With recounts looming, Donald Trump adds new administration picks

November 26, 2016

Madison, Nov 26: President-elect Donald Trump pressed forward Friday with two more administration picks, as failed Green Party candidate Jill Stein took new steps to force recounts across key Midwestern battlegrounds that could complicate Trump's push for national unity.

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Stein, who earned little more than 1 percent of the national vote, formally requested a Wisconsin recount Friday afternoon, vowing to do the same in the coming days in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin officials confirmed Friday evening they would move forward with the first presidential recount in state history. There is no evidence of election tampering in the states where Trump scored razor-thin victories, but Green Party spokesman George Martin insisted “the American public needs to have it investigated to make sure our votes count.”

“We're doing this to ensure the integrity of our system,” he said.

Trump's team ignored questions about the looming recounts. Set to assume the presidency in 55 days, he was focused instead on the daunting task of building an administration from scratch.

Gathered with family at his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach estate for the holiday weekend, the incoming president made two senior-level staff appointments and scheduled meetings with several more prospective administration officials.

He tapped Fox News analyst Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland to serve as deputy national security adviser and campaign attorney Donald McGahn as White House counsel. In a statement, Trump cited McFarland's “tremendous experience and innate talent” and said McGahn “has a brilliant legal mind, excellent character and a deep understanding of constitutional law.”

Having faced criticism about the inexperience of his initial picks, Trump finds in McFarland someone who previously worked under three presidents, although none since Ronald Reagan.McGahn, a veteran Republican election lawyer, served as Trump's attorney during the campaign.

Neither position requires Senate confirmation.

Trump transition spokesman Sean Spicer said the president-elect scheduled Monday meetings with eight more prospective administration hires, a group that includes several business leaders, Pennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta, and David Clarke, the Wisconsin sheriff who is an aggressive opponent of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Facing external pressure from Stein, there were also signs of internal discord within the president-elect's small inner circle as Trump weighed his choices for secretary of state.

The options for the nation's chief diplomat include former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who lacks foreign policy experience but was intensely loyal to Trump, and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who aggressively opposed Trump's candidacy but is largely regarded as more qualified.

Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway took the unusual step of shining light on the controversy over the Thanksgiving holiday, tweeting that she had been “receiving a deluge of social media & private concerns re: Romney Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as sec of state.”

Meanwhile, Stein announced on her website she has raised enough money to fund recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and was pursuing additional funding to do the same in Michigan.

Trump's Nov. 8 victory was unexpected and historic, by some measures.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leads the national popular vote by close to 2 million votes. Trump scored narrow victories in key battleground states, however, giving him the necessary 270 electoral votes to assume the presidency.

He won in Pennsylvania. He won in Wisconsin, breaking a Democratic winning streak dating back 32 years. He holds a slim lead in Michigan, where a Republican presidential candidate hadn't won since 1988; The Associated Press still hasn't officially called that race.

Wisconsin, where Trump leads by little more than 22,000 votes, has never before conducted a presidential recount. It will this year, state administrator Michael Haas announced Friday, citing recount requests by Stein and independent candidate Rocky De La Fuente.

“The Commission is preparing to move forward with a statewide recount of votes for President of the United States, as requested by these candidates,” Haas said, noting that the recount is expected to be completed by the Dec. 13 federal deadline.

In Michigan, Trump's 10,704-vote lead is expected to be certified by the state elections board Monday. The deadline to ask for a recount is Wednesday.

A statewide recount would cost Stein roughly $790,000, said Fred Woodhams, a spokesman for the Michigan secretary of state. An opposing candidate would have seven days to file objections to the recount petition, after which the board would schedule a public hearing and later issue a ruling on the objections.

Trump's transition team indicated he was focused on the challenges of governing.

Since arriving at his Palm Beach estate Wednesday, they said, the president-elect has spoken to the prime ministers of Greece, Hungary and Sweden, along with the presidents of Panama and Slovenia.

