WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s conflict with Democrats over a partial US government shutdown escalated on Thursday with Trump denying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi use of military aircraft for an overseas trip in apparent retaliation for her suggestion that he delay the annual State of the Union address.
The rising tension suggested that the shutdown, now in its 27th day, remains far from being resolved.
In the meantime, the Trump administration continued to try to mitigate the shutdown’s impact. The State Department said it would call its furloughed employees back to work next week for national security reasons.
Pelosi had been scheduled to travel on a military aircraft as part of a congressional delegation to Belgium, where NATO is based, and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there.
In a letter to Pelosi denying her delegation the use of a plane, the Republican president called the trip an “excursion” but the Democrat’s spokesman said the trip to the Afghanistan war zone was for security and intelligence briefings.
“In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate,” Trump wrote.
He told Pelosi she could make the trip by flying commercial.
Trump’s intervention stopped the trip just as Pelosi and other lawmakers were about to travel.
The president later canceled his own administration’s plans to attend the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had planned to attend after Trump canceled his own participation at Davos.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that in forcing Pelosi not to travel on a US government jet, Trump had acted within his authority as commander in chief.
“He postponed her ability to use military air, which must be approved” by the Department of Defense, Sanders said.
A spokesman for Pelosi, Drew Hammill, said the trip to Brussels was intended “to affirm the United States’ ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance.”
The Afghanistan leg of the trip would have obtained “critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines,” Hammill said.
A House Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that details of the trip were not supposed to be revealed for security reasons, as is customary. The White House, however, made the letter to Pelosi detailing the itinerary public.
A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pelosi had requested and been granted Defense Department support for overseas travel, although the president has the authority to cancel Pelosi’s travel.
At the Capitol, members of the delegation had already boarded a bus bound for Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington, from which the plane was set to depart, when news of Trump’s decision broke.
It appeared to be a response to a letter Pelosi sent to Trump on Tuesday, suggesting he delay the annual State of the Union address to Congress, scheduled for Jan. 29, to some point after the government reopens.
Pelosi cited concerns over the capacity of the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service to safeguard the Capitol during the event. The agency later said it was capable of securing the venue.
Trump’s action drew criticism from one of his Republican allies in the Senate. “One sophomoric response does not deserve another,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham wrote on Twitter.
He criticized Pelosi’s move on the State of the Union as “blatantly political” but said, “President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate.”
Democratic Representative Elaine Luria, a first-year lawmaker and a 20-year Navy veteran, had harsh words for Trump.
“The president’s comment that lawmakers visiting Afghanistan is a ‘public relations event’ is an insult to the brave men and women serving in harm’s way,” Luria said.
Also on Thursday, the State Department said it would recall its employees and take steps to pay them salaries — a departure from other agencies.
“As a national security agency, it is imperative that the Department of State carries out its mission,” Deputy Under Secretary of State Bill Todd said in a statement. “We are best positioned to do so with fully staffed embassies, consulates and domestic offices.”
Todd said the department’s employees would be paid on Feb. 14 for work performed beginning on or after this coming Sunday. The department would review its available funds and “legal authorities” beyond the upcoming pay period to try to cover future payments, he said.
About one quarter of federal agencies have been shuttered since Dec. 22, with Democratic lawmakers refusing to accede to Trump’s demands to pay for a wall along the US border with Mexico.
Trump is holding out for $5.7 billion for a border wall. Democrats, who took over the US House of Representatives this month, have rejected his demands, saying there are cheaper, more effective ways of enhancing border security.
Before leaving for the weekend, the House passed another bill that would fund the government through Feb. 28, but the vote was later vacated and held over until next week after a procedural objection from Republicans.
The Senate, however, has refused to bring any funding bill to the floor for a vote that Trump does not support.
Trump blocks Pelosi trip as tensions mount over US government shutdown
Trump blocks Pelosi trip as tensions mount over US government shutdown
- Trump has also canceled the US delegation’s trip to the annual international conference at Davos
- The rising tension suggested that the shutdown, now in its 27th day, remains far from being resolved
British artist loses architecture award over Israeli cultural boycott
- Athens-based James Bridle was awarded the €10,000 Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize in June
- It was withdrawn with the foundation citing a new German resolution on antisemitism after Bridle signed open letter supporting a boycott in October
LONDON: A British artist has lost an award from a German foundation after signing an open letter pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions.
