Squad member Tlaib urges Michigan residents to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Democratic primary, snubbing Biden
Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., encouraged residents in her district to vote “uncommitted” – instead of for President Biden – in the upcoming Democratic primary. In a video shared by the Listen to Michigan campaign, Tlaib stood outside the Ford Civic Center in the city of Dearborn, reminding residents that early voting would be open until Saturday. “It is important as you all know to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local electeds and passing city resolutions all throughout our country – it is also important to create a voting block, something that is a bullhorn to say enough is enough. We don’t want a country that supports wars, and bombs and destruction, we want to support life,” Tlaib said. “We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza.” “I want you to think of all of the amazing young children and the people, again, lives were lost in Gaza. This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government. If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted,” she said. RASHIDA TLAIB CALLS ISRAELI PM NETANYAHU ‘GENOCIDAL MANIAC,’ TAKES SHOT AT FELLOW DEMS WHO BACK HIM Tlaib, the only Palestinian serving in Congress, was censured by the House in November over her use of the phrase, “from the river to the sea,” an antisemitic slogan calling for the erasure of Israel. Nonetheless, Tlaib has raised nearly $3.7 million since the start of the war in Gaza as of earlier this month, record fundraising for the third-term congresswoman who has faced attacks from both sides of the aisle for her criticism of Israel, according to the Associated Press. Dearborn was dubbed “America’s Jihad Capital” by an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, with the piece describing protesters, many with kaffiyehs covering their faces, shouting “Intifada, intifada,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “America is a terrorist state,” as well as local imams delivering antisemitic sermons in the Detroit suburb. Democratic Mayor Abdullah Hammoud claimed the WSJ opinion piece “led to an alarming increase in bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric online targeting the city of Dearborn.” DEARBORN MAYOR SAYS BIDEN CAMP’S TRIP TO MICHIGAN WAS ‘DEHUMANIZING,’ PURELY FOR ‘POLITICAL MEANS’ “Stay vigilant,” he wrote on X. “Effective immediately – Dearborn police will ramp up its presence across all places of worship and major infrastructure points.” In late January, Hammoud told CNN he felt it was “dehumanizing” of Biden to send a delegation of campaign staff to meet with Arab-American and Muslim leadership in Dearborn, arguing that the president should be sending “policymakers” instead amid the war in Gaza. Biden himself came to Michigan in February, though the focus of the trip was to meet with autoworkers and Black community leaders. He was endorsed by the United Auto Workers. Biden won Michigan by just three percentage points in 2020 and the state is considered a battleground again in 2024. Tlaib’s call to vote “uncommitted” was viewed as a challenge to the president accede to the demands of progressives on Palestine or lose support from that faction of the Democratic Party come November. The Michigan Democratic primary is Feb. 27. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
How bleak is the outlook for Israel’s economy?
Moody’s has lowered Israel’s credit rating for the first time and forecast a negative outlook for the economy. Massive military spending and a drop in revenues. Israel is borrowing heavily to fund its war on Gaza. And it is now on track to run one of its widest budget deficits this century. Worried about the fiscal and political risks, Moody’s has lowered Israel’s credit rating for the first time. The agency has also forecast a negative outlook for the economy. Israel’s finance minister has slammed the decision as a “political manifesto”. But is it? Commercial real estate in the United States is faltering, and banks as far away as Germany are feeling the pain. Plus, the four-day workweek. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel ‘outright rejects’ foreign efforts to create Palestinian state after Hamas war, Netanyahu declares
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government unanimously approved a measure declaring that the country “outright rejects” any attempts by foreign powers to create a Palestinian state. Netanyahu announced the move at the start of a cabinet meeting Sunday morning. It comes as various forces at the U.N. and even President Biden’s administration have pushed Israel to accept a two-state solution after the war against Hamas in Gaza. “In light of the talk recently heard in the international community about an attempt to unilaterally impose a Palestinian state on Israel, I am bringing today a declarative decision on this issue for the approval of the government. I am sure it will be widely accepted,” Netanyahu told the cabinet in Hebrew. “Israel outright rejects international dictates regarding the permanent settlement with the Palestinians,” the declaration said. “Such an arrangement