North Korea’s fleeing defectors
As China cracks down on North Korean defectors, 101 East follows two families’ desperate searches for freedom. China is expelling record numbers of North Korean defectors, instilling fear and desperation in this vulnerable community. In October 2023, 600 North Koreans were forcibly deported in the largest repatriation in years. Human rights groups say the defectors, who North Korea calls “traitors” and “criminals”, have disappeared since their return, and warn they may face imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, and even execution. 101 East has exclusive access inside this secretive world, where defectors share harrowing stories of survival, human trafficking and their fragile dreams of finding a safe haven. Adblock test (Why?)
Starmer meets police as far-right violence spikes after Southport stabbing
PM to offer ‘full backing’ to police chiefs as far-right activists attempt to stoke anger against Muslims and immigrants. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has convened police leaders for an emergency meeting following a second night of violent far-right protests after a stabbing spree in the town of Southport earlier in the week. Starmer called the meeting at Downing Street on Thursday to demonstrate the government’s “full backing” for police amid “multiple high-profile incidents of extreme violence and public disorder on our streets”, said an official statement. The Prime Minister’s Office said Starmer would tell police leaders that “while the right to peaceful protest must be protected at all costs”, he would make it clear that criminals exploiting that right to “sow hatred” and carry out violent acts would “face the full force of the law”. The country is reeling since the stabbing on Monday at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the English seaside town of Southport, which killed three girls – Bebe King, six; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine. Eight other children and two adults were also wounded. The 17-year-old suspect, named as Axel Rudakubana, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday, facing three counts of murder and 10 of attempted murder following the killings. Prior to his court appearance, the suspect’s identity had been withheld owing to his age, but Liverpool judge Andrew Menary allowed the details to be released, justifying the decision on grounds of him turning 18 next week. Even though little was previously known about the suspect other than that he was born in Britain, the stabbing had been used by far-right activists spreading misinformation online to stoke anger at immigrants and Muslims. Protests led by the far-right on Wednesday night took place in three cities – London, Hartlepool and Manchester. In London, crowds massed outside Starmer’s 10 Downing Street official residence in London, throwing beer cans and bottles and chanting “Shame on you”, launching flares at a nearby statue of wartime leader and former Prime Minister Winston Churchill. More than 100 people were arrested. In Hartlepool, demonstrators set police cars on fire and threw bottles and eggs at the officers, with police saying eight arrests were made. A smaller disturbance was reported in Manchester. The previous night, more than 50 police officers were injured in violent clashes in Southport, in which bricks were thrown at a mosque and rubbish bins and vehicles were set on fire, hours after a peaceful vigil for the stabbing victims. Fifty-three police officers were injured. Police have blamed members of the far-right English Defence League grouping, an Islamophobic organisation founded 15 years ago whose supporters have been linked to football hooliganism. Adblock test (Why?)
