Syria gov’t forces battle opposition fighters near city of Hama
The Syrian government said its counteroffensive has pushed back opposition fighters attempting to advance to the strategic central city of Hama, while opposition forces say they captured more Syrian troops and Iran-backed fighters in fierce battles. Forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have staged their biggest advance in years over the past week, capturing large parts of the northern city of Aleppo, the country’s largest, as well as towns and villages in southern parts of the northwestern Idlib province. The offensive is being led by led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as well as Turkiye-backed opposition fighters known as the Syrian National Army (SNA). Both groups have in recent years entrenched themselves in northwest Idlib province and parts of northern Aleppo, with HTS considered the dominant force. A video circulating on social media confirmed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification agency showed HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani on Wednesday surrounded by supporters as he walked in front of the Citadel of Aleppo, a large medieval fortified palace in the centre of the old city. Advertisement The war between Assad and his allies – including Russia and Iran – and the array of armed opposition forces seeking his overthrow has killed an estimated half-million people during the past 13 years. Fierce battles near Hama Syrian state media SANA on Wednesday said opposition fighters retreated some 20km (12 miles) from government-held Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, as government troops backed by Russian airpower entrenched themselves in the outskirts. Fierce fighting has raged for days as Damascus fears that the opposition will make their way into the city as they did over the weekend into Aleppo. The opposition through its Military Operations Department channel on the Telegram app said they captured five Iran-backed fighters, of whom two were from Afghanistan, as well as three Syrian troops from its 25th Special Mission Forces Division in eastern Hama. The claims could not be independently confirmed. Wassim, a 36-year-old delivery driver from Hama city, said the sounds were “really terrifying” and the continuous bombing was audible. “I’ll stay home because I have nowhere else to flee to,” he said. A Syrian photographer working for the German news agency dpa was killed in an air strike near the city of Hama, the agency said on Wednesday. Anas Alkharboutli, 32, has long documented Syria’s civil war, and worked for the agency from 2017. If the opposition seize Hama city and control the province, it could leave the coastal cities of Tartous and Lattakia isolated from the rest of the country. Lattakia is a key political stronghold for al-Assad and Syria’s Alawite community, as well as a strategic Russian naval base. Advertisement ‘Next target will be Damascus’ Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from northwestern Syria’s Menagh military air base, said opposition fighters are “very happy” that Aleppo has been captured. “Some of the commanders that I have spoken to were from Hama, from Aleppo … they say, they will enter Hama,” Koseoglu said. “Their next target will be Damascus.” Tens of thousands have been displaced by the fighting, which started last week, Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, said Tuesday. “If we do not see de-escalation and a rapid move to a serious political process, involving the Syrian parties and the key international players, then I fear we will see a deepening of the crisis,” Pedersen said in an address the UN Security Council. “Syria will be in grave danger of further division, deterioration, and destruction.” Turkiye, which backs Syria’s opposition, has called on al-Assad to reconcile with opposition forces and include them in any political solution to end the conflict. Ankara has been seeking to normalise ties with Syria to address perceived security threats from groups affiliated with Kurdish fighters along its southern border and to help ensure the safe return of more than 3 million Syrian refugees. Al-Assad has insisted that Turkiye’s withdrawal of its military forces from northern Syria be a condition for any normalisation between the two countries. Damascus refers to the opposition as “terrorists”, and al-Assad has promised to respond to the offensive with an iron fist. Advertisement Turkish and Iranian officials met earlier this week, in a bid to reach a solution and de-escalate the flareup. Arab countries bordering Syria, and who once backed groups that tried to overthrow al-Assad, have expressed their concern about the conflict’s regional effects, and have backed the president. “Many policymakers thought, well, al-Assad won, there is no war,” said Rim Turkmani, director of the Syria Conflict Research Programme at the London School of Economics. But “we’ve been worrying about this for years, that the fact that there is no intense violence doesn’t mean that the conflict is over,” she said. While the opposition fighters may have advanced swiftly, it does not mean they will have the capacity to hold the territory they have captured. HTS is “very well organised, very ideologically driven,” Turkmani said. “However, they spread very quickly and very thin. And I think very quickly they’re going to realise it’s beyond their capacity to maintain these areas and, most importantly, to govern them.” Adblock test (Why?)
Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky pleads guilty to two fraud counts
Mashinsky was one of several crypto moguls charged with fraud after a slump in prices in 2022 caused firms to collapse. Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, has pleaded guilty in the United States to two counts of fraud. Mashinsky, 59, was indicted on July 13, 2023, on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and market manipulation charges. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said he misled Celsius customers to persuade them to invest, and artificially inflated the value of his company’s proprietary crypto token. He pleaded not guilty later that day. On Tuesday, during a hearing before US District Judge John Koeltl, Mashinsky said he pleaded guilty to two out of the seven counts he was initially charged with: commodities fraud and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of CEL, Celsius’s in-house token. In court, Mashinsky admitted to giving Celsius customers “false comfort” by giving an interview in 2021 in which he said Celsius had received approval from regulators for its “Earn” programme, which it had not. The Earn programme allowed users to deposit cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether and receive weekly interest payments, offering as much as 18 percent annually. Advertisement He said he also failed to disclose that he had been selling his holdings of CEL. “I know what I did was wrong, and I want to try to do whatever I can to make it right,” Mashinsky said. As part of his plea deal with prosecutors, Mashinsky agreed not to appeal any sentence of 30 years or less – the maximum he faces for the two counts. Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky pleaded guilty to two of seven counts [File: Reuters TV via Reuters] Mashinsky was one of several crypto moguls to be charged with fraud after a slump in crypto prices in 2022 caused a number of companies, including the now-bankrupt exchange FTX, to collapse. Prices for digital assets like Bitcoin have since surged, in part due to optimism about US President-elect Donald Trump’s expected friendly policies towards cryptocurrency. Founded in 2017, Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US – which allows a business to continue operating while it works on a plan to repay its creditors – in July 2022 after customers rushed to withdraw deposits as crypto prices fell. Many were initially unable to access their funds. The company exited bankruptcy on January 31, and has pivoted to Bitcoin mining. Crypto lenders such as Celsius grew rapidly as crypto prices surged during the COVID pandemic. They promised easy loan access and eye-popping interest rates to depositors, then lent out tokens to institutional investors, hoping to profit from the difference. Celsius was among the first in a series of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency sector in 2022 as token prices cratered amid rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation. It filed for bankruptcy shortly after Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and rival crypto lender Voyager Digital did so. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Mashinsky and Celsius’s former chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, of manipulating the market for the company’s crypto token. Cohen-Pavon pleaded guilty in September 2023 and agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors’ investigation. Prosecutors have said Mashinsky also personally reaped approximately $42m in proceeds from selling his holdings of the CEL token. Advertisement Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, was convicted of stealing roughly $8bn from the exchange’s customers in November 2023 and sentenced in March to 25 years in prison. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,014
These were the key developments on the 1,014th day of the Russia-Ukraine war. Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 4: Fighting Russian drones struck critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s western Ternopil and Rivne regions overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. The attack left part of the city of Ternopil without electricity, the city’s mayor said, a week after Russian strikes cut power to much of the city and the surrounding region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for major reinforcement of eastern sectors in Ukraine’s 1,000-km (600-mile) front line. Zelenskyy said that much depended on Ukraine’s Western allies providing vital weaponry, adding that the “greater our army’s firepower and technological capabilities, the more we can destroy Russia’s offensive potential”. Zelenskyy issued his appeal as Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its troops had captured two new front-line villages – the town of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region and the town of Novodarivka in the neighbouring Zaporizhia region. Russia’s air defence units were working to repel a Ukrainian drone attack on Novorossiysk, the mayor of the Russian Black Sea port city said early on Wednesday. Russian Navy frigates tested new generation Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic antiship missiles during drills in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Russian Defence Ministry reported. A Russian submarine also launched a Kalibr cruise missile, another weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, while an Onyx antiship missile was also tested. Ukraine has conducted a test on new domestically-made missiles and is ramping up missile production, Zelenskyy said, without providing further details. A Russian Navy frigate fires a Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic antiship missile during drills as captured in this still image from a video released on December 3, 2024 [Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via Reuters] Politics and diplomacy NATO will step up intelligence sharing and improve the protection of critical infrastructure in the face of Russia’s “hostile” acts of sabotage, NATO chief Mark Rutte said in advance of a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers on Tuesday. Rutte added that the bloc needs to step up military aid to strengthen Kyiv’s position should it enter into peace negotiations with Moscow. While NATO political leaders have agreed “in principle” that Ukraine will join the transatlantic alliance, a number of members are waiting for Donald Trump’s administration to take office in the United States before approving the move, Latvian Minister for Foreign Affairs Baiba Braze told the Reuters news agency at the meeting. Ukraine declared it