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Trump says he told Netanyahu in July to end Gaza war

Trump says he told Netanyahu in July to end Gaza war
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump n Bedminster, New Jersey. (Reuters)
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Updated 16 August 2024
Reuters
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Trump says he told Netanyahu in July to end Gaza war

Trump says he told Netanyahu in July to end Gaza war
  • Trump was referring to his meeting with Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago residence in late July
Updated 16 August 2024
Reuters
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WASHINGTON/ JERUSALEM: Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday that he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their last meeting in July to quickly end
Israel’s war in Gaza.

“He knows what he’s doing, I did encourage him to get this over with,” Trump told reporters at a press conference on Thursday. “It has to get over with fast, but have victory, get your victory and get it over with. It has to stop, the killing has to stop.”
Trump was referring to his meeting with Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago residence in late July, when Netanyahu visited the US He also met President Joe Biden and Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during his trip.
Netanyahu’s office and Trump both separately denied on Thursday an Axios report that said they had spoken the previous day about Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks.
“Contrary to media reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not speak yesterday with former President Donald Trump,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
“I expect, I might be talking to him, but I haven’t since then,” Trump said at Thursday’s press conference.
Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal in an address on May 31. Washington and regional mediators have since tried arranging the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal but have run into repeated obstacles.
The report, in Axios, cited two US sources. One source said Trump’s call was intended to encourage Netanyahu to take the deal, but stressed he did not know if this is indeed what the former president told Netanyahu.
Egypt, the United States and Qatar have scheduled a new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations this week.
Washington, Israel’s most important ally, has said that a ceasefire in Gaza will reduce the rising threat of a wider war in the Middle East.
There has been an increased risk of a broader war after the recent killings of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Both drew threats of retaliation against Israel.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

Topics: War on Gaza

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Indonesia volcano catapults vast ash tower into sky

Indonesia volcano catapults vast ash tower into sky
Updated 27 sec ago
AFP
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Indonesia volcano catapults vast ash tower into sky

Indonesia volcano catapults vast ash tower into sky
  • There were no immediate reports of damage to nearby villages from Saturday’s fresh eruption.
  • Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
Updated 27 sec ago
AFP
East Flores: A volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted again on Saturday, sending a giant ash tower nine kilometers (more than five miles) into the sky, days after it killed nine people and forced thousands of locals to evacuate.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703-meter (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, has erupted more than a dozen times this week, killing nine people after its initial burst on Monday.
“The ash column was observed at approximately 9,000 meters above the summit. The ash column appeared grey with thick intensity,” the country’s volcanology agency said in a statement about the eruption that began at 04:47 local time (2047 GMT).
There were no immediate reports of damage to nearby villages from Saturday’s fresh eruption.
But the agency warned residents to “remain alert to the potential for cold lava floods” due to heavy rainfall.
On Friday, another huge eruption forced officials at a nearby monitoring post to evacuate as ash and small rocks rained down.
The mountain on Thursday spewed an ash tower eight kilometers high, which locals said was one of the biggest they had ever seen.
More than 10,000 people have been affected by the eruptions, with officials telling locals to permanently relocate from an eight-kilometer exclusion zone.
The head of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said authorities would temporarily house and fund locals while new homes were built.
“Since the preparation and planning process for relocation takes time, we hope we can build them quickly,” said Suharyanto, who goes by one name, on a visit to a shelter Friday.
Laki-Laki, which means “man” in Indonesian, is twinned with a calmer volcano named after the Indonesian word for “woman.”
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

Over 130 homes lost in California wildfire as winds drop

Over 130 homes lost in California wildfire as winds drop
Updated 2 min 54 sec ago
AFP
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Over 130 homes lost in California wildfire as winds drop

