Donald Trump left his Florida home Monday bound for New York where he will surrender to criminal charges, taking the United States into uncharted and potentially volatile territory.

The 76-year-old Republican, the first American president ever to be criminally indicted, will be formally charged Tuesday over hush money paid to a porn star during the 2016 election campaign.

TV footage showed a motorcade departing Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home at 12:20 pm (1620 GMT) to head to the city where he made his name, and where he hopes to use his appearance before a judge to rouse support for his 2024 White House bid.

“The Corrupt D.A. has no case,” Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social, of the Manhattan district attorney prosecuting the case. “What he does have is a venue where it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to get a Fair Trial.”

New York police were on high alert ahead of Trump’s arrival, with security cordons and Secret Service agents outside Trump Tower and the criminal court where he will appear before a judge Tuesday afternoon.

Police guard the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York City, where Donald Trump is expected to surrender to charges on Tuesday.

Police guard the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York City, where Donald Trump is expected to surrender to charges on Tuesday. © Leonardo Munoz, AFP file photo

New York Mayor Eric Adams warned that anyone protesting violently during Trump’s historic arraignment will be “arrested and held accountable, no matter who you are.”

“While there may be some rabble rousers thinking about coming to our city tomorrow our message is clear, is simple: ‘control yourselves’,” the mayor told a press conference.

As part of his arraignment, Trump will undergo the standard booking procedure of being fingerprinted and photographed, likely to result in one of the most famous mugshots of the modern era.

‘Up in the air’

There is no roadmap for a former president’s surrender to court authorities, and it remains to be seen whether the famously unpredictable Trump will follow the script, or find a way to upend events.

“It’s all up in the air,” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said on CNN Sunday.

But a “perp walk” – in which a defendant is escorted in handcuffs past media cameras – is unlikely for an ex-president under US Secret Service protection, Tacopina said.

“Hopefully this will be as painless and classy as possible for a situation like this.”

But Trump, who has denounced the legal proceedings as a “witch hunt” and “political persecution, is girding for battle, Tacopina added.

A grand jury indicted Trump last week in the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat.

The specific charges will be revealed during Tuesday’s hearing. They revolve around the investigation of $130,000 paid to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels just days before Trump’s election win.

Trump’s former lawyer and aide Michael Cohen, who has since turned against his ex-boss, says he arranged the payment to Daniels in exchange for her silence about a tryst she says she had with Trump in 2006.

Trump, who was already married to his wife Melania at the time, denies the affair.

Legal experts have suggested that if not properly accounted for, the payment could result in misdemeanor charges for falsifying business records that could be raised to felonies if it was intended to cover up a campaign finance violation.

The Daniels case is only one of several investigations threatening Trump.

Republicans unite?

An independent prosecutor is looking into any potential role Trump played in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, as well as his handling and keeping of classified documents after he left the White House.

In the swing state of Georgia, Trump is under investigation for pressuring officials to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there – including a taped phone call in which he asked the secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse the result.

Biden, knowing anything he might say could fuel Trump’s complaints of a politically “weaponized” judicial system, is one of the few Democrats maintaining silence over the indictment of his political rival.

Republicans have largely rallied around Trump, including his rival in the party’s presidential primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who called the indictment “un-American.”

But some Republicans bristled at the prospect of a twice-impeached president facing multiple legal probes seeking the party’s nomination.

Some observers believe the indictment bodes ill for Trump’s 2024 chances, while others say it could boost his support.

A CNN poll Monday found that 94 percent of Democrats surveyed approved of the grand jury’s decision to indict Trump while 79 percent of Republicans disapproved. Some 62 percent of independents

Source: AFP

The United Nations said Friday it was “deeply concerned” by what it described as summary executions of prisoners of war carried out by Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.

The head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, said her organisation had documented the killings of “up to 25 Russian prisoners of war” by Ukrainian armed forces as well as “the summary execution of 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war shortly after being captured by Russian armed forces”.

Source: France 24

Former US President Donald Trump said he expects to be “arrested” on Tuesday over hush money allegedly paid to a porn star before the 2016 election, calling on his supporters to protest.

“Leading Republican candidate & former President of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week,” the 76-year-old billionaire said Saturday on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Protest, take our nation back!”

An indictment would make Trump the first former US president to be charged with a crime, marking an explosive and unpredictable development in the 2024 White House race — as Trump seeks again to clinch the Republican nomination.

