Tag: politics

‘Major non-NATO ally’: What does Biden’s new Kenya pledge mean? | Explainer News

EXPLAINER

Here’s more about the non-NATO ally designation, promised to Kenya during President Ruto’s Washington visit.

United States President Joe Biden pledged to designate Kenya as a major non-NATO ally on Thursday, which will make Kenya the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to hold the designation. This was during Kenyan President William Ruto’s three-day visit to the US.

Biden described the decision as “a fulfilment of years of collaboration”.

“Our joint counterterrorism operations have degraded ISIS [ISIL] and al-Shabab across East Africa, our mutual support for Ukraine has rallied the world to stand behind the UN Charter, and our work together on Haiti is helping pave the way to reduce instability and insecurity,” Biden told a news conference at the White House on Thursday.

But what does a major non-NATO ally status mean?

What is a major non-NATO ally?

A major non-NATO ally (MNNA) refers to a country that is not part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), yet has a deep strategic and security partnership with the US.

It is a designation that denotes a high level of trust, but falls short of involving commitments that full-fledged treaty allies agree to. In particular, this status would not bind the US and Kenya to mutual defence of each other, if either one of them were under attack.

What benefits do non-NATO allies receive?

The MNNA status entails certain economic and military benefits alongside benefits in areas of defence trade and security cooperation, but it “does not entail any security commitments to the designated country”, the US Department of State website says. The designation will allow Nairobi to buy military technologies that would be harder for other countries to obtain from Washington.

In addition to that, the State Department website enumerates other benefits, including:

  • MNNAs are eligible for loans of materials and equipment for research, development or testing.
  • US-owned War Reserve Stockpiles can be placed on MNNA territory.
  • MNNAs can be considered for the purchase of depleted uranium ammunition.
  • The allies can enter a formal agreement with the US Department of Defense to carry out research and development projects. Additionally, firms of the MNNA can bid on contracts to repair and maintain US Defense Department equipment outside of the US.

But the designation would not guarantee new defence agreements or weapon sales between Nairobi and Washington.

Which other countries has the US designated major non-NATO allies?

The US has currently designated 18 countries as MNNAs. These include Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Thailand and Tunisia.

In 2022, Biden rescinded Afghanistan’s status as an MNNA, 10 years after the designation was first announced.

What about other major US defence partners?

The US State Department says it treats Taiwan “as an MNNA, without formal designation as such” based on a 2002 statute — effectively giving the self-governing territory the benefits of that status without the legal recognition restricted to sovereign states.

This is because of the one China policy under which the US does not recognise Taiwan as an independent nation — even as it supports the territory economically and militarily. The relationship is fundamentally governed through the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

In 2016, the US designated India as a Major Defense Partner, under this designation, India can get licence-free access to military and dual-use equipment regulated by the US Department of Commerce.

What else happened during Ruto’s US visit?

Ruto arrived in Washington on Wednesday for a three-day visit. Here are the key developments that have taken place since:

  • During bilateral discussions between Biden and Ruto, the two countries decided to establish dialogue on artificial intelligence, collaboratively support Somali “antiterrorism” efforts and push for a ceasefire in Sudan.
  • Ruto also affirmed that both countries are committed to the US-backed initiative to send a Kenya-led police force to Haiti, which is currently rife with gang violence. Biden defended his decision to withhold US forces from the Haiti mission.
  • Biden and Ruto launched the US-Kenya Climate and Clean Energy Industrial Partnership, where the two will work with international financial institutions and multilateral trust funds to mobilise investment in clean energy.
  • The two countries additionally announced collaboration in healthcare, between US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kenya’s government to work towards the launch of the Kenyan National Public Health Institute.
  • Biden hosted a state dinner for Ruto on Thursday with about 500 guests including former President Bill Clinton and his wife and former presidential nominee, Hillary, as well as former President Barack Obama.

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Jeremy Corbyn to run as an independent in UK general election | Elections News

The 74-year-old ex-party leader will stand in his constituency of Islington North after being dropped from Labour candidate shortlist.

Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an independent candidate in the United Kingdom’s general election on July 4, a move that could lead to a potential upset for Labour in his north London seat.

Corbyn, who has represented the London constituency of Islington North for more than 40 years, announced on Friday that he would contest the seat to be “an independent voice for equality, democracy and peace”.

Labour officials have not included the 74-year-old in a shortlist of candidates for the seat, prompting his decision to go it alone.

“I want our political parties to be democratic, but members of Islington North Labour have been denied the right to choose a candidate,” Corbyn said in a video announcing his plan.

“So we have to stand up. We have to stand up and say, we’re not taking this anymore. We will assert our rights. That’s why I’m standing to be an independent candidate for the people of Islington North.”

Labour suspended Corbyn in 2020 following a report into how anti-Semitism complaints were handled under his leadership. Corbyn was Labour leader at the last election in 2019 and has held the Islington North seat since 1983.

Corbyn, who has been a longtime, staunch critic of Israel’s policies on Palestine, had acknowledged some of the findings during his leadership, adding that Jewish members of the Labour Party and the wider community “were right to expect us to deal with it”. But he added that he did not accept “all the findings”.

An Al Jazeera investigation into the crisis found that senior Labour officials had at the time attempted to undermine support for Corbyn and, on some occasions, silence debate about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Critic of Israel’s war on Gaza

After the October 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel and the start of Israel’s relentless war on Gaza that killed over 35,000 Palestinians, Corbyn emerged anew as a critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the overall policy of the Israeli government.

In November, he was one of the earliest politicians to urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate what he described as a “genocide” in Gaza.

“People in Gaza have been living under a blockade for the past 16 years and the Israeli occupation controls most of what goes in and out of Gaza,” he said, while also accusing politicians around the world of giving Israel a “green light to starve and slaughter the Palestinian people in the name of self-defence”.

He said the Hamas-led attack cannot justify “the indiscriminate bombing and starvation of the Palestinian people, who are being punished for a heinous crime they did not commit”.

Since October, Corbyn has also joined several protests in the UK denouncing Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

On Thursday, UK political leaders kicked off six weeks of campaigning before the country votes for a new government on July 4.

A snap Survation poll of voting intentions after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement put centre-left Labour on 48 points – its highest since November 2022 and 21 points ahead of the governing Conservatives, at 27.

Survation said the results were consistent with Labour’s polling throughout 2023 and this year. Other surveys have suggested similar results.

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Chad’s Deby sworn in as president as Allamaye Halina named new PM | Elections News

Inauguration of Mahamat Idriss Deby follows disputed election and marks an end to three years of military rule.

Chad’s newly elected president, Mahamat Idriss Deby, has been sworn in to succeed his late father after three years as an interim leader under military rule in the northcentral African country.

Shortly after, the country announced that Allamaye Halina would assume the post of prime minister after Succes Masra announced his resignation from the position this week.

Speaking at an inauguration ceremony in the capital in N’Djamena on Thursday, which followed contested elections earlier this month, Deby said: “To my brothers and sisters who did not choose me … I would like to say that I respect your choice, which contributes to the vitality of our democracy.”

Deby won a sweeping 61 percent of the May 6 vote that international NGOs said was neither credible nor free.

He was proclaimed transitional president in April 2021 after rebels killed his father, Idriss Deby, who had himself ruled Chad since a coup in the early 1990s.

Deby was quickly endorsed as transitional leader by an international community led by France, whose forces in recent years have been removed by military regimes in former colonies Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. France currently has 1000 soldiers in Chad.

The swearing-in on Thursday marked the end of three years of military rule in oil-rich Chad, one of Africa’s poorest countries, making official what the opposition has denounced as a Deby dynasty, accusing the clan and its allies of controlling the main institutions of power.

New prime minister

Following the inauguration, Chad named Halina, who was previously its ambassador to China, the new prime minister in a decree read out on state television.

