Greek parliament approves new creditor-demanded cutbacks

May 19, 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's government secured parliamentary approval late Thursday for a new batch of creditor-demanded measures that will impose further income losses on austerity-weary Greeks over the next three years but pave the way for a modest debt relief deal.

The legislation was backed by all 153 deputies in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-led coalition. All 128 opposition lawmakers present in the 300-member parliament stood against the measures in a vote just before midnight.

The vote was a key requirement for Greece's European creditors to release a new bailout installment, without which the country would struggle to meet its debt servicing obligations in July. But it will also accelerate negotiations on easing Greece's debt repayment terms, which Athens hopes could be concluded as early as next week at a meeting of European finance ministers.

"Now the ball is in our creditors' court," Tsipras said after the vote. "We expect, and are entitled to, a decision at Monday's meeting, that will adjust the Greek public debt in a way that matches the Greek people's sacrifices."

Earlier Thursday, about 15,000 people protested peacefully against the cutbacks in a second day of demonstrations outside parliament. The demonstrations were called by major trade unions, a day after a general strike disrupted services across the country.

Dozens of masked youths broke out of the crowd to throw gasoline bombs at police guarding approaches to the parliament building. They were repulsed with tear gas, and police said one man was arrested and two more detained on suspicion of taking part in the violence.

The cutbacks, worth some 4.9 billion euros ($5.45 billion), will be implemented through 2020 — a year beyond the mandate of Tsipras' government. The bulk of the measures involve a sharp reduction in the income tax-free threshold and further cuts in pensions.

On Thursday morning, hundreds of pensioners braving heavy rain marched to parliament to express their anger. "No more tax theft," they chanted. Pensions have been cut sharply over the past seven years as successive Greek governments have slashed spending in return for bailout money to avoid bankruptcy.

Tsipras, who is badly trailing the main opposition conservatives in opinion polls, defended the new austerity measures Thursday. He played up the prospect of alternative benefits and anti-poverty spending that his government has promised — provided, however, it meets ambitious budgetary targets for years to come.

"The counter-measures will provide relief to thousands," he said, adding that the entire package presented to parliament would open the way to a strong economic recovery and an end to Greece's supervision by its creditors.

Deputy Finance Minister George Houliarakis said the austerity measures are a "necessary compromise" between meeting creditors' demands and extending the uncertainty over the country's economic recovery.

"This is the only road map that guarantees ... the country's exit from the great Greek recession," Houliarakis told lawmakers. Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said he expects restrictions on bank cash withdrawals and capital flows imposed in 2015 can be lifted by the end of this year.

The government also hopes to gingerly return to tapping international money markets with a bond issue later this year, which would be the first since 2014. Tsipras initially came to power in 2015 promising to bring an end to the austerity that had been imposed during Greece's first two international bailouts. But his coalition government soon found itself facing a disastrous default as the country was unable to service its debt without external help.

The prime minister signed up for a third bailout later that year, but not before calling a referendum that led to a run on the banks, forcing the government to impose capital controls. The banking restrictions and limits on cash withdrawals remain.

Unions and the opposition compared the new reforms to those of a fourth bailout, but without the corresponding funding from international creditors. "Our country is being turned into an austerity colony," Kyriakos Mitsotakis, head of the conservative main opposition party, told parliament. "(The government) was seeking to get (bailout) funds without (austerity) measures, and instead got measures without the funds."

May's UK election gamble backfires as Tories lose majority

June 09, 2017

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May's gamble in calling an early election backfired spectacularly as her Conservative Party lost its majority in Parliament, throwing British politics into chaos.

UK media, citing sources they did not identify, reported early Friday that May has no intention of resigning despite calls for her to step down. The shock result could send Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union — due to start June 19 — into disarray. The pound lost more than 2 cents against the dollar.

With 636 of 650 seats in the House of Commons declared, the Conservatives had 310 to the Labour Party's 258. Even if the Conservatives won all the remaining seats, the party would fall short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. Before the election the Conservatives had 330 seats and Labour 229.

May called the snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain's hand in exit talks with the European Union with a "strong and stable government." Instead, the result means the Conservatives will need to rely on support from smaller parties to govern, with more instability and the chance of yet another early election.

