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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on trial facing corruption charges, announced Sunday he had submitted a pardon request, saying the long-running cases were tearing the country apart.US President Donald Trump wrote to Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier this month, asking him to pardon Netanyahu, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the proceedings.”The trial in my case has been ongoing for nearly six years, and is expected to continue for many more years,” Netanyahu said in a video statement, without admitting guilt.He explained he wanted to see the process through until acquittal, “but the security and political reality — the national interest — dictate otherwise.”The continuation of the trial is tearing us apart from within, arousing fierce divisions, intensifying rifts,” he added. The cases against Netanyahu have exposed divisions in Israeli society between his supporters and opponents. Netanyahu’s backers dismiss the trials as politically motivated.The premier and his wife Sara are accused in one case of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours.He is also accused of attempting to negotiate more favourable coverage from two Israeli media outlets in two other cases.- ‘Extraordinary request’ -Netanyahu said the demand for him to testify three times a week had “tipped the scales”, calling it an “impossible requirement”.”An immediate end to the trial will greatly help to lower the flames and promote the broad reconciliation that our country so desperately needs.”Netanyahu’s statement was accompanied by a 111-page letter his lawyers submitted to Herzog which likewise did not admit culpability.Herzog’s office confirmed it had received Netanyahu’s request.”This is an extraordinary request which carries with it significant implications. After receiving all of the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request,” it said.In September, Herzog indicated that he could grant Netanyahu a pardon, saying in an interview that the prime minister’s case “weighs heavily on Israeli society”.Netanyahu, 76, is Israel’s longest-serving premier, having spent more than 18 years in the post across three spells since 1996.During his current term, Netanyahu proposed far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say sought to weaken the courts.Those prompted massive protests that were only curtailed after the Gaza war began in October 2023.Likud leader Netanyahu has said he will stand in the next elections, due before the end of 2026.- ‘Only the guilty seek pardon’ -The timing of Netanyahu’s request — submitted a few weeks after Trump’s letter to Herzog — was “an orchestrated move”, Israeli legal expert Eli Salzberger said.Herzog’s decision could take weeks, and if he grants the pardon, it is likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court, dragging out the process even further, said Salzberger, a law professor at the University of Haifa.Under Israeli law, however, a pardon can only be granted to a convicted criminal.Salzberger predicted that “if the pardon request is denied, it will be an easier path for (Netanyahu) to settle on a plea bargain” — an option the premier has so far rejected.Opposition leader Yair Lapid insisted Sunday that a pardon must be conditioned on Netanyahu’s “admission of guilt, an expression of remorse and an immediate withdrawal from political life”.Yair Golan, head of the left-wing opposition party the Democrats, said: “Only the guilty seek pardon.”However, senior ministers backed Netanyahu’s request.Defence Minister Israel Katz said a pardon would end the “deep rift that has accompanied Israeli society for nearly a decade”.And Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Netanyahu had “been persecuted for years by a corrupt judicial system that fabricated political cases against him”.- ‘End of Israeli democracy’ -Netanyahu is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to face a corruption trial.Ex-premier Ehud Olmert was questioned in a corruption case, but resigned in 2009 before being tried and sentenced to 27 months in prison for fraud.Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside Herzog’s private home in Tel Aviv, urging him to reject Netanyahu’s request.”People of Israel understand what is at stake — and it really is the future of our country,” prominent anti-government activist Shikma Bressler, 45, told AFP.She said Netanyahu had been trying to “destroy the judicial system” and because it wasn’t happening fast enough, “now he’s approaching the president”.Moshe Radman, 40, claimed Netanyahu was trying to “run from his trial”.Ami Dror, 52, said Herzog’s job was to “protect Israeli democracy… and if you demolish law and order, this might be the end of Israeli democracy.”

