COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will work to boost free trade among member nations of the Indian Ocean Rim Association when it assumes chairmanship of the organization, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said on Wednesday.
The South Asian nation is set to take over the chairmanship for the 2023-25 period next month, when the group’s highest decision-making body meets in Colombo. Representatives of IORA member states, including the UAE, Oman and Yemen, are expected to attend along with its dialogue partners, such as Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the US.
“Sri Lanka would want to work with all countries in IORA, including the Middle Eastern countries, and help the organization to grow from strength to strength, learn from each other and share experiences and technical know-how, and ultimately to create a free trade arrangement among the member countries,” Sabry told Arab News.
“Our aim is to bring together these diverse countries to network and build good relationships in terms of social security, economic and maritime affairs.”
Established in 1999, the IORA has 23 members and 11 dialogue partners. It works to strengthen regional cooperation and sustainable development within the Indian Ocean region.
That region is home to about 2.7 billion people — more than a third of the world’s population — and is considered vital for global trade and energy resources, though it faces challenges, from piracy to geopolitical tensions.
Sri Lanka, which will take over the chairmanship from Bangladesh, is seeking to foster an architecture for the IORA to better tackle issues like piracy, smuggling and drug trafficking.
“Sri Lanka is committed to (maintaining) the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace,” Sabry said.
“The idea is to create a secure dialogue and diplomacy to solve differences and to build on strengths to create a better world for all.”
Trump animates California Republicans with calls to shoot people who rob stores
Trump taps into Californians' exhaustion with rising crime, which he blamed on the state's Democrats
In the past, Trump has proposed shooting migrants to prevent them from crossing the border
Updated 30 September 2023
AP
ANAHEIM, California: In an occasionally dark and profane speech, Donald Trump on Friday sought to win over Republicans in California by complaining that rich people in Beverly Hills smell bad because they’re denied water, reiterating lies about widespread election fraud and calling on police to shoot people robbing stores.
While many of his remarks at the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim were familiar retreads of Trump’s attacks and grievances, his encouragement of violent retribution against criminals marked an escalation of his longstanding tough-on-crime message.
“We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store,” he said, drawing loud applause. “Shot!” he added for emphasis.
Trump was one of several Republican presidential contenders appearing at the event in this Democratic stronghold. While there’s little hope for any of them to defeat President Joe Biden here in a general election, California will play a critical role in the slate of states voting on March 5 in the so-called Super Tuesday primaries.
With 169 delegates at stake, a win in California would move a Republican presidential candidate much closer to the nomination. And a recent rule change could give Trump, who is so far dominating the primary, an advantage. If he wins more than 50 percent of the vote, he would be awarded each of the state’s delegates.
Chinese Americans supporting former President Donald Trump stand outside the hotel where the 2023 Fall California Republican Convention is being held in Anaheim, California, on Sept. 29, 2023. (AP)
A Public Policy Institute of California voter survey released Wednesday, but conducted in late August and early September, found Trump with support from nearly half of the likely Republican primary voters. DeSantis was far back, at 14 percent, with the rest of the field lagging in single digits.
Trump’s comments on Friday underscored a central question surrounding Trump’s effort to return to the presidency. While his focus on red meat issues plays well with the GOP base, it’s unclear that it will hold much appeal with the broader set of voters needed to win a general election.
His remarks about crime, for instance, were especially pointed. In the past, Trump has proposed shooting migrants to prevent them from crossing the border. In his book and in interviews, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper alleged Trump inquired about shooting protesters during the George Floyd demonstrations. He has also proposed the death penalty for drug dealers, human traffickers and anyone convicted of killing a police officer.
During his first year in office, Trump advised police to be rougher in their handling of suspects being apprehended, telling recruits, “please don’t be too nice.”
“The word that they shoot you will get out within minutes and our nation, in one day, will be an entirely different place,” Trump said Friday. “There must be retribution for theft and destruction and the ruination of our country.”
Homicides and other violent crimes have risen in California, where residents have also been deluged with headlines from rampant car break-ins and drug use in San Francisco’s troubled Tenderloin district to street racing and illegal takeovers across a new $588-million bridge in Los Angeles.
Republicans see crime as a salient issue that can help them win back some of the suburban voters who have turned away from the party since Trump emerged as its leader and the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. Several GOP presidential candidates and others in the party have pointed in particular to events this week in Philadelphia, where dozens of people face criminal charges after a night of social media-fueled mayhem in which groups of thieves, apparently working together, smashed their way into stores in several areas of the city.
