Top Stories Today – June 27, 2019
Top Stories Today – June 27, 2019
Trump: N Korea talks doing great: N Korea disagree
US President Donald Trump insists his North Korea policy is “doing great.” South Korean President Moon Jae-in says talks with Pyongyang are “making steady progress.” But North Korea’s Foreign Ministry Thursday lashed out at Washington and Seoul, suggesting it could completely pull out of stalled nuclear talks. The statement, posted on the Korean Central News Agency, warned there is no guarantee negotiations would resume, even though the United States “repeatedly talks about resumption of dialogue like a parrot.”
The article also reiterated North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s end-of-the-year deadline for the United States to change its approach to the nuclear talks. “The US would be well advised to bear in mind that our repeated warning is not merely an empty word,” said Kwon Jong Gun, director-general of the Department of American Affairs at the North Korean Foreign Ministry. The Voice of America
US sanctions on Iran’s Zarif
Iran’s wealthy top diplomat, who has spent a third of his life in the United States, could see Washington sanction his assets and further limit his ability to visit the US in the coming days. In a White House press briefing Monday, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said President Donald Trump had instructed him to impose sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif by the end of the week. Mnuchin’s announcement coincided with the Trump administration sanctioning Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and eight senior commanders of Khamenei’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for the first time.
As Iranian foreign minister, Zarif has a seat on Iran’s influential Supreme National Security Council, a body with 12 permanent members who make policy recommendations to Khamenei for defending the nation’s Islamist leadership against internal and external threats. Zarif’s closeness to Khamanei has come under strain in the past year. In an August 13, 2018 speech in Tehran, Khamenei said he made a “mistake” in allowing Iranian negotiators to cross his “red lines” in reaching the nuclear deal. Khamenei did not mention Zarif by name, although the Iranian foreign minister was his chief negotiator. Earlier this year, Zarif tendered his resignation in response to an apparent snub by Khamenei. The Voice of America
Democratic candidates debate immigration, health care
Ten Democratic presidential candidates took the stage on Wednesday for the first night of debates, touching on immigration, Medicare-for-all, climate change, and economic inequality. The lineup included Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). Several candidates broke out in Spanish while discussing the humanitarian crisis at the southern border, and Warren unequivocally supported abolishing private health insurance.
The format focused on rapid-fire responses to policy questions. Candidates largely agreed on major issues and goals, but diverged in describing details; former Housing Secretary Julián Castro and O’Rourke clashed over immigration policy, and candidates listed a range of answers when asked about the biggest geopolitical threat. The remaining 10 candidates will debate on Thursday night. CNN via The Week
US asylum officers ask to block Trump’s policy
US asylum officers slammed President Trump’s policy of forcing migrants to remain in Mexico while they await immigration hearings in the United States, urging a federal appeals court Wednesday to block the administration from continuing the program. The labor union representing asylum officers filed a friend-of-the-court brief that sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups challenging Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols program, which has sent 12,000 asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico since January. The policy aims to deter migrants from coming to the United States and to keep them out of the country while courts weigh their claims.
The union argued that the policy goes against the nation’s long-standing view that asylum seekers and refugees should have a way to escape persecution in their homelands, with the United States embracing its status as a safe haven since even before it was founded — with the arrival of the Pilgrims in the 17th century. The union said in court papers that the policy is compelling sworn officers to participate in the “widespread violation” of international and federal law — “something that they did not sign up to do when they decided to become asylum and refugee officers for the United States government.” The Washington Post
European countries set new June heat records
A heatwave affecting much of Europe is expected to intensify further with countries – including France, Spain and Switzerland – expecting temperatures above 40C (104F) later on Thursday. On Wednesday Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic recorded their highest-ever temperatures for June. Meteorologists say hot air drawn in from northern Africa is responsible.
The heat is expected to rise further in many countries over the next three days, meteorologists warn. By early afternoon temperatures had reached 37C in Turin in Italy, 37C in the Spanish city of Zaragoza, and 38C in Avignon in southern France. BBC
Trump heads to Japan for G-20 summit
Just a month after a state visit to Japan, US President Donald Trump is heading to the East Asian country again. In Osaka, Trump will attend the Group of 20 leaders’ summit, during which he is scheduled to meet one-on-one on the sidelines with such fellow world leaders as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Before leaving Wednesday, Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn that he’ll be meeting with leaders of a lot of different countries “many of whom have been taking advantage of the United States — but not anymore.” A senior administration official told reporters Monday that Trump is “quite comfortable [with] his position going into the meeting” with China’s President Xi following the breakdown of US-China trade talks and increased tariffs on Beijing by Washington. The Voice of America
US Senate passes border spending package
Both the Senate and House have now passed legislation delivering billions of dollars to address the growing humanitarian crisis at the southern border. But lawmakers have no agreement on how to reconcile those bills before a recess set to start on Friday.
The Senate passed a $4.6 billion emergency spending bill on Wednesday, one day after the Democratic House approved its own competing legislation. House and Senate Democrats immediately then began urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to enter into negotiations to craft compromise legislation. But McConnell was noncommittal and may simply leave Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a take-it-or-leave-it decision heading into the July Fourth recess. Politico
US House votes to subpoena Kellyanne Conway
The House Oversight Committee voted on Wednesday to subpoena testimony from White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after a federal agency recommended that she should be fired for repeatedly violating a law that limits the political activities of federal employees. Chairman Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, has warned that his panel would vote to hold Conway in contempt if she ignores the subpoena. Conway did not appear on Wednesday on the advice of White House counsel for the committee’s scheduled hearing.
The vote — 25 to 16, with Democrats and Rep. Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, voting in favor — could set up another challenge in court between Congress and the Trump administration, which has consistently stymied Democrats’ oversight efforts since they took control of the House earlier this year. Earlier this month, the independent Office of Special Counsel sent the Trump administration a letter outlining Conway’s “numerous violations” of the Hatch Act, finding that from February to May she publicly criticized the field of Democratic presidential candidates and sought to boost the Trump campaign while in her official role at the White House. CNN