Minggu, 09 Juni 2019

Massive Crowds Take to Streets in ‘Last Fight’ for Hong Kong - The Wall Street Journal

Protesters crowd Hong Kong’s Victoria park, the starting point of a march that snaked for more than a mile and a half through the global financial hub, to the legislature. Photo: Joyu Wang/The Wall Street Journal
By

HONG KONG—Huge crowds of demonstrators took to the streets Sunday to protest a proposed law that would allow Beijing to take people from Hong Kong to stand trial in mainland China.

Organizers expect hundreds of thousands of people to join the march in what would be the biggest turnout since 2003, when half a million people demonstrated against national security legislation that was later withdrawn by the government.

Protest signs in multiple languages decried the proposed law that would allow Beijing to take people into mainland China to stand trial. Photo: charly triballeau/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The mass turnout, with crowds filling public parks and thronging roads up to six lanes wide for more than a mile and a half, heaps pressure on the city’s leaders and their political masters in Beijing to shelve the law. Unlike 2003, however, China’s ruling Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has in recent years taken a much stronger line against dissent in the former British colony.

“This is the last fight for Hong Kong,” said Martin Lee, a veteran opposition leader who founded the city’s Democratic Party. “The proposal is the most dangerous threat to our freedoms and way of life since the handover” of sovereignty, he said.

The proposed law, which would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial, has sparked anger in an unusually wide swath of the population, from teachers to lawyers and business leaders. The uniting fear is that the law, if passed, would expose citizens to the mainland’s more opaque legal system, where detainees could be subject to torture and other abuses of human rights.

Foreign business groups and diplomats have warned the proposal poses a threat to the rule of law that has helped Hong Kong prosper for decades as an international financial center, and which was guaranteed by China when it resumed sovereignty over the city from Britain in 1997. Opposition has grown even after the city’s leader, Carrie Lam watered down the bill slightly by removing offense categories liable to extradition from 46 to 37.

Police detain a demonstrator during the protest against Hong Kong’s controversial extradition bill. Photo: thomas peter/Reuters

Ms. Lam’s government has said fears about the law are unfounded and stressed that only those suspected of the most serious crimes would be subject to extradition. The government says there will be safeguards against abuse and that the law won’t damage the city’s business environment or relate to offenses of a political nature. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the protests and their potential impact on the proposed extradition law. Phone and fax lines to China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which oversees Beijing’s policies to those territories, rang unanswered Sunday.

“ We need to defend our home for the next generation ”

—Kitty Wong, protester

Ms. Lam bypassed a lawmakers’ review committee to push the bill through for a second reading in the city’s legislature on June 12. The government has enough votes to pass the law within a few weeks, having used legal action to oust several democratically elected opposition legislators from office over the past two years.

Anger over the extradition has revived an opposition movement that had dwindled after street protests in 2014 paralyzed parts of the city for 79 days, but ended without achieving their goal of obtaining more democracy. Beijing’s influence over the city has grown since, while room for dissent has shrunk as the government has jailed protesters, declaring a pro-independence political party illegal and expelling a foreign journalist.

Families and church groups joined opposition activists, many dressed in white and holding red placards denouncing the law, as police were forced to close more roads and traffic lanes to enable the snaking mass of humanity to move.

Crowds were so massive that some train stations across the city were temporarily closed and protesters had to line up in sweltering heat to enter a local park, chanting slogans to oppose the law and cheering each other on taking to the streets to express their discontent.

The march stretched for more than a mile and a half through the heart of Hong Kong. Photo: tyrone siu/Reuters

“I needed to let my voice be heard,” said Kitty Wong, a 38-year-old teacher who joined a protest for the first time. Gesturing to her two children, ages 8 and 9, she said: “We need to defend our home for the next generation.”

Veteran activist Mr. Lee was on drafting committee of the Basic Law, the city’s mini constitution that enshrined people’s freedoms and rights until 2047. He said there was deliberately no extradition clause in the agreement because the two jurisdictions were too different. Beijing could extradite Hong Kong residents and foreigners on trumped-up charges, he said.

Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com

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2019-06-09 10:25:00Z
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Trump is 'perfectly happy' to hit China with new tariffs if Xi meeting doesn't go well, Mnuchin says - CNBC

U.S. President Donald Trump walks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Washington, U.S., April 21, 2017.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump will make a decision about whether to slap China with more tariffs after meeting with his Chinese counterpart later this month in Japan.

