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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
April 26, 2019
By James Oliphant
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.
In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.
The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.
But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.
“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”
Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.
Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.
Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.
“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”
Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”
Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”
PAST VS. FUTURE
Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.
Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.
Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.
“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.
Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.
Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.
“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.
Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.
But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.
Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.
“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”
‘ONE OF US’
Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.
The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.
Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.
“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”
Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.
“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”
(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)
Source: OANN
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES
April 26, 2019
By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer
JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.
The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.
It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.
The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.
One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.
In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.
There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.
A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.
Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.
“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.
FLOOD WARNINGS
Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.
“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.
Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.
However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.
“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.
In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.
Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.
(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai, India, May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
April 26, 2019
By Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Surging global oil prices will pose a first big challenge to India’s new government, whoever wins an election now under way, especially as domestic prices have been allowed to lag, meaning consumers are in for a painful surge as they catch up.
For oil-import dependent India, higher global prices could lead to a weaker rupee, higher inflation, the ruling out of interest rate cuts and could further weigh on twin current account and budget deficits, economists warned.
But compounding the future pain, state-run fuel suppliers and retailers have held off passing on to consumers the higher prices during a staggered general election, which began on April 11 and ends on May 23, according to sources familiar with the situation.
That delay is expected to be unwound once the election is over. And there could be additional price increases to make up for losses or profits missed during the period of delayed increases, the sources said.
In some major Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, pump prices are adjusted periodically so they move largely in tandem with international crude prices.
That was what was supposed to happen in India but the election means there have been many days when pump prices have been unchanged.
In New Delhi, for example, while crude oil prices have gone up by nearly $9 a barrel, or about 12 percent, in the past six weeks, gasoline prices have only risen by 0.47 rupees a liter, or 0.6 percent.
State-controlled fuel suppliers and retailers declined to say why they had delayed price increases, or discuss whether there has been any pressure from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A government spokesman declined to comment.
The opposition Congress party said Modi’s government was violating its own policy of daily price revision by advising the state oil companies to hold prices steady.
“The government should cut fuel taxes otherwise consumers will have to pay much higher oil prices once the elections are over,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a senior leader of the Congress party.
(GRAPHIC: India Polls: Fuel price hike lags crude surge – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XLlxik)
Nitin Goyal, treasurer at the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, representing fuel stations in 25 states, said prices were similarly held down for 19 days in the southern state of Karnataka last year, when it held state assembly elections.
Only for them to surge after the vote.
“Consumers should be ready for a rude shock of a massive jump in retail prices, similar to the level we have seen in the Karnataka state election,” Goyal said.
‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’
Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at Singapore-based consultancy FGE, said retail prices of gasoline and gasoil prices would have been up to 6 percent, or about 4 rupee, higher if they had been allowed to rise in line with global prices.
“Indian pump prices have failed to keep up with the recent uptrend in crude prices,” Paravaikkarasu said.
“With the country’s general elections underway, the incumbent government has been keeping pump prices relatively unchanged.”
India had switched to a daily price revision in June 2017 from a revision every two weeks, as the government allowed retailers to set prices.
But the government faced protests last October when retailers raised prices by up to 10 rupees a liter after the crude oil price went above $80 a barrel, forcing it to cut fuel taxes.
Global prices rose to their highest level in 2019 on Thursday, days after the United States announced all Iran sanction waivers would end by May, pressuring importers including India to stop buying Tehran’s oil. [O/R]
Higher oil prices will mean Asia’s third largest economy is likely to see growth of less than 7 percent rate this fiscal year, economists said. Growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the October-December quarter, the slowest in five quarters.
Rating agency CARE has warned that a 10 percent rise in global oil prices could increase demand for dollars, putting pressure on the rupee and widening the current account deficit.
India’s oil import bill rose by nearly one-third in the fiscal year ending March 31 to $140.5 billion, against $108 billion the previous year.
“The increase in international oil prices is a credit negative for the Indian economy,” ICRA, the Indian arm of the Fitch rating agency, said in a note.
“Every $10/ bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the fiscal deficit by about 0.1 percent of GDP.”
Any big price rise would also build a case for the central bank to keep rates steady, or even raise them.
The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which cut the benchmark policy repo rate by 25 basis points this month, warned that rising oil and food prices could push up inflation.
Policymakers are worried that a sustained increase in the oil price in the range of $70-75/barrel or higher can move the rupee down by 3-4 percent on an annual basis.
