News Briefs for December 2, 2024
HAVANA TIMES – Here are the top international news stories compiled by Democracy Now on Monday, December 2, 2024.
President Biden Pardons Hunter Biden After Repeatedly Vowing Not To
Dec 02, 2024
President Biden issued a pardon for his son Hunter Biden Sunday evening in a major reversal after Joe Biden repeatedly vowed not to use his executive authority to intervene in his son’s criminal cases. Hunter Biden was set to be sentenced on December 12 for his federal gun conviction and on December 16 for his California tax evasion case. President Biden said he made the decision because the charges against Hunter were politically motivated and “instigated” by his rivals, saying his son was “singled out only because he is my son.”
President Biden is now facing renewed pressure to commute the sentences of death row prisoners and to pardon or grant clemency to political prisoners like Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier and the whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. Meanwhile, the group the Debt Collective posted, “Pardon our student loans next.”
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Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill Hundreds over Bloody Weekend, Incl. Aid Workers, ICU Director, Reporter
Dec 02, 2024
Health officials in northern Gaza report Israeli attacks killed more than 200 people on Saturday. The dead included 40 members of the al-Araj family, who were killed in a single Israeli strike on a building in the Tel al-Zaatar neighborhood.
Israel has also killed a number of medical professionals and aid workers in recent days. On Friday, a drone killed Dr. Ahmed al-Kahlout, head of the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia. A separate Israeli drone strike killed chef Mahmoud Almadhoun, who co-founded the Gaza Soup Kitchen that has fed Palestinians suffering hunger due to Israel’s blockade of food aid. Almadhoun was killed on his way to Kamal Adwan Hospital. On Saturday, Israel bombed a vehicle in Khan Younis, killing five people, including three aid workers with World Central Kitchen. Israel also killed a staff member of Save the Children on Saturday in an airstrike on Khan Younis.
Meanwhile, Maysara Ahmed Salah has become the 192nd journalist killed by Israel. He worked for the Quds News Network.
Attacks also continued on Gaza City, where residents of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood gathered to clear the rubble and recover the bodies of loved ones killed in an overnight Israeli strike Saturday.
Mohammed al-Zaytouniyeh: “I want to tell the free people of the world that claim freedom and call on human freedom and peace. We ask, ‘What has kept you silent for a year and a month?’ People are undergoing a genocide, being killed, torn apart. Life is not possible here. It is hell. Other than the fact that there are no hospitals to take in the injured, nor are there cemeteries to take in the killed, nor are there people capable of pulling out bodies from under the rubble. What is the world waiting for? The free people of the world and its organizations, leaders, governments, what are you waiting for? Gaza is being annihilated. Gaza is being annihilated.”
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U.S. Approves More Arms for Israel as Netanyahu’s Former Minister Says Israel Guilty of War Crimes
Dec 02, 2024
The Biden administration has reportedly approved another $680 million weapons sale to Israel, including thousands of additional joint direct attack munition kits and hundreds of small-diameter bombs. The deal is separate from the $20 billion arms sales recently approved by the U.S. Senate.
This comes as Israel’s former Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and committing war crimes in Gaza. Ya’alon, who served as Netanyahu’s defense minister from 2013 to 2016, made the accusations several times over the weekend, including in an interview on one of Israel’s biggest television channels.
Moshe Ya’alon: “To occupy, to annex, to cleanse, ethnic cleansing, look at the northern Gaza Strip and settle a Jewish settlement. That’s the point. There is no Beit Lahia. There is no Beit Hanoun. They are operating in Jabaliya and are essentially clearing the area of Arabs.”
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France Says Israel Has Violated Lebanon Ceasefire 52 Times
Dec 02, 2024
Israel is continuing to strike Lebanon despite last week’s ceasefire. France has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire at least 52 times. Meanwhile, residents of southern Lebanon continue to return home to assess damage caused by Israel’s invasion, defying threats by Israeli forces not to travel south. This is Hamza al Outa, who ran a soup kitchen out of his home in the city of Baalbek, which was destroyed in the Israeli invasion.
