After criticism, Spain museum alters name of Palestinian program
After criticism, Spain museum alters name of Palestinian program/node/2512111/world
After criticism, Spain museum alters name of Palestinian program
In a statement, the museum said it had renamed the program “Critical Thinking Gatherings, International Solidarity With Palestine” since the original name was considered “offensive to certain communities.” (AFP Filephoto for illustrative purposes)
After criticism, Spain museum alters name of Palestinian program
The museum had controversially called the program “From The River To the Sea”
Spain’s FCJE, an umbrella body representing the Jewish community, had denounced the original title of the program
Updated 17 May 2024
AFP
MADRID: Madrid’s Reina Sofia museum said Thursday it had changed the name of a pro-Palestinian program that the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community said furthered a narrative calling for Israel’s extermination.
The museum, one of Spain’s most visited which is home to Pablo Picasso’s historic Guernica painting about the horrors of war, had controversially called the program “From The River To the Sea” — a rallying cry among Palestinians.
The term refers to the borders of the British Palestine mandate between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea before Israel’s establishment in 1948. Some Jewish groups see it as calling for the destruction of Israel.
In a statement, the museum said it had renamed the program “Critical Thinking Gatherings, International Solidarity With Palestine” since the original name was considered “offensive to certain communities.”
The program includes lectures, conversations and meetings with Palestinian artists as well as two art installations, all aimed at demanding “an end of the war and genocide,” according to the museum’s website.
Spain’s FCJE, an umbrella body representing the Jewish community, had denounced the original title of the program.
“This slogan, considered anti-Semitic by the US House of Representatives, implies the elimination of Israel and its inhabitants... it also appears on maps at various rallies where Israel is erased,” it said in a statement.
Spain has been one of Europe’s most critical voices about Israel’s Gaza offensive and is working to rally other European capitals behind the idea of recognizing a Palestinian state.
The Gaza war began on October 7 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into southern Israel.
The unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a blistering retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 35,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Paris to deploy 4,000 police officers for France-Israel soccer match following violence in Amsterdam
Israeli fans were assaulted last week after a soccer game in Amsterdam by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, according to Dutch authorities
Updated 7 sec ago
AP
PARIS: Paris police said Sunday that 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for a France-Israel soccer match to ensure security in and around the stadium and on public transportation a week after violence against Israeli fans in Amsterdam.
France and Israel are playing in a UEFA Nations League match on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron will attend, the Elysee presidential palace said.
“There’s a context, tensions that make that match a high-risk event for us,” Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez said on French news broadcaster BFM TV, adding authorities “won’t tolerate” any violence.
Nuñez said that 2,500 police officers would be deployed around the Stade de France stadium, north of the French capital, in addition to 1,500 others in Paris and on public transportation.
“There will be an anti-terrorist security perimeter around the stadium,” Nuñez said. Security checks will be “reinforced,” he added, including with systematic pat-downs and bag searches.
Nuñez said that French organizers have been in contact with Israeli authorities and security forces in order to prepare for the match.
Israeli fans were assaulted last week after a soccer game in Amsterdam by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, according to Dutch authorities. Five people were treated at hospitals and dozens were arrested after the attacks, which were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Amsterdam, Israel and across Europe.
On Sunday, Dutch police detained several people for taking part in a demonstration in central Amsterdam that had been outlawed following the violence targeting Israeli fans, a local broadcaster reported.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed Friday that the France-Israel match would go ahead as planned.
“I think that for a symbolic reason we must not yield, we must not give up,” he said, noting that sports fans from around the world came together for the Paris Olympics this year to celebrate the “universal values” of sports.
Macron’s expected attendance not only is a show of support for the French team, but also aims as sending “a message of fraternity and solidarity following the intolerable antisemitic acts that followed the match in Amsterdam,” an official in Macron’s entourage said. The official couldn’t be named in line with the Elysee’s customary practices.
Trump pressures candidates for Senate GOP leader to fill his Cabinet right away
The Senate has not allowed presidents to make so-called recess appointments since a 2014 Supreme Court ruling limited the president’s power to do so
Updated 11 min 43 sec ago
AP
WASHINGTON: Days before Senate Republicans pick their new leader, President-elect Donald Trump is pressuring the candidates to change the rules and empower him to appoint some nominees without a Senate vote.
