Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said Friday he is not quitting despite facing mounting criticism for failing to properly take his oath of office.

Prayuth led the inauguration of his Cabinet in a ceremony presided over by the king on July 16.

However, he omitted a phrase in the oath of office in which he was supposed to pledge to uphold every aspect of the constitution. The omission has raised questions over whether the inauguration was legally valid.

Prayuth told reporters Friday that he was continuing to conduct his duties “to the best of my abilities because I am the prime minister.”

The oath of office is required under Article 161 of Thailand’s Constitution, which includes the complete oath and states it must be said to the king before Cabinet ministers take office.

Prayuth’s failure to recite the oath in full, which also led to other ministers making the same error because they repeated what he said, was pointed out by opposition politician Piyabutr Saengkanokkul during a Parliament session on July 25.

Legal activist Srisuwan Janya filed a complaint over the issue to the Office of the Ombudsman on Monday which has been accepted for consideration.

Prayuth led a military junta that seized power in 2014 and was dissolved with the inauguration of the new Cabinet. The junta had ruled with a heavy fist and regularly cracked down on its critics. It also introduced new election laws to favor Prayuth’s return as prime minister.

Mongkolkit Suksintaranont, a leader of a political party that was part of Prayuth’s coalition, said on Thursday that he and four other parties which hold single seats in the House of Representatives were leaving the coalition.

“I did not think that being part of the government coalition would mean that we would have such little freedom,” Mongkolkit said, adding that he had been told to refrain from criticizing the government in Parliament sessions.

When asked how he would handle the issue of the Cabinet’s incomplete oath of office, Mongkolkit said, “If I was prime minister, I would have resigned already.”

…

The World Food Program’s partial aid suspension in Yemen has increased concerns for families.

Mohammed Qaid worries for his four-day-old boy Nazeh.  Qaid has seven other children, and little hope that he can feed his family.  But this family is not the only household feeling the pinch of the recent reduction in food aid delivered to Sana’a.  

Qaid is among the thousands of residents in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, a Houthi stronghold, who is dependent on international humanitarian aid in the midst of the conflict.  The war has ravaged Qaid’s life, and his family now survives on scraps. “We’re now sort of dependent on restaurants’ leftover rice,” he told VOA.  “We pay dishwashers $0.80 for collecting leftover rice.”
 
Destitute and hungry, families have resorted to sending their children out to collect leftover rice granules.  Qaid tells VOA his young sons were crying the morning of the interview because he could not afford to pay the cost of two eggs, opting instead for tea. 

Normally, Qaid’s family would have received a monthly basket from the World Food Program consisting of 75 kilograms of wheat, two bottles of cooking oil, sugar, and lentils.  That stopped when WFP shipments were held up due to a standoff between the agency and the Houthi authorities.  Both sides had disagreed over who would be responsible for monitoring the food routing system.  U.N. officials now say they have the Houthi’s agreement to implement a biometric registration system to prevent diversion of food aid.  

The WFP says partial food aid to 850,000 people in Sana’a will resume next week, but the relief is not coming soon enough for many struggling to survive as the war heads into its sixth year.  

The conflict began in 2014 when the internationally-recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was run out of the capital, Sana’a, by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.  Prompted by rife political corruption and mounting civil unrest, the rebels took the capital and have been fighting against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which seeks to restore the previous government.   

As the war rages, 13 million Yemeni civilians on the ground face starvation.  U.N. officials say Yemen is suffering the world’s current largest humanitarian crisis and one of the largest man-induced famines in history. 

Critics identify two main culprits.  The first are the Houthi rebels, who have been accused of unlawfully confiscating food and reselling aid to fund the war.  The second is Saudi Arabia, whose campaign of air strikes and bombings of civilians has been labelled by the international rights group Human Rights Watch as illegal.  These attacks have not only made it difficult for Yemen to produce food, but also hampered efforts to get food aid to the people who need it most.   

Aid workers say grain often rots as supply routes are regularly attacked.  Saudi air strikes have not only targeted mosques, schools, stores and homes, but farms, grain storage units, seaports, and food factories. 

The food shipments that do make it through are often not getting to where they are most needed.  Speaking at the U.N. Security Council last year, WFP director David Beasley said there is “serious evidence that food was being diverted and going to the wrong people.”   As many as 60% of residents of the capital, he said, were not receiving food. 

 
WFP officials say using a biometric registration system that includes iris scanning, facial recognition, and fingerprints will help identify those who need aid the most and combat corruption in distribution.

