Monday, August 10, 2020
Puerto Ricans, upset at botched primary, demand answers
SAN
JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Ricans demanded answers Monday after
botched primaries forced officials to reschedule voting at centers
lacking ballots, an unprecedented decision being called a blow to the
U.S. territory’s democracy.
The
island’s elections commission remained silent as anger and
embarrassment spread across Puerto Rico one day after hundreds of voters
were turned away from shuttered centers that for unknown reasons
received ballots several hours late or never received them at all.
It
was the first time primaries have been halted and led many to worry
that it has cracked Puerto Ricans’ confidence in their government and
could affect the outcome of upcoming November general elections on an
island with a voter participation rate of nearly 70%.
“That
scar will never leave Puerto Rico,” said political analyst Domingo
Emanuelli. “It was a hold-up of the country’s democracy.”
Gov.
Wanda Vázquez and other officials from Puerto Rico’s two main parties
demanded the resignation of Juan Ernesto Dávila, president of the
election commission. He declined comment via a spokeswoman but told
NotiUno radio station that he would resign once the primaries are over,
saying it would be irresponsible to step down before that.
Meanwhile,
questions about why Puerto Rico held a primary if ballots were not
available and how it was possible that no one knew about the problem
until it was too late remained unanswered.
The
electoral commission officials for the pro-statehood New Progressive
Party and the main opposition Popular Democratic Party did not return
calls or messages for comment.
The
primary is one of the most closely watched races in the island’s
history since it pits two candidates who served as replacement governors
following last year’s political turmoil. Vázquez faces Pedro Pierluisi,
who represented Puerto Rico in Congress from 2009 to 2017.
Pierluisi
briefly served as governor after Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned in
August 2019 following widespread street protests over a profanity-laced
chat that was leaked and government corruption. But Puerto Rico’s
Supreme Court ruled that Vázquez, then the justice secretary, was
constitutionally next in line because there was no secretary of state.
Meanwhile,
the main opposition Popular Democratic Party, which supports Puerto
Rico’s current political status as a U.S. territory, is holding a
primary for the first time in its 82-year history. Three people are
vying to become governor — San Juan Mayor Carmen YulÃn Cruz, known for
her public spats with U.S. President Donald Trump following the
devastation of Hurricane Maria; Puerto Rico Sen. Eduardo Bhatia; and
Carlos Delgado, mayor of the northwest coastal town of Isabela.
A
federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico’s finances dismissed
accusations that the electoral commission did not have enough funding,
saying it approved all of its funding requests.
“The
disruptions ... are the result (of) inefficient organization at an
agency that only two weeks ago struggled to procure the printing of
ballots for an election that was originally supposed to take place on
June 7,” the board said in a statement. “The State Elections Commission
has sufficient money, and it has the more than enough staff to perform
the one task it is charged with.”
While another primary is scheduled for Aug. 16, some expect lawsuits and legal loopholes to potentially upset those plans.
Edgardo
Román, president of the Bar Association of Puerto Rico, said the
situation is in a legally gray area since it was never contemplated. A
new date has to be set for those who didn’t get a chance to vote because
the ballots never arrived, he said, but it’s less clear what will
happen to those who didn’t return to centers to vote because they didn’t
find out in time that the ballots eventually arrived.
“Everything has been rather abrupt,” he said. “We have had the worse electoral experience in the history of Puerto Rico.”
At
least one voter filed a lawsuit against the commission and the
electoral officials of the two main parties late Sunday via the American
Civil Liberties Union. Pierluisi also filed a lawsuit against the
commission and the two officials as he rejected its decision to hold
another primary next Sunday.
The
political upheaval was demoralizing to some, but Gireliz Zambrana, a
31-year-old federal employee who didn’t get a chance to vote on Sunday,
said he would try again on Aug. 16 even though he is frustrated and said
what happened is irrational.
He
stressed that Puerto Rico’s situation had to change: the island is
still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria and a series of strong
earthquakes amid a pandemic and a 13-year economic recession.
“One has to go out and vote,” he said. “The only way to fix all of this is kicking people out.”
Azar visit to Taiwan is fresh thorn in prickly US-China ties
TAIPEI,
Taiwan (AP) — The visit by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary
Alex Azar to Taiwan this week comes amid mounting tensions between
Washington and Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own territory to be
annexed by force if necessary.
