NEW YORK: Harvey Weinstein is due back in court Wednesday as a judge is set to decide when the disgraced movie mogul’s #MeToo retrial will start and whether it will include an allegation involving a woman who wasn’t in the original case.
Weinstein, 72, wants the extra charge thrown out, arguing through lawyers that Manhattan prosecutors only brought it to bolster their case with a third accuser after New York’s highest court overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women.
Judge Curtis Farber is expected to rule on that and other matters, including the trial date — a task that’s been complicated by an increasingly crowded court calendar.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, is representing conservative strategist Steve Bannon in a border wall fraud trial that’s set to start March 4 before a different Manhattan judge. Meanwhile, Farber has a murder trial in March.
Before Bannon’s trial date was set last week, Aidala had suggested that Weinstein’s trial go first in “the interest of humanity,” citing the ex-studio boss’ declining health.
Weinstein is being treated for numerous medical conditions, including chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes.
“They know that Mr. Weinstein is dying of cancer and is an innocent man right now in the state of New York,” Aidala argued in court last week. He pleaded to prosecutors: “Can I try this dying man’s case first?”
Weinstein is being retried on charges that he forcibly performed oral sex on a movie and TV production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013. The additional charge, filed last September, alleges he forced oral sex on a different woman at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in court papers that the woman, who has not been identified publicly, came forward to prosecutors just days before the start of Weinstein’s first trial but was not part of that case.
Prosecutors said they did not pursue the women’s allegations after Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison, but they revisited them and secured a new indictment after the state’s Court of Appeals threw out his conviction last April.
Farber ruled in October to combine the new indictment and existing charges into one trial.
Weinstein’s lawyers contend that prosecutors prejudiced him by waiting nearly five years to bring the additional charge, suggesting they had elected not to include the allegation in his first trial so they could use it later if his conviction were reversed.
Prosecutors called that thinking “absurd,” countering that Weinstein’s lawyers would have also been outraged if he had been charged based on the third woman’s allegation either during his first trial or immediately after his conviction.
Weinstein “would likely have characterized that timing as a vindictive and gratuitous pile-on,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing last month.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said the previously uncharged allegation “required a sensitive investigation” and serious contemplation before seeking an indictment, in part because there are no eyewitnesses to the alleged assault and no scientific or other physical evidence.
Weinstein co-founded the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company and was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, having produced films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Game.”
In 2017, he became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement, which erupted when women began going public with accounts of his behavior.
He has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
In vacating Weinstein’s conviction, the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge, James M. Burke, unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case. Burke is no longer on the bench.
Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. His 16-year prison sentence in that case still stands, but his lawyers appealed in June, arguing he did not get a fair trial.
Weinstein has remained in custody in New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, with occasional trips to a hospital for medical treatment, while awaiting the retrial.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named.
Harvey Weinstein due in court as judge weighs scope of his #MeToo retrial and when it will start
https://arab.news/9zcrs
Harvey Weinstein due in court as judge weighs scope of his #MeToo retrial and when it will start
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- Judge Curtis Farber is expected to decide Wednesday when the disgraced movie mogul’s #MeToo retrial will start
- He will also decide whether it will include an allegation involving a woman who wasn’t in the original case
Pope Francis is alert in hospital, Vatican says, as people leave flowers and notes
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The Vatican had said previously that the pope would stay in hospital as long as necessary to tackle a “complex clinical situation“
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis, who is spending his sixth day in hospital for treatment of a respiratory infection, is alert and ate breakfast on Wednesday, the Vatican said in its latest update on the pontiff’s fragile health.
Francis has the onset of double pneumonia, the Vatican said on Tuesday, complicating treatment for the 88-year-old pope who was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14.
Double pneumonia is a serious infection that can inflame and scar both lungs and makes breathing more difficult.
The Vatican had said previously that the pope had a polymicrobial infection, which occurs when two or more micro-organisms are involved, adding that he would stay in hospital as long as necessary to tackle a “complex clinical situation.”
A Vatican official, who did not wish to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the pope’s condition, said on Wednesday Francis was not on a ventilator and was breathing on his own.
The official said the pope had been able to get out of bed and sit in an armchair in his hospital room, and was continuing to do some work.
