The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG 88) transits the Indian Ocean March 29, 2018. Picture taken March 29, 2018. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Morgan K. Nall/Handout via REUTERS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said it sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, its latest transit through the sensitive waterway, angering China at a time of tense relations between the world's two biggest economies.
Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a bitter trade war, U.S. sanctions and China's increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.
The voyage will be viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing, which views the island as a breakaway province.
President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) traded barbs throughout the day on Thursday, intensifying the bitter back-and-forth that led the president just a day earlier to threaten he'd no longer work with the Democrats on their top legislative priorities.
Trump launched the skirmish early, saying the Democrats were pursuing "fake work" with their ongoing investigations into the administration — including those related to special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian election interference — and renewing his vow to eschew collaboration until the probes cease. That was all before 8 a.m.
* President Trump announced earlier this month that tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods would increase to 25% from 10% on May 10. * In the last two weeks, his administration also put Chinese telecom giant Huawei on a blacklist that prevents it from buying from American companies without U.S. government permission. * Nearly three-fourths of respondents to a joint survey by the American Chambers of Commerce in Shanghai and Beijing said the latest round of U.S. tariffs and planned counter-tariffs from China are negatively affecting their businesses.
The latest U.S. actions on trade are preventing negotiations with Beijing from proceeding, China's Commerce Ministry said Thursday.
"If the U.S. would like to keep on negotiating it should, with sincerity, adjust its wrong actions. Only then can talks continue," Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng said Thursday in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation.
* John Walker Lindh, 38, has been released from the Terre Haute federal prison in Indiana and appears to have walked free just after midnight on Thursday * He served 17 years of a 20 year sentence for supplying services to a terrorist organization and carrying an explosive device * The convicted terrorist is now thought to be traveling to Virginia where he is expected to live while serving a three-year probation term * The Federal Bureau of Prisons has not confirmed Lindh's release but his inmate locator release date was altered shortly after midnight * He was captured with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in 2001 and failed to warn U.S. forces of a planned uprising at the Qala-i-Jangi jail where he was held * CIA operative Johnny 'Mike' Spann was killed during the uprising while Lindh himself was injured * U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Lindh's release 'unexplainable and unconscionable'
'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh was released from an Indiana prison Thursday after serving 17 years of a 20 year sentence for supplying services to a terrorist organization and carrying an explosive device.
Lindh, 38, is believed to have walked free from the medium security federal prison FCI Terre Haute just after midnight local time and was met by his mother Marilyn Walker, 68.
The convicted terrorist is now thought to be traveling to Virginia where he is expected to live while serving a three-year probation term. He adopted the name Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi while in prison. Al-Irlandi means the Irish man.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Lindh's release and his attorney told the Washington Post that the terrorist was free.
* Assange was hit with 18 counts on Thursday by a grand jury in Virginia * Seventeen are new and are violations of the Espionage Act which is ordinarily reserved for government officials * They indictment alleges he and Manning conspired to disseminate classified information in 2009 and 2010 * They used her access to defense department computers to harvest the information and publish it * He has always argued he was right to publish it on WikiLeaks as a 'journalist' * It's the first time in history that anyone operating in a journalistic capacity has been charged under the Espionage Act * WikiLeaks on Twitter called Assange's prosecution 'the end of national security journalism and the First Amendment' * US authorities now have until June 11 to submit their extradition case to the UK * Assange is in London, completing a 50 week jail term, for violating the conditions of his bail from a 2012 sex assault arrest in Sweden * He was arrested in April after being thrown out of the Ecuadorian embassy * He spent seven years hiding there from both US and Swedish authorities
Julian Assange has been charged in the US with 17 violations of the Espionage Act for conspiring with Chelsea Manning.
A federal grand jury returned the indictment against him in Virginia on Thursday afternoon. Now, the 47-year-old WikiLeaks founder faces 170 years behind bars.
Seventeen of the 18 charges are violations of the Espionage Act.