From
the South China Sea to TikTok, Hong Kong and trade, China and the U.S.
find themselves at loggerheads just months ahead of the American
presidential election. In a throwback to the Cold War, the two ordered
tit-for-tat closures of consulates in Houston and Chengdu and rhetorical
sniping is now a daily occurrence.
Washington
potentially exacerbated those frictions by sending Azar to Taiwan,
making him the highest-level U.S. official to visit the self-governing
island democracy since formal diplomatic relations were severed in 1979
in deference to China,
Beijing
has been ratcheting up pressure on Taiwan, but that’s just one area in
which its increasingly assertive foreign policy and the accompanying
push-back from Washington have taxed diplomacy on both sides.
Washington
drew Beijing’s ire last month when it parted with years of ambiguity by
explicitly denying most of China’s claims in the strategically vital
South China Sea. China says it owns the waterway and that activity in
the area by the U.S. Navy, including sailing ships close to
Chinese-controlled islands, threatens regional peace and stability.
Other disputes center on economic and cultural issues.
A
two-year-old tariff war has buttressed U.S. actions targeting Chinese
institutions and officials. Washington has been campaigning to exclude
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from the U.S. and its allies, a push China
sees as a bare-knuckled attempt to restrain its development as a global
technology power.
The
U.S. says Huawei is beholden to China’s ruling Communist Party and
threatens to compromise personal data and the integrity of the
information systems in the companies in which it operates. China says
there is no proof of that.
President
Donald Trump stepped-up the technology confrontation on Thursday with
an executive order banning dealings with the Chinese owners of consumer
apps TikTok and WeChat, possibly leading to their becoming unavailable
in the lucrative U.S. market.
The
U.S. has sanctioned Chinese companies and officials over the
persecution of Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang and has
now turned its eye toward stricter Chinese control in Hong Kong. As Azar
was preparing to meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday,
police arrested newspaper publisher and leading opposition figure Jimmy
Lai in Hong Kong as part of a crackdown on voices questioning Beijing’s
policies toward the former British colony, now a semi-autonomous Chinese
city.
Washington
has moved to withdraw trading and other privileges granted to Hong Kong
in response to China’s imposition of a sweeping national security law
seen as an attack on free speech and political activism. China has
denounced such actions as infringing on its domestic political affairs
and Beijing-backed officials sanctioned by Washington, including the
city’s leader Carrie Lam, appeared over the weekend to laugh-off the
penalties.
Human
rights complaints are a long-standing source of tension between the
sides, and Trump has added to them with repeated allegations that China
covered-up the initial outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
The
accumulated accusations against Beijing have observers saying Trump is
hoping mistrust of China will boost his re-election chances come
November. Democratic Party rival Joseph Biden has substantial foreign
policy experience and has spent time with China’s leader Xi Jinping, but
underlying differences between the sides are expected to continue no
matter who wins the election.
Beijing
has protested Azar’s visit as a betrayal of U.S. commitments not to
have official contact with the island. Azar’s visit was facilitated by
the 2018 passage of the Taiwan Travel Act, which encouraged Washington
to send higher-level officials to Taiwan after decades during which such
contacts were rare.
Warmer
relations with Taiwan are largely a result of strong bipartisan support
in Congress, but also appear to show how the Trump administration is
willing to defy Beijing’s threats and promote an alternative to Chinese
Communist Party authoritarianism.
At
the start of Monday’s meeting with Tsai, Azar said the island’s success
in dealing with COVID-19 was a “tribute to the open, transparent,
democratic nature of Taiwan’s society and culture.”
An
island of 23 million people, Taiwan moved swiftly and aggressively to
contain the coronavirus and has recorded just 277 reported cases and
seven deaths from the illness.
Since
taking office in in 2016, Tsai has angered Beijing with her refusal to
recognize China’s claim to the island. Beijing has in turn cut contact
with Tsai and brought increasing diplomatic, economic and military
pressure against her, including by poaching away several of its
remaining diplomatic allies and excluding Taiwan from international
gatherings including the World Health Assembly.
Such
moves have increased already considerable bipartisan sympathy for
Taipei in Washington and prompted new measures to strengthen
governmental and military ties.
Azar’s
visit will put further pressure on China-U.S. ties, but won’t be seen
as entirely unprecedented by China’s leaders, said Shi Yinhong, an
expert on international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University
“Of
course, there will be very negative impact on China-U.S. relations,
especially under the circumstances that China and the U.S. have fallen
into confrontation in almost all areas,” Shi said.
Beijing
will respond with diplomatic protests and will seek to prevent the
further expansion of relations between Taipei and Washington, Shi said.
