World
As conditions for Syrians worsen, aid organizations struggle to catch the world’s attention again
Six months after she got the call informing her that her U.N. assistance would be cut, Najwa al-Jassem is struggling to feed her four children and pay rent for their tent in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley.
She once received food rations and cash that covered most of their modest monthly expenses. The family now only gets the equivalent of $20 a month, which just covers the rent for their cramped tent.
Her husband gets only sporadic day labor and "my kids are too young for me to send them to work the fields," she told The Associated Press in the camp near the town of Bar Elias. "We're eating one meal a day."
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Aid agencies will struggle to draw the world's attention back to the plight of Syrians like al-Jassem on Wednesday at an annual donor conference hosted by the European Union in Brussels for humanitarian aid to respond to the Syrian crisis.
Funding from the two-day conference will also go toward providing aid to Syrians within the war-torn country and to some 5.7 million Syrian refugees living in neighboring countries, particularly Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
This year, organizers aim to raise some $11.2 billion, though humanitarian officials acknowledged that pledges will likely fall short.
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On Tuesday, a day before the conference, the World Food Program announced that it was faced with an "unprecedented funding crisis" and would cut aid to 2.5 million out of the 5.5 million people in Syria who had been receiving food assistance.
The conference comes as Syria's protracted uprising-turned-civil-conflict has entered its 13th year, and after a deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked large swaths of Syria in February, further compounding its misery. The World Bank estimated over $5 billion in damage s, as the quake destroyed homes and hospitals and further crippled Syria's poor power and water infrastructure.
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It also comes at a politically precarious time for refugees living in neighboring countries. Syrian President Bashar Assad recently received a major political lifeline with the return of Damascus to the Arab League, and Syria's neighbors have, in return, called for a mass repatriation of refugees.
Anti-refugee rhetoric has surged in neighboring Lebanon and Turkey, both dealing with economic and political crises.
In Lebanon, where officials have put the blame for the country's economic crisis onto the country's estimated 1.5 million refugees, authorities have imposed curfews on refugees and restricted their ability to rent homes. Rights groups have said the Lebanese military has deported hundreds of Syrian refugees in recent months.
In Turkey, where Syrians were once welcomed with compassion, repatriation of the roughly 3.7 million refugees became a top theme in last month's presidential and parliamentary elections, which ended in a new term for incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Also Read:Arab League poised to vote on restoring Syria membership
Erdogan's government for years defended its open-door policy, but has in recent years been building housing developments in areas of northwestern Syria controlled by Ankara-backed Syrian opposition groups, with the stated aim of encouraging refugee returns. Ankara and Damascus have also been holding talks in Moscow to improve strained relations.
The government has also carried out sporadic forcible deportations, while Erdogan's challengers took a harder line, vowing to deport refugees en masse.
While some Syrian refugees have voluntarily returned from Turkey and Lebanon, most say the situation is too volatile.
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At the camp in Lebanon, Fteim Al-Janoud struggled to hold back her tears as she talked about how she and her husband can only afford to send one of her six children to school. But the refugee from Syria's northern Aleppo province said the situation there is even worse, both in terms of security and material concerns.
"If the conditions were good and if our homes were fixed so we could live peacefully and comfortably, we wouldn't have a problem going back to Syria, even with Assad still there," she said.
Despite the deteriorating situation for Syrians, aid has dwindled in recent years, as donors rushed to support over 5 million Ukrainian refugees and over 7 million internally displaced in the conflict-hit European country. The war in Ukraine, a global bread basket, also sparked a food inflation surge on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic that rocked the global economy for years.
Also Read: As Assad returns to Arab fold, Syrians watch with hope, fear
"We see needs are increasing, and we also see that that donor funding is gradually going down," said Ivo Freijsen, the U.N. refugee agency's representative to Lebanon, where some 90% of refugees live in extreme poverty and are dependent on aid.
"From a humanitarian point of view, it means that more people will be suffering," he said. "We need to be seeking to see funding levels stay at the same level and actually increase."
