BRUSSELS, Belgium: Italy became the first heavyweight nation to cast votes for the EU’s next parliament on Saturday, in a test of far-right leader Giorgia Meloni’s strength at home — and future influence in the bloc.
Most of the European Union’s 27 member countries, including powerhouses France and Germany, go to the polls on Sunday, the final day, with projected overall results due late that evening.
The first polling stations have already opened in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, the site of deadly rioting this month.
The two-day ballot in Italy — the EU’s third-largest economy with 76 of 720 seats in the new parliament — could have big consequences.
Meloni cast her vote in her Rome constituency, under sweltering late spring temperatures, telling reporters that the EU contest “will shape the next five years.”
Polls suggest Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party could win with 27 percent of the vote — more than quadrupling its score from 2019 — amid a broader surge of far-right groups across the bloc.
Walter Esposito, a 78-year-old Roman, cast his vote for her party in protest at EU policies on the environment, complaining: “Europe has always tried to crush Italy and the Italian people.”
At the other end of the political spectrum, Carlotta Cinardi, an 18-year-old student, said she found no party that “100 percent represents my ideas” — but voted green as the “most progressive toward young people.”
A victory could set up Meloni as a powerbroker in determining whether EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen gets the backing she needs, from both member states and parliament, for a second term.
Meloni has been actively courted both by the center-right von der Leyen — and by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who wants to create a right-wing EU supergroup.
But one European diplomat warned against overestimating her influence.
“Meloni will have an influence on Italian interests, at the commission, in parliament,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be named. “She will play the game. But does that make her a kingmaker? No.”
For the time being, Meloni is keeping her cards close to her chest — though she makes clear she wants to relegate the EU’s left-wing parties to the opposition.
Public concern over the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean was one of the key issues that propelled Meloni to power in 2022.
EU-wide, immigration is the hot-button issue driving support to far-right parties. They are forecast to grab a quarter of parliament seats — though the centrist mainstream is still seen coming out on top.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied in cities across Germany Saturday, urging a vote against the far-right, with the anti-immigration AfD party polling at about 15 percent.
Beyond the predicted surge, analysts say the bigger question is whether parliament’s main grouping, von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP), will ally with the far-right.
Von der Leyen has indicated willingness to have the EPP work with far-right lawmakers, as long as they are pro-EU and not what she calls “puppets” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On those grounds Von der Leyen explicitly ruled out allying with Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), which is topping French polls, or with Germany’s AfD.
Both those parties — unlike Meloni’s — are leery of EU military and financial support to Ukraine against Russia’s invading forces, with the AfD outright hostile to weapons deliveries.
In Hungary — where tens of thousands rallied Saturday in support of opposition leader Peter Magyar — Viktor Orban’s ruling populist Fidesz party is likewise opposed to further helping Kyiv.
Italy was voting on the same day as Slovakia, a NATO and EU member since 2004, shaken by an assassination attempt last month on premier Robert Fico.
Voters have rallied to Fico’s Russia-friendly camp in the wake of the shooting — which he blamed on “aggressive and hateful politics” by the opposition.
Authorities said the assassination attempt, by a 71-year-old poet, was politically motivated.
Jozef Zahorsky, a 44-year-old teacher, said he cast his ballot for Fico’s ruling left-wing nationalist Smer-SD because it stood for “the interests of Slovakia, not Brussels.”
Fico’s party opposes EU arms deliveries to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion, and rails against alleged “warmongers” in Brussels.
In a Facebook post, Fico posted a photograph of himself casting a ballot from his hospital bed. He urged voters to “elect European Parliament lawmakers who support peace efforts, not the pursuit of war.”
Italy votes in EU election with Meloni poised as powerbroker
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Italy votes in EU election with Meloni poised as powerbroker
- The two-day ballot in Italy — the EU’s third-largest economy with 76 of 720 seats in the new parliament — could have big consequences
Bangladesh revamps worker training for Saudi 2034 FIFA World Cup projects
- Govt to prepare training centers with focus on Saudi market demands
- Reskilling, upskilling services to be provided to migrants already residing in the Kingdom
DHAKA: Bangladeshi authorities are revamping training for prospective migrant workers and will offer upskilling programs to those residing in Saudi Arabia to tap into the labor market ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which the Kingdom will host in 2034.
Last month, the football governing body confirmed that Saudi Arabia had won the bid to host the world’s largest sporting event.
With the bid proposing to hold games across 15 stadiums in five cities, many new migrant workers will be involved in building new sports and transport networks, as well as hotel infrastructure.
In Bangladesh, which has a major expat community in Saudi Arabia, the trend is viewed as an “opportunity” for the country’s migrant workers, according to A.Z.M. Nurul Huq, joint secretary at the employment wing of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment.
“It’s a huge task, and a lot of construction works will take place targeting this World Cup event. Here lies the opportunity for us as our migrants have been working with much goodwill in many sectors of the Kingdom for many years,” Huq told Arab News.
“Saudi Arabia has to build over a dozen new stadiums, renovate existing ones and develop numerous new accommodation facilities, along with necessary infrastructure and connectivity.”