In India’s Assam, ‘hopes dashed’ for high returns on oil palm production
Jorhat, India: Priya Ram Duwarah has planted 60 oil palm seedlings in his half-hectare (1.2 acres) of agricultural land at Mohara village in Jorhat district in the northeast Indian state of Assam. The 65-year-old farmer, who typically grows paddy and seasonal vegetables, stepped into oil palm planting last September after being assured of high returns by the officials of the state agriculture department. While it takes the plants four years to bear fruits, he says that the wait is worth the time. Reason: the promise of higher returns. Duwarah told Al Jazeera that cultivating paddy earns him approximately 40,000 rupees ($478) a year, a sum that is “too paltry” in the wake of the rising inflation. “The government officials assured me of doubling my income,” since the region has climatic conditions favourable to oil palm and Duwarah decided to venture into the business, he told Al Jazeera, sounding enthusiastic about his new crop. He is one of about 1,200 farmers in Assam who have taken up oil palm farming with the dream of enhancing their income. Huge demand for edible oils In 2014, the newly elected Narendra Modi government set up the National Mission on Oil Seeds and Oil Palm (NMOOP) with the goal of making India self-reliant in edible oils. In 2021, its name was changed to National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm and the government announced an investment of 110.4 billion rupees ($1.32bn). India is the largest importer of edible oils in the world. In the twelve months from November 2022 to October 2023, it imported 16.47 million tonnes of edible oil, including 10 million tonnes of oil palm. That was up from the previous year’s imports of 14.19 million tonnes and 8 million tonnes, respectively. Palm oil is used in a range of packaged foods, as well as soaps, cosmetics, ice cream, and other products. It takes four years for oil palm trees to bear fruits, pictured, and farmers are trying to undertake inter-cropping in the interim to have any produce to sell in the interim [Gurvinder Singh/Al Jazeera] While oil palm cultivation was already going on in some southern Indian states, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and Karnataka, the Modi government decided to expand production to the country’s northeastern region including Assam. Assam had initially allocated about 1,000 hectares (2,741 acres) of agricultural land for oil palm cultivation. But with its immense potential, the Indian Institute of Oil Palm Research in 2014 identified a total area of 375,428 hectares (927,703 acres) fit for farming. However, despite the obvious demand for palm oil and a decade of efforts, things have not gone as planned in Assam. One of the main problems is that there are still no processing facilities in place in the state and the fruit is processed in the nearby states of Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh. The delays in that process and the resultant losses have turned off farmers who were the early adopters of the practice. ‘Hopes dashed’ Josmi Rabha, 54, a farmer in Dariduri village in Goalpara district is one of them. She planted 65 oil palm seedlings over about one hectare (2.5 acres) of her farm in 2016 with the promise of high returns. “I spent around [100,000 rupees] ($1,200) to set up a fence to keep animals out and also installed a pump for groundwater irrigation,” even as that ran up her water bill, Josmi told Al Jazeera. “The plants started to bear fruits in 2021. We were expecting high returns. But all our hopes were dashed after we didn’t find any market to sell them as nobody came to buy from us,” Josmi said. The fruit begins to rot if not processed within three days and middlemen aware of that dilemma offered them low rates, she recalled. “The absence of an oil processing plant in Assam has virtually killed our business,” she said, adding that now she is having problems arranging funds to remove the plants from her land. Josmi Rabha says the lack of processing facilities in Assam has killed her business [Gurvinder Singh/Al Jazeera] Rabha’s son Debajyoti Rabha, 34, a teacher in a local school, also got into the business to supplement his family’s income, but the result has devastated him. “Oil palm is a water-guzzling crop and has killed all other crops,” which he had intercropped with the oil palm based on the suggestion of government officials, Debyajyoti said. “We are planning to clear the palm oil crop from our fields, but the branches and stems are sturdy and we will have to hire extra manpower to do that. This has been a loss-making affair for us,” he added. While once 70 farmers in the village had signed up to the idea of cultivating oil palm, now only 10 remain as everyone else has given up on it, he said. Pratul Chandra Rabha, 40, another farmer in the same village also blamed the poor prices they were offered for the farmers losing interest in cultivating it. There is no minimum support price (MSP) from the government and middlemen have offered them six rupees ($0.072) per kg for fruit, much lower than the asking price of 15-16 rupees ($0.19) per kg. “Each tree bears 15-20kg [33-35 pounds] of fruit in a gap of 20 days, but where are the buyers? I am not serious about palm cultivation any more and have almost left it,” Rabha told Al Jazeera. Dipak Kumar Pathak, the assistant director of the agriculture department in Goalpara conceded the decline in farmer participation and the plantation area which had halved to 700 – 800 hectares (1,730 – 1977 acres) from 1,511 hectares (3,734 acres) in 2014. “The lack of proper transportation of crops to the processing units and involvement of middlemen seems to be the biggest reason behind the set-back”, Pathak said. New players Last August Assam Chief Minister Hemanta Biswa Sarma announced that the state government, in partnership with Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Foods Limited (PFL), had initiated a large-scale
