WASHINGTON: The US has made “a substantial offer” to Russia to release US citizens detained there, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, adding that he would be pressing his Russian counterpart to respond in a conversation planned for the coming days.
Washington offered Moscow a deal to bring home WNBA star Brittney Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan weeks ago, Blinken said at a State Department news conference, and hoped to advance the process when he speaks to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
“There was a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal. And I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope move us toward a resolution,” Blinken said.
The pair “have been wrongfully detained and must be allowed to come home,” Blinken told reporters.
Citing the sensitivity, he declined to say what the US was offering in return. CNN reported that Washington was willing to exchange Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25 year-prison sentence in the US, as part of a deal to secure the release of the two Americans.
Asked if US President Joe Biden was involved in the process, Blinken said: “He signs off on any proposal that we make. Certainly when it comes to Americans who are being arbitrarily detained abroad, including this specific case.”
The US and Russia already engaged in one prisoner swap in the heat of the Ukraine war: In April Washington exchanged former US Marine Trevor Reed for convicted drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko.
President Joe Biden has faced growing pressure to free Griner, who faces up to 10 years in prison and whose wife earlier accused the administration of doing too little.
Whelan, a security official at an auto parts company, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 and in 2020 sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage, which he denies.
Whelan’s family welcomed news of the US offer. “We hope the Russian government responds to the US government and accepts this or some other concession that enables Paul to come home to his family,” David Whelan, Paul’s brother, said in a statement.
The telephone conversation will be the first between Blinken and Lavrov since February 15 when the top US diplomat warned Russia against invading Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin went ahead and attacked nine days later, leading the US and its allies to impose sweeping sanctions and to seek to isolate Russia on the world stage.
The conversation “will not be a negotiation about Ukraine,” Blinken told reporters.
“Any negotiation regarding Ukraine is for its people and people to determine,” he said.
Blinken said the US — which has been pouring billions in military aid into Ukraine — was “under no illusion” that Russia was ready to engage “meaningfully and constructively” to end the war.
“In the meantime, we’ll continue to do all that we can to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield,” he said.
Blinken said he would urge Russia to fulfill a breakthrough agreement reached last week in Turkey to allow the release of Ukrainian grain after a blockade has sent global food prices soaring.
“Hundreds of millions of people are waiting for these ships to set forth from Ukraine’s ports,” Blinken said.
He also said he would warn of further consequences if Russia annexes more Ukrainian territory. Moscow in 2014 seized Crimea and declared the peninsula to be part of Russia, a decision not recognized by most of the world.
The White House recently said that Russia was laying the groundwork for “sham referenda” in areas it seized, possibly as early as September.
Blinken pointedly declined to meet Lavrov when they both attended Group of 20 talks earlier this month in Bali, with the US rallying its allies in criticizing Russia in the closed-door sessions.
Griner, a two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and Women’s NBA champion who had played in Russia, was detained just days before Moscow launched its offensive.
She has pleaded guilty to drug charges over possessing vape cartridges with cannabis oil and said that she had brought in banned drugs unintentionally.
Speaking at her trial in Khimki, just outside Moscow, Griner said she still did not know how the cartridges ended up in her bag and had no intention to use them.
“I did not think of or plan to bring banned substances into Russia,” said Griner, wearing a Phoenix Mercury T-shirt and black basketball trousers.
“I did not intend to break Russian law,” she added, saying that she was in a rush packing and tired after a recovery from Covid.
“I wouldn’t do anything that would hurt my team.”
(With AFP and Reuters)
Resuming talks with Russia, Blinken offers ‘substantial’ deal on prisoners
https://arab.news/v3j3g
Resuming talks with Russia, Blinken offers ‘substantial’ deal on prisoners
- President Joe Biden has faced growing pressure to free Griner, who faces up to 10 years in prison
The United Nations faces uncertainty as Trump returns to US presidency
- In his first term, Trump suspended funding for the UN health and family planning agencies, withdrew from its cultural organization and top human rights body, and flaunted the WTO’s rulebook
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations and other international organizations are bracing for four more years of Donald Trump, who famously tweeted before becoming president the first time that the 193-member UN was “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.”
In his first term, Trump suspended funding for the UN health and family planning agencies, withdrew from its cultural organization and top human rights body, and jacked up tariffs on China and even longtime US allies by flaunting the World Trade Organization’s rulebook. The United States is the biggest single donor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of its regular budget.
Trump’s take this time on the world body began taking shape this week with his choice of Republican Rep. Elize Stefanik of New York for US ambassador to the UN.