Republican Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida are running in a secret ballot election Wednesday to lead the GOP conference and replace longtime GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who is stepping aside from the job after almost two decades. All three have courted Trump’s support in the race, vying to show who is the closest to the president-elect as they campaign to become majority leader.
Trump has not endorsed in the race, but on Sunday he made clear that he expects the new leader to go around regular Senate order, if necessary, to allow him to fill his Cabinet quickly. In a statement on X and Truth Social, Trump said that the next leader “must agree” to allow him to make appointments when the chamber is on recess, bypassing a confirmation vote.
“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump posted, adding that positions should be filled “IMMEDIATELY!”
The Senate has not allowed presidents to make so-called recess appointments since a 2014 Supreme Court ruling limited the president’s power to do so. Since then, the Senate has held brief “pro-forma” sessions when it is out of town for more than 10 days so that a president cannot take advantage of the absence and start filling posts that have not been confirmed.
But with Trump’s approval paramount in the race, all three candidates quickly suggested that they might be willing to reconsider the practice. Scott replied to Trump, “100 percent agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible.” And Thune said in a statement that they must “quickly and decisively” act to get nominees in place and that “all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments.”
Cornyn said that “It is unacceptable for Senate Ds to blockade President @realDonaldTrump ‘s cabinet appointments. If they do, we will stay in session, including weekends, until they relent.” He noted that recess appointments are allowed under the Constitution.
The social media exchange on Sunday became a first test for the three candidates since Trump was decisively elected last week to a second term.
Trump’s relationship with Congress — especially the advice and consent role afforded to the Senate when it comes to nominations — was tumultuous in his first term as he chafed at resistance to his selections and sought ways to work around lawmakers. With Trump now entering a second term emboldened by his sweeping election victory, he is already signaling that he expects Senate Republicans, and by extension, their new leader, to fall in line behind his Cabinet selections.
Trump also posted on Sunday that the Senate should not approve any judges in the weeks before Republicans take power next year — a more difficult demand to fulfill as Democrats will control the floor, and hold the majority of votes, until the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3. Trump posted that “Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.”
With days to go, the race for Senate Republican leader is deeply in flux.
Thune and Cornyn are both well-liked, longtime senators who have served as deputies to McConnell and have been seen as the front-runners, despite past statements criticizing Trump. Scott — a longtime friend of Trump’s and fierce ally — has been seen as more of a longshot, but he has mounted an aggressive campaign in recent days on social media and elsewhere with the aim of getting Trump’s endorsement.
Senators who are close to Trump, such as Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida, have endorsed Scott, as have tech mogul Elon Musk and other people who have Trump’s ear.
“We have to be the change,” Scott said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “That’s what Donald Trump got elected to do, to be the change.”
All three candidates are promising that they will be more open and transparent than McConnell was and that they would give senators more power to get their priorities to the floor. They have also tried to make clear that they would have a much different relationship with Trump than McConnell, who once called the former president a “despicable human being” behind closed doors.
As the Senate haggles over how to fill Trump’s Cabinet, many of his allies are campaigning for the nominations. Former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said on ABC’s “This Week” that there are “a couple of great options on the table.” Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee who served as US ambassador to Japan between 2017 and 2019, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that one of his greatest honors was to represent the Trump administration overseas. He said he would advance “the positions that President Trump has articulated.”
“I’ll do that in whatever role necessary,” said Hagerty, who has endorsed Scott in the leadership race.
While Trump has made only one personnel move public so far, naming Susie Wiles his chief of staff, he has already ruled out two names for top positions.
Trump said Saturday that he would not be inviting Mike Pompeo, his former US Secretary of State and CIA chief, and Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as his UN ambassador and challenged him for the GOP nomination. Pompeo rallied with Trump on the night before Election Day.
“I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country,” Trump posted on his network Truth Social.
Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., reposted on X a message by podcaster Dave Smith suggesting to put pressure to “keep all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration.”
“The ‘stop Pompeo’ movement is great, but it’s not enough,” Smith posted on X. “America First: screw the war machine!”
