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Tag: Egypt

  • One arrested as UCLA police dismantle ‘Gaza solidarity sukkah’ and disperse student protest

    One arrested as UCLA police dismantle ‘Gaza solidarity sukkah’ and disperse student protest

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    One person was arrested at UCLA on Monday night on suspicion of failing to disperse after the university’s Police Department ordered around 40 protesters to leave Dickson Court North, where they had established a “Gaza solidarity Sukkah” and a handful of tents, authorities said.

    Student protesters erected the sukkah Monday morning to observe the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and demand the university divest from companies that do business with Israel and call for an end to the war in Palestine. By Monday evening, students had also set up a small number of tents.

    At 3:20 p.m., UCPD issued a statement saying that students were assembling in an area not designated for public expression, using unauthorized structures and amplified sound — all of which violate the protest policies enacted in September in response to the massive pro-Palestinian protests that rattled campus in April.

    According to reporting from the Daily Bruin, a group of pro-Israel counterprotesters arrived in Dickson Court North around 8 p.m., and pro-Palestinian protesters began dismantling their tents around 8:20 p.m.

    The department issued an order to disperse about 10 minutes later, after which most of the protesters left the area, according to UCPD. Hired security guards then removed the sukkah, according to the Bruin.

    Sukkot is a weeklong Jewish holiday that celebrates the fall harvest and commemorates the biblical story of the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years after escaping slavery in Egypt. During this time, Jews eat, dwell and pray in outdoor structures known as sukkahs to remember the fragile structures their ancestors lived in after fleeing Egypt.

    Student protest organizers said they were using the holiday to call attention to the displacement and death inflicted on Palestinians and Lebanese people by Israel.

    “I refuse to observe Sukkot as normal when university investments continue to fund the genocide of Palestinians,” said protest organizer Leah Jacobson in a statement. “The principle of pikuach nefesh, or saving a soul, demands we put other laws aside in order to preserve human life. I am here aligning my Jewish practice with my support for Palestinian liberation.”

    Protesters are demanding the university divest from weapons and surveillance system manufacturers that do business with Israel such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Boeing.

    The UC system has repeatedly opposed calls for divestment saying it impinges on the academic freedom of the university community. The UC system also states that tuition and fees are the primary funding sources for the University’s core operations and that none of these funds are used for investment purposes.

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    Clara Harter

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  • A Look Inside Cairo’s Contemporary Art Scene

    A Look Inside Cairo’s Contemporary Art Scene

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    An installation mounted by Culturvator / Art D’Egypte, founded by Nadine Abdel Ghaffar (left). Culturvator / Art D’Egypte

    Egypt’s capital, Cairo, is best known for its grand ancient monuments and bustling bazaars. The contemporary art of Egypt, and Cairo in particular, seems most likely to generate buzz when contextualized via a historical lens. See, for example, artist JR’s 2021 illusory artwork that made it appear a giant hand was supporting the Great Pyramid of Giza as its crown hovered over the base for an exhibition that also featured the work of Ai-Da, Alexander Ponomarev and Lorenzo Quinn.

    However, the sprawling city also has an artistic heritage spanning centuries that is the foundation upon which Cairo’s contemporary art scene is built. As iconic cultural centers have been threatened and even UNESCO sites partially demolished to make way for new infrastructures as the city expands, the relentless push for modernization has left artists and artisans fearful as to what the cultural landscape will look like in five, ten or twenty years. Amid this uncertainty, it’s important for travelers looking for art experiences to understand the significance of the spaces that bind artistry and culture, honing in on both Cairo’s history and present as a living canvas for the arts.

    SEE ALSO: “Paris 1874” Shows the Early Impressionists Reaching for New Ways of Seeing

    Beyond the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art, the contemporary art scene is alive and well in this ancient city. There are organizations like the Culturvator / Art D’Egypte art consultancy, which attracts local and international artists and art lovers by staging regular exhibitions of contemporary art, including in the ongoing series, “Forever is Now.” Hosted annually at the pyramids, its recent exhibitions have included the work of many artists from around the world, including JR (with the aforementioned hand), American artist Gisela Colón and Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr. Beyond “Forever is Now,” the consultancy curates several shows and projects at historical locations in the greater Cairo region and abroad, pairing contemporary artwork with historical architecture.

    There are also plenty of contemporary art galleries in Cairo, many of which are in Zamalek on Gezira island in the Nile. Some, like Arcade, are associated with community art schools and aim to amplify the talents of young Egyptian artists. Others, like Gypsum, host solo and group exhibitions designed to entice an international audience, while galleries like Ubuntu showcase the work of artists from Egypt and abroad. Other must-visit art institutions and galleries in Cairo include:

    Darb 1718

    Darb 1718. AHH

    Founded by artist and activist Moataz Nasr in 2008, the non-profit contemporary art and cultural center is located in the Fustat neighborhood of Old Cairo. Since its inception, Darb 1718 has become a prime example of the art community’s struggle for survival.

    The pivotal center, known for curating and hosting national and international artwork and several artist workshops, faced a significant setback earlier this year when its main building was demolished “without any prior notice” to make way for a highway expansion. Over a hundred artworks were destroyed, yet the center remains open, continuing to host workshops for the community, from cyanotype printing to acrylic pouring.

    SafarKhan Art Gallery

    SafarKhan Art Gallery, one of the first to open in Cairo’s artsy Zamalek district, has been representing emerging and established artists from the Middle East and North Africa since 1968, when Roxanne Petridis created a space that would eventually become a hub for the avant-garde in the region but opened as a shop selling Islamic artifacts. Today, the gallery is owned by Sherwet Shafei and it bills itself as the “original home of modern Egyptian art.” SafarKhan is especially known for championing Egyptian modernists like Mahmoud Saïd and Hamed Nada, as well as contemporary talents such as Mohamed Abla and Omar El-Nagdi.

    The Salah Taher Gallery at the Cairo Opera House

    The Cairo Opera House has become a cultural fixture not only in Egypt but also the Middle East. The funds for the location were initially gifted from Japan after a visit from the former president of Egypt. Since its opening in 1988, it has become a treasured arts and cultural hub, hosting opera, ballet, theater, and art exhibitions.

    Recently, the Salah Taher Gallery at the Cairo Opera House hosted the exhibition “Mariam,” which featured over fifty paintings by award-winning artist, Mariam Waguih, Egypt’s first Fine Arts student with Down Syndrome.

    TINTERA

    TINTERA. Faouzi Massrali

    TINTERA, a photographic art consultancy with a gallery space in Zamalek and offices in London, specializes in both contemporary and historical photography, focusing on images that capture the region. Their mission is to raise awareness of Egypt’s photography through preservation, research and exhibitions.

    The space was initially created because Egypt, one of the most photographed countries of the 19th and 20th Centuries, lacked a dedicated photography institution or museum. The gallery, featuring the works of acclaimed artists including Ahmad Abdalla, Ibrahim Ahmed and Nermine Hammam, ultimately aims to bridge the gap between the history, present and future of photography in Egypt.

    Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

    Mashrabia Gallery. Courtesy Mashrabia Gallery

    Located in Downtown Cairo, Mashrabia Gallery is the oldest privately owned contemporary arts gallery in the city. Since its opening in 1990, it has become a key figure in cultivating opportunities for both new and established artists, with an emphasis on promoting arts accessibility.

    The owner and curator, Stefania Angarano, has stated that Mashrabia was born from a desire to create a connection between Egypt and the West. Since its opening, the institution has worked to promote artists both in Egypt and abroad, sharing often powerful politically and socially-charged stories through its exhibitions and events.

    Zamalek Art Gallery

    Founded more than two decades ago, Zamalek Art Gallery is focused squarely on promoting the work of modern and contemporary Egyptian artists and artists from around the Middle East with connections to Egypt. It is especially noted for its support of artists such as Mohamed Abla, Zeinab Al Sageny and Georges Fikry Ibrahim. Spacious galleries let Zamalek mount two exhibitions at a time—one with an established artist and one with an up-and-comer—and under the leadership of Naheda Khouri, this gallery brings its artists’ work to fairs and partners with several luxury hotels in the region to curate the collections on display.

     

    A Look Inside Cairo’s Contemporary Art Scene

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    Costa B. Pappas

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  • Trump Is Making New, Sketchy Foreign Business Deals

    Trump Is Making New, Sketchy Foreign Business Deals

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    When Donald Trump launched his first presidential campaign nearly a decade ago, there was a deluge of concerns about his foreign financial entanglements. And rightfully so. Given the financial overlap between Trump, his family, his company, and a constellation of kleptocratic regimes, especially Russia, Trump presented an unprecedented opportunity for foreign regimes to directly access the White House and tilt American policy in the process.

    Now, with Trump running for the presidency once more, those concerns have hardly disappeared. If anything, foreign governments — including brand-new regimes that weren’t involved in Trump’s first whirlwind in the White House — have only spied new opportunities to burrow into his pockets and into a second administration.

    Many of these networks are already known, if forgotten. Trump’s financial links with regimes in places like China, Kazakhstan, or Indonesia were already reported in detail during his presidency. Even after Trump left the Oval Office, the revelations about his subterranean financial links as president with foreign regimes continued spilling out; it was only this year, for instance, that congressional investigators revealed that the first two years of Trump’s presidency included countries as far afield as Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, and many more patronizing Trump businesses. Any of these details on their own would be exceptional — can you imagine how much any other presidential candidate’s secret Chinese bank account would dominate a news cycle? — but they’ve been subsumed in the broader morass of Trump’s scandals. They’ve become, to an almost shocking degree, normalized.

    Look at Saudi Arabia. Years after Saudi tyrant Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the grisly killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi government has used an entire fleet of PR professionals and consultancy firms to launder its image, transforming the regime from a bastion of backwardness into one of progress and reform. (Saudi Arabia under MBS “almost feels like a start-up,” WeWork founder Adam Neumann purred last year at a Saudi-sponsored conference.) And part of that influence campaign has directly targeted — and directly used — Trump. Just last month, the New York Times revealed that the Trump Organization had inked a brand-new deal in the country, centered on Trump branding a new high-rise in Jeddah. The branding deal mirrors similar arrangements Trump has signed with foreign partners elsewhere, lending his name to developments in Azerbaijan and Panama. It’s unclear how much the new Saudi deal is worth, but as the Times noted, “Saudi Arabia has become one of the few reliable sources of growth for the Trump family’s business operations.”

    Yet the deepening links between Trump and Riyadh don’t revolve only around a single, luxe new high-rise. Time and again in recent years, Saudi and its proxies have bankrolled Trump and his inner circle — and even expanded the network of authoritarian allies succoring Trump. For instance, a Saudi construction company recently helped Trump sign a separate deal in the dictatorship in Oman, where migrant laborers are currently building out yet another luxury building, including a hotel and golf course. We know a few more details on this new arrangement, such as the fact that the Trump Organization has already banked at least $5 million from the deal. As the organization itself revealed, the total compound will have a “combined value of $200 million” — and will, naturally, “represent an unprecedented level of luxury,” which is why sales agents are “targeting superrich buyers from around the world, including from Russia, Iran and India,” per the Times.

    Again, any one of these deals would be a breathtaking breach of previous norms for a president. But the new links between Saudi and Trump go even deeper, stretching into Saudi Arabia’s latest foray into foreign investments: golf. Throwing billions of dollars into professional golf — all as a way of transforming Riyadh into a destination of global sports — Saudi backed the recent creation of LIV Golf, the rising competitor to PGA Golf. One of the kingdom’s key partners in the new league? Trump, naturally. In early 2024, Riyadh tapped Trump to host LIV Golf tournaments at his own courses — making it “another major source of new revenue for the Trump family.”

    Indeed, calling all of these Saudi arrangements a major inflow for the Trump brood is an understatement. In one of the most sordid — or swampiest — arrangements seen since Trump departed the White House, Trump’s underqualified, underexperienced son-in-law, Jared Kushner, managed to land a $2 billion investment from the Saudis for his brand-new investment firm. Even Saudi officials were at first spooked by the deal, shying away from Kushner’s initial proposal. But as the Intercept reported, after officials recommended against the investment, MBS himself stepped in to approve the deal, keen to sink Saudi Arabia’s financial claws into Trump’s family that much further.

    If anything, it’s Kushner who’s taken the lead on threading nascent links between the world of Trump and new strongmen suitors. In addition to his Saudi lucre, Kushner has recently been gallivanting around the Balkans, where he signed a new agreement earlier this year with the authoritarian regime in Serbia to land a luxury-hotel lease. The arrangement builds on years of Trump World cozying up with Serbia’s budding autocrat, Aleksandar Vucic; not only did Trump welcome lobbyists for Bosnia’s pro-Serbian separatists into his administration, but Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, Ric Grenell, has become tight with Vucic, with the Serbian leader recently awarding Grenell with what the latter referred to as Serbia’s “highest honor.”

    These are just the deals that we know about; given the financial opacity of everything from the American real-estate industry to things like the investment funds Kushner oversees — areas that Biden’s Treasury Department is specifically targeting for increased transparency, thankfully — it’s entirely possible that there’s a world of additional investments, purchases, and arrangements that we still don’t know about and that we’ll only learn about in years to come. This is, of course, an issue that is far broader than Trump or his inner circle — but given that Trump is a coin flip from the presidency, his sudden proximity to power is that much more reason a whole range of long-overdue counter-kleptocracy reforms must finally be passed by Congress.

