Tag Archives: Obama

Trump election puts Iran nuclear deal on shaky ground

Iran President

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s election as president raises the prospect the United States will pull out of the nuclear pact it signed last year with Iran, alienating Washington from its allies and potentially freeing Iran to act on its ambitions.

Outgoing President Barack Obama’s administration touted the deal, a legacy foreign policy achievement, as a way to suspend Tehran’s suspected drive to develop atomic weapons. In return Obama, a Democrat, agreed to a lifting of most sanctions.

The deal, harshly opposed by Republicans in Congress, was reached as a political commitment rather than a treaty ratified by lawmakers, making it vulnerable to a new U.S. president, such as Trump, who might disagree with its terms.

A Republican, Trump ran for the White House opposing the deal but contradictory statements made it unclear how he would act. In an upset over Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump won on Tuesday and will succeed Obama on Jan. 20.

A businessman-turned-politician who has never held public office, Trump called the nuclear pact a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated” during his campaign and said it could lead to a “nuclear holocaust.”

In a speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC in March, Trump declared that his “Number-One priority” would be to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.”

He said he would have negotiated a better deal, with longer restrictions, but somewhat paradoxically, he criticized remaining U.S. sanctions that prevent American companies from dealing with Iran.

By contrast, he has conceded it would be hard to destroy a deal enshrined in a United Nations resolution. In August 2015, he said he would not “rip up” the nuclear deal, but that he would “police that contract so tough they don’t have a chance.”

Iran denies ever having considered developing atomic weapons. But experts said any U.S. violation of the deal would allow Iran also to pull back from its commitments to curb nuclear development.

Those commitments include reducing the number of its centrifuges by two-thirds, capping its level of uranium enrichment well below the level needed for bomb-grade material, reducing its enriched uranium stockpile from around 10,000 kg to 300 kg for 15 years, and submitting to international inspections to verify its compliance.

‘DIVISIVE DEAL’

“Say goodbye to the Iran deal,” said Richard Nephew, a former U.S. negotiator with Iran now at Columbia University.

“There is very little likelihood that it stays, either because of a deliberate decision to tear it up by Trump, or steps that the U.S. takes which prompt an Iranian walk back.”

The spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Behrouz Kamalvandi, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency: “Iran is prepared for any change,” adding that Iran would try to stand by the deal.

The nuclear deal was divisive in Iran, with hardliners opposed to better relations with the West arguing that pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani was giving up too much of the country’s nuclear infrastructure for too little relief.

Rouhani said on Wednesday the U.S. election results would have no effect on Tehran’s policies, state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying. [nL8N1DA46H]

Some of Washington’s closest Middle East allies have been skeptical of the nuclear deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been outright hostile. Gulf leaders say the deal has emboldened Iran’s pursuit of regional hegemony in part through support for proxy groups fueling regional conflicts.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose power supersedes that of Rouhani, regularly criticizes the United States and says it should not be trusted, but ultimately assented to the terms of the deal, known by its acronym JCPOA.

KHAMENEI BIG WINNER

“The big winner in the aftermath of a Trump victory is Iran’s Supreme Leader,” said Suzanne Maloney, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution.

“He will have the most cartoonish American enemy, he will exult in the (hopefully brief) crash of the American economy, and he will be able to walk away from Iran’s obligations under the JCPOA while pinning the responsibility on Washington.”

Further complicating any Trump effort to renegotiate the deal is that it is a multilateral agreement involving U.S. allies in Europe as well as fellow world powers Russia and China. European and Asian firms have been returning to Iran and making major investments there, meaning the United States would likely be alone in pulling out of the deal, possibly isolating it from its partners.

On Wednesday, the head of gas, renewables and power for French oil and gas company Total TOTF.PA in Iran said Trump’s election would have no impact on investments [nP6N1CW004].

Khamenei has already promised to “set fire” to the nuclear deal if the West violates it. Iran has repeatedly complained it has not received benefits promised. Though European companies have been eager to explore business prospects in Iran, few deals have been enacted in part because European banks have been reluctant to finance deals involving Iran.