Visiting Pope Leo XIV urged the Lebanese people on Sunday to embrace reconciliation and remain in their crisis-hit country, while calling on its leaders to put themselves fully at the service of their citizens.The pope, bearing what he described as a message of peace, had previously visited Turkey, where he kicked off his first overseas tour since being elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May.Long hailed as a model of coexistence, multi-confessional Lebanon is nonetheless plagued by sectarian and political rifts, and has seen waves of emigration.Since 2019 it has been ravaged by successive crises, from an economic collapse widely blamed on official mismanagement and corruption, to a devastating Beirut port blast in 2020, to the recent war between militant group Hezbollah and Israel — which many Lebanese fear could return.Leo told officials, diplomats and civil society representatives in a speech at the presidential palace that “there are times when it is easier to flee, or simply more convenient to move elsewhere. It takes real courage and foresight to stay or return to one’s own country.”He urged Lebanese people to take up the “path of reconciliation”, and called on the country’s leaders to place themselves “with commitment and dedication at the service of your people”.No real reconciliation process was undertaken following Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, and the latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has deepened divisions.- ‘Promote peace’ -Lebanon rolled out the red carpet and a 21-gun salute for Leo, who was greeted at the airport by children and a brass band as ships at the port sounded their horns. Two Lebanese military aircraft escorted his plane on descent. Hundreds of people standing along the roadside braved heavy rain to greet the pope along his route to the presidential palace.”The pope is not just for Christians but for Muslims too, and we love him a lot… We want him to bless our land,” said Zahra Nahleh, 19, from Lebanon’s war-ravaged south, who was waiting to welcome the pontiff.Leo told journalists on the plane that his tour had “a special theme of… being a messenger of peace, of wanting to promote peace throughout the region”.He went on to emphasise that theme in his speech at the presidential palace, using the word “peace” more than 20 times, without mentioning any specific conflicts, including the war between Hezbollah and Israel.The two-nation trip is something of a test for the first American pope, whose understated style contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.Although Leo’s four-day visit drew little attention in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation whose Christian community numbers only around 100,000, his 48-hour stopover has been eagerly awaited in Lebanon, a religiously diverse country of around six million people.Lebanon’s last papal visitor was Benedict XVI in 2012.Youth scouting groups affiliated with Hezbollah waited to welcome the pope along the road in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the Iran-backed militants hold sway and which Israel pounded during the war last year.Posters of the group’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah appeared near billboards welcoming the pontiff in the area, which Israel struck again last week, killing Hezbollah’s military chief.Despite last year’s truce, Israel has kept up regular raids on Lebanon, usually saying it is striking Hezbollah targets.On Saturday, Hezbollah had urged the pope to reject Israeli “injustice and aggression” against Lebanon. – ‘Duty for humanity’ -Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that “safeguarding Lebanon” — a unique model of coexistence among different religious communities — “is a duty for humanity”.”If this model disappears, nowhere else can replace it,” said Aoun, the only Christian head of state in the Arab world.Christians play a key political role in Lebanon, where power is shared among the country’s religious communities, but they have seen their numbers dwindle, particularly due to emigration.In Turkey, Leo’s visit focused on calls for greater unity among different branches of Christianity. On his last day there, he went to the Armenian Cathedral expressing encouragement for the largest of Turkey’s Christian communities — with some 50,000 members — and thanking God “for the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances”.It was an apparent nod to the massacres the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman troops in 1915-1916, which has been qualified as genocide by around 30 countries, although Turkey firmly rejects the term. burs-lg/smw

The Afghan suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington may have been radicalized after entering the US, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said when questioned about his motive on Sunday talk shows.Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, faces a first-degree murder charge in the November 26 shooting that left a 20-year-old guardsman dead and another critically wounded.”I will say we believe he was radicalized since he’s been here in this country,” Noem said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state, and we’re going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him, who were his family members, who talk to them,” said Noem during a separate interview on ABC.Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 as part of a massive airlift by then-president Joe Biden’s administration during the US military withdrawal and subsequent return to power of Taliban forces.A resident of the western US state of Washington, Lakanwal allegedly drove cross-country to carry out the shooting a few blocks from the White House — an attack that shocked Americans on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday. Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration, which reportedly granted Lakanwal US asylum in April 2025, have blamed Biden’s administration for lax vetting during the Afghan airlift.Noem told ABC’s “This Week” that Lakanwal was “maybe vetted” after entering the United States but said it was “not done well.””Crooked Joe Biden, Mayorkas, and so-called ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris really screwed our Country by letting anyone and everyone come in totally unchecked and unvetted!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform Sunday. Officials said that before coming to the United States, Lakanwal had served in a CIA-backed Afghan “partner force” unit fighting the Taliban. US government officials have since suspended visas for all Afghan nationals and frozen decisions in all asylum cases.

