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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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Beset by wildfires, Portugal gets help from Spain, Morocco

Beset by wildfires, Portugal gets help from Spain, Morocco
Updated 3 sec ago
Reuters
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Beset by wildfires, Portugal gets help from Spain, Morocco

Beset by wildfires, Portugal gets help from Spain, Morocco
Updated 3 sec ago
Reuters

LISBON: Deadly wildfires in central and northern Portugal have pushed emergency services to the limit and much-needed reinforcements will arrive on Wednesday from Spain and Morocco, the civil protection authority said.
At least seven people have died due to the blazes in the Aveiro and Viseu districts, with dozens of houses destroyed and tens of thousands of hectares of forest and scrubland consumed. Authorities have mobilized more than 5,000 firefighters.
Duarte Costa told CNN Portugal late on Tuesday that a specialized emergencies team of 230 Spanish military personnel would be deployed in the central Viseu district, where huge blazes are “of great concern at the moment.”
Morocco is sending up to four heavy water-bombing aircraft that should also arrive in Portugal on Wednesday, he added.
Spain, Italy and France have already sent two water-bombing aircraft each after the Portuguese government on Monday requested help under the EU civil protection mechanism.
“We are in a stressful situation, at the limit of our capabilities, and that is why we are asking for help from the European mechanism, Spain and Morocco,” Costa said, adding that the reinforcements would allow for some rotation of exhausted Portuguese firefighters and aircraft maintenance.
The government has declared a state of calamity in all municipalities affected by the wildfires, allowing civil protection agents to access private property.
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said a government team would coordinate the provision of “the most immediate and urgent support” to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods.
At least some of the dozens of fires across Portugal have been caused by arsonists, prompted by possible commercial interest, spite or criminal negligence, he said, vowing to “spare no effort in repressive action” against such crimes.
Portugal’s national guard, or GNR, said in a statement they had arrested seven people since Saturday suspected of arson in the districts of Leiria, Castelo Branco, Porto and Braga.

Topics: Portugal Spain Morocco wildfire

Chinese navy flotilla sails between Japanese islands near Taiwan

Chinese navy flotilla sails between Japanese islands near Taiwan
Updated 9 min 20 sec ago
AFP
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Chinese navy flotilla sails between Japanese islands near Taiwan

Chinese navy flotilla sails between Japanese islands near Taiwan
Updated 9 min 20 sec ago
AFP

TOKYO: A Chinese aircraft carrier sailed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan for the first time, Japan’s military said Wednesday, in the latest move by Beijing to rile the close US ally.
The passage of a flotilla on Tuesday to Wednesday took place near a group of uninhabited islands disputed by Japan and China that have long been a source of friction.
The Liaoning carrier and two Luyang III-class missile destroyers were seen sailing southwards between the islands of Yonaguni and Iriomote, the defense ministry’s joint staff said.
“This is the first time that an aircraft carrier belonging to the Chinese Navy has been confirmed to have sailed through the waters between Yonaguni and Iriomote,” a statement said.
Public broadcaster NHK and other media, citing unnamed defense sources, reported that it was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered Japan’s contiguous waters.
Contiguous waters are a 12-nautical-mile band that extends beyond territorial waters where a country can exert come control according to international maritime law.
The ministry was unable to immediately confirm the news reports.
Taipei’s government said earlier a Chinese naval formation led by the Liaoning sailed through waters northeast of self-ruled Taiwan on Wednesday and continued toward Japan’s Yonaguni Island.
China’s growing economic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region and its assertiveness in territorial disputes — most recently with the Philippines — has rattled the United States and its allies.
Tense incidents have involved Japanese and Chinese vessels in disputed areas, in particular the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, known by Beijing as the Diaoyus.
Tokyo has reported the presence of Chinese coast guard vessels, a naval ship, and a nuclear-powered submarine around the remote chain of islets.
In August, Japan scrambled fighter jets after the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace, with Tokyo calling it a “serious violation” of its sovereignty.
Japan is ramping up its defense spending with US encouragement, moving to acquire counter-strike capabilities and easing rules on arms exports.
Tokyo is also providing funding and equipment such as patrol vessels to other countries in the region.
In July, Japan agreed on a deal with the Philippines allowing troop deployments on each other’s soil.
Japan last week also scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years.
The Tu-142 planes did not enter Japanese airspace but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, Japan said.
This month Russian and Chinese warships held joint drills in the Sea of Japan, part of a major naval exercise that President Vladimir Putin said was the largest of its kind for three decades.
The Japanese defense ministry said it had observed five Chinese naval ships entering the Sea of Japan and likely on their way to the joint maneuvers.

