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Mary Peltola, a Democratic former state lawmaker, won a special election to fill Alaska’s sole US House of Representatives seat, becoming the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress, the Alaska Division of Elections announced on Wednesday. She defeated Republican former Governor Sarah Palin by 51.47 percent to 48.53 percent. Palin is widely known for her unsuccessful vice presidential run with John McCain in 2008. Peltola will finish the remainder of the term of Republican Representative Don Young, who died earlier this year, and will face re-election on Nov. 8. She is the first Alaska Native to represent a state where almost 20 percent of the population is Indigenous, the highest proportion in the United States. Palin’s campaign for the House seat was her first run for public office after the McCain loss. She is seen as having helped open the door to a more far-right wing of the Republican Party. During her campaign, Peltola ran as “Alaska’s best shot at keeping an extremist from winning,” according to her campaign website. She highlighted her status as “the only candidate in this race who isn’t a multi-millionaire.” The election is the first one run under the state’s new ranked choice system, with voters listing candidates in order of preference on the ballot. A candidate must clear 50 percent of the vote to be declared the winner. The special election was called after the death of Young, 88, who was first elected in 1973. The winner of the special election will serve out Young’s term, which expires at the end of this year. Palin, Peltola and Republican Nick Begich III will vie in a Nov. 8 election to fill the seat for the next two years. Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Charlie Crist on Wednesday announced he was resigning, effective immediately, from his House seat so that he can focus on his gubernatorial campaign against Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
NICE: The Frenchman who tried single-handedly to stop a truck that mowed down dozens of people six years ago in the port city of Nice says he felt no fear at the time, but can’t help wondering whether a quicker reaction could have saved lives.
Franck Terrier, an airport worker and father of two, took his wife out to the Promenade des Anglais on his scooter to get ice cream on the night of July 14, 2016, joining thousands of others enjoying the Bastille Day fireworks.
“Suddenly a truck overtook me on the right,” Terrier said in an interview in the run-up to the trial on Monday of suspects linked to the attack by Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian, who drove a truck into the crowd, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more. “I dropped my wife off, and decided to go after him,” Terrier said. “It was a reflex,” said Terrier, who flung his scooter at the truck’s wheels in an unsuccessful attempt to force the powerful vehicle to stop.
“I felt no fear,” he said. “I wanted to get into the cabin, I fought (with the attacker), I held on to the cabin. He tried to shoot me, a round went off but missed. In the struggle I took a blow to the head and I fell, but got back up.”
President Emmanuel Macron decorated Terrier with France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honour, a year later, an expression of the nation’s gratitude for his daring action.
Yet Terrier, now 55, can’t shake the feeling that perhaps he could have done more.
“The worst thing is to face the victims’ families, because I keep having this feeling that I didn’t do enough,” he said. “Maybe I could have acted faster.”
President Emmanuel Macron has decorated Franck Terrier with France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honour — an expression of the nation’s gratitude for his daring action.
Terrier said he is aware that such thoughts are irrational and he understands that “with hindsight, I couldn’t have done more.”
But, he said, “there’s always a feeling of guilt because 86 people died.”
The attacker died in a shootout with police while Terrier, exhausted, leaned against the truck’s front wheel.
Police, assuming that Terrier had been in on the attack, roughed him up at first, but “when I managed to talk to them, they understood what had happened.”
Terrier, who had been chief runway manager at Nice’s airport for 30 years, never returned to that post and is now employed by city hall.
He has low expectations for the trial that is to examine the possible role of people close to Lahouaiej-Bouhlel in the attack, including those who sold him weapons.
“I don’t think there will be enough evidence against the people who were arrested. But still, it will be a chance to tell the story,” he said.
Terrier said he will not attend any screening of CCTV footage retracing the truck’s murderous itinerary at the trial. “I don’t have the strength,” he said.
He never refers to the attacker by name. “For me, people who commit such acts are not human, so I feel no hatred or anything else, just incomprehension,” he said.
His life “has returned to a semblance of normality”, Terrier said, “but I will never be able to turn the page, I will remember this all my life. I just hope that, over time, I will feel better.”
