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      Nikki Haley’s Pro-Israel Record Could Shape Her ’24 Bid

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      In January 2017, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, received a phone call from Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Donald Trump’s newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations.Ms. Haley wanted to apologize.A month earlier, the U.N. Security Council had passed a resolution condemning Israel for building settlements in the West Bank. The Obama administration, by abstaining from the vote, had allowed the measure to pass, a parting rebuke to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s increasingly right-wing prime minister.In her first phone call to a fellow ambassador, Ms. Haley wanted to be clear that things would be different.“She guaranteed that it would not happen as long as she was serving as ambassador,” Mr. Danon recalled recently, “that she would get our back and support us.”That promise would set the tone for much of Ms. Haley’s time at the U.N. Over her nearly two-year tenure, she transformed herself from a foreign policy novice to a blunt-talking stateswoman, making the defense of Israel her defining cause.Ms. Haley blocked a Palestinian envoy’s appointment and took credit for forcing the withdrawal of a report that described the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid.” She walked out of a Security Council meeting during a Palestinian official’s speech and criticized the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee aid program, which she has since said “uses American money to feed Palestinian hatred of the Jewish state.”She was an enthusiastic face of the Trump administration’s diplomatic largess toward Israel, and described herself as turning back the tide of “Israel-bashing” at the world body.Denizens of the U.N.’s New York headquarters began joking that Israel now had two ambassadors.American ambassadors have generally stood with Israel at the U.N., but observers of Ms. Haley’s time there saw something new in her often confrontational advocacy for the Trump administration’s no-questions support for Mr. Netanyahu’s government.Critics have noted the political convenience of her approach — which ingratiated her with Mr. Trump’s inner circle and cemented relationships with major Republican donors and evangelical leaders — as well as its made-for-television tenor.“I wear heels,” she told the audience at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in 2017. “It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong, we’re going to kick them every single time.” A clip of the statement appeared in a video teasing her presidential campaign early this year.“There was always a clear distinction between her relatively pragmatic approach to most issues and an incredibly performative, purist approach to diplomacy regarding Israel,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director of the International Crisis Group.As Israel plunges into a new war in the Gaza Strip, after a stunning wave of attacks by Hamas fighters, this chapter of Ms. Haley’s career has taken on a sudden importance.Ms. Haley, one of the few candidates with a foreign policy record to run on, has cast herself as an unwavering Israel hawk whose views are grounded in experience. Last weekend, Ms. Haley urged Mr. Netanyahu to “finish” Hamas. During an appearance on “Meet the Press,” she recalled her 2017 visit to Hamas-dug tunnels near the Gaza border.When Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Netanyahu — who angered him by recognizing Joseph R. Biden’s victory in 2020 — Ms. Haley used the moment to reinforce her case against her former boss.“To go and criticize the head of a country who just saw massive bloodshed — no, that’s not what we need in a president,” she said at a news conference in Concord, N.H., on Friday.Ms. Haley, who declined to comment for this article, has seen a recent uptick in polling, although she continues to run far behind Mr. Trump. As a new conflict pushes world affairs to the foreground of the campaign, this may be her best chance to emerge as the leading Republican alternative to the former president.“This was always political capital that she was banking while she was at the U.N.,” Mr. Gowan said. “And it may pay off for her now.”A Keen Eye for Set Pieces“I wear heels,” Ms. Haley told an audience of staunch Israel supporters at the meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in 2017. “It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong we’re going to kick them every single time.”Pete Marovich/European Pressphoto AgencyIn interviews, close observers of Ms. Haley’s work — veterans of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the Trump White House and State Department, United Nations officials, and foreign policy lobbyists and experts — described it in similar terms.They recalled a diplomat who quickly became a more pragmatic negotiator than her own accounts of her tenure, which tend to focus on her confrontations, suggested. They also remembered her as a politician: someone who understood the United Nations post as a stopover on a trajectory toward bigger things.Ms. Haley was not enamored with the minutiae of diplomacy. She requested that staff cut down background papers to a single page of talking points, written in “eighth-grade English.” In her first address to her new employees, the ambassador told them she wanted to create a humane and efficient office culture, insisting that nobody’s work should keep them at the office after 6 p.m. — a tall order for an institution where meetings often ran into the evening, and diplomatic crises at unusual hours were practically a daily event.Ms. Haley also had a keen eye for what one former mission staff member described as “set pieces”: the confrontations and dramatic gestures that would gain attention.The first such moment for Ms. Haley arrived only days into her tenure. In early February 2017, António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, was preparing to name Salam Fayyad, the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, as the U.N.’s special envoy to Libya. Mr. Fayyad was a well-regarded reformer who had been seen as a key Palestinian partner for both the United States and Israel. Mr. Guterres had received informal signoffs from the Security Council members. His office had prepared a news release.But half an hour before the deadline for objections, Ms. Haley informed him that she considered Mr. Fayyad unacceptable.“We thought that this must be a mistake,” said Jeffrey Feltman, an American diplomat who at the time was Mr. Guterres’s under secretary general for political affairs. The appointment had been vetted, and State Department officials had vouched for Mr. Fayyad, he said. The decision had been Ms. Haley’s, her staff has since said, though Mr. Trump approved it. In a statement at the time, she argued that appointing a Palestinian to a significant U.N. position would be tantamount to recognizing Palestinian statehood. “The United States does not currently recognize a Palestinian state or support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations,” she said.