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Russia is considering a push into eastern Ukraine, while Kyiv is focusing on corruption
Russia is mustering its military might in the Luhansk region of Ukraine, officials said Wednesday, in what Kyiv suspects is preparation for an offensive as the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion approaches.
Also Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government continued its crackdown on alleged corruption with the dismissal of several high-ranking officials, prominent lawmaker David Arakhamia said.
Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 on an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform in a country long gripped by graft. The latest allegations come as Western allies are channeling billions of dollars to help Kyiv fight Moscow and as the Ukrainian government is introducing reforms so it can potentially join the European Union one day.
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Ukraine's Security Service said on the Telegram messaging app that an operation on Wednesday targeted “corrupt officials who undermine the country’s economy and the stable functioning of the defense-industrial complex.” It identified one as a former Defense Ministry official accused of embezzling state funds through the purchase of nearly 3,000 bulletproof vests that would inadequately protect Ukrainian soldiers.
Summing up the day's focus on fighting corruption, Zelenskyy declared in his nightly video address Wednesday: “We will not allow anyone to weaken our state.”
On the battlefront, a Russian missile destroyed an apartment building and damaged seven others in the eastern Donetsk provincial city of Kramatorsk late Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding at least 20, police said. Rescuers were searching the rubble for other victims. Russia has frequently attacked apartment buildings during the war, causing civilian casualties, although the Kremlin often denies such reports.
Zelenskyy used the attack to press again for more Western weapons: “No goal other than terror,” he said on Facebook. “The only way to stop Russian terrorism is to defeat it. By tanks. Fighter jets. Long-range missiles.”
Elsewhere, the Kremlin’s forces were expelling residents near the Russian-held parts of the front line so they can't tell Ukrainian artillery forces about Russian troop deployments, Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said.
“There is an active transfer of (Russian troops) to the region and they are definitely preparing for something on the eastern front in February,” Haidai said.
The Institute for the Study of War predicted “an imminent Russian offensive in the coming months.” Some predict it will coincide with the invasion anniversary on Feb. 24.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported Wednesday that Russia was also concentrating in neighboring Donetsk province, especially in its bid to capture the key city of Bakhmut.
Donetsk and Luhansk provinces make up the Donbas, an industrial region bordering Russia that President Vladimir Putin identified as a goal for takeover from the war’s outset and where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Russian shelling of Bakhmut, from which most residents have fled while others shelter in cellars, killed at least five civilians and wounded 10 on Tuesday, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko posted images of the shelling aftermath, showing huge black holes in residential buildings in the embattled city, reporting that Russia is deploying more troops.
Donetsk was one of four provinces that Russia illegally annexed in the fall, but controls only about half of it. To take the remaining half, Russian forces have no choice but to go through Bakhmut, the only approach to bigger Ukrainian-held cities. Russian forces have been trying for months to capture Bakhmut.
Moscow-installed authorities in Donetsk claimed Russian troops are “closing the ring” around the city. But the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-controlled paramilitary group headed by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Wednesday denied that Bakhmut was encircled. “When the city is taken, you will certainly know about it,” Prigozhin said in an online post.
Ukraine is keen to secure more Western military aid to fend off much larger Russian forces. It has already won pledges of tanks and now wants more.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described media reports about planned new U.S. military assistance to Ukraine as “a direct path to inciting tensions and taking the escalation to a new level.”
“It will require additional efforts on our part, but it won’t change the course of events,” he told reporters.
In other developments Wednesday:
—David Arakhamia, the head of a parliamentary faction, said several senior officials were targeted in the government’s anti-corruption drive. Among those dismissed were Yuri Sotnik, First Deputy Chairman of the State Forest Agency; Alexander Shchutsky, First Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Service; and Andrei Lordkipanidze, Deputy Chairman of the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, Arakhamia said. In addition, the deputy head of the customs service, Ruslan Cherkassky, has been suspended, according to Arakhamia.
The Security Service of Ukraine said two customs officials in northern Ukraine were placed under house arrest on accusations that they helped illegally import ambulances without paying customs fees. A third target was the former management of oil producing company Ukrnafta and refiner Ukrtatnafta. They were accused of tax evasion and “legalization of funds obtained through criminal means,” the Security Service said.
Ukrainian media reported that high-profile anti-corruption raids targeted oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and former interior minister Arsen Avakov.
—Ukraine's anti-corruption drive is expected to be on the agenda when the European Union’s two top officials, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel, meet with Zelenskyy on Friday. Ukraine’s long road toward potential membership of the EU will be a key issue under discussion, with stamping out corruption a key condition.
—Authorities in Russia’s western Bryansk province, which borders Ukraine, reported power outages after a Ukrainian rocket allegedly fell near an oil pumping station. No one was reported hurt. Putin met with officials to discuss alleviating damage from such cross-border attacks. Gov. Alexander Bogomaz told Putin that in the Bryansk region, Ukrainian shelling has killed four people, wounded 22 and damaged 235 houses since the conflict started. Kursk Gov. Roman Starovoit said 23 apartment buildings and 379 private houses in his region have been damaged. Putin said “the priority task is to liquidate the possibility of shelling,” repair damaged buildings and infrastructure, and compensate residents. Ukrainian officials have kept mum about most cross-border attacks, but emphasized their right to strike Russian territory.
