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WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 • T H I S D AY
INTERNATIONAL
email:foreigndesk@thisdaylive.com
Clinton to Resume Presidential Campaign Democrat Hillary Clinton has said that she could resume presidential campaigning in a couple of days after a bout of pneumonia that she initially had not believed was “that big a deal.” Clinton’s health scare after she almost collapsed at an event on Sunday, causing her to cancel some campaign trips, revived concerns about a tendency toward secrecy that has dogged her campaign, and underscored perennial worries about the medical fitness of candidates for one of the world’s most demanding jobs. “Well, it will be in the next couple of days. ... I just want to get this over and done with and get back on the trail as soon as possible,” she said in an interview on CNN on Monday night, adding she had ignored doctor’s orders to rest. “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.” Her campaign acknowledged
on Monday it may have been too slow disclosing her pneumonia diagnosis after she nearly fainted at a New York memorial ceremony for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She was diagnosed with the lung infection on Friday. “I think that in retrospect, we could have handled it better in terms of providing more information more quickly,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told MSNBC earlier in the day. The health problem was the latest blow for the Democratic presidential nominee at a time when Republican rival Donald Trump has erased most of her lead in national opinion polls and is competitive again in many battleground states where the Nov. 8 election is likely to be decided. Clinton, 68, said she had dealt with similar episodes of dizziness before. “You know, it is something that has occurred a few times over
Israeli Aircraft Attacks Syrian Army Position Israel said its aircraft attacked a Syrian army position yesterday after a stray mortar bomb struck the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, and it denied a Syrian statement that a warplane and drone were shot down. The air strike was a now-routine Israeli response to the occasional spillover from fighting in a five-year-old civil war, and across Syria a ceasefire was holding at the start of its second day. Syria’s army command said in a statement that Israeli warplanes had attacked an army position at 1 a.m. on Tuesday (2200 GMT, Monday) in the countryside of Quneitra province. The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked targets in Syria
hours after the mortar bomb from fighting among factions in Syria struck the Golan Heights. Israel captured the plateau from Syria in a 1967 war. The Syrian army said it had shot down an Israeli warplane and a drone after the Israeli attack. Denying any of its aircraft had been lost, the Israeli military said in a statement: “Overnight two surface-to-air missiles were launched from Syria after the mission to target Syrian artillery positions. At no point was the safety of (Israeli) aircraft compromised.” The seven-day truce in Syria, brokered by Russia and the United States, is their second attempt this year by to halt the bloodshed.
the course of my life. I’m aware of it and usually can avoid it,” she told CNN. Asked if she passed out during the incident on Sunday, she said: “No, I didn’t. I felt dizzy and I did lose my balance for a minute. Once I got in. Once I could sit down. Once I could cool off. Once I had some water, I immediately
started feeling better.” Her campaign said her husband, former President Bill Clinton, would campaign on her behalf while she rests. Both Clinton and Trump, 70, said they intended to release more of their medical details in the coming days, as their campaigns gear up for the November election.
Questions about the incident reinforced the perception of Clinton as secretive, a view fueled by the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server while serving as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. A federal investigation of that issue said she was “extremely care-
less” in her handling of classified emails, but did not recommend criminal charges. Trump said on Monday that health was a campaign issue but he did not attack Clinton over her physical condition. “I just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
Edward Snowden Begs Obama for Pardon United States intelligence whistleblower, Edward Snowden, called on President Barack Obama to pardon him, saying in comments published Tuesday it had been morally “necessary” to shine a light on mass surveillance. The former intelligence contractor has spent three years in exile in Russia after initiating the largest data leaks in US history, fuelling a firestorm over the issue of mass surveillance. “If not for these disclosures, if not for these revelations, we would be worse off,” he told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in a video-link interview from Moscow on Monday. “Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists — for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these
were necessary things,” he said. The 33-year-old insisted he had widespread support, saying the “public by and large cares more about these issues far more than I anticipated.” Snowden, whose residency permit in Russia runs out next
year, explained he was prepared to spend time in jail in the US, adding he was “willing to make a lot of sacrifices for my country”. US anti-establishment director Oliver Stone called for Obama to pardon Snowden while unveiling his espionage thriller
biopic about the whistle blower at the Toronto film festival earlier this month. Last year, the White House rejected a petition signed by over 150,000 urging a pardon for Snowden, saying he should be “judged by a jury of his peers.”
EU Should Expel Hungary over Migrants’ Treatment Hungary should be excluded from the European Union for anti-migrant policies that undermine EU values, including erecting a razor-wire fence, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said in comments published yesterday. The unusually strong attack on Viktor Orban’s government, which prompted a vigorous riposte from Budapest, came three days before a crucial summit intended to project the bloc’s unity after Britain’s shock decision to leave.
“We cannot accept that the basic values of the European Union are being so seriously breached,” Asselborn told German daily Die Welt. “Anyone, like Hungary, who builds fences against war refugees or breaches press freedom and the independence of the justice system should be temporarily, or if needed forever, excluded from the EU.” The direct call for the exclusion of a fellow EU member state was unprecedented, and underscored
the extent of Europe’s divisions over sharing responsibility for the more than 1 million migrants and refugees who reached its shores last year. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country had defended Europe throughout its history, and described his Luxembourg colleague as “condescending, uppity, and frustrated.” Orban has angered many of his EU partners with his tough rhetoric on migrants and by fortifying his borders to keep them out. He has called a referendum next month in which he is urging Hungarians to vote against future EU quotas stipulating how many refugees each country should take. The EU could not tolerate such behaviour, and exclusion was “the only possibility to preserve the integrity and values of the European Union,” Asselborn said. Humans fleeing from war were being treated almost worse than wild animals, he added. “The fence that Hungary is building to keep out refugees is getting longer, higher and more dangerous. Hungary is not far from issuing an order to shoot refugees,” he said. In response, Szijjarto told state news agency MTI only Hungarians could decide who they were willing to live with, a right that neither Brussels bureaucrats nor the Luxembourg foreign minister could take away. He said it was strange that Asselborn, who came from the land of “tax optimisation”, and another Luxembourger, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, were talking about shared burdens. “We understand what it means, though: Hungary has to pay the piper after other people make mistakes,” he said. Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka sharply criticised Asselborn’s comments. “The discussion these days is focused on the future of the European Union,” he said. “Further raising of the barriers and calls for exclusion of member states are, in my opinion, nonsense... Europe must cooperate and stay coherent.” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “I can understand, looking at Hungary, that some in Europe are getting impatient... However, it is not my personal approach to show a European member state the door.”