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Category: Politics

Iran strikes conciliatory tone amid escalating tensions with Pakistan

Iran strikes conciliatory tone amid escalating tensions with Pakistan

RFE/RL reports: Iran has condemned what it called a “disproportionate and unacceptable” attack by Pakistan on its territory, which came in response to an Iranian strike, raising fears of escalating military exchanges between the two neighbors. While criticizing Islamabad for the scale of the attack, Iran’s Foreign Ministry also appeared to try and allay concerns of rising tensions, striking a conciliatory tone in its statement on January 18 by referring to Pakistan as a “friend and brother.” Pakistani warplanes launched…

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Supreme Court case could result in a major victory for capitalism at the expense of democracy

Supreme Court case could result in a major victory for capitalism at the expense of democracy

The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in a set of cases that could pave the way for its conservative supermajority to undercut how American society imposes rules on businesses, advancing a key goal of the conservative legal movement. Such a ruling would make it easier to challenge regulations across a gamut of issues, like keeping the air and water clean; ensuring that food, drugs, cars and consumer products are safe; and much more. The…

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The ‘sleeping giant’ case that could upend Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump

The ‘sleeping giant’ case that could upend Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump

Kimberly Wehle writes: There’s been a lot of attention paid to the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for actions taken while president, a judgment that will have big implications for the 2024 presidential campaign and special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president on charges related to Jan. 6. But there’s a sleeping giant of a case also percolating in the Supreme Court that’s even more likely than the immunity issue to…

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Netanyahu accused of risking WWIII to save his own skin

Netanyahu accused of risking WWIII to save his own skin

The Daily Beast reports: The Middle East is sitting on a powder keg and the longer the tensions continue to escalate the greater chance of the region spiraling to a point where Iran and the U.S. could be drawn into a full-blown war through their respective proxies. Iran entered the conflict directly for the first time Monday night, hitting Israeli and ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. While U.S. and U.K. forces have carried out strikes on Houthi military targets…

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Iran strikes Syria, Iraq and Pakistan as Middle East tensions spike

Iran strikes Syria, Iraq and Pakistan as Middle East tensions spike

CNBC reports: Within 24 hours, Iran launched missile and drone strikes on targets in three countries — Iraq, Syria and Pakistan — and took the extraordinary step of announcing its responsibility for the attacks, triggering anger from its neighbors. The developments have heightened concerns over the possibility of a wider Middle East conflict, as the Israel-Hamas war and daily Israeli bombardment of the Gaza enclave passes the 100-day mark. Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Iran after the Monday night attack…

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Putin is making his plans brutally clear

Putin is making his plans brutally clear

Nataliya Gumenyuk writes: New Year’s Eve is an important holiday in Ukraine. At the end of December, I asked my sister how she would be celebrating this year. “In the bomb shelter,” she said, matter-of-factly. She planned to cook sandwiches, which would be easier to carry down to the safe room from the 10th floor if there was an air-raid siren. In 2023 there were more than 6,000 air alerts in Ukraine. Last month alone, Russia launched some 624 drones…

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How YouTube’s climate deniers turned into climate doomers

How YouTube’s climate deniers turned into climate doomers

Grist reports: Imagine if you could walk from your house to anywhere you needed to go in less than 15 minutes: the pharmacy, the bakery, the gym, and then back to the bakery. In a certain, conspiracy-addled corner of the internet, this urban planning concept of “15-minute cities” gets a shady, sinister gloss. Conspiracy theorists evoke COVID restrictions and tout efforts to create walkable cities as steps toward “climate lockdowns.” They warn of a plot by the World Economic Forum…

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Judge Aileen Cannon is quietly sabotaging the Trump classified documents case

Judge Aileen Cannon is quietly sabotaging the Trump classified documents case

Dennis Aftergut and Laurence E Tribe write: On Friday, District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a new order in the Donald Trump classified documents case adding to the mountain of evidence that she is firmly in the former president’s pocket. Trump appointed Cannon in 2020 and the Senate confirmed her appointment in the days after he lost the 2020 election. It’s deeply offensive to the rule of law for judges to bend the law to benefit those who put them on…

