The White House said Tuesday that key ally Israel must reopen Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, while expressing hope that a ceasefire deal with Hamas was within reach.

Israel sent tanks into the southern Gaza city of Rafah and seized control of the crossing, a key aid passage, while warning it will deepen its operation if truce talks fail to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.

President Joe Biden declined to answer questions on the ceasefire talks and the operation in Rafah as he met his Romanian counterpart in the Oval Office, merely smiling at reporters.

“The crossings that have been closed need to be reopened, it is unacceptable for them to be closed,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a briefing.

“We believe Rafah border crossing should be quickly reopened for the movement of humanitarian assistance,” Jean-Pierre added.

Israel had already committed to reopening another crossing at Kerem Shalom, which was closed after a rocket attack on Sunday killed four Israeli troops, on Wednesday, she added.

The United States, Israel’s main military and diplomatic backer, has repeatedly said it opposes a major offensive in Rafah, where more than 1.2 million displaced Palestinians are living.

But the White House said Israel had told it that the current operation was of “limited scope, scale and duration.”

“What we’ve been told by our Israeli counterparts is that this operation last night was limited and designed to cut off Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons” into Gaza,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Washington would closely monitor the situation, he added.

‘Remaining gaps’

The Israeli military’s thrust into the eastern sector of the city came shortly after the Palestinian militant group Hamas said it had accepted a ceasefire proposal, but Israel demurred.

The talks got back underway on Tuesday amid high hopes and tensions after more than seven months of conflict.

“A close assessment of the two sides’ positions suggests that they should be able to close the remaining gaps, and we’re going to do everything we can to support that process,” Kirby said.

The fact that all parties, including CIA chief Bill Burns, were present at the talks in Cairo indicated they were at an advanced stage, he added.

“Everybody’s coming to the table,” Kirby said. “That’s not insignificant.”

The White House hoped for news “very, very soon” but it would be “foolhardy” to predict when the negotiations might bear fruit, he added.

The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,789 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Source: AFP

US President Joe Biden will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II next week, the White House said Friday, as negotiations continue in the Middle East for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The meeting will be “private” and will be followed by a readout, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, without giving a date for the encounter.

The meeting comes against the backdrop of talks for a deal to release hostages and secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after nearly seven months of war.

The talks, which come after months of efforts by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States to broker a new agreement between the combatants, are at a critical juncture.

The United States has urged the Palestinian militant group to accept the “extraordinarily generous” offer.

But Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of trying to derail the proposed Gaza deal with his threats to launch an operation in Rafah.

King Abdullah II last visited the White House in February when he called for an immediate ceasefire and warned an attack on Rafah would cause a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

In April, Jordan worked alongside the United States and other allies to shoot down Iranian drones that Tehran sent towards Israel, with the kingdom keen to avoid a wider conflict.

Source: AFP

Former US Senator and vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman has died at 82.

The cause was complications from a fall, according to a family statement obtained by CBS News, The BBC’s US partner.

The centrist represented the state of Connecticut in the Senate for nearly a quarter of a century.

Mr Lieberman became the first Jewish person to join a major party US presidential ticket in 2000 when Al Gore selected him as his running mate.

Source: BBC

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister said Monday that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has requested a summit with her brother, adding a meeting was unlikely without a policy shift by Tokyo.

Relations between the two countries are historically strained, including by a long-running kidnapping dispute and North Korea’s banned weapons programmes, but Kishida has recently expressed a desire to improve ties, which Pyongyang has hinted it is not opposed to.

Last year, Kishida said he was willing to meet Kim “without any conditions”, saying Tokyo was willing to resolve all issues, including the abduction by North Korean agents of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, which remains an emotive issue in Japan.

“Kishida… conveyed his intention to personally meet the President of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as soon as possible,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Kim Yo Jong — who is one of the regime’s key spokespeople — had hinted last month at a possible future invitation for the Japanese leader to visit North Korea.

But she said the “history of the DPRK-Japan relations gives a lesson that it is impossible to improve the bilateral relations full of distrust and misunderstanding,” without a substantive policy change on Tokyo’s part.