Stefanik, the fourth-ranking House member, called last month for a “complete reassessment” of US funding for the United Nations and urged a halt to support for its agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA. President Joe Biden paused the funding after UNRWA fired several staffers in Gaza suspected of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack led by Hamas.
Here’s a look at what Trump 2.0 could mean for global organizations:
‘A theater’ for a conservative agenda
Speculation about Trump’s future policies has already become a parlor game among wags in Washington and beyond, and reading the signals on issues important to the UN isn’t always easy.
For example, Trump once called climate change a hoax and has supported the fossil fuel industry but has sidled up to the environmentally minded Elon Musk. His first administration funded breakneck efforts to find a COVID-19 vaccine, but he has allied with anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The funny thing is that Trump does not really have a fixed view of the UN,” said Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group think tank.
Gowan expects that Trump won’t view the world body “as a place to transact serious political business but will instead exploit it as a theater to pursue a conservative global social agenda.”
There are clues from his first term. Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate accord and is likely to do it again after President Joe Biden rejoined.
Trump also had the US leave the cultural and educational agency UNESCO and the UN-backed Human Rights Council, claiming they were biased against Israel. Biden went back to both before recently opting not to seek a second consecutive term on the council.
Trump cut funding for the UN population agency for reproductive health services, claiming it was funding abortions. UNFPA says it doesn’t take a position on abortion rights, and the US rejoined.
He had no interest in multilateralism — countries working together to address global challenges — in his first term. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls it “the cornerstone” of the United Nations.
A new ‘Cold War’ world?
The world is a different place than when Trump bellowed “America First” while taking office in 2017: Wars have broken out in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has grown, and so have fears about Iran’s rapidly advancing atomic program.
The UN Security Council — more deeply divided among its veto-wielding permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the US — has made no progress in resolving those issues. Respect for international law in war zones and hotspots worldwide is in shreds.
“It’s really back to Cold War days,” said John Bolton, a former national security adviser at Trump’s White House.
He said Russia and China are “flying cover” for countries like Iran, which has stirred instability in the Middle East, and North Korea, which has helped Russia in its war in Ukraine. There’s little chance of deals on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or resolving conflicts involving Russia or China at the council, he said.
Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, expects Stefanik will have a “tougher time” because of the range of issues facing the Security Council.
“What had been fairly sleepy during the first Trump term is not going to be sleepy at all in the second Trump term,” he said.
The Security Council has been impotent on Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion because of Russia’s veto power. And it has failed to adopt a resolution with teeth demanding a ceasefire in Gaza because of US support for Israel.
The Crisis Group’s Gowan said Republicans in Congress are “furious” about UN criticisms of Israeli policies in Gaza and he expects them to urge Trump to “impose severe budget cuts on the UN, and he will do so to satisfy his base.”
Possible impact on UN work
The day-to-day aid work of global institutions also faces uncertainty.
In Geneva, home to many UN organizations focusing on issues like human rights, migration, telecommunications and weather, some diplomats advise wait-and-see caution and say Trump generally maintained humanitarian aid funding in his first term.
Trade was a different matter. Trump bypassed World Trade Organization rules, imposing tariffs on steel and other goods from allies and rivals alike. Making good on his new threats, like imposing 60 percent tariffs on goods from China, could upend global trade.
Other ideological standoffs could await, though the international architecture has some built-in protections and momentum.
In a veiled reference to Trump’s victory at the UN climate conference in Azerbaijan, Guterres said the “clean energy revolution is here. No group, no business, no government can stop it.”
Allison Chatrchyan, a climate change researcher at the AI-Climate Institute at Cornell University, said global progress in addressing climate change “has been plodding along slowly” thanks to the Paris accord and the UN convention on climate change, but Trump’s election “will certainly create a sonic wave through the system.”
“It is highly likely that President Trump will again pull the United States out of the Paris agreement,” though it could only take place after a year under the treaty’s rules, wrote Chatrchyan in an email. “United States leadership, which is sorely needed, will dissipate.”
During COVID-19, when millions of people worldwide were getting sick and dying, Trump lambasted the World Health Organization and suspended funding.
Trump’s second term won’t necessarily resemble the first, said Gian Luca Burci, a former WHO legal counsel. “It may be more extreme, but it may be also more strategic because Trump has learned the system he didn’t really know in the first term.”
If the US leaves WHO, that “opens the whole Pandora’s box, — by stripping the agency of both funding and needed technical expertise — said Burci, a visiting professor of international law at Geneva’s Graduate Institute. “The whole organization is holding its breath — for many reasons.”
