THE HAGUE, Netherlands: Long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte urged his country to support Ukraine and international cooperation in his final address to his compatriots Sunday, as an inward-looking new government is set to take over the Netherlands in two days.
“It is crucial that our country is embedded in the European Union and NATO. Together we are stronger than alone. Especially now,” the 57-year-old Rutte said from his office in The Hague.
After leading the country for 14 years, he will take his experience with consensus-building to Brussels, where he will take over as NATO’s new secretary-general later this year.
He stressed the need to continue support for Ukraine, “for peace there and security here.” The new government, expected to take office on Tuesday, has pledged to maintain assistance. But far-right populist Geert Wilders, whose party won the largest block of seats in last year’s election, has expressed pro-Russia views and Kremlin backers cheered his victory at the polls.
Rutte described the MH17 tragedy in 2014 as “perhaps the most drastic and emotional event” during his tenure. The passenger jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine as it traveled from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, killing all 298 passengers and crew, including 196 Dutch citizens.
A Dutch court convicted two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian in 2022 of involvement in the downing of the Boeing 777.
Known for cycling to meetings and his dedication to politics, Rutte highlighted his country’s positive attributes.
“There is no war here, you can be who you are, we are prosperous,” he said in the 12-minute speech.
He acknowledged that there had been low points during his tenure, including a child benefits scandal that wrongly labeled thousands of parents as fraudsters.
Wearing a white shirt with several of the top buttons undone, Rutte said that his time in office had added some “gray hairs and wrinkles” to his appearance.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte urges support for Ukraine, EU and NATO in his farewell speech
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Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte urges support for Ukraine, EU and NATO in his farewell speech
- After leading the country for 14 years, he will take over as NATO’s new secretary-general later this year
- He stressed the need to continue support for Ukraine, “for peace there and security here”
Hezbollah’s deputy leader says group would stop fighting with Israel after Gaza ceasefire
- Talks of a ceasefire in Gaza have faltered in recent weeks, raising fears of an escalation on the Lebanon-Israel front
BEIRUT: The deputy leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Tuesday the only sure path to a ceasefire on the Lebanon-Israel border is a full ceasefire in Gaza.
“If there is a ceasefire in Gaza, we will stop without any discussion,” Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in an interview with The Associated Press at the group’s political office in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hezbollah’s participation in the Israel-Hamas war has been as a “support front” for its ally, Hamas, Kassem said, and “if the war stops, this military support will no longer exist.”
But, he said, if Israel scales back its military operations without a formal ceasefire agreement and full withdrawal from Gaza, the implications for the Lebanon-Israel border conflict are less clear.
“If what happens in Gaza is a mix between ceasefire and no ceasefire, war and no war, we can’t answer (how we would react) now, because we don’t know its shape, its results, its impacts,” Kassem said during a 40-minute interview.
The war began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 — mostly civilians — and kidnapping roughly 250. Israel responded with an air and ground assault that has caused widespread devastation and killed more than 37,900 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Talks of a ceasefire in Gaza have faltered in recent weeks, raising fears of an escalation on the Lebanon-Israel front. Hezbollah has traded near-daily strikes with Israeli forces along their border over the past nine months.
The low-level conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed; in Lebanon, more than 450 people — mostly fighters but also dozens of civilians — have been killed
Hamas has demanded an end to the war in Gaza, and not just a pause in fighting, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to make such a commitment until Israel realizes its goals of destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and brings home the roughly 120 hostages still held by Hamas.
Last month, the Israeli army said it had “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon if no diplomatic solution was reached to the ongoing clashes. Any decision to launch such an operation would have to come from the country’s political leadership.
Some Israeli officials have said they are seeking a diplomatic solution to the standoff and hope to avoid war. At the same time, they have warned that the scenes of destruction seen in Gaza will be repeated in Lebanon if war breaks out.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, is far more powerful than Hamas and believed to have a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel.
Kassem said he doesn’t believe that Israel currently has the ability — or has made a decision — to launch a full-blown war with Hezbollah. He warned that even if Israel intends to launch a limited operation in Lebanon that stops short of a full-scale war, it should not expect the fighting to remain limited.
