Move Forward, a pro-democracy party in Thailand led by 42-year-old former tech executive Pita Limjaroenrat, won big in the country's recent elections to become the large force in Thai politics, marking a rebuke not only to army rule but also the regime’s ineptitude. Thailand’s vulnerability to coups has long seemed anomalous. Its success is a rebuke not only to the principle of army rule but also to the regime’s ineptitude. Thailand's economy is creating fewer opportunities and attracting less foreign direct investment than its regional rivals. Its post-pandemic recovery is the slowest of any major economy in South-East Asia. Thailand would benefit hugely were Move Forward to fulfil its pledge to break up the monopolies gumming up industries such as agriculture and telecommunications where the operators have made fortunes. New battle-lines have been drawn; Thailand’s halfway-house democracy no longer looks like an option.
Relatives of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead while covering an Israeli raid on the Palestinian city of Jenin last year, have rebuked Israel’s “sorry” statement but with no accountability or acknowledgment of responsibility. Abu Akleh’s niece Lina Abu Akleh claims that the Israel army did not apologise for the killing and said it was “deeply upsetting” that on the anniversary of the killing the military “re-victimised the family”. Numerous media outlets and rights groups have acknowledged there was no fighting when Abu Akleh was shot.
White House negotiators have had two days of talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his emissaries over finding a budget-cutting deal that Democrats and Republicans can agree on to raise the US debt limit of $31tn, with a deadline as soon as 1 June drawing closer. In exchange for the limit rise, Republicans want steep spending reductions, devastating cuts inflicting hardships on many Americans, Democrats argued. The parties are racing to devise a budget-cutting deal to avert a looming economic crisis. The contours of a deal that includes some budget cuts, rescinding COVID-19 money that went unused, and a way to discuss new permitting rules for swift energy project developments are taking shape. Republicans want to roll back spending to fiscal 2022 levels and cap annual increases at just 1% over the next decade, leaving out Defense and Veterans accounts. One area both sides agree on is to claw back some $30bn in unspent COVID-19 funds, while Republicans want to attach policy priorities to any deal.
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly has vetoed parts of a $6bn funding plan for K-12 schools backed by state Republicans. Kelly took issue with one provision that she said would cut funds for rural public schools, setting up a potential legal battle over her office's powers. Republican leaders have strongly criticised the move. This issue has never been tested legally and confusion over how much money school districts will receive remains.
US Vice President Kamala Harris and Lael Brainard, President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser, have warned that a US debt default would send the economy into a recession. In a conference call for Democratic activists, the pair urged the activists to contact lawmakers to express opposition to a debt default that could be less than two weeks away. Harris and Brainard said that the Biden negotiating team had been instructed not to agree to any proposals from Republicans on lifting the debt ceiling which would take healthcare away from Americans or push them into poverty.
The Governor of Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee, is modernising the state's community oversight boards by replacing the panels with review committees that have no power to investigate police misconduct allegations. The new law takes effect on 1 July, with the boards being transformed into police advisory and review committees that only allow mayor-appointed members to refer complaints to law enforcement internal affairs units, rather than independently investigating the complaints. The move has raised concerns over the lack of accountability and oversight, with Democratic lawmakers and local officials having earlier opposed the move.
Democratic governments in the US, UK and Japan could face the “disruptive” powers of generative artificial intelligence and “malicious elements” controlling AI, according to Japan’s Digital Minister, Taro Kono. Speaking to The Financial Times, Kono noted that AI could be used in the forthcoming general elections in the UK and Japan and the US presidential race to destabilise governments. Kono added that governments need to consider how to maintain people’s trust in democracy and that AI was high on the agenda at the G7 leaders’ meeting in Hiroshima. The lack of global regulatory frameworks for cross-border data flow was also discussed.
