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South Africa launches case at top UN court accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza
South Africa launched a case Friday at the United Nations' top court accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and asking the court to order Israel to halt its attacks — the first such challenge made at the court over the current war. Israel swiftly rejected the filing “with disgust.”
South Africa's submission to the International Court of Justice alleges that “acts and omissions by Israel ... are genocidal in character" as they are committed with the intent “to destroy Palestinians in Gaza” as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.
South Africa has been a fierce critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Many there, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, have compared Israel’s policies regarding Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with South Africa’s past apartheid regime of racial segregation. Israel rejects such allegations.
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South Africa asked The Hague-based court to issue an interim order for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza. A hearing into that request is likely in the coming days or weeks. The case, if it goes ahead, will take years, but an interim order could be issued within weeks.
The Israeli government rejected “with disgust” the genocide accusations, calling it a “blood libel.” A Foreign Ministry statement said South Africa's case lacks a legal foundation and constitutes a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation” of the court.
Israel also accused South Africa of cooperating with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group behind the deadly Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war.
The statement also said Israel operates according to international law and focuses its military actions solely against Hamas, adding that the residents of Gaza are not an enemy. It asserted that it takes steps to minimize harm to civilians and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory.
South Africa can bring the case under the Genocide Convention because both it and Israel are signatories to it.
Whether the case will succeed in halting the war remains to be seen. While the court's orders are legally binding, they are not always followed. In March 2022, the court ordered Russia to halt hostilities in Ukraine, a binding legal ruling that Moscow flouted as it pressed ahead with its attacks.
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South Africa's foreign ministry said in a statement that the country is “gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants.”
The ministry added that there are “ongoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza."
South Africa's president earlier accused Israel of war crimes and acts “tantamount to genocide." And South Africa last month pushed for the International Criminal Court, which also is based in The Hague, to investigate Israel's actions in Gaza.
The ICC prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, while the International Court of Justice settles disputes between nations.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed South Africa's accusations against Israel. In a statement on social media, it urged the court to “immediately take action to protect Palestinian people and call on Israel, the occupying power, to halt its onslaught against the Palestinian people.”
Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said South Africa's case “provides an important opportunity for the International Court of Justice to scrutinize Israel’s actions in Gaza using the Genocide Convention of 1948." She said South Africa is looking to the United Nations’ highest judicial body "to provide clear, definitive answers on the question of whether Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
Jarrah stressed that the ICJ case "is not a criminal case against individual alleged perpetrators, and it does not involve the International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate body. But the ICJ case should also propel greater international support for impartial justice at the ICC and other credible venues.”
The year in review: Influential people who died in 2023
Yevgeny Prigozhin rose from being an ex-con and hot dog vendor to winning lucrative Kremlin contracts and heading a formidable mercenary army. But it all came to a sudden end when the private plane carrying him and others mysteriously exploded over Russia.
Prigozhin's Aug. 23 death put an exclamation point on what had already been an eventful year for the brutal mercenary leader. His Wagner Group troops brought Russia a rare victory in its grinding war in Ukraine, capturing the city of Bakhmut. But internal friction with Russian military leaders later burst into the open, with Prigozhin briefly mounting an armed rebellion — the most severe challenge yet to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
The rebellion was called off and a deal was struck in less than 24 hours. However, just two months later, Prigozhin joined the list of those who have run afoul of the Kremlin and died unexpectedly.
He was just one of a number of noteworthy people who died in 2023.
The world also said goodbye to former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who died Nov. 29. Serving under two presidents, Kissinger's shadow loomed large in the foreign policy arena, prompting both admiration and criticism from around the globe. And he continued his involvement in global affairs even in his final months.
Another political figure who died this year was former U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died Nov. 19. She was the closest adviser to her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, during his one term in the White House and then across four decades of global humanitarian work.
Others from the world of politics who died this year include: former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi; former U.S. senators Dianne Feinstein, James Buckley and James Abourezk; former British treasury chief Nigel Lawson; former Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf; former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang; former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari; former New Mexico governor and American ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson; former New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver; and former Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos.
