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Hope, experience, integrity and engaging with the youth of today were some of the messages the seven candidates bidding to become the next president of the International Olympic Committee delivered to their fellow members on Thursday.The seven are vying to convince a majority of the 100-plus members to elect them and succeed Thomas Bach as arguably the most powerful person in global sport, in a vote slated for March 20 in Costa Navarino, Greece.The candidates all have impressive CVs; two of them, Briton Sebastian Coe and Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, are Olympic gold medallists and successful administrators since they retired from competition.Bach steps down after a tumultuous 12-year tenure which has encompassed the Covid pandemic, the Russian doping scandal at the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.While Coventry would be the first woman and African to lead the Olympic movement, Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior is also seeking to make history by emulating his father of the same name who was president from 1980 to 2001.“I hope it is neither a help nor a hindrance,” Samaranch said of his father, who transformed the IOC into a commercial powerhouse during his tenure.“He left office years ago and his legacy to me personally I appreciate very much.“However, his recipes are not relevant now.”Samaranch, though, has built up a wealth of experience within the movement.It was something the 65-year-old Spaniard was keen to emphasise to the media after making his presentation behind closed doors to the members and where no questions were permitted. “I have more than 25 years inside the organisation, experience on the revenues side and helped organise the Beijing Winter Games during Covid,” he said.“So I have experience to deliver results under real pressure.“I know the job and know how the administration works.”Coventry swatted aside suggestions she was the favoured candidate of Bach, saying he respected all of them and he would not vote.The two-time Olympic swimming gold medallist recalled how she had seen the impact her gold medal had on her compatriots in 2004.“I got back to Zimbabwe which was then very divisive and divided, but it sparked four days of peace,” said the 41-year-old.“I got to see the power of sport and that was why I was standing before (the members) today.”Coventry faced questions over how she and her fellow members on the IOC Executive Board dealt with the controversy in the women’s boxing competition at the Paris Olympics last year when Algerian Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu Ting won golds despite previously failing gender tests.“As a female athlete you want to be able to walk onto a level playing field, always,” the Zimbabwean sports minister said.“It is our job as the IOC to ensure we are going to create that environment and not just create a level playing field but an environment that allows for every athlete to feel safe. That is our job.”Coe for his part said he “felt very privileged and very honoured to be a small part of (the Olympic Movement).” The ever-youthful looking 68-year-old two-time 1500 metres gold medallist said engaging with young people was of primary importance.“The biggest challenge is for all of us to excite and engage with young people” he said.“That will be critical as it is that cohort that is ultimately going to be future sponsors, thought leaders and politicians.“We need to create among that group of people a lifelong bond with sport.”Frenchman David Lappartient, the head of the international cycling federation, has been touted as a dark horse.With both the 2028 Olympics and the 2034 Winter Games taking part in the United States, the 51-year-old was keen to emphasise he would be firm with US President Donald Trump over the IOC’s status.“Our autonomy is non-negotiable will be my message,” he said.“Autonomy and political neutrality.”The United States is presently withholding funding from the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA), but Prince Feisal al-Hussein defended them vigorously.“It is not for me to comment on US policies,” said the Jordanian.“We (the IOC) are the institution who helped establish WADA and I think they have been doing a terrific job.”Whilst the prince focused on integrity, for ski boss Johan Eliasch the message was one of hope.“I bring hope that anything is possible,” said the 62-year-old Anglo-Swedish environmentalist.“In a world of division and disruption we have never needed hope more.”Gymnastics federation president Morinari Watanabe of Japan, bidding like the prince to become the first Asian president of the IOC, stuck to his idea of an Olympics held across the five continents, which even he has said is “crazy.”

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is removing the security detail for former top US military officer Mark Milley (pictured above) — a foe of President Donald Trump — and suspending his security clearance, the Pentagon said.The retired general, who reportedly once labelled Trump a “fascist” to a journalist, is the latest official-turned-critic to see their security protection pulled since Trump began his second term last week.Hegseth informed Milley “that he is revoking the authorisation for his security detail and suspending his security clearance as well,” Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot said in a statement late Tuesday.Milley was named by Trump during his first administration as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but their relationship deteriorated sharply.Milley is believed to be under threat from Tehran for overseeing the 2020 US drone strike ordered by Trump that killed powerful Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.“The secretary may determine whether it is appropriate to reopen his military grade review determination,” Ullyot added.Milley retired as a four-star general, but that process could see him demoted in retirement.Trump has repeatedly promised “retribution” against his opponents and threatened some with criminal prosecution.Trump was enraged after Milley told journalist Bob Woodward that the Republican was “fascist to the core” and a “dangerous person.”Milley also revealed he had secretly called his Chinese counterpart after the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters to reassure Beijing that the United States remained “stable” and had no intention to attack China. Trump subsequently wrote on his Truth Social network that “in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” for Milley. The general stepped down as chairman in 2023 at a ceremony in which he took a final swipe at Trump.“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator,” Milley said of American troops. “And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”Milley’s portrait honouring his service as chairman of the Joint Chiefs was taken down at the Pentagon on the day that Trump was sworn in.The removal of the painting came after former president Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Milley and other Trump opponents in one of his last acts in office.Trump has also revoked security from former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former national security advisor John Bolton, believed to be facing the same threat from Iran.Bolton has become one of Trump’s most outspoken critics since leaving the White House, while Pompeo briefly considered a Republican run for president, reportedly annoying Trump.The president has also removed security protection from Anthony Fauci, who led the country’s fight against Covid-19 starting in Trump’s first term, and has received death threats over his handling of the pandemic.Senior Republican senators have urged him to reconsider.But the White House remained defiant over the decision yesterday, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoing comments from Trump that officials were not entitled to security protection and clearances for life.“The individuals you’re mentioning are quite wealthy, I understand, so they can get their own private security if they wish,” she told reporters.

