India Trump might run in 2024 to avoid Going To Auk And USA Best Bangladesh

 new report from Rolling Stone says that while Donald Trump is seriously considering running for president in 2024, one of his main motives for doing so might be to seek the protection of presidential immunity in the face of multiple intensifying legal investigations that could result in criminal charges.

On Monday, the  U.S. Attorney's office confirmed they would not be moving forward with the case. 

'The Office would be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these invited guests were guilty of the crime of unlawful entry because their escort chose to leave them unattended,' the federal prosecutor said. The feds said that they 'wouldn't have been able to obtain and sustain convictions on these charges.'

The move to drop the charges has infuriated conservatives who believe its proof of the Justice Department's double standard when it comes to holding liberals accountable.

Fox News's Jesse Watters questioned whether the Biden-appointed Attorney was giving January 6 rioters and Colbert's team the same treatment. At least 876 people have been charged over the January 6 riot which left seven dead and saw crowds siege the Capitol.

'The person responsible for dropping the charges was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, who was appointed by Joe Biden and works for the Attorney General. It turns out that he's also the prosecutor investigating January 6th. Is he giving those guys the same treatment,' Watters asked on his show.

Kingpin actor Randy Quaid branded the decision to drop the charges 'disgusting'.

The report comes as Mr Trump’s ally Steve Bannon faces the start of his trial on criminal contempt of Congress. The former president’s longtime lieutenant and hardcore right-wing agitator refused to comply with the House select committee’s subpoena, and his various last-ditch efforts to head off or delay the trial have failed.

On another front, the January 6 committee is expected to receive the deleted text messages and audios by Secret Service by Tuesday.

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In markets from Boston to Beijing, much of the shrimp on sale comes from India, which has quickly grown into one of the world’s largest producers of the shellfish. Globally, the shrimp export market was worth nearly $25bn in 2020, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. And analysts, including those at Rabobank, estimate that India has become the world’s largest exporter by value. Its shrimp exports jumped three-fold in the decade to 2020, to be worth about $5bn, according to the country’s ministry of fisheries. Notably, India is ranked as the number one shrimp supplier to the US, according to Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return Initiative (Fairr) — an investment advisory network focused on sustainable food production. But this rapid expansion has also meant that the country’s shrimp industry has become a test case for whether authorities and producers in a fast-growing farming sector can control the use of antibiotics. Experts say that, for producers in countries like India, who often lack the infrastructure and resources of farmers in richer countries, the pressure to overuse antibiotics can be strong. Like farmers in other sectors, many Indian producers use antibiotics to treat and control disease among their shrimp. However, regulators in Europe and elsewhere worry this can spill into misuse, such as using drugs to help healthy shrimp grow, with significant implications for global health. Overuse of antibiotics for livestock and seafood production exacerbates the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), where drugs cease to be effective against infection. A study in The Lancet medical journal published this year found that more than 1.2mn people died from bacterial AMR globally in 2019. Medical researchers expect the toll to rise. “The problem is going to increase as we intensify and try to produce more food,” says Charles Tyler, a professor of environmental biology at the University of Exeter, who has studied India’s shrimp industry. “That’s going to cause a massive burden in terms of disease. Whatever people say about AMR, it is going to get worse because of the way we’re producing food and the intensification of it.” Whatever people say about AMR, it is going to get worse because of the way we’re producing food and the intensification of it Charles Tyler, University of Exeter Indian shrimp became globally competitive as farmers intensified production, concentrating more and more shrimp into ponds and settling on high-yielding species like whiteleg shrimp. Jennifer Cole, a lecturer in global and planetary health at Royal Holloway University in London, says the wetter climate and more frequent flooding in places like north-east India — a consequence of climate change — has also pushed farmers into aquaculture. The industry’s intensification has led to diseases spreading more easily among shrimp. This can have devastating economic consequences for producers. Because of the industry’s export-oriented nature, antibiotic use in shrimp in India is actually subject to tighter standards than other forms of animal agriculture, says Amit Khurana, director of the sustainable food systems programme at the Centre for Science and Environment think-tank in New Delhi. Some also argue that measuring the scale of antibiotic overuse in the Indian shrimp industry can be difficult. But groups such as Fairr warn there is evidence of high usage as producers administer treatments preemptively or to promote growth. In response, Importing nations have become stricter about India as a source of shrimp. The EU has increased the rate of testing for antibiotic residue in Indian shrimp shipments, according to a 2020 study of the sector for industry journal Reviews in Aquaculture. US regulators have even resorted to rejecting some Indian shipments after detecting antibiotics, according to US producer industry group the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

“We expect to get them by this Tuesday,” representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, said. “We need all the texts from the 5th and the 6th of January.”

The committee’s next hearing is set to focus on Mr Trump’s inaction during the attack on the Capitol. It will be held in prime time on Thursday.

A high of 38.1C was reached in Suffolk on Monday, just short of the UK record of 38.7C set in 2019. Wales recorded its hottest day on record with 37.1C.

Network Rail said that the forecast temperatures for parts of the network are higher than the design limits for track and overhead line equipment.

Media caption,

Heatwave: Top tips to stay cool in 60 seconds

There have also been warnings of pressure on hospitals and ambulance services as temperatures are set to peak on Tuesday afternoon.

Following the government's latest emergency Cobra meeting, Health Secretary Steve Barclay said more call handlers had been put in place and additional funding made available for ambulance and 111 services.

Monday saw a number of schools close despite government advice against doing so, although one teaching union said the majority of schools had remained open.

Water companies in southern and eastern England have warned increased demand is leading to low pressure - and even interrupted supply - for some households.

