WASHINGTON: The Biden administration on Thursday asked Congress to provide more than $13 billion in emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8 billion for humanitarian support through the end of the year, another massive infusion of cash as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s deeply entrenched forces.
The package includes $12 billion to replenish US federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms, and funds to bolster the enforcement at the Southern border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. All told, it’s a $40 billion package.
While the last such supplemental spending request from the White House for Ukraine funding was easily approved in 2022 despite reservations from Republicans, there’s a different dynamic this time.
A political divide on the issue has steadily grown, with the Republican-led House facing enormous pressure to demonstrate support for the party’s leader, Donald Trump, who has been very skeptical of the war. And American support for the effort has been slowly softening.
White House budget director Shalanda Young, in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, urged swift action to follow through on the US “commitment to the Ukrainian peoples’ defense of their homeland and to democracy around the world” as well as other needs.
The request was crafted with an eye to picking up support from Republicans, as well as Democrats, particularly with increased domestic funding around border issues — a top priority for the GOP. The Republicans have been been highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to halting the flow of migrants crossing from Mexico.
Still, the price tag of $40 billion may be too much for Republicans who are fighting to slash, not raise, federal outlays. As a supplemental request, the package the White House is sending to Congress falls outside the budget caps both parties agreed to as part of the debt ceiling showdown earlier this year.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement there was strong bipartisan support in the US Senate.
“The latest request from the Biden administration shows America’s continued commitment to helping Americans here at home and our friends abroad,” he said. “We hope to join with our Republican colleagues this fall to avert an unnecessary government shutdown and fund this critical emergency supplemental request.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has championed of support for Ukraine, was more subdued.
“I look forward to carefully reviewing the Administration’s request to make sure it is necessary and appropriate,” McConnell said in a statement, “to keep America safe, secure our borders, support our allies, and help communities rebuild after disasters.”
Sen. Marco Rubio released a statement urging Congress to swiftly pass critical funding for disaster relief programs while separately considering military aid for Ukraine.
President Joe Biden and his senior national security team have repeatedly said the United States will help Ukraine “as long as it takes” to oust Russia from its borders. Privately, administration officials have warned Ukrainian officials that there is a limit to the patience of a narrowly divided Congress — and American public — for the costs of a war with no clear end.
“For people who might be concerned the costs are getting too high, we’d ask them what the costs — not just in treasure but in blood, perhaps even American blood — could be if Putin subjugates Ukraine,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said this week.
Support among the American public for providing Ukraine weaponry and direct economic assistance has softened with time. An AP-NORC poll conducted in January 2023 around the one-year mark of the conflict, found that 48 percent favored the US providing weapons to Ukraine, down from the 60 percent of US adults who were in favor sending Ukraine weapons in May 2022. While Democrats have generally been more supportive than Republicans of offering weaponry, their support dropped slightly from 71 percent to 63 percent in the same period. Republicans’ support dropped more, from 53 percent to 39 percent.
Dozens of Republicans in the House and some GOP senators have expressed reservations, and even voted against, spending more federal dollars for the war effort. Many of those Republicans are aligning with Trump’s objections to the US involvement overseas.
That means any final vote on Ukraine aid will likely need to rely on a hefty coalition led by Democrats from Biden’s party to ensure approval.
The funding includes money to counter Russian and Chinese influence elsewhere by bolstering the World Bank and providing aid to resist Russian-aligned Wagner forces in Africa. Domestically, there’s an additional $60 million to address increased wildfires that have erupted nationwide. And the request includes $4 billion for the Southern border, including $2.2 billion for border management and $766 million to stop the flow of fentanyl and provide prevention and recovery support. There is also $100 million earmarked for the Department of Labor to ramp up investigations of suspected child labor violations.
To ease passage, Congress would likely try to attach the package to a must-pass measure for broader government funding in the US that’s needed by Oct. 1 to prevent any shutdown in federal offices.
Members of Congress have repeatedly pressed Defense Department leaders on how closely the US is tracking its aid to Ukraine to ensure that it is not subject to fraud or ending up in the wrong hands. The Pentagon has said it has a “robust program” to track the aid as it crosses the border into Ukraine and to keep tabs on it once it is there, depending on the sensitivity of each weapons system.