"This is a very bad moment for the Conservative Party, and we need to take stock," Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry said. "And our leader needs to take stock as well." Left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was among those calling on May to resign, said Friday morning that people have had enough of austerity politics and cuts in public spending. He ruled out the potential for deals or pacts with other progressive parties in Parliament.

"The arguments the Conservative Party put forward in this election have lost, and we need to change." The results confounded those who said Corbyn was electorally toxic. Written off by many pollsters, Labour surged in the final weeks of the campaign. It drew strong support from young people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected numbers.

As she was resoundingly re-elected to her Maidenhead seat in southern England, May looked tense and did not spell out what she planned to do. "The country needs a period of stability, and whatever the results are the Conservative Party will ensure we fulfill our duty in ensuring that stability," she said.

Many predicted she would soon be gone. "Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government, then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative Party leader," former Conservative Treasury chief George Osborne said on ITV.

British media later reported Friday that May had no intention to resign. The result was bad news for the Scottish National Party, which lost about 20 of its 54 seats. Among the casualties was Alex Salmond, a former first minister of Scotland and one of the party's highest-profile lawmakers.

The losses complicate the SNP's plans to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence as Britain prepares to leave the EU. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the idea of a new independence referendum "is dead. That's what we have seen tonight."

May had hoped the election would focus on Brexit, but that never happened, as both the Conservatives and Labor said they would respect voters' wishes and go through with the divorce. Despite the surprise election result, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he doesn't believe voters have changed their minds about leaving.

But speaking Friday on Europe 1 radio, he said "the tone" of negotiations may be affected. "These are discussions that will be long and that will be complex. So let's not kid ourselves," he said. "I'm not sure that we should read, from the results of this vote, that Britons' sovereign decision on Brexit has been cast into doubt in any way."

EU budget commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the EU is prepared to stick to the timetable that calls for negotiations to start in mid-June, but said it would take a few hours at least to see how the results of the election play out in forming a government.

"Without a government, there's no negotiation," he said Friday morning by phone on Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio. May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the "dementia tax." As the polls suggested a tightening race, pollsters spoke less often of a landslide and raised the possibility that May's majority would be eroded.

Then, attacks that killed 30 people in Manchester and London twice brought the campaign to a halt, sent a wave of anxiety through Britain and forced May to defend the government's record on fighting terrorism. Corbyn accused the Conservatives of undermining Britain's security by cutting the number of police on the streets.

Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians and then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

Voters were left flustered by the fast-moving events. "It's a bit of a mess," Peter Morgan, 35, said in London. "I was kind of hoping it would just go the way that the polls suggested it would and we could have a quiet life in Westminster but now it's going to be a bit of a mess."

Steven Fielding, a professor of politics at the University of Nottingham, said Britain had seen an election "in which the personal authority of a party leader has disappeared in an unprecedented way."

"If she had got the majority she wanted, she would have been a supreme political colossus," he said. "She did not get that and she's a hugely diminished figure. She's a zombie prime minister."

Gregory Katz, Sophie Berman and Niko Price contributed to this story.

Cambodian vote in elections testing strongman's power

June 04, 2017

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodians voted in local elections Sunday that could shake longtime ruler Hun Sen's grip on power. Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeatedly warned of civil war if his Cambodian People's Party loses the majority in city and village councils to the main opposition party that made major gains in the last general elections four years ago and claimed it was cheated out of outright victory. The polls could have a major impact on Cambodia's political landscape ahead of 2018 national elections.

Hun Sen and his wife were among the early voters Sunday. His government has been accused of using violence against opponents, but in recent years has stalked its foes mostly in courts. After casting his vote, Kem Sokha, leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, said he expects to win more than 60 percent of the vote. In the last communal elections in 2012, Hun Sen's party received 60 percent compared to the CNRP's 30.6 percent.

On Friday, Hun Sen appealed to political parties to accept the outcome rather than make accusations of irregularities, saying courts can dissolve any party if it challenges the result of the vote. Hun Sen and some of his top ministers have frequently used strong rhetoric leading up to the vote, warning of dire consequences should the opposition win, in what has been seen as an attempt to intimidate voters into supporting him.

