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Category: Politics

German Christmas market attacker is Saudi anti-Islamist who shared pro-Israel content, WSJ

German Christmas market attacker is Saudi anti-Islamist who shared pro-Israel content, WSJ

The Times of Israel reports: The suspect in the deadly ramming at a Christmas market in Germany on Friday was an anti-Islam activist who shared pro-Israel content on social media in the wake of the October 7 attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported. Five people were killed and some 200 injured when an SUV plowed through the festive crowd in Magdeburg. One of the victims was a young child. Regional premier Reiner Haselhoff said that the suspect is a 50-year-old…

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Elon Musk endorses Germany’s neo-Nazi AfD party

Elon Musk endorses Germany’s neo-Nazi AfD party

CNN reports: Elon Musk is wading into more than just American politics, throwing his support behind a far-right German political party. Musk, the billionaire Trump ally who is playing a public role in the incoming administration, posted in support Friday of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, after the German government collapsed this week. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote Friday while re-posting a video from far-right political activist Naomi Seibt. The AfD, which has recently seen its popularity…

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AfD: Germans float ban on elected far-right party after scandal

AfD: Germans float ban on elected far-right party after scandal

BBC News reports: Germany is wrestling with a potentially explosive debate over whether to ban the far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD. Germans have been shocked by revelations that senior figures attended a meeting where mass deportations were allegedly discussed. A growing backlash has sparked large protests and public condemnation. The AfD, which continues to poll second nationally, says it’s being scandalously smeared by opponents. “Panic is spreading. We can smell your fear,” AfD MP Bernd Baumann declared this…

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Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in

Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in

Alexander Hurst writes: Musk’s new obsessions (beyond the validation and human affection that he mistakenly believes he will find on social media) are attacking public servants, slashing social spending and going after the most vulnerable. “In most cases, the word ‘homeless’ is a lie,” Musk tweeted recently. “It’s usually a propaganda word for violent drug addicts with severe mental illness.” The most charitable interpretation is that Musk exists at various points along the Dunning Kruger scale. He’s a fantastic venture…

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Kurds in Syria fear a new war after fall of Assad

Kurds in Syria fear a new war after fall of Assad

Murtaza Hussain writes: The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has been a cause of celebration for opponents of his regime, including many of the country’s Kurds. During Syria’s chaotic civil war, political groups representing the historically oppressed ethnic group, whose population spans across multiple countries in the region, managed to carve out autonomous zones in Syria’s north while working closely with U.S. forces in the war against the Islamic State. But since Assad’s fall, the future has become increasingly…

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Journalist arrests surge in 2024 amid Israel-Gaza war protests

Journalist arrests surge in 2024 amid Israel-Gaza war protests

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reports: While revelers and protesters alike gathered near New York City’s Times Square on Dec. 31, 2023, a freelance reporter rang in the new year from a holding cell 10 blocks away. Roni Jacobson was attempting to cover a pro-Palestinian demonstration for the New York Daily News when she said she bumped into a rookie officer and was quickly arrested. She was released after nearly 24 hours in custody when the charges against her for obstruction…

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Human Rights Watch: Israel is guilty of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza

Human Rights Watch: Israel is guilty of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza

Middle East Eye reports: Israel is guilty of the crime of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has concluded in a new report published on Thursday. The US-based human rights organisation found that Israel has inflicted conditions of life in Gaza calculated to destroy the enclave’s Palestinian population. This amounts to extermination, which is a crime against humanity, and acts of genocide. Coming two weeks after fellow rights group Amnesty International similarly concluded that Israel…

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‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp

‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp

+972 and Local Call report: In February, Rami was arrested by the Israeli army at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. The 42-year-old Palestinian was taken to the notorious Sde Teiman detention center, where, like thousands of Gazans detained there, he endured severe abuse at the hands of the guards. But he was soon transferred out. “I thought I was being returned to Gaza, but I found myself in another prison,” he told +972 and Local Call. That prison was Ofer Camp —…