Critics at the United Nations, WHO, and even within the United States, point to the U.S. role, which they say is propelling the conflict by selling billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. 

Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia had agreed to spend $110 billion in “leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.”   While the arms deal mostly consists of letters of intent and is a far smaller number than the detailed $110 billion, the kingdom’s anti-terrorism campaign, along with its efforts to contain Iranian influence, are in line with Washington’s wider strategic interests in the region.  Houthis oppose this arms deal because they view Saudi Arabia as pandering to western influence and not supporting pan-Arab culture.   

While some claim the U.S. bears indirect responsibility for Yemen’s food shortages, others point, paradoxically, to America’s role in saving millions of Yemenis from starvation.  The United States donates approximately $2.5 billion annually–more than Britain, and Germany and other EU members combined. 

…

South Korea has threatened to end a military intelligence sharing agreement with Japan as their tensions escalate over export controls. The agreement is a symbol of the countries’ trilateral security cooperation with their ally, the United States.

Tensions erupted after Japan tightened export controls on key materials for South Korea’s semiconductor industry and decided to downgrade South Korea’s trade status. Seoul accuses Tokyo of weaponizing trade to retaliate over political rows stemming from their wartime history. Seoul is seen trying to pressure Washington into mediating the dispute between its allies.

Japan says it wants to keep the agreement, whose renewal deadline is coming up on Aug. 24. A look at the military agreement between Seoul and Tokyo tested by a toxic relationship:

The agreement

The General Security of Military Information Agreement, or GSOMIA, went into effect in November 2016 as the two neighbors agreed to step up cooperation in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat.  

It is automatically extended annually unless either side notifies the other of its intention to terminate in a 90-day prior notice. The deadline falls on Aug. 24.

The agreement took years of discussion and a near-collapse. Any military cooperation with Japan is difficult due to strong resentment against Japanese brutality during its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea and Japan can still share intelligence through the 2014 three-way intelligence pact via Washington, but that one is limited to North Korea’s nuclear and missile program. GSOMIA allows Seoul and Tokyo to share a broader range of information directly and more quickly.

South Korean military officials say information gathered by Japan’s intelligence satellites, radars, patrol aircraft and other high-tech systems were crucial for analyzing North Korea’s missile tests and activities of its submarines, which could soon be equipped with missile-launch systems. Japan also benefits from South Korean military radars positioned to detect North Korean launches sooner and Seoul’s information gathered from spies and defectors from North Korea.

In 2012, Japan and South Korea backed off from an intelligence-sharing pact less than an hour before a planned signing after Seoul succumbed to political outcry at home.

The row

Tokyo says it wants to keep the agreement despite difficult relations with Seoul.

South Korea says Japan’s trade curbs have forced it to review whether it could continue to send sensitive military information to a country that questions its reliability as a security partner.  

Japan said tighter export controls are needed as South Korea’s trade controls are weak, but they earlier linked the export controls to South Korea court rulings ordering Japanese companies to compensate victims of wartime forced labor. Some lawmakers also suggested South Korea may have allowed sensitive materials to reach North Korea. That enraged many in South Korea, triggering boycotts and protest marches, and lawmakers demanded their government to end the intelligence-sharing agreement. Recent surveys indicate more South Koreans were in support of scrapping the agreement.

Japan’s Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya told reporters on Wednesday that he and visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper agreed on South Korea’s importance in dealing with North Korea.

Esper later traveled to South Korea and met President Moon Jae-in on Friday, and they agreed that the issue over the intelligence-sharing agreement should be “resolved in a good manner,” according to Moon’s office, which didn’t elaborate. It has said Seoul will make a “comprehensive judgment based on national interest” before the Aug. 24 deadline.

Even if South Korea keeps the agreement, threatening to end it might have been a mistake as it would affect long-term trust, said Du Hyeogn Cha, a visiting scholar at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

“Instead of making a strong request for U.S. mediation based on goodwill, (Seoul) is attempting to hold the United States hostage, saying `things can become frustrating for you too’,” said Cha, an ex-intelligence secretary to former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.  

The risk

A senior Japanese official close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said Japan could probably live without the agreement because it has been utilized less than expected and that Tokyo can get information from Washington.  

The pact doesn’t obligate Seoul and Tokyo to share information and exchanges apparently slowed as relations deteriorated amid nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.  

