UAW votes to endorse Kamala Harris for president




FOX 2 Staff
Wed, July 31, 2024 

FOX 2 (WJBK) - The United Auto Workers Internation Executive Board voted to endorse the presumptive Democrat candidate for president, Kamala Harris, on Wednesday.

Vice President Harris received the endorsement following President Joe Biden's recent pulling out of the 2024 race. Biden received the endorsement previously.

One of the reasons the UAW said, was due to the Biden-Harris administration's track record of supporting the UAW, including the recent strike in 2023.

"Years before the Stand Up Strike, Kamala Harris walked the picket line with striking autoworkers in 2019, has taken on corporate price-gouging and profiteering, and has spoken out and voted against unfair trade deals that hurt the American worker like NAFTA and NAFTA 2.0, the USMCA," said the UAW in a statement.

Harris is coming to Detroit for a campaign stop on Wednesday, August 7. The Harris for President campaign will come to Detroit to rally with UAW members and Michigan voters.

UAW President Shawn Fain released a statement about the race and his trust in Harris.


United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain gestures in solidarity with striking workers during a rally at UAW Local 551 on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

"Our job in this election is to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris to build on her proven track record of delivering for the working class," said UAW President Shawn Fain. "We stand at a crossroads in this country.

"We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed.

"This campaign is bringing together people from all walks of life, building a movement that can defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box. For our one million active and retired members, the choice is clear: We will elect Kamala Harris to be our next President this November."


Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), center, walks with demonstrators during a United Auto Workers (UAW) practice picket outside the Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant in Detroit, Michigan, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. The union is locked in tough contract talks with Detroit's Big Three automakers, and a work stoppage is possible when their current agreement expires on Sept. 14. Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesMore

But the Trump campaign is pushing back.

"Union workers and all the nation's working families are paying the price for dangerously liberal Kamala Harris' failed economic policies," a statement from Trump's campaign read, in part. "Kamala Harris' radical electric vehicle mandate will destroy the livelihoods of countless U.S. autoworkers while sending the U.S. auto industry to China. President Trump will reverse Harris' extreme electric vehicle mandate on Day One and save the U.S. auto industry for generations to come."

Despite the UAW endorsement, many say it’s way too early to tell if Harris will take Michigan, and the White House, after November.

"She has a lot of people backing her up," one voter said. "We’ll just have to see how this pans out."

Opinion

Kamala Nabs Major Endorsement Over Trump

Paige Oamek
Wed, July 31, 2024 



The United Auto Workers announced Wednesday that their union would endorse Kamala Harris for president.

The union’s executive board came to the decision because of “the Biden-Harris administration’s proven track record of standing with the UAW and delivering major gains for the working class,” according to a press release from the union.

“Our job in this election is to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris to build on her proven track record of delivering for the working class,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in the statement. “We stand at a crossroads in this country. We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed.”

Following President Joe Biden’s endorsement of Harris, many unions, including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, or IBEW, and the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, rushed to back Harris. But the UAW held off.

Fain even took heat when he appeared on MSNBC to say his union was “not going to rush” its Harris endorsement without the approval of the union members. The union had previously endorsed Biden in January.

In the UAW’s announcement, the union cited Harris’s commitment to workers on the picket line and in her voting records. “Kamala Harris walked the picket line with striking autoworkers in 2019, has taken on corporate price-gouging and profiteering, and has spoken out and voted against unfair trade deals that hurt the American worker like NAFTA and NAFTA 2.0, the USMCA,” the statement said.

Harris will head to Detroit on August 7 to rally with UAW members and Michigan voters. During that time, she will also meet directly with union members about the issues facing Michigan workers.

“This campaign is bringing together people from all walks of life, building a movement that can defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box,” said Fain. “For our one million active and retired members, the choice is clear: We will elect Kamala Harris to be our next President this November.”

Uncommitted movement demands DNC allow a representative to speak on Gaza
Melissa Hellmann
Thu, August 1, 2024 a


People rally outside of a polling location for people to vote uncommitted in the Democratic primary in Dearborn, Michigan, on 27 February 2024.Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The Uncommitted National Movement has announced a number of demands in the run-up to the Democratic national convention (DNC) later this month, part of an effort to use its voting power to influence Kamala Harris and the Democratic party’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.

In a press call on Thursday, movement leaders demanded that the DNC allow Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, an American physician who’s worked in Gaza, to speak at the convention about the humanitarian crisis that she witnessed first-hand. They have also requested that an uncommitted delegate be given five minutes to speak at the convention, and for Kamala Harris to meet with movement leaders about their concerns.

Uncommitted leaders say that hearing from Haj-Hassan will help the Democratic party and Harris make informed policy decisions on Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, according to health officials.

More than 700,000 Americans voted “uncommitted” or its equivalent in the Democratic party primaries this year in a message to Joe Biden that he could not count on their support if he did not change his approach to the war. The movement has particular influence in Michigan, where more than 100,000 people cast “uncommitted” ballots in the primary. It will send 30 delegates to the DNC in Chicago.

Related: Kamala Harris says ‘I will not be silent’ on suffering in Gaza after Netanyahu talks

The movement’s latest appeal follows demands announced last week that include an arms embargo on Israel and support for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Convention planners received the demands in writing, say movement leaders, but they have yet to receive a response.

Still, Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan, said that the movement is “hopeful that the vice-president will take this opportunity to turn a new page as it relates to Gaza policy, and hopefully that can start with this specific initiative”.

During the Thursday call, several doctors who volunteered in Gaza and have experience in other conflicts said that the scale of atrocities they witnessed in Gaza were the worst that they’d ever seen. Haj-Hassan shared that she’d seen Palestinians “being killed in 1,001 ways”. In the emergency department, she often saw the dead bodies of entire families, with only one surviving child who was fighting for their life. “We received children maimed, killed, beheaded, shot,” she said.

“And it is for that reason I have decided to become very vocal and go beyond my capacity as a pediatric intensive care doctor confined by the walls of the ICU,” said Haj-Hassan, “to get on the media to speak to politicians and to advocate for this genocide to come to an end.” Last week, Haj-Hassan and dozens of other US doctors and nurses delivered a letter to Biden that described the scene in Gaza’s hospitals and urged him to withdraw military support for Israel.

