BEIJING: The United States’ top diplomat will press a tougher new line on North Korea in talks with a wary China on Saturday, in a tense atmosphere after President Donald Trump accused Beijing of failing to rein in Pyongyang.
On a tour of Asia, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has broken with years of strategic patience over North Korea, saying that approach had “failed” and that US military action against North Korea was possible if its threats escalated.
The sea change in US policy follows two North Korean nuclear tests last year and recent missile launches including a salvo earlier this month that Pyongyang described as practice for an attack on US bases in Japan.
Trump upped the pressure on China to get tough in a Friday Twitter blast accusing Beijing of failing to use its leverage as North Korea’s key diplomatic and trade partner to put a leash on Pyongyang.
“North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help!” Trump said.
But Beijing is deeply reluctant to get too tough with its volatile neighbor lest it trigger a confrontation or a messy regime collapse on China’s front door.
China has hit back at the US, angrily accusing it of fueling tension by holding military exercises with its ally Seoul and deploying an anti-missile system in South Korea.
Beijing called this month for all sides to take steps to defuse the situation and avoid a “head-on collision,” calling for re-started diplomatic efforts to dismantle the North’s banned nuclear and missile programs.
Years of diplomacy, however, have failed to deter Pyongyang, and Washington has rebuffed the Chinese proposal.
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said in an editorial on Saturday that “there is nothing new” in the harder stance outlined by Tillerson during meetings with allies in Tokyo and Seoul, saying that approach had “failed” in years past.
It rejected suggestions that Beijing was not doing enough.
“Positive results require effort and good faith from both sides. China has never fallen short of offering its fair share. It’s all up to Washington now,” it said.
Tillerson, a former Exxon oil executive who until now had adopted a low profile in office, was to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday afternoon. The two were to hold a press conference at 4 p.m. (0800 GMT).
Later, he was to meet China’s top foreign-policy official Yang Jiechi.
Plans also are in the works for Tillerson to meet Sunday with President Xi Jinping as Beijing and Washington negotiate a possible first summit with Trump — a frequent China critic — next month in the United States.
Beijing shares US concerns over Pyongyang’s nuclearization but appears to prefer the tense status quo over drastic action.
But China took one of its toughest steps yet in February, announcing it would halt all imports of North Korean coal, a key source of income for the impoverished state, for the rest of this year, citing UN sanctions over Pyongyang’s weapons programs.
The United Nations has imposed multiple sets of sanctions on the North but China is accused of not fully enforcing them.
China insisted Thursday its latest proposal — for North Korea to suspend nuclear and missile activities in return for the US and South Korea halting the military exercises — was the “only feasible plan” available.
Tillerson is yet to detail the harder new US line, but said in South Korea on Friday “we are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security, economic measures.”
Under the Obama administration, the US ruled out diplomatic engagement until Pyongyang made a tangible commitment to denuclearization, hoping that internal stresses in the isolated country would bring change.
North Korea says it needs to be able to defend itself, and conducted its first underground atomic test in 2006 despite global opposition. Four more test blasts followed.
Beijing also is upset over the US deployment of an anti-missile system to South Korea.
Washington and Seoul insist it is purely a defense against a possible North Korean attack.
But Beijing says the system undermines its own security and has reacted angrily, imposing a series of measures seen in South Korea as economic retaliation.
Tension as Tillerson brings tough N.Korea stance to China
Tension as Tillerson brings tough N.Korea stance to China
A-listers fail to win Harris votes as Trump lauds famous ‘bros’
- Celebrity endorsements have long been part of the fabric of US elections, harking back to the days when Frank Sinatra wrangled the ‘Rat Pack’ to support John F. Kennedy in 1960
- Donald Trump, backed by Elon Musk, also received a last-minute endorsement from Joe Rogan, the influential podcast host
LOS ANGELES, United States: A raft of celebrities from Taylor Swift and Beyonce to George Clooney and Harrison Ford proved unable to prevent Kamala Harris’s crushing defeat in the US election, underlining the limited impact of sweeping star endorsements on voters.
Instead it was Donald Trump and the Republicans — who received scant support from the entertainment industry at large, but tapped into a targeted subset of well-known, hypermasculine influencers — who won comfortably.
So, did the Democrats’ long-standing Hollywood and music industry connections, including last-minute rally appearances from Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, make any difference at all in the end?
