Tag: unrest

Opinion: The relentless bravery of Iranian protesters is a moral test for the Western world | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
—

On the 40th day after Mahsa Amini died while in the custody of the Iranian regime’s intrusive morality police, protests sparked by her death grew even more widespread, more defiant, more determined.

They also added to the moral imperative for the rest of the world to do more.

In Amini’s birthplace of Saqqez, where the 22-year-old also known as Zhina is now buried, thousands of people defied the police and turned out to mark an important day in the mourning process, even as security forces fired live bullets and tear gas to stop them.

Demonstrations also took place in numerous other cities: In Isfahan, women waved black scarves in the air, chanting “Azadi, Azadi!” (“Freedom, freedom!”) in Farsi. In Shiraz, young women walked confidently on city sidewalks without veils, their hair flowing in the air in violation of Iranian law. In Amol, where authorities have already shot and killed protesters, unarmed men and women marched directly toward armed security forces, kneeled, put their hands up, and declared themselves ready to die for their cause.

While Amini’s death has become the trigger for this uprising, it is the mandatory headscarf, or hijab, that’s become its symbol, because her run-in with the morality police was so familiar to so many women. She was visiting Tehran from her hometown in Iran’s Kurdish region last month when she was detained for, allegedly, not properly wearing her hijab – a degrading experience familiar to Iranian women who are routinely harassed for minor clothing infractions. Authorities later claimed Amini died of an illness while at a “re-education center.” Her family says she was perfectly healthy.

In the weeks since, the regime has killed hundreds of peaceful protesters, among them many children and idealistic young women.

One of the teenagers whose bravery and death has become a rallying cry is Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old who disappeared last month after waving her hijab in the air at a protest in Tehran, and then setting fire to another headscarf in front of a small crowd.

Nika later turned up dead. Though Iran’s government and state media have claimed her death had nothing to do with the uprising, a CNN investigation found video and witness testimony showing she was hunted down by plain clothes Basiji militias – security forces utilized by the regime to crack down on demonstrators – following her protest. Eyewitnesses told CNN they saw Nika among groups of protesters being detained later that night. That was the last time she was seen, days before her battered body was returned to her grieving family. Now her mother, too, is rallying protesters.

The courage of Iranians, young and old, risking it all for a chance at freedom, is defying the predictions of jaded foreign observers. Recalling previous failed protests, many have argued that the strength of this one, with its shouts “Women, life, freedom,” was little more than a doomed social media mirage.

But the protests are persisting. Seven weeks in, they have lasted longer than any uprising since the 1979 revolution toppled the Pahlavi regime and brought to power today’s theocracy. And these protests are different from their predecessors. In 2009, the Green Movement supported a reformist candidate. In 2019, demonstrators called out harsh economic conditions.

This time, women, and the men who have joined them, are crying out, “Death to the dictator.” This is not about reform. This is about fundamental change.

Let’s be honest. From the first day of protests, this has been inspiring, but also terrifying to watch. We have seen what the Islamic Republic is capable of. We fear for the safety of these brave people, and it can seem irresponsible to encourage them. The odds, after all, are stacked against them. And yet, they have made the choice to continue the fight. They deserve our solidarity.

As a group of 12 female foreign ministers declared in an October 26 statement, “we have a moral obligation” to support this women-led movement. But the people demanding their freedom in Iran need more than symbolic backing – even if symbols matter.

The United States and other Western powers have always worried about backing Iranian protesters, because the regime already dismisses those who oppose them as tools of the West. The Obama administration allowed such concerns to muzzle its response during the 2009 protests. The Biden administration is trying not making the same mistake – already, Washington has spoken out repeatedly in support of the protest movement. On Wednesday, the State Department announced new sanctions against Iranians involved in repressing demonstrations.

That’s a good start. Anyone – regime officials, the Basiji militias, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – involved in crushing the protests should be banned from entering the US. Other countries should follow suit.

But much more can be done.

Germany this week announced that, given the situation, there can be no “business as usual,” with Iran, launching a wide-ranging diplomatic response that includes a review of bilateral trade and financial relations, support for nongovernmental organizations monitoring crimes against protestors and expanded protections for “particularly vulnerable Iranians,” among other efforts.

The US, its other allies, democracies across the world and any country that rejects the regime’s actions should join in isolating Iran diplomatically. Diplomatic relations should continue, but as long as Iran is killing protesters, relations should be downgraded. And Iran must be expelled from the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Its presence there is a travesty.

Then there’s the matter of the abandoned 2015 nuclear deal – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA – which the Biden administration has been working to reinstate. Currently, negotiations to revive the deal, designed to delay Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon, are stuck because Iran keeps raising the stakes. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said he foresees no return to the JCPOA in the “near term.” Such phrasing likely means the goal of reviving it has not died entirely.

The US and its allies want to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon, an unimpeachable objective. But restarting the deal could bring hundreds of billions of dollars to the regime that is currently killing peaceful protesters, arming Russia with killer drones used to slaughter innocent Ukrainians and continuing to support terrorist groups across the Middle East. At the very least, the wisdom of reviving the nuclear deal must be reevaluated.

The relentless bravery of the Iranian women, of the Iranian people, is a timely moral test for the rest of the world. They deserve more than they have received.

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October 29, 2022
Time to treat North Korea’s nuclear program like Israel’s? | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—

As a statement of intent, it was about as blunt as they get.

North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and will never give them up, its leader, Kim Jong Un, told the world last month.

The move was “irreversible,” he said; the weapons represent the “dignity, body, and absolute power of the state” and Pyongyang will continue to develop them “as long as nuclear weapons exist on Earth.”

Kim may be no stranger to colorful language, but it is worth taking his vow – which he signed into law – seriously. Bear in mind that this is a dictator who cannot be voted out of power and who generally does what he says he will do.

Bear in mind too that North Korea has staged a record number of missile launches this year – more than 20; claims it is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to field units, something CNN cannot independently confirm; and is also believed to be ready for a seventh underground nuclear test.

All this has prompted a growing number of experts to question whether now is the time to call a spade a spade and accept that North Korea is in fact a nuclear state. Doing so would entail giving up once and for all the optimistic – some might say delusional – hopes that Pyongyang’s program is somehow incomplete or that it might yet be persuaded to give it up voluntarily.

As Ankit Panda, a Stanton senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, put it: “We simply have to treat North Korea as it is, rather than as we would like it to be.”

From a purely factual point of view, North Korea has nuclear weapons, and few who follow events there closely dispute that.

A recent Nuclear Notebook column from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated that North Korea may have produced enough fissile material to build between 45 and 55 nuclear weapons. What’s more, the recent missile tests suggest it has a number of methods of delivering those weapons.

Publicly acknowledging this reality is, however, fraught with peril for countries such as the United States.

One of the most compelling reasons for Washington not to do so is its fears of sparking a nuclear arms race in Asia.

South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are just a few of the neighbors that would likely want to match Pyongyang’s status.

But some experts say that refusing to acknowledge North Korea’s nuclear prowess – in the face of increasingly obvious evidence to the contrary – does little to reassure these countries. Rather, the impression that allies have their heads in the sand may make them more nervous.

“Let’s accept (it), North Korea is a nuclear arms state, and North Korea has all necessary delivery systems including pretty efficient ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles),” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and a preeminent academic authority on North Korea.

A better approach, some suggest, might be to treat North Korea’s nuclear program in a similar way to Israel’s – with tacit acceptance.

That’s the solution favored by Jeffrey Lewis, an adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey.

“I think that the crucial step that (US President Joe) Biden needs to take is to make clear both to himself and to the US government that we are not going to get North Korea to disarm and that is fundamentally accepting North Korea as a nuclear state. You don’t necessarily need to legally recognize it,” Lewis said.

Both Israel and India offer examples of what the US could aspire to in dealing with North Korea, he added.

Israel, widely believed to have started its nuclear program in the 1960s, has always claimed nuclear ambiguity while refusing to be a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while India embraced nuclear ambiguity for decades before abandoning that policy with its 1998 nuclear test.

“In both of those cases, the US knew those countries had the bomb, but the deal was, if you don’t talk about it, if you don’t make an issue out of it, if you don’t cause political problems, then we’re not going to respond. I think that’s the same place we want to get to with North Korea,” Lewis said.

At present though, Washington shows no signs of abandoning its approach of hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nukes.

Indeed, US Vice President Kamala Harris underlined it during a recent visit to the DMZ, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

“Our shared goal – the United States and the Republic of Korea – is a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Harris said.

That may be a worthy goal, but many experts see it as increasingly unrealistic.

“Nobody disagrees that denuclearization would be a very desirable outcome on the Korean Peninsula, it’s simply not a tractable one,” Panda said.

One problem standing in the way of denuclearization is that Kim’s likely biggest priority is ensuring the survival of his regime.

And if he wasn’t paranoid enough already, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (in which a nuclear power has attacked a non-nuclear power) will have served as a timely reinforcement of his belief that “nuclear weapons are the only reliable guarantee of security,” said Lankov, from Kookmin University.

Trying to convince Kim otherwise seems a non-starter, as Pyongyang has made clear it will not even consider engaging with a US administration that wants to talk about denuclearization.

“If America wants to talk about denuclearization, (North Korea is) not going to talk and if the Americans are not talking, (North Korea) will launch more and more missiles and better and better missiles,” Lankov said. “It’s a simple choice.”

There is also the problem that if North Korea’s increasingly concerned neighbors conclude Washington’s approach is going nowhere, this might itself bring about the arms race the US is so keen to avoid.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a Korean think tank, is among the growing number of conservative voices calling for South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons program to counter Pyongyang’s.

Efforts to prevent North Korea developing nuclear weapons have “ended in failure,” he said, “and even now, pursuing denuclearization is like chasing a miracle.”

Still, however remote the denuclearization dream seems, there are those who say the alternative – of accepting North Korea’s nuclear status, however subtly – would be a mistake.

“We (would be) basically (saying to) Kim Jong Un, after all of this tug of war and rustling, (that) you’re just going to get what you want. The bigger question (then) of course is: where does that leave the entire region?” said Soo Kim, a former CIA officer who is now a researcher at US think tank RAND Corporation.

That leaves one other option open to the Biden administration and its allies, though it’s one that may seem unlikely in the current climate.

They could pursue a deal in which Pyongyang offers to freeze its arms development in return for sanctions relief.

In other words, not a million miles away from the deal Kim offered then US President Donald Trump at their summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019.

This option has its backers. “A freeze is a really solid way to start things out. It’s very hard to get rid of weapons that exist, but what is possible … is to prevent things from getting worse. It takes some of the pressure off and it opens up space for other kinds of negotiations,” said Lewis of the James Martin Center.

However, the Trump-era overtones might make this a non-starter. Asked if he thought President Biden might consider this tactic, Lewis smiled and said, “I’m a professor, so I specialize in giving advice that no one is ever going to take.”

But even if the Biden administration was so inclined, that ship may have sailed; the Kim of 2019 was far more willing to engage than the Kim of 2022.

And that, perhaps, is the biggest problem at the heart of all the options on the table: they rely on some form of engagement with North Korea – something entirely lacking at present.

Kim is now focused on his five-year plan for military modernization announced in January 2021 and no offers of talks from the Biden administration or others have yet turned his head in the slightest.

As Panda acknowledged, “There’s a set of cooperative options which would require the North Koreans being willing to sit down at the table and talk about some of those things with us. I don’t think that we are even close to sitting down with the North Koreans.”

And, in fairness to Kim, the reticence is not all down to Pyongyang.

“Big policy shifts in the US would require the President’s backing, and I really see no evidence that Joe Biden really sees the North Korean issue as deserving of tremendous political capital,” Panda said.

He added what many experts believe – and what even some US and South Korean lawmakers admit behind closed doors: “We will be living with a nuclear armed North Korea probably for a few decades to come at least.”

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October 28, 2022
West Bank militants threaten Israel and warn their own leaders as tensions rise | CNN

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Jenin Refugee Camp, West Bank
CNN
—

Four US-made M4 Carbine rifles lean against the back of the sofa. The young men, mostly dressed in black civilian clothes, are relaxed and chatty. Neighbors pop their heads in to say hello through a door open to the street.