The ruling party could take some credit for bringing modest economic growth and stability in a country devastated by the communist Khmer Rouge's regime in the 1970s. Hun Sen left the movement that was responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease and executions before it was toppled in 1979.

This week, Amnesty International accused Cambodia's government of using its grip on the judiciary system to intimidate human rights defenders and political activists. It said in a report that since the 2013 general election, Hun Sen's government has used the courts as a tool to imprison at least 27 prominent opposition officials, human rights defenders and land activists, as well as hundreds of others facing legal cases.

Also early this month, the State Department said the U.S. was urging Cambodia's government to "guarantee a political space free from threats or intimidation" and respect freedom of expression for all its citizens.

S. Korea's new president willing to visit rival North

May 10, 2017

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — New South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday he was open to visiting rival North Korea under the right conditions to talk about Pyongyang's aggressive pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles.

Moon's softer stance on North Korea could create friction with Washington, which has swung from threats of military action to hints of dialogue as it seeks to formulate a policy under President Donald Trump.

Moon, speaking during his oath of office as the first liberal leader in a decade, also said he'll "sincerely negotiate" with the United States, Seoul's top ally, and China, South Korea's top trading partner, over the contentious deployment of an advanced U.S. missile-defense system in southern South Korea. The system has angered Beijing, which says its powerful radars allow Washington to spy on its own military operations.

In a speech at the National Assembly hours after being declared the winner of Tuesday's election, Moon pledged to work for peace on the Korean Peninsula amid growing worry over the North's expanding nuclear weapons and missiles program.

"I will quickly move to solve the crisis in national security. I am willing to go anywhere for the peace of the Korean Peninsula — if needed, I will fly immediately to Washington. I will go to Beijing and I will go to Tokyo. If the conditions shape up, I will go to Pyongyang," Moon said.

Moon, whose victory capped one of the most turbulent political stretches in the nation's recent history, assumed presidential duties early in the morning after the National Election Commission finished counting and declared him winner of the special election necessitated by the ousting of conservative Park Geun-hye.

He is also expected to nominate a prime minister, the country's No. 2 job that requires approval from lawmakers, and name his presidential chief of staff later Wednesday. Moon thanked the millions of people who staged peaceful protests for months calling for the ouster of Park, who was impeached and arrested in March over a corruption scandal. He also offered a message of unity to his political rivals — Moon's Democratic Party has only 120 out of 300 seats in the National Assembly, so he may need broader support while pushing his key policies.

"Politics were turbulent (in the past several months), but our people showed greatness," Moon said. "In face of the impeachment and arrest of an incumbent president, our people opened the path toward the future for the Republic of Korea," said Moon, referring to South Korea's formal name. To his rivals, Moon said, "We are partners who must lead a new Republic of Korea. We must put the days of fierce competition behind and hold hands marching forward."

Taking up his role as the new commander in chief, Moon began his duties earlier in the day by receiving a call from Army Gen. Lee Sun-jin, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed him on the military's preparedness against North Korea.

He then left his private residence in an emotional send-off from hundreds of people and visited a national cemetery in Seoul. After bowing to the former presidents, independence fighters and war heroes, Moon wrote in a visitor book: "A country worth being proud of; a strong and reliable president!"

He also visited the offices of opposition parties, seeking support in governing the country split along ideological lines and regional loyalties. The leaders of China and Japan sent their congratulations. South Korea's relations with Japan are strained by the Japanese military's sexual exploitation of South Korean women during World War II, and relations with China have been irritated over the deployment of the THAAD missile-defense system. Moon made a campaign vow to reconsider THAAD.

The son of refugees who fled North Korea during the war, Moon will lead a nation shaken by the scandal that felled Park, whose criminal trial is scheduled to start later this month. Taking office without the usual two-month transition, Moon initially will have to depend on Park's Cabinet ministers and aides, but he was expected to move quickly to replace them. He will serve the typical single five-year term.

Moon was chief of staff for the last liberal president, the late Roh Moo-hyun, who sought closer ties with North Korea by setting up large-scale aid shipments and working on now-stalled joint economic projects.

Winning 41 percent of the votes, he comfortably edged conservative Hong Joon-pyo and centrist Ahn Cheol-soo, who had 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively. The conservative Hong had pitched himself as a "strongman," described the election as a war between ideologies and questioned Moon's patriotism.

