Biden pledges not to pardon son or commute sentence

US President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden in New Castle, Delaware, on June 11, 2024, just after a jury found the younger Biden guilty on federal gun charges. (AFP)

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Updated 14 June 2024

AFP

June 14, 2024 00:15

Biden pledges not to pardon son or commute sentence

“I said I’d abide by the jury decision. I will do that. I will not pardon him,” the president told reporters at a G7 summit press conference in Italy
The verdict came as Biden faces a tough re-election battle against Donald Trump, who himself recently became the first former president to become a convicted felon

Updated 14 June 2024

AFP

June 14, 2024 00:15

SAVELLETRI, Italy: US President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would not pardon his son Hunter or commute any sentence following Hunter’s conviction on charges of lying about his drug addiction while buying a handgun.

“No,” Biden replied when reporters at a G7 summit press conference in Italy asked if he would commute any sentence that 54-year-old Hunter faces.
“I’m extremely proud of my son Hunter. He has overcome an addiction, he’s one of the brightest, most decent men I know,” Biden said.
“I said I’d abide by the jury decision. I will do that. I will not pardon him,” he said.
In the historic first criminal prosecution of a sitting US president’s child, a jury on Tuesday found Hunter Biden guilty on three felony counts stemming from his 2018 purchase of a handgun while addicted to crack cocaine.

Hunter Biden (C) walks with his son and wife a Delaware airport after meeting with his father, US President Joe Biden, on June 11, 2024, just aftera jury found the younger Biden guilty on Tuesday of federal gun charges. (AFP)

He could face up to 25 years in prison, though as a first-time offender jail time is unlikely. A date was not set for sentencing but it is expected to take place in the next few months.
Biden said in a statement after the verdict that he loved his sole surviving son — his eldest son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 — and would respect the jury’s conclusion.
But his comments in Italy on Thursday were his first public statement on the verdict.
The day before his Italy trip, Biden, 81, changed his schedule to fly to Wilmington, Delaware, the family hometown where the trial was held.
Hunter Biden was waiting on the tarmac when Marine One landed and was given a warm hug by his father before they left in a motorcade.
The verdict came as Biden faces a tough re-election battle against Donald Trump, who himself recently became the first former president to become a convicted felon.
Trump was found guilty by a New York jury of breaching election law by lying about hush money payments to a porn star.

Topics: Joe Biden Hunter Biden

Harris and Trump are getting ready for Tuesday’s debate in sharply different ways

Updated 20 sec ago

September 07, 2024 15:54

Harris and Trump are getting ready for Tuesday’s debate in sharply different ways

Updated 20 sec ago

September 07, 2024 15:54

The vice president is cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh where she can focus on honing crisp two-minute answers, per the debate’s rules
Trump, the Republican nominee, publicly dismisses the value of studying for the debate

