World
South Korea plans to launch its 1st military spy satellite on Nov. 30
South Korea said Monday it plans to launch its first domestically built spy satellite at the end of this month to better monitor rival North Korea, as the North pushes to expand its arsenal of nuclear weapons targeting its adversaries.
The plan was unveiled days after North Korea failed to follow through on its vow to make a third attempt to launch its own reconnaissance satellite in October, likely because of technical issues.
Jeon Ha Gyu, a spokesperson for the South Korean Defense Ministry, told reporters Monday that the country’s first military spy satellite will be launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on Nov. 30.
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The satellite will be carried by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Under a contract with SpaceX, South Korea plans to launch four more spy satellites by 2025, according to South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
South Korea currently has no military reconnaissance satellites of its own and relies on U.S. spy satellites to monitor moves by North Korea.
The possession of its own spy satellites would give South Korea an independent space-based surveillance system to monitor North Korea in almost near-time. When operated together with South Korea’s so-called three-axis system — preemptive strike, missile defense and retaliatory assets — the country’s overall defense against North Korea would be sharply strengthened, according to Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute.
Lee said that U.S. spy satellites produce much higher-resolution imagery but they are operated under U.S. strategic objectives, not South Korea’s. He said the U.S also sometimes doesn’t share satellite photos with highly sensitive information with South Korea.
Last year, South Korea used a homegrown rocket to place what it called a “performance observation satellite” in orbit, becoming the world’s 10th nation to successfully launch a satellite with its own technology.
But Lee said it’s much more economical to use a SpaceX rocket to fire a spy satellite from the Vandenberg base. Other observers say a SpaceX rocket would be more reliable to carry the South Korean spy satellite, which is heavier than the satellite launched in 2022.
North Korea is also eager to acquire its own spy satellite. But its two launch attempts earlier this year ended in failure for technical reasons. The country said it would make a third attempt sometime in October, but it did not do so and its state media has not provided a reason.
South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers last week that North Korea is likely receiving Russian technological assistance on a spy satellite launch program. The National Intelligence Service said North Korea was in the final phase of preparations for its third launch, which the NIS said would likely be successful.
Read: US military says Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of B-52 bomber over South China Sea
South Korea, the U.S. and other foreign governments believe North Korea is seeking sophisticated weapons technologies from Russia to modernize its nucler and other weapons programs in return for supplying ammunition, rockets and other military equipment to support Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The possession of spy satellites is part of ambitious arms build-up plans announced by leader Kim Jong Un in 2021. Kim said North Korea also needs more mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, hypersonic weapons and multi-warhead missiles to cope with intensifying U.S. military threats.
After the North's first, failed launch in May, South Korea retrieved debris from the North's satellite and concluded it was too crude to perform military reconnaissance. Lee said the North Korean satellite would still be capable of identifying big targets like warships so it could be militarily useful for North Korea.
Man accused of Antarctic assault was then sent to remote icefield with young graduate students
A man accused of physically assaulting a woman at a U.S. research station in Antarctica was then sent to a remote icefield where he was tasked with protecting the safety of a professor and three young graduate students, and he remained there for a full week after a warrant for his arrest was issued, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
Stephen Tyler Bieneman has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault over the incident last November at McMurdo Station, which his lawyer said was nothing more than “horseplay.” The case is due to go to trial Monday in Honolulu.
The National Science Foundation declined to answer AP questions about why Bieneman was sent out into the field in a critical safety role while under investigation. The case raises further questions about decision-making in the U.S. Antarctic Program, which is already under scrutiny.
An AP investigation in August uncovered a pattern of women at McMurdo who said their claims of sexual harassment or assault were minimized by their employers, often leading to them or others being put in further danger.
And on Friday, the watchdog office overseeing the NSF said it was sending investigators to McMurdo this month as it expands its investigative mission to include crimes such as sexual assault and stalking.
In their indictment, prosecutors say that late on Nov. 24 or early Nov. 25 last year, a woman was sitting in a dormitory lounge waiting for her laundry when Bieneman, who had been celebrating his birthday with lots of drinks, walked in.
When he went to the bathroom, the woman took his name tag from his jacket as a prank and then refused to give it back, running around the end of a sofa, prosecutors say.
Bieneman then took her to the floor, put her on her back and put his left shin over her throat as he rummaged through her pocket looking for the tag, prosecutors say. The woman desperately tried to communicate she couldn't breathe, signaling a choking motion and tapping on his leg as a minute passed before Bieneman finally found the tag and removed his shin from her airway, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors say the woman visited a medical clinic.
