NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting a man whose views public health officials have decried as dangerous in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic” and “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy is one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the world and has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism and other health issues.
Hailing from one of the nation’s most storied political families, Kennedy is the son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. He first challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination last year. He then ran as an independent before abandoning his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role overseeing health policy in a second Trump administration.
He and the president-elect have since become good friends. The two campaigned together extensively during the race’s final stretch, and Trump had made clear he intended to give Kennedy a major role overseeing public health as part of a campaign to “Make America Healthy Again.”
“I’m going to let him go wild on health,” Trump said at a rally last month.
During his victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida, last week, Trump exclaimed, “Go have a good time, Bobby!”
Still, it was unclear precisely what job he would be offered. In an October interview on CNN, Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick assured there was no way Kennedy would receive the job he got.
The appointment drew alarms from public health experts.
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not remotely qualified for the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard our nutrition, food safety, and health,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the public health watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press, “I don’t want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am concerned.”
“Any misinformation coming from places of influence, of power, are concerning,” she said.
During the campaign, Kennedy told NewsNation that Trump had asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
Kennedy has pushed against processed foods and the use of herbicides like Roundup weed killer. He has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feeding operations that dominate the industry.
But he is perhaps best known for his criticism of childhood vaccines.
Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism.
In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines that advise when kids should receive routine vaccinations.
“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get them vaccinated,’” Kennedy said.
Repeated scientific studies in the US and abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood vaccines with preventing as many as 5 million deaths a year
Trump during his first term launched Operation Warp Speed, an effort to speed the production and distribution of a vaccine to combat COVID-19. The resulting vaccines were widely credited, including by Trump himself, with saving many lives.
Trump, in his announcement, said that, under Kennedy, HHS would “play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.” But HHS does not have jurisdiction over many of those issues, which fall under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture.
Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food more healthful in the US, promising to model regulations after those imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump has pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines raises question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health and is considered safe at low levels.
He has said he would seek to ban certain food additives, cracking down on substances such as food dyes and preservatives, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. He has also targeted pesticides, which are jointly regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the FDA.
Kennedy has also drawn headlines for his history with wild animals. He admitted to dumping a dead bear in New York’s Central Park — placing it as though it had been hit by a bike — and found himself the subject of a federal probe after his daughter revealed that he had cut off a beached whale’s head and strapped it to the roof of his car to take home.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. Kennedy has promised to take a serious look at those who work for HHS and its agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.
He has said he is especially focused on putting an end to the “revolving door” of employees who have previous history working for pharmaceutical companies or leave government service to work for that industry, his former campaign communications manager, Del Bigtree, told the AP last month. Bigtree is also an anti-vaccine organizer.
Kennedy said he wanted to fire 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees vaccine research.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
Trump also announced Thursday that he will nominate Jay Clayton, who served as chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission during his first term, to serve as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Trump chooses anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary
https://arab.news/cqzmt
Trump chooses anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary
- The appointment was a reward for RFK's abandoning his presidential bid and supported Trump
- Trump's choice of the prominent anti-vaccine activist alarms health leaders
French police hunt suspected killer of Muslim worshipper inside mosque
- The suspect was still at large on Saturday, regional prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini told AFP
MARSEILLE: French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou on Saturday denounced the fatal stabbing of a Muslim worshipper inside a mosque as police hunted the killer, who filmed his victim as he lay dying.
The attacker stabbed the worshipper dozens of times then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam in Friday’s attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region of southern France.
“A worshipper was murdered yesterday,” wrote Bayrou in a message posted on X. “The Islamophobic atrocity was displayed in a video,” he added.
“We stand with the victim’s loved ones, with the believers who are so shocked. State resources are mobilized to ensure the killer is apprehended and punished,” wrote Bayrou.
Earlier Saturday, investigators said they were treating the killing as a possible Islamophobic crime.
The suspect was still at large on Saturday, regional prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini told AFP.
The footage taken by the killer showed him insulting “Allah,” the Arabic term for God, just after he carried out the attack.
The alleged perpetrator sent the video he had filmed with his phone, showing the victim writhing in agony, to another person, who then shared it on a social media platform before deleting it.