Paris Olympics 2024: Homeboy Marchand, legendary Ledecky bag swimming gold
Katie Ledecky blitzed the field to retain her 1,500 metres freestyle title at the Paris Olympics, the American iron woman securing a record-equalling eighth gold medal in the sport. World record holder Ledecky blew away the field in the gruelling, 30-lap race at La Defense Arena, touching the wall in an Olympic record 15.30.02, more than 10 seconds ahead of France’s silver medallist Anastasiia Kirpichnikova. Germany’s Isabel Gose took bronze. Ledecky went out hard and was a body length clear after 100m with her lead growing to five seconds at the halfway mark. She never relented, her advantage continuing to build as she reinforced her reputation as the greatest distance swimmer the sport has seen. The result was never in doubt with the 27-year-old setting the last six world records and now holding the fastest 20 times ever swum. Ledecky now shares the record for most Olympic gold medals in women’s swimming with American Jenny Thompson, who won eight relay titles over three Olympics from 1992-2000. Her collection of Olympic medals now equals the all-time record of 12 in women’s swimming shared by Thompson, Americans Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin, and Australian Emma McKeon. Ledecky will also swim the 800m in Paris, with Australian Ariarne Titmus standing in her way of winning a fourth straight title. Katie Ledecky of the United States celebrates after winning the 1500m freestyle gold medal [Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters] Magical Marchand achieves unprecedented Olympic feat In the final race of day five of the games, home hero Leon Marchand took his third gold medal of the Paris Olympics and an unprecedented second on the same day in the men’s 200-metre butterfly and breaststroke double. The Paris 2024 poster boy took the 200 butterfly title in Olympic record time and, roared on by his fans, beat Hungary’s world record holder and reigning champion Kristof Milak into second place. Canada’s Ilya Kharun took the bronze in a race led by Milak until the final length when he was reeled in by his 22-year-old opponent in a thrilling duel to the wall in a deafening atmosphere with the crowd reaching a crescendo. Marchand’s time of one minute 51.21 seconds was the third-fastest ever in the discipline. The Frenchman, who had the arena rocking when he won the 400 Individual Medley on Sunday bagged his third title later in the 200 breaststroke final in a jaw-dropping attempt. No Olympic swimmer – not even US great Michael Phelps who had the same coach as the Frenchman – has ever won the two events, but Marchand will start the breaststroke from lane four after qualifying with the fastest time. He made history as no swimmer has won medals in butterfly and breaststroke at the same Olympics. Leon Marchand was backed by a raucous French crowd at the La Defense Arena [Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters] Sarah Sjostrom defies age for 100m gold Earlier in the day, Evergreen Swede Sarah Sjostrom proved the adage that form is temporary and class is permanent as she upset a top-quality field to claim the women’s 100-metre freestyle gold. Sjostrom only committed to racing the 100m weeks before the games but showed she still has what it takes as she swept to her second gold medal at the age of 30, eight years after winning the 100m butterfly at the Rio Olympics. Sjostrom had plenty of ground to make up at the turn but put in a sizzling final 50 metres, sweeping down lane seven to touch the wall in 52.16 seconds at La Defense Arena, 0.13 seconds ahead of American silver medallist Torri Huske. Siobhan Haughey took bronze for Hong Kong. Though regarded as one of the greatest swimmers of the modern era, her one Olympic gold prior to Paris seemed a disappointing return for a swimmer of her standing. Now the Swede has the 100m gold to match her world record and more success may follow in the 50m freestyle. Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden reacts after winning the race [Reuters] Pan bags China’s first pool gold In the last swimming finals of the night, China’s Pan Zhanle smashed the world record as he stormed to victory in the men’s 100m freestyle. Pan powered to the finish in 46.40 seconds, beating the world record time of 46.80 he had set in February in Doha. Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, gold medal winner at the 2016 Rio Games, finished 1.08 seconds behind to take silver with Romania’s David Popovici claiming bronze. China’s Pan Zhanle celebrates after winning the men’s 100-metre freestyle final [Petr David Josek/AP Photo] Adblock test (Why?)
