WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Congress will be playing into the Kremlin’s hands if it fails to renew funding for Ukraine’s fight against Russian invasion — and blamed Donald Trump for playing politics with US national security.
The “clock is ticking” for Ukraine, Biden warned.
The US president called out Trump — his expected November election rival — for pressuring Republican lawmakers not to pass a $118 billion bill that would fund Ukraine’s military in return for strict US immigration curbs, a Republican demand.
“We can’t walk away now. That’s what Putin’s betting on,” Biden said. “Supporting this bill is standing up to Putin. Opposing this bill is playing into his hands.”
The immigration portion of the bill, he said, included the “toughest set of reforms to secure the border ever.”
Despite themselves insisting on the immigration crackdown as a condition for renewing US aid to pro-Western Ukraine, Republicans have now responded to Trump’s pressure by making clear they will not help Democrats pass the huge bill.
This will sink Ukraine’s chances of getting desperately needed weaponry and ammunition as it enters the third year of resisting a full-scale Russian invasion.
It also means that the toughly negotiated measures to harden the US-Mexican border and keep out undocumented migrants will be abandoned, despite getting initial approval from senior Republican and Democratic senators.
“Most of our members feel that we’re not going to be able to make a law here,” Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged in remarks to journalists Tuesday.
Biden said Trump, who is running for a return to the White House largely on his anti-immigrant platform and claims that the southern border is suffering an “invasion,” was using the crisis to boost his electoral chances.
“Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically. Therefore... even though it helps his country, he’s not for it,” Biden said. “He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it.”
“For the last 24 hours he has done nothing, I’m told, but reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them,” Biden said. “It looks like they’re caving.”
Trump has been ramping up attacks on the bill for weeks, undermining his own party’s leaders as they inched toward compromise on the border — and thereby opening the door to Ukraine aid.
“Don’t be STUPID!!! We need a separate Border and Immigration Bill. It should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape, or form!” Trump posted in one of his many warnings to Republican legislators.
Biden and Trump are campaigning on starkly divergent approaches to Ukraine, with the Democrat clear that helping the pro-Western ally repel Russia is vital to ensure a safer world while his predecessor pushes an isolationist “America First” policy.
At home, Biden has pressed for a humane immigration policy but Republicans point to statistics showing migrant apprehensions reaching a record high of 302,000 in December, a surge Trump has been wielding as a major issue in the campaign.
The deal, unveiled by senators Sunday, is a bipartisan $118 billion package of immigration restrictions that Biden has committed to signing into law. It is tied to a foreign aid package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel.
Opposing Ukraine aid bill is playing into Putin’s hands: Biden
https://arab.news/72tus
Opposing Ukraine aid bill is playing into Putin’s hands: Biden
- “We can’t walk away now. That’s what Putin’s betting on,” Biden said. “Supporting this bill is standing up to Putin. Opposing this bill is playing into his hands”
India shuts schools as temperatures soar
- India’s weather bureau has warned of “severe heat wave conditions” this week
- Sweltering heat has dipped voter turnout in India, where world’s largest election is underway
New Delhi: Indian authorities in the capital have ordered schools shut early for the summer holiday, after temperatures hit 47.4 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) with Delhi gripped by a “severe heatwave.”
Delhi city officials asked schools to shut with “immediate effect” due to the blistering heat, according to a government order quoted by the Hindustan Times Tuesday, cutting short the term by a few days.
India’s weather bureau has warned of “severe heatwave conditions” this week, with the mercury reaching the sizzling peak of 47.4 degrees Celsius in Delhi’s Najafgarh suburb on Monday, the hottest temperature countrywide.
Authorities in other states — including Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan — have also ordered schools close, Indian Today reported.
India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures.
But years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
The Indian Meteorological Department warned of the impact of the heat on the health especially for infants, the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
In May 2022, parts of Delhi hit 49.2 degrees Celsius (120.5 Fahrenheit), Indian media reported at the time.