There have been 48 exchanges of military intelligence over the three years since the agreement took effect, with each side contributing information 24 times, South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-kyung said, citing data he obtained from Seoul’s Defense Ministry. Ha said 19 of Japan’s cases came in 2017, during a provocative run in North Korean weapons tests.

Japan says they communicated some 30 times over the past three years, including only once in 2018 when North Korea’s missile threat subsided.

Some analysts say a scraped deal would threaten to erase a decade of U.S. effort to link its separate alliances with South Korea and Japan to deal with North Korea and China’s growing influence.

“The South Korea-U.S. alliance will run into trouble,” said Moon Seong Mook, a former South Korean military official and current analyst for Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. “A link for security cooperation between Seoul, Washington and Tokyo will be broken.”

Scrapping of intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo could make it harder for each of the two neighbors to respond to actions from China and Russia, including their joint bomber patrol over waters between South Korea and Japan last month, which experts say was likely designed to test security cooperation between the U.S. allies.

Japanese experts, however, see emboldened South Korea as signaling its shift away from the U.S.-led trilateral cooperation as the U.S. presence in the region wanes.

“South Korea under the Moon administration appears to be not as enthusiastic about the trilateral cooperation with Japan and the U.S. as South Korea used to be in the past,” Junya Nishino, a Korea expert at Keio University, recently said on a TV talk show. “President Moon thinks the current framework is a legacy of the Cold War era and should be changed.”

…

The British economy shrank in the second quarter for the first time since 2012 as Brexit uncertainties weighed on business investment and firms reduced their stockpiling after Britain’s departure from the European Union was postponed, official figures showed Friday.

The decline is set to raise alarm that Brexit uncertainty is increasingly weighing on the economy. Most economists expected the economy to flat-line. The quarterly drop lowered the annual rate of growth to 1.2% from 1.8% in the first quarter.

The Office for National Statistics noted there was “increased volatility around the U.K.’s original planned exit date from the European Union in late March.”

Brexit was meant to happen on March 29, but was delayed to the end of October after Parliament rejected the withdrawal agreement that the previous prime minister, Theresa May, had negotiated with the EU.

Before the extension request, many firms ratcheted up their inventories to help cushion the likely disruption from Britain crashing out of the EU on March 29 without a deal. That business activity helped the economy grow by 0.5% in the first quarter.

Since then, companies have stopped stockpiling as much. Many car companies also brought forward their annual maintenance shutdowns to April from later in the year to cushion the potential blow from Britain leaving the EU without a deal on March 29.

It was largely the combination of these Brexit-related developments that contributed to a sharp 1.4% quarterly decline in the output of production industries.

The fact that the overall economy performed worse than anticipated is likely to increase concern about Brexit’s corrosive effect on the economy. Business investment, which has been historically weak since the country voted in June 2016 to leave the EU, weakened further in the second quarter, contracting by 0.5%.

“Brexit uncertainty, and to a lesser extent, weaker global demand, has reduced firms’ appetites to expand,” said James Smith, an economist at ING bank. “Meanwhile, contingency planning activities for a no-deal Brexit are costly and often resource-intensive, reducing scope to lift capital spending. We expect this trend to continue for the rest of the year.”

May’s replacement as prime minister, Boris Johnson, has insisted there will be no further delay to the Brexit date and that Britain will leave the EU on Halloween come what may. That’s stoked fears that Britain will leave the EU without a deal, a development that would see tariffs and other restrictions imposed on traded goods. Most economists think that would lead to a recession; even Brexit’s most passionate supporters say it would be disruptive at least in the short-term. The pound has fallen to 2-1/2 year lows against the dollar and was down 0.3% on Friday, at $1.2093

Sajid Javid, Britain’s new Treasury chief, conceded that this is a “challenging” period for the British economy but insisted that the fundamentals remain “strong.”

“The government is determined to provide certainty to people and businesses on Brexit — that’s why we are clear that the U.K. is leaving the EU on 31 October,” he said.

The British economy is not expected to fall into recession — commonly identified as two quarters of economic contraction — in the third quarter partly because the car manufacturers will be operating in August, having brought forward their maintenance period earlier in the year. Also Friday’s figures showed that British consumers remains upbeat as unemployment is at 44-year lows and wages are rising solidly and outpacing inflation.

However, Brexit uncertainty looks like it will get more acute in September, when Parliament returns from its summer recess and the political debate and maneuvering around a no-deal Brexit intensifies.

