‘Sickening’: VP Harris slammed by school shooting victims’ families over recently unearthed comments
Loved ones of students killed in school shootings slammed Vice President Kamala Harris after unearthed comments from 2019 surfaced this week, detailing that Harris supports removing police officers from schools. “My brother was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting because of liberal policies like the one Kamala is pushing here… I wish there had been a police officer there to protect him. Students need more protection, not less!,” school safety advocate JT Lewis posted to X. Lewis’ younger brother, six-year-old Jesse Lewis, was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut that left 26 children and staffers dead. Lewis was reacting to unearthed footage of Harris in 2019, when she was a California senator, declaring her support of removing police officers from schools in an effort to “demilitarize” campuses. “What we need to do about … demilitarizing our schools and taking police officers out of schools. We need to deal with the reality and speak the truth about the inequities around school discipline. Where in particular, Black and Brown boys are being expelled and or suspended as young as, I’ve seen, as young as in elementary school,” Harris said in 2019 in South Carolina, when she served as a California senator running for president during the 2020 cycle. KAMALA HARRIS CALLED FOR REMOVING COPS FROM SCHOOLS TO FIGHT RACIAL ‘INEQUITIES’ IN 2019 INTERVIEW Harris joined the 2019 Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, in October of that year before she dropped out of the 2020 race and was announced as President Biden’s running mate. A college student asked Harris how she would go about expunging the records of juveniles to allow them to attend college, including expunging “a criminal offense,” not “just a marijuana expungement.” CRIME SPIKES FORCE SCHOOLS TO REINSTATE RESOURCE OFFICERS AS DEFUND MOVEMENT COLLAPSES “That’s a great question and a great point, because when we talk about reform of the criminal justice system, we’ve got to understand that the juvenile justice system is in dire need of reform, and I know that. And I’ve seen it,” Harris responded, touting her 2020 campaign’s “plan of action” on criminal justice reform. ALEXANDRIA CITY COUNCIL REINSTATES SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS AFTER TEACHER, PARENT PLEAS OVER VIOLENCE “I will end solitary confinement of juveniles, which includes what we need to do to talk about and have a commitment for less incarceration of juveniles. And have guidelines in terms of exactly what those, those numbers should be, because right now, in so many states, children are being incarcerated for … a child being incarcerated for a couple of days is traumatic, much less the weeks, months and years that we’re seeing that happen,” she explained. Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris presidential campaign earlier this week inquiring whether she still supports removing police officers from schools, but did not receive a reply. PARKLAND VICTIM’S DAD SLAMS VP KAMALA HARRIS’ ‘PHOTO OP’ VISIT TO ‘PUSH AN AGENDA’: ‘SLAP IN THE FACE’ Other family members of school-shooting victims joined Lewis in their condemnation of Harris’ 2019 comments, including Ryan Petty and Andrew Pollack, two dads who lost their respective teenage daughters in the tragic Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. “Wreckless. Radical. Kamala wants to make schools less safe. Your kids aren’t safe with Kamala Harris in office,” Petty, who lost his 14-year-old daughter Alaina Petty in the 2018 shooting, tweeted in response to the Trump War Room posting footage of Harris’ comments. “This is sickening. My daughter was killed because Parkland didn’t have enough security. We need more school resource officers — not fewer!” Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter Meadow Pollack was killed in the same shooting, posted on X. Harris’ comments declaring support for the removal of officers from schools were made ahead of 2020’s summer of protests and riots in response to the killing of George Floyd during a police interaction on Memorial Day of that year. Floyd’s death reignited calls from activists to defund the police, which had a cascading effect across the country as liberal cities moved to slash police budgets, and school boards also voted to sever ties with police departments. FATHER OF PARKLAND SHOOTING VICTIM SPEAKS OUT ON TRAGIC ANNIVERSARY: ‘CRIMINALS DON’T OBEY GUN LAWS’ Researchers with the outlet Education Week found in 2022 that at least 50 school districts between May 2020 through June 2022 had removed officers from school campuses or slashed budgets for school officers. The plans to remove officers from schools, however, were short-lived in many jurisdictions, as violence broke out on campuses when students returned to the classrooms following the pandemic and its lockdowns. In the face of violence, such as a shooting at a Denver high school, or repeated fights within the Alexandria, Virginia, school district, education officials from coast to coast backtracked on removing officers, welcoming them back to campuses in an effort to curb crime. Harris officially accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in Chicago last week. She rose to the top of the ticket after President Biden dropped out of the race last month amid mounting concerns over his mental acuity.
