BAMAKO: Malians went to the polls on Sunday for a crucial presidential election as attacks disrupted voting in areas already beset by deadly ethnic and extremist violence.
After a campaign marred by armed attacks, 23,000 polling stations opened at 0800 GMT and are scheduled to close at 1800 GMT.
“I have my voting card, I am going to vote for my country and for my favorite president,” said Moriba Camara, a 35-year-old teacher, in the Sebenicoro district of the capital Bamako.
Despite the deployment of 30,000 security personnel throughout the country, several incidents were reported in the north and center.
Preident Keita, 73, leads a crowded field of 24 candidates — just one of them a woman — bidding for the presidency which he has held since 2013. He also voted in Sebenicoro, surrounded by journalists and supporters.
His record on security has been a dominant theme, with opponents, including several former ministers, accusing him of incompetence.
The international community hopes the poll will strengthen a 2015 accord that Mali, a linchpin state in the troubled Sahel region, sees as the cornerstone for peace.
On the campaign trail, Keita — commonly known by his initials IBK — highlighted the achievements of the peace agreement between the government, government-allied groups and former Tuareg rebels to fight militants in the country’s north.
Despite the heavy security presence, polling stations and ballot boxes were burned by unidentified armed men.
Voting could not take place in the village of Lafia, in the northern Timbuktu region, after the ballot boxes were set on fire, according to local authorities.
“Overnight from Saturday to Sunday, armed men arrived at the town hall where the ballot boxes and electoral material were held,” a local official told AFP.
The source added the boxes were burned after militants fired shots into the sky. “One of them said God does not like elections.”
In central Dianke, in the Niafunke region where main opposition contender Soumaila Cisse voted in the morning, “two polling stations were burned this morning by armed men,” Oumar Sall, a local official, told AFP.
Violence has continued to hit in the lead-up to Sunday, despite the presence of 15,000 UN peacekeepers and 4,500 French troops and a heralded five-nation anti-terror force, the G5 Sahel. A state of emergency enters its fourth year in November.
More than 300 civilians have died in ethnic clashes this year, according to UN figures and an AFP toll.
Many deaths have occurred in the central region of Mopti, involving the Fulani nomadic herder community and Bambara and Dogon farmers.
Four days before polling day, armed men — described as Dogon hunters — killed 17 Fulani civilians in the village of Somena, Fulani representatives said Friday.
Militant violence, meanwhile, has spread from northern Mali to the center and south and spilled over into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, often inflaming communal conflicts.
The main Al-Qaeda-linked militant alliance made its presence felt on the final day of campaigning Friday, dubbing the election a “mirage” that would do nothing for the Malian people.
“These elections are nothing other than the pursuit of a mirage and our peoples will reap nothing but illusions, as they are used to doing,” said alliance leader Iyad Ag Ghaly.
Ag Ghaly, the key figure in the militants’ operation to take control of much of the north of the country in 2012, leads the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), formed from a merger of several militant groups.
Turnout — which has never gone above 50 percent in a presidential election-first round since the advent of democracy in 1992 — was low in the morning.
“The opening went well but there are not enough people yet,” said Oumar Camara, a polling station chief in Bamako, blaming morning rains and adding that “in the middle of the day people should come en masse to vote.”
The European Union, the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) are fielding election observers.
Keita’s challengers are headed by Cisse, 68, a former finance and economy minister, who lost by a large margin in the second round of the 2013 election.
His team have warned of possible fraud, claiming that there are two electoral lists and hundreds of fake polling stations.
The first poll results are expected within 48 hours, with official outcome following on Friday at the latest.
If no candidate gains more than 50 percent of the vote in Sunday’s first round, a second round will take place on August 12.
Mali violence flares up on key election day
Mali violence flares up on key election day
- Eight million voters are enrolled with 23,000 polling stations opened
- But insecurity is such that in some parts of the country the vote will simply not happen
UN weather agency issues ‘red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
UN weather agency issues ‘red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
The World Meteorological Organization, in a “State of the Global Climate” report released Tuesday, ratcheted up concerns that a much-vaunted climate goal is increasingly in jeopardy: That the world can unite to limit planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels.
“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris agreement on climate change,” said Celeste Saulo, the agency’s secretary-general. “The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world.”
The 12-month period from March 2023 to February 2024 pushed beyond that 1.5-degree limit, averaging 1.56 C (2.81 F) higher, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service. It said the calendar year 2023 was just below 1.5 C at 1.48 C (2.66 F), but a record hot start to this year pushed beyond that level for the 12-month average.
“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.”
The latest WMO findings are especially stark when compiled in a single report. In 2023, over 90 percent of ocean waters experienced heat wave conditions at least once. Glaciers monitored since 1950 lost the most ice on record. Antarctic sea ice retreated to its lowest level ever.
“Topping all the bad news, what worries me the most is that the planet is now in a meltdown phase — literally and figuratively given the warming and mass loss from our polar ice sheets,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, who wasn’t involved in the report.