China and India are two of the most crucial markets in the global aviation industry due to their massive populations, rapid economic growth, and increasing demand for air travel.China is already the world's second-largest aviation market and projected to surpass the United States as the largest by the mid-2030s.On the other hand, India is the third-largest domestic aviation market and one of the fastest-growing globally, with demand driven by a rising middle class.Recently, China and India agreed to resume direct air services after nearly five years, India's foreign ministry said.The in-principle agreement to resume flight services between the two countries, which are suspended since 2020 after the Covid pandemic, was taken during the recent visit of India’s top diplomat Vikram Misri to Beijing, as per the country’s Ministry of External Affairs.According to reports, both sides will negotiate a framework on the flights in a meeting that will be held at an "early date", the ministry said after a meeting between India's top diplomat and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi."The meet also agreed in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries; the relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date," as per India’s Ministry of External Affairs.Prior to the halting of air services on the India-China route, the then government-owned Air India and largest domestic carrier IndiGo was operating their flight services to China, according to CNBC TV18.Air India had been operating to China since December 2003 while IndiGo started flying to the neighbouring China only from October 2019 connecting Chengdu from Delhi and Guangzhou with Kolkata.Though later, the airline also announced its plans to connect Chengdu with Mumbai, the plan could not fructify.However, just after nearly four months of the launch of these services in September 2019, all air passenger services had to be temporarily called off in March 2020 owing to the pandemic, with China no exception, CNBC TV18 said.Though the air bubble pact during the pandemic with some 20 countries saw flights to China resuming partially as well, the border issues between the two countries kept the full aviation ties also at bay.However, as China remains India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $101.73bn in financial year 2024, travellers generally fly on airlines of a third country such as Thailand, Singapore, or Hong Kong with one stop for reasons like trade, business and tourism visits.According to prominent aviation analyst Ashwini Phadnis, the announcement will see traction among airlines from both the sides. Indian airlines have always been keen to operate to China. In the early 2000s Air Sahara planned to start services to Guanzhou.While that plan did not materialise, Jet Airways started a Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco flight in 2008.The latest announcement will see passenger flights to mainland China as Air India and IndiGo are already flying to Hong Kong.In addition, IndiGo operates an A321F all freighter between Ezhou (a new logistic airport) and Kolkata three times a week but in some weeks the numbers go up depending on demand.IndiGo has also been operating freighter services between Guangzhou and Kolkata.The scope for commercial airlines flying from the two countries can be gauged from the fact that at one time there were over 500 direct flights operated by airlines of the two countries, the New Delhi-based Phadnis pointed out.With Indian airlines taking deliveries of 1,300 aircraft in the next couple of years they will look to open new routes, he said.“With the decision to enhance people-to-people contact being taken at a senior level, at the talks between national security levels on both the sides, it is hoped that the bureaucratic paperwork required for starting flights is not a slow torturous process delaying the implementation of the decision.“However, one factor which could be an impediment is the issue of visas for Indians wanting to go China and for Chinese nationals wanting to come here. Getting a tourist visa can be an uphill task for citizens of both the countries,” Phadnis noted.Analysts say both China and India have seen rapid urbanisation and increasing disposable incomes, leading to higher air travel demand.Government policies, such as China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ and India’s ‘UDAN’ regional connectivity scheme, further boost aviation expansion.China is one of the largest outbound tourism markets. India’s international travel demand is growing, supported by rising incomes and visa reforms.Seeing huge prospects, airlines in China and India consistently place large aircraft orders.Chinese airlines have already placed major orders from Boeing and Airbus, with significant growth in domestic aircraft manufacturing (COMAC C919) as well.Leading Indian carriers have also placed massive orders with both Boeing and Airbus, signalling long-term growth.For those looking at potential investments or partnerships in this sector, the two markets offer immense opportunities. Undoubtedly, both countries are shaping the future of global aviation.Pratap John is Business Editor at Gulf Times. X handle: @PratapJohn.

