Tag: news

Marianne Williamson on her US presidential campaign, the economy and Gaza | Elections News

Washington, DC – Marianne Williamson says she is not merely running a protest campaign.

A spiritual author who is challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination in the 2024 presidential race, Williamson believes someone needs to stand up to the growing corporate influences in the United States government.

“And I’m not the kind of woman who keeps my mouth shut,” Williamson told Al Jazeera from her apartment in Washington, DC, earlier this month.

Only once in US history has an elected president not received his party’s nomination for a second term. That makes Williamson’s campaign a long shot. But she remains undeterred. Her campaign is one of two Democratic challenges seeking to thwart Biden’s nomination, amid drooping poll numbers for the incumbent president.

While the other Democratic contender, Dean Phillips, is running from a centrist platform, Williamson hopes to rally progressives, a growing force in the party.

With her voice rising at times in indignation, Williamson decried how corporate greed was shifting the country — and the Democratic Party — away from their long-held ideals.

“We are at a point now where short-term profit maximisation for huge corporate entities has become America’s bottom line,” she said.

“And that corporatist perspective supersedes democratic values, humanitarian values and the safety and the health and the wellbeing of the American people.”

A progressive challenger

Her 2024 platform echoes many of the Democratic priorities articulated by Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the country’s most recognisable progressive voices.

He ran for president twice, in the 2016 and 2020 races, facing Williamson herself in the latter. She eventually dropped out, endorsing Sanders instead.

Williamson rose to fame in the early 1990s with her best-selling book A Return to Love and appearances on a TV talk show hosted by Oprah Winfrey. Later, in 2014, she unsuccessfully ran for Congress as an independent in California.

But with her presidential platform, she hopes to push further than Sanders did on several policy issues.

For example, Williamson backs a universal healthcare system, but her plan emphasises the need for healthier food, water and air and a less stressful lifestyle, saying that the current economic system increases “the probability of sickness”.

The candidate also wants to create a Department of Peace to suppress violence and address its root causes domestically and internationally.

Williamson’s almost holistic policy approach is underscored by her soft-spoken, guru-like persona. The author’s spirituality has led some to dismiss her candidacy as unserious. She went viral, for example, after saying in a 2019 primary debate that she would “harness love” to beat then-President Donald Trump and his campaign of “fear”.

Williamson is not unaware of that reputation. She acknowledges that she made “silly” statements at the debate that she credits to being “nervous”.

However, Williamson said there was a deliberate push to cast her aside in the 2020 race — a campaign that she said has intensified this time around.

“This time, it’s a full-on assault: mischaracterisation of my personality, of what I’ve done with my life for the last 40 years. This is strategised. This is purposeful,” she told Al Jazeera.

Shortly after Williamson announced her candidacy in March, Politico published an article citing anonymous former staffers who described the candidate as “abusive”. She dismissed the story at the time as a “hit piece” and refuted its details.

And on Wednesday, Williamson’s campaign faced another setback when the Massachusetts Democratic Party submitted only Biden’s name for the state’s primary ballot, effectively excluding her from the list of Democratic candidates.

Democratic presidential candidate and author Marianne Williamson speaks after filing to put her name on the ballot for the primary election in New Hampshire on October 12 [File: Brian Snyder/Reuters]

‘There is no wiggle room’

Still, Williamson has drawn some, albeit limited, momentum. A Quinnipiac University poll last month showed her polling at 12 percent, far behind Biden at 74 percent.

The progressive monthly The Nation, however, noted last month that the polling gap between Williamson and Biden is similar to the margin between Republican rivals Trump and Nikki Haley — though less attention is being paid to the Democratic race.

While the gap is nevertheless huge, Williamson argues that she deserves more media attention, especially with some polls showing Biden trailing Trump in the general elections.

For his part, Biden has waved aside the polling data. “Everybody running for reelection in this time has been in the same position. There’s nothing new about that,” he said when asked about his low approval ratings earlier this year.

Instead, Biden and his allies have hoped to redirect attention to the US economy, which is showing faster-than-expected growth, low unemployment and inflation slowly coming under control.

But Williamson said the oft-cited economic data does not tell the whole story. For example, she pointed to a recent study showing that 62 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

She also stressed the high cost of living many Americans face, which she said is due to cyclical inflation as well as corporate price-gouging.

