The Indian Panorama

Tag: America Politics

  • Trump takes U-turn, now blames Putin for 2016 US poll meddling

    Trump takes U-turn, now blames Putin for 2016 US poll meddling

    WASHINGTON(TIP): US President Donald Trump said, July 19, he holds his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin personally responsible for the alleged meddling into the 2016 presidential elections, as he went into damage-control mode to douse a flurry of criticism over his recent comments about Russia.

    Trump has been on the defensive for the past two days after failing to defend the American intelligence community during a much-talked about press conference with Putin in Helsinki on Monday, July 16, after their first summit.

    The US President seemed to lend credence to his Russian counterpart’s insistence that his government was not involved in the effort to influence the 2016 election campaign. Trump, a Republican, defeated his Democratic party rival Hillary Clinton in the election. Trump’s comments sparked a barrage of criticism from the media and lawmakers across the political spectrum, with many calling on him to correct himself.

    Speaking to CBS News, Trump said he would consider Putin culpable because he was Russia’s leader. “I would because he’s in charge of the country just like I consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country,” Trump said.

    “So, certainly as the leader of the country you would have to hold him responsible,” he said. Facing huge criticism, Trump quickly took a U-turn and attributed his comments at the joint press conference with Putin to a simple mistake.

     Looking forward to 2nd meeting with Putin

    US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, July 19, he looked forward to his second meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, insisting that the first meeting was a success despite howls of criticism at home and abroad

    “The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed,” he wrote on Twitter

    Forces in US trying to derail Peace: Putin

    President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, July 19, accused forces in the United States of trying to undermine the success of his first summit with US President Donald Trump, and said the two leaders had managed to begin to improve US-Russia ties anyway

    Putin, speaking to Russian diplomats from around the world assembled in Moscow, said on Thursday that the summit had been a success overall, but complained about what he described as “powerful” US efforts to sabotage it.

    (With inputs from PTI)

  • Consuls in NYC Team Up to Call for Family Reunification

    Consuls in NYC Team Up to Call for Family Reunification

    NEW YORK(TIP): On Tuesday, the New York-based consuls of Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica joined Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in demanding the Trump administration provide “complete and transparent” information on the migrant children who have been separated from their parents at the border and sent to New York.

    The Central American diplomats created a common front to protect the children and analyze the tools with which they hope to be able to access the federal data but warned that a prompt reunification will be difficult if Washington continues to refuse to release the information.

    “This goes beyond policies and countries; it is about human dignity, and what we need to do is ask the government to clarify the information and promote reunification,” said Juan Diego Zelaya, consul of Honduras, adding that so far, they know there are 449 minors from his country in New York City.

    The diplomat said that he has already met with a number of children who are under the care of the Cayuga Center in Manhattan. There, he was told that the center has information on each one of the minors but is prevented from sharing it without federal authorization.

    “[They said that] when a child is detained at the border and has been separated from their father and mother, there is a special file detailing where the parent and the child were sent, and we requested access to that information to be able to help,” added Zelaya.

    Similarly, Guatemala’s consul Pedro Tzunún said that there are 692 Guatemalan minors in New York, 500 of them male and mostly teenagers. He added that it is painful to know that they are away from their families.

    “It is hard to see that the kids don’t even know or understand what is happening. The youngest is a 5-year-old girl. She does not talk much, but you can see the sadness in her, and it hurts to see that they will end up traumatized,” said the consul, who also asked to have access to the children’s data.

    Mexican Consul Diego Gómez Pickering said that there are three minors from his country in New York and that the joint effort of the diplomatic delegations is meant to create channels of cooperation to help the minors.

    For his part, José Vicente Chinchilla, consul of El Salvador, mentioned that the information his office has received is so vague that they only have an estimate of between 100 and 150 Salvadoran children separated from their parents in the country, with no specific information on how many of them are in New York.

    “Without that information, we cannot operate. We believe that, ideally, the children should travel with their parents. We intend to have the families reunited, but we want to make it clear that we respect the laws of this country, even when we do not share this decision to separate them,” said the Salvadoran diplomat.

    The consul of Costa Rica, Rolando Madrigal, said that he only knows of one minor from his country in the city.

    While the consuls agreed that everything is uncertain at the moment due to the federal administration’s refusal to share the children’s data in a “transparent and clear” manner, Council member Carlos Menchaca warned that many of the children – particularly the youngest – may get lost in the system and never see their parents again unless swift action is taken.

    “That might happen if nothing is done,” said the chair of the City Council’s Committee on Immigration. He added that he is especially concerned about the fate of a 9-month-old baby who is currently in New York City.

