Texas Weekly Online

Texas-trans-white
Menu
Menu

Year: 2025

Australia hits back at Netanyahu amid escalating diplomatic row over Gaza

Australia hits back at Netanyahu amid escalating diplomatic row over Gaza

Australia’s Home Affairs minister says ‘strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up’. Australia has hit back at Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu after he branded the country’s prime minister “weak”, with an Australian minister accusing the Israeli leader of conflating strength with killing people. In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster on Wednesday, Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said that strength was not measured “by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”. Burke’s comments come after Netanyahu on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on social media, claiming he would be remembered by history as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”. Speaking on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast programme, Burke characterised Netanyahu’s broadside as part of Israel’s “lashing out” at countries that have moved to recognise a Palestinian state. “Strength is much better measured by exactly what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done, which is when there’s a decision that we know Israel won’t like, he goes straight to Benjamin Netanyahu,” Burke said. “He has the conversation, he says exactly what we’re intending to do, and has the chance for the objections to be made person to person. And then having heard them, makes public announcement and then does what needs to be done.” Relations between Australia and Israel, traditionally close allies, have progressively soured in recent months amid tensions over the war in Gaza, but ties have become especially acrimonious since Canberra’s announcement last week that it would recognise a Palestinian state. Advertisement On Monday, Australia announced that it had cancelled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker with Israel’s far-right Mafdal-Religious Zionism party and a member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, amid concerns that a planned speaking tour in the country aimed to “spread division”. Hours after that decision, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar said he had revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority. Israel has come under growing international pressure, including from many of its traditional allies, over the level of human suffering being inflicted by its war in Gaza. More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it launched its military offensive following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli communities, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Adblock test (Why?)

Mali’s Choguel Maiga charged with embezzlement, remanded in custody

Mali’s Choguel Maiga charged with embezzlement, remanded in custody

Mali’s former prime minister, Choguel Maiga, has been charged with embezzlement and remanded in custody as the West African country’s military leaders intensify a crackdown over allegations of a coup plot. The charges against Maiga were revealed on Tuesday following a hearing before Mali’s Supreme Court. Maiga, who took office after a second coup in Mali in 2021, was sacked in November 2024 after he publicly denounced the military for a lack of clarity over when it would hand over power to a civilian government. Maiga’s lawyer, Cheick Oumar Konare, told the AFP news agency that no date has yet been set for the former leader’s trial. “We believe in justice, we are calm while awaiting the trial,” Konare said, explaining that Maiga would remain in prison for the trial. A statement from the public prosecutor said the charges against Maiga involve “money laundering equal to many billions of CFA francs”, or several million US dollars. The former prime minister was arrested one week ago, according to the AFP, days after Mali’s military leaders carried out dozens of arrests to quash an alleged plot within the army’s ranks to topple the government in turn. Nine of Maiga’s colleagues from his time as prime minister also appeared before the court on Tuesday, with two being charged, some acquitted and others still awaiting their hearing, the AFP reported, citing a judicial source. Earlier this month, another former prime minister, Moussa Mara, was imprisoned after tweeting his support for jailed critics of the military. Advertisement Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, driven by violence from armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS) group, as well as local criminal gangs. The fighting has resulted in thousands of deaths, while up to 350,000 people are currently displaced, according to Human Rights Watch. The crisis set off mass protests in 2020, paving the way for the military to topple the country’s elected government in a coup. The military briefly ceded power to a transitional government but took over in a second coup in 2021. The colonel who led the two power grabs, Assimi Goita, was also sworn in as transitional president that year. Under his government, the military has reneged on pledges to hand back power to civilians by the end of March 2024, and has tightened its grip on power by dissolving all political parties, and jailing dissidents and leading civil society figures. In July, the military-appointed legislative body also passed legislation that granted Goita a five-year presidential mandate, renewable “as many times as necessary” and without elections. Maiga was one of the leaders of the protests that helped topple Mali’s civilian government in 2020, and previously said he believed the military would safeguard the country’s democracy. “We must refound the Malian state, so that no political power can ever again create the conditions for a return to an unconstitutional order!” he told Al Jazeera in an interview in 2023. Since his dismissal, however, Maiga has become one of the military’s fiercest critics, accusing it of weaponising the courts to silence dissent. Experts, meanwhile, have described Maiga’s arrest and imprisonment on Tuesday as a sign of the military government’s fragility. “If the most prominent opposition leaders are arrested and imprisoned, including Choguel, who once gave the junta credibility, then I believe today the junta credibility is greatly weakened,” said Alioune Tine, the former United Nations rapporteur on Mali to the Security Council. “Just 50km [31 miles] from Bamako, you’re still in danger. Al-Qaeda’s affiliate JNIM controls most of the territory. The only way forward now is for President Goita to change course: free political prisoners, release activists and journalists, and open a national dialogue that leads to real democratic elections,” he said. Mali’s military leaders have replaced Maiga with General Abdoulaye Maiga, who had previously served as government spokesman in the West African country. The military’s power grab in Mali helped set off a wave of coups in the Sahel region, south of the Sahara desert, including in the neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, which are fighting the same groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL. Advertisement The three countries have withdrawn from the Economic Community of West African States amid pressure from the bloc to return to civilian government. They have now banded together to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and created a 5,000-strong force for joint military operations to try to drive out armed groups. Adblock test (Why?)

Delhi CM Rekha Gupta attacked during ‘Jan Sunvai’; probe underway

Delhi CM Rekha Gupta attacked during ‘Jan Sunvai’; probe underway

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Wednesday faced an attack during the weekly ‘Jan Sunvai’ at her official residence in Civil Lines. It is reported that the chief minister got minor injuries, while the police investigation is underway. The BJP in Delhi has condemned the violent attack.