“Essentially, she punished Salam Fayyad for his nationality, at the same time she was criticizing the U.N. for punishing Israelis for their nationality,” Mr. Feltman said. “It seemed to me to be quite hypocritical.”Speaking before an audience of Israel supporters at the AIPAC conference the following month, Ms. Haley cast the move more provocatively, taking credit for having Mr. Fayyad “booted out” of the U.N. post, and portraying the decision as a response to a culture of “Israel-bashing” at the organization. She announced that unless things changed, “there are no freebies for the Palestinian Authority anymore.”The Trump Translator at the U.N.Ms. Haley made herself the public face at the U.N. of the administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.Al Drago for The New York TimesBefore arriving at the U.N., Ms. Haley had a scant record on Israel policy. She has described her support for the country as “a matter of faith” — raised Sikh, she later converted to Christianity — and compared her own cultural background as the child of Indian immigrants to that of Israelis’. “We’re aggressive, we’re stubborn and we don’t back down from a fight,” she said in 2017.Her main claim was that as the governor of South Carolina, she signed a bill in 2015 banning the state from doing business with companies that boycotted or divested from Israel.Such laws — South Carolina’s was the second, after Illinois — had that year become a focus of pro-Israel political donors, including Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate and backer of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who wielded enormous influence in the G.O.P. and in Israel before his death in 2021.Ms. Haley’s campaign said the she did not discuss the issue with Mr. Adelson at the time. In 2016, Mr. Adelson contributed $250,000 to Ms. Haley’s political action committee — a quarter of the contributions it received that year — and hosted her in his luxury box at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.Arriving at the United Nations six months later, Ms. Haley quickly became the face of Mr. Trump’s Middle East policy, which reflected the long-held aims of pro-Israel hard-liners as well as conservative evangelicals, who ascribe great theological importance to the rise of a modern Jewish state in the Holy Land.“There’s been a historic tension between Zionism and a belief that the United States had an obligation to be an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians,” said Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “Under Trump, we moved on, and now the G.O.P. tilts unapologetically pro-Israel.”Ms. Haley leaned into her role at the U.N. as the public defender of the administration’s pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, its support for expanding West Bank settlements and its decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.After the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the embassy move, Ms. Haley hosted a reception at the U.S. Mission, refusing to invite the 21 countries — including longtime American allies like Britain, France, Germany and Japan — who voted for the measure.“The United States will remember this day,” she warned.Some who watched her work up close detected less absolutism in her views, and her diplomacy, than she presented at the General Assembly and in interviews.Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N.’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process at the time, recalled traveling in Israel to the Gaza border with Ms. Haley. “I think that trip really opened her eyes to the fact that there are two competing narratives, two competing realities in this situation,” he said. “Whatever the public speeches she made,” he added, “when we sat down to talk, she would say, ‘OK, what can we do about this?’”Palestinian supporters, however, saw a rhetorical escalation, even by the standards of a resolutely pro-Israel Republican Party.“You look at some of her statements and actions, it was comically over the top — not just willingness to support Israel, but a willingness to hurt Palestinians,” said Yousef Munayyer, who directs the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington D.C.Her public performances served her well in the often vicious internal politics of the administration. Amid a divide between foreign policy traditionalists — the long-résuméd appointees often cast as the “adults in the room” — and the coterie of Trump confidants who largely drove his Middle East policy, Ms. Haley aligned herself with the latter group.Her Israel advocacy gave her common cause with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who had been tasked with the Middle East policy portfolio. When Mr. Kushner and others began drafting the White House’s Middle East peace plan, Ms. Haley was one of only a handful of policymakers allowed to see it and offer comments, said Jason Greenblatt, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Middle East peace.“I thought she was one of my most important allies,” he said.Spending Political CapitalMs. Haley’s tenure was watched closely by influential evangelicals. David Brody, an anchor at the Christian Broadcasting Network, said “God is using Nikki Haley for such a time as this,” in his coverage of Ms. Haley’s 2017 visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Haley’s work also won accolades from evangelicals and Jewish Republican donors, key constituencies for any aspiring Republican president. Her U.N. tenure was covered closely by the Christian Broadcasting Network, the evangelical-oriented media company.“Clearly God is using Nikki Haley for such a time as this,” the network’s anchor, David Brody, said in a June 2017 segment, over footage of Ms. Haley praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.In 2018, Christians United for Israel, the influential Christian Zionist organization led by the televangelist John C. Hagee, presented Ms. Haley with the organization’s Defender of Israel award. As she neared the end of her speech, someone in the crowd yelled: “Haley 2024!”But early polling has shown that Mr. Haley is struggling to peel away evangelical voters from Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Hagee offered a prayer at her campaign launch event, he has not endorsed her.“Most evangelicals certainly appreciate Nikki Haley’s pro-Israel stance,” said Robert Jeffress, the influential pastor of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch. “But evangelicals also realize that her pro-Israel policy while she was U.N. ambassador was a reflection of Donald Trump’s pro-Israel position.”Among prominent Jewish Republican donors, she has more vocal allies. Toward the end of Ms. Haley’s time at the U.N., Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman, made her a promise. “I told her if she ever wanted to run for president of the United States, I was going to be with her from Day 1,” recalled Mr. Zeidman, who served as Jewish outreach director for the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney, John McCain and George W. Bush.In March, Mr. Zeidman and two like-minded donors, Phil Rosen and Cheryl Halpern, wrote to the members of the Republican Jewish Coalition urging them to back Haley, citing her U.N. record.But a majority of the group’s benefactors have not yet contributed to any candidate. “They don’t see any reason to actively give when you’ve got nine people out there,” Mr. Zeidman said.Mr. Zeidman and other Haley supporters hope that Republicans seeking an alternative to Mr. Trump will coalesce behind her candidacy. But despite Ms. Haley’s recent signs of momentum, the gulf between her and Mr. Trump remains daunting.“If she would’ve run in Israel,” Mr. Danon, the former Israeli ambassador, said, “I’m sure it would’ve been much easier for her.”