Alawieh said that Harris’s team has signalled a greater openness to engaging with their movement than Biden did. “She’s expressed a level of concern about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that perhaps we weren’t seeing from the president,” said Alawieh. He was also encouraged that her team was in touch with Arab and Muslim American leaders. “We’re getting more engagement than we did under President Biden being at the top of the ticket, and so I’m hopeful that we can move in a direction that leads to her engaging directly.”

Layla Elabed, a Palestinian American organizer with the Uncommitted National Movement, said a meaningful response from Harris could influence her success against Donald Trump in November. “To have any chance in fighting authoritarianism and fascism that will be on the ballot in November, then the demands of Uncommitted need to be taken seriously.”

The movement plans to host programming at the convention regardless of the DNC’s response to their demands, said Elabed, and referenced the famous address at the 1964 DNC delivered by civil rights giant Fannie Lou Hamer, who recounted the violence that she experienced when registering to vote and called for integration of the all-white Mississippi delegation.

“We will find a way for Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan to speak officially or unofficially, one way or another,” said Elabed, “in the tradition of Fannie Lou Hamer and the civil rights movement, who made moral witness in the 1964’s convention to human suffering.”



Uncommitted Delegates Demand To Be Heard At Democratic National Convention

Sanjana Karanth
Thu, August 1, 2024 

Delegates for an anti-war, pro-Palestinian voting blocare calling for Democratic National Convention organizers to allowa doctor who’s been on Gaza’s front lines to speak at the presidential nominating event about the humanitarian crisis.

The “uncommitted” delegation represents a movement of Democratic voters who oppose the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. The movement sprang from the frustration of voters ― many of whom are Muslim and Arab American ― who refused to cast their Democratic primary ballot for President Joe Biden because of his Gaza policy.

What started as a statewide protest vote in Michigan spread across the country, garnering hundreds of thousands of votes and resulting in what the movement said is 30 “uncommitted” delegates for the DNC, where thousands of delegates will formally nominate the Democratic presidential candidate.

The delegation’shope is that having Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan address DNC attendees from the convention floor about what she has witnessed in the Palestinian enclave will help the Democratic Party face the human devastation of Israel’s U.S.-funded siege, which is entering its 10th month.

“The Democratic National Convention is a chance to declare our values to the American public, to set the tone for the next four years,” June Rosenbaum, an uncommitted delegate from Rhode Island, said on a call set up Thursday morning by the delegation. “The Democratic Party cannot espouse the values of freedom, justice and equality at home while being the party of death and destruction abroad. The Democratic Party cannot oppose fascism at home while enabling genocide abroad.”

“For 18 years of my life, I never heard a single person speak up for Palestine,” they said. “With a DNC speaker with experience on the ground in Gaza, we can make it so no American can ever say the same.”



The delegation said it sent written requests to Democratic National Committee representatives and convention planners nearly a month ago but has yet to hear back. The request includes for Haj-Hassan, an American pediatric intensive care physician, to have five minutes of speaking time on the convention floor during evening programming.

The group asked for one of its delegates to have speaking time as well as language in the DNC platform that calls for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and an immediate embargo on U.S. offensive weapons to Israel.

“We have been trained to protect human lives. We have been trained to preserve human life,” Haj-Hassan said on the Thursday call. “But what has become incredibly and absolutely clear is that it is impossible to do amidst a military campaign that is not only targeting civilian life wherever it is in the Gaza Strip but also targeting everything that’s indispensable to human life, from water to fuel, food, health care and infrastructure.”

“I’m not a politician. In fact, I’m not even an activist. My life prior to this year has been spent primarily doing clinical work,” she said. “But I’m hoping to provide moral witness to the delegates of the Democratic National Convention because an end to this military campaign is the only way to preserve human life under the current circumstances. And so it is vital that the most powerful decision-makers globally hear firsthand accounts from myself and from my colleagues that can impact our foreign policy.”

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan examines wounded children at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on March 16. The "uncommitted" delegation set to attend the Democratic National Convention has asked that Haj-Hassan, an American pediatrician, be allowed to speak at the convention about the humanitarian crisis she has witnessed in Gaza. Abdel Kareem Hana via Associated PressMore

Convention officials told HuffPost on Thursday that there was no news to share yet about the delegation’s request but that programming decisions have not yet been finalized beyond nominee acceptance speeches on the final two days of the convention, which will run Aug. 19-22.

“Our convention will be a celebration of all that unites us as Democrats because, though we may not see eye-to-eye on every issue, we all operate from the same set of shared values,” convention spokesperson Emily Soong told The Washington Examiner in May, before Biden exited the campaign, regarding the uncommitted delegation.

“We will continue to work around the clock to plan a successful convention, welcome all our delegates to Chicago in August, and bring the story of our party and president to the American people.”

Uncommitted representatives have repeatedly asked to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris now that she has replaced Biden as the likely presidential nominee. Harris has already been more outspoken about the plight of Palestinians and more critical of Israel’s offensive, however she still positions herself publicly as pro-Israel and has yet to call for a U.S. arms embargo.

“It’s almost like they’re looking for a reason to support her,” Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D), a Palestinian American who recently spoke with Harris, told CBS News of the uncommitted delegates. “It’s like, ‘We really do want to support you, we just need the bombs to stop.’”

Abbas Alawieh, a spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, which organized "uncommitted" votes in the Democratic primary, speaks at a news conference in Dearborn on Feb. 28, the day after the Michigan presidential primary. Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

In Thursday’s call, the delegation expressed that the decision to ask for Haj-Hassan to speak about Gaza is partly rooted in civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer’s historic speech at the 1964 Democratic convention. Hamer used her speech to highlight the racism that plagued Mississippi and the dire need for more Black representation in the state’s Democratic Party delegation.

This year’s DNC is expected to bring thousands of protesters from across the country, many of whom will demand a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and the halt of U.S. weapon transfers to Israel.

