WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump provoked a fresh political crisis Friday, threating to veto an already approved budget and shut down the federal government.
The US leader was to address the media at the White House after he appeared to reverse his support for the $1.3 trillion spending bill, amid unfavorable television coverage.
Trump’s administration had categorically said he supported the deal brokered by the Republican controlled Congress and passed in a dead-of-night vote, claiming it as victory before the 71-year-old’s change of heart.
Many lawmakers have already left Washington for two weeks recess, so a renegotiation is unlikely.
“I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill,” Trump tweeted, suggesting the deal did not do enough to help 800,000 immigrants holding a de facto amnesty, which he rescinded.
Trump has repeatedly tried to blame the looming end of the “DACA” program on Democrats. The Obama-era plan protects migrants brought illegally to America as children from deportation.
The president also vented that the spending bill did not fully fund his signature campaign promise to build “the BORDER WALL, which” he said “is desperately needed for our National Defense.”
If the president does not sign the budget before midnight Friday, hundreds of thousands of civil servants will be put on forced leave, national parks from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone will close and non-essential services will stop.
Trump’s threat came hours after a host on conservative channel Fox News pilloried the deal as a Washington “swamp budget.”
The tweet caps yet another week of high drama at a White House that seems to lurch from crisis to crisis.
This week the former reality TV star replaced his national security adviser, launched a new trade fight with China, and needled investigators probing Russia election meddling.
At the same time Trump faces an almost unprecedented number of scandals from a defamation lawsuit, to allegations of two extramarital affairs.
The spending package provided $1.6 billion for border security and construction or repair of nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) of border fencing, but that was far less than Trump had been seeking.
It also set aside the issue of the so-called “Dreamers,” who are in legal limbo following the Trump administration’s repeal of DACA.
The program expired on March 5, but the issue is being fought in the courts. Attempts at a legislative fix collapsed in a previous round of negotiations to avert a government shutdown.
In a Congress riven by partisan feuding, passage early Friday of the massive bill to fund the US government through September was considered a rare achievement.
The centerpiece was a big increase in US defense spending to $700 billion dollars, up $61 billion, and a 10 percent hike in domestic spending, which would rise to $591 billion.
“This bill is so important on many fronts, from school safety and troop funding, to opioids and veterans care,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday.
Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney went one step further: “Let’s cut right to the chase. Is the president going to sign the bill? The answer is yes. Why? Because it funds his priorities.”
Five times since October, lawmakers have had to pass stopgap funding legislation to keep the government’s lights on. Twice this year the government was allowed to slip into shutdown.
A third lapse would be deeply embarrassing for a Republican-controlled Congress facing midterm elections in November.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said Trump “needs to drop his wildly reckless veto threats” and sign the bill now.
“Americans deserve leadership from the White House, not more self-inflicted chaos.”
Some conservative Republicans welcomed the move, saying the process was flawed from the start.
Trump tweets threat to shut down US government
Trump tweets threat to shut down US government
Russia says downed 8 US-supplied ATACMS missiles
- Outgoing US President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use the 300-kilometer-range arms against Russia last year
MOSCOW: Russia said on Saturday it had shot down eight US-supplied ATACMS missiles, whose use Moscow has warned could spark a hypersonic ballistic missile attack on central Kyiv.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use the 300-kilometer- (190-mile-) range arms against Russia last year, in a move the Kremlin denounced as a grave escalation.
“Air defense systems downed eight ATACMS US-made missiles and 72 drones,” the Russian defense ministry said.
The ministry also said it had captured the Ukrainian village of Nadiia, one of the few settlements in the eastern Lugansk region still under Kyiv’s control.
Moscow advanced by almost 4,000 square kilometers (1,540 square miles) in Ukraine in 2024, according to an AFP analysis, as Kyiv’s army struggled with chronic manpower shortages and exhaustion.
Both sides have accused each other of fatal attacks on civilians since the year began.
A Russian strike on a village in Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region earlier on Saturday killed a 74-year-old man, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.
Gaza civil defense says 19 killed in Israeli strikes
- An air strike at dawn on the house of the Al-Ghoul family in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children
GAZA STRIP: Rescuers in Gaza said on Saturday that at least 19 people, including eight children, were killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory.
According to the civil defense agency, an air strike at dawn on the house of the Al-Ghoul family in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children.
“The home, which housed several displaced people, was completely destroyed,” said civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
“It was a two-story building and several people are still under the rubble,” he added, saying Israeli drones had “also fired on ambulance staff.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment on the strike.
