First US Abrams tanks to reach Ukraine ‘next week:’ Biden

First US Abrams tanks to reach Ukraine ‘next week:’ Biden
US Army Abrams tanks of the 2nd Brigade 69th Regiment 2nd Battalion are pictured at Mockava railway station in Lithuania, on September 5, 2020. (AFP/File)
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Updated 22 September 2023
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First US Abrams tanks to reach Ukraine ‘next week:’ Biden

First US Abrams tanks to reach Ukraine ‘next week:’ Biden
  • Biden also said he had “approved the next tranche of security assistance for Ukraine,” which the Pentagon later valued at $325 million

WASHINGTON: The first US M1 Abrams tanks will arrive in Ukraine “next week,” US President Joe Biden said Thursday, boosting Kyiv’s forces as they battle Russian troops in a slow-moving counteroffensive.

“Next week, the first US Abrams tanks will be delivered in Ukraine,” Biden said at the White House, alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who is on his second visit to the United States since Russia invaded his country in February 2022.

Biden also said he had “approved the next tranche of security assistance for Ukraine,” which the Pentagon later valued at $325 million.

It includes air defense missiles, ammunition for HIMARS precision rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, and artillery rounds.

But the package does not feature the long-range ATACMS missiles that Kyiv has repeatedly requested.

It does include 155mm rounds that contain cluster munitions, which Washington first agreed to provide to Ukraine in July despite concerns over the long-term risk posed to civilians by bomblets that fail to explode.

The United States said it has received assurances from Kyiv that it would minimize the risk the weapons pose to civilians, including by not using the munitions in populated areas.

Washington had promised the 31 Abrams tanks to Kyiv at the start of the year, part of more than $43 billion in security assistance pledged by the United States over the past 18 months.

The tanks will be paired with 120mm armor-piercing depleted uranium rounds.

Such munitions are controversial due to their association with health problems, such as cancer and birth defects, in areas where they were used in past conflicts, although they have not been definitively proven to have caused them.

The decision to provide Abrams tanks to Ukraine represented a U-turn as American defense officials had repeatedly said they were ill-suited for Kyiv’s forces due to their complexity.


US vetoes Security Council resolution calling for Gaza cease-fire

US vetoes Security Council resolution calling for Gaza cease-fire
Updated 14 sec ago
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US vetoes Security Council resolution calling for Gaza cease-fire

US vetoes Security Council resolution calling for Gaza cease-fire
  • Washington wielding its veto dashes a growing clamor for an immediate cease-fire that had been led by UN Chief Antonio Guterres and Arab nations
  • “The United Arab Emirates is deeply disappointed,” said the representative of the UAE who had sponsored the resolution calling for a cease-fire

UNITED NATIONS: The United States on Friday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate cease-fire in the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Washington wielding its veto dashes a growing clamor for an immediate cease-fire that had been led by UN Chief Antonio Guterres and Arab nations.
Guterres had convened an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after weeks of fighting left more than 17,487 people dead in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
“The United Arab Emirates is deeply disappointed,” said the representative of the UAE who had sponsored the resolution calling for a cease-fire.
“Regrettably... this council is unable to demand a humanitarian cease-fire.”
Washington defended its veto, and attacked the resolution’s sponsors, criticizing them for rushing it through and leaving the call for an unconditional cease-fire unchanged.
“This resolution still contains a call for an unconditional cease-fire... it would leave Hamas in place able to repeat what it did on October 7,” said US deputy UN representative Robert Wood.
As a permanent Security Council member, Washington can veto any resolution, while Britain, also a member, abstained on the vote.
Ahead of the vote, Guterres had said that “the brutality perpetrated by Hamas can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Vowing to destroy the Islamist movement, Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza and sent in tanks and ground troops since the war began on October 7 with unprecedented attacks by Hamas on southern Israel.
Those attacks left 1,200 people dead, Israel says.
Earlier this week, Israel called on the UN to investigate one aspect of the attack — alleged sexual violence by Hamas fighters against Israeli women.”
“I unreservedly condemn those attacks. I am appalled by the reports of sexual violence,” Guterres said ahead of the vote.
“There is no possible justification for deliberately killing some 1,200 people, including 33 children, injuring thousands more, and taking hundreds of hostages.”
Guterres deployed rarely-used Article 99 of the UN Charter to bring to the council’s attention “any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
No one in his job had done this in decades.
Guterres had sought a “humanitarian cease-fire” to prevent “a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians” and the entire Middle East.
After the US vetoed the resolution, Wood said it was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground.”
Medecins Sans Frontiers said that Security Council inaction made the body “complicit in the ongoing slaughter.”
Several previous attempts to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire were vetoed.
Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to a wasteland. The United Nations says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, facing shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine, along with the threat of disease.
“International humanitarian law includes the duty to protect civilians,” Guterres said.