“Not in this election, clearly,” said New York University arts professor Laurence Maslon.
“At the end of the day, people probably realize that Beyonce and George Clooney don’t have to worry about the cost of gas or the cost of eggs — so maybe they’re sort of irrelevant,” he told AFP.
Celebrity endorsements have long been part of the fabric of US elections, harking back to the days when Frank Sinatra wrangled the “Rat Pack” to support John F. Kennedy in 1960.
Even this year, Hollywood-led fundraisers helped raise tens of millions of dollars for Harris’s record-breaking campaign war chest.
But their impact in actually influencing votes has always been a “mixed bag,” said Arizona State University associate professor Margaretha Bentley, who teaches a public policy course on Taylor Swift.
“It’s never going to be the golden ticket that everybody’s looking for,” she said.
Mark Harvey, author of “Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion, and Issue-Based Advocacy,” agreed that we “shouldn’t be terribly surprised” by the lack of celebrity impact.
“There isn’t a real strong science behind this idea that celebrities can influence people to vote for candidates,” he said.
Famous supporters have only ever been effective when advocating on very specific issues on which they are widely regarded as expert, added Harvey.
As Donald Trump delivered his victory speech early Wednesday, the new president-elect was flanked by — and showered praise on — famous names from the world of sport.
UFC boss Dana White was lovingly hailed as “tough” and “a piece of work,” while golfer Bryson DeChambeau was celebrated as “fantastic” and even having a “slightly longer” drive than the golf-loving Trump.
Loud cheers — and a significant portion of Trump’s address — were devoted to his best-known supporter of all, tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Trump also received a last-minute endorsement from Joe Rogan, the influential host of one of the world’s top podcasts.
The Republican may have benefited from these associations because, in an election “largely driven by cultural issues, one of the most potent cultural issues was masculinity,” said Harvey.
“This sort of ‘be a real man,’ the Trump ‘macho’ sort of thing... it’s the kind of thing that Joe Rogan plays all the time.”
For the Democrats, this latest scarring experience will require a “deep self-analysis... of what they did and didn’t do, and what might have been successful,” including with celebrity endorsements, said Bentley.
Ashley Spillane, author of the report “Celebrities Strengthening Our Culture of Democracy,” agreed there was “debate” about the “value and impact of celebrity endorsements of candidates.”
But there is still “robust evidence that celebrities do have a real impact in promoting overall, nonpartisan civic engagement,” she wrote via email, pointing to Swift’s endorsement of Harris, which was credited with driving 400,000 people to a voter registration site.
Even if their endorsements failed, Hollywood celebrities showed no indication Wednesday that they would remain silent.
Waking up to the news of Trump’s victory, several well-known figures took to social media to vent their frustrations.
Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis said Trump’s win would usher in “a sure return to a more restrictive, some fear draconian time.”
“Fascist with total power... That may have been the last free election,” wrote actor John Cusack. “Horror is coming.”
Pop singer Cardi B, who appeared at a Harris rally last Friday, simply wrote: “I hate yall bad.”
‘Abu Ivanka’ returns: Trump set to pick up from where he left off in Middle East
- President-elect expected to prioritize ending wars in Gaza and Lebanon, pressure Iran, push for normalization deals
- Arab leaders considered Trump a valuable partner and a robust ally against regional militia groups
LONDON: Defying almost all election predictions, Donald Trump, or “Abu Ivanka” as he is commonly known in the region, has secured what he has called a “powerful mandate” to form the next US administration, with massive implications not just for domestic politics but for the international community, including the Middle East.
Since his election victory was confirmed on Wednesday, messages of congratulations have flooded in from Arab capitals, buoyed by the opportunities for deeper strategic cooperation that a second Trump presidency likely has in store for the region.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman congratulated Trump in separate cables on Wednesday, with King Salman praising the “historically close (bilateral) relations that everyone seeks to strengthen and develop in all fields.”
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan sent his “sincere congratulations” to Trump in a message on X, saying: “The UAE looks forward to continuing to work with our partners in the US towards a future of opportunity, prosperity, and stability for all.”
Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani posted on X that he looks “forward to working together again to strengthen our strategic relationship and partnership.”
Egypt also welcomed the result, with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi posting on social media: “We look forward to working together in bringing and maintaining regional peace and stability and bolstering the strategic partnership between Egypt and the United States.”
