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The veepstakes goes ‘Apprentice’: Will Trump really pick Rubio, Vance or Burgum?

The veepstakes goes ‘Apprentice’: Will Trump really pick Rubio, Vance or Burgum?

For months, the media-industrial complex has churned out useless speculation about the veepstakes, much of it generated by the wannabe candidates themselves.  Out of nowhere, these stories would appear: Tom Cotton, an unusually strong candidate! Ben Carson! Byron Donalds! Glenn Youngkin! People who you knew, whatever their qualifications, didn’t really have a shot at becoming Donald Trump’s running mate. And then there was the former president himself, who met or campaigned with most of the contenders, watching their TV interviews, in a process resembling “The Apprentice.” A particularly absurd moment came when Axios reported that Nikki Haley was under “active consideration” for VP. The piece collapsed the next day when Trump put out a statement saying Haley was most definitely not being considered, which was no surprise given the bad blood between them and her lack of an endorsement. VEEPSTAKES VERVE: CONTENDERS CREATE MEDIA BOOMLETS WITH LEAKS AND MANIPULATION What made most of the stories shaky is that Trump hadn’t made up his mind. Now he says he has, but hasn’t told the lucky contender. Of course, there’s nothing stopping Trump from changing his mind at the last minute, which he is famously prone to do. Still, with the vetting process under way and multiple news outlets reporting that it is down to a fortunate trio, I’m inclined to take those stories more seriously. Those three are Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance and Doug Burgum. Each brings strengths and weaknesses to the table, so such decisions often boil down to whom Trump is most comfortable with. Eight years ago, it was Mike Pence, who was the ultimate loyalist until Jan. 6. Rubio, the only one with a national reputation, might seem a no-brainer. To name the first Hispanic vice president would obviously excite that community, even though it is not a monolith and Cuban-Americans would be the most energized. I don’t see the Constitutional bar against two candidates from the same state as a big deal, as the Florida senator can easily change his address. I’ve interviewed Rubio several times, but more important, I watched him do town halls in 2016 and he is a charismatic speaker. He has foreign policy chops and has long since mended fences with Trump over their mutual name-calling (“con man”). RUBIO SAYS BEING TRUMP RUNNING MATE WOULD BE ‘INCREDIBLE HONOR’ As a strong speaker, he would definitely make news – which is also his pitfall. Trump doesn’t like to be overshadowed. From day one, whether overtly or not, Rubio would be running for president in 2028. What’s more, Rubio has made a point of not campaigning for the job. He didn’t join some of the other aspirants by showing up for Trump’s Manhattan trial. This, by some accounts, has made Trump question how badly Marco wants the job, but I think it’s just a different style. J.D. Vance is not a household name and has been a senator for less than two years. He gained public notice for his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy,” which drew widespread praise (and some criticism) for explaining the kind of White voters who would fuel Trump’s win. He’s also a success story, rising from a tough childhood in which his grandmother had to plead for more food from Meals on Wheels. But Vance opposed the ex-president in 2016 and was on the “Never Trump” train (“idiot,” “reprehensible”), a stance he conveniently dropped when he ran for office. Vance undoubtedly has the sharpest intellect of the group, the backing of Donald Trump Jr. and the most pro-MAGA voting record, but his view of the revolution differs from Trump’s. Two years ago, Vance said in an interview that Trump should “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.” That, of course, would violate civil service rules. SEN. JD VANCE ON TRUMP VP RUMORS: THE PRESIDENT HAS NOT ASKED ME Vance told New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who knew him before he was an author: “I was confronted with the reality that part of the reason the anti-Trump conservatives hated Donald Trump was that he represented a threat to a way of doing things in this country that has been very good for them.” The Ohio senator recently told the Washington Post: “The price of being beloved by the establishment is you don’t say anything interesting.” And that is precisely the problem. Vance will say lots of interesting things, which would draw attention from the boss. Which brings us to Doug Burgum. He’s a governor! Has been for eight years. Yes, the governor of the small state of North Dakota, whose three electoral votes Trump would win anyway, but the former president has spent a lot of time with him and really likes him – despite Burgum running against him earlier in the presidential election cycle. For one thing, he’s a fellow tycoon, having sold his tech company two decades ago to Microsoft for a billion bucks. For another, he’s charming in a subdued way. And Burgum has “the look” – the dignified appearance of a vice president – and Trump loves to embrace those who look like they’re from central casting. When I interviewed Burgum a few weeks back, he downplayed his chances and said he has a dozen private-sector ideas he’d love to try rather than taking a Cabinet position. He skillfully answered issue questions without missing a beat, sometimes with a crisp one-liner.  BURGUM TOUTS ‘MUCH CLOSER’ RELATIONSHIP WITH TRUMP WHILE STUMPING FOR FORMER PRESIDENT IN BATTLEGROUND STATE Having attended the Alvin Bragg case and then read the media coverage, “I think that they were in a different trial than I was at … Americans have already acquitted Donald Trump,” he told me.   Yet, as one of my colleagues observed, he’s just rough-edged enough and new to the national game that he still seems like a real person. The mild-mannered gent can also throw a punch. Burgum told FOX’s Martha MacCallum last week that “under Joe Biden, we’re