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      Zelenskiy accuses Russia of genocide and urges world leaders to attend peace summit

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      Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the UN general assembly that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine and urged world leaders to attend a peace summit to help stop the invasion and future wars of aggression.Appearing in the assembly chamber in New York for the first time in person, the Ukrainian president used the opportunity to try to galvanise support for his country’s plight among many countries, especially in the global south, many of whom have sought to sit on the fence in the face of the full-scale Russian invasion.Zelenskiy said he would give further details of his peace plan, based on national sovereignty and territorial integrity, at a special session of the security council on Wednesday. He said all leaders “who do not tolerate any aggression” would be invited to a peace summit. He did not say when or where the meeting would be held, but he has previously expressed the hope it would happen by autumn this year.Zelenskiy, dressed in an olive green long-sleeved polo shirt, used the word “genocide” to refer to the abduction of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children by Russian occupation authorities, who the Ukrainian president said were being brainwashed into hating their homeland.“Never before has mass kidnapping and deportation become a part of the government policy. Not until now,” Zelenskiy said, adding that the Ukrainian government knew of the names of tens of thousands of abducted children and had “evidence of hundreds of thousands of others kidnapped by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine and later deported”.The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and a top aide for their involvement in ordering the child deportations.“We are trying to get the children back home, but time goes by and what will happen to them? Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine and all ties with their families are broken. And this is clearly a genocide,” Zelenskiy said, adding: “When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there.”The speech was watched from the Russian seats in the chamber by Moscow’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, who wrote in a notebook from time to time and occasionally grinned.Zelenskiy also accused Russia of weaponising food and energy, noting “there are many conventions that restrict weapons but there are no real restrictions on weaponisation”.He explained how Ukraine and its partners were trying to work around the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports, but he had bitter criticism for Ukraine’s neighbours who have periodically blocked the export of Ukrainian produce westwards for fear it would compete with domestic output and lower prices.He said “some of our friends in Europe” whose expressions of solidarity were “political theatre” were, by restricting imports from Ukraine, “helping set the stage for a Moscow actor”.He said that Russia, having long used oil and gas as a weapon, was now weaponising nuclear energy, pointing to the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which he said Moscow had turned into a potential “dirty bomb”.The goal of the Russian military campaign, the president said, was to turn Ukraine and its people, land and resources “into a weapon against you, against the international rules-based order”. If the Russians succeeded, he warned, “many seats in the general assembly hall may become empty”.He said the Ukrainian peace blueprint, which involves a Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian territory, accountability for war crimes and restitution for damages, represented “a real chance to end aggression on the terms of the nation which was attacked”.Zelenskiy added: “While Russia is pushing the world to a final war, Ukraine is doing everything to ensure that after this Russian aggression, no one in the world will dare to attack any nation.” More