Muslim candidate for US Congress says Americans want to see humanity in responses to Gaza war

Muslim candidate for US Congress says Americans want to see humanity in responses to Gaza war
Updated 1 min 6 sec ago
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Muslim candidate for US Congress says Americans want to see humanity in responses to Gaza war

Muslim candidate for US Congress says Americans want to see humanity in responses to Gaza war
  • Mahnoor Ahmad accuses her opponent in the Democratic primary election, incumbent Sean Casten, of being ‘unresponsive’ to Arab and Muslim concerns
  • She says she wants to ensure all residents of her district in Illinois — Christians, Muslims and Jews — are equally represented and their concerns addressed

CHICAGO: Mahnoor Ahmad, a Muslim candidate for US Congress, said the need for “more humanity” in the response to Israel’s war on Gaza is a key issue in her campaign.

She told Arab News she is hearing more and more Americans say they want a ceasefire in Gaza, that this has nothing to do with their politics, and that innocent people are being victimized “by the worst of humanity.”

She is not afraid to say what needs to be said to help achieve peace and end the violence, she added, and accused her opponent in the Democratic Party primary election for Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, due to take place on March 19 next year, of being unwilling to do the same.

“We can’t just turn away,” Ahmad said. “It has become internationally embarrassing to do that. Every part of the world is rising up and turning against what Israel’s government is doing. We cannot go on like this. It is unsustainable to be with the status quo right now. Nothing good can come out of this.

“That is something we need to address as human beings. This is a human rights issue. This is nothing about Jewish or Muslim, or Palestine or Israel. This is nothing to do with that any more. It has gone far beyond that. This is an issue that needs to be addressed peacefully.

“And as America, a country of democracy, we should be the ones who initiate that. We should be the ones saying that we are the ones that represent peace. We are a true democratic state and we will not take part in the continuing bombardment of children or women.”

Describing the images of the violence against Palestinians and Israelis since the conflict began on Oct. 7 as “horrific” she said: “Is that the plan, to keep on bombarding these children, these women? More than half, two-thirds of these are children.”

Ahmad rejected any suggestion that she is anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas or opposes peace. The 6th Congressional District, which she hopes to serve in the House of Representatives, has one of the largest concentrations of Arabs and Muslims in the country, she said, and they deserve proper representation.

Ahmad’s family moved to the US when she was 7 years old, and she graduated with a masters degree in health from Purdue University. Her father is Pakistani and her late mother was an Arab.

Her opponent in the Democratic primary, incumbent Sean Casten, supported House Resolution 888, which affirms “Israel’s right to exist” and conflates criticism of the Israeli state with a form of antisemitism. The resolution excluded any reference to Palestinian, Arab or Muslim rights. He did support calls for a “pause” in Israel’s military campaign targeting Hamas in Gaza, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 16,000 people, including about 6,000 women and children, according to Palestinian authorities.

Ahmad said that by ignoring the suffering of “all of the civilians,” Israeli and Palestinian, Casten is out of touch with his district’s residents and with “humanity.”

She also accused him of being “unresponsive” to the concerns of his constituent on other issues closer to home, including high healthcare costs.

Ahmad said her goal is to ensure that “every person of every race, religion and ethnicity” can come to her office and is free to speak out about the need for more humanity when dealing with a range of issues.

“I am 100 percent generated by the people, especially by the people of the district, by refusing to take money from corporations and being completely dedicated to the people, who I have to listen to,” she said. “(The corporations are) not who you should have to listen to.

“When we are elected, we represent the people and when you represent the people it has to be through and through: everyone, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or national origin. I will speak to and listen to everyone in the district.

"I grew up in this area. This is home for me. This is my district, these are my people. They are not just voters to me, these are actual people that I have connected deeply with.”

Ahmad said that while the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the killing of civilians there is currently a major concern, as a prospective member of Congress she is also very concerned about local and international issues including crime, healthcare, the economy, and the environment and climate change.

Healthcare in particular is a major issue that has yet to be fully addressed in the 6th District or nationwide, she added, and it must be more affordable for all residents, especially senior citizens, because currently the costs medicine and treatment are often out of the reach of many Americans.

“People can’t afford that,” she said. “Elderly people can’t afford dental care, which can cost thousands per month. There are elderly people who experience pain and can’t go to pain management and rely on pain-management medication … these are severe issues in our district and we need to be more aggressive in addressing and changing them.”

