News of the World

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US NEWS

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Associated Press Cuts Ties with Gaza Freelancer Accused of Being Embedded with Hamas Terrorists

The Associated Press (AP) issued a statement Thursday in response to serious allegations against freelancers who contributed to AP’s coverage of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration is demanding answers from several prominent news agencies after criticism emerged of their photographers and their links to Hamas on the day of its barbaric attack.

As Breitbart News reported Wednesday, AP said that it had no foreknowledge of the attack, even though its photographers appeared alongside Hamas terrorists from the first moments they broke through the Gaza border fence.
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Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO), which regulates press access in Israel, has also issued a statement demanding explanations surrounding media coverage on the day.

GPO Director Nitzan Chen specifically called on the bureau chiefs of AP, Reuters, CNN and the New York Times to explain their links to the contributors as footage emerges of the alleged involvement on the day of Hassan Eslaiah.

As Joel Pollak reported for Breitbart News, news agencies have faced criticism in recent years for using photographers or local “stringers” who have sympathy for anti-Israel terrorist groups.

Often, these are the only photographers that groups like Hamas and Hezbollah will permit to work in the area.

Other News

Hollywood Actor Strike Over: SAG-AFTRA Reaches Deal with Studios

The tentative agreement was reportedly reached with a unanimous vote, which will reportedly end the strike at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday. Per Variety:

The two sides spent the last several days putting the finishing touches on the deal, which will see the first-ever protections for actors against artificial intelligence and a historic pay increase. The deal will see most minimums increase by 7% — two percent above the increases received by the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America.

The full details are expected to be released Friday, after the national board vote.

As the deal neared the finish line, AI remained one of the most complicated issues to resolve. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s top negotiator, met with Carol Lombardini, the CEO of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, via Zoom on Wednesday to work on the last details.

Prior to the announcement, it at least appeared that the strike would be ending soon, with Disney CEO Bob Iger telling CNBC that he felt “optimistic” the strike would be over, warning that the strike’s financial impact would become more severe if it began to effect the 2024 summer slate.
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Heavy negotiations began over the weekend when the studios released a “last, best, and final” offer. The SAG-AFTRA demanded that it revise its language on Artificial Intelligence (AI), which the AMPTP modified.

The SAG-AFTRA strike comes a little over a month after the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) ended its historic strike.

New York Gives Up on Electric Snow Plows: ‘Insufficient for the Demands of Winter’

New York is staying with traditional diesel-powered snow plows after rejecting electric vehicles proposed as a replacement.

Just over three years ago the New York Department of Sanitation sought several Mack electric trucks to be set up for double duty as part of a goal to become CO2-neutral.

New York differs from many cities in that its garbage trucks double as snow removal vehicles when and if required.

Primarily intended to clean streets and remove garbage, one of these Mack trucks had been fitted with a snow plow as part of an experiment. Essanews reports the move has been a failure. The reason was given as a simple lack of power:

The plow, dragging across the road and the snow buildup in front of it, created substantial resistance. Moreover, the plow required almost constant movement, eliminating the option for loading pauses.

Consequently, the electric vehicle’s power supply was insufficient for the demands of a New York winter, known for its heavy snowfall.

Democrats Circulate Plan to ‘Open the Floodgates for Palestinians’

House and Senate Democrats are reportedly circulating a plan to fellow Democrats that would “open the floodgates for Palestinians” to arrive in the United States, according to a report from the Daily Caller.

Henry Rodgers of the Daily Caller reports that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) are lobbying fellow Democrats to sign onto a letter to urge President Joe Biden to provide Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) to Palestinians in the U.S.

Both TPS and DED would ensure that Palestinians cannot be deported from the U.S.

The reported letter from Democrats comes as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a far-left organization with deep ties to the Democrat Party, authored a letter to Biden asking for TPS and DED for Palestinians in the U.S.