Israeli air strike kills Al Jazeera correspondent, cameraman
NewsFeed An Israeli air strike killed Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi while they were reporting from northern Gaza. Al Jazeera Media Network has called their killings a “cold-blooded assassination.” Published On 31 Jul 202431 Jul 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Republican PAC WinRed misleads US consumers into recurring donations
James Frank Clark is a lifelong Republican who lives in Texas. He spends his time between his home in a suburb northwest of Houston and a small town called Kerrville, northwest of San Antonio. He lives in fairly conservative areas so it’s no surprise that his candidates of choice are Republicans. That’s why he signed up to donate to GOP candidates through WinRed — an overarching political action committee (PAC) that donates to Republican candidates across the United States. As far as he knew, he made a handful of small donations here and there. But that’s not what ended up happening. Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show Clark made thousands of donations including as recently as in June 2024. According to his grandson Colin, who shared the data with Al Jazeera, these were made without his grandfather’s knowledge. “They [WinRed] would come in and take $20 here and there but then they would run that transaction somewhere between 50 and 200 times,” Clark told Al Jazeera. WinRed is allegedly overcharging and prompting recurring donations from donors like Clark without their knowledge, a problem that overwhelmingly impacts elderly voters like him. This is an old problem with WinRed, one of the largest Republican PACs in the US. Set up in 2019, it has been under the lens of attorneys general across four US states since 2021 for overcharging consumers and deceiving them into donating more than they thought by using deceptive marketing practices. According to records obtained by Al Jazeera, the deceptive practices have continued in the lead-up to the US presidential elections in November. Endorsed by the Republican National Committee, WinRed has become the most prominent tool for Republican Party fundraising efforts. It is one of two major PACs – ActBlue being the other one, for the Democratic Party – raising money for ballot races for their respective political sides. Both bombard donors with over-the-top emails and text messages from candidates and their surrogates. Both WinRed and ActBlue raise money for their respective parties, which they then distribute to various candidates. In Clark’s case, WinRed put his donations towards committees ranging from those supporting Ted Cruz for the US Senate and Donald Trump for president. Clark was charged almost $90,000 across six different credit cards – three of which had charges well over $20,000 as recently as the end of June, as per Clark’s credit card statements, communications with WinRed, and FEC records obtained by Al Jazeera. Clark showed Al Jazeera he had not logged into a WinRed account since 2022, which Al Jazeera has independently verified. Even though Clark alleges that misleading texts over the years led to this, WinRed refunded donations only from the last 60 days, which came out to a little more than $59,000, leaving Clark drained and furious. “I don’t have the energy to go through whatever I have to go through to get it [a full refund] done. If it’s anywhere close to having to deal with more of this bureaucracy, I’ll just tell them to kiss my ass,” he said. Clark is far from alone. There are communities online that outline comparable situations including on platforms like Trustpilot and Pissed Consumer. There are also Reddit threads dedicated to this problem. Al Jazeera reached out to dozens of impacted consumers. While there was hesitation amongst many Republicans to speak to representatives of what they described as the “liberal media”, this reporter managed to confirm the validity of some claims by cross-verifying them with FEC filings. In one case in Arizona, an elderly man was charged upwards of $700 a week for at least a year – and it wasn’t until his wife took over his finances that she discovered the incessant charges. There was a similar situation in Indiana of a retiree living on a fixed income. Out of respect for their privacy, Al Jazeera has opted not to disclose their identities. Dark patterns Other sources Al Jazeera spoke to have struggled to even opt out of texts, including Kurren Kidd, a potential donor living in Bonita, California. “Every single text