Hegseth narrowly wins confirmation to become US defense secretary

Hegseth narrowly wins confirmation to become US defense secretary
Pete Hegseth. (Reuters)
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Updated 25 January 2025
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Hegseth narrowly wins confirmation to become US defense secretary

Hegseth narrowly wins confirmation to become US defense secretary
  • Only second cabinet secretary ever confirmed in tie-break vote
  • Hegseth promises to bring major changes to military

WASHINGTON: Pete Hegseth narrowly secured enough votes on Friday to become the next US defense secretary, a major victory for President Donald Trump after fierce opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans to his controversial nominee.
Hegseth was confirmed after a 50-50 vote in the Senate, when Vice President JD Vance came to the chamber to break the tie in his role as president of the Senate, after three Republicans joined every Democrat and independent in voting no.
Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and decorated veteran, is promising to bring major changes to the Pentagon. But his leadership will be under intense scrutiny after a bruising confirmation review that raised serious questions about his qualifications, temperament and views about women in combat.
“We have not had a secretary of defense like Hegseth before,” said Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas, Austin, history professor and presidential scholar.
Hegseth is the most divisive candidate to clinch the US military’s top job, a position that has historically gone to candidates with deep experience running large organizations and who enjoy broad bipartisan support.
It was only the second time in history a cabinet nominee needed a tie-break to be confirmed. The first was also a Trump nominee, Betsy DeVos, who became secretary of education in 2017.
The three Republican senators who voted against Hegseth were Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell, was the party’s leader in the chamber until this month.
McConnell said Hegseth had failed to demonstrate that he had the ability to effectively manage an organization as large and complex as the military. “Mere desire to be a ‘change agent’ is not enough to fill these shoes,” McConnell said in a statement.
Hegseth will lead 1.3 million active-duty service members and the nearly 1 million civilians who work for the US military, which has a nearly $1 trillion annual budget. Hegseth told lawmakers that, up until this point, the largest group he had managed was 100 people and the largest budget was $16 million.
His nomination was rocked by a series of accusations, including one this week by his former sister-in-law, who said he abused his second wife to the extent that she hid in a closet and had a code word to use with friends if she had to be rescued. Hegseth strongly denied the accusations and his wife had previously denied any physical abuse.

TRUMP STAUNCHLY BEHIND PICK
Trump, whose nominees for FBI and intelligence chief are also under Senate scrutiny, stood staunchly by his pick and he put extensive pressure on his fellow Republicans to back the 44-year-old television personality.
Suri said the vote demonstrated the extent of Trump’s power at the start of his second term in office.
“It means certainly that Trump has enormous leverage over the Republican Party and over members of the Senate,” he said.
Ahead of Friday’s vote, Trump had admonished two fellow Republicans, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who voted against Hegseth in a procedural test vote on Thursday.
“I was very surprised that Collins and Murkowski would do that,” Trump told reporters on Friday morning.
But most Senate Republicans fell into line to defend the nominee who they said would restore a “warrior” mentality to the US military.
Hegseth has criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military, and, in his latest book, asked whether the top US general has the job because he is Black. Reuters has previously reported about the possibility mass firing among top brass, something Hegseth repeatedly refused to rule out during his confirmation process.

OPPOSED WOMEN IN COMBAT
For years, Hegseth also strongly opposed women in combat roles but walked back that stance as he courted support for his confirmation, including from military veterans like Republican Senator Joni Ernst.
Ernst was one of the 14 Armed Services Committee Republicans who voted for Hegseth when the committee backed him by 14 to 13, with every Democrat opposing his nomination.
A number of episodes have sparked concern about Hegseth, including a 2017 sexual assault allegation that did not result in charges and which Hegseth denies. Sexual assault is a persistent problem in the US military.
Hegseth has also been accused of excessive drinking and financial mismanagement at veterans’ organizations. He has vowed to abstain from alcohol if confirmed and said he made financial errors but denied wrongdoing.
In a 2021 incident first reported by Reuters, Hegseth was branded an “insider threat” by a fellow member of the Army National Guard over his tattoos. Hegseth noted the incident during the hearing, which led him to be pulled from Guard duty in Washington during Biden’s inauguration.
He takes over as the Trump administration has said that border security and immigration will be a focus for the US military.
On Friday, US military C-17 aircraft began flying detained migrants out of the country following orders from Trump, in the first such involvement by the US military in deportations in recent memory.
The Pentagon has announced plans to send 1,500 active-duty troops to the border in response to Trump’s orders, a number that looks poised to quickly grow. US officials on Friday told Reuters that the military was preparing to send a second wave of troops, likely from the 82nd Airborne.
Little is known about where Hegseth stands on key foreign policy issues like arming Ukraine, how to prepare the US military for a potential conflict with China and whether he would seek to scale back the US military footprint in places like Syria and Iraq.
The nearly party-line confirmation vote was a departure for a position that Republican and Democratic administrations have long sought to ensure was bipartisan.
Former President Joe Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, was confirmed by a 93-2 vote in 2021, and Jim Mattis, Trump’s first defense secretary in his last administration, was confirmed 98-1 in 2017.
Hegseth’s Republican supporters in the Senate have argued that he has acknowledged personal failings, including infidelities and past drinking, and is the right person to bring the Pentagon’s core mission of winning wars back into focus.
The last nominee for defense secretary who was defeated was former Senator John Tower in 1989. Tower was investigated over claims of drunkenness and inappropriate behavior with women.