There is a “health crisis” in America, Ahmad said, adding: “Congress should be approving legislation, not blocking laws that could expand healthcare to citizens who are facing a healthcare crisis … we need to elect people whose hands are not tied to (health industry) corporations or anything like that, and are voting no against all the right legislation, so that we can do something about this health crisis.”

Casten has helped to block legislation that could expand access to affordable healthcare, she added.

Ahmad also supports changes to the law designed to prevent the “double taxation” of social security payments to the elderly, which she said Casten has not backed.

She said older people are “frustrated” by the failure of Congress to fully address their concerns and added: “We have to treasure our senior citizens. They are our parents. We have to keep them safe. They are a vulnerable community.”


Six French teens convicted over their roles in an extremist’s killing of a teacher

Six French teens convicted over their roles in an extremist’s killing of a teacher
Updated 08 December 2023
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Six French teens convicted over their roles in an extremist’s killing of a teacher

Six French teens convicted over their roles in an extremist’s killing of a teacher
  • The court found five of the defendants, who were 14 and 15 at the time of the attack, guilty of staking out the teacher and identifying him for the attacker
  • The teenagers — all students at Paty’s school — testified that they didn’t know the teacher would be killed

PARIS: A French juvenile court on Friday convicted six teenagers for their roles in the beheading of a teacher by an extremist that shocked the country.
Teacher Samuel Paty was killed outside his school in 2020 after showing his class cartoons of the prophet of Islam during a debate on free expression. The attacker, a young Chechen who had radicalized, was killed by police.
The court found five of the defendants, who were 14 and 15 at the time of the attack, guilty of staking out the teacher and identifying him for the attacker. Another defendant, 13 at the time, was found guilty of lying about the classroom debate in a comment that aggravated online anger against the teacher.
The teenagers — all students at Paty’s school — testified that they didn’t know the teacher would be killed. All were handed brief or suspended prison terms, and required to stay in school or jobs during the duration of their suspended terms with regular medical checkups.
They left the courtroom without speaking. Some had their heads down as they listened to the verdicts. One appeared to wipe tears.
Paty’s name was disclosed on social media after a class debate on free expression during which he showed prophet caricatures published by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The publication had triggered a deadly extremist massacre in the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in 2015.
Paty, a history and geography teacher, was killed on Oct. 16, 2020, near his school in a Paris suburb by attacker Abdoullakh Anzorov.
The five who identified Paty to the attacker were convicted of involvement in a group preparing aggravated violence.
The sixth defendant wrongly claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to raise their hands and leave the classroom before he showed the class the prophet cartoons. She was not in the classroom that day, and later told investigators she had lied. She was convicted of making false allegations.
Her father shared the lie in an online video that called for mobilization against the teacher. He and a radical activist who helped disseminate virulent messages against Paty are among eight adults who will face a separate trial for adults suspected of involvement in the killing, expected late next year.
The trial was held behind closed doors, and the media are not allowed to disclose the defendants’ identities according to French law regarding minors.
The proceedings come weeks after a teacher was fatally stabbed and three other people injured in northern France in October in a school attack by a former student suspected of radicalization. That killing occurred in a context of global tensions over the Israel-Hamas war and led French authorities to deploy 7,000 additional soldiers across the country to bolster security and vigilance.


Griffiths sees ‘promising signs’ of Gaza aid access via Israel

Griffiths sees ‘promising signs’ of Gaza aid access via Israel
Updated 08 December 2023
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Griffiths sees ‘promising signs’ of Gaza aid access via Israel

Griffiths sees ‘promising signs’ of Gaza aid access via Israel
  • An Israeli siege has seen only limited supplies of food, water, fuel, and medicines enter the Gaza Strip, triggering dire shortages

