China holds drills in Taiwan Strait, calls for sanctions against US companies - CNN

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) announced in a statement Sunday that the military exercises off China's "southeast coast" involved both the navy and the air force, but provided few other details.

Both Beijing and Taipei tried to downplay the drills, with the PLA describing the exercises as "a routine arrangement according to (our) annual plans."

However, they come amid tension between the Beijing and Washington over a $2.2 billion US arms sale to Taiwan, and also coincide with a trip by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to the United States as she prepares to shore up support among the island's allies in the Caribbean.

On Friday, China threatened to impose sanctions against any US companies who sold weapons to Taiwan.

Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai made it clear on Friday on Twitter that any attempts by the US government to "split" Taiwan from China would provoke a swift response.

"Those who play with fire will only get themselves burned. Period," he tweeted.

'Hot-button issue'

The US State Department gave its approval of the multibillion-dollar arms deal with Taiwan on July 8, which includes 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks and Stinger missiles.

In response, China's Foreign Ministry said it would impose sanctions on any companies selling arms to Taiwan, although it didn't single any out by name.

Speaking on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he wasn't in a position to "disclose more details" at present.

"Please believe that China always keeps its promises and its actions always produce results," he said.

Among the companies that could be affected would be Raytheon Missile Systems, who make the Stingers, or General Dynamics Land Systems, who are responsible for the Abrams tanks.

"In order to safeguard national interests, China will impose sanctions on US companies involved in the arms sales to Taiwan," spokesman Geng said Friday.

La Trobe University associate professor James Leibold said that Taiwan was being used as a bargaining chip by both US and China and the threat of sanctions showed Beijing felt ready to escalate the issue.

Taiwan was becoming more of a "hot-button issue" for both governments due to a push for closer relations from Washington, said Leibold.

"Clearly some in the Trump administration want to strengthen the alliance with Taiwan, and as we all know the Taiwan issue has always been a deeply sensitive one for the People's Republic of China," he said.

Taiwan has been self-ruled since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, which saw the Communist Party take control of the mainland and the Nationalist government forced to flee to the island.

But Beijing still views the island as their territory and has worked consistently for decades to try to threaten or cajole it into rejoining with the mainland.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has regularly called for the reunification of Taiwan, even refusing to rule out force in a major speech in January.

In the past year, China has ramped up its military exercises around the island. It held live fire drills in the Taiwan Strait in 2018, while Chinese fighter jets crossed the maritime border separating the island from the mainland in a rare incursion in April.

Taiwan's Ministry of Defense said that the PLA's drills on Sunday were "nothing more than routine exercises," according to Taiwan's news agency CNA, adding that the island's military was ready to respond to any threats.

Taiwan president defiant

The rise in tensions comes amid a visit to the US by Taiwan President Tsai on her way to visit the island's allies in the Caribbean.

Tsai is spending an unusually long stopover of four nights in the country, including two nights in New York. There is no confirmation of what meetings she is expected to have while in the country.

Her visit alone was enough to antagonize the Chinese government, which opposes any official contact between Washington and Taipei.

"Allowing Tsai to 'stop over' violates the #oneChina principle ... China urges the US to properly handle the Taiwan issue to prevent damaging China US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," China's embassy in the US said on its official Twitter Friday.

But Tsai hasn't been deterred by the Chinese government's opposition, holding a public meeting with representatives of Taiwan's remaining 17 allies in New York.

"Taiwan will firmly defend our democratic system. Our democracy has not come easily and is now facing the threat and penetration of overseas forces," said Tsai, implicitly criticizing Beijing. On her way back to Taipei, Tsai will stop over in Denver, Colorado.

While in the Caribbean, Tsai will visit St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and Haiti.

Taiwan's leader has taken an increasingly strident anti-China stance ahead of the national election in January 2020 where she will seek re-election.

It was announced on Monday that she will face opposition Kuomintang presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu, who won his party's nomination with 44% of the vote.