“For millions of people, it could be the difference whether or not you keep your apartment,” Williamson said. “So for the majority of Americans, there is no wiggle room.”

On Gaza

Democratic voters are also split over the Biden administration’s support for the war in Gaza. Biden has expressed “unwavering support” to Israel, promising to provide it with billions of dollars of additional aid despite humanitarian concerns over its military campaign.

The Israeli offensive has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, and Israel’s leaders have pledged to continue the war until Hamas is eliminated. The Palestinian group had attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking hundreds more captive.

The White House and Pentagon have said repeatedly that they are not drawing any “red lines” to limit what Israel can do with US aid. Biden, meanwhile, continues to dismiss growing calls for a ceasefire.

For her part, Williamson has called for an end to the fighting, the release of the Israeli captives and an international push for a broader resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“I understand Israel’s need to slay the monster. But this military action is only feeding it,” Williamson said. “There was never a military solution here. And there is not a military solution now.”

Williamson added that while there is “no minimisation of the horror and the barbarism and the pure evil of October 7”, Palestinians have been suffering from Israeli occupation, settlement expansion and blockades around their territory.

“I don’t see any solution here but a ceasefire, a release of hostages, architecture for a two-state solution immediately,” she told Al Jazeera. “The death of a Palestinian child is no less horrifying than the death of an Israeli child.”

Williamson’s position reflects the views of a majority of Democrats. A December poll from the New York Times and Siena College found 64 percent of Democratic voters felt Israel should stop its military campaign to prevent civilian casualties, even if Hamas had not been “eliminated”.

But Williamson blames outdated worldviews for policymakers’ opposition to a ceasefire.

“The president is stuck in the 20th century — not just on this, but on many things. And that’s the problem here,” she said.

Biden has been a staunch supporter of Israel throughout his decades-long political career, which stretches back to the 1970s — a time when the country was seen as an essential US ally in the Middle East during the Cold War.

In fact, the president has repeated the same pro-Israel statements verbatim for the past 40 years.

That stance has led many Arab and Muslim Americans to pledge not to vote for Biden in the upcoming election because of his support for the war. So what is Williamson’s message to those voters?

“I have a very difficult time saying anyone should vote for me,” she said. “People should vote their conscience. People should listen to what the candidates have to say, consider deeply within their own hearts and minds what they think is best for their country and the world, and then should vote accordingly.”

Asked about the US vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire and the captives’ release, Williamson said: “Shameful. Shameful.”

The Democratic primaries kick off on January 23 in New Hampshire.

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Four Indian soldiers killed in Kashmir amid uptick in attacks on troops | Conflict News

Thursday’s attack is the latest in a series of incidents in which armed fighters have killed Indian soldiers.

Four Indian soldiers were killed, and three others were wounded after suspected rebels ambushed Indian military vehicles in the southernmost border district of Rajouri in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said on Friday.

An Indian army official told Al Jazeera that the attack took place on Thursday afternoon when two army vehicles – a mini-truck and a gypsy – carrying nine soldiers were moving to a site where a search operation was under way to find the suspected rebels in Rajouri.

In a statement on Thursday evening, the Indian army said that their “troops immediately retaliated”.

Following the attack, the Indian army launched a major operation in the area to nab the attackers who are believed to be hiding in the dense forest area. Nearby areas were also cordoned off. So far, however, the army has not declared any casualties among the armed rebels.

Rajouri and Poonch districts are the hilly areas close to the Line of Control (LoC), a demarcation line between the Indian and Pakistan-administered parts of Kashmir.

The armed rebellion in Kashmir, which is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, but ruled in parts by the two neighbours, has been continuing since the 1990s against Indian rule. India accuses Pakistan of financing and arming the rebellion.

New Delhi has struggled for decades to completely suppress anti-India sentiments in Kashmir.

In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped the region of its semi-autonomous status, guaranteed under the Indian constitution when the former king of Kashmir acceded to the Indian Union in 1948. Earlier this week, the Indian Supreme Court upheld the Modi government’s decision. India has also divided what was a full-fledged state into two federally ruled territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

While the Kashmir region has been a hotbed for dissent for decades, since 2021 districts like Rajouri and Poonch in the Jammu region have witnessed an uptick in the rebel attacks against Indian soldiers, and 2023 has been particularly deadly for Indian soldiers.

