Category: Politics

Republican rivals question Marco Rubio’s readiness to be president in televised debate ahead of New Hampshire primary.

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, first-term senators on the rise in the US presidential race, faced a barrage of attacks in Saturday night’s Republican TV debate ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

Rubio exceeded expectations to finish third in the Iowa caucuses and appeared to be gaining steam heading into Tuesday’s primary.

His rise is a threat not only to frontrunners Donald Trump and Cruz but to several other candidates, including Jeb Bush, who need a strong showing in New Hampshire to stay in the campaign.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took immediate aim at Rubio on Saturday night, saying that the Florida senator has “not been involved in a consequential decision where you need to be held accountable”.

Bush, in turn, said Rubio was a gifted politician but warned voters against again putting the White House in the hands of a first-term senator: “We’ve tried it the old way, with Barack Obama and soaring rhetoric,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from the debate hall in New Hampshire, said the big story ahead of the debate was the momentum Rubio had generated after coming third in Iowa – but that made him the focus of attacks from his rivals.

“Christie attacked [Rubio] quite early on in the debate, and he never really seemed to recover,” Fisher said.

Rubio said he was proud of his service in the Senate and suggested that Obama’s “problems” were less about experience and more about ideology.

He also defended his decision to walk away from the sweeping immigration bill he originally backed in the Senate and said he would not pursue similar legislation as president.

“We can’t get that legislation passed,” Rubio said of the bill that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the US illegally.

‘Washington ethics’

Cruz, who was the winner in Iowa, also faced criticism for messages his campaign sent to voters ahead of the caucuses, saying rival Ben Carson was dropping out and urging the retired neurosurgeon’s supporters to back the Texas senator instead.

Cruz apologised for his campaign’s actions on Saturday, but not before Carson jabbed him for having “Washington ethics”. Those ethics, he said, “say if it’s legal, you do what you do to win”.

Trump was back on the debate stage after skipping the last contest before the Iowa caucuses.

After finishing second in Iowa, he sought to refocus on the core messages of his campaign, including blocking Muslims from going to the US and deporting all people in the country illegally.

Trump currently leads the polling in New Hampshire, but the debates have heavily shifted support for candidates in the past, Fisher reported.

“Marco Rubio will spend the next 72 hours scanning the poll numbers to make sure no lasting damage was done at the debate here,” Fisher added.

The debate began shortly after North Korea defied international warnings and launched a long-range rocket that the UN and others call a cover for ballistic missile test.

Asked how he would respond to North Korea’s “provocations”, Bush said he would authorise a pre-emptive strike against such rockets if it was “necessary to keep America safe”.

Cruz said he would not speculate about how he would handle the situation without a full briefing, whilst Trump said he would rely on China to “quickly and surgically” handle North Korea.

Source:Al Jazeera:Rubio and Cruz take fire at US Republican debate

Diplomatic activity surges ahead of imminent rocket launch by Pyongyang as regional tensions rise.

The United States plans to use missile defence assets to track an expected North Korean missile launch as tensions escalate over Pyongyang’s plan to fire a rocket soon.

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, however, declined to comment further on Thursday on any specific plans to position navy ships or move a large sea-based radar to the Asia Pacific region ahead of the imminent launch.

Japan has said it put its military on alert to shoot down any rocket that threatens its territory.

North Korea notified the United Nations this week of its plan to put an “earth observation satellite” into orbit sometime between February 8 and 25.

What do we really know about North Korea?

Pyongyang says it has a sovereign right to pursue a space programme, although the United States and other countries allege such launches are missile tests in disguise.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing sent its special envoy for the nuclear issue, Wu Dawei, to North Korea in what he described as “a serious situation”.

“We don’t want to see anything happen that could cause further tensions,” Wang told Hong Kong’s Phoenix Television in London after Wu returned from North Korea.

“We hope all sides, including North Korea, can meet each other halfway and should work hard together to push the North Korean nuclear issue onto the track of a negotiated resolution.”

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se on Friday held a meeting with the US, Japanese, EU and Australian ambassadors over the issue.

North Korea said the launch would be conducted in the morning one day during the announced period, and it provided coordinates for the locations where the rocket boosters and cover for the payload would drop.