—At a news conference in Kyiv with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, Zelenskyy condemned Austrian businesses, which “do not leave Russia and continue to support the terrorist state.” He mentioned Raiffeisen Bank, which he said not only pays taxes but announced a tax holiday for mobilized Russian troops. “This is unacceptable in today’s realities,” Ukraine’s president said. The bank didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Austrian media quoted Raiffeisen Bank as saying it's required under Russian law to provide the tax holiday.
Wall Street falls ahead of mammoth week with Fed, earnings
Stocks are falling on Wall Street Monday ahead of a week full of potentially market-moving events, from decisions on interest rates around the world to earnings reports from the biggest U.S. companies.
The S&P 500 was 0.7% lower in midday trading, giving back some of its gains from last week when it reached its highest level since early December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 60 points, or 0.2%, at 33,917, as of 12:15 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% lower.
Markets have been veering recently on worries that the economy and corporate profits may be set for a steep drop-off, along with competing hopes that cooling inflation will get the Federal Reserve to take it easier on interest rates.
The central bank’s next decision on rates is coming Wednesday, and most investors expect it to announce an increase of just 0.25 percentage points. That would be the smallest increase since March, following a spate of hikes of 0.75 points and then a 0.50-point increase, and it would mean less added pressure on the economy.
Higher rates combat inflation by intentionally slowing the economy, while also dragging down on prices for investments. Inflation has been cooling since the summer amid last year's blizzard of rate hikes, but the economy has also been showing signs of concern.
The big question is whether Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday afternoon will give markets what they want to hear — hints that rate hikes will end soon and rate cuts may even be possible late this year — or stick to the Fed’s mantra that it plans to keep rates higher for longer, even if a modest recession hits.
“I think that they have no intention of cutting rates this year,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, adding that the Fed waits an average of roughly nine months after its last rate hike before cutting.
“They’ll reiterate that they don’t want to make the mistakes of the 1970s," he said, "but I think in the back of their minds, they’re going to say no matter which inflationary indicator you look at, they’re all heading in a stairstep downward pattern.”
Read more: Wall Street braces for earnings to get hit by inflation
Central banks for Europe and for the United Kingdom are also set to announce their latest increases for rates this week.
Beyond interest rates, more than 100 companies in the S&P 500 are scheduled this week to report how much profit they made in the last three months of 2022. Among them are tech heavyweights Apple, Amazon, and Google’s parent company. Because these companies are three of the four biggest on Wall Street by market value, their stock movements carry much more sway on the S&P 500 than others.
Apple's 1.4% drop Monday, for example, was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.
The only other stock that rivals them in size, Microsoft, shook Wall Street last week when it gave forecasts for upcoming results that raised worries about a slowdown in corporate spending on tech. Its stock fell 1.8% Monday.
Companies generally look to be on track to report slightly weaker profit for the end of 2022 than expected, according to a BofA Global Research report. That’s an indication that the strong January enjoyed by the S&P 500 so far is more about improving sentiment on Wall Street than about better fundamentals, strategist Savita Subramanian wrote.
Strategists at Morgan Stanley led by Michael Wilson warn tougher times may be ahead.
“The reality is that earnings are proving to be even worse than feared based on the data, especially as it relates to margins,” they wrote in a report. “Secondly, investors seem to have forgotten the cardinal rule of ‘Don’t Fight the Fed’. Perhaps this week will serve as a reminder.”
Later this week, the U.S. government will also give its latest monthly update on the job market. Hiring has remained remarkably resilient across the broad economy, even as housing and other corners weaken sharply under the weight of all the Fed’s rate hikes from last year.
Some big tech companies have announced high-profile layoffs after acknowledging they misread their boom coming out of the pandemic. But job cuts may be starting to spread to other areas of the economy. Hasbro and 3M last week announced layoffs.
All told, economists expect Friday’s report to show that U.S. employers added 187,500 more jobs than they cut during January. That would be a slowdown from December’s hiring of 223,000.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.54% from 3.51% late Friday. The two-year yield, which tends to move more on expectations of Fed actions, rose to 4.29% from 4.20%.
Online system to seek asylum in US is quickly overwhelmed
Hours before sunrise, migrants at one of Mexico’s largest shelters wake up and go online, hoping to secure an appointment to try to seek asylum in the U.S. The daily ritual resembles a race for concert tickets when online sales begin for a major act, as about 100 people glide their thumbs over phone screens.
New appointments are available each day at 6 a.m., but migrants find themselves stymied by error messages from the U.S. government's CBPOne mobile app that's been overloaded since the Biden administration introduced it Jan. 12.
Many can’t log in; others are able to enter their information and select a date, only to have the screen freeze at final confirmation. Some get a message saying they must be near a U.S. crossing, despite being in Mexico’s largest border city.
At Embajadores de Jesus in Tijuana, only two of more than 1,000 migrants got appointments in the first two weeks, says director Gustavo Banda.
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“We're going to continue trying, but it's a failure for us,” Erlin Rodriguez of Honduras said after another fruitless run at an appointment for him, his wife and their two children one Sunday before dawn. “There's no hope.”
