Iran and US swap threats at UNSC meeting while Israel urges ‘all possible sanctions’ over attack
Iran and US swap threats at UNSC meeting while Israel urges ‘all possible sanctions’ over attack/node/2493286/world
Iran and US swap threats at UNSC meeting while Israel urges ‘all possible sanctions’ over attack
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Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, top left, listens as Israel’s Ambassador Gilad Erdan addresses the United Nations Security Council during an emergency meeting at UN headquarters on April 14, 2024. (AP)
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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the Security Council during an emergency meeting at UN headquarters on April 14, 2024. (AP)
NEW YORK: Iran on Sunday said it has no intention of engaging militarily with the US in the region but will “use its inherent right to respond proportionately” if the latter initiates a military operation against it, its citizens, or security interests.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN, told a meeting of the organization’s Security Council on Sunday that his country’s attack on Israel was “precise, only targeted military objectives and was carried out carefully to minimize the potential for escalation and prevents civilian harm.”
On Saturday, Iran launched dozens of drones and missiles in retaliation against an Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus which killed seven revolutionary guards, including two generals. Iran had warned Israel would be “punished” for the strike, which took place on April 1.
Sunday’s emergency meeting was requested by Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who called council members to “unequivocally condemn Iran (and) immediately act to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.”
Iran said that Saturday’s attack was in line with Article 51 of the UN Charter, which invokes the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
US ambassador Robert Wood warned that “if Iran or its proxies take actions against the United States or further action against Israel, Iran will be held responsible.”
Wood condemned “the unprecedented attack on Israel by Iran and its militant proxies and partners” in the strongest terms. Iran’s “reckless actions” not only posed a threat to populations in Israel, he said, but also to other UN member states in the region, including Jordan and Iraq.
The diplomat added: “Security Council has an obligation to not let Iran’s actions go unanswered. For far too long, Iran has flagrantly violated its international legal obligations through the actions of its IRGC, by arming Hezbollah, by arming, facilitating and enabling Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE and, more recently, merchant and commercial shipping in the Red Sea.”
Wood also accused Iran of being complicit in the October 7 attack on Israel, having provided “significant funding and training for Hamas.”
He said the US would explore “additional measures to hold Iran accountable at the UN,” and called on the Security Council to unequivocally condemn Iran’s actions and call for it “and its partners and proxies to cease their attacks.”
Israel’s Gilad Erdan compared Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Hitler. He said that in its “plot to impose a global Shiite hegemony through its proxies, Iran has even attacked Saudi Arabia, the Aramco oil field in the UAE and anyone else they view as an obstacle.”
He told the UNSC: “The only option is to condemn Iran and utilize every means necessary to make them pay a heavy price for their horrible crimes,” and warned that Tehran was “barreling towards nuclear capabilities, has enriched uranium up to 60 percent purity, and its breakout time to produce nuclear weapons is now mere weeks away.”
“Impose sanctions on Iran before it is too late,” said Erdan, adding: “We are being fired upon from all fronts, from every border. We are surrounded by Iran’s terror proxies. The war in Gaza extends far broader than Israel and Hamas. All of the terror groups attacking Israel are tentacles of the same Shia octopus, the Iranian octopus.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan shows a video of the Iran missile attack during a meeting of the Security Council on Middle East security on April 14, 2024. (REUTERS)
He warned that “while the Ayatollah regime thinks Israel is a frog in boiling water, they are wrong. This attack crossed every red line and Israel reserves the legal right to retaliate. We are a nation of lions. Following such a massive and direct attack on Israel, the entire world — let alone Israel — cannot settle for inaction.”
Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia accused the council of hypocrisy and double standards over its failure to convene in a similar fashion following Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, or what he called the “now regular attacks by Israel against Syria and Lebanon.”
The Russian envoy warned: “If the council’s inaction on such matters will continue, then your appeals to restraint by all parties can become futile.”
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the Security Council of hypocrisy and double standard for not convening in a similar fashion following Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. (Getty Images/AFP)
China’s deputy permanent representative Dai Bing noted Iran’s statement that its military action was in response to Israel’s aggression and “the matter can be deemed concluded.”
