MARSEILLE: French Communist-backed presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon drew tens of thousands of supporters to a mass open-air rally Sunday, underlining his surging popularity just two weeks from the unpredictable election.
Polls show far-left Melenchon closing in on the frontrunners, 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen ahead of the April 23 vote, adding new drama to a rollercoaster campaign.
After strong performances in two televised debates, several new surveys this weekend showed him climbing to third position, with 18-19 percent of voters saying they would vote for him.
Speaking in southern Marseille, he said voters had a choice other than the extreme-right “condemning our great multi-colored people to hate itself” and fans of the free-market that “transforms suffering, misery and abandonment into gold and money.”
Left-leaning news magazine L’Obs commented on Sunday that “the sudden emergence of Jean-Luc Melenchon among the four candidates with around 20 percent has shattered all the predictions, (and) is sowing doubt among the favorites.”
Analysts say forecasting the French two-stage election is even more difficult than usual, with an unusually high number of voters saying they do not plan to cast their ballots, or have not made up their minds.
Elsewhere on Sunday, scandal-hit rightwinger Francois Fillon held one of his biggest rallies so far, gathering thousands of flag-waving supporters at a conference hall in southern Paris.
The 61-year-old ex-prime minister is desperate to pick up momentum heading into the closing fortnight after a campaign dominated by allegations he paid his wife hundreds of thousands of euros for a fake job in parliament.
“If he doesn’t rise a few points (in the polls) this week, it’s over,” one former minister and Fillon ally admitted to AFP on condition of anonymity.
During the meeting, Fillon kept up his attacks on election favorite Macron, painting him as the continuation of unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande, whom Macron served for four years as adviser then as economy minister.
“France would be the big loser: another five years of half-measures, another five years of missed opportunities,” he said to cheers.
While Melenchon and Fillon gathered supporters, Macron and Le Pen were happy to spend time giving interviews.
Macron detailed what would be his priorities for his first few months in office to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, saying one of his first measures would be to pass a law setting new ethical standards for parliament.
This would be followed by other legislation to cut the number of MPs by a third and to free up the labor market.
Asked about a slight fall in support according to recent surveys, he replied: “They show exactly what I feel: that nothing is decided yet. We are entering a crucial phase.”
In a sign that his team are growing anxious about the impact of Melenchon, particularly among the young, supporters spread a video online set to techno music warning about the leftwinger’s huge tax-and-spend plan.
Melenchon’s radical program includes a new 100-billion-euro (106-billion-dollar) stimulus plan and a reduction in the working week to 32 hours, as well as proposals to overhaul the European Union and pull France out of NATO.
Le Pen meanwhile and her closest allies hit the airwaves selling their vision of a nationalist France, unburdened by the European Union and the euro currency and tougher on crime and Islamists.
Her telegenic niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen made a rare television appearance to deny reports of differences and tensions in the family, which led to speculation this week she might quit.
“I’m 100 percent behind Marine Le Pen,” she said on BFM television, adding that she planned to stand in parliamentary elections in June.
Two new polls published this weekend confirmed shifting momentum seen earlier this week following a second and final televised debate between the 11 candidates vying to be France’s next leader.
Le Pen and Macron — dubbed the “fragile favorite” by the Journal de Dimanche — are neck-and neck but both have lost ground slightly and would win 23-24 percent if the vote were held today.
This would mean they both qualified for the second round run-off scheduled on May 7, which Macron is seen winning comfortably.
Far-left Melenchon’s surge shakes up French presidential race
Far-left Melenchon’s surge shakes up French presidential race
Myanmar led world in land mine victims in 2023: monitor
- Myanmar’s military has been repeatedly accused of atrocities and war crimes during decades of internal conflict
BANGKOK: Landmines and unexploded munitions claimed more victims in Myanmar than in any other country last year, a monitor said on Wednesday, warning the true toll could be double or triple its estimate of 1,000 people killed or wounded.
Decades of sporadic conflict between the military and ethnic rebel groups have left the Southeast Asian country littered with deadly land mines and munitions.
