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Opinion: Biden’s double standard on refugees

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Opinion: Biden’s double standard on refugees

It was, after all, Biden who created that refugee disaster along with his ill-considered and poorly executed resolution to drag out of Afghanistan unilaterally in August, leaving the nation to the tender mercies of the Taliban.

Biden has by no means visited any of the Afghan refugees that his decision-making helped to create.

But the Biden administration has much more duty to assist Afghan refugees than Ukrainians since for the previous twenty years greater than 250,000 Afghans are estimated to have labored immediately with the US navy or American officers based mostly in Afghanistan. All of them and their households are in danger for reprisals by the Taliban.

After all, the US ought to do as a lot as doable for the Ukrainians fleeing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s scorched-earth struggle, however there’s a unusual double customary in the case of the Biden administration’s strategy to America’s Afghan allies.

Think about that on Thursday the Biden administration introduced 100,000 visas for Ukrainian refugees. But the Affiliation of Wartime Allies, an advocacy group for Afghans who labored for the US, estimated that of 81,000 Particular Immigrant Visa candidates in Afghanistan when the Taliban seized Kabul, 78,000 had been left behind. In the meantime, the administration has admitted round 75,000 Afghan refugees for the reason that Taliban’s takeover who can keep at the least 18 months.
Following the chaotic scenes at Kabul airport because the US withdrew final summer time, in an interview with ABC Information, Biden appeared dismissive of the scenario in Afghanistan, saying, “The concept that one way or the other, there is a technique to have gotten out with out chaos ensuing — I do not know the way that occurs.”
4 months after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the Biden administration convened the Summit for Democracy of the world’s democracies, a membership that Afghanistan had as soon as been a part of. No extra.
The Biden administration additionally continuously trumpets its assist for girls’s rights. But final week the Taliban once more denied women older than 12 entry to Afghan colleges. Seven months after the Taliban seized energy, they proceed to ban women above the sixth grade from attending faculty. The Taliban’s Training Ministry mentioned it is as a result of they have not designed a Sharia-compliant uniform for the ladies as but. To make use of a Bidenism: “That is a bunch of malarkey.”

The Biden administration talks a superb sport about upholding democracy and girls’s rights, but it enabled the Taliban to take over Afghanistan. And now the Taliban have ended nearly each component of a liberal democracy that after existed there and have additionally severely curtailed ladies’s rights.

The inhabitants of Afghanistan and Ukraine is roughly the identical, round 40 million folks. Why abandon 40 million in a single nation and try to save 40 million within the different?

After all, it is nice the US is doing what it may to save lots of Ukraine, however the Biden administration’s abandonment of Afghanistan — a rustic that now will get scant media protection — stays fairly placing.

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‘America’s democracy stood’: Kamala Harris speaks after Congress certifies Trump win – video

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‘America’s democracy stood’: Kamala Harris speaks after Congress certifies Trump win – video

Kamala Harris said she was simply doing her constitutional duty in presiding over the certification of her presidential election defeat by Donald Trump on Monday. The certification was over quickly after no Democrats rose to object the results from any state – in contrast with four years ago when dozens of Republican lawmakers formally disputed Joe Biden’s victory in key swing states

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National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter: What It Means, and What’s Closed

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National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter: What It Means, and What’s Closed

A national day of mourning will be observed on Thursday for Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at 100 years old.

In a proclamation after Mr. Carter’s death, President Biden called him “a man of character, courage, and compassion.”

In announcing the day of mourning, he said: “I call on the American people to assemble on that day in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the memory of President James Earl Carter Jr. I invite the people of the world who share our grief to join us in this solemn observance.”

The day of mourning will be held on the same day as Mr. Carter’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral. President Biden will deliver a eulogy at the funeral, and a eulogy written by Gerald R. Ford, who died in 2006, will be read by his son Steven Ford.

American flags at the White House, public buildings, military bases, naval ships and U.S. embassies around the world have been ordered to be flown at half-staff to honor Mr. Carter for the 30 days following his death.