That's according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who told CNBC on Sunday that the American leader will be trying to determine if Chinese President Xi Jinping is willing to head "in the right direction" on a deal to reshape the trade and commercial relationships between the world's top two economies.

"We're going to need to see action, and President Trump is going to need to make sure he's clear that we're moving in the right direction to a deal," Mnuchin told CNBC's Nancy Hungerford. "The president will make a decision after the meeting."

Trump has previously indicated he expects to plan his next trade war moves after that G-20 meeting.

"If China wants to move forward with the deal, we're prepared to move forward on the terms we've done. If China doesn't want to move forward, then President Trump is perfectly happy to move forward with tariffs to re-balance the relationship," he said.

The two presidents last met in December 2018 in Buenos Aires — already several months into their escalating trade war. At that time, Xi and Trump agreed to suspend planned increases in tariffs while both sides redoubled negotiating efforts. The subsequent few months saw no further escalations amid repeated rounds of talks in both Washington and Beijing, but that pause ended in May when Trump unexpectedly said on Twitter that his administration would be levying new taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods — and he threatened even more to come.

'We've stopped negotiating'

American officials have repeatedly claimed that action was in response to China attempting to renegotiate parts of a deal it had previously agreed to — which Beijing has denied —  and the prospect of additional tariffs on that $325 billion worth of Chinese products has hung over the bilateral relationship for the last month.

"We made enormous progress, I think we had a deal that was almost 90% done. China wanted to go backwards on certain things," Mnuchin said. "We've stopped negotiating."

Where the countries go from here, according to the Treasury secretary, is up to Trump to decide when he and Xi meet in Osaka, Japan at the end of June. 

"In the case of Buenos Aires, we came out of that, we had direction from the two presidents, (Trump) put the increases on hold. The president will make a decision after the meeting," Mnuchin said.

"I believe if China is willing to move forward on the terms that we were discussing, we'll have an agreement. If they're not, we will proceed with tariffs," he added.

The thorny issues

Mnuchin weighed in on several of the thorniest subjects thought to be separating the American and Chinese sides from a deal.

For one, he said that the issue of removing China's so-called non-tariff barriers to foreign companies succeeding within its borders remains central to the U.S. position on the talks.

"In negotiating our agreement, one of the big parts of the agreement has always been about non-tariff barriers, is about forced technology transfer. These are very important issues to us, and critical to any agreement," Mnuchin said. "These are issues where we've made a lot of progress, and any agreement we have, we'll need to be certain that that's included."

American officials and businesses have long argued that China's official and unofficial rules put non-Chinese firms at a disadvantage in the country. One of the most frequently cited examples is a "forced tech transfer" regime — in which companies are coerced into sharing their advanced technology and know-how with Chinese organizations in exchange for market access.

Trump has also suggested that he may want his negotiating teams to pick up the issue of China's currency, but Mnuchin on Sunday dismissed the notion that Beijing is actively keeping the yuan low in an effort to win a trade advantage over the likes of the U.S.

Instead, he said, any weakness now seen in the Chinese currency is the result of downward economic pressures — in part due to Trump's tariffs on the country.

"I do think their currency has been under pressure," the Treasury secretary said. "There's no question that, as we put on tariffs, people will move their manufacturing outside of China, into other areas, and that's going to have a very negative impact on their economy. And I think you see that reflected in the currency."

Another topic that has raised tensions between Beijing and Washington is Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. The U.S. government has cracked down on the tech firm, effectively blacklisting it from doing business with American businesses, on the basis of claims it is a security risk. The rationale, according to the Trump administration is that the firm's involvement in sensitive networking technology could potentially be leveraged by Beijing for spying or other malicious actions. Both China and the company have denied such a risk exists.

Mnuchin emphasized that the Huawei blacklisting is solely a national security issue, and isn't a non-tariff front of the trade war — even though Trump has suggested that the telecom company could get wrapped into a wider deal.

"They're separate from trade: Both we and China have acknowledged that in our discussions," he said. "Now, of course, President Trump, when he has the meeting, to the extent he gets certain comfort on Huawei or other issues, obviously we can talk about national security issues, but these are separate issues, they're not being linked to trade."

