ReportWire

Tag: Qatar government

  • Trump says the US has secured $17 trillion in new investments. The real number is likely much less

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The economic boom promised by President Donald Trump centers on a single number: $17 trillion.

    That’s the sum of new investments that Trump claims to have generated with his tariffs, income tax cuts and aggressive salesmanship of CEOs, financiers, tech titans, prime ministers, presidents and other rulers. The $17 trillion is supposed to fund new factories, new technologies, more jobs, higher incomes and faster economic growth.

    “Under eight months of Trump, we’ve already secured commitments of $17 trillion coming in,” the president said in a speech last month. “There’s never been any country that’s done anything like that.”

    But based on statements from various companies, foreign countries and the White House’s own website, that figure appears to be exaggerated, highly speculative and far higher than the actual sum. The White House website lists total investments at $8.8 trillion, though that figure appears to be padded with some investment commitments made during Joe Biden’s presidency.

    The White House didn’t lay out the math after multiple requests as to how Trump calculated $17 trillion in investment commitments. But the issue goes beyond Trump’s hyperbolic talk to his belief that the brute force of tariffs and shaming of companies can deliver economic results, a strategy that could go sideways for him politically if the tough talk fails to translate into more jobs and higher incomes.

    Just 37% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a September poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That’s down from a peak of 56% in early 2020 during Trump’s first term — a memory he relied upon when courting voters in last year’s election.

    Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute of International Economics, said the public commitments announced by Trump do represent a “meaningful increase” — but one that amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars, not trillions. Even then, that comes with long-term costs as countries might be less inclined to invest with the U.S. after being threatened to do so.

    “It is a national security mistake because you’re turning allies into colonies of a sort — you’re forcibly extracting from them things that they don’t see as entirely in their interest,” Posen said. “Twisting the arms of governments to then twist the arms of their own businesses is not going to get you the payoff you want.”

    Trump banking on foreign countries making good on promises

    The Trump administration is betting that tariffs are an effective tool to prod other countries and international companies to invest in the United States, a big stick that other administrations failed to wield. Trump’s pitch to voters is that he will play a role in directly managing the investment commitments made by foreign countries — and that the allocation of that money starting next year will revive what has been a flagging job market.

    “The difference between hypothetical investments and ground being broken on new factories and facilities is good leadership and sound policy,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.

    The White House said that Japan will invest $1 trillion, largely at Trump’s direction. The European Union will commit $600 billion. The United Arab Emirates made commitments of $1.4 trillion over 10 years. Qatar pledged $1.2 trillion. Saudi Arabia intends to pony up $600 billion, India $500 billion and South Korea $450 billion, among others.

    The challenge is the precise terms of those investments have yet to be fully codified and released to the public, and some numbers are under dispute, potentially fuzzy math or, in the case of Qatar, more than five times the annual gross domestic product of the entire country. The White House maintains that Qatar is good for the money because it produces oil.

    South Korea already has misgivings about its investment commitment, which is $100 billion lower than what the White House claims, after immigration agents raided a Hyundai plant under construction in Georgia and arrested Korean citizens. There are also concerns that an investment that large without a better way to exchange currencies with the U.S. could hurt South Korea’s economy.

    “From what I’ve seen, these commitments are worth about as much as the paper they’re not written down on,” said Jared Bernstein, who was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Biden White House.

    As for the $600 billion committed by European companies, that’s based on those businesses having “expressed interest” and having stated “intentions” to do so through 2029 rather than an overt concession, according to European Union documents.

    Still too soon to see any investment impact in overall economy

    So far, there has yet to be a notable boost in business investment as a percentage of U.S. gross domestic product. As a share of the overall economy, business investment during the first six months of Trump’s presidency has been consistently bouncing around 14%, just as it was before the pandemic.

    But economists also note that Trump is double-counting and relying on investments that were initially announced during the Biden administration or investments that were already likely to occur because of the artificial intelligence build out.

    For example, the White House lists a $16 billion investment by computer chipmaker Global Foundries. But of that sum, more than $13 billion was announced during the Biden administration and supported by $1.6 billion in grants by the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, as well as other state and federal incentives.

    Similarly, the White House is banking on $200 billion being invested by the chipmaker Micron, but at least $120 billion of that was announced during the Biden era.

    ‘The tariffs played a big role’

    For their part, White House officials largely credit Trump’s tariffs — like those imposed on Oct. 1 on kitchen cabinets, large trucks and pharmaceutical drugs — for forcing companies to make investments in the U.S., saying that the risk of additional import taxes if countries and companies fail to deliver on their promises will ensure that the promised cash comes into the economy.