Among the entertainers who left the world this year was singer Tina Turner, who died May 24. Turner's powerful voice and stage presence brought her fame across multiple decades, first with her abusive husband, Ike Turner, in the 1960's and 70's. But after leaving their marriage, she found fame again in the 1980's with her hit “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”
Others in the world of arts and entertainment who died this year include: actors Suzanne Somers, Matthew Perry, Raquel Welch, Richard Belzer, Chaim Topol, Jacklyn Zeman, Lance Reddick, Alan Arkin, Paul Reubens, David McCallum, Richard Roundtree and Tom Sizemore; musicians Jimmy Buffett, Sinéad O’Connor, Rita Lee Jones, Burt Bacharach, David Crosby, Fito Olivares, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Astrud Gilberto, Coco Lee and Tony Bennett; civil rights activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte; TV producer Norman Lear; author Cormac McCarthy; filmmaker William Friedkin; TV hosts Bob Barker and Jerry Springer; poet Louise Glück; guitarist Jeff Beck; fashion designer Mary Quant; wrestler The Iron Sheik; composer Kaija Saariaho; and “Sesame Street” co-creator Lloyd Morrisett.
World population up 75 million this year, standing at 8 billion on Jan 1
The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year's Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%. At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.
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The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53%, about half the worldwide figure. The U.S. added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year's Day of 335.8 million people.
If the current pace continues through the end of the decade, the 2020s could be the slowest-growing decade in U.S. history, yielding a growth rate of less than 4% over the 10-year-period from 2020 to 2030, said William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.
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The slowest-growing decade currently was in the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s, when the growth rate was 7.3%.
"Of course growth may tick up a bit as we leave the pandemic years. But it would still be difficult to get to 7.3%," Frey said.
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At the start of 2024, the United States is expected to experience one birth every nine seconds and one death every 9.5 seconds. However, immigration will keep the population from dropping. Net international migration is expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 28.3 seconds. This combination of births, deaths and net international migration will increase the U.S. population by one person every 24.2 seconds.
Indonesia's navy pushes a boat suspected of carrying Rohingya refugees out of its waters
Indonesia's navy said Thursday that it forcibly pushed a boat packed with refugees back to international waters after the vessel approached the shores of Aceh province.
The province that forms part of Sumatra island has seen an increasing number of arriving boats, most carrying Rohingya refugees from southern Bangladesh. Large numbers of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in 2017 following military attacks on members of the persecuted Muslim minority in their homeland of Myanmar.
Students in Indonesia protest the growing numbers of Rohingya refugees in Aceh province
The Indonesian navy said a coast guard vessel detected a boat thought to be carrying Rohingya refugees entering Indonesia's waters on Wednesday. A helicopter from a navy ship subsequently spotted a wooden vessel nearing Weh island in north Aceh province, the navy said.
The navy ship KRI Bontang-907 located the boat about 63 nautical miles (72 miles) off the Indonesian coast and drove it out, "ensuring that the boat did not return to Indonesian waters,” the navy said in a statement posted in its website.
Indonesia has appealed to the international community for help and intensified patrols of its waters due to a sharp rise in Rohingya refugees leaving overcrowded camps in Bangladesh since November. Over 1,500 Rohingya have arrived in Aceh and faced some hostility from fellow Muslims.
A mob of students on Wednesday attacked the basement of a local community hall in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, where about 137 Rohingya were taking shelter.
Footage obtained by The Associated Press showed a large group of refugees, mostly women and children, crying and screaming as a group wearing university green jackets was seen breaking through a police cordon and forcibly putting the Rohingya on the back of two trucks.
The incident drew an outcry from human rights groups and the U.N. refugee agency, which said the attack left the refugees shocked and traumatized.
Indonesia, like Thailand and Malaysia, is not a signatory to the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention so is not obligated to accept the Rohingya coming from Bangladesh. So far, refugees in distress have received at least temporary accommodations.
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Muslims comprise nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 277 million people, and Indonesia once tolerated such landings, while Thailand and Malaysia pushed refugee boats away. But there has been a surge of anti-Rohingya sentiment this year, especially in Aceh, where residents accuse the Rohingya of poor behavior and creating a burden.
The growing hostility of some Indonesians toward the Rohingya has put pressure on President Joko Widodo’s government to take action.
“This is not an easy issue, this is an issue with enormous challenges,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters.
About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their homes in Myanmar to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by security forces. Accounts of mass rape, murder and the burning of entire villages are well documented, and international courts are considering whether Myanmar authorities committed genocide and other grave human rights abuses.
Over 300 Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar arrive in Indonesia's Aceh after weeks at sea
Efforts to repatriate the Rohingya have failed because of doubts their safety can be assured. The Rohingya are largely denied citizenship rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and face widespread social discrimination there.
A 6-year-old boy traveling alone for Christmas was put on the wrong Spirit flight
A 6-year-old boy who left on a flight for the Christmas holiday to visit his grandmother in southwest Florida instead was put on the wrong plane and ended up 160 miles away in Orlando, Florida.
When the grandmother, Maria Ramos, showed up on Thursday at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers to greet her grandson who was flying for the first time from Philadelphia, she was told he wasn't on the Spirit Airlines flight.