will be reached only through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. Israel will continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such a recognition, following the massacre of October 7, will reward the terrorism, a reward like no other, and will prevent any future peace settlement.” HAMAS TERRORISTS USE ISRAELI HOSTAGE RELEASE IN GAME OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE The statement echoes a message Netanyahu personally delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week, telling the top Biden administration official that direct or even indirect recognition “would be a prize for those who planned and orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre.” CRUZ DEMANDS DOJ LAUNCH CRIMINAL PROBE OF US NONPROFIT ALLEGEDLY HELPING TERRORISTS Biden and other U.S. officials have repeatedly said that Israel’s war against Hamas should end with a two-state solution, implying that the U.S. would recognize a Palestinian state. Israel has made repeated efforts to negotiate a peace deal and two-state solution with Palestinian and Arab leaders over the past 75 years, but each offer has been rejected, including the initial 1947 UN partition plan that led to Israel’s establishment, and Israeli offers in 2000 and 2008 that would have recognized a Palestinian state. UN, HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDIA GROUPS RELY ON HAMAS DEATH TOLL IN ‘SYSTEMATIC DECEPTION’: EXPERT “I do not think a two-state solution is possible, and, even if possible, it is not advisable. For more than 50 years, hundreds of self-proclaimed ‘peacemakers,’ led by the United States, have attempted to coerce Israel and the Palestinians into a two-state solution,” former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Fox News Digital last month. Friedman, who served as the U.S. ambassador under former President Trump, said, “The efforts repeatedly fail regardless of who’s in charge and the reasons are profound and immutable: 1) the Palestinians are not willing to accept a Jewish State; 2) the likelihood of a Palestinian state becoming a terror state is extremely high, presenting an existential threat to Israel; and 3) the West Bank (referred to by Biblical adherents as Judea and Samaria) is biblical Israel and, absent Israeli control, hundreds of Jewish and Christian holy sites will be destroyed.” Fox News’ Yael Rotem-Kuriel, Yonat Friling, and Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.
Gaza’s Nasser Hospital ‘completely out of service’ as Israeli attacks mount
The strip’s second-largest hospital in the southern Khan Younis city has many patients and other Palestinians sheltering. Ground and air assaults by the Israeli forces have now rendered Gaza’s second-largest hospital nonoperational. The besieged enclave’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday said the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis is no longer functioning after a weeks-long siege that intensified this week, followed by deadly raids. “There are only four medical staffers currently caring for patients” inside the hospital, ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra told Reuters news agency on Sunday. In a post on X, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said the organisation’s team has not been permitted by the Israeli military to enter the hospital since Friday to assess the condition of critical patients and medical needs, even though they reached the hospital along with partners to deliver fuel. “There are still about 200 patients in the hospital. At least 20 need to be urgently referred to other hospitals to receive health care; medical referral is every patient’s right,” he said, adding that “the cost of delays will be paid by patients’ lives”. Nasser hospital in #Gaza is not functional anymore, after a weeklong siege followed by the ongoing raid. Both yesterday and the day before, the @WHO team was not permitted to enter the hospital to assess the conditions of the patients and critical medical needs, despite… — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) February 18, 2024 In the past few days, Israeli soldiers had raided the hospital, where displaced Palestinians were also sheltering. The Health Ministry on Saturday said Israeli forces “arrested a large number of the directors and staff” of the hospital while they were tending to the wounded. On Friday, the ministry said an aid convoy led by the United Nations was detained for seven hours and prevented from reaching the hospital. Meanwhile, al-Amal Hospital, the only other major medical facility still operational in Khan Younis, continues to be a target of Israeli attacks. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the third floor of the hospital with artillery fire. The Israeli military has expanded its siege on Khan Younis and its medical facilities as it pushed further south into Rafah on the border with Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained adamant about an imminent ground attack on Rafah, where more than 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have been sheltering, creating a humanitarian crisis. “In the overnight [air] attacks on Rafah, we’ve seen the horror of displaced Palestinians trying to find shelters in the city where they were ordered to evacuate and told it would be a ‘safe zone’ only to find themselves targeted and killed inside their homes,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, said on Sunday. “On top of that, there is a lack of available medical staff and a shortage of medical supplies, which literally leaves people lying on the floors of hospitals for hours, waiting for help. Israel has put restrictions on the delivery of aid worsening the shortage.” The UN, along with the United States and other Israel allies, have said they would not accept an invasion of Rafah but have not discussed what they would do if Israel proceeds with its “total victory” approach. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel’s Netanyahu dismisses calls for early election as thousands protest
Netanyahu has seen his popularity plummet in opinion polls since October 7 attack that sparked the devastating war on Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for an early election as thousands of protesters take to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, demanding he step down. Netanyahu has seen his popularity plummet in opinion polls since the October 7 attack that sparked the devastating war on Gaza. Calls for an early vote have been mounting since October when the Palestinian group Hamas launched a rare attack inside Israeli territory, killing some 1,100 people and taking more than 200 others captive, nearly half of whom were released during a brief truce in November. In response, the Israeli military launched unprecedented air and ground strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, killing nearly 29,000 Palestinians so far and displacing more than 1.4 million people in a campaign many governments have termed a genocide. Antigovernment protests that shook Israel for much of 2023 had largely subsided during the war. Still, demonstrators again took to the streets on Saturday night, calling for new polls, which are not scheduled until 2026. Thousands defied a police ban on large rallies in Tel Aviv as they hit the streets, according to local media, though the crowd was much smaller than last year’s mass protests. “I’d like to say to the government that you’ve had your time, you ruined everything that you can ruin. Now is the time for the people to correct all the things, all the bad things that you’ve done,” said one protester, his head wrapped in an Israeli flag. Calls for early elections have been mounting in Israel since the start of the Gaza war [Leo Correa/AP] A similar protest was held in Jerusalem outside Netanyahu’s official residence, reports said, as anger over the fate of more than 100 captives held by Hamas rises. The protesters said they were furious over Netanyahu declining to send a representative to Egypt’s capital Cairo for talks over ending the Gaza conflict. The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent weeks trying to broker a ceasefire and captive release, but the talks have been hit by a wide gap between Israel’s and Hamas’s demands. Qatar on Saturday said the talks “have not been progressing as expected”. Hamas has said it would not release all of the remaining captives without Israel ending the war and “lifting the unjust siege” on Gaza. It is also demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Netanyahu has publicly rejected the demands, calling Hamas’s ceasefire call “delusional” and rejecting US and international calls for a pathway to Palestinian statehood. He said he sent a delegation to the talks in Cairo last week at US President Joe Biden’s request but did not see the point in sending them again. “Don’t abandon them to die!” screamed people into giant loudspeakers in Tel Aviv’s so-called Hostage Square. “Look us in the eyes, send Israeli representatives to the Cairo conference and bring the hostages home now,” read a statement from the families of the captives. Netanyahu was asked at a press briefing about calls within his own ruling Likud party to hold an early election after the Gaza war ends. “The last thing we need right now are elections and dealing with elections, since it will immediately divide us,” he said. “We need unity right now.” However, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, more than two-thirds of Israelis believe the elections, which are not scheduled before 2026, should be held as soon as the war is over. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Take giant leap towards Viksit Bharat in…’: PM Modi at BJP National Convention 2024
After paying glowing tributes to Jain seer Acharya Shri 108 Vidhyasagar Ji Maharaj, who passed away earller on Sunday, PM Modi said, “Over the next 100 days, each and every one of us has to go out and reach out to every new voter, every beneficiary and every community.
Weather update: IMD issues heavy rainfall, snowfall alerts in these states for next 24 hours, check details
The IMD forecasts light to moderate rain/snowfall with thunderstorms and lightning in the Western Himalayan Region from February 18 to 21.
Farmers protest: Centre extends internet ban in parts of Punjab till Feb 24
Internet services were suspended from February 12 to 16 due to the ‘Delhi Chalo’ march by farmers.