Black Muslim group endorses Harris after its 'uncommitted' stance on Biden

Yamiche Alcindor
Fri, August 2, 2024

A national Muslim organization that had declared itself "uncommitted" on President Joe Biden's re-election bid is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris' candidacy.

Salima Suswell, the founder and chief executive of the Black Muslim Leadership Council Fund, first shared the group's decision with NBC News on Thursday. It's believed to be the first Muslim group in the uncommitted camp to now back Harris.

“She has shown more sympathy towards the people of Gaza then both President Biden and former President Donald Trump,” Suswell said of Harris. “During Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress, she decided not to attend. She has repeatedly called for a cease-fire, and I believe she has also expressed empathy towards civilian life and has been very caring as it relates to getting aid to the people of Gaza."

The fund is the political action arm of the nonprofit Black Muslim Leadership Council. Both organizations were started in March with the hope of pressuring elected officials, including Biden, to call for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

The group’s endorsement is significant given the backlash the Biden administration has faced from the Muslim community over its handling of the war. Many Muslim groups pushed for an effort they dubbed “abandon Biden,” which called for voters not to support him at the ballot box in uncompetitive primaries and potentially in the fall election.

Since Biden's decision to drop his re-election bid, some other Muslim groups have said they remain uncommitted to Harris' candidacy while saying she has a chance to earn their support by differentiating herself from Biden on Middle East policy.

In March, Suswell made it clear that many of her group’s members were focused on U.S. domestic challenges and did not support abandoning Biden. “At the present, I have not abandoned Biden,” she said at the time. “But I am uncommitted.”

The same month, Harris made headlines in a speech commemorating Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, where she called for a six-week cease-fire and described the situation in Gaza as a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire — for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table,” Harris said. “This will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in.”

Then, last week, just days after she launched her presidential campaign, Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House after he spoke with Biden. Following the meeting, she said Israel had her “unwavering commitment” and a “right to defend itself” while also calling attention to the plight of the Palestinian people.

“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating — the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time,” she said. “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”

Harris also spoke about her message to Netanyahu. “I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done,” Harris said. “It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination.”

For Suswell and leaders of the Black Muslim Leadership Council Fund, the remarks underscored the need to come out and support Harris. The group plans to launch voter turnout efforts in critical swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, Suswell recognizes that Harris is still part of the Biden administration and has publicly supported Biden's policy positions on the war. She also said she was one of a group of Muslim leaders who met with Biden and Harris at the White House during a tense gathering one leader walked out of just minutes into the meeting.

“It wasn’t an easy meeting for the president,” Suswell said. “We were really tough on him. We were committed to expressing the needs of our community, as well as what we expected in terms of justice for the people of Gaza. I mean, we want as a community to see this war come to an end. So many lives have been lost. It’s time for the war to end and for there to be a safe return of the hostages.”

Pressed about whether she saw a big policy difference between Harris and Biden, Suswell said: “I am not going to speculate that there is a huge difference. … She has also been more empathetic as it relates to civilian life. I think she’s more open to having conversations around ending the war.”

Suswell added that her group was also moved to support Harris publicly because of her stances on domestic issues. “Economic opportunity, pay equity, jobs, health care, education, public safety and policing, criminal justice reform, all of these things matter to the American Muslim community, as well, specifically to Black Muslim Americans,” she said. “Vice President Harris has been strong and has been a leader on these issues.”

In addition, Suswell said she and other leaders in the group were worried about former President Donald Trump’s possible actions against Muslim people and Americans as a whole if he returns to the White House.

“I think that this election comes down to the decision between an authoritarian regime and a democratic government,” she said. “During the first debate, [Trump] said that Israel should finish the job [in Gaza]. This is very, very concerning.”

She went on: "He has also committed himself to reinstating the Muslim travel ban. He has also stated that he would deport pro-Palestinian protesters, specifically on college campuses. So this is absolutely concerning — just a few of the concerns that we take into consideration as we weigh the future of democracy and justice and our fundamental freedoms.”

“Now, Vice President Harris and I do not align on all of her stances pertaining to the crisis in Palestine," Suswell said. "However, I do believe that she is more empathetic.”

CORRECTION (Aug. 2, 2024, 12:28 a.m. ET): A previous version of this story mischaracterized the timing of the Black Muslim Leadership Council Fund’s earlier “uncommitted” position. It’s believed to be the first Muslim group to endorse Harris after being uncommitted, not the first to have declared itself uncommitted on Biden.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

DON'T LEAVE ANIMALS OR CHILDREN IN CARS IN THE SUMMER

Police K-9 dies from heat exhaustion in patrol car after air conditioning failure

Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY
Fri, August 2, 2024 

A Missouri police dog died from heat exhaustion this week after officials said the animal was left in a patrol vehicle and its air conditioning reportedly failed.

Vader, a German Shepherd with the Arnold Police Department, died Wednesday from heat exhaustion, the agency reported.

He was 4.

Arnold Police Department K-9 Vader

"We lost a member of our K-9 family in a tragic accident," the department posted on Facebook Thursday.

According to the agency, located in a suburb of St. Louis, Vader's police handler left the dog in a patrol vehicle with the air conditioning running, a "necessary and common practice when the K-9 partner is not actively engaged in police work."

Arnold police Chief Brian Carroll identified Vader's handler as Officer Tim Mayberry. On Friday, Carroll told USA TODAY Vader was put into service in 2021.

Caged outside for 4 years: This German Shepherd now he has a loving home
Police K-9 died from heat exhaustion

When Vader’s partner returned to the vehicle, they found discovered its air conditioning system malfunctioned.

Vader was immediately transported to a local veterinarian clinic where initially, police reported, he showed signs of improvement.

The dog was then taken to a 24-Hour clinic for further treatment.

"Unfortunately, we learned last night that there were no further treatments available for Vader and he succumbed to his injuries," the agency wrote.

Carroll would not say whether the officer was responding to a call when the incident took place citing an active pending investigation into the dog's death.