At last year's conference in Brussels, donors pledged $6.7 billion, falling billions short of the U.N.'s $10.5 billion appeal, split almost evenly to assist Syrians inside the war-torn country and refugees. The funding shortage forced hospitals in opposition-held northwestern Syria to cut back services, while the U.N. World Food Program cut the size of its monthly rations for the more than 1 million people it serves in that area.
"We know that Ukraine has taken a big toll," said U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon Imran Riza. "We know that Sudan has now become also quite a priority. It's a difficult time and it's a time that's also following COVID and everything else that happened that hit economies so hard across the globe."
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Given those difficulties, he said international donors need to "move towards much more sustainable interventions" rather than remaining in crisis mode.
At the camp in the Bekaa Valley, Al-Jassem says she's struggling to cope with mounting debts she and her husband have to cover unpaid rent and medical expenses.
But she's more worried about the well-being of her children, who have lived their entire lives in a refugee camp in worsening conditions.
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"The kids sometimes go to school without having breakfast," she explained. "Their teacher would sometimes call me and ask why they didn't bring a sandwich with them, and I would say it's because I have nothing in the pantry."
Greece: 32 migrants dead, more than 100 rescued after fishing vessel capsizes
At least 32 people have died off the coast of southern Greece after a fishing boat carrying dozens of migrants capsized and sank, authorities said Wednesday.
A large search and rescue operation was launched in the area. Authorities said 104 people have been rescued so far following the nighttime incident some 75 kilometers (46 miles) southwest of Greece's southern Peloponnese region.
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Four of the survivors were hospitalized with symptoms of hypothermia. It was unclear how many passengers might remain missing at sea after the 32 bodies were recovered, the Greek coast guard said.
Six coast guard vessels, a navy frigate, a military transport plane, an air force helicopter, several private vessels and a drone from the European Union border protection agency, Frontex, were taking part in the ongoing search.
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The Italy-bound boat is believed to have sailed from the Tobruk area in eastern Libya. The Italian coast guard first alerted Greek authorities and Frontex about the approaching vessel on Tuesday.
Smugglers are increasingly taking larger boats into international waters off the Greek mainland to try to avoid local coast guard patrols.
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On Sunday, 90 migrants on a U.S.-flagged yacht were rescued in the area after they made a distress call.
Separately Wednesday, a yacht with 81 migrants on board was towed to a port on the south coast of Greece's island of Crete after authorities received a distress call.
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110 million people forcibly displaced as Sudan, Ukraine wars add to world refugee crisis, UN says
Some 110 million people have had to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution, or human rights violations, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says. The war in Sudan, which has displaced nearly 2 million people since April, is but the latest in a long list of crises that has led to the record-breaking figure.
"It's quite an indictment on the state of our world," Filippo Grandi, who leads the U.N. refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva ahead of the publication Wednesday of UNHCR's Global Trends Report for 2022.
Also Read: Record 108.4 mln people forcibly displaced by end of 2022: UNHCR
Last year alone, an additional 19 million people were forcibly displaced including more than 11 million who fled Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what became the fastest and largest displacement of people since World War II.
"We are constantly confronted with emergencies," Grandi said. Last year the agency recorded 35 emergencies, three to four times more than in previous years. "Very few make your headlines," Grandi added, arguing that the war in Sudan fell off most front pages after Western citizens were evacuated.
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Conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Myanmar were also responsible for displacing more than 1 million people within each country in 2022.
The majority of the displaced globally have sought refuge within their nation's borders. One-third of them - 35 million - have fled to other countries, making them refugees, according to the UNHCR report. Most refugees are hosted by low to middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, not rich countries in Europe or North America, Grandi said.
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Turkey currently hosts the most refugees with 3.8 million people, mostly Syrians who fled the civil war, followed by Iran with 3.4 million refugees, mostly Afghans. But there are also 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees scattered across countries in Europe and beyond. The number of stateless people has also risen in 2022 to 4.4 million, according to UNHCR data, but this is believed to be an underestimate.
