MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who will on Monday announce whether he remains in his post, is an expert in political survival who has built a career on taking political gambles.
“I have learned to push myself until the referee blows the final whistle,” the head of Spain’s Socialist party and a former basketball player wrote in his 2019 autobiography, “Resistance Manual.”
On Wednesday, he said that he was considering stepping down after a Madrid court announced an investigation into his wife Begona Gomez for alleged influence-peddling and corruption.
“I need to stop and think,” he wrote in a four-page letter posted on X.
With a charming smile and affable personality, the 52-year-old — often referred to as Mr.Handsome early in his career — has been written off politically on several occasions, only to bounce back.
He “has never had it easy,” said Paloma Roman, a political scientist at Madrid’s Complutense University, noting his “political flair” for getting out of complicated situations.
Sanchez emerged from obscurity in 2014 as a little-known MP to seize the reins of Spain’s oldest political party.
A leap-year baby born in Madrid on February 29, 1972, he grew up in a well-off family, the son of an entrepreneur father and civil servant mother.
He studied economics before obtaining a master’s degree in political economy at the Free University of Brussels and a doctorate from a private Spanish university.
Elected to the Socialist Party leadership in 2014, Sanchez’s future was quickly put in doubt after he led the party to its worst-ever electoral defeats in 2015 and 2016.
Ejected from the leadership, he unexpectedly won his job back in a primary in May 2017 after a cross-country campaign in his 2005 Peugeot to rally support.
Within barely a year, the father of two teenage girls took over as premier in June 2018 after an ambitious gamble that saw him topple conservative Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy in a no-confidence vote.
Always immaculately dressed, the telegenic politician — who likes running and looms over his rivals at 1.90 meters (6 foot 2 inches) tall — has earned a reputation as being tenacious to the point of stubbornness.
Over the past six years, he has had to play a delicate balancing act to stay in power.
In February 2019, the fragile alliance of left-wing factions and pro-independence Basque and Catalan parties that had catapulted him to the premiership cracked, prompting him to call early elections.
Although his Socialists won, they fell short of an absolute majority, and Sanchez was unable to secure support to stay in power, so he called a repeat election later that year.
He was then forced into a marriage of convenience with the hard-left Podemos, despite much gnashing of teeth inside his own party.
Deemed politically dead after his party again suffered a drubbing in local and regional elections in 2023, Sanchez surprised the country by calling an early general election for July.
While his Socialists finished second in the general election, behind the conservative Popular Party (PP), Sanchez cobbled together a majority in parliament with the support of the far-left party Sumar and smaller regional parties, including Catalan separatists.
In exchange for their support, Catalonia’s two main separatist parties demanded a controversial amnesty for hundreds of people facing legal action over their roles in the northeastern region’s failed push for independence in 2017.
Sanchez had previously opposed such a move but he now agreed to it to remain in power, sparking several mass protests staged by the right.
On the international stage, Sanchez, Spain’s first premier fluent in English, has made a name for himself by criticizing the operation Israel launched in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas attack on October 7, and by promising Spain’s swift recognition of a Palestinian state.
Pedro Sanchez, a risk-taker with a flair for survival
https://arab.news/rt9hc
Pedro Sanchez, a risk-taker with a flair for survival
- Sanchez said on Wednesday that he was considering stepping down
Teen who lied about beheaded French teacher’s class says ‘sorry’
- Paty had used the Charlie Hebdo magazine as part of an ethics class to discuss free speech laws in France, where blasphemy is legal and cartoons mocking religious figures have a long history
PARIS: A teenager whose lies about her teacher are accused of contributing to the educator’s murder by an Islamist radical apologized to his family in a French court on Tuesday.
Eight people have been on trial since early November, charged with contributing to the climate of hatred that led to an 18-year-old of Chechen origin beheading teacher Samuel Paty outside Paris in 2020.
They include Brahim Chnina, the 52-year-old Moroccan father of the adolescent testifying Tuesday.
Then aged 13, the adolescent falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing caricatures of the prophet Mohammed.
She was not in the classroom at the time.
“I would like to apologize to the family,” the 17-year-old, who has not been named, told the court. “I destroyed your lives, I am sorry.”
Also on trial is Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a 65-year-old French-Moroccan Islamist activist.
