Month: August 2019

The U.S.-China trade war intensified Thursday after President Donald Trump said he would impose an additional 10 percent tariff on some Chinese products, one day after the two superpowers agreed to continue trade talks next month.

“Trade talks are continuing, and during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country, Trump tweeted. “This does not include the 250 Billion Dollars already Tariffed at 25%.”

Trump also accused China of failing to purchase more U.S. agricultural products and halting the sale of opioid fentanyl to the U.S. “China agreed to … buy agricultural product from the U.S. in large quantities, but did not do so,” he said. “Additionally, my friend President Xi said that he would stop the sale of Fentanyl to the United States — this never happened, and many Americans continue to die.”

While the previous rounds of tariffs have primarily targeted industrial products, the new round of tariffs will target consumer products such as cell phones and apparel.

Trump’s latest salvo came one day after the latest round of trade talks between U.S. and Chinese negotiators ended in Shanghai with an agreement to meet again in September in the U.S.

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The chairman of Pakistan’s Senate has survived a no-confidence vote that has opponents alleging political interference.

At the start of the proceedings Thursday in Islamabad, opposition lawmakers seeking Sadiq Sanjrani’s removal from office had 64 votes in their favor. In a secret ballot a short time later, however, only 50 senators voted to oust him — just short of the 53 needed. Five votes were rejected.

100 senators vote

Pakistan’s Senate comprises 103 members. Of that number, 100 voted. The opposition sought the vote to put pressure on the government. All legislation, except the budget, has to be passed by both houses of parliament. The chairman can play a major role in which legislation is put forward. 

Leading English-language newspaper DAWN called the outcome a “shock victory.” Opposition leaders accused the government of “horse-trading,” using a term that means buying votes, or influence-peddling, in Pakistan.

Rejecting the allegations, Senator Faisal Javed of the Pakistan Justice Movement (the ruling PTI), described the outcome as an end to the dynastic politics of the two leading opposition parties — the Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PMLN. Both parties are led by relatives of their founding members.  

“Senators … voted according to their conscience … sending a message that senators won’t behave like slaves any longer,” Javed said.  

Senators defy own parties

Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said the senators who voted against their own parties “rejected their leadership’s corruption.”

Shehbaz Sharif, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Pakistan’s lower house of parliament, blamed the outcome on money changing hands.

“Those who sold their souls and weakened democracy today, we have decided we will identify them and expose them,” he said in a joint press conference with multiple opposition parties. 

The chairman of the opposition PPP, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, echoed similar sentiments, criticizing the vote as an “open attack on a symbol of federation—the Senate.  Zardari, the son of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, pledged to identify the 14 senators who, in his words, “put a dagger in their party’s back.” 

The opposition contends the five votes that were rejected were deliberately cast in a faulty manner.  

Meanwhile, Hasil Bizenjo, the opposition candidate for Senate chairman, blamed his loss on Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

“This is a game played by ISI. If today we have lost, we have lost because of ISI,” he said.  

No comment from military

Pakistan’s military is often accused of interfering in politics, mostly through the ISI. VOA reached out to the military’s media wing but received no response.

Several members of the ruling PTI rejected the idea that anyone interfered in Thursday’s process. 

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Poland on Thursday scrapped its personal income tax for young employees earning less than $22,000 a year, as part of a drive to reverse a brain drain and demographic decline that’s dimming the prospects of a country that is otherwise experiencing strong economic growth.

A new law by the right-wing government took effect Thursday, slashing the personal income tax from 18 percent to zero for workers under the age of 26 below the income threshold. It is expected to boost the earnings of nearly 2 million Poles at home, and the government hopes it will also persuade young Poles working abroad to return home.  

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently said he hoped it would “prevent a further loss, a bleeding of the population that is especially painful for a nation, a society, when it concerns the young generation.”  

But there were strong doubts if the tax relief would stop the drain of talented and educated young Poles to London, Berlin and other cities that offer higher wages and other opportunities.

”I do not think it would stop me and my peers from leaving,” said Paulina Rokicka, a 19-year-old in Warsaw who works part-time at a TV station. “It seems to me that we will want to leave [anyway] because there are better perspectives abroad than in Poland.”

Introduced ahead of fall parliamentary elections, the exemption is part of a larger package of social benefits that has earned the government strong voter support but raised worries about strains on state finances. They include cash bonuses to families with children and a one-off payment to pensioners.

Morawiecki said that some 1.5 million Poles, a number comparable to the population of Warsaw, have emigrated since the nation of 38 million joined the European Union in 2004. Some other estimates have put that number at 2 million but it is hard to pin down exactly due to the large number of those who go back and forth.

While wages still are far lower than in the West, Poland’s economy is growing at around 4.5% and unemployment had dipped below 6%. In order to fill labor shortages companies have turned to hiring migrants, mostly Ukrainians, some 2 million of whom are estimated to be working in Poland.

The government says it is focusing on innovation where young inventive minds are highly valued.      

Morawiecki recently urged a gathering of young people to “stay here, to take your future in your own hands and be enterprising.”

The government estimates the program will cost the budget some 2 billion zlotys ($519 million) a year.  

Pawel Jurek, the Finance Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press on Thursday that young Poles will now have more money left in their bank accounts to allow them to start families earlier. But he said the most important aim is to keep professionals in the country.

