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Israel’s supreme court on Tuesday gave the cabinet and attorney general’s office a deadline to find a solution to the government’s hotly-contested decision to sack domestic security chief Ronen Bar.Following an hours-long hearing which was briefly interrupted with protests from government supporters and critics, Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit told the two sides to find a compromise.”Since we saw some sparks of willingness here… we are giving you until after Passover (which ends on April 19) to try to reach some kind of creative solution that is agreed upon” by both sides, Amit said.In its ruling, the supreme court said Bar “will continue to perform his duties until a later decision”.”No steps should be taken to terminate the mandate of the head of the Shin Bet, including the appointment of a replacement or an interim,” the court said.”However, there is nothing to prevent interviews with candidates for the post, without announcing an appointment”.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month that his government had unanimously approved a motion to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, citing “lack of trust” and requiring Bar to leave his post by April 10.The hearing on Tuesday followed petitions filed by opposition parties and non-profit groups, challenging the legality of the government’s move which the Supreme Court had already frozen until it issues a ruling.Protests were held outside the Jerusalem courtroom, and inside, shouts and interruptions forced the judges to halt proceedings after only 30 minutes.”No court in the world is run this way,” Amit said after warning government supporters and critics who interrupted the hearing, which was broadcast live.Amit called for a recess, during which scuffles between the sides continued outside the courtroom.The hearing resumed about an hour later, with no audience, “to allow the right to argue without fear for all parties involved”, according to the judges.Attorney Zion Amir, representing the government, said that “this is purely a political petition”.Bar has pushed back against the government’s move to sack him, dismissing Netanyahu’s arguments as “general, unsubstantiated accusations” motivated by “personal interest”.Bar said the decision was meant to “prevent investigations into the events leading up to October 7 and other serious matters” being looked at by the Shin Bet, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.- ‘Anti-democracy’ -Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has also cautioned that ousting Bar was “tainted by a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister due to the criminal investigations involving his associates”.Baharav-Miara was referring to a case, dubbed “Qatargate” by Israeli media, involving Netanyahu’s close advisers under investigation for allegedly receiving money from the Gulf emirate which has long hosted the political office of Hamas.Tomer Naor, from the Movement for Quality Government in Israel which submitted one of the petitions, told AFP that “Netanyahu is under a severe conflict of interest”.Dov Halbertal, a lawyer who came to watch the hearing, said that “Netanyahu is the ruler, he can fire whoever he wants, especially this Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet that is responsible for the massacre” of October 7, 2023.The fact that the court was hearing the petitions was “anti-democracy”, he said.Baharav-Miara, who has often clashed with the Netanyahu administration over the independence of the judiciary, said that firing Bar could lead to the politicisation of the powerful position.Appointed Shin Bet chief in October 2021 by the previous government, led by opponents of Netanyahu, Bar has clashed with the long-serving incumbent since his return to power in late 2022.Bar was critical of a government proposal to reform the judiciary, which drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis onto the streets in protest and was temporarily shelved when the Gaza war began with Hamas’s attack.Bar, who was meant to end his tenure next year, had suggested he would consider stepping down early due to his part in failing to prevent the October 7 attack, but only once the war ended and the hostages held in Gaza were freed.