Harris camp hires activist reverend who claims Christianity has been ‘hijacked’ by White supremacy
The Harris-Walz campaign has hired liberal activist the Rev. Jennifer Butler to be its new head of faith outreach, with Butler confirming the appointment on social media and in an interview with Religion News Service. Butler is a longtime liberal activist who argued in 2022 that White supremacists have “hijacked” the Christian faith, and has said that faith calls us to “resist.” She is the founder of the nonprofit Faith in Public Life, which claims to advance the “moral imperative for a just, inclusive and equitable country.” She now runs a campaign seeking to root out White nationalism within the Christian faith. “I bring a broad set of relationships that I think can help, very quickly, pull a broad coalition together,” Butler told Religion News Service (RNS) on Wednesday. “I also recognize that we’re at a pivotal moment in American democracy where faith voices for justice are needed now more than ever… The Harris-Walz campaign is a really unique opportunity to shift the debate, to engage all of those who are concerned about what a Trump presidency would mean, the work of this campaign and what it can do to transform America.” ‘EVANGELICALS FOR HARRIS’ HOST HAS SAID ‘WHITENESS IS WICKED,’ POLICE NEED TO BE ‘DESTROYED AND REBUILT’ Butler’s official title will be national faith engagement director, according to RNS. Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for more details on what Butler’s new role will specifically entail but did not receive a response. Additionally, no announcement appears on the campaign’s website, or its official X account, as of Thursday morning. In 2022, Butler wrote an editorial posted to the website of a progressive, non-denominational Christian movement. “More Christians must step up,” she wrote at the time. “We must do more than just watch the January 6th hearings aghast. We cannot allow our faith to continue to be hijacked by white supremacists covered in religious language. For the sake of our faith and our democracy, we must denounce Christian nationalism and reclaim a faith that values and affirms the human dignity of all people. Including our own.” ‘EVANGELICALS FOR HARRIS’ COURTS ‘POLITICALLY HOMELESS’ CHRISTIANS TO BACK DEMOCRAT IN NOVEMBER Meanwhile, the following month, she reiterated her comments during an interview on MSNBC. During the interview, Butler proclaimed that Christianity “has long been used to justify the oppression of others” and she insisted it was happening again amid the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “That is not my faith,” Butler continued. “As Christians, particularly as White Christians in this country… we need as Christians to speak more loudly about what our faith – that our faith calls us to resist the pharaohs, the Egyptian kings, the Roman Caesars of our day.” Butler added that she is working to “reclaim [Christianity] for justice and for compassion,” and also charged Republicans with using religious liberty as a “weapon” to pass discriminatory bills against people who identify as LGBTQ. The activist reverend was arrested in 2017 for nonviolently protesting Republican efforts to repeal provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including attempts to override abortion regulations on grounds that it violated religious liberty. Fox News Digital reached out to Butler for comment but did not receive a response.
Vermont urges everyone to replace ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ with ‘gender-neutral’ terms in schools
The Vermont Department of Health is advising educators and families to forego the terms “son” and “daughter” when speaking to students. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, the department suggested using what they referred to as “inclusive language for families” in the new school year. “Equity in the classroom is an essential piece of a productive and healthy learning environment,” the post read. The department advised using the terms “child” or “kid” instead of saying “daughter” or “son,” suggesting they are more “gender-neutral” words. CALIFORNIA DISTRICT ACCUSED OF CRAFTING PLAN TO PROMOTE ANTISEMITIC CURRICULUM ‘UNDER THE RADAR’: LAWSUIT Libs of TikTok, a prominent, right-wing social media account known for reposting far-left content that often entails anti-LGBTQ themes, shared a screenshot of the guidelines saying “yes, this is real.” “The Vermont Department of Health says to stop using the terms ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ in order to be more inclusive. This erosion of the meaning of words and the dismantling of family as the building block of society is wrong. Christians must stand for truth and not give in on these issues,” the Dansbury Institute, a group of issue-based, nonpartisan churches that focuses on public policy issues, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. LOUISIANA GOVERNOR ISSUES BACK-TO-SCHOOL ORDER BANNING CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN K-12 PUBLIC CLASSROOMS Asked about the post, the Vermont Department of Health told Fox News Digital that the guide was “intended to encourage using inclusive language when you don’t know someone’s family situation. “ The state’s health department promotes a “health equity glossary” involving similar rhetoric on its website. The glossary, reviewed by Fox News Digital, defines gender as “social, psychological, and/or emotional traits, often influenced by societal expectations, that classify someone as man, woman, a mixture of both, or neither” and says it is “socially constructed.” The site also defines “internalized racism” as a “set of private beliefs, prejudices, and ideas that individuals have about the superiority of whites and the inferiority of people of color.” The health department says the term “white” is “a social and political, rather than biological, construct” and links to a 2016 video on “The Surprisingly Racist History of ‘Caucasian’ | Decoded.” The glossary also defines “white privilege” as “unquestioned and unearned sets of advantages, entitlements, benefits and choices that people have solely because they are white.”