Ukraine is pushing through with its ongoing counteroffensive, in an effort to dislodge the Kremlin’s forces from territory they’ve occupied since a full-scale invasion in February 2022. The counteroffensive has come up against heavily mined terrain and reinforced defensive fortifications.
The US has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion, totaling about $113 billion, with some of that money going toward replenishment of US military equipment that was sent to the frontlines. Congress approved the latest round of aid in December, totaling roughly $45 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies. While the package was designed to last through the end of the fiscal year in September, much depends upon events on the ground.
“We remain confident that we’ll be able to continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” said Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
There were questions in November about waning Republican support to approve the package, but it ultimately passed. Now, though, House Speaker McCarthy is facing pressure to impeach Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct and it’s not clear whether a quick show of support for Ukraine could cause political damage in what’s expected to be a bruising 2024 reelection campaign.
Trump contends that American involvement has only drawn Russia closer to other adversarial states like China, and has condemned the tens of billions of dollars that the United States has provided in aid for Ukraine.
Biden asks Congress for $40 billion to support Ukraine, replenish US disaster aid and bolster border
https://arab.news/bs3w3
Biden asks Congress for $40 billion to support Ukraine, replenish US disaster aid and bolster border
- The funding includes money to counter Russian and Chinese influence elsewhere by bolstering the World Bank and providing aid to resist Russian-aligned Wagner forces in Africa
- The US has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion, totaling about $113 billion
Lessons from elections held in 70 countries in 2024
- After controversial elections in February, Pakistan elected Shehbaz Sharif as the prime minister
- Rocky democratic landscape just seemed to get bumpier as a dramatic year careened toward end
LONDON: When voters around the globe had their say in 2024, their message was often: “You’re fired.”
Some 70 countries that are home to half the world’s population held elections this year, and in many incumbents were punished. From India and the United States to Japan, France and Britain, voters tired of economic disruption and global instability rejected sitting governments — and sometimes turned to disruptive outsiders.
The rocky democratic landscape just seemed to get bumpier as a dramatic year careened toward its end, with mass protests in Mozambique and Georgia, an election annulled in Romania and an attempt to impose martial law in South Korea.
Cas Mudde, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia who studies extremism and democracy, summed up 2024 in Prospect magazine as “a great year for the far right, a terrible year for incumbents and a troublesome year for democracy around the world.”
INCUMBENTS BATTERED
One message sent by voters in 2024: They’re fed up.
University of Manchester political scientist Rob Ford has attributed the anti-incumbent mood to “electoral long COVID” -– lingering pandemic-related health, education, social and economic disruptions that have made millions of people unhappier and worse off. High inflation, fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and mass displacement from that war and conflicts in the Middle East and Africa have added to the global unease.
In South Africa, high unemployment and inequality helped drive a dramatic loss of support for the African National Congress, which had governed for three decades since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule. The party once led by Nelson Mandela lost its political dominance in May’s election and was forced to go into coalition with opposition parties.
Incumbents also were defeated in Senegal, Ghana and Botswana, where voters ousted the party that had been in power for 58 years since independence from Britain. Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party extended its 34 years in power in December -– but only by a whisker.
Uruguay’s leftist opposition candidate, Yamandú Orsi, became the country’s new president in a November runoff that delivered another rebuke to incumbents.
In India, the world’s largest democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lost its parliamentary majority in a shock election result in June after a decade of dominance. It was forced to govern in coalition as the opposition doubled its strength in Parliament.
Japanese politics entered a new era of uncertainty after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s governing Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled almost without interruption since 1955, suffered a major loss in October amid voter anger at party financial scandals. It now leads a minority government.
The UK’s July election saw the right-of-center Conservatives ousted after 14 years in office as the center-left Labour Party swept to power in a landslide. But the results also revealed growing fragmentation: Support for the two big parties that have dominated British politics for a century shrank as voters turned to smaller parties, including the hard-right party Reform UK led by Nigel Farage.