Saulo called the climate crisis “the defining challenge that humanity faces” and said it combines with a crisis of inequality, as seen in growing food insecurity and migration.
WMO said the impact of heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.
“This list of record-smashing events is truly distressing, though not a surprise given the steady drumbeat of extreme events over the past year,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who also wasn’t involved in the WMO report. “The full cost of climate-change-accelerated events across sectors and regions has never been calculated in a meaningful way, but the cost to biodiversity and to the quality of life of future generations is incalculable.”
But the agency also acknowledged “a glimmer of hope” in trying to keep the Earth from running too high a fever. It said renewable energy generation capacity from wind, solar and waterpower rose nearly 50 percent from 2022 to a total of 510 gigawatts.
The report comes as climate experts and government ministers are to gather in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, on Thursday and Friday to press for greater climate action, including increased national commitments to fight global warming.
“Each year the climate story gets worse; each year WMO officials and others proclaim that the latest report is a wake-up call to decision makers,” said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, a former British Columbia lawmaker.
“Yet each year, once the 24-hour news cycle is over, far too many of our elected ‘leaders’ return to political grandstanding, partisan bickering and advancing policies with demonstrable short-term outcomes,” he said. “More often than not everything else ends up taking precedence over the advancement of climate policy. And so, nothing gets done.”
Indonesian medics enter Gaza for emergency medical support
- Indonesian NGO hopes to continue sending doctors, nurses to Gaza on a rolling basis
- Orthopedic physicians, surgical nurses are part of the Indonesian volunteer team
JAKARTA: An Indonesian medical team has entered Gaza as part of an emergency deployment led by the World Health Organization.
The Indonesian NGO organizing the volunteers said on Tuesday that the team of 11 doctors and nurses is now in Rafah and will work at a hospital in the city for at least two weeks.
They will join two other volunteers from the Indonesian NGO Medical Emergency Rescue Committee who have stayed in the besieged enclave since the Israeli campaign began in October.
“There are 11 MER-C volunteers who have entered the Gaza strip, comprising doctors and also surgical nurses … (they) are now in Rafah, southern Gaza, because it is safer in the south,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s executive committee, said during a press conference in Jakarta.
“From the beginning we wanted to help and to bring volunteers to help the people of Gaza, who today are in need of medical workers … so, in this case, MER-C went to Gaza with an international organization, which is the WHO.”
MER-C volunteers used to be stationed at the Indonesia Hospital in north Gaza, which the organization had built using funds partly donated by the Indonesian people. The facility, which was also designed and constructed with the help of Indonesian engineers and builders, opened in 2015.
But after the hospital — like many other public facilities in Gaza — was destroyed by the Israeli military, Indonesian volunteers were forced to seek safety in the southern part of the enclave.
For months, the NGO had unsuccessfully attempted to send a medical team to Gaza, with continued Israeli violence complicating entry to the besieged territory.
“This long journey has not been tiring for us, as it is a big responsibility to help our brothers in Gaza. Even with the present dynamic situation and condition, we will never forget the struggle, the suffering that our fellow brothers in Gaza have gone through,” Murad said.
Almost 32,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s air and ground campaign across Gaza, where the humanitarian situation has deteriorated to an imminent famine. Half of the enclave’s 2.4 million people are experiencing “catastrophic hunger and starvation,” the UN said on Monday.
The team of Indonesian medics is part of a larger emergency medical deployment led by the WHO and composed of members from different countries. It includes orthopedic physicians and surgical nurses to help victims of Israeli attacks who suffer injuries from bombings, missile attacks and gunshots.
“We also know that many doctors, especially in orthopedics, are exhausted and some of them have died — so this is a small part where we can help them,” Murad added.
MER-C is also calling on all Indonesian medics to form a medical coalition to continue sending doctors and nurses to Gaza on a rolling basis.
“We must all contribute, to band together so that, at least on the issue of healthcare, we can handle it together,” Murad said.
“We want to emphasize once again that the problem in Gaza is a world problem; a problem for all of us, and it’s not enough to have just one group helping the people of Gaza.”
Blinken’s Manila visit triggers protest against US presence in Philippines
- Philippines allowed US troops last year to increase their footprint in the country
- Blinken says US stands by ‘ironclad’ commitments to defend Philippines
Manila: Protesters rallied against American presence in the Philippines on Tuesday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Manila to reinforce support against Chinese influence in the region.
The Philippines is Washington’s key security partner in Asia under a decades-long alliance, which allows the US to rotate troops into the Philippines for extended stays and build and operate facilities on Philippine military bases.
In the past two years, the partnership has expanded under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who in February last year permitted American troops to increase their footprint in the country.
China claims the disputed area almost in entirety and its military activity in the territory has been increasing, regularly encroaching on the Philippine part of the waters, the West Philippine Sea.
“These waterways are critical to the Philippines, to its security, to its economy, but they’re also critical to the interests of the region, the United States and the world,” Blinken said at a joint press conference with his Philippine counterpart Enrique Manalo.
