WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia clashed Friday over how to assist ailing Venezuela, with Moscow pledging new relief channeled through President Nicolas Maduro and Washington slapping sanctions over the blocking of US aid it tried to force through the border.
A day after Russia and China vetoed a US and European resolution at the UN Security Council that called for unimpeded aid deliveries, Washington said it was targeting six Venezuelan military officers for stopping last weekend's US-led convoy.
Four people were killed in the melee as Maduro's forces prevented the 178 metric tonnes of rice, beans and other food from crossing, with the leftist strongman seeing the aid as a pretext for a US-led invasion.
"We are sanctioning members of Maduro's security forces in response to the reprehensible violence, tragic deaths and unconscionable torching of food and medicine destined for sick and starving Venezuelans," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
The six include Major General Richard Jesus Lopez Vargas, the commander of the Venezuelan National Guard. The sanctions freeze any assets in the United States and penalize US financial dealings with the officials.
The United States also revoked the visas of 49 Venezuelan officials and their family members, the State Department said.
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, whom Washington has recognized as interim president, had hoped to triumph in bringing in the stockpiles of food, which the United States coordinated with Colombia and Brazil.
Guaido has said 300,000 people could die without an influx of aid into Venezuela. The United Nations says 2.7 million Venezuelans have fled since 2015 as the socialist economy crumbles, with basic supplies out of reach to the masses.
More than 50 countries recognize Guaido as Venezuela's president -- but Maduro enjoys strong support from Russia, which is eager to challenge US interventionism, as well as China, which is concerned over the fate of billions of dollars Beijing has lent to Caracas.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, receiving Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez in Moscow, said Russia was stepping up shipments of wheat and was considering sending more medical supplies after shipping 7.5 tonnes worth.
"We are very closely cooperating and coordinating all our steps in the international arena," Lavrov said.
"This has acquired special significance now that Venezuela is facing a frontal attack and unabashed interference in its domestic affairs," he said.
Elliott Abrams, the US special representative on the crisis, charged that Maduro's forces would turn Russian aid into a "political weapon" by providing it only to supporters.
"Obviously we are in favor of giving humanitarian assistance to Venezuela; we are not in favor of giving it to this corrupt regime," Abrams told reporters in Washington.
Lavrov voiced hope that international pressure would "cool hotheads in Washington" who he said are seeking military intervention in Venezuela.
He alleged that the United States was planning to buy small arms, mortar launchers and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles from an "Eastern European country" and station them "close to Venezuela."
President Donald Trump has not ruled out military intervention in Venezuela, although even close US allies have said they would not support the use of force.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who has worked closely with Trump to seek Maduro's ouster, appeared this week to suggest a violent climax as he posted on Twitter two pictures of Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi -- one relaxed and smiling while in power, the other bloodied as he was lynched in an uprising.
Defying a travel ban by Maduro, Guaido went first to Colombia to try to bring in the aid and to meet with visiting US Vice President Mike Pence.
The 35-year-old political newcomer continued on to Brazil, where he met the new right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, and on Friday traveled to Paraguay.
Speaking to reporters in Brasilia on Thursday, Guaido said he would return home "at the latest on Monday" despite threats to arrest him.
Abrams said the United States was "very concerned" about Guaido's ability to return home safely and warned of a "very large reaction" if he is arrested.
US slaps new sanctions on Venezuela regime as Russia ups support
US slaps new sanctions on Venezuela regime as Russia ups support
- Four people were killed in the melee as Maduro's forces prevented the 178 metric tonnes of rice, beans and other food from crossing, with the leftist strongman seeing the aid as a pretext for a US-led invasion
Trump chooses anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary
- The appointment was a reward for RFK's abandoning his presidential bid and supported Trump
- Trump's choice of the prominent anti-vaccine activist alarms health leaders
NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting a man whose views public health officials have decried as dangerous in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic” and “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy is one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the world and has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism and other health issues.
Hailing from one of the nation’s most storied political families, Kennedy is the son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. He first challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination last year. He then ran as an independent before abandoning his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role overseeing health policy in a second Trump administration.