PITTSBURGH: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are veering sharply in how they gear up for Tuesday’s presidential debate, setting up a showdown that reflects not just two separate visions for the country but two politicians who approach big moments very differently.
The vice president is cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh where she can focus on honing crisp two-minute answers, per the debate’s rules. She’s been working with aides since Thursday and chose a venue that allows the Democratic nominee the option of mingling with swing-state voters.
Trump, the Republican nominee, publicly dismisses the value of studying for the debate. The former president is choosing instead to fill his days with campaign-related events on the premise that he’ll know what he needs to do once he steps on the debate stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
“You can go in with all the strategy you want but you have to sort of feel it out as the debate’s taking place,” he said during a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Trump then quoted former boxing great Mike Tyson, who said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Harris has said she is prepared for Trump to rattle off insults and misrepresent facts, even as her campaign has seen value in focusing on the middle class and the prospects of a better future for the country.
“We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth,” Harris said in a radio interview for the Rickey Smiley Morning Show. “He tends to fight for himself, not for the American people, and I think that’s going to come out during the course of the debate.”
In her own preparation, Harris has the Democratic consultant Philippe Reines, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, portraying Trump. She likes to describe Trump as having a “playbook” of falsehoods to go after Democrats such as Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
Harris has said she understands Trump on a deeper psychological level. She has tried in speeches like her remarks at the Democratic National Convention to show that she would be a stronger leader than him — an argument that gets at Trump’s own desire to project and show strength.
Trump’s June 27 debate against President Joe Biden shook up the election, with Biden’s disastrous performance ultimately leading to him stepping aside as the Democratic nominee and endorsing Harris. Both campaigns know the first in-person meeting between Harris and Trump could be a decisive event in a tight race.
Trump is preemptively criticizing the ABC News debate moderators, claiming he will not be treated fairly. But he said he plans to let Harris speak, just as he did during his debate with Biden.
“I let him talk. I’m gonna let her talk,” he said during the Hannity town hall.
Trump aides said that this time would be no different than the previous debate and that the former president would not be doing any more traditional prep. There are no stand-ins, no sets, no play-acting.
Instead, they point to Trump’s frequent interviews, including taking questions at lengthy press conferences, sitting for hourlong podcasts, and participating in town halls with friendly hosts like Hannity.
Trump also meets regularly with policy advisers who are experts on issues that may come up during the debate. During these informal sessions, they talk about the issues, Trump’s policies while he was in office, and the plans he’s put forth for a second term.
“I have meetings on it. We talk about it. But there’s not a lot you can do. You either know your subject or not. You either have good policy or not,” he said in a New Hampshire radio interview.
Before the last debate Trump held sessions with notable Republicans like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who at the time was under consideration to be Trump’s vice presidential pick. This time he has held sessions with Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman and Democratic presidential candidate who is now backing Trump.
Gabbard, who is also now a member of Trump’s transition team, was brought in specifically to help Trump this time around because she knows Harris, having debated her when the two were running for the Democratic nomination in 2020. She also hosted a recent town hall with Trump in Wisconsin.
Trump, aides insist, intends to put Harris on the defensive. He wants to portray her as too liberal as he tries to tie her to Biden’s economic record and points out her reversals on issues such as a fracking ban that she no longer supports.
“We look forward for the opportunity for Americans to see her on stage, incapable of defending her policies and flip-flops,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. “The president’s proven he has a command of the issues, she does not.”
Harris’ team is banking that Trump will come off as extreme and that they can use the debate as a springboard to further build on the momentum that her short campaign has generated. The campaign plans to use the pre-debate weekend to hold 2,000 events with volunteers and reach more than one million voters.
“With hundreds of offices and thousands of staff across the battlegrounds, we are able to harness all the buzz around the debate and break through to hard-to-reach voters,” said Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battleground states director, in a statement.

Ethnic violence in India’s Manipur escalates, six killed

Updated 2 min 6 sec ago

Reuters

September 07, 2024 15:34

Ethnic violence in India’s Manipur escalates, six killed

The majority Meitei community and the tribal Kukis have clashed sporadically since last year
More than 225 people have since been killed in clashes and some 60,000 have been displaced

Updated 2 min 6 sec ago

Reuters

September 07, 2024 15:34

GUWAHATI: Six people, including one civilian, were killed as fresh violence broke out between two warring ethnic communities in the northeast Indian state of Manipur on Saturday, authorities said.
The majority Meitei community and the tribal Kukis have clashed sporadically since last year after a court ordered the state government to consider extending special economic benefits and quotas in government jobs and education enjoyed by the Kukis to the Meiteis as well.
More than 225 people have been killed and some 60,000 have been displaced.
Saturday’s gunfire incident represents the most number of casualties for a single day in the latest spurt of violence that began a week ago. The attacks earlier this week have also seen the use of drones to drop explosive devices in what authorities have called a significant escalation.
Police say they suspect that the drones were used by Kuki militants — a claim denied by Kuki groups.
“Fighting has been going on between armed groups of both the communities since the morning,” said Krishna Kumar, deputy commissioner of the state’s Jiribam district where the clash occurred.
According to Indian media reports, the civilian was shot dead in his sleep. “He was fired upon in his room itself,” Kumar told Reuters, adding that security forces had been deployed to control the situation.
Manipur has ordered all schools in the state to remain shut on Saturday.
A state of 3.2 million people, Manipur has been divided into two ethnic enclaves since the conflict began in May 2023 — a valley controlled by the Meiteis and the Kuki-dominated hills. The areas are separated by a stretch of no-man’s land monitored by federal paramilitary forces.
On Sept. 1, two people were killed and several injured in the valley district of Imphal West. Later in the week, a 78-year-old man was killed and six were injured when a “long-range rocket” was deployed by militants and fell on the house of a former chief minister in the valley’s Bishnupur district, police said on Friday.

