ROME: Derided as an empty-headed puppet by his opponents, telegenic young gun Luigi Di Maio has engineered the Five Star Movement’s rise from populist insurgency to Italy’s biggest political party by far.
With boyish good looks and an easy-going manner, 31-year-old Di Maio symbolizes a strategic shift for the anti-establishment party from the frantic conspiratorial ranting of iconoclast founder and stand-up comedian Beppe Grillo to a new measured, reassuring style.
Di Maio has been criticized for his poor command of grammar but waged an exhausting campaign around the country, capturing new voters in economically disaffected regions of southern Italy.
The party looked set to win more than 30 percent of the national vote, according to preliminary results.
While this would be second place to the main right-wing coalition, the result would make it the largest single party in Parliament, followed by the ruling center-left Democratic Party at 20 percent.
The party has used its newly “mature” image to capture voters from the traditional parties that 69-year-old Grillo long railed against.
Instead of the expletive-filled rants of his shaggy-haired former boss, Di Maio offers calmer, considered political reflections.
“We do not want a populist, extremist or anti-European Italy,” Di Maio has said.
“He is very popular among the party faithful and his strength lies precisely in being completely different from Beppe Grillo, both in his communication style and in his appearance,” said Alberto Castelvecchi, a professor at Rome’s Luiss University.
But despite the apparent differences, Di Maio is very much a Grillo disciple.
He has been involved with M5S since its creation in 2009, campaigning against corruption and the EU while promoting political transparency and direct democracy.
Following the February 2013 election, M5S won a spectacular quarter of the vote and Di Maio, then aged just 26, was among 108 M5S candidates elected to the Chamber of Deputies — the lower house of the Italian Parliament.
A month later he became the chamber’s youngest ever deputy speaker.
His astonishing ascent did not go unnoticed and the nature of his elevation to rank of prime ministerial candidate also raised eyebrows.
Selected via an online vote, in which Di Maio’s competitors were relative unknowns, many commentators branded his election as a coronation organized by “puppet-master” Grillo.
“Is it the man who is being chosen or his readiness to take orders and advice?” asked newspaper La Stampa.
Others questioned his political authenticity, accusing him of being a hybrid creation of Grillo and consultants.
“Di Maio was created to be moderate, reassuring to mums,” according to Italian political journalist Jacopo Iacoboni.
Di Maio was born on July 6, 1986 into a well-to-do family in Avellino near Naples.
His father Antonio had a small construction business and was an activist for a now-defunct neo-fascist party Italian Social Movement, while his mother Paola was a Latin teacher.
The eldest of three children, Di Maio studied computer engineering at Naples University, later switched to law and never completed a degree.
According to a CV posted on M5S’s website, Di Maio founded his own web and social media marketing business while studying, as well as working on video projects.
That focus on marketing and presentation helps explain why M5S has managed to shift its to tone on key issues with Di Maio at the helm.
The party had consistently called for Italy to leave the eurozone, but Di Maio recently made more conciliatory noises about the idea of staying in the bloc.
His reaction was also noted following the murder of a teenage girl, blamed on a Nigerian, and a far-right revenge shooting that left six African migrants injured in the central town of Macerata last month.
Amid a public outcry, Di Maio stayed silent on the gun rampage and instead focused on former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for creating the “ticking social time bomb of immigration.”
“On matters like ethics and immigration,” wrote Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana, Di Maio ideas are “like those of a surfer riding a wave.”
Di Maio: The reassuring face of Italian populism
Di Maio: The reassuring face of Italian populism
Pressure ramps up at UN talks to reach a deal for cash to curb and adapt to climate change
- The rough draft of a new proposal circulating in that room was getting soundly rejected, especially by African nations and small island states
- The “current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” Evans Njewa, the chair of the LDC group, said
BAKU: As nerves frayed and the clock ticked, negotiators from rich and poor nations were huddled in one room Saturday during overtime United Nations climate talks to try to hash out an elusive deal on money for developing countries to curb and adapt to climate change.