would not settle for anything less than NATO membership to guarantee its future security, as the alliance sidestepped Kyiv’s call for an immediate membership invitation at Tuesday’s foreign ministers’ meeting. Ukraine needs robust security guarantees and a just peace, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on the sidelines of the NATO meeting, adding that Kyiv alone would decide when to start negotiations with Russia. Italy is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine, two sources close to the matter have told the Reuters news agency, in a renewed show of support for Kyiv from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. A Russian presidential aircraft and money were used in a Kremlin-funded programme that took at least 314 children from occupied Ukrainian territories and placed them with Russian families, according to a US State Department-backed report by Yale’s School of Public Health. State-owned Polish insurer PZU wants to finance projects of dual military and civilian use, the company’s president Artur Olech said, as the country ramps up defence spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Olech did not provide details but ruled out purely military projects. The Kremlin said a US decision to send another weapons package to Ukraine worth $725m shows the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden is determined to throw oil on the fire of the war in Ukraine to ensure the conflict keeps going. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)
Meta says AI had only ‘modest’ impact on global elections in 2024
Despite fears that artificial intelligence (AI) could influence the outcome of elections around the world, the United States technology giant Meta said it detected little impact across its platforms this year. That was in part due to defensive measures designed to prevent coordinated networks of accounts, or bots, from grabbing attention on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg told reporters on Tuesday. “I don’t think the use of generative AI was a particularly effective tool for them to evade our trip wires,” Clegg said of actors behind coordinated disinformation campaigns. In 2024, Meta says it ran several election operations centres around the world to monitor content issues, including during elections in the US, Bangladesh, Brazil, France, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Most of the covert influence operations it has disrupted in recent years were carried out by actors from Russia, Iran and China, Clegg said, adding that Meta took down about 20 “covert influence operations” on its platform this year. Advertisement Russia was the number one source of those operations, with 39 networks disrupted in total since 2017, followed by Iran with 31, and China with 11. Overall, the volume of AI-generated misinformation was low and Meta was able to quickly label or remove the content, Clegg said. That was despite 2024 being the biggest election year ever, with some 2 billion people estimated to have gone to the polls around the world, he noted. “People were understandably concerned about the potential impact that generative AI would have on elections during the course of this year,” Clegg told journalists. In a statement, he said that “any such impact was modest and limited in scope”. AI content, such as deepfake videos and audio of political candidates, was quickly exposed and failed to fool public opinion, he added. In the month leading up to Election Day in the US, Meta said it rejected 590,000 requests to generate images of President Joe Biden, then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz. In an article in The Conversation, titled The apocalypse that wasn’t, Harvard academics Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders wrote: “There was AI-created misinformation and propaganda, even though it was not as catastrophic as feared.” However, Clegg and others have warned that disinformation has moved to social media and messaging websites not owned by Meta, especially TikTok, where some studies have found evidence of fake AI-generated videos featuring politically related misinformation. Propaganda on social platforms such as Facebook was not as ‘catastrophic’ as feared, academics say [Michael M Santiago/Getty Images/AFP] Public concerns Advertisement In a Pew survey of Americans earlier this year, nearly eight times as many respondents expected AI to be used for mostly bad purposes in the 2024 election as those who thought it would be used mostly for good. In October, Biden rolled out new plans to harness AI for national security as the global race to innovate the technology accelerates. Biden outlined the strategy in a first-ever AI-focused national security memorandum (NSM) on Thursday, calling for the government to stay at the forefront of “safe, secure and trustworthy” AI development. Meta has itself been the source of public complaints on various fronts, caught between accusations of censorship and the failure to prevent online abuses. Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch accused Meta of silencing pro-Palestine voices amid increased social media censorship since October 7. Meta says its platforms were mostly used for positive purposes in 2024, to steer people to legitimate websites with information about candidates and how to vote. While it said it allows people on its platforms to ask questions or raise concerns about election processes, “we do not allow claims or speculation about election-related corruption, irregularities, or bias when combined with a signal that content is threatening violence”. Clegg said the company was still feeling the pushback from its efforts to police its platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in some content being mistakenly removed. “We feel we probably overdid it a bit,” he said. “While we’ve been really focusing on reducing prevalence of bad content, I think we also want to redouble our efforts to improve the precision and accuracy with which we act on our rules.” Advertisement Republican concerns Some Republican lawmakers in the US have questioned what they say is censorship of certain viewpoints on social media. President-elect Donald Trump has been especially critical, accusing its platforms of censoring conservative viewpoints. In an August letter to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he regretted some content take-downs the company made in response to pressure from the Biden administration. In Clegg’s news briefing, he said Zuckerberg hoped to help shape President-elect Donald Trump’s administration on tech policy, including AI. Clegg said he was not privy to whether Zuckerberg and Trump discussed the tech platform’s content moderation policies when Zuckerberg was invited to Trump’s Florida resort last week. “Mark is very keen to play an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere … and particularly the pivotal role that AI will play in that scenario,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Namibia elects Nandi-Ndaitwah as country’s first woman president