 In addition to the security experts, Reuters spoke to six witnesses at the scene and examined multiple videos available online, taken from different angles, to piece together a detailed account of security measures ahead of his shooting.

     After leaving 67-year-old Abe exposed from behind as he spoke on a traffic island on a public road, his security detail allowed the shooter – identified by police as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41 – to come within metres of Abe unchecked, carrying a weapon, the footage showed.

     "They should have seen the attacker very deliberately walking towards the rear of the prime minister and intervened," said Kenneth Bombace, head of Global Threat Solutions, which provided security to Joe Biden when he was a presidential candidate.

Yamagami came within around 7 metres (23 feet) of Abe before firing his first shot, which missed, the Yomiuri newspaper said, citing investigative sources. He fired the second shot, which hit, at around 5 metres away, it said.

     Abe's bodyguards did not appear to have "concentric rings of security" around him, said John Soltys, a former Navy SEAL and CIA officer now a vice president at security firm Prosegur. "They didn't have any kind of surveillance in the crowd."

     Asked about the experts’ analysis, the Nara Prefectural Police, in charge of security for Abe's campaign stop, told Reuters in a statement the department was "committed to thoroughly identifying the security problems" with Abe's protection, declining to comment further.

 

The video footage showed that, after the first shot, Abe turns and looks over his left shoulder. Two bodyguards scramble to get between him and the shooter, one hoisting a slim black bag. Two others head toward the shooter, who moves closer through the smoke.

     Although Abe's security tackled the assailant moments later and arrested him, it was the "wrong response" for some of the security to go after the shooter instead of moving to protect Abe, said Mitsuru Fukuda, a Nihon University professor specialising in crisis management and terrorism.

     There was enough security, "but no sense of danger," said Yasuhiro Sasaki, a retired police officer in Saitama prefecture near Tokyo who handled security for VIPs. "Everyone was startled and no one went to where Abe was."

     The Tokyo police, in charge of VIP politicians' bodyguards, referred questions to the Nara police.

On Monday:

• Flights into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire stopped after part of the runway melted
• Flights were suspended at Luton Airport after a section of the runway lifted
• Chester Zoo said it would close to during the heatwave to keep its animals and visitors safe
• Food delivery firm Just Eat suspended deliveries in some areas
• Museums, including London's Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, closed some galleries

The peak temperature reached on Monday made it the third-hottest day on record and the hottest of the year so far.

A temperature of 37.1C was measured in Hawarden, Flintshire, making it the hottest day on record for Wales, according to provisional figures from the Met Office.

Scotland and Northern Ireland also saw their warmest days of the year, with temperatures of 31.3C and 31.1C recorded in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire and Derrylin, Co Fermanagh respectively.

Temperatures remained in the low and mid-20s overnight, raising the possibility the UK would also see its warmest night on record.

The Met Office has issued a red extreme heat warning covering much of central, northern, and south-east England.

At least four people are believed to have drowned after attempting to escape the heat in rivers and lakes.

Network Rail has issued a "do not travel" warning for Tuesday affecting services travelling through the "red zone" of the Met Office's weather warning.

No Thameslink or Great Northern services are scheduled to run north from London all day and there will be no services from London King's Cross or on the East Coast mainline.

 

Aloam Danga Covid Update victims warily welcome death sentence for Uk And India

 When Muhammed Sandeng first learned that his father, political activist Ebrima Solo Sandeng, had been tortured to death at the Gambian national spy agency's headquarters, he felt one emotion above all else.

Twenty-six percent of all crossers had previously attempted to cross the border within the last year, which is up from the usual 15 percent between 2014 and 2019, CBP said. 

The largest group to come through was single adults, making up 68 percent of the crossing, with 140,197 people.

Unaccompanied children increased four percent in June, with 15,271 encounters. Family units decreased 13 percent, with 59,534 people. 

The report was published just a few weeks after 53 migrants perished inside a truck that reached 105 degrees in June.

Pacific island nations, courted by China and the United States, put the superpowers on notice, telling the world's two biggest carbon emitters to take more action on climate change while pledging unity in the face of a growing geopolitical contest.

Leaders at a four-day summit of the Pacific Islands Forum, meeting in Fiji's capital Suva, bristled at a Chinese attempt to split some of the nations off into a trade and security agreement, while Washington pledged more financial and diplomatic engagement.

The exclusive economic zones of the 17 forum members span 30 million square km (10 million square miles) of ocean - providing half the world's tuna, the most-eaten fish. The nations are also feeling some of the severest effects of climate change as rising seas inundate lower-lying areas.

At the summit that ended on Thursday, leaders adopted language several members have used in declaring a climate emergency, saying this was supported not only by science but by people's daily lives in the Pacific.

A communique, yet to be released, shows the nations focussed on the next United Nations climate conference, COP27. They will push for a doubling of climate finance to flow from big emitters to developing nations within two years, money they say is needed to adapt to rising sea levels and worsening storms.

© Reuters/STAFF Pacific Islands Forum Chairman and Fiji PM Bainimarama attends the launch of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continen

The communique, seen by Reuters, also calls for meaningful progress at COP27 on financing for the "loss and damage" to vulnerable societies that cannot adapt and will need to relocate communities - a battle lost at last year's global climate talks.

"What matters most to us is we secure bold commitments from all countries at COP27 to phase out coal and other fossil fuels and step up finance to the most vulnerable nations and advance causes like 'loss and damage' that matter dearly to the most at-risk island communities," Fiji's President Frank Bainimarama told reporters.

"We simply cannot settle for any less than the survival of every Pacific island country," said Bainimarama, the forum's chairman.

More than four months into Russia’s invasion, the wail of air raid sirens warning of an incoming strike has become, to some Ukrainians, a kind of background noise: irritating, alarming, but also possible to ignore.

