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Voters head to polls in Alabama race with high stakes for Trump

Voters head to polls in Alabama race with high stakes for Trump

By Andy Sullivan

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Reuters) – Voters in Alabama were headed to the polls on Tuesday in a hard-fought U.S. Senate race in which President Donald Trump has endorsed fellow Republican Roy Moore, whose campaign has been clouded by allegations of sexual misconduct toward teenagers.

Moore, 70, a former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, is battling Democrat Doug Jones, 63, a former U.S. attorney who is hoping to pull off an upset victory in the deeply conservative Southern state.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. (1300 GMT) in the Alabama special election for the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Sessions, who became U.S. attorney general in the Trump administration.

The Alabama contest has divided the Republican Party on whether it is better to support Moore in order to maintain their slim majority in the U.S. Senate or shun him because of the sexual allegations.

Trump has strongly backed Moore but several other Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have distanced themselves from the candidate.

“Roy Moore will always vote with us. VOTE ROY MOORE!” Trump said in a Twitter post in which he criticized Jones as a potential “puppet” of the Democratic congressional leadership.

Moore has been accused by multiple women of pursuing them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s, including one woman who said he tried to initiate sexual contact with her when she was 14. Moore has denied any misconduct. Reuters has not independently verified any of the accusations.

On the eve of Tuesday’s election, Moore was joined on the campaign trail by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and an executive at the right-wing Breitbart News site. Bannon framed the Alabama election as a showdown between establishment elites and populist power and excoriated Republicans who declined to support Moore.

“There’s a special place in hell for Republicans who should know better,” he said.

COURTING EVANGELICALS

Moore has made conservative Christian beliefs a centerpiece of his campaign and sought to energize evangelicals in Alabama. He has said homosexual activity should be illegal and has argued against removing segregationist language from the state constitution.

Moore told the rally on Monday: “I want to make America great again with President Trump. I want America great, but I want America good, and she can’t be good until we go back to God.”

Without mentioning Moore by name, Republican former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an African-American who grew up in Alabama, issued a statement on Monday calling the special election “one of the most significant in Alabama’s history.”

She urged Alabama voters to “reject bigotry, sexism, and intolerance.”

A Fox News Poll conducted on Thursday and released on Monday put Jones ahead of Moore, with Jones potentially taking 50 percent of the vote and Moore 40 percent. Fox said 8 percent of voters were undecided and 2 percent supported another candidate.

An average of recent polls by the RealClearPolitics website showed Moore ahead by a slight margin of 2.2 percentage points.

No Democrat has held a U.S. Senate seat from Alabama in more than 20 years. In 2016, Trump won the state by 28 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Jones has touted a record that includes prosecuting former Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four girls were killed.

He spent the past week rallying African-Americans, the most reliably Democratic voters in the state, and hammering Moore in television ads. He has told supporters that his campaign is a chance to be on the “right side of history for the state of Alabama.”

If Jones wins on Tuesday, Republicans would control the Senate by a slim 51-49 margin, giving Democrats momentum ahead of the November 2018 congressional elections, when control of both chambers of Congress will be at stake.

Moore’s campaign has cast Jones as a liberal out of step with Alabama voters, seizing on the Democrat’s support of abortion rights.

Moore, who was twice removed from the state Supreme Court for refusing to abide by federal law, may find a chilly reception in Washington if he wins. Republican leaders have said

Moore could face an ethics investigation if Alabama voters send him to the U.S. Senate.

Democrats have signaled they may use Moore’s election to tar Republicans as insensitive to women’s concerns at a time when allegations of sexual harassment have caused many prominent men working in politics, entertainment, media and business to lose their jobs.

(Additional reporting by Julia Harte and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Caren Bohan; Editing by Peter Cooney and Bill Trott)

Trump Panama hotel owners trying to strip president’s name -report

Trump Panama hotel owners trying to strip president's name -report

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Owners of the Trump International Hotel in Panama City are trying to strip the president’s name from the building and remove his company from management, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

When it was completed in 2011, the 70-floor building was the future U.S. president’s first international hotel venture, a complex including apartments and a casino in a waterfront building that has earned Trump between $30 million and $50 million.

