BEIRUT: Abdul-Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian vice president and foreign minister who was one of the most influential figures in the country before defecting in 2005 to France, has died of a heart attack in Paris, his son said Wednesday. He was 87.
Jihad Khaddam told The Associated Press his father had been in good health, and that the heart attack happened after he fell on his back three days ago. He died Tuesday in his Paris home.
Khaddam played a pivotal role during the civil war in Lebanon and Syria's three-decade domination of its smaller neighbor. But for the past 15 years, since living in Paris, he had worked against President Bashar Assad's government
Since Syria's conflict began in March 2011, Khaddam had been mostly silent and did not play any role in the uprising that later morphed into civil war.
Khaddam's death was not mentioned in Syrian state or pro-government media but was reported by Arab TV stations.
Born to a Sunni Muslim family from the coastal town of Banias in September 1932, Khaddam joined the Arab Socialist Baath Party as a teenager and started rising through the party ranks after the political group took over power in Syria in 1963. Khaddam was named governor of the central province of Hama, then governor of the southern region of Quneitra and later minister of economy and trade.
After the November 1970 bloodless coup by then-Defense Minister Hafez Assad, who became president, Khaddam was named foreign minister. He held the post for 14 years and was considered a close confidante to President Hafez Assad, the father of Bashar Assad.
Between 1984 and 2005, Khaddam was Syria's first vice president. After Hafez Assad's death in 2000, Khaddam was acting ruler until Bashar Assad was elected president in a referendum. In the next few years, the influence of the so-called "old guard" close to the late Assad began to dwindle as Bashar Assad brought people close to him into decision-making posts.
Khaddam was also a close friend of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated on Feb. 14, 2005, in a massive truck bomb in Beirut. Many blamed Syria for the killing, a claim Damascus denies.
"Rafik Hariri was clearly threatened. Several times. I used to hear the threats and send messages to Hariri that he should leave Lebanon," Khaddam said in an interview after he moved to France. "There was spite against the man."
Khaddam himself escaped two assassination attempts, the first in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in 1976, in which he was lightly wounded when gunmen opened fire at his car. In October 1977, he escaped another attempt while in the United Arab Emirates, when a burst of gunfire instead killed the UAE's Minister of State Saif Bin Said al-Ghubash.
Both assassination attempts were blamed on Palestinian terror mastermind Abu Nidal’s Fatah Revolutionary Council.
After he left Syria, Khaddam was charged with treason and expelled from the Baath party.
Khaddam is survived by his wife, Najat Marqabi, three sons and a daughter.
Syrian ex-VP, foreign minister dies of heart attack in Paris
https://arab.news/mzdrj
Syrian ex-VP, foreign minister dies of heart attack in Paris

- He died Tuesday in his Paris home
- Khaddam is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter.
Trump administration authorizes $30 million for Israeli-backed group distributing food in Gaza

- Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading to the sites for desperately needed food, killing hundreds in recent weeks
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has authorized providing $30 million to a US- and Israeli-backed group that is distributing food in Gaza, a US official said Tuesday, an operation that has drawn criticism from other humanitarian organizations.
The request is the first known US government funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution efforts amid the Israel-Hamas war. The American-led group had applied for the money to the US Agency for International Development, which has been dismantled and will soon be absorbed into the State Department as part of the Trump administration’s deep cuts of foreign aid.
The application is part of a controversial development: private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic issue involving a controversial aid program, said the decision to directly fund GHF was made “to provide effective and accessible humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
The announcement comes as violence and chaos have plagued areas near the new food distribution sites since opening last month. GHF says no one has been killed at the aid sites themselves and that it has delivered some 44 million meals to Palestinians in need.
Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading to the sites for desperately needed food, killing hundreds in recent weeks. The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people it said approached its forces in a suspicious manner while going to the sites.
Witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as crowds tried to reach a GHF site on Tuesday in southern Gaza. At least 19 were killed and 50 others wounded, according to Nasser hospital and Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Israel wants the GHF to replace a system coordinated by the United Nations and international aid groups. Along with the United States, it accuses Hamas of stealing aid, without offering evidence. The United Nations, its affiliated aid agencies and private humanitarian groups that work in Gaza have denied that there has been any significant theft of their supplies by Hamas.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that the American-led group had asked the Trump administration for the initial funding so it can continue its aid operation, which has been criticized by the UN, humanitarian groups and others. They accuse the foundation of cooperating with Israel’s objectives in the 21-month-old war against Hamas in a way that violates humanitarian principles.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters earlier Tuesday that she had no information to provide on funding for the foundation.
Grok shows ‘flaws’ in fact-checking Israel-Iran war: study