But the rough draft of a new proposal circulating in that room was getting soundly rejected, especially by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside. Then a group of negotiators from the Least Developed Countries bloc and the Alliance of Small Island States walked out because they didn’t want to engage with the rough draft.
The “current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” Evans Njewa, the chair of the LDC group, said.
When asked if the walkout was a protest, Colombia environment minister Susana Mohamed told The Associated Press: “I would call this dissatisfaction, (we are) highly dissatisfied.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250 billion annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal of $100 billion set 15 years ago but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed. The rough draft discussed on Saturday was for $300 billion, sources told AP.
Accusations of a war of attrition
Developing countries accused the rich of trying to get their way — and a small financial aid package — via a war of attrition. And small island nations, particularly vulnerable to climate change’s worsening impacts, accused the host country presidency of ignoring them for the entire two weeks.
After bidding one of his suitcase-lugging delegation colleagues goodbye and watching the contingent of about 20 enter the room for the European Union, Panama chief negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez had enough.
“Every minute that passes we are going to just keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker. They don’t have that issue. They have massive delegations,” Gomez said. “This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”
With developing nations’ ministers and delegation chiefs having to catch flights home, desperation sets in, said Power Shift Africa’s Mohamed Adow. “The risk is if developing countries don’t hold the line, they will likely be forced to compromise and accept a goal that doesn’t add up to get the job done,” he said.
Cedric Schuster, the Samoan chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States issued a statement saying they “were not part of the discussion that gave rise to these imbalanced texts” and asked the COP29 presidency to listen to them.
A climate cash deal is still elusive
Wealthy nations are obligated to help vulnerable countries under an agreement reached at these talks in Paris in 2015. Developing nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy.
For Panama’s negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez even a higher $300 billion figure is “still crumbs.”
“How do you go from the request of $1.3 trillion to $300 billion? I mean, is that even half of what we put forth?” he asked.
On Saturday morning, Irish environment minister Eamon Ryan said that there’ll likely be a new number for climate finance in the next draft. “But it’s not just that number — it’s how do you get to $1.3 trillion,” he said.
Ryan said that any number reached at the COP will have to be supplemented with other sources of finance, for example through a market for carbon emissions where polluters would pay to offset the carbon they spew.
The amount in any deal reached at COP negotiations — often considered a “core” — will then be mobilized or leveraged for greater climate spending. But much of that means loans for countries drowning in debt.
Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at Action Aid, said that in order to get a deal, “the presidency has to put something far better on the table.”
“The US in particular, and rich countries, need to do far more to to show that they’re willing for real money to come forward,” she said. “And if they don’t, then LDCs (Least Developed Countries) are unlikely to find that there’s anything here for them.”
Anger and frustration over state of negotiations
Alden Meyer of the climate think tank E3G said it’s still up in the air whether a deal on finance will come out of Baku at all.
“It is still not out of the question that there could be an inability to close the gap on the finance issue,” he said. “That obviously is not an ideal scenario.”
Jiwoh Emmanuel Abdulai, the Sierra-Leone environment minister, echoed that sentiment, saying “a bad deal may be worse than no deal for us.”
Nations were also angry at potential backsliding on commitments to slash fossil fuels. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock called out rich fossil fuel emitters who she said have “ripped off” climate vulnerable states.
“We are in the midst of a geopolitical power play by a few fossil fuel states,” Baerbock said. “We have to do everything to come toward the 1.5 degree (Celsius, 2.7 Fahrenheit) pathway” of keeping warming below that temperature limit since preindustrial times, she said.
But despite the fractures between nations, some still held out hopes for the talks.
“We remain optimistic,” said Nabeel Munir of Pakistan, who chairs one of the talks standing negotiating committees.
When asked how, COP29 climate champion Nigar Arpadarai chimed in. “We have no choice,” she said, as the harms of climate change continue to worsen.