Which is odd.

Because these men are being hunted, targeted for kill-or-capture in a new Israeli military campaign to try to stamp out a fast-growing armed insurrection in the north of the West Bank.

The six men sip tea. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it’s hunting them because they’re members of an armed militant group that’s planning more attacks against Israeli targets.

“Martyr posters” cover most of the back wall. Young men from the Jenin Brigade, most of them killed in fighting with Israeli troops, smile from their photographs at their living comrades across the room. The men now fiddling with their phones know they themselves may move from the sofa to that wall. An Israeli military strike team could attack at any time.

This is Jenin Refugee Camp. It’s less than half a kilometer square, home to about 12,500 people and a hotbed of armed resistance against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank – and the existence of the Jewish state itself – for more than 20 years. Its tight alleys and ramshackle homes are densely packed, and crackle with tension.

At midday it’s shuttered while the neighboring town of Jenin is raucous with life. Locals say people mostly sleep during the day because at night there’s often fighting.

Earlier this year, eight Israeli civilians were killed in attacks in Tel Aviv and nearby Bnei B’rak by gunmen from around Jenin. Both of the militants in those incidents were killed.

There has been a surge in armed assaults on Israeli troops and civilians this year. According to the IDF, there have been around 180 shooting incidents in Israel and the occupied territories this year, compared to 61 shooting attacks in 2021. The Israeli military and police have seized 900 weapons from Palestinians.

Two days after we met, another Palestinian youth, aged 19 and a member of the Jenin Brigade’s militant armed group, was killed when Israeli forces stormed Jenin in an operation against the militants.

“Jenin is the hornets’ nest,” says IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht.

Some of the M4 weapons cradled by the Palestinian militants have Hebrew etched onto them. “Senior Israeli commanders steal the weapons and they sell them. We buy them on the black market with money we raise ourselves,” claims a leader with the Jenin Brigade at our secret meeting in Jenin Refugee Camp.

In 2020 a report by Israel’s Knesset estimated that 400,000 illegal weapons were circulating in Israel. The IDF admits that weapons have been stolen but denies that “senior commanders” are likely to be involved.

Many, the IDF said, are smuggled into the West Bank. Hecht admits: “We’re putting a big effort into the connectivity between criminal gangs and terrorism.”

It’s been the bloodiest 10 months since 2015 – at least 131 Palestinians (not counting Gaza) and 21 Israelis or foreigners have been killed this year.

But there’s been a shift, too, not just in the level of armed attacks against Israeli targets and Israel’s campaigns – but a growing resentment towards the leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Indeed, the militants of the Jenin Brigade who sit in the shade of olive trees to hide from Israeli surveillance drones had a barely hidden threat to make against the PA.

“This is a message to the Palestinian leadership: if they believe in the will of the Palestinian people, they have to join the resistance and give the resistance fighters the freedom to defend and protect our people,” says the man who leads this delegation of fighters.

Without explicitly threatening the PA leadership, he said that it was hemorrhaging support even among the ranks of its own security forces. Numerous members of the PA’s police force and other security agencies have been involved in attacking Israeli forces, he said.

Under agreements signed with Israel under the so-called Oslo peace process, the PA is supposed to cooperate on security issues with Israel.

Many other Palestinian factions condemn this as “collaboration” and, according to officials in the Israeli military, security cooperation has almost broken down in the north of the West Bank, especially around Jenin and nearby Nablus.

In 1999, members of Fatah, the main group in the Palestine Liberation Movement which still dominates the PA, were beginning to condemn their own leader openly. Back then that was Yasser Arafat – who had led the Palestinian cause for years.

Arafat’s successor at the head of the PA is Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen. At 87 his grip has slipped and a growing level of defiance against all that his authority has apparently failed to achieve is driving opposition in the West Bank.

The Jenin Brigade’s demands of the Palestinian Authority to join a new fight last week prompted PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh to visit Jenin Camp.

He stood next to Fathi Hazem, the father of two sons killed by Israel – one who murdered three Israelis in Tel Aviv in a shooting attack at a bar. Both had been members of the Jenin Brigade.

Whether out of choice or a need for political survival, the PA’s “security cooperation” with the Israelis in the north of the West Bank has dwindled to almost nothing, an Israeli government official said.

This may be because any attempt to do so risks igniting a civil war between Palestinian militants and the Palestinian Authority.

The apparently unstoppable march of Israeli settlements into the West Bank, while peace talks with Israel have ceased, means that many Palestinians have no real hope of an independent or even prosperous future. This has provoked more violence.

On that, both the IDF spokesman and the fighters in Jenin Camp agree.

On the Israeli side, Lt. Col. Hecht, a former battalion commander says, “They’re frustrated and disaffiliated and they are saying to all the organized Palestinian groups and the PA, ‘we have had enough of you all – we’re sons of the Camp.’ They don’t identify with the five-star leadership of the PA in their fancy hotels around the world. They’re now saying we’re fighting for their manhood.”

And in the West Bank, the Jenin Brigade leader concurs: “All Palestinian people – as a result of the [Israeli] occupation’s daily violations, and invasions, and the formation of many extreme right-wing governments [in Israel] that weakened the PA and its organizations and leadership – have lost trust in all of the PA organizations.”

“Most of our Palestinian youth that fight and are martyred have a university or college degree. They’ve lost hope of a dignified life,” he adds.

But, we asked, given that during the last 20 years, the Israelis have got more settlements, and there has been no progress to independence from the Palestinian perspective, maybe a new path should be found? Isn’t it time to put down your weapons and switch to non-violent protest?

He replies: “The occupation killed off all of the peaceful solutions, and here, on this land, there is no place for peaceful solutions with this Zionist Israeli occupation.”

Asked if they are of the view that the Jewish state should be wiped out, he replies: “All armed factions and every militant does not believe in a two-state solution because this occupation did not, and will not, respect any peaceful agreement. I repeat this again, those [Israeli governments] are criminal gangs.”

Does this mean that the two sides are stuck in a fatal embrace? “We always aim for victory, and not death. This occupation is sending messages to the international community that we are terrorists. We are not terrorists, we are resistance fighters for freedom,” the commander replies.

But he agrees there are more young men flocking to the armed groups and setting up on their own.

In Nablus, a group known as the “Lion’s Den” is growing fast, outside the control of the PA or even Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

According to the IDF, “they think up a target and then go and ask funding from Hamas or Islamic Jihad but they don’t take orders from anyone.” Israeli forces are intent on trying to break up these armed groups and reduce the threat to Israel, Hecht says.

“We’re very focused on precise intelligence: we’re trying to contain it when we see ticking bombs, the movement of weapons, rhetoric and warnings online – then we move to stop it,” he adds.

On Tuesday, joint Israeli security forces raided Nablus, targeting what they said was the leadership of the Lion’s Den and an explosives factory. At least five Palestinian men were killed in the raid.

In Jenin, the Palestinian brigade commander talks of plans for operations with militants across the West Bank and abroad that would “spark a regional war” that would come out of the camp.

But the more the conflict grows and the bloodier it gets, the greater the chance of the Palestinian Authority being sucked into direct conflict with Israel – or that the PA leadership which governs most of the 3.1 million population, dissolves itself. The latter possibility is the outcome Israel most fears.

If the Palestinian leadership in the PA disbanded and returned to full-time resistance across the whole of the West Bank, Israel would have to physically police the whole region – and pay for it.

“The PA collapsing or dissolving is the biggest threat. Having us go back into the towns would be a living nightmare,” says the Israeli government official.

This would turn the clock back to the days before the Oslo peace process. To when Palestinian groups ran a worldwide violent campaign, including terrorist attacks, in the name of freedom. To when Israel was largely isolated internationally – and had to use its own money to fund its responsibilities to Palestinians living under its occupation.

That may be exactly what the Jenin Brigade and others may be hoping for.

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October 28, 2022
Body of Joshua Jones, American killed in Ukraine, returned to Ukrainian custody | CNN

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Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine
CNN
—

The body of an American man killed in August while fighting alongside the Ukrainian military has been returned to Ukrainian custody by the Russian military.

A CNN team witnessed the transfer in the Zaporizhzhia region on Wednesday.

The American is 24-year-old Joshua Jones, who was killed in August. The US State Department has informed Jones’ family about the body’s return, Jones’ father, Jeff Jones, told CNN on Wednesday.

Joshua Jones’ mother, Misty Gossett, told CNN that the return of her son’s body “means everything” and that it feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off her.

“I’m proud of my son’s character,” Gossett said. “He was selfless in risking his life for a country that we have no connection to at all. But he felt the calling, and there was no talking him out of it.”

The transfer took place just north of Vasylivka, in the Zaporizhzhia region, between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled Ukraine. The two sides had agreed to a two-hour ceasefire in no-man’s land between Russian and Ukrainian-held Ukraine.

A Ukrainian ambulance was on site to transport Jones’ body. The Ukrainians said that they were able to identify the body by Jones’ tattoos and other identifying characteristics. The Russians had also sent photos of the body in advance.

Ukraine released a Russian soldier on Wednesday as part of a larger swap, in which 10 Ukrainians were already freed.

In a tearful phone call, Jeff Jones told CNN: “We got him back!”

“I cannot tell you what a burden is lifted off this family,” said Jones. “I couldn’t give up that hope.”

Jones said he got a message from the International Legion on Wednesday morning at 6:30 a.m. via the Signal app. He said he missed it. At 7 a.m. he got a call from his son’s fiancée with the news.

A little later, the US Embassy in Kyiv called him and verified the return.

Gossett characterized her last conversation with her son as “fun,” telling CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that Jones sent her a photo three days before his death showing his long beard and ponytail.

She said she joked about barbershops not being open and commented on the red color in his beard. “His whole life he’s looked like his dad, but I saw Mama in that red beard,” she said.

“Joshua, he was a soldier, he was a born soldier,” Gossett said. “He was named after the battle of Jericho, and he proved he lived up to his name so valuably.”

On Wednesday, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price expressed his condolences to Jones’ family in a statement, saying the “United States is appreciative of Ukraine for including recovery of this individual’s remains in its negotiations with Russia.”

He added that the remains “will soon be returned to the family.”

Jones’ remains were found in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), a Russian-backed, self-declared republic that has governed a breakaway portion of Ukraine’s Donetsk region since 2014.

DPR officials said in August that Jones’ body had been transferred to a mortuary in the region, and that they were ready to discuss a transfer of his remains.

Jones became one of a number of Americans who have been captured or killed in Ukraine since the outbreak of war in February.

Stephen Zabierslki was killed in May and Marine Corps veteran Willy Cancel was killed in April. In July, the State Department said two American citizens were killed in Donbas.

Two American veterans, Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh and Alexander John-Robert Drueke, were captured in June while fighting for Ukraine in a battle near Kharkiv. The pair were released last month as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine that was brokered by Saudi Arabia.

And CNN has previously reported that a third American, US Marine veteran Grady Kurpasi, went missing in action in June.

Russia is the only country that considers the DPR independent. The international community does not recognize the region and its institutions, and considers the territory to be part of Ukraine. Independent watchdog groups have long accused the separatists of a dismal human-rights track record and ill-treatment of prisoners.

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October 27, 2022
Blinken says the consequences for using a nuclear weapon have been conveyed to Putin | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

The consequences for Russia if it uses a nuclear weapon in its war on Ukraine have been conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

“We’ve also communicated directly and very clearly to the Russians, President Putin about the consequences,” the top US diplomat said at a Bloomberg event. Blinken did not indicate how it was communicated to Putin or by whom, and principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel later suggested that US officials had not communicated directly with him.

“You have seen members of this administration dialogue directly with their counterparts in Russia and express these concerns and the potential for dire consequences,” which “no doubt have likely made its way to President Putin,” Patel said at a State Department briefing.

Biden administration officials have said that Moscow has been warned at the highest levels of the consequences for use of nuclear weapon in the war, but Blinken’s remark is the first explicit mention that the message has been communicated to Putin himself.

