Indonesian president urges Biden to help end Gaza ‘atrocities’

President Joe Biden meets with Indonesia's President Joko Widodo in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, in Washington. (AP)

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Updated 14 November 2023

AFP

November 14, 2023 01:17

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Indonesian president urges Biden to help end Gaza ‘atrocities’

Indonesia last week denied an allegation by Israel that a hospital built in Gaza using Indonesian charity funding sits atop a network of Hamas tunnels

Updated 14 November 2023

AFP

November 14, 2023 01:17

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WASHINGTON: Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged US President Joe Biden during a visit to the White House on Monday to do more to end “atrocities” in Gaza and help bring about a cease-fire.
The Israel-Hamas war overshadowed the Oval Office talks, which had been meant to showcase an upgrade in ties as Washington tries to boost alliances against an increasingly assertive China.
“Indonesia appeals to the US to do more to stop the atrocities in Gaza,” Widodo, the leader of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, said as the two presidents met in front of a roaring fire.
“Cease-fire is a must for the sake of humanity.”
The Indonesian president had said Sunday he would bring Biden a “very strong message” from a joint summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in Riyadh at the weekend which condemned Israel and called for a cease-fire.
Widodo also said he would “deliver a specific message from President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine, who asked me to convey it to President Biden,” regarding the war.
US officials had said Biden would in turn urge his Indonesian counterpart to take a “larger role” in resolving the Israel-Hamas conflict in the talks at the White House on Monday.
“I think it will be critical to hear the perspectives from Indonesia about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” a senior US administration official said Sunday in a call with reporters.
This would include the “cease-fire issue” but also long-term goals such as a two-state solution after the war and rebuilding the shattered Gaza Strip, the US official said.
Indonesia last week denied an allegation by Israel that a hospital built in Gaza using Indonesian charity funding sits atop a network of Hamas tunnels.
The meeting had been aimed at showing unity ahead of Biden’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco this week, with Washington trying to counter Beijing in the Asia-Pacific region.
Indonesia and the United States were shaking hands on a new “comprehensive strategic partnership” — Indonesia’s highest level of diplomatic ties.
Biden unveiled a similar upgrade to ties with Vietnam on a visit to Hanoi in September, part of Washington’s push to bolster its network of allies in Asia and the Pacific.
Indonesia, like many emerging and developing countries, has received massive Chinese investment and loans, particularly for infrastructure projects.
The leaders will also discuss cooperation on critical minerals for electric vehicle batteries and other clean energy technologies, US officials said.
Biden and Widodo — who is set to leave office next year after reaching the end of a two-term limit — will hold one-on-one talks in the White House Oval Office before having tea.
Widodo’s Washington visit comes ahead of what the officials called a consequential week in which Biden hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco.
Biden will meet China’s Xi on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday — their first talks since the G20 gathered in the Indonesian resort island of Bali in November 2022.
Indonesia and other countries will be watching the talks between the superpower rivals because “they want a situation that is not risking global conflict,” a US official said.

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Topics: War on Gaza Israeli atrocities Joko Widodo Joe Biden

Trump selects Mike Waltz as national security adviser, sources say

Updated 9 sec ago

Reuters

November 12, 2024 00:19

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Trump selects Mike Waltz as national security adviser, sources say

