Category World News

More than 200 A-listers, from Margaret Atwood to Javier Bardem, are donating their support to a global campaign to free popular Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002.

In an open letter released on Wednesday, the UN and governments were asked to take action to express their deep concern about Marwan Barghouti’s continued imprisonment, his violent mistreatment, and his denial of legal rights while he was imprisoned.

The most well-known cultural signatories were already working to put an end to Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza, but the new letter is a part of the international “Free Marwan” campaign that Barghouti’s family launched earlier this week.

According to some, Barghouti, a senior member of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah group, is serving five life sentences in Israeli prisons for allegedly bringing charges related to attacks carried out during the second Intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the 66-year-old, who has been the subject of numerous brutal assaults and caused bodily harm while serving time, was mocked earlier this year by far-right national security minister at Ganot Prison in central Israel.

Ben-Gvir told the captive, “You won’t win,” according to a video that was broadcast by Channel 12 in Israel in August. According to relatives, Barghouti’s “shocking” appearance was brought on by “exhaustion and hunger,” making it his first sighting in a long time.

Four broken ribs and head injuries were reported by Barghouti’s son in October after his father was brutally beaten by Israeli guards during a prison transfer in September.

Barghouti’s family organized events in various nations, including the UK and France, to raise awareness of the possibility that he might pass away while being detained.

Because of his ability to unite various political parties, Barghouti is regarded as a likely key player in the formation of any Palestinian state. Many people believe him to be the last hope for a free Palestine.

According to a poll conducted by the People’s Company for Polls and Survey Research (PCPSR), he would easily win if the elections were held for the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas would come in third place, while the armed group Hamas would come in second, according to the poll.

The unpopular administration of the PA president, which has been in place for 20 years, is seen as a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which is currently facing an ongoing Israeli military assault and daily attacks by irate settlers amid threats of annexation.

In accordance with US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, Abbas is now contesting whether the PA should be able to run for office in Gaza following its end of the war in the region. He has promised legislative and presidential elections in the coming months.

“My younger sibling was staying over,” my sister said. I kicked him to avenge the landslide, which had occurred. We would have all perished in that house if we had all slept. Sri fled to the nearby church after grabbing her daughter Eleanor. They watched horrified as another landslide completely destroyed their home from the top of the hill.

The family has been residing at the church for a week along with hundreds of other displaced victims. At least 770 people have died as a result of the cyclone-caused floods and landslides, with 463 still missing, according to government data.

We were all saved, please. What matters is that the children and everyone else survived, she said, not that our possessions can be replaced. However, the trauma persists. I become frightened whenever I hear a door opening or closing, as in the case of a door. I’m a shocker if there is any loud noise. I overheard a helicopter making noise on our first day at the church. We’re going to die! screamed I. I nearly passed out because I believed there had been another landslide.

In an effort to advance towards the strategically located al-Ghuraf area in the oil-rich Hadramout governorate, local sources reported armed clashes between the Yemeni army loyal to the internationally recognized government and STC (Second).

Following clashes with the army, STC forces stormed the presidential palace building in Seiyun, southern Yemen, on Wednesday, according to videos posted by local activists.

The sources added that the STC forces were stationed in the Seiyun plateau’s Jathma neighborhood before they bombed the city center’s Yemeni army headquarters.

Since Wednesday morning, Wadi Hadramout has been the site of significant military operations, which have included intense artillery fire, according to local media.

The STC has previously requested that Yemen’s southern region be separated. Its southern province, including Aden, is under its control.

A “Promising Future” operation, according to the group on Wednesday, “follows the exhaustion of all options proposed in recent years to restore stability to the valley, end the state of security breakdown, and stop the region’s exploitation by forces alien to the valley]of Hadramout] and the governorate.”

A Saudi delegation has reportedly reached a settlement with the opposing parties while negotiating a resolution to the conflict in Hadramout.

For decades, Yemen has experienced internal conflict and external interference.

The Houthis, an Iran-aligned group, own the majority of Yemen’s largely populated northwest and Sanaa, its capital. Since Israel started its genocidal war against Gaza in October 2023 in support of Palestinians who were being shot down by Israeli forces, Yemen’s government and other groups have largely frozen war. However, it has gained international notoriety for its attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea.

In Sanaa, dozens of civilians and political figures have been killed in deadly attacks by the US and Israel.

According to a survey, the majority of people in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and several other EU member states believe that there is a high likelihood that Russia will start a war against their nation.

Just over half of respondents in nine of the nine surveyed European nations reported that the risk of war was “high” or “very high” in their surveys, according to a poll conducted by Cluster17 in France on Thursday.

Poland, which was once a part of the Soviet Union and borders Russia, had by far the highest level of war anxiety, with 77 percent of respondents citing a high risk of conflict, according to the survey.

Respondents in Belgium and the Netherlands reported that 59% of respondents saw a high risk of war, with roughly 50% of Germans, French, and Spanish respondents all agreeing.

34 percent of respondents, followed by Portuguese and Croatians, had the lowest risk of war.

Just under half of Europeans surveyed said they viewed Donald Trump as an “enemy of Europe,” up four points from September.

Le Grand Continent, a French-based journal for foreign affairs, published the poll.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe’s leaders have been preoccupious about the security situation there.

Following similar actions by Belgium and the Netherlands, France announced last week that it would reintroduce military service, which was discontinued in 1996, starting from January 1 on a voluntary basis.

Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, blatantly cited the action as a response to Russian aggression, warning that Moscow would try to take advantage of any “signal of weakness.”

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, retaliated on Tuesday over proposed changes to a Trump-backed plan to end the Ukrainian war by saying that Russia was “ready” for war.

More social media checks are being conducted as the US expands its vetting process for applicants seeking highly skilled H-1B visas, as well as those who work in fields like misinformation and disinformation.

On Thursday, the US Department of State mandated that all H-1B applicants and their dependents make all of their social media profiles public so that they “don’t intend to harm Americans and our national interests.” Following a similar requirement in July that all student visa applicants must publicly update their social media profiles, this is made.

H-1B visas allow US businesses to employ foreigners with “speciality” knowledge, typically in academic or technical fields like medicine, technology, finance, and engineering. The H-1B offers a path to immigrating to the US, despite being categorized as temporary visas.

According to an internal cable obtained by the Reuters news agency, the State Department will also examine H-1B applications for work in fields that promote “free speech” censorship.

For any work in “misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance, and online safety,” or “social media or financial services companies involved in the suppression of protected expression,” consular staff are required to review applicants’ LinkedIn and employment histories.

Any accompanying family members and H-1B visa renewal applicants are subject to the new regulations.

You should pursue a finding that the applicant is ineligible, the cable said, “if you find evidence that an applicant was responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States.”

The US State Department, which previously supported international projects aimed at verifying facts and combating misinformation and disinformation, is departing from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Since his January return to the White House, US President Donald Trump has taken action to ease what he perceives as restrictions on “free speech,” which are typically those of conservative voices. Following the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, Trump himself was previously removed from X, formerly known as Twitter. Elon Musk, a free speech skeptic and tech billionaire, purchased the platform in 2022, and he was reinstated.

Signing an executive order that outlaws “federal censorship” of free speech was one of his first as president. The US State Department threatened in May that it would impose a ban on foreigners who had worked to impose restrictions on free speech on US citizens, including by pressuring US tech companies to impose rules on social media content.