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, won with 57 percent of the vote, flouting predictions that she might be forced into a run-off. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has been elected Namibia’s president and will be the country’s first female leader, results released by the country’s electoral commission show. The 72-year-old won with 57 percent of the vote, according to official results declared on Tuesday by the electoral commission, flouting predictions that she might be forced into a run-off. “The Namibian nation has voted for peace and stability,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said after being declared president-elect. Her win cements her governing South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) party’s 34-year hold on power since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 – a contested outcome. Opposition parties have rejected the results after the election was marred by technical problems, including shortages of ballot papers and other issues, causing election officials to extend voting until Saturday. Long queues meant that some voters gave up on the first day of voting after waiting for up to 12 hours. The opposition parties say the extension was illegal and have pledged to challenge the results in court. Advertisement The candidate for the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), Panduleni Itula, trailed Nandi-Ndaitwah with 25.5 percent of the vote, according to the commission. “The rule of law has been grossly violated and we cannot call these elections by any means or measure as free, fair and legitimate,” Itula said on Saturday. Nandi-Ndaitwah was promoted to vice president in February after President Hage Geingob died while in office. While in power for decades, SWAPO has disenchanted young voters due to high youth unemployment rates and enduring inequalities. She got her start in politics by taking part in the country’s underground independence movement in the 1970s. She returned from the UK to join parliament in 1990 and went on to serve as minister with several portfolios over the years. Adblock test (Why?)
US says it carried out strike against ‘imminent threat’ in Syria
The attack comes as violence in Syria intensifies, with opposition fighters advancing against government positions. Washington, DC – The Pentagon has confirmed that the United States carried out a strike against military assets in eastern Syria after a rocket attack near one of its bases. Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday that the US military struck weapons systems — including rocket launchers and a tank — that “presented a clear and imminent threat” to its forces in the area. The US strike comes as violence escalates across the war-torn country. Over the last week, armed opposition groups carried out a blistering offensive in northwest Syria against the government forces led by President Bashar al-Assad, ushering in a new stage of the country’s long-running civil war. The offensive has raised questions about how the US might respond and whether it could become entangled in the conflict, given its significant military presence in Syria. Ryder said on Tuesday that the attack was in response to a rocket launch that fell “in the vicinity” of Military Support Site (MSS) Euphrates, a US base in eastern Syria. Advertisement He added that it is not clear who was operating the weapons, but Iran-backed groups and Syrian government forces are known to be in the area. The Pentagon spokesperson stressed that the action is “not linked to any broader activities in northwest Syria by other groups”. But on Tuesday, Damascus accused the US of providing air support for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which pushed to advance against government-controlled villages east of the Euphrates River, near the city of Deir ez-Zor. The SDF has received US support for years under the stated aim of fighting ISIL (ISIS). Syrian state-run Alikhbaria TV reported on Tuesday that clashes were taking place between SDF and government forces near the village of Tabiyet Jazira “with the intervention of US occupation jets that are targeting the frontlines in the area”. The SDF had claimed earlier in the day that it took control of seven villages east of the Euphrates due to the “serious threat related to the imminent movement of large ISIS terrorist cells”. “The deployment of our forces to these villages is in response to the urgent pleas and appeals of the local populace, following the increasing potential risks that ISIS will exploit the events in the west of the country,” the SDF’s Deir ez-Zor Military Council said in a statement. But the Syrian government said the villages remain under its control. Farther west, government troops have been battling rebels trying to advance towards the central city of Hama as the front lines of the war, which had gone mostly dormant over the past four years, see major shifts. Advertisement Rebel groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which had been confined to the northwestern Idlib province, launched their offensive last week, taking control of Aleppo and heading south towards Hama. The country had experienced relative calm since 2020 with the government, rebel groups and SDF largely remaining within their unofficial territories. But the opposition appears to have struck at an opportune moment when President al-Assad’s main military backers — Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah — are focusing on their own conflicts elsewhere. The US, which calls Assad a “brutal dictator”, has denied any involvement in the rebels’ offensive, highlighting that Washington considers HTS to be a “terrorist” group. HTS is a reiteration of al-Nusra Front, which operated as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria early in the war. According to the Pentagon, Washington has 900 troops in Syria and a deep alliance with the SDF, one of the major parties to the conflict. On Tuesday, the Pentagon’s Ryder declined to answer questions about the SDF’s operations in the Deir ez-Zor area. “Our focus has been on working with the SDF as it relates to countering ISIS, and that continues to be our focus,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Crime against humanity: Why has a court found Belgium guilty of kidnapping?
