Trump expects ‘arrest’ on Tuesday in hush money case, calls for protests

Update Trump expects ‘arrest’ on Tuesday in hush money case, calls for protests
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Former President Donald J. Trump waves as he arrives for the NCAA Wrestling Championships on March 18, 2023, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (AP)
Update Trump expects ‘arrest’ on Tuesday in hush money case, calls for protests
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Supporters of former US President Donald Trump gather outside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 18, 2023, after he posted a message on his Truth Social account saying that he expects to be arrested. (Reuters)
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Updated 19 March 2023

Trump expects ‘arrest’ on Tuesday in hush money case, calls for protests

Trump expects ‘arrest’ on Tuesday in hush money case, calls for protests
  • In a hysterical post in his Truth Social platform, Trump said: WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”
  • A New York grand jury is investigating hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president

NEW YORK: Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that his arrest is imminent and issued an extraordinary call for his supporters to protest as a New York grand jury investigates hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president.
Even as Trump’s lawyer and spokesperson said there had been no communication from prosecutors, Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be taken into custody on Tuesday.
His message seemed designed to preempt a formal announcement from prosecutors and to galvanize outrage from his base of supporters in advance of widely anticipated charges. Within hours, his campaign was sending fundraising solicitations to his supporters, while influential Republicans in Congress and even some declared and potential rival candidates issued statements in his defense.
In a later post that went beyond simply exhorting loyalists to protest about his legal peril, the 2024 presidential candidate directed his overarching ire in all capital letters at the Biden administration and raised the prospect of civil unrest: “IT’S TIME!!!” he wrote. “WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”
It all evoked, in foreboding ways, the rhetoric he used shortly before the insurrection at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. After hearing from the then-president at a Washington rally that morning, his supporters marched to the Capitol and tried to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s White House victory, breaking through doors and windows of the building and leaving officers beaten and bloodied.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg is thought to be eyeing charges in the hush money investigation, and recently offered Trump a chance to testify before the grand jury. Local law enforcement officials are bracing for the public safety ramifications of an unprecedented prosecution of a former American president.
But there has been no public announcement of any time frame for the grand jury’s secret work in the case. At least one additional witness is expected to testify, further indicating that no vote to indict has yet been taken, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to publicly discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
That did not stop Trump from taking to his social media platform to say “illegal leaks” from Bragg’s office indicate that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”




Supporters of former President Donald Trump fly a flag from a boat reading "Trust the Plan" outside of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on March 18, 2023, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP) 

A Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said Trump’s post was “based on the media reports,” and a spokesperson said there had been “no notification” from Bragg’s office, though the origin of Trump’s Tuesday reference was unclear. The district attorney’s office declined to comment.
Trump’s aides and legal team have been preparing for the possibility of an indictment. Should that happen, he would be arrested only if he refused to surrender. Trump’s lawyers have previously said he would follow normal procedure, meaning he would likely agree to surrender at a New York Police Department precinct or directly to Bragg’s office.
It is unclear whether Trump’s supporters would heed his protest call or if he retains the same persuasive power he held as president. Trump’s posts on Truth Social generally receive far less attention than he used to get on Twitter, but he maintains a deeply loyal base. The aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, in which hundreds of Trump loyalists were arrested and prosecuted in federal court, may also have dampened the passion among supporters for confrontation.
The indictment of Trump, 76, would be an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings.
Even as Trump pursues his latest White House campaign — his first rally is set for Waco, Texas, later this month and he shook hands and took selfies with fans during a public appearance Saturday evening at the NCAA Division I wrestling championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma — there is no question an indictment would be a distraction and give fodder to opponents and critics tired of the legal scandals that have long enveloped him.
Besides the hush money inquiry in New York, Trump faces separate criminal investigations in Atlanta and Washington over his efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election.
A Justice Department special counsel has also been presenting evidence before a grand jury investigating Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate. It is not clear when those investigations will end or whether they might result in criminal charges, but they will continue regardless of what happens in New York, underscoring the ongoing gravity – and broad geographic scope – of the legal challenges facing the former president.
Trump’s post Saturday echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was searching his Florida home as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents.
News of that search sparked a flood of contributions to Trump’s political operation, and on Saturday, Trump sent out a series of fundraising emails to his supporters, including one that claimed, “I’m not worried in the slightest.”
After his post, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy decried any plans to prosecute Trump as an “outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA” whom he claimed was pursuing “political vengeance.” Rep. Elize Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, issued a statement with a similar sentiment.
The grand jury has been hearing from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump denies the encounters occurred, says he did nothing wrong and has cast the investigation as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the Republican’s 2024 campaign. Trump also has labeled Bragg, who is Black, a “racist” and has accused the prosecutor of letting crime in the city run amok while he has focused on Trump. New York remains one of the safest cities in the country.
Bragg’s office has apparently been examining whether any state laws were broken in connection with the payments or the way Trump’s company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women’s allegations quiet.
Porn actor Stormy Daniels and at least two former Trump aides — onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks — are among witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.
Cohen has said that at Trump’s direction, he arranged payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. According to Cohen, the payouts were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the thick of his first presidential campaign.
Cohen and federal prosecutors said Trump’s company paid him $420,000 as reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels and to cover bonuses and other supposed expenses. The company classified those payments internally as legal expenses. The $150,000 payment to McDougal was made by the then-publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, which kept her story from coming to light.
Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute the Enquirer’s corporate parent in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to charges against Cohen in 2018. Prosecutors said the payments to Daniels and McDougal amounted to impermissible, unrecorded gifts to Trump’s election effort.
Cohen pleaded guilty, served prison time and was disbarred. Federal prosecutors never charged Trump with any crime.
News that law enforcement agencies were preparing for a possible indictment was first reported by NBC News.