“During a follow-up visit a week later, Victim A reported improvements with respect to muscle tightness, however she was suffering from lack of sleep and appetite, anxiousness, and depression as a result of the assault," prosecutors said in the indictment. ”Soon thereafter, Victim A left her employment at McMurdo Station."
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Bieneman's lawyer Birney Bervar said in an August email to the AP that eyewitnesses didn't back the woman's story and a doctor who examined her soon after the incident found no evidence of “an assault of the nature and degree she described.”
Marc Tunstall, the NSF station manager who is also a sworn Deputy U.S. Marshal, heard about the incident on Nov. 29 and began investigating, according to prosecutors.
On Dec. 10, two weeks after the incident, Bieneman and the scientific team flew by Twin Otter plane to set up camp at the remote Allan Hills icefield, more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from McMurdo. The team, which studies ice cores, was there to collect radar data to help select a site for future ice-core drilling.
In his role as mountaineer, Bieneman was responsible for the safety of the group in the unforgiving environment. The man initially assigned the role had suffered from a mini-stroke two days before his deployment, according to documents obtained by the AP.
Bieneman, who goes by his middle name Tyler, initially worked well with the team setting up camp.
“However, soon after, it became clear that something was amiss with Tyler," University of Washington Professor Howard Conway wrote on behalf of the COLDEX field team in a complaint to the NSF that was obtained by the AP.
Conway and the graduate students did not respond to AP requests for comment.
In the complaint, Conway described Bieneman as initially being “domineering and critical” of the two female graduate students at the camp.
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“One evening in the kitchen tent during the first week, he told the graduate students that earlier in the season in McMurdo he had a fight with a woman, during which he wrestled with her, and she subsequently had trouble breathing, and needed medical attention," Conway wrote.
The professor said Bieneman portrayed himself as the victim in the incident for being under scrutiny. He said the graduate students, fearing possible retaliation if they disclosed the story, felt they had to tiptoe around Bieneman.
“It was uncomfortable and stressful to be around him because it was not possible to feel physically or emotionally safe," Conway wrote.
Court documents show an arrest warrant was issued for Bieneman on Dec. 12.
The professor wrote that Bieneman was finally replaced at the camp on Dec. 19. He said they were never told Bieneman was under investigation or given a reason for him being pulled from his assignment. They pieced it together later when the case became public.
“We were astounded to find (1) Tyler was assigned to our team when it was already known that he was under investigation, and (2) that he remained in the field with us for a full week after he had been charged with assault,” Conway wrote in the complaint.
The NSF said the questions about Bieneman's camp assignment were part of an active law enforcement matter and should be directed to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Hawaii. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Hawaii did not respond to a request for comment.
According to court records, when Bieneman returned to McMurdo after the camp, he was fired, given a plane ticket back to the U.S. and arrested when he landed in Hawaii. He was then released on $25,000 bail pending Monday's trial.
Trump's business and political ambitions poised to converge as he testifies in New York civil case
When Donald Trump takes the stand Monday in a Manhattan courtroom to testify in his civil fraud trial, it will be an undeniable spectacle: A former president and the leading Republican presidential candidate defending himself against allegations that he dramatically inflated his net worth.
The charges cut to the very heart of the brand Trump spent decades carefully crafting and put him at risk of losing control of much of his business empire.
But the appearance may also mark the beginning of what will likely be a defining feature of the 2024 election if Trump becomes his party's nominee: a major candidate, on trial, using the witness stand as a campaign platform as he eyes a return to the White House while facing multiple criminal indictments.
“It’s going to be a stunning moment. This is dramatic enough if he was simply an ex-president facing these charges. But the fact that he is the overwhelming favorite to run the GOP, it makes this a staggering Monday,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.
The courtroom at 60 Centre Street has already become a familiar destination for Trump. He has spent hours over the last month voluntarily seated at the defense table, observing the proceedings. Trump once took the stand — unexpectedly and briefly — after he was accused of violating a partial gag order. Trump denied violating the rules, but Judge Arthur Engoron disagreed and fined him anyway.
Read: Federal judge reimposes limited gag order in Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case
The vast majority of his speaking has happened outside the courtroom, where he has taken full advantage of the bank of assembled media to voice his outrage and spin the days' proceedings in the most favorable way.
He will also be coming face-to-face again Monday with Engoron, whom he has lambasted on his social media site in recent days as a "wacko” and “RADICAL LEFT, DEMOCRAT OPERATIVE JUDGE” who has already “ruled viciously” against him.