In all, 34 Indian soldiers have been killed in Kashmir since 2021,19 since April.

A little-known rebel outfit, Peoples Anti-Fascist Front, which officials have said is the proxy of Pakistan-based armed group Jaish-e-Muhammad, has claimed responsibility for the attacks, including the latest one.

The renewed attacks, observers said, have become a new challenge to the government in New Delhi which has claimed that its controversial policies have improved the security landscape in the region.

In November, five soldiers including two army captains were killed in an operation in the same district in Kalakote, Rajouri. In September, four army personnel were killed in a gunfight in the forests of Kokernag near Anantnag district. In April and May this year, 10 soldiers were killed in the two districts.

‘Safe haven’

A senior security official in the southern city of Jammu, who was not authorised to speak to the media, told Al Jazeera that the tough terrain of southern Kashmir is a safe haven for armed fighters to launch such kind of attacks.

“Forests give enemies anonymity, space to operate and conceal themselves to outfox the security dragnet,” he said.

Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in Delhi, told Al Jazeera, that most of the recent killings of army soldiers had occurred in army-initiated operations. “This seems the pattern that has been followed by most of the recent incidents in which security forces have lost their lives,” Sahni said.

When asked about the claims of the government about normalcy in Kashmir amid the uptick in attacks on the soldiers, Sahni said “I don’t believe that normalcy has returned after Article 370 abrogation,” referring to the Constitutional provision that gave Jammu and Kashmir greater autonomy than other states.

“What is normalcy? This [Kashmir] is a theatre which has seen up to 4000 deaths in a single year in 2001,” Sahni said. “So, to expect no incidents to occur, it’s unrealistic.  The government has made extremely unrealistic projections and claims about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. “

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Prague university shooting: What we know the day after | Gun Violence News

EXPLAINER

A gunman killed 14 people and injured 25 in the Czech Republic’s deadliest shooting.

The Czech Republic has declared a day of mourning after a shooting in the capital city, Prague. World leaders have offered condolences, and police have boosted security in schools and other public facilities.

Here is all you need to know about the shooting:

When and where did the shooting happen?

A student opened fire on Thursday at 3pm (14:00 GMT) at the Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, which sits in a busy tourist area in Prague’s Old Town near sites like the 14th-century Charles Bridge.

The gunman struck the fourth floor of the philosophy department building of the institution located near the Vltava river in Jan Palach Square.

How many people were killed and injured?

The gunman first shot and killed his father in his hometown of Hostoun, just west of Prague, before killing 14 other people in the Czech capital and injuring 25, including three foreign nationals — two from Saudi Arabia and one from the Netherlands — authorities said.

Of the people killed, 13 have been identified. Authorities warned that the death toll could rise.

This is the deadliest mass shooting of its kind in the Czech Republic’s history. Previously, the nation’s worst mass shooting was in 2015 when a gunman opened fire in the southeastern town of Uhersky Brod, killing eight people before fatally shooting himself.

Who was the shooter at Charles University?

The alleged shooter was identified as a 24-year-old student at the university. Authorities said he was a high-achieving student with no prior criminal record.

However, Prague Police Chief Martin Vondrasek said later that based on a search of his home, the alleged gunman was also suspected in the killing of another man and his two-month-old daughter in Prague on December 15.

The suspected gunman died at the scene, according to the interior minister. Authorities are investigating whether he was killed by police or whether he died by suicide.

The shooting was premeditated, the police said. Officers had “unconfirmed information from an account on a social network that he was supposedly inspired” by a mass shooting in Russia this year, they said.

After a search of the suspect’s home, the police said he legally owned several guns and was armed during the attack.

What are the Czech Republic’s gun laws?

Czech firearms legislation recognises the right to “acquire, keep and bear firearms”. In 2021, a constitutional amendment legally guaranteed the right to self-defence with a weapon or the defence of someone else.

To obtain a gun licence, people are required to go through multiple steps, including safe-handling training and testing.

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‘The Fat One’ sings: Spain’s Christmas lottery rolls out millions in prizes | News

Known as ‘El Gordo’, the world’s richest lottery is set to pay out close to $3bn in prizes.

