Trump brings tough trade message to APEC

DANANG, Vietnam — U.S. President Donald Trump set out a strong message on trade at a meeting of Asia-Pacific countries in Vietnam on Friday, saying the United States could no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses and would insist on fair and equal policies.

Trump said the United States was ready to make a bilateral deal with any country in the Indo-Pacific region, but only on the basis of “mutual respect and mutual benefit.”

Although he was addressing a meeting alongside the summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, Trump repeatedly referred to the Indo-Pacific region and mentioned the importance of India in his speech.

“When the United States enters into a trading relationship with other countries or other peoples, we will from now on expect that our partners will faithfully follow the rules,” he said in the seaside resort of Danang.

“We expect that markets will be open to an equal degree on both sides and that private investment, not government planners, will direct investment,” he said in a speech ahead of a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders.

Trump arrived in Vietnam from China on the fourth leg of a 12-day trip to Asia. Redressing the balance of trade between Asia and the United States is at the center of Trump’s “America First” policy he says will protect U.S. workers.

The difference between Trump’s and China’s approaches was made more stark by comments in a later speech from Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said globalization was an irreversible trend and voiced support for multilateral trade deals.

While China has by far the biggest trade surplus with the United States, Vietnam is also on the list of those surpluses the Trump administration seeks to reduce.

APEC, which has long championed free trade, has itself been convulsed by the changes under Trump.

Since Trump abandoned the Trans Pacific Partnership TPP trade deal early in his presidency, the remaining 11 members have struggled to build momentum to keep it alive.

Leaders of TPP countries are due to meet on Friday after talks among ministers ended in confusion on Thursday with Japan’s economy minister saying that they “agree in principle” and his Canadian counterpart saying that was not true.

Trump broke early with the “Pivot to Asia” of the Obama administration, worrying some traditional allies that he would allow China to extend its increasing dominance.

South China Sea

Danang itself sits on the shore of the South China Sea, one of the region’s biggest security headaches and where China’s neighbors challenge its sweeping claim to most of the waterway as having no basis in law.

Trump said the region’s future depended on upholding “freedom of navigation and overflight, including open shipping lanes.” He also mentioned “territorial expansion” among evils such as drugs, people smuggling and terrorism.

Vietnam has become one of the most vocal critics of China’s claims in the South China Sea and its construction of artificial islands.

In a sign of possible competition with China’s grand Belt and Road plan, Trump said he would push the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to fund infrastructure development and would reform U.S. development finance institutions.

Trump said that would “provide strong alternatives to state directed initiatives that come with many strings attached.”

“Above all, we seek friendship and we don’t dream of domination,” he said.

Danang has a special place in U.S.-Vietnamese history: it was where the first U.S. ground troops disembarked in 1965 in the escalation of a war that would last another decade before the communist victory.

Danang was close to some of the heaviest fighting and its air base was the route through which many Americans of Trump’s generation were sent to the war.

Trump himself did not serve, receiving five deferments — one for bone spurs in his heel.

source: interaksyon.com

All eyes on first Trump-Putin face-to-face at G20

HAMBURG — U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to size each other up in person for the first time on Friday in what promises to be the most highly anticipated meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

Trump has said he wants to find ways to work with Putin, a goal made more difficult by sharp differences over Russia’s actions in Syria and Ukraine, and allegations Moscow meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

That means every facial expression and physical gesture will be analyzed as much as any words the two leaders utter as the world tries to read how well Trump, a real estate magnate and former reality television star, gets along with Putin, a former spy.

The fear is that the Republican president, a political novice whose team is still developing its Russia policy, will be less prepared than Putin, who has dealt with the past two U.S. presidents and scores of other world leaders.

“There’s nothing … the Kremlin would like to see more than a (U.S.) president who will settle for a grip and a grin and walk away saying that he had this fabulous meeting with the Kremlin autocrat,” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC.

As investigations at home continue into whether there was any collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia the U.S. president has come under pressure to take a hard line against the Kremlin.

Moscow has denied any interference and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

On Thursday, Trump won praise from at least one Republican hawk in the U.S. Congress after his speech in Warsaw in which he urged Russia to stop its “destabilizing activities” and end its support for Syria and Iran.

“This is a great start to an important week of American foreign policy,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has often been critical of Trump on security issues.

But earlier in the day, Trump declined to say definitively whether he believed U.S. intelligence officials who have said that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

“I think it was Russia but I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said at a news conference, before slamming Democratic former President Barack Obama for not doing more to stop hacking.