The killing itself was not shown on the images posted on social media but was filmed by security cameras inside the mosque. In his own footage the killer notices these cameras and is heard saying: “I am going to be arrested — that’s for sure.”
According to another source, who also asked not to be named, the suspected perpetrator, while not apprehended, has been identified as a French citizen of Bosnian origin who is not a Muslim.
“The individual is being actively sought. This is a matter that is being taken very seriously,” said the prosecutor Grini.
“All possibilities were being considered, including that of an act with an Islamophobic dimension,” he added.
He confirmed that the French anti-terror prosecutors’ office was considering whether to take over the case.
The victim and the attacker were alone inside the mosque at the time of the incident.
After initially praying alongside the man, the attacker then stabbed the victim up to 50 times before fleeing the scene.
The body of the victim was only discovered later in the morning when other worshippers arrived at the mosque for Friday prayers.
According to prosecutor Grini, the victim, between 23 and 24 years old, was a regular worshipper at the mosque. The killer had never been seen there before.
According to several people AFP spoke to at the scene on Friday, the victim was a young man who arrived from Mali a few years ago and was “very well-known” in the village, where he was highly regarded.
A former mining center about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the town of Ales, La Grand-Combe suffers one of the highest unemployment rates in France after the end of coal mining.
On Friday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described the murder as “appalling.”
He expressed his “support for the victim’s family and solidarity with the Muslim community affected by this barbaric violence in their place of worship on the day of prayer.”
Gabon’s constitutional court confirms Nguema’s victory
- The Constitutional Court announced a turnout of 70 percent in the election in which some 920,000 voters, including over 28,000 overseas, were registered to participate across more than 3,000 polling stations
DAKAR: Gabon’s constitutional court has confirmed that Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, Gabon’s interim president who staged a 2023 coup, won the Central African nation’s April 12 presidential election.
According to the final results announced by the Constitutional Court, Oligui Nguema won the election with 58,074 votes, which accounts for 94.85 percent.
Oligui Nguema’s tally increased by almost 5 percent compared to the provisional results announced the day after the April 12 vote by the Ministry of the Interior.
He defeated seven other candidates, including the immediate past Prime Minister Alain Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who came in a distant second with 3 percent of votes cast. None of the other six candidates crossed the 1 percent mark.
Bilie-By-Nze recently said that Oligui Nguema took advantage of state resources to support his campaign. The government denies this.
Local observers deemed the conduct of the election satisfactory in nearly all the polling stations monitored.
The Constitutional Court announced a turnout of 70 percent in the election in which some 920,000 voters, including over 28,000 overseas, were registered to participate across more than 3,000 polling stations.
The Interior Ministry had previously announced a higher turnout of 87.21 percent in its provisional results announced the day after the vote.
Gabon’s first election since the 2023 military coup ended a political dynasty that lasted over 50 years.
It was seen as a crucial election for the central African nation’s 2.3 million people, a third of whom live in poverty despite its vast oil wealth.
Oligui Nguema, the former head of the country’s Republican Guard, toppled President Ali Bongo Ondimba nearly two years ago.
He hopes to consolidate his grip on power for a seven-year term in office and is set to be inaugurated on May 3.
African peacekeeping mission in Somalia ‘needs 8,000 more troops’
- Envoys hold a three-day meeting to discuss the security situation and the progress of ‘stabilization mission’
NAIROBI: The African peacekeeping mission in Somalia requires an additional 8,000 troops, even as Burundi is expected to withdraw its contingent, a statement from military heads from troop-contributing countries said.
The African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM, is tasked with combating the Al-Shabab group, whose attacks are stoking fears of a terrorist resurgence in the Horn of Africa nation.
But Burundi’s planned pullout, which diplomatic sources said was triggered by a spat with Mogadishu over the state of its soldiers’ equipment, would deprive the mission of around one-fifth of its current manpower.
BACKGROUND
Officials say insufficient troops have created security gaps ‘resulting in the resurgence of Al-Shabab taking control of significant territory in both Middle and Lower Shabelle.’
Envoys from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, the African Union, and multilateral organizations held a three-day meeting in Uganda this week to discuss the security situation in Somalia and the progress of AUSSOM.
