Tag: news

Letter accuses US security agency of turning ‘blind eye’ to Gaza suffering | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Washington, DC – More than a hundred staff members from the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have signed an open letter to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denouncing the department’s handling of the war in Gaza.

The letter, exclusively obtained by Al Jazeera, expresses frustration with the “palpable, glaring absence in the Department’s messaging” of “recognition, support, and mourning” for the more than 18,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of the war on October 7.

“The grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the conditions in the West Bank are circumstances that the Department would generally respond to in various ways,” the letter, dated November 22, said.

“Yet DHS leadership has seemingly turned a blind eye to the bombing of refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, and civilians.”

The letter’s signatories include 139 staff members from DHS and the agencies it manages, like Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

But some staff members “elected to sign this letter anonymously” for fear of backlash, the document explained. It called for DHS to “provide a fair and balanced representation of the situation, and allow for respectful expression without the fear of professional repercussions”.

DHS did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment by the time of publication.

The letter is the latest indication of fractures within the administration of President Joe Biden, who has faced internal criticism for his government’s stance on the Gaza war.

Last month, more than 500 officials from 40 government agencies issued an anonymous letter pushing Biden to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Another letter, signed by 1,000 employees from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), expressed a similar appeal.

But Biden has been reluctant to criticise Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza, instead pledging his “rock solid and unwavering” support for the longtime US ally.

In an internal message on November 2, Mayorkas echoed Biden’s stance. He denounced the “horrific terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7”, perpetrated by the Palestinian group Hamas, but made no mention of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“The impacts [of October 7] continue to sweep through Jewish, Arab American, Muslim and other communities everywhere,” Mayorkas wrote.

“I am heartened knowing that our Department is on the front lines of protecting our communities from antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bigotry and hate.”

US President Joe Biden has expressed ‘unwavering’ support for Israel as it conducts a months-long military offensive in Gaza [Leah Millis/Reuters]

But two DHS staff members who spoke to Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity felt that department leadership should be going further to address the mounting death toll in Gaza, where civilians remain under Israeli siege.

United Nations experts have already warned of a “grave risk of genocide” in the territory, as supplies run low and bombs continue to fall.

“I’ve been very dedicated to the federal government,” one anonymous DHS official said. “I’ve served in different capacities. I very much believed in our mission.

“And then, after October 7, I feel like there has just been a drastic shift in this expectation of what we’re supposed to do when there’s a humanitarian crisis and what we’re actually doing when there’s politics involved, and that has a very, very scary, chilling impact.”

The staff’s open letter calls for DHS to take actions in Gaza “commensurate with past responses to humanitarian tragedies”, including through the creation of a humanitarian parole programme for Palestinians in the territory.

That would allow them to temporarily enter the US “based on urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons”.

The letter also pushed DHS to designate residents of the Palestinian territories eligible for “temporary protected status” or TPS. That would permit Palestinians already in the US to remain in the country and qualify for employment authorisation.

Such programmes have been put in place for other conflicts, including for Ukrainians facing full-scale invasion from Russia.

Last month, 106 members of Congress — including Senator Dick Durbin and Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Jerry Nadler — even sent a letter to Biden, urging a TPS designation for the Palestinian territories.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Joe Biden stand behind wooden podiums and in front of Ukrainian and US flags in a press conference at the White House.
Biden has been criticised for offering temporary protected status for Ukrainians but not for Palestinians in Gaza [Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

But one of the anonymous DHS officials who spoke with Al Jazeera said that, although there has been discussion about a possible TPS designation, action seems unlikely.

“There have been a lot of serious systemic and programmatic obstacles driven purely by politics,” she said.

Part of the challenge is that the US does not recognise Palestine as a foreign state, putting its eligibility for TPS in doubt.

“We don’t recognise Palestine as a state. We don’t code them with that,” the DHS official explained. “And that’s something across Customs and Border Protection, ICE and USCIS. There have just been obstacles raised at the highest levels of those agencies.”

