UN set for Gaza vote as Netanyahu says Israel will not stop fighting
Discussions for a truce in Gaza are "very serious", according to a senior US official.
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One that there are "very serious discussions and negotiations and we hope that they lead somewhere".
According to Israeli media reports the negotiations are thought to focus on a deal to free some of the remaining hostages, possibly in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
- A draft resolution by the United Arab Emirates also calls for the return of hostages and a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians
- In a statement, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said anyone who thinks Israel will stop the war before achieving its goals is "not connected to reality"
- The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, has arrived in Cairo for talks on a fresh ceasefire in Gaza
- Hamas broke through Israel's heavily guarded perimeter on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages - some of whom were released during a brief truce
- Nearly 20,000 people are now reported to have been killed and more than 52,000 injured in Gaza since the start of the war
Environmental campaigners filmed, threatened and harassed at Cop28
Indigenous campaigners, human rights defenders and climate activists say they are being silenced by fear of reprisals
Indigenous campaigners, human rights defenders and environmental activists say they are increasingly afraid to speak out on urgent issues because of concerns about reprisals from governments or fossil fuel industries.
“In the last few years, we’ve seen Indigenous representatives being filmed by people related to government institutions while giving statements about human rights at UN events, or photographed just for being present at a UN event,” said Lola García-Alix, the global governance senior adviser for the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.
In North Korea, torture awaits those deported from China
After 25 years in China, a North Korean woman was deported and vanished without a trace. DW examines the fate of North Koreans forcibly repatriated by Beijing.
Kim Cheol Ok managed a hasty phone call to inform her family about her imminent deportation to North Korea on October 9.
On that day, Cheol Ok and 500 other North Koreans living in China were forcibly repatriated. Her bigger sister in London, who managed to escape during the Great Famine of the 1990s, fears for her life.
"I am sure she is being beaten," Kim Kyu Li tells DW in her London flat, where she lives in exile.
In North Korea, prisoners often die from starvation and illnesses caused by malnutrition.
"They eat mice and cockroaches and get sick from it," Kyu Li says.
French health minister quits as immigration law splits Macron’s ruling party
French President Emmanuel Macron faced cracks within his ruling alliance on Wednesday as Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau tendered his resignation in protest at a controversial immigration law that the far right's Marine Le Pen hailed as an "ideological victory" for her camp.
The bill, a compromise between the centrist president's party and the conservative opposition, illustrates a rightward shift in politics in much of Europe as governments try to curb the rise of the far right by being tougher on immigration.
It also showed the difficulties for Macron of governing without a parliamentary majority, which he lost in the June 2022 election after winning a second presidential mandate.
Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau told Le Monde daily he would resign in protest against the new law.
"It's not possible for me to defend this text," Le Monde quoted Rousseau, a former communist, as saying.
Japan to ship Patriot missiles to U.S. as export rules eased
By NOBUHIKO TAJIMA/ Staff Writer
December 20, 2023 at 16:30 JST
The government is making final arrangements to export domestically produced Patriot missiles to the United States, sources said, which would mark the first domestic arms exports after restrictions are eased.
Japan's National Security Council will soon make the final decision.
This would be Japan’s first export of finished defense equipment under the new policy that significantly relaxes restrictions on arms exports.
He ran out of countries to visit, so he created his own
“I like to put it simply,” says Randy “R Dub!” Williams, a late-night “slow jams” DJ from San Diego who’s also known as “the Sultan of Slowjamastan.” “I ran out of countries, so I created my own.”
Wearing his best suit and sunglasses, the sultan of Slowjamastan officially declared independence from the United States of America at 12:26 p.m. on December 1, 2021 as he broadcast the secession live from his open-air government “office” in Dublândia, the capital of the Republic of Slowjamastan.
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