Updated 9 sec ago

Reuters

November 12, 2024 00:19

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump has picked Republican Representative Mike Waltz to be his national security adviser, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday, tapping a retired Army Green Beret who has been a leading critic of China.
Waltz, a Trump loyalist who also served in the National Guard as a colonel, has criticized Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and has voiced the need for the United States to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.
The national security adviser is a powerful role, which does not require Senate confirmation. Waltz will be responsible for briefing Trump on key national security issues and coordinating with different agencies.
While slamming the Biden administration for a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Waltz has publicly praised Trump’s foreign policy views.
“Disruptors are often not nice ... frankly our national security establishment and certainly a lot of people that are dug into bad old habits in the Pentagon need that disruption,” Waltz said during an event earlier this year.
“Donald Trump is that disruptor,” he said.
Waltz has a long history in Washington’s political circles.
He was a defense policy director for defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and was elected to Congress in 2018. He is the chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee overseeing military logistics and also on the select committee on intelligence.
Waltz is also on the Republican’s China Task Force and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
In a book published earlier this year titled “Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret,” Waltz laid out a five part strategy to preventing war with China, including arming Taiwan faster, re-assuring allies in the Pacific, and modernizing planes and ships.
On Ukraine, Waltz has said his views have evolved. After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he called for the Biden administration to provide more weapons to Kyiv to help them push back Russian forces.
But during an event last month, Waltz said there had to be a reassessment of the United States’ aims in Ukraine.
“Is it in America’s interest, are we going to put in the time, the treasure, the resources that we need in the Pacific right now badly?” Waltz asked.
Waltz has praised Trump for pushing NATO allies to spend more on defense, but unlike the president-elect has not suggested the United States pull out of the alliance.
“Look we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations,” Waltz said last month.

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UN Security Council considers action on Sudan war

Updated 48 min 57 sec ago

Reuters

November 12, 2024 02:27

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UN Security Council considers action on Sudan war

The UN says nearly 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — need aid as famine has taken hold in displacement camps and 11 million people have fled their homes

Updated 48 min 57 sec ago

Reuters

November 12, 2024 02:27

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution that demands Sudan’s warring parties cease hostilities and calls on them to allow safe, rapid and unhindered deliveries of aid across front lines and borders. War erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, and triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis. It has produced waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF. The RSF has denied harming civilians in Sudan and attributed the activity to rogue actors. In the first UN sanctions imposed during the current conflict, a Security Council committee designated two RSF generals last week.
“Nineteen months in to the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.
“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”
Britain wanted to put the draft resolution to a vote as quickly as possible, diplomats said. To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, Russia or China.

AID ACROSS BORDERS
The UN says nearly 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — need aid as famine has taken hold in displacement camps and 11 million people have fled their homes. Nearly 3 million of those people have left for other countries.
Britain’s draft text “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan, “and demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities.”
It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.” The draft also calls for the Adre border crossing with Chad to remain open for aid deliveries “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”
A three-month approval given by Sudanese authorities for the UN and aid groups to use the Adre border crossing to reach Darfur is due to expire in mid-November. The Security Council has adopted two previous resolutions on Sudan: in March it called for an immediate cessation of hostilities for the holy month of Ramadan, then in June it specifically demanded a halt to a siege of a city of 1.8 million people in Sudan’s North Darfur region by the RSF.
Both resolutions — adopted with 14 votes in favor and a Russian abstention — also called for full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access.

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Topics: Sudan war UN Security Council Rapid Support Forces Sudanese army

US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

Updated 12 November 2024

AFP

November 12, 2024 01:14

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US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