Mareni Montiel of Mexico was elated to select a date and time for her two children — then didn't get a confirmation code. “Now I'm back to zero,” said Montiel, 32, who has been waiting four months at the shelter, where the sound of roosters fill the crisp morning air at the end of a rough, dirt road.
CBPOne replaced an opaque patchwork of exemptions to a public health order known as Title 42 under which the U.S. government has denied migrants’ rights to claim asylum since March 2020. People who have come from other countries find themselves in Mexico waiting for an exemption or policy change — unless they try to cross illegally into the U.S.
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If it succeeds, CBPOne could be used by asylum-seekers even if Title 42 is lifted as a safe, orderly alternative to illegal entry, which reached the highest level ever recorded in the U.S. in December. It could also discourage large camps on Mexico's side of the border, where migrants cling to unrealistic hopes.
But a range of complaints have surfaced:
— Applications are available in English and Spanish only, languages many of the migrants don't speak. Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said authorities failed to take "the most basic fact into account: the national language of Haiti is Haitian Creole.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it plans a Creole version in February; it has not announced other languages.
— Some migrants, particularly with darker skin, say the app is rejecting required photos, blocking or delaying applications. CBP says it is aware of some technical issues, especially when new appointments are made available, but that users’ phones may also contribute. It says a live photo is required for each login as a security measure.
The issue has hit Haitians hardest, said Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, director of The Sidewalk School, which assists migrants in Reynosa and Matamoros, across from Texas' Rio Grande Valley. Previously, about 80% of migrants admitted to seek asylum in the area were Haitian, Rangel-Samponaro said. On Friday, she counted 10 Black people among 270 admitted in Matamoros.
“We brought construction lights pointed at your face,” she said. “Those pictures were still not able to go through. ... They can't get past the picture part.”
— A requirement that migrants apply in northern and central Mexico doesn't always work. CBP notes the app won't work right if the locator function is switched off. It's also trying to determine if signals are bouncing off U.S. phone towers.
But not only is the app failing to recognize that some people are at the border, applicants outside the region have been able to circumvent the location requirement by using virtual private networks. The agency said it has found a fix for that and is updating the system.
— Some advocates are disappointed that there is no explicit special consideration for LGBTQ applicants. Migrants are asked if they have a physical or mental illness, disability, pregnancy, lack housing, face a threat of harm, or are under 21 years old or over 70.
Still, LGBTQ migrants are not disqualified. At Casa de Luz, a Tijuana shelter for about 50 LGBTQ migrants, four quickly got appointments. A transgender woman from El Salvador said she didn't check any boxes when asked about specific vulnerabilities.
The U.S. began blocking asylum-seekers under President Donald Trump on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19, though Title 42 is not applied uniformly and many deemed vulnerable are exempted.
Starting in President Joe Biden’s first year in office until last week, CBP arranged exemptions through advocates, churches, attorneys and migrant shelters, without publicly identifying them or saying how many slots were available. The arrangement prompted allegations of favoritism and corruption. In December, CBP severed ties with one group that was charging Russians.
For CBPOne to work, enough people must get appointments to discourage crossing the border illegally, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat.
“If these appointments start dragging out to two or three or four months, it's going to be much harder to keep it going,” he said. “If people aren’t getting through, they won’t use the program.”
CBP, which schedules appointments up to two weeks out, declines to say how many people are getting in. But Enrique Lucero, director of migrant affairs for the city of Tijuana, said U.S. authorities are accepting 200 daily in San Diego, the largest border crossing. That's about the same as the previous system but well below the number of Ukrainians processed after Russia's invasion last year.
Josue Miranda, 30, has been staying at Embajadores de Jesus for five months and prefers the old system of working through advocacy groups. The shelter compiled an internal waiting list that moved slowly but allowed him to know where he stood. Banda, the shelter director, said 100 were getting selected every week.
Miranda packed his suitcases for him, his wife and their three children, believing his turn was imminent until the new online portal was introduced. Now, the Salvadoran migrant has no idea when, or if, his chance will come. Still, he plans to keep trying through CBPOne.
“The problem is that the system is saturated and it's chaos," he said after another morning of failed attempts.
Tyre Nichols' brutal beating by police shown on video
Memphis authorities released video footage Friday showing Tyre Nichols being beaten by police officers who held the Black motorist down and repeatedly struck him with their fists, boots and batons as he screamed for his mother and pleaded, “I just want to go home.”
The video is filled with violent moments showing the officers, who are also Black, chasing and pummeling Nichols and leaving him on the pavement propped against a squad car as they fist-bumped and celebrated their actions.
The footage emerged one day after the officers were charged with murder in Nichols’ death. The chilling images of another Black man dying at the hands of police provoked tough questions about the nation's policing culture and raised the specter of renewed protests less than three years after a wave of demonstrations wracked the country.
The recordings shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him throughout the attack. The Nichols family legal team has likened the assault to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.
After the first officer roughly pulls Nichols out of a car, Nichols can be heard saying, “I didn't do anything,” as a group of officers begins to wrestle him to the ground.
“Get on the ground!," one officer yells, as another is heard yelling “Tase him! Tase him!”
