Pelosi to step down as top US Democrat after Republicans take House - CNA

"G.O.A.T."

Currently second in the presidential line of succession, after Vice President Kamala Harris, Pelosi said last week that a decision on her future would be influenced by the brutal attack on her husband in the runup to the Nov 8 midterms.

Paul Pelosi, who is also 82, was left hospitalised with serious injuries after an intruder looking for the speaker broke into their California home and attacked him with a hammer.

In her speech, which was met with a standing ovation from Democratic lawmakers, Pelosi recounted her first glimpse of the Capitol when she was six years old and her path from "homemaker to House speaker".

She praised her party's better-than-expected performance in the midterm contest as a victory for democracy.

"Last week, the American people spoke and their voices were raised in defence of liberty, of the rule of law and of democracy itself," she said.

With Pelosi stepping down from leadership, and fellow octogenarians Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn, the number two and three Democrats, signalling they will do the same, the party is on the cusp of a generational shift.

New York lawmaker Hakeem Jeffries, 52, who is expected to become Democratic minority leader in the next House, called Pelosi the "G.O.A.T" - a sports reference to the Greatest of All Time.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said she "made our country a much better place for countless women and girls".

"Nancy Pelosi was the one to blaze the trail," he said.

Pelosi's announcement met with a far different reaction on the Republican side of the aisle and many GOP lawmakers did not show up for her speech. "The Pelosi era is over. Good riddance!" tweeted Colorado lawmaker Lauren Boebert.

DIVIDED CONGRESS

Kevin McCarthy, a 57-year-old Republican lawmaker from California, is lobbying to take over the speaker's gavel from Pelosi in the Republican-majority House.

McCarthy won a party leadership vote by secret ballot on Tuesday but potential far-right defections could yet complicate his path when the House's 435 newly elected members - Democrats and Republicans - choose a new speaker in January.

On Thursday, House Republicans signalled they would wield their new power to make the president's life difficult with aggressive committee investigations.

"We will be prepared to hold the Biden administration accountable from day one," McCarthy said. "Our investigations are just getting started."

With inflation surging and Biden's popularity ratings cratering, Republicans had hoped to see a "red wave" sweep over America in the midterms, giving them control of both chambers of Congress and a block over most of Biden's legislative plans.

But instead, Democratic voters - galvanised by the Supreme Court's overturning of abortion rights and wary of Trump-endorsed candidates who openly rejected the result of the 2020 presidential election - turned out in force.

Biden's party secured an unassailable majority in the Senate with 50 seats plus Harris' tie-breaking vote, and a runoff in Georgia next month could yet see the Democrats improve their majority in the upper house.

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2022-11-17 21:20:00Z
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Unmasked and in charge, China's Xi puts personal diplomacy back in play - CNA

BEIJING: President Xi Jinping, conspicuously absent from the main stage of diplomacy during China's COVID-19 isolation, has been mostly smiles and handshakes on his return this week with a flurry of meetings that Beijing hopes will begin to mend frayed relations.

But in an exchange that went viral, a mask-less Xi was also captured on-camera giving Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a dressing-down at the Group of 20 (G20) summit over media leaks, apparently from their bilateral meeting a day previously. It was a rare, candid glimpse of the Chinese leader and a reminder of Beijing's testy relations with the West.

China's absence from face-to-face interactions during the pandemic has been costly, diplomats and other experts say, as ties with the United States and some Asian neighbours have badly deteriorated over a range of disputes.

With other leaders having so little recent access to top Chinese officials, Xi's presence this week on the Indonesian island of Bali for the G20 followed by an APEC summit in Bangkok is magnified by its scarcity value.

The resumption of dialogue, including Xi's first meeting with Joe Biden as US president and the first direct talks with an Australian leader since 2016, is itself a positive, China watchers said, even if it doesn't immediately yield concrete results.

Besides Biden, Trudeau, and Australia's Anthony Albanese, Xi also met the leaders of South Korea, Italy, Argentina, Holland, and France for bilateral talks in Bali. A meeting with Britain's Rishi Sunak was cancelled because of scheduling issues, Downing Street said, while Xi is set to hold talks with Japan's Fumio Kishida and New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern in Bangkok.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul, described Xi's busy schedule as a "charm offensive" after China shut its borders for nearly three years and after Xi consolidated power last month by clinching a third term at the ruling Communist Party's congress.

"The meetings are probably not enough to make progress on thorny economic and security issues but could prevent diplomatic relations from getting worse," Easley said.

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2022-11-17 09:59:01Z
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China Asks Banks to Report on Liquidity After Sudden Bond Rout - Bloomberg

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China Asks Banks to Report on Liquidity After Sudden Bond Rout  BloombergView Full coverage on Google News
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2022-11-17 08:12:36Z
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Ukraine seeks access to site of Poland missile strike - CNA

KYIV: Ukraine wants access to the site of an explosion in eastern Poland which Western officials say was probably caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile, a senior Ukrainian defence official said on Wednesday (Nov 16).

Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said Ukraine wanted a joint study of Tuesday's incident with its partners and to see the information that provided the basis for its allies' conclusions.

Kyiv is "completely open to a comprehensive study of the situation", he wrote on the council's official Facebook page.

Danilov echoed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in blaming Russia's "missile terror". Danilov provided no details of what evidence he was citing when he referred to a "Russian trace" behind the incident.

Polish President Andrzei Duda said earlier it was "highly probable" that the missile was fired by Ukrainian air defence.

Asked whether Poland would grant Ukraine access to the site of the explosion and agree on a joint study, Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina wrote by email: "We do not comment on this matter."

Earlier on Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the blast, which killed two people, was probably caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile but that Russia was ultimately responsible because it started the war in Ukraine.

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2022-11-16 14:11:09Z
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G20 leaders' denouncement of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is important: PM Lee - CNA

NUSA DUA, Indonesia: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Wednesday (Nov 16) that it was important that the Group of 20 (G20) leaders expressed their views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as it would have been a "weakening of their moral case", had they not done so. 

On Wednesday, G20 leaders issued a declaration deploring “in the strongest terms” Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

The final communique said the majority of members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, but noted there were other views.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is representing the country at the summit in President Vladimir Putin's absence, accused the West of trying to politicise the declaration.

Speaking to journalists at a media interview, Mr Lee said: “We did not expect him to change his view as a result of hearing what the G20 members said."

"But I think it is important that these views were expressed, and that Russia knows that this is the weight of the opinion of the international community and that view that Russia is in the wrong has not changed."

"If we had not said those statements or if we had not been able to put those statements into the communique, I think it would have been a weakening of our moral case and a weakening of the pressure which is necessary to be brought to bear on a country which has transgressed against international norms and undermined the UN Charter,” he added.

Mr Lee was wrapping up his three-day working visit to Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, where he attended the G20 Leaders' Summit.

Singapore is not a G20 member but the country has been invited to participate in many past summits and related meetings as the convenor of the Global Governance Group (3G) – an informal grouping of 30 small- and medium-sized members of the United Nations.

Established by Singapore in 2009, the 3G aims to promote greater dialogue between the G20 and the broader UN membership.

Turning to US-China relations, Mr Lee said while the outcome of the recent meeting between United States President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali was positive, it will take time for the two countries to resolve their issues.

“The meeting has shown the intention of both sides to stabilise relations and to avoid a conflict and to work together to resolve the very difficult problems which are between them,” he said.

He also noted that the two countries are renewing cooperation on areas including climate change, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken set to travel to China to follow up on the discussions in the first quarter of next year.

“They are starting to deal with the problems but of course, the problems themselves are very difficult ones and it will take some time to resolve and I think it will be tough,” he said.

“I think it's a positive outcome but it's far from the end of the issue,” he added.

With the world becoming increasingly troubled, Mr Lee said Singaporeans need to be psychologically prepared and stay united.

“What happens in Ukraine is already affecting us in terms of inflation, the cost of energy, the cost of food, and the preoccupation with security issues,” he said.

“If there is a conflict in our part of the world or problems between US and China that will most definitely affect us,” he said. “It could be instability in the region. It could be considerable economic impacts on investment flows, on trade flows.”

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2022-11-16 13:00:07Z
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Poland blast was likely Ukraine air defence missile: Belgian defence minister - CNA

BRUSSELS: The explosion that killed two Polish civilians in a village near the Ukraine border was probably caused by Ukrainian air defence units firing at incoming Russian missiles, the Belgian defence minister said Wednesday (Nov 16).

"The missile strikes in Poland last night are being fully investigated by our intelligence service, which is in close contact with NATO partner services," Ludivine Dedonder said in a statement.

"Based on the preliminary information available, the strikes are most likely a result of Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems that were engaged to take Russian missiles out of the sky."

A NATO source said United States President Joe Biden had informed the Group of Seven and NATO partners that the blast in Poland had been caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile. 

Russia's defence ministry also said on Wednesday that the explosion was caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile, and that Russian strikes in Ukraine had been no closer than 35km from the Polish border.

"The photos published in the evening of Nov 15 in Poland of the wreckage found in the village of Przewodow are unequivocally identified by Russian defence industry specialists as elements of an anti-aircraft guided missile of the S-300 air defence system of the Ukrainian air force," RIA news agency quoted the defence ministry as saying.

It was not possible to independently verify the images or the identification.

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2022-11-16 09:57:00Z
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Chinese migrant workers protest amid Covid-19 lockdowns in Guangzhou - South China Morning Post

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Chinese migrant workers protest amid Covid-19 lockdowns in Guangzhou  South China Morning PostView Full coverage on Google News
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2022-11-15 12:19:39Z
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