A court has ordered Belgium to pay millions of dollars in compensation to five mixed-race women who were forcibly taken from their homes in the Belgian Congo as children, under a colonial-era practice that judges said was a “crime against humanity”. The landmark ruling on Monday by the Brussels Court of Appeal came after years of legal battle by the aggrieved women. It sets a historic precedent for state-sanctioned abductions that saw thousands of children kidnapped from today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo because of their racial makeup. An earlier ruling from a lower court in 2021 rejected the women’s claims. However, the Appeals court on Monday ordered the Belgian state to “compensate the appellants for the moral damage resulting from the loss of their connection to their mothers and the damage to their identity and their connection to their original environment”. The five women will receive 250,000 euros ($267,000) combined. Monique Bitu Bingi (71), one of the women who brought the case in 2020, told Al Jazeera she was satisfied with the ruling. Advertisement “I am very happy that justice has finally been delivered to us,” she said. ” And I’m happy that this was termed a crime against humanity.” Here’s what to know about the case, and why the court ruling is historic: In this June 29, 2020 file photo, clockwise from top left: Simone Ngalula, Monique Bitu Bingi, Lea Tavares Mujinga, Noelle Verbeeken and Marie-Jose Loshi [File: Francisco Seco/AP] Why were the women kidnapped? The five plaintiffs, including Bitu Bingi, were among an estimated 5,000 to 20,000 mixed-race children who were snatched from their mothers in the former Belgian Congo (today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo) and forcibly taken to faraway cities, or, in some cases, shipped to Belgium for adoption. Following the violent rule of King Leopold II, which resulted in the deaths and mutilations of millions of Congolese, the Belgian state took over the occupation and continued to operate an immensely exploitative system over the colony between 1908 and 1960. Belgium also controlled the then Ruanda-Urundi, or today’s Rwanda and Burundi, where hundreds, if not thousands of bi-racial children were also taken. Now called Metis, a French term meaning ‘mixed’, the children were kidnapped between 1948 and 1961, in the lead-up to Congo’s independence. Belgian colonial authorities believed that bi-racial children threatened the white supremacy narrative they had continually pushed and that they used to justify colonialism, experts say. “They were feared because their mere existence was shaking the very foundations of this racial theory that was at the core of the colonial project,” Delphine Lauwers, an archivist and historian at the State Archives of Belgium told Al Jazeera. Advertisement Authorities systematically discriminated against the children and referred to them as “children of sin”. While white Belgian men were not legally allowed to marry African women, such interracial unions existed. Some children were also born to women as a result of rape, in situations where African housekeepers were treated as concubines. Catholic missions were key to the abductions. From a young age, bi-racial children were snatched or coerced away from their mothers and sent to orphanages or missionaries, some in Congo or Belgium. The state justified the practice based on a colonial-era law that allowed for the confinement of bi-racial children to state or religious institutions. Some of the Belgian fathers refused to acknowledge paternity – because they were from supposedly reputable homes – and so, in many cases, the children were declared to be orphaned or without known fathers. Colonial authorities also changed the children’s names, first so they would not affect their father’s reputation, and also so the children would not be able to connect with their family members. It was not until 1959, when the three colonies were near attaining independence, that the kidnapping and shipping of children from the region began to abate. In Belgium, some of the children were not accepted because of their mixed backgrounds. Some never received Belgian nationality and became stateless. Metis said they were treated as third-class citizens in Belgium for a long time. Most of those affected can still not access their birth records or find their parents. A bust of Belgium former King Leopold II that has been daubed with red paint is removed by a city worker in Auderghem, near Brussels, on June 12, 2020 as several statues of the late monarch, a symbol of Belgium’s bloody history as a colonial power in central Africa, have been defaced [File: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP] Has Belgium apologised for the kidnappings? Advertisement In March 2018, the Belgian parliament passed a resolution recognising that there had been a policy of targeted segregation and forced abductions of mixed-race children in former Belgian colonies, and that redress was needed. Lawmakers ordered the Belgian state to investigate what means of repair would be proportional for the African mothers who had had their children stolen from them, and to the bi-racial children who had been harmed for life as a