Daily Archives: April 3, 2017

SEOUL South Korean human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in won the liberal Democratic Party primary vote on Monday, setting him on course to become the next president and perhaps take a softer line on North Korea.

Moon has been leading in opinion polls ahead of the May 9 election to succeed impeached Park Geun-hye, who was dismissed last month over a corruption scandal involving family-run conglomerates, or chaebol.

If elected, Moon, 64, is expected to soften South Korea's policy toward North Korea, possibly delay deployment of a U.S. anti-missile defense system that has enraged China and get tough on corporate criminals, including chaebol bosses.

"I will do everything I have to do to look after the failing standard of people's living, revive the economy and resurrect national security that's been riddled with holes," Moon told an enthusiastic party crowd in his acceptance speech.

In a major policy statement in March, Moon said there was no choice but to recognize Kim Jong Un as the leader of reclusive North Korea and deal with him.

North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The North, heavily sanctioned for missile and nuclear tests in breach of UN Security Council resolutions, regularly threatens to destroy the South and its main ally, the United States.

"We cant deny that the ruler of the North Korean people is Kim Jong Un. We have no choice but to recognize Kim Jong Un as a counterpart, whether we put pressure and impose sanctions on North Korea or hold dialogue," Moon said.

Such an approach may clash with the United States where President Donald Trump has pressed China to do more to rein in the North, and said it may have to deal with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs on its own if needs be.

Moon has also vowed to end the practice of pardoning convicted corporate criminals and to break up the cozy relationship between big business and the government.

Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee is on trial on charges including bribery in return for favors to the conglomerate that has led to the arrest of ousted president Park.

Moon had the backing of 40 percent of the people in a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday, a double digit advantage over Ahn Cheol-soo of the new centrist People's Party.

The two face little in the way of a significant challenge from conservatives, who have 14 percent combined public support according to the Gallup Poll, or the far left.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Nick Macfie)

HONG KONG/BEIJING China is steadfastly opposed to the deployment of advanced U.S. anti-missile radars in South Korea because it does not know whether the defenses, intended for North Korean missiles, are capable of tracking and countering Beijing's own nuclear program, experts say.

UNITED NATIONS U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will chair a United Nations Security Council meeting on North Korea on April 28 to discuss how the body can combat Pyongyang's banned nuclear and missile programs, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Monday.

Link:

South Korean liberal wins party primary, poised to become president - Reuters

Monday's federal byelections are not expected to change the seat count in the House of Commons asall are being held in safe ridings for the Liberals and Conservatives.

But there are still things to watch for as voters cast ballots in five ridings across the country that willtestthe popularity of a midterm government and the impact of the ongoing Conservative and NDP leadership races.

The byelections are being held in OttawaVanierandMarkhamThornhillin Ontario, Calgary Midnapore, Calgary Heritage and in the riding of Saint-Laurent on the island of Montreal. They will fill the vacancies left by Mauril Blanger, John McCallum, Jason Kenney, Stephen Harper and Stphane Dion, respectively.

The two southern Calgary ridings have been Conservative strongholds since their creation the Liberals last won the area in 1968, when few people lived within the modern boundaries. The three other ridings have been safe Liberal seats for years.OttawaVanier, depending on how one defines the boundaries through history, has voted for the party in every election since 1887.

The margins in the 2015 federal election in these five seats were wide, ranging from McCallum's 23-point win in MarkhamThornhillto Kenney's 44-point victory in Calgary Midnapore.

There have been no polls published for any of the five byelections. Regional numbers from national polls provide little indicationthe incumbent parties are in any danger of losing their seats.

But national polls which might sample 10 or fewer people from a given riding can only say so much. However, fundraising data from 2016, the most recent available numbers from Elections Canada, also suggestthe incumbent parties are well-positioned to hold on to their seats.

Based on those donations to the national parties reported with postal code information (which largely includes only contributions of $200 or more), the Conservatives raised the most money in 2016 in both Calgary Heritage and Calgary Midnapore, while the Liberals were the fundraising kings in MarkhamThornhill, OttawaVanier and Saint-Laurent.

Data compiled by David McKie. (Natalie Holdway)

In all five of these ridings, the incumbent party raised at least 63 per cent of all contributions from at least 55 per cent of all contributors.

In Calgary Heritage, the Conservatives raised $140,800 compared to $48,700 for the Liberals, while in Calgary Midnapore the Conservatives took in $81,200 to $23,300 for the Liberals. The New Democrats raised just $5,350 in Calgary Heritage and $4,400 in Calgary Midnapore.

The Liberals raised $230,550 in OttawaVanier against $90,600 for the Tories and $19,900 for the NDP. In MarkhamThornhill, the Liberal edge was $52,400 to $28,600 for the Conservatives and just $2,400 for the NDP.

In Saint-Laurent, the Liberals took in $27,300, while the Conservatives raised $8,900, the Bloc Qubcois$3,200 and the NDP $1,100.

The prospects of an upset in these five seats are dim. If any of the seats change hands, the defeated party will have serious questions to askabout what went wrong.

But in the more likely scenario where the Liberals hold their three seats and the Conservatives retain their two, the results will nevertheless answer some lingering political questions and whether the parties show an increase or decrease in supportmay tell us something about where these parties are headed in the future.

