Biden says his memory is ‘fine,’ he is ‘most qualified person in this country’ to be president
President Biden addressed the nation Thursday night, saying his memory is “fine” and defended his re-election campaign, saying he is the “most qualified person in this country to be president.” Biden’s address to the nation from the White House Thursday night comes just hours after Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report, which did not recommend criminal charges against the president for mishandling classified documents. Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other records related to national security and foreign policy which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” BIDEN ‘DID NOT REMEMBER WHEN HE WAS VICE PRESIDENT,’ WHEN HIS SON BEAU DIED, DURING SPECIAL COUNSEL INTERVIEWS Hur, though, described Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur, throughout the more than 300-page report, said “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him” of a serious felony “that requires a mental state of willfulness,” and said he would be “well into his eighties.” Biden, on Thursday night, said he agreed. “I’m well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden said. “I’ve been president. I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation.” Biden added: “My memory is fine.” During his address, Biden also fired back at Special Counsel Robert Hur for suggesting he did not remember when his son Beau died. “How dare he raise that?” Biden said. “Frankly, when I was asked a question, I thought to myself, what’s that any of your damn business?” “Let me tell you something…I swear, since the day he died, every single day…I wear the rosary he got from Our Lady—” Biden stopped, seemingly forgetting where the rosary was from. Biden became visibly emotional, and declared: “I don’t need anyone—I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away or passed away.” Moments later, though, Biden transitioned to discuss the conflict in the Middle East. Biden referred to Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the president of Egypt, as “the president of Mexico.” But the president took a barrage of questions from the White House press corps, with some shouting and pressing him on whether he is fit to run for re-election. SPECIAL COUNSEL CALLS BIDEN ‘SYMPATHETIC, WELL-MEANING, ELDERLY MAN WITH A POOR MEMORY,’ BRINGS NO CHARGES “I’m the most qualified person in this country to be president of the United States,” Biden said, adding that he has to “finish the job I started.” Meanwhile, Hur, in the report, said Biden, during his interview with the special counsel’s team, could not remember key details, such as when he was vice president. “In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” the report states. “He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’).” “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” the report continued. “And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.” “In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall,” the report said. As for Biden’s memory, prior to the release of the report, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday defended Biden when asked about a gaffe in which the president said he spoke in 2021 with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl — who actually died four years earlier — arguing that misspeaking “happens to all of us, and it is common.” That gaffe was similar to the one Biden made on Sunday when he claimed he spoke with François Mitterrand, a French president who died in 1996, at the same G7 meeting. But Hur also said his investigation “uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” TRUMP DEMANDS DOJ ‘IMMEDIATELY’ DROP CHARGES AGAINST HIM IN CLASSIFIED DOCS CASE AFTER BIDEN DECISION The materials included “marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” Hur said FBI agents recovered the materials from “the garages, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home.” But Biden fired back, citing sections in the report that stated he did not willfully retain the documents. Biden also said he was “especially pleased to see special counsel make clear the stark distinction in difference between this case and Mr. Trump’s case,” saying he cooperated and sat for a five hour-long interview. Trump, on the other hand, was charged out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation related to his retention of classified materials. Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony charges out of Smith’s probe. The charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements. Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, was then charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of Smith’s investigation — an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts. Trump pleaded not guilty. NO CHARGES FOR BIDEN AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBE INTO IMPROPER HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS That trial is set to begin on May 20. “They should immediately drop the case against me,” Trump told Fox News Digital on
Biden retained records related to Ukraine, China; Comer demands ‘unfettered access’ amid impeachment inquiry