CAIR’s letter was issued after Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and other House Republicans introduced legislation to ban the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from providing green cards, visas, refugee status, and parole to Palestinians.

Zinke’s bill also would revoke visas for Palestinians in the U.S., thus making them eligible for deportation.

EUROPEAN NEWS

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Cenotaph War Memorial Defaced with ‘Free Palestine’ Graffiti in Rochdale

An investigation has been launched and Police Community Support Officers have been tasked with protecting the Cenotaph in Rochdale after the memorial for British veterans was vandalised with “Free Palestine” graffiti.

A spokesman for Rochdale Borough Council said per Sky News: “On the afternoon of Tuesday 7 November graffiti was sprayed on the Cenotaph. This is totally unacceptable and is also being investigated by police.

“The graffiti will be removed as soon as we are able to.
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The act of vandalism followed a separate incident after two teenagers — who have not been named for legal reasons — were charged with intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance at the Cenotaph.

The incidents in Rochdale come as the United Kingdom is preparing to celebrate Armistice Day, the European equivalent of Veterans Day in America. Controversy has arisen over plans to hold a large-scale pro-Palestine protest on Saturday in London, which many have described as disrespectful to the nation’s fallen and veterans on a day which is meant to be a non-political act of remembrance and support for peace.

Germany: Student dies in Offenburg school shooting

German police said Thursday that a 15-year-old student had been shot dead at a special education school in the southwestern town of Offenburg.

The suspected shooter, another 15-year-old student at the school, was detained during a large-scale police operation.

He was remanded in custody on suspicion of manslaughter, police and prosecutors said.

The attack is said to have taken place in the suspect's 9th grade class, Germany's dpa news agency reported.

"The police are on site with strong forces," local authorities said in a statement. "There is no further danger."

At the time of the shooting, 180 students were evacuated from the premises and picked up by their parents.

According to the investigators, the attacker is said to have entered a classroom at lunchtime, approached the classmate sitting inside and opened fire with a handgun. The victim later died of the wound in hospital.

Police and prosecutors believe the suspect acted alone and said initial findings revealed a previous relationship between the alleged perpetrator and victim.

Spain in Crisis

Spain: Veteran Populist Lawmaker ‘Shot in Face’ by Motorcycle Getaway Gunman

A retired Spanish politician, a former leader of the main parliamentary opposition party and founder of the second largest opposition party, was shot in the face as he walked out of church on Thursday.

78-year-old Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a retired politician, appears to have narrowly survived what may have been an assassination attempt at Thursday lunchtime. Local media reported he was shot in the face at close range by a would-be assassin with a handgun as he walked out of Mass in a Madrid church. Vidal-Quadras is said to be in serious but stable condition in the hospital where he was taken after the attack.

Spain’s ABC reports a gunman wearing a motorcycle helmet, a blue coat, and denim trousers approached Vidal-Quadras before fleeing to an accomplice waiting on a black Yamaha TMAX motorcycle, on which they made their escape. No arrests have yet been made. Per the outlet, police do not believe robbery was the motive and are investigating a potential assassination attempt.

Spain: Police Tear-Gas Thousands Protesting Against Socialists in Madrid

Police in Madrid, Spain, deployed tear gas and rubber bullets on Tuesday night against a protest that reportedly attracted 7,000 people to the front of the headquarters of the Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE), objecting to a proposed amnesty for Catalonian separatist rioters and taunting police with anti-Muslim chants.

The protests are a result of several failed attempts by lawmakers in Parliament to form a government, as elections in July did not give President Pedro Sánchez, the head of the PSOE, enough seats in Parliament to govern. Spain’s conservatives are largely split between the establishment center-right People’s Party (PP) and the populist conservative party Vox, which collectively secured more seats than the leftist block of the PSOE and Sumar but also fell short of a governing majority.

