REYKJAVIK: Iceland’s conservative prime minister came out on top in a snap election despite a string of scandals, final results confirmed Sunday, but it remained unclear whether he will be able to form a viable coalition.
PM Bjarni Benediktsson, 47, was accused named last year in the “Panama Papers” worldwide tax-evasion leaks. He has also been accused of wrongdoing during Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008.
His Independence Party, however, beat its rivals in Saturday’s election, according to final results published on Sunday, although no party came near to winning a majority in parliament.
The Independence Party won 16 seats in the 63-seat parliament. Turnout was 81 percent.
It could now take days, weeks or even months before Iceland has a new government in place as thorny coalition negotiations await.
Benediktsson’s challenge comes from the Left Green Movement and its potential allies, the Social Democratic Alliance and the anti-establishment Pirate Party.
The Left-Green Movement came in second with 11 seats, the Social Democratic Alliance with seven seats, and the Pirates with six seats.
A total of eight parties won seats in parliament.
Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson has invited the leader of each of those parties to his residence on Monday. After meeting them individually, he will decide who gets the first mandate to try to assemble a government.
Under the Icelandic system, the president, who holds a largely ceremonial role, usually tasks the leader of the biggest party with putting a government together.
“I am optimistic that we can form a government,” Benediktsson told AFP after the polls closed on Saturday.
The Independence Party lost five seats in parliament, according to Sunday’s results, but still came out on top — apparently helped by Iceland’s thriving economy, fueled by a flourishing tourism sector.
The party has been involved in almost every government in Iceland since 1980.
But growing public distrust of the elite has spawned several anti-establishment parties.
These have splintered the political landscape and made it increasingly difficult to form a stable government.
Benediktsson’s main rival, the Left-Green Movement won fewer votes than expected.
It will need at least five allies to form a 32-seat majority to dethrone the conservatives.
If it manages to do so, it would form only the second left-leaning government in Iceland since the country’s proclamation as a republic in 1944.
“I’m worried that we may have to face up to the likelihood of long, drawn-out discussions and attempts to form a government,” Arnar Thor Jonsson, a law professor at Reykjavik University, told AFP.
Negotiations to form a coalition after the October 2016 election took three months.
Some voters are tired. It was Iceland’s fourth election since 2008 and the second in a year.
“I hope we will have more stable politics now... but I’m rather pessimistic about it,” Einar Orn Thorlacius, a lawyer in Reykjavik, told AFP.
Benediktsson called Saturday’s election after a junior member of his center-right coalition pulled out over accusations that the prime minister had covered up his father’s recommendation letter for a convicted pedophile to help “restore his honor.”
Benediktsson is a former lawyer and businessman whose family is one of the richest and most influential in Iceland.
He has been implicated in several financial scandals and was mentioned in the Panama Papers — leaked documents that exposed offshore tax havens.
That scandal forced the resignation of then prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson.
Gunnlaugsson made a come-back to lead one of the new parties that ran in Saturday’s election.
Analysts said the strongest possible government would be a three-party coalition comprising the two biggest parties, the Independence and the Left-Greens — but their clashing ideologies make such a collaboration unlikely.
Left-Green leader Katrin Jakobsdottir, 41, told AFP on election night she was keeping all options open.
“We have eight parties in parliament and right now there doesn’t seem to be any obvious majority. All parties are open for discussion,” she said.
Her campaign promises included investing in social infrastructure and ensuring that Iceland’s economic prosperity reaches the health care and education sectors.
Iceland’s scandal-hit PM wins snap election, hopes to form government
Iceland’s scandal-hit PM wins snap election, hopes to form government

