US man arrested for ‘religiously motivated’ attack in Australia | News

Investigators in the US and Australia say the 58-year-old incited ‘terror attack’ in which six people died last year.

An American citizen has been arrested and charged in the US state of Arizona for online comments that allegedly incited a “religiously motivated terrorist attack” in Australia a year ago in which six people died.

Police in the state of Queensland, Australia, confirmed on Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a 58-year-old near Heber-Overgaard, Arizona on December 1. They did not disclose his name.

The attack took place at a remote property in Wieambilla, Queensland, on December 12, 2022, when two police officers and a bystander were fatally shot by Gareth Train, his brother Nathaniel and Nathaniel’s wife Stacey in an ambush at the Trains’ property, according to investigators.

Four officers had arrived at the property to investigate reports of a missing person. They walked into a hail of gunfire, police said at the time. Two officers managed to escape and raise the alarm.

The Trains engaged in an hours-long gun battle with the police before they were eventually shot dead.

“We know the offenders executed a religiously motivated terrorist attack in Queensland. They were motivated by a Christian extremist ideology,” Queensland police assistant commissioner Cheryl Scanlon told reporters.

The FBI is still investigating the American’s alleged motive.

Gareth Train began following the suspect on YouTube in May 2020. A year later, they were communicating directly, according to investigators.

“The man repeatedly sent messages containing Christian end-of-days ideology to Gareth and then later to Stacey,” Scanlon said.

A representative of the FBI in Australia, Nitiana Mann, said the arrest was the result of a joint investigation between the two countries.

“The FBI has a long memory and an even longer reach. From Queensland, Australia, to the remote corners of Arizona,” Mann said.

Investigators in both nations “worked jointly and endlessly to bring this man to justice, and he will face the crimes he is alleged to have perpetrated”, she added.

Gun crimes are rare in Australia because the country has some of the world’s most stringent gun laws, following a shooting in April 1996 when a gunman killed 35 people at a cafe and tourist site in the island state of Tasmania.

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Israel army in most intense combat in Gaza war, no safe place to evacuate | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The Israeli army has widened its attacks in southern and central Gaza, with some of the heaviest fighting in the war seeing homes sheltering displaced Palestinians bombed, refugee camps hit and no safe place left to evacuate thousands of people already on the move for weeks.

From early Wednesday morning, “under heavy aerial bombardment, Israeli tanks started pushing deeper and deeper to the centre of Khan Younis city, coming from the eastern side,” reported Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, in southern Gaza, forcing hundreds of people to flee the area.

“Everybody thought the eastern areas of Khan Younis were the main target, as the leaflets that were dropped on the residents stated, but it seems like the entire city of Khan Younis is under heavy bombardment right now,” Mahmoud said, of the leaflets dropped by Israeli forces ordering residents to evacuate.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said that Israel’s military was gearing up for days of intense battle in Khan Younis, which it views as a key Hamas stronghold where many leaders could be stationed.

However, Israel’s military must move cautiously as it believes numerous captives could also be there, said Fisher, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.

“It’s all part of a plan to move the operation further south,” he said. “We’re likely to see [the Israeli military’s] intense operation extend four or five weeks until the middle of January.”

The next few days could bring the heaviest fighting of the two-month war, he added.

A woman mourns her child and her husband killed in an Israeli strike, in a hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, December 5, 2023 [Fatima Shbair/AP Photo]

Mahmoud said that “after this point, there are no options for Palestinians to go anywhere. The only option that might be feasible or even possible for Palestinians is crossing into Egypt, but with the current situation, it seems very, very difficult”.

“Under heavy bombardment, people were being pushed first into the central part [of Gaza], then Khan Younis, and now Rafah,” he reported, adding that “more than 1.5 million people have been squeezed into this pocket of land that’s really populated with people”.

There were also relentless assaults on Deir el-Balah in central Gaza through the night, reported Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary from the area. She said there were “non-stop explosions, non-stop artillery shelling and non-stop clashes. Multiple homes were bombed”.

“The number of wounded being brought to the hospital is massive. Doctors and paramedics have not been able to save them all,” Khoudary said, describing the intensity of the attacks and noting that “it is very dangerous for people to leave for either the north or the south. At the same time, conditions here are very harsh. There is no food in the markets. Even the little food that was once available is not any more since the centre has been split off from the south.”