They are; one count of conspiracy to receive national defense information, eight counts of obtaining national defense information, eight counts of disclosure of national defense information.
New threats from Tehran follow reports the White House is considering sending 10,000 troops to the region.
"Our hands are on the trigger and we are firmly prepared to annihilate any aggressor and greedy eyes against the Islamic Iran," Chief of Staff to the Iranian Armed Forces Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri said Thursday, according to the country's state news service. "The new conditions of countering the U.S. arrogant and pharaonic threat invite all the Iranians to enter the fields of jihad, full alert, and mobilization of more power."
* Allies said – barring a last-minute change of heart – Mrs May will announce plans this morning to step aside * Mrs May will begin the day with a meeting with the Tories' backbench 1922 shop steward Sir Graham Brady * She is then expected to address the nation from Downing Street to explain why she is leaving 'the job I love'
Theresa May will today clear the way for Britain to have a new prime minister by the summer.
Allies said that – barring a last-minute change of heart – she will announce plans this morning to step aside as Conservative Party leader next month.
Mrs May will begin the day with a meeting with the Tories' backbench shop steward Sir Graham Brady to discuss the exact timetable for her departure.
She is then expected to address the nation from Downing Street to explain why she is leaving 'the job I love' before she has realised her ambition of leading Britain out of the European Union.
Read more .... WNU Editor: I will have to see it to believe it.
More News On Reports That U.K. Prime Minister May Will Make An Announcement That She Will Step Down As Prime Minister Next Month
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has thanked the people of India for giving him a "historic mandate" of five more years in office, after a landslide victory in the general election.
"We all want a new India. I want to bow down my head and say thank you," he said in a victory address to supporters of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP is projected to get about 300 of the 543 seats in parliament.
It is likely to take a larger share of the vote than in the 2014 elections.
The main opposition alliance, which is headed by Rahul Gandhi's Congress party, has admitted defeat.
Tears flowed and bouquets flew on Friday as hundreds of same-sex couples exchanged vows in Taipei’s Shinyi District.
Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage when its legislature voted to approve the measure last week. Thousands gathered in the streets to celebrate the landmark moment for LGBT rights in Asia, where gay people can face stigma for varying reasons from religion to conservative values.
The new laws went into effect Friday, and hundreds of history-making Taiwanese couples planned to get married en masse. Here is a look at some of the first same-sex couples to wed in Asia.
Shane Lin and Marc Yuan became one of Taiwan’s first gay couples to tie the knot.
Sam Yeh—AFP/Getty Images Taiwan’s first gay couple Shane Lin (L) and Marc Yuan kiss outside the Household Registration Office in Shinyi district in Taipei on May 24, 2019.
It was an emotional moment for the couple, who shed a few tears during the ceremony.
Sam Yeh—AFP/Getty Images Shane Lin (C) is comforted by his partner Marc Yuan (R) and a friend during a wedding ceremony in Shinyi district in Taipei on May 24, 2019.
Other couples waited their turn for their turn to wed.
Sam Yeh—AFP/Getty Images Gay couple Cynical Chick (L) and Li Ying-Chien wait for wedding register at the Household Registration Office in Shinyi district in Taipei on May 24, 2019.
One couple showed off their marriage registration picture, an AFP reporter shared on Twitter.
Other couples posed for photos, as a DW reporter posted on Twitter.
Finishing off this happy day, I just want to say how fortunate I am to be able to document this historic moment for #Taiwan, all the couples who got married today and myself. Knowing that from this day forward, I’ll have equal rights to love and marry is a real comfort. pic.twitter.com/7w9V6IYkNO
Nine people were arrested in Thailand, Australia and the U.S. and 50 children were rescued following an Interpol investigation into an international paedophile ring.
The investigation, which began two years ago and is called Operation Blackwrist, targeted a “dark web” site that had more than 60,000 global users, according to the BBC.
Operation Blackwrist began after Interpol spotted images showing 11 boys under the age of 13 on a website where users utilized encrypted software to hide their identities, according to the BBC.