Rubio calls India and Pakistan in effort to defuse crisis over Kashmir attack

NEW DELHI: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called senior officials in India and Pakistan in an effort to defuse the crisis that followed last week’s deadly attack in Kashmir, the State Department said.
Rubio urged Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to de-escalate tensions on Wednesday.
India has vowed to punish Pakistan after accusing it of backing the attack, which Islamabad denies.
The nuclear-armed rivals have since expelled each other’s diplomats and citizens, ordered the border shut and closed their airspace to each other. New Delhi has suspended a crucial water-sharing treaty with Islamabad.
Soldiers on each side have also exchanged fire along their de facto border, driving tensions between India and Pakistan to their highest point in recent years.
The region of Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety. The two countries have fought two wars and one limited conflict over the Himalayan territory.
US State Department’s Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Rubio in his call with Jaishankar expressed sorrow over last week’s massacre. He also reaffirmed the US’s “commitment to cooperation with India against terrorism,” Bruce said.
Jaishankar on Thursday said he discussed the last week’s massacre in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s Pahalgam, in which 26 tourists, mostly Hindu men, were killed, with Rubio, adding that “perpetrators, backers and planners” of the attack “must be brought to justice.”
Rubio also spoke to Sharif on Wednesday evening and “emphasized the need for both sides to continue working together for peace and stability in South Asia,” according to a Pakistani statement. It said Sharif rejected the Indian allegations and “urged the US to impress upon India to dial down the rhetoric and act responsibly.”
That was followed by a call Thursday from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh to express sympathy for the loss of lives and support for India’s right to defend itself, Singh’s office said on social media platform X.
On Thursday, Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke to Sharif and said his country wanted to work with Pakistan to ensure a de-escalation of the crisis, a Pakistani government statement said.
The statement said that Sharif rejected India’s attempts to link Pakistan with the attack on tourists, and reiterated that Pakistan is ready to join a credible international probe into the incident.
Public anger has swelled in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to pursue the attackers “to the ends of the earth.” A Pakistani minister has said that Pakistan has “credible intelligence” that India is planning to attack it within days.
On Thursday, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, reviewed a military training exercise by the armed forces in the eastern Punjab province, the military said.
It said in a statement that the “exercise was meticulously designed to validate combat readiness, battlefield synergy, and the operational integration of cutting-edge weapon systems under near-battlefield conditions.”
“Let there be no ambiguity: any military misadventure by India will be met with a swift, resolute, and notch-up response,” the statement quoted Munir as saying. “While Pakistan remains committed to regional peace, our preparedness and resolve to safeguard national interests is absolute.”
Indian and Pakistani troops have exchanged fire over the past six nights, with each side blaming the other for firing first.
The Indian army in a statement on Thursday said it responded to “unprovoked” small arms fire from Pakistan in the Kupwara, Uri and Akhnoor sectors of Indian-controlled Kashmir. The previous day, Pakistan’s state-run media said Indian forces had violated the ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control by initiating fire with heavy weapons on troops in the Mandal sector of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. The incidents could not be independently verified.
In the past, each side has accused the other of starting border skirmishes in the Himalayan region.
China says US must ‘correct wrong practices’ if wants trade talks

BEIJING: China said on Friday that the United States must “correct its wrong practices” if it wanted to conduct talks aimed at managing a spiralling trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
“If the US wants to talk, it should show its sincerity to do so, be prepared to correct its wrong practices and cancel unilateral tariffs, and take action,” Beijing’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
The United States should be prepared to take action in correcting “erroneous” practices and cancel unilateral tariffs, the commerce ministry added.
Hegseth orders Army to cut costs by merging some commands and slashing jobs