Harris was ‘open’ to packing Supreme Court during 2019 presidential bid
Then-Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris did not rule out potentially packing the Supreme Court in 2019 when she sought the party’s nod to face then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The now-vice president and Democratic nominee for president in 2024 reiterated several times during her previous campaign that she wasn’t opposed to a Supreme Court expansion, which would theoretically allow liberal justices to take on a majority role through new appointments. “I’m open to this conversation about increasing the number of people on the United States Supreme Court,” Harris told voters in Nashua, New Hampshire, after a question was posed to her about adding up to four seats to the high court, Bloomberg reported at the time. HARRIS CAMPAIGN MANAGER IGNORES PRESS CONFERENCE QUESTION AS VP HITS 33 DAYS WITHOUT ONE Her interest in court-packing was not limited to a one-off remark. Harris made it clear, reiterating during her primary campaign in 2019 to both the New York Times and Politico that she was open-minded when it came to adding more seats to the court. Harris claimed to Politico at the time that “everything is on the table” to restore confidence in the Supreme Court, including court-packing. She was asked by The New York Times whether she wished to elaborate on being “open” to court-packing, to which she declined. “I’m just open to it,” she said. BIDEN-HARRIS HHS SECRETARY SIDESTEPS BACKING ANY LIMIT ON LATE-TERM ABORTION Harris’ campaign did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication. It was asked whether Harris was still open to court-packing. Last month, Biden and Harris’ administration rolled out a slate of policies to overhaul the Supreme Court. In their proposal, they called for term limits for Supreme Court justices, who currently serve lifetime appointments, an enforceable ethics code for justices, and an amendment to the Constitution to overturn the high court’s ruling that former presidents have substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts while in office. The overhaul also included a form of packing the court, according to the analysis of former Trump administration lawyer Mark Paoletta. Stealthily included under the term limit proposal, Biden and Harris’ plan outlines a system in which the president appoints a new Supreme Court justice “every two years to spend eighteen years in active service on the Supreme Court.” DEM LAWMAKERS’ VOTING RECORDS WITH BIDEN-HARRIS IN SPOTLIGHT AHEAD OF TIGHT RACES “Even though Joe Biden caved to radicals and recently endorsed court packing, Harris is even further to the left of him on this thoroughly discredited idea,” Paoletta said in a statement to Fox News Digital. He notably worked on the confirmation efforts for Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. Harris’ past statements and refusal to comment further on the subject suggest that her administration could undertake not only the Supreme Court expansion apparently outlined in the administration’s desired overhaul, but an even more drastic version. Paoletta pointed to a recent claim from Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who said Harris’ campaign told him his Supreme Court legislation is “precisely aligned with what we are talking about,” the Dispatch reported. “According to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse—who is the single most malignant figure in America trying to undermine the independence of the Supreme Court—Harris supports his court-packing legislation that would disqualify the senior-most Justices from active service, which just so happen to be Justice Thomas, Chief Justice Roberts, and Justice Alito,” Paoletta explained. NEWSOM DODGES QUESTION ON HARRIS PRICE CONTROLS: ‘SHE HASN’T PUT OUT THE DETAILS’ He claimed Whitehouse’s plans, which Harris has purportedly expressed agreement with, are “far more nefarious” than the “court packing scheme” under former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As Paoletta noted, legislation authored by Whitehouse laid out a similar structure to Biden and Harris’ latest proposal, outlining appointments of justices every two years. Under the bill, only the most recently appointed nine justices would oversee appellate jurisdiction cases. It further states that “all” justices are to preside over original jurisdiction cases, without specifying a number. Prior to the latest overhaul proposal, Biden had held off supporting packing the court, despite calls from other Democrats. He once warned that Democrats would “live to rue” taking such action. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Harris VP pick spent years promoting research facility that collaborated with ‘Chinese military company’
