Foreign News
Police Arrest 54 for Rioting Near President’s Residence in Sri Lanka
Fifty four people have been arrested in Sri Lanka for rioting outside the president’s residence and damaging state property during a protest against fuel shortages, power cuts and the rising cost of living.
A protest outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence in Mirihana, 14 kilometres south of the capital, turned violent when protestors attacked police with stones.
The protesters also burnt two buses and three motorcycles, Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.
Police and commandos retaliated with teargas and used rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse an estimated 3,000 people involved in the protest.
More than 50 people including 24 police officers were injured in the clashes.
The president’s office said that a group of “organised extremists’’ among the protestors had started the riot and prompted the violence.
Though the protest was the first to be held outside the president’s residence, a string of protests have taken place across the country in recent weeks.
Sri Lanka is currently facing a shortage of fuel for power generation, resulting in daily power cuts lasting about 13 hours.
The country is currently facing a shortage of foreign exchange required for the purchase of fuel, gas and food supplies, prompting the government to seek credit lines from India and China.
More protests are scheduled to take place on Sunday. (dpa/NAN)
Foreign News
Biden Accuses Trump of Using ‘Hitler’s Language in Newspaper Mock-up
U.S. President Joe Biden has accused his predecessor and likely election opponent Donald Trump of using Nazi rhetoric following the publication of a video referencing a “unified Reich.’’
Trump is using “Hitler’s language’’.
That’s not America’s, Biden said in a campaign video released.
In the short clip, the Democrat held a phone in his hand and said, referencing the video, is this on his official account? Wow.
Earlier, on Monday, Trump had shared a video which was later deleted on his social media site Truth Social, showing mocks of newspaper articles that would be written if Trump won the presidential election in November.
Among the bits of text featured was a subheading referring to the creation of a unified Reich.
The term, empire in German, is often associated with the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945.
The word Reich in the video presumably refers to the founding of the German Reich in 1871, with the text being taken from a Wikipedia entry on World War I, according to U.S. media.
The video was created using a ready-made newspaper article mask.
According to the reports, it has also been used in other clips circulating online,.
Other newspaper headlines in the video published on Trump’s platform also make reference to World War I.
Trump’s team later confirmed that the clip had been removed from his account.
A spokeswoman for his campaign team said that “it was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word.’’
Biden also attacked the Republican, who is hoping to return to the White House, at a campaign event in Boston on Tuesday.
The 81-year-old said that “the threat that Trump poses is greater in the second term than it was in the first,’’ according to reporters travelling with him.
He called Trump a little unhinged and accused him of seeking revenge after losing the 2020 presidential election.
Biden and Trump were all but guaranteed to face off on Nov. 5 in a rematch of the 2020 vote.
They both achieved the required number of delegates to be nominated as candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties respectively.
Trump has been using radical rhetoric in his election campaign, including hateful and dehumanising language, as well as making racist statements and inciting hatred against minorities.
The 77-year-old also compared Biden’s government to the Gestapo, the official secret police of Nazi Germany. (dpa/NAN)
Foreign News
France Rejects Recognising Palestinian state at Present
France’s Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné has rejected the idea of recognising Palestine as a state at the moment.
“Our position is clear: recognition of Palestine is not taboo for France,” the minister said on Wednesday after a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz in Paris.
The minister, however, said that decision in favour of the recognition must be beneficial and would be made at the right time.
He said that such a decision should enable decisive progress at the political level.
“It is not just a symbolic question or a question of political positioning, but a diplomatic instrument in the service of a solution with two states living side-by-side in peace and security.
“France does not believe that the conditions have been met to date for this decision to have a real impact on this process,” Séjourné said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Norway, Ireland and Spain said they would recognise Palestine as a state on May 28.
Katz’s visit to Paris followed France’s position in favour of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which chief prosecutor applied for arrest warrants on Monday against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
The Paris Foreign Ministry stated that it supported the ICC, its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations.
After the meeting with Katz, Séjourné wrote on X: “I reaffirmed France’s priorities: immediate release of the hostages, ceasefire, massive humanitarian aid and two states living in peace and security.”
(dpa/NAN)
Foreign News
Iran to Hold Memorial Services for Raisi on Tuesday
Memorial ceremonies for President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian are planned in Iran for Tuesday.
Raisi, Amirabdollahian and seven senior Iranian officials died in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
Local media reported that a ceremony is being planned in the provincial capital of Tabriz in the morning, followed by a ceremony in the religious stronghold and pilgrimage city of Qom.
The date for the funerals of the two statesmen has not yet been announced.
Raisi is to be buried in his hometown of Mashhad.
The helicopter crashed in dense fog on the mountains over East Azerbaijan Province while the deceased were travelling back from a meeting with the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.
(dpa/NAN)