He and the president-elect have since become good friends. The two campaigned together extensively during the race’s final stretch, and Trump had made clear he intended to give Kennedy a major role overseeing public health as part of a campaign to “Make America Healthy Again.”
“I’m going to let him go wild on health,” Trump said at a rally last month.
During his victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida, last week, Trump exclaimed, “Go have a good time, Bobby!”
Still, it was unclear precisely what job he would be offered. In an October interview on CNN, Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick assured there was no way Kennedy would receive the job he got.
The appointment drew alarms from public health experts.
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not remotely qualified for the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard our nutrition, food safety, and health,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the public health watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press, “I don’t want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am concerned.”
“Any misinformation coming from places of influence, of power, are concerning,” she said.
During the campaign, Kennedy told NewsNation that Trump had asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
Kennedy has pushed against processed foods and the use of herbicides like Roundup weed killer. He has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feeding operations that dominate the industry.
But he is perhaps best known for his criticism of childhood vaccines.
Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism.
In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines that advise when kids should receive routine vaccinations.
“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get them vaccinated,’” Kennedy said.
Repeated scientific studies in the US and abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood vaccines with preventing as many as 5 million deaths a year
Trump during his first term launched Operation Warp Speed, an effort to speed the production and distribution of a vaccine to combat COVID-19. The resulting vaccines were widely credited, including by Trump himself, with saving many lives.
Trump, in his announcement, said that, under Kennedy, HHS would “play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.” But HHS does not have jurisdiction over many of those issues, which fall under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture.
Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food more healthful in the US, promising to model regulations after those imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump has pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines raises question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health and is considered safe at low levels.
He has said he would seek to ban certain food additives, cracking down on substances such as food dyes and preservatives, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. He has also targeted pesticides, which are jointly regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the FDA.
Kennedy has also drawn headlines for his history with wild animals. He admitted to dumping a dead bear in New York’s Central Park — placing it as though it had been hit by a bike — and found himself the subject of a federal probe after his daughter revealed that he had cut off a beached whale’s head and strapped it to the roof of his car to take home.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. Kennedy has promised to take a serious look at those who work for HHS and its agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.
He has said he is especially focused on putting an end to the “revolving door” of employees who have previous history working for pharmaceutical companies or leave government service to work for that industry, his former campaign communications manager, Del Bigtree, told the AP last month. Bigtree is also an anti-vaccine organizer.
Kennedy said he wanted to fire 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees vaccine research.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
Trump also announced Thursday that he will nominate Jay Clayton, who served as chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission during his first term, to serve as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Senegal heads to the polls amid fiscal crisis, threat of unrest
DAKAR: Senegal will vote in legislative elections on Sunday to determine whether the new president and government can gain control over the national assembly and push through their reform agenda.
The high stakes in the election threaten to spark renewed unrest following a period of calm.
The run-up to the presidential election in March saw some of the worst violence in the country’s recent history.
Campaigning has grown heated recently and comes at a precarious time for the new government.
It is navigating a spiraling fiscal crisis that could undermine its ability to deliver on promises to boost the economy and create jobs.
Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, known for his fiery rhetoric, said this week that his supporters had come under attack and urged them to take revenge.
He has also warned that restraint should not be mistaken for weakness.
“Let them not say that we’ve changed and that since we came, everyone can do as they please,” he said on Tuesday evening.
“We could have used our strength, but we didn’t.”
Top priorities for Senegalese voters are jobs and the economy, as inflation has squeezed livelihoods and the nation’s growing youth population struggles to find employment.
More than 7 million registered voters can vote for candidates for the 165-seat assembly, choosing between 41 registered parties or other entities. Polls open at 8 a.m. and close at 6 p.m.
“We want a lower cost of living, affordable water, electricity, and transport, so everyone can work and live decently,” said Cheikh Diagne, a street seller in downtown Dakar.
Babacar Ndiaye, research director at the think tank WATHI, said that Senegalese have historically favored the president during previous parliamentary elections.