Masra, who resigned from the post on Wednesday, was Deby’s main rival in the election.

He had only served as prime minister since the beginning of the year, having returned to the country under a reconciliation agreement after a period in exile following a crackdown on protests against military rule.

The opposition leader came second in the election with 18.54 percent of the vote, unsuccessfully challenging the result on allegations of fraud.

After the Constitutional Council rejected his bid, he called on supporters to “remain mobilised” but “peaceful”.

Eight African heads of state and foreign dignitaries, including Franck Riester, France’s minister for foreign trade and Francophonie, attended Deby’s swearing-in ceremony.

The presidential term runs for five years and can be renewed once.

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China says war games around Taiwan to test ability to ‘seize power’ | Military News

The People’s Liberation Army continues land, sea and air exercises that began on Thursday around the self-ruled island .

China’s military has begun its second day of war games around Taiwan, with drills that it said were to test the armed forces’ ability to “seize power” and control key areas of the self-ruled democracy.

As the first day of exercises, codenamed Joint Sword-2024A, got under way on Thursday, China described them as “punishment” following the inauguration speech by Taiwan’s new president William Lai Ching-te in which he said Taiwan was a “sovereign and independent nation with sovereignty resting in the people”.

Lai also stressed Taiwan would make no concessions on its freedoms and called on Beijing to “stop its aggression against Taiwan”.

The drills are part of an escalating campaign of political and military intimidation by Beijing, which claims the island as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its goal of unification.

The two-day exercises are testing the “capability of joint seizure of power, joint strikes and control of key territories,” said Colonel Li Xi, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command.

Taiwan mobilised its armed forces to monitor and shadow Chinese activity as the drills got under way.

On Friday, the island’s Ministry of Defence published pictures of F-16s, armed with live missiles, patrolling the skies.

It also showed images of Chinese coastguard vessels, and other navy ships taking part in the drills near the Pengjia Islet north of Taiwan.

Taiwan’s President William Lai Ching-te, centre, visited a military base as China’s PLA began military drills around the island [Ritchie B Tongo/EPA]

Footage published by China’s military, meanwhile, showed soldiers streaming out of a building to battle stations and jets taking off to a rousing martial tune.

State broadcaster CCTV reported that Chinese sailors had called out to their Taiwanese counterparts at sea, warning them against “resisting reunification by force”.

Blunt language

Beijing considers Lai a “troublemaker” and a “separatist”. Like his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen, he says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

At Thursday’s regular press briefing, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin used the kind of blunt language usually used by the country’s propaganda outlets.

“Taiwan independence forces will be left with their heads broken and blood flowing after colliding against the great … trend of China achieving complete unification,” Wang told reporters.

Beijing’s Xinhua news agency and ruling party newspaper, the People’s Daily, both ran editorials hailing the drills on Friday, lashing out at Lai’s “treacherous behaviour” and promising a “severe blow”.

The United Nations has called on all sides to avoid escalation, while the United States – Taiwan’s strongest ally and military backer – “strongly” urged China to act with restraint.

The defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing China’s civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists, who founded the People’s Republic of China.

The drills are taking place in the Taiwan Strait and to the north, south and east of the island, as well as areas around the Taipei-administered islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin.

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Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 819 | Russia-Ukraine war News

As the war enters its 819th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Fighting

  • At least seven people were killed and dozens more injured in a Russian missile attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and home to about one million people.
  • Nearly 11,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in the Kharkiv region since Russian forces began a cross-border ground offensive there on May 10, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
  • Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said one woman was killed after a destroyed Ukrainian drone fell on her house. The Russian Ministry of Defence said 35 Ukrainian rockets and three drones had been shot down over the Belgorod region, which lies across the border from Kharkiv.
  • Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed its forces had recaptured the small village of Andriivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The Ukrainian General Staff said later that its troops were repelling three Russian assaults in the area of Andriivka and nearby Novyi. Andriivka was liberated by Ukrainian soldiers in an offensive last September.
  • Sergei Aksyonov, the head of the Russia-annexed Crimea peninsula, said two people were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack near Simferopol, the peninsula’s main administrative centre. Ukraine has not commented on the alleged attack. Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
  • Russia said it brought down a Ukrainian drone in its central Tatarstan region, hundreds of kilometres from the two countries’ border.

