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Year: 2024

Gaza ceasefire hopes hang in balance as Hamas delegation leaves Cairo

Gaza ceasefire hopes hang in balance as Hamas delegation leaves Cairo

Hamas has rejected new Israeli conditions put forward in Gaza ceasefire talks in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, casting further doubt on the chances of a breakthrough in the latest United States-backed effort to end the 10-month-old war. A Hamas delegation left Cairo on Sunday after meeting with mediators and receiving an update on the latest round of negotiations. Two Egyptian security sources told the Reuters news agency that the talks had ended without an agreement with neither Hamas nor Israel agreeing to compromises proposed by mediators. Key sticking points in the talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar include an Israeli presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5km-long (9-mile-long) stretch of land along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. In Cairo, Hamas’s delegation demanded that Israel be bound by what was agreed upon on July 2, in accordance with a plan laid out by US President Joe Biden and a UN Security Council resolution. While the group confirmed its readiness to implement that deal to achieve the interests of the Palestinian people and stop the destruction of the Gaza Strip, it stressed the need for any agreement to include a permanent ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas also said any agreement should include the freedom of return for Gaza residents to their homes, relief and reconstruction, and a captive-prisoner exchange deal. Meanwhile, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority quoted officials as saying there is a small chance that the Cairo talks would lead to progress in the swap negotiations. However, there was no sign of any breakthrough on the issues dividing Israel and Hamas. The Palestinian group blames Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the lack of progress during the talks. Netanyahu is accused of imposing new demands and not being serious about reaching a ceasefire. Netanyahu has insisted that the war in Gaza will continue until a total victory against Hamas has been won, even if a deal is reached. That objective has been rubbished by many top Israeli officials, including his own defence minister, and family members of captives have accused Netanyahu of abandoning their loved ones in Gaza. ‘No time to lose’ Months of on-off talks have failed to produce an agreement to end Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza or free the remaining captives seized by Hamas in the group’s October 7 attacks on Israel. Continuing the war, in which Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, will worsen the plight of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, nearly all of them homeless in tents or shelters among the ruins, with malnutrition rampant and disease spreading, and risk the lives of the remaining Israeli captives. UN peace envoy Tor Wennesland said in a social media post: “There is no time to lose.” “Ongoing ceasefire/hostage release talks in Cairo are crucial to saving civilian lives, reducing regional tensions and enabling the UN, in cooperation with the PA [Palestinian Authority], to accelerate efforts to address the pressing needs of Gaza’s long-suffering population,” he said. Meanwhile, US General CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began an unannounced visit to the Middle East on Saturday to discuss ways to avoid any new escalation in tensions that could spiral into a broader conflict as the region braces for a threatened Iranian attack against Israel. On Sunday, Israel and Hezbollah engaged in a heavy exchange of fire as part of a response by the Lebanese group to the Israeli assassination of its senior commander Fuad Shukr last month in a Beirut suburb. Hezbollah has said it would halt its attacks along the border if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah since October 8 has ramped up recently, including Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon and into the Bekaa Valley and more Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel. Adblock test (Why?)