A series of deadly missile attacks by Russian forces in recent days that have hit civilian targets, however, has changed the calculus, sending Ukraine’s leaders scrambling to reinforce the message that adherence to the advisory to seek shelter saves lives.

“I’m begging you, once again: Please don’t ignore the air alert signals,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a national address this weekend. “Appropriate rules of conduct must be followed at all times.”

Many people in Ukraine still lack access to bomb shelters. In Kharkiv, the nation’s second-biggest city, officials have said they do not plan to reopen schools in the fall, partly because not all schools have them. In Lviv, the western Ukrainian city near the Polish border where hundreds of thousands of displaced Ukrainians have settled, all new buildings must include bomb shelters.

But many Ukrainians in bigger cities have become not just complacent about the danger but too weary of war to worry about the threat of attacks.

On Saturday evening in Kharkiv, where there are Russian artillery strikes almost every night, young people at a popular bar drank at outdoor tables and listened to live music.

“My neighbors go to the basement; older people go, but young people don’t,” said one of the patrons, Maryna Zviagintseva, 28.

“I think in the first month everyone was afraid and they would go down into the metro or somewhere,” said Vladyslav Andriienko, 29, a construction worker. “Now people try to live a normal life.”

In the most deadly strike in the past week, three Kalibr cruise missiles fired from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea hit the center of the provincial capital of Vinnytsia, killing 23 people and wounding 140 others. The dead in the strike on Thursday included Liza Dmytriyeva, a 4-year-old with Down syndrome, and two other children.

The next day, at least 10 Russian missiles slammed into the southern city of Mykolaiv, hitting two universities, a hotel and a mall. Later on Friday, three people were killed and 16 others were wounded when at least one missile struck a target in Dnipro, in central Ukraine.

Anti-aircraft batteries shot down one missile over the Kyiv region in northern Ukraine on Friday and four others in Dnipro, Ukrainian military authorities said.

And on Saturday, a Russian rocket hit a warehouse in the Odesa region, causing a fire, according to a spokesman for the regional military administration, Serhii Bratchuk. He said that there were no casualties because the security guards retreated to a shelter as soon as they heard the siren.

A senior U.S. military official said on Friday that between 100 and 150 civilians may have been killed in Russian strikes in Ukraine that week. Moscow denies that it targets civilians in what it says is a limited military action in Ukraine aimed at ridding the country of Nazis.

Ukrainian officials, however, say the strikes are primarily aimed at spreading terror and form part of a genocidal campaign by President Vladimir V. Putin and his military.

“This is the extermination of Ukrainians as a nation,” said Oleksandr Motuzianyk, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman, on television on Friday. “This is an attempt to break the spirit of Ukrainians and reduce the level of their resistance.”

Moscow’s recent military gains, particularly in Luhansk Province in the eastern Donbas region, flow largely from the superiority of its artillery, but an influx of weapons from the United States and other countries is starting to redress that balance. Mr. Zelensky said that the situation partly explains the increase in recent strikes.

“The occupiers realize that we are gradually becoming stronger,” he said. “The goal of their terror is very simple: to put pressure on you and me, on our society, to intimidate people, to cause as much as possible damage to Ukrainian cities, while Russian terrorists are still able.”

Tuvalu's Foreign Minister Simon Kofe, who literally made waves at the last global climate conference by standing knee-deep in seawater to show what his country faces, told Reuters: "There is technology available to protect the islands and raise the islands and that is what we are seeking. It is very costly."

As the Pacific summit was ending, Australian coal-mining stocks soared on expectations China could resume imports after a two-year political dispute halted coal shipments to the world's biggest coal burner from its second-biggest exporter.

In contrast to the market's bullishness, leaders in the forum's thatched-roof headquarters discussed how to deal with the statehood of people whose nation has sunk in rising seas, or rights to fishing grounds defined by their distance from a landmass that may disappear.

'SPLINTERING REGIONALISM'

The communique cites an urgent need for assistance on debt vulnerability and the rising cost of food amid the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In a video address to the forum, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to triple funding to Pacific islands over a decade under a fisheries treaty, and open more embassies.

Pacific leaders at times showed irritation at the global focus on the contest between the Washington and Beijing over their region.

Australia, in tune, said less about security and pledged greater support for the climate change agenda of its neighbours, although maritime surveillance announcements to protect sustainable fishing hinted at its core anxiety.

"It's harder for countries that are responsible for most of the illegal fishing then to argue they are going to support the region to stop illegal fishing," Australia's Pacific Minister Pat Conroy said in an interview, referring to China.

Australian officials privately say they do not want security choices in the region driven by economic ties to China, and although Pacific islands are sophisticated actors, they need funding support because many have historical debts to Beijing.

The death toll in the tragedy is the deadliest human smuggling attempt in American history.

'We continue to rescue and provide medical assistance to those in distress,' Magnus said.

'My message to those considering taking this dangerous journey is simple: this is not an easy passage, the human smugglers only care about your money – not your life or the lives of your loved ones, and you will be placed in removal proceedings from the United States if you cross the border without legal authorization and are unable to establish a legal basis to remain.'

In addition, cocaine seizures went up a shocking 62 percent and methamphetamine seizures also increased 14 percent. However, heroin and fentanyl seizures decreased 49 and 41 percent.

CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said it's normal for migration numbers to fluctuate month-to-month and that the agency is 'committed to implementing our strategy of reducing irregular migration, dissuading migrants from undertaking the dangerous journey, and increasing enforcement efforts against human smuggling organizations.'

"It was all fear -- fear, fear, fear -- you had to be wise for your life because you didn't know what would happen," the student, 19 at the time, told AFP.