Topics: Manipur ethnic violence

Ukrainians assail Russian war film at Venice fest

Updated 22 min 26 sec ago

AFP

September 07, 2024 15:30

Ukrainians assail Russian war film at Venice fest

The screening at the prestigious festival sparked outrage across Ukrainian cultural and political circles against what many consider a pro-Kremlin film
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said it was “shameful” that a “propaganda film” was shown

Updated 22 min 26 sec ago

AFP

September 07, 2024 15:30

KYIV: Ukrainian politicians and cultural figures on Friday slammed a screening of a Russian-Canadian filmmaker’s war documentary as propaganda, a claim the director denied.
Anastasia Trofimova presented at the Venice Film Festival “Russians at War,” in which she embedded with a Russian battalion as it advanced across eastern Ukraine after Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022.
The screening at the prestigious festival sparked outrage across Ukrainian cultural and political circles against what many consider a pro-Kremlin film that seeks to whitewash and justify Moscow’s assault.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said it was “shameful” that a “propaganda film” was shown.
In a social media post, he asked why “Anastasia Trofimova, as well as some other Russian cultural figures — a country that kills Ukrainians, our children every day — can work in the civilized world at all.”
Trofimova has said that she wants to show the “absolutely ordinary guys” who are fighting for Russia and that her documentary belies the notion in the West that all Russian soldiers are war criminals.
“I want to be clear that this Canada-France production is an anti-war film made at great risk to all involved, myself especially,” she said in a statement to AFP.
An AFP journalist who saw the film said the soldiers depicted appear to have little idea of why they have been sent to the front.
They are shown struggling to make Soviet-era weapons serviceable, with others chain-smoking cigarettes and downing shots of alcohol amid the deaths and wounds of their comrades.
“The suggestion that our film is propaganda is ludicrous given that I’m now at risk of criminal prosecution in Russia,” Trofimova said in the statement.
“I unequivocally believe that Russia’s invasion on Ukraine was unjustified, illegal and acknowledge the validity of the International Criminal Court investigation of war crimes in Ukraine.”
But for Daria Zarivna, a Ukrainian social activist and an adviser to Yermak, the film sought to “justify the Russian military, which is directly responsible for crimes against the Ukrainian people.”
She also accused Trofimova of a “blatant silencing of war crimes and an attempt to blur the line between victim and aggressor.”
Prominent figures in Ukrainian cinema also slammed the documentary.
“This film may mislead you into believing that it is an anti-war film, one that questions the current regime in Russia,” Darya Bassel, a producer who watched the film at the festival, said in a Facebook post.
“However, what I witnessed is a prime example of pure Russian propaganda,” she said.
She said the film featured soldiers who repeat false Kremlin narratives about Ukrainians being “Nazis,” accusing Trofimova of ignoring Russian aggression against Ukraine since 2014.
Iryna Tsilyk, a Ukrainian filmmaker, called what she said were Trofimova’s attempts to promote a pro-peace message “vomit.”
She also criticized the Venice organizers for choosing to showcase “something that smells so bad.”
According to Trofimova’s website, she has previously made documentaries in Syria, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo that have been broadcast on Russia’s state-run RT television, which has been hit by sanctions from the European Union and the United States.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Volodymyr Zelensky venice film festival Russians at War

CIA director says more detailed Gaza ceasefire proposal due in days

Updated 47 min 54 sec ago

Reuters

September 07, 2024 11:57

CIA director says more detailed Gaza ceasefire proposal due in days

‘We will make this more detailed proposal, I hope in the next several days, and then we’ll see’

Updated 47 min 54 sec ago

Reuters

September 07, 2024 11:57

LONDON: CIA Director William Burns, the chief US negotiator trying to help secure a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages by Hamas, said a more detailed proposal on the ceasefire would be made in the coming days.
“We will make this more detailed proposal, I hope in the next several days, and then we’ll see,” Burns said at an FT event in London on Saturday.

Topics: War on Gaza US CIA William Burns Gaza Israel Hamas

Kenya police probe school blaze that killed 18 boys

Updated 20 min 25 sec ago

AFP

September 07, 2024 10:17

Kenya police probe school blaze that killed 18 boys

The flames engulfed a dormitory at the primary school where more than 150 boys aged between nine and 13 were sleeping
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua had said on Friday that 70 youngsters were still unaccounted for after the fire

Updated 20 min 25 sec ago

AFP

September 07, 2024 10:17

ENDARASHA, Kenya: Kenyan police stepped up their investigations Saturday into a prime school dormitory blaze that has now cost the lives of 18 boys, as families faced an agonizing wait for news of their missing loved ones.

“It is a catastrophe beyond our imagination,” government spokesman Isaac Mwaura said at a press briefing at the Hillside Endarasha Academy where the fire struck around midnight Thursday.

The flames engulfed a dormitory at the primary school where more than 150 boys aged between nine and 13 were sleeping.