- “Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims”
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok produced inaccurate and contradictory responses when users sought to fact-check the Israel-Iran conflict, a study said Tuesday, raising fresh doubts about its reliability as a debunking tool.
With tech platforms reducing their reliance on human fact-checkers, users are increasingly utilizing AI-powered chatbots — including xAI’s Grok — in search of reliable information, but their responses are often themselves prone to misinformation.
“The investigation into Grok’s performance during the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict exposes significant flaws and limitations in the AI chatbot’s ability to provide accurate, reliable, and consistent information during times of crisis,” said the study from the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council, an American think tank.
“Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims.”
The DFRLab analyzed around 130,000 posts in various languages on the platform X, where the AI assistant is built in, to find that Grok was “struggling to authenticate AI-generated media.”
Following Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, Grok offered vastly different responses to similar prompts about an AI-generated video of a destroyed airport that amassed millions of views on X, the study found.
It oscillated — sometimes within the same minute — between denying the airport’s destruction and confirming it had been damaged by strikes, the study said.
In some responses, Grok cited the a missile launched by Yemeni rebels as the source of the damage. In others, it wrongly identified the AI-generated airport as one in Beirut, Gaza, or Tehran.
When users shared another AI-generated video depicting buildings collapsing after an alleged Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, Grok responded that it appeared to be real, the study said.
The Israel-Iran conflict, which led to US air strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program over the weekend, has churned out an avalanche of online misinformation including AI-generated videos and war visuals recycled from other conflicts.
AI chatbots also amplified falsehoods.
As the Israel-Iran war intensified, false claims spread across social media that China had dispatched military cargo planes to Tehran to offer its support.
When users asked the AI-operated X accounts of AI companies Perplexity and Grok about its validity, both wrongly responded that the claims were true, according to disinformation watchdog NewsGuard.
Researchers say Grok has previously made errors verifying information related to crises such as the recent India-Pakistan conflict and anti-immigration protests in Los Angeles.
Last month, Grok was under renewed scrutiny for inserting “white genocide” in South Africa, a far-right conspiracy theory, into unrelated queries.
Musk’s startup xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for the unsolicited response.
Musk, a South African-born billionaire, has previously peddled the unfounded claim that South Africa’s leaders were “openly pushing for genocide” of white people.
Musk himself blasted Grok after it cited Media Matters — a liberal media watchdog he has targeted in multiple lawsuits — as a source in some of its responses about misinformation.
“Shame on you, Grok,” Musk wrote on X. “Your sourcing is terrible.”
Meeting Trump, Turkiye’s Erdogan hails Iran-Israel truce

- The Turkish president “expressed his satisfaction with the ceasefire achieved between Israel and Iran through President Trump’s efforts
- Erdogan stressed the need for Ankara and Washington to work closely to end the war in Gaza and the Russia-Ukraine conflict
THE HAGUE: Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the Iran-Israel ceasefire and urged “close dialogue” to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as he held talks with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of a NATO summit late Tuesday.
The Turkish president “expressed his satisfaction with the ceasefire achieved between Israel and Iran through President Trump’s efforts, hoping it would be permanent,” his office said.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Trump announced that Iran and Israel had agreed to a staggered ceasefire that would bring about an “official end” to their 11 day conflict.
The move came after the US joined Israel’s campaign on Sunday, striking key nuclear sites, prompting a carefully-coordinated Iranian retaliation against a US base in Qatar late Monday — which appeared to bring the confrontation to a close.
Erdogan also stressed the need for Ankara and Washington to work closely to end the war in Gaza and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The Turkish president “emphasized the importance of close dialogue in ending the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza as soon as possible and in peacefully resolving the Russia-Ukraine war,” it said.
Erdogan also called for increased defense industry cooperation with the United States, which he said could significantly boost trade between them.
“Advancing cooperation in the defense industry would facilitate achieving the goal of a $100 billion trade volume,” he said.
Lawsuit challenges billions of dollars in Trump administration funding cuts