President Biden retained documents marked “secret” and “confidential” related to Ukraine and China, according to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report. Hur, who released his report to the public on Thursday after months of investigating, did not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents — and stated that he wouldn’t bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office. Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy, which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” SPECIAL COUNSEL CALLS BIDEN ‘SYMPATHETIC, WELL-MEANING, ELDERLY MAN WITH A POOR MEMORY,’ BRINGS NO CHARGES But Biden also kept classified documents related to Ukraine and China. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who is currently co-leading the impeachment inquiry against Biden, had asked Hur last year if any of the classified records Biden held were related to the countries that his family conducted business with. Comer is now demanding “unfettered access to these documents to determine if President Biden’s retention of sensitive materials were used to help the Bidens’ influence peddling.” Hunter Biden, joined the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in June 2014. Hunter Biden also had joint business ventures with Chinese energy firms. COMER DEMANDS ANSWERS ON WHETHER BIDEN CLASSIFIED RECORDS MENTION COUNTRIES RELATED TO FAMILY BUSINESS DEALS With regard to the Ukraine documents, according to the special counsel report, Biden kept a September 2014 memo with the subject line “U.S. Energy Assistance to Ukraine.” That memo was marked as confidential. Biden, at the time, did run U.S.-Ukraine policy. The report also states that the FBI located a green file folder Biden kept, labeled “Ukraine 2/19/15.” That folder was inside an “unlabeled green hanging folder.” Also, inside that folder was a red file folder labeled “VP Personal.” In the “VP Personal” file folder was a telephone call sheet from Dec. 12, 2015, and talking points for a call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk. There is a handwritten note attached addressed to Biden’s executive assistant that states: “Get copy of this conversation from Sit Rm for my Records please.” The note is signed “Joe.” That document was marked as “Secret.” Attached to that document was another, dated Dec. 11, 2015. The report describes that document as “a transcript documenting the substance of a Dec. 11, 2015 call between Mr. Biden and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk.” The document is marked “CONFIDENTIAL” and “EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY.” NO CHARGES FOR BIDEN AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBE INTO IMPROPER HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS The special counsel’s report analyzes the documents, saying there “is reasonable doubt that Mr. Biden willfully retained” the documents. “Mr. Biden’s handwritten note does not request that executive assistant save the classified call sheet containing talking points for the call (A9) in his records; rather, he only requested the transcript of the phone call itself,” the report states. “And no jury could reasonably find that the substance of the call between Mr. Biden and the Ukrainian Prime Minister was national defense information.” The report states that Biden and the Ukrainian prime minister “exchanged pleasantries and the Prime Minister heaped praise upon Mr. Biden for his December 9, 2015 speech to Ukraine’s parliament.” “They did not engage in a substantive policy discussion. There may be technical or nuanced reasons to maintain the classification of the call, but no reasonable jury could conclude the call or its contents were national defense information after the end of Obama administration, or that by asking for a transcript of the call Biden intended to retain national defense information,” the report states. Biden, on Dec. 9, 2015, gave a speech in which he discussed corruption in Ukraine. “And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption,” Biden said in the speech. “The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.” In that speech, Biden also said Ukraine’s “energy sector needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles — not sweetheart deals.” “It’s not enough to push through laws to increase transparency with regard to official sources of income,” he said. “Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interest and their government responsibilities. Every other democracy in the world — that system pertains.” At the time, Burisma Holdings was under investigation by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Several months later, in March 2016, Biden successfully pressured Ukraine to remove Shokin. At the time Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, Hunter had a highly lucrative role on the board receiving tens of thousands of dollars per month. Biden, at the time, threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired. BIDENS ALLEGEDLY ‘COERCED’ BURISMA CEO TO PAY THEM MILLIONS TO HELP GET UKRAINE PROSECUTOR FIRED: FBI FORM “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Biden recollected the conversation during an event for the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018. “Well, son of a b—-, he got fired,” Biden said during the event. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.” Biden allies maintain the then-vice president pushed for Shokin’s firing due to concerns the Ukrainian prosecutor went easy on corruption, and say that his firing, at the time, was the policy position of the U.S. and international community. But Comer blasted the discovery of this information as “concerning” and questioned the timeline. “It’s no secret Hunter Biden made millions by sitting on the board of Burisma when Joe Biden was Vice President and that Burisma benefited from the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin,” Comer told Fox News Digital, saying it is “concerning Joe Biden retained classified materials related to Ukraine
Haley reups calls for Biden to take mental competency test
