Tag: philippines
Washington Bids Farewell To Trump Hotel That Offered Luxury...And Access

Washington Bids Farewell To Trump Hotel That Offered Luxury...And Access

Washington (AFP) - Occupying an entire city block a short walk from the White House, the Trump International Hotel is a splashy neolassical palace steeped in more than a century of Washington lore.

The towering atrium features a huge skylight that dapples the lobby bar in winter sun as the nation's power brokers savor $140 glasses of wine served in Hungarian crystal, or $10,000 tumblers of vintage Macallan scotch.

After a drink, guests with $385 to spare can rejuvenate with a "hydrafacial" skin treatment downstairs before reclining on designer linens in one of the 263 stately, wood-paneled rooms.

"It's a beautiful place," one-time White House spokesman Sean Spicer gushed about the hotel, which is set to become a Waldorf Astoria in the New Year, ending six years of ownership by Donald Trump.

"It's somewhere that he's very proud of, and I think it's symbolic of the kind of government that he's going to run."

Spicer turned out to be correct.

Trump promised to "drain the swamp" of corruption in Washington, but instead opened his very own quagmire on Pennsylvania Avenue -- inviting a dizzying array of conflicts of interest.

During Trump's four years in office, the 19th-century Romanesque Revival-style hotel became a magnet for top donors, corporate lobbyists and foreign governments seeking to spend big in the hope of winning influence.

"The law is totally on my side, meaning the president can't have a conflict of interest," Trump said in 2016 when asked about mixing his day job with promoting his sprawling business empire.

'Influence Peddling'

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) lobby group tracked 150 officials from 77 foreign governments that visited a Trump property during his presidency.

According to a congressional probe, the Washington hotel took in $3.7 million from countries including China, Kuwait, Turkey, India, Brazil and Romania.

The Philippines told a television station back home its decision to use the hotel for a 2018 Independence Day celebration was "a statement that we have a good relationship with this president."

The clientele raised concerns about possible violations of anti-corruption provisions written by the nation's founders restricting the acceptance of gifts to office-holders from foreigners.

"Donald Trump should never have been allowed to keep his DC hotel as president," CREW's head Noah Bookbinder said.

"He should have divested himself of it along with the rest of his businesses before taking office. Instead, he rode out four years of using it for influence peddling and constitutional violations."

Altogether, domestic political groups spent $3 million at the hotel across some 40 political events during the Trump era.

Special interest groups, such as the American Petroleum Institute, often took part in White House meetings alongside a hotel event, and many secured favorable policy outcomes, according to CREW.

AFP reached out to the Trump Organization, but there was no response.

The former president handed control of his businesses to his two adult sons and a trustee when he entered the White House, promising not to get involved while in reality promoting the venues at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, the Trump Organization pledged to donate its profits from foreign governments to the US Treasury.

Built in the 1890s, the 12-story Old Post Office that houses the Trump International is the third-tallest building in the capital, after the Washington Monument and National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

$12,000 Per Night

Scheduled for demolition several times, it was bailed out in 2011 when Trump pipped Hilton and Hyatt with a bid pledging to sink $200 million into a makeover.

The hotel opened in the fall of 2016, a few months before Trump entered the White House, effectively making the new president his own landlord, in violation of a provision banning elected officials from "any share" of the lease.

A review of rates by AFP found the least expensive room around the end of November would cost $512 per night. A night in the Franklin Suite, including breakfast in bed, was on offer for a cool $12,109.98.

But the sky-high prices did not translate into profit.

Investigators in Congress found the hotel lost more than $70 million during Trump's presidency, concluding that he had "grossly exaggerated" its profits.

The Trump Organization called the report "intentionally misleading, irresponsible and unequivocally false" and described it as "political harassment."

But reports in US media have chronicled low occupancy as the Trump International has struggled to contend with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Trump Organization sold the lease for a reported $375 million to an investment fund, which plans to reopen the hotel in the first months of 2022 as a Waldorf Astoria.

