France’s Le Pen convicted of graft, barred from running for president in 2027

Update France’s Le Pen convicted of graft, barred from running for president in 2027
French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen will learn on March 31, 2025 whether she will be declared ineligible for elections in the trial for embezzling funds from the European Parliament.(AFP)
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Updated 31 March 2025
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France’s Le Pen convicted of graft, barred from running for president in 2027

France’s Le Pen convicted of graft, barred from running for president in 2027
  • Including 56-year-old Le Pen, nine figures from her National Rally party were convicted
  • Twelve assistants were also convicted of concealing a crime

PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was banned from running for public office for five years after being convicted on Monday of embezzlement, a political watershed that ruled her out of the 2027 presidential race unless she can win an appeal.
The French court’s ruling was a catastrophic setback for Le Pen, the National Rally (RN) party chief who has long been one of the most prominent figures in the European far right and who has been the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2027 contest.
The judge who convicted Le Pen of misappropriating European Union funds also gave her a four-year prison sentence — two years of which are suspended and two years to be served under home detention. She received a 100,000-euro ($108,200) fine.
Le Pen, 56, will appeal, her lawyer said, and neither the prison sentence nor the fine will be applied until her appeals are exhausted. But the five-year ban from running for office starts immediately, via a so-called “provisional execution” measure requested by prosecutors.
Le Pen’s right-hand man, RN president Jordan Bardella, said: “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly convicted: It was French democracy that was killed.”
But centrist lawmaker Sacha Houlie said on X: “At what point do we think that a judge will not apply the law? Is society so sick that it is offended by what is nothing more and nothing less than the rule of law?“
Le Pen has run three times for president and has said 2027 will be her final run for top office. Her hopes now lie on overturning Monday’s ruling at appeal before the election. Appeals in France can take months or even years.
Le Pen had before Monday’s events had described prosecutors as seeking her “political death.” She left the courtroom in Paris before judge Benedicte de Perthuis read out her sentence, and without any immediate comment. She was expected to appear in an interview with TF1 TV at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).
Allies in France and far-right leaders from European countries including Italy, Spain and the Netherlands joined in condemning the ruling as judicial overreach.
Anger in Le Pen’s party could push the hung parliament into deeper disarray.
A conviction would have “no influence on our ability to defend the French people, and to censure the government (in a vote of no confidence) if necessary,” Le Pen said on X last week.
Le Pen presides over the single biggest party in the National Assembly, and will retain her parliamentary seat until her term ends. That will be in 2029 unless snap parliamentary elections are called before then.

‘FULL STEAM AHEAD’
There have been increasing instances of immediate political bans in France since the passage of toughened anti-corruption laws in 2016, but Le Pen supporters accused judges of policing politics.
“We will not be intimidated, we will not stop: full steam ahead my friend!” Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and head of the far-right League, told Le Pen in a statement.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said: “Je suis Marine!“
Bardella looks set to become the RN’s de facto candidate for the 2027 election.
Some opponents applauded the ruling, saying the independence of the judiciary must be respected. Others, such as Jean-Luc Melenchon, of the hard-left France Unbowed, said they would rather defeat Le Pen at the ballot box.
Le Pen, the RN and two dozen party figures were found guilty of diverting more than 4 million euros ($4.33 million) of European Parliament funds. The party was ordered to pay a 2 million euro fine, with half the amount suspended.
The defendants were not accused of pocketing the money, but of using EU funds to the benefit of their party. They had said the money was used legitimately and that the allegations had defined too narrowly what a parliamentary assistant does.
De Perthuis said Le Pen had been “at the heart” of the scheme. The judge said investigations “showed that these were not administrative errors ... but embezzlement within the framework of a system put in place to reduce the party’s costs.”
Le Pen has long sought to soften her image, taking her party toward the political mainstream and trying to appear as a leader-in-waiting rather than a radical opponent of the establishment.
Arnaud Benedetti, a political analyst who has written a book on the RN, said the five-year ban on Le Pen was a key moment in French politics.
“This is a seismic political event,” he said. “Inevitably, it’s going to reshuffle the pack, particularly on the right.”
Bardella has helped expand the RN’s appeal among younger voters, but experts said it was unclear whether he has the experience to win over the broader electorate the RN needs to secure victory in 2027.