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is reiterating her calls for President Biden to take a mental competency test, in the wake of a special counsel report that described the 81-year-old president’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” and “poor” Haley, the last remaining major rival to former President Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, said in a statement Thursday that, “Joe Biden should take a mental competency test immediately, and it should be shared with the public.” The former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, put out her statement after Special Counsel Robert Hur announced he wouldn’t prosecute Biden, despite finding that the president “willfully” retained classified information, posing “serious risks to national security.” BIDEN LAYS BLAME FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO REMEMBER BASIC FACTS But Hur’s report was loaded with potentially more damaging material, as it noted that Biden couldn’t recall major milestones in his own life. “He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report stated. “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.” NO CHARGES FOR BIDEN AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBE INTO IMPROPER HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS Republicans for a couple of years have repeatedly questioned Biden’s mental competency, with those political attacks increasing since the president launched his re-election campaign for a second four-year term in the White House. “Joe Biden can’t remember major events in his life, like when he was vice president or when his son died,” Haley emphasized in her statement. “That is sad, but it will be even sadder if we have a person in the White House who is not mentally up to the most important job in the world.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP As she launched her presidential campaign a year ago, Haley called for mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years of age. Such tests would include both Biden and the 77-year-old Trump. And Haley and her campaign in recent weeks have spotlighted a number of verbal gaffes made by the former president. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Pakistan election 2024: Live results
About 128 million voters were registered to vote in national and state elections amid political and economic challenges. Pakistan is counting votes in a general election marred by violence by armed groups and a suspension of mobile phone services. More than 128 million people were registered to elect representatives of the National Assembly and the nation’s four provincial legislatures. The results will appear below as soon as they are available. How voting works in Pakistan Each voter can cast two votes — one for the National Assembly and the other for the provincial assembly. The National Assembly comprises 336 seats – 266 to be decided through direct voting, while 60 seats are reserved for women and 10 for minorities which are allotted on the basis of 5 percent proportional representation in the federal parliament. A party or a coalition will need 134 seats to form the government. Breakdown of national seats Based on the results of the national census conducted in 2023, the constituencies went through a delimitation process. The boundaries of many constituencies were altered and the number of seats was reduced from 272 to 266. Punjab: 141 seats Sindh: 61 seats Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: 45 seats Balochistan: 16 seats Islamabad Capital Territory: 3 seats Who are the leading candidates to be Pakistan’s next prime minister? A crackdown on the biggest opposition party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and its leader, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, fuelled concerns that the polls would not be free and fair. Here are the country’s major parties: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) Nawaz Sharif, a three-time prime minister, returned to Pakistan after four years – in late 2023 – to assume the role of the head of the party. Several corruption cases that had led to his dismissal as prime minister in 2017 have since been dropped. Shehbaz Sharif, his younger brother, has also briefly been prime minister in an alliance with key opposition parties to remove Khan as prime minister in April 2022. If the PMLN forms a government, it is unclear which brother might become PM, but Nawaz will likely hold the strings either way. Seats won in 2018: 64 Seats won in 2013: 126 Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is the scion of the Bhutto dynasty. He will be leading his party after having served as foreign minister for a short period after Khan’s removal as PM in 2022. One of the youngest mainstream politicians, his campaign pays attention to climate change, gender equity in the economy, and striving for civility among parties. His grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and mother Benazir Bhutto ruled the country as prime ministers, and his father Asif Ali Zardari was Pakistan’s president from 2008 to 2013. Seats won in 2018: 43 Seats won in 2013: 34 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is the leader of the opposition PTI party. He is currently in jail in cases related to corruption and leaking state secrets. He led protests against the country’s powerful military after his removal from office in 2022. His conviction in a corruption case resulted in him being disqualified as a candidate. His party has ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the past decade, and the country’s most influential province, Punjab, for most of the past five years. Seats won in 2018: 116 Seats won in 2013: 28 Adblock test (Why?)