Blinken denounced Russia’s latest claim that Ukraine is considering the use of a “dirty bomb” as “another fabrication and something that is also the height of irresponsibility coming from a nuclear power.”

He said the United States has communicated directly with the Russians “about trying to use this false allegation as a pretext for any kind of escalation.”

“The reason this particular allegation gives us some concern is because Russia has a track record of projecting, which is to say, accusing others of doing something that they themselves have done or are thinking about doing,” Blinken said.

Blinken reiterated that the US is tracking the Kremlin’s nuclear saber-rattling “very carefully,” but hasn’t “seen any reason to change our nuclear posture.”

Despite Putin’s rhetoric, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Andrey Kelin told CNN on Wednesday that Russia will not use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine.

“Russia is not going to use nukes. It is out of the question,” Kelin told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

However, actions taken by Moscow in recent weeks – the “dirty bomb” allegations, attacks on civilian infrastructure, looming defeats on the battlefield, and its annual military exercise – have increased concerns, a senior administration official said.

This official told CNN that the potential collapse of parts of Russia’s military in Ukraine could be the factor that could cause Putin to turn to nuclear weapon use. As such, the US is keeping a close eye on the developments in the Kherson region, where it’s not easy for Russian soldiers to retreat.

Russia informed the US of its annual GROM exercise, which includes its strategic nuclear forces, the Pentagon said. The Kremlin said in a statement Wednesday that Putin was leading military training drills involving practice launches of ballistic and cruise missiles.

The official said it may “sounds alarmist” to cite concerns about planned exercises but noted that they cannot be viewed in a silo: they do allow Russians to practice doing things like getting missiles into place and flying bombers to sea at a time when they are being pushed into a corner on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Despite these increased concerns, US officials have not seen evidence of Russian actions that would indicate Moscow is preparing to use nuclear weapons.

“We’ve seen no need to change our own nuclear posture. We don’t have any indication that Moscow is preparing to use nuclear weapons. But this type of rhetoric is concerning for many reasons,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday.

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October 26, 2022
3 more men found guilty in Whitmer kidnapping plot | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

A jury in Michigan has found three men guilty of providing material support for a terrorist act and two other state charges related to the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Paul Bellar, Joseph Morrison and Pete Musico were also convicted of gang membership and felony possession of a firearm. Prosecutors alleged the men “engaged in the planning and training for an operation to attack the state Capitol building and kidnap government officials, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.” Providing material support is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

In August, a federal jury found two men guilty of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer, a Democrat, in 2020.

Adam Fox and Barry Croft face a maximum sentence of life in prison for the kidnapping conspiracy conviction. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Their first trial ended in a mistrial.

A sentencing date for the three men has been set for December 15.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

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October 26, 2022
Opinion: Putin is trying to distract us from the blindingly obvious | CNN

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Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

CNN
—

Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing his best to achieve two immediate objectives. The goal of the West must be to stop him.

First, he’s seeking to distract his nation from the blindingly obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and utterly failing to achieve even the vastly scaled back objectives of his invasion.

Second and simultaneously, Putin is playing desperately for time – hoping the political clock and the onset of winter in Europe will sap the will and energies of the Western powers that have all but eviscerated his military-industrial machine and destroyed the armed might of Russia.

Both sides – Russia and Ukraine with its western backers – are doing their best to turn the screws ahead of a winter which could ultimately decide who will win the most titanic clashes of forces in Europe since the Second World War. It’s worth a deep look at what’s in play right now.

Europe’s energy concerns

First up, there’s the West and its ability to keep supplying the Ukrainian war machine that has proven so effective in this David v. Goliath battle.

This ability to keep going depends on a host of variables – ranging from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter, to the popular will across a broad range of nations with often conflicting priorities.

In the early hours of Friday in Brussels, European Union powers agreed a roadmap to control energy prices that have been surging on the heels of embargoes on Russian imports and the Kremlin cutting natural gas supplies at a whim.

These include an emergency cap on the benchmark European gas trading hub – the Dutch Title Transfer Facility – and permission for EU gas companies to create a cartel to buy gas on the international market.

While French President Emmanuel Macron waxed euphoric leaving the summit, which he described as having “maintained European unity,” he conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism.

Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. Now energy ministers must work out details with a Germany concerned such caps would encourage higher consumption – a further burden on restricted supplies.

Putin’s useful friends in Europe

These divisions are all part of Putin’s fondest dream. Manifold forces in Europe could prove central to achieving success from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, which amounts to the continent failing to agree on essentials.

Germany and France are already at loggerheads on many of these issues. Though in an effort to reach some accommodation, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have scheduled a conference call for Wednesday.

And now a new government has taken power in Italy. Giorgia Meloni was sworn in Saturday as Italy’s first woman prime minister and has attempted to brush aside the post-fascist aura of her party. One of her far-right coalition partners meanwhile, has expressed deep appreciation for Putin.

Silvio Berlusconi, himself a four-time prime minister of Italy, was recorded at a gathering of his party loyalists, describing with glee the 20 bottles of vodka Putin sent to him together with “a very sweet letter” on his 86th birthday.

Berlusconi, in a secretly recorded audio tape, said he’d returned Putin’s gesture with bottles of Lambrusco wine, adding that “I knew him as a peaceful and sensible person,” in the LaPresse audio clip.

The other leading member of the ruling Italian coalition, Matteo Salvini, named Saturday as deputy prime minister, said during the campaign, “I would not want the sanctions [on Russia] to harm those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.”

At the same time, Poland and Hungary, longtime ultra-right-wing soulmates united against liberal policies of the EU that seemed calculated to reduce their influence, have now disagreed over Ukraine. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

The limits of America’s ‘blank check’

Similar forces seem to be at work in Washington where House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take control after next month’s elections, told an interviewer, “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it.”

Meanwhile on Monday, the influential 30-member Congressional progressive caucus called on Biden to open talks with Russia on ending the conflict while its troops are still occupying vast stretches of the country and its missiles and drones are striking deep into the interior.

Hours later, caucus chair Mia Jacob, facing a firestorm of criticism, emailed reporters with a statement “clarifying” their remarks in support of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.

Indeed, while the US has proffered more than $60 billion in aid since Biden took office, when Congress authorized $40 billion for Ukraine last May, only Republicans voted against the latest aid package.

In short, there is every incentive for Putin to prolong the conflict as long as possible to allow many of these forces in the West to kick in. A long, cold winter in Europe, persistent inflation and higher interest rates leading to a recession on both sides of the Atlantic could mean irresistible pressure on already skeptical leaders to dial back on financial and military support.

This support in terms of arms, materiel and now training for Ukrainian forces have been the underpinnings of their remarkable battlefield successes against a weakening, undersupplied and ill-prepared Russian military.

At the same time, the West is turning up the pressure on Russia. Last Thursday, the State Department released a detailed report on the impact of sanctions and export controls strangling the Russian military-industrial complex.

Russian production of hypersonic missiles has all but ceased “due to the lack of necessary semi-conductors,” said the report. Aircraft are being cannibalized for spare parts, plants producing anti-aircraft systems have shut down, and “Russia has reverted to Soviet-era defense stocks” for replenishment. The Soviet era ended more than 30 years ago.

A day before this report, the US announced seizure of all property of a top Russian procurement agent Yury Orekhov and his agencies “responsible for procuring US-origin technologies for Russian end-users…including advanced semiconductors and microprocessors.”

The Justice Department also announced charges against individuals and companies seeking to smuggle high-tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.

All these actions point to an increasing desperation by Russia to access vitally-needed components for production of high-tech weaponry stalled by western sanctions and embargos that have begun to strangle the Kremlin’s military-industrial complex.

Where that leaves Russia

This pressure from the West may finally be producing real results. Putin’s announced martial law in Ukrainian territories Russia now only partly controls, attacks on civilian targets deep in Ukraine’s interior, and a new, hardline commander in Ukraine, General Sergei Shurokin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” by colleagues, all suggest a growing frustration bordering on fear that the Russian people may begin noticing what has long been blindingly obvious: Putin is losing.

This is the very moment when it is so essential that Ukraine and their western supporters push on with tenacity.

Shurokin appeared on Moscow television last week to suggest the Kremlin’s new objective – that actually dates back decades – is to force Ukraine into Russia’s orbit and keep it from joining the EU and especially NATO. Shurokin said: “We just want one thing, for Ukraine to be independent of the West and NATO and be friendly to the Russian state.”

Still, there remain hardliners like Pavel Gubarev, Russia’s puppet leader in Donetsk, who voiced his real intention toward Ukrainians: “We aren’t coming to kill you, but to convince you. But if you don’t want to be convinced, we’ll kill you. We’ll kill as many as we have to: 1 million, 5 million, or exterminate all of you.”

This should be the real fear of any in the West still prepared to waffle over 100% support of Ukraine and its people.

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October 26, 2022
DOJ asks judge to force Trump White House lawyers to testify in Jan. 6 probe | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to force the top two lawyers from Donald Trump’s White House counsel’s office to testify about their conversations with the former President, as it tries to break through the privilege firewall Trump has used to avoid scrutiny of his actions on January 6, 2021, according to three people familiar with the investigation.

The move to compel additional testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin just last week is part of a set of secret court proceedings. Trump has been fighting to keep former advisers from testifying before a criminal grand jury about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down criminal investigators.

But the Justice Department successfully secured answers from top vice presidential advisers Greg Jacob and Marc Short over the past three weeks in significant court victories that could make it more likely the criminal investigation reaches further into Trump’s inner circle.

Jacob’s testimony on October 6, which has not been previously reported, is the first identifiable time when the confidentiality Trump had tried to maintain around the West Wing after the 2020 election has been pierced in the criminal probe following a court battle. A week after Jacob spoke to the grand jury again, Short had his own grand jury appearance date, CNN reported.

All four men previously declined to answer some questions about advice and interactions with Trump when they testified in recent months in the secret criminal probe. Trump lost the court battles related to Jacob and Short before the chief judge of the trial-level US District Court in Washington, DC, last month.

Attorneys for the men whom the DOJ is seeking to compel have declined to comment for this story or haven’t responded to requests. Cipollone and Philbin didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Justice Department also declined to comment.

All four men have been willing to be as cooperative as the law demands, leaving Trump’s team to handle the fight over certain details in the investigation, the sources say.

The litigation around Cipollone and Philbin’s testimony may be important for investigators in the long run, given how close the pair was to the Trump leading up to and during the Capitol riot. Prosecutors are likely to aim for the grand jury to hear about their direct conversations with the then-President.

The disputes – conducted under seal in court because they involve grand jury activity – may also spawn several more court fights that will be crucial for prosecutors as they work to bring criminal charges related to Trump’s post-election efforts.

Witnesses the federal grand jury has subpoenaed, such as former White House officials Mark Meadows, Eric Herschmann, Dan Scavino, Stephen Miller and campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, also could decline to describe their conversations with Trump or advice being given to him after the election, several sources familiar with the investigation say.

Trump and his allies have used claims of confidentiality – both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege – with mixed results in multiple legal quagmires that surround the former President. Those include the January 6 federal criminal investigation, the Mar-a-Lago documents federal criminal investigation, Georgia’s Fulton County investigation of election meddling, and the House select committee probe of January 6 as well. Some of the privilege arguments Trump has raised have never been settled in federal court, and some of the fights could lead to the Supreme Court.

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich slammed the “weaponized” Justice Department in a statement and referred to the probes surrounding the former President as “witch hunts.”

According to the sources, the Justice Department won a trial-level judge’s order at the end of September that said Jacob and Short must testify in response to certain questions over which Trump’s team had tried to claim presidential and attorney-client confidentiality.

The sealed court case, stemming from the grand jury’s work, had been before the chief judge of the DC District Court, Beryl Howell. Howell refused to put on hold Jacob and Short’s testimony while Trump’s team appealed, a source said.

The Trump team, meanwhile, took several days to respond to their loss before Howell in court. The Justice Department set a quick-turnaround subpoena date for Jacob, leaving him to head into the grand jury under subpoena on October 6, according to several sources.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering legal arguments from Trump’s defense lawyers and the Justice Department over his ability to make executive and attorney-client privilege claims.

