Foreign News
Al Jazeera office raided as Israel takes channel off air
Israel’s government has moved to shut down the operations of the Al Jazeera television network in the country, branding it a mouthpiece for Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the cabinet agreed to the closure while the war in Gaza is ongoing.
Police raided the Qatari broadcaster’s office at the Ambassador hotel in Jerusalem on Sunday.
Al Jazeera called claims it was a threat to Israeli security a “dangerous and ridiculous lie”. The channel said it reserved the right to “pursue every legal step”.
Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said equipment had been taken in the raid. A video posted by the minister on X shows police officers and inspectors from the ministry entering a hotel room.
A BBC team visited the scene, but was prevented from filming or going into the hotel by police.
According to Reuters news agency, the Israeli satellite service Yes displayed a message that read: “In accordance with the government decision, the Al Jazeera station’s broadcasts have been stopped in Israel.”
The blockage is effectively only partial, however, as the channel is still accessible through Facebook in Israel.
The shut down of Al Jazeera in Israel has been criticised by a number of human rights and press groups.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said they had filed a request to the country’s Supreme Court to issue an interim order to overturn the ban.
The group said that claims that the broadcaster was a propaganda tool for Hamas were “unfounded”, and that Sunday’s ban was less about security concerns and more to “serve a more politically motivated agenda, aimed at silencing critical voices and targeting Arab media”.
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) urged the Israeli government to reconsider its decision, saying the shut down of Al Jazeera in the country should be “a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press”. The FPA said in a statement that Israel now joins “a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station”, and warned that Mr Netanyahu has the authority to target other foreign outlets that he considers to be “acting against the state”.
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna echoed the same concerns, saying: “The Israeli cabinet must allow Al Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime.”
The UN’s Human Rights office also called the Israeli government to reverse the ban, posting on X: “A free & independent media is essential to ensuring transparency & accountability. Now, even more so given tight restrictions on reporting from Gaza.”
Al Jazeera, which is headquartered in Qatar (pictured here), has condemned Israel’s decision to shut its operations in Israel (BBC)
Foreign journalists are banned from entering Gaza, and Al Jazeera staff there have been some of the only reporters on the ground.
For years, Israeli officials have accused the network of anti-Israeli bias.
Their criticisms of the broadcaster have intensified since the 7 October Hamas attacks on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage. Some 128 of those hostages are still unaccounted for, with at least 34 presumed dead.
At least 34,683 Palestinians have been killed and 78,018 injured in Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Last month, the Israeli parliament passed a law giving the government power to temporarily close foreign broadcasters considered a threat to national security during the war against Hamas.
Qatar, where Al Jazeera is headquartered, is mediating talks between Israel and Hamas over the now almost seven-month-long conflict.
Previous negotiations mediated by Qatar led to a temporary ceasefire and the release of 105 Israeli hostages in November.
Al Jazeera has accused Israel of deliberately targeting its staff.
Journalists including Hamza al-Dahodouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, have been killed by Israeli strikes. Israel denies targeting journalists.
“Israel’s suppression of free press to cover up its crimes by killing and arresting journalists has not deterred us from performing our duty,” the network said in its response to Sunday’s ban.
(BBC)
United States President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to demand control of the Panama Canal after accusing Panama of charging excessive rates on US ships passing through one of the busiest waterways in the world.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
He later doubled down during a speech in Arizona on Sunday, saying the US was “being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else”.
The US largely built the canal in 1914 and administrated territory surrounding the passage for decades. But Washington fully handed control of the canal to Panama in 1999 after a period of joint administration.
Trump also hinted at China’s growing influence around the canal, which connects the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” he said in the original post. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama. If the moral and legal principles of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump said.
Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino firmly responded to Trump on Sunday.
“Every square meter of the Panama canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging so,” Mulino said in a recorded message posted on social media.
He further denied that China or any other country has direct or indirect influence over the canal. He added that fees were not decided on a “whim”.
The canal is key to Panama’s economy and generates about one-fifth of the government’s annual revenue.
[Aljazeera]
At least 13 people, including four children, have been killed in two incidents in Nigeria as large crowds gathered to collect food and clothing distributed at annual Christmas events, police say.
In the capital, Abuja, at least 10 people died on Saturday and many more were injured in a scramble to receive gifts of charity being distributed by the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama district.
“This unfortunate event, which took place around 6:30am [05:30 GMT], resulted in a stampede that claimed the lives of 10 individuals, including four children, and left eight others with varying degrees of injuries,” said Josephine Adeh, a police spokesperson.
In a separate incident in Okija in Anambra State in southern Nigeria, three people were killed in a crush at a charity event organised by a philanthropist, state police said.
“The event had not even started when the rush began,” police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga said. There could be more deaths recorded as officers investigate, he said.
In both incidents, the victims were mostly women and children who were trampled as crowds tried to reach the provisions being offered.
[Aljazeera]
A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.
At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.
The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.
He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.
The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.
Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.
Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.
Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.
He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.
There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.
[BBC]
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