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Category: Politics

Systematic violation of human rights: The incarceration conditions of Palestinians in Israel since Oct 7

Systematic violation of human rights: The incarceration conditions of Palestinians in Israel since Oct 7

Physicians for Human Rights Israel: Since October 7th, any semblance of restraint has been cast aside regarding the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli incarceration and detention facilities. Forced disappearances, torture, and severe violations of human rights, particularly in terms of health, are now inherent in the practices and policies of Israeli security bodies responsible for Palestinians in custody. These actions have garnered support and, at times, were explicitly demanded by the political ranks. Simultaneously, the judicial system has allowed these…

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A key withdrawal shows Ukraine doesn’t have enough artillery to fight Russia

A key withdrawal shows Ukraine doesn’t have enough artillery to fight Russia

The Associated Press reports: Dwindling ammunition threatens Ukraine’s hold on the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line under withering assault by Russian artillery. Defensive lines are in jeopardy. Ukrainian forces withdrew from the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region on Saturday after daily Russian onslaughts from three directions for the last four months. Avdiivka was a stronghold for Ukrainian positions deeper inside the country, away from Russia. A frontline city ever since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, the fortified settlement…

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Denmark will donate its ‘entire artillery’ to Ukraine

Denmark will donate its ‘entire artillery’ to Ukraine

The Kyiv Independent reports: Denmark has decided to deliver all the artillery rounds from its stockpiles to Ukraine, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the Ukrainian Lunch at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 17. Artillery shells are among the most crucial military supplies for Ukraine, as they are used daily in high numbers on the Ukrainian battlefields. “If you ask Ukrainians, they are asking us for ammunition now, artillery now. From the Danish side, we decided to donate our…

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Alexei Navalny and the West’s corruption

Alexei Navalny and the West’s corruption

In 2021, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, said: We are here to honor Alexei Navalny, a man hounded, persecuted, beaten, poisoned, and jailed for standing up to a thuggish autocracy that is well on its way to classic totalitarian rule. His crime? Peacefully using his fundamental human right of freedom of expression to challenge a regime-held together by storm-troopers, violence, and murder. Navalny’s story is not a new one. In the decade before the collapse of communism,…

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Why are Israel and its Western allies targeting UNRWA?

Why are Israel and its Western allies targeting UNRWA?

  About 20 countries have announced suspension of funding to UNRWA, the agency that has been providing services to Palestinian refugees since 1950. The official reason for the suspension was Israel’s accusation that a dozen UNRWA employees in Gaza had participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks. To understand the potential consequences of undermining UNRWA – especially amid a humanitarian catastrophe – host Steve Clemons speaks with Leila Hilal, a former adviser to the UNRWA commissioner-general, and Anne Irfan, lecturer…

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Rep. Rashida Tlaib urges Michigan Democrats to vote against Biden in the primary

Rep. Rashida Tlaib urges Michigan Democrats to vote against Biden in the primary

NBC News reports: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., is urging Democrats in Dearborn, Michigan, to vote against President Joe Biden in the state’s upcoming Democratic primary. “If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted,” Tlaib said in a new video posted to social media on Saturday while standing outside an early voting location. She joined growing calls from progressive activists in Michigan to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s Democratic presidential primary on Feb. 27 instead of…

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Navalny’s body not in morgue where authorities said it was, aides say

Navalny’s body not in morgue where authorities said it was, aides say

The Moscow Times reports: Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s body is not in the morgue where authorities said it was brought after his death, his team announced Saturday. “Alexei’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the Salekhard morgue. It’s closed, however, the colony has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there,” Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly Twitter. “The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh…

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Kremlin runs disinformation campaign to undermine Zelensky, documents show

Kremlin runs disinformation campaign to undermine Zelensky, documents show

The Washington Post reports: When news first emerged last month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was preparing to fire his top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, officials in Moscow seemed jubilant. They had been trying to orchestrate just such a split for many months, documents show. “We need to strengthen the conflict between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, along the lines of ‘he intends to fire him,’” one Kremlin political strategist wrote a year ago, after a meeting of senior Russian officials…

