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Dutch government survives dispute over Amsterdam violence

Dutch government survives dispute over Amsterdam violence
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof saved his governing coalition on Friday despite threats of an exodus by cabinet members over the right-wing government's response to violence against Israeli soccer fans last week. (AFP/File)
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Updated 16 November 2024
Reuters
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Dutch government survives dispute over Amsterdam violence

Dutch government survives dispute over Amsterdam violence
  • Junior Finance Minister Nora Achahbar unexpectedly quit the cabinet on Friday to protest claims by some politicians that Dutch youths of Moroccan descent attacked Israeli fans
  • “We have reached the conclusion that we want to remain, as a cabinet for all people in the Netherlands,” Schoof said
Updated 16 November 2024
Reuters
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AMSTERDAM: Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof saved his governing coalition on Friday despite threats of an exodus by cabinet members over the right-wing government’s response to violence against Israeli soccer fans last week.
Junior Finance Minister Nora Achahbar unexpectedly quit the cabinet on Friday to protest claims by some politicians that Dutch youths of Moroccan descent attacked Israeli fans in Amsterdam around the Nov. 7 match between Dutch side Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Her resignation triggered a crisis cabinet meeting at which four ministers from her centrist NSC party also threatened to quit. If they had, the coalition would have lost its majority in parliament.
“We have reached the conclusion that we want to remain, as a cabinet for all people in the Netherlands,” Schoof said at a news conference late on Friday in The Hague.
Last week’s violence was roundly condemned by Israeli and Dutch politicians, with Amsterdam’s mayor saying “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” had attacked Israeli fans.
The city’s police department has said Maccabi fans were chased and beaten by gangs on scooters. Police also said the Israeli fans attacked a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag.
Achahbar, a former judge and public prosecutor who was born in Morocco, felt comments by several political figures were hurtful and possibly racist, De Volkskrant daily reported.
“Polarization in the recent weeks has had such an effect on me that I no longer can, nor wish to fulfil my position in this cabinet,” Achahbar said in a statement.
Schoof, a former civil servant who does not have a party affiliation, denied any ministers in the cabinet are racist. Details of the cabinet discussion were not disclosed.
The coalition is led by the anti-Muslim populist party PVV of Geert Wilders, which came top in a general election a year ago. The government was installed in July after months of tense negotiations.
Wilders, who is not a cabinet member, has repeatedly said Dutch youth of Moroccan descent were the main attackers of the Israeli fans, although police have not specified the backgrounds of suspects.
Schoof said on Monday the incidents showed that some youth in the Netherlands with immigrant backgrounds did not share “Dutch core values.”

Topics: War on Gaza Amsterdam Dick Schoof Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv Moroccan

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Man accused in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing faces federal charge that’s eligible for death penalty

Man accused in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing faces federal charge that’s eligible for death penalty
Updated 20 min 49 sec ago
AP
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Man accused in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing faces federal charge that’s eligible for death penalty

