Biden meets union leaders as Democrats’ calls to exit race continue

Many more Democrats have expressed concern that US President Joe Biden continuing at the top of the ticket could cost the party the White House and both houses of Congress in November. (Reuters)
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Updated 10 July 2024
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Biden meets union leaders as Democrats’ calls to exit race continue

  • US President has been working to stem defections from Democratic lawmakers, donors and other allies worried he might lose to Republican Donald Trump
  • Democrats in the US Congress remain deeply divided over whether to fall in line behind Biden or to urge him to step aside

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden returns to the campaign trail on Wednesday, rallying the key constituency of labor leaders, as some fellow Democrats continue to persuade him not to run again.
For the past 13 days, the 81-year-old Biden has been working to stem defections from Democratic lawmakers, donors and other allies worried he might lose to Republican Donald Trump, 78, after his halting June 27 debate performance.
Biden will join the AFL-CIO’s executive council meeting in Washington on Wednesday to take questions from leaders of major US labor unions and discuss “their shared commitment to defeating Donald Trump this November,” the Biden campaign said.
Labor votes were key to Biden’s win over Trump in competitive states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada, in 2020.
Democrats in the US Congress remain deeply divided over whether to fall in line behind Biden or to urge him to step aside because of persistent questions about his health and acuity. Biden has said he is fit to serve but understands the questions.
On Tuesday, Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey became the seventh House Democrat to call on Biden publicly to drop out of the race.
Many more Democrats have expressed concern that Biden continuing at the top of the ticket could cost the party the White House and both houses of Congress in November.
But public defections remain a small segment of the 213 Democratic-aligned House of Representatives members, and the party’s leadership continues to back Biden publicly. No members of the Senate have publicly said Biden should stand aside.
Biden, eager to change the story, has surrounded himself with communities of his staunchest supporters, including Black Democratic lawmakers and voters. His campaign has framed sticking with Biden as a return of the loyalty he has shown them through his half-century of public life.
Biden’s first 2020 campaign rally, in 2019, was at a Pittsburgh union hall, and the president has made his thick-as-thieves alignment with Big Labor leaders a major pillar of his populist economic platform. Last September, he became the first sitting president to join a union strike when he met United Auto Workers asking for raises.
Labor leaders expected at Wednesday’s meeting include the national presidents of 60 unions, representing 12.5 million Americans, Biden aides said.
Also this week, Biden has used the NATO summit as a global stage, with a forceful speech denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Wednesday, he will hold meetings with NATO leaders and then host a dinner for heads of state. The dinner would not normally draw much attention, but concerns over whether Biden can handle the demands of the presidency for another four years have put every Biden event in the spotlight.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the party’s top alternative should Biden drop his candidacy, will speak to the Black Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. in Dallas after a Las Vegas campaign stop on Tuesday.
After the NATO summit ends, Biden will hit the road again, traveling to two of the competitive states, Michigan and Nevada, that he must sway to defeat Trump.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre faced another salvo of questions from reporters about Biden’s health on Tuesday. In a statement, the White House physician said Biden was not being treated for any neurological condition and had received a clean bill of health at his most recent physical examination in February.


A London court sentences an Egyptian man to 25 years for smuggling people from Africa to Italy

Updated 4 sec ago
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A London court sentences an Egyptian man to 25 years for smuggling people from Africa to Italy

Ahmed Ebid pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration
Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group

LONDON: A London court on Tuesday sentenced an Egyptian man to 25 years in prison for smuggling people from North Africa to Italy.

Ahmed Ebid, who arrived in the UK in October 2022 after crossing the English Channel in a small boat, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group and that his “primary motivation was to make money” from human trafficking.

Since his arrival in Britain and until June 2023, Ebid, 42, was implicated in at least seven separate boat crossings as part of a 12 million-pound ($16 million) operation that carried 3,781 people, including children, into Italian waters from North Africa.

Britain’s National Crime Agency cited some of those who had entered the UK illegally as saying that Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw into the sea anyone onboard caught with a mobile phone.

Ebid “preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death trap boats,” said Jacque Beer of the agency.

In one crossing, on Oct. 25, 2022, more than 640 people were rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a wooden boat, the agency said. The boat was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.

“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers,” said Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service.

“His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk,” Burton added about Ebid.

