KIGALI: Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has scored a crushing election victory that will extend his iron-fisted rule by another five years, according to partial results issued Monday.
De facto leader since the end of the 1994 genocide and president since 2000, Kagame scored 99.15 percent of the vote, the National Election Commission announced after 79 percent of ballots had been counted.
It tops the 98.79 percent Kagame won in the last election in 2017 and puts him streets ahead of the only two candidates authorized to run against him.
Democratic Green Party candidate Frank Habineza scraped 0.53 percent of the vote and independent Philippe Mpayimana 0.32 percent.
The outcome of Monday’s poll was never in doubt, with Kagame’s regime accused of muzzling the media and political opposition, and several prominent critics barred from the race.
Soon after the partial results were announced, giving Kagame a fourth term, he thanked Rwandans in an address from the headquarters of his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
“The results that have been presented indicate a very high score, these are not just figures, even if it was 100 percent, these are not just numbers,” he said.
“These figures show the trust, and that is what is most important,” he added. “I am hopeful that together we can solve all problems.”
Full provisional results are due by July 20 and definitive results by July 27.
With 65 percent of the population aged under 30, Kagame is the only leader most Rwandans have ever known.
The 66-year-old is credited with rebuilding a traumatized nation after the genocide but he is also accused of ruling in a climate of fear at home, and fomenting instability in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Over nine million Rwandans — about two million first-time voters — were registered to cast their ballot, with the presidential race being held at the same time as legislative elections for the first time.
“(Kagame) gives us everything we ask him, such as health insurance. This is why he wins by a big margin,” said 34-year-old mechanic Francois Rwabakina.
Kagame won with more than 93 percent of the vote in 2003, 2010 and in 2017, when he again easily defeated the same two challengers.
He has overseen controversial constitutional amendments that shortened presidential terms from seven to five years and reset the clock for the Rwandan leader, allowing him to potentially rule until 2034.
Rwandan courts had rejected appeals from prominent opposition figures Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire to remove previous convictions that effectively disqualified them from Monday’s vote.
The election commission also barred high-profile Kagame critic Diane Rwigara, citing issues with her paperwork — the second time she was excluded from running.
The imbalance between the candidates was evident during the three-week campaign, as the well-oiled PR machine of the ruling RPF swung into high gear.
The party’s red, white and blue colors and its slogans “Tora Kagame Paul” (“Vote Paul Kagame“) and “PK24” “Paul Kagame 2024“) were everywhere.
His rivals struggled to make their voices heard, with barely 100 people showing up to some events.
Despite the lacklustre turnout at his rallies, Habineza hailed the “free and fair atmosphere.”
“This is a very good show of the level of growth in democracy in our country. We have been able to campaign (across) the whole country,” he told AFP.
Kagame’s RPF militia is lauded for ending the 1994 genocide when it marched on Kigali — ousting the Hutu extremists who had unleashed 100 days of bloodletting targeting the Tutsi minority.
The perpetrators killed around 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis but also Hutu moderates.
Kagame has overseen a remarkable economic recovery, with GDP growing by an average of 7.2 percent per year between 2012 and 2022, although the World Bank says almost half the population lives on less than $2.15 a day.
Ahead of the vote, Amnesty International said Rwanda’s political opposition faced “severe restrictions... as well as threats, arbitrary detention, prosecution, trumped-up charges, killings and enforced disappearances.”
Abroad, Kigali is accused of meddling in the troubled eastern DRC, where a UN report says its troops are fighting alongside M23 rebels.
Kigali was also accused of killing tens of thousands of Hutus in the DRC during its pursuit of fleeing genocide perpetrators.
Discussion of these alleged massacres remains taboo and is considered genocide “revisionism” in Rwanda.
In the parliamentary election, 589 candidates were chasing 80 seats, including 53 elected by universal suffrage. In the outgoing assembly, the RPF held 40 seats and its allies 11, while Habineza’s party had two.
Another 27 spots are reserved for women, the youth and people with disabilities.
Rwanda’s Kagame cruises to crushing election victory
https://arab.news/66nd2
Rwanda’s Kagame cruises to crushing election victory
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2024/07/15/4468541-40406818.jpeg?itok=l_rTyrR_)
- Incumbent Paul Kagame has won more than 93% of the vote at each of the three previous elections
- Kagame is running against two other candidates, Frank Habineza and Philippe Mpayimana
Harris implies Trump a ‘coward’ during Pennsylvania campaign appearance
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- “Anybody who’s about beating down other people is a coward,” Harris said in a campaign rally in Pennsylvania
- Rejecting advice not to go personal, Trump had repeatedly referred to Harris as a “radical” and a “lunatic”
ROCHESTER, Pennsylvania: US Vice President Kamala Harris indirectly criticized former President Donald Trump on Sunday, suggesting her opponent in the Nov. 5 election was a “coward” whose politics focused on putting down rivals.
