Month: December 2022

The Trump Organisation, which operates hotels, golf courses, and other real estate around the world, faces fines over the conviction. The exact amount will be determined by the judge overseeing the trial in New York state court at a later date. The company pleaded not guilty. Trump himself was not charged in the case.

While the fine is not expected to be material for a company of the Trump Organization’s size, the conviction by a jury could complicate its ability to do business by spooking lenders and partners.

The case centred on charges that the company paid personal expenses like free rent and car leases for top executives, including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, without reporting the income, and paid them bonuses as if they were independent contractors.

“The smorgasbord of benefits is designed to keep its top executives happy and loyal,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors during his closing argument on Friday.

The Trump Organization separately faces a fraud lawsuit brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump himself is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over his handling of sensitive government documents after he left office in January 2021 and attempts to overturn the November 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Weisselberg, 75, testified as the government’s star witness as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that will allow him to spend no more than five months in jail.

The Trump Organization argued that Weisselberg carried out the scheme to benefit himself. He is on paid leave from the company and testified that he received more than $1 million in salary and bonus payments this year.

“The question here is not whether as a byproduct the company saved some money,” Susan Necheles, a defense lawyer, said in her closing argument on Thursday. “(Weisselberg’s) intent was to benefit himself, not the company.” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Nov. 19. that his family got “no economic gain from the acts done by the executive.” Republican Trump, who on Nov. 15 announced his third campaign for the presidency, has called the probe a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Both Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his predecessor who brought the charges, Cyrus Vance, are Democrats.

Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty in August to concealing $1.76 million in income from tax authorities, testified that Trump himself signed the Christmas bonus checks and personally paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandchildren.

He also said Trump’s two sons – who took over the company’s operations in 2017 after Trump became president – gave him a raise after they knew about his tax dodge scheme,

Thousands of opposition supporters gathered in the city on Tuesday as Albania hosts its first EU-Balkans summit, attended by leaders of European Union member states, to protest against the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama and demand early elections.

As Berisha, who leads the centre-right Democratic Party, walked in front of his supporters waving Albanian and EU flags, a man approached him and punched him in the face. Berisha had blood on his face but was later due to speak at the rally. The attacker was beaten by Berisha supporters and arrested by the police.

 

Berisha, a former president and prime minister, is banned from entering the United States over alleged corruption. He denies the charges.

EU seeks to reassure Western Balkans

A summit of European Union and Western Balkan leaders yielded few concrete steps on the region’s future in the wealthy EU but offered it hope for some progress next week, amid a better atmosphere in talks than previously.

European Council chief Charles Michel said he hoped there would be a “positive signal” at an EU summit on Dec 15-16 on Bosnia’s bid for EU candidacy status and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said visa liberalisation for Kosovo was necessary. At a previous summit in June, Balkan leaders publicly and harshly criticised the EU for the lack of progress in accession talks amid disillusion that negotiations have not started or are stalled, years after they were promised eventual EU membership.

While reluctance to further enlarge the EU is still rife among the 27 member states, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led them to devote more energy to enhancing relations with the six Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Fears of spreading Russian and Chinese influence in the Western Balkans is also a key factor. Scholz spoke of a new mood in the EU regarding the region.

At the end of the summit in the Albanian capital Tirana, EU leaders reaffirmed their “full and unequivocal commitment to the EU membership perspective of the Western Balkans and call for the acceleration of the accession process”.

“We had our frustrations … but we never gave up on this faith in the EU,” said Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, the summit host who in June had said slowness in the EU accession process for the region was a “disgrace.” “The progress made in the last years, no doubt also because of the war (in Ukraine) as an accelerator, is immense,” Rama said, speaking in English.

Serbia and Kosovo

On the sidelines, the EU drafted a new proposal for normalisation of ties between Serbia and Kosovo, its former rebellious province, with a clear timeline of actions, a senior EU diplomat said.

In moves towards integration, telecoms operators within the EU agreed to cut data roaming charges in the Western Balkans from Oct 2023, and Brussels pledged 1 billion euro in grants for energy. Balkans leaders would like to see much more, however.

“Kosovo will be submitting its application for EU membership by the end of this year,” its president, Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, said, adding that she hopes next week’s EU summit would approve visa liberalisation for her country.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo hinted that the path to accession will still be long for the region. “We know that there is progress, we know that there is an ambition to make this progress work faster… But there is no shortcut.”

Xi, head of the world’s number-two economy, will also attend a summit with rulers from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council and talks with leaders from elsewhere in the Middle East, strengthening China’s growing ties with the region.

