Morocco steamrolls Belgium 2-0 in latest World Cup stunner
The Moroccan soccer team has won only its third-ever World Cup match, beating Belgium 2-0 in the latest upset of a soccer powerhouse in a tournament that has been chock full of them so far.
Second-half goals from Abdelhamid Sabiri and Zakaria Aboukhlal send Morocco to the top of Group F with four points, one ahead of Belgium. Canada plays 2018 runner-up Croatia later in the group’s other game.
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Bus driver hurt in East Jerusalem stoning attack
An Israeli bus driver is lightly hurt after his vehicle came under a stone-throwing attack by Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, medics say.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says it is taking the man, in his 40s, to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital.
The bus was empty at the time of the attack.
נהג אוטובוס נפצע קל בפניו מרסיס לאחר שנזרקה אבן לעברו בשכונת בית חנינא בירושלים@SuleimanMas1 pic.twitter.com/P3xakVLG0D
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) November 27, 2022
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Lapid, Yesh Atid gird for court override battle against incoming government
Outgoing prime minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party is gearing up for a fight with the presumed new government over its plans to pass legislation that will allow lawmakers to override Supreme Court rulings striking down laws as unconstitutional.
Yesh Atid members met this morning with Israel Democracy Institute expert Prof. Suzie Navot and other civil society figures to hear about how the override clause “causes critical harm to Israeli citizens, to their day-to-day lives and basic rights,” a statement from Yesh Atid says.
“We have no intention of staying silent while the incoming government attempts to run roughshod over the law-abiding, taxpaying and army-serving public,” Lapid says, according to the party statement. “We are not their suckers. We won’t let them normalize criminality.”
At road rage victim’s funeral, Ben Gvir hints police weakness part of the problem
Among hundreds attending a funeral for Yuri Volkov, killed last week by a motorbike driver during a dispute in a Holon crosswalk, is far-right politician Itamar Ben Gvir, who is set to become police minister when a new government is sworn in.
Ben Gvir, who campaigned partially on a law and order platform, says “the violence, vandalism, bullying that injured you injured us all.”
Mourners at the funeral of Yuri Volkov at the Holon cemetery on November 27, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)Volkov was stabbed to death on Wednesday evening after a brief confrontation with a motorbike driver who carried out an illegal maneuver, endangering pedestrians crossing a road.
Ben Gvir says he attended the funeral to tell Volkov’s family that “with God’s help, when I become [national security minister] I will do everything to make this violence stop.”
He blames the violence on poor education, Israel’s “driving culture” and the police, “who need to be a very strong police force, acting against these damned [people].”
3hr agoMan accused of setting woman’s car on fire in latest road rage incident
A Hadera resident has been detained on suspicion of setting a woman’s car on fire amid a dispute over a parking space, the Walla news site reports.
The incident comes amid a rash of road rage attacks that have shocked the nation. On Wednesday, Yuri Volkov was stabbed to death after a brief confrontation with a motorbike driver who carried out an illegal maneuver, endangering pedestrians crossing a road.
That incident came weeks after a man was put in intensive care when a motorcycle driver bashed him with his helmet during an argument on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway.
Both attackers have been arrested.
3hr agoUS says emblem omitted from Iran flag to back protests, as Tehran rages
The US soccer federation says it is displaying Iran’s national flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic to support protesters in Iran ahead of the two nations’ World Cup match Tuesday.
Iran’s government has reacted by accusing America of removing the name of God from its national flag.
The US faces Iran in a decisive World Cup match, which was already made fraught by the decades of enmity between the two countries and the nationwide protests now challenging Tehran’s theocratic government.
The US Soccer Federation says in a statement Sunday that it decided to forgo the official flag on social media accounts to show “support for the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights.”
The Twitter account of the US men’s team displayed a banner with the squad’s matches in the group stage, with the Iranian flag only bearing its green, white and red colors. The same could be seen in a post on its Facebook and Instagram accounts laying out the point totals so far in its group.
The US Soccer Federation displayed the official Iranian flag in a graphic showing Group B standings on its website.
All eyes on Tuesday. ???????? pic.twitter.com/8bCHlUdmRv
— U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team (@USMNT) November 25, 2022
Iranian state television describes the US federation as “removing the symbol of Allah” from the Iranian flag.
Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency quotes Safiollah Fagahanpour, an adviser to the Iranian Football Federation, saying that the “measures taken regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran flag are against the law” of FIFA competitions.
“They must be held responsible,” Fagahanpour says. “Obviously they want to affect Iran’s performance against the U.S by doing this.”
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43min agoKhamenei niece arrested after slamming regime, backing protests
Iranian authorities have arrested a niece of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after she recorded a video describing the authorities led by her uncle as a “murderous and child-killing regime.”
Farideh Moradkhani comes from a branch of the family that has a record of opposition to Iran’s clerical leadership and has herself been jailed previously in the country.
Her brother Mahmoud Moradkhani wrote on Twitter that she was arrested on Wednesday after going to the office of the prosecutor following a summons.
Then on Saturday her brother posted a video on YouTube, with the link shared on Twitter, where she condemned the “clear and obvious oppression” Iranians have been subjected to, and criticized the international community’s inaction.
“Free people, be with us! Tell your governments to stop supporting this murderous and child-killing regime,” she said.
“This regime is not loyal to any of its religious principles and does not know any law or rule except force and maintaining its power in any way possible.”
NEWS
Farideh Moradkhani, the niece of Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, calls on international community to support Iranians.
She compares her uncle to Hitler and Mussolini.
She says Iranians will overthrow the Islamic Republic.
Her uncle has had her arrested in the past. pic.twitter.com/htjyBsnMc7
— Yashar Ali ???? یاشار (@yashar) November 27, 2022
It was not clear when the video had been recorded.
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said her arrest last Wednesday was to begin serving an existing 15-year sentence.
The charges were not immediately clear.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights around 14,000 people have been arrested over the protests that began after the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the morality police.
At least 416, people including 51 children, have been killed in the crackdown, according to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR).
57min agoRare protests in China against government COVID curbs spread to Beijing, elsewhere
Protesters pushed to the brink by China’s strict COVID measures in Shanghai are calling for the removal of the country’s all-powerful leader and clashing with police in several cities in an astounding challenge to the government.
Police forcibly cleared the demonstrators in China’s financial capital who called for Xi Jinping’s resignation and the end of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule — but hours later people rallied again in the same spot.
成都 补充视频
街头聚集大量民众 要求取消核酸，过程中警察突然进来抓人引发骚乱，在视频中民众一直在提醒大家相互帮助 pic.twitter.com/mmoY8C9HkW— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) November 27, 2022
Social media reports indicate protests have also spread to at least seven other cities, including the capital of Beijing, and dozens of university campuses.
NOW – People tear down barricades in #Wuhan. Anti-lockdown protests are spreading to more and more cities in China.@disclosetv pic.twitter.com/Wq6tUZr85M
— chimeg. (@HowertnB) November 27, 2022
Largescale protests are exceedingly rare in China, where public expressions of dissent are routinely stifled — but a direct rebuke of Xi, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, is extraordinary.
Three years after the virus first emerged, China is the only major country still trying to stop transmission of COVID-19 — a “zero COVID” policy that regularly sees millions of people confined to their homes for weeks at a time and requires near-constant testing. The measures were originally widely accepted for minimizing deaths while other countries suffered devastating wavs of infections, but that consensus has begun to fray in recent weeks.
On Friday, 10 people died in a fire in an apartment building, and many believe their rescue was delayed because of excessive lockdown measures. That sparked a weekend of protests, as the Chinese public’s ability to tolerate the harsh measures has apparently reached breaking point.
‘We want freedom!’ pic.twitter.com/yoTeYaFJAx
— Eva Rammeloo (@eefjerammeloo) November 26, 2022
1hr agoNetanyahu and Smotrich plan meet to solve coalition impasse
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu will sit down with Religious Zionism head Bezalel Smotrich this evening as the two attempt to put contentious coalition negotiations to bed, the Ynet news site reports.
Smotrich tells a educational conference that he is completely sure that “with God’s help, a truly right-wing government will be created in the coming days,” according to a statement from his spokesperson.
The report of renewed talks come after Netanyahu managed to nail down an agreement with Smotrich’s running mate, Itamar Ben Gvir of the Otzma Yehudit party, on Friday.
Coalition negotiations between Likud and allied right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties have dragged on since Netanyahu was given a 28-day mandate earlier this month to form a government., with the sides scrapping over appointments and legislative priorities. The mandate expires December 11, but can be extended for two weeks.