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“I ran inside the plane to the flight attendant and I asked her, ‘Where’s my grandson? He was handed over to you at Philadelphia?’ She said, ‘No, I had no kids with me,'” Ramos told WINK News.
She then got a call from her grandson from the airport in Orlando, telling her that he had landed.
In a statement, Spirit Airlines said the boy was under the care and supervision of an airlines employee the entire time, even though he was incorrectly boarded on a flight to Orlando. Once the mistake was discovered, the airlines let the family know, the statement said.
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“We take the safety and responsibility of transporting all of our Guests seriously and are conducting an internal investigation,” the statement said. “We apologize to the family for this experience.”
Floods in a central province in Congo kill at least 22 people, a local official says
Flooding triggered by heavy rains in central Congo killed at least 22 people, including 10 from the same family, a local official said Tuesday.
The hourslong rainfall in the district of Kananga in Kasai Central province destroyed many houses and structures, the province's governor, John Kabeya, said as rescue efforts intensified in search of survivors. Five more deaths were confirmed later on Tuesday in addition to the initially reported death toll of 17, he said.
“The collapse of a wall caused 10 deaths, all members of the same family in Bikuku,” said Kabeya.
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There was significant material damage caused by the floods, according to Nathalie Kambala, country director of The Hand in Hand for Integral Development nongovernmental organization.
Flooding caused by heavy rainfall is frequent in parts of Congo, especially in remote areas. In May, more than 400 people died in floods and landslides brought on by torrential overnight rains in eastern Congo’s South Kivu province.
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Among the structures damaged in the latest flooding was the Higher Institute of Technology of Kananga, as well as a church and a major road that was cut off, said Kabeya, who added that urgent action would be requested from the national government.
Heavy rains triggered a landslide in eastern Congo late Sunday, killing at least four people and leaving at least 20 missing.
4 young children and their mother were killed in their French home
Four children between nine months and 10 years old and their mother were killed in their apartment east of Paris, in what the local prosecutor called an exceptionally violent crime. Authorities said the children’s father was arrested Tuesday and is the primary suspect.
Neighbors spotted a pool of blood outside the family’s door on Christmas Day and alerted police, who discovered the five bodies, Prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier told reporters in the city of Meaux.
The mother and two daughters, ages 7 and 10, were stabbed several times overnight from Sunday to Monday, he said. The couple’s two sons, ages 9 months and 4 years old, were suffocated or drowned. The prosecutor described a small, blood-stained apartment in extreme disarray.
The motive for the killings was unclear. The suspect, a 33-year-old man born in the Paris suburb of Colombes, was arrested Tuesday outside his father’s home northeast of the French capital, the prosecutor said.
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The suspect had stabbed his partner once before, when she was pregnant with their older son in 2019, but the investigation was dropped because he was declared mentally unsound at the time of the attack, the prosecutor said. The suspect had been placed in a psychiatric hospital in 2017, and also attempted suicide that year, the prosecutor said.
The couple had been together for 14 years and had known each other since high school, Bladier said.
None of the family members’ names were released, according to French law protecting minors who are victims of crimes.
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Authorities are opening an investigation into five homicides, and the suspect will undergo psychiatric examination to determine the next steps, the prosecutor said.
New COVID variant JN.1 makes nearly half latest infections in U.S.
A new coronavirus subvariant JN.1 is spreading fast in the United States, and is now accounting for nearly half of the latest COVID-19 cases in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
JN.1 is currently the fastest growing variant and the dominant one in the country. It is responsible for over 44 percent of new infections across the country, up from the previously reported 21.4 percent, according to the CDC.
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The CDC estimates that JN.1 is strongest in the Northeast regions including New Jersey and New York, where it accounts for nearly 57 percent of cases.
JN.1 is closely related to the variant BA.2.86 that the CDC has been tracking since August. It was first detected in the United States in September 2023.
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JN.1 is likely more transmissible than other variants "or better at evading our immune systems than other circulating variants," said the CDC.
276 Indians stuck in a French airport for days for a human trafficking probe have left for India
A charter plane grounded in France for a human trafficking investigation departed Monday for India with 276 Indians aboard, authorities said. The passengers had been heading to Nicaragua but were instead blocked inside a rural French airport for four days in an exceptional holiday ordeal.
Associated Press reporters outside the Vatry Airport in Champagne country saw the unmarked Legend Airlines A340 take off after the crew and passengers boarded the plane.
The regional administration said that 276 of the original 303 passengers were en route to Mumbai, and that 25 others requested asylum in France. Those who remained were transferred to a special zone in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport for asylum-seekers, it said. The passengers grounded in France had included a 21-month-old child and several unaccompanied minors.
