Biden says he’s leaving Trump with a ‘strong hand to play’ in world conflicts

In this combination photo, President Joe Biden speaks May 2, 2024, in Wilmington, N.C., left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, May 1, 2024, in Waukesha, Wis. (AP)
In this combination photo, President Joe Biden speaks May 2, 2024, in Wilmington, N.C., left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, May 1, 2024, in Waukesha, Wis. (AP)
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Updated 14 January 2025
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Biden says he’s leaving Trump with a ‘strong hand to play’ in world conflicts

Biden says he’s leaving Trump with a ‘strong hand to play’ in world conflicts
  • “My administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play,” Biden said

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden said Monday that his stewardship of American foreign policy has left the US safer and economically more secure, arguing that President-elect Donald Trump will inherit a nation viewed as stronger and more reliable than it was four years ago.
Biden trumpeted his administration’s work on expanding NATO, rallying allies to provide Ukraine with military aid to fight Russia and bolstering American chip manufacturing to better compete with China during a wide-ranging speech to reflect on his foreign policy legacy a week before ceding the White House to Trump.
Biden’s case for his achievements will be shadowed and shaped, at least in the near term, by the messy counterfactual that American voters once again turned to Trump and his protectionist worldview. And he will leave office at a turbulent moment for the globe, with a series of conflicts raging.
“Thanks to our administration, the United States is winning the worldwide competition compared to four years ago,” Biden said in his address at the State Department. “America is stronger. Our alliances are stronger. Our adversaries and competitors are weaker. We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”
The one-term Democrat took office in the throes of the worst global pandemic in a century, and his plans to repair alliances strained by four years of Trump’s “America First” worldview were quickly stress-tested by international crises: the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Hamas’ brutal 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Middle East.
Biden argued that he provided a steady hand when the world needed it most. He was tested by war, calamity and miscalculation.
“My administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play,” Biden said. “America is once again leading.”
Chaotic US exit from Afghanistan was an early setback for Biden
With the US completing its 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden fulfilled a campaign promise to wind down America’s longest war.
But the 20-year conflict ended in disquieting fashion: The US-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 13 US troops and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans descended on Kabul’s airport in search of a way out before the final US aircraft departed over the Hindu Kush.
The Afghanistan debacle was a major setback just eight months into Biden’s presidency that he struggled to recover from.
“Ending the war was the right thing to do, and I believe history will reflect that,” Biden said. “Critics said if we ended the war, it would damage our alliances and create threats to our homeland from foreign-directed terrorism out of a safe haven in Afghanistan — neither has occurred.”
Biden’s Republican detractors, including Trump, cast it as a signal moment in a failed presidency.
“I’ll tell you what happened, he was so bad with Afghanistan, it was such a horrible embarrassment, most embarrassing moment in the history of our country,” Trump said in his lone 2024 presidential debate with Biden, just weeks before the Democrat announced he was ending his reelection campaign.
Biden’s legacy in Ukraine may hinge on Trump’s approach going forward
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden rallied allies in Europe and beyond to provide Ukraine with billions in military and economic assistance — including more than $100 billion from the US alone. That allowed Kyiv to stay in the fight with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vastly bigger and better-equipped military.
Biden’s team also coordinated with allies to hit Russia with a steady stream of sanctions aimed at isolating the Kremlin and making Moscow pay an economic price for prosecuting its war.
Biden on Monday marveled that at the start of the war Putin thought Russian forces would easily defeat Ukraine in a matter of days. It was an assessment US and European intelligence officials shared.
Instead, Biden said his administration and its allies have “laid the foundation” for the Trump administration to help Ukraine eventually arrive at a moment where it can negotiate a just end to the nearly three-year old conflict.
“Today, Ukraine is still a free and independent country with the potential for a bright future,” Biden said.
Trump has criticized the cost of the war to US taxpayers and has vowed to bring the conflict to a quick end.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan made the case that Trump, a billionaire real estate developer, should consider the backing of Ukraine through the prism of a dealmaker.
“Donald Trump has built his identity around making deals, and the way you make a good deal is with leverage,” Sullivan said in an interview. “Our case publicly and privately to the incoming team is build the leverage, show the staying power, back Ukraine, and it is down that path that lies a good deal.”
Biden’s Mideast diplomacy shadowed by devastation of Gaza
In the Middle East, Biden has stood by Israel as it has worked to root out Hamas from Gaza. That war spawned another in Lebanon, where Israel has mauled Iran’s most powerful ally, Hezbollah, even as Israel has launched successful airstrikes openly inside of Iran for the first time.
The degradation of Hezbollah in turn played a role when Islamist-led rebels last month ousted longtime Syrian leader Bashar Assad, a brutal fixture of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.”
“Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades,” Biden said.
Biden’s relationship with Israel’s conservative leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been strained by the enormous Palestinian death toll in the fighting — now standing at more than 46,000 dead — and Israel’s blockade of the territory, which has left much of Gaza a hellscape where access to food and basic health care is severely limited.
Pro-Palestinian activists have demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but US policy has largely remained unchanged. The State Department in recent days informed Congress of a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel.
Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East negotiator, said the approach has put Iran on its heels, but Biden will pay a reputational cost for the devastation of Gaza.
“The administration was either unable or unwilling to create any sort of restraint that normal humans would regard as significant pressure,” Miller said. “It was beyond Joe Biden’s emotional and political bandwidth to impose the kinds of sustained or significant pressures that might have led to a change in Israeli tactics.”
More than 15 months after the Hamas-led attack that prompted the war, around 98 hostages remain in Gaza. More than a third of those are presumed dead by Israeli authorities.
Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk is in the Middle East, looking to complete an elusive hostage and ceasefire deal as time runs out in the presidency.
“We are on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,” Biden said.
Trump, for his part, is warning that “all hell” will be unleashed on Hamas if the hostages aren’t freed by Inauguration Day.
Sullivan declined to comment on Trump’s threats to Hamas, but offered that the two sides are in agreement about the most important thing: getting a deal done.
“Having alignment of the outgoing and incoming administration that a hostage deal at the earliest possible opportunity is in the American national interest,” he said. “Having unity of message on that is a good thing, and we have closely coordinated with the incoming team to this effect.”