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      Biden vows to lead by example on curbing weapons of mass destruction

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      Joe Biden has accused Russia of “shredding longstanding arms control agreements” but pledged that the US would “lead by example” in limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction.In his address to the UN general assembly, Biden castigated the Putin regime for its suspension, in February this year, of the 2010 New Start treaty, the last arms control agreement between the two countries.That suspension, coupled with Russia’s withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in 2007, was “irresponsible and makes the entire world less safe”, the president said.However, Biden insisted that the US “is going to continue to pursue good faith efforts to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction and lead by example, no matter what else is happening in the world”.The statement appeared to be a confirmation that the US would continue the policy it has pursued since Vladimir Putin’s suspension of New Start, by not going beyond the treaty’s limits of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, and 700 deployed delivery systems.At the time of Moscow’s suspension of the New Start treaty, Russian officials said their government would continue to observe those limits, but there have been no inspections of Russian nuclear weapons facilities since the start of the Covid pandemic, and Russia has ceased to share data that was required by the agreement.In his speech, Biden said the US also remained committed to diplomatic means to containing North Korean’s nuclear weapons programme and would “remain steadfast in our commitment that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons”.Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, welcomed Biden’s statement on the New Start limits.“I’m glad that Biden said this to keep the flame going, if you think about how you don’t have much room in a UN speech,” Kimball said. “It’s a positive signal that the United States remains ready to engage in serious dialogue on nuclear weapons production and arms control despite whatever else has happened in the Russian relationship.”In his address, Biden urged the UN general assembly to uphold the UN charter in its approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, framing it as a matter of principle, national sovereignty and territorial integrity that was essential to all UN members.“Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalise Ukraine without consequence,” Biden said. “But I ask you this: if we abandon the core principles … to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?“I respectfully suggest the answer is no,” the president added. “We must stand up to this naked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow.”Much of the rest of Biden’s speech was dedicated to the principles of global cooperation to take on basic issues of poverty, human rights and the climate crisis. The US and other supporters of Ukraine are well aware that many countries at the UN, especially the developing nations in the Group of 77, are becoming restive at the focus on Ukraine, when the death toll from conflict, famine and climate change is so enormous in the global south. Biden stressed that he takes these concerns seriously.“My country has to meet this critical moment to work with countries in every region, in common cause to join together with partners who share a common vision of the future of the world,” he said. “The United States seeks a more secure, more prosperous, more equitable world for all people, because we know our future is bound up with yours … No nation can meet the challenges of today alone.” More

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      Climate activists block Federal Reserve bank, calling for end to fossil fuel funding