Former Mississippi state Senator Johnny Morgan has died in a plane crash in Arkansas. Morgan, aged 76, was the only person aboard the Beech King Air E-90 when it crashed in southern Washington County. It left the University-Oxford airport before crashing on a private property near to Winslow. Morgan had previously served in the Mississippi state Senate from 1983 to 1991 and acted as a Lafayette County, Mississippi, supervisor from 2003.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has been accused of promoting an “anti-wokeness” platform which downplays the importance of race in his drive to win the Republican nomination for New York’s mayoral race next year. Critics have accused the tech industry fintech guru of a series of anti-Asian jokes as well as of struggling to understand topics of diversity and equity. Yang voiced his support for the HR-40 bill, which looks to examine the potential implications of slavery repatriations payments made by the US government to Black Americans. However, Yang has not escaped a recent barrage of online criticism over previous statements he made about Asian Americans during his presidential bid to secure the Democratic nomination nor for dressing up as a beefcake in the 2014 issue of New York magazine.
US President Joe Biden's campaign team plans to beat any Republican presidential candidate - including frontrunner Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis - by linking them to an "extremist" "MAGA" agenda that threatens democracy and abortion rights, according to a leaked campaign memo. The memo, written by campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, suggests Democrats can hold Rust Belt states and win swing states, including North Carolina and Florida, with voters reacting against extreme positions such as six-week abortion bans. Trump remains ahead of DeSantis in recent polls on the Republican primary.
The House Freedom Caucus has demanded that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suspend negotiations on raising the debt limit with the White House and focus on getting the House-passed “Limit, Save, Grow Act” through the Senate instead. The Republican group wants no discussion until the Republican-backed legislation has passed the Senate, which is currently an unlikely prospect as it would need to garner at least 60 votes in the Democratic-led Senate. McCarthy has told reporters negotiations on the budget were ongoing, as he aims to get a vote next week in the House on an agreement. The “X-date” — the day when Washington could run out of cash to pay the government’s bills on time — could arrive as early as June 1 according to the Treasury Department.
Critics are calling on Congress to impose an “enforceable ethics code” on Supreme Court Justices. Critics argue that the Supreme Court should be treated similarly to lower federal courts and that a Code of Judicial Conduct and a federal statute allowing anyone to file complaints about judicial conduct should be applicable to the Supreme Court. They are opposed by those calling for strict adherence to judicial independence, guaranteed under the US Constitution.
A group of Democratic lawmakers have proposed the Social Security Expansion Act, which aims to make Social Security solvent but would add to its liabilities with $33.8tn in new taxes. The benefit expansions include a permanent benefit increase across the board from 2024, a change of inflation measures which would result in larger cost-of-living adjustments, an increase of the minimum benefit, and continuation of the children's benefits through age 22. To pay for these increases and cover the program's existing $20.4tn shortfall, the act would impose three significant new taxes on workers, savers, and small business owners.
The Social Security Expansion Act’s proposal to eliminate the payroll tax cap would mean Social Security’s 12.4% tax rate, currently applied to the first $160,200 of worker’s incomes, would be added to all earnings above $250,000. This would subject all earnings to payroll taxes and would eliminate any illusion that Social Security acts like a pension where people get out of the program what they put in. The proposal would also bring the top federal tax rate on wages to 49.4% in 2024 and 51.8% in 2026 and beyond, and a new 12.4% investment surtax aimed at individual investments over $200,000 and married couples’ investments over $250,000.
The Expansion Act is intended to make Social Security solvent, but it could result in reducing output, destroying jobs, and restricting income growth that could otherwise have generated Social Security’s revenues. Additionally, if implemented, this could cause younger and future generations to be more dependent on government and less free to pursue their own goals.
During the 2019-2020 election cycle, 93% of all political contributions from U.S. State Department employees and 96% of all political contributions from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees went to Democratic Party candidates or political action committees, meaning that America’s foreign policy apparatus is an arm of the Democratic Party. This division is further entrenched by the newly established political loyalty tests of the Biden administration and its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, which are feared to discriminate against patriotic Americans who are not on board with such leftist ideologies.