- The lawsuit argues the Trump administration has used the clause for the basis of a “slash-and-burn campaign” to cut federal grants
BOSTON: Attorneys general from more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging billions of dollars in funding cuts made by the Trump administration that would fund everything from crime prevention to food security to scientific research.
The lawsuit filed in Boston is asking a judge to limit the Trump administration from relying on an obscure clause in the federal regulation to cut grants that don’t align with its priorities. Since January, the lawsuit argues that the administration has used that clause to cancel entire programs and thousands of grants that had been previously awarded to states and grantees.
“Defendants’ decision to invoke the Clause to terminate grants based on changed agency priorities is unlawful several times over,” the plaintiffs argued. “The rulemaking history of the Clause makes plain that the (Office of Management and Budget) intended for the Clause to permit terminations in only limited circumstances and provides no support for a broad power to terminate grants on a whim based on newly identified agency priorities.”
The lawsuit argues the Trump administration has used the clause for the basis of a “slash-and-burn campaign” to cut federal grants.
“Defendants have terminated thousands of grant awards made to Plaintiffs, pulling the rug out from under the States, and taking away critical federal funding on which States and their residents rely for essential programs,” the lawsuit added.
Rhode Island Attorney General Neronha said this lawsuit was just one of several the coalition of mostly Democratic states have filed over funding cuts. For the most part, they have largely succeeded in a string of legal victories to temporarily halt cuts.
This one, though, may be the broadest challenge to those funding cuts.
“It’s no secret that this President has gone to great lengths to intercept federal funding to the states, but what may be lesser known is how the Trump Administration is attempting to justify their unlawful actions,” Neronha said in a statement. “Nearly every lawsuit this coalition of Democratic attorneys general has filed against the Administration is related to its unlawful and flagrant attempts to rob Americans of basic programs and services upon which they rely. Most often, this comes in the form of illegal federal funding cuts, which the Administration attempts to justify via a so-called ‘agency priorities clause.”
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the lawsuit aimed to stop funding cuts he described as indiscriminate and illegal.
“There is no ‘because I don’t like you’ or ‘because I don’t feel like it anymore’ defunding clause in federal law that allows the President to bypass Congress on a whim,” Tong said in a statement. “Since his first minutes in office, Trump has unilaterally defunded our police, our schools, our health care, and more. He can’t do that, and that’s why over and over again we have blocked him in court and won back our funding.”
In Massachusetts, Attorney General Andrea Campbell said the US Department of Agriculture terminated a $11 million agreement with the state Department of Agricultural Resources connecting hundreds of farmers to hundreds of food distribution sites while the US Environmental Protection Agency terminated a $1 million grant to the state Department of Public Health to reduce asthma triggers in low-income communities.
“We cannot stand idly by while this President continues to launch unprecedented, unlawful attacks on Massachusetts’ residents, institutions, and economy,” Campbell said in a statement.
The lawsuit argues that the OMB promulgated the use of the clause in question to justify the cuts. The clause in question, according to the lawsuit, refers to five words that say federal agents can terminate grants if the award “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
“The Trump Administration has claimed that five words in this Clause— ‘no longer effectuates . . . agency priorities’— provide federal agencies with virtually unfettered authority to withhold federal funding any time they no longer wish to support the programs for which Congress has appropriated funding,” the lawsuit said.
Early goal holds up as Benfica beats Bayern Munich to advance to knockouts

- Anatoliy Trubin made four saves to keep Benfica’s second consecutive clean sheet
Andreas Schjelderup scored early and Benfica held on amid oppressive conditions for a 1-0 victory over Bayern Munich on Tuesday afternoon in Charlotte.
Anatoliy Trubin made four saves to keep Benfica’s second consecutive clean sheet and preserve its first-ever competitive victory over Bayern as the Portuguese club finished atop Group C and extended their FIFA Club World Cup campaign.
Benfica (2-0-1, 7 points) will face either Chelsea or Esperance de Tunis, who play later Tuesday to decide the second spot in Group D, in a Saturday round- of-16 clash also in Charlotte.
A heavily rotated Bayern (2-1-0, 6 points) had already clinched their spot in the knockout phase and will face Group D winner Flamengo on Sunday in Miami Gardens, Florida
Benfica went in front 13 minutes into a sluggish first half that was played amid temperatures hovering around 97 degrees and beneath bright sunshine.
Ángel Di María played a ball wide down the right for Fredrik Aursnes, who then dragged a low cross back to the penalty area. That’s where Schjelderup met it in stride and fired a low first-time finish past Manuel Neuer.
Trubin was exceptional after halftime as Benfica weathered increasing Bayern pressure.
In the 51st minute, Leroy Sané ran onto Joshua Kimmich’s ball over the top but was denied by Trubin, who also made a more comfortable save of Thomas Müller’s follow-up effort seconds later.
Kimmich thought he’d scored from the edge of the penalty area in the 61st minute, but the goal was ruled offside because Harry Kane was standing in an offside position and in the goalkeeper’s view.
In the 74th minute, he denied Aleksandar Pavlovic with an outstretched leg from about 10 yards after Bayern’s initial cross from the right rattled off a few bodies inside the area.
Then in the 87th, he thwarted Sané on the break for a second time after Sané ran onto Harry Kane’s excellent through ball.