Park's trial on bribery, extortion and other corruption charges could send her to jail for life if she is convicted. Dozens of high-profile figures, including Park's longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, and Samsung's de-facto leader, Lee Jae-yong, have been indicted along with Park.

Moon frequently appeared at anti-Park rallies and the corruption scandal boosted his push to re-establish liberal rule. He called for reforms to reduce social inequalities, excessive presidential power and corrupt ties between politicians and business leaders. Many of those legacies dated to the dictatorship of Park's father, Park Chung-hee, whose 18-year rule was marked by both rapid economic rise and severe civil rights abuse.

Many analysts say Moon likely won't pursue drastic rapprochement policies because North Korea's nuclear program has progressed significantly since he was in the Roh government a decade ago. A big challenge will be Trump, who has proven himself unconventional in his approach to North Korea, swinging between intense pressure and threats and offers to talk.

"South Koreans are more concerned that Trump, rather than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will make a rash military move, because of his outrageous tweets, threats of force and unpredictability," Duyeon Kim, a visiting fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Associated Press writer Foster Klug contributed to this report.

Japan holds evacuation drill amid tension from N. Korea

June 04, 2017

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese town conducted an evacuation drill Sunday amid rising fear that a North Korean ballistic missile could hit Japanese soil. More than 280 residents and schoolchildren from Abu, a small town with a population of just over 3,400 on Japan's western coast, rushed to designated school buildings to seek shelter after sirens from loudspeakers warned them of a possible missile flight and debris falling on them.

The drill follows three consecutive weeks of North Korean missile tests. Last week, a missile splashed into the sea inside Japan's 200-mile exclusive economic zone off the country's western coast. It was the second such drill since March, when Tokyo instructed local governments to review their contingency plans and conduct evacuation exercises.

A similar drill was conducted Sunday in the neighboring prefecture of Fukuoka in southern Japan, and others are planned over the next few months.

This story has been corrected to show Abu town is on Japan's western coast.

Japan public split on idea to cite military in constitution

May 29, 2017

TOKYO (AP) — Poll results released Monday show that about half of Japan's population supports a constitutional revision that would clarify the legality of the country's military, a new approach Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is proposing as his party struggles to gain public support for a change.

Abe proposed recently that Japan in some way indicate the existence of the Self-Defense Forces, which is not spelled out in Article 9 of the constitution. The article renounces war and the use of force to settle international disputes.

He made the proposal this month in what was seen as a compromise, but opponents see it as a step to justify expanding Japan's military capabilities, which currently have to be kept to a minimum. In the Nikkei newspaper poll, 51 percent of 1,595 respondents supported including a reference to the Self-Defense Forces in Article 9. Thirty-six percent were opposed.

Recent polls by other major media outlets also showed mixed results. Japan decided it had the right under the 1947 constitution to have a military for self-defense, but some legal experts have questioned that, though fewer people do so now.

Abe and his party have maintained the constitutionality of the Self-Defense Forces, saying every nation has the right of self-defense as allowed under the United Nations charter. Citing his party's position, opponents have grown skeptical over Abe's latest proposal and intention of bringing up the Self-Defense Force legality issue.

Experts say Abe's proposal could lower a hurdle for public support and may be good enough for a symbolic first change to the constitution, which Abe said he wants enacted by 2020. Japan's 70-year-old constitution has never been revised.

Japan's ruling party has long advocated a more drastic revision, but the public generally supports the war-renouncing article. The party and its nationalistic supporters view the country's postwar constitution as the legacy of Japan's defeat in World War II and an imposition of the victor's world order and values weighing too much on individuals' rights.

The party-proposed revisions to the constitution released in 2012 called for upgrading the Self-Defense Forces to a full armed forces and establishing a military court.

Hong Kong shoebox, coffin homes a challenge for new leader

May 10, 2017

HONG KONG (AP) — Li Suet-wen's dream home would have a bedroom and living room where her two children could play and study. The reality is a one-room "shoebox" cubicle, one of five partitioned out of a small apartment in an aging walkup in a working class Hong Kong neighborhood.