The remarks came in a campaign appearance in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania with running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, before Harris heads to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which kicks off Monday.
“Over the last several years there’s been this kind of perversion that has taken place, I think, which is to suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down. When what we know is the real and true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up,” Harris told a crowd of supporters. “Anybody who’s about beating down other people is a coward.”
She did not directly name Trump, who in a campaign appearance Saturday in eastern Pennsylvania referred to Harris as a “radical” and a “lunatic.”
Opinion polls have shown Harris bringing fresh energy to the campaign and closing the gap with former President Trump both nationally and in many of the eight highly competitive states including Pennsylvania that will play a decisive role in picking Democratic President Joe Biden’s successor.
Harris, who is Black and has Asian heritage, will be the first woman president if she wins in November.
Trump on Saturday said he believed she would be easier to beat than Biden, 81, who dropped out last month under pressure from his own party after a disastrous debate against Trump.
Pennsylvania was one of three Rust Belt states, along with Wisconsin and Michigan, that helped power Republican Trump’s upset victory in the 2016 election.
Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, flipped the trio back to the Democrats in 2020, and Harris aims to hold on to them.
Sources said on Saturday that she is likely to join Biden on stage at the convention on Monday as he passes the torch to her as the party’s nominee for president.
The Trump campaign will try to counter-program the convention with a series of swing-state events this week. He will visit a manufacturing facility in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday, where his campaign says he will focus on the economy, and a county sheriff’s office in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday to talk about safety and crime.
Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, will travel to Asheboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday for remarks on national security, and on Friday Trump will join Turning Point Action, a group founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, for a rally in Glendale, Arizona, aimed in part at highlighting efforts to boost turnout.
Trump supporters said they hope he will refocus his campaign on policy rather than the repeated personal attacks against Harris he has leaned heavily on in the weeks since she emerged as the Democratic candidate.
“President Trump can win this election. His policies are good for America and if you have a policy debate he wins. Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election,” Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “Policy is the key to the White House.”
What foiled Taylor Swift concert attack plot says about Daesh threat to Europe
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- Three young men were arrested by Austrian police on Aug. 7 for allegedly planning to target event in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium
- The plot, which echoed earlier attacks on European concert venues, showed the allure Daesh still holds for alienated youths
ATHENS: Taylor Swift fans were left disappointed earlier this month by news that the American pop star’s long-awaited tour dates in the Austrian capital, Vienna, were to be canceled owing to a terrorist threat to the concert venue by Daesh sympathizers.
On Aug. 7, Austrian authorities arrested three youths, aged 19, 17 and 15, who they claimed were involved in, or had knowledge of, a terrorist plot to attack the Ernst Happel Stadium where Swift was due to perform over the Aug. 8-10 period.
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/beran_a.jpg)
After searching the home of the 19-year-old suspect, an Austrian national with North Macedonian heritage, police found an array of edged weapons and bomb-making materials, counterfeit cash and Daesh propaganda.
Although the suspects had been taken into police custody, Swift’s promoter Barracuda Music decided to cancel the superstar’s three-date run of her Eras Tour, which was expected to attract 65,000 fans inside the stadium at each concert and 30,000 onlookers outside.
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/mechandise.jpg)
The decision was deemed prudent, especially given Daesh’s track record of attacking European concert venues. The group killed 90 at the Bataclan theater in Paris, France, in 2015. Two years later, a Daesh suicide bomber killed 22 at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.
Most recently, in March of this year, a massive, coordinated attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall by Daesh’s Central Asian branch, Islamic State in Khorasan, or IS-K, killed 145 people and injured more than 500.
What is surprising about the Vienna plot, however, is Daesh’s ability to continue recruiting followers in Western nations — long after its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria in 2019 and despite international efforts to smash its leadership, financing networks and online presence.
“I’m not so surprised that there are still young people who join Daesh and want to do something in Europe,” Thomas Schmidinger, a Vienna-based political scientist and expert in extremism and deradicalization, told Arab News.