Fear, bombs and screams stalk Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s resumption of strikes three weeks ago has sparked fresh displacement and an ever more desperate search for shelter. “They are asking for evacuation, but where will we go?” asked Mahmoud Hussein, who fled bombardments in the north to live in a tent in the central town of az-Zawayda. “There is nothing, nothing,” he said, listing off several nearby areas marked for evacuation on a map published by the Israeli army.Since its renewed strikes and ground operations, the Israeli army has issued a raft of evacuation orders for locations in the north, south and centre of the Gaza Strip, warning residents of imminent attacks. Nearly 400,000 Gazans have been displaced since March 18, the UN said Monday. Israel struck Deir el-Balah overnight from Sunday to Monday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said, and Hussein along with the other inhabitants of his makeshift tent encampment fled to a nearby field hospital. On Monday morning, the group began packing up their things once again, in search of an area away from the evacuation zones. Adults filled fraying plastic bags with the few belongings they had left, while children milled around nearby. Donkey carts laden with mattresses trundled along the dusty road, while women carried baskets on their heads.It is now a familiar scene in Gaza, where almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have fled their homes, many of them multiple times, according to the United Nations.  – ‘No glimmer of hope’ -Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed. The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Tuesday that at least 1,449 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,810. The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.In Deir el-Balah, an overnight Israeli air strike targeted a house, killing nine people including five children, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.  In the aftermath, AFPTV footage showed a plastic chair, blankets and a bright red children’s bathtub trapped between two collapsed floors of a house. Palestinians desperately scrambled through the rubble to retrieve a body, which was carried down the stairs in a blanket and loaded on the back of a truck. “We rushed out in terror, not even knowing at first where the strike had hit,” said Abed Sabah, a relative of the targeted house’s owner.”It was the thick cloud of dust that told us it was nearby.” Sabah said they had managed to pull out 11 bodies, “most of them children and women.”A young girl sat in the midst of a sea of rubble and metal rods, surrounded by rolls of toilet paper, blankets and a battered foam mattress.At the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, bodies arrived in white plastic shrouds. Relatives cried and recited prayers over the blood-stained body bags laid out on the floor. An elderly woman hobbled through the crowd of mourners, struggling to hold back sobs.   “The house was full of displaced people and children. Four children were decapitated -— what was their fault?” asked Nadeen Sabah, weeping as she spoke.  Sabah claimed to have been in the building at the time of the attack.Amal Jabbal, 35, said she had left Deir el-Balah on Monday after being woken up by “the screams of the neighbourhood”.  She said she left before a strike “that shook the whole area”.”The destruction was massive and the fear even greater,” she said. “There is no glimmer of hope.”

A French court will rule on September 25 in the trial of former president Nicolas Sarkozy on charges he accepted illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi, a judge said Tuesday.Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has denied the charges.He is already serving a one-year sentence with an electronic bracelet in a separate influence-peddling case.Prosecutors argue that the former conservative leader and his aides devised a pact with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later. They have requested the 70-year-old serve a seven-year prison sentence, pay a fine of 300,000 euros ($330,000) and be handed a five-year ban on holding office.As the trial ended on Tuesday, Sarkozy described the prosecution’s demand as “political and violent” in a “hateful media and political context”.”I am not here to do politics but to defend my honour and for the truth to be established,” he said, refusing to comment further.His trial closed soon after another Paris court sentenced far-right leader Marine Le Pen to a jail term and a five-year ban on running for office for embezzling European Union funds.The move has thrown into doubt her bid to stand for president in 2027 and infuriated her supporters, who have criticised the judiciary.- ‘Funding does not exist’ -Prosecutors allege that Sarkozy and senior figures pledged to help Kadhafi rehabilitate his international image in return for campaign financing.The West has blamed Tripoli for bombing Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland and UTA Flight 772 over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.Sarkozy and 11 others have been on trial since January.They include Sarkozy’s former right-hand man, Claude Gueant, his then-head of campaign financing, Eric Woerth, and former minister Brice Hortefeux, all of whom deny the charges.The prosecution’s case is based on statements from seven former Libyan dignitaries, trips to Libya by Gueant and Hortefeux, financial transfers, and the notebooks of the former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem, found drowned in the Danube in 2012.Defence attorney Christophe Ingrain on Tuesday urged the court to acquit the ex-president.He argued Sarkozy, head of the UMP party at the time, did not need the Libyan funding for his presidential campaign.”Why would he feel the need for another means of funding?” he said.”How much did he ask for? How would this money have arrived in France? How was it used in the campaign? The prosecution does not say, as this funding does not exist,” he said.- ‘Luxury hotels’ -Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key figure in the case and a fugitive in Lebanon, claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros from Kadhafi in 2006 and 2007. But in 2020, Takieddine retracted his statement, raising suspicions that Sarkozy and close allies may have paid the witness to change his story.Tristan Gautier, another defence lawyer, also argued Takieddine did not withdraw 670,000 euros in cash from Libya to fund Sarkozy’s campaign, as alleged by the prosecution.Instead he “systematically used this money for his personal spending” — “astronomical bills in luxury hotels”, “yacht cruises”, or even “work on villas”, Gautier said.He argued another alleged funding route via Kadhafi’s chief of staff made “no sense” as it involved the purported role of a man who was close to one of Sarkozy’s rivals.Sarkozy’s career has been shadowed by legal troubles since he lost the 2012 presidential election.But he remains an influential figure and is known to regularly meet with President Emmanuel Macron.

