US President holds separate calls with leaders from Qatar, Egypt over Gaza ceasefire talks
US President holds separate calls with leaders from Qatar, Egypt over Gaza ceasefire talks/node/2501671/world
US President holds separate calls with leaders from Qatar, Egypt over Gaza ceasefire talks
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US President Joe Biden speaks on the phone. (AFP file photo)
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People and health workers unearth bodies found at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 23, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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A person looks at a vehicle where employees from the World Central Kitchen (WCK), including foreigners, were killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the NGO as the Israeli military said it was conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this "tragic" incident, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza, Strip April 2, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Israeli forces shot dead 104 people when a crowd rushed towards aid trucks on February 29, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said. (AFP file photo)
US President holds separate calls with leaders from Qatar, Egypt over Gaza ceasefire talks
The danger of a military escalation in Rafah was also stressed, in how it would add catastrophe to an already worsening humanitarian crisis that would impact stability and security in the region, the statement said
Updated 30 April 2024
Reuters
CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi received a phone call on Monday from US President Joe Biden to discuss the latest developments in negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza and the dangers of a military escalation in Rafah, a statement from Egypt’s presidency said.
The spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency said the call also touched on the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, a main sticking point in any comprehensive ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.
A Hamas delegation is currently in Cairo to deliberate on Israel’s response to a ceasefire deal.
The danger of a military escalation in Rafah was also stressed, in how it would add catastrophe to an already worsening humanitarian crisis that would impact stability and security in the region, the statement said.
“President El-Sisi stressed the necessity of full and adequate access to humanitarian aid, reviewing the intensive Egyptian efforts in this regard.
The two presidents also stressed the necessity of working to prevent the expansion of the conflict and reaffirmed the importance of the two-state solution as the means to achieve security, peace, and stability in the region,” the Egyptian presidency statement said.
Biden also held a phone call late on Monday with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, whose country has also played a role as mediator to the conflict.
“During the call, they discussed developments in the situation in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories, and efforts of the two countries to reach an immediate and permanent ceasefire agreement in Gaza,” Qatar’s Emiri Diwan said in a statement.
US State Dept imposes visa restrictions on multiple people in South Sudan
Updated 11 sec ago
Reuters
WASHINGTON: The US Department of State said on Friday that it is imposing visa restrictions on multiple individuals responsible for the ongoing conflict in South Sudan.
“We note the continued failure of South Sudan’s leaders to use their nation’s resources to the benefit of its people, their failure to end public corruption and elite capture of the country’s resources, their failure to protect the people of South Sudan from abuses and violations of their human rights, including civil and political rights, and their failure to maintain peace,” the State Department said.
Senate approves 235th judge of Biden’s term, beating Trump’s tally
Updated 26 min 28 sec ago
AP
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden secured the 235th judicial confirmation of his presidency Friday, an accomplishment that exceeds his predecessor’s total by one after Democrats put extra emphasis on the federal courts following Donald Trump’s far-reaching first term, when he filled three seats on the Supreme Court. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., teed up votes on two California district judges, and they were likely to be the last judicial confirmations this year before Congress adjourns and makes way for a new, Republican-led Senate. The confirmation of Serena Raquel Murillo to be a district judge for the Central District of California broke Trump’s mark. Come next year, Republicans will look to boost Trump’s already considerable influence on the makeup of the federal judiciary in his second term. Biden and Senate Democrats placed particular focus on adding women, minorities and public defenders to the judicial rank. About two-thirds of Biden’s appointees are women and a solid majority of appointees are people of color. The most notable appointee was Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. “Prior to our effort, the number of women on the federal bench was really diminished. It was overwhelmingly white males,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “We consciously moved forward to bring more women to the bench, and believe me, we had a great talent pool to work with. So I think it’ll enhance the image of the court and its work product to bring these new judges on.” Biden also placed an emphasis on bringing more civil rights lawyers, public defenders and labor rights lawyers to expand the professional backgrounds of the federal judiciary. More than 45 appointees are public defenders and more than two dozen served as civil rights lawyers. While Biden did get more district judges confirmed than Trump, he had fewer higher-tier circuit court appointments than Trump — 45 compared to 54 for Trump. And he got one Supreme Court appointment compared with three for Trump. Republicans, much to Democrats’ frustration, filled Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the court the week before the 2020 presidential election. Ginsburg had passed away in September. Democrats also faced the challenge of confirming nominees during two years of a 50-50 Senate. Rarely a week went by in the current Congress when Schumer did not tee up votes on judicial confirmations as liberal groups urged Democrats to show the same kind of urgency on judges that Republicans exhibited under Trump. Some Senate Republicans were harshly critical of Biden’s choices. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said talk of diversity did not extend to the views of the nominees. “One of the consequences of the age of Trump is that it drove Democrats insane and it drove them to the extreme left, so they put people on the bench who were selected because they were extreme partisans,” Cruz said. Liberal-leaning advocacy groups said they are delighted with the number of judges Democrats secured, but even more so with the quality of the nominees. They said diversity in personal and professional backgrounds improves judicial decision-making, helps build public trust and inspires people from all walks of life to pursue legal careers. “For our federal judiciary to actually deliver equal justice for all, it really has to be for all, and that is one reason why we certainly applaud this administration for prioritizing both professional but also demographic diversity,” said Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Democrats showed newfound resolve on judicial confirmations. “They learned a lesson from the first Trump administration,” Grassley said. “Paying attention to the number of judges you get and the type of judges you put on the court is worth it.” Part of the urgency from Democrats came as they watched the nation’s highest court overturn abortion protections, eliminate affirmative action in higher education and weaken the federal government’s ability to protect the environment, public health and workplace safety through regulations. The cases showed that the balance of power in Washington extends to the judicial branch. Trump will inherit nearly three dozen judicial vacancies, but that number is expected to rise because of Republican-appointed judges who held off on retirement in hopes that a Republican would return to office and pick their replacements. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, acknowledged that the sense of accomplishment for Democrats is muted somewhat knowing that Trump will have another term to continue shaping the federal judiciary. “I’m not ready to uncork the champagne just because we’ve done some really good work over the last four years,” Blumenthal said. “We need to be prepared to work, hope for the best and try to defeat nominees who are simply unqualified. We have our work cut out for us. The prospects ahead are sobering.” Grassley promised that he’ll work to best Biden’s number. “Let me assure you, by January 20th of 2029, Trump will be bragging about getting 240 judges,” Grassley said.
US House approves bill to avert midnight shutdown, sends to Senate
House approves government funding bill on bipartisan basis
Bill now goes to Democratic-majority Senate
Updated 21 December 2024
Reuters
WASHINGTON: The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday that would avert a midnight government shutdown, defying President-elect Donald Trump’s demand to also greenlight trillions of dollars in new debt. The House voted 366-34 to approve the bill, the day after rejecting Trump’s debt ceiling demand. The Democratic-controlled Senate will also need to pass the bill to advance it to President Joe Biden, who the White House said would sign it into law to ensure the US government will be funded beyond midnight (0500 GMT Saturday), when current funding expires. The legislation would extend government funding until March 14, provide $100 billion for disaster-hit states and $10 billion for farmers. However, it would not raise the debt ceiling — a difficult task that Trump has pushed Congress to do before he takes office on Jan. 20. A government shutdown would disrupt everything from law enforcement to national parks and suspend paychecks for millions of federal workers. A travel industry trade group warned that a shutdown could cost airlines, hotels and other companies $1 billion per week and lead to widespread disruptions during the busy Christmas season. Authorities warned that travelers could face long lines at airports. The package resembled a bipartisan plan that was abandoned earlier this week after an online fusillade from Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who said it contained too many unrelated provisions. Most of those elements were struck from the bill — including a provision limiting investments in China that Democrats said would conflict with Musk’s interests there. “He clearly does not want to answer questions about how much he plans to expand his businesses in China and how many American technologies he plans to sell,” Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro said on the House floor. Musk, the world’s richest person, has been tasked by Trump to head a budget-cutting task force but holds no official position in Washington. The bill also left out Trump’s demand to the nation’s debt ceiling, which was resoundingly rejected by the House — including 38 Republicans — on Thursday. The federal government spent roughly $6.2 trillion last year and has more than $36 trillion in debt, and Congress will need to act to authorize further borrowing by the middle of next year. Representative Steve Scalize, the No. 2 House Republican, said lawmakers had been in touch with Trump but did not say whether he supported the new plan. Sources said the White House has alerted government agencies to prepare for an imminent shutdown. The federal government last shut down for 35 days during Trump’s first White House term over a dispute about border security. Previous fights over the debt ceiling have spooked financial markets, as a US government default would send credit shocks around the world. The limit has been suspended under an agreement that technically expires on Jan. 1, though lawmakers likely would not have had to tackle the issue before the spring.
