Tehran: Ebrahim Raisi, who became the first Iranian President to visit Damascus after the Syrian war erupted in 2011, said on Friday that the landmark two-day trip was a “turning point” in improving bilateral political, economic, trade and security ties.
Raisi told reporters here following his arrival from Syria that the trip was of great importance for both sides and the region after 12 years of resistance by the Syrian people and government against enemies’ conspiracies and seditious acts, Xinhua news agency reported citing local media.
He noted that Iran appreciates Syria’s resistance against the “tough attacks,” and Tehran’s support in the process made Syria and the region believe that Iran is a “strong pillar” they can trust and rely on.
The two sides are capable of enhancing cooperation regarding economic and trade relations, said the President, noting that they have signed 15 documents on cooperation in the fields of producing and distributing energy, establishing joint banks and insurance companies, reducing trade tariffs, enhancing transit among Iran, Iraq and Syria and reviving Syria’s agricultural, industrial and energy sectors.
Raisi had reached Damascus on Wednesday for extensive political and economic talks with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, with a high-level political and economic delegation.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Islamabad: The record of an important discussion between Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar was leaked wherein the two, along with an assistant, were talking about Pakistan’s ties with the US, reports said on Sunday.
The record of the discussion on crucial foreign policy, which has been named ‘Discord Leaks’, also reveals the Premier’s conversation on the United Nations’ voting on the Ukraine and Russia conflict, Geo News reported, citing the Washington Post.
As per the leaked documents, Khar said that Pakistan should avoid appeasing the West and that the country’s desire to maintain a strategic partnership with the US would sacrifice the full benefits of its original strategic partnership with the long-term friendly nation China, Geo News reported.
“According to one of the leaked documents, Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, argued in March that her country can ‘no longer try to maintain a middle ground between China and the United States,” it cited the US paper as reporting.
During the discussion, an aide advised the Prime Minister that supporting the resolution could jeopardise Pakistan’s trade and energy deals with Russia and would give the impression of a change in Pakistan’s position.
The story by Washington Post, in which the record has been leaked, revolved around the declining support for the US on the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“When the UN General Assembly voted February 23, Pakistan was among 32 countries that abstained,” it noted.
The man who stormed on to Michigan State University’s campus and shot three students to death before killing himself bought the ammunition fired during the attack only a few hours earlier, investigators announced on Thursday.
Additionally, authorities said, the murderer had no personal or professional connection to the school, making his motive a mystery to them, despite his leaving a note which – among other things – complained about feeling rejected and not having sex during the last decade.
Such details were contained in a statement from the police force at the university in East Lansing, Michigan, summarizing what officers have learned about 43-year-old Anthony McRae since he went on campus and killed students Arielle Anderson, Alexandria Verner and Brian Fraser.
The killer loaded at least 13 handgun magazines with 9mm ammunition that he bought shortly before 4.50pm on 13 February. He put one magazine each in two handguns that he bought legally a month apart around the fall of 2021 but never registered, the police’s statement said. He used a Michigan identification as well as a social security card for the purchases, which he could make lawfully once he was discharged from a probation stint that he served after pleading guilty in 2020 to a misdemeanor weapons charge.
In part illustrating how much devastation a gun-wielding intruder can inflict even when not armed with a rifle, officers concluded that McRae fired about 20 times while murdering Anderson, Varner and Fraser as well as critically wounding five others at two separate buildings once he entered Michigan State’s campus at about 8.20pm. He left campus and eluded police until about 11.50pm, when officers found him in the adjacent city of Lansing, minutes after they publicly released a surveillance photo of him and asked for help in tracking him down.
McRae shot himself as police approached and died by suicide, according to authorities, who used spent shell casings to determine how many shots the killer fired. He had a backpack with 10 loaded magazines and nearly 140 rounds of loose ammunition, along with a total of more than 20 rounds in the magazines in his pistols as well as a magazine in his coat’s chest pocket.
Officers found a handwritten note on McRae which was headlined “Why? Why? Why? I’ve been hurt,” according to a copy of the screed that was released in the police’s statement on Thursday. The note claimed that McRae staged the attack in coordination with others, but state and federal investigators have not found any evidence to suggest that was true.
The note also mentioned fatigue at “being rejected” and complained about not having had sex in 10 years. It doesn’t explicitly describe McRae as a believer of the misogynist involuntary celibate – or “incel” – movement, which is primarily online and blames women for proponents’ lack of sexual and social status.