According to an Interpol statement, weekly images of children being abused were being uploaded to the site, but it was difficult to track down the perpetrators as the children’s faces were generally hidden.
Last year, the site’s main administrator, Montri Salangam, was detained in Thailand and has been sentenced to 146 years in prison, according to the BBC. Another administrator, Ruecha Tokputza, was also arrested last year in Australia, where he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The names of those arrested have not yet been released.
Interpol said they believe 100 more children may have suffered abuse, and they are working to identify them.
The White House may bypass Congress to export billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that are now on hold.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials are pushing for the enacting of an emergency provision which would give President Trump the power to stop Congress from halting sales of the arms, according to the New York Times. The weapons are worth about $7 billion and include combat aircraft and precision-guided munitions.
Congress normally reviews prospective U.S. weapons sales, but the Trump administration may not afford Congress that customary assessment.
Senator Christopher S. Murphy Tweeted about the issue Wednesday.
REALLY IMPORTANT THREAD: 1/ I am hearing that Trump may use an obscure loophole in the Arms Control Act and notice a major new sale of bombs to Saudi Arabia (the ones they drop in Yemen) in a way that will prevent Congress from objecting. Could happen this week.
The loophole Murphy is referring to is one that allows the president to circumvent the congressional review of arms sales if it is deemed that “an emergency exists which requires the proposed sale in the national security interest of the United States,” according to the Times.
Pompeo may invoke the emergency based on what the U.S. government says is increased threat from Iran, according to the Times.
Tensions have risen in the Middle East in recent weeks. Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for an attack on an oil pipeline and the U.S. warned sailors in the Gulf of an increased threat form Iran or its allies after ships were sabotaged off the coast of the U.A.E. The U.S. cited this threat as justification for the deployment of an aircraft carrier and a bomber fleet to the Middle East. Allied officials have contradicted the White House and said that there is not an increased threat. The U.S. evacuated some staff from the U.S. embassy in Iraq in mid-May.
Government officials worried about the precedent it would set if the Trump administration bypasses Congress.
“We have a gold standard for that sort of arrangement, and to violate it for Saudi Arabia is going to open the door for it to happen in multiple other places,” Senator Marco Rubio said, according to the Times.
State Department officials declined to comment. “We do not comment to confirm or deny potential arms sales or transfers until Congress is formally notified,” Morgan Ortagus, a State Department spokeswoman said, according to the Times.
The Sultan of Brunei has returned an honorary degree he received from the University of Oxford in England after global backlash over his proposal to punish people who engage in same-sex relations with the death penalty, according to Reuters and other outlets.
After worldwide outrage over the harsh laws Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah announced in April — which stipulate that gay sex and adultery require death by stoning, and also punish lesbian sex through whipping and theft through amputation — Oxford reached out to the Sultan about the honorary law degree the distinguished institution awarded him in 1993.
“As part of the review process, the university wrote to notify the sultan on 26 April 2019, asking for his views by 7 June 2019,” the university told Reuters via email. “Through a letter dated 6 May 2019, the sultan replied with his decision to return the degree.”
More than 115,000 people signed a petition on Change.org calling on Oxford to rescind the degree. Celebrities including George Clooney and Elton John also spoke out against the Sultan’s proposals.
Gay sex and a number of other acts, including rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sex for Muslims and insulting the Prophet Muhammed, are all punishable by death under the rollout of the new Sharia laws, though widespread condemnation of the code prompted a moratorium on the anti-LGBT punishments.
Earlier this month, the Sultan said in a speech that the predominantly Muslim Asian nation of about 450,000 people would not enforce the draconian laws — acknowledging they raised “many questions and misperceptions” — but also defended them, saying they had “merit.”
Before the Sultan announced the changes in April, homosexuality was illegal in Brunei, but punished through prison time.
(JOHANNESBURG) — Botswana has lifted its ban on elephant hunting in a country with the world’s highest number of the animals, a decision that has brought anger from some wildlife protection groups and warnings of a blow to lucrative tourism.
