Finally on equal footing
'Crowds of well wishers'
Foreign policy dictated by domestic policy
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/04/politics/donald-trump-queen-elizabeth-state-banquet/index.html
2019-06-04 07:46:28Z
52780308436784
The head of Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC) has said the council is scrapping all agreements with the main opposition coalition and will move ahead with elections to be held within nine months.
The announcement by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in the early hours of Tuesday came after security forces fired live ammunition to clear the main protest site outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, the focal point in the demonstrators' months-long struggle for civilian rule.
Protest groups said at least 35 people were killed and hundreds wounded in the raid by the security forces, calling it a "bloody massacre".
"The military council decided to stop negotiating with the Alliance for Freedom and Change [group representing protesters in negotiations] and cancel what had been agreed on and to hold general elections within nine months," al-Burhan said in a televised statement.
Al-Burhan said the TMC would now move to set up an interim government to prepare for elections, which he added would be internationally supervised.
Monday was the worst day of violence since the military overthrow of long-time autocrat Omar al-Bashir on April 11 after months of mass protests against his three-decade rule.
190603085117055
But protesters insisted that al-Bashir's removal from power was not enough. Tens of thousands remained in place in Khartoum and other camps around the country, pushing the generals who replaced al-Bashir to swiftly hand over power to a civilian-led administration.
The bloody assault and dispersal of the Khartoum sit-in now risk escalating violence even further, making a more intense face-off between the military and protesters more likely.
Pro-democracy protesters vowed to keep up their campaign, suspending talks and calling for "total civil disobedience" to "paralyse public life" across the country.
"This is a critical point in our revolution. The military council has chosen escalation and confrontation," said Mohamed Yousef al-Mustafa, a spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals' Association (SPA), which has spearheaded the months-long protests.
"Those are criminals who should have been treated like al-Bashir," he said. "Now the situation is either them or us, there is no other way."
For his part, al-Burhan said military leaders would investigate Monday's violence, but claimed that the coalition representing the demonstrators shared responsibility for the bloodshed.
190501175500137
In his televised statement, the TMC head accused the alliance representing the protesters of "extending the negotiations and seeking to exclude other political and security forces" from being in a transitional government.
The TMC and protest leaders had made progress during talks in May over an interim cabinet and legislative body, but they split over the make-up and leadership of a sovereign council that was being discussed to govern Sudan during a three-year transition.
On Friday, the TMC had called the sit-in "a danger" to the country's national security and warned that action would be taken against what it said were "unruly elements".
On the same day, the military had also ordered the office of the Al Jazeera Media Network in Khartoum to be shut down, without giving a reason for the decision, while also withdrawing the work permits for the correspondents and staff of the Qatar-based news organisation.
Activists said the assault in the early hours of Monday appeared to be a coordinated move, with other forces attacking similar sit-ins in Khartoum's sister city of Omdurman and the eastern city of Gadarif.
Protesters accuse General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of Sudan's notorious Rapid Support Forces and deputy head of the TMC, of ordering the violent crackdown. Twenty-four hours before the security forces' raid, Dagalo, who goes by the nickname Hemeti, was filmed making a veiled threat to protesters.
"We must firmly stand up to the ongoing chaos and build a true state," he said. "As for the civil state the protesters are demanding, to be truly a civil rule with no individuals above it, it must be built on a rule of law. It must be ruled by law and there is no one above the law."
The attack came on the day before the Eid holiday that ends Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast during daylight hours. Large numbers of troops from the military, police and Rapid Support Forces moved in on the gathering after overnight rains, activists said.
190603091106565
Mohammed Elmunir, a protester in Khartoum, said security forces blocked the exits of the sit-in site before opening fire on protesters.
"They were shooting at everyone randomly and people were running for their lives. They blocked all roads and most tents at the sit-in have been set on fire," Elmunir told Al Jazeera.
In online videos, protesters were seen running and ducking as barrages of gunfire echoed. Activists said hundreds were arrested, with photos posted online showing dozens of men and women lined up on the pavement, sitting or lying face down, under guard by troops.