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Lebanon on Sunday with a message of peace for the crisis-hit nation, still reeling from a war between Israel and Hezbollah and the conflict’s lingering aftereffects.The pope had previously visited Turkey, where he kicked off his first overseas tour since being elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May.He told journalists on the plane that the visit to the two countries had “a special theme of… being a messenger of peace, of wanting to promote peace throughout the region”.Leo was met in Beirut by officials including President Joseph Aoun, the Arab world’s only Christian head of state. Lebanon rolled out the red carpet and a 21-gun salute for Leo, who was also greeted at the airport by children and a brass band as ships at the port sounded their horns.Two Lebanese military aircraft escorted his plane on descent.  “I came to say that the Lebanese are one people and we are united,” said Zahra Nahleh, 19, from Lebanon’s war-ravaged south, who was waiting along the road from the airport to welcome the pontiff.”The pope is not just for Christians but for Muslims too, and we love him a lot,” she told AFP. “We want him to bless our land, we wish he could visit the south.”The two-nation tour is something of a test for the first American pope, whose understated style contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.Although Leo’s four-day visit drew little attention in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation whose Christian community numbers only around 100,000, his 48-hour stopover has been eagerly awaited in Lebanon, a religiously diverse country of around six million people.- Hezbollah scouts -Long hailed as a model of coexistence, Lebanon since 2019 has been ravaged by successive crises, from economic collapse, to a devastating Beirut port blast in 2020, to the recent war between militant group Hezbollah and Israel, which largely ended with a ceasefire last November.The last papal visitor was Benedict XVI in 2012.Christians play a key political role in Lebanon, where the post of president is reserved for a Maronite Christian — but they have seen their numbers dwindle, particularly due to emigration.Leo was to hold talks with Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and parliament speaker Nabih Berri at the presidential palace, and make a speech to authorities and diplomats at 6:00 pm (1600 GMT).A group of traditional dancers welcomed him at the entry to the presidential palace despite the rain.Youth scouting groups affiliated with Hezbollah had waited to welcome the pope along the road in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the Iran-backed militants hold sway and where posters of slain chief Hassan Nasrallah appeared near billboards welcoming the pontiff.On Saturday, Hezbollah had urged the pope to reject Israeli “injustice and aggression” against Lebanon. Israel has kept up regular raids on Lebanon, usually saying it is striking Hezbollah targets, despite the truce that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities, including two months of open war with the group.- ‘My greatest dream’ -In Turkey, Leo’s visit was firmly focused on calls for greater unity among different branches of Christianity. He began his trip on Thursday by holding talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Then he travelled to Iznik to mark 1,700 years since the First Council of Nicaea, one of the early Church’s most important gatherings, which he celebrated at an ecumenical service alongside Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.Saturday saw Leo hold mass in Istanbul with thousands of worshippers braving heavy rain, many of whom had travelled across Turkey for the moving multilingual service. On his last day, Leo met privately with a bereaved father whose 14-year-old Italian-Turkish son died in February after being stabbed at a market in Istanbul. He then went to the Armenian Cathedral where he had words of encouragement for the largest of Turkey’s Christian communities — with some 50,000 members — thanking God “for the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances”.It was an apparent nod to the massacres the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman troops in 1915-1916, which has been qualified as genocide by around 30 countries, although Turkey firmly rejects the term. burs-lg/smw

