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Category: Politics

Meta: Systemic censorship of Palestine content

Meta: Systemic censorship of Palestine content

Human Rights Watch: Meta’s content moderation policies and systems have increasingly silenced voices in support of Palestine on Instagram and Facebook in the wake of the hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 51-page report, “Meta’s Broken Promises: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook,” documents a pattern of undue removal and suppression of protected speech including peaceful expression in support of Palestine and public debate about…

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U.S. and Europe eye Russian assets to aid Ukraine as funding dries up

U.S. and Europe eye Russian assets to aid Ukraine as funding dries up

The New York Times reports: The Biden administration is quietly signaling new support for seizing more than $300 billion in Russian central bank assets stashed in Western nations, and has begun urgent discussions with allies about using the funds to aid Ukraine’s war effort at a moment when financial support is waning, according to senior American and European officials. Until recently, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen had argued that without action by Congress, seizing the funds was “not something that…

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Entire Gaza population facing hunger crisis, famine risk, UN-backed report finds

Entire Gaza population facing hunger crisis, famine risk, UN-backed report finds

Reuters reports: The entire 2.3 million population of the Gaza Strip is facing crisis levels of hunger and the risk of famine is increasing each day as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on, a U.N.-backed body said in a report published on Thursday. That makes the proportion of households in the Palestinian enclave that are in hunger crisis, or suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity, the largest ever recorded globally, the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification…

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Fighting terrorism did not mean Israel had to ‘flatten Gaza’, says Emmanuel Macron

Fighting terrorism did not mean Israel had to ‘flatten Gaza’, says Emmanuel Macron

The Guardian reports: Emmanuel Macron has said that Israel’s goal of fighting terrorism did not mean it had to “flatten Gaza”, referring to its response to Hamas’s attack on 7 October. “We cannot let the idea take root that an efficient fight against terrorism implies to flatten Gaza or attack civilian populations indiscriminately,” Macron told the France 5 broadcaster. The French president called on Israel “to stop this response because it is not appropriate, because all lives are worth the…

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War on Gaza: Netanyahu, Hamas and the origins of the 2023 Nakba war

War on Gaza: Netanyahu, Hamas and the origins of the 2023 Nakba war

Avi Shlaim writes: Politically speaking, Netanyahu looks like a dead man walking. What is clear is that Netanyahu’s new policy of eradicating Hamas has no chance of succeeding. Hamas has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which commits terrorist acts when it targets Israeli civilians. Even if all its commanders are killed, they would be quickly replaced by new recruits and more militant ones. But Hamas is also a political party with institutions and a social movement with…

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Trump vows to amp up the Hitler talk

Trump vows to amp up the Hitler talk

Rolling Stone reports: In the days following Donald Trump’s remarks that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” the 2024 GOP frontrunner was met with a wave of Democratic and media criticism, likening his speech to Nazi rhetoric. In response to the Adolf Hitler comparisons, Trump has privately vowed to further amp up the volume on his extreme, anti-immigrant messaging, according to two sources who’ve spoken to him since his rally in New Hampshire last weekend. “He wants the…

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Putin ‘has Trump’s number’ and still sees him ‘as an asset’, says Fiona Hill

Putin ‘has Trump’s number’ and still sees him ‘as an asset’, says Fiona Hill

The Guardian reports: Vladimir Putin has had Donald Trump’s “number for some time … knows how to manipulate him” and still sees him “as an asset”, the former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill said, discussing the Russian leader and the Republican presidential frontrunner. “That’s literally [Putin’s] trump card,” Hill told the One Decision Podcast, hosted by Jane Ferguson, a reporter, and Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, when asked if she thought the Russian president, bogged down…

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A broken immigration system keeps workers out of jobs the U.S. needs to fill

A broken immigration system keeps workers out of jobs the U.S. needs to fill

The Washington Post reports: The leaders of Sanford Medical Center had waited all summer to learn the fate of the 59 nurses planning to move across the world to their isolated state capital. The reinforcements from the Philippines, Kenya and Nigeria would allow the hospital to expand its heart unit and staff a new wing. Costly temporary nurses would go. The scramble to fill shifts would finally be over. But by the time the hospital’s department heads gathered in a…