The southern African nation is home to an estimated 130,000 elephants. The lifting of the ban raised concerns about a possible increase in illegal poaching of elephants for their tusks to supply the ivory trade.
“Expect mass culling next,” the CEO of WildlifeDirect, Paula Kahumbu, said in a post on Twitter, adding that the impact of Botswana’s decision will be felt across Africa.
Botswana has long been a refuge for elephants on a continent where tens of thousands have been killed over the years for their ivory, and the animals long have been a tourist draw. Some had warned of tourism boycotts if the ban was lifted, and even American talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres joined the protest.
“President Masisi, for every person who wants to kill elephants, there are millions who want them protected. We’re watching,” she tweeted after Botswana’s decision was announced.
Lifting the hunting ban comes amid growing conflicts between humans — particularly farmers — and elephants, the government’s statement said. It said hunting will resume “in an orderly and ethical manner” but does not say how it will be regulated.
The country, with a population of just over 2 million people, suffers some human-wildlife conflict but has more space than many other countries for animals to roam.
Political friction between Botswana’s previous and current president has played a key part in the government’s shifting stance on elephants in the past year.
The hunting ban was put in place under previous president, Ian Khama, an outspoken conservationist, but current President Mokgweeti Masisi began to look into it not long after taking office last year. The decision to lift the ban comes months ahead of general elections in October.
Khama “says Masisi is just currying favor with the electorate whom he will meet for the first time in October, in an election expected to be extremely close-fought, especially as Khama has backed his opposition,” the Institute for Security Studies wrote earlier this month.
“This is a political move and not in the best interests of conservation in Botswana,” Jason Bell, vice president for conservation with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said in a statement on Thursday.
Safari Club International, a U.S.-based group that lobbies to loosen restrictions on trophy hunting worldwide, cheered Botswana’s decision. The group has long argued that the fees paid by big-game hunters provide essential revenue for African governments to fund conservation programs.
“It is heartening to see that the government of Botswana has taken all aspects into its careful consideration of this matter,” said Paul Babaz, SCI’s president. “These findings clearly show that hunting bans actually hurt wildlife conservation.”
Though President Donald Trump has decried big-game hunting as a “horror show,” his administration has reversed Obama-era restrictions on the importation of elephant and lion trophies for personal use or display.
Botswana also is among several African countries with some of the world’s largest elephant populations that have pushed for looser controls on legal ivory trade. They assert that the commerce will help them pay to conserve elephants, while critics assert that even limited trade fuels demand and drives up illegal killing.
Botswana and neighboring Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa are estimated to have about 256,000 elephants, or more than half of the total estimate for Africa.
Earlier this month Botswana’s president raised some eyebrows when he gave stools made of elephants’ feet to regional leaders while hosting a meeting on the animals’ fate.
(BERLIN) — A senior German diplomat headed Thursday to Tehran to press Iran to continue to respect the landmark nuclear deal, despite the unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. and increasing pressure from Washington.
Tensions have soared in the Mideast recently as the White House earlier this month sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the region over a still-unexplained threat it perceived from Iran.
In Berlin, the Foreign Ministry said Political Director Jens Ploetner was to hold talks with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday to try salvage the nuclear deal signed in 2015 in Vienna. The accord has steadily unraveled since the Trump administration pulled America out of the deal, re-imposed and escalated U.S. sanctions on Tehran last year.
The German envoy’s visit also follows Iran’s declaration earlier this month that the remaining signatories to the deal — Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia — have two months to develop a plan to shield Iran from American sanctions.
“The situation in the Persian Gulf and the region, and the situation surrounding the Vienna nuclear agreement, is extremely serious,” the German Foreign Ministry said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “There is a real risk of escalation — including due to misunderstandings or an incident. In this situation, dialogue is very important.”
With Iran’s 60-day deadline, the ministry said there is still a “window for diplomacy to persuade Iran to continue its full compliance” and said Germany remains in close contact with the other nations that have been struggling to keep the deal alive.
