MADRID: Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through Madrid on Saturday to demand a ceasefire in war-torn Gaza and a severing of ties between Spain and Israel.
Numbering around 4,000 according to the authorities, protesters held up banners and signs condemning a “genocide” in Gaza and lauding the “resistance” of the Palestinian people.
Palestinians have been “crammed” in southern Gaza and “now they are displaced again from one place to another while there are no more safe places,” said 57-year-old Jaldia Abubakra, referring to Israeli evacuation orders in the city of Rafah.
Around 30 organizations called for the rally before the 76th anniversary of what Palestinians call the “Nakba” (“catastrophe“), when 760,000 people fled their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
Spanish students have set up peaceful sit-ins and camps at universities in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia in recent days, mirroring similar pro-Palestinian campus movements across the United States and Europe.
Earlier this week, Spanish universities expressed willingness to suspend ties with any Israeli educational institution that failed to express “a clear commitment to peace.”
Spain is one of Israel’s harshest critics in Europe and leading efforts to recognize a Palestinian state.
The Gaza war started with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza, at least 36 of whom the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters rally in Madrid
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters rally in Madrid
- Spain is one of Israel’s harshest critics in Europe and leading efforts to recognize a Palestinian state
Justin Bieber heads wedding gala thrown by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani
- Bieber is among several global celebrities who have jetted into India for marriage festivities of Ambani’s younger son Anant
- Anant and Radhika Merchant, both 29 and childhood friends, are set to marry in a three-day ceremony beginning on July 12
MUMBAI: Canadian pop star Justin Bieber entertained some of India’s biggest celebrities in the latest instalment of months-long wedding celebrations thrown for the son of Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani.
Bieber, who shot to prominence as a teenage heartthrob, is among several global celebrities who have jetted into India for the marriage festivities of Ambani’s younger son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant.
He and Merchant, both 29, were childhood friends and are set to marry in a three-day Hindu ceremony beginning on July 12.
Bieber, who flew in from Los Angeles, was pictured at the Mumbai airport Friday morning wearing an oversized pink T-shirt and a bucket hat.
Footage of his concert in the financial hub that night shared on social media showed him performing his 2015 hit “Sorry” in front of hundreds of VIP revellers.
Bollywood star Salman Khan and former India cricket captain M.S. Dhoni were among the celebrity guests in attendance on Friday.
Indian media reports said Bieber was rumored to have been paid up to $10 million for the performance.
Anant Ambani and Merchant have already staged two elaborate and star-studded parties ahead of this month’s main event, including a three-day gala in February in Gujarat state.
There, Rihanna performed her first concert since last year’s Super Bowl for guests including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and former US president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
In June, the couple embarked on a four-day Mediterranean cruise, where singer Katy Perry performed at a masquerade ball at a French chateau in Cannes.
The Backstreet Boys, US rapper Pitbull and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli also provided entertainment.
Anant’s billionaire tycoon father is no stranger to throwing a costly wedding.
He held the most expensive wedding in India to date for his daughter in 2018, which reportedly cost $100 million and saw US singer Beyonce perform.
Ambani, 67, the chairman of Reliance Industries, has a fortune of more than $113 billion, the 11th wealthiest person in the world, according to the Forbes billionaires list.
He is also a key ally of India’s right-wing Hindu nationalist leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ambani inherited a thriving industrial enterprise spanning oil, gas and petrochemicals.
He grew it into a commercial behemoth with lucrative interests in retail, telecommunications and an Indian Premier League cricket team.
Merchant is the daughter of prominent pharmaceutical moguls.
Dutch far-right leader says will join Orban’s European parliamentary group
THE HAGUE: Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders said Friday that his party would join a European parliamentary alliance recently formed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban announced the formation of the group on Sunday, joined by Austria’s far-right party and the Czech centrist group of ex-premier Andrej Babis.
The new alliance, “Patriots for Europe,” needs support from parties from at least four other countries to be recognized as a group in the EU parliament.
“We want to combine forces in the (European Parliament) and will proudly join Patriots for Europe!” Wilders said in a statement.
“Strong and sovereign. Resisting illegal immigration. We defend peace and freedom. And support Ukraine. We protect our Judeo-Christian heritage. And our families.”
Orban — whose country assumed the EU’s rotating presidency this week — has long railed against the “Brussels elites,” most recently accusing Brussels of fueling the war in Ukraine.
Hungary has vowed to use its EU presidency to push for its “vision of Europe” under the motto “Make Europe Great Again” — echoing the rallying cry of Orban ally former US president Donald Trump.
Wilders’ PVV (Freedom Party) has six seats in the European Parliament.
The party was the big winner of Dutch parliamentary elections in November and heads the recently formed coalition government.
Malian army and Russian mercenaries accused of killing dozens of civilians in Kidal region
- Killings took place from June 20 to 29 in the Abeibara, Kidal region, say civil society groups and residents
- Mali military denies knowledge of the killings. Mali has long battled armed groups, including many allied with the Al-Qaeda and Daesh
BAMAKO, Mali: Mali’s army and Russian mercenaries killed dozens of civilians during a military operation last month in northern Mali, civil organization and community members alleged Friday, amid a surge in violence after the ruling junta broke off a peace agreement with rebel groups.
The killings took place from June 20 to 29 in the Abeibara in the Kidal region, the civil society groups and residents said. The Malian military says it has no knowledge of the alleged killings, but says military operations are taking place throughout the country.
The region is a former stronghold of a rebellion by militants in the Tuareg ethnic group who are fighting the army in a conflict where civilians increasingly have become the main victims. Some of the militants have formerly been allied with Al-Qaeda.