Topics: China Japan Taiwan

Japan to formally elect new prime minister on October 1

Japan to formally elect new prime minister on October 1
Updated 18 September 2024
AFP
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Japan to formally elect new prime minister on October 1

Japan to formally elect new prime minister on October 1
  • Polls indicate that three frontrunners are emerging among the nine candidates to succeed Fumio Kishida as head of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
Updated 18 September 2024
AFP

TOKYO: Japan’s new prime minister will be formally elected by parliament on October 1 following next week’s leadership contest, a ruling party official said Wednesday.
Polls indicate that three frontrunners are emerging among the nine candidates to succeed Fumio Kishida as head of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the September 27 internal vote.
They are conservative economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, 63, former LDP secretary general Shigeru Ishiba, 67, and Shinjiro Koizumi, 43, son of former premier Junichiro Koizumi.
The conservative LDP — which has governed almost uninterrupted for decades — holds a majority in parliament, meaning the winner of the party election is essentially guaranteed to become premier.
Yasukazu Hamada, a LDP lawmaker in charge of parliament affairs, told his opposition counterpart that the party “plans to convene a parliament session on October 1” to elect the new prime minister, a LDP official told AFP.
The opposition party accepted the date, which will be formally announced by the government on Monday, media reports said.
Kishida, 67, whose three-year term was tarnished by scandals, voter anger over rising prices and sliding poll ratings, announced last month that he was stepping down.
In the leadership election, each of the LDP’s 367 parliament members cast a vote, and another 367 votes will be determined based on the preferences of rank-and-file party members and supporters.
Polls by different Japanese media have put Takaichi, Ishiba and Koizumi in the lead, although this is no guarantee any of them will emerge as the eventual winner.
Koizumi would be Japan’s youngest-ever premier while Takaichi, a vocal nationalist popular with the LDP’s conservative wing, would be the country’s first woman leader.
As a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead, which includes convicted war criminals — her nomination would likely rile victims of Japan’s wartime aggression such as China and South and North Korea.

Topics: Japan

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Palestinian president in Madrid to thank Spain for support

Palestinian president in Madrid to thank Spain for support
Updated 18 September 2024
AFP
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Palestinian president in Madrid to thank Spain for support

Palestinian president in Madrid to thank Spain for support
Updated 18 September 2024
AFP

MADRID: Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas will meet with Spain’s prime minister and king during a two-day visit to the European country that begins on Wednesday, his first since Madrid formally recognized a Palestinian state in May.
Abbas is stopping in Madrid at Spain’s invitation before heading to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, according to an official in his office.
His visit comes after Spain, along with Ireland and Norway, on May 28 formally recognized a Palestinian state comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Israel condemned their decision, saying it bolsters Hamas, the militant Islamist group that led the October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.
Spain’s leftist government then announced that a first bilateral summit between Spain and Palestine would be held before the end of the year, and the first Palestinian ambassador to Spain presented his credentials on Monday to Spanish King Felipe VI.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said the recognition of a Palestinian state is “not against anyone, least of all Israel,” but the move led to a further deterioration in ties between the two countries.
He has been one of the staunchest critics in Europe of Israel’s Gaza offensive since the start of the conflict.
The October 7 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has so far killed at least 41,226 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Sanchez vowed this month to continue to “pressure” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the global stage over the war in Gaza, especially at the International Criminal Court, which in May requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his defense minister.
Spain, along with other nations, has joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice in which Pretoria has accused Israel of “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
“We are going to strengthen out ties with the Palestinian state,” Sanchez said, adding that Madrid hoped “to sign several collaboration agreements” with the Palestinian state at the bilateral summit later this year.
Last week, Madrid hosted a gathering of representatives from European and Arab nations to discuss how to advance a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The international community must take a decisive step toward a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” Sanchez said at the time.