Nichols calmly replied soon after being wrestled to the pavement, “OK, I’m on the ground.” Moments later, as the officers continue to yell, Nichols says, “Man, I am on the ground.”
An officer yells, “Put your hands behind your back before I break your (expletive).” Moments later, an officer yells, “(Expletive), put your hands behind your back before I break them.”
“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Nichols says loudly to the officers. “I’m just trying to go home.”
“Stop, I’m not doing anything,” he yells moment later.
The camera is briefly obscured, and then Nichols can be seen running as an officer fires a Taser at him. The officers then start chasing Nichols.
Other officers are called and a search ensues before Nichols is caught at another intersection. The officers beat him again, this time using a baton, kicking and punching him.
Security camera footage shows three officers surrounding Nichols as he lies in the street cornered between police cars, with a fourth officer nearby.
Two officers hold Nichols to the ground as he moves about, and then the third appears to kick him in the head. Nichols slumps more fully onto the pavement with all three officers surrounding him. The same officer kicks him again.
The fourth officer then walks over, unfurls a baton and holds it up at shoulder level as two officers hold Nichols upright, as if he were sitting.
“I’m going to baton the f--- out you,” one officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at least one other officer holds Nichols. The officer strikes Nichols on the back with the baton. He strikes strikes him again, and then a third time.
The other officers then appear to hoist Nichols to his feet, with him flopping like a doll, barely able to stay upright despite the bracing arms.
An officer then punches him in the face, as the officer with the baton continues to menace him. Nichols stumbles and turns, still held up by two officers. The officer who punched him then walks around to Nichols’ front and punches him three more times. Then Nichols collapses.
Two officers can then be seen atop Nichols on the ground, with a third nearby, for about 40 seconds. Three more officers then run up and one can be seen kicking Nichols on the ground.
At one point, as Nichols is slumped up against a car and none of the officers are rendering aid, the body camera footage shows a first-person view of one of them reaching down and tying his shoe.
It takes more than 20 minutes after Nichols is beaten and on the pavement before any sort of medical attention is provided to him, even though two fire department officers arrived on the scene with medical equipment within 10 minutes.
Cities across the country braced for large demonstrations. Nichols’ relatives urged supporters to protest peacefully.
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis described the officers' actions as “heinous, reckless and inhumane,” and said that her department has been unable to substantiate the reckless driving allegation that prompted the stop.
She told The Associated Press in an interview that there is no video of the traffic stop that shows Nichols recklessly driving.
During the initial stop, the video shows the officers were “already ramped up, at about a 10,” she said. The officers were “aggressive, loud, using profane language and probably scared Mr. Nichols from the very beginning.”
Nichols' mother, RowVaughn Wells, warned supporters of the “horrific” nature of the video but pleaded for peace.
“I don’t want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for,” she said Thursday. “If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully.”
Speaking at the White House, President Joe Biden said Friday that he was “very concerned” about the prospect of violence and called for protests to remain peaceful.
Biden said he spoke with Nichols' mother earlier in the day and told her that he was going to be “making a case” to Congress to pass the George Floyd Act “to get this under control.” The legislation, which has been stalled, is meant to tackle police misconduct and excessive force and boost federal and state accountability efforts.
Court records showed that all five former officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — were taken into custody.
The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Four of the five officers had posted bond and been released from custody by Friday morning, according to court and jail records.
Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law.
Patrick Yoes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, condemned the alleged actions of the Memphis officers.
“The event as described to us does not constitute legitimate police work or a traffic stop gone wrong. This is a criminal assault under the pretext of law," Yoes said in a statement.
Rallies and demonstrations were planned Friday night in Memphis, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Portland, Oregon and Washington.
New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, said he and other mayors across the country had been briefed by the White House in advance of the video’s release, which he said would “trigger pain and sadness in many of us. It will make us angry.”
Romanucci and civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who also represents Nichols' family, called on the police chief to disband the department’s so-called scorpion unit focused on street crime.
Davis said other officers are still being investigated for violating department policy. In addition, she said “a complete and independent review” will be conducted of the department’s specialized units, without providing further details.
As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police department’s “full and complete cooperation."
Palestinian gunman kills seven people in Jerusalem synagogue
A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, killing seven people, including a 70-year-old woman, and wounding three others before he was shot and killed by police, officials said. It was the deadliest attack on Israelis in years and raised the likelihood of more bloodshed.
The attack, which occurred as residents were observing the Jewish sabbath, came a day after an Israeli military raid killed nine people in the West Bank. The shooting set off celebrations in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where people fired guns into the air, honked horns and distributed sweets.
The burst of violence, which also included a rocket barrage from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, has posed an early challenge for Israel’s new government, which is dominated by ultranationalists who have pushed for a hard line against Palestinian violence. It also cast a cloud over a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region Sunday.
Addressing reporters at Israel's national police headquarters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had held a security assessment and decided on “immediate actions.” He said he would convene his Security Cabinet on Saturday night, after the end of the sabbath, to discuss a further response.
Netanyahu declined to elaborate but said Israel would act with “determination and composure.” He called on the public not to take the law into their own hands.