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On Dec. 30, President Biden ordered that “all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed on Jan. 9,” except those necessary for “national security, defense, or other public need.” Federal employees will still be paid for the day.

The Postal Service will suspend mail delivery and close post offices, but there will still be limited package delivery service, a spokesman said.

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will also be closed, as will the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts, along with the Library of Congress.

The most recent national day of mourning for a president came in December 2018, after the death of George H.W. Bush.

The history is long. The government shut down on June 1, 1865, for a day of “humiliation and mourning,” six weeks after Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed. Citizens were asked to assemble in “their respective places of worship” to remember the fallen president. Banks and insurance companies also closed, though the post office shut for only a half day.

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Presidents who died in office following Lincoln were also honored, including James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding and Franklin Roosevelt.

Lyndon Johnson’s first presidential proclamation announced a day of mourning for John F. Kennedy, three days after he was assassinated in 1963.

In more recent times, comparatively routine deaths of presidents after their terms in office have also been marked by a day of mourning, including for Dwight Eisenhower in 1969, Harry S. Truman in 1972; Lyndon Johnson in 1973 and Richard Nixon in 1994.

Ronald Reagan was honored in 2004 and Gerald Ford in 2007.

Not only presidents have been commemorated with a day of mourning. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were each honored after being assassinated in 1968.

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Dollar drops on reports Trump will scale back tariff plans

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Dollar drops on reports Trump will scale back tariff plans

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The dollar fell on Monday following reports that president-elect Donald Trump’s administration is considering watering down a campaign pledge to apply sweeping tariffs on imported goods.

The US dollar index, which tracks the currency against a basket of six peers, fell 1 per cent in morning trade after The Washington Post reported that potential tariffs may be confined to critical imports.

In November, Trump had promised blanket 10 or 20 per cent duties on all trading partners.

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Chris Turner, global head of markets at ING, said the reports had sparked a “relief rally” in the euro against the dollar, with hopes that the region’s automakers could be spared. The tariffs might also “be less inflationary than first expected”, he added.

Shares in European carmakers, which have been hit in recent months by fears they would be targeted by the Trump administration, rallied. The Stoxx Europe 600 Automobiles & Parts index climbed 3.7 per cent, with BMW up nearly 6 per cent.

The euro was up 1.1 per cent against the dollar at $1.042, on track for its best day in more than a year. The single currency had been pushed to a two-year low by trade war worries. The pound, which was the best-performing G10 currency against the dollar last year, rose 1 per cent to $1.254.

Monday’s reports were “triggering some relief among investors that the initial tariffs won’t be as bad as feared”, sparking a “sharp reversal of recent US dollar gains,” said Lee Hardman, senior currency analyst at MUFG. More focused tariffs would help “to dampen [their] disruptive impact,” he added.

US government bonds, which have sold off in recent months as investors girded for higher inflation driven by broad tariffs, regained a little ground. The yield on the two-year US government bond, which moves with rate expectations, was down 0.02 percentage points at 4.26 per cent, as the price of the debt rose.

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The dollar sell-off comes after a strong rally for the world’s de facto reserve currency that began in early October, as the market began to price in a greater prospect of a Trump election win. “The market had correctly anticipated a Trump victory,” said Jane Foley, senior FX strategist at Rabobank.

Analysts and economists expect Trump’s pro-growth, potentially inflationary policies, to limit the number of times that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next year, boosting demand for the dollar relative to other major currencies. This was compounded by investor bets that the negative growth impact for the Eurozone would prompt the European Central Bank to cut rates more aggressively.

In mid-December, the Fed published economic forecasts that suggest interest rates will fall in 2025 by less than previously hoped. Last week, a top Fed official warned about the threat of resurgent US inflation after Trump takes power.

Investors expect the US central bank to cut rates at least once this year, with a 70 per cent chance of a second quarter-point cut. That probability increased slightly on Monday.

Expectations of interest-rate cuts by the European Central Bank were slightly pared back, with just under four quarter-point cuts priced in this year.

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