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China would gain swift air superiority over Taiwan, US leaks show

By - Apr 16,2023 - Last updated at Apr 16,2023

WASHINGTON — China would probably gain air superiority very quickly in any attack on Taiwan, something Russia crucially failed to do in its invasion of Ukraine last year, leaked US intelligence documents show, according to media reports on Saturday.

The classified documents, allegedly leaked by a US national guardsman in the worst US security breach in a decade, reveal that Taiwan's military leaders doubt their air defenses can "accurately detect missile launches", while only about half of their aircraft are capable of effectively engaging the enemy.

China views democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory to be retaken one day, by force if necessary. The island lives under the constant fear of a Chinese invasion, and Beijing has stepped up its rhetoric and military activity around it in recent years.

The intelligence reports said that Taiwan fears it could take up to a week to move its aircraft to shelters, leaving them vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes.

In addition, China's use of civilian shipping, including passenger ferries, for military purposes has hampered the US intelligence community's ability to predict when an invasion might be pending, The Washington Post reported.

The Pentagon criticised Taiwan’s missile drills as too highly scripted, which could leave their armed forces and leadership unprepared for a “real-world event,” the Post said.

President Xi Jinping has undertaken a huge overhaul of China’s army to expand and modernize it. The People’s Liberation Army is estimated to be 14 times the size of Taiwan’s own armed forces.

Taiwan’s defence ministry told the Post that its response to recent Chinese shows of force in the vicinity demonstrate that its military is “absolutely capable, determined and confident” it can defend the island.

Last week, Taiwan staged large-scale emergency response drills enacting a wide array of scenarios, including attacks by missiles and chemical weapons.

The drills came just days after China held its latest military exercise around the island, just 100 miles off the coast of the Chinese mainland. 

Chinese jets and warships continued circling Taiwan even after the conclusion of the massive drills.

Taiwan’s defence ministry detected seven Chinese naval vessels and 26 aircraft between Wednesday and Thursday morning.

It said 14 aircraft had crossed the unofficial median line that separates the island from mainland China. 

On a visit to Beijing Friday, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that “a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait... would be a horror scenario for the entire world”.

Russian strike kills 11 in eastern Ukraine, Moscow claims gains near Bakhmut

By - Apr 16,2023 - Last updated at Apr 16,2023

This aerial view shows rescuers on top of a partially destroyed residential building, after a shelling in Sloviansk, on Friday, amid Russia's military invasion of Ukraine (AFP photo)

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine — The death toll from a Russian strike on a block of flats in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk climbed to 11 on Saturday as Moscow claimed advances near embattled Bakhmut. 

Sloviansk lies in a part of the eastern Donetsk region that is under Ukrainian control. According to Kyiv, it was on Friday struck by seven missiles which hit five buildings, five homes, a school and an administrative building.

"The number of victims of the shelling of Sloviansk has risen to 11 people," a spokeswoman for the State Emergency Service in the region, Veronika Bakhal, said in televised remarks.

A previous toll reported nine dead, including a two-year-old boy who was rescued from the rubble but died on his way to hospital, and 21 wounded.

Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska sent her condolences to the child’s family during this “indescribable grief”. 

President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia for “brutally shelling” residential buildings and “killing people in broad daylight”. 

AFP journalists on Friday saw rescue workers digging for survivors on the top floor of the typical Soviet-era housing block, and black smoke billowing from homes on fire across the street.

The street below, including a playground, was covered in concrete dust and debris, including torn pages from school books and children’s drawings.

In southern Ukraine, a 48-year-old woman and her 28-year-old daughter were killed Saturday in Russian shelling in the city of Kherson, the regional administration said on Telegram.

 

Bakhmut advances 

 

Sloviansk lies 45 kilometres northwest of the frontline hotspot of Bakhmut, the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia’s invasion.

Russian troops have been battling since last summer to capture the town in eastern Ukraine, which has taken on huge symbolic importance even though analysts say it has little strategic value.