A senior Kurdistan Workers’ Party commander told AFP the group will take no further steps in the peace process with Turkey, urging it to advance negotiations and free PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan.”All the steps the leader Apo has initiated have been implemented… there will be no further actions taken,” commander Amed Malazgirt told AFP on Saturday in a bunker in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq.”From now on, we will be waiting for the Turkish state and they have to be the one taking steps,” he said.The group has two demands, he added.”First, the freedom of leader Apo… without this, the process will not succeed. The second is the constitutional and official recognition of the Kurdish people in Turkey.”Female senior commander Serda Mazlum Gabar told AFP that “as long as the leadership is inside, the Kurdish people cannot be free. Nor can we, as guerrillas, feel free.””Our path to freedom passes through the freedom of our leadership,” she added.Ocalan, 76, has led the peace process from his cell on Imrali island, where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.Turkish lawmakers from a committee tasked with fleshing out the peace process with the Kurds visited Ocalan earlier this week.In recent months, the PKK, which maintains a rear base in the mountains of northern Iraq, has taken several historic steps towards ending its decades-old fight against Turkey that has claimed some 50,000 lives.In May, the PKK formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey. It then held a ceremony in northern Iraq during which 30 fighters burned their weapons in a symbolic move to show their commitment to the peace process.Last month, the group said it had begun withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil into northern Iraq.Earlier this month, the PKK announced their forces had withdrawn from a key border area in northern Iraq.”We have committed to not using weapons against the Turkish state,” Malazgirt told AFP on Saturday.Ankara began indirect talks with the PKK late last year, with Ocalan in February urging the group’s militants to lay down their weapons and embrace democratic means to advance the Kurdish cause.Turkey has set up the cross-party parliamentary commission to lay the groundwork for the peace process and prepare a legal framework for the political integration of the PKK and its fighters. “By establishing this committee, the Turkish state has made a positive move, but it is not the only action needed. We are closely monitoring this mission,” Malazgirt said.The PKK says it wants to pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority.But “the guerrilla is also the prototype of free life, the prototype of free humans, the prototype of free women”, Serda Mazlum Gabar said.”Therefore, we can continue the struggle with different methods, but the guerrilla does not end.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on trial facing corruption charges, announced Sunday he had submitted a pardon request, saying the long-running cases were tearing the country apart.US President Donald Trump wrote to Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier this month, asking him to pardon Netanyahu, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases.”The trial in my case has been ongoing for nearly six years, and is expected to continue for many more years,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.He said he wanted to see through the process until acquittal, “but the security and political reality — the national interest — dictate otherwise. The State of Israel is facing enormous challenges”.”The continuation of the trial is tearing us apart from within, arousing fierce divisions, intensifying rifts,” he added. The cases against Netanyahu have exposed divisions in Israeli society between his supporters and opponents.Netanyahu’s backers have dismissed the trials as politically motivated.The premier and his wife Sara are accused in one case of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours.He is also accused of attempting to negotiate more favourable coverage from two Israeli media outlets in two other cases.- ‘Extraordinary request’ -Netanyahu said the demand for him to testify on a thrice-weekly basis had “tipped the scales”.”Three times a week is an impossible requirement,” he said.”I am certain, like many others in the nation, that an immediate end to the trial will greatly help to lower the flames and promote the broad reconciliation that our country so desperately needs.”Herzog’s office confirmed it had received Netanyahu’s pardon request.”This is an extraordinary request which carries with it significant implications. After receiving all of the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request,” the head of state’s office said in a statement.In September, Herzog indicated that he could grant Netanyahu a pardon, saying in an interview that the prime minister’s case “weighs heavily on Israeli society”.Netanyahu, 76, is Israel’s longest-serving premier, having spent more than 18 years in the post across three spells since 1996.During his current term, which started in late 2022, Netanyahu proposed far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say sought to weaken the courts.Those prompted massive protests that were only curtailed after the onset of the Gaza war in October 2023.Likud leader Netanyahu has said he will stand in the next elections, due to be held before the end of 2026.