    If you need any more proof, just look at what we learned earlier this month. A bombshell exposé in the Washington Post revealed that the military dictatorship in Egypt may have secretly funneled some $10 million into Trump’s flagging 2016 campaign, without the American public having any idea. The Post’s details had all the makings for a scandal of historic proportions: The Egyptian security services suddenly pulling $10 million in cash from an Egyptian bank; classified intel indicating that Egypt’s ruling despot wanted to funnel $10 million to Trump; Trump himself announcing a surprise injection of $10 million into his campaign, tapping what he claimed was his own money. There was so much smoke you could choke on it. (All of this came alongside Egypt’s successful campaign to flip Senator Bob Menendez into its own foreign agent, a case you can read about in my new book, Foreign Agents.)

    And yet, after Trump became president, his administration eventually dropped the investigation into the Egypt-to-Trump pipeline wholesale — and Americans never learned where that Egyptian money may have ended up, or what effect that might have had on Trump’s policies. Americans are still, to this day, in the dark about the links between Trump and Egypt.
    That’s just one investigation, and one financial link, among dozens and dozens more, some of which we still know next to nothing about. But if past is precedent, that may simply be a taste of what’s to come — and what is at stake, for both dictators and democracy alike.

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    Casey Michel

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  • Biden optimistic about Gaza cease-fire deal as talks set to resume next week

    Biden optimistic about Gaza cease-fire deal as talks set to resume next week

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    Biden optimistic about Gaza cease-fire deal as talks set to resume next week – CBS News


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    The U.S., Egypt and Qatar say cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas will continue in Cairo next week. The three countries, acting as mediators, say they presented both parties with a proposal that “builds on areas of agreement over the past week, and bridges remaining gaps in the manner that allows for a swift implementation of the deal.” President Biden expressed optimism about a potential cease-fire, saying “we are closer than we’ve ever been” after talks in Doha. CBS News foreign correspondent Ramy Inocencio has the latest.

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  • Prosecution rests in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial

    Prosecution rests in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial

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    Washington — Prosecutors in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial rested their case against the New Jersey Democrat on Friday, bringing an end to seven weeks of testimony from more than two dozen witnesses they’ve called to persuade a jury that the senator used his political influence to benefit three businessmen and two foreign governments in exchange for bribes. 

    The allegations date back to 2018, around the time the Democratic senator began dating the woman who is now his wife, Nadine Menendez, whose trial was postponed as she recovers from breast cancer surgery. 

    Over the last month and a half, prosecutors detailed a wide-ranging corruption scheme in which Menendez allegedly used his influence as the then-chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to secretly benefit Egypt; pressured a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a halal certification monopoly Egypt granted to a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana; interfered in a criminal investigations by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office into the associates of a second New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe; and attempted to influence a federal prosecution of a third New Jersey businessman, Fred Daibes. 

    In return, prosecutors say, the businessmen provided Menendez and his wife with lavish gifts, including cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, furniture and mortgage payments as Nadine Menendez was facing foreclosure on her home. 

    Hana and Daibes are on trial with Menendez. All three have pleaded not guilty.

    Businessman says Mercedes was bribe 

    Sen. Bob Menendez leaves Manhattan federal court on June 7, 2024, in New York.
    Sen. Bob Menendez leaves Manhattan federal court on June 7, 2024, in New York.

    Adam Gray / AP


    Uribe, who pleaded guilty in March, was the prosecution’s star witness, telling jurors that he bribed the senator by buying his wife a luxury car for the purpose of disrupting two state criminal investigations into his business associates. Hana, a longtime friend of Nadine Menendez, indicated that the senator and his wife could “make these things go away,” according to Uribe. 

    The insurance broker testified that he asked the senator directly for his help during two meetings in August and September 2019, months after he said he handed Nadine Menendez $15,000 in cash in a restaurant parking lot for a downpayment on the Mercedes. Uribe made her car payments until June 2022 — the same month the FBI searched the Menendezes’ home and found over $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes, coats, shoes and bags, and 13 gold bars worth more than $100,000.

    “I paid for the car as an arrangement with Nadine that I will provide a car, in return for her getting Mr. Menendez to use his power to stop [the investigations],” Uribe said earlier this month.

    Gurbir Grewal, the then-attorney general for New Jersey, told jurors about a January 2019 call and September 2019 meeting in which Menendez raised a concern “about a pending criminal manner.”

    “I can’t talk to you about this,” Grewal recalled telling Menendez.

    After the September meeting with the state attorney general, Uribe said Menendez told him, “That thing that you asked me about, there’s nothing there. I give you your peace.” The senator later boasted about saving him twice, Uribe testified.

    But Uribe’s credibility also came under fire during cross-examination by defense attorneys. He admitted to a long list of lies that have culminated in a number of criminal charges over the years.

    An agent for Egypt? 

    Another piece central to the alleged scheme was a New Jersey startup owned by Hana, which prosecutors say was used to funnel bribe payments to the senator and his wife. 

    In April 2019, Egypt granted a lucrative monopoly to Hana’s halal certification company, setting off alarms at the Department of Agriculture. Before that, four companies had split ensuring that meat exported from the U.S. to Egypt was prepared according to Islamic law. The abrupt change confused U.S. officials because Hana’s company did not have any prior experience in halal certification and had few employees. The decision increased meat costs in Egypt and was seen as detrimental to U.S. businesses, according to several officials who testified. 

    The U.S. was stonewalled when it sought answers from Egypt, which officials said was unusual for the country — one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid. 

    “When the Americans request a meeting, we get meetings,” Bret Tate, a former agricultural attaché in Cairo, said. 

    As the U.S. continued to press Egypt, Ted McKinney, a former top agricultural official, said he got a call from Menendez with the message: “Stop interfering with my constituent.”

    “I felt he was telling me to stand down and stop doing all of the things that we were doing to try to revive some sense of competition in the U.S. beef market,” McKinney told jurors in May. “It was the first time I’d ever had a call that we thought would clearly harm elements of the U.S. food and [agriculture] industry.” 

    Menendez’s lawyers challenged the characterization of the conversation, saying he was doing his job by helping a constituent. 

    By that time, prosecutors alleged, Menendez was doing favors for Egyptian officials that he knew through his wife and Hana, including secretly helping the country lobby his colleagues to release $300 million in aid that had been held up over human rights concerns and providing it with details about U.S. Embassy employees in Cairo, which prosecutors argued was sensitive information. 

    On May 21, 2019, soon after Egypt granted the monopoly, the FBI was surveilling an upscale steakhouse near the White House, waiting for their target who had come from New York to arrive, according to two FBI agents who testified. 

    Two agents, undercover as a husband and wife on a date, sat on the restaurant’s patio near a group that included an Egyptian official, Hana and his business associate. Then Menendez and his wife showed up. It’s unclear who the FBI’s target was, though an agent testified that the senator was not the intended subject of the surveillance. The undercover agents snapped photos and took silent footage with a concealed video camera. 

    One of the agent’s testified that she heard the senator’s wife ask the other group, “What else can the love of my life do for you?” The agent did not hear the response. 

    With the assistance of the senator, Nadine Menendez set up a shell company in summer 2019, which was used to receive payments from a “low-or-no-show job” at Hana’s company, according to prosecutors. At the time, she was tens of thousands of dollars behind on her mortgage and facing foreclosure. Hana wired her $23,000 to save her home from foreclosure and then put her on the company’s payroll for $10,000 a month, a former lawyer for the businessman’s company testified. 

    Sarah Arkin, a former senior aide to Menendez, testified this week about a number of incidents involving the senator and Egyptian officials that she considered to be unusual. 

    Arkin told jurors that Menendez held meetings with Egyptian officials that she had not been told of, a deviation from normal practice.  

    For one of the meetings she was aware of, she said the senator had handwritten the invitation for the Egyptian defense attaché in Washington and Hana to visit his office. The handwritten invite was “an unusual item,” she said. When the meeting happened in March 2018, Nadine Menendez, who had just begun dating the senator, was also there. 

    In September 2021, when Arkin was helping Menendez prepare for a congressional delegation trip to Egypt and Qatar, she said the senator instructed his staff to plan the visit with an Egyptian intelligence officer posted in the country’s embassy in Washington. The trips, she said, were normally planned by the State Department. 

    “All of this Egypt stuff is very weird. I’ve never seen anything like it,” another staffer texted Arkin as they planned the trip. 

    Menendez’s lawyers have portrayed his interactions with Egyptian officials as another part of his job as a member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez stepped down from his role as committee chair when he was indicted last fall. 

    Gold bars and Qatar  

    Prosecutors say Daibes, the third businessman indicted, bribed the couple with cash and gold bars in order for the senator to try to influence a federal bank fraud case against the real estate developer. 

    The case came up as Menendez was considering recommending his longtime friend, Philip Sellinger, to be U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. 

    Sellinger, who now holds the job, said the senator told him he thought Daibes “was being treated unfairly” by the U.S. attorney’s office and “hoped that if I became U.S. attorney that I would look at it carefully.” Sellinger testified that he told the senator he may have to recuse himself from the case if appointed because of an unrelated lawsuit his law firm had handled related to Daibes. 

    Sellinger said their longtime friendship ended shortly after that and Menendez told him he would no longer nominate him for the role. 

    But Sellinger said he “never believed [Menendez] to be asking me to do anything unethical or improper,” and the senator did eventually recommend him for the position. 

    As Menendez was trying to help Daibes, he was researching the value of gold online, according to evidence introduced by the prosecution. An FBI agent testified that he reviewed records including the senator’s internet search history dating back to 2008. The senator’s first search about gold was in April 2019, the agent said. After that, he repeatedly researched the price of gold. 

    “One kilo gold bar,” one of those searches read. 

    The online searches also happened as the senator allegedly used his influence to help Daibes secure a $95 million investment from a Qatari investment fund by taking actions favorable to Qatar’s government. 

    Nearly a dozen envelopes of cash with tens of thousands of dollars bearing the fingerprints or DNA of Daibes were found in the Menendez home, according to expert testimony and evidence shown to jurors. Prosecutors have linked some of the gold found inside the senator’s home to Daibes and Hana through serial numbers. 

    But a New Jersey jeweler, who testified Wednesday about selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of gold for Nadine Menendez, said he did not record the serial numbers of the gold he sold for her. The jeweler recalled that she first asked him to sell two one-kilogram bars of gold in March 2022, which fetched nearly $60,000 each. 

    “She said she needed to pay the bills,” he recalled, adding that Nadine Menendez told him the gold was from her family. “She had expenses in, like, home bills.” 

    In May of that year, she asked him to sell four one-ounce gold coins worth $7,200 and another two one-kilogram gold bars, the jeweler said. They didn’t discuss where she got them from or why she wanted to sell them, he said. The requests came weeks before the FBI executed a search warrant at the Menendez home. 

    Jurors also heard this week from an FBI specialist about when some of the bills found among the nearly half a million dollars in cash stockpiled in the senator’s home were issued. Evidence showed hundreds of the bills entered circulation starting in 2018, when the alleged corruption scheme began. But defense attorneys said the newer bills made up only a fraction of the stash. 

    What happens next 

    Lawyers for Menendez, Hana and Daibes have said they could call more than a dozen witnesses, beginning Monday, but haven’t said whether any of the defendants will testify themselves. 

    The judge told jurors last week that he expects the case will be in their hands by the end of the week of July 8. 

    In their opening statement and during cross-examination over the last seven weeks, the senator’s attorneys have shifted the blame to his wife, which legal experts say could backfire with jurors. 

    Nathalie Nieves contributed reporting. 

    Caitlin Yilek

    Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

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  • Still no deal in truce talks as Israel downplays chances of ending war with Hamas

    Still no deal in truce talks as Israel downplays chances of ending war with Hamas

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    A delegation of the militant group Hamas was in Cairo on Saturday in ongoing cease-fire talks with Israel, while an Israeli official downplayed the prospects for a full end to the war.

    Saturday’s cease-fire negotiations ended with no developments, a senior Hamas source close to the Cairo talks told CBS News. The source added that “tomorrow, a new round will begin.”

    Israel said it would not send a delegation to the talks until Hamas replies to Israel’s latest proposal. An adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS News Saturday that “the end of the war will come with the end of Hamas in Gaza.”

    CIA Director William Burns traveled to Cairo, Egypt, Friday for the talks, two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the matter told CBS News. The visit follows a stretch of technical talks and a fresh proposal from Israel that U.S. officials have described as “generous.”

    The latest cease-fire deal proposed by mediators hinges on a swap for hostages. Under the deal, the pause would reportedly be weeks long. For every one hostage Hamas releases, Israel would release a larger number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. 

    Pressure has been mounting to reach a deal — Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is dramatically escalating while Israel insists it will launch an offensive into Rafah, the territory’s southernmost city.

    Gaza camp in Rafah
    Palestinians walk in a camp for displaced people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip by the border with Egypt on April 28, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

    AFP via Getty Images


    The stakes are high to find a halt to the nearly seven-month-long war. More than one million Palestinians are sheltering in the city of Rafah, along the border with Egypt, many having fled northern Gaza where a top U.N. official says there is now a full-blown famine.

    Egyptian and American mediators had reported signs of compromise in recent days, but chances for a cease-fire deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas.

    Egyptian state Al-Qahera news said Saturday that a consensus has been reached over many of the disputed points but did not elaborate. Hamas has called for a complete end to the war and withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.