“When they choose a president, they give that president the means to work and govern,” he said.
“Every time a president has won, he has also gained an absolute majority in the National Assembly.”
The West African country is plunging toward a debt crisis after the new government said it had discovered the budget deficit was much wider than reported by the previous government.
A $1.9 billion IMF program is on hold while the government audit is reviewed.
The main threat to the ruling party Pastef’s ambitions is the unexpected alliance of two opposition parties, including the Republic party headed by former Prime Minister Macky Sall.
The race also includes two smaller opposition coalitions.
The one led by Dakar’s mayor, Barthelemy Dias, has clashed with supporters of Pastef.
Mariam Wane Ly, a former parliamentarian and trailblazer for women in politics in Senegal, said the campaign period had given leaders a chance to explain their agendas.
She expected Pastef to win the majority it seeks.
“I think it’s going to make up for all the unhappiness,” she said.
Brother of late Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed also accused of sexual violence: BBC
- Three women say the late Salah Fayed assaulted them during the period when he jointly owned the department store with his brother, the broadcaster said
LONDON: Three women formerly employed by Harrods have accused the brother of its late boss Mohamed Al-Fayed of sexual violence, following hundreds of similar claims against the former owner of the luxury London store, the BBC reported Thursday.
They say the late Salah Fayed assaulted them during the period when he jointly owned the department store with his brother, the broadcaster said.
The women alleged they were abused in London, the south of France and Monaco between 1989 and 1997.
The report follows a slew of claims in recent weeks by hundreds of women against the Egyptian former Harrods and Fulham Football Club owner Mohamed Al-Fayed of sexual assault including rape.
Salah Fayed died in 2010 and Mohamed Al-Fayed died last year aged 94.
One of the three women behind the most recent accusations, named Helen, who waived her right to anonymity, told the BBC that she had been working for the retailer for two years when Mohamed Al-Fayed raped her in 1989 during a business trip in Dubai.
He then offered her a personal assistant job with his brother Salah, who she said went on to drug her and rape her while she was unconscious.
Mohamed Al-Fayed “shared me with his brother,” she said.
She said she had stayed silent about the experience, having signed a non-disclosure agreement, a document the BBC reported having seen.
The second woman said Salah Fayed abused her during a trip to Monaco, while the third woman, who was hired at the age of 19 in 1997, said she was sexually assaulted in his Monaco apartment.
Contacted by AFP, Harrods said it “supports the bravery of these women in coming forward” and encourages survivors “to come forward and make their claims” to the company, which is offering compensation and counselling support.
“We also hope that they are looking at every appropriate avenue to them in their pursuit of justice, whether that be Harrods, the police or the Fayed family and estate,” the company said.
On Tuesday, the New York Times published the claims of a victim accusing another brother of Mohamed Al-Fayed, Ali, aged 80, of knowing about the “trafficking” of women.
Allegations have mounted since the airing of a BBC documentary in September that detailed multiple claims of rape and sexual assault by Mohamed Al-Fayed.
The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said it had received more than 420 inquiries, mainly related to the store but also regarding Fulham Football Club, the Ritz Hotel in Paris and other Fayed entities.
London’s Metropolitan Police said earlier this month that it was “actively reviewing 21 allegations reported to the Metropolitan Police prior to Mohamed Al-Fayed’s passing... to determine if any additional investigative steps are available or there are things we could have done better.”
Democrats in Congress urge Biden to sanction Israelis over West Bank violence
- “We write to express our deep concern about the rise in settler violence, settlement expansion, and measures adopted to weaken the Palestinian Authority,” said the letter
- The letter, signed by 17 senators and 71 House members, said Israeli settlers have carried out over 1,270 recorded attacks against Palestinians
WASHINGTON: Nearly 90 Democratic lawmakers urged US President Joe Biden to sanction members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank, according to a letter released on Thursday.
Urging Biden to send a message to US partners before he leaves office, the members of Congress said Israeli cabinet members Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had incited violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.