The official suspects she knows why. “They’re worried about their own operations in terms of removing or deporting people to Gaza and the West Bank, if they were to change these codes.”

But that inaction has levied a steep toll on employees’ mental health, according to the DHS officials Al Jazeera spoke to.

One described how colleagues with family in Gaza had received no support from DHS leadership as they tried to bring their relatives to safety.

The other, a senior staff member who has spent more than a decade working for the federal government, described having nightmares of losing his own children.

He said he wakes up “with the knowledge that we’re not actually doing all that we can to provide programmes and relief for the Palestinians”.

“It’s definitely distressing and dispiriting to feel like, for political considerations, we’re not addressing [the conflict] in the same way that we would other previous, recent humanitarian crises, for instance, like Ukraine.”

Houses are left in ruin after an Israeli air strike in Rafah, part of the southern Gaza Strip, on December 12 [Fadi Shana/Reuters]

The senior official voiced dismay that Biden’s immigration policies have remained similar to that of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Biden has faced pressure to limit the number of arrivals in the US, particularly as migration across the US-Mexico border spikes.

“The issue is, honestly, that the Biden administration has been really tepid about moving too far in front on immigration and is focused almost entirely on the southern border and how that impacts the administration politically. That has informed a lot of the decision-making with respect to new programmes,” the official said.

That tepidness has left many of the anonymous DHS officials feeling demoralised, questioning their sense of mission.

“We have the ability to do anything, something, and we’re just not,” one of the officials said.

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What to know about Turkey’s football crisis after attack on referee | Football News

Turkey is set to resume its league football on Tuesday, ending a brief suspension in the domestic competition caused by an attack on a referee by a club’s president who was later arrested by local authorities.

Turkish football’s “night of shame” has caused the country’s most popular sport to spiral into a crisis and has raised questions about on-pitch violence towards match officials.

Here’s a look at the events that unfolded since the violent incident in Ankara:

What happened during and after the match?

The Turkish Super Lig match between MKA Ankaragucu and Caykur Rizespor ended in a 1-1 draw on Monday after the visitors equalised in the last minute of added time. After the full-time whistle was blown, Ankaragucu President Faruk Koca rushed onto the pitch with a group of men and knocked out referee Halil Umut Meler with a blow to the left side of his face.

Meler was kicked several times in the ensuing melee, which occurred when fans invaded the pitch. The 37-year-old match official was shown standing minutes later with a black eye that had swelled up the left part of his face.

He eventually made it to the dressing room with the help of the police.

Why was the referee attacked?

Koca appeared to be incensed at Meler for sending off one of his players and then awarding a stoppage-time goal that allowed Rizespor to leave Ankara with a draw.

Meler released a statement on Tuesday saying Koca had threatened his life.

“Faruk Koca punched me under my left eye, and I fell to the ground. While I was on the ground, they kicked my face and other parts of my body many times,” Meler said.

“[He] told me and my fellow referees: ‘I will finish you.’ Addressing me in particular, he said: ‘I will kill you.’”

Meler was released from hospital in Ankara on Wednesday after undergoing observation and receiving a phone call from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Meler, a respected referee with accreditation to officiate international matches, is expected to recover and join the refereeing crew of the Euro 2024 championship, to be held from June to July in Germany.

Halil Umut Meler leaves the hospital in Ankara on December 13, 2023 [Cagla Gurdogan/Reuters]

Who is Faruk Koca?

MKE Ankaragucu’s Koca is a politician, former parliamentarian, aspiring Ankara mayor and member of Erdogan’s AK Party.

“If I am entrusted with the task of being the metropolitan municipality mayor, I will do what is necessary,” Koca said this year. However, the ruling party has initiated procedures to expel Koca.

Since the incident, Koca has resigned as club president – a role he took up in 2021 – but insists that his team was cheated by the referee.

“No matter how great an injustice or how wrong [the officiating] was, nothing can legitimise or explain the violence that I perpetrated,” Koca said in a club statement.