China urged the United States to stop politicising origins-tracing of the COVID-19 pandemic.Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in remarks after the US Central Intelligence Agency indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from lab leak rather than from a natural source.Origins-tracing is a matter of science and any judgement on it should be made in a science-based spirit and by scientists, Mao noted at a regular news briefing."It is 'extremely unlikely' that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak, this is the authoritative conclusion reached by the experts of the World Health Organization (WHO)-China joint mission based on science following their field trips to the lab in Wuhan and in-depth communication with researchers," Mao said.She added that the conclusion has been widely acknowledged by the international community, including the science community.

The head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, said yesterday that his country’s high growth under ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina was “fake” and faulted the world for not questioning what he said was her corruption.Yunus, 84, an economist and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, took charge of the South Asian country’s interim government in August after Hasina was forced to flee to neighbouring India following weeks of violent protests.Hasina has been credited with turning around the economy and the country’s massive garments industry during her 15 years in power, although critics have accused her of human rights violations and suppressing free speech and dissent.Hasina, who had ruled Bangladesh since 2009, is being investigated there on suspicion of crimes against humanity, genocide, murder, corruption and money laundering and Dhaka has asked New Delhi to extradite her.Hasina and her party deny wrongdoing, while New Delhi has not responded to the extradition request.“She was in Davos telling everybody how to run a country. Nobody questioned that,” Yunus told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s annual meeting in the Swiss Alpine resort. “That’s not a good world system at all.”“The whole world is responsible for making that happen. So that’s a good lesson for the world,” he said. “She said, our growth rate surpasses everybody else. Fake growth rate, completely.”Yunus did not elaborate on why he thought that growth was fake, but went on to stress the importance of broad-based and inclusive growth, and the need to reduce wealth inequality.Annual growth in the Muslim-majority country of 170mn people accelerated to nearly 8% in the financial year 2017/18, compared with about 5% when Hasina took over in 2009, before the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and the war in Ukraine pulled it down.In 2023, the World Bank described Bangladesh as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.“Since its independence in 1971, Bangladesh has transformed from one of the poorest countries to achieving lower-middle income status in 2015,” it said.The student-led movement in Bangladesh grew out of protests against quotas in government jobs that spiralled in July, provoking a violent crackdown that drew global criticism, although Hasina’s government denied using excessive force.The student protesters recommended Yunus as the chief adviser in the interim government tasked with holding fresh elections.Yunus, who has promised to hold elections by the end of 2025 or early 2026, said that he is not interested in running.Known as the “banker to the poor”, Yunus and the Grameen Bank that he founded won the Nobel for helping lift millions from poverty with tiny loans of less than $100 offered to the rural poor, too poor to gain attention from traditional banks.“For me, personally, I’m not very driven by growth rates,” Yunus said. “I’m driven by the quality of life of the people at the very bottom level. So I would rather bring an economy which avoids the whole idea of wealth concentration.”Ties between Bangladesh and India, who have strong trade and cultural links, have become fraught since Hasina was ousted and she took refuge in New Delhi.Yunus has demanded that India send Hasina back to Bangladesh so she can face trial for what it says are crimes against protesters and her opponents, and crimes she is accused of committing during her tenure.Calling India’s rival China a long-term friend of Bangladesh at this difficult time, Yunus said the strained relationship with New Delhi “hurts me a lot personally”.“Bangladesh-India relationship should be the strongest possible. You know, you cannot draw the map of India without drawing the map of Bangladesh,” he said, referring to how Bangladesh’s land border runs almost entirely alongside India’s.

