BUCHAREST: Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Thursday clinched the race to become the next head of NATO at a pivotal time for the alliance, after sole challenger Romanian President Klaus Iohannis pulled out.
The veteran politician, 57, is expected to be formally named by NATO’s 32 nations in the coming days and should take over when current chief Jens Stoltenberg’s term ends on October 1.
Rutte will come in at a perilous moment for the Western allies as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on and Donald Trump battles to reclaim the presidency in the United States come November.
After staking his claim for the job last year following the collapse of his coalition, staunch Ukraine backer Rutte quickly won the support of heavyweights the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
But he had to use all the diplomatic skills gleaned during almost 14 years in charge of the Netherlands to win over hold-outs led by Turkiye and Hungary.
Rutte overcame Turkish reticence with an April visit to Istanbul, before finally sealing a deal with Hungary’s Viktor Orban at a European Union summit this week.
That left the last sticking point as Iohannis, whose surprise bid had ruffled feathers among allies banking on a smooth appointment for Rutte ahead of a NATO summit in Washington next month.
Romania’s security council on Thursday announced Iohannis had formally withdrawn and that the country backed Rutte.
Rutte will have a lot on his plate when he assumes the reins from Norway’s former premier Stoltenberg, who led the alliance through its most consequential decades since the end of the Cold War.
Just weeks after his four-year term is expected to start, voters in the United States will go to the polls in a crunch vote to chose between incumbent Joe Biden and Trump.
The prospect of the volatile former president returning to the Oval office has rattled allies fearful that he could weaken superpower Washington’s role as Europe’s ultimate security guarantor.
Trump fueled those fears on the campaign trail by saying he would encourage Russia to attack NATO countries not spending enough on their own defense.
Like Stoltenberg, Rutte won plaudits for his careful handling of Trump during his first term in power — when the ex-reality TV star reportedly even mulled pulling the United States out of NATO.
“I think Mark Rutte is a very strong candidate,” Stoltenberg said on a visit to Washington Tuesday. “He has a lot of experience as prime minister. He’s a close friend and colleague.”
While Trump’s return could pose one major challenge — to NATO’s east Rutte will face the far more pressing menace from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin’s forces are currently on the front foot in Ukraine after more than two years of brutal conflict, and the NATO chief will have a key role marshalling aid from Kyiv’s weary backers.
At the same time Rutte will have to ensure the alliance is ready to defend against any potential future attack from Moscow — if, or more likely when, Putin is able to rebuild his forces.
Part of that will involve corralling European allies to spend more on defense — a key demand from Trump, and other US leaders.
This week NATO announced that 23 out of its 32 member countries had hit the alliance’s target of spending two percent of their gross domestic product on defense.
Dubbed “Teflon Mark” for his ability to remain in power for so long in the Netherlands, Rutte will become the fourth Dutchman to lead NATO since it emerged from the ashes of World War II to confront the Soviet Union.
The bicycling conservative threw his country’s economic weight behind Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion — leading efforts to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv.
While NATO countries along the alliance’s eastern flank had pushed for one of their own to get the NATO job, Rutte’s backers insist he is fully aware of the threat posed by Russia.
Among the most formative events during his time in charge of the Netherlands was the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, with 196 Dutch among the 298 killed, that was blamed of Moscow-backed fighters.
Rutte seals NATO top job after lone rival drops out
https://arab.news/2dyu9
Rutte seals NATO top job after lone rival drops out
- Rutte is expected to be formally named by NATO’s 32 nations in the coming days and should take over when current chief Jens Stoltenberg’s term ends on October 1
- Romania’s security council on Thursday announced Iohannis had formally withdrawn and that the country backed Rutte
3 dead after light planes collided in Australia
SYDNEY: Three men died after two light planes collided midair and crashed into a forested area southwest of Sydney on Saturday.
Australian police, fire and ambulance crews reached the two wreckage sites, located in a semirural bushland area about 55 miles southwest of Sydney, on foot. One plane had burst into flames on impact.
New South Wales Police Acting Superintendent Timothy Calman confirmed that a Cessna 182 carrying two people collided with an ultralight aircraft from a nearby airfield carrying one.
Further details of the victims have not been disclosed.
