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Pence Says Trump Indictment Sends ‘Terrible Message’ About US Justice

Former US Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the National Review Institute's 2023 Ideas Summit in Washington, DC, US, 31 March 2023. (EPA)
Former US Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the National Review Institute's 2023 Ideas Summit in Washington, DC, US, 31 March 2023. (EPA)
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Pence Says Trump Indictment Sends ‘Terrible Message’ About US Justice

Former US Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the National Review Institute's 2023 Ideas Summit in Washington, DC, US, 31 March 2023. (EPA)
Former US Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the National Review Institute's 2023 Ideas Summit in Washington, DC, US, 31 March 2023. (EPA)

The indictment of former US President Donald Trump sends a "terrible message" to the world about American justice and will encourage dictators to abuse power, former Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday.

"There are dictators and authoritarians around the world that will point to that to justify their own abuse of their own so-called justice system," Pence, Trump's former vice president and a potential rival for the Republican Party's 2024 White House nomination, said during an interview at the National Review's Ideas Summit.

Trump is due to be fingerprinted and photographed in a New York courthouse next week as he becomes the first former president to face criminal charges, in a case involving a 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump, who is mounting a comeback bid for the presidency he lost in the 2020 election, was indicted on Thursday in New York.

Pence has joined fellow Republicans and Trump's other potential 2024 rivals in condemning the indictment, calling it an "outrage."

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Study: Highest Number of Conflicts Worldwide in 2024 Since 1946

Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Study: Highest Number of Conflicts Worldwide in 2024 Since 1946

Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The world saw the highest number of armed conflicts in almost 80 years in 2024, dethroning 2023 as a record year, a Norwegian study published Wednesday showed, highlighting the risks linked to a US disengagement.

Last year, 61 conflicts were registered in the world across 36 countries, with some countries experiencing several simultaneous conflicts, the report by the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (Prio) said.

In 2023, there were 59 conflicts in 34 countries, AFP reported.

"This is not just a spike -- it's a structural shift," said Siri Aas Rustad, the main author of the report which covers trends in armed conflicts in the period 1946-2024.

"The world today is far more violent, and far more fragmented, than it was a decade ago," she said.

Africa remained the most ravaged continent, with 28 conflicts involving at least one state, followed by Asia with 17, the Middle East with 10, Europe with three and the Americas with two.

More than half of these countries experienced two or more conflicts.

The number of deaths resulting from fighting remained around the same level as in 2023, at about 129,000, making 2024 the fourth-deadliest year since the end of the Cold War in 1989, the study said.

The death toll was led by the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, as well as clashes in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

"Now is not the time for the United States -– or any global power -– to retreat from international engagement," Rustad said.

"Isolationism in the face of rising global violence would be a profound mistake with long-term human life consequences," she said, a reference to US President Donald Trump's "America First" campaign.

"It is a mistake to assume the world can look away. Whether under President Trump or any future administration, abandoning global solidarity now would mean walking away from the very stability the US helped build after 1945," she said.

The study is based on data compiled by Sweden's Uppsala University.