AUTHORITARIANS ADVANCE
Britain is not alone in seeing a rise for the right. Elections in June for the parliament of the 27-nation European Union saw conservative populists and the far right rock ruling parties in France and Germany, the EU’s biggest and most powerful members.
The anti-immigration National Rally party won the first round of France’s parliamentary election in June, but alliances and tactical voting by the center and left knocked it down to third place in the second round, producing a divided legislature and a fragile government that collapsed in a Dec. 4 no-confidence vote.
In Austria, the conservative governing People’s Party was beaten by the far-right, pro-Russia Freedom Party in September, though other parties allied to keep it out of a coalition government.
Nepotism and political dynasties continued to exert influence -– and to be challenged. After messy elections in February, Pakistan elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, younger brother of three-time leader Nawaz Sharif. Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest democracy, elected President Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of the late dictator Suharto.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the world’s longest-serving female leader, won a fourth successive term in a January election that opposition parties boycotted. Months later, her 15-year rule came to a tumultuous end: After mass student-led protests in which hundreds were killed, Hasina was ousted in August and fled to India.
In Sri Lanka, voters also rejected a discredited old guard. Voters elected the Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayake as president in September, two years after an island-wide public movement by an engaged middle class removed the long-ruling Rajapaksa clan.
INTERFERENCE ALLEGATIONS
Covert meddling and online disinformation were growing concerns in 2024. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said that this year it took down 20 election-related “covert influence operations around the world, including in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the US” It said Russia was the top source of such meddling, followed by Iran and China.
In Romania, far-right candidate Călin Georgescu came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential election in November, aided in part by a flood of TikTok videos promoting his campaign. Amid allegations of Russian meddling, Romania’s Constitutional Court canceled the presidential election runoff two days before it was due to take place after a trove of declassified intelligence alleged Russia organized a sprawling campaign across social media to promote Georgescu. No date has yet been set for a rerun.
Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu won a November runoff against her Moscow-friendly rival in an election seen as pivotal to the future of one of Europe’s poorest nations.
Georgia has seen huge protests since an election in October was won by the pro-Moscow Georgian Dream party, which suspended negotiations on joining the European Union. The opposition and the pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, have accused the governing party of rigging the vote with Russia’s help.
UNCERTAINTY REIGNS
Possibly the year’s most seismic result, Donald Trump’s victory in November’s US presidential election, has America’s allies and opponents bracing for what the unpredictable “America-first” leader will do with his second term.
And instability already reigns on several continents as the year ends. Venezuela has been in political crisis since a July election marred by serious fraud allegations which both President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition claim to have won. Amid opposition protests and a harsh crackdown, opposition candidate Edmundo González went into exile in Spain.
In Mozambique, the Frelimo party that has ruled for half a century was declared the winner of an October election that the opposition called rigged. Weeks of ongoing street protests across the country have left more than 100 dead.
South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol — weakened after the liberal opposition retained control in an April election -– astonished the country by declaring martial law in a late-night announcement on Dec. 3. Parliament voted to overturn the decision six hours later, and within days voted to impeach Yoon. The crisis in the deeply divided country is far from over.
Democracy’s bumpy ride looks likely to continue in 2025, with embattled incumbents facing challenge in countries including Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote on Dec. 16, triggering an early election likely in February. Canada will also vote in 2025, with the governing Liberals widely unpopular and increasingly divided after almost a decade in power.
Seema Shah, head of democracy assessment at the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, said global surveys suggest support for the concept of democracy remains strong, but the numbers plummet “when you ask people how satisfied they are with their own democracy.”
“People want democracy. They like the theory of it,” she said. “But when they see it actually play out, it’s not living up to their expectations.”
Azerbaijan says Russia pledged to punish those responsible for plane crash
- Aliyev had issued a rare forthright condemnation of Moscow — a close partner of Baku — on Sunday
- He said the plane was “hit by accident” but was angry that Russia had apparently tried to hide the cause of the crash
BAKU: Azerbaijan said on Monday that Moscow had promised to punish those responsible for the downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that Baku says was shot at by Russian air defenses.