Demonstrators stood behind low barricades of bricks and dug-up pavement, and some threw stones before being driven back by walls of blue-clad security forces carrying sticks. One video showed police swarming around a protester sprawled on the ground, beating him with sticks. In another video, residents opened their doors to shelter those who ran.
A doctors' committee linked to the protesters said the death toll had risen to at least 35 by early Tuesday with the killing of five people in the city's Bahri district. The committee said it was difficult to count deaths in areas outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, adding that hundreds of people were wounded, many by gunfire.
Medical staff and the injured were trapped in clinics as troops overran the area.
"Wounded people are lying on the ground in the reception area as there are not enough beds," said Azza al-Kamel, a doctor at Royal Care hospital.
The attack against the protesters came days after al-Burhan met with his top foreign allies, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who have both been strong supporters of the TMC and deeply oppose movements such as those that swept the region in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Many analysts said they believed the military rulers were being influenced by powers outside Sudan.
"The latest escalation, and what is already a precarious situation, came after the head of the military council and the deputy head ... visited Saudi Arabia," Awol Allo, a senior lecturer in law at Keele University, told Al Jazeera. "Since then, there is a significant escalation ... against the protesters."
190603141917117
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the crackdown and called on authorities to allow an independent investigation, according to his spokesman.
"There was use of excessive force by the security forces on civilians," Stephane Dujarric said.
The UN Security Council is set to discuss Sudan after the United Kingdom and Germany requested a closed-door session, set for Tuesday afternoon.
UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, expressed alarm at reports that live ammunition was used, including "next to, and even inside, medical facilities".
The embassies of the United States and the UK also expressed concern.
Amnesty International, a London-based rights group, called on the UN Security Council to consider imposing sanctions on TMC members.
The military "has completely destroyed the trust of the Sudanese people and crushed the people's hope for a new era of respect for human rights and respect for the right to protest without fear," said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty deputy regional director for East Africa.
Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
SUBSCRIBEBy Claire Atkinson
President Donald Trump appeared to call for a boycott of AT&T Monday as part of his long-running disagreement with the company’s news operation, CNN.
Trump, who is in London on an official state visit, suggested on Monday morning that CNN is the primary source of information about the U.S. for Britons, and wanted to know why AT&T didn’t “do something” given the network’s “unfair coverage.”
Fox News, one of Trump's favorite outlets, is no longer carried in the U.K. It was dropped in 2017 by Sky, the major pay-TV service in Europe, after Fox News said it would no longer provide its feed.
Trump tweeted, “I believe that if people stoped [sic] using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway. It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News! Why wouldn’t they act. When the World watches @CNN, it gets a false picture of USA. Sad!”
In an earlier tweet, Trump pondered, “Why doesn’t AT&T do something?” A spokeswoman for AT&T said the company had “no comment.” CNN also declined comment.
AT&T donated $2 million to Trump's inauguration committee and also paid Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to try to get a clearer understanding of Trump’s thinking. It later admitted that paying Cohen was a mistake.
Despite the efforts to curry favor with Trump, AT&T struggled to get the government’s approval for its acquisition of CNN's previous owner, Time Warner, which was blocked by the Justice Department. The government’s case against the merger ultimately failed.
AT&T is the nation’s ninth-biggest company, with an annual revenue of $170 billion. Its competitors include Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. The latter two companies are currently waiting for the government to approve their merger, reducing competition in the mobile sector.
Mexico’s foreign minister warned Monday of dire economic consequences if the United States imposes the tariffs that President Trump has threatened as punishment for the flow of migrants transiting to the U.S. border. Marcelo Ebrard, who spoke at a news conference in Washington, said the threat would have no impact on Mexico’s immigration policy.
“Mexico is ready to work on issues of common interest,” Ebrard said. “The imposition of tariffs will have a counterproductive effect and would not reduce the migratory flow.”