Major aid group’s women staff partially resume work in Afghanistan

Major aid group’s women staff partially resume work in Afghanistan
Updated 21 sec ago

Major aid group’s women staff partially resume work in Afghanistan

Major aid group’s women staff partially resume work in Afghanistan
  • The Norwegian Refugee Council resumed working months after the Taliban government banned women from working for NGOs

KABUL: A leading international NGO’s Afghan women staff have resumed their work in some provinces, months after the Taliban government banned them from working.

Several aid groups suspended operations in protest at the order that was announced at the end of December, and later extended to include Afghan women working for the United Nations.

“I am glad to confirm that we have been able to resume most of our humanitarian operations in Kandahar as well as a number of other regions in Afghanistan,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the independent Norwegian Refugee Council said on Monday.

“All our work is for women and men, girls and boys alike, and with equal participation of our female and male humanitarian colleagues,” he said in a tweet.

It comes after Egeland traveled to Kandahar — the Taliban government’s traditional stronghold — last month where he announced that officials had said they would consider a “temporary agreement” to allow women to return to work.

“This arrangement ensures the delivery of much-needed assistance while the authorities finalize national guidelines to facilitate women’s participation in humanitarian efforts,” Christian Jepsen, a spokesperson for the NRC, said on Tuesday.

The UN has previously also reported that the Taliban is working on guidelines that will provide more clarity.

The Taliban authorities have not commented.

Government officials claim the ban was imposed because women were not observing rules on wearing the hijab, an allegation denied by aid workers. The Taliban government is not officially recognized by any country or world body, and only a handful of nations have a presence in Afghanistan.

UNAMA, the UN’s mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement last month that the ban “seriously undermines our work” and that lifting restrictions was essential.

“We must remain focused on our objective to support the people of Afghanistan. We cannot disengage despite the challenges,” the statement said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that funding for aid operations “remains at worryingly low levels and the ban is exacerbating this trend.”

Since the ban, UNAMA has asked all of its Afghan staff — men and women — to work from home, but other agencies in the country “have had different ways of handling the situation,” he noted.

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Ukraine evacuates thousands after key dam destroyed

Ukraine evacuates thousands after key dam destroyed
Updated 06 June 2023

Ukraine evacuates thousands after key dam destroyed

Ukraine evacuates thousands after key dam destroyed
  • Washington warned there would be "likely many deaths" as Moscow and Kyiv traded blame for ripping a gaping hole in the Kakhovka dam
  • People in Kherson, the largest population centre nearby, headed for higher ground as water poured into the Dnipro River

