ARAB GAZETTE - Weekly Newspaper - Founded by Chairman and Editor : Alauddin Saeed .: May 2019

Hello, Archie! Meghan and Harry name son Archie Harrison

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | Sunday, 12 May 2019 | Posted in environment

ARAB GAZETTE - LONDON (AP)..

Tired but beaming, new parents Meghan and Prince Harry presented their 2-day-old son to the world as he slumbered Wednesday and also revealed his name: Archie. The royal couple, known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex since their marriage not quite a year ago, said the full name of the child born seventh in line to the British throne is Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. The baby slept peacefully through his carefully orchestrated media moment. His mother, making her first public appearance since giving birth early Monday, called Archie “a dream” who “has the sweetest temperament.” “He’s really calm,” Meghan said. Harry quipped: “I wonder who he gets that from.” Harry and Meghan did not choose an aristocratic title for their son. He is not a prince but could have been given the title “Lord” before his first name. Instead he will be known for now as “Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.” The surname, used by some members of the royal family, was created to recognize the lineage of both Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip. Unlike many senior royals, Archie only has one middle name. Prince Harry’s full name is Henry Charles Albert David. The couple did not disclose why they chose his first and middle names — though the meaning of Harrison, “son of Harry,” is probably a clue. Many in Britain had expected a more traditional royal name, with bookmakers taking many bets on Alexander, Arthur and James. Archie, a name of Germanic origin with meanings that include “genuine”, “bold” and “brave,” is an increasingly popular baby name in Britain. It was among the top 20 most common boy’s names in 2017, according to the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics. Tourists visiting Windsor Castle, which is nearby the royal residence outside London that Meghan and Harry moved into last month, mulled over the baby’s name. Surprise seemed to be the most common reaction. “A mouthful for him,” Elizabeth Barker, an Irish tourist, said laughing. “But anyway, I guess, if that’s what they wanted, then it’s the name that they like. You know, nobody has to like it.” In America, famous Archies, both real and fictional, have included former NFL quarterback Archie Manning, jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp and the red-haired comic book character Archie Andrews. The baby’s name was announced a few hours after his proud parents posed with him for cameras, helping to satisfy a huge global appetite since their son was born Monday at 5:26 a.m. weighing 7 pounds, 3 ounces (3.26 kilograms). Standing in the vast, red-carpeted St. George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, Harry cradled the newborn in his arms. The baby lay silently, swaddled in a white merino wool shawl and wearing a knitted cap. Both were made by English firm G.H. Hurt & Son, which has supplied three generations of royal babies with knitwear. Meghan declared motherhood to be “magic.” In this image made available by SussexRoyal on Wednesday May 8, 2019, Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, joined by her mother Doria Ragland, show their new son to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle, Windsor, England. (Chris Allerton/SussexRoyal via AP) “It’s pretty amazing,” said the 37-year-old American, formerly known as actress Meghan Markle. “I have the two best guys in the world, so I’m really happy.” Asked who the baby took after, Harry said it was too soon to tell. “Everyone says that babies change so much over two weeks,” said the 34-year-old prince. “We’re basically monitoring how the changing process happens over this next month really. But his looks are changing every single day, so who knows.” “We’re just so thrilled to have our own little bundle of joy,” he added. The couple left the photo call to introduce the baby to his great-grandparents, the queen and Prince Philip. The infant is the eighth great-grandchild of 93-year-old Elizabeth, Britain’s longest reigning monarch. They were joined by Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, who is staying with the couple at their Frogmore Cottage home near the queen’s Windsor Castle residence. The baby is the first Anglo-American member of the royal family, and is eligible for U.S. citizenship should his parents want him to have it. He has African-American heritage though his biracial mother. Meghan, the former star of the TV show “Suits,” married Harry, the ex-soldier younger son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, in May 2018. An audience of millions around the world watched the spectacular televised wedding ceremony at Windsor Castle, 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of London. Harry is due to return to royal duties Thursday, attending an event in The Hague for the Invictus Games sports competition for injured service personnel and veterans. Harry is likely to make the jaunt to the Netherlands as a day trip so he can get back to his family in Windsor. Prince William, Harry’s older brother and a father of three, joked Tuesday that he will be glad “to welcome my own brother into the sleep deprivation society that is parenting!” “Obviously thrilled, absolutely thrilled, and obviously looking forward to seeing them in the next few days,” William told reporters.