Trump tapped into California Republicans’ exhaustion with their state’s Democratic leaders, who he said brought the state homelessness, open borders, high taxes, inequality, “woke tech tyrants” and rising crime.
California was once a symbol of American prosperity and creativity but is “becoming a symbol of our nation’s decline,” Trump said.
“We will reverse the decline of America and we will end the desecration of your once great state, California,” Trump said. “This is not a great state anymore. This is a dumping ground. You’re a dumping ground. The world is being dumped into California. Prisoners. Terrorists. Mental patients.”
Trump told his supporters “help is on the way,” falsely claimed his 30-point defeats here were the result of fraud and said, improbably, that he would win California in next year’s general election. He railed against using mail ballots on the same day the Republican National Committee launched its “Bank your Vote” initiative in New York, which urges Republicans to vote before Election Day. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel brushed off Trump’s continued skepticism.
“I think we have to take those fights on, but also understand that once it gets to game day, the rules that are on the field are what we need to play by and President Trump is all in on that,” she said.
Trump was in California just two days after he bypassed the second GOP debate held at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library northwest of Los Angeles, signaling again that he sees no need to appear side-by-side with lesser-known contenders.
Crowds at state party conventions tend to be thick with conservative grassroots activists, an ideal setting for the former president, even as he faces felony charges in four criminal cases.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy were also scheduled to speak at the two-day convention being held at a hotel near Disneyland.
Waiting in line to enter the ballroom, Dan Cox, a real estate agent from Orange County and registered Republican, was sporting a “Keep America Great” cap and red tie, telegraphing his support for Trump. He lamented rising prices that have put homeownership out of the reach of many families in the state.
“I’m voting for someone who can get the job done,” he said, adding that he doesn’t trust Biden.
Not surprisingly, Democratic groups protested near the convention site.
“When the leading candidate of a major political party is under indictment for attempting to overthrow free and fair elections, every voter needs to stop and think about where our country is headed,” San Bernardino County Democratic Party Chair Kristin Washington said in a statement. “The last thing any American needs is to relive that madness.”
Kosovo welcomes a NATO decision to bolster its troops following weekend violence that left 4 dead
Serb insurgents want to turn the clock back by 30 years, but that is not going to happen, says PM Albin Kurti
Kosovo President Vlosa Osmani also hailed the NATO decision as necessary to defeat Serbian "aggression"
Updated 30 September 2023
AP
PRISTINA, Kosovo: Kosovo’s prime minister on Friday welcomed a NATO decision to bolster its troops in the volatile Balkan region, saying last weekend’s shootout that left four people dead illustrates Serbia’s attempts to destabilize its former province with the help of ally Russia.
“These people want to turn back time,” Prime Minister Albin Kurti told The Associated Press. “They are in search of a time machine. They want to turn the clock back by 30 years. But that is not going to happen.”
Kosovo police on Friday raided several locations in a Serb-dominated area of the country’s north, where weekend violence left one Kosovo police officer and three Serb insurgents dead and further strained relations between Serbia and its former province.
Kosovo police said in a statement that they were conducting searches at five locations in three municipalities. The operation was connected to a Sunday shootout between Serb insurgents and police officers in the village of Banjska in northern Kosovo.
The confrontation was one of the worst since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, with Belgrade refusing to recognize the split. NATO, which leads the KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo, announced Friday that it would beef up its presence.
“We need NATO because the border with Serbia is very long and the Serbian army has been recently strengthening its capacities and they have a lot of military equipment form both the Russian Federation and China,” Kurti said.
Pristina on Sept. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)
In a separate interview with the AP, Kosovo President Vlosa Osmani also hailed the NATO decision. Both Osmani and Kurti described the weekend violence as an “act of aggression” against Kosovo and demanded that Serbia be punished.
“We do hope that the international community will respond to this act of aggression in the proper way, first of all by condemning it, but then also, after they complete their internal procedures of confirmation of information, undertake clear measures against Serbia,” Osmani said.
Osmani referred to Serbia President Aleksandar Vučić as a “proxy” of Russia counterpart Vladimir Putin: “And it is very clear now to everyone, even to those that had any doubt, that he is playing out Russia’s plan in the Western Balkans.”