Add in worries over the global economy as a result of the trade conflict between the United States and China, and the economic headwinds are mounting. The Bank of England warned last week that there’s a one-in-three chance that Britain will slip into recession in the early part of 2020 even if a Brexit ends up being smooth.

…

The chief facilitator of negotiations between Venezuela’s socialist administration and opposition has downplayed the decision by President Nicolas Maduro to skip a scheduled round of talks.

Dag Nylander of Norway’s Foreign Affairs Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday he’s in contact with both sides about finding a date for talks to resume.

Maduro on Wednesday night said he had decided not to send envoys to the Caribbean island of Barbados, where talks were to resume Thursday. That was to protest the Trump administration’s decision to freeze the Venezuelan government’s assets in the U.S. and threaten to retaliate against foreign companies that continue to do business with his government.

Maduro’s government also said it would review the mechanism of the talks to ensure it contributes to an efficient solution to the problems Venezuelans face.

“Norway is facilitating the negotiation process at the request of the principal political actors in Venezuela and schedules all meetings based on the availability of the parties. Accordingly we are in touch with them regarding the next meetings,” said Nylander, the head of the peace and reconciliation office at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

He added:  “The facilitation continues under the principle that the parties would like it to, and that there are realistic prospects of a negotiated solution that can benefit the Venezuelan people.”

In announcing the sweeping move, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the dialogue between the government and opposition was being used by Maduro to buy time.

“We will not fall for these old tricks of a tired dictator,” Bolton declared Tuesday at a meeting in Peru of more than 50 governments aligned against Maduro. “No more time for tap, tap, tapping. Now is the time for action.”

But some believe Bolton’s admonishments might end of strengthening the negotiations, which have been taking place since May.

The United Nations reiterated Thursday U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “strong support” for Norway’s mediation effort.

“Our position is unchanged — that only a settlement through negotiations will solve this ongoing situation,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric.  

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s top human rights official criticized the U.S.’ response as overhanded and bound to intensify suffering in a country already racked by six-digit hyperinflation, food shortages and an economic recession worse than the U.S. Great Depression.

Michelle Bachelet, who sharply criticized Maduro’s human rights record following a visit to the country in June, said that provision in the new sanctions allowing for the shipment of food and medicine are unlikely to suffice.

“They are still likely to significantly exacerbate the crisis for millions of ordinary Venezuelans, especially as there will certainly be over-compliance by financial institutions around the world that have commercial relations with the governments of the US and Venezuela,” she said.

…

Lebanon’s only English-language daily protested the country’s deteriorating economic and political conditions by publishing a blank edition Thursday, calling it an “alarm bell.” 
 
Each page of The Daily Star’s Thursday edition bore a single phrase referring to one of the country’s problems, including government deadlock, rising public debt, increasing sectarian rhetoric and unemployment. The back page had a photo of a cedar tree, a national symbol, with a caption reading: “Wake up before it’s too late!”

“We are sounding the alarm bell over the many challenges the country is facing,” the paper’s editor-in-chief Nadim Ladki told The Associated Press. “It’s a call on everyone — politicians, activists, ordinary people — to pull together in the same direction to resolve the crises and challenges.”

Lebanon has been in the grip of an economic crisis for months, and the government has not met since a June 30 shooting in a mountain village that escalated tensions between the Christian and Druze communities.

Rival groups in the Cabinet have been divided on how to proceed with the investigation of the shooting, which left two people dead.

The U.S. Embassy issued a statement Wednesday saying it supports a fair and transparent investigation into the shooting in the village of Qabr Shamoun.  
 
“Any attempt to use the tragic June 30 event in Qabr Shamoun to advance political objectives should be rejected,” the embassy said in an apparent reference to the militant Hezbollah group and its allies, who are seen as pressuring Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

Hezbollah on Thursday blasted the U.S. Embassy statement, calling it “a blatant and gross intervention in Lebanese internal affairs” and adding that it aims to “deepen divisions” within Lebanon. The group called the crisis a “local political issue” that the Lebanese judiciary is dealing with.

Lebanon’s government is the product of a power-sharing agreement that ended the devastating 1975-1990 civil war and which divides powers among various religious sects. The political scene is split between a pro-Western coalition, which includes Jumblatt and his followers, and a bloc dominated by Hezbollah that is aligned with Syria and Iran.

The political infighting has made it impossible to maintain the country’s crumbling infrastructure or provide adequate public services. The national debt is hovering around $85 billion, or 150 percent of gross domestic product.

