WASHINGTON, Jan 20: Thousands of women marched Saturday in the US capital and across the country to convey a now-annual message opposing Donald Trump and supporting women’s rights, but internal divisions appeared to steal some energy from the rallies.

In Washington, demonstrators arriving by car, bus or subway converged on the city’s Freedom Plaza and marched defiantly past the nearby Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Many wore pink “pussy” hats to protest Trump’s demeaning comments about women.

“We need to stand up for women all over the world — for races, gender, sexual orientation,” said Ann Caroline, 27, herself wearing a pink hat.

Some marchers carried posters portraying Trump as a Russian “puppet.” Others decried his comments about women or minority groups, while many demanded his impeachment.

Just blocks away, the president spoke to reporters outside the White House before traveling briefly to Dover, Delaware for a ceremony to receive the remains of four Americans killed in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group in Syria. He made no public comment about the marches.

As in earlier years, thousands of women joined demonstrations in cities across the United States, and around the world, though most turnouts appeared far short of the earlier women’s events.

In New York, several hundred people converged on Manhattan’s Foley Square, near the Brooklyn Bridge. Many more took part in a separate march in Central Park organized by women angered by what they saw as the anti-Semitism of one women’s march leader.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly elected Democratic congresswoman who has emerged as a progressive favorite and a bugbear of conservatives, spoke at both New York rallies.

“Last year we brought the power to the polls, and this year we need to make sure that we translate that power into policy,” she said at the Central Park rally, to loud cheers. “That means we won’t let anyone take our rights away.”

Among the protesters was Nydia Leaf, an energetic, pink-hatted 86-year-old taking part in her third women’s march.

She told AFP she would “keep opposing Donald Trump and his policies. Look at what he’s done at the border, look at the shutdown — every year there is a new atrocity.”

In contrast to the 2017 march, which drew more than three million nationwide, and last year’s event, when hundreds of thousands rallied, Washington police said they expected perhaps 20,000 demonstrators this year.

Fewer than 1,200 marched in Chicago, that city’s Tribune reported. Internal divisions in Seattle resulted in three separate marches taking place, but police said only 4,000 to 5,000 people turned out, compared to an estimated 100,000 in 2017, the Seattle Times said.

TIES TO NATION OF ISLAM

The original marches in January 2017 helped spark a rise in women’s political activism, with a record 131 women serving in the new US Congress.

Last year, many women were galvanized by the confirmation of conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court, despite allegations that he committed sexual assault as a teen.

Activists are also motivated by the fight over the Trump administration’s policy — since suspended — of separating undocumented parents from children at the border with Mexico.

But the movement has been riven by controversy, including allegations of anti-Semitism and poor accounting of funds, and weakened, no doubt, by a general sense of political exhaustion.

The anti-Semitism controversy stems from march co-founder Tamika Mallory’s ties to controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and her failure to condemn disparaging remarks about Jews he made at an event she attended.

Teresa Shook, the first woman to float the idea of a women’s march, has called for the movement’s four co-presidents — Mallory, Carmen Perez, Linda Sarsour and Bob Bland — to resign.

Sarsour pushed back, saying in a statement: “The Women’s March exists to fight bigotry and discrimination in all their forms — including homophobia and anti-Semitism.”

Some progressive groups declined to take part in this year’s marches, and several Jewish women said they felt torn and opted to take part in separately organized rallies.

For her part, Ann Caroline called the controversy “heartbreaking,” but added that to march for women’s rights “doesn’t mean that I align myself with the founders’ values.”

Ocasio-Cortez told New York marchers that the November election meant “the start of our advocacy.”

“We just captured the House,” she said, “and now we got to show what we are going to do with it.” AFP

WASHINGTON, Jan 30: President Donald Trump told visiting members of the UN Security Council today the US would no longer talk with the Taliban following a recent string of deadly attacks in Afghanistan.

Trump railed against a series of “atrocities” in Afghanistan and said as a result the US would not engage in any future talks with the Taliban as the administration seeks to end a stalemate in America’s longest war.

“Innocent people are being killed left and right.

Bombing, in the middle of children, in the middle of families, bombing, killing all over Afghanistan,” Trump said. “So we don’t want to talk with the Taliban. There may be a time but it’s going to be a long time.”

The president’s comments followed a deadly car bombing attack in Kabul, the Afghan capital, that killed at least 95 people and wounded 158 more. Earlier this month, Americans were killed and injured in the Taliban’s 13-hour siege of a hotel in Kabul.

Trump’s remarks at the diplomatic luncheon marked a shift in tone on Afghanistan. The US has said previously that any peace talks with the Taliban need to be part of an Afghan-led process, but the US has never precluded talking to the Taliban.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who sat next to the president at the luncheon, has said previously that after an effective military effort, a political settlement including some Taliban might be possible, echoing language from former President Barack Obama’s administration. Tillerson had said the US would support peace talks with the Taliban “without preconditions.”

Earlier in the month, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who helped organize today’s luncheon, said the US policy on Afghanistan was working and the parties were “closer to talks with the Taliban and the peace process than we’ve seen before.”

Several attempts to hold peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban have failed. In 2013, hopes were raised when the Taliban opened an office in Qatar aimed at facilitating those talks, but a controversy over the Taliban’s move to hoist the flag it used in Afghanistan during its five-year rule ultimately derailed the talks. Since then, efforts to lure the Taliban into talks have yielded little progress.

Trump has sought to change the course of the long-running conflict, sending thousands more US troops to Afghanistan and moving away from a “time-based” approach to one that more explicitly links US assistance to concrete results from the Afghan government.

There are now about 14,000 US forces there, and more trainers and advisers are scheduled to deploy in the coming months.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis earlier this month said this will make it possible for US advisers to serve with more of the Afghan units, strengthening them in the fight against the insurgents. The US-led coalition has also increased targeting of Taliban opium operations, including narcotic processing facilities in Helmand Province in the south. AP

WASHINGTON, July 4: President Donald Trump criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after that country’s latest missile launch, asking, “Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?”

Trump wrote on Twitter late Monday that it’s “Hard to believe that South Korea … and Japan will put up with this much longer.”

And he urged North Korea’s biggest ally, China, to “put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”

South Korean officials said early Tuesday that North Korea had launched another ballistic missile toward Japan, part of a string of recent test-firings as the North works to build a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the United States.

For its part, North Korea claimed to have tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile. But its declaration conflicted with South Korean and U.S. assessments earlier.

The U.S. Defense Department said U.S. Pacific Command detected and tracked the launch of a land-based, intermediate range ballistic missile from North Korea’s Panghyon Airfield. The missile was tracked for 37 minutes and landed in the Sea of Japan.

A test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, if confirmed, would be a major step forward in developing a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the United States.

Shortly before Trump’s tweets, the White House said he had been briefed on the South Korean report.

The missile launch comes as the Trump administration has displayed increasing frustration with China’s reluctance to put more pressure on North Korea. Last week, the U.S. blacklisted a small Chinese bank over its business ties with North Korea.

The White House said Trump brought up the North Korean missile program during a phone call Sunday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that “some negative factors” are hurting U.S.-China relations.

The New York Times, citing anonymous administration officials, reported Monday that Trump told Xi the U.S. was ready to act on its own against North Korea.

A senior U.S. official told foreign policy experts last week that the U.S. has made clear to China that Chinese banks and companies conducting business with Pyongyang will face sanctions if there is no movement on North Korea’s nuclear activities, a participant in the meeting told The Associated Press. The individual wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and asked that his name and that of the senior official be withheld.-AP