Trump will also be joined by his former fixer and attorney-turned witness, Michal Cohen, who said in an interview he was planning to attend Monday's proceedings.
“My intent is to attend Donald’s appearance as he was gracious enough to attend my court appearances,” he said.
Among the topics likely to be covered: Trump’s role in his company's decision making, in its valuing of his properties, and in preparing his annual financial statements. Trump is likely to be asked about loans and other deals that were made using the statements and what intent, if any, he had in portraying his wealth to banks and insurers the way the documents did.
Trump is also likely to be asked about how he views and values his brand – and the economic impact of his fame and time as president -- and may be asked to explain claims that his financial statements actually undervalued his wealth.
Trump has argued that disclaimers on his financial statements should have alerted people relying on the documents to do their own homework and verify the numbers themselves – an answer that he’s likely to repeat on the witness stand. Trump has said the disclaimer absolved him of wrongdoing.
Read: Donald Trump arrives in court for a New York trial scrutinizing his business practices
Eric Trump, the former president's middle son, who testified in the case last week, said his father was eager for his appearance on the stand.
“I know he’s very fired up to be here. And he thinks that this is one of the most incredible injustices that he’s ever seen. And it truly is,” the younger Trump told reporters Friday, insisting his family was winning even though the judge has already ruled mostly against them.
Unlike most Americans, Trump has ample experience fielding questions from lawyers and has a long history of depositions and courtroom testimony that offer insight into how he might respond. But Cohen, who worked for Trump for more than a decade, said nothing in Trump's past has come close to what he's facing now since they were largely civil matters "where even though the dollar amounts were in the millions of dollars, they were never of any real consequence to him or obviously to his freedom.”
“Right now this New York attorney general case is a threat to the extinction of his eponymous company as well as his financial future," he said. Trump's forthcoming criminal cases — accusing him of misclassifying hush money payments, illegally trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election and hoarding documents at his Mar-a-Lago club "have far more significant consequences, most specifically the termination of his freedom.”
Brinkley, the historian, said there was little precedent for Trump's appearance, but said it won't be the first time a past president has taken the stand in a trial accusing him of wrongdoing. He pointed to one case in 1915, when, after unsuccessfully running for a third term as a third-party candidate, former President Theodore Roosevelt was sued for libel for criticizing New York Republican Party boss William Barnes.
Read: Rape lawsuit trial against Donald Trump set to get underway
The judge eventually ruled in Roosevelt's favor after a five week trial, in which the former president spent eight days on the witness stand.
“They were five weeks of great strain," he wrote in a letter to his son. “But the result was a great triumph, and I am bound that there shall be no more libel suits as far as I am concerned, and for the present at least no further active participation in politics for me.”
Israeli warplanes hit refugee camps in Gaza while UN agencies call siege an 'outrage'
Israeli airstrikes hit two refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing scores of people, health officials said. The strikes came as the U.S. keeps urging Israel to take a humanitarian pause from its relentless bombardment of Gaza and rising civilian deaths.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Ramallah in the West Bank for a previously unannounced meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Blinken later flew to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. On Saturday Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan, after holding talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insists there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released. President Joe Biden suggested that progress was being made on the humanitarian pause.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 9,700 with more than 4,000 of them children and minors, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 242 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group.
Roughly 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday under an apparent agreement among the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.
Currently:
— Gaza has lost telecom contact again, while Israel’s military announces it has surrounded Gaza City.
— Families of Israel hostages fear the world will forget their loved ones.
— Protest marches from U.S. to Berlin call for immediate halt to bombing.
— These numbers show the staggering toll of the Israel-Hamas war.
— A U.N. official says the average Palestinian in Gaza is living on two pieces of bread a day.
— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
EMOTIONAL SCENES AS AUSTRALIANS WHO LEFT GAZA ARRIVE AT SYDNEY AIRPORT
SYDNEY — A dozen Australians who fled the war in Gaza arrived in Sydney on Sunday after traveling last week through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
Elated evacuee Sara El-Masry told Nine News on arrival at Sydney Airport: “It means the world to me that we were able to leave safely and we were able to come here and see their (family) faces one more time. I honestly didn’t think I would make it.”
Another seven evacuees returned to other Australian cities on Saturday. The Australian government continues to press for more Australians to be allowed to leave Gaza. There are about 67 citizens, permanent residents and their family members that the Australian government says it is trying to help leave Gaza.
