Biden, Trump to meet at White House ahead of historic return

President Joe Biden (R) and President-elect Donald Trump. (AFP/Reuters)
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Updated 10 November 2024
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Biden, Trump to meet at White House ahead of historic return

  • Biden had promised an orderly transfer of power back to the Republican he beat in elections just four years ago
  • When Biden beat Trump in the 2020 election, the Republican refused to concede defeat, claming falsely that he was cheated

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden will meet with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday after the US leader pledged an orderly transfer of power back to the Republican he beat in elections just four years ago.
Trump — who never conceded his 2020 loss — sealed a remarkable comeback to the presidency in the November 5 vote, cementing what is set to be more than a decade of US politics dominated by his hard-line right-wing stance.
This type of meeting between the outgoing and incoming presidents was considered customary, but Trump did not invite Biden for one after making unsubstantiated election fraud claims that culminated in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Trump also broke with precedent by skipping Biden’s January 20, 2021 inauguration, but the White House has said the president will attend the ceremony.
The Democrat’s meeting with Trump will take place in the Oval Office, the White House said Saturday, with the clock ticking down to the ex-president’s return to power.
Biden in January will join the tiny club of US presidents to return power to their White House predecessor — with the one previous instance coming when president Benjamin Harrison handed back to Grover Cleveland in the 19th century.
The 78-year-old ex-reality TV star won wider margins than before, despite a criminal conviction, two impeachments while in office and warnings from his former chief of staff that he is a “fascist.”
Exit polls showed that voters’ top concerns remained the economy and inflation that spiked under Biden in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
Biden, who dropped out of the race in July over concerns about his ability to continue at the age of 81, called Trump on Wednesday to congratulate him after his election win.

Democrats have been pointing fingers over who is to blame for Harris’s decisive loss, with Biden himself coming in for much of the blame.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told The New York Times that “had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.”
“Because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different,” added Pelosi, who is reported to have played a key role in persuading Biden to step aside.
As the Democrats weigh what went wrong, Trump has begun to assemble his second administration by naming campaign manager Susie Wiles to serve as his White House chief of staff.
She is the first woman to be named to the high-profile role and the Republican’s first appointment to his incoming administration.
The other frontrunners for a place in the Trump 2.0 administration reflect the significant changes it is likely to implement.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement for whom Trump has pledged a “big role” in health care, told NBC News on Wednesday that “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines.”
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, could also be in line for a job auditing government waste after the right-wing SpaceX, Tesla and X boss enthusiastically backed Trump.
Trump is expected to axe many of Biden’s signature policies. He returns to the White House as a climate change denier, poised to take apart Biden’s green policies with his pledge to “drill, baby, drill” for oil.
The president-elect announced Saturday that his inaugural committee will be led by close Trump associate Steve Witkoff and ex-senator Kelly Loeffler.
 


Trump says it’s ridiculous for Musk to start a political party

Updated 7 sec ago
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Trump says it’s ridiculous for Musk to start a political party

MORRISTOWN, New Jersey: President Donald Trump said on Sunday that billionaire Elon Musk’s move to start a new US political party is ridiculous and could add to confusion.
“I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey. “Starting a third party just adds to confusion... He can have fun with it, but I think it’s ridiculous.” 

 


Trump says there’s a good chance for Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal this week

Updated 6 min 23 sec ago
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Trump says there’s a good chance for Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal this week

  • Trump is due to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday at the White House

MORRISTOWN, New Jersey: US President Donald Trump on Sunday said there was a good chance a Gaza hostage release and ceasefire deal could be reached with the Palestinian militant group Hamas this week.
Trump told reporters before departing for Washington that such a deal meant “quite a few hostages” could be released.
Trump is due to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday at the White House. 

 


Texas officials face scrutiny over response to catastrophic

A drone view shows the swollen San Gabriel River, in Georgetown, Texas, US, on Saturday. (Reuters)
Updated 06 July 2025
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Texas officials face scrutiny over response to catastrophic

  • The destructive fast-moving waters that began before sunrise Friday in the Texas Hill Country killed at least 43 people in Kerr County, authorities said Saturday, and an unknown number of people remained missing

KERRVILLE: Before heading to bed before the Fourth of July holiday, Christopher Flowers checked the weather while staying at a friend’s house along the Guadalupe River. Nothing in the forecast alarmed him. Hours later, he was rushing to safety: He woke up in darkness to electrical sockets popping and ankle-deep water. Quickly, his family scrambled nine people into the attic. Phones buzzed with alerts, Flowers recalled Saturday, but he did not remember when in the chaos they started.
“What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,” Flowers, 44, said.
The destructive fast-moving waters that began before sunrise Friday in the Texas Hill Country killed at least 43 people in Kerr County, authorities said Saturday, and an unknown number of people remained missing. Those still unaccounted for included 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river in Kerr County where most of the dead were recovered.
But as authorities launch one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts in recent Texas history, they have come under intensifying scrutiny over preparations and why residents and youth summer camps that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.
The National Weather Service sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.
Local officials have insisted that no one saw the flood potential coming and have defended their actions.
“There’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing, a lot of second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, whose district includes Kerr County. “There’s a lot of people saying ‘why’ and ‘how,’ and I understand that.”