“I think the failure of Daesh as a state project in Iraq and Syria may have even increased the danger of terrorist attacks in Europe, because, in 2014 and 2015, people were going to Syria to join Daesh there. Now there is no more existing state project, but the organization continues to exist. The reasons why young people were attracted by this ideology are still here.”
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/daesh_fighters.jpg)
Schmidinger, however, believes it may have been a mistake to cancel Swift’s Vienna tour dates as doing so might encourage Daesh to threaten other such events in the future.
“The way the organizers of the concert reacted was actually a victory for the terrorists, because the Austrian police did catch the possible perpetrators and there was no reason to cancel the event,” he said. “This cancelation is now at least a propaganda victory for Daesh.”
Although authorities are desperate to avoid a repeat of the attacks in Paris, Manchester and Moscow, analysts say coordinated attacks of this scale are likely to be rare. Indeed, the majority of Daesh-inspired activities in the West, particularly in recent years, can be attributed to self-radicalized individuals acting of their own accord.
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rescuers working inside the Crocus City Hall, a day after a gun attack in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow. (Handout via AFP/File)
You can tell the difference between someone who was inspired by Daesh, or just said they were Daesh, versus the ones who actually were Daesh,” Mia Bloom, professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University, told Arab News.
“There are degrees to which people claim Daesh affiliation and loyalty. They make this baya, or pledge of allegiance, to Daesh, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that Daesh has accepted it.
“For example, you can have people who are radicalized online who engage in a violent attack and they say they were inspired by watching beheading videos or propaganda that they’ve consumed.
“That’s very different from what we saw at the Bataclan in France, or in Charlie Hebdo, or in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where the perpetrators were trained in a Daesh camp. Daesh funded it, and Daesh live-streamed it on GoPro cameras.”
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/bataclan.jpg)
Europe is not alone in facing an ongoing threat from Daesh. Although attacks in the US have been less common, the perpetrators of the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California, which left 16 dead, had pledged allegiance to Daesh on Facebook. A year later, a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, claimed 49 lives.
However, there was no evidence that Daesh planned either attack.
“Daesh put out infographics on their successes from around 2014 to 2019,” said Bloom. “They put out a map of the US showing the attacks for which they were responsible, and they put Orlando in California and San Bernardino in Florida.
“If you don’t even know where the attack was, you probably weren’t responsible for it.”
INNUMBERS
• 28 Completed, failed or foiled terrorist attacks recorded in the EU in 2022.
• 380 People arrested by EU member states for terrorism-related offenses in 2022.
Source: Europol
Just last week, two Somali refugees living in Arizona pleaded guilty to attempting to join Daesh. The men, who were arrested in 2019, had allegedly made plans to travel to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, with one stating his wish to martyr himself and to become “the beheading guy.”
A June report by NBC highlighted the Department of Homeland Security’s identification of 400 Central Asian immigrants who may have been brought to the US by a Daesh-affiliated human smuggling network.
Though some of these individuals have been found, the department claims the whereabouts of at least 50 are still unknown.
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/us_migrants.jpg)
“Particularly through illegal immigration routes, that means most of the southern border, there has been an influx of people who have some degree of connection to Daesh,” Lorenzo Vidino, director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told Arab News.
“This doesn’t mean that everybody smuggled in was Daesh, but nonetheless, the smuggling network had a Daesh connection, and so some individuals who have been arrested in the US have come through those routes and have known Daesh links.”
While Daesh may be able to infiltrate Western countries from overseas, Vidino says the number of native-born, self-radicalized individuals is likely to be far higher.
“If you look historically at the attacks that we’ve seen in the US over the last 10 years, most of them were perpetrated by Americans, not those who were smuggled through the southern border,” he said.
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/daesh_militant.jpg)
More than five years since Daesh’s defeat in its last territorial holdout of Baghouz in eastern Syria, many wonder what is drawing new recruits to the group. According to Schmidinger, there is rarely a single reason.
“The biographies of young men who join Daesh are very diverse,” he said.
“These are people who went through strong alienation from their societies. The reasons for this alienation are different. It can be psychological problems, it can be related to racism and anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe, it can be related to the failure of their educational or professional careers. It can be related to problems with their sexual orientation.
“There are different concrete reasons. But what they have in common is this alienation from European societies.”
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/eu_foreign_fighters.jpg)
He added: “Daesh was here at the moment that they were searching for meaning, belonging and the ability to intervene in history. So you have a lot of people who feel powerless. They have the feeling that by perpetrating, for example, a terrorist attack, or by threatening European societies, they get power. They become masters of their own history.