Maduro’s foes fill embassies in Venezuela as crisis deepens

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in world news

ARAB GAZETTE - CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)..

From the lush tropical garden of the Chilean ambassador’s residence, Venezuelan opposition leader Freddy Guevara takes a much-anticipated call from a foreign diplomat and asks him to protect a fellow lawmaker fleeing President Nicolás Maduro’s latest crackdown. “Gracias, Gracias ambassador. In the name of all of us,” said Guevara speaking into his cellphone as he sits down for a rare interview inside the diplomatic compound that has been his uneasy and isolating home the past 18 months. “You probably think this was all staged for you, right?” he chuckles while tapping out a text message sharing the good news to someone in his party. “But the last few days have all been like this.” As Venezuela’s crisis deepens, more and more government opponents are on the run, facing arrest for their role in a failed military uprising last week when opposition leader Juan Guaidó briefly took control of a highway with a small cadre of troops seeking to topple Maduro. But instead of going into exile, or to jail as another silenced martyr of the movement to oust Maduro, many dissidents are pounding on the doors of foreign embassies in a throwback to the dark days of the 1970s, when far bloodier military dictatorships in South America hunted down their opponents. In the past 10 days, as Maduro has mopped up from the uprising, three lawmakers have taken refuge in the ambassadorial residences of Italy and Argentina, while opposition leader Leopoldo López, who defied house arrest to partake in the putsch, is now living with his family in the Spanish ambassador’s residence. Others are hiding out in undisclosed missions while 18 national guardsmen who answered Guaidó’s call to rebel are holed up in Panama’s embassy. None have requested asylum, even though countries in Latin America have a tradition of granting such status to political outcasts showing up at their diplomatic missions, allowing them to enter instead as “guests” in a sort of limbo waiting for Maduro to fall. For Guevara, that’s allowed him to remain politically active, holding frequent strategy sessions with Guaidó and other members of their Popular Will party. “I’m like the ghost in a haunted house: I can’t leave but if you want to come over you can talk to me,” he says. Guevara’s decision to seek refuge inside the ambassador’s residence was part necessity, part political strategy. The 33-year-old cut his political teeth during student protests against Hugo Chavez a decade ago and quickly rose through the opposition’s ranks after several of its stalwarts were jailed or exiled. As vice president of the opposition-controlled congress, he was one of the leaders of anti-Maduro protests in 2017 that led to more than 130 deaths. When the government finally quelled the unrest, Guevara was high on the list of organizers they went after. Guevara said he was tipped off about his impending arrest on charges of instigating violence by a Supreme Court magistrate and narrowly sneaked out the back door of his apartment building as feared SEBIN political police were arriving. He appealed for protection from Chile in the hope that it would drive home to Venezuela’s neighbors, many of whom were reluctant to confront Maduro but now recognize Guaidó as the country’s rightful leader, the spillover risks from a spiraling political and economic crisis. “Every lawmaker living inside an embassy is a permanent reminder for that country, its media and its people that Nicolás Maduro isn’t just a problem for Venezuelans,” said Guevara. “Imagine if Nancy Pelosi had to run to an embassy because President Trump wanted to send her to prison, or the head of congress in France had to hide inside the Spanish embassy because of Macron.” He was welcomed with open arms by Chile’s then-ambassador, Pedro Ramirez, who had already taken in Roberto Enriquez, president of the conservative COPEI party. Two years later, Enriquez is still living in the compound. At one point, Ramirez was also sheltering five judges whose appointment to the high court by congress was disallowed by Maduro. The jurists, who did request asylum, later abandoned the residence and slipped across the border after Maduro’s government denied them safe passage into exile. For Ramirez, who had served as a Cabinet minister in the socialist government of Salvador Allende, it was an opportunity to return a favor: When Allende was overthrown in 1973, Ramirez was arrested and spent three years in jail before being exiled to Venezuela, which took in tens of thousands of Chileans following the coup. Ramirez considered himself an admirer of Chavez but quickly came to view his successor Maduro as a dictator after returning to Venezuela as ambassador in 2014. “Venezuela for me is like a second home,” said Ramirez from Chile’s capital. “It pains me to watch what’s happening. It’s almost indescribable.” Clearly Guevara is better off than the 857 Venezuelans, including two fellow lawmakers, considered political prisoners by local human rights groups. Giant tortoises and loud-squawking “guacharaca” birds roam a tropical garden complete with a pool where he works from every day. Embassy employees cook his meals, power up a generator during frequent blackouts and resolve daily chores that are a time-consuming burden for even better-off Venezuelans in a collapsed economy marked by hyperinflation and widespread shortages. But for all the comforts, the deprivations are real too: He can’t travel to visit family living abroad and he’s already missed two friends’ weddings where he was supposed to serve as best man. He’s also not allowed overt political activity, although Chile’s foreign ministry made him available to The Associated Press for a rare interview. His own plans are also on hold. Recently he asked his fellow activist girlfriend to get married, convinced that he could no longer allow Maduro to dictate the course of his life. He’s confident they’ll be able to get married in a post-Maduro Venezuela — freed from what he calls his “golden cage” — by the end of the year. “Part of resisting a dictatorship is just living your life,” he said. Meanwhile, he draws strength from jumping rope and a book of daily prayers that was a favorite of Abraham Lincoln and that he bought at the U.S. National Archives in Washington. “Freedom is something intrinsic to our common humanity — it’s not enough to just have a roof over year head, a bed and food,” he says. “That’s helped me understand why communism goes against human nature. ... As the Bible says, ‘Man doesn’t live on bread alone.’”