On a sunny winter’s morning, Etienne Griffaton walked around the Graines de Soleil urban farming project, near Marseille airport.“It’s hard work here, people have to do a lot of different things,” said Griffaton. “But I think people are happy to have their hands in the soil.”Graines de Soleil is part of a network of non-profit organisations fighting food poverty around France’s second city, Marseille, where around 26% of the population live below the poverty line compared to the French average of around 14%.Across Graines de Soleil’s three hectares (7 acres), 18 employees and around 30 ‘apprentices’ grow fresh produce, which is then sent to grocery co-operatives, restaurants, food banks, and to Colibri, a ‘social grocery’ in the industrial town of Gardanne, north of Marseille.The apprentices include recently arrived immigrants and prisoners on day release. Graines, with funding from the state, prepares them for the labour market, French society, or both.On this day, there is a mix-up with a delivery to Colibri and Caroline Plas, project director with the NGO La Cite de l’agriculture, has been drafted in to help.“I’ve actually never been the delivery guy before,” said Plas, loading several boxes with cabbages, pears, leeks and parsnips into her car. “But I’m glad we can help.”The Covid-19 outbreak made things worse: as the informal economy was hit by lockdowns and energy prices rose, food aid systems were overwhelmed.With Covid, “suddenly, food insecurity became so big, nobody could ignore it,” said Plas, as she drove to Colibri.Addressing stigmaLa Cite de l’agriculture, along with Graines De Soleil and Colibri, is part of Territoires à Vivres, an umbrella organisation set up to fight food insecurity.Since the pandemic, collectives like Territoires a Vivres have developed new ways to provide food while addressing the stigma associated with food banks and what critics describe as a paternalistic attitude towards aid recipients.“With Covid we noticed that the groups working in this field adapted their behaviour... in order to provide people with the food they needed,” said Aicha Sif, a city councillor and deputy mayor in charge of urban agriculture and food sustainability.One of the initiatives, spearheaded by Sif and local NGOs, delivered food to families directly. Another saw the development of social groceries like Colibri.With support from the Catholic Church, Colibri stocks its shelves from urban farms like Graines de Soleil and buys subsidised food from supermarket chains. The staff are all volunteers and each item has two prices.Its members, typically people living just above the poverty line, pay 30% of the retail price, while others pay a full or ‘solidarity’ price.Members include single mothers, retirees as well as immigrants without secure status. They are also “often poor workers who are right on the line despite a small salary, with no help from the state,” said volunteer Pascale Michel.The dignity of choiceUnlike food banks, where people take what they get, Colibri consults its members on what they want to see on the shelves.“If people can choose what they want to eat, it’s for their dignity,” said Michel. “They can buy what they want and feel they’re not begging.”Emmy Barbier is a single mother with a part-time job. Rising food and energy prices mean she struggles to pay her bills.“I live alone with my child, in a fairly old home that isn’t well insulated. Now it’s starting to get cold, we need to heat it. It’s the same problem every year,” she said.Another regular is Giuseppe Zammataro, an Italian chef in his 60s. He lives off a small French pension while awaiting his Italian one, which has been held up by bureaucratic issues.“The food here is good quality and it’s not expensive for me,” said Zammataro. “The other associations that give out food, like food banks, the quality is not very good. Here I have choice.”Zammataro said when he gets his pension, he will keep coming to Colibri to pay the full price.“There are a lot of people who need help like this. This shop is a good way to help.”‘Food desserts’In Marseille’s central Third District, where the poverty rate is over 50%, members of the Racines social grocery can buy limited quantities of food at reduced prices.On Fridays, people living in or near absolute poverty can collect pre-prepared food boxes, paid for by the non-profit Groupe SOS Solidarités.Many immigrant families from the Maghreb and other parts of Africa shop here, including single mothers like Nisrine, who fled Algeria after becoming pregnant while she was unmarried. Now she is undocumented in France.“Here in France it’s very expensive, I need to be careful. I have a three-month-old baby to take care of and so I can’t work. (Racines) is very important for us,” she said.Audrey Boyer, a dietician who works with the local government, said nutrition was also a problem in Marseille with obesity a common issue among poor and immigrant families.“There’s not enough vegetables and fresh food, and the infrastructure is not well-equipped for sport and other activities,” said Boyer. “You also have violence in the streets, so mothers don’t want to go out with their children.”Inequality in Marseille was exacerbated by the pandemic-era collapse of the informal economy, which deprived poor and immigrant families of income.Councillor Sif is working to increase the land available to urban farming projects and relocalise food production.“Food scarcity and precarity are a door to other vulnerabilities within these communities,” said Sif. “When people get access to food aid, we discover afterwards that they are also in need of many other things - energy, appliances, housing.”Back at Racines, volunteer Hayat is finishing for the day.A former beneficiary herself, Hayat, who asked to be identified only by her first name, has been out of work for two years after an accident-related disability.“I want to be useful and active. I want to find a new job, but it’s hard with this handicap. Being here gives me some meaning.” - Thomson Reuters Foundation