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Biden administration is said to slow early stage of shift to electric cars

Biden administration is said to slow early stage of shift to electric cars

The New York Times reports: In a concession to automakers and labor unions, the Biden administration intends to relax elements of one of its most ambitious strategies to combat climate change, limits on tailpipe emissions that are designed to get Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, according to three people familiar with the plan. Instead of essentially requiring automakers to rapidly ramp up sales of electric vehicles over the next few years, the administration would give car…

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Why Trump’s sleaziest criminal case is so important

Why Trump’s sleaziest criminal case is so important

David Corn writes: Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s indictment-o-rama, the politerati have considered the criminal case filed in New York City against the former president by District Attorney Alvin Bragg to be a sideshow. Though this case has key elements of a bona fide scandal—porn star! hush money! alleged extramarital affair!—pundits and politicos have struck a dismissive attitude toward Trump’s Stormy Daniels mess and the legal peril it poses him. Perhaps because it’s not as weighty a matter as…

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In New York, the Trump brand is costing some condo owners

In New York, the Trump brand is costing some condo owners

The New York Times reports: In the world of real estate, Donald J. Trump’s name has long been synonymous with luxury. At one of his buildings in Manhattan, a five-story waterfall slides down a wall of Breccia Perniche marble. White-gloved doormen, cascading chandeliers and panoramic views of the city’s skyline are the hallmarks of another. It’s that image of luxury, which he turned into a brand, that the former president held up as a rebuttal to the recent lawsuit that…

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As G7 expresses ‘deep concern’ for Palestinians in Rafah, Biden prepares to send Israel more bombs

As G7 expresses ‘deep concern’ for Palestinians in Rafah, Biden prepares to send Israel more bombs

A statement by the G7 Foreign Ministers which has thus far not been reported by a single U.S. outlet, says: [The foreign ministers including U.S. Secretary of State Blinken] called for urgent action to address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, particularly the plight of 1.5 million civilians sheltering in Rafah and they expressed deep concern for the potentially devastating consequences on the civilian population of Israel’s further full scale military operation in that area. They underscored that securing full,…

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National security experts criticize Biden’s handling of classified documents

National security experts criticize Biden’s handling of classified documents

NBC News reports: The controversy over special counsel Robert Hur’s characterization of President Joe Biden’s memory has obscured one of the most surprising findings in his report: evidence that Biden knowingly kept classified materials at home for years and failed to turn them in. After a yearlong investigation, Hur found that the evidence of “willful retention” — the language in the criminal statute — wasn’t strong enough to justify a prosecution. And he explained in detail why the criminal charges…

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NY governor expresses support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza but then apologizes for ‘poor choice of words’

NY governor expresses support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza but then apologizes for ‘poor choice of words’

Reuters reports: New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday apologized for remarks she made at a Jewish philanthropy event in New York City that went viral on social media and which suggested Israel had justification to destroy Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. “If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day,” Hochul said in a portion of her speech on Thursday at an event for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation…

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Trump allies plan new sweeping abortion restrictions

Trump allies plan new sweeping abortion restrictions

The New York Times reports: Allies of former President Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country. Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump’s allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a…

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Can Trump pay? What if he doesn’t? Here’s what to know about Trump’s massive civil judgments

Can Trump pay? What if he doesn’t? Here’s what to know about Trump’s massive civil judgments

Politico reports: A seven-figure verdict, an eight-figure verdict and, now, a nine-figure verdict. Donald Trump has been hit with all three in the past nine months, with Friday’s $354 million penalty for New York business fraud by far the most massive. He is now on the hook for over $440 million in civil judgments as he heads toward the Republican nomination — and as he prepares for one or more criminal trials this year. Those criminal cases could put him…

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