    Mideast Israel Palestinians
    Palestinian civil defence members evacuate survivors of the Israeli bombardment on a residential building of Abu Alenan family in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, May 4, 2024.

    Ismael Abu Dayyah / AP


    Earlier this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was back in Israel for his seventh visit to the country since Hamas militants staged their bloody Oct. 7 terrorist attack on the Jewish state, instantly sparking the war in the group’s Gaza Strip stronghold.

    When he arrived, Blinken said the Biden administration was “determined” to see Hamas and Israel agree to a cease-fire in the conflict, which health officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory say has killed more than 34,000 people, most of them women and children. Desperate for more American support, Israelis rallied outside Blinken’s Tel Aviv hotel, some of them holding signs voicing hope that U.S. pressure will help bring home the remaining 133 hostages still thought to be held in Gaza, including five U.S. nationals still thought to be alive.

    Meanwhile, the White House has urged Netanyahu’s government to limit the scale of its operation in Rafah, and the head of the United Nations renewed his warning that a military offensive in the city would be “an unbearable escalation, killing thousands more civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee.”   

    The conflict erupted on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, abducting about 250 people and killing around 1,200, mostly civilians. 

    A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, played down the prospects for a full end to the war. The official said Israel was committed to the Rafah invasion and told The Associated Press that it will not agree in any circumstance to end the war as part of a deal to release hostages.

    A strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed three people, according to hospital officials.

    In the last 24 hours, the bodies of 32 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to local hospitals, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies, but says that women and children make up around two-thirds of those killed.

    The Israeli military says it has killed 13,000 militants, without providing evidence to back up the claim. It has also conducted mass arrests during its raids inside Gaza.

    Gaza’s Health Ministry also on Saturday urged the International Criminal Court to investigate the death in Israeli custody of a Gaza surgeon. Adnan al-Borsh, 50, was working at al-Awda Hospital when Israeli troops stormed it, detaining him and others inside in December, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club.

    In related developments this week, Israel briefed Biden administration officials on plans to evacuate civilians ahead of the Rafah operation, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.

    The United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel moves forward into the densely packed city, which is also a critical entry point for humanitarian aid.

    The U.S. director of the U.N. World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said Friday that trapped civilians in the north, the most cut-off part of Gaza, have plunged into famine. McCain said a cease-fire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes was essential.

    Israel recently opened new crossings for aid into northern Gaza, but on Wednesday, Israeli settlers blocked the first convoy before it crossed into the besieged enclave. Once inside Gaza, the convoy was commandeered by Hamas militants, before U.N. officials reclaimed it.

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  • Thousands pack narrow alleys in Cairo for Egypt’s mega-Iftar

    Thousands pack narrow alleys in Cairo for Egypt’s mega-Iftar

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    Cairo — The narrow streets and alleys of a working-class neighborhood in Egypt’s capital hosted thousands of people Monday who came together to break their Ramadan fast at the longest dinner table in the country. It was the 10th time that northern Cairo’s Matareya neighborhood had hosted the annual Iftar meal on the 15th day of Ramadan, and it was the biggest so far.

    Organizers said some 400 volunteers helped to line up about 700 tables along a handful of connected, and ornately decorated, streets and alleys and then fill them with food prepared by community members. There was no official count, but those behind the gathering claimed as many as 30,000 people had turned up to break their fast after sundown.

    cairo-mega-iftar-2024.jpg
    People pack a crowded street in northern Cairo’s Matareya neighborhood for an annual mega-Iftar on the 15th day of Ramadan, March 25, 2024, in Egypt.

    CBS News/Ahmed Shawkat


    Hamada Hassan, one of the organizers, told CBS News the story of the mass-Iftar started 12 years ago on the 15th night of Ramadan when some local residents decided to break their fast together after playing soccer. No one had a house big enough to host everyone, so each went home and got some food. Then, they brought two tables out onto the street and ate together.

    Friends later complained they hadn’t received an invite, Hassan said, and the following year, there were about 10 tables connected to seat a growing crowd. The event kept expanding, with more and more tables added year after year, until it was dubbed the longest Iftar table in Egypt.

    The ritual was paused for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it made a strong comeback in 2023, with celebrities, government officials and even diplomats joining the banquet.

    The Monday night gathering saw the biggest turnout to date, and the narrow old streets and alleys were packed. Some guests told CBS News it was the first time they’d been to Matareya.

    egypt-iftar-cairo-2024.jpg
    People crowd around Egypt’s longest Iftar table before breaking their daily fast on the 15th day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in Cairo’s Matareya neighborhood, March 25, 2024.

    CBS News/Ahmed Shawkat


    Bassem Mahmoud, another organizer, said some 6,000 meals were prepared for the 2023 Iftar. This year, he said they made 10,000, and they were hoping to grow even more in 2025.

    Mahmoud said preparations for the Iftar started two months before the dinner, including buying and storing everything from water, juice and decorations, to cleaning and painting the streets and then festooning them with Ramadan decorations.

    During Ramadan, tables of free food are set up in streets across Egypt for anyone to break their fast. Those offerings are typically intended for those in need, which makes the Matareya Iftar unique, though the organizers stress that they are sharing a meal with guests, and everyone is invited.

    With balloons, fresh paint on the neighborhood walls and the streets echoing with lights and Ramadan music, the friendly atmosphere drew thousands of people this year, including some who didn’t eat, but just came to enjoy the spectacle.

    cairo-mega-iftar-egypt-2024.jpg
    People pack a crowded street in the Matareya neighborhood, in Egypt’s capital city of Cairo, for an annual mega-Iftar dinner on the 15th day of Ramadan, March 25, 2024, in Egypt.

    CBS News/Ahmed Shawkat


    Some residents who chose not to venture out into the streets to participate had Iftar diners come to them instead. Locals told CBS News that complete strangers knocked on their doors and asked to come up to enjoy a better view from their balconies, and they were welcomed.

    During the holy month, people typically great each other with the phrase “Ramadan Kareem,” which is Arabic for “generous Ramadan.” The month is traditionally a time to focus on gathering, sharing and generosity, and the Matareya community showed that spirit on the 15th day of Ramadan.

    Ahmed Shawkat

    Ahmed Shawkat is a CBS News producer based in Cairo.

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  • Passover Fast Facts | CNN

    Passover Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the Jewish holiday of Passover.

    The holiday will be celebrated from sundown on April 22 through April 30, 2024.

    Passover, also called Pesach, is the Jewish festival celebrating the exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery in the 1200s BC. The story is chronicled in the Old Testament book of Exodus. In the book, Israelites marked their doorposts with lamb’s blood to protect children from the tenth plague: the slaughter of the first born. With the protective mark, the destruction would “pass over” the house.

    The word “Passover” comes from a Biblical story about the ten plagues God inflicted on Egypt for enslaving the Israelites.

    The story of Passover is told in the Bible in Chapter 12 of the Book of Exodus.

    During one plague, God killed every Egyptian first-born male but passed over the homes of the Israelites.

    Passover is also sometimes called the Festival of Unleavened Bread.

    During Passover, only unleavened bread called matzo or matzah may be eaten. According to the story of Passover, the Jews did not have time to let their bread rise before they fled Egypt.

    Passover begins on the 15th day of Nisan, the seventh month in the Jewish calendar, March or April on the Gregorian calendar.

    Jewish people celebrate Passover with a ceremonial meal called the Seder.

    At the Seder foods of symbolic significance are eaten, and prayers and traditional recitations are performed.

    The story of the flight of the Israelites from Egypt is read at the Seder from a book called the Haggadah.

    Another Seder tradition is for the youngest child present to ask the four questions about why the Seder night is different from other nights. The answers tell the Passover story.

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  • Detained Americans Fast Facts | CNN

    Detained Americans Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at some recent cases of foreign governments detaining US citizens. For information about missing Americans, see Robert Levinson Fast Facts or POW/MIA in Iraq and Afghanistan Fast Facts.

    Afghanistan

    Ryan Corbett
    August 2022 – Corbett, a businessman whose family lived in Afghanistan for more than a decade prior to the collapse of the Afghan government, returns to Afghanistan on a 10 day trip. Roughly one week into his visit, he was asked to come in for questioning by the local police. Corbett, his German colleague, and two local staff members were all detained. All but Corbett are eventually released. The Taliban has acknowledged holding Corbett, and he has been designated as wrongfully detained by the US State Department.

    China

    Mark Swidan
    November 13, 2012 – Swidan, a businessman from Texas, is arrested on drug related charges by Chinese Police while in his hotel room in Dongguan.

    2013 – Swidan is tried and pleads not guilty.

    2019 – Convicted of manufacturing and trafficking drugs by the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court in southern Guangdong province and given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

    April 13, 2023 – The Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court denies Swidan’s appeal and upholds his death penalty.

    Kai Li
    September 2016 – Kai Li, a naturalized US citizen born in China, is detained while visiting relatives in Shanghai.

    July 2018 – He is sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage following a secret trial held in August 2017.

    Iran

    Karan Vafadari
    December 2016 – Karan Vafadari’s family announces that Karan and his wife, Afarin Niasari, were detained at Tehran airport in July. Vafadari, an Iranian-American, and Niasari, a green-card holder, ran an art gallery in Tehran.

    March 2017 – New charges of “attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic and recruiting spies through foreign embassies” are brought against Vafadari and Niasari.

    January 2018 – Vafadari is sentenced to 27 years in prison. Niasari is sentenced to 16 years.

    July 2018 – Vafadari and Niasari are reportedly released from prison on bail while they await their appeals court rulings.

    Russia

    Paul Whelan
    December 28, 2018 – Paul Whelan, from Michigan, a retired Marine and corporate security director, is arrested on accusations of spying. His family says he was in Moscow to attend a wedding.

    January 3, 2019 – His lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, tells CNN Whalen has been formally charged with espionage.

    January 22, 2019 – At his pretrial hearing, Whelan is denied bail. Whelan’s attorney Zherebenkov tells CNN that Whelan was found in possession of classified material when he was arrested in Moscow.

    June 15, 2020 – Whelan is convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

    August 8, 2021 – State news agency TASS reports that Whelan has been released from solitary confinement in the Mordovian penal colony where he is being held.

    Evan Gershkovich
    March 30, 2023 – Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is detained by Russian authorities and accused of spying. The Wall Street Journal rejects the spying allegations.

    April 3, 2023 – The Russian state news agency TASS reports Gershkovich has filed an appeal against his arrest.

    April 7, 2023 – Gershkovich is formally charged with espionage.

    April 10, 2023 – The US State Department officially designates Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia.

    April 18, 2023 – The Moscow City Court denies his appeal to change the terms of his detention. Gershkovich will continue to be held in a pre-trial detention center at the notorious Lefortovo prison until May 29.

    Saudi Arabia

    Walid Fitaihi
    November 2017 – Dual US-Saudi citizen Dr. Walid Fitaihi is detained at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh along with other prominent Saudis, according to his lawyer Howard Cooper. Fitaihi is then transferred to prison.

    July 2019 – Fitaihi is released on bond.

    December 8, 2020 – Fitaihi is sentenced to six years in prison for charges including obtaining US citizenship without permission.

    January 14, 2021 – A Saudi appeals court upholds Fitaihi’s conviction but reduces his sentence to 3.2 years and suspends his remaining prison term. Fitaihi still faces a travel ban and frozen assets.

    Syria

    Austin Tice
    August 2012 – Tice disappears while reporting near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Syrian government has never acknowledged that they have Tice in their custody.

    September 2012 – A 43-second video emerges online that shows Tice in the captivity of what his family describe as an “unusual group of apparent jihadists.”

    Majd Kamalmaz
    February 2017 – Kamalmaz is detained at a checkpoint in Damascus. The Syrian government has never acknowledged Kamalmaz is in its custody.

    Cuba

    Alan Gross
    December 2009 – Alan Gross is jailed while working as a subcontractor on a US Agency for International Development project aimed at spreading democracy. His actions are deemed illegal by Cuban authorities. He is accused of trying to set up illegal internet connections on the island. Gross says he was trying to help connect the Jewish community to the internet and was not a threat to the government.

    March 12, 2011 – Gross is found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison for crimes against the Cuban state.

    April 11, 2014 – Ends a hunger strike that he launched the previous week in an effort to get the United States and Cuba to resolve his case.

    December 17, 2014 – Gross is released as part of a deal with Cuba that paves the way for a major overhaul in US policy toward the island.

    Egypt

    16 American NGO Employees
    December 2011 – Egyptian authorities carry out 17 raids on the offices of 10 nongovernmental organizations. The Egyptian general prosecutor’s office claims the raids were part of an investigation into allegations the groups had received illegal foreign financing and were operating without a proper license.

    February 5, 2012 – Forty-three people face prosecution in an Egyptian criminal court on charges of illegal foreign funding as part of an ongoing crackdown on NGOs. Among the American defendants is Sam LaHood, International Republican Institute country director and the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

    February 15, 2012 – The US State Department confirms there are 16 Americans being held, not 19 as the Egyptian government announced.

    February 20, 2012 – South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Arizona Senator John McCain meet with top Egyptian military and political leaders in Cairo.

    March 1, 2012 – Some of the 43 detainees including American, Norwegian, German, Serbian and Palestinian activists leave Cairo after each post two-million Egyptian pounds bail.

    April 20, 2012 – CNN is told Egyptian officials have filed global arrest notices with Interpol for some of the Americans involved in the NGO trial.

