WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden faced more calls from fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid on Friday, following a news conference in which he delivered nuanced responses but occasionally stumbled over his words.
It was unclear whether Biden’s performance would convince doubters in his party that he is their best bet to defeat Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election and serve another four-year term in the White House.
At least 17 congressional Democrats so far have called for him to drop out and allow the party to pick another standard-bearer, including some who announced their positions after the news conference on Thursday night.
Democrats are worried that Biden’s low public approval ratings and growing concerns that he is too old for the job could cause them to lose seats in the House and Senate, leaving them with no grip on power in Washington should Trump win the White House.
But Biden made clear that he did not plan to step aside.
“If I show up at the convention and everybody says they want someone else, that’s the democratic process,” Biden said, before shifting to the stage whisper he often uses for emphasis to add, “It’s not gonna happen.”
Biden perhaps did not reassure those who were spooked by his poor presidential debate performance against Trump on June 27.
At one point, he referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President Trump.” That came just hours after he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room.
Biden occasionally garbled his responses at the news conference, yet he also delivered detailed assessments of global issues, including Ukraine’s war with Russia and the Israel-Gaza conflict, that served as a reminder of his decades of experience on the world stage.
Some Democrats were not reassured.
“We must put forward the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden,” said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who called on the president to end his campaign after the news conference.
But one influential party figure, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, reiterated his support on Friday morning.
“I am all in. I’m riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes,” he said on NBC’s “Today” program.
A senior campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity called the performance the “worst of all worlds. Not good. But not bad enough to make him change his mind ... It’ll give some enough cover to back him publicly, only to say he’s not up for it privately.”
Fundraiser Dmitri Melhorn said other donors told him they saw a strong performance from the president. “This is the person who can beat Trump. The mistakes are baked in and the upside is strong,” he told Reuters.
Biden will hold a rally on Friday in Detroit, where his campaign says he will focus on the “dangers” of Trump’s agenda.
The Michigan city is also headquarters of the United Auto Workers labor union, whose leaders endorsed Biden but now are assessing their options, three sources told Reuters.
With most US voters firmly divided into ideological camps, opinion polls show the race remains close.
An NBC/PBS poll released on Friday found Biden leading Trump 50 percent to 48 percent, a slight increase from his position before the debate. Biden fared slightly worse than Trump when third-party candidates were included in the questioning.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Biden and Trump tied at 40 percent each. But some nonpartisan analysts have warned that Biden is losing ground in the handful of competitive states that will determine the outcome of the election.
Biden faces more pressure from Democrats to abandon re-election bid
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Biden faces more pressure from Democrats to abandon re-election bid
- It was unclear whether Biden’s performance would convince doubters in his party that he is their best bet to defeat Republican Donald Trump
- At least 17 congressional Democrats so far have called for him to drop out
Thai monk arrested over $9 million temple embezzlement
Investigators from the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) accuse Abbot Phra Thammachiranuwat from Wat Rai Khing of siphoning more than 300 million baht ($9.05 million) from the temple’s bank account into his own.
Investigators traced funds from the temple on Bangkok’s western outskirts to an illegal online gambling network running baccarat card games, local media said.
Temples in Buddhist-majority Thailand rely heavily on income from “merit-making” ceremonies where worshippers make donations in hopes of gaining good fortune and better reincarnation.
Police charged Phra Thammachiranuwat with corruption and malfeasance, CIB deputy commissioner Jaroonkiat Pankaew told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.
“This (arrest) is to help purify our religion,” Jaroonkiat said.
Authorities have arrested a second suspect and are investigating whether others were involved, while local media reported the abbot has now left the monkhood.
Wat Rai Khing, believed to have been founded in 1851, houses a replica of the Buddha’s footprint.
The arrest from one of the Bangkok suburb’s most prominent temples has triggered significant backlash on social media.
“Next time I will donate to a hospital or school for good causes, not a temple,” one user posted on social media platform X.
Others cautioned their fellow Buddhists to remain firm in their faith.
“Not all monks are bad. Don’t generalize,” another X user wrote.