Wars are expensive and destructive, affecting long-term economic growth through population changes, fewer investments, and worsening educational outcomes.Global gross domestic product (GDP) would have been 12% higher on average had there been no violent conflict since 1970, according to a report published in the Journal of Peace Research.Armed conflict is the top risk in 2025, a World Economic Forum (WEF) survey released ahead of the Annual Meeting in Davos showed, a reminder of the deepening global fragmentation.Nearly one in four of the more than 900 experts surveyed across academia, business and policymaking ranked conflict, including wars and terrorism, as the most severe risk to economic growth for the year ahead.“Rising geopolitical tensions and a fracturing of trust are driving the global risk landscape,” WEF Managing Director Mirek Dusek said in comments accompanying the report. “In this complex and dynamic context, leaders have a choice: to find ways to foster collaboration and resilience, or face compounding vulnerabilities.”The threat of misinformation and disinformation was ranked as the most severe global risk over the next two years, according to the survey, the same ranking as in 2024.As for conflicts, the statistics are grim, according to the WEF survey.There were close to 60 armed conflicts raging in 2023, the highest number ever recorded. Civilian fatalities surged by more than 30% between 2023 and 2024, mostly due to escalating armed conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.In the past year, at least 200,000 people were killed and over 120mn are currently forcibly displaced – more than half of them within their own borders.Today, roughly 2bn people – one quarter of humanity – live in conflict-affected countries. Meanwhile, global military spending has skyrocketed, reaching an all-time high of more than $2.4tn in 2023.In many of the Middle Eastern countries, poverty is projected to remain elevated, partly reflecting higher inflation, especially for food, according to a World Bank report last week.Risks to the outlook for the region are tilted to the downside. An escalation of armed conflicts in the region and heightened policy uncertainty, particularly unexpected global policy shifts, are major downside risks, the World Bank said.Global growth is expected to increase slightly this year while remaining stuck below its pre-pandemic average, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, flagging the growing economic divide between the United States and European countries.In an update to its flagship World Economic Outlook report, the IMF said it expects global growth to hit 3.3% this year, up 0.1 percentage point from its previous forecast in October, and to remain at 3.3% in 2026.But the proportion of the world engulfed by conflict has grown 65% – equivalent to nearly double the size of India – over the past three years, according to a new report.Ukraine, Myanmar, the Middle East and a “conflict corridor” around Africa’s Sahel region have seen wars and unrest spread and intensify since 2021, according to the latest Conflict Intensity Index (CII), published by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft early last month.While there was a lull in the levels of conflict globally during the Covid-19 pandemic, experts say there has been a rising trend of violence for at least a decade, while many longstanding crises continue unabated.Angela Rosales, CEO of SOS Children’s Villages International, which helps children separated from their families, said 470mn children worldwide are affected by wars, including in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza and Lebanon, with serious impacts that go beyond death and injury.“Children in conflict-affected areas are at risk of losing family care if their homes are destroyed, parents are killed or if they become separated when fleeing violence,” she said. They are especially vulnerable to exploitation, enslavement, trafficking and abuse.”

US President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons yesterday to former Covid pandemic adviser Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley and close family members to shield them from “politically motivated prosecutions” under the Trump administration.In an extraordinary move in his last hours in the White House, Biden gave similar pardons to members and staff of the US House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters.Biden also commuted to home confinement the life sentence of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, 80, who has been imprisoned for nearly 50 years for the 1975 murders of two FBI agents.“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Biden said in a statement announcing the pardons of Fauci, Milley and the members of the January 6 committee.“But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” he said.“These public servants have served our nation with honour and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”Trump has repeatedly promised “retribution” against his political opponents and threatened some with criminal prosecution.Fauci, who led the country’s fight against the Covid pandemic during Trump’s first term, has become a hated figure for many on the right, including Trump ally Elon Musk, who has called for the scientist to be prosecuted.Trump was enraged after Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told journalist Bob Woodward that the Republican was “fascist to the core” and a “dangerous person”. Milley also revealed he had secretly called his Chinese counterpart after the Capitol attack to reassure Beijing that the United States remained “stable” and had no intention to attack China.Trump subsequently wrote on his Truth Social network that “in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” for Milley. Milley thanked Biden for his executive action.“I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights,” he said in a statement.Fauci also thanked Biden for the pardon, according to US media reports, but stressed “I have committed no crime.”Just minutes before Trump was sworn in as president, Biden announced he was issuing pardons to his brother James Biden, James’s wife Sara Jones Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, Valerie’s husband John Owens, and his brother Francis Biden.“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden said. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”The members of the January 6 committee receiving pardons include former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney and a fierce Trump critic.In his statement, Biden said “baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families”.The Democrat added that the pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offence”.Trump has regularly complained of being the victim of “lawfare” under the Biden administration after being criminally prosecuted for offences, including trying to subvert the 2020 election.Yesterday’s moves were the latest in a slew of pardons and clemencies Biden has granted in his final days in office, including commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people in one day — and the controversial pardon of his son Hunter.Trump has described jailed supporters who took part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol as “patriots” and “political prisoners” and said he plans to issue pardons for some of them.Former president Richard Nixon received a preemptive pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford, after resigning in disgrace in 1974 because of the Watergate scandal.

