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Trump endorses North Carolina Gov candidate as ‘Martin Luther King on steroids’

Trump endorses North Carolina Gov candidate as ‘Martin Luther King on steroids’

Former President Trump endorsed GOP candidate Mark Robinson for North Carolina governor on Saturday, dubbing him “Martin Luther King on steroids.” Trump made the comment at a campaign rally in Greensboro, adding that Robinson, who already serves as lieutenant governor in North Carolina, didn’t know how to react to the remark. “I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two,” Trump told Robinson again. “You should like it,” he added. NORTH CAROLINA’S REPUBLICAN LT GOV MARK ROBINSON LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO REPLACE DEMOCRAT GOV ROY COOPER Robinson is the favorite to win the GOP nomination, thanks in part to endorsements from Trump and the NRA. “What an honor to welcome President Donald Trump to my hometown of Greensboro today! I am humbled to have his endorsement,” Robinson said in a Saturday statement. NORTH CAROLINA LT. GOV. MARK ROBINSON CHECKS OFF THE LEFT’S POLITICAL ‘BOXES,’ BUT RECEIVES ‘SCANT’ CAMPUS INVITES “The failed Biden-Stein agenda of the Democrat Party has brought our country to crisis,” he said, referencing the leading Democrat in the North Carolina gubernatorial race, Josh Stein. “We need more bold fighters like Donald Trump. I look forward to partnering with him to take on the failed Biden-Stein agenda, lead our united Republican ticket to victory in November, and get our state and country back on track.” Robinson assumed office as North Carolina lieutenant governor in 2021, becoming the state’s first black American to hold the office. He announced last April he would run for governor. REPUBLICAN MARK ROBINSON ON HISTORIC LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR WIN: ‘THIS PARTY IS OPEN TO EVERYBODY’ The Greensboro native burst onto the political scene in 2018 when he gave a fiery and viral speech on gun rights and the 2nd Amendment before the city council. “I’m a law-abiding citizen who’s never shot anybody,” Robinson said at the meeting, which was viewed over 200 million times. “Every time we have one of these shootings, nobody wants to put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter’s feet. You want to put it at my feet. You want to turn around and restrict my right.” The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Heavy rains kill 29 in Pakistan as houses collapse, landslides block roads

Heavy rains kill 29 in Pakistan as houses collapse, landslides block roads

The majority of deaths reported in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At least 29 people have been killed and 50 others injured due to heavy rains that swept Pakistan in the past 48 hours, causing several houses to collapse and landslides to block roads, particularly in the northwest. At least 23 rain-related deaths were reported in various areas in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan since Thursday night, the provincial disaster management authority said in a statement on Sunday. Five people died in the southwestern Balochistan province after the coastal town of Gwadar got flooded, forcing authorities to use boats to evacuate some 10,000 people. Casualties and extensive damage were also reported in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the National Disaster Management Authority said in a separate statement. Emergency relief was being provided to people in affected areas and heavy machinery was being used to remove debris blocking highways, the agency added. The country’s Karakoram Highway, which links Pakistan with China, is still blocked in some places due to landslides, according to the spokesperson for the northern Gilgit Baltistan region, Faizullah Faraq. Authorities advised tourists against travelling to the scenic north due to weather conditions. Last week, several visitors were stranded there because of the heavy rains, which came as Pakistan witnessed severe snowfall. Pakistan is among the 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change despite the South Asian nation’s almost zero contribution to global carbon emissions, according to the United Nations. This year, Pakistan is witnessing an unusual delay in winter rains, starting in February instead of November. Monsoon and winter rains cause damage in Pakistan every year. In 2022, climate-induced unusual monsoon rains and flooding devastated most of the areas in impoverished Pakistan, killing nearly 1,800 people, affecting about 33 million people and displacing nearly eight million. The rains and floods in 2022 also caused billions of dollars of damage to the country’s economy and some of the areas people who lost their homes are still living in makeshift homes. Adblock test (Why?)

