‘The end of Hong Kong’? China’s new plan for the region has Trump fuming

China’s action could spark fresh protests in Hong Kong, which enjoys many freedoms not allowed on the mainland

China is set to impose new national security legislation on Hong Kong after last year’s pro-democracy unrest, a Chinese official said on Thursday, drawing a warning from President Donald Trump that Washington would react “very strongly” against the attempt to gain more control over the former British colony.

The US State Department also warned China, saying a high-degree of autonomy and respect for human rights were key to preserving the territory’s special status in US law, which has helped it maintain its position as a world financial centre, the Reuters reported. China’s action could spark fresh protests in Hong Kong, which enjoys many freedoms not allowed on the mainland, after often violent demonstrations of 2019 plunged the city into its deepest turmoil since it returned to Beijing’s rule in 1997. Trump, who has ratcheted up his anti-China rhetoric as he seeks re-election in November, told reporters “nobody knows yet” the details of China’s plan. “If it happens we’ll address that issue very strongly,” he said.

ALSO READ: Hong Kong police arrest 14 pro-democracy activists for organising protests

Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the China’s National People’s Congress, said details of the legislation would be given on Friday when the parliament holds its annual session. “In light of the new circumstances and need, the National People’s Congress (NPC) is exercising its constitutional power” to establish a new legal framework and enforcement mechanism to safeguard national security in Hong Kong, he told a briefing.

Namaste Trump: Can PM Modi make US prez look past the trade differences?

This visit ought to be about making clear to Trump that the larger promise of India outweighs the irritants associated with trade disagreements

‘What the leaders of India want and are determined to have is a democracy that is indigenous to their own country – not English or American or French or Russian,’ wrote Eleanor Roosevelt. Diplomat, activist, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wife, according to Mrs. Roosevelt, who travelled across India in the spring of 1952, ‘the democracy India is building probably will never be exactly like ours.’ After all, she continued, ‘there is no reason it should be.’

Few American leaders understood this at the time. President Harry S. Truman had in fact dissuaded American envoys from accepting postings to post-independent India. India was, according to Truman, a country associated with ‘people sitting on hot coals and bathing in the Ganges.’ It was not ‘important.’ That the US-India relationship has transformed is an understatement.

From cloudy musings about hot coals to nuclear deals, strategic partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, disagreements about data localisation and motorcycles, and $142 billion in trade (as of 2018), India and the United States share as unique a relationship as is possible. These are two outsized democracies whose leaders seek to evangelise (in the case of the United States) and guard (in the case of India) their own distinctive democratic advances…Keep reading

Is a war coming between the US and Iran? There are signs to believe so

The risk of war isn’t simply on the Twitter course of events of US President Donald Trump. It is likewise in Pompeo gallivanting through Europe, dropping a gathering with the Germans

You can’t state the world wasn’t cautioned. In February, US National Security Adviser John Bolton — a main defender of the deplorable 2003 Iraq War — sent a video message to Iran’s incomparable pioneer, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 40 years after the making of the Islamic Republic: “I don’t think you’ll have a lot more commemorations to appreciate.”

Impelled in huge part by Bolton, the Trump Administration pulled back in May 2018 from the 2015 atomic understanding between the US and the 5+1 forces – the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China. In November, Washington forced thorough authorizes on Tehran, including on the vitality and money related divisions.

Be that as it may, Bolton was flagging unsubtly: we can exact more harm on the off chance that we wish. So how far will the Trump organization go? What’s more, is there an unavoidable risk of war between the US and Iran?

You may like: China-US trade war heats up: 3 reasons why it won’t cool down anytime soon

On May 13, following quite a while of acceleration, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iran’s incomparable pioneer, Ayatollah Khamenei, each made an expository stride back. In Moscow, nearby Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Pompeo said the Trump organization “essentially” did not look for a contention. Tending to the president and other senior authorities in Tehran that day, Khamenei stated: “Neither we nor they, who realize war won’t be to their greatest advantage, are after war.”

In any case, there were other confrontational words and ventures on the two sides. Khamenei poked: “In [its] approach of encounter with the Islamic Republic, the US will endure rout.” For his part, Pompeo stated: “We have likewise clarified to the Iranians that if American interests are assaulted, we will unquestionably react in a suitable design.” Hours after the fact, the organization requested the halfway departure of US international safe haven staff from Baghdad in Iran’s neighbor Iraq.

Read Full Story: US Iran War

Trump ends DACA: All you need to know about it and how Indians are impacted

Move likely to impact 800,000 undocumented workers, including more than 20,000 Indian-Americans

 

With President Donald Trump’s reversal of an Obama-era executive order known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), worst fears of young immigrants seem to be coming true.
The historic move is likely to impact 800,000 undocumented workers, including more than 20,000 Indian-Americans who trusted the US government with their fingerprints and other personal information when they applied for DACA.

Most of the immigrants protected by DACA, dubbed 'Dreamers', came from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

What is DACA?