People across Spain have been tuning in to watch the televised draw of the Christmas lottery known as “El Gordo” (‘The Fat One’), as pupils from Madrid’s San Ildefonso school began singing out the prize-winning numbers.

A total of 2.6 billion euros ($2.86bn) in prizes will be distributed this year, most in small amounts, as Friday’s announcements were sung out, as is the tradition.

Most people buy fractions of full tickets, with the most common purchase a 20-euro ($22) share, offering a top prize of 400,000 euros ($440,000).

The two-centuries-old tradition kicks off the festive season and is televised from Madrid’s Teatro Real opera house, with tens of thousands of people tuning in to radio stations and watching online.

Purchasing and sharing tickets in the run-up to Christmas is a much-loved tradition among families and friends, and is celebrated in bars, sports clubs and on the streets.

Children at the school in the Spanish capital pick the numbers from among 100,000 small wooden balls drawn from two large golden rolling drums, showing the ticket numbers and their corresponding prizes. They sing out both figures, that cadence well-known across the country.

The event lasts approximately three and half hours as ticket holders wait in anticipation for the jackpot known as “El Gordo” to be called out.

People in costumes wait before the start of the draw of Spain’s traditional Christmas lottery ‘El Gordo’, at Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain, on December 22, 2023 [Susana Vera/ Reuters]

While other lotteries may have bigger individual top prizes, El Gordo, held each year on December 22, is ranked as the world’s richest for the total prize money involved.

Spain established its national lottery as a charity in 1763 during the reign of King Carlos III. Its objective later became to shore up state coffers.

The December 22 lottery began in 1812 and children have been singing the prizes since the beginning.

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Turkey carries out mass detention of ISIL suspects | ISIL/ISIS News

Ankara has stepped up operations against armed groups since early October.

Turkey has arrested hundreds of people suspected of having links to ISIS (ISIL).

The roundup was carried out in operations across 32 provinces, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Friday. Ankara has ramped up operations against the armed group and Kurdish groups during the war in Gaza and after a bomb exploded near government buildings at the start of October.

The majority of the suspects were arrested in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, the country’s three biggest cities, Yerlikaya said on the social messaging platform X. The nationalities of the detainees have not been revealed.

The operation was carried out simultaneously across the country, said the minister, who shared footage that showed police entering apartments and buildings and dragging suspects into vehicles.

ISIL originated in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was forged from an alliance between an al-Qaeda offshoot and elements of Iraq’s defeated Baath Party.

At its peak in 2014, its fighters controlled one-third of Iraq and Syria.

But the group lost its grip on the territory after campaigns by US-backed forces in Syria and Iraq as well as Syrian forces backed by Iran, Russia and various paramilitaries.

Although beaten back, some ISIL fighters remain in hiding, mostly in remote areas of Syria and Iraq, from which they continue to carry out attacks.

Turkey continues to be targeted and has been hit by a string of deadly bombings since 2015. One attack in Istanbul on January 1, 2017, killed 39 people in a nightclub.

Ankara has ramped up its crackdown against people in the country with possible links to ISIL ever since. It is assumed that the latest detentions may have been made with one eye on the coming New Year’s celebrations.

In May, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the country’s intelligence forces had killed the suspected leader of ISIL, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi.

“This individual was neutralised as part of an operation by the Turkish national intelligence organisation in Syria,” Erdogan said. “We will continue our struggle with terrorist organisations without any discrimination.”

In recent weeks, Turkish authorities have also carried out operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, which Ankara considers a terrorist organisation. The Kurdish fighters claimed responsibility for detonating a bomb near Turkish government buildings in Ankara on October 1.

“For the peace and unity of our people, we will not allow any terrorists to open their eyes,” Yerlikaya said on Friday. “We will continue our battle with the intense efforts of our security forces.”



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What’s the latest UN Gaza resolution that the US has agreed to? | Israel-Palestine conflict News

After a week of diplomatic back and forth, the United States has signalled that it is ready to support a United Nations Security Council resolution. Here is what we know about the draft resolution.

Why did the US want the draft resolution watered down?

The original draft was put forth by the United Arab Emirates mission to the UN on December 15 and it called for a cessation of hostilities and unhindered flow of aid into the Gaza Strip. It also said that the UN would exclusively monitor aid that enters Gaza through routes from outside states. Additionally, it called for an “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.