The AZAL Embraer 190 jet crash-landed in Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has demanded that Moscow accept responsibility for mistakenly firing on the plane as it tried to make a scheduled landing at Grozny airport in south Russia.
Russia has not confirmed that one of its air-defense missiles hit the plane, though President Vladimir Putin told Aliyev in a phone call over the weekend that the systems were active at the time and that he was sorry the incident took place in Russian airspace.
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general reported on Monday that the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee had told Baku: “Intensive measures are being carried out to identify the guilty people and bring them to criminal responsibility.”
Russia has opened a criminal enquiry into the incident.
But it has not said whether it agrees that the plane was hit by one of its air-defense missiles and has not itself said anything about finding or bringing any perpetrators to justice.
Aliyev had issued a rare forthright condemnation of Moscow — a close partner of Baku — on Sunday.
He said the plane was “hit by accident” but was angry that Russia had apparently tried to hide the cause of the crash.
Demanding that Putin admit responsibility, Aliyev also accused Russia of putting forward alternative theories that “clearly showed the Russian side wanted to cover up the issue.”
Russia said Grozny, in the southern Russian region of Chechnya, was being attacked by Ukrainian drones when the AZAL airliner approached to make its landing through thick fog.
Survivors have described hearing explosions outside the plane, which then diverted more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) across the Caspian Sea toward the Kazakh city of Aktau, where it crash-landed.
Kazakhstan said on Monday it had sent the plane’s black boxes to Brazil, where they will be analyzed by the Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center, a unit of the Brazilian air force.
How Chennai turned India into a chess powerhouse
- World’s youngest chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju is from Chennai
- One school chain, Velammal Nexus, has helped produce 22 Indian grandmasters
NEW DELHI: In a country where the love for cricket is a national obsession, chess is the sport of choice in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where its city of Chennai is emerging as India’s chess capital.
Over a third of the country’s 85 grandmasters have come from Tamil Nadu, with the majority of them based in Chennai, including 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, the world’s youngest chess champion.
Dommaraju won the title in early December at the Fide World Championship 2024 held in Singapore, defeating titleholder Ding Liren of China, who was 14 years his senior.
Dommaraju is the second Indian to win the World Chess Championship after Viswanathan Anand — India’s first grandmaster — who won it five times and is also from Chennai.
The city’s success in bringing up champions over the years can be traced back to the Velammal Nexus School, which has helped produce as many as 22 grandmasters, including Dommaraju and 2024 Chess World Cup finalist R. Praggnanandhaa.
“Chess players are heroes in Tamil Nadu,” Velavan Subbiah, the main coach at the Velammal Nexus school, told Arab News.
“In Chennai, people prefer to play chess rather than invest in cricket. Viswanathan Anand laid the foundation here. Now Gukesh is the new hero. His win in the world championship has inspired the youngsters and there is new zeal among them to do better.”
The 55-year-old who started focusing on chess after seeing his daughters win grandmaster and FIDE master titles said Velammal not only trains young players but also sponsors those who have financial difficulties.
Now a chain of 15 schools in Chennai, the academy trains about 2,000 students and plans to expand to other parts of India.
“In the future, we want to develop more young achievers,” he said. “It’s our goal to dominate in India in chess.”
In Chennai, family support also plays a major role in nurturing talents, with parents investing their time and money to support the younger generation’s chess pursuit.
After introducing his daughters to the sport five years ago, Kannappan Dinesh has been busy helping them hone their skills and signing them up in local tournaments.
“Kids, if you notice, will get easily addicted to mobile or TV, but if you give them a chance to play chess they will easily perform well,” Dinesh told Arab News.
“For the parents here, it’s an investment. If you invest more time with your kids and invest in their talents, you will be rewarded. I think this attitude separates the parents in Tamil Nadu from other parts of India.”
With both daughters enrolled in Velammal, Dinesh credits the school for “providing all kinds of support.
“They take care of you in all aspects, and the infrastructure that they have supports the kids to grow and learn faster and perform better,” he said, adding that he was more motivated following Dommaraju’s historic win.
“After seeing Gukesh and all, even as parents we feel that (we need to) give our kids a chance.”