DACA The DACA programme granted the undocumented youth temporary reprieve from deportation and the ability to legally apply for a job or get admission to educational institutions.
The programme grants them a two-year reprieve that can be extended by issuing them identity papers like driver’s licences, work permit and a social security number.

However, DACA does not provide beneficiaries legal residency in US.

How could one enrol under the programme?

An immigrant was required to be at 15 years of age when applying for DACA. They were to submit proof that they were brought to the US before they turned 16 and were under 31 when the programme was launched.

The application cost was nearly $500 and permits needed to be renewed every two years. The application and renewal process took several weeks.

What about Indians living in US?

Around 20,000 people from India who arrived in the US illegally as children are fearing deportation, South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) said.

"Over 27,000 Asian-Americans, including 5,500 Indians and Pakistanis, have already received DACA. An additional estimated 17,000 individuals from India and 6,000 from Pakistan are eligible for DACA, placing India among the top ten countries for DACA eligibility," SAALT said.

With the termination of DACA, these individuals could face deportation at the discretion of the administration....read more

Gauri Lankesh: A firebrand journalist vocal on secularism and Dalit rights

Best quality in Gauri was one could always argue with her, dispute her and tell her she was wrong

 

“Be careful about what you post on social media. We live in dangerous times,” I told Gauri Lankesh last week. She replied saying “We can’t be so dead. It is human to express and react. What we feel impulsively is usually our most honest response.”

On Tuesday night, she was shot and killed in cold blood. The killing was not impulsive. It was well thought and carefully planned, like the murders in Maharashtra and Karnataka of the rationalists and thinkers Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi that she had herself condemned and protested.

I grew up in a family of writers. My father, K. Marulasiddappa, and P Lankesh, Gauri’s father, were colleagues and close friends. Lankesh was an English lecturer. My father taught Kannada.
We lived in the same neighbourhood. My mother often left me in the care of the Lankesh household. Whenever I argued with Gauri, she used to joke saying “Magane (child), I used to babysit you before you learned how to speak.”

But the best quality in Gauri was that one could always argue with her, dispute her and tell her she was wrong. And no matter how fierce our arguments, she respected our right to say what we did. We were close friends because we could disagree. It was a quality that she inherited from her father...read more

20,000 Indian immigrants in US fear deportation as Trump repeals DACA

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions yesterday announced the rescinding of the DACA

 

Thousands of people from India, who arrived in the US illegally as children, are fearing deportation after President Donald Trump's decision to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) programme, a South Asian Advocacy group has said.

The number of such people from India, could be more than 20,000, according to an estimate carried out by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions yesterday announced the rescinding of the Deferred Action for Children Arrival (DACA), an Obama-era amnesty programme that granted work permits to immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children.

The announcement, which was anticipated for the past few days, was greeted with protests from across the country.

"Over 27,000 Asian Americans, including 5,500 Indians and Pakistanis, have already received DACA. An additional estimated 17,000 individuals from India and 6,000 Pakistan respectively are eligible for DACA, placing India in the top ten countries for DACA eligibility," SAALT said.

With the termination of DACA, these individuals could face deportation at the discretion of the administration, it said.(economy news)

"The President's decision to terminate DACA puts 800,000 individuals at risk of deportation from the only country they've ever called home. Ending DACA is the latest evidence of this administration's utter lack of commitment to our nation's founding values of equality and fairness," Suman Raghunathan, executive director of SAALT, said.

"Our current patchwork of immigration policies and programs is broken, and we demand the Congress does its job to craft a commonsense immigration process that creates a road- map to citizenship for aspiring new Americans.

"This is the only way to align our immigration laws with the values Americans hold dear," she said.

In a statement, South Asian Bar Association (SABA) president Rishi Bagga said "DREAMERS" were brought to the US by their parents in hopes of a better life.

"As children, they did not choose to break the law. Most of these young men and women have never returned to the countries of their birth, and many do not even speak the language of their native countries. Rescinding DACA effectually takes away these young people's right to live in the only country they have ever known,"Bagga said....(Read More)

US Prez Donald Trump to sign new travel ban order today: What to expect

Revised order expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a travel ban

 

#COMPANIES | President Donald Trump is preparing to sign a revised executive order temporarily barring the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries and halting the nation's refugee programme.

A White House official says plans to roll out the order are on track for today. The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the order ahead of the official announcement.

The new order has been in the works since shortly after a federal court blocked Trump's initial effort, but the administration has repeatedly pushed back the signing as it has worked to better coordinate with the agencies that it will need to implement the ban.

Trump administration officials have said the new order aims to overcome the legal challenges to the first. Its goal will be the same: keep would-be terrorists out of the United States while the government reviews the vetting system for refugees and visa applicants from certain parts of the world.

Trump original orders temporarily blocked citizens of Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya from coming to the United States and put on hold the US refugee programme.

The revised order is expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary US travel ban for 90 days. That follows pressure from the Pentagon and State Department, which had urged the White House to reconsider, given Iraq's key role in fighting the Islamic State group.

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