Man accused in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing faces federal charge that’s eligible for death penalty
Updated 20 min 49 sec ago
AP
NEW YORK: The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was whisked back to New York by plane and helicopter Thursday to face new federal charges of stalking and murder, which could bring the death penalty if he’s convicted.
Luigi Mangione was held without bail following a Manhattan federal court appearance, capping a whirlwind day that began in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week in the Dec. 4 attack on Brian Thompson.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate had been expected to be arraigned Thursday on a state murder indictment in a killing that at once rattled the business community and galvanized some health insurance critics, but the federal charges preempted that appearance. The cases will now proceed on parallel tracks, prosecutors said, with the state charges expected to go to trial first.
Mangione, shackled at the ankles and wearing dress clothes, said little during the 15-minute proceeding as he sat between his lawyers in a packed federal courtroom.
He nodded as a magistrate judge informed him of his rights and the charges against him, occasionally leaning forward to a microphone to tell her he understood.
After the hearing, a federal marshal handed Mangione’s lawyers a bag containing his belongings, including the orange prison jumpsuit he had worn to court in Pennsylvania.
Mangione had been held in Pennsylvania since his Dec. 9 arrest while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, about 233 miles (37 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
At a hearing there Thursday morning, Mangione agreed to be returned to New York and was immediately turned over to at least a dozen New York Police Department officers who took him to an airport and a plane bound for Long Island.
He then was flown to a Manhattan heliport, where he was walked slowly up a pier by a throng of officers with assault rifles — a contingent that included New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
The federal complaint filed Thursday charges Mangione with two counts of stalking and one count each of murder through use of a firearm and a firearms offense. Murder by firearm carries the possibility of the death penalty, though federal prosecutors will determine whether to pursue that path in coming months.
In a state court indictment announced earlier this week, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Mangione with murder as an act of terrorism, which carries a possible sentence of life in prison without parole. New York does not have the death penalty.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said it’s a “highly unusual situation” for a defendant face simultaneous state and federal cases.
“Frankly I’ve never seen anything like what is happening here,” said Friedman Agnifilo, a former top deputy in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
She reserved the right to seek bail at a later point and declined to comment as she left the courthouse.
Mangione, of Towson, Maryland, is accused of ambushing the 50-year-old Thompson as the executive arrived to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition investigators found at the scene, echoing a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims.
The gunman then pedaled a bicycle through Central Park, took a taxicab to a bus station and then rode the subway to a train station before fleeing to Pennsylvania, authorities said.
There, a McDonald’s customer noticed that Mangione looked like the person in surveillance photos police were circulating of the gunman, prosecutors said.
When he was arrested, they say, Mangione had the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, fake IDs and about $10,000.
According to the federal complaint, Mangione also had a spiral notebook that included several handwritten pages expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives. UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the US, though the insurer said Mangione was never a client.
An August entry said that “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box,” according to the filing. An entry in October “describes an intent to ‘wack’ the CEO of one of the insurance companies at its investor conference,” the document said.
Mangione initially fought attempts to return him to New York. In addition to waiving extradition Thursday, he waived a preliminary hearing on forgery and firearms charges in Pennsylvania.
The killing unleashed an outpouring of stories about resentment toward US health insurance companies while also shaking corporate America after some social media users called the shooting payback.
Mangione, a computer science graduate from a prominent Maryland family, repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgery last year had eased his chronic back pain, encouraging people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves if told they just had to live with it.
In a Reddit post in late April, he advised someone with a back problem to seek additional opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, say the pain made it impossible to work.
“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I’ve found that the medical industry responds to these key words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it’s impacting your quality of life.”
He apparently cut himself off from family and close friends in recent months. His family reported him missing in San Francisco in November.
Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, was trained as an accountant. A married father of two high-schoolers, he had worked at UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021.

Trump backs new GOP plan to fund government and raise debt limit as shutdown nears

Trump backs new GOP plan to fund government and raise debt limit as shutdown nears
Updated 20 December 2024
AP
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Trump backs new GOP plan to fund government and raise debt limit as shutdown nears

Trump backs new GOP plan to fund government and raise debt limit as shutdown nears
Updated 20 December 2024
AP
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump announced “success” in coming up with a new plan to fund the government and suspend the debt ceiling a day before a government shutdown, urging Congress to swiftly pass it, with House votes as soon as Thursday evening.
Trump’s social media post landed as Republicans said they had narrowed in on a tentative accord after grueling closed-door talks. The new plan would keep government running for three more months, add $100.4 billion in disaster assistance including for hurricane-hit states, and allow more borrowing through Jan. 30, 2027, Republicans said.
“SUCCESS in Washington! Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal,” Trump posted.
Next steps were highly uncertain, and it was particularly unclear if enough Democrats, who votes would certainly be needed on any package in the face of hard-line Republican opposition, were on board — or even brought into any negotiations.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats were sticking with the original deal they struck with Johnson and called the new one “laughable.”
“It’s not a serious proposal,” Jeffries said as he walked to Democrats’ own closed-door caucus meeting. Inside, Democrats were chanting, “Hell, no!”
A government shutdown at risk, Johnson has been fighting to figure out how to meet Trump’s sudden demands — and keep his own job — while federal offices are being told to prepare to shutter operations ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline.
The new proposal whittles the 1,500-page bill to 116 pages and drops a number of add-ons — notably the first payraise for lawmakers in more than a decade, which could have allowed as much as a 3.8 percent bump. That drew particular scorn as Trump ally Elon Musk turned his social media army against the bill.
The slimmed-down package does include federal funds to rebuild Baltimore’s collapsed Key Bridge, but dropped a separate land transfer that could have paved the way for a new Washington Commanders football stadium. It drops a long list of other bipartisan bills that had support as lawmakers in both parties try to wrap work for the year. It extends government funds through March 14.
Trump said early Thursday that Johnson will “easily remain speaker” for the next Congress if he “acts decisively and tough” in coming up with a new plan to also raise the debt limit, a stunning request just before the Christmas holidays that has put the beleaguered speaker in a bind.
And if not, the president-elect warned of trouble ahead for Johnson and Republicans in Congress.
“Anybody that supports a bill that doesn’t take care of the Democrat quicksand known as the debt ceiling should be primaried and disposed of as quickly as possible,” Trump told Fox News Digital.
The tumultuous turn of events, coming as lawmakers were preparing to head home for the holidays, sparks a familiar reminder of what it’s like in Trump-run Washington. Trump led Republicans into the longest government shutdown in history during the 2018 Christmas season, and interrupted the holidays in 2020 by tanking a bipartisan COVID-relief bill and forcing a do-over.
For Johnson, who faces his own problems ahead of a Jan. 3 House vote to remain speaker, Trump’s demands kept him working long into the night to broker a new deal. Vice President-elect JD Vance joined the late-night meetings at the Capitol, bringing his young son in pajamas.
Trump’s allies even floated the far-fetched idea of giving billionaire Musk the speaker’s gavel, since the speaker is not required to be a member of the Congress.
But adding an increase in the debt ceiling to what had been a bipartisan package is a show-stopper for Republicans who routinely vote against more borrowing.
While Democrats have floated their own ideas in the past for lifting or even doing away with the debt limit caps that have created some of the toughest debates in Congress — Sen. Elizabeth Warren had suggested as much — they appear to be in no bargaining mood to save Johnson from Trump — even before the president-elect is sworn into office.
“Here we are once again in chaos,” said House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, who detailed the harm a government shutdown would cause Americans. “And what for? Because Elon Musk, an unelected man, said, ‘We’re not doing this deal, and Donald Trump followed along.’”
The current debt limit expires Jan. 1, 2025, and threatens to bog down the start of the new administration with months of negotiations to raise it. Trump wants the problem off the table before he joins the White House.
As senior Republicans broke from a Thursday morning meeting in the House speaker’s office there was no resolution in sight — a preview of what’s to come when Republicans control Congress and Trump is in the White House in the new year.
Rep. Steve Womack, an Arkansas Republican and senior appropriator, said the collapse of a bipartisan stopgap funding deal this week would “probably be a good trailer right now for the 119th Congress.”
Federal funding is scheduled to expire at midnight Friday as a current temporary government funding bill runs out.
The bipartisan compromise brokered between Johnson and the Democrats, whose support will be needed in the deeply split House and Senate to ensure passage, outraged conservatives for its spending and extras.
Musk, in his new foray into politics, led the charge. The wealthiest man in the world used his social media platform X to amplify the unrest, and GOP lawmakers were besieged with phone calls to their offices telling them to oppose the plan.
Trump told Johnson to start over — with the new demand on the debt limit, something that generally takes months to negotiate and that his own party generally opposes.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget had provided initial communication to agencies about possible shutdown planning last week, according to an official at the agency.