Zelensky wants plan with US to ‘stop Putin’ before talks with Russia

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump. (File/AFP)
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump. (File/AFP)
Updated 54 min 6 sec ago
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Zelensky wants plan with US to ‘stop Putin’ before talks with Russia

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump. (File/AFP)
  • Comments came after Trump held a long phone call with Putin and said the sides had agreed to begin negotiations on Ukraine immediately

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday he wanted to agree a position with Washington to “stop Putin” before holding talks with Moscow.
The comments came after US President Donald Trump held a long phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said the sides had agreed to begin negotiations on Ukraine immediately.
Zelensky and senior Ukrainian officials are undertaking a series of meetings this week with Trump allies in Kyiv and Brussels and at the Munich Security Conference.
“The Ukraine-America meetings are a priority for us,” said Zelensky.
“And only after such meetings, after a plan to stop Putin has been worked out, I think it is fair to talk to the Russians.”
Trump also spoke with Zelensky in a call that the Ukrainian leader had described as “meaningful” and broad.
But on Thursday he said that while he believed Ukraine was Trump’s priority, it was “not very pleasant” that the US leader had spoken with Putin first.
The Ukrainian leader also said that Trump had told him he had wanted to speak with both Putin and Zelensky at the same time, without elaborating on why that had not happened.
Zelensky also said he had told Trump that without security guarantees Russia was likely to attack Ukraine again.


Trump to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia for first meeting since taking office

Trump to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia for first meeting since taking office
Updated 13 February 2025
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Trump to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia for first meeting since taking office

Trump to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia for first meeting since taking office
  • Announcement came after phone conversation in which Trump ang Putin discussed ending Ukraine war
  • A date for the meeting “hasn’t been set” but it will happen in the “not too distant future,” US president said

RIYADH: US President Donald Trump will see his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia for their first meeting since taking office in January.

Trump’s announcement came after an almost 90-minute phone conversation with the Russian leader, where they discussed in ending the nearly three-year Moscow offensive in Ukraine.

“We ultimately expect to meet. In fact, we expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there, and we’re gonna meet also probably in Saudi Arabia the first time, we’ll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something something done,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

A date for the meeting “hasn’t been set” but it will happen in the “not too distant future,” the US president said.

He suggested the meeting would involve Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “We know the crown prince, and I think it’d be a very good place to meet.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov earlier announced that Putin had invited Trump and officials from his administration to visit Moscow to discuss Ukraine.

“The Russian president invited the US president to visit Moscow and expressed his readiness to receive American officials in Russia in those areas of mutual interest, including, of course, the topic of the Ukrainian settlement,” Peskov said.

The invitation followed Trump’s announcement Wednesday that peace talks would start “immediately” and that Ukraine would probably not get its land back, causing uproar on both sides of the Atlantic.


Afghan held after suspected ramming attack injures 28 in Germany

Afghan held after suspected ramming attack injures 28 in Germany
Updated 13 February 2025
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Afghan held after suspected ramming attack injures 28 in Germany

Afghan held after suspected ramming attack injures 28 in Germany
  • Passenger car drove into street demonstration of striking workers in Munich
  • Incident comes on eve of high-profile international conference in Germany city

