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Tag: Protests and demonstrations

  • Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics

    Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.

    Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

    His experience and resume will allow him, at least at first, to fly underneath the type of political blowback that quickly met former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. It also shows he is adept at managing complex criminal cases related to both public corruption and national security – and that he has practice making challenging decisions with political implications.

    Smith is widely expected to be tasked with making policy decisions around whether to charge a former president of the United States. Garland’s statements on Friday and the recent steps taken in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations have signaled that, at the very least, Donald Trump is under investigation and could potentially be charged with a crime.

    “He knows how to do high-profile cases. He’s independent. He will not be influenced by anybody,” said Greg Andres, a former member of Mueller’s team.

    Andres, who has known Smith since the late 1990s when they started at a US attorney’s office together and ultimately became co-chiefs of the office’s criminal division, said it’s the breadth of Smith’s experience that will enable him to withstand the public scrutiny and make tough judgment calls.

    “He will evaluate the evidence and understand what type of case should be charged or not. He has the type of experience to make those judgments,” said Andres.

    “He understands the courtroom. He understands how to try a case. He knows how to prove a case,” he added. “Particularly in these circumstances it will be critical to understand what types of evidence is required to prove the case in court.”

    In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”

    “The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said.

    One former colleague highlighted that Smith has prosecuted members of both parties.

    “He’s going to be really aggressive,” the person said, adding that “things are going to speed up.” Smith, they said, “operates very quickly” and has a unique ability to quickly determine the things that are important to a case and doesn’t waste time “hand-wringing over things that are real sideshows.”

    In court, Smith comes off as very down-to-earth and relatable, this person said, characterizing that as a good attribute to have as a prosecutor.

    Smith also will not care about the politics surrounding the case, they said, adding he has very thick skin and will “do what he’s going to do.”

    Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.

    As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.

    Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.

    Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”

    “He is a phenomenal investigator; he leaves no stone unturned. He drills down to get to the true facts,” Fodeman said.

    Fodeman, who is still friends with Smith, said he is a “literally insane” cyclist and triathlete.

    Beginning in 2008, Smith worked for the International Criminal Court and oversaw war crimes investigations under the Office of the Prosecutor for two years.

    In 2010, he became chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, where he oversaw litigation of public corruption cases. Lanny Breuer, the former assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division who recruited Smith, said his onetime employee was “a terrific prosecutor” with a “real sense of fairness.”

    “If you are going to have a special counsel, in my view, and you want someone who is going to be fearless, but fair, and not going to be intimidated and not overly bureaucratic, that’s Jack – he is all of these things,” Breuer told CNN.

    “Smith brings cases quickly. … He doesn’t sit on cases. He is a person of action,” Breuer added.

    After his stint at the Public Integrity Section, Smith was appointed first assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in 2015.

    Though he is not widely known in Washington, DC, legal circles, Smith is described as a consummate public servant.

    About a decade ago, he hired waves of line prosecutors into the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, supervising dozens over his years in charge there.

    Brian Kidd, whom Smith hired at the unit, recalled how his boss walked him through every step of a complicated racketeering case against corrupt police officers.

    “He was not going to tolerate a politically motivated prosecution,” Kidd said. “And he has an incredible ability to motivate the people working with him and under him. He’s incredibly supportive of his team.”

    Smith handled some of the most high-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – to mixed outcomes.

    He was the head of the public integrity unit when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was indicted in 2014, and was in meetings with the defense team and involved in decision-making leading up to the charges, according to a person familiar with the case.

    McDonnell was initially convicted of receiving gifts for political favors, but then his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

    Smith was also at the helm of the unit when the DOJ failed to convict at trial former Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

    A Republican source familiar with Smith’s oversight of the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay commended Smith’s non-biased approach, saying that he ultimately made a “just” decision to conclude the investigation without alleging DeLay committed any crime.

    In recent years while working at The Hague, he has not lived in the United States. He’s no longer on the US Triathlon team but is still a competitive biker.

    Smith took over as acting US Attorney when David Rivera departed in early 2017 before leaving the Justice Department later that year and becoming vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America. In 2018, he became chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

    “Throughout his career, Jack Smith has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor, who leads teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead,” Garland said during the announcement on Friday. “Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner.”

    In May 2014, the House Oversight Committee interviewed Smith behind closed doors as part of the Republican-led investigation into the alleged IRS targeting of conservative groups. Then-Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa launched the probe following a 2013 inspector general report that found delays in the processing of applications by certain conservative groups and requesting information from them that was later deemed unnecessary.

    Republicans sought testimony from Smith, who at the time was Public Integrity section chief, due to his involvement with arranging a 2010 meeting between Justice Department officials and then-IRS official Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the IRS scandal. The meeting had been convened to discuss the “evolving legal landscape” of campaign finance law following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, according to a May 2014 letter written by Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who is expected to be House Judiciary chairman next year.

    “It is apparent that the Department’s leadership, including Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith, was closely involved in engaging with the IRS in wake of Citizens United and political pressure from prominent Democrats to address perceived problems with the decision,” Issa and Jordan wrote in the letter seeking Smith’s testimony.

    Smith testified that his office “had a dialogue” with the FBI about opening investigations related to politically active non-profits following the meeting with Lerner, but did not ultimately do so, according to a copy of his interview obtained by CNN.

    Smith explained that he had asked for the meeting with the IRS because he wanted to learn more about the legal landscape of political non-profits following the Citizens United decision because he was relatively new to the public integrity section. He said that Lerner explained it would be difficult if not impossible to bring a case on the abuse of tax-exempt status.

    Smith repeated at several points in the interview that the Justice Department did not pursue any investigations due to politics.

    “I want to be clear – it would be more about looking at the issue, looking at whether it made sense to open investigations,” he said. “If we did, you know, how would you go about doing this? Is there predication, a basis to open an investigation? Things like that. I can’t say as I sit here now specifically, you know, the back-and-forth of that discussion. I can just tell you that – because I know one of your concerns is that organizations were targeted. And I can tell you that we, Public Integrity, did not open any investigations as a result of those discussions and that we certainly, as you know, have not brought any cases as a result of that.”

    Smith also testified that he was not aware of anyone at the Justice Department placing pressure on the IRS – and that he was never pressured to investigate any political groups.

    “No. And maybe I can stop you guys. I know there’s a series of these questions. I’ve never been asked these things, and anybody who knows me would never even consider asking me to do such a thing,” Smith said.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Eurovision winner Ruslana leads Ukrainians in Athens march

    Eurovision winner Ruslana leads Ukrainians in Athens march

    Ukrainian pop singer and former Eurovision song contest winner Ruslana, center, shouts slogans as she takes part in a protest to condemn the Russian strikes against multiple cities across Ukraine, in Athens, Greece, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022. AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)

    The Associated Press

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  • Children’s deaths ‘must stop’ in Iran, says UNICEF, as protests continue | CNN

    Children’s deaths ‘must stop’ in Iran, says UNICEF, as protests continue | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, said it remains deeply concerned by reports of children being killed, injured, and detained in Iran, it said in a statement on Friday, adding that the reported deaths of children at anti-government protests “must stop.”

    An “estimated 50 children have reportedly lost their lives in the public unrest in Iran,” UNICEF said in the statement.

    This comes as the unrest in Iran has continued for more than two months, and amid increasing calls from protesters and activists online to UNICEF, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations to take action on human rights violations and crimes against children taking plane in Iran.

    Many tell CNN that they feel their voices have not been heard. “They just say, hey, Islamic Republic, what are you doing is bad,” one protester in Iran told CNN. “Yes, everybody knows it’s bad. Three-year-old children know it’s bad, but we need actual action. Do something. I don’t know. I believe they know better than us what they can do.”

    “In Iran, UNICEF remains deeply concerned by reports of children being killed, injured, and detained,” the statement read, citing the death of a young boy named Kian Pirfalak, one of seven people killed during Wednesday’s protests in the southwestern city of Izeh. “This is terrifying and must stop,” the organization added.

    UNICEF reported Pirfalak’s age as 10-years-old. Iranian state media has reported his age as nine.

    The child was traveling in a car on Wednesday with his family when he was shot dead and his father injured by gunfire, his mother told state media in an interview with Tasnim Friday.

