Starvation being used as a weapon of war in Gaza, says top EU diplomat

Starvation being used as a weapon of war in Gaza, says top EU diplomat
The EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday condemned the lack of aid entering Gaza as “man-made” disaster in which starvation is being used as a weapon of war. (AFP/File)
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Updated 13 March 2024
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Starvation being used as a weapon of war in Gaza, says top EU diplomat

Starvation being used as a weapon of war in Gaza, says top EU diplomat
  • Josep Borrell tells Arab News an ‘orientation debate’ over requested review of EU-Israel cooperation agreement will take place on Monday
  • He says UNRWA will only cease operating when Palestinian refugees become citizens of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution

NEW YORK CITY: The EU’s foreign affairs chief on Tuesday condemned the lack of aid entering Gaza as “man-made” disaster in which starvation is being used as a weapon of war.
“When we condemn this happening in Ukraine, we have to use the same words for what’s happening in Gaza,” Josep Borrell told the UN Security Council
“This humanitarian crisis (is) not a natural disaster, is not a flood, is not an earthquake, it is man-made.”
More than 31,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed during the war in Gaza, and more than 100,000 injured. Many more bodies are believed to be buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli military onslaught.
“The situation in Gaza is unbearable,” said Borrell. “The very survival of the Palestinian population is at stake. It is a wide-scale destruction. Everything that makes society has been destroyed, systematically.”
As Israeli authorities continue to severely control and restrict deliveries of humanitarian aid that are allowed to enter Gaza, the territory is in the grip of a catastrophic-level food crisis. Senior UN officials have warned of the imminent threat of famine if urgent action is not taken to avert a humanitarian disaster. More than 25 Palestinians have already died of starvation, most of them children.
Given the difficulties of delivering aid by road, some foreign governments have resorted to airdrops in an attempt to ensure life-saving humanitarian supplies reach people in Gaza. A mechanism for the delivery of aid by sea is also being set up.
“I don’t want to teach any one of you about what is happening in Gaza,” Borrell told council members. “When we look for alternative ways of providing support, by sea or by air, we have to remember that we have to do it because the natural way of providing support, through roads, is being closed, artificially closed, and starvation is being used as a war arm.”
Asked by Arab News to comment on whether some EU member states are enabling the war in Gaza, including Germany, which has increased approvals of arms exports to Israel almost tenfold since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Borrell said: “I am representing the European Union as a whole. And sometime (this) is difficult because there are different sensitivities and different positions.
“And there are some members on stage who are completely reluctant to take any position that could represent the slightest criticism toward Israel, and others are very much pushing in order to get a ceasefire.”
In light of the escalating humanitarian crisis during the war in Gaza, EU members Ireland and Spain have asked the European Commission to “undertake an urgent review” of the cooperation agreement between the EU and Israel, which regulates trade relations and is bound by the condition that human rights are respected.
Borrell told Arab News “an orientation debate on this important issue” will take place on Monday during a meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council.
Borrell was at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday to take part in a Security Council meeting on cooperation between the UN and the EU.
“We live in a very, very, very complex, difficult and challenging world,” he told reporters. “But without the United Nations, the world will be still more challenging, more dangerous.
“The world is becoming darker and darker. The UN is a light in the darkness, (a) landmark in the middle of the turmoil, (a) lantern in the thick fog through which we search our way, every day, trying to look for a solution. It is a ray of light, a sign of hope.”
He expressed “strong support” for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in light of “the unjustified attacks that he has been suffering.”
In the latest example of such attacks by the Israeli government, Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Monday sent Guterres a letter accusing him of turning the UN into an “epicenter of antisemitism and anti-Israel incitement.”
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the secretary-general, told Arab News: “We will not be responding to this letter, which in my mind is not a reflection of reality and is not a reflection of who Antonio Guterres is or everything he’s done as secretary-general on this issue.”
Borrell described UN agencies, such as the Relief and Works Agency, the main mechanism for providing assistance to Palestinians, as the “last lifelines” for many people.
“Yes, UNRWA is facing allegations but allegations have to be proved. That is why they are allegations,” he said.
Israeli authorities have alleged that several UNRWA workers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Borrell said the EU is awaiting the findings of an investigation into the allegations.
“But let me remind (you of) something: UNRWA exists because there are Palestinian refugees,” he said. “It is not a present to the Palestinians, it is an answer to their needs.”
Nobody can make the refugees disappear by making UNRWA disappear, he said. A two-state solution is the only way the UNRWA will disappear, he added, by making those refugees citizens of a Palestinian state that coexists with Israel.