In August this year, Miami-based Ithaca Capital Partners completed its purchase of the hotel amenities and the majority of the units in the Trump International Hotel.

In October, Ithaca proposed removing the Trump Organization’s directors from the hotel board and sending a notice of default to Trump, to begin terminating Trump’s link to the property, after complaints over alleged mismanagement, the AP reported.

“Not only do we have a valid, binding and enforceable long-term management agreement, but any suggestion that the hotel is not performing up to expectations is belied by the actual facts,” the Trump Organization said in a statement.

Ithaca did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump licensed his brand to the luxury project and provided hotel management. A Reuters investigation published in November found that alleged fraudster Alexandre Ventura Nogueira had sold between one-third and one-half of the advance sales for the Trump Ocean Club, as the complex including the hotel and apartments is known. (http://reut.rs/2zOaBYo)

The story, reported in conjunction with U.S. broadcaster NBC News, detailed how Nogueira did business with a Colombian money launderer and two criminals from the former Soviet Union.

Nogueira told Reuters and NBC how, in the project’s early days, he had participated in business meetings with Ivanka Trump and that she had endorsed his recommendation to sell the apartments for a higher price.

Ivanka Trump declined to comment on the allegations, while the Trump Organization said it did not remember Nogueira.

Earlier in November, the Trump Organization said it would give up management of the Trump SoHo hotel in New York City by the end of the year.

The Trump Ocean Club Panama Owners Association could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Christine Murray, Stefanie Eschenbacher and Ned Parker; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Israeli police resume interview of Netanyahu in corruption probe

Israeli police resume interview of Netanyahu in corruption probe

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli police officers on Sunday questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the sixth time in a corruption probe, a police spokeswoman said.

Investigators arrived by car in late afternoon to Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem where past interrogations have taken place, and disappeared behind security gates.

Police said Netanyahu was questioned for several hours at his residence in an ongoing fraud investigation under the oversight of the state attorney, the country’s chief prosecutor, and with the authorisation of the attorney-general.

No charges have been brought against Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009 and has denied wrongdoing.

He is a suspect in two cases, one involving the receipt of gifts from businessmen and the other related to alleged conversations he held with an Israeli newspaper publisher about limiting competition in the news sector in exchange for more positive coverage.

Police said earlier this month that a top Netanyahu confidant had been questioned as part of a different investigation into a $2 billion submarine deal with Germany.

(Reporting by Dedi Hayoun; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Mark Potter and David Evans)

U.S. Congress members decry ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Myanmar; Suu Kyi doubts allegations

U.S. Congress members decry 'ethnic cleansing' in Myanmar; Suu Kyi doubts allegations

By Antoni Slodkowski and Yimou Lee

YANGON/NAYPYITAW (Reuters) – Members of the U.S. Congress said on Tuesday operations carried out against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar had “all the hallmarks” of ethnic cleansing, while the country’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed doubts about allegations of rights abuses.

The U.S. Senate members also said they were disturbed by a “violent and disproportionate” security response to Rohingya militant attacks that have driven more than 600,000 people from Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh.

Human rights monitors have accused Myanmar’s military of atrocities, including mass rape, against the stateless Rohingya during so-called clearance operations following insurgent attacks on 30 police posts and an army base.

Myanmar’s government has denied most of the claims, and the army last week said its own probe found no evidence of wrongdoing by troops.

“We are not hearing of any violations going on at the moment,” Suu Kyi told reporters in response to a question about human rights abuses at the end of the Asia-Europe Meeting, or ASEM, in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw.

“We can’t say whether it has happened or not. As a responsibility of the government, we have to make sure that it won’t happen.”

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi said she hoped talks with Bangladesh’s foreign minister this week would lead to a deal on the “safe and voluntary return” of those who have fled.

Suu Kyi’s less than two-year old civilian government has faced heavy international criticism for its response to the crisis, though it has no control over the generals it has to share power with under Myanmar’s transition to power after decades of military rule.

HALLMARKS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING

While a top UN official has described the military’s actions as a textbook case of “ethnic cleansing”, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on a visit to Myanmar last week refused to label it as such.

In early November, U.S. lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, who was among the sponsors of the legislation introduced in the Senate, led a congressional delegation that visited Rakhine this week, but was blocked from traveling to the violence-hit north of the state and to Rohingya camps.