Trump on Day 1: Begin deportation push, pardon Jan. 6 rioters and make his criminal cases vanish
List also calls for rolling back Biden administration policies on education, reshaping the federal government by firing potentially thousands of federal employees he believes are secretly working against him
Updated 30 min ago
AP
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has said he wouldn’t be a dictator — “except for Day 1.” According to his own statements, he’s got a lot to do on that first day in the White House.
His list includes starting up the mass deportation of migrants, rolling back Biden administration policies on education, reshaping the federal government by firing potentially thousands of federal employees he believes are secretly working against him, and pardoning people who were arrested for their role in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill,” he said of his Day 1 plans.
When he took office in 2017, he had a long list, too, including immediately renegotiating trade deals, deporting migrants and putting in place measures to root out government corruption. Those things didn’t happen all at once.
How many executive orders in the first week? “There will be tens of them. I can assure you of that,” Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News on Sunday.
Here’s a look at what Trump has said he will do in his second term and whether he can do it the moment he steps into the White House: Make most of his criminal cases go away, at least the federal ones
Trump has said that “within two seconds” of taking office that he would fire Jack Smith, the special counsel who has been prosecuting two federal cases against him. Smith is already evaluating how to wind down the cases because of long-standing Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
Smith charged Trump last year with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Special Counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media on AUg. 1, 2023, about an indictment of former President Donald Trump. (AP/File)
Trump cannot pardon himself when it comes to his state conviction in New York in a hush money case, but he could seek to leverage his status as president-elect in an effort to set aside or expunge his felony conviction and stave off a potential prison sentence.
A case in Georgia, where Trump was charged with election interference, will likely be the only criminal case left standing. It would probably be put on hold until at least 2029, at the end of his presidential term. The Georgia prosecutor on the case just won reelection. Pardon supporters who attacked the Capitol
More than 1,500 people have been charged since a mob of Trump supporters spun up by the outgoing president attacked the Capitol almost nearly four years ago.
Trump launched his general election campaign in March by not merely trying to rewrite the history of that riot, but positioning the violent siege and failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. As part of that, he called the rioters “unbelievable patriots” and promised to help them “the first day we get into office.”
Supporters of Donald Trump climb the west wall of the US Capitol Building in Washington on January 6, 2021. (AP/File)
As president, Trump can pardon anyone convicted in federal court, District of Columbia Superior Court or in a military court-martial. He can stop the continued prosecution of rioters by telling his attorney general to stand down.
“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” Trump said on his social media platform in March when announcing the promise. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.” Dismantle the ‘deep state’ of government workers
Trump could begin the process of stripping tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections, so they could be more easily fired.
He wants to do two things: drastically reduce the federal workforce, which he has long said is an unnecessary drain, and to “totally obliterate the deep state” — perceived enemies who, he believes, are hiding in government jobs.
Within the government, there are hundreds of politically appointed professionals who come and go with administrations. There also are tens of thousands of “career” officials, who work under Democratic and Republican presidents. They are considered apolitical workers whose expertise and experience help keep the government functioning, particularly through transitions.
Trump wants the ability to convert some of those career people into political jobs, making them easier to dismiss and replace with loyalists. He would try to accomplish that by reviving a 2020 executive order known as “Schedule F.” The idea behind the order was to strip job protections from federal workers and create a new class of political employees. It could affect roughly 50,000 of 2.2 million civilian federal employees.
Democratic President Joe Biden rescinded the order when he took office in January 2021. But Congress failed to pass a bill protecting federal employees. The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s chief human resources agency, finalized a rule last spring against reclassifying workers, so Trump might have to spend months — or even years — unwinding it.
Trump has said he has a particular focus on “corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”
Beyond the firings, Trump wants to crack down on government officials who leak to reporters. He also wants to require that federal employees pass a new civil service test. Impose tariffs on imported goods, especially those from China
Trump promised throughout the campaign to impose tariffs on imported goods, particularly those from China. He argued that such import taxes would keep manufacturing jobs in the United States, shrink the federal deficit and help lower food prices. He also cast them as central to his national security agenda.
“Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented,” Trump said during a September rally in Flint, Michigan.