Donald Trump was sworn in for a historic second term as president on Monday, pledging a blitz of immediate orders on immigration and the US culture wars as he caps his extraordinary comeback.With one hand raised in the air and the other on a Bible given to him by his mother, the 47th US president solemnly took the oath of office beneath the huge Rotunda of the US Capitol.Republican Trump and outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden had earlier traveled by motorcade together to the Capitol, where the ceremony was being held indoors -- and with a much smaller crowd -- for the first time in decades due to frigid weather.Earlier, they and their spouses met for a traditional tea at the White House."Welcome home," Biden said to Trump as he and First Lady Jill Biden greeted their successors at the front door to the presidential residence.Trump, 78, was a political outsider at his first inauguration in 2017 as the 45th president, but this time around he is surrounded by America's wealthy and powerful.The world's richest man, Elon Musk, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all had prime seats in the Capitol alongside Trump's family and cabinet members.Musk, who bankrolled Trump's election campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars and promotes far-right policies on the X social network, will lead a cost-cutting drive in the new administration.While Trump refused to attend Biden's 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, this time Biden has been keen to restore the sense of tradition.Biden joined former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama pointedly stayed away.Unusually for an inauguration where foreign leaders are normally not invited, Argentina's hard-right president Javier Milei was attending, along with Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.The bitter cold weather has forced Trump's inauguration indoors for the first time since Ronald Reagan's in 1985, missing out on the customary massive crowds along the National Mall.Behind the pomp and ceremony, the billionaire is kickstarting his nationalist, right-wing agenda with a barrage of around 100 executive orders undoing Biden's legacy.Trump will declare a national emergency at the Mexico border, give the US military a key role on the frontier, and end birthright citizenship, as he seeks clamp down on undocumented migrants, an official from his incoming administration said.Trump has pledged to start immediate deportations of undocumented migrants.He will also sign an order for the US government to recognize only two biological sexes and seek to eliminate federal government diversity programs as he takes office.The announcement of the hardline policies came a day after Trump had promised a "brand new day" and to end "four years of American decline.""I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country," Trump told an inauguration eve rally where he danced with the Village People band.Despite promising a new "golden era," populist Trump also campaigned on often apocalyptic depictions of the country in his victorious election campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November.At sunrise on Monday, the National Mall, where the inauguration was originally due to be held, was largely empty -- save for the Fairchild family, who traveled from Michigan to pay tribute to Trump."Ecstatic," said grandmother Barb, when asked how they were feeling, adding she thought the move indoors was made "to protect our president."With minutes left in his presidency, Biden issued extraordinary pre-emptive pardons for his brothers and sister to shield them from "baseless and politically motivated investigations."He also pardoned former Covid-19 advisor Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley, and members of a US House committee probing the violent January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack by Trump's supporters.Biden said he had also restored the tradition of leaving a letter for his successor -- though he said the contents were between him and Trump.Trump will make history by replacing Biden as the oldest president to be sworn in. He is also just the second president in US history to return to power after being voted out, after Grover Cleveland in 1893.Another first is Trump's criminal record, related to paying a porn star hush money during his first presidential run -- and a string of far more serious criminal probes that were dropped once he won the election in November.For the rest of the world, Trump's return means expecting the unexpected.From promising sweeping tariffs, to making territorial threats to Greenland and Panama and calling US aid for Ukraine into question, Trump looks set to rattle the global order once again.Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump ahead of the inauguration and said Monday he was open to talks on the Ukraine conflict, adding he hoped any settlement would ensure "lasting peace".

Benedetta slid a manicured nail through the sellotape of a mystery package to unwrap a garden hoe and earbuds. Her friend discovered she had bought some sort of harness.The Italian students are among hundreds of people at this “blind sale” of unclaimed packages, where boxes large and small are paid for according to their weight at a Rome shopping centre.“Many people might say this is a good surprise,” Benedetta told AFP, holding up the wireless earphones in one hand. “But in my opinion it’s this. It’s a hoe.”“I live in the countryside. I always have to plant flowers and I use a soup spoon to dig. I would never have bought a hoe of my own volition,” she said.Organised by French startup King Colis, the event aims to reduce waste and promote sustainability.It is the company’s first event in Italy and is proving so popular that King Colis CEO Killian Denis predicts they could sell 10 tonnes of packages in six days, with an average of 800 buyers and 3,000 visitors per day.Denis said he came up with the idea during the Covid lockdown, after several things he ordered online to entertain his young daughters got lost in the post.“Each time I was reimbursed... but I started to wonder what happened to the lost, undeliverable packages,” Denis told AFP.“I discovered that they were destroyed by the logistics companies in charge of their delivery, since they’re of no use to them and the suppliers refuse to take them back because of the transport costs.”That is when he and a childhood friend decided become “parcel rescuers”, he said.Antoine Ulry manages the pop-up stand in the shopping centre, where people get 10 minutes to “take as many items as you like from the bins”.People dug through the piles, holding packages up to their ears and shaking them. The queue to join them snaked through the centre.“The only rule you have to follow is not to open the parcels before you buy them,” Ulry said.Some shoppers immediately tore into their purchases the moment the cash was handed over. As one customer wheeled away a shopping trolley overflowing with boxes, road maintenance worker Giuseppe Arancio discovered the packages he paid €123 ($126) for include a stone cooking pot.“The pot is valuable and I got other little things I needed. Out of the uncertainty came useful things”, he said with a smile.After the initial pop-up sales in France, the company has organised blind sales in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. Portugal, Spain and Sweden are to follow soon.It also sells bundles of mystery parcels online.One third of the packages sold come from European logistics giants, while the other two thirds come from Amazon resellers.Most of the latter are lost parcels, while the remainder are returned and unsold things.Such is the appetite for the blind sales that King Colis is currently out of e-commerce packages to sell, beyond the three pop-up events it has planned in January. Its website says it hopes to replenish stocks soon.An Amazon spokesperson told AFP: “We do not work with ‘mystery box’/’secret package’ retailers.”The company does “not send unopened or undeliverable customer returns to liquidators” but does use liquidations to give some returned products “a second life”.

Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi has been part of countless demonstrations over the years, but the anti-government protests that hit the country last June and July defied all expectations.Mwangi said he witnessed something unprecedented - a powerful awakening of the Kenyan youth who leveraged social media to mobilise against a finance bill which proposed a raft of tax hikes.“The biggest mobilisers of the protest were the Gen Zs. They were on TikTok, Instagram and on X. The majority of the people in the streets were young people,” Mwangi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.“For the first time in history, Kenyans were united for one purpose, to defeat the finance bill,” he said. “It was us waking up to the power we have and becoming active citizens to demand accountability and meaningful change in our country.”The nationwide protests forced President William Ruto to make a historic U-turn by scrapping his reviled law, sacking cabinet ministers and pledging a slate of measures to cut wasteful spending of public funds.Africa, home to the world’s youngest population, has seen a wave of youth-led protests fuelled by frustrations over rampant corruption, poor governance, high living costs and rising unemployment.Gen Z and millennials protested in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria and Mozambique in 2024, and some analysts expect this activism to intensify in 2025 as grievances persist.Murithi Mutiga, program director for Africa for the International Crisis Group, said frustrations partly arise from Africa’s struggle to recover from economic shocks like Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, which has driven up food and fuel prices.There is also growing resentment among a generation increasingly aware of its rights, empowered by the internet to take action for change, said Mutiga.“The young want more than their parents. They are more informed. They are more politically active,” he said. “I think it’s possible that you’ll see more protests in 2025.”Youth disillusionmentAfrica has the fastest growing, youngest population of any continent, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa’s people under the age of 30.Fuelling their growing wave of disillusionment are scarce job opportunities. Some 53mn youth - more than one in five - in sub-Saharan Africa are not engaged in any form of employment, education or training, says the UN’s International Labour Organisation.A 2024 survey of African youth found three-quarters of respondents said it was difficult to find a job, and two-thirds were dissatisfied with their governments’ efforts to create employment opportunities.The survey, which polled more than 5,600 Africans ages 18-25 in 13 countries, also found that four in five were worried about corruption, most notably in the government, private sector and the police.“Most are dissatisfied with efforts to tackle corruption and there is widespread support for a range of policies to address it,” the Africa Youth Survey said.Political analysts and observers said it was not surprising to see youth beginning to push back against their governments.Aslak Orre, a senior researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute, a development research institute based in Norway, said young people across the region were exasperated with poor economic growth, few jobs, high public debt and austerity measures.“And for that, they blame the politicians from a different generation, who they see as working for themselves rather than the public good,” Orre said.In Mozambique, a disputed October election that extended the Frelimo party’s 49-year rule sparked more than three months of protests against corruption, living costs and unemployment.“We are demanding change,” said Ronaldo António, a 25-year-old street vendor in Maputo, during December protests when crowds marched, whistled and chanted, blocking traffic with trash bins, stones and tyres.“We eat chicken feet and necks while government officials are eating the chickens,” he added.In Ghana, ahead of December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections, young people mounted street protests against the nation’s debt crisis and high inflation, which have triggered the worst economic crisis in a generation.Ghanaian filmmaker Kwame Addae, 26, said he voted for businessman Nana Kwame Bediako, even though he knew the newcomer would not win against seasoned politician and former president John Mahama.“We are tired of the status quo, and I wanted someone like him (Bediako) that was thinking of the digital economy as a means to provide jobs and move us to a modern Ghana,” said Addae, adding that Bediako’s political message resonated with young voters.Activists noted that the protests across Africa had particularly significant impact because young people can skillfully wield digital activism.In Mozambique, Ângelo do Rosário, who is known as Maxh on social media, said he used his 1.2mn Facebook and more than 300,000 TikTok, Instagram and YouTube followers respectively to encourage young Mozambicans to demand their rights.“(We demand) quality education in Mozambique, the availability of a decent health service and all of this the people believe is the result of the bad governance we have in Mozambique,” said Rosário.Police killings, abductionsThe protests across the continent have not been without consequence.Hundreds of young people have been detained or killed in clashes with police, and scores of protesters remain missing.In Kenya, some prominent rights groups have accused authorities of a cover-up of dozens of alleged police killings, unexplained abductions and illegal detentions related to the Gen Z protests.Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights, a government-funded body, recorded 82 cases of enforced disappearances in the period between the protests, from June and December. Of those, 29 people remain unaccounted for. At least 40 people have been killed.In Mozambique, at least 278 people have been killed in police crackdowns against protesters, and more than 2,000 families have fled and sought refuge in neighbouring Malawi.In November, Nigeria charged 76 people, including children, with treason and inciting a military coup after deadly August protests erupted against economic hardship and spiralling inflation.Nigerian activist Rinu Oduala - one of the organisers of prominent #EndSARS protests against police brutality in 2020 - warned that youth uprisings are unlikely to die down anytime soon.“Protests by young people aren’t a crime, we are doing it out of love for our countries and hope for a better future - they must be seen as calls for change and what’s rightfully ours,” said Oduala, 24, who has more than 800,000 followers on X.“But the lesson is clear: ignoring youth voices will be a huge political risk to any government going forward,” she added. - Thomson Reuters Foundation