    According to Iran’s state-aligned news agency ISNA, protesters set a seminary on fire around the same time as people were shot and killed in Izeh in what state media outlets are calling a “terror attack.”

    Activists are accusing the Iranian regime of killing Kian and others in Izeh.

    The Islamic Republic is facing one of the biggest and unprecedented shows of dissent in recent history following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by the morality police allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

    At least 378 people have been killed since demonstrations began, according to an Iranian human rights group, as the country’s Supreme Leader issued a warning that the protest movement is “doomed to failure.”

    The organization Iran Human Rights published the estimated death toll Saturday, adding that it includes 47 children killed by security forces.

    CNN cannot independently verify arrest figures, death tolls, and many of the accounts of those killed due to the Iranian government’s suppression of independent media, and internet shutdowns which decrease transparency in reporting on the ground. Nor can media directly access the government for their account on such cases, unless there is reporting on state media, the mouthpiece of the government.

    Video shared by activist group 1500 Tasvir and others showed a large crowd gathered for Pirfalak funeral in his hometown in Izeh Friday.

    Surrounded by mourners, his mother Zeynab Molaeirad is heard singing a children’s song, replacing the lyrics with words against Ayatollah Khamenei and the regime. She then reveals new details about the fatal incident, according to a video shared on social media.

    “Hear it from my mouth what really happened to Kian,” she told the crowd, “So the regime doesn’t lie and say it was a terrorist.”

    Molaeirad, who was traveling with her family in their car, said people on the street yelled at the vehicle to turn back and that her son told his father not to worry.

    “Kian said: ‘Baba trust the police for once and turn around, they are looking out for us,’” she said.

    His father made a U-turn and drove towards the police, his mother said. But “because the car windows were rolled up, the police thought we may have wanted to shoot at them,” she said.

    “They opened a barrage of fire on the car.”

    Kian’s mother also posted a photo with her son in her Instagram post. “My broken flower. Curse on the Islamic Republic,” she wrote.

    Human rights groups have accused Iranian authorities of scaring victims’ families to silence. Iranian authorities are “systematically harassing and intimidating victims’ families to hide the truth” of their deaths, as Amnesty International’s Heba Morayef said in a recent report.

    The United Nations on Friday said it was “deeply worried about growing violence related to the ongoing popular protests in Iran,” said deputy spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq.

    “We condemn all incidents that have resulted in death or serious injury, including the shooting in the city of Izeh on 16 November 2022. We are also concerned about the reported issuance of death sentences against five unnamed individuals in the context of the latest protests,” Haq said.

    Haq urged Iranian authorities to respect international human rights law and avoid the use of excessive force against peaceful protesters.

    Despite the UN’s condemnation, Iranians have been highly critical of the global organization and its agencies, saying the its words are not enough and that there is a lack of action against human rights violations taking place in Iran.

    Stories like Parfalik’s “have led Iranians inside and outside the country to really be demanding justice asking what UNICEF is doing on the ground to stop this,” said Iranian American human rights lawyer Gissou Nia said in an interview with CNN’s Isa Soares Friday.

    Nia, who is also director of the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council went on to say that the UN Human Rights Council is meeting in Geneva on Thursday in a special session to address “the deteriorating human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

    “The outcome of that special session will likely be an investigative mechanism or some kind of independent body that can collect, preserve and analyze evidence of what’s happening here for accountability purposes,” Nia said.

    “What would be absolutely shameful is if that 47-member body votes no” to creating such a mechanism, she added.

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  • Asia-Pacific leaders condemn war, renew calls for open trade

    Asia-Pacific leaders condemn war, renew calls for open trade

    BANGKOK — Leaders from around the Asia-Pacific called for an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine and pledged to steer the region’s economies toward sustainable growth as they wrapped up summit meetings Saturday.

    Host Thailand garnered a diplomatic coup in managing to bridge divisions among the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum by saying that most members had condemned the war. Russia is an APEC member, as is China, which generally has refrained from criticizing Moscow.

    The declaration issued by APEC leaders acknowledged differing views on the war and said the forum, which is devoted largely to promoting trade and closer economic ties, was not a venue for resolving such conflicts.

    But it noted that the conflict and other security issues “can have significant consequences for the global economy.”

    The leaders’ statement said most members had strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, stressing that it is causing immense human suffering and worsening inflation, supply chain troubles, food insecurity and financial risks.

    Like a statement issued by the Group of 20 leading economies in Bali, Indonesia, earlier this week, it echoed the wording of a March 2 United Nations General Assembly resolution that “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine.”

    The meetings Saturday wrapped up a flurry of events in Southeast Asian countries this week that gave leaders opportunities for face-to-face talks that have been rare in the past two years of pandemic precautions.

    Much of the activity at such summits occurs on the sidelines and in the interludes before and after the formal meetings.

    U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke briefly on Saturday before the final APEC meeting began. Harris reiterated President Joe Biden’s call, made in a meeting with Xi at the G-20, for both sides to keep lines of communication open.

    Xi said he viewed his talks with Biden as a step toward a “next stage” in ties between the two largest economies, according to a Chinese government summary of the meeting.

    Relations have deteriorated recently amid friction over trade and technology, Chinese claims on the separately governed island of Taiwan, human rights and other issues. But Harris told Xi the U.S. “does not seek confrontation or conflict with China.”

    She received a “handover” in the form of a symbolic “chalom” bamboo basket from the APEC host, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. The U.S. will host next year’s APEC summit in San Francisco, with preliminary meetings to be held in other cities throughout the year.

    Though summit meetings are often sidetracked by other more urgent concerns, APEC’s long-term mission is promoting closer economic ties, and Prayuth opened Saturday’s meeting by urging the leaders to push ahead with APEC’s agenda of free trade in the Pacific region.

    “We have to give priority to turning this plan into action,” he said.

    Security risks are not on the formal APEC agenda, but Prayuth said North Korea’s numerous recent missile launches were discussed and “everybody shares concern on that issue.”

    On Friday, Harris and leaders of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea met separately to air concerns about the North’s launch earlier in the day of an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

    Both at APEC in Thailand and at the G-20 meeting in Indonesia, officials appear to have chosen to agree to disagree about the war in Ukraine while voicing anguish over its deepening impact. In both Bangkok and Bali, countries that have refused to condemn the invasion refrained from blocking the release of statements harshly criticizing Moscow.

    APEC members account for nearly four of every 10 people and almost half of world trade. Much of APEC’s work is technical and incremental, carried out by senior officials and ministers, covering areas such as trade, forestry, health, food, security, small- and medium-size enterprises and women’s empowerment.

    The leaders’ declaration released Saturday also called for promoting more use of clean energy and more secure, environmentally sustainable food systems, among an array of goals that also address illegal, unregulated and unauthorized fishing, illegal logging, marine waste, improvements to public health and better access to vaccinations.

    Other APEC members include Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam.

    Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was to represent the Association of Southeast Asian Nations but did not attend after getting COVID-19.

    The summit venue, at Bangkok’s main convention center near a vast parkland, was cordoned off with some streets closed to traffic. Riot police stood guard behind barricades at major intersections to keep protesters well away.

    On Friday, police clashed in another area of Bangkok with demonstrators who took the opportunity of the APEC meeting to renew calls for democratic reforms in Thailand and accuse the government of promoting policies to APEC that favor big business over ordinary people. Several people were injured and a number of arrests made.

    ———

    Associated Press journalists Elaine Kurtenbach, Tian McLeod Ji, Grant Peck, Jerry Harmer and Tassanee Vejpongsa contributed to this report.

    ———

    Follow AP’s APEC coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific-economic-cooperation

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  • Nancy Pelosi announces she won’t run for leadership post, marking the end of an era | CNN Politics

    Nancy Pelosi announces she won’t run for leadership post, marking the end of an era | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Thursday that she will relinquish her leadership post, after leading House Democrats for two decades, building a legacy as one of the most powerful and polarizing figures in American politics.

    Pelosi, the first and only woman to serve as speaker, said that she would continue to serve in the House, giving the next generation the opportunity to lead the House Democrats, who will be in the minority next year despite a better-than-expected midterm election performance.

    “I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress,” said Pelosi in the House chamber. “For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect, and I’m grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility.”

