Blinken arrives in Haiti to show US support for fighting gang violence

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille speak to the press at the US Chief of Mission Residence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo)

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Updated 05 September 2024

September 05, 2024 18:41

Blinken arrives in Haiti to show US support for fighting gang violence

Blinken arrived a day after Haiti’s government extended a state of emergency to the entire country
Blinken is scheduled to meet with Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille and a nine-member transitional presidential council

Updated 05 September 2024

September 05, 2024 18:41

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived Thursday in Haiti to reaffirm the US government’s commitment to a multinational mission to fight gangs in the Caribbean country and push for long-awaited general elections.
Some 400 Kenyan police have been deployed to Haiti to lead a UN-backed mission to quell gang violence in the Haitian capital and beyond, but concerns have grown that the mission lacks enough funding and equipment.
Brian Nichols, US assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, said Wednesday that the US government is considering a UN peacekeeping operation as one way to secure money and resources to fight gangs that control 80 percent of Haiti’s capital.
Blinken arrived a day after Haiti’s government extended a state of emergency to the entire country. It had been imposed earlier in the year in the capital and surrounding areas in an attempt to stem the ongoing violence.
Blinken is scheduled to meet with Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille and a nine-member transitional presidential council that was created after former Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned. He also planned to meet with unspecified political party leaders.
Blinken also will meet with the head of the multinational mission and the chief of Haiti’s National Police.
“Our goal is to recognize the positive progress made toward improving security and encourage efforts to appoint the provisional electoral council so Haiti can move toward elections,” Nichols told reporters ahead of the trip.
Haiti last held elections in 2016, and officials since then have blamed gang violence and political upheaval for preventing them from holding new ones.
In July 2021, former President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, and gang violence since then has surged. In February, gangs launched coordinated attacks on police stations and the main international airport, which remained closed for nearly three months. They also stormed Haiti’s two largest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.
The violence subsided somewhat before the first contingent of Kenyan police arrived in late June.
“We are seeing a dramatic increase in patrols and operations designed to restore security and sense of normalcy in Haiti,” Nichols said.
However, gangs continue to attack communities surrounding the capital of Port-au-Prince.
After meeting with officials in Haiti, Blinken is scheduled to fly Thursday night to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
On Friday, he is scheduled to meet with Dominican President Luis Abinader and other officials before returning to the US later that day.
Nichols said the talks with Abinader will focus on three priorities: strengthening economic ties, advancing values including respect for human and labor rights and promoting increased security in the region, especially in Haiti.
Abinader has come under fire in recent years for his administration’s treatment of Haitian migrants and those born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents.
He also has largely closed the airspace with Haiti and is building a wall between the two nations.

Topics: Haiti Antony Blinken Garry Conille

India marks 100 years of Raj Kapoor, the ‘first showman of Bollywood’

Updated 24 sec ago

Sanjay Kumar

December 14, 2024 15:23

India marks 100 years of Raj Kapoor, the ‘first showman of Bollywood’

Retrospective of Kapoor’s films held in 40 Indian cities on Dec. 13-15
He starred in more than 60 films, directing more than a dozen of them

Updated 24 sec ago

Sanjay Kumar

December 14, 2024 15:23

NEW DELHI: India marked on Saturday the 100th birth anniversary of Raj Kapoor, remembering the legendary actor and director, whose enduring legacy continues to shape and inspire Indian cinema

Considered one of India’s greatest and most influential actors and filmmakers, Kapoor is fondly known as the “first showman of Bollywood” and the “greatest showman of Indian cinema.”

He was born on Dec. 14, 1924, in Peshawar, now Pakistan, from where his family later moved to Mumbai.

The son of actor Prithviraj Kapoor, he debuted alongside his father at the age of 10 in “Inquilab,” a Hindi film about an earthquake in Bihar. He went on to star in more than 60 films, directing more than a dozen of them.

Nearly four decades after his death in 1988, Kapoor remains one of India’s most-loved icons. His birthday anniversary is celebrated with a retrospective of 10 of his iconic films screened in 40 cities across India this weekend.

Marking Kapoor’s birthday on Saturday morning, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to the “visionary filmmaker, actor and the eternal showman” in a series of social media posts, saying he “was not just a filmmaker but a cultural ambassador who took Indian cinema to the global stage.”

One of Kapoor’s most famous films, “Awara” (1951), was the first Indian movie to reach the global stage. Known overseas as “The Vagabond,” it became an overnight sensation in South Asia, and soon found box-office success also in East Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

“Even today Awara is a film that is etched in my mind,” fellow film star Amitabh Bachchan wrote on X in celebration of Kapoor’s birthday. “You are amazed by his fantastical imagination.”

