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US logs more than 70,000 new cases a day as stimulus debated
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Activists in Portland, Oregon, are expressing severe alarm about recent incidents involving federal law enforcement officers using unmarked cars to detain peaceful protesters.Federal officers deployed teargas and fired less-lethal rounds into a crowd of protesters on Thursday, hours after the the head of the Department of Homeland Security visited the city and called the demonstrators “violent anarchists”.Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that federal law enforcement officers had been “using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters” since at least 14 July.“Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off,” it added.Anti-racism protests have taken place for nearly two months in Portland, since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May.During a visit to Portland earlier on Thursday, Chad Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary, said state and city authorities were to blame for not putting an end to the protests, angering local officials.Wolf characterized the protests in a tweet, claiming: “The city of Portland has been under siege for 47 days straight by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city. @DHSgov stands ready to assist to bring this violent activity to an end.”In captions of pictures posted on Twitter, Wolf praised police dressed in military-style fatigues, and toured property that appeared undamaged apart from graffiti, such as “BLM” and “If not us, who? If not now, when?”Chad defended the actions of federal law enforcement officers in Portland, saying, “These valiant men and women have defended our institutions of justice against violent anarchists for 48 straight days. We will prevail.”Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, and other local officials have said they did not ask for help from federal law enforcement and have asked them to leave.A few hundred people had gathered near the federal courthouse on Thursday night, news outlets reported. Police told protesters to leave after announcing they heard some chanting about burning down the building, according to the Oregonian.A short time later, federal officers fired rounds and deployed teargas to break up the crowd. Some protesters remained in the area early on Friday and were detained, but it was unclear whether any arrests were made, the newspaper reported.Ken Cuccinelli, the homeland security acting deputy secretary, said on Friday morning on Fox & Friends that the federal government had a responsibility to protect buildings such as the courthouse. More
China has accused the Trump administration of being “very pathetic” amid reports that Washington is considering a sweeping visa ban on Communist party members.Donald Trump is reportedly reviewing a proposal to refuse entry for all members of China’s ruling party – which encompasses a who’s who of the political and business elite in the world’s most populous nation.Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, asked about the reports on Fox News, said the administration was looking at “pushing back against the Chinese Communist party”.“We want to make sure we do it in a way that reflects America’s tradition, and there are lots of ideas that are under review by the president and by our team,” he said, without commenting directly.White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said of Trump at a briefing: “He has not ruled out any action with regard to China.”Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called the reported visa ban idea “very pathetic” for the world’s “strongest power”.“We hope the US will refrain from doing more things that disdain the basic norms governing international relations and undermine its reputation, credibility and status as a major country,” she told reporters.Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the state media title Global Times, described the plan as “crazy and vicious, reflecting the Trump administration has lost rationality”.“The US ruling team is committing a crime ruining the foundation for world peace,” he said.Reaction to news of the proposed ban was mixed among Chinese netizens. Some were supportive of the idea, saying that party members should stay in China anyway out of patriotism, and that ending travel could help stop corruption. Others accused the US of hypocrisy with an attack on political freedom.“The US protests against everything except the pandemic,” wrote one on Weibo. Another said: “The ban on party and family members is basically equivalent to breaking off relations. Aren’t the embassy staff party members?” However by Friday, hashtags relating to news of Hua’s response had been removed from search functions.Trump has been ramping up pressure on China, repeatedly blaming the Asian power for not preventing the coronavirus pandemic, which is taking a heavy toll in the United States months ahead of elections.Last week the US state department said it would refuse visas for three senior Chinese officials over abuses in the Xinjiang region, where rights groups say more than one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims are incarcerated.But a sweeping ban on members of the Chinese Communist party would be an extraordinary undertaking, requiring US authorities to step up screening of the approximately 3 million Chinese people who visited each year before the pandemic disrupted travel.Chinese state media last year said that more than 90 million people belonged to the party, with 35% of them “workers and peasants.”For many Chinese, membership in the 99-year-old party is seen as vital for advancement. Many observers were startled in 2018 to learn that Jack Ma, the billionaire businessman behind e-commerce titan Alibaba, belonged to the party.Additional reporting by Pei Lin Wu. More