He emphasized the U.S. claim — central to recruiting allies in its effort to control the spread of Huawei tech — that Trump's prior comments do not reveal an effort to gain trade leverage over Beijing: "I think what the president is saying is, if we move forward on trade, that perhaps he'll be willing to do certain things on Huawei if he gets comfort from China on that, and certain guarantees."

The next meeting

The American official told CNBC he had recently met with Yi Gang, the governor of China's central bank, to discuss preparations for the upcoming meeting between the two presidents.

Mnuchin declined to go into details of that interaction, but said he and Yi "had a private conversation and it was very candid and constructive" on the subject of Trump and Xi meeting.

The Treasury chief said he did not foresee any further trade talks between Washington and Beijing diplomats before the presidents meet, and, for his part, Mnuchin declined to project what he expected to happen in Osaka.

"What I would say is we look forward to them meeting, they had a very productive discussion in Buenos Aires — that's what led to these rounds of negotiation," he said of Trump and Xi. "I know they have a very close relationship, and if there's a desire on China's part to reach a real agreement with us, we will negotiate in good faith."

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2019-06-09 08:11:42Z
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Sabtu, 08 Juni 2019

Russian Journalist Ivan Golunov Arrested On Drug Charges, Then Hospitalized - NPR

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Russian journalist Ivan Golunov in Moscow on October 27, 2018. Reuters hide caption

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Reuters

Well-known Russian investigative journalist Ivan Golunov was hospitalized Saturday after two days in police custody. He was detained on Thursday and charged with attempting to sell drugs on Saturday, according to Meduza, the online news site where Golunov, 36, works.

According to police, authorities found mephedrone, a narcotic, on the journalist during a search Thursday. They say they also found additional drugs, including cocaine, along with scales, in Golunov's apartment.

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Supporters of detained journalist Ivan Golunov rally at the Moscow police headquarters on Friday, June 7. Dmitry Serebryakov/AP hide caption

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Dmitry Serebryakov/AP

Golunov says the drugs were planted, according to a statement from Meduza's CEO and editor-in-chief. The site also wrote that its correspondent was beaten in police custody and that he had to wait almost 14 hours to see his lawyer.

Russian authorities denied beating Golunov during his arrest. But on Saturday, officials announced that he was taken to a hospital after a medical examination in police custody. Independent Russian news agency Interfax reported that Golunov left the hospital Saturday and taken to a court in Moscow.

News of Golunov's arrest prompted an outcry in Moscow, especially among journalists. Dozens gathered outside Moscow's police headquarters on Friday.

"Russia has a long history of politically motivated charges against independent reporters. Investigative journalism is treated as a crime where it ought to be viewed as a public service," said a representative from Committee to Protect Journalists, Gulnoza Said. "We are convinced that Ivan Golunov is innocent. Moreover, we have reason to believe he's been targeted because of his work as a journalist."

PEN America, which advocates for free expression around the world, also weighed in: "These questionable accusations reflect the Russian government's long-standing practice of harassing its critics via both legalistic and clearly extra-legal means, which appear to have widened as regional elections are coming in September."

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2019-06-08 18:57:00Z
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Mexican officials hail tariff-averting pact with U.S. even as worries emerge - The Washington Post

President Trump agreed not to impose a five percent tariff on Mexican products in exchange for the country expanding a controversial asylum program.

MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials sought to portray victory Saturday after a deal with the Trump administration to potentially curb migration and avert U.S. tariffs, but others questioned whether the bargain may end up as an open-ended burden.

The contrasting views — after a late Friday announcement of the agreement by President Trump — highlighted the uncertainties in Mexico about the provisions of the pact and whether the White House could use similar tariff threats in the future to try to exact more concessions.

The agreement calls for the Mexican government to widely dispatch its national guard forces to help with immigration enforcement on its border with Guatemala, according to a joint statement.

It also expands the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, returning asylum seekers across the border to await their hearings in U.S. immigration court — a process that can take months.

Mexican diplomats called it a triumph that they were able to secure a deal without agreeing to a “safe third country” agreement, which would have forced Central American asylum seekers to apply for refuge in Mexico, rather than allowing them to make their claims in the United States.

“The bilateral relationship is strengthened for the benefit of the region,” wrote Jesus Seade, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America.

Mexico’s president, Andres Manual López Obrador, planned a speech later Saturday in the border city of Tijuana.

Mexico’s private sector meanwhile celebrated its reprieve from tariffs, which business leaders said would have been catastrophic.

