MOSCOW: Russians overwhelmingly approved a package of constitutional changes in a nationwide vote, partial results showed Wednesday, allowing President Vladimir Putin to potentially extend his two-decade rule until 2036.
With almost 30 percent of polling stations reporting after the end of six days of voting, 74 percent of voters had supported the reforms, the central election commission said.
There had been little doubt of voters backing the changes, which Putin announced earlier this year and critics denounced as a manoeuvre to allow him to stay in the Kremlin for life.
The amendments had been passed weeks ago by Russia's parliament and copies of the new constitution were already on sale in bookshops, but Putin had said voter approval was essential to give them legitimacy.
The reforms include conservative and populist measures -- like guaranteed minimum pensions and an effective ban on gay marriage -- but crucially for Putin also reset presidential limits allowing him to run twice again after his current six-year term expires in 2024.
Turnout as of 1700 GMT was just under 65 percent, the election commission said.
The Kremlin pulled out all the stops to encourage voting, with polls extended over nearly a week, the last day of voting declared a national holiday and prizes -- including apartments and cars -- on offer to voters.
Initially planned for April 22, the referendum was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic but rescheduled after Putin said the epidemic had peaked and officials began reporting lower numbers of new cases.
In a final appeal to voters on Tuesday, Putin said the changes were needed to ensure Russia's future "stability, security, prosperity".
State television showed Putin voting Wednesday at his usual polling station at the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he was handed a ballot by an electoral worker wearing a surgical mask and gloves.
Dressed in a dark suit and tie, Putin was not wearing any protective gear.
At a polling station in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East, 79-year-old Valentina Kungurtseva told AFP she supported the reforms.
"For us as pensioners, it's very important that they will increase our pension every year," she said, adding that she had no problem with resetting presidential terms.
"As long as we have a good president, life will be good," she said.
In the second city, Saint Petersburg, 20-year-old Sergei Goritsvetov said he opposed the reforms but doubted it would make any difference.
"I voted against and I hope there will be many of us, but I don't know what it will change," he said. "At least I expressed my opinion."
Chief opposition campaigner Alexei Navalny said Putin, 67 and in power as president or prime minister since 2000, wants to make himself "president for life" and called for a boycott.
But the opposition -- divided, weakened by years of political repression and with little access to state-controlled media -- failed to mount a serious "no" campaign.
Golos, an independent election monitor, said it had received hundreds of complaints of violations, including people voting more than once and claims employers were putting pressure on staff to cast ballots.
Election commission chief Ella Pamfilova denied any problems on Wednesday, saying: "During the entire voting period no serious violations... were found."
Putin's approval rating has fallen in recent months, in part over early mistakes in the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis. It stood at 60 percent in June according to pollster Levada, down 20 points from the months after his re-election in 2018.
Analysts say Putin wanted to get the vote over with before Russians -- already suffering from several years of falling incomes -- are hit by the full economic impact of the pandemic.
Putin said in a recent interview that he had not decided whether to run again but suggested that part of the reason for the presidential reset was to allow Russia's political elite to focus on governing instead of "hunting for possible successors".
Russians back reforms allowing Putin to extend rule, partial results say
https://arab.news/gc32m
Russians back reforms allowing Putin to extend rule, partial results say
- There had been little doubt of voters backing the changes, which Putin announced earlier this year
- The Kremlin pulled out all the stops to encourage voting, with polls extended over nearly a week
White House urges ‘peaceful’ campus protests after hundreds arrested
WASHINGTON: The White House insisted on Sunday that pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US universities in recent weeks must remain peaceful, after police arrested around 275 people on four separate campuses over the weekend.
“We certainly respect the right of peaceful protests,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “This Week.”
But, he added: “We condemn the anti-Semitism language that we’ve heard of late and certainly condemn all the hate speech and the threats of violence out there.”
The demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York, but they have since spread rapidly across the country.
While peace has prevailed on many campuses, the number of protesters detained — at times by police in riot gear using chemical irritants and tasers — is rising fast.
They include 100 at Northeastern University in Boston, 80 at Washington University in St. Louis, 72 at Arizona State University, and 23 at Indiana University.
Among those arrested at Washington University was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who faulted police for aggressive tactics she said provoked the sort of trouble they are meant to quell.
“This is about freedom of speech ... on a very critical issue,” she told CNN shortly before her arrest on Saturday.
“And there they are, sending in the police and creating a riot.”