India exports rockets, explosives to Israel amid Gaza war, documents reveal

India exports rockets, explosives to Israel amid Gaza war, documents reveal

In the early morning hours of May 15, the cargo vessel Borkum stopped off the Spanish coast, lingering in the waters a short distance from Cartagena. At the port, protesters waved Palestinian flags and called on authorities to inspect the ship based on suspicions that it carried weapons bound for Israel. Leftist members of the European Parliament sent a letter to Spanish President Pedro Sánchez requesting that the ship be prevented from docking. “Allowing a ship loaded with weapons destined for Israel is to allow the transit of arms to a country currently under investigation for genocide against the Palestinian people,” the group of nine MEPs warned. Before the Spanish government could take a stand, the Borkum cancelled its planned stopover and continued to the Slovenian port of Koper. “We were right,” Inigo Errejon, the spokesperson for the hard-left Sumar party wrote on X, arguing that the Borkum’s decision to skip Cartagena confirmed the suspicions. But missed in the debate over whether the ship ought to be allowed to dock in Spain were the unlikely origins of the Borkum’s cargo. According to documents seen by Al Jazeera, the ship contained explosives loaded in India and was en route to Israel’s port of Ashdod, some 30km (18 miles) from the Gaza Strip. Marine tracking sites show it departed Chennai in southeast India on April 2 and circumnavigated Africa to avoid transiting through the Red Sea, where Yemen’s Houthis have been attacking vessels in reprisal for Israel’s war. The identification codes specified in the documentation, obtained unofficially by the Solidarity Network Against the Palestinian Occupation (RESCOP), suggest the Borkum contained 20 tonnes of rocket engines, 12.5 tonnes of rockets with explosive charges, 1,500kg (3,300 pounds) of explosive substances and 740kg (1,630 pounds) of charges and propellants for cannons. A paragraph on confidentiality specified that all employees, consultants or other relevant parties were mandated that “under no circumstances” were they to name IMI Systems or Israel. IMI Systems, a defence firm, was bought by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, in 2018. The commercial manager of the ship, the German company MLB Manfred Lauterjung Befrachtung, told Al Jazeera in a statement that “the vessel did not load any weapons or any other cargo for the destination Israel”. A second cargo ship that had departed India was denied entry on May 21 to the port of Cartagena. Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that the Marianne Danica left from India’s port of Chennai and was en route to Israel’s port of Haifa with a cargo of 27 tonnes of explosives. Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Albares confirmed in a news conference that the vessel was denied entry on the grounds that it was shipping military cargo to Israel. These incidents add to mounting evidence that weapon parts from India, a country that has long advocated dialogue over military action in resolving conflicts, are quietly making their way to Israel, including during the ongoing months-long war in Gaza. A lack of transparency on India’s transfers helps them slip under the radar, say analysts. Zain Hussain, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told Al Jazeera that “the lack of verifiable information makes it hard to determine whether transfers have taken place”. But “collaboration between India and Israel has been happening for quite a few years now”, Hussain said, therefore “it’s not unfeasible that we may see some made-in-India components being used by Israel [in its war on Gaza]”. ‘Made in India’ On June 6, in the aftermath of Israel’s bombing of a United Nations shelter at the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, the Quds News Network released a video of the remains of a missile dropped by Israeli warplanes. Amid the tangled parts, a label clearly read: “Made in India.” “Made in India” Reads the label on the remains of a missile dropped by Israeli warplanes at a UN shelter in Nusseirat refugee camp last night. pic.twitter.com/NOFMXr64Tp — Quds News Network (@QudsNen) June 6, 2024 Hussain, who researches the transfer of conventional arms at the Stockholm-based think tank, said the video required further investigation but observed that a large share of the collaboration between India and Israel is known to revolve around missile production, in particular the Barak surface-to-air missile. According to SIPRI, the Indian company Premier Explosives Limited makes solid propellants – a significant part of the rocket motors, but not the whole motor – for MRSAM and LRSAM missiles. These are the Indian designations for Barak medium and long-range surface-to-air missiles of Israeli design. The company’s executive director, T Chowdary, admitted to exporting to Israel amid the current war in Gaza, during a conference call on March 31. “We have received the pending revenue from the Israel export order, and this has shown an exponential jump in the revenue of the quarter,” he told investors, according to the minutes of the meeting. “We are happy to announce that we have highest ever quarterly revenue.” On that occasion, Chowdary presented Premier Explosives Limited as “the only Indian company which specialises in the export of fully assembled rocket motor”. In addition, he said the company had begun manufacturing mines and ammunitions and started exporting RDX and HMX explosives, commonly used in military weapons systems. In its January 2024 overview, the company listed exports to Israel in the “defence & space” sector, which SIPRI deemed likely to include propellants for Barak missiles. Premier Explosives did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment. According to SIPRI, the Indian components can be used for Barak missiles that are then also reexported by Israel. Indian made UAVs Yet, India’s collaboration with Israel goes far beyond rocket propellers. In December 2018, Adani Defence & Aerospace – the defence arm of Indian multinational holding company Adani Enterprises Ltd – and Israel’s Elbit Systems inaugurated the Adani Elbit Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Complex (UAV) in Hyderabad. The facility was presented in a joint statement as “the first outside Israel to manufacture the Hermes 900 Medium Altitude Long Endurance