Over 130 homes lost in California wildfire as winds drop
  • The blaze erupted Wednesday morning and spread rapidly, fanned by fierce seasonal Santa Ana winds from California’s desert interior.
Updated 2 min 54 sec ago
AFP
Camarillo: Firefighters grappling with a blaze that has destroyed at least 130 homes in California said Friday they had made progress in their fight as a turn in the weather offered a break.
Hurricane-strength winds this week fueled an explosion in the Mountain Fire near Camarillo, outside Los Angeles, which grew rapidly to over 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares).
Thousands of people in the path of the inferno were forced to flee, some with only minutes to gather possessions and pets as unpredictable flames leapt from home to home.
Robin Wallace told AFP the home she grew up in was destroyed minutes after everyone fled.
“We were expecting we’d be able to go back and get some things. But of course, that didn’t work out.
“It was completely gone by the afternoon. It went very quickly.”
Linda Fefferman said she knew she had to go when she smelled smoke.
“I’m trying to load the car with animals and important papers, my oxygen concentrator, and when it got too smoky for me, I knew I had to get out,” she told a local broadcaster.
A neighbor with a chainsaw helped remove a fallen tree that was blocking her path.
“I went down to the Goodwill parking lot, watched the smoke, you know, probably our own house burning.
“Nothing is left. It’s gone,” she said. “It’s all gone.”
Fefferman said she thought 14 or 15 houses on her street had been destroyed by the flames.
Authorities said Thursday that initial inspections revealed at least 132 homes had been lost, with 88 more damaged.
The area is home to around 30,000 people, with approximately 10,000 having been told to evacuate.
The blaze erupted Wednesday morning and spread rapidly, fanned by fierce seasonal Santa Ana winds from California’s desert interior.
Gusts up to 80 miles (130 kilometers) an hour pushed smoke and flames sideways, with terrifying footage showing fire engulfing brush, orchards and properties.
Those winds dropped Friday, with meteorologists saying they did not expect them to return for at least a few days.
That was welcome news for firefighters, some of whom had been on the frontlines for 36 hours straight.
The change in weather meant fire crews were able to make progress in their fight, said Nick Cleary of the Ventura County Fire Department, with 14 percent of the perimeter of the blaze contained.
“Today on the fire, we had a very successful day,” he told reporters, with a mild onshore breeze bringing some much-needed humidity.
More than 2,400 personnel, as well as engines, bulldozers and aircraft were involved in the fight.
“We need to keep using these resources with this advantageous weather that we’re having to get in there and make sure we’re mopping everything... so we’re not going to have any secondary starts,” Cleary said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom visited the area Thursday and declared a state of emergency, a move that will free up resources.
The White House said President Joe Biden called Newsom on Friday, along with local elected official Kelly Long, to discuss “support needed for the communities affected” and the approval of a Fire Management Assistance Grant by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Utility companies have shut off electricity to thousands of customers in the area — a common practice in California during high winds, with toppled power lines often causing wildfires.
Two relatively wet years have left California’s countryside flush with vegetation that is now dry and exceedingly flammable after a long, hot summer.
While fires, drought and strong winds are characteristics of the local environment, scientists say human-caused climate change is affecting weather patterns and increasing the likelihood of catastrophic events.

California spearheads new ‘resistance’ to Trump’s plans of mass deportation, environmental protection rollback

California spearheads new ‘resistance’ to Trump’s plans of mass deportation, environmental protection rollback
Updated 09 November 2024
AP
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California spearheads new ‘resistance’ to Trump’s plans of mass deportation, environmental protection rollback

California spearheads new ‘resistance’ to Trump’s plans of mass deportation, environmental protection rollback
  • Trump’s sweeping election victory this week came off the back of promises to swiftly expel millions of illegal immigrants and roll back nationwide environmental protections
  • But under the US constitution, states wield significant power and any such moves will certainly be met with lawsuits
Updated 09 November 2024
AP

