Category World News

Palestinian author Mosab Abu Toha wins Pulitzer Prize for commentary

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Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet who has been deported by pro-Israel organizations in the United States, has won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Abu Toha was awarded the prestigious award on Monday for essays about the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine detailed reporting with intimate memoir to express the Palestinian experience of the conflict. They were published in The New Yorker on Monday.

On social media, Abu Toha wrote, “I just won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.” Let it inspire optimism, ” It should be a tale, then.

Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet who was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza in December 2023, appears to be the subject of the comment. The title of Alareer’s final poem, “If I must die, let it be a tale,” was chosen.

In 2023, Abu Toha was detained by Israeli forces in Gaza before being freed and moving to the US.

In one of his New Yorker essays, Abu Toha wrote, “I have lost many of the tangible parts of my memories, the people, places, and things that helped me remember.”

“It’s been difficult for me to make good memories. Every destroyed house transforms into a kind of album, with real people and the dead interspersed between its pages, in Gaza.

In response to President Donald Trump’s campaign to deport non-citizens who criticize Israel, right-wing organizations in the US have recently called for Abu Toha’s deportation. In response to concerns for his safety, the author has recently called off classes at universities.

The Palestinian poet claimed on the Al Jazeera podcast in December that Gaza’s feeling of incapacity to assist people was “devastating.”

“Imagine that you are in a school shelter in Gaza with your parents, your siblings, and your children,” said Abu Toha. You can’t defend anyone, you say. You can’t give them any food, water, or medicine. You are currently in the United States, which funds the genocide, though. It’s therefore heartbreaking.

On Monday, New York Times won awards in other Pulitzer Prize categories for explication reporting, local reporting, international reporting, and breaking news photography.

The New York-based newspaper won the most prizes out of the 14 Pulitzer Journalism competitions this year out of the four awards.

The honorees are chosen by a panel of academics and journalists and are annually announced at Columbia University. The award is named for Hungarian-American newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer.

The New York Times won the award for its coverage of the Sudanese conflict, defeating The Washington Post, who placed third in the category for its “documented Israeli atrocities” in Gaza, including investigations into the killings of Palestinian doctors and journalists.

Michigan drops charges against pro-Palestine US student protesters

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In response to legal issues and controversy surrounding the US case, which she described as a “lightning rod of contention,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that she has dropped charges against seven University of Michigan students protesters.

The case, which reportedly began in May 2024, is over, with the decision on Monday putting an end to it. The students, who entered not guilty, were accused of trespassing and resisting a police officer while protesting for Palestinians on a campus. &nbsp,

The student defense team’s member, Jamil Khuja, said, “We feel vindicated that the case was dismissed. “These people have no criminal history,” they say. They were using public property to speak out against their political beliefs.

Nessel defended her decision to file felony charges against the students on Monday, saying “a reasonable jury would find the defendants guilty of the crimes alleged” despite dropping the charges and receiving more and more negative feedback about the case.

Nessel continued, however, in a statement that she had dropped the charges because she did not consider “these cases to be a wise use of my department’s resources.”

Most of the students who were detained right away after Israel’s occupation of Gaza were swept across the country last year during the wave of pro-Palestine campus encampments that swept the country.

Palestinian rights advocates claimed that the Nessel case was an attack on the right to free speech and assembly, and that the case in Michigan became a symbol of the country’s crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations.

In response to allegations of bias, the attorney general dismissed the allegations as “baseless and absurd,” the accused’s defense attorneys had filed motions for Nessel to recuse herself from the case.

The attorney general stated in her statement that “these distractions and ongoing delays have given these proceedings a circus-like atmosphere.”

The defense attorney, Khuja, criticized Nessel’s claim that the pretrial proceedings were “circus-like” as untrue, and that the team was “absolutely confident” that the case would succeed, either by judicial dismissal or not-guilty jury verdict.

According to Michigan’s prosecution rules, he claimed it was appropriate to request Nessel’s removal from the case. He further stated that the county should have brought the charges and not the state’s attorney general.

Free speech is being attacked.

The defense lawyer also pointed out that Nessel and Rashida Tlaib, the “only Palestinian in Congress,” clashed weeks prior to the charges for defending the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which has been used by student protesters, to underline the alleged bias.

Soon after Nessel’s arrest of the students, Tlaib pointed out that there were no other protest movements in the country that faced a similar legal crackdown.

The attorney general responded by blaming Tlaib for being anti-Semitic, despite the congresswoman’s lack of mention of the attorney general’s Jewish or religion.

Rashida should not make it clear that the Attorney General’s position in my religion is unfair. In a social media post from September, Nessel remarked, “It’s wrong and anti-Semitic.”

Nessel’s anti-Semitism accusations against Tlaib were repeated repeatedly by CNN and pro-Israel outlets over the course of weeks.

According to Khuja, the attorney general ultimately hoped to “create a role model for those who are protesting for Palestine.”

He added that the issue spanned more than the involved politicians and students.

The First Amendment applies to all speech, but it has recently been attacked in an effort to discredit Israel, according to Khuja.