Kyiv has said the battle for the town is key to holding back Russian forces along the entire eastern front and Sloviansk is one of the cities that will be at risk if Kyiv loses the battle.

Russia on Saturday claimed advances on the northern and southern outskirts of Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of 70,000 people. 

“Wagner assault units have successfully advanced, capturing two districts on the northern and southern outskirts of the city,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a briefing. 

The Russian Wagner mercenary group, headed by Kremlin-linked businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, has spearheaded much of the fighting for the city. 

According to the ministry, Ukrainian troops “while retreating, are deliberately destroying city infrastructure and residential buildings in order to slow the advance” of Moscow’s forces. 

AFP was unable to verify the situation on the ground. 

The town has become a fixation of military commanders, leading to a brutal nine-month war of attrition. Both Russia and Ukraine are believed to have suffered huge losses in the battle for Bakhmut.

 

Brazil’s Lula on Ukraine 

 

Russia said Friday it was pushing to take the western districts of the heavily destroyed salt mining town. 

On Thursday, Moscow claimed to have cut off Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut. Kyiv denied the claim, saying it had access to its troops and was able to send in munitions.

On the diplomatic front, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Saturday that the United States should stop “encouraging war” in Ukraine, as he wrapped a state visit to China.

He also urged the European Union to “start talking about peace”. 

Western capitals have been Ukraine’s key backers, supplying Kyiv with arms, ammunition as well as financial aid.

President Zelensky has said he will not negotiate with Russia as long as President Vladimir Putin is in power, while Moscow said this month it wants any Ukraine peace talks to focus on creating a “new world order”.

Russia has long said it was leading a struggle against Washington’s dominance over the international stage, and argues the Ukraine offensive is part of that fight.

Germany ends nuclear era as last reactors power down

By - Apr 15,2023 - Last updated at Apr 15,2023

BERLIN — Germany will switch off its last three nuclear reactors on Saturday, exiting atomic power even as it seeks to wean itself off fossil fuels and manage an energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

While many Western countries are upping their investments in atomic energy to reduce their emissions, Germany is bringing an early end to its nuclear age.

Europe's largest economy has been looking to leave behind nuclear power since 2002, but the phase-out was accelerated by former chancellor Angela Merkel in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

The exit decision was popular in a country with a powerful anti-nuclear movement, stoked by lingering fears of a Cold War conflict and atomic disasters such as Chernobyl in Ukraine.

"The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable," said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who this week made a pilgrimage to the ill-fated Japanese plant ahead of a G-7 meeting in the country.

But the challenge caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which put an end to cheap gas imports, and the need to quickly cut emissions has upped calls in Germany to delay the withdrawal from nuclear power.

Greenpeace, at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement, organised a celebratory party at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to mark the occasion.

"Finally, nuclear energy belongs to history! Let's make this April 15 a day to remember," the organisation said.

In contrast, conservative daily FAZ headlined its Saturday edition "Thanks, nuclear energy," as it listed benefits it said nuclear had brought the country over the years.

 

'A mistake' 

 

Initially planned for the end of 2022, Germany's nuclear exit had already been pushed back once.

As Russian gas supplies dwindled last year, officials in Berlin were left scrambling to find a way to keep the lights on, with a short extension agreed until mid-April.

Germany, the largest emitter in the European Union, also powered up some of its mothballed coal-fuelled plants to cover the potential gap left by gas.

The challenging energy situation had increased calls domestically for the exit from nuclear to be delayed.

Germany had to "expand the supply of energy and not restrict it any further" in light of potential shortages and high prices, the president of the German chambers of commerce Peter Adrian told the Rheinische Post daily.

The conservative leader of Bavaria Markus Soeder, meanwhile, told the Focus Online website that he wanted the plants to stay online and three more to be kept "in reserve".

Outside observers have been similarly irked by Germany's insistence on exiting nuclear while ramping up its coal usage, with climate activist Greta Thunberg in October slamming the move as "a mistake".