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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. strongly condemned the attack and was “shocked and saddened by the loss of life,” noting it came on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
U.S. officials said later Friday that President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu to offer U.S. support to the government and people of Israel, calling the shootings “an attack against the civilized world.” “The President stressed the iron-clad U.S. commitment to Israel's security,” the White House said of the call.
Israeli police said the shootings occurred in Neve Yaakov, a neighborhood with a large ultra-Orthodox population, and that the gunman fled in a car. Police said they chased after him and after an exchange of fire, killed him.
Jerusalem police chief Doron Turjeman confirmed seven deaths, in addition to the shooter, and said three people were wounded.
Police identified the attacker as a 21-year-old east Jerusalem resident who apparently acted alone. Turjeman promised an “aggressive and significant” effort to track down anyone who helped him.
Police also released a photo of the pistol it said was used by the attacker.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant huddled with Israel's military chief and other top security officials and instructed them to assist police and strengthen defenses near Jerusalem and for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“Israel’s defense establishment will operate decisively and forcefully against terror and will reach anyone involved in the attack,” Gallant said.
Israel's MADA rescue service said the dead victims were five men and two women, including several who were 60 or older. Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital said a 15-year-old boy was recovering from surgery.
The attack was the deadliest on Israelis since a 2008 shooting killed eight people in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, according to the Foreign Ministry. Given the location and timing, it threatened to trigger a tough response from Israel.
Overnight Thursday, Gaza militants fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel, with all of them either intercepted or landing in open areas. Israel responded with airstrikes on targets in Gaza. No casualties were reported, and calm had appeared to be taking hold before Friday night's shooting.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. In Gaza, Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the ruling Hamas militant group, said the attack was “a revenge and natural response” to the deadly military raid Thursday.
At several locations across the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians gathered in spontaneous demonstrations to celebrate the Jerusalem attack, with some coming out of dessert shops with large trays of sweets to distribute.
In downtown Gaza City, celebratory gunfire could be heard, as cars honked and calls of “God is great!” wafted from mosque loudspeakers. In various West Bank towns, Palestinians launched fireworks.
The attack escalated tensions that were already heightened following Thursday's raid in the town of Jenin, where nine people, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman, were killed. It was the deadliest single raid in the West Bank in two decades. A 10th Palestinian was killed in separate fighting near Jerusalem.
Angry Palestinians marched Friday as they buried the last of those killed a day earlier.
Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip for most of the day.
That suddenly dissolved with the east Jerusalem shooting, described as “horrific and heartbreaking” by Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and former prime minister.
Neve Yaakov is a religious Jewish settlement that Israel considers to be a neighborhood of its capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as a capital of their future state.
Blinken’s trip will probably now focus heavily on lowering tensions. He is likely to discuss the underlying causes of the conflict, the agenda of Israel’s new far-right government and the Palestinian Authority’s decision to halt security coordination with Israel in retaliation for the raid.
The Biden administration has been deeply engaged with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, underscoring the “urgent need here for all parties to deescalate to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank.”
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival forces in 2007.
Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press.
Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed.
Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.
UN forecasts fall in global economic growth to 1.9% in 2023
The United Nations forecast Wednesday (January 25, 2023) that global economic growth will fall significantly to 1.9% this year as a result of the food and energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine, the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, persistently high inflation and the climate emergency.
Painting a gloomy and uncertain economic outlook, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs said the current global economic slowdown “cuts across both developed and developing countries, with many facing risks of recession in 2023.”
“A broad-based and severe slowdown of the global economy looms large amid high inflation, aggressive monetary tightening, and heightened uncertainties,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a foreword to the 178-page report.
The report said this year's 1.9% economic growth forecast — down from an estimated 3% in 2022 — is one of the lowest growth rates in recent decades. But it projects a moderate pick-up to 2.7% in 2024 if inflation gradually abates and economic headwinds start to subside.
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In its annual report earlier this month, the World Bank which lends money to poorer countries for development projects, cut its growth forecast nearly in half, from it previous projection of 3% to just 1.7%.
The International Monetary Fund, which provides loans to needy countries, projected in October that global growth would slow from 6% in 2021 to 3.2% in 2022 and 2.7% in 2023. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said at last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos that 2023 will be a difficult year, but stuck by the projection and said “we don’t expect a global recession.”
Shantanu Mukherjee, director of the economic analysis and policy division of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, highlighted the growing income inequality in the world at a news conference launching the report.
Between 2019 and 2021, he said, average incomes for the top 10% rose by 1.2% while the incomes of the lowest 40% fell by 0.5%.
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“The top 10% now earns on average over 42 times what the lowest percentiles” earn, Mukherjee said.
According to the U.N. report, this year “growth momentum has weakened in the United States, the European Union and other developed economies, adversely affecting the rest of the world economy.”
In the United States, GDP is projected to expand by only 0.4% in 2023 after estimated growth of 1.8% in 2022, the U.N. said. And many European countries are projected to experience “a mild recession" with the war in Ukraine heading into its second year on Feb. 14, high energy costs, and inflation and tighter financial conditions depressing household consumption and investment.