result. A year later, in 2019, the then Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel apologised for the colonial practice, saying Belgium had stripped the children of their identity, stigmatised them, and split up families. In his statement, Michel pledged that “this solemn moment will represent a further step towards awareness and recognition of this part of our national history.” However, Michel stopped short of naming the crimes of forced abductions. Experts say that was because it would have major repercussions for the state, which would then be forced to possibly pay reparations to thousands of people. Although rights groups pushed Belgium to take the apology a step further, the government did not budge. People walking in the village of the Brussels International Exposition, World’s Fair, Belgium, 1935; the theme of the World’s Fair was colonisation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Congo Free State [Herbert Felton/Hulton Archive/Getty Images] What led to the court case? In 2020, a group of five female Metis, including Bitu Bingi, sued Belgium on
This year, Arab-American political power came to the fore
One of the major political developments in the United States that has gotten little attention in the wake of the Democrats’ astounding loss in the November 5 elections is the success of Arab American political organising. A new generation of political activists has emerged that has earned representation in unprecedented numbers and impact for the 3.5-million-strong Arab-American community in elected and appointed political offices. It also put Arab Americans on the electoral map for the first time by launching the Uncommitted movement during the Democratic primaries and making a foreign policy issue – Israel’s genocide in Gaza – a national moral issue. The Democratic Party underestimated the power of this new generation and the intensity of citizen anger, which cost it dearly in the election. What happened in the Arab American community is a vintage all-American tale. They, like other communities, started their pursuit of political impact as a low-profile immigrant group who became dynamic citizens after political developments threatened their wellbeing and motivated them to take action. Advertisement Arab American mobilisation traces its beginnings to small-scale participation in Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns for the Democratic Party. Jackson was the first serious presidential candidate to include Arab Americans as Democratic Party convention delegates, part of his Rainbow Coalition of “the white, the Hispanic, the Black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled [who] make up the American quilt”. His campaign gave momentum to voter registration drives within the Arab American community, which continued in the following three decades. By 2020, nearly 90 percent of Arab Americans were registered to vote. By 2024, the Arab American voter block – in its expansive coalition with other groups – had grown large enough to impact outcomes in critical swing states, especially Michigan and Pennsylvania. The attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent backlash motivated Arab Americans even more to engage in meaningful politics. Many members of the community refused to live in fear, trying to avoid the intimidation and smears that had long kept their parents and grandparents subdued and quiescent politically. As Omar Kurdi, founder of Arab Americans of Cleveland, told me, “We were no longer silent because we saw the dangers to us of being quiet and politically inactive. We refused to live in fear of politics. Since then, we have been proud, confident, and active in public. We no longer accept crumbs, but want our share of the pie, and we understand now how we can work for that.” Advertisement As a result, over the past two decades, Arab Americans have entered the public sphere and politics at all levels: from local, city, and county positions to state and federal ones. Elected officials say they succeeded because their constituents knew and trusted them. Candidates who won state and national congressional seats – like Rashida Tlaib in Michigan – inspired hundreds of younger Arab Americans to enter the political fray. Successful experiences in city politics educated newcomers on how they could impact decision-making, improve their own lives, and serve the entire community. They mastered locally the basics of politics, one Ohio activist told me, “like lobbying, bringing pressure, protesting, educating the public, achieving consensus, and creating coalitions based on shared values, problems, and goals”. All of this momentum, built up over the years, coalesced into the Uncommitted movement in 2024. As the Biden administration unconditionally supported Israel to carry out genocidal violence in Palestine and Lebanon, Arab-American activists moved to use their newfound leverage as voters in electoral politics. They joined like-minded social justice activists from other groups that mainstream political parties had long taken for granted – including Muslim Americans, Blacks, Hispanics, youth, progressive Jews, churches, and unions – and sent a strong message during the primaries that they would not