    Pelosi, 82, rose to the top of the House Democratic caucus in 2002, after leading many in her party against a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. She then guided Democrats as they rode the waves of popular opinion, seeing their power swell to a 257-seat majority after the 2008 elections, ultimately crash to a 188-seat minority, and then rise once again.

    Her political career was marked by an extraordinary ability to understand and overcome those political shifts, keeping conflicting factions of her party united in passing major legislation. She earned the Speaker’s gavel twice – after the 2006 and 2018 elections – and lost it after the 2010 elections.

    Of late, she has conducted a string of accomplishments with one of the slimmest party splits in history, passing a $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package last year and a $750 billion health care, energy and climate bill in August.

    Her legislative victories in the Biden era cemented her reputation as one of the most successful party leaders in Congress. During the Obama administration, Pelosi was instrumental to the passage of the massive economic stimulus bill and the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which provides over 35 million Americans health care coverage.

    Over the past 20 years, the California liberal has been relentlessly attacked by Republicans, who portray her as the personification of a party for the coastal elite. “We have fired Nancy Pelosi,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Fox News on Wednesday, after Republicans won back the chamber.

    In recent years, the anger directed toward her has turned menacing. During the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, pro-Trump rioters searched for her — and last month, a male assailant attacked Paul Pelosi, the speaker’s husband, with a hammer at the couple’s home in San Francisco, while she was in Washington.

    Pelosi told CNN’s Anderson Cooper this month that her decision to retire would be influenced by the politically motivated attack. Paul Pelosi was released from the hospital two weeks ago after surgery to repair a skull fracture and injuries to his arm and hands.

    After thanking her colleagues for their well-wishes for Paul, the House chamber broke out into a standing ovation.

    Pelosi’s long reign became a source of tension within her own party. She won the gavel after the 2018 elections by promising her own party that she would leave her leadership post by 2022.

    Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, who previously tried to oust Pelosi, told CNN it’s time for a new chapter.

    “She’s a historic speaker who’s accomplished an incredible amount, but I also think there are a lot of Democrats ready for a new chapter,” said Moulton.

    But some Democrats praised Pelosi and said they wished she would remain leader. Asked about her decision, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer clutched his chest and said he had pleaded with her to stay.

    “I told her when she called me and told me this and all that, I said ‘please change your mind. We need you here,’” Schumer said.

    House Democrats appear likely to choose New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, 52, to succeed Pelosi as leader, though Democrats won’t vote until November 30.

    After her speech, Pelosi wouldn’t tell reporters who’d she support. But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn announced they would also step down from their leadership posts, and endorsed Jeffries to succeed Pelosi. Hoyer said Jeffries “will make history for the institution of the House and for our country.” Clyburn added that he hoped Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark and California Rep. Pete Aguilar would join Jeffries in House Democratic leadership.

    Before Pelosi’s announcement, Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told CNN that she expects her caucus to throw their support behind Jeffries, and help him become the first Black House Democratic leader.

    “If she steps aside, I’m very clear that Hakeem Jeffries is the person that I will be voting for and leading the Congressional Black Caucus to vote for,” said Beatty.”I don’t always speak for everybody, but I’m very comfortable saying I believe that every member of the Congressional Black Caucus would vote for Hakeem Jeffries.”

    Retiring North Carolina Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a former CBC chairman, told CNN that Jeffries “is prepared for the moment” if Pelosi steps aside. Butterfield said he thought Jeffries would run.

    The longtime Democratic leader told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday that members of her caucus had asked her to “consider” running in the party’s leadership elections at the end of the month, adding: “But, again, let’s just get through the election.”

    Any decision to run again, Pelosi said, “is about family, and also my colleagues and what we want to do is go forward in a very unified way, as we go forward to prepare for the Congress at hand.”

    “Nonetheless, a great deal is at stake because we’ll be in a presidential election. So my decision will again be rooted in the wishes of my family and the wishes of my caucus,” she continued. “But none of it will be very much considered until we see what the outcome of all of this is. And there are all kinds of ways to exert influence.”

    Pelosi is a towering figure in American politics with a history-making legacy of shattering glass ceilings as the first and so far only woman to be speaker of the US House of Representatives.

    Pelosi was first elected to the House in 1987, when she won a special election to fill a seat representing California’s 5th Congressional District.

    When she was first elected speaker, Pelosi reflected on the significance of the event and what it meant for women in the United States.

    “This is an historic moment,” she said in a speech after accepting the speaker’s gavel. “It’s an historic moment for the Congress. It’s an historic moment for the women of America.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments Thursday.

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  • Family: Egypt activist deteriorated since hunger strike

    Family: Egypt activist deteriorated since hunger strike

    CAIRO — The family of imprisoned Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah said that they were allowed into the prison and saw him on Thursday and that his condition has “deteriorated severely” following a dramatic hunger strike.

    The news of Abdel-Fattah was posted in a tweet by Abdel-Fattah’s sister, Mona Seif, after a visit to the prison by the activist’s mother, aunt and his other sister. It was their first time seeing him in nearly a month.

    Abdel-Fattah is one of Egypt’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigners. The detained activist had intensified a hunger strike and halted all calories and water at the start earlier in November of the U.N. climate conference held in Egypt, to draw attention to his case and those of other political prisoners.

    Concerns for his health intensified as the family was barred from seeing him. Last Thursday, prison authorities began an unspecified medical intervention on Abdel-Fattah — prompting thought that he was being force-fed.

    Then earlier this week, Abdel-Fattah informed his family in handwritten notes that he first started drinking water and then also ended the hunger strike.

    Abdel-Fattah’s mother, Laila Soueif, received two short letters in her son’s handwriting, on Monday and Tuesday, through prison authorities.

    The first letter, confirming Abdel-Fattah had started drinking water again, was dated as being written on Saturday, while the second letter, confirming he had ended his hunger strike was dated Monday.

    “News from the visit are unsettling,” tweeted Andel-Fattah’s sister Mona, adding that her brother had “deteriorated severely in the past 2 weeks.”

    She said the family would share more information later in the day.

    Abdel-Fattah, who turns 41 on Friday, has spent most of the past decade in prison because of his criticism of Egypt’s rulers. Last year, he was sentenced to five years in prison for sharing a Facebook post about a prisoner who died in custody in 2019.

    Abdel-Fattah rose to fame during the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that swept through the Middle East, toppling Egypt’s long-time autocratic President Hosni Mubarak. He has been imprisoned several times, and has spent a total of nine years behind bars, becoming a symbol of Egypt’s sliding back to an even more autocratic rule under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

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  • Trump offers a dark vision voters have already rejected as he launches his 2024 campaign | CNN Politics

    Trump offers a dark vision voters have already rejected as he launches his 2024 campaign | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    It’s American carnage, round three.

    Ex-President Donald Trump on Tuesday dragged Americans back into his dystopian worldview of a failing nation scarred by crime-ridden cities turned into “cesspools of blood,” and swamped by immigrants. He added a scary new twist at a time of global tensions, claiming the country was on the verge of tumbling into nuclear war.

    Launching his bid for a third consecutive Republican presidential nomination, Trump conversely painted his own turbulent single term, which ended in his attempt to destroy democracy and a mismanaged pandemic, as a “golden age” of prosperity and American global dominance.

    The new Trump – for the 2024 campaign – is the same as the old Trump.

    He pounded out a message of American decline, highlighted raging inflation and slammed President Joe Biden as aged, weak, and disrespected by US enemies, while highlighting his own chummy ties with global dictators, like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who seek to weaken American power.

    When the 76-year-old former property tycoon, reality star and commander in chief promised a new “quest to save our country,” he encapsulated the challenges that his new campaign poses for his own party and the rest of the United States.

    To begin with, in the gold-leafed ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump steered clear of the election denialism that helped doom multiple Republican nominees in the midterm elections and that has inspired skepticism of his viability among GOP lawmakers in Washington.

    But as usual, his self-discipline didn’t hold, as he descended further into his personal obsessions the longer he went on, portraying himself as a “victim,” raising new suspicion about the US election system and slamming ongoing criminal probes against him as politicized and deeply unfair. The speech lacked the riotous nature and energy of his campaign rallies. But Trump’s material was a familiar rhetorical cocktail of grievance certain to enthuse his base supporters.

