China’s Xi Jinping gets expanded mandate

Opens possibility of Xi ruling for life

Xi Jinping, already China’s most powerful leader in more than a generation, received a vastly expanded mandate as lawmakers Sunday abolished presidential term limits that had been in place for more than 35 years and wrote his political philosophy into the country’s constitution.

In one swift vote, the rubberstamp legislature opened up the possibility of Xi being president for life, returning China to the one-man-rule system that prevailed during the era of Mao Zedong and the emperors who preceded him.

The package of constitutional amendments passed the nearly 3,000-member National People’s Congress almost unanimously, with just two opposing votes and three abstentions. The vote further underscored the total domination of Chinese politics by the 64-year-old Xi, who is simultaneously the head of state, leader of the ruling Communist Party and commander of the 1 million-member armed forces.

The move upends a system enacted by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1982 to prevent a return to the bloody excesses of a lifelong dictatorship typified by Mao’s chaotic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.

White House plan includes gun training for teachers

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump’s plan to combat school shootings will include helping states pay for firearms training for teachers and a call to improve the background check system.

But Trump’s plan will not include a push to increase the minimum age for purchasing assault weapons or an embrace of more comprehensive background checks, as Trump has at times advocated.

Instead, a new federal commission on school safety will examine the age issue, as well as a long list of others topics, as part of a longer-term look at school safety and violence.

In a call with reporters Sunday evening, administration officials described the plan as a fulfilment of Trump’s call for action in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 students and staff dead.

US officials: No more conditions imposed on NKorea for talks

Trump administration officials said Sunday there will be no more conditions imposed on North Korea before a first-ever meeting of the two nation’s leaders beyond the North's promise not to resume nuclear testing and missile flights or publicly criticize U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

The officials’ comments followed the surprise announcement last week that President Donald Trump has agreed to meet the North's Kim Jong Un by May.

“This potential meeting has been agreed to, there are no additional conditions being stipulated, but, again they — they cannot engage in missile testing, they cannot engage in nuclear testing and they can’t publicly object to the U.S.-South Korea planned military exercises,” deputy White House spokesman Raj Shah said.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the summit would give Trump a chance “to sit down and see if he can cut a deal” with Kim over the North’s nuclear program. “The president has been very clear in what the objective is here. And that is to get rid of nuclear weapons on the (Korean) peninsula,” Mnuchin said.

Chile veers right as Pinera returns to presidency

SANTIAGO, Chile Conservative Sebastian Pinera returned to Chile’s presidency Sunday, vowing to revive an economy that has slumped under centre-left leader Michelle Bachelet and calling for unity in helping the country’s less fortunate.

The outgoing leader handed the presidential sash to the president of Congress, who then swore in Pinera — who himself had turned over the office to Bachelet in a similar ceremony four years ago.

Pinera, a billionaire entrepreneur, oversaw growth that averaged 5.3 per cent a year during his first term from 2010 to 2014, aided by pro-business policies, rising prices for Chile’s chief export, copper, and a huge rebuilding effort following a magnitude 8.8 earthquake that hit just before he took office.

A slump in copper prices helped sour Bachelet’s second round as president, with the economy — and the president's popularity — slipping badly in 2014 and 2015. The country’s first female president had been wildly popular when she ended her initial term by handing power to Pinera.

Nerve agent attack against ex-spy ups pressure on UK

SALISBURY, England The health implications of the nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy and his adult daughter broadened Sunday after British officials said limited traces of contamination were found in a restaurant and a pub in the English city of Salisbury.

Public health officials said the risk of others being sickened by the chemicals that put the father and daughter in critical condition a week ago was very low. But they advised people who had patronized the businesses during a two-day period to wash their clothes, double-bag articles for dry cleaning, and wipe down items like jewelry.

“It’s really important to understand the general public should not be concerned. There is, on the evidence currently, a very low risk.” Dr. Jenny Harries of Public Health England said at a news conference.

Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, were found comatose on a bench near the Zizzi restaurant and The Mill pub on March 4. Several hundred people would have been in the Salisbury establishments that day and the day after, Harries said.

The public health concerns — and the seven days it took authorities to give instructions for reducing possible exposure risks — increased pressure on the British government to take action against whoever is deemed responsible for the rare nerve agent attack.

Treasury chief Philip Hammond added his voice Sunday to the chorus of senior British figures vowing that strong steps will be taken if a foreign government is found to be responsible. Britain would “respond appropriately” in that case, Hammond said.

Authorities have not yet named the nerve agent used or signalled that the evidence collected so far suggests another government is to blame.