‘If UNRWA goes, so do our dreams of returning home’, Palestinians fear

‘If UNRWA goes, so do our dreams of returning home’, Palestinians fear

Aida, Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – Among the children playing on the street in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank is 10-year-old Ahmad Damaseh who dreams of becoming a doctor when he grows up. He belongs to the fourth generation of the Damaseh family to live in this refugee camp since his ancestors fled the Nakba from the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Deir Aban 75 years ago as some 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes to make way for the creation of the state of Israel. Central to Damaseh’s dream is a United Nations agency that has provided for Palestinian refugees in occupied Palestinian territory and neighbouring nations since then. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) provided the Damaseh family with their very first tent in Aida. It is responsible for 702 schools providing education to 500,000 children and students, according to Anwar Hammam, deputy head of the PLO’s Refugee Affairs Department. It provides aid to 400,000 people living in the Aida refugee camp. At the heart of UNRWA’s mission is the idea that it would support displaced Palestinians until they could return to their homes, something Israel has denied generations of Palestinians. Israel has also set its sights on UNRWA, which is now on the verge of collapse as funding is withdrawn and more news headlines imply that Israel and the United States want to end its mandate. Ahmad Damaseh, 10, dreams of being a doctor but the loss of UNRWA services like schools may mean an end to those dreams [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera] After the Israeli government accused the organisation of having links to those responsible for attacks by the Qassam Brigades and other armed Palestinian fighters on southern Israel on October 7, many large donors and donor nations – who together provide more than 80 percent of UNRWA’s funding – have withdrawn their financial support. Only a handful of countries, including Belgium, Norway, Ireland and Saudi Arabia, have pledged to continue funding. The largest donors, including the US, United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, have suspended funding altogether. For now, residents of Aida say, their dreams are on hold and possibly gone forever. ‘No one else can manage the camps’ Aida refugee camp, located between Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Jerusalem, is home to more than 8,000 Palestinian refugees, two schools for boys and girls and a clinic serving refugees from all the camps near Bethlehem. For seven-and-a-half decades, four generations of the Damaseh family have held onto the hope of returning to their original village. Children in the Aida refugee camp return home from the UNRWA school they attend [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera] The Damasehs have relied on UNRWA for food, healthcare and education through the years since the Nakba. Now, they are terrified of what will become of them if the agency is forced to cease all operations in the near future, as it has warned might happen. “There is no Palestinian or international entity capable of assuming the responsibility for the camps, neither in education nor in health,” said Ahmad’s father, Muhammad. Like others in the community, he strongly believed the cessation of funding to UNRWA is part of a larger plot against Palestinians. “As refugees, we know there is a major political plan to end UNRWA’s existence, preventing the right of return. This is something we will not allow. My son, Ahmed, will study in Aida camp school until he returns to our original village,” he added defiantly. If UNRWA disappears, they said, so does the dream of ever returning home. Instead, it is likely that these camps will be absorbed as towns under the wider Palestinian Authority. The entrance to the UNRWA-run Aida camp school. UNRWA operates 702 schools for 500,000 children and students across the occupied Palestinian territory [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera] While Ahmad’s father is particularly concerned about the future of his son’s education – and what that means for his dreams to study medicine – his grandmother, 70-year-old Haleema Damaseh worries about healthcare services. Even before the war in Gaza began last October, services offered by UNRWA clinics had been shrinking, with only medical treatment and prescriptions for chronic conditions available, said Muhammad. Even that will stop if UNRWA can no longer operate. His mother, Haleema, told Al Jazeera, “The UNRWA clinic has stopped providing diabetes medication, among others, which I need. So, my son buys it for nearly $100 a month.” She feared this would not be sustainable for the longer term, especially with the severe economic crisis in the occupied West Bank which has taken hold due to the crackdown on the occupied Palestinian territories since the war began. This crackdown has taken the form of multiple roadblocks throughout the occupied West Bank, raids on camps and towns and a strict curfew on residents. Employment has plummeted and prices have soared, while the Palestinian Authority is struggling to pay salaries to public employees. ‘Palestinians will fight against losing UNRWA.’ Saeed Al-Azaha works for the PLO’s Refugee Affairs Department and warns of rising tensions if UNRWA services are halted [Monjed Jadou/Al Jazeera] ‘Palestinians will take a stand’ Saeed al-Azha, the head of the Popular Committee for Services in Aida, part of the Refugee Affairs Department of the PLO, explained that the camps have been raided often, with incursions and arrests increasing recently, exacerbating conditions for Palestinian refugees. He warned that conditions would only deteriorate further if funding to UNRWA operations were suspended. “Palestinian refugees will fight against losing UNRWA,” he said. “They will take a stand in all five regions where the agency works – Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, in addition to the occupied West Bank. “UNRWA holds political significance as a witness to the Nakba and as an UN-mandated agency that no Palestinian wants to lose before refugees get their right of return to their homes from which they were displaced in 1948.” UNRWA Operations Director in the West Bank Region Adam Pollock told Al Jazeera that the removal of