FIRST ON FOX: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has been a longtime vocal supporter of a medical research institute in his home state with a long track record of collaborating with a firm labeled by the Pentagon as a “Chinese military company” and with Chinese officials with controversial ties to the CCP. Walz, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, has long been aligned with the Hormel Institute, a biomedical research center in Austin, Minnesota, within the University of Minnesota’s Research and Innovation Office. As recently as April, a press release from the institute highlighted how Walz went to “meet with local leaders and learn of the Institute’s recent progress in groundbreaking biomedical and agricultural research and its expanding education and outreach initiatives.” “[The Hormel Institute] is no longer a secret, and we don’t want it to be a secret – it’s very un-Minnesotan of us because we’re bragging all the time,” Walz said in the press release. “I think it [the vision of MBiC] fits with where we see ourselves as a state [in the future]… a future around… green energy, sustainable agriculture, and the ability to feed a very hungry world… and the ability to be one of the nation’s designated biotech hubs.” The Hormel Institute has done extensive work with the Beijing Genomics Institute, a group labeled by the Pentagon as a “Chinese military company,” some of which involved research on BGI machines and studies conducted with BGI laboratories in Shenzhen, China, for analysis. HARRIS VP PICK TIM WALZ’S TOP FIVE ‘WEIRD’ MOMENTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT “BGI may be serving, wittingly or unwittingly, as a global collection mechanism for Chinese government gene databases, providing China with greater raw numbers and diversity of human genome samples as well as access to sensitive personal information about key individuals around the world,” The National Security Commission on AI said in 2022. Concerns about BGI are so prevalent that Congress has weighed legislation to ban government contracts with the Chinese military subsidiary, Fox News Digital previously reported. Beyond the extensive ties to BGI, the former executive director of the Hormel Institute, and the timing of his 2019 resignation, has drawn controversy in its own right. Dr. Zigang Dong abruptly stepped down from his post leading the institute in 2019 after 18 years in the position. Around the same time, it was revealed Dong was involved in an FBI probe where the bureau was investigating his “possible failure to report foreign backing when applying for grants,” Austin Daily Herald reported. In addition to serving as the executive director of the Hormel Institute, Dong established the China-US (Henan) Hormel Cancer Institute (CUHCI), a multimillion-dollar international partnership with a research facility in China, during his time with Hormel, and Walz was present to celebrate the announcement. “The collaboration brings more resources, it brings more collaboration in terms of what that scientific data is showing,” Walz, then a congressman representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, said about the partnership. “A sum of money is budgeted by the Henan Provincial Government to the institute annually to maintain its regular operation,” the partnership explained. In 2014, Walz welcomed a delegation from China to the institute that included Wang Yanling, the vice governor of Henan Province and a Communist Party doctor. Yanling is listed as holding several positions in the Chinese Communist Party over the course of many decades. Several members of the Chinese Communist Party have sat on the board of directors at the Henan Cancer Institute, according to an archived version of the organization’s website. Despite stepping down from the executive director role, Dong’s ties to the China‐US (Henan) Hormel Cancer Institute in Zhengzhou have continued since he stepped down in 2019. In 2022, the Henan institute published a study with Dong and several other individuals that involved genetic sequencing provided by BGI. In January 2024, Professor Ann M. Bode from the Hormel Institute in Minnesota collaborated with several scientists based in China to conduct research that included experiments carried out using BGI machines. A review of the Minnesota Hormel Institute’s faculty list shows five professors who were educated in China, including genetics experts who specialize in “gene regulation.” FEC filings show that Dong has been a longtime and almost exclusive donor to Walz’s political career, including five donations of over $200 to Walz’s congressional campaigns dating back to 2005. MINNESOTA LAWMAKER SOUNDS ALARM ON GOV WALZ’S ‘RADICAL AGENDA’ AHEAD OF ELECTION: ‘SO HEINOUS’ As a member of Congress, Walz backed Hormel’s expansion and helped them secure “over $2M for technology acquisitions,” according to a press release. In 2008, when Walz was touring the Hormel Institute, the Rochester Post Bulletin reported he “will keep pushing for the institute to receive a $5 million federal earmark in 2009 to help pay for equipment and instruments in its new International Center of Research Technology. The center could cost as much as $10 million, with additional costs of staff, other instruments and possibly more space.” ‘LET MINNEAPOLIS BURN’: RETIRED POLICE LIEUTENANT RIPS GOV WALZ FOR SURRENDERING CITY TO RIOTERS Dong praised Walz’s efforts to secure funding for the group, including his push to send over $300,000 to the institute in 2009. “We are deeply indebted to Congressman Walz and the diligent, dedicated effort he makes to secure funding support for the Hormel Institute,” Dong said, according to the Post Bulletin. “The growth we have achieved – and the future growth we will continue to strive for – depends on the important partnerships we share with our community and the support we receive from our leaders, such as Congressman Walz.” In addition to Walz, two of his top congressional aides visited the Hormel Institute in 2016 to “discuss areas where congressional support could be helpful, such as increasing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget to increase cancer grant funding.” Tim Bertocci, who served as Walz’s legislative director, among other roles, started working at the Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and
Harris County voter outreach proposal sparks another fight with Texas Republicans
The county plans to ID eligible voters and send them registration forms. GOP officials say it’s an end-run around state law.
JD Vance booed during firefighters union speech in which he asked members what have Democrats ‘gotten you’?
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance was booed Thursday by some members of a firefighters union in Boston while delivering a speech in which he asked members “after supporting Democrats for so long in this union, what has it gotten you?” The boos were heard immediately after Vance took the stage at the International Association of Fire Fighters Convention, leading him to say “sounds like we got some fans and some haters.” “That’s okay. Listen to what I have to say here, and I’ll make my pitch,” Vance continued – but he was met with jeering again later in the speech when he declared former President Trump and himself the “most pro-worker Republican ticket in history.” Vance, who spoke a day after Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz addressed the same convention, asked the union to question their past support of Democrats. TIM WALZ ATTEMPTS TO COURT FIREFIGHTERS DURING SPEECH AT BOSTON CONVENTION: ‘WE’LL HAVE YOUR BACK’ “In 2019, this union endorsed a Democrat for president with high hopes,” the Ohio Republican said. “But sadly, I believe you’ve been let down.” “And we have to be honest, my friends, the hard truth is that Kamala Harris is the latest in a long line of Democrats who come by every few years asking unions for money and promising you the moon, but often failing to deliver. After supporting Democrats for so long in this union, what has it gotten you?” Vance continued. “Over the past 70 years, union membership in this country — and this is not a good thing — has declined. “The influence of unions has declined, and the wages of working people, union and non-union alike have not kept up with the pace of inflation over the last three and a half years,” Vance added. “So I want to ask you a question that Donald Trump asked America in 2016. What the hell do you have to lose?” CHICAGO SCHOOLS SLAMMED FOR DELAYED CALENDAR, ENCOURAGING STUDENT ATTENDANCE AT DNC Vance also asked firefighters to remember the wave of anti-police protests that swept through America in the summer of 2020, saying that “we sure as hell will not bail out the criminals like Kamala Harris did.” “The criminals, many of whom were going after our firefighters as they tried to keep our cities safe and put out the fires. We’re going to put criminals behind bars where they belong, and we will always stand with the courageous firefighters and the first responders who keep this country safe every single day,” Vance said. “We’re going to defend your right to free speech, including your right to speak out about unconstitutional COVID vaccine mandates imposed by the current administration,” he also said. “We’re going to abolish every single mandate, and we’re going to fight to rehire every firefighter who was wrongly terminated with all the back pay that they deserve.”