“Especially for people who feel completely alienated and powerless, this is an attractive opportunity that gives them a kind of empowerment. I think one of the big problems for these people is that there is no other radical but humanistic alternative for them.”
Although Daesh and other extremist entities continue to pose a threat to Western states, there are ways to undermine their attack potential by eliminating their safe havens in the world’s ungoverned and unstable spaces.
Tens of thousands of Daesh-linked individuals are held in prisons and camps across northeast Syria, guarded by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. However, these facilities have witnessed frequent violence and escape attempts.
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/alhol_camp.jpg)
Sympathizers in Europe have even organized fundraising campaigns to help Daesh-affiliated women held in these camps to support themselves and even to smuggle themselves out.
Siyamend Ali, a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units — a group affiliated with the SDF — told Arab News there are areas of northern Syria where Daesh and other extremist groups “can continue to train, gather resources, issue orders and propagandize.”
Tensions in northeast Syria between the SDF, Syrian regime forces and the Turkish military are also having a destabilizing effect, said Ali, increasing the likelihood of a Daesh resurgence in the region.
In addition to eliminating Daesh’s international networks and safe havens, Schmidinger says that the threat of future attacks in Europe can also be reduced through the implementation of social policies to promote integration and inclusion.
![](https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/August/20/2024/british_women.jpg)
“You will never be able to completely stop it. We will always face some people on the fringes of society who will be attracted to extremist organizations like Daesh,” he said.
“But it is possible to reduce the number by reducing the feeling of alienation from society. By giving all people the chance for education, a proper job, and to give people — especially young people — the chance to participate in society and politics, it will keep them from feeling that they are powerless and can’t change anything.
“They won’t need an extremist organization to give them the feeling that they can change things in society.”
Ukrainian president says push into Russia’s Kursk region is to create a buffer zone there
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- Zelensky said “it is now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday the daring military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone.
It was the first time the president had clearly stated the aim of the operation, which was launched on Aug. 6. Previously, he had said the operation aimed to protect communities in the bordering Sumy region from constant shelling.
Zelensky said “it is now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions. This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region.”
Ukraine has destroyed a key bridge in Russia’s Kursk region and struck a second one nearby, disrupting supply lines as it pressed a stunning cross-border incursion that began Aug. 6, officials said Sunday.
The bridge attacks, apparently aimed at thwarting a Russian counter-push in Kursk, could mean that Kyiv intends to seek a foothold in the region.
Pro-Kremlin military bloggers acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge on the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo will impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces repelling Ukraine’s incursion, although Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges. Ukraine’s air force chief, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, on Friday released a video of an airstrike that cut the bridge in two.
Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops hit a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and Russian regional Gov. Alexei Smirnov.
As of Sunday morning, there were no officials giving the exact location of the second bridge attack. But Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Seim, in the village of Zvannoe, had been struck.
According to Russia’s Mash news site, the attacks left only one intact bridge in the area. The Associated Press could not immediately verify these claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian strikes would further complicate Moscow’s attempts to replenish its forces in Kursk and evacuate civilians.
Glushkovo is about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) north of the Ukrainian border, and approximately 16 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of the main battle zone in Kursk. Zvannoe is located another 8 kilometers (5 miles) to the northwest.
Ukraine could try to hold the ground it has seized
Kyiv has said little about the scope and goals of its push into Russia with tanks and other armored vehicles, the largest attack on the country since World War II, which took the Kremlin by surprise and saw scores of villages and hundreds of prisoners fall into Ukrainian hands.
The Ukrainians drove deep into the Kursk region in several directions, facing little resistance and sowing chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians fled the area. Ukraine’s Commander in Chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of the region, although it was not possible to independently verify what exactly Ukrainian forces effectively control.
Analysts say that although Ukraine could try to consolidate its gains inside Russia, it would be risky, given Kyiv’s limited resources, because its own supply lines extending deep into Kursk would be vulnerable.
The incursion has proven Ukraine’s ability to seize the initiative and has boosted its morale, which was sapped by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of grinding Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region.
The move into Kursk resembled Ukraine’s lightning operation from September 2022, led by Syrskyi, in which its forces reclaimed control of the northeastern Kharkiv region after taking advantage of Russian manpower shortages and a lack of field fortifications.