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      One day after the largest climate march since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of climate activists blockaded the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to call for an end to funding for coal, oil and gas, with police making scores of arrests.“Fossil fuel companies … wouldn’t be able to operate without money, and that money is coming primarily from Wall Street,” Alicé Nascimento, environmental campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, said hours before she was arrested.The action came as world leaders began arriving in New York for the United National general assembly (UNGA) gathering and followed Sunday’s 75,000-person March to End Fossil Fuels, which focused on pushing Biden to urgently phase out fossil fuels. Monday’s civil disobedience had a different but compatible goal, said Renata Pumarol, an organizer with the campaign group Climate Defenders.“Today we want to make sure people know banks, big banks, are responsible for climate change, too,” she said. “And while marches are important, we think civil disobedience is, too, because it shows we’re willing to do whatever it takes to end fossil fuels, including putting ourselves on the line.”Monday’s action was organized by a coalition of local organizations including New York Communities for Change and Extinction Rebellion NYC, alongside national groups such as Climate Organizing Hub and 350.org. Demonstrators first gathered in New York’s Zuccotti Park, in the financial district in lower Manhattan, which is partially owned by fossil fuel investor Goldman Sachs.The small concrete urban space was the base for the original Occupy Wall Street protests 12 years ago.On Monday, demonstrators then marched in the rain to the nearby New York Federal Reserve building, the largest of the network of 12 federal banks dotted around the country that make up the central bank of the United States.Protesters blockaded multiple entrances into the bank while singing, beating drums and holding up signs. Over 100 people were arrested, according to the New York City Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, with organizers estimating that roughly 150 arrests were made.“If you arrest one of us, one hundred more will come,” activists chanted.The protesters called attention to both public and private fossil fuel financing. Globally, government subsidies for coal, oil and gas reached a record high of $13m per minute in 2022 last year – equivalent to 7% of global GDP and almost double what the world spends on education – according to the International Monetary Fund.Last year, the US also ranked 16th among the G20 countries on a scorecard by the independent economic research group Green Central Banking, which the researchers say indicates US financial regulators are falling behind their international peers on climate risk mitigation.Meanwhile, since the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, major private banks have provided some $3.2tn to the fossil fuel industry to expand operations, far outstripping the amount that global north governments have collectively spent on international climate finance, an analysis from ActionAid, the Washington DC-based non-profit, found this month. Another recent analysis from the Sierra Club environmental group found that major global banks have announced climate pledges but nonetheless financed coal energy across the US.Monday’s action came after a slew of global protests last week, some of which targeted financial institutions. In New York, dozens rallied outside of the headquarters for asset manager BlackRock and Citibank on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to call attention to both firms’ investments in fossil fuels. And on Friday, protesters targeted the Museum of Modern Art over its relationship to fossil fuel investor KKR.Another protest is planned for Tuesday at New York City’s Bank of America offices, with additional actions throughout the week as the United Nations hosts its Climate Ambition Summit as part of the UNGA. More

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      John Bolton suggests US will leave Nato if ‘erratic’ Trump wins in 2024

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      Ex-national security adviser John Bolton issued harsh remarks against his former boss and the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate, saying that the US will likely withdraw from Nato if Donald Trump wins the election.In an interview with the Hill on Thursday, Bolton criticized the former president’s foreign policy after an op-ed he wrote earlier this week called Trump’s behavior “erratic, irrational and unconstrained”.“Donald Trump doesn’t really have a philosophy, as we understand it in political terms,” Bolton said. “He doesn’t think in policy directions when he makes decisions, certainly in the national security space.”Bolton, who was Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, also lambasted Trump for his foreign policy legacy with regard to the alliance, saying in the interview: “He threatened the existence of Nato, and I think in a second Trump term, we’d almost certainly withdraw from Nato.”He also criticized Republicans who have praised Trump for his foreign policy positions. He said: “Those who make these claims about what Trump did in his first term don’t really understand how we got to the places we did. Because many of the things they now give Trump credit for, he wanted to go in the opposite direction.”In Bolton’s op-ed published on Tuesday, he said Trump “disdains knowledge” and accused him of “seeing relations between the United States and foreign lands, especially our adversaries, predominantly as matters of personality”.“Foreign leaders, friend or foe, are far more likely see him as ignorant, inexperienced, braggadocious, longing to be one of the big boys and eminently susceptible to flattery,” Bolton wrote. “These characteristics were a constant source of risk in Trump’s first term, and would be again in a second term.”Bolton condemned Trump for his decision-making, saying: “Beyond acting on inadequate information, reflection or discussion, Trump is also feckless even after making decisions. When things go wrong, or when he simply changes his mind subsequently (a common occurrence), he invariably tries to distance himself from his own decision, fearing negative media coverage or political criticism.”Following his firing in 2019, Bolton published a book, The Room Where It Happened, in which he strongly criticized Trump’s leadership. Earlier this year, Bolton called Trump’s 2024 presidential bid “poison” to the Republican party.Since March, Trump has been criminally charged in connection with hush money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, with his hoarding of classified documents at his Florida resort, and with allegedly having a hand in illegal efforts to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race.Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges filed against him. More