The accord, intended to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, promised economic incentives in exchange for restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear activities. Despite efforts so far by the others to keep the deal from collapsing, Iran’s economy has been struggling and its currency has plummeted after the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions.
Iran continued abiding by the stipulations of the deal, according to a February report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, though it expressed increasing frustration with the inability of the Europeans to provide economic relief. A new IAEA report is due out soon.
Then on Monday, Iran announced it had quadrupled its production capacity of low-enriched uranium. Iranian officials made a point to stress that the uranium would be enriched only to the 3.67% limit set under the nuclear deal, making it usable for a power plant but far below what’s needed for an atomic weapon.
But by increasing production, Iran will likely soon exceed the stockpile limitations set by the nuclear accord, which would escalate the situation further.
Several incidents have added to the crisis, including the sabotage of the oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, as well as a rocket that landed near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The U.S. has blamed Iran for both incidents without publicly offering evidence. America also has evacuated nonessential diplomatic staff from Iraq amid the tensions.
Also, Iran-aligned rebels in Yemen have targeted a Saudi pipeline and sent a bomb-laden drone to target a Saudi airport with a military base on Tuesday.
The Pentagon was to present plans on Thursday to the White House to send up to 10,000 more American troops to the Middle East, to beef up defenses against potential Iranian threats, U.S. officials said. Iran has watched warily as the USS Abraham Lincoln heads toward the Strait of Hormuz and B-52 bombers began flying missions in the region.
Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, said Thursday the military will remain watchful about “deceptions by the U.S. government and its adventurous” president.
“With the finger on the trigger, Iran is ready to respond to any invader strongly and with unbelievable speed,” Bagheri said in a statement.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was expected to arrive later Thursday in Islamabad as Pakistan seeks to calm regional tensions. He was to hold talks with Pakistani officials on Friday.
“We believe the situation in the region is serious and needs to be addressed through dialogue by all parties,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “We expect all sides to show restraint, as any miscalculated move, can transmute into a large-scale conflict.”
(LONDON) — Judith Kerr, author and illustrator of the bestselling “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” and other beloved children’s books, has died at the age of 95.
HarperCollins chief executive Charlie Redmayne announced her death Thursday. The publisher said she died at her home on Wednesday after a brief illness.
Kerr “was a brilliantly talented artist and storyteller who has left us an extraordinary body of work,” he said.
The beguiling story of the tea-drinking tiger has been shared by parents with young children since it was first published in 1968 and has never been out of print. It has sold more than 5 million copies.
The book, with its memorable illustrations and simple surprises, conveys a sense of wonder and possibility that generations of children embraced.
Her next book introduced Mog the cat, who starred in some 15 books and developed a large following until “Goodbye Mog” was published in 2002.
The popular feline was brought back in 2015 for “Mog’s Christmas Calamity,” which raised more than 1 million pounds for a literacy campaign with charity Save the Children.
Her third book, “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit”, was an autobiographical story based on her family’s escape from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Peter Florence, the director of Britain’s Hay Festival, a literary event where Kerr made many appearances, said the author “had grace, born of wisdom, generosity of spirit and the resilience of a woman who had been a refugee from the extremes of 20th century history.”
He said she has “brought millions of people to books” by bringing the Tiger and Mog to life.
“When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is one of the great books of our times. I am so glad to have heard her in Hay so often. We’ve been blessed. And we have her with us forever in print.”
Kerr was born in Berlin but left Germany with her family in 1933 to escape Nazi tyranny. The family settled in England, where she studied art and worked as a scriptwriter at BBC.
She kept writing throughout her life. Her next book, “The Curse of the School Rabbit,” is set for publication in June.
She is survived by her children Matthew and Tacy and her grandchildren.
Nearly 500 children in a single Pakistani city have tested positive for HIV, in an outbreak that has led to the arrest of at least one doctor and highlighted gross inadequacies in the local health care system.