…

U.N. agencies have welcomed Colombia’s decision to grant citizenship to children born in the country to Venezuelan parents who were forced to flee their homeland to escape the political repression and economic hardship of President Nicolas Maduro’s government. 

The U.N. refugee agency, International Organization for Migration and U.N. children’s fund have hailed Colombia’s action as a major step in combating statelessness. The measure, which was announced by the Colombian government earlier this week, will confer citizenship upon 24,000 children born in Colombia to Venezuelan parents since August 2016.

Without this decision, the agencies note, these children would have great difficulty acquiring Colombian citizenship as many families are unable to obtain the necessary documentation. Also, they note registering the child at the Venezuelan consulate in Colombia is not possible as services are unavailable.

Measure good for two years

The UNHCR reports this exceptional and temporary administrative measure will be valid for two years. During this time, the Colombian authorities will provide documentary proof of Colombian nationality of children born to Venezuelan parents.

UNHCR spokesman Charlie Yaxley says the measure will guarantee and protect the birth rights of these children and provide them with a viable future.

“Stateless people can face a lifetime of exclusion and discrimination, often denied access to education, health care, and job opportunities,” Yaxley said. “Colombia’s decision is hugely positive for these children and their families. Worldwide, statelessness affects millions of people, leaving them without the basic rights and official recognition that most of us take for granted.”

The UNHCR says some 3.9 million stateless people are reported in 78 countries, although it believes the true number is much higher.

Millions have left Venezuela

The agency reports more than 4 million Venezuelans have left their country, making this one of the biggest displacement crises in the world. Colombia is hosting 1.4 million of them.

The three U.N. agencies are pooling their resources to financially support the Colombian government’s implementation of the new measure. They are encouraging other countries in the region to follow Colombia’s example by taking measures that guarantee the rights and protection of migrant children and their families.

…

Most people in Guatemalan farming towns like San Martin Jilotepeque have a relative or two living in the United States, giving them sympathy for the plight of migrants. But they now find themselves fearing an influx of Salvadoran or Honduran migrants after their government signed a “third safe country” agreement with Washington.

Such migration fears, poverty and corruption provide the backdrop to Guatemala’s presidential runoff vote Sunday, which is generating little enthusiasm among a population embittered after witnessing a succession of presidents accused of graft and other crimes, and the expulsion of a U.N. commission that was fighting the impunity.

“I no longer believe them,” grumbled Efrain Morales, 49, as he listened to final campaign pitches from the two candidates: former first lady Sandra Torres and Alejandro Giammattei, the top vote-getters in the first round election June 16.

Recent polls show the conservative Giammattei with a modest lead in a race between two unpopular candidates. Giammattei received only 14 percent support while the center-left Torres received about 26 percent in a first round of voting with 19 candidates. Election authorities had barred some of the more popular candidates from running.

“In my town people are migrating. The young people are leaving at 15, 16 years old. Even if you try here, it’s impossible, there’s no work,” said Morales, an illiterate farmer, describing a situation in which there is so little hope in poor and isolated towns that the only logical decision is to migrate.

What is unique about this election is that migration to Guatemala itself has also become an issue. President Jimmy Morales on July 6 signed a pact with the U.S. that would require migrants, who are largely Salvadorans and Hondurans, to request asylum in Guatemala if they cross through the country — as they must if travelling land routes — before reaching the U.S. border.

While the government suggests the asylum seekers could find temporary agricultural work in Guatemala, it is hard to see why they would want such low-paid jobs.

But still the fear of other migrants persists.

Hector Hernandez, the mayor of San Martin Jilotepeque, recently spoke to the residents of the township’s dozen or so hamlets over a loudspeaker, telling them not to rent rooms to foreigners.

“I don’t want any of you letting unknown people in, renting them rooms or houses, renting is forbidden,” Hernandez said. “They want to come here to live, there are a lot of Salvadorans and Nicaraguans; they are all over the place.”

Hernandez argued the foreigners don’t come to escape poverty, but rather to rob and extort money. Then he made a dark reference to the area’s history of brutal mob justice.

“Here in San Martin, any outsider who comes here to rob, he will be burned,” Hernandez said.

It is hard to see why such an impoverished community would attract thieves. Efrain Morales admitted he has never seen a Salvadoran or Nicaraguan around these parts.

To other townsfolk, it is migration from their own country that is the issue.

