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Spain’s top diplomat dismisses Israeli leader’s vow of no Palestinian state, saying it will happen

Spain’s top diplomat dismisses Israeli leader’s vow of no Palestinian state, saying it will happen
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during a high profile meeting at the United Nations aimed at galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict at the UN headquarters. (AP)
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Updated 10 sec ago
AP

Spain’s top diplomat dismisses Israeli leader’s vow of no Palestinian state, saying it will happen

Spain’s top diplomat dismisses Israeli leader’s vow of no Palestinian state, saying it will happen
  • Spain has been in the forefront in pressuring Israel to end the war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’ surprise invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, criticizing “the atrocities” and “endless killing” it is committing in the territory
  • Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the war a “genocide” earlier this month when he announced plans to formalize an arms embargo and block Israel bound fuel deliveries from passing through Spanish ports
Updated 10 sec ago
AP

UNITED NATIONS: Spain’s top diplomat dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that there will never be a Palestinian state, saying Israelis will one day want to live side by side in peace with Palestinians.
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday that “a real wave” of countries have recognized the state of Palestine since Spain, Ireland and Norway did in May 2024 and an overwhelming number support a two-state solution to the nearly 80-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The day that everyone will have recognized the state of Palestine, we will have to move forward,” he said at the United Nations. “I’m sure that we will find someday the right people for peace on the Israel side, in the same way that we have found it in the Palestinian side” in the Palestinian Authority.
Spain has been in the forefront in pressuring Israel to end the war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’ surprise invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, criticizing “the atrocities” and “endless killing” it is committing in the territory.
Albares spoke before a UN General Assembly meeting at its annual gathering of world leaders. At the meeting, the Palestinians expected 10 recent and new countries to formally recognize the state of Palestine, adding to the list of more than 145 nations that already have. France, Luxembourg, Belgium and others did so at the meeting, even after Netanyahu reiterated his vow that there will never be a Palestinian state. Weekend recognitions came from the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
The Spanish minister called Hamas “a terrorist organization” that doesn’t want a two-state solution. “So let’s put aside the extremists, and let’s look for the people that want a peaceful and secure coexistence.”
Spain is a vocal critic of Israeli action
Albares said Spain has staked out one of the strongest positions against Israel’s actions in Gaza because “we cannot accept that the natural way for the people in the Middle East to relate is through war, through violence.”
Israel has the right to peace, stability, security and a state and so do the Palestinians, he said. “I don’t see why they should be condemned to be eternally a people of refugees.”
Albares said that it was impossible for Spain, as a democratic country that believes in human rights, to have a “normal relation with Israel” while “this endless war continues.”
In recent weeks, Spain ratcheted up its opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the war a “genocide” earlier this month when he announced plans to formalize an arms embargo and block Israel-bound fuel deliveries from passing through Spanish ports. Netanyahu accused Sánchez of a “blatant genocidal threat.”
The following week, pro-Palestine protesters for whom the government expressed its support disrupted the final leg of an international cycling competition in Madrid due to the presence of a team with ties to Israel.
In the incident’s aftermath, Sánchez called for Israel to be banned from all international sporting events while the war continues. A diplomatic tit-for-tat ensued in which both countries banned ministers and Israeli leaders accused the Spanish government of being “antisemitic.”
Albares said that in pressuring Israel to end the war in Gaza, Spain is defending the principles that underpin the creation of the United Nations after World War II — peace, justice, human rights and human dignity.
Balancing demands from Trump
On another contentious issue, the minister defended Spain’s refusal to spend 5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense as US President Donald Trump demanded. At a NATO conference in June, the Sánchez government was the only NATO member to say it would not increase spending to that level.
“We are going to meet the targets and the commitments that are needed for Euro-Atlantic security within NATO,” Albares said. “We said in order to meet them we don’t need the 5 percent, we can do it with 2.1 percent. We have already reached the 2 percent target.”
Citing Spain’s military deployments along Europe’s eastern flank including “a historical peak” of 3,000 soldiers among its contributions to European security, he said, “We are a very committed ally to transatlantic security.”
Albares said the US is a “historic, natural ally” of Spain and Europeans. “Let’s keep doing it in the same way. But, of course, we need two for a tango,” he said. What’s clear, Albares said, is that Europe must increasingly take its destiny into its own hands whether it’s ramping up internal trade or security.
Looking at broader challenges from the severity of wars to poverty, climate change and artificial intelligence advancements with no guardrails, Albares said the only answer to address them is by all countries working together — the multilateral approach that underpins the UN mission.
“At the end,” he said, “cooperation is always much ... stronger than confrontation.”