Liverpool beats Wolves, misses out on Premier League title

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in sport

ARAB GAZETTE - LIVERPOOL, England (AP)..

The wait goes into another decade for Liverpool. Despite a 2-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers, Liverpool missed out on becoming English champion for the first time since 1990 because title rival Manchester City beat Brighton 4-1 on an afternoon of fluctuating emotions on Sunday. The Reds finished on 97 points — the highest final points total of any runner-up in English top-flight history — and with just one loss all season. But the big prize eluded them once again. Liverpool needed to better City’s result on the final day of the season after starting the matches a point behind the defending champions. And when Sadio Mane sidefooted home a cross from Trent Alexander-Arnold in the 17th minute, the home side was provisionally in the lead. There was even more optimism when City briefly fell behind to Brighton but by halftime the mood had been punctured with City in front 2-1. Mane added a second goal in the 81st minute, again from a cross by Alexander-Arnold, to clinch a 30th win in 38 games for Liverpool in a remarkable season for Juergen Klopp’s side that could yet end with it becoming European champion for the sixth time. Liverpool plays Tottenham in the Champions League final on June 1. Liverpool’s only loss was to City at Etihad Stadium on Jan. 3 and the team hasn’t dropped any points since March 3, a 0-0 stalemate at Merseyside neighbor Everton that completed a run of four draws in six league games in a five-week span. That, ultimately, cost Liverpool the title. “We only lost one game all season,” Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah said. “We gave everything. We got 97 points. We will fight next season for the title.” Wolves finished its first season back in the Premier League in seventh place, which could earn a place in next season’s Europa League if City beats Watford in the FA Cup final next weekend.

