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WASHINGTON: The US judge handling the historic case against Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election warned him on Friday against making “inflammatory” statements and said she would not allow a “carnival atmosphere” at his eventual trial.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued the stern warning at a hearing between prosecutors and defense attorneys held to decide what the former president can reveal publicly about the case as it proceeds to trial.
“I will take whatever measures are necessary to protect the integrity of these proceedings,” Chutkan said during the 90-minute hearing at a federal courthouse in downtown Washington.
“Inflammatory statements about this case which could taint the jury pool,” Chutkan said in comments clearly directed at Trump and his attorneys, would force her to “proceed to trial quickly.”
Special counsel Jack Smith has asked for the trial of the former president to begin on January 2, 2024 — nearly three years to the day after Trump supporters stormed Congress in a bid to halt certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
Defense attorneys for Trump — the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — are expected to seek a later trial date.
Chutkan, who was appointed by former Democratic president Barack Obama, is to set a date for the start of the trial at a hearing to be held on August 28.
The 77-year-old Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges that he plotted with aides to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was not present for Friday’s hearing.
The judge said she would ensure that the former president’s rights “as a criminal defendant” are respected but his First Amendment free speech rights are “not absolute.”
“I also take seriously my obligation to prevent (what the US Supreme Court) has called a carnival atmosphere of unchecked publicity and trial by media,” Chutkan said.
The hearing was called after prosecutors sought a protective order over what Trump can reveal publicly about witnesses and evidence in the case.
Prosecutors cited a post by Trump on his Truth Social platform in which he said: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!“
Chutkan cautioned that “even arguably ambiguous statements” could be seen as a potential bid to “intimidate witnesses or prejudice potential jurors” and she would be forced to intervene.
The judge said Trump would be allowed to review sensitive materials such as witness interviews and transcripts of grand jury proceedings without his legal team present but he cannot photograph or reproduce them.
Chutkan elicited laughter in the courtroom when she said Trump has “shown a tendency to hold on to material he shouldn’t have” — an apparent reference to his pending case in Florida for allegedly mishandling top secret government documents.
Trump is facing prosecution in multiple jurisdictions over allegations of criminal conduct before, during and after his presidency.
He is to go on trial in Florida in May in the classified documents case and in New York in March for alleged election-eve hush money payments made to a porn star.
Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor at The Hague, brought the charges against Trump in the documents case and has also charged him with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against the right to vote.
Trump was impeached twice while in office — first for trying to get Ukraine to dig up political dirt on Biden and then over allegations that he incited the 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
Paris: A security alert Saturday prompted the evacuation of three floors of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris, France’s most emblematic symbol which drew 6.2 million visitors last year.
SETE, the body which runs the site, said bomb disposal experts as well as police were scouring the area, including a restaurant located on one of the floors.
“It’s a usual procedure in this kind of situation which however is rare,” a spokeswoman said.
Visitors were evacuated from both the three floors and the square under the monument shortly after 1:30 pm.
Construction work on the tower began in January 1887 and was finished on March 31, 1889. It received two million visitors during the World’s Fair of 1889.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani senator, Anwarul Haq Kakar, will serve as caretaker prime minister to oversee general elections, the prime minister’s office said on Saturday, following a meeting between outgoing premier Shehbaz Sharif and opposition leader Raja Riaz.
A caretaker government is mandated under the Pakistani constitution to supervise holding free and fair national elections, which must be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the parliament’s lower house, meaning early November. But after the outgoing administration of Sharif approved the results of the latest census, the Election Commission now has to draw new boundaries for hundreds of federal and provincial constituencies and will be able to give an election date only after that exercise is complete. The vote is thus widely expected to be delayed to as far away as February.
Kakar, who will name a cabinet and head a government until elections, is from the impoverished southwestern province of Balochistan. He belongs to the Balochistan Awami Party and takes the reins of the country at a time of deep economic and political instability in Pakistan.
“We first agreed that whoever should be prime minister, he should be from a smaller province so smaller provinces’ grievances should be addressed,” Riaz told reporters in Islamabad after consultations on the matter with Sharif, who dissolved the National Assembly on Wednesday and kickstarted the process to form a caretaker set-up.
“The prime minister (Sharif) and leader of opposition have jointly signed the advice which will be sent to the president for approval,” a statement from the PM office said. President Dr. Arif Alvi subsequently approved Kakar’s appointment.
Sharif assumed power in April last year after then prime minister Imran Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. The outgoing PM’s tenure technically expired on Aug. 12, but he dissolved the assembly three days early to give the caretaker government 90 days to organize general elections, compared to 60 days if he were to step down on time, as per the constitution.