“Israel can decide what it wants: limited war, total war, partial war,” he said. “But it should expect that our response and our resistance will not be within a ceiling and rules of engagement set by Israel… If Israel wages the war, it means it doesn’t control its extent or who enters into it.”
The latter was an apparent reference to Hezbollah’s allies in the Iran-backed so-called “axis of resistance” in the region. Armed groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere — and, potentially, Iran itself — could enter the fray in the event of a full-scale war in Lebanon, which might also pull in Israel’s strongest ally, the United States.
U,S. and European diplomats have made a circuit between Lebanon and Israel for months in an attempt to ward off a wider conflict.
Kassem said he met on Saturday with Germany’s deputy chief of intelligence, Ole Dieh, in Beirut. US officials do not meet directly with Hezbollah because Washington has designated it a terrorist group, but they regularly send messages via intermediaries.
Kassem said White House envoy Amos Hochstein had recently requested via intermediaries that Hezbollah apply pressure on Hamas to accept a ceasefire and hostage-exchange proposal put forward by US President Joe Biden. He said Hezbollah had rejected the request.
“Hamas is the one that makes its decisions and whoever wants to ask for something should talk to it directly,” he said.
Kassem criticized US efforts to find a resolution to the war in Gaza, saying it has backed Israel’s plans to end Hamas’ presence in Gaza. A constructive deal, he said, would aim to end the war, get Israel to withdraw from Gaza, and ensure the release of hostages.
Once a ceasefire is reached, then a political track can determine the arrangements inside Gaza and on the front with Lebanon, he added.
Iran’s presidential candidates discuss economic sanctions and nuclear deal ahead of July 5 runoff
- Pezeshkian’s hard-line competitor Jalili, who strongly opposed the 2015 deal, said during Tuesday’s debate that the US must honor its commitments on par “with the commitments we fulfilled”
TEHRAN, Iran: Iranian presidential candidates on Tuesday discussed the impact of economic sanctions imposed on their country by the United States and other Western nations and presented their proposals for reviving a nuclear deal with world powers.
It was the second — and last — live debate on state television pitting little-known reformist Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator, ahead of Friday’s runoff election in which voters will choose a successor for the late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash.
Pezeshkian, a cardiac surgeon, said that sanctions imposed by the West have badly hurt Iran’s economy. He cited a 40 percent inflation over the past four years and the increasing poverty rates. “We live in a society in which many are begging on the streets,” he said, adding that his administration would “immediately” work to try to get sanctions lifted and vowed to “repair” the economy.
As he did the day before, Pezeshkian said he would find a solution to revive a nuclear deal with world powers by discussing the plan with the country’s parliament and finding possible alternatives. “No government in history has been able to flourish inside a cage,” he said, referring to the impact of sanctions on Iran’s spiraling economy.
Former President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, in 2015 struck a nuclear deal with world powers that capped Iran’s uranium enrichment in return to lifting sanctions but later, in 2018, President Trump pulled the US out from the landmark deal abruptly restoring harsh sanctions on Iran.
Pezeshkian’s hard-line competitor Jalili, who strongly opposed the 2015 deal, said during Tuesday’s debate that the US must honor its commitments on par “with the commitments we fulfilled.” He condemned his opponent for not having any plans for getting sanctions lifted and said he would resume talks about a nuclear deal.
Jalili, who is known as the “Living Martyr” after losing a leg in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and is famous among Western diplomats for his haranguing lectures and hard-line stances, also pledged to support the country’s stock exchange market by providing insurance to stocks as well as financial support to local industries.
Both candidates pledged to revive the economy, provide energy subsidies to poor people and facilitate importing cars while supporting the domestic auto industry. They did not elaborate on the source of funds they will need to fulfill their promises.
Iran will hold a runoff presidential election Friday, only its second since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, after only 39.9 percent of its voting public cast a ballot the previous week. Of over 24.5 million votes, more than 1 million ballots were later rejected — typically a sign of people feeling obligated to head to the polls but wanting to reject all the candidates.