US presented Ukraine with a document to access its minerals but offered almost nothing in return

US presented Ukraine with a document to access its minerals but offered almost nothing in return
Updated 59 min 33 sec ago
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US presented Ukraine with a document to access its minerals but offered almost nothing in return

US presented Ukraine with a document to access its minerals but offered almost nothing in return
  • Proposal focused on how the US could use Kyiv’s rare earth minerals ‘as compensation’ for support already given to Ukraine
  • A senior White House official said that Zelensky’s rejection was ‘short-sighted’

MUNICH, Germany: Ukrainian officials were told not to sign an agreement with the US on rare earth minerals because the document focused on US interests, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, and did not offer any specific security guarantees in return, said one current and one former senior official familiar with the talks.
The proposal focused on how the US could use Kyiv’s rare earth minerals “as compensation” for support already given to Ukraine by the Biden administration and as payment for future aid, current and former senior Ukrainian officials said speaking anonymously so they could speak freely. A senior White House official said that Zelensky’s rejection was “short-sighted.”
Ukraine has vast reserves of critical minerals which are used in aerospace, defense and nuclear industries. The Trump administration has indicated it is interested in accessing them to reduce dependence on China but Zelensky said any exploitation would need to be tied to security guarantees for Ukraine that would deter future Russian aggression.
“I didn’t let the ministers sign a relevant agreement because in my view it is not ready to protect us, our interest,” Zelensky told The Associated Press on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
The US presented Ukraine with a document but “there are no very concrete things about security guarantees in this document,” Zelensky said.
“For me is very important the connection between some kind of security guarantees and some kind of investment,” the Ukrainian president said.
Zelensky did not go into details about why he instructed his officials not to sign the document which was given to Ukrainian officials on Wednesday by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bassent on a visit to Kyiv.
“It’s a colonial agreement and Zelensky cannot sign it,” the former senior official said.
White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes did not explicitly confirm the offer, but said in a statement that “President Zelensky is being short-sighted about the excellent opportunity the Trump Administration has presented to Ukraine.” The Trump administration has grown weary of sending additional US aid to Ukraine and Hughes said a minerals deal would allow American taxpayers to “recoup” money sent to Kyiv while growing Ukraine’s economy.
Hughes added that the White House believes “binding economic ties with the United States will be the best guarantee against future aggression and an integral part of lasting peace.” He added, “The US recognizes this, the Russians recognize this, and the Ukrainians must recognize this.”
US officials in discussions with their Ukrainian counterparts in Munich were commercially minded and largely concentrated on the specifics of exploring the minerals and how to form a possible partnership to do that with Ukraine, the senior official said.
The potential value of the deposits in Ukraine has not yet been discussed, with much unexplored or close to the front line.
The US proposal apparently did not take into account how the deposits would be secured in the event of continuing Russian aggression. The official suggested the US did not have “ready answers,” to that question and that one of their takeaways from discussions in Munich will be how to secure any mineral extraction operation in Ukraine involving people and infrastructure.
Any deal must be in accordance with Ukrainian law and acceptable to the Ukrainian people, the senior Ukrainian official said.
“Subsoil belongs to Ukrainians under the Constitution,” Kseniiia Orynchak, founder of the National Association of Mining Industry of Ukraine previously said suggesting a deal would need popular support.
Zelensky and Vance did not discuss the details of the US document during their meeting Friday at the Munich Security Conference, the senior official said. That meeting was “very good” and “substantive,” with Vance making it clear his and Trump’s main goal was to achieve a durable, lasting peace, the senior official said.
Zelensky told Vance that real peace requires Ukraine to be in a “strong position” when starting negotiations, stressed that the USnegotiators should come to Ukraine, and that the US, Ukraine and Europe must be at the negotiating table for talks with Russia.
But Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, all but cut Europeans out of any Ukraine-Russia talks, despite Zelensky’s request.
“You can have the Ukrainians, the Russians, and clearly the Americans at the table talking,” Kellogg said at an event hosted by a Ukrainian tycoon at the Munich Security Conference. Pressed on whether that meant Europeans won’t be included, he said: “I’m a school of realism. I think that’s not going to happen.”
Ukraine is now preparing a “counter proposal” which will be delivered to the US in “the near future,” the official said.
“I think it’s important that the vice president understood me that if we want to sign something, we have to understand that it will work,” Zelensky said.
That means, he said, “It will bring money and security.”