The Vatican is expected to give a further update on the pope’s condition later on Wednesday.
A wave of messages of support for Francis had come in from across the world, the Vatican’s official media outlet reported. Pilgrims at the Vatican on Wednesday for the pope’s canceled weekly audience expressed hope for his recovery.
“We will pray for him so that he can recover as soon as possible,” said Gianfranco Rizzo, a pilgrim from Bari, Italy.
The pope has been plagued by ill health in recent years, including regular bouts of flu, sciatica nerve pain and an abdominal hernia that required surgery in 2023. As a young adult he developed pleurisy and had part of one lung removed.
All the pope’s public engagements have been canceled through Sunday and he has no further official events on the Vatican’s published calendar.
’VERY TARGETED THERAPY’
Gemelli hospital, Rome’s largest, has a special suite for treating popes, and is known especially for often treating the late Pope John Paul II during his long papacy.
Francis spent nine days at Gemelli in June 2023, when he had surgery to repair an abdominal hernia.
Outside the hospital on Wednesday, people were leaving flowers and small personal notes under a famous statue of John Paul II, wishing a speedy recovery for Francis.
Victoria Darmody, a tourist from England, said she came to the hospital just to be near the pope. “We were hoping to go to the papal audience today but felt this was the right place to be instead,” she said.
Andrea Vicini, a Jesuit priest and medical doctor, said it was notable that the Vatican’s statement on Tuesday referred to the pontiff as having the onset of pneumonia and not bronchopneumonia. The latter would indicate an infection that is more widespread, he said.
“It (sounds like) it’s more localized and has not spread,” said Vicini, a professor at Boston College, who said he did not have details of the pope’s case beyond the Vatican’s public statements.
“If they identified the pathogen, as I expect they would have done, they will have a very targeted therapy,” he said. “I am optimistic. It seems they are controlling what is happening.”
Work at the Vatican was continuing as the pope was in hospital. One senior official, Cardinal Michael Czerny, was still expected to depart on Wednesday for a five-day visit to Lebanon.
The Vatican’s top diplomat, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, returned to Rome as scheduled on Wednesday morning from a trip to Burkina Faso.
Delta CEO says flight crew on Toronto plane that crashed was experienced
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- “There is one level of safety at Delta,” Bastian said
- “All these pilots train for these conditions“
TORONTO: Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said on Wednesday the flight crew on board the regional jet that flipped upside down upon landing in Toronto earlier this week was experienced.
The crew on Delta’s Endeavor Air subsidiary in Monday’s crash, in which 21 people were injured, was familiar with wintry conditions in Toronto, Bastian told “CBS Mornings” in an interview.
“There is one level of safety at Delta,” Bastian said. “All these pilots train for these conditions.”
Bastian called the video of the incident “horrifying” but praised the actions of the flight crew to quickly evacuate the airplane. “This is what we train for,” Bastian said. “We train for this continuously.”
All of those injured are expected to survive.
On Tuesday, investigators said they recovered black boxes for lab analysis. Transportation Safety Board of Canada senior investigator Ken Webster said that following initial impact on the runway at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, parts of the CRJ900 aircraft separated and a fire ensued.
Bastian said despite several high-profile incidents, air travel remains safe. “It is the safest form of transportation, period,” Bastian said.
Webster echoed other aviation safety officials saying it was too early to tell what happened to Flight 4819 from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Air crashes are usually caused by multiple factors.
In a separate video showing the plane’s descent, the landing appeared flat and did not show the regular “flare” of the jet, where pilots pull the nose up to increase pitch just prior to touchdown, experts said.
The 16-year-old CRJ900, made by Canada’s Bombardier and powered by GE Aerospace engines, can seat up to 90 people.
Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday was dealing with high winds and frigid temperatures as airlines attempted to rebound after a major weekend snowstorm.
Separately, Bastian said he had spoken to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and was not concerned by the layoff of several hundred employees at the Federal Aviation Administration, saying they were in “non-critical safety functions.” Bastian said the Trump administration was committed to boosting air traffic controller hiring and improving air traffic technology.
Indian police seize books by Islamic scholar in Kashmir
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- Officers did not name the author but store owners said they had seized literature by the late Abul Ala Maududi
- Plainclothes officers began raids in the main city of Srinagar on Saturday
SRINAGAR, India: Indian police in disputed Kashmir have raided dozens of bookshops and seized hundreds of copies of books by an Islamic scholar, sparking angry reactions by Muslim leaders.