    On Tuesday, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla endorsed this approach after his pharmaceutical drug company received a three-year grace period on tariffs and announced $70 billion in investments in the U.S.

    “The president was absolutely right,” Bourla said. “Tariffs is the most powerful tool to motivate behaviors.”

    “The tariffs played a big role,” Trump added.

    Source link

  • Taliban ban women from working for domestic, foreign NGOs

    Taliban ban women from working for domestic, foreign NGOs

    KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban government in Afghanistan on Saturday ordered all foreign and domestic non-governmental groups to suspend employing women, the latest restrictive move by the country’s new rulers against women’s rights and freedoms.

    The order came in a letter from Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, which said that any NGO found not complying with the order will have their operating license revoked in Afghanistan.

    The contents of the letter were confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday by ministry spokesman, Abdul Rahman Habib.

    The ministry said it had received “serious complaints” about female staff working for NGOs not wearing the “correct” headscarf, or hijab. It was not immediately clear if the order applies to all women or only Afghan women at the NGOs.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

    KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban security forces used a water cannon to disperse women protesting the ban on university education for women on Saturday, eyewitnesses said, as the decision from the Taliban-led government continues to cause outrage and opposition in Afghanistan and beyond.

    The development came after Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Tuesday banned female students from attending universities effective immediately. Afghan women have since demonstrated in major cities against the ban, a rare sign of domestic protest since the Taliban seized power last year.

    According to eyewitnesses in the western city of Herat, about two dozen women on Saturday were heading to the provincial governor’s house to protest the ban, chanting: “Education is our right,” when they were pushed back by security forces firing the water cannon.

    Video shared with The Associated Press shows the women screaming and hiding in a side street to escape the water cannon. They then resume their protest, with chants of “Disgraceful!”

    One of the protest organizers, Maryam, said between 100 and 150 women took part in the protest, moving in small groups from different parts of the city toward a central meeting point. She did not give her last name for fear of reprisals.

    “There was security on every street, every square, armored vehicles and armed men,” she said. “When we started our protest, in Tariqi Park, the Taliban took branches from the trees and beat us. But we continued our protest. They increased their security presence. Around 11 a.m. they brought out the water cannon.”

    A spokesman for the provincial governor, Hamidullah Mutawakil, claimed there were only four-five protesters. “They had no agenda, they just came here to make a film,” he said, without mentioning the violence against the women or the use of the water cannon.

    There has been widespread international condemnation of the university ban, including from Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as warnings from the United States and the G-7 group of major industrial nations that the policy will have consequences for the Taliban.

    An official in the Taliban government, Minister of Higher Education Nida Mohammad Nadim, spoke about the ban for the first time on Thursday in an interview with the Afghan state television. He said the ban was necessary to prevent the mixing of genders in universities and because he believes some subjects being taught violated the principles of Islam.

    He said the ban would be in place until further notice.

    Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women and minorities, the Taliban have widely implemented their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, since they seized power in August 2021.

    They have banned girls from middle school and high school, barred women from most fields of employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms. At the same time Afghan society, while largely traditional, has increasingly embraced the education of girls and women over the past two decades.

    Also Saturday, in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, dozens of Afghan refugee students protested against the ban on female higher education in their homeland and demanded the immediate reopening of campuses for women.

    One of them, Bibi Haseena, read a poem depicting the grim situation for Afghan girls seeking an education. She said was unhappy about graduating outside her country when hundreds of thousands of her Afghan sisters were being deprived of an education.

    Source link

  • Taliban minister defends ban on women’s university studies

    Taliban minister defends ban on women’s university studies

    KABUL, Afghanistan — The minister of higher education in the Taliban government on Thursday defended his decision to ban women from universities — a decree that had triggered a global backlash.

    Discussing the matter for the first time in public, Nida Mohammad Nadim said the ban issued earlier this week was necessary to prevent the mixing of genders in universities and because he believes some subjects being taught violated the principles of Islam. He said the ban was in place until further notice.

    In an interview with Afghan television, Nadim pushed back against the widespread international condemnation, including from Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. Nadim said that foreigners should stop interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

    Earlier on Thursday, the foreign ministers of the G7 group of states urged the Taliban to rescind the ban, warning that “gender persecution may amount to a crime against humanity.” The ministers warned after a virtual meeting that “Taliban policies designed to erase women from public life will have consequences for how our countries engage with the Taliban.” The G7 group includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

    Nadim said universities would be closed to women for the time being, but that the ban could be reviewed at a later time.

    A former provincial governor, police chief and military commander, Nadim was appointed minister in October by the supreme Taliban leader and previously pledged to stamp out secular schooling. Nadim opposes female education, saying it is against Islamic and Afghan values.