 

 

On Wednesday, Sandeng felt something new, "fulfilment and relief", after the High Court of Banjul found five ex-intelligence officials guilty of the 2016 murder.

His father's violent death was one of the most high-profile abuses committed under ex-president Yahya Jammeh's brutal 22-year regime and galvanised a political movement that eventually ousted the dictator.

The former head of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Yankuba Badjie, its former operations chief, Sheikh Omar Jeng, and former officials Babucarr Sallah, Lamin Darboe and Tamba Mansary were all handed death sentences.

They will be converted to life sentences because The Gambia has a moratorium on executions.

"We were always there, during the preliminaries, and listening to all of those (hearings) was not easy -- it was painful and made us relive most of the trauma," said Sandeng, now 25.

"The persistence has paid off."

- 'Beginning of the end' -

Solo Sandeng, a key member of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), was arrested at an April 2016 anti-Jammeh protest and died in custody two days later.

According to Abdoulie Fatty, a Gambian lawyer, that was "the beginning of the end" for the dictator, who is accused of committing a litany of crimes, including rape, witch hunts and forcing bogus cures on AIDS patients.

The killing encouraged the political opposition to unite behind Adama Barrow, who beat Jammeh in the December 2016 presidential election.

Launched in 2017, the trial was fraught with tension, reflected by brawls outside the court.

The accused blamed Solo Sandeng's murder on Jammeh's private death squad despite it taking place on the intelligence agency's grounds.

Witnesses recounted how men took turns beating him in custody "until his whole body was bleeding and blood was coming out from his head".

"These were people who symbolised Jammeh's dictatorship -- the NIA symbolised Jammeh's dictatorship," said Fatty.

Badjie, the agency's director, was "probably the second most powerful individual in the country", he added.

On Wednesday, security guards had to remove several members of the public when shouting broke out after the guilty verdicts were pronounced.

- Scepticism -

The ruling offers some hope to other Jammeh-era victims.

"For me, personally, as a victim, it means a lot," said Isatou Jammeh, whose own father -- Yahya Jammeh's brother -- disappeared and was later killed after challenging the ex-president.

"Seeing them sentenced means that there is rule of law, and it serves as an example to all those who have committed gruesome crimes," she said.

 

Abdul Hamid Covid Update USA AND UK Palestinians as Biden visits West 2023

 Beyond that, the U.S. aims to build on a call between Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Abbas last week — the first leader-to-leader chat in five years — by fostering closer people-to-people ties. Biden will tell the Palestinian leader that Israel wants to reconvene the Joint Economic Committee, which hasn’t met since 2009, to discuss a slew of issues that affect Palestinians every day, and in addition increase the number of work permits to residents of Gaza. The U.S. will also send over $7 million in grant money to programs that promote Israeli-Palestinian collaboration and exchanges.

'Good employers are recognising people are continuing to work from home while they have COVID. and receiving payments through that.

'The (pandemic leave) payments were put in place by the former government with an end date, a decision they made at the time.'

Ahead of the national cabinet meeting, the prime minister said he was confident of leaders being able to work together constructively.

'Everyone has been worried. about the pandemic over the last couple of years,' he said.

'We'll deal with these issues. We'll deal with them in a practical way.'

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff have called for the payments to be extended through the current wave of COVID-19 cases.

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• The islands were under Egyptian sovereignty from 1950, but invaded by Israeli troops during the 1956 Suez Crisis that came after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the canal that is key to trade between Europe and Asia.

  - Deal in the making? -

  Nasser's 1967 closure of the Strait of Tiran, which cut off maritime access to Eilat and Aqaba, precipitated the Six Day War, after which Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula and the two small islands.

  In 1979, the landmark Camp David peace agreement provided for Egypt to recover the territories. 

  As part of the Sinai's demilitarisation, Cairo was not allowed to station troops on the islands, where only peacekeepers were based for the so-called Multinational Force and Observers.

  In 2016 a Cairo-Riyadh agreement ceded the islands to Saudi Arabia in a controversial decision that sparked nationalist protests in Egypt, which were quickly stifled.

  Critics accused Sisi of ceding the islands in return for Saudi aid and investment largesse. The government argued the islands were originally Saudi but leased to Egypt in the 1950s.

  Egyptian courts handed down a series of contradictory rulings before the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the handover.

  But because the issue is governed by the Camp David agreement, the status of the islands has yet to be finalised, requiring Israel to ratify the transfer of sovereignty.

  It is this final hurdle that Biden could negotiate with Israeli, Saudi and Egyptian leaders this week, observers say.

  The Israeli press has reported that Riyadh has pledged to keep the islands demilitarised, and to allow Israeli vessels to keep traversing the strait.

  Experts have pointed to the significance of a potential deal as a step towards official normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, who along with the United States are fierce enemies of Iran.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has pushed for pandemic leave payments to be extended- as has Queensland's Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Federal Labor MP Mike Freelander broke ranks on Thursday, urging the prime minister to extend the support measures, with fellow backbencher Michelle Ananda-Rajah following suit.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the government was closely monitoring the situation, but indicated large payouts needed to end following the withdrawal of mandates surrounding the pandemic.

'There's no end to the list of worthy, important things we could be spending the money on in the health portfolio, but there is an end to the money,' he said.

'The Australian community understan.ds, and indeed wants, the country to move to a new phase in confronting this pandemic.'

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Ben and Jerry’s, according to Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch, epitomises the tendency to put social justice before productivity and profits, one cause of our “economic, social, cultural and intellectual malaise”.  But that wasn’t enough to save Wavy Gravy. The Woodstock entertainer inspired one of the company’s early cult favourites, a caramel, cashew and brazil nut ice cream with a chocolate hazelnut fudge swirl and roasted almonds. Not long after the Vermont-based business sold out to Big Freezer in the form of conglomerate Unilever, Wavy was cut loose, along with the royalties that helped fund the clown’s Camp Winnarainbow for disadvantaged children. The flavour, according to Ice Cream Social, a history of the company, had always been a nightmare to make with expensive ingredients. Still, the marketing juggernaut of the north-east briefly resurrected Wavy in a 2005 contest. It remains in the company’s Flavor Graveyard online, with a suitably corny poem on its tombstone. The unsentimental fact is that the forces of global capitalism sent this hippie icon packing for no other reason than not enough people were buying it and it cost too much to make. It wasn’t entirely clear from Badenoch’s speech what share of the blame Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield bear for a 15-year stagnation in UK growth and living standards, exacerbated in recent years by a sense of total political and policy dysfunction. By most measures, the American duo are the kind of outrageous business success worth celebrating, the type that starts with a $5 correspondence course in 1978 and ends up as one of only 13 Unilever brands with more than €1bn in global sales. The offbeat flavours, quirky names, bright packaging and campaigning ethos are, to some extent, all part of the marketing schtick. Branding, said Bernstein’s Bruno Monteyne, is a “tax on our emotions” (which may explain why this crop of Conservative tax-slashers aren’t so keen). Perhaps this also explains why a tub sets you back the best part of a fiver in the UK. In a consumer goods world battling customer apathy with established brands, Ben and Jerry’s grew 9 per cent last year. Perhaps people like ice cream with a conscience and are prepared to pay for a warm feeling with their cold treat? Maybe they just like the taste, and are ignoring the rest of it? Unilever probably doesn’t care. None of which is to say the company is putting it on. Authenticity is the foundation of great marketing, in ice cream and politics. The fundamentals are there: Ben and Jerry’s gives 7.5 per cent of pre-tax profits to charity and a fair deal to its farmers. Its campaigning tendencies are long-established: its environmental tub One Sweet Whirled launched in 2002, a couple of decades before the UK’s net zero commitment that Badenoch wants to ditch. Its fans have prompted innovation, petitioning for plant-based products in 2014, a market that every food company in the known universe is now trying to crack. For those annoyed that all this translates into business success, the free market solution is to set up a rival — which has been tried. Star-Spangled Ice Cream produced Gun Nut, Small GovernMint and Iraqi Road in the 2000s, donating a share of proceeds to US armed forces charities. It cost $76 for four quarts. Oddly, flavours like I Hate the French Vanilla didn’t go global. Ben and Jerry’s has managed to mix good ice cream with folksy fun, campaigning controversy and the cold realities of capitalism. Independence from Unilever is something of a convenient fiction for both sides — exposed by the almighty bust-up over the company’s decision to halt sales in the occupied Palestine territories and the ensuing lawsuit over Unilever’s move to sell the brand to a local licensee. But the forces for profit certainly aren’t neutralised by a social conscience, as Badenoch fears. Conservative hopefuls and ice cream makers share more than she thinks. Both are trying to capture the attention of people that might like them, without irredeemably alienating too many others. Ben and Jerry’s, however, has combined that with good branding, solid underlying policies and a genuinely appealing product. It will never catch on.

While the government said the end date of June 30 was decided by the coalition when they were in office, the opposition has accused Labor of hypocrisy for not choosing to extend the payments.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said the government needed to be consistent with its advice.

'They need to hold themselves to the same type of standard they held the previous government to and be transparent with what the medical advice is,' Senator Birmingham told Sky News on Friday.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said clarity was needed on why the pandemic leave measures were not extended.

'I would like the government to advise Australians of ... why they thought it was a good idea now to remove these particular supports at the same time they're telling Australians we're about to be hit by another very serious wave of the virus,' she told ABC radio.

While this all falls short of, say, reopening a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem that Trump closed, the moves are the Biden team’s attempt at showing initial good faith. “There was really no connection whatsoever, no discussions with the Palestinians when the new administration team took over, a senior administration official told reporters on a briefing call about the initiatives. “We have worked to re-establish a lot of those connections.”

The question is if the offerings could lead to renewed peace talks.

Some analysts are skeptical and suggest that the announcements and visits are empty gestures. “The administration has made clear they are deprioritizing the Palestinian issue. The meeting with Abbas is a courtesy call, nothing more,” said Khaled Elgindy, director of the program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. “I don’t see peace talks on the horizon, but I could be wrong.”

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Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, pulled the plug on Thursday on negotiations to salvage key pieces of President Biden’s agenda, informing his party’s leaders that he would not support funding for climate or energy programs or raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.

The decision by Mr. Manchin, a conservative-leaning Democrat whose opposition has effectively stalled Mr. Biden’s economic package in the evenly divided Senate, dealt a devastating blow to his party’s efforts to enact a broad social safety net, climate and tax package.

In recent months, Democrats had slashed their ambitions for such a plan to win over Mr. Manchin, hoping that he would agree to support even a fraction of the sweeping initiative they once envisioned. His abrupt shift appeared to dash those aspirations.

In a meeting on Thursday with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, Mr. Manchin said he would support a package that would include a negotiated plan aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs and an extension of expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies set to lapse at the end of the year.

 

The shift capped off weeks of painstaking negotiations to cobble together a package that could win Mr. Manchin’s support. It came seven months after the West Virginian abruptly walked away from talks and rejected a far larger plan.