On Sunday, about 30 masked men opened fire on a police patrol near Banjska before breaking down the gates of a Serbian Orthodox monastery and barricading themselves inside with the priests and visiting pilgrims. The 12-hour shootout that followed left one police officer and three gunmen dead.
“These people who were there with masks most likely ... have contacts and communications with Russia, with the Kremlin,” Kurti said. “Wagner-like wannabes were trying to harm our police,” he said referring to the Moscow-backed paramilitary group that has been fighting in Ukraine.
“This is in violation also of the NATO presence, of NATO taking care of security and the safety of our country,” Kurti said. “The history of NATO and the history of Kosovo are intertwined.”
In Belgrade, Vučić said he had spoken on the phone with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and they “agreed that deescalation is needed” along with a greater role for KFOR.
NATO’s decision to send in more troops is “good news,” Vučić said. He reiterated Serbia’s allegations that at least one of the three Serbs killed in the violence was “liquidated” after surrendering and promised that Serbia will “prosecute the cold-blooded killers.” The insurgents, he said, are ordinary people who rebelled to “protect their homes.”
“I will not call the Serbs terrorists,” Vučić said. “I don’t care what anyone in the world thinks.”
The violence further raised tensions in the Balkan region at a time when European Union and US officials have been pushing for a deal that would normalize ties between Serbia and Kosovo. A NATO bombing campaign on Serb positions in Kosovo and Serbia led to the end of their 1998-99 war. The war left around 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians.
Serbian media reported that Kosovo police raided a hospital and a restaurant in the Serb-dominated part of the town of Mitrovica on Friday, as well as locations in other towns. The local Kossev news agency said officers confiscated several vehicles.
Kosovo accuses Serbia of direct involvement in the clashes in Banjska, which the government in Belgrade denies. Kosovo police said they had found huge quantities of weapons and equipment that suggested the insurgents had planned a wider operation. Some of the vehicles used had KFOR insignia.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many more peacekeeping troops NATO has agreed to send to Kosovo. Around 700 troops were deployed from Turkiye in June after dozens of KFOR personnel were hurt in riots in northern Kosovo. Some of them sustained life-altering injuries.
“We will always continue to make sure that our commander has the resources and flexibility necessary for KFOR to fulfill its mandate,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. “We stand ready to make further adjustments to KFOR’s posture as required.”
KFOR currently consists of around 4,500 troops from 27 NATO and partner countries. Its role is to help maintain a safe environment and ensure free movement for all people and communities in Kosovo. It operates under a UN mandate.
Part of the mission’s work has been deterring hostility or threats against Kosovo by Serb forces. KFOR has said that it closely monitored the weekend’s developments. It would only intervene if its help is requested by Kosovo authorities.
On Thursday, Kosovo’s interior minister, Xhelal Sveçla, alleged in an interview with the AP that Serbia operates training camps for insurgents and said that Kosovo authorities were also investigating Russia’s involvement in the violence.
There are fears in the West that Russia, acting through Serbia, may want to destabilize the Balkans and shift at least some of the attention from Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia has voiced support for Serbia over the clashes, blaming the West for allegedly failing to protect Kosovo Serbs.
The EU, with the backing of the US, has been brokering negotiations between the two sides. In February, Kurti and Vučić gave their approval to a 10-point EU plan for normalizing relations, but the two leaders have since distanced themselves from the agreement.
He was to be replaced as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Air Force General Charles “CQ” Brown
Updated 29 September 2023
AFP
WASHINGTON: Gen. Mark Milley stepped down on Friday after a tumultuous term as the top US military officer that saw him face repeated crises abroad and on the home front, where he served through the chaotic final months of the Trump presidency.
The Pentagon put on an elaborate farewell ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, attended by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and President Joe Biden.
He was to be replaced as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Air Force General Charles “CQ” Brown — the second African American to hold the top military job.
A barrel-chested army veteran of countless foreign deployments and high-level command posts, Milley served in uniform for four decades.
But he faced his highest-stakes challenge when Donald Trump appointed him in 2019 to the career pinnacle as senior officer reporting directly to the White House.
During a four-year term — continuing under Biden from 2021 — Milley managed the harrowing exit of US troops from Afghanistan, special forces operations in Syria, and the enormous program to assist Ukraine’s desperate fight against Russian onslaught.
As chairman, “it was one crisis right after another,” said Milley last month.