Zelensky seeks permission to strike deeper into Russia
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Kyiv’s allies to lift the remaining restrictions on using Western weapons to attack targets deeper in Russia, including in Kursk, saying his troops could deprive Moscow “of any ability to advance and cause destruction” if granted sufficient long-range capabilities.
“It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that hinder us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war demands. … The bravery of our soldiers and the resilience of our combat brigades compensate for the lack of essential decisions from our partners,” Zelensky said in a post on the social platform X.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers have alleged that US-made HIMARS launchers have been used to destroy bridges on the Seim. These claims could not be independently verified.
Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly sought authorization for long-range strikes on Russian air bases and other infrastructure used to pummel Ukraine’s energy facilities and other civilian targets, including with retrofitted Soviet-era “glide bombs” that have laid waste to Ukraine’s industrial east in recent months.
Moscow also appears to have increased attacks on Kyiv, targeting it Sunday with ballistic missiles for a third time this month, according to the head of the municipal military administration. Serhii Popko said in a Telegram post that the “almost identical” August strikes on the capital “most likely used” KN-23 missiles supplied by North Korea.
Another attempt to target Kyiv followed at about 7 a.m. Popko said, this time with Iskander cruise missiles. Ukrainian air defenses struck down all the missiles fired in both attacks on the city, he said.
Fears mount for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
In a separate development, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said Saturday that the safety situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is deteriorating following reports of a nearby drone strike.
Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged “maximum restraint from all sides” after an IAEA team stationed in the plant reported that an explosive carried by a drone detonated just outside its protected area.
According to Grossi’s statement, the impact was “close to the essential water sprinkle ponds” and about 100 meters (100 yards) from the only power line supplying the plant. The IAEA team at the plant has reported intense military activity in the surrounding area in the past week, it said.
Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame for attacks in the vicinity of the power plant since it was captured by Russian forces early in the 2022 invasion, including a fire at the facility last weekend. Grossi’s statement said the blaze had caused “considerable damage,” but posed no immediate danger to nuclear safety.
Ukraine has repeatedly alleged that Russia plans to stage an attack and blame Ukrainian forces. Last summer, Zelensky warned of possible explosives he said Moscow may have planted on the plant’s roof to blackmail Ukraine.
Belarus says it’s deploying more troops on Ukraine border
Russian ally Belarus has massed “nearly a third” of its army along its border with Ukraine, according to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Lukashenko told Russian state TV that Minsk was responding to the deployment of more than 120,000 Ukrainian troops to the 1,084-kilometer (674 mile) frontier. Belarus’ professional army numbers upwards of 60,000.
Ukrainian border force spokesman Andrii Demchenko said Sunday it had not observed any sign of a Belarusian buildup.
Lukashenko, in power for three decades, has relied on Russian support to suppress the biggest protests in Belarus’ post-Soviet history after his 2020 reelection, widely seen as a sham both at home and abroad. He allowed Russian troops to use Belarus’ territory to invade Ukraine and let Moscow deploy some tactical nuclear weapons on its soil.
Pro-Palestinian delegates to Democratic convention to push for Israel arms embargo
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- Some 40,000 protesters are expected to gather outside the convention on Monday to demonstrate against the Biden administration’s position on Israel
CHICAGO: Dozens of Muslim delegates and their allies, angry at US support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, are seeking changes in the Democratic platform and plan to press for an arms embargo this week, putting the party on guard for disruptions to high-profile speeches at its national convention in Chicago.
Calling itself “Delegates Against Genocide,” the pro-Palestinian group says it will exercise its freedom of speech rights during main events at the four-day Democratic National Convention convening on Monday to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the Nov. 5 election against Republican former President Donald Trump.
Group organizers declined to give details, but said they were encouraging supporters to wear Palestinian keffiyehs, or scarves, and to carry Palestinian flags, and would seek changes in the party platform, while urging delegates to speak on the convention floor.
President Joe Biden is due to speak on Monday and Harris on Thursday.
Pro-Palestinian delegates say they deserve a bigger role in the writing of the party platform.
The group wants to include language backing enforcement of laws that ban giving military aid to individuals or security forces that commit gross violations of human rights.
“We’re going to make our voices heard,” said Liano Sharon, a Jewish business consultant and delegate who signed an alternative platform along with 34 other delegates. “Freedom of expression necessarily includes the right to stand up and be heard even when the authority in the room says to shut up.”
“They want the convention to go smoothly. They don’t want to have any kind of disruption or any kind of statement or anything like that,” he told Reuters at an event hosted by Chicago’s large Palestinian population. “I’m sorry. A convention is a political engagement vehicle, okay? And if we’re not using it for that, then it’s just a beauty pageant.”
