07/10/2025

TUESDAY | OCT 7, 2025

9

French govt quits hours after being appointed

group insists cannot take place unless Israel ends its occupation and a Palestinian state is created. Netanyahu says a Palestinian state will never happen, defying Western countries that have newly recognised Palestinian independence. An official briefed on the talks told Reuters he expected slow progress. “Negotiations will last at least a few days if not longer. There won’t likely be a quick agreement because the goal is to reach agreement on a comprehensive deal with all details worked out before the ceasefire can begin to be implemented,” he said. “Hamas and Israel have agreed to the fundamentals of the Trump 20 point plan. The next phase or phases of talks are designed to tackle the specific details, which in the past has been a lengthy process.” The plan has stirred hopes for peace among Palestinians, but there was no let-up of Israeli attacks on Gaza. Domestically, Netanyahu is caught between growing pressure to end the war – from hostage families and a war weary public – and demands from ultra-nationalist members of his coalition who insist there must be no let-up in efforts to annihilate Hamas. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on X that ceasing the military campaign would be a “grave mistake.” – Reuters MSF OUTRAGED BY DEATH OF 15TH STAFF GENEVA: The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) voiced outrage following the death on Sunday of a colleague fatally hit in Gaza. Abed El Hameed Qaradaya, 43, succumbed to shrapnel injuries sustained in the attack on Thursday and which had killed MSF colleague Omar Hayek and injured several others. It said its staff were waiting for a bus to a field hospital and were wearing MSF vests. El Hameed is the 15th MSF staff member killed in the conflict and the third in less than 20 days. “For 18 years, Abed El Hameed was a cornerstone of MSF’s physiotherapy department in Gaza. He was a unique and invaluable specialist in both physiotherapy and occupational therapy. Abed was dedicated not only to his patients’ physical recovery but also to restoring their hope and sense of dignity.” – AFP ‘WESTERN PARTS FOUND IN DRONES, MISSILES’ KYIV: Ukraine has found tens of thousands of foreign parts, including Western-made, in the drones and missiles fired in a weekend air attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. “During the strike on Sunday, Russia used weapons with 102,785 foreign made components.” He said the parts came “from companies in the United States, China and Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Netherlands.” Converters, sensors and microcomputers were among the components found in the drones and missiles. “Microcontrollers for unmanned vehicles were made in Switzerland and microcomputers for drone flight control are made in the UK.” Kyiv was preparing sanctions on their manufacturers. – AFP

BR I E F S

o Opposition calls for snap elections

PARIS: France’s new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his government resigned yesterday, hours after Lecornu announced his Cabinet line-up, making it the shortest-lived in modern French history, driving stocks and the euro sharply lower. The swift resignation was unexpected and marked another major deepening of France’s political crisis. It came after allies and foes alike threatened to topple the new government. Lecornu was prime minister for only 27 days. His government lasted 14 hours. The far-right National Rally immediately urged President Emmanuel Macron to call a snap parliamentary election. The hard left France Unbowed said Macron himself must go. After weeks of consultations with political parties across the board, Lecornu, a close ally of Macron, had appointed his ministers on Sunday and they had been set to hold their first meeting yesterday afternoon. But the new Cabinet line-up had angered opponents and allies alike, who either found it too right-wing or not sufficiently so, raising questions on how long it could last, with no group holding a majority in a fragmented parliament. DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu went on trial for treason here yesterday, weeks before the country holds an election that his party has been barred from contesting. Lissu, who came second in the last presidential poll in 2020, was arrested in April and charged with treason over a speech. Lissu had vowed to boycott the vote unless significant reforms were made to an electoral process which he said favours the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, which has been in power since independence in 1961. Lissu, who leads the Chadema opposition party, survived being shot 16 times in an assassination attempt in 2017. No one has ever been charged in the case. He has pleaded not guilty in the treason case. Judges were expected to hear testimonies from the first state witnesses yesterday. As the trial began, Lissu said some of his supporters had been beaten and blocked from entering the court room, said one of his lawyers, Jebra Kambole. The court has banned live coverage at the request of the state prosecutor, to conceal the identities of their witnesses. His detention as well as alleged abductions of government critics in the last year have shone a spotlight on the human rights record of

Lecornu handed his resignation to Macron yesterday morning. “Mr Sebastien Lecornu has submitted the resignation of his Government to the President of the Republic, who has accepted it,” the Elysee’s press office said. French politics has become increasingly unstable since Macron’s re-election in 2022 for want of any party or grouping holding a parliamentary majority. Macron’s decision to call a snap parliamentary election last year deepened the crisis by producing an even more fragmented parliament. Lecornu, who was only appointed last month, was Macron’s fifth prime minister in two years. “There can be no return to stability without a return to the polls and the dissolution of the National Assembly,” National Rally leader Jordan Bardella said after Lecornu resigned. Mathilde Panot, of the hard left France Unbowed, said: “Lecornu resigns. 3 Prime Ministers defeated in less than a year. The countdown has begun. Macron must go.” France has rarely suffered a political crisis so deep since the creation in 1958 of the Fifth Republic, the current system of government.

Lecornu delivers a statement at Hotel Matignon in Paris yesterday. – AFPPIC

ascent to power in 2017 reshaped the political landscape, has found himself struggling with a fragmented parliament where the centre no longer holds the balance and the far-right and hard-left hold sway. France is not used to building coalitions and finding consensus. – Reuters

The 1958 constitution was designed to ensure stable governance by creating a powerful and highly centralised president endowed with a strong majority in parliament, and to avoid the instability of the periods immediately before and after World War Two. Instead, Macron, who in his

Tanzanian opposition leader on trial for treason

Negotiators gather for Gaza talks, expect slow progress

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Hamas officials were in Egypt yesterday ahead of talks with Israel that the US hopes will bring a halt to war in Gaza and release of hostages despite contentious issues like disarmament of the group. Israeli negotiators were also due to travel to Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks about freeing hostages, part of the US president’s 20 point blueprint for ending the conflict. The Israeli delegation includes officials from spy agencies Mossad and Shin Bet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk and hostages coordinator Gal Hirsch. However, Israel’s chief negotiator, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, was only expected to join later this week, pending developments in the negotiations, according to three Israeli officials. The Hamas delegation is led by the group’s exiled Gaza leader, Khalil Al Hayya. Negotiators from Hamas will seek clarity on the mechanism to achieve a swap of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, as well as an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and a ceasefire, according to a statement put out by the group. A thorny issue is likely to be the Israeli demand, echoed in Trump’s plan, that Hamas disarm, something the

Lissu in the dock on Sept 8. – REUTERSPIC

Hassan, who is widely expected to win the Oct 28 election. Tanzania’s electoral commission barred Chadema in April from taking part in the poll after the party failed to sign a code of conduct

document. The commission also disqualified the leader of Tanzania’s second-largest opposition party from running for president, leaving only candidates from minor parties to challenge Hassan. – Reuters