Families wait for word of Rohingya said to have been abandoned at sea by India

Updated 11 min 30 sec ago
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Families wait for word of Rohingya said to have been abandoned at sea by India

  • “We are helping them as human beings and we will let them go where they want if it is safe,” a spokesman for the group said
  • The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades

NEW DELHI: It has been more than a week since Akbar, a Rohingya refugee in India, has heard his niece’s voice, the longest they have not spoken to each other.

She is among more than 40 Rohingya alleged by the United Nations, family and lawyers to have been forced off an Indian navy ship this month near the shores of war-torn Myanmar with only a life jacket.

“I got her out of the lion’s mouth when we escaped Myanmar almost eight years ago. And now this has happened,” Akbar, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said of his niece, who is around 20 years old.

Myanmar’s Ba Htoo forces — opposition fighters battling the junta that took power in a 2021 coup — say the group landed on May 9 on a beach in Launglon Township near southern Dawei city, a region that regularly witnesses gunbattles and air strikes.

“We are helping them as human beings and we will let them go where they want if it is safe,” a spokesman for the group said.

The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades, with many fleeing a 2017 military crackdown. More than a million escaped to Bangladesh, but others fled to India.

There are around 22,500 Rohingya in India registered with the United Nations refugee agency, according to the advocacy group Refugees International.

Two other Rohingya refugees told AFP their relatives were part of the group that was detained by Indian authorities.

Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, has called the repatriation an “unconscionable” act.

Andrews said he was “deeply concerned by what appears to be a blatant disregard for the lives and safety of those who require international protection.”

New Delhi has not commented on the reports.

Family members say the group was summoned by authorities in New Delhi on May 6, allegedly to collect biometric data.

They were moved to a detention center and then to an airport outside the Indian capital.

From there they were flown to India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, an archipelago that lies a few hundred kilometers southwest of Myanmar.

Two days after being detained, the refugees called family members back in Delhi saying they had been dropped off in the seas off Myanmar.

The Ba Htoo spokesman said one member of the group was a cancer patient, adding that the “rest of them just feel tired from the long trip.”

AFP could not independently verify the claims.

Dilwar Hussain, a New Delhi-based lawyer representing refugees from the community, said they were “concerned about the safety and well-being of these refugees.”

A petition filed in India’s Supreme Court by two refugees whose family members are among the 43 people allegedly deported said it was carried out illegally.

India is not a signatory to the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits returning individuals to countries where they face harm.

However, New Delhi rights lawyer Colin Gonsalves, who has challenged the group’s detention and deportation, said India’s “constitutional laws cover protection” of the personal liberty and right to life of non-citizens.

This case is not the first to be reported.

Indian media reported this month that more than 100 Rohingya were “pushed back” across the northeastern border into Bangladesh.

India’s Hindu nationalist government has often described undocumented immigrants as “Muslim infiltrators,” accusing them of posing a security threat.

Yap Lay Sheng, from the campaign group Fortify Rights, said the deportation of the Rohingya group was a “targeted attack against anyone perceived to be Muslim outsiders.”

Ramon, another relative of one of the deported group, said his brother told him he had been verbally abused.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Ramon said the group was “accused of being involved” in the April 22 attack targeting tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which gunmen killed 26 men. The attack sparked a four-day conflict between India and Pakistan.

“My brother asked me to leave India to avoid being in a situation like his,” said Ramon, who has been in India for more than a decade.

Their mother has been inconsolable since receiving news of her son’s deportation. Ramon struggles with sleepless nights over his brother’s safety.

“They should have deported all of us and thrown us into the sea,” he said. “We would have been at peace knowing we are together.”


Germany counts on the US to pressure Russia into a ceasefire, says minister

Updated 26 min 11 sec ago
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Germany counts on the US to pressure Russia into a ceasefire, says minister

  • Officials in both the European Union and in the United States are ready to consider more sanctions on Moscow

BRUSSELS: Germany is still counting on the US to pile more pressure on Russia for an immediate ceasefire in its war on Ukraine, Berlin said on Tuesday, despite a call between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that did not yield progress in that respect.
“We have repeatedly made it clear that we expect one thing from Russia — an immediate ceasefire without preconditions,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on the sidelines of a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
“It is sobering to see that Russia has not taken this step, and we will have to react. We also expect our US allies not to tolerate this.”
He added that there was a lot of readiness both in the European Union and in the United States to consider more sanctions on Moscow but did not give any details what additional sanctions might look like.