“As little damage as possible,” wrote Gibrán Ramírez Reyes, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Diplomacy has triumphed.”

[Mexico aims to avoid tariffs with possible deal to limit northbound migrants]

Still, if the United States sends the bulk of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico during often-lengthy cases, Mexico might suddenly see a surge of tens of thousands of migrants stuck on its northern border. Politicians in the region, in particular, worried about what that surge might mean for their cities, which have already seen an increase in migrants waiting to enter the United States.

“We need to know how the Mexican government is going to contain the migrants, how they are going to identify those who make it into Mexico,” said Maki Ortiz, the mayor of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Tex. “We need to know how long the migrants are going to be on our border, how they’re going to get access to health services, to employment.”

“If the United States makes them wait long enough in Mexico for their asylum claims, eventually they’ll all try to cross illegally,” Ortiz added.

In border cities like Reynosa, migrants and deportees are frequently targeted by criminal groups, sometimes extorted and attacked.

In 2011, 193 bus passengers, most of them migrants, were killed in the nearby town of San Fernando. A Mexican government report later found that they had been abducted by local police officers linked to a drug cartel.

“In a worst-case scenario, this quantity of people could create a major problem for border cities that will have to house a population of migrants waiting for their hearings in the United States, with no prospects for work or permanent housing, and at the mercy of groups criminals who will see migrants as easy prey,” wrote Andrew Selee, the president of the Migration Policy Institute, an op-ed in Mexico’s El Universal newspaper.

Before the agreement was announced, business leaders expressed concern that even Trump’s threat of tariffs abated, he would use the same tactic to pressure Mexico in the near future.

“Even if Mexico accepts all of the conditions right now, what could happen next week? Maybe Mr. Trump wakes up in the morning and decides to say something else. This might not be the end. We will appear like a piñata,” said Rafael Villanueva, the president of the San Luis Potosi chapter of Index, a national manufacturing council.

Christian Torres

AP

Semitrailers idle in line on the Córdova-Américas International Bridge as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Business leaders said they were caught off guard by Trump’s tariff threat because it came after both countries, along with Canada, had mostly finished renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, an arduous process that many believed would allow for the growth of North America’s interconnected supply chain. 

[Trump pushes tariff decision amid fevered talks ]

 “Everything seemed to be positive. We were awaiting the ratification of the [the new trade deal] in both congresses. We did not foresee see that this pressure would come,” said Luis Enrique Zavala Gallegos, the vice president of Mexico’s national association for importers and exporters. “Anyone who says they were prepared is not telling the truth. Even the government wasn’t prepared for this.”

One report from the Perryman Group, an economic analysis firm based in Texas, estimated that the tariffs would lead to a $41.5 billion loss to the U.S. economy and 400,000 lost American jobs. Mexico’s government has said that the impact will ripple across the country’s entire economy. The minister of agriculture, livestock and rural development, Víctor Manuel Villalobos Arámbula, said Mexico’s agricultural sector alone would lost $3.8 million per day. 

Hector Vivas

Getty Images

Export freight containers with Mexican-produced goods are seen ready to be shipped to the United States in the Pantaco customs complex on June 7 in Mexico City.

“Mexico cannot and should not bend the knee to Trump’s ultimatum,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States.

He called it a “bad omen” and worried that Trump could seek further pressure on Mexico as the 2020 presidential race heats up.

“More than a deal, what Trump is looking for is a trophy,” Sarukhan said.

Some argued the Trump’s threat made it clear that the time had come for Mexico to look to other trading partners, especially China.

“We must look for other markets to compensate us for these lower sales,” said Jorge Macias, the president of Tijuana’s chamber of commerce.

Like many in the private sector, Macias expressed frustration at Trump that went well beyond the recent threat of tariffs.

“It is exhausting for Mexico and puts us in a scenario where we lose out,” Macias said. “It is a constant aggression by President Trump.” 

Read more

GOP lawmakers warn White House they will try to block tariffs

Trump defies close advisers in deciding to threaten Mexico with tariffs

U.S. hiring slows sharply as Trump trade war start to bite

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2019-06-08 17:04:38Z
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Mexican officials hail tariff-averting pact with U.S. even as worries emerge - The Washington Post

President Trump agreed not to impose a five percent tariff on Mexican products in exchange for the country expanding a controversial asylum program.

MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials sought to portray victory Saturday after a deal with the Trump administration to potentially curb migration and avert U.S. tariffs, but others questioned whether the bargain may end up as an open-ended burden.

The contrasting views — after a late Friday announcement of the agreement by President Trump — highlighted the uncertainties in Mexico about the provisions of the pact and whether the White House could use similar tariff threats in the future to try to exact more concessions.

The agreement calls for the Mexican government to widely dispatch its national guard forces to help with immigration enforcement on its border with Guatemala, according to a joint statement.

It also expands the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, returning asylum seekers across the border to await their hearings in U.S. immigration court — a process that can take months.

Mexican diplomats called it a triumph that they were able to secure a deal without agreeing to a “safe third country” agreement, which would have forced Central American asylum seekers to apply for refuge in Mexico, rather than allowing them to make their claims in the United States.

“The bilateral relationship is strengthened for the benefit of the region,” wrote Jesus Seade, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America.

Mexico’s president, Andres Manual López Obrador, planned a speech later Saturday in the border city of Tijuana.

Mexico’s private sector meanwhile celebrated its reprieve from tariffs, which business leaders said would have been catastrophic.

“As little damage as possible,” wrote Gibrán Ramírez Reyes, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Diplomacy has triumphed.”

[Mexico aims to avoid tariffs with possible deal to limit northbound migrants]

Still, if the United States sends the bulk of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico during often-lengthy cases, Mexico might suddenly see a surge of tens of thousands of migrants stuck on its northern border. Politicians in the region, in particular, worried about what that surge might mean for their cities, which have already seen an increase in migrants waiting to enter the United States.

“We need to know how the Mexican government is going to contain the migrants, how they are going to identify those who make it into Mexico,” said Maki Ortiz, the mayor of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Tex. “We need to know how long the migrants are going to be on our border, how they’re going to get access to health services, to employment.”

“If the United States makes them wait long enough in Mexico for their asylum claims, eventually they’ll all try to cross illegally,” Ortiz added.

In border cities like Reynosa, migrants and deportees are frequently targeted by criminal groups, sometimes extorted and attacked.

In 2011, 193 bus passengers, most of them migrants, were killed in the nearby town of San Fernando. A Mexican government report later found that they had been abducted by local police officers linked to a drug cartel.

“In a worst-case scenario, this quantity of people could create a major problem for border cities that will have to house a population of migrants waiting for their hearings in the United States, with no prospects for work or permanent housing, and at the mercy of groups criminals who will see migrants as easy prey,” wrote Andrew Selee, the president of the Migration Policy Institute, an op-ed in Mexico’s El Universal newspaper.

Before the agreement was announced, business leaders expressed concern that even Trump’s threat of tariffs abated, he would use the same tactic to pressure Mexico in the near future.

“Even if Mexico accepts all of the conditions right now, what could happen next week? Maybe Mr. Trump wakes up in the morning and decides to say something else. This might not be the end. We will appear like a piñata,” said Rafael Villanueva, the president of the San Luis Potosi chapter of Index, a national manufacturing council.

Christian Torres

AP

Semitrailers idle in line on the Córdova-Américas International Bridge as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Business leaders said they were caught off guard by Trump’s tariff threat because it came after both countries, along with Canada, had mostly finished renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, an arduous process that many believed would allow for the growth of North America’s interconnected supply chain. 

[Trump pushes tariff decision amid fevered talks ]

 “Everything seemed to be positive. We were awaiting the ratification of the [the new trade deal] in both congresses. We did not foresee see that this pressure would come,” said Luis Enrique Zavala Gallegos, the vice president of Mexico’s national association for importers and exporters. “Anyone who says they were prepared is not telling the truth. Even the government wasn’t prepared for this.”

One report from the Perryman Group, an economic analysis firm based in Texas, estimated that the tariffs would lead to a $41.5 billion loss to the U.S. economy and 400,000 lost American jobs. Mexico’s government has said that the impact will ripple across the country’s entire economy. The minister of agriculture, livestock and rural development, Víctor Manuel Villalobos Arámbula, said Mexico’s agricultural sector alone would lost $3.8 million per day. 

Hector Vivas

Getty Images

Export freight containers with Mexican-produced goods are seen ready to be shipped to the United States in the Pantaco customs complex on June 7 in Mexico City.

“Mexico cannot and should not bend the knee to Trump’s ultimatum,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States.

He called it a “bad omen” and worried that Trump could seek further pressure on Mexico as the 2020 presidential race heats up.

