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Top Democrats increase pressure on Biden to step aside, US media reports

Update Top Democrats increase pressure on Biden to step aside, US media reports
Top Democrats have told US president Joe Biden it would be better for the country and the party if he ended his reelection campaign. (Reuters)
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Updated 18 July 2024
Reuters
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Top Democrats increase pressure on Biden to step aside, US media reports

Top Democrats increase pressure on Biden to step aside, US media reports
  • US Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi among voices of dissent
  • Joe Biden has repeatedly rejected calls from Democrats to drop out of the presidential race
Updated 18 July 2024
Reuters
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WASHINGTON: Top Democrats including US Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have increased pressure on President Joe Biden to withdraw from his reelection campaign over concerns he cannot defeat Republican challenger Donald Trump, US media reported on Wednesday.
Schumer told Biden in a meeting on Saturday it would be better for the country and the Democratic Party if he ended his reelection campaign, ABC News reported.
US House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has expressed similar views directly to Biden, ABC News reported, citing a source familiar with the conversation.
CNN reported on Wednesday that Pelosi, too, has told Biden polling shows he cannot defeat Trump and that the president could destroy the Democrats’ chances of winning back control of the House of Representatives.
Pelosi spoke to Biden in a recent telephone call, CNN reported, citing four sources briefed on the call. None of the sources indicated Pelosi told Biden he should leave the race, CNN said.
Biden responded by telling Pelosi he has seen polling indicating he can win, according to one CNN source.
A Pelosi spokesperson told CNN that Pelosi has not spoken to Biden since Friday.
Earlier on Wednesday, Democratic US Representative Adam Schiff became the 20th congressional Democrat to publicly call for Biden to drop out of the race.
Schumer’s office responded to the report about his meeting with the president with a statement calling it “idle speculation” and said Schumer “conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday.”
Jeffries’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Biden has repeatedly rejected calls from Democrats to drop out of the race after his halting performance in a debate last month against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“The President told both leaders he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

Topics: US Election 2024 Rep. Adam Schiff Joe Biden US Democrats

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More than 1,000 killed in Bangladesh violence since July, health ministry chief says

More than 1,000 killed in Bangladesh violence since July, health ministry chief says
Updated 5 sec ago
Reuters
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More than 1,000 killed in Bangladesh violence since July, health ministry chief says

More than 1,000 killed in Bangladesh violence since July, health ministry chief says
  • Violence erupted during student-led movement against public sector job quotas, which later intensified into uprising against PM Hasina
  • Interim government led by Nobel prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus replaced Hasina’s administration, quelling the violence
Updated 5 sec ago
Reuters

DHAKA: Violence that erupted in Bangladesh during last month’s anti-government protests killed more than 1,000 people, the interim health ministry chief said on Thursday, making it the bloodiest period in the country’s history since its 1971 independence.

The violence erupted during a student-led movement against public sector job quotas, which later intensified into an uprising against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who resigned and fled to India on Aug. 5 moments before her residence was stormed by hundreds of protesters.

An interim government led by Nobel prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus replaced Hasina’s administration, quelling the violence that had flared for weeks before her departure, as security forces cracked down on protests, and continued for some days after she fled.

“Over 1,000 people have been killed and over 400 students have lost their eyesight,” a statement from the health ministry said, quoting its chief Nurjahan Begum.

“Many have become blind in one eye, many have lost sight in both eyes... many people have leg injuries and many of them had to get their legs amputated,” the statement said.

The ministry did not mention in its statement how it assessed the death toll, but a home ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he believed it was based on hospital records and information from local administration.

Topics: Bangladesh protest Arab News Pakistan

After years of pressure on Durov, Russia suddenly rallies behind him

After years of pressure on Durov, Russia suddenly rallies behind him
Updated 15 min 45 sec ago
Reuters
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After years of pressure on Durov, Russia suddenly rallies behind him

After years of pressure on Durov, Russia suddenly rallies behind him
  • Furor has provided Russia with an opportunity to pursue a favored line: that the West, while claiming to uphold values such as free speech, is driven by a vengeful desire to undermine Russia
  • First tech venture VKontakte (VK) permitted forums for opposition activists to organize protests against Putin, and Durov refused to comply with demands to shut down Alexei Navalny’s blog
Updated 15 min 45 sec ago
Reuters

