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Biden meets Jordan’s king, who wants Gaza ceasefire

Biden meets Jordan’s king, who wants Gaza ceasefire
President Joe Biden, right, poses with Jordan's King Abdullah II on the North Portico of the White House, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, in Washington. (AP)
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Updated 12 February 2024
Reuters
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Biden meets Jordan’s king, who wants Gaza ceasefire

Biden meets Jordan’s king, who wants Gaza ceasefire
  • Biden increasingly vocal in his demand that Israel not undertake a ground offensive in Rafah without plan to protect Palestinians
Updated 12 February 2024
Reuters
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WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden met Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House on Monday, coming face-to-face with a longtime ally who has been vocal in calling for a Gaza ceasefire.
Biden greeted the king warmly on arrival at the White House. The two leaders proceeded inside the residence for their discussions. They were to make statements to the news media later.
The meeting came as Biden has become increasingly vocal in his demand that Israel not undertake a ground offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah without a plan to protect Palestinian civilians who are massed there.
Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, and the White House said he stressed that “a military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people sheltering there.”
Before embarking on a tour of Western capitals, Abdullah participated in an airdrop of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a move that highlighted his kingdom’s role in pushing Israel to stop restricting efforts to help fend off illness, hunger and starvation in the war-torn enclave.
The king, who has been vocal in calling for an end to Israel’s campaign, is expected to urge Biden to support an immediate ceasefire.
Biden’s team has been trying to negotiate a pause in the fighting in order to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas since the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza launched an attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people. Palestinian health officials estimate that more than 28,000 people in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s offensive against Hamas fighters.
A senior Biden administration official told reporters on Sunday that Biden’s meeting with the king would focus on ending the war in Gaza.

Topics: War on Gaza

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Fishing boat carrying 283 migrants to Europe safely reaches southern Greek island

Fishing boat carrying 283 migrants to Europe safely reaches southern Greek island
Updated 27 sec ago
AP
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Fishing boat carrying 283 migrants to Europe safely reaches southern Greek island

Fishing boat carrying 283 migrants to Europe safely reaches southern Greek island
Updated 27 sec ago
AP

ATHENS: A fishing boat carrying nearly 300 migrants to Europe has safely reached a southern Greek island after a large rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea, Greek authorities said Monday.
There were no immediate reports of injury or ill health among the 283 migrants, the coast guard said.
A coast guard statement said a search was launched before dawn Monday after authorities were notified that a vessel carrying migrants was hit by high winds south of Crete.
Two coast guard vessels, four merchant ships and two smaller private boats took part in the operation, and the migrant vessel was located 18 nautical miles (20 miles) south of Gavdos, a small island off southern Crete. The fishing boat was finally able to reach the port of Gavdos with its own engines, and the migrants safely disembarked.
There was no immediate information as to the nationalities of the migrants, or where they had departed from.
Tiny Gavdos in recent months has become an important destination for migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean from eastern Libya. Typically, people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia seeking a better life in Europe pay thousands of dollars to smugglers for a spot on the dangerous, overcrowded vessels.
In June 2023, a rusty trawler that was carrying an estimated 750 people from Tobruk in eastern Libya to Italy sank off southwestern Greece leaving hundreds feared drowned. Only 104 passengers survived, and 82 bodies were recovered.
The coast guard said the migrants who reached Gavdos Monday were transported to southern Crete, from which they would be taken to the western port town of Chania.

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Kenya starvation cult leader goes on trial on terrorism charges

Kenya starvation cult leader goes on trial on terrorism charges
Updated 6 min 23 sec ago
AFP
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Kenya starvation cult leader goes on trial on terrorism charges

Kenya starvation cult leader goes on trial on terrorism charges
  • Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie appears in court along with 94 co-defendants
Updated 6 min 23 sec ago
AFP

MOMBASA, Kenya: The leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult went on trial on Monday on charges of terrorism over the deaths of more than 400 of his followers in a macabre case that shocked the country and the world.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie appeared in court in the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa along with 94 co-defendants, an AFP journalist said.

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Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes

Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes
Updated 59 min 12 sec ago
AFP
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Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes

Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes
  • Mumbai city council ordered schools and colleges shut Monday amid “heavy to very heavy rainfall” forecast
  • Many streets were under water in coastal city after hours of heavy rain, several bus and train services suspended
Updated 59 min 12 sec ago
AFP

NEW DELHI: Intense monsoon storms battered India on Monday, flooding parts of the financial capital Mumbai, while lightning in the eastern state of Bihar killed at least 10 people, government officials said.
Mumbai’s city council ordered schools and colleges shut Monday as a precautionary measure, reporting that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had warned of “heavy to very heavy rainfall.”
Many streets were under water in the coastal city after hours of heavy rain, with several bus and train services suspended.
In Bihar, 10 people were killed in separate lightning strikes on Sunday, state Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said in a statement, asking people to “stay indoors during bad weather.”
Monsoon rains across South Asia from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies, but also bring widespread death and destruction.
The number of fatal floods and landslides has increased in recent years, however, and experts say climate change is exacerbating the problem.
Floods have also swamped the northeastern state of Assam, with eight people killed in the last 24 hours, Assam’s Disaster Management Authority said Sunday.
That takes the death toll from the downpours since mid-May to 66.
In the northern state of Uttarakhand, authorities issued warnings of heavy rain.
The ferocious storms also bring frequent lightning strikes.
In 2022, nearly 3,000 people died from lightning strikes across India, according to the national crime records bureau.

