Hard-right Reform UK’s patchwork candidates face scrutiny

Hard-right Reform UK’s patchwork candidates face scrutiny
Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage leaves after delivering a speech, in central London, on June 14, 2024, following the publication of an opinion poll ahead of the UK general election of July 4. (AFP)
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Updated 15 June 2024
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Hard-right Reform UK’s patchwork candidates face scrutiny

Hard-right Reform UK’s patchwork candidates face scrutiny
  • The veteran pro-Brexit populist has claimed that Reform is “now the real opposition” to predicted general election winners Labour
  • YouGov may be the only pollster so far to show a lead for Reform over the Tories

LONDON: As Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party registers gains in British opinion polls, its candidates are coming under greater scrutiny, with several accused of making racist and misogynistic comments.
The veteran pro-Brexit populist has claimed that Reform is “now the real opposition” to predicted general election winners Labour, after a single YouGov poll published on Thursday put them a point ahead of the ruling Conservatives.
YouGov may be the only pollster so far to show a lead for Reform over the Tories but the hard-right party stands to gain from the support of right-wing voters disgruntled with 14 years of Conservative rule.
Earlier this year, Reform was polling in single digits.
It only obtained its first MP in March, when former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson defected to Reform after being reprimanded by the Conservatives.
He was sanctioned after refusing to apologize for falsely claiming that London mayor Sadiq Khan was “controlled by Islamists.”
Reform now has some 609 general election candidates — nearly double the number from 2019, when it was known as the Brexit Party.
According to Hope Not Hate, which campaigns against racism and fascism, Reform has ditched 166 candidates this year, with many having to be dropped for making offensive or racist comments.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s snap election call last month left Reform rushing to find nominees before final nominations were due last week — following its pledge to run in all of the country’s 650 constituencies.
“The real danger lies in the haphazard approach of the party to candidate recruitment and vetting,” said Georgie Laming, director of campaigns at Hope Not Hate.
One candidate was dropped in April for being “inactive” but the party had to apologize when it later transpired that he had in fact died.
“Time and time again, Reform UK candidates are exposed for racism and extremism,” Laming said.
Farage admitted on Thursday that the party had failed to fully vet all its candidates.
“Don’t forget, I’ve come in right at the last minute. We have not had time to do full vetting of candidates,” said Farage in an interview with LBC radio.
Farage is standing in the seaside resort of Clacton in eastern England after previously ruling out a bid to seek election.
The party had earlier conceded it was fielding some “paper” candidates, with Reform chair Richard Tice saying the “press and scrutineers” were doing the vetting for them.
In the week since final candidate lists were published, the party has dropped at least two candidates over revelations of racism.
One used slurs against black people, among other offensive comments found by the Times newspaper.
Another liked an Islamophobic post calling London mayor Khan an “undercover jihadist.”
Since then, dozens of accusations have been made against other Reform candidates still running for seats in Westminster.
One apologized after the BBC revealed he had posted online claiming that Britain would be better off if it had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality,” and another calling women the “sponging gender.”
Reform defended the comments, with one spokesman saying they were “written with an eye to inconvenient perspectives and truths.”
Multiple candidates who are still running have liked and retweeted posts supporting Enoch Powell, a firebrand right-wing politician in the 1960s who stoked fears of racial war if immigration went unchecked.
One candidate was found by LBC comparing “Islam and Nazis” as being “the same.”
Another retweeted a post saying Labour leader Keir Starmer was “owned by Muslims.”
Others have, like the party’s leadership, voiced climate change skeptic views.
One candidate’s biography on the Reform website called net zero a “dangerous false ideology” and cited UAE and Russia’s questioning of the “science of climate change.”
Farage, who wants the vote to be an “immigration election,” has been accused of dog-whistle politics himself.
He said UK-born Sunak — Britain’s first prime minister of color and of Asian heritage — did not understand “our culture.”


UN estimates 1,400 killed in Bangladesh protests that toppled ex-PM Hasina

UN estimates 1,400 killed in Bangladesh protests that toppled ex-PM Hasina
Updated 13 sec ago
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UN estimates 1,400 killed in Bangladesh protests that toppled ex-PM Hasina

UN estimates 1,400 killed in Bangladesh protests that toppled ex-PM Hasina
  • Actual number of casualties at least double initial assessment by UN investigators
  • Special tribunal in Dhaka to rely on findings in proceedings against former government

DHAKA: At least 1,400 people were killed in Bangladesh during student-led protests last year with the majority shot dead by military rifles, the UN’s human rights office has said in its latest report investigating the events leading up to the ousting of the country’s long-serving prime minister.

The initially peaceful demonstrations, triggered by the reinstatement of a quota system for the allocation of civil service positions, began in early July. Two weeks later they were met with a violent crackdown by security forces and a communications blackout.

In early August, as protesters defied nationwide curfew orders and stormed government buildings, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country, ending 15 years in power for her Awami League party-led government.