The US attorney general, William Barr, has assailed the Walt Disney Company and Hollywood studios, accusing them of “kowtowing” to the Chinese Communist party.Barr’s allegations are part of a sustained diplomatic and public relations offensive by the Trump administration against Beijing, which the attorney general accused of engaging in “economic blitzkrieg – an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government (indeed, whole-of-society) campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s pre-eminent superpower”.In a speech in Michigan, Barr railed against US corporate leaders whom he accused of abetting China’s hegemonic aims, particularly in the film industry. He said Disney had initially resisted Chinese pressure not to make the 1997 film Kundun, about the Dalai Lama and Beijing’s annexation of Tibet.“But that moment of courage wouldn’t last long,” Barr noted. China banned Disney films, leading to an apology from the company for making Kundun. The management then lobbied China to build a Disneyland in Shanghai, allowing Chinese officials to have a role in running the theme park.Barr alleged the officials “display hammer-and-sickle insignia at their desks and attend party lectures during business hours”.“If Disney and other American corporations continue to bow to Beijing, they risk undermining both their own future competitiveness and prosperity, as well as the classical liberal order that has allowed them to thrive,” Barr said.The Disney company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.The attorney general also criticised Hollywood studios for bowing to Chinese pressure to tweak scripts in return for Chinese distribution, citing two cases in which the nationalities of characters were allegedly changed so as not to irritate Beijing.Beijing objected to a virus in a zombie apocalypse film, World War Z, being shown as originating in China, and a mystic character, the “Ancient One” in the fantasy film, Dr Strange, was changed from being Tibetan to Celtic, to avoid upsetting China, Barr said.The attorney general also lashed out at US technology companies including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and Cisco, calling them “pawns of Chinese influence”.“All too often, for the sake of short-term profits, American companies have succumbed to that influence – even at the expense of freedom and openness in the United States,” he said.Cisco rejected Barr’s allegation it had helped the Communist party build “the Great Firewall of China”, which Barr referred to as the world’s “most sophisticated system for Internet surveillance and censorship”.In an emailed statement to the Guardian, Cisco said it “builds its products to global standards, and Cisco does not supply equipment to China that is customized in any way to facilitate blocking of access or surveillance of users”.“The products we supply to China are the same we provide worldwide, and we comply fully with all export control rules applicable to China including those related to human rights,” the company statement said.Apple also responded to Barr’s criticism of its decision to transfer a portion of its iCloud data to servers in China, on the grounds that it would make it easier for Beijing to conduct electronic surveillance.The company emailed a statement dating from May saying: “We sell the same iPhone everywhere, we don’t store customers’ passcodes and we don’t have the capacity to unlock passcode-protected devices. In data centers, we deploy strong hardware and software security protections to keep information safe and to ensure there are no backdoors into our systems. All of these practices apply equally to our operations in every country in the world.” More
Mike Pompeo
US secretary of state seeks to refocus US human rights efforts as he launches report by government commission More
Donald Trump’s niece Mary Trump called on Wednesday for the president to resign and said her uncle was dangerous for America.Trump, whose bombshell book about her family was published on Tuesday and trailed in the Guardian and other outlets last week, told ABC that the US is “on a precipice” with the November election coming up.“He is utterly incapable of leading this country and it’s dangerous to allow him to do so,” Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday morning, in her first interview since a court on Monday lifted a restraining order against her brought by Donald Trump’s brother Robert to try to prevent her speaking out.The family’s attempt to block her book also failed. Mary Trump is the daughter of Donald Trump’s late elder brother, Fred Jr.Stephanopoulos asked Mary Trump if she were in the Oval Office now, what she would say to the president.“Resign,” she said.Asked why she thought the president was incapable of holding the office, she said: “Based on what I have seen my entire adult life.”She added: “This country is on a precipice and we have a decision to make about who we want to be and where we want to go as a country. It’s hard for me to process just how many awful things are going on simultaneously on a daily basis” out of the White House.Donald Trump’s extraordinary character and outrageous behavior “threaten the world’s health, economic security and social fabric” and were shaped by his “high-functioning sociopath” father during childhood, the book reveals.Mary Trump has described her grandfather, Fred Trump, Donald’s father, as a sociopath who shaped the emotional pattern of those around him.“He [Fred] had no empathy, he was incredibly driven in a way that turned other people, including his children and his wife, into pawns to be used for his own ends.“If someone could be of use to him he would use them, if they were not of use he exiled them, in my father’s case [Fred Jr], tragically, he was not of use.”Fred Jr had an alcohol dependency and died from related illness when Mary was a child.She said she wrote the book not for her own therapeutic exercise, though it may be an extension of the family’s dysfunction, she told ABC, with an ironic laugh.But she said her motivation was her uncle, the president.“I cannot let him destroy my country. There are so many parallels between the circumstances in which my family operated and in which this country is now operating – focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people,” she said.She added that it was the result of “allowing someone to live their lives without accountability.“If I can do anything to change the narrative, to reveal the truth I need to do it.”The White House has called Mary Trump’s book lies. Donald Trump was tweeting shortly after the first part of the ABC interview aired and touched on several topics but none of them on his niece’s book or Wednesday morning comments. More of the interview will be shown on Thursday morning.Trump said Donald Trump’s father “restricted the range” of his son Donald’s emotions that were acceptable to the patriarch.“Certain feelings were not allowed. Sadness, the impulse to be kind, generous,” she said, adding that Fred Trump thought such emotions were “superfluous, unmanly”.Mary Trump also insisted that her assertion that Donald Trump paid someone to take his high school exams so he could qualify for the prestigious Wharton Business School, at the University of Pennsylvania, is true. More
