WASHINGTON: NATO allies announced Wednesday they had started the long-promised transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine as leaders meet for a summit in Washington clouded by political uncertainties in the United States.
With the pomp of the three-day gathering in the US capital, President Joe Biden is aiming to rally the West and also reassure US voters amid intense pre-election scrutiny on whether at 81 — six years older than the alliance — he remains fit for the job.
Kicking off events for the 32-nation alliance with a celebration Tuesday evening, Biden committed a new air defense system for Kyiv and urged unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the Ukraine invasion in 2022.
“Make no mistake. Ukraine can — and will — stop Putin,” Biden said in a forceful speech.
The White House followed up Wednesday by saying that Denmark and the Netherlands had begun sending F-16 jets to Ukraine.
Biden last year approved the key request by Ukraine, which wants advanced Western aircraft as it struggles to gain parity in the skies with Russia.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the F-16 transfer “concentrates Vladimir Putin’s mind on the fact that he will not outlast Ukraine, he will not outlast us and, if he persists, the damage that will continue to be done to Russia and its interests will only deepen.”
“The quickest way to get to peace is through a strong Ukraine,” Blinken said.
But Donald Trump, who is edging out Biden in recent polls, has mused about bringing a quick peace settlement by forcing Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia.
The Republican mogul has repeatedly questioned the utility of NATO — formed in 1949 as collective defense against Moscow — which he sees as an unfair burden on the United States.
On the eve of the summit, Russia fired a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, killing dozens, including in Kyiv where a children’s hospital was reduced to debris.
Biden invited to the summit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who voiced gratitude for the F-16s which he said would better protect his country from such “brutal Russian attacks.”
The new aircraft will “bring just and lasting peace closer, demonstrating that terror must fail everywhere and at any time,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
The summit will look for ways to “Trump-proof” the alliance including by having NATO itself take over coordination of arms delivery from the United States.
Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has also sought a pledge to keep supplying arms at the same rate — some 40 billion euros ($43 billion) annually — that NATO members have been since Russia invaded.
“I expect that regardless of the outcome of the US elections, the US will remain a strong and staunch NATO ally,” Stoltenberg said as leaders gathered for the summit.
Biden has also invited four key Pacific partners — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — as he seeks to increase NATO’s role in managing a rising China.
Ukraine wants firm assurances that it will one day join NATO, which considers an attack on any member an attack on all.
A NATO diplomat said negotiations had settled on wording of a statement that will voice support for Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”
Kyiv’s membership enjoys wide backing from Baltic and Eastern European nations still haunted by decades under the Soviet yoke.
But Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have led opposition, concerned that the alliance would effectively be entering war with nuclear-armed Russia as it occupies swathes of Ukraine.
Zelensky, who has achieved hero status in much of the West for his media-savvy defiance of Russia, voiced open annoyance at the last NATO summit in Lithuania at the failure to provide a clearer path to membership.
Other leaders attending the summit include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Putin’s closest partners in the West, who ahead of Washington went to Ukraine, Russia and China on a self-described peace mission criticized by Brussels and Washington.
Biden, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will later welcome their counterparts for gala dinners around the Washington area, which is in the throes of a searing heat wave.
One new NATO leader is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is visiting days after taking office in a landslide victory by his Labour Party.
He will meet both Biden and Zelensky and is expected to confirm Britain’s strong support for Ukraine.
NATO begins sending F-16 jets to Ukraine as Biden leads summit
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NATO begins sending F-16 jets to Ukraine as Biden leads summit
- Biden committed a new air defense system for Kyiv and urged unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin
- The White House followed up Wednesday by saying that Denmark and the Netherlands had begun sending F-16 jets to Ukraine
Man accused of attacking TV reporter, saying ‘This is Trump’s America now’
- Alex, who had been out reporting, then drove back to his news station in the city
DENVER: A Colorado man is facing possible bias-motivated charges for allegedly attacking a television news reporter after demanding to know whether he was a citizen, saying “This is Trump’s America now,” according to court documents.
Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja’Ronn Alex’s vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed and attacked because he is Pacific Islander.
After arriving in Grand Junction, Egan, who was driving a taxi, pulled up next to Alex at a stoplight and, according to an arrest affidavit, said something to the effect of: “Are you even a US citizen? This is Trump’s America now! I’m a Marine and I took an oath to protect this country from people like you!”
Alex, who had been out reporting, then drove back to his news station in the city. After he got out of his vehicle, Egan chased Alex as he ran toward the station’s door and demanded to see his identification, according to the document laying out police’s evidence in the case. Egan then tackled Alex, put him in a headlock and “began to strangle him,” the affidavit said. Coworkers who ran out to help and witnesses told police that Alex appeared to be losing his ability to breathe during the attack, which was partially captured on surveillance video, according to the document.
According to the station’s website, Alex is a native of Detroit. KKCO/KJCT reported that he was driving a news vehicle at the time.
Egan was arrested on suspicion of bias-motivated crimes, second degree assault and harassment. He is scheduled to appear in court Thursday to learn whether prosecutors have filed formal charges against him.
Egan’s lawyer, Ruth Swift, was out of the office Friday and did not return a telephone message seeking comment.
KKCO/KJCT vice president and general manager Stacey Stewart said the station could not comment beyond what it has reported on the attack.