This photo taken on April 18, 2024 shows BYD electric cars for export waiting to be loaded onto a ship at a port in Yantai, in eastern China's Shandong province. (AFP)
The size of his pledged tariffs varied. He proposed at least a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on imported goods, a 60 percent import tax on goods from China and a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico — if not more.
Trump would likely not need Congress to impose these tariffs, as was clear in 2018, when he imposed them on steel and aluminum imports without going through lawmakers by citing Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. That law, according to the Congressional Research Service, gives a president the power to adjust tariffs on imports that could affect US national security, an argument Trump has made.
“We’re being invaded by Mexico,” Trump said at a rally in North Carolina this month. Speaking about the new president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump said: “I’m going to inform her on Day 1 or sooner that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25 percent tariff on everything they send into the United States of America.” Roll back protections for transgender students
Trump said during the campaign that he would roll back Biden administration action seeking to protect transgender students from discrimination in schools on the first day of his new administration.
Opposition to transgender rights was central to the Trump campaign’s closing argument. His campaign ran an ad in the final days of the race against Vice President Kamala Harris in which a narrator said: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
An activist holds a sign calling for federal protections of transgender rights, in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on April 1, 2023. (AFP)
The Biden administration announced new Title IX protections in April that made clear treating transgender students differently from their classmates is discrimination. Trump responded by saying he would roll back those changes, pledging to do some on the first day of his new administration and specifically noting he has the power to act without Congress.
“We’re going to end it on Day 1,” Trump said in May. “Don’t forget, that was done as an order from the president. That came down as an executive order. And we’re going to change it — on Day 1 it’s going to be changed.”
It is unlikely Trump will stop there.
Speaking at a Wisconsin rally in June, Trump said “on Day 1” he would “sign a new executive order” that would cut federal money for any school “pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the lives of our children.”
Trump hasn’t said how he would try to cut schools’ federal money, and any widespread rollback would require action from Congress. Drill, drill, drill
Trump is looking to reverse climate policies aimed at reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
With an executive order on Day 1, he can roll back environmental protections, halt wind projects, scuttle the Biden administration’s targets that encourage the switch to electric cars and abolish standards for companies to become more environmentally friendly.
He has pledged to increase production of US fossil fuels, promising to “drill, drill, drill,” when he gets into office on Day 1 and seeking to open the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling, which he claims would lower energy costs. Settle the war between Russia and Ukraine
Trump has repeatedly said he could settle the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day.
When asked to respond to the claim, Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.”
Rescuers clean debris in the courtyard of a house following a Ukrainian drone attack in the village of Stanovoye, Moscow region, on Nov. 10, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. (AFP)
Leavitt, the Trump press secretary, told Fox News after Trump on Wednesday was declared the winner of the election that he would now be able to “negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.” She later said, “It includes, on Day 1, bringing Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table to end this war.”
Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago. Trump, who makes no secret of his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has criticized the Biden administration for giving money to Ukraine to fight the war.
At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” He said that would happen after he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin. Begin mass deportations of migrants in the US
Speaking last month at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York, Trump said: “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.”
Trump can direct his administration to begin the effort the minute he arrives in office, but it’s much more complicated to actually deport the nearly 11 million people who are believed to be in the United States illegally. That would require a huge, trained law enforcement force, massive detention facilities, airplanes to move people and nations willing to accept them.
Trump has said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act. That rarely used 1798 law allows the president to deport anyone who is not an American citizen and is from a country with which there is a “declared war” or a threatened or attempted “invasion or predatory incursion.”
He has spoken about deploying the National Guard, which can be activated on orders from a governor. Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, said sympathetic Republican governors could send troops to nearby states that refuse to participate.
Asked about the cost of his plan, he told NBC News: “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — really, we have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.”
After hurricanes, two earthquakes jolt crisis-hit Cuba
The island suffered a nation-wide blackout on October 18 when its biggest power plant failed and it was then hit by Hurricane Oscar two days later.
The US Geological Survey measured the second, more powerful tremor on Sunday at a magnitude of 6.8 and 14.6 miles (23.5 kilometers) deep, some 25 miles off the coast of Bartolome Maso, in southern Granma province
Updated 48 min 56 sec ago
AFP
HAVANA: Two powerful earthquakes rocked southern Cuba in quick succession on Sunday, US geologists said, just days after the island was struck by a hurricane that knocked out power nationwide.