Read: Blinken meets Palestinian leader in West Bank, stepping up Mideast diplomacy as Gaza war escalates
US MILITARY ACKNOWLEDGES POSITIONING SUBMARINE IN MIDEAST
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The U.S. military has acknowledged positioning a nuclear-capable submarine in the Middle East.
It provided no other details in its online statement Sunday, though it posted an image that appeared to show a submarine in Egypt’s Suez Canal near its Suez Canal Bridge.
U.S. acknowledgment of an Ohio-class submarine location is incredibly rare as they represent part of America's so-called “nuclear triad” of atomic weapons — which also includes land-based ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs aboard strategic bombers.
Several Ohio-class submarines instead carry cruise missiles and the capability to deploy with special operations forces, so it’s unclear if the submarine operating now in the Mideast carries nuclear ballistic missiles.
The U.S. has deployed submarines into the region before and announced its recent presence as tensions were high with Iran.
Central Command separately released an image of a nuclear-capable B-1 bomber also operating in the Mideast on Sunday.
UN AGENCIES AND HUMANITARIAN ORGS CALL FOR IMMEDIATE CEASE-FIRE
UNITED NATIONS – The heads of 11 U.N. agencies and six humanitarian organizations issued a joint plea for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, the protection of civilians, and the swift entry to Gaza of food, water, medicine and fuel.
In a statement issued Sunday night, they called Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks in Israel “horrific.”
“However, the horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza is an outrage, as is cutting off 2.2 million Palestinians from food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” the heads of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory said.
Read: Protest marches from US to Berlin call for immediate halt to Israeli bombing of Gaza
The U.N. and humanitarian organizations said more than 23,000 injured people need immediate treatment and hospitals are overstretched.
Blinken shuttles from the West Bank to Iraq trying to contain the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took his diplomatic push on the Israel-Hamas war to the occupied West Bank on Sunday, trying to assure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the Biden administration was intensifying efforts to ease the plight of Gaza's civilians and insisting that Palestinians must have a main say in whatever comes next for the territory after the conflict.
Blinken later flew to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as American forces in the region face a surge of attacks by Iranian-allied militias in Iraq and elsewhere. U.S. forces shot down another one-way attack drone Sunday that was targeting American and coalition troops near their base in neighboring Syria, a U.S. official said. From Baghdad Blinken traveled to Turkey.
President Joe Biden's top diplomat traveled through the West Bank city of Ramallah in an armored motorcade and under tight security. It was his third day of shuttle diplomacy aimed at trying to limit the destabilizing regional fallout from the war and overcome what has been Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to consider a U.S. proposal for intermittent pauses in its attack on Hamas long enough to rush vital aid to Gaza's civilians.
Netanyahu had pushed back Friday against the U.S. pressure to start implementing pauses in the fighting, saying there would be no temporary cease-fire until Hamas releases some 240 foreign hostages it is holding.
“This is a process,” Blinken told reporters on the matter Sunday. “Israel has raised important questions about how humanitarian pauses would work. We’ve got to answer those questions,” including how pauses would affect Hamas hostages. "We’re working on exactly that.’’
The Biden administration, while remaining the strongest backer of Israel's military response to Hamas' attacks on Oct. 7, is increasingly seeking to use its influence with Israel to try to temper the effect of Israel's weeks of complete siege and near round-the-clock air, ground and sea assaults in Gaza, home to 2.3 million civilians.
Blinken's meeting with Abbas in the West Bank came on the same day that Israeli planes bombed two refugee camps in Gaza, killing at least 53 people, according to health officials in Gaza. An Associated Press reporter saw the dead bodies of eight children brought in to a nearby Gaza hospital after one of those strikes. Israel's military announced its forces had effectively split the Gaza Strip in two before an expected escalated assault on Hamas targets in the north.
As word spread of Blinken's arrival in Ramallah, Palestinians turned out to protest U.S. support for Israel's war. Demonstrators held signs showing dripping blood and with messages that included, “Blinken blood is on your hands."
Neither Blinken nor Abbas spoke as they greeted each other in front of cameras and their meeting ended without any public comment.
The Palestinian Authority administers semiautonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It has not been a factor in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when Hamas seized control after winning in elections there a year earlier. Abbas himself is unpopular among Palestinians.
Blinken said in Baghdad that the Palestinian Authority “is playing a very important role right now in the West Bank in trying to keep stability there. That’s hugely important because no one wants another front in the West Bank or anywhere else, and they’re really stepping up under very difficult conditions to do the necessary work.”