    June 4, 2013 – An Egyptian court sentences the NGO workers: 27 workers in absentia to five-year sentences, 11 to one-year suspended jail sentences, and five others to two-year sentences that were not suspended, according to state-run newspaper Al Ahram. Only one American has remained in Egypt to fight the charges, but he also left after the court announced his conviction.

    Iran

    UC-Berkeley Grads
    July 31, 2009 – Three graduates from the University of California at Berkeley, Sarah Shourd of Oakland, California, Shane Bauer, of Emeryville, California, and Joshua Fattal, of Cottage Grove, Oregon, are detained in Iran after hiking along the unmarked Iran-Iraq border in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region.

    August 11, 2009 – Iran sends formal notification to the Swiss ambassador that the three American hikers have been detained. Switzerland represents the United States diplomatic interests in Iran since the United States and Iran do not have diplomatic relations.

    October 2009 – The Iranian government allows a Swiss diplomat to visit the hikers at Evin Prison.

    November 9, 2009 – Iran charges the three with espionage.

    March 9, 2010 – The families of the three detained hikers speak by phone to the hikers for the first time since they were jailed.

    May 20, 2010 – The detainees’ mothers are allowed to visit their children.

    May 21, 2010 – The mothers are allowed a second visit, and the detained hikers speak publicly for the first time at a government-controlled news conference.

    August 5, 2010 – Reports surface that Shourd is being denied medical treatment.

    September 14, 2010 – Shourd is released on humanitarian grounds on $500,000 bail.

    September 19, 2010 – Shourd speaks publicly to the press in New York.

    November 27, 2010 – Two days after Thanksgiving, Fattal and Bauer are allowed to call home for the second time. Each call lasts about five minutes.

    February 6, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer’s trial begins. Shourd has not responded to a court summons to return to stand trial.

    May 4, 2011 – Shourd announces she will not return to Tehran to face espionage charges.

    August 20, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer each receive five years for spying and three years for illegal entry, according to state-run TV. They have 20 days to appeal.

    September 14, 2011 – A Western diplomat tells CNN an Omani official is en route to Tehran to help negotiate the release of Fattal and Bauer. Oman helped secure the release of Shourd in 2010.

    September 21, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer are released from prison on bail of $500,000 each and their sentences are commuted. On September 25, they arrive back in the United States.

    Saeed Abedini
    September 26, 2012 – According to the American Center for Law and Justice, Saeed Abedini, an American Christian pastor who was born in Iran and lives in Idaho, is detained in Iran. The group says that Abedini’s charges stem from his conversion to Christianity from Islam 13 years ago and his activities with home churches in Iran.

    January 2013 – Abedini is sentenced to eight years in prison, on charges of attempting to undermine the Iranian government.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Abedini, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, and Jason Rezaian, in exchange for clemency of seven Iranians imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    Amir Mirzaei Hekmati
    August 2011 – Amir Mirzaei Hekmati travels to Iran to visit relatives and gets detained by authorities, according to his family. His arrest isn’t made public for months.

    December 17, 2011 – Iran’s Intelligence Ministry claims to have arrested an Iranian-American working as a CIA agent, according to state-run Press TV.

    December 18, 2011 – Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency broadcasts a video in which a young man says his name is Hekmati, and that he joined the US Marine Corps and worked with Iraqi officers.

    December 19, 2011 – The US State Department confirms the identity of the man detained in Iran and calls for his immediate release.

    December 20, 2011 – Hekmati’s family says that he was arrested in August while visiting relatives in Iran. The family asserts that they remained quiet about the arrest at the urging of Iranian officials who promised his release.

    December 27, 2011 – Hekmati’s trial begins in Iran. Prosecutors accuse Hekmati of entering Iran with the intention of infiltrating the country’s intelligence system in order to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorist activities, according to the Fars news agency.

    January 9, 2012 – An Iranian news agency reports that Hekmati is convicted of “working for an enemy country,” as well as membership in the CIA and “efforts to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism.” He is sentenced to death.

    March 5, 2012 – An Iranian court dismisses a lower court’s death sentence for Hekmati and orders a retrial. He remains in prison.

    September 2013 – In a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, Hekmati says that his confession was obtained under duress.

    April 11, 2014 – Hekmati’s sister tells CNN that Hekmati has been convicted in Iran by a secret court of “practical collaboration with the US government” and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Hekmati, Abedini, and Jason Rezaian, in exchange for clemency of seven Iranians indicted or imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    Jason Rezaian
    July 24, 2014 – The Washington Post reports that its Tehran correspondent and Bureau Chief Jason Rezaian, his wife Yeganeh Salehi and two freelance journalists were detained on July 22, 2014. An Iranian official confirmed to CNN that the group is being held by authorities.

    July 29, 2014 – Iran releases one of three people detained alongside Rezaian, a source close to the family of the released detainee tells CNN. The released detainee is the husband of an Iranian-American photojournalist who remains in custody with Rezaian and his wife, according to the source.

    August 20, 2014 – The Washington Post reports the photojournalist detained with Rezaian in July has been released. At her family’s request, the Post declines to publish her name.

    October 6, 2014 – According to the Washington Post, Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, has been released on bail.

    December 6, 2014 – During a 10-hour court session in Tehran, Rezaian is officially charged with unspecified crimes, according to the newspaper.

    April 20, 2015 – According the Washington Post, Rezaian is being charged with espionage and other serious crimes including “collaborating with a hostile government” and “propaganda against the establishment.”

    October 11, 2015 – Iran’s state media reports that Rezaian has been found guilty, but no details are provided about his conviction or his sentence. His trial reportedly took place between May and August.

    November 22, 2015 – An Iranian court sentences Rezaian to prison. The length of the sentence is not specified.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Rezaian, Hekmati, and Abedini, in exchange for the clemency of seven Iranians indicted or imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    May 1, 2018 – Joins CNN as a global affairs analyst.

    Reza “Robin” Shahini
    July 11, 2016 – San Diego resident Reza “Robin” Shahini is arrested while visiting family in Gorgan, Iran. Shahini is a dual US-Iranian citizen.

    October 2016 – Shahini is sentenced to 18 years in prison.

    February 15, 2017 – Goes on a hunger strike to protest his sentence.

    April 3, 2017 – The Center for Human Rights in Iran says Shahini has been released on bail while he awaits the ruling of the appeals court.

    July 2018 – A civil lawsuit filed against the Iranian government on Shahini’s behalf indicates that Shahini has returned to the United States.

    Xiyue Wang
    July 16, 2017 – The semi-official news agency Fars News, citing a video statement from Iranian judicial spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejheie, reports that a US citizen has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of spying. Princeton University identifies the man as Chinese-born Xiyue Wang, an American citizen and graduate student in history. According to a university statement, Wang was arrested in Iran last summer while doing scholarly research in connection with his Ph.D. dissertation.

    December 7, 2019 – The White House announces that Wang has been released and is returning to the United States. Iran released Wang in a prisoner swap, in coordination with the United States freeing an Iranian scientist named Massoud Soleimani.

    Michael White
    January 8, 2019 – Michael White’s mother, Joanne White, tells CNN she reported him missing when he failed to return to work in California in July, after traveling to Iran to visit his girlfriend.

    January 9, 2019 – Bahram Ghasemi, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, says White “was arrested in the city of Mashhad a while ago, and within a few days after his arrest the US government was informed of the arrest through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.” Ghasemi denies allegations that White, a US Navy veteran, has been mistreated in prison.

    March 2019 – White is handed a 13-year prison sentence on charges of insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and for publicly posting private images, according to his attorney Mark Zaid.

    March 19, 2020 – White is released into the custody of the Swiss Embassy on medical furlough. One condition of his release is that he must stay in Iran.

    June 4, 2020 – White is released, according to White’s mother and a person familiar with the negotiations.

    Baquer and Siamak Namazi
    October 2015 – Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based businessman with dual US and Iranian citizenship, is detained while visiting relatives in Tehran.

    February 2016 – Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official and father of Siamak Namazi, is detained, his wife Effie Namazi says on Facebook. He is an Iranian-American.

    October 2016 – The men are sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $4.8 million, according to Iran’s official news channel IRINN. Iran officials say five people were convicted and sentenced for “cooperating with Iran’s enemies,” a government euphemism that usually implies cooperating with the United States.

    January 28, 2018 – Baquer Namazi is granted a four-day leave by the Iranian government, after being discharged from an Iranian hospital. Namazi’s family say the 81-year-old was rushed to the hospital on January 15 after a severe drop in his blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat and serious depletion of energy. This was the fourth time Namazi had been transferred to a hospital in the last year. In September, he underwent emergency heart surgery to install a pacemaker.

    February 2018 – Baquer Namazi is released on temporary medical furlough.

    February 2020 – Iran’s Revolutionary Court commutes Baquer Namazi’s sentence to time served and the travel ban on him is lifted.

    May 2020 – According to the family, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) places a new travel ban on Baquer Namazi, preventing him from leaving the country.

    October 26, 2021 – Baquer Namazi undergoes surgery to clear a “life-threatening blockage in one of the main arteries to his brain, which was discovered late last month,” his lawyer says in a statement.

    October 1, 2022 – Baquer Namazi is released from detention and is permitted to leave Iran “to seek medical treatment abroad,” according to a statement from UN Secretary General spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

    March 9, 2023 – Siamak Namazi makes a plea to President Joe Biden to put the “liberty of innocent Americans above politics” and ramp up efforts to secure his release, in an interview with CNN from inside Iran’s Evin prison.

    September 18, 2023 – Siamak Namazi is freed, along with four other Americans as part of a wider deal that includes the United States unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

    North Korea

    Kenneth Bae
    December 11, 2012 – US officials confirm that American citizen Kenneth Bae has been detained in North Korea for over a month.

    April 30, 2013 – North Korea’s Supreme Court sentences Bae to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts” against the country.

    October 11, 2013 – Bae meets with his mother in North Korea.

    January 20, 2014 – A statement is released in which Bae says that he had committed a “serious crime” against North Korea. Any statement made by Bae in captivity is sanctioned by the North Korean government. The country has a long history of forcing false confessions.

    February 7, 2014 – The State Department announces that Bae has been moved from a hospital to a labor camp.

    November 8, 2014 – The State Department announces that Bae and Matthew Miller have been released and are on their way home.

    Jeffrey Fowle
    June 6, 2014 – North Korea announces it has detained US citizen Jeffrey Edward Fowle, who entered the country as a tourist in April. Fowle was part of a tour group and was detained in mid-May after leaving a bible in a restaurant.

    June 30, 2014 – North Korea says that it plans to prosecute Fowle and another detained American tourist, Matthew Miller, accusing them of “perpetrating hostile acts.”

    October 21, 2014 – A senior State Department official tells CNN that Fowle has been released and is on his way home.

    Aijalon Gomes
    January 25, 2010 – Aijalon Mahli Gomes, of Boston, is detained in North Korea after crossing into the country illegally from China.

    April 7, 2010 – He is sentenced to eight years of hard labor and ordered to pay a fine of 70 million North Korean won or approximately $600,000.

    July 10, 2010 – Gomes is hospitalized after attempting to commit suicide.

    August 25-27, 2010 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in North Korea, with hopes of negotiating for Gomes’ release.

    August 27, 2010 – Carter and Gomes leave Pyongyang after Gomes is granted amnesty for humanitarian purposes.

    Kim Dong Chul
    October 2015 – Kim Dong Chul, a naturalized American citizen, is taken into custody after allegedly meeting a source to obtain a USB stick and camera used to gather military secrets. In January 2016, Kim is given permission to speak with CNN by North Korean officials and asks that the United States or South Korea rescue him.

    March 25, 2016 – A North Korean official tells CNN that Kim has confessed to espionage charges.

    April 29, 2016 – A North Korean official tells CNN that Kim has been sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for subversion and espionage.

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Kim Hak-song
    May 7, 2017 – The state-run Korean Central News Agency reports that US citizen Kim Hak-song was detained in North Korea on May 6 on suspicion of “hostile acts” against the regime. The regime describes Kim as “a man who was doing business in relation to the operation of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.”

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Kim Hak-song, Kim Dong Chul and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Kim Sang Duk
    April 22, 2017 – US citizen Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, is detained by authorities at Pyongyang International Airport for unknown reasons. Kim taught for several weeks at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

    May 3, 2017 – State-run Korean Central News Agency reports that Kim is accused of attempting to overthrow the government.

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Tony Kim, Kim Hak-song and Kim Dong Chul appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Euna Lee and Laura Ling
    March 2009 – Journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling are arrested while reporting from the border between North Korea and China for California-based Current Media.

    June 4, 2009 – They are sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign.

    August 4, 2009 – Former US President Bill Clinton travels to Pyongyang on a private humanitarian mission to help secure their release.

    August 5, 2009 – Lee and Ling are pardoned and released.

    Matthew Miller
    April 25, 2014 – North Korea’s news agency reports that Matthew Todd Miller was taken into custody on April 10. According to KCNA, Miller entered North Korea seeking asylum and tour up his tourist visa.

    June 30, 2014 – North Korea says that it plans to prosecute Miller and another detained American tourist, Jeffrey Fowle, accusing them of “perpetrating hostile acts.”

    September 14, 2014 – According to state-run media, Miller is convicted of committing “acts hostile” to North Korea and sentenced to six years of hard labor.