Maciej Biernacki, another young employee in Warsaw, also voiced doubts that the tax relief would sway many people, calling it only “one small” element that would be considered in people’s life decisions. More important, he said, are issues like business predictability and how the country is run.

”I doubt that this kind of exemption would make anyone stay here in the country if he hesitates about whether to leave or stay,” the 25-year-old public relations manager told the AP.

A recent survey by the National Bank of Poland showed that some 15 percent of Polish emigres would be willing to return home, especially from Britain, where the prospect of a hard Brexit threatens economic pain.

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U.S. rapper A$AP Rocky is expected to give testimony in a Swedish court Thursday on the second day of his assault trial after he and two of his entourage were accused of punching and kicking a teenager.

The 30-year-old performer, producer and model, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, pleaded not guilty to a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm on the first day of the trial Tuesday. His lawyer told the court he acted in self-defense.

Mayers was detained July 3 in connection with a brawl outside a hamburger restaurant in Stockholm June 30 and later charged with assault.

On Tuesday, prosecutor Daniel Suneson showed video from security cameras and witnesses’ mobile phones and said following an altercation Mayers threw 19-year-old Mustafa Jafari to the ground, after which he and two of his entourage kicked and punched him.

The prosecutor said a bottle was used to hit Jafari, who suffered cuts and bruises.

Jafari told the court he was pushed and grabbed by the neck by Mayers’ bodyguard outside the restaurant and followed the rapper’s group to get back his headphones. He said he was then hit on the head with a bottle and kicked and punched while on the ground.

If convicted, the accused could face up to two years in jail.

The case has drawn huge media attention, forcing the trial to be moved to a secure courtroom.

Celebrities, including Kim Kardashian and Rod Stewart, have leaped to Mayers’ defense and U.S. President Donald Trump asked Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to help free Mayers.

Sweden’s judiciary is independent of the political system, and Lofven has said he will not influence the rapper’s case.

Mayers, best known for his song “Praise the Lord,” was in Stockholm for a concert. He has canceled several shows across Europe because of his detention.

The trial could run into a third day Friday. The verdict is expected at a later date.

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The United States does not plan to make changes to a military drill with South Korea, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday, despite a series of North Korean missile launches intended to pressure Seoul and Washington to stop joint exercises.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries are planning to stage a joint exercise in August, known as Dong Maeng, which is believed to be a slimmed down version of an annual drill once known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise, which included thousands of U.S. troops.

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles Wednesday after two similar missile tests last week, raising the stakes for U.S. and South Korean diplomats hoping to restart talks on North Korean denuclearization.

No plans to change

“No adjustment or change in plans that we’re aware of or are planning,” the U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.

It is unclear how many U.S. troops will be involved this year, but the official noted that the exercise, as in the past, would have a large computer simulated portion.

“The main thing you want to test, exercise, practice is to make decisions in a combined decision making environment because we have an integrated command structure,” the official said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met June 30, but Pyongyang has since accused Washington of breaking a promise by planning the military exercises and warned the drills could derail talks.

North Korean State news agency KCNA repeated calls for the United States and South Korea to end their “hostile” joint drills, but did not mention the missile launches.

South Korea denies promise broken

South Korea has said previously that the joint military exercise would go ahead, denying Pyongyang’s charges that holding it would breach an agreement made between Trump and Kim.

“We have to do two things: We have to give the diplomats appropriate space for their diplomacy and help create an environment that is conducive to the talks when they resume … and we have to maintain readiness,” the U.S. official said.

Newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper will be making his first official visit to Seoul, which the Pentagon said Tuesday was scheduled as part of a tour through Asia in August.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Kelly Craft, a Republican donor who is currently ambassador to Canada, as ambassador to the United Nations, despite opposition from Democrats who criticized President Donald Trump’s nominee as not having sufficient experience for the post. 

The Senate backed Craft 56 to 34, largely along party lines, moving to end seven months without a permanent U.S. envoy to the world body. 

U.N. ambassador is one of several high-level positions in the Trump administration held for months by temporary appointees as the White House struggles to deal with a chronic high turnover of top administration officials. 

The Senate last week confirmed Army Secretary Mark Esper, a former lobbyist, as secretary of defense, ending a record seven-month period in which the Pentagon lacked a permanent top official. 

This week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats announced his resignation. 

Trump nominated Craft, 57, for the U.N. post after a receiving a recommendation from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents her home state of Kentucky. 

She had faced fierce opposition from some Democrats. Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, accused Craft of lacking the “seriousness and professionalism” for the post at the world body. 

Craft, the wife of a billionaire coal industry executive, generated controversy shortly after assuming her post in Ottawa by telling the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that she believed “both sides” of the climate change debate. 

However, she acknowledged during her confirmation hearing that climate change is a global threat and pledged to recuse herself from any U.N. talks on the issue involving coal because of her husband’s position. 

Menendez on Wednesday released a report that said Craft spent the majority of her time as ambassador to Canada outside the country. 

Craft’s backers called her a tough negotiator on a trade deal with Canada and Mexico who had established decent working relationships with both Republicans and Democrats.  

Craft will have the difficult job of defending Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and navigating his criticism of the United Nations while getting global diplomats to back U.S. policies. 

Trump’s first U.N. ambassador, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, announced her resignation in October and left the position at the end of last year. 

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