UNITED NATIONS, US: The UN Security Council on Wednesday failed again to take action on the Israel-Hamas war, with Russia and China vetoing a US-led draft resolution and a text led by Moscow drawing insufficient support.
The rival powers went ahead and put forward texts doomed to defeat despite what diplomats said was a last-ditch effort led by France to delay a vote and work toward consensus.
The United States, Israel’s historic backer which exercised its own veto last week, put forward a resolution that would support “humanitarian pauses” to let aid into the blockaded Gaza Strip and back the right of “all states” to self-defense within the confines of international law.
The US-led draft did not call for a full cease-fire. Russia put forward its own proposal that sought “an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian cease-fire” and “condemns all violence and hostilities against civilians.”
Ten countries backed the US resolution but Russia and China exercised their veto power. The United Arab Emirates, whose relations with Israel have warmed markedly since normalization in 2020 but represents the Arab bloc, also voted in opposition, with the other two countries, Brazil and Mozambique, abstaining.
“It has became clear from that the US simply doesn’t want UN Security Council decisions to have any kind of influence on a possible ground offensive by Israel in Gaza,” said the Russian representative, Vassily Nebenzia.
“This extremely politicized document clearly has one aim — not to save civilians but to shore up the US political position in the region,” he said.
The US ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, insisted that the United States had incorporated feedback from the rest of the world since its veto.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, promoting the resolution during a high-level Security Council session on Tuesday, spoke of “humanitarian pauses” even while ruling out a formal cease-fire.
“The United States is deeply disappointed that Russia and China vetoed this resolution,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “We did listen to all of you.”
She accused Russia, often on the receiving end of criticism since its invasion of Ukraine, of “cynical and irresponsible behavior” for putting forward its own text “with zero consultations” and “a number of problematic sections.”
Only Russia, China, the United Arab Emirates and Gabon voted for the draft resolution. The United States and Britain voted no, with the other nine countries including US allies France and Japan abstaining.
The UAE ambassador, Lana Nusseibeh, said that the Security Council needed to respond “tangibly” to the dire situation in Gaza.
At the high-level session Tuesday, “we heard dozens of statements imploring this council to assign the same value to Palestinian life as it does to Israeli life,” she said.
“We cannot allow any equivocation on this point. There is no hierarchy of civilian lives.”
With the Security Council deadlocked, the broader UN General Assembly is scheduled to debate the war on Thursday and Friday.
Resolutions from this body representing all UN members, with no one holding veto power, are non-binding. Still, Arab countries are working on a resolution that could be voted on this week, diplomats said.
This draft seen by AFP urges an immediate cease-fire and unhindered access for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.
Israel has been bombarding since October 7 when Hamas gunmen poured across the border killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 222 others, officials say, in the worst attack in Israel’s history.
So far, more than 6,500 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and there are fears the toll could further soar if Israel pushes ahead with a widely expected ground invasion in a bid to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages.
US, Russian bids on Israel-Hamas war fail at Security Council
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US, Russian bids on Israel-Hamas war fail at Security Council
- US has called for pauses to allow aid to enter Gaza, while Russia wants a humanitarian cease-fire
Anti-war protesters leave USC after police arrive, while Northeastern ceremony proceeds calmly
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
WASHINGTON: Students protesting the war in Gaza abandoned their camp at the University of Southern California early Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with arrest, while Northeastern University’s commencement began peacefully at Boston’s Fenway Park.
Developments in both places were being watched closely following scores of arrests last month — 94 people at USC in Los Angeles and about 100 at Northeastern in Boston.
Dozens of Los Angeles Police Department officers arrived about 4 a.m. at USC to assist campus safety officers. The university had warned of arrests on social media and in person. Video showed some protesters packing up and leaving, while officers formed lines to push others away from the camp as it emptied out. The university said there were no reports of any arrests.
USC President Carol Folt said it was time to draw a line because “the occupation was spiraling in a dangerous direction” with areas of campus blocked and people being harassed.
“The operation was peaceful,” Folt wrote in an update. “Campus is opening, students are returning to prepare for finals, and commencement set-up is in full swing.”