Toddler fatally mauled by 3 Rottweilers: The attack took place at a Houston babysitter's home
Police: Vehicle's heat alarm system failed

Police said all of the department's K-9 vehicles are equipped with a system "that notifies the handler by phone, activates the emergency lights and siren, sounds the vehicle horn, activates cooling fans, and rolls down the vehicle windows, if the vehicle temperature increases to a certain level."

In this instance, police said, the heat alarm system failed to activate.

Vader's death remains under investigation by the department.

"Please keep Vader’s handler, his family, and the members of the APD in your thoughts and prayers as we mourn the loss of our K-9 partner," a police spokesperson said.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.

Olympic Committee Speaks Out After Boxing Gender Controversy

Chris Malone Méndez
Thu, August 1, 2024 

The 2024 Olympics in Paris have been underway for less than a week and have already seen plenty of unforgettable moments, from the one-of-a-kind opening ceremony on the Seine to Simone Biles repeatedly making history on the mat with gold medal wins. Boxing at these Olympics, however, have been overshadowed by controversy due to the participation of one athlete.

Imane Khelif of Algeria has come under fire following a match against Italian boxer Angela Carini that made Carini quit after just 46 seconds. Khelif's participation itself has sparked controversy, as the 25-year-old was disqualified from the International Boxing Association's World Championship last year after testing deemed her ineligible for the women's competition. Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan, who is also competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, was disqualified in the same manner.

The IBA on Wednesday stated that this was not a testosterone test, but rather “a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors."

Khelif initially appealed this decision, but later withdrew the appeal. Yu-Ting did not appeal.

In a statement released Aug. 1, the IOC addressed the controversy head-on and stood up for the boxers in question.

"We have seen in reports misleading information about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024," the IOC stated plainly. "The two athletes have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category, including the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships, and IBA-sanctioned tournaments," the organization pointed out.

"These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process," the note read.

"The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure—especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years. Such an approach is contrary to good governance," the statement continued.

"The IOC is saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving," it added.

The IOC and IBA have different medical standards for competitors, and the IBA for years served as boxing's official governing body for the Olympics. That relationship began to fray in 2019 and was severed in 2023. The organization's former president Gafur Rakhimov was sanctioned by the U.S. for an alleged role in the heroin trade and organized crime, prompting questions about the IBA's integrity and finances, and his replacement Umar Kremlev earned disapproval for tying the organization's finances to Russian state energy company Gazprom.

As the IOC mentioned, both Khelif and Lin have always competed in women's categories at competitions around the world and have female gender markers on their passports. Neither athlete has publicly identified as transgender or intersex. The IOC determines eligibility based on the gender marked on the competitor's passport.

Algeria's Olympic Committee has spoken out against the uproar, calling it "baseless propaganda" and "unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete." Algeria does not allow medical gender transition nor recognition of transgender people on official documents, Equaldex notes.

It's not the first time a woman athlete's gender has been called into question after eligibility testing. In 2009, then-18-year-old South African runner Caster Semenya similarly faced international backlash and underwent sex testing, sparking controversy worldwide. Semenya went on to win back-to-back gold medals in the 800 meters at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. In 2019, World Athletics implemented new rules preventing athletes like Semenya with certain disorders of sex development (DSDs) from participating in select events. She's since filed multiple lawsuits to be able to compete in races, ultimately earning a victory in Swiss court last year.

Still, the IOC is looking into how to better implement gender eligibility rules moving forward. If the issue isn't resolved, you might not see boxing at all when the Olympics come to Los Angeles in four years.

"The IOC has made it clear that it needs national boxing federations to reach a consensus around a new international federation in order for boxing to be included on the sports program of the Olympic Games LA28," the statement concluded.

Khelif is set to face off against Anna Luca Hámori of Hungary in the quarterfinals on Aug. 3. Lin will box against Uzbekistan's Sitora Turdibekova in the round of 16 on Aug. 2.

IOC: Female boxers were victims of arbitrary decision by International Boxing Association

josh peter, usa today
Thu, Aug 1, 2024,



PARIS – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says two female boxers at the center of controversy over gender eligibility criteria were victims of a “sudden and arbitrary decision" by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan both were disqualified from the 2023 women’s boxing world championships after the IBA claimed they had failed "gender eligibility tests." The IBA, which sanctions the world championships, made the announcement after Khelif and Lin won medals at the event in March 2023.

The IBA, long plagued with scandal and controversy, oversaw Olympics boxing before the IOC stripped it of the right before the Tokyo Games in 2021. Although the IBA has maintained control of the world championships, the IOC no longer recognizes the IBA as the international federation for boxing.

Citing minutes on the IBA’s website, the IOC said Thursday, “The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedures – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top level competition for many years."

The issue resurfaced this week when the IOC said both Khelif and Lin were eligible to compete at the Paris Olympics, and a furor erupted on social media Thursday after Khelif won her opening bout against Italy’s Angela Carini. Khelif landed one punch – on Carini’s nose – before the Italian boxer quit just 46 seconds into the welterweight bout at 146 pounds. Lin is scheduled to fight in her opening bout Friday.

With the likes of Jake Paul and J.K. Rowling expressing outrage over Khelif competing against other women, the IOC issued a statement later Thursday addressing the matter.

“The IOC is committed to protecting the human rights of all athletes participating in the Olympic Games," the organization said in a statement issued on social media. "… The IOC is saddened by the abuse that these two athletes are currently receiving."

The IOC said the gender and age of an athlete are based on their passports and that the current Olympic competition eligibility and entry regulations were in place during Olympic qualifying events in 2023. Both Lin and Khelif competed in the 2021 Tokyo Games and did not medal.

The IOC pointed to the IBA’s secretary general and CEO, Chris Roberts, as being responsible for disqualifying Khelif and Lin after they had won medals in 2023. Khelif won bronze, Lin gold before the IBA took them away.

Khelif, 25, made her amateur debut in 2018 at the Balkan Women's Tournament, according to BoxRec. She is 37-9 and has recorded five knockouts, according to BoxRec, and won a silver medal at the 2022 world championships.

Lin, 28, made her amateur debut in 2013 at the AIBA World Women's Youth Championships, according to BoxRec. She is 40-14 and has recorded one knockout, according to BoxRec, and won gold medals at the world championships in 2018 and 2022.

