Dutch PM Rutte says he won’t run for fifth term in office

AMSTERDAM, July 10 (Reuters) – Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will not run for a fifth term in office and will leave politics following the elections in November, he said on Monday.

Rutte on Friday handed in the resignation of his fourth cabinet after failing to reach agreement on stricter immigration policies.

“In recent days there’s been a lot of speculation about what motivated me. The only answer is the Netherlands,” Rutte said in a speech in parliament before a debate on the collapse of the government.

“Yesterday morning I made the decision that I will not again be available as leader of the VVD. Once the new cabinet is formed after the elections, I will leave politics.”

Rutte’s decision will mark the end of his run as the longest serving government leader in Dutch history. He took over as Prime Minister in October, 2010.

Rutte, 56, will stay on as leader of a caretaker government until a new administration is formed after the next elections, a process which in the fractured Dutch political landscape usually takes months.

Reporting by Bart Meijer, Toby Sterling and Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Toby Chopra and Ed Osmond

Latin American nation declares emergency over rare disease

Peruvian authorities have reported a spike in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis

Peru has declared a state of emergency amid a rise in cases of the rare autoimmune disease Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). Nearly 200 instances have been reported in recent months, with authorities allocating over $3 million to procure drugs for treatment.

The measure, which will last 90 days, was announced by Peruvian Health Minister Cesar Vasquez during a visit to the National Institute of Neurological Sciences on Saturday.

“There has been a significant rise in recent weeks that forces us to take action as the state to protect the health and life of the people,” the official explained.

According to the minister, the state of emergency will allow the National Center for the Supply of Strategic Health Resources to purchase immunoglobulin for the treatment of GBS patients for the next two years.

Read more

African nation reports first death linked to Covid jab

More than 12 million Peruvian sol ($3.3 million) has been earmarked for this purpose, Vasquez revealed. Most regions already have sufficient medicines at their disposal, although a redistribution scheme has been set up to help those in need, the minister added.

According to official data, 182 GBS cases have been recorded in Peru to date. Of those, 31 remain in hospital and 147 have been discharged. Four people have succumbed to the disease since January.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes Guillain-Barre syndrome as a rare condition in which a person’s immune system attacks the peripheral nerves. This leads to temporary loss of muscle control as well as the absence of the ability to feel pain, temperature or touch.

Most patients are said to recover fully without any complications.

However, GBS can be life-threatening, especially when the chest muscles are affected, making breathing difficult. The condition can also render a patient unable to speak or swallow. In such extreme cases, patients are placed in intensive-care units for constant monitoring.

On average, 3%–5% of GBS sufferers end up dying from complications.

The disease is often preceded by bacterial or viral infection, or by vaccine administration or surgery. GBS occurs particularly frequently in Zika virus patients, with the pathogen believed to be a trigger.

There is currently no cure for GBS, and doctors simply alleviate the symptoms and try to shorten the condition’s duration.

US denies involvement in neo-Nazi prisoner transfer 

Washington will not comment on why Türkiye handed over Azov leaders to Ukraine, senior official said 

President Joe Biden’s administration has distanced itself from Türkiye’s decision to release five military commanders of the notorious Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov unit. Moscow has called Ankara’s move an agreement breach.  

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declined to speak about the motivation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in handing over the Azov leaders to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky during the latter’s visit to Türkiye on Saturday.  

“We weren’t a part of this and aren’t in a position, really, to comment on what Erdogan was trying to accomplish by it,” the US official told the media on board Air Force One on Sunday.  

The Ukrainians in question were captured by Russia last year in the city of Mariupol and handed over to Türkiye as part of a prisoner swap with Ukraine. The terms of the deal were that Ankara would keep them in custody until the armed conflict in Ukraine is over.  

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov assessed that Ankara broke its commitments under pressure to show solidarity with NATO ahead of this week’s summit of leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania.  

Some members of the press accompanying President Biden to the UK suggested that Erdogan’s behavior showed a perceived weakness of Russian President Vladimir Putin following last months’ aborted rebellion by Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group private military company.  

Read more

Hell on Earth: A mercenary’s life in Ukraine

Sullivan stated that Türkiye has had an ambivalent position regarding the Ukrainian conflict from the start. Ankara, for example, had supplied “some sophisticated weaponry” to Kiev, he said.  

“How much this is related to Prigozhin versus how much this is just related to [Erdogan’s] approach to the Ukraine conflict writ large, it’s hard for me to say,” the senior official added.  

Moscow considers Azov to be a terrorist group and has accused its members of committing war crimes during the battle for Mariupol.  

Western nations formerly considered the Ukrainian unit as extremist. A 2021 TIME magazine investigation detailed how Azov recruiters “made no secret of [their] neo-Nazi politics” when they reached out to “white supremacists from around the world” to find new members or inspire allies.   

Since the hostilities in Ukraine broke out in February 2022, Azov was rebranded in Western media as heroic defenders of their nation, who have overcome their origins.