The US Senate Judiciary Committee has held a hearing about “The Assault on Reproductive Rights in a Post-Dobbs America.” During the hearing, committee chairman Richard Durbin criticized the Supreme Court's “judicial activism” in overruling Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey. Democrats and their invited witnesses referred to “abortion care” and “health care”, with Durbin claiming that mifepristone, one of the drugs used in the majority of abortions today, is “used by women seeking care for miscarriage." Republicans responded with criticism of the “war on the unborn” and their concern that the United States had one of the most permissive abortion regimes in the world under Roe v Wade. Polls have shown that few Americans support abortion on demand.
An opinion piece published by The Epoch Times argues that the Democrats' support for transgender athletes should be viewed as a "real war on women." The author claims that Democrats are "deniers of biological reality, genetics, XX/XY chromosome science," and that they are allowing biological males to "hijack" girls' and women's athletics. The article cites an ongoing tally from WashingtonStand.com, which reports that there have been "over 30 separate girls’ and women’s sports titles that have been won by biological males" in the last 19 years. The piece also criticizes the Biden administration's plan to amend Title IX to include gender identity, claiming it is an end run around Congress and will likely face legal challenges. The author suggests that the Democrats are silent on these issues, allowing the "fraudulent construct of transgender 'women'" to undermine real females.
UK-based multi-development bank the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is set to collaborate with emerging market asset manager ILX and the European Union (EU) to improve "climate-smart solutions, digital transformation and financial inclusion" in eastern Europe. Although not strictly a blended-finance arrangement as the ILX investment is ring-fenced, the $300m project sets down a "new marker in development finance," according to Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission executive vice-president. Dombrovskis said he hoped the scheme would serve as "a new model that can inspire other international financial institutions and private investors to step up sustainable and green investment." The initiative ties into the EU's plans to invest $300bn in green projects with a view to attracting private funding.
Negotiators from the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's office are attempting to forge a budget deal to avoid a looming economic crisis. With a deadline as soon as 1 June, negotiators are racing to develop a budget-cutting arrangement that Republicans and Democrats can agree on, as McCarthy's newly empowered House Republicans try to introduce steep spending reductions in exchange for GOP votes to raise the debt limit, which currently stands at $31tn, to keep paying the USA's already-due bills. President Biden has cut short the rest of his trip to Papua New Guinea and Australia to return to Washington in an effort to make them agree on the deal.
Abortion rights are emerging as a key issue in the 2024 race for the White House after the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The subject is a polarising issue for both Republicans and Democrats. The GOP is struggling to articulate a clear plan for the future with many candidates avoiding laying out specifics beyond being against abortion rights. Of concern is an agreement on whether abortion should be illegal after a certain gestational point and what that limit is. Republicans are largely silent on whether they supported a Texas judge’s ruling in early April to invalidate the federal government’s approval of a drug used in over 50% of abortions. Democrats are energetically campaigning on the issue following the Supreme Court's decision and are trying to further capitalise on the blowback it has caused nationally and in red states.
Donald Trump, the 45th president who is running to reclaim the White House, is responsible for appointing three anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court which lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Since that monumental decision, Trump has not been outspoken about other abortion restrictions. His campaign spokesman, Stephen Cheung, told The Washington Post that Trump believes the Supreme Court got it right by ruling that individual states should determine whether abortion is legal or not. Trump suggested, however, that he would be open to a national ban when he spoke to a New Hampshire television station. Florida Governor DeSantis recently signed one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws, banning the medical procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, when many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant.
Three rangers and a technical worker were killed in an attack in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on 24 April, according to the Congo Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN). The victims were attacked as they left an area near the Virunga National Park, which is regularly targeted by militias. ICCN recently warned of an upturn in violence in the region, after an attack killed one person and wounded two others in February.