China has vowed to retaliate after Donald Trump ordered an end to Hong Kong’s special status under US law to punish China for what he called “aggressive actions” against the former British colony.Citing China’s decision to enact a new national security law for Hong Kong, the US president said he signed an executive order that will end the preferential economic treatment Hong Kong has received for years. “No special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies”, he told a news conference.In a strongly worded response, China’s ministry of foreign affairs said no country has the right to interfere in what it deemed “purely China’s internal affairs”.“US efforts to thwart the implementation of Hong Kong’s national security will never succeed. In order to defend its own legitimate interests, China will respond as necessary and impose sanctions on the relevant American individuals and entities.“We urge the US to correct its mistakes. If the US stubbornly pursues this path, China will give a firm response.”Acting on a Tuesday deadline, Trump also signed a bill approved by the US Congress to penalise banks doing business with Chinese officials who implement the new security law.“Today I signed legislation, and an executive order to hold China accountable for its aggressive actions against the people of Hong Kong,” Trump said. “Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China.”The White House later released the full text of the executive order, outlining the penalties and suspensions, as well as newly reallocated admissions within the US refugee ceiling “to residents of Hong Kong based on humanitarian concerns”.The order suspended multiple sections of legislation governing US immigration, arms exports and defence production, and eliminated US preference for Hong Kong passport holders as compared to People’s Republic of China passport holders.It also suspended extradition and prisoner transfer agreements, took steps to end US training of Hong Kong police and security officers, and suspended or terminated academic partnerships with Hong Kong including the Fulbright exchange program.The order allows for the freezing of US-based property and interests of foreign persons linked to the new national security laws, or found to be involved in international human rights abuses, or in the limiting or penalising of independent media and freedom of expression.Critics of the security law fear it will crush the wide-ranging freedoms promised to Hong Kong when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.The security law punishes what Beijing broadly defines as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.US relations with China have already been strained over the global coronavirus pandemic, China’s military buildup in the South China Sea, its treatment of Uighur Muslims and massive trade surpluses.North Korea’s leadership spoke out in support of China on Wednesday. “It is an extremely sinister act that a non-Asian country across the ocean, not being content with its reckless remarks over the issue of the South China Sea, has hurled abuses at the [Chinese Communist Party],” a foreign ministry spokesperson said.Ending Hong Kong’s special economic status could be a double-edged sword for the United States. Hong Kong was the source of the largest bilateral US goods trade surplus last year, at $26.1bn, based on US Census Bureau data. It is also a major destination for US legal and accounting business. More than 1,300 US firms have offices there.The former British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with a law protecting freedoms of speech, assembly and the press until 2047 under “one country-two systems”.The legislation Trump signed calls for sanctions on Chinese officials and others who help violate Hong Kong’s autonomy, and financial institutions that do business with those found to have participated in any crackdown on the city.Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has raised doubts about whether he can win re-election on 3 November amid a surge of new infections. He has attempted to deflect blame onto China.“Make no mistake. We hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it upon the world. They could have stopped it, they should have stopped it. It would have been very easy to do at the source, when it happened,” he said.Asked if he planned to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: “I have no plans to speak to him.”In rambling remarks, Trump spent much of his Rose Garden appearance criticising Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden. Both candidates are constrained from active campaign rallies by the virus and fears that participants could be infected.In May, Trump responded to China’s plans for the security law by saying he was initiating a process to eliminate the special economic treatment that has allowed Hong Kong to remain a global financial centre.He stopped short then of calling for an immediate end to privileges, but said the moves would affect the full range of US agreements with Hong Kong, from an extradition treaty to export controls on dual-use technologies.A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was also preparing sanctions against Chinese officials and entities involved in the Hong Kong crackdown, including further U.S. travel bans and possible Treasury sanctions. More
Donald Trump
Analysis: The administration’s barrage of attacks on the public health expert comes as little surprise, observers say More