 


Arab Americans for Trump changes name after Gaza comments

Arab Americans for Trump changes name after Gaza comments
Updated 13 sec ago
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Arab Americans for Trump changes name after Gaza comments

Arab Americans for Trump changes name after Gaza comments
  • Organization becomes Arab Americans for Peace after Trump suggests taking over Palestinian enclave
  • ‘We appreciate the president’s offer to clean and rebuild Gaza. However, the purpose should be to make Gaza habitable for Palestinians and no one else’

CHICAGO: The chairman of Arab Americans for Trump told Arab News on Thursday that Donald Trump’s statements about taking over Gaza are “political rhetoric,” and that the US president is committed to a peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.

Dr. Bishara Bahbah said AAFT has changed its name to Arab Americans for Peace to lobby the Trump administration to bring about “lasting peace” based on the two-state solution.

He added that the group opposes any proposal to relocate Palestinians to neighboring countries or to convert Gaza into a regional resort. 

“We appreciate the president’s offer to clean and rebuild Gaza. However, the purpose should be to make Gaza habitable for Palestinians and no one else,” Bahbah said.

“The Palestine that we envision is one that would be on lands occupied by Israel in 1967: the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Bahbah brushed aside Trump’s Gaza comments as a style of American politics in which politicians toss out ideas to kick-start public debate.

“Trump promised specifically to us as a community to bring an end to the wars and an end to the killings of civilians,” he said.

“Secondly, Trump promised to bring about a lasting peace in the Middle East that’s satisfactory to all parties.

“He delivered on the ceasefire and sent back (special envoy to the Middle East) Steve Witkoff in order to ensure that the second phase of the ceasefire goes into effect.”

Bahbah, who met with Trump and several advisers during his election campaign, added: “The ceasefire was a major win for us because we were pleading as a community with the Biden administration to push the Israelis to accept a ceasefire, but clearly President (Joe) Biden and his top lieutenants weren’t pushing the Israelis hard enough.

“President Trump knew how to do it, and from our perspective, that was a big thank you to our community for our vote in supporting the president’s election.”

Regarding Trump’s suggestions that Egypt and Jordan take in Gazans, Bahbah said: “One has to be realistic. Why would Jordan and Egypt bear the brunt of Palestinian refugees when the Israelis were the cause of the Palestinians in Gaza becoming refugees and they caused the destruction of Gaza?”

Bahbah noted that Israel’s actions in Gaza were “funded and supported” by the Biden administration.

“Yes, the Israelis could retaliate for what Hamas did on Oct. 7 (2023), but not in a manner that demolishes 90 percent of the Gaza Strip.

“That’s way over the top. The Israelis have been brought to the International Court of Justice over this particular issue.”