College administrators have struggled to find the best response, caught between the need to respect free-speech rights and the imperative of containing inflammatory and sometimes violently anti-Semitic calls by protesters.
At the University o Southern California, school officials late on Saturday closed the main campus to the public after pro-Palestinian groups again set up an encampment that had been cleared earlier, the school announced on X.
With final exams coming in the next few weeks, some campuses — including the Humboldt campus of California State Polytechnic University, have closed and instructed students to complete their classes online.
The activists behind the campus protests — not all of them students — are calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas and want colleges to sever ties with Israel.
Ukraine warns front ‘worsened’ as Russia claims fresh gains
- Russia’s troops are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region
- The US finally approved a $61 billion package of financial aid
VOZDVYZHENKA, Ukraine, April 28, 2024 Agence France Presse: Ukraine’s army leader admitted Sunday that Kyiv’s position on the battlefield has worsened after Russian forces captured another village in the east, pressing their advantage in manpower and ammunition.
Russia’s troops are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region as Kyiv awaits the arrival of much-needed US weapons that it hopes will stabilize the fragile front lines.
“The situation at the front has worsened,” Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said in a Facebook post Sunday.
Ukrainian troops had “retreated” westwards to new defensive lines in a section of the front that runs past the city of Donetsk, controlled by pro-Russian forces since 2014.
Russia has “a significant advantage in forces and means” and had been able to notch up advances amid “heavy fighting,” Syrsky said.
“In some sectors the enemy had tactical success, and in some areas our troops managed to improve the tactical position,” he added.
Russia’s defense ministry earlier on Sunday claimed its troops had captured the village of Novobakhmutivka in the Donetsk region — around 10 kilometers (six miles) north of Avdiivka, which they seized in February.
The stark assessment of the picture facing Ukrainian troops comes at the end of week of ups and downs for Kyiv.
The United States finally approved a $61 billion package of financial aid after months of political wrangling, unlocking much-needed arms for Ukraine’s stretched troops.
But on the battlefield Russia chalked up more successes.
Its troops managed to make rapid advances in a narrow column to the northwest of Avdiivka.
In the village of Vozdvyzhenka, some eight kilometers from the fighting in Ocheretyne, AFP reporters saw civilians loading a small truck with furniture and belongings on Sunday.
“We’re going a long way from here... I don’t have time to talk because of the shelling,” one of them told AFP, before climbing into the vehicle and speeding out of the village.
Soldiers on the side of a road in the woods said they had originally been sent to build defensive lines.
“But the situation has changed. We were told not to take the shovels but to stay and wait for orders. The Russians are attacking and advancing,” one told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Syrsky confirmed on Sunday that Russia had made some “tactical” progress in that part of the front, but said Moscow had not yet achieved what he called an “operational advantage.”
He also said additional units were being deployed to replace those that had sustained heavy losses.
The recent setbacks have prompted rare criticism from Ukraine’s military bloggers.
“The (Russian) breakthrough near Ocheretyne revealed a number of problems,” the Deep State Telegram channel, with close links to the Ukrainian army, said in a post on Wednesday.
It said leaders of the 115th mechanized brigade, which is fighting in the area, were “responsible for the collapse of the defense in the entire sector, allowing significant losses.”
Kyiv’s forces are outnumbered across the battlefield, with the country struggling to recruit enough soldiers to replace those who have been killed, wounded or exhausted by the war, now in its third year.
Leaders in Kyiv have warned the military outlook could worsen in the next few weeks, while shipments of US weapons are making their way to the front lines.
“We are still waiting for the supplies promised to Ukraine,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky in his evening address Sunday.
Speaking after talks with Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democrats in the US House of Representatives, he said he had once again stressed the urgent need for Patriot anti-missile systems “as soon as possible.”
Ukraine’s head of intelligence at the ministry of defense Kyrylo Budanov said this month that the battlefield situation would likely be at its most difficult in mid-May to early June.
Philippines swelters in scorching heat as mercury hits record high in Manila
- Children will attend remote classes on Monday, Tuesday in flashback to COVID times
- Temperature in capital’s Metro region could surpass 40 degrees next month, forecasters say
MANILA: The Philippines is bracing for more blistering weather as temperatures in the capital region rose to a record high over the weekend.
Unusually hot temperatures have been recorded across South and Southeast Asia in recent days, forcing schools to close and authorities to issue health warnings.