 

'Sooner or later' 

 

At the Isar 2 complex in Bavaria, technicians will progressively shut down the reactor from 10:00 pm (20:00 GMT) on Saturday, severing it from the grid for good.

"It will be a very moving moment for colleagues to shut down the power plant for the last time," said Guido Knott, CEO of PreussenElektra, which operates Isar 2, a few hours before the deadline.

By the end of the day, operators at the other two facilities, in northern Emsland and southwestern Neckarwestheim, will have taken their facilities offline as well.

The three final plants provided just 6 per cent of Germany's energy last year, compared with 30.8 per cent from all nuclear plants in 1997.

"Sooner or later" the reactors will start being dismantled, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told the Funke group ahead of the scheduled decommissioning, brushing aside the idea of an extension.

The government has the energy situation "under control", Habeck assured, having filled gas stores and built new infrastructure for the import of liquefied natural gas to bridge the gap left by Russian supplies.

Instead, the minister from the Green party, which was founded on opposition to nuclear power, is focused on getting Germany to produce 80 per cent of its energy from renewables by 2030.

To this end, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for the installation of "four to five wind turbines a day" over the next few years — a tall order given that just 551 were installed last year.

But the current rate of progress on renewables could well be too slow for Germany to meet its climate protection goals.

Despite planning to exit nuclear, Germany has not "pushed ahead enough with the expansion of renewables in the last 10 years", Simon Mueller from the Agora Energiewende think tank told AFP.

To build enough onshore wind capacity, according to Mueller, Germany now has to "pull out all the stops".

Greenpeace organised a protest at the Brandenburg Gate Saturday, with a model dinosaur symbolising atomic power dead on its back, vanquished by the anti-nuclear movement, surrounded by replica barrels of radioactive waste.

"Finally, nuclear energy belongs to history!", the group said. In Munich, a "nuclear exit festival" saw several hundred people gather to mark the milestone.

 

China blames 'negative impact' of US military drills for N. Korea tensions

By - Apr 13,2023 - Last updated at Apr 13,2023

This handout photo taken on April 9, and released by Japan's ministry of defence on Monday, shows a fighter plane taking off from the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in Pacific Ocean waters, south of Okinawa prefecture (AFP photo)

BEIJING — China on Thursday blamed the "negative impact" of US military drills for tensions on the Korean Peninsula, after Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile that prompted Japan to briefly issue a seek shelter warning.

South Korea's military said it had detected one "medium range or longer" ballistic missile from the Pyongyang area on Thursday morning, adding it was likely a "new type" that may have used advanced solid fuel. 

Japan briefly issued the seek shelter warning to residents of the northern Hokkaido region, but later said the missile had not fallen within the country's territory and posed no threat.

In response to a question about the missile launch at a regular press briefing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “The current round of tension on the peninsula has its causes. The negative impact of the US military drills and deployment of strategic weapons around the peninsula is obvious to all.”

Washington and Seoul have intensified defence cooperation recently, staging joint military exercises with advanced stealth jets and high-profile US strategic assets.

North Korea views such exercises as rehearsals for invasion, and on Tuesday described them as “frantic” drills “simulating an all-out war against” Pyongyang.

The United States has said it “strongly condemns” North Korea for Thursday’s missile test.

It is the latest in a string of banned weapons tests conducted by North Korea, which has already fired several of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles this year.

Wang said Beijing called on all parties to “remain calm and restrained” and to stop “exerting pressure and confrontation”. 

“The US side especially should take concrete actions at an early date and respond to the reasonable concerns of the DPRK [North Korea] and create conditions for easing tension and restarting dialogue as soon as possible,” he added.

Climate and environment ministers from the Group of Seven are due to meet this weekend in Sapporo, Hokkaido’s regional capital, a month before the group holds its summit in Hiroshima.

 

 

Trump to testify under oath in New York fraud lawsuit

Trump faces a slew of state, federal, congressional probes

By - Apr 13,2023 - Last updated at Apr 13,2023

NEW YORK — Donald Trump was back in New York on Thursday to answer questions in a civil case accusing the ex-president and three of his children of business fraud.

