Where’s the party? No state dinner in Trump’s first year
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump couldn’t stop talking about the red carpets, military parades and fancy dinners that were lavished upon him during state visits on his recent tour of Asia. “Magnificent,” he declared at one point on the trip.
But Trump has yet to reciprocate, making him the first president in almost a century to close his first year in office without welcoming a visiting counterpart to the U.S. with similar trappings.
Trump spoke dismissively of state dinners as a candidate, when he panned President Barack Obama’s decision to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping with a 2015 state visit. Such visits are an important diplomatic tool that includes a showy arrival ceremony and an elaborate dinner at the White House.
“I would not be throwing (Xi) a dinner,” Trump said at the time. “I would get him a McDonald’s hamburger and say we’ve got to get down to work.”
Last month it was Xi’s turn to literally roll out the red carpet. The Chinese leader poured on the pageantry as he welcomed Trump to Beijing on what was billed as a “state visit, plus.” Trump also made state visits to South Korea and Vietnam.
Russian officials bar Navalny from running for president
MOSCOW — Russian election officials on Monday formally barred Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president, prompting calls from him for a boycott of next year’s vote.
The Central Election Commission decided unanimously that the anti-corruption crusader isn’t eligible to run.
Navalny is implicitly barred from running for office because of a conviction in a fraud case which has been viewed as political retribution. He could have run if he was given a special dispensation or if his conviction was cancelled.
Incumbent Vladimir Putin is set to easily win a fourth term in office in the March 18 election, with his approval ratings topping 80 percent.
US says it negotiated $285M cut in United Nations budget
The U.S. government says it has negotiated a significant cut in the United Nations budget.
The U.S. Mission to the United Nations said on Sunday that the U.N.’s 2018-2019 budget would be slashed by over $285 million. The mission said reductions would also be made to the U.N.’s management and support functions.
The announcement didn’t make clear the entire amount of the budget or specify what effect the cut would have on the U.S. contribution.
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said that the “inefficiency and overspending” of the organization is well-known, and she would not let “the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of.”
She also said that while the mission was pleased with the results of budget negotiations, it would continue to “look at ways to increase the U.N.’s efficiency, while protecting our interests.”
Winds of worry: US fishermen fear forests of power turbines
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — East Coast fishermen are turning a wary eye toward an emerging upstart: the offshore wind industry.
In New Bedford, Massachusetts, the onetime whaling capital made famous in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” fishermen dread the possibility of navigating a forest of turbines as they make their way to the fishing grounds that have made it the nation’s most lucrative fishing port for 17 years running.
The state envisions hundreds of wind turbines spinning off the city’s shores in about a decade, enough to power more than 1 million homes.
“You ever see a radar picture of a wind farm? It’s just one big blob, basically,” said Eric Hansen, 56, a New Bedford scallop boat owner whose family has been in the business for generations. “Transit through it will be next to impossible, especially in heavy wind and fog.”
Off New York’s Long Island, an organization representing East Coast scallopers has sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to try to halt a proposal for a nearly 200-turbine wind farm. Commercial fishermen in Maryland’s Ocean City and North Carolina’s Outer Banks have also sounded the alarm about losing access to fishing grounds.
‘Sound of Music’ actress Heather Menzies-Urich dies at 68
LOS ANGELES — Actress Heather Menzies-Urich, who played one of the singing von Trapp children in the hit 1965 film, “The Sound of Music,” has died. She was 68.
Her son, actor Ryan Urich, told Variety that his mother died late Sunday in Frankford, Ontario. She recently had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
“She was an actress, a ballerina and loved living her life to the fullest,” Urich said.
Menzies-Urich played Louisa von Trapp, the third-oldest of the seven von Trapp children, in the film adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.
“The Sound of Music” captured five Academy Awards, including best picture.
Guatemala says it is moving embassy in Israel to Jerusalem
GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala’s president announced on Christmas Eve that the Central American country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, becoming the first nation to follow the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump in ordering the change.
Guatemala was one of nine nations that voted with the United States and Israel on Thursday when the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a non-binding resolution denouncing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Trump didn’t set any timetable for moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and neither did Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales.
In a post on his official Facebook account Sunday, Morales said that after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he decided to instruct Guatemala’s foreign ministry to move the embassy.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki criticized the decision Monday, saying in a statement Morales was “dragging his country to the wrong side of history by committing a flagrant violation of international law.”
Peru’s president grants medical pardon for jailed Fujimori
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s president announced Sunday night that he granted a medical pardon to jailed former strongman Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses, corruption and the sanctioning of death squads.
President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski released a statement on Christmas Eve saying he decided to free Fujimori for “humanitarian reasons,” citing doctors who had determined the ex-leader suffers from incurable and degenerative problems.
The 79-year-old Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000, is a polarizing figure in Peru. Some Peruvians laud him for defeating the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement, while others loathe him for human rights violations carried out under his government and some human rights groups quickly criticized the pardon.
His daughter, Keiko Fujimori, narrowly lost Peru’s last presidential election to Kuczynski, and her party dominates congress. Her party mounted an attempt this month to oust Kuczynski over business ties to the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which is at the center of a huge Latin American corruption scandal, but the president survived the impeachment vote late Thursday.
From wire sources
Critics of Fujimori again raised speculation that Kuczynski agreed to pardon the former leader in return for some opposition lawmakers not supporting his impeachment.