USC earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue.
At the Northeastern commencement Sunday, some students waved small Palestinian and Israeli flags, but were outnumbered by those waving the flags of India and the US, among others. Undergraduate student speaker Rebecca Bamidele drew brief cheers when she called for peace in Gaza.
The Associated Press has tallied about 2,500 people arrested at about 50 campuses since April 18, based on its reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement.
Arrests continued apace over the weekend. At the University of Virginia, there were 25 arrests Saturday for trespassing after police clashed with protesters who refused to remove tents. At the Art Institute of Chicago campus, police cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment hours after it was set up Saturday and arrested 68 people, saying they would be charged with criminal trespass.
ARRESTS IN VIRGINIA
In Charlottesville, Virginia, student demonstrators began their protest on a lawn outside the school chapel Tuesday. Video on Saturday showed police in riot gear and holding shields lined up on campus, while protesters chanted “Free Palestine.”
As police moved in, students were pushed to the ground, pulled by their arms and sprayed with a chemical irritant, Laura Goldblatt, an assistant professor who has been helping the demonstrators, told The Washington Post. The university said protesters were told that tents were banned under school policy and were asked to remove them.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox News on Sunday the police response was justified because students had been warned repeatedly to leave, were violating the school’s conduct code, and that outsiders who were not students provided protesters with supplies like wooden barriers.
“We’ve seen folks that are not students show up in riot gear with bull horns to direct the protesters on how to flank our officers,” Miyares said.
He said some had put bear spray into water bottles and thrown them at officers.
It was the latest clash in weeks of protests and tension at US colleges and universities.
Tent encampments of protesters urging universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread in a student movement unlike any other this century. Some schools reached agreements with protesters to end the demonstrations and reduce the possibility of disrupting final exams and commencements.
DEMONSTRATIONS AMID COMMENCEMENT
The University of Michigan was among the schools bracing for protests during commencement this weekend, as were Indiana University, Ohio State University and Northeastern. More ceremonies are planned in the coming weeks.
In Ann Arbor, there was a protest at the beginning of the event at Michigan Stadium. About 75 people, many wearing traditional Arabic kaffiyehs along with their graduation caps, marched up the main aisle toward the stage.
They chanted “Regents, regents, you can’t hide! You are funding genocide!” while holding signs, including one that read: “No universities left in Gaza.”
Overhead, planes pulled banners with competing messages. “Divest from Israel now! Free Palestine!” and “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.”
Officials said no one was arrested, and the protest didn’t seriously interrupt the nearly two-hour event, attended by tens of thousands of people, some of them waving Israeli flags.
OTHER PROTESTS CONTINUE
At Indiana University, protesters urged supporters to wear their kaffiyehs and walk out during remarks by school President Pamela Whitten on Saturday evening. The Bloomington campus designated a protest zone outside Memorial Stadium, where the ceremony was held.
At Princeton University in New Jersey, 18 students began a hunger strike to try to push the university to divest from companies tied to Israel. Students at other colleges, including Brown and Yale, launched similar hunger strikes this year before the more recent wave of demonstrations.
The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
China’s Xi in France for Macron talks on Ukraine
- Tuesday will see Macron take Xi to the Pyrenees mountains to an area he used to visit as a boy for a day of less public talks
PARIS: Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in France Sunday on a state visit hosted by Emmanuel Macron where the French leader will seek to warn his counterpart against backing Russia in the conflict over Ukraine.
Xi’s arrival for the visit marking 60 years of diplomatic relations between France and China heralded the start of his first trip to Europe since 2019, which will also see him visit Serbia and Hungary.
But Xi’s choice of France as the sole major European power to visit indicates the relative warmth in Sino-French relations since Macron made his own state visit to China in April 2023 and acknowledges the French leader’s stature as an EU powerbroker.
The leader of the one-party Communist state of more than 1.4 billion people, accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, was welcomed under umbrellas at a drizzly Paris Orly airport by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
Xi is to hold a day of talks in Paris on Monday — also including EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen — followed by a state banquet hosted by Macron at the Elysee.
