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WASHINGTON, DC: Saying, “The Biden’s are a National Guard family,” first lady Jill Biden greets members of the National Guard with chocolate chip cookies outside the Capitol on Saturday in Washington, DC. —AFP For much of world, Biden means continuity The rhetoric might change, but overall goal of US foreign policy could remain the same WASHINGTON: Joe Biden has begun his presidency Blinken also said he would keep the US embassy in mate accord and stop the US exit from the World Health raise awareness of suffering in the country. But she voiced with sharp breaks from Donald Trump in both substance Israel in Jerusalem, a landmark Trump decision on the sta- Organization and rescinding a ban on visitors from a particular concern about the Biden team’s direction on and tone, from climate change to immigration to a general tus of the contested holy city, and stood by US recogni- number of Muslim-majority countries. Blinken said that Israel. “Trump’s actions were designed to placate the most openness to working with the rest of the world. But on tion of opposition figure Juan Guaido as crisis-wracked the administration will end US military support for Saudi extreme elements of Israeli political life and if Biden several key international issues, the Biden administration Venezuela’s president. Even on Iran, where Biden plans a Arabia’s devastating offensive in Yemen, pointing to the doesn’t reverse them, the US position becomes a means of has signaled that it will not deviate from Trump, drawing U-turn by returning to diplomacy, Blinken and the new role of the Trump-aligned kingdom in what the United normalizing those extremes,” she said. unease from some on the left who hoped for a cleaner director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, used nearly Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian disaster. The bulk of Biden’s key officials served with him under break but also renewing a US tradition of continuity in identical language to emphasize a long road ahead as president Barack Obama, whose legacy was on the line foreign affairs. they put the onus on Tehran to return to compliance with Smaller shift on foreign policy when Trump walked away from the Paris and Iran Paul Poast, a political scientist at the University of a 2015 accord rejected by Trump. Senator Lindsey Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, a left- accords. Obama, who rose to prominence with his oppo- Chicago, said that the fundamental objective of the United Graham, a Trump ally, smiled and said “we’re off to a good leaning Washington think tank, said that Biden was shap- sition to the Iraq invasion, as president poured troops into States since the end of the Cold War has been to maintain start” with Blinken, a longtime advocate for refugees who ing up to be the most progressive president in modern US Afghanistan, ramped up drone strikes and put a new primacy, a challenge that has become all the more perti- answered the Republican’s question about a caravan of history on key issues including economic equality, racial focus on Asia in the face of China. nent with the rise of China. Hondurans heading to the United States by advising, “I justice and climate. “Having said that, I think foreign poli- Trump vowed to end “forever wars” and break ways “Maybe the rhetoric changes a bit but regardless of would say, do not come.” cy is the arena where you see the biggest gap between with Washington experts but further intensified drone who’s president, the overall goal of US foreign policy The preternaturally calm Blinken’s approach may the Biden or centrist wing, whatever you want to call it, attacks and hiked military spending as part of his remains the same. And with Biden, I’m not expecting that largely be shrewd politics in facing an evenly divided and the progressive wing,” she said. “America First” policy. “If you were ever to see somebody to change.” Antony Blinken, Biden’s pick to be secretary Senate-and it appears to have paid off, with the former “There are some very thoughtful people like Blinken. totally change the direction of US foreign policy, it would of state, in his Senate confirmation hearing said that Senate aide coasting toward easy confirmation as They are smart, they are experienced, but they are also all have been Trump, but even then it’s hard to say that he Trump “was right in taking a tougher approach to China,” America’s top diplomat. Biden has followed through on inside players at a moment when we need bold new ideas,” did,” Poast said. a signature policy of the defeated president that has promises to erase some of Trump’s most controversial she said. She hailed the shift against backing the Saudis in “If anything, Trump was the exception that proved drawn growing bipartisan support. moves, immediately taking action to rejoin the Paris cli- Yemen, calling it the culmination of years of activism to the rule.” —AFP