But both Gowan and Bolton agree there is one UN event Trump is unlikely to miss: the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly, where he has reveled in the global spotlight.
In Milei’s latest drastic move, Argentina is sole UN holdout voting ‘no’ to ending gender violence
- The ‘no’ vote marked the latest in a series of dramatic foreign policy shifts under President Javier Milei, the most right-wing leader in Argentina’s 41 years of democracy
- Nearly a year into his presidency, the former Argentine TV pundit remains erratic and idiosyncratic in the global spotlight, in striking similarity to Trump
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: The usual suspects abstained from voting on a seemingly uncontroversial United Nations resolution that denounced violence against women and girls on Thursday — Iran, Russia, North Korea.
But the country casting the sole vote against the nonbinding resolution, drafted by France and the Netherlands, took the world by surprise. It was Argentina, long considered one of Latin America’s most socially progressive countries.
Unleashing an avalanche of criticism across the political spectrum on Friday, the ‘no’ vote by Buenos Aires marked the latest in a series of dramatic foreign policy shifts under President Javier Milei, the most right-wing leader in Argentina’s 41 years of democracy.
It comes just days after Milei, an outspoken climate change skeptic, abruptly called Argentina’s negotiators home from the UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, stirring concerns that the radical economist might seek to emulate former US President Donald Trump in withdrawing Argentina entirely from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Not only has Milei transformed Argentine foreign policy in line with the United States and Israel, his government has also taken fringe positions on the global stage that fly in the face of the liberal, rules-based international order.
“It’s a big break with standard Argentine foreign policy, which has long been oriented toward making Argentina an integrated part of the Global South,” said Richard Sanders, a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former State Department official in the region. “It’s a definitely a significant change in how Argentina relates internationally.”
Argentina’s vote at the UN Thursday recalled a similar clash last month when Argentina became the only member of all the Group of 20 nations to sign onto a statement adopting language about gender equality.
“Argentina votes alone, against the rest of humanity,” the conservative party of former President Mauricio Macri, an ally of Milei’s government, wrote on social media platform X Friday.
Another centrist party, the Unión Cívica Radical, joined the chorus of local condemnation.
“By fighting imaginary cultural battles we end up isolated from the world,” said Senator Martín Lousteau, president of the centrist party.
Lousteau denounced Argentina’s UN vote opposing an end to gender violence as a “disgrace.” Top official Guillermo Francos defended the decision, saying “neither commitments nor treaties will solve the issue of gender violence.”
Nearly a year into his presidency, the former Argentine TV pundit remains erratic and idiosyncratic in the global spotlight, in striking similarity to Trump. Milei became the first foreign leader since the US election to meet Trump, albeit informally, late Thursday at the president-elect’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
In a congratulatory phone call with Trump earlier this week, Miei’s spokesperson reported that Trump told the Argentine leader: “You’re my favorite president.” Trump has not confirmed the claim.
The Argentine presidency on Friday proudly released a stream of photos from Mar-a-Lago featuring Milei in a sharp suit beaming alongside Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, with whom Milei has also publicly cultivated a bromance over their shared contempt for “wokeness,” gender issues and socialism.
In November 2023, an angry Argentine electorate fed up with sky-high inflation, debt defaults and bank runs handed the outsider a sweeping mandate to carry out an overhaul of Argentina’s crisis-stricken economy.
But along with Milei’s libertarian crusade has come a series of cultural battles — both at home, where the president eliminated Argentina’s women’s and environment ministries and scrapped the national anti-discrimination institute, as well as abroad, where Milei has sought to fashion himself as a far-right icon, raising the hackles of key allies like Brazil and Spain.
“Milei got into the presidency on the basis of his clearly stated libertarian views, it was all about the economy,” Sanders said. “But these other views are nothing he kept hidden.”
Tensions over Milei’s culture war escalated this month. When Argentina voted at the UN in favor of ending the American economic embargo against Cuba on Oct. 30, Milei fired then-Foreign Minister Diana Mondino over what he called her “unforgivable mistake” and swiftly replaced her with Gerardo Werthein, a wealthy businessman who had been Buenos Aires’ ambassador to the US.
This weekend, Milei and Werthein plan to meet Trump again at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.
Experts say that Milei hopes to cash in on his friendship with Trump to help crisis-stricken Argentina secure a much-needed infusion cash infusion from the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes over $44 billion. The US is the fund’s largest shareholder.
In recent weeks, Milei’s shock dismissal of Argentina’s top diplomat — a polished political performer who frequently worked to mend diplomatic relations strained by Milei’s profanity-laden fights with traditional allies — has sent shivers through Argentina’s diplomatic ranks.