“I apologise to the Turkish refereeing community, the sports public and our nation,” he added.

Turkish Football Federation (TFF) chief Mehmet Buyukeksi said the sport’s governing body will announce penalties for the altercation.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said Koca and two others were formally arrested for “injuring a public official” after prosecutors took statements from them.

“The investigation is continuing meticulously,” he said on the social media platform X.

Turkey’s president was also quick to condemn the incident.

“Sports means peace and brotherhood. The sport is incompatible with violence. We will never allow violence to take place in Turkish sports,” Erdogan wrote on X.

What has FIFA said?

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the events after the match were “totally unacceptable and have no place in our sport or society”.

“Without match officials, there is no football,” he added.

European football’s governing body, UEFA, also condemned the incident.

“We urge the authorities and the responsible disciplinary bodies to take decisive and necessary action against anyone involved in acts of abuse and violence against referees,” UEFA said.

Matches were suspended indefinitely hours after the incident, but on Wednesday, the TFF said action will resume next week.

Is there a history of violent attacks on referees and match officials?

Violence in football is commonplace in Turkey despite efforts to clamp down on it although direct attacks on top-level referees are rare. Still, Buyukeksi blamed the attack on a culture of contempt towards referees.

“Everyone who has targeted referees and encouraged them to commit crimes is complicit in this despicable attack,” he said.

“The irresponsible statements of club presidents, managers, coaches and television commentators targeting referees have opened the way for this attack.”

Pierluigi Collina, chairman of FIFA’s referees committee, said the incident was horrific.

“Neither the referee nor the man deserved to live the experience he lived yesterday in Ankara. He was doing his job when he was assaulted on the field of play at the end of a match he just officiated,” Collina said on Tuesday.

Hugh Dallas, Turkish Super Lig’s head of referee education, was in the stadium when the incident happened and has called for governments to take action.

Referees in Turkey are often criticised by club managers and presidents for their decisions.

“I think a lot of club presidents, media and others will take a look at themselves today and realise when you whip up that type of mass hysteria regarding refereeing, this is the result,” he told the BBC.

“There has to be legislation and punishments put in place for clubs, players, owners or whoever when they behave in such a manner because it definitely can’t continue.”



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Tesla recalls nearly all US vehicles over autopilot system defects | Automotive Industry News

The firm’s largest-ever recall comes after a two-year investigation by federal safety regulator focused on autopilot function.

Tesla is recalling more than two million cars in the United States, nearly all of its vehicles sold there, after a federal regulator said defects with the autopilot system pose a safety hazard.

In a recall filing on Wednesday, the carmaker said autopilot software system controls “may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse”.

“Automated technology holds great promise for improving safety but only when it is deployed responsibly,” said a spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has been investigating the autopilot function for more than two years.

“Today’s action is an example of improving automated systems by prioritizing safety.”

The decision marks the largest-ever recall for Tesla, as autonomous vehicle development in the US hits a series of snags over safety concerns. The company has said that it will install new safeguards and fix current defects.

The recall covers models Y, S, 3 and X produced between October 5, 2012, and December 7, 2023.

Speaking before the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, acting NHTSA Administrator Ann Carlson said she was happy Tesla had agreed to a recall.

She said that the agency first started investigating Tesla’s autopilot function in August 2021 after hearing about several fatal crashes that occurred when the autopilot was on.

“One of the things we determined is that drivers are not always paying attention when that system is on,” she said.

Documents posted on Wednesday by the agency said the current autopilot design can lead to “foreseeable misuse of the system,” and that the changes to be instituted will “further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility”.

Some experts have raised questions over whether such steps go far enough.

“The compromise is disappointing,” Phil Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who studies autonomous vehicle safety, told The Associated Press.

“Because it does not fix the problem that the older cars do not have adequate hardware for driver monitoring.”

Driverless cars, exalted by supporters as an exciting technological advancement, have faced a series of setbacks in recent months.

