Foreign News
Zelensky heads to US in bid to rescue $60bn military aid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Washington DC to try to rescue an imperilled US defence package to Kyiv worth billions of dollars.
The aid has become embroiled in US domestic, partisan politics, with Republicans demanding concessions on border funding in exchange.
It marks Mr Zelensky’s third visit to the US since Russia’s 2022 invasion.
The week is a crucial one for Ukraine, with the EU also deciding whether to open accession talks to the bloc. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has signalled that he opposes the move, and has the power to block such a decision.
Mr Orban and Mr Zelensky had an apparently intense conversation when they met on Sunday at the inauguration of Argentina’s new president. The details of their discussion have not been revealed.
The Ukrainian president will arrive in Washington on Monday. As well as holding meetings with US President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, he will address the Senate on Tuesday morning.
The White House said in a statement on Sunday that Mr Zelensky’s visit was meant “to underscore the United States’ unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia’s brutal invasion”.
The US military aid package, worth $60bn (£47.9bn; €55bn), is currently stalled in Congress, facing pushback from Republicans who argue that more money should be going to domestic security at the US-Mexico border. A vote in the Senate last week saw a package, which included the funding but no border measures, blocked by Republicans.
In addition to more funds for border enforcement, Republicans are seeking reforms to the way in which undocumented migrants seeking political asylum in the US are processed. “We’ve got to be able to have a change in policy on this,” Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, one of the lead Republican negotiators, said in an interview on Sunday. “All we’re trying to do is to say what tools are needed to be able to get this back in control, so we don’t have the chaos on our southern border.”
Mr Lankford said that Americans don’t want US national security on the border to be ignored while Congress focuses on Ukraine’s interests.
Although the Biden administration has expressed a willingness to accept some asylum policy changes, such concessions risk angering liberal lawmakers and further dividing a party that has already been fractured by the president’s support of Israel in the Gaza War.
“We are concerned about reports of harmful changes to our asylum system that will potentially deny lifesaving humanitarian protection for vulnerable people, including children, and fail to deliver any meaningful improvement to the situation at the border,” a group of 11 Democratic senators wrote in a statement issued on 30 November.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, an ally of Mr Biden’s, has said that the White House is becoming “more engaged” in the ongoing negotiations, seeking a comprehensive funding agreement that includes money for Ukraine before Congress leaves for its holiday recess on Friday.
Even if the Senate can strike a deal, however, the package would have to also be approved by the House of Representatives, where opposition to more Ukraine aid is even more intense.
Mr Biden has been urging lawmakers to approve the funds. In an impassioned televised address last Wednesday, he said the package could not wait and warned that Russia would not stop at victory over Ukraine. Though Ukraine fended off Russia’s original attack, its much-vaunted counter-attack this year has stalled and there have been signs of fatigue from some of the Western nations which have stepped up to support it militarily.
After the Senate vote, Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that Ukranians would be ‘in mortal danger’ if Western countries did not continue their support.
“We really need the help. In simple words, we cannot get tired of this situation, because if we do, we die,” she said. “And if the world gets tired, they will simply let us die.”
(BBC)
United States President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to demand control of the Panama Canal after accusing Panama of charging excessive rates on US ships passing through one of the busiest waterways in the world.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
He later doubled down during a speech in Arizona on Sunday, saying the US was “being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else”.
The US largely built the canal in 1914 and administrated territory surrounding the passage for decades. But Washington fully handed control of the canal to Panama in 1999 after a period of joint administration.
Trump also hinted at China’s growing influence around the canal, which connects the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” he said in the original post. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama. If the moral and legal principles of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump said.
Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino firmly responded to Trump on Sunday.
“Every square meter of the Panama canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging so,” Mulino said in a recorded message posted on social media.
He further denied that China or any other country has direct or indirect influence over the canal. He added that fees were not decided on a “whim”.
The canal is key to Panama’s economy and generates about one-fifth of the government’s annual revenue.
[Aljazeera]
At least 13 people, including four children, have been killed in two incidents in Nigeria as large crowds gathered to collect food and clothing distributed at annual Christmas events, police say.
In the capital, Abuja, at least 10 people died on Saturday and many more were injured in a scramble to receive gifts of charity being distributed by the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama district.
“This unfortunate event, which took place around 6:30am [05:30 GMT], resulted in a stampede that claimed the lives of 10 individuals, including four children, and left eight others with varying degrees of injuries,” said Josephine Adeh, a police spokesperson.
In a separate incident in Okija in Anambra State in southern Nigeria, three people were killed in a crush at a charity event organised by a philanthropist, state police said.
“The event had not even started when the rush began,” police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga said. There could be more deaths recorded as officers investigate, he said.
In both incidents, the victims were mostly women and children who were trampled as crowds tried to reach the provisions being offered.
[Aljazeera]
A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.
At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.
The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.
He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.
The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.
Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.
Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.
Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.
He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.
There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.
[BBC]
Several spells of showers may occur in Northern, North-central, Eastern provinces and in Matale district during the day
Brutality of underworld attacks has intensified over past few years
SJB accuses govt. of politicising public service ahead of elections
-
Sports5 days agoPathirana set to sling his way into Kiwi hearts
-
News3 days agoOffice of CDS likely to be scrapped; top defence changes on the cards
-
News6 days agoSL issues USD 10.4 bn macro-linked bonds
-
Editorial6 days agoRanil’s advice
-
Editorial5 days agoThe games they play
-
Features3 days agoAn Absurd play in Parliament: Qualifications versus education
-
Features5 days agoThe Government’s Term Tests & Results: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
-
Opinion4 days agoWhat AKD and NPP should bear in mind