WASHINGTON: Protesters against the Gaza war held a “die-in” across from Lafayette Park and the White House on Thursday as President Joe Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The protesters poured red liquid onto the street, saying it symbolized the blood of those killed in Gaza. They chanted, “Arrest Netanyahu,” and brought in an effigy of Netanyahu with blood on its hands and wearing an orange jumpsuit. The jumpsuit reads, “Wanted for crimes against humanity.”
More than 39,000 people have died in Gaza since the start of the war in October. Dozens of Israeli hostages remain in Hamas captivity.
In an address to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu defended Israel’s conduct during the war, as thousands of demonstrators massed near the Capitol, marching through city streets carrying Palestinian flags and calling for Netanyahu’s arrest.
Outside Washington’s Union Station, protesters removed American flags and hoisted Palestinian ones in their place to massive cheers in the crowd. They sprayed graffiti on a monument to Christopher Columbus.
In a statement Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, spoke strongly about the protesters’ actions.
“Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent, and we must not tolerate it in our nation,” she said. “I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.”
The number of protesters Thursday was significantly smaller than the day before.
Hazami Barmada, who described herself as a grassroots activist, spoke through a megaphone of Biden’s decision not to see reelection and to pass the baton to Harris.
“Biden did not voluntarily leave the race, Joe Biden was pushed out of the race,” she said. “And Kamala Harris still needs to prove her humanity” before earning the trust of pro-Palestinian voters.
“I’m not going to give you my vote until you show you share the ideals that the Democratic Party is supposed to believe in,” she said.
At one point, a young man with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders walked into the middle of the protest circle and posed for the journalists’ cameras as the crowd jeered.
Police worked to keep the two sides apart.
As police led the man away — he wasn’t detained — Barmada shouted, “See, they even want to occupy our protests. Even our land isn’t enough!”
As police cleared the way, the protesters later marched through city streets toward the National Mall.
Gaza war protesters hold a ‘die-in’ near the White House as Netanyahu meets with Biden, Harris
https://arab.news/p87fx
Gaza war protesters hold a ‘die-in’ near the White House as Netanyahu meets with Biden, Harris
- The protesters poured red liquid onto the street, saying it symbolized the blood of those killed in Gaza.
- They chanted, “Arrest Netanyahu,” and brought in an effigy of Netanyahu with blood on its hands and wearing an orange jumpsuit
German minister says ‘historic opportunity’ to support new Syria
- Schulze announced that Berlin was expanding an international hospital partnerships program to include facilities in Syria
“After over 50 years of dictatorship and 14 years of civil war, Syria now has the chance of peaceful and stable development,” Schulze said in a statement.
Her visit comes a little over a month after Islamist-led forces toppled longtime president Bashar Assad.
Schulze is due to meet with the new leadership as well as aid organizations “to identify how Germany can support the development of a peaceful, stable and inclusive Syria,” the minister’s statement said.
“It would be wrong of us not to use this historic window of opportunity to support Syria in embarking on a peaceful new beginning,” she said.
“Germany can do a lot to support the new beginning for... Syrian society.”
Germany is home to Europe’s largest Syrian diaspora community, having taken in nearly a million people from the war-ravaged country.
A German study last month said that if they returned home, Germany could face labor shortages, particularly in the health care industry.
Schulze announced that Berlin was expanding an international hospital partnerships program to include facilities in Syria.
The expansion is part of reconstruction efforts but also aims at retaining “vital” medical professionals in Germany, according to the statement.
Schulze said that while “Syria’s new rulers are keen to regain the skilled workers and professionals who fled the country” during the civil war since 2011, “Germany also has an interest in retaining them.”
Under the expanded program, “doctors from Germany can visit Syria to conduct medical training courses or to train their Syrian colleagues in using new equipment,” the minister said.
“And Syrian doctors can come to Germany for training on both medical and organizational issues.”
Syria has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity since Assad’s fall on December 8, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also traveling to Damascus earlier this month.
Mozambique inaugurates new president amid deadly unrest
MAPUTO: Mozambique kicked off an inauguration ceremony Wednesday where President-elect Daniel Chapo will be sworn into office after weeks of deadly political unrest, but the main opposition leader has vowed to “paralyze” the country with fresh protests against the fiercely disputed election result.
Venancio Mondlane had already called for a national strike in the days leading up to the inauguration and threatened on Tuesday to curtail the new government with daily demonstrations.
Mondlane, 50, who is popular with the youth, maintains the October 9 polls were rigged in favor of Chapo’s Frelimo party, which has governed the gas-rich African country since independence from Portugal in 1975.
“This regime does not want peace,” Mondlane said in an address on Facebook Tuesday, adding that his communications team was met with bullets on the streets this week.
“We’ll protest every single day. If it means paralysing the country for the entire term, we will paralyze it for the entire term.”
Chapo, 48, called for stability on Monday, telling journalists at the national assembly “we can continue to work and together, united... to develop our country.”