Several killed as Mali separatists clash with army, Russian allies in conflict-hit north

Several killed as Mali separatists clash with army, Russian allies in conflict-hit north
Updated 7 sec ago
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Several killed as Mali separatists clash with army, Russian allies in conflict-hit north

Several killed as Mali separatists clash with army, Russian allies in conflict-hit north
  • Separatist fighters claim destroying 21 military vehicles including armored cars and armed pick-up trucks in the ambush
  • Mali army’s general staff acknowledged in a statement that a logistics convoy had been ambushed at dawn on Friday

DAKAR, Senegal: A separatist coalition battled Malian troops backed by Moscow-run mercenaries in the north of the country Friday, both sides and local sources said.
The deadly clashes, involving the separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and the Moscow-run Africa Corps, follows a series of attacks on the military in recent weeks.
In a statement Friday, the FLA said it had killed several dozen members of the Africa Corps.
“Around 15 bodies were left abandoned on the site of the fighting,” the statement added.

“We recovered 12 trucks loaded with cereals, tankers full of diesel, one military pickup, and one armored vehicles from the 30 vehicles in the convoy,” Mohamed Maouloud Ramadan, spokesman for the Azawad separatists, said in a statement that acknowledged the death of three of their members.
Viral videos shared by the separatists showed military trucks on fire in a large swathe of desert land amid gunfire as gun-wielding hooded young men posed in front of the trucks. The videos also showed bodies with uniforms that resemble those of the Malian army. The Associated Press could not independently verify the videos.
The FLA also said it had destroyed 21 military vehicles including armored cars and armed pick-up trucks.
Earlier, the army’s general staff acknowledged in a statement that a logistics convoy had been ambushed at dawn on Friday.
The army statement said the battle took place in the Kidal region where the army convoy had been conducting an “offensive operation against an armed terrorist group.”
It said “10 enemy combatants” had been killed.
Mali’s army retook several districts from separatists in 2023, among them Kidal, a pro-independence northern bastion.
Africa Corps is the successor to the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which diplomatic and security sources confirmed to AFP over the weekend has now left Mali.
The group, overseen by Moscow’s defense ministry, is also actively supporting several other African governments.
“The fighters this Friday were fierce,” a regional elected official told AFP.
“There were losses on both sides. But we’ll have to wait for definitive figures.”
Since 2012, Mali has been mired in violence carried out by jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, as well as other organizations.
The Azawad separatist movement has been fighting for years to create the state of Azawad in northern Mali. They once drove security forces out of the region before a 2015 peace deal that has since collapsed was signed to pave the way for some ex-rebels to be integrated into the Malian military.

The latest clashes show how difficult it is for security forces in Mali to operate in difficult terrains like Kidal, according to Rida Lyammouri, a Sahel expert at the Morocco-based Policy Center for the New South think tank.
“It’s difficult to gather actionable intelligence to protect their convoys, and this gives a significant advantage to armed and jihadist groups”, said Lyammouri.
The latest attack occurred days after Russia’s mercenary group Wagner – which for more than three years helped Malian security forces in the fight against armed groups – announced it was leaving the country. The Africa Corps, under the direct command of the Russian defense ministry, said it will remain in Mali.
There are around 2,000 mercenaries in Mali, according to US officials. It is unclear how many are with Wagner and how many are part of the Africa Corps.


US adversaries fuel disinformation about LA protests, exploiting deep divisions in American society, say researchers

US adversaries fuel disinformation about LA protests, exploiting deep divisions in American society, say researchers
Updated 14 June 2025
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US adversaries fuel disinformation about LA protests, exploiting deep divisions in American society, say researchers

US adversaries fuel disinformation about LA protests, exploiting deep divisions in American society, say researchers
  • Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state-linked sources behind 10,000 posts and articles on LA protests, says watchdog Newsguard
  • Many peddled unfounded claims that California was ready to secede from the US and declare independence