Hamadine Driss Ag Mohamed, son of Abeibara’s village chief, told The Associated Press on Friday that Malian soldiers and fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner had killed 46 civilians.
“The Malian and Wagner soldiers executed old men and shepherds and stole everything they found in the camps such as money and valuable jewelry,” he said.
Mali and its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger have long battled insurgencies by armed groups, including many allied with the Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (Daesh).
Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and have sought military help instead from Russia’s mercenary units, such as the private security company Wagner and its likely successor, Africa Corps.
In December 2023, a United Nations peacekeeping force created 10 years earlier and aimed at stabilizing Mali after a Tuareg rebellion in 2012, pulled out of the country at the request of the junta, which called the mission a failure.
Following last month’s violence in Abeibara, images of lifeless bodies and incinerated campsites circulated on social networks for several days. The Associated Press has not been able to verify them.
Citizen’s Observatory for Monitoring and Defending the Human Rights of the Azawad People, a civil society organization also known as Kal akal, said in a statement Friday that there were at least 60 civilians killed in the Abeibara area and that they were buried in mass graves.
The group denounced “a vast campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Russians of the Wagner group, in the company of the Malian army.”
A spokesman for the Malian army, Col. Maj. Souleymane Dembélé, said the military was unaware of the alleged killings. “It’s true that there are military operations underway throughout the national territory,” Dembélé told the AP over the phone. “But I have no information on these accusations.”
More than a decade of instability has followed the Tuareg rebellion, though in 2015 the Tuareg rebel groups signed the peace deal with the government that was welcomed by the United Nations.
But following the military coup in 2020, Mali’s junta broke the peace agreement with the Tuareg rebel groups and attacked their stronghold of Kidal in 2023. Since then, Kidal has been plagued by violence, particularly against civilians.
Kenya’s president apologizes for arrogant officials and promises to act against police brutality
- Kenya experienced two weeks of unrest, leading to the death of 39 activists who stormed Parliament to protest a finance bill
- President Ruto has told Parliament to withdraw the bill and he promised to have those guilty of police brutality prosecuted
NAIROBI: Kenya’s President William Ruto on Friday apologized for the “arrogance and show of opulence” by legislators and ministers from the ruling party and promised action against “rogue” police officers who shot at unarmed civilians during deadly protests and the storming of parliament over plans to hike taxes.
Ruto, referring to what he called arrogant statements made by officials, said public speaking was “difficult” and some people make “mistakes” for which he takes responsibility and promised change in the conduct of officials.
Kenya experienced two weeks of unrest during which Parliament was stormed by protesters during a finance bill vote. The president was hosted Friday on the social media platform X by popular social media influencer Osama Otero, who said he was abducted on the night of the protests and beaten by police.
Ruto said he regretted the abduction and that he would take action, adding that “that is not right.” “You don’t deserve the kind of treatment you went through,” he said.
The president said the police are independent and not controlled by the executive branch of government but promised to ensure that those responsible would be prosecuted. “I am ultimately responsible because I am president, and that is why I said it was regrettable,” Ruto said.
During the storming of Parliament during a finance bill vote — which would have resulted in a tax increase if approved — legislators fled through an underground tunnel. Police responded by opening fire and several protesters were shot dead.
Ruto later said he would not sign the finance bill and communicated to Parliament that the proposed legislation should be withdrawn, but protests continued with calls for him to resign over poor governance.
Kenya has been plagued by corruption, with the latest case involving the sale and distribution of thousands of fake fertilizer bags worth millions of shillings by the agriculture ministry.
The president on Friday was accused of not showing empathy and not mentioning the names of those who died during the protests. He responded by saying “people are born differently.” But he added that he was scheduled to speak with the mother of a boy who was shot and killed during protests.
Ruto was accused of not acknowledging the correct number of those who died in the protests. He put the number at 25 while the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights said 39 people were killed.
An hour before the online engagement, Ruto in a televised address announced specific austerity measures that included the dissolution of “47 state corporations with overlapping and duplicative functions” to save on operation and maintenance costs.
He also “suspended” the appointment of 50 chief administrative secretaries that were challenged in court on the basis of the positions being unconstitutional.
The president also announced that the offices of the first lady and the spouses of the deputy president and prime Cabinet secretary would not be funded using public money.
The young people who spoke during Otero’s Friday engagement on X emphasized the need for the president to sack incompetent government ministers in a reorganization that he stated was “coming soon.”
Brazil issues apology for police action against diplomats’ kids
- Brazil’s Military Police also released a statement saying the body-worn camera footage of the officers involved would be reviewed “to determine if there was excess force on the part of the authorities”
RIODE JANEIRO: Brazilian officials apologized Friday after police officers were filmed in an armed confrontation with the children of ambassadors from Canada, Gabon and Burkina Faso.
Surveillance footage from the incident Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro showed police exiting a vehicle and rushing with guns drawn toward a group of four teens.
Two of the teens are then put up against a wall and frisked before being released by police, who departed minutes later.
The minors, who live in the country’s capital Brasilia, were on vacation in Rio’s affluent Ipanema neighborhood when the confrontation occurred.
“How are you going to point guns at the heads of 13-year-old boys?” said Julie-Pascale Moudoute-Bell, the wife of the Gabonese ambassador to Brazil, in an interview with Globo television.
“Even for adults: you approach me, you ask me first, and then you tell me why you’re approaching me,” she continued.
As a result of the confrontation, Brazilian officials met with the ambassadors of Gabon and Burkina Faso on Friday to formally apologize, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The ambassador from Canada was not present for the meeting.
Brazil’s Military Police also released a statement saying the body-worn camera footage of the officers involved would be reviewed “to determine if there was excess force on the part of the authorities.”