Millions of Shia Muslim pilgrims gather in Iraq for Arbaeen

Millions of Shia Muslim pilgrims gather in Iraq for Arbaeen

Pilgrims in Karbala hold up Palestinian flags amid the war in Gaza as they mark annual mourning for martyrdom of Imam Hussein. More than 21 million Shia Muslims took part in the Arbaeen pilgrimage in Iraq this year, marking the 40th day of mourning for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and a founding figure in Shia Islam. The event peaked on Sunday, with attendees displaying their support for Gaza. Arbaeen, which means 40 in Arabic, is one of the world’s biggest religious gatherings and a major event for Shia Muslims, who are the majority in Iraq and Iran. Shia Muslim devotees gather between the shrines of Imam Abu Al-Fadl Al-Abbas (background) and Imam Hussein (not pictured) in Iraq’s central holy city of Karbala [Mohammed Sawaf/AFP] Karbala, where Hussein and his brother Abbas are buried in two enormous mausoleums facing each other, is the centre of the Shia world during this time. Pilgrims freely express their suffering, weeping and wailing in memory of Hussein, who was killed in 680 during a battle in Karbala with the Umayyad caliph Yazid. This year, the events have included prominent displays of Palestinian flags by pilgrims amid the war in Gaza. “The total number of Arbaeen pilgrims… reached 21,480,525,” the institution that manages the Abbas mausoleum and is responsible for the count said. Among them were about 3.5 million Iranian pilgrims, according to official figures reported in Tehran. Shia Muslims show their support for Gaza as they gather in the holy shrine city for the Arbaeen commemorations [Mohammed Sawaf/AFP] Mohammed al-Tamimi, a 32-year-old pilgrim, told the AFP news agency that the Palestinian flags waving among the pilgrims were “in support of our brothers in Palestine and in response to the Zionists, saying that Muslims stand as one against the Zionist actions and against the crimes taking place in Gaza”. Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October. An estimated 1,139 people were killed during a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7. The Arbaeen celebrations, which always take place amid tight security, drew about 22 million pilgrims last year, according to official figures. Iran provided the most foreign visitors, with 4 million. Adblock test (Why?)

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 913

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 913

As the war enters its 913th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Monday, August 26, 2024. Fighting At least 18 people were killed and 37 injured in Russian missile and drone attacks on Sunday which targeted the front-line Ukrainian regions of Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk. The Reuters news agency said its safety adviser Ryan Evans was killed and two Reuters journalists injured, one of them seriously, in a Russian attack that hit a hotel in Kramatorsk, about 20km (13 miles) from the front line in Ukraine’s east, on Saturday night. Three other members of the team escaped unharmed. Russian officials said six civilians were killed in Ukrainian attacks on Russian border regions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s forces advanced up to 3km (1.86 miles) in Russia’s Kursk region, taking control of two more settlements there. Ukraine called on Belarus to pull back what it described as significant levels of Belarusian forces and equipment, including tanks and artillery, deployed in the Gomel region at their common border. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Belarus against making “tragic mistakes” while under pressure from Moscow. Politics and diplomacy Zelenskyy said negotiations were continuing with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Switzerland on a second summit for peace. Zelenskyy also said he had told India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in Kyiv, that he would support India hosting the event. Pope Francis condemned the Ukrainian government’s move to ban a Russia-linked branch of the country’s Orthodox Church. “Do not touch churches,” the pope said in his weekly prayers, one day after Zelenskyy signed the ban into law. Weapons Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it sent more missiles and artillery to the Kursk region where thousands of Ukrainian troops advanced across the Russian border on August 6. Adblock test (Why?)

Walz faced another accusation of misrepresentation in unearthed, blistering letter: ‘Remove any reference’

Walz faced another accusation of misrepresentation in unearthed, blistering letter: ‘Remove any reference’

