"India, China, Russia Don't Take Care Of Their Air, We Do": Trump
Washington: US President Donald Trump has alleged that India, China and Russia do not take care of their air, while America does, noting that he withdrew from the one-sided, energy-destroying Paris climate accord which would have made it a non-competitive nation.
Trump, in his address on energy and the Permian Basin in Midland, Texas on Wednesday, said that by imposing these punishing restrictions -- and beyond restrictions the Washington radical-left, crazy Democrats would also send countless American jobs, factories, industries to China and to other foreign polluting states.
They want us to take care of our air, but China doesn't take care of its air. In all fairness, India doesn't take care of its air. Russia doesn't take care of its air. But we do. Not on my watch, it's not going to happen -- I can tell you that. Because as long as I'm President, we will always put America first. It's very simple, he said.
For years and years, we put other countries first, and we now put America first. As we have seen in cities and towns across our nation, it's not just Texas oil that the radical Democrats want to destroy; they want to destroy our country, he said.
Such radical Democrats, he alleged, do not love the country in any way, shape or form.
There's no respect for the American way of life. There is no way of life ever in history that's been like the great American way of life. There is no respect, but there is by you, and there is by 95 per cent of our people. Our people love our country, and our people love our anthem and they love our flag, he said.
Trump said that under the last administration, America's energy industry was under relentless and unceasing attack.
But the day I took the oath of office, we ended the war on American energy and we stopped the far-left assault on American energy workers, he said.
Observing that he withdrew from the one-sided, energy-destroying Paris climate accord, he said this was a disaster and cost the US billions of dollars.
The US in November last year formally notified the UN of its withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, a global agreement in which President Trump's predecessor Barack Obama had played a key role.
Although Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the historic pact on June 1, 2017, the process began last year with the formal notification and the US will be out of the pact on November 4, 2020.
It (Paris climate accord) would have made us a non-competitive nation. We cancelled the Obama administration's job-crushing clean power plan, he said as he listed some of the steps being taken by his administration.
For the first time in nearly 70 years, we have become a net energy exporter. And the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas on the face of the Earth. To ensure we maintain this dominant position long into the future, my administration is announcing today that export authorisations for American liquefied natural gas can now be extended through the year 2050, Trump added.
India is the fourth highest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, accounting for 7 per cent of global emissions in 2017, according to the projection by the Global Carbon Project published in December, 2018.
The top four emitters in 2017, which covered 58 per cent of global emissions, were China (27 per cent), the US (15 per cent), the European Union (10 per cent) and India (7 per cent), it said.
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Malian defence minister killed in attack that saw jihadis and rebels seize towns, military bases
Dakar (AP): Malian Minister of Defence Gen. Sadio Camara was killed in an attack as jihadi and rebel forces seized towns and military bases across the country, according to a military officer and two other sources on Sunday.
There was no immediate comment from the Malian government.
“Unfortunately, the Ministry of Defence, Gen. Sadio Camara, has been killed during the attack which targeted his house yesterday,” said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the media.
Two other people, a civil society leader and a security member, confirmed the information.
Separatist fighters on Saturday joined Islamic militants in launching one of the biggest coordinated attacks on the Malian army in the capital and several other cities that left at least 16 wounded.
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali, while al-Qaida and Islamic State group-aligned militants have been fighting the government for over a decade.
Malian troops and Russian mercenaries withdrew from the northern city of Kidal after the attacks, the rebels said Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a separatist group, said the Russian Africa Corps troops and the Malian military withdrew from the city after an agreement was reached for their peaceful exit.
“Kidal is declared free,” said FLA spokesperson Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadan.
The Malian army did not respond to requests for comment but in an earlier statement said they were “tracking down terrorist armed groups in Kidal.”
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali. Kidal had long served as a stronghold of the rebellion before being taken by Malian government forces and Russian mercenaries in 2023. Its capture marked a significant symbolic victory for the junta and its Russian allies.
It was the first time the separatists worked alongside the al-Qaida-linked militant group JNIM, which also claimed responsibility for Saturday's attacks on Bamako's international airport and four other cities, including Kidal, in central and northern Mali.
“This operation is being carried out in partnership with the JNIM, which is also committed to defending the people against the military regime in Bamako,” Ramadan said.
Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank, said that the coordination between the two groups, as well as the explicit call for the Russian military to leave, is new.
“The coordination, conducting attacks all over the country at the same time, real coordination on the military level but also on the political level because both claims of both groups they acknowledged that they worked together, this is a first,” said Nasr.
Mali government spokesperson Gen. Issa Ousmane Coulibaly said on state television late Saturday that 16 people were wounded, including civilians and military personnel, and that several militants were killed. He did not provide a death toll.
The governor of Bamako's district, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, announced a three-day overnight curfew, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Economic Community of West African States has condemned the attacks and called on “all states, security forces, regional mechanisms and populations of West Africa to unite and mobilize in a coordinated effort to combat this scourge.”
The separatists called on Russia to “reconsider its support for the military junta in Bamako, whose actions have contributed to the suffering of the civilian population.”
Following military coups, the juntas in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso turned from Western allies to Russia for help in combating Islamic militants. But the security situation has worsened in recent times, with a record number of attacks by militants. Government forces have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with militants.
In 2024, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed an attack on Bamako's airport and a military training camp in the capital, killing scores of people.
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said that while the attacks were a major blow to the credibility of Mali's Russian partners, JNIM is unlikely to take control of Bamako in the near term due to opposition from the local population.
“The attacks are a major blow to Russia as the mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities. They have unnecessarily worsened the conflict by not distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Laessing said.