In October, California suspended testing by the self-driving car firm Cruise, after California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) raised questions about safety concerns.

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Displaced Palestinians “don’t have anything to survive on” | Israel-Palestine conflict News

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“They are suffering right now. They don’t have anything to survive on.” Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum observed the deteriorating conditions many Palestinians are being forced to endure after being told to evacuate to so-called safe areas by Israel.

Published On 13 Dec 2023

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Australia cricketer Khawaja will ‘fight’ to wear Palestine solidarity shoes | Cricket News

Australian cricket player Usman Khawaja has promised to “fight” a ruling by the sport’s governing body that he says has stopped him from displaying messages in support of “those who don’t have a voice”.

In an emotional video posted on his social media, Khawaja clarified that his message was “not political” and that the “bigger problem” was people calling him up to berate him for his stance.

The opening batter was seen wearing cricket boots with “all lives are equal” and “freedom is a human right” written on them in the colours of the Palestinian flag during Australia’s training session prior to their Test series against Pakistan.

The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) rules do not allow players to display “non-compliant” wording or logos on clothing or equipment worn during international matches.

It means that the batter will not be able to wear the boots during Australia’s first Test match against Pakistan, starting on Thursday, December 14.

“I will respect their view and decision, but I will fight it and seek to gain approval,” Khawaja said.

“I’m just speaking up for those who don’t have a voice.”

The ICC has declined Al Jazeera’s request for a comment.

‘I imagine my two girls – what if it were them’

Khawaja said he was speaking up for the thousands of children that are being killed [in Gaza] “without any repercussions or remorse” and that his message was not “political” as seen by the ICC.

At least 7,700 children have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October, according to government and health officials in the besieged strip.

“This is close to my heart,” he said in the video with a quivering voice.

“When I see thousands of children dying without any repercussions or remorse, I imagine my two girls – what if this was them?”

Khawaja has two daughters, Aisha and Ayla, with his Australian-born wife Rachel whom he married in 2018.

“No one chooses where they are born, and then I see the world turning their backs on them, my heart can’t take it,” he went on to say in the video.

The 36-year-old, who was born in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad before moving to Australia as a child. He has often spoken of his experience and the problems he has faced moving through the Australian cricket circuit.

“I already felt my life wasn’t equal to others when I was growing up,” he said.

“But luckily for me, I have never lived in a world where the lack of inequality was life or death.”

Usman Khawaja gives an on-field interview holding his daughter Aisha [File: Paul Childs/Action Images via Reuters]

Khawaja questions backlash

Khawaja, who has represented Australia in 115 international matches in a 12-year career, said he wanted to ask those people who got offended by his act of solidarity, “Is freedom not for everyone?”

“To me, personally, it doesn’t matter what race, religion or culture you are – but if me saying ‘all lives are equal’ has offended people to the point of  – these people obviously don’t believe in what I have written.”

“What I have written is not political, I’m not taking sides. Human life to me is equal. One Muslim life is equal to one Jewish life, is equal to one Hindu life, and so on.”

Despite Khawaja’s revelation about a shocking number of people calling him up to tell him off, he has found support from Australia’s Sport Minister Anika Wells.

“Usman Khawaja is a great athlete and a great Australian,” Anika Wells told local media.

“He should have every right to speak up on matters that are important to him. He has done so in a peaceful and respectful way.”

Meanwhile, Australia captain Pat Cummins said he spoke with Khawaja and confirmed that the batter won’t display the messages despite them “not being divisive.”

“On his shoes he had ‘all lives are equal’. I think that’s not very divisive. I don’t think anyone can really have too many complaints about that,” he told reporters in his pre-match news conference.

“I don’t think his intention is to make too big of a fuss, but we support him,” Cummins said.

‘Political messaging makes regulatory bodies nervous’

Experts believe how the ICC reacts to Khawaja’s appeal will set a precedent for the handling of such issues by sport bodies.