But the rhetoric in the parts of the note certainly calls to mind the movement, which experts have linked to dozens of killings and less lethal attacks in the last decade, including the stabbing and shooting rampage that left six people dead in Santa Barbara, California, in 2014.
Investigators were also careful to note that McRae had not attended Michigan State, had not known anyone at the campus and had not applied to work there in recent history. A relative later told CNN that McRae toward the end of his life had been living either at his father’s home or in local shelters for the unhoused.
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“There is no conclusive motive as to why McRae targeted Michigan State University,” the statement from the school’s police force said.
The murders carried out by McRae came weeks before an intruder with two rifles and a handgun shot three nine-year-old students and three adult staffers to death at a Christian grade school in Nashville, Tennessee, on 27 March. Police shot dead the intruder in that case.
As of Thursday, the killings at Michigan State and Nashville’s Covenant school were among more than 170 mass shootings so far this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive defines a mass shooting as any with four or more victims who are killed or wounded, not including the shooter.
The spate of mass shootings has reignited calls in some quarters for Congress to pass legislation aimed at holding firearms manufacturers liable for violence committed with their products as well as to require background checks for gun-related sales, among other measures.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday told his Chinese counterpart, General Li Shangfu that all issues at the LAC need to be resolved in accordance with existing bilateral agreements, officials said.
In their meet, which came a day before the SCO Defence Ministers meet – which India, as the Chair of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2023, is hosting, the two ministers had frank discussions about developments in the India-China border areas as well as bilateral relations.
During the meet, Rajnath Singh categorically conveyed that development of relations between India and China is premised on prevalence of peace and tranquillity at the borders.
According to the Defence Ministry, he added that all issues at the LAC need to be resolved in accordance with existing bilateral agreements and commitments. He reiterated that violation of existing agreements has eroded the entire basis of bilateral relations and disengagement at the border will logically be followed with de-escalation.
The repeated attempts by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to violate the Line of Actual Control (LAC), leading to tension in Ladakh, had spurred the institution of the Corps Commander-level meetings.
The 18th round of the Corps Commander-level talks was held on Sunday, but was inconclusive as there was noheadway on the contentious issue of the Depsang Plains and de-escalation along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.
While the two sides agreed on mutual withdrawals from Pangong Tso, Gogra, and Hot Springs, the Depsang Plains and Demchok remain points of contention and tension.
Beside his Chinese counterpart, Rajnath Singh also met his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Gharaei Ashtiyani and the meeting took place in a cordial and warm atmosphere. Both the leaders emphasised on the age-old cultural, linguistic, and civilisational ties between the two countries, including people-to-people connect.
Both the Ministers reviewed the bilateral defence cooperation and exchanged views on regional security issues, including peace and stability in Afghanistan. Further, the two Ministers discussed the development of the International North South Transport corridor to ease logistic problems to Afghanistan and other countries in Central Asia.
The Iranian Defence Minister will also attend the SCO meeting on Friday as his country has observer status in the organisation.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken would be the obvious first choice on the American side, but he is currently persona non grata in Beijing for canceling a visit in February after the U.S. shot down China’s alleged spy balloon. He annoyed China further by using a meeting shortly afterward in Munich with China’s top foreign affairs official to publicly warn China not to arm Russia in its Ukraine war.
That’s provided an opening for both Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to become the lead envoy, according to current and former U.S. officials and China experts close to the administration. Both have said they wanted to travel to China, and, unlike Blinken, both have received public invitations from Chinese cabinet agencies. Treasury and Commerce have dispatched officials to Beijing to scout out possible meetings, although neither session is far along in planning. Yellen had expected to go to China in March until the balloon incident put the kibosh on that visit.
The bureaucratic wrangling has been fairly civil thus far by Washington standards, but the Biden administration is eager to tamp down any notion of internal conflict.
“The Administration has been clear about maintaining channels of communication with Beijing to manage competition responsibly,” said National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in a statement. “The engagements Secretary Blinken, Secretary Yellen, Secretary Raimondo and others will have in the coming months will all be a part of that.”
It’s also not as simple as who the U.S. may want to send. Chinese officials are also jostling over who should meet an American emissary, and it’s uncertain whether any of the Americans could score a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, as friction grows between the two superpowers, some wonder if detente is even possible at this point.
“We have left strategic competition behind,” said Christopher K. Johnson, a former CIA China analyst. “We’re in strategic rivalry and are at the risk of careening toward strategic enmity.”
