05/03/2025

WEDNESDAY | MAR 5, 2025

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Military aid pause best hope for Ukraine peace, says Kremlin MOSCOW: The Kremlin said yesterday that pausing US military aid to Ukraine would be the best contribution to the cause of peace, but cautioned that Russia needed to clarify the details of the move by President Donald Trump. Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine following his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, a White House official said, deepening the fissure that has opened between the allies. Trump, who spoke to Putin on Feb 12 and says he wants to be remembered as a “peace maker”, has upended US policy on the war in Ukraine which he says risks igniting World War Three. Trump also says Kyiv has no cards left to play. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cautious on reports of a pause in US aid and said the details needed to be seen. “If this is true, then this is a decision that can really encourage the Kyiv regime to (come to) the peace process,” Peskov said. “It is obvious that the United States has been the main supplier of this war so far. If the United States stops being (an arms supplier) or suspends these supplies, it will probably be the best contribution to the cause of peace.” Peskov said Russia welcomed Trump’s statements about his wish for peace in Ukraine. “We hear his statement about his desire to bring peace to Ukraine, and this is welcome. We see certain things and receive certain information about the proposed actions in this direction. This is also welcome.” – Reuters POPE RESTING AFTER TWO ATTACKS ROME: Pope Francis was resting yesterday after suffering two bouts of acute respiratory failure the day before. The 88-year-old “experienced two episodes of acute respiratory failure, caused by an accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm”, the Vatican said. Acute respiratory failure, which can be life threatening, occurs when the lungs cannot pass enough oxygen into the blood or when carbon dioxide builds up in the body. The prognosis remains “reserved”, an indication that doctors cannot predict the likely outcome of his condition. – AFP DOLLY PARTON’S HUSBAND DIES AT 82 WASHINGTON: The husband of Dolly Parton, Carl Dean, died on Monday aged 82, the country music superstar said, after nearly 60 years of marriage kept out of the spotlight. “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared,” Parton wrote on X. The couple never had children. Dean was born in 1942 to Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean and Virginia “Ginny” Bates, whom Parton affectionally referred to as Mama Dean and said she was her best friend, according to the singer’s website. Carl Dean leaves behind two siblings, Sandra and Donnie. – AFP

Palestinian children carry food past destroyed buildings at the Nuseirat refugee camp. – AFPPIC

Arab leaders hash out Gaza plan

two men agreed to a written deal for 300,000 Swiss francs. “He told me: ‘I’ll give you the balance later, when we have money at Fifa’,” said Platini. His invoice, which he presented in 2011, was described by the prosecutor as a false invoice designed to defraud Fifa. Platini said he would have taken legal action if Fifa had not paid. “A contract is a contract, a word is a word. Fifa owed me that money and I would have done anything to get it back,” he said. Blatter said on Monday that he had struck “a gentleman’s agreement” with Platini but that the agreement had been oral, was made without witnesses and did not appear in Fifa’s accounts. – AFP extension of the first phase until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on a transition to the second phase, which should lead to a permanent end to the war. Netanyahu on Monday warned Hamas “there will be consequences that you cannot imagine” if the dozens of hostages still held captive were not released. A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, accused Israel of actively sabotaging the ceasefire, calling its push for an extension “a blatant attempt to ... avoid entering into negotiations for the second phase”. As the truce’s first phase came to a close, Netanyahu’s office announced Israel was halting “all entry of goods and supplies” into Gaza, and that Hamas would face “other consequences” if it did not accept the truce extension. The move drew criticism from key truce mediators Egypt and Qatar, as well as from other regional governments, the United Nations and some of Israel’s allies. Germany’s Foreign Ministry said that denying humanitarian access “is not a legitimate means of pressure in negotiations”, while Britain said aid “must not be blocked”. The war has destroyed or damaged most buildings in Gaza and displaced almost the entire population. – AFP

In a speech to parliament on Monday in which he hailed Trump’s plan, Netanyahu said: “It’s time to give the residents of Gaza a real choice. It’s time to give them the freedom to leave.” The idea of clearing Gaza of its inhabitants has been welcomed by far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has called for Israel to “establish full sovereignty there”. The Cairo summit is taking place as Israel and Hamas find themselves at an impasse over the future of a fragile ceasefire that began on Jan 19. The first phase of the Gaza truce ended over the weekend, after six weeks of relative calm that included exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and an influx of badly needed aid into the territory. While Israel said it backed an

Arab foreign ministers met on Monday for a closed-door preparatory session centred on a plan to rebuild the territory without displacing its people, said a source at the Arab League. The source said the plan “would be presented to Arab leaders for approval”. Trump triggered global outrage when he first floated his idea for the United States to “take over” the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, while forcing its Palestinian residents to relocate to Egypt and Jordan. Trump has since appeared to soften his stance, saying he was “not forcing” the plan, which experts have said could violate international law. The Gaza Strip has been under a crippling blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007, with critics of Israel often likening the territory to an open-air prison.

CAIRO: Arab leaders gathered here yesterday to discuss an alternative to a widely condemned plan from President Donald Trump to assume control of Gaza and displace its Palestinian population. The Arab League summit on reconstruction comes a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again gave his backing to Trump’s plan, calling it “visionary and innovative”. Palestinians, the Arab world, and many of Israel and the United States’ partners have condemned Trump’s proposal, rejecting any efforts to expel Gazans. UN estimates have put the cost of Gaza’s reconstruction at more than US$53 billion (RM237 billion). o Reconstruction to cost US$53b: UN MUTTENZ: Michel Platini (pic) , the former head of UEFA, told a Swiss appeals court on Monday, where his acquittal on fraud charges is being examined, that Fifa “owed” him the two million Swiss francs (RM9.8 million) at the heart of the case. “I still don’t understand why the public prosecutor’s office is picking on me,” Platini said at the start of his hearing. The special appeals court, sitting in Muttenz near Basel, is hearing a request by the country’s Attorney General’s office (OAG) to reopen proceedings against the 69-year-old Platini as well as former Fifa president Sepp Blatter, who turns 89 on March 10. The legal saga began in 2015, when Blatter quit as head of Fifa in a

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Fifa owed me this money, Platini tells appeals court

Blatter first asked him his salary expectations when he came on board as an advisor to help him win the presidency election in 1998. Platini said: “As I didn’t know this world, the world of Fifa, I randomly said ‘one million’. “He asked me ‘one million of what?’ I wanted to joke a bit and

corruption crisis. It stems from the delayed payment of two million Swiss francs Fifa paid Platini, who was president of UEFA from 2007 to 2015, in 2011 for consultancy work. The pair were acquitted by the Swiss Federal Court in June 2022 of charges that included “breach of trust” and “forgery of securities”.

said ‘one million of whatever you want: roubles, pesetas, lire’. And Mr Blatter said ‘one million Swiss francs’.” In 1999, Blatter allegedly told Platini, who had been advising without a written contract, that he could not pay him the million so the

It concluded that fraud was “not established with a likelihood bordering on certainty” and gave them the benefit of the doubt. Back in court on Monday, Platini said he had been “surprised” when