Auspicious but unlucky: The perils of a lunar new year dragon baby boom
Taipei, Taiwan – IHua Wu was born in 1976, the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. The only mythical animal in the zodiac, which includes a rabbit, a pig and a horse, the dragon is seen as particularly auspicious. Wu is unsure whether his parents planned for him to be born that year – it was at least a pleasant surprise – but other Taiwanese parents certainly seem to have hoped for dragon children. The year 1976 was a bumper year for babies in Taiwan – 425,125 births, up from the crude birth rate of 396,479 over the 1970s. It was a noticeable reversal from a birth rate that had been slowly on the decline. “People in Taiwan kind of prefer to have kids who are dragons,” Wu said, because the dragon is known to be wise and charismatic in Chinese folklore. The least popular sign is the tiger, by contrast, with those born in those years seen as potentially wild or stubborn by superstitious parents – or grandparents. While Wu said he did not feel extra pressure at home to become a model “dragon”, his zodiac sign followed him throughout his education and into adulthood due to the sheer size of his school year. “Because we have more dragon kids in this year, we could expect for university or high school exams … more competition,” he told Al Jazeera, “Even my compulsory military service, there were more opportunities to be unlucky.” He ended up volunteering to become a paratrooper rather than risk two years stationed on one of Taiwan’s lonely outlying islands, thanks to the bumper crop of recruits in his year. IHua Wu, born in a Year of the Dragon, stands next to a statue of his zodiac animal at a temple in Taipei, Taiwan [Erin Hale/Al Jazeera] Dragon babies everywhere Wu’s experience growing up in Taiwan is one that is not uncommon for ethnic Chinese across Asia born in the Year of the Dragon. While their parents may hope for an auspicious birth, the impact of a small population spike can follow dragon babies throughout their lives. In 2017, researchers in Singapore studied the experience of ethnic Chinese “dragons” in the city-state and found that they struggled more than other zodiac signs – and that some of their bad luck spread to other minority groups. “We find that larger dragon cohorts face weaker educational and economic prospects due to greater competition,” said Tan Poh Lin, one of the authors behind the study and a senior researcher at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. In multiethnic Singapore, ethnic Indian and Malay Singaporeans also felt the knock-on effect of as many as 10 percent more births during dragon years, she said. Singaporean women born two years later also faced stiff competition from “dragon” men who entered the workforce at the same time, after taking time off to perform compulsory national service. “These externalities spill over to non-Chinese born in the dragon year, and since men enter the labour market two years later than women do due to National Service requirements, we also see depressed earnings among women born in the year of the horse, their labour market co-entrants,” she said by email. Tan and her team specifically studied Singapore, but similar patterns can be seen across ethnic Chinese communities and clustered around the dragon years of 1988, 2000 and 2012. Another bump is expected to start this week with the start of the new lunar new year on February 10 when the next dragon year officially starts. A not-so-ancient tradition The Chinese zodiac dates back at least 2,000 years, but the dragon baby boom is a distinctively modern phenomenon, according to researchers. The year of the first dragon boom – 1976 – also coincided with an overall upswing in East Asia and some parts of Southeast Asia as countries finally felt the positive benefit of widespread post-war industrialisation. Economists even had a name for four of its biggest stars, the “Asian tigers” of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. “These zodiac swings… started really in the 1970s in Chinese societies,” said expert demographer Daniel Goodkind, who has studied Chinese zodiac birth patterns. “This is the fifth cycle where we’re starting to see this pattern, and it’s not just the dragon where you see these zodiac fluctuations. In Chinese societies, you also tend to see a drop in the tiger year two years before,” he said. Those born in the Year of the Dragon often face stiffer competition for places in school, even as toddlers [File: Bobby Yip/Reuters] While conducting fieldwork in Asia in 1990 on the issue – shortly after the “second dragon cycle” of 1988 – Goodkind said he struggled to find an exact answer. He recalled even asking fortune-tellers at the time if they encouraged parents to have a “dragon” baby, they would look at him confused and respond” “Why are you asking me that?” The preference “doesn’t really come from formal principles or collective wisdom”, he said. “That’s not what parents are relying on. It’s more like a folk belief based on the animals themselves.” The contemporary drive for dragon babies has resulted in some of the greatest fluctuations in Malaysia and Singapore, he said, although they are felt to varying degrees in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Brunei, the Philippines and Thailand, where at least 10 percent of the population is ethnic Chinese. China proper has been the latest entrant thanks to the impacts of the one-child policy and the Cultural Revolution, which temporarily suspended many folk practices, but parents there are now also seeking dragon babies. Indeed, rather than disappear with other superstitions, astrology has only become more popular with the passing decades – both in Asia and beyond, according to Singapore’s Tan. “Among affluent and well-educated populations from East to West, astrological services have become heavily commercialised as a form of entertainment, social activity and belief system parallel to organised religion,” Tan said. “In Singapore,
Japan’s stock market barely grew for decades. Now it’s booming