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is facing another accusation of misrepresenting his background after a Nebraska Chamber of Commerce letter from 2006 resurfaced amid Walz’s campaign for vice president.  When Walz first ran for Congress in Minnesota, he touted on his campaign website that he received an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce in 1993 for his work with the business community, according to a 2006 article from the Post Bulletin.  He never received such an award, however, which was outlined to him in a blistering letter from the then-president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, Barry L. Kennedy.  “We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” the letter addressed to Walz on Nov. 1, 2006, reads.  FLASHBACK: OBAMA WAS ONE OF EARLIEST BIG-NAME DEMS TO ENDORSE WALZ AT DAWN OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER “I am not going to draw a conclusion about your intentions by including this line in your biography. However, we respectfully request that you remove any reference to our organization as it could be considered an endorsement of your candidacy. It should be pointed out, however, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed your opponent, Congressman Gil Gutknecht, for his support of small business issues,” Kennedy continued.  The letter was unearthed by Minnesota outlet Alpha News last week, after the controversy gained traction locally in 2006.  TIM WALZ SLAMMED AS ‘POLITICAL CHAMELEON’ AFTER DITCHING FORMER PRO-SECOND AMENDMENT STANCE The Post Bulletin, a Minnesota newspaper based in Rochester, reported in 2006 that Walz’s congressional campaign updated its website to reflect Walz did not win a Nebraska Chamber of Commerce award, but had won an award from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce, known as the Jaycees. The then-campaign manager passed off the issue as a “typographical error,” the outlet reported at the time.  When approached by Fox Digital about the 2006 controversy, the Harris-Walz campaign said Walz frequently speaks “openly and off the cuff.” “Governor Walz speaks the way real people speak – openly and off the cuff. The American people appreciate that Gov. Walz tells it like it is and doesn’t talk like a politician, and they appreciate the difference between someone who occasionally misspeaks and a pathological liar like Donald Trump,” the campaign said.  The claim follows a long history of people accusing Walz of misrepresenting himself and his history, most notably a bevy of veterans accusing the Gopher State Democrat of misrepresenting his military career.  Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring in 2005, when he launched a successful congressional campaign and served as a member of the U.S. House representing Minnesota from 2007 until 2019.  Following Vice President Kamala Harris naming him as her running mate, Walz has been slammed by a number of veterans for allegedly misrepresenting his service in the military, including identifying himself to the public as a retired “Command Sergeant Major.” TRUMP CAMP SAYS HARRIS-WALZ ‘DANGEROUSLY LIBERAL’ TICKET IS ‘EVERY AMERICAN’S NIGHTMARE’ Walz was promoted to the command sergeant major rank following a deployment to Italy in 2004, but he did not complete coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy to retain the rank in retirement. Walz instead retired as a master sergeant, one pay grade below command sergeant major.  “For 20 years, they let this guy go by with a lie that he deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and that he retired as a command sergeant major, which he did not. I mean, that’s just blatant lies,” Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain, told The New York Post this month of Walz.  The battalion commander of Walz’s former Minnesota Army National Guard unit also issued a scathing message to Harris’ running mate earlier this month regarding him portraying himself as a “retired Command Sergeant Major.”  VAN JONES: WALZ NEEDS TO ADMIT HE EXAGGERATED MILITARY RECORD SO DEMS CAN ‘MOVE ON’ “He did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E9,” John Kolb, who served as a lieutenant colonel of the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery from 2005 to 2007, wrote in a social media post this month. “It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot. Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path.” The “retired Command Sergeant Major” rank was promoted by the Harris campaign until earlier this month, when it changed Walz’s biography on the campaign’s website to read that he “served as a command sergeant major.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Who is Kamala Harris’ ‘combative Marxist economist’ father, Donald J. Harris?

Who is Kamala Harris’ ‘combative Marxist economist’ father, Donald J. Harris?