Updated 12 November 2024

AFP

November 12, 2024 01:14

BAKU: Washington’s top climate envoy sought to reassure countries at the COP29 talks Monday that Donald Trump’s re-election would not end US efforts to tackle global warming.
Trump’s sweep of the presidential vote has cast a long shadow over the crunch talks in Baku, with the incoming US leader pledging to withdraw Washington from the landmark Paris climate agreement.
The vote has left the US delegation somewhat hamstrung and stoked fears other countries could be less ambitious in a fractious debate on increasing climate funding for developing nations.
US envoy John Podesta acknowledged the next US administration would “try and take a U-turn” on climate action, but said that US cities, states and individual citizens would pick up the slack.
“While the United States federal government under Donald Trump may put climate change action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief,” he said.
“The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.”
The Baku talks opened earlier Monday with UN climate chief Simon Stiell urging countries to “show that global cooperation is not down for the count.”
Things got off to a rocky start, with feuds over the official agenda delaying by hours the start of formal proceedings in the stadium venue near the Caspian Sea.
But in the evening, governments approved new UN standards for a global carbon market in a key step toward allowing countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets.
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev hailed a “breakthrough” after years of complex discussions but more work is needed before a long-sought UN-backed market can be fully realized.
The main agenda item at COP29 is increasing a $100 billion-a-year target to help developing nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean their economies off fossil fuels.
How much will be on offer, who will pay, and who can access the funds are some of the major points of contention.
Babayev acknowledged the need was “in the trillions” but said a more “realistic goal” was somewhere in the hundreds of billions.
“These negotiations are complex and difficult,” the former executive of Azerbaijan’s national oil company said at the opening of the summit.
Developing countries warn that without adequate finance, they will struggle to offer ambitious updates to their climate goals, which countries are required to submit by early next year.
“The global North owes the global South a climate debt,” said Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network.
“We will not leave this COP if the ambition level on the finance... doesn’t match the scale at which finance must be delivered.”
Stiell warned rich countries to “dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity.”
“An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest,” he said.
The small group of developed countries that currently contributes the money wants the donor pool expanded to include other rich nations and top emitters.
Just a handful of leaders from the Group of 20, whose countries account for nearly 80 percent of global emissions, are attending. US President Joe Biden is staying away.
Afghanistan is however present for the first time since the Taliban took power, as guests of the host Azerbaijan but not party to the talks.
The meeting comes after fresh warnings that the world is far off track to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.
The UN said Monday that 2024 is likely to break new temperature records, and the Paris climate agreement’s goals were now “in great peril.”
The period from 2015 to 2024 will also be the warmest decade ever recorded, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said in a new report.
The climate deal commits to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, preferably below 1.5C.
If the world tops that level this year, it would not be an immediate breach of the Paris deal, which measures temperatures over decades.
But it suggests much greater climate action is needed.
Last month, the UN warned the world is on a path toward a catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century based on current actions.
More than 51,000 people are expected at COP29 talks, which run from November 11 to 22.

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Topics: COP29 US

New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

Updated 12 November 2024

AFP

November 12, 2024 01:03

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New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

Updated 12 November 2024

AFP

November 12, 2024 01:03

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aime was sworn in as Haiti’s new prime minister on Monday, promising to restore security in the crisis-wracked country after his predecessor was ousted after just five months in office.
Fils-Aime replaces Garry Conille, who was appointed in late May, but has spent recent weeks locked in a power struggle with the country’s transitional council over ministerial appointments.
“We have a transition with lots of work to do: the first essential job, which is a condition for success, is restoring security,” he said in French.
He said he was aware of Haiti’s “difficult circumstances” but promised to put “all of my energy, my skills and my patriotism at the service of the national cause.”
The unelected prime minister and the nine-member transitional council are faced with rampant gang violence and tasked with preparing the path for presidential elections next year.
Outgoing premier Conille has questioned the authority of the council to sack him, and the row looks set to deepen a political crisis in Haiti, whose presidency has remained vacant since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in 2021.
There is no sitting parliament, either, and the last elections were held in 2016.
The Caribbean nation has long been saddled with political instability, grinding poverty, natural disasters and gang violence. But conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the capital Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow then-prime minister Ariel Henry.
Unelected and unpopular, Henry stepped down amid the turmoil, handing power to the transitional council, which has US and regional backing.
Despite the arrival of a Kenyan-led police support mission, violence has continued to soar.
A recent United Nations report said more than 1,200 people were killed from July through September, with persistent kidnappings and sexual violence against women and girls.
Low-cost American carrier Spirit Airlines said one of its flights was hit by gunfire while trying to land at Port-au-Prince on Monday and had to be diverted to the Dominican Republic.
One flight attendant suffered minor injuries and was being evaluated by medical staff, the airline said in a statement. No passengers were injured.
Responding to the latest political instability, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged all sides in Haiti to “work constructively” together to ensure the integrity of the transition process, his spokesman said Monday.
“It’s not for the Secretary General to choose who will be the prime minister of Haiti,” said spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “What is important is that Haitian political leaders put the interests of Haiti first and foremost.”
Gangs in recent years have taken over about 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince as any semblance of governance evaporated.
The UN report said the gangs were digging trenches, using drones and stockpiling weapons as they change tactics to confront the Kenyan-led police force.
Gang leaders have strengthened defenses for the zones they control and placed gas cylinders and Molotov cocktail bombs ready to use against police operations.
More than 700,000 people — half of them children — have fled their homes because of the gang violence, according to the International Organization for Migration.