Witnesses saw “debris coming from the sky” and tried to help, but “there was probably not much that could’ve been done,” Calman said to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . He noted both crashes, about one kilometer apart, were “not survivable.”
NSW Ambulance Inspector Joseph Ibrahim, part of the emergency response team, said to the ABC, “unfortunately, there was nothing they could’ve done.”
The cause of the crash will be investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
Russian attacks on central Ukraine, Kyiv kill 5
KYIV: Russian missile strikes killed three people including a child in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro while a teenager and another person died in attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding region, officials said Saturday.
Overnight strikes on Dnipro wounded 19 others and damaged multiple buildings, said Sergiy Lysak, the governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region.
A two-story residential building was destroyed, he said.
Images shared by Lysak showed rescuers working in a pile of rubble, while another showed what appeared to be a hospital room with its windows blown out.
“Three people were killed in Dnipro, including a child. Nineteen were injured, four of them children. Eight are hospitalized,” Lysak said.
Separate night attacks on the capital Kyiv and surrounding region left two people dead, including a teenage girl who was killed in a drone strike, according to regional authorities.
Ukrainian cities including Kyiv have been subjected to deadly drone and missile attacks throughout Russia’s invasion.
Kyiv has been asking for more air defenses from its allies ahead of what is likely to be its toughest winter yet, as Moscow ramps up strikes on energy infrastructure.
US, UK urge Iran not to respond to latest Israel attack
- UK leader: ‘I’m equally clear that we need to avoid further regional escalation and urge all sides to show restraint’
- The Israeli military conducted air strikes against Iran on Saturday, hitting military bases and missile sites
WASHINGTON/LONDON: The United States and UK urged Iran on Saturday to stop attacking Israel to break the cycle of violence after Israel launched strikes against the Islamic republic in retaliation for a missile barrage.
“We urge Iran to cease its attacks on Israel so that this cycle of fighting can end without further escalation,” US National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett told reporters.
“I am clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against Iranian aggression. I’m equally clear that we need to avoid further regional escalation and urge all sides to show restraint. Iran should not respond,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, speaking at a press conference in Samoa, where he has been attending a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
The Israeli military conducted air strikes against Iran on Saturday, hitting military bases and missile sites, and other systems in several regions.
“Their response was an exercise in self-defense and specifically avoided populated areas and focused solely on military targets, contrary to Iran’s attack against Israel that targeted Israel’s most populous city,” he added.
Stressing that the United States did not participate in the operation, he said “it is our aim to accelerate diplomacy and de-escalate tensions in the Middle East region.”
A senior administration official said President Joe Biden and his national security team have worked with the “Israelis over recent weeks to encourage Israel to conduct a response that was targeted and proportional with low risk of civilian harm.”
“And that appears to have been precisely what transpired this evening,” the official told reporters.
President Biden had encouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to design a response that served to deter further attacks against Israel while reducing risks of further escalation, and that is our objective.”
Russians behind fake video of ballots being destroyed, US officials say
- Video connected to a Kremlin-aligned disinformation network known as Storm-1516, according to researchers
- Account on X that distributed the video has regularly amplified other narratives from this network
WASHNGTON: Russian actors were behind a viral video falsely showing mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in the swing state of Pennsylvania, US officials said Friday, amid heightened alert over foreign influence operations targeting the upcoming election.
The video, which garnered millions of views on platforms such as the Elon Musk-owned X, purports to show a man sorting through mail-in ballots from the state’s Bucks County and ripping up those cast for Trump.
On Thursday, the Bucks County Board of Elections declared the video as “fake,” saying that the envelope and other materials depicted in the footage are “clearly not authentic materials” belonging to or distributed by them.
In a joint statement on Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the video was part of a Russian disinformation operation.
“Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania,” the statement said.
“This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans,” it added.
The statement said Russia was expected to create and release more such content in an attempt to “undermine trust” in the integrity of the November 5 elections.
The video surfaced as American authorities brace for a surge in disinformation in the final days of a nail-biting election between Republican nominee Trump and the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The video, also debunked by AFP’s fact-checkers, was connected to a Kremlin-aligned disinformation network known as Storm-1516, according to researchers including Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub.