The film blends social themes with the genres of crime, romantic comedy and musical melodrama, featuring a character based on “the Little Tramp,” a role Kapoor also explored in other films, earning him another nickname: the “Charlie Chaplin of Indian cinema.”

For many Indians, the characters in his films were ones they could relate to.

“What strikes you is how poor people are portrayed there. They are shown as someone who is trying to survive in a world dominated by rich people and industrialists and businessmen. The main character is an outsider in the world of rich people and still manages to make inroads in their lives through his character and innocence. This appeals to me,” said Ghanshyam Datt Varma, a teacher in Chittorgarh who runs a Raj Kapoor fan page on Facebook.

“I started my life as a commoner, someone at the margin of society, and through my hard work I became a schoolteacher, despite all the hurdles. I feel the character in Raj Kapoor’s films, like ‘Sangam,’ ‘Mera Naam Joker,’ and so ... He was really a showman, a film personality who portrayed people of India and their struggle so beautifully.”

The film’s theme song, “Awara Hoon,” is still celebrated globally and has been rated among the greatest Bollywood songs of all time many times.

“I grew up watching his films and singing the songs of his films,” said Rahul Prakash, a lawyer from Patna.

Kapoor is for him a “legend-like hero who taught not one but many generations the ultimate meaning of love. A visionary director who gave birth to characters that were imaginary but also realistic,” he said.

“The way he portrayed the character of a common man on the silver screen — in such a simple and natural way — is immortal.”

Kapoor’s films were commercial successes not only in South Asia but also in the Middle East, the Caribbean, Africa and in the Soviet bloc.

“Raj Kapoor was not only a Bollywood personality but an international personality. He promoted India’s soft power through his films. His films were very popular in Russia because of the theme he chose and the pomp and gaiety he showed,” Rana Siddiqui Zaman, film critic, told Arab News.

“He is also one of the first directors to give roles to Pakistani artists. In the film ‘Heena,’ the main female character is from Pakistan. There is no other filmmaker in the industry who drove international filmmakers to call the Mumbai film industry ‘Bollywood.’”

Topics: Bollywood Raj Kapoor India

US Marines start partial transfer from Okinawa in Japan to Guam under plan agreed 12 years ago

Updated 21 min 33 sec ago

December 14, 2024 11:51

US Marines start partial transfer from Okinawa in Japan to Guam under plan agreed 12 years ago

Relocation started with 100 members of III Marine Expeditionary Force moving to the Pacific island
Many Okinawans have long complained about the heavy US military presence on the island

Updated 21 min 33 sec ago

December 14, 2024 11:51

TOKYO: The partial transfer of US Marines from Okinawa to Guam began on Saturday, 12 years after Japan and the United States agreed on their realignment to reduce the heavy burden of American troop presence on the southern Japanese island, officials said.
The relocation started with 100 members of III Marine Expeditionary Force stationed on Okinawa moving to the Pacific island for the initial logistical work, the US Marine Corps and Japan’s Defense Ministry said in a joint statement.
Under the plan agreed between Tokyo and Washington in April 2012, about 9,000 of the 19,000 Marines currently stationed on Okinawa are to be moved out of Okinawa, including about 4,000 of them to be moved to Guam in phases. Details, including the size and timing of the next transfer, were not immediately released.
The Marine Corps is committed to the defense of Japan and meeting operational requirements to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific, and it will maintain presence in the region “through a combination of stationing and rotating Marines in Japan, Guam and Hawaii,” the joint statement said.
Japan has paid up to $2.8 billion for the building of infrastructure at the US bases on Guam, and the US government will fund the remaining costs. The two governments will continue to cooperate on the development of Camp Blaz, which will serve as the main installation for Marines stationed in Guam.
The Marines and Japan Self Defense Forces will conduct joint training in Guam, the statement said.
Okinawa, which was under US postwar occupation until 1972, is still home to a majority of the more than 50,000 American troops based in Japan under a bilateral security pact, while 70 percent of US military facilities are on Okinawa, which accounts for only 0.6 percent of Japanese land.
Many Okinawans have long complained about the heavy US military presence on the island, and say Okinawa faces noise, pollution, aircraft accidents and crime related to American troops.
The relocation is likely to be welcomed by local residents, but how much improvement they will feel is uncertain because of the rapid Japanese military buildup on Okinawan islands as a deterrence to threats from China.
The start of the Marines relocation comes at a time of growing anti-US military sentiment following a series of sexual assault cases involving American servicemembers.
On Thursday, a senior Air Force servicemember belonging to the Kadena Air Base was convicted of the kidnapping and sexual assault of a teenage girl last year, a case that triggered outrage on the island. The Naha District Court sentenced him to five years in prison.