In an attempt to form a functional governing coalition, Sánchez began floating the possibility in October of offering legal amnesty to violent rioters arrested during a wave of separatist activity in northern Catalonia in 2019.
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The agreement has triggered a wave of protests nationwide from Spaniards who oppose separatism, many of them conservative voters. The protests in Madrid last night began as an anti-amnesty manifestation, though protesters more broadly objected to the PSOE and socialism.

Videos taken at the scene on Ferraz Street in Madrid, where the PSOE hub is located, show large crowds of people waving Spanish flags, organized behind a barricade erected to protect the building. Chants of “Pedro Sánchez, son of a ****” were audible, as were other insults to the socialists and chants such as “Spain can’t be sold, it must be defended.”

Ukraine Update

[/url]‘Ukraine Belongs to Our European Family’ But Needs to Address Corruption First, Says Brussels

“Enlargement is a vital policy for the European Union”, the Commission’s Von der Leyen says as it announces Ukraine is moving a step closer to becoming a member state.

Ukraine has made progress on fighting corruption but has further to go, the European Union says, as it acknowledged the process towards it becoming a member state will “not be a short path”, but nevertheless the country “belongs to our European family”.

The European Union issued updates on all candidate nations on Wednesday, adopting what it calls the 2023 Enlargement Package, saying it would recommend opening accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. The development also appears to infer that Ukraine has ‘skipped the queue’ in some regards, as it moves up to more advanced stages of the joining progress ahead of Balkan nations which have been trying to join for many years.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the announcement as a “strong and historic step” which would, he said, make the European Union stronger.

[url=https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/11/09/ukraine-claims-responsibility-car-bomb-killing-of-russian-backed-politician/]Ukraine Claims Responsibility Car Bomb Killing of Russian-Backed Politician

Ukraine´s intelligence agency claimed responsibility for a car bombing Wednesday that killed a member of the Russia-backed authority in the illegally annexed Luhansk region.

Mikhail Filiponenko was a member of the local legislature and previously served as police chief. He had survived a car bombing on Feb. 21, 2022, three days before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Local officials announced Filiponenko´s death.

Filiponenko had organized and participated in the torture of prisoners of war and civilians, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense said on Telegram.

It said that the killing was a warning that “traitors to Ukraine and collaborators with terrorist Russia in temporarily occupied territories … will receive just retribution! The hunt continues!”

The agency said that members of the resistance movement helped carry out the killing.

Russia criticizes America and orders arrest of 2nd ICC judge

Russia Says Risk of Nuclear, Chemical, Biological War Increasing, Blames America

The global security picture including the risk of nuclear, chemical, and biological war, terrorism, and international crime is worsening and this is all America’s fault, Russia claimed on Wednesday.

The United States’ foreign policy is wrecking global security, bankrupting Europe, and risks the outbreak of nuclear war, Russia said in a series of finger-pointing statements while failing to address its own role in the same. Speaking on Wednesday to representatives of Russian-aligned nations in Moscow, Putin ally and Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev made a wide-ranging speech on the many ways in which he perceived America was making the world worse, including fomenting unrest in Eurasia, undermining international arms control, biological experimentation in Ukraine, and pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

On his headline claims, which are especially pertinent now as Russia withdraws from a number of treaties on nuclear weapons and conventional forces, Patrushev said the deterioration of global security is the “natural consequence [of]… irresponsible” U.S. foreign policy. Referring to Israel, the Russian politician accused America of exacerbating conflicts and more broadly accused the United States of “stimulating the growth of common threats and challenges, including terrorism, drug trafficking, and transnational organized crime”.

Russia seeks arrest of another ICC judge

Russia has placed another judge from the International Criminal Court (ICC) — which is seeking the arrest of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin — on its wanted list.

A notice in the Interior Ministry's database, referring to Costa Rican judge Sergio Gerardo Ugaldo Godinez, said he was "wanted in the framework of a criminal investigation."

The notice gave no details about the allegations against Godinez.

The ICC in March issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.