18 dead in India stampede to catch trains to Kumbh Mela mega-festival

18 dead in India stampede to catch trains to Kumbh Mela mega-festival
Updated 16 February 2025
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18 dead in India stampede to catch trains to Kumbh Mela mega-festival

18 dead in India stampede to catch trains to Kumbh Mela mega-festival
  • Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj
  • Rush at the train station in New Delhi appeared to break out Saturday as crowds struggled to board trains

NEW DELHI: At least 18 people died during a stampede at a railway station in India’s capital late Saturday when surging crowds scrambled to catch trains to the world’s largest religious gathering, officials and reports said.
The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj, and has a history of crowd-related disasters — including one last month, when at least 30 people died in another stampede at the holy confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.
The rush at the train station in New Delhi appeared to break out Saturday as crowds struggled to board trains for the ongoing event, which will end on February 26.
“I can confirm 15 deaths at the hospital. They don’t have any open injury. Most (likely died from) hypoxia or maybe some blunt injury but that would only be confirmed after an autopsy,” Dr. Ritu Saxena, deputy medical superintendent of Lok Nayak Hospital in New Delhi told AFP.
“There are also 11 others who are injured. Most of them are stable and have orthopedic injuries,” she said.
Broadcaster NDTV reported three more dead from the stampede quoting an official of another hospital in the city.
Those dead were mostly women and children.
“I have been working as a coolie since 1981, but I never saw a crowd like this before,” the Times of India newspaper quoted a porter at the railway station as saying.
“People started colliding and fell on the escalator and stairs” when platform for a special train departing for Prayagraj was suddenly shifted, the porter said.
Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said a “high-level inquiry” had been ordered into the causes of the accident.
Vaishnaw said additional special trains were being run from New Delhi to clear the rush of devotees.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed” by the stampede.
“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a speedy recovery,” he wrote on X.
The governor of the capital territory Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena said disaster management personnel had been told to deploy and “all hospitals are in readiness to address related exigencies.”
The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and officials said around 500 million devotees have already visited the festival since it began last month.
More than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.
Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in Prayagraj.


Trump and his deputies wield power with a ‘macho’ hand

Trump and his deputies wield power with a ‘macho’ hand
Updated 16 February 2025
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Trump and his deputies wield power with a ‘macho’ hand

Trump and his deputies wield power with a ‘macho’ hand
  • Seeking a return to traditional gender norms, the new administration is making a big show of centering men
  • The Trump administration has even imposed a male-centric stamp on some government acronyms