Topics: Palestine Israel Spain

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‘Real’ Greek farmers fume over EU subsidies scandal

‘Real’ Greek farmers fume over EU subsidies scandal
Updated 5 sec ago
AFP

‘Real’ Greek farmers fume over EU subsidies scandal

‘Real’ Greek farmers fume over EU subsidies scandal
  • Thessaloniki farmer Anna Aivazidi’s blood boils when she thinks of the huge sums siphoned off in a major EU farm subsidy scandal
Updated 5 sec ago
AFP
THESSALONIKI:Thessaloniki farmer Anna Aivazidi’s blood boils when she thinks of the huge sums siphoned off in a major EU farm subsidy scandal.
“I earn 300 euros ($355) in subsidies a year. I struggle to produce every day. I feel extremely wronged,” the 40-year-old told AFP.
“Subsidies should go to real producers,” she said.
Aivazidi is among thousands of Greek farmers who say they were penalized for years while others profited, in a massive scam allegedly assisted by government officials.
The scheme began following a change in the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, which in 2014 shifted subsidies from livestock to land.
Greece’s land registry at the time was woefully incomplete, however, meaning ownership over much of the country was unclear.
To facilitate them, farmers were allowed to declare land owned elsewhere in Greece to claim a share of the subsidies. Non-farmers with political connections got in on the action, lured by the prospect of easy money.
“The fraud essentially involved the process of appropriating or declaring public pastures by individuals who were not genuinely active farmers and who didn’t own animals to use them,” said Moschos Korasidis, former vice president of OPEKEPE, the government agency that handled the EU payments.
Genuine farmers lost an estimated 70 million euros a year, he said.
“The scheme was well organized... it was a criminal organization which naturally required political cover,” said Giorgos Drosos, 65, a wheat and cotton grower in Thessaly.
Greek authorities estimate at least 23 million euros in EU farm subsidies went to fraudulent claimants. But the full cost could be even greater, according to the European public prosecutor’s office.
“Our subsidies were slashed by 70 percent while phantom (farmers) pocketed thousands of euros,” said Pavlos Spyropoulos, a 49-year-old cotton farmer from Trikala.
False declarations
An EU probe has shown widespread abuse of funds handed out by OPEKEPE, which, according to the government, annually disbursed more than three billion euros in subsidies to 680,000 farmers.
“Such illegal practice may have been organized in a systematic manner with the involvement of (OPEKEPE) officials,” the European public prosecutor’s office said in a statement in May.
The probe is primarily focusing on the period after 2019 under the conservative administration of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis has said that the fraud began in 2016, and has insisted that two agriculture ministers appointed by him, who are under investigation, bear no criminal responsibility.
“We have been clear on this — no criminal responsibilities arise,” the prime minister told Antenna TV recently.
One high-profile case is the conservative party’s former coordinator for EU funds, who resigned in August. She denies any wrongdoing.
In a further blow to Mitsotakis, the EU probe has found that most of the allegedly fraudulent claims came from the island of Crete, where his family has held political influence for over a century.
According to OPEKEPE, approximately 80 percent of total subsidies granted from 2017 to 2020 for pastures ended up in Crete.
While the number of livestock farmers across Greece is decreasing, in Crete, 13,000 new farmers were registered between 2019 and 2025, with the number of declared sheep and goats doubling over the same period.
Mitsotakis on Wednesday stressed that state auditors had seized 22 million euros from 1,000 spurious tax accounts.
“You can’t call that a small sum. And the checks go on,” he told Antenna.
He added that it was “obvious” that members of his New Democracy party would be involved in an “extensive corruption case” because “we are the biggest party.”
Mount Olympus bananas
Eye-catching cases under investigation are pastures declared in archaeological sites, olive trees in a military airport, and banana plantations on Mount Olympus.
“They set up a shop with European Union money. The politicians knew. It was a business,” said Nikos Kakavas, head of the federation of geotechnical civil servants.
“If the European Prosecutor’s Office hadn’t intervened, nothing would have happened. We’ve been shouting about this for years, but no one listened,” Kakavas said.
There was no absence of red flags, argued Athanassios Saropoulos, head of the Greek geotechnical chamber’s Macedonia branch.
In the Chania region, seat of the Mitsotakis family, in the first eight months of the year, nearly one million registered sheep and goats produced 12 times less milk than in the Larissa region, he said.
“This cannot be explained by any technical or scientific terms,” Saropoulos said.

Hopes of Western refuge sink for Afghans in Pakistan

Hopes of Western refuge sink for Afghans in Pakistan
Updated 3 min 51 sec ago
AFP

Hopes of Western refuge sink for Afghans in Pakistan

Hopes of Western refuge sink for Afghans in Pakistan
  • In their Pakistan safehouse, Shayma and her family try to keep their voices low so their neighbors don’t overhear their Afghan mother tongue
Updated 3 min 51 sec ago
AFP

ISLAMABAD:In their Pakistan safehouse, Shayma and her family try to keep their voices low so their neighbors don’t overhear their Afghan mother tongue.
But she can belt out Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” any time she likes, and no-one would guess it comes from a 15-year-old refugee in hiding.
“In the kitchen, the sound is very good,” she told AFP alongside her sister and fellow young bandmates.
By now, Shayma should have been testing the acoustics of her new home in New York.
But before her family’s scheduled February flight, US President Donald Trump indefinitely suspended refugee admissions, stranding around 15,000 Afghans already prepared to fly out from Islamabad.
Thousands more are waiting in the city for relocation to other Western nations, but shifting global sentiment toward refugees has diminished their chances and put them at risk of a renewed deportation drive by Pakistan, where they have long exhausted their welcome.
For girls and women, the prospect is particularly devastating: a return to the only country in the world that has banned them from most education and jobs.
“We will do whatever it takes to hide ourselves,” said Shayma’s 19-year-old bandmate, Zahra.
“For girls like us, there is no future in Afghanistan.”
’Not a transit camp’
After the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, tens of thousands of Afghans traveled to neighboring Pakistan to register refugee and asylum applications with Western embassies, often on the advice of officials.
Many had worked for the US-led NATO forces or Western NGOs, while others were activists, musicians or journalists.
Four years on, thousands are still waiting, mostly in the capital Islamabad or its outskirts, desperately hoping that one of the embassies will budge and offer them safe haven.
Hundreds have been arrested and deported in recent weeks, and AFP gave interviewees pseudonyms for their protection.
“This is not an indefinite transit camp,” a Pakistan government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said Pakistan would allow Afghans with pending cases to stay if Western nations assured the government that they would resettle them.
“Multiple deadlines were agreed but they were not honored,” he added.
Miraculous music
The teenaged musicians learned to play guitar back in Kabul at a nonprofit music school for girls, who are now dispersed across Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States.
“We want to use our music for those who don’t have a voice, especially for the girls and women of Afghanistan,” said Zahra, one of the four in Pakistan.
The school opened under Kabul’s previous US-backed government, when foreign-funded initiatives proliferated alongside NATO troops.
Overcoming social taboos, Shayma and her sister Laylama attended the after-school lessons run by an American former arena rocker, who helped kids get off the streets and into guitar practice.
One of 10 siblings, Laylama sold sunflower seeds to help support the family. She had cherished a stringless plastic guitar, until she encountered the real thing.
“Music really changed our life,” she said.
But fearing retribution from the Taliban government, which considers Western music anti-Islamic, Laylama’s father burned her guitar.
“I cried all night,” the 16-year-old told AFP.
’Drastic measures’
Since they were smuggled into Pakistan in April 2022 to apply for refugee status with the United States, Shayma and her bandmates have had to move four times, driven deeper into hiding.
At the start of Pakistan’s crackdown in 2023, the US embassy provided the government with a list of Afghans in its pipeline that should be spared, according to a former staffer with the State Department’s Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts.
That office, and the protections it offered, have been dismantled by the Trump administration.
“Leaving these refugees in limbo is not just arbitrary, it’s cruel,” said Jessica Bradley Rushing of the advocacy coalition #AfghanEvac.
As Pakistan expands its “Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan” to include refugees, it may be seeking leverage over foreign partners in its counter-terrorism campaign, said International Crisis Group analyst Ibraheem Bahiss.
“These are really drastic measures not only to put pressure on the Taliban government but also to show the international community they are very serious,” he told AFP.
For the girls, every day brings the fear that a knock on the door will send them back.
Outside, mosque loudspeakers in Afghan neighborhoods order migrants to leave, while refugees are picked up from their homes or workplaces, or off the street.
To stem their anxiety, the girls maintain rigorous daily routines, starting with the dawn call to prayer.
They rehearse a Farsi version of Coldplay’s “Arabesque” and a riff on Imagine Dragons’ “Believer.”
They also practice English through YouTube videos and reading “Frankenstein.”
“It’s not normal to always stay in the house, especially for children. They should be in nature,” Zahra said.
“But going back to Afghanistan? It’s a horrible idea.”

Topics: Pakistan Afghanistan

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China cancels schools and flights as it braces for Ragasa, one of the strongest typhoons in years
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China cancels schools and flights as it braces for Ragasa, one of the strongest typhoons in years

China cancels schools and flights as it braces for Ragasa, one of the strongest typhoons in years

China cancels schools and flights as it braces for Ragasa, one of the strongest typhoons in years
Updated 12 min 1 sec ago
AP

China cancels schools and flights as it braces for Ragasa, one of the strongest typhoons in years

China cancels schools and flights as it braces for Ragasa, one of the strongest typhoons in years
  • Hong Kong’s observatory reports Super Typhoon Ragasa is approaching the southern Chinese economic hub of Guangdong
  • Schools in Hong Kong, Macao and Shenzhen are closed, and at least hundreds of flights have been canceled in the Asian financial hub
Updated 12 min 1 sec ago
AP

HONG KONG: Southern Chinese cities scaled back many aspects of daily life on Tuesday with school and business closures and flight cancelations as the region braced for one of the strongest typhoons in years that has already killed three people and led to the displacement of thousands of others in the Philippines.
Hong Kong’ s observatory said Super Typhoon Ragasa, which was packing maximum sustained winds near the center of about 137 mph (220 kph), is expected to move west-northwest at about 14 mph (22 kph) across the northern part of the South China Sea and edge closer to the coast of Guangdong province, the southern Chinese economic powerhouse.
China’s National Meteorological Center forecast the typhoon would make landfall in the coastal area between Zhuhai and Zhanjiang cities in Guangdong between midday and evening on Wednesday.
Already hoisting a strong wind signal, the observatory in Hong Kong will issue storm warning signal No. 8, the third-highest in the city’s weather alert system, on Tuesday afternoon. It recorded wind speeds of 84 mph (135 kph) near the ground at a distance of about 75 miles (120 km) from the typhoon’s center, indicating a wide coverage of hurricane force.
The city categorizes tropical cyclones with maximum sustained winds near the center of 185 kph (115 mph) or above as super typhoons to make residents extra vigilant about the approach of more intense storms.
The water level is forecast to rise about 2 meters (6.5 feet) over coastal areas in the Asian financial hub on Wednesday morning, and the maximum water level in some areas could hit 4 to 5 meters (13.1 to 16.4 feet) above the typical lowest sea level.
The government said the water levels could be similar to those recorded during Typhoon Hato in 2017 and Typhoon Mangkhut in 2018 — estimated to have caused the city direct economic losses worth over 1 billion Hong Kong dollars ($154 million) and 4.6 billion Hong Kong dollars (about $590 million), respectively.
Residents living in flood-prone areas have already put sandbags and barriers at their doors, while others have put tape on windows and glass doors to brace for strong winds. Many people stockpiled food and daily supplies on Monday, as some market vendors reported that their goods were selling out fast.
Schools were closed in Hong Kong and the neighboring city of Macao. Other cities such as the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen and Foshan in Guangdong province and Haikou in Hainan province ordered class cancelations and a gradual suspension of other businesses and transportation.
Hundreds of flights were canceled in Hong Kong. Shenzhen airport will halt all flights from Tuesday night. The Macao government was evacuating residents and tourists and ordered bridges to close in the evening as it expected Ragasa would pass within 62 miles (100 kilometers) to the south of the casino hub on Wednesday morning.
At least six people were injured and over 7,000 people were evacuated in Taiwan when the typhoon swept south of the island, and over 8,000 households were impacted by a power outage, the Central News Agency reported.
In the Philippines, Ragasa left at least three people dead and five others missing and displaced more than 17,500 people in flooding and landslides set off by the most powerful storm to hit the Southeast Asian archipelago this year, the country’s disaster-response agency and provincial officials said.
The dead included a 74-year-old man, who died while being brought to a hospital after being pinned in one of four vehicles that were partly buried by mud, rocks and trees that cascaded down a mountainside onto a narrow road on Monday in the mountain town of Tuba in Benguet province, officials said.
Two other villagers died in the storm, including a resident in Calayan town, a cluster of islands off northern Cagayan province where the super typhoon made landfall on Monday, officials said without providing details.
Ragasa, Tagalog for scramble, prompted the Philippine government on Monday to close schools and government offices in the densely populated capital region and 29 northern provinces. Fishing boats and ferries were prohibited from venturing into very rough seas and domestic flights were canceled.