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      US set to rejoin Unesco after leaving during Trump presidency

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      The US is set to rejoin Unesco this month after a four-year absence from the global cultural and educational body that the country abandoned during the Donald Trump presidency over what his administration called “anti-Israeli bias”.The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s reunion with the US came after a two-day special session held at the body’s headquarters in Paris.Of Unesco’s 193 member states, 142 participated in Friday’s vote. Ten states voted against the US rejoining, including Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea and Nicaragua. China, which had become the organisation’s biggest financial backer in the absence of the US, also voted against readmittance.US efforts to rejoin Unesco have been building since last year when the Joe Biden White House said within a $1.7tn spending bill that the administration would seek to rejoin the organisation in order to “counter Chinese influence”.“I am encouraged and grateful that Unesco members have accepted the US proposal that will allow us to continue steps toward rejoining the organisation,” the American secretary of state Antony Blinken said in a statement.The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, described the decision as “very good news”.“If we are not engaged in international institutions, then we leave a void and lose an opportunity to advance American values and interests on the global stage,” she added.Meanwhile, the UN’s director for the International Crisis Group, Richard Gowan, told CBS News on Tuesday: “The Biden administration has always made it clear that it is suspicious of China’s rising influence in the UN.“Biden’s team believes that Trump ceded a lot of ground to China with its anti-UN attitude. The decision to rejoin Unesco is just the latest example of the US deciding it can do more to counter China by actively engaging in UN institutions than sitting on the sidelines.”As a condition of readmission, the US will repay around $619m in unpaid dues, meet 22% of Unesco’s annual budget, and make contributions to programs supporting education access initiatives in Africa, Holocaust remembrance and journalists’ safety.Beyond stepping up actions for Africa, Unesco said it would be able to increase its efforts toward gender equality, a strategic priority.“With this return, Unesco will be in an even stronger position to carry out its mandate,” said Audrey Azoulay, Unesco’s director general.“Unesco’s mandate – education, science, culture, freedom of information – is absolutely central to meeting the challenges of the 21st century. It is this centrality, as well as the easing of political tensions within the organisation and the initiatives launched in recent years, that have led the United States to initiate this return.”Last month, the US acknowledged in a letter to Unesco that it noted the organisation’s “efforts to implement key management and administrative reforms, as well as its focus on decreasing politicized debate, especially on Middle East issues”.The organisation in 2011 had voted to admit Palestine, which is not formally recognized by the US or Israel as a UN member state. The Barack Obama White House cut Unesco contributions, sending the US into owing millions in arrears to the organization.Five years later, in 2016, the Unesco World Heritage Committee adopted a decision ruling that Israeli actions related to archaeology, tourism and freedom of movement in the Old City of Jerusalem contravened cultural heritage laws and practices.US and Israeli officials complained that not including the full Jewish history in any decision about Jerusalem was equivalent to a denial of Jewish history.In 2017, a year into the Trump presidency, the US cited “mounting arrears at Unesco, the need for fundamental reform in the organisation, and continuing anti-Israel bias at Unesco” as reasons for the decision.The decision by Unesco to readmit the US, which has 24 properties inscribed on the world heritage list, is the second time it has left and rejoined since the organisation was founded in 1945.In 1983, Ronald Reagan’s administration pulled the US out over what it saw as anti-Western bias. Unesco, it complained, “has extraneously politicized virtually every subject it deals with”.“It has exhibited hostility toward a free society, especially a free market and a free press, and it has demonstrated unrestrained budgetary expansion,” the Reagan White House added.But beneath that expressed rationale was frustration that Unesco, with an increasing number of members, no longer acted in consort with US foreign policy objectives.“The countries which have the votes don’t pay the bill, and those who pay the bill don’t have the votes,” the US ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick said at the time.But in 2002, George W Bush’s administration negotiated readmittance as part of an effort to foster international goodwill to counter deep misgivings over the US “war on terror” in the Middle East.Reuters contributed reporting. More

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      UN rebukes Washington over reports it eavesdropped on secretary general