Russia lashes out against ‘terrorist’ incursion in Kursk, pulls back planes
Ukraine’s deep strikes against Russian military targets and its three-week-old ground offensive inside Russian territory have appeared to be yielding military and political results during the past week. Russia was reported to be moving its aircraft back from airfields near the Ukrainian border while glide bomb attacks inside Ukraine were reported to have decreased. Evidence that Moscow was scrambling elite units from Ukraine to defend home turf also mounted during the week. An unnamed White House official told the Politico news website that “90 percent of the planes that launch glide bombs” against Ukrainian front-line positions had been moved back inside Russia. (Al Jazeera) The independent analysis website Frontelligence agreed that “between the second half of June and mid-July, Russian forces relocated many valuable assets away from the Ukrainian border,” including planes and helicopters. Ukrainian Colonel Vitaly Sarantsev told a joint news telethon broadcast by Ukrainian channels that the Kursk offensive had greatly reduced Russia’s use of aviation against northeastern Ukraine. “We felt relief in tactical aviation,” he said on Sunday. “The enemy has significantly reduced its use in our direction. If in previous periods we had 30 to 50 antiaircraft missiles per day only [in the Sumy region], then yesterday the enemy used air strikes twice, using four antiaircraft missiles and 11 unguided air missiles.” Units operating in hotly contested Chasiv Yar in the eastern region of Donetsk have also reported a drop in glide bombs this month. Vadym Mysnyk, a spokesman for the Siversk tactical group, said: “It is a sign that we are thinning out their air force and hitting airfields, and we have pushed the enemy away from the border a little.” A building is on fire in the town of Sudzha after a cross-border incursion of Ukrainian troops into the Kursk region of Russia in this still image from video taken on August 7, 2024 [MIC Izvestia via Reuters] No effect on the Pokrovsk front There was also increasing evidence that Moscow was having trouble stopping the Ukrainian counterinvasion in Kursk and was increasingly tapping elite units to do so. Russian military reporters and geolocated footage have revealed that elements of the 810th and 155th naval infantry brigades, the 11th Airborne Brigade, and the 51st and 56th airborne regiments were redeployed to fight in Kursk. The 810th and 155th naval infantry brigades had been fighting in Kharkiv, where Russia launched a new incursion in May. The 51st Airborne Regiment had been fighting in Siversk, and the 11th Airborne Brigade was in Chasiv Yar, both in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. (Al Jazeera) Estimates of how many soldiers Moscow has diverted from Ukraine vary. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii estimated it was in the region of 30,000. If so, that would be a significant proportion of the more than 700,000 soldiers Russia is estimated to have in Ukraine. The Washington, DC-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think tank, estimated that Russia would need 60,000 soldiers to win back territory in Kursk once Ukrainian defences were dug. London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies agreed with that figure. But Russia has refused to let up on its priority offensive towards the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, where roughly a third of its daily assaults have taken place. Here, it has progressed by at least 2km (1.2 miles) in the past week, advancing through the settlements of Hrodivka and Novohrodivka. Since taking Avdiivka in February, Russian troops have advanced 34km (21 miles) westwards, forming a salient that is now within 12km (7.5 miles) of Pokrovsk. Sarantsev admitted that the Kursk action had had no effect on the Pokrovsk front. Ukrainian servicemen gather around a pick-up truck in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, as they prepare to move into battle against Russian troops 12km (7.5 miles) away on August 24, 2024 [Thomas Peter/Reuters] An ‘insane and suicidal escapade’ Western analysts have offered differing explanations for the Kursk offensive – including the diversion of Russian troops and a psychological reset through seizing the initiative. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week said it was a preemptive defence to prevent another Kharkiv-type invasion in the north. But he also told Ukrainians it was “a way to compensate for the deficit in long-range capabilities”. For months, Zelenskyy has implored the United States to allow Ukraine to use the ATACMS long-range rocket artillery it provides to strike airfields deep inside Russia. He also wants the US to release Britain and France, for whose Storm Shadow missiles the US provides components, to authorise their use in the same way. Currently, the US allows Ukraine to use its weapons to counter battery fire within a limited range across the border but not to hit Russian airfields because it is afraid that this could draw the US into the war. (Al Jazeera) In a recent analysis, the ISW identified that “at least 209 of 245 (more than 85 percent) known Russian military objects in range of ATACMS are not air bases” but ammunition depots, communications centres, army bases and command centres. White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that restrictions on the use of long-range weapons remain in place but “we’ll keep the conversations with the Ukrainians going” to potentially revise them. The European Commission, which does not command military assets, has openly supported a lifting of restrictions. The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, repeated that support on Monday and Thursday. “I reiterate that lifting restrictions on the use of capabilities against the Russian military involved in aggression against Ukraine, in accordance with international law, would strengthen Ukrainian self-defence, save lives and reduce destruction in Ukraine,” he said on Monday. Russian officials bared their teeth against any such decision and hit out against the fact that both Brussels and Washington have allowed the use of US and European equipment in Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. “The West does not want to avoid escalation. The West is asking for trouble,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday. “The impression is that
