Rabu, 24 Januari 2024

Trump wins New Hampshire, but race also exposes chinks in his armour - The Straits Times

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Trump wins New Hampshire, but race also exposes chinks in his armour

Republican presidential hopeful and former US president Donald Trump at an election night party in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Jan 23. PHOTO: AFP

SALEM, New Hampshire – It might seem too soon to crown former United States president Donald Trump the official candidate of the Republican Party.

The primary season began just two weeks ago and only two states have held nominating contests in which fewer than half a million Americans participated.

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2024-01-24 13:52:21Z
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Thai court clears opposition figure Pita Limjaroenrat to return to Parliament - The Straits Times

Mr Pita Limjaroenrat had been suspended from Parliament since July 2023 pending this verdict. PHOTO: AFP

BANGKOK - Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled on Jan 24 that prominent Thai opposition figure Pita Limjaroenrat had not breached media shareholding rules, clearing the way for his return to Parliament six months after his suspension.

Mr Pita, 43, the former leader of the Move Forward Party (MFP), had been suspended from Parliament since July 2023 pending this verdict.

He had been blocked from assuming the premiership in Thailand despite his party winning the most seats in the May 2023 general election, largely due to opposition from senators appointed under military rule.

The case on Jan 24 pertains to Mr Pita’s holding of shares in ITV, a company which lost its broadcasting concession in 2007.

People owning media businesses are not allowed to run for Parliament.

Mr Pita, who inherited the shares from his late father, had argued that it was not an active media organisation.

The court concurred on Jan 24: “There’s no information indicating that ITV conducted media business since its media licence was suspended on March 7, 2007. So ITV was not conducting media business when (Mr Pita) registered to be an MP.”

After the verdict, Mr Pita posted a message on platform X, formerly known as Twitter: “Thank you everyone for your encouragement; we will continue with our work without waiting.”

He later told reporters: “I will go back to working in the Parliament as soon as I am allowed too.”

The ruling comes as a reprieve for the MFP.

The party had gone from election winner to the largest opposition party after the Pheu Thai Party, the runner-up in the polls, formed its own coalition government.

Chulalongkorn University political scientist Pandit Chanrochanakit saw the verdict as a turning point for Thailand to move along the path of political reconciliation, four years after the court-mandated dissolution of the progressive Future Forward Party sparked youth protests that snowballed into larger demands for reforms in Thailand’s conservative establishment.

“It could help them make peace with the youth movement,” he told The Straits Times on Jan 24.

The Constitutional Court had determined in 2020 that Future Forward had violated campaign funding rules.

Key party executives, including leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, were banned from politics for 10 years following the 2020 court decision.

Remaining members of Future Forward, including Mr Pita, went on to form the Move Forward Party.

The government then was headed by Mr Prayut Chan-o-cha, a former army chief who staged a military coup in 2014, ushering in junta rule in Thailand for the next five years.

“In the past, we have seen the use of the judicial branch to get rid of political opposition that challenges the authoritarian regime,” Dr Pandit said.

“Pita not only represents the voters who voted for him, he (also) represents people’s hopes for change.”

On Jan 31, the MFP will face another legal challenge.

The Constitutional Court is set to rule on whether the party’s bid to amend the lese majeste law amounts to an attempt to overthrow the constitutional monarchy.

The controversial law, which critics argue could lead to political abuse, recently resulted in a man receiving a cumulative jail sentence of 50 years.

If found guilty, the MFP could be ordered to stop trying to change this law.

MFP supporters fear it could be used as a pretext to dissolve the party itself.

Mr Pita, currently acting as adviser of the MFP, has argued that political parties should disappear only when they cannot get popular support, rather than be disbanded through judicial intervention.

In an interview with ST in December 2023, he talked about the need to take a long-term view on the current challenges faced by his party and the progressive sections of Thai society.

“I felt like we might not win immediately, but we will win definitely, and we will win eventually,” he said then.

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2024-01-24 09:10:00Z
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Selasa, 23 Januari 2024

Trump closes in on Biden rematch after New Hampshire win - CNA

DIM OUTLOOK FOR HALEY

Trump won a crushing victory in the first Republican contest in Iowa last week, with Haley a distant third.