Dai added: “If the flames of the Gaza conflict are allowed to continue raging, then the adverse spillover is set to spread still further, making the region even more unstable. Countries and peoples in the Middle East have no desire for, nor can they afford, a larger conflict or war.”
Nacim Gaouaoui, Algeria’s deputy permanent representative, said recent developments could not overrule the central question “which is the aggression on the Palestinian people in Gaza, and at the same time, it can never be used as a pretext or cover to launch a land attack against Rafah. Algeria calls again for ceasefire, and an end to Israel’s heinous killing machine.”
Slovenia condemned Saturday’s events in the same way it condemned the attack on the Iranian consulate.
Slovenia’s permanent representative to the UN Samuel Zbogar urged all parties to “choose the path of dialog and diplomacy and refrain from further retaliations.”
He said: “The sequence of these events accelerates the spiral of violence, escalating into a broader conflict of unpredictable scope. Slovenia continues to believe that a ceasefire in Gaza would have a calming effect on tensions in the region. Every moment we delay, the risk of a broader conflict increases in these chaotic times.”
Malta’s UN ambassador, Vanessa Frazier, said the Middle East was experiencing “one of the bleakest and most volatile periods in modern history, which risks spiraling out of control if all sides do not take a step back.
“Focus should be on defusing tensions by advocating for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to the war in Gaza, facilitating immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and ensuring the delivery of sustained humanitarian aid throughout Gaza. All we are witnessing are steps in the opposite direction,” she told the meeting.
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone’s UN ambassador, Michael Imran Kanu, warned that “the escalating tension in the Middle East is dangerous and unprecedented, with the potential to destabilize not only the entire region, but impact global peace and security.”
The UK’s permanent representative to the UN, Barbara Woodward, condemned Iran’s attack on Israel and accused Tehran of being intent on sowing chaos in the region.
Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward, addressing the Security Council meeting, accused Iran of being intent on sowing chaos in the Middle East region. (AP)
“As we have demonstrated, the United Kingdom will continue to stand up for Israel’s security, and that of all our regional partners, including Jordan and Iraq.”
Nathalie Broadhurst, France’s deputy permanent representative, said Iran crossed a new threshold in its destabilizing action and was risking a military escalation for which “it would be responsible.”
Carter died over a year after entering hospice care, in his home in Plains, Georgia
He governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval
Updated 30 December 2024
AP
ATLANTA: Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old.
The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said.
“Our founder, former US President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center simply said in posting about Carter’s death on the social media platform X.
Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s.
“My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. A president from Plains
A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and US defeat in southeast Asia.
“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon.
President Jimmy Carter prepares to make a national television address from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, on the failed mission to rescue the Iran hostages on April 25, 1980. (AP/File)
Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy.
Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan.
Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes.
“It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders.
Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. And then, the world
Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights.
“I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.”
That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a US invasion of Haiti and negotiating ceasefires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring US elections as well.
Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors.
He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010.
“I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said.
He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered US administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump.
Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity.
The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added.
Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done.
“The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.”
President-elect Jimmy Carter leans over to shake hands with some of the people riding the "Peanut Special" to Washington on Jan. 19, 1977. (AP/File)
‘An epic American life’
Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where they lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral.
The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously.
His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of US dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners. He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China.
“I am not nominating Jimmy Carter for a place on Mount Rushmore,” Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s domestic policy director, wrote in a 2018 book.
“He was not a great president” but also not the “hapless and weak” caricature voters rejected in 1980, Eizenstat said. Rather, Carter was “good and productive” and “delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.”
Madeleine Albright, a national security staffer for Carter and Clinton’s secretary of state, wrote in Eizenstat’s forward that Carter was “consequential and successful” and expressed hope that “perceptions will continue to evolve” about his presidency.
“Our country was lucky to have him as our leader,” said Albright, who died in 2022.
Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries.
“He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press.
US President Barack Obama (L) stands with First Lady Michelle Obama (2nd-R) and former presidents Jimmy Carter (2nd-L) and Bill Clinton during the ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom August 28, 2013 in Washington, DC. Carter, the 100-year-old former US president and Nobel peace laureate who rose from humble beginnings in rural Georgia to lead the nation from 1977 to 1981, has died, his nonprofit foundation said on December 29, 2024. (AFP/File)
A small-town start
James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly Black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career.
Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his Black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian, would become a staple of his political campaigns.
Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the US Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career.
Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband.
Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office — he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions — but this time, she was on board.
“My wife is much more political,” Carter told the AP in 2021.
He won a state Senate seat in 1962 but wasn’t long for the General Assembly and its back-slapping, deal-cutting ways. He ran for governor in 1966 — losing to arch-segregationist Lester Maddox — and then immediately focused on the next campaign.
Carter had spoken out against church segregation as a Baptist deacon and opposed racist “Dixiecrats” as a state senator. Yet as a local school board leader in the 1950s he had not pushed to end school segregation even after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, despite his private support for integration. And in 1970, Carter ran for governor again as the more conservative Democrat against Carl Sanders, a wealthy businessman Carter mocked as “Cufflinks Carl.” Sanders never forgave him for anonymous, race-baiting flyers, which Carter disavowed.
Ultimately, Carter won his races by attracting both Black voters and culturally conservative whites. Once in office, he was more direct.
“I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he declared in his 1971 inaugural address, setting a new standard for Southern governors that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. ‘Jimmy Who?’
His statehouse initiatives included environmental protection, boosting rural education and overhauling antiquated executive branch structures. He proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the slain civil rights leader’s home state. And he decided, as he received presidential candidates in 1972, that they were no more talented than he was.
In 1974, he ran Democrats’ national campaign arm. Then he declared his own candidacy for 1976. An Atlanta newspaper responded with the headline: “Jimmy Who?”
The Carters and a “Peanut Brigade” of family members and Georgia supporters camped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, establishing both states as presidential proving grounds. His first Senate endorsement: a young first-termer from Delaware named Joe Biden.
Yet it was Carter’s ability to navigate America’s complex racial and rural politics that cemented the nomination. He swept the Deep South that November, the last Democrat to do so, as many white Southerners shifted to Republicans in response to civil rights initiatives.
A self-declared “born-again Christian,” Carter drew snickers by referring to Scripture in a Playboy magazine interview, saying he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The remarks gave Ford a new foothold and television comedians pounced — including NBC’s new “Saturday Night Live” show. But voters weary of cynicism in politics found it endearing.
Carter chose Minnesota Sen. Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate on a “Grits and Fritz” ticket. In office, he elevated the vice presidency and the first lady’s office. Mondale’s governing partnership was a model for influential successors Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden. Rosalynn Carter was one of the most involved presidential spouses in history, welcomed into Cabinet meetings and huddles with lawmakers and top aides.
The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief.” They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school.
Washington’s social and media elite scorned their style. But the larger concern was that “he hated politics,” according to Eizenstat, leaving him nowhere to turn politically once economic turmoil and foreign policy challenges took their toll. Accomplishments, and ‘malaise’
Carter partially deregulated the airline, railroad and trucking industries and established the departments of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres of Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges. He appointed a then-record number of women and nonwhite people to federal posts. He never had a Supreme Court nomination, but he elevated civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the nation’s second highest court, positioning her for a promotion in 1993. He appointed Paul Volker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose policies would help the economy boom in the 1980s — after Carter left office. He built on Nixon’s opening with China, and though he tolerated autocrats in Asia, pushed Latin America from dictatorships to democracy.
But he couldn’t immediately tame inflation or the related energy crisis.
And then came Iran.
After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the US for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt.
The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions and order a US boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
Hoping to instill optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech, although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence.” By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves.
Carter campaigned sparingly for reelection because of the hostage crisis, instead sending Rosalynn as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged him for the Democratic nomination. Carter famously said he’d “kick his ass,” but was hobbled by Kennedy as Reagan rallied a broad coalition with “make America great again” appeals and asking voters whether they were “better off than you were four years ago.”
Reagan further capitalized on Carter’s lecturing tone, eviscerating him in their lone fall debate with the quip: “There you go again.” Carter lost all but six states and Republicans rolled to a new Senate majority.
Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free. ‘A wonderful life’
At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.”
Four decades after launching The Carter Center, he still talked of unfinished business.