The behind-closed-doors deposition comes a week after Trump's historic arraignment on criminal charges in a Manhattan courtroom in a separate case.

The 76-year-old Republican was to be questioned under oath in the lawsuit brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump pumped his fist as he left Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue shortly after 9:30am (13:30 GMT), arriving at James's office in lower Manhattan around 10:00am.

"This civil case is ridiculous, just like all of the other Election Interference cases being brought against me," he wrote on his social media site Truth Social.

James sued Trump, Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump in September last year alleging they committed "incredible" fraud at the Trump Organisation.

Her lawsuit asserts that they lied to tax collectors, lenders and insurers for years in a scheme that routinely misstated the value of the organisation's properties to enrich themselves.

James said they provided fraudulent statements of Trump's net worth and false asset valuations "to obtain and satisfy loans, get insurance benefits and pay lower taxes".

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in next year's presidential election, has used his common refrain of "witch hunt" to describe the case.

He appeared for six hours of questioning in the probe last August, shortly before James filed her lawsuit.

In a dramatic court appearance last Tuesday that transfixed the nation, Trump denied 34 felony counts related to hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election that brought him to power.

He became the first former or sitting president to ever be charged with a crime.

That case has been criticised almost unanimously by Republican officials, including congressional leaders who have asked Manhattan's District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, to testify about the probe before Congress.

James, also an elected Democrat, has requested that Trump pay at least $250 million in penalties — a sum she says he made from the alleged fraud — and that his family be banned from running businesses in the state.

No criminal charges can stem from her case, which is expected to go to trial later this year.

Trump faces a slew of state, federal and congressional probes that threaten to complicate his bid to regain the presidency.

They include his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia, his alleged mishandling of classified documents taken from the White House and his involvement in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A civil trial for a sexual assault and defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll against Trump is scheduled to start in New York later this month.

Florida set to execute ‘ninja killer’ over 1989 murders

By - Apr 12,2023 - Last updated at Apr 12,2023

MIAMI — The US state of Florida on Wednesday was set to execute a man known as “the ninja killer”, more than three decades after a split jury voted to put him to death for murdering a couple in 1989.

Louis Gaskin, 56, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6:00 pm (22H00 GMT) — one of three executions Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has approved so far this year.

Gaskin earned his nickname from the media because he wore all black during the deadly burglary on December 20, 1989.

Armed with a rifle, he fired through the window of a New Jersey couple’s winter home, killing a man and wounding his wife, according to court documents. He eventually fatally shot the woman as she attempted to flee.

The clock, lamps and videocassette he stole from the house were to be Christmas gifts for his girlfriend.

Gaskin robbed a second house later that night, injuring a man who then, along with his wife, fled in his car.

Gaskin confessed to the crimes when he was arrested about two weeks later, and was found guilty of the two murders.

The jury voted 8-4 to recommend the death penalty. At the time, only a majority vote was required for capital punishment. The state now requires a unanimous vote to recommend execution.

In the decades since Gaskin’s conviction, his lawyers have lodged a number of appeals, arguing he suffered from a number of psychological disorders.

In 1991, a Florida appeals court recognised that he suffered from schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations, but judged that he remained conscious of the gravity of his actions and thereby was legally responsible.

DeSantis signed off on Gaskin’s execution orders last month, and the US Supreme Court rejected his final appeal.

The governor, considered to be a potential 2024 Republican presidential contender, only oversaw two executions during his first term.

But since January, as speculation about a presidential run is heating up, he has signed off on three execution orders.

Noreen Rector, who escaped from Gaskin’s second robbery, said she opposed the execution.

“I would be satisfied if Louis remained in prison, without the possibility of release. I don’t believe the death penalty serves any purpose,” Rector wrote in a statement to The Daytona Beach News-Journal, a local Florida paper.

“What will really bother me”, she said, “is if this might, in some way, advance Florida Governor DeSantis in his presidential quest”.