Topics: Okinawa Japan US

South Korea’s President Yoon impeached over martial law bid

Updated 23 min 20 sec ago

AFP

December 14, 2024 14:57

South Korea’s President Yoon impeached over martial law bid

Hundreds of thousands of people took to streets of the capital Seoul in rival rallies for and against Yoon on Saturday
In a televised address, Yoon said he would ‘step aside’ but did not apologize for his botched bid to impose martial law

Updated 23 min 20 sec ago

AFP

December 14, 2024 14:57

Seoul: South Korean lawmakers on Saturday impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid, with the opposition declaring a “victory of the people.”
The vote capped over a week of intense political drama in the democratic South following Yoon’s failed attempt to impose martial law on December 3.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Seoul in rival rallies for and against Yoon on Saturday.
In a televised address following the parliamentary vote, the impeached Yoon said he would “step aside” but did not apologize for his botched bid to impose martial law.
Out of 300 lawmakers, 204 voted to impeach the president on allegations of insurrection while 85 voted against.
Three abstained, with eight votes nullified.
With the impeachment, Yoon has been suspended from office while South Korea’s Constitutional Court deliberates on the vote.
The court has 180 days to rule on Yoon’s future.
Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae vowed to hold “a swift and fair trial.”
If the court backs his removal, Yoon will become the second president in South Korean history to be successfully impeached.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo — now the nation’s interim leader — told reporters he would “devote all my strength and efforts to ensure stable governance.”
Two hundred votes were needed for the impeachment to pass, and opposition lawmakers needed to convince at least eight parliamentarians from Yoon’s conservative People Power Party (PPP) to switch sides.
“Today’s impeachment is the great victory of the people,” opposition Democratic Party floor leader Park Chan-dae said following the vote.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party and lawmakers of the party bow after the South Korean parliament passed a second impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk Yeol, at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, December 14, 2024. (Yonhap via REUTERS)

PPP lawmaker Kim Sang-wook told broadcaster JTBC that Yoon had “completely betrayed the values of conservatism.”
“That is why we, as ruling party lawmakers, have decided to remove him ourselves,” he said.
A Seoul police official told AFP at least 200,000 people had massed outside parliament in support of removing the president.
Choi Jung-ha, 52, danced in the street after the vote.
“Isn’t it amazing that we, the people, have pulled this off together?” she told AFP.
“I am 100 percent certain the Constitutional Court will side with the impeachment.”
On the other side of Seoul near Gwanghwamun square, police estimated 30,000 had rallied in support of Yoon, blasting patriotic songs and waving South Korean and American flags.
“Yoon had no choice but to declare martial law. I approve of every decision he has made as president,” supporter Choi Hee-sun, 62, told AFP before the vote.
The Democratic Party said ahead of the vote that impeachment was the “only way” to “safeguard the Constitution, the rule of law, democracy and South Korea’s future.”
“We can no longer endure Yoon’s madness,” spokeswoman Hwang Jung-a said.
At the rally outside parliament supporting impeachment, volunteers gave out free hand warmers on Saturday morning to fight the subzero temperatures, as well as coffee and food.
K-pop singer Yuri of the band Girls’ Generation — whose song “Into the New World” has become a protest anthem — said she had prepaid for food for fans attending the demonstration.
“Stay safe and take care of your health!” she said on a superfan chat platform.
One protester said she had rented a bus so parents at the rally would have a place to change diapers and feed their babies.
Another said they had initially planned to spend their Saturday hiking.
“But I came here instead to support my fellow citizens,” Kim Deuk-yun, 58, told AFP.
Yoon’s future will now be determined by the court, which has previously blocked an impeachment.
In 2004, then-president Roh Moo-hyun was removed by parliament for alleged election law violations and incompetence, but the Constitutional Court later reinstated him.
The court currently only has six judges, meaning their decision must be unanimous.
Following Saturday’s vote, parliament speaker Woo Won-shik said the National Assembly would seek to nominate three more judges to the court as soon as possible.
“The future of South Korea lies within its people,” he said.
Yoon remained unapologetic and defiant as the fallout from his disastrous martial law declaration deepened and an investigation into his inner circle has widened.
His approval rating — never very high — plummeted to 11 percent, according to a Gallup Korea poll released Friday.
The same poll showed that 75 percent supported his impeachment.
Following Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the European Union called for a “swift and orderly resolution” to the political crisis in South Korea in line with the country’s constitution.

