uawchild
uawchild's JournalKilling TPP would hand China 'keys to the castle': U.S. trade representative
Source: Reuters
Failure to ratify the U.S.-led sweeping trade pact TPP would hand China "the keys to the castle" on globalization and do nothing to solve the real problems underlying American anxiety over jobs, the top U.S. trade official said Thursday.
The tariff-slashing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has turned into a hot-button topic in the run-up to the Nov. 8 U.S. election, threatening to dampen support from lawmakers needed to pass a deal critics condemn as a job-killer.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said he was still optimistic Congress would pass the 12-member TPP, in part because China has been moving ahead with a trade deal of its own, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), that would boost its exports and let it set labor and environmental standards in the fast-growing Asia Pacific region.
"We're one vote away from either cementing our leadership in this region and in the global trading system or ceding it to China," Froman told reporters in Lima after attending the inauguration of Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.
"At the end of the day I don't think Congress wants to be responsible for handing the keys to the castle to China."
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-idUSKCN1090QZ
Turkey shakes up armed forces, U.S. says purges harming cooperation
Source: Reuters
President Tayyip Erdogan angrily rejected Western criticism of purges under way in Turkey's military and other state institutions after a failed coup, suggesting some in the United States were on the side of the plotters.
The purges target supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of masterminding the July 15-16 coup. Turkey's Western allies condemned the coup, in which at least 246 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured, but they have been rattled by the scale of the crackdown.
The director of U.S. national intelligence, James Clapper, said on Thursday the purges were harming the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq by sweeping away Turkish officers who had worked closely with the United States.
The head of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, said he believed some of the military figures whom the United States had worked with were in jail, drawing condemnation from Erdogan, who was speaking on Friday at a special forces headquarters in Ankara badly damaged by violence on the night of the coup.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-idUSKCN10912T
Accepting the nomination, Clinton casts herself as clear-eyed leader
Source: Reuters
U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cast herself as the steady leader at a "moment of reckoning" for America, contrasting her character with what she described as a dangerous and volatile Donald Trump.
In the biggest speech of her quarter century in politics, Clinton on Thursday accepted the Democratic presidential nomination for the Nov. 8 election with a promise to make the United States a country that worked for everyone.
"We are clear-eyed about what our country is up against. But we are not afraid," she said.
She presented a sharply more upbeat view of the country than her rival Trump offered when Republicans nominated him last week, and even turned one of Republican hero Ronald Reagan's signature phrases against the New York real-estate developer.
"He's taken the Republican Party a long way, from 'Morning in America' to 'Midnight in America,'" Clinton said. "He wants to divide us - from the rest of the world, and from each other."
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSKCN105101
Clinton-Kaine 2016
We ARE stronger together!
U.S. diplomatic strategy on South China Sea appears to founder
In the lead-up to an international court ruling on China's claims in the South China Sea this month, United States officials talked about rallying a coalition to impose "terrible" costs to Beijing's international reputation if flouted the court's decision.
But just two weeks after the July 12 announcement by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague - which at least on paper, appeared to be a humiliating defeat for China - the U.S. strategy appears to be unraveling and the court's ruling is in danger of becoming irrelevant.
Earlier this year, U.S. officials spoke repeatedly of the need for countries in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere, including the European Union, to make it clear that the decision of the court should be binding.
"We need to be ready to be very loud and vocal, in harmony together ... to say that this is international law, this is incredibly important, it is binding on all parties," Amy Searight, the then-U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia, said in February.
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Yet after the international court rejected Beijing's position, the U.S. calls for a united front appear to have made little headway, with only six countries joining Washington in insisting that the decision should be binding.
They include the Philippines, but not several other countries with their own claims to parts of the South China Sea that might benefit if Beijing observed the decision.
China also scored a major diplomatic victory earlier this week, when the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) dropped any reference to the ruling from a joint statement at the end of a meeting of the 10-country group's foreign minister in Laos. This followed objections from Cambodia, Beijing's closest ASEAN ally.
On July 15, the European Union, distracted after Britain's vote to leave the bloc, issued a statement taking note of the ruling, but avoiding direct reference to Beijing or any assertion that the decision was binding.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-usa-diplomacy-analysis-idUSKCN1072WS
Exclusive: Billionaire Republican donors urge Kochs to back Trump
Source: Reuters
A group of at least six wealthy Republican donors is urging the billionaire Koch brothers to step off the sidelines of the U.S. presidential election to back Donald Trump, arguing they will want influence with the New York businessman they have harshly criticized if he wins the White House in November.
The financiers, prominent members of the sprawling 700-member Koch donor network, have been making their case in emails and phone calls to Charles and David Koch ahead of their bi-annual donor seminar, which begins Saturday in Colorado, according to four donors involved in the loosely-coordinated effort and advisors representing two others.
An endorsement from the Kochs would be a radical departure: the industrialist brothers have railed against Trump's "monstrous" rhetoric and protectionist policies on immigration and trade. They have said they will not get involved in the presidential election and will instead focus on Senate races.
All the while, Trump has blasted the donor class and vowed not to become a "puppet" of outside interests as he tries to win the Nov. 8 election.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-koch-exclusive-idUSKCN1082N1
Russia to U.S., Trump: Sort out your own pre-election hacking scandal
Source: Reuters
Russia told the United States on Thursday to get to the bottom of a hacking scandal involving Democratic Party emails itself and rejected what Donald Trump said was a sarcastic suggestion that Moscow should dig up Hillary Clinton's "missing" emails.