James Bridle, who is based in Athens, Greece, was told in June he would receive the Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize for “outstanding contributions to architectural theory.”
However, he learned on Sunday he would no longer receive the award and the €10,000 ($10,561) prize that goes with it because he had signed the letter, along with thousands of other people. Published on LitHub at the end of October, it stated: “We will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.”
The foundation said: “We respect the right to express political views, especially since the foundation does not accuse James Bridle of antisemitism.
“But the foundation can neither support nor be associated with a call for cultural isolation of Israel.”
The decision to rescind the award came after the Bundestag, the German parliament, this month passed a controversial resolution on antisemitism. Titled “Never Again is Now: Protecting, Preserving and Strengthening Jewish Life in Germany,” it was proposed following the Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
It states that “the Bundestag reaffirms its decision to ensure that no organizations or projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel’s right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement receive financial support.”
Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have criticized the resolution for limiting freedom of expression in Germany.
The Schelling Architecture Foundation is named for its founder, Erich Schelling, who according to the foundation’s website was a member of the Nazi party between 1937 and 1945.
Bridle told the Guardian newspaper: “Although they are clearly not prepared to state it outright, the foundation’s decision is an accusation of antisemitism, which is abhorrent. It is particularly so given the organization’s own history.”
He added that it was ironic that the foundation’s jury had praised his 2022 book “Ways of Being,” which discussed Israel’s “apartheid wall” in the occupied West Bank, and “the relationship between genocide and ecocide.”
A spokesperson for the foundation said other awards nominees had been informed of the decision. The awards ceremony is due to take place on Wednesday.
“We have to be prepared for there to be further reactions,” the spokesperson added.
G20 leaders gather for deadlocked talks on climate, Middle East, Ukraine wars
- Wars which have bitterly divided G20 members are set to feature prominently in discussions in Brazil
- Biden will attend his last summit of world’s leading economies with China’s XI as the most influential leader
Rio de Janeiro: G20 leaders began arriving for a summit in Brazil on Monday to try reignite deadlocked climate talks and overcome their differences on the Middle East and Ukraine wars ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
US President Joe Biden will attend his last summit of the world’s leading economies, but as a lame duck leader eclipsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the most influential leader at this year’s meeting.
Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is using his hosting duties to promote issues close to his heart, including fighting hunger and climate change and taxing the super-rich.
But the wars which have bitterly divided G20 members are also set to feature prominently in the discussions.
A Brazilian foreign ministry source said Monday that some countries wanted to renegotiate a draft summit communique.
“For Brazil and other countries the text is already finalized, but some countries want to open up some points on wars and climate,” he told AFP.
Biden’s decision Sunday to allow Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to strike targets inside Russia — a major policy shift — could prompt European allies to also review their stance.
G20 leaders are also under pressure to try rescue UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, which have stalled on the issue of greater climate finance for developing countries.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for G20 members, who account for 80 percent of global emissions, to show “leadership” to facilitate a deal.
Security is tight for the gathering, which comes days after a failed bomb attack on Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia by a suspected far-right extremist, who killed himself in the process.
The get-together will cap a farewell diplomatic tour by Biden which took him to Lima for a meeting of Asia-Pacific trading partners, and then to the Amazon in the first such visit for a sitting US president.
Biden, who has looked to burnish his legacy as time runs down on his presidency, insisted in the Amazon that his climate record would survive another Trump mandate.
All eyes at the stalled COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan are on Rio to break an impasse over how to raise $1 trillion a year for developing countries to cope with global warming.
Rich countries want fast-developing economies like China and Gulf states to also put their hands in their pockets.
The meeting comes in a year marked by another grim litany of extreme weather events, including Brazil’s worst wildfire season in over a decade, fueled by a record drought blamed at least partly on climate change.
At the last G20 in India, leaders called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.
