COLOMBO: Maldives opposition parties said Monday they would launch a fresh bid to seize control of parliament by impeaching the speaker, weeks after their first attempt failed when the president called in troops to evict lawmakers.
A coalition of opposition parties said it had submitted a no-confidence motion on Sunday with the support of 31 MPs — enough to force a vote in the 85-member majlis, or parliament.
But after the motion was submitted the government increased the number of signatures required for such a motion to 42, leaving it unclear whether a vote would go ahead.
The coalition, led by exiled opposition leader and former Maldives leader Mohamed Nasheed, is trying to undermine President Abdulla Yameen before elections next year.
It faces an uphill struggle, with all opposition leaders now in exile or in jail after a years-long crackdown on dissent under Yameen’s leadership.
The clampdown has raised fears over the country’s stability and dented its image as a tourist paradise
On Monday the coalition led by Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) accused the government of making “abrupt and arbitrary changes to the parliamentary standing orders, designed to derail the second no confidence motion submitted against the speaker.”
Last month’s motion ended in chaos when Yameen ordered troops to eject some lawmakers from parliament, leading the opposition to boycott the vote and prompting Washington to urge the Maldives to restore faith in democracy.
Nasheed has said that taking control of the legislature is crucial to ensuring a free and fair presidential election in 2018.
The government said the second impeachment bid was a “deliberate attack on the administration” and accused the opposition of trying to stoke political unrest.
The latest move comes days after Yameen locked up the last opposition leader still at liberty in the honeymoon island nation of just 340,000 people.
Qasim Ibrahim, who ran for president in 2013 and heads the Jumhooree Party, was one of four signatories of an opposition unity deal aimed at toppling the president.
Nasheed became the country’s first democratically elected president in 2008, but was narrowly defeated by Yameen in a controversial 2013 election run-off.
In 2015 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges that were widely seen as politically motivated. He now lives in exile in Britain.
Maldives opposition in new bid to take control of parliament
Maldives opposition in new bid to take control of parliament
The US and China have agreed on a framework to resolve their trade disputes
LONDON: Senior US and Chinese negotiators have agreed on a framework to move forward on trade talks after a series of disputes had threatened to derail them, Chinese state media said Wednesday.
The announcement followed two days of talks in the British capital that ended late Tuesday.
The disputes had shaken a fragile truce reached in Geneva last month, leading to a phone call last week between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to try to calm the waters.
Li Chenggang, a vice minister of commerce and China’s international trade representative, said the two sides had agreed in principle on a framework for implementing the consensus reached between the two leaders and at the talks on Geneva, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Further details, including any plans for a potential next round of talks, were not immediately available.
Li and Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, were part of the delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng. They met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at Lancaster House, a 200-year-old mansion near Buckingham Palace.
Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator, said the disputes had frittered away 30 of the 90 days the two sides have to try to resolve their disputes.
They had agreed in Geneva to a 90-day suspension of most of the 100 percent-plus tariffs they had imposed on each other in an escalating trade war that had sparked fears of recession.
“The US and China lost valuable time in restoring their Geneva agreements,” said Cutler, now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Now, only sixty days remain to address issues of concern, including unfair trade practices, excess capacity, transshipment and fentanyl.”
Since the Geneva talks, the US and China have exchanged angry words over advanced semiconductors that power artificial intelligence, visas for Chinese students at American universities and rare earth minerals that are vital to carmakers and other industries.
China, the world’s biggest producer of rare earths, has signaled it may ease export restrictions it placed on the elements in April. The restrictions alarmed automakers around the world who rely on them. Beijing, in turn, wants the US to lift restrictions on Chinese access to the technology used to make advanced semiconductors.
Cutler said it would be unprecedented for the US to negotiate on its export controls, which she described as an irritant that China has been raising for nearly 20 years.
“By doing so, the US has opened a door for China to insist on adding export controls to future negotiating agendas,” she said.