Also Read: Thousands of exhausted South Sudanese head home, fleeing brutal conflict
Regarding asylum claims, the U.S. was the country to receive the most new applications in 2022 with 730,400 claims. It's also the nation with the largest backlog in its asylum system, Grandi said.
"One of the things that needs to be done is reforming that asylum system so that it becomes more rapid, more efficient," he said.
The United States, Spain and Canada recently announced plans to create asylum processing centers in Latin America with the goal of reducing the number of people who trek their way north to the Mexico-U.S. border.
Also Read: UN: Sudan conflict displaces over 1.3 million, including some 320K to neighboring countries
As the number of asylum-seekers grows, so have the challenges facing them. "We see pushbacks. We see tougher and tougher immigration or refugee admission rules. We see in many countries the criminalization of immigrants and refugees, blaming them for everything that has happened," Grandi said.
Also Read: War in Ukraine, disasters left 71mn people internally displaced in 2022: Report
Last week European leaders renewed financial promises to North African nations in the hopes of stemming migration across the Mediterranean while the British government insists on a so-far failed plan to ship asylum-seekers to Rwanda, something UNHCR is opposed to. But there were also some wins, Grandi said, pointing to what he described as a positive sign in the European Union's negotiations for a new migration and asylum pact, despite criticism from human rights groups.
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Grandi also celebrated the fact that the number of refugees resettled in 2022 doubled to 114,000 from the previous year. But he admitted this was "still a drop in the ocean."
Chinese navy ship pays port call to Philippines in goodwill tour of region
A Chinese navy training ship with hundreds of cadets made a port call in the Philippines on Wednesday, its final stop on a goodwill tour of four countries as Beijing looks to mend fences in the region.
Cadets in dress whites stood at attention on deck of the Qi Jiguang as they were welcomed at the port in Manila by Philippine military officials on shore, while artists in dragon costumes performed a traditional dance and onlookers waved Chinese and Philippine flags.
China's ambassador to the Philippines was on hand for the ceremony but neither he nor any of the Philippine officials made any comment to the media.
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It was a rare visit for a Chinese naval ship to the Philippines, whose new government under Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been strengthening ties with the United States, including more joint military exercises and in February granting the American military greater access to the country's military facilities.
China, meantime, has become increasingly assertive in pressing its broad claims to the strategic South China Sea, which has put it at odds with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.
In February, a Chinese coast guard ship aimed a military-grade laser at a Philippine patrol vessel off a disputed reef, temporarily blinding some crew members and prompting the Philippines to intensify its patrols in the South China Sea.
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The ship's visit comes a week after joint U.S., Japanese and Philippine coast guard law enforcement drills in the area.
President Joe Biden's administration has been broadly working to reinforce alliances in the Indo-Pacific to push back against China's sweeping maritime claims, including threats against the self-governing island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.
The largest naval training ship of China's People's Liberation Army Navy, the Qi Jiguang was to be in port for three days. It was the end of a nearly 40-day voyage for 476 naval cadets and sailors from China's well-known Dalian Naval Academy.
When it set off in mid-May, there was no mention of the various territorial disputes China is embroiled in, with official media reporting it as an opportunity for the cadets to visit foreign military vessels, academies and training facilities, and help "deepen the friendship with local people."
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Only members of the Chinese-Filipino community were allowed to board the Qi Jiguang on Wednesday, but the ship was to be opened to the broader public on Thursday and Friday.
Yong Ning Cai, a Chinese-Chinese businessman who was on the pier to watch the Qi Jiguang's arrival, was one of those allowed to board the ship and said he was impressed by its "advanced and high-end" equipment.
"This is a ship of our motherland and it is built very well, better than those in other countries," he said. "This visit is very successful and will definitely promote the friendship between China and the Philippines."
Russian missile strike in Ukraine's south, shelling in east kill at least 6 people
Russian forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa overnight and shelling destroyed homes in the eastern Donetsk region early Wednesday, killing at least six people and injuring more than a dozen others, regional officials said.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said Russian forces have stepped up aerial strikes in their more than 15-month war against Ukraine, just as the country's troops have reported limited gains in an early counteroffensive.