Son scores direct from a corner as Tottenham beats Man United 4-3 in the English League Cup

Son scores direct from a corner as Tottenham beats Man United 4-3 in the English League Cup
Updated 20 December 2024
AP
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Son scores direct from a corner as Tottenham beats Man United 4-3 in the English League Cup

Son scores direct from a corner as Tottenham beats Man United 4-3 in the English League Cup
Updated 20 December 2024
AP
Son Heung-min scored directly from a corner to fire Tottenham into the English League Cup semifinals with a thrilling 4-3 win over Manchester United on Thursday.
Son's spectacular strike in the 88th-minute at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium came as Spurs tried to hold off a dramatic comeback from United, having led 3-0 in the second half.
United had pulled it back to 3-2 and was pushing for an equalizer when Son whipped in a curling right-footed shot past goalkeeper Altay Bayindir.
Jonny Evans scored again for United in stoppage time, but Spurs held on for the win that had looked all but certain shortly after halftime.
Having gone ahead through Dominic Solanke’s goal from close range in the 15th, Tottenham took control after the break.
Dejan Kulusevski doubled the lead a minute after the restart and Solanke fired in his second in the 54th.
United head coach Ruben Amorim made a triple substitution — bringing on Joshua Zirkzee, Amad Diallo and Kobbie Mainoo.
It quickly had an impact with Zirkzee forcing Fraser Forster into a flying save and then capitalizing on a loose pass by the Tottenham goalkeeper to make it 3-1.
Forster was guilty of another mistake in the 70th when his attempted clearance was closed down by Diallo and ricocheted over the line.
United increased the pressure, but Son's unlikely goal gave Spurs a cushion again — and it proved to be the decisive strike after Evans' late header reduced the deficit again.

US disagrees with HRW ‘genocide’ accusation against Israel

US disagrees with HRW ‘genocide’ accusation against Israel
Updated 20 December 2024
AFP
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US disagrees with HRW ‘genocide’ accusation against Israel

US disagrees with HRW ‘genocide’ accusation against Israel
  • US official: ‘When it comes to a determination of something like genocide, the legal standard is just incredibly high, and so the finding in this scenario we just disagree with’
Updated 20 December 2024
AFP

WASHINGTON: The United States said Thursday it disagreed with New York-based Human Rights Watch’s accusation that Israel was carrying out “acts of genocide” in the Gaza Strip by damaging water infrastructure.
“When it comes to a determination of something like genocide, the legal standard is just incredibly high, and so the finding in this scenario we just disagree with,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
“That does not take away from the fact that there is a dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
The report released Thursday by the Human Rights Watch follows a similar accusation by London-based Amnesty International.
In a separate report on Thursday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in its 14-month war in Gaza launched after a massive Hamas attack.
The medical group said it documented 41 attacks on MSF staff including air strikes on health facilities and direct fire on humanitarian convoys.
Patel distanced the United States from the finding but, in contrast to Israel, stressed the value of non-governmental organizations.
“Even within their report, they make pretty clear that they don’t have the legal authority to determine intentionality” in the strikes on MSF, Patel said.
“But we continue to appreciate the important role that’s played by civil society organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, and we’re deeply concerned about the scale of civilian harm in this conflict,” he said.
 