GENEVA: UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said he saw promising signs that a major crossing from Israel into Gaza might be opened soon to allow in aid.
The Kerem Shalom checkpoint was responsible for 60 percent of goods getting into the besieged Palestinian territory before Oct. 7 and the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Griffiths said that in recent days, there had been signs that Israel and Egypt have become much more open to the idea of gradually reopening Kerem Shalom.
The crossing sits on the triple border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt.
“We’re still negotiating, and with some promising signs at the moment” that access through Kerem Shalom would soon be possible, Griffiths said in Geneva.
But Israel poured cold water on the idea of fully reopening the crossing, telling AFP following Griffiths’s comments that it would only allow aid truck inspections before directing supplies toward the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
“We will allow a security check of humanitarian aid trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing, but not trucks crossing to Gaza,” said a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, COGAT.
An Israeli siege has seen only limited supplies of food, water, fuel, and medicines enter the Gaza Strip, triggering dire shortages.
The Rafah border crossing with Egypt is the only one currently open for aid to flow into Gaza.
“We have been arguing for the opening of Kerem Shalom... to go straight through Kerem Shalom up into the northern parts of Gaza, or wherever the need is greatest,” Griffiths said.
“If we get that, it will be the first miracle we’ve seen for some weeks, but it will be a huge boost to the logistical process ... it would change the nature of humanitarian access.”
Griffiths added that there were also discussions on the possibility of driving aid to the Gaza Strip from Jordan via the Allenby Bridge crossing into the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
A representative in Jordan was “already lining up the potential deliveries of aid by land... from Jordan over the Allenby Bridge, straight to Kerem Shalom,” he said.
On the situation inside the Gaza Strip, Griffiths said the territory was being stalked by hunger and deprivation.
“There are two horsemen of the apocalypse in Gaza today: Conflict, of course, but also disease, and that will only get worse as we are unable to sustain any supplies to hospitals,” he said.
“The pointers are going in the wrong direction — all of them.”
Griffiths said southern Gaza had been the cornerstone of international humanitarian plans to protect civilians and administer aid to them.
But now, “without places of safety, that plan is in tatters,” he said, calling the current circumstances, “at best, humanitarian opportunism.”
“It’s erratic, it’s undependable, and frankly, it’s not sustainable.”
The British diplomat said there was no sense of clarity, planning, or what the coming days may bring.
“None of us can see where this will end,” he said.

 


Hundreds still stranded, plants closed in India’s flood-hit Chennai

A woman along with her belongings, wades through a flooded street after heavy rains in Chennai on December 6, 2023. (AFP)
A woman along with her belongings, wades through a flooded street after heavy rains in Chennai on December 6, 2023. (AFP)
Updated 08 December 2023
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Hundreds still stranded, plants closed in India’s flood-hit Chennai

A woman along with her belongings, wades through a flooded street after heavy rains in Chennai on December 6, 2023. (AFP)
  • The larger Chennai area is home to the Indian units of several global firms including Hyundai Motor, Daimler and Taiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron which do contract manufacturing for Apple

CHENNAI: Volunteers waded through stagnant water to hand out food and supplies, and some manufacturing plants remained shut in India’s southern tech-and-auto hub district of Chennai on Friday, four days after cyclone Michaung lashed the coast.
At least 14 people, most of them in Chennai and its state of Tamil Nadu, have died in the flooding, triggered by torrential rains that started on Monday.
The cyclone itself made landfall further north in Andhra Pradesh state on Tuesday afternoon.
Authorities said some low-lying areas of the state were still inundated and government officials and volunteers were taking supplies to people stuck in their homes in slums and other areas.
The larger Chennai area is home to the Indian units of several global firms including Hyundai Motor, Daimler and Taiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron which do contract manufacturing for Apple.

FASTFACT

The larger Chennai area is home to the Indian units of several global firms including Hyundai Motor, Daimler and Taiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron which do contract manufacturing for Apple.

While many of them including Pegatron and Foxconn resumed operations within a day or two of the cyclone making landfall, some plants of the TVS group located in the worst-affected areas are yet to open, industry sources said.
Adani Krishnapatnam Port in Andhra Pradesh, said on Friday the cyclone had “very badly affected” its operations and it was declaring a force majeure period starting Dec. 3.
Force majeure is a notice used to describe events outside a company’s control, such as a natural disaster, which usually releases it from contractual obligation without penalty.
State-run Madras Fertilizers notified stock exchanges that its Chennai plant has been shut and is tentatively expected to resume operations within two to four weeks.

INFRASTRUCTURE QUESTIONED
Information technology (IT) services providers told staff to work from home for the week, while schools and colleges closed. A few schools and colleges were converted into temporary shelters.
This week’s floods in Chennai brought back memories of the extensive damage caused by floods eight years ago which killed around 290 people.
In Andhra Pradesh, the damage from the cyclone was relatively contained, with roads damaged and trees uprooted as big waves crashed into the coast.
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh visited Chennai on Thursday and announced New Delhi will release a second instalment of 4.5 billion rupees ($54 million) to Tamil Nadu to help manage the damage. The federal government has also approved a 5.6 billion-rupee project for flood management in Chennai, he said.
Chennai residents questioned the ability of the city’s infrastructure to handle extreme weather.
“Not only has urbanization itself caused a problem, but the nature of the urbanization has preyed upon open spaces, holding areas like marshlands and flood plains,” social activist Nityanand Jayaraman said.
Experts have, however, said better stormwater drainage systems would not have been able to prevent the flooding caused by very heavy and extremely heavy rains.
“This solution would have helped a lot in moderate and heavy rainfall, but not in very heavy and extremely heavy rains,” Raj Bhagat P, a civil engineer and geo-analytics expert, said on Wednesday.