The next round of voting in India’s six-week-long election takes place on Saturday, including in Delhi.
Turnout in voting has dipped, with analysts suggesting the hotter-than-average weather is a factor — as well as the widespread expectation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will easily win a third term.
India’s election commission has formed a task force to review the impact of heatwaves and humidity before each round of voting.
At the same time, India’s southern states including Tamil Nadu and Kerala have been lashed by heavy rains over the past few days.
Severe storms also hit parts of the country last week, including in the financial capital Mumbai, where strong winds flattened a giant billboard that killed 16 people and left dozens more trapped.
How cockroaches spread around the globe to become the pest we know today
- Study confirms German cockroach species found worldwide actually originated in southeast Asia
- Cockroaches may have stowed away with people to travel to Middle East, Europe, says study
DALLAS: They’re six-legged, hairy home invaders that just won’t die, no matter how hard you try.
Cockroaches are experts at surviving indoors, hiding in kitchen pipes or musty drawers. But they didn’t start out that way.
A new study uses genetics to chart cockroaches’ spread across the globe, from humble beginnings in southeast Asia to Europe and beyond. The findings span thousands of years of cockroach history and suggest the pests may have scuttled across the globe by hitching a ride with another species: people.
“It’s not just an insect story,” said Stephen Richards, an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine who studies insect genes and was not involved with the study. “It’s an insect and humanity story.”
Researchers analyzed the genes of over 280 cockroaches from 17 countries and six continents. They confirmed that the German cockroach — a species found worldwide — actually originated in southeast Asia, likely evolving from the Asian cockroach around 2,100 years ago. Scientists have long suspected the German cockroach’s Asian origins since similar species still live there.
The research was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The cockroaches then globe-trotted via two major routes. They traveled west to the Middle East about 1,200 years ago, perhaps hitchhiking in soldiers’ breadbaskets. And they may have stowed away on Dutch and British East India Company trade routes to get to Europe about 270 years ago, according to scientists’ reconstruction and historical records.
Once they arrived, inventions like the steam engine and indoor plumbing likely helped the insects travel further and get cozy living indoors, where they are most commonly found today.
Researchers said exploring how cockroaches conquered past environments may lead to better pest control.
Modern-day cockroaches are tough to keep at bay because they evolve quickly to resist pesticides, according to study author Qian Tang, a postdoctoral researcher studying insects at Harvard University.
9 Egyptians go on trial in Greece over deadly shipwreck, as rights groups question process
- International human rights groups argue the defendants’ right to a fair trial is being compromised as they face judgment before an investigation is concluded
KALAMATA: Nine Egyptian men go on trial in southern Greece on Tuesday, accused of causing a shipwreck that killed hundreds of migrants and sent shockwaves through the European Union’s border protection and asylum operations.
The defendants, most in their 20s, face up to life in prison if convicted on multiple criminal charges over the sinking of the “Adriana” fishing trawler on June 14 last year.
International human rights groups argue that their right to a fair trial is being compromised as they face judgment before an investigation is concluded into claims the Greek coast guard may have botched the rescue attempt.
More than 500 people are believed to have gone down with the fishing trawler, which had been traveling from Libya to Italy. Following the sinking, 104 people were rescued — mostly migrants from Syria, Pakistan and Egypt — and 82 bodies were recovered.
Early Tuesday, police in riot gear clashed with members of a small group of protesters gathered in front of the courthouse and detained two people.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has described the shipwreck off the southern coast of Greece as “horrific.”
The sinking renewed pressure on European governments to protect the lives of migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach the continent, as the annual number of people traveling illegally across the Mediterranean continues to rise.
Lawyers from Greek human rights groups are representing the nine Egyptians, who deny the smuggling charges.
“There’s a real risk that these nine survivors could be found ‘guilty’ on the basis of incomplete and questionable evidence given that the official investigation into the role of the coast guard has not yet been completed,” said Judith Sunderland, an associate director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch.