Ebrard said he and other officials would spend the next several days attempting to persuade the White House not to follow through on the tariffs, which Ebrard and the other Mexican officials said would be disastrous.
“What are we doing? Diplomacy,” he said.
But it remained unclear what shifts in immigration enforcement Mexico could propose that would satisfy Trump. The Trump administration has said Mexico must do more to secure its southern border with Guatemala and interdict buses of migrants.
The administration has also urged the implementation of a so-called “safe third country” agreement that would pressure asylum seekers to apply for residence in Mexico rather than the United States, making it easier for U.S. immigration agents to turn them around if they show up at the border.
Ebrard said Monday that such a policy “would not be acceptable to Mexico.”
He emphasized that Mexico’s main proposal to stop migration is to invest in Central America and that its immigration policy was bound by international treaties on migration, Mexico’s constitution “and its own dignity.”
“If there are only punitive actions, it’s not going to work,” Ebrard said, adding that so far the United States has been slow to cooperate on a joint aid program to reduce migration.
“We don’t have until today a single project in place,” he said.
Other senior Mexican officials spoke at the news conference about what would be lost if the tariffs were implemented. The agricultural industry would lose $1.4 billion a year with a 5 percent tariff, said VÃctor Villalobos, Mexico’s secretary for agriculture and rural development.
The tariffs would be very damaging, not just for Mexico “but for the supply chain every day that produces goods in Mexico and in the United States,” said Mexico’s economy secretary, Graciela Márquez ColÃn.
Other Mexican officials talked about the impact the tariffs would have on the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Hours before Trump made the threat of tariffs, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — the deal, dubbed NAFTA 2.0, that Trump has boasted about — to Mexico’s Senate for ratification. That vote has not yet been held.
“We came up with very good agreement, one that Trump himself has celebrated. What we need to do is what we were doing last week,” said Jesus Seade, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America.
“All of a sudden we have this enormous distraction,” he said.
In a Sunday tweet, López Obrador, referring to himself in the third person, wrote, “The president of Mexico wants to continue being a great friend of President Trump.”
That was a striking change in tone from a letter López Obrador sent to Trump on Thursday, in which he said Trump’s “America first” policy was “a fallacy.”
Over the last few days, Ebrard had been periodically live-tweeting Mexico’s preparations for its meetings with American diplomats on the tariff issue. There was a selfie at the airport, a picture of Mexican diplomats in a boardroom and a photo of Márquez ColÃn, the Mexican economy secretary, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
In his tweets, as in his news conference, Ebrard attempted to offer reassurance that the threat of tariffs could be averted through diplomacy.
“The contacts are multiplying. The negotiation is ongoing,” he wrote under the photo of Márquez ColÃn and Ross.
In another tweet, he warned the United States of the policy’s consequences in the agricultural industry. “Avoid shooting yourself in the foot,” he wrote.
Read more:
Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador consolidates power with governorship wins
What is Mexico doing — and not doing — to keep migrants from crossing into the U.S.?
Grave concerns over tariffs reflected in Mexico’s diplomatic push for a deal
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Chipotle Mexican Grill said its 2019 costs could rise by about $15 million this year if President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on Mexican imports are enacted, and that could mean price increases.
"If the tariffs become permanent, we would look to offset these costs through other margin improvement efforts already underway," CFO Jack Hartung said in a statement. "We could also consider passing on these costs through a modest price increase, such as about a nickel on a burrito, which would cover the increased cost without impacting our strong value proposition."
Chipotle said its net income last year rose to $176.6 million, $6.31 per share, on revenue of $4.9 billion. Excluding asset impairments and restructuring costs, the company earned $253.4 million, or $9.06 per share. The company's results were helped by price increases it put in place late in the year.
Chipotle was already expecting food costs in the second quarter to be 1% higher than the first quarter due to rising avocado prices. Tariffs would mean prices could be even higher.