Displaced, bombed by Israel, Rafah’s kids seek warmth in hospital coveralls
Rafah, Gaze Strip – Running out of options and solutions, parents in Gaza have resorted to putting their children in the white medical coveralls that were part of COVID-19 PPE kits, in a desperate bid to keep them warm and dry. Gaza’s displaced – many of them having been forced to move multiple times – are suffering in the severe winter cold with little to protect them from the elements other than thin tents at best. For many of the 1.4 million people crammed into Rafah after fleeing other parts of Gaza, the only clothes they own are the ones they are wearing. If these get wet, there is little chance of them drying again in the cold. In some areas, teams are distributing white coveralls left over from the pandemic – they are plastic-lined and hold at least some of the damp at bay. ‘Like an astronaut’ Nour al-Bayouk, 11, in his coveralls, explains that he, his parents and sisters came here from Maan to escape the bombing. “We came here to the [European] hospital to stay in a tent. The tent is very cold and does not protect us from the heavy rain.” When trucks arrived loaded with the white coveralls, he and his sisters rushed to get some. Now, they live in them – day and night. “I’m warm and the water doesn’t get into my clothes,” says Nour. “I have no alternative clothes at all. If my clothes get wet I won’t find anything else to wear. “At first I looked funny and scary. I felt like I looked like a person undergoing an operation, or an astronaut. “I laugh every time I see myself in the car windows.” Now, it has become a familiar sight, as more children do the same. “The hospital is full of cold tents,” says Nour. “I used to have a room with a warm mattress but we left and came here looking for safety. Every day we hear bombing. The tanks haven’t stopped for a single moment.” The tanks briefly seemed to have withdrawn from Maan at one point and Nour’s father tried to go to their house for more clothes. “But the quadcopters shot at them and he was unable to reach the house. That’s why we found these suits as an opportunity to save us from the cold and the rain.” A child in medical coveralls in a bid to survive the severe cold in Gaza [Ruwaida Amer/Al Jazeera] Raeda al-Khair, 35, who is originally from Gaza City in the north, managed to find space for her family in the European Hospital in Rafah in December. They had fled from Khan Younis, where they had been sheltering until the tanks rolled in at the start of December. She says: “We came here with nothing. We thought we would return to our homes. I slept in the hospital corridors on the tiles; the extreme cold exhausted my body and the bodies of my children.” Her husband put up a makeshift tent of plastic sheeting and some hospital blankets in the yard outside the hospital. But the cold has got worse and the family is struggling. “When it is raining, I feel like crying because children are getting sick from the cold. Since the beginning of the displacement, my children have never recovered.” Al-Khair saw one of the nearby families dressing their children in the coveralls and decided to do the same. “She told me it’s lined from the inside and prevents water from entering. It’s a good idea for us as mothers because the children do not have alternative clothes and there is no place to wash or dry them.” Life in the tents is becoming unbearable, she says. “Two mornings ago, my five-year-old daughter, Salma, woke up wet from the rain falling on her. She was shivering so much from the cold. She was very sick and her temperature was high. “I went out to look for this for her as well because there are many sizes and anyone can wear it.” Many children only have one set of clothes and, if they get wet, can take days to dry out. Medical overalls from hospitals help keep them dry [Ruwaida Amer/Al Jazeera] ‘I hope this nightmare will end’ Salem Baris, 55, fled to al-Mawasi with his children and grandchildren, including a total of 10 smaller children who are all in white coveralls. He came to this part of Rafah from Khan Younis when it became too dangerous to remain, he told Al Jazeera. “Suddenly, tanks entered behind Al-Khair Hospital and Al-Aqsa University [in Khan Younis]. I left with my children and grandchildren, more than 10 children with me. “I hadn’t left my house since the beginning of the war, but I was forced to leave because tank shells reached our homes. Clashes were continuing between the army and the resistance and I feared that one of my sons would be injured. “We stood at the checkpoint waiting for permission until the army allowed us to enter. I was holding my grandson as he looked at the tank and was very afraid. All my grandchildren were afraid because, for the first time, they were seeing tanks and soldiers.” Baris took his family to join his cousin who had two tents in Rafah. “We arrived and the children were wet from the rain and very sick. They had such severe colds. I found my cousin had many white uniforms and I made the children wear them. They didn’t like it.” Before the coveralls, Baris said, he had to sit in the sun with the children for hours so their clothes could dry. The nylon coveralls have made things better, he says. “We’re trying to live with the war conditions, but they are very difficult. I hope this nightmare ends and I can go home soon.” Adblock test (Why?)
Hundreds detained at Navalny memorials in Russia
NewsFeed Police in Russia have detained more than 400 people at memorials honouring Alexey Navalny, the staunch Putin critic who authorities say fell unconscious and died on Friday. Published On 18 Feb 202418 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)