Despite being viewed as more pro-Beijing than Tsai, Han appeared to take a harder stance against further integration with the mainland in June, amid increasingly heated protests in Hong Kong.

"'One Country, Two Systems' can never be implemented in Taiwan. Taiwanese people can never accept it, unless it's over my dead body," Han told a rally in June.

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2019-07-15 09:01:00Z
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Populist Mayor Is Picked to Run Against Taiwan’s President - The New York Times

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A populist mayor in Taiwan who favors closer ties with China won the opposition party’s nomination to run against President Tsai Ing-wen, who has been sharply critical of Beijing’s attempts to pressure the island into unification.

The nomination of Han Kuo-yu, who survived a challenge from Terry Gou, the founder of the world’s largest iPhone assembler, will offer Taiwan’s voters a stark choice in January’s election between governments leaning toward Washington or Beijing.

Ms. Tsai, the incumbent from the Democratic Progressive Party, drew sharp condemnation from China last week when she visited New York and spoke at Columbia University. The speech underlined the warmest ties between Washington and Taipei in two decades.

[Han Kuo-yu, the new star of the opposition, has galvanized older Taiwanese.]

Mr. Han, the mayor of the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, was selected by the opposition Kuomintang based on the results of public opinion and phone surveys taken over the last week that showed he was backed by 45 percent of respondents compared with 28 percent for Mr. Gou.

“Han’s primary victory was quite convincing,” said Austin Wang, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies Taiwan politics. “The gap between Han and Gou was huge.”

Mr. Han has accused Ms. Tsai’s government of failing to improve people’s lives, while suggesting that some recent authoritarian East Asian leaders offer a model for Taiwan, which democratized in the early 1990s after nearly four decades of brutal martial law.

At a large June 1 rally in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, Mr. Han singled out three political figures for praise: Chiang Ching-kuo, the former Kuomintang dictator of Taiwan; Lee Kuan Yew, the late authoritarian ruler of Singapore; and Deng Xiaoping, who initiated economic overhauls in China in the 1980s but was responsible for the Tiananmen massacre.

Mr. Han visited China earlier this year, where he met with top Communist Party officials in the former British colony of Hong Kong and the former Portuguese colony of Macau. Both territories are administered by Beijing under a “one country, two systems” framework that, in theory, allows a high degree of local autonomy in all areas aside from diplomacy and national defense.

China’s Communist Party claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory. In January, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, urged Taiwan’s 23 million people to choose peaceful unification with China under a “one country, two systems” arrangement. In the same speech, Mr. Xi also said he would not rule out war as a means of bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s control.

Mr. Han has promoted the view that Taiwan and China belong to the same country, and had argued that closer ties with China would lift Taiwan’s economy. His tone has changed, however, in the wake of the recent wave of large protests in Hong Kong, where residents have demonstrated against a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China and against police abuses during the protests.

In June, shortly after one of the biggest protest marches in Hong Kong, Mr. Han said that if he were elected president, Taiwan would only accept China’s “one country, two systems” proposal “over my dead body.”

Mr. Gou has been critical of the support Mr. Han has received from what many Taiwanese call the “red media,” or local news outlets that are more sympathetic to Beijing — led by those belonging to the Want Want Group, which has often been critical of the outspoken tycoon.

There has been widespread speculation that Mr. Gou may run for president as an independent. Although he appears to have lost convincingly to Mr. Han, the nature of the public poll, which also surveyed nonparty members, led to suspicion that supporters of Ms. Tsai had said they backed Mr. Han, viewing him as a weaker opponent for Ms. Tsai than Mr. Gou.

In addition to a possible independent bid by Mr. Gou, Taipei’s independent mayor, Ko Wen-je, may also announce his candidacy for January’s election. Should they both join the race, it would most likely benefit Ms. Tsai, since like Mr. Han they are seen as more China-friendly than Ms. Tsai, and would very likely split voters who favor closer ties with China.

Despite his victory, Mr. Han faces challenges within his own party, the Kuomintang. Having campaigned as the “president of the common people” who will help Taiwanese get rich — without offering details on how he intends to do so — he now needs to win over the party elite.