Senators’ concerns

Ahead of Trump’s meeting with Putin, three U.S. senators wrote to Trump to express “deep concern” about reports that his administration planned to discuss the return to Russia of diplomatic compounds in Maryland and New York that were seized by the Obama administration last year in response to alleged Russian election meddling.

Republican Senators Johnny Isakson and Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said returning the facilities would “embolden” Putin and encourage further efforts by Russia to interfere in Western elections. All three are on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The White House declined to offer details on what Trump would request of Putin and what he might offer in exchange for cooperation.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump wanted to talk about how the two countries can work together to stabilize war-ravaged Syria.

“The United States is prepared to explore the possibility of establishing with Russia joint mechanisms for ensuring stability, including no-fly zones, on-the-ground ceasefire observers, and coordinated delivery of humanitarian assistance,” Tillerson said before leaving the United States to join Trump in Germany.

Trump was also grappling with a response to North Korea’s successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts say had a long enough range to reach Alaska.

Curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions has been Trump’s most pressing foreign policy priority, and he met with leaders from Japan and South Korea on Thursday evening to discuss it. He is also slated to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20.

“I’d like to see the president figure out how to engage Russia on North Korea,” said Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican from Florida who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“What I suggested to the president here a while back was that since we have all these conflicting issues about Russia right now and we’re still reeling from the fact that they took Crimea, maybe this is an opportunity to reset the Russia relationship in a positive manner,” Rooney said in an interview.

source: interaksyon.com

G20 SUMMIT | Paris attacks, Syria divide reshape world leaders' agenda

ANTALYA, Turkey - World leaders joined a heavily-guarded summit in Turkey on Sunday to forge a united front against jihadist violence after the Paris gun and bomb assaults but facing stark divisions over conflict-riven Syria.

US President Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin of Russia, China's President Xi Jinping and other leaders gathered at the Mediterranean resort ofAntalya two days after the Paris attacks claimed byIslamic State jihadists that killed at least 129 people.

The Paris killings darkened the mood of the summit of the Group of 20 top world economies, with security and the Syrian conflict now eclipsing an economic agenda that will also deal with the spreading refugee crisis, climate change and tax avoidance.

Several sources told AFP that the leaders were working on a rare separate statement to denounce the Paris attacks and terrorism, urged on by host President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who said the summit agenda was now "very different" given the massacre in Paris.

"We need to lead an international fight within a coalition against collective acts of terrorism," Erdogansaid on the eve of the summit after meeting withChina's Xi, who described terrorism as "a common enemy of humanity".

The gathering, which will take place without French leader Francois Hollande who remains home to lead his shaken country, offers the first possibility of a meeting between Obama and Putin since Russia launched its own air campaign in Syria.

The West suspects the Russian bombardment is aimed at propping up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a difference that risks driving a wedge through the summit, which officially kicks off at midday Sunday (1000 GMT).

The White House has said no formal summit is so far scheduled between the pair, whose icy body language at previous encounters has grabbed as many headlines as their comments.

Erdogan wants to use the summit to cement his status as a global leader after winning a resounding victory in an election last month, held three weeks after a twin suicide bombing in Ankara that killed 102 people and was blamed on Islamic State militants.

But while even Putin and Obama are likely to have no trouble standing together in shared abhorrence of terrorism, overcoming differences on Syria will prove far trickier.

Heightened security

All musical events, including at the official dinner on Sunday night, have been cancelled as a mark of respect for the Paris victims and Turkish state media said the already tight security at the summit was stepped up.

The leaders will probably struggle to find common ground over the Syria crisis, with host Turkey deeply opposed to Russia's air strikes and finding only a lukewarm reaction so far to its proposal for a safe zone free of Islamic State jihadists to be created inside Syria as a haven for refugees.

"I pray and hope that G20 will provide a platform whereby all of these issues can be discussed openly and then we can understand each other," Erdogan said.

Top diplomats gathered in Vienna on Saturday agreed a fixed calendar for Syria that would see a transition government in six months and elections in 18 months but failed to agree on the future of Assad.

Yet officials in Antalya have insisted that they will not allow terrorism to derail the summit.

The refugee crisis is a key topic, with host Turkey housing some 2.2 million Syrian refugees from the conflict but the European Union wanting Ankara to do more to prevent migrants undertaking risky boat crossings to the EU.

Discussions on climate change will assume greater importance than usual coming just ahead of a UN conference in Paris that aims to agree a legally binding global climate treaty.

Other key guests at the summit include Saudi King Salman, whose delegation according to the Hurriyet daily has booked 546 hotel rooms at a cost of up to 15,000 euros ($16,115) each and hired 400 luxury cars.