But the military’s ouster of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in 2021 has turbocharged conflict in the country and birthed dozens of newer “People’s Defense Forces” (PDFs) now battling to topple the military.
Anti-personnel mines and explosive remnants of war killed or wounded 1,003 people in Myanmar in 2023, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday.
There were 933 land mine casualties in Syria, 651 in Afghanistan and 580 in Ukraine, the ICBL said in its latest Landmine Monitor report.
With conflict and other restrictions in Myanmar making ground surveys impossible, the true casualty figure was likely far higher than reported, said Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan of the ICBL.
“How many more? Double? Triple? Quite possibly... There’s no medical surveillance system in the country that can provide official data in any manner or form,” he told a press conference in Bangkok.
“No armed group in Myanmar, not the military, not any of the ethnic armed groups, not the PDFs have provided us with any data on the number of casualties they have.”
“And we know from anecdotal evidence that it’s massive.”
Myanmar is not a signatory to the United Nations convention that prohibits the use, stockpiling or development of anti-personnel mines.
The ICBL said there had been a “significant increase” of anti-personnel mines use by the military in recent years, including around infrastructure like mobile phone towers and energy pipelines.
Such infrastructure is often targeted by opponents of the military.
Myanmar’s military has been repeatedly accused of atrocities and war crimes during decades of internal conflict.
The ICBL said it had seen evidence of junta troops forcing civilians to walk in front of its units to “clear” mine-affected areas.
It said it had reviewed photos that indicated supplies of anti-personnel mines manufactured by Myanmar were captured by the military’s opponents every month between January 2022 and September 2024, “in virtually every part of the country.”
More than three million people have been displaced in Myanmar by the post-coup conflict, according to the United Nations.
All sides in the fighting were using land mines “indiscriminately,” the UN children’s agency said in April.
Rebel groups have told AFP they also lay mines in some areas under their control.
The ICBL said at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Last year’s figures are considerably higher than 2022, when the ICBL recorded at least 4,710 casualties including 1,661 fatalities.
Suicide car bombing at a security post in northwestern Pakistan kills 11 people, officials say
- A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, has claimed responsibility for the attack
- The attack, one of the deadliest in recent months, happened Tuesday evening in Bannu, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at a security post in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 11 security forces and wounding several others, four intelligence and security officials said Wednesday.
The attack, one of the deadliest in recent months, happened Tuesday evening in Bannu, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. There was no immediate comment by the government, but the security and intelligence officials said security personnel were carrying out an operation targeting those who orchestrated the attack.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Pakistan has witnessed a steady increase in violence since November 2022, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong ceasefire with the government in Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group but are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened the TTP, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
In December 2023, a suicide bomber targeted a police station’s main gate in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in northwestern Pakistan, killing 23 troops.
Tuesday’s attack happened in Bannu while the country’s political and military leadership was meeting in Islamabad to discuss how to respond to the surge in militant violence.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday approved a “comprehensive military operation” against separatist groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army, in southwestern Balochistan province. The order came following a Nov. 9 suicide attack by the group at a train station that killed 26 people in Quetta, the capital of the province.
In recent months. violence has also surged in northwest Pakistan, where security forces often target TTP and the Gul Bahadur group.
Abdullah Khan, a senior defense analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, said over 900 security forces have been killed in militant attacks in Pakistan since 2022, when TTP ended the ceasefire with the government.
“TTP and other groups have expanded their operations, showing they are getting more recruits, money and weapons,” Khan said. He said there is a need for political stability in the country to defeat the insurgents.
Pakistan has experienced a political crisis since 2022, when then-Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. He was arrested and imprisoned in 2023. Since then, his supporters have been rallying to demand his release.
US embassy in Kyiv shuts down over anticipated air attack
- The warning comes a day after Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory,
The US embassy in Kyiv has received information of a potential significant air attack on Wednesday and will be closed, the US Department of State Consular Affairs said in a statement.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the embassy will be closed, and embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place,” the department said in a statement published on the website of the US embassy in Kyiv.
