BRUSSELS, Belgium: Ursula von der Leyen has navigated back-to-back crises from Covid to the Ukraine war as head of the European Commission, and stands on the verge of a no-less tumultuous second term, provided she can lock in support from EU lawmakers.
In giving von der Leyen the nod for five more years, EU leaders on Thursday sent a message about their priorities for the 27-nation bloc — putting security first at a time of marked geopolitical uncertainty.
Top of her in-tray is the war in Ukraine, and how Brussels can keep supporting Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s army even as the West braces for US presidential elections in November that could return Donald Trump to power.
Ahead of June elections that kept her center-right European People’s Party as the biggest force in the European Parliament, von der Leyen pivoted away from climate change to position herself as champion of a hawkish new European security outlook.
On that front, the 65-year-old’s past as a former German defense minister should come in handy, as will relationships developed with powerful leaders and corporate bosses.
More contentious may be how she sees through the European “Green Deal,” a flagship achievement of her first term, given it has turned politically toxic, under fire from farmers, part of her own political family, and voters.
Von der Leyen was a relative unknown outside Germany when she was tapped for the top EU job in 2019, in a surprise deal between Paris and Berlin.
The welcome in Brussels, the city where she was born and lived until her early teens, was cool to say the least. She secured the European Parliament’s backing by just nine votes.
This time around it could be tight again in the parliament, with the EPP needing allies to secure a majority vote backing von der Leyen.
They could come, as before, from the leftist Socialists and Democrats and the centrist Renew groups. Or, controversially, from the far-right European Conservatives and Reformists that include the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whom von der Leyen has been courting.
“VDL,” as she is known in EU circles, has her detractors.
During her first term the commission chief worked to expand the bloc’s international role, and also pushed — overstepped, her critics would say — the boundaries of her own job.
She has on occasion infuriated EU leaders, like last October, when while visiting Tel Aviv she backed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas without insisting that any military response must be bound by international law.
Operating from the 13th floor of Berlaymont, the commission’s hulking headquarters where she also has her sleeping quarters, she relies on a tight-knit coterie of advisers — a practice that rubs many the wrong way, as does her bulldozing, top-down leadership style.
But von der Leyen has indisputably made her mark in Brussels.
“There were a couple of major inflexion points where she managed to do the things that were needed and made herself visible doing them,” one European diplomat said.
When Europe was brought to its knees by the Covid-19 pandemic, von der Leyen steered a groundbreaking 750-billion-euro ($815 million) recovery plan.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, she resolutely supported Kyiv and set to work on reducing Europe’s energy dependency on Moscow.
Beyond the bloc’s borders, she is said to have built a strong relationship with President Joe Biden, providing an answer to the old question attributed to Henry Kissinger: When the US president needs to speak to Europe, who does he call?
Though the mother of seven — and first-ever woman as commission chief — has long championed women’s rights, von der Leyen’s gender has seldom been an issue in office — save for an infamous incident known as Sofagate.
During a visit to Istanbul in April 2021, the commission chief found herself relegated to a sofa during a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Charles Michel, her European Council counterpart, when both men took seats in a pair of armchairs.
The scene went viral, and von der Leyen pulled no punches afterwards, telling lawmakers: “I have to conclude, it happened because I am a woman.”
Tested by crises, von der Leyen poised for hawkish second term
https://arab.news/6m42y
Tested by crises, von der Leyen poised for hawkish second term
Undocumented immigrants in US ‘terrified’ as Trump returns
- Trump repeatedly rail against illegal immigrants during the election campaign
The 22-year-old, a graduate student in biomedical engineering who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, is haunted by the incoming president’s promises of mass deportations.
“I was terrified,” said Palazuelos, reflecting on the moment he heard the news.
“I am in fear of being deported, of losing everything that I’ve worked so hard for, and, most importantly, being separated from my family.”
Born in Mexico, he has lived in the United States since he was four years old. He is one of the country’s so-called “Dreamers,” a term for migrants who were brought into the country as children and never obtained US citizenship.
Throughout the election campaign, Palazuelos heard Trump repeatedly rail against illegal immigrants, employing violent rhetoric about those who “poison the blood” of the United States.
Trump has never specified how he intends to go about his plan for mass deportation, which experts warn would be extremely complicated and expensive.
“What do mass deportations mean? Who does that include?” Palazuelos asked.
“Does it include people like me, Dreamers, people that came here from a very young age, that had no say?“
Compounding the stress, the southwestern state of Arizona has just approved by referendum a law allowing state police to arrest illegal immigrants. That power was previously reserved for federal border police.
If the proposition is deemed constitutional by courts, Palazuelos fears becoming the target of heightened racial profiling.
“What makes someone a suspect of being here illegally, whether they don’t speak English?” he asked.
“My grandma, she’s a United States citizen, however, she doesn’t speak English very well. Meanwhile, I speak English, but is it because of the color of my skin that I would possibly be suspected or detained?“
Jose Patino, 35, also feels a sense of “dread” and “sadness.” His situation feels more fragile than ever.
Born in Mexico and brought to the United States aged six, he now works for Aliento, a community organization helping undocumented immigrants.
He personally benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigrant policy brought in by Barack Obama, offering protections and work permits for those in his situation.
But for Patino, those safeguards will expire next year, and Trump has promised to end the DACA program.
Indeed, Trump already tried to dismantle it during his previous term, but his decree was scuppered by a US Supreme Court decision, largely on procedural grounds.
Faced with this uncertainty, Patino is considering moving to a state that would refuse to report him to federal authorities, such as Colorado or California.