Focus beyond economies

Although the G20 usually focuses on economic issues, the fight against terrorism was already expected to be on the agenda. The summit comes two weeks after a suspected bomb attack on a Russian airliner killed 224 people in the Sinai Peninsula.

It also comes just over a month after two suspected Islamic State suicide bombers blew themselves up at a peace rally in the Turkish capital Ankara, killing more than 100 people in the worst such attack in the country.

Events such as the attacks in Paris made it crucial for the world's top economies to stand shoulder to shoulder at the summit, China's vice finance minister said.

"We must work together, we must enhance our solidarity," Zhu Guangyou told a news conference in the coastal resort of Belek, where leaders began gathering for the summit.

Speaking in Vienna, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was growing consensus among global powers that they had to work together to confront Islamic State.

Turkey's battles

The G20 summit takes place just 500 km (310 miles) from Syria, where a 4-1/2-year conflict has transformed Islamic State militants into a global security threat and spawned Europe's largest migration flows since World War Two.

Erdogan condemned the Paris killings and pointed to Turkey's own long battle with domestic security threats, which include its fight with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in its southeast and recent bomb attacks linked to Islamic State.

Ankara sees a growing threat to its security from radical Islamists. Security sources said the Turkish army killed four Islamic State militants when they came under attack from across the Syrian border on Saturday. One official said the frequency of such attacks was on the rise.

Turkish officials said Erdogan would push in bilateral meetings with leaders including Obama for more coordinated and decisive action against Islamic State in Syria.

But he would also emphasize Turkey's opposition to U.S. support for Kurdish rebels who are fighting the radical Sunni insurgents, they said. Turkey says these rebels have close ties to the PKK, considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union as well as by Ankara.

"Terrorism has no nationality or religion. All terrorism is bad, we must leave aside the feeling that our terrorist is bad and your terrorist is good," Erdogan said.

NATO-member Turkey opened its air bases in July to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, but critics say it woke up late to the threat.

Following January's attacks in Paris by gunmen on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the wife of one of the gunmen fled through Turkey to IS-controlled Syria.

Turkey stepped up its fight against Islamic State in July, but the campaign has largely seen air strikes and military action against PKK fighters in Turkey and northern Iraq.

On Friday night Turkish jets pounded PKK targets in northern Iraq, where the group's headquarters are located.

Selahattin Demirtas, co-leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition HDP, said the Paris attacks were a result of the world's failure to deal with Islamic State (ISIL).

"The world, including Turkey, has not undertaken an effective, coordinated effort against ISIL. Just the opposite, everyone used ISIL, or elements within it, for their own interests," he said at an event in Istanbul.

source: interaksyon.com

South Africa buries 'greatest son' Mandela

QUNU  - South Africa held a state funeral for Nelson Mandela on Sunday, closing one chapter in its tortured history and opening another in which the multi-racial democracy he founded will have to discover if it can thrive without its central pillar.

The Nobel peace laureate, who was held in apartheid prisons for 27 years before emerging to preach forgiveness and reconciliation, was honored with ceremonies that mixed military pomp with the traditional rites of his Xhosa abaThembu clan.

The funeral drew 4,500 guests, from relatives and South African leaders to Britain's Prince Charles, American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

"The person who is lying here is South Africa's greatest son," Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of South Africa's ruling ANC party who was acting as one of the masters of ceremonies, said as the service got under way.

Fellow anti-apartheid veteran Archbishop Desmond Tutu was also among those who arrived shortly after dawn at a vast, domed tent erected in a field near Mandela's home, having resolved a last-minute mix-up over his invitation.

As Mandela's flag-draped coffin was borne from the house on a gun-carriage, a battery of cannons positioned on the hillside fired a 21-gun salute, sending booms echoing across the sun-drenched valley.

The coffin was followed into the huge tent, decked out inside in black, by Mandela's grandson and heir, Mandla, and South African President Jacob Zuma.

It was then placed on black and white Nguni cattle skins in front of a ring of 95 candles as the service started with a choir singing Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, the evocative national anthem adopted after the end of apartheid in 1994.

Mandela died in Johannesburg on December 5 aged 95, plunging his 53 million countrymen and millions more around the world into mourning, and triggering more than a week of official memorials to the nation's first black president.

As many as 100,000 people paid their respects in person at his lying in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where he had been inaugurated as president, an event that brought the curtain down on more than three centuries of white domination.

When his body arrived on Saturday at his ancestral home in Qunu, 700 km (450 miles) south of Johannesburg, it was greeted by ululating locals overjoyed that Madiba, the clan name by which he was affectionately known, had "come home".