Iraqi Kurd authorities neglecting domestic violence survivors: Amnesty
- Aya Majzoub, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “Survivors of domestic violence in the Kurdistan region of Iraq are being failed at every turn
BAGHDAD: Women and girls subjected to domestic violence in Iraqi Kurdistan face “daunting obstacles” when they seek state protection, Amnesty International said, accusing authorities of failing to prosecute the abusers.
A report issued Wednesday by the London-based rights group said gender-based violence in the autonomous northern region was “perpetuated by a criminal justice system that fuels impunity.”
Authorities “are failing to ensure that perpetrators of domestic violence, including harrowing cases of murder, rape, beatings and burning, are held to account,” Amnesty said.
“There is a lack of political will on the part of the authorities to prosecute” the abusers and the protection framework was “exhausted and underfunded,” the watchdog said.
Aya Majzoub, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “Survivors of domestic violence in the Kurdistan region of Iraq are being failed at every turn.
“From the moment they escape abusive situations, these women and girls repeatedly encounter daunting obstacles in seeking protection and justice that leave them at risk, allow perpetrators to go unpunished.
“Meanwhile survivors seeking refuge in shelters face prison-like conditions which in some cases compel women and girls to return to situations of horrendous abuse,” she added.
Amnesty said state prosecutors “rarely if ever” initiate criminal cases against abusers.
Instead, women and girl must file criminal complaints against their aggressors and “frequently face reprisals, threats and intimidation for doing so from the abuser or their families often aimed at pressuring them to drop the charges.”
It describes the legal system as “slow and lengthy” and said judges often show “bias” toward the male abuser and push to keep the family together rather than ensure the protection of women.
Amnesty quoted a caseworker as saying: “Women do not want to go to court because they will be asked, ‘What did you do for him to do that to you?’.”
“Victims should not be asked what they did to provoke being beaten, stabbed or shot,” said the caseworker.
Amnesty called on authorities to “urgently end impunity for domestic violence” and conduct “effective” investigations into domestic violence.
It also called for greater funds for survivors of domestic violence and improved living conditions in shelters for the abused.
Amnesty said it conducted exhaustive research including interviews with 15 women survivors of domestic violence, aid workers and government officials as well as visits to shelters for abused women.
According to Amnesty, citing official figures, at least 30 women were killed in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2023 and 40 the previous year, but NGO workers have said the numbers are higher.
New Cuban radar site near US military base could aid China spying, think tank says
WASHINGTON: Cuba is building a new radar site likely to be capable of spying on the United States’ nearby Guantanamo Bay naval base, a Washington think tank found using satellite images, the latest upgrade to the country’s surveillance capabilities long thought to be linked to China.
The base, under construction since 2021 but previously not publicly reported, is east of the city of Santiago de Cuba near the El Salao neighborhood, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report published on Monday and later referenced by the Wall Street Journal.
Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio denied that Cuba was harboring Chinese military interests on the island.
“(The) Wall Street Journal persists in launching an intimidation campaign related to #Cuba. Without citing a verifiable source or showing evidence, it seeks to scare the public with tales about Chinese military bases that do not exist and no one has seen, including the US embassy in Cuba,” de Cossio said on social media.
Cuba’s proximity to the US and its southern military bases makes it a good location for China, Washington’s top strategic rival, to seek to collect signals intelligence. CSIS called the new site a “powerful tool” that once operational will be able to monitor air and maritime activity of the US military.
The facility, known as a circularly disposed antenna array with a diameter of approximately 130 to 200 meters could be able to track signals as far as 3,000-8,000 nautical miles (3,452 – 9,206 miles) away, CSIS said.
“Access to such an outpost would provide China with a highly strategic vantage point near Naval Station Guantanamo Bay,” it said, referring to the key US military base 45 miles (73 km) east of Santiago, Cuba`s second largest city.