    However, it may have come across to many of the swing voters in the states that he lost in 2020 as authoritarian demagoguery. Many of those voters deserted Republicans yet again last week, as the party failed to win back the Senate and as it still waits to confirm it will win only a slim majority in the House. Many GOP lawmakers squarely blame the lack of a red wave on Trump – for foisting extreme, election-denying candidates on the party in key states. That’s why there is increasing interest in potential alternative candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who roared to reelection last week, and has recently proved, unlike Trump, that he can build a broad coalition with Trump-style policies but without the chaos epitomized by the 45th president.

    And yet by launching his campaign so early – before the 2022 election is even finalized – the ex-president is seeking to freeze the GOP field. And there is so far no evidence that his devoted supporters will desert him.

    What could be the opening acts of a new election clash between Trump and Biden unfolded over multiple time zones. As Trump was speaking, the current president – who confounded historic expectations of a midterm election drubbing – was at another beach resort, in Bali, Indonesia.

    Biden spent the moments leading up to Trump’s speech huddled with other world leaders seeking a united response to a possibly alarming escalation in the war in Ukraine after an explosion on the territory of NATO ally Poland. There was some irony to the fact that Biden was leading the same Western alliance at a moment of peril that Trump frequently had undermined while in office. (Biden said after a day of rising global tensions that first indications were that the missile that fell onto a Polish farm, killing two people, did not originate in Russia.)

    Epitomizing the gulf between a president’s duties and the frivolity of the campaign trail, Biden, when asked if he had a comment on Trump’s launch, replied: “No, not really.”

    Trump referred briefly to the FBI search of his home at Mar-a-Lago for his hoard of highly classified documents and subpoenas sent to his family members. It was a reminder that his campaign raises the extraordinary scenario of a candidate for president running for a new term while facing multiple criminal investigations and the possibility of indictment by the Justice Department. Trump, who has not been charged with a crime, is being investigated over the classified documents, the run-up to the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, and in Georgia over his attempt to steal Biden’s win in the crucial swing state in 2020.

    Trump has already claimed that he is being persecuted because Biden wants to stop him from becoming president again – an accusation likely to be embraced by his millions of supporters. Thus, the clash between his campaign and various investigations into his conduct promises to inflict even more damage on political and legal institutions that he kept under continuous assault as president.

    One thing noticeably missing from Trump’s speech was acknowledgment of his unprecedented attempt to interrupt 250 years of peaceful transfers of power between presidents. But the Capitol insurrection is an indelible stain that is sure to haunt his campaign. CNN has exclusively reported that top DOJ officials have considered whether a special counsel would be needed during the Trump campaign to avoid potential political conflicts of interest.

    Trump is trying to pull off a historic feat accomplished by only one previous president – Grover Cleveland, who became the only commander in chief to serve nonconsecutive terms after he won a return to the White House in 1892.

    A Trump victory in 2024 would represent a stunning rebound given that he is the only president to have been impeached twice – once for trying to coerce Ukraine into investigating Biden, and secondly for inciting the mob attack on the Capitol, one of the most flagrant assaults ever on US democracy.

    A return to the Oval Office for Trump would stun the world. His record of disdaining US allies and coddling dictators such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un fractured decades of US foreign policy and made the United States – long a force for stability in the world – into one of its most erratic powers.

    Trump left office in disgrace in 2021, after the assault on the Capitol, not even bothering to attend the inauguration of his successor and insisting ever since that the election was corrupt – despite no evidence and against the findings of multiple courts and his own Justice Department.

    Ever since, the ex-president has made his lies about the 2020 election the centerpiece of a political movement that still has millions of followers – as was seen with the primary victories of some of his handpicked candidates in this year’s midterm elections.

    But many Trump-backed candidates failed to win competitive general elections. And Trump’s 2024 campaign will test whether there are Republicans who, while they may be drawn in by Trump’s bulldozing style and populist, nationalist instincts, will tire of the drama and chaos that surround him. It will also pose a question of whether a new generation of Republicans, who have tapped into his political base and the “America first” principles of Trumpism – like DeSantis, for example – are ready to challenge the movement’s still wildly popular founder.

    Trump was already rejected by a broad general election audience once – he lost by more than 7 million votes in 2020. The same pattern appeared to exert itself as the GOP fell short of expectations in the midterms, which ironically will give Trump-aligned lawmakers strong leverage in what’s likely to be a narrow House Republican majority.

    And even if he secures the nomination again, it’s an open question whether he’ll be able to recreate his 2016 winning coalition after alienating moderate and suburban voters or whether a combination of motivated base voters and previously disaffected Republicans returning to the fold will be able to make up the difference.

    Trump’s first term between 2017 and 2021 was one of the most tumultuous periods in American political history.

    He shattered the traditions and restraints of his office, subjecting political institutions – designed by the Founders to guard against exactly his brand of autocratic egotism – to their ultimate test.

    The 45th president’s reputation was also stained by his negligent denial and mismanagement of a once-in-100-years pandemic. He skipped over his failed leadership in the emergency during his speech on Tuesday night.

    Trump’s flouting of science and public health guidelines came back to haunt him as he contracted Covid-19 in the fall of 2020. He survived a serious bout with the help of experimental drugs before theatrically ripping off his mask in a White House photo op when he returned from the hospital.

    One important aspect of his pandemic strategy was a success, however. An early White House bet to invest big in vaccine development by private firms and scientists, under the title of Operation Warp Speed, put the US in better position than many other industrialized nations.

    The coronavirus destroyed the roaring economy Trump had hoped to ride to reelection, leaving as his most important achievement the shaping of a conservative Supreme Court majority, which has already dramatically altered American society with its overturning of Roe v. Wade and could last a generation.

    But history will most remember him for his two impeachments, both following abuses of power designed to manipulate the free and fair elections that are at the root of America’s democratic system in order to prolong his tenure in office. 

    The House select committee investigating the insurrection has uncovered damning evidence in Trump’s inner circle about his behavior in the run-up to January 6 and during the insurrection. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, for instance, testified that chief of staff Mark Meadows said Trump thought Vice President Mike Pence deserved the calls for him to be hanged by insurrectionists. There was also evidence of Trump’s vicious pressure on local officials and election workers in states such as Georgia.

    Yet there remain questions about whether the committee will be able to hold accountable a man who has always dodged responsibility in a wild and whirling life in business, reality television and politics.

    Even if the committee advises the Justice Department that prosecuting Trump is merited, it’s unknown whether the evidence it has collected would be sufficient to secure a conviction. And Attorney General Merrick Garland would be faced with a massive dilemma given the extraordinary implications of bringing criminal charges against an active presidential candidate.

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  • Pence: ‘I think we’ll have better choices in the future’ than Trump | CNN Politics

    Pence: ‘I think we’ll have better choices in the future’ than Trump | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence said in a newly released interview clip that he and his family are giving “prayerful consideration” to whether he should run for president in 2024 and that the US will have “better choices in the future” than former President Donald Trump.

    Asked by ABC News’ David Muir if he believes he can defeat Trump, who is expected to announce a 2024 campaign for the White House on Tuesday, Pence replied: “Well, that would be for others to say, and it’d be for us to decide whether or not we’d want to test that.”

    And asked whether he believes his former boss should serve again as president, Pence said: “I think that’s up to the American people. But I think we’ll have better choices in the future. People in this country actually get along pretty well once you get out of politics. And I think they want to see their national leaders start to reflect that same, that same compassion and generosity of spirit. And I think, so in the days ahead, I think there will be better choices.”

    “And for me and my family, we will be reflecting about what our role is in that,” he added.

    The former vice president has been coy about his plans for 2024, but he has long been viewed as a potential aspirant for the Republican presidential nomination. Any formally declared bid, though, would almost certainly face strong opposition from Trump, whose supporters he would need in a primary fight.

    When pressed by Muir as to why Trump didn’t take action sooner to stop the violence at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Pence said he “can’t account for what the president was doing” that day, and told ABC that he never heard from Trump or the White House on January 6.

    The former vice president, who was at the Capitol on January 6 as the violence unfolded, said he “felt no fear. I was filled with indignation about what I saw.”