She warned that were Japan to remain “engrossed in the abduction issue that has no further settlement” then Kishida’s hopes of improving ties would not materialise.

Kishida said Monday that he was not aware of the KCNA report, and did not directly comment on its contents, while calling top-level talks with North Korea “important”.

“For Japan-North Korea relations, top-level talks are important to resolve issues such as the abduction issue,” Kishida said in parliament, referring to kidnappings that took place in the 1970s and ’80s.

“This is why we have been making various approaches to North Korea at the level directly under my control, as I have said in the past.”

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had sent agents to kidnap 13 Japanese people in the 1970s and ’80s who were used to train spies in Japanese language and customs.

The abductions remain a potent and emotional issue in Japan and suspicions persist that many more were abducted than have been officially recognised.

Analysts have long said that contention over the issue could hinder progress towards a summit between Kishida and Kim Jong Un.

But North Korea’s statement appeared to be an attempt by Pyongyang to negotiate terms for any future summit between the two countries’ leaders, Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, told AFP.

“It seems the North sees there’s no point in making contact with the Japanese side without checking what requirements each side has in mind that could lead to nothing after all if those requirements are too different to reconcile,” Hong said.

“It is Pyongyang’s way of testing how serious Japan is in holding the meeting and setting its own summit prerequisites in order to host the meeting.”

Japan’s former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi paid a landmark visit to Pyongyang while in office in 2002, meeting Kim’s father Kim Jong Il and setting out a path to normalise relations in which Japan would offer economic assistance.

The trip led to the return of five Japanese nationals and a follow-up trip by Koizumi, but the diplomacy soon broke down, in part over Tokyo’s concern that North Korea was not coming clean about the abduction victims.

Kim Yo Jong said that Kishida “should not think that it is possible for him to meet our state leadership when he has wanted and decided.”

“If Japan truly wants to improve the bilateral relations and contribute to ensuring regional peace and stability as a close neighbor of the DPRK, it is necessary for it to make a political decision for strategic option conformed to its overall interests,” she added.

Source: AFP

Former US president Donald Trump warned of a “bloodbath for the country” if he is not elected in November. 

Donald Trump told a rally in Ohio on Saturday that November’s presidential election will be the “most important date” in US history, painting his campaign for the White House as a turning point for the country.

Days after securing his position as the presumptive Republican nominee, the former president also warned of a “bloodbath” if he is not elected – though it was not clear what he was referring to, with the remark coming in the middle of comments about threats to the US auto industry.

“The date – remember this, November 5 – I believe it’s going to be the most important date in the history of our country,” the 77-year-old told rally-goers in Vandalia, Ohio, repeating well-worn criticisms that his rival, President Joe Biden, is the “worst” president.

Criticising what he said were Chinese plans to build cars in Mexico and sell them to Americans, he stated: “We’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected.”

“Now if I don’t get elected it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars.”

As Trump’s comment gained traction on social media, Biden’s campaign released a statement calling the Republican a “loser” at the ballot box in 2020 who then “doubles down on his threats of political violence.

“He wants another January 6 but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge,” the campaign said, referring to the deadly attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters in 2021.

Later, Biden spoke at a dinner in Washington, where he also warned of “an unprecedented moment in history.”

“Freedom is under assault… The lies about the 2020 election, the plot to overturn it, to embrace the Jan. 6 insurrection pose the greatest threat to our democracy since the American Civil War,” he said.

“In 2020, they failed, but … the threat remains.”

The 81-year-old, who has waved off concerns that he is too old for a second term, leavened his rhetoric with humor.

“One candidate’s too old and mentally unfit to be president,” he said of the presidential race. “The other guy’s me.”

Border issues

Earlier this month Trump and Biden each won enough delegates to clinch their party nominations in the 2024 presidential race, all but assuring a rematch and setting up one of the longest election campaigns in US history.