How that is resolved – either by the appeals court or even the Supreme Court, if Trump pursues it that far – could have significant consequences for the January 6 criminal investigation, and for multiple witnesses who may be refusing to share some of what they know because of Trump’s privilege claims.

Among a large group of former top Trump officials, Jacob has been one of the most searing voices condemning the then-President’s actions after the election, especially regarding the pressure he and his election attorney, John Eastman, tried to place on then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional certification of the presidential vote.

Jacob has been a harsh critic of Eastman, who is also of interest to prosecutors, dating back to when Eastman tried to convince Pence’s office the vice president alone could override the vote. He told Eastman at the time the right-wing attorney was a “serpent in the ear” of the President, and wrote while Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, “thanks to your bulls**t, we are now under siege.”

Jacob added to a parade of star witnesses at public House select committee hearings this summer, speaking candidly about his disgust with what he witnessed inside the White House complex from his high-ranking position administration.

“There is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person would choose the American President, and then unbroken historical practice for 230 years, that the vice president did not have such an authority,” Jacob testified in July.

But what Jacob and Short knew of Trump’s conversations, they wouldn’t disclose to the House nor to the grand jury until this month.

In a taped House select committee deposition, Cipollone answered many questions about what happened inside the West Wing on January 6 but declined to describe communications between him and Trump.

Cipollone’s and Philbin’s roles as White House lawyers raise complicated legal questions about whether Trump can claim confidentiality over the legal advice they gave him, as well as whether a former president can assert executive privilege to hold off criminal investigators.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly declined to assert executive privilege around January 6 information, essentially leaving the fight for Trump to wage opposite the Justice Department.

While the courts will look at each situation individually, history isn’t on Trump’s side. Federal prosecutors investigating former Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon were able to overcome attorney-client privilege assertions for White House counsel as well as executive privilege assertions so the grand jury could hear closely guarded information.

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October 26, 2022
Six killed by Israeli forces in the deadliest day for Palestinians this year | CNN

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Bethlehem and Jerusalem
CNN
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At least six Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military on Tuesday, making it the deadliest day of violence in the occupied West Bank this year, CNN analysis of official Palestinian data showed.

Five were killed in the old city of Nablus during an Israeli raid there, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. A sixth person was killed in Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah, by Israeli live fire, the Ministry added, when Palestinian protestors took to the streets in response to the Nablus military operation.

The raid in Nablus also left some 20 people injured, the ministry said.

Israel said it was targeting Lion’s Den, a new militant group which emerged in Nablus this year and has targeted Israeli soldiers, killing at least two.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Tuesday’s killings as a “war crime” while calling on the United States to stop Israeli “aggression” in the West Bank before things “reach a very critical point,” according to his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh.

Commenting on the Nablus raid, Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, “our goal was and remains to inflict severe and lasting damage on terrorism and its agents in Jenin and Nablus and anywhere else where terrorist nests grow.” He added that the head of the Lion’s Den militant group and other militants were assassinated in the raid and that the “terrorist laboratory of Lion’s Den was severely damaged.”

In a joint statement posted on Twitter, the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Security Agency, and Israeli police said a raid was conducted on a hideout in the old city of Nablus that was being used as a headquarters and explosives manufacturing site by operatives of Lion’s Den, adding that the group was responsible for a shooting attack that killed an Israeli soldier, and for attempting to carry out an attack in Tel Aviv that was thwarted by the Israeli police as well as the planting of an explosive device in a gas station.

The Israeli security forces “detonated the explosive manufacturing site” during the raid, the statement said, adding that “dozens of Palestinians burned tires and hurled rocks at the troops. The [Israeli] troops responded with live fire toward the armed suspects who were shooting at them.”

The Palestinian National Forces, an umbrella grouping of political and popular groupings, announced a general strike across cities and villages in the West Bank on Tuesday. The strike will affect essential services such as schools, universities and courts.

This year has been the deadliest in the West Bank for Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers since 2015. Israel claims most killed were clashing violently with soldiers.

It has also been the deadliest year for Israelis and foreigners killed in attacks by Palestinians since 2015.

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October 25, 2022
Liberal Democrats call on Biden to shift Ukraine strategy | CNN Politics

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CNN
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More than two dozen liberal House members are calling on President Joe Biden to shift course in his Ukraine strategy and pursue direct diplomacy with Russia to bring the months-long conflict to an end.

In a letter sent to Biden on Monday, the group of 30 Democrats praise Biden’s efforts to date at supporting Ukraine while avoiding direct US involvement on the ground. But they suggest a more forceful attempt at bringing the war to an end through diplomacy is necessary to prevent a long and slogging conflict.

“Given the destruction created by this war for Ukraine and the world, as well as the risk of catastrophic escalation, we also believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged conflict,” the group, led by Congressional Progressive Caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, write in the letter. “For this reason, we urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.”

The letter comes at a critical moment in the war, as Russia increasingly targets civilian infrastructure with a particular focus on cutting power supplies to Ukrainian citizens ahead of winter.

In Congress, questions have grown at the willingness of lawmakers to sustain the massive financial and military support that has gone to Ukraine. Some Republicans have threatened to cut aid to the country if they take control of Congress in November.

The liberal Democrats, in their letter, say that more direct attempts at engaging Moscow in diplomacy were necessary as the war drags on.

“We are under no illusions regarding the difficulties involved in engaging Russia given its outrageous and illegal invasion of Ukraine and its decision to make additional illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory,” the lawmakers wrote. “However, if there is a way to end the war while preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America’s responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue to support such a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine.”

John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator at the National Security Council, said the White House had received the letter.

“We certainly appreciate the sentiments expressed by these members of Congress,” Kirby said.

“We have been working with members of Congress throughout this entire process, especially when we have needed additional funding to support Ukraine’s defense needs,” Kirby said. “And it’s been done in full collaboration in full transparency with members of Congress. And that is exactly the way the President wants to continue going forward.”

Still, Kirby said there were no indications that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to engage in serious diplomacy to bring the war to an end.

“When you see and you listen to his rhetoric, and you see the other things, be they atrocities, the war crimes, the airstrikes against civilian infrastructure that the Russians are committing, it’s clear Mr. Putin is in no mood to negotiate,” Kirby said.

He said it would be up to Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, when the time is right to return to the negotiating table.

“Mr. Zelensky gets to determine when he thinks that’s the right time, and Mr. Zelensky gets to determine, because it’s his country, what success looks like, what victory looks and what sort of terms he willing to negotiate on,” Kirby said. “We’re not going to dictate that.”

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October 25, 2022
Myanmar military airstrikes kill about 50, Kachin rebels say | CNN

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CNN
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Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in military airstrikes at a celebratory event in Myanmar’s mountainous Kachin state on Sunday, drawing international condemnation of the junta that seized power in the country more than a year and a half ago.

Victims had been attending an event organized by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to mark the 62nd anniversary of the armed ethnic rebel group’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), KIO General Secretary La Nan said on Tuesday.

La Nan said both men and women were among about 50 people killed, though no children have been identified among the victims yet. Another 54 are injured, many with burns and shrapnel wounds, he added.

CNN cannot independently verify the number of reported deaths.

La Nan said the event, which included musical performances, was one of the group’s most significant annual festivities, with “hundreds, if not thousands” in attendance including artists, business owners and elders. Many had traveled from across the state to attend, he said.

“We understand the intention of (the airstrikes) was largely to inflict chaos and massive pain to the public, in a large volume and with as much damage as they could inflict,” La Nan said.

The military junta, which overthrew the government in a bloody coup last February, claimed on Monday that reports of civilian deaths from the airstrikes were “fake news.”

It claimed the airstrikes had targeted the KIA’s military base, in response to the group’s earlier raids and attacks on passenger vessels along the Irrawaddy River. It also claimed it had followed international conventions “so as to ensure peace and stability of the region.”

La Nan refuted the junta’s claim, saying the celebration had been held in the A Nang Pa region – a small area where travelers often stop by a market. It’s “nowhere close to military installations,” he said.

Though KIO personnel were in attendance, “they were not there as military personnel but as entertainers,” helping welcome guests and performing, he added.

Since the coup, rights groups and observers say freedoms and rights in Myanmar have deteriorated; state executions have returned and the number of documented violent attacks by the army on schools has surged.

Numerous armed rebel groups have emerged, while millions of others continue resisting the junta’s rule through strikes, boycotts and other forms of civil disobedience.

Myanmar’s shadow government, the National Unity Government – a group of ousted lawmakers, coup opponents and ethnic minority group representatives – condemned the attack in a statement on Monday, saying the military had “deliberately committed another mass killing.”

The attack “clearly violates international laws as the provisions of the Geneva Conventions,” it said in the statement, urging the international community and United Nations to “take effective actions urgently.”

The NUG operates undercover or through members abroad, seeking to gain recognition as the legitimate government of Myanmar.

The attack on Sunday drew international condemnation, with the United Nations saying it was concerned over reports of more than 100 civilians impacted.

“While the UN continues to verify the details of this attack, we offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of all those who were killed or injured. The UN calls for those injured to be availed urgent medical treatment, as needed,” it said in a statement on Monday.

It added that the military’s “excessive and disproportionate” use of force against unarmed civilians was “unacceptable,” and called on those responsible to be held to account.

La Nan, the KIO official, said the military had sealed off the roads surrounding A Nang Pa after the attack, imposed an internet and telecommunications blackout, and deployed plainclothes officers to local hospitals – meaning victims of the attack have little to no access to medical care.

“They are taking refuge in nearby makeshift clinics and rudimentary medical facilities in the mining area. Most of their relatives are very worried because there is very little access to medicine,” he said, calling it a “deliberate blockade.”

The KIO and local community is now trying to recover all the victims, and “have a proper burial according to our traditions and our religious rituals,” he said – adding that about 10 bodies were beyond identification.

CNN cannot independently verify the current situation.

On Monday, the ambassadors of Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States issued a joint statement condemning the strike.

“This attack underscores the military regime’s responsibility for crisis and instability in Myanmar and the region and its disregard for its obligation to protect civilians and respect the principles and rules of international humanitarian law,” the joint statement read.

Non-profit organization Amnesty International said in a statement the military’s actions – including executing pro-democracy activists, jailing journalists and targeting civilians – have been allowed to continue “in the face of an ineffective international response.”

“As officials and leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) prepare to host high-level meetings in the coming weeks, this attack highlights the need to overhaul the approach to the crisis in Myanmar,” the statement said, urging ASEAN leaders to take action when they meet for their annual summit in November.

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October 25, 2022
London-based TV channel sparks Iranian leaders’ ire amid protests | CNN
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Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi
CNN
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A top Iranian military official issued a warning to Saudi Arabia last week as his government continued to face off against protesters at home. “You are involved in this matter and know that you are vulnerable, it is better to be careful,” he said at the sidelines of a military drill.

Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was referring to what state news outlets called a “media war” that they say is being waged against “the Iranian youth and nation” by foreign conspirators seeking to create unrest in the country by supporting protesters there.

Then, on Thursday Iran again warned Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom, to “stop interfering in the country’s internal affairs.”

Iran last week said it sanctioned a number of media outlets in the UK for “supporting terrorism” and “inciting violence”, reported Tasnim news agency The sanctioned entities include, among others, Volant Media, Global Media, and DMA Media, as well as the “anti-Iranian TV channels” that the companies support, such as Iran International, reported Tasnim agency.

Now in their sixth week, protests have swept through the Islamic Republic following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died on September 16 after being detained by “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center,” allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.

As the protests rage, Iran is turning up the heat on its adversaries, mainly the United States and Israel. But last week, Saudi Arabia found itself in the line of fire, which risks further complicating attempts by the two regional rivals to mend ties.

Riyadh hasn’t publicly commented on the protests. The kingdom’s foreign minister refused to give his view when asked to during an interview with Al Arabiya news channel on October 12.

“Saudi Arabia has a fixed policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” he said. “Surely, we are following [the situation] and we wish Iran and its people the best.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia severed ties in 2016 and both parties have backed opposite sides in proxy conflicts across the Middle East. Last year, they began direct talks in an attempt to improve relations. Baghdad has hosted five rounds of talks so far, the last of which was held in April.