    Pence, echoing an excerpt of his book published last week in The Wall Street Journal, described how he disagreed with his Secret Service lead agent, who initially wanted the vice president to leave the Capitol building. As a compromise, Pence was taken to the loading dock, which he was told was more secure, but found the motorcade positioned to leave the Capitol.

    “They were walking us for the motorcade with the doors on our Suburban open on either side. And I saw that they had positioned vehicles on the ramp. And I just turned to my Secret Service lead and said, ‘I’m not getting in that car’ … I just assumed that if we got in the car and close those 200-pound doors that not my team in the loading dock, but that somebody maybe back at Secret Service headquarters would simply give the driver an order to go,” Pence recalled.

    “I just didn’t want those rioters to see the vice president’s motorcade speeding away from Capitol Hill. I didn’t want to give them that satisfaction,” he added.

    Pence is set to participate in a CNN town hall on Wednesday, the day after the release of his forthcoming autobiography “So Help Me God.” The town hall, moderated by CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper, will take place in New York City and is scheduled for 9 p.m. ET.

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  • UN office urges Iran to free detained peaceful protesters

    UN office urges Iran to free detained peaceful protesters

    GENEVA — The U.N. human rights office is calling on Iran’s government to immediately release thousands of people who have been detained for participating in peaceful protests, faulting its “increasing harshness” as Western countries seek to ratchet up scrutiny of Tehran’s crackdown against demonstrators.

    Spokesman Jeremy Laurence of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was calling for all charges to be dropped against the demonstrators and cautioned that Iran can only mete out the death penalty for the “most serious crimes” under international law — amid concerns that some protesters could be facing capital punishment.

    “Instead of opening space for dialogue on legitimate grievances, the authorities are responding to unprecedented protests with increasing harshness,” Laurence said at a regular U.N. press briefing in Geneva.

    He said at least 10 protesters had been charged with offenses that carry the death penalty — including one found guilty of either “waging war against God” or “corruption on earth” for allegedly damaging public property.

    Separately, Germany and Iceland are leading a push led mostly by Western countries for the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council to create a special “fact-finding mission” — a team of independent rights experts — to look into alleged rights violations in the Islamic Republic linked to nationwide protests that erupted on Sept. 16.

    Iranian women — and some men — have been protesting the government’s severe restrictions on their daily life since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.

    The council, which is made up of 47 member states and whose composition is tweaked every year, is set to hold a special session on Nov. 24 to debate the situation in Iran and ultimately vote on the proposal that includes the call for the fact-finding mission.

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  • Iran issues first death sentence linked to recent protests | CNN

    Iran issues first death sentence linked to recent protests | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    An Iranian court has issued the first death sentence linked to recent protests, convicting the unnamed person of “enmity against God” and “spreading corruption on Earth,” state media reports.

    It comes following weeks of nationwide demonstrations, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in September.

    Iran’s Revolutionary Court issued the sentence to a protester who allegedly set fire to a government building, reported state media.

    They were convicted on the charge of “disturbing public order and peace, community, and colluding to commit a crime against national security, war and corruption on Earth, war through arson, and intentional destruction,” according to state news agency IRNA on Sunday.

    Five others who took part in the protests received sentences of five to 10 years in prison, convicted of “collusion to commit a crime against national security and disturbance of public peace and order.”

    IRNA added that these decisions are preliminary and can be appealed. The news agency did not name the protester who received the death sentence or provide details on when or where they committed the alleged crime.

    Iran has been rocked by anti-regime protests since September in the greatest demonstration of dissent in recent years, sparked by outrage over the death of Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who had been detained by the morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

    Iranian authorities have since unleashed a brutal crackdown on protesters, having charged at least 1,000 people in Tehran province for their alleged involvement.

    Security forces have killed at least 326 people since the protests began two months ago, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO.

    That figure includes 43 children and 25 women, the group said in an update to its death toll on Saturday, saying that its published number represented an “absolute minimum.”

    CNN cannot independently verify the figure as non-state media, the internet, and protest movements in Iran have all been suppressed. Death tolls vary by opposition groups, international rights organizations and journalists tracking the ongoing protests.

    Despite the threat of arrests – and harsher punishments for those involved – Iranian celebrities and athletes have stepped forward to support the anti-government protests in recent weeks.

    On Friday, United Nations experts urged Iranian authorities “to stop indicting people with charges punishable by death for participation, or alleged participation, in peaceful demonstrations” and “to stop using the death penalty as a tool to squash protests.”

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  • Family says Egyptian hunger-striking activist drinking water

    Family says Egyptian hunger-striking activist drinking water

    CAIRO — Egypt’s imprisoned hunger-striking activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah has started drinking water again, his family said Monday, in the first communication from the prominent dissident in over a week amid fears for his life.

    The announcement came in a letter the family received from Abdel-Fattah through the prison authorities, dated on Saturday. Last Thursday, the authorities said they had “medically intervened” in Abdel-Fattah’s case, without providing details and raising concerns that he was being force-fed.

    Abdel-Fattah’s Lawyer, Khaled Ali, was blocked three times from visiting him in prison since news of the medical intervention was announced, despite being granted permission from Egypt’s state prosecutor.

    One of Egypt’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigners, Abdel-Fattah had intensified his hunger strike on Nov. 6, at the start of the U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, to draw attention to his case and those of other political prisoners. He began a partial hunger strike in April limiting his intake of food to only 100 calories a day.

    Then, he stopped taking food altogether and later stopped drinking water to coincide with the start of the summit. The announcement of the medical intervention last Thursday raised fears among the family that he could die in prison.

    Laila Soueif, Abdel-Fattah’s mother, told The Associated Press that the letter did not mention his hunger strike, but the family’s assumption was it was ongoing.

    “He didn’t ask for food,” she said. “He asked for … salts and vitamins,” said Soueif.

    Prison authorities had allowed Abdel-Fattah to communicate with his family through weekly letters. Monday’s letter is the first proof of life the family received since he began refusing water eight days ago.

    Every day since he stopped drinking water, Soueif has been waiting outside the prison of Wadi el-Natroun, north of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, seeking proof of her son’s life. On Monday, Ali, the lawyer, was also there, waiting to be allowed to see Abdel-Fattah.

    Later Monday, an extract of Abdel-Fattah’s letter was posted on Facebook by a group lobbying for his release. In it, he confirms “he is drinking water” and “receiving medical attention,” without revealing any other specifics.

    On Twitter, one of Abdel-Fattah’s sisters, Sanaa Seif, confirmed the letter was in her brother’s handwriting.

    Abdel-Fattah’s hunger strike has drawn attention to Egypt’s heavy suppression of speech and political activity. 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.

    Abdel-Fattah rose to prominence during the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings — known as the Arab Spring — that swept through the Middle East. In Egypt, the uprising toppled the country’s long-time autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.

    Abdel-Fattah has been imprisoned several times and spent a total of nine years behind bars, becoming a symbol of Egypt’s sliding back to an even more autocratic rule under el-Sissi.

    Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, told the AP that President Joe Biden raised Abdel-Fattah’s case during his meeting with el-Sissi on Friday at the climate summit. Sullivan could not provide any update on Abdel-Fattah’s condition.

    At the summit, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also raised the activist’s case in their talks with el-Sissi. Abdel-Fattah gained British citizenship earlier this year through his mother who was born in London.

    At the climate summit, Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, talked down the global attention surrounding Abdel-Fattah’s well-being and said on Saturday that the priority of the conference should be focused on “the existential challenge related to climate change.”

    Also Saturday, Sanaa Seif, took part in a protest march in Sharm el Sheikh that saw hundreds of activists demand action on climate change, human and gender rights. The protesters have called for the release of Abdel-Fattah and all political prisoners detained in Egypt.

    Meanwhile, the United Nations said it was investigating allegations of misconduct by Egyptian police at the summit, following claims that attendees were being photographed and filmed at an event at the German pavilion.

    In a statement Sunday provided to the AP, the U.N. climate office confirmed that some Egyptian security officers were working in the part of the venue designated as United Nations territory.

    Several human rights groups have accused Egypt of using the climate summit to whitewash the country’s poor human rights record.