Initially, the US did not want the word “cessation” in the resolution. As a result, the language was substituted with “suspension of hostilities”.

However, Washington was unconvinced despite the first round of revisions and voting was delayed. Now, the problem was with the UN monitoring of aid entering Gaza.

PassBlue, an independent organisation that monitors the UN, posted on X that US diplomats were reportedly in agreement with the UN monitoring of aid until Israel saw the draft resolution.

Before Thursday, Arab and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) members proposed new language to the US pertaining to the clause that talks about the UN monitoring aid entering Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Rami Ayari posted on X.

By then, a vote on the draft resolution had already been postponed seven times in three days, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo reported.

However, the voting did not take place as scheduled for Thursday either – and was delayed to Friday.

What changes did the US make to the resolution?

With the help of Arab states, the US amended the draft.

US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said: “We’re ready to vote on it. And it’s a resolution that will bring humanitarian assistance to those in need.”

The original draft, which mentioned a “cessation of hostilities”, was changed to call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities”.

But the US-amended draft drops all references to a pause in fighting.

Instead, it calls for “urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities”.

The original draft also said the UN will “exclusively monitor all humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza provided through land, sea and air routes” from countries not party to the war.

Instead, the amended draft resolution asks UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint a senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator to, in turn, establish a mechanism for accelerating aid to Gaza through states that are not party to the conflict.

The coordinator would also have responsibility “for facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature” of all the aid.

The initial draft resolution had demanded that Israel and Hamas allow and facilitate “the use of all land, sea and air routes to and throughout the entire Gaza” for aid deliveries. That was changed to “all available routes,” which some diplomats said allows Israel to retain control over access to all aid deliveries to all 2.3 million people in Gaza.

Israel monitors the limited aid deliveries to Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt and the Israel-controlled Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.

Will the resolution pass?

To pass, the resolution needs at least nine votes in favour out of the 15 member states, and no vetoes by the US, France, China, the United Kingdom or Russia — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

While Thomas-Greenfield told reporters that the draft is now “a resolution we can support”, she declined to specify whether the US will vote in favour or abstain.

The vote, however, was delayed until Friday after Russia – also a veto power – and some other council members complained during closed-door talks about the amendments made to appease Washington, diplomats said. Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzya declined to speak to reporters after the meeting.

Now that the language that initially called for a “cessation of hostilities” has been diluted significantly, there is no guarantee that permanent members Russia and China will be on board.

Russia and China previously vetoed a US-led resolution on October 25, which called for a “humanitarian pause” instead of a “ceasefire”.

If it passes, will it make a difference?

Gaza urgently needs food as its entire population is experiencing a hunger crisis, a UN-backed report says. A significantly large proportion of households is experiencing food insecurity and the threat of famine is rising.

While the clause of unhindered aid access sounds promising in theory, the delivery of food and other assistance lagged Gaza’s needs even before the war. More than two months of fighting have created a further backlog of assistance requirements. Meanwhile, Israel has so far not lived up to the aid commitments it has made.

Earlier, a humanitarian pause was brokered between Israel and Hamas to allow for a prisoner and captive exchange, alongside allowing for more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

But even during the pause, about 200 aid trucks entered Gaza every day, compared with the 500 trucks that would enter daily before the outbreak of violence on October 7. The UN said the flow of aid during the truce was no match to the needs of Gaza’s civilians. Hunger in the enclave has only worsened since, so it is unclear whether the UN and other agencies can — without a pause in fighting — meet the enclave’s humanitarian needs.

Israel has also previously ignored UNSC resolutions. On November 15, the Security Council passed a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” throughout the Gaza Strip. But Israel’s envoy to the UN immediately declared that the resolution held “no meaning” for his country. It was more than a week later that Israel and Hamas finally agreed to a brief truce that lapsed in early December.



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US court revives Nirvana album cover lawsuit | Music News

The naked star of the rock band’s 1991 album cover claims ‘permanent harm’ and child pornography.

A United States court has revived a lawsuit accusing the rock band Nirvana of publishing child pornography by using a photograph of a naked four-month-old baby on the cover of its hit 1991 album Nevermind.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday overturned a lower court’s decision that the plaintiff, cover star Spencer Elden, had waited too long to bring his 2021 lawsuit against the seminal Seattle grunge band.