The quakes cracked walls and damaged homes, but did not appear to have caused any deaths, according to preliminary reports.
They left many residents running into the streets and badly shaken so soon after the passage of Hurricane Rafael, a category 3 storm, which struck the island last Wednesday.
“It’s the last thing we needed,” Dalia Rodriguez, a housewife from the town of Bayama in southern Cuba, told AFP, adding that a wall of her house had been damaged.
The US Geological Survey measured the second, more powerful tremor on Sunday at a magnitude of 6.8 and 14.6 miles (23.5 kilometers) deep, some 25 miles off the coast of Bartolome Maso, in southern Granma province.
It came just an hour after a first tremor, which the USGS put at a magnitude of 5.9.
The quakes are the latest events in a cycle of emergencies for the Communist-run island following two hurricanes and two major blackouts in the last three weeks.
The island suffered a nation-wide blackout on October 18 when its biggest power plant failed and it was then hit by Hurricane Oscar two days later.
The effects of last week’s Hurricane Rafael have sparked rare protests, with an unspecified number of people arrested, according to authorities.
Cuba has been suffering hours-long power cuts for months and is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the breakup of key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s — marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.
The state-run newspaper Granma said no deaths had been immediately reported from Sunday’s quakes, but that they had been felt throughout eastern and central provinces of the Caribbean island nation.
“Here people quickly took to the streets because the ground moved very strongly,” Andres Perez, a 65-year-old retiree who lives in downtown Santiago de Cuba, told AFP via telephone of the first quake.
“It felt very strong, really, my wife is a bundle of nerves,” he added.
“There are houses with cracked walls, others had walls falling down and some had their roofs collapsed,” Karen Rodriguez, a 28-year-old hairdresser, told AFP from Caney de las Mercedes, a small town in Bartolome Maso.
Other residents in Bayamo, a city of some 140,000 people, described street poles swaying.
“People got scared, everyone came running out of the houses very scared,” 24-year-old welder Livan Chavez told AFP.
The US tsunami warning system said no tsunami warning had been issued.
Hurricane Rafael left residents in Cuba without power for two days.
With concerns of instability on the rise, President Miguel Diaz-Canel has warned that his government will not tolerate attempts to “disturb public order.”
Local prosecutors said Saturday that an unspecified number of people had been arrested after demonstrations in the wake of Hurricane Rafael.
Around 85 percent of residents of the capital had had their power restored on Sunday, according to the government, while the two worst-hit provinces in the west, Artemisa and Pinar del Rio, remain in the dark.
Trump, Scholz agree to work toward ‘return to peace in Europe’
Scholz underlined his government’s willingness to continue the decades-long successful US-German cooperation, says spokesman
In their first phone call last week, Scholz told Trump: “We’re better off together. Together we can achieve much more than against each other.”
Updated 11 November 2024
AFP
BERLIN: US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz by phone, Berlin said, adding that they “agreed to work together toward a return to peace in Europe.”
Scholz — mired in a political crisis and facing snap elections sometime in early 2025 — congratulated Trump a second time on his election victory, according to the chancellor’s spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
“Both exchanged views on the German-American relationship and the current geopolitical challenges,” Hebestreit said in a brief statement.
“The chancellor underlined the government’s willingness to continue the decades-long successful cooperation between the governments of both countries.
“They also agreed to work together toward a return to peace in Europe.”
Trump’s election is seen as carrying the potential to upend the almost three-year Ukraine conflict, as he insists on a quick end to the fighting and casts doubt on Washington’s multi-billion-dollar support for Kyiv.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to quickly end the Ukraine war — even before he is sworn into office — but without detailing his thinking.
Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported earlier Sunday. The president-elect’s representatives did not immediately respond when asked by AFP for comment.
During his last term in the White House, Trump berated NATO ally Germany for what he deemed insufficient defense spending as well as trade and other issues.
Scholz had already congratulated Trump on Wednesday and urged continued close transatlantic ties, telling him in English: “We’re better off together.”
“Together we can achieve much more than against each other,” added the center-left leader of Europe’s biggest economy, who plans to run again in the upcoming elections.