The caretaker premier’s main responsibility is to ensure elections are free and fair and to run routine affairs of government. However, the role has assumed extraordinary importance, since the outgoing government approved the results of a digital census on Aug. 5, making a delay in elections near inevitable.
Last month, cash-strapped Pakistan’s parliament also amended its election laws to empower the caretaker government to take important economic decisions, raising widespread concerns that the move was in anticipation of a caretaker set-up that would last longer than its constitutionally mandated three months.
Analysts have widely said any delay in the election could fuel public anger and add to uncertainty in the nuclear-armed nation of more than 241 million people.
The last general election in July 2018 was won by the party of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who was sworn in days later as prime minister for the first time.
Khan has been at the heart of political turmoil in Pakistan since he was ousted as prime minister in a no-confidence vote last year, after which he unleashed a campaign for snap elections and held nationwide street protests, including one in which he survived an apparent assassination bid. This month, he was convicted and jailed in a graft case and barred from taking part in any election for five years.
Khan has accused the powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan for nearly half its history since independence in 1947, of being responsible for his ousting. The military has denied the charge.
Khan was replaced by Sharif, who has been grappling with a debilitating economic crisis and historically high inflation levels as the government implemented painful reforms to secure funding from the International Monetary Fund.
In addition to the legal issues that could crop up if the vote is delayed, the side-lining of Khan, the country’s most popular leader according to polls, will also cast doubt over the credibility of the elections.
BAGO, Myanmar: A baby slept peacefully under a mosquito net oblivious to hundreds of evacuated flood victims lined up for food at a monastery in Myanmar on Saturday, all waiting for water levels to recede before they can return home.
Floods and landslides caused by monsoon rain have killed five and forced around 48,000 people to flee their homes, the relief ministry said.
On Saturday in Bago city, northeast of Yangon, children floated on rubber tires squealing with joy, while adults paddled wooden canoes with supplies through the murky brown and yellow water to evacuation shelters.
Hundreds of families sat fanning themselves in an open-air hall at a monastery as volunteers distributed meal packs of rice and egg curry.
Parents and children curled up on mats surrounded by bags of their meagre possessions – clothes strung up on makeshift washing lines above.
Tin Win, 52, said although the conditions at the shelter were cramped and people were only receiving two meals a day, she was thankful to be safe and dry.
“The space is tiny and there is not much space to sleep. We have to lie down next to each other,” she said.
“If there is no more rain, we hope to go back home in three days.”
Across the city, dogs scrambled onto Buddhist pagodas and steps to escape the flood water as rain pelted down.
The Myanmar weather bureau said the Bago River had risen a foot higher on Saturday but was expected to start going down over the coming days.
Myanmar experiences heavy monsoon rains every year, but scientists believe extreme weather events are being exacerbated by climate change.
Escaping the deluge was a struggle, said Ohm Kyi.
“We rented a boat to move some stuff from home, but the boat couldn’t come very close. So, we had to walk in the water and carry everything we could,” the 64-year-old told AFP.
“We only took some clothes, pots and plates.”
Lay Shwe Zin Oo, director of Myanmar’s social welfare, relief and resettlement ministry said that five people had died and as of Saturday 48,000 have been evacuated from Kachin, Karen, Chin, Rakhine, and Mon states and the Magway and Bago regions.
“We have provided necessary food including instant noodles and drinking water,” she said.
“People are staying at monasteries, schools and other higher places.”
Meanwhile, Myanmar Red Cross volunteers are busy evacuating families, distributing food and providing health care in flood-hit Karen state, the international organization said on Twitter, which has been re-branded X.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since a February 2021 military coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government and plunged the nation into a bloody conflict between the junta and opponents of their rule.
According to a local monitoring group, more than 3,900 people have been killed since the coup, a figure the junta puts at 5,000.
The United Nations slammed the junta’s handling of the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha in May, which killed at least 148 people and destroyed homes.
It condemned authorities’ refusal to allow international aid workers to access the region, prompting state media to accuse the world body of “arrogance, ignorance and self-interest.”
CHICAGO: Muslims in America’s only all-Muslim-governed city of Hamtramck, Michigan will likely retain their unanimous control over the Midwest city’s future after voters selected this past week five Muslims to compete in the November elections for three city council seats.
On Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, nine candidates including three incumbent council members, eight Muslims and one white ethnic Christian who has a long history of service in Michigan’s large Arab American community, faced off in the first round of non-partisan election competition. But the election turnout that day was very low, with only 17 percent of registered voters actually voting.