EU seeks to relax rules on turning away asylum seekers

Updated 51 min 18 sec ago
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EU seeks to relax rules on turning away asylum seekers

BRUSSELS: The EU on Tuesday unveiled plans to make it easier to send asylum seekers to certain third countries, in the latest overhaul aimed at reducing migration to the bloc, sparking criticism from rights groups.
The European Commission said it proposed broadening the so-called “safe third country” concept, which allows member states to “consider an asylum application inadmissible when applicants could receive effective protection” elsewhere.
“EU countries have been under significant migratory pressure for the past decade,” said migration commissioner Magnus Brunner, describing the proposal as “another tool to help member states process asylum claims in a more efficient way.”
Brussels has been under pressure to clamp down on arrivals and facilitate deportations, following a souring of public opinion on migration that has fueled hard-right electoral gains in several member states.
Under current rules, asylum seekers can have their application rejected if they could have filed it in a “safe” third country where they have “a genuine connection.”
This is normally understood to mean a nation where the applicant has lived and worked or has family.
The commission proposal weakens such requirements to include any country that an asylum seeker has transited through on the way to Europe, as long as it is considered safe. This opens the way for failed applicants to be sent there.
The planned reform also says that the safe third country concept can be applied in absence of any connection or transit, if there is a deal between member states and a third “safe nation,” and removes the suspensive effect of appeals.
The change would significantly boost the number of those who could see their applications refused and become eligible for deportation, as many cross numerous borders on their way to Europe.
In April for example, of almost 20,000 people who reached Europe via sea from northern Africa, many came from as far away as Bangladesh, Eritrea, Pakistan and Syria, according to the EU’s border agency.
The proposal needs approval from the European Parliament and member states to become law — but has already triggered fierce criticism.
Sarah Chander, director of the Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice, said the EU was “cynically distorting the concept of ‘safety’ to meet its own repressive ends.”
“It is paving the way for migrants to be removed and deported basically anywhere, putting people in danger,” she said.


Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza nears collapse after renewed Israeli strikes

Updated 20 May 2025
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Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza nears collapse after renewed Israeli strikes

  • At least 31 people are trapped inside Indonesia Hospital as of Tuesday morning

Jakarta: The Indonesia Hospital, one of the last partially functional medical centers in northern Gaza, is nearing collapse after days of Israeli strikes on its key infrastructure, the Jakarta-based nongovernmental organization funding the facility said on Tuesday.

The hospital in Beit Lahiya, a four-story building located near the Jabalia refugee camp, was built from donations organized by the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee. 

Like other healthcare facilities in Gaza, it has been targeted by Israel’s new military onslaught on the besieged enclave, in which hundreds of people were killed in the past three days. 

“A quadcopter targeted the hospital’s generators. Two of them were destroyed in the ensuing fire. Our water supply has been disrupted, and people aren’t able to enter or exit the hospital area because there’s a risk of being shot,” Dr. Hadiki Habib, chairman of MER-C’s executive committee, told Arab News. 

At least 31 people were trapped inside the Indonesia Hospital as of Tuesday morning, including eight health workers and bedridden patients. 

The Indonesia Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital are the only two hospitals still treating patients in northern Gaza, Habib added, as Israeli attacks have forced most public hospitals in the area out of service. 

Israel launched a new ground operation, called Operation Gideon’s Chariots, across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, following over two months of total blockade on the enclave after Tel Aviv unilaterally broke a ceasefire with the Palestinian group Hamas in March. 

But Israeli forces have carried out brutal attacks in hundreds of locations across Gaza in the lead-up to the operation, killing hundreds of Palestinians. 

The latest offensive comes as Israel continues its onslaught of Gaza that began in October 2023 and has killed more than 53,400 Palestinians and wounded over 121,000 more. The deadly attacks have also pushed 2 million others to starvation after Israeli forces destroyed most of the region’s infrastructure and buildings and blocked humanitarian aid. 

It was only on Monday that Israel’s military said it allowed five aid trucks into Gaza, though according to the UN, the enclave needs at least 500 trucks of aid and commercial goods every day. 

“It’s very sad and heartbreaking. The Indonesia Hospital is barely functioning. All logistics needs have been blocked by Israel and there are threats against healthcare workers to leave and empty the facility,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s board of trustees in Jakarta, told Arab News.

The Indonesia Hospital was one of the first targets hit when Israel began its assault on Gaza, in which it regularly targets medical facilities.

Attacks on health centers, medical personnel and patients constitute war crimes under the 1949 Geneva Convention. 

“There is no place left that is safe from Israel’s pursuit,” Murad said. “For the sake of humanity, the international community must pressure Israel to agree to a ceasefire so that we can stop this humanitarian tragedy.”