PARIS: Former White House strategist Steve Bannon, a champion of Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, will address the party congress of France’s far-right National Front on Saturday, a senior official of the French anti-immigrant party said.
Bannon, an American nationalist who ran the right-wing Breitbart News, was among Trump’s closest aides during the 2016 US election campaign, the presidential transition and his first months in office.
But the pair had a bitter public falling out and Bannon was fired by the White House last August, though he continued to speak with Trump and tried to promote the president’s agenda.
National Front leader Marine Le Pen will meet Bannon at her party’s convention in the French city of Lille on Saturday, her partner Louis Aliot said in a tweet.
The party is expected to unveil a new name as it searches for more voters and relevance in a political landscape transformed by President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who defeated Le Pen in France’s election last May.
Trump’s ex-aide Bannon to address National Front congress in France
Trump’s ex-aide Bannon to address National Front congress in France
Gaza war death toll could be 40 percent higher, says study
- Researchers sought to assess the death toll from Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024
- They estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injury during this period, about 41 percent higher than the official Palestinian Health Ministry count
LONDON: An official Palestinian tally of direct deaths in the Israel-Hamas war likely undercounted the number of casualties by around 40 percent in the first nine months of the war as the Gaza Strip’s health care infrastructure unraveled, according to a study published on Thursday.
The peer-reviewed statistical analysis published in The Lancet journal was conducted by academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Yale University and other institutions.
Using a statistical method called capture-recapture analysis, the researchers sought to assess the death toll from Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024.
They estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injury during this period, about 41 percent higher than the official Palestinian Health Ministry count. The study said 59.1 percent were women, children and people over the age of 65. It did not provide an estimate of Palestinian combatants among the dead.
More than 46,000 people have been killed in the Gaza war, according to Palestinian health officials, from a pre-war population of around 2.1 million.
A senior Israeli official, commenting on the study, said Israel’s armed forces went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
“No other army in the world has ever taken such wide-ranging measures,” the official said.
“These include providing advance warning to civilians to evacuate, safe zones and taking any and all measures to prevent harm to civilians. The figures provided in this report do not reflect the situation on the ground.”
The war began on Oct. 7 after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border with Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The Lancet study said the Palestinian health ministry’s capacity for maintaining electronic death records had previously proven reliable, but deteriorated under Israel’s military campaign, which has included raids on hospitals and other health care facilities and disruptions to digital communications.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its operations, which the militant group denies.
STUDY METHOD EMPLOYED IN OTHER CONFLICTS
Anecdotal reports suggested that a significant number of dead remained buried in the rubble of destroyed buildings and were therefore not included in some tallies.
To better account for such gaps, the Lancet study employed a method used to evaluate deaths in other conflict zones, including Kosovo and Sudan.
Using data from at least two independent sources, researchers look for individuals who appear on multiple lists of those killed. Less overlap between lists suggests more deaths have gone unrecorded, information that can be used to estimate the full number of deaths.
For the Gaza study, researchers compared the official Palestinian Health Ministry death count, which in the first months of war was based entirely on bodies that arrived in hospitals but later came to include other methods; an online survey distributed by the health ministry to Palestinians inside and outside the Gaza Strip, who were asked to provide data on Palestinian ID numbers, names, age at death, sex, location of death, and reporting source; and obituaries posted on social media.
“Our research reveals a stark reality: the true scale of traumatic injury deaths in Gaza is higher than reported,” lead author Zeina Jamaluddine told Reuters.
Dr. Paul Spiegel, director of the Center for Humanitarian Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Reuters that the statistical methods deployed in the study provide a more complete estimate of the death toll in the war.
The study focused solely on deaths caused by traumatic injuries though, he said.
Deaths caused from indirect effects of conflict, such as disrupted health services and poor water and sanitation, often cause high excess deaths, said Spiegel, who co-authored a study last year that projected thousands of deaths due to the public health crisis spawned by the war.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) estimates that, on top of the official death toll, around another 11,000 Palestinians are missing and presumed dead.
In total, PCBS said, citing Palestinian Health Ministry numbers, the population of Gaza has fallen 6 percent since the start of the war, as about 100,000 Palestinians have also left the enclave.
Syria monitor says alleged Assad loyalist ‘executed’ in public
- Fighters affiliated with the new authorities executed Mazen Kneneh with a shot to the head in the street
BEIRUT: A Syria monitor said fighters linked to the Islamist-led transitional administration publicly executed a local official on Friday, accusing him of having been an informant under ousted strongman Bashar Assad.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters affiliated with the new authorities executed Mazen Kneneh with a shot to the head in the street in the Damascus suburb of Dummar, describing him as “one of the best-known loyalists of the former regime.”
Japan congratulates Lebanon on electing new President
- The ministry also said that Japan will continue to support Lebanon
TOKYO: The Government of Japan said it congratulates Lebanon on the election of the new President Joseph Aoun on January 9.
A statement by the Foreign Ministry said while Lebanon has been facing difficult situations such as a prolonged economic crisis and the exchange of attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, the election of a new President is an important step toward stability and development of the country.
