UK PM pushing ahead with Middle East peace plan

Keir Starmer pledged in December that the UK would lead efforts to bring long-term peace to the Middle East region. (AFP)
Keir Starmer pledged in December that the UK would lead efforts to bring long-term peace to the Middle East region. (AFP)
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Updated 01 February 2025
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UK PM pushing ahead with Middle East peace plan

UK PM pushing ahead with Middle East peace plan
  • Keir Starmer basing project on his work in Northern Ireland peace process
  • Govt this week met figures from network of over 160 peacebuilding organizations

LONDON: The UK prime minister is moving forward with a Middle East peace plan based on his work in the Northern Ireland peace process, The Independent reported on Saturday.

Keir Starmer pledged in December that the UK would lead efforts to bring long-term peace to the region.

This week, following the establishment of a ceasefire in Gaza, the British government and Foreign Office held meetings with figures from the Alliance for Middle East Peace, a network of more than 160 organizations engaged in civil society peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Starmer’s plan will see Foreign Secretary David Lammy host a conference later this year to raise funds for the project.

John Lyndon, ALLMEP’s executive director, told The Independent: “It’s encouraging to see the government begin to think through how the prime minister’s endorsement of an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace — and the pledge that the foreign secretary would hold an inaugural meeting in London — can relate to the rapidly changing environment.

“With a fragile ceasefire and hostage deal in place, we need to see initiatives like this predicated on conflict resolution, nonviolence and diplomacy gather momentum.”

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, served as adviser on human rights to the Northern Ireland Policing Board from 2003 to 2007.

The board supervises the Police Service of Northern Ireland, with Starmer having worked to ensure the service was compliant with the 1998 Human Rights Act.

The International Fund for Ireland, which was launched in the late 1980s and serves as a model for Starmer’s Middle East peace project, was described as the “great unsung hero of the Good Friday Agreement” by Jonathan Powell, the government’s former chief negotiator.

The fund slowly pooled resources and brought figures from both sides of the conflict together, culminating in the 1999 Good Friday Agreement.


US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed

US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed
Updated 15 sec ago
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US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed

US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed

WASHINGTON: US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Thursday many of the judges who have recently ruled against the administration of President Donald Trump need to be removed.
“These judges obviously cannot be impartial. They cannot be objective,” Bondi said during an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” show.
“They are district judges trying to control our entire country, our entire country, and they are trying to obstruct Donald Trump’s agenda.”


Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats
Updated 11 min 11 sec ago
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Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday slammed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as an “imbecile” following the American’s warning to Caracas against attacking its oil-rich neighbor Guyana.
“There goes the imbecile Marco Rubio threatening Venezuela from Guyana. No one threatens Venezuela because this is the homeland of the liberators,” Maduro said.


German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane

German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
Updated 27 min 24 sec ago
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German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane

German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
  • Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022

BERLIN: A Russian reconnaissance aircraft approached northeastern Germany on Thursday before it was escorted away by fighter jets, the German air force said.
The air force said on its Whatsapp communication channel that its Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) was activated at the Laage air base near Rostock, on the Baltic coast in the northeast.
“The reason was an unknown aeroplane over the Baltic Sea, which was flying without a flight plan or activated transponder,” the air force said in the message, which confirmed an earlier press report in Bild.
German Eurofighter jets were scrambled to identify the Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance plane, which was subsequently “escorted” back toward the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, from where it was first tracked.
Bild said the Russian aircraft was found early Thursday east of the German Baltic island Rugen from where it was heading toward “German air space.”
The fact that the aircraft’s transponder was deactivated presented “a considerable danger to civilian air traffic,” Bild said.
Military sources quoted by Bild said that Russian reconnaissance planes were occasionally identified off the German coast.
Many NATO nations have a QRA system to help protect their air space.
Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
 


Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages

Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages
Updated 36 min 40 sec ago
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Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages

Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages
  • A government accountability group sued federal agencies involved in the chat on Tuesday, alleging that the use of Signal, which allows for messages to be automatically deleted after a certain time span, violated a federal record-keeping

WASHINGTON: A US judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to preserve messages sent on the Signal messaging app discussing attack plans against the Houthis in Yemen that became public after they were inadvertently shared with a journalist.
The order from US District Judge James Boasberg requires federal agencies whose leaders participated in the chat, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, to maintain all messages sent through Signal from March 11 until March 15, the period during which an editor for The Atlantic magazine documented activity in the chat.
A lawyer for the Trump administration earlier said federal agencies were already working to determine what records still existed so they could be preserved.
American Oversight, a government accountability group, sued federal agencies involved in the chat on Tuesday, alleging that the use of Signal, which allows for messages to be automatically deleted after a certain time span, violated a federal record-keeping law.
“We are grateful for the judge’s bench ruling to halt any further destruction of these critical records. The public has a right to know how decisions about war and national security are made — and accountability doesn’t disappear just because a message was set to auto-delete,” Chioma Chukwu, American Oversight’s interim executive director, said in a statement.