Topics: India rain Arab News Pakistan

Explainer: After French election no party has a majority, so what comes next?

Explainer: After French election no party has a majority, so what comes next?
Updated 08 July 2024
Reuters
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Explainer: After French election no party has a majority, so what comes next?

Explainer: After French election no party has a majority, so what comes next?
  • Left-wing New Popular Front alliance was on track to win the biggest number of seats
  • Outcome delivers stinging defeat to far-right RN party, which had been projected to win 
Updated 08 July 2024
Reuters

Here’s what may come next after France’s election on Sunday looked set to produce a hung parliament, with a leftist alliance in the lead but without a absolute majority.

What happened in Sunday’s second round vote?

The left-wing New Popular Front alliance was on track to win the biggest number of seats, according to pollsters’ projected results, but it will fall short of the 289 needed to secure an outright majority in the lower house.

The outcome delivers a stinging defeat to the far-right National Rally (RN) party, which had been projected to win the vote but suffered after the NFP and President Emmanuel Macron’s Together bloc worked together between the first and second rounds of voting to create an anti-RN vote.

Projections showed the RN finishing third, behind Together.

It means none of the three blocs can form a majority government and would need support from others to pass legislation.

Will a left-leaning coalition form?

This is far from certain.

France is not accustomed to the kind of post-election coalition-building that is common in northern European parliamentary democracies like Germany or the Netherlands.

Its Fifth Republic was designed in 1958 by war hero Charles de Gaulle to give large, stable parliamentary majorities to presidents and that has created a confrontational political culture with no tradition of consensus and compromises.

Moderate leftwing politician Raphael Glucksmann, a lawmaker in the European Parliament, said the political class would have to “act like grown-ups.”

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), ruled out a broad coalition of parties of different stripes. He said Macron had a duty to call on the leftist alliance to rule.

In the centrist camp, Macron’s party head, Stephane Sejourne, said he was ready to work with mainstream parties but ruled out any deal with Melenchon’s LFI. Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe also ruled out any deal with the hard-left party.

Macron himself said he will wait for the new assembly to have found some “structure” to decide his next move.

What if no agreement can be found?

That would be uncharted territory for France. The constitution says Macron cannot call new parliamentary elections for another 12 months.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said he would tender his resignation to Macron on Monday morning, but that he was available to act in a care-taker capacity.

The constitution says Macron decides who to ask to form a government. But whoever he picks faces a confidence vote in the National Assembly, which will convene for 15 days on July 18. This means Macron needs to name someone acceptable to a majority of lawmakers.

Macron will likely be hoping to peel off Socialists and Greens from the leftist alliance, isolating France Unbowed, to form a center-left coalition with his own bloc.

However, there was no sign of an imminent break-up of the New Popular Front at this stage.

Another possibility is a government of technocrats that would manage day-to-day affairs but not oversee structural changes.

It was not clear the left-wing bloc would support this scenario, which would still require the backing of parliament.

Topics: France elections France

Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes

Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes
Updated 08 July 2024
AFP
Follow

Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes

Monsoon storms batter India with floods and lightning strikes
  • Many streets were under water in the coastal city after hours of heavy rain, with several bus and train services suspended
Updated 08 July 2024
AFP

NEW DELHI: Intense monsoon storms battered India on Monday, flooding parts of the financial capital Mumbai, while lightning in the eastern state of Bihar killed at least 10 people, government officials said.
Mumbai’s city council ordered schools and colleges shut Monday as a precautionary measure, reporting that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had warned of “heavy to very heavy rainfall.”
Many streets were under water in the coastal city after hours of heavy rain, with several bus and train services suspended.
In Bihar, 10 people were killed in separate lightning strikes on Sunday, state Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said in a statement, asking people to “stay indoors during bad weather.”
Monsoon rains across South Asia from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies, but also bring widespread death and destruction.
The number of fatal floods and landslides has increased in recent years, however, and experts say climate change is exacerbating the problem.
Floods have also swamped the northeastern state of Assam, with eight people killed in the last 24 hours, Assam’s Disaster Management Authority said Sunday.
That takes the death toll from the downpours since mid-May to 66.
In the northern state of Uttarakhand, authorities issued warnings of heavy rain.
The ferocious storms also bring frequent lightning strikes.
In 2022, nearly 3,000 people died from lightning strikes across India, according to the national crime records bureau.

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