Vice President Kamala Harris has frequently cited her upbringing and family as she crisscrosses the nation in an effort to rally support for her newly-formed presidential campaign, including touting her father in a rare mention at the DNC.  “My early memories of our parents together are very joyful ones. A home filled with laughter and music: Aretha, Coltrane and Miles. At the park, my mother would say, ‘Stay close.’ But my father would say, as he smiled, ‘Run, Kamala, run. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything stop you.’ From my earliest years, he taught me to be fearless,” Harris said during her acceptance speech during the DNC in Chicago last Thursday.  Harris was born in Oakland, California, in 1964 to Shyamala Gopalan, a ​​biologist who immigrated to the U.S. from India, and Donald Harris, an economist who immigrated from Jamaica.  Harris’ parents divorced when she was 7 years old, with the future vice president spending a lot of her time with her mother and sister in Canada in her youth, where their mother worked as a researcher at the McGill University School of Medicine.  HARRIS LEAVES OUT DEADLY BOTCHED AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL IN SOARING PRO-MILITARY DNC SPEECH Following Harris rising to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket and formally accepting the party’s nomination last week, Fox News Digital examined her father’s background and legacy within academia.  Donald J. Harris, who coincidentally shares the same first name as VP Harris’ Republican rival, former President Donald J. Trump, is a retired Stanford University professor of economics, whose econ background is steeped in Marxist theory, which earned him the description from the Economist last month as a “combative Marxist economist.”  “​​He is a clear writer. There are few compound nouns or sentences that run for paragraphs. Yet he is still a Marxist and his writings are sprinkled with obscurantist theorising. Republicans who have mocked Ms. Harris for word-salad speeches will find precedent in her father’s writing,” the Economist wrote of Harris’ father.  Donald J. Harris was born in 1938 in Jamaica, and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of London before moving to the U.S. to complete his doctorate in economics at the University of California in Berkeley in 1966. He met the vice president’s mother while attending Berkeley, with the pair marrying and sharing daughters Kamala and Maya Harris.  KAMALA HARRIS’ DAD SAYS PARENTS ARE ‘TURNING IN THEIR GRAVE’ OVER HER COMMENTS ON WEED AND BEING JAMAICAN: REPORT He held teaching positions at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign before the couple divorced in the early 1970s. He took a position with Stanford in 1972 as a professor of economics after also working at ​​the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  The Stanford Daily, the elite university’s student newspaper, described Donald Harris as teaching “radical political economics” and as a “Marxian economist” in 1974. He notably became the first Black scholar to receive tenure within Stanford’s economic school.  He retired from teaching in 1998 “in order to pursue more actively and practically his long-standing interest, which originally motivated him to take up the study of economics, in developing public policies to promote economic growth, unleash productive capabilities, and advance social equity,” according to his Stanford biography. He has since served as an expert on how to inspire economic growth for his home country of Jamaica, the Washington Post previously reported.  Harris also still serves as a professor emeritus at Stanford following his retirement.  He has notably remained relatively quiet about his daughter’s political successes, not joining her at the DNC or other political rallies and very rarely offering insight into his relationship with his daughter.  Kamala Harris has also rarely mentioned her father throughout her political career, saying in 2003, “My father is a good guy, but we are not close,” before telling the Washington Post in 2021 that she and her father were on “good terms.”  She only mentioned him a handful of times in her 2019 memoir “The Truths We Hold,” while noting to the DNC audience that “it was mostly my mother who raised us.”  “My father remained a part of our lives,” Harris wrote in her 2019 book. “We would see him on weekends and spend summers with him in Palo Alto. But it was my mother who took charge of our upbringing. She was the one most responsible for shaping us into the women we would become.” KAMALA HARRIS’ HUSBAND DOUG EMHOFF ADMITS TO EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIR THAT LED TO BREAKUP OF FIRST MARRIAGE Donald Harris did note in a recent essay that he fought to maintain a relationship with his daughters despite the divorce from their mother and subsequent custody battle.  “After a hard-fought custody battle in the family court of Oakland, California, the context of the relationship was placed within arbitrary limits imposed by a court-ordered divorce settlement based on the false assumption by the State of California that fathers cannot handle parenting,” he wrote in an essay for Jamaica Global in 2020. “Nevertheless, I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children or reneging on my responsibilities as their father.” In 2019, Donald Harris offered a rare response to his daughter in February 2019, after Kamala Harris discussed smoking marijuana when she was younger.  RFK JR RESPONDS TO DRAMA WITHIN KENNEDY FAMILY, WIFE’S DISCOMFORT AFTER TRUMP ENDORSEMENT  “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?” Kamala Harris quipped in 2019 when asked about previous marijuana use.  Her father took issue with the comment, writing in an essay for a Jamaican media outlet that his parents would be “turning in their grave” over the comment.  “My dear departed grandmothers… as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,” he wrote. “Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to

Harris’ push for electric vehicles suffers another blow after automaker backtracks: ‘Unwanted and unworkable’

Harris’ push for electric vehicles suffers another blow after automaker backtracks: ‘Unwanted and unworkable’

