France’s ex-president Sarkozy on trial over alleged Qaddafi pact

France’s ex-president Sarkozy on trial over alleged Qaddafi pact
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy remains an influential figure for many on the right and is also known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 05 January 2025
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France’s ex-president Sarkozy on trial over alleged Qaddafi pact

France’s ex-president Sarkozy on trial over alleged Qaddafi pact
  • The career of Nicolas Sarkozy has been shadowed by legal troubles since he lost the 2012 presidential election
  • Latest trial is the result of a decade of investigations into accusations that Sarkozy accepted illegal campaign financing

PARIS: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, already convicted twice in separate cases since leaving office, on Monday goes on trial charged with accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with the late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

The career of Sarkozy has been shadowed by legal troubles since he lost the 2012 presidential election. But he remains an influential figure for many on the right and is also known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron.

The fiercely ambitious and energetic politician, 69, who is married to the model and singer Carla Bruni and while in power from 2007-2012 liked to be known as the “hyper-president,” has been convicted in two cases, charged in another and is being investigated in connection with two more.

Sarkozy will be in the dock at the Paris court barely half a month after France’s top appeals court on December 18 rejected his appeal against a one year prison sentence for influence peddling, which he is to serve by wearing an electronic bracelet rather than in jail.

The latest trial is the result of a decade of investigations into accusations that Sarkozy accepted illegal campaign financing — reportedly amounting to some 50 million euros — from Qaddafi to help his victorious 2007 election campaign.

In exchange, it is alleged, Sarkozy and senior figures pledged to help Qaddafi rehabilitate his international image after Tripoli was blamed for bombing attacks on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland and UTA Flight 772 in 1989 that killed hundreds of passengers.

Sarkozy has denounced the accusations as part of a conspiracy against him, insisting that he never received any financing for the campaign from Qaddafi and that there is no evidence of any such transfer.

At a time when many Western countries were courting Qaddafi for energy deals as the maverick dictator sought to emerge from decades of international isolation, the Libyan leader in December 2007 visited Paris, famously installing his tent in the center of the city.

But France then backed the UN-sanctioned military action that helped in 2011 oust Qaddafi, who was then killed by rebels. Sarkozy has said allegations from former members of Qaddafi’s inner circle over the alleged campaign financing are motivated by revenge.

If convicted, Sarkozy faces up to 10 years in prison under the charges of concealing embezzlement of public funds and illegal campaign financing. The trial is due to last until April 10.

Sarkozy “is awaiting these four months of hearings with determination. He will fight the artificial construction dreamed up by the prosecution. There was no Libyan financing of the campaign,” said his lawyer Christophe Ingrain.

Among 12 others facing trial over the alleged Libyan financing are heavyweights such as Sarkozy’s former right-hand man, Claude Gueant, his then-head of campaign financing, Eric Woerth, and former minister Brice Hortefeux.

“Claude Gueant will demonstrate that after more than ten years of investigation, none of the offenses he is accused of have been proven,” said his lawyer Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, denouncing the cases as amounting to “assertions, hypotheses and other approximations.”

For the prosecution, the pact started in 2005 when Qaddafi and Sarkozy, then interior minister, met in Tripoli for a meeting ostensibly devoted to fighting illegal migration. But Sarkozy’s defense counters that no trace of the illegal financing was ever found in the campaign coffers.

The scandal erupted in April 2012, while Sarkozy was in the throes of his re-election campaign, when the Mediapart website published a bombshell article based on a document purportedly from December 2006 it said showed a former Libyan official evoking an agreement over the campaign financing.

Sarkozy has long contended that the document is not genuine.

An embittered Sarkozy would later narrowly lose the second round of the election to Socialist Francois Hollande.

Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key figure in the case, had claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros ($5.4 million at current rates) in cash from Qaddafi to Sarkozy and his chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.

But in 2020, Takieddine suddenly retracted his incriminating statement, raising suspicions that Sarkozy and close allies may have paid the witness to change his mind.

In a further twist, Sarkozy was charged in October 2023 with illegal witness tampering while Carla Bruni was last year charged with hiding evidence in the same case.

Sarkozy’s second conviction, in another campaign financing case, was confirmed last year by a Paris appeals court which ruled he should serve six months in prison, with another six months suspended. This verdict can still go to a higher domestic appeals court.


Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities

Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities
Updated 5 sec ago
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Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities

Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities
  • The US president did not specify which side’s jets he was referring to
  • Indian general said in late May that India switched tactics after losses

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday up to five jets were shot down during recent India-Pakistan hostilities that began after an April militant attack in India-administered Kashmir, with the situation calming after a ceasefire in May.

Trump, who made his remarks at a dinner with some Republican US lawmakers at the White House, did not specify which side’s jets he was referring to.

“In fact, planes were being shot out of the air. Five, five, four or five, but I think five jets were shot down actually,” Trump said while talking about the India-Pakistan hostilities, without elaborating or providing further detail. Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat. India’s highest-ranking general said in late May that India switched tactics after suffering losses in the air on the first day of hostilities and established an advantage before a ceasefire was announced three days later. India also claimed it downed “a few planes” of Pakistan. Islamabad denied suffering any losses of planes but acknowledged its air bases suffered hits.

Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan that he announced on social media on May 10 after Washington held talks with both sides. India has differed with Trump’s claims that it resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks.

India’s position has been that New Delhi and Islamabad must resolve their problems directly and with no outside involvement.

India is an increasingly important US partner in Washington’s effort to counter China’s influence in Asia, while Pakistan is a US ally.

The April attack in India-administered Kashmir killed 26 men and sparked heavy fighting between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry.

New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation. Washington condemned the attack but did not directly blame Islamabad.

On May 7, Indian jets bombed sites across the border that New Delhi described as “terrorist infrastructure,” setting off an exchange of attacks between the two countries by fighter jets, missiles, drones, and artillery that killed dozens until the ceasefire was reached.


Trump pulls US from World Health pandemic reforms

Trump pulls US from World Health pandemic reforms
Updated 9 min 56 sec ago
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Trump pulls US from World Health pandemic reforms

Trump pulls US from World Health pandemic reforms
  • Trump on returning to office on January 20 immediately began his nation’s withdrawal from the UN body
  • Senior officials disassociated the US from a series of amendments to the International Health Regulations

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration said Friday the United States was rejecting changes agreed last year for the World Health Organization on its pandemic response, saying they violated the country’s sovereignty.

Trump on returning to office on January 20 immediately began his nation’s withdrawal from the UN body, but the State Department said the language from last year would still have been binding on the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is a longtime critic of vaccines, said the changes “risk unwarranted interference with our national sovereign right to make health policy.”

“We will put Americans first in all our actions and we will not tolerate international policies that infringe on Americans’ speech, privacy or personal liberties,” they said in a joint statement.

Rubio and Kennedy disassociated the United States from a series of amendments to the International Health Regulations, which provide a legal framework for combatting diseases, agreed last year at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

“We regret the US decision to reject the amendments,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement posted on X.

He stressed the amendments “are clear about member states sovereignty,” adding that the WHO cannot mandate lockdowns or similar measures.

The changes included a stated “commitment to solidarity and equity” in which a new group would study the needs of developing countries in future emergencies.

Countries have until Saturday to lodge reservations about the amendments. Conservative activists and vaccine skeptics in Britain and Australia, which both have left-leaning governments, have waged public campaigns against the changes.

The amendments came about when the Assembly failed at a more ambitious goal of sealing a new global agreement on pandemics.

Most of the world finally secured a treaty this May, but the United States did not participate as it was in the process of withdrawing from the WHO.

The United States, then under president Joe Biden, took part in the May-June 2024 negotiations, but said it could not support consensus as it demanded protections for US intellectual property rights on vaccine development.

Rubio’s predecessor Antony Blinken had welcomed the amendments as progress.

In their rejection of the amendments, Rubio and Kennedy said the changes “fail to adequately address the WHO’s susceptibility to the political influence and censorship – most notably from China – during outbreaks.”

WHO’s Ghebreyesus said the body is “impartial and works with all countries to improve people’s health.”


‘Frightening’: Trump’s historic power grab worries experts

‘Frightening’: Trump’s historic power grab worries experts
Updated 25 min 57 sec ago
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‘Frightening’: Trump’s historic power grab worries experts

‘Frightening’: Trump’s historic power grab worries experts

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has spent six months testing the limits of his authority like no other modern US president, say analysts — browbeating Congress and the courts in a power grab that may come to define his second term.

Since January, the Republican leader has repeatedly pushed to secure more power for himself, calling for judges to be axed, firing independent watchdogs and sidestepping the legislative process.

Barbara Perry, a University of Virginia professor and an expert on the presidency, called Trump’s successes in shattering the restraints on his office “frightening.”

“All presidents have been subject to Congress’s and the Supreme Court’s checks on their power, as well as splits in their own political parties,” she said.

“Trump has faced almost none of these counterpoints in this second term.”

It is all a far cry from his first stint in office, when Trump and his supporters believe he was hamstrung by investigations and “deep state” officials seeking to frustrate his agenda.

But those guardrails have looked brittle this time around as Trump has fired federal workers, dismantled government departments and sent military troops into the streets to quell protest.

He has also sought to exert his influence well beyond traditional presidential reach, ruthlessly targeting universities and the press, and punishing law firms he believes have crossed him.

Checks and balances

The US system of checks and balances — the administration, the courts and Congress as equal but separate branches of government — is designed to ensure no one amasses too much power.

But when it comes to Trump’s agenda — whether ending diversity efforts and birthright citizenship or freezing foreign aid — he has largely dodged the hard work of shepherding bills through Congress.

Policies have instead been enacted by presidential edict.

Six months in, Trump has already announced more second-term executive orders than any American leader since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.

He has even sought to bend the economy to his will, escalating attacks on the chief of the independent central bank in a bid to lower interest rates.

Once a robust restraining force against presidential overreach, the Republican-led Congress has largely forsaken its oversight role, foregoing the investigations that previous presidents have faced.

