Month: November 2020

With his re-election chances fading as more votes are counted in a handful of battleground states, U.S. President Donald Trump launched an extraordinary assault on the country’s democratic process from the White House on Thursday, falsely claiming the election was being “stolen” from him. Offering no evidence, Trump lambasted election workers and alleged fraud in the states where results from a dwindling set of uncounted votes are pushing Democrat Joe Biden nearer to victory. Several news networks cut away from the president, who spoke for about 15 minutes in the White House briefing room before leaving without taking questions. Biden, the former vice president, was chipping away at the Republican incumbent’s leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia even as he maintained narrow advanta...

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said on Wednesday that Israel has killed more than 46 Palestinian journalists since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. This came in a rally staged outside the UN headquarters in Gaza Strip on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. Tahseen al-Astal, the deputy head of the syndicate, called on the UN to assume its responsibilities in protecting journalists and prosecuting the perpetrators of Israeli crimes against Palestinian journalists. The Syndicate counts annually between 500 and 700 Israeli occupation attacks and crimes against Palestinian journalists and it’s time for these crimes to stop and to hold accountable those who committed them and those who issued the orders, al-Astal said. The Israel...

Paestinian prisoner Maher al-Akhras is on the “verge of death”, after passing 100 days on hunger strike in protest against his administrative detention by Israeli authorities. The European External Action Service, the diplomatic service of the European Union (EU), warned last week that Akhras’s health is deteriorating.  “Regardless of the allegations against Mr al-Akhras, the European Union reiterates its long-standing concerns about the extensive use by Israel of administrative detention without formal charges,” it said. Administrative detention is a highly controversial practice. Used almost exclusively against Palestinians, it allows for detention without charge or trial for renewable periods of three to six months, without the possibility of appeal or knowing what a...