Linvill, who has closely studied the network, said the account on X — previously called Twitter — that distributed the video has regularly amplified other narratives from this network.
Storm-1516 has previously produced fake videos to discredit the campaign of Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, according to disinformation researchers.
Last month, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center said Russian operatives are ramping up disinformation operations to malign Harris’s campaign by disseminating conspiracy-laden videos.
Aside from Russia, Iran and China are also fanning “divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the US democratic system,” the ODNI warned in a memo earlier this week.
“Foreign influence efforts will intensify in the lead-up to Election Day, especially through social media posts — some of which are likely to be AI generated or enhanced,” the report said.
“These actors probably perceive that undermining confidence in the elections weakens the legitimacy of our democracy and consequently makes the United States less capable of effectively pursuing policies that are counter to their interests,” it added.
Final campaigning in tight Japan election
- Opinion polls suggest the ruling coalition Liberal Democratic Party might fall short of a majority
- Such a bombshell outcome could potentially be a knockout blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba
TOKYO: Candidates in Japan’s super-tight election made last-ditch appeals to voters on Saturday, with opinion polls suggesting the ruling coalition might fall short of a majority.
Such a bombshell outcome would be the worst result for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2009, and potentially a knockout blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Ishiba — a fan of trains, 1970s pop idols and making model ships and planes — only last month took the helm of the LDP, which has governed Japan for almost all of the past seven decades.
After a tough internal contest, the 67-year-old former defense minister became premier on October 1.
Days later, he called the snap parliamentary elections, promising a “new Japan.”
Ishiba pledged to revitalize depressed rural regions and to address the “quiet emergency” of Japan’s falling population through policies such as flexible working hours.
But he has since rowed back his position on issues including allowing married couples to take separate surnames.
He also named only two women ministers in his cabinet.
A poll on Friday by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily suggested that the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito might struggle to get the 233 lower house seats needed for a majority.
Ishiba has set this threshold as his objective, and missing it would undermine his position in the LDP and mean finding other coalition partners or leading a minority government.
Local media speculated that Ishiba could potentially even resign immediately to take responsibility, becoming Japan’s shortest-serving prime minister in the post-war period.
The current record is held by Naruhiko Higashikuni who served for 54 days — four days more than British leader Liz Truss in 2022 — just after Japan’s 1945 defeat in World War II.
“The situation is extremely severe,” Ishiba said on the stump Friday, Japanese media reported.
In many districts, LDP candidates are in neck-and-neck battles with those from the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) — the second-biggest in parliament — led by popular former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda.
“The LDP’s politics is all about quickly implementing policies for those who give them loads of cash,” Noda said at a rally on Saturday.
“But those in vulnerable positions, who can’t offer cash, have been ignored,” he added, referring to insufficient support by the LDP-led government for survivors of a huge New Year’s Day earthquake in central Japan.
“This kind of politics must be changed.”
Noda’s stance “is sort of similar to the LDP’s. He is basically a conservative,” Masato Kamikubo, a political scientist at Ritsumeikan University, said.
“The CDP or Noda can be an alternative to the LDP. Many voters think so,” Kamikubo said.
Also dogging Ishiba is the continuing fallout from a slush fund scandal within the LDP that angered voters and helped sink his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
Ishiba promised to not actively support LDP politicians caught up in the scandal running in the election, although they are still standing.
According to media reports, the party has also provided 20 million yen ($132,000) each to district offices headed by these figures.
“It is truly frustrating that such reports come out at a time like this,” Ishiba said in a campaign speech on Thursday. “Those candidates will not use the money.”
“We cannot be defeated by those with biased views,” he added.
Hitomi Hisano, an undecided voter from the central Aichi region, said in Tokyo that the LDP’s funding scandal was a big factor for him.
“The LDP has sat in power for too long. I see hubris in there,” the 69-year-old said. “So part of me wants to punish them.”
“But there aren’t other parties that are reliable enough to win my vote.”
Rintaro Nishimura, of the think tank The Asia Group, said that win or lose, Ishiba’s position was tenuous.
“Regardless of what the election results are, Ishiba’s longevity as prime minister is in question.”