The new interim administration, led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, has pledged to cooperate with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to ensure justice and accountability for all violence committed during the month-long uprising.

UN investigators arrived in Bangladesh in late August and, on Wednesday, released their first fact-finding report.

“OHCHR assesses that as many as 1,400 people could have been killed during the protests, the vast majority of whom were killed by military rifles and shotguns loaded with lethal metal pellets commonly used by Bangladesh’s security forces,” read the document.

“Thousands more suffered severe, often life-altering, injuries. More than 11,700 people were arrested and detained, according to information from the police and RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) provided to OHCHR.”

More than three-quarters of all deaths were caused by firearms “typically wielded by state security forces and not readily available to civilians in Bangladesh.”

The number of casualties is at least double the initial assessment by investigators, who also indicated that around 3 percent of those killed were children subjected to “targeted killings, deliberate maiming, arbitrary arrest, detention in inhumane conditions, torture and other forms of ill-treatment.”

The UN’s human rights office has concluded that between July 15 and Aug. 5, 2024, the former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with “violent elements” linked to the Awami League, “engaged systematically in serious human rights violations and abuses in a coordinated effort to suppress the protest movement.”

A special tribunal in Dhaka, which in October issued arrest warrants for Hasina and her cabinet and began trial procedures in cases related to the killings, said it would rely on the OHCHR’s findings and recommendations in its proceedings.

“It will facilitate the ongoing trial in the International Crimes Tribunal. The information we have received through the investigation aligns with the UN report, which will also validate our findings. This will add credibility to the results of our investigation,” the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Tajul Islam, told Arab News on Thursday.

Established in 2010 during Hasina’s rule, the International Crimes Tribunal is a domestic court tasked with dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The most important takeaway of the report is that identifies the ousted prime minister and her government as the “responsible authority” behind the rights abuses, Islam said.

“The report clearly identified the attacks as widespread and systematic, targeting students and civilians. Sheikh Hasina and her administration were the primary orchestrators of these attacks, utilizing all of the state’s security and law enforcement ... Since it (the probe) was conducted by the UN, it has a neutral character.”


Several injured after car drives into crowd of people in Munich

Several injured after car drives into crowd of people in Munich
Updated 45 min 3 sec ago
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Several injured after car drives into crowd of people in Munich

Several injured after car drives into crowd of people in Munich
  • Incident appeared to have affected people participating in a demonstration linked to a strike organized by the Verdi union
  • Security has been in sharp focus in Germany ahead of a federal election next week and following a string of violent attacks

BERLIN: A car drove into a crowd in Munich on Thursday injuring several people, police said, as the southern German city prepares for a top-level security conference due to be attended by US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Bild newspaper reported that 15 people were injured.
The Munich Security Conference is to start on Friday and senior officials, including Vance and Zelensky, were arriving later on Thursday.
A large-scale police operation was underway near the central train station.
Police said on X they were able to detain the driver and did not consider him to pose any further threat.
“One person is lying on the street and a young man has been taken away by the police. People are sitting on the ground, crying and trembling,” a reporter for the local BR broadcaster wrote in a post on X.
The incident appeared to have affected people participating in a demonstration linked to a strike organized by the Verdi union, according to the broadcaster.
The union said it did not have any information on the incident.
The incident occurred around 1.5 kilometers from the security conference venue.
Security has been in sharp focus in Germany ahead of a federal election next week and following a string of violent attacks.


Western tour operators enter North Korea for first time since pandemic

Western tour operators enter North Korea for first time since pandemic
Updated 13 February 2025
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Western tour operators enter North Korea for first time since pandemic

Western tour operators enter North Korea for first time since pandemic
  • Beijing-based Koryo Tours wrote on its website on Thursday that ‘staff crossed the border in the early hours of this morning’
  • Another travel agency, Young Pioneer Tours, also uploaded a picture of a passport with a North Korean border stamp