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      The United Nations has raised concerns with the United States over reports that it eavesdropped on the private conversations of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and other senior officials.“We have made it clear that such actions are inconsistent with the obligations of the United States as enumerated in the Charter of the United Nations and the convention on the privileges and immunities of the United Nations,” said a UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, on Tuesday.The comments followed a number of articles reporting that leaked Pentagon files appear to show Washington was closely monitoring conversations between the secretary general and his aides.The Washington Post reported this week that the documents included embarrassing allegations that Guterres had expressed frustration with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and “outrage” when his plans to visit a war-torn region of Ethiopia were rebuffed.It followed a BBC report last week that the US felt Guterres was too sympathetic to Russian interests when he helped broker the Black Sea grain deal amid fears of a global food crisis. According to the broadcaster, one classified Pentagon file indicated that Guterres preferred to preserve the deal even if it meant accommodating Russian interests.The UN’s implied rebuke on Tuesday comes as Washington scrambles to contain the fallout of the worst leaks of US intelligence in at least a decade.The classified reports were part of a trove of hundreds of secret national security documents, published on the online gaming platform, Discord, and revealed secrets about US, allied and Ukrainian military deployments, US penetration of Russian intelligence and military networks, and US intelligence eavesdropping on key allies, including South Korea and Israel.Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old air national guardsman was arrested last week on suspicion of leaking hundreds of secret defence documents and charged under the Espionage Act. In response to the leaks, Pentagon has moved to tighten access to classified information while the Department of Defense reviews its security procedures.According to the BBC, a Pentagon assessment describing private conversations between the UN chief and his deputy, concluded: “Guterres emphasised his efforts to improve Russia’s ability to export,” and that he would do this, “even if that involves sanctioned Russian entities or individuals”.The secretary general’s approach, one document reportedly said, was “undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine”.The documents viewed by the Post suggest that Guterres was “really pissed off” after an appearance with Zelenskiy in March. During the visit, Guterres was reportedly surprised Ukrainian officials photographed him at a public presentation of medals to uniformed soldiers and later shared the images in a way that suggested Guterres had congratulated Ukrainian military personnel.The secretary general, who has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN charter and international law, “emphasized that he made a point of not smiling the entire time”, according to the leaked US assessment.Last week, Dujarric said Guterres was “not surprised” that he was allegedly spied on by the US. “Unfortunately, for various reasons, it allows such private conversations to be distorted and made public.”The US has a long history of eavesdropping on allied leaders, including United Nations officials.The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of dozens of world leaders, including the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and UN diplomats, according to revelations made public by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.And in 2003, a secret memo detailed an “aggressive surveillance operation” against UN security council delegations in New York as part of a campaign to win support for going to war against Iraq. More