British ‘Netflix’ conman gets six-year prison term in France

British ‘Netflix’ conman gets six-year prison term in France
Updated 4 min 6 sec ago
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British ‘Netflix’ conman gets six-year prison term in France

British ‘Netflix’ conman gets six-year prison term in France
  • State prosecutor Alexandra Pethieu had requested a seven-year prison sentence
  • At the time of the incident, Hendy-Freegard had been living on and off in the nearby village of Vidaillat under a fake name since 2015, illegally breeding dogs

GUERET, France: A convicted British conman who featured in a Netflix documentary was sentenced on Thursday to six years in prison by a French court for running over and injuring two police officers while trying to escape.
Robert Hendy-Freegard, also known as David Hendy, became notorious as the central figure in the documentary “The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman” and the fictional film “Rogue Agent,” both available on Netflix.
In 2005, a London court had sentenced Hendy-Freegard to life in prison for kidnapping, deception and stealing from students and women — from whom he took more than £1 million ($1.24 million at current exchange rates) — while posing as a spy for MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service.
But he was freed in 2009 after an appeals court overturned his conviction for kidnapping on the grounds that there had been no physical constraint.
Coercive behavior in an intimate setting, or psychological manipulation, was not a crime in British law at the time.
More than a decade later, Hendy-Freegard, now 53, appeared in court on Thursday for running over and injuring two police officers in central France’s sparsely populated Creuse region in August 2022.
“I had enough. I panicked,” he told the court in the town of Gueret.
State prosecutor Alexandra Pethieu had requested a seven-year prison sentence, saying the escape attempt resulted in “an appalling scene worthy of ‘Mad Max’.”
At the time of the incident, Hendy-Freegard had been living on and off in the nearby village of Vidaillat under a fake name since 2015, illegally breeding dogs.
While he often left his home for long periods, a haggard-looking woman always stayed behind to look after a pack of noisy beagles, never leaving the property and hardly interacting with neighbors.
Her neighbors — many of them retirees — told AFP they grew increasingly concerned over the years, especially after discovering online Hendy-Freegard’s real name and discovering his criminal past.
They said they repeatedly alerted the authorities, who said there was nothing they could do as the woman had not filed a complaint.
Vets had inspected conditions at the kennels and demanded the owner improve them, but did not follow up their inspections.
Then local residents watched the Netflix documentary about Hendy-Freegard that came out in early 2022, in which the son and daughter of a woman called Sandra Clifton appealed for help to find her, saying she had disappeared with the serial swindler.
She looked exactly like the woman holed up in the house next door.
The neighbors said they contacted the children, and both came over separately that summer to try to draw their mother out from the grip of the conman, who was away but controlling her behavior over the phone after convincing her that her family was against her.
In August 2022, her son came over, and with the mayor’s office and neighbors, took advantage of repeated warnings from the local animal welfare authority to organize for animal rescuers to take over the care of the beagles so Clifton would agree to leave.
As they were loading the last of the beagles into a truck to be taken away by a charity, Hendy-Freegard turned up in his car.
A neighbor who saw the events, but asked to remain anonymous, said police on site to oversee the procedure started to question Hendy-Freegard.
“They checked his papers, but he still had the keys in the ignition. He turned on the engine and fled, hitting the two cops,” the neighbor said.
Hendy-Freegard managed to escape as far as Belgium, but was arrested and then extradited back to France, where he has been in custody since October 2022.
Clifton has since returned to Britain.


Russia says Ukraine launched new Kursk offensive

Russia says Ukraine launched new Kursk offensive
Updated 34 min 5 sec ago
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Russia says Ukraine launched new Kursk offensive

Russia says Ukraine launched new Kursk offensive
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed Kyiv troops fighting on Russian soil
  • Russia’s defense ministry said it foiled an attempted Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kursk

MOSCOW: Russia said Thursday that Ukraine’s army had launched a fresh offensive in the Russian Kursk border region, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed Kyiv troops fighting on Russian soil.
Thursday marks six months since Kyiv stormed across the Russian border in a shock ground assault, capturing dozens of Russian border settlements and swathes of territory.
Russia has since been clawing back ground, but Ukraine sees its continued hold on parts of the area as a key bargaining chip in any future peace talks between the two sides.
Russia’s defense ministry said Thursday its troops had “foiled an attempted counter-offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces.”
It said the new fighting was around the villages of Ulanok and Cherkasskaya Konopelka, southeast of the regional hub of Sudzha, which is under Ukrainian control.
The area is about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Russia said Ukraine had deployed two mechanized battalions, tanks and armored vehicles in the attempted attack.
There has been no comment on the fresh offensive from officials in Kyiv.
But Zelensky on Thursday praised his troops fighting in the Kursk region and issued several units with state awards.
“The occupier can and should be beaten on its territory,” he said in a social media post.
“The Kursk operation clearly explains the meaning of the principle of ‘peace through strength’,” he said, referring to a message he has been promoting to secure ongoing military support from Ukraine’s western partners.