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Chris Hayes: The war in Gaza must end

Chris Hayes: The war in Gaza must end

.@chrislhayes: “There is no terrorist attack, no matter how horrific—and truly Oct. 7 was horrific—that can wash clean what we are seeing in Gaza and what we as Americans and our government are abetting. It must end. We must stop it.” pic.twitter.com/2nKYlWoaGl — All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) December 20, 2023

Humanitarian groups urge Defense Secretary Austin to halt Israel aid over Gaza operations

Humanitarian groups urge Defense Secretary Austin to halt Israel aid over Gaza operations

Politico reports: A group of prominent humanitarian organizations is calling on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to halt military and other aid to Israel over its operations in Gaza that they say have caused “staggering” civilian harm, according to a letter sent to the Pentagon chief on Wednesday. The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, urged Austin in the letter to “withhold U.S. assistance, in accordance with U.S. law and policy, that would facilitate violations of international humanitarian law”…

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What may follow from Colorado Supreme Court’s decision that Trump is not eligible for primary ballot

What may follow from Colorado Supreme Court’s decision that Trump is not eligible for primary ballot

  The Colorado Supreme Court, having agreed that Trump engaged in insurrection, ruled in a 4-3 decision that Trump is disqualified from the presidency. Therefore, he is not eligible to be on the 2024 primary ballot in Colorado. Trump’s lawyers have already stated they plan to appeal the decision. Former federal prosecutor, Harry Litman, outlines the various ways in which the U.S. Supreme Court may rule if it takes up the case.   Discussion between Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin…

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What happened when the U.S. failed to prosecute an insurrectionist ex-president

What happened when the U.S. failed to prosecute an insurrectionist ex-president

Jill Lepore wrote earlier this month: Jefferson Davis, the half-blind ex-President of the Confederate States of America, leaned on a cane as he hobbled into a federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. Only days before, a Chicago Tribune reporter, who’d met Davis on the boat ride to Richmond, had written that “his step is light and elastic.” But in court, facing trial for treason, Davis, fifty-eight, gave every appearance of being bent and broken. A reporter from Kentucky described him as…

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America has a McGonigal problem

America has a McGonigal problem

Mattathias Schwartz writes: The case of Charles McGonigal is bigger than one corrupt FBI agent. In fact, it’s bigger than the entire FBI. The legal case against Charles McGonigal, the FBI’s former New York counterintelligence chief — a scandal that launched a thousand conspiracy theories — is beginning to wind down. Last week, a judge in the Southern District of New York sentenced McGonigal to 50 months in prison; a second judge in Washington, DC, is expected to sentence McGonigal…

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Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China

Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China

NBC News reports: Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided, according to three current and former U.S. officials. Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force, the officials said. The Chinese leader also referenced public predictions…

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Colorado Supreme Court kicks Trump off the state’s 2024 primary ballot for violating the U.S. Constitution

Colorado Supreme Court kicks Trump off the state’s 2024 primary ballot for violating the U.S. Constitution

NBC News reports: In a bombshell decision, Colorado’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that former President Donald Trump’s candidacy in the state’s primary next year is prohibited on constitutional grounds. The first-of-its kind ruling stems from a lawsuit that focused a little-known provision in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Similar challenges in other states have proven unsuccessful. “A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of…

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Democratic lawmakers who served in military and CIA urge Biden to push Israel to change course in Gaza

Democratic lawmakers who served in military and CIA urge Biden to push Israel to change course in Gaza

NBC News reports: A number of Democratic lawmakers who served in the military and in the CIA say Israel’s tactics in the Gaza Strip are endangering efforts to defeat Hamas militants and called on President Joe Biden to use “all our leverage” to secure an immediate shift in Israel’s approach. In a letter sent Monday to Biden, the House lawmakers said they were “deeply concerned” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current military strategy in Gaza. “The mounting civilian death…

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