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‘Scared to death’: Local election officials on edge ahead of 2024 vote

‘Scared to death’: Local election officials on edge ahead of 2024 vote

Politico reports: Election officials across the U.S. are confident they can overcome foreign and domestic hacking threats to run a secure election this November. They’re far less sanguine that Americans will believe them. And they’re terrified of the backlash from those who don’t accept the results. “I’m scared to death” about the level of voter distrust heading into 2024, said Mark Earley, the supervisor of elections in Leon County, Florida, which includes the capital of Tallahassee. Earley’s comments were echoed…

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Genocide expert, Omer Bartov: Israel’s claim that South Africa has aligned itself with Hamas is ‘nonsense’

Genocide expert, Omer Bartov: Israel’s claim that South Africa has aligned itself with Hamas is ‘nonsense’

  Omer Bartov, Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, gives his take on the trial at the International Court of Justice where Israel has been accused of genocide by South Africa. At the ICJ, Israel criticized the “critical part of the South Africa [genocide] thesis” arguing that it has created “safe passage corridors” to protect Palestinian civilians. This is the “humanitarian corridor” of Salah al-Din street where many were killed pic.twitter.com/kWZHuyLCLv — Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) January 15,…

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‘Stunned, angry, and infuriated’: Journalists address U.S. silence on colleagues killed by Israelis

‘Stunned, angry, and infuriated’: Journalists address U.S. silence on colleagues killed by Israelis

  According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 82 journalists and media workers have died since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7th, making this war the deadliest in modern history for journalists. Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya are the latest journalists to be killed in the war. Hamza is the son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza Bureau Chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, who had already lost his wife, daughter, another son, and grandson in an Israeli airstrike. Al-Dahdouh vows to continue reporting…

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The most durable force in American politics: Trump’s ties to his voters

The most durable force in American politics: Trump’s ties to his voters

Michael C. Bender and Katie Glueck write: Bill Clinton once explained the nation’s two political parties by saying that Democrats want to fall in love while Republicans want to fall in line. That adage has not withstood the Trump era. Today, it is Republicans who are besotted. Donald J. Trump’s decisive victory in Iowa revealed a new depth to the reservoir of devotion inside his party. For eight years, he has nurtured a relationship with his supporters with little precedent…

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Team Trump hopes to decimate both climate policy and regulations on fossil fuels

Team Trump hopes to decimate both climate policy and regulations on fossil fuels

Politico reports: Former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, staffed his environmental agencies with fossil fuel lobbyists and claimed — against all scientific evidence — that the Earth’s rising temperatures will “start getting cooler.” Expect a second Trump presidency to show less restraint. Trump’s campaign utterances, and the policy proposals being drafted by hundreds of his supporters, point to the likelihood that his return to the White House would bring an all-out war on…

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Europe prepares to stand alone as Trump returns

Europe prepares to stand alone as Trump returns

Politico reports: Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo warned that Europe must be ready to stand alone if Donald Trump sweeps back to the White House later this year. “If 2024 brings us ‘America first’ again, it will be more than ever Europe on its own,” he warned in a speech at the European Parliament, at the start of a year in which both European Union citizens and Americans go to the polls. “We should, as Europeans, not fear that…

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Ukraine shoots down two Russian aircraft in disastrous day for Kremlin

Ukraine shoots down two Russian aircraft in disastrous day for Kremlin

The Guardian reports: Ukraine’s military has shot down two of Russia’s command planes, in one of the most disastrous days for the Kremlin’s air power since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said his air force had destroyed an A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an Il-22 control centre plane. Both were flying above the Sea of Azov on Sunday when they were hit at 9.10pm local time. The A-50, which detects air…

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It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the West’s claim to moral superiority

It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the West’s claim to moral superiority

Nesrine Malik writes: It was only a little over six hours of legal argument, but the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the international court of justice had decades of history bearing down on it. The specifics dealt with Israel’s assault on Gaza, but at its heart, the case was about something wider: closing the gap between Palestinian reality and how the dominant political forces describe it. For weeks now, anger at events in Gaza has spilled…

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