Pro-Turkey Syrian groups have scaled down their military presence in a historically Kurdish-majority area of the country’s north which they have controlled since 2018, a Syrian defence ministry official said on Tuesday.The move follows an agreement signed last month between Syria’s new authorities and Kurdish officials that provides for the return of displaced Kurds, including tens of thousands who fled the Afrin region in 2018.The pro-Ankara groups have “reduced their military presence and checkpoints” in Afrin, in Aleppo province, the official told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.Their presence has been “maintained in the region for now”, said the official, adding that authorities wanted to station them in army posts but these had been a regular target of Israeli strikes.After Islamist-led forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, the new authorities announced the disbanding of all armed groups and their integration into the new army, a move that should include pro-Turkey groups who control swathes of northern Syria.Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies carried out an offensive from January to March 2018 targeting Kurdish fighters in the Afrin area.The United Nations has estimated that half of the enclave’s 320,000 inhabitants fled during the offensive.The Kurds and rights groups have accused the pro-Turkey forces of human rights violations in the area.- ‘Waiting’ -Last month, the Kurdish semi-autonomous administration that controls swathes of northern and northeastern Syria struck a deal to integrate its civil and military institutions into those of the central government.The administration’s de facto army, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), played a key role in the recapture of the last territory held by the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019, with backing from a US-led international coalition.A Kurdish source close to the matter said the people of Afrin were “waiting for all the checkpoints to be removed and for the exit of pro-Turkey factions”.Requesting anonymity as the issue is sensitive, the source told AFP that in talks with Damascus, the SDF was pushing for security personnel deployed in Afrin to be from the area. The SDF is also calling for “international organisations or friendly countries from the international coalition” to supervise collective returns, the source added.Syria’s new leadership has been seeking to unify the country since the December overthrow of longtime president Bashar al-Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.This month, Kurdish fighters withdrew from two neighbourhoods of Aleppo as part of the deal.Syrian Kurdish official Bedran Kurd said on X that the Aleppo city agreement “represents the first phase of a broader plan aimed at ensuring the safe return of the people of Afrin”.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called the rapid resumption of aid into Gaza a “top priority” during a visit to the Egyptian city of El-Arish, a key transit point for supplies to the war-battered Palestinian territory.”The situation today is intolerable,” Macron said near the border with Gaza, calling for the “resumption of humanitarian aid as quickly as possible”.Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced — many multiple times — by Israel’s devastating military campaign, launched in response to the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.Israel resumed its assault on Gaza on March 18, following a nearly two-month-long ceasefire.Since March 2, it has blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory after disagreements with Hamas over how to proceed with the truce after its first phase expired.When asked about US President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over the territory and redevelop it into what he has called the “Riviera of the Middle East”, displacing its Palestinian residents, Macron said “it’s not a real estate project”.”The reality is that you have two million people locked up… After months and months of bombing, of a terrible war, tens of thousands of people have lost their lives,” said the French president. “You have tens of thousands of children who are mutilated without families. This is what we’re talking about when we talk about Gaza.”- ‘Trapped, bombed and starved’ -Alongside his Egyptian host Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Macron earlier toured a hospital in the port city, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Gaza Strip, and met with medical professionals and sick and wounded Palestinians evacuated from Gaza.Carrying a bouquet of red roses to give to patients, the French president visited several wards as well as a play area for children.His office said the trip was aimed at piling pressure on Israel for “the reopening of crossing points for the delivery of humanitarian goods into Gaza”.He also condemned an Israeli attack last month that killed 15 medics and aid workers, according to the UN and Palestinian rescuers.”Above all, humanitarian workers must be protected when they intervene, because they are not stakeholders” in the conflict, Macron said.Emergency department doctor Mahmud Mohammad Elshaer said the hospital had treated around 1,200 Palestinian patients since the Gaza war began in October 2023.”Some days we can receive 100 patients, others 50,” Elshaer said, adding that many had limbs amputated or sustained eye or brain injuries.In Cairo, Macron, Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II called for an “immediate return” to the ceasefire.The three leaders met on Monday to discuss the war and humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of Gaza’s 2.4 million people.In a joint statement on Monday, the heads of several UN agencies said many Gazans are “trapped, bombed and starved again, while, at crossing points, food, medicine, fuel and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck” outside of the blockaded territory.

