Bhinneka News Online: Wednesday Morning Briefing: Trump defies own party to push ahead with Mexican tariff threat

Wednesday, 5 June 2019

Wednesday Morning Briefing: Trump defies own party to push ahead with Mexican tariff threat

Highlights

Defying increasing criticism from within his own party, Donald Trump said he would likely go ahead with new tariffs on imports from Mexico to pressure it to clamp down on rising numbers of migrants entering the United States. In a last-ditch attempt to find a resolution, a Mexican delegation including Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard is set to take part in talks at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, hosted by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. Trump will be in Europe to commemorate the anniversary of D-Day.

The Trump administration is expected to appear in court to defend itself against claims that its proposed addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. Census was secretly orchestrated by a political operative seeking to boost Republicans’ voting power.

China’s determination to resist U.S. bullying in two years of negotiations to end the Korean War is a reason not to bow to Washington in bitter trade talks, a top Chinese newspaper suggested. State media has increasingly alluded to or directly referenced the 1950-53 Korean War - when China and North Korea battled United Nations forces led by the United States - to rally public opinion behind the government during China’s ongoing trade conflict with the United States.

Los Angeles County’s homeless population has swelled by 12% during the past year as a shortage of affordable housing deepens in and around America’s second-largest city, pushing more people into poverty, a study released on Tuesday found. Overall, the authority counted nearly 59,000 people sleeping on sidewalks, in makeshift tents, in abandoned vehicles or in shelters and government-subsidized “transitional housing” on any given night in Los Angeles County.

A Russian fighter jet made a dangerous high-speed pass that put a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft at risk during an intercept over the Mediterranean Sea, the U.S. Sixth Fleet said, but Moscow said its pilot had behaved responsibly. “While the Russian aircraft was operating in international airspace, this interaction was irresponsible,” the Sixth Fleet said in a statement.

World

'Bravery and sacrifice': World leaders gather on the coast of southern England to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history and a feat that helped bring World War Two to an end. In the early hours of June 6, 1944, more than 150,000 allied troops set off from Portsmouth and the surrounding area to begin the air, sea and land attack on Normandy that ultimately led to the liberation of western Europe from the Nazi regime. As machine gun fire consumed the landing beach in northern France and artillery shells burst overhead, Reuters correspondent Doon Campbell struggled to keep the keys of his typewriter free of the exploding earth.

Sudan’s military ruler offered to resume a dialogue on a transition to democracy, one day after he scrapped all agreements with an opposition alliance. The offer by the head of Sudan’s ruling military council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, came as the number of people killed since security forces stormed a protest camp in Khartoum on Monday rose to 60, according to a medical group linked to the opposition.

Australian police raided the offices of the national broadcaster over allegations it had published classified material, the second raid on a media outlet in two days, prompting complaints of assaults on press freedom. Police raided the home of a News Corp editor a day earlier, although they said the raids were unrelated. The ABC said the raid was over its 2017 reports about alleged misconduct by Australian troops in Afghanistan, while News Corp said the raid at an editor’s home on Tuesday related to a 2018 report about plans for surveillance of Australians’ emails, text messages and bank records.

Former Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell appeared in an Australian court for an appeal hearing to overturn convictions for sexually abusing two choir boys in the 1990s. The 77-year-old was jailed for six years after he was found guilty on five charges of abusing two 13-year-old boys at St Patrick’s Cathedral while he was archbishop of Melbourne more than 20 years ago.

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