Milley’s years at the top, however, also saw the military dragged into the center of increasingly raucous cultural battles on the domestic political front.
While the Biden administration has pressed for changes including renaming bases named after Confederate leaders in the Civil War, senior Republicans have repeatedly lashed out at what they claim are “woke” leftist policies in the ranks.
And that was nothing compared to the precarious situation Milley found himself in during the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2020 presidential election — in which Trump, in an unprecedented political nightmare for the United States, refused to accept defeat.
At the height of tensions after Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Milley secretly called his Chinese counterpart to reassure Beijing that the United States remained “stable” and had no intention to attack China, according to the book “Peril,” by Bob Woodward.
That revelation has caused lasting fury for Trump, who just this month wrote on his social media network that “in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” for Milley.
The barely veiled threat from Trump — the clear frontrunner to be the Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election -— prompted Milley to take “appropriate measures” for his safety, he told CBS News.
Biden lashed out on Thursday during a speech at Trump’s “heinous statements” and attacked the “deafening” silence from Trump’s fellow Republicans on the threat.
Milley’s replacement, chosen by Biden, will become the second Black top Joint Chiefs officer after Colin Powell. Austin, meanwhile, is the country’s first Black secretary of defense.
Brown — who officially takes the reins from Milley at midnight (0400 GMT) on Saturday — was commissioned as a US Air Force officer in 1984 and is an experienced pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours, 130 of them in combat.
Brown, known to most as “CQ,” even once survived ejecting from an F-16 during training over Florida.
He has commanded a fighter squadron and two fighter wings, as well as US air forces under the Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command, and served as chief of staff of the Air Force.
Following the 2020 murder of Black man George Floyd by a white police officer in Minnesota, Brown recorded an emotional video about his personal experiences, including with discrimination in the American military.
He said he felt pressure to “perform error-free,” and worked “twice as hard” to prove wrong those who expected less of him because of his race.
Brown’s nomination was one of more than 300 stalled by a dispute over Pentagon policies that assist troops who must travel to receive reproductive health care that is unavailable where they are stationed.
A single Republican senator who opposes those efforts has been preventing lawmakers from quickly approving senior military nominees in groups, and Brown was only confirmed in time through an individual vote on his nomination.
6 women are rescued from a refrigerated truck in France after distress call to a BBC reporter
The women — four Vietnamese and two Iraqis — hid for hours in a truck loaded with boxes of bananas in northern France
One of them managed to reach a reporter with the BBC’s Vietnamese service in London who helped the women alert French police Wednesday
Updated 29 September 2023
AFP
LONDON: Six female migrants trapped inside a refrigerated food truck were rescued by French police after one of the women was able to make contact with a reporter, the BBC and French authorities said Thursday.
The women — four Vietnamese and two Iraqis — hid for hours in a truck loaded with boxes of bananas in northern France, believing the vehicle was on its way to the UK or Ireland.
When they realized that the truck was going in the wrong direction, they started to panic in the cold and cramped, dark space. One of them managed to reach a reporter with the BBC’s Vietnamese service in London who helped the women alert French police Wednesday.
French prosecutor Laetitia Francart said the truck driver, who was in fact heading for Italy, was not at fault. The women told investigators that the driver wasn’t involved, “saying that they climbed aboard the truck thinking they were going to England because of the Irish registration plates,” Francart said in a statement.
“After several hours on the road without a stop, they realized their mistake and alerted a journalist,” she added.
The BBC reporter said she didn’t know the migrants, but suggested she was contacted because of her reporting on Vietnamese migrants who suffocated in a truck four years earlier.
The broadcaster reported that the woman was able to send text messages, the truck’s GPS location and short videos showing the conditions inside the truck. The women were shown sitting in a tight space on the floor, surrounded by boxes of fruit, panicking and struggling to breathe, according to the BBC.
The truck was just 6 degrees Celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit) inside, said Francart, Villefranche-sur-Saône’s prosecutor. The women were all wearing thick coats and had no health problems, she said.
French police soon tracked them down and intercepted the truck on a highway, the broadcaster said. Francart said the driver also called police after hearing noise coming from his trailer.
The six women were detained for being in France illegally before being released. Four were given 30 days to leave the country. The other two were permitted to stay to seek asylum. Francart provided no information on how the women arrived in France.
Thousands of migrants seeking a better life in the UK attempt to cross from northern France every year, either by hiding in trucks or onboard small, unseaworthy boats across the English Channel. Many of the migrants, who hail from countries including Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, are determined to make it across to the UK from mainland Europe because they can speak English, or because they already have relatives there.
Both routes can be perilous. In 2019, 39 migrants from Vietnam who paid large sums of money to human smugglers suffocated in a truck trailer in England.
In July, a Romanian man described by British prosecutors as part of an international human smuggling ring that made huge profits exploiting migrants was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for the deaths. Four other gang members were imprisoned in 2021 for terms ranging from 13 to 27 years for manslaughter. A further 18 people were convicted in Belgium, where the Vietnamese ringleader was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government has taken an increasingly punitive approach to people who arrive by such unauthorized means.
The government has passed a controversial law calling for migrants who arrive on small boats to be detained and then deported permanently to their home nation or third countries. The only third country that has agreed to take them is Rwanda, and no one has yet been sent there because that plan is being challenged in the UK courts.
In France, authorities have taken steps to try to prevent migrants entering the country from outside Europe by beefing up its patrols of its southern border with Italy. Pope Francis has challenged French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.
Leaders of European Union’s Mediterranean nations huddle in Malta to discuss migration
The leaders of nine southern European Union countries are meeting in Malta on Friday to discuss common challenges such as migration
The huddle’s main aim is to help develop consensus among the members on major issues
Updated 29 September 2023
AP
VALLETTA: The leaders of nine southern European Union countries were meeting in Malta on Friday to discuss common challenges such as migration, the EU’s management of which has vexed national governments in Europe for years.
The nations represented at the one-day huddle included host Malta, France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Slovenia and Croatia, which have coastlines on the Adriatic Sea, were added to the so-called “Med Group” in 2021.
Two top EU officials — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel — were invited to the closed-door meeting. The leaders of the EU’s 27 nations have an informal European Council meeting scheduled for next week in Granada, Spain.
The European Union considers Portugal, which has a long sea border along the Atlantic Ocean, part of the Mediterranean grouping. Prime Minister Antonio Costa told reporters when he arrived in Malta that “we don’t have great expectations about the results” materializing from Friday’s discussions but the meeting could help “create a path” for the Granada gathering.
“Migration is one of the great issues of the future of the European Union,” Costa said. “What’s needed is” more solidarity, more responsibility and more unity.”
However, unity among EU members on migration has been elusive, as witnessed in Brussels during a Thursday meeting of interior ministers, who are tasked with enforcing individual nations’ rules within the broader contours of EU regulations.
Italy, for example, which now receives by far the largest number of migrants arriving via the Mediterranean Sea, has pushed in vain for fellow EU nations to show solidarity by accepting more of the tens of thousands of people who reach Italian shores.
Many of the migrants are rescued by military boats, humanitarian vessels or merchant ships plying the waters crossed by migrant smugglers’ unseaworthy boats launched mainly from Tunisia, Libya, Turkiye and elsewhere. Earlier this month, some 8,000 migrants stepped ashore on Lampedusa, a tiny Italian fishing island, in barely 48 hours, overwhelming the tourist destination.
The relentless arrivals, which slow only when seas are rough, have put political pressure on one of the Malta summit’s attendees — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. She came to power a year ago after campaining on a pledge to stop illegal migration, including with a naval blockade, if necessary.
Under current EU rules, the nation where asylum-seekers arrive must shelter there while their applications are processed. In Italy’s case, the majority of migrants arriving by sea from Africa and Asian countries are fleeing poverty, not war or persecution, and aren’t eligible for asylum.
But because Italy has so few repatriation agreements with home countries, it is stymied in sending unsuccessful applicants back. Many migrants slip out of Italy and into northern Europe, their ultimate destination, in hopes of finding family or work.
Little progress has been made on a new EU pact as the member states bicker over which country should take charge of migrants when they arrive and whether other countries should be obligated to help.
Three years after unveiling a plan for sweeping reform of the European Union’s outdated asylum rules, such squabbling fuels doubt as to whether an overhaul will ever become reality.
While heads of government or state represented most countries at Friday’s summit, Spain sent its acting foreign minister because Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was involved in discussions at home on forming a new government.
While the talks in Malta were heavily concentrated on migration, other common challenges, including climate change, economic growth and continued EU support for Ukraine as it defends itself from Russia’s February 2022 invasion were also on the agenda.