At least six people were killed and 14 wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. An Al Jazeera team at the site of the strike reported on Wednesday that people were trapped under the rubble of a building that was hit.

As the injured are rushed to the few remaining functional hospitals in the area, relief organizations sounded the alarm that supplies were perilously low.

The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, warned that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah was running out of options.

“There are 700 patients admitted in the hospital now, with new patients arriving all the time,” MSF emergency coordinator Marie-Aure Perreaut Revial said. “We are running out of essential supplies to treat them.”

At least 16,248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll stands at about 1,200.

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US lawmakers lag voters in support for Gaza ceasefire | Israel-Palestine conflict News

A new poll says more than 60% US voters want ceasefire, while only 11% of lawmakers support an end to Israel’s war.

Support among members of the United States Congress for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war is far lower than among voters.

Data for Progress, a progressive US think tank, said on Tuesday that 61 percent of likely US voters support calls for a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian enclave, which has killed more than 16,000 people since October 7.

Citing the poll in a post on social media platform X, Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib questioned why so few members of the government were aligned with the public’s views on this, noting that only 11 percent of Congress has called for a ceasefire. A full 76 percent of Democrat voters support a ceasefire.

Last week, Tlaib – the only Palestinian-American member of Congress who was censured by the US House of Representatives on November 7 – hit out at the White House for calling the few dozen lawmakers who demanded a ceasefire early in the war “repugnant”.

The Data for Progress survey, which polled over 1,000 likely US voters in late November, said the majority of respondents were concerned about the rise in hate towards Jewish communities, Arabs and Muslims in the US since the start of the war.

On Tuesday, the US House passed a measure equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, a move Palestinian rights advocates denounced as “dangerous”, warning that it aims to curb free speech and distract from the war.

‘Shift in stance’

When asked what the US government should prioritise in its foreign policy approach to the crisis, about half of the poll’s respondents mentioned diplomatic efforts, and some 30 percent mentioned humanitarian assistance.

“Fewer than 1 in 4 voters (24%) choose ‘sending additional military aid and weapons to Israel’ — and only 11% choose ‘sending US troops to assist Israeli forces in Gaza’ as a priority,” Data for Progress noted.

The US government provides billions in military support to Israel and has sent additional taxpayer money since the war began.

However, the Biden administration on Tuesday announced a move to impose visa restrictions on “extremist” Israeli settlers involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the occupied West Bank.

This represents a “shift in the stance” on the conflict, Youcef Bouandel, a professor of political science and international relations at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera. However, he added the move does not “go far enough”.

Ariel Gold, the executive director of the US-based Fellowship of Reconciliation, told Al Jazeera the policy was “virtue signalling” as many settlers hold dual citizenship and do not require a visa to enter the US.

Last month, a different poll by Gallup found that 45 percent of Americans disapproved of Israel’s military action in Gaza. It found that 63 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of people of mixed race, and 67 percent of young people aged 18-34 all opposed the war.

Only 32 percent of Americans approved of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas situation, Gallup said.



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Israeli captives’ families angry after meeting with Netanyahu | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met families of captives freed from Gaza in an encounter described as tense by the Israeli media.

Tuesday’s meeting came amid intensified fighting in the besieged Gaza Strip following the end of a seven-day pause in hostilities that enabled the return of more than 100 captives, who had been taken by the Palestinian armed group Hamas during its October 7 attack on Israel, in exchange for some 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Israel said on Tuesday that some 138 captives remained in the territory.

Several of the relatives who attended the meeting left bitterly critical of the government.

Dani Miran, whose son Omri was among those taken captive, said he was so disgusted he had walked out in the middle of the meeting.

“I won’t go into the details of what was discussed but this entire performance was ugly, insulting, messy,” he told Israel’s Channel 13, saying the government had made a “farce” out of the issue.

“They say, ‘We’ve done this, we’ve done that’. [Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar is the one who returned our people, not them. It angers me that they say that they dictated things. They hadn’t dictated a single move.”

Israel says several women and children remain in Hamas’s hands, while families with adult male relatives in captivity have been calling for them not to be forgotten.

