Italy PM Matteo Renzi delays resignation until budget is passed

December 6, 2016

Rome, Dec 6: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi formally resigned Monday after a crushing referendum defeat that has sent shockwaves around Europe — though his departure will be delayed by a final task, passing a budget.

Italy

Renzi handed his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella after Italians resoundingly rejected his constitutional reform proposals in Sunday's referendum, to the delight of the country's populist leaders, fresh after Brexit and Donald Trump's US victory.

The departure of the centre-left premier — who had staked his future on the outcome of the vote — plunges Italy into political uncertainty and casts a shadow over the future of the eurozone's third-largest economy.

In an apparent bid to ease investor fears, the presidency said in a statement that Mattarella had "asked the prime minister to postpone his resignation" until the 2017 budget has been passed, a move expected by the end of the week, according to Italian media.

The government has already won a vote of confidence on the budget in the lower house of parliament.

Renzi, who in 2014 became Italy's youngest-ever premier, was left with no option but to quit after his proposals to streamline parliament were rejected by voters by a decisive 59-41 percent margin.

The 41-year-old former mayor of Florence, who came to power promising radical reform, defended his record.

"1,000 difficult but wonderful days. Thanks to everyone. Viva l'Italia," he wrote on Facebook.

Italian media said he told his cabinet he had agreed to see the budget passed before his departure "out of a sense of responsibility".

Landmark moment?

Initial market reaction to Renzi's departure has been subdued.

The euro briefly sank to a 20-month low as investors fretted that political instability could scupper efforts to resolve debt-ridden Italy's long-running banking crisis, and over the possibility of an election that could see anti-EU parties challenge for power.

Italy's FTSE MIB stock index fell 2.0 percent at the opening but recovered to end the day only fractionally down. Italian bond yields rose slightly, having already edged up prior to Sunday's vote.

Traders were reassured in part by the result of Europe's other crucial vote this weekend, which saw Austria reject a far-right candidate for president.

But some analysts said the referendum could yet come to be seen as a landmark moment.

Holger Schmieding, at the Berenberg private bank, said the risk that Italy could choose to leave the euro, while still remote, had increased.

Capital Economics said: "Italy has taken the first step along a path that could lead it out of the eurozone."

An anti-establishment vote

The vote inevitably became something of a referendum on Renzi's personality and record after his pledge to stand down should he lose, and an opportunity for some to express wider frustrations.

Populists across Europe rejoiced at his downfall, with the founder of Italy's own anti-establishment Five Star movement Beppe Grillo calling for an election "within a week".

Giovanni Orsina, Professor of Politics at Rome's Luiss university, said four out of five voters had cast their vote politically rather than on the merits of the reform.

"The vote has broad similarities with the Brexit and Trump phenomena," he said. "The electorate voted against the establishment, against Brussels. They didn't get into the subtleties."

Poll data showed the No vote was strongest in areas with high unemployment, in the relatively poor south and amongst young voters, pointing to a correlation with levels of discontent.

Britain's eurosceptic Nigel Farage, who spearheaded the "Brexit" campaign, said the vote appeared to have been "more about the euro than constitutional change".

But former Bank of Italy economist Lorenzo Codgno insisted: "The outcome of the referendum is much more complex and nuanced than 'just another wave of protest across the globe'."

Padoan favourite for new PM

Most analysts see immediate elections as unlikely.

The most probable scenario is a caretaker administration dominated by Renzi's Democratic Party taking over before an election that has to take place by March 2018.

Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan was installed as the bookmakers favourite to succeed Renzi as prime minister, with Senate speaker Pietro Grasso, a veteran anti-mafia prosecutor, running in second place.

Renzi meanwhile may try to stay on as head of his party, which would leave him well-placed for a potential comeback to frontline politics at the next election. But he faces resistance to that scenario from the many enemies he has made while in office.

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News Network
April 26,2020

Seoul, Apr 26: A train presumed to belong to North Korean's Kim Jong-un has been spotted at a station in the state's eastern coastal town of Wonsan amid speculation about the leader's health, a US monitor said on Sunday, citing commercial satellite imagery on the region, Yonhap news agency reported.

According to 38 North-- a website devoted to analysis about North Korea, the imagery showed a train "probably belonging to Kim Jong Un parked at the Leadership Railway Station servicing his Wonsan compound since at least April 21."

"The approximately 250-metre long train, although partially covered by the station's roof, can be seen at a railway station reserved for use by the Kim family. It was not present on April 15 but was present on both April 21 and 23," it said.

"The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health, but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast," it added.

The report came as rumours about his health have spread as Kim apparently skipped an important annual visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun on the occasion of the April 15 birthday of late state founder and his grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

CNN intensified the speculation by reporting earlier last week that the United States is looking into intelligence that Kim is "in grave danger" after surgery.

Seoul officials have disputed recent media reports about Kim, saying there have been no unusual signs from the North. Some said that Kim is presumed to be staying in Wonsan for unspecified reasons.

Washington has also dismissed the reports, with US President Donald Trump calling such reports "incorrect" in a press briefing late last week.

On Saturday, other media reports stated that China has dispatched a team of medical doctors and officials to North Korea "to advise on" Kim, citing multiple unnamed people familiar with the situation.

North Korea's state media, however, has not made any mention of Kim's public activity for two weeks since he was last seen in April 11 presiding over a major party meeting, though it has reported on his handling of routine state affairs, such as sending diplomatic letters.
But not all speculation has proven to be false.