Rohingya ‘genocide intensifying’ as war rages in Myanmar’s Rakhine: BROUK

Rohingya ‘genocide intensifying’ as war rages in Myanmar’s Rakhine: BROUK

A United Kingdom-based rights group has called for global action over what it called an “intensifying genocide” against Myanmar’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority as fighting between the Southeast Asian country’s military and a powerful ethnic armed group escalated in the western Rakhine State. The warning from the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) on Tuesday came as the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) condemned the looting and burning of its food stores and warehouse in Maungdaw, a coastal town on Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh that is mainly home to the Rohingya and is the focus of the current hostilities between the military and the Arakan Army (AA). The AA represents Rakhine’s Buddhist majority and is fighting for autonomy for the region. It issued evacuation orders for Maungdaw late on June 17 ahead of a planned offensive, leaving tens of thousands of Rohingya residents of the town with “nowhere to flee”, according to the UN’s human rights chief. The Rohingya, considered outsiders by the military as well as many of Rakhine’s Buddhist residents, have long suffered persecution in Myanmar, including a brutal military offensive that drove some 750,000 members of the community into Bangladesh in 2017. The crackdown is now the subject of a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). BROUK, in its new report, said the 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine are facing increased persecution after fighting between the military and the AA resumed last October. The military, which seized power in a February 2021 coup, is subjecting Rohingya in areas under their control to a “slow death” by depriving them of resources indispensable for survival – including food, water, shelter, sanitation and medical care – and also forcibly recruiting members of the community, including children, and sending them to the front lines to fight against the AA, it said. Both the military and the AA have committed war crimes against the Rohingya, BROUK said, including “murder, torture, cruel treatment, extrajudicial executions, sexual violence, rape, taking hostages, conscripting and using children, pillaging, and deliberately attacking civilians”. “Rohingya remaining in Rakhine State face either a fast death being killed by the Myanmar military or Arakan Army, or a slow death as a result of being systematically deprived of the basic necessities of life,” said Tun Khin, president of BROUK. “We are witnessing another significant increase in violence against the Rohingya and once again the UN Security Council looks on and does nothing.” The international community’s failure to protect the Rohingya has resulted in “hundreds, if not several thousands” of deaths in the past six months alone, BROUK said. Global inaction Additionally, some 200,000 Rohingya who are internally displaced are now in dire need of humanitarian aid to prevent further loss of life, the rights group said, while an additional 11,000 members of the community – about half of them children – are trapped near Rakhine’s capital, Sittwe, surrounded by landmines and unable to flee as the fighting edges closer to the city. BROUK warned that the international community could not afford to fail the Rohingya again, saying that authorities in Myanmar had failed to act on the ICJ’s order in 2020 to avoid acts against the minority population that could constitute genocide. The group called for an open meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the military’s “repeated breaches” of the ICJ’s orders as well as action to end what it called a “cycle of impunity” in the country, including by a referral to the International Criminal Court or the creation of an ad hoc international tribunal. “For the past 12 years, by repeatedly failing to take action to prevent violations of international law against the Rohingya, the UN Security Council has been sending a message to authoritarian regimes worldwide that they can get away with attempting to wipe out minorities they don’t like,” Tun Khin said. “The Rohingya genocide was not inevitable, it was allowed to happen and is still being allowed to happen,” he added. The renewed fighting between the military and the AA has forced some 45,000 Rohingya in Maungdaw and neighbouring Buthidaung township to flee to the Bangladesh border, the UN rights office said in May. The displacement came amid reports of widespread arson of Rohingya villages in Buthidaung, with survivors accusing the AA of carrying out the attacks in retaliation for alleged Rohingya support for the military. The UN rights office said it had also documented at least four cases of beheadings by the AA. The WFP on Tuesday said the fighting had cut off its access to its warehouse in Maungdaw since late May. And on Saturday, the food supplies there were looted and the building burned down, it said. The warehouse was holding 1,175 tonnes of food and supplies – enough emergency food to sustain 64,000 people for one month. The UN food agency did not name the perpetrators but said it was continuing to gather details of the circumstances surrounding the incident. It added, “The WFP calls on all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations under International Humanitarian Law to ensure that humanitarian facilities and assets are respected and protected, and safe and secure access is provided for the delivery of vital assistance to those in urgent need.” Adblock test (Why?)