“It was a very turbulent meeting, many people yelling,” said Jennifer Master, whose partner Andrey is still being held by Hamas.

“We are all trying to make sure our loved ones get home. There are those who want the women who are left or the children who are left, and those who say we want the men,” Master told Israel’s Channel 12.

Family members called for immediate action to secure the release of the remaining captives.

“I asked Netanyahu if the primary objective of the war was to bring back the hostages,” Meirav Leshem Gonen, mother of 23-year-old hostage Romi Gonen, told Israeli television after the meeting.

“He answered me directly: ‘Yes’,” she said. “I am happy with his answer, but only reality counts.”

Leshem Gonen said she was concerned that captives were being “severely mistreated — women, young girls, and men too”.

Speaking at a news conference afterwards, Netanyahu said he had heard stories that “broke my heart” and included thirst and hunger, as well as physical and mental abuse.

“I heard and you also heard, about sexual assault and cases of brutal rape unlike anything,” he added.

Israel has said it is investigating several cases of alleged sexual assault and rape committed by Hamas fighters during their October 7 attack, in which 1,200 people were killed.

Witnesses and medical experts have said some fighters committed rape and other attacks before killing the victims, although the extent of the sexual violence remains unknown. Hamas has denied carrying out such assaults.

Israel began an intense bombardment of Gaza in the wake of Hamas’s attack, saying it wanted to destroy the group and free the captives. The attacks have killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza, according to Hamas, which has controlled the territory since 2006.

Some families, meanwhile, appeared to be losing patience with Netanyahu’s government.

“We have faith in our children, that they are strong and they will overcome this, and we want our government and the military to do what they do as fast as they can — as fast as possible — to start the negotiations,” said Idit Ohel, the mother of 21-year-old hostage Alon, during an online panel organised by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

“Sixty days is too much,” she said, her voice rising. “I don’t want 61 days, I don’t want 65 days. I want them back now.”

Israel withdrew its negotiators from Qatar on December 2, blaming an “impasse” after failing to make progress in talks aimed at securing a renewed pause in hostilities.

Afterwards, Hamas said it would not release any more captives until the war in Gaza was ended.

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US says Russia rejected ‘substantial’ proposal to free two jailed Americans | Politics News

Washington says ‘no higher priority’ than effort to secure release from Russia of Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.

The United States has said Moscow rejected what it said was a “substantial” proposal to secure the freedom of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan who are jailed in Russia over alleged spying.

“We have made a number of proposals, including a substantial one in recent weeks,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday.

“That proposal was rejected by Russia,” he said, without going into further detail on the offer.

Miller said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Joe Biden would keep trying to find a way to free the pair, considered “wrongfully detained” by the State Department.

The designation means the US considers the charges against the two men to be bogus and politically motivated.

“They never should have been arrested in the first place. They should be released immediately,” Miller said.

“There is no prior higher priority for the secretary of state. There is no higher priority for the president.”

The United States, despite a sharp deterioration of ties since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, arranged a prisoner swap with Moscow a year ago that brought home basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for jailed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in July that it was in contact with the US about prisoner swaps but that such discussions needed to take place in “complete silence”.

Gershkovich was arrested during a reporting trip at the end of March and accused of spying, charges he and the Wall Street Journal deny.

The 32-year-old has been held in custody pending trial and a Moscow court last week extended his detention until January. He faces as long as 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Gershkovich’s sister in October urged the Biden administration to remain focused on trying to bring him home from a Russian prison, and expressed concern that the Middle East crisis may distract Washington from hostage diplomacy in other countries.

Whelan worked in security for a US vehicle parts company when he was arrested in Moscow in 2018. The former Marine was convicted of espionage in 2020 and jailed for 16 years. Whelan says the evidence against him was falsified and he and the US government have denied he is a spy.

Whelan’s family said last week that he had been assaulted in prison.

The 53-year-old was punched in the face and forced to defend himself at a sewing workshop in a high-security penal colony in Russia’s Mordovia region southeast of Moscow, his brother said in a statement.

The Mordovia regional prison service confirmed the attack to the Interfax news agency and that guards had intervened. Both men were taken to the medical bay with Whelan suffering an abrasion beneath one of his eyes.