LOS ANGELES : Gabrielle Union, Jessica Alba in charge of ‘L.A.‘s Finest’

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in entertainment

ARAB GAZETTE - LOS ANGELES (AP)..

Expanding a comic book’s mythology can bring slighted characters to the forefront. That’s also the case with “L.A.’s Finest,” a TV series riff on the 2003 “Bad Boys II” movie in which women, notably women of color, are driving the action. Gabrielle Union pursued the idea of reprising Syd Burnett, her character from the film who’s on a new path as a Los Angeles police detective, with Jessica Alba joining her as detective Nancy McKenna. They’re also in charge behind the camera, as executive producers on the series debuting Monday on the new Spectrum on-demand platform. It’s a measure, they say, of hard-won confidence in what they can do and in their value, despite entrenched resistance from the entertainment industry. Both are entrepreneurs outside of Hollywood — Alba with her baby and home products company, and Union with a fashion line. When the two joined to talk about the series, they expanded the discussion to how newcomers such as Spectrum have created opportunities that were being dribbled out by broadcast networks. Here’s a sampling of what they had to say, edited for brevity. Union: There’s a pleasure in Jessica and I both being executive producers and creating a show where it’s not one bad-ass woman but two bad-ass women, and two bad-ass women of color who are not only bosses in real life but bosses in front of and behind the camera. And for us to both be executive producers and to have a major say-so of what goes into the show and the experience in making the show, is by far one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things of my career. Alba: We got to create an environment that we hadn’t ever been part of, or we haven’t seen ourselves in Hollywood over our 20 years-plus experience in the business. When Gab (Gabrielle) asked me to be part of the show, I said, “Here’s some table stakes. I’m breastfeeding my newborn son, I have a 7- and 10-year-old, and I never want to feel weird or awkward about them being part of my life. They will come to set, and that needs to be cool with everyone. And if it’s not, then this isn’t the show that I should be part of.” We always tried to be as effective and efficient as possible, but then also have a really supportive community where people’s families can come to set. Alba: When the story originally was being developed for a network, they very much wanted to fit us inside of these buckets or stereotypes, while we wanted to break out of those boundaries. At Spectrum, the women running the network really wanted us just to create the best show, and in that we got to create cool characters that have rich lives. They’re flawed. They’re complicated. They don’t always agree. They’re not competitive. They complement each other. But they also have fun and they’re funny and they’re witty and they’re girls that you want to like grab a beer with or a shot of tequila with or cry with. And you just don’t get to see women in this way. Union: A lot of networks in the last few years have talked a big game about wanting diversity and inclusion — “We want shows headed by women, we want strong female leads.” And the proof is in the pudding, and that that pudding is a little thin. But what you see on cable and streaming is people who actually walk the walk and talk the talk, and they put the money and resources behind developing, creating and actually putting on air shows with not one but two women, and two women of color who are allowed to be full-bodied, multi-dimensional characters. That’s really never happened in any sort of meaningful way on network television. Alba: If we grandstand and say, “Hey, we’re in this show and because we’re women of color, you should tune in, that’s (bull). We don’t care about that. You’re tuning in because it’s cool and it works. The story lines work. They’re rich. They’re interesting, they’re mysterious. The jokes are funny. They’re not corny or cheesy. And we’re not relying on any sort of stereotypical thing out there to get by. If it’s successful or not, we all can look around and I think we can be really proud of what we’ve produced. Union: If creatives are not getting the same respect — creatively, financially, structurally — it’s not real advancement. We’re trying to say, “I’m not begging for a seat at your table, where my chair is a rickety lawn chair, where you guys have Lazy Boys and I’m begging for scraps.” Actually, I don’t even want to be at this table, I don’t want to be in this house. We’re going to build our own house, with comfortable chairs and with enough room for everyone, so all of our stories, all of us in a global community, can see ourselves reflected. And all of us are respected in every sense of what that word means.

Alyssa Milano calls for sex strike, ignites social media

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in social media

ARAB GAZETTE - By IVAN MORENO..