“More than a deal, what Trump is looking for is a trophy,” Sarukhan said.

Some argued the Trump’s threat made it clear that the time had come for Mexico to look to other trading partners, especially China.

“We must look for other markets to compensate us for these lower sales,” said Jorge Macias, the president of Tijuana’s chamber of commerce.

Like many in the private sector, Macias expressed frustration at Trump that went well beyond the recent threat of tariffs.

“It is exhausting for Mexico and puts us in a scenario where we lose out,” Macias said. “It is a constant aggression by President Trump.” 

Read more

GOP lawmakers warn White House they will try to block tariffs

Trump defies close advisers in deciding to threaten Mexico with tariffs

U.S. hiring slows sharply as Trump trade war start to bite

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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2019-06-08 17:03:45Z
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This teen's death wasn't euthanasia — but it was still deeply wrong - New York Post

When people are suffering mental anguish and want to kill themselves, should we simply let them die?

Noa Pothoven was a troubled 17-year-old in the Netherlands. She had suffered sexual assault at 11 and rape at 14. She was afflicted with anorexia. She had begged to die and succeeded in taking her life last Sunday.

The story that first exploded worldwide was that Pothoven was euthanized by the Dutch state.

But the original outrage subsided after subsequent news stories highlighted her death hadn’t actually been approved by the official euthanasia authority in the Netherlands. She had previously asked a clinic in The Hague to euthanize her but was denied because she didn’t have her parents’ permission.

Had Pothoven tried again, she may have gotten that approval. Natalie O’Neill reported for The Post that The Netherlands “allows children from 12 through 16 to kill themselves with permission from a parent and if a doctor agrees that their suffering is unbearable and likely to continue. At age 17, children no longer need their parents’ consent.”

Naomi O’Leary, a correspondent with Politico Europe, who was among the first to challenge the euthanasia story, tweeted, “Pothoven insisted she wanted no further treatment and a hospital bed was set up at home in the care of her parents. At the start of June she began refusing all fluids and food, and her parents and doctors agreed not to force feed her.”

The story didn’t horrify people all over the world because the state was involved but because a teenager was allowed to die

The state was not involved in killing Pothoven but is what ultimately happened so much better?

Whether this was euthanasia or regular suicide, something went terribly wrong here.

A Gallup poll last year found that 72 percent of Americans “continue to believe that doctors should be legally allowed, at a patient’s and a family’s request, to end a terminally ill patient’s life using painless means.” We picture the ailing elderly, the hopeless cancer patient, the people suffering debilitating, life-destroying diseases. It’s a mercy killing. The person can take no more.

We do not picture a 17-year-old, agonized with mental illness after trauma. The very definition of euthanasia, “the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma,” doesn’t apply.

The story didn’t horrify people all over the world because the state was involved but because a teenager was allowed to die. Whether it was because of intervention or because a decision was made not to stop her death is irrelevant.

A few days before her death, she posted to Instagram that she was planning to end her life. In a since-deleted post, Pothoven wrote “I will get straight to the point: Within a maximum of 10 days I will die.” She didn’t die suddenly from anorexia. She planned to die, and then she did. She starved herself to death while people around her watched. Is it so different than leaping from a bridge and having everyone step aside?

According to a report released in January by the World Health Organization, suicide is “the second-leading cause of death among 15- to 29-year-olds globally.” In America, it’s the second-leading cause of death among 10- to 34-year-olds. As recently as 2010, it was the 10th-leading cause. It is a growing problem and one that is contagious. Studies have shown that high-profile suicides lead to more suicides. Pothoven’s death could easily have that same result.

We want people to have autonomy and ease their suffering as much as possible. But that doesn’t mean we just allow people to kill themselves. Mental illness is difficult to combat, but giving up on a 17-year-old should never be normal or acceptable.

Pothoven’s death was not death by appointment. The media got that wrong. But what it actually was should still shock and appall us.

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https://nypost.com/2019/06/08/this-teens-death-wasnt-euthanasia-but-it-was-still-deeply-wrong/

2019-06-08 16:16:00Z
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Mexico tariffs avoided: Trump and Mexican officials reach deal - Vox.com

President Donald Trump announced planned tariffs on Mexican goods will not go into effect as scheduled after his administration and Mexican officials reached an agreement on immigration policy Friday.

