Ahead of Democratic convention, anger in Chicago’s ‘Little Palestine’

Ahead of Democratic convention, anger in Chicago’s ‘Little Palestine’
A billboard reading ‘End illegal Israeli occupation’ in Bridgeview, suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, Aug. 18, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 19 August 2024
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Ahead of Democratic convention, anger in Chicago’s ‘Little Palestine’

Ahead of Democratic convention, anger in Chicago’s ‘Little Palestine’
  • Palestinian flags flutter in the wind, shops display signs in both Arabic and English, and posters call for demonstrations against steadfast US military support of Israel
  • Harris has been largely vague on foreign and domestic policy so far, and it is unclear what sort of relationship she will strike with Palestinian Americans

BRIDGEVIEW, United States: On the outskirts of Chicago, as enthusiastic Democrats gather for their national convention, some residents of “Little Palestine” have a different message for presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

“They won’t be having our votes this year,” said Ali Ibrahim, the manager of a Palestinian bakery in Bridgeview, Illinois, a pendant in the shape of historic Palestinian lands hanging around his neck. “And we do not want them in office.”

Nestled by Midway International Airport and a soccer stadium, the Chicago suburb is home to the largest Palestinian community in the United States.

Palestinian flags flutter in the wind, shops display signs in both Arabic and English, and posters call for demonstrations against steadfast US military support of Israel as the death toll mounts in Gaza.

The kickoff of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, just 15 miles (24 kilometers) away in downtown Chicago, has only heightened divisions between Palestinian Americans and the national party, and comes amid similar fractures with the country’s larger Arab community, once a reliable Democratic voting bloc.

“We are angry. We are frustrated,” Souzan Naser, a 46-year-old professor, told AFP.

“You can’t expect us to vote for you when your values, your policies, your principles don’t align with ours.”

President Joe Biden has stuck by Israel in its war in Gaza, sparked by an attack by Hamas militants on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Hamas also seized 251 hostages in the attack.

The Israeli military campaign in Gaza in response has killed more than 40,000 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, with the United Nations rights chief saying “most the dead” were women and children.

Swaths of the territory have been reduced to rubble, humanitarian aid has been blocked from entering the Strip and international observers have raised serious human rights concerns.

Amid the destruction, Gaza recorded its first case of polio in 25 years, with water infrastructure destroyed and civilians displaced in fetid conditions.

Biden and Harris “could have easily called for a ceasefire, had this war over a long time ago,” said Ibrahim.

Naser, a member of the activist group US Palestinian Community Network, was born in the Palestinian territories and raised in Bridgeview.

Residents in the Chicago suburb worked hard to elect Biden in 2020, she said, “and now they feel betrayed.”

For many, the war is more than a hypothetical question of foreign policy, she added.

“I had one student who lost 35 members of her family,” she told AFP, her voice choking with emotion. “And couldn’t reach others. Didn’t know if they were alive or not.”

Harris has, at times, struck a different tone than her boss, calling for a ceasefire in March before she was running for president.

Most recently, however, during her last-second campaign launched after Biden decided not to run for reelection, she rejected calls for an arms embargo.

“Has she done enough yet? No, will she? We hope,” said restaurant owner Muhammad Baste, 38, insisting on a change in US government policy rather than just rhetoric.

It is possible the Democratic Party will have to go into November without votes from “Little Palestine” and other Arab-American communities — including a large number of residents in nearby Michigan, viewed as a key battleground state.

“We know another Trump presidency would be a disaster,” said Naser, while insisting that the Palestinian community has given “Biden ample time to change course.”

Harris has been largely vague on foreign and domestic policy so far, and it is unclear what sort of relationship she will strike with Palestinian Americans — but the vice president got off to a rocky start.

As anti-war protesters interrupted a speech in Michigan earlier this month, she shot back: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”


UN says Taliban committing ‘rights violations’ against Afghan returnees

UN says Taliban committing ‘rights violations’ against Afghan returnees
Updated 2 sec ago
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UN says Taliban committing ‘rights violations’ against Afghan returnees

UN says Taliban committing ‘rights violations’ against Afghan returnees
KABUL: A United Nations report published Thursday said Taliban authorities were committing human rights violations, including torture and arbitrary detention, against Afghans forced to return by Iran and Pakistan.

“People returning to the country who were at particular risk of reprisals and other human rights violations by the de facto (Taliban) authorities were women and girls, individuals affiliated with the former government and its security forces, media workers and civil society,” the UN said in a statement accompanying the release of the report.

“These violations have included torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention, and threats to personal security.”

