Headline

Palestinian Gunman Kills Seven In Jerusalem Synagogue Attack

Published

3 years ago

January 28, 2023

A Palestinian gunman killed seven people outside an east Jerusalem synagogue during the Jewish Sabbath on Friday, in one of the deadliest attacks targeting Israelis in years that risked sparking widespread violence.

The shooting came a day after a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including an army raid in the occupied West Bank that killed nine people, rocket fire from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli strikes.

Israel’s police chief Kobi Shabtai called the shooting in the Neve Yaakov area “one of the worst attacks we have encountered in recent years.” It also fell on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Police said that “at around 8:15 pm (1815 GMT) a terrorist arrived at a synagogue in the Neve Yaakov boulevard in Jerusalem and proceeded to shoot at a number of people in the area.”

“As a result of the terror attack, seven civilians were pronounced dead and three additional civilians were injured,” police said.
They said the gunman fled the scene in a car but was quickly tracked down and killed in an “exchange of fire” with police.

Police have identified the gunman as a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War.

The surging violence comes a month after a new government, led by veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took power.

Netanyahu and his extreme-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the scene on Friday, as crowds chanted “death to Arabs,” AFP journalists at the scene said.

Speaking on television after visiting the scene, Netanyahu said his security cabinet would soon announce “immediate measures” in response and urged Israelis not to “take the law into their own hands.”

– ‘Horrific’ –
Shalom Borohov, a barber who lives near the synagogue, told AFP that after hearing gunshots he “went down to help people”.

“I saw the terrorist arriving with his car. He stopped in the middle of the junction, and shot from his car,” continuing to shoot as people came to the scene, he said.

Matanel Almalem, an 18-year-old student who lives nearby, told AFP that he ran down to the street after hearing the shooting and saw the gunman in a white Toyota Corolla.

“I heard a lot of shooting,” he said.

US President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu to condemn what he called a “horrific terror attack”.

“The president made clear that this was an attack against the civilised world,” the White House said in a readout of the call, adding that Biden also “stressed the ironclad US commitment to Israel’s security”.

Just hours earlier, Washington had urged “de-escalation” over the West Bank violence and Gaza rocket fire.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the synagogue shooting as “abhorrent,” while France called it “appalling.”

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who was on a family visit to the US, has cut short his trip and is returning to Israel, his office told AFP.

“The attack against civilians this Friday evening was horrific,” Gallant said in a statement, vowing to “operate decisively and forcefully against terror” and “reach anyone involved in the attack”.

In Gaza and several locations across the West Bank, Palestinians celebrated the attack, including in Ramallah, where large crowds cheered and waved Palestinian flags.

– Jenin raid –
Nine people had been killed Thursday in what Israel described as a “counter-terrorism” operation in the Jenin refugee camp.

It was one of the deadliest Israeli army raids in the occupied West Bank since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of 2000 to 2005.

Israel said Islamic Jihad operatives were the target.

Islamic Jihad and Hamas both vowed to retaliate, later firing several rockets at Israeli territory.

Most of the rockets were intercepted by Israeli air defences. The military responded with strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.

There were no injuries reported on either side, but Gaza’s armed groups vowed further action.

After the synagogue shooting, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the attack proved “the resistance knows how to find the appropriate response” to Israeli “crimes”.

Washington had announced Thursday that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken would travel next week to Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he would push for an “end to the cycle of violence”.

A State Department spokesman confirmed on Friday that the visit would go ahead and said Blinken would discuss “steps to be taken to de-escalate tensions”.

At least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians were killed across Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2022, the majority in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally from official sources.
AFP

Headline

China, US Agree To Resume Trade Talks

Published

19 hours ago

October 18, 2025

Editor

China and the United States agreed on Saturday to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle.

Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation.

Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that Vice Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had “candid, in-depth and constructive exchanges” during a Saturday morning call, and that both sides agreed to hold a new round of trade talks “as soon as possible”.

On social media, Bessent described the call as “frank and detailed”, and said they would meet “in-person next week to continue our discussions”.

Bessent had previously accused China of seeking to harm the rest of the world by tightening restrictions on rare earths, which are critical to everything from smartphones to guided missiles.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also participated in the call, according to the report by Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

Hours before the call, Fox News released excerpts of an interview with Trump in which he said he would meet Xi at the APEC summit after all.

Trump told the outlet that the 100 percent tariff on goods from China was not sustainable.

“It’s not sustainable, but that’s what the number is… They forced me to do that,” he said.