Topics: South Korea Seoul Yoon Suk Yeol

Scandal-hit Prince Andrew back in the UK headlines over alleged Chinese spy

Updated 14 December 2024

Reuters

December 14, 2024 09:39

Scandal-hit Prince Andrew back in the UK headlines over alleged Chinese spy

A close Chinese business associate of the scandal-hit younger brother of King Charles was thought by the British government to be a Chinese spy
The Chinese embassy in London described the H6 case as another attempt to smear China and sabotage normal working relationships

Updated 14 December 2024

Reuters

December 14, 2024 09:39

LONDON: Britain’s Prince Andrew was facing intense media scrutiny on Saturday after revelations that a close Chinese business associate of the scandal-hit younger brother of King Charles was thought by the British government to be a Chinese spy.
In a court ruling on Thursday, it was disclosed that the businessman, known only as H6, had been banned from Britain on national security grounds because the authorities suspected he was working clandestinely for Beijing to forge close contacts with prominent British figures.
Late on Friday, Andrew, the Duke of York, issued a statement to the BBC and other media in which he said he had “ceased all contact” with the individual, described in the court documents as a “close confidant,” once concerns were raised.
“The duke met the individual through official channels, with nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed,” the statement said.
However, questions about the case have continued to dominate British front pages and news broadcasts.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that the British intelligence agency MI5 was investigating Chinese money given to Andrew, while the Times said the prince had invited the businessman to the royal properties Buckingham Palace, St. James’s Palace and Windsor Castle.
The Mirror reported that King Charles had been briefed by MI5 and was “truly exasperated” by the situation. A royal source told Reuters that Buckingham Palace had been kept informed of the situation in the appropriate ways and at the appropriate junctures.
ESPIONAGE ACCUSATIONS
While British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to thaw ties with China since taking office in July, London and Beijing have repeatedly traded spying accusations, with British security services warning of Chinese attempts to infiltrate political, business and academic spheres.
The Chinese embassy in London described the H6 case as another attempt to smear China and sabotage normal working relationships.
The case also shines a light on the finances of the 64-year-old prince.
Andrew, once a dashing naval officer who served in the military during the Falklands War with Argentina in the early 1980s, has now become a royal pariah over his friendship with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
He was forced to step down from a roving UK trade ambassador role in 2011, before quitting all royal duties in 2019 and then being stripped of his military links and royal patronages in 2022 amid allegations of sexual misconduct which he has always denied.
British media have reported that Charles had cut off his allowance and wanted to oust the duke from his Royal Lodge home on the Windsor estate.
The court documents about H6, who had been authorized to act for Andrew to seek investors in China, referred to a 2021 document listing talking points for a call between him and the prince in which he wrote the duke was “in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything.”

Topics: Prince Andrew UK

Georgia ruling party set to install loyalist president amid constitutional crisis

Updated 14 December 2024

AFP

December 14, 2024 08:35

Georgia ruling party set to install loyalist president amid constitutional crisis

The Black Sea nation has been in turmoil since the governing Georgian Dream party claimed victory in contested October parliamentary elections
Its decision last month to delay European Union membership talks ignited a fresh wave of mass rallies