The tariffs — which would have been put in place on Monday — consisted of a 5 percent tax on all imported Mexican goods, and would have risen at regular intervals to 25 percent. Trump announced the tariffs hoping to force Mexico to reduce the number of Central American asylum seekers and immigrants arriving at the US southern border. The tariffs would have been devastating for the Mexican economy, and as Vox’s Dylan Scott reported, could have cost the average American family $900 per year.

Last week, Mexican officials, including Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, met with Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the Trump administration to negotiate a deal to avoid the mutually harmful tariffs. Those talks led to an agreement, with both sides offering concessions to the other.

Mexico agreed to station up to 6,000 of its National Guard troops around the country to assist with current immigration control efforts; the majority of the troops will be deployed at the border the country shares with Guatemala, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In exchange, the US has agreed to speed up processing of asylum claims (immigration advocacy group the National Immigration Forum estimates the process currently takes between 6 months and several years). The US will also expand its “Migration Protection Protocols,” a policy under which asylum seekers are sent back to Mexico while they wait for US officials to process their asylum claims.

As Vox’s Dara Lind reported, under the policy, asylum seekers must generally wait 45 days in Mexico before being allowed to present their case in US immigration court. This policy was challenged in US court; after being overturned initially, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the policy is to be allowed. It is currently in practice, although following the appeals court ruling, House Democrats crafted legislation that would block the policy. The bill has little chance of becoming law, as it would likely be ignored in the Senate and almost certainly would not be signed by the president.

Migrants waiting have said they have experienced hardship while on the Mexican side of the border; a man waiting in Tijuana told Vox in February that his friend had been robbed and harassed by police after being returned to Mexico. Border cities have also struggled to support the growing population of waiting asylum seekers.

In a statement, the US State Department said Mexico will address these issues by ensuring waiting asylum seekers are given “jobs, health care and education according to its principles.” In addition, the US has promised to fast track distribution of $5.8 billion in funds it has set aside for addressing the problems that cause migrants to leave home to seek asylum in the first place.

While Trump claimed that the tariffs would benefit Americans economically, Vox’s Dylan Scott reported it’s quite the opposite:

The auto industry is by far the most significant casualty; America’s biggest imports from Mexico are cars and auto parts. But data processors, telephones, televisions, and even beer are also moving all the time across the border. Whether it’s a car or a Corona, Americans are going to wind up paying the price for Trump’s trade war.

Americans would have paid more for major Mexican imports — everything from crude oil to produce like dates, figs, and pineapples; economists told Scott the tariffs would force the average American family to spend an additional $900 per year.

When he announced the tariffs in late May, Trump said they would encourage companies who have left the US for Mexico to return. But economists told Vox the tariffs would have actually sent those companies packing to another country instead of to the US, and that they could have sped up manufacturers’ pivot to automation.

“I don’t think the United States is a viable location for many of the production activities that are occurring in Mexico,” Kimberly Clausing, an economist at Reed College, told Scott. “A more likely response would be offshoring to another country, or turning to automation to do those activities in a less labor-intensive way in the United States.”

That is one of the reasons Congressional Republicans came out against Trump’s tariff proposal — they said it would hurt the US economy and their constituents.

“There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that’s for sure,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. “Most of us hope that this Mexican delegation that’s come up here and discussed the challenges at the border ... will be fruitful, and that these tariffs will not kick in.”

Critics of the tariffs were also concerned they could impact the ratification of one of Trump’s signature goals — an overhaul of NAFTA that the president calls the United Stated-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Trump negotiated the agreement with Canadian and Mexican leaders, and it makes changes to current country of origin rules, expands intellectual property protections, and opens new markets to US farmers.

Congress has yet to sign off on the plan, and the new tariffs could have made it a tough sell in Mexico for Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“Among the indirect costs are likely to be a rejection (possibly by three legislatures) of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” Dan Ikenson, who leads trade studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Scott, “and the loss of all credibility that the United States is a reliable negotiator and trading partner.”

The plan has yet to be finalized, and it’s unclear whether the agreement will scuttle the deal. Trump, however, suggested that the US’ relationship with its southern neighbor is now back on track, tweeting praise for Obrador, writing that Mexico has now agreed to buy more produce, and claiming “Everyone very excited about the new deal with Mexico!”

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/8/18657658/mexico-tariffs-us-border-immigration-asylum-agreement

2019-06-08 14:42:43Z
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