“I think many eyes in the sporting world will look at how this matter is resolved,” Ian Bayley, a senior lecturer in media and public relations at the University of Staffordshire, told Al Jazeera.

When asked if Khawaja had approached them to seek approval to wear the messaging on his boots, they had “no comment, nothing has happened.”

“The ICC code of conduct on this issue is quite explicit,” Bayley said.

“But Khawaja’s counter-argument that his messages are not political but are, in fact, humanitarian is an interesting one.

The academic said, “Sport has always offered a strong and powerful platform for political messaging.”

“But it is a fact that, rightly or wrongly, political messaging tends to make regulatory bodies nervous.

“Setting aside the arguments about free speech, it is not surprising that many [sports bodies] have rules in place which effectively limit, or even ban, competitors from displaying political messages.”

Former England cricketer Moeen Ali has also been at the receiving end of the ICC’s warning for showing support for Palestinians.

In the middle of the 2014 war in Gaza, Ali was asked to stop wearing wristbands showing support for Gaza during a Test match against India.

More recently, Pakistan wicketkeeper Muhammad Rizwan dedicated his country’s win against Sri Lanka at the Cricket World Cup in India to the people of Gaza but did not face any sanctions as the comments were made after the match.

‘Double standards’

Cricket fans and experts have slammed the ICC’s decision and have drawn comparisons when the sport has shown support to other causes in the past.

Cricket writer Ayaz Memon said Khawaja was “brave and right”.

“What’s objectionable in the cause he’s espousing? ICC, which (rightly) supported Black Lives Matter, is being shamefully duplicitous in this instance,” he wrote in a post on X.

 



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US Supreme Court to decide on access to abortion pill in major case | Women’s Rights News

The Biden administration aims to preserve access to the abortion pill mifepristone, which has been approved by the FDA.

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a bid by President Joe Biden’s administration to preserve access to the abortion pill, setting up another major ruling on reproductive rights set to come in a presidential election year.

The court made the decision Wednesday, two years after it ended its recognition of a constitutional right to abortion.

The justices took up the administration’s appeal of an August decision by the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that would curb how the pill, called mifepristone, is delivered and distributed, barring telemedicine prescriptions and shipments by mail of the drug.

The high court also agreed to hear an appeal by the drug’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories.

The 5th Circuit’s decision is currently on hold pending the outcome of the appeal at the Supreme Court in a challenge to the pill brought in Texas by anti-abortion rights groups and doctors.

The justices are expected to hear arguments in the coming months and issue a decision by the end of June in the middle of a heated presidential race.

The Department of Justice in its filing to the Supreme Court said that allowing the 5th Circuit’s restrictions to take effect would have “damaging consequences for women seeking lawful abortions and a healthcare system that relies on the availability of the drug under the current conditions of use”.

Abortion a key election issue

Anti-abortion rights groups want to see mifepristone banned, claiming it is unsafe, despite the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval of it back in 2000, and that adverse effects of the drug are rare.

The US government argues the use of mifepristone should be left to FDA, but at a hearing in May, the three judges in the lower court pushed back against the government’s arguments.

As such, the case could put at risk the authority of the FDA.

It stems from a ruling by a conservative US District Court judge in Texas that would have banned mifepristone.

Biden’s administration is seeking to defend the pill in the face of abortion bans and restrictions enacted by Republican-led states since the Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision that had legalised the procedure.

Since the overturning, at least 14 US states have put in place outright abortion bans while many others prohibit abortion after a certain duration of pregnancy.

Abortion rights are a divisive issue in the 2024 presidential race.

Biden’s main challenger, former President Donald Trump, appointed three members of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority – all three of whom voted to overturn Roe.

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Civilians sheltering inside a Gaza school killed execution-style | Israel-Palestine conflict News

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“They were all killed, executed at gunpoint.” In exclusive testimonies obtained by Al Jazeera, witnesses describe the horrific sights they encountered inside a school in northern Gaza following an Israeli attack.