    In Afghanistan, there has been some domestic opposition to the university ban, including statements of condemnation by several Afghan cricketers. Cricket is a hugely popular sport in Afghanistan, and players have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.

    Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women and minorities, the Taliban have widely implemented their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, since they seized power in August 2021.

    They have banned girls from middle school and high school, barred women from most fields of employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms. At the same time, Afghan society, while largely traditional, has increasingly embraced the education of girls and women over the past two decades.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday that the ban was “neither Islamic nor humane.”

    Speaking at a joint news conference with his Yemeni counterpart, Cavusoglu called on the Taliban to reverse their decision.

    “What harm is there in women’s education? What harm does it do to Afghanistan?” Cavusoglu said. “Is there an Islamic explanation? On the contrary, our religion, Islam, is not against education, on the contrary, it encourages education and science.”

    Saudi Arabia, which until 2019 enforced sweeping restrictions on women’s travel, employment and other crucial aspects of their daily lives, including driving, also urged the Taliban to change course.

    The Saudi foreign ministry expressed “astonishment and regret” at Afghan women being denied a university education. In a statement late Wednesday, the ministry said the decision was “astonishing in all Islamic countries.”

    Previously, Qatar, which has engaged with the Taliban authorities, also condemned the decision.

    In the capital of Kabul, about two dozen women marched in the streets Thursday, chanting in Dari for freedom and equality. “All or none. Don’t be afraid. We are together,” they chanted.

    In video obtained by The Associated Press, one woman said Taliban security forces used violence to disperse the group.

    “The girls were beaten and whipped,” she said. “They also brought military women with them, whipping the girls. We ran away, some girls were arrested. I don’t know what will happen.”

    Several Afghan cricketers called for the ban to be lifted.

    Player Rahmanullah Garbaz said in a tweet that every day of education wasted was a day wasted in the country’s future.

    Another cricketer, Rashid Khan, tweeted that women are the foundation of society. “A society that leaves its children in the hands of ignorant and illiterate women cannot expect its members to serve and work hard,” he wrote.

    Another show of support for female university students came at Nangarhar Medical University. Local media reported that male students walked out in solidarity and refused to sit for exams until women’s university access was reinstated.

    Girls have been banned from school beyond the sixth grade since the Taliban’s return.

    In northeastern Takhar province, teenage girls said the Taliban on Thursday forced them out of a private education training center and told them they no longer had the right to study. One student, 15-year-old Zuhal, said the girls were beaten.

    Another, 19-year-old Maryam, said while crying: “This training center was our hope. What can these girls do? They were full of hope and coming here to learn. It is really a pity. (The Taliban) have taken all our hopes. They closed schools, universities, and the training center, which was very small.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.

    Source link

  • Grant Wahl’s life celebrated at New York City gathering

    Grant Wahl’s life celebrated at New York City gathering

    NEW YORK — Grant Wahl was remembered for his peripatetic life as a sportswriter, pursuit of social justice and lasting impact on family, friends and people he mentored.

    Wahl died at age 49 from aortic aneurysm on Dec. 10 while covering a World Cup match in Qatar. A two-hour celebration of his life at The Times Center on Wednesday drew several hundred people, including colleagues and soccer officials.

    “Grant and I were really just kids when we met at Princeton,” said his wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, her voice cracking at times. “I was 18. He was 21. In many ways, we finished growing up together. … He hadn’t traveled the world, yet. In fact, he’d only been out of the country twice at that point, both times to Argentina. But as much as I made fun of his provincial palette back in those days, there was something worldly about him, this curiosity he had about the world.”

    Wahl grew up in the Kansas City suburb of Mission, received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 1996 and became a fact checker at Sports Illustrated. He was promoted to writer and covered college basketball and soccer before switching fulltime to soccer.

    “Grant really did write to Sports Illustrated in late elementary school to say: `My name is Grant Wahl and I want to write for your magazine,’” recalled his brother, Eric Wahl. “And he really did get a response that said something like: Dear Grant. Thanks for your letter. That’s cute. Keep writing.’ But the fact that he received a reply stuck with him.”

    Wahl’s rebuke of retiring Princeton basketball coach Pete Carril in the Daily Princetonian in 1996 was recalled as an early sign of Wahl’s moral backbone and his 2002 SI cover story on LeBron James as an example of his prescience. Later in his career, Wahl advocated LGBTQ rights and criticized FIFA and Qatar’s government for their treatment of migrant workers.

    Wahl stayed at SI until he was fired in 2021 during a time of the magazine’s retrenchment, then started his own website. Wahl also had a Planet Fútbol podcast.