    Ahead of COP27, the Egyptian government sought to improve its international image, releasing dozens of high-profile detainees under presidential pardons in recent months and establishing a new “strategy” to upgrade the country’s human rights conditions.

    Amnesty International in September described the strategy as a “shiny cover-up” meant to gain favor with foreign governments and financial institutions.

    Egypt is among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to 2021 data produced by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Human Rights Watch estimated in 2019 that as many as 60,000 political prisoners are incarcerated in Egyptian prisons.

    ———

    This story has been corrected to say that Abdel-Fattah’s sister took part in a protest march by climate activists but did not lead it.

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  • Hong Kong protest song plays instead of China anthem in rugby final mix-up | CNN

    Hong Kong protest song plays instead of China anthem in rugby final mix-up | CNN


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    The Hong Kong government on Monday demanded an investigation after a song associated with the city’s pro-democracy movement was played instead of the Chinese national anthem before a rugby sevens match between Hong Kong and South Korea.

    Event organizers played an instrumental version of “Glory to Hong Kong” as the teams lined up for the men’s final of the Asia Rugby Sevens Series in Incheon, South Korea on Sunday. The song, an unofficial anthem of the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, includes lyrics that a Hong Kong court has previously ruled could incite secession – a national security offense.

    Clips of the incident, in which the team is shown standing to attention on the field as the song plays, circulated widely on social media Monday, threatening to overshadow the Hong Kong team’s 19-12 victory.

    In a statement, the Hong Kong government said it “strongly deplores and opposes” the playing of the song, which it said was “closely associated with violent protests and the ‘independence’ movement in 2019.”

    “We have already written to the Hong Kong Rugby Union last evening demanding them to deal with this matter seriously, launch a full and in-depth investigation and submit a detailed report, and convey our strong objection to Asia Rugby, who is the organizer of the Series,” a government spokesperson said, according to the statement.

    The match’s local organizer, Korea Rugby Union (KRU), told CNN the mistake occurred when a worker searched online for a Hong Kong anthem and added the top result to a folder labeled “Hong Kong.” The broadcasting room staff played the music file in the Hong Kong folder instead of one labeled “China,” the organization said.

    The organizer apologized through the stadium speaker and played the Chinese national anthem at the end of the match, according to KRU.

    “Korea Rugby Union will take all measures to prevent a repeat of such an occurrence in future matches,” the organization said, adding that its “Hong Kong” folder has now been erased.

    In a statement, the Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU) said it “expressed its extreme dissatisfaction” over the incident to the organizers. “Whilst we accept this was a case of human error it was nevertheless not acceptable,” the statement said.

    Last week, a woman who waved a British colonial-era flag to celebrate Hong Kong claiming Olympic gold became the first person in the city to be jailed on a charge of insulting the Chinese national anthem.

    Hong Kong, a former British colony handed over to Beijing’s rule in 1997, sends its own representative teams separate from mainland China to a wide range of sporting events, including the Olympics.

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  • At least 326 killed in Iran protests, human rights group claims | CNN

    At least 326 killed in Iran protests, human rights group claims | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Iranian security forces have killed at least 326 people since nationwide protests erupted two months ago, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO (IHRNGO) group has claimed.

    That figure includes 43 children and 25 women, the group said in an update to its death toll on Saturday – saying that its published number represented an “absolute minimum.”

    CNN cannot independently verify the figure as non-state media, the internet, and protest movements in Iran have all been suppressed. Death tolls vary by opposition groups, international rights organizations, and journalists tracking the ongoing protests.

    Iran is facing one of its biggest and most unprecedented shows of dissent following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by the morality police allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

    Public anger over her death has combined with a range of grievances against the Islamic Republic’s oppressive regime to fuel the demonstrations, which continue despite law makers urging the country’s judiciary to “show no leniency” to protesters.

    Despite the threat of arrests – and harsher punishments for those involved – Iranian celebrities and athletes have stepped forward to support the anti-government protests in recent weeks.

    IHRNGO has urged the international community to take “firm and timely action” over the rising death toll and reiterated the need to establish a mechanism to “hold the Islamic Republic authorities accountable for their gross violation of human rights.”

    “Establishing an international investigation and accountability mechanism by the UN will both facilitate the process of holding the perpetrators accountable in the future and increase the cost of the continuous repression by the Islamic Republic,” IHRNGO director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.

    Since the start of the protests, deaths have been recorded across 22 provinces, according to the IHRNGO. Most were reported in Sistan and Baluchistan, Tehran, Mazandaran, Kurdistan, and Gilan provinces.

    Iranian authorities have also charged at least 1,000 people in Tehran province for their alleged involvement in the protests.

    The rights group said that dozens of protesters face “security-related charges” and are at risk of being executed.

    On Friday, United Nations experts urged Iranian authorities “to stop indicting people with charges punishable by death for participation, or alleged participation, in peaceful demonstrations” and “to stop using the death penalty as a tool to squash protests.”

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  • Anti-government protest held in Albania over rising costs

    Anti-government protest held in Albania over rising costs

    TIRANA, Albania — Thousands of Albanian opposition supporters on Saturday protested the country’s cost-of-living crisis, blaming it on the center-left government.

    Opposition supporters gathered in front of the main government building, shouting that Prime Minister Edi Rama of the ruling Socialist Party should resign.

    The protest was mostly peaceful but at the end some broke the police line and sprayed red paint on the main doors of the government building. Others lit candles to memorize two people killed by police in the last years.

    Police intervened and at least one protester was taken away.

    Albania has seen an 8% price hike this year, especially for basic food and fuel following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Opposition supporters have also blamed Rama for the thousands of young men who leave the country each year in search of a better life.

    Rama says his Cabinet has kept inflation low compared to double-digit inflation elsewhere in Europe, and has noted that government subsidizes electricity for families and small businesses.

    The protest was organized by the opposition center-right Democratic Party and attended by its leader Sali Berisha, a 78-year-old former president and prime minister, and former President Ilir Meta, now leader of the leftist Freedom Party.

    Albania holds a municipal election in May.

    Berisha called on Albanians to support the opposition, which has pledged to double wages and pensions if it gets back into power.

    But his party has been plagued by infighting after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last year barred Berisha and his close relatives from entering the U.S. for “corrupt acts that undermined democracy” during his 2005-2013 tenure as prime minister.

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  • Chinese are criticizing zero-Covid — in language censors don’t seem to understand | CNN

    Chinese are criticizing zero-Covid — in language censors don’t seem to understand | CNN


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    In many countries, cursing online about the government is so commonplace nobody bats an eye. But it’s not such an easy task on China’s heavily censored internet.

    That doesn’t appear to have stopped residents of Guangzhou from venting their frustration after their city – a global manufacturing powerhouse home to 19 million people – became the epicenter of a nationwide Covid outbreak, prompting lockdown measures yet again.

    “We had to lock down in April, and then again in November,” one resident posted on Weibo, China’s restricted version of Twitter, on Monday – before peppering the post with profanities that included references to officials’ mothers. “The government hasn’t provided subsidies – do you think my rent doesn’t cost money?”

    Other users left posts with directions that loosely translate to “go to hell,” while some accused authorities of “spouting nonsense” – albeit in less polite phrasing.

    Such colorful posts are remarkable not only because they represent growing public frustration at China’s unrelenting zero-Covid policy – which uses snap lockdowns, mass testing, extensive contact-tracing and quarantines to stamp out infections as soon as they emerge – but because they remain visible at all.

    Normally such harsh criticisms of government policies would be swiftly removed by the government’s army of censors, yet these posts have remained untouched for days. And that is, most likely, because they are written in language few censors will fully understand.

    These posts are in Cantonese, which originated in Guangzhou’s surrounding province of Guangdong and is spoken by tens of millions of people across Southern China. It can be difficult to decipher by speakers of Mandarin – China’s official language and the one favored by the government – especially in its written and often complex slang forms.

    And this appears to be just the latest example of how Chinese people are turning to Cantonese – an irreverent tongue that offers rich possibilities for satire – to express discontent toward their government without attracting the notice of the all-seeing censors.

    People in face masks wait in line for Covid-19 tests in Beijing, China, on November 10.