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‘Anti-Zionism is antisemitism,’ US House asserts in ‘dangerous’ resolution | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Washington, DC – Palestinian rights advocates are denouncing a congressional resolution that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, calling it a “dangerous” measure that aims to curb free speech and distract from the war in Gaza.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the measure on Tuesday in a 311-14 vote, with 92 Democratic members abstaining by voting “present”.

The symbolic resolution was framed as an effort to reject the “drastic rise of anti-Semitism in the United States and around the world”.

But it contained language saying that the House “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism”. It also condemned the slogan “From the River to the Sea”, which rights advocates understand to be an aspirational call for equality in historic Palestine.

Instead, the resolution described it as a “rallying cry for the eradication of the State of Israel and the Jewish people”. It also characterised demonstrators who gathered in Washington, DC, last month to demand a ceasefire as “rioters”. They “spewed hateful and vile language amplifying antisemitic themes”, the resolution alleges.

Husam Marajda, an organiser with the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), said the resolution is an effort to “cancel” Palestinian rights advocates by accusing them of bigotry and labelling their criticism of Israeli policies as hate speech.

“It’s super dangerous. It sets a really, really bad precedent. It’s aiming to criminalise our liberation struggle and our call for justice and peace and equality,” Marajda told Al Jazeera.

What is Zionism?

Zionism is a nationalist ideology that helped establish the state of Israel in 1948. It contends that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in historic Palestine, which Zionists view as their ancestral homeland.

The rise of Zionism in the late 1800s was partly in response to anti-Semitism in Europe.

But many Palestinians reject Zionism as a driver of the settler colonialism that dispossessed them during the founding of Israel. Israel’s establishment coincided with the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forcibly driven from their homes in what is known as the Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe”.

While Palestinians view themselves as the native people of the land, Zionists say Jewish people have historic and biblical claims to what is today Israel.

Some hardline Zionists, including members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, argue that the present-day Palestinian territories — the West Bank and Gaza — also belong to Israel.

At a United Nations General Assembly speech in November, Netanyahu held up a map of Israel that showed the country stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing the West Bank, Gaza and Syria’s Golan Heights.

Some Palestinians also blame Zionism for Israeli abuses against them, which amount to apartheid, according to leading human rights groups like Amnesty International.

In the US, Palestinian rights supporters have long rejected conflations of Zionism with Judaism, noting that many Jewish Americans identify as anti-Zionist.

“Opposing the policies of the government of Israel and Netanyahu’s extremism is not antisemitic. Speaking up for human rights and a ceasefire to save lives should never be condemned,” Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said in a social media post on Tuesday, explaining her vote against the resolution.

‘Extremely dangerous’

Marajda stressed that Palestinians have a right to oppose Zionism, a position he said has nothing to do with prejudice.

“This resolution is saying that if you’re critical of this Israeli government, essentially you hate Jewish people,” he said. “I didn’t choose — the Palestinians didn’t choose — their occupiers.”

The resolution is one of several pro-Israel motions approved by Congress since October 7. Most US legislators have expressed unwavering support for Israel amid its offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 16,000 Palestinians.

Yasmine Taeb, the legislative and political director at MPower Change, a Muslim American advocacy group, called the resolution “extremely dangerous”.

“It unequivocally equates any criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism. Essentially it smears millions and millions of people demonstrating globally in support of a lasting ceasefire, including Jewish-American organisations,” Taeb told Al Jazeera.

The advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was also quick to denounce the congressional measure.

“Falsely stating that anti-Zionism is antisemitism conflates all Jews with the Israeli state and endangers our communities. It fuels deadly violence and censorship campaigns against Palestinians,” JVP Action said in a social media post.

“We are proud anti-Zionists Jews. We refuse to pit communities against one another.”

All House Republicans but one — Congressman Thomas Massie — voted in favour of the resolution. But Democrats were split on the measure: 13 voted against it and 95 for it, on top of the 92 who abstained with a “present” vote.

Jerrold Nadler, a key Jewish House Democrat, had decried the resolution on Monday, noting that some Jewish communities oppose Zionism for religious reasons and should not be branded as anti-Semitic.

“While most anti-Zionism is indeed anti-Semitic, the authors, if they were at all familiar with Jewish history and culture, should know about Jewish anti-Zionism that was, and is, expressly not anti-Semitic,” he said.