- ‘Only the guilty seek pardon’ -Opposition leaders lambasted Netanyahu for requesting a pardon without admitting guilt in the graft trials, and urged him to step down from political life in return for a pardon.”I call on President Herzog: You cannot grant Netanyahu a pardon without an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse and an immediate withdrawal from political life,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a video on X.Yair Golan, head of the left-wing opposition party The Democrats, echoed the allegation. “Only the guilty seek pardon,” he wrote on X. “The only exchange deal on the table is that Netanyahu will take responsibility, admit guilt, leave politics and free the people and the state — only then will unity be achieved in the nation.”Conversely, several members of the governing coalition backed Netanyahu’s request. Defence Minister Israel Katz urged Herzog to grant the pardon to end the “deep rift that has accompanied Israeli society for nearly a decade, and to allow the country to reunite”.Following media speculation that Netanyahu may walk back some controversial judicial reforms in exchange for an end to his trials, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, wrote on X: “The commitment of Religious Zionism to reform in the judicial system will continue in a substantive manner, regardless of Netanyahu’s pardon.””It is clear to every reasonable person that Netanyahu has been persecuted for years by a corrupt judicial system that fabricated political cases against him,” Smotrich added.

Pope Leo XIV headed to Lebanon on Sunday with a message of peace for the crisis-hit nation after wrapping up a four-day trip to Turkey’s tiny Christian community that focused on unity within the Church. Ending the first part of his maiden overseas tour since being elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo boarded the papal plane which left Istanbul for Beirut, where he was expected to arrive around 3:45 pm (1345 GMT). The two-nation tour is the first major international test for the first American pope, who was elected in May and whose understated style contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.Although Leo’s visit drew little attention in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation whose Christian community numbers only around 100,000, his 48-hour stopover is eagerly awaited in Lebanon, a religiously diverse country of 5.8 million inhabitants.Since 2019, Lebanon has been ravaged by crises, including an economic collapse, a devastating port blast in Beirut in 2020 and the recent war with Israel, with Leo expected to bring a message of peace to the multi-faith country, whose last papal visitor was Benedict XVI in 2012. In Turkey, Leo’s visit was firmly focused on calls for greater unity among different branches of the Church. He was the fifth pontiff to visit Turkey after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014 and began his trip on Thursday by holding talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Then he travelled to Iznik to mark 1,700 years since the First Council of Nicaea, one of the early Church’s most important gatherings, which he celebrated at an ecumenical service alongside Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.Saturday saw Leo holding mass in Istanbul with thousands of worshippers braving heavy rain to celebrate with him, many of whom had travelled across Turkey to join the multilingual service that left participants and observers deeply moved by its beautiful and haunting choral interludes. – ‘My greatest dream’ -On his last day, Leo met privately with a bereaved father whose 14-year-old Italian-Turkish son died in February after being stabbed at a market in Istanbul. “Today I cried, but I cried tears of joy, I came for Mattia Ahmet,” Italian chef Andrea Minguzzi said of his son in remarks to reporters afterwards, thanking the pope for meeting him and “fulfilling one of the greatest dreams of my life”. Then he went to the Armenian Cathedral where he had words of encouragement for the largest of Turkey’s Christian communities that counts some 50,000 members, thanking God “for the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances”.It was an apparent nod to the massacres the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman troops in 1915-1916 which has been qualified as genocide by around 30 countries, although Turkey firmly rejects the term. “The Armenian people do not forget the popes who raised their voice in our times of suffering, who stood with Christian communities in danger and who upheld truth when the world hesitated,” Armenian Patriarch Sahak Mashalian said.”We pray that the Lord may use the immense moral voice and influence of papacy through Your Holiness for the safety of these vulnerable Christian communities, especially in the very region to which you will travel later today,” he said. “May the good Lord make you an angel of peace in those bleeding lands to herald glad tidings of enduring peace among war-worn peoples.”