Because Democrats hold the Senate by a bare 50-50 majority, Mr. Manchin has been able to effectively exercise veto power over the domestic policy package, which the party had planned to move under a special fast-track budget process that would allow it to bypass a filibuster and pass with a simple majority. With Democrats bracing for losses in midterm elections this fall, the package could be the party’s last chance to enact substantial spending and tax legislation while it still holds the White House and both houses of Congress.

 

In rejecting any climate and energy provisions, Mr. Manchin appeared to have single-handedly shattered Mr. Biden’s ambitious climate agenda and what would have been the largest single federal investment in American history toward addressing the toll of climate change.

His decision came just days after a report showed that prices surged to 9.1 percent in June, exacerbating existing fears about inflation and rising costs for every day Americans. But while Mr. Manchin has long sounded alarms about inflation and the national debt, he had also maintained openness to overhauling the tax code, a position he appeared to have reversed.

It stunned Democratic officials who had labored to win Mr. Manchin’s vote. As recently as Friday, Democrats said they had coalesced around a plan to use the funds from raising taxes on some high-earning Americans to extend the solvency of a key Medicare fund.

But it was particularly devastating for those who had championed the climate and energy provisions. In calls to various climate activists on Thursday night, Mr. Schumer and his staff sounded shellshocked and said they believed until just a few hours before that a deal was still possible, said one person who spoke with Mr. Schumer.

Without action by Congress, it will be impossible to meet Mr. Biden’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions roughly in half by the end of this decade. That target was aimed at keeping the planet to stabilize the climate at about 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to preindustrial levels.

The Earth has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Lawmakers and activists who have led the charge for action to combat climate change expressed outrage on Thursday night.

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Tumi kar Mi je tomari Abe killing seen as attack on Japan's democracy dhaka bangladesh

 Public outrage, handwringing and vows of defiance by politicians and on social media are widespread following the daylight assassination by homemade gun of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a major political force even after he stepped down in 2020 as the nation’s longest-serving political leader.

“The bullet pierced the foundation of democracy,” the liberal Asahi newspaper, a regular foil of the conservative, sometimes history-revisionist Abe, said in a front-page editorial after the killing. “We tremble with rage.”

© Provided by Associated PressPeople offer prayers near the site of the fatal shooting of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in Nara, western Japan Saturday, July 9, 2022. Public outrage, handwringing and vows of defiance in media and among political commentators are widespread in Japan following the daylight assassination of Abe. (Kyodo News via AP)

Part of the collective fury is because crime is so rare in Japan, where it’s not uncommon to see cellphones and purses lying unattended in cafes. Gun attacks are vanishingly rare, especially in recent years and especially in political settings, though they have happened.

But the shock can also be traced to the setting: Abe was killed near a crowded train station, in the middle of a campaign speech for parliamentary elections, something that Japan, despite a long history of one-party political domination and growing voter apathy, takes seriously.

The clueless leaders who broke the societies and economies of the West are facing their comeuppance. This is an Age of Rage, and it is only beginning.

Boris Johnson, for starters, is a bust. The prime minister who made Brexit happen was knifed by his own Conservative Party. It’s a death by a thousand cuts, most of them self-inflicted.

The most popular prime minister since Margaret Thatcher was fired for turning a blind eye to boozy parties at 10 Downing Street when the rest of the country was under COVID lockdowns, and turning a blinder eye to the buttock-fondling activities of a rogue Conservative MP called, inevitably, Stephen Pincher.

The boozing and bottom-pinching is just local color from the land of Benny Hill. In the big picture, public rage — the force that brought down Boris Johnson — has also paralyzed the presidency of Emmanuel Macron of France, and given Joe Biden the worst popularity ratings since polling began. And the tidal wave of anger is still growing.

Johnson’s colleagues made a pre-emptive strike before Britain’s voters turned on the party as a whole. The French public had no choice but to return Macron to the presidency in April’s elections: He was the least-worst alternative to the ex-fascist Marine Le Pen and the neo-communist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But in June’s parliamentary elections, the French voted for the fringe parties. Macron, a little man with Napoleonic plans, is now struggling to build a coalition.

President Joe Biden’s approval rating crashed to just 30%, its lowest mark yet, on July 9.

AP/Evan Vucci

The American public have another two years of Joe Biden’s masterful leadership to look forward to. But the voters will get the chance to register their disgust in the midterms. They are as sure to massacre the Dems in November as Joe Biden is to forget what he had for breakfast.

Leftists are pleased that the original bad boys of populism are out — first Donald Trump, then Benjamin Netanyahu, now Boris — but there is no normal to return to. The voters trusted their leaders when the COVID-19 epidemic broke out — and their leaders panicked. Elected politicians outsourced the biggest challenge since World War II to the control freaks at the CDC while leaving it to corporate chemists to actually come up with the vaccines.  And the Biden administration still won’t tell us where it thinks COVID-19 came from.

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Biden snubs Boris Johnson in statement on UK prime minister’s resignation

Emmanuel Macron’s restrictions on movement would have brought a gleam to the eye of a Vichy colonel: Not since the days of Marshal Pétain had the French needed an official pass to go beyond the end of the street. At least Macron played the role of dictator with unerring conviction.

Boris Johnson imposed three merciless lockdowns, then broke his own COVID rules. Joe Biden ordered the cruel and pointless masking of children, then ambled about maskless in front of the cameras.

The leaders of the Western democracies proved they neither understood nor cared about the suffering of their peoples. Instead, they mandated government by and for the political class, its corporate patrons and its clients in the pajama class. They printed money faster than ever before, and they handicapped their economies by committing to irrational green energy policies.

The results? The post-COVID economy is a disaster. We have an unnecessary energy crisis, and the credibility of democracy itself is tumbling into an income gap that keeps getting wider. The trust between rulers and ruled has been broken.