Milei has vowed to purge his foreign ministry of so-called “traitors to the country” who have strayed from his stance, which includes rejecting the “Pact for the Future” adopted by the UN in September that promotes climate action, female empowerment and the regulation of artificial intelligence.
Local media has reported the forced resignations of at least seven diplomats in recent weeks who were perceived as critical of the president’s Trump-like attacks on the collective philosophy of the UN Milei accuses such multilateral forums of restricting members’ freedom.
Argentina’s left-leaning Peronist movement — which has dominated the country’s politics for decades — was seething Friday, with lawmakers aghast at what they saw as the unraveling of hard-won social gains like Argentina’s breakthrough legalization of abortion in 2020 and recent efforts to curb fossil fuels.
“For you, freedom is violence,” said Mayra Mendoza, a prominent Peronist politician on Friday, addressing Milei.
The libertarian has called abortion “murder,” climate change a “socialist lie” and the UN a “leviathan with multiple tentacles.”
In Pennsylvania as elsewhere, Latino men rallied behind Trump
- While Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris carried the overall Hispanic vote, a majority of Latino men — 54 percent — voted for the bombastic Republican businessman, according to NBC exit polls
READING, United States: After he voted for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Kenny Ramirez said the price of equipment and supplies needed to run his barbershop in Pennsylvania went up.
Ramirez, a 35-year-old Dominican-American who lives in the majority-Hispanic city of Reading, is emblematic of a number of Latino men who moved in greater numbers toward Trump this election.
Disillusioned with the Biden administration, Ramirez told AFP he was frustrated by a lack of help for small businesses and its inability to stop the surge in undocumented immigrants at the southern border.
“I thought there was going to be change,” said Ramirez, who voted for Trump in the November 5 election. “And I didn’t see it.”
While Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris carried the overall Hispanic vote, a majority of Latino men — 54 percent — voted for the bombastic Republican businessman, according to NBC exit polls.
The trend seemed to hold true in Berks County, where Reading is located, with Trump securing a strong victory, winning nearly 6,000 more votes compared to the 2020 election.
Nationally, Trump’s win in Pennsylvania and all six other swing states, as well as in the popular vote, marked a decisive victory over Harris.
“I voted for Trump because I thought he was the best choice for the economy,” Ramirez said as he stood in his shop, cutting and trimming hair.
In Reading, where nearly 70 percent of the population is Hispanic, Joseph Nunez, 39, is the first Latino to serve as chairman of the local Republican Party.
He has logged thousands of miles in a mobile office van he calls “Hercules” to convince Hispanic voters and other groups to join the party.
Nunez said he has spent six years promoting the Republican cause locally, which helped Trump make inroads with Hispanic voters in 2024.
“I feel like an Olympic gold medalist right now,” Nunez said. “I feel like someone who just gave it their all, and finally got a win in the end.”
That win includes voters such as Bryant Morales, who said he used to be a Democrat. That is, until Trump entered national politics.
“He showed me that I’m a Republican now,” the 35-year-old, who voted for Trump in all the recent elections, told AFP while sitting in Ramirez’s barbershop.
“When you see the Democrats who are in office, they didn’t really do much,” he added.
Morales, who is Dominican-American and works as a car salesman, said he thinks Trump’s business background makes him a better steward of the economy.
“He can make the economy better as a business, because he’s going to take America as a business,” Morales said.
Kevin Boughter, chairman of the Berks County Democratic Committee, said he was at a loss for why an increasing number of Hispanic men are rallying behind Trump given the candidate’s history of disparaging comments about Latino communities and immigrants.
“It baffles me,” Boughter said in his office, looking over election figures. “I don’t understand it.”
Boughter said he came to worry that the Harris campaign wasn’t paying enough attention to this part of Pennsylvania as Election Day neared.
Harris did eventually come to Reading — on the very last day of the presidential race. She visited a Puerto Rican restaurant and knocked on a few voters’ doors in between campaign stops.
“I wish it would have been more,” Boughter said.
As Trump prepares to take office and assembles his cabinet, Morales, the car salesman, remains optimistic.
“We gambled on Trump, we voted for Trump,” he said. “Now we’ve got to let him do his work and we’re going to see what happens.”