Topics: War on Gaza Israel US Human Rights Watch (HRW)

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In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights
Updated 20 December 2024
AFP
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In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights
  • Despite HTS’s reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life
Updated 20 December 2024
AFP

DAMASCUS: In Damascus’s Ummayad Square, hundreds gathered Thursday, demanding a democratic state that includes women in public life, marking the first such demonstration since Islamist-led rebels toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Women and men, young and old, chanted slogans including “No to religious rule,” “God is for religion and the homeland is for all,” and “We want a democracy, not a religious state.”
“We are here in peaceful action to safeguard the gains of the revolution that has let us stand here today in complete freedom,” said Ayham Hamsho, 48, a prosthetic limb maker in the country torn by more than 13 years of war.
“For more than 50 years, we have been under tyrannical rule that has blocked party and political activity in the country,” he told AFP.
“Today we are trying to organize our affairs” in order to achieve “a secular, civil, democratic state” that is decided at the ballot box, he added.
For days, Syrians celebrated in Ummayad Square after rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham took the capital on December 8 and toppled Assad after a lightning offensive.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a “terrorist” organization by several Western governments, HTS has sought to moderate its rhetoric by assuring protection for the country’s many religious and ethnic minorities.
It has appointed a transitional leadership to run the country until March 1.
Despite the reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life.
On Thursday, some protesters held signs reading simply the word “secular,” while one man held a sign with the scales of justice hanging equally and the words “men” and “women” written below.
People also chanted “the Syrian people are one,” rejecting divisions among the multi-confessional and multi-ethnic country.
A few armed HTS fighters, some of them masked, roamed around at the demonstration.
One told the crowd, “the great Syrian revolution was victorious through armed force,” before protesters cut him off, chanting, “Down with military rule.”
One young man wearing keffiyeh scarf and dark glasses held a hand-written sign saying, “No free nation without free women,” while another demonstrator’s placard read “Equality between women and men is a legitimate Islamic and international right.”
Actress Raghda Khateb, standing with friends among the crowd, said “Syrian women have been a constant partner on the streets, in protecting protesters, in tending to the wounded, and in prisons and detention centers.”
She said the demonstration was part of “preventive” action to block any attempts to establish strict conservative rule in the country.
“The people who took to the streets against the murderous regime are ready to come out again and to rule,” she added.
The demand for women’s right to participate in political life came days after Obaida Arnaout, spokesman for the new political administration, said “female representation in ministries or parliament... is premature,” citing “biological” and other considerations.
The remarks sparked criticism and anger among some Syrians, including protester Majida Mudarres, 50, a retired civil servant.
“Women have a big role in political life... We will be observing any position against women and will not accept it. The time in which we were silent is over,” she told AFP.
Assad’s family crushed dissent, ruling Syria with an iron fist for decades.
Fatima Hashem, 29, who writes television series, said Syrian women “must not be just partners but must lead the work of building a new Syria.”
Women must be “a major voice in the new society,” added Hashem, who was wearing a white hijab.
Under Assad’s anti-Islamist rule, women were involved in Syria’s political, social and economic life, with parliamentary and ministerial representation sometimes ranging between 20 percent and 30 percent.
Researcher Widad Kreidi said she was worried by some statements from HTS, which until just weeks ago ruled a conservative rebel bastion in Syria’s northwest.
“While men were fighting, women were keeping up the economy, feeding their children and taking care of their families,” Kreidi said.
“Nobody has the right to come to Damascus and attack women in any way,” she added.

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria

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Latest updates

Man accused in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing faces federal charge that’s eligible for death penalty
Man accused in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing faces federal charge that’s eligible for death penalty
Trump backs new GOP plan to fund government and raise debt limit as shutdown nears
Trump backs new GOP plan to fund government and raise debt limit as shutdown nears
Son scores direct from a corner as Tottenham beats Man United 4-3 in the English League Cup
Son scores direct from a corner as Tottenham beats Man United 4-3 in the English League Cup
US disagrees with HRW ‘genocide’ accusation against Israel
US disagrees with HRW ‘genocide’ accusation against Israel
In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights
In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

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