Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip flee from Hamad City, following an evacuation order by the Israeli army to leave parts of the southern area of Khan Younis, August 11, 2024
A CALL by Prime Minister Keir Starmer for “de-escalation and regional stability” in the Middle East has been criticised by Palestine rights campaigners.
Sir Keir made the plea alongside French and German leaders Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz who urged Iran and its allies not to “jeopardise the opportunity to agree a ceasefire and the release of hostages” in Gaza.
But the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said the call “rings hollow when these same leaders maintain their complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
PSC said: “40,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel’s genocidal assault. Every day we wake up to new scenes of Israel’s latest massacre of displaced Palestinian men, women and children.
“Starmer, Macron and Scholz are all complicit in these atrocities so long as they continue to sell arms to Israel and provide diplomatic cover for its war crimes.
“The quickest way for our leaders to bring about the ceasefire that they claim to want is to immediately ban all arms trade with Israel.”
Israeli soldiers and police clash with a far-right mob that invaded the Beit Lid army base in Kfar Yona on July 29, 2024. (Photo: Oren Ziv/AFP via Getty Images)
Several Israeli lawmakers and one minister took part in the attempt to free the nine reservists, who were hailed as heroes by multiple Cabinet members.
Far-right Israelis including government officials stormed two military bases late on Monday, sparking clashes with troops and police over the arrest of Israel Defense Forces reservists who allegedly gang-raped a Palestinian prisoner.
Hundreds of protesters broke into the notorious Sde Teiman base in the Negev Desert in an attempt to stop the detention of nine reserve troops accused of sodomizing a Palestinian jailed there. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the victim is hospitalized with severe injuries and is unable to walk.
The nine suspects were then taken to the Beit Lid army base, which was also mobbed by at least dozens of demonstrators.
Supporters of president-elect Nicolas Maduro celebrate his proclamation as president-elect in the vicinity of the CNE headquarters during the ceremony to deliver the majority of the vote Certificate at CNE Headquarters on July 29, 2024 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)
Shortly before midnight on 28 July, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that — with 80 percent of the over 20 million votes counted — the trend was irreversible: Nicolás Maduro had been re-elected president of Venezuela.
According to the CNE, Maduro received 51.2 percent of the vote, while his primary opponent, the little-known Edmundo Gonzales, received 44.02 percent. With that result, it was clear that the Venezuelan majority chose to continue the project of Bolivarian socialism introduced by Hugo Chavez at the end of the nineties. Recognizing the economic turn-around of the last two years and proud of their achievements in building 5.1 million housing units, securing food sovereignty, and deepening communal democracy, Venezuelans re-elected Maduro for a third six-year term.
A former ambassador to Argentina, the opposition candidate Gonzales replaced far-right leader Maria Corina Machado as the candidate of the Unity Platform after Machado was disqualified from running. Machado has long been an outspoken critic of Chavismo, supporting US sanctions and advocating foreign intervention in the country. In 2018, she asked Benjamin Netanyahu for military assistance in dismantling the Maduro government. Machado has close ties in the United States. In 2009, she was a Yale World Fellow. On June 23, 2024 she spoke at a National Endowment for Democracy awards ceremony in Washington, DC. She has been nicknamed the new “iron lady” after her idol Margaret Thatcher. In contrast, Maduro supports the Palestinian liberation struggle, linking it to the struggle of the indigenous peoples of Venezuela against colonial genocide.
Venezuela’s far-right opposition is doubling down on its refusal to accept defeat in the country’s presidential election amid simmering unrest and violence in the streets of Caracas, sparking warnings of another coup attempt in a nation that has long faced interference from the United States and other Western powers.
Led by María Corina Machado, who was disqualified from running in Sunday’s election, Venezuela’s opposition claimed that its candidate—ex-diplomat Edmundo González—defeated President Nicolás Maduro with over 70% of the vote, contradicting the official results announced by the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE).
Machado, who once urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to back an effort to topple Maduro’s elected government, pointed Venezuelans to a website the opposition is using to assemble its own vote counts.
“So far, she hasn’t presented any evidence [of fraud],” Caracas-based reporter Andreína Chávez Alava said in an appearance on Democracy Now! Tuesday morning. “In past elections they have also said they have evidence that they won and they never actually showed any proof.”
Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) arrives to speak during a rally with running mate U.S. Republican Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center on July 27, 2024 in St Cloud, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The former Republican president, despite all his allegedly populist rhetoric, has a deeply anti-worker record from his first term. Vance’s record is no different and he’s no better.
“These attempts to create the appearance of distance between Trump and Project 2025 are happening because Americans are starting to learn about this extreme takeover plan,” said one Democratic congressman.
At least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration—including six former Cabinet secretaries—have been involved with Project 2025, according to a CNN analysis published earlier this month. Among them is the outgoing director, Paul Dans.
“Dans served in the Trump administration as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management where he managed the federal agency in charge of human resources policy for the more than 2 million federal workers,” according to his profile on the Heritage website.