Trump on Thursday threatened to put 5% tariffs on all Mexican goods beginning June 10 if the country doesn't help prevent the flow of illegal immigrants, mostly from Central America, over the U.S. border. Under Trump's plan, the tariffs would gradually increase and could rise as high as 25% this year.
Chipotle said Friday its supply chain team has been working to diversify its produce sources consistent with "our food with integrity principles," and said it is not willing compromise those principles.
"We know that we could easily solve the volatility in our supply chain by purchasing premashed or processed avocados, which would be cheaper, readily available and provide stability, but we are committed to our brand purpose and upholding our food with integrity principles," Hartung said. "We believe that using whole, fresh ingredients and making guacamole by hand in our restaurants each day leads to better tasting guacamole that our customers deserve and expect from Chipotle."
In the first quarter, restaurant-level operating margins accelerated to 21%, thanks to higher same-store restaurant sales increases and lower repair and maintenance expenses. This was partially offset by wage inflation as well as higher marketing and promotional costs and delivery expenses due to increased delivery sales.
Those higher operating margins helped it earn $88.1 million, or $3.13 per share, in the first quarter on a net basis. After excluding one-time items like restructuring costs, Chipotle earned $3.40 per share, on an adjusted basis, on sales $1.31 billion.
Chipotle estimated the tariffs could reduce 2019 margins by 20 to 30 basis points.
An employee scoops guacamole at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. restaurant in El Segundo, California, U.S., on Wednesday, July 25, 2018.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Analysts say Chipotle isn't the only brand that may suffer from the price increase that would come from the Mexico tariffs. However, the company is one of the first to specify the cost pressure it could see.
"Anyone with avocados would be hurt most by Mexico import tariffs," says R.J. Hottovy, senior restaurant analyst at Morningstar. "Chipotle would be the most likely candidate."
Hottovy also called out other smaller chains including Fiesta Restaurant Group and Chuy's that wouldn't be able to hedge against tariffs as easily.
"A 5% tariff probably wouldn't hurt any single company that much, but the risk is whether we see any future escalation in tariffs," he said.
While Chipotle does not give formal guidance on food costs, on its first-quarter earnings call Hartung said the company believes food costs will be around 33% of its revenue. He said avocado prices spiked in March based on higher demand, and the company is projecting higher food costs in the second quarter.
The stock, which has a market value of $18.3 billion, has been the best performer in the restaurant space this year, up more than 52% in 2019. It was down 1.7% Monday morning.
A teenager in Bishop's Stortford, a city outside of London, mowed the shape of a penis into a field along with the message "Oi Trump" in hopes that the U.S. president would see it on his flight into the U.K. this week.
According to the Bishop's Stortford Independent, the 18-year-old student, Ollie Nancarrow, mowed the message in the field along the Stansted Airport flight path so that President TrumpDonald John TrumpHead of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers to depart administration The Guardian editorial board says Trump is 'not welcome' in U.K. ahead of his first state visit Kushner casts doubt on the ability of Palestinians to govern themselves MORE would see it as he landed for a state visit early Monday morning.
Nancarrow also mowed the message "climate change is real" and the image of a polar bear into the field.
The teen told Bishop's Stortford Independent: “Donald Trump and his denial of climate change are not welcome and I want him to be fully aware of that when he flies in to Stansted on Monday.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Nancarrow, who is studying product design and business studies at his local high school, runs a website called born-eco.com which focuses on helping consumers find eco-friendly traders.
Guess who's been busy today mowing a stiff message for Trump under the Stansted flightpath... Please share and let's see how far we can spread the welcome!#climatechange #Trump #welcometrump pic.twitter.com/crnZo5rnDv
— born_eco (@born_eco) June 2, 2019
Trump has long cast doubt on the existence and effects of climate change. In late 2018, Trump downplayed a U.S. government report on the environment, telling reporters that he didn't believe its warnings about the economic impacts of climate change.
He has previously suggested that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese and has cited winter storms to push back on the idea of global warming.
The phallic welcome message for Trump comes as the president is expected to face massive protests in the country later this week.