“We write to express our deep concern about the rise in settler violence, settlement expansion, and measures adopted to weaken the Palestinian Authority and otherwise destabilize the West Bank,” they said in the letter.
The letter, signed by 17 senators and 71 House members, said Israeli settlers have carried out over 1,270 recorded attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, averaging more than three violent attacks per day.
The letter was dated Oct. 29 but made public on Thursday because the lawmakers had not had a response from the White House, three of the members of Congress said.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen and Democratic House of Representatives members Rosa DeLauro and Sean Casten, who are leading the letter effort, told reporters that Biden has the authority to impose sanctions under an existing executive order.
Doing so would send a message not just to Israel and the Palestinians, but also to US allies elsewhere in the world, that the United States will push back on humanitarian issues, they said.
“We think it’s more important than ever that President Biden right now states that the United States is not going to be a rubber stamp to the Netanyahu government’s extreme actions,” Van Hollen said.
Spokespeople for the White House and Israeli embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The United States has for decades backed a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians and urged Israel not to expand settlements.
The West Bank is among territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and where Palestinians, with international support, seek statehood. Most world powers deem Israeli settlements in the area illegal. Israel disputes that, citing historical claims to the West Bank and describing it as a security bulwark.
Netanyahu and his allies celebrated the re-election this month of Donald Trump, a staunch but sometimes unpredictable ally of Israel. In his first term the Republican president-elect delivered major wins for the Israeli leader. Additionally, Smotrich, who also wields a defense ministry supervisory role for settlers as part of his coalition deal with Netanyahu, said this week he hoped Israel would extend sovereignty into the occupied West Bank in 2025 and that he would push the government to engage the incoming Trump administration to gain Washington’s support.
Measles cases surge 20 percent, global study shows
- “Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said
- “We must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live“
GENEVA: Measles infections soared by a fifth last year to over 10 million cases globally, revealing alarming gaps in vaccine coverage, a study showed Thursday.
Worldwide, there were an estimated 10.3 million measles cases in 2023, according to a joint publication by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That marked a 20-percent increase from 2022, the study showed, saying that “inadequate immunization coverage globally is driving the surge in cases.”
Measles is one of the world’s most infectious diseases. At least 95-percent coverage with two doses of the measles/rubella vaccine is needed to prevent outbreaks.
But in 2023, only 83 percent of children worldwide received their first dose of the measles vaccine through routine health services — the same level as in 2022 but down from 86 percent before the pandemic.
Only 74 percent received their second dose last year, the study showed.
“Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a joint statement.
“To save even more lives and stop this deadly virus from harming the most vulnerable, we must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live.”
CDC director Mandy Cohen said: “The measles vaccine is our best protection against the virus, and we must continue to invest in efforts to increase access.”
As a result of global gaps in vaccination coverage, 57 countries experienced large and disruptive measles outbreaks in 2023, up from 36 countries a year earlier, the study showed.
All regions except the Americas were impacted, it said, with nearly half of all large and disruptive outbreaks occurring in the African region.
The virus that can cause a rash, fever and flu-like symptoms but also particularly severe complications in young children is estimated to have killed 107,500 people in 2023, most of them under the age of five.
This marks an eight-percent decrease from the previous year.
The agencies explained that the decline was mainly due to the fact that the surge in cases occurred in countries and regions where children with measles were less likely to die, due to better nutritional status and access to health services.
“Far too many children are still dying from this preventable disease,” they said.
The agencies cautioned that a global target of eliminating measles as an endemic threat by 2030 was “under threat.”
By the end of last year, 82 countries had achieved or maintained measles elimination.
After Brazil this week reverified having eliminated measles, WHO’s Americas region is once again considered free of endemic measles.
All regions, with the exception of Africa, meanwhile count at least one country that has eliminated the disease.
The agencies called for urgent and targeted efforts to ensure all children are reached with two vaccine doses, especially in the African and Eastern Mediterranean regions and in fragile and conflict-affected areas.
“This requires achieving and maintaining high-performing routine immunization programs and delivering high-quality, high-coverage campaigns when those programs are not yet sufficient to protect every child,” they said.