link goes to WinRed, has the option to ‘repeat your donation’ automatically selected, and uses shady tactics and lies to trick you into clicking on the link. Let’s just say I’m very upset with WinRed. In my view, they are deceitful money-grabbing liars,” Kidd told Al Jazeera. Kidd added that he gets texts from different phone numbers every day from WinRed and has been unable to opt out. This practice is known as dark patterns — meaning deceptive language that can make it challenging to understand what a person might be signing up for — within a given website. “Often [dark patterns] are used to get people to tie them into subscriptions that they didn’t intend to sign up for, but these donations operate in the same way,” Harry Brignull, founder of the Deceptive Patterns Initiative, a programme that raises awareness about deceptive design tactics online, told Al Jazeera. Brignull also alleged that the hoops WinRed put in place so cancellations cannot be done over the phone — like not being able to call a customer service line, as Clark showed in emails shared with Al Jazeera — are a way to trap consumers. “It’s like in nature how there are different kinds of predatory plants to tempt insects in and then keep trapping them basically. Those are carnivorous plants. That same phenomenon is used in business, too,” added Brignull, who also coined the term “dark patterns”. Al Jazeera reached out to the attorney general (AG) offices in the four states investigating WinRed’s deceptive practices. Connecticut’s AG office declined to comment. Minnesota’s office, while they declined to comment on specifics, confirmed to Al Jazeera that the office is still actively investigating WinRed. The other two offices — New York and Maryland — did not respond. Even prior to the 2020 presidential election, the PAC faced a class-action lawsuit for deceptive practices. The suit alleged that the PAC sent automated text messages without
Israel subjecting Palestinian detainees to torture and abuse: UN report
The report says ‘thousands’ of Palestinians detained arbitrarily by Israel during the war in Gaza. Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the war in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says in a new report. The 23-page report, released on Wednesday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention. It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of detainees by soldiers. Based primarily on interviews with released detainees and other victims from October 7 to June 30, the UN report found that since the war began, “thousands of Palestinians” including medical staff, have been “taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded”. As of the end of June, Israel’s prison service held more than 9,400 “security detainees”, the report said, adding that those detained have been “held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention” and without a lawyer. “At least 53 Palestinian detainees” are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities, it said. It also detailed “allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men”. ‘Violation’ The report was released during an investigation by the Israeli army, which is questioning nine soldiers over allegations of “substantial abuse” of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Last week, eight Palestinian prisoners who were released by the Israeli army said they experienced torture during their time in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank. Former Palestinian detainees told the UN that they were held in “cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers”. The documented abuse included food, sleep and water deprivation and being burned with cigarettes. “Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence,” the report said. Palestinian detainees held in Israel are mostly men and boys who are residents, doctors or patients as well as captured Palestinian fighters, it added. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the testimonies gathered by his office and “other entities indicate a range of appalling acts … in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law”. The Israeli military rarely explains its reasons for detaining Palestinians in Gaza although it some cases it has alleged affiliation with Palestinian armed groups or their political wings, the report added. Israel also fails to provide information regarding the fate of detainees while the Red Cross has been denied access to prisons and other facilities. Adblock test (Why?)