Among the issues Trump is campaigning on is sweeping reform of what he calls Biden’s “horror show” immigration policies, despite the ex-president successfully pressuring Republicans to block a bill in Congress that included the toughest border security measures in decades.

On Saturday he invoked the border again as he reached out to minorities who have traditionally voted Democrat.

He said Biden had “repeatedly stabbed African-American voters in the back” by granting work permits to “millions” of immigrants, warning that they and Hispanic Americans “are going to be the ones that suffer the most.”

For decades Ohio had been seen as a bellwether battleground state, though it has trended more strongly Republican since Trump’s White House win in 2016.

The rally came a day after Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, said he would not endorse his old boss for a second White House term.

Source: AFP

The US Supreme Court has struck down efforts by individual states to disqualify Donald Trump from running for president using an anti-insurrection constitutional clause.

The unanimous ruling is specific to Colorado, but it also overrides challenges brought in other states.

Colorado had barred Mr Trump from its Republican primary, arguing he incited the 2021 Capitol riot.

The court ruled that only Congress, rather than the states, has that power.

The top court’s decision clears the way for Mr Trump to compete in the Colorado primary scheduled for Tuesday.

Mr Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination and looks likely to face a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November’s general election.

On Monday, the ex-president immediately claimed victory following the ruling, taking to his Truth Social media platform to claim a “big win for America”. The message was followed by a fundraising email sent to supporters of his campaign.

Speaking from his estate in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, soon afterwards, he said that the decision was “very well crafted” and will “go a long way towards bringing our country together, which it needs”.

“You can’t take someone out of a race because an opponent would like it that way,” Mr Trump added.

Colorado’s Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, said that she was disappointed by the ruling and that “Colorado should be able to bar oath-breaking insurrections from our ballot”.

Additionally, the watchdog group that brought the case in Colorado, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), said in a statement that while the court “failed to meet the moment”, it is “still a win for democracy: Trump will go down in history as an insurrectionist”.

Maine and Illinois had followed Colorado in kicking Mr Trump off the ballot on similar grounds.

The efforts in both those states were put on hold while his challenge to the Colorado ruling was escalated to the Supreme Court.

“We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office,” the court’s opinion says. “But states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Sections 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency.”

The nine justices ruled that only Congress can enforce the 14th Amendment’s provisions against federal officials and candidates.

Part of the Civil War-era amendment – Section 3 – bars federal, state and military officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US from holding office again.

Groups including Free Speech For People had argued that the attempt to delay the peaceful transfer of power on 6 January 2021 matched the definition of insurrection outlined in the amendment.

One of the court’s justices, Amy Coney Barrett, wrote separately that the fact that all nine justices agreed on the outcome of the case is “the message that Americans should take home”.

Source: BBC

The Kremlin has accused Joe Biden of attempting to appear like a “Hollywood cowboy” after the US president called Vladimir Putin “a crazy SOB”.

Mr Biden made the comments at a public fundraising event on Wednesday in California, warning about the threat of nuclear conflict.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it a poor attempt to appear like a “Hollywood cowboy”.

He added that such vocabulary “debases America itself”.

In a brief speech in San Francisco, Mr Biden said: “We have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin, and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is climate.”

It is not the first time the US president has used the offensive term. In a hot-mic slip in 2022, Mr Biden called a Fox News journalist a “son of a bitch”.

He has also called Mr Putin a “butcher” and a “war criminal” in the past.

The Kremlin spokesman said it was “unlikely to infringe on our president, President Putin. But it debases those who use such vocabulary”.

Mr Peskov said the remark was “probably some kind of attempt to look like a Hollywood cowboy. But honestly I don’t think it’s possible”.

“Has Mr Putin ever used one crude word to address you? This has never happened. Therefore, I think that such vocabulary debases America itself,” he added.

In California, Mr Biden also took aim at Donald Trump, who he is likely to face off against in November’s presidential election.

Mr Trump has appeared to compare himself to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition activist who died in jail last week.

The Republican has not assigned blame to Mr Putin for Navalny’s death, while Mr Biden said there can be “no doubt” the Russian president was responsible.