UN approves new AU force to take on Al-Shabab in Somalia
UN: The UN Security Council on Friday gave the green light to a new African Union force in Somalia that is meant to take on the Islamist armed group Al-Shabab, with the soldiers due to deploy in January.
The resolution was adopted by 14 of the Council’s 15 member states, while the United States abstained due to reservations about funding.
It provides for the replacement of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), whose mandate ends on December 31, by the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM).
Somalia is one of the world’s poorest countries, enduring decades of civil war, a bloody insurgency by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab, and frequent climate disasters.
Representatives from Somalia and its western neighbor Ethiopia were invited to participate in the council’s meeting, although they were not allowed to vote.
“We emphasize that the current AUSSOM troops allocations are completed through bilateral agreements,” said the Somali representative, adding 11,000 troops were currently pledged.
On Monday, Egypt’s foreign minister announced his country would take part in the new force.
Tensions flared in the Horn of Africa after Ethiopia signed a maritime deal in January with the breakaway region of Somaliland, pushing Mogadishu closer to Addis Ababa’s regional rival Cairo.
This month, Turkiye brokered a deal to end the nearly year-long bitter dispute between Somalia and Ethiopia, although Ethiopian troops would not be involved in the new AU force.
Burundi will not be taking part in the new force either, a Burundian military source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The text adopted by the UN Security Council provides for the possibility of using a mechanism that it created last year, under which an African force deployed with the green light of the UN can be up to 75 percent financed by the UN.
“In our view, the conditions have not been met for immediate transition to application of” that measure, US representative Dorothy Shea said, justifying her country’s abstention.
Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban so he can weigh in after he takes office
- The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction
President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.
The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by Jan. 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk.
“President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case.
The filings come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment.
Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute, leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
Senegal PM seeks to repeal contested amnesty law
- Sonko’s government pledged earlier this month to investigate dozens of deaths resulting from the political violence between 2021 and 2024
DAKAR: Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said Friday that his government would submit legislation to repeal a law by former president Macky Sall granting amnesty for deadly political violence.
The controversial amnesty was granted just before March 2024 elections as Sall sought to calm protests sparked by his last-minute postponement of the vote in the traditionally stable West African country.
Critics say the move was to shield perpetrators of serious crimes, including homicides, committed during three years of political tensions between February 2021 and February 2024.
But it also allowed Sonko, a popular opposition figure, to stand in the elections after court convictions had made him ineligible, as well as Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who eventually won the presidency.
Sonko’s government pledged earlier this month to investigate dozens of deaths resulting from the political violence between 2021 and 2024.
“In addition to putting compensation for victims into the budget, a draft law will be submitted to your august Assembly to repeal the March 6, 2024 amnesty so that light may be shed and responsibilities determined on whatever side they may lie,” Sonko said in a highly awaited policy speech to lawmakers.
“It’s not a witch hunt and even less vengeance ... It’s justice, the foundation without which social peace cannot be built,” Sonko said.
Sonko’s speech also laid out plans for the next five years to pull Senegal out of three years of economic and political turmoil that have sent unemployment soaring.
He and Faye, who won the presidency and in November secured a landslide victory in parliament, now have a clear path for implementing an ambitious, leftist reform agenda.
“We must carry out a deep and unprecedented break never seen in the history of our country since independence” from France, Sonko told lawmakers.
He said Senegal remained “locked into the colonial economic model” and vowed an overhaul of public action and tax reforms to foster “home-grown growth.”
ECOWAS defends Nigeria against Niger’s claims of ‘destabilization’ plot
- Niger’s military leaders broke away from the ECOWAS amid rising anti-France sentiments
LAGOS: West Africa’s regional bloc ECOWAS has come to Nigeria’s defense after claims by Niger that it was plotting to destabilize its neighbor.
Niger’s military leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani accused Nigeria of providing homes for two French nationals it expelled, allegedly for anti-government activities, during a televised Christmas Day broadcast on Wednesday.
Tchiani also lashed out against ECOWAS and claimed that France had established a base in Nigeria where it was arming terror groups in the Lake Chad region to foment unrest in his country.
“Nigerian authorities are not unaware of this underhanded move,” Tchiani said. “It is near a forest close to Sokoto where they wanted to establish a terrorist stronghold known as Lakurawa.”
“The French and ISWAP made this deal on March 4, 2024,” he added, referring to the Daesh West Africa Province militant group.
Earlier in December, Niger’s foreign minister summoned the charge d’affaires at the Nigerian Embassy, accusing its neighbors of “serving as a rear base” to “destabilize” the country.
ECOWAS and Nigeria rejected the accusations. “For years, Nigeria has supported peace and security of several countries not only in the West African subregion but also on the African continent,” the regional bloc said in a statement released.
“ECOWAS therefore refutes any suggestion that such a generous and magnanimous country would become a state-sponsor of terrorism.”
Nigeria’s Information Minister Mohammed Idris said in a separate statement Thursday that his country had no alliance with “France or any other country” to destabilize Niger, with whom it has had a choppy relationship since Tchiani seized power in a July 2023 coup.
Niger’s military leaders broke away from the ECOWAS amid rising anti-France sentiments.
Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is currently head of the ECOWAS bloc, had briefly considered a regional military intervention to reinstate Niger’s ousted president Mohamed Bazoum.
But Idris said that Nigeria was open to dialogue with Niger despite its political situation.
“Nigeria remains committed to fostering regional stability and will continue to lead efforts to address terrorism and other transnational challenges,” he said.