Donald Trump’s inauguration as America’s 47th president will be historic in several ways. He will be America’s oldest president. He will be the first who is a convicted felon. And he will be the first Republican president in two decades who won the popular vote – an achievement that both highlights and compounds the crisis of democracy the United States is now confronting.Since George W Bush defeated John Kerry by some 3mn votes in 2004, Republican presidents have won thanks to the Electoral College, which bolsters the influence of voters in less populous states. Many of these states lean Republican, lending a significant advantage to the party’s presidential candidates. That includes Trump, who won in 2016 despite receiving about 3mn fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.In 2020, however, this Electoral College advantage was not enough. With over 81mn votes – the largest number in US history – President Joe Biden trounced Trump by 7mn votes. But this time, Trump won over 77mn votes, compared to Kamala Harris’s 75mn. While a two-million-vote difference does not amount to anything close to a landslide, Trump and his team have presented the results as a major triumph and a powerful mandate to transform America.Trump’s victory can be attributed largely to his preternatural ability, shared with all successful demagogues, to identify an issue that resonates with voters, convince them that it is an even bigger problem than they think, and then offer “solutions” that are simultaneously facile and vague.Voters fear immigration? In 2016, Trump led chants of “Build the wall!” without an effective plan for doing so, let alone showing how a wall on the US border with Mexico – which was never built – would actually address illegal immigration. In 2024, he promised the “largest deportation operation in American history,” while providing few details about logistics, mitigating the economic and social fallout, or preventing human-rights violations. Ask questions, and all you would get was an inflated figure for undocumented immigrants and tirades about “criminals” who “eat pets.”Voters are struggling economically? That one is easy: blame Biden. In late 2019, the US economy was doing relatively well, giving the impression that Trump’s tax cuts and deregulation were working. But in 2020, the economy plummeted: between April and June, US GDP fell by about 30% compared to the previous quarter. Of course, the Covid-19 crisis caused the crash, but Trump’s response – or lack thereof – undoubtedly exacerbated it.From the start, Trump downplayed the pandemic’s seriousness, with severe repercussions for public health. So, by the time Biden became president, he had a huge mess to clean up. To limit the public-health fallout, his administration supported mask and vaccine mandates and other evidence-based measures aimed at stemming transmission. And to accelerate economic recovery and support people’s incomes, he launched an audacious fiscal-stimulus program.Such spending, together with supply-chain disruptions and other factors, contributed to a spike in inflation. While inflation has since been brought under control, and the US Federal Reserve is now cutting interest rates, prices remain elevated. For ordinary voters, the fact that inflation was a global phenomenon and that the US is outperforming its peers meant little. All that mattered was whether their living standards improved under Biden, and for many, the answer was no.To be sure, Trump’s opponents – first Biden, and then his replacement, Vice President Harris – did not mount an effective defense of their record. They failed to offer a convincing plan for managing immigration or to connect with the working-class voters who feel unheard and unprotected. While the Democrats touted complex industrial strategies involving massive public investment in climate-related projects, Trump simply shouted, “Tariffs!” Never mind that those tariffs will drive up prices for US consumers; he said they would fix everything, and that was good enough for desperate voters.It did not help that for nearly three years Americans had been seeing reports of seemingly huge amounts of aid going to Ukraine, leaving many wondering why that money was not going toward improving their lives. Whereas Biden and Harris promised to support Ukraine indefinitely, Trump declared that he would end the war in a day. Meanwhile, the Democrats alienated many young Americans by eagerly supporting Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which has led to a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions.Trump’s victory has set the stage for a lurch toward autocracy. But Americans need not resign themselves to the collapse of their democracy. The US, after all, has a long history of abandoning dangerous political projects when they go too far (McCarthyism is a case in point). And it cannot be stated too often that Trump defeated his opponent in the last election by only 1.5 percentage points.Contrary to the political theorist Francis Fukuyama’s famous declaration that the end of the Cold War meant we had reached the “end of history,” the work of defending democracy is never done. If Americans allow apathy to take hold, they might find themselves living in a post-democratic society, which the late Samuel P Huntington’s own Cold War postmortem warned could lead to civilisational conflict and the collapse of the international order that has underpinned relative world peace for several decades. — Project SyndicateKoichi Hamada, Professor Emeritus at Yale University, was a special adviser to former Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo.