India political rivals unite to fight Modi

A Congress party worker is being detained during an anti-government protest in New Delhi. (AP)
Updated 03 November 2018
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India political rivals unite to fight Modi

  • Speculation is rife that in the eastern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, two strong regional parties — Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) — will forge an alliance with the Congress Party for the 2019 general elections

NEW DELHI: Rival political parties in India are putting aside long-held differences in a bid to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
An agreement between the Congress Party and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) — the ruling party of the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and a strong regional party — this week gave new impetus to an opposition alliance challenging the BJP.
The Congress Party and the TDP are long-time political rivals and few would have predicted they would come together on a single political platform.
“We have to defend the democracy, the institutions and the future of this country,” Rahul Gandhi, Congress Party president, told a press conference on Wednesday after meeting TDP President Chandrababu Naidu. “We will talk about the present and look into the future, we will not talk about the past.”
Until recently the TDP was an ally of the BJP in New Delhi.
“The way the BJP is ruling the country, misusing the institutions, bulldozing them — it is in the national interest for the opposition parties to unite and challenge the BJP,” said Mandava Venkateshwara Rao, a TDP leader in Hyderabad.
Rao told Arab News that “the Congress alone is not in a position to take on the BJP, so there is a need for other opposition parties to come together.
“Similar larger alliances of opposition parties took place in 1977 when a grouping of smaller and regional parties managed to defeat the Congress Party when it was all-powerful.
“Even in its heyday, the Congress Party never talked about eliminating other opposition parties, but the BJP wants all opposing voices to vanish,” he said.
Two other regional parties — the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of the western Indian state of Maharashtra and the National Conference (NC) of Kashmir — also offered their support to the opposition alliance.
Speculation is rife that in the eastern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, two strong regional parties — Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) — will forge an alliance with the Congress Party for the 2019 general elections.
The BJP national spokesperson, Sudesh Verma, described the opposition as an “opportunistic alliance desperately formed for the survival of each of its players.
“Democracy is vibrant and the opposition’s slogan of saving democracy is not correct,” he told Arab News.
“This is an attempt to confuse people with a false narrative. The fight is between dynasts and democracy. Barring a few, all likely parties in the so-called alliance will be working to save their dynasty. They won’t be able to face a Modi tsunami in 2019.”
Dr. Ajay Kumar, a senior leader of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), a regional ally of the BJP, said that the Congress Party was struggling to deal with its own internal differences.
“How can they form an opposition alliance?” he asked.
Political analyst and writer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said opposition parties were finally getting around to the idea that “the principal goal was to defeat the BJP.”
He told Arab News that the opposition must counter attempts by the BJP to fight the elections on a single political narrative.
“The basic question the BJP is posing is: If not Modi, then who?
“So the opposition’s strategy has to be that anybody is better than Modi,” he said.


Seven dead in small plane crash in western Mexico

Updated 2 sec ago
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Seven dead in small plane crash in western Mexico

  • The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan
MEXICO CITY: At least seven people died when a light aircraft crashed Sunday in a heavily forested area of Jalisco in western Mexico, local authorities reported.
The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan.
Jalisco Civil Protection said via its social media that the crash site was in an area that was difficult to access.
Initial authorities on the scene “reported a preliminary count of seven people dead,” who haven’t been identified yet, according to the agency.
“A fire was extinguished and risk mitigation was carried out to prevent possible additional damage,” it added.
Authorities said they were awaiting the arrival of forensic investigators to remove the bodies and rule out the presence of additional victims.

Canada’s Trudeau losing support within his party: MPs

Updated 35 min 7 sec ago
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Canada’s Trudeau losing support within his party: MPs

  • Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya: Dozens of Liberal MPs want the prime minister to go
  • Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025

OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s support within his own party appeared to falter further on Sunday, as former loyalists said growing numbers of Liberal caucus members wanted the premier to resign.
Trudeau has suffered a series of blows in recent days, spurred by the surprise resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who clashed with her boss over incoming US president Donald Trump’s threats to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.
Freeland’s exit, after nearly a decade at Trudeau’s side, marked the first open dissent against the prime minister from within his cabinet and has emboldened critics.
Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya told the public broadcaster CBC on Sunday that dozens of Liberal MPs wanted Trudeau to go.
Arya was interviewed a day after Liberal MPs from the province of Ontario held a meeting that addressed Trudeau’s future.
Multiple outlets, including the CBC and Toronto Star, reported that more than 50 of the 75 Ontario Liberals in parliament declared in Saturday’s meeting that they no longer supported Trudeau.
Asked about those reports, Arya said a “majority of the caucus thinks it is time for the prime minister to step aside.”
Anthony Housefather, a Liberal member of parliament from the province of Quebec, told the CBC on Sunday that “the prime minister needs to go.”
“We’re in an impossible situation if he stays,” Housefather said, arguing the party would be hammered in an election that amounted to a referendum on Trudeau’s leadership.
Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025 but expected much sooner. He changed a third of his cabinet on Friday.
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the small leftist New Democratic Party in parliament, declared Friday that he would join with other opposition parties to topple Trudeau’s minority government early next year.
The NDP had previously opposed a series of non-confidence votes brought by the opposition Conservatives.
A change in the party’s position would almost certainly bring down Trudeau’s government if another non-confidence vote is held.
Trudeau swept to power in 2015 and led the Liberals to two more ballot box victories in 2019 and 2021.
But he now trails his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, by 20 points in public opinion polls.


Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel

Updated 23 December 2024
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Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel

  • Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency, Trump posts

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Katie Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration and is the wife of his incoming deputy chief of staff, as one of the first members of an advisory board to be led by billionaire allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that aims to drastically slash government spending, federal regulations and the federal workforce.
Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.
Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.
She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.


Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal

Updated 23 December 2024
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Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal

  • Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday dismissed recent threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to retake control of the Panama Canal over complaints of “unfair” treatment of American ships.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a video posted to X.
Mulino’s public comments, though never mentioning Trump by name, come a day after the president-elect complained about the canal on his Truth Social platform.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he said.
Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!“
The Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.
Panama took full control in 1999.
Trump said that if Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
Mulino rejected Trump’s claims in his video message, though he also said he hopes to have “a good and respectful relationship” with the incoming administration.
“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”
Later on Sunday, Trump responded to Mulino’s dismissal, writing on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that!“
 

 


Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’

Updated 23 December 2024
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Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’

  • Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”
WASHINGTON: Could Elon Musk, who holds major sway in the incoming Trump administration, one day become president? On Sunday, Donald Trump answered with a resounding no, pointing to US rules about being born in the country.
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.