Five global stories to watch as the US waits for midterm election results
Republican gains in Washington may not yet be over
Updated
In this week’s midterm elections in the US, the country is set to elect a new Senate and House of Representatives — the first since the 2016 election.
While the results are not in yet, here’s what’s already happened.
1. US Congress votes across the world in record-breaking numbers
The Senate passed its version of the tax-relief bill on Monday — by an almost unanimous margin of 55 to 44.
It is less than two-and-a-half weeks until Americans go to the polls.
That means there are now more than 30 countries that have seen their political branches vote on tax legislation in the last four months.
The result: a record high number of votes.
The bill, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), is one of the most significant pieces of legislation to pass through Congress in recent times.
And although it is expected to raise substantial amounts of money for the US Treasury, in reality, it has had little impact on the economy.
The new law, which passed through Congress on December 21, 2017, is set to kick in on January 1, 2019.
2. North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un is ‘dangling’ a nuclear bomb to the South, Donald Trump says
This week, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un told the Australian that his country will attack the US if Washington attacks him.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has made a public threat to attack the US if the US attacks North Korea. Picture: AP Photo/Tak Soi chan
He said in a New Year’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday that if his country’s forces “break into so-called safe zones” to invade the US, “we will turn them into scrap metal”.
Meanwhile, in an interview with ABC News after his speech, Trump also confirmed he was “dangling” a nuclear bomb over the heads of North Korea and South Korea.
He is demanding that North Korea “get their act together” before he would contemplate a military strike.
“I would love to negotiate with North Korea. If they really would have a chance to do something, that is what we would do. But as you know, they don’t have a chance right now,” he