Updated 14 December 2024

AFP

December 14, 2024 08:35

TBILISI: Georgia’s ruling party is set to appoint a far-right loyalist as president on Saturday in a controversial election process, amid a deepening constitutional crisis and weeks of mass pro-EU protests.
The Black Sea nation has been in turmoil since the governing Georgian Dream party claimed victory in contested October parliamentary elections.
Its decision last month to delay European Union membership talks ignited a fresh wave of mass rallies.
The opposition has denounced Saturday’s election as “illegitimate” and said sitting President Salome Zurabishvili remains the country’s sole legitimate leader.
Pro-Western Zurabishvili – who is at loggerheads with Georgian Dream – has refused to step down and is demanding new parliamentary elections, paving the way for a constitutional showdown.
On Saturday morning, protesters began gathering outside the parliament building, which was cordoned off by police forces.
An electoral college controlled by Georgian Dream and boycotted by the opposition convened in parliament to install former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as president.
Demonstrators shared tea to keep warm on the frosty morning, with water cannons parked nearby, an AFP reporter witnessed.
“Georgia never loses its sense of humor, celebrating the election of a footballer as president,” Zurabishvili wrote on social media.
She shared video footage of protesters playing football in the snow – a clear jab at Kavelashvili.
One of the protesters, 40-year-old Natia Apkhazava, said she arrived early “to protect our European future.”
“Our (parliamentary) election was rigged. We need new elections,” she said.
“We have been protesting here for 16 days... and we’ll keep fighting for our European future.”
Protests are scheduled to take place at a dozen of different locations in Tbilisi.
Thousands of pro-EU demonstrators filled the streets of the capital Tbilisi on Friday, before gathering outside parliament for the 16th consecutive day.
A former diplomat, Zurabishvili is a hugely popular figure among protesters, who view her as a beacon of Georgia’s European aspirations.
“What will happen in parliament tomorrow is a parody. It will be an event entirely devoid of legitimacy, unconstitutional and illegitimate,” Zurabishvili told a press conference on Friday.
Opposition groups accuse Georgian Dream of rigging the October 26 parliamentary vote, backsliding on democracy and moving Tbilisi closer to Russia – all at the expense of the Caucasus nation’s constitutionally mandated bid to join the European Union.
Kavelashvili, 53 – the sole candidate for the largely ceremonial post – is known for his vehement anti-West diatribes and opposition to LGBTQ rights.
Georgian Dream scrapped direct presidential elections in 2017.
With Zurabishvili refusing to leave office, opposition lawmakers boycotting parliament and protests showing no signs of abating, Kavelashvili is likely to see his presidency undermined from the onset.
One author of Georgia’s constitution, Vakhtang Khmaladze, has argued that all decisions by the new parliament are void.
This is because it ratified the mandates of newly elected lawmakers before the outcome of a court case filed by the incumbent president contesting the elections, he explained.
“Georgia is facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis,” Khmaladze said.
It remains unclear how the government will react to Zurabishvili’s refusal to step down after her successor is inaugurated on December 29.
Police have fired tear gas and water cannons during more than two weeks of demonstrations and arrested more than 400 protesters, according to the Social Justice Center NGO.
On Friday, Amnesty International said protesters had faced “brutal dispersal tactics, arbitrary detention and torture.”
There have also been raids on the offices of opposition parties and arrests of their leaders.
As international condemnation of the police crackdown mounted, French President Emmanuel Macron told Georgians their “European dream must not be extinguished.”
“We are by your side in supporting your European and democratic aspirations,” he said in a video address.
Earlier this week, Macron called Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili – the tycoon widely considered to be Georgia’s real power broker.
His decision to call Ivanishvili – rather than Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze – is indicative of the West’s hesitancy to recognize the legitimacy of Georgian Dream’s new government.
Washington has also imposed fresh sanctions on Georgian officials, barring visas for around 20 people accused of “undermining democracy in Georgia,” including ministers and parliamentarians.

Topics: EU

Blinken arrives in Haiti to show US support for fighting gang violence

Blinken arrives in Haiti to show US support for fighting gang violence

Haiti prime minister escapes unharmed after shots fired by gangs

Kenya police patrol Haiti capital after more forces arrive

India marks 100 years of Raj Kapoor, the ‘first showman of Bollywood’

India marks 100 years of Raj Kapoor, the ‘first showman of Bollywood’

Locals urge authorities to turn Raj Kapoor’s ancestral home into a museum

Pakistan’s government to buy ancestral houses of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar

US Marines start partial transfer from Okinawa in Japan to Guam under plan agreed 12 years ago

US Marines start partial transfer from Okinawa in Japan to Guam under plan agreed 12 years ago

Japan trial starts over American base move on Okinawa

Japan’s Okinawa to hold referendum on US base move

South Korea’s President Yoon impeached over martial law bid

South Korea’s President Yoon impeached over martial law bid

Scandal-hit Prince Andrew back in the UK headlines over alleged Chinese spy

Scandal-hit Prince Andrew back in the UK headlines over alleged Chinese spy

Britain’s Prince Andrew sparks backlash after ‘disastrous’ TV interview

Prince Andrew’s $1.3m gift facilitated by Libyan gun-runner

Georgia ruling party set to install loyalist president amid constitutional crisis

Georgia ruling party set to install loyalist president amid constitutional crisis

Georgian journalists allege brutal beatings as protests rage against ending EU talks

Georgia PM vows retribution for protests as court rejects bid to annul vote

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Blinken arrives in Haiti to show US support for fighting gang violence

Blinken arrives in Haiti to show US support for fighting gang violence

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