Those locations are expected to be in the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula’s west coast, and in the Pacific Ocean to the east of the Philippines, Pyongyang said.

North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending an object it described as a communications satellite into orbit.

Tension has risen in North Asia since last month after Pyonyang’s fourth nuclear test, what it said was a hydrogen bomb.

President condemns “inexcusable political rhetoric” against Muslims during visit to Islamic Society of Baltimore.

President Barack Obama has made his first visit to a US mosque and condemned “inexcusable political rhetoric” against Muslim-Americans, as he tries to counter increasing levels of bias against the community.

Obama arrived at the Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday. Its campus contains a mosque and school that runs from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“So often, Muslim Americans are targeted and blamed for the acts of a few,” Obama said in an address following a meeting with representatives of the community.

“An attack on one faith, is an attack on all faiths.”

“We’ve heard inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim-Americans that has no place in our country,” he said, lauding Muslim-Americans who were sports heroes, entrepreneurs and members of the US military.

Earlier, the president met with participants including university chaplains, community activists and public-health professionals.

One of the participants, Ibtihaj Muhammad, has qualified for a spot on the US Olympic Team for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.

She will make history as the first US Olympian to compete in a headscarf.

It is the kind of effort that Muslim-Americans said they have been waiting for from America’s political and religious leaders.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has tracked a growing number of attacks on mosques and on individuals in the months following the Paris attack and the shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California.

A severed pig’s head was delivered to a mosque’s doorstep in Philadelphia. Someone attempted to set fire to a mosque in Southern California.

In a separate interview with Al Jazeera, Robert McCaw, a CAIR spokesperson, said that in 2015, the Muslim community saw “unprecedented number of attacks” on individuals and houses of worship.

Republican criticism

Meanwhile, some Republicans have criticised Obama for not linking attacks like the one in Paris to “radical Islamic terrorism”. Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Trump have voiced that concern.

Obama has said he refuses to describe the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other such groups that way because the term grants them a religious legitimacy they do not deserve.

In June 2009, just five months into his presidency, Obama toured the Sultan Hassan mosque during a visit to Cairo.

Rising Islamophobia concerns US Muslims
In a speech at Cairo University, he declared that the US would never be at war with Islam.

“America and Islam are not exclusive,” he said, and share “common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Attendees at the Baltimore mosque are predominantly of Turkish heritage, although immigrants of other nationalities also participate, according to Akbar Ahmed, an Islamic studies specialist at American University who has researched mosques around the US.

Obama “left it literally to the last” to visit a US mosque, Ahmed noted, “but better late than never”.

Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Baltimore, said Obama’s critics in the Muslim community have called the visit as “too little, too late”.

For student Mohammad Abou-Ghazala, it is not what the president says, but what his government does that matters.

“We’ve had mosques tapped, mosques infiltrated, we’ve had fake converts coming in,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It creates an entire environment of mistrust in the one place Muslims are supposed to feel totally at ease, which is the mosque.”

Source:Al Jazeera:Obama makes first visit as president to a US mosque

Protesters highlight the deal’s corporate agenda as 12 countries sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Auckland.

Auckland, New Zealand – One of the biggest and most controversial trade deals in history was signed on Thursday by ministers from the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, as hundreds of protesters hit the streets to denounce it.

Security was stepped up across Auckland for representatives who travelled here to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a deal involving 12 economies worth about $28 trillion.

New Zealand’s wine exporters welcome regional trade pact
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the deal would benefit everybody.

“The opening of our markets will enhance the lives of our people. The TPP will make new trade opportunities. It is overwhelmingly in the best interests of our countries and our citizens,” Key said.

The TPP is a free trade agreement promising to liberalise trade and investment between the 12 nations, which make up about 36 percent of the world’s GDP.

The deal – which will cut tariffs, improve access to markets and sets common ground on labour and environmental standards and intellectual property protections – was finally reached in October after five years of negotiations.

It includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam.

The TPP is supposed to ensure everyone from Vietnamese shrimpers to New Zealand dairy farmers get cheaper access to markets and bring in economic benefits.

