geneva_convenience

Move by Italian PM overturns ruling by a Rome court that could have blocked deal to curb migrant arrivals

Italy’s far-right government has passed a new law to overcome a court ruling that risks blocking the country’s multimillion-dollar deal with Albania aimed at curbing migrant arrivals.

On Friday, a court in Rome ruled to transfer back to Italy the last 12 asylum seekers being held in the new Italian migration hub in Albania. The ruling has cast doubt on the feasibility and legality of plans by the EU to explore ways to establish migrant processing and detention centres outside the bloc as part of a new hardline approach to migration.

Meloni’s party, the far-right Brothers of Italy, angrily condemned the decision on social media, blaming “politicised magistrates” who “would like to abolish Italy’s borders. We will not allow it.”

Italy’s justice minister, Carlo Nordio, attacked the judges, saying “the definition of a safe country cannot be up to the judiciary”.

Final result sees ‘yes’ vote scrape ahead by 13,000 votes, narrowly avoiding shock setback for pro-western president

Moldovans have voted by a razor-thin majority in favour of joining the EU after a pivotal referendum clouded by allegations of Russian interference.

On Sunday, Moldova held key votes in a presidential election and a referendum on EU membership, marking a critical moment in the continuing struggle between Russia and the west for control over the small, landlocked nation in eastern Europe, home to 2.5 million people.

After all the votes were counted in the referendum that asked voters to choose whether to enshrine in the country’s constitution a path toward the EU, the “yes” vote crept into first place with 50.46% of the nearly 1.5m ballots cast, according to the Central Electoral Commission.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of keeping hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in a bunker under a hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut, though it said it would not strike the complex.

The Sahel hospital in Dahiyeh was evacuated shortly afterwards, and Fadi Alame, its director, told Reuters that the allegations were untrue.

Israel did not provide evidence for its claim that cash was being kept under the hospital. Instead, it published an animated graphic that purported to show a bunker under the hospital and said it had previously been used to hide the former secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

Speaking at Likud-backed conference, Weiss says thousands of settlers are ready to move to Gaza, and Palestinians have 'lost the right' to be there

Addressing a conference on Monday also attended by Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Knesset members from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, Daniella Weiss called for Palestinians living in Gaza to be relocated to other countries.

“We came here with one clear purpose: the purpose is to settle the entire Gaza Strip, not just part of it, not just a few settlements, the entire Gaza Strip from north to south,” said Weiss. “As a result of the brutal massacre of the 7th October, the Gaza Arabs lost the right to be here ever, so they will go to the different countries of the world. They will not stay here.”

Weiss’s comments were echoed by Ben Gvir, who later told the crowd: “We are the owners of the land”. Ben Gvir also called for Palestinians in Gaza to “voluntarily” transfer to other countries.

NEW DELHI, Oct 21 (Reuters) - India and China have reached a deal on patrolling their disputed frontier to end a four-year military stand-off, the Indian foreign minister said on Monday, paving the way for improved political and business ties between the Asian giants.

The news came on the eve of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Russia for an Oct. 22-24 summit of the BRICS regional grouping, during which he could hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian officials said.

Relations between the world's two most populous nations - both nuclear powers - have been strained since clashes between their troops on the largely undemarcated frontier in the western Himalayas left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead in 2020.

While Ms. Stein condemns both “zombie political parties” as tools of Wall Street and war profiteers, her campaign has focused largely on hammering Ms. Harris, blaming the White House she serves for relentless violence in Gaza and Lebanon.

And Democrats, as never before, are focused on Ms. Stein.

The party has prepared a negative ad blitz for the election’s final weeks, its first-such effort ever directed at a third-party candidate. Fearful that Ms. Stein might divert critical votes in places like Michigan, Democrats are also pressing their case on billboards plastered recently across swing states:

“Jill Stein Helped Trump Once. Don’t Let Her Do It Again.”

She dismisses the “spoiler mythology” that has come to define her mainstream identity, noting — accurately enough — that some of her supporters would never back Ms. Harris anyway.

She says that Democrats would do well to look inward, disputing that she bears any responsibility for Mr. Trump’s fortunes, then or now.

“Those conversations never go anywhere,” Ms. Stein, 74, said in a wide-ranging interview.

Tokyo, October 18, 2024 — Protests erupted at the Japan International Aerospace Exhibition (JA2024) in Tokyo, leading to the forced closure of the booth operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer.

The protests, organized both inside and outside the exhibition hall, targeted Elbit Systems’ involvement in supplying weapons used in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and military operations in the West Bank.

Activists stormed Elbit Systems’ booth, holding signs and chanting slogans such as “Shame on you, Elbit!” and “The genocidal company must go!”

Their presence, alongside the growing number of protesters outside the exhibition center at Tokyo Big Sight, prompted the company to shut down its display prematurely.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in New York will sentence Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former drug czar, following his conviction for drug trafficking and continuing a criminal enterprise—and an architect of the Bush-era torture program is coming to his defense.

As a former cabinet level official and Mexico’s former “top cop,” García Luna collaborated closely with U.S. law enforcement agencies, all while receiving at least $274 million in bribes to help facilitate the Sinaloa Cartel’s cocaine trafficking operations. The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a life sentence for García Luna; his attorney is asking for a sentence of 20 years. Late on Tuesday, he submitted a letter to the judge asking for a lenient sentence, and to be allowed to return "as soon as possible" to his family and to society.

Yet García Luna still has friends in high places. In mid-September Jose Rodriguez, the 31-year CIA veteran who helped develop and cover up the agency’s torture program during the War on Terror, submitted a letter on his behalf. Typically, defense attorneys submit such letters from those who know the convicted individual and seek to argue for a lighter sentence. In his letter, Rodriguez describes García Luna as a “visionary” who wants only to help Mexico, and suggests that Mexico’s left-wing government may have “framed” him.

Israel plans to use slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s body as “another bargaining chip” in negotiations to get hostages out of Gaza, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence stated that returning Russian service members were undergoing medical checks in Belarus, one of Russia’s closest allies throughout the two-and-half-year conflict. A Russian military video showed smiling soldiers boarding buses.

A video posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Telegram account, meanwhile, showed men, some wrapped in the Ukrainian flag, getting off a bus and hugging loved ones.

“Every time Ukraine rescues its people from Russian captivity, we get closer to the day when freedom will be returned to all who are in Russian captivity,” the president said.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the exchange as “a reflection of the cooperative and friendly relations between the UAE and both countries”. It was its ninth time mediating such an exchange between Moscow and Kyiv.

The university’s hypocrisy became apparent to me and other Palestinian students almost immediately after October 7, 2023. On October 9, students at the Michigan Law School used the public law-open server, an email chain that connects everyone at the law school, to describe Palestinians as “animals” and their Muslim and Arab classmates as “rejoic[ing] in mass murder” and supporting rape. This language was reported to the administration, who took no action.

As the greater Michigan student body started organising and protesting on campus, the university’s discrimination against marginalised students became even more apparent. It repeatedly sent campus police to disperse our protests and sit-ins, with students being physically assaulted, pepper-sprayed and arrested, while hijabs of female students were ripped off.

It also ramped up surveillance. Police presence and the number of surveillance cameras around the Arab lounge on campus noticeably increased.

The administration never issued any apology for nor condemnation of the extreme acts of police violence against students who were protesting a genocide that the university funds.