Conspicuously absent from the summit is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court over the Ukraine war.
Lula, 79, told Brazil’s GloboNews channel on Sunday that he did not want the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to take the focus off global poverty.
“Because if not, we will not discuss other things which are more important for people that are not at war, who are poor people and invisible to the world,” he said.
The summit opens on Monday with Lula, a former steelworker who grew up in poverty, launching a “Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.”
Brazil is also pushing for higher taxes on billionaires.
Lula had faced resistance to parts of his agenda from Argentinian President Javier Milei, a libertarian Trump uber-fan who met the Republican last week at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The head of the Argentine delegation, Federico Pinedo, told AFP that Buenos Aires has raised some objections and would not “necessarily” sign the text, however. He did not elaborate.
But the Brazilian foreign ministry source on Monday downplayed the likelihood of Argentina blocking a consensus.
Why has ethnic violence escalated in India’s Manipur state again?
- On May 3, 2023, members of the Kuki and Naga tribes launched protest against extension of benefits to dominant Meiteis
- Latest violence flared this month after 31-year-old woman from Kuki tribe was found burned to death in a village in Jiribam district
Hundreds of people defied a curfew to stage demonstrations in India’s northeastern state of Manipur over the weekend and 23 were arrested for violence as tensions between two ethnic communities flared up again.
These are the reasons behind the violence in the border state.
HOW DID THE MANIPUR VIOLENCE BEGIN?
On May 3, 2023, members of the Kuki and Naga tribes, who inhabit Manipur’s hills and are regarded as Scheduled Tribes, or India’s most disadvantaged groups, launched a protest against the possible extension of their benefits to the dominant Meiteis.
The Meitei have sought special benefits for more than a decade, but received a fillip in April last year after the Manipur High Court recommended the state government should consider the demand and set a deadline of mid-May.
Meiteis account for half of Manipur’s population and extending limited affirmative action quotas to them would mean they would get a share of education and government jobs reserved for Kukis and Nagas.
Meiteis have traditionally lived in Manipur’s more prosperous valley region that makes up 10 percent of the state’s area.
They have also had better access to employment and economic opportunities. Nagas and Kukis live in the poorly developed hill regions.
The imbalance in development that has favored the valley over the hills has been a point of contention and rivalry between the ethnic groups.
WHAT WERE THE TRIGGERS?
The groups co-existed peacefully until unrelated events in 2023 exposed old faultlines.
Manipur shares a nearly 400-km (250-mile) border with Myanmar and the coup there in 2021 pushed thousands of refugees into the Indian state.
Kukis share ethnic lineage with Myanmar’s Chin tribe and Meiteis feared they would be outnumbered by the arrival of the refugees.
WHY IS PEACE YET TO RETURN?
Both the Meiteis and Kukis are known to be flush with arms, including automatic weapons either stolen from the state police or sourced from Myanmar.
The Indian Army and federal paramilitary forces in the state cannot act independently and are legally bound to work with state police and authorities, who analysts say are also divided along ethnic lines.
Kukis also accuse Biren Singh, the chief minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state and a Meitei, of complicity in violence against them and have sought his removal. Singh denies the accusations.
WHAT IS BEHIND THE LATEST SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE?
The latest violence flared this month after a 31-year-old Kuki woman was found burned to death in a village in Jiribam district, an area that was untouched by the conflict until June.
Kuki groups blamed Meitei militants for the act.
Kukis and Meiteis have moved to separate parts elsewhere in Manipur since the clashes last year but Jiribam still has a mixed population, leading to tensions and violence.
Days after the incident, 10 armed Kuki men were killed in a gunfight with security forces after they tried to attack a police station in Jiribam district, and security forces retaliated. During this gunfight, a Meitei family of six people went missing.
On Friday, bodies of three of the six were found floating in a river, triggering angry protests in the state capital Imphal. Police said on Sunday they had arrested 23 people for ransacking and setting fire to the homes of lawmakers and ministers, in a second straight day of unrest in the area.