Topics: China

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Drones that shut Copenhagen Airport sent by ‘capable operator’, Danish police say
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Drones that shut Copenhagen Airport sent by ‘capable operator’, Danish police say

Drones that shut Copenhagen Airport sent by ‘capable operator’, Danish police say

Drones that shut Copenhagen Airport sent by ‘capable operator’, Danish police say
Updated 1 min 8 sec ago
Reuters

Drones that shut Copenhagen Airport sent by ‘capable operator’, Danish police say

Drones that shut Copenhagen Airport sent by ‘capable operator’, Danish police say
  • Copenhagen Airport was closed for four hours when two or three large drones were seen flying in its immediate vicinity, officials said
Updated 1 min 8 sec ago
Reuters

COPENHAGEN: Danish police said on Tuesday that drones that shut the country’s main airport on Monday appeared to have been flown by “a capable operator,” adding that no suspects had been identified.

The airports in Copenhagen and Oslo, the two busiest in the Nordic region, were shut for hours after drones were observed in their airspace late on Monday, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded as flights were diverted.

“We have concluded that this was what we would call a capable operator,” Danish police Chief Superintendent Jens Jespersen told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the drones observed in Copenhagen.

“It’s an actor who has the capabilities, the will and the tools to show off in this way,” Jespersen said, adding that it was too early to say if the incidents in Denmark and Norway were linked.

Copenhagen Airport was closed for four hours when two or three large drones were seen flying in its immediate vicinity, officials said, while the Oslo Airport was closed for three hours following two sightings, according to local police.

Jespersen said the drones in Denmark came from several different directions, turning their lights on and off, before eventually disappearing after several hours.

Topics: Denmark Airport

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Trump to take aim at ‘globalist institutions,’ make case for his foreign policy record in UN speech

Trump to take aim at ‘globalist institutions,’ make case for his foreign policy record in UN speech
Updated 39 min 5 sec ago
AP

Trump to take aim at ‘globalist institutions,’ make case for his foreign policy record in UN speech

Trump to take aim at ‘globalist institutions,’ make case for his foreign policy record in UN speech
  • The US president’s speech is typically among the most anticipated moments of the annual assembly
  • White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would tout “the renewal of American strength around the world” and his efforts to help end several wars
Updated 39 min 5 sec ago
AP