Last November, the two sides looked as if they wanted an accommodation. Biden and Xi met in Bali and, despite their many differences, agreed that the two sides should work together on economic stability, food security, climate and other issues.
But follow-up meetings were scrapped after the balloon saga embarrassed Beijing. Then, China launched military drills around Taiwan after the island’s leader met with Speaker Kevin McCarthy in early April, which outraged Washington.
Since March, the Chinese have sent conflicting signals about their interest in warming ties with the U.S. On the one hand, Chinese leaders have used mainland economic conferences to welcome U.S. business investment. On the other, Beijing has raided an American financial analysis firm in Beijing and slowed merger approvals needed by American companies. Xi accused the U.S. by name — a breach of Chinese etiquette — of “all-round containment, encirclement and suppression.”
There are two strands of thought among the Chinese leadership, said Harvard University’s Graham Allison, a prominent political scientist who recently met with top Chinese leaders in Beijing. “One strand is fatalistic,” he said. “The second strand says, ‘We can’t let things remain this way. We need to get back to Bali, with private conversations about the flashpoints that matter most.’”
The U.S. has tried to pick up on that second strand but hasn’t gotten very far. Meetings of U.S. and Chinese officials are “like being trapped in a bad episode of ‘Seinfeld’ where the ‘Festivus airing of grievances’ is a year-round holiday,” said Johnson, who now heads the political-risk consultancy China Strategies Group.
Administration officials acknowledge Blinken hasn’t had much luck changing that dynamic, but they argue China’s top foreign affairs official, Wang Yi, and others are at least as much at fault for the downward spiral. The Financial Times also recently reported that Chinese officials are worried that the FBI would release a report on the balloon incident if Blinken visited Beijing, once again embarrassing them. Still, the bad vibes have Washington weighing the pros and cons of various potential envoys.
So far, Yellen hasn’t been at the center of China policymaking. The National Security Council plays an outsized role there, with the State Department also having an important voice. But issues fundamental to Treasury — global economic growth, financial sector stability — are among those China wants to discuss with the U.S. even as the two countries tangle over Taiwan, Russia and technology.
There’s also precedent for Yellen taking a lead on China. In the past, Treasury secretaries have played important roles as China envoys. In 1999, the U.S. mistakenly bombed China’s embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo War, igniting protests across China. President Bill Clinton dispatched Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to meet China’s premier in the dusty city of Lanzhou in western China. Summers carried a letter from Clinton pledging to help China join the World Trade Organization. The tactic worked and the two sides soon started negotiating again.
Nine years later, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who had long been friends with Chinese leaders, helped convince Beijing to work closely with President George W. Bush in fighting the global financial crisis. China’s economic officials in turn pressed Paulson to protect China’s stash of $1 trillion in U.S. government debt.
But Summers and Paulson were close to the White House and had something China wanted from the U.S. — WTO membership in Summers’ case, cash preservation in Paulson’s. Yellen has neither advantage. In many parts of the administration, the former Fed chair is still seen as academic and politically naive. Notably, she publicly criticized the heavy tariffs on Chinese goods imposed by the Trump administration, which Biden so far has decided to keep.
“She is afflicted with honesty,” said Ryan Hass, an Obama White House China expert now at the Brookings Institution.
Treasury is also viewed elsewhere in the government as holding on to the idea that a formal economic “dialogue” between the two nations would be useful, although the Biden White House has picked up Trump’s position that the Chinese used earlier dialogues, where senior officials met regularly, to filibuster a subject. Some at Treasury make sure not even to use the word “dialogue” when asking for White House approval to call or meet with Chinese counterparts.
“Yellen has been somewhat dovelike,” said a senior Biden foreign policy official. “On a number of key issues, she and the president aren’t on the same page. That will play a role where this ends up.”
During a speech last week at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Yellen gave a tough-minded preview of the kinds of conversations she anticipated having with the Chinese. The speech had two audiences: Beijing and those in Washington and the allied capitals that doubted the White House fully trusted her.
National security is of “paramount importance,” she said, with the U.S. focusing on keeping leading-edge technology from reaching the Chinese military and security establishment. But she tried to assure her Chinese listeners that the U.S. doesn’t want to decouple entirely from the Chinese economy, which, she said, “would be disastrous for both countries.”
“These national security actions are not designed for us to gain a competitive economic advantage, or stifle China’s economic and technological modernization,” Yellen said.
In other words, the two nations would disagree on many fronts, but there were still plenty of areas where they could profitably work together.