Tuesday will see Macron take Xi to the Pyrenees mountains to an area he used to visit as a boy for a day of less public talks.
In an op-ed for Le Figaro daily, Xi said that he wanted to work with the international community to find ways to solve the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while emphasising that China was “neither a party nor a participant” in the conflict.
“We hope that peace and stability will return quickly to Europe and intend to work with France and the entire international community to find good paths to resolve the crisis,” he wrote.
A key priority of Macron will be to warn Xi of the danger of backing Russia, with Western officials concerned Moscow is already using Chinese machine tools in arms production.
Beijing’s ties with Moscow have, if anything, warmed after the invasion and the West wants China above all not to supply weapons to Russia and risk tipping the balance in the conflict.
“It is in our interest to get China to weigh in on the stability of the international order,” said Macron in an interview with The Economist published on Thursday.
Macron also said in the interview that Europe must defend its “strategic interests” in its economic relations with China, accusing Beijing of not respecting the rules on international trade.
But he acknowledged in an interview with the La Tribune Dimanche newspaper that Europeans are “not unanimous” on the strategy to adopt as “certain actors still see China essentially as a market of opportunities” while it “exports massively” to Europe.
The French president had gladdened Chinese state media and troubled some EU allies after his 2023 visit by declaring that Europe should not be drawn into a “bloc versus bloc” standoff between China and the United States, particularly over democratic, self-ruled Taiwan.
China views the island as part of its territory and has vowed to take it one day, by force if necessary.
Rights groups are urging Macron to bring up human rights in the talks, accusing China of failing to respect the rights of the Uyghur Muslim minority and of keeping dozens of journalists behind bars.
“President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France,” said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch.
The group said human rights in China had “severely deteriorated” under Xi’s rule.
A crowd of protesters on Sunday unfurled a Tibetan flag at a demonstration in Paris, accusing Xi of being a “dictator” and wanting to erase local culture in the Tibet region, an AFP reporter said. Paris police put the number of protesters at two thousand.
However analysts are skeptical that Macron will be able to exercise much sway over the Chinese leader, even with the lavish red carpet welcome and a trip to the bracing mountain airs of the Col du Tourmalet over 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) above sea level on Tuesday.
The other two countries chosen by Xi for his tour, Serbia and Hungary, are seen as among the most sympathetic to Moscow in Europe.
“The two core messages from Macron will be on Chinese support to Russia’s military capabilities and Chinese market-distorting practices,” said Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“However, both messages are unlikely to have a significant impact on Chinese behavior: Xi is not on a mission to repair ties, because from his point of view all is well.”
Niger receives new Russian advisers, equipment
- US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin indicated on Thursday that Russian troops were now installed at a Nigerien air base near the Niamey airport that also houses US troops
NIAMEY: New Russian military advisers and military equipment have arrived in Niger, according to state television in the African country that wants US forces to leave.
A first set of about 100 Russian advisers arrived in Niger on April 10, along with air defense systems.
Two military transporters arrived on Saturday, according to Tele Sahel that said Russia has now sent three cargo planes of military material and instructors in the past month.
The Africa Corps, seen as the successors of the Wagner paramilitary group in Africa, confirmed the instructors’ arrival in a posting on the group’s Telegram account.
FASTFACT
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin indicated that Russian troops were now installed at an air base near the Niamey airport that also houses US troops.
On Saturday, it said more trainers, equipment, and food products had arrived.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin indicated on Thursday that Russian troops were now installed at a Nigerien air base near the Niamey airport that also houses US troops.
Niger’s military regime, which took power in a July 2023 coup, expelled French troops based in the country and then denounced a military cooperation agreement with the US.
It said this had been “unilaterally imposed” by Washington.
Washington agreed in April to withdraw roughly 1,000 soldiers from the country.
Negotiations are underway between the United States and Niger about the withdrawal.
US forces have a key drone base near Agadez, built at a cost of about $100 million.
Niger’s military leaders have moved closer to Russia, as have Mali and Burkina Faso, which also have military coup leaders and are fighting rebel groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Daesh.
