US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has admitted he “did not handle this right” and should have told President Biden and the public about his prostate cancer diagnosis.
However, he said he didn’t order his staff to hide his condition.
“We did not handle this right and I did not handle this right. I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis. I take full responsibility,” Mr Austin said.
Mr Austin admitted his error in his first news conference since he was diagnosed.
His slow disclosure of his condition has prompted an internal Pentagon review and an inspector general review into his department’s notification processes.
Mr Austin was taken back to hospital by ambulance with severe pain 10 days after his surgery.
Image: Mr Austin is a step below the president on defence matters – and must be available
It emerged one of his staff asked paramedics not to use lights and sirens when collecting him from his Virginia home.
The 70-year-old passed decision-making authority to deputy defence secretary Kathleen Hicks, but did not inform her why.
Mr Austin is just below the president in the military chain of command and is required to be available at a moment’s notice to respond to any national security crisis.
“I never directed anyone to keep my January hospitalisation from the White House,” he told reporters on Thursday.
President Biden previously said it was poor judgement from Mr Austin not to tell him he was in intensive care.
However, he said he still had confidence in him.
Mr Austin worked from home for two weeks after being discharged on 15 January and returned to the Pentagon on Monday.
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2:32
How will US respond to drone attack?
He said “terrorist groups backed by Iran and funded by Iran” had been increasing attacks in the Middle East during a “dangerous moment” for the region.
However, he stopped short of blaming a particular group for the attack in Jordan.
“We will respond where we choose, when we choose and how we choose,” said the defence secretary.
But he stressed the US wanted to avoid a wider conflict while taking “necessary” action to protect their interests.
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Biden decided on response to drone attack
Mr Austin said that included freedom of navigation in the Red Sea – where the US and UK have targeted Houthi forces from Yemen who have been attacking commercial ships.
The response to the Jordan attack would be “multi-tiered”, Mr Austin said, and America would have the ability to strike back a number of times.
President Biden indicated this week that he had already decided how the US would hit back.
Dozens of Palestinians have gathered near the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrikes to perform Eid al Adha prayers.
They were surrounded by the debris and rubble of collapsed houses at the former site of the al Rahma mosque in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza to mark the start of the major holiday.
Commonly translated as the Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al Adha is the second of the two main Islamic holidays – alongside Eid al Fitr – when better-off Muslims commemorate Ibrahim’s test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing some of the meat to the poor.
Image: Palestinians hold prayers by the ruins of the al Rahma mosque.
Pic: Reuters
“Today, after the ninth month, more than 37,000 martyrs, more than 87,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed,” said Abdulhalim Abu Samra, a displaced Palestinian, after prayers in Khan Younis. “Our people live in difficult circumstances.”
In the nearby town of Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Muslims held their prayers in a school-turned-shelter, while some, including women and children, went to cemeteries to visit the graves of loved ones.
Image: The Dome of the Rock shrine at the al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. Pic: AP
Palestinians also gathered at the al Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, the site of the Dome of the Rock shrine.
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It comes against a the backdrop of the devastating Israel-Hamas war which has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional conflict.
The Israeli military has announced a “tactical pause” in its offensive in southern Gaza to allow the deliveries of more humanitarian aid.
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Image: Muslims hold Eid al Adha prayers in Nairobi. Pic: Reuters
Image: Muslim children play in Nairobi, Kenya. Pic: Reuters.
The suspension, which begins as Muslims started marking the major holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies, the military said.
Image: People attempt to catch balloons released after an Eid al-Adha prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo, Egypt. Pic: Reuters
Image: Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg, Russia. Pic: AP
Image: The al Amin mosque in downtown Beirut, Lebanon. Pic: Reuters
Most countries marked Eid al Adha on Sunday, while others, like Indonesia, will celebrate it on Monday.
Cities including Beirut, in Lebanon, Mosul in Iraq and Istanbul, in Turkey crowded with worshippers.
Image: Worshippers in Mosul. Pic: Reuters
In Egypt, balloons were released after prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo.
Muslims in Russia offered prayers at the Moscow Cathedral Mosque and gathered in Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg.
The summit was aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow was not invited, and its main ally China declined to attend.
Vladimir Putin is not ruling out talks with Ukraine, according to his spokesperson, who said guarantees would be needed to ensure the credibility of any negotiations.
It comes as Kremlin forces in Ukraine claim to have taken control of a village in Zaporizhzhia.
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‘We must bring each and every one of them home’
A joint communique from 80 countries said the UN Charter and “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty… can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
“The ongoing war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine continues to cause large-scale human suffering and destruction, and to create risks and crises with global repercussions,” the declaration said.
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Participants India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates were among those that did not sign up to the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners.
Brazil, which has “observer” status, also did not sign. With China, Brazil has jointly sought to plot alternative routes toward peace.
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Image: Rishi Sunak arrives at the peace conference. Pic: Reuters
Ursula von der Leyen, chief of the European Commission, said this weekend has brought peace closer to Ukraine, but that peace will not be achieved in one step.
“It was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war, he’s insisting on capitulation, he’s insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory – even territory that today is not occupied,” she said.
Analysts say the two-day conference is likely to have little concrete impact towards ending the war because the country leading and continuing it, Russia, was not invited.
Montenegro Prime Minister Milojko Spajic told the gathering on Sunday: “As a father of three, I’m deeply concerned by thousands of Ukrainian kids forcibly transferred to Russia or Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine.”
“We all at this table need to do more so that children of Ukraine are back in Ukraine,” he added.
Sweden has released a convicted Iranian war criminal as part of a prisoner swap deal.
Tehran and Stockholm carried out the switch, which saw a European Union diplomat and another man released in exchange for Hamid Nouri, who was found guilty of being complicit in the 1988 mass executions in the Islamic Republic.
Nouri was arrested in 2019 as he travelled in Swedenas a tourist.
This likely prompted the detention of the two Swedes, part of a long-running strategy by Iran to use those with ties abroad as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.
While Iranian state television claimed that Nouri had been “illegally detained”, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said diplomat Johan Floderus and a second Swedish citizen, Saeed Azizi, had been facing a “hell on earth”.
“Iran has made these Swedes pawns in a cynical negotiation game with the aim of getting the Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri released from Sweden,” Mr Kristersson said on Saturday.
“It has been clear all along that this operation would require difficult decisions – now the government has made those decisions.”
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State TV showed film of Nouri limping off a plane at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran and embracing his family.
“I am Hamid Nouri. I am in Iran,” he said. “God makes me free.”
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Oman mediated the release, its state-run news agency reported.
In 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Nouri to life in prison.
It identified him as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj.
The 1988 mass executions came at the end of Iran’s long war with Iraq.
Image: Johan Floderus reunites with his family at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. Pic: AP
After Iran’s then Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, backed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise attack.
Iran ultimately blunted their assault but the attack set the stage for the sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as “death commissions”.
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Mr Khomeini’s orders, though some argue that other top officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.
Late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month, was also involved in the mass executions.
Image: Saeed Azizi, left, and Johan Floderus at Arlanda Airport. Pic: AP
Mr Floderus was arrested in April 2022 at Tehran airport while returning from a holiday with friends. He had been held for months before his family and others went public about his detention.
Mr Azizi’s case was not as prominent but in February the group Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that the dual Iranian-Swedish national had been sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security”.