Actress Alyssa Milano ignited social media with a tweet Friday night calling for women to join her in a sex strike to protest strict abortion bans passed by Republican-controlled legislatures. The former star of “Charmed” and current cast member of “Insatiable,” which is filmed in Georgia, urged women in her tweet to stop having sex “until we get bodily autonomy back.” Her tweet came days after Georgia became the fourth state in the U.S. this year to ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. “We need to understand how dire the situation is across the country,” Milano told The Associated Press on Saturday. “It’s reminding people that we have control over our own bodies and how we use them.” She noted that women have historically withheld sex to protest or advocate for political reform. She cited how Iroquois women refused to have sex in the 1600s as a way to stop unregulated warfare. Most recently, she noted that Liberian women used a sex strike in 2003 to demand an end to a long-running civil war. Milano received support from fans and fellow actress Bette Midler joined her in also calling for a sex strike with her own tweet. But both liberals and conservatives also lampooned her idea, with conservatives praising her for promoting abstinence and liberals saying she was pushing a false narrative that women only have sex as a favor to men. Milano said the criticism didn’t bother her and that her tweet was having her desired effect, “which is getting people to talk about the war on women.” She said she fears one of the laws could eventually be decided by the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court, which Republicans hope will overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. “That is absolutely horrifying to me,” Milano said. “Anyone who is not completely and totally outraged by this and doesn’t see where this is leading, I think is not taking this threat seriously.” Milano said people have to determine for themselves how long the sex strike should last. For her part, she hasn’t decided yet how long she will forgo sex. “I mean I don’t know,” she said. “I sent a tweet last night I haven’t really thought much past that this morning.”

Museum exhibition offers glimpse into world of ‘Star Trek’

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in tourism

ARAB GAZETTE - DEARBORN, Mich. (AP)..

An exhibition at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in suburban Detroit is offering a glimpse into the world of “Star Trek.” Titled ”Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds ,” the exhibition runs through Sept. 2 at the museum in Dearborn. It offers a look at more than 100 artifacts and props from the original TV series and its spinoffs. It also explores its enduring impact on culture, from arts and technology to fashion and literature. The traveling exhibition from Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture includes a tricorder, communicator and phaser from the original series. It also features artifacts from the “Star Trek” films and original set pieces, including a navigation console and costumes. The exhibition is a collaboration involving CBS Consumer Products, which manages licensing and merchandizing for the network.

Space-tourism enters ‘home stretch’ toward commercial flight

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in sciences

ARAB GAZETTE - SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)..