International observers have said the election was marred by irregularities, while the EU mission condemned what it called the “unjustified alteration of election results.”
The swearing in ceremony was expected to be snubbed by foreign heads of state, a move “which sends a strong message,” Maputo-based political and security risk analyst Johann Smith told AFP.
Former colonial ruler Portugal is sending Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel.
“Even from a regional point of view there is a hesitancy to acknowledge or recognize that Chapo won the election,” Smith said.
However, neighboring South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was at the ceremony.
Amid tensions, security forces blocked roads throughout the capital Maputo and around Independence Square, where the swearing-in is being held.
The extent of the unrest from now on “depends on how Chapo will tackle the crisis,” analyst Borges Nhamirre told AFP.
The inauguration of parliamentary lawmakers Monday was held amid relative calm.
The streets were deserted, with most shops closed either in protest against the ceremony or out of fear of violence, while military police surrounded the parliament building and police blocked main roads.
Still, at least six people were killed in the Inhambane and Zambezia regions north of the capital, according to local civil society group Plataforma Decide.
Unrest since the election has claimed 300 lives, according to the group’s tally, with security forces accused of using excessive force against demonstrators. Police officers have also died, according to the authorities.
Chapo, who is expected to announce his new government this week, could make concessions by appointing opposition members to ministerial posts to quell the unrest, said Eric Morier-Genoud, an African history professor at Queen’s University Belfast.
There have also been calls for dialogue but Mondlane has been excluded from talks that Chapo and outgoing President Filipe Nyusi have opened with the leaders of the main political parties.
Chapo has repeatedly said however that he would include Mondlane in talks.
Mondlane, who returned to Mozambique last week after going into hiding abroad following the October 19 assassination of his lawyer, has said he was ready for talks.
“I’m here in the flesh to say that if you want to negotiate... I’m here,” he said.
According to official results, Chapo won 65 percent of the presidential vote, compared to 24 percent for Mondlane.
But the opposition leader claims that he won 53 percent and that Mozambique’s election institutions manipulated the results.
Frelimo parliamentarians also dominate the 250-seat national assembly with 171 seats compared to the Podemos party’s 43.
Russia fires over 40 missiles at Ukraine’s energy sector: Zelensky
KYIV: Russia launched more than 40 missiles and over 70 attack drones in an overnight barrage that targeted Ukraine’s energy sector, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday.
“More than 40 missiles were involved in this strike, including ballistic missiles. At least 30 were destroyed. There were also more than 70 Russian attack drones overnight,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Preventive power cuts introduced in Ukraine following a massive Russian missile attack
- Ukraine’s air force detected multiple missile groups launched by Russia during a nationwide air-raid alert
KYIV: Russia launched a massive aerial attack against Ukraine on Wednesday, forcing the country to introduce preventive power cuts, the Ukrainian energy minister said.
“The enemy continues to terrorize Ukrainians,” Herman Halushchenko wrote on Facebook, urging residents to stay in shelters during the ongoing threat and follow official updates.
The state energy company Ukrenergo reported emergency power outages in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kirovohrad regions.
Russian forces launched missile strikes targeting energy infrastructure in the western Lviv region early Wednesday, said the city’s mayor, Andrii Sadovyi.
“During the morning attack, enemy cruise missiles were recorded in the region,” he said.
No casualties or damage were reported.
Ukraine’s air force detected multiple missile groups launched by Russia during a nationwide air-raid alert, though initial reports indicated no damage.
Wednesday’s attack has further exacerbated the strain on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which has been a frequent target during the nearly three-year-old war.
Suspected outbreak of Marburg virus kills eight in Tanzania, WHO says
- The viral hemorrhagic fever has a fatality rate as high as 88 percent, and is from the same virus family as the one responsible for Ebola
NAIROBI: A suspected outbreak of the Marburg virus in northwest Tanzania has infected nine people, killing eight of them, the World Health Organization has said, weeks after an outbreak of the disease was declared over in neighboring Rwanda.
The viral hemorrhagic fever has a fatality rate as high as 88 percent, and is from the same virus family as the one responsible for Ebola, which is transmitted to people from fruit bats which are endemic to that part of East Africa.
The WHO said it received reliable reports of suspected cases in the Kagera region of Tanzania on Jan. 10, with symptoms of headache, high fever, back pain, diarrhea, vomiting blood, muscle weakness and finally external bleeding.
Samples from two patients were awaiting testing at Tanzania’s national laboratory for confirmation of the outbreak, WHO said in a statement on Tuesday.
The patients’ contacts, including health care workers, have been identified and were being followed up, WHO reported.
The outbreak in Rwanda, which shares a border with Tanzania’s Kagera region, infected 66 people and killed 15 before it was declared over on December 20.
Marburg virus can spread between people through direct contact or via blood and other bodily fluids of infected people, including contaminated bedding or clothing.
An outbreak in the Kagera region in March 2023 killed six people and lasted for nearly two months.