He is expected to return to his New York City home on Sunday.

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Agencies
February 17,2020

Islamabad, Feb 17: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday warned that Pakistan may face another refugee crisis if the international community failed to take notice of the current situation in India.

Speaking at the two-day refugee summit in Islamabad on 40 years of hosting Afghan refugees in Pakistan, he said India’s "ultranationalist ideology going unchecked could lead to destruction and the region could become a flashpoint", The Express Tribune quoted him as saying.

Khan said if the international community does not take notice of this situation, it will create another refugee crisis for Pakistan as Muslims of India will move to Pakistan.

"This is not the India of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. The United Nations (UN) must play its role otherwise it will become a very big problem in the future," Duniya News quoted Khan as saying.

He said said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that India can destroy Pakistan in 11 days is not a responsible statement by a premier of a nuclear state with a huge population, the paper reported.

Khan made the statement in the presence of visiting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was also attending the summit.

He said because of the "Hindutva" ideology, Kashmiris have been lockdown for over 200 days. He alleged under the same ideology, the BJP-led government passed two discriminatory nationalistic legislations, targeting 200 million Muslims in India.

Khan was referring to India's Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the revocation of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The new citizenship law passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2019 offers citizenship to non-Muslim persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The Indian government has maintained that the CAA is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.

India revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5. Reacting to India's move, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with New Delhi and expelled the Indian High Commissioner.

India has always maintained that Jammu and Kashmir is its integral part and ruled out any third party mediation, including either from the UN or the US, saying it is a bilateral issue with Pakistan.

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News Network
March 16,2020

Manila, Mar 16: The Philippines has detected an outbreak of avian flu in a northern province after tests showed presence of the highly infectious H5N6 subtype of the influenza A virus in a quail farm, the country's farm minister said on Monday.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the bird flu virus, the same strain that hit some local poultry farms in 2017, was detected in Jaen municipality in Nueva Ecija province, where about 1,500 quails had died on one farm alone.

A total of 12,000 quails have been destroyed and buried to prevent further infections, Dar said, citing field reports.

"We are on top of the situation," he said. "Surveillance around the 1-km and 7-km radius will be carried out immediately to ensure that the disease has not progressed around the said perimeter."

Animal quarantine checkpoints have also been set up to restrict the movement of all live domestic birds to and from the quarantine area, he said.

"We would like to emphasise that this is a single case affecting one quail farm only," Dar said.

Dr. Arlene Vytiaco, technical spokeswoman for avian flu at the agriculture department, said that while there is a possibility of transmission to humans through excretion and secretion, "the chances are very slim".

"There is also zero mortality rate," she said.

Dar said his department and the local government were jointly conducting an investigation and contact-tracing to determine the source of infection.

To ensure steady domestic supply of poultry, he said the transport of day-old chicks, hatching eggs and chicken meat will be allowed provided the source farms have tested negative for bird flu.

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News Network
May 23,2020

Karachi, May 23: Ninety-seven people were killed and two survived when a passenger plane crashed into homes in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi, health officials said Saturday.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane had made multiple approaches to land at the city's airport when it came down in a residential area, damaging buildings and sparking a rescue operation that lasted into the night.

All passengers and crew had been accounted for and the bodies of those killed had been recovered from the crash site, the Sindh Health Ministry said, adding that 19 had been identified.

A local hospital earlier reported it had received the bodies of people killed on the ground.

The site remained cordoned off on Saturday morning.

The crash sent plumes of smoke were into the air as rescue workers and residents searched the debris for people and as firefighters tried to extinguish the flames.

An AFP reporter witnessed charred bodies being loaded into ambulances.

PIA said the plane lost contact with air traffic control just after 2:30 pm (0930 GMT) travelling from Lahore to Karachi.

The disaster comes as Pakistanis prepare to celebrate the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, with many travelling back to their homes in cities and villages.

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