Some 3 million Bangladeshi nationals live and work in Saudi Arabia. They are the largest expat group in the Kingdom and also the biggest Bangladeshi community outside Bangladesh.
Many are employed in the construction sector as masons, electricians, pipe fitters, plumbers and electricians.
“Bangladeshi migrants can be more actively employed in the construction work for the FIFA World Cup,” Huq said.
“Works are underway for providing reskilling and upskilling services to migrants who are already in the Kingdom. In this way, our workers will be able to secure their jobs and earn more.”
For the past few years, as Saudi Arabia is prioritizing efforts to improve the professional competence of employees under its Vision 2030 program, the expatriates’ ministry has been collaborating with the Kingdom’s skills verification authority, Takamol.
The agency, which manages migrant skill certification based on the needs of Saudi employers, provides Bangladesh’s 113 technical training centers with a list of the Kingdom’s latest workforce requirements.
“Our centers tailor their programs to equip workers with the necessary skills. Upon completing the training, the prospective migrants receive certification through Takamol, which is recognized by Saudi authorities,” said Shah Zulfiquer Haider, deputy secretary at the ministry’s training wing.
As demand is set to increase in line with 2034 World Cup projects, more Bangladeshi training centers will focus on the Saudi market in particular.
“We are planning to strengthen our collaboration with Takamol,” Haider said. “Currently, a dozen technical training centers are preparing skilled workers to meet Saudi Arabia’s demands. We will soon increase the number of training centers, which will produce more skilled migrants tailored to the needs of the Saudi labor market.”
Malaysia doubles patrols to find Myanmar migrant boats after nearly 200 detained
- Malaysia doubles patrols to find Myanmar migrant boats after nearly 200 detained
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s coast guard said on Friday it was doubling patrols in its waters to locate boats carrying undocumented Myanmar migrants, after almost 200 were detained on an island in the northwestern Malaysian state of Kedah.
The coast guard said police had detained 196 undocumented Myanmar migrants in the early hours of Friday after their boat came ashore on a beach on the resort island of Langkawi.
“Based on information the coast guard received, there are two more boats carrying undocumented Myanmar migrants at sea but their exact location is still unknown,” the coast guard said in a statement.
Malaysian coast guard director-general Mohd Rosli Abdullah said authorities were patrolling the northern waters off Langkawi and border areas, and had arranged for air surveillance to be conducted to locate the boats.
The coast guard is also in contact with Thai authorities to identify the movement of the boats carrying the migrants, Mohd Rosli said.
Earlier on Friday, local English daily The Star reported about 200 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar had come ashore on Langkawi. The Rohingya are a mainly Muslim minority in majority Buddhist Myanmar.
The coast guard did not specify in its statement whether the migrants were Rohingya.
Around one million Rohingya have fled, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, to escape a Myanmar military offensive launched in August 2017, a campaign that UN investigators have described as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
Mynamar’s military rulers deny the allegations.
Malaysia, which does not recognize refugee status, has long been a favored destination for ethnic Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar or the refugee camps in Bangladesh.
But in recent years, Malaysia has turned away boats carrying Rohingya refugees and rounded up thousands in crowded detention centers as part of a crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Between 2010 and 2024, Malaysian authorities detained 2,089 undocumented Myanmar migrants attempting to enter the country by sea, the coast guard said.
Dense smog shrouds Indian capital, threatening to disrupt flights
- Delhi ranked third among the world’s most polluted capitals in Friday’s live rankings by Swiss group IQAir
- On social media, India’s largest airline IndiGo and low-cost carrier Spicejet caution against weather delays
NEW DELHI: Thick smog engulfed the Indian capital on Friday, prompting warnings of possible flight disruptions from airport and airline officials, as worsening air quality cut visibility to zero in some areas.
Delhi, which has been battling smog and poor air quality since the beginning of winter, ranked third among the world’s most polluted capitals in Friday’s live rankings by Swiss group IQAir.
No diversion or cancelation has been reported yet, an airport spokesperson said, although authorities warned in a post on X that aircraft lacking equipment to enable landings in low visibility could face difficulties.
On social media, India’s largest airline IndiGo and low-cost carrier Spicejet also cautioned against weather delays.
Delays averaged eight minutes for 20 flights by 10:14 a.m., aviation website FlightRadar24 said.
Some train services in the capital were also delayed, media said.
New Delhi’s air quality was rated “very poor” on Friday, with an index score of 351, the country’s top pollution control body said, well beyond the levels from zero to 50 that it considers “good.”
Biden awards the 2nd highest civilian award to leaders of the Jan. 6 committee and 18 others
- Cheney, a Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the Trump-inspired insurrection
- Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday awarded the second highest civilian medal to Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, leaders of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot who Donald Trump has said should be jailed for their roles in the inquiry.
Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony in the East Room, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president’s longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Delaware, and Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut.
“Together, you embody the central truth: We’re a great nation because we’re a good people,” he said. “Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That’s our work for the ages and it’s what all of you embody.”
Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump tried and failed to overturn the results.
Cheney, a Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the insurrection. The committee’s final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the election he lost to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Thompson wrote that Trump “lit that fire.”