AFP images from the neighborhood of Shujaiya, in the east of Gaza City, showed residents combing through smoking rubble and bodies lined up on the ground, covered in white sheets.
“A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,” said witness Ahmed Mussa.
“I was surprised to see (the strike) was on the house of our neighbors, the Al-Ghoul family. It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.”
Elsewhere, the civil defense agency said five security officers, tasked with accompanying aid convoys, were killed by an Israeli strike as they were driving in a car in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Bassal accused Israel of having “deliberately targeted” them in order to “affect the humanitarian supply chain and increase the suffering” of the population.
The army has not yet responded to the accusations.
Local rescuers also said three members of the same family, including a child, were killed when their house was bombed in Khan Yunis.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,717 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
Kingdom arrests 19,541 illegals in one week
RIYADH: Saudi authorities arrested 19,541 people in one week for breaching residency, work and border security regulations, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Saturday.
According to an official report, a total of 11,402 people were arrested for violations of residency laws, while 4,775 were held over illegal border crossing attempts, and a further 3,364 for labor-related issues.
The report showed that among the 953 people arrested for trying to enter the Kingdom illegally, 58 percent were Ethiopian, 40 percent Yemeni, and 2 percent were of other nationalities.
A further 129 people were caught trying to cross into neighboring countries, and 27 were held for involvement in transporting and harboring violators.
The Ministry of Interior said that anyone found to be facilitating illegal entry to the Kingdom, including providing transportation and shelter, could face imprisonment for a maximum of 15 years, a fine of up to SR1 million ($260,000), as well as confiscation of vehicles and property.
Suspected violations can be reported on the toll-free number 911 in the Makkah and Riyadh regions, and 999 or 996 in other regions of the Kingdom.
Damascus Airport to resume international flights starting January 7
- International aid planes and foreign diplomatic delegations have already been landing in Syria
DAMASCUS: Syria said on Saturday the country’s main airport in Damascus would resume international flights starting next week after such commercial trips were halted following last month’s ouster of president Bashar Assad.
“We announce we will start receiving international flights to and from Damascus International Airport from” Tuesday, state news agency SANA said, quoting Ashhad Al-Salibi, who heads the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport.
“We reassure Arab and international airlines that we have begun the phase of rehabilitating the Aleppo and Damascus airports with our partners’ help, so that they can welcome flights from all over the world,” he said.
International aid planes and foreign diplomatic delegations have already been landing in Syria. Domestic flights have also resumed.
On Thursday, Qatar Airways announced it will resume flights to the Syrian capital after nearly 13 years, starting with three weekly flights on Tuesday.
A Qatari official told AFP last month that Doha had offered the new Syrian authorities help in resuming operations at Damascus airport.
On December 18, the first flight since Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad on December 8 took off from Damascus airport to Aleppo in the country’s north, AFP journalists saw.
Chinese dams to be discussed in India visit of US national security adviser
- Washington and its Western allies have long viewed India as a counter to China’s rising influence in Asia and beyond
- New Delhi says it has conveyed concerns about China’s plan to build a hydropower dam in Tibet on Yarlung Zangbo River
WASHINGTON: US national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s visit to New Delhi from Jan. 5-6 is expected to include discussions with Indian counterparts about the impact of Chinese dams, a senior US official said late on Friday.
Washington and its Western allies have long viewed India as a counter to China’s rising influence in Asia and beyond.
“We’ve certainly seen in many places in the Indo-Pacific that upstream dams that the Chinese have created, including in the Mekong region, can have really potentially damaging environmental but also climate impacts on downstream countries,” a senior US official said ahead of Sullivan’s visit.
The official added that Washington will discuss New Delhi’s concerns in the visit.
The Indian government says it has conveyed its concerns to Beijing about China’s plan to build a hydropower dam in Tibet on the Yarlung Zangbo River which flows into India. Chinese officials say that hydropower projects in Tibet will not have a major impact on the environment or on downstream water supplies.
The construction of that dam, which will be the largest of its kind in the world with an estimated capacity of 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, was approved last month.
Washington also expects that topics such as civilian nuclear cooperation, artificial intelligence, space, military licensing and Chinese economic overcapacity will be brought up in the visit, the US official said.
American officials will not be meeting the Dalai Lama during the visit, another US official said.
Washington and New Delhi have built close ties in recent years with occasional differences over issues like minority abuse in India, New Delhi’s ties with Russia amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists on US and Canadian soil.