But despite the importance of migration to the lives of San Martin Jilotepeque residents and the unpopularity of Morales’ deal with Washington, Torres and Giammattei have barely mentioned the issue.

Congresswoman Madeleine Figueroa, of Torres’ National Union of Hope party, says the town will get a new road if Torres is elected.

But Maria Morales, no relation to Efrain, has a hard time paying attention to the campaign promise. She’s far more concerned about her daughter Flory Chapin and her granddaughter Hilda, 2.

Chapin, a single mother, left her two other children with Morales before heading north because she couldn’t make ends meet in Guatemala.

“She called me last Monday, she said, `Mom, today is the day. I’m still on the Mexican side, but I am going to cross [the border] and turn myself in to Immigration,”’ Morales said. “Since then, I haven’t heard anything.”

San Martin Jilotepeque, like other towns in Guatemala, depends to a large extent on remittances, the money sent home by migrants living in the United States.  

Two other town residents left for the U.S. with their children, and within two weeks they were in the U.S. That motivated Flory Chapin to try, her mother said.

“When my daughter saw that they got there, she left to try.” Now, Morales has nothing but doubts. “I’m worried, because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

…

More than 200 U.S. mayors demanded Thursday that the Senate return from its summer recess to approve gun control legislation in the aftermath of two mass shootings last weekend that killed 31 people in Texas and Ohio.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, representing 214 cities with both Republican and Democratic leaders, told Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer that it was urgent for the Senate to approve the measures already passed by the House of Representatives in February.

That legislation calls for background checks for all gun purchasers and would extend the waiting period for gun transactions from three to 10 days when instant checks raise questions about would-be buyers.

Schumer has also urged Senate approval, but McConnell has blocked a vote because he opposes the measures.

“Already in 2019, there have been over 250 mass shootings,” the mayors said in a letter to the lawmakers. They said the “tragic events” in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, Texas, and Midwest city of Dayton, Ohio, “are just the latest reminders that our nation can no longer wait for our federal government to take the actions necessary to prevent people who should not have access to firearms from being able to purchase them.”

U.S. President Donald Trump, who visited Wednesday with survivors of the two shootings, first responders and health care workers in both Dayton and El Paso, said there is a “great appetite for background checks.” But he also voiced the same sentiment a year ago after 17 students and teachers were gunned down at a Florida high school before backing off in the face of opposition by the country’s top gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.

The NRA voiced its opposition to Trump again this week, The Washington Post reported, and told the U.S. leader that background checks would not be popular among his core base of political supporters, many of them gun owners in the country’s heartland.

Trump also supports “red flag” legislation that would allow local authorities across the U.S., after a judicial review, to confiscate guns of those believed to be a danger to themselves or others. But the U.S. leader said he sees “no political appetite” for a ban on the sale of assault weapons like those the gunmen deployed in the country’s latest carnage.

Trump largely stayed out of public sight during the visits to Dayton and El Paso, where some supporters gathered on the streets, but protesters also carried signs attacking his anti-immigrant views and lack of action on gun control.

In Dayton, police killed the attacker, a 24-year-old community college student, within 30 seconds of the start of his barrage of 41 shots with an assault rifle that killed nine, including his sister, and wounded 27. In El Paso, authorities have charged a 21-year-old man with targeting Hispanics in a hail of gunfire that killed 22 and injured two dozen.

Trump critics say his rhetoric against migrants helped foment the El Paso massacre. But he has dismissed the attacks, while criticizing those who have disparaged his immigration views.

The U.S. leader suggested that Beto O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso who has often attacked Trump as he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination to run against him in 2020, “should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!”

Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2019

While Trump visited with survivors at an El Paso hospital, video footage shows him comparing the size of the crowd he drew at a rally in the city in February compared to a gathering where O’Rourke appeared the same night.

“That was some crowd,” Trump said of his event. “We had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot, and they said his crowd was wonderful.”

…

Thousands marched Wednesday in Caracas in support of President Nicolas Maduro, two days after the United States imposed the toughest sanctions yet on Venezuela. 

National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s second most powerful leader, called the latest sanctions “a new aggression amongst the madness of genocides that govern the United States.” 
 
Others at Wednesday’s rally accused President Donald Trump of wanting to “get his hands” on Venezuela. 
 
Reporters in Caracas said most of those marching were government workers and militia members. 
 
The Trump administration has banned all U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the Maduro government as part of U.S. pressure to drive him from power. 
 