The audience erupted in loud cheers and stood when Cheney took the stage. Biden clasped her hand and gave her the medal. The announcer said she was being given it “for putting the American people over party.”
Cheney, who lost her seat in the GOP primary in August 2022, later said she would vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and campaigned with the Democratic nominee, raising Trump’s ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.
Thompson, who also received a standing ovation, was recognized “for his lifelong dedication to safeguarding our Constitution.”
Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he is back in the White House.
During an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the president-elect said that “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” claiming without evidence they “deleted and destroyed” testimony they collected.
“Honestly, they should go to jail,” he said.
Cheney and Thompson were “an embarrassment to this country” for their conduct on the committee, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung asserted.
Biden also awarded the medal to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.
Other honorees included Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women’s rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.
He bestowed the honor to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Other former lawmakers honored included former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.
After he presented the awards, he went back to the lectern to ask lawmakers in the room to stand, as well as John Kerry, a former US senator and Biden’s first climate envoy.
“Let’s remember, our work continues,” he said to the room after he thanked the families in attendance for the support they gave to the nominees. “We’ve got a lot more work to do to keep this going.”
Biden honored four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young“; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during World War II and challenged the detention.
The Presidential Citizens Medal was created by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and is the country’s second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes people who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”
Investigators seek clues to New Orleans attacker’s path to radicalization
- Jabbar’s profile atypical for Daesh recruits, says former FBI agent
- Jabbar is a former US veteran who worked for a major corporation
- Daesh uses online platforms for recruitment, experts say
WASHINGTON: As investigators learn more about the man who pledged allegiance to the Daesh group, or ISIS, and killed 14 people with a truck on New Year’s Day in New Orleans, a key question remains: How did a veteran and one-time employee of a major corporation become radicalized?
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said on Thursday that videos made by Shamsud-Din Jabbar just before the attack showed the 42-year-old Texas native supported Daesh, claimed to have joined the militant group before last summer and believed in a “war between the believers and nonbelievers.”
While the FBI was looking into his “path to radicalization,” evidence collected since the attack showed that Jabbar was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” said Raia.
Jabbar, who authorities said acted alone, was killed in a shootout with police.
His half-brother, Abdur Jabbar, said in an interview that Jabbar, who had worked for audit firm Deloitte, abandoned Islam in his 20s or 30s, but had recently renewed his faith.
Abdur Jabbar told Reuters in Beaumont, Texas, where Jabbar was born and raised, that he had no idea when his half-brother became radicalized.
Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated terrorism cases and is on an advisory council to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said Jabbar did not fit the typical profile of those radicalized by Daesh.
Jabbar served for 10 years in the US Army and was in his 40s, Soufan noted, explaining that people who fall prey to Daesh recruitment are typically much younger.
“This is a guy who … went from being a patriot to being an Daesh terrorist,” said Soufan.
Attackers responsible for a range of deadly strikes have claimed a link to Daesh and other jihadist groups.
They included the lone survivor of the Islamist squad that killed 130 people across Paris in 2015, the man who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, and the man who drove a truck into a crowded bike path in 2017 in New York City, killing eight people.
Some attacks, like those in 2015 in Paris, were carried out by trained Daesh operatives. But investigators found no evidence of a direct role for the terrorist group in others.
Online recruitment
It is still unclear what contact Jabbar might have had with overseas extremist groups.
US officials and other experts say Daesh conducts most of its recruiting in online chatrooms and over encrypted communications apps since losing the “caliphate” it overran in 2014 in Iraq and Syria to a US-led military coalition. Even as the coalition continues hitting the group’s remaining holdouts, Daesh has stepped up operations in Syria while its Afghanistan- and Africa-based affiliates have kept recruiting, expanding their networks and inspiring attacks.
US officials say Daesh has used the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza to boost its recruitment.
Nate Snyder, a former US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counterterrorism official, said both international and US-based extremist groups follow a similar playbook to draw in new recruits.
The groups use social media to push their message and then move discussions to encrypted app such as Telegram, which could evolve into one-on-one conversations, Snyder said.
“Then people feel like they’re part of a community,” said Snyder, who left DHS in December and joined the race to chair the Democratic National Committee.
Recruits could either receive direct orders or self-radicalize to take action, Snyder said.
Individuals susceptible to recruitment “might have lost their jobs, might have had a mental health crisis, might have just concluded that however hard they’ve tried, they never belong,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat who led a UN team that monitors Daesh and Al-Qaeda.
The main appeal of Daesh is its determination to establish a Sunni Muslim “caliphate” ruled by Islamic law, unlike the Taliban, which “has sold out to Afghan nationalism,” or Al-Qaeda, members of which have cooperated with Iran’s Shiite Muslim-run government, he said.
“People that are carrying out those attacks may never in their lives have actually met somebody who is a member of Daesh,” said Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser to the Counter-Extremism Project, a policy and research organization. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t carry out an Daesh-inspired attack.” Crashing cars into crowds or staging stabbing rampages “are unsophisticated, very low-budget attacks (that) are almost impossible to defend against,” he continued. “If you are determined enough to kill unsuspecting public, you are going to be able to do it.”