“Well-educated Kuomintang elites may not want to openly support Han,” Mr. Wang said. “He needs to focus on issues that those elites will want to work on with him.”

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2019-07-15 08:45:30Z
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China's economic growth slumps to lowest in 27 years as the trade war hits - CNN

The country's gross domestic product grew at 6.2% in the quarter ended June, the slowest quarterly growth rate since 1992 and down from 6.4% in the previous quarter, according to government figures released on Monday.

And the Chinese economy will continue to face "downward pressure" in the second half of this year, the country's National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.

"The Chinese economy is still in a complex and grave situation," it said. "Global growth has slowed and external uncertainties are on the rise."

While Beijing and Washington recently agreed a temporary truce in their months-long trade war, analysts say a lot of question marks remain about whether they can reach a deal.

"Uncertainty caused by the US-China trade war was an important factor and we think this will persist," said Tom Rafferty, principal economist, China at The Economist Intelligence Unit.

"Businesses remain skeptical that the two countries will reach a broader trade agreement and recognise that trade tensions may escalate again," he added.

Analysts expect Beijing to unveil more stimulus measures to boost the economy, including possible interest rate cuts by the country's central bank, the People's Bank of China. The US Federal Reserve has also signaled it may lower interest rates.

"While the PBOC has already delivered stimulus this year, markets are awaiting... additional measures, which will probably come if trade talks collapse," said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda. "If talks steadily progress, we will still probably see the [bank] deliver fresh stimulus following the Fed's highly anticipated rate cut at the end of the month. "

Nanlin Fang contributed to this report.

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2019-07-15 06:46:00Z
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Tensions Mount in Hong Kong as Protesters Call for Chief Executive Carrie Lam's Resignation - TIME

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2019-07-14 16:25:33Z
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Jet-powered flyboard steals the show at Bastille Day celebrations - Guardian News

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2019-07-14 14:34:46Z
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She moved from Canada to Somalia to tell positive stories, but ended up dead in a terrorist attack - CNN

But, eight weeks later, she was dead.

Nalayeh was a victim of a brutal terrorist attack that ripped through Kismayo, the normally serene and beautiful port city in Jubaland, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu.

She was among 26 people who died after several gunmen stormed the Asasey Hotel after a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle loaded with explosives outside the hotel. The attackers battled with Jubaland's security forces for 12 hours, authorities said.

Her husband Farid Jama Suleiman -- a businessman and former regional minister -- also died in the attack alongside three Kenyans, three Tanzanians, two Americans and one Briton.

Nalayeh was a prominent Somali-Canadian journalist who was passionate about depicting Somalia -- a country long blighted by war, famine and terrorist attacks, beyond the usual bombs and bullets narrative.

She was the founder of Integration TV, an online platform with millions of views on YouTube which describes itself as "building a community of inspiring and uplifting stories for Somalis worldwide."

Nalayeh, 43, was a powerhouse on social media, where she used her large following to continue her theme of sharing a side of Somalia rarely seen in coverage of the country.

In her last tweet Nalayeh spoke of a new-found passion for photography, sharing stunning images of local young fishermen in the island of Illisi, near Kismayo.

"It was an incredible day to witness #Somalia's beauty on the island of #Ilisi," she wrote in a thread.

Nayaleh was born in Somalia in 1976 but her family moved to Canada when she was six years old.

In an interview earlier this year, she recalled what it was like to grow up in a family of 12 children, as well as the toll moving to Canada had on her family.

"My parents survived in a new country, learnt everything and my dad went from being a high profile governor in Somalia driving around in a Mercedes to working in a parking lot and taking care of his 12 children ... My parents were traumatized having to start their whole life over," she told the African Women in Media (AWIM) platform.

Nayaleh's family said in a statement released online, that the 43-year-old had "spent her life devoted to serving the Somali people and reporting on positive and uplifting stories."