Elden, the baby depicted on the cover, filed the lawsuit against the grunge rock group two years ago, alleging that he has suffered “permanent harm” as the band and others profited from the image of him underwater in a swimming pool, appearing to grab for a dollar bill on a fish hook.

The suit also claims that the image violated federal laws on child sexual abuse material, although no criminal charges were ever sought.

A federal judge in California threw out this lawsuit but allowed Elden, now 32 years old, to file a revised version. The judge then dismissed the revised suit on grounds that it was outside the 10-year statute of limitations of one of the laws used as a cause of action.

However, the appellate panel on Thursday found that each republication of an image “may constitute a new personal injury” with a new deadline and cited the image’s appearance on a 30th anniversary reissue of Nevermind in 2021.

According to the New York Times, the court also said that “the question whether the Nevermind album cover meets the definition of child pornography is not at issue in this appeal.”

Elden’s lawyer Robert Lewis said that Elden is “very pleased with the decision and looks forward to having his day in court”.

“This procedural setback does not change our view,” Nirvana lawyer Bert Deixler said after the court’s verdict. “We will defend this meritless case with vigour and expect to prevail.”

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US police officers found not guilty in killing of Black man | Crime News

Three Tacoma police officers cleared of all charges in 2020 death of Manuel Ellis.

Three police officers in the US state of Washington have been found not guilty of all charges in the 2020 killing of a Black man whose death drew comparisons with the murder of George Floyd.

Christopher Burbank, 38, and Matthew Collins, 40, were found not guilty of murder and manslaughter, while Timothy Rankine, 34, was acquitted of manslaughter following a 10-week trial.

Manuel Ellis, 33, died while in police custody in Tacoma, Washington, on March 3, 2020.

Footage presented at trial showed the officers putting Ellis, who was unarmed, in a chokehold, shooting him with a stun gun and pinning him to the street with their body weight.

In video of the encounter, Ellis can be heard pleading with the officers, telling them, “Can’t breathe, sir, can’t breathe.”

The police officers’ lawyers argued that Ellis died from a lethal dose of methamphetamine combined with an existing heart condition and that he had kicked the door of their police car.

Prosecution witnesses told the jury that the officers had been the aggressors, making an unprovoked effort to subdue Ellis that began while he was standing on the footpath.

Matthew Ericksen, a lawyer representing the Ellis family, said the defence had been allowed to essentially put Ellis on trial.

“The defence attorneys were allowed to dredge up Manny’s past and repeat to the jury again and again Manny’s prior arrests in 2015 and 2019. That unfairly prejudiced jurors against Manny,” Ericksen said.

The Seattle Times quoted Collins’ lawyer, Casey Arbenz, as saying the verdict was “a huge sigh of relief” and reflected that the jurors were willing to look beyond the video.

The officers “should never have been charged,” Arbenz said.

City officials said the Tacoma Police Department was nearing the end of its internal investigation into the officers’ conduct, which could result in them being disciplined.

Ellis’s death came nearly three months before the murder of George Floyd, which set off protests calling for police accountability and racial justice across the United States and around the world.

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Day of mourning declared after 14 killed in Prague mass shooting | Gun Violence News

Flags will fly at half-mast on December 23 as people observe a minute’s silence for the victims of the attack at Prague’s Charles University.

The Czech Republic has declared a day of mourning after a 24-year-old student shot dead his father, before killing 14 people and wounding 25 others at his Prague university in the country’s worst-ever mass shooting.

Following a special cabinet meeting, President Petr Pavel said December 23 would be a day of mourning with flags on official buildings to be flown at half-mast and people asked to observe a minute’s silence at noon.

“I would express my great sadness along with helpless anger at the unnecessary loss of so many young lives,” Pavel said.

“I would like to express my sincere condolences to all relatives of the victims, to all who were at this tragic incident, the most tragic in the history of the Czech Republic.”

The shooting erupted on Thursday afternoon at the Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, across the river from Prague Castle and near other historic sites in the picturesque city including the 14th-century Charles Bridge.

Media images showed students evacuating the building with their hands in the air, and others perched on a ledge near the roof trying to hide from the attacker, while students barricaded classrooms with desks and chairs.