Haiti police unions plead for help as armed gangs storm main prison

Haiti police unions plead for help as armed gangs storm main prison

Police issue urgent appeal for help as they struggle to hold back gangs trying to storm the prison in a major escalation of violence. Armed groups have stormed Haiti’s largest prison, defying police forces who have called for help after days of gunfire in parts of the capital as a major gang leader seeks to topple Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Two of the Caribbean country’s main police unions called for assistance on Saturday to stop inmates, many considered to be high-profile criminals, from fleeing the National Penitentiary in Port-Au-Prince. “They need help,” one of the unions said in a message on social media, bearing an “SOS” emoji repeated eight times. “Let’s mobilise the army and the police to prevent the bandits from breaking into the prison.” It was unclear how many had fled the prison, a number that the newspaper Gazette Haiti said was “significant”. Some detainees were reluctant to leave en masse for fear of being killed in crossfire, sources told Reuters news agency. Police officers assigned to the prison had vacated the premises on Saturday, according to reports by local media AyiboPost. A man drives past a burning barricade during a protest in Port-au-Prince [File: Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters] The government of Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, did not comment on the situation on Saturday. Prime Minister Henry is in Kenya to salvage a proposed security mission in Haiti to be led by that East African country and backed by the United Nations. Heavy gunfire has caused panic in recent days after calls by gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer, for criminal groups to unite and overthrow Henry. Cherizier, also known as Barbecue, heads an alliance of gangs and faces sanctions from the UN and the United States. The penitentiary, built to hold 700 prisoners, held 3,687 inmates as of February last year, according to the rights group RNDDH. A 2017 report by the group warned of serious overcrowding at the prison, which is said to suffer from poor police staffing. The prison attack follows reports on Friday that armed men had attempted to take control of the capital’s main container port, causing traffic disruptions, and gangs threatened to attack more of the city’s police stations. Cherizier this week warned locals to keep children from going to school to “avoid collateral damages” as violence surged. Henry, who came to power after the assassination of the country’s last president, Jovenel Moise, in 2021, had previously pledged to step down by early February. He later said security must first be re-established to ensure free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections, which have not taken place for almost a decade. Adblock test (Why?)

David Miliband on global crises: Gaza, DRC, Sudan, Ukraine

David Miliband on global crises: Gaza, DRC, Sudan, Ukraine

The International Rescue Committee president discusses the urgent international responses required for ongoing emergencies. In this episode, we explore the essential role of non-governmental organisations in confronting global emergencies. The International Rescue Committee, initiated by Albert Einstein, is known for its impactful work. The organisation delivers aid and hope to at-risk populations in conflict zones, notably Gaza, marked as the most hazardous area for civilians and aid workers. Amid turmoil in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine, David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, talks to Al Jazeera. Adblock test (Why?)