Hamza al Outa: “This kitchen, where we used to cook in the month of Ramadan, we used to cook for special occasions to be able to feed orphans, residents and those in need that nobody is looking out for. … Two thousand five hundred people daily in Ramadan, 30 days, 2,500 people, used to eat the food from this kitchen. Are there rockets in this kitchen? What’s in this kitchen? They did not even show mercy to those in need. Even those in need, they did not spare. Where’s the mercy?”
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Syrian Rebels Capture Aleppo in Surprise Offensive; Russia-Backed Syrian Gov’t Launches Air Attacks
Dec 02, 2024
In Syria, opposition forces are pushing toward Hama after launching a surprise offensive to seize most of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city. Syrian and Russian forces have launched air attacks on the rebel-held cities of Idlib and Aleppo, a city where rebels were driven out eight years ago by Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports 446 people have been killed in Syria since Wednesday. The offensive is being led by an armed group called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which grew out of the Nusra Front, which had ties to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. We will have more on Syria later in the show.
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NYPD Arrests 21 Anti-Genocide Protesters at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
Dec 02, 2024
Here in New York, police arrested 21 activists who disrupted the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday. The protesters briefly blocked off part of the parade route, unfurling a banner that read, “Don’t celebrate genocide! Arms embargo now. Free Palestine!” The following day, protests unfolded in malls and other retail sites across the U.S. as shoppers headed to stores for Black Friday sales. Palestinian rights groups had called on consumers to boycott Black Friday in protest.
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Trump Picks Kash Patel, Who Has Called for Prosecuting Journalists, to Head FBI
Dec 02, 2024
Image Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr
President-elect Donald Trump has announced plans to nominate Kash Patel to replace current FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom Patel has called a “stooge of the deep state.” Patel is a Trump loyalist who has called for the FBI’s D.C. office to be closed and turned into a “museum of the deep state.” Last year during an interview with Steve Bannon, Kash Patel called for prosecuting journalists.
Kash Patel: “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But, yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
Kash Patel has also embraced QAnon conspiracy theories, supported the Jan. 6 insurrection and has made hundreds of thousands of dollars from various commercial and consulting ventures tied to Trump.
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Trump Names In-Laws Charles Kushner and Massad Boulos to High-Level Gov’t Roles
Dec 02, 2024
In other transition news, Trump has picked the real estate developer Charles Kushner to be U.S. ambassador to France. Kushner is the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka. In 2020, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, who spent 14 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and witness tampering in the 2000s.
Trump has also picked the Lebanese-born billionaire Massad Boulos to serve as his new adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Boulos is the father-in-law of Trump’s other daughter Tiffany.
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New Details Reported on Pete Hegseth’s Sexual Assault History, Ethics Violations
Dec 02, 2024
Image Credit: Gage Skidmore
The New Yorker magazine’s Jane Mayer has revealed Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was forced out of leadership roles at two veterans organizations for misusing funds, sexually harassing women and being repeatedly drunk on the job. According to a whistleblower report, Hegseth once had to be restrained from joining dancers on the stage of a strip club. In another incident, Hegseth drunkenly chanted “Kill All Muslims. Kill All Muslims” at a bar in 2015.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports Hegseth’s own mother once accused him of mistreating women. In 2018, Penelope Hegseth wrote him an email that read in part, “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself.” The email was sent a year after a woman accused Hegseth of raping her at a California hotel.
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Prime Minister Trudeau and President Sheinbaum Speak with Trump Following Tariffs Threat
Dec 02, 2024
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago Friday, days after Trump vowed to impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican and Canadian goods as soon as he returns to office. Canada has since said it would implement more hard-line border measures in hopes that Trump will back down, including the possible deployment of drones and helicopters to the U.S.-Canada border.
Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who threatened to slap retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., also spoke with Trump last week. After their phone call, Trump declared that Sheinbaum “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico … effectively closing our Southern Border,” but Sheinbaum refuted Trump’s account, saying she simply explained Mexico’s continuing migration policies and that there is no plan to “close borders.”
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Biden in Angola to Push Rail Project That Would Transport Congolese Minerals, in Counter to Beijing
Dec 02, 2024
Image Credit: Siddharth Kara
President Biden is in Angola today to promote a rail project that the U.S. hopes will counter Beijing’s influence in the region. The project would connect the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to Angola’s Port of Lobito, allowing the U.S. to exploit the region’s vast mineral resources, including copper and cobalt. The ongoing plundering of resources from the DRC by the U.S. and Europe has led to decades of devastating war, poverty and environmental destruction.
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Chad Ends Military Partnership with Former Colonizer France
Dec 02, 2024
Chad has ended its long-standing military partnership with France. The move is the latest blow to France’s colonial legacy in the Sahel region and follows the expulsion of French troops from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Residents in Chad’s capital N’Djamena voiced their support.
Djata Grâce: “I think the Chadian government is right to demand the departure of French troops, because Chad has already had 66 years of independence, and the French troops are only here to plunder Chadian resources. They have nothing positive to offer. Since their presence, we have faced attacks around the lake, but we have received no positive response. So the government is right: We need to start developing now and be truly independent.”
The announcement by Chad was made Thursday, hours after a visit by the French foreign minister. France currently has around 1,000 troops stationed in Chad, which won its independence from France in 1960.
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Mass Protests Roil Georgia Amid Disputed Election and Support for EU Membership
Dec 02, 2024
In the Republic of Georgia, over 200 people have been arrested in the capital Tbilisi, as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets for a fourth straight day Sunday to denounce the Georgian government’s decision to suspend its bid to join the European Union. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who backs joining the EU, said she’ll refuse to leave office until new parliamentary elections are held, following allegations of fraud against the governing Georgian Dream party, which claimed victory last month. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili praised police violence against protesters and has said his government won’t resume debate on joining the EU until 2028.
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India Charges Activist Nadeem Khan in What Civil Rights Groups Call a “Witch-Hunt”
Dec 02, 2024
In India, civil liberties groups have criticized the Modi government for filing charges against human rights activist Nadeem Khan as part of what’s been described as a “targeted witch-hunt.” Khan is a vocal critic of Hindu supremacist violence and runs a civil rights organization that tracks and fights cases of mob lynchings and hate crimes against Muslims.
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“A Moral Failure”: U.N. Plastics Summit Ends Without Urgently Needed Treaty on Plastics Production
Dec 02, 2024
A global U.N. summit on plastics ended in Busan, South Korea, early this morning without a much-anticipated treaty after fossil fuel companies and oil-rich countries refused to agree to limit plastic production. The Panama delegation, which introduced a global proposal to cut down production, called the conclusion of the summit a “moral failure.” This is Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez from Panama’s Ministry of Environment.
Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez: “Plastics are not convenience. Plastics are poison. Every piece that we allow to produce without limits is a direct assault on our health, on our nature and our children. For those blocking progress, you are allowing this crisis to fester, and it will kill us. This is just not a treaty about plastics; this is humanity’s line on the sand.”
Over 100 countries backed proposals to curb the world’s output of plastic, but nations including the U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia and trade groups like the American Chemistry Council have refused to support such a call, insisting on focusing on plastic pollution. The world produces some 350 million metric tons of plastic waste each year. About half of that ends up in landfills; less than 10% of it gets recycled. The U.S. is the world’s top contributor to plastic waste. The U.N. talks will now head to yet another round in 2025.
On Saturday, Greenpeace activists staged a protest by boarding a tanker that was set to load toxic plastic chemicals from South Korea’s Hanwha TotalEnergies complex.