Democrats divided

Nadler accused Republicans of using support for Israel to advance “partisan wedging at the expense of the Jewish community”. Still, he did not vote against the resolution on Tuesday. He opted for “present”.

The vote highlighted the divisions among the Democrats over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. While the party’s progressive wing has pressed for a ceasefire, President Joe Biden and the majority of congressional Democrats have avoided such calls.

But that could signal a disconnect from the party base. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in November indicated 62 percent of Democratic voters considered Israel’s response “excessive”. Two in three survey respondents backed a ceasefire.

Republicans, meanwhile, have led motions that critics say are designed to bring the Democratic schism to the fore. Last month, for instance, they moved to censure Congresswoman Tlaib, the only Palestinian in the House, over her comments on the Gaza war.

Conservatives have accused Democrats who vote against such measures of being anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic.

That creates a political dilemma for Democratic lawmakers. If they support the bills, they risk upsetting large segments of their base, but if they oppose them, they open themselves to Republican attacks.

Taeb said the lawmakers who voted “present” did not want to go on the record as equating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, but at the same time, they wanted to be seen as countering anti-Semitism.

“It’s just politics,” she told Al Jazeera.

Tuesday’s resolution was co-sponsored by Congressman Max Miller, who has faced outrage in recent weeks for saying, “We’re going to turn [Palestine] into a parking lot.”

Taeb said the fact that lawmakers who have promoted anti-Palestinian hate are championing such resolutions shows that Tuesday’s measure is not about combating prejudice.

“The intent of these members is to smear and silence peace activists calling to end the massacre of Palestinian children and families.”



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Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 651 | Russia-Ukraine war News

As the war enters its 651st day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 6, 2023.

Fighting

  • Russia targeted an aid centre, a medical centre and residential buildings in Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions, killing three people and injuring at least 11, officials said. The International Rescue Committee confirmed an overnight missile attack hit its humanitarian centre, “I am Kherson”, destroying stockpiles of aid.
  • Ukraine’s military said it shot down 10 out of 17 attack drones launched overnight by Russia. The governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region said three drones had struck an unspecified infrastructure target, but there was minimal damage. In the Kharkiv region in the east, authorities said drones hit private homes and residential buildings in at least two different settlements.
  • Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems destroyed or intercepted a total of 41 Ukraine-launched drones. Twenty-six were destroyed over Russian territory, and 15 over the Sea of Azov and the Crimean Peninsula, the ministry said in a statement. It did not say whether there was any damage.
  • Ukraine said the drones hit several “important military facilities in Crimea” including radar systems and an anti-aircraft missile control system. A Ukrainian defence source with knowledge of the operations of the SBU military intelligence services told the AFP news agency the attacks were a “result of a special SBU operation”. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
  • Russia confirmed that Major-General Vladimir Zavadsky, the deputy commander of Russia’s 14th Army Corps, had been killed “at a combat post” in Ukraine.

Politics and diplomacy

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cancelled plans for a video-link appeal for new aid to lawmakers in the United States as some Republicans attempt to link such support to US immigration policy.
  • Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, told a US think tank that the postponement of US assistance for Kyiv would create a “big risk” of Ukraine losing the war with Russia.
  • Six Ukrainian children will be returned to their immediate families in Ukraine from Russia under a deal brokered by Qatar, and are on their way home via Moscow. Kyiv has accused Russia of taking about 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of their families or guardians.
  • The US, meanwhile, announced sanctions against Dzmitry Shautsou, the head of the Belarus Red Cross, accusing him of being complicit in the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has suspended the Belarus Red Cross for failing to sack Shautsou.
  • Russia rejected a “substantial” proposal for the release of businessman and former Marine Paul Whelan as well as journalist Evan Gershkovich, according to the US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. Miller declined to go into detail on the proposal, which he said had been offered in “recent weeks”. Whelan is serving a 16-year jail term for spying, while Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich was arrested in March and accused of espionage. Both men deny the charges.
  • Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot sought to reassure Ukraine of continued support from the Netherlands during an unannounced trip to Kyiv following the election victory of Geert Wilders, whose far-right party wants to stop weapons deliveries to Ukraine. “Be assured of our support. Your fight is our fight. Your security is our security,” the foreign minister said during a joint press conference with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
  • Washington imposed new Russia-related sanctions, targeting a defence procurement network consisting of nine entities and five people based in Russia, Belgium, Cyprus, Sweden, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.