Text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen are shown during a US House of Representatives hearing on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)


The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Atlantic magazine published on Wednesday messages it said were exchanged in the group after Trump administration officials said they were not classified in an attempt to play down the impact of the breach.
The messages revealed discussions among senior national security officials about planned military strikes targeting the Houthi militant group. Hegseth shared information about the timing of attacks on March 15, including one aimed at someone identified in the chat as a terrorist, hours before the attack began, according to the report.
The existence of the group chat, and the inadvertent disclosure of messages to a journalist, has sparked a brewing controversy over the Trump administration’s treatment of sensitive military and intelligence information.
The lawsuit was unrelated to the national security implications of the disclosure and instead focused on American Oversight’s claim that the messages should count as government records that agencies are legally required to preserve.


Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia

Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia
Updated 51 min 41 sec ago
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Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia

Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia
  • Al-Shabab militia shows signs of resurgence after making gains in strategic regions, analysts say

MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Al-Shabab militia shows signs of resurgence after making gains in strategic regions and coming close to assassinating the president with a roadside bomb last week.

The extremist group was on the defensive in 2022 and 2023 after a concerted military push by the government and its international partners.

However, analysts say those gains are being reversed at a time when support from the US and African Union is looking increasingly shaky.

The group has seized key locations in Middle and Lower Shabelle, coastal regions on either side of the capital Mogadishu.

And a bomb blast that narrowly missed the convoy of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on March 18 showed that Al-Shabab again poses a significant risk in the capital itself.

On Wednesday, Somali officials said the group had taken control of the center of a key town in Middle Shabelle, Masaajid Cali Gaduud.

That came just a day after the president traveled to the region in a high-profile bid to push back the militants.

“There were explosions and heavy gunfire this morning,” Abdulkadi Hassan, resident of a nearby village, said by phone.

“The Somali government forces and local community militias have retreated from the town, and Al-Shabab are now in control.”

Analyst Matt Bryden, co-founder of research group Sahan and an expert on the conflict, said this was typical of recent clashes.

He said the government had lost strategic chokepoints, including three of four bridges in Lower Shabelle.

“We see the evidence of an army in disarray and in retreat,” said Bryden.

He said the government was enlisting clan militias, police and prison guards — “throwing everything it has into the war effort.”

“People in Mogadishu also are beginning to fear the government is not capable of securing the city and that there’s a chance of Al-Shabab fully encircling or possibly even at one stage overrunning the city,” said Bryden.

The president has remained defiant, establishing a temporary headquarters in Cadale, about 220 km north of Mogadishu.

“The war will not stop; we are not coming back from where we are now, and we will attain the victory we seek,” Mohamud told troops gathered at nearby Adale earlier this week.

However, the government faces the threat of reduced international support.

African Union-led forces began supporting the Somali government in 2007, eventually becoming the largest multilateral peacekeeping force in the world, with more than 20,000 troops at its peak.

Although renewed under a new name, the AU Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM, in January, Washington has yet to confirm its crucial financial contribution.

“Security assistance for the government is being cut, particularly the American assistance, but probably European contributions will shrink as well,” said Bryden.

“The combination of these factors raises the possibility that from July, but possibly even sooner, the balance of forces will shift increasingly toward Al-Shabab,” he said.

Other analysts say Al-Shabab is still far from threatening the capital, and its advances come from the government taking its eye off the ball.

“The government’s been more focused on politics, on other issues,” said Omar Mahmood of International Crisis Group.

He said Al-Shabab had been exploiting local clan grievances in Middle Shabelle and a broader uncertainty around the president’s struggles to introduce direct elections.

“The country is not united right now ... and part of this has to do with politics around the constitution and electoral plans that the government is trying to institute,” said Mahmood.

Al-Shabab “probably saw this as an opportune time to strike ... But this is a long-standing war. I see it as closer to a stalemate than anything else.

“I don’t see this narrative where there’s this march toward Mogadishu right now,” he said.