A Lebanese judge on Tuesday referred former central bank governor Riad Salameh to court for trial over the alleged embezzlement of $44 million of the bank’s funds, a judicial official said.The move came seven months after Salameh was arrested in Lebanon over the case.Salameh, who headed the central bank for three decades, faces numerous accusations including embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion in separate probes in crisis-hit Lebanon and abroad.On Tuesday, the judge issued a decision charging Salameh with embezzling “$44 million from the central bank”, as well as illicit enrichment and forgery, the judicial official said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media.A request to release Salameh was rejected, along with a request to cancel arrest warrants issued in absentia for two of his alleged associates in the case, the official said.The trio were “referred to the Beirut criminal court for trial”, the official added.Salameh, who left office at the end of July 2023, has repeatedly said his wealth comes from private investment and his previous work at US investment firm Merrill Lynch.He is widely viewed as a key culprit in Lebanon’s economic crash, which the World Bank has called one of the worst in recent history, but has defended his legacy, saying he is a “scapegoat” for the crash.In May last year, Germany and France issued arrest warrants for Salameh over accusations including money laundering and fraud, though German prosecutors later cancelled their warrant, saying Salameh could no longer use his post to suppress evidence.In August last year, the United States announced coordinated sanctions with Canada and Britain against Salameh.Lebanon’s new central bank governor Karim Souaid took office last week, pledging to advance key reforms demanded by international creditors to unlock bailout funds.

The top US trade official on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on nearly every other nation, telling US senators that with dozens of countries seeking a deal the strategy was “already bearing fruit.”Jamieson Greer’s appearance in Congress came with Republicans ringing alarm bells over Trump’s escalating trade war and Wall Street clamoring for …

Trump’s trade representative says tariffs ‘bearing fruit’ Read More »

US President Donald Trump appeared to catch Tehran off guard on Monday when he announced “direct talks” between the arch-foes over Iran’s nuclear programme, having previously threatened to bomb the Islamic republic.Despite previously having expressed major reservations over the talks, Tehran has agreed to participate but through an intermediary.- What does Iran want? -The priority for the Islamic republic is the lifting of biting sanctions that have placed a stranglehold on the energy-rich country’s economy for decades.In 2015, a landmark deal was reached between Iran and major powers including the United States, offering sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.The deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPCOA), also provided for the eventual return of Western investments into Iran.At the time, Iranians were hopeful that the deal would reflect in improvements in their economic conditions and end their country’s isolation.But that hope was short lived as in 2018, during Trump’s first term in office,  Washington unilaterally pulled out of the deal and reinstated sanctions.Ever since, the value of the Iranian rial has plummeted against the dollar, fuelling high inflation and unemployment and leaving much of the population impoverished.”If Iran manages to break the chains of the sanctions, it can achieve a considerable economic resurgence,” economist Fayyaz Zahed told AFP.In addition to some of the highest oil and gas reserves in the world, Iran also enjoys unique geography and has great potential to build its tourism industry and develop infrastructure.Its 86 million people also represent a large untapped market, a predominantly young and educated urbanised population with an average age of just 32.- Why talk now? -Alongside its economic challenges, Iran has been dealt major blows through the weakening of its network of proxies in the region in the aftermath of the Gaza war that began in October 2023.Lebanese group Hezbollah — a key bulwark in Iran’s so-called axis of resistance against Israel and the United States — emerged massively weakened from a war last year with Israel, having lost much of its leadership structure.In Syria, a Sunni Islamist-led offensive toppled Tehran’s longtime ally Bashar al-Assad in December, and the Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have been under heavy US bombardment in recent weeks.”Iran no longer has any effective cards and is suffering the consequences” of upheavals in the region, Zahed said.Iran and Israel exchanged direct strikes twice last year for the first time in their history.