Police said searches were based on “credible intelligence regarding the clandestine sale and distribution of literature promoting the ideology of a banned organization.”
Officers did not name the author but store owners said they had seized literature by the late Abul Ala Maududi, founder of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and both claim the Himalayan territory in full.
Rebel groups, demanding Kashmir’s freedom or its merger with Pakistan, have been fighting Indian forces for decades, with tens of thousands killed in the conflict.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government banned the Kashmir branch of Jamaat-e-Islami in 2019 as an “unlawful association.”
New Delhi renewed the ban last year for what it said were “activities against the security, integrity and sovereignty” of the nation.
Plainclothes officers began raids in the main city of Srinagar on Saturday, before launching book seizures in other towns across the Muslim-majority region.
“They (police) came and took away all the copies of books authored by Abul Ala Maududi, saying these books were banned,” a bookshop owner in Srinagar, who asked not to be identified, told AFP.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said it was “the latest step in a series of measures to crush dissent and to intimidate the local people.”
“They must be given freedom to read the books of their choice,” spokesman Shafqat Ali Khan said.
Police said the searches were conducted “to prevent the circulation of banned literature linked to Jamaat-e-Islami.”
“These books were found to be in violation of legal regulations, and strict action is being taken against those found in possession of such material,” police said in a statement.
The raids sparked anger among supporters of the party.
“The seized books promote good moral values and responsible citizenship,” said Shamim Ahmed Thokar.
Umar Farooq, Kashmir’s chief cleric and a prominent leader advocating for the right to self-determination, condemned the police action.
“Cracking down on Islamic literature and seizing them from bookstores is ridiculous,” Farooq said in a statement, pointing out that the literature was available online.
“Policing thought by seizing books is absurd — to say the least — in the time of access to all information on virtual highways,” he said.
Critics and many residents of Kashmir say civil liberties were drastically curtailed after Modi’s government imposed direct rule in 2019 by scrapping Kashmir’s constitutionally enshrined partial autonomy.
Trump is living in a Russian-made ‘disinformation space,’ says Ukraine’s Zelensky
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- Trump suggested Tuesday that Ukraine was to blame for the war on its territory
- Talks between top American and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday sidelined Ukraine and its European supporters
KYIV: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that US President Donald Trump is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” as a result of his administration’s discussions with Kremlin officials.
Zelensky said he “would like Trump’s team to be more truthful.”
He made the comments shortly before he was expected to meet with Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, who arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday. Kellogg will meet Zelensky and military commanders as the US shifts its policy away from years of efforts to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump suggested Tuesday that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week, as talks between top American and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia sidelined Ukraine and its European supporters.
French President Emmanuel Macron was to hold a videoconference on Ukraine later Wednesday with leaders of over 15 countries, mostly European nations, “with the aim of gathering all partners interested in peace and security” on the continent, his office said.
Key European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris on Monday after they felt they had been sidelined by the Trump administration.
Trump’s comments are likely to vex Ukrainian officials, who have urged the world to help them fight Russia’s full-scale invasion that began Feb. 24, 2022.
Trump also said at Mar-a-Lago that Zelensky’s rating stood at 4 percent.
Zelensky replied in a news conference in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv that “we have seen this disinformation. We understand that it is coming from Russia.” He said that Trump “lives in this disinformation space.”
Trump also suggested Ukraine ought to hold elections, which have been postponed due to the war and the consequent imposition of martial law, in accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution.
Zelensky questioned claims, which he didn’t specify, that 90 percent of all aid received by Ukraine comes from the United States.
He said that, for instance, about 34 percent of all weapons in Ukraine are domestically produced, over 30 percent of support comes from Europe, and up to 40 percent from the US
The battlefield has also brought grim news for Ukraine in recent months. A relentless onslaught in eastern areas by Russia’s bigger army is grinding down Ukrainian forces, which are slowly but steadily being pushed backward at some points on the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.
Trump told reporters at his Florida residence Tuesday that Ukraine “should have never started” the war and “could have made a deal” to prevent it.
