TV News LIES

On 10 October, following two years of Israeli genocide that have turned Gaza into the new benchmark of total destruction, after Israel has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and inflicted on all the people in Gaza “severe bodily or mental harm,” to quote from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Trump administration imposed a ceasefire, giving rise to the idea that the Gaza war has ended.

The ceasefire, however, seems to be designed mostly to move forward with the business deals of the mega rich in the Middle East, and the fire has never ceased: the Israeli government has continued its assault, killing and injuring hundreds of Palestinians since 10 OcMore...tober, destroying thousands of homes and buildings, and blocking the entry of sufficient aid.

The genocidal rhetoric, furthermore, has not ended. Take, for instance, Simcha Rothman, a member of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) for the Religious Zionist Party, who spoke on 28 October in an international summit in Hungary organized in support of Israel. “If we want to destroy the idea of genocide,” he said, “if we want to destroy [it] and we should destroy the idea of Muslim Brotherhood that takes over the entire west, the Middle East, but after that, the entire world, the entire western civilization, we have to define it as the enemy.” “The enemy in Gaza,” he continued, “are not the terror tunnels, the enemy in Gaza are not the missiles, the enemy in Gaza are not even the terrible people who took the hostages; the enemy in Gaza is the idea of a genocide, the same idea that echoes in mosques all around Europe, the same idea that echoes in mosques in the US, in campuses, in encampments, the same idea, this is the enemy.”

More...

A massive fire tore through a high-rise housing complex in Hong Kong on Wednesday into Friday, in one of the region's deadliest blazes in decades.

Hong Kong authorities say at least 128 people have died in the fire and dozens are still missing.

At least one of the dead is a firefighter who was combating the blaze. The Hong Kong fire department also said 76 people were injured.

The fire department chief said the fire alarms failed to operate properly when the fire broke out.

On Friday, police arrested eight people on suspicion of corruption over the renovation works. Earlier in the week, three men were taken away for alleged manslaughter in connection with the fire.

The fire was put out at 10:18am on Friday, according to a government press release.

The Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong's Tai Po district is a cluster of eight public housing towers and home to about 4,600 people, according to a 2021 census.

Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, making it difficult to extinguish large fires, which can spread easily from building to building.

Because of the blaze, several adjacent roads were shut down, along with about 30 bus routes, which were diverted away from the fire. The fire also spread from the housing complex to the Wong Shiu Chi Secondary School about 500 yards away.

More...

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will remain in detention at the International Criminal Court after appeals judges on Friday rejected a request to release him on health grounds.

The octogenarian is facing charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged involvement in dozens of killings as part of his so-called war on drugs when in office, first as the mayor of a southern city and later as president.

Duterte’s lawyers failed to show that an October decision by lower chamber was unreasonable, Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza said, addressing the full courtroom in The Hague.

The former president was not in court on Friday.

Last month, judges decided to keep Duterte in custody, finding that he was likely to refuse to return for trial and could use his freedom to intimidate witnesses.

More...

A college freshman trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving was instead deported to Honduras in violation of a court order, according to her attorney.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, had already passed through security at Boston Logan international airport on 20 November when she was told there was an issue with her boarding pass, said attorney Todd Pomerleau. The Babson College student was then detained by immigration officials and within two days sent to Texas and then Honduras, the country she left at age seven.

“She’s absolutely heartbroken,” Pomerleau said. “Her college dream has just been shattered.”

The day after Lopez Belloza was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from moving her out of Massachusetts or the US for at least 72 hours. ICE did not respond to an email on Friday from the Associated Press seeking comment about violating that order. Babson College also did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Lopez Belloza, who is staying with her grandparents in Honduras, told the Boston Globe she had been looking forward to telling her parents and younger sisters about her first semester studying business.

“That was my dream,” she said. “I’m losing everything.”

More...

According to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza deported in 2015. Pomerleau said she wasn’t aware of any removal order, however, and the only record he has found indicates her case was closed in 2017.

“They’re holding her responsible for something they claim happened a decade ago that she’s completely unaware of and not showing any of the proof,” the lawyer said.

The ceasefire is broadly holding in Gaza, with Israeli forces inside the strip having pulled back to the so-called "yellow line." Still, renewed Israeli strikes killed dozens of Palestinians last week in response to what Israel alleged was a ceasefire violation by a Hamas gunman.

The bodies of two deceased hostages are still thought to be in Gaza. Israeli authorities have been releasing Palestinian prisoners and the bodies of deceased Palestinians detainees in exchange for the return of hostage remains.

Elsewhere, Israel is continuing strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire agreement there signed last November. On Sunday, Israel launched an airstrike in the capital Beirut for the first time in several months, killing Hezbollah chief of staff Haytham Ali Tabataba'i.

More...

The US navy knew of potentially dangerous levels of airborne plutonium in San Francisco for almost a year before it alerted city officials after it carried out testing that detected radioactive material in November last year, public health advocates allege.

The plutonium levels exceeded the federal action threshold at the navy’s highly contaminated, 866-acre Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. It was detected in an area adjacent to a residential neighborhood filled with condos, and which includes a public park.

The city is planning to redevelop Hunters Point with up to 10,000 housing units and new waterfront commercial districts. The property was used as a staging ground for nuclear weapons testing, and the discovery marks the latest in a series of controversies and cover-ups of dangerous, radioactive material at the site.

The navy is trying to avoid spending several billion dollars to do a proper clean up, said Jeff Ruch, senior counsel with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility nonprofit, which is involved in litigation at the site.

“It’s been one thing after another after another,” Ruch said. “What else is in the closet? We don’t know and we’re not going to search the closet to find out.”

The navy did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.

More...

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be quaking in his boots at the decisive victory of Zohran Mamdani in the 4 November New York City mayoral election. Not because of absurd allegations of antisemitism for which there is no evidence, but because Mamdani has broken the longstanding taboo for successful New York candidates against criticizing the Israeli government. And he has only reinforced his approach in the month since his election.

New York has the largest Jewish population in the United States – and the second-largest of any city in the world after Tel Aviv. The longstanding assumption was that many Jewish voters prioritized the defense of the Israeli government over other issues, so criticism of Israel would set them against a politician.

Mamdani blew that assumption out of the water. During the campaign he spoke accurately and openly about the genocide that Israel was committing in Gaza. He insisted that all residents of Israel should have equal rights. He said he would arrest Netanyahu were he to show up in New York. Yet one-third of New York’s Jewish voters cast a ballot for him. As did many others.

Some Jews may have been uncomfortable with Mamdani’s criticism of Israel but liked other aspects of his candidacy, such as his relentless focus on affordability. Others, myself included, were attracted by his candor on such an important issue as Israel. Many were also probably appalled by the efforts of Mamdani’s principal opponent, Andrew Cuomo, to tar Mamdani with fact-free allegations of antisemitism.

Mamdani has only continued his openness on Israel since the election. In his remarkably friendly meeting with Donald Trump in the White House on 21 November, Mamdani repeated his genocide views and noted that the US government was funding it. Trump let the comment slide without a response.

After a major Manhattan synagogue hosted a group that was encouraging American Jews to emigrate not only to Israel (a normal enough appeal) but also to Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, Mamdani noted the illegality of the settlements. That is an accurate reflection of article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population to occupied territory.

More...