The death penalty is legal in 27 US states, though three have imposed a moratorium on the practice — as has the federal government under President Joe Biden.

Since the beginning of the year, nine people have been put to death: Five in Texas, two in Missouri, one in Florida and one in Oklahoma.

Harry but no Meghan at King Charles III’s coronation — palace

By - Apr 12,2023 - Last updated at Apr 12,2023

A general view inside Westminster Abbey in London on Wednesday, during a preview ahead of the Coronation of King Charles III (AFP photo)

LONDON — Prince Harry will attend the coronation in London of his father King Charles III but without his wife Meghan, Buckingham Palace said on Wednesday.

The announcement follows weeks of uncertainty over the presence of Harry and Meghan, who have launched a barrage of criticism of the British royal family since announcing they were quitting royal duties in early 2020.

“Buckingham Palace is pleased to confirm that the Duke of Sussex will attend the coronation service at Westminster Abbey on 6th May,” a palace statement said, using Harry’s official title.

“The Duchess of Sussex will remain in California with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.”

The day of the coronation, which formally sees Charles crowned king, falls on Archie’s fourth birthday.

Harry’s trip to the UK will be brief and he will not be attending any other coronation-related events, sources told the domestic PA news agency.

 

Tell-all memoir 

 

The delay by Harry and Meghan in replying to the invitation had reportedly caused difficulties for organisers given the security considerations for an event due to be attended by numerous foreign dignitaries and heads of state.

Harry’s attendance is seen as particularly sensitive since the publication of his blockbuster memoir “Spare” in January.

In the explosive autobiography, the 38-year-old prince claimed his elder brother Prince William attacked him during an argument about Meghan, an American former television actress.

It followed a string of high-profile interviews and a six-hour Netflix docu-series in which the couple repeatedly criticised the royals.

In comments that were widely seen as damaging to the monarchy, Meghan, who is mixed race, also told US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey in 2021 there had been comments made before Archie’s birth about the colour of his skin.

The claim prompted William to furiously respond that the royals were “very much not a racist family”.

Despite the tensions, Charles had reportedly been keen for his younger son to be at the coronation.

The couple have made infrequent visits to the UK since relocating to the United States, including for the funeral of Harry’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth II in September.

But tensions were visible when Harry and Meghan joined William and his wife Kate on a joint walkabout at Windsor Castle to review floral tributes for the late monarch.

Charles, who ascended to the throne upon his mother’s death, will be formally crowned king in a pomp-filled ceremony attended by 2,000 people and watched by a worldwide television audience.

The celebrations for the first coronation since 1953 will feature a star-studded concert with Kylie Minogue and Lionel Richie reportedly set to perform.

A nationwide “Big Lunch” and volunteering initiative, as well as the traditional ceremony and royal processions, are also planned.

Xi says China must strengthen training for 'actual combat'

By - Apr 12,2023 - Last updated at Apr 12,2023

In this photo taken on April 7, a Chinese helicopter flies over a military base in Pingtan island, in China's southeast Fujian province (AFP photo)

BEIJING — China's President Xi Jinping called on the country's armed forces to "strengthen military training oriented towards actual combat", state media reported Wednesday, after Beijing conducted military drills intended to intimidate Taiwan.

Xi's comments, made on a naval inspection trip on Tuesday, come amid heightened tension in the region after the show of force by Beijing, which sees self-ruled Taiwan as its territory.

China on Monday concluded three days of military drills launched in response to a visit last week by Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen to the United States, where she met a bipartisan group of lawmakers and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Xi on Tuesday told the People's Liberation Army's Southern Theatre Command Navy that the military must "resolutely defend China's territorial sovereignty and maritime interests, and strive to protect overall peripheral stability", state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Beijing has also criticised a plan for US forces to use a growing number of bases in the Philippines, including one near Taiwan.

The United States and the Philippines are holding their largest-ever joint military drills this week, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken committing to "standing with the Philippines against any intimidation or coercion, including in the South China Sea".

Xi added Tuesday that China must be “innovative in its concepts and methods of combat”.