Kellogg said his visit to Kyiv was “a chance to have some good, substantial talks.” Zelensky was due to travel to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday but canceled his trip in what some analysts saw as an attempt to deny legitimacy to the US-Russia talks about the future of his country.
American officials have signaled that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO in order to ward off Russian aggression after reaching a possible peace agreement won’t happen. Zelensky says any settlement will require US security commitments to keep Russia at bay.
“We understand the need for security guarantees,” Kellogg said in comments carried by Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne Novyny on his arrival at Kyiv train station.
“It’s very clear to us the importance of the sovereignty of this nation and the independence of this nation as well. ... Part of my mission is to sit and listen,” the retired three-star general said.
Kellogg said he would convey what he learns on his visit to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “and ensure that we get this one right.”
Philippine ministerial delegation tours Middle East for trade, agriculture deals
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- Mission led by Department of Trade and Industry and Department of Agriculture
- 26 major Philippines exporters are touring Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE
Manila: In an effort to strengthen the Philippines’ trade presence in the Middle East, a government-led business mission is touring Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE to explore new market opportunities for the country’s agricultural and non-food products.
Running from Feb. 7-21, the mission, which includes 26 major Philippine exporters, is organized by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture.
The mission began with a visit to Doha, followed by Amman and Riyadh, and is now concluding its final leg in Dubai.
“The DTI and DA partnership seeks to enhance the global competitiveness of Philippine agribusiness by streamlining value chains, promoting value-added processing and ensuring compliance with international standards. This approach is designed to help exporters navigate regulatory requirements and overcome market entry challenges in the Middle East especially, in Saudi Arabia,” Raymond Balatbat, the Philippine ambassador to Riyadh, told Arab News.
“The mission aims to expand market access and promote Philippine agricultural and fisheries exports, as well as non-food products, particularly personal care products. Given the identified sectors, which have high export potential in the Middle East, the DTI partnered with the Philippine Embassies in Doha, Amman, Riyadh and the Philippine Consulate General in Dubai as well as local chambers of commerce in setting up the business matching activities. The exporters have scheduled meetings with potential local buyers and distributors in each country.”
In Saudi Arabia, the Philippine delegation engaged in multiple business matching missions, including meetings with the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and retail giants such as Lulu, Manuel Supermarket and Abdullah Al-Othaim Markets.
The mission also made progress in Amman, leading to agreements with Jordanian distributors, especially in the sectors of food and agribusiness, including halal-certified products, processed food and beverages, personal care and cosmetics.
“The matching process was conducted through pre-arranged business-to-business meetings, supermarket scanning and sales calls,” said Angeli Payumo, consul and head of the political and economic section of the Philippine Embassy in Amman.
“On Feb. 10, the 21 representatives of the 12 Philippine exporters visited five of the leading supermarkets in Jordan to gain an in-depth understanding of the Jordanian market. On Feb. 11, a B2B matching event was held at the Amman Chamber of Commerce.”
During the Amman visit, the Philippine delegation held consultations with the Jordan Food and Drug Administration, and the Ministry of Agriculture on import regulations, halal certification and efforts to ease trade barriers.
In the UAE, the mission is focused on meetings in Dubai to explore partnerships in trade and distribution.
“Market scanning activities in Dubai have provided insights into consumer preferences and buying behavior, highlighting a strong demand for high-quality halal-certified food products, healthy and organic alternatives, and convenience-driven packaged goods,” the DTI’s Export Marketing Bureau said in a statement to Arab News.
“The preference for sustainable and ethically sourced products is also growing. These findings will guide Philippine exporters in refining their offerings and marketing strategies to better cater to Middle Eastern consumers.”
The delegation is also taking part in the 2025 edition of Gulfood — one of the Gulf region’s biggest food exhibitions, which takes place in Dubai from Feb. 17-21.
This year’s focus of Philippine exhibitors is on premium food products and brand recognition activities.
“From Gulfood 2025, we expect that we will be able to secure high-value trade deals, expand market access for Philippine exporters, and strengthen relationships with regional distributors and retailers,” the Export Marketing Bureau said.
“The event is expected to influence the future direction of Philippine exports by identifying emerging opportunities in the Middle Eastern market and encouraging more Philippine businesses to explore export ventures in the region.”