Russian rescuers find missing plane in flames in far east

Russian rescuers find missing plane in flames in far east
Updated 6 min 8 sec ago
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Russian rescuers find missing plane in flames in far east

Russian rescuers find missing plane in flames in far east
  • A passenger plane carrying 49 people crashed in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur on Thursday, authorities said

MOSCOW: Russian rescuers have found the fuselage of an Antonov-24 passenger plane carrying 49 passengers that disappeared from radar earlier in Russia's far east, the emergencies ministry said Thursday.

"An Mi-8 helicopter operated by Rosaviatsiya (Russia's civil aviation authority) has spotted the burning fuselage of the aircraft," Russia's emergencies ministry said on Telegram.

Authorities confrimed on Thursday that the twin-engine Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar, regional governor Vassily Orlov said on Telegram.

The helicopter saw no evidence of survivors from above, local rescuers said. The Amur region’s civil defense agency said it was dispatching rescuers to the scene.

“At the moment, 25 people and five units of equipment have been dispatched, and four aircraft with crews are on standby,” it said.


Wife of Scotland’s former first minister says Israel starving her family in Gaza

Wife of Scotland’s former first minister says Israel starving her family in Gaza
Updated 24 July 2025
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Wife of Scotland’s former first minister says Israel starving her family in Gaza

Wife of Scotland’s former first minister says Israel starving her family in Gaza
  • Nadia El-Nakla, Humza Yousaf slam the Israeli regime’s actions
  • Gaza’s children ‘starved, displaced, bombed’ as ‘world watches’

LONDON: Nadia El-Nakla, the wife of former first minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, says Israel is starving her family in the Gaza Strip.

El-Nakla and Yousaf, the former leader of the Scottish National Party, appeared together in a video on Wednesday, addressing their family’s suffering in Gaza, where Israel faces charges of war crimes and genocide.

El-Nakla said the Israeli government was deliberately starving her cousin Sally and her four children, as well as her aunt Hanan, her children, and grandchildren, including a 7-month-old baby.

Her family lives in the town of Deir Al-Balah, where Israeli forces have launched a bombing campaign this week.

Ongoing Israeli attacks and the policy of aid restrictions in Gaza have led to food shortages, impacting the 2 million residents. Over 100 human rights organizations warned this week that “mass starvation” is spreading in Gaza.

She said that “starving people were being forced to run while being shot and bombed.”

Yousaf said children in Gaza were being “starved, displaced, bombed, all while the world watches.”

“Sally is one of millions in Gaza. Her husband goes out all day searching for food, often to come home with nothing,” the former SNP leader said.

“And when I say home, I mean a tent and almost 40-degree heat.”

He said that doctors and journalists have become too weak to treat patients or cover news due to severe starvation.

El-Nakla added that “this is a deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people ... This form of warfare is sickening and the stories and images from my family and millions of others in Gaza are absolutely gut-wrenching.

“Can you imagine not being able to feed your children yet knowing the food you so desperately need is only a few miles away?”

She went on: “Sally’s life matters, Palestinian lives matter, and I am begging those who have the power to open the borders to do so now and let the people of Gaza live.”

El-Nakla’s parents, Maged and Elizabeth, were trapped in Gaza for four weeks after visiting family when the war began following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7. They later left through Egypt along with other British nationals.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported on Wednesday that 10 individuals died from malnutrition in the previous 24 hours.

The UK, along with 28 nations, accused Israel this week of inhumane actions, including the “drip feeding” of aid and the killing of civilians seeking food and water in Gaza.


Indonesia arrests 2 foreigners for smuggling cocaine to Bali

Indonesia arrests 2 foreigners for smuggling cocaine to Bali
Updated 24 July 2025
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Indonesia arrests 2 foreigners for smuggling cocaine to Bali

Indonesia arrests 2 foreigners for smuggling cocaine to Bali
  • Indonesia’s last executions, of a citizen and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016
  • The Denpasar District Court later Thursday is set to sentence two different groups of foreigners on drug charges
DENPASAR: Indonesian authorities said Thursday they have arrested two foreigners accused of smuggling cocaine to the tourist island of Bali.
A Brazilian man and a South African woman were arrested separately on July 13 after customs officers at Bali’s international airport saw suspicious items in the man’s luggage and the woman’s underwear on X-ray scans.
Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws, and convicted smugglers are sometimes executed by firing squad.
The 25-year-old Brazilian man, who police identified by his initials as YB, was arrested with 3,086.36 grams (6.8 pounds) of cocaine in the lining of his suitcase and backpack shortly after he arrived at the airport from Dubai, said Made Sinar Subawa, head of the Eradication Division at Bali’s Narcotic Agency.
The same day, customs officers caught a 32-year-old South African woman, identified as LN, and seized 990.83 grams (2.1 pounds) of cocaine she in her underwear, Subawa said.
During interrogation, YB said that he was promised 400 million rupiah ($2,450) to hand the cocaine he obtained in Brasilia to a man he called as Tio Paulo, while LN expected to get 25 million rupiah ($1,500) after deliver the drugs to someone she identified as Cindy, according to Subawa.
Subawa said a police operation failed to catch the two people named by the suspects, whom police believe are low-level distributors.
Authorities presented the suspects wearing orange prison uniforms and masks, with their hands handcuffed, at a news conference in Denpasar, the capital, along with the cocaine they were found with.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
The Denpasar District Court later Thursday is set to sentence two other groups of foreigners on drug charges. Verdicts for an Argentine woman and a British man who were accused of smuggling cocaine onto the island, and for drug offense against a group of three British nationals, including a woman, are expected to be read out separately at the same court.
About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including 96 foreigners, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections’ data showed. Indonesia’s last executions, of a citizen and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.