France’s president Emmanuel Macron initiated strict COVID-19 regulations during the pandemic.

AP/Martin Meissner

The worst of it is, no one forced our leaders to opt for lockdowns, mask mandates, infant vaccinations, mad money printing and green boondoggles. This was the experts’ ill-informed idea of good government.

Johnson and Biden both turned left after winning office, imposing expensive and unworkable green energy policies, and raising taxes even as they promised to revive their economies. Biden, with his usual integrity, will blame Vladimir Putin or white supremacy when the Democrats lose both House and Senate in the midterms. But it was Biden who campaigned on a promise to kill the carbon-energy industry that, in a success supported by the G.W. Bush, Obama and Trump administrations, had turned the US from an energy exporter to an energy importer.

Tech layoffs have hit almost every region in the world, and Southeast Asia is no exception, with companies like Sea, Crypto.com and JD.ID among those affected. In particular, fintech startups—BNPL, credit and lending, and inventory-holding businesses—are vulnerable, like in other parts of the world.

Glints, one of Southeast Asia’s largest jobs platforms with over 30,000 active job listings per month and 40,000 employers, recently issued a report that shows the situation may not be so dour (even though it probably doesn’t feel that way to someone who just got laid off). There still exists a tech talent crunch, even in Singapore, where most layoffs and hiring freezes have happened because it’s regional headquarters for many international businesses and a startup hub.

“It’s a correction in general. I think what we have seen is that there has been a lot of capital being pumped into the tech industry over the past two to three years in a major bull run. With that, we had a lot of companies that have also expanded rapidly,” said Glints co-founder and CEO Oswald Yeo told TechCrunch.

“Singapore companies seem to be responding the most quickly to the changes in the macroeconomic environment,” he added, “Which is not necessarily a bad thing, because for some of these changes, you want to move quickly,”

Teams that have been hit hardest include operations, financial and human resource departments, plus some sales and marketing teams.

A lot of new hiring will happen remotely, with companies turning to Vietnam and Indonesia, which have both seen less layoffs, for top tech talent. This is fueled in part by the willingness for a decentralized workforce created by the pandemic.

“Together with the cost saving measures because on the one hand, comfort in remote hiring has increased because of the pandemic,” Yeo said. “Then on the other end, there is this need to save costs. So from both a human capital angle and a financial capital angle, a lot of companies are now actually doing more remote hiring. On Glints, for example, we see remote job opportunities has grown by 10 times over the past year.”

 

In Malaysia, regional companies still hire cross-border, but local companies have shifted back to local hiring. Glints said they do not expect mid- to senior-compensation to drop from current levels, but junior talent compensation might be affected.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has tested positive for COVID-19 and reports experiencing very mild symptoms, his spokesman said Sunday night.

Schumer, 71, is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots, spokesman Justin Goodman said in a statement.

The New York Democrat will follow federal health guidelines and quarantine this week while working remotely, Goodman said.

“Anyone who knows Leader Schumer knows that even if he’s not physically in the Capitol, through virtual meetings and his trademark flip phone he will continue with his robust schedule and remain in near constant contact with his colleagues,” Goodman said.

Another new trends is fixed-term, usually one year, contracts, that allow companies to better predict their financial outlook. “Employers are more cautious of committing themselves to permanent contracts with employers,” said Yeo.

“It’s not all doom and gloom in two ways, and there are still positives,” Yeo said. For example, he said there is still disproportionate demand for technology and product talent on Glints, with the ratio in job seekers’ favor.

Layoffs also give startups a chance to build their core teams.

“For companies who are in good position and can afford it, it’s actually a great time to strengthen the bench, shape the management bench and the leadership bench with top management talent because there’s now a little bit less competition for talent.”

USA AND Japan's ex-leader Shinzo live updates: at least 76 Covid deaths

 Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated Friday on a street in western Japan by a gunman who opened fire on him from behind as he delivered a campaign speech — an attack that stunned a nation with some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.

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In the once-prosperous cotton town of Heywood in the north west of England, Boris Johnson’s misdemeanours were wearily taken as read on the day of his resignation. The more pressing concern was about what happens next. “That, I think, is actually the problem,” said consultancy services manager Samantha Bamforth, checking her phone outside the Heywood Fish Bar moments before Johnson announced that he was quitting as leader of the Conservative party. “Nobody is good. If he goes, who is going to backfill him? What are their values? What is the public opinion of them? There’s a lot going on right now, not just in this country, but the world. Who’s equipped to deal with it?”

The 67-year-old Abe, who was Japan’s longest-serving leader when he resigned in 2020, collapsed bleeding and was airlifted to a nearby hospital in Nara, although he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was later pronounced dead after receiving massive blood transfusions, officials said.

Among them was the ratification of the Japan Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, which created new opportunities for Australian businesses in Japan.

He was a tireless champion for the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has brought huge benefits to Australia.

He elevated our bilateral relationship to a special strategic partnership. Under his longstanding advocacy, the closer links between the two nations we have, increased defence cooperation including through the recently signed reciprocal access agreement.

 

© Provided by The Guardian Shinzo Abe and former Australian PM Tony Abbott at a press conference in Parliament House, Canberra in 2014. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Mr Abe understood instinctively the values that Australia and Japan share of democracy and human rights and the shared interest we have in bolstering the global rules-based order.

His vision transcended political cycles. It was eight years ago yesterday – the 8 July 2014 that he addressed both houses of the Australian parliament. An historic address.

Elon Musk announced Friday that he will abandon his tumultuous $44 billion offer to buy Twitter after the company failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts. Twitter immediately fired back, saying it would sue the Tesla CEO to uphold the deal.