"After his long life and illness he can now rest," said grandmother Victoria Ntsingo, as military helicopters escorting the funeral cortege clattered overhead.

"His work is done."

'Don't call me'

Mandela served just one term as leader of Africa's biggest and most sophisticated economy, and formally withdrew from public life in 2004, famously telling reporters at the end of a farewell news conference: "Don't call me, I'll call you."

His last appearance in public was at the 2010 World Cup final in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium, waving to fans from the back of a golf cart.

Yet such was his influence as the architect two decades ago of the historic reconciliation between blacks and whites that his passing has left a gaping hole in the heart of South Africa.

With an eye on elections in five months, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the 101-year-old former liberation movement Mandela once led, has seized on his death as a chance to shore up popularity that is ebbing even in its black support base.

The strategy has not been without its risks, not least because it has highlighted the gulf in stature between South Africa's first black president and its fourth, the scandal-plagued Zuma.

It backfired spectacularly at a mass Mandela memorial at Soccer City on Tuesday when Zuma, under fire for a $21 million security upgrade to his private home, was booed and jeered in front of world leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama.

But barring an upset next year, Zuma looks set for another five years in office, during which he will have to address an economy struggling to shake off a 2009 recession and the fragmentation of a vital ANC alliance forged with the unions in the common struggle against apartheid.

With unemployment at 25 percent and racial inequality still painfully evident - the average white household earns six times more than the average black one - pressure for radical economic transformation is only likely to increase.

Against that backdrop, the party is desperate for strong and decisive leaders to guide South Africa through the myriad complexities of the 21st century global economy and allowing it to claim what it believes is its rightful place at the world's top table.

Both inside and outside the party, there are doubts whether Zuma, a polygamous Zulu traditionalist with no formal education, is the right man for the job.

"We need to raise the level of leadership," former president Thabo Mbeki, who was unceremoniously ousted by Zuma as ANC leader six years ago, said in eulogies to Mandela last week.

"The transformation of South Africa is a very difficult task, I think in many respects more difficult than the struggle to end the system of apartheid."

source: interaksyon.com

South Africa prepares funeral for the ages for Mandela

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa prepared Saturday a sweeping, emotional farewell for Nelson Mandela and a funeral to underline the anti-apartheid icon's transcendent influence with a stellar gathering of world leaders and luminaries.

As Mandela's family expressed their sense of grief and loss, government officials fleshed out details of the memorial events that will culminate in the prisoner-turned-president's burial on December 15 in his boyhood home of Qunu.

Presidents and foreign heads of government, religious dignitaries, and cultural figureheads are all expected to fly in and pay their respects to the man who transformed his country and became a global symbol of hope and freedom.

The scale of the event and the level of attention and emotion surrounding it has had observers searching for a precedent, with some going as far back as the funeral of India's independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.

For a second straight day, thousands of ordinary South Africans, black and white and from all walks of life, paid personal tribute at the Johannesburg residence where Mandela died late Thursday, aged 95, surrounded by friends and family.

A large police barrier blocking the road was transformed into a multi-coloRed bank of flowers, flags, photos, and messages remembering the country's first black leader, known affectionately as Madiba.

"We have lost our friend"

While some focused on his role in dismantling apartheid and forging the modern, multi-racial South African state, others recalled the common touch that was one of Mandela's particular political gifts.

"I am here because we have lost our friend," said domestic worker Temperance Luthuli.

On a nearby lawn, a makeshift shrine had been set up with candles burning on a square of blackened grass, surrounded by a horseshoe of flowers.

On the other side of the road, a hawker flogged yellow T-shirts with the slogan "Nelson Mandela, our hero has fallen - 1918-2013" for 200 rand ($20).

In an intimate ceremony in Qunu on Saturday, residents lit a metER-high candle, remembering Mandela as the "light of the universe."

"The pillar of the family is gone," Mandela family spokesman Temba Matanzima told journalists in Johannesburg.

"His presence was like a baobab tree that provided a comforting shade that served as protection and security for us," he said -- referring to the massive tree with its famously thick trunk.

Mandela's body will lie in state for three days from Wednesday, with the coffin taken in a cortege through the streets of Pretoria each morning, giving as many people as possible the opportunity to say farewell.

'While mourning, also sing'

Formal memorial events begin Sunday with South Africans invited to go to churches, mosques, synagogues and other places of worship.

"We should, while mourning, also sing at the top of our voices, dance and do whatever we want to do, to celebrate the life of this outstanding revolutionary," said President Jacob Zuma.