Ukraine has lost over 40 percent of the land it held in Russia’s Kursk region, senior Kyiv military source says
- “At most, we controlled about 1,376 square kilometers, now of course this territory is smaller,” the source said
- “Now we control approximately 800 square kilometers“
KYIV: Ukraine has lost over 40 percent of the territory in Russia’s Kursk region that it rapidly seized in a surprise incursion in August as Russian forces have mounted waves of counter-assaults, a senior Ukrainian military source said.
The source, who is on Ukraine’s General Staff, said Russia had deployed some 59,000 troops to the Kursk region since Kyiv’s forces swept in and advanced swiftly, catching Moscow unprepared 2-1/2 years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“At most, we controlled about 1,376 square kilometers (531 square miles), now of course this territory is smaller. The enemy is increasing its counterattacks,” the source said.
“Now we control approximately 800 square kilometers (309 square miles). We will hold this territory for as long as is militarily appropriate.”
The Kursk offensive was the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War Two and caught Moscow unprepared.
With the thrust into Kursk, Kyiv aimed to stem Russian attacks in eastern and northeastern Ukraine, force Russia to pull back forces gradually advancing in the east and give Kyiv extra leverage in any future peace negotiations.
But Russian forces are still steadily advancing in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian General Staff source reiterated that about 11,000 North Korean troops had arrived in the Kursk region in support of Russia, but that the bulk of their forces was still finalizing their training.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Kyiv’s freshest assessment of the state of play in the Kursk region. Reuters could not independently verify the figures or descriptions given.
Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean forces in Kursk.
Ukraine’s armed forces chief said on Nov. 11 that its beleaguered forces were not just battling crack Russian reinforcements in Kursk but also scrambling to reinforce two besieged fronts in eastern Ukraine and bracing for an infantry assault in the south.
THREATENING RUSSIAN ADVANCE IN EASTERN UKRAINE
The General Staff source said the Kurakhove region was the most threatening for Kyiv now as Russian forces were advancing there at 200-300 meters (yards) a day and had managed to break through in some areas with armored vehicles backed by anti-drone defenses.
The town of Kurakhove is a stepping stone toward the critical logistical hub of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Overall Russia has about 575,000 troops fighting in Ukraine at the moment, the Ukrainian General Staff source said, and is aiming to increase its forces up to around 690,000.
Russia does not disclose numbers involved in its fighting, and Reuters could not independently verify those figures.
As Ukraine fights a bigger and better-equipped enemy, Kyiv has sought to disrupt Russian logistics and supply chains by hitting Russian weapons and ammunition depots, airfields, and other military targets well inside Russia.
Ukraine gained a freer hand to do so earlier this month after, according to sources familiar with the matter, President Joe Biden dropped his opposition to Kyiv firing US-supplied missiles at targets deep inside Russia in response to North Korea’s entry into the war. Last week Ukraine fired US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow
cruise missiles into Russia. One of the ATACMS targets was an arms depot about 110 km (70 miles) inside Russia. Moscow vowed to respond to what it sees as an escalation by Ukraine’s Western supporters. On Thursday, Russia launched a new medium-range ballistic missile into the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, in a likely warning to NATO.
Ukrainian officials are holding talks with the United States and Britain regarding new air defense systems capable of protecting Ukrainian cities and civilians from the new longer-range aerial threats.
The Ukrainian General Staff source said the military had also implemented measures to bolster air defenses over the capital Kyiv and planned similar steps for the city of Sumy in the north and Kharkiv in the northeast, both near front lines. Russia now occupies a fifth of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin has said he wants Kyiv to drop ambitions to join the NATO military alliance and retreat from four Ukrainian regions that he partially holds, demands Kyiv has rejected as tantamount to capitulation.
UK police carry out controlled explosion near London Euston station
- LBC News reported earlier that the station had been evacuated
LONDON: British police carried out a controlled explosion near Euston railway station in central London after investigating a suspect package, they said on Saturday.
“A controlled explosion has been carried out by specialist officers and the police cordons have now been lifted,” the capital’s Metropolitan Police said on social media platform X.
LBC News reported earlier that the station had been evacuated.
In a previous statement, the police said they were aware of reports online about an incident “in the vicinity of Euston Station” and that cordons were in place as a precaution.