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Topics: Haiti

Flood fears as Ukraine says Russian strike damages dam

Updated 12 November 2024

AFP

November 12, 2024 00:55

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Flood fears as Ukraine says Russian strike damages dam

Moscow’s army is now rapidly advancing in the Donetsk region and closing in on the town of Kurakhove, which lies next to the reservoir

Updated 12 November 2024

AFP

November 12, 2024 00:55

KYIV, Ukraine: Russian strikes on Monday damaged a dam near the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian authorities said, warning nearby villages could be threatened by rising water levels.
Ukraine also said Russian attacks killed at least three people in the center of the country, with rescue operations ongoing in the city of Kryvyi Rig.
They came after the warring countries hit each other with massive drone strikes at the weekend and as the long-term future of US support for Ukraine hangs in the air after the election of Donald Trump.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for nearly three years.
Moscow’s army is now rapidly advancing in the Donetsk region and closing in on the town of Kurakhove, which lies next to the reservoir and had a pre-war population of around 10,000 people.
“The Russians damaged the dam of the reservoir of Kurakhove. This strike potentially threatens residents of settlements on the Vovcha River, both in Donetsk and Dnipro regions,” the region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
“As of 16:00, the water level in the river within the Velykonovosilkivska community has risen by 1.2 meters (four feet). No flooding has been reported so far!” he posted on social media.
The dam lies in the village of Stari Terny, west of Kurakhove.
International environmental groups have warned of the devastating effects of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine’s nature.
In June last year, a massive Soviet-era dam in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region was blown up, pouring billions of liters of water downstream and flooding dozens of villages on the banks of the Dnipro River.
Kyiv said Russia, whose troops controlled the dam at the time, blew it up to thwart a Ukrainian counter-offensive. Moscow blamed Ukraine.
Dozens were killed in the floods that followed the blast, which has also caused vast environmental damage to southern Ukraine.
Russia also targeted the central Ukrainian cities of Nikopol and Kryvyi Rig on Monday.
Moscow’s shelling killed two people in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region governor Sergiy Lysak said.
In Kryvyi Rig, the home city of President Volodymyr Zelensky, a search and rescue operation was underway, with at least one dead and 14 people wounded after Russian strikes on the city.
The head of the city, Oleksandr Vilkul, said the body of a woman was pulled out of the rubble.
Kryvyi Rig has been regularly hit by Russian strikes.
The attacks came a day after Moscow and Kyiv launched record drone attacks on each other on Sunday.
Trump’s election has raised questions about the future of the conflict, with the Republican being vocally critical of United States aid to Ukraine.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed that he would end the war swiftly, without giving details as to how.
Visiting Ukraine on Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that letting Russia win in Ukraine would represent a loss for the United States.
“Certainly it would not be a victory for the American leadership if Ukraine crumbles down and Putin wins the war,” Borrell told AFP on the first trip to Kyiv by a senior EU official since Trump’s election triumph.

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Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukraine Russia

Indonesian president urges Biden to help end Gaza ‘atrocities’

Indonesian president urges Biden to help end Gaza ‘atrocities’

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New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

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Flood fears as Ukraine says Russian strike damages dam

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Indonesian president urges Biden to help end Gaza ‘atrocities’

Indonesian president urges Biden to help end Gaza ‘atrocities’

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