He and Chnina spread the teenager’s lies on social networks with the aim, according to the prosecution, of “designating a target,” “provoking a feeling of hatred” and “thus preparing several crimes.”
Both men have been in pre-trial detention for the past four years.
The teenager told the court that she lied to her mother to justify why she had been suspended from school for two days over her behavior and repeated absences.
“I was in panic and stress,” she said. “I told her I had been in class and that I wasn’t happy with what went on there and that the teacher excluded me. That we looked at cartoons.”
Sefrioui posted a video describing Paty as a “teaching thug.”
He also staged an “interview” with the teenager outside the school, whispering to her what to answer. The adolescent dutifully reiterated the falsehoods.
“I thought somebody would stop me in my lying, but nobody ever said that I wasn’t in class,” she told the court Tuesday.
She stuck to her story even after Paty’s death. Only following her arrest and 30 hours of interrogation did she admit to investigators that she had made it all up.
The teenager, whose delivery in court was matter-of-fact, showed emotion only when she talked about her father.
“Without my lies, none of us would be here,” she said, sobbing. “I used my father’s naivete and kindness.”
She added that “my father says you must always respect teachers,” a remark that prompted an astonished “really?” interjected by the court’s presiding judge.
The teenager was sentenced to 18 months of probation in December 2023 after being convicted of slander.
Paty had used the Charlie Hebdo magazine as part of an ethics class to discuss free speech laws in France, where blasphemy is legal and cartoons mocking religious figures have a long history.
His killing took place just weeks after Charlie Hebdo republished the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
After the magazine used the images in 2015, Islamist gunmen stormed its offices, killing 12 people.
After long wrangling, Blinken to testify in Congress on Afghanistan
- Donald Trump drew criticism for shooting video for his campaign at Arlington National Cemetery where he appeared at a ceremony honoring troops killed in the evacuation
- Democrats have insisted some blame for the messy end of the war should be laid at the feet of Trump, who began the withdrawal process by signing a deal with the Taliban in 2020
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has agreed to testify publicly at a House of Representatives committee hearing on the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, the panel said on Tuesday, after a long dispute with the Republican-led committee.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said Blinken had committed to appear at a public hearing on Dec. 11 to discuss the committee’s investigation of the withdrawal three years ago.
The committee and the State Department have been wrangling over Blinken’s appearance for months. Panel Republicans voted in September to recommend Blinken be held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena.
The State Department had contended that the panel was provided with large amounts of information, with Blinken testifying before Congress on Afghanistan more than 14 times and the department providing nearly 20,000 pages of records, multiple high-level briefings and transcribed interviews.
McCaul released a report on Sept. 8 on the committee Republicans’ investigation of the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, blasting Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration for failures surrounding the evacuation.
The issue had become intensely politicized before the presidential election on Nov. 5. In his successful bid for a second term, Republican former President Donald Trump drew criticism for shooting video for his campaign at Arlington National Cemetery where he appeared at a ceremony honoring troops killed in the evacuation.
Trump also sought to pin blame for the withdrawal on Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent.
Democrats have insisted some blame for the messy end of the war — less than seven months into Biden’s presidency — should be laid at the feet of Trump, who began the withdrawal process by signing a deal with the Taliban in 2020.
The issue could become even more politicized after Trump returns to the White House on Jan. 20, after he spoke during his campaign of firing those responsible for the pullout from Afghanistan.
UN probes sexual exploitation allegations against aid workers in Chad
DAKAR: The UN in Chad has launched an internal investigation, following a report on allegations of sexual exploitation of Sudanese refugees, which included aid workers.
The statement, written days after the story was published, was seen on Tuesday. It said the seriousness of the allegations cited in the AP’s story, warranted immediate and firm measures and that those responsible should be punished.
“Refugees are already vulnerable and traumatized by the events that led them to flee their country and under no circumstances should they be the victims of abuse by those who are supposed to help them,” said Francois Batalingaya, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Chad.
Earlier this month, the accusations were reported by some Sudanese women and girls that men, including those meant to protect them such as humanitarian workers and local security forces, had instead sexually exploited them in Chad’s sites for displaced people. They said the men offered money, easier access to assistance, and jobs. Such sexual exploitation in Chad is a crime.
Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them women, have streamed into Chad to escape Sudan’s civil war, which has killed over 20,000 people.
Sexual exploitation during large humanitarian crises is not uncommon, especially in displacement sites. Aid groups have long struggled to combat the issue, citing a lack of reporting by women, not enough funds to respond and a focus on first providing basic necessities.
Experts say exploitation represents a deep failure by the aid community and that people seeking protection should never have to make choices driven by survival.
The UN said it raised the risk alert level for protection against sexual exploitation of abuse to four, which is very high, especially since Chad was already classified as a country at high risk.
Albania police fire tear gas, water cannon at anti-government protesters
- Protesters said they were engaged in a campaign of civil disobedience against Socialist Party Prime Minister Edi Rama
- “The protests will continue, this is a battle until this regime goes,” Tedi Blushi from the opposition Freedom Party said
TIRANA: Police in Albania’s capital Tirana fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse hundreds of opposition protesters blocking roads, who accused the government of corruption and demanded it be replaced with a technocratic caretaker authority.
Protesters said they were engaged in a campaign of civil disobedience against Socialist Party Prime Minister Edi Rama. The opposition in Albania have been protesting almost every week demanding a caretaker government step in until parliamentary elections in 2025.
“The protests will continue, this is a battle until this regime goes,” Tedi Blushi from the opposition Freedom Party told local media.
The leaders of Albania’s two biggest opposition parties, Sali Berisha of the Democratic Party and Ilir Meta of the Freedom Party, are charged with corruption offenses and both accuse Rama of orchestrating these. They deny the charges.
Rama says the charges are not politically-motivated and accuses the opposition of trying to seize power with violence.
Berisha is being held under house arrest on corruption charges relating to his time as prime minister. Meta was arrested in late October also on corruption charges for the time when he served as president between 2017-2022.
Rama has been in power since 2013 and plans to run for a fourth term next year.
One killed in Bangladesh as Hindu protesters clash with police over arrest of religious leader
- Chinmoy Krishna Das was arrested from Dhaka airport on Monday on several charges, including sedition
- India condemned the arrest, saying perpetrators who hurt minorities and desecrated deities remained at large
DHAKA: At least one person was killed in Bangladesh in clashes between security forces and Hindus protesting against the arrest of a religious leader, police said, even as neighboring India urged that the safety of Hindus and minorities be ensured.
Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu leader associated with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), was arrested from Dhaka airport on Monday on several charges, including sedition.
His arrest sparked protests by his supporters in both the capital Dhaka and Chittagong city.
“A Muslim lawyer defending Das was killed amid protests outside the court (in Chittagong),” said police officer Liaquat Ali.
A probe has been ordered into the alleged killing, the caretaker government said in a statement, adding that Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus had directed law enforcement agencies to step up security in the port city.
“The interim government is committed to ensuring and upholding communal harmony in Bangladesh at any cost,” the government said.
Das faces sedition charges filed in October after leading a large rally in Chittagong, in which he was accused of disrespecting Bangladesh’s national flag and was denied bail by a court in Chittagong on Tuesday.
'RAMPAGE'
When Das was being escorted back to prison from court, more than 2,000 supporters surrounded the van, blocking it for over two hours, Chittagong Metropolitan Police Commissioner Hasib Aziz, said.
“They went on a rampage, throwing bricks at us. To disperse the crowd, we had to fire tear gas. No one was seriously injured, but one of our constables was hurt,” Aziz said.
India condemned the arrest of Das, saying in a sternly worded statement that the perpetrators of documented vandalism and arson against minorities as well as those who desecrated deities remained at large.
Hindu-majority India has strong cultural and business ties with its neighbor and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has expressed concern over a spate of attacks on Hindus.
“It is unfortunate that, while the perpetrators of these incidents remain at large, charges should be pressed against a religious leader presenting legitimate demands through peaceful gatherings,” the Indian foreign ministry statement said.
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, responding to India, said the government does not interfere in the judiciary’s work, and the matter was being dealt with by the court of law.
“The Government of Bangladesh is also committed to upholding communal harmony in the country,” the ministry said. One killed in Bangladesh as Hindu protesters clash with police over arrest of religious leader