“I can confirm 14 victims of the horrible crime and 25 wounded, of which 10 seriously,” police chief Martin Vondrasek told reporters after the shooting.

The shooting targeted the historic Charles University in the centre of Prague [Petr David Josek/AP Photo]

All the victims were killed inside the building, he added. Media reports said at least some of them were the gunman’s fellow students.

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said one of the injured was a Dutch national.

People lit candles outside the university, which was established in 1348 and is one of the oldest in central Europe.

“We mourn the loss of life of members of our university community, express our deepest condolences to all the bereaved, and our thoughts are with all those affected by the tragedy,” Charles University said in a statement.

Lives wasted

Vondrasek said the gunman, previously unknown to the police, had a large number of legally owned weapons and that swift police action after a tip-off earlier in the day had prevented even worse carnage.

Police evacuated a Faculty of Arts building where the gunman was due to attend a lecture, but were then called to the faculty’s larger main building, arriving within minutes after reports of the shooting, Vondrasek said.

Police had “unconfirmed information from an account on a social network that he was supposedly inspired by one terrorist attack in Russia in the autumn of this year,” Vondrasek told reporters, describing the attack as a “pre-mediated horrific act”.

Authorities did not name the gunman but said he was a high-achieving student with no prior criminal record. His death was probably a suicide, but authorities were also investigating whether he might have been killed by police who returned fire.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala said the “lone gunman … wasted many lives of mostly young people”.

“There is no justification for this horrendous act,” he added.

United States’ President Joe Biden condemned the “senseless” attack and the White House said the US was ready to offer assistance.

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “solidarity” with the Czech people, as did other European leaders including EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Police said all those killed died in the building and at least some of them were the gunman’s fellow students [Petr David Josek/AP Photo]

Later on Thursday, Vondrasek said that based on a search of his home, the gunman was also suspected in the killing of another man and his 2-month-old daughter in Prague on December 15.

Gun crime is relatively rare in the Czech Republic.

In December 2019, a 42-year-old gunman killed six people in a hospital waiting room in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava before fleeing and fatally shooting himself, police said.

In 2015, a man fatally shot eight people and then killed himself at a restaurant in Uhersky Brod.

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Sanctions threat looms over Bangladesh’s garment sector ahead of elections | Business and Economy News

Dhaka, Bangladesh — Weeks after turbulent wage-hike protests and subsequent factory closures, Bangladesh’s ready-made garment (RMG) industry, a key revenue earner for the nation, is dealing with a new phase of anxiety: “possible” economic sanctions by the country’s Western partners.

The United States and European Union collectively account for more than 80 percent of Bangladesh’s multibillion-dollar apparel sales, and any sanction on the RMG industry would put a severe dent in its already beleaguered economy, said analysts.

The threat of sanctions from the US arose once Dhaka announced January 7 for national elections in what is likely to be another seemingly one-sided vote.

Those concerns were further boosted in early December when a key garment supplier to the US was warned of sanctions in a letter of credit (LC) from a foreign garment buyer.

An LC is issued by financial institutions or similar parties to guarantee payment to sellers of goods and services after appropriate documentations are presented. It essentially helps in avoiding risk by having intermediate buyer and seller banks that ensure proper payment.

According to the LC, a copy of which was obtained by Al Jazeera, the Western buyer stated: “We will not process transactions involving any country, region or party sanctioned by the UN, US, EU, UK. We are not liable for any delay, non-performance or/ disclosure of information for sanction-based causes.”

Should the clause kick in, the garment manufacturer in Bangladesh would likely incur massive losses as the buyer wouldn’t be liable to make any payment for the orders placed with that apparel producer.

Both industry leaders and government officials have dismissed the threat as a “rumour” and “antigovernment” propaganda and say no such economic sanction can be imposed, especially on the garment sector, as it is a fully compliant industry and abides by all the international labour laws.

Faruqe Hassan, President of Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) said that the LC came from a particular buyer, and was not a statutory order or notice by “any specific country or countries”.

“From BGMEA, we have already contacted the buyer and the issue was sorted out. It was just a cautionary clause inserted by the bank who prepared the LC on behalf of the buyers,” Hassan told Al Jazeera, “It doesn’t mean that any country is planning to impose some sanctions on our industry.”

