WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday he thinks Vice President Kamala Harris will be easier to defeat in November’s election than Democratic President Joe Biden, who earlier in the day stepped aside as his party’s candidate.
“Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been,” Trump told CNN.
Trump and his campaign later also attacked Biden and Harris on social media while saying Biden was unfit to continue serving as president.
Biden ended his reelection campaign on Sunday after fellow Democrats lost faith in his mental acuity and ability to beat Trump. Biden endorsed Harris to replace him as the party’s candidate.
Biden had faced growing doubts about his reelection chances after a weak and faltering performance in a televised debate against Trump late last month.
On his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump said Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve.”
Other top Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, also said Biden was not fit to serve as president and finish his term if he was stepping aside as the Democratic presidential candidate. Johnson explicitly called on Biden to resign.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, said: “We will suffer greatly because of his (Biden’s) presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly.”
Trump and Biden had been mostly tied in polls, but after the debate some polls showed Trump narrowly ahead of the president in a match-up for the November elections.
The Trump campaign had already begun discussions about how it would redeploy campaign resources for the possibility of Biden’s dropping out, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Sunday.
Given that any alternative Democratic candidate would likely have different strengths and weaknesses than Biden, that person said, the president’s dropping out would require rethinking where to spend ad dollars and where to deploy resources more generally.
Publicly, Trump campaign advisers and allies have been telling reporters they are not worried about facing Harris because they can simply tie her to Biden’s record in office, particularly on immigration and inflation. They say they will try to portray Harris, and any of the other candidates being suggested as alternatives for the Democrats, as being to the left of Biden on various policies.
In a statement after Biden dropped out, the Trump campaign said Harris was Biden’s “enabler in chief.” The campaign said Biden and Harris owned each other’s records and “there is no distance between the two.”
The official Republican National Committee YouTube channel published a two minute video on Sunday afternoon attacking Harris over immigration policies, alleging she neglected that issue.
In recent weeks, Trump’s campaign and some of his allies have launched pre-emptive political attacks on Harris to try to discredit her amid talk she could replace Biden atop the party’s 2024 presidential ticket.
In March 2021 Biden said Harris would lead efforts with Mexico and Central American nations to address illegal immigration.
Republicans have seized on that to accuse her of failing to stem the flow of millions of migrants crossing illegally into the United States, although she was never directly responsible for securing the southern border.
Trump says Kamala Harris will be easier to defeat than Biden
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Trump says Kamala Harris will be easier to defeat than Biden
- President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid on Sunday and endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee
- Even before that decision was made, Trump was saying Harris was no different from Biden
Economic hardships subdue the mood for Eid Al-Adha this year
- While sales increased ahead of Eid, Indonesian sellers say their businesses have lost customers in recent years
- In New Delhi, sellers were busy tending to their animals while potential buyers negotiated prices with them
In Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, Muslim worshippers were shoulder-to-shoulder in the streets and the Istiqlal Grand Mosque was filled for morning prayers Friday.
Eid Al-Adha, known as the “Feast of Sacrifice,” coincides with the final rites of the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia. It’s a joyous occasion, for which food is a hallmark with devout Muslims buying and slaughtering animals and sharing two-thirds of the meat with the poor.
Outside Jakarta, the Jonggol Cattle Market bustled with hundreds of cattle traders hoping to sell to buyers looking for sacrificial animals. While sales increased ahead of Eid, sellers said their businesses have lost customers in recent years due to economic hardship following the COVID-19 pandemic.
A foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2022 to 2023 also significantly dampened the typically booming holiday trade in goats, cows and sheep, though Indonesia’s government has worked to overcome that outbreak.
Rahmat Debleng, one of the sellers in the market, said before the pandemic and the FMD outbreak, he could sell more than 100 cows two weeks ahead of Eid Al-Adha. But on the eve of the celebration this year, only 43 of his livestock were sold, and six cows are still left in his stall.
“Though the foot-and-mouth outbreak threats remain loom large, but the declining in sales mostly because of economic hardship,” Debleng said.
Jakarta city administration data recorded the number of sacrificial animals available this year at 35,133, a decline of 57 percent compared to the previous year.