 


Germany to deport convicted Syrians

Police officers stand guard in Solingen, Germany, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP file photo)
Updated 06 July 2025
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Germany to deport convicted Syrians

  • An agreement reached by the coalition made up of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives and the Social Democrats provided for deportations to Afghanistan and Syria “starting with delinquents and people considered a threat,” the spokesman added

BERLIN: Germany is to start deporting Syrians with criminal records, the Interior Ministry has said, days after Austria became the first EU country to do so in recent years.
The ministry had instructed the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees to take action against “dangerous Syrian individuals and delinquents,” a spokesman said.
The spokesman stressed that committing serious crimes meant one was excluded from the protection afforded by asylum and could lead to the revocation of any such status already granted.
An agreement reached by the coalition made up of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives and the Social Democrats provided for deportations to Afghanistan and Syria “starting with delinquents and people considered a threat,” the spokesman added.
To that end, the ministry was in contact with the relevant Syrian authorities, he said.
Between January and May, the Federal Office has opened more than 3,500 procedures that could lead to the revocation of asylum rights granted to Syrian nationals, the ministry said in an answer to a question in parliament.
Refugee status had been withdrawn in 57 cases and lower-level protection in 22 other cases, said the ministry.
During the same period, around 800 Syrians have returned home as part of a voluntary repatriation program funded by Germany, to which 2,000 have so far signed up.
Around a million Syrians live in Germany, most of whom arrived during the major exodus between 2015 and 2016.
But since the December 2024 fall of President Bashar Assad, several European countries, including Austria and Germany, have suspended asylum procedures as far-right parties have campaigned on the issue.
Austria’s Interior Ministry on Thursday deported a Syrian criminal convict back to Syria, saying it was the first EU country to do so officially “in recent years.”

 


Migrants cast a shadow on Starmer-Macron summit

Updated 06 July 2025
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Migrants cast a shadow on Starmer-Macron summit

  • Record number of refugees crossing the English Channel remains a major point of friction

LONDON: Britain and France are friends again following the rancour of Brexit, but the record number of irregular migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats remains a major point of friction.

The issue will feature during a state visit to Britain by French President Emmanuel Macron starting Tuesday and new measures to curb the dangerous journeys are expected to be announced on Thursday following talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
More than 21,000 migrants have crossed from northern France to southeast England in rudimentary vessels this year, providing a massive headache for Starmer as the far-right soars in popularity.
Images of overloaded vessels leaving French beaches with law enforcement officers appearing to just watch on exasperate UK politicians and the unforgiving tabloid press.

HIGHLIGHTS

• More than 21,000 migrants have crossed from northern France to southeast England in rudimentary vessels this year, providing a massive headache for the UK prime minister.

• Starmer, who led his Labour party to a sweeping victory in an election last year following 14 years of Conservative rule, has vowed to ‘take back control’ of Britain’s borders.

• But in the first six months of 2025, there was a 48 percent increase in the number of people arriving on small boats compared to last year.

“We pay for French cops’ buggy, 4x4s and drones, but migrants still sailing,” complained The Sun newspaper on Wednesday, in a reference to the so-called Sandhurst Treaty.
The 2018 agreement, that runs until 2027, sees Britain finance actions taken in France to stop the migrants.
Starmer, who led his Labour Party to a sweeping victory in an election last year following 14 years of Conservative rule, has vowed to “take back control” of Britain’s borders.
But in the first six months of 2025, there was a 48 percent increase in the number of people arriving on small boats compared to last year, with the government blaming extended dry weather.
The annual record of 45,774 reached in 2022 could be broken this year, which would deal a massive blow to Starmer as Euroskeptic Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party leads national polls.
A new border control law going through Britain’s Parliament would give law enforcement counter-terror style powers to combat people-smuggling gangs.
The UK has also signed agreements with countries on migrant transit routes, including Iraq, Serbia, and Germany.
But Starmer needs strengthened cooperation with France, and key announcements were expected following their talks.
Under pressure from London, Paris is considering tweaking its laws to allow police to intercept migrant boats up to 300 meters from France’s shoreline. Currently, French law enforcement only intervene at sea to rescue passengers at risk of drowning.
The two governments are also working on a migrant exchange program.
A pilot project would see Britain capable of returning to France someone who has crossed the Channel by boat, according to several media sources.
France in exchange could deport an equivalent number of people to Britian, provided they have the right to live there, such as through family reunification.
Paris wants to expand the agreement to the EU so that readmissions can be shared among several countries.
According to Britain’s Interior Ministry, migrants who crossed the Channel between March 2024 and March 2025 were mainly Afghans, Syrians, Eritreans, Iranians, and Sudanese.
French officials have claimed that Britain attracts migrants because the lack of a national identity card makes it easier to work illegally.
Starmer’s government has cracked down on illegal work — arrests increased by 51 percent from July 2024 to the end of May, compared to the previous year, it says.
But Peter Walsh, a researcher at Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, doubts that it is easier to work illegally in Britain than in France.
“You have to demonstrate that you have the right to work. If an employer doesn’t carry out those checks, then they can face serious sanctions, fines and imprisonment. That’s the same in France and the UK,” he said.
Walsh believes the English language and presence of family members in Britain are key attractions, as well as Britain’s departure from the EU.
“If you’ve claimed asylum in the EU and been refused, you can actually come to the UK and have another shot because we will not know that you’ve actually been refused in the EU,” he said.

Last year, she became a British citizen and now works as a nurse.
Tsegay says there is a “hostile environment” toward irregular migrants in Britain, saying they were often presented as “criminals” rather than people “contributing to society.”
She wants Starmer and Macron to focus on improving safe routes for migrants fleeing war-torn countries as a way to stop them risking the Channel crossings. “These people come here to seek safety,” Tsegay said.