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – For decades, international investors shunned Japan’s stock market, whose meagre gains mirrored the country’s protracted economic stagnation. These days, Japanese stocks are the hottest game in town as the Nikkei 225 index rides a 34-year high. After limping through Japan’s “lost decades” following the collapse of a massive asset bubble in the 1990s, Tokyo’s benchmark index last year gained 28.2 percent, comfortably beating the S&P 500 in the United States. There are no immediate signs of the buying frenzy slowing down. In January, the Nikkei 225 climbed a further 8 percent, with foreign investors buying a net 956 billion yen ($6.5bn) of Japanese stocks in the span of a single week. Some market analysts believe that 2024 could be the year the Japanese stock market finally tops its 1989 peak of 38,915.87. For Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, it has been a “dramatic recovery story”, said Nicholas Smith, Japan strategist at investment group CLSA. “Profitability is recovering rapidly from depressed levels. Profit growth is growing strongly while others are stumbling. Price/earnings is relatively low and growth is high,” Smith told Al Jazeera. “What’s not to like? Companies are starting to return their cash piles to shareholders.” For foreign investors, a confluence of factors has made Japanese firms appear more attractive than they have in decades. Recent corporate governance reforms driven by the Tokyo Stock Exchange have led Japanese companies to seek to increase shareholder returns through share buybacks and higher dividend payouts. A weak yen, hovering at its lowest levels since the 1990s, has boosted corporate profits and made Japanese stocks, already cheap by international standards, even better value. Warren Buffett has invested heavily in the Japanese stock market [File: Bloomberg] Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the most high-profile booster of Japanese stocks, cited the “ridiculous price” he was offered for stakes in Japan’s five biggest trading companies as a reason he snapped up $6bn in their shares during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s “new capitalism” drive, Tokyo has also sought to encourage a shift from saving towards investing, relaunching its Nippon Individual Savings Account (NISA) programme with higher annual investment limits and extended tax-exemption periods. There have also been signs that the Japanese economy may at last be starting to emerge from its decades-long deflationary spiral, with workers last year seeing their biggest wage increases since the early 1990s. Ryota Abe, an economist at the global markets and treasury unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), said expectations that wage growth will continue to pick up has been the biggest of several drivers of the stock market rally. “Recent events are suggesting that what has changed in the society the most is that business leaders in Japan have started contemplating more seriously the need for constant wage growth given the inflation situation and corporates,” Abe told Al Jazeera. Japanese stocks have also benefitted from the lagging fortunes of other markets, particularly China. As China’s economy grappled with challenges ranging from Beijing’s crackdowns on private industry to a slow-moving real estate crisis last year, foreign investors pulled $29bn out of the Chinese stock market, erasing 90 percent of inward investment in 2023. Still, analysts differ on how long Japanese stocks’ moment in the sun might last. Martin Schulz, a senior researcher with the Fujitsu Research Institute, said Japan’s stock market has the potential to keep delivering big returns as corporate leaders push for greater productivity and higher payouts to shareholders. “While the upside is limited in a slow growth economy, leading companies that gain from long-term trends, such as digitalisation, renewable energy, Asian economic integration, are still lagging their peers in valuation,” Schulz told Al Jazeera. “They have room to grow.” Others see a comedown on the horizon. The yen is expected to rise significantly against the dollar this year as the US Federal Reserve begins cutting interest rates, which would undercut the affordability of Japanese stocks. Taiki Murai, a doctoral researcher at the Institute for Economic Policy at Leipzig University, said Japan’s attractiveness will fade as business sentiment in the United States and Europe improves in a lower interest rate environment. “As a result, international capital flows would likely leave Japan in search of higher yield,” Murai told Al Jazeera. Japan’s economy has stagnated since the collapse of a massive asset bubble in the early 1990s [File: Kiichiro Sato/AP] There are also differing views about the extent to which Japan’s stock rally foreshadows a broad-based economic revival. After promising signs in 2023, wage growth has recently stalled. Structural issues, including a shrinking population and a rigid labour market that has resisted reform, continue to cloud the long-term outlook for growth. Smith of CLAS expressed optimism about the direction of recent economic trends. “Government, the ministries and shareholders are working together in a way I have never seen before in my 35 years in the country,” he said. Murai, the researcher at Leipzig University, said the strong performance of the stock market does not remove the serious challenges facing the Japanese economy. “Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s new capitalism has postponed comprehensive structural reforms of the Japanese economy. Shinzo Abe, former prime minister, had also included a structural reform in his economic policy package ‘Abenomics’, but only fiscal and monetary expansions were implemented,” he said. “Moreover, there has been little or no positive news from the Japanese corporate sector regarding innovation.” Abe, the economist at the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, said the outlook for the economy will become clearer after wage negotiations between firms and employees in the spring. “We have to continue keeping an eye on the actual expenditure as well as wages rise in the later part of this year for us to be able to see the virtuous cycle between wages and expenditure in the economy,” Abe said. “I want to see more changes in the deflationary mindset among the Japanese,” he added. “If this is the case, I will become more confident about higher stock prices.” Adblock test (Why?)