    “Grant’s effort to be Anthony Bourdain of soccer without ever trying heroin,” said Joel H. Samuels, dean of the University of South Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences, host of the celebration, a friend from Princeton days and the officiant at Wahl’s wedding.

    “It was not easy to be Grant’s editor even then,” Samuels said of their Princeton days. ”Every word that Grant Wahl wrote was gold. And I know that’s true for all of you writers, but for Grant, he would push back on any word we wanted to edit, ever.”

    New Yorker editor David Remnick, who taught Wahl at Princeton, recorded a video tribute. Among the speakers were three of Wahl’s colleagues from Sports Illustrated: Alexander Wolff, L. Jon Westheim and Mark Mravic. The celebration included video of Wahl speaking and photos of many of his SI cover stories.

    Wolff recalled “the high pitch his voice took on when he recounted an absurdity committed by some blazer-wrapped buffoon of world soccer.”

    “In the past week, some have called our love epic. Was it an epic love story?” Gounder said. “I suppose it depends on what you mean. We had to overcome obstacles. I wasn’t a sports fan, which confused many of our friends when we first got together.”

    “Ït was hard at times sharing Grant with the rest of the world,” she added. ”Until this past week, I didn’t realize just how much he’s shared of himself with all of you.”

    ———

    More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/Soccer and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

    Source link

  • AP PHOTOS: Qatar bustles with life as World Cup nears end

    AP PHOTOS: Qatar bustles with life as World Cup nears end

    DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Qatar is still bustling with life just days before the end of the first World Cup in the Middle East.

    At Katara beach in Doha, children play soccer on the golden sand during the day, while others go for a swim at night in waters lit by the capital’s glimmering skyline.

    Men follow the call to prayer at a nearby Ottoman-style mosque. Members of the Qatar Armed Forces Band Regiment march in formation as boats with sails in the national colors of the four remaining World Cup teams hover in the harbor.

    Qatar expected some 1.2 million visitors for the tournament. Many fans have returned home, but for those who remain, there’s still plenty to do.

    The Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra has been playing on the Corniche, a 7-kilometer (more than four-mile) crescent walkway around Doha Bay that stretches from the pyramid-shaped Sheraton Hotel at the northern end to the Museum of Islamic Art at the south. In between are parks, restaurants and cultural attractions along the waterfront promenade.

    Those who venture to Doha’s labyrinthine Souq Waqif bazaar will find stores hawking spices and perfumes, scented oils, silk scarves and shimmering crystal chandeliers.

    ___

    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

    Source link

  • Europe hosts southeast Asian leaders as own crises mount

    Europe hosts southeast Asian leaders as own crises mount

    BRUSSELS — European Union and southeast Asian countries commemorated 45 years of diplomatic ties Wednesday at a summit overshadowed by political distractions in Europe, ranging from the war in Ukraine to a bribery scandal.

    EU leaders hosted counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in a nod to Asia’s economic rise. But the meeting comes at a time of increasing difficulties in the 27-nation European bloc.

    “We have to make sure that we have a strong position in our relationship with ASEAN,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters in Brussels. “We are talking about worldwide supply chains. We are talking about growth potential.”

    The EU is looking for trade and investment possibilities across much of the world, especially in emerging economies, after its economy was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic before the war in Ukraine compounded the problems and put the bloc at risk of a recession.

    Disrupted Russian energy supplies have affected financial markets and driven up inflation, driving up the consumer cost of everything from food to heating. Along with seeking out new sources abroad and at home, the EU is weighing devoting extra funds to help businesses in Europe cope with high energy prices and to counter an American subsidy spree.

    But the bloc’s struggle to impose a price cap on Russian natural gas and a European Parliament corruption case have distracted attention away from Wednesday’s one-day EU-ÁSEAN summit.

    French President Emmanuel Macron, who flew to Qatar to watch France’s semifinal match against Morocco in the World Cup on Wednesday evening, did not attend the event. On the side of the 10-nation ASEAN, Myanmar’s junta leader – Min Aung Hlaing – was absent because the EU refused to invite him.

    The other ASEAN members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The members, ,which together represent 660 million people, rank among the world’s top 10 economies.

    High on the agenda was a push for deeper infrastructure ties between the EU and ASEAN, with Europe seeking projects under its “Global Gateway” program that is something of a European answer to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative.”

    “In the global world that we are living in today, it is very important that we are connected to like-minded countries,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said.

    Both sides also focused on creating more clean energy to fight climate change and on deepening economic relations through greater trade. An EU push more than a decade ago for a free-trade agreement with ASEAN as a whole gave way to targeted deals with individual members.

    The EU has negotiated trade pacts with Singapore and Vietnam and is in talks with Indonesia on a similar accord. European free-trade negotiations with Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are on hold.

    Source link