Those cordons have now been removed, they said in an update.
Afghanistan bets on ‘red gold’ for global market presence
- Afghanistan is the world’s second-largest saffron producer
- Afghan saffron considered world’s best by International Taste Institute
KABUL: With the saffron harvest season underway in Afghanistan, local traders are expecting better yields than in previous years, sparking hopes that exports of the precious crop, known locally as “red gold,” will help improve the country’s battered economy.
Afghanistan is the world’s second-largest saffron producer, after Iran. In June, the Belgium-based International Taste Institute named Afghan saffron as the world’s best for the ninth consecutive year.
Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice, selling for around $2,000 per kilogram. Its exports provide critical foreign currency to Afghanistan, where US-imposed sanctions have severely affected the economy since the Taliban took control in 2021.
With this year’s saffron yield expected to exceed 50 tons — roughly double that of the 2023 and 2022 seasons — the government and the Afghanistan National Saffron Union are looking to boost exports.
“The harvest of saffron this year is good. During the first nine months (of 2024), Afghanistan exported around 46 tons of saffron to different countries,” Abdulsalam Jawad Akhundzada, spokesperson at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, told Arab News. “Everywhere our traders want to export saffron we support them through air corridors and facilitating the participation of Afghan traders in national and international exhibitions.”
Known to have been cultivated for at least 2,000 years, saffron is well suited to Afghanistan’s dry climate, especially in Herat, where 90 percent of Afghan saffron is produced. Most saffron trading is also centered in the province, which last weekend inaugurated its International Saffron Trade Center to facilitate exports.
“The new center has been established in accordance with global standards and will bring major processing and trade companies to one place, providing a single venue for farmers to trade their products in the best possible conditions,” Mohammad Ibrahim Adil, head of the Afghanistan National Saffron Union, told Arab News.
The union’s main export market is India, where saffron is a common ingredient in food, followed by the GCC — especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“Saffron exports bring much-needed foreign currency to Afghanistan, contributing significantly to stabilization of the financial cycle in the country,” said Qudratullah Rahmati, the saffron union’s deputy head.
The union estimates that saffron contributes about $100 million to the Afghan economy a year.
Around 95 percent of the workers in the saffron industry are women, according to the union.
“Saffron production is supporting many families, especially women, during the harvest and processing phase through short- and long-term employment opportunities. There are around 80-85 registered saffron companies in Herat. The small ones employ four to five people while the bigger ones have up to 80 permanent staff,” Rahmati explained.
Harvesting saffron is difficult and time-consuming work. The flowers are handpicked, and their tiny orange stigmas are separated for drying. Roughly 440,000 stigmas are needed to produce one kilogram of the fragrant spice.
The harvest season usually begins sometime in October or November and lasts just a few weeks.
Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 37 people
- The station house police officer in Kurram, Saleem Shah, said armed men in Bagan and Bacha Kot torched shops, houses and government property
- “Both sides are targeting each other with heavy and automatic weapons”
PESHAWAR: Fighting between armed Sunni and Shiite groups in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 37 people and injured 25 others, a senior police officer from the region said Saturday.
The overnight violence was the latest to rock Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and comes days after a deadly gun ambush killed 42 people.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15 percent of the 240 million people in Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram.
The station house police officer in Kurram, Saleem Shah, said armed men in Bagan and Bacha Kot torched shops, houses and government property.
Intense gunfire was ongoing between the Alizai and Bagan tribes in the Lower Kurram area.
“Educational institutions in Kurram are closed due to the severe tension. Both sides are targeting each other with heavy and automatic weapons,” said Shah.
Videos shared with The Associated Press showed a market engulfed by fire and orange flames piercing the night sky. Gunfire can also be heard.
The location of Thursday’s attack was also targeted by armed men, who marched on the area.
Survivors of the gun ambush said assailants emerged from a vehicle and sprayed buses and cars with bullets. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack and police have not identified a motive.
Dozens of people from the district’s Sunni and Shiite communities have been killed since July, when a land dispute erupted in Kurram that later turned into general sectarian violence.
