ADDIS ABABA: Two explosions hit cities in Ethiopia’s Amhara state, which neighbors the northern state of Tigray where federal troops are fighting local forces, and the human rights commission warned against rights violations in the conflict.
Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the national defense force on an offensive against well-trained local troops in Tigray on Nov. 4, after accusing them of attacking a federal military base in the area.
The explosions in Amhara were in Bahir Dar and Gondar late on Friday, Amhara’s communication office and the state’s news service said.
Investigations had started to establish if the explosions were linked to the fighting in Tigray, the Amhara communications office said, without giving details of any casualties.
The Amhara regional state’s forces have been fighting alongside their federal counterparts against forces of Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
The United Nations, the African Union and others are concerned that the fighting could spread to other parts of Africa’s second most populous country and destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
More than 14,500 people have fled into neighboring Sudan, with the speed of new arrivals “overwhelming the current capacity to provide aid,” the UN refugee agency said.
Ethiopia’s Human Rights Commission, appointed by the government but independent, said it was sending a team of investigators to the town of Mai Kadra in Tigray, where Amnesty International reported evidence of mass killings.
The massacre of civilians reported by Amnesty would amount to war crimes if confirmed it was committed by one of the belligerent forces, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Friday.
The Ethiopian commission will investigate any human rights violations in the conflict, it said in a statement, adding that there was “reasonable risk of ethnic profiling” linked to the military confrontation.
Ethiopia’s Amhara rocked by explosions, rights group warns on Tigray
https://arab.news/5g89j
Ethiopia’s Amhara rocked by explosions, rights group warns on Tigray
- The explosions in Amhara were in Bahir Dar and Gondar late on Friday
- Investigations had started to establish if the explosions were linked to the fighting in Tigray
Women lead race as Mexicans vote for new president
Ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor and a scientist by training, had a 17 percentage point lead over her main opposition rival Xochitl Galvez on the eve of the vote.
The only man running, centrist Jorge Alvarez Maynez, was trailing far behind as a particularly violent campaign season marked by a string of candidate murders drew to an end.
It means that, barring a huge surprise, a woman is almost certain to break the highest political glass ceiling in Mexico, where around 10 women or girls are murdered every day.
That prospect motivates other women to succeed and to think “yes, you can,” said Blanca Sosa, a 31-year-old store worker in Mexico City.
She expects Sheinbaum to continue the “good things” done by outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, such as pensions for the elderly and an increased minimum wage.
Ricardo Sanchez, however, said he planned to vote for Galvez because of her “business vision.”
Lopez Obrador’s “policy of putting the poor first is to ruin us all so that we’re poor and then he gives to us,” the 55-year-old businessman said in the northern city of Monterrey.
Sheinbaum, 61, owes much of her popularity to Lopez Obrador, a fellow leftist and mentor who has an approval rating of more than 60 percent but is only allowed to serve one term.
Nearly 100 million people were registered to vote in the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking country, home to 129 million people.
Polls opened at 08:00 am (1300 GMT) in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo and some areas near the US border, with other regions in different time zones due to follow later.
Thousands of troops will be deployed to protect voters from ultra-violent drug cartels that have gone to extreme lengths to ensure their preferred candidates win.
More than two dozen aspiring local politicians have been murdered during the election process, according to official figures, in a nation where politics, crime and corruption are closely entangled.
In a sign of the difficulties of staging elections in cartel hotspots, voting was suspended in two southern municipalities because of violence, local authorities said Saturday.
“The fight against organized crime will be the biggest challenge for the next president,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University, in the United States.
Security was the weakest point of Lopez Obrador’s administration, she told AFP.
Sheinbaum has pledged to continue the outgoing president’s controversial “hugs not bullets” strategy of tackling crime at its roots.
Galvez has vowed a tougher approach to cartel-related violence, declaring “hugs for criminals are over.”
More than 450,000 people have been murdered and tens of thousands have gone missing since the government deployed the army to fight drug trafficking in 2006.
The next president will also have to manage delicate relations with the neighboring United States, in particular the vexed issues of cross-border drug smuggling and migration.
Addressing a cheering crowd of thousands at her closing campaign rally, Sheinbaum said Mexico was going to “make history” this weekend.
“I say to the young women, to all the women of Mexico — colleagues, friends, sisters, daughters, mothers and grandmothers — you are not alone,” she said.