 

Disputed waters 

 

China and Taiwan split following a civil war in 1949. 

Beijing views the democratic island as part of its territory and has vowed to take it one day, stepping up its rhetoric and military activity around the island in recent years.

The PLA simulated targeted strikes and a blockade of Taiwan during its recent three-day “Joint Sword” exercise.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said it continued to detect Chinese warships and aircraft around the island even after drills officially concluded.

Beijing warned this week that Taiwanese independence and cross-strait peace were “mutually exclusive”, blaming Taipei and unnamed “foreign forces” supporting it for the tensions.

Washington has been deliberately ambiguous on whether it would defend Taiwan militarily.

It has, however, sold weapons to Taipei for decades to help ensure its self-defence, and offered political support.

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea — a strategic waterway through which trillions of dollars in trade pass annually — despite an international court ruling that the assertion has no legal basis.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei all have overlapping claims in the sea, while the United States sends naval vessels through it to assert freedom of navigation rights in international waters.

Deadliest first quarter for central Med migrants since 2017 — UN

By - Apr 12,2023 - Last updated at Apr 12,2023

Migrants wait on the side of a street after Tunisian police dismantled a makeshift camp for refugees from sub-Saharan African countries in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Tunis on Tuesday (AFP photo)

GENEVA — January to March 2023 was the deadliest first quarter for migrants crossing the central Mediterranean since 2017, the United Nations said on Wednesday, with 441 lives lost attempting to reach Europe.

The UN's International Organisation (IOM) for Migration said delays in state-led search and rescue (SAR) operations were a factor in several fatal incidents in the perilous crossing from north Africa.

And the IOM said the 441 known deaths in the first three months of the year was likely an undercount of the true number.

"The persisting humanitarian crisis in the central Mediterranean is intolerable," said IOM chief Antonio Vitorino.

"With more than 20,000 deaths recorded on this route since 2014, I fear that these deaths have been normalised," he added.

"States must respond. Delays and gaps in state-led SAR are costing human lives."

The IOM said delays in such rescues were a factor in at least six incidents so far this year, leading to the deaths of at least 127 people.

"The complete absence of response to a seventh case claimed the lives of at least 73 migrants," it said in a statement, adding that non-governmental organisations' search and rescue efforts have markedly diminished in recent months.

"Over the Easter weekend, 3,000 migrants reached Italy, bringing the total number of arrivals so far this year to 31,192 people," the IOM said.

The UN agency's Missing Migrants Project is also investigating several reports of cases in which boats were reported missing, where there are no records of survivors, no remains and no SAR operations.

The fates of more than 300 people aboard those vessels remain unclear, the organisation said. 

 

'Ad hoc response' 

 

"Saving lives at sea is a legal obligation for states," said Vitorino.

"We need to see proactive, state-led coordination in search-and-rescue efforts. Guided by the spirit of responsibility sharing and solidarity, we call on states to work together and work to reduce loss of life along migration routes."

The IOM said the situation in the central Mediterranean reinforced the need for predictable state-led SAR, putting an end to the "ad hoc response" since the end of the Italian navy's Operation Mare Nostrum in 2014.

Countries needed to support the life-saving efforts of NGOs and end the “criminalisation, obstruction and deterrence” of those who do come to the rescue, it said.

“All maritime vessels, including commercial ships, have a legal obligation to provide rescue to boats in distress,” it added.

The agency also called for tougher action to dismantle criminal smuggling networks and to prosecute those responsible for “profiting from the desperation of migrants and refugees by facilitating dangerous journeys”.

Even as the IOM released its findings, the Tunisian coast guard said on Wednesday that 10 migrants had drowned off the coast after their boat was wrecked in the Mediterranean.