Ministers received a traditional Maori welcome from members of the Ngati Whatua tribe – including a hongi, which involves the pressing of noses and exchange of breath.

But the welcome wasn’t as warm in downtown Auckland where hundreds of protesters from different groups gathered to rally against the deal.

Many carried flags and banners and chanted outside the Skycity convention centre where the signing took place.

‘No balance of interests’

Rowan Brooks, a protest organiser, said he was concerned about the power the agreement would give to big corporations.

“Basically it eats away at New Zealand’s sovereignty and the whole process was undemocratic… The agreement gives power to corporations and takes it away from the people,” Brooks told Al Jazeera.

Jane Kelsey, a law professor at the University of Auckland, is one of the agreement’s fiercest critics.

She said she was concerned about how the deal could be used by the US to counter China’s influence in the region.

“It’s kind of a Cold War by proxy of trade and investment agreements,” Kelsey told Al Jazeera. “And that’s a real worry because not only do the corporations who have special insights and input to this agreement get to be centre stage but there is no balance of interests.”

The deal has not only triggered protests in New Zealand but has also drawn international criticism.

Former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz said it “may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades”.

In an opinion piece for the Guardian, Stiglitz wrote: “It gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms.”

“In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new trade era of agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak,” Stiglitz wrote.

The TPP is expected to come into force within two years, once countries have completed their domestic legislative procedures.

Questions have been raised over the ratification process as it coincides with the buildup to this year’s US presidential election. But US trade representative Michael Froman is confident it will be passed by the US Congress.

“We all have our domestic processes to go through and ours is clearly laid out… I believe at the end of the day… We will have the necessary bipartisan support for it to be approved,” he said.

Source:Al Jazeera:Controversial TPP pact signed amid New Zealand protests

Government offensive intensifies around Syria’s largest city, threatening to cut off rebel supply routes in the north.

A Syrian military offensive backed by heavy Russian air strikes threatened to cut critical rebel supply lines into the northern city of Aleppo, as peace talks in Switzerland appeared to be in jeopardy on Wednesday.

The government attack north of Aleppo that began in recent days is its first major offensive there since Russian air strikes began on September 30.

Rebels described the assault as the most intense yet. One commander said opposition-held areas of Syria’s largest city were at risk of being encircled entirely by the government and allied militia, appealing to foreign states that back the rebels to send more weapons.

Chances of achieving a ceasefire at talks in Geneva appear to be receding as the government, supported by Russian air power, advances against rebels, some of them US-backed.

The refugee crisis and spread of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) through large areas of Syria, and from there to Iraq, had injected a new urgency to resolve the five-year-old Syria war.

US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Moscow to stop the bombing during the peace process. “We are beginning the talks, we are at the table and we expect a ceasefire,” he said after a meeting in Rome of countries opposed to ISIL.

The area around Aleppo safeguards a rebel supply route from Turkey into opposition-held parts of the city and stands between government-held parts of western Aleppo and the Shia villages of Nubul and al-Zahraa, which are loyal to Damascus.

“The supply routes were not cut but there is heavy bombardment of them by the jets,” said a commander in the Levant Front rebel group who gave his name as Abu Yasine. “The Russian jets are trying to hit headquarters and cut supply routes.”

The Russian jets had been working “night and day” for three days, he added, and reiterated the rebels’ long-held demand for anti-aircraft missiles to confront the assault.

“If there is no support, the regime could besiege the city of Aleppo and cut the road to the north,” said Abu Yasine, whose group is one of the rebel movements that have received military support from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, funnelled via Turkey.

Advancing government forces seized the village of Hardatnin some 10km northwest of Aleppo, building on gains of the previous day, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring body.

Another rebel commander said he had sent reinforcements to the area.

“We sent new fighters this morning, we sent heavier equipment there. It seems it will be a decisive battle in the north, God willing,” said Ahmed al-Seoud, head of a Free Syrian Army group known as Division 13.

The Russian intervention has reversed the course of the war for Damascus, which suffered a series of major defeats to rebels in western Syria last year before Moscow deployed its air force as part of an alliance with Iran.

Syria rebels face strong government threat in Aleppo

Source: Reuters:Syrian army encircles Aleppo as ceasefire talks fade