LOS ANGELES: California is spearheading a new resistance to the incoming Donald Trump administration that will test the power of Democratic states to battle mass deportation, defend reproductive rights and combat climate change.
Trump’s sweeping election victory this week came off the back of promises to swiftly expel millions of illegal immigrants and roll back nationwide environmental protections. Critics fear his allies could move to restrict access to abortion medication.
But under the US constitution, states wield significant power and any such moves will certainly be met with lawsuits.
California’s top prosecutor stood in front of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge this week and vowed to “take on the challenges of a second Trump Administration — together.”
“We lived through Trump 1.0. We know what he’s capable of,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“We’ll continue to be a check on overreach and push back on abuse of power,” he promised.
Governors and attorneys general of other liberal states including New York, Illinois, Oregon and Washington have made similar proclamations.
“If you try to harm New Yorkers or roll back their rights, I will fight you every step of the way,” Governor Kathy Hochul vowed.
“You come for my people, you come through me,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said, as Democratic prosecutors across the nation coordinate their strategies.
The pre-emptive maneuvers have swiftly drawn the ire of Trump, who singled out California Governor Gavin Newsom in an angry social media riposte Friday.
“He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again,’ but I just overwhelmingly won the Election,” complained Trump.

Hindrance by litigation
State plans to disrupt his agenda will bring an unwelcome sense of deja vu for Trump, whose efforts to rescind Barack Obama’s immigration and health care policies during his first term were repeatedly stymied in court.
During the last Trump administration, California alone sued over 100 times in a variety of areas, slowing down or restricting its policies. Republican states echoed that strategy under Joe Biden’s administration.
“It was as successful as you can get,” said Julian Zelezer, professor of political history at Princeton University.
“States, especially a state as large as California, do have the power to resist some of the changes that will come from the administration, to uphold emissions regulations and other laws, including on reproductive rights.”
A benefit of litigation is that “cases move about as fast as snails,” said Kevin Johnson, a law professor at University of California, Davis.
“Some cases go around the lower courts, and by the time they hit the Supreme Court, there’s a new president,” he told AFP.

“Sanctuary states”
Immigration is expected to be a flashpoint in the looming battle.
Republican states may cooperate with the Trump administration in identifying and detaining undocumented people. But Democratic states are likely to refuse.
During Trump’s previous term California was the first to declare itself a “sanctuary state,” prohibiting local law enforcement from working with federal agents to arrest illegal immigrants.
Trump could withhold federal funding to certain states as a means of exerting pressure.
He has also floated more radical measures, including massively expanding a process called “expedited removal” to evict undocumented people without court hearings, or even using the military to arrest suspected illegal immigrants.
But “there would almost immediately be a request for a preliminary injunction,” predicted Johnson.
“If you send the military on the border” to detain or deport immigrants, “it is unprecedented in all kinds of ways, and it raises all kinds of issues.”

“As California goes, so goes the nation”
One downside for states is the enormous financial cost of countless legal battles.
“State budgets are tight, and so that money has to come from somewhere else,” said Zelezer.
With Trump having won the popular vote and increased his vote share even in most liberal states, “politically, it might be a little harder as they try to move forward with doing this again,” he said.
Still, California’s leaders’ zeal in opposing Trump appeared undaunted.
“As is so often said, as California goes, so goes the nation,” said Bonta.
“In the days and months and years to come, all eyes will look west.”

Topics: US Election 2024 Donald Trump California

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Germany marks 1989 Berlin Wall fall with ‘Preserve Freedom’ party

Germany marks 1989 Berlin Wall fall with ‘Preserve Freedom’ party
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP
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Germany marks 1989 Berlin Wall fall with ‘Preserve Freedom’ party

Germany marks 1989 Berlin Wall fall with ‘Preserve Freedom’ party
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP

BERLIN: Germany marks 35 years since the Berlin Wall fell with festivities from Saturday under the theme “Preserve Freedom!” as Russia’s war rages in Ukraine and many fear democracy is under attack.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz — whose coalition dramatically collapsed this week — said in a message to the nation that the liberal ideals of 1989 “are not something we can take for granted.”
“A look at our history and at the world around us shows this,” added Scholz, whose three-party ruling alliance imploded on the day Donald Trump was reelected, plunging Germany into political turmoil and toward new elections.
November 9, 1989 is celebrated as the day East Germany’s dictatorship opened the borders to the West after months of peaceful mass protests, paving the way for German reunification and the collapse of Soviet communism.
One Berliner who remembers those momentous events, retiree Jutta Krueger, 75, said about the political crisis hitting just ahead of the anniversary weekend: “It’s a shame that it’s coinciding like this now.”
“But we should still really celebrate the fall of the Wall,” she said, hailing it as the moment East Germans could travel and “freedom had arrived throughout Germany.”
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will kick off events on Saturday at the Berlin Wall Memorial, honoring the at least 140 people killed trying to flee the Moscow-backed German Democratic Republic (GDR) during the Cold War.
In the evening, a “freedom party” with a music and light show will be held at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate, on the former path of the concrete barrier that had cut the city in two since 1961.
On Sunday, the Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot will perform in front of the former headquarters of the Stasi, former East Germany’s feared secret police.
Pro-democracy activists from around the world have been invited for the commemorations — among them Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad.
Talks, performances and a large-scale open-air art exhibition will also mark what culture minister Claudia Roth called “one of the most joyous moments in world history.”
Replica placards from the 1989 protests will be on display along four kilometers of the Wall’s route, past the historic Reichstag building and the famous Checkpoint Charlie.
Also among the art installations will be thousands of images created by citizens on the theme of “freedom,” to drive home the enduring relevance of the historical event.
Berlin’s top cultural affairs official Joe Chialo said the theme was crucial “at a time when we are confronted by rising populism, disinformation and social division.”
Axel Klausmeier, head of the Berlin Wall foundation, said the values of the 1989 protests “are the power-bank for the defense of our democracy, which today is being gnawed at from the left and the right.”
Most East Germans are grateful the GDR regime ended but many also have unhappy memories of the perceived arrogance of West Germans, and resentment lingers about a remaining gap in incomes and pensions.
These sentiments have been cited to explain the strong support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in eastern Germany, as well as for the Russia-friendly and anti-capitalist BSW.
Strong gains for both at three state elections in the east in September highlighted the enduring political divisions between eastern and western Germany over three decades since reunification.
While the troubled government led by Scholz’s Social Democrats and the opposition CDU strongly supports Ukraine’s fightback against Russia, the anti-establishment AfD and BSW oppose it.
The AfD, which rails against immigration, was embarrassed this week when several of its members were arrested as suspected members of a racist paramilitary group that had practiced urban warfare drills.
On the eve of the anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann recalled that the weekend will also mark another, far darker chapter in German history.
During the Nazis’ Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, at least 90 Jews were murdered, countless properties destroyed and 1,400 synagogues torched in Germany and Austria.
Hoffmann said that “it is very important for our society to remember the victims... and learn the correct lessons from those events for our conduct today.”

UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser
Updated 09 November 2024
Arab News
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UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser
  • Powell, who was chief of staff to former PM Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007, was an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process
  • He faced criticism for his part in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq
Updated 09 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: The UK’s Labour government has appointed Jonathan Powell, an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process, as its new national security adviser.

Powell, who served as chief of staff to former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for a decade between 1997 and 2007, was deeply involved in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

In 2014, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him the UK’s special envoy to Libya, in an attempt to promote dialogue between rival factions embroiled in the nation’s civil war.

Many political figures in the UK welcomed Powell’s latest appointment at a time of escalating international conflicts. Some expressed hopes that he will be able to help British authorities forge a positive relationship with Donald Trump when he takes over as US president in January.

However, Powell faced criticism for his role in the UK government’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq two decades ago, and for later promoting the need to engage in dialogue with extremist groups. In 2014, at the height of Daesh’s bloody occupation of large swaths of Iraq and Syria, he argued that UK authorities should open channels of communication with them.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Powell’s experience of negotiating the Northern Ireland peace agreement and his other work related to some of the world’s most complex conflicts make him “uniquely qualified to advise the government on tackling the challenges ahead, and engage with counterparts across the globe to protect and advance UK interests.”

Powell said he was honored to be given the role at a time when “national security, international relations and domestic policies are so interconnected.”

Topics: Jonathan Powell Tony blair Iraq war

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