and Research at The Soufan Group, “the energy and Trump’s backers momentum that the far right has is stronger than any time in News in brief recent memory. angry and not “The question is, what happens next?” 11 fighters killed in IS attack United in anger SAMARRA, Iraq: At least 11 fighters from Iraq’s going anywhere Many expected that Trump’s exit and the expulsion of state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi force were extremists from Facebook, Twitter, Parler and other social killed in an ambush by the Islamic State group media would calm things. Instead, it has added to the furor north of the capital on Saturday, Hashed security WASHINGTON: The American far right is angry: Angry at and galvanized the disparate far-right groups. “They are far sources said. The jihadists used light weapons and Joe Biden, angry at Donald Trump, angry at the enigmatic “Q” more united in what they are against than what they are for” the cover of darkness to target the Hashed east of and angry with themselves. The online postings and chat- said Clarke. Tikrit, the capital of Iraq’s Salahaddin province, rooms of extremists have been brimming with disappointment Hayden said the deplatforming by social media companies WASHINGTON: In this file photo supporters of US two days after a twin suicide attack claimed by the and dissent since the failed January 6 insurrection against of users they consider beyond the pale is “becoming a unify- President Donald Trump, including member of the QAnon Congress and the inauguration of Joe Biden as president. ing grievance.” Most have relocated to a few welcoming plat- conspiracy group Jake Angeli, aka Yellowstone Wolf (cen- group killed 32 people in Baghdad. —AFP Followers of the QAnon conspiracy movement-and its forms, foremost Telegram, where new QAnon and Proud ter), enter the US Capitol, in Washington, DC. —AFP Delphic prophet Q-are most in disarray, their millenarian pre- Boys pages have hundreds of thousands of followers. dictions of chaos and doom accompanying Biden’s elevation “The infrastructure really still exists” for the far right to that door. Many are even angry that Trump hasn’t clearly to the presidency not (or not yet) coming true. convene, said Hayden. defended the more than 120 who arrested and hundreds Dubai slows down vaccine rollout Ultranationalists like the Proud Boys, armed militias such as more under investigation for the Capitol attack. the Oath Keepers, and dangerous white supremacists and Q and Trump But the far right “is coming to terms with” his departure DUBAI: The emirate of Dubai has said it was neo-Nazis have been pushed further underground, with fol- QAnon began in late 2017 with cryptic statements from and regrouping without him, said Hayden. slowing down its rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech lowers who took part in the Capitol attack being swept up by the mysterious Q on the 8kun website. coronavirus vaccine due to a temporary delay in law enforcement. No one knew who Q was, but his statements mobilized Body-blow global deliveries. Dubai, one of the seven emi- Experts in extremism and domestic terrorism say these Trump followers to believe there was a Democratic and QAnon followers though were dealt a second shock. On rates that make up the United Arab Emirates, groups have been dealt a blow by Trump’s exit from power. “deep state” plot against the president. As time passed they Wednesday Ron Watkins, whose father controls 8kun and began mass inoculations in December after the But they also maintain that the groups are not disappearing, absorbed other conspiracy theories, including one about a who many believe is or knows the real “Q,” announced he approval of vaccines by Chinese firm Sinopharm and in some ways are now more motivated toward undertak- global child kidnapping racket, and bizarre end-of-times pre- was quitting the movement and wiped out all of 8kun’s and US drugmaker Pfizer and its German partner ing more dangerous attacks. dictions. And Trump’s tweets, campaigns and rallies became QAnon archives. BioNTech. —AFP The more extreme groups are looking at the large pool of a focal point for Q followers. “We gave it our all. Now we need to keep our chins up disheartened QAnon types for recruits, they say. “The rheto- After his election defeat, they gave momentum to his and go back to our lives as best as we are able,” he posted on ric remains heated, people are not cooling off. They are not “Stop the Steal” campaign centered on the false claim that Telegram. “We have a new president sworn in and it is our adjusting well to Biden,” said Michael Edison Hayden, senior Biden’s victory was somehow fraudulent. responsibility as citizens to respect the Constitution.” Libya to open candidacy process investigative reporter at the Southern Poverty Law