Hungary’s Orban, a NATO outlier on Ukraine, talks ‘peace mission’ with Trump
Hungary’s Orban, a NATO outlier on Ukraine, talks ‘peace mission’ with Trump/node/2548261/world
Hungary’s Orban, a NATO outlier on Ukraine, talks ‘peace mission’ with Trump
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends a Working Session of the NATO Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, July 11, 2024. (AFP)
Hungary’s Orban, a NATO outlier on Ukraine, talks ‘peace mission’ with Trump
Updated 12 July 2024
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with Donald Trump on Thursday and the pair discussed the “possibilities of peace,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said as he pushes for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Trump and Orban met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida “as the next stop of his peace mission,” Orban’s spokesperson said. “The discussion was about the possibilities of peace“
Nationalist leader Orban, a long-time Trump supporter, made surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing in the past two weeks on a self-styled “peace mission,” angering NATO allies.
His meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular vexed some other NATO members, who said the trip handed legitimacy to Putin when the West wants to isolate him over his war in Ukraine.
Orban traveled to Kyiv before visiting Moscow but did not tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about his mission to Russia, Zelensky said, dismissing Orban’s ambition of playing the peacemaker.
“Not all the leaders can make negotiations. You need to have some power for this,” Zelensky said earlier at a news conference at the NATO summit.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, when asked about Orban’s initiative, said Ukraine would be rightly concerned about any attempt to negotiate a peace deal without involving Kyiv.
“Whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukraine’s consent or support is not something that’s consistent with our policy, the foreign policy of the United States,” Sullivan said.
Orban’s self-styled peace mission has also irked many members of the European Union, whose rotating presidency Hungary took over at the start of this month.
The Hungarian embassy in Washington declined to comment on the planned meeting with Trump, which was first reported by Bloomberg.
Orban has been attending a NATO summit hosted by Democratic President Joe Biden. Hungary’s delegation voiced opposition to key NATO positions, while not blocking the alliance from taking action.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Reuters on Wednesday that Hungary believes a second Trump presidency would boost hopes for peace in Ukraine.
Orban hoped to bring an end to the war through peace talks involving both Russia and Ukraine, according to Szijjarto.
Trump has said he would quickly end the war. He has not offered a detailed plan to achieve that, but Reuters reported last month that advisers to the former president had presented him with a plan to end the war in part by making future aid to Kyiv conditional on Ukraine joining peace talks.
In the past several months, foreign officials have regularly sought meetings with Trump and his key advisers to discuss his foreign policy should he beat Biden in the Nov. 5 election. Polls show Trump widening his lead over Biden.
One adviser, Keith Kellogg, has met with several high-ranking foreign officials on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Reuters reported this week.
NATO FRUSTRATION
Orban appeared isolated at the opening of a NATO meeting on Ukraine on Thursday, sitting alone while other leaders talked in a huddle.
Two European diplomats told Reuters that NATO allies were frustrated with Orban’s actions around the summit, but stressed that he had not blocked the alliance from taking action on Ukraine.
Multiple EU leaders made clear Orban was not speaking for the bloc in his discussions on the war in Ukraine.
“I don’t think there’s any point in having conversations with authoritarian regimes that are violating international law,” said Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
Hungary also diverged from its NATO allies on China, which the alliance said is an enabler of Russia’s war effort and poses challenges to security. Hungary does not want NATO to become an “anti-China” bloc, and will not support it doing so, Szijjarto said on Thursday.
Blaze in Manila’s Binondo district was doused about three hours after fire responders were alerted around 7.30 a.m.
Updated 12 sec ago
Reuters
MANILA: At least 11 people died on Friday in a fire in a five-story residential and commercial building in the Chinatown precinct of the Philippine capital, a community official said. The blaze in Manila’s Binondo district was doused about three hours after fire responders were alerted around 7.30 a.m. (2300 GMT), fire officials said, but there was no immediate word on the cause. “The wife of the building owner was among those that died,” Nelson Ty, an elected official for the community where the fire broke out, told radio station DZRH, adding that vendors had used the structure to store their goods at night. It was not immediately clear if more people had been trapped and were feared dead, however, he said. The Philippines has a patchy record in enforcing fire safety in buildings, homes and offices. Sixteen people died in a fire at a residential and warehouse building in August last year, while a massive fire engulfed the capital’s historic Central Post Office building in May 2023. In 2017, a fire at a shopping mall in southern Davao City killed 37 call center agents and a security officer.