“I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Carter told the AP in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.”
Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life.
“I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015. “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.”
German security chiefs to face questions over Christmas market attack
They will be quizzed about possible missed clues and security failures before the December 20
Suspect remanded in custody on five counts of murder and 205 counts of attempted murder
Updated 30 December 2024
AFP
BERLIN: German security and intelligence chiefs are due on Monday to face questioning about the car-ramming attack that killed five people and wounded more than 200 at a Christmas market 10 days ago.
They will be quizzed about possible missed clues and security failures before the December 20 attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where police arrested the 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen at the scene.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, Saxony-Anhalt state officials, and the heads of Germany’s domestic and foreign intelligence services are expected to face a closed-door committee hearing in parliament from 1200 GMT.
Abdulmohsen is the only suspect in the attack in which a rented BMW sport utility vehicle plowed through the crowd of revelers at high speed, leaving a trail of bloody carnage.
Investigators have yet to declare a suspected motive in the assault that used a motor vehicle as a weapon, which recalled past jihadist attacks, including in Berlin and in the French city of Nice in 2016.
Abdulmohsen, by contrast, has voiced strongly anti-Islam views, sympathies with the far right, and anger at Germany for allowing in too many Muslim war refugees and other asylum-seekers.
According to unconfirmed media reports citing unnamed German security sources, he has in the past been treated for mental illness and tested positive for drug use on the night of his arrest.
The Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security facility on five counts of murder and 205 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who faces elections in February, has declared that Germany needs to “investigate whether this terrible act could have been prevented.”
“No stone must be left unturned,” he told news portal t-online on Friday, echoing similar comments by Faeser.
Scholz said that “over the years, there have been repeated clues” about the suspect, adding that “we must examine very carefully whether there were any failings on the part of the authorities in Saxony-Anhalt or at the national level.”
German media digging through Abdulmohsen’s past and his countless social media postings have found expressions of anger and frustration, and threats of violence against German citizens and politicians.
Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about Abdulmohsen, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
A source close to the Saudi government told AFP that the kingdom had in the past sought his extradition.
Germany has not officially commented on this claim, but would usually deny requests to send people granted asylum back to the country they fled.
Abdulmohsen had a history of brushes with the law and court appearances in Germany, media have reported, including for threats of violence.
German police have said they had contacted Abdulmohsen in September 2023 and October 2024, and then repeatedly tried but failed to meet him again in December.
Police hold such meetings with people deemed a potential threat to make clear they are under close watch and to deter misconduct.
Ahead of the German elections, the Christmas market bloodshed has reignited fierce debate about immigration and security, after several deadly knife attacks this year blamed on Islamist extremists.
The head of the conservative opposition, Friedrich Merz, wrote that, whether the attacker was a jihadist or an anti-Islam activist, “conflicts are being fought out on German soil... We have to stop this!”
Earthquake of magnitude 5.6 strikes Luzon in Philippines
Philippine seismology agency Phivolcs said the tremor struck the northern town of Bangui in Ilocos province
Updated 30 December 2024
Reuters
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck Luzon in the Philippines on Monday, the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said.
The quake was at a depth of 10 kilometers, GFZ said.
Philippine seismology agency Phivolcs said the tremor struck the northern town of Bangui in Ilocos province. The agency was not expecting damage, but said aftershocks are likely from the shallow quake.
Earthquakes are common in the Philippines, which is located in the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire,” where volcanic activity and earthquakes frequently occur.
Flags fly at half-mast as South Korea investigates its worst plane crash
The country has started seven days of national mourning, with the acting president flying to the crash site for a memorial
Officials initially cited a bird strike as a likely cause of the crash, which flung passengers from the plane
Updated 30 December 2024
AFP
MUAN, South Korea: Flags flew at half-mast on Monday as South Korea mourned 179 people killed in the worst plane crash on its soil, as investigators probe why the Jeju Air plane crash-landed and burst into flames.
The country has started seven days of national mourning, with the acting president flying to the crash site in southwestern Muan for a memorial as teams of US and South Korean investigators raced to establish what caused Sunday’s disaster.
The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea when it made a mayday call and belly-landing before crashing into a barrier and bursting into flames.