In Metro Manila on Saturday, the mercury hit 38.8 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record set in 1915.
Elsewhere in the country, the weather has been even hotter, with Tarlac province seeing the mercury hit 40.3 degrees earlier in the year.
The hottest ever temperature recorded in the Philippines was 42.2 degrees in 1912.
Glaiza Escullar of state weather agency PAGASA told Arab News it was likely that some parts of the country would continue to see temperatures of 40 degrees and above until the second week of May.
March, April and May are typically the hottest and driest months of the year, but conditions this year have been exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon.
The heat index, which also takes into account humidity, reached 45 degrees on Saturday, which the weather agency classifies as “danger.” It said it could hit 46 degrees on Monday.
“We are issuing a heat index warning just to emphasize that apart from the hot weather or high temperature, relative humidity has a factor in terms of health,” Escullar said.
“If (a person) is dehydrated or he is not in a good condition, the body tends to overheat because the sweating process is slowed down by the high relative humidity.”
In response to the searing heat and a nationwide transport strike, the Department of Education announced on Sunday that all public schools would be closed on Monday and Tuesday but that classes would be held remotely.
Jeepney drivers are staging a three-day strike in protest at the government’s plan to phase out the iconic vehicles.
Many schools in the Philippines do not have air conditioning and several were forced to close earlier this month and hold remote classes in a reminder of the COVID-19 pandemic.
High school student Ivan Garcia told Arab News the soaring heat was affecting his studies.
“The weather is annoyingly hot … I cannot focus on doing my school work,” he said.
Ninth-grader Adrian Reyes said he preferred to work from home.
“I usually leave the house around noontime and it’s really a challenge especially for me and others like me who have to commute to get to school,” he said.
“I prefer the asynchronous mode of learning because we have aircon at home.”
Wiping out polio ‘not guaranteed,’ support needed — Bill Gates
- Pakistan and the neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic
- Gates warned against complacency in tackling the disease as he welcomed $500 million pledge from Saudi Arabia
LONDON: Success in the fight to wipe out polio is not guaranteed, according to tech billionaire turned philanthropist Bill Gates, whose foundation has poured billions into the effort.
Gates warned against complacency in tackling the deadly viral disease as he welcomed a $500 million pledge from Saudi Arabia on Sunday to fight polio over the next five years, bringing it in line with the US as one of the biggest national donors.
However, there is still a $1.2 billion dollar funding gap in the $4.8 billion budget for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) up to 2026, a spokesperson said. The new money from Saudi Arabia will go some way toward closing that.
Saudi Arabia has supported polio eradication for more than 20 years, but the significant increase in funding comes amid a “challenging” situation, said Abdullah Al Moallem, director of health at the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, the kingdom’s aid arm.
Cases of polio, a viral disease that used to paralyze thousands of children every year, have declined by more than 99 percent since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns.
But the aim of getting cases down to zero, particularly in the two countries where the wild form of the virus remains endemic – Afghanistan and Pakistan – has been held up by insecurity in the regions where pockets of children remain unvaccinated.
“It’s not guaranteed that we will succeed,” Gates told Reuters in an online call last week. “I feel very strongly that we can succeed, but it’s been difficult.”
The support of powerful Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia would help, he added, particularly in addressing some lingering suspicions about vaccination.
The foundation said it would open a regional office in Riyadh to support the polio and other regional programs.
It is allocating $4 million to humanitarian relief in Gaza, to be distributed through UNICEF, it said. The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center will also allocate $4 million, it said.
The first missed target for eradicating polio was in 2000, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest donor trying to realize that goal.
“If we’re still here 10 years from now, people might be urging me to give up,” Gates said. “But I don’t think we will be. If things go well, we’ll be done in three years,” he said.
Chants of ‘shame on you’ greet guests at White House correspondents’ dinner shadowed by war in Gaza
- “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide,” crowds chanted at one point
WASHINGTON: The war in Gaza spurred large protests outside a glitzy roast with President Joe Biden, journalists, politicians and celebrities Saturday but went all but unmentioned by participants inside, with Biden instead using the annual White House correspondents’ dinner to make both jokes and grim warnings about Republican rival Donald Trump’s fight to reclaim the U.S. presidency.
An evening normally devoted to presidents, journalists and comedians taking outrageous pokes at political scandals and each other often seemed this year to illustrate the difficulty of putting aside the coming presidential election and the troubles in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Biden opened his roast with a direct but joking focus on Trump, calling him “sleepy Don,” in reference to a nickname Trump had given the president previously.