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In the east, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Telegram that at least three people died after shelling destroyed seven homes and damaged dozens more in the cities of Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka.
In Odesa, three employees of a food warehouse were killed and seven others injured in a strike that damaged homes, a warehouse, shops and cafes downtown, he regional administration said on Facebook. Another six people — guards and residents of a neighboring house — were injured.
Searchers were looking for possible survivors under the rubble, it said.
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The attack on the port city, launched from the Black Sea, involved four Kalibr cruise missiles, three of which were intercepted by air defenses, the administration said.
Andriy Kovalov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's General Staff, said Russian forces have increased missile and aerial strikes on Ukraine.
In a briefing, he said strikes on the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kirovohrad regions, in addition to the Odesa region, involved Kh-22 cruise missiles, sea-launched Kalibr cruise missiles, and Iranian-made Shahed drones. Nine were intercepted.
Kovalov said Ukrainian forces made advances on several fronts of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, and fighting was continuing in or near at least two settlements in the eastern Donetsk region. Russia has occupied and controls nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Also Read: Top UN court allows a record 32 countries to intervene in Ukraine's genocide case against Russia
Britain's Ministry of Defense, which has regularly issued updates on the conflict, wrote on Twitter that southern Ukraine "has often been more permissible for Russian air operations" compared with other parts of the front.
Separately, the mayor of the central city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown, said the death toll from a Russian strike a day earlier that hit an apartment building had risen to 12.
At least 9 killed in ethnic clashes in India's northeast, where 100 have died in month of violence
Rival ethnic groups fired at each other in fresh violence in India's remote northeast that left at least nine people dead and some injured, officials said Wednesday.
Security forces rushed to Khamenlok village in Manipur state's Kangpokpi district after clashes broke out Tuesday night between the Kuki and Meitei communities, said L. Sushindro, a state government minister.
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Police found nine bodies early Wednesday, a police officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Three people have been reported missing, the officer said.
At least 100 people have been killed in severe ethnic clashes in Manipur state since May 3, and thousands of homes have been burned and shops and businesses vandalized.
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Authorities have moved nearly 40,000 people from troubled areas to safer places.
India's Home Minister Amit Shah visited the state early this month and met community leaders to restore peace.
The violence started last month after protests by more than 50,000 Kukis and members of other predominantly Christian tribal communities in Churachandpur and adjoining districts in Manipur state.
Also Read: FM visiting India to attend G20 development ministers' meeting
They oppose the majority Meitei Hindu community's demand for a special status that would give them benefits including the right to farm on forest land, cheap bank loans, and health and educational facilities, as well as a specified quota of government jobs.
Minority hill community leaders say the Meitei community is comparatively well-off and that granting them more privileges would be unfair.
The Meiteis say employment quotas and other benefits for tribespeople would be protected.
Two-thirds of the state's 2.5 million people live in a valley that comprises roughly 10% of the state's total area. The Meiteis are Hindus while rival groups, including the Kuki and other tribes, are mostly Christian and mainly live in the surrounding hill districts. Ethnic Muslims constitute about 8% of the state population.
At least 103 wedding guests killed when boat capsizes in northern Nigeria
A boat returning from a wedding capsized in northern Nigeria, killing at least 103 people, including children, officials said Tuesday.
Residents and police were still searching for dozens of people who were on the overcrowded boat that capsized early Monday on the Niger River in the Pategi district of Kwara state, which is 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Ilorin, the state capital, according to police spokesman Okasanmi Ajayi. He said 100 people had been rescued so far.
Most of those who drowned were relatives from several villages who attended the wedding together and partied late into the night, according to Abdul Gana Lukpada, a local chief. They arrived at the ceremony on motorcycles but had to leave on the locally made boat after a downpour flooded the road, he said.
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“The boat was overloaded and close to 300 persons were in it. While they were coming, the boat hit a big log inside the water and split into two,” said Lukpada.