support Biden’s re-election bid unless he changed his position on Gaza. The campaign hoped that tens of thousands of voters in the primaries would send the Democrats a big message by voting “uncommitted”, but in fact, hundreds of thousands of Democrats did so across half a dozen critical states. These numbers were enough to send 30 Uncommitted delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, where they could lobby their colleagues to shape the party’s national platform. Advertisement One activist involved in the process told me they convinced 320 of the other 5,000 delegates to support their demand for a party commitment to a Gaza ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel – not enough to change the party position, but enough to prove that working from inside the political system over time could move things in a better direction. Intergenerational support and motivation were big factors in the success of the Uncommitted movement. Arab American Institute Executive Director Maya Berry, who has been involved in such activities for three decades, told me that Arab Americans were always in political positions, but in small numbers, so they had little impact. However, they learned how the system works and provided valuable insights when the time came this year to act. She mentioned Abbas Alawiyeh as an example, who co-chairs the Uncommitted National Movement and worked as a congressional staffer for many years. The Uncommitted movement’s precise contribution to the Democratic Party’s defeat is hotly debated right now. One activist told me the movement “placed Arab Americans at the centre of Democratic Party politics, led the progressives, helped Harris lose in swing states, and nationally brought attention to Gaza, divestment, and moral issues in ways we had never been able to do previously.” All this occurs in uncharted territory, with no clarity if Arab Americans can influence both the Democratic and Republican parties who might now compete for their vote. One Arab-American activist in his 30s added, “We are liberated from the Democrats who took us for granted, and we Arab Americans are now a swing vote officially.” Advertisement Other activists I spoke to thought the election experience
Where was the Lebanese government as Israel waged war?
NewsFeed As Israel relentlessly bombed Lebanon, the country’s military largely stayed out of the war. In most countries, the government would be accused of abandoning its people. What makes Lebanon different? Soraya Lennie explains. Published On 3 Dec 20243 Dec 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Malaysia, Thailand brace for more rains after floods kill more than 30
With tens of thousands already displaced, both countries set up shelters, rescue teams and evacuation plans in anticipation of further downpours. Authorities in Thailand and Malaysia are on high alert for more intense rainfall after days of monsoon rains triggered devastating floods that killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands. Officials in both countries said on Tuesday they were setting up shelters and preparing evacuation plans in anticipation of further downpours in the days ahead. In southern Thailand, at least 25 people died in floods and more than 300,000 households were affected over the past week, according to the country’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. As of Monday, the country’s Ministry of Public Health said, 34,354 evacuees remained at 491 government shelters. Among the hardest hit provinces were Pattani, Narathiwat, Songkhla and Yala, where the government has deployed rescue teams and designated 50 million baht ($1.45m) in relief per province. The Thai cabinet has also signed off a 9,000 baht ($260) payment per affected family. Although water levels have receded in several provinces, Thailand expects more heavy rains through Thursday, putting the areas further at risk of flash floods. Authorities prepared shelter, water pumps, evacuation trucks and boats, and put rescue workers on standby to prepare for more downpours. Rescue workers deliver food rations to people staying in flooded houses in Sateng Nok, Yala province, Thailand, November 30, 2024 [Poh Teck Tung Foundation via Reuters] In Malaysia, five days of ferocious rainfall last week hammered its eastern coast, killing six people and wrecking homes and roads in the northeastern state of Kelantan and neighbouring Terengganu. Advertisement Some 91,000 people are still out of their homes, according to the National Disaster Command Center, and the damage is estimated to be worth $224m. While rain eased over the weekend, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the government braced for heavy rains on Tuesday, followed by another monsoon surge projected for Sunday. The floods have affected tourism, with Malaysian officials urging citizens to defer travel plans to southern Thailand, a popular holiday destination. While the two Southeast Asian countries experience annual monsoon rains, scientists say climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely. A man dries items he removed from his flooded house in Tumpat, on the outskirts of Kota Bahru, Kelantan state Malaysia [Vincent Thian/AP] Adblock test (Why?)