Trump, the Republican Party's presidential candidate, angered Democratic circles on Wednesday by inviting Russia to unearth tens of thousands of emails from rival Clinton's tenure as U.S. Secretary of State.
He spoke out after U.S. President Barack Obama said it was possible Russia might try to influence the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election after a leak of Democratic National Committee emails that experts blamed on Russian hackers.
Suggestions of Russian involvement have riled the Kremlin, which has categorically denied this and accused U.S. politicians of seeking to play on Cold War-style U.S. fears of Moscow by fabricating stories for electoral purposes.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-russia-idUSKCN1081U7
"On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said accusations of a Russian hand in hacking Democratic Party emails bordered on "total stupidity" and were motivated by anti-Russian sentiment. He rejected Trump's apparently sarcastic suggestion for Russia to dig up Clinton's emails point-blank.
"As regards these (email) batches, that is not our headache. We never poke our noses into others' affairs and we really don't like it when people try to poke their nose into ours," he said.
"The Americans needs to get to the bottom of what these emails are themselves and find out what it's all about."
I, for one, am awaiting the FBI report on this issue.
If Russian government involvement is as easy to detect as "experts" have claimed, this FBI report should be forthcoming very shortly.
Perhaps within hours... or days... or months?
Syrian army tightens grip around Aleppo, says offers safe passage
Source: Reuters
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A quarter of a million civilians still live in Aleppo's opposition-controlled eastern neighborhoods, effectively under siege since the army and allied militia cut off the last road into rebel districts in early July.
State television quoted the governor of Aleppo as saying three humanitarian corridors would be established and President Bashar al-Assad offered an amnesty for rebels who surrender within three months.
His ally, Russia, said a fourth corridor would be set up in the north of the city for surrendering rebels, near the Castello road which the army recently seized.
Pictures of what appeared to be a leaflet dropped on Thursday showed a map of Aleppo, entitled "Safe exit points from Aleppo city", with four crossing points out of the rebel areas marked as humanitarian corridors.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKCN108167
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"The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said helicopters over rebel-held areas dropped baby diapers and meal packs that had Russian language labels.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said: "On behalf of the President of the Russian Federation, today, (we will) start a large-scale humanitarian operation together with the Syrian government to help civilians in Aleppo."
Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the outbreak of the conflict five years ago, has been divided between government forces and rebels since the summer of 2012. Its recapture would mark Assad's biggest victory so far in the civil war."
And yet there are claims of these safe passage corridors coming under artillery and sniper fire as civilians try to leave. ISIS and/or jihadist rebels seemingly want to continue to hold innocent civilians hostage.
The rebels/ISIS blame the government for firing on its own safe passage corridors, of course.
Ireland plans for 'soft-border' with UK after Brexit
Source: Reuters
Ireland is planning a system of electronic border surveillance that it hopes will prevent it having to erect physical barriers with Northern Ireland when Britain leaves the European Union, its customs service said on Thursday.
The unexpected result of the June 23 referendum in which UK citizens voted to leave the EU created a delicate problem for Ireland, which will remain in the free-trade, free-movement bloc and has the only land border with the United Kingdom.
The governments of Britain and Ireland, countries with a close but troubled history, have both said they do not want to put border posts back on roads into Northern Ireland, a partly self-governing UK province.
While Britain is keen to secure some kind of free-trade deal with the EU, exactly how that would work, and what would be the new rules for people moving in and out of the country, Ireland is preparing for at least some changes.
"Even if there is a free-trade agreement, we will still need to know what is being traded, what is crossing the border," Irish Customs Deputy Director General Anthony Buckley told a conference in Dublin.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-ireland-border-idUSKCN1081V9
Hollande says will stay true to values after Trump swipe at France
Source: Reuters
President Francois Hollande on Thursday fired back at comments by U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that "France was no longer France" after a slew of militant attacks, saying France would always stay true to its values.
France is reeling from two strikes in under two weeks by attackers who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, the first when a Tunisian plowed his truck through a crowd in Nice, the second when two men slit the throat of a priest.
"France is no longer France. They won't like me for saying that," Trump told reporters in Miami on Wednesday. "And this world better be very careful and the better get very tough and they'll never do it with (Democratic nominee) Hillary Clinton."
Trump's campaign has been marked by insults and inflammatory rhetoric. He has called for tougher surveillance of mosques and warned that radical Muslims were "trying to take over our children." Trump has rejected the criticism that his rhetoric is racist.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-france-idUSKCN1081RD
"Trump has rejected the criticism that his rhetoric is racist."
Good lord.
Trump's rhetoric IS racist. Does he think we are all as bigoted as he is?
Rio 2016: Badminton clears Russian players for Olympic Games
Source: BBC 
Russian athletes set off for Rio from Moscow on Wednesday
Badminton is the latest sport to clear Russian competitors to take part in the Olympic Games as the nation's athletes begin to travel to Brazil.
Governing bodies must rule on whether Russian athletes can compete in Rio following the country's doping scandal.
So far 108 of the 387-strong Russian team have been banned from the Games, which get under way on 5 August.
The final line-up will be announced on 30-31 July, according to the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).
"We have had a rigid drug-testing programme, especially leading up to Rio 2016, and all four Russian athletes have been tested in and out of competition and their samples have been analysed outside of Russia," said Badminton World Federation's (BFW) Thomas Lund.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/36912152
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