“If I stood here 10 to 15 years ago and said all this, you’d all think I should be committed,” Mr Biden said.

Last week, Mr Putin raised some eyebrows when he said he would rather Mr Biden take the presidency over Mr Trump in November.

“He’s more experienced, he’s predictable, he’s an old-style politician,” Mr Putin told Russian TV.

Source: BBC

Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win.

Putin still commands wide support after nearly a quarter-century in power, despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his countrymen’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia – including one on the Kremlin itself – and corroded its aura of invincibility.

A short-lived rebellion in June by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin raised widespread speculation that Putin could be losing his grip, but he emerged with no permanent scars.

Putin announced his decision to run in the March 17 presidential election after a Kremlin award ceremony, when war veterans and others pleaded with him to seek re-election.

“I won’t hide it from you – I had various thoughts about it over time, but now, you’re right, it’s necessary to make a decision,” Putin said in a video released by the Kremlin after the event. “I will run for president of the Russian Federation.”

Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center noted that the announcement was made in a low-key way instead of a live televised speech, probably reflecting the Kremlin’s spin effort to emphasize Putin’s modesty and his perceived focus on doing his job as opposed to loud campaigning.

“It’s not about prosperity, it’s about survival,” Stanovaya observed. “The stakes have been raised to the maximum.”

About 80% of the populace approves of Putin’s performance, according to the independent pollster Levada Center. That support might come from the heart or it might reflect submission to a leader whose crackdown on any opposition has made even relatively mild criticism perilous.

Whether due to real or coerced support, Putin is expected to face only token opposition on the ballot.

Putin, 71, has twice used his leverage to amend the constitution so he could theoretically stay in power until he’s in his mid-80s. He is already the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who died in 1953.

In 2008, he stepped aside to become prime minister due to term limits but continued calling the shots. Presidential terms were then extended to six years from four, while another package of amendments he pushed through three years ago reset the count for two consecutive terms to begin in 2024.

“He is afraid to give up power,” Dmitry Oreshkin, a political analyst and professor at Free University of Riga, Latvia, told The Associated Press this year.

At the time of the amendments that allowed him two more terms, Putin’s concern about losing power may have been elevated: Levada polling showed his approval rating significantly lower, hovering around 60%.

In the view of some analysts, that dip in popularity could have been a main driver of the war that Putin launched in Ukraine in February 2022.

“This conflict with Ukraine was necessary as a glue. He needed to consolidate his power,” said commentator Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter now living in Israel.

Brookings Institution scholar Fiona Hill, a former U.S. National Security Council expert on Russian affairs, agrees that Putin thought “a lovely small, victorious war” would consolidate support for his reelection.

“Ukraine would capitulate,” she told AP this year. “He’d install a new president in Ukraine. He would declare himself the president of a new union of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia over the course of the time leading up to the 2024 election. He’d be the supreme leader.”

The war didn’t turn out that way. It devolved into a grueling slog in which neither side makes significant headway, posing severe challenges to the rising prosperity integral to Putin’s popularity and Russians’ propensity to set aside concerns about corrupt politics and shrinking tolerance of dissent.

Putin’s rule has spanned five U.S. presidencies, from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden. He became acting president on New Year’s Eve in 1999, when Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. He was elected to his first term in March 2000.

When he was forced to step down in 2008 by term limits, he shifted to the prime minister’s post while close ally Dmitry Medvedev served as a placeholder president.

When Putin announced he would run for a new term in 2012 and Medvedev submissively agreed to become prime minister, public protests brought out crowds of 100,000 or more.

Although Putin has long abandoned the macho photo shoots of bear hunting and scuba diving that once amused and impressed the world, he shows little sign of slowing down. Photos from 2022 of him with a bloated face and a hunched posture led to speculation he was seriously ill, but he seems little changed in recent public appearances.

“He’s a wartime president, is mobilizing the population behind him,” Hill said. “And that will be the message around the 2024 election, depending on where things are in the battlefield.”

Source: AP