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      in Elections

      Putin buscaba lealtad y la encontró en África

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      BANGUI, República Centroafricana — En marzo, cuando la invasión rusa de Ucrania iniciaba su tercera semana, un diplomático ruso que se encontraba a unos 4830 kilómetros de distancia, en la República Centroafricana, hizo una visita inusual a la presidenta del máximo tribunal de ese país. Su mensaje fue contundente: el presidente pro-Kremlin del país debe permanecer en el cargo de manera indefinida.Para eso, el diplomático, Yevgeny Migunov, segundo secretario de la embajada rusa, argumentó que el tribunal debía abolir la restricción constitucional que limita a dos los mandatos presidenciales. Insistió en que el presidente del país, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, quien está en su segundo mandato y se ha rodeado de mercenarios rusos, debía permanecer en el cargo por el bien del país.“Me quedé absolutamente atónita”, recordó Danièle Darlan, de 70 años, quien en ese entonces era la presidenta del tribunal. “Les advertí que nuestra inestabilidad provenía de presidentes que querían hacer eternos sus mandatos”.El ruso no se inmutó. Siete meses más tarde, en octubre, Darlan fue destituida por decreto presidencial con el fin de abrir el camino a un referéndum para rescribir la Constitución, aprobada en 2016, y abolir la limitación de mandatos. Eso consolidaría lo que un embajador occidental denominó el estatus de la República Centroafricana como “Estado vasallo” del Kremlin.Con su invasión de Ucrania, el presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, desató un nuevo desorden en el mundo. Ucrania presenta su estrategia contra el vasallaje ruso como una lucha por la libertad universal, y esa causa ha resonado en Estados Unidos y Europa. Sin embargo, en la República Centroafricana, Rusia ya se ha salido con la suya, con escasa reacción occidental, y en la capital, Bangui, ya se exhibe un tipo diferente de victoria rusa.Mercenarios rusos del mismo tenebroso Grupo Wagner, que ahora lucha en Ucrania, dominan la República Centroafricana, un país rico en oro y diamantes. Su impunidad parece total mientras se trasladan en vehículos sin identificación, con pasamontañas que les cubren la mitad del rostro y portando de manera abierta rifles automáticos. Los grandes intereses mineros y madereros que ahora controla Wagner son razón suficiente para explicar por qué Rusia no quiere amenazar a un gobierno complaciente.Desde Bangui, donde las fuerzas de Wagner roban y amenazan, hasta Bria, en el centro del país, y Mbaiki, en el sur, vi mercenarios de Moscú por todas partes durante una estancia de dos semanas y media, a pesar de las presiones para vayan a combatir en Ucrania.“Amenazan la estabilidad, socavan la buena gobernanza, despojan a los países de sus riquezas minerales, violan los derechos humanos”, declaró el secretario de Estado estadounidense, Antony Blinken, sobre los operativos de Wagner durante una cumbre de líderes de Estados Unidos y África celebrada en Washington a mediados de diciembre.Sin embargo, aunque se les teme, a menudo los rusos son recibidos como una presencia más eficaz en el mantenimiento de una paz frágil, a diferencia de los más de 14.500 cascos azules de las fuerzas de paz de las Naciones Unidas que se encuentran en este país devastado por la guerra desde 2014. Como en otros lugares del mundo en desarrollo, Occidente parece haber perdido el corazón y la mente de los ciudadanos. El enfoque del presidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, para esta época —la lucha entre la democracia y la autocracia en ascenso— resulta demasiado binario para una época de desafíos complejos. A pesar de la guerra en Ucrania, incluso debido a ella, los centroafricanos se muestran intensamente escépticos ante las lecciones sobre los “valores” occidentales.La invasión de Ucrania de Putin y la espiral inflacionista han hecho más desesperada la complicada situación de esta nación sin salida al mar. Los precios de productos básicos como el aceite de cocina han subido un 50 por ciento o más. La gasolina ahora se vende en bidones o botellas de contrabando, pues las gasolineras carecen de ellos. El hambre está más extendida, en parte porque las agencias de la ONU a veces carecen de combustible para repartir alimentos.Sin embargo, muchos centroafricanos no culpan a Rusia.La invasión de Ucrania por el presidente Vladimir Putin ha hecho más desesperada una situación que ya lo era, pero muchos centroafricanos no culpan a Rusia.Mercenarios rusos comprando en octubre en el Bangui Mall, un lujoso supermercado utilizado sobre todo por el personal de embajadas y organizaciones no gubernamentales con sede en el país.Una iglesia ortodoxa rusa en BanguiCansados de la hipocresía y las promesas vacías de Occidente, enojados por la indiferencia que la guerra en África suscita en las capitales occidentales en comparación con la guerra en Ucrania, muchas de las personas que conocí se inclinaban por apoyar a Putin frente a sus antiguos colonizadores de París. Si la brutalidad rusa en Bucha o Mariúpol, Ucrania, horroriza a Occidente, la brutalidad rusa en la República Centroafricana se percibe de manera amplia como una ayuda para apaciguar un conflicto que ya dura una década.África representará una cuarta parte de la humanidad en 2050. China extiende su influencia mediante enormes inversiones, construcciones y préstamos. Biden convocó la Cumbre de Líderes África-Estados Unidos “para construir sobre nuestros valores compartidos” y anunció 15.000 millones de dólares en nuevos acuerdos comerciales, mientras Occidente se esfuerza por ponerse al día y superar un legado de colonialismo.La Rusia de Putin, por el contrario, nunca construye un puente, sino que es la maestra de los despiadados servicios de protección, el saqueo y la propaganda. Gana amigos a través del poder duro, ahora extendido a más de una decena de países africanos, incluidos Mali y Sudán. Como en Siria, su disposición a utilizar la fuerza garantiza el resultado que busca.En marzo, solo 28 de los 54 países africanos votaron en las Naciones Unidas para condenar la invasión rusa de Ucrania, la misma escasa mayoría que posteriormente votó para condenar la anexión rusa de cuatro regiones ucranianas, lo que sugiere una creciente reticencia a aceptar un enfoque estadounidense de lo que está bien y lo que está mal.“Cuando tu casa está ardiendo, no te importa el color del agua que usas para apagar el fuego”, dijo Honoré Bendoit, subprefecto de Bria, capital regional, a casi 450 kilómetros al noreste de Bangui. “Tenemos calma gracias a los rusos. Son violentos y eficientes”. More