The group also traveled to Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh, where Rohingya refugees are huddled into makeshift camps and fed by overstretched aid agencies.

“Many refugees have suffered direct attacks including loved ones, children and husbands being killed in front of them, wives and daughters being raped, burns and other horrific injuries. This has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing,” Merkley told reporters in Myanmar on Tuesday.

“We are profoundly disturbed by the violent and disproportionate response against the Rohingya by the military and local groups,” he said.

The delegation called for Myanmar to allow an investigation into the alleged atrocities that would involve the international community.

“We want to emphasize that the world is watching,” Merkley said, adding that it was important Myanmar allow anyone who wants to come back to return to their homes and their farms.

Merkley said the delegation was “not here today to recommend…what the U.S. government would do or should do,” when asked about the legislation introduced in the Congress.

‘ISOLATION IN CAMPS’

Myanmar officials have so far said they plan to resettle most returnees in new “model villages”, rather than on the land they previously occupied, an approach the United Nations has criticized in the past as effectively creating permanent camps.

“Individuals cannot be coming back…simply to return to camps where there would be continued discrimination, restrictions on full participation in the economy and society,” said Merkley.

He warned that isolating people in camps creates a “two-tier society that is fundamentally incompatible with the future of democracy and it guarantees perpetuation of suspicions and misunderstandings and conflicts.”

Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Suu Kyi said discussions would be held with the Bangladesh foreign minister on Wednesday and Thursday about repatriation. Officials from both countries began talks last month on how to process the Rohingya wanting to return.

“We hope that this would result in an MOU signed quickly, which would enable us to start the safe and voluntarily return of all of those who have gone across the border,” Suu Kyi said.

The Rohingya are largely stateless and many people in Myanmar view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Suu Kyi said Myanmar would follow the framework of an agreement reached in the 1990s to cover the earlier repatriation of Rohingya, who had fled to Bangladesh to escape previous bouts of ethnic violence.

That agreement did not address the citizenship status of Rohingya, and Bangladesh has been pressing for a repatriation process that provided Rohingya with more safeguards this time.

“It’s on the basis of residency…this was agreed by the two governments long time ago with success, so this will be formula we will continue to follow,” Suu Kyi said.

Earlier talks between the two countries reached a broad agreement to work out a repatriation deal, but a senior Myanmar official later accused Bangladesh of dragging its feet in order to secure funding from aid agencies for hosting the refugees.

(Additional reporting by Thu Thu Aung; writing by Simon Lewis; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Hugh Lawson)

Once inside Kim Jong Un’s inner circle, top aide’s star fades

Once inside Kim Jong Un's inner circle, top aide's star fades

By Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – When Kim Jong Un sat down in September to order the sixth and largest of North Korea’s nuclear tests, Hwang Pyong So sat by his side, his khaki military uniform conspicuous among the suits at the table, photos released by state media at the time showed.

Now Hwang, once one of Kim’s most-trusted advisers, is facing unspecified punishment on the orders of another man who also sat at that exclusive table in September, Choe Ryong Hae, South Korean intelligence officials believe.

Information on North Korea is often difficult to obtain, and with few hard details and no official confirmation from Pyongyang, analysts said it was too soon to draw any firm conclusions from the unspecified punishments.

But the moves, which appear to involve two of Kim’s top four advisers, are being closely watched for indications of fractures within his secretive inner circle, and come as North Korea faces increasing international pressure over its nuclear weapons program.

Having his advisers compete with each other suits Kim just fine, said Christopher Green, an analyst with the Crisis Group.

“It is hardwired into autocracy to have underlings in competition,” he said.

Hwang, a shy, bespectacled general in his mid-60s, is a close confidant of Kim Jong Un and has had an unprecedented rise to the top rungs of North Korea’s leadership in the space of a few years.

In 2014, he became one of the most powerful people outside the ruling Kim family when he was named chief of the General Political Bureau of the army, a powerful position that mobilizes the military for the leader.

His apparent punishment takes on additional meaning as it was orchestrated by Choe who has competed with Hwang in the past and stands to gain from any demotion, according to South Korea’s spy agency.

TEA WITH THE ENEMY

The two men were last seen in public together early last month as they watched a gymnastics gala, according to state media.

Hwang has since faded from public view, whereas Choe was the ranking official who met with a senior envoy from China in Pyongyang last week.

Kim has not shied away from removing or punishing even favored leaders who could become powerful enough to threaten his grip on power, said Michael Madden, an expert on the North Korean leadership at 38 North, a project of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Studies in Washington.

“Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong So could not have continued in the capacity that he was operating in, without it coming back to bite him,” he said.

Both Hwang and Choe came to South Korea during the Asian Games in 2014 – the highest such visit by North Korean officials to the rival South.

Dressed in a drab, olive army uniform and his large officer’s cap, Hwang, who had been promoted to the No.2 spot behind Kim just one week earlier, had tea and lunch with Choe and South Korean officials and waved to crowds at the games’ closing ceremony.

The trip had been announced just one day in advance and took many South Korean observers by surprise. Some suggested there may have been a power struggle between the two men, neither wanting to yield the high-profile visit to the other.

Choe, who was subjected to political “reeducation” himself in the past, now appears to be gaining more influence since he was promoted in October to the party’s powerful Central Military Commission, according to South Korean officials.

The National Intelligence Service indicated Choe now heads the Organisation and Guidance Department (OGD), the secretive body which oversees appointments within North Korea’s leadership.

‘CLIPPING WINGS’

The punishment represents the first time Hwang has faced any major blow to his standing, said Lee Sang-keun, a North Korea leadership expert at Ewha Woman’s University’s Institute of Unification Studies.

Hwang had a reputation of playing a respectful and careful role around the notoriously unpredictable Kim. Photos released by state media often showed him covering his mouth as he politely laughed with the supreme leader.

The punishment may not reflect any specific mistakes on Hwang’s part but could be part of a wider effort by Kim to ensure that the ruling party retains its control over the military, Lee said.

The moves are part of a sweeping ideological scrutiny of the political unit of the military for the first time in 20 years, according to Kim Byung-kee, a lawmaker on South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence committee.

They could also be an effort to prevent a repeat of a major purge in 2013, 38 North’s Madden said.

Kim’s uncle and second most powerful man in the secretive state, Jang Song Thaek, was executed during that purge after a special military tribunal found him guilty of treason.

Preemptively putting Hwang in his place now meant Kim might prevent him from becoming so powerful he could only be dealt with in a similar way, Madden said.

“What (Kim’s) doing can be described as clipping wings.”

(Additional reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Appeals court lets Trump travel ban go partially into effect

Appeals court lets Trump travel ban go partially into effect

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court in California on Monday let President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban go partially into effect, ruling the government can bar entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries with no connections to the United States.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially granted a Trump administration request to block at least temporarily a judge’s ruling that had put the new ban on hold. Trump’s ban was announced on Sept. 24 and replaced two previous versions that had been impeded by federal courts.

The action means the ban will apply to people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Chad who do not have connections to the United States.

Those connections are defined as family relationships and “formal, documented” relationships with U.S.-based entities such as universities and resettlement agencies. Those with family relationships that would allow entry include grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins of people in the United States.

“We are reviewing the court’s order and the government will begin enforcing the travel proclamation consistent with the partial stay. We believe that the proclamation should be allowed to take effect in its entirety,” Justice Department spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam said.

The state of Hawaii, which sued to block the restrictions, argued that federal immigration law did not give Trump the authority to impose them on six of those countries. The lawsuit did not challenge restrictions toward people from the two other countries listed in Trump’s ban, North Korea and Venezuela.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu ruled last month that Hawaii was likely to succeed with its argument.

Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin said the court’s decision tracked what the Supreme Court said in June when it partially revived Trump’s second travel ban, which has now expired.

“I’m pleased that family ties to the U.S., including grandparents, will be respected,” Chin added.

Separately on Monday, a group of refugee organizations and individuals filed a lawsuit in Seattle federal court challenging Trump’s decision to suspend entry of refugees from 11 countries, nine of which are majority Muslim, for at least 90 days.

Trump issued his first travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries in January, just a week after he took office, and then issued a revised one after the first was blocked by the courts. The second one expired in September after a long court fight and was replaced with another revised version.

Trump has said the travel ban is needed to protect the United States from terrorism by Muslim militants. As a candidate, Trump had promised “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Critics of the travel ban in its various iterations call it a “Muslim ban” that violates the U.S. Constitution by discriminating on the basis of religion.

The 9th Circuit is due to hear oral arguments in the case on Dec. 6. In a parallel case from Maryland, a judge also ruled against the Trump administration and partially blocked the ban from going into effect.

An appeal in the Maryland case is being heard on Dec. 8 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. The Maryland case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents several advocacy groups, including the International Refugee Assistance Project.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Additional reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Will Dunham and Tom Brown)

Trans-Pacific trade deal advances without United States

Trans-Pacific trade deal advances without United States

By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Mai Nguyen

DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) – Countries in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal have agreed on the core elements to move ahead without the United States, officials said on Saturday, after last-minute resistance from Canada raised new doubts about its survival.

Taking the agreement forward is a boost for the principle of multilateral trade pacts after U.S. President Donald Trump ditched the TPP early this year in favor of an “America First” policy he believes would save U.S. jobs.

Talks – often heated – have been held on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Vietnamese resort of Danang, where Trump and other leaders held their main meeting on Saturday.

“We have overcome the hardest part,” Vietnam’s trade minister, Tran Tuan Anh, told a news conference.

The agreement, which still needs to be finalised, would now be called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), he said.

Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said he hoped that moving ahead with the deal would be a step towards bringing back the United States.

Partly to counter China’s growing dominance in Asia, Japan had been lobbying hard for the TPP pact, which aims to eliminate tariffs on industrial and farm products across the 11-nation bloc whose trade totaled $356 billion last year.

Some 20 provisions of the original agreement were suspended. Those included some related to protecting labor rights and the environment, although most were related to intellectual property – one of the main sticking points after the U.S. withdrawal.

“The overall impact on most firms is quite modest,” said Deborah Elms of the Asian Trade Center think-tank, adding that the new version was “essentially identical to the original document”.

DOUBTS

Any kind of deal looked doubtful on Friday, when a summit of TPP leaders was called off after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not attend. Canada’s trade minister later blamed Trudeau’s absence on “a misunderstanding about the schedule”.

Canada, which has the second-biggest economy among remaining TPP countries after Japan, had said it wanted to ensure an agreement that would protect jobs.

Canada’s position has been further complicated by the fact that it is simultaneously renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the Trump administration.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Trudeau said though Canada was pleased with the progress made on TPP, there was “still more important work to be done.”

Trudeau said Canada will always be “extremely closely linked to the American economy” but there was a need to diversify trade through other deals.

NAFTA talks with the United States were not affecting Canada’s stance on TPP negotiations, he said.

In a speech in Danang, Trump sent out a strong message that he was only interested in bilateral deals in Asia that would not disadvantage the United States.

Chinese President Xi Jinping used the same forum to stress multilateralism and said globalisation was an irreversible trend.

China had noted that the 11 TPP countries had made some progress on the deal, but it “hasn’t paid too much attention” because it is focused on APEC work during the meeting, Zhang Jun, Director General of the Department of International Economic Affairs of China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters.

He said all trade arrangements in the region should promote openness and inclusiveness, with no “exclusive clubs”.

Zhang said the Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade pact will not be impacted by TPP, to which China is not party. The two trade deals are not mutually exclusive, and some countries would be members of both.

‘RAPID, COMPLEX CHANGES’

The APEC leaders met in closed sessions on Saturday, pausing for the traditional “family photograph”, taken above the South China Sea.

At the start of the meeting, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang noted APEC’s success in removing barriers to trade – as well as the new uncertainty in the world.

“We have witnessed changes more rapid and complex than we expect,” he said in opening remarks.

APEC trade and foreign ministers released a joint statement on Saturday, three days later than planned because of wrangling over customary language the United States wanted to change.

The statement still refers to free and open trade, but it also refers to fair trade and to members “improving adherence to rules agreed upon”.

A reference to strengthening the multilateral trading system was dropped. The ministers also said they would work to improve the functioning of the World Trade Organization – which Trump criticized in Friday’s speech.

Later, leaders of the 21 APEC economies agreed to address “unfair trade practices” and called for the removal of “market distorting subsidies,” in contrast to communiques they have issued in the past.

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina and A. Ananthalakshmi in DANANG, David Ljunggren in OTTAWA; Writing by Matthew Tostevin; Editing by Stephen Coates and Ros Russell)

Catalan strike severs road links as secessionist leaders regroup

Catalan strike severs road links as secessionist leaders regroup

By Silvio Castellanos

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) – A general strike called by pro-independence campaigners in Catalonia severed transport links on Wednesday, as leaders of its secessionist movement sought to regain political momentum after failing to agree a joint ticket to contest an election.

Protesters shut down roads, causing huge tailbacks into Barcelona, and some public transport ran minimum services in response to calls for action by two civic groups — whose heads were imprisoned last month on sedition charges — and a labor union.

People stood across dozens of major highways in the region waving placards and chanting “freedom for political prisoners”, TV and video images showed, while minor scuffles were reported on social media as police attempted to move protesters.

While many smaller stores left their shutters closed, most larger shops and businesses in the region appeared to be open as normal.

An uphill task awaited the political heavyweights of the independence campaign, whose parties jointly ran Catalonia for the last two years until Madrid sacked the region’s government in response to its independence push.

Deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont’s center-right PDeCAT and the leftist ERC of former regional vice president Oriol Junqueras had until midnight on Tuesday to agree a new pact, but they failed to meet that deadline, meaning they will contest the Dec. 21 vote as separate parties.

The central government in Madrid called the election last month after assuming control of Catalonia following its parliament’s unilateral independence declaration.

Puigdemont is in self-imposed exile in Belgium, while Junqueras is in custody on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

‘JUNCKER WON’T MEET ME’

Puigdemont, who faces the same charges and is the subject of a extradition request from Madrid, had ambitions to garner support for his independence campaign in the heartland of the European Union.

But that hope has fallen flat, and in an interview published on Wednesday he renewed criticism of the bloc’s executive.

“(EU Commission President Jean-Claude) Juncker welcomes mayors, governors … but he doesn’t want to meet me,” Puigdemont told Belgian Daily De Standaard.

“I’ve always been a convinced European … But the people who are running the EU now, are wrecking Europe … The gap between the Europe of the people and the official Europe is increasing.”

Catalonia’s secessionist push has plunged Spain into its worst political crisis in four decades, triggered a business exodus and reopened old wounds from the country’s civil war in the 1930s.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has been unwavering in his opposition to any form of independence for Catalonia, said he hoped next month’s election would usher in “a period of calm” and business as usual for the region.

“I’m hoping for massive participation in the election.. and, after that, we’ll return to normality,” he said in the Madrid parliament building on Wednesday.

An opinion poll released on Sunday by Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia showed Junqueras’ ERC could garner between 45 and 46 seats in Catalonia’s 135-strong regional assembly while Puigdemont’s PdeCat would win just 14 or 15.

In order to reach the 68-seat threshold for a majority, they would then have to form a parliamentary alliance with anti-capitalist CUP.

ERC and PDeCAT could still reach an agreement after the vote, but by standing together they could have held more seats, polls and projections from the 2015 election results showed.

Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told a banking conference in Madrid he hoped the election would revive the Catalan success story “during which it has enjoyed great economic and cultural prosperity together with a high level of self-governance.”

For some Catalans who ignored Wednesday’s strike — called by the CSC union and supported by civic groups Asamblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) and Omnium Cultural — that moment is already overdue.

“Why should I strike, nobody is going to raise my salary. In this world we have to work and not argue so much,” Jose Luis, a construction worker, told Reuters TV as he walked through Barcelona on his way to work.

“The politicians should work more and stop their silliness.”

(Additional reporting by Paul Day in Madrid and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; writing by John Stonestreet; editing by Paul Day)

Justice Kennedy on hot seat in major voting rights case

FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Supreme Court building is pictured in Washington, DC, U.S. on June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Supreme Court justices clashed on Tuesday over whether courts should curb the long-standing U.S. political practice of drawing electoral maps to entrench one party in power, with conservative Anthony Kennedy likely to cast the deciding vote.

The nine justices heard an hour of arguments in the major voting rights case out of Wisconsin involving the practice known as partisan gerrymandering. Their ruling, due by June, could have an impact on U.S. elections for decades by setting standards for when electoral districts are laid out with such extreme partisan aims that they deprive voters of their constitutional rights.

Kennedy, who sometimes sides with the court’s liberal justices in big rulings, did not definitively tip his hand on how he would rule but posed tough questions to Wisconsin’s lawyers that signaled his aversion to electoral districts drawn to give one party a lopsided advantage in elections.

Liberal justices voiced sympathy for the Democratic voters who challenged the Republican-drawn legislative map in Wisconsin as a violation of their constitutional rights. Conservative justices expressed doubt about whether courts should intervene in such highly political disputes, and questioned the challengers’ legal standing to bring the case. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority.

Gerrymandering, a practice that began two centuries ago, involves manipulating boundaries of legislative districts to benefit one party and diminish another.

Democratic and Republican critics argue that gerrymandering is becoming more extreme because it now can be guided by precise voter data and mapmaking technology, distorting the democratic process by letting politicians choose their voters rather than the other way around.

Legislative districts in the 50 U.S. states, redrawn every decade after the national census to reflect population changes, represent the individual components of representative democracy.

Kennedy pressed Erin Murphy, a lawyer for Wisconsin’s state Senate, on whether it would be unconstitutional for a state law to contain explicit provisions favoring one party over another. Murphy conceded it would be.

A federal three-judge panel ruled 2-1 last November that Wisconsin’s redistricting plan violated the Constitution’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression and association and 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law because of the extent to which it marginalized Democratic voters. Wisconsin appealed that ruling to the high court.

In a 2004 ruling in another case, Kennedy parted with his conservative colleagues to suggest that if partisan gerrymandering went too far, violating the Constitution, courts may have to step in if a “workable standard” for deciding when to do that could be found.

“Gerrymandering is distasteful,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito said.

But Alito voiced doubt over whether the metrics used to measure gerrymandering, drawn from social science and endorsed by the lower court, were manageable. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts called those metrics “sociological gobbledygook.”

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch said a court-approved formula for identifying unconstitutional gerrymandering would be hard to achieve, comparing various standards proposed to spices on a steak dinner. “What’s this court supposed to do? A pinch of this, a pinch of that?” he asked.

He voiced doubt that the Constitution authorizes courts to step in at all.

‘TIME TO TERMINATE’

The challengers received some muscular support. “It is time to terminate gerrymandering,” Republican former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the star of the “Terminator” movies, told a rally outside the courthouse.

Redistricting typically is done by the party controlling a state’s legislature. Gerrymandering is usually accomplished by concentrating voters who tend to favor a particular party in a small number of districts to reduce their statewide voting power – called packing – while scattering others in districts in numbers too small to be a majority – called cracking.

The Supreme Court for decades has been willing to invalidate state electoral maps on the grounds of racial discrimination but never those drawn simply for partisan advantage.

Roberts raised concerns about the high court approving or rejecting future state electoral maps, suggesting the public could start viewing the court as a political body.

“That is going to cause very serious harm to the status and integrity of the decisions of this court in the eyes of the country,” Roberts added.

Some liberal justices wondered what would happen to voters if partisan gerrymandering made election results preordained.

“What incentive is there for a voter to exercise his vote?” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked. “What becomes of the precious right to vote?”

Wisconsin’s electoral map, drawn after the 2010 U.S. census, enabled Republicans to win a sizable majority of Wisconsin legislative seats despite losing the popular vote statewide to the Democrats. The party’s majority has since expanded.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Paul Smith, urged the justices to act. “If you let this go,” he said, “in 2020 you’re going to have a festival of copycat gerrymandering, the likes of which this country has never seen.”

“You are the only institution in the United States … that can solve this problem,” Smith added.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

As Trump set to visit Puerto Rico, 95 percent lack power

As Trump set to visit Puerto Rico, 95 percent lack power

By Robin Respaut and Gabriel Stargardter

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is set to make his first visit to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory, and is likely to face more criticism of his handling of the disaster as the vast majority of inhabitants lack power and phone service and are scrambling for food, clean water and fuel.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz led the attack on the administration’s response on Friday, criticizing an official’s description of relief efforts as a “good news story” and urging Trump to act more decisively. Trump fired back at Cruz on Twitter, accusing her of “poor leadership.”

It is not clear if the two will meet during Trump’s visit.

“She (Cruz) has been invited to participate in the events tomorrow, and we hope those conversations will happen and that we can all work together to move forward,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Monday.

Trump will spend “significant time” on the island. He is due in Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with people affected by Sunday’s mass shooting.

For 72-year-old Angel Negroni of Juana Matos, the situation has begun to improve as flood waters receded from his neighborhood, located 20 minutes from San Juan.

Locals could occasionally get spotty cellular service, an improvement from the communication vacuum of days earlier. And he can trade his neighborhood’s restored municipal water for ice made by a friend’s generator-powered freezer.

“It’s better now,” said Negroni, while standing on his covered porch on Monday, cooking fish on a propane-powered camping stove. “We’re OK.”

At least 5.4 percent of customers in Puerto Rico had their power restored by mid-morning on Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Department, with San Juan’s airport and marine terminal and several hospitals back on the power grid. It said the head of Puerto Rico’s power utility expects 15 percent of electricity customers to have power restored within the next two weeks.

Mobile phone service is still elusive. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Monday 88.3 percent of cellphone sites – which transmit signals to create a cellular network – were out of service, virtually unchanged from 88.8 percent on Sunday.

FEMA Administrator Brock Long on a trip to the island on Monday said things were improving with traffic moving and businesses reopening.

“I didn’t see anybody in a life-threatening situation at all,” he told reporters. “We have a long way to go in recovery,” adding that rebuilding Puerto Rico is “going to be a Herculean effort.”

GAS FLOWING

Nearly two weeks after the fiercest hurricane to hit the island in 90 years, everyday life was still severely curtailed by the destruction. The ramping up of fuel supplies should allow more Puerto Ricans to operate generators and travel more freely.

“We’ve been increasing the number of gas stations that are open,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said at a news briefing, with more than 720 of the island’s 1,100 gas stations now up and running.

Puerto Rico relies on fuel supplies shipped from the mainland United States and distribution has been disrupted by the bad state of roads.

Within the next couple of days, Rossello expects 500,000 barrels of diesel and close to 1 million barrels of gasoline to arrive on the island. All of Puerto Rico’s primary ports have reopened but many still have restrictions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

At least four tankers carrying fuel are waiting to unload with two more on the way, according to Thomson Reuters shipping data.

“The flow is coming, gasoline is getting here,” Rossello said. “We have been able to reduce the time that it takes to get gasoline and diesel at different stations.”

Federal and local authorities were working together to keep 50 hospitals operational and Rossello said the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort would arrive in Puerto Rico between Tuesday and Wednesday.

RUNNING OUT OF CASH

As it tries to get back on its feet, Puerto Rico is in danger of running out of cash in a matter of weeks because the economy has come to a halt in the hurricane’s aftermath, Rossello told the local El Nuevo Dia newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

After filing for the largest U.S. local government bankruptcy on record in May, Puerto Rico owes about $72 billion to creditors and another $45 billion or so in pension benefits to retired workers.

What little cash it has is now being diverted to emergency response while it works to secure aid from the federal government. The grinding halt to the economy will delay a fiscal recovery plan and negotiations with creditors.

“There is no cash on hand. We have made a huge effort to get $2 billion in cash,” Rossello said in the interview. “But let me tell you what $2 billion means when you have zero collection: it’s basically a month government’s payroll, a little bit more.”

Trump’s administration is preparing to ask Congress for $13 billion in aid for Puerto Rico and other areas hit by natural disasters, congressional sources said. The island’s recovery will likely cost more than $30 billion.

(Reporting by Robin Respaut, Gabriel Stargardter; additional reporting by Nicholas Brown and Carlos Barria in SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico; Doina Chiacu, Roberta Rampton, Tim Ahmann and Makini Brice in WASHINGTON; Marianna Parraga in HOUSTON; Rodrigo Campos and Herb Lash in NEW YORK and Esha Vaish in BENGALURU; Writing by Bill Rigby and Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Bill Trott and Mary Milliken)