As of mid-May, 410 children and 100 adults in Larkana, a city in Pakistan’s Sindh province, had tested positive for HIV, the Associated Press reported. Those numbers have since climbed to 494 children and 113 adults, according to NPR.
How did more than 600 people in one area become infected with HIV? Here’s what to know.
When did the outbreak start?
According to reports from NPR and the AP, parents in April began to notice lasting fevers in their children and took them to a nearby medical center for testing. By around April 24, 15 children ages 2 to 8 had tested positive for HIV, according to an op-ed written by Larkana Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Nauman Siddique. “Recognising the seriousness of this issue,” local officials shortly thereafter set up a “healthcare camp” where children and their parents could be screened for the virus, Siddique wrote.
“The results of the screening within the first few days were shocking,” he wrote. “The tests revealed that the parents of the HIV-positive children were HIV negative”—raising questions about how so many children became infected.
A web of unsanitary and unsafe medical practices seems to be to blame, according to local officials.
Many of the children who originally tested positive for HIV had been treated in a Larkana clinic run by Dr. Muzaffar Ghangharo, NPR reports. After demands from parents, Ghangharo was eventually tested for HIV. The results came back positive, “and here is when it was suspected that he was the source of spreading HIV in their kids through bad practices,” a district police officer told NPR.
Ghangharo was arrested on suspicion of intentionally infecting his patients with HIV, the BBC reports. Pakistan’s SAMAA TV reported Thursday that he was cleared of that charge, but found guilty of “criminal medical negligence.” Ghangharo denied the original accusations in a video filmed in jail.
Officials have pointed to medical negligence across the local health care system as a likely cause of the outbreak. Many local officials have blamed “quacks,” in apparent reference to the large number of unqualified individuals who practice medicine in the area.
“Possible causes included clinics run by quacks, use of a single syringe for multiple patients, and use of the same drip set for multiple patients,” Siddique wrote in his op-ed. He added that at least 61 unsafe clinics have been “sealed” and 29 more health care centers warned in the wake of the outbreak.
Sindh health officials also suggested that barbershops, where razor blades are sometimes reused, could be a possible transmission source, NPR reports. Siddique also pointed to unsafe circumcisions, which sometimes take place in barbershops, in his op-ed.
This is not the first time Larkana’s medical system has been at the center of an HIV outbreak. An outbreak among dialysis patients, which infected about 50 people, was reported in 2016. Years earlier, there was also an outbreak among intravenous drug users in Larkana.
What’s being done about the Larkana HIV outbreak?
National and international health authorities, including the World Health Organization, UNAIDS and UNICEF, are collaborating on a response in Larkana, which includes ongoing free testing of individuals who may be infected, crackdowns on unsafe clinics and barbershops and public education campaigns about preventing the spread of HIV. Siddique has also urged medical professionals to use auto-lock syringes, which cannot be reused, and called for better labs for conducting medical blood work.
Pakistan Health Minister Dr. Zafar Mirza also announced on May 23 that three new HIV/AIDs treatment centers would be established throughout Sindh.
Tens of thousands of celebrators gathered outside Taiwan’s parliament on May 17, waving rainbow flags as the island’s government became the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. The move comes at a moment of change for LGBTQ rights in Asia: even as nations like India–whose Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality in 2018–have expanded rights, others including Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei have cracked down. Advocates in the region now hope Taiwan’s example can help tip the scales toward inclusion.
While strongly supported by President Tsai Ing-wen, marriage equality provoked strong opposition from conservative and religious groups in Taiwan. Conservative lawmakers had tabled two rival bills proposing same-sex unions, but the government’s own legislation–the bill that passed–includes the word marriage and grants same-sex couples many of the same rights as heterosexual couples. About 200 same-sex couples were reportedly planning a mass marriage registration in Taipei on May 24, the day the law comes into effect.
Human-rights group Amnesty International has said the law “falls short of genuine and full marriage equality,” as it does not provide equal adoption rights. The law also does not recognize marriages to foreigners whose countries do not permit same-sex marriage. Despite such limitations, the legislation gained the backing of LGBTQ groups, which saw it as the best option available for equality.