North Korea failed launch was possible hypersonic weapon: Seoul

North Korea failed launch was possible hypersonic weapon: Seoul

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced plans in 2021 to develop technologically-advanced weapons, including hypersonic missiles. North Korea might have launched a hypersonic missile, South Korea has said, as intelligence agencies investigated a ballistic missile test that failed early on Wednesday. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the test took place at about 5.30am (20:30 GMT on Tuesday) and originated from the area around Pyongyang. Japan also detected the launch with the Ministry of Defence saying the weapon reached an altitude of about 100km (62 miles) and flew east for more than 200km (124 miles). A JCS official later told reporters on condition of anonymity that the military was considering the possibility that the weapon was a hypersonic missile, noting that it exploded in midair over waters off North Korea’s east coast. The official told the Yonhap news agency that there appeared to be more smoke than during previous launches, raising the possibility of combustion issues. It also appeared to be a solid-fuelled missile, the official added. The latest missile test came days after North Korea signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation treaty with Russia and as the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Busan to take part in joint military drills with South Korea and Japan. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced in 2021 that he wanted to modernise his country’s military and unveiled plans to develop a series of technologically-advanced weapons systems, including a hypersonic missile. Such missiles are seen as harder to detect because they can travel at speeds in excess of five times the speed of sound and are designed to be manoeuvrable, posing a challenge to regional missile defence systems. Pyongyang said in March that it had successfully tested a solid-fuel engine for a new-type intermediate-range hypersonic missile (IRBM), and the following month reported that Kim had overseen the test of that IRBM, which it named the Hwasong-16B. Tensions in the region have risen as Kim has accelerated North Korean testing of missiles and other weapons. The United States and South Korea have responded by expanding their combined training and trilateral drills involving Japan, and sharpening their deterrence strategies. North Korea, earlier this week, criticised the deployment of the Theodore Roosevelt and warned of an “overwhelming, new demonstration of deterrence”. It has also been reinforcing its defences along the border with South Korea after suspending a 2018 military agreement with South Korea which was supposed to reduce tension. It has also sent more than 1,000 rubbish-filled balloons south in retaliation for balloons carrying leaflets criticising Kim’s rule that were floated to North Korea by activists. For its part, Seoul has also suspended the military deal and resumed some propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers along the border. Adblock test (Why?)