The wedding was held in the village of Egboti in the neighboring Niger state, said Usman Ibrahim, a resident. Because the accident happened at 3 a.m., it was hours before many people knew what had happened, he said.
As the passengers drowned, villagers nearby rushed to the scene and managed to rescue about 50 at first, Lukpada said, describing early efforts to rescue the passengers as slow and “very difficult.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, officials and locals were still searching for more bodies in the river, which is one of Nigeria’s largest. Police spokesman Ajayi said the rescue operation would continue through the night until Wednesday.
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Locals said it was the deadliest boat accident they have seen in many years.
By Tuesday evening, all of the bodies recovered so far had been buried, most near the river, in accordance with local customs, Lukpada said.
Kwara Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s office issued a statement expressing sadness for the families of those killed and saying that he “continues to monitor the rescue efforts already mounted since Monday night in search of possible survivors.”
Boat accidents are common in many remote communities across Nigeria where locally made vessels are commonly used for transport. Most accidents are attributed to overloading and the use of poorly maintained boats.
Nottingham police say man fatally stabbed 3, stole van and ran down 3 more in English city
A knife-wielding assailant stabbed two college students to death in the streets of the English city of Nottingham and then fatally stabbed a middle-aged man, stole his van and ran down three pedestrians in a shocking rampage early Tuesday morning, police said.
Police arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of murder. The Nottinghamshire Police force said investigators believe the perpetrator acted alone and detectives were working with counterterrorism officers to try to establish a motive.
“This is a horrific and tragic incident which has claimed the lives of three people,” Chief Constable Kate Meynell said.
A man who was among the people struck in the hit-and-run was hospitalized in critical condition. The dead included two 19-year-old students from the University of Nottingham.
“All of us at Nottingham are deeply shocked and saddened by the deaths of two of our students," Vice Chancellor Shearer West said in a statement.
A graduation ball scheduled for Tuesday evening was canceled. Many college students joined a vigil at St. Peter's Church, in the city center, late Tuesday to mourn the victims. Some lit candles, while others laid flowers beneath the altar.
The knife attack on the students occurred around dawn in an area near student housing a short walk from the university’s Jubilee Campus. A caller reported that two stabbing victims were lying in the street.
Police think the attacker then killed a man in his 50s and took his van, Meynell said. His body was found on a different street more than a mile from the first crime scene.
About 90 minutes after the initial attack, witnesses were horrified as they watched the van plow into pedestrians and flee.
Lynn Haggitt was on her way to work when a white van pulled up beside her at 5:30 a.m. She saw the driver look in his mirror and spot a police car approaching slowly from behind without its emergency lights on. The driver then accelerated and struck a man and woman at a street corner, she said.
“He went straight into them. He didn’t even bother to turn," Haggitt told reporters. “The woman went on the curb, the man went up in the air, there was such a bang, I wish I never saw it. It’s really shaken me up."
The driver then sped through the city center with police on his tail, she added.
Haggitt said the wounded man appeared to have a head injury but was helped to his feet. The woman was sitting on the curb and appeared to be OK. A third pedestrian was struck on the same street, police said.
Two of the hit-and-run victims had minor injuries, Meynell said.
“We believe these three incidents are all linked, and we have a man in custody,” the police chief said. “We are keeping an open mind as we investigate the circumstances surrounding these incidents and are working alongside Counter Terrorism Policing to establish the facts, as we would normally do in these types of circumstances.”
After stopping the van, officers subdued the suspect with a Taser before detaining him.
University of Nottingham student Kane Brady said he awoke to loud shouts of “armed police” and heard what sounded like a gunshot outside.
He said he saw officers holding stun guns and a man being dragged out of the van and pinned on the ground.
“I saw him getting arrested, him trying to resist," Brady told British broadcaster GB News. “When they opened the van, I saw a large knife being pulled out and then straight away, that’s when police closed off both roads.”
Photos showed the hood of the van dented and cracks in the windshield.
Also read: Police constable dies from gunshot in city: Colleagues
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called it a shocking incident and asked that police be given time to investigate the crime.