"She died serving the Somali community everywhere and doing what she loved most. She brought inspiration and hope to the Somali people through story telling. She will be deeply missed," the statement read.

Nalayeh had two sons from a previous marriage and spoke openly about the cultural stigma attached to being a divorced single parent.

"Society judges you," she said. "They look down on women who are single parents, men look down on you because they think you may be an easy catch...They think nobody is going to pay dowry for you. All these crazy ideas like you are just not as worthy when you are divorced.

"But you know what, my journey sharing that with one of my followers and them realizing that life happens to many of us. We can start over, we can learn, we can grow and you don't have to be ashamed," she said in the AWIM interview.

In another cruel twist of fate, Nalayeh had recently found love again and remarried in November 2018, sharing pictures of her honeymoon in Somalia on Instagram.

She was heavily pregnant when she died, according to a friend Fatuma Abdulahi -- who told CNN they worked together on a personal story for a platform Abdulahi used to run. Abdulahi also made a series of Twitter posts paying tribute to her friend.

Nalayeh's death has led to an outpouring of grief on social media with many sharing their shock and disbelief at her death.

Through her work with Integration TV, Nalayeh inspired a generation of young Somalis who had previously only seen their country through the lens of war.

"Hodan... was opening up a previously little know or seen side of Somali... Showing us that despite everything that Somalia has endured, its people still have hope, an enduring spirit and a will to make the best of a situation beyond their control," Jamila Mohamed, who met Nalayeh in Kenya earlier this year, told CNN over WhatsApp.

Mohamed, the managing editor of Citizen TV, recounted that she, too, had experienced a hotel attack during a recent reporting trip to Somalia but escaped unhurt.

"It's always a risk going to Somalia, always, you never know what will happen next," she said.

Indeed in an interview with CBC News in 2016, Nalayeh is quoted as saying: "Anyone who follows their passion to help rebuild Somalia knows there's always a risk of death."

The author and scholar Khaled Beydoun was among those who paid tribute to the journalist.

"Devastating to hear the news of Hodan Nalayeh being among the victims of the terror attack in southern Somalia. She was beloved by so many, and her work so impactful. Rest in Peace," he wrote.

While Ahmed Hussen -- who's of Somali heritage and Canada's minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, described Nalayeh as a "voice for many," in a Twitter post.

"We mourn her loss deeply, and all others killed in the #KismayoAttack," he said.

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2019-07-14 13:15:00Z
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Leaked UK memo says Trump left Iran deal to spite Obama - AOL

LONDON (AP) — A U.K. newspaper published more leaked memos from Britain's ambassador in Washington on Sunday, despite a police warning that doing so might be a crime.

In one 2018 cable published by the Mail on Sunday, U.K. ambassador Kim Darroch says President Donald Trump pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran as an act of "diplomatic vandalism" to spite his predecessor, Barack Obama.

The memo was written after then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Washington in a failed attempt to persuade the U.S. not to abandon the Iran nuclear agreement.

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"The outcome illustrated the paradox of this White House: you got exceptional access, seeing everyone short of the president; but on the substance, the administration is set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons - it was Obama's deal," Darroch wrote.

Darroch announced his resignation last week after the newspaper published cables in which he'd branded the Trump administration dysfunctional and inept. The White House responded by refusing to deal with him, and Trump branded the ambassador a "pompous fool" in a Twitter fusillade.

U.K. police are hunting the culprits behind the leak — and, contentiously, have warned journalists that publishing the documents "could also constitute a criminal offence."

Yet both Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the two contenders to become Britain's next prime minister, have defended the media's right to publish.

"We have to make sure that we defend the right of journalists to publish leaks when they are in the national interest," Hunt said.

British officials have said they have no evidence that hacking was involved in the documents' release, and that the culprit is likely to be found among politicians or civil servants in London.

Police are investigating the leak as a potential breach of the Official Secrets Act, which bars public servants from making "damaging" disclosures of classified material. Breaking the act carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, though prosecutions are rare.

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2019-07-14 12:30:31Z
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