PARIS: There is an elevated threat of terror attacks on French soil by extremists coming from Iraq and Syria, France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor warned on Friday.
Jean-Francois Ricard said in an interview on French news broadcaster BFM TV that terrorist acts carried out “by individuals coming from areas where terrorists are operating, especially the Iraqi-Syrian area” cannot be ruled out.
Ricard’s comments come ahead of the opening of the trial of eight suspects in connection with the 2016 Bastille Day truck attack in Nice that left 86 people dead.
Ricard said the extremist threat had increased since 2020.
“For two years, we’ve been able to see how Daesh was regaining some pieces of territory, was restructuring itself” in Iraq and Syria.
He pointed to the January attack in Syria by Daesh of a prison holding suspected extremists in the northeastern city of Hassakeh.
Individuals convicted in France on terror-related charges and are set to be released pose another threat, Ricard said.
France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard warned authorities will ‘need to do everything we can’ to prevent determined terrorists from committing attacks.
“Very often they have abandoned none of their convictions,” he said, adding however that France’s judicial and intelligence services will keep a close watch on that released inmates.
The prosecutor said French authorities will “need to do everything we can” to prevent determined terrorists from committing attacks.
“It’s a true problem that we must certainly not deny,” he said.
Daesh had claimed responsibility for the July 14, 2016 attack in Nice.
The attacker, Mohammed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who plowed a 19-ton truck into a crowd assembled for the fireworks display, was shot dead by police.
French authorities said Bouhlel, a Tunisian with French residency, was inspired by the extremist group’s propaganda, but they say no evidence has been found that Daesh orchestrated the attack. The trial is to take place at a special court for terrorist cases in Paris.
In June, 20 men were convicted in connection with the 2015 Paris terror attacks on the Bataclan theater, Paris cafes and the national stadium that resulted in 130 deaths.
Most attention had focused on the lone surviving member of Daesh attack team, Salah Abdeslam.
The other suspects were found guilty of assisting in the preparation of the attacks or hiding Abdeslam from police. Some are presumed dead in Syria and were tried in absentia.
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will travel to Indonesia and Singapore on his first overseas trip since taking office in June to strengthen security ties and discuss problems confronting the region, including strife in Myanmar, officials said Friday.
Marcos Jr. will also fly to the US to speak at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 20, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teresita Daza said in an online news conference.
Marcos Jr. will meet his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo, during a three-day state visit starting Sunday.
The two leaders will witness the signing of a number of agreements, including the renewal of an expired 1997 pact governing defense activities from joint training to cooperation on border security, Daza said.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo, who will accompany the president, will meet separately with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Sunday.
Marcos Jr. will also fly to the US to speak at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 20, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teresita Daza said in an online news conference.
Manalo has said that Marcos Jr. intends to raise the case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino housemaid on death row in Indonesia on drug trafficking charges. Arrested in 2010, Veloso has claimed innocence, saying she was duped into carrying a suitcase containing 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin.
In Singapore, Marcos Jr. will meet Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Halimah Yacob during a two-day state visit that starts Tuesday.
He and Lee will witness the signing of accords on counterterrorism and data protection and privacy, Daza said.
The Philippine leader will also meet potential investors in Singapore and Indonesia, she said.
His talks in both countries will include regional issues such as long-unresolved territorial disputes in the South China Sea involving the Philippines, China and four other claimants, and the turmoil in Myanmar, Philippine diplomats said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, has been under international pressure to do more to end violence and free political prisoners in Myanmar, which also belongs to the 10-nation bloc.
SRINAGAR: Famous throughout the world, Kashmir’s centuries-old papier-mache craft has been ruptured by conflict and the coronavirus pandemic.
Now on the verge of extinction, some artists are trying to introduce innovation to keep it alive.
The emergence of the art of papier-mache accompanied the advent of Islam in the region. It was introduced to Kashmir by Sufi scholar Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, who arrived from Persia with skilled craftsmen in the 14th century.