Not even a conviction in the hush money case would prevent Trump from running, but an indictment could have major consequences, galvanizing his critics but also electrifying his supporters.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reacted with fury, accusing New York prosecutors of pursuing “political vengeance” against Trump. McCarthy vowed on Twitter to launch a congressional probe of the matter.

But his Democratic predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, denounced Trump’s announcement as “reckless,” saying it would “foment unrest among his supporters.”

“He cannot hide from his violations of the law, disrespect for our elections and incitements to violence,” added Pelosi, who was still speaker when Trump was impeached for inciting the January 6, 2021 rioting in the US Capitol.

The current investigation, led by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, centers on $130,000 paid weeks before the 2016 polls to stop porn star Stormy Daniels from going public about an affair she says she had with Trump years earlier.

Trump’s lawyer told CNBC on Friday that his client, if indicted, would surrender to face criminal charges.

Trump has denied having had an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and has dismissed the investigation as politically motivated.

‘Illegal leaks’

In his Truth Social post, written in capital letters, Trump referred to “illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorneys office” and said the investigation was “based on an old & fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors!) fairytale.”

He doubled down in another post, assailing his successor, President Joe Biden, as “crooked” and urging his followers to “Protest, Protest, Protest!!!”

Reports said authorities were planning to increase security around the Manhattan courthouse in coming days.

Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles indicated that his posts Saturday were based on media reports and not on any fresh action taken by prosecutors.

“Since this is a political prosecution, the District Attorney’s office has engaged in a practice of leaking everything to the press, rather than communicating with President Trump’s attorneys,” Necheles said in a statement to AFP.

A grand jury is a citizen panel which examines evidence presented by prosecutors to decide if a charge is warranted.

The jury in New York heard on Monday from Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 on related federal charges. He pleaded guilty but said he had been carrying out Trump’s orders.

Daniels herself met with prosecutors on Wednesday and “agreed to make herself available as a witness, or for further inquiry if needed,” according to her lawyer Charles Brewster.

Trump has been invited to testify, which legal experts say suggests an indictment is near.

The payment to Daniels, if not properly accounted for, could result in a misdemeanor charge for falsifying business records. That might be raised to a felony if the false accounting was intended to cover up a second crime, such as a campaign finance violation, The New York Times has reported.

2024 prospects

Trump is facing several criminal probes at state and federal level over possible wrongdoing that threaten his new run at the White House.

In Georgia, a prosecutor is investigating Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the southern state. The grand jury in that case has recommended multiple indictments, the forewoman revealed last month.

The former president is also the subject of a federal probe into his handling of classified documents as well as his possible involvement in the January 6 rioting.

Some observers believe an indictment bodes ill for Trump’s 2024 chances, while others say it could provide a huge boost.

“The arrest secures the nomination for Donald Trump,” tweeted Rick Wilson, a political strategist who quit the Republican Party in protest over Trump. “The base will rally politically, and possibly physically.”

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a self-described libertarian who has increasingly aligned with Republican positions and who overturned the Twitter ban on Trump, went even further.

“If this happens, Trump will be re-elected in a landslide victory,” Musk said in a tweet.

Source: AFP

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad offered Russian President Vladimir Putin his support in the Ukraine conflict during a visit to Moscow on Wednesday. The meeting between the two leaders in Moscow came as thousands of Syrians demonstrated in rebel-held northwestern Syria to mark 12 years since the start of pro-democracy protests in 2011, which the Assad regime brutally crushed with Russian help.  

In a televised meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, Assad said Russia was fighting neo-Nazis and “old Nazis” in Ukraine, according to a Russian translation.

Without offering evidence, Assad said the West had taken in “old Nazis”, and was now supporting them.

Kyiv and the West say Russian accusations that Ukraine has become a hotbed of Nazism are a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.

Welcoming Assad at the start of the meeting that came on the anniversary of Syria’s 12-year uprising-turned-civil war, Putin emphasised the Russian military’s “decisive contribution” to stabilising the country.

Assad thanked Putin for backing Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, noting that the Kremlin’s support has remained strong despite the fighting in Ukraine.

“Even though Russia now is also conducting the special operation, its position has remained unchanged,” Assad said, using the Kremlin’s “special military operation” term for the war in Ukraine.