“The US Embassy recommends US citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced.”
The warning comes a day after Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory, taking advantage of newly granted permission from the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden on the war’s 1,000th day.
Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire US, British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October that Moscow will respond to Ukraine’s strikes with US-made weapons deep into Russia.
On Tuesday, Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, with nuclear risks rising amid the highest tensions between Russia and West in more than half a century.
Time ticks down for negotiators at UN climate talks to find deal to curb warming and its effects
- Vulnerable nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to deal with damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own clean-energy systems
- Rich potential donor nations have so far been reluctant to offer a starting figure to replace that
BAKU: With time running down, negotiators at the United Nations annual climate talks on Wednesday returned to the puzzle of finding an agreement to bring far more money for vulnerable nations to adapt than wealthier countries have shown they’re willing to pay.
Pressure was building to drive a deal by the time COP29, as this year’s summit is known, concludes this week. COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev asked negotiators to clear away the technical part of talks by Wednesday afternoon so they can focus on substance.
That substance is daunting. Vulnerable nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to deal with damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own clean-energy systems. Experts agree that at least $1 trillion is called for, but both figures are far more than the developed world has so far offered.
Half the world away in Rio, Brazil, where the Group of 20 summit was wrapping up, the United Nations Secretary-General told the group of the world’s largest economies that “the success of COP29 is largely in your hands.”
“That goal, the financial goal, in its different layers, must meet the needs of developing countries, beginning with a significant increase in concessional public funds.”
And the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said developed nations should consider moving their 2050 emission goals forward to 2040 or 2045.
“The G20 is responsible for 80 percent of greenhouse effect emissions,” he said. “Even if we are not walking the same speed, we can all take one more step.”
Negotiators are fighting over three big parts of the issue: How big the numbers are, how much is grants or loans, and who pays. The “how big” question is the toughest to negotiate and will likely be resolved only after the first two are solved, COP29 lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.
“There are interlinkages of the elements. That’s why having one of them agreed could unlock the other one,” Rafiyev said.
“All presidencies must at this point show that they have what it takes to move from administration to leadership,” German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said. “They must set the expectation for ambitious outcomes across the board. ... It is now up to the presidency to ensure that we move at full speed toward a green future.”
The current goal of $100 billion annually was set in 2009. Rich potential donor nations have so far been reluctant to offer a starting figure to replace that. Rafiyev said the conference presidency has sought to pressure them, telling them that the figure should be “fair and ambitious, corresponding to the needs and priorities of the world.”
India’s junior environment minister Kirti Vardhan Singh, who is at the Baku talks, said that “the Global South are bearing a huge financial burden.”
“This is severely limiting our capacity to meet our developmental needs,” he said.
The European Union is expected to finally offer a figure, likely ranging from $200 billion to $300 billion annually, Linda Kalcher, executive director of the think tank Strategic Perspectives, said Tuesday.
That wasn’t enough for Debbie Hillier, climate policy lead for the humanitarian group Mercy Corps, who called it “wildly out of step with the needs of developing countries” and a failure by richer nations to live up to the agreement of the 2015 Paris climate talks.
“If $200-300 billion is indeed the ballpark for what developed countries will offer, then this is a betrayal — a betrayal of the communities around the world who, whilst least responsible for climate change, are bearing its most devastating consequences,” she said.
Some wealthy nations were talking of loans that could be leveraged to attract other money — grants, more loans and private investment — to multiply the funds they can offer.
But poorer nations say they are already drowning in debt and most money should come in the form of grants.
Whatever the form of the finance, Ireland’s environment minister Eamon Ryan said it would be “unforgivable” for developed countries to walk away from negotiations in without making a firm commitment toward developing ones.
“We have to make an agreement here,” he said. “We do have to provide the finance, particularly for the developing countries, and to give confidence that they will not be excluded, that they will be center stage.”