Weapons

  • Ukraine said it was investigating alleged corruption in arms procurement but said there was no “misuse” of the Western weapons sent to the country to fight the Russian invasion. “There are several proceedings related to arms procurement,” said Oleksandr Klymenko, the head of the anticorruption prosecutor’s office. He added that these included contracts amounting “from 10 to 100 millions of euros”, but said he could not disclose details.

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Why did China’s state media make a sudden turn towards friendlier US ties? | Politics News

For years, Chinese media has portrayed the United States as an unfriendly nation that seeks to contain and weaken China on the world stage.

The US has repeatedly been cast as a threat to world peace in Chinese media owing to Washington’s policies of arming Taiwan, sending military assistance to Ukraine, and supporting Israel’s war on Gaza.

So when stories in Chinese media suddenly began to appear about “strengthening China-US ties” and “the bonds of friendship between Americans and Chinese”, it naturally did not go unnoticed.

In the weeks before the long-awaited November 15 meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in San Francisco, China’s media softened its strident rhetoric.

State-run Xinhua news agency reported on a letter Xi sent to an American war veteran, who had served in the US Air Force group nicknamed the Flying Tigers and who fought with the Chinese military against the Japanese during World War II.

In the letter, Xi addresses relations between China and the US, noting a deep friendship forged between the two countries “that withstood the test of blood and fire”.

China’s Communist party-controlled People’s Daily, which earlier this year called the US a warlike country, promoted a collection of articles commemorating the Flying Tigers in the same week as Biden met Xi.

The 50th anniversary of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s visit to Beijing in 1973 also became a topic of focus, as well as Xi’s various trips to the US starting with his first visit in 1985, which he spent in Iowa where, we are told, “he fostered friendships with American people”.

Even the outspoken state-run Global Times, which in an editorial in October described the US as being “stained with the blood of innocent civilians” in Gaza, called for greater cooperation between Beijing and Washington on the day of the Biden-Xi meeting. A far cry from two months earlier, when Global Times described the US getting “nastier and nastier” in its attacks on China.

China’s nationalist commentators have followed the media’s softening tone too.

Commentator Hu Xijin, who once called for Chinese air strikes on Taiwan to “eliminate” US troops on the democratically-ruled island, wrote in a recent opinion piece of the need for expanded China-US cooperation.

Nationalistic blogger Sima Nan, who once described the US as a “rotten, crime-ridden place”, suddenly claimed that he was striving “to promote friendly Sino-American relations”.

The abrupt change of perspective on the US by China’s media and public figures can seem very confusing, said Vicky Tseng, 34, who works with social media at an advertisement company in Shanghai.

“But it is the Chinese government that sets the tone for Chinese media. So before Xi met Biden the government clearly decided that it was time for China to like America more,” she told Al Jazeera.

President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping walk in the gardens at the Filoli estate in Woodside, California, on November 15, 2023, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative (APEC) conference [Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP]

Alfred Wu, a scholar of public governance in China at the National University of Singapore, also said that it was the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) headed by President Xi that sets the tone in the Chinese media landscape.

“There has been a very clear development towards greater state control over the media in China in recent years, leaving very little space for media that are not affiliated with the government,” Wu told Al Jazeera.

According to the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, China was second from the bottom of the world press freedom index for 2023, just ahead of last place North Korea.

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the world’s largest prison for journalists, and its regime conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide,” the group said.

“It doesn’t really matter what type of media you are these days,” said Titus Chen, a researcher on Chinese social media policies at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan.

“If you want to survive in the Chinese media market, you have to toe the party line,” he said.

And the party’s new line clearly sought to emphasise more cordial elements of China-US ties leading up to the Biden-Xi meeting, according to Chen.

“The change in media coverage is due to a renewed wish for more stability in the bilateral relations, particularly given the current economic situation in China,” he said.

China’s economic growth has struggled to reach government targets, youth unemployment hit 21.3 percent in June – before authorities stopped publishing data – and China recorded its first-ever foreign direct investment deficit in the July-September period of 2023.