The high-level video call came as Washington worked to rally Group of Seven finance ministers in response to the latest Chinese export controls.

For now, the G7 ministers have agreed to coordinate a short-term response and diversify suppliers, the EU’s economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters in Washington.

Speaking after the grouping met this week, Dombrovskis noted the vast majority of rare earth supplies come from China, meaning that diversification could take years.

“We agreed, both bilaterally with the US and at the G7 level, to coordinate our approach,” he said on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s fall meetings.

Countries would also exchange information on their contacts with Chinese counterparts as they work out short-term solutions, he added.

German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil told journalists he hopes that Trump and Xi’s meeting can help to resolve much of the US-China trade conflict.

“We have made it clear within the G7 that we do not agree with China’s approach,” he added, referring to the group of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva also expressed hope Friday for an agreement between the countries to cool tensions.

The US-China trade war reignited this year as Trump promised sweeping tariffs on imports soon after returning to office.

At one point, US-China tariffs escalated to triple-digit levels, effectively halting some trade as businesses waited for a resolution.

The two countries have since lowered their respective levies, but their truce has remained shaky.

AFP

Headline

Morocco Jails Student One Year Over Gen Z Protest

Published

2 days ago

October 17, 2025

Editor

A student arrested during Morocco’s youth-led protests has been sentenced to one year in prison, his lawyer told AFP on Friday.

The case marks the first publicly known prison sentence linked to the kingdom’s Gen Z demonstrations, which have been held near-daily between late September and last week to demand social and political reforms.

The student was charged with “participating in an unauthorised and unarmed gathering” and “insulting the judicial police by providing false information”, lawyer Mohamed Nouini said.

“The ruling is unfair, and we will appeal,” he added, arguing that sit-ins did not require authorisation as per a Supreme Court precedent.

The lawyer said his client was arrested on September 30, three days after the protests erupted in the North African country.

According to a report by news website Hespress, citing another lawyer, the student’s arrest was “an unfortunate coincidence” as he was in Casablanca for a family visit.

The other lawyer, Mohamed Lakhdar, told the judge the student had “not insulted” police nor provided false information, telling them he “was just a student”, according to the report.

Hundreds were arrested during the early days of the largely peaceful demonstrations.

Some cities had seen spates of violence and acts of vandalism, while authorities have said three people were killed by police acting in “self-defence” during clashes in a village near Agadir.

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) has said roughly 550 people are facing prosecution on suspicion of joining the protests, with some still in detention.

The organisers of the online-based movement behind the nationwide protests, the GenZ 212 youth collective, remain unknown.

The collective has called for “peaceful sit-ins” on Saturday and demanded the release of those arrested during the demonstrations.

The protest came after the deaths of eight pregnant women during Caesarean sections at a hospital in Agadir.

But protesters have also demanded reforms to the education system and a change of government.
AFP

Headline

Trump Refiles $15bn Defamation Lawsuit Against New York Times

Published

2 days ago

October 17, 2025

Editor

US President Donald Trump has refiled a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, court documents show, weeks after it was thrown out by a federal judge.

Trump has intensified his long-established hostility toward the media since his return to the White House, and the suit is one of numerous attacks against news organizations he accuses of bias against him.

The Times’ complaint was thrown out in September because District Judge Steven Merryday took exception to its florid writing, repetitive and laudatory praise of Trump, and its excessive 85-page length.

The suit filed Thursday in Florida and seen by AFP runs to less than half the length, at 40 pages.

It takes aim at “false, defamatory, and malicious publications”, highlighting a book and two Times articles.

The lawsuit named the newspaper, three Times reporters and the publisher Penguin Random House as defendants.

It accuses them of making defamatory statements against Trump “with actual malice.”

“The statements in question wrongly defame and disparage President Trump’s hard-earned professional reputation, which he painstakingly built for decades” before entering the White House, the lawsuit says.

The court was asked to grant compensatory damages of not less than $15 billion and additional punitive damages “in an amount to be determined upon trial.”

Trump’s attacks on media outlets have seen him restrict access, badmouth journalists critical of his administration, and bring lawsuits demanding huge amounts of compensation.

In July, Trump sued media magnate Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal for at least $10 billion after it reported on the existence of a book and a letter he allegedly sent to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit over election coverage on CBS News’ flagship show “60 Minutes” for $16 million the same month. He had alleged that the program deceptively edited an interview with his 2024 election rival, Kamala Harris, in her favor.

AFP