The rupee has depreciated by 1.24 percent against the dollar since a year high in mid-March.
($1 = 70.1800 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma; Editing by Martin Howell and Rob Birsel)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Jet Airways aircraft are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Aditi Shah and Abhirup Roy
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – The grounding of India’s Jet Airways is turning into a quick windfall and long-term opportunity for international airlines keen to scoop up nearly a million outbound passengers from what was once the nation’s biggest airline.
Jet, which previously had a fleet of around 120 largely Boeing Co planes, was forced to indefinitely halt all flight operations on April 17 after its banks rejected the carrier’s plea for emergency funds.
The carrier’s descent into crisis has benefited international airlines in the form of rising fares and demand, data showed.
Fares from India to cities such as Dubai, London, New York, Singapore and Bali in the first quarter of 2019 rose between 4 percent and 32 percent from a year ago, according to Indian travel portal MakeMyTrip Ltd.
In the peak travel months of May and June, fares to London have spiked as much as 36 percent and tickets to San Francisco are up nearly 20 percent from a year ago, according to data from travel portal Yatra.com.
“For the next three months it’s actually bonanza time for international players,” said Ashish Nainan, a research analyst at CARE Ratings. “At least until the middle of June, the fares are not going to come down.”
Due to rising demand, even before Jet’s lessors grounded planes, carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Singapore Airlines Ltd and United Airlines saw an up to a 27 percent increase in passenger numbers from India in the last quarter of 2018, data from India’s aviation regulator showed. That is the latest period for which the data is available.
India is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, clocking 15-20 percent domestic growth in recent years. It has long had only two full-service long-haul carriers, state-run Air India and Jet.
Jet is now hoping to be bailed out by a new investor, with final bids due on May 10.
INCREASING CAPACITY
Before its grounding, Jet had the biggest share of India’s outbound international air traffic, carrying 12 percent of the 7.8 million passengers headed overseas in the Oct-Dec quarter, down from 14 percent a year earlier, data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation showed.
For an interactive graphic on Jet’s market share, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WvDQYi
For an interactive graphic on average daily flights by the airline, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2FeFDel
The total number of passengers traveling overseas with Jet fell 10 percent during the last quarter of 2018 even as the outbound travel market grew about 5 percent.
Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines posted a 27 percent increase in passengers from India, Cathay registered 17 percent growth and British Airways saw a 10 percent rise in the same period.
Cathay said the events at Jet combined with increasing demand for travel had led it to deploy larger aircraft with more seats on some Indian routes.
“In the long term we would certainly like to be able to offer more capacity into India, not just on our existing routes but by establishing new services to secondary cities,” Cathay said in a statement.
Singapore Airlines, in an email to Reuters, said the Indian market is “very promising” but declined to give details of airfare levels or demand patterns in the wake of Jet’s exit, citing a quiet period before the release of its annual results.
DOMESTIC GAINS
Jet’s grounding has also had a big impact on the domestic market, with inter-city air fares to major cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata soaring more than 20 percent in May and June, according to Yatra.com.
The spike in fares is expected to underpin strong earnings for IndiGo and SpiceJet Ltd, which are set to report results for the quarter ended March 31 in the coming weeks.
“Domestic Indian carriers are the main benefactors, but I suspect if Jet fails to be revived by May 10 then Vistara and other airlines that ply international routes, particularly the lucrative Gulf market, are the main winners,” said Shukor Yusof, the head of aviation consultancy Endau Analytics. Vistara is a joint venture of India’s Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines.
Inadequate bilateral traffic rights between India and other countries, however, could be an impediment to foreign carriers’ hopes of winning business lost by Jet, some analysts said.
“Even before Jet’s operational shutdown, international capacity was significantly constrained,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO for South Asia of consultancy CAPA. “We have now more serious capacity challenge … this is unlikely to be stabilized in the near term.”
A new national government likely to be in place sometime after elections end in May is expected to address the international capacity constraints, and once bilateral agreements are eased airlines including Emirates, Turkish and Qatar would immediately benefit, said Kaul.
“We would love to add more flights but we are at the limit of the allocation granted to us for traffic rights,” Emirates Chief Commercial Officer Thierry Antinori told reporters in Dubai on Wednesday.
(Additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai, Jamie Freed in Singapore and Tanvi Mehta in Mumbai; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Source: OANN
South Africa’s 400m Olympic gold medallist and world record holder Wayde van Niekerk looks on as he attends South African Championships in Germiston, South Africa, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
April 26, 2019
GERMISTON, South Africa (Reuters) – Olympic 400 meters champion Wayde van Niekerk has backed South African compatriot Caster Semenya in her battle with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which now appears to have taken a new twist.
Semenya, a double 800 meters Olympic gold medalist, is waiting for the outcome of her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to halt the introduction of new regulations by governing body IAAF that would require her to take medicine to limit her natural levels of testosterone.
The IAAF wants female athletes with differences of sexual development who run in events from 400 meters to a mile, to reduce their blood testosterone level to below five (5) nmol/L for a period of six months before they can compete, saying they have an unfair advantage.
“She’s fighting for something beyond just track and field, she’s fighting for woman in sports, in society and I respect her for that,” Van Niekerk told reporters.
“I will support her and with the hard work and talent that she’s been putting into the sport. With what she believes in and what she’s dreaming for, I’ve got a lot of respect for her.
“I really hope and pray that everything just goes from strength to strength for her.”
Semenya has sprung a surprise at the on-going South African Athletics Championships though, ditching the 800 meters and instead competing over 1,500 and 5,000-metres – the latter one would not require her to medically lower her testosterone level.
She stormed to victory in the 5,000-metres final in a modest time of 16:05.97, but looked to have lots left in the tank as she passed the finish line.
Semenya beat fellow Olympian and defending national 5,000m champion Dominique Scott in Thursday’s final but the latter admitted she is unsure whether the 800m specialist could be a serious Olympic contender over the longer distance.
“Honestly‚ I have no idea‚” Scott said. “Before today I probably would have said no. It’s hard to compare a 5,000 at altitude to a 5,000 at sea level.
“But I think she’s an amazing runner and I don’t think there’s any limit or ceiling on what she can do.”
Van Niekerk, the 400m world record holder, had to abort his comeback from a knee injury, that had sidelined him for 18 months, following a combination of cold weather and a wet track.
“We are trying to take the correct decisions now early in the year so as not to put myself in any harm,” he said.
“It was a bit chilly this entire week prepping and coming through here as well it was quite cold and it caused bit of tightness in my leg. We decided to not risk it.
“My recovery is going well and I would like to be back in competition this year, but will only do so if I can deliver a good performance.
“I am a competitor and respect my opponents, so I need to be at my best when I return.”
(Reporting by Nick Said, additional reporting by Siyabonga Sishi; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
Source: OANN
Malaysian climber Wui Kin Chin is being transferred from a helicopter to the hospital for treatment after being rescued form Mount Annapurna in Kathmandu, Nepal April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar
April 26, 2019
By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) – A rescue helicopter plucked a Malaysian climber from Mount Annapurna in west Nepal on Friday, where he was stranded for two days after climbing the world’s tenth highest mountain this week, officials said.
Wui Kin Chin, 48, an anesthesiologist, reached the top of the 8,091 meter (26,545 feet) mountain along with 31 other international climbers on Tuesday but then failed to descend to a lower camp.
A helicopter pilot spotted him on Thursday waving his hands from an altitude of about 7,500 meters (24,606 feet). Four sherpa rescuers climbed to the site and brought him down to a lower camp from where he was picked up by a longline rescue helicopter.
Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, that provided local support to the climber, said the distressed mountaineer was flown to a hospital in Kathmandu on Friday.
“He is conscious but critical,” Mingma, who goes by his first name, told Reuters without giving details of how the climber survived on the mountain for two nights before the rescuers reached him.
Rescuers said bad weather and getting clearance from an insurance company caused delay in the rescue.
Hiking officials say fickle weather and frequent avalanches make Mount Annapurna a dangerous and more difficult to climb mountain than Mount Everest. Dozens of climbers have died on the mountain since it was first summited in 1950.
Hundreds of foreign climbers are on different Himalayan peaks in Nepal during the current climbing season which ends in May.
Mountain climbing is a key source of employment and income for the cash strapped nation, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks, including Mount Everest.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Martin Howell)
Source: OANN
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde attends a thematic forum of the second Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation in Beijing, China, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s massive Belt and Road infrastructure program should only go where it is needed and where the debt it generates can be sustained, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Friday.
In brief remarks to nearly 40 world leaders and other high-ranking officials at China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing, Lagarde said the program to build ports, railroads and other trade-enhancing infrastructure was having a positive impact on growth in certain countries but needed to be managed carefully.