MUNICH: An Afghan asylum seeker was arrested after a suspected car ramming attack injured at least 28 people in the southern German city of Munich on Thursday, police said.
The incident comes on the eve of a high-profile international conference in Munich and amid an election campaign in which immigration and security have been key issues after a spate of similar attacks.
A passenger car drove into a street demonstration of striking workers from the Verdi trade union near the city center and was then shot at by officers, said the deputy head of Munich police Christian Huber.
The driver, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, was arrested at the scene, Huber said.
Earlier a fire service spokesman told AFP that several of those hurt were “seriously injured, some of them in a life-threatening condition.”
The state premier of Bavaria Markus Soeder told a press conference that the incident was “just terrible” and that “it looks like this was an attack.”
Soeder’s Bavarian CSU party and its national sister party the CDU have demanded tougher curbs on migration after a series of similar attacks which have shocked the country.
“This is not the first incident... we must show determination that something will change in Germany,” Soeder said. “This is further proof that we can’t keep going from attack to attack.”
The ground at the scene of the incident was littered with items including glasses, shoes, thermal blankets and a pushchair.
Eyewitness Alexa Graef said she was “shocked” after seeing the car drive into the crowd “which looked deliberate.”
“I hope it’s the last time I see anything like that,” she said.
An eyewitness who was among the striking workers told the local BR42 website that he “saw a person lying under the car” after it drove into the crowd.
The president of the Verdi union Frank Werneke said in a statement: “We are deeply upset and shocked at the awful incident during a peaceful demonstration by our Verdi colleagues.”
The incident comes a day before the city is due to host the high-profile Munich Security Conference.
US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are among those arriving on Thursday to attend the two-day security meet.
The latest suspected attack comes amid an already inflamed debate on immigration after several similar incidents, most recently in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg last month.
Two people were killed in a knife attack including a two-year-old child.
After that attack a 28-year-old Afghan man was arrested whom authorities say has a history of mental illness.


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 February 2025
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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 is at least double what UN investigators initially assessed
  • 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 from military rifles, the UN’s human rights office said in its latest report investigating the events that led to the ouster of the country’s longtime prime minister.

Initially peaceful demonstrations began in early July, triggered by the reinstatement of a quota system for the allocation of civil service positions. 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 of her Awami League party-led government.

The new interim administration, led by Nobel-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 the 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,” they said in 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 what was initially assessed by the 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 members and began trial procedures in cases related to the killings, said it will 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 war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The most important takeaway of the report was that it had identified 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.”


Sri Lanka, UAE agree to boost economic ties, investment during Dissanayake visit

Sri Lanka, UAE agree to boost economic ties, investment during Dissanayake visit
Updated 13 February 2025
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Sri Lanka, UAE agree to boost economic ties, investment during Dissanayake visit

Sri Lanka, UAE agree to boost economic ties, investment during Dissanayake visit
  • Sri Lanka president was in Dubai to address the World Governments Summit
  • UAE was Sri Lanka’s 8th largest source of foreign direct investment in 2019

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka and the UAE have signed an agreement to strengthen economic ties during President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s first visit to the Middle East, his office said on Thursday as the island nation seeks to attract more foreign investment.

Dissanayake, who secured the country’s top job in September, returned to Colombo on Thursday after addressing the main session of the 2025 World Government Summit in Dubai and meeting with other world leaders, including UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.

The UAE visit was his third international presidential trip, after India and China.

In Dubai, Sri Lanka and the UAE reached an agreement on reciprocal promotion and protection of investments, the president’s media division said in a statement.

“The purpose of this agreement is to facilitate and strengthen foreign investments between the two nations by ensuring investor rights protection, promoting economic cooperation, and establishing comprehensive investment protection mechanisms, dispute resolution frameworks, and policy structures,” it said.

The deal was signed by Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath and the UAE’s Minister of State for Financial Affairs Mohamed Bin Hadi Al-Hussaini.

It is expected to “contribute to strengthening global economic partnerships and creating opportunities for exploring new investment prospects in Sri Lanka.”

The island nation of 22 million people is still struggling to emerge from the 2022 economic crisis — the worst since its independence in 1948 — and the austerity measures imposed under a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund.

Under Dissanayake, Sri Lanka’s new left-leaning government is working to fulfill his campaign promises of sweeping reforms, including to revive the economy.

Its latest deal with the UAE is part of the country’s “commitment to enhancing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and fostering a more attractive investment landscape,” the president’s media division said.

In 2019, the UAE was the 8th largest source of FDI in Sri Lanka.

M. Shiham Marikar, secretary-general of the National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka, said the agreement offers “substantial benefits” for Sri Lankan businesses.

“This partnership is a vital step toward fostering economic growth, securing foreign investments, and strengthening trade relations between Sri Lanka and the UAE,” Marikar told Arab News.

“One of the most significant advantages is enhanced market access to the UAE and the broader Middle Eastern region … The agreement also paves the way for new partnerships and joint ventures, particularly in high-potential sectors like tourism and real estate. Moreover, Sri Lankan businesses, especially SMEs, will benefit from greater access to foreign capital, funding opportunities, and new markets.”