“As to whether he can negotiate a ‘better’ deal, it takes two (or seven) sides to agree to begin that process, something I rate as highly unlikely,” said Zachary Goldman, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University and a former U.S. Treasury official.

“And if we walk away from the deal I think we will be in the worst of all worlds – Iran will feel freed from its commitments and we may be blamed for the deal falling apart.”

(Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in Beirut; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Howard Goller)

Netanyahu tells settlers of worries of possible U.S. action at U.N.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office moments after he was informed about a shooting attack in Jerusalem

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday expressed concern that U.S. President Barack Obama, during the final days of his term in office, might take diplomatic steps that could harm the fate of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Israel is concerned that the United States might not rally to its assistance in the event that an anti-settlement resolution is put to a vote in the United Nations Security Council and that Washington might not use its veto to quash such a move.

Obama’s strong opposition to settlement building on land Palestinians seek for a future state has also raised speculation in Israel that he might try to define parameters for a final peace agreement that has eluded Israel and the Palestinians since interim deals were signed in the early 1990s.

Peace talks collapsed in 2014, with settlements a key issue in the dispute between the parties.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office clarified that he had told settlers in a closed meeting last week he hoped Obama would not act in the same way that some previous U.S. administrations had done at the end of their term, when they had “promoted initiatives that did not align with Israel’s interests”. He did not specify any examples.

The statement repeated what Netanyahu had already told Israeli reporters in New York following his address to the U.N. General Assembly last month when he said: “I can only hope that the U.S.’s consistent policy will continue to the end of his (Obama’s) tenure (on January 20).”

It also denied what Israeli Channel 2 had ascribed to Netanyahu earlier on Wednesday when it quoted him as telling the settlers that “in the coming period, between the U.S. elections and the end of the term of (U.S. President Barack) Obama – the entire settlement movement is under threat.”

The United States has consistently criticised Israel over its West Bank settlement drive and earlier this month, Washington issued a strong rebuke at Israeli plans to build what it called a new Jewish settlement which it said would damage prospects for peace with the Palestinians.

In unusually harsh words, Washington also accused Israel of going back on its word that no new settlements would be built. Obama raised concerns about the settlements when he met Netanyahu in New York.

The United States contends that the project constitutes the establishment of a new settlement in the West Bank, contrary to assurances Netanyahu made to Obama that no new settlements would be built. Israel regards the planned homes as part of an existing settlement.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

‘I’ll humiliate you’: Duterte challenges West to probe Philippines drugs war

President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a gathering of businessmen in Pasay city, Metro Manila, Philippines,

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte called U.S. President Barack Obama, the European Union and United Nations “fools” on Thursday, and warned they would end up humiliated and outsmarted if they accepted an invitation to investigate his war on drugs.

Duterte said he was open to an outside probe by Obama, his Secretary of State John Kerry, the EU and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights into alleged extrajudicial killings, but on the condition that after he was questioned, he had the right to be heard.

“I’ll play with you. I’m very sure they cannot be brighter than me. I will ask five questions that will humiliate you,” Duterte said. “Watch out for that, it will be a spectacle.”

Duterte’s remarks came during a televised speech to hundreds of the country’s business elite, during which he said it was necessary to cleanse the streets of drug pushers and rescue the next generation of Filipinos from the scourge of narcotics.

Duterte, 71, won the hearts of millions of Filipinos with his outrageous, at times comical speeches and man-of-the-people style in the run-up to a May election. He won by a huge margin after campaigning almost entirely on promises to wipe out drugs and crime.

Nearly 2,300 people have died in the war on drugs since the campaign started on June 30, according to police, of which 1,566 were drug suspects killed in police operations.

Police had previously said there had been more then 3,600 deaths, but have since concluded that many of that number were homicides and murders unrelated to illegal narcotics.

Opinion polls for Duterte’s first 90 days in office suggest he remains popular, with a Pulse Asia survey on Wednesday showing he had the trust of 86 percent of 1,200 Filipinos surveyed.