Such arrays were used heavily during the Cold War, but Russia and the US have since decommissioned most of their sites in favor of more advanced technology, CSIS said. However, the think tank said China has been actively building new such arrays, including on reef outposts in the South China Sea.
Last year, Biden administration officials said Beijing has been spying from Cuba for years and made a push to upgrade its intelligence collection capabilities there beginning in 2019, allegations that both Beijing and Havana have denied.
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to comment on the report, but told a briefing on Tuesday that the US was “closely monitoring” China’s presence in Cuba.
“We know that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is going to keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba and the United States is going to keep working to disrupt it,” Patel said without giving details.
The White House National Security Council and the US Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
China’s embassy in Washington said the US had repeatedly “hyped up” the idea of China’s spying and surveillance from Cuba.
“Such claims are nothing but slander,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said.
CSIS also said satellite images from March 2024 show Cuba’s largest active signals intelligence site at Bejucal, located in the hills near Havana and linked to suspected Chinese intelligence activity for years, has undergone “major updates” in the past decade, calling it a “clear indication of an evolving mission set.”
“Collecting data on activities like military exercises, missile tests, rocket launches, and submarine maneuvers would allow China to develop a more sophisticated picture of US military practices,” CSIS said.
It said certain radar systems installed in Cuba in recent years are in range to monitor rocket launches from Cape Canaveral and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a likely interest for China as it seeks to catch up to US space launch technology.
US officials who have resigned in protest over Biden’s Gaza policy
- Israel has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry
- Mohammed Abu Hashem, a Palestinian American, said last month he ended a 22-year career in the US Air Force. He said he lost relatives in Gaza in the ongoing war, including an aunt killed in an Israeli air strike in October
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s support for Israel during its nearly nine-month war in Gaza has spurred a dozen US administration officials to quit, with some accusing him of turning a blind eye to Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian enclave.
The Biden administration denies this, pointing to its criticism of civilian casualties in Gaza and its efforts to boost humanitarian aid to the enclave, where health officials say nearly 38,000 have been killed in Israel’s assault which has also led to widespread hunger.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Here are the US officials who have resigned:
Maryam Hassanein, who was a special assistant at the Department of Interior, quit her job on Tuesday. She slammed Biden’s foreign policy, describing it as “genocide-enabling” and dehumanizing toward Arabs and Muslims. Israel denies genocide allegations.
Mohammed Abu Hashem, a Palestinian American, said last month he ended a 22-year career in the US Air Force. He said he lost relatives in Gaza in the ongoing war, including an aunt killed in an Israeli air strike in October.
Riley Livermore, who was a US Air Force engineer, said in mid-June that he was leaving his role. “I don’t want to be working on something that can turn around and be used to slaughter innocent people,” he told the Intercept news website.
Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, left in late May. She said she resigned over an administration report to Congress that she said falsely stated Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Alexander Smith, a contractor for USAID, quit in late May, alleging censorship after the US foreign aid agency canceled publication of his presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians. The agency said it had not gone through proper review and approval.
Lily Greenberg Call, a Jewish political appointee, resigned in May, having served as a special assistant to the chief of staff in the Interior Department. “As a Jew, I cannot endorse the Gaza catastrophe,” she wrote in the Guardian.
Anna Del Castillo, a deputy director at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, departed in April and became the first known White House official to leave the administration over policy toward Gaza.
Hala Rharrit, an Arabic language spokesperson for the State Department, departed her post in April in opposition to the United States’ Gaza policy, she wrote on her LinkedIn page.
Annelle Sheline resigned from the State Department’s human rights bureau in late March, writing in a CNN article that she was unable to serve a government that “enables such atrocities.”
Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American, quit as special assistant in the Education Department’s office of planning in January. He said the Biden administration was turning a “blind eye” to atrocities in Gaza.
Harrison Mann, a US Army major and Defense Intelligence Agency official, resigned in November over Gaza policy and went public with his reasons in May.
Josh Paul, director of the State Department’s bureau of political military affairs, left in October in the first publicly known resignation, citing what he described as Washington’s “blind support” for Israel.