France sues Iran at top UN court over detained citizens
The announcement comes as Iranian negotiators are set to meet with their counterparts from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany in Turkiye on Friday for talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Cecile Kohler, a 40-year-old literature teacher from eastern France and her partner Jacques Paris, in his 70s, were arrested on May 7, 2022, on the last day of a tourist trip to Iran.
They have been held on spying charges, which they have vehemently denied.
In its case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), France accuses Iran “of violating its obligation to provide consular protection” to the pair, who “have been held hostage... detained in appaling conditions that amount to torture,” Jean-Noel Barrot told France 2 television.
They are among a number of Europeans still held by Iran in what some European countries, including France, regard as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from the West at a time of tension over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.
Kohler and Paris are the last known French detainees in Iran after some recent releases and are regarded as “state hostages” by the French government.
The two are jailed in extremely tough conditions, according to their families.
Jihadists in Nigeria turn to TikTok to spread propaganda
LAGOS: Jihadists in northeastern Nigeria are surging -- and using social media to spread the word of their campaigns and recruit fighters.
At least 100 people were killed in the new wave of jihadist attacks in April alone, as the governor of Borno, the epicentre of the violence which has raged since 2009, said the state is losing ground to armed groups.
At the same time, apparent jihadists and their boosters on TikTok were flaunting rifles, grenades and stacks of cash, according to easily accessible videos reviewed by AFP that same month.
They broadcast live in joint videos with accounts run by men preaching anti-Western ideologies in a style reminiscent of the videos released by deceased Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in the early days of the 15-year-old insurgency.
Criminal gangs that carry out raids on villages and kidnap for ransom in the northwest of the country have used TikTok in the past.
"It started with bandits," Bulama Bukarti, a vice president at Texas-based Bridgeway Foundation wrote on X. "Now, Boko Haram members are hosting live TikTok shows -- spreading propaganda, justifying their violence and threatening anyone who dares speak against them."
A Boko Haram fighter threatened Bukarti himself in a now-deleted TikTok video for speaking against the group, he said.
While many of the accounts on the video sharing app have been flagged and taken down, the capability of broadcasting live streams on the platform adds another layer of difficulty to monitoring the content they put out.
A TikTok spokesperson said it was difficult to quantify the number of accounts linked to terrorist organisations that have been taken down.
While some of these accounts have been deleted, several others remain active, according to accounts viewed by AFP at the time of publication.
"Terrorist groups and content related to these groups have no place on TikTok, and we take an uncompromising stance against enabling violent extremism on or off our platform," a spokesperson for the company told AFP in an emailed statement.
Among the 19 accounts reviewed by AFP were men dressed as clerics, their faces revealed to the camera even as they called for violence against the government and teamed up with accounts that showed off weapons hauls.
Accounts also post old footage of the original Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf, and those of Isah Garo Assalafy, who was banned from preaching in public places in Niger state for using violent rhetoric against democracy and Western civilisation.
These accounts frequently go live, interacting with followers, answering questions and receiving digital gifts that can be converted into cash.
Nigeria's jihadist conflict, which over the years has expanded to include a rival Islamic State group, has killed more than 40,000 and displaced some two million people in Africa's most populous country.
Saddiku Muhammad, a former jihadist who has since defected, told AFP that armed groups are turning to TikTok in part because security forces cracked down on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
They also know TikTok is popular with young people.
"Jihadists realised that to capture the minds of young people, they need to speak to them in the language they understand -- instead of the traditional didactic and demagogic styles that are boring and unattractive to them," Muhammad said.
"From all indications, it is paying off. They are reaching out to young potential recruits."
Analysts told AFP that the use of TikTok by members of armed groups is a direct challenge to the government.
Malik Samuel, a security analyst at Abuja-based think tank Good Governance Africa, said it is a common Boko Haram tactic to use the group's young members to spread propaganda.
"I believe showing their faces is strategic -- to show that they aren't afraid and to let their target know that they are engaging with real people," Samuel said.
Islamic State West Africa Province, however, still appears to follow a more polished, top-down communication strategy than the apparent Boko Haram jihadists posting on TikTok, he said.