A Russian official says a Ukrainian strike with US-supplied missiles kills 6
Updated 21 December 2024
AP
KYIV, Ukraine: A Ukrainian attack Friday on a town in Russia’s Kursk border region using US-supplied missiles killed six people, including a child, a senior local official said. The attack came hours after Ukrainian authorities said a Russian ballistic missile strike on Kyiv killed at least one person and wounded 13. Moscow claimed the Kyiv strike was in response to a Ukrainian strike on Russian soil using American-made weapons earlier this week. Ten other people in the Kursk town of Rylsk, including a 13-year-old, were hospitalized after Friday’s strike with HIMARS missiles, Kursk acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said. He provided no further details. Russia is trying to push back a Ukrainian incursion into Kursk that was launched in early August, but Ukraine’s troops are dug in. The truck-mounted HIMARS launchers fire GPS-guided missiles capable of hitting targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. The mobile launchers are hard for the enemy to spot and can quickly change position after firing to escape airstrikes. President Joe Biden last month authorized Ukraine to use US-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons. The move was a response to Russia deploying thousands of North Korean troops to reinforce its war effort, officials said. Shortly before sunrise Friday, at least three loud blasts were heard in Kyiv. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted five Iskander short-range ballistic missiles fired at the city. The attack knocked out heating to 630 residential buildings, 16 medical facilities and 30 schools and kindergartens, the city administration said. Falling missile debris caused damage and sparked fires in three districts. “We ask citizens to immediately respond to reports of ballistic attack threats, because there is very little time to find shelter,” the air force said. During the nearly three years since the war began, Russia has regularly bombarded civilian areas of Ukraine, often in an attempt to cripple the power grid and unnerve Ukrainians. Ukraine, struggling to hold back Russia’s bigger army on the front line, has attempted to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country’s war effort. The falling debris in Kyiv caused damage to around two dozen high-rise office buildings in the city center as well as the landmark Catholic Church of St. Nicholas and the Kyiv National Linguistic University. What may have been the blast wave from an intercepted low-flying missile also blew out windows and caused other damage at six embassies, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. About five hours later, air raid sirens rang out again. Valeriia Dubova, a 32-year-old photographer, took cover with many others in a crowded subway station. She said that in the morning attack, she sheltered at home and could feel the walls shaking. Outside, fire engines and ambulances raced down city streets, she said. “You could see that many buildings, high-rises, were damaged, with glass shards on the ground, far from the explosion epicenter,” she said. The Russian Defense Ministry said that the strike was in response to a Ukrainian missile attack on Russia’s Rostov border region two days earlier. That attack used six American-made Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, missiles and four Storm Shadow air-launched missiles provided by the United Kingdom, it said. That day, Ukraine claimed to have targeted a Rostov oil refinery as part of its campaign to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country’s war effort. Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied weapons to strike Russia has angered the Kremlin. At the United Nations on Friday, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia asserted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “is doing everything he can to undermine any peaceful initiatives and to provoke Russia into escalating the conflict.” Ukraine fired several American-supplied longer-range missiles into Russia for the first time on Nov. 19 after Washington eased restrictions on their use. That development prompted Russia to use a new hypersonic missile, called Oreshnik, for the first time. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that the missile could be used to target government buildings in Kyiv, though there have been no reports of an Oreshnik being used for a second time. Answering the Ukrainian attack on Rostov on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said the military carried out a group strike with “high-precision, long-range weapons” on the command center of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and another location where it said Ukraine’s Neptune missile systems are designed and produced. The attack also targeted Ukrainian ground-based cruise missile systems and US-made Patriot air defense systems, the Russian Defense Ministry said. “The objectives of the strike have been achieved. All objects are hit,” the ministry said in a Telegram post. Its claims could not immediately be verified. In other Russian attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine, six people, including a 15-year-old girl, were injured by missiles in Kryvyi Rih, regional authorities said. It was the second straight night of attacks in Zelensky’s hometown. Also, Russian artillery shelled the southern city of Kherson Friday morning, causing widespread damage and leaving around 60,000 people without power, regional Gov. Olesksandr Prokudin said.