- What is Iran’s strategy? -“Iran is prepared to accept the same technical conditions” that were in place for the 2015 deal, Zahed said.Tehran has long maintained its right to develop its nuclear capabilities for civil purposes, particularly energy.Western governments however accuse Iran of seeking to develop a weaponss capability, an ambition it vigorously denies.”On the other hand, the country will show no flexibility regarding its missiles,” Zahed warned.The Trump administration argued that its withdrawal from the JPCOA in 2018 was motivated by the absence of controls for Iran’s ballistic missile programme, viewed as a threat by Washington and its ally Israel.In February, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed there would be “no negotiations” with the Trump administration, pointing to previous deals with US leaders that were not honoured.In March, Trump sent a letter to the Iranian leader, calling for talks but also threatening to bomb Iran in the event that diplomacy failed.Iran responded that it would not negotiate under pressure.Trump’s announcement that “direct” talks would take place in Oman on Saturday appeared to take Iran by surprise.Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi only confirmed the talks in a post on X in the middle of the night, however insisting that Iran would not speak directly with the Americans.According to US news website Axios, Trump has given Iran two months to reach a deal.Trump “broke the nuclear deal once”, wrote reformist Hossein Nouraninejad in the government daily Iran, adding that “there are many historical differences between the two countries”, which have not had diplomatic relations since 1980.However, direct talks between Trump and Khamenei seem “more likely than war”, wrote Ali Shakourirad, a politician close to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in the newspaper Etemad.

The Taliban government accused Pakistan on Tuesday of violently expelling Afghans after Islamabad cancelled hundreds of thousands of residence permits, pressuring families across the border.Islamabad announced at the start of March that 800,000 Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) would be cancelled — the second phase of a deportation programme which has already expelled around 800,000 undocumented Afghans.”The mistreatment of them (Afghans) by neighbouring countries is unacceptable and intolerable,” the Taliban Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation said on X, calling for a joint agreement to facilitate repatriations.An average of 4,000 Afghans crossed the border from Pakistan on Sunday and Monday, “far higher than the March daily average of just 77”, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) told AFP.The new phase in Pakistan’s campaign to repatriate Afghans “could affect up to 1.6 million undocumented Afghan migrants and Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders during 2025″, the agency said.The United Nations says nearly three million Afghans live in Pakistan: 800,000 had their Pakistani ACC residency cards cancelled in April and 1.3 million still have residence permits until June 30 because they are registered with the UN refugees agency UNHCR. Others have no papers.”It is with great regret that Afghan refugees are being subjected to violence,” the Taliban refugees ministry said.”All refugees should be allowed to take their wealth, belongings and household goods with them to their own country,” it added.”No one should use refugees as tools for their political goals.”Afghans who crossed the border in recent days told AFP that they left without being able to take all their belongings or money, while others were rounded up and taken directly to the border.”My only crime is that I’m Afghan,” Shah Mahmood, who was born in northern Afghanistan, told AFP on Monday after crossing the Torkham border point.”I had papers and they ripped them up.”Human rights activists have for months been reporting harassment and extortion by Pakistani security forces against Afghans.Moniza Kakar, a lawyer in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, said that officials “are picking and arresting people randomly, from different places”.”There is no proper mechanism to shift the whole family,” she told AFP.Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have soured since the Taliban takeover, fuelled by a sharp rise in violence in Pakistan along the Afghan border.Pakistan’s interior ministry said it had issued “strict instructions” for the facilitation of Afghans’ exits, including “that no one should be harassed in this process”.In September 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans poured across the border into Afghanistan in the days leading up to a deadline to leave, after weeks of police raids.