KHERSON, Ukraine: An attack on a major Russian-held dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday unleashed a torrent of water that flooded a small city and two dozen villages and forced the evacuation of 17,000 people, sparking fears of a humanitarian disaster.
Washington warned there would be “likely many deaths” as Moscow and Kyiv traded blame for ripping a gaping hole in the Kakhovka dam, which is located on the frontline and provides cooling water for Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
Kyiv said the destruction of the dam — seized by Russia in the early hours of the war — was an attempt by Moscow to hamper its long-awaited offensive, which Ukraine’s leader stressed would not be affected.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was scheduled for 2000 GMT Tuesday following requests from Russia and Ukraine, diplomatic sources said.
People in Kherson, the largest population center nearby, headed for higher ground as water poured into the Dnipro River.
“There is shooting, now there is flooding,” said Lyudmyla, who had loaded a washing machine onto a cart attached to an old Soviet car.
“Everything is going to die here,” added Sergiy as water from the dam poured into the city which was the scene of heavy fighting in 2022.
Ukrainian authorities said 17,000 people were being evacuated and a total of 24 villages had been flooded.
“Over 40,000 people are in danger of being flooded,” Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said, adding that 25,000 more people should be evacuated on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River.
Vladimir Leontyev, the Moscow-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka where the dam is located, said the city was underwater and hundreds of people had been evacuated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of blowing up the dam and said authorities expected up to 80 settlements to be flooded, urging the world to “react.”
“This crime carries enormous threats and will have dire consequences for people’s lives and the environment,” Zelensky told a Vatican peace envoy, Italian cardinal Matteo Zuppi, in Kyiv, the presidency said.
He later said in a Telegram message that the explosion “did not affect Ukraine’s ability to de-occupy its own territories.”
Kyiv also called for a meeting of the UN Security Council and warned of a potential “ecocide” after 150 tons of engine oil spilled into the river.
Western powers also blamed Russia for the damage, with EU chief Charles Michel calling it a “war crime,” while NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the dam breach was “outrageous“
The United States “cannot say conclusively what happened at this point,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Russia however said the dam was partially destroyed by “multiple strikes” coming from Ukrainian forces and urged the world to condemn Kyiv’s “criminal acts.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the destruction was the result of “deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side.”
The Soviet-era dam, built in the 1950s, sits on the Dnipro River, which provides cooling water for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant some 150 kilometers (90 miles) away.
Moscow and Kyiv offered conflicting versions on the safety of the facility.
The Russian-installed director of the plant, Yuri Chernichuk, echoed the UN agency and said that “at the moment, there is no security threat to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.”
“The water level in the cooling pond has not changed,” he said, adding that the situation was under control.
But Ukraine, which in 1986 suffered the devastating Chernobyl nuclear disaster, sounded the alarm.
“The world once again finds itself on the brink of a nuclear disaster, because the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost its source of cooling. And this danger is now growing rapidly,” Zelensky’s aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said.
The Ukrainian nuclear operator, Energoatom, said the water level of the Kakhovka reservoir was “rapidly decreasing, which is an additional threat to the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.”
The UN humanitarian agency said it was concerned about “the severe humanitarian impact on hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the front line.”
“Flooding and fast-moving water can move mines and explosive ordnance to new areas which previously had been assessed as safe, thus putting more people in danger,” it added.
News of the damage came after Russia said Ukraine had begun a long-expected counter-offensive to claw back lost territory after Moscow invaded in February, 2022.
On Tuesday, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Moscow had halted Kyiv’s offensive but lost 71 soldiers over the past three days, an extremely rare admission of Russia’s losses.
On Monday, Zelensky praised his troops for advances claimed near the devastated city of Bakhmut.
Kyiv already accused Moscow of mining the dam as combat raged nearby in October, during the last major offensive by Ukrainian forces seeking to regain lost territory. Russia denies the claim.
The Kakhovka dam has strategic value as it pumps water into the North Crimean Canal, which starts in southern Ukraine and crosses the entire Crimean peninsula.
Experts say that any problem with the dam could cause water supply problems for Crimea, which has been under Russian control since 2014.


Novocure’s lung cancer device extends survival in late-stage study

Novocure’s lung cancer device extends survival in late-stage study
Updated 06 June 2023

Novocure’s lung cancer device extends survival in late-stage study

Novocure’s lung cancer device extends survival in late-stage study
  • The device, used with certain chemotherapies and immunotherapies, helps in creating electric fields that disrupt cancer cell growth
  • Analysts raised concerns that only a small group of patients in the study were previously treated with ICI

DUBAI: Novocure said on Tuesday its experimental device to treat a type of lung cancer showed a statistically significant improvement in extending overall survival among patients in a late-stage study.
The device, used with certain chemotherapies and immunotherapies, helps in creating electric fields that disrupt cancer cell growth.
Data from the study showed the device, along with a class of immunotherapies know as immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), extended survival by 8 months compared to patients treated with ICI alone. However, analysts raised concerns that only a small group of patients in the study were previously treated with ICI such as Merck’s Keytruda, while it is now a standard of care and most patients take it.
This raises the question whether the data would apply in a real-world setting where most patients initiate treatment with checkpoint inhibitors, analysts said.
Novocure’s shares fell 17.1 percent to $67.70 in early trading.
“Only 2 percent of patients in the ICI arm had prior ICI exposure,” said Emily Bodnar, H.C. Wainwright & Co. analyst.
Novocure’s device along with standard therapies, including chemotherapies and immunotherapies, also extended survival to 13.2 months compared to 9.9 months in patients treated with standard therapies alone.
The therapy is the first in more than seven years to show a significant extension in overall survival in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer treatment (NSCLC) after a type of chemotherapy in late-stage study, the company said.
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and NSCLC accounts for about 85 percent of all lung cancers, the company said.
Novocure plans to submit marketing application to the US Food and Drug Administration in the second half of 2023 based on the data.