At the heart of Iran’s most recent accusations against Saudi Arabia may be Iran International, a Persian-language news channel that broadcasts from London. The channel has become one of the go-to sources for many Persian speakers looking for news on the protests. It has been at the forefront of covering the demonstrations, getting breaking news and exclusive footage of the events on the ground. Its Twitter account has over a million followers.

Founded in 2017, Iran International has previously come under scrutiny by the Iranian government. Some say it is due to their coverage of the protests at home, which in recent weeks have rocked the Islamic Republic.

Salami didn’t name the channel in his warning, but government-backed Iranian media last week accused Saudi Arabia of funding it. Saudi Arabia has not addressed the allegations. Karim Sa djadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington DC, said on Twitter that Iran has demanded the shuttering of the channel in talks with Saudi Arabia, citing a senior Gulf official.

In 2018, Iran International released a statement denying connections to any government, including Saudi Arabia or Iran after The Guardian reported that it was funded by a firm whose director has ties to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia did not comment on the Guardian report. The Saudi government did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

“We have heard these accusations before most often promoted by those in whose interests it is to deny a free press,” a spokesperson for Volant Media told CNN.

“Iran International and its sister channel, Afghanistan International, are editorially independent television channels owned by Volant Media, a company based in London owned by a Saudi Arabian/British citizen; it has no state backing or affiliation,” added the spokesperson.

Azadeh Moaveni, associate professor of journalism at New York University, described the channel as “one of the most pernicious and damaging forces to enter the Iranian media sphere,” calling it an arm of Saudi foreign policy. “I would not describe Iran International as pro-reform, or organically Iranian in any manner,” she told CNN.

Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran who was also an adviser to the Iranian nuclear talks negotiating team, said there’s “no doubt” that Iran International is funded by Saudi Arabia. A prominent figure on state-funded Iranian outlets, Marandi added that Iran International spreads rumors, ethnic and sectarian strife “and it tries to use misinformation to create fear, chaos and promote violence.”

Saudi Research and Marketing Group, a media conglomerate with ties to the Saudi ruling family, has run the Persian language website of the UK’s Independent newspaper since 2018. Its account on Instagram, where many Iranians get their news, has over 600,000 followers.

CNN’s parent company is Warner Bros. Discovery, which has a partnership with Saudi Research and Media Group, a Saudi joint stock company.

Saudi Arabia has for years accused Iran of doing the same with its own Arabic-language news channels: targeting Arab audiences with propaganda. State-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting runs Al Alam TV, an Arabic news channel that has interviewed Saudi opposition figures and has been blocked by Arab states. Iran-backed Hezbollah’s Al Manar channel has also been blocked.

“It’s about time Iran gets a taste of its own medicine,” said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi author and analyst. “Iran has spent decades inciting and funding instability in the Arab world so having them pay the price of such behavior themselves is certainly a source of satisfaction to a lot of people,” he told CNN.

The channel “is making an impact on public behavior in Iran and they are nervous about their domestic situation,” added Shihabi.

Analysts say that Iran’s tight grip on domestic media outlets and its lack of freedom of expression have created “fertile ground” for anti-establishment platforms such as Iran International to flourish.

“It is not so much the broadcasters themselves, but the situation in Iran has provided the possibility for broadcasters outside of Iran to gather a certain degree of popularity in the Iranian context,” said Gholam Khiabany, a reader in media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Harun Najafizada, a former journalist at Iran International who is now a director at the sister Afghanistan International news channel, said the parent company Volant Media is privately funded but “I don’t care as long as they do not influence my editorial take,” adding that shareholders never interfere in decision making.

Iran International stood out from other Western-backed Persian language news outlets “by taking the side of the disenchanted, oppressed, voiceless people,” while competitor Persian channels in the West were focused on bringing balance by giving the Iranian government a voice, he told CNN.

“They have a vision, of course – they don’t do it for God,” said Najafizada, referring to the shareholders. “That vision is democracy.”

Just two days after Salami’s first warning, however, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, was quoted saying that the two countries should reopen their embassies to facilitate a rapprochement, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA.

“We are neighbors of Saudi Arabia and we must coexist,” he was cited as saying by ISNA. “The embassies of the two countries should reopen in order to solve our problems in a better way.”

Business owners and factory workers in Iran’s Kurdish region went on strike over the weekend as anti-government protests continued.

Video shared with CNN by pro-reform activist outlet IranWire shows Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdish region, quiet at the beginning of the work week as stores remain shut.

The Norway-based Iranian rights group Hengaw said shopkeepers were on strike in Bukan, Sanandaj and Saqez, as well as Marivan. Strikes and protests have become common in cities and towns across Iran as people unite against the regime.

The nationwide protests are now in their fifth week, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died three days after being arrested by the country’s morality police and taken to a re-education center.

Here’s the latest on this developing story:
Iran will file a lawsuit against the United States claiming the US had direct involvement in recent riots, Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy head of the Iranian judiciary and secretary of the country’s High Council for Human Rights, said on Saturday, according to state news agency IRNA.
The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA) on Saturday called for a nationwide strike in protest at the recent deaths and detention of students in the country, according to a statement published on Telegram. The council also announced a period of public mourning for students who have died in recent weeks from Thursday through Saturday, and called for a sit-in on Sunday, October 23 and Monday, October 24.
Protests took place in central Berlin on Saturday, with close to 80,000 people standing in solidarity with Iran, German state broadcaster RBB reported, citing police officials.
Israel and Lebanon could sign maritime border agreement on Thursday, Biden energy adviser says

Senior US adviser for global energy security Amos Hochstein said on Sunday that Israel and Lebanon could sign their historic maritime borders agreement as early as Thursday.
Background: “We’re going to have a deal. We’re going to sign it hopefully this Thursday,” Hochstein said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And I hope that this continues our commitment to stability in the region and prosperity for both countries,” he added.

Why it matters: The US-brokered agreement settles a years-long maritime border dispute involving major oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean. Still technically at war, Lebanon and Israel both have much to gain. Not only does the agreement cool down recent security tensions, it also allows Israel to begin drilling and exporting gas to Europe and offers potential economic relief to Lebanon.
Human Rights Watch says LGBTQ people subjected to arrest and mistreatment in Qatar ahead of World Cup

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Qatar’s security forces of arbitrarily arresting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and subjecting them to ill-treatment in detention ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
Background: HRW said in a report issued Monday that it documented six cases of “severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022,” the most recent of which took place in September. Security forces arrested people in public places based solely on their gender expression and unlawfully searched their phones, the HRW report said, adding that as a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend “conversion therapy sessions” at a government-sponsored “behavioral healthcare” center. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and punishable by imprisonment. A Qatari official told CNN that the HRW allegations “contain information that is categorically and unequivocally false.”

Why it matters: Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which starts November 20, Qatar has said it would welcome LGBT visitors, after concerns were raised from the LGBT community over how safe they will be at the tournament.
Egypt has ordered the release of prominent activist, presidential pardon committee member says

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Monday pardoned a prominent activist and former parliamentarian, Zyad el-Elaimy, according to a presidential pardon committee member.
Background: Jailed since 2019, el-Elaimy was one of the key participants in the 2011 uprisings that led to the downfall of former longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. His release is “in response to calls by political parties and forces,” presidential pardon committee member Tarek el-Khouly wrote on Facebook. Young members of political parties, politicians and the presidential pardon committee also coordinated to help secure his release, added el-Khouly. El-Elaimy was given a five-year sentence last year on charges of spreading false news.
Why it matters: The release comes two weeks ahead of November’s COP27 summit in Egypt. The country has come in for sharp criticism in recent months, with activists denouncing global leaders’ attendance in the light of Sisi’s questionable human rights record. Egypt has been promoting moves to improve its rights record, but activists and critics have described recent reforms as mostly cosmetic.
United Arab Emirates: #Diwali

Also known as Deepavali, the holiday is widely trending across social platforms in the United Arab Emirates, with many flooding Twitter with colorful photos of candles and wishing joy and prosperity to the world.

Some are also posting photos of themselves in traditional celebratory garments. Diwali is one of the most important festivals in Hinduism, the largest religion in India. This year, it falls on October 24.

India and the UAE share a strong political and economic relationship, one that has grown closer in recent years.

The Indian expatriate community in the UAE is around 3.5 million, according to the Indian embassy in the UAE, adding that it is reportedly the largest ethnic community in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf state. Approximately 15% of the diaspora are in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, added the Indian embassy, while the rest are in six northern Emirates, including business hub Dubai.

The UAE also accounts for 33% of foreign remittances to India, at more than $20 billion a year.

Diwali is also significant for Sikhs and Jains. It is celebrated in India, Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries with South Asian diasporas.
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October 24, 2022
Michael Dukakis Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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Here’s a look at the life of Michael Dukakis, three-term governor of Massachusetts.

Birth date: November 3, 1933

Birth place: Brookline, Massachusetts

Birth name: Michael Stanley Dukakis

Father: Panos Dukakis, an obstetrician

Mother: Euterpe (Boukis) Dukakis, a teacher

Marriage: Katharine “Kitty” (Dickson) Dukakis (June 20, 1963-present)

Children: Kara,1968; Andrea, 1965; Adopted: John, 1958, Kitty’s son from her first marriage

Education: Swarthmore College, Political Science, B.A., 1955; Harvard University, J.D., 1960

Military service: US Army, 1955-1957, Specialist Third Class

Religion: Greek Orthodox

First Greek-American to run for president.

His first cousin was Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis.

As a high school senior, he ran the Boston Marathon.

Michael and Kitty Dukakis’ first child, a daughter, was born anencephalic in 1964 and died shortly after birth.

October 1960 – Joins the Boston law firm Hill & Barlow as an associate.

November 6, 1962 – Dukakis is elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

1966 – Unsuccessful bid for Massachusetts attorney general.

1970 – Loses race for lieutenant governor.

1970 – Becomes a partner of Hill & Barlow.

October 1, 1973 – Announces candidacy for Massachusetts governor.

November 5, 1974 – Defeats incumbent Francis Sargent in the gubernatorial election.

January 2, 1975-January 4, 1979 – 65th Governor of Massachusetts.

September 19, 1978 – Loses the Democratic gubernatorial primary to Edward King, who goes on to win the general election.

1979-1982 – Dukakis teaches at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

January 1980 – His book,”State and Cities: The Massachusetts Experience,” is published.

January 1982 – Announces his campaign to take back his job as the governor of Massachusetts.

November 2, 1982 – Defeats John Sears in the gubernatorial election, with 60% of the vote.

January 6, 1983-1991 – Governor of Massachusetts.

June 1986 – His book, “Revenue Enforcement, Tax Amnesty and the Federal Deficit,” is published.

November 4, 1986 – Wins a third term as governor, defeating George Kariotis 69% to 31%.

April 29, 1987 – Formally declares his candidacy for president of the United States.

February 1988 – His book, “Creating the Future: The Massachusetts Comeback and its Promise for America,” with Rosabeth Kanter is published.

June 1988 – During the campaign, George H. W. Bush, the Republican nominee for president, paints Dukakis as soft on crime because of an incident involving Massachusetts’s weekend furlough program for prisoners. Inmate Willie Horton failed to return and later terrorized a Maryland couple before being captured.

July 12, 1988 – Names Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) as his running mate.

July 20, 1988 – Receives the nomination for president at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.

October 13, 1988 – In the second presidential debate, moderator Bernard Shaw asks Dukakis if he would favor the death penalty if his wife, Kitty, was raped and murdered. Dukakis says no in an answer that many considered emotionless.

November 8, 1988 – Loses the election to Bush by roughly seven million votes, earning 111 electoral votes in the Electoral College to Bush’s 426.

1991-present – Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University in Boston.

1991-2022 – Visiting professor at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA.

2000 – His book, “How to Get Into Politics and Why: A Reader,” with Paul Simon is published.

April 27, 2007 – Is awarded the city’s Medal of Honor in Athens, Greece.

July 7, 2008 – Is quoted in the Boston Herald as saying that the country should get rid of the Electoral College and elect presidents through a popular vote.