    In September this year, US-based independent media monitoring organization China Digital Times noted numerous dissatisfied Cantonese posts slipping past censors in response to mass Covid testing requirements in Guangdong.

    “Perhaps because Weibo’s content censorship system has difficulty recognizing the spelling of Cantonese characters, many posts in spicy, bold and straightforward language ​​still survive. But if the same content is written in Mandarin, it is likely to be blocked or deleted,” said the organization, which is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley.

    In nearby Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, anti-government demonstrators in 2019 often used Cantonese wordplay both for protest slogans and to guard against potential surveillance by mainland Chinese authorities.

    Now, Cantonese appears to be offering those fed-up with China’s continuous zero-Covid lockdowns an avenue for more subtle displays of dissent.

    Jean-François Dupré, an assistant professor of political science at Université TÉLUQ who has studied the language politics of Hong Kong, said the Chinese government’s shrinking tolerance for public criticism has pushed its critics to “innovate” in their communication.

    “It does seem that using non-Mandarin forms of communication could enable dissenters to evade online censorship, at least for some time,” Dupré said.

    “This phenomenon testifies to the regime’s lack of confidence and increasing paranoia, and of citizens’ continuing eagerness to resist despite the risks and hurdles.”

    Though Cantonese shares much of its vocabulary and writing system with Mandarin, many of its slang terms, expletives and everyday phrases have no Mandarin equivalent. Its written form also sometimes relies on rarely used and archaic characters, or ones that mean something totally different in Mandarin, so Cantonese sentences can be difficult for Mandarin readers to understand.

    Compared to Mandarin, Cantonese is highly colloquial, often informal, and lends itself easily to wordplay – making it well-suited for inventing and slinging barbs.

    When Hong Kong was rocked by anti-government protests in 2019 – fueled in part by fears Beijing was encroaching on the city’s autonomy, freedoms and culture – these attributes of Cantonese came into sharp focus.

    “Cantonese was, of course, an important conveyor of political grievances during the 2019 protests,” Dupré said, adding that the language gave “a strong local flavor to the protests.”

    He pointed to how entirely new written characters were born spontaneously from the pro-democracy movement – including one that combined the characters for “freedom” with a popular profanity.

    Other plays on written characters illustrate the endless creativity of Cantonese, such as a stylized version of “Hong Kong” that, when read sideways, becomes “add oil” – a rallying cry in the protests.

    Protesters also found ways to protect their communications, wary that online chat groups – where they organized rallies and railed against the authorities – were being monitored by mainland agents.

    For example, because spoken Cantonese sounds different to spoken Mandarin, some people experimented with romanizing Cantonese – spelling out the sounds using the English alphabet – thereby making it virtually impossible to understand for a non-native speaker.

    Protesters at a rally against a proposed extradition law in Hong Kong on May 4, 2019.

    And, while the protests died down after the Chinese government imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020, Cantonese continues to offer the city’s residents an avenue for expressing their unique local identity – something people have long feared losing as the city is drawn further under Beijing’s grip.

    For some, using Cantonese to criticize the government seems particularly fitting given the central government has aggressively pushed for Mandarin to be used nationwide in education and daily life – for instance, in television broadcasts and other media – often at the expense of regional languages and dialects.

    These efforts turned into national controversy in 2010, when government officials suggested increasing Mandarin programming on the primarily-Cantonese Guangzhou Television channel – outraging residents, who took part in rare mass street rallies and scuffles with police.

    It’s not just Cantonese affected – many ethnic minorities have voiced alarm that the decline of their native languages could spell an end to cultures and ways of life they say are already under threat.

    In 2020, students and parents in Inner Mongolia staged mass school boycotts over a new policy that replaced the Mongolian language with Mandarin in elementary and middle schools.

    Similar fears have long existed in Hong Kong – and grew in the 2010s as more Mandarin-speaking mainlanders began living and working in the city.

    “Growing numbers of Mandarin-speaking schoolchildren have been enrolled in Hong Kong schools and been seen commuting between Shenzhen and Hong Kong on a daily basis,” Dupré said. “Through these encounters, the language shift that has been operating in Guangdong became quite visible to Hong Kong people.”

    He added that these concerns were heightened by local government policies that emphasized the role of Mandarin, and referred to Cantonese as a “dialect” – infuriating some Hong Kongers who saw the term as a snub and argued it should be referred to as a “language” instead.

    In the past decade, schools across Hong Kong have been encouraged by the government to switch to using Mandarin in Chinese lessons, while others have switched to teaching simplified characters – the written form preferred in the mainland – instead of the traditional characters used in Hong Kong.

    There was further outrage in 2019 when the city’s education chief suggested that continued use of Cantonese over Mandarin in the city’s schools could mean Hong Kong would lose its competitive edge in the future.

    “Given Hong Kong’s rapid economic and political integration, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Hong Kong’s language regime be brought in line with that of the mainland, especially where Mandarin promotion is concerned,” Dupré said.

    It’s not the first time people in the mainland have found ways around the censors. Many use emojis to represent taboo phrases, English abbreviations that represent Mandarin phrases, and images like cartoons and digitally altered photos, which are harder for censors to monitor.

    But these methods, by their very nature, have their limits. In contrast, for the fed-up residents of Guangzhou, Cantonese offers an endless linguistic landscape with which to lambast their leaders.

    It’s not clear whether these more subversive uses of Cantonese will encourage greater solidarity between its speakers in Southern China – or whether it could encourage the central government to further clamp down on the use of local dialects, Dupré said.

    A delivery worker delivers a package to the entrance of a locked-down neighborhood in Liwan, Guangzhou, on November 9.

    For now though, many Weibo users have embraced the rare opportunity to voice frustration with China’s zero-Covid policy, which has battered the country’s economy, isolated it from the rest of the world, and disrupted people’s daily lives with the constant threat of lockdowns and unemployment.

    “I hope everyone can maintain their anger,” wrote one Weibo user, noting how most of the posts relating to the Guangzhou lockdowns were in Cantonese.

    “Watching Cantonese people scolding (authorities) on Weibo without getting caught,” another posted, using characters that signify laughter.

    “Learn Cantonese well, and go across Weibo without fear.”

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  • Trump sues January 6 committee seeking to block subpoena for his testimony and documents | CNN Politics

    Trump sues January 6 committee seeking to block subpoena for his testimony and documents | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has sued the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, as a way to challenge its subpoena for documents and his testimony, according to filings in a federal court in Florida.

    Trump is challenging both the legitimacy of the committee – which multiple courts have upheld – and is claiming he should be immune from testimony about the time he was president.

    Trump’s lawyers say they’ve communicated with the House over the past week and a half as the subpoena deadlines neared, offering to consider answering written questions while expressing “concerns and objections” about the bulk of the document requests.

    “The Subpoena’s request for testimony and documents from President Trump is an unwarranted intrusion upon the institution of the Presidency because there are other sources of the requested information, including the thousand-plus witnesses the Committee has contacted and one million documents that the Committee has collected,” his attorneys argue in the suit. “The Committee also may obtain abundant government records relevant to its inquiry. Because of this obvious availability to obtain testimony and documents from other readily available sources, the Subpoena is invalid.”

    A spokesperson for the January 6 committee declined to comment.

    Trump said the House’s demands, if he met them, would violate privilege protections around the executive branch, including revealing conversations he had with Justice Department officials and members of Congress about the 2020 election and “pending governmental business.”

    He also argued to the court that he shouldn’t have to reveal inner workings about his 2020 presidential campaign, “including his political beliefs, strategy, and fundraising. President Trump did not check his constitutional rights at the Oval Office door. Because the Committee’s Subpoena to President Trump infringes upon his First Amendment rights it is invalid.”

    Trump’s attorney, David Warrington, said in a statement in part that “long-held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it.”

    The lawsuit veers the Trump subpoena fight toward a likely dead-end for the House select committee.

    Trump’s back-and-forth with the House followed by the lawsuit will make it much harder for the committee to enforce the subpoena – and the dispute essentially will be unresolvable before the current Congress expires in January.

    The lawsuit also raises some protections around the presidency that have never fully been tested by appeals courts, and Trump brought the lawsuit in a court that, unlike DC, hasn’t weighed in on his standoffs with House Democrats over the past several years.