Moscow has provided robust political support to Assad at the UN and actively mediated to help repair his government’s ties with regional powers. Russia’s military support for Assad also helped him to turn the tide in a civil war that began in 2011 as a pro-democracy movement.

Source: France 24

US President Joe Biden, 80, had a cancerous skin lesion successfully removed from his chest in February, his doctor said Friday.

The lesion, detected during a routine medical examination, was a basal cell carcinoma, which “do not tend to ‘spread’ or metastasize,” Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, said in a report made public by the White House, adding that “no further treatment is required.”

The lesion was removed during Biden’s annual medical checkup on February 16, after which the president was declared “fit for duty.”

“The site of the biopsy has healed nicely and the president will continue dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive healthcare,” O’Connor said in the Friday report.

He noted that basal cell carcinoma were generally more innocuous than “more serious skin cancers such as melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma.”

“President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those of as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” O’Connor said in February following Biden’s medical examination.

The checkup was the final one before an expected announcement by Biden, the oldest person ever to be US president, to declare he is running for reelection in 2024.

At the February appointment, Biden completed a series of tests that he began last year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a complex in the Washington suburbs with a presidential facility.

O’Connor at the time wrote that the president had spent “a good deal of time in the sun in his youth” and that he had already been treated regularly for removal of localized, non-melanoma skin cancers.

Source: AFP

Hopes were fading Thursday for rescuing survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, which has killed over 17,500 people in one of the deadliest tremors in decades.

Bitter cold has hampered the four-day search of thousands of flattened buildings and the 72-hour mark that experts consider the most likely period to save lives has passed.

Relatives were left scouring body bags laid out in a hospital car park in Turkey’s southern city of Antakya to search for missing relatives, an indication of the scale of the tragedy.

“We found my aunt, but not my uncle,” said Rania Zaboubi, a Syrian refugee who lost eight members of her family, as other survivors sought loved ones’ bodies among the corpses.

The 7.8-magnitude quake struck as people slept early Monday in a region where many people had already suffered loss and displacement due to Syria’s civil war.

Source: AFP

Rescuers are racing to pull survivors from earthquake rubble before they succumb to cold weather in southern Turkey and war-ravaged northern Syria. As the death toll climbed, despair and anger were growing over the pace of rescue efforts. Follow the latest developments on our live blog below.

The death toll from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria early on Monday has now reached 5,894 in Turkey and 2,470 in Syria, bringing the total to 8,364.

More than 34,000 were injured in Turkey.

Bad weather hampered the search and rescue efforts overnight

Thousands of children may have been killed, according to UNICEF.

Monday’s quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, leaving thousands of people homeless.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces.

More than 12,000 Turkish search and rescue personnel are working in the affected areas, along with 9,000 troops.

More than 70 countries have offered rescue teams and other aid.

The United Nations says it’s “exploring all avenues” to get supplies to rebel-held northwestern Syria, and it released $25 million from its emergency fund to help kick-start the humanitarian response in Turkey and Syria.

Source: France 24

Found across a vast range of modern products, petrochemicals are part of the fabric of our societies. Clothing, tyres, digital devices, packaging, detergents, and countless other everyday items are made from petrochemicals. Petrochemical feedstock accounts for 12% of global oil demand, a share that is expected to increase, driven by increasing demand for plastics, fertilisers, and other products. Despite its size, the sector continues to take a back seat in the global energy debate.

Over last 50 years, society has been increasingly reliant on the products of the organic chemical industry to supply the clothes we wear, the food we eat, our health, housing, transportation, security, and other commodities. About 92% of organic chemical products are produced from petroleum, that is, fossil, or mineral, oil, and gas. In addition, these same resources are generally used to provide the large quantities of process heat and power needed by the industry. In the modern petrochemical industry, oil and gas inputs for both raw material and process energy compose about 50% of the operating costs.

The result is that not only is the chemical industry (including petrochemicals) the industrial sector with the highest emissions worldwide, it is also very vulnerable to variations in fossil fuel and carbon prices. Thus, efficiency has long been a major factor in determining competitiveness in petrochemicals, and the sector has a high success rate in reducing its energy intensity. Despite this, over the past decade, while total use of oil has grown globally at a rate of 1.4% per year over, the use of oil for chemical feedstocks has grown at about 4.0% per year. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in an industry that is so dependent on fossil fuels presents a significant challenge that has begun to receive serious attention from researchers and businesses alike.