Trump has called for dismantling the Education Department. Here’s what that would mean
- The Education Department manages approximately $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for over 40 million borrowers
- Federal education money is central to Trump’s plans for colleges and schools
WASHINGTON: Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump heaped scorn on the federal Department of Education, describing it as being infiltrated by ” radicals, zealots and Marxists.”
He has picked Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive, to lead the department. But like many conservative politicians before him, Trump has called for dismantling the department altogether — a cumbersome task that likely would require action from Congress.
The agency’s main role is financial. Annually, it distributes billions in federal money to colleges and schools and manages the federal student loan portfolio. Closing the department would mean redistributing each of those duties to another agency. The Education Department also plays an important regulatory role in services for students, ranging from those with disabilities to low-income and homeless kids.
Indeed, federal education money is central to Trump’s plans for colleges and schools. Trump has vowed to cut off federal money for schools and colleges that push “critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content” and to reward states and schools that end teacher tenure and enact universal school choice programs.
Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14 percent. Colleges and universities are more reliant on it, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
Here is a look at some of the department’s key functions, and how Trump has said he might approach them.
Student loans and financial aid
The Education Department manages approximately $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for over 40 million borrowers. It also oversees the Pell Grant, which provides aid to students below a certain income threshold, and administers the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which universities use to allocate financial aid.
The Biden administration has made cancelation of student loans a signature effort of the department’s work. Since Biden’s initial attempt to cancel student loans was overturned by the Supreme Court, the administration has forgiven over $175 billion for more than 4.8 million borrowers through a range of changes to programs it administers, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
The loan forgiveness efforts have faced Republican pushback, including litigation from several GOP-led states.
Trump has criticized Biden’s efforts to cancel debt as illegal and unfair, calling it a “total catastrophe” that “taunted young people.” Trump’s plan for student debt is uncertain: He has not put out detailed plans.
Civil rights enforcement
Through its Office for Civil Rights, the Education Department conducts investigations and issues guidance on how civil rights laws should be applied, such as for LGBTQ+ students and students of color. The office also oversees a large data collection project that tracks disparities in resources, course access and discipline for students of different racial and socioeconomic groups.
Trump has suggested a different interpretation of the office’s civil rights role. In his campaign platform, he said he would pursue civil rights cases to “stop schools from discriminating on the basis of race.” He has described diversity and equity policies in education as “explicit unlawful discrimination” and said colleges that use them will pay fines and have their endowments taxed.
Trump also has pledged to exclude transgender students from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms. Originally passed in 1972, Title IX was first used as a women’s rights law. This year, Biden’s administration said the law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, but Trump can undo that.
College accreditation
While the Education Department does not directly accredit colleges and universities, it oversees the system by reviewing all federally recognized accrediting agencies. Institutions of higher education must be accredited to gain access to federal money for student financial aid.
Accreditation came under scrutiny from conservatives in 2022, when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools questioned political interference at Florida public colleges and universities. Trump has said he would fire “radical left accreditors” and take applications for new accreditors that would uphold standards including “defending the American tradition” and removing “Marxist” diversity administrators.
Although the education secretary has the authority to terminate its relationship with individual accrediting agencies, it is an arduous process that has rarely been pursued. Under President Barack Obama, the department took steps to cancel accreditors for a now-defunct for-profit college chain, but the Trump administration blocked the move. The group, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, was terminated by the Biden administration in 2022.
Money for schools
Much of the Education Department’s money for K-12 schools goes through large federal programs, such as Title I for low-income schools and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Those programs support services for students with disabilities, lower class sizes with additional teaching positions, and pay for social workers and other non-teaching roles in schools.
During his campaign, Trump called for shifting those functions to the states. He has not offered details on how the agency’s core functions of sending federal money to local districts and schools would be handled.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a sweeping proposal outlining a far-right vision for the country that overlaps in areas with Trump’s campaign, offers a blueprint. It suggests sending oversight of programs for kids with disabilities and low-income children first to the Department of Health and Human Services, before eventually phasing out the funding and converting it to no-strings-attached grants to states.