The government has made next Monday an additional holiday after Friday’s festival to allow people more time with their families. Eid momentum is expected to support economic growth in Indonesia, where household consumption helps drive GDP. It contributed over 50 percent to the economy last year, though analysts expect more subdued consumer spending in 2025.
Eid expected to come Saturday in South Asia
Eid Al-Adha commemorates the Qur’anic tale of Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice Ismail as an act of obedience to God. Before he could carry out the sacrifice, God provided a ram as an offering. In the Christian and Jewish telling, Abraham is ordered to kill another son, Isaac.
South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh will celebrate Eid Al-Adha on Saturday. Ahead of the festival, many Muslims in the region were turning to livestock markets to buy and sell millions of animals for sacrifice.
In New Delhi, sellers were busy tending to their animals at these markets, while potential buyers negotiated prices with them.
Mohammad Ali Qureshi, one of the sellers, said this year his goats were fetching as high as $640, some $60 more than the last year.
“Earlier, the sale of goats was slow, but now the market is good. Prices are on the higher side,” Ali said.
Preparations for the festival were also peaking in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where many Muslims dye sheep and goats in henna before they are sacrificed.
“We are following the tradition of Prophet Ibrahim,” said Riyaz Wani, a resident in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar, as his family applied henna on a sheep they plan to sacrifice.
UK Labour gets rare boost with surprise election win
LONDON: Labour scored a surprise win in a Scottish Parliament by-election on Friday, giving UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his government a rare moment of celebration.
Labour won with 8,559 votes, overturning the comfortable majority of 4,582 earned by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2021.
The SNP were favorites going into the election, but saw their vote collapse by almost 17 percent, netting them 7,957 votes and delivering a heavy blow to the party that runs Scotland.
“People in Scotland have once again voted for change,” Starmer wrote on X.
“Next year there is a chance to turbo charge delivery by putting Labour in power on both sides of the border,” he added.
Starmer and his government have seen their popularity plunge since coming to power last July.
Labour secured 31.6 percent of the vote, slightly down on the 2021 election.
But they capitalized on a fractured opposition, with the anti-immigration Reform UK party making inroads into Scottish politics for the first time with 26.1 percent of the vote.
The Conservative party continued its dismal recent electoral record, gaining just six percent of the vote.
The ballot was held following the death of SNP lawmaker and government minister Christina McKelvie in March.
Students in rebel-held eastern Congo brave insecurity to take exams
- The Rwanda backed insurgents seized eastern Congo’s two largest cities in an offensive earlier this year
BUKAVU: Tens of thousands of secondary school students sat for state exams in rebel-held eastern Congo this week, a complicated logistical feat requiring rare cooperation between the government and M23 rebels.
The Rwanda-backed insurgents seized eastern Congo’s two largest cities in an offensive earlier this year and are now trying to show they can govern. African leaders along with Washington and Doha are meanwhile trying to broker a peace deal that would put an end to a conflict with roots in the Rwandan genocide more than three decades ago.
The state exams, administered across the sprawling central African country for students hoping to go to university, began on Monday and will continue through mid-June.
Administering them throughout the east of Democratic Republic of Congo required having education officials personally escort documents and other materials from the capital Kinshasa into M23-held cities and towns.
“We were among those who went to Kinshasa to collect the items,” said Jean-Marie Mwayesi, an education official in South Kivu province, where M23 claims considerable territory.
“Thanks to the combined efforts of our teams and partners, all 111 centers we cover have been served.”
President Felix Tshisekedi’s government announced last month it was waiving exam fees — which normally exceed $40 — for students in North and South Kivu provinces, citing insecurity.
While M23 has previously said it seeks the ouster of Tshisekedi’s government, the group’s leader Bertrand Bisimwa told Reuters that it still recognized Kinshasa as the administrator of national exams.
“Our presence in the eastern part of our country does not make this a separate country,” Bisimwa said.
“The education of our children is apolitical. It must be protected against any political divergence because we all work for the interest and well-being of our children.”
Human rights groups have repeatedly accused M23 of executing civilians including children — allegations the group has denied.
Exauce Katete was among the students who sat for exams at a school in the South Kivu regional capital Bukavu, which fell under M23 control in February and where insecurity including vigilante violence has increased since then.