Israel bombs Yemen’s Hodeidah port after attack near Tel Aviv

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The Israeli military claims that Houthi forces used the sites of Hodeidah port and a cement factory to support Israeli airstrikes.

At least 21 people were hurt in the strikes on Monday, according to Houthi-run health ministry spokesman Anees al-Asbahi.

The Israeli army claimed fighter jets struck Houthis’ infrastructure, including a cement factory east of Hodeidah, which it called “an important economic resource” and used to build tunnels and military installations.

The Israeli army stated in a statement that the Hodeidah seaport is a “hub for the transfer of Iranian weapons and equipment for military needs.” The assertion was unable to be independently verified.

Six Israeli strikes hit Hodeidah’s port, according to Houthi-run Al Masirah TV, placing Israel and the United States at fault.

A senior US official, who claimed the air raids were coordinated between Israel and the US, was quoted by Axios journalist Barak Ravid.

A US defense source claimed that US forces did not participate in the Israeli strikes on Yemen today but did not deny that nonlethal support may have been used.

A ballistic missile launched from Yemen on Sunday struck close to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, leading to the attack.

The first known missile to avoid intercepting since the Yemeni group began attacking Israel in November 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged retaliation for the Houthi attack.

Israeli attacks on Yemen are moving in a “new phase”

About 30 Israeli warplanes, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem, flew from a command center in Tel Aviv on Monday, under the direction of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Hashem referred to the strikes as a “new phase” in Israeli occupation of Yemen.

Hashem noted that the US has launched a more aggressive assault on Yemen since US President Donald Trump’s re-election in January, which is “directly related to Israeli interests.”

Israel has bombed targets in Yemen before for the first time. At least nine people were killed when air raids targeted the Ras Isa oil terminal and other locations in Hodeidah province in December.

Hashem called Sunday’s attack the “most significant strike” since the group launched its campaign in November 2023, which it claimed was to show solidarity with Palestinians and was a response to Israel’s war on Gaza. In Tel Aviv, a drone had previously struck a building last year.

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have launched more than 100 drone and missile attacks on vessels they claim are connected to Israel in the Red Sea since November 2023.

What could decide the election of the next pope?

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In Rome, a conclave elects a new pope for the papacy.

The next pope will be chosen by Cardinals of the Catholic Church in Rome.

Big problems lie ahead for the church and the world political scene, whether a modernizer or a conservative prevails.

What are they then?

And what might the church’s future look like?

Presenter:

Thibault, Folly Bah

Guests:

Gerard O’Connell, author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Account of the Conclave that Changed History, is a correspondent for America magazine and a correspondent for the Vatican.

Michel Mondengele, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development’s country director for Sierra Leone and Liberia,

Romania’s PM resigns after far right wins first round of presidential vote

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A day after a far-right opposition leader won the first round of the rerun of the presidential election, his own candidate was eliminated.

Cabinet ministers will serve in an interim capacity until a new majority emerges following the presidential run-off, according to Ciolacu’s statement on Monday. His center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) will withdraw from the pro-Western coalition, effectively ending it.

In a May 18 run-off against Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, an independent centrist, hard-right eurosceptic George Simion will be in the endgame. He won the election on Sunday, with some 41% of the vote. Third-place finisher Crin Antonescu was the coalition candidate.

I chose to resign myself, according to Ciolacu, rather than the future president.

In a December 1 parliamentary election, Simion’s Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and two other far-right organizations, one of which had vehemently supported Russia, won more than a third of the seats.

To aid in keeping the European Union and NATO on a pro-Western trajectory, the Social Democrats had established a coalition government with the center-right Liberals and the ethnic Hungarian UDMR. Without it, the legislature can create a governing majority that disarms the far-right.

After a party meeting, Ciolacu told reporters, “This coalition is no longer legitimate.”

Prior to the meeting, Ciolacu claimed that a common candidate must be chosen in order to form the coalition.

Up until the May 18 run-off, Romania already has a temporary president. The nation faces the biggest budget deficit in the EU and is at risk of having its ratings dropped to levels where they were before.

Five months prior, a first election attempt was canceled due to alleged Russian interference in the favor of far-right candidate Calin Georgescu, who has since been suspended from office.

If Georgescu is elected, Simion has stated that he has the power to choose him as prime minister. The vote highlights the persistent rage that is roiling among Romania’s electorate over high living costs and security concerns.

According to political observers, a victory in the Simion could destabilize NATO’s eastern flank, where Bucharest plays a significant role in providing logistical support to Ukraine as it fights a three-year-old Russian invasion.

At a time when Europe is grappling with how to respond to US President Donald Trump, it would also increase the number of eurosceptic leaders in the EU that currently includes the Hungarian and Slovak prime ministers.

In a prerecorded speech aired on Sunday after the polls closed, Simion declared, “I am here to restore constitutional order.”

“I want normalcy, I want democracy, and I have one goal: to give back to the Romanian people what was taken from them,” he said, placing the common, sincere, and dignified people at the center of decision-making.

Simion referred to Trump’s “perfectly aligned with the MAGA movement” as Simion’s hard-right nationalist AUR party.
Following the US president’s political resumption, the “Make America Great Again” campaign capitalizes on a growing populist wave in Europe.