Ukraine says it has repelled massive Russian drone attack
Russia launches one of the biggest aerial barrages in months but Ukraine says no critical infrastructure hit. Ukraine’s air force says it has repelled one of the largest aerial barrages launched by Russia on its territory in months. The air force said on Wednesday that it shot down all the incoming projectiles – 89 drones and one missile – launched by Russia overnight, the attack mainly targeting the central region of Kyiv. Kyiv’s military administration said more than 40 of the drones were downed over the capital, Kyiv, and its outskirts. There was some damage to buildings as a result of falling debris, but no casualties were reported. “Today Ukrainian air defence withstood and repelled a massive attack by enemy drones,” the air force said in a statement, identifying them as “Shahed-131/136 strike drones”. Kyiv and most of central and eastern Ukraine were under air raid alerts from 20:00 GMT on Tuesday. Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said the latest drone attack was the seventh conducted against the city in July. About 11,500 residents sheltered for safety in metro stations overnight as the drones came in several waves from “all possible directions”, the city authorities said. Russia fires drones and missiles at Ukraine on an almost nightly basis. It says it is targeting military and energy facilities, but attacks on residential areas are frequent. Ukraine accuses Russia of directly targeting civilians, which Moscow denies. Nuclear drills Russia’s Ministry of Defence on Wednesday announced that the country has begun the third stage of drills to practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons. Russia held the first stage of the drills in May and ally Belarus joined the second stage in June. Since sending thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said Russia could use nuclear weapons to defend itself in extreme situations. Russia says the United States and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation by giving Ukraine billions of dollars worth of weapons, some of which are being launched into Russian territory. The deputy spokesman for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Nastasin, said on Wednesday that an ammunition factory being built by German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall in Ukraine would be considered a “legitimate target” for the Russian military. Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday that it had struck a weapons and military equipment storage facility in Russia’s Kursk region overnight. The Kursk region’s acting governor said on Telegram that air defences had destroyed four Ukrainian missiles over two districts. Adblock test (Why?)
Life of defiance: Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas political boss, killed
Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh has been assassinated in Tehran at the age of 62 in what the Palestinian group has described as “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence”. Haniyeh, who briefly served as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority’s government in 2006, was killed early on Wednesday along with a bodyguard when the house he was staying in was targeted, nearly 10 months into Israel’s war on Gaza. Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, on Tuesday. The Hamas leader had emerged as a major force in the Palestinian liberation movement and, like his colleagues and generations of Palestinian politicians and activists, had long been in Israel’s crosshairs. While Israel has not formally claimed responsibility for the assassination, an Israeli minister celebrated Haniyeh’s death in a post on X. Haniyeh was born in the Shati refugee camp on the coast of Gaza City to parents displaced from their town of Asqalan (now known as Ashkelon) when Israel was formed in 1948. As a young man, Haniyeh was a student activist at the Islamic University in Gaza City, where he studied Arabic literature. While at university in 1983, he joined the Islamic Student Bloc, an organisation widely seen as the forerunner of Hamas. As a Palestinian uprising broke out in December 1987 against the Israeli occupation, known as the first Intifada, Haniyeh was among the youth taking part in protests. That was also the year that Hamas was founded — with Haniyeh among its younger members. Israel imprisoned Haniyeh at least three times. After serving his longest sentence, a three-year stint, he was deported to Lebanon in 1992 along with hundreds of other members of Hamas, including senior Hamas leaders Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi and Mahmoud Zahhar, and members of other Palestinian resistance groups. But Haniyeh returned to Gaza a year later after the signing of the first Oslo Accord and became a close confidant of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Hamas’s spiritual leader and founder. After Israel released Yassin from prison in 1997, Haniyeh was appointed as his assistant. That high profile meant that Haniyeh became a target for assassination. Israel had by then established a long pattern of killing Palestinian leaders over the years. Together, Haniyeh and Yassin survived an Israeli assassination attempt in September 2003 by narrowly escaping a building in Gaza City seconds before it was hit with an Israeli air strike. However, months later, Yassin was killed by Israeli forces as he left a mosque after dawn prayers. The following month, al-Rantisi was assassinated in an Israeli helicopter missile strike on Gaza City. “After 2003, Haniyeh gained a lot of popularity among Hamas people simply because of his stance, position and media appearances,” Hassan Barrari, analyst and professor at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera. “He remained a prominent figure until his assassination.” Haniyeh’s stature within the Palestinian