In a statement, the officials said insufficient troops had created security gaps “resulting in the resurgence of Al-Shabab taking control of significant territory in both Middle and Lower Shabelle.”
“As a consequence, both Jowhar and Mogadishu are under imminent threat by Al-Shabab,” the statement said.
Somalia has long struggled with the violent Islamist insurgency.
However, the Al-Qaeda-linked group had been forced onto the defensive in 2022 and 2023 by Somali forces backed by African Union-led peacekeepers.
Recent attacks in key towns have provoked worries of the organization’s resurgence, with the militants targeting President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s convoy in the capital, Mogadishu, in March.
The security representatives recommended “an additional 8,000 to AUSSOM Troops to address the current security situation in Somalia so as not to roll back the hard-earned gains.”
The mission, which replaced the previous ATMIS deployment, has 11,146 soldiers.
But the withdrawal of Burundi troops with no prospect of replacement “will create more gaps and exacerbate the already deteriorating situation,” the statement added.
Somalia and Burundi have been at loggerheads over the number of troops Burundi should contribute to the mission, with Mogadishu requesting only around 1,000 Burundian soldiers — far below Burundi’s proposal of 2,000.
According to an African diplomat, Somalia “felt that Burundi was not sufficiently equipped for such a large number of soldiers.”
“Our government saw the Somali proposal as a lack of consideration, a lack of respect when you consider the sacrifices Burundi has made to bring peace back to Somalia,” a senior Burundian official said.
A statement by the AU dated April 15 instructed the UN office in Somalia to facilitate the repatriation of Burundi’s contingent.
The envoys also addressed the mission’s significant financial challenges, urging international partners to address the deficit of $96 million for ATMIS and $60 million to cover four months of AUSSOM — which has been in operation since January.
Trump expresses doubts Putin is willing to end the Ukraine war, a day after saying a deal was close
- “There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump said
- “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through “Banking” or “Secondary Sanctions?”
ROME: President Donald Trump said Saturday that he doubts Russia’s Vladimir Putin wants to end his war in Ukraine, expressing new skepticism that a peace deal can be reached soon. Only a day earlier, Trump had said Ukraine and Russia were ” very close to a deal.”
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump said in a social media post as he flew back to the United States after attending Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican, where he met briefly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump also hinted at further sanctions against Russia.
“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through “Banking” or “Secondary Sanctions?” Too many people are dying!!!” Trump wrote.
The new doubts aired by Trump come as the president and top aides intensify their push to come to a deal to end the war that began in February 2022 when Russian invaded Ukraine.
The comments also sharply contrasted with Trump’s positive assessment that the two sides were “very close to a deal” after his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, had met with Putin in Moscow on Friday.
The Trump-Zelensky conversation on the sidelines of the pope’s funeral was first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders since they argued during a heated Oval Office meeting at the White House in late February. That confrontation led to the White House to briefly pause US military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
Days after ordering the pause, Trump also announced he was “strongly considering” imposing new sanctions and tariffs on Russia to try to prod Putin to negotiate in earnest. Trump has not yet followed through on the threat — something even some of his staunch Republican allies are now pressuring him to do.
It’s the second time a matter of days that Trump has rebuked Putin, whom the American president rarely publicly criticizes.
On Thursday, Trump publicly urged the Russian leader to “STOP!” after a deadly barrage of attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
After their brief meeting Saturday, Zelensky’s office had said the US and Ukrainian teams were making arrangements for the leaders to talk again Saturday. But Trump went directly to the Rome airport after the funeral and boarded Air Force One for the 10-hour flight back to the United States.
Zelensky’s spokesperson, Serhii Nykyforov, said Trump and Zelensky did not meet again in person because of their tight schedules.
Zelensky called it a “good meeting” on social media after the funeral.
“We discussed a lot one on one. Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out,” he said on X. “Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results. Thank you.”
The White House called the discussion “very productive” and said it would release more details later. The meeting lasted about 15 minutes inside St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, where Francis often preached the need for a peaceful end to the war, just before Trump and Zelensky took their seats at the outdoor funeral service.
The Vatican long ago had offered to help facilitate peace talks and Francis had regularly called for peace and dialogue from the altar of the basilica. That Trump and Zelensky spoke privately, face to face and hunched over on chairs on the marbled floors of the pope’s home, on the day of his funeral, was perhaps a fitting way to honor his wishes.
