Biden, Starmer put off Ukraine missiles decision

Biden, Starmer put off Ukraine missiles decision
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, second right, during a meeting with US President Joe Biden, centre left, in the Blue Room at the White House in Washington, Friday Sept. 13, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 14 September 2024
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Biden, Starmer put off Ukraine missiles decision

Biden, Starmer put off Ukraine missiles decision

WASHINGTON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Joe Biden on Friday delayed a decision to let Ukraine fire long-range Western-supplied missiles into Russia, a plan that sparked dire threats from Moscow of a war with NATO.
Starmer told reporters at the White House that he had a “wide-ranging discussion about strategy” with Biden but that it “wasn’t a meeting about a particular capability.”
Before the meeting officials had said Starmer would press Biden to back his plan to send British Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine to hit deeper inside Russia as allies become increasingly concerned about the battlefield situation.
But the Labour leader indicated that he and Biden would now discuss the plan at the UN General Assembly in New York the week after next “with a wider group of individuals.”
As they met with their teams across a long table in the White House, backed by US and British flags, Biden played down a warning by Russian President Vladimir Putin that allowing Ukraine to fire the weapons would mean the West was “at war” with Russia.
“I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden told reporters when asked about the comments.

But while Biden said it was “clear that Putin will not prevail in this war,” he is understood to be reluctant to grant Ukraine’s insistent demand to be able to use long-range US-made ATACMS missiles against Russian territory.
US officials believe the missiles would make a limited difference to Ukraine’s campaign and also want to ensure that Washington’s own stocks of the munitions are not depleted.
The two leaders said they also discussed the war in Gaza, with Britain having recently suspended arms deliveries to Israel over concerns that they could be used to violate international humanitarian law.
The US, Israel’s main military and diplomatic backer, has held off such a step.
Biden and Starmer agreed on their “ironclad commitment” to Israel — but stressed the “urgent need” for a ceasefire deal and a “need for Israel to do more to protect civilians” in Gaza, the White House said in a readout.
The White House had earlier played down the chances of a Ukraine decision coming from Friday’s visit by Starmer, the Labour leader’s second to the White House since he took office in July.
“I wouldn’t expect any major announcement in that regard coming out of the discussions, certainly not from our side,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky however pushed Kyiv’s Western allies to do more.
Speaking in Kyiv, Zelensky accusing the West of being “afraid” to even help Ukraine shoot down incoming missiles as it has done with Israel.
Zelensky added that he will meet Biden “this month” to present his “victory plan” on how to end two and a half years of war with Russia.
Russia has reacted angrily to the prospect of the West supplying long-range weapons to the country it invaded in February 2022.
In another sign of increasing tensions, Russia revoked the credentials of six British diplomats whom it accused of spying in what London termed “baseless” allegations.
Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia warned separately that letting Ukraine use long-range weapons would plunge NATO into “direct war with... a nuclear power.”
Ukraine and the United States’s allies are all meanwhile anxiously waiting for the result of a tense US presidential election in November that could upend Washington’s Ukraine policy.
Biden is on his way out of office while the election is a toss-up between his Democratic political heir Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump.
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin, and refused to take sides on the war during a debate with Harris on Tuesday, saying only: “I want the war to stop.”
Starmer denied he was worried about a Trump presidency, and said the need to help Ukraine in coming weeks and months was urgent “whatever timetables are going on in other countries.”


US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract

US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract
Updated 23 sec ago
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US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract

US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract

DETROIT: The union representing 45,000 striking US dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports has reached a deal to suspend a three-day strike until Jan. 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract.
The union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, is to resume working immediately. Both sides also reached agreement on wages, but no details were given, according to a joint statement from the ports and union Thursday night.
The union went on strike early Tuesday after its contract expired in a dispute over pay and the automation of tasks at the ports from Maine to Texas. The strike came at the peak of the holiday shopping season at 36 ports that handle about half the cargo from ships coming into and out of the United States.
The walkout raised the risk of shortages of goods on store shelves if it lasted more than a few weeks. But most retailers had stocked up or shipped items early in anticipation of the work stoppage.
The strike came at the peak of the holiday shopping season at 36 ports that handle about half of the cargo from ships coming into and out of the United States.
It raised the risk of shortages of goods on store shelves if it lasted more than a few weeks. But most retailers had stocked up or shipped items early in anticipation of the work stoppage.


Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot

Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot
Updated 03 October 2024
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Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot

Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot

BERLIN: A teenager suspected of plotting an attack against Jews was arrested in September in western Germany, a court source and local media reports said Thursday.
The 15-year-old boy has been placed in pre-trial detention over plans to “commit a crime,” Dusseldorf prosecutors told AFP, without providing further details.
Police had previously detained the suspect in August following intelligence it had received, according to the Bild and Spiegel newspapers.
The teenager was released but arrested again after investigators discovered conversations on his phone with a suspected foreign extremist believed to have tried to talk him into perpetrating a knife attack.
The two allegedly discussed potential targets, including festivals and Jewish communities, and the teenager also reportedly posted videos on TikTok featuring Daesh flags, according to Bild and Spiegel.
The arrest came as Germany has tightened security measures after a knife attack in the western city of Solingen on August 30 that was claimed by the Daesh group.
Three people were killed and several others were injured in the Solingen attack.
A 26-year-old Syrian suspect, who had been slated for deportation but evaded law enforcement, turned himself in after a day on the run and confessed to the attack.
And in June, a German court sentenced a 15-year-old boy to four years in jail for planning an Islamist attack on a Christmas market in the western city of Leverkusen.


Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support

Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support
Updated 03 October 2024
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Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support

Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support

BERLIN: Thousands of people in Berlin on Thursday demonstrated against Germany’s military support for Ukraine as it battles to hold back invading Russian troops.
Participants answered a call by a radical left-wing collective to gather in the German capital and brandished placards reading “Negotiations! No weapons!,” “No to war” and “Pacifism is not naive.” Some also held anti-American signs.
One of their main demands was for Germany to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, which Kyiv desperately needs to defend itself from Russian aggression.
The protest came one week ahead of the first state visit by a US president to the European country since Ronald Reagan in 1985.
Joe Biden is also expected to meet with Ukraine’s allies to discuss military support to the war-torn nation, at the US army base in Ramstein, western Germany.
Far-left populist leader Sahra Wagenknecht, who attended the Berlin protest, has long called for an end to weapon deliveries to Kyiv and opposes a plan to deploy US long-range missiles in Germany.
Germany has been the second-largest contributor of military aid to Ukraine after the United States, but plans to halve its budget for that aid next year.
Wagenknecht’s pro-Russia, anti-NATO stance has contributed to her party’s positive results in three eastern state elections, securing 12 percent of the vote in Brandenburg.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in September stunned the political establishment by winning its first-ever parliamentary vote — in the eastern state of Thuringia — and coming a close second in neighboring Saxony.
The AfD’s platform relied on its usual discourse against asylum-seekers, multiculturalism and Islam, but also on critiques of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s policy of unconditional support for Ukraine.
The state leaders of Saxony and Brandenburg, where AfD came in second, as well as the head of the conservatives in Thuringia, have called for a ceasefire in Ukraine, in an article expected to be published on Friday in the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung newspaper.
Germany and the European Union’s dioplomatic efforts so far have been “too indecisive,” they said, urging Berlin to bring Russia to the negotiating table.


Thousands rally in Austria against far right

Thousands rally in Austria against far right
Updated 03 October 2024
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Thousands rally in Austria against far right

Thousands rally in Austria against far right

VIENNA: Thousands of people protested in Austria’s capital Vienna on Thursday against a possible return to power for the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which topped national elections on Sunday.
The FPOe won almost 29 percent of the vote in Sunday’s general election, ahead of the conservative People’s Party (OeVP) with just over 26 percent.
“The Austrian Freedom Party is a danger because it has already said that it wants to govern in the image of Hungary’s Viktor Orban,” said Rihab Toumi, a 26-year-old student, referring to the nationalist leader of Austria’s neighboring country.
Although the FPOe topped the polls, there is no guarantee that their radical leader Herbert Kickl will be given a chance to form a government since no other party is willing to work with him.
“This result was a shock and we cannot let a party that drifts so far to the right garner so much support without saying anything,” said social worker Marianne, 53, who declined to share her surname.
Organizers claimed there were 15,000 to 17,000 protesters in central Vienna, who marched toward parliament.
Demonstrators held up placards saying “Let’s defend democracy,” “No alliances with Putin’s friends” and other anti-FPOe slogans.
Kickl has criticized European Union sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Demonstrators intend to march every Thursday, having similarly done so after the far right formed part of short-lived coalition governments in 2000 and 2017.


US storm death toll surpasses 200: officials

US storm death toll surpasses 200: officials
Updated 03 October 2024
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US storm death toll surpasses 200: officials

US storm death toll surpasses 200: officials

More than 200 people are confirmed dead after Hurricane Helene carved a path of destruction through several southeastern US states, officials said Thursday, making it the second deadliest storm to hit the US mainland in more than half a century.
A compilation of official figures by AFP confirms 201 fatalities across North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia. More than half of the deaths were in flood-ravaged North Carolina.
Helene is the deadliest on the US mainland since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,392 people.
Despite hundreds of rescues across six states and an enormous response including more than 10,000 federal personnel assisting local responders, the death toll from the sprawling storm is expected to rise, with many residents still unaccounted for in a mountainous region known for its pockets of isolation.
“We are continuing to find survivors,” North Carolina’s Buncombe County, the epicenter of the tragedy where more than 60 people are confirmed dead, said in its latest update, adding there are residents still cut off from the outside world due to landslides and destroyed bridges.
“Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the families of those that had just experienced this heartbreak and this tragedy,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp told a briefing n his state, where he said the number of confirmed dead has risen to 33.
US President Joe Biden was undertaking a second straight day of visits to affected states, traveling Thursday to Florida, where Helene blew into the state’s northern Gulf shore last week as a powerful Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour.
Biden took an aerial tour of the coast to survey the devastation, then walked past rows of destroyed homes and buildings in Keaton Beach, near where the storm made landfall.
He next heads to neighboring Georgia.