The Harris campaign declined to comment.
BIDEN SEEKS A CEASEFIRE
The party’s draft platform released in mid-July calls for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire” in the war and the release of remaining hostages taken to Gaza during an Oct. 7 attack by Islamist militant Hamas fighters in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed.
The platform does not mention the more than 40,000 people that Palestinian health authorities in Gaza say have been killed in Israel’s subsequent offensive. Nor does it mention any plans to curtail US arms shipments to Israel.
The United States approved $20 billion in additional arms sales to Israel on Tuesday.
Mediators including the US have sought to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, based on a plan Biden put forward in May but so far have not succeeded.
The Israel-Hamas war, now in its 11th month, reduced support for Democrats among Muslim and Arab-American voters, who represent crucial votes in election battleground states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
While the activists make up a tiny fraction of convention delegates, disruptions inside the hall and large protests outside could mar the party’s plan to unify Democrats around Harris after Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 under pressure from fellow Democrats.
’I WILL NOT BE SILENT,’ HARRIS SAYS
Pro-Palestinian activists say Harris has been more sympathetic to Gazans than Biden has been. Her national security adviser said on X this month that she does not support an arms embargo on Israel.
But after meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Harris told reporters not only that Israel had a right to defend itself but also in reference to Gaza: “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”
Some 40,000 protesters are expected to gather outside the convention on Monday to demonstrate against the Biden administration’s position on Israel. Organizers say the number could swell to over 100,000.
Nadia Ahmad, a law professor at Florida’s Barry University and a delegate, said there were about 60 Muslim delegates, a fraction of the 5,000 overall. But their concerns were shared by others, especially young voters, some of whom have disengaged with the party, she said.
The Uncommitted National Movement, a separate effort pushing Democrats to change policy on Israel that won over 30 delegates in primary elections, also wants an arms embargo.
It has focused, unsuccessfully so far, on winning a main-stage speaking slot for a Palestinian American or Gaza humanitarian worker, although organizers agreed on Saturday to add a daytime panel discussion on Arab and Palestinian issues to Monday’s agenda and one on antisemitism. Jewish Americans, traditionally Democratic voters, have voiced concern about rising anti-Jewish activity and Muslims have denounced rising American Islamophobia.
Layla Elabed, the Uncommitted National co-chair, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Muslim ally of Biden’s, and a doctor who has worked on the Gaza frontlines will be among speakers on the first panel, sources said.
Uncommitted, which said it is not planning to disrupt the convention proceedings, is pressing Harris to make a statement about the use of US weapons to kill Palestinians.
Putin arrives in Azerbaijan for state visit
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- Putin is due to hold talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on bilateral relations and “international and regional problems,” the Kremlin said
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on Sunday for a two-day state visit, Russian news agencies reported.
Russian television broadcast images of the Russian president’s plane as it arrived in Baku in the evening.
His visit to the Caucasus country, a close partner of both Moscow and Turkiye but also a major energy supplier to Western countries, comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented Ukrainian military offensive on Russian soil.
Putin is due to hold talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on bilateral relations and “international and regional problems,” the Kremlin said.
The two leaders are dining Sunday evening at the Azerbaijani president’s official residence, local official news agency Asertac said.
On Monday, Aliyev and Putin will sign joint documents and make statements to the press, said Russian agency Ria Novosti.
Putin will also lay a wreath on the tomb of Heydar Aliyev, father of the current leader, who was president from 1993 to 2003.
Earlier, the Kremlin said they would also discuss “the question of settling (the conflict) between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
Azerbaijan reconquered the mountainous enclave in September 2023 from the Armenian separatists who had held it for three decades.
Armenia accused Russia of inadequate support in its conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Since then, Armenia has sought to deepen its ties with Western countries, especially the United States, much to the annoyance of Moscow, which considers both former Soviet republics to be in its sphere of influence.
Azerbaijan is a major producer of natural gas, to whom many European countries turned to make up for the sharp reduction in Russian deliveries after the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022.
It is also hosting the COP29 climate conference in November.
Putin’s last visit to Azerbaijan was in September 2018.
Putin has been under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court since March 2023 for the “deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia, an accusation the Kremlin denies.
While the threat of arrest has limited Putin’s travels abroad, Azerbaijan is not a signatory to the Rome Statute treaty that established the ICC.