He remembers well the struggle of being undocumented in his twenties — a time when he could not obtain a basic job like flipping burgers in McDonald’s, and could not apply for a driver’s license or travel for fear of being deported.
“I don’t personally want to go back to that kind of life,” Patino said.
For him, Trump’s electoral win is not just scary, but an insult.
“We’re contributing to this country. So that’s the hard part: me following the rules, working, paying my taxes, helping this country grow, that’s not enough,” he said.
“So it’s frustrating, and it’s hurtful.”
Patino understands why so many Hispanic voters, often faced with economic difficulties, ended up voting for Trump.
Those who are here legally “believe that they’re not going to be targeted,” he said.
“A lot of Latinos associate wealth and success with whiteness, and they want to be part of that group and to be included, rather than be outside of it and be marginalized and be considered ‘the other,’” he said.
Still, he is angry with his own uncles and cousins who, having once been undocumented themselves, voted for Trump.
“We cannot have a conversation together, because it’s going to get into argument and probably into a fight,” he said.
Putin says Ukraine must remain neutral for there to be peace
- “If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said
- Putin said Russia had recognized Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders based on the understanding that it would be neutral
SOCHI, Russia: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Ukraine should remain neutral for there to be a chance for peace, adding that the borders of Ukraine should be in accordance with the wishes of the people living in Russian-claimed territory.
“If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said.
Putin said Russia had recognized Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders based on the understanding that it would be neutral. The US-led NATO military alliance has repeatedly said that Ukraine would one day join.
If Ukraine was not neutral, it would be “constantly used as a tool in the wrong hands and to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation,” Putin said.
Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine after more than two and a half years of war. Putin on
June 14
set out his terms for an end to the conflict: Ukraine would have to drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from all of the territory of the regions claimed by Russia.
Ukraine rejects those conditions as tantamount to surrender and President Volodymyr Zelensky has presented a “victory plan” for which he has requested additional Western support.
“We are determined to create conditions for a long-term settlement so that Ukraine is an independent, sovereign state, and not an instrument in the hands of third countries, and not used in their interests,” Putin said.
Asked about the future borders of Ukraine, Putin said: “The borders of Ukraine should be in accordance with the sovereign decisions of people who live in certain territories and which we call our historical territories.”
Ukraine says that it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory though even US generals say that such an aim would take massive resources that Ukraine currently does not have.
Russian attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia kills four, wounds 40
- Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days
- “The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said
KYIV: Russian aerial attacks on the frontline city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday killed at least four people and wounded another 40, including children, officials said.
Another two were killed in a separate attack on the eastern Donetsk region, strikes that followed a wave of overnight drone attacks, including on the capital Kyiv.
Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days and are making rapid advances in the industrial territory of Donetsk, both of which the Kremlin says are Russian territory.
“The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said in a statement on social media.
“Forty were wounded, including four children,” governor Ivan Fedorov said in a separate statement.
Officials said earlier that a hospital had been damaged in Zaporizhzhia, which had a pre-war population of more than 700,000 people and lies around 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the nearest Russian positions.
A four-month old girl and boys aged one, five and 15 were wounded in the attacks, Fedorov said.
Officials posted images showing rescue workers pulling victims from the rubble and holding back distressed locals from getting to the destroyed buildings.
The strikes later in the Donetsk region killed two people and wounded five more in the village of Mykolaivka, the region’s governor Vadym Filashkin announced on social media.
“One of the shells hit a five-story building and four buildings nearby were damaged,” he wrote on social media.
He posted a photo of a Soviet-era residential building on fire, dozens of its windows blown out with debris littering the ground beneath it.
Grenade attack targeted Israeli embassy in Denmark: report
- The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy
- Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 have been detained
COPENHAGEN: Israel’s embassy in Denmark was likely the target of grenades thrown nearby last month, Danish media reported Thursday, citing the pre-indictment of two teenage suspects detained in the case.
Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 went before a judge in Copenhagen who remanded them for another 20 days.
Their pre-indictment, citing investigations, said they were suspected of violating terrorism laws by “throwing hand grenades at the Israeli embassy in Denmark on October 2,” the Ritzau news agency reported.
The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy, where they exploded, causing no injuries.
The two suspects were arrested at a Copenhagen railway station hours later initially on suspicion of violating gun laws.
They have since been accused of a terror offense and police, who have arrested a man in his fifties in connection with the incident, are also looking for other accomplices.
“It makes no sense to imagine this is an act they committed alone. There must be accomplices,” Ritzau quoted prosecutor Soren Harbo as saying at the start of the hearing.
The teens deny the accusations.
The case comes against a backdrop of severe tensions in the Middle East, with conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as increasing gang violence with Danish criminal gangs suspected of recruiting underage Swedes to settle scores.
Renowned Indian scholar, philanthropist Dr. Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini dies aged 80
Funeral prayers were held on Thursday evening at the Sharif Mosque. He is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.
He completed a Master of Arts in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Canada and was awarded a Ph.D. from Belford University, US, for his research work.
Since 2007 he brought significant changes to the Khaja Education Society on the organizational, administrative and functional levels. He also expanded existing institutions and was instrumental in establishing Khaja Bandanawaz Institute of Medical Sciences at Kalaburagi in 2000.
Through perseverance, he established Khaja Bandanawaz University in August 2018. As vice-president of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board and chancellor of Khaja Banda Nawaz University, he played a vital role in promoting modern and Islamic education in India.
In addition to his administrative skills, Hussaini was known for his deep and scholarly understanding of Sufism. He was awarded the prestigious Karnataka Rajyotsava Award for excellence in education by the government of Karnataka in 2017.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and other political leaders expressed their condolences over his death.