What was once a crowded field of 14 candidates then narrowed to a one-on-one matchup on Sunday after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out, following his second-place Iowa finish.

No Republican has ever won both opening contests and not ultimately secured the party's nomination.

Trump did little actual campaigning in New Hampshire. However, his message - a mixture of personal grievance and right-wing culture war firing his base - has delivered the kind of momentum that supporters believe will sweep him back into the White House.

"I think it's gonna be a wipeout for Biden. He's gone," said Luis Ferre, 72, who travelled from New York to be at Trump's election night party at a Nashua hotel.

Haley spent the week hammering the message, backed by polling, that most Americans do not want to see a Trump-Biden rematch. That, however, may not be enough to prevent the inevitable.

"Nikki Haley's supporters will surely feel that Tuesday night in New Hampshire was a reasonably good night. But once the relative shine of the Granite State result wears off... all but the most ardent Haley supporters will be looking through a glass darkly," said Aron Solomon, a political analyst for legal marketing agency Amplify.

GOOD NIGHT FOR BIDEN

Biden, meanwhile, won an unofficial Democratic primary in New Hampshire, giving him a symbolic boost.

The president marked the day by campaigning alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in Virginia at a rally for abortion rights.

With Trump touting his role in the ending of the constitutional right to abortion, Biden told an enthusiastic crowd that the Republican was "hell-bent" on further restrictions.

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2024-01-24 02:06:00Z
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Trump seeks to lock in nomination at New Hampshire showdown - CNA

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire: Donald Trump aims to steamroll his way toward the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday (Jan 23) in the New Hampshire primary by making short work of his only surviving opponent, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.

In his convention-smashing mission to take revenge against President Joe Biden and win a second White House term, Trump has defied the fallout from two impeachments, four criminal trials awaiting him and lawsuits for fraud and sexual assault.

While Haley has questioned his mental fitness and warned that another Trump presidency would bring "chaos," polls indicate her efforts will be little more than a bump in the road in New Hampshire.

"If you want a losing candidate who puts America last, vote for Nikki Haley," Trump said in his closing arguments at a rally in the village of Laconia.

"But if you want a president who puts America first every single time, you're going to vote for Donald J Trump."

On Tuesday he stopped outside a polling station, hailing his supporters as an "organic" popular movement that would retake the White House.

New Hampshire, in the northeast United States, is seen as a more Haley-friendly electorate than she will encounter further down the line, and pressing on into February will be a tough sell without a win or very narrow loss.

Haley - aged 52 to Trump's 77 - sounded defiant Tuesday as voting started, telling Fox News that "political elites are saying we all need to coalesce around him. This is not a coronation. This is a democracy.

"We are going to have a strong showing today here in New Hampshire," she vowed.

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2024-01-23 20:58:44Z
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US envoy pushing pause in Gaza war as Israel suffers worst loss of soldiers - CNA

TANKS SHUT KHAN YOUNIS ROAD

Hamas' armed wing said it was responsible for a rocket attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers on Monday.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in Tel Aviv that the militants' rockets hit a building where Israeli forces had laid explosives to demolish it. The strike caused that building and one next to it to collapse, he said.

Three soldiers were killed in a separate attack. In total, 220 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive in late October.

On Tuesday, advancing Israeli tanks shut the road out of Khan Younis towards the Mediterranean coast, blocking the escape route for civilians trying to reach Rafah, the last town on Gaza's southern edge bordering Egypt - now crammed with more than half the enclave's 2.3 million people.

The Israelis have blockaded hospitals, which Palestinian officials say makes it impossible to rescue the wounded. At the European Hospital, reached by Reuters in southern Khan Younis, Ahed Masmah brought in five corpses, piled on a mattress on his donkey cart.

"I found them face down in the street," he said.

At Khan Younis' main Nasser hospital, the biggest still functioning in the Gaza Strip, bodies were being buried on the grounds because it was unsafe to go out to the cemetery.

Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for Gaza's health ministry, said medical teams were unable to transfer critical cases from the Nasser Medical Complex to the nearby Jordanian field hospital due to ongoing shelling.