Azar’s visit “is serious, but it is not extraordinary,” Shi said.
Global shares push higher on stimulus moves, US jobs data
Shares
advanced Monday in Europe and Asia after President Donald Trump issued
executive orders to provide tax relief and stopgap unemployment benefits
for Americans hit by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Investors
are watching for further developments on stimulus for the U.S. economy
and on trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Trade talks are
planned for Friday, to be held virtually due to the coronavirus
pandemic.
Germany’s
DAX was flat at 12,673.25 while the CAC 40 in France added 0.5% to
4,911.65. Britain’s FTSE 100 picked up 0.3% to 6,050.82. The future for
the S&P 500 was flat, at 3,345.80 while the future contract for the
Dow industrials gained 0.2% to 27,389.00.
“It
has been an unusually risk-friendly start to the Monday proceedings,
but there is still a lot of wood to be chopped on the U.S. stimulus
deal, while Aug. 15 trade talks loom ominously,” Stephen Innes of
AxiCorp said in a commentary.
Stock
prices fell in Hong Kong after the authorities arrested pro-democracy
media tycoon Jimmy Lai and some of his associates on suspicion of
collusion with foreign powers.
The Hang Seng index dropped 0.6% to 24,377.43.
Lai
was arrested Monday under the city’s national security law and posts on
Twitter showed him being taken away by police, as dozens of uniformed
police searched the headquarters of his newspaper, Apple Daily.
The
national security law that came into effect June 30 is widely seen as a
means to curb dissent after anti-government protests rocked Hong Kong
last year. It has raised questions over whether and to what extent
Communist Party leaders in Beijing will respect the “one-party,
two-systems” arrangement promised to the former British colony for a
half-century after China took control of the semi-autonomous in 1997.
Elsewhere
in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.5% to 2,386.38 and the
S&P/ASX 200 in Australia surged 1.8% to 6,110.20. The Shanghai
Composite index advanced 0.8% to 3,379.25.
Shares also rose in Taiwan, India and Thailand.
China
reported its consumer price index rose to 2.7% in July from 2.5% in
June as flooding disrupted farming across much of the country, pushing
food prices higher. But producer prices and core inflation, which
exclude food and energy prices, fell to a ten-year low of 0.5%,
reflecting continued weakness amid the pandemic.
Sentiment
on Wall Street was lifted Friday by positive U.S. jobs data, with U.S.
employers adding nearly 1.8 million jobs last month, about 185,000 more
than economists had forecast.
The
S&P 500 inched up 0.1% to 3,351.28 to eke out a sixth straight gain
on Friday. It is within 1% of its record high set in February.
But
uncertainty overhangs the markets, with the total number of confirmed
coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassing 5 million. Technology stocks
have taken a hit as investors fret that China could retaliate for
President Donald Trump’s latest escalation against Chinese tech
companies.
With
Republicans and Democrats in Congress reportedly far apart late last
week on stimulus legislation, Trump issued a set of four executive
orders.
They call for:
—Continued
payments of up to $400 a week of supplemental federal unemployment
benefits for millions of Americans out of work during the outbreak.
—A
payroll tax deferral that would allow employers to defer collecting the
employee portion of the payroll tax, including the 6.2% Social Security
tax on wages, effective Aug. 1 through the end of the year.
—The Treasury and Housing and Urban Development departments to find funds to help people struggling to pay their rent.
—Extension
of a moratorium on student loans backed by the federal government that
would have expired on Sept. 30 and that also forgave interest on the
deferred payments.
Analysts
questioned the impact of the orders, which appear certain to face legal
challenges. Democrats called the move a pre-election ploy that would
burden cash-strapped states, which may be expected to pick up more of
the tab for unemployment benefits.
Trump
issued the orders after congressional talks broke down. Democrats
initially sought a $3.4 trillion package, but said they lowered their
demand to $2 trillion. Republicans had proposed a $1 trillion plan.
Both
the White House and congressional Democrats indicated Sunday they
wanted to resume negotiations, but no talks were scheduled.
With
the Nov. 3 election approaching, the White House is nervously watching
signs that the economic recovery is slowing down as the coronavirus
surges.
In
other trading Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 62 cents to $41.84
per barrel. On Friday, it gave up 73 cents to $41.22 per barrel..
Brent crude, the international standard for pricing, added 47 cents to $44.87 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 105.96 Japanese yen from 105.92 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1772 from $1.1789.
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