    “It is so jarring that this is happening now, and we need to focus on that child – who is 9 months old and can’t even talk – and bring justice. We need to reunite [the baby] with the parents immediately because they have rights, and not even the government can take those rights away,” said Menchaca.

    The politicians also said that if the federal government fails to promptly provide the data the group is requesting, they may consider taking legal action.

    “We are going to explore every option to stop this administration, which is creating a humanitarian crisis with these children, and we are going to use the courts, but our priority right now is to get a hold of the information because at the moment, we don’t even know how many children there are or where their parents are,” said Menchaca.

    (Source: El Diario)

  • What to watch in 2018

    What to watch in 2018

    As the new year begins, here are the smartest predictions of what’s coming in politics, tech and business in 2018.

                                                         By Erica Pandey

    The Big picture: In many ways 2018 will mirror 2017. The world’s largest economies will continue to grow in sync, the #MeToo movement will continue to topple men who behave badly from positions of power, and the North Korean nuclear threat will keep fueling international tensions. But new trends may emerge if the Democrats take the House in the midterm elections or media companies find a solution to the “fake news” epidemic.
    At home

    Democrats will take back the House “by an eyelash” in the 2018 midterm elections, the Financial Times’ Courtney Weaver predicts. It’s typical for the party of the president to lose seats in the midterms, and the Republican Party could “lose big” given Trump’s sub-50 approval rating. A Democrat majority in the House would also mean impeachment proceedings against Trump could gain ground in the new year.

    Abroad

    Trump’s approach to China is about to change for several reasons, per Sinocism’s Bill Bishop: the administration’s National Security Strategy very clearly reframed the U.S. government’s view of China in a confrontational way, the president believes China is still not doing enough on North Korea, and the administration’s “America First” trade contingent is ascendant. Several trade actions are in the planning stages and they will likely hit soon.

    Uneasy tension around the North Korean nuclear threat will continue — or escalate. Trump tweeted on Dec. 28 that there won’t be a “friendly solution” to the issue of North Korea if China violates UN sanctions against the rogue regime. And Admiral Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said on ABC’s This Week that the U.S. is closer “than ever before” to a nuclear confrontation with North Korea.

    UK Prime Minister Theresa May will keep her job, per the Financial Times’ Sebastian Payne. “Sealing a Brexit divorce deal has ensured short-term job security,” Payne writes.

    Zimbabwe won’t hold free and fair elections in 2018 despite the end to Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule, FT’s David Pilling predicts. And Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips writes, “Emmerson Mnangagwa will surely prove a more capable manager of Zimbabwe’s economy than Mugabe, but there are plenty of reasons to fear he’ll be just as ruthless and undemocratic.”

    The global economy

    Synchronized growth will continue. This year, for the first time since the Great Recession, the world’s leading economies grew in sync. And that growth will hold into 2018, Goldman Sachs research economists predict. They’re forecasting 4.0% GDP growth for the new year, up from a 3.7% projection for 2017.

    Emerging markets will grow as well. Average GDP growth for emerging markets will reach 5%, up from 4.7% in 2017, per the Financial Times’ James Kynge. “This will mostly be because Russia and Brazil, which have stumbled, will bounce back,” Kynge writes.

    In tech

    Big Tech will get stronger. “Silicon Valley got raked over the coals in 2017 about sexism, security and its influence on national affairs. But it hasn’t really grappled with the bigger problem: There’s too much power in the hands of too few … Expect to see tech giants flogging their “social good” efforts in the year ahead, but our trust won’t be restored by watching them act like benevolent dictators,” per the Washington Post’s Gregory Fowler.

    Bitcoin will keep dominating headlines with its dramatic crashes and booms. Goldman Sachs became the first major Wall Street institution to launch a trading desk for the cryptocurrency in 2017, and, as more institutions venture into the crypto world, prices will rise accordingly, CNBC’s Eric Jackson predicts.

    Augmented reality will rise in prominence, Axios’ Alayna Treene reports. “In the next few years, we’re going to see AR develop significantly and start to break through to the mainstream. Once that happens, it will effect almost every aspect of daily life — from entertainment and work to education and transportation.”

    In media

    Transparency will become “the antidote to fake news,” Frontline’s Raney Aronson-Rath tells Nieman Lab. Per Aronson-Rath, “We’ve seen Facebook make moves towards differentiating between verified and unverified stories. Twitter and Google, too. But the problem is massive, and these are just first steps.”

    The #MeToo movement will continue toppling powerful men who behave badly in media and every other industry. Here’s a list of the 82 men accused of sexual harassment and assault in 2017.

    (Source: Axios)