On Thursday, the IBA issued a statement saying the disqualification was "based on two trustworthy tests conducted on both athletes in two independent laboratories.''

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Olympic boxers at center of controversy are victims, IOC says

Olympic female boxers are being attacked. Let's just slow down and look at the facts

dan wolken, usa today
Thu, Aug 1, 2024

Imane Khelif of Algeria during her fight against Angela Carini of Italy at the Paris Olympics.


PARIS – Let’s make one thing very clear off the top. There isn’t a sane human being on Planet Earth who believes that a man should be boxing women in the Olympics.

Not a single one.

That said, let’s also say something equally as important: Slow down.

Of course, it’s already too late to contain the mania that is exploding around the Internet right now after Algerian boxer Imane Khelif’s gender was questioned Thursday following a welterweight match that ended after 46 seconds when Italy’s Angela Carini took one punch and called it quits.

The video of the punch is out, and it’s vicious. The International Boxing Association (IBA) claims that Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan failed “gender eligibility tests” at the 2023 world championships. The IOC says they’re eligible to compete. The Italian coach serves up suspicions and hearsay. There’s no transparency around any of the actual facts.

And, of course, all the same grifters who dine out on “men in women’s sports” controversies are waking up to this news back in America and salivating over their next conquest.

So the horse is out of the barn now. It’s an issue. It’s a thing.

And with Khelif set to box again Saturday and Lin on Friday, it cannot be ignored.

But again – and this may be screaming into the void – everyone needs to take a breath, slow down and let the actual facts unfold.

Because here's the thing: There aren't a whole lot of facts right now. There are, however, plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the explosive narrative that a man was boxing women at the Olympics when you consider the underlying issues with that claim.

Let’s talk about some things we know, and some things we don’t know.

We know that on Wednesday, the IBA issued a statement saying that Khelif and Lin did not undergo a testosterone examination but failed “a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential” during the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in India in March of 2023.

Imane Khelif of Algeria during her fight against Angela Carini of Italy at the Paris Olympics.

We don’t know what kind of tests those were, what they were testing for or which organization oversaw the lab work. If you aren’t aware, those details are kind of a big deal in the Olympic world: Just look at the war going on between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the U.S Anti-Doping Agency over the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive before the Tokyo Olympics three years ago but were allowed to compete in deference to Chinese anti-doping officials who claimed food contamination was at fault.

This stuff isn’t always black-and-white.

We don’t know exactly what Khelif and Lin are being accused of, by the IBA or anyone else. Is the idea that they’re men pretending to be women? Intersex issues that affect chromosomes or reproductive organs? There’s no indication – at all – that this has anything to do with transgenderism.

So what’s the actual theory here? Being clear about that matters not just on a human analytical level, but on a specific scientific level relative to what kind of testing the IOC would do that would allow them to compete. The IOC is adamant that it will not release any of that information. The IBA, to this point, has been vague about any testing specifics.

A 2023 story in the Taiwan News at the time of Lin’s disqualification said no explanation was given other than “an abnormality” and that she had never failed a gender test in the past. Some contemporaneous news reports around Lin’s disqualification speculated about women boxers having to take certain medications to adjust their menstrual cycles to match the competition schedule.

Here’s something else we also know: The IBA has been in a long-running dispute with the IOC, and as a result, boxing’s future in the Olympics beyond the Paris Games is up in the air.

What’s the dispute about? In a word: Russia.

When Umar Kremlev became the IBA president in 2020, he made his mark by signing a significant sponsorship deal with Gazprom, Russia’s state energy supplier. It is understood that Gazprom essentially funded the IBA’s entire operation.

Early in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. As a result, the IOC wanted the IBA to drop Gazprom and make other reforms to its governance and financial structures and to clean up a bevy of ethical issues.

Unsatisfied with the IBA’s response – including a claim that Gazprom’s sponsorship expired at the end of 2022 – the IOC stripped its sanction of the Olympic boxing tournament. The IBA appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but was turned down on April 2 of this year for a variety of reasons, including the IBA’s continued lack of financial transparency, continuing issues with its referees and judges and failure to fully implement the government reform measures demanded by the IOC.

So here’s this long-running dispute between the IOC and a fully Russian-backed boxing organization, coming to a head at an Olympics where the Russians are truly personae non gratae. In fact, there are just 15 Russians competing under a neutral flag at these Olympics, nearly half of them playing tennis. The rest of them either opted out or did not pass the IOC’s neutrality standards, which primarily weeded out anyone who actively supported the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, after the controversial opening ceremony, Kremlev, the IBA president, posted a video to X, formerly known as Twitter, in which he called IOC president Thomas Bach the “chief sodomite” and his team “society’s outcasts.”

What does all of this mean? It’s hard to say for sure, but if you think the IBA throwing gas on this story is entirely about chromosomes and testosterone, I have a dacha in Volvograd to sell you.

What else do we know? We know that Khelif and Lin have been competing in this sport for years, including the Olympics three years ago, and were not exactly dominating the competition. Khelif lost in the quarterfinals in Tokyo and Lin lost in the round of 16 of a different weight class. They were also being tested without any issue coming up, until this sudden 2023 test that nobody can really explain.

Amy Broadhurst, an Irish world champion boxer who has been in the ring with Khelif and beaten her, posted on X that, "Personally I don't think she has done anything to 'cheat'. I thinks (sic) it's the way she was born & that's out of her control. The fact that she has been (beaten) by 9 females before says it all."

She followed: "If this is a man and it becomes 100% fact, I'll be disgusted that I was in the ring and so was many others. A man vs a woman is far from ok. But right now nobody knows what the true facts are."

We also know – or can at least safely speculate – that in Khelif’s case, Algeria would be a strange place to incubate a star women’s boxer who was actually a man or began life as a man. This is a Muslim country where same-sex acts are illegal and the LGBT community is subject to significant discrimination. Algeria's Olympic committee has issued a statement strongly denying what it called "baseless propaganda" and "unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete."