The economies in the 27-nation European Union are forecast to grow by just 0.2% in 2023, down from an estimated 3.3% in 2022, the U.N. said. And in the United Kingdom, which left the EU three years ago, GDP is projected to contract by 0.8% in 2023, continuing a recession that began in the second half of 2022, it said.
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With China’s government abandoning its zero-COVID policy late last year and easing monetary and fiscal policies, the U.N. forecast that its economy, which expanded by only 3% in 2022, will accelerate to 4.8% this year.
“But the reopening of the economy is expected to be bumpy,” the U.N. said. ”Growth will likely remain well below the pre-pandemic rate of 6-6.5%.”
The U.N. report said Japan’s economy is expected to be among the better-performing among developed countries this year, with GDP forecast to increase by 1.5%, slightly lower than last year’s estimated growth of 1.6%.
Across east Asia, the U.N. said economic recovery remains fragile though GDP growth in 2023 is forecast to reach 4.4%, up from 3.2% last year, and stronger than in other regions.
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In South Asia, the U.N. forecast average GDP growth will slow from 5.6% last year to 4.8% this year as a result of high food and energy prices, “monetary tightening and fiscal vulnerabilities.”
But growth in India, which is expected to overtake China this year as the world’s most populous nation, is expected to remain strong at 5.8%, slightly lower than the estimated 6.4% in 2022, “as higher interest rates and a global slowdown weigh on investments and exports,” the U.N. report said.
In Western Asia, oil-producing countries are benefiting from high prices and rising output as well as a revival in tourism, the U.N. said. But economies that aren’t oil producers remain weak “given tightening access to international finance and severe fiscal constraints,” and average growth in the region is projected to slow from an estimated 6.4% in 2022 to 3.5% this year.
The U.N. said Africa has been hit “by multiple shocks, including weaker demand from key trading partners (especially China and Europe), a sharp increase in energy and food prices, rapidly rising borrowing costs and adverse weather events.”
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One result, it said, is mounting debt-servicing burdens which have forced a growing number of African governments to seek bilateral and multilateral support.
The U.N. projected economic growth in Africa to slow from an estimated 4.1% in 2022 to 3.8% this year.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.N. said the outlook “remains challenging,” citing labor market prospects, stubbornly high inflation and other issues. It forecast that regional growth will slow to just 1.4% in 2023 from an estimated expansion of 3.8% in 2022.
“The region’s largest economies – Argentina, Brazil and Mexico – are expected to grow at very low rates due to tightening financial conditions, weakening exports, and domestic vulnerabilities,” the U.N. said.
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For the world’s least developed countries, the U.N. said growth is projected at 4.4% this year, about the same as last year but significantly below the UN's target of 7% by 2030.
‘It’s insane’: California copes with 3rd massacre in 8 days
In the wake of the worst massacre in Los Angeles County history, the California governor was meeting gunshot victims in the hospital when he was pulled away and briefed on a mass shooting at the other end of the state.
Word that a gunman had killed seven people at mushroom farms in a scenic coastal stretch of Northern California came just hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke of his fatigue and frustration with mass shootings.
“I can’t keep doing them,” he told reporters earlier Monday in Monterey Park, where 11 people were killed at a dance studio. “Saying the same thing over and over and over again, it’s insane.”
Yet Newsom was in Half Moon Bay on Tuesday to address the third mass shooting in just over a week in a state with some of the nation’s toughest gun laws and lowest gun death rates.
His voice brimming with anger and emotional at times, Newsom said he consulted notes he used at past mass shootings: the slaying of 12 at a Thousand Oaks country and western bar in 2018; the killing of three and wounding of 17 at the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival; the slaying of nine workers at a San Jose rail yard in 2021.
“I started writing in ‘Monterey Park,’” Newsom said. “And now I gotta write in, ‘Half Moon Bay.’ What the hell is going on?”
A 66-year-old farmworker was booked on murder and attempted murder charges after shooting eight people, killing seven, in a crime authorities said was a case of workplace violence in the rich agricultural area that lies between the Pacific Ocean and coastal mountains.
In Monterey Park, a 72-year-old gunman shot up a dance hall in an Asian American community that had been celebrating Lunar New Year’s Eve on Saturday night, wounding nine people in addition to the 11 killed. The gunman later took his own life.
A week earlier, at least two assailants fatally shot a 16-year-old mother clutching her 10-month-old baby, and killed four others in a brazen attack in a central California farming community that remained unsolved.
“Our hearts are with the people in California,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday at a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders. “They’ve been a rough, rough couple of days.”
Biden noted that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced an assault weapons ban, and he urged lawmakers to pass it.
Newsom also called for stronger gun safety laws and took particular aim at the large capacity magazines — like the one the dance studio gunman had — and what he called “weapons of damn war.”
“It’s said all the time: ‘Only in America,’” he said. “No. 1 in gun ownership, No. 1 in gun deaths. It’s not even complicated.”
The recent slayings moved California up five slots to 26th place on the number of fatal mass shootings per capita in the U.S. since 2006, according to a USA TODAY/AP/Northeastern University mass killing database. The database only counts killings of at least four people.