Despite being similar in age, Biden said, the two presidential hopefuls have little else in common. “My vice president actually endorses me,” Biden said. Former Trump Vice President Mike Pence has refused to endorse Trump’s reelection bid.
But the president quickly segued to a grim speech about what he believes is at stake this election, saying that another Trump administration would be even more harmful to America than his first term.
“We have to take this serious — eight years ago we could have written it off as ‘Trump talk’ but not after January 6,” Biden told the audience, referring to the supporters of Trump who stormed the Capitol after Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election.
Trump did not attend Saturday's dinner and never attended the annual banquet as president. In 2011, he sat in the audience, and glowered through a roasting by then-President Barack Obama of Trump's reality-television celebrity status. Obama's sarcasm then was so scalding that many political watchers linked it to Trump's subsequent decision to run for president in 2016.
Biden’s speech, which lasted around 10 minutes, made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
One of the few mentions came from Kelly O’Donnell, president of the correspondents’ association, who briefly noted some 100 journalists killed in Israel's 6-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza. In an evening dedicated in large part to journalism, O’Donnell cited journalists who have been detained across the world, including Americans Evan Gershkovich in Russia and Austin Tice, who is believed to be held in Syria. Families of both men were in attendance as they have been at previous dinners.
To get inside Saturday's dinner, some guests had to hurry through hundreds of protesters outraged over the mounting humanitarian disaster for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They condemned Biden for his support of Israel's military campaign and Western news outlets for what they said was undercoverage and misrepresentation of the conflict.
“Shame on you!” protesters draped in the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh cloth shouted, running after men in tuxedos and suits and women in long dresses holding clutch purses as guests hurried inside for the dinner.
“Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide,” crowds chanted at one point.
Other protesters lay sprawled motionless on the pavement, next to mock-ups of flak vests with “press” insignia.
Ralliers cried “Free, free Palestine." They cheered when at one point someone inside the Washington Hilton — where the dinner has been held for decades — unfurled a Palestinian flag from a top-floor hotel window.
Criticism of the Biden administration's support for Israel's military offensive in Gaza has spread through American college campuses, with students pitching encampments and withstanding police sweeps in an effort to force their universities to divest from Israel. Counterprotests back Israel's offensive and complain of antisemitism.
Biden’s motorcade Saturday took an alternate route from the White House to the Washington Hilton than in previous years, largely avoiding the crowds of demonstrators.
Saturday's event drew nearly 3,000 people. Celebrities included Academy Award winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Scarlett Johansson, Jon Hamm and Chris Pine.
Both the president and comedian Colin Jost, who spoke after Biden, made jabs at the age of both the candidates for president. “I’m not saying both candidates are old. But you know Jimmy Carter is out there thinking, ‘maybe I can win this thing,’” Jost said. “He’s only 99.”
Law enforcement, including the Secret Service, instituted extra street closures and other measures to ensure what Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said would be the “highest levels of safety and security for attendees.”
Protest organizers said they aimed to bring attention to the high numbers of Palestinian and other Arab journalists killed by Israel's military since the war began in October.
More than two dozen journalists in Gaza wrote a letter last week calling on their colleagues in Washington to boycott the dinner altogether.
“The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering," the letter stated. “We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the ‘crime’ of journalistic integrity.”
One organizer complained that the White House Correspondents' Association — which represents the hundreds of journalists who cover the president — largely has been silent since the first weeks of the war about the killings of Palestinian journalists. WHCA did not respond to a request for comment.
According to a preliminary investigation released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 100 journalists have been killed covering the war in Gaza. Israel has defended its actions, saying it has been targeting militants.
“Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives — to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in a statement.
Sandra Tamari, executive director of Adalah Justice Project, a U.S.-based Palestinian advocacy group that helped organize the letter from journalists in Gaza, said “it is shameful for the media to dine and laugh with President Biden while he enables the Israeli devastation and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza."
In addition, Adalah Justice Project started an email campaign targeting 12 media executives at various news outlets — including The Associated Press — expected to attend the dinner who previously signed onto a letter calling for the protection of journalists in Gaza.
“How can you still go when your colleagues in Gaza asked you not to?" a demonstrator asked guests heading in. "You are complicit.”
___ Associated Press writers Mike Balsamo, Aamer Madhani, Fatima Hussein and Tom Strong contributed to this report.