    November 8, 2014 – The State Department announces Miller and Kenneth Bae have been released and are on their way home.

    Merrill Newman
    October 26, 2013 – Merrill Newman of Palo Alto, California, is detained in North Korea, according to his family. Just minutes before his plane is to depart, Newman is removed from the flight by North Korean authorities, his family says.

    November 22, 2013 – The US State Department says North Korea has confirmed to Swedish diplomats that it is holding an American citizen. The State Department has declined to confirm the identity of the citizen, citing privacy issues, but the family of Newman says the Korean War veteran and retired financial consultant has been detained since October.

    November 30, 2013 – KCNA reports Newman issued an apology to the people of North Korea, “After I killed so many civilians and (North Korean) soldiers and destroyed strategic objects in the DPRK during the Korean War, I committed indelible offensive acts against the DPRK government and Korean people.” His statement ends: “If I go back to (the) USA, I will tell the true features of the DPRK and the life the Korean people are leading.”

    December 7, 2013 – Newman returns to the United States, arriving at San Francisco International Airport. North Korea’s state news agency reports Newman was released for “humanitarian” reasons.

    Eddie Yong Su Jun
    April 14, 2011 – The KCNA reports that US citizen Eddie Yong Su Jun was arrested in November 2010 and has been under investigation for committing a crime against North Korea. No details are provided on the alleged crime.

    May 27, 2011 – Following a visit from the US delegation which includes the special envoy for North Korean human rights, Robert King, and the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Jon Brause, to North Korea, Yong Su Jun is released.

    Otto Frederick Warmbier
    January 2, 2016 – Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia college student, is detained in North Korea after being accused of a “hostile act” against the government.

    February 29, 2016 – The North Korean government releases a video of Warmbier apologizing for committing, in his own words, “the crime of taking down a political slogan from the staff holding area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel.” It is not known if Warmbier was forced to speak.

    March 16, 2016 – Warmbier is sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, a North Korean official tells CNN.

    June 13, 2017 – Warmbier is transported back to the United States via medevac flight to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. There, doctors say that he has suffered severe brain damage. Doctors say Warmbier shows no current signs of botulism, which North Korean officials claim he contracted after his trial.

    June 19, 2017 – Warmbier’s family issues a statement that he has died.

    April 26, 2018 – Warmbier’s parents file a wrongful death lawsuit against the North Korean government charging that the country’s regime tortured and killed their son, according to lawyers for the family.

    December 24, 2018 – A federal judge in Washington awards Warmbier’s parents more than half a billion dollars in the wrongful death suit against the North Korean government. North Korea did not respond to the lawsuit – the opinion was rendered as a so-called “default judgment” – and the country has no free assets in the US for which the family could make a claim.

    Russia

    Trevor Reed
    2019 – While visiting a longtime girlfriend, Trevor Reed is taken into custody after a night of heavy drinking according to state-run news agency TASS and Reed’s family. Police tell state-run news agency RIA-Novosti that Reed was involved in an altercation with two women and a police unit that arrived at the scene following complaints of a disturbance. Police allege Reed resisted arrest, attacked the driver, hit another policeman, caused the car to swerve by grabbing the wheel and created a hazardous situation on the road, RIA stated.

    July 30, 2020 – Reed is sentenced to nine years in prison for endangering “life and health” of Russian police officers.

    April 1, 2021 – The parents of Reed reveal that their son served as a Marine presidential guard under the Obama administration – a fact they believe led Russia to target him.

    April 27, 2022 – Reed is released in a prisoner swap.

    June 14, 2022 – Reed tells CNN that he has filed a petition with the United Nations (UN), declaring that Russia violated international law with his detention and poor treatment.

    Brittney Griner
    February 17, 2022 – Two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and WBNA star Brittney Griner is taken into custody following a customs screening at Sheremetyevo Airport. Russian authorities said Griner had cannabis oil in her luggage and accused her of smuggling significant amounts of a narcotic substance, an offense the Russian government says is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

    July 7, 2022 – Griner pleads guilty to drug charges in a Russian court.

    August 4, 2022 – Griner is found guilty of drug smuggling with criminal intent and sentenced by a Russian court to 9 years of jail time with a fine of one million rubles (roughly $16,400).

    October 25, 2022 – At an appeal hearing, a Russian judge leaves Griner’s verdict in place, upholding her conviction on drug smuggling charges and reducing only slightly her nine-year prison sentence.

    November 9, 2022 – Griner’s attorney tells CNN she is being moved to a Russian penal colony where she is due to serve the remainder of her sentence.

    December 8, 2022 – US President Biden announces that Griner has been released from Russian detention and is on her way home.

    Turkey

    Serkan Golge
    July 2016 – While on vacation in Turkey, Serkan Golge is arrested and accused of having links to the Gulenist movement. Golge is a 37-year-old NASA physicist who holds dual Turkish-US citizenship.

    February 8, 2018 – Golge is sentenced to 7.5 years in prison.

    September 2018 – A Turkish court reduces Golge’s prison sentence to five years.

    May 29, 2019 – The State Department announces that Golge has been released.

    Andrew Brunson
    October 2016 – Andrew Brunson, a North Carolina native, is arrested in Izmir on Turkey’s Aegean coast, where he is pastor at the Izmir Resurrection Church. Brunson, an evangelical Presbyterian pastor, is later charged with plotting to overthrow the Turkish government, disrupting the constitutional order and espionage.

    March 2018 – A formal indictment charges Brunson with espionage and having links to terrorist organizations.

    October 12, 2018 – Brunson is sentenced to three years and one month in prison but is released based on time served.

    Venezuela

    Timothy Hallett Tracy
    April 24, 2013 – Timothy Hallett Tracy, of Los Angeles, is arrested at the Caracas airport, according to Reporters Without Borders. Tracy traveled to Venezuela to make a documentary about the political division gripping the country.

    April 25, 2013 – In a televised address, newly elected President Nicolas Maduro says he ordered the arrest of Tracy for “financing violent groups.”

    April 27, 2013 – Tracy is formally charged with conspiracy, association for criminal purposes and use of a false document.

    June 5, 2013 – Tracy is released from prison and expelled from Venezuela.

    Joshua Holt
    May 26, 2018 – Joshua Holt and his Venezuelan wife, Thamara Holt, are released by Venezuela. The two had been imprisoned there since 2016. The American traveled to Venezuela to marry Thamara in 2016, and shortly afterward was accused by the Venezuelan government of stockpiling weapons and attempting to destabilize the government. He was held for almost two years with no trial.

    “Citgo 6”

    November 2017 – After arriving in Caracas, Venezuela, for an impromptu business meeting, Tomeu Vadell and five other Citgo executives – Gustavo Cardenas, Jorge Toledo, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano and Jose Angel Pereira – are arrested and detained on embezzlement and corruption charges. Citgo is the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil and natural gas company PDVSA. Five of the six men are US citizens; one is a US legal permanent resident.

    December 2019 – The “Citgo 6” are transferred from the detention facility, where they have been held without trial for more than two years, to house arrest.

    February 5, 2020 – They are moved from house arrest into prison, hours after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido met with US President Donald Trump

    July 30, 2020 – Two of the men – Cárdenas and Toledo – are released on house arrest after a humanitarian visit to Caracas by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and a team of non-government negotiators.

    November 27, 2020 – The six oil executives are found guilty and are given sentences between 8 to 13 years in prison.

    April 30, 2021 – The men are released from prison to house arrest.

    October 16, 2021 – The “Citgo 6,” all under house arrest, are picked up by the country’s intelligence service SEBIN, just hours after the extradition of Alex Saab, a Colombian financier close to Maduro.

    March 8, 2022 – Cardenas is one of two detainees released from prison. The other, Jorge Alberto Fernandez, a Cuban-US dual citizen detained in Venezuela since February 2021, was accused of terrorism for carrying a small domestic drone. The releases take place after a quiet trip to Caracas by a US government delegation.

    October 1, 2022 – US President Biden announces the release and return of Toledo, Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, and Pereira.

    Matthew Heath

    September 2020 – Is arrested and charged with terrorism in Venezuela.

    June 20, 2022 – Family of Heath state that he has attempted suicide. “We are aware of reports that a US citizen was hospitalized in Venezuela,” a State Department spokesperson says. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”

    October 1, 2022 – US President Biden announces the release and return of Heath.

    Airan Berry and Luke Denman

    May 4, 2020 – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says two American “mercenaries” have been apprehended after a failed coup attempt to capture and remove him. Madura identifies the captured Americans as Luke Denman, 34, and Airan Berry, 41. On state television, Maduro brandishes what he claims are the US passports and driver’s licenses of the two men, along with what he says are their ID cards for Silvercorp, a Florida-based security services company.

    May 5, 2020 – Denman appears on Venezuelan state TV. He is shown looking directly at the camera recounting his role in “helping Venezuelans take back control of their country.”

    August 7, 2020 – Prosecutors announce that Berry and Denman have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

    December 20, 2023 – It is announced that the US has reached an agreement to secure the release of 10 Americans, including Berry and Denman, held in Venezuela.

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  • Arab League Fast Facts | CNN

    Arab League Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the Arab League, an organization of Middle Eastern and African countries and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

    Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt is the current secretary-general of the Arab League.

    There are also four observer states: Eritrea, India, Brazil and Venezuela.

    The Arab League’s purpose, from the Pact of the League of Arab States, is to promote closer political, economic, cultural and social relations among the members.

    A council composed of representatives from the member states works together to settle disputes peacefully. The league has five major committees: political, economic, social and cultural, legal and Palestinian affairs.

    Each member has one vote on the council. Decisions are only binding to the states that have voted for them.

    March 22, 1945 – The Arab League is created in Cairo with seven Arab countries – Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Lebanese Republic, Yemen (Sanaa), Transjordan (now Jordan), Egypt and Syria.

    Since 1945, 16 other members have joined – Libya (1953), Sudan (1956), Morocco (1958), Tunisia (1958), Kuwait (1961), Algeria (1962), Yemen (Aden, 1968), Bahrain (1971), Oman (1971), Qatar (1971), United Arab Emirates (1971), Mauritania (1973), Somalia (1974), the PLO (1976), Djibouti (1977) and Comoros (1993).

    April 13, 1950 – League members sign an agreement on joint defense and economic cooperation.

    1959 – The league holds the first Arab petroleum congress.

    1964 – The league organizes the Arab League Education, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO).

    1976 – ARABSAT, an Arab communications satellite system, is formed.

    March 26, 1979 – Egypt signs a peace treaty with Israel. The league suspends Egypt’s membership and transfers its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis, Tunisia.

    1989 – Egypt is readmitted to the league; later the headquarters is moved back to Cairo.

    1990 – Yemen (Aden) and Yemen (Sanaa) unite as Yemen.

    August 1990 – The league is divided over the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Members are split on a vote for a proposal to send Arab troops to join the troops defending Saudi Arabia from possible attack. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Djibouti and Somalia endorse the presence of foreign troops in Saudi Arabia.

    2003 – All league members except Kuwait officially oppose a US-led war against Iraq. However, some members in addition to Kuwait, including Bahrain and Qatar, allow their territory to be used.

    April 23, 2006 – Arab League Spokesman Hisham Yusif announces that the organization has promised to transfer $50 million to the Hamas-governed Palestinian Authority. This is in reaction the United States and European Union cutting off direct funding to the Hamas-led government that assumed power March 30.

    March 29-30, 2009 – A two-day summit takes place in Doha, Qatar. Sudanese President Omar al Bashir attends, despite an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.

    February 22, 2011 – The Arab League releases a statement saying it is suspending Libya’s participation in Arab League meetings and all of the group’s agencies. The statement also condemns what it calls crimes against protesters and peaceful strikers in Libya.

    March 3, 2011 – A summit scheduled for March 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, is postponed due to unrest in several Arab League countries.

    March 12, 2011 – The Arab League asks the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

    July 13, 2011 – Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Araby visits Syria and meets with President Bashar al-Assad.

    November 12, 2011 – The Arab League suspends Syria’s membership, effective November 16, 2011, in response to Syria’s continued violence against its own citizens. 18 members vote in favor of the suspension, while Lebanon and Yemen vote no. Iraq abstains from voting.

    December 19, 2011 – Syria signs an Arab League proposal aimed at ending violence between government forces and protesters.

    December 26, 2011 – Members of an Arab League delegation arrive in Syria to monitor events on the ground.

    January 28, 2012 – The Arab League suspends its mission in Syria as violence in the country continues.

    November 12, 2012 – State media reports that the Arab League has approved the resolution to recognize the new National Coalition Forces of the Syrian Revolution, which unites Syrian opposition factions.

    March 28-29, 2015 – The 26th Arab League Summit takes place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. All of the leaders agree to create a multi-national military force in order to combat threats to the Middle East.

    July 25, 2016 – The Arab League Summit is held in Nouakchott, Mauritania, but only seven leaders of the 22 member countries attend. The meetings focus on fighting terrorism and how to deal with other conflicts in the region.

    February 24-25, 2019 – The first ever EU-Arab League summit is held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

    May 7, 2023 – The Arab League announces it has re-admitted Syria after an 11-year absence.

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  • What the Palestinian Authority resignations mean

    What the Palestinian Authority resignations mean

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    What the Palestinian Authority resignations mean – CBS News


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    Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh submitted the resignation for his entire government Monday as Israel inches closer to invading Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, located along the border with Egypt. BBC News’ Paul Adams has more.