movement grew further in 2006 when Hamas ran in the Palestine legislative elections for the first time since its establishment. In a shock result, the group won the most votes, delivering a blow to Fatah and making Haniyeh the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The outcome caught the United States, which had called for the elections, unprepared. Then-New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said in leaked recordings after the elections: “I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake. And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.” Unhappy over Hamas’s central role in Palestinian governance, Western governments halted aid to the PA, placing the body under severe financial strain. The US and many other Western governments view Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation. Amid Western pressure and heightened tensions between Hamas and Fatah, PA President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh and dissolved his government. This resulted in an independent Hamas-led government in Gaza in 2007, headed by Haniyeh. As Hamas took over governance, Israel, in cooperation with neighbouring Egypt, imposed a siege on the enclave, which has continued for 17 years. “This siege should not break our will and should not turn this conflict into an internal Palestinian conflict, and that conflict should be against the parties that imposed the siege against the Palestinian people,” Haniyeh said in a news briefing in 2006. Appointed as head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017, replacing Khaled Meshal, Haniyeh led Hamas’s diplomacy from a number of locations, including Turkey and the Qatari capital, Doha, serving as a negotiator in ceasefire talks or engaging in talks with Iran, a key supporter of Palestinian liberation. “Haniyeh was a political figure and a pragmatic one,” Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh told Al Jazeera. “He was known for maintaining very positive relations with Palestinian leaders from all factions.” After the October 7 attacks on southern Israel, the government of Israel made it clear that senior Hamas leaders were in effect on its hit list. Many of Haniyeh’s close relatives have been killed in Gaza since then. In April, three of his sons were killed in an Israeli air strike that struck their vehicle. Four of his grandchildren were also killed – three girls and a boy. In all, Haniyeh said, 60 of his relatives have been killed in the past 10 months. “All our people and all the families of Gaza residents have paid a heavy price with the blood of their children, and I am one of them,” he said in an interview. His assassination marks the latest killing of a senior Hamas leader. Most recently this year, senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Beirut. But Barrari said Israeli assassinations have “never finished Hamas” in the past and wouldn’t now. “It’s not like Israel is fighting a mafia. These people represent Palestinian resistance,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Son of Mexican drug lord El Chapo pleads not guilty in US court
US prosecutors lay out five-count indictment against Joaquin Guzman Lopez after arrest operation in Texas last week. Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of convicted Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in a United States court. Guzman Lopez, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, stood in a Chicago courtroom on Tuesday with his feet shackled as federal prosecutors detailed a five-count indictment that also includes weapons charges. US District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ordered him detained pending trial. The judge did not set a trial date and scheduled the next court date in the case for September 30. The hearing came just days after US authorities arrested Guzman Lopez and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime member of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, in the El Paso, Texas area last week, according to the US Department of Justice. Many of the details of the arrest operation remain murky, however. Last week, US officials familiar with the situation said Guzman Lopez duped Zambada into boarding a propeller plane in Mexico by saying they were going to scope out real estate in the country’s north. Instead, the plane brought both men to the US, where Guzman Lopez had planned to surrender, but Zambada had not. Zambada’s lawyer, Frank Perez, disputed the version of events offered by US officials. Perez said that Guzman Lopez “forcibly kidnapped” Zambada and brought him to the US against his will. Zambada pleaded not guilty to drug charges last week in El Paso federal court. Mexico has opened an investigation into the events leading to the two men’s arrest. Their capture fuelled theories about how US authorities pulled it off and prompted Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to take the unusual step of issuing a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other. “Those who are engaged in these illegal activities know they resolve nothing with confrontations,” Lopez Obrador said on Monday, adding “They would go out and risk the lives of other human beings, and why make families suffer?” An image provided by the US State Department shows Guzman Lopez [US State Department via AP Photo] There were no immediate reports of increased violence over the weekend. But the Sinaloa cartel has been riven for years by fighting between followers of Zambada and rivals who follow El Chapo’s sons, known collectively as Los Chapitos, or “The Little Chapos”. Their father was convicted of drug charges in New York in 2019 and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison. US Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram said Zambada’s arrest “strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast”. Adblock test (Why?)