Behind the uneasiness

BGMEA President Faruque Hassan said manufacturers are concerned about the potential of economic sanctions [Faisal Mahmud/Al Jazeera]

Hassan however admitted that many factory owners had expressed their concerns in a recent BGMEA meeting over that LC clause and the “ongoing political turmoil of Bangladesh has given birth to all sorts of speculations”.

Bangladesh’s national election is due in less than three weeks but several political unrests have disrupted the country’s business and economy.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main opposition party, has boycotted the election amidst concerns of severe poll rigging. That sets up the elections as a repeat of one-sided polls held in 2014, in which Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League won 153 out of 300 parliamentary seats uncontested.

BNP says no free and fair election is possible under a partisan government and gave an example of the 2018 poll, in which it took part. Independent observers termed it a severely “rigged” election which saw Awami League securing 288 out of 300 seats, a result that The Washington Post said could only be expected in a country like North Korea.

For the last few months, opposition parties have been staging protests on the streets to press home the demand of installing a neutral election-time caretaker government.

The government has, since late October, used brute force and court cases to suppress the protests. In November alone, more than 10,000 BNP leaders and activists were thrown in jail. None have received bail so far.

Khondokar Golam Moazzem, research director of Bangladeshi think tank Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) told Al Jazeera that the current political upheaval has obviously played its role in propagating the widespread notion that Bangladesh’s RMG industry might face an economic sanction.

The United States has already taken a tough stance with a new visa policy for Bangladesh in September in which it said it would impose a visa sanction on “individuals undermining the democratic election process in Bangladesh”.

The warning note in the LC also came at a time of severe unrest in the RMG sector over minimum wage hikes in which four workers died.

Bangladesh has witnessed severe unrest over wage issues for garment workers [Faisal Mahmud/Al Jazeera]

It also coincided with the introduction by the US, Bangladesh’s single largest garment buyer, of the Presidential Memorandum on Advancing Worker Empowerment, Rights, and High Labor Standards Globally.

The memorandum is the Biden administration’s effort “to pursue a whole-of-government approach to advancing worker empowerment and organizing, workers’ rights, and labor standards globally”.

While introducing the bill, the US Secretary of State specifically mentioned a firebrand garment labour activist in Bangladesh and said: “We want to be there for people like Kalpona Akter, a Bangladeshi garment worker and activist, who says that she is alive today because the US embassy advocated on her behalf.”

After the new US bill, the Ministry of Commerce in Bangladesh received a letter from the Bangladesh embassy in Washington, DC in which the embassy speculated that “Bangladesh could be among the countries targeted by the new US Memorandum”.

Al Jazeera has seen the letter and Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh acknowledged its receipt and told Al Jazeera that the Bangladesh government had already informed the US about the recent steps they had taken to protect labour rights in Bangladesh. “We are very serious about labour rights and we are the signatory of all the ILO conventions.”

How serious are the sanction concerns?

Labour rights activist Kalpona Akter says anger is still bubbling in the sector [Faisal Mahmud/Al Jazeera]

Germany-based Bangladeshi financial analyst Zia Hassan told Al Jazeera that the prospect of US sanctions on Bangladesh’s garment industry cannot be ruled out.

“Historical patterns indicate wide visa sanctions are likely in retaliation for suspected election manipulation – a typical American response to alleged voting fraud globally,” he said adding that while the US doesn’t typically impose economic sanctions on grounds of a country’s politics alone, the possible garment trade sanction could hinge on issues of workers’ rights.

“Denial of a fair bargain in wages negotiations, labour violations through threats, imprisonment or even murder of vocal labour advocates may see the US act on its warnings to sanction labour abuse,” he said.

Labour rights activist Akter told Al Jazeera that even though the workers were back at work after the revision of the minimum wage hike, their demands had not been met and the anger over injustice to the workers is still bubbling in the sector.

“Hundreds of our workers were thrown in jail for taking part in the protests and they are not given bail as of now. The hike that was given is not at all sufficient to fight the rising inflations. So the industry’s claim that the workers’ rights are protected is not true,” she said.

“However, we obviously don’t want any sanction on this industry. It will be devastating not only for our workers but also for our economy,” she added.

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