Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain...
Liberia’s Supreme Court on Friday said it would decide on Monday whether a runoff vote for the presidency will go ahead, after hearing arguments from an opposition party and the electoral commission.
Chief Justice Francis Korkpor said the court would issue a decision on Monday at 10am (1000 GMT) over whether the runoff between former international footballer George Weah and incumbent Vice-President Joseph Boakai would proceed.
However, most observers agree the scheduled date of November 7 now looks near-impossible.
Charles Brumskine, who came third in an October 10 election behind Weah and Boakai, is alleging “massive fraud and irregularities” marred the poll and is seeking a re-run of the whole vote.
The Weah-Boakai runoff was triggered after no single candidate gained more than 50 percent of votes, though Weah topped the poll.
Boakai has said he backs Brumskine’s legal complaint.
On October 31, the five-judge panel ordered the National Elections Commission (NEC) to temporarily suspend election preparations — a decision the NEC Chairman Jerome Korkoya says means November 7 is now a date it “does not look possible to meet”.
In court, Brumskine said allowing the election to go ahead before his allegations are resolved by an internal complaint lodged with the NEC, or in court, was “tantamount to denying… due process of the law”, representing his own party before the judges.
“This is not about winning or losing, this is about a system that has held the country hostage for years,” Brumskine said, following his assertion in an interview with AFP on Thursday that the NEC’s commissioners should all be sacked before any new poll.
Lawyers for the NEC argued the date and timing of the runoff was enshrined in the constitution and could not be altered for any legal complaint.
Liberia’s 2005 and 2011 elections also ended in disputes lodged by Weah’s CDC party, though only 2011’s reached the Supreme Court.
Liberty Party Chairman Benjamin Sanvee told AFP: “You can never tell because this is the Supreme Court, but we believe we presented our case well.”
The NEC was not immediately available for comment following the hearing.
A lawyer by training, Brumskine has urged Boakai not to take part in the runoff after the vice-president said he would go ahead regardless of his backing for the legal case.
Commentators describe the election — showcased as Liberia’s first democratic transition in seven decades — as a key test of stability after an estimated quarter of a million people died in back-to-back civil wars.
The country emerged from the bloodshed with the election in 2005 of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — Africa’s first elected woman president.
She is stepping down after a maximum two six-year terms in which she helped to ease the trauma of conflict but struggled to tackle its grinding poverty
West African leaders met with all sides of the conflict on Wednesday in an attempt to ease the crisis.
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