TikTok said it has partnered with UN-backed Tech Against Terrorism to improve the detection and removal of violent extremist content.
"Our community guidelines clearly state that we do not allow the presence of violent and hateful organisations or individuals on our platform," it said.
"We will always take action on content found to violate these policies."
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Israeli strikes kill at least 20 people in Gaza as Trump wraps up his Middle East visit
GAZA: Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people in Gaza on Friday morning, as U.S. President Donald Trump wraps up his Middle East visit.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, where they were brought. Survivors said many people were still under the rubble.
The widespread attacks across northern Gaza come as Trump finishes his visit to Gulf states but not Israel.
There had been widespread hope that Trump’s regional visit could usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza. An Israeli blockade of the territory is now in its third month.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes.
'Want change': in Spain, far right finds support with Romanians far from home
COSLADA: Romania's far-right presidential candidate George Simion has found strong support in a faraway place as he heads for a tense run-off election Sunday: Coslada, a shabby dormitory town outside Madrid with a large Romanian community.
The Spanish town of 80,000 people -- more than 20 percent of them Romanian -- shows the backing Simion has gotten from compatriots abroad, who are poised to help the 38-year-old win against his pro-European rival, Nicusor Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest.
At a cafe terrace near Coslada's so-called "Romanians' Square" -- once a meeting place for day labourers looking to be hired by contractors -- several immigrants from the Eastern European country said they had voted for Simion in the first round on May 4.
Simion, a fan of US President Donald Trump and head of the nationalist AUR party, stormed to first place in that vote with his anti-establishment message, taking 40.9 percent.
His margin of victory among the diaspora was even wider: he scored the backing of more than 60 percent of Romanians abroad.
In Spain, he won 74 percent of the vote.
"I want change. And so does everyone back home," said Mioara Mohora as she wrapped salami slices for a customer at the "Economic Market Discount" mini-mart, which was stacked with Romanian products such as pickled vegetables and beer.
Mohora, who is in her 40s and has lived in Spain for eight years, said she decided to cast her absentee ballot for Simion after Romania's constitutional court cancelled the country's initial presidential election last year over claims of Russian interference.
The decision, which came after dark-horse far-right candidate Calin Georgescu unexpectedly topped the first round in November, sparked sometimes violent demonstrations.
Georgescu has been barred from running again.
"It was a protest vote," Mohora said of her backing for Simion.
"They took away our right to vote for the person we actually wanted."
As she weighed minced meat at a nearby Romanian butcher shop, Mihaela Ionescu, 48, said Romanian authorities had "overturned the people's will" with the cancellation of the elections.
Ionescu, who has lived in Spain for two decades, said she did not vote last year or earlier this month, and has no plans to cast a ballot this weekend.
"Romanians are desperate. They are looking for a hero," she said when asked about Simion.
Romania's economy has rallied significantly since the collapse of communism in 1989, but the nation of around 19 million people still grapples with widespread corruption and lower living standards compared to wealthier western and northern European countries.
This has led many Romanians to move abroad. Some 600,000 of them live in Spain, making them one of the largest foreign communities in the country.
Coslada is home to around 17,500 Romanians. Local buses advertise flights to Bucharest, and many shop signs feature both Spanish and Romanian.
The Romanian diaspora is broadly split into two groups, according to the president of the Federation of Romanian Associations in Europe, Daniel Tecu.
"There are those who want to remain anchored in the European Union, who have witnessed Romania's development within the EU and want nothing more to do with Russia," he said.
Simion won votes mainly from the other group: people who are disappointed with the current political class and are "tired of corruption, angry, who don't return to Romania because it's not the country they want", he added.
Florin Padurariu, the owner of Botosani, a Romanian restaurant facing Coslada's train station -- which Simion visited during a tour of Europe ahead of the election -- said "the diaspora used to vote for pro-Europeans, but that's over now".
"I have always voted, but I have always been disappointed," added Padurariu, 55, who said he remained pro-EU and voted for Dan in the first round.
"After 20 years here, you still haven't learned anything? Europe allows you to support your mother, your father and your children, thanks to the money you earn here," he said.