The Chinese leader will arrive on Wednesday, the official Saudi Press Agency said, for only his third trip abroad since the coronavirus pandemic began and his first to Saudi Arabia since 2016.

His bilateral summit, chaired by King Salman and attended by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, comes after Xi secured a historic third term in November.

Xi’s visit reflects “much deeper relations developed in recent years” between the two countries, said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the government.

“As the largest importer of Saudi oil, China is a critically important partner and military relations have been developing strongly,” he said, adding that he expected “a number of agreements to be signed”.

The visit also coincides with heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States over issues ranging from energy policy to regional security and human rights.

The latest blow to that decades-old partnership came in October when the OPEC+ oil bloc agreed to cut production by two million barrels a day, a move the White House said amounted to “aligning with Russia” on the war in Ukraine.

On Sunday, OPEC+ opted to keep those cuts in place.

Shihabi said the timing was “a coincidence and not directed at the US”.

In from the cold

Xi last visited Saudi Arabia in 2016, the year before Prince Mohammed became first in line to the throne, on a trip that also featured stops in Egypt and Saudi rival Iran.

Prince Mohammed visited China and met with Xi on an Asia tour in 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

This week’s meeting will cap a year in which Saudi Arabia, and specifically Prince Mohammed, have come in from the cold following the fierce international outcry that erupted over the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate.

This year, Prince Mohammed has already welcomed Britain’s then-prime minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden, who greeted the crown prince with a fist bump in Jeddah, reversing a 2019 pledge to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah”.

China purchases roughly a quarter of Saudi oil exports.

The oil market was thrown into turmoil with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

The G7 and EU on Friday agreed a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil in an attempt to deny the Kremlin revenues to keep up the war, stoking further uncertainty.

“Oil will probably be higher up the agenda than it was when Biden visited,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt of the risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.

“These are the two most important players in the oil market — Saudi on the supply side and then China on the demand side.”

Beyond energy, analysts say leaders from the two countries are expected to discuss potential deals that could see Chinese firms become more deeply involved in mega-projects that are central to Prince Mohammed’s vision of diversifying the Saudi economy away from oil.

Those projects include a futuristic $500 billion megacity known as NEOM and a so-called cognitive city that will depend heavily on facial recognition and surveillance technology.

Images released by the DHA news agency showed Iyi (Good) Party lawmaker Huseyin Ors, 58, being struck by ruling AKP parliamentarian Zafer Isik. Several other lawmakers fell to the ground during the brawl.

 

Fellow Iyi Party lawmaker Aylin Cesur, a doctor by training who administered first aid on the chamber’s floor, said Ors’s condition remained critical. “He is still being treated in intensive care,” DHA quoted Cesur as saying.

“I am very sad,” she said. “His general condition was not good after the blow to the head.”

Turkiye’s lively parliament has witnessed numerous fights during particularly sensitive debates. In 2020, a fistfight erupted during tense discussions over Turkiye’s military involvement in Syria.

This year’s budget debates come with lawmakers of all stripes trying to defend their interests six months before the next scheduled parliamentary and presidential polls.

Jiang, who died in Shanghai last Wednesday at the age of 96, oversaw a transformational era from the late 1980s into the new millennium.

He took power in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and led China towards its emergence as a powerhouse on the global stage.

A public memorial service began at 10am on Tuesday in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and was broadcast live across the country. A nationwide “three-minute silence” was held, as sirens sounded. Flags across the country were at half-mast as well as at Chinese government buildings overseas.

Stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen were set to suspend trading for three minutes, as was the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s bourse suspended the display of data on external screens at its offices while senior executives observed the silence. Public entertainment is also suspended on Tuesday, with some online games such as the popular League of Legends announcing a day’s pause.

Jiang’s role in crushing the 1989 protests and repressing other political activism, as well as the flourishing of corruption and inequality during his tenure, means he leaves a mixed legacy.

Beijing’s state media has hailed Jiang as a great communist revolutionary, highlighting his part in quelling “serious political turmoil”. “Jiang Zemin was an outstanding leader enjoying high prestige,” read a Xinhua biography titled “Jiang Zemin’s great, glorious life”.

“During his revolutionary career of more than 70 years, he remained unswervingly firm in communist ideals, utterly loyal to the party and the people, and resolutely committed to the cause of the party and the people.” Jiang died of leukaemia and multiple organ failure after medical treatments failed, according to state media.