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Understanding Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest

Understanding Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest

  Upon his reelection, President-elect Donald Trump tapped Tesla (TSLA) CEO and vocal supporter Elon Musk to co-lead a proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. The agency would aid in cutting down the government’s excess spending and overregulation. Could there be a conflict of interest in giving an industry titan such as Musk this much authority? Columbia Law School professor Richard Briffault explains the expectations from the public and lawmakers if this DOGE is formalized as an…

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It’s both class war and culture war

It’s both class war and culture war

Timothy Snyder writes: Trump is staffing his cabinet with billionaires, who will break the government out of incompetence, spite, or avarice. So why not just go for class politics, and forget about everything else? As the country reaches unprecedented levels of inequality, why not just tear off the oligarchs’ masks? Why not present them as merchants of death? We should all know who they are, how wealthy they are, from what sources, and how they profit from holding power. And,…

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Spending impasse threatens to close National Park System

Spending impasse threatens to close National Park System

National Parks Traveler reports: The National Park System could close this weekend if Congress can’t move past its budget impasse and fund the federal government. While Congress appeared on track this week to adopt a bipartisan proposal to fund the government through March under what’s known as a Continuing Resolution, hard conservative members in the House of Representatives were balking against it, and then President-elect Donald Trump urged Congress to reject the agreement. Along with forcing a government shutdown, rejection…

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Latakia, long Assad’s heartland, is grappling with the prospect of a new era

Latakia, long Assad’s heartland, is grappling with the prospect of a new era

Kamal Shahin writes: Late on the night of Dec. 7, a trusted friend in Damascus leaked an extraordinary piece of news to me: President Bashar al-Assad was set to announce his resignation within hours. I found it impossible to believe. To protect my credibility as a journalist and avoid falling victim to misinformation, I posted a vague message on my Facebook page: “A big surprise tomorrow.” Like many Syrians, I doubted the news. Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis…

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Hyundai is becoming the new Tesla

Hyundai is becoming the new Tesla

Patrick George writes: Hyundai has a lot riding on a patch of rural Georgia. In October, the South Korean auto giant opened a new electric-vehicle factory west of Savannah at the eye-watering cost of $7.6 billion. It’s the largest economic-development project in the state’s history (one that prompted the Georgia statehouse to pass a resolution recognizing “Hyundai Day”). For now, workers at the so-called Metaplant are building the company’s popular electric SUV, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, and soon more EVs will be built there, too….

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Trump is going after Canada now – but everyone else is next

Trump is going after Canada now – but everyone else is next

Stephen Collinson writes: Donald Trump is stoking political mayhem in Canada by intensifying a crisis that threatens to oust Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The president-elect’s bullying of an embattled political foe, whom he mocks as the governor of the 51st state in an insult to America’s loyal northern neighbor, is a preview of a belligerent strategy as he scours the globe for big second-term wins before even taking office. And his willingness to plunge into an ally’s domestic politics ought…

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Trump planning to target progressive non-profits, watchdog warns

Trump planning to target progressive non-profits, watchdog warns

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump and his Republican allies are planning to target progressive groups they perceive as political enemies in a sign of deepening “authoritarianism”, a US watchdog has warned. The president-elect could potentially use the justice department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to target non-profits and researchers, launch politically motivated investigations and pass legislation to restrict their activities. “Trump has made it clear that he plans to use his second term to attack the progressive ecosystem and his…

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Now is not the time for Democrats to surrender

Now is not the time for Democrats to surrender

Jamelle Bouie writes: Democrats may be in the minority, but they are not yet an opposition. What’s the difference? An opposition would use every opportunity it had to demonstrate its resolute stance against the incoming administration. It would do everything in its power to try to seize the public’s attention and make hay of the president-elect’s efforts to put lawlessness at the center of American government. An opposition would highlight the extent to which Donald Trump has no intention of…

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