The Beijing Declaration is a key step to resolve the Palestinian question
The Palestinian question is at the core of the Middle East issue. Over the past years, China has put forward proposals and taken action to address the Palestinian question with Chinese wisdom and solutions. At China’s invitation, senior representatives of 14 Palestinian factions engaged in dialogue in Beijing in July and signed the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity. The Beijing Dialogue was the most inclusive and in-depth reconciliation talks of 14 political factions to date. The important consensus from the Beijing talks is to achieve reconciliation and unity among the 14 factions. The core outcome is the affirmation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinian people. The biggest highlight is the agreement on establishing an interim government of national reconciliation focusing on the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza. The strongest call is for establishing an independent State of Palestine in accordance with relevant United Nations resolutions. Mousa Abu Marzouk, head of the Hamas delegation to the Beijing Dialogue, declared Hamas’s readiness to implement the Beijing Declaration, strengthen unity among factions and advance the reconciliation process to achieve Palestinian national unity. Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chief of the Fatah movement, said China is a light and its efforts to promote reconciliation among Palestinian factions are rare on the international stage. European Union Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process Sven Koopmans stressed it is a remarkable achievement and fully demonstrates China’s positive and constructive role in the Middle East peace process. The key to the Palestinian reconciliation process is to bolster confidence, keep in the right direction, and make incremental progress. Only by making continuous efforts to build consensus and put it into practice can the reconciliation process yield more and more substantive progress and greater unity. On the path towards reconciliation, China shares the same direction and destination with Arab and Islamic countries. At present, the Gaza conflict is dragging on and its spillovers continue to spread, as multiple regional conflicts are interconnected. To help get out of the current conflict and predicament, China proposes a three-step initiative. The first step is to achieve a comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, and ensure access to humanitarian aid and rescue on the ground. The international community should build more synergy for ending the hostilities and establishing a ceasefire. The second step is to make joint efforts towards post-conflict governance of Gaza under the principle of “Palestinians governing Palestine”. Gaza is an inseparable, integral part of Palestine. Restarting post-conflict reconstruction as soon as possible is an urgent priority. The international community needs to support Palestinian factions in establishing an interim national consensus government and realising the effective management of Gaza and the West Bank. The third step is to help Palestine become a full member state of the UN and get down to implementing the two-state solution. It is important to support the convening of a broad-based, more authoritative, and more effective international peace conference to work out a timetable and road map for the two-state solution. The three-step initiative lays out a detailed and feasible plan for peacefully resolving the Palestinian question, contributing to building consensus among all stakeholders and guiding the Palestinian question back on the right track of a political solution. China and many of the Middle Eastern countries are bound by similar memories of the devastation wrought by imperialism and colonialism, and share a kindred pursuit of national liberation, independence and self-reliance. China has never engaged in geopolitical confrontation or seeking proxies in the Middle East, nor does it intend to draw spheres of influence to fill the so-called power vacuum in the region. China has no selfish interests in the Palestinian question. It was among the first countries to recognise the PLO and the State of Palestine, and all along has firmly supported the Palestinian people in restoring their legitimate national rights. There is no simple solution to the Palestinian question, and peace cannot be achieved overnight. The intra-Palestinian reconciliation will bring hope and a future to the Palestinian people. It is an important step towards resolving the Palestinian question and achieving stability in the Middle East. China firmly supports the Palestinian people in restoring their legitimate national rights and supports the people of Middle Eastern countries in holding their future in their own hands. China looks forward to the day when Palestinian factions achieve internal reconciliation and, on that basis, realise national unity and independent statehood as early as possible. China will continue to work relentlessly to this end, making more contributions to promoting peace and prosperity in the region. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Adblock test (Why?)
Family members of Israeli captives rush Gaza border fence
NewsFeed Family members of captives held by Hamas rushed a border fence with Gaza and entered a military no-go zone in a protest to demand a ceasefire and captive return deal. Published On 29 Aug 202429 Aug 2024 Adblock test (Why?)