LONDON: Days after gunmen killed 145 concert-goers at a venue near Moscow in March, as allegations emerged that the assailants had been recruited on Telegram, the Kremlin issued a stern warning to its founder.
“We would expect more attention from Pavel Durov, because this unique and phenomenal resource ... is increasingly becoming a tool in the hands of terrorists,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Five months later, as French prosecutors pursue an investigation into Telegram founder and boss Durov over the use of the messaging app for fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering and other forms of organized crime, Moscow has changed its public stance on the tech entrepreneur.
With some Russians now hailing Durov as a hero of free speech, Peskov said on Thursday that the case against him should “not turn into political persecution.”
Briefing reporters, he added: “We know that the president of France (Emmanuel Macron) has denied any connection with politics, but on the other hand, certain accusations are being made. We will see what happens next.”
Some Russian lawmakers have alleged, without providing evidence, that the case against Durov has been orchestrated by Washington. A source at the Paris prosecutor’s office said the probe had no connection to the United States and Macron had been given no prior warning of the arrest.
“Pavel Durov remains a hostage of the ‘dictatorship of democracy’ of the collective West,” Leonid Slutsky, the leader of a pro-Kremlin parliamentary party, wrote on Telegram.
The furor has provided Russia with an opportunity to pursue a favored line of attack: that the West, while claiming to uphold values such as free speech, is really driven by a vengeful desire to undermine Russia.
Ksenia Ermoshina, a researcher at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and the Center for Internet and Society at French institute CNRS, said Russia’s strong reaction also reflects security concerns because of the widespread use of Telegram in military communications.
“Telegram has become a tool for Russian defense to communicate internally,” she said.
“If Durov is accused by the French government and he is in the hands of French justice, they are afraid that he might give access to his servers and, because there is no internal encryption by default in Telegram, this will enable potential access to sensitive information from the Russian army.”
A lawyer for Durov said on Thursday it was “absurd” to suggest the head of a social network was responsible for any criminal acts committed on the platform. Telegram has said it abides by European Union laws.
Durov, 39, has not always been able to count on vocal defenders in Russia, where his troubled relationship with the authorities goes back more than a decade.
His first big tech venture — a Russian version of Facebook called VKontakte (VK) — permitted forums for opposition activists to organize protests against President Vladimir Putin, and Durov refused to comply with demands to shut down late opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption blog.
In 2013, Russia’s FSB security service requested the VK data of Ukrainians protesting against the pro-Russian president who was then in power in Kyiv.
“I refused to comply with these demands, because it would have meant a betrayal of our Ukrainian users,” Durov said in March 2022. “After that, I was fired from the company I founded and was forced to leave Russia.”
Durov launched Telegram, now used by almost 1 billion people, in 2013. Before long, Russia came after that platform, too.
The FSB said militants had used Telegram to carry out a suicide bombing on the St. Petersburg metro in 2017, and state communications regulator Roskomnadzor demanded that Durov “hand over the keys” to information on the app.
Durov said those demands violated Russians’ constitutional right to keep their correspondence secret.
For two years from May 2018, Roskomnadzor sought to block Telegram, efforts that were thwarted by rotating proxy servers, hiding traffic and other anti-censorship tools.
Since then, the platform has continued to grow in popularity, becoming an indispensable tool for everyone from dissidents to bloggers on the war in Ukraine.
On the streets of Moscow on Thursday, people interviewed by Reuters said they were following the case of Durov, who has French as well as Russian citizenship.
Irina, a middle-aged woman who declined to give her last name, alluded to the fact that the businessman had been invited in the past to dine with Macron.
“Of course, this is alarming, this is a very unpleasant thing,” she said of Durov’s arrest. “If this is such a set-up on the part of the head of France, Macron, then this is beyond the pale.”
Mark, a young man in a white hoodie, said the case was easily explained.
“This is politics. They’ve arrested a Russian billionaire in France. Why not? It’s beneficial for them, it’s a blow to Russia.”

Topics: Pavel Durov Telegram Russia France

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4 people including army officer kidnapped in northwest Pakistan

Pakistani security personnel stand guard in the Hayatabad area of Peshawar, Pakistan. (File/AFP)
Pakistani security personnel stand guard in the Hayatabad area of Peshawar, Pakistan. (File/AFP)
Updated 29 August 2024
AP
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4 people including army officer kidnapped in northwest Pakistan

Pakistani security personnel stand guard in the Hayatabad area of Peshawar, Pakistan. (File/AFP)
  • Local authorities said a video of Khan, showing him in the custody of the Pakistani Taliban, was sent anonymously to his family
  • In the video, Khan is seen sitting in front of armed men and urging the government to accept the demands of the Pakistani Taliban
Updated 29 August 2024
AP

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Suspected militants kidnapped four people, including an army officer who was sitting in a mosque in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban to receive mourners after attending his father’s funeral, officials said Thursday.
No one claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s kidnapping of Lt. Col. Khalid Khan and three others in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan.
Local authorities said a video of Khan, showing him in the custody of the Pakistani Taliban, was sent anonymously to his family. In the video, Khan is seen sitting in front of armed men and urging the government to accept the demands of the Pakistani Taliban. It was unclear what were their demands.
There was no immediate comment by the military or the government.
A local police official, Ikram Ullah, said efforts were underway to trace and recover the abducted persons: Khan, his two brothers who are also government officers, and one of his nephews.
Though the Pakistani Taliban often targets security forces in the northwest, such kidnappings are rare.
The group, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, have a strong presence in the restive northwest. It is separate from the Afghan Taliban but allied to it, and it has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The kidnappings came days after Baloch separatists, who are allies of TTP, shot and killed more than 50 people, including 14 security forces, in one of the deadliest attacks in the southwestern Balochistan province.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif traveled to Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, on Thursday where he received a briefing about ongoing operations against insurgents, officials said.
Later, Sharif vowed to eliminate terrorism in televised remarks, saying those “terrorists” who orchestrated the recent attacks in Balochistan are enemies of Pakistan and would be dealt with an iron hand.