That has left the judiciary as the main gatekeeper.

But Trump has managed partly to neuter the authority of the federal bench too, winning a Supreme Court opinion that mostly reduces the reach of judges’ rulings to their own states.

In his first term the high court made Trump immune from prosecution for actions taken as part of his official duties — no matter how criminal.

And almost every time Trump has turned to the country’s highest legal tribunal to rein in the lower courts in his second term, it has obliged.

The shadow of US President Donald Trump is shown on the text of The Declaration of Independence during the first presidential debate with Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. (AFP/File)

'Project 2025'

His long shadow has extended far beyond Washington’s institutions, pushing into private realms his predecessors avoided.

Trump has picked fights with elite universities, prestigious law firms and the press — threatening funding or their ability to do business.

The arts haven’t escaped his clunking fist either, with the 79-year-old taking over the running of the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Trump has claimed falsely that the US Constitution gives him the right to do whatever he wants as the ultimate authority over government activities.

This so-called “unitary executive theory” was pushed in the “Project 2025” blueprint for government produced by Trump’s right-wing allies during last year’s election campaign.

Although he disavowed “Project 2025” after it became politically toxic, Trump’s own platform made the same claims for expansive presidential powers.

Pessimistic about the other branches’ ability to hold the administration to account, the minority Democrats have largely been limited to handwringing in press conferences.

Political strategist Andrew Koneschusky, a former senior Democratic Senate aide, believes the checks on Trump’s authority may ultimately have to be political rather than legal or constitutional.

He points to Trump’s tanking polling numbers — especially on his signature issue of immigration following mass deportations of otherwise law-abiding undocumented migrants.

“It’s not entirely comforting that politics and public opinion are the primary checks on his power,” Koneschusky said.

“It would be better to see Congress flex its muscle as a co-equal branch of government. But it’s at least something.”

 


Australia delivers Abrams tanks to Ukraine for war with Russia

Australia delivers Abrams tanks to Ukraine for war with Russia
Updated 19 July 2025
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Australia delivers Abrams tanks to Ukraine for war with Russia

Australia delivers Abrams tanks to Ukraine for war with Russia
  • Ukraine has taken possession of most of the 49 tanks given by Australia, says defense minister
  • Australia is one of the largest non-NATO contributors to Ukraine as it defends itself from Russian aggression

SYDNEY: Australia’s government said on Saturday it had delivered M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine as part of a A$245 million ($160 million) package to help the country defend itself against Russia in their ongoing war.

Australia, one of the largest non-NATO contributors to Ukraine, has been supplying aid, ammunition and defense equipment since Moscow invaded its neighbor in February 2022.

Ukraine has taken possession of most of the 49 tanks given by Australia, and the rest will be delivered in coming months, said Defense Minister Richard Marles.

“The M1A1 Abrams tanks will make a significant contribution to Ukraine’s ongoing fight against Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion,” Marles said in a statement.

The tanks formed part of the A$1.5 billion ($980 million) that Canberra has provided Ukraine in the conflict, the government said.

Australia has also banned exports of alumina and aluminum ores, including bauxite, to Russia, and has sanctioned about 1,000 Russian individuals and entities.

Australia’s center-left Labor government this year labelled Russia as the aggressor in the conflict and called for the war to be resolved on Kyiv’s terms.


Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities

Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities
Updated 19 July 2025
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Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities

Trump says he thinks 5 jets were shot down in India-Pakistan hostilities
  • New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday up to five jets were shot down during recent India-Pakistan hostilities that began after an April Islamist militant attack in India-administered Kashmir, with the situation calming after a ceasefire in May.

Trump, who made his remarks at a dinner with some Republican US lawmakers at the White House, did not specify which side’s jets he was referring to.

“In fact, planes were being shot out of the air. Five, five, four or five, but I think five jets were shot down actually,” Trump said while talking about the India-Pakistan hostilities, without elaborating or providing further detail. Pakistan claimed it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat. India’s highest-ranking general said in late May that India switched tactics after suffering losses in the air on the first day of hostilities and established an advantage before a ceasefire was announced three days later. India also claimed it downed “a few planes” of Pakistan. Islamabad denied suffering any losses of planes but acknowledged its air bases suffered hits.

HIGH LIGHTS

• Hostilities rose between India and Pakistan after April attack in Kashmir

• Ceasefire was announced on May 10 • Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for ceasefire, India has differed from his claims

Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan that he announced on social media on May 10 after Washington held talks with both sides. India has differed with Trump’s claims that it resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks.

India’s position has been that New Delhi and Islamabad must resolve their problems directly and with no outside involvement.

India is an increasingly important US partner in Washington’s effort to counter China’s influence in Asia, while Pakistan is a US ally.

The April attack in India-administered Kashmir killed 26 men and sparked heavy fighting between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry.

New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation.

Washington condemned the attack but did not directly blame Islamabad.

On May 7, Indian jets bombed sites across the border that New Delhi described as “terrorist infrastructure,” setting off an exchange of attacks between the two countries by fighter jets, missiles, drones, and artillery that killed dozens until the ceasefire was reached.