WASHINGTON: He courted young, angry men during his presidential campaign. Now Donald Trump is back in the White House, where he and his acolytes are applying what they see as a decidedly masculine stamp on all they do.
Seeking a return to traditional gender norms, the new administration is making a big show of centering men — from Elon Musk declaring that “testosterone rocks!” to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doing push-ups to redefining government acronyms from a male perspective.
And the push goes well beyond the performative, with the fist-pumping Trump moving to sign executive orders eroding health care access for transgender people and declaring the country will recognize only two genders — men and women — in his first days in office.
Musk, Trump’s top donor and most powerful ally, whom the president has tapped to lead government cuts and, specifically, to slash programs targeting racism and inequality, has repeatedly been at the vanguard of the push to make America manly again.
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX boss on Wednesday warned of what he said were risks facing men from policies that seek to combat discrimination.
In a videoconference, he offered the bizarre-sounding suggestion that an artificial intelligence-based program designed to promote “diversity at all costs” could even “decide that there were too many men in power and execute them. So problem solved.”
The world’s richest person, Musk also posted a message on his X platform saying “Testosterone rocks.”
New Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who has criticized the presence of women in combat roles and vowed to bring “warrior culture” back, on Friday shared photos of himself jogging and exercising with US troops on a snowy path in Poland.
Hegseth, a military veteran, said he had done five series of 47 pushups — a reference to Trump as the 47th American president.

The Trump administration has even imposed a male-centric stamp on some government acronyms.
A warning system for pilots known as NOTAM, for “Notice to Air Missions” has been changed officially to the “Notice to Airmen.”

Method in maleness
There is a method to all this maleness, experts say.
“The emphasis on a rigid gender binary is an outgrowth of a nostalgic patriarchy that wants to return to a mid-20th century understanding of gender relations, with white, heterosexual men at the pinnacle of a hierarchical identity pyramid,” said Karrin Anderson, a communications professor at Colorado State University.
Trump, of course, is at the heart of the movement.

Shortly after his return to power on January 20, the president ordered an end to passports with a gender-neutral “X” option and moved to restrict gender transition procedures for people under the age of 19.
The 78-year-old billionaire, who has promised to “protect” women “whether the women like it or not,” also signed an order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports events.
At the signing event, he surrounded himself with women and young girls.

His administration even went so far as to scrub all references to transgender and queer people from the National Park Service-administered website for a monument to the 1969 Stonewall riots, a foundational moment in the struggle for LGBTQ rights.
The approach can take on a religious hue, with Trump not averse to presenting himself as a providential emissary from God. Newly confirmed health minister Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared the president on Thursday to “a man on a white horse” arriving at a gallop to save America.

‘Promoting healthy masculinity’
“The revitalization of American masculinity is our nation’s most pressing need,” Jim Daly of the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family said last month.
Writing in the Washington Examiner, he said that Trump, like conservative US president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, was promoting what he called “healthy masculinity.”
With Reagan’s portrait hanging in the Oval Office, it has been under the gaze of the former Western movie actor that Trump deploys his thick black marker to sign orders that, Anderson says, confirm his muscular approach to power.
“By bypassing Congress and flouting Constitutional checks and balances,” she said, “Trump demonstrates his might by exercising masculinized, autocratic authority rather than engaging in collaborative, democratic decision-making.”
Trump 2.0 is not entirely an old boys club, however.
While the Republican president has named a male-dominated cabinet, he has brought in more women than during his first term, some in strategic positions.
His new chief of staff Susie Wiles — whom Trump calls “the ice maiden” for her coolness under fire — is the first woman in that influential post.
 


European allies seek united Ukraine front as US backing wavers

European allies seek united Ukraine front as US backing wavers
Updated 16 February 2025
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European allies seek united Ukraine front as US backing wavers