July 9, 2010 – “Leader-Managers in the Public Sector: Managing for Results,” with John H. Portz is published.

October 16, 2014 – Testifies for the defense in the trial of Robel Phillipos, a friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing. Phillipos is charged with lying to the FBI during its investigation.

November 13, 2016 – Dukakis again calls for an end to the Electoral College, Politico reports. Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the presidential election is because of “an anachronistic Electoral College system which should have been abolished 150 years ago.”

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October 23, 2022
Yemen Fast Facts | CNN

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Here’s a look at Yemen, a country located on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, sharing a border with Saudi Arabia and Oman.

(from the CIA World Fact Book)
Area: 527,968 sq km (twice the size of Wyoming)

Population: 30,984,689 (2022 est.)

Median age: 19.8 years

Capital: Sanaa

Ethnic groups: Predominantly Arab; but also Afro-Arab, South Asian, European

Religions: Muslim (99.1%: an estimated 65% are Sunni and 35% are Shia) and small numbers of Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Baha’i (2020)

Unemployment: 27% (2014 est.)

Yemen is part of the Arab League.

Yemen has been mired in political unrest and armed conflict, which intensified in early 2015. Houthi rebels – a minority Shia group from the north of the country – drove out the US-backed government and took over the capital, Sanaa. The crisis quickly escalated into a multi-sided war, with neighboring Saudi Arabia leading a coalition of Gulf states against the Houthi rebels. The coalition is advised and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, among other nations.

READ: Yemen: What you need to know about how we got here

May 22, 1990 – The Republic of Yemen is created from the unification of North Yemen, the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.

May-July 1994 – A civil war between northerners and southerners begins due to disagreements between supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, from North Yemen, and Vice President Ali Salim al-Baid, from South Yemen. Troops loyal to Saleh win the war.

September 25, 1999 – Saleh wins the country’s first direct presidential election, with 96.3% of the vote. Opposition leaders allege tampering at the ballot box.

September 23, 2006 – Saleh wins reelection to a seven-year term with 77% of the vote.

September 17, 2008 – Ten people, Yemeni citizens and police officers, are killed in terrorist attack on the US embassy in Sanaa.

December 28, 2009 – A Yemen-based arm of al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), claims responsibility for a failed bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25.

January 2, 2010 – US President Barack Obama announces a new counterterrorism partnership with Yemen, involving intelligence sharing, military training and joint attacks.

January 3, 2010 – The United States and the United Kingdom temporarily close their embassies in Sanaa after they receive word that AQAP may be planning an attack on the facilities. The US embassy reopens two days later after Yemeni forces kill two AQAP militants in a counterterrorism operation.

January 2010 – A group called Friends of Yemen is established in the UK to rally support for Yemen from the international community. They later hold meetings in London and Saudi Arabia.

January 27, 2011 – Protests break out, inspired by demonstrations in neighboring countries. The unrest continues for months, while crackdowns on protesters lead to civilian deaths.

June 3, 2011 – Opposition forces launch missiles at the presidential palace, injuring Saleh and killing several others.

September 2, 2011 – More than two million people demonstrate across Yemen, demanding that the military remove Saleh from power.

September 23, 2011 – Saleh returns to Yemen after more than three months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

September 30, 2011 – Anwar al-Awlaki, spokesman for AQAP, is killed by a CIA drone strike.

November 23, 2011 – Saleh signs an agreement in Saudi Arabia transferring his executive powers to Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s vice president, effectively ending his rule.

January 21, 2012 – Parliament approves a law that grants Saleh immunity from prosecution.

February 21, 2012 – Yemen holds presidential elections to replace Saleh. There is only one candidate on the ballot, Vice President Hadi, the acting president since November 2011. Hadi receives 99.8% of the 6.6 million votes cast, according to the government elections committee.

February 25, 2012 – Hadi is sworn in as president.

May 21, 2012 – During a rehearsal for a military parade in Sanaa, a suicide bomber kills more than 100 Yemeni troops and wounds more than 200.

May 23, 2012 – Friends of Yemen pledges more than $4 billion in aid to help the country fight terrorism and boost its economy. The amount is later increased to $7.9 billion. There are delays, however, that hold up delivery of the funds, according to Reuters.

December 5, 2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry hospital in Sanaa. They ram the building with an explosives-laden vehicle and gunmen battle security forces inside. At least 52 people are killed, including four foreign doctors, according to the government.

December 15, 2013 – Parliament calls for an end to drone strikes on its territory three days after a US missile attack mistakenly hits a wedding convoy, killing 14 civilians.

February 10, 2014 – State news reports that Hadi has approved making Yemen a federal state consisting of six regions: two in the south, and four in the north. Sanaa is designated as neutral territory.

September 21, 2014 – Hadi, Houthi rebels and representatives of major political parties sign a ceasefire deal. The United Nations-brokered deal ends a month of protests by Houthis that essentially halted life in Sanaa and resulted in hundreds of people being killed or injured.

January 17, 2015 – Houthi rebels kidnap Hadi’s Chief of Staff Ahmed bin Mubarak in a push for more political power. He is released 10 days later, according to Reuters.

January 20, 2015 – Houthi rebels take over the presidential palace.

January 22, 2015 – President Hadi resigns shortly after the prime minister and the cabinet step down. Houthis say they will withdraw their fighters from Sanaa if the government agrees to constitutional changes including fair representation for marginalized groups within the country. No agreement is reached.

February 11, 2015 – The United States and the United Kingdom suspend embassy operations in Yemen.

March 20, 2015 – Terrorists bomb two mosques in Sanaa, killing at least 137 and wounding 357. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.

March 22, 2015 – Houthi rebels seize the international airport in Taiz.

March 26, 2015 – Warplanes from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and other countries strike Houthi rebel targets.

December 6, 2015 – The governor of the city of Aden and six bodyguards are killed in a car bombing. ISIS claims responsibility.

December 18-19, 2015 – At least 100 people are killed as violence erupts in the Harath district of Hajjah, a strategic border near Saudi Arabia.

April-August 2016 – Direct peace talks between the warring parties take place in Kuwait, but fail after Houthi rebels reject a UN proposal aimed at ending the war. Yemeni government officials leave the discussions shortly afterward.

November 28, 2016 – The Iranian-backed Houthi movement forms a new government in the capital. Abdul Aziz Habtoor, who defected from Hadi’s government and joined the Houthi coalition in 2015, is its leader, according to the movement’s news agency Saba.

December 18, 2016 – A suicide bomber strikes as soldiers line up to receive their salaries at the Al Solban military base in the southern city of Aden. The strike kills at least 52 soldiers and injures 34 others, two Yemeni senior security officials tell CNN. ISIS claims responsibility.

January 29, 2017 – US Central Command announces that a Navy SEAL was killed during a raid on a suspected al Qaeda hideout in a Yemeni village. The Navy SEAL is later identified as William Owens. The Pentagon reports that 14 terrorists were killed during the raid. Yemeni officials say civilians got caught in the crossfire and 13 people died, including eight-year-old Nawar Anwar Al-Awalki, the daughter of Anwar Al-Awalki. The raid was authorized by US President Donald Trump, days after he was sworn in as commander in chief.

February 8, 2017 – Two senior Yemeni officials tell CNN that the government has requested that the United States stop ground operations in the country unless it has full approval.

May 15, 2017 – Save the Children reports that 242 people have died of cholera as an outbreak spreads through Sanaa and beyond.

October 16, 2017 – US forces conduct airstrikes against two ISIS training camps in what a defense official tells CNN are the first US strikes specifically targeting ISIS in Yemen.

November 4, 2017 – Houthi rebels fire a missile at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The Saudi government says that their military intercepted the missile before it reached its target. The Saudis carry out airstrikes on Sanaa in response.

November 6, 2017 – Saudi Arabia blocks humanitarian aid planes from landing in Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the attempted missile strike on Riyadh.

December 4, 2017 – Saleh is killed by Houthi rebels as he tries to flee Sanaa.

December 6, 2017 – Trump issues a statement that he has directed his administration to call for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade.

December 21, 2017 – The International Committee of the Red Cross announces that one million cases of cholera have been reported in Yemen since the outbreak began during the spring. More than 2,200 people have died, according to the World Health Organization. It is the largest outbreak of the disease in recent history.

April 3, 2018 – Speaking at a UN Pledging Conference on Yemen, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres notes that, in its fourth year of conflict, more than three-quarters of the population, 22 million, require humanitarian aid. Regarding hunger alone, “some 18 million people are food insecure; one million more than when we convened last year.”

August 3, 2018 – The World Health Organization warns that Yemen is teetering on the brink of a third cholera epidemic.

August 9, 2018 – A Saudi-led coalition bombs a school bus, killing 40 boys returning from a day trip in the northern Saada governorate. Fifty-one people are killed in total. Later, munitions experts tell CNN that the bomb, a 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Saudi coalition blames “incorrect information” for the strike, admits it was a mistake and takes responsibility.

November 20, 2018 – Save the Children says that an estimated 85,000 children under the age of 5 may have died from extreme hunger or disease since the war in Yemen escalated in early 2015.

December 6, 2018 – The opposing sides in Yemen’s conflict begin direct talks in Sweden, the first direct discussions between the parties since 2016.

December 18, 2018 – A ceasefire reached in Sweden between Yemen’s warring parties goes into effect at midnight (4 p.m. ET December 17) in the strategic port city of Hodeidah.

February 2019 – A CNN investigation reveals that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have transferred US-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other groups on the ground in Yemen. The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other war zones.

May 2019 – A CNN investigation exposes the theft or “diversion” of food aid, some of which is being stolen by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, on a scale far greater than has been reported before.

June 2019 – The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) finds that the total number of reported fatalities in Yemen is more than 91,000 since 2015.

June 12, 2019 – A missile fired by Houthi rebels strikes the arrivals hall of Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia, injuring 26 people. On July 2, a second attack occurs when Houthi rebels execute a drone strike on the same airport, injuring nine civilians. according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.

August 11, 2019 – A spokesperson for Yemeni separatists tells CNN that they have taken control of Aden, which had been the seat of the Saudi-backed government since Houthis took over Sanaa in 2014.

January 19, 2020 – At least 80 Yemeni soldiers attending prayers at a mosque are killed and 130 others injured in ballistic missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the UN Special Envoy for Yemen.

December 26, 2020 – Yemen’s new 24-member cabinet, the power-sharing government brokered by Saudi Arabia, is sworn in. The new cohesive government will have equal representatives from Yemen’s internationally recognized government and southern separatists, their coalition allies in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.

February 12, 2021 – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces the removal of Yemen’s Houthi rebels from the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, effective February 16, reversing the Trump administration’s January 2020 designation that faced bipartisan backlash from politicians and humanitarian organizations.

April 2, 2022 – Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis and their rival Saudi-led coalition agree to a nationwide truce. It is the most significant step towards ending the hostilities since the war began seven years ago, and a win for UN and US mediators who for the past year have been trying to engineer a permanent peace deal. The renewable two-month truce is meant to halt all military operations in Yemen and across its borders.

October 2, 2022 – After a rare six months of relative calm, the truce between Yemen’s warring sides expires. The two-month truce had been renewed twice but ends after the two sides fail to renew their deal.

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October 23, 2022
Start your week smart: China, Hurricane Roslyn, Boris Johnson, Red Bull, Jan. 6 | CNN

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CNN
—

The 2022 midterm elections are now just weeks away, and with control of both chambers of Congress and dozens of governorships, secretaries of state and attorneys general posts on the line, it’s important to know both how and when to vote in your state. To help you plan your vote, CNN has gathered the deadlines for early in-person voting, absentee/mail-in voting and for voter registration in each of the 50 states leading up to Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Here’s what else you need to know to Start Your Week Smart.

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping has formally stepped into his norm-breaking third term ruling China with an iron grip on power as he revealed a new leadership team today stacked with loyal allies.

• Hurricane Roslyn slammed into Mexico’s Pacific coast as a major Category 3 storm today, bringing dangerous storm surge and flooding to parts of the country, forecasters said.