Topics: Pakistan Dera Ismail Khan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan Taliban Lt. Col. Khalid Khan

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Putin to travel to Mongolia despite an ICC warrant for his arrest

Putin to travel to Mongolia despite an ICC warrant for his arrest
Updated 56 min 9 sec ago
AFP
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Putin to travel to Mongolia despite an ICC warrant for his arrest

Putin to travel to Mongolia despite an ICC warrant for his arrest
  • Kremlin said Putin will travel to neighboring Mongolia on Sept. 3 to mark the ‘85th anniversary of the joint victory of Soviet and Mongolian forces over Japan on the Khalkhin Gol River’
  • Putin has reduced his foreign travel since launching a full-scale offensive against Ukraine in Feb. 2022 and limited it even more since the ICC issued the arrest warrant
Updated 56 min 9 sec ago
AFP

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin will next week visit Mongolia, a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that has issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader, the Kremlin said Thursday.
It will be the first time Putin has traveled to a country that has ratified the founding treaty of the ICC, the Rome Statute, since the Hague-based court issued the warrant for him in March 2023 over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
ICC members are expected to make the arrest if the Russian leader sets foot on their territory.
Mongolia signed the Rome Statute treaty in 2000 and ratified it in 2002.
The Kremlin said Putin will travel to neighboring Mongolia on September 3 to mark the “85th anniversary of the joint victory of Soviet and Mongolian forces over Japanese militarists on the Khalkhin Gol River.”
The battle took place in 1939 during the Japanese occupation of nearby Manchuria.
The Kremlin said Putin and Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh will discuss bilateral relations and “exchange views on current international and regional issues.”
The visit will fall a month after US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Mongolia as Washington seeks closer ties with the landlocked country.
The Kremlin has called the ICC warrant “absurd.”
Putin has reduced his foreign travel since launching a full-scale offensive against Ukraine in February 2022 and limited it even more since the ICC issued the arrest warrant.

Topics: Russia Mongolia Vladimir Putin Ukhnaa Khurelsukh International Criminal Court (ICC)

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Indonesia, Australia bolster defense ties with ‘historic’ cooperation agreement

Indonesia, Australia bolster defense ties with ‘historic’ cooperation agreement
Updated 29 August 2024
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Indonesia, Australia bolster defense ties with ‘historic’ cooperation agreement

Indonesia, Australia bolster defense ties with ‘historic’ cooperation agreement
  • Under new pact, Indonesian and Australian militaries can operate from each other’s countries
  • Indonesia and Australia to hold their largest-ever bilateral military drills in November
Updated 29 August 2024
Sheany Yasuko Lai

Jakarta: Indonesia and Australia signed a defense agreement on Thursday, cementing closer ties as Prabowo Subianto prepares to take office as Indonesia’s next president in October.

Subianto, who is serving as defense minister under outgoing President Joko Widodo’s administration, signed the Defense Cooperation Agreement with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles at Indonesia’s National Military Academy in Magelang, Central Java.

The new pact includes provisions allowing Australian and Indonesian defense forces to operate from each other’s countries.

“We have signed this defense cooperation agreement, which is a historic milestone … to increase our cooperation and help each other address various security threats and promote peace and continued stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” Subianto said during a joint press conference.

“This is not a military alliance, but a defense cooperation. This signifies how we want to continue and preserve our strong ties and good friendship. I am determined to make Indonesia-Australia relations even better in the future.”

The signing took place just a little over a week after Subianto’s visit to Canberra, where he and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the conclusion of negotiations to upgrade their cooperation arrangement to a treaty-level agreement.

In 2022, Indonesia was Albanese’s first visit as prime minister. He vowed to strengthen ties with Jakarta and other Southeast Asian nations in the face of growing tensions with China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Subianto has said he will continue Indonesia’s longstanding policy of non-alignment when he takes office.

Relations between the neighboring countries were “as close as they had ever been” during Widodo’s presidency, Marles said, adding that Australia understood Indonesia’s non-alignment policy.

“It is very much in Australia’s interest to have a non-aligned Indonesia as our closest neighbor,” he said.

“The defense cooperation agreement between our two nations is the deepest, the most significant defense agreement in the history of our bilateral relationship … this is an important piece of international architecture.”

The two countries plan to hold their largest-ever bilateral military exercise in November, he said.

“In Mr. Prabowo, Australia sees a great friend and we really appreciate the work that you’ve done as the minister of defense, and obviously we look forward to your impending presidency.”

Topics: Indonesia Australia

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