No sanctions on Israel for its occupation and annexation of Golan

No sanctions on Israel for its occupation and annexation of Golan
Updated 06 June 2023

No sanctions on Israel for its occupation and annexation of Golan

No sanctions on Israel for its occupation and annexation of Golan
  • Many in the Arab countries voiced hope that Japan would apply sanctions against Israel

TOKYO: While Japan and G7 partners apply severe sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine and changing the status quo by military force, they have expressed no interest in equally applying sanctions on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

“Generally speaking, according to the international law, to unilaterally annex land which has been taken by force, is not recognized under that law,” Japanese Foreign Minister HAYASHI Yoshimasa said in response to a question by Arab News Japan.

“From this perspective, Israel’s occupation is something that we do not recognize and we have been consistent on this point with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute under the two states solution. We feel that it should be resolved between the two parties concerned,” Hayashi added.

The foreign minister was reminded of the 56th anniversary of the 1967 war in the Middle East, resulting in Israel changing the status quo of the Syrian and Palestinian borders, by annexing the Golan Heights and occupying Palestinian Territories through military force.

Many in the Arab countries voiced hope that Japan would apply sanctions against Israel in the same way they did to Russia.

Hayashi’s reply, however, suggests that changing the status quo by military force can be dealt with on a case by case principle such as by diplomacy rather than the sanctions’ approach against Russia.

“We are strongly calling upon Israel’s government to refrain from unilateral activities which change the status quo,” he urged.

Hayashi went on to say, “With regard to Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, this disturbs the international order which was developed by the efforts of the international society and we have been liaising with the international society to take a resolute action and response to this.”

Furthermore, the Japanese foreign minister noted, “With regard to relations between countries, we make a comprehensive review based on the individual situation,” thus intimating that the Israeli occupation of Palestine and annexation of the Golan Heights are not shaking the international order.


Top polluter Indonesia to phase out single-use plastic by 2030

Top polluter Indonesia to phase out single-use plastic by 2030
Updated 06 June 2023

Top polluter Indonesia to phase out single-use plastic by 2030

Top polluter Indonesia to phase out single-use plastic by 2030
  • Over 18 percent of waste produced by Indonesia is plastic
  • Bali was first Indonesian province to ban single-use plastic in 2019

JAKARTA: Indonesia, one of the world’s worst plastic polluters, is going to phase out single-use plastic products by the end of 2029, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya announced this week, as the country aims to achieve its zero-waste goals by 2040.  

Asia has been identified as the biggest contributor to ocean plastic, and Indonesia — an archipelago nation of 270 million people — is a major source country.  

Indonesia produced 68.5 million tons of waste in 2022, government data shows, more than 18 percent of which was plastic.  

Less than 10 percent of waste is recycled in Indonesia, and more than half ends up in landfills. 

“Plastic pollution is a real threat that will impact all communities across the world,” Nurbaya said in remarks issued on the occasion of World Environment Day.  

“By the end of 2029, we will phase out several types of single-use plastics.”  

This includes plastic shopping bags, plastic straws and Styrofoam items commonly used for food packaging.  

“This is a way to deal with packaging wastes that are difficult to collect, have no (economic) value, (and are) hard to recycle,” the minister said, adding that manufacturers are also mandated to reduce their use of plastic packaging by 30 percent by the end of 2029 to “push the growth of sustainable businesses and the circular economy in Indonesia.”  

The shift to a circular economy has been advocated by the UN Environment Program, which last month said countries and companies could slash plastic pollution by 80 percent in less than two decades by implementing deep policy and market changes. 

“We are heading toward sustainable waste management (and the) practices of a circular economy,” Nurbaya said. “The potential of the circular economy not only brings economic benefits for the public but is also in line with achieving the zero-waste target by 2040, and zero emissions by 2050, or sooner.”  

Indonesia has seen efforts to reduce single-use plastics, including Bali province’s 2019 ban on single-use plastic bags, straws, and Styrofoam, and a similar one enforced in the capital, Jakarta, in 2020.  

But bans alone may not be enough when the world’s fourth most populous country is lacking a proper waste management system. 

“Government commitments and policies must prioritize reduction efforts,” Muharram Atha Rasyadi, urban campaigner at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, told Arab News. 

“Sorting-based waste management is also key … so that some materials with the potential to become waste can be managed and not all of them turn into a residue that ends up in landfills.”