Emergency declared as smog in New Delhi hits highest level this year
- New Delhi was the world’s most polluted city on Monday, according to IQAir
- PM 2.5 concentration was 138.4 times higher than WHO’s recommended levels
NEW DELHI: New Delhi was in a medical emergency on Monday as toxic smog engulfing the Indian capital reached the highest level this year, prompting authorities to close schools and urge people to stay indoors.
Pollution in Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area — home to around 55 million people — reached the “severe plus” category as some areas reached an Air Quality Index score of 484, this year’s highest, according to the Central Pollution Control Board.
On the AQI scale from 0 to 500, good air quality is represented by levels below 50, while levels above 300 are dangerous.
Delhi was ranked as the most polluted city in the world on Monday by Swiss group IQAir, with a concentration of PM 2.5, 138.4 times higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended levels.
“All of North India has been plunged into a medical emergency,” Delhi Chief Minister Atishi Marlena Singh said in a press conference, adding that many cities were “reeling under severe levels of pollution.”
She said farm fires, where stubble left after harvesting rice is burnt to clear fields, were causing the extreme levels of pollution.
“Why is the (central government) not taking action against these states and implementing concrete steps? People are unable to breathe. I am getting calls from people complaining about breathing and respiratory issues,” she said.
“All of North India is paying the price for this, especially children and elderly who are struggling to breathe.”
Authorities in Delhi have directed all schools to move classes online and tightened restrictions on construction activities and vehicle movements.
Mahesh Palawat, vice president of meteorology and climate change at forecast company Skymet Weather, said people in the capital region are faced with serious health risks.
“If they are non-smokers, then they will also inhale at least 30 to 40 cigarettes per day (at these pollution levels). So, you can imagine how bad it is for our health,” he told Arab News.
“PM 2.5 is a very minute particle (that can be inhaled). It is so minute that it can go into our blood vessels also, so it is very harmful and leads to various diseases, particularly for older people and infants who have breathing problems.”
Palawat is expecting the air quality to remain at this level for at least a few more days.
“It will remain in the very poor to serious category in coming days also,” he said.
Emergency declared in New Delhi as smog hits highest level this year
- New Delhi was the world’s most polluted city on Monday, according to IQAir
- PM 2.5 concentration was 138.4 times higher than WHO’s recommended levels
New Delhi: New Delhi was in a state of ‘medical emergency’ on Monday as toxic smog engulfing the Indian capital reached the highest levels this year, prompting authorities to close schools and urge people to stay indoors.
Pollution in Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area — home to around 55 million people — reached the “severe plus” category as some areas reached an Air Quality Index score of 484, this year’s highest, according to the Central Pollution Control Board.
On the AQI scale from 0 to 500, good air quality is represented by levels below 50, while levels above 300 are dangerous.
Delhi was ranked as the most polluted city in the world on Monday by Swiss group IQAir, with a concentration of PM 2.5, 138.4 times higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended levels.
“All of North India has been plunged into a medical emergency,” Delhi Chief Minister Atishi Marlena Singh said in a press conference, adding that many cities were “reeling under severe levels of pollution.”
She said farm fires, where stubble left after harvesting rice is burnt to clear fields, were causing extreme levels of pollution.
“Why is the (central government) not taking action against these states and implementing concrete steps? People are unable to breathe. I am getting calls from people complaining about breathing and respiratory issues,” she said.
“All of North India is paying the price for this, especially children and elderly who are struggling to breathe.”
Authorities in Delhi have directed all schools to move classes online and tightened restrictions on construction activities and vehicle movements.
Mahesh Palawat, vice president of meteorology and climate change at forecast company Skymet Weather, said people in the capital region are faced with serious health risks.
“If they are non-smokers, then they will also inhale at least 30 to 40 cigarettes per day (at these pollution levels). So, you can imagine how bad it is for our health,” he told Arab News.
“PM 2.5 is a very minute particle (that can be inhaled). It is so minute that it can go into our blood vessels also, so it is very harmful and leads to various diseases, particularly for older people and infants who have breathing problems.”
Palawat is expecting the air quality to remain at this level for at least a few more days.
“It will remain in the very poor to serious category in coming days also,” he said.