The Likud leader has made progress in talks with ultra-Orthodox Shas and UTJ parties, but Religious Zionism has proved a tougher nut to crack.
Talks with Smotrich have been mired in mutual accusations, with Religious Zionism claiming Netanyahu had gone back on promises, and Likud accusing the far-right party of making exaggerated demands in exchange for joining the coalition.
The meeting is planned for 9 p.m., Ynet reports.
2hr agoPope urges Israeli-Palestinian talks after deadly bombings, clashes
Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022. (AP/Andrew Medichini)Pope Francis says he is concerned with an uptick in violence between Israel and Palestinians, noting last week’s “cowardly” bombings in Jerusalem, which left two Israelis dead, and clashes in the West Bank in which a Palestinian teen was killed.
“Violence kills the future, shattering the lives of the young and weakening hopes for peace,” he says from Saint Peter’s Square, as he marks the first day of Advent.
“Let us pray for these young men who died and for their families, especially their mothers,” he says, in comments that appear to omit a second Israeli fatality, 50-year-old Tadese Tashume Ben Ma’ada, who died Saturday from wounds sustained in the bombing.
The pontiff adds that he hopes “the Israeli and Palestinian authorities will more readily take to heart the search for dialogue, building mutual trust, without which there will never be a peaceful solution in the Holy Land.”
2hr agoSoldier accused of making prank call claiming abduction
A soldier has been detained for questioning after being accused of making a prank call to an emergency dispatcher claiming he had been kidnapped, police say.
The caller to the southern Israeli emergency hotline mumbled and was heard saying “they kidnapped us,” sparking Beersheba police to launch an emergency search operation and investigation.
Police say the person who made the call was tracked to a soldiers’ rooming house in the city, and he was detained “after it became clear that he had been pulling a prank.”
The stunt comes less than a week after Palestinian gunmen abducted the body of an Israeli man killed in a traffic collision from a Jenin hospital.
In 2014, an Israeli teen kidnapped in the West Bank along with two others managed to make an emergency call and tell dispatchers he had been taken, before being killed by a Hamas terrorist, but the call was initially dismissed as a prank.
2hr agoUS returns Islamic emblem to Iran flag as Tehran threatens to go to FIFA
The US soccer federation has restored the Islamic Republic emblem to its postings showing Iran’s flag, after its removal drew widespread attention as well as threats from Tehran.
“We wanted to show our support for the women in Iran with our graphic for 24 hours,” the federation says.
Safiollah Fagahanpour, a legal adviser to the Iranian Football Federation, indicates that world soccer federation FIFA will be asked to suspend the US men’s soccer team for 10 games in response to the flag move, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim reports.
Fagahanpour says the display violated FIFA’s ethics rules, which mandate a minimum 10-game suspension for racist behavior.
“The action conducted in relation to the Iranian flag is unethical and against international law,” Fagahanpour is quoted saying.
There is no immediate response from FIFA.
The US plays Iran Tuesday in a high-stakes, win-or-go-home match in Qatar.
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Second bus stop bomb victim buried in Jerusalem
Tadese Tashume Ben Ma’ada, a 50-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, is being eulogized in Jerusalem after he succumbed to injuries Saturday, four days after being critical wounded in a \bomb attack at a bus stop at the main entrance to Jerusalem.
Hundreds attended his funeral at Har Hamenuhot Cemetery, less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where the attack occurred.
Haile Mara says his cousin’s dream was for all remaining family members, including his brothers and sisters, to be able to move to Israel. Ben Ma’ada immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia 21 years ago.
“He was working on this until the last moment. On the morning of the attack, he sent me an email on the subject at 6:44 a.m. and when I answered him at 7:06 a.m., it was already after the attack,” Mara said. “I tried to call and he didn’t answer,”
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said he had met Ben Ma’ada the evening before the bomb attack at the inauguration of a new community center for the Ethiopian community.
“In one moment, [the bombing] ended a human story — a story about Zionism, about aliyah, about the love of the Land of Israel, about the love of Jerusalem. And in a symbolic and tragic way, this happened precisely on the day of the great holiday of the Ethiopian Jews, Sigd,” says Lion.
Ben Ma’ada leaves behind a wife and six children.
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