Veteran Michigan political observer Kyle Melinn, editor of the online MIRS site, which covers Michigan elections, told Arab News that despite the controversies, he does not expect Hamtramck’s low voter turnout from last week to improve when voters return to the polls on Nov. 7, 2023.
“As far as turnout, I don’t think it will be that much higher. In other communities, you see a little bit more of an uptick. Maybe it will go up to 20 or 21 percent,” Melinn said on The Ray Hanania Radio Show on the US Arab Radio Network sponsored by Arab News.
“But if these candidates can’t inspire people to the polls (in the Aug. 8 primary election), it is hard to see that they will do so, unless something substantial changes, in November. I think it is going to be a super tight election and the individual candidates there will need to work hard in order to separate themselves. But I don’t necessarily see a big ground swell of change there.”
You can listen to the podcast of The Ray Hanania Radio Show at ArabNews.com.
Six of the candidates in the election on Aug. 8 — three incumbent council members and three new candidates, including two Muslims and one Christian — won and will face off in a final round on the Nov. 7 elections for the council’s three seats.
Hamtramck received much attention after a Muslim candidate with no prior election experience, Amer Ghalib, easily defeated 16-year incumbent Mayor Karen Majewski in the elections two years ago, along with three Muslim council members, and today serves as mayor overseeing an all-Muslim city council.
Three incumbent council members who are seeking re-election — Mohammed Hassan, Nayeem Leon Choudhury and Mohammed Al-Somiri — faced off with six challengers in the primary this past week: Sari Ahmed, Ruhel Amin, Nasr Saleh Hussain, Muhtasin Rahman Sadman, Yousuf Osman Saed and Lynn Blasey.
City council incumbents Choudhury and Al-Somiri led the election in first and second place, with Blasey running in third place. Incumbent council member Hassan trailed Blasey in fourth place by only four votes.
Blasey, who is not Muslim, came in third place in the Aug. 8 primary elections, trailing behind two council incumbents and leading the third by a small margin. She said her election would reinforce all rights, including those of Muslims.
“My candidacy is important in Hamtramck for many reasons. I’m thoroughly committed to building community and see running as an extension of my ongoing community service. To many, I represent a diverse voice whether based on my culture, religion, gender, education, etc. Coming in third place in the primaries is confirmation that Hamtramckans want me to serve them on city council,” Blasey told Arab News.
“My position on our Muslim-majority city council should be seen as an asset because I actively work to build bridges between all of our communities and have a track record of working towards solutions to our collective challenges. Together, we have the potential to demonstrate how we can work together and be an example to the nation and world at large.”
Blasey’s election would strip Hamtramck of the unique designation as the only Muslim-governed city in America, with five Muslims running against her and splitting the vote. But she also opposes the decision by Mayor Ghalib, according to published reports, to ban the LGBTQ flag from being displayed on government property.
Ghalib banned the LGBTQ flag and all other special interest flags from being flown on Hamtramck government property denying that it was an act of discrimination. Ghalib said he respects the rights of all people although Islam, like other religions, does not recognize the LGBTQ lifestyle.
Choudhury, who is Bangladeshi Muslim, told his followers: “I would like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to you as you voted for me in the pre-primary city council election that was held on Aug. 8, 2023. I also would like to thank my committee workers and leaders who worked tirelessly on field for the election campaign. I hope we will continue this momentum for the next general election that is scheduled on Nov. 7, 2023. Again, a huge thank you to everyone.”
Hamtramck’s city council consists of six council members and the mayor. Council members vote on all issues, but the mayor can only vote on ordinances (laws) and, when the council members are equally divided, to break a tie.
Three incumbent council members who are not facing election in the city council currently include Muhith Mahmood, Abu Musa and Khalil Refai.
Hamtramck is more than 60 percent Muslim, with immigrants from Yemen and Bangladesh constituting the largest populations.
You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.
Russian forces destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones launched onto the Crimean Peninsula early on Saturday, Russia’s defense ministry said.
There were no casualties and no damage as a result of the attempted attack, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app. It said 14 drones were destroyed by air defense systems and six were suppressed by electronic warfare.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
It was not immediately clear what was targeted in the reported attacks on the Russian-annexed peninsula.
Sergei Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, said earlier that air defense systems were engaged in repelling air attack in different parts of the peninsula.
Crimea transport authorities said on their Telegram channel that traffic on the Crimean Bridge, which links the Black Sea peninsula with the Russian region of Krasnodar, was suspended for about two hours from 1:30 a.m. (2230 GMT).
Drone attacks on Russian-controlled territories in Ukraine and deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May.
Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for the attacks but has said destroying Russia’s military infrastructure is crucial for Kyiv’s counteroffensive.
Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, eight years before President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Russia’s neighbor in February last year.