Donald Trump wins U.S. Virgin Islands Republican presidential caucus
Former President Donald Trump can chalk up another victory in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The Virgin Islands Republican Party on Thursday announced that Trump has won the GOP caucus in the island territory. Nine delegates to the summer’s GOP presidential nominating convention were up for grabs in the Virgin Islands contest, which was open only to Republican voters. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Trump and his last remaining major rival for the nomination – former U.N. ambassador and former two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – were on the ballot, as well as four other candidates who have dropped out of the 2024 race. The caucus utilized ranked-choice voting. People casting a ballot ranked their choices, and if no candidate achieved a majority of the vote, the ranked choice process would have gone into effect. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Biden challenger Phillips says special counsel report ‘affirms’ Biden ‘cannot continue to serve’: ‘Sad day’
Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips reacted to the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report related to President Biden’s handling of classified documents by saying that it “affirms” his belief that Biden is not fit to be president. “It’s another sad day for America and particularly for President Biden and his family,” Phillips told Fox News Digital. “While President Biden ‘willfully retained and disclosed classified materials’ the Special Counsel elected not to prosecute him because a jury would likely not convict a ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’” Phillips continued, “The Report simply affirms what most Americans already know, that the President cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term ending January 20, 2025. Already facing the lowest approval numbers in modern history and losing in each of the key battleground states, this Report has all but handed the 2024 election to Donald Trump if Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee – and I invite fellow Democrats to face the truth.” Hur announced on Thursday he will not recommend criminal charges against President Biden for mishandling classified documents, according to his report after a months-long investigation into the president’s alleged improper retention of classified records. BIDEN CONSIDERED RESIGNING VICE PRESIDENCY ‘IN PROTEST’ OVER OBAMA’S AFGHANISTAN POLICY: HUR REPORT Although the report stated that the special counsel “uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen”, the report said it would be “difficult” to secure a conviction based on Biden’s mental state. “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote in the report. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” BIDEN, WHITE HOUSE BLAME ISRAEL WAR FOR FORGETTING BASIC FACTS DURING SPECIAL COUNSEL INTERVIEWS The report also outlined instances where Biden had a difficult time remembering key details and events including when he served as vice-president and the exact date his son, Beau, died. Several Republican lawmakers agreed with Rep. Phillips and concluded that the report is an example of Biden not having the mental fortitude to be president at 81 years of age. “New Biden defense for otherwise criminal conduct: he’s an old man incapable of remembering who he is, where he is, or what he’s done,” GOP Sen. Josh Hawley posted on X. “Biden doesn’t remember his time as VP?,” Hawley wrote in another post. “But somehow he’s qualified to be President for another 4 years?” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. “Bottom line is, a special counsel in my case decided against moving forward any charges, and this matter is now closed,” Biden said on Thursday after the report was released. “I’ll continue to do what I’ve always done — stay focused on my job like you do, of my job of being president.” Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report
Fox News Politics: Feds decline to charge elderly man with poor memory
Welcome to Fox News’ Politics newsletter with the latest political news from Washington D.C. and updates from the 2024 campaign trail. What’s Happening? – Report on Biden classified docs probe is chock-full of juicy revelations… Get the latest updates – Trump reacts to Biden classified docs report, Republicans blast ‘double standard’ – Supreme Court arguments in effort to block Trump from ballot Special Counsel Robert Hur described President Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” and said he would bring no criminal charges against the president despite finding evidence he “willfully” retained and disclosed classified materials. Despite the lack of an indictment, plenty of people are calling the report highly damning of the president’s mental state. Biden could not recall when his son Beau died, or the year he left the vice president’s office, in interviews with the special counsel. Hur determined that charges weren’t warranted, despite the potential that some documents could have “risked serious damage to America’s national security.” The special counsel “also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” ‘AM I STILL VICE PRESIDENT?’ Biden blames failing memory during Special Counsel probe on Israel War …Read more ‘UNFIT’: Congress reacts to special counsel report on Biden classified docs …Read more TRUMP REACTS: Trump demands Special Counsel Smith ‘immediately’ drop charges …Read more FIGHT GOES ON: Senate advances Ukraine-Israel aid bill in first procedural vote …Read more REMOVAL REGRET: Gaetz says George Santos ‘never missed more’ following failed Mayorkas ouster …Read more ETHICS COMPLAINT: Marjorie Taylor Greene hits Trump DA Fani Willis with ethics complaint …Read more ‘TRANSFORMING OUR SOCIETY’: AOC declares victory in Green New Deal fight …Read more CIVIL WAR: Johnson reverses course on divisive Senate endorsement after GOP blowback …Read more LIVE UPDATES: Supreme Court hears Trump ballot oral arguments …Read more ‘BELIEVER’ IN DEMOCRACY: Trump says he’s a ‘believer’ in the Supreme Court after oral arguments in Colorado ballot case …Read more ‘IT’S UNCONSCIONABLE’: Senate candidate and former Navy SEAL sounds off on ‘soft-on-crime DAs’ …Read more ‘EVERYBODY HATES YOU’: Nikki Haley releases parody video reading ‘mean tweets’ from online users, GOP rival …Read more SUPREME SKEPTICS: Justices question reasoning behind Colorado decision to bar Trump from ballot …Read more NEW MEXICAN TAXES: New Mexico bill to lower income taxes and cap investment tax break advances …Read more ABORTION ABORTED: Republican-led, pro-abortion campaign to amend Missouri Constitution dies …Read more PAY DAY: Hunter Biden was paid $100K a month by Chinese energy firm, ex-associate testified …Read more ‘INCENTIVIZE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION’: Dems in this state are pushing to expand state-funded insurance to illegal immigrant children …Read more KILLER PLAN: Virginia assisted suicide bill poses ‘deadly harm’ to ‘most vulnerable,’ bishops warn …Read more WILDEST DREAMS: Dems hope Taylor Swift will promote their agenda during Florida concerts …Read more Subscribe now to get Fox News Politics newsletter in your inbox. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.
Biden considered resigning vice presidency ‘in protest’ over Obama’s Afghanistan policy: Hur report
President Biden considered resigning as vice president “in protest” over former President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan policies in 2009 over fear the war would become “another Vietnam,” according to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents released Thursday. Hur has been investigating Biden’s improper retention of classified records since last year. The papers included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other national security and foreign policy records, which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” “Tomorrow the President is going to make a fateful decision regarding Afghanistan – as I sat looking out the window at the sea – thinking I should resign in protest over what will bring his administration down,” Biden wrote in what the report noted was an “Af/Pak” notebook he used to take notes during a number of National Security Council meetings on Afghanistan in 2009. “Although I obviously wasn’t there I feel like this is what it must have felt like for Kennedy then Johnson in the early days of VTN [Vietnam]. I feel guilty and boxed in myself. Guilty for not having been more successful w/ the President – and staying. Boxed in by knowing or at least feeling that my resignation would only harden his position and leave him with one less voice,” he added. Biden strongly opposed the administration’s plans to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan throughout 2009, a view reflected in various entries in his notebook, as well as in a memo he sent Obama that FBI agents found at his Delaware home alongside marked classified documents containing his advice to the former president. According to the report, Biden called Army leaders’ request for another 40,000 troops in Afghanistan “f—ing outrageous,” and privately fretted the decision to do so would be “disastrous.” The reported later said Biden “had a strong motive to keep the classified Afghanistan documents,” because of his believe the 2009 troop surge was a Vietnam-level mistake. “He wanted the record to show that he was right about Afghanistan; that his critics were wrong; and that he had opposed President Obama’s mistaken decision forcefully,” it said. “There is evidence that, after his vice presidency, Mr. Biden willfully retained marked classified documents about Afghanistan and unmarked classified handwritten notes in his notebooks, both of which he stored in unsecured places in his home. He had no legal authority to do so, and his retention of these materials, and disclosure of classified information from his notebooks to his ghostwriter, risked serious damage to America’s national security,” it added. Fox News Digital has reached out to representatives of Obama for comment. Hur announced he would not seek criminal charges against Biden. This is a developing story. Check back here for updates. Fox News’ Joe Schoffstall and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.