Center, That led directly to the January 6 Washington insurrection “That was a massive body-blow to the movement,” said which researches extremism. in Trump’s name that left five dead. But Biden’s inauguration Karim Zidan, an investigator for Right Wing Watch. But Zidan LIBYA: Representatives from rival Libyan camps Far from depleted, said Colin P. Clarke, Director of Policy Wednesday and Trump’s quiet departure to Florida closed said the movement has proven it can live without Q. —AFP said a candidacy process would open Tuesday for key institutional appointments, after a new round normal”. Moroccan TV channel 2M showed images of ty barrier. The Guerguerat road crossing had been of talks in Morocco on ending nearly a decade of W Sahara rebels trucks in the Guerguerat area and reported the situa- “closed” and the situation there was “chaotic”, said Ould conflict. The process, set to run until February 2, tion was “normal” early yesterday. Western Sahara is a Oukal, secretary general of the Sahrawi ministry of secu- aims to quickly fill several strategic posts in order former Spanish colony contested since the 1970s rity. “This is only the beginning,” he said. “It is a warning to facilitate collaboration with an interim executive launch attack, between Morocco, which controls three-quarters of it, to the users of this road and this land. The whole territo- body set to be elected next week in Geneva, a and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which demands ry of Western Sahara is a war zone and is not safe.” The joint statement said Saturday. —AFP independence for what it calls the Sahrawi Arab senior Moroccan official contacted by AFP in Rabat warn of escalation Democratic Republic. however said: “There was harassing fire near the area of A UN-backed political process has been suspended Guerguerat, but it did not affect the trunk road, traffic ALGIERS: Pro-independence rebels fighting Morocco since March 2019, and the two sides remain separated was not disrupted. “It’s been part of a cycle of harass- over the disputed territory of Western Sahara yester- 19 charred bodies found by a 2,700-kilometre (1,700-mile) sand barrier. ment for more than three months,” he said. day vowed a military escalation, hours after launching Tensions rose sharply when Morocco on November 13 “There is a desire to create a propaganda war, a an overnight attack. The Polisario Front said they had sent troops into the buffer zone to reopen the only media war, on the existence of a war in the Sahara” but CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico: At least 19 bombarded the Morocco-controlled area of road leading from Morocco to Mauritania and the rest “the situation is normal”, he said. The UN-backed charred corpses have been discovered in Mexico Guerguerat, a crossing point between Western Sahara of West Africa, after separatists had blocked it the pre- ceasefire deal was meant to lead to a referendum on near the US border in an area where drug cartels and Mauritania in a UN-patrolled buffer zone. vious month. The Polisario responded by declaring the self-determination for the Britain-sized territory, home often clash, the Tamaulipas state prosecutor’s AFP could not obtain independent confirmation of 1991 ceasefire null and void, arguing the road had not to about one million people. Morocco has offered office said. Police on Saturday found two burnt- the reported rocket strikes, or of any possible casual- existed when the truce was signed and was therefore autonomy but maintains the territory is a sovereign out vehicles containing human remains on a ties, from the remote desert region that is largely off- illegal. The two sides are reported to have since part of the kingdom. Rabat has won the recognition of country road near the town of Carmago. limits to journalists. “The war will continue and esca- exchanged regular fire along the demarcation line. its claim to sovereignty over the entire disputed terri- Preliminary investigations suggested the victims late,” senior Polisario security official Sidi Ould tory from numerous countries which have opened con- had been shot, then their bodies set alight. Loukal told AFP by phone. “All positions of the ‘War zone’ sulates in Western Sahara. Former US president Moroccan army are targets of this war.” Because no bullet casings were found at the The pro-independence rebels overnight launched Donald Trump late last year also backed Morocco, A Moroccan official however told AFP there had scene, police said it was possible the victims four rockets toward Guerguerat, the Sahrawi press breaking decades of precedent, in exchange for Rabat only been “harassing fire”, labeled the attack claim part were killed in a different location. —AFP agency SPS said, also reporting attacks along the securi- normalizing relations with Israel. —AFP of a “propaganda war” and insisted “the situation is