NEW YORK: Watched by the world, President Donald Trump returns to the United Nations on Tuesday to deliver a wide-ranging address on his second-term foreign policy achievements and lament that “globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order,” according to the White House.
World leaders will be listening closely to his remarks at the UN General Assembly as Trump has already moved quickly to diminish US support for the world body in his first eight months in office. Even in his first term, he was no fan of the flavor of multilateralism that the United Nations espouses.
After his latest inauguration, he issued a first-day executive order withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. That was followed by his move to end US participation in the UN Human Rights Council, and ordering up a review of US membership in hundreds of intergovernmental organizations aimed at determining whether they align with the priorities of his “America First” agenda.
“There are great hopes for it, but it’s not being well run, to be honest,” Trump said of the UN last week.
The US president’s speech is typically among the most anticipated moments of the annual assembly. This one comes at one of the most volatile moments in the world body’s 80-year-old history. Global leaders are being tested by intractable wars in Gaza,Ukraine and Sudan, uncertainty about the economic and social impact of emerging artificial intelligence technology, and anxiety about Trump’s antipathy for the global body.
Trump has also raised new questions about the American use of military force in his return to the White House, after ordering US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June and a trio of strikes this month on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea.
The latter strikes, including at least two fatal attacks on boats that originated from Venezuela, has raised speculation in Caracas that Trump is looking to set the stage for the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Some US lawmakers and human rights advocates say that Trump is effectively carrying out extrajudicial killings by using US forces to lethally target alleged drug smugglers instead of interdicting the suspected vessels, seizing any drugs and prosecuting the suspects in US courts.
“This is by far the most stressed the UN system has ever been in its 80 years,” said Anjali K. Dayal, a professor of international politics at Fordham University in New York.
Trump to hold one-on-one talks with world leaders
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would tout “the renewal of American strength around the world” and his efforts to help end several wars.
“The president will also touch upon how globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order, and he will articulate his straightforward and constructive vision for the world,” Leavitt said.
Following his speech, Trump will hold one-on-one meetings with UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the leaders of Ukraine, Argentina and the European Union. He will also hold a group meeting with officials from Qatar, , Indonesia, Turkiye, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
He’ll return to Washington after hosting a reception Tuesday night with more than 100 invited world leaders.
Gaza and Ukraine cast shadow over Trump speech
Trump has struggled to deliver on his 2024 campaign promises to quickly end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His response has been also relatively muted as some longtime American allies are using this year’s General Assembly to spotlight the growing international campaign for recognition of a Palestinian state, a move that the US and Israel vehemently oppose.
France became the latest nation to recognize Palestinian statehood on Monday at the start of a high-profile meeting at the UN aimed at galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict. More nations are expected to follow.
Leavitt said Trump sees the push as “just more talk and not enough action from some of our friends and allies.”
Trump, for his part, in the lead-up to Tuesday’s address has tried to keep focus on getting agreement on a ceasefire that leads Hamas to releasing its remaining 48 hostages, including 20 still believed be alive.
“I’d like to see a diplomatic solution,” Trump told reporters Sunday evening. “There’s a lot of anger and a lot of hatred, you know that, and there has been for a lot of years … but hopefully we’ll get something done.”
Leaders in the room will also be eager to hear what Trump has to say about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It’s been more than a month since Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and key European leaders. Following those meetings, Trump announced that he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelensky. But Putin hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelensky and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine since the Alaska summit.
European leaders as well as American lawmakers, including some key Republican allies of Trump, have urged the president to dial up stronger sanctions on Russia. Trump, meanwhile, has pressed Europe to stop buying Russian oil, the engine feeding Putin’s war machine.
Trump has Oslo dreams
Despite his struggles to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Trump has made clear that he wants to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, repeatedly making the spurious claim that he’s “ended seven wars” since he returned to office.
He points to his administration’s efforts to end conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand.
Although Trump helped mediate relations among many of these nations, experts say his impact isn’t as clear cut as he claims.
Still, Trump’s Nobel ambitions could have impact on the tenor of his address, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
“His speech is going to be driven by how much he really believes he has a chance of getting a Nobel Peace Prize,” Montgomery said. “If he thinks that’s still something he can do, then I think he knows you don’t go into the UN and drop a grenade down the tank hatch and shut it, right?”

Topics: UN US Trump

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