Trump said earlier that he wants to “open up China,” the world’s dominant manufacturer, to US products.
“If we don’t open up China, maybe we won’t do anything,” Trump said at the White House. “But we want to open up China.”
Pakistan hikes defense budget 20 percent following conflict with India, but overall spending is cut
- Finance minister says 14 percent of the proposed 17.57 trillion rupees ($62 billion) budget will go to the military
- India in February increased its defense spending by 9.5 percent to a record high of $78.8 billion for 2025-2026
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has hiked defense spending by 20 percent following last month’s deadly conflict with India.
The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the increase as part of the budget for the fiscal year 2025-26, in which overall spending will be cut by 7 percent to 17.57 trillion rupees ($62 billion).
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb presented the budget to parliament on Tuesday evening, allocating 14 percent to the military.
It comes after Pakistan’s government announced Friday on social media that it was in discussions to acquire 40 new Chinese fighter jets and new air defense systems.
Pakistan and India were pushed to the brink of war earlier this year after a gun massacre of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, marking the biggest breakdown in relations between them since 2019.
More than 70 people were killed in the four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors in May before a ceasefire was announced.
Aurangzeb said the government was allocating 2.55 trillion rupees ($9 billion) for defense compared with 2.12 trillion rupees in the previous budget.
India in February increased its defense spending by 9.5 percent to a record high of $78.8 billion for 2025-2026.
Sharif told the Cabinet: “All economic indicators are satisfactory. After defeating India in a conventional war, now we have to go beyond it in the economic field as well.”
Opposition members of the National Assembly verbally abused Aurangzeb, chanting slogans, throwing scrunched-up copies of the budget at him, whistling, and banging their desks as he gave his address.
The coming year’s defense allocation is considerably more than the government’s expenditure on higher education, agricultural development, and mitigating climate-related risks, to which Pakistan is especially prone.
Brink of default
Pakistan came to the brink of default in 2023, as a political crisis compounded an economic downturn and drove the nation’s debt burden to terminal levels, before it was saved by a $7 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
It has since then enjoyed a degree of recovery, with inflation easing and foreign exchange reserves increasing.
“We have moved in the right direction,” Aurangzeb said at a briefing ahead of the budget announcement in parliament.
“Any transformation takes two to three years and we have done a good job in terms of where we wanted to take things.”
The budget will be voted on by parliament later this month, but the government’s safe majority means only minor changes are expected.
An economic survey released on Monday for the outgoing fiscal year which ends on June 30, showed that the country missed almost all the targets set at the beginning of the year, with GDP expected to grow by 2.7 percent — falling short of the initial 3.6 percent target set in the last budget.
The government has set an ambitious target of 4.2 percent GDP growth for the next fiscal year.
The budget set aside 8 trillion rupees ($28.4 billion) to service its huge amount of debt.
A World Bank report said last week that nearly 45 percent of Pakistan’s 240 million population is living below the poverty line, while the country’s literacy rate stands at 61 percent.
It is the government’s second budget since coming to power last year, in an election which saw the wildly popular leader Imran Khan jailed for charges he says were politically motivated.
Los Angeles mayor imposes curfew on downtown following increased nighttime violence
- The curfew is a necessary measure to protect lives and safeguard property following several consecutive days of growing unrest throughout the city
LOS ANGELES: Mayor Karen Bass issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday “to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting.”
She said in a news conference that she had declared a local emergency and that the curfew will run from 8 p.m. Tuesday until 6 a.m. Wednesday.
“We reached a tipping point” after 23 businesses were looted, Bass said.
The curfew will be in place in a 1 square mile (2.59 square kilometer) section of downtown that includes the area where protests have occurred since Friday. The city of Los Angeles encompasses roughly 500 square miles (2,295 square kilometers).
The curfew doesn’t apply to residents who live in the designated area, people who are homeless, credentialed media or public safety and emergency officials, according to Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell.