In response, the chair of Twitter’s board, Bret Taylor, tweeted that the board is “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon” with Musk and “plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

The trial court in Delaware frequently handles business disputes among the many corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.

Former President Donald Trump weighed in on his own social platform, Truth Social: “THE TWITTER DEAL IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE ‘TRUTH’”. Musk said in May that he would allow Trump, who was banned from Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, back onto the platform.

Much of the drama surrounding the deal has played out on Twitter, with Musk — who has more than 100 million followers — lamenting that the company was failing to live up to its potential as a platform for free speech.

On Friday, shares of Twitter fell 5% to $36.81, well below the $54.20 that Musk agreed to pay. Shares of Tesla, meanwhile, climbed 2.5% to $752.29. After the market closed and Musk’s letter was published, Twitter’s stock continued to decline while Tesla climbed higher.

“This is a disaster scenario for Twitter and its board,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to investors. He predicted a long court fight by Twitter to either restore the deal or get the $1 billion breakup fee.

On Thursday, Twitter sought to shed more light on how it counts spam accounts in a briefing with journalists and company executives. Twitter said it removes 1 million spam accounts each day. The accounts represent well below 5% of its active user base each quarter.

The likely unraveling of the acquisition was just the latest twist in a saga between the world’s richest man and one of the most influential social media platforms, and it may portend a titanic legal battle ahead.

Twitter could have pushed for a $1 billion breakup fee that Musk agreed to pay under these circumstances. Instead, it looks ready to fight to complete the purchase, which the company’s board has approved and CEO Parag Agrawal has insisted he wants to consummate.

In a letter to Twitter’s board, Musk lawyer Mike Ringler complained that his client had for nearly two months sought data to judge the prevalence of “fake or spam” accounts on the social media platform.

 

He spoke frankly about the horrors of the second world war and conveyed with the greatest sincerity condolences towards the many who lost their lives. Four years later, in 2018, he was the first Japanese leader to visit Darwin and to lay a memorial wreath while he was there.

Mr Abe was a great statesman who made a difference. His vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific has a profound effect on regional and global security and informing the Quad.

Anthony Albanese pays tribute to Shinzo Abe as 'a true patriot and a true leader'

03:30

Prime minister Anthony Albanese is speaking to reporters about the shock of the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe:

 

It is hard to believe we are speaking about Shinzo Abe in the past tense. I have had a little while to process the information but, like I think many people around the world, I am still in shock at this news.

Japan has lost a true patriot and a true leader. And Australia has lost a true friend. Friendship that Mr Abe offered Australia was warm in sentiment and profound in consequence.

During his time as prime minister no one was more committed to furthering relations between our two nations. He visited Australia no less than five times as the prime minister of Japan.

 

© Provided by The Guardian Anthony Albanese pays tribute to Shinzo Abe during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

 

03:05

Albanese: Abe death ‘mightn’t be the last’ political assassination

Anthony Albanese has described the cruelty of the loss of the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, and expressed fears that such a sudden loss of a world leader “mightn’t be the last”:

 

Mr Abe was not destined to be prime minister in easy times but even as the world shifted beneath our feet, Mr Abe faced all of the challenges with a strength of character and an unbending resolve.

He did not flinch, he did not weaken. And that is the cruel paradox of the tragedy that unfolded yesterday. That someone of such courage, with such strength of character, could be taken away with an act of extreme cowardice.

It is not the first time we have seen this grim occasion play out, and I fear that it mightn’t be the last.

 

Albanese said the shooting of Abe was an “attack on our democracy” but it wouldn’t undermine the “precious democracy” he had helped to protect and build.

 

The precious democracy that you have built is stronger than this. The values that we share and that hold our societies together are stronger than this.

A hand that is raised in violence can never overpower what so many hands have built in peace. Likewise, this low act of cruelty will not overshadow a life that was lived with such high purpose.

For Mr Abe’s family and to his loving wife, I extend the sincerest condolences of the Australian people along with the warmth and their enduring gratitude.

While the people of Japan deal with this profound loss, they know this. Mr Abe’s life was one of consequence.

A hearse carrying Abe's body left the hospital early Saturday to head back to his home in Tokyo. Abe's wife Akie lowered her head as the vehicle passed before a crowd of journalists.

Nara Medical University emergency department chief Hidetada Fukushima said Abe suffered major damage to his heart, along with two neck wounds that damaged an artery. He never regained his vital signs, Fukushima said.

Police at the shooting scene arrested Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a former member of Japan's navy, on suspicion of murder. Police said he used a gun that was obviously homemade — about 15 inches (40 centimeters) long — and they confiscated similar weapons and his personal computer when they raided his nearby one-room apartment.

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Police said Yamagami was responding calmly to questions and had admitted to attacking Abe, telling investigators he had plotted to kill him because he believed rumors about the former leader's connection to a certain organization that police did not identify.

Dramatic video from broadcaster NHK showed Abe standing and giving a speech outside a train station ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election. As he raised his fist to make a point, two gunshots rang out, and he collapsed holding his chest, his shirt smeared with blood as security guards ran toward him. Guards then leapt onto the gunman, who was face down on the pavement, and a double-barreled weapon was seen nearby.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Cabinet ministers hastily returned to Tokyo from campaign events elsewhere after the shooting, which he called “dastardly and barbaric." He pledged that the election, which chooses members for Japan's less-powerful upper house of parliament, would go on as planned.

“I use the harshest words to condemn (the act),” Kishida said, struggling to control his emotions. He said the government would review the security situation, but added that Abe had the highest protection.

Even though he was out of office, Abe was still highly influential in the governing Liberal Democratic Party and headed its largest faction, Seiwakai, but his ultra-nationalist views made him a divisive figure to many.