French court hands down heavy sentences in teacher beheading trial
Updated 21 December 2024
AFP
PARIS: A French court on Friday handed heavy sentences to several men convicted of having played a role in the jihadist beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty in 2020 — a murder that horrified France. Paty, 47, was murdered in October 2020 by an 18-year-old Islamist radical of Chechen origin after showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class. His killer, Abdoullakh Anzorov, died in a shootout with police. Two friends of Anzorov, Naim Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, were on Friday convicted of complicity in the killing and jailed for 16 years. Prosecutors had accused them of having given Anzorov logistical support, including to buy weapons. Epsirkhanov admitted he had received 800 euros ($840) from his fellow Chechen Anzorov to find him a real gun but had not succeeded. Prosecutors said Boudaoud had accompanied Anzorov to buy two replica guns and steel pellets on the day of the attack. Two other defendants who took part in the hate campaign against Paty before his murder were convicted of terrorist criminal association. Brahim Chnina, the 52-year-old Moroccan father of a schoolgirl who falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures, was jailed for 13 years. His daughter, then aged 13, was not actually in the classroom at the time and earlier in the trial apologized to her former teacher’s family. Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a 65-year-old Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist, was jailed for 15 years. Chnina had posted messages and videos attacking Paty online. Sefrioui, founder of a now-banned pro-Hamas group, had denounced Paty as a “thug” in another video. He and Chnina spread the teenager’s lies on social networks with the aim, said prosecutors, to provoke “a feeling of hatred” to prepare the way for “several crimes.” Chnina spoke to Anzorov nine times by telephone in a four-day period after he published videos criticizing Paty, the investigation showed. But Sefrioui had told investigators he was only seeking “administrative sanctions.” “Nobody is saying that they wanted Samuel Paty to die,” prosecutor Nicholas Braconnay had told the court. “But by lighting thousands of fuses online, they knew that one of them would lead to jihadist violence against the blasphemous teacher.” The other four defendants, part of a network of jihadist sympathizers around Anzorov spreading inflammatory content online, were also convicted, receiving either jail or suspended sentences.
Paty, who has become a free-speech icon, had used the cartoons, first published in Charlie Hebdo magazine, as part of an ethics class to discuss freedom of expression laws in France. Blasphemy is legal in a nation that prides itself on its secular values, and there is a long history of cartoons mocking religious figures. In November, seven men and one woman went on trial, charged with contributing to the climate of hatred that led to the beheading of the history and geography teacher in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris. The case was heard by a court panel of professional judges in a trial that lasted seven weeks. Before the court’s ruling came on Friday, the family of Paty had accused the prosecution of leniency. Prosecutors had requested that some of the accused be acquitted, and had disputed the “terrorist intent” of the defendants. Paty’s sister Mickaelle told BFMTV that the demands by prosecutors were “very weak,” saying she feared that these would be confirmed by the court. “I think my brother died for nothing,” she said, and teachers were still being targeted by violence and threats, she added. Paty’s killing took place just weeks after Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons, which originally appeared in 2015. After the magazine first published them, Islamist gunmen stormed its offices, killing 12 people.
