Trump pushes UN reform as world leaders gather for crisis talks

Agencies
September 18, 2017

United Nations, Sept 18: US President Donald Trump makes his debut at the United Nations on Monday, with an address on UN reform as a week of intense diplomacy kicks off, dominated by worries about North Korea, Iran and Myanmar.

Trump, who once disparaged the world body as a "club" for "people to get together, talk and have a good time," will lay out his views on how to improve the United Nations a day before he makes his first address to the General Assembly.

About 130 world leaders are attending this year's global gathering, but all eyes will be on Trump, whose "America First" agenda has alarmed both allies and foes.

The UN's number one financial backer, the United States has threatened deep cuts to UN funding that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said would create an "unsolvable problem" for the world body.

Guterres, who is pushing for an overhaul of the UN bureaucracy, will also address the event at which leaders will sign a pledge of support for reform.

France and Russia have reacted coolly to the US initiative, amid concerns that the US administration is focused more on cost-cutting than improving the UN's performance.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley was a driving force behind a $600-million-dollar cut to the UN peacekeeping budget this year.

Haley on Friday pointed to the more than 120 countries that back the US-drafted political declaration on UN reform as a "miraculous number," showing there is support for a "massive reform package" led by Guterres.

On Monday, Trump will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, who will also be making his maiden address at the General Assembly on Tuesday, and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Both Macron and Netanyahu are expected to raise the future of the Iran nuclear agreement, with the French leader making a strong case for keeping it alive and the Israeli prime minister pushing for its demise.

Trump will also have a working dinner with Latin American leaders that will touch on the crisis in Venezuela.

North Korea's nuclear and missile tests will be in the spotlight with foreign ministers set to discuss enforcing sanctions against Pyongyang during a Security Council meeting on non-proliferation on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, Trump will be holding talks with Japanese and South Korean leaders who have backed the US drive to ratchet up sanctions on North Korea.

The council last week imposed a new raft of measures such as a ban on export textiles and a cap on oil shipments to pile pressure on Pyongyang to come to the table and negotiate an end to its nuclear and missile programs.

Russia and China, however, are calling for diplomatic talks with North Korea while warning that a military option as suggested by the United States would have catastrophic consequences.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will host a meeting on the military campaign in Myanmar which the United Nations has described as "ethnic cleansing" after more than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims were forced to flee.

The closed-door meeting will be attended by a representative from Myanmar and by foreign ministers from "a range of countries with a strong interest in seeing an end to the violence there," a British diplomat said.

Ahead of the opening of the General Assembly, UN member-states will discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Irma that devastated parts of the United States and the Caribbean.

The hurricane disaster offers a reminder of the destructive force of nature as leaders set their sights on implementing the Paris agreement on climate change despite the US withdrawal from the deal.

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News Network
June 25,2020

Ottawa, Jun 25: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took his son out for ice cream on Wednesday in his first family outing since Canada started easing out of its pandemic lockdown.

It was also Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec province.

Wearing masks, the Canadian leader and his six-year-old son Hadrien were cheered at Chocolats Favoris in Gatineau, Quebec.

According to a pool report, Trudeau said the shop tapped into a federal emergency wage subsidy and business loan in order to weather the pandemic, and "avoid being frozen out of the frozen treat market."

Hadrien is said to have bounced with excitement, settling on a vanilla cone with a cookie topping while dad bought a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate for himself.

Father and son then headed out to the patio, where they doffed their masks to eat their cones.

Canada's provinces and territories declared states of emergency mid-March, closing schools and non-essential businesses in response to the pandemic.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Colombo, Aug 7: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's party and its allies won an overwhelming two-thirds majority in a parliament election, results showed on Friday, giving him the power to enact sweeping changes to the constitution.

The governing Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and its allies had won 150 seats in the 225-member parliament, according to the tally published by the election commission from Wednesday's vote.

Rajapaksa had sought a two-thirds majority in parliament to be able to restore full executive powers to the presidency, which he says are necessary to implement his agenda to make the tiny island economically and militarily secure.

He is likely to install his older brother and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the next prime minister. The brothers are best known for crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils during the elder Rajapaksa's presidency in 2009.

On a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, which is keen to check Chinese influence on its southern neighbour, Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to deepen ties between the two countries.

"With the strong support of the people of Sri Lanka, I look forward to working with you closely to further enhance the long-standing cooperation between our two countries," he told Modi. "Sri Lanka and India are friends and relations."

The tourism-dependent nation of 21 million people has been struggling economically since deadly Islamist militant attacks on hotels and churches last year followed by lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus. 

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News Network
February 19,2020

Washington, Feb 19: Sri Srinivasan, a prominent Indian-American judge, has created history by becoming the first person of South Asian descent to lead a powerful federal circuit court considered next only to the US Supreme Court.

Srinivasan, 52, became the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

An Obama appointee who has already been considered for a Supreme Court seat twice, donned the mantle of the chief judge of the DC federal court circuit on February 12.

Srinivasan succeeded Judge Merrick Garland, who has been a member of the DC Circuit since 1997 and Chief Judge since 2013. He will remain on the bench, a press release said.

Notably, Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court by the then president Barack Obama was blocked by Senate Republicans in 2016.

Srinivasan, was appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in May 2013.

He was the first ever Indian-American to be appointed to the second most powerful court of the US.

Neomi Rao, nominated by President Donald Trump, is the second Indian American on this powerful judiciary bench.

History being made on the DC Court of Appeals. Congratulations, Judge Srinivasan! Senator Mark Warner said.

Congratulations to Judge Sri Srinivasan on becoming the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit! A milestone for the Indian-American/Kansan community (and yet another piece of evidence my family can use that I'm underachieving), US Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai said.

According to The Washington Post, Srinivasan spoke recently about his path to the bench at an event celebrating women in the law, a field where men still dominate leadership positions.

"Everybody doubts their belonging and worthiness in some measure. I definitely did and still do. This is just going to be a part of the thing when you're looking out in the world in which everyone isn't like you. It's natural to doubt whether you belong and whether you're worthy, he said, "but you do belong and you are worthy.

Born in Chandigarh, and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, he received a B.A. from Stanford University, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Following graduation, he served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the US Solicitor General, and as a law clerk to US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

From 2011 until his appointment to the US Court of Appeals, Judge Srinivasan served as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States.

He has argued 25 cases before the US Supreme Court. He has also taught appellate advocacy at Harvard Law School as well as a seminar on civil rights statutes and the Supreme Court at Georgetown University Law Center.

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