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  • Egypt lashes out at

    Egypt lashes out at

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    Cairo — Egyptian officials have lashed out over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that Israel will have to take control of a roughly 100-yard buffer zone on the Gaza side of the war-torn Palestinian territory‘s 9-mile-long border with Egypt. Israeli officials have said smuggling across that buffer, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, both above ground and through tunnels, has provided Gaza’s Hamas rulers with weapons and other supplies — allegations that Egypt vehemently denies.

    “The Philadelphi Corridor — or to put it more correctly, the southern stoppage point [of the Gaza Strip] — must be in our hands. It must be shut,” Netanyahu said at the end of December, warning that his country’s war against Hamas, sparked by the group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, would go on for many months. “It is clear that any other arrangement would not ensure the demilitarization that we seek.”

    The Head of Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS), Diaa Rashwan, lashed out Monday at Netanyahu’s declaration as “an attempt to create legitimacy” for what he said was the Israeli government’s real goal of occupying the border corridor in violation of security agreements signed between the two neighbors.

    Displaced Palestinians seek shelter near Egyptian border in Rafah
    Displaced Palestinians, including children, try to survive under difficult conditions in makeshift tents they have set up in the empty area near Egyptian border, in Rafah, Gaza, Jan. 22, 2024.

    Abed Zagout/Anadolu/Getty


    Rashwan warned that any attempt by Israeli forces start occupying the corridor would “lead to a serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations.”

    “Egypt is capable of defending its interests and sovereignty over its land and borders and will not leave it in the hands of a group of extremist Israeli leaders who seek to drag the region into a state of conflict and instability,” Rashwan said, calling it a “red line” that Israel must not cross.

    It was the second such red line drawn by Egypt, after it previously declared a “categorical rejection of [Israel] forcibly or voluntarily displacing our Palestinian brothers” from Gaza to Egypt’s northeast Sinai peninsula, which borders the small coastal territory.

    Part of the Southern District of Israel, political map, with the Gaza Strip
    A map shows southern Israel, the Gaza Strip and surrounding countries, including the location of the Rafah border crossing from Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

    Getty/iStockphoto


    “The true essence of Israel’s claims,” the statement from the State Information Service said, “is to justify its continuation of collective punishment, killing, and starvation of more than 2 million Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip, which it has practiced for 17 years.”

    The statement urged the Israeli government to conduct “serious investigations within its army, state agencies, and sectors of society, to search for those truly involved in smuggling weapons to Gaza, from inside, for the purpose of profit,” adding a claim that “many of the weapons currently inside the Gaza Strip are the result of smuggling from inside Israel.”

    Rashwan accused Israel of using his country as a scapegoat, “due to its successive failures in achieving its declared goals for the war on Gaza.”

    Ahmed Shawkat

    Ahmed Shawkat is a CBS News producer based in Cairo.

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  • US strike 2 Houthi anti-ship missiles in WW3 flashpoint Red Sea

    US strike 2 Houthi anti-ship missiles in WW3 flashpoint Red Sea

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    AMERICA has destroyed two Houthi anti-ship missiles that were ready to launch yet another attack in the Red Sea.

    This marks the fifth strike by the US in under a week as the Yemeni rebel group continues attacking commercial ships in the region.

    2

    Genco Picardy came under attack Wednesday from a bomb-carrying drone launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Gulf of AdenCredit: AP
    The photographs provided by the Indian navy show the aftermath of the strike

    2

    The photographs provided by the Indian navy show the aftermath of the strikeCredit: AP

    A tweet from the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the Thursday strikes, which are “part of ongoing multi-national efforts to protect freedom of navigation and prevent attacks on maritime vessels in the Red Sea”.

    CENTCOM said the missiles were aimed into the southern Red Sea and were “prepared to launch” when its forces identified them. 

    It said they determined they were an “imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region”. 

    “US forces subsequently struck and destroyed the missiles in self-defence,” it added, saying the strikes took place at around 3.40pm local time.

    The attack was quickly followed by a Houthi response, Al Jazeera reported.

    A Yemeni military source told the news outlet: “Ansar Allah-Houthi forces targeted an American ship near the Yemeni coast of Mukalla.”

    It came just a day after the US launched its fourth rounds of strikes against the Iran-backed rebels.

    It comes after a shocking image revealed a charred hole on the side of the US-owned cargo ship after it suffered a drone attack by the Houthi rebels.

    The merchant vessel Genco Picardy was hit by an unmanned aerial vehicle as it was heading east along the Gulf of Aden.

    The bulk carrier was en route to Tamil, India after departing Port of Safaga in Egypt on January 11, as per marine traffic portal Vesselfinder.

    India’s navy, which assisted the cargo ship, released the images of the attack’s aftermath.

    The photographs show the destroyed parts of the railings and a metal grille hanging loose.

    The stern of the warship was charred after the fire broke out onboard yesterday.

    The merchant vessel sent out a distress call after the drone attack around midnight local time.

    Soon after, the the Indian Navy’s ship responded to the mayday and the fire was under control.

    “INS Visakhapatnam, undertaking anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden, acknowledged the distress call and intercepted the vessel at 0030 hrs on January 18, 2024 in order to provide assistance,” the Navy said in a statement.

    Genco Picardy, with 22 crew members, reported no casualties and continued to the next port of call.

    The Iran-backed group claimed responsibility for the strike after leading a string of brazen attacks on ships since November.

    The Yemeni Armed Forces confirmed on Wednesday that a response to the American and British attacks is inevitably coming, and that any new attack will not remain without response and punishment.

    An official statement read: “The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a targeting operation against the American ship (Ginko Picardie) in the Gulf of Aden with a number of suitable naval missiles, and the hit was accurate and direct, thanks to God.

    “The Yemeni armed forces will not hesitate to target all sources of threat in the Arab and Red Bahrain within the legitimate right to defend dear Yemen and to continue supporting the oppressed Palestinian people.”

    Following the latest attack, the US has launched a fourth round of strikes against the rebels in just under a week.

    The US swiftly hit back with strikes targeting several sites that were prepared to launch further assaults, a US official confirmed to CBS News on Wednesday.

    Washington said it will re-designate the group as “global terrorists”.

    The new designation will require US financial institutions to freeze Houthi funds and its members will be banned from the US.

    A statement from US Central command read: “US Central Command forces conducted strikes on 14 Iran-backed Houthi missiles that were loaded to be fired in Houthi controlled areas in Yemen.

    “These missiles on launch rails presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region and could have been fired at any time, prompting US forces to exercise their inherent right and obligation to defend themselves.

    “These strikes, along with other actions we have taken, will degrade the Houthi’s capabilities to continue their reckless attacks on international and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden.”

    On Tuesday, the US military pounded the Iran-backed rebels with another airstrike on a stash of anti-ship ballistic missiles in Yemen.

    Since the UK and the US smashed dozens of military targets last week in Yemen, the furious rebel group has vowed “unimaginable” revenge.

    And earlier on Tuesday, a missile fired from Yemen hit a Greek-owned cargo ship in the Red Sea.

    Tuesday’s attack comes after the Houthis hit a US-owned cargo ship with a three-rocket barrage on Monday.

    It came just hours after a US warship downed a cruise missile fired by the Houthi rebels.

    The Houthi attacks are a major blow to world trade — and threaten UK petrol prices as tensions explode in the Middle East and the Israel and Gaza conflict rages on.

    Warlords with drones from Iran are threatening vessels sailing to the crucial Suez Canal through a Red Sea straight.

    About 12 per cent of global commercial shipping uses the route — and so far more than 2,000 vessels have been forced to divert thousands of miles.

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    Juliana Cruz Lima

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  • Americans are canceling trips that are thousands of miles from Gaza. Here's why

    Americans are canceling trips that are thousands of miles from Gaza. Here's why

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    The Israel-Hamas war is affecting travel across the Middle East and beyond.

    International arrivals to the region grew in the fourth quarter of 2023 — mainly owing to an increase in visitors to Saudi Arabia — to a level that matched 2019 numbers, according to the travel data company ForwardKeys.

    But it’s a far cry from the 30% rise in inbound travelers the region was expecting compared to 2019 levels, based on the number of airline tickets purchased before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the company said.  

    The outlook for 2024 doesn’t look much different.

    “The forward-looking situation for arrivals to the Middle East in the first quarter of 2024 as of 6 Oct. — the day before the recent conflict started — was very positive, with tickets issued up by 49% vs pre-pandemic levels,” said Olivier Ponti, the company’s vice president of insights. “Fast-forward to 5 Jan. … with tickets issued now up by just 9% vs. 2019.”

    Data showed air tickets to the Middle East purchased after the war fell 6% from 2019, with purchases to the United Arab Emirates down 8%, Morocco 15%, Turkey 17% and Egypt 21%. Tickets to Jordan were affected the most, falling 50% from 2019 levels, according to ForwardKeys.

    Canceling plans a continent away

    Yet, the war’s effect on travelers extends far beyond the Middle East, according to a survey from Morning Consult.

    The data research company surveyed some 2,200 Americans in November, with one in five people saying they have delayed, rescheduled or canceled a travel booking as a direct result of the Israel-Hamas war. 

    Respondents said these plans included visits to the Middle East (12%) and North Africa (7%), as well as Western Europe (14%), according to the survey. However, the bulk of the cancelations — 41% — were for trips within the United States, the survey showed.

    Cancelations were high for domestic trips because most Americans travel within the 50 states, thus “there are simply more trips on the table to disrupt,” the report stated.

    But as to why the war is making Americans feel uneasy about traveling in their own country, the report stated: “This is also emblematic of the larger tensions — for example, concerns related to antisemitism and Islamophobia — stoked by the conflict, and peoples’ resultant apprehension to venture far from home.”

    Following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, tensions spilled over to college campuses, workplaces and suburban neighborhoods, with many countries reporting a rise in hate crimes against Muslims and Jewish people.

    A worldwide travel advisory, issued by the U.S. State Department less than two weeks following Hamas’ attack on Israel, may have affected traveler confidence as well, the report stated. Some 62% of respondents said they knew about it.

    Worldwide Caution

    “Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution.” — U.S. Travel Advisory issued on Oct. 19, 2023

    In addition to weather and natural disaster alerts, the U.S. State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs’ account on X, formerly Twitter, has pushed out numerous security alerts in the months following the Hamas attack — for Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait and Turkey, among others — as well as demonstration alerts for cities in Turkey, Malaysia, Colombia, Oman, Egypt, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Poland and Denmark, some connected to rising anti-U.S. sentiment over the war.

    U.S. domestic travel in the fourth quarter of 2023 fell below 2019 levels, according to ForwardKeys. The downturn happened after the outbreak of the war, the company said.

    The day before the attack, the travel outlook for U.S. domestic travel in the fourth quarter of 2023 was positive (+4%), but it ended down (-5%), “highlighting the impact of the ongoing conflict in Israel,” said Ponti.

    More feel unsafe

    Numerous reports indicate Muslims and Jewish people worldwide no longer feel safe.

    Morning Consult’s survey indicated those who know about the war may be feeling less safe as well.

    Some 52% of respondents with knowledge of the war said they viewed traveling to the Middle East as “very unsafe,” compared to 29% of those who had not heard about it.  

    Those who had heard about the war also indicated that they felt less safe traveling to North Africa and Eastern Europe too, the survey showed.

    Zicasso’s 2024 Luxury Travel Report named geopolitical conflict as one of the three most significant obstacles to booking travel this year.

    In a survey of 200 global travel specialists, 18% said uncertainty and safety issues in certain regions may discourage travelers from booking.

    “After the October events in the Middle East, we did see a significant fall-off in trip requests to Israel and the surrounding region,” said Zicasso’s CEO Brian Tan. “Typically, when travelers have second thoughts about overseas travel to a certain region due to obstacles such as geopolitical conflict, we find that travelers will redirect to other international destinations.”

    He said the war in Ukraine hasn’t materially affected business since Zicasso doesn’t receive many requests for bookings there, but that his company is carefully watching the situation in Ecuador, where gang violence erupted last week.  

    Tan noted that his company has seen a recent rise in trip requests for Morocco, which he noted is thousands of miles from Jerusalem.

    Yet, according to Morning Consult, the Israel-Hamas war could reduce travel interest to the region “for months and even years to come.”

       

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  • Hamas leader travels to Egypt amid hope for new cease-fire talks

    Hamas leader travels to Egypt amid hope for new cease-fire talks

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    Hamas leader travels to Egypt amid hope for new cease-fire talks – CBS News


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    Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ top political leader, traveled from Qatar to Cairo on Wednesday as sources told CBS News the militant group is attempting to secure a cease-fire with Israel. Imtiaz Tyab reports from Jerusalem.

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  • Protests At UN Climate Talks See ‘Shocking Level Of Censorship’

    Protests At UN Climate Talks See ‘Shocking Level Of Censorship’

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Activists designated Saturday a day of protest at the COP28 summit in Dubai. But the rules of the game in the tightly controlled United Arab Emirates at the site supervised by the United Nations meant sharp restrictions on what demonstrators could say, where they could walk and what their signs could portray.

    At times, the controls bordered on the absurd.

    A small group of demonstrators protesting the detention of activists — one from Egypt and two from the UAE — was not allowed to hold up signs bearing their names. A late afternoon demonstration of around 500 people, the largest seen at the climate conference, couldn’t go beyond the U.N.-governed Blue Zone in this autocratic nation. And their calls for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip couldn’t name the parties involved.