“Japan once again strongly demands all parties concerned to fully implement the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon,” the statement added.
The ministry also said that Japan will continue to support Lebanon’s efforts on achieving social and economic stability in the country as well as stability in the Middle East region.
Habib is 1st Lebanese player in Open era to play in a Grand Slam men’s singles draw
- He advanced through three rounds of the qualifying at Melbourne Park, winning his third match in a tiebreaker 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8) over Clement Chidekh of France
- The 26-year-old Habib was born in Houston, Texas and moved to Lebanon as a young child, learning how to play there
MELBOURNE: Hady Habib isn’t likely to find anything too daunting at the Australian Open now that he’s become the first Lebanese player in the Open era to reach a Grand Slam men’s singles draw.
He advanced through three rounds of the qualifying at Melbourne Park, winning his third match in a tiebreaker 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8) over Clement Chidekh of France on Thursday to secure a place in the main draw of the tournament that starts Sunday.
It continued a rapid rise for Habib, who made his Olympic debut last year in Paris, running into eventual silver medalist Carlos Alcaraz, a four-time major winner, in the first round. It was two sets he’ll long remember.
Late last year, he made history at Temuco, Chile by becoming the first ATP Challenger Tour champion from Lebanon.
The 26-year-old Habib was born in Houston, Texas and moved to Lebanon as a young child, learning how to play there. He returned to the US to pursue a pro career and feels now like he’s representing of the spirit of Lebanese people.
“I know it’s just a sport, but I feel like representing Lebanon and sacrificing all the things I had to do to get here, it kind of resembles how our nation has fought back,” Habib told Australia’s SBS News this week.
His personal success has come at a difficult time during the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
A fragile ceasefire deal was struck on Nov. 27 following nearly 14 months of war.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 — the day after Hamas launched a deadly attack into Israel that ignited the ongoing war in Gaza. Subsequent Israeli air and ground assaults have killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. At the height of the war, more than 1 million Lebanese people were displaced.
“Every morning, I was waking up during that challenging time, I was contacting all my family members, my friends, making sure they’re okay,” Habib told SBS News. “My heart’s just shattered to see what’s happening to our country and people.
“It was a hard time mentally for me, knowing that you can’t do anything to help, but I’m glad things are calming down now. Hopefully we’ll find some peace.”
The 219th-ranked Habib’s first-round opponent was determined Friday — it will be 65th-ranked Bu Yunchaokete of China.
’Real-world harm’ if Meta ends fact-checks, global network warns
- Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this week Meta will loosen content moderation policies in the US, citing bias and excessive censorship
- Announcement sparked international outcry, alarm amid fears of serious consequences
WASHINGTON: There will be “real-world harm” if Meta expands its decision to scrap fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram, a global network warned Thursday while disputing Mark Zuckerberg’s claim such moderation amounts to censorship.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise announcement this week to slash content moderation policies in the United States has sparked alarm in countries such as Australia and Brazil.
The tech tycoon said fact-checkers were “too politically biased” and the program had led to “too much censorship.”
But the International Fact-Checking Network, which includes AFP among its dozens of member organizations globally, said the censorship claim was “false.”
“We want to set the record straight, both for today’s context and for the historical record,” said the network.
Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organizations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram.
There could be devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift beyond US borders, to programs covering more than 100 countries, the International Fact-Checking Network warned.
“Some of these countries are highly vulnerable to misinformation that spurs political instability, election interference, mob violence and even genocide,” the network said.
“If Meta decides to stop the program worldwide, it is almost certain to result in real-world harm in many places,” it added.
In Geneva Friday, the United Nations rights chief also insisted that regulating harmful content online “is not censorship.”
“Allowing hate speech and harmful content online has real world consequences. Regulating such content is not censorship,” Volker Turk said on X.
AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.
In that program, content rated “false” is downgraded in news feeds so fewer people will see it and if someone tries to share that post, they are presented with an article explaining why it is misleading.
Supinya Klangnarong, co-founder of Thai fact-checking platform Cofact, said Meta’s decision could have concrete effects offline.
“Understandably this policy from Meta is aimed at US users, but we cannot be certain how it will affect other countries,” she told AFP.
“By allowing the proliferation of hate speech and racist dialogue could be a trigger toward violence.”
Cofact is not an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network or of Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.
Meta’s policy overhaul came less than two weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office and it aligns with the Republican Party’s stance.
Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate against the tech billionaire once back in office.
Zuckerberg has been making efforts to reconcile with Trump since his election in November, meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and donating one million dollars to his inauguration fund.
The Meta chief also named Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) head Dana White, a close ally of Trump, to the company board.
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said Tuesday the decision came after “extreme political pressure.”
The move “will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family.”
Australia said Meta’s decision was “a very damaging development,” while Brazil warned it was “bad for democracy.”
Meta’s move into fact-checking came in the wake of Trump’s shock election in 2016, which critics said was enabled by rampant disinformation on Facebook and interference by foreign actors, including Russia, on the platform.