So when you put all this entire fact pattern together, there are far too many unanswered questions and obvious agendas here for the American political right-wing to send this train down the tracks in good faith. And yet that didn’t stop Sen. Tommy Tuberville, for one, to post the Khelif punch video on social media with the comment “If @KamalaHarris has her way, this will be happening in elementary schools all over the U.S. soon.”

The Olympics are not halfway over. Khelif is going to fight again, and there will be lots of eyeballs on her, more questions asked and hopefully some actual answers uncovered.

In the meantime, though, we can all agree that men should not be fighting women in the boxing ring at an Olympics. But we don’t know that’s what this is.

So let’s just slow down.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Two boxers under fire over Olympic gender tests. Let's look at facts

US deal freed a Russian prisoner whose crime was writing anti-war messages on supermarket price tags

Grace Eliza Goodwin
Thu, August 1, 2024

Thursday's historic prisoner swap freed journalists, political dissidents, and one small-time activist.

Alexandra Skochilenko was arrested in 2022 after she posted anti-war messages in a supermarket.

Skochilenko is headed to Germany, where she will reunite with her mother.

The historic prisoner swap on Thursday between the US, Russia, and a handful of other countries freed a number of well-known journalists, activists, and political dissidents.

Among the better known American names, like Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan, was one relatively unknown Russian woman: Alexandra Skochilenko.

Skochilenko, a 33-year-old artist and musician, was arrested in April 2022 after she was caught replacing price tags in a St. Petersburg grocery store with anti-war messages. She is a pacifist who had no history of political activism before the supermarket incident, The Washington Post reported.

One of Skochilenko's messages provided information about the March 20, 2022 bombing of an art school in Mariupol, Ukraine where 400 civilians had been sheltering, NPR reported. Ukrainian officials at the time said Russia was behind the attack, while Russia in turn blamed Ukraine.

Another of the messages read, "Weekly inflation reached a new high not seen since 1998 because of our military actions in Ukraine. Stop the war," according to The Washington Post.

After a fellow shopper reported Skochilenko to the police, Russia accused her of disseminating false information about the war in Ukraine, charging her under a new Russian law that bans citizens from spreading "fake news" about Russia's so-called "special military operation," NPR reported.

In 2023, she was handed down a particularly harsh sentence relative to her crime: seven years behind bars, human rights charity Amnesty International said, calling it a "sham trial" that culminated in a "manifestly unjust verdict."

In a final statement at her trial, Skochilenko said to the court, according to CNN, "How little faith does our prosecutor have in our state and society if he believes that our statehood and public safety can be destroyed by five small pieces of paper?"

Now that Skochilenko has been freed, she is heading to Germany, the Post reported. Her mother, who is based in Paris, told Agence France-Presse that she plans to meet her there.

"This is just an incredible event," her mother Nadezhda Skochilenko told AFP. "I've been waiting for this for such a long time. I just want to hug her first."

Midwestern Farmers Who Say Yes to Solar Power Face Neighbors’ Wrath

Drew Hutchinson and Daniel Moore

Thu, Aug 1, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- When Michigan farmer Clara Ostrander heard about the benefits of hosting a solar energy project, she remembered something her father had told her four days before he died: Don’t sell the farm. Keep it in the family.

Skeptical at first, Ostrander ultimately decided that harvesting the sun on most of her 120-acre corn-and-soybeans farm south of Detroit would enable her to someday pass the land to her son.

But the project proposed by Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy faced fierce opposition from neighbors who feared lower property values, the spoiling of farmland, and an end to the picturesque views that defined their community. They lobbied township officials for zoning rules to block it.

Ostrander and other neighbors fought back, convincing Michigan lawmakers last year to enact a statewide permitting law that usurps local authority to stop such large-scale plans. “We’re trying to do exactly what our forefathers did, and keep our property they worked so hard for,” said Ostrander.

As renewable energy proposals have flooded the flat, sunny and windy sweeps of Midwest farmland, they have sharply divided tight-knit rural communities.

Nationwide, opponents had used 395 local ordinances like the one in Ostrander’s township to halt green energy projects in 41 states by May 2023, according to a study by Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Even Michigan’s new state law, which takes effect this fall, is not sure to last. Opponents claim the legislation is an affront to the democratic process and are aiming for a referendum to return those decisions to the local level.

“We have deliberately kept the value of farm ground low,” said Kevon Martis, who leads the ballot initiative group, called Citizens for Local Choice. “It’s laying there cheap, and it’s a perfect target for high land-use-intensity developments like wind and solar. I just think that’s fundamentally wrong.”

Martis, a county commissioner, has been an organizer and outspoken critic against wind and solar projects in Michigan and elsewhere for more than a decade. Only in recent years have longtime family farmers like Ostrander, who named one of her goats Solar, emerged as unexpected Yes-in-My-Backyard supporters on the other side, lending developers political capital to get proposals over the finish line.

When township meetings draw a crowd, it’s traditionally been “the people who want to stop something,” said Matthew B. Eisenson, a senior fellow at Columbia’s Sabin Center, which has dispatched staffers to represent pro-energy farmers for free at the local level. If the supportive landowners don’t chime in, he said, “the impression on the siting board might be that it’s the developer versus the community — when in fact that’s not what’s going on.”

Scramble for sites

The Biden administration’s goal of net-zero emissions from the power sector by 2035, as well as state requirements on clean energy standards, have accelerated the scramble to find sites for a sea of upward-facing panels or spinning turbines. The renewable energy industry has reached nearly $130 billion, according to BloombergNEF.

Local zoning restrictions have increasingly been a thorn in its side. That’s prompted some states to act, particularly those where Democrats control both the governor’s mansion and the state legislature.

In one such state, Illinois, Governor JB Pritzker signed a law in 2023 barring local governments from vetoing renewable energy projects, so long as those projects met state standards. Wisconsin and Minnesota have had state siting authority for a decade, but Minnesota, where Democrats also hold the state government trifecta, further cut regulatory requirements for renewable energy projects over the past two years.

The renewable projects are “important at a statewide level, not just at a local level,” said Dan Scripps, chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission. “And that is reflected in terms of having the state have a role in the process, if ultimately it gets bogged down at the local level.”