Russian soldiers captured
The Ukrainian military said earlier it had captured 909 Russian soldiers during the six-month offensive there.
“We have significantly replenished our exchange fund — hundreds and hundreds of Russian soldiers whom we are exchanging to bring Ukrainians back from captivity,” Zelensky said in an evening video address.
On Wednesday, each side released 150 captured soldiers in the latest prisoner-of-war exchange.
Russian authorities have faced simmering discontent from Kursk locals, who have seen family members trapped on the opposite side of the front line.
In a meeting with the region’s governor on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the situation there was “very difficult.”
Ukraine’s shock incursion — the first onto Russian territory by a foreign army since World War II — was an embarrassing setback for the Kremlin, almost three years into its full-scale offensive.
The Ukrainian military spokesperson for its forces in Kursk, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, told AFP via phone on Thursday that “a little more than 1,500 people” were still living in part of the region now under its control.
Kyiv says the ground it holds in Kursk will be an important bargaining chip in any future peace negotiations with Russia, whose forces have been making steady gains across the front line in eastern Ukraine.


Greek rights groups call for criminal charges over deadly 2023 migrant shipwreck

Greek rights groups call for criminal charges over deadly 2023 migrant shipwreck
Updated 06 February 2025
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Greek rights groups call for criminal charges over deadly 2023 migrant shipwreck

Greek rights groups call for criminal charges over deadly 2023 migrant shipwreck
  • Rights groups hailed the ombudsman’s report, and blasted the government’s reaction
  • The ministry’s statement “is a monument of hypocrisy but also a confession it will continue to cover up the crime,” said KEERFA

ATHENS: Rights groups are demanding criminal charges be brought against members of Greece’s coast guard over a deadly 2023 migrant shipwreck, after the country’s ombudsman released a report noting “clear indications” that officers had overlooked the danger posed by the boat that sank.
The Adriana, a massively overcrowded fishing trawler, had been heading from Libya to Italy with an estimated 500-750 people on board when it sank in international waters west of Pylos in western Greece in June 2023. Only 104 people survived, while 82 bodies were recovered. The rest went down with the trawler in one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean.
An independent investigation by Greece’s ombudsman into the shipwreck concluded this week that there were “clear indications” that eight senior coast guard officers should face disciplinary action for overlooking the dangers posed by the trawler.
The coast guard, which had been notified about the boat by Italian authorities, had been shadowing the vessel for hours as it sailed in international waters but within Greece’s area of responsibility for search and rescue.
At the time, the coast guard said the Adriana’s captain had insisted he did not want assistance and wanted to continue sailing to Italy. But several survivors said passengers had been calling for help repeatedly, and said that the boat capsized during an attempt by the Greek coast guard to tow it.
The ombudsman said Monday its report noted “a series of serious and reproachable omissions in the search and rescue duties by senior officers of the Hellenic Coast Guard which constitute clear indications” for establishing a case against the officers for endangering the lives of the Adriana’s passengers.
The independent body began its own investigation in November 2023 after “the direct refusal of a disciplinary investigation by the Coast Guard,” it said.
The Shipping and Island Policy Ministry, under whose jurisdiction the coast guard lies, rejected the ombudsman’s report, accusing it of “attempting to shift the conversation from the criminal smuggling networks to the members of the coast guard, who fight day and night for the protection of the country.”
It accused the report of frequently favoring versions of events that called into question the coast guard’s actions “without the slightest credible evidence.”
“At a time when irregular migration is causing global concern, the government remains steadfastly committed to a strict but fair policy of guarding the country’s borders,” the statement said.
Rights groups hailed the ombudsman’s report, and blasted the government’s reaction. The ministry’s statement “is a monument of hypocrisy but also a confession it will continue to cover up the crime,” said the Movement United Against Racism and the Fascist Threat, or KEERFA, which called for a protest rally outside a naval court in the Greece’s main port city of Piraeus Thursday evening.
Lawyers representing some of the survivors filed a request with the Piraeus naval court in December seeking criminal charges to be brought against members of the search and rescue operation.
“The transparency of administrative action and the attribution of responsibilities, where applicable, for the deadly Pylos shipwreck is an elementary legal demand, inextricably linked to the respect of the rule of law,” Ombudsman Andreas Pottakis said in a statement. “As is the thorough investigation of any other incident connected to the violation of the right to life, health and physical integrity.”


Trump to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court

Trump to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court
Updated 06 February 2025
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Trump to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court

Trump to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court
  • Financial, visa sanctions to be placed on individuals, family who assist in ICC probes of US citizens or US allies
  • International court has taken measures to shield staff from possible US sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday to sanction the International Criminal Court for targeting the United States and its allies, such as Israel, a White House official said.
The order will place financial and visa sanctions on individuals and their family members who assist in ICC investigations of US citizens or US allies, said the official.
The move by Trump comes after US Senate Democrats last week blocked a Republican-led effort to sanction the ICC in protest at its arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Netanyahu is currently visiting Washington.
The ICC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible US sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters last month.
In December, the court’s president, judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “rapidly undermine the Court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardize its very existence.”
This is the second time the court has faced US retaliation as a result of its work. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
The 125-member ICC is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals. The United States, China, Russia and Israel are not members.