Duterte said on Wednesday he had officially invited a United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions to investigate the drug killings.

Thursday speech was the latest among Duterte’s frequent and furious rebukes of international critics of his drugs war, after they expressed concern about the unusually high death toll and circumstances of the drugs killings.

“These fools think (they can do anything) because the Philippines is a small nation,” he said. “Maybe God gave you the money but we have the brains.”

(Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Exclusive: Obama, aides expected to weigh Syria military options on Friday

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives aboard the Marine One helicopter to depart O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

By Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama and his top foreign policy advisers are expected to meet on Friday to consider their military and other options in Syria as Syrian and Russian aircraft continue to pummel Aleppo and other targets, U.S. officials said.

Some top officials argue the United States must act more forcefully in Syria or risk losing what influence it still has over moderate rebels and its Arab, Kurdish and Turkish allies in the fight against Islamic State, the officials told Reuters.

One set of options includes direct U.S. military action such as air strikes on Syrian military bases, munitions depots or radar and anti-aircraft bases, said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

This official said one danger of such action is that Russian and Syrian forces are often co-mingled, raising the possibility of a direct confrontation with Russia that Obama has been at pains to avoid.

U.S. officials said they consider it unlikely that Obama will order U.S. air strikes on Syrian government targets, and they stressed that he may not make any decisions at the planned meeting of his National Security Council.

One alternative, U.S. officials said, is allowing allies to provide U.S.-vetted rebels with more sophisticated weapons, although not shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, which Washington fears could be used against Western airliners.

The White House declined to comment.

Friday’s planned meeting is the latest in a long series of internal debates about what, if anything, to do to end a 5-1/2 year civil war that has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced half the country’s population.

The ultimate aim of any new action could be to bolster the battered moderate rebels so they can weather what is now widely seen as the inevitable fall of rebel-held eastern Aleppo to the forces of Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It also might temper a sense of betrayal among moderate rebels who feel Obama encouraged their uprising by calling for Assad to go but then abandoned them, failing even to enforce his own “red line” against Syria’s use of chemical weapons.

This, in turn, might deter them from migrating to Islamist groups such as the Nusra Front, which the United States regards as Syria’s al Qaeda branch. The group in July said it had cut ties to al Qaeda and changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. ANOTHER TRY AT DIPLOMACY

The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers will meet in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday to resume their failed effort to find a diplomatic solution, possibly joined by their counterparts from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran, but

U.S. officials voiced little hope for success.

Friday’s planned meeting at the White House and the session in Lausanne occur as Obama, with just 100 days left in office, faces other decisions about whether to deepen U.S. military involvement in the Middle East — notably in Yemen and Iraq — a stance he opposed when he won the White House in 2008.

Earlier Thursday the United States launched cruise missiles  at three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said.

In Iraq, U.S. officials are debating whether government forces will need more U.S. support both during and after their campaign to retake Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in the country.

Some officials argue the Iraqis now cannot retake the city without significant help from Kurdish peshmerga forces, as well as Sunni and Shi’ite militias, and that their participation could trigger religious and ethnic conflict in the city.

In Syria, Washington has turned to the question of whether to take military action after its latest effort to broker a truce with Russia collapsed last month.

The United States has called for Assad to step down, but for years has seemed resigned to his remaining in control of parts of the country as it prosecutes a separate fight against Islamic State militants in Syria and in Iraq.

The U.S. policy is to target Islamic State first, a decision that has opened it to charges that it is doing nothing to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria and particularly in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Renewed bombing of rebel-held eastern Aleppo has killed more than 150 people this week, rescue workers said, as Syria intensifies its Russian-backed offensive to take the whole city.

Anthony Cordesman of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank suggested the United States’ failure to act earlier in Syria, and in Aleppo in particular, had narrowed Obama’s options.

“There is only so long you can ignore your options before you don’t have any,” Cordesman said.