While almost all of the national polls had placed Vice President Kamala Harris ahead in the race to succeed President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, there were clear signs that ethnic minority voters were beginning to turn their backs on the Democrats — among them Arab Americans.
An Arab News-YouGov poll conducted in October showed that Biden’s stance on Israel and the war in Gaza had contributed to the alienation of Arab American voters, leading a slim majority of those surveyed to say they would be voting for the Republicans in several swing states.
Some 45 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for Trump, while 43 percent said they would opt for Harris, despite the fact that 40 percent of those polled described themselves as Democrats, 28 percent as Republicans, and 23 percent as independents.
Although Trump was perceived as being more supportive of Israel than Harris, many Arab Americans indicated in the poll that they would still vote for him. Those predictions appear to have played out, with Arab American voters in the swing state of Michigan, for instance, voting for Trump in huge numbers, helping tip the result against the Democrats.
Trump won 42.5 percent of Dearborn’s vote, compared to 36 percent for Kamala Harris, officials reported. Green Party candidate Jill Stein won 18 percent.
“The reason for this seismic paradigm shift in the Arab American and Muslim voting electorate is because they responded to President Trump’s message of peace,” Oubai Shahbandar, a former defense intelligence officer and Middle East analyst with the Pentagon, told Arab News.
“They responded to President Trump’s outreach to these communities, which was spearheaded by his foreign policy envoy Richard Grenell. It was a message of peace. It was a message of inclusion. They brought in Muslim American community leaders and imams like Belal Alzuhairi, like Amer Ghalib, like Bill Bazzi, and the strategy has paid off.
“It was also a rejection by the Arab American and Muslim American or Middle Eastern community of the past four years of failed Biden-Harris policies, both domestically and when it comes to the foreign policy — a foreign policy that was widely viewed by these communities as enabling the mass killings of Muslims and Arabs across the Middle East.
“And there was a desire for real change, a new way forward. And the numbers speak for themselves. Muslim Americans and Arab Americans wanted President Trump back in the White House.”
Born in 1946 in New York, Trump was a prominent businessman and media personality before going on to serve as president between 2017 and 2021. His political career began in 2015 when he ran for the Republican Party nomination promising immigration reform, trade renegotiation, and a tough stance against Iran.
He won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton with a focus on “America First” policies, which included tax cuts, deregulation, and shifting foreign policy. However, his presidency was marked by polarizing actions, including his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, two impeachment trials, and often divisive rhetoric on migration, abortion rights, and democracy.
When Trump enters the White House for the second time on Jan. 20, his in-tray will be stacked high with pressing issues jostling for attention, from the cost-of-living crisis and border controls, which were clearly top priorities for US voters, to the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Lebanon.
“Trump’s victory exceeded expectations and could prove historic,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Middle East Institute, told Arab News.
“If they also win the House, this might be the first time Republicans control all branches of government since World War One. It ushers in an era where America lurches decisively to the right.”
If Trump’s second term is anything like his first, tectonic shifts can be expected on foreign policy — shaped by a blend of “America first” isolationism and his aggressive deal-making style, designed to disengage the US from “the endless wars,” break costly stalemates, and promote American business interests over foreign rivals.
“The Trump foreign policy tent includes both foreign policy hawks and isolationists,” said Maksad. “We will need to watch closely to determine who will come to dominate in key foreign policy appointments. Figures like Grenell or Mike Pompeo and Tom Cotton.”
While many people in the Arab world are wary of Trump’s close ties to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, others view him as an ally in the effort to rein in Iran-backed militia groups since the killing of the Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
After Trump’s 2016 election victory, his first overseas visit as president was to Riyadh, where in May 2017 he held bilateral talks with the Saudi government and two multilateral meetings with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other Arab and Muslim countries.
In an interview with Al Arabiya in October, Trump said the US-Saudi Arabia relationship “was great with capital letters. G-R-E-A-T, great” when he was in the White House and that the crown prince is “a great guy.”
“(I have) so much respect for the king and so much respect for Mohammed who is doing so great,” Trump said. “He’s a real visionary, he’s done things that nobody else would have even thought about.”