The car industry is backing away from rolling out electric vehicles in favor of hybrid options, indicating more defeats to the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to force EV sales on American buyers.  Ford announced last week that the car giant is changing its electric vehicle strategy and backing away from its planned all-electric, three-row SUV, instead favoring the creation of hybrid vehicles for its next rollout of three-row SUVs.  “Our focus here is to remake Ford into a higher-growth, higher-margin, more capital-efficient and durable business, and that means these vehicles need to be profitable,” John Lawler, Ford vice chair and chief financial officer, said on a call with media Wednesday morning. “And if they’re not profitable, based on where the customer is in the market is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions.” The announcement is a blow to left-wing electric car initiatives, many of which have been promoted by Harris across her last three and a half years as vice president.  KAMALA HARRIS MOCKED FOR GUSHING OVER A ‘YELLOW SCHOOL BUS’: ‘THEY REALLY CAN’T LET HER TALK IN PUBLIC’ “It is abundantly clear that the federal government’s push to ram electric vehicles down everyone’s throat was unwanted and unworkable. The mandates forced on Americans under Biden-Harris will dismantle what remains of Michigan’s industrial base, destroy American jobs, and make us more dependent on Communist China,” Republican Michigan congressional candidate Tom Barrett told Fox News Digital in reaction to Dearborn-based Ford’s move last week. “In Congress, I will continue my fight to protect the rights of consumers to purchase the vehicle that meet their needs and their family’s budget, not the social engineering agenda of bureaucrats in Washington.” AUTO INDUSTRY EXPERTS WARN BIDEN’S EV MANDATE MAY LIMIT GAS CAR OPTIONS IN THE FUTURE Fox News Digital examined Harris’ record and involvement with the electric vehicle push and programs amid her vice presidency, and found the Democrat has had a heavy hand in promoting the end to traditional gas-powered vehicles. Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket last month, after President Biden exited the race amid mounting concerns over his mental acuity and 81 years of age.  Stretching back to her Senate career, Harris was one of the original co-signers of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward Markey’s, D-Mass., 2019 Green New Deal legislation, which worked to establish a blueprint to shift the nation to 100% “clean energy” by 2040. The measure failed in the Senate.  After the Biden-Harris ticket won the 2020 election, Harris continued spearheading climate change initiatives, most notably taking charge of the Clean School Bus program. The EPA-backed program was created nearly three years ago as a provision under the Biden administration’s 2021 infrastructure bill, and allocated $5 billion for the program. The EPA has since made $1 billion in grants available to help deliver nearly 2,500 electric school buses to school districts across the nation.  FORD CANCELS PLANS FOR ELECTRIC THREE-ROW SUV Harris and EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan were touted by the federal government as the point people for the program, but it has only delivered 60 battery-electric or low-emissions propane-fueled school buses, the Washington Free Beacon reported last month.  “Every school day, 25 million children ride our nation’s largest form of mass transit: the school bus. The vast majority of those buses run on diesel, exposing students, teachers, and bus drivers to toxic air pollution,” Harris said of the program earlier this year. “Today, we are announcing nearly $1 billion to fund clean school buses across the nation. As part of our work to tackle the climate crisis, the historic funding we are announcing today is an investment in our children, their health, and their education. It also strengthens our economy by investing in American manufacturing and America’s workforce.” Amid the bus plan rollout, Harris found herself in a viral moment in 2022, when she visited a Seattle school to promote the program and gushed about her love of yellow school buses – comments that were subsequently mocked on social media.  “Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus, right? Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus? Many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right? It’s part of our experience growing up. It’s part of a nostalgia, a memory of the excitement and joy of going to school to be with your favorite teacher, to be with your best friends and to learn. The school bus takes us there,” Harris said in the rambling remarks.  Critics quickly shot back that Democrats “really can’t let [Harris] talk in public about anything.”  FORD’S PROFITS GETTING EATEN UP BY EVS “Democrats have been hiding Kamala, but she just had a press conference and talked about yellow school buses and my goodness they really can’t let her talk in public about anything,” OutKick founder Clay Travis posted on X at the time.  “Selina Meyer,” The Federalist author Eddie Scarry tweeted, referencing Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character on the HBO comedy “Veep.” Republican activist Matthew Foldi tweeted, “Find yourself someone who loves you as much as Kamala Harris loves Venn diagrams and yellow school buses.” CNN contributor Mary Katherine Ham also joked, “Please sing Wheels on the Bus, please sing Wheels on the Bus.” Harris was in fact caught on camera awkwardly singing “the wheels on the bus go round and round,” in another viral moment.  Harris was also charged with helping lead the “Electric Vehicle Charging Action Plan” in December 2021, to ensure 50% of car sales were electric vehicles by 2030. The Biden-Harris administration further cracked down on the plan this year with one of the most significant climate regulations in U.S. history – it would force half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 to be electric.  “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs. And we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race