WASHINGTON: The Army is planning a sweeping transformation that will merge or close headquarters, dump outdated vehicles and aircraft, slash as many as 1,000 headquarters staff in the Pentagon and shift personnel to units in the field, according to a new memo and US officials familiar with the changes.
In a memo released Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the transformation to “build a leaner, more lethal force.” Discussions about the changes have been going on for weeks, including decisions to combine a number of Army commands.
Col. Dave Butler, an Army spokesman, said the potential savings over five years would be nearly $40 billion.
US officials said as many as 40 general officer slots could be cut as a result of the restructuring. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues.
The changes come as the Pentagon is under pressure to slash spending and personnel as part of the broader federal government cuts pushed by President Donald Trump’s administration and ally Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
In his memo, Hegseth said the Army must eliminate wasteful spending and prioritize improvements to air and missile defense, long-range fires, cyber, electronic warfare and counter-space capabilities.
Specifically, he said the Army must merge Army Futures Command and Training and Doctrine Command into one entity and merge Forces Command, Army North and Army South into a single headquarters “focused on homeland defense and partnership with our Western Hemisphere allies.”
In addition, he called for the Army to consolidate units, including Joint Munitions Command and Sustainment Command, as well as operations at various depots and arsenals.
Officials said that while the mergers will result in fewer staff positions, there won’t be a decrease in the Army’s overall size. Instead, soldiers would be shifted to other posts.
On the chopping block would be legacy weapons and equipment programs, such as the Humvee and some helicopter formations, along with a number of armor and aviation units across the active duty forces, National Guard and Reserve. The units were not identified.
A key issue, however, will be Congress.
For years, lawmakers have rejected Army and Pentagon efforts to kill a wide range of programs, often because they are located in members’ home districts.
Defense Department and service leaders learned long ago to spread headquarters, depots, troops and installations across the country to maximize congressional support. But those efforts also have stymied later moves to chop programs.
It’s unclear whether the House and Senate will allow all of the cuts or simply add money back to the budget to keep some intact.
US Supreme Court asked to strip protected status from Venezuelans

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court on Thursday to back its bid to end the temporary protected status (TPS) shielding more than 350,000 Venezuelans from deportation.
A federal judge in California put a temporary stay in March on plans by Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem to end deportation protections for the Venezuelan nationals.
US District Judge Edward Chen said the plan to end TPS “smacks of racism” and mischaracterizes Venezuelans as criminals.
“Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism,” Chen wrote.
Solicitor General John Sauer filed an emergency application with the conservative-majority Supreme Court on Thursday asking it to stay the judge’s order.
“So long as the order is in effect, the secretary must permit hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so is ‘contrary to the national interest,’” Sauer said.
In addition, “the district court’s decision undermines the executive branch’s inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs,” he added.
Former president Joe Biden extended TPS for another 18 months just days before Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.
The United States grants TPS to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.
Trump campaigned for the White House promising to deport millions of undocumented migrants.
A number of his executive orders around immigration have encountered pushback from judges across the country.
A federal judge in Texas ruled on Thursday that Trump’s use of an obscure wartime law to summarily deport alleged Venezuelan gang members was “unlawful.”
District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, blocked any deportations from his southern Texas district of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
Trump invoked the little-known AEA, which was last used to round up Japanese-American citizens during World War II, on March 15 and flew two planeloads of alleged TdA members to El Salvador’s notorious maximum security CECOT prison.
The Supreme Court and several district courts have temporarily halted removals under the AEA citing a lack of due process, but Rodriguez was the first federal judge to find that its use is unlawful.
US names new top diplomat in Ukraine

- Julie Davis, a Russian speaker who has spent much of her career in the former Soviet Union, will be charge d’affaires in Kyiv
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday named a career diplomat as its top envoy in Ukraine, putting another seasoned hand in charge after turbulence in the wartime relationship.
The State Department said that Julie Davis, a Russian speaker who has spent much of her career in the former Soviet Union, will be charge d’affaires in Kyiv, the top embassy position pending the nomination and Senate confirmation of an ambassador.
Ambassador Bridget Brink, also a career diplomat, stepped down last month. She had spent been stationed in Kyiv for three years, a grueling posting during Russia’s invasion.
She was also caught in an increasingly awkward situation after robustly supporting Ukraine under former president Joe Biden and then representing Trump as he dressed down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an Oval Office meeting.
The appointment of Davis was announced a day after Ukraine and the United States signed a minerals deal, seen by Kyiv as a new way to ensure a US commitment even after Trump opposes military assistance and presses a war settlement that many Ukrainians see as favorable to Russia.
“Ambassador Davis is the president and secretary’s choice,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters, after calling the minerals deal a “significant milestone.”
“President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine,” Bruce said.
Davis serves as the US ambassador to Cyprus, a position she will continue concurrently with her new role in Kyiv.