Bango’s Latest News
Clips 2017.05.08
1. It's Macron or Le Pen after first round of France's
presidential election
Supporters
chant ‘Macron President’ after self-styled liberal progressive outsider reaches
7 May runoff with 23.75% of votes, ahead of Le Pen on 21.53%
The Guardian April 23, 2017
The
independent centrist Emmanuel Macron has topped the first round of the French
presidential election and will face the far-right Front National’s Marine Le
Pen in a standoff marked by anti-establishment
anger that knocked France’s traditional political parties out of the
race.
Macron
topped Sunday’s first round with 23.75% of votes, slightly ahead of Le Pen with
21.53%, according to final results from the interior ministry. Macron, 39, a
political novice, now becomes the favourite to be elected as France’s next
president. He is the youngest ever
French presidential hopeful and has never run for election before.
After
the UK’s vote to leave
the European Union and the US vote for the
political novice Donald Trump as president, the French presidential race is
the latest election to shake up establishment politics by kicking out the
figures that stood for the status quo.
The
historic first-round result marked the rejection of the ruling political class
– it was the first time since the postwar period that the traditional left and
right ruling parties were both ejected from the race in the first round.
France’s
two political outsiders – the progressive, pro-business and socially liberal
Macron and the anti-immigration, anti-EU, far-right
Le Pen – will now face off in a final round on 7 May that will redraw
French politics and could define the future direction of Europe.
The
Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve led appeals from across the
political spectrum to support Macron in order to block Le Pen, who he said
represented “regression and division” for France. The scandal-hit
rightwing candidate François Fillon, who was knocked out of the race,
said he would also vote for Macron because the Front National “has a history
known for its violence and intolerance” and its economic and social programme
would lead France to bankruptcy.
Macron,
a former investment banker, who had been a chief adviser and then economy
minister to the Socialist François Hollande, is not a member of any
political party. He quit government last year and launched his own political
movement, En Marche! (on the move), that was
“neither left nor right”, promising to “revolutionise” what he called France’s
vacuous and decaying political system.
Speaking
in front of an ecstatic and raucous crowd in Paris, Macron said of his
fledgling political movement: “In one year we have changed the face of French
political life.” He said he represented “optimism and hope”. In a dig at Le
Pen, he said he would be a president of “patriots” against the “nationalist
threat”.
Le
Pen’s place in the final round cements her party’s steady rise in French
politics. The Front National has made steady gains in every election
since she took over the leadership from her
father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011. Le Pen ran a hardline campaign against
immigration and promised to crack down on what she called “Islamic
fundamentalism”. While Macron’s supporters at rallies waved EU flags and
he hailed the positive
role of the 27-country bloc, Le Pen told
supporters “the EU will die”. She wants to leave the euro,
return to the franc, exit the Schengen agreement and close French borders.
The central message of Marine Le Pen’s
campaign was the staple of the Front National party since it was co-founded by
her father in 1972: keeping France for the French. Le Pen promised to give
priority to French people over non-nationals in jobs, housing and welfare, and
would hold a referendum to cement this policy into the constitution. She said
she would demand extra tax from companies that employed any kind of foreign
worker.
In
the final days of the first round campaign, she returned firmly to the main
concern of her electorate: immigration. She went further than she had done
before by promising to immediately suspend all legal immigration in order to
reassess what she called the “uncontrollable situation” of foreigners coming
into France.
2. House Passes Measure to Repeal and Replace the Affordable
Care Act
The New York Times THOMAS KAPLAN and ROBERT PEAR MAY 4, 2017
The
House on Thursday passed a new version of a health care bill to replace the
Affordable Care Act after the first one failed to get enough Republican support
in March. The bill still needs to pass the Senate before becoming law.
WASHINGTON
— The House on Thursday narrowly approved legislation to repeal and replace
major parts of the Affordable Care Act, as Republicans recovered from their
earlier failures and moved a step closer to delivering on their promise to
reshape American health care without mandated insurance coverage.
The
vote, 217 to 213, held on President Trump’s 105th day in office, is a
significant step on what could be a long legislative road. Twenty Republicans
bolted from their leadership to vote no. But the win keeps alive the party’s dream
of unwinding President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.
The
House measure faces profound uncertainty in the Senate, where a handful of
Republican senators immediately rejected it, signaling that they would start
work on a new version of the bill virtually from scratch.