SEOUL: Western tour agencies entered North Korea for the first time on Thursday since the end of the pandemic, the companies said, voicing hopes the isolated country may soon reopen a border city to foreign visitors.
In January, travel agencies said the North would reopen the border city of Rason to foreign tourists, five years after Pyongyang sealed its frontiers in response to COVID-19.
Neither North Korea nor China have commented on the plans.
The Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which offers mainly Western tourists a glimpse into the secretive nation, wrote on its website on Thursday that “staff crossed the border in the early hours of this morning.”
“We’re happy to finally enter North Korea,” the travel agency wrote in a blog.
“The country is not yet fully open to tourism and this is a special trip for staff only.”
But they hope to confirm the opening of Rason to tourism in “the coming days.”
Another travel agency, Young Pioneer Tours, also uploaded a picture of a passport with a North Korean border stamp, declaring they were “first to be back in five years.”
Koryo Tours last week said that they had opened bookings for “the first trip back to North Korea since the borders closed in January 2020.”
The company said then that it hoped the tour would take place in February.
Itineraries included visiting “must-see” sites in Rason and a chance to “travel to North Korea to celebrate one of the biggest holidays, Kim Jong Il’s Birthday,” the agency wrote on its website.
The birthday of former ruler Kim Jong Il — father of current leader Kim Jong Un — is marked as Day of the Shining Star on February 16, and typically features large-scale public celebrations, including military parades.
The tours were slated to start in China, with guests to be driven to the border with the nuclear-armed North.
Young Pioneer Tours also began taking advanced bookings for Rason tour packages in January.
Rason became North Korea’s first special economic zone in 1991 and has been a testing ground for new economic policies.
It is home to North Korea’s first legal marketplace and has a separate visa regime from the rest of the country.
Tourism to the North was limited before the pandemic, with tour companies saying around 5,000 Western tourists visited each year.
Americans were banned from traveling to the North after the imprisonment and subsequent death of student Otto Warmbier in 2017.


Modi, Trump to meet today as India seeks to ease tensions over tariffs, immigration

Modi, Trump to meet today as India seeks to ease tensions over tariffs, immigration
Updated 13 February 2025
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Modi, Trump to meet today as India seeks to ease tensions over tariffs, immigration

Modi, Trump to meet today as India seeks to ease tensions over tariffs, immigration
  • Modi is the fourth leader to visit Trump since his return, following Israeli and Japanese PMs, king of Jordan
  • Trump may visit India this year for a scheduled summit of the Quad that includes Australia, India and Japan

WASHINGTON: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will try to rekindle his bromance with Donald Trump — and avoid the US president’s wrath on tariffs and immigration — when they meet on Thursday at the White House.
Modi will also hold a joint press conference with Trump, the White House said — a rare move from the Indian leader, who is a prolific social media user but seldom takes questions from reporters.
The latest in a series of foreign leaders beating an early path to the Oval Office door since the Republican’s return to power, Modi shared good relations with Trump during his first term.
The premier has offered quick tariff concessions ahead of his visit, with New Delhi slashing duties on high-end motorcycles — a boost to Harley-Davidson, the iconic American manufacturer whose struggles in India have irked Trump.
India also accepted a US military flight carrying 100 shackled migrants last week as part of Trump’s immigration overhaul, and New Delhi has vowed its own “strong crackdown” on illegal migration.
India’s top career diplomat Vikram Misri said last week that there had been a “very close rapport” between the leaders, although their ties have so far failed to bring a breakthrough on a long-sought bilateral trade deal.
Modi was among the first to congratulate “good friend” Trump after his November election win.
For nearly three decades, US presidents from both parties have prioritized building ties with India, seeing a natural partner against a rising China.
But Trump has also raged against India over trade, the biggest foreign policy preoccupation of his new term, in the past calling the world’s fifth-largest economy the “biggest tariff abuser.”
Former property tycoon Trump has unapologetically weaponized tariffs against friends and foes since his return.
Modi “has prepared for this, and he is seeking to preempt Trump's anger,” said Lisa Curtis, the National Security Council director on South Asia during Trump’s first term.
The Indian premier’s Hindu-nationalist government has meanwhile obliged Trump on another top priority: deporting undocumented immigrants.
While public attention has focused on Latin American arrivals, India is the third source of undocumented immigrants in the United States after Mexico and El Salvador.
Indian activists burned an effigy of Trump last week after the migrants on the US plane were flown back in shackles the whole journey, while the opposition accused Modi of weakness.
One thing Modi is likely to avoid, however, is any focus on his record on the rights of Muslims and other minorities.
Trump is unlikely to highlight an issue on which former president Joe Biden's administration offered gentle critiques.
Modi is the fourth world leader to visit Trump since his return, following the prime ministers of Israel and Japan and the king of Jordan.
Modi assiduously courted Trump during his first term. The two share much in common, with both campaigning on promises to promote the interests of their countries' majority communities over minorities and both doggedly pursuing critics.
In February 2020, Modi invited Trump before a cheering crowd of more than 100,000 people to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in his home state of Gujarat.
Trump could visit India later this year for a scheduled summit of the Quad — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.


Suicide bomber sets off explosion near Kabul government offices, Interior Ministry says

Suicide bomber sets off explosion near Kabul government offices, Interior Ministry says
Updated 13 February 2025
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Suicide bomber sets off explosion near Kabul government offices, Interior Ministry says

Suicide bomber sets off explosion near Kabul government offices, Interior Ministry says
  • Casualties have been reported, but details were not yet available
KARACHI: An explosion occurred near government offices in Kabul on Tuesday, Abdul Matin Qani, spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, said.
Qani confirmed the explosion to Reuters, adding that a suicide bomber had detonated his explosives before reaching the target, adding that casualties have been reported, but details were not yet available.