Regarding this sector, the concept of “biorefining” for bio-based chemicals has been given particular prominence for its potential to deliver renewability, low CO2, and energy/feedstock security in the long term. However, establishing new production routes based on biomass in Europe is shown to face considerable social, technical, and economic obstacles to reaching a scale that can contribute valuable emissions reductions.

Due to the important role the petrochemical industry plays in our lives, PRC Europe has been organizing events to shed more light on the significant role this industry has been playing when it comes to cutting emissions. PRC Europe 2023 is the annual B2B Congress and it will bring together downstream industry players who are making decisions to accelerate the energy transition and comply with COP26. Among the key topics of the business program are the question of energy trilemma, biorefining, clean hydrogen and petrochemicals production, meaning of alternative transportation fuels, decarbonization and plant improvement, recycling technologies and many others.

During 3 days of intensive networking, participants get direct access to the whole value chain of downstream. Each year PRC Europe gathers industry leaders from Oil & Gas Companies, EPCs, Refineries and Petrochemical Plants, Licensors, Chemical Companies to discuss innovative solutions and business practices and to share the lessons learned.

PRC Europe is a closed-door event aimed to gather only industry experts from both top-management and technical level. For that reason, BGS Group works upon invitations and requests selectively choosing the audience that is able to discuss ongoing trends and questions of Downstream Oil & Gas, contributing to the business program with up-to-date case-studies. Al of this transforms the Congress into an efficient B2B networking platform.

By Ayuk Boris Ebot

Science and Environment Correspondent

Rescuers in Turkey and Syria braved frigid weather, aftershocks and collapsing buildings Tuesday, as they dug for survivors buried by an earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people.

Disaster agencies said several thousand buildings were flattened in cities across a vast border region — pouring misery on an area already plagued by war, insurgency, refugee crises and a recent cholera outbreak.

Through the night, survivors used their bare hands to pick over the twisted ruins of multi-storey apartment blocks — trying to save family, friends and anyone else sleeping inside when the first massive 7.8-magnitude quake struck early Monday.

“Where is my mum?” asked a distraught seven-year-old girl who was pulled — her face, hair and pyjamas covered in dust — from a collapsed building in Hatay, on the Turkish side of the border.

The sense of disbelief was widespread, as residents struggled to comprehend the scale of the disaster.

Disaster agencies said several thousand buildings were flattened across a vast Turkey-Syria border region

Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake’s epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, a city of two million where entire blocks now lie in ruins under gathering snow.

As residents tried to clear a mountain of masonry, plasterboard and furniture that had been a multi-story building, another collapsed nearby — sending crowds screaming and clamouring for safety.

With aftershocks rattling the area, many terrified and exhausted survivors spent the night outdoors, too afraid to go home.

Source: AFP

At least 50 people have been killed across Syria as buildings collapsed after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that had its epicentre in southeastern Turkey, state media and a local hospital said.

Forty-two people were killed in government-controlled parts of Syria, state media said, while a local hospital told AFP that eight others were killed in northern areas controlled by pro-Turkish factions.

“Forty-two deaths and 200 injuries have been reported in Aleppo, Hama and Latakia as a result of the earthquake in a preliminary toll,” state news agency SANA said quoting a health ministry official.

Rescuers have been rushing to search for survivors under the rubble of collapsed buildings since the earthquake hit Syria at dawn.

AFP correspondents in northern Syria said terrified residents ran out of their homes after the ground shook.

SANA had reported earlier that the earthquake was felt from the western coast of Latakia to Damascus.

“This earthquake is the strongest since the National Earthquake Centre was founded in 1995,” Raed Ahmed, who heads the centre, told SANA.

In northern Syrian areas controlled by pro-Turkish factions, at least eight people were killed “in the regions of Azaz and al-Bab,” a source at a local hospital told AFP, adding that the number is likely to rise as search and rescue operations are ongoing.

In the neighbouring rebel-held Idlib region bordering Turkey, civil defence said there were “dozens of victims and hundreds of people injured and stuck under the rubble”.

“Our teams are in a state of emergency to rescue survivors,” the White Helmets rescue group said on Twitter.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit near Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey on Monday at 04:17 am local time (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 17.9 kilometres (11 miles), the US Geological Survey said.

The tremors were felt in Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus, according to AFP correspondents.

Source: AFP