In April, Idrissa Soumana Maiga, head of the private L’Enqueteur newspaper, was imprisoned after an article mentioned the “presumed” installation of Russian listening devices in official buildings.
Race against time to rescue Brazil flood victims after dozens killed
- The rainfall eased Saturday night but was expected to continue for the next 24-36 hours, with authorities warning of landslides
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil: Authorities were racing against time on Sunday to rescue people from raging floods and mudslides that have killed more than 50 and forced nearly 70,000 to flee their homes in southern Brazil.
Viewed from the air, Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, is completely flooded, with streets waterlogged and the roofs of some houses barely visible.
The Guaiba River, which flows through the city of 1.4 million people, reached a record high level of 5.09 meters, according to the local municipality, well above the historic peak of 4.76 meters that had stood as a record since devastating 1941 floods.
The water was still advancing into economically important Porto Alegre and around a hundred other localities, with increasingly dramatic consequences.
FASTFACT
The Guaiba River, which flows through the city of 1.4 million people, reached a record high level of 5.09 meters, according to the local municipality, well above the historic peak of 4.76 meters that had stood as a record since devastating 1941 floods.
In addition to some 70,000 residents forced from their homes, Brazil’s civil defense agency also said more than a million people lacked access to potable water amid the flooding, describing the damage as incalculable.
The agency put the death toll at 55, although that did not include two people killed in an explosion at a flooded gas station in Porto Alegre that was witnessed by an AFP journalist.
At least 74 people are also missing, it said.
Rosana Custodio, a 37-year-old nurse, fled her flooded Porto Alegre home with her husband and three children.
“During the night on Thursday the waters began to rise very quickly,” she told AFP via a WhatsApp message.
“In a hurry, we went out to look for a safer place. But we couldn’t walk … My husband put our two little ones in a kayak and rowed with a bamboo. My son and I swam to the end of the street,” she said.
Her family was safe but “we’ve lost everything we had.”
The rainfall eased Saturday night but was expected to continue for the next 24-36 hours, with authorities warning of landslides.
Authorities scrambled to evacuate swamped neighborhoods as rescue workers used four-wheel-drive vehicles — and even jet skis — to maneuver through waist-deep water in search of the stranded.
UK Labour official acknowledges electoral backlash over Gaza
- Analysis shows decline of nearly 18 percent in Labour vote in areas where over a fifth of the population are Muslim
LONDON: A senior Labour official on Sunday said the party has to recalibrate its campaigning strategy to win back voters opposing its position on Gaza, The Observer reported.
Pat McFadden, Labour’s national election coordinator, told the BBC program “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg” that it would “work to get people’s support back,” and that the Middle East is a “high foreign policy priority” for the party.
Analysis has revealed that despite substantial gains in Thursday’s local elections in England, as well as Sadiq Khan securing a third term as mayor of London, there was a decline of nearly 18 percent in the Labour vote in areas of the country where over a fifth of the population identify as Muslim.
The analysis, conducted across 930 wards by Prof. Will Jennings from the University of Southampton, highlighted the extent of the protest vote against Labour leader Keir Starmer’s stance on Gaza, particularly his delay in calling for a ceasefire.
Ali Milani, chair of the Labour Muslim Network, voiced concern over the sense of betrayal within the Muslim community.
“We are now seeing the electoral consequence of that,” Milani told The Obsever. “If I was a Labour MP in Bradford or Birmingham or Leicester or parts of London or Manchester, I would be seriously concerned.”
Jennings said: “What this highlights is certainly that Labour is in an uncomfortable position on Gaza. And it is not just Muslim voters.
“But in a general election when we are looking at an anti-incumbent mood and there are fewer small parties and independents, we shouldn’t expect the pattern to be repeated.”
Labour MP Ellie Reeves said: “We have recognized the strength of feeling on this issue. We have called for an immediate ceasefire, we have also said there should absolutely be no ground offensive on Rafah.”
When questioned about Labour’s previous stance on the war, she told The Observer: “Keir Starmer has always been clear that our position would always respond to what is happening there.”