McDonnell said “unlawful and dangerous behavior” had been escalating since Saturday.
“The curfew is a necessary measure to protect lives and safeguard property following several consecutive days of growing unrest throughout the city,” McDonnell said.
Earlier Tuesday, National Guard troops began protecting immigration agents as they made arrests in Los Angeles on Tuesday, an expansion of their duties that had been limited to protecting federal property. Photos posted Tuesday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement show National Guard troops standing guard around officers as they made arrests.
ICE said in a statement that the troops were providing security at federal facilities and protecting federal officers “who are out on daily enforcement operations.” The change moves troops closer to engaging in law enforcement actions like deportations as President Donald Trump has promised as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The agency said Guard members are also providing support with transportation. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers but any arrests ultimately would be made by law enforcement.
National Guard troops and Marines deployed to LA
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had asked a federal court to block the Trump administration from using the National Guard and Marines to assist with immigration raids in Los Angeles, saying it would only heighten tensions and promote civil unrest.
Newsom filed the emergency request after Trump ordered the deployment to LA of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines following protests of the president’s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.
The federal government said Newsom was seeking an unprecedented and dangerous order that would interfere with its ability to carry out enforcement operations. A judge set a hearing for Thursday.
The Marines and another 2,000 National Guard troops were sent to LA on Monday, adding to a military presence that local officials and Newsom do not want and that the police chief says makes it harder to handle the protests safely.
Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith said Tuesday that the Marines had not yet been called to respond to the protests and were there only to protect federal officials and property. The Marines were trained for crowd control but have no arrest authority, Smith told a budget hearing on Capitol Hill.
Marines were not seen on the streets yet, while National guard troops so far have had limited engagement with protesters.
Trump says he’s open to using Insurrection Act
Trump left open the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the US to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. It’s one of the most extreme emergency powers available to a US president.
“If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We’ll see,” he said from the Oval Office.
Later the president called protesters “animals” and “a foreign enemy” in a speech at Fort Bragg ostensibly to recognize the 250th anniversary of the US Army.
Trump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth.
The protests began Friday after federal immigration raids arrested dozens of workers in Los Angeles. Protesters blocked a major freeway and set cars on fire over the weekend, and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.
The demonstrations have been mostly concentrated downtown in the city of 4 million and have been far less raucous since the weekend. Thousands of people have peacefully rallied outside City Hall and hundreds more protested outside a federal complex that includes a detention center where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids.
Several businesses were broken into Monday, though authorities didn’t say if the looting was tied to the protests. Nejdeh Avedian, general manager at St. Vincent Jewelry Center in the Los Angeles Jewelry District said the protesters had already left, and “these guys were just opportunists,” though St. Vincent’s had armed guards and was left alone.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Tuesday that protesters have hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, set vehicles on fire, defaced buildings and public property and set fire to American flags.
The Los Angeles Police Department said there have been more than 100 arrests. The vast majority were for failing to disperse, while a few others were for assault with a deadly weapon, looting, vandalism and attempted murder for tossing a Molotov cocktail. Seven police officers were reportedly injured, and at least two were taken to a hospital and released.
On Tuesday, a few dozen protesters gathered peacefully in front of the federal complex, which was quickly declared an unlawful assembly. Police issued a dispersal order and corralled the protesters, telling members of the media to stay out to avoid getting hurt. Officers with zip ties then started making arrests.
Obscene slogans directed at Trump and federal law enforcement remained scrawled across several buildings. At the Walt Disney Concert Hall, workers were busy washing away graffiti Tuesday.
In nearby Santa Ana, armored Guard vehicles blocked a road leading to federal immigration and government offices.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Tuesday that the use of troops inside the US will continue to expand.
“I think we’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland,” he said on Capitol Hill.
Los Angeles officials say police don’t need help
The mayor and the governor say Trump is putting public safety at risk by adding military personnel even though police say they don’t need the help.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said he was confident in the police department’s ability to handle the demonstrations and that the Marines’ arrival without coordinating with police would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge.”