While California has the highest number of fatal mass shootings — 49, including the recent three — it had ranked 31st beforehand when adjusted for being the nation’s most populous state with nearly 40 million residents.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists California as having the 7th lowest gun mortality rate in the country per 100,000 residents, according to the most recent statistics available from 2020. It’s 20th lowest in terms of homicide rate, which is not limited to shootings.
With the back-to-back killings, detectives at both ends of the state were trying to answer the question that often goes unanswered in the face of senseless violence: Why?
Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna called the dance hall gunman, 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, a “mad man” and said investigators were looking into whether he had relationships with the people who were shot at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio.
Tran fired 42 rounds at the ballroom popular with older Asian Americans. He then drove to another nearby dance hall where an employee wrested a modified 9 mm submachine gun-style weapon away from him, Luna said.
Tran fatally shot himself Sunday as officers surrounded the van he was inside. A handgun was recovered from the van, which matched descriptions of the vehicle he used to get away from the dance studio.
Mounds of flowers, including dozens of yellow and white mums, were left in front of the studio’s closed gates Tuesday. On a brick column next to the gates someone taped a piece of blue paper with the typed “Ban Semi-automatic Rifles” and below it a translation in Chinese.
So far, there have been six mass killings this year in the U.S., and the Monterey Park shootings were the deadliest attack since May 24, when 21 people were killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The Half Moon Bay slayings came less than 48 hours later when 66-year-old Chunli Zhao shot five people at a mushroom farm where he worked, killing four, authorities said. He then drove to a farm where he once worked nearby, and fatally shot three other people.
The victims were Asian and Hispanic, and some were migrant workers.
One of the workers killed was Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, his brother, Servando Martinez Jimenez, told The Associated Press. He was from the Mexican state of Oaxaca and lived in the U.S. 28 years.
“He was a good person,” Martinez Jimenez said in Spanish. “He was polite and friendly with everyone. He never had any problems with anyone. I don’t understand why all this happened.”
The farm shootings were the largest mass killing in San Mateo County.
“We’ve never had one in this county of this many deaths at one scene or one time,” District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.
Zhao was arrested after officers found him in his car in the parking lot of a sheriff’s substation.
Eamonn Allen, a spokesperson for the San Mateo County sheriff, declined to answer whether Zhao had a criminal history, but said “there were no specific indicators that would have led us to believe he was capable of something like this.”
The San Francisco Chronicle, however, reported that Zhao was accused 10 years ago of threatening to split a coworker’s head open with a knife and separately tried to suffocate the man with a pillow, based on court documents.
Authorities have shared little about Tran, who briefly owned a trucking company in Monterey Park from 2002 to 2004, according to California business records.
He was once arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm in 1990 and had a limited criminal history, Luna said. The sheriff could not immediately say if a gun arrest at a time when firearms laws were different would have barred him from owning weapons.
Tran once frequented the ballroom and another dance hall he later targeted and griped about the way he thought people treated him there, a man who identified himself as a longtime friend told The Associated Press.
Tran was perpetually distrustful and paranoid and would regularly complain that people at the clubs didn’t like him, according to the former friend who requested anonymity to speak about Tran because he wanted to avoid the media spotlight.
Investigators were also looking into reports Tran made twice this month to police in the town where he lived that family members tried to poison him, defrauded him and stole from him a decade or two ago in the LA area, Hemet police spokesperson Alan Reyes told The Associated Press. Tran never returned with documentation he promised to provide.
Sheriff’s deputies from Los Angeles County on Monday searched Tran’s home in a gated senior community in Hemet, a little over an hour’s drive from the site of the massacre. Officers found a .308-caliber rifle, an unknown number of bullets and evidence he was making homemade firearm suppressors that muffle the sound of the weapons.
Newsom said he purposely avoided news conferences in Los Angeles to meet with residents of the community, people wounded by gunfire and the hero, Brandon Tsay, who disarmed Tran.
While he was in Monterey Park, a teary-eyed mother rolled up in her car and asked him to reassure her three daughters that everything was going to be OK. Her 8-year-old had heard the gunfire and knew it wasn’t firecrackers. She hadn’t slept at night and was afraid to go to school, the mother said.
Newsom told the girl, “It’s gonna get better.”
But in front of a group of dozens of politicians, law enforcement officers and reporters assembled in Half Moon Bay, he said he was relieved she didn’t make him lock pinky fingers and promise like his own 8-year-old daughter would. “Because I wasn’t so sure.”
WHO calls for action to protect children from contaminated medicines
The UN health agency has released an urgent call to action to countries to prevent, detect and respond to incidents of substandard and falsified medical products.
Over the past four months, countries have reported several incidents of over-the-counter cough syrups for children with confirmed or suspected contamination with high levels of diethylene glycol (DEG) and ethylene glycol (EG).
The cases are from at least seven countries, associated with more than 300 fatalities in three of these countries. Most are young children under the age of five. These contaminants are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and antifreeze agents that can be fatal even in small amounts, and should never be found in medicines.
Based on country reports, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued three global medical alerts addressing these incidents. Medical Product Alert N°6/2022 on October 5, 2022, focused on the outbreak in the Gambia, Medical Product Alert N°7/2022 on November 6, 2022, focused on Indonesia, and Medical Product Alert No1/2023 on January 11, 2023, focused on Uzbekistan.