(Writing By Arshad Mohammed; Additional reporting by John Walcott; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

Obama vows to send people to Mars by 2030

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks on Mars inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water are seen in a NASA handout image

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to help send people to Mars within the next 15 years, pledging to work with private companies to “to build new habitats that can sustain and transport astronauts on long-duration missions in deep space.”

“We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America’s story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time,” Obama said in an opinion piece for CNN posted to its website.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Ethiopia blames foreigners for stoking violent unrest over land rights

People walk near a torched truck in the compound of a textile factory damaged by protests in the town of Sebeta, Oromia region, Ethiopia,

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia accused “elements” in Eritrea, Egypt and elsewhere on Monday of being behind a wave of violent protests over land grabs and human rights that have prompted the government to declare a state of emergency in the Horn of Africa nation.

The unrest has cast a shadow over Ethiopia, whose state-led industrial drive has created one of Africa’s fastest growing economies but whose government also faces criticism at home and abroad over its authoritarian approach to development.

Ethiopia declared a state of emergency on Sunday after more than a year of unrest in its Oromiya and Amhara regions, near the capital Addis Ababa, where protesters say the government has trampled on land and other political rights.

Rights groups say more than 500 people have died in the violence. The government says the death toll is inflated.

“There are countries which are directly involved in arming, financing and training these elements,” government spokesman Getachew Reda said, referring to the protesters, although he added that those responsible might not have state approval.

Getachew told a news conference the six-month nationwide state of emergency had been declared to better coordinate security forces against “elements” intent on targeting civilians, infrastructure and private investments.

Last week, protesters damaged around a dozen factories and equipment mostly belonging to foreign firms, which demonstrators accuse of purchasing leases on seized land.

The latest flare-up followed a stampede on Oct. 2 in which at least 55 people were killed after police fired teargas and shots into the air to disperse protesters during a crowded annual festival in the town of Bishoftu in Oromiya.

Protesters had chanted anti-government slogans and made arm gestures to symbolize repression, while some had waved flags of an outlawed rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Front.

Getachew named Eritrea, which has a long-running border dispute with Ethiopia, and Egypt, embroiled in a row with Addis Ababa over sharing Nile waters, as sources of backing for “armed gangs”, although he said it might not come from “state actors”.

“We have to be very careful not to necessarily blame one government or another. There are all kinds of elements in the Egyptian political establishment which may or may not necessarily be directly linked with the Egyptian government,” Getachew said.

Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman dismissed accusations of meddling in Ethiopia’s affairs. In a statement he said Egypt had “absolute respect for Ethiopia’s sovereignty” and “urged vigilance against any attempts to harm the brotherly relations”.

Eritrea routinely dismisses charges that it wants to destabilize its neighbor, and instead accuses Addis Ababa of stoking unrest on its own soil and backing Eritrean rebels.

HISTORIC FRUSTRATIONS

Many people from Oromiya, a region at the heart of Ethiopia’s industrialization drive, accuse the state of seizing their land and offering meager compensation before selling it on to companies, often foreign investors, at inflated prices.

They also say they struggle to find work, even when a new factory is sited on property they or their families once owned.

Frustrations about mistreatment by central government have long festered in Oromiya and Amhara, where new industries and foreign flower farms have sprung up.

Together the Oromos and Amharas make up more than half Ethiopia’s total population of 99 million people.

The ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been in power for a quarter of a century, is made up of four parties representing the main ethnic groups. But opponents say Tigrayans, a smaller ethnic group whose powerbase is in the north, are pulling the strings.

The government dismisses such charges.

Though praised for transforming an economy that Ethiopia’s former Marxist rulers drove toward a devastating famine in 1984, the government has also come under fire from domestic critics and rights groups for offering little political reform.

“(The government) seems to have concluded that economic development alone will satisfy the overwhelming majority of Ethiopians,” said David Shinn, an academic and former U.S. envoy to Addis Ababa. “Regular elections are permitted in this system, but they do not come close to meeting Western standards.”

Economic growth in 2015 hit about 10 percent, although a long drought has knocked it down into single digits this year.

In last year’s parliamentary election the opposition failed to win a single seat after holding just one in the previous assembly.

U.S. President Barack Obama told his Ethiopian hosts in Addis Ababa last year that greater political openness would “strengthen rather than inhibit” their development agenda.

The government said it ensured political freedoms but differed over the pace of any reforms demanded by Washington.

Protests first erupted in Oromiya and Amhara in 2014 over a development plan for the capital that would have expanded its boundaries, a move seen as threatening farmland.

The government shelved the boundary plan but the unrest persisted, turning into broader-based demonstrations over politics and human rights abuses.

(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed in Cairo; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Dozens of Afghan troops AWOL from military training in U.S.

Brig. Gen. Muhaiuddin Ghori, commanding general, 3rd Kandak, 205th Corps, Afghan National Army, maneuvers alongside a Marine fire team on patrol in a virtual village in the infantry immersion trainer during a visit at U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California,

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Forty-four Afghan troops visiting the United States for military training have gone missing in less than two years, presumably in an effort to live and work illegally in America, Pentagon officials said.

Although the number of disappearances is relatively small — some 2,200 Afghan troops have received military training in the United States since 2007 — the incidents raise questions about security and screening procedures for the programs.

They are also potentially embarrassing for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, which has spent billions of dollars training Afghan troops as Washington seeks to extricate itself from the costly, 15-year-old war. The disclosure could fuel criticism by supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has accused the Obama administration of failing to properly vet immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and has pledged a much tougher stance if he wins.

While other foreign troops on U.S. military training visits have sometimes run away, a U.S. defense official said that the frequency of Afghan troops going missing was concerning and “out of the ordinary.”

Since September alone, eight Afghan troops have left military bases without authorization, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told Reuters. He said the total number of Afghan troops who have gone missing since January 2015 is 44, a number that has not previously been disclosed.

“The Defense Department is assessing ways to strengthen eligibility criteria for training in ways that will reduce the likelihood of an individual Afghan willingly absconding from training in the U.S. and going AWOL (absent without leave),” Stump said.

Afghans in the U.S. training program are vetted to ensure they have not participated in human rights abuses and are not affiliated with militant groups before being allowed into the United States, Stump said.

The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added there was no evidence any of those who had absconded had carried out crimes or posed a threat to the United States.

The Afghan army has occasionally been infiltrated by Taliban militants who have carried out attacks on Afghan and U.S. troops, but such incidents have become less frequent due to tougher security measures.

Trump, whose other signature immigration plan is to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims seeking to enter the country, and has said that law enforcement officers should engage in more racial profiling to curb the threat of attacks on American soil.

After Omar Mateen, whose father was born in Afghanistan, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando in June, Trump said an immigration ban would last until “we are in a position to properly screen these people coming into our country.”

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TRAINING

Washington has allocated more than $60 billion since 2002 to train and equip Afghan troops, but security remains precarious and the Taliban are estimated to control more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since 2001 when the U.S. invaded.

Earlier this year Obama shelved plans to cut the U.S. force in Afghanistan nearly in half by year’s end, opting instead to keep 8,400 troops there through the end of his presidency in January.

The military training program brings troops to the United States from around the world in order to build on military relations and improve capabilities for joint operations.

In some cases, officials said, the Afghan students who went missing were in the United States for elite Army Ranger School and intelligence-gathering training. The officials did not identify the missing troops or their rank.

Even though the troops were in the United States for military training, they were not necessarily always on a military base.

If students under the military program are absent from training for more than 24 hours, they are considered to be “absent without leave” (AWOL) and the Department of Homeland Security is notified.

In one case the Pentagon confirmed that an Afghan student had been detained by Canadian police while attempting to enter Canada from the United States.

It was unclear how many others have been located by U.S. authorities, and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Experts said low morale and insufficient training to fight the Taliban could explain the troops leaving, in addition to a dearth of economic opportunities in the impoverished country.

“They face a formidable enemy, with very limited resources and many Afghan troops aren’t getting paid on time,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think-tank.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Julia Harte and Alana Wise.; editing by Yara Bayoumy and Stuart Grudgings)

Philippine leader tells Obama he can buy arms from Russia, China

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte clenches fist with members of the Philippine Army during his visit at the army

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday told U.S. President Barack Obama to “go to hell” and said the United States had refused to sell some weapons to his country but he did not care because Russia and China were willing suppliers.

In his latest salvo, Duterte said he was realigning his foreign policy because the United States had failed the Philippines and added that at some point, “I will break up with America”. It was not clear what he meant by “break up”.

During three tangential and fiercely worded speeches in Manila, Duterte said the United States did not want to sell missiles and other weapons, but Russia and China had told him they could provide them easily.

“Although it may sound shit to you, it is my sacred duty to keep the integrity of this republic and the people healthy,” Duterte said.

“If you don’t want to sell arms, I’ll go to Russia. I sent the generals to Russia and Russia said ‘do not worry we have everything you need, we’ll give it to you’.

“And as for China, they said ‘just come over and sign and everything will be delivered’.”

His comments were the latest in a near-daily barrage of hostility toward the United States, during which Duterte has started to contrast the former colonial power with its geopolitical rivals Russia and China.

On Sunday, he said he had got support from Russia and China when he complained to them about the United States. He also said he would review a U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement.

The deal, signed in 2014, grants U.S. troops some access to Philippine bases, and allows them to set up storage facilities for maritime security and humanitarian and disaster response operations.

He said the United States should have supported the Philippines in tackling its chronic drugs problems but instead criticized him for the high death toll, as did the European Union.

‘HELL IS FULL’

“Instead of helping us, the first to hit was the State Department. So you can go to hell, Mr Obama, you can go to hell,” he said.

“EU, better choose purgatory. Hell is full already. Why should I be afraid of you?”

At a later speech he said he was emotional because the United States had not been a friend of the Philippines since his election in May.

“They just … reprimand another president in front of the international community,” he told the Jewish community at a synagogue.

“This is what happens now, I will be reconfiguring my foreign policy. Eventually, I might in my time I will break up with America.”

It was not clear if by his “time”, he was referring to his six-year term in office.

According to some U.S. officials, Washington has been doing its best to ignore Duterte’s rhetoric and not provide him with a pretext for more outbursts.

While an open break with Manila would create problems in a region where China’s influence has grown, there were no serious discussions about taking punitive steps such as cutting aid to the Philippines, two U.S. officials said on Monday.

Several of Duterte’s allies on Monday suggested he act more like a statesman because his comments had created a stir. On Tuesday, he said his outbursts were because he was provoked by criticism of his crackdown on drugs.

“When you are already at the receiving end of an uncontrollable rush, the only way out is to insult,” he said.

“That is my retaliation.”

(Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Senate rejects Obama veto of Saudi Sept 11 bill

A man lays a flower on a monument engraved with names of victims of the September 11th attacks, during a memorial event marking the 15th anniversary

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly rejected on Wednesday President Barack Obama’s veto of legislation allowing relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia’s government.

As voting continued, the count was 87-0 against the veto. The measure next goes to the House of Representatives, which is due to vote later on Wednesday. If two-thirds of House members also support the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” it would be the first veto override of Obama’s eight-year presidency.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Editing by Franklin Paul)

Obama plans to increase number of refugees admitted to U.S.

Syrian refugee Ahmad al Aboud, and his family members, who will be resettled in the United States, walk to board their plane in Amman, Jordan,

(Reuters) – The Obama Administration plans to increase the number of refugees admitted to the United States by 30 percent in fiscal year 2017, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited an annual refugee report submitted to Congress.

Secretary of State John Kerry presented the new target of 110,000 in the 2017 fiscal year starting Oct. 1, up from 85,000 in 2016, during a closed session to members of the House and Senate judiciary committees on Tuesday, according to the newspaper.

Kerry has said repeatedly over the past year that the United States would admit at least 100,000 refugees in fiscal 2017 and try to admit more if it were able.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)