STORY: French police deployed tear gas and water cannon to quell anti-pensions reform protests that broke out across the country. The government pushed through an unpopular bill which raises the retirement age by two years to 64 without a vote.
Thousands took to the street in Paris and clashed with police, with some seen throwing cobble stones at authorities and setting rubbish piles on fire.
KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s political career will likely survive his latest legal defeat in the Fed...
KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — After Federal Court ruled that disgraced former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will st...
KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — Malaysia has attracted RM170 billion of potential foreign direct investment (FDI) from China...
French President Emmanuel Macron will head to China next week for a rare visit to the rising superpower, in an awkward balancing act between his global statesman ambitions and his struggle to contain embarrassing pension protests at home. Macron will also need to keep in mind China's tactic of playing divide and rule, said a non-Western diplomat who suggested China may try to use the trip to place a wedge in the Western camp and lure France away from the United States.
‘Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system,’ Ms Pelosi says
STORY: The charges, arising from an investigation led by Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, came as Trump seeks the Republican nomination to run again in 2024. He indicated in a statement on Thursday (March 30) that he intended to remain in the race.'Finally, it shows that democracy is finally at a place where it is supposed to be, and knowing that people cannot just riot, violence is never, ever the response we need. Great job, America!' said Elizabeth Blaise, a New York City resident.'I come from a family of foreigners, so I definitely think he deserves a lot of the things that he's going down for," said Polov Joseph, a New York resident.'Totally wrong. That's all I have to say. Why is it totally wrong? That's my opinion. Why do you feel that way? It's a political witch hunt,' said an Oregon resident in Washington, D.C.'What's the difference between Clinton and Paula Jones and Trump and Stormy Daniels? Ah good question. Good question. He didn't get indicted. I know. I feel like there is some hypocrisy on both sides playing. So I don't know. That's, that's all I got,' said Alayna Daly, an Atlanta resident in Washington, D.C.'To me it's [the indictment] generally good news, but I'm not convinced that anything's going to come of it. He's probably not going to get arrested because he has enough money not to do that. And, you know, again, I, as much as I hate 'The Donald,' I think that we have bigger pressing political issues than him,' said Grace, a South Dakota graduate in Washington, D.C.'Yeah, it’s politics. I think they’re just dying to find a way to keep him from being eligible for running for reelection. I think they’re looking, if they can’t do that, then they’ll try to make him seem or try to make him appear as unpopular as possible. It seems like they’ve been after him since he won his first election,' said Mark Funk, a biomedical technician in Houston, Texas.'I feel relief. I don’t know how it’s going to end. Um, I’m not sure it’s going to end the way we want it to end, but they got Al Capone on tax evasion, so whatever it takes. I think it’s a dark part of our nation’s history and I do believe that illegal and criminal acts should be prosecuted regardless of whether or not you’re a sitting or former president,' said Lindsey Honari, a human resources consultant in Houston, Texas.
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Tim Parlatore tried to walk back comment about Joe Tacopina when pressed by Kaitlan Collins
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STORY: A growing police presence and a throng of TV news cameras surrounded a Manhattan courthouse on Friday, where ex-President Donald Trump was due to be fingerprinted and get a mug shot next week, as he becomes the first sitting or former commander-in-chief in American history to face criminal charges.A lawyer for Trump said the former president will plead not guilty to the charges related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels made just days before the 2016 presidential election.Another Trump attorney said he will not be handcuffed when he is expected to surrender on Tuesday, under the terms of a deal agreed to by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.Legal experts said any potential trial is still at least more than a year away, meaning it could occur during or after the presidential campaign.Such a high-profile case would make it hard to find a pool of jurors who are not just impartial but also willing to serve on what will likely be the most consequential political trial in American history, says former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. "Very difficult to find jurors who've never heard of Donald Trump, don't have an opinion about the man. Difficult to deal with protests and potential outrage and the safety of everyone involved, right? There have already been threats made against the prosecutor." Jurors are also expected to be open minded to the facts of a case, but polling shows Trump supporters and his opponents are not easily dissuaded from their views of the former president. That could play to Trump's advantage, says James Sample, who teaches law at Hofstra University. "His supporters, there's 30 percent of the population that believes that he can do no wrong, has done no wrong and can never do wrong. That 30 percent of the population, they may end up on the jury and that could be part of the way that the defense may have a strategy to find that one juror, trying to find those two jurors that might vote to acquit." But Sample also notes that a court of law is a different arena than the court of public opinion. "Spin won't matter, facts will matter, the law will matter and just as happened between election day in November of 2020 and the certification of the vote on January 6, 2021, in that in between period, every single time the president took his election denial efforts to court, in court where facts and law actually matter, he lost."Trump's expected appearance before a judge in New York as he seeks the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race could further divide the country.Trump said he was "completely innocent" and indicated he would not drop out of the race.
It should be noted that the actual charges against Donald Trump haven't been made public
Australia remains deeply concerned that Australian journalist Cheng Lei has not learned of a verdict a year after standing trial in China on national security charges, the foreign minister said Friday. Foreign Minister Penny Wong marked the first anniversary of the closed trial in Beijing with a statement saying her government had “advocated at every opportunity for Ms. Cheng to be reunited with her family.” “She is still waiting to learn the outcome of the trial,” Wong said.
The comments from an angered Jesse Watters come a week out from the former president speaking of "potential death and destruction"
Ex-president’s niece is one of many of his critics celebrating news of his indictment
When Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Zambia on Friday for the final stop of her weeklong trip across Africa, she touched down at an airport that’s doubled in size and features glittering new terminals. Beijing financed the project, one of many that has expanded its footprint on a booming continent that's rich in natural resources, often generating goodwill among its citizens. The global rivalry between the United States and China has been a recurring backdrop for Harris’ journey, and nowhere has that been more apparent than Zambia and her previous stop in Tanzania.
Europe’s biggest armed conflict since World War II is poised to enter a new phase in the coming weeks. With no suggestion of a negotiated end to the 13 months of fighting between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian defense minister said last week that a spring counteroffensive could begin as soon as April. Kyiv faces a key tactical question: How can the Ukrainian military dislodge Kremlin forces from land they are occupying?
Spain's prime minister said Friday he had urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to speak with his Ukrainian counterpart, as he visits China's capital for talks aimed at boosting ties between Beijing and Madrid.Speaking at a press conference at the Spanish embassy in Beijing, Pedro Sanchez said he had discussed "China's position" on Russia's war in Ukraine in meetings with Xi and other top Chinese officials.
The United States has sent officials to Taiwan to listen to concerns in the chip industry about the criteria for new U.S. semiconductor subsidies, Taiwan Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said on Friday. The criteria are worrying companies like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Thursday, a concern shared by the world's leading contract chipmaker in Taiwan, TSMC. Conditions include sharing excess profit with the U.S. government, and industry sources have said the application process itself could expose confidential corporate strategy.
Finnish politics could see a dramatic shift to the far right in elections on Sunday as an anti-immigration party aims to replace "rock star" Prime Minister Sanna Marin's Social Democrats.But the latest polls on Thursday put her centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) in third place, behind the anti-immigration and nationalist Finns Party and the centre-right National Coalition, which held on to a thin lead.
The historic indictment of Donald Trump is a seismic moment for the 2024 US presidential campaign, but it is impossible to predict whether the political earthquake will cause lasting damage or settle in his favor.In the Senate, Trump loyalist Ted Cruz, a former presidential rival, said on his podcast the prosecution "could be the single biggest in-kind gift to the Donald Trump campaign of this entire cycle."