Trump said on social media, after he arrived in Italy late Friday, that Russia and Ukraine should meet for “very high level talks” on ending the war.
Neither Putin nor Zelensky have commented Trump’s calls for direct talks.
Trump has pressed both sides to quickly come to an agreement to end the war, but while Zelensky agreed to an American plan for an initial 30-day halt to hostilities, Russia has not signed on and has continued to strike at targets inside Ukraine.
Putin did not attend Francis’ funeral. He faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, which has accused him of war crimes stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in a statement Friday night, Zelensky said “very significant meetings may take place” in the coming days, and that an unconditional ceasefire was needed.
“Real pressure on Russia is needed so that they accept either the American proposal to cease fire and move toward peace, or our proposal — whichever one can truly work and ensure a reliable, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire, and then — a dignified peace and security guarantees,” he said.
“Diplomacy must succeed. And we are doing everything to make diplomacy truly meaningful and finally effective.”
The meeting Saturday also came shortly after Trump had issued his most definitive statement to date about the need for Ukraine to give up territory to Russia to bring the war to a close. He said in a Time magazine interview published Friday that “Crimea will stay with Russia.”
Russia seized the strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine in 2014, years before the full-scale invasion that began in 2022. Zelensky wants to regain Crimea and other Ukrainian territory seized by Russia, but Trump considers that demand to be unrealistic.
Referring to Crimea during the interview, which was conducted at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said, “everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” meaning Russia.
Trump and Zelensky meet one-on-one to seek peace
- After talks at Vatican, Trump takes tough tone in post about Putin
KYIV: US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, met one-on-one in a marble-lined Vatican basilica on Saturday to try to revive faltering efforts to end Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Zelensky said the meeting could prove historic if it delivers the kind of peace he is hoping for, and a White House spokesman called it “very productive.”
The two leaders, leaning in close to each other with no aides around them while seated in St. Peter’s Basilica, spoke for about 15 minutes.
The meeting at the Vatican, their first since an angry encounter in the Oval Office in Washington in February, comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed at bringing an end to fighting between Ukraine and Russia.
HIGHLIGHT
All Ukrainian troops have been forced from parts of Russia’s Kursk region, which Moscow lost control of last year to a surprise Ukrainian incursion, Russia’s top general claims.
After leaving Rome, Trump published a social media post in which he took a tough tone on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump posted on Truth Social. Twelve people were killed on Thursday when a missile fired by Russia hit a Kyiv apartment block.
“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!” Trump wrote.
Trump’s post was a departure from his usual rhetoric, which has seen the toughest criticism directed at Zelensky, while he has spoken positively about Putin.
In a post on social media platform Telegram, Zelensky wrote: “Good meeting. One-on-one, we managed to discuss a lot. We hope for a result from all the things that were spoken about.”
He said those topics included: “The protection of the lives of our people. A complete and unconditional ceasefire. A reliable and lasting peace that will prevent a recurrence of war.”
Zelensky added: “It was a very symbolic meeting that has the potential to become historic if we achieve joint results. Thank you, President Donald Trump!“
Meanwhile, all Ukrainian troops have been forced from parts of Russia’s Kursk region, which Moscow lost control of last year to a surprise Ukrainian incursion, Russia’s top general said in a Kremlin meeting. Ukrainian officials denied the claim.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff for Russia’s Armed Forces, gave Russian President Putin the news in a meeting, Peskov told Russian state news outlet Interfax.
In a statement, Putin congratulated the Russian soldiers and commanders and said that Kyiv’s incursion had “completely failed”.
“The complete defeat of our enemy along Kursk’s border region creates the right conditions for further successes for our troops and in other important areas of the front,” he said.
Ukrainian officials, however, said the fighting was still continuing. “The statements of representatives of the high command of the aggressor country about the alleged end of hostilities in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation are not true,” a Ukrainian government statement said.
“The defensive operation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in certain areas in the Kursk region continues. The operational situation is difficult, but our units continue to hold designated positions and carry out assigned tasks, while inflicting effective fire damage on the enemy with all types of weapons, including using active defense tactics,” it added.