Billionaire Richard Branson is moving Virgin Galactic’s winged passenger rocket and more than 100 employees from California to a remote commercial launch and landing facility in southern New Mexico, bringing his space-tourism dream a step closer to reality. Branson said Friday at a news conference that Virgin Galactic’s development and testing program has advanced enough to make the move to the custom-tailored hangar and runway at the taxpayer-financed Spaceport America facility near the town of Truth or Consequences. Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said a small number of flight tests are pending. He declined to set a specific deadline for the first commercial flight. An interior cabin for the company’s space rocket is being tested, and pilots and engineers are among the employees relocating from California to New Mexico. The move to New Mexico puts the company in the “home stretch,” Whitesides said. The manufacturing of the space vehicles by a sister enterprise, The Spaceship Company, will remain based in the community of Mojave, California. Taxpayers invested over $200 million in Spaceport America after Branson and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, pitched the plan for the facility, with Virgin Galactic as the anchor tenant. Virgin Galactic’s spaceship development has taken far longer than expected and had a major setback when the company’s first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot. Branson thanked New Mexico politicians and residents for their patience over the past decade. He said he believes space tourism — once aloft — is likely to bring about profound change. “Our future success as a species rests on the planetary perspective,” Branson said. “The perspective that we know comes sharply into focus when that planet is viewed from the black sky of space.” Branson described a vision of hotels in space and a network of spaceports allowing supersonic, transcontinental travel anywhere on earth within a few hours. He indicated, however, that building financial viability comes first. “We need the financial impetus to be able to do all that,” he said. “If the space program is successful as I think ... then the sky is the limit.” In February, a new version of Virgin Galactic’s winged craft SpaceShipTwo soared at three times the speed of sound to an altitude of nearly 56 miles (99 kilometers) in a test flight over Southern California, as a crew member soaked in the experience. On Friday, that crew member, Beth Moses, recounted her voyage into weightlessness and the visual spectacle of pitch-black space and the earth below. “Everything is silent and still and you can unstrap and float about the cabin,” she said. “Pictures do not do the view from space justice. ... I will be able to see it forever.” The company’s current spaceship doesn’t launch from the ground. It is carried under a special plane to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before detaching and igniting its rocket engine. “Release is like freefall at an amusement park, except it keeps going,” Moses said. “And then the rocket motor lights. Before you know it, you’re supersonic.” The craft coasts to the top of its climb before gradually descending to earth, stabilized by “feathering” technology in which twin tails rotate upward to increase drag on the way to a runway landing. Branson previously has said he would like to make his first suborbital flight this year as one of the venture’s first passengers on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20. But he made no mention of timelines on Friday. Pressed on the timeframe, Whitesides said he anticipates the first commercial flight within a year. Three people with future space-flight reservations were in the audience. “They’ve been patient too,” Branson said. “Space is hard.” Hundreds of potential customers have committed as much as $250,000 up front for rides in Virgin’s six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. Space tourism has not been a complete novelty since millionaire U.S. engineer Dennis Tito in 2001 paid $20 million to join a Russian space mission to the International Space Station. Branson’s goal has been to “democratize” space by opening travel up to more and more people. The endeavor began in 2004 when Branson announced the founding of Virgin Galactic in the heady days after the flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned spacecraft that made three flights into space. Space sector analyst Adam Jonas, a managing director of equity research at Morgan Stanley, said Branson’s venture could have an outsized impact in the age of social media on how the public visualizes space as a domain for scientific and commercial exploration. “You bring them back to earth and they explain what they saw — that’s a story, put through the velocity of social media, people want to hear,” he said. “Sometimes you need some distance to gain a perspective, seeing the earth from space, seeing how thin that layer of atmosphere is that protects us.” Branson’s plans have gradually advanced amid a broader surge in private investment in space technology with cost-saving innovations in reusable rockets and microsatellite technology. Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos announced Thursday that his space company Blue Origin will send a robotic spaceship to the moon with aspirations for another ship that could bring people there along the same timeframe as NASA’s proposed 2024 return. Bezos has provided no details about launch dates.

Trump has long seen previous US trade agreements as losers

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in economy

ARAB GAZETTE - WASHINGTON (AP)..