“Yes, security is there. I can still see a few people outside, responsible for keeping us safe. There are no disturbances, no noise, everything is going well,” Katete said, referring to plainclothes officers positioned by M23 outside the school.
Mwayesi, the local education official, said that of 44,000 students who registered in his zone, nearly 42,000 showed up, speculating that the remainder may have been displaced by fighting.
India’s Modi arrives in Kashmir to open strategic railway
- Modi is launching a string of projects worth billions of dollars for the divided Muslim-majority territory
- His office broadcast images of Modi at a viewing point for the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-meter-long steel and concrete span
SRINAGAR, India: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Kashmir on Friday, his first visit to the contested Himalayan region since a conflict with arch-rival Pakistan last month, and opened a strategic railway line.
Modi is launching a string of projects worth billions of dollars for the divided Muslim-majority territory, the center of bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought an intense four-day conflict last month, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10.
His office broadcast images of Modi at a viewing point for the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-meter-long (4,314-foot-long) steel and concrete span that connects two mountains with an arch 359 meters above the river below.
“In addition to being an extraordinary feat of architecture, the Chenab Rail Bridge will improve connectivity,” the Hindu nationalist leader said in a social media post ahead of his visit.
Modi strode across the bridge waving a giant Indian flag to formally declare it open for rail traffic soon after his arrival.
New Delhi calls the Chenab span the “world’s highest railway arch bridge.” While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records confirmed that Chenab trumps the previous highest railway bridge, the Najiehe in China.
The new 272-kilometer Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway, with 36 tunnels and 943 bridges, has been constructed “aiming to transform regional mobility and driving socio-economic integration,” Modi’s office says.
The bridge will facilitate the movement of people and goods, as well as troops, that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and by air.
The railway “ensures all weather connectivity” and will “boost spiritual tourism and create livelihood opportunities,” Modi said.
The railway line is expected to halve the travel time between the town of Katra in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and Srinagar, the main city in Muslim-majority Kashmir, to around three hours.
More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire during last month’s conflict.
The fighting was triggered by an April 22 attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing – a charge Islamabad denies.
Rebel groups in Indian-run Kashmir have waged a 35-year-long insurgency demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan.
Six-year-old girl among Myanmar group arrested for killing retired general
- Cho Htun Aung, 68, a retired brigadier general who also served as an ambassador, was shot dead in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon on May 22
Myanmar’s military has arrested a six-year-old child as part of a group it labelled “terrorists” for the daytime killing of a retired military officer and diplomat last month, a junta-run newspaper reported on Friday.
Cho Htun Aung, 68, a retired brigadier general who also served as an ambassador, was shot dead in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon on May 22, in one of the highest profile assassinations in a country in the throes of a widening civil war.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, overthrowing an elected government led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering widespread protests.
The junta’s violent crackdown on dissent sparked an unprecedented nationwide uprising. A collection of established ethnic armies and new armed groups have wrested away swathes of territory from the well-armed military, and guerrilla-style fighting has erupted even in urban areas like Yangon.
“A total of 16 offenders — 13 males and three females — were arrested,” the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.
In an accompanying graphic, the newspaper carried the image of the six-year-old child, identified as the daughter of the alleged assassin.
Her face was blurred in an online version of the newspaper seen by Reuters, but visible in other social media posts made by junta authorities.
A junta spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment.
Golden Valley Warriors, an anti-junta insurgent group, said they killed the retired general because of his continued support for military operations, including attacks on civilians, according to a May 22 statement.
The junta claims the group is backed by the National Unity Government — a shadow government comprising of remnants of Suu Kyu’s ousted administration that is battling the military — and paid an assassin some 200,000 Myanmar Kyat ($95.52) for a killing, the state newspaper reported.
NUG spokesperson Nay Phone Latt denied the shadow government had made any such payments. “It is not true that we are paying people to kill other people,” he told Reuters. Since the coup, Myanmar’s junta has arrested over 29,000 people, including more than 6,000 women and 600 children, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, an activist group.
Fatalities among civilians and pro-democracy activists verified by AAPP during this period amount to more than 6,700, including 1,646 women and 825 children.