Politics and diplomacy

  • Russia arrested Lieutenant-General Vadim Shamarin, deputy head of Russia’s General Staff, and a high-ranking defence official on corruption and “abuse of power” charges in a widening crackdown on corruption in military contracts. The two are being held in custody pending trial.
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Belarus, Moscow’s closest ally, for talks with President Alexander Lukashenko that are expected to focus on security and military exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons.
  • Putin signed a decree allowing the confiscation of assets inside Russia belonging to the United States, its citizens and companies, to use as compensation over Western sanctions against Moscow.
  • Russia jailed 36-year-old barman Vladimir Malina for 25 years for joining a unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine and carrying out sabotage of railway equipment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, arrived in Belarus for two days of talks with close ally Alexander Lukashenko [Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, Kremlin/Pool via AP Photo]
  • Russia jailed 20-year-old student Vladimir Belkovich, from Siberia’s Irkutsk region, to 13 years in prison for treason after he agreed to post leaflets on behalf of a pro-Ukraine partisan group.
  • Thirteen Ukrainian children returned home from Russia and Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine with the cooperation of Qatar, officials in Kyiv said. Ukraine says about 20,000 Ukrainian children have been sent to Russia without the consent of their families or guardians.
  • OVD-Info, a leading Russian rights group and protest monitoring network, said it had received a notice from YouTube threatening to block access in Russia to one of its video channels featuring news on the war in Ukraine.

Weapons

  • Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba again called on the country’s Western allies to send seven Patriot air defence systems. “They are needed now, not tomorrow,” he said.
  • The US is preparing a new $275m military aid package for Ukraine, which will include high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), as well as 155mm and 105mm high-demand artillery rounds, Javelin and AT-4 antitank systems, antitank mines, tactical vehicles and small arms.
  • Russian jamming has prevented many of Ukraine’s relatively new long-range glide bombs from hitting their intended targets, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the challenges.

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Thousands mourn at Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s funeral procession | Politics

NewsFeed

Funeral services for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi started in Tehran and ended in his hometown of Mashhad. Raisi died alongside Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others Sunday in a helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan.

Published On 23 May 2024

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Why is Biden ratcheting up the trade war with China? | Business and Economy

US slaps tariffs on Chinese goods, and Beijing launches an anti-dumping inquiry in response.

Chinese imports have helped push down the cost of products like video games, T-shirts and home appliances in the United States. But many American factories say these imports have driven them out of business and cost more than a million people their jobs.

President Joe Biden says he will not allow China to “unfairly control the market”.

In the run-up to November’s elections, he has sharply raised tariffs on Chinese imports ranging from electric vehicles to solar cells to protect American industries and workers.

Beijing has launched an anti-dumping investigation in response.

And Cuba’s sugar industry is in crisis.

Plus, the world faces shortages of critical minerals.

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Aden 1986: Anatomy of an assassination | Politics

The brutal attack on South Yemeni politicians in 1986, when assassins stormed a meeting of the country’s cabinet.   

The audacious assassination of South Yemeni politicians during a cabinet meeting in 1986 remains a landmark moment in the region’s history. Now, we hear exclusive recent testimony from South Yemen’s then-president, whose bodyguards carried out the attack. A leader of the political assassination squad and another eyewitness capture the extreme violence used as one political faction attempted to wipe out its rivals, in a minute-by-minute account. Reporter Gamal al Moliky tells how this rivalry escalated into a series of assassinations in 1986 that were shocking, even by the violent standards of Yemen at the time.