“My thoughts are with those injured, and the family and loved ones of those who have lost their lives,” Sunak said.
Nottingham is a city of about 350,000 people some 110 miles (175 kilometers) north of London.
Images on social media showed police, some with rifles, standing near cordons at several locations in the city center.
Also read: Russia fires 30 cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets; Ukraine says 29 were shot down
The city’s tram network said it suspended all services._
Trump pleads not guilty to federal charges that he illegally kept classified documents
Donald Trump became the first former president to face a judge on federal charges as he pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom Tuesday to dozens of felony counts accusing him of hoarding classified documents and refusing government demands to give them back.
The history-making court date, centered on charges that Trump mishandled government secrets that as commander-in-chief he was entrusted to protect, kickstarts a legal process that will unfold at the height of the 2024 presidential campaign and carry profound consequences not only for his political future but also for his own personal liberty.
Trump approached his arraignment with characteristic bravado, posting social media broadsides against the prosecution from inside his motorcade en route to the courthouse and insisting — as he has through years of legal woes — that he has done nothing wrong and was being persecuted for political purposes. But inside the courtroom, he sat silently, scowling and arms crossed, as a lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in a brief arraignment that ended without him having to surrender his passport or otherwise restrict his travel.
The arraignment, though largely procedural in nature, was the latest in an unprecedented reckoning this year for Trump, who faces charges in New York arising from hush money payments during his 2016 presidential campaign as well as ongoing investigations in Washington and Atlanta into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 race.
Also read:Trump arrives in Florida as history-making court appearance approaches in classified documents case
Always in campaign mode, he swiftly pivoted from the solemn courtroom to a festive restaurant, stopping on his way out of Miami at Versailles, an iconic Cuban spot in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood where supporters serenaded Trump, who turns 77 on Wednesday, with “Happy Birthday.” The back-to-back events highlight the tension for Trump in the months ahead as he balances the pageantry of campaigning with courtroom stops accompanying his status as a twice-indicted criminal defendant.
Yet the gravity of the moment was unmistakable.
Until last week, no former president had ever been charged by the Justice Department, let alone accused of mishandling top-secret information. The indictment unsealed last week charged Trump with 37 felony counts — many under the Espionage Act — that accuse him of illegally storing classified documents in his bedroom, bathroom, shower and other locations at Mar-a-Lago and trying to hide them from the Justice Department as investigators demanded them back. The charges carry a yearslong prison sentence in the event of a conviction.
Also read: Trump indicted in classified documents case in a historic first for a former president
Trump has relied on a familiar playbook of painting himself as a victim of political persecution. He attacked the Justice Department special counsel who filed the case as a “thug” and “deranged,” pledged to remain in the race no matter what and addressed supporters Tuesday night at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, where he delivered a roughly half-hour speech full of repeated falsehoods and incendiary rhetoric and threatened to go after President Joe Biden and his family if elected.
“The seal is broken by what they’ve done. They should never have done this,” Trump said of the indictment.
But Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sought to insulate the department from political attacks by handing ownership of the case last November to a special counsel, Jack Smith, who on Friday declared, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”
Smith attended Tuesday’s arraignment, sitting in the front row behind his team of prosecutors.
The court appearance unfolded against angst over potential protests, with some high-profile backers using barbed rhetoric to voice support. Though city officials said they prepared for possible unrest, there were few signs of significant disruption.
Trump didn’t say a word during the court appearance, other than to occasionally turn and whisper to his attorneys who were seated on either side of him. He fiddled with a pen and clasped his hands on the table in front of him as the lawyers and the judge debated the conditions of his release.
While he was not required to surrender a passport — prosecutors said he was not considered a flight risk — the magistrate judge presiding over the arraignment directed Trump to not discuss the case with certain witnesses. That includes Walt Nauta, his valet who was indicted last week on charges that he moved boxes of documents at Trump’s direction and misled the FBI about it.
Nauta did not enter a plea Tuesday because he did not have a local lawyer with him.