Thai and Cambodian soldiers fire at each other in disputed border area, injuring 3

Thai and Cambodian soldiers fire at each other in disputed border area, injuring 3
Updated 24 July 2025
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Thai and Cambodian soldiers fire at each other in disputed border area, injuring 3

Thai and Cambodian soldiers fire at each other in disputed border area, injuring 3
  • Thai and Cambodian soldiers have fired at each other in multiple contested border areas after the nations downgraded their diplomatic relations in a rapidly escalating dispute

BANGKOK: Thai and Cambodian soldiers fired at each other in multiple contested border areas Thursday, injuring three civilians, after the nations downgraded their diplomatic relations in a rapidly escalating dispute.

A livestream video from Thailand’s side showed people running from their homes and hiding in a concrete bunker Thursday morning as explosions sounded periodically. Clashes appeared to be ongoing in several areas.

The first clash Thursday morning happened in an area where the ancient Prasat Ta Moan Thom temple stands along the border of Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia Oddar Meanchey province. Both Thailand and Cambodia accused each other of opening fire first.

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet said Thailand attacked Cambodian army positions at Prasat Ta Moan Thom and Prasat Ta Krabey in Oddar Meanchey province and expanded to the area along Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province and Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.

“Cambodia has always maintained a position of peaceful resolution of problems, but in this case, we have no choice but to respond with armed force against armed aggression,” said the Prime Minister.

The Thai army said three civilians in Surin province were injured when Cambodia fired artillery shells into a residential area. It said residents in the area had been evacuated afterward.

Earlier Thursday, Cambodia said it was downgrading diplomatic relations with Thailand to their lowest level, expelling the Thai ambassador and recalling all Cambodian staff from its embassy in Bangkok. That was in response to Thailand closing its northeastern border crossings with Cambodia, withdrawing its ambassador and expelling the Cambodian ambassador Wednesday to protest a land mine blast that wounded five Thai soldiers.

Relations between the Southeast Asian neighbors have deteriorated sharply since May when a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation in another of the several small patches of land both countries claim as their own territory.

The Thai army said of Thursday’s initial clash that its forces heard an unmanned aerial vehicle before seeing six armed Cambodian soldiers moving closer to Thailand’s station. It said Thai soldiers tried to shout at them to defuse the situation but the Cambodian side started to open fire.

Cambodia’s Defense Ministry said Thailand started the armed clash and Cambodia “acted strictly within the bounds of self-defense, responding to an unprovoked incursion by Thai troops that violated our territorial integrity.”

Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen posted on his Facebook page, urging people not to panic and have faith in their government and the military.

The Thai embassy in Phnom Penh posted on Facebook that there were clashes at several border areas that could continue to escalate. It urged Thai nationals in Cambodia to leave the country if they could and advised others not to travel to Cambodia unless absolutely necessary.

On Wednesday, a land mine blast near the border wounded five Thai soldiers, one of whom lost a leg. A week earlier, a land mine in a different contested area exploded and wounded three Thai soldiers when one of them stepped on it and lost a foot.

Thai authorities have alleged the mines were newly laid along paths that by mutual agreement were supposed to be safe. They said the mines were Russian-made and not of a type employed by Thailand’s military. Cambodia rejected Thailand’s account as “baseless accusations,” pointing out that many unexploded mines and other ordnance are a legacy of 20th century wars and unrest.

Nationalist passions on both sides have further inflamed the situation, and Thailand’s prime minister was suspended from office on July 1 to be investigated for possible ethics violations over her handling of the border dispute.

Border disputes are longstanding issues that have caused periodic tensions between the countries. The most prominent and violent conflicts have been around the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded sovereignty over the temple area to Cambodia and that became a major irritant in the relations of both countries.

Cambodia went back to the court in 2011, following several clashes between its army and Thai forces which killed about 20 people and displaced thousands. The court reaffirmed the ruling in 2013, a decision that still rattled Thailand.