He said that “what we all agree” is that in shaping a future for Gaza, the West Bank and “ultimately” for a Palestinian state, "Palestinian voices have to be at the center of that. The Palestinian Authority is the representative of those voices so it’s important that it play a leading role.’’
Abbas, however, said the Palestinian Authority would only assume power in Gaza as part of a “comprehensive political solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the Palestinians' official WAFA news agency. He also condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as a “genocidal war" and urged Blinken “to immediately stop them from committing such crimes,” the news agency reported.
On his second trip to the Middle East since the war began, Blinken met with Netanyahu on Friday before holding talks in Jordan with Arab ministers Saturday. Netanyahu so far has rejected humanitarian pauses. The Arab officials pushed for an immediate cease-fire. Blinken said that would be counterproductive and could encourage more violence by Hamas.
U.S. officials believe that Netanyahu may soften his opposition to the pause idea if he can be convinced that it is in Israel’s strategic interests to ease the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The soaring death toll among Palestinians — more than 9,700, according to officials of Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry — has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets over the weekend to demand a cease-fire now.
Arab states are resisting American suggestions that they play a larger role in resolving crisis, expressing outrage at the civilian toll of the Israeli military operations but believing Gaza to be a problem largely of Israel’s own making.
Among Arab leaders, Blinken said it is clear that “everyone would welcome the humanitarian pause.” He said it “could advance things that we’re all trying to accomplish,” including freeing hostages, bringing in aid and getting out foreign citizens. On that last point, he said: "We’ve had important progress there in recent days but also real complications that come along with it. We continue to work through them.’’
In Baghdad, the talks touched on the security of U.S. forces.
“I made very clear that the attacks, the threats coming from the militia that are aligned with Iran, are totally unacceptable and we will take every necessary step to protect" American personnel, Blinken said. He said the prime minister expressed his own determination to stop the militia strikes.
The U.S. has deep concerns that Iran and its proxies, including several militia groups in Iraq, may take advantage of the situation in Gaza to further destabilize the Middle East. Already Iranian-backed militias have intensified rocket and other attacks on U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Syria, drawing at least one retaliatory strike from American forces.
Sunday's attack by drone against a U.S. site in Syria was at least the 32nd on U.S. and coalition military facilities in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17. To date there have been at least 17 attacks in Iraq and 15 in Syria. At least 21 service members have been injured by the attacks but all have returned to duty, the Pentagon said.
The same U.S. official who confirmed the U.S. shootdown of the drone said the drone strike was very similar to other recent attacks on U.S. personnel at bases in Iraq and Syria and is believed at this point to be linked to Iranian-backed militia. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Survivors say trauma from abusive Native American boarding schools stretches across generations
Donovan Archambault was 11 years old in 1950 when he was sent from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana to a government-backed Native American boarding school in Pierre, South Dakota, where abusive staff forced him to abandon his community's language and customs.
Archambault emerged bitter from the experience and said he drank alcohol for more than two decades before he finally pulled his life together, earning a master's degree in education and serving as chairman of the Fort Belknap tribes.
“It was probably the most brutal time of my whole life," Archambault recalled Sunday, “and it all stemmed from the trauma we suffered in the Pierre Indian School.”
Decades after the last Native American boarding schools stopped receiving federal money, the traumas inflicted by the abusive institutions are getting belated attention through a series of listening sessions hosted by federal officials across the U.S.
For over 150 years, Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into the boarding schools, which systematically abused students to assimilate them into white society. Religious and private institutions ran many of the schools and received federal funding as partners in government programs to “civilize” Indigenous students.
Sunday's event at Montana State University in Bozeman was the last of 12 stops on the “Road to Healing” tour by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico who has prioritized examining the trauma caused by the schools.
The U.S. enacted laws and policies in 1819 to support the schools and some continued to operate through the 1960s. An investigative report released last year by the Interior Department identified 408 government-backed schools in 37 states or then-territories, including Alaska and Hawaii.
The schools renamed children from Native American to English names, organized them into military drills and compelled them to do manual labor such as farming, brick-making and working on the railroad system, according to federal officials. At least 500 children died at the schools, according to the report — a figure that's expected to increase dramatically as research continues.
One of Haaland’s deputies, Rosebud Sioux member Wizipan Garriott, has described boarding schools as part of a long history of injustices against his people that began with the widespread extermination of their main food source — bison, also known as buffalo.
Tribes also lost their land base and were forced onto reservations sometimes far from their homelands.