13 killed in India floods, stranded pilgrims airlifted
Flooding and landslides are common and cause widespread devastation during India’s treacherous monsoon season
District officials say around 700 people were rescued by airlift while traveling to Kedarnath temple
Updated 02 August 2024
AFP
DEHRADUN, India: Monsoon downpours caused flash floods that killed 13 people in India’s Himalayan foothills, officials said Friday, with helicopters rescuing hundreds stranded near a renowned Hindu shrine.
Flooding and landslides are common and cause widespread devastation during India’s treacherous monsoon season, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.
Thirteen deaths have been reported across the northern state of Uttarakhand so far, disaster official Vinod Kumar Suman said.
District officials said around 700 people were rescued by airlift while traveling to Kedarnath temple, a popular pilgrimage destination dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva.
“We are flying multiple choppers to bring down the pilgrims who were on their way,” Suman said.
The temple sits nearly 3,600 meters above sea level and access is only possible in the summer via a grueling 22-kilometer uphill trek.
It is thronged by thousands of pilgrims each year at a time when the annual monsoon downpours are at their peak.
Monsoon rains across the region from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies.
They are also vital for agriculture, and therefore the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security for South Asia’s nearly two billion people.
More than 200 people were killed in the southern state of Kerala this week when landslides hit villages and tea plantations, with search and rescue operations ongoing.
Two others were killed this week in neighboring Himachal Pradesh state, where rescuers are still searching for more than two dozen reported missing.
Biden says killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh not helpful for ceasefire talks
There has been an increased risk of an escalation into a broader Middle East war after the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran drew threats of retaliation against Israel
Updated 02 August 2024
AFP
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Thursday the killing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh was not helpful for reaching a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza.
There has been an increased risk of an escalation into a broader Middle East war after the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran drew threats of retaliation against Israel.
Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, who had participated in internationally-brokered indirect talks on reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
Anxious residents in Israeli-besieged Gaza feared that Haniyeh’s killing on Wednesday would prolong the war.
Iran said the killing took place hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for its new president.
“It doesn’t help,” Biden told reporters late on Thursday, when asked if Haniyeh’s assassination ruined the chances for a ceasefire agreement.
Biden also said he had a direct conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday.
Netanyahu’s government has issued no claim of responsibility but he has said Israel had delivered crushing blows to Iran’s proxies of late, including Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and would respond forcefully to any attack.
Israel’s tensions with Iran and Hezbollah have fanned fears of a widened conflict in a region already on edge amid Israel’s assault on Gaza which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The Gaza health ministry says that since then Israel’s military assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide accusations that Israel denies.
The United States has said it was not involved in the killing of Haniyeh.
Mexican drug cartel leader ‘El Mayo’ Zambada makes a court appearance in Texas
Ismael Zambada, the longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, has eluded authorities for decades
He is being held without bond and pleaded not guilty during a short hearing last week
Updated 02 August 2024
AP
EL PASO, Texas: A powerful Mexican drug cartel leader on Thursday made his second appearance in federal court in Texas after being taken into US custody last week.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 76, used a wheelchair for the hearing before US District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso. Zambada, the longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, eluded authorities for decades until a plane carrying him and Joaquín Guzman Lopez, a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman,” landed at an airport near El Paso on July 25. Both men were arrested and remain jailed. They are charged in the US with various drug crimes.
Discussions during the short hearing Thursday included whether Zambada would be tried with co-defendants or separately. He is being held without bond and pleaded not guilty during a short hearing last week, where he also used a wheelchair.
His next hearing date was set for Sept. 9. His attorneys declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing.
One of his attorneys, Frank Perez, previously has alleged his client was kidnapped by Guzman Lopez and brought to the US aboard a private plane. Guzman Lopez, 38, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court in Chicago.
Zambada was thought to be more involved in day-to-day operations of the cartel than his better-known and flashier boss, “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2019.
Zambada is charged in a number of US cases, including in New York and California. Prosecutors brought a new indictment against him in New York in February, describing him as the “principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing enormous quantities of narcotics into the United States.”
The capture of Zambada and Guzman Lopez has fueled theories about how federal authorities pulled it off and prompted Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador to take the unusual step of issuing a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other.
Newly freed Americans back on US soil after landmark prisoner exchange with Russia
Freed under the 24-person deal were a convicted Russian assassin and a cluster of Western journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others
Turkiye, which participated by hosting the location for the swap, said the exchange was ‘carried out’ by its intelligence service
Updated 02 August 2024
AP
WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual US-Russia citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also there to greet them.
The trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
President Joe Biden trumpeted the exchange, by far the largest in a series of swaps with Russia, as a diplomatic feat while welcoming families of the returning Americans to the White House. But the deal, like others before it, reflected an innate imbalance: The US and allies gave up Russians charged or convicted of serious crimes in exchange for Russia releasing journalists, dissidents and others imprisoned by the country’s highly politicized legal system on charges seen by the West as trumped-up.
“Deals like this one come with tough calls,” Biden said, He added: “There’s nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with released Russian prisoners upon their arrival at the Vnukovo government airport outside Moscow, Russia, on Aug. 1, 2024. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the US government vehemently denied. His family said in a statement released by the newspaper that “we can’t wait to give him the biggest hug and see his sweet and brave smile up close.” The paper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, called it a “joyous day.”
“While we waited for this momentous day, we were determined to be as loud as we could be on Evan’s behalf. We are so grateful for all the voices that were raised when his was silent. We can finally say, in unison, ‘Welcome home, Evan,’” she wrote in a letter posted online.
Also released was Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied; and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.
The dissidents released included Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated, as well as multiple associates of Navalny. Freed Kremlin critics included Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner convicted of discrediting the Russian military, and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
The Russian side got Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison for killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services. Throughout the negotiations, Moscow had been persistent in pressing for his release, with Putin himself raising it.
In this image made from video provided by Russian Federal Security Service via RTR on Aug. 1, 2024, Germany's Patrick Schoebel, center, is escorted by a Russian Federal Security Service agent, left, as they arrive at an airport outside Moscow. (AP)
At the time of Navalny’s death, officials were discussing a possible exchange involving Krasikov. But with that prospect erased, senior US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, made a fresh push to encourage Germany to release Krasikov. In the end, a handful of the prisoners Russia released were either German nationals or dual German-Russian nationals.
Russia also received two alleged sleeper agents jailed in Slovenia, as well as three men charged by federal authorities in the US, including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence operative accused of providing American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway returned an academic arrested on suspicions of being a Russian spy; Poland sent back a man it detained on espionage charges.
“Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world,” Biden said.
All told, six countries released at least one prisoner and a seventh — Turkiye — participated by hosting the location for the swap, in Ankara.
Biden placed securing the release of Americans held wrongfully overseas at the top of his foreign policy agenda for the six months before he leaves office. In an Oval Office address discussing his decision to drop his bid for a second term, Biden said, “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”
At one point Thursday, he grabbed the hand of Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, and said she’d practically been living at the White House as the administration tried to free Paul. He then motioned for Kurmasheva’s daughter, Miriam, to come closer and took her hand, telling the room it was her 13th birthday. He asked everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” with him. She wiped tears from her eyes.
The Biden administration has now brought home more than 70 Americans detained in other countries as part of deals that have required the US to give up a broad array of convicted criminals, including for drug and weapons offenses. The swaps, though celebrated with fanfare, have spurred criticism that they incentivize future hostage-taking and give adversaries leverage over the US and its allies.
The US government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, has sought to defend the deals by saying the number of wrongfully detained Americans has actually gone down even as swaps have increased.
Tucker, the Journal’s editor-in-chief, acknowledged the debate, writing in a letter: “We know the US government is keenly aware, as are we, that the only way to prevent a quickening cycle of arresting innocent people as pawns in cynical geopolitical games is to remove the incentive for Russia and other nations that pursue the same detestable practice.”
The Wall Street Journal editors and reporters listen to editor-in-chief Emma Tucker speak about the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich on Aug. 1, 2024, at The Wall Street Journal's office in New York. (The Wall Street Journal via AP)
Though she called for a change to the dynamic, “for now,” she wrote, “we are celebrating the return of Evan.”
Thursday’s swap of 24 prisoners surpassed a deal involving 14 people that was struck in 2010. In that exchange, Washington freed 10 Russians living in the US as sleepers, while Moscow deported four Russians, including Sergei Skripal, a double agent working with British intelligence. He and his daughter in 2018 were nearly killed in Britain by nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russian agents.
Speculation had mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence of unusual developments, including a startingly quick trial for Gershkovich, which Washington regarded as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.
In a trial that concluded in two days in secrecy in the same week as Gershkovich’s, Kurmasheva was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military that her family, employer and US officials rejected. Also in recent days, several other figures imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or over their work with Navalny were moved from prison to unknown locations.
Gershkovich was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the US The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, he moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.
Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding.
Whelan, who was serving a 16-year prison sentence, had been excluded from prior high-profile deals involving Russia, including the April 2022 swap by Moscow of imprisoned Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy. That December, the US released notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who’d been jailed on drug charges.
“Paul Whelan is free. Our family is grateful to the United States government for making Paul’s freedom a reality,” his family said in a statement.