Authorities say the defendants were identified by other survivors and the indictments are based on their testimonies.
The European border protection agency Frontex says illegal border detections at EU frontiers increased for three consecutive years through 2023, reaching the highest level since the 2015-2016 migration crisis — driven largely by arrivals at the sea borders.
France begins its first war crime trial of Syrian officials
- The Paris Criminal Court will try the three officials for their role in the deaths of two French Syrian men
PARIS: The first trial in France of officials of the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad is to begin on Tuesday, with three top security officers to be tried in absentia for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The Paris Criminal Court will try the three officials for their role in the deaths of two French Syrian men, Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, arrested in Damascus in 2013.
“For the first time, French courts will address the crimes of the Syrian authorities, and will try the most senior members of the authorities to ever be prosecuted since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011,” said the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
The war between Assad’s regime and armed opposition groups, including Daesh, erupted after the government repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The conflict has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged Syria’s economy and infrastructure.
Trials into the abuses of the Syrian regime have taken place elsewhere in Europe, notably in Germany.
But in those cases, the people prosecuted held lower ranks and were present at the hearings.
Ali Mamlouk, former head of the National Security Bureau, Jamil Hassan, former director of the Air Force intelligence service, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, former head of investigations for the service in Damascus, are subject to international arrest warrants and will be tried in absentia.
Scheduled to last four days, the hearings will be filmed.
War crimes
At the time of the arrest, Patrick Dabbagh was a 20-year-old student in his second year of arts and humanities at the University of Damascus. His father Mazzen worked as a senior education adviser at the French high school in Damascus.
The two were arrested in November 2013 by officers who claimed to belong to the Syrian Air Force intelligence service.
“Witness testimony confirms that Mazzen and Patrick Abdelkader were both taken to a detention center at Mezzeh Military Airport, which is run by Syrian Air Force Intelligence and notorious for the use of brutal torture,” the International Federation for Human Rights said, stressing that the pair were not involved in protests against the Assad regime.
They were declared dead in 2018. The family was formally notified that Patrick died on 21 January 2014. His father Mazzen died nearly four years later, on 25 November 2017.
In the committal order, the investigating judges said that it was “sufficiently established” that the two men “like thousands of detainees of the Air Force intelligence suffered torture of such intensity that they died.”
During the probe, French investigators and the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a non-governmental organization, collected accounts of torture and mistreatment at the Mezzeh prison, including the use of electric shocks and sexual violence, from dozens of witnesses including former detainees.
Lawyer Clemence Bectarte, who represents the Dabbagh family and the International Federation for Human Rights, said the trial was a new reminder that “under no circumstances” should relations with the Assad regime be normalized.
“We tend to forget that the regime’s crimes are still being committed today,” she said.
France and Belgium support ICC request for arrest warrants of Israel and Hamas leaders
- If such warrants are issued, members of the court, could be put in a diplomatically difficult position
PARIS: France and Belgium released statements supporting the world’s top war crimes court’s request for arrest warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas, after Israel and the United States both harshly condemned the effort.
On Monday, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said he had requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his defense chief Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders, including its chief, Yahya Sinwar.
If such warrants are issued, however, members of the court, which includes nearly all countries of the European Union, could be put in a diplomatically difficult position.
“France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations,” the foreign ministry said in a statement late on Monday.
While US President Joe Biden called the legal step against Israeli officials “outrageous,” the French foreign ministry took a different stance.
It reiterated both its condemnation of Hamas’s ‘anti-Semitic massacres’ on Oct. 7 as well as its warnings over possible violations of international humanitarian law by Israel’s invasion of the Gaza strip.
“As far as Israel is concerned, it will be up to the court’s pre-trial chamber to decide whether to issue these warrants, after examining the evidence put forward by the prosecutor ... ,” the ministry said.