Mwaura said 18 children had died in the blaze at the school in the central county of Nyeri, up from a previous toll of 17 given by President William Ruto on Friday.

“It is truly devastating for the nation to lose such a number of young and promising Kenyans. Our hearts are heavy,” Mwaura said.

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua had said on Friday that 70 youngsters were still unaccounted for after the fire.

Mwaura said about 20 had now been accounted for as of Saturday, but declined to give any further details.

The cause of the inferno is not yet known but homicide investigators and forensic experts are at the school, where media access has been blocked.

The charred bodies of victims, which police had said were burnt beyond recognition, were still in the dormitory, now a blackened shell with its corrugated iron roof completely collapsed.

“Today we want to begin the process of DNA testing,” Kenya’s chief homicide detective Martin Nyuguto said.

Ruto has declared three days of national mourning from Monday after what he described as an “unfathomable tragedy.”

“I pledge that the difficult questions that have been asked such as how this tragedy occurred and why the response was not timely will be answered; fully, frankly, and without fear or favor,” Ruto said in a statement.

“All relevant persons and bodies will be held to account.”

Kenya’s National Gender and Equality Commission said initial reports indicated the dorm was “overcrowded, in violation of safety standards.”

The blaze has highlighted the issue of safety at schools in Kenya, after numerous similar disasters over the years.

In a statement from the Vatican on Saturday, Pope Francis said he was “deeply saddened” at the loss of young life and expressed his “spiritual closeness to all who are suffering the effects of this calamity, especially the injured and the families who grieve.”

On Friday, tensions were running high among families gathered at the school, anxious for news of their missing children.

Many broke down after officials took them to see the bodies in the destroyed dorm.

“Please look for my kid. He can’t be dead. I want my child,” one woman cried in distress.

The Kenya Red Cross said it was on the ground assisting a multi-agency response team and providing psychosocial support to traumatized pupils and families.

Muchai Kihara, 56, said he was lucky to find his 12-year-old son Stephen Gachingi alive after rushing to the school around 1 am on Friday.

“I cannot begin to imagine what he went through. I am happy he is alive but he had some injuries at the back of his head and the smoke had affected his eyes,” he said.

“I just want him to be counselled now to see if his life will return to normal,” Kihara said as he sat with his son on a bench beside a white Red Cross tent where families are being counselled.

In 2016, nine students were killed by a fire at a girls’ high school in the sprawling slum neighborhood of Kibera in Nairobi.

In 2001, 67 pupils were killed in an arson attack on their dormitory at a secondary school in Machakos south of Nairobi.

Two pupils were charged with murder, and the headmaster and deputy of the school were convicted of negligence.

In 1994, 40 school children were burned alive and 47 injured in a fire that tore through a girls’ school in Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro region.

In 2022, a blaze ravaged a school for the blind in eastern Uganda. Eleven pupils died after they were trapped inside their shared bedroom because the building had been burglar-proofed, government ministers said at the time.

Topics: Kenya School fire police

Biden pledges not to pardon son or commute sentence

Biden pledges not to pardon son or commute sentence

President Biden’s son Hunter convicted on all charges in gun case

Biden faces first lawsuit over new asylum crackdown at the border

Harris and Trump are getting ready for Tuesday’s debate in sharply different ways

Harris and Trump are getting ready for Tuesday’s debate in sharply different ways

Ethnic violence in India’s Manipur escalates, six killed

Ethnic violence in India’s Manipur escalates, six killed

Ukrainians assail Russian war film at Venice fest

Ukrainians assail Russian war film at Venice fest

Russia pounds Kyiv with missiles, Ukraine’s military says

Ukraine launches ‘one of largest ever’ drone attacks on Moscow, mayor says

CIA director says more detailed Gaza ceasefire proposal due in days

CIA director says more detailed Gaza ceasefire proposal due in days

The heads of the CIA and MI6 issue joint call for Gaza ceasefire

CIA chief meets Egypt’s El-Sisi on Gaza truce efforts

Kenya police probe school blaze that killed 18 boys

Kenya police probe school blaze that killed 18 boys

Kenya school fire kills at least 17 children

Kenya extradites suspect in US murder

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Biden pledges not to pardon son or commute sentence

Biden pledges not to pardon son or commute sentence

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Harris and Trump are getting ready for Tuesday’s debate in sharply different ways

Ethnic violence in India’s Manipur escalates, six killed

Ukrainians assail Russian war film at Venice fest

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CIA director says more detailed Gaza ceasefire proposal due in days

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Kenya police probe school blaze that killed 18 boys

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