Trump attorney Todd Blanche objected to the idea of imposing restrictions on the former president’s contact with possible witnesses, noting they include many people close to Trump, including staff and members of his protection detail.
“Many of the people he interacts with on a daily basis — including the men and women who protect him — are potential witnesses in this case,” Blanche said.
Trump, who has repeatedly insisted that he did nothing wrong, showed no emotion as he was led by law enforcement out of the courtroom through a side door.
Even for a man whose presidency and post-White House life have been defined by criminal investigations, the documents probe had long stood out both because of the volume of evidence that prosecutors had seemed to amass and the severity of the allegations.
A federal grand jury in Washington had heard testimony for months, but the Justice Department filed the case in Florida, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is located and where many of the alleged acts of obstruction occurred.
Though Trump appeared Tuesday before a federal magistrate, the case has been assigned to a District Court judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, who ruled in his favor last year in a dispute over whether an outside special master could be appointed to review the seized classified documents. A federal appeals panel ultimately overturned her ruling.
It’s unclear what defenses Trump is likely to invoke as the case moves forward. Two of his lead lawyers announced their resignation the morning after his indictment, and the notes and recollections of another attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, are cited repeatedly throughout the 49-page charging document, suggesting prosecutors envision him as a potential key witness.
The indictment Friday accuses Trump of illegally retaining national security documents that he took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in January 2021. The documents he stored, prosecutors say, included material on nuclear programs, defense and weapons capabilities of the U.S. and foreign governments and a Pentagon “attack plan,” prosecutors say. He is accused of showing off some to people who didn't have security clearances to view them.
Beyond that, according to the indictment, he repeatedly sought to obstruct government efforts to recover the documents, including by directing Nauta to move boxes and also suggesting to his own lawyer that he hide or destroy documents sought by a Justice Department subpoena.
IFAD president visits India to advocate for small-scale farmers, rural communities at G20 meeting
Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), will attend the G20 Agriculture Ministers’ meeting in Hyderabad from 15-17 June to advocate for increased support for small-scale farmers and poor rural communities. His call for greater investment in rural people echoes the recognition of G7 leaders that we urgently need more support for sustainable and resilient agriculture and food systems in response to a worsening global food crisis (outlined in their recent Hiroshima Action Statement).
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Lario will share IFAD’s vision for development with G20 leaders and make the case for investing in rural communities as the most cost-effective way to improve global food security and support global stability. While in India, he will also meet Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar. India is an important partner for IFAD, and IFAD has worked in and with India for more than 40 years.
India and IFAD share a commitment to achieve global food security and improved nutrition. India has progressed from food aid dependency to becoming a consistent, net exporter of food, a trajectory holding valuable lessons for other low- and middle-income countries. Under India’s leadership, the G20 is a critical forum to increase investments in small-scale farmers, which will help them adapt to climate change, implement new practices and access markets, technologies and financial services. The partnership between IFAD and India has shown how such investments can transform the lives of millions of rural women, men and children.
Also read: IFAD, Bangladesh end loan negotiation for Tk 7,214cr project to transform agriculture
G7 leaders identified IFAD as a key player for global food security, expressing support to the Fund’s action towards small-scale farmers to strengthen local food production, meet local and regional food demand, build markets and reduce food loss. IFAD supports small-scale farmers and rural communities to be better able to boost local food production, adapt to climate change and build solid, reliable and pro-poor food supply chains. Between 2019 and 2021, IFAD investments raised the incomes of 77.4 million rural people while improving food security for 57 million people.
Also read: IFAD: Integration of nutrition in all dev interventions sought
Small-scale farmers produce at least one third of the world’s food and up to 70 per cent of the food produced in low- and middle -income countries. They are key to global food security and stability more generally, as hunger and poverty can also fuel forced migration and conflict. They are increasingly impacted by climate change, conflicts and economic volatility. But official development aid (ODA) directed at agriculture has been stagnant at 4 to 6 percent of ODA for at least two decades, and small-scale farmers receive less than 2 percent of global climate finance globally.