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Thai court to hear ethics case calling for removal of PM | Politics News

Judges accept petition seeking Srettha Thavisin’s removal over cabinet appointment of lawyer who did jail time.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court will examine a plea seeking to remove Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin over his cabinet appointment of a lawyer with a criminal conviction.

Judges voted 6-3 on Thursday to accept a petition submitted by 40 senators to remove Srettha from office, but they rejected an application to suspend him from his duties as prime minister pending the probe.

If found guilty, Srettha could be removed from the top job.

The senators had complained that Srettha’s appointment last month of former lawyer Pichit Chuenban, jailed six months in 2008 for a contempt of court conviction, fell short of official moral and ethical standards.

Pichit’s jailing had followed accusations that he had attempted to bribe court officials with 2 million baht ($55,218) placed in a paper grocery bag. He resigned from his role as minister of the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday in a bid to protect Srettha.

Government critics say Pichit got the job thanks to his close ties with influential billionaire ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, recently released on parole after being detained over corruption-related offences.

Thaksin is a close ally of Srettha and the founder of his ruling Pheu Thai party, which together with its predecessors has won all but one Thai election since 2001.

Srettha was elected by the legislature last year following a deal with parties and politicians allied with the royalist military, which staged coups against Thaksin-backed governments in 2006 and 2014.

The Constitutional Court has a record of rulings that favour the country’s conservative establishment.

The court decision is the latest setback for Srettha. It comes after three ministers quit in recent weeks as the government battles to jumpstart an underperforming economy.

The government is also scrambling to find funds to deliver on a delayed election promise of cash handouts for 50 million people.

Srettha has 15 days to file his defence in court. “I did everything sincerely and am ready to answer any query,” he told reporters while overseas in Japan after the court decision.

The court gave no timeframe for a decision in the case.

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Thousands march in Iran to mourn Raisi on final day of funeral | Politics News

President Ebrahim Raisi died on Sunday, along with the foreign minister, after his helicopter crashed near the Azerbaijan border.

Thousands have marched in Iran for the final day of funeral rites for President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash earlier this week.

Raisi, 63, died on Sunday alongside his foreign minister and six others when their helicopter crashed in the country’s mountainous northwest while returning from a dam inauguration.

Thousands of people, holding placards of Raisi and waving flags, marched in the eastern city of Birjand on Thursday morning to bid him farewell.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who announced five days of mourning for those who died in the crash, led prayers in Tehran on Wednesday for Raisi’s funeral.

Raisi will be laid to rest at the holy shrine of Imam Reza, a mausoleum in the city of Mashad, where the ultraconservative president was born.

He will become the first top politician in the country to be buried at the shrine, representing a significant honour for the former leader.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian will also be buried on Thursday at the shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim in the town of Shahr-e Rey.

Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries paid their respects to the late diplomat at a Tehran ceremony before the burial.

A woman holds a poster of Raisi during a funeral ceremony for him, in Tehran, May 22, 2024 [Vahid Salemi/AP]

Raisi’s death comes at a time of worsening strains between the clerical leadership and broader society, aggravated by tightening political and social controls.

Vice President Mohammad Mokhber took over as caretaker president on Monday, while Ali Bagheri Kani was appointed acting foreign minister until the June 28 election.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said the Iranian establishment wanted to form “parallel lives”, with Iranians mourning for Raisi while getting ready for an election, which was not expected until next year.

“The main thing here is the establishment doesn’t want the feeling of uncertainty to dominate and, of course, [cause] a vacuum. In fact, Iranians are very sensitive to vacuums, and that’s why we’re seeing them announcing elections in less than the 50-day period – it’s going to be in a month and a few days.

“Given the election is on the way, the days coming will witness the registration of candidacies. People of course are circulating names, namely from the conservative camp,” Hashem said.

During Raisi’s presidency, who was elected in 2021, the country witnessed mass protests, a deepening economic crisis and unprecedented armed exchange with Israel.

Before his death, Raisi was also widely expected to succeed Ayatollah Khamenei.

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