When he was absent from public for about a month in 2014, speculation arose about his health and a political crisis in the secretive state. He later reemerged with a cane and a limp reportedly after having a cyst removed from his ankle.

The 36-year-old leader is known to have various health problems apparently caused by obesity and heavy smoking. He took office as leader of the communist state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died of a heart attack in late 2011.

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News Network
March 2,2020

Paris, Mar 2: A global agency says the spreading new virus could make the world economy shrink this quarter, for the first time since the international financial crisis more than a decade ago.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says Monday in a special report on the impact of the virus that the world economy is still expected to grow overall this year and rebound next year.

But it lowered its forecasts for global growth in 2020 by half a percentage point, to 2.4 per cent, and said the figure could go as low as 1.5 per cent if the virus lasts long and spreads widely.

The last time world GDP shrank on a quarter-on-quarter basis was at the end of 2008, during the depths of the financial crisis. On a full-year basis, it last shrank in 2009.

The OECD said China's reduced production is hitting Asia particularly hard but also companies around the world that depend on its goods.

It urged governments to act fast to prevent contagion and restore consumer confidence.

The Paris-based OECD, which advises developed economies on policy, said the impact of this virus is much higher than past outbreaks because "the global economy has become substantially more interconnected, and China plays a far greater role in global output, trade, tourism and commodity markets."

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Agencies
January 15,2020

Washington, Jan 15: The historic impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump will begin on Tuesday next week, Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate's Republican majority, has announced.

Earlier on Tuesday (January 14), Speaker Nancy Pelosi ended the standoff between the Senate and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives saying that it would vote on next Tuesday to send the impeachment documents to the upper house so it can hold the trial on charges that Trump obstructed Congress and abused presidential powers.

This will be only the third time in the nation's history that a US president is tried after impeachment and Trump can expect to be acquitted like his two predecessors - Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868 - because there won't be a two-thirds majority to convict and remove him from office.

McConnel told reporters on Tuesday that preparations like swearing in the Senators as jurors for the trial could begin this week ahead of the formal start on next Tuesday.

"This Impeachment Hoax is an outrage," Trump tweeted, repeating his longstanding complaint about it, when the move to hold the trial finally appeared to gain traction.

"The American people deserve the truth and the Constitution demands a trial," Pelosi said.

She had held on to the Articles of Impeachment - the chargesheet against Trump - that the House voted on December 18 in a bid to pressure McConnell to accept her terms for holding the trial and in an attempt to get some Republican senators to break ranks on procedural matters.

But she has agreed to let the process move forward, without an agreement on the main Democratic demand to call in their witnesses at the trial and to introduce new evidence.

The House Intelligence Committee, which conducted the investigation against the president, on Tuesday released what it said was new evidence from Lev Parnas, a former associate of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Parnas is facing criminal charges.

Pelosi said that starting the trial without witnesses or documents "a pure political cover-up."

The impeachment process is only an investigation by the House and the framing of the chargesheet for the Senate trial that will be presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts with the Senators as jurors and nominees of the House as prosecutors.

While there is no chance for removal of Trump from office, Democrats see the Senate trial as a propaganda mechanism ahead of the elections in November by giving the charges against Trump another public airing and turning voter opinion against Republican senators facing re-election.

Trump called for an outright dismissal of the impeachment by the Senate, but McConnell said, "There is little or no sentiment in the Republican conference for a motion to dismiss."

He added, "Our members feel that we have an obligation to listen to the arguments."

Trump tweeted that by not dismissing the impeachment out of hand, the Senate trial was giving "credence to a trial based on the no evidence, no crime" and "the partisan Democrat Witch Hunt credibility."

Pelosi had hoped to make some Republican senators break ranks with the leaders on the procedures for the trial and has partially succeeded in this as at least four of them appear open to witnesses being called.

While Trump's conviction and ouster from office is virtually impossible because of the two-thirds vote requirement in the 100-member Senate, only a simple majority is required on procedural matters. The Republicans have 53 members and four of them shifting positions could make a difference here.

McConnell appeared confident that he would have a hold on his party senators to set the rules for the trial.

Whether witnesses would be called to testify is still open as the Republicans have said that it would be decided when the trial starts.

The main sticking point is the Democrats demand to call their witnesses to testify at the trial.

The Democrats did not allow the Republicans to call their own witnesses to testify during the impeachment proceeding in the House and Republicans did not seem inclined to oblige them in the Senate.

Trump tweeted, "'We demand fairness' shouts Pelosi and the Do Nothing Democrats, yet the Dems in the House wouldn't let us have 1 witness, no lawyers or even ask questions."

The charges against Trump stem from a July phone call he had with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he asked him as a "favour" to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Democrats say that this was an abuse power and amounted to inviting foreign interference in US elections as Biden is the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to run against Trump in this year's election.

They also say that he withheld crucial military aid to Ukraine, a US ally against Russia, to pressure Zelensky and this endangered US national security. Trump said he delayed the aid to make sure the new government stomped out corruption.

Hunter Biden, who was made to leave the Navy because of alleged drug use and had no experience in the energy industry or in Ukrainian businesses was appointed a director of a gas company there and received monthly payments of $83,000, according to Republicans.

The former vice president, who was looking after Ukrainians affairs, had a prosecutor looking into gas company removed.

He and the Democrats say that it was because the prosecutor was corrupt, while Republicans see it as a conflict of interest.

The obstruction of Congress resulted from Trump's refusal to provide documents that the House demanded and allow some administration officials to testify at the House hearings.

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