She called for a revamped “Belt and Road 2.0” to include increased transparency, an open procurement process with competitive bidding and better risk assessment in project selection.
“History has taught us that, if not managed carefully, infrastructure investments can lead to a problematic increase in debt,” Lagarde said in remarks prepared for delivery at the conference. “I have said before that, to be fully successful, the Belt and Road should only go where it is needed. I would add today that it should only go where it is sustainable, in all aspects.”
Lagarde said that Chinese authorities were taking positive steps with a new debt sustainability framework that will be utilized to evaluate projects.
The sustainability initiative was announced on Thursday as China seeks to allay concerns that the Belt and Road plan to boost trade links was saddling poor countries with debts they cannot repay.
She also applauded the launch of a green investment principle for Belt and Road projects at the Beijing conference, emphasizing low-carbon and climate resilient investments.
“Debt sustainability and green sustainability will strengthen BRI sustainability,” Lagarde said.
The IMF chief said the Belt and Road initiative was helping to stimulate infrastructure investment and developing new global supply chains. She cited a new manufacturing zone in Kazakhstan linked to Belt and Road and construction of a highway in Senegal linking three cities to the country’s main airport, which has helped underpin strong growth.
(Reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official and former intelligence chief, return to discussions after a break at Park Hwa Guest House in Pyongyang, North Korea, July 7, 2018. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Hyonhee Shin
SEOUL (Reuters) – The demotion of Kim Yong Chol, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s point man for nuclear talks with the United States, signals he has taken the fall for the failed second summit between the two countries, diplomats in Seoul and regional experts said.
The hawkish former general and spymaster was recently removed from a key party post and is expected to hand over his leading role in the nuclear talks to diplomats who had been previously restrained to playing a secondary part, they said.
Kim Yong Chol remains a formidable force in Pyongyang but there is no word whether he has been given a new role in the ultra-secretive North Korean power structure. He did not accompany Kim Jong Un to Russia this week for a summit with President Vladimir Putin, the North Korean leader’s first international foray since his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February ended in disarray.
“The summit damaged the North’s long-held principle that its leader never makes an error, so they have to shift the blame,” said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul.
“This may not mean an immediate shift in their U.S. strategy, but the diplomats will likely take the initiative to contain the fallout from Hanoi and promote diplomacy with various countries.”
Kim Yong Chol was beside Kim through the last 12 months, including for his three meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, two with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the two Trump summits, in Singapore and Hanoi.
But for those who have known him as a hardline military general, Kim Yong Chol never seemed comfortable with the art of negotiating the roll back of his country’s nuclear program in exchange for concessions from the United States.
Kim avoided getting into details at negotiating sessions, instead leaving it to diplomats to build strategy, two diplomatic sources in Seoul familiar with the North’s diplomatic engagements said.
Even then, he refused to yield control, one of the sources said.
“Whether or not he understood the issues, he kept a tight grip on the negotiations. It seemed like: ‘Over my dead body I’m going to let Ri Yong Ho take over,’” the source said, referring to the North’s foreign minister.
‘REAL SPOKESWOMAN’
Ri and his deputy, Choe Son Hui, are seen to be taking over the vacuum left by Kim Yong Chol, flanking the leader as he met Putin on Thursday.
The collapse of the Hanoi summit was a major setback for Kim Jong Un, who, several sources said, was led to believe by hawkish aides like Kim Yong Chol that he was about to win sought-after sanctions relief in return for a promise to partially scrap nuclear facilities.
Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea’s Sejong Institute, said the demands Kim made of Trump in Hanoi had the hallmarks of the “best scenario” strategy advocated by hawks like Kim Yong Chol.
“But it turned out to be a scenario that the United States could never accept,” Cheong said. “Kim Jong Un cutting his reliance on Kim Yong Chol is a positive sign for the negotiations.”
The person who now appears to have Kim’s ear is Vice Foreign Minister Choe, North Korea experts said.
She has steadily grown in influence over the last 15 years, rising from a junior player on the North’s U.S. diplomacy team to become vice foreign minister and a member of the powerful State Affairs Commission.
She held several news conferences after the collapse of the Hanoi summit, playing the rare role of conveying Kim Jong Un’s thinking.
Thae Yong Ho, former North Korean deputy ambassador in London who defected to the South in 2016, said Choe has joined an inner circle of women close to Kim Jong Un, including his sister and his wife.