The WHO's medical product alerts were rapidly disseminated to the national health authorities of all of its 194 member states. These medical product alerts requested included the detection and removal of contaminated medicines from circulation in the markets, increased surveillance and diligence within the supply chains of countries and regions likely to be affected, immediate notification to the WHO if these substandard products are discovered in-country; and otherwise inform the public of the dangers and toxic effects of the substandard medicines at issue.
Since these are not isolated incidents, the WHO called on various key stakeholders engaged in the medical supply chain to take immediate and coordinated action.
The UN health agency urged regulators and governments to detect and remove from circulation in their respective markets substandard medical products that have been identified in the WHO medical alerts referred to above as potential causes of death and disease.
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The WHO also called on them to ensure that all medical products in their respective markets are approved for sale by competent authorities and obtainable from authorised/licenced suppliers; assign appropriate resources to improve and increase risk-based inspections of manufacturing sites within their jurisdiction following international norms and standards.
The UN health agency urged medicine manufacturers to only buy pharmaceutical grade excipients from qualified and bona fide suppliers; conduct comprehensive testing upon receipt of supplies and before use in the manufacture of finished products.
LA mass shooting suspect kills 10 near Lunar New Year fest
A gunman killed 10 people and wounded 10 others at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance club following a Lunar New Year celebration, setting off a manhunt for the suspect in the latest mass shooting tragedy in an American community.
Capt. Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Sunday that the wounded were taken to hospitals and their conditions range from stable to critical. He said the 10 people died at the scene in the city of Monterey Park.
Meyer said people were “pouring out of the location screaming” when officers arrived at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday. He said officers then went into the ballroom and found victims as firefighters treated the wounded.
Meyer gave no description of the male suspect or the weapon he used, or why police gave no information on the shooting for hours while the shooter remained on the run. He also said police were investigating another incident in the nearby city of Alhambra to see whether it was connected.
Meyer said it’s too early in the investigation to know if the gunman knew anyone at the ballroom or if it was a hate crime or not. He gave no other details.
The Lunar New Year celebration had attracted thousands. Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people with a large Asian population about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from downtown Los Angeles. Two days of festivities were planned but officials cancelled Sunday’s events following the shooting.
The tragedy marked the fifth mass shooting in the U.S. this month and the deadliest since 21 people were killed in a school in Uvalde, Texas, according to The Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S. The latest violence comes two months after five people were killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub.
Seung Won Choi, who owns the Clam House seafood barbecue restaurant across the street from where the shooting happened, told The Los Angeles Times that three people rushed into his business and told him to lock the door.
The people said to Choi that there was a shooter with a gun who had multiple rounds of ammunition on him.
Wong Wei, who lives nearby, told The Los Angeles Times that his friend was in a bathroom at the dance club that night when the shooting started. When she came out, he said, she saw a gunman and three bodies.
The friend then fled to Wei’s home at around 11 p.m., he said, adding that his friends told him that the shooter appeared to fire indiscriminately with a long gun. “They don’t know why, so they run,” he told the newspaper.
The celebration in Monterey Park is one of the largest Lunar New Year events in Southern California.
Chris Hipkins confirmed as New Zealand next prime minister, picks deputy
Chris Hipkins was confirmed Sunday (January 22, 2023) as New Zealand's next prime minister and he chose Carmel Sepuloni as his deputy, marking the first time a person with Pacific Island heritage has risen to that rank.
Hipkins got the unanimous support of lawmakers from his Labour Party after he was the only candidate to enter the contest to replace Jacinda Ardern, who shocked the nation Thursday when she announced she was resigning after more than five years as leader.
Hipkins will be officially sworn into his new role on Wednesday (January 25, 2023). He will have less than nine months before contesting a tough general election, with opinion polls indicating his party is trailing its conservative opposition.
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The lack of other candidates for leader indicated that party lawmakers had rallied behind Hipkins to avoid a drawn-out contest and any sign of disunity following Ardern’s departure.
In setting out his priorities, Hipkins said he knew many families were struggling due to the “pandemic of inflation” and that the economy would be central to his government's thinking.
When asked if he would take on the same transformational approach to government that Ardern had promised after first winning the top job, Hipkins indicated he wanted to get back to basics.
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“We will deliver a very solid government that is focused on the bread-and-butter issues that matter to New Zealanders, and that are relevant to the times that we are in now," Hipkins said. "2017 was five-and-a-half years ago, and quite a lot has happened since then.”
Like Hipkins, Sepuloni first became a lawmaker 15 years ago and has most recently taken on the social development and employment portfolios as one of the government's top ministers.
She said it was “very hard to fathom that a working-class girl” from a small New Zealand town could end up as deputy prime minister.
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“I want to acknowledge the significance of this for our Pacific community,” Sepuloni said. “I am proudly Samoan, Tongan, and New Zealand European, and represent generations of New Zealanders with mixed heritage."
Sepuloni said she’d already been receiving lots of humbling messages about another glass ceiling being smashed.
Opposition leader Christopher Luxon told reporters he’d congratulated Hipkins by text. But Luxon said Hipkins and Sepuloni had been part of a government that had “failed spectacularly” to get things done and that after the leadership change, it would be more of the same.
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