European allies seek united Ukraine front as US backing wavers

MUNICH, Germany: European leaders on Saturday scrambled to force their way to the table for any talks on the Ukraine war, as Washington announced a team of senior US officials was planning to meet in Saudi Arabia with counterparts from Moscow and Kyiv.
US President Donald Trump upended the status quo this week when he announced he was likely to soon meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin to start talks to end the conflict, leaving US allies in Europe concerned their interests would be sidelined.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Saudi Arabia for ceasefire talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, US officials said Saturday, without giving details on when the meeting would happen.
Rubio had already began his Mideast tour on Saturday, arriving first in Israel.
The top US diplomat also had a call Saturday with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, in which he “reaffirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine,” spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
In Munich, NATO chief Mark Rutte said Europe had to come up with “good proposals” for securing peace in Ukraine if it wanted to be involved in US-led talks.
“If Europeans want to have a say, make yourself relevant,” Rutte told journalists at a gathering of top policymakers.
Rutte also said he would head to Paris on Monday to take part in an expected meeting of European leaders convened by French President Emmanuel Macron.
A spokesman for Macron’s office told AFP “discussions” were ongoing over a “possible informal meeting.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that Europe “must take on a greater role in NATO” and work with the United States to “secure Ukraine’s future.”
As part of any eventual “security guarantees” for Ukraine, talks have begun in Europe over a potential deployment of peacekeepers.
But those discussions are at an embryonic stage — and others argue the focus needs to be on building up Ukraine’s own forces.

European army
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the creation of a European army, arguing the continent could no longer count on Washington.
“We can’t rule out the possibility that America might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it,” Zelensky said.
“I really believe that time has come. The Armed Forces of Europe must be created.”

The push for a joint continental force has been mooted for years without gaining traction and Zelensky’s intervention seems unlikely to shift the balance.
Zelensky’s rallying cry came a day after he met US Vice President JD Vance and as Kyiv tries to ensure it is not sidelined by Trump’s engagement with Putin.
“Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement,” Zelensky said in a speech.
“No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine. No decisions about Europe without Europe.”
But Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, gave Europeans reasons to doubt they would be heard.
Europe would not be directly involved in talks but would still have an “input,” Kellogg said in Munich.

Vance's assurance
US officials have sought to assure Ukraine that it will not be left in the cold after three years of battling Russia’s invasion.
Vance said after his sit-down with Zelensky that the United States was looking for a “durable, lasting peace” that would not lead to further bloodshed in coming years.
But Washington has sent mixed messages to Kyiv, with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth appearing to rule out Ukraine joining NATO or retaking all of its territory.
Trump has also pushed for access to Ukraine’s stocks of rare earth minerals as compensation for the military aid provided by the United States.
Zelensky said Saturday he blocked a deal that would have given the US access to vast amounts of Ukrainian natural resources as it lacked “security guarantees” for Kyiv.
“In my opinion, it does not protect us... our interests,” Zelensky told journalists.
The situation for his forces on the ground has continued to deteriorate.
Despite suffering heavy battlefield losses, the Russian army has been creeping forward in eastern Ukraine for more than a year.
Outside the Munich conference, several hundred pro-Ukrainian demonstrators voiced fears about what may come from talks.
“It’s terrifying,” said Ukraine-born protester Nataliya Galushka, 40, who left the country when she was a child.
“The fact that (Trump is) talking to Putin, a criminal, what kind of world is this?“
 


Brazil to host next BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro in July

Brazil to host next BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro in July
Updated 16 February 2025
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Brazil to host next BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro in July

Brazil to host next BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro in July

SAO PAULO: The Brazilian government announced Saturday that the next BRICS summit will take place in Rio de Janeiro on July 6-7.
Brazil will chair the bloc of developing economies through 2025 and said it will focus on promoting global governance reform and cooperation among Global South countries, according to a statement from the federal government.
BRICS was established in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2010 as a counterbalance to the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations.
Last year, the bloc expanded by adding Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has also been invited to join. Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and Malaysia have formally applied for membership, and several other countries have expressed interest.
Recently, the bloc welcomed Indonesia as one of its 11 members and Nigeria as a “partner country,” a designation introduced at the 2024 summit in Kazan.
Brazil said the partner countries are also invited to participate in the summit and may attend other meetings if there is consensus among members.
“We will make crucial decisions for development, cooperation, and improving the lives of all the inhabitants of these countries,” said Mauro Vieira, Brazil’s foreign minister.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on BRICS nations if they act to undermine the US dollar.

BRICS leaders have expressed their commitment to establishing an alternative payment system independent of the dollar.