“China has been trying to send a signal through its propaganda to the US and the West that China is ready to cooperate on a number of issues with the hope that this will secure more foreign investments,” Chen said.

Softer tones unlikely to last

The bleak economic situation has not been portrayed by Chinese media as a factor in the Biden-Xi meeting, according to Tseng, the advertising junior executive.

In fact, US economic restrictions imposed on China have been described in the Global Times as giving rise to breakthroughs in Chinese chip technology.

Xi’s oft-mentioned mantra about people-to-people exchanges and his championing of such exchanges along with his own interactions with American people over the years were portrayed in China’s media as having led to a successful APEC summit.

It was also pointed out that Xi received several standing ovations during an APEC dinner with business leaders and that points of cooperation outlined by Xi had opened a “vision for the future of China-US relations”.

Even two weeks after the summit, the People’s Daily described Xi’s endorsement of people-to-people ties as an inspiration for both Americans and Chinese that will generate “more positive energy for the healthy development of China-US relations”.

According to Wu, it was imperative for Chinese media to make Xi the centre of the APEC summit.

“The underlying message is that Xi is a very capable statesman [who] can negotiate with the US and can lead China to a better place,” he said.

Chinese media narratives regarding the US continuing in a more positive direction in the future are unlikely, observers said.

“I think the atmosphere can quickly become unfriendly again,” Tseng said. “And I have still found anti-US content on Chinese media the past weeks, so it never completely disappeared.”

While the positive atmosphere appeared to survive Biden calling Xi a dictator at the end of the APEC summit, the day after the meeting the Global Times released a cartoon sketch meant to illustrate hypocrisy in US foreign policy.

China and the US still have fundamental differences regarding foreign policy, particularly when it comes to the South China Sea and Taiwan, and these differences can easily and quickly sour the mood, Wu said.

Chen is also not optimistic that the soft touch towards the US in China’s media will survive.

“A pro-Taiwan gesture from an American politician might be all that it will take for the coverage to revert back to how it was before,” he said.

“And the day where that happens might come sooner than we all expect.”

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US announces visa bans after warning Israel on West Bank settler violence | Israel-Palestine conflict News

US has called on Israel to act against violent settler groups in the occupied West Bank.

The US Department of State has said that it will impose visa restrictions on Israeli settlers involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the occupied West Bank.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the move on Tuesday, one day after the State Department said that Israel has not taken sufficient steps to address settler attacks that have driven many Palestinians off their land.

“Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said.

President Joe Biden and other senior US officials have warned repeatedly that Israel must act to stop violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, which has increased since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

“We have underscored to the Israeli government the need to do more to hold accountable extremist settlers who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank,” Blinken said.

Blinken did not announce individual visa bans, but department spokesman Matthew Miller said the bans would be implemented starting Tuesday and would cover “dozens” of settlers and their families, with more to come. He did not give a number and didn’t identify any of those targeted due to confidentiality reasons.

Israeli settler violence has long targeted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and the attacks have surged over the last year, as Israel’s far-right government, which itself includes ultranationalist settlers, signals support.

Settler attacks have escalated further amid the continuing war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas, which launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7 that killed approximately 1,200 people and took roughly 240 others hostage.

After the attack, Israel launched a devastating assault on Gaza which has killed more than 16,200 people and displaced more than 1.5 million others, according to Palestinian officials.

Since the October 7 attack, Israeli settlers have killed at least nine Palestinians in the West Bank, three times as many as in all of 2022, and attacks on Palestinian villages and farmers have become commonplace.

While Palestinian attacks on Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank typically meet harsh reprisals by Israeli forces, accountability for attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians, which often take place under the gaze of Israeli soldiers, is exceedingly rare.

Palestinians have described settler violence as one part of a larger Israeli effort to force them from their land.

In 2018, Israel passed a controversial bill known as the nation-state law that, among other things, called Jewish settlement efforts a “national value” that the state would “encourage and promote”.



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Mistaken drone attack in Nigeria kills dozens | Drone Strikes News

NewsFeed

Nigeria’s president has ordered an investigation into a military drone strike that killed at least 85 people who were celebrating the Muslim holiday of Maulud. The Army says troops “wrongly analysed” the group’s activities and mistook them for bandits.

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