“That’s why we stand with the Philippines and stand by our ironclad defense commitments, including under the mutual defense treaty.”
The 1951 agreement obliges the US to defend its ally in the case of external attack.
Philippine vessels have been regularly attacked by Chinese ships in the parts of the South China Sea that are internationally recognized as belonging to the Philippines.
American troops have been patrolling the maritime area with Philippine forces since November, despite protests from Beijing, which says the US is not a party to the maritime dispute.
“Article 4 of that treaty extends to any armed attacks on Filipino armed forces, on public vessels, on aircraft, and that would include its coast guard and that would also be anywhere in the South China Sea,” Blinken said.
As he told reporters that the two countries have seen an “extraordinary expansion” in their partnership, protesters in Manila carried banners reading: “US troops out of the Philippines,” “Blinken war criminal, not welcome,” “No to US intervention in PH and Asia.”
The demonstration was organized by civil society, including BAYAN — the Philippines’ largest alliance of grassroots groups — near the Presidential Palace, ahead of Blinken’s meeting with Marcos.
BAYAN said in a statement that Marcos was “advancing the geopolitical interest of the US in the region” and “offering the Philippines as an extension” of the US military network.
“The country’s assertion of sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea against China’s aggression should not involve the opportunistic meddling of a former colonizer whose real motive is to preserve and expand its imperialist hegemony in the Asia-Pacific,” the group said.
It also drew attention to Gaza, where Washington’s other key ally, Israel, has killed over 30,000 Palestinians in daily airstrikes and land assaults since October.
BAYAN said the US was “the main supporter and enabler of the ongoing genocide in Palestine” and was “actively fanning proxy wars and conflicts in various parts of the world.”
Afghan refugee convicted in murder case that shocked Albuquerque Muslim community
- Muhammad Syed faces life in prison for killing Aftab Hussein in 2022
- Syed also will stand trial in the coming months for two other slayings
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats ‘hate Israel’ and their religion
- Trump: “They should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed”
NEW YORK: Former President Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and hate “their religion,” igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Trump, in an interview, had been asked about Democrats’ growing criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza as the civilian death toll continues to mount.
“I actually think they hate Israel,” Trump responded to his former aide, Sebastian Gorka. “I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat party hates Israel.”
Trump, who last week became the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, went on to charge: “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
The comments sparked immediate backlash from the White House, President Joe Biden’s campaign and Jewish leaders. The vast majority of Jewish Americans identify as Democrats, but Trump has often accused them of disloyalty, perpetuating what critics say is an antisemitic trope.
At the White House, spokesperson Andrew Bates cast the comments as “vile and unhinged Antisemitic rhetoric” without mentioning Trump by name.
“As Antisemitic crimes and acts of hate have increased across the world — among them the deadliest attack committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust — leaders have an obligation to call hate what it is and bring Americans together against it,” he said. “There is no justification for spreading toxic, false stereotypes that threaten fellow citizens. None.”
Biden’s campaign said, “The only person who should be ashamed here is Donald Trump.”
“Trump is going to lose again this November because Americans are sick of his hateful resentment, personal attacks, and extreme agenda,” said spokesman James Singer.
Jonathan Greenblatt, who heads the Anti-Defamation League, said, “Accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory & patently false.”
“Serious leaders who care about the historic US-Israel alliance should focus on strengthening, rather than unraveling, bipartisan support for the State of Israel,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Trump’s comments come as Biden has been facing mounting pressure from the progressive wing of his party over his administration’s support for Israel in its retaliatory offensive in Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.
While Biden continues to back Israel’s right to defend itself, he has increasingly criticized Netanyahu. After his State of the Union speech, he said he needed to have a “come to Jesus” conversation with the Israeli leader. He has also accused Netanyahu of “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” saying, “he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.”
Trump took particular issue with recent comments from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish official. In a speech last week, Schumer sharply criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza, warning that the civilian toll was damaging Israel’s standing around the world. He also called for Israel to hold new elections.
While the White House formally distanced itself from Schumer’s comments, the Democratic leader and key ally was voicing an opinion increasingly held across Biden’s administration.
Schumer — whom Trump accused of being “very anti-Israel now” — responded by accusing Trump of “making highly partisan and hateful rants.”
“To make Israel a partisan issue only hurts Israel and the US-Israeli relationship,” he wrote on X.
The Pew Research Center reported in 2021 that Jews are “among the most consistently liberal and Democratic groups in the US,” with 7 in 10 Jewish adults identifying with or leaning toward the Democratic Party. In 2020, it found that nearly three-quarters of American Jews disapproved of Trump’s performance as president, with just 27 percent rating him positively.
Americans have also increasingly soured on Israel’s military operation in Gaza, according to surveys from The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In January, 50 percent of US adults said the military response from Israel in the Gaza Strip had gone too far, up from 40 percent in November.
That number was higher among Democrats, 6 in 10 of whom said the same thing in both surveys.