Topics: War on Gaza Spain Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

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Indian-administered Kashmir votes in first local polls since special status scrapped

Indian-administered Kashmir votes in first local polls since special status scrapped
Updated 18 September 2024
AFP
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Indian-administered Kashmir votes in first local polls since special status scrapped

Indian-administered Kashmir votes in first local polls since special status scrapped
  • Voters queued under heavy security for three-phased elections staggered geographically due to security, logistics 
  • Turnout is expected to be high, unlike in past elections when separatists opposed to Indian rule boycotted polls
Updated 18 September 2024
AFP

SRINAGAR: Indian-administered Kashmir began voting Wednesday in the first local elections since the cancelation of its special semi-autonomous status sparked fury in the troubled Himalayan territory, which is also claimed by Pakistan.
Many in the disputed Muslim-majority territory of 8.7 million registered voters remain bitter over the 2019 order by the Hindu-nationalist government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to impose control from New Delhi.
A federally appointed governor has controlled the territory since, with the first regional assembly election in a decade viewed by many as being more about exercising their democratic rights than practical policies.
Voters queued under heavy security in the three-phased elections — the first for the territory’s assembly since 2014 — staggered geographically due to security arrangements and logistical challenges in the mountainous region.
“After 10 years we are allowed to be heard,” said Navid Para, 31, among the first to vote in the cool morning mountain air of Pulwama, near the main city of Srinagar.
“I want my voice represented,” he added.
About 500,000 Indian troops are deployed in the region, battling a 35-year insurgency in which tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels have been killed, including dozens this year.
“Our problems have piled up,” said retired government officer Mukhtar Ahmad Tantray, 65, in Srinagar.
“The reins (of power)... were handed over to the bureaucracy.”
Turnout is expected to be high, unlike in past elections when separatists opposed to Indian rule boycotted polls, demanding the independence of Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.
“All the politics revolves around the dispute,” said trader Navin Kotwal, 73, from Doda in Jammu district.
“All I care about is that we want to be governed by educated representatives who can solve our problems.”
Vigorous election campaigns have featured unusually open debates but key decisions will remain in New Delhi’s hands, including security and appointing Kashmir’s governor.
New Delhi will also have the power to override legislation passed by the 90-seat assembly.
“People can go and plead with their local representative,” Tantray said. “Even if they cannot do anything, they can at least raise the issues.”
The last round of voting will be held on October 2. Results are expected six days later.
The territory, officially titled Jammu and Kashmir, is split.
One part is the overwhelmingly Muslim Kashmir Valley. Another is the Hindu-majority Jammu district, geographically divided by mountains to the south.
A third section, the high-altitude ethnically Tibetan Ladakh region, bordering China, was carved into a separate federal territory in 2019.
Some of the worst violence this year has been in Jammu, where Modi campaigned for votes on Saturday, vowing that “terrorism is on its last legs” in a reference to rebel groups fighting Indian rule.
Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claim that the changes to the territory’s governance have brought a new era of peace to Kashmir and rapid economic growth.
The implementation of those changes in 2019 was accompanied by mass arrests and a months-long Internet and communications blackout.
While this is the first ballot for the local assembly since 2014, voters took part in national elections in June when Modi won a third term in power.
Farmer Syed Ali Choudhary, 38, from Jammu district, said a local elected government “will be a big relief after so many years” while acknowledging the assembly’s powers will “be much less” than before.
“Something is better than nothing,” he said.
“When we had a local government thousands of people could be seen visiting the secretariat every day. Now you hardly see any because people are upset.”
Many Kashmiris are resentful of the restrictions on civil liberties imposed after 2019, and the BJP is only fielding candidates in a minority of seats concentrated in Hindu-majority areas.
Critics accuse the BJP of encouraging a surge of independent candidates in Muslim-majority areas to split the vote.
A lack of jobs is a key issue. The area has an unemployment rate of 18.3 percent, more than double the national average, according to government figures in July.
Small-scale manufacturing suffered after tax barriers ended with the territory’s changed status.
Critics say the central government has awarded major contracts, such as construction and mineral extraction, to firms outside the territory.
“My biggest concern is unemployment,” said Madiha, 27, a jobless graduate who gave only one name. “The cost of living has reached the sky.”

Topics: Kashmir elections Sri Nagar Jammu and Kashmir

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