Demonstrations have spread to other cities nationwide, including San Francisco, as well as Dallas and Austin, Texas, Chicago and New York City, where a thousand people rallied and multiple arrests were made.
LA response takes stage on Capitol Hill
The Pentagon said deploying the National Guard and Marines costs $134 million.
Meanwhile, Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation on Tuesday accused the president of creating a “manufactured crisis.”
On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the deployment.
Trump said the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the Guard.
The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.
Two killed, 28 wounded in Russian strikes on Kharkiv: Ukraine official
KYIV, Ukraine: Russian strikes on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv killed two people and wounded 28 early Wednesday, the mayor said.
“Seventeen strikes by enemy UAVs were carried out in two districts of the city this night,” Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram, later adding: “There is information about two dead already.”
Northern Ireland town hit by ‘racially motivated’ riot
- “This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police,” Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said
- Two teenage boys, charged by police with the attempted rape of a teenage girl, had appeared in court Monday
BALLYMENA, United Kingdom: Northern Irish police said Tuesday that 15 officers were injured in clashes after “racially motivated” attacks sparked by the arrest of two teenagers for the attempted rape of a young girl.
The unrest in the town of Ballymena, some 30 miles northwest of Belfast, erupted Monday night after a vigil in a neighborhood where an alleged serious sexual assault happened on Saturday.
“This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police,” Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said.
Tensions in the town, which has a large migrant population, remained high on Tuesday, as residents described the scenes as “terrifying” and told AFP those involved were targeting “foreigners.”
Two teenage boys, charged by police with the attempted rape of a teenage girl, had appeared in court Monday, where they asked for a Romanian interpreter, local media reports said.
The trouble began when masked people “broke away from the vigil and began to build barricades, stockpiling missiles and attacking properties,” police said.
Houses and businesses were attacked and three people had to be evacuated, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said, adding it was investigating “hate attacks.”
Security forces also came under “sustained attack” with petrol bombs, fireworks and bricks thrown by rioters, injuring 15 officers including some who required hospital treatment, according to the force.
One 29-year-old man was arrested and charged with riotous behavior, disorderly behavior, attempted criminal damage and resisting police.
Four houses were damaged by fire, and windows and doors of homes and businesses smashed.
Cornelia Albu, 52, a Romanian migrant and mother-of-two who lives opposite a house targeted in the attacks said her family had been “very scared.”
“Last night it was crazy because too many people came here and tried to put the house on fire,” Albu, who works in a factory, told AFP.
“My family was very scared,” she said, adding she would have to move but was worried she would not find another place to live because she was Romanian.
A 22-year-old woman who lives next door to a burnt-out house in the same Clonavon neighborhood said the night had been “terrifying.”
“People were going after foreigners, whoever they were, or how innocent they were,” the woman, who did not want to share her name for security reasons, told AFP.
“But there were local people indoors down the street scared as hell.”
Northern Ireland saw racism-fueled disorder in August after similar riots in English towns and cities.
According to Mark, 24, who did not share his last name, the alleged rape on the weekend was “just a spark.”
“The foreigners around here don’t show respect to the locals, they come here, don’t integrate,” said Mark.
Another man was halfway up a ladder, hanging a Union Jack flag in front of his house as a “precaution — so people know it’s not a foreigner living here.”
“Ballymena has a large migrant population, a lot of people actually work in the town and provide excellent work,” Mayor Jackson Minford told AFP.
“Last night unfortunately has probably scared a lot of people. We are actively working to identify those responsible and bring them to justice,” said Henderson.
Footage on social media appeared to show protesters smashing the windows of houses and some masked individuals kicking in doors.
A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the “disorder” in Ballymena was “very concerning.”
“Obviously, the reports of sexual assault in the area are extremely distressing, but there is no justification for attacks on police officers,” Downing Street added.