It also announced a warrant, on similar charges, against Maria Lvova-Belova, Moscow's presidential commissioner for children's rights.

Russia is not a member of the ICC, and the Kremlin insists the warrant against Putin is "void," although it has restricted the Russian leader's travels abroad, with ICC member countries expected to implement warrants issued by the court.

MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS

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4 Articles

US strikes Iranian-backed militias in Syria

The United States military carried out airstrikes against an eastern Syrian facility used by Iranian-backed militias late on Wednesday.

The Pentagon said it was in retaliation for a growing number of attacks on bases housing US troops in the region for the past several weeks.

"The President has no higher priority than the safety of US personnel, and he directed today's action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

It marks the second time in recent weeks that the US has taken such action.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the French news agency AFP that nine people "working for Tehran-backed groups" were killed in the attack.

Austin said two F-15 fighter jets carried out the strike against a weapons storage facility linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Since the start of October, US and coalition troops have been attacked at least 40 times in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed forces.

Iran Sentences French Citizen to Five Years in Prison for ‘Propaganda’, Says Family

An Iranian court has ordered a five-year jail sentence against a French national tried on national security charges, his family announced on Wednesday.

Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant, was detained in Iran in September last year and has been held in Tehran’s Evin prison.

Arnaud was handed the sentence by a Revolutionary Court on charges of making propaganda against and seeking to harm the security of the Islamic republic, the family said in a statement.

The family said Arnaud was innocent of all charges and denounced the verdict as “an attack on human rights and individual freedoms”.

The statement described Arnaud as a “passionate traveller” who had long wanted to visit Iran.
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It insisted he had “kept a distance from the social movements that were starting” while in Iran, in reference to the protest movement that erupted in September 2022.

Yemen’s Houthi Terrorists – Delisted by Biden – Shoot Down $30 Million U.S. Drone

The Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen shot down a $30 million U.S. MQ-9 “Reaper” drone on Wednesday, according to both American officials and Houthi spokesmen.

The Houthis claimed they attacked the drone over Yemen’s territorial waters, while a U.S. defense official told CBS News it was operating over international waters. In any event, the Houthis are not the legitimate government of Yemen, so they have no legal control over its territorial airspace.

The official who spoke to CBS said the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is “assessing the incident.” The Pentagon has not stated whether the drone was armed or not.

A Houthi statement issued on Wednesday claimed the drone was “carrying out hostile monitoring and spying activities in the airspace of Yemeni territorial waters and within the framework of American military support for the Israeli entity.”

“Hostile movements will not deter the Yemeni armed forces from continuing to carry out military operations against the Israeli entity in support of the oppression of the Palestinian people,” the Houthi statement said.

The Houthis, armed and financed by Iran, have demonstrated the capability to shoot down high-end drones like the MQ-9 before. Houthi forces were able to down two Reaper drones in 2019.

Turkish Parliament Bans Coca-Cola and Nestle over Alleged Israel Support

The Turkish Grand National Assembly on Tuesday banned Coca-Cola and Nestle products from being sold on the parliamentary campus because the companies allegedly support Israel in its war against the terrorists of Hamas.

“The products of companies that support Israel will not be sold in restaurants, cafeterias and tea houses in the parliament campus,” the Grand National Assembly said in a statement.

Assembly Speaker Nama Kurtulmus said the ban was issued to “support public sensitivity regarding boycotting products of companies who have openly declared their support for Israel’s war crimes,” which he claimed included the “killing of innocent people in Gaza.”

A parliamentary source told Reuters the ban was specifically targeted at Coca-Cola and Nestle, which were the only brands actually removed from menus on the parliamentary campus Tuesday. The source said there has been a “huge public outcry against these companies.”

Reuters wryly noted that Kurtulmus, the inside source, and the public statement all failed to explain exactly how Coca-Cola and Nestle are supporting Israel’s war effort against Hamas. However, the source’s description of Turkish social media bubbling with activist anger at the two companies was accurate.