Trump’s previous administration strengthened the military and economic capacities of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, notably through a boost in trade, support for their regional ambitions, and a hardline stance against Iran, including his withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“Terrible news for Tehran,” Mohammed A. Salih, a non-resident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Middle East Program, said in a thread on X on Wednesday, responding to Trump’s election win.
“Expect a renewed maximum pressure campaign, sanctions against Tehran, and an increased likelihood of Israeli strikes within Iran against strategic sites, especially with Iran’s air defense now immensely weakened.”
A new Trump presidency is also likely to be bad news for Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia, as it will likely come under further regional pressure and a stronger military campaign by the US and Israel in the wake of its attacks on Red Sea shipping in solidarity with Hamas.
The picture is unclear on Gaza, however, where Israel has been at war with Palestinian militant groups since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Likewise in Lebanon, where Israel is at war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, the implications of a Trump win are uncertain.
While Trump is known as a staunch supporter of Israel, having recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv during his last presidency, he also showed a determination to find a solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The previous Trump administration brokered the Abraham Accords in 2020, which established diplomatic and economic ties between Israel and Arab states including the UAE and Bahrain by decoupling normalization from recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Bahrain FM Abdullatif al-Zayani (L), Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (2L), and UAE's FM Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan after the signing of the Abraham Accords at the White House in Washington, DC. (AFP)
His return to the White House could see the revival of the Abraham Accords and the drive toward Arab-Israeli normalization, which many had written off in the wake of the Gaza war. He has also pledged to end the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon on day one of his presidency but has not outlined what a solution might look like for the Palestinian people.
“Trump will try to bring the wars in Gaza and Lebanon to a close, pressure Iran, and push forward on normalization,” said Maksad.
“However, his ability to deliver might be limited by the agency of local actors and the complexity of Israeli politics. There is also uncertainty about whether a Republican president can get enough Democrats in the Senate to approve a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia, a crucial part of any pathway towards normalization.”
Although Trump’s victory is likely to be viewed in Europe and perhaps China as ushering in a period of unpredictability, Middle Eastern leaders are likely to welcome a return to a more transactional relationship with Washington — one that is shaped by mutual trade and security interests without perceived interference in their domestic affairs.
“Trump’s victory will support His Highness the Crown Prince’s vision in the region for the benefit of all,” Saudi commentator Mohammed Al-Mubarak posted on X. “Even global companies, especially American ones, will have an active role in this renaissance.”
Germany’s Scholz fires rebellious finance minister
- The move came after weeks of bitter feuding that have rocked the coalition government
- Fiscal hawk Lindner had proposed sweeping reforms to jumpstart the troubled German economy
BERLIN: Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday fired his rebellious Finance Minister Christian Lindner, spelling doom for the three-party coalition though Scholz could stay on in a minority government.
The move came after weeks of bitter feuding that have rocked the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, Lindner’s Free Democrats and the Greens.
Scholz fired his finance minister during a crunch meeting of senior figures from all three ideologically disparate parties at the chancellery, Scholz’s spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told AFP.
The chancellery scheduled a press conference for 2015 GMT, and Lindner announced statements to the media shortly after, to be followed by Greens politicians.
Fiscal hawk Lindner had proposed sweeping reforms to jumpstart the troubled German economy that the other two parties opposed, and had long flirted with bolting the unhappy coalition.
He had repeatedly warned of “an autumn of decisions” as difficult budget talks have loomed.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens had warned that the US presidential election, Germany’s economic woes and the Ukraine and Middle East wars make this “the worst time for the government to fail.”
The Bild daily reported that on Wednesday he told the other parties that the talks of recent days had shown there was not enough common ground on economic and financial policy.
Lindner had argued that Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory had made an economic turnaround even more urgent.
The newspaper added that Lindner had suggested that the parties opt for new elections in early 2025, but that Scholz had rejected the proposal.
If confirmed, this would suggest the Social Democrats and the Greens will seek to stay in power as a minority government until scheduled elections in September 2025.
UK doctor gets 31 years for poisoning mother’s partner with fake COVID vaccine
- “It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight and you very nearly succeeded,” Justice Christina Lambert said
- Kwan, 53, pleaded guilty last month in Newcastle Crown Court to attempted murder
LONDON: A British doctor who was disgruntled about his inheritance and tried to kill his mother’s boyfriend by injecting him with a fake COVID-19 vaccine that was poison was sentenced Wednesday to 31 years in prison.