President Donald Trump’s combative approach to trade has been one of the main constants among his often-shifting political views. And he’s showing no signs of backing off now, even as the stakes intensify with the threat of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. The president went after China on Day 1 of his presidential bid, promising to “bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places.” Trump’s views on trade helped forge his path to victory in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, where he linked the loss of manufacturing jobs to the North America Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals. He warned the worst was yet to come with President Barack Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. His trashing of existing and proposed trade agreements grabbed the headlines, but he also made clear his view that globalization had been bad for America and that he would use tariffs to protect national security and domestic producers. He cited the nation’s Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan as leaders whose footsteps he was following when it came to trade and tariffs. “Our original Constitution did not even have an income tax,” Trump told voters in Monessen, Pennsylvania, some four months before the 2016 presidential election. “Instead, it had tariffs, emphasizing taxation of foreign, not domestic production.” No. 7 on his list of trade promises in that speech: taking on China for “its theft of American trade secrets.” “This is so easy. I love saying this. I will use every lawful presidential power to remedy trade disputes, including the application of tariffs consistent” with existing trade laws, Trump said. Those laws include Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which Trump cited to enact tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from China, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere. They also include Section 301 of the Trade Act, which Trump used last year to apply 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods and 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of goods. That 10 percent was increased to 25 percent on Friday. Trump is laying the groundwork to extend the 25 percent tariff to all of China’s exports to the U.S. “Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs? Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!” Trump tweeted on Saturday. Of course, America’s trading partners haven’t let Trump’s tariffs stand without taking similar action themselves. Farmers, boat makers and whiskey and wine producers are just some of the U.S. industries caught in the middle. “Farming is a very small margin, small profit business. We rely on lots of volume and lots of sales to generate a profit,” said Brent Bible, a soybean and corn farmer in Lafayette, Indiana, who has seen prices for both commodities drop in the past year. “We are operating at a loss now.” Trump’s philosophy on some issues has evolved over the years. He once described himself regarding the abortion issue as “very pro-choice.” Now, his administration promotes him as the most “pro-life president in American history.” On trade, not so much. In “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” Trump complained of the Japanese that “what’s unfortunate is that for decades now they have become wealthier in large measure by screwing the United States with a self-serving trade policy that our political leaders have never been able to fully understand or counteract.” Fast-forward nearly three decades, and Trump declared in his 2015 announcement for the presidency that other nations were prospering at America’s expense. “When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time,” Trump said. Trump’s approach on trade is a dramatic departure for the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have declined to take action that would block his tariffs. They credit his tactics for getting improvements to a trade deal with Canada and Mexico to replace NAFTA, and for getting China to the negotiating table. “President Trump is the first president to take China head-on,” said Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. He said “everyone knows I’m not a fan of tariffs, but I think everyone knows as well that China has been cheating for far too long.” Trump has received some encouragement from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted to Trump: “Don’t back down. Strength is the only way to win with China.” Current and former officials in the administration believe that voters will give the president credit for standing up to China, and not blame him for any pain that may result from the tariffs war. Overall, AP VoteCast found Americans critical in their assessments of Trump on trade. But that’s not the case with his supporters. According to the survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters nationwide, 45% approved of Trump on trade, while 53% disapproved. Among voters who approved of Trump’s job overall, fully 88% approved of his handling of trade. While Trump casts his tariffs as being paid for by China, they actually are paid by the American companies that bring a product into the U.S. This can help some U.S. producers, though, because it makes their goods more competitive price-wise. Still, the burden of Trump’s tariffs on imports from China and other countries falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imports, said a study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University. Republican-leaning business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have warned that the tariffs threaten to derail the economy and low unemployment rates, but with economic growth at 3.2 percent last quarter and the unemployment rate at 3.6 percent, Trump isn’t changing strategy now. “Tariffs will make our Country MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch!” Trump tweeted on Friday.

For Harris, memories of a warrior mother guide her campaign

Posted by مؤسسة الوطن العربى الإعلامية - لندن ، المملكة المتحدة . WA MEDIA FOUNDATION - LONDON, UK | | Posted in life style

ARAB GAZETTE - NEW YORK (AP)..