WASHINGTON: Russia, China and Iran are amplifying disinformation about protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles, researchers said Friday, adding to a surge of domestically generated falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
The findings from researchers at the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard illustrate how foreign adversaries of the United States are exploiting deep divisions in American society as a tactic of information warfare.
NewsGuard said Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state-affiliated sources have published around 10,000 posts and articles about the demonstrations that recently erupted in Los Angeles, advancing false claims framing the city as “ground zero in an American apocalypse.”
Seizing on the political rift between President Donald Trump and Governor Gavin Newsom, pro-China accounts on X and Chinese platforms such as Douyin and Weibo have peddled unfounded claims that California was ready to secede from the United States and declare independence.
Meanwhile, Tehran-based newspapers have peddled the false claim that popular Iranian singer-songwriter Andranik Madadian had been detained by the National Guard in Los Angeles, in an apparent effort to portray the United States as an authoritarian state.
NewsGuard quoted Madadian, better known by his stage name Andy, as denying the claim, stating: “I am fine. Please don’t believe these rumors.”
Russian media and pro-Russian influencers, meanwhile, has embraced right-wing conspiracy theories, including the unfounded claim that the Mexican government was stoking the demonstrations against Trump’s immigration policies.
“The demonstrations are unfolding at the intersection of multiple vulnerabilities such as eroded trust in institutions, AI chatbots amplifying false claims about the unrest, political polarization, and a rollback of safety and moderation efforts by major platforms,” McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher with NewsGuard, told AFP.
“As a result, foreign actors have a wide-open playing field to flood the zone with falsehoods at a faster rate and fewer barriers compared to previous moments of unrest,” she added.
The apparent alignment across the three countries was noteworthy, Sadeghi said.
“While Russia, China, and Iran regularly push their own unique forms of disinformation, it’s less common to see them move in such a coordinated fashion like this,” she said.
“This time, state media outlets have escalated their messaging to advance their geopolitical interests and deflect attention from their own domestic crises.”
The disinformation comes on top of false narratives promoted by US-based influencers.
In recent days, conservative social media users have circulated two photographs of brick piles they claimed were strategically placed for the California protesters to hurl at police and inflame violence.
The photos were cited as proof that the protests were fueled by nonprofit organizations supported by George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who has long been a bogeyman for the far right.
But AFP’s fact-checkers found that one photo was lifted from an online marketplace, where a Malaysian hardware dealer uploaded it years ago, while the other was snapped near a construction site in New Jersey.
“Every time there’s a popular protest, the old clickbaity ‘pallets of bricks’ hoax shows up right on cue,” the Social Media Lab, a research center at the Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote on the platform Bluesky.
“The fact that these types of fake images are used isn’t a coincidence. It’s part of a pernicious (and) persistent narrative that protests against government policies are somehow inauthentic.”
 


India in mourning after over 240 killed in deadliest aviation disaster in decades

India in mourning after over 240 killed in deadliest aviation disaster in decades
Updated 13 June 2025
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India in mourning after over 240 killed in deadliest aviation disaster in decades

India in mourning after over 240 killed in deadliest aviation disaster in decades
  • Sole flight survivor Ramesh Viswashkumar a British national of Indian origin, is being treated at a hospital, airline confirms
  • London-bound Dreamliner with 242 people on board also killed dozens more when it crashed into a medical college hostel

NEW DELHI, India: Indian authorities were combing the site of one of India’s deadliest aviation disasters on Friday, after an Air India plane crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad less than a minute after takeoff, killing all but one of its passengers. 

The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which had 242 people on board, also killed dozens more people when it crashed into a medical college hostel located just outside Ahmedabad airport and burst into flames on Thursday afternoon. 

The sole survivor, a British national of Indian origin, is being treated in a hospital, the airline confirmed. 

“We are all devastated by the air tragedy in Ahmedabad. The loss of so many lives in such a sudden and heartbreaking manner is beyond words. Condolences to all the bereaved families,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on social media after visiting the crash site in the capital of his home state of Gujarat. 

The passengers comprised 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, 7 Portuguese and one Canadian. 

The surviving passenger, who was in seat 11A next to an emergency exit in front of the plane’s wing, reportedly managed to jump out. He told Indian media that he had heard a loud noise shortly after flight AI171 took off. 

Various footage showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then sinking and disappearing from the screen, before a huge fireball could be seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses. 

Those killed on board include a family who was visiting India for Eid, a newlywed who is moving to the UK and Vijay Rupani, former chief minister of Gujarat. 