Victims and survivors of the schools have shared tearful recollections of their experience during prior listening sessions in Oklahoma, South Dakota, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska and other states.
They told stories of being punished for speaking their native language, getting locked in basements and their hair being cut to stamp out their identities. They were sometimes subjected to solitary confinement, beatings and withholding food. Many left the schools with only basic vocational skills that gave them few job prospects, officials said.
Myrna Burgess, a Northern Cheyenne elder, said Sunday that she and her classmates faced escalating punishments for speaking their home language. First time they'd get hit with a stick on the back of the hand. After a second offense they'd have to turn their hand over, to get hit on the palm. A third offense brought a strike to the head, she said.
“That was child abuse right there, but no one ever went to jail,” she said.
Archambeault said many of his classmates did not survive long enough to tell their stories and instead became victims of suicide, alcohol and violence that he traces back to the treatment they received at school.
A second investigative report is expected in coming months. It will focus on burial sites, the schools’ impact on Indigenous communities and also try to account for federal funds spent on the troubled program.
Montana had 16 of the schools — including on or near the Crow, Blackfeet, Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations. Most shut down early last century. Others were around recently enough that their former students are still alive.
A Native American boarding school school in the town of St. Ignatius on the Flathead Reservation was open until at least 1973. In southeastern Montana the Tongue River Boarding School operated under various names until at least 1970, when the Northern Cheyenne Tribe contracted it as a tribal school, according to government records.
The St. Labre school at the edge of the Northern Cheyenne continues to operate but has not received federal money in more than a century, according to government records.
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has tallied an additional 113 schools not on the government list that were run by churches and with no evidence of federal support. By 1926, more than 80% of Indigenous school-age children — some 60,000 children — were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations, according to the coalition.
The coalition's executive director, Samuel Torres, said Haaland's tour was a positive first step in addressing the schools' legacy. Next, he said, Congress must approve proposals to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, where survivors could continue airing their stories and the federal government's role in the abuse could be further documented.
“Boarding schools lasted over 150 years. It's going to take more than a couple of years of investigation,” Torres said. “It's going to require generations. But this is where it has to start.”
Protest marches from US to Berlin call for immediate halt to Israeli bombing of Gaza
From Washington to Milan to Paris, tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched Saturday, calling for a halt to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
The marches reflected growing disquiet about the mounting civilian casualty toll and suffering from the Israel-Hamas war. Protesters, particularly in countries with large Muslim populations, including the U.S., U.K. and France, expressed disillusionment with their governments for supporting Israel while its bombardments of hospitals and residential areas in the Gaza strip intensify.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 9,448, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In Israel, more than 1,400 people have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the war.
In the U.S., thousands converged on the nation's capital to protest the Biden administration’s support of Israel and its continued military campaign in Gaza. “Palestine will be free,” demonstrators donning black and white keffiyehs chanted as an enormous Palestinian flag was unfurled by a crowd that filled Pennsylvania Avenue — the street leading up to the White House.
Leveling direct criticism of President Joe Biden, Renad Dayem of Cleveland said she made the trip with her family so her children would know "the Palestinian people are resilient — and we want a leader who won't be a puppet to the Israeli government.”
Dozens of small white body bags with the names of children killed by Israeli missiles lined the street and demonstrators held signs calling for an immediate cease-fire.
Protesters held signs and banners with messages such as “Biden betrays us” and “In November we remember,” highlighting how the issue could be a factor in Biden's reelection bid.
Jinane Ennasri, a 27 year-old New York resident, said the Biden administration’s support of Israel despite the thousands of Palestinian deaths has made her rethink voting in the 2024 presidential election, where Biden will likely face GOP front-runner Donald Trump. “We thought he would represent us, but he doesn’t,” she said, ”and our generation is not afraid to put elected officials in their place.”
Ennasri, like many demonstrators, said they would likely sit out the 2024 election.
Biden was in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the weekend and didn't comment on the protests. In a brief exchange with reporters as he left St. Edmond Roman Catholic Church on Saturday, he suggested there has been some forward movement in the U.S efforts to persuade Israel to agree to a humanitarian pause, answering “yes” when asked if there was progress.
Steve Strauss, a 73 year-old Baltimore resident, said he is one of many Jewish people protesting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. “They are trying to kill as many Palestinians as they can get away with," Strauss said. ”I am here to stand up and be a voice for the people who are oppressed.”
In Paris, several thousand protesters called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and some shouted “Israel, assassin!”