Into the 120-square-foot room are crammed a bunk bed, small couch, fridge, washing machine and tiny table. On one side of the door is a combined toilet and shower stall, on the other a narrow counter with a hotplate and sink. Clothes drying overhead dim light from a bare fluorescent tube. It feels like a storage unit, not a home.

Li's 6-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter often ask, "Why do we always have to live in such small flats? Why can't we live in a bigger place?" Li said. "I say it's because mommy doesn't have any money," said Li, a single mom whose HK$4,500 ($580) a month in rent and utilities eats up almost half the HK$10,000 ($1,290) she earns at a bakery decorating cakes.

Housing costs are among this wealthy Asian financial center's biggest problems. Some 200,000 of Hong Kong's 7.3 million residents live in "subdivided units ." That's up 18 percent from four years ago and includes 35,500 children 15 and under, government figures show. The figure doesn't include many thousands more living in other "inadequate housing" such as rooftop shacks, metal cages resembling rabbit hutches and "coffin homes" made of stacked wooden bunks.

It's a universe away from the lifestyles enjoyed by the rich living in lavish mountaintop mansions and luxury penthouses, or even those with middle-class accommodation in this former British colony. Hong Kong regularly tops global property price surveys. Rents and home prices have steadily risen and are now at or near all-time highs.

The U.S.-based consultancy Demographia has ranked it the world's least affordable housing market for seven straight years, beating Sydney, Vancouver and 400 other cities. Median house prices are 19 times the median income.

Beijing-backed Carrie Lam, who was chosen in March to be Hong Kong's next chief executive, has vowed to tackle the housing crisis she is inheriting from her predecessor Leung Chun-ying. Lam says that after she takes office in July she will help middle-class families afford starter homes and expand the amount of land the government makes available for development.

"As everyone knows, for some time housing has been a troubling problem for Hong Kong," she said in her victory speech. "I have pledged to assist Hong Kongers to attain home ownership and improve their living conditions. To do so we need more usable land. The key is to reach a consensus on how to increase the supply."

Prices have soared despite multiple rounds of government cooling measures, as money floods in from mainland China. Widening inequality helped drive mass pro-democracy protests in 2014. Young people despair of ever owning homes of their own. They lack space even to have sex, one activist lawmaker said last fall, using a coarse Cantonese slang term that caused a stir.

"If we cannot solve the housing problem, there will be more social problems," said Sze Lai-shan, an organizer with social welfare group Society for Community Organization. "Social tensions will increase and people are (going to be) getting more annoyed with the government's policies."

Li says her children bicker nonstop. "They fight over this and fight over that. If there's a day off (from school), the two of them will argue," she said. "The bigger they get, the more crowded it gets. Sometimes there's not even any space to step," she said. "They don't even have space to do their homework."

Public housing is the best hope for most living on modest incomes. High-rise public housing estates house about 30 percent of Hong Kong's 7 million people. If homes bought with government subsidies are included, the number rises to nearly half.

Li applied two years ago, but with 282,300 people on the waiting list the average wait is 4.7 years. Wong Tat-ming, 63, has occupied an even smaller "coffin home" for four years. He pays HK$2,400 ($310) a month for a 3-foot by 6-foot (1-meter by 2-meter) compartment crammed with his meager possessions, including a sleeping bag, small color TV and electric fan.

His bunk sits beside grimy toilets and a single sink shared by two dozen residents, including a few single women. On a per square foot basis, "it's not cheap here either," Wong jokes. "Would you say it's more expensive than living in a mansion?"

Leg pain from sclerosis forced Wong to stop driving a taxi 10 years ago. He gets by on about $5,300 ($680) a month from welfare. Wong is skeptical Lam can help. "So she says she's going to take care of these problems, but that will take at least seven to eight years," he said.

Chan Geng-kau, who works here and there as a janitor, and his wife worry about being forced out of their hut in one of the city's "slums in the sky" atop a terrace of a Kowloon tenement bristling with TV antennas and crisscrossed by coverhead wires.

The government plans to demolish the illegal concrete and corrugated metal huts. "If they come to clear us out, my income isn't high, I don't earn very much and the apartments out there are very expensive so I can't afford it," said Chan, 58. With his unstable income, he's barely able to pay his HK$2,000 ($260) a month rent. "If I pay those rents, I can't afford to eat."