Dr. Thomas Kwan disguised himself as a nurse making home virus booster visits to infect Patrick O’Hara with a flesh-eating poison because he believed the older man stood in the way of him inheriting his mother’s home some day.
“It was an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight and you very nearly succeeded,” Justice Christina Lambert said. “You were certainly obsessed by money and more particularly, the money to which you considered yourself entitled.”
Kwan, 53, pleaded guilty last month in Newcastle Crown Court to attempted murder.
O’Hara, 72, survived after being in intensive care for several weeks and having part of his arm cut away to prevent the necrotizing fasciitis from spreading.
The ordeal left him “a shell of an individual,” he said. O’Hara and Kwan’s mother, Jenny Leung, have since split up.
Police used surveillance camera footage to track down Kwan.
They found he had hatched an elaborate plot by sending fake letters with National Health Service logos, hyperlinks and even a QR code to offer a home visit for a COVID booster to O’Hara. Kwan disguised himself in head-to-toe protective gear, tinted glasses and a surgical mask and drove a vehicle to the appointment in January using fake license plates.
Kwan, who was described as having a morbid obsession with poisons, used iodomethane, a substance found in pesticides that he thought would be difficult for medics to detect, the judge said.
Police found arsenic, liquid mercury and castor beans, which can be used to make the chemical weapon ricin, during a search of his home. He had instructions on how to make ricin on his computer.
The judge said Kwan was upset about getting a smaller share of his inheritance when his father died. He had a strained relationship with his mother, and learned that she had a provision in her will that would allow O’Hara to stay in her home if she died before him.
“Your resentment and bitterness toward your mother and Mr. O’Hara was all to do with money and your belief you were not being given money which you thought you were entitled to,” Lambert said.
O’Hara said justice had been served by the sentence.
Trump’s Middle East peace promise wins over Muslim voters
- Trump won over swathes of Muslim voters with a promise to end bloodshed in the Middle East
DEARBORN, United States: Incoming US president Donald Trump pulled off a surprising feat late in the 2024 campaign, winning over swathes of Muslim voters with a promise to end bloodshed in the Middle East.
Now, his new supporters are celebrating his victory and confident he will deliver as Israel continues its 13-month siege of Gaza and bombardment of neighboring Lebanon.
In Dearborn, America’s largest Arab-American enclave, preliminary results showed Trump narrowly eking out first place — a dramatic swing from 2020, when outgoing president Joe Biden won handily.
This time around, the left-leaning vote fractured between Vice President Kamala Harris and the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
“People got the message that Trump is trying to bring peace to the Middle East and to the whole world,” said Bill Bazzi, the Lebanese-American mayor of neighboring Dearborn Heights, speaking to AFP from a late-night hookah bar gathering that transformed into an early-morning party.
Bazzi dismissed what he called the media’s distortion of Trump’s previous “Muslim ban,” insisting it was only a matter of closer vetting of select unstable countries to prevent Daesh militants from getting into the United States.
A Marine veteran who campaigned for Trump in his closing rallies, he added he had been in contact with high-level members of the incoming administration who assured him that “one of the things (Trump) is pushing is to stop the war — he wants more diplomacy.”
Others, like Yemeni-American activist and real estate agent Samra’a Luqman, were defiant.
Like other Arab Americans, she was outraged by the Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering military and diplomatic support for Israel in the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, where the civilian death tolls continue to soar.
“They can blame us for Harris’ loss. I want them to,” she said. “It was my community that said, ‘If you commit genocide, we will hold you accountable for it.’“
The Trump team also did what Harris notably did not: show up in Dearborn.
Her campaign’s decision to ally with former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney — a vocal Iraq War advocate — also alienated many Arabs.
Trump’s outreach, on the other hand, benefited from a new link to the community: Lebanese-American Michael Boulos, who is married to his daughter Tiffany Trump.
Boulos’ father Massad was a key emissary for the campaign.
Still, skepticism lingers.
While Trump struck a note of peace, he simultaneously touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.
“Yes, he said ‘finish the job,’ but when I inquired exactly what that means, I was told ‘stop the war,’” insisted Bishara Bahbah, chairman of Arab Americans for Trump.
“He’s said it, and he’ll do it. Trump has proven he does what he says.”