Speaking from the Senate floor for the first time, Kamala Harris expressed gratitude for a woman on whose shoulders she said she stood. In her autobiography, Harris interspersed the well-worn details of her resume with an extended ode to the one she calls “the reason for everything.” And taking the stage to announce her presidential candidacy , she framed it as a race grounded in the compassion and values of the person she credits for her fighting spirit. Though a decade has passed since Shyamala Gopalan died, she remains a force in her daughter’s life and her White House bid. Again and again in the campaign, those who gather around the California senator are hearing mention of the diminutive Indian immigrant the candidate calls her single greatest influence. “She’s always told the same story,” says friend Mimi Silbert. “Kamala had one important role model, and it was her mother.” Her mother gave her an early grounding in the civil rights movement and injected in her a duty not to complain but rather to act. And that no-nonsense demeanor on display in Senate hearings over special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and more? Onlookers can credit, or blame, Gopalan, a crusader who raised her daughter in the same mold. Appearing in New York recently, Harris said there were two reasons she was running for president. The first, she said, was a sense of duty to restore truth in justice in the country at an inflection point in history. The second: a mother who responded to gripes with a challenge. “She’d say, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’” Harris told the crowd. “So I decided to run for president of the United States.” Harris’ parents met as doctoral students at the University of California, Berkeley at the dawn of the 1960s. Her father, a Jamaican named Donald Harris, came to study economics. Her mother studied nutrition and endocrinology. For two freethinking young people drawn to activism, they landed on campus from opposite sides of the world just as protests exploded around civil rights, the Vietnam War and voting rights. Their paths crossed in those movements, and they fell in love. At the heart of their activism was a small group of students who met every Sunday to discuss the books of black authors and grassroots activity around the world, from the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa to liberation movements in Latin America to the black separatist preaching of Malcolm X in the U.S. A member of the group, Aubrey Labrie, says the weekly gathering was one in which figures such as Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro were admired, and would later provide some inspiration to the founders of the Black Panther Party. Gopalan was the only one in the group who wasn’t black, but she immersed herself in the issues, Labrie says. She and Harris wowed him with their intellect. “I was in awe of the knowledge that they seemed to demonstrate,” said Labrie, who grew so close to the family that the senator calls him “Uncle Aubrey.” The couple married, and Gopalan Harris gave birth to Kamala and then Maya two years later. Even with young children, the duo continued their advocacy. As a little girl, Harris says she remembers an energetic sea of moving legs and the cacophony of chants as her parents made their way to marches. She writes of her parents being sprayed with police hoses, confronted by Hells Angels and once, with the future senator in a stroller, forced to run to safety when violence broke out. Sharon McGaffie, a family friend whose mother, Regina Shelton, was a caregiver for the girls, remembers Gopalan Harris speaking to her daughters as if they were adults and exposing them to worlds often walled off to children, whether a civil rights march or a visit to mom’s laboratory or a seminar where the mother was delivering a speech. “She would take the girls and they would pull out their little backpacks and they would be in that environment,” says McGaffie. A few years into the marriage, Harris’ parents divorced. The senator gives the pain of the parting only a few words in her biography. Those who are close to her describe her childhood as happy, the smells of her mother’s cooking filling the kitchen and the sound of constant chatter and laughter buffeting the air. The mother’s influence on her girls grew even greater, and friends of Harris say they see it reflected throughout her life. As a kindergartner, Stacey Johnson-Batiste remembers Harris coming to her aid when a classroom bully grabbed her craft project and threw it to the floor, which brought retaliation from the boy. He hit the future politician in the head with something that caused enough bleeding to necessitate a hospital visit, cementing for Johnson-Batiste a lifelong friendship with Harris and a view of her as a woman who embodies the ethics of her mother. “Even back then,” Johnson-Batiste says, “she has always stood up for what she thought was right.” As a teenager, after her mother got a job that prompted a family move to Montreal, Harris began seeing how she could achieve change in ways small and large. Outside her family’s apartment, she and her sister protested a prohibition against soccer on the building’s lawn, which Harris says resulted in the rule being overturned. As high school wound down, she homed in on a career goal of being a lawyer. Sophie Maxwell, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, says Harris wasn’t choosing to eschew activism but rather to incorporate it into a life in law: “Those two things go hand in hand.” In college, at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., Shelley Young Thompkins recalls a classmate who was certain of what she wanted to do in life, who was serious about her studies and who put off the fun of joining a sorority until her final year even as she made time for sit-ins and protests. Thompkins and Harris both won student council posts. In her new friend, Young Thompkins saw a young woman intent on not squandering all that her mother had worked to give her. “We were these two freshmen girls who want to save the world,” she says.