The U.S. was the first of more than 50 countries to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president.  
 
Guaido declared himself Venezuelan leader in January, using his constitutional authority as the National Assembly president to declare Maduro’s  
re-election last year illegitimate because of fraud. 
 
Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are Maduro’s top defenders. 
 
Guaido’s popular uprising against Maduro earlier this year appears to have lost much of its steam, but the U.S. is still determined to see Maduro go and says military action is still on the table. 
 
The collapse of world energy prices, corruption and failed socialist policies have wrecked the oil-rich Venezuelan economy. Basic food staples and fuel are in severely short supply, and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country. 
 
Maduro has refused to consider early elections and has used violence against anti-government protesters. 

…

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake rattled Taiwan on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The quake struck at 5:28 a.m. (21:28 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in northeastern Yilan county. Taiwan’s central weather bureau put its magnitude at 6.0.

High rises swayed in the capital Taipei, waking people up from their sleep.

Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by quakes.

In April, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the island, disrupting traffic and injuring 17 people.

Taiwan’s worst tremor in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed about 2,400 people.
 

…

TOPEKA, KANSAS — Kansas plans to impose what some tax experts said Wednesday would be the nation’s most aggressive policy for collecting state and local taxes on online sales, possibly inviting a legal battle. 
 
The state Department of Revenue issued a notice last week saying any “remote seller” doing business with Kansas residents must register with the department, collect state and local sales taxes, and forward the revenues to the state, starting Oct. 1. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year allowing states to collect sales taxes on Internet sales. 
 
Most states now have policies to collect such taxes, but almost all set minimum annual sales or transaction thresholds to exempt small businesses, according to groups tracking tax laws. Kansas is the first to attempt to collect the taxes without exempting any businesses, they said.  
 
The Republican-controlled Legislature included provisions on taxing Internet sales in two tax-cutting bills this year, but Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed both measures, saying they would destabilize the state’s finances. The Department of Revenue is imposing its new policy under an existing tax law that applied to out-of-state businesses but wasn’t being enforced because past court decisions prevented it. 

‘Insane’
 
“I think they’re insane,” said Diane Yetter, founder of the Sales Tax Institute in Chicago. Later, she added, “I just think Kansas is setting itself up for a lawsuit — and embarrassment, truthfully.” 
 
Kansas Revenue Secretary Mark Burghart, a veteran tax attorney himself, said during an interview that the department is obligated to enforce existing tax laws consistently. He said it’s not fair to Kansas businesses to require them to collect sales taxes from consumers and not require out-of-state businesses to do the same after the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year. 
 
Burghart also said he does not feel the department has the authority to exempt some small, out-of-state businesses from collecting sales taxes. Legislators must set the thresholds, he said. 
 
“We have to move forward with implementation of the law as it is in place,” he said. 
 
Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican who is a frequent Kelly critic and is running for the U.S. Senate, termed the department’s policy an “abuse of power.” Other top Republicans were less harsh but said Wednesday that they worried about the risk of lawsuits — and lawmakers are likely to take up the issue again next year. 

Budget upside
 
Legislators also have felt pressure to collect more taxes from online sales to prevent local businesses from facing a competitive disadvantage. There’s also the potential budget upside: The department believes the state will collect between $20 million and $40 million a year in additional tax revenues. 
 
Wagle asked Attorney General Derek Schmidt, also a Republican, to weigh in on the policy’s legality. His spokesman Wednesday would say only, “We are aware of the situation.” 
 
Yetter and other tax policy experts said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t constitute permission to tax all remote sales from out-of-state businesses.  
 
“They’re pushing a lot of envelopes in their approach,” said Jared Walczak, director of state tax policy for the conservative Tax Foundation, who deems Kansas’ policy the “most aggressive” in the nation. 
 
The high court overturned a previous ruling that states could not collect sales taxes unless a business had a physical presence within their borders, allowing tax collections if businesses had an economic presence. It upheld a South Dakota law requiring businesses to collect the tax if they had $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions in the state within a year. 

Constitutional issue
 
The decision suggests that states still must exempt some businesses to avoid putting an undue burden on interstate commerce in violation of the U.S. Constitution, said George Isaacson, a Lewiston, Maine, attorney representing the businesses challenging the South Dakota law. He said Kansas’ policy represents a “blatant disregard” of that. 
 
“These are small mom-and-pop type operations that are now going to be subject to this collection obligation and would be least able to mount a legal challenge,” Isaacson said. 

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