“Now she’s the real spokeswoman for Kim Jong Un,” Thae told a forum hosted by the Asan Institute of Policy Studies on Wednesday in Seoul. “How can Choe read his mind? Because she has access.”
A diplomatic source also said Choe appears to have built rapport with Kim Yo Jong, Kim’s sister who is also a senior party official, which contributed to her recent promotion.
“We have to remember that (Foreign Minister) Ri and Choe are not only North Korea’s best people for the job of dealing with the U.S.,” said Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the U.S.-based Stimson Center.
“But they both have known the leader since he was a small boy so there is a dynamic of their wanting to see Kim Jong Un thrive and succeed.”
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Jack Kim and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: World Bank Group President David Malpass and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at the IMF and World Bank’s 2019 Annual Spring Meetings, in Washington, U.S. April 13, 2019. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan
April 26, 2019
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly 40 world leaders and scores of finance officials, including International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, are gathered in Beijing for China’s second Belt and Road infrastructure summit, but the World Bank’s new president isn’t among them.
David Malpass, fresh from a senior Trump administration post at the U.S. Treasury Department, is instead making his first foreign trip as the World Bank’s leader to sub-Saharan Africa to highlight his vision for the bank’s poverty reduction and development agenda.
A World Bank spokesman said Malpass will be traveling this weekend to Madagascar, Ethiopia and Mozambique before flying to Egypt and a debt conference in Paris. Malpass has said that Africa is a key priority for the bank due to its high concentration of the world’s poorest people.
World Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva, who had been acting president during the leadership selection process, is representing the institution at the summit and had accepted China’s invitation before Malpass started at the bank on April 9, the bank spokesman said.
Former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim attended China’s first Belt and Road summit two years ago.
Leaders of two of the countries on Malpass’ trip, Ethiopia and Mozambique, are among a number of African leaders also attending this year’s summit.
Malpass, who was the Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs, is a longtime critic of China’s Belt and Road lending practices and had worked to raise alarms about them with G7 and G20 countries in that role.
“In lending, China often fails to adhere to international standards in areas such as anti-corruption, export credits, and finding coordinated and sustainable solutions to payment difficulties, such as those sought in the Paris Club,” Malpass told a U.S. House Financial Services subcommittee in December.
His absence coincides with a significant downgrade of the Belt and Road summit by the United States as the Trump administration tries to negotiate a deal to resolve longstanding trade and intellectual property disputes with China — talks in which Malpass frequently participated.
No high-level U.S. officials are attending, a State Department spokesman said, citing similar concerns about Belt and Road debt.
Malpass said at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings this month that meeting the development lender’s goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 calls for a focus on Africa.
“By 2030, nearly 9 in 10 extremely poor people will be Africans, and half of the world’s poor will be living in fragile and conflict-affected settings,” he told a news conference at the meetings. “This calls for urgent action, by countries themselves, and by the global community.”
He told reporters on his first day on the job that he wanted to “evolve” the bank’s relationship with China to one where Beijing is a bigger contributor of capital and cooperates more closely with the bank on development issues and poverty reduction.
But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Malpass’ former boss, on the same day told lawmakers that the World Bank under Malpass’ leadership and a new U.S. development agency “can be a serious competitor to (China’s) Belt and Road.”
(Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Jason Neely)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A man stands near an IBM logo at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Sergio Perez
April 26, 2019
OSLO (Reuters) – Fertilizer maker Yara International and IBM plan to launch digital farming services later this year to help boost crop yields, eventually targeting 100 million hectares, or close to 7 percent of arable land worldwide, they said.
Norway-based Yara is among the world’s largest fertilizer makers, reporting revenues of $12.9 billion last year from operations in more than 60 countries.
Weather data will be among the specific areas of cooperation between the two companies, combining analysis from several IBM units with Yara’s knowledge of crops.
“The joint platform will not only provide hyperlocal weather forecasts but will in addition give real-time actionable recommendations, tailored to the specific needs of individual fields/crops,” the companies added.
As the joint platform expands, the companies will seek to integrate it into IBM Food Trust, a blockchain-enabled network of food chain players.
“This will allow for greater traceability and supply chain efficiency as well as ways to tackle food fraud, food waste and sustainability,” the companies said.
(Reporting by Victoria Klesty, writing by Terje Solsvik, editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Source: OANN
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