President claims it was his ‘right’

RAMALLAH: As a mass “Freedom and Dignity” hunger strike in Israeli prisons entered its 30th day yesterday, the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs announced that strike leader Marwan Barghouthi will stop drinking water in response to Israel’s continued refusal to respond to the hunger strikers’ demands.

Participants in the strike, now involving some 1 300 Palestinian prisoners, want an end to the denial of family visits, the right to pursue higher education, medical care, an end to solitary confinement and an end to administrative detention imprisonment without charge or trial. Ma’an IN THE past five months violence in the DRC’s central Kasai province has claimed the lives of over 500 people.

Police spokesman Pierrot Mwanamputu Pongo said that the dead included 39 soldiers, 85 police officers and about 390 rebels following fighting between security forces and members of a local armed group.

Violence spiked following clashes between the Kamwina Nsapu militia and troops after the traditional head of the militia, who accused the government of exercising “unjust political domination”, was killed in fighting in August. ANA IRANIANS vote for president on Friday in a contest likely to determine whether Tehran’s re-engagement with the world stalls or quickens, although, whatever the outcome, no change is expected to its revolutionary system of conservative clerical rule.

Seeking a second term, pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, 68, remains the narrow favourite, but hardline rivals have hammered him over his failure to boost an economy weakened by decades of sanctions.

Many Iranians feel a 2015 agreement he championed with major powers to lift sanctions in return for curbing Iran’s nuclear programme has failed to produce the jobs, growth and foreign investment he said would follow.

The normally mild-mannered cleric is trying to hold on to office by firing up reformist voters who want less confrontation abroad and more social and economic freedom at home.

In recent days he has adopted robust rhetoric, pushing at the boundaries of what is permitted in Iran. He has accused his conservative opponents of abusing human rights, misusing religious authority and representing the economic interests of the security forces.

Rouhani’s strongest challenger is hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, 56, who says Iran does not need foreign help and promises a revival of the values of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

He is backed by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, the country’s top security force, their affiliated volunteer Basij militia, hardline clerics and two influential clerical groups.

Another prominent conservative, Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, withdrew from the race on Monday and backed Raisi, uniting the hardline faction.

Under Iran’s system, the powers of the elected president are circumscribed by those of the conservative supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989.

Elections are fiercely contested and can bring about change within the system of rule overseen by Shia Muslim clerics.

Raisi is a close ally and protegé of Khamenei. Iranian media have discussed him as a potential future successor to Khamenei, who turns 78 in July.

Raisi has appealed to poorer voters by pledging to create millions of jobs. “Though unrealistic, such promises will surely attract millions of poor voters,” said Saeed Leylaz, a prominent Iranian economist who was jailed for criticising the economic policies of Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Although the supreme leader is officially above the fray of everyday politics, Khamenei can sway a presidential vote by giving a candidate his quiet endorsement.

So far, Khamenei has called only for a high turnout, saying Iran’s enemies have sought to use the elections to “infiltrate” its power structure, and a high turnout would prove the system’s legitimacy.

A high turnout could also boost the chances of Rouhani, who was swept to power in 2013 on promises to reduce Iran’s international isolation and grant more freedoms at home. The biggest threat to his re-election is apathy from disappointed voters who feel he did not deliver.

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge yesterday that he revealed highly classified information to Russia – a stunning confirmation of a Washington Post story and a move that contradicted his own White House team after it scrambled to deny the report.

Trump’s tweets tried to explain away the news, which emerged late on Monday, that he had shared sensitive, “code-word” information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a White House meeting last week – a disclosure that intelligence officials warned could jeopardise a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State.

“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled WH meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety,” Trump wrote yesterday morning.

“Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”

Trump’s tweets undercut his administration’s frantic effort on Monday night to contain the damaging report.

The White House trotted out three senior administration officials National Security Adviser HR McMaster, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to deny the very reports Trump openly confirmed less than 24 hours later.

The president’s admission also follows a familiar pattern.

Last week, after unexpectedly firing FBI director James Comey, the White House originally claimed that the president was acting in response to a memo provided by Deputy Attorney General Rod J Rosenstein.

But in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump later admitted that he had made the decision to fire Comey well before Rosenstein’s memo, in part because he was frustrated by the director’s investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and the Russian government.

At the time, Trump was surprised by the almost universal bipartisan backlash to his decision, and raged at his staff, threatening to shake-up his already tumultuous West Wing. His communications team director Mike Dubke and press secretary Sean Spicer bore the brunt of the president’s ire.

On Monday night, following The Washington Post story, the president was again frustrated with Dubke and Spicer, according to someone with knowledge of the situation.

But his decision yesterday to undermine his own West Wing staff in a series of tweets is unlikely to help him bring stability to his chaotic administration, just days before he departs on a 10-day trip abroad.

Because the president has broad authority to declassify information, it is unlikely his disclosures to the Russians were illegal – as they would have been had just about anyone else in the government shared the same secrets.

But the classified information he shared with a geopolitical foe was nonetheless explosive, having been provided by a critical US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so delicate that some details were withheld even from top allies and other government officials.