Banners on a sound-system truck at the Paris march through rain-dampened streets read: “Stop the massacre in Gaza.” Demonstrators, many carrying Palestinian flags, chanted “Palestine will live, Palestine will win.”
Demonstrators also took aim at French President Emmanuel Macron, chanting “Macron, accomplice.”
Paris’ police chief authorized the march from République to Nation, two large plazas in eastern Paris, but vowed that any behavior deemed antisemitic or sympathetic to terrorism would not be tolerated.
Multiple countries in Europe have reported increasing antisemitic attacks and incidents since Oct. 7.
In an attack Saturday, an assailant knocked on the door of a Jewish woman in the French city of Lyon and, when she opened, said “Hello” before stabbing her twice in the stomach, according to the woman’s lawyer, Stéphane Drai, who spoke to broadcaster BFM. He said police also found a swastika on the woman’s door. The woman was being treated in a hospital and her life was not in danger, the lawyer said.
At the London rally, the Metropolitan Police said its officers made 11 arrests, including one on a terrorism charge for displaying a placard that could incite hatred. The police force had forewarned that it would also monitor social media and use facial recognition to spot criminal behavior.
On Friday, two women who attended a pro-Palestinian march three weeks ago were charged under the U.K.’s Terrorism Act for displaying images on their clothing of paragliders. In its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel, Hamas employed paragliders to get some fighters across the border between Gaza and southern Israel. Prosecutors said the images aroused suspicion they were supporters of Hamas, which U.K. authorities regard as a terrorist group.
In Berlin, around 1,000 police officers were deployed to ensure order after previous pro-Palestinian protests turned violent. German news agency dpa reported that about 6,000 protesters marched through the center of the German capital. Police banned any kind of public or written statements that are antisemitic, anti-Israeli or glorify violence or terror. Several thousand protesters also marched through the west German city of Duesseldorf.
In Romania’s capital, hundreds gathered in central Bucharest, many waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Save the children from Gaza.”
At a rally by several thousand people in Milan, Matteo Salvini, a deputy prime minister, spoke out against antisemitism, calling it “a cancer, a virulent plague, something disgusting.’’
In another part of Milan, a pro-Palestinian rally drew about 4,000 people and there was also a march by several thousand in Rome. Yara Abushab, a 22-year-old medical student from Gaza University, who has been in Italy since Oct. 1, was among the participants and described Oct. 7 as a watershed for her.
“They bombed my university, my hospital. I lost a lot of loved ones and right now the last time I heard something from my family was a week ago,” she said. “The situation is indescribable.”
END/UNB/AP/TT
Blinken meets Palestinian leader in West Bank, stepping up Mideast diplomacy as Gaza war escalates
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought his frenetic Mideast diplomatic push on the Israel-Hamas war to the occupied West Bank on Sunday, meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his latest bid to ease civilian suffering in the Gaza Strip and begin to sketch out a post-conflict scenario for the territory.
Blinken traveled to Ramallah for his previously unannounced visit in an armored motorcade and under tight security just hours after Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. Despite the secrecy and the State Department refusing to confirm the trip until after Blinken had physically left the West Bank, protests erupted against his visit and U.S. support for Israel as word of his arrival leaked.
Warplanes strike Gaza refugee camp as Israel rejects US push for a pause in fighting
Aside from pleasantries, neither man spoke as they greeted each other in front of cameras and the meeting ended without any public comment. It was not immediately clear if the lack of words indicated the meeting had gone poorly.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance and resumption of essential services in Gaza and made clear that Palestinians must not be forcibly displaced.
Israeli strikes kill multiple civilians at shelters in Gaza combat zone
Blinken and Abbas discussed efforts to restore calm and stability in the West Bank, including the need to stop extremist violence against Palestinians and hold those accountable responsible, Miller said, in reference to violence being committed by Israeli settlers.
The meeting with Abbas, whose Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority has not been a factor in Gaza since Hamas took it over by force in 2007, came at the start of Blinken’s third day of an intense Middle East tour – his second since the war began with a surprise Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Blinken had visited Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday before decamping to Jordan for meetings with senior Arab officials on Saturday.
At each stop, Blinken has offered firm U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself but also stressed that it must adhere to the laws of war, protect civilians and increase humanitarian aid supplies to Gaza. To do that, as well as to ease the flow of foreigners fleeing Gaza, he has made the case that Israel should implement rolling humanitarian pauses to its airstrikes and ground operations, something that Netanyahu has thus far flatly rejected.