Developers typically need five to 10 acres for every megawatt of solar capacity, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. In Michigan, the average project is estimated to generate 158 megawatts, which means it could require at least 790 acres.

So while a 10-acre solar farm might not have a huge impact on views or taxes, one that spans 600 football fields is large enough to generate significant positive and negative reaction — such as more tax revenue but also more sound pollution — within communities, said Sarah Mills, director of the Center for EmPowering Communities in the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute.

Consider White River Township. With its rolling hills and waterfront vistas of Lake Michigan, the town 50 miles northwest of Grand Rapids draws people specifically looking to commune with nature. Now residents, including many who lean Democratic and support renewable energy, are trying to accept that their views will soon include 1,700 acres of dark blue solar panels.


Sacrificing nearly one-fifth of the township’s total area is “heartbreaking,” said Mary Jo Ernst, a caretaker and artist whose family has lived in the area for 85 years.

Her neighbor, Shelly Grattafiori, said she and her husband put about $300,000 into renovating what they thought would be their “forever home” in White River. Instead, they’re considering selling before the solar farm takes root.

But with the state in charge of approving projects, moving anywhere in Michigan is a gamble, the women agreed. “With this new law, where do you go?” Ernst wondered.

The Michigan Farm Bureau, as well as statewide associations representing counties and bureaus, assailed the law as an overreach, even undemocratic.

“In my district, the people of Decatur spoke loudly and clearly when they shot down a solar ordinance” with 80% voting against it, State Representative Pauline Wendzel, a Republican, said after the bill was introduced last fall. “Now with this legislation, Democrats are telling Michigan residents that elections don’t matter, and their voices don’t count.”

Change in the neighborhood

Apex Clean Energy arrived in 2020 in Ostrander’s community of Milan Township, about 40 miles from Detroit. At the time, the company was in the midst of the kind of meteoric growth reflected by the industry as a whole.

The size of its staff was surging — it’s tripled to 450 people in the last five years — and its portfolio was, too. Today, Apex operates 30 clean energy sites generating eight gigawatts, enough capacity to power more than 3 million average American homes. Projects under development in Michigan range from a 50-megawatt solar farm in the southwest to a 375-megawatt wind farm farther north.

“Those farmer voices really do matter in moving projects forward,” said Brian O’Shea, public engagement manager at Apex.

Ostrander, 57, is a lifelong resident of Milan Township and a past winner of Homemaker of the Year at the Monroe County Fair. After inheriting her family’s farm, she leases most of it to a local corn and bean farmer. But she also tends 35 goats and two horses and harvests 15 acres with her husband and a small crew.

Times have changed since the proceeds from the Ostrander family harvest was enough to put her and her sister through college. These days agricultural or commodity farming alone often can’t pay the bills — for the farmers or their communities, which need the tax revenue to cover basic services, she said.

Ostrander and her husband, Leonard, both have costly medical issues and just got a $473 bill for a CT scan. Renting her land just for corn and soybeans wasn’t going to cover her rising tax payments, let alone the work needed on two century-old homes she inherited, she said.

In 2022, she leased 100 acres to Apex to help build out Azalia Solar, which would generate enough electricity to power 26,000 homes, according to the developer’s website.

Ostrander declined to discuss details of the arrangement. More than half of large farmers nationally say they have been offered $1,000 per acre each year for solar leases, up from the roughly $750 per acre reported in 2021, according to a Purdue University study released in March.

Kevin Heath, Ostrander’s longtime neighbor and friend whose family owns swaths of land in the township, agreed to lease all 500 of his acres to Apex the same year. Heath figured that, compared to a residential housing project, solar is a lower-impact development that actually protects farmland. If he were motivated only by money, he said, he could sell to an out-of-state agriculture investment company for up to $7,000 an acre.

“If we wanted to be greedy, we could all sit right now in a pile of money,” Heath said.

The pushback from opponents in the 3,534-person township was intense. Heath said he could feel the contempt from people he had built decks for, gone to church with and known since kindergarten.

“Normally I would swing by and say ‘Hi’ if I’m going around the block,” Heath said one July afternoon, after driving through the neighborhood in his Ford pickup with his pitbull terrier, Bunny. “Not anymore.”

Heath, Ostrander and their allies soon confronted a reality: They were relatively large landowners, but outnumbered. Opponents launched recall elections and voted out two planning commissioners seen as pro-solar. In came board members who supported an ordinance banning solar on agricultural land.

Heath’s brother, Phil, had served for 14 years as Milan Township’s supervisor, an elected position that functions as the township manager and chief administrator. Days after a heated board meeting over the issue in October 2022, Phil Heath died of a heart attack.

He had struggled with health issues for years, his siblings said. Still, they are convinced that the stress from all the fighting accelerated his decline.

Kevin Heath now attributes his own high blood pressure to the renewables fight.

“I thought I was going to lose two brothers,” said their sister, Teresa Himes.

About 115 miles northwest, in Pine Township, Dick Farnsworth signed a wind energy lease in 2021 on his 316-acre property that would fund the preservation of century-old family homes, barns and other buildings on the farm. Apex Energy’s lease payments will generate at least $11,000 per year, enough to cover maintenance and property taxes, he said.

Farnsworth said he was thinking of the future: He just paid $40,000 to replace a barn roof, and likely will have to pay more when the property’s ancient septic system breaks. He’s afraid his children will be forced to sell the farm after he’s gone unless there’s a steady revenue stream. “We’ve got to think outside the box — and quick,” he said.

But opposition was swelling statewide before a shovel could hit the dirt. Businesses faced boycotts if the owners had signed renewables leases, families split up and township officials from across the state were recalled, he said.

The year after Farnsworth signed his lease, but before construction could begin, his township passed a wind ordinance banning turbines anywhere near lakes. Three sit within a few hundred feet of Farnsworth’s house.

Pine Township Supervisor Bill Drews, 73, said he was followed while driving, shoulder-checked in a hallway and threatened in the parking lot outside of a township board meeting — all because he did not come out directly opposing wind and solar development.