Published On 13 Dec 2023

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Trump loses immunity bid in Carroll defamation suit | Donald Trump News

A US Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an earlier decision by a federal judge saying that Trump cannot claim immunity.

Donald Trump cannot assert presidential immunity from a defamation lawsuit by writer E Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, a US appeals court has ruled, dealing the former US president another legal setback.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Wednesday upheld a federal judge’s decision to reject Trump’s claim of immunity, finding Trump had waited too long to raise it as a defence.

Alina Habba, one of Trump’s lawyers in the case, called the ruling “fundamentally flawed” and said Trump would seek “immediate review” from the Supreme Court.

Carroll in the lawsuit sought at least $10m in damages from Trump over comments he made in June 2019, when he was president, after she first publicly accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump denied knowing Carroll, said she was not his “type,” and that she made up the rape claim to promote her upcoming memoir.

E Jean Carroll exits the Manhattan Federal Court following the verdict in the civil rape accusation case against former US President Donald Trump, in New York City on May 9 [File: Andrew Kelly/Reuters]

The former Elle magazine columnist sued in November 2019, but Trump waited until December 2022 before asserting that absolute presidential immunity shielded him from her lawsuit. Under this, a president has complete immunity from many types of civil lawsuits while in office.

In June, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan rejected Trump’s bid to dismiss Carroll’s case and later refused to let Trump raise an immunity defence, citing the delay in seeking to invoke it and the public interest in accountability.

The 2nd Circuit on Wednesday said those decisions were correct.

“A three-year-delay is more than enough, under our precedents, to qualify as ‘undue’,” a three-judge panel wrote in its opinion.

Trump’s appeal was heard on an expedited basis, in advance of a scheduled January 16, 2024, trial.

He has pursued a similar immunity defence in his federal criminal case in Washington in which he is accused of unlawfully trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

Carroll has already won one civil trial against Trump. In May, a jury in a second lawsuit awarded her $5m for sexual assault and defamation after Trump last October again denied her accusations. Trump is appealing that verdict.

On September 6, Kaplan ruled that the jury’s findings in May applied to Carroll’s first lawsuit, making Trump’s denial defamatory. That left for trial only the issue of how much money Trump should pay Carroll in damages.

“We are pleased that the Second Circuit affirmed Judge Kaplan’s rulings and that we can now move forward with trial,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said in a statement.

Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 US election despite facing four federal and state criminal indictments. He has pleaded not guilty in those cases.

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Argentina’s Milei starts shock therapy by devaluing peso by 50 percent | Business and Economy News

New president Milei warns of painful measures as currency value slashed, subsidies cut, public works tenders cancelled.

Argentina’s government has announced it will slash the value of its currency, the peso, by more than 50 percent against the US dollar as its new far-right president seeks radical solutions to fix the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

President Javier Milei‘s economy chief announced the painful measure on Tuesday, saying it was necessary for Argentina to “avoid catastrophe”.

The devaluation would drop the peso’s value from 400 to the dollar to more than 800 to the dollar, a blow to tens of millions of Argentinians already struggling to make ends meet.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced a raft of other austerity measures, including sweeping subsidy cuts, the cancellation of tenders for public works projects, and plans to axe nine government ministries.

However, the government plans to double social spending for the poorest to help them absorb the economic shock.

“For a few months, we’re going to be worse than before,” Caputo said in his televised address.

“If we continue as we are, we are inevitably heading toward hyperinflation,” he said.

A sign outside a store reads, in Spanish, ‘We accept dollars’, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 12 [Tomas Cuesta/Reuters]

‘Tough pill to swallow’

The planned measures drew praise from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to whom Argentina owes $45bn, but sparked harsh criticism from some progressive activists.

Left-wing activist Juan Grabois said that Caputo had declared “a social murder without flinching like a psychopath about to massacre his defenceless victims”.

“Your salary in the private sector, in the public sector, in the popular, social and solidarity economy, in the cooperative or informal sector, for retirees and pensioners, will get you half in the supermarket,” Grabois said. “Do you really think that people are not going to protest?”