    “It is a shocking level of censorship in a space that had been guaranteed to have basic freedoms protected like freedom of expression, assembly and association,” Joey Shea, a researcher at Human Rights Watch focused on the Emirates, told The Associated Press after their restricted demonstration.

    Pro-Palestinian protesters who were calling for a cease-fire and climate justice were told they could not say “from the river to the sea,” a slogan prohibited by the U.N. over the days of COP28.

    In the aftermath of a brutal Hamas attack on Israel in October and the subsequent Israeli bombing and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, that phrase has been used at pro-Palestinian rallies to call for single state on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Some Jews hear a clear demand for Israel’s destruction in the call.

    Protesters got around rules banning national flags by instead wearing keffiyeh scarves and holding signs depicting watermelons to show their support for the Palestinians.

    Protestor Dylan Hamilton of Scotland said it remained important for demonstrators to cry out their grievances, even if they sounded like a cacophony of concerns ranging from climate change, the war or Indigenous rights.

    “It’s essential to remind negotiators what they are negotiating about,” Hamilton said. “It’s trying to remind people to care about people you’ll never meet.”

    Despite the restrictions, activists protesting for a cease-fire in Gaza called the action historic due to its size.

    “I don’t want to look back one day where a Palestinian can’t remember what their history and their culture used to look like, because that’s exactly what happened to us in Mexico,” climate activist Isavela Lopez said. “I’m here to say to end with the colonial powers and with the white supremacy.”

    Many climate activists point to the same causes for today’s climate crisis.

    Typically, COP summits see mass demonstrations of tens of thousands of people outside of the Blue Zone. But given the UAE’s rules, the only place where activists can protest is inside that U.N.-controlled space, which has its own tight restrictions on speech.

    Just before the demonstration about the detained activists, organized by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, protesters had to fold over signs bearing the names of the detainees — even after they already had crossed out messages about them. The order came roughly 10 minutes before the protest was due to start from the U.N., which said it could not guarantee the security of the demonstration, Shea said.

    While speaking during the protest, Shea also had to avoid naming the Emirates and Egypt as part of the U.N.’s rules.

    “The absurdity of what happened at this action today speaks volumes,” she said.

    The Emirati government, in response to questions from the AP about the detainees protest, said it “does not comment on individual cases following judicial sentences.”

    “In the spirit of inclusivity, peaceful assemblies in designated areas have been and continue to be welcomed,” the statement said. “We remain dedicated to fostering dialogue and understanding as we work together at COP28 to deliver impactful solutions for accelerating climate action.”

    Demonstrators carried signs bearing the image of Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor and Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah.

    Mansoor, the recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2015, repeatedly drew the ire of authorities in the United Arab Emirates by calling for a free press and democratic freedoms in the autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms. He was targeted with Israeli spyware on his iPhone in 2016 likely deployed by the Emirati government ahead of his 2017 arrest and sentencing to 10 years in prison over his activism.

    Abdel-Fattah, who rose to prominence during the 2011 pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings, became a central focus of demonstrators during last year’s COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, as he had stopped eating and drinking water to protest his detention. He has spent most of the past decade in prison because of his criticism of Egypt’s rulers.

    Since 2013, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government has cracked down on dissidents and critics, jailing thousands, virtually banning protests and monitoring social media. El-Sissi has not released Abdel-Fattah despite him receiving British citizenship while imprisoned and interventions on his behalf from world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden.

    Demonstrators also held up the image of Mohamed al-Siddiq, another Emirati detained as part of the crackdown.

    The detainees protest had been scheduled to take place days earlier, but negotiations with U.N. officials dragged on — likely due to the sensitivity of even mentioning the detainees’ names in the country.

    Meanwhile, protesters briefly staged a sit-in at OPEC’s stand over a leaked letter reportedly calling on cartel member states to reject any attempt to include a phase-down of fossil fuels in any text at the summit.

    “It’s like having, you know, a convention on fighting the tobacco industry and having the tobacco industry present in a negotiation. That is not okay,” campaigner Nicholas Haeringer said. “It’s like having a fox in the henhouse. And to be honest with you guys, I think at some point we will run out of analogies before these guys run out of oil.”

    Associated Press journalists Peter Dejong, Lujain Jo and Malak Harb contributed to this report.

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  • Egypt’s Mtor nabs $2.8M pre-seed for its online auto parts marketplace | TechCrunch

    Egypt’s Mtor nabs $2.8M pre-seed for its online auto parts marketplace | TechCrunch

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    Egyptian online auto parts marketplace Mtor has raised $2.8 million in pre-seed investment led by MENA-focused venture capital firm Algebra Ventures. Other investors that participated in the round include Dutch Founders Fund (DFF), Aditum Ventures, LoftyInc Capital and other local and global angel investors, the startup said in a statement.

    Mtor’s founder and CEO, Mohamed Maged, established the startup in April 2022. His inspiration for the venture emerged from years spent in Germany, where he gained valuable experience in the automotive sector. Upon returning to Egypt in 2020, Maged joined the B2B e-commerce marketplace MaxAB, holding two distinct head of expansion roles before departing to launch Mtor.

    In an interview with TechCrunch, Maged described how he recognized a significant challenge in addressing inefficiencies and fragmentation within the auto parts supply chain and the automotive aftermarket, specifically focusing on local workshops and car mechanic spaces. “I got the idea for Mtor before coming to Egypt,” he said. “I worked in automotive a bit and saw the inefficiency of global suppliers knowing nothing about local workshops or local service providers. Egypt itself doesn’t manufacture that many spare parts, so there is a big information and technical gap not only in terms of distribution but in terms of new products.”

    Initially, Mtor, whose leadership team includes Maged alongside CTO Khaled Kandil, COO Mohamed Altaf and VP of Strategy Moaz El Megharbel, focused on supplying spare parts to local workshops and managing logistics. Over time, the startup expanded operations, forming partnerships with importers to facilitate distribution in an Egyptian market home to thousands of local service providers and millions of cars needing maintenance and aftersales parts.

    L-R: Mohamed Maged (CEO), Khaled Kandil (CTO), Mohamed Altaf (COO) and Moaz El Megharbel (VP Strategy)

    Egypt’s automotive after-sales market, among the largest in Africa and the MENA region, exceeds $5 billion in value. With an aging fleet of 8 million vehicles, car owners spend an average of $600+ annually across 35,000 workshops and service providers, emphasizing the untapped potential within Egypt’s automotive after-sales market.

    At its core, Mtor addresses the pain points of these local workshops, resolving issues such as inaccurate fitment data, logistics and delivery challenges, parts availability and price transparency. The startup also aims to bridge the gap for car owners facing a dilemma between official dealerships, where prices are two to three times higher, and local workshops offering more affordable options. Despite the potential compromise on quality at local workshops, especially during global economic challenges, Mtor acts as an intermediary, leveraging a tech platform to connect these workshops directly with importers.

    Traditionally, importers deliver bulk orders to large wholesalers, who, in turn, distribute to local mechanics through several layers of suppliers. Mtor simplifies this process, offering more efficient pricing than the traditional two-layer supply chain.

    “A local mechanic would get the parts from the current supply chain for 10,000 Egyptian pounds but can get it from Mtor for 8,000-8,500 Egyptian pounds because we operate an efficient kind of supply chain from importers to Mtor’s two warehouses in Cairo and Giza and then to these mechanic workshops,” said Maged. “We’re something in between that will uplift those workshops using a tech platform that connects them directly with the importers, and at the same time, giving them better quality and trustable parts that would then give more or less the needed balance between both worlds including providing logistics and delivery of the products on demand.”

    The two-year-old online auto parts marketplace operates on a margin model primarily tied to the parts themselves. The business runs on standardized pricing and derives its take rates or margins from this pricing, which includes free delivery.

    Over the past year and a half, Mtor has served over 2,500 workshops, fulfilling more than 70,000 orders. On the supply side, it has formed partnerships with over 60 importers.

    Beyond being a tech-enabled distribution arm, Mtor establishes a robust feedback loop involving data, parts information and pricing points. Its Mechanic app, targeted at these local workshops, facilitates ordering and provides insights into compatible aftersales parts. The app also manages the redirection of parts, whether to Mtor’s or the importers’ inventory, enhancing efficiency and collaboration within the automotive aftermarket.

    Mtor’s focus on B2B customers is a departure from platforms that function as marketplaces connecting car owners with service providers. A notable example is YC-backed Odiggo, an Egyptian startup that initially operated in this category before pivoting to Sully.ai, an AI team specializing in automating healthcare tasks. Similarly, the Nigerian auto deals marketplace Mecho Autotech initially operated as a business-to-consumer marketplace before recently branching into the wholesale distribution of aftersales parts.

    While Odiggo’s new business focus and Mecho’s different market positioning make them non-direct competitors, Mtor, according to Maged, doesn’t see other B2C players as competitors, recognizing that serving auto dealers involves more frequent orders and higher return rates compared to direct customers in the spare parts business.

    “They merely complement our model because the service providers are the mechanics. The main aim of Mtor is to empower independent workshops to offer car owners excellent quality service at affordable prices. The right way to do this is to empower those mechanics, which will trickle down to a better experience for the car owner not only in lead time but also in the quality of the parts and even the price he pays,” added the CEO.

    In addition to recently making hires in leadership and operational roles, Maged says the startup has concentrated on developing products that attract more mechanics monthly. Its future strategy will involve doubling down on this approach off the back of the new investment it has received. He remarked that the startup plans to strengthen partnerships with significant importers and parts suppliers.

    “We are delighted to partner with Mtor’s founders and team, who have built an innovative business that solves a significant pain for mechanics, auto parts suppliers and vehicle owners,” said Karim Hussein, managing partner at Algebra Ventures on the investment. “Mtor’s unique visual and voice interface coupled with a sophisticated fitment and parts matching engine eliminates the hours spent daily by mechanics hunting for the right part at the right price. We look forward to supporting Mtor on expansion in Egypt and beyond.”

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    Tage Kene-Okafor

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  • Kamala Harris: “Under No Circumstances” Will US Allow Forced Relocation of Palestinians

    Kamala Harris: “Under No Circumstances” Will US Allow Forced Relocation of Palestinians

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    US Vice President Kamala Harris confirmed that the Biden administration will not allow the forced removal of Palestinians out of Gaza or the West Bank, as the Israeli bombardment of the territory resumed following the expiration of a weeklong truce with Hamas.

    “Under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the besiegement of Gaza, or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza,” Harris said in a meeting on Saturday with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt, according to a readout of the remarks.

    Harris, following meetings with Arab leaders in Dubai for the COP28 climate conference, said that while the US continued to endorse Israel’s right to defend itself, she was also concerned by the growing humanitarian crisis.

    “The United States is unequivocal: International humanitarian law must be respected. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” the vice president said in a press conference, adding that “the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”

    The US wants “significant resources” on a global scale for a postwar Gaza governed by a strengthened Palestinian Authority, according to Harris. Palestinians will eventually need assistance rebuilding homes and infrastructure, while their security forces should be “strengthened to eventually assume … some responsibilities in Gaza.”

    In the eight weeks since Hamas’ October 7 attack, the wartime death toll in Gaza has risen to over 15,000 Palestinians—including more than 10,000 women and children—according to data from the Gaza Health Ministry. The pace of killing, The New York Times reported in November, has few precedents in any conflict this century, including an additional 200 Palestinians killed by Israel after military operations resumed.

    The weeklong truce, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, allowed hundreds of aid trucks to enter Gaza, where the fighting has displaced 1.7 out of the territory’s 2.2 million people. The International Rescue Committee, an aid group operating in Gaza, warned that the return of fighting will “wipe out even the minimal relief” provided by the truce and “prove catastrophic for Palestinian civilians.” The head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees told the Financial Times Friday that Gaza “might be on the eve of a perfect kind of humanitarian catastrophe-tsunami.”

    In the immediate term, Harris called for security arrangements in Gaza that “are acceptable to Israel, the people of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority, and the international partners,” but said that ultimately, the administration’s aspiration is for a “unified Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” with “Palestinian voices and aspirations…at the center of this work.”

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    Jack McCordick

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  • Renewed Israel-Gaza war crowds out climate at COP28

    Renewed Israel-Gaza war crowds out climate at COP28

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    DUBAI — The war in Gaza crashed into the United Nations climate summit on Friday, as furious sideline diplomacy, blunt censures of violence and an Iranian boycott shoved global warming to the side.

    It was a sharp change in tone from the COP28 opening on Thursday, which ended on an upbeat note as countries promised to support climate-stricken communities. The mood darkened the following day as news broke that the week-old truce between Israel and Hamas was collapsing. 

    Israeli President Isaac Herzog spent much of the morning in meetings telling fellow leaders about “how Hamas blatantly violates the ceasefire agreements,” according to a post on his X account. He ended up skipping a speech he was meant to give during Friday’s parade of world leaders.

    There were other conspicuous no-shows. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was absent, despite being listed as an early speaker. And Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, also disappeared from the final speakers’ list after initially being scheduled to talk just a few slots after Herzog. 

    Then, shortly after leaders posed for a group photo in the Dubai venue on Friday, the Iranian delegation announced it was walking out. The reason, Iran’s energy minister told his country’s official news agency: The “political, biased and irrelevant presence of the fake Zionist regime” — referring to Israel. 