Within the White House, no decision has been made on whether Blinken, Yellen or Raimondo will be the initial envoy to Beijing. One consideration: Which of them would wrangle a meeting with the highest-ranking Chinese official?
That makes Raimondo a long shot for the first trip to Beijing. Commerce secretaries traditionally rank low in the Washington hierarchy and have been generally treated in Beijing as salespeople for corporate America. However, Raimondo plays a critical role in sanctioning Chinese companies and overseeing U.S. industrial policy — areas the Chinese want to discuss. Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, one of the seven members of the ruling Politburo Standing Committee, is expected to oversee technology issues for Beijing and would be a high-profile interlocutor on the Chinese side.
The State Department argues that Blinken should go first because State has a wider portfolio of issues than Treasury, including Taiwan, Russia’s war against Ukraine, military cooperation, fentanyl exports, imprisoned Americans and climate talks.
Some at State also are concerned that the Chinese could look to splinter the U.S. government by favoring Treasury and trying to cut out the State Department. In the Trump administration, for instance, the Chinese focused their lobbying on Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to try to sideline the uber-hawkish U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who was pressing a trade war between the two nations.
It didn’t work under Trump, and U.S. officials say it wouldn’t work now. Beijing “won’t find a way to divide what we’re doing,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo. “What we are trying to do is make it clear that we are going to protect our national security, but our goal is not to constrain China’s economy from growing.”
Before the balloon incident, Blinken intended to fly to Beijing to discuss a range of issues with his Chinese counterparts, including macroeconomic issues — but no dialogues — and expected to get a meeting with Xi Jinping. Treasury secretaries rarely meet with the top leader in one-on-one sessions. Instead, they often get time with China’s premier, the number two official who is usually in charge of running the economy. At the very least, Yellen would expect to meet with He Lifeng, China’s new vice minister in charge of trade and macroeconomics. In his previous job, He oversaw domestic economic planning and didn’t meet much with U.S. officials.
For all the aggravation with Blinken in Beijing, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also has been throwing up some roadblocks to an early Yellen visit, said several China experts who have recently visited Beijing. Presumably, that’s for reasons similar to those in Washington; each ministry wants to assert its preeminence and have its ministers host the first U.S. cabinet visit since the balloon imbroglio. That’s especially important now in Beijing where Xi has reshuffled top government and Communist Party officials.
“There is a little bit of staking out one’s turf,” said former Clinton trade representative Charlene Barshefsky, who closely tracks Chinese politics. “There is a new set of ministers. They are letting it be known their jurisdiction and their predilections for policy.”
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said in a statement that the U.S. “should follow through on the common understandings between the two heads of state in Bali, so as to create the conditions and atmosphere needed for high-level exchanges and bring China-U.S. relations back to the right track.”
In the end, who Biden chooses to make the first cabinet-level trip to Beijing may come down to who is available to travel when preparations are completed. The U.S. envoy may carry a letter from Biden during the trip. An important goal of this round of diplomacy is promoting a summit between Biden and Xi in November in San Francisco when the U.S. hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, an organization of 21 major economies, including the U.S., Japan, China and Russia.
But it’s far from clear that cabinet-level meetings will be enough for China to start modulating its policies. The U.S. has plenty it could offer China as inducements — cuts to tariffs that even Biden criticized when he was running for president in 2020, limiting U.S. export controls, backing away from banning TikTok in the U.S., among many other possibilities.
“At this moment, we need deeds as well as words,” said Summers, the former Treasury secretary.
But across the government, U.S. officials say the focus now is on restarting talks, not about making changes in policy — particularly anything resembling a concession that could be criticized by Republicans.
“We want senior empowered channels of communication,” said a senior State Department official. “We want to engage regularly.”
For Washington, in other words, the meetings are the message.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“We are grateful for the court’s ruling,” said Lieber’s attorney, Marc Mukasey. “We think it was the appropriate decision so that Charlie can keep up his fight against his severe health issues.”
Prosecutors had recommended three months in prison, a year of probation, a $150,000 fine and restitution to the IRS of $33,600.
Prosecutors said Lieber knowingly lied to Harvard and government agencies about his involvement in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a program designed to recruit people with knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property to China, to enhance his career — including the pursuit of a Nobel Prize — and benefit financially.
Lieber denied his involvement during questioning from U.S. authorities, including the National Institutes of Health, which had provided him with millions of dollars in research funding, prosecutors said.
Lieber also concealed his income from the Chinese program on his U.S. tax returns, including $50,000 a month from the Wuhan University of Technology, some of which was paid to him in $100 bills in brown paper packaging, according to prosecutors.