Israel says Hamas fighters operate in and around hospitals, which hospital staff and Hamas deny.

Martin Griffiths, UN coordinator of emergency relief, said on Tuesday that 24 people were killed in strikes on an aid warehouse, UN centre and humanitarian zone in the Khan Younis area. A distribution centre where families receive aid was under heavy bombardment, he said on social media platform X.

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2024-01-23 20:29:00Z
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Harsh but true? Chinese blogger hits a liberal arts nerve in a tough job market - CNA

Chinese education blogger Zhang Xuefeng was direct and damning when a woman asked him during a live stream whether her son should choose to study liberal arts at university.

Zhang, who has more than 24 million followers on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, is a regular source of advice for education and the job market.

“All liberal arts graduates are joining the service industries! And all they need is grovelling,” he said during the event last month.

To many viewers – and arts graduates and students – the comments were offensive, not just for the choice of language but for suggesting their degrees were worthless in today’s economy.

Zhang later apologised – only for thousands of liberal arts students to say the comments struck a chord with them.

In a highly competitive job market, weighted heavily in favour of people with STEM skills, the blogger’s forthright assessment may have been harsh, but it wasn’t wrong, they said.

Academics and researchers say the controversy over the remarks reflects long-standing problems in Chinese higher education.

Liberal arts studies include humanities majors such as history and literature, social sciences such as economics, journalism and law, and some majors in business schools.

Zhang did not specify which liberal arts majors he was criticising, but the thousands of social media users who echoed his comments on social media platforms ranged from literature and journalism students to finance graduates.

An anthropology graduate from a leading university in Shanghai said his teachers told students at the beginning of the school year to be “mentally prepared” for not being able to find a job.

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2024-01-23 05:25:00Z
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Senin, 22 Januari 2024

Malaysia considers legal proceedings against foreign banks linked to 1MDB graft - CNA

KUALA LUMPUR :Malaysia is considering initiating legal proceedings against foreign banks linked to the multi-billion dollar 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) corruption scandal, the chairman of the 1MDB asset recovery taskforce said on Tuesday.

Johari Abdul Ghani did not identify the foreign banks but said they did not conduct proper due diligence before facilitating fund transfers related to the sovereign fund.

Malaysian and U.S. investigators estimate $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB, implicating a former Malaysian prime minister, Goldman Sachs staff and high-level officials elsewhere.

In 2021, Malaysia sued units of Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Coutts & Co to recover billions in alleged losses from the fund, though the cases have yet to progress in court.

"The 1MDB task force is firmly committed in addressing the 1MDB matter transparently and holding all parties accountable," Johari said in a statement.

Separately, he added that Malaysia had responded on Nov. 8 to an arbitration request by Goldman Sachs, and the two parties were in the process of agreeing on a procedural timetable.

Goldman Sachs in 2020 had agreed to pay $3.9 billion to settle Malaysia's criminal probe over its role in the scandal.

But the parties are now in disagreement over the settlement, which stipulates that Goldman should make an interim payment if Malaysia did not recover at least $500 million from the firm by August 2022.

Goldman sued Malaysia in a British court in October last year for the Malaysian government's violation of its obligations to appropriately credit assets against the guarantee provided by Goldman in the settlement agreement and to recover other assets worth $1.4 billion.

Malaysia has denied the allegations it breached the settlement deal, and on Tuesday accused Goldman Sachs of trying to offset 1MDB fines and settlements recovered from other institutions such as AmBank, and Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) against the $1.4 billion sum.

Johari said the fines and settlements were not within the scope of Goldman's asset recovery guarantee.

The 1MDB taskforce was also examining whether negotiators and lawyers representing the Malaysian government at the time failed to secure a fair and adequate settlement from Goldman, given the firm's role in the scandal.

Goldman had helped 1MDB raise $6.5 billion through bond sales, earning $600 million in fees, which was "unusually high", Johari said.

"Such lapses on the part of negotiators and lawyers, in failing to negotiate a fair and clear settlement agreement have compromised the government of Malaysia's position in the ongoing

dispute," Johari said.

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2024-01-23 01:31:17Z
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