    By Friday afternoon, the Iranian pavilion had emptied out. 

    The backroom drama played out even as leader after leader took the stage in the vast Expo City campus to make allotted three-minute statements on their efforts to stop the planet from boiling. The World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that 2023 was almost certain to be the hottest year ever recorded.

    U.N. climate talks are often buffeted by outside events. This is the second such meeting held after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That war provoked some public barbs and backroom discussions at last year’s summit in Egypt, but leaders still maintained their scheduled speaking slots and a veneer of focus on the matter they were supposedly there to discuss.

    This year, that veneer cracked. 

    “There are currently a number of very, very serious crises that are causing great suffering for many people. It was clear that these would also affect the mood at the COP,” a German diplomat, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, told POLITICO. 

    But that can’t distract officials working on climate change, the diplomat added: “It is also clear that no one on our planet, no country on Earth, can escape the destructive effects of the climate crisis.” 

    Tell-tale signals

    There had been early signs that the conflict would spill over into discussions at the climate summit. 

    Sameh Shoukry, president of the COP27 climate conference and Egyptian minister of foreign affairs, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, president of COP28 | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

    At Thursday’s opening ceremony, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry — president of last year’s COP27 summit — asked all delegates to stand for a moment of silence in memory of two climate negotiators who had recently died, “as well as all civilians who have perished during the current conflict in Gaza.” 

    On Friday, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were among the leaders who used their COP28 speeches to draw attention to the war.

    “This year’s COP must recognize even more than ever that we cannot talk about climate change in isolation from the humanitarian tragedies unfolding around us,” Abdullah said. “As we speak, the Palestinian people are facing an immediate threat to their lives and wellbeing.”  

    Ramaphosa went further: “South Africa is appalled at the cruel tragedy that is underway in Gaza. The war against the innocent people of Palestine is a war crime that must be ended now. 

    But, he added, “we cannot lose momentum in the fight against climate change.”

    Asked for comment, an official from the United Arab Emirates, which is overseeing COP28, said the country had invited all parties to the conference and “are pleased with the exceptionally high level of attendance this year.” 

    The official added: “Climate change is a global issue and as the host for this significant, momentous conference, the UAE  welcomes constructive dialogue and continues to work with all international partners and stakeholders across the board to deliver impactful results for COP28.”  

    The other summit in Dubai

    In the back rooms of the conference venue, leaders were holding urgent talks on the war. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken huddled with Herzog on Thursday, according to a post on Herzog’s X account. 

    “In addition to participating in the COP, I’ll have an opportunity to meet with Arab partners to discuss the conflict in Gaza,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday while in Brussels for a NATO gathering. He didn’t offer further details.

    A senior Biden administration official told reporters Vice President Kamala Harris would also be “having discussions on the conflict between Israel and Hamas” during her trip to Dubai.

    On his X account, Herzog said he had met with “dozens” of leaders at the summit. His post featured photographs of Britain’s King Charles III, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, India’s Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He also posted about meetings with Blinken and UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed.

    Erdoğan met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at COP28 to discuss the war in Gaza, according to a statement by the Turkish communications directorate that made no mention of climate action. 

    U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made no secret of the fact that he intended to use some of his brief visit to Dubai to talk about regional security.

    U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made no secret of the fact that he intended to use some of his brief visit to Dubai to talk about regional security | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

    “I’ll be speaking to lots of leaders … not just [about] climate change, but also the situation in the Middle East,” he told reporters on his flight out of the U.K. Thursday night.

    The reignited Israel-Hamas conflict came to dominate his time at the summit. Meetings with other leaders were arranged with regional tensions in mind — not climate. Sunak met Israel’s Herzog and Jordan’s Abdullah, as well as Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al Sisi and the emir of Qatar.  

    “Given the events of this morning in Israel and Gaza, the prime minister has spent most of his bilateral meetings discussing that situation,” Sunak’s spokesperson told reporters in Dubai.

    The meetings focused on “what more we can do both to support the innocent civilians in Gaza, to de-escalate tensions, to get more hostages out and more aid in,” the spokesperson said.

    Even the U.K.’s ostensibly nonpolitical head of state, King Charles III — in Dubai to give an opening address to world leaders — was deployed to aid the diplomatic effort. Buckingham Palace said the king would “have the opportunity to meet regional leaders to support the U.K.’s efforts to promote peace in the region.”

    Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron was planning to meet various leaders on the security situation and then fly on for talks in Qatar, according to an Elysée Palace official. 

    Meanwhile, three of Europe’s leaders who have been the strongest backers of the Palestinians — Irish leader Leo Varadkar, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — held talks on the fringes of COP on Friday morning.

    Earlier on Friday, Israel withdrew its ambassador to Spain, blasting what it called Sánchez’s “shameful remarks” on the situation.

    Brazil’s Lula, whose country will host a major COP conference in 2025, lamented that just as more joint action is needed to prevent climate catastrophe, war and violence were cleaving the world apart.  

    “We are facing what may be the greatest challenge that humanity has faced till now,” he said. “Instead of uniting forces, the world is going to wars. It feeds divisions and deepens poverty and inequalities.”

    Zia Weise, Suzanne Lynch and Charlie Cooper reported from Dubai. Karl Mathiesen reported from London.

    Clea Calcutt contributed reporting from Paris. Nahal Toosi contributed reporting from Washington, D.C. 

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  • King Charles, David Cameron and Rishi Sunak show UK’s COP28 identity crisis

    King Charles, David Cameron and Rishi Sunak show UK’s COP28 identity crisis

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    LONDON — COP28, meet the U.K.’s three amigos.

    One is a king who has spent most of his adult life campaigning for bold action on global warming — but is now bound by ancient convention to stick to his government’s skeptical script.

    The second is a prime minister who just scaled back Britain’s net zero ambitions and wants to “max out” fossil fuel production at home — and stands accused by former colleagues of being “uninterested” in environmental policies.

    And the third? A former prime minister — now the U.K. foreign secretary — who once pledged to lead the “greenest government ever,” but then grew tired of what he called “the green crap” … and is already showing signs of overshadowing his new boss.

    All three — King Charles III, Rishi Sunak, and David Cameron — are due to descend on the United Nations climate conference, COP28, which starts in Dubai next week, rounding off a year set to be the hottest ever recorded. (Sunak and the king are already confirmed to attend, while Cameron is due to do so in the coming days.)

    The unlikely trio, each jostling for their place on the world stage, are symbolic of a wider identity crisis for the U.K. heading into the summit.

    The country staked a claim as a world leader on climate when it hosted COP26 just two years ago. But it is now viewed with uncertainty by allies pushing for stronger action on global warming, following Sunak’s embrace of North Sea oil and gas and his retreat on some key domestic net zero targets.

    “There is a lot of confusion about what the U.K. is going to do this year,” said one European diplomat, granted anonymity to give a candid assessment ahead of the summit.

    “It raises the question, which team are they on? I think we’ll need to find out during COP.”

    Green king, Blue Prime Minister

    One of the key moments for the U.K. will come early in the conference, when Charles delivers an opening speech at the World Climate Action Summit of world leaders, the grand curtain raiser on a fortnight of talks.

    Sunak is expected to fly in the same day to deliver his own speech later in the session.

    Rishi Sunak speaks at COP26 in Glasgow | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

    At least Charles has been allowed to attend the summit this year. In 2022, then Prime Minister Liz Truss advised the king against travelling to Egypt for COP27.

    But anyone looking for signs of friction between Sunak and the climate-conscious king will be unlikely to find them in the text of Charles’ address.

    Speeches by the monarch are signed off by No. 10 Downing Street and this one will be no different, said one minister, granted anonymity to discuss interactions between the PM’s office and Buckingham Palace.

    That’s not to say tensions don’t exist. Just don’t expect the king to overstep the constitutional ground rules, said Charles’ friend and biographer, the broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby.

    “I can only imagine that he must be intensely frustrated that the government has granted licenses in the North Sea,” Dimbleby told POLITICO. “Whatever the actual practical implications of the drilling in terms of combating climate change, it will not send a great message to the world from a nation that claims moral leadership on the issue.”

    But Charles finds himself in “a unique position,” Dimbleby added.

    “He is the only head of state who has a very long track record on insisting that climate change is a threat to the future of humanity … He speaks with great authority — but of course on terms from which the government will not dissent, because he has an overriding commitment, regardless of his own views, to abide by the constitutional obligations of the head of state in this country.”

    Others see the speech as a major test for Charles.

    “This is one of the most significant speeches he’ll make as king,” said Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert and lecturer in law at the Royal Holloway university.

    Prescott noted the speech will be watched closely for clues as to how Charles maintains “political impartiality while pursuing the environmental issue — striking the right balance.”

    “There will be some to-ing and fro-ing between Downing Street and the Palace,” he added. “But fundamentally he has to comply with any advice he gets.”

    As is the convention, Downing Street declined to comment on any discussions with Buckingham Palace. The Palace did not respond to a request for comment.

    Fossil fuel politics

    The king is attending the summit at the invitation of its hosts, the United Arab Emirates — a sign of close ties between the British establishment and the Gulf monarchies presiding over some of the world’s biggest oil and gas-producing countries.

    It’s a connection some view as a potential asset for British climate diplomacy.  

    The then Prince Charles addresses the audience at COP26 | Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images

    “Trust between these royal families and institutions could provide the chance to have candid conversations” on issues such as fossil fuel reduction and the need to expand renewable energy supply, said Edward Davey, head of the U.K office of the World Resources Institute, where the king is patron.

    “One could imagine those issues being discussed in a respectful way, in a way that perhaps other leaders couldn’t achieve.”

    “I think it’s perfectly possible for the sovereign and the PM to both attend a COP and for them both to play a complementary role,” Davey added.

    Others are much more skeptical. “[The king] has a lot of close friends in the Middle East who are massive producers of oil,” said Graham Smith, boss of the Republic campaign group, which wants to abolish the British monarchy.

    “They can use him as a point of access to the British state because he has direct access to the government, and whatever he says to government is entirely secretive.”

    Cameron, meanwhile, has his own close ties to the UAE and — before his return to government — took on a teaching post at New York University Abu Dhabi earlier this year.

    Negotiation confusion

    The U.K.’s big three will be joined in Dubai by Energy Secretary — and Sunak ally — Claire Coutinho. But the head of the British delegation is a junior minister, Graham Stuart, who does not attend Cabinet.

    While the country will be officially arguing — alongside the EU — for a “phase-out of unabated fossil fuels,” Stuart sparked confusion earlier this month when he suggested to MPs that he was not troubled by the distinction between a “phase-out” (a total end to production of fossil fuels, where carbon capture is not applied) and a “phase-down,” the softer language preferred by the summit’s president, UAE national oil company boss Sultan Al-Jaber.

    Chris Skidmore, an MP and climate activist in Sunak’s Conservative party, and the author of a government-commissioned report on net zero policy, said Stuart was wrong if he thought the distinction was just “semantics.”

    “The fate of the world is resting on a distinction between phase-out and phase-down. But the U.K. finds itself now [unable] to argue for phase-out because it’s joined the phase-down club.

    “That in itself puts us in an entirely different strategic position to where we were.”

    Climate brain drain

    London’s climate diplomatic corps are still well-respected around the world, said the same European diplomat quoted above. Even with Sunak’s loosening of net zero policies, the U.K. is seen to be in the group of countries, alongside the EU, leading the push for strong action on cutting emissions.

    And there is a chance Cameron’s appointment will see more effort going into the U.K.’s global reputation on climate, according to Skidmore.

    Citizen scientist Pat Stirling checks the quality of the River Wye water in Hay-on-Wye | Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images

    “It was under his premiership that the U.K. played a leading role in helping to get the Paris Agreement [to limit global warming] signed through … It will be interesting to see if he comes to COP and wants to play on the opportunities for the U.K. to demonstrate its climate credentials,” he said.

    But the team that pulled off a relatively successful COP26 now has significantly less firepower, said one former U.K. climate official, who warned their efforts risk being undermined by No. 10’s approach to fossil fuels.

    “There was a brain drain of experts working on climate, [the sort of] officials that could help hold government to account internally and try to maintain the level of ambition that we needed,” the former official said.

    This spring, the U.K. scrapped the dedicated role of climate envoy, held by the experienced diplomat Nick Bridge since 2017. The remaining team of climate diplomats have been left frustrated, the former official said, by changes to domestic climate policy driven by a Downing Street operation fixated with next year’s U.K. general election, without consideration for how they might affect Britain’s negotiating position on the world stage.

    “When Sunak gave his speech in September [rolling back some interim green targets], his team didn’t even realize that a U.N. climate action summit was happening in New York,” the former official said. “His team aren’t thinking in this way. For them it’s just about votes and the election.”

    The risk, said the European diplomat, is that countries at COP28 pushing for softer targets on fossil fuels — likely to include the Gulf states, China and Russia — could point to Sunak’s statements on a “proportionate, pragmatic” approach to net zero as a reason to ignore the U.K. and its allies when they call for higher ambition.

    “This will happen,” the European diplomat said. “They can point to the U.K.’s prime minister and say — ‘Look what the U.K. is doing with its own climate ambitions. So why are you being such a hard-ass about ours?’”

    As for Cameron’s potential impact at the FCDO, the European diplomat was skeptical.

    “It was a big surprise for everybody, but we’re not sure what he can do,” they said. “Maybe he can call a referendum on the climate?”

    Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.

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    Charlie Cooper

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