Chinese state media tweeted a congratulatory message in support of the law on May 18, but Taiwan’s lawmakers rebuked the praise, seeing it as an attempt by Beijing to take credit for the new law while diminishing their autonomy. (The mainland views Taiwan, an island of 23 million people that lies 112 miles off the coast, as its sovereign territory.) The social scuffle came amid a wave of censorship of LGBTQ subjects on social media in China, where homosexuality is legal but same-sex marriages are not. Leaders weren’t the only ones talking about the news: posts about Taiwan’s law trended on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, attracting over 100 million views.
It’s a big moment for Europe’s most ambitious populists. They hope that elections for the European Parliament will give them the boost they need to extend their political momentum across the E.U. But in Austria they got off to a rough start because of an embarrassing video.
The details of that case are as ludicrous as they are damning. Vice Chancellor and leader of the far-right Freedom Party Heinz-Christian Strache was caught offering lucrative government contracts to a woman he believed to be the niece of a powerful Russian oligarch in exchange for her willingness to buy an Austrian newspaper and shift its editorial position to favor his party just before an election. For many, this episode confirmed two things: much of Europe’s far right is, or would like to be, on the Russian payroll, and its charismatic leaders lack basic good judgment.
The next development says something about the predicament facing center-right parties as they try to beat back attempts by the far right to steal their voters. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, chairman of the center-right Austrian People’s Party, spotting an opportunity to test its far-right coalition partner with voters, called for new elections. That’s smart politics, but while the result may temporarily strengthen the center right at the far right’s expense, it doesn’t solve the larger problem that voters are anxious and angry at mainstream politicians who they believe don’t have their best interests at heart.
Across Europe, mainstream conservatives continue to wrestle with this problem, but they would be wise to do so carefully. In Germany, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Chancellor Merkel’s likely successor, has tried to prevent the far-right opposition Alternative for Germany party from pulling away her party’s voters in part by tacking to the right on the immigration policies that have undermined Merkel’s popularity. But she has also tried to force Merkel into early retirement, a plan that has backfired and now threatens her position within her party.
In France and Italy, center-right parties have made poor attempts to imitate anti-E.U. and anti-migrant language and policies that alienate centrist voters and make them appear to be pale imitations of more aggressive conservative rivals, who benefit by the comparison. In Spain, the rise of the populist Vox party has pulled the more moderate People’s Party and Ciudadanos party to the right, splitting the right-wing vote in ways that helped a center-left party finish first in the country’s most recent national elections.
But still the glaring, and most consequential, example of a center-right party’s miscalculating how best to manage a challenge from the right comes from the decision by then Prime Minister David Cameron to beat back criticism from the fledgling U.K. Independence Party by calling for a public referendum on Britain’s continued membership in the E.U. The punishment his Conservative Party has taken following the Brexit vote and the inability to deliver on its result has only just begun. An angry Briton doused Brexit champion Nigel Farage with a banana and salted-caramel milkshake on May 20, but it’s the Conservatives who are taking the biggest hit.
Europe’s populists are so far better at campaigning than at governing, and some of its leaders are more prone to poor judgment than their mainstream competitors. But far-right politicians haven’t simply invented anti-E.U., anti-migrant anger, and those who would deny them votes still struggle to answer this challenge.
This appears in the June 03, 2019 issue of TIME.
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MELANIA TRUMP and her husband Donald may have been denied the chance to sleep in a room in Buckingham Palace despite the Obamas previously staying there.
DISGRACED Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has reportedly reached a £35million settlement with a number of UK and US women over allegations of sexual harassment.
Sun TV tanks 6% on weak Q4 results; brokerages cut price target Sun TV posted weaker-than-expected operating results, with advertisement and subscription growth impacted by the implementation of the New Tariff Order (NTO).
Sun TV posted weaker-than-expected operating results, with advertisement and subscription growth impacted by the implementation of the New Tariff Order (NTO).