    Trump provided to the court his team’s recent letters with the committee, which show that the House panel tried to zero in last week on obtaining records of his electronic communication on personal phones, via text or on other apps from January 6, 2021. The House also said it sought to identify every telephone and other communication device Trump used from Election Day until he left the presidency, according to the letters.

    In one letter on November 4, the original date of the document-turnover deadline, the House committee accused Trump’s team of trying to delay.

    “Given the timing and nature of your letter – without any acknowledgment that Mr. Trump will ultimately comply with the subpoena – your approach on his behalf appears to be a delay tactic,” wrote Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the committee.

    Since Trump’s team replied on November 9 that he wouldn’t testify and found no records to turn over related to personal communications, the House hasn’t respond substantively, the court papers said.

    But Trump’s legal team responded to the House this week that Trump “voluntarily directed a reasonable search for documents in his possession” that could fit those two categories. The search found nothing, his lawyers said.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Bahrain says websites attacked before parliamentary election

    Bahrain says websites attacked before parliamentary election

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bahrain said Saturday hackers targeted websites in the island kingdom just hours before a planned parliamentary election.

    The Interior Ministry did not identify the websites targeted, but the country’s state-run Bahrain News Agency could not be reached online nor could the website for Bahrain’s parliament.

    “Websites are being targeted to hinder the elections and circulate negative messages in desperate attempts that won’t affect the determination of citizens who will go to the polling stations,” the Interior Ministry said.

    Screenshots taken by internet users showed a picture after the hack claiming it was carried out by a previously unknown account called Al-Toufan, or “The Flood” in Arabic. Social media accounts associated with Al-Toufan said the group targeted the parliament’s website “due to the persecution carried out by the Bahraini authorities, and in implementation of the popular will to boycott the sham elections.”

    A banned Shiite opposition group and others have called on voters to boycott the election.

    Bahraini officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The attack happened just hours ahead of parliamentary and municipal elections in Bahrain. Voters will pick the 40 members of the lower house of Bahrain’s parliament, the Council of Representatives. The parliament’s upper house, the Consultative Council, is appointed by royal decree by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

    Bahrain is in the midst of a decade-long crackdown on all dissent after the 2011 Arab Spring protests, which saw the island’s Shiite majority and others demanding more political freedom.

    Since Bahrain put down the protests with the help of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it has imprisoned Shiite activists, deported others, stripped hundreds of their citizenship and closed down its leading independent newspaper.

    Bahrain, about the size of New York City, is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

    ———

    Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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  • UN rights body to hold urgent session on Iran amid crackdown

    UN rights body to hold urgent session on Iran amid crackdown

    The U.N.’s top human rights body will hold a special session on Iran in the wake of the government’s violent and deadly crackdowns on protesters, threats against journalists and other alleged human rights violations in the Islamic republic

    GENEVA — The U.N.’s top human rights body is poised to hold a special session on Iran in the wake of the government’s deadly crackdowns on protesters, threats against journalists and other alleged human rights violations in the Islamic republic.

    The Human Rights Council will hold the session in the week of Nov. 21 “if possible on Nov. 24,” following a diplomatic request by Germany and Iceland.

    Germany sent a letter to the council offices Friday announcing the call for a special session “to address the deteriorating human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially with respect to women and children.”

    At least one-third of the council’s 47 member states need to support such a request and the move by Germany suggests it has lined up enough backing.

    The protests in Iran, sparked by the Sept. 16 death of a 22-year-old woman after her detention by the country’s morality police, have grown into one of the largest sustained challenges to the nation’s theocracy since the chaotic months after its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Security forces have sought to quash dissent.

    After the protests erupted, the United States and European Union imposed additional sanctions on Iran for its brutal treatment of demonstrators and its decision to send hundreds of drones to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine. EU foreign ministers are expected to agree on additional sanctions Monday.

    At least 328 people have been killed in the Iran protests and 14,825 others arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a monitoring group.

    Iran’s government for weeks has remained silent on casualty figures.

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  • Just Stop Oil pauses UK highway protest that snarled traffic

    Just Stop Oil pauses UK highway protest that snarled traffic

    LONDON — British climate activists who have blocked roads and splattered artworks with soup said Friday they are suspending a days-long protest that has clogged a major highway around London.

    The group Just Stop Oil, which wants the U.K. government to halt new oil and gas projects, has sparked headlines, debate and a government crackdown on disruptive protests since it launched its actions earlier this year.

    The group said Friday it was pausing its campaign of “civil resistance” on the M25 highway that encircles London. Over the last four days, its activists have climbed gantries above the highway, forcing it to close in several places.

    Police say a motorcycle officer was injured Wednesday in a collision with trucks during a rolling roadblock sparked by the protest.

    “We are giving the government another chance to sit down and discuss with us and meet our demand, which is the obvious no-brainer that we all want to see, which is no new oil in the U.K.,” activist Emma Brown told the BBC.

    In recent months, Just Stop Oil members have blocked roads and bridges, often gluing themselves to the roadway to make them harder to move. Police say 677 people have been arrested, 111 of whom were charged with offenses. The protesters have been berated and at times physically removed by irate motorists.

    Last month, activists from the group dumped two cans of tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” which was behind glass, at the National Gallery in London.

    Climate activists have staged similar protests in other European cities, gluing themselves to Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” in The Hague and throwing mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum.

    On Friday, two climate activists tried in vain to glue themselves to Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece “The Scream” at an Oslo museum, police said.

    Part of a wave of youthful direct-action protest groups around the world, Just Stop Oil is backed by the U.S.-based Climate Emergency Fund, set up to support disruptive environmental protests.

    University of Maryland social scientist Dana Fisher, who studies activists, has said the protesters are part of a “new radical flank” of the environmental movement whose actions are geared at gaining maximum media attention.

    Some environmentalists argue the disruptive protests alienate potential supporters.

    Just Stop Oil defended its tactics on Friday, saying that “under British law, people in this country have a right to cause disruption to prevent greater harm — we will not stand by.”

    In response to protests by Extinction Rebellion and other direct-action groups, Britain’s Conservative government this year toughened police powers to shut down disruptive protests and increased penalties for obstructing roads, which can now bring a prison sentence.

    Even tougher moves were rejected by Parliament, but the government plans to try again to pass a law that would make it a criminal offense to interfere with infrastructure.

    Civil liberties groups have decried the moves as restrictions on free speech and the right to protest.

    ———

    Follow the AP’s coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Apple curbs AirDrop file sharing on devices in China | CNN Business

    Apple curbs AirDrop file sharing on devices in China | CNN Business



    CNN Business
     — 

    Apple has limited the use of the AirDrop wireless file sharing function on devices in China, just weeks after reports that some protesters had used the popular feature to spread messages critical of the Chinese government.

    Users of iPhones in mainland China who updated their iOS software this week can send or receive files from non-contacts for only up to 10 minutes after manually selecting a new “Everyone for 10 minutes” option, according to tests performed by CNN’s Beijing bureau.

    Users not in China face no such restriction and are able to receive files wirelessly from anyone, including people who are not contacts.

    The change does not appear to affect iPhones in use in China that were purchased outside the country, according to the CNN team. Apple

    (AAPL)     told CNN Business the new feature will be expanded globally in the coming year.

    The update comes just weeks after reports in international media, including The New York Times and Vice World News, that some residents in China were using AirDrop, which can be used only between Apple devices, to spread leaflets and images echoing slogans used in a rare protest against Chinese leader Xi Jinping on October 13.

    On that day, shortly before Xi secured a precedent-breaking third term, two banners were hung on an overpass of a major thoroughfare in the northwest of Beijing, protesting against Xi’s zero-Covid policy and authoritarian rule.

    And in 2019, AirDrop, which is effective only over short distances, was particularly popular among anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong who regularly used the feature to drop colorful posters and artwork to subway passengers urging them to take part in protests.

    Reaction in Chinese media to the software update was mixed. News website Sohu.com wrote that the feature was designed to address the specific problem of passengers on subways and buses receiving nuisance messages.

    But others criticized Apple on Chinese social media. The US tech giant has been accused of appeasing the Chinese authorities before, including pulling business website Quartz’s app from its store in China over “content concerns” during the 2019 demonstrations in Hong Kong.

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