Everyone on board Jeju Air Flight 2216 was killed, save two flight attendants pulled from the wreckage.
Officials initially cited a bird strike as a likely cause of the crash, which flung passengers from the plane and left it “almost completely destroyed,” according to fire officials.
However, Seoul said on Monday it would conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800s in operation in the country, with US investigators, possibly including from the beleaguered plane manufacturer Boeing, joining the probe into the crash.
“We are reviewing plans to conduct a special inspection on B737-800 aircraft,” said Joo Jong-wan, head of the aviation policy bureau at South Korea’s transport ministry.
South Korea has a solid air safety record and both black boxes from Flight 2216 – the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder – have been found.
South Korean investigators said Monday that 141 of the 179 victims had now been identified using DNA analysis or fingerprint collection, according to a statement from South Korea’s ministry of land.
Victims’ families camped out at the airport overnight in special tents set up in the airport lounge after a long, painful day waiting for news of their loved ones.
“I had a son on board that plane,” said an elderly man waiting in the airport lounge, who asked not to be named, saying that his son’s body had not yet been identified.
At the crash site early Monday, a middle-aged man and woman kept their gaze fixed through the fence, where remnants of the plane – seats, gates, and twisted metal parts – were still scattered across the field near the charred tail.
The smell of blood was still in the air.
Soldiers carefully combed through a field of reeds next to the runway, engaged in what appeared to be a search for body parts.
South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, who has only been in office since Friday, said the government was making “every effort” to identify victims and support bereaved families.
Choi, an unelected bureaucrat who became acting president after his two predecessors were impeached, said on Monday a “thorough investigation into the cause of the accident” would be conducted.
He also said South Korea would conduct “an urgent safety inspection of the overall aircraft operation system” to prevent future aviation disasters.
The passengers, aged from three to 78, were all Korean apart from two Thais, authorities said.
Low-cost carrier Jeju Air said it “sincerely” apologized, with top officials shown bowing deeply at a news conference in Seoul.
Another Jeju Airlines flight using the same model aircraft experienced a malfunction linked to the landing gear and was forced to return to Seoul’s Gimpo airport shortly after takeoff, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
“We are aware of the return incident and looking into the cause,” a Jeju Air representative said.
“We can’t say at this moment it was related to landing gear malfunction pending an investigation.”
Officials have pointed to a bird strike – a warning was issued by the control tower minutes before the crash – as a likely factor in Sunday’s crash.
However, a growing chorus of criticism from experts analyzing dramatic video footage of Flight 2216’s landing has focused on whether airport construction could have played a part.
Kim Kwang-il, Professor of Aeronautical Science at Silla University and a former pilot, said he was “quite upset” when he reviewed video showing the plane making a skilled emergency landing but then hitting a wall.
“There shouldn’t have been a solid structure in that area at all,” he said.
“Normally, at the end of a runway, there’s no such solid obstruction – it’s against international aviation safety standards,” he said.
“The structure in question caused the aircraft to crash and catch fire.”
“Outside the airport, there are usually just fences, which are soft and wouldn’t cause significant damage. The plane could have skidded further and stopped naturally. The unnecessary structure is highly regrettable.”
“His work through the Carter Center has saved countless lives and helped bring many neglected tropical diseases close to elimination
Updated 30 December 2024
AFP
GENEVA: Former US president Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday aged 100, “saved countless lives” through his work to eliminate diseases, the head of the World Health Organization said.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was deeply saddened to hear of Carter’s passing, calling him a “true leader who inspired so many.”
“His unwavering commitment to people’s wellbeing in the United States and around the world will be remembered forever,” Tedros said on X.
“His work through the Carter Center has saved countless lives and helped bring many neglected tropical diseases close to elimination.
“President Carter’s leadership was instrumental in facilitating peace negotiations in the Middle East decades ago, and is a reminder of what our world needs the most today.
“Dear President Carter, you will be greatly missed. Rest in peace.”
The Carter Center works to fight six preventable diseases — Guinea worm, river blindness, trachoma, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, plus malaria in Haiti and the Dominican Republic — through health education and simple, low-cost prevention and treatment methods.