Jimena Blanco, chief analyst with risk consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft, said Milei’s government was trying to temper an otherwise guaranteed economic crash landing.

“He promised a very tough pill to swallow and he’s delivering that pill,” she said. “The question is how long will popular patience last in terms of waiting for the economic situation to change.”

Economic shock

The economic overhaul is part of the new strategy by Milei, who was sworn in on Sunday and has aggressively sought to tackle the fiscal deficit he believes is the root of Argentina’s economic woes.

A self-described “anarcho-capitalist”, Milei argues harsh austerity is needed to put Argentina back on the path to prosperity and that there is no time for a gradualist approach. However, he has promised any adjustments will almost entirely affect the state rather than the private sector.

Argentinians, disillusioned with skyrocketing inflation and a 40 percent poverty rate, have proven surprisingly receptive to his vision.

Still, Milei’s road map is likely to encounter fierce opposition from the left-leaning Peronist movement’s lawmakers and unions it controls, whose members have said they refuse to lose wages.

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Allies raising pressure on Israel to halt Gaza bombardment | Gaza News

Calls for a ceasefire are growing after the UN passed a resolution and the US warned of deteriorating support.

Pressure is building on Israel after the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

Following US President Joe Biden’s warning to Israel that it risks losing international support due to its “indiscriminate” bombing of the enclave, on Wednesday a host of Israel’s allies called for a ceasefire.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other allies issued a rare joint statement calling for an end to hostilities and expressing alarm “at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza”.

The UNGA resolution demanding a ceasefire passed on Tuesday with the support of 153 of 193 nations. The US, Israel, and eight other states voted against the resolution.

Despite maintaining support, the US president offered his sharpest public criticism of Israel since the start of its war with Hamas.

“[Israel] has most of the world supporting it, but they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” Biden told supporters at a campaign fundraiser event.

Washington has been calling for weeks for Israel to take more care to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, saying that too many Palestinians have been killed.

Extreme

Biden also suggested that the US views the Israeli government as extreme, expressing concern that the “most conservative government in Israel’s history” is making progress in the resolution of the conflict “difficult”.

“He [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] has to change this government,” Biden said.

Israel “can’t say no” to a Palestinian state. Some hardline members of the Israeli government have rejected a two-state solution.

Netanyahu said there was “disagreement” with Biden over how a post-conflict Gaza would be governed.

The Israeli government has flatly refused to consider a long-term ceasefire in Gaza until all of the 240 hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 raids are freed. However, some administration members in Tel Aviv have admitted that the “window of legitimacy” for the operation may be closing, according to the AFP news agency.

The White House will send national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Israel this week on a trip that Biden said will again emphasise the commitment of the US to Israel but also the need to protect civilian lives in Gaza.

However, analysts suggest that Biden should be doing more to press the Israeli prime minister.

“Biden is more popular than Netanyahu within Israel. Netanyahu does not have the trust of most Israelis,” observed Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara.

According to him, now is the time for Biden to pressure Netanyahu into changing course on Gaza, including implementing an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

“Biden needs to pull the plug on Netanyahu” if he refuses to abide by the US stance, he said.

‘Continuous suffering’

Australia, Canada and New Zealand all voted in favour of the UNGA resolution calling for a ceasefire, despite close ties with Israel.

“The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians,” the leaders of the trio of states said in a joint statement.

Pope Francis, leader of the world’s 1.35 billion or so Catholics, renewed his call on Wednesday for an “immediate” ceasefire and pleaded for an end to suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians.

More than 18,000 people have been killed and nearly 50,000 others wounded in the Israeli assault on Gaza since October 7, according to Palestinian health officials. Many more dead are uncounted under the rubble or beyond the reach of ambulances.

Israel launched its onslaught in response to a raid by Hamas fighters from Gaza who killed about 1,200 people and took 240 others captive in southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

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