The ruling party candidate had the backing of 53 percent of voters as campaigning drew to a close, according to a poll average compiled by research firm Oraculus.
Galvez, an outspoken senator and businesswoman with Indigenous roots, was second with 36 percent. Maynez, 38, had just 11 percent.
Galvez, 61, often evokes her childhood story of growing up in a poor, rural town in central Mexico where she says she sold candy to help her family.
“While you danced ballet at the age of 10, I had to work,” she told Sheinbaum, a former student activist who was born in the capital to a family of Jewish immigrants.
While millions of Mexicans have escaped poverty in recent years, more than a third still live below the poverty line in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.
As well as voting for a new president, Mexicans will choose members of Congress, several state governors and myriad local officials.
In total, more than 20,000 positions were being contested.
Australian trust in US fell, but security alliance vital, says poll
Cyberattacks from other nations were seen as the top threat (70 percent), while concern over potential conflicts over Taiwan (59 percent) and the South China Sea (57 percent) also loomed large.
Australia has boosted its military cooperation with alliance partner the United States, including in the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal, as government concern over the risk of conflict in the Indo-Pacific region rises.
The Lowy Institute poll, conducted annually by the foreign policy think-tank for 20 years, found Australians rank Japan highest of all countries in terms of trust (87 percent).
Trust in China to act responsibly in the world was low at 17 percent, which Lowy said was a sharp drop from 52 percent six years ago.
Levels of trust toward the United States dropped five points to 56 percent from a year ago.
“Australians are far less trusting of China and they are worried about the risk of war in our region. One constant is that they continue to see the alliance with the United States as important to Australia’s security,” said Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove.
Most (83 percent) of 2000 people surveyed in March said the US alliance was important for Australia’s security.
Sixty-three percent said the US alliance makes Australia safer from attack or pressure from China, although three-quarters also believe the alliance makes it more likely Australia will be drawn into a future war in Asia.
Seventy-one percent said China would become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years.
Asked about the 2024 US presidential election, 68 percent said they would prefer to see Joe Biden re-elected, compared with a third (29 percent) preferring Donald Trump.
Scholz to Putin: We will defend ‘every square inch’ of NATO territory
- Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week warned NATO members against allowing Ukraine to fire their weapons into Russia
FRANKFURT: NATO’s recent move to strengthen its eastern border is aimed at deterring Russia, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday, adding it should be clear to Moscow that the alliance will be ready to defend itself if necessary.
Speaking at the Eastern German Economic Forum also attended by Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, Scholz said Germany has played a leading role in NATO’s presence in the Baltics on Russia’s border, stretching back nearly a decade.
“And because the threat from Russia will continue, we and other allies decided last year to deploy additional units to the Baltic states and to station an entire brigade there permanently in future,” Scholz said, according to a speech manuscript.
“But this turnaround in security policy is necessary to show Russia: We are prepared to defend every square inch of NATO territory against attacks.”
He said diplomacy would only be successful from a position of strength.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week warned NATO members against allowing Ukraine to fire their weapons into Russia, after several Western allies lifted restrictions imposed on the use of weapons donated to Kyiv.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Friday dismissed the warnings, saying the alliance had heard them many times before and self-defense was not escalation.
US, South Korea and Japan agree to hold joint military exercises
SEOUL/TOKYO: The United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to hold new trilateral joint exercises this summer, a joint statement issued by USDepartment of Defense said on Sunday, after a meeting of the three allies’ defense ministers.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Japan’s Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and South Korea’s Defense Minister Shin Won-sik met on Sunday in Singapore on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit there.
The three “committed to continue to strengthen trilateral cooperation to ensure peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific, and beyond,” according to the statement.
The three also agreed to establish a Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework this year in an effort to institutionalize their three-way defense cooperation.
The top defense officials of the three countries criticized North Korea’s recent launches of ballistic missiles and a military spy satellite using ballistic missile technology as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Trump says prison could be ‘breaking point’ for supporters
- Former president tells Fox News he is personally ‘OK with’ the idea of being imprisoned over the 34 felony counts in his hush money trial
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump warned in an interview aired Sunday that if he is sentenced to prison after his historic conviction it could mark a ‘breaking point’ for his supporters.
Trump told Fox News he was personally “OK with” the idea of being imprisoned over the 34 felony counts in his hush money trial but warned, “I think it would be tough for the public to take. You know at a certain point there’s a breaking point.”