In exchange, they say, Lieber agreed to publish articles, organize international conferences and apply for patents on behalf of the Chinese university.
Lieber’s case was one of the most notable to come out of the U.S. Department of Justice’s China Initiative, started during the Trump administration in 2018 to curb economic espionage from China.
But in February 2022 under the current administration, a decision was made to revamp the program and impose a higher bar for prosecutions after a review based on complaints that it compromised the nation’s competitiveness in research and technology and disproportionally targeted researchers of Asian descent.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said at the time the department will still “be relentless in defending our country from China,” but would not use the China Initiative label, in part out of recognition of threats from other nations including Russia, Iran and North Korea.
The federal government ended up dismissing multiple cases against researchers or had them thrown out by judges.
Mukasey asked that his client, who retired after his conviction and has a form of incurable blood cancer along with a “destroyed immune system,” be spared prison time because of the dangers of getting sick behind bars, the extraordinary research he as done and the positive effect he has had on countless lives.
“In prison he will be a sitting duck for disease, and will not get the daily medical care that he needs,” he said.
Mukasey read from some of the more than 100 letters of support submitted to the court by Lieber’s family, friends, colleagues, and former students he has mentored. More than two dozen of his supporters crowded the courtroom, some of whom flew in from as far away as California to attend the hearing.
Anqi Zhang, one of Lieber’s former doctoral students who is now doing post-doctoral work in chemical engineering at Stanford University, thinks her mentor’s motives have been misrepresented by the government.
“He’s the best scientist and the best mentor in the world,” she said. “He’s a pure scientist, he worked very hard, and was focused completely on the science.”
Lieber, in a statement read to the court, accepted responsibility and said the last three years of his life have been “horrific.”
“I would like to express my sincere apologies and remorse for my actions,” he said.
Mukasey also stressed that Lieber was never charged with espionage-related offenses; was never accused of misusing grant money; there was no theft or trade of trade secrets or intellectual property; and he did not disclose any proprietary research to the Chinese government or university.
But prosecutor Jason Casey said in court that Lieber “was someone willing to lie and deceive to protect what mattered to him most — and that was his career.” His behavior was not an aberration, but occurred over a period of several years.
As a person of “extraordinary intellect and extraordinary education,” he had the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of his actions, Casey said.
Casey said a three-month period of prison time was appropriate despite Lieber’s health issues because he is in remission and can get proper treatment in a federal prison.
Mukasey called the government’s contentions “callous, misleading, naive and dangerous to (Lieber’s) health” and said his client has been punished enough because of his damaged reputation.
“Please don’t put him in prison where he can’t control his health,” Mukasey told the judge.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin
Seoul: North Korea vowed on Tuesday to strengthen its ties with Russia on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the first summit between the leaders of the two nations.
Vice Foreign Minister Im Chon-il issued a statement confirming “mutual support and solidarity” between Pyongyang and Moscow, marking the anniversary of the 2019 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, held in Vladivostok, reports Yonhap News Agency.
“The two countries are strengthening mutual support and solidarity in the struggle to resolutely smash the dangers of war and military threats from the outside,” Im said.
The official stressed the North will “(invariably) stand to elevate the long-standing and traditional relations of friendship” between the two nations.
The North has been strengthening its close ties with Russia despite international condemnation over Moscow’s war with Ukraine.
The North has denied allegations that it has provided arms to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.
North Korean arms exports are banned under UN Security Council resolutions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
Islamabad: Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir is in China on a four-day official visit aimed at enhancing bilateral military relations with the neighbouring country, according to the military’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
“COAS is on a four-day official visit to China for enhancing bilateral military relations,” Dawn news quoted the ISPR as saying in a brief statement.
During his visit, the army chief will hold meetings with the Chinese leadership, Radio Pakistan reported.
This is COAS Munir’s fourth overseas visit ever since he took charge as the army chief in November 2022.
Earlier this year, he undertook a week-long official visit to the UAE and Saudi Arabia and held meetings with the top leadership of the Gulf states.
During the visit, the officials reviewed Pakistan’s bilateral ties with the two countries and discussed ways to strengthen the relations.
Later in February, the COAS visited the UK for meetings on defence-related issues.
He also attended a conference at Wilton Park, an executive agency created by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office to foster open dialogue between governments, Dawn reported.