The Liberals will be looking to see if the bruising nomination battles in MarkhamThornhill and St-Laurent, in which the party faced charges that it was interfering in favour of preferred candidates, will have any impact on their support.

The results in MarkhamThornhill may provide a clue as to the Liberals' support in the election-decidingGreater Toronto Area, while recent gains in Calgary will be tested in Kenney's and Harper's former ridings.

The New Democrats, who did no better than 19 per cent in any of these five ridings in 2015, will be looking to avoid their catastrophic results in last year's Medicine HatCardstonWarner byelection, in which the party took just one per cent of the vote in thesouthern Alberta riding and finished in fourth place behind the Christian Heritage Party.

Another poor showing could give the NDP's ongoing leadership race extra urgency particularly if the Liberals repeat the byelectiongains they made at the expense of the New Democrats in 2016.

The Conservative leadership race, meanwhile, is entering its final stages and the candidates' rhetoric has been heating up. The byelection results could provide some indication as to whether the extra attention is paying dividends, as well as providing some clarity to the disagreeing opinion polls that put the Conservatives either ahead of the Liberals or well back of their 2015 showing.

Answers will come after 9:30 p.m. ET on Monday, when the polls in the five ridings close and the vote counting begins.

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Midterm byelections to test Liberal government and leaderless opposition parties - CBC.ca

Liberal MP Nicola Di Iorio has apologized in the House of Commons for making what was described as "a suggestive and very inappropriate" comment during a committee meeting last month.

Di Iorio directed a stripper-related remark to British Columbia Conservative MP Dianne Watts.

The incident occurred on International Women's Day, March 8.

The Quebec Liberal says he is "profoundly sorry" for the comment.

He says he never meant to offend Watts.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to look into the matter.

Di Iorio and Watts were at a closed meeting on the public safety committee when he heard a colourful ring tone on her cellphone and asked: "Where's your pole to slide down on?"

Watts said in a statement afterwards that the remark "left me, staff, and other members of Parliament feeling very uncomfortable."

On Monday, Di Iorio rose in the Commons to apologize.

"Today in this House I wish to reassure the member, once again, that none of my words sought to embarrass or offend her." he said.

"Despite this, before all my colleagues here in the House of Commons I wish to reiterate my most sincere apology."

Watts thanked Di Iorio.

"I know that there have been times in all of our lives where we have done things we wish we hadn't, where we've said things that we wish we didn't and there have been times when we wished we could take back the words or the actions that have caused pain or hurt in others," she said.

"Moments like these are moments of opportunity, moments of teaching and moments of learning and if we can all learn lessons then we are well served."

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Liberal apologizes in Commons for sexist remark at committee - CTV News

Malcolm Turnbull told the Victorian Liberal partys state council meeting he rejected the populism of Bill Shorten. Photograph: Joe Castro/AAP

The Liberal party must govern from the sensible centre and reject populist or reactionary politics, Malcolm Turnbull has said.

In comments to the partys Victorian state council meeting in Melbourne on Saturday, Turnbull invoked Australias longest-serving prime minister, Robert Menzies, as the model for centrist Liberal governments.

The comments give comfort to moderate Liberal MPs and send a message that the party cannot be ruled only by the conservative wing.

However, it is unclear the extent to which Turnbull believes the party already occupies the sensible centre or if the speech is designed to mark a new course for his government, which inherited its positions on marriage equality and climate change from his conservative predecessor, Tony Abbott.

[Menzies] knew that the future was in the sensible centre of Australian politics not reactionary, but Liberal, proudly Liberal, Turnbull said.

But above all you build from the centre, bringing people together and that is our commitment.

In further comments from the speech reported by the Sunday Telegraph, Turnbull is said to have urged the party to reject populism and the authoritarianism of both [the] left and right.

We reject the populism of Bill Shorten just as Menzies rejected populism in his era.

Labor argues that Turnbulls government is controlled by the conservative wing, as Turnbull has ruled out an emissions intensity scheme, a market mechanism to fight climate change, and has backed a national plebiscite to legalise equal marriage rather than hold a free vote, despite the Senate blocking the plebiscite plan.

This week the Turnbull attempted unsuccessfully to amend laws prohibiting racially discriminatory speech by replacing the prohibitions on offending, insulting or humiliating speech with a ban on speech that harasses people based on race.

Labor argues the reform puts the government out of step with mainstream multicultural Australia, and even the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has said that the pursuit reforming section 18C should not be a priority for the government.

On Sunday Liberal MP Tim Wilson spoke approvingly of Turnbulls speech, which he said gave a clear Liberal vision for the 21st century: that we are defined by our values, but govern through the mainstream, sensible centre.

The prime minister has clearly rejected reactionary politics that leaves us to merely slow the harmful Labor/Greens vision for Australia, he told Guardian Australia.

Our enduring commitment to freedom comes from our trust in Australians, families and communities over Canberra.

In comments to Guardian Australia in December Liberal senator, Dean Smith, a marriage equality advocate, has argued can reflect Australians conservative instincts without being reactionary, because Australians can embrace change on their own terms and in their own time when the case for change is made.

Anyone that says to me, or advocates, that they want time to stand still or to go back into time I treat with great caution, he said.

The rest is here:

Liberal party must be sensible centrists not 'reactionary', Malcolm ... - The Guardian