Trump vowed to appeal his conviction, with the focus likely on porn star Stormy Daniels’ salacious testimony about their alleged sexual encounter as well as the novel legal theory that prosecutors used in the case.
“We’re going to be appealing this scam,” Trump, the 2024 Republican candidate for president, said on Friday. He faces an uphill fight.
His defense lawyer Todd Blanche told CNN on Thursday that Trump would appeal after his July 11 sentencing date, meaning it is unlikely to be resolved before his Nov. 5 election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
Twelve jurors found the real estate mogul-turned-politician guilty on Thursday of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels to illegally influence the 2016 election which he won.
Trump pleaded not guilty and denies having had sex with Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford. He argues the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, led by Democrat Alvin Bragg, brought the charges to derail his presidential campaign.
To succeed on appeal, Trump, 77, must demonstrate that Justice Juan Merchan made significant errors overseeing the trial.
If Trump’s appeal in New York state courts proves unsuccessful, he could appeal to the US Supreme Court. Trump’s attorneys would have to persuade at least four of the court’s nine justices to hear his case.
To prevail, Trump would then have to demonstrate that the state prosecution violated his federal constitutional rights and that his legal team followed proper procedures during earlier stages of his legal proceedings.
Trump would not be able to bypass lower state courts to immediately appeal to the Supreme Court, but he might try to seek relief if, for example, he was subject to imprisonment in the middle of his election campaign.
The court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three Trump appointees, and it has handled other Trump-related cases in ways that have proven helpful to his candidacy.
When the court agreed in late February to take up Trump’s claim that he has absolute immunity from prosecution for actions taken as president, they put off hearing the case until late April. That delay may prevent Trump’s Washington trial on federal election subversion charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty, from taking place before the election.
IS A MAGAZINE SPANKING RELEVANT?
On appeal, Trump’s lawyers will likely argue that Daniels’ testimony about a Lake Tahoe hotel encounter went into too much detail for a case that hinged on whether Trump falsified documents rather than on whether he had sex with Daniels.
On May 7, Daniels testified that she hit Trump’s backside with a rolled-up magazine and that he did not use a condom. She mentioned the position she said they were in. She said she “blacked out” and did not remember how her clothes came off, though she said she did not consume alcohol or drugs and never said “no” to Trump during the encounter.
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche twice asked Merchan to declare a mistrial based on her testimony, which he said prejudiced the 12-member jury.
“How can we come back from this in a way that’s fair to President Trump?” Blanche said outside the jury’s presence on May 7.
The judge denied both requests, in part because Blanche said in his April 22 opening statement that Daniels’ account of an encounter with Trump was false. Merchan said that entitled prosecutors to elicit testimony to establish her credibility.
Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School, said none of Merchan’s decisions stood out as obvious mistakes, lessening Trump’s lawyers’ chances of getting the conviction overturned.
“I can’t imagine an appeals court would say the newspaper spanking warrants a reversal,” said Roiphe, a former prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
NOVEL THEORY
Besides Daniels’ testimony, the defense could argue on appeal that the judge’s gag order restricting Trump’s public statements about witnesses violated his rights. Trump alluded to that on Friday, complaining about restrictions the judge imposed on potential testimony from an election law expert whom the defense ultimately opted not to call as a witness.
“We’re going to be appealing it on many different things. He wouldn’t allow us to have witnesses. He wouldn’t allow us to talk, he wouldn’t allow us to do anything,” Trump said.
The defense is also likely to argue the charges were themselves legally improper. Some legal experts have said that the case could be vulnerable to such a challenge because the prosecution’s legal theory has not been tested on appeal.
Falsifying business records on its own is a misdemeanor in New York, but it is elevated to a felony if done to further or conceal another crime.
In this case, prosecutors said Trump was seeking to cover up a conspiracy he and Cohen were involved in to promote a candidacy for public office through unlawful means, a misdemeanor in New York state. They say the hush money payment to Daniels was effectively a campaign contribution that exceeded the $2,700 limit on political donations in 2016.
In urging Merchan to dismiss the case last year, Trump’s lawyers argued that New York state law did not apply to federal elections.
Merchan allowed the case to go forward, but Boston University law professor Jed Shugerman said the law was ambiguous on that point, potentially posing an issue on appeal.
George Grasso, a retired New York state judge who attended the trial, said the defense would be unlikely to succeed in a challenge to that decision.
“They’ll try to appeal everything,” Grasso said but added he thought the judge’s decision was sound.