On Tuesday around 80,000 people are expected to attend a memorial service in the Soweto sports stadium that hosted the final of the 2010 World Cup.

The organizational and security logistics for all the events are daunting, and the military cancelled leave for troops and reservists to help with crowd control.

US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will travel to South Africa together with former first couple George W. and Laura Bush.

Another former US leader, Bill Clinton, who was in office when Mandela became South Africa's first black president, will also attend.

In a tribute shortly after the revered statesman's death was made public, Obama mourned Mandela as a "profoundly good" man who "took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice."

In Cape Town, a crowd of thousands from all races and ages gathered late Friday for a multi-faith celebration at the site where Mandela made his first public speech after nearly three decades in apartheid jail.

"Tonight we stand in solidarity as the people of Cape Town -- black, white, colored, Indian, all the religions together," said mayor Patricia De Lille.

South Africa's archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, a fellow Nobel peace prize winner, praised Mandela as an "incredible gift that God gave us."

Mandela spent 27 years in apartheid prisons before being elected president in 1994 and unifying his country with a message of reconciliation after the end of white minority rule. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa's last white president, F.W. de Klerk, in 1993.

Palestinians and Israelis, Beijing and the Dalai Lama, Washington and Tehran all paid heartfelt tribute to Mandela, describing him as one of the towering figures of the 20th century.

Even reclusive North Korea sent its condolences, praising Mandela's "struggle against racism and for democracy."

Flags flew at half-mast in numerous countries, including the United States, France, and Britain, and at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Mandela had waged a long battle against a recurring lung infection and had been receiving treatment at home since September following a lengthy hospital stay.

His two youngest daughters were in London watching the premiere of his biopic "Long Walk to Freedom," along with Britain's Prince William, when they learned of his death.

Once considered a terrorist by the United States and Britain for his support of violence against the apartheid regime, at the time of his death Mandela was an almost unimpeachable moral icon.

source: interaksyon.com

Chefs reveal eating secrets of world leaders

PARIS -- Barack Obama can't stand beetroot, artichokes are off the menu at France's presidential palace and Vladimir Putin does not take any chances with dishes that emerge from the Kremlin kitchens.

Those were just a few of the culinary tidbits to emerge from the latest reunion of the select club of chefs who ply their trade on behalf of some of the most powerful men and women on the planet.

The "club des chefs des chefs," which now counts some 20 members, was formed 35 years ago by Gilles Bragard, who revealed that Putin continues the tradition of medieval monarchs who, for fear of poisoning, were reluctant to eat anything that had not been tried first by someone else.

"Tasters still exist but only in the Kremlin, where a doctor checks every dish with the chef," Bragard told reporters this week ahead of a reception for the chefs hosted by new French President Francois Hollande.

Bragard's comments were confirmed by Putin's head chef, Vakhtang Abushidi, and it seems he is not the only modern-day leader who harbors a fear of what they may find on the plates put in front of them.

Anton Mosimann, a regular cook for the British royal family, recalled that a visit by a former US president resulted in him being "constantly followed around by two FBI guys who wanted to taste absolutely everything I was proposing to cook."

More recent interference in the palace kitchen has come from Britain's Duchess of Cambridge, the wife of Prince William, who asked the Swiss chef to lighten one of his sauces.

Mosimann also revealed that, long after her retirement, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher harbored warm memories of the quality of the beef that was served during her time in Downing Street.

Typically, the grocer's daughter could also remember just how much it cost. "It was delicious, but, oh, it was expensive!" Mosimann recalled the Iron Lady exclaiming.

Bernard Vaussion, who has cooked for French Presidents and their guests for 40 years, confirmed that his new boss Hollande would gladly give artichokes a wide berth.

But he is delighted that cheese is back on the Elysee menu after being banished from the table during the term of Hollande's chocaholic predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Cristeta Comerford, the head chef at the White House, would not be drawn on US President Obama's aversion to beetroot (also revealed by Bragard), perhaps anxious not to undermine Michelle Obama's drive to get American kids to eat more fruit and vegetables.

By way of example, the first lady has established a vegetable plot and an orchard in the White House grounds.

Monaco's Prince Albert II -- a "fine gourmet" according to his chef Christian Garcia -- is another fan of home-grown cuisine, with much of what he eats drawn from his organic kitchen garden.

Offal is the only no-go area for Garcia, who has recently added the South African specialty bobotie -- a spiced minced meat dish baked with an egg-based topping -- to his repertoire of recipes following Albert's marriage to Princess Charlene.

source: interaksyon.com