Dutch ruling coalition narrowly survives fallout of Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football violence
- Coalition faced threat of collapse as Deputy Finance Minister Nora Achahbar resigned on Friday from the cabinet, prompting fears that other members of NSC party would follow suit
- Achahbar, who is of Moroccan descent, claimed racist statements were made as the Cabinet discussed political fallout of last week’s Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football violence
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The Dutch government dominated by hard-right leader Geert Wilders survived a government crisis that centered on the resignation of the finance state secretary over what she saw as denigrating comments on immigrants after Israeli fans were assaulted following a soccer game in Amsterdam.
Wilders last Wednesday blamed Moroccans for attacks on Israeli soccer fans, claiming that “we saw Muslims hunting Jews” and added it was fueled by ”Moroccans who want to destroy Jews.” He said those convicted of involvement should be deported if they have dual nationality.
Morocco-born Nora Achahbar of centrist New Social Contract party announced her resignation as finance secretary late Friday after a heated cabinet meeting discussing last week’s violence on the streets of Amsterdam after a football match between local club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
She said that “the polarizing manners have had such an impact on me that I could, or would, no longer fulfill my role as state secretary.”
“Polarization in society is dangerous because it undermines the bond between people. Because of that, we start seeing each other as opponent instead of fellow citizens,” Achahbar said in her resignation letter to parliament on Friday.
Achahbar departure prompted speculation that other members of NSC party — a junior partner in the four-party Dutch coalition government — would follow suit.
But late Friday, Schoof told journalists at a press conference that party leaders decided to continue to work together, averting the potential fall of his not yet five-month-old government.
“Nora Achahbar has decided not to continue as Deputy Minister,” the premier said.
“But as the cabinet we decided to continue together,” Schoof said after a five-hour emergency meeting with his coalition partners at his official residence in The Hague.
The Dutch government officially announced Achahbar’s resignation in a statement late Friday.
“The King, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, granted this resignation in the most honorable manner,” the government statement said.
On Monday, during the cabinet meeting to discuss the attacks, “things reportedly got heated, and in Achahbar’s opinion racist statements were made,” the NOS public broadcaster said.
“Achahbar reportedly indicated then that she, as a minister, had objections to certain language used by her colleagues,” NOS added.
Coalition party leaders gathered in The Hague for an emergency session on Friday evening to discuss the current crisis, with NSC acting leader Nicolien van Vroonhoven saying beforehand “we will see” if her party wanted to continue in the government coalition.
Far-right leader Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party won the most seats in Dutch elections a year ago, but the coalition it formed would lose its majority if the NSC pulled out of the government.
The ruling coalition led by Schoof has 88 seats in parliament between the NSC, the Freedom Party (PVV), the Liberal VVD and farmer-friendly BBB party.
The political turbulence was set in motion after Maccabi fans were chased and beaten on November 7 in attacks that Schoof said were prompted by “unadulterated anti-Semitism.”
Far-right leader Wilders said during a debate on Wednesday that the perpetrators of the violence were “all Muslims” and “for the most part Moroccans.”
He called for the attackers to be prosecuted “for terrorism.”
Dutch authorities however also reported that Maccabi fans set fire to a Palestinian flag before the match, chanted anti-Arab slurs and vandalized a taxi.
Police launched a massive probe into the incident which Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel said was “racing ahead,” although much still remained unclear about the night’s events.
The violence struck amid heightened tensions and polarization in Europe following a rise in anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and Islamophobic attacks since the start of the war in Gaza.
But the Dutch government late Thursday said it needed “more time” to flesh out a strategy to fight anti-Semitism.
Argentina orders 61 Brazilians arrested over 2023 Brasilia coup attempt
- Brazil’s Supreme Court has requested Argentina to round up the Brazilian nationals in Argentina, who are subject to an extradition request and have been sentenced to prison term
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s justice system has ordered the arrest of 61 Brazilians in the country who are facing prison sentences at home related to last year’s coup attempt in Brasilia, a judicial source told AFP on Friday.
The order, issued by Judge Daniel Rafecas, was requested by Brazil’s Supreme Court to round up the Brazilian nationals in Argentina, who are subject to an extradition request and have been sentenced to prison terms, the source said.
Brazilian police have arrested hundreds of suspects in the January 2023 attack by thousands of supporters of former far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro on the country’s presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court.
Claiming electoral fraud, they demanded the intervention of the armed forces to depose newly elected left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Brazil announced on June 10 that it had requested Argentina’s help in locating more than 140 fugitives linked to the assault.
“Two people have already been arrested,” the judicial source said Friday.
“Wherever they are identified or located in Argentina, they will be arrested and turned over to judicial authorities to begin the extradition process.”
In October, Argentina amended its refugee law so that people accused or convicted of crimes in their native countries would no longer be eligible.