U.S. officials believe that Netanyahu may soften his opposition if he can be convinced that it is in Israel’s strategic interests to ease the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The soaring death toll has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets over the weekend to demand an immediate cease-fire.
The Arab foreign ministers that Blinken met with on Saturday in Amman – from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – issued the same demand.
But Blinken said the U.S. would not push for one.
“It is our view now that a cease-fire would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7,” he said. Instead he said that temporary humanitarian pauses in fighting would be critical to protecting civilians, getting aid in and getting foreign nationals out “while still enabling Israel to achieve its objective, the defeat of Hamas.”
Arab officials said it was far too soon to discuss one of Blinken’s main agenda items, Gaza’s postwar future. Stopping the killing and restoring steady humanitarian aid are immediate that must be addressed first, they said.
“How can we even entertain what will happen next?” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi. “We need to get our priorities straight.”
Arab states are resisting American suggestions that they play a larger role in resolving crisis, expressing outrage at the civilian toll of the Israeli military operations but believing Gaza to be a problem largely of Israel’s own making.
But U.S. officials believe Arab backing, no matter how modest, will be critical to efforts to ease the worsening conditions in Gaza and lay the groundwork for what would replace Hamas as the territory’s governing authority, if and when Israel succeeds in eradicating the group.
Blinken tries to cajole wary Arabs on support for post-conflict Gaza as Israel's war intensifies
Still ideas on Gaza’s future governance are few and far between. Blinken and other U.S. officials are offering a vague outline that it might include a combination of a revitalized Palestinian Authority along with international organizations and potentially a peacekeeping force. U.S. officials acknowledge these ideas have been met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
Turkey's main opposition party elects Ozgur Ozel as new leader
Turkey’s main opposition party voted for fresh leadership in the early hours of Sunday, five months after a devastating election defeat that saw President Recep Tayyip Erdogan extend his two-decade rule.
Ozgur Ozel replaced Kemal Kilicdaroglu after delegates of the Republican People’s Party, or the CHP, elected him as new leader. The results in a second round of voting — held in a sports hall in Ankara — saw Ozel take 812 of 1,366 delegate votes to become the CHP’s 8th leader.
Speaking from the stage in front of thousands of flag-waving CHP members, Ozel — his voice hoarse with excitement — promised the cheering crowd a brighter political future and “to make people smile.”
Read: Turkey strikes Kurdish militants in Iraq again after warning of retaliation for a bombing in Ankara
Dissent spread among members of the CHP after the party failed to capitalize on dire economic circumstances in Turkey and the fallout from February’s earthquakes to oust Erdogan in parliamentary and presidential elections in May. At the time, pre-election polls had predicted a strong showing for the CHP's former leader Kilicdaroglu in what many saw as the opposition’s greatest chance to unseat Erdogan since he took office in 2003.
But Erdogan secured his third presidential term in a run-off vote.
Ozel said in his winning speech Sunday that he would mobilize the party immediately to “compensate for the great sadness” of May’s election defeat.
Kilicdaroglu, 74, had led the party since 2010, and ever since, the CHP failed to win a single national election although it scored significant victories in local elections in 2019, taking a handful of major cities — including Ankara and Istanbul.
Read: Erdogan says Turkey may part ways with the EU. He implied the country could ends its membership bid
The former party head was criticized for not standing down after losing May’s election.
A call for change at the top of the CHP was led by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, one of the party’s most prominent figures and an outspoken critic of the way the party ran May's election campaign.
Others also complained that the secularist CHP — established by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — had become undemocratic, with too much power in the leader’s hands.
Ozel, 49, is a former pharmacist who was elected to parliament in 2011. He will lead the party in local elections in March in a bid to hold onto the cities it took five years earlier.
“We will not stop, we will work, we will work shoulder to shoulder, we will regain all the municipalities we (currently) have, we will add new ones and together we will win a great victory,” Ozel said.
Bangladeshi-Italian girl may have died by suicide over arranged marriage
A 15-year-old Bangladeshi-Italian girl who jumped out of her family flat's third floor window and died after three days in hospital may have done so because she feared being pushed into "an arranged marriage with an older man in Bangladesh," police said on Friday.
Read: Young couple ‘commit suicide’ in Magura: Police
Her father, who was planning to take her on holiday to his home country, has been placed under investigation for instigation to suicide in Ancona, the capital of the north-central-eastern Marche region.
Read: Suicide bomber detonates a device in front of Turkish Interior Ministry
The girl, who has not been named, died in an Ancona hospital Thursday.