Deeply interwoven with tradition, the art has been passed down from generation to generation. In 2019, the local government patented papier-mache as a regional art form, but the unrest that followed the abrogation of Kashmir’s semi-autonomy in August that year, and the pandemic soon after, dealt a major blow to the industry, making the younger generation less willing to practice it.
Papier-mache vases, cups, boxes, trays, and other decorative items are made of repulped paper that has been mixed with glue or paste so that it can be molded. They are beautifully decorated in Oriental motifs and handsomely lacquered with colorful paint.
They are usually produced at small workshops at homes in the old part of Srinagar, the region’s main city.
“I think 5 percent of Kashmir’s population is involved in this profession, but the trend is such that many of them are leaving the traditional art, and very few youngsters are preferring to come to this profession,” Syed Javed Iqbal, a third-generation papier-mache artist in Srinagar, told Arab News.
“There is less money in this that’s why the new generation does not want to come to this traditional art.”
From Kashmir, most of the items are exported to other parts of India and abroad. Besides decorative items, papier-mache handicrafts include reading desks for reciting the Qur’an, and even small furniture items depicting life and historical scenes from Mughal courts.
“Some niche products go to the US and European markets,” Iqbal said. “Products like camels, elephants, gift boxes, and all also go to the Middle East.”
Arrival of the art form in the 14th century accompanied the advent of Islam in the region.
While Iqbal hopes his son will inherit the profession and family legacy, other artisans are less hopeful about its future. They say that with the craft’s decreasing popularity, the amount of time and effort it requires does not make it sustainable.
Shabeer Husain Dar has been decorating papier-mache items for the past 17 years. He earns $60 a month, which is hardly enough to maintain his family of four.
“The young generation does not want to learn papier-mache technique and if the trend continues like that this art will disappear,” he said. “I wouldn’t like my sons to join this profession, because there is no money and the wage that you get is too little to run a family.”
Exports have lately plunged, with the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce estimating that few artists are now able to earn more than $4 a day.
“The traditional art which is linked to Kashmir’s identity is facing an existential crisis,” the chamber’s president, Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad, told Arab News. “Export has declined by 40 to 50 percent in the last few years.”
He said that either government intervention to save the “dying industry” or innovation were needed to keep it afloat.
While the former is not yet in sight some people, such as 26-year-old Shafiya Shafi, are trying to mix papier-mache with other techniques.
The self-taught artisan from Srinagar started to apply traditional ornaments to objects made of clay.
“I tried to create a fusion,” she said. “I customized the papier-mache design into wedding gifts and decorations. It enhanced the value of the product and people started demanding it.”
While her attempts are welcomed by customers, not all of those whose families have been practicing the craft for centuries are supportive of them, seeing the fusion of techniques as distorting the traditional art.
But unlike them, the young artist’s workshop is continuously receiving commissions from Kashmir and beyond.
Shafi told Arab News she has been trying to convince other artisans to be innovative as well. “I tell them that for any art to survive you need the modern touch,” she added.
JEDDAH: Progress in reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran appeared to grind to a halt on Friday amid wrangling between Tehran and Washington over the “final text” of a new agreement proposed by the EU.
The US said Iran’s latest response was “not constructive,” a day after European mediators were hopeful of finally crossing the finish line.
It is the latest in a back and forth via the EU, which in August broke a deadlock after a year and a half of slow-moving negotiations in Vienna.
The aim is to revive the 2015 agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions, which collapsed in 2018 when the US pulled out.
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“We can confirm that we have received Iran’s response through the EU,” the US State Department said on Friday. “We are studying it and will respond through the EU, but unfortunately it is not constructive.”
Analysts at the Eurasia Group consultancy said the chances of reviving the deal this year were about 45 percent, as developments had been primarily about public messaging. “There is less here than meets the eye,” it said.
A revived nuclear deal is also fiercely opposed by Israel, where a senior member of the Knesset said Western powers could obtain a better agreement than what was currently on offer.
“We must draft a much better deal with a much longer stick. And this is what we’re not seeing,” said Ram Ben-Barak, head of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee.
“What Israel wants is something better in place of this deal. Something better means telling the Iranians,‘Listen, you will not have a nuclear program’,” he said.