The remaining two passengers were initially detained as part of a human trafficking investigation but were released Monday after appearing before a judge, the Paris prosecutor's office said. The judge named them as ‘’assisted witnesses'' to the case, a special status under French law that allows time for further investigation and could lead to eventual charges or to the case being dropped.
The Legend Airlines A340 plane stopped Thursday for refueling in Vatry en route from Fujairah airport in the United Arab Emirates for Managua, Nicaragua, and was grounded by police based on an anonymous tip that it could be carrying human trafficking victims.
Prosecutors wouldn’t comment on whether the passengers’ ultimate destination could have been the U.S., which has seen a surge in Indians crossing the Mexico-U.S. border this year.
French authorities are working to determine the aim of the original flight, and opened a judicial inquiry into activities by an organized criminal group helping foreigners enter or stay in a country illegally, the prosecutor's office said.
It did not specify Monday whether human trafficking — which the U.N. defines as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit" — is still suspected.
The Vatry airport was requisitioned by police for days. Local officials, medics and volunteers installed cots and ensured regular meals and showers for those held inside. Then it turned into a makeshift courtroom Sunday as judges, lawyers and interpreters filled the terminal to carry out emergency hearings to determine the next steps.
Some lawyers at Sunday’s hearings protested authorities’ handling of the situation and the passengers’ rights, suggesting that police and prosecutors overreacted to the anonymous tip.
The Indian Embassy posted its thanks on X, formerly Twitter, to French officials for ensuring that the Indians could go home. French authorities worked through Christmas Eve and Christmas morning on formalities to allow passengers to leave France, regional prosecutor Annick Browne told The Associated Press.
Foreigners can be held up to four days in a transit zone for police investigations in France, after which a special judge must rule on whether to extend that to eight days.
Legend Airlines lawyer Liliana Bakayoko said some passengers didn't want to go to India because they had paid for a tourism trip to Nicaragua. The airline has denied any role in possible human trafficking.
The U.S. government has designated Nicaragua as one of several countries deemed as failing to meet minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking. Nicaragua has also been used as a migratory springboard for people fleeing poverty or conflict because of relaxed or visa-free entry requirements for some countries. Sometimes charter flights are used for the journey.
Pope Francis denounces the weapons industry as he makes a Christmas appeal for peace in the world
Pope Francis on Monday blasted the weapons industry and its “instruments of death” that fuel wars as he made a Christmas Day appeal for peace in the world and in particular between Israel and the Palestinians.
Speaking from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to the throngs of people below, Francis said he grieved the “abominable attack” of Hamas against southern Israel on Oct. 7 and called for the release of hostages. And he begged for an end to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the “appalling harvest of innocent civilians” as he called for humanitarian aid to reach those in need.
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Francis devoted his Christmas Day blessing to a call for peace in the world, noting that the biblical story of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem sent a message of peace. But he said that Bethlehem “is a place of sorrow and silence” this year.
Francis’ annual “Urbi et Orbi” ("To the City and the World") speech typically offers a lament of all the misery facing the world, and this year’s edition was no different. From Armenia and Azerbaijan to Syria and Yemen, Ukraine to South Sudan and Congo and the Korean peninsula, Francis appealed for humanitarian initiatives, dialogue and security to prevail over violence and death.
He called for governments and people of goodwill in the Americas in particular to address the “troubling phenomenon” of migration and its “unscrupulous traffickers” who take advantage of innocents just looking for a better life.
He took particular aim at the weapons industry, which he said was fueling the conflicts around the globe with scarcely anyone paying attention.
“It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet strings of war,” he said. “And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?”
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Francis has frequently blasted the weapons industry as “merchants of death” and has said that wars today, in Ukraine, in particular, are being used to try out new weapons or use up old stockpiles.
He called for peace between Israel and Palestinians, and for the conflict to be resolved “through sincere and persevering dialogue between the parties, sustained by strong political will and the support of the international community.”
Vatican officials said about 70,000 people filled St. Peter's Square for Francis' noonday speech and blessing. They included many people flying Palestinian flags, as well as some Ukrainian ones.
Francis' address from the loggia marked his main appearance for Christmas Day, though he is expected to deliver a blessing on Tuesday, the feast of St. Stephen, which is also a holiday in Italy. Rounding out the holiday, he is to celebrate a New Year's Eve vigil in the basilica and Mass the following day.
Despite his recent bout of bronchitis, the 87-year-old Francis appeared to hold up well Monday and during Christmas Eve Mass the previous night, though he occasionally coughed and seemed out of breath.