“Where barbed wire one sliced up the city, today we find a cathedral of learning built of glass that lets the [light shine] in and out,” Biden said. The agreement “just has a profound impact for someone who has come back to see it. It’s an incredible testament to the power and the possibilities of peace.”
Northern Ireland has been unable to form a government for nearly a year under rules that require its main pro-British party — the Democratic Unionist Party — to share power with Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein. The DUP is also holding out against a proposal aimed at settling post-Brexit trade concerns between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
But Biden made only glancing mention of the standoff, emphasizing the importance of democratic institutions and urging all parties in Northern Ireland to work together.
“For politics, no matter what divides us, if we look hard enough, there’s always areas that’s going to bring us together,” Biden said.
Northern Ireland has prospered overall since the agreement, Biden noted, even as critics say that it’s failing. Its gross domestic product has doubled, an initial number Biden said he expects to triple if growth stays on track as American businesses continue investing in the region. The president also nodded, as he often does, to Irish arts and culture, which has produced world-renowned poetry, movies and television shows in recent years.
Much of that growth has been driven by young people, Biden added, who will push Northern Ireland forward in widening fields like cyber and clean energy. The president also announced that later this year, Joe Kennedy III, the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs, will lead a trade delegation of American companies to Northern Ireland.
“It’s up to us to keep this going,” he said, pledging to “sustain the peace, unleash this incredible economic opportunity, which is just beginning … Your history is our history. But even more important, your future is America’s future.”
Biden has studiously avoided any thorny political territory during his stint in Northern Ireland, saying only that he was “going to listen” to party leaders during a private meeting ahead of his speech.
The president earlier on Wednesday also ignored questions about the potential for a trade deal sought by the U.K., and officials said they did not expect him to address the issue during a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Still, those political tensions have trailed Biden throughout what has largely been billed as a personal trip to reconnect with his ancestral roots.
Amanda Sloat, the National Security Council’s senior director for Europe, faced several questions on Wednesday about whether Biden’s pride in his Irish background signaled a dislike for the U.K.
“It’s simply untrue,” she said. “President Biden obviously is a very proud Irish American, he is proud of those Irish roots, but he is also a strong supporter of our bilateral relationship with the U.K.”
Sloat added that the Biden administration was working “in lockstep” with the U.K. on a variety of global challenges.
Perhaps aware of the scrutiny of his allegiances, Biden during his speech at Ulster University made uncharacteristically little mention of his Irish heritage. Instead, he kicked off the speech with a different anecdote about his family history, reminding the crowd that “Biden is English too.”
Following the speech, the president traveled to the Irish Republic for the first time since he traced his lineage through the countryside as vice president in 2016.
Myah Ward contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Budaun: UP Police have filed a 30-page chargesheet in a Budaun court against a man who allegedly tied a stone to a rat’s tail and drowned it in a drain in November last year, an official said on Tuesday.
The police investigation joined “each and every sequence” and prepared the chargesheet based on the forensic report, videos in the media, and information collected from different departments, Circle Officer (City) Alok Mishra told PTI.
Police sources said to make the chargesheet strong, the post-mortem examination report has been used as a base. The report indicated the rodent had lung and liver infection and died due to asphyxiation caused by lung infection.
On November 25, police received a complaint against Manoj Kumar for cruelty against an animal. Police said animal activist Vikendra Sharma reported them that Kumar threw a rat into a drain after tying a stone to its tail. Sharma said he entered the drain to save the rat but it died later.
On Tuesday, senior advocate Rajiv Kumar Sharma told PTI, “Under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, there is a provision of fine from Rs 10 to Rs 2,000 and three years of imprisonment. And under Section 429 of IPC, there is a provision for five years of imprisonment or fine or both.”
Kumar’s father Mathura Prasad, however, said, “Killing of rats and crows is not wrong. These are harmful creatures.”
“Rats had damaged the utensils made using soil, and had turned them into mounds of soil. This caused mental and financial problems to him. If action is taken against my son, then action should also be taken against those who butcher goats, hens and fishes. Action should also be taken against those who sell the rat killing chemical,” Prasad added.
After the incident in November, the rat’s carcass was sent to a veterinary hospital in Budaun for autopsy but the staff refused to examine it. The carcass was then sent to Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in Bareilly.
Kumar was called to the police station for questioning. He was later booked under IPC Section 429 (slaughtering an animal) and also under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act, police said.
Later, the forensic examination showed the rat’s lungs were swollen and it died due to a lung infection. “Our experts concluded the rat died due to asphyxiation caused by lung infection,” KP Singh, joint director of IVRI, had said then.