“Seventy-two migrants were rescued and 10 bodies recovered after Tuesday’s shipwreck” off Tunisia’s second city of Sfax, spokesman Houssem Jebabli said, adding that the dead were all from Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Biden embarks on nostalgic tour of Ireland

By - Apr 12,2023 - Last updated at Apr 12,2023

US President Joe Biden (right) is welcomed by Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar (centre) and ambassador of Ireland to the United States upon arrival at the Dublin International airport, on Wednesday (AFP photo)

DUBLIN — US President Joe Biden on Wednesday began a nostalgia-filled tour of the Republic of Ireland, jetting in from Northern Ireland where he pushed for an end to crippling political paralysis in the British province.

Biden emerged from Air Force One at Dublin airport to driving wind and rain, and was greeted by the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar and a sea of black umbrellas.

The 80-year-old president, who regularly mentions his Irish roots, calls Ireland “part of my soul” and his visit includes trips to the hometowns of his 19th-century ancestors.

He will also meet Irish head of state Michael Higgins and address a joint sitting of both houses of the Oireachtas — the Irish parliament — before heading home late Friday.

Despite the sentimental nature of his Irish visit, Biden was keen to underscore the seriousness of his trip.

The priority, he said, was “to keep the peace” in Northern Ireland, 25 years after a landmark peace agreement that ended three decades of deadly sectarian violence over British rule.

He used a speech at a new campus of Ulster University in Belfast earlier on Wednesday to promote the benefits of enduring peace and investment.

But he still faced heated criticism from pro-UK hardliners.

The UK government also downplayed suggestions his one-night-only trip to Belfast was a snub to the so-called “special relationship”.

“I hope the [Northern Ireland] Executive and Assembly will soon be restored,” Biden said, urging feuding leaders to restore power-sharing government which has been suspended since February last year.

 

‘Anti-British?’ 

 

Biden touted the “unlimited possibilities” for investment and growth offered in Northern Ireland, 25 years on from the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

But, he said, peace and stability must always be guarded, warning that the January 6, 2021, riot at Congress in Washington had proved that in every generation, “democracy needs champions”.

The president met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said the UK’s relationship with the United States was “in great shape” and greeted local political leaders.

Senior figures in the pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is under pressure to resume local power-sharing, were strikingly undiplomatic about the president.

Sammy Wilson, a DUP member of the UK parliament in Westminster, branded Biden “anti-British”, accusing second Catholic US president of having “made his antipathy towards Protestants in particular very well known”.

Another DUP lawmaker, Nigel Dodds, called Biden’s administration “transparently pro-nationalist” while party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the visit did nothing to change the political dynamic.

Power-sharing government is a key plank of the 1998 peace accord, but it collapsed 14 months ago over the DUP’s opposition to post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland.

The party fears that keeping Northern Ireland in the European single market and customs union drives a wedge between the province and Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales).

Despite the UK and the European Union agreeing to overhaul trading rules earlier this year, the DUP is yet to back the new trading terms and allow the restoration of Belfast’s Stormont legislature.

 

Security fears 

 

Biden’s defenders hit back at claims he was “anti-British”.

“The president has been very actively engaged throughout his career, dating back to when he was a senator, in the peace process in Northern Ireland,” said Amanda Sloat, National Security Council Senior Director for Europe.

Sectarian violence remains a concern north of the border, with Britain’s MI5 security agency elevating its terrorism threat level for the territory ahead of Biden’s visit.

On Monday, masked youths pelted police vehicles with petrol bombs during an illegal march by hardline nationalists in Londonderry, which is also known as Derry.

Police in Northern Ireland on Tuesday said that four suspected pipe bombs had been retrieved from a cemetery in the Creggan area of the city.

Biden brushed off any security concerns and saw up close how much redevelopment has transformed Belfast since 1998.

The five-star hotel in Belfast where he stayed only opened in 2018.

Before 1998, the only place for visiting dignitaries to stay was the nearby Europa, which was attacked so often by the Irish Republican Army paramilitary group that it became known as the most bombed hotel in Europe.

“I came here in ‘91 to this neighbourhood and you couldn’t have a glass building like this here... I don’t think they would have stood up very well,” Biden said of the new university campus.

“The dividends of peace are all around us.”

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