Dinesh’s 11-year-old daughter, Ayushi, is already aiming for the stars.
“I want to become a world champion like Gukesh because me and my sisters are passionate about chess,” she told Arab News.
“Gukesh is my true inspiration, and he teaches us that with the right mindset and dedication, we can achieve any goal.”
Nitin Narang, president of the Chess Federation of India, said that Chennai’s emergence as “a Makkah of chess” came from a foundation laid long ago.
“Chennai is often described as the Makkah of Indian chess and rightly so because there has been a lot of effort on the ground by lots of coaches and parents’ sacrifices,” Narang told Arab News.
“What you see today is something that has been going on in Chennai in the last three decades and these are the fruits we bear nationally.”
Taliban orders NGOs in Afghanistan to stop employing women
- The Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan
The Taliban says it will close all national and foreign nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan employing women. It comes two years after they told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly.
In a letter published on X Sunday night, the Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan.
The ministry said it was responsible for the registration, coordination, leadership and supervision of all activities carried out by national and foreign organizations.
The government was once again ordering the stoppage of all female work in institutions not controlled by the Taliban, according to the letter.
“In case of lack of cooperation, all activities of that institution will be canceled and the activity license of that institution, granted by the ministry, will also be canceled.”
The Taliban have already barred women from many jobs and most public spaces. They have also excluded them from education beyond sixth grade.
How a driving school program empowers Pakistani women
- Women driving cars or riding pillion on two-wheelers driven by a male relative is more socially acceptable
- The WOW program has been in operation since 2017, but has become increasingly popular in recent months
LAHORE, Pakistan: Pakistani student Laiba Rashid, 22, hopes her life will change once she learns how to drive a motorcycle after undergoing a training program that teaches women how to operate two-wheelers in the bustling eastern city of Lahore.
Although the program is 7 years old, it’s rare to see women driving motorcycles. Women driving cars or riding pillion on two-wheelers driven by a male relative is more socially acceptable in the conservative, Islamic nation.
“I hope this will change my life because I am dependent on my brother to pick me up and drop me to college,” Rashid said on her first day at the Women on Wheels (WOW) driving program offered free by the Lahore traffic police.
She said she wants to buy a motorcycle to go to college, adding that, previously, there were no women drivers in her family. “Now everybody is convinced that women should be independent in their movement to schools, jobs and markets,” she said.
Women driving two-wheelers has been a cultural and religious taboo, said Bushra Iqbal Hussain, a social activist and director of Safe Childhood, an organization advocating the safety of female children.
But more women are now changing the culture, she said, like they did in the 1980s with regular cars, in a bid to reduce their reliance on men to commute.
The WOW program has been in operation since 2017, but has become increasingly popular in recent months as car prices have soared and motorcycles offer a cheaper alternative.
“Stagnant wage growth and high inflation have eroded the purchasing power of the middle class, leaving motorcycles as the only viable option for many households,” said auto sector analyst Muhammad Abrar Polani of investment house Arif Habib Limited.
The cheapest four-wheeler in Pakistan, where the annual GDP per capita is $1,590, costs about 2.3 million rupees($8,265) compared to about 115,000 rupees for the most affordable China-made two-wheeler.
Sohail Mudassar, a traffic warden, said the WOW program has trained at least 6,600 women, and Rashid’s batch was the 86th since it started.
“Women of different ages and segments of society join our camp,” said female trainer Humaira Rafaqat, a senior traffic warden who has trained about 1,000 women. “Young women are quick learners because they are enthusiastic and take risks.”
One of them, Ghania Raza, 23, who is pursuing a doctorate in criminology, said learning to drive a two-wheeler gave her a deep sense of achievement and empowerment: “It was like breaking a glass ceiling,” she said.
Shumaila Shafiq, 36, a mother of three and a part-time fashion designer, said she has been driving her husband’s motorcycle to the market and other places after graduating from the program.
She has designed a special short length abaya, a dress used by conservative Muslim women, to wear while operating the motorcycle.
“Wearing a long abaya with loose fitting poses risks as it may get entangled in the wheels,” she said, adding that she intends to market the design to fellow women riders.