Health authorities are conducting DNA tests to identify bodies, which were mostly charred beyond recognition, as relatives take part and wait for officials to release the remains. 

Suresh Khatika, who was waiting at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital where the DNA testing was taking place, said his niece Payal Khatika was among the passengers. 

“Payal was going for further studies and she has taken a loan for it. She was really preparing herself for the day when she would go to the UK for studies,” Khatika told Arab News. 

“It is really tragic that her dream crashed like this. We are in deep pain, and don’t know how to react.” 

Many Indians have also taken to social media to mourn the victims, as their stories circulated widely. Among them is Dr. Pratik Joshi, who was reportedly bringing his wife, Dr. Komi Vyas, and three young children to move to the UK. A picture of the family, believed to be taken on the plane and shared with relatives before takeoff, has garnered millions of views online as messages of condolence poured in. 

In addition to the passengers and crew, dozens more people perished as they were caught in the path of the plane crash. 

Thakur Ravi, a cook at B.J. Medical College, said his mother and two-year-old daughter, who had been on the side of the building where the plane had crashed, were missing. 

“Other helpers and cooks managed to escape but my mother and daughter have been missing since yesterday,” Ravi told Arab News. 

“We are frantically hoping against hope to have my family back. It was a horrible incident. It seemed as if the sky had fallen on us.” 

Indian Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said a formal investigation headed by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has been launched. 

Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood “ready to support them” over the incident. The UK and US air accident investigation agencies also announced they were sending teams to support their Indian counterparts.

India, the world’s third-largest aviation market, has endured several fatal air crashes on its soil, including in 1996, when two planes collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing around 350 people. In 2010, an Air-India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in south-west India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew onboard. 


Judge blocks Trump’s election executive order, siding with Democrats who called it overreach

Judge blocks Trump’s election executive order, siding with Democrats who called it overreach
Updated 13 June 2025
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Judge blocks Trump’s election executive order, siding with Democrats who called it overreach

Judge blocks Trump’s election executive order, siding with Democrats who called it overreach

ATLANTA: A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to overhaul elections in the US, siding with a group of Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the effort as unconstitutional.
The Republican president’s March 25 executive order sought to compel officials to require documentary proof of citizenship for everyone registering to vote for federal elections, accept only mailed ballots received by Election Day and condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the new ballot deadline.
The group of attorneys general said the directive “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.” The White House has defended the order as “standing up for free, fair and honest elections” and called proof of citizenship a “commonsense” requirement.


Hong Kong rights group shuts down after years of advocating for workers

Hong Kong rights group shuts down after years of advocating for workers
Updated 13 June 2025
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Hong Kong rights group shuts down after years of advocating for workers

Hong Kong rights group shuts down after years of advocating for workers
  • Founded in 1994, organization maintained a database tracking workers’ strikes, protests, workplace accidents and other labor rights incidents in China

HONG KONG: A Hong Kong group that advocated for workers rights for decades announced its shutdown abruptly on Thursday, citing financial difficulties and debt issues.
China Labor Bulletin planned to stop updating its website content and appeared to have deleted Facebook and Instagram social media accounts used by the nonprofit rights organization.
“The company can no longer maintain operations and has decided to dissolve and initiate the relevant procedures,” it said in a statement on an archived web page Friday.
Founded in 1994, organization maintained a database tracking workers’ strikes, protests, workplace accidents and other labor rights incidents in China.
As dozens of civil society groups disbanded or left Hong Kong in the wake of the 2020 Beijing-imposed national security law, China Labor Bulletin continued providing valuable resources for journalists and academics in the southern Chinese city.
Critics say the drastic political changes in Hong Kong indicated the decline of Western-style civil liberties that China promised to keep intact when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. However, Beijing and Hong Kong governments insisted the law was crucial to bring stability to the city following massive anti-government protests in 2019.
China Labor Bulletin’s founder Han Dongfang, a former railway worker who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. He told the Central News Agency of Taiwan that the shutdown was his decision and he would stay in Hong Kong.
Han’s decision appeared sudden to many Hong Kong civil society observers. Three weeks ago, he wrote on social media platform LinkedIn about his work anniversary and his team’s progress.
“Let’s keep our faith up at this abnormal time and continue our important work,” he said.