“I was sent unsigned letters basically saying, ‘You’ve bought into the big lie,’” Drews said. He’s still not sure which lie he had supposedly fallen for.

‘Forced industrialization’

On a clear, chilly summer Sunday, about 15 people gathered in a public park gazebo behind the town hall in Van Buren Township, a Detroit suburb. The event was a Republican forum to rally support for candidates, including one who could replace Michigan state Representative Reggie Miller, a Democrat and a backer of the law that limited local authority to block renewable energy projects.

Most of the attendees were decked out in red, white and blue, sitting at picnic tables and holding signs attacking Miller with slogans such as “Solar belongs on BROWNFIELDS not FARM FIELDS,” and “Don’t tread on me and our communities.” The scent of smoked hot dogs wafted around the makeshift stage.

Martis, the Lenawee County commissioner who organized the ballot initiative, said the debate over state siting control wasn’t partisan or even about renewable energy.

There are other ways to keep farmland profitable that aren’t “physically and aesthetically disruptive,” he said, such as engaging in agro-tourism and growing specialty crops like pumpkins. Renewable energy should instead use brownfields, commercial rooftops and landfills instead of productive farmland, Martis said.

“This is forced industrialization,” Martis said.

He and his allies had hoped to get the issue on this November’s ballot, but failed to get enough signatures this spring, sapping some of the momentum. They have until early August to gather enough signatures to get on the 2026 ballot.

Even if they fail, Martis is confident that more supporters will join the cause after the new law takes effect in November. That’s when projects of at least 50 megawatts will only need state approval, and residents might start seeing more solar panels and wind turbines sprout in their communities.

“We will never go away on this issue,” Martis said. “This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Another attendee at the event, Mark Bogi, said he wasn’t against solar energy in general but would like to keep it off productive farmland and away from the views that make his rural community home.

Bogi replaced Phil Heath as Milan Township supervisor. If anything, the renewable energy debate there intensified after Heath died, Bogi said.

“I’m just sad it’s going down this avenue,” he said. “It’s a heartache on both sides.”

'I don't care about the big power rivalries,' East Timor leader Ramos-Horta says

South China Morning Post
Thu, Aug 1, 2024

East Timor is not caught up in the rivalry between China and the United States and it will not take a side, President Jose Ramos-Horta said.

In an exclusive interview, he said Dili had "exceptionally good" relations with both powers "as we do with Australia, with Indonesia, with India, and so on".

Ramos-Horta also dismissed concerns over military cooperation between China and East Timor, also known as Timor Leste.

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"The irony is the country with a military presence in Timor Leste is not China, it is Australia, the United States and Portugal - three Western countries," the 74-year-old Nobel laureate said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a state visit to Beijing.

After upgrading diplomatic ties in September, China and East Timor have agreed to step up cooperation on everything from infrastructure, agriculture and trade to reducing poverty, according to a joint statement released after Ramos-Horta met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday.

The two sides also pledged to "closely interact at all levels in the military and police departments and to strengthen cooperation in such areas as personnel training, equipment and technology, joint exercises and training, police and law enforcement security".

Ramos-Horta and Xi shake hands after the two sides agreed to step up cooperation. Photo: AP alt=Ramos-Horta and Xi shake hands after the two sides agreed to step up cooperation. Photo: AP>


Ramos-Horta, the island nation's fifth president since it gained independence in 2002, said one potential area for military cooperation could be training East Timorese army engineers, though this had not yet been discussed.

"That would be the nature of the training, to equip our army to be able to assist in natural disasters in our own country, in doing what the US Navy Seabees [the construction battalions] have been doing - building schools, fixing schools, building clinics, fixing clinics and roads," he said.

As the leader of Asia's youngest nation, Ramos-Horta said his priority for cooperation with China would be development sectors like health, education and agriculture to help tackle the extreme poverty, malnutrition, water and sanitation issues in East Timor.

"If China is to deliver to us in five years free of extreme poverty, free of child malnutrition, stunting, and resolve the challenges of fresh clean water sanitation, I will be eternally, eternally grateful because I don't care about the big power rivalries - I care about the simple people," he said.

"If China can help our simple people, then China is my hero."

Once a Portuguese colony, East Timor declared independence in 1975 but was invaded by Indonesia nine days later.

East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1999 in a referendum supervised by the United Nations. After a wave of violence by the Indonesian military and its supporters and a three-year UN mission, East Timor became independent in 2002.

East Timor - which sits between Southeast Asia and Oceania - has made substantial economic progress since then, largely from oil and gas revenue, but it is still a "least developed country" and continues to grapple with issues such as food insecurity and a lack of infrastructure.

Meanwhile, ties with Indonesia have significantly improved and in 2018 East Timor signed a historic agreement with Australia to draw a median line as a permanent boundary in the Timor Sea, ending a decade-long dispute between the neighbours over rights to the sea's rich oil and gas reserves.

Under the treaty, East Timor also receives at least 70 per cent of royalty revenue from the Greater Sunrise field - the largest known petroleum resource in the Timor Sea. Previously, revenue was to be split evenly between the two countries.

On Tuesday, Ramos-Horta said the agreement between East Timor and Australia could provide inspiration for resolving the maritime disputes in the South China Sea, where tensions are soaring between rival claimants, particularly China and the Philippines.

Beijing's sweeping territorial claims in the resource-rich South China Sea, one of the world's busiest shipping routes, overlap with those of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations - which East Timor is expected to join next year - is in talks with China over a code of conduct for the waterway, but progress has been slow.

Ramos-Horta said differences should be resolved through bilateral conversation between the claimant states, and countries outside the region should not step in.

"The countries bordering the South China Sea are the custodians of the South China Sea - not any other extra regional power," he said. "So they are the custodians of what is at the surface and what is underground and they have the responsibility to refrain from acts of threat and coercion."

He said the rival claimants would have to make concessions if solutions are to be found.

"Win-win is very difficult to have a 100 per cent win," Ramos-Horta said. "And win-win means to be prepared to make concessions so that there's a regime that governs the South China Sea that is accepted by all."

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