• Boris Johnson is trying to win enough support to make what would be a stunning comeback as Britain’s prime minister, as senior Conservative politicians declared their support for former finance minister Rishi Sunak. The two men have become the early favorites to replace Liz Truss, who announced her resignation last week.

• Dietrich Mateschitz, the owner and co-founder of the sports drink company Red Bull, has died, the company announced Saturday. He was 78. As well as turning his energy drink into a market leader, the Austrian billionaire also founded one of the most successful Formula One teams in recent history.

• The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol announced on Friday that the panel has officially sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump as it paints him as the central figure in the multi-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Monday

Opening statements are scheduled to begin in the sexual assault trial of disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles. Weinstein, 70, was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape charges in New York more than two years ago and sentenced to 23 years in prison. In Los Angeles, Weinstein faces multiple sexual assault charges that he pleaded not guilty to last year.

Diwali, the Hindu celebration known as the “Festival of Lights,” also begins on Monday. New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced last week that Diwali will be a public school holiday starting in 2023.

Tuesday

A Moscow regional court has set October 25 as an appeal date for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was sentenced to nine years of jail time in early August for deliberately smuggling drugs into Russia. She was arrested with less than 1 gram of cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on February 17.

In what has become one of the most closely watched Senate contests in the country, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman and Republican candidate Mehmet Oz will face each other in a televised debate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Fetterman, who had a near-fatal stroke more than five months ago, has faced a number of questions about transparency surrounding his health and recovery. Fetterman’s primary care physician released a medical report earlier this month stating that the candidate is “recovering well from his stroke” and “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

Wednesday

Hillary Clinton – former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic nominee for President – turns 75.

Saturday

October 29 is National Cat Day. “Meh,” said cats …

Hear a story of Iranian resistance

In this week’s One Thing podcast, CNN Chief International Investigative Correspondent Nima Elbagir joins us from Northern Iraq, where some Iranian dissidents have fled a brutal crackdown in response to nationwide protests set off by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. We explore if these protests will bring lasting change and hear from one Iranian-Kurdish activist who is now taking up arms across the border. Listen here.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation in front of 10 Downing Street in London on Thursday, October 20.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

a drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, October 17. A wave of drone attacks pummeled the capital city early Monday as commuters headed to work.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

ended a 15-game losing streak against Alabama. They won 52-49 with a last second 40-yard field goal.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Mississippi to record lows.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

20th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday, October 16. Xi is poised to secure a norm-breaking third term in power.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

as it splashes down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday, October 14, with European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines and Jessica Watkins. They are returning after 170 days aboard the International Space Station.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

James Webb Space Telescope. It shows a highly detailed view of the Pillars of Creation, a vista of three looming towers made of interstellar dust and gas that’s speckled with newly formed stars. The area, which lies within the Eagle Nebula about 6,500 light-years from Earth, had previously been captured by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, creating an image deemed “iconic” by space observers.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

found him not liable for battery on allegations he picked up actor Anthony Rapp and briefly laid on top of him in a bed after a party in 1986. Jurors deliberated for about an hour and concluded Rapp did not prove that Spacey “touched a sexual or intimate part” of him.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

warned it could take up to six months for the water to recede in the wake of the country’s “unprecedented” flooding.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

expelled from the United States on Monday, October 17.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

deadly drone attacks.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

See last week in 32 photos.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Check out more moving, fascinating and thought-provoking images from the week that was, curated by CNN Photos.

TV and streaming

The season finale of “House of the Dragon,” the “Game of Thrones” prequel that takes place almost 200 years before the events of its predecessor, airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO. (HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.)

“Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” makes its debut on Netflix Tuesday. The new horror anthology promises “eight tales of terror” curated by the Oscar-winning director of “The Shape of Water.”

“The Good Nurse,” starring Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, tells the story of an infamous caregiver implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients. It begins streaming on Netflix Wednesday.

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” based on the classic World War I novel, arrives on Netflix Friday.

Baseball

Four teams remain in the battle to reach the 2022 World Series, which begins on Friday. Later today, the San Diego Padres face the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. On Saturday, the Phillies beat the Padres to take a 3-1 lead in the series. The Houston Astros, meanwhile, play the New York Yankees tonight in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. Houston leads that series 3-0.

Take CNN’s weekly news quiz to see how much you remember from the week that was! So far, 66% of fellow quiz fans have gotten eight or more questions right. How will you fare?

Christina Aguilera – Beautiful (2022 Version)

‘Beautiful’

A lot has changed about the world in the last 20 years, but Christina Aguilera still thinks you’re beautiful – despite what social media sometimes tells us. Watch the updated version of her “Beautiful” music video released last week that takes aim at the messages often delivered through social media that have negative effects on our body image and mental health. (Click here to view)

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October 23, 2022
Democrats predict an ‘extremely busy’ lame duck. Here’s what’s on the agenda | CNN Politics

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A packed legislative to-do list awaits Congress when it returns to session after the midterms – and Democrats, who currently control both chambers, will face a ticking clock to enact key priorities if Republicans win back the House or manage to flip the Senate in the upcoming elections.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has predicted an “extremely busy” lame duck session – the period of time after the midterms and before a new Congress begins in January.

“We still have much to do and many important bills to consider,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor at the end of September. “Members should be prepared for an extremely, underline extremely, busy agenda in the last two months of this Congress.”

The jam-packed agenda for the lame-duck session includes: Funding the government to avert a shutdown before the end of the calendar year, passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, the annual must-pass legislation that sets the policy agenda and authorizes funding for the Department of Defense, as well as a vote in the Senate to protect same-sex marriage and the potential consideration of other key pieces of legislation.

Democrats are still limited in what they can achieve, however, given their narrow majorities in both chambers. With a 50-50 partisan split in the Senate, Democrats lack the votes to overcome the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold – and do not have the votes to abolish the filibuster. As a result, major priorities for liberal voters – like the passage of legislation protecting access to abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – will still remain out of reach for the party for the foreseeable future.

Government funding is the most pressing priority that lawmakers will confront during the lame duck. The current deadline for the expiration of funding is December 16 after the House and Senate passed an extension to avert a shutdown at the end of September.

Since the funding bill is viewed as must-pass legislation it will likely become a magnet for other priorities that lawmakers may try to tack on to ride along with it. It’s possible that further aid for Ukraine could come up as Ukraine continues to counter Russia’s invasion of the country. While that funding has bipartisan support, some conservatives are balking at the pricey contributions to Ukraine and may scrutinize more closely additional requests from the administration, a dynamic that is dividing Republicans on this key issue.

Democrats also want more funding for pandemic response, but Republicans have pushed back on that request.

One issue that may come up during the government funding effort is money for the Department of Justice investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

A House Democratic aide told CNN that final fiscal year 2023 funding levels have yet to be determined. Justice Department needs and resources are part of this ongoing conversation, but under the leadership of Rep. Matt Cartwright, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, science, and related agencies, the House bill included $34 million that would allow DOJ to fund these prosecutions without reducing their efforts in other areas.

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro told CNN in a statement, “I look forward to working with my colleagues on the House and Senate appropriations committees and passing a final 2023 spending package by the December 16th deadline.”

Meanwhile, the Senate has begun work on the NDAA, and is expected to pass the massive piece of legislation during the lame duck. Consideration of the wide-ranging bill could spark debate and a push for amendments over a variety of topics.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has called for punishing OPEC for its production cut by passing legislation that would hold foreign oil producers accountable for colluding to fix prices – and the senator has said he believes the measure can pass as an amendment to the NDAA. The legislation would clear the way for the Justice Department to sue Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations for antitrust violations.

Senate Democrats will also continue confirming judges to the federal bench nominated by President Joe Biden, a key priority for the party.

A Senate vote to protect same-sex marriage is also on tap for the lame-duck session. In mid-September, the chamber punted on a vote until after the November midterm elections as negotiators asked for more time to lock down support – a move that could make it more likely the bill will ultimately pass the chamber.

The bipartisan group of senators working on the bill said in a statement at the time, “We’ve asked Leader Schumer for additional time and we appreciate he has agreed. We are confident that when our legislation comes to the Senate floor for a vote, we will have the bipartisan support to pass the bill.” The bill would need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster.

Schumer has vowed to hold a vote on the bill, but the exact timing has not yet been locked in. Democrats have pushed for the vote after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sparking fears that the court could take aim at same-sex marriage in the future.

The Senate could take up legislation during the lame duck in response to the January 6, 2021, attack by a mob of pro-Trump supporters attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Over the summer, a bipartisan group of senators reached a deal to make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election. The proposal would still need, however, to be approved by both chambers. Notably, the Senate proposal has the backing of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

“I strongly support the modest changes that our colleagues in the working group have fleshed out after literally months of detailed discussions,” McConnell said at the end of September. “I’ll proudly support the legislation, provided that nothing more than technical changes are made to its current form.”

If the bill passes the Senate, it would also need to clear the House, which in September, passed its own version of legislation to make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election in the future by proposing changes to the Electoral Count Act.

Passing a bill to to restrict lawmakers from trading stocks is a priority for a number of moderate House Democrats – who may continue to push for the issue to be taken up during the lame duck, though whether there will be a vote is still to be determined and other pressing must-pass items like government funding could crowd out the issue. The House did not vote on a proposal prior to the midterm elections.

“It’s a complicated issue, as you can imagine, as a new rule for members they have to follow, and their families as I understand, so I think it deserves careful study to make sure if we do something, we do it right,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told CNN last month.

Meanwhile, it’s not yet clear when exactly the nation will run up against the debt limit and it appears unlikely for now that Congress will act to resolve the issue during the lame-duck session, especially as other must-pass bills compete for floor time. But political battle lines are already being drawn and maneuvering is underway in Washington over the contentious and high-stakes issue.

A group of House Democrats recently sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer calling for legislation to “permanently undo the threat posed by the debt limit” during the post-election lame-duck session. The letter, led by Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, was signed by several prominent House Democrats, including Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Biden on Friday gave a window into how he’s preparing for a looming political showdown over the debt ceiling, stating unequivocally that he will not relent to Republican lawmakers threatening to send the nation into default if he doesn’t meet their demands, but adding that he doesn’t support efforts from within his own party to abolish the debt limit entirely.

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October 23, 2022
Giorgia Meloni is set to be sworn in as Italy’s prime minister. Some fear the hard-right turn she’s promised to take | CNN

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Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right leader who is due to be sworn in as Italy’s first female prime minister, won the election on a campaign built around a promise to block migrant ships and support for traditional “family values” and anti-LGBTQ themes.

She heads an alliance of far-right and center-right parties, her own Brothers of Italy chief among them, and is set to form the most right-wing government Italy has seen in decades.

Meloni’s win in parliamentary elections last month suggests the allure of nationalism remains undimmed in Italy – but her vow to take the country on a hard-right turn still leaves many uncertain what will happen next.

The new government is made up of a coalition with two other right-wing leaders. One is Matteo Salvini, a former interior minister who became the darling of the hard-right in 2018 when he shifted his party, the League, once a northern secessionist party, into a nationalist force.

The other is Silvio Berlusconi, the center-right former Italian prime minister widely remembered for his “bunga bunga” sex scandals with young women. Both men have previously publicly expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has prompted questions over what the coalition’s approach to Russia will be.

And just this week – days before consultations on forming the government were set to begin – secretly recorded audio was circulated in which Berlusconi appeared to lay the blame for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine at Kyiv’s door, and boasted of having reestablished relations with the Russian leader.

“I reconnected a little bit with President Putin, quite a bit, in the sense that for my birthday he gave me 20 bottles of Vodka and a very sweet letter, and I responded with giving him bottles of Lambrusco,” said Berlusconi in the clip, released by Italian news agency LaPresse on Tuesday. The 86-year-old billionaire and media magnate was speaking with Forza Italia party members at the time.

A party spokesperson denied Berlusconi was in touch with Putin, saying he had been telling parliamentarians “an old story referring to an episode many years ago.” Berlusconi defended his comments in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Thursday, saying they had been taken out of context.