"The Trump Hotel DC stood as a bright neon sign telling foreign countries and moneyed interests how to bribe the president and a stark reminder to Americans that his decisions as president were just as likely to be about his bottom line as about our interests," CREW's Bookbinder added.

"Selling it now that he's out of office and the grift dried up is, to say the least, too little, too late."

Philippine President Calls President Obama ‘Son Of A Whore’

Philippine President Calls President Obama ‘Son Of A Whore’

For the most part, when American journalists and commentators described Rodrigo Duterte as the “Filipino Trump” when he won office in May, it was a rare instance in which Trump’s bombast and threatening remarks were overstated: As much as Trump threatens the possibility of fascistic rule and a new era of lethal “Law and Order” and “America First” brutality at home and abroad, Duterte explicitly articulated his violent plans from the start of his campaign last year, promising in November that Filipinos “better put up more funeral parlors” if he was elected.

He has kept that promise: 2,400 have been killed in the Philippines since July 1, Al Jazeera reports, the vast majority executed by vigilantes and other non-governmental groups for their suspected (and invented) ties to the drug trade.

We can only hope a president Trump would seek to discourage our own vigilantes: Not long ago, “Minutemen” were watching the Mexican border in shifts, armed with assault weapons and itchy trigger fingers.

But there is one ominous trait Duterte and Trump share: The endless demagogic requirement to shore up support at home among nationalists.

Yesterday, President Duterte called President Obama — the leader of the most powerful nation in history and a crucial military ally to his country in the face of an aggressive Chinese government — “son of a whore.” Obama canceled his planned meeting with Duterte shortly after. Whoever is elected president in November will surely take a much harsher stand against such an insult, especially early in their administration. Why would Duterte shoot himself in the foot?

And yet, Donald Trump showed a similar lack of tact last week, when he lied to the world about not discussing payment for a border wall with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, a statement that was immediately rebutted by representatives of the Mexican government. That sent a message worldwide: Don’t trust a President Trump, he’s too busy appealing to his base.

But that’s where the Duterte/Trump comparisons mostly end. Duterte is a murderous madman. Trump is a madman without a military.


Video: France 24 English

Philippines Volcano Threatening Eruption, Thousands Evacuated

Philippines Volcano Threatening Eruption, Thousands Evacuated

By Girlie Linao, dpa

MANILA — Tens of thousands of people living near the Philippines’ most active volcano began to evacuate on Tuesday after increased activity prompted government scientists to warn of an imminent eruption.

Dozens of military trucks were dispatched to pick up the residents in the danger zones around Mayon Volcano in Albay province, 330 kilometers south-east of Manila, said Major General Ricardo Visaya, a regional military commander.

“So far, there has been no reported opposition to the evacuation plan,” he said.

An estimated 12,000 families or nearly 60,000 residents are in the danger zones that affect three cities and five towns in Albay province, according to provincial Governor Joey Salceda.

“Everyone in the danger zones has to evacuate and we will guard these areas to make sure that none of them sneak back,” he told a Manila radio station.

Salceda ordered the mandatory evacuation after the alert at Mayon was raised to level 3 overnight, which means a “hazardous eruption is possible within weeks,” the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.

The institute said it had recorded 32 volcanic earthquakes, 72 rockfalls, and intense crater glow in the past 24 hours at the 2,472-metre volcano, which is famous for its nearly symmetrical cone.

“Rolling incandescent rockfall … last night indicates that the summit lava dome is breaching the crater on its south-eastern side,” it said in the latest bulletin.

“All the above data indicate that the volcano is exhibiting relatively high unrest due to the movement of potentially eruptible magma.”

Mayon has erupted about 50 times since 1616. Its most violent eruption was in 1814, when more than 1,200 people were killed and a town was buried in volcanic mud. An eruption in 1993 killed 79 people.

In May 2013, sudden explosions from the crater killed four foreign tourists and a Filipino guide.

AFP Photo/Charism Sayat

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