“To the extent that the
House solves problems, we might borrow ideas,” said Senator Lamar Alexander of
Tennessee, chairman of the Senate health committee. “We can go to conference
with the House, or they can pass our bill.”
Even
before the vote, some Republican senators had expressed deep reservations about
one of the most important provisions of the House bill, which would roll back
the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
But
a softening of the House bill, which could help it get through the Senate,
would present new problems. For any repeal measure to become law, the House and
the Senate would have to agree on the language, a formidable challenge.
Just
before the House vote, the Senate gave final approval on Thursday to a $1.1
trillion spending bill that will finance the government through September, and
unlike the health care legislation, the spending bill had broad bipartisan
support.
After
weeks of negotiations and false starts, Mr. Trump and House Republicans were
not about to dwell on the tough road ahead. Passage of the health care bill
completed a remarkable act of political resuscitation, six weeks after House
leaders failed to muster the votes to pass an earlier version of the measure, a
blow to Mr. Trump and Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.
“Yes, premiums will be
coming down; yes, deductibles will be coming down, but very importantly, it’s a
great plan,” Mr. Trump boasted on Thursday at the kind of White House Rose
Garden victory ceremony typically reserved for legislation that is being signed
into law, not for a controversial bill that passed just one chamber.
“We want to brag about the
plan,” Mr. Trump said, after asking those assembled how he was doing in his
debut as a politician. “Hey, I’m president!”
Mr.
Trump quickly turned his attention to pressuring the Senate to act, calling the
majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, to talk about the way
forward for the health plan.
3.
China's first big passenger plane takes off for maiden
flight
BBC
5 May 2017
China's first large domestically made passenger aircraft has completed
its maiden flight, mounting a major challenge to Boeing and Airbus.
After
about 90 minutes in the air the plane landed safely back at Pudong airport in
Shanghai.
The
plane is a key symbol of Beijing's soaring ambitions to enter the global
aviation market.
Made
by state-owned firm Comac, it has been in planning since 2008 but the flight
was repeatedly pushed back.
For
Friday's maiden flight, the plane carried only its skeleton crew of five pilots
and engineers and took off in front of a crowd of thousands of dignitaries,
aviation workers and enthusiasts.
Ahead
of the flight, state television said the plane would fly at an altitude of only
3,000m (9,800 feet), some 7,000m lower than a regular trip, and reach a speed
of around 300km/h (186mph).
The
C919 is designed to be a direct competitor to Boeing's 737 and the Airbus A320.
In
an interview carried out in March but released on Chinese television shortly
before the launch, test pilot Cai Jun said he had full confidence in the plane.
"A
pilot knows clearly the condition of a plane. He knows very well whether it
will work. So I'm not afraid at all, but focusing more on whether the plane is
in its best shape now," he said.
He
also described halting an earlier taxiing test in late 2016 because of a
problem with the brakes.
"It's
just like driving a car. I put the brakes on, and the plane started to
shake," he said.
He
said he had had to argue with the plane's engineers help refine the design.
"For
the designers, the plane is their baby, which they believe is perfect. But our
task is to tell them that their baby is not perfect, it has strengths and
weaknesses, and they have to make improvements," the pilot said.
China's new pride of the skies
- The C919 is a
single-aisle twin-engine plane with a capacity to seat up to 168
passengers.
- It will have a range
of between 4,075 and 5,555km (2,532 - 3,452 miles).
- According to Chinese
media, it will cost around $50m, less than half of a Boeing 737 or Airbus
A320.
The
plane still relies on a wide array of imported technology though, it is for
instance powered by engines from French-US supplier CFM International.
Orders
have already been placed for more than 500 of the planes, with commitments from
23 customers, say officials, mainly Chinese airlines. The main customer is
China Eastern Airlines.
Europe's
aviation safety regulator has started the certification process for the C919 -
a crucial step for the aircraft to be successful on the international market.
China
has had ambitions to build its own civil aircraft industry since the 1970s,
when leader Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, personally backed a project.
But
the Y-10, built in the late 1970s, was impractical due to its heavy weight and
only three of the aircraft were ever made.
It's
estimated that the global aviation market will be worth $2tn (£1.55tn) over the
next 20 years.