Amid backlash over the comments, Meloni, who has been a strong supporter of Ukraine as it battles Moscow’s invasion, sought to clarify where she and and the coalition would stand once in power.

“I have and always will be clear, I intend to lead a government with a foreign policy that is clear and unequivocal. Italy is fully part of Europe and the Atlantic Alliance. Anyone who does not agree with this cornerstone will not be able to be part of the government, at the cost of not being a government. With us governing, Italy will never be the weak link of the West,” she said.

Nonetheless, liberals within Italy and the European Union are fearful of what the promised rightward turn may mean for the country and its future – while conservative constituents feel only a strong-arm politician, like Meloni, can lead the country out of crisis amid soaring energy costs and high youth unemployment.

“Meloni is not expressing the vote choices of radical right-wing voters, because we have data that shows that she has been voted for by mostly the center-right,” political science professor Lorenzo De Sio of the Luiss Guido Carli University told CNN.

“I would say that the motto for Meloni is to be a sort of new conservative – that is to say, conservativism for the 21st century. She might bear some far-back connection to the post-fascist legacy, but clearly that’s not the core of her political platform now.”

Meloni grew up in the working-class Roman neighborhood of Garbatella, a historically left-wing part of southern Rome that was built during Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship. She got her political start in the movement Youth Front, a political organization with fascist roots.

She went on to create her own political party, Brothers of Italy, which in just four years went from taking 4% of the vote to winning 26% in last month’s election. While that doesn’t represent the majority of Italians, thanks to her partnership with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Salvini’s League, the coalition has enough seats in parliament to govern the country.

Back in the Garbatella neighborhood, among the fruit and vegetable stands that Meloni would go to with her mother, some locals remember her as a child, long before she embraced politics. Opinions on what she will be like as a leader vary widely.

“I know her very well. I knew her since she was little,” said Aldo, a fruit and vegetable vendor from Garbatella who has run his market stand for decades. “Her mother would come shop here. She always had a book in her hand to study. If she goes forward like she did when she was little, she’ll be strong.”

He added: “You have to have a strong fist. Period. You understand? That’s how you move forward. Otherwise Italy, kapoof, it goes away!”

Just across the market, Gloria, who was born and raised in Garbatella and helps her son at his Roman food stand, has very different views.

“What she has said until now terrifies me,” she told CNN.

“There are many people that connect with these kinds of conservative ideals because they are racist, because they are not progressive. I have three children and I wonder, will my daughter have the freedom to have an abortion if she wants, to be a lesbian?”

Meloni has sought in recent times to distance her party from its neo-fascist roots. Her policy proposals have also evolved over time, including walking back some of her more anti-EU ideas.

Back in 2014, she said, “Italy has to leave the euro!” and called for Congress to revoke sanctions on Russia. Now, according to her proposed plan for government and latest comments, she wants Italy to be a “protagonist within Europe.”

Emiliano, a local who was shopping at the Garbatella market, said he didn’t bother to vote in the latest election. “Neither the left nor the right deserve a vote. Before, politicians ate but we ate also. Now only they eat,” he said.

With the skyrocketing cost of energy, the risk for Italian businesses and households is high. The agricultural sector, which represents 1.96% of Italy’s GDP, is facing a shortage of everything from fertilizers, to diesel, to electricity and glass, causing prices to rise rapidly with a devastating impact on farm budgets, according to Coldiretti, the largest association for agricultural assistance in Italy.

According to a recent report by Coldiretti, rising production costs have forced many small agricultural businesses to shut down for the season because they can’t cope.

Sabina Petrucci manages her family’s olive oil company, Olio Petrucci, and is also a member of Coldiretti’s European council for young agricultural workers. She feels hopeful and believes the only way to fix the present issues is through strong political leadership.

“We need a very concrete government who helps us with energy costs and also to achieve the financial aid and financial help we may need in the future,” said Petrucci. “Many of the producers in the area are stopping their production, they really are frightened about the increasing costs.”

She describes rising energy costs as “the major threat for us,” adding: “We have opened our mill, but the production costs have risen throughout the summer.”

Italy has the third oldest population in the world, but Meloni and her party have been working to connect with Italy’s youth, the next generation of voters. She herself became involved in politics at 15, after registering with Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party established by Giorgio Almirante, who was a minister in the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s government.

Francesco Todde is a leader of the National Youth movement, a political movement put in place by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party in 2014 to connect with a younger generation of politically interested Italians who have been frustrated with the political status quo.

“Giorgia Meloni comes from a political youth path, so she always paid a lot of attention to the youth and made reforms for the youth. At the start of her political career she was minister of youth,” he told CNN.

Elisa Segnini Bocchia, another committed member of the National Youth movement, responds to why some are quick to associate this movement with fascism, saying: “Our past isn’t our future. So, we don’t look at the past. We look for the new future.”

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October 21, 2022
Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni named as Italy’s first female prime minister | CNN

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Populist firebrand Giorgia Meloni has been named as Italy’s first female prime minister, becoming the country’s most far-right leader since Benito Mussolini.

She received the mandate to form a government from Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella on Friday afternoon after two days of official consultations, and is set to be sworn in at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Saturday.

Last month’s general election resulted in an alliance of far-right and center-right parties, led by her ultraconservative Brothers of Italy, winning enough seats in Italy’s parliament to form a government.

Meloni announced her government picks in Rome’s Quirinal Palace, making the leader of Italy’s far right League party, Matteo Salvini, infrastructure minister.

Giancarlo Giorgetti, also of the League party, was made economy minister. Antonio Tajani from the Forza Italia party was given the position of minister of foreign affairs while the role of defense minister went to Guido Crosetto, one of the founders of the Brothers of Italy party.

The new government will be made up of a coalition of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, Salvini’s League party and the Forza Italia party, led by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The Brothers of Italy received nine ministries whereas Forza Italia and the League each received five ministries.

Meloni will be sworn into office during a ceremony at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Saturday morning.

Pulling together her new cabinet has exposed tensions. This week, the controversial former leader Berlusconi made headlines when audio released by Italian news agency LaPresse revealed the 86-year-old speaking about his “reestablished” relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Berlusconi’s office confirmed to CNN on Thursday that the clips were authentic – having apparently been secretly recorded during a meeting of his Forza Italia party in the parliamentary chamber on Tuesday.

In the audio, the billionaire and media magnate says he has “reestablished relations with President Putin” and goes on to boast that the Russian leader called him “the first of his five true friends.”

His comments raised eyebrows, as diplomatic relations between Russia and Western leaders remain strained amid the Kremlin’s grueling military assault on Ukraine.

Berlusconi has been the subject of multiple corruption and bribery trials during his tumultuous political career.

Meloni has been a strong supporter of Ukraine as it battles Moscow’s invasion. Amid backlash for her coalition over Berlusconi’s leaked comments, she restated her foreign policy line.

“With us governing, Italy will never be the weak link of the West. The nation of spaghetti and mandolini that is so dear to many of our detractors will relaunch its credibility and defend its interests,” Meloni said late Wednesday on her Instagram account.

Speaking earlier Friday after a meeting with Mattarella and her coalition partners, Meloni said it was necessary to form the new government “as soon as possible.”

“We are ready to govern Italy,” Meloni’s official Facebook page stated. “We will be able to face the urgencies and challenges of our time with awareness and competence.”

Meloni entered Italy’s crowded political scene in 2006 and in 2012 co-founded the Brothers of Italy, a party whose agenda is rooted in Euroskepticism and anti-immigration policies.

The group’s popularity soared ahead of September’s election, as Italian voters once again rejected mainstream politics and opted for a fringe figure.

She first made her name as vice-president of the National Alliance, an unapologetically neo-fascist group formed by supporters of Benito Mussolini. Meloni herself openly admired the dictator as a youth, but later distanced herself from his brand of fascism – despite keeping the tricolor flame symbolizing the eternal fire on his tomb in the logo for the Brothers of Italy.

She has pursued a staunchly Conservative agenda throughout her time in politics, frequently questioning LGBT rights, abortion rights and immigration policies.

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October 21, 2022
Jan. 6 rioter who brought guns onto US Capitol grounds sentenced to 5 years in jail | CNN Politics

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A January 6 rioter who carried two loaded handguns onto US Capitol grounds during the insurrection was sentenced to 60 months in jail on Friday after pleading guilty to assaulting an officer that day and unlawfully carrying a firearm.

Mark Mazza, 56, entered the Capitol grounds armed with two handguns, one of which – a revolver called the “Judge” loaded with shotgun shells and hollow point bullets – he lost on the lower west terrace just outside the building.

After losing the gun, Mazza joined the mob in a tunnel leading inside the Capitol, a scene where police were brutally attacked for hours by rioters armed with bats, poles, chemical spray, and the officer’s own weapons.

During the attack, Mazza – still armed with his second pistol, according to prosecutors – took a baton from one officer and used it against him.

“This is our f***ing house!” Mazza yelled after attacking the officer, according to his plea agreement. “We own this house! We want our house! Get out of the citizens of the United States’ way!”

Dressed in a forest green prison jumpsuit, Mazza told Judge James Boasberg on Friday that he “got caught up in the mob mentality that I never anticipated.”

“I’m not quite the monster” the government “painted me as,” Mazza added, saying that he had never intended to fight police that day and left the tunnel as soon as he realized what he was doing was wrong. Mazza also claimed that he assisted other officers outside of the tunnel.

“The tale you have to tell is a familiar one,” Boasberg told Mazza, adding that “it was the decisions people like you made (to) assault the Capitol in what was a true insurrection.”

Boasberg added he was “alarmed” Mazza had brought two firearms with him and that, while Mazza claimed he was only armed because he heard Washington, DC, was the “murder capital,” the mall and Capitol building are not dangerous areas.

Before being sentenced, Mazza again asked for mercy, telling the judge he was still “hoping I’m going to see my parents again.”

Mazza will also have to pay a fine of $2,000 in restitution for damage done to the Capitol.

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October 21, 2022
January 6 committee announces it has sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump | CNN Politics

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The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol announced on Friday that the panel has officially sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump as it paints him as the central figure in the multi-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The committee issued the subpoena to try to compel Trump to sit for a deposition under oath and to provide documents. The panel is ordering Trump turn over documents by November 4 and “one or more days of deposition testimony beginning on or about November 14.” Unlike with previous subpoena announcements, the committee released the entire subpoena it sent to Trump along with the documents it is requesting.

While it is not clear if Trump will comply with the subpoena, the action serves as a way for the committee to set down a marker and make clear they want information directly from Trump as the panel investigates the attack.

“As demonstrated in our hearings, we have assembled overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transition of power,” the committee wrote in its letter.

The panel summarizes what it presented in its hearings to demonstrate why it believes Trump “personally orchestrated and oversaw” the plan.

Trump and his legal team have been discussing how to respond to the subpoena, a source familiar with the situation told CNN, stressing that no firm decisions had been made. Trump has tapped lawyers Harmeet Dhillon and Jim Trusty to take the lead on responding to the subpoena.

The former president posted a lengthy response criticizing the committee on Truth Social after members voted unanimously to subpoena him but did not say whether he would comply. Trump also recently shared a Fox story on Truth Social that claimed he “loves the idea of testifying.” But Trump could also fight the subpoena in court, and such a legal challenge would likely outlast the committee’s mandate.

In its subpoena, the committee specifically demands Trump turn over any communications, sent or received during the period of November 3, 2020, to January 20, 2021, with over a dozen of his close allies who have emerged as key players in the broader plan to overturn the 2020 election.

The committee also notes that it wants Trump to testify about his interactions with several individuals, including people on the same list, who invoked their Fifth Amendment rights when questioned by the committee about their dealings with the former President.

The House committee latest public hearing, where members voted to subpoena him, served as a closing argument to the American public ahead of the midterm election that Trump is at the center of the multifaceted plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“It is our obligation to seek Donald Trump’s testimony,” the panel’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said ahead of the subpoena vote during the hearing.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman of the committee, said during the hearing that seeking Trump’s testimony under oath remains “a key task” because several witnesses closest to the former President invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to their interactions with Trump.

“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion” Cheney said, referring to Trump.

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October 21, 2022