

Russian hacking

Earlier this week, the White House disclosed that Trump’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, met executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank, or VEB, in December.

During a US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, Democratic Senator Mark Warner alleged that Russia attempted to undermine the 2016 US presidential election with a propaganda campaign “on steroids”, using trolls and networks of hacked or infected devices to flood social media with disinformation.

US intelligence agencies have said Russia hacked emails of senior Democrats and orchestrated the release of embarrassing information in a bid to tip the presidential election in favour of Trump, whose views were seen as more in line with the Moscow’s.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denied the accusations on Thursday calling them “lies”. When asked if Russia interfered in the US vote Putin said, “Read my lips: No.”

White House spokesman Sean Spicer earlier this week downplayed questions about Russia ties .

“If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russia connection,” he said in an exchange with reporters.

The Wall Street Journal, citing officials with knowledge of the matter, reported that Flynn had sought immunity from the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence panels in exchange for his testimony. The newspaper said he had so far found no takers.

The House denied the Journal report. “Michael Flynn has not offered to testify to HPSCI in exchange for immunity,” committee spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement.

The FBI declined to comment. The Senate committee did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

Kelner’s statement did not mention the FBI.

He said Flynn “is now the target of unsubstantiated public demands by Members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated”.

Kelner said Flynn would not “submit to questioning in such a highly politicised, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution”.

Source:Al Jazeera

{The coordinated protests called by opposition leader Alexei Navalny are some of the largest in Russia since 2011-12.}

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and dozens of others have been arrested as thousands of people across Russia defied bans on rallies to protest against government corruption.

The demonstrations on Sunday were organised by Navalny, a Kremlin critic and anti-corruption campaigner, who urged people to take to the streets to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

“Don’t try to fight for me,” Navalny wrote on Twitter after police in Moscow put him in a minibus, urging people to stay with the rally. “Our issue today is the fight against corruption.”

Navalny called for the protests after publishing a detailed report this month accusing Medvedev of controlling a property empire through a shadowy network of non-profit organisations.

Medvedev, who has so far made no comments on the claims, is accused of amassing a private collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards. As the alleged luxuries include a house for raising ducks, many of the placards in the protests showed mocking images of yellow toy ducks.

The protests, which attracted crowds of hundreds or thousands in most sizeable Russian cities, were the largest coordinated outpourings of dissatisfaction in Russia since mass protests in 2011-2012.

Navalny’s website had previously said that more than 80 towns and cities across Russia would hold protests on Sunday and that authorities had not sanctioned the majority of the rallies.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow, said the “big story” of the day was the number of demonstrations taking place across Russia.

“That is rare,” he said. “This suggest that Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption message is really resonating at the moment in Russia, in a way that more generalised anti-government messages don’t.

“When people feel like the politicians above them are cheating them, that it seems is when Russians get angry and stand up and do something.”

Russian authorities had warned Navalny’s supporters on Friday not to attend the rally because the event had not been sanctioned by the city administration.

The Russian constitution allows public gatherings but recent laws have criminalised protests not authorised by city authorities, who frequently refuse to grant permission for rallies by Kremlin critics.

In the far eastern city of Vladivostok, a Reuters news agency reporter saw the arrest of at least 30 protesters at an unsanctioned rally drawing hundreds of young people to a square near the city’s railway station.

The arrests started after protesters unfurled banners reading “Corruption steals our future” and “The prime minister should answer”.

The protesters then marched to a police station to demand that those arrested be freed.

Hundreds also rallied in the city of Yekaterinburg in the industrial Urals region.

Witnesses said at least four people holding banners were arrested on the city’s Labour Square, where opposition protesters, nationalists and supporters of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party gathered.

Police said 500 to 700 people had gathered on Labour Square but did not confirm that there had been any detentions.

“Corruption affects every person. The fight against corruption can unite all people irrespective of their convictions,” 20-year-old student Ivan told Reuters, asking that his last name not be published.

Some demonstrators have protested with their faces painted green, a reference to a recent attack on Navalny when an assailant threw a green anti-septic liquid in his face.

In February, a Russian court found Navalny guilty in a retrial of a 2013 fraud case, which barred him from running for president next year.

Judge Alexei Vtyurin handed down a five-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of about $8,500 to Navalny for embezzling timber worth about $500,000.

Navalny, 40, pledged to appeal against the “politically motivated” ruling and continue with his plans of challenging President Vladimir Putin in the forthcoming presidential elections, even though the Russian law bars anyone convicted of a crime from running for a public office for 10 years.

Source:Al Jazeera