Anger and mourning as Palestinian protests continue

Al Jazeera
December 10, 2017

Dec 10: Protests have broken out for a fourth day across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip following a US decision to declare Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The demonstrations on Saturday came as Palestinian leaders were to meet in Ramallah to firm up a response to US President Donald Trump's controversial move.

In East Jerusalem, Israeli forces fired stun grenades and tear gas as they charged - some on horseback - through a crowd of at least 100 peaceful demonstrators in Salah Eddin, one of the city's busiest shopping streets.

At least 13 Palestinians were detained and 12 injured as Israeli troops pushed and beat demonstrators at the scene. Among those held was Jihad Abu Zneid, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Before her arrest, Abu Zneid told Al Jazeera the protesters were determined to "never give up".

"This is our country and we will save it," she said. 'We will save our capital and our sovereignty here in Jerusalem."

Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from the protest in Occupied East Jerusalem, said a series of running confrontations erupted after Israeli security forces blocked a small group of protesters from marching.

"It started as a small peaceful protest, a handful of people who wanted to make sure their voices could be heard," he said.

"But their way was blocked and they were forceably pushed back by Israeli police and soldiers who said the protesters had no permit to march and they were blocking the road."

As crowds gathered by the side of the street, police sent in officers on horseback to break up the crowds, creating widespread anger and panic.

"The riders even used their whips. It really was quite frightening for the people standing here, watching these horse racing towards them," said Fisher.

Israeli forces also closed down most shops on Salah Eddin and confiscated Palestinian flags and posters from demonstrators.

"One police officer didn't like a poster that a woman was holding. He went to take it, the woman objected so he punched her full in the face," said Fisher.

Elsewhere, funerals were held in Gaza for two Hamas fighters and two protesters who were killed, respectively, by Israeli air raids and live fire on Friday.

At least 25 Palestinians, including six children, were wounded in the evening bombing, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Israeli raids followed the alleged launching of rockets from inside the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from the edge of Gaza City, close to the border with Israel, said clashes continued on Saturday but they were not as intense as Friday - a day off for those who are employed in the besieged territory.

"It's less busy than it was yesterday," he said, noting that several dozens of mainly stone-throwing protesters where confronting Israeli security forces on the other side of the border fence.

"The Israelis are responding with live fire. I've heard some cracks of gunfire in the last few minutes," said Smith.

Further south, in Khan Younis, a slightly larger crowd of about 200 protesters also clashed with Israeli forces.

Israeli forces also fired tear gas at Palestinians protesting on Saturday in Bethlehem.

On Friday, the Red Crescent said that its workers had attended to nearly 800 injuries in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.

'War declaration'

The tense scenes follow Trump's decision to ignore warnings from the international community and his announcement last Wednesday that the US was formally recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and would begin the process of moving its embassy to the city from Tel Aviv.

The move, which broke with decades of policy, was roundly condemned by world leaders, who described it as a "dangerous escalation" and the final nail in the coffin of peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel says the city, which is under Israeli occupation, cannot be divided.

Speaking on Friday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the relocation of the US embassy would probably not take place for at least two years.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Friday, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the Palestinian leadership was considering all options in response to Trump's announcement.

In a speech in Gaza City on Thursday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said the US move was a "war declaration against Palestinians", and called for a new Intifada, or uprising.

"This decision has killed the peace process, has killed the Oslo [accord], has killed the settlement process," he said.

"The US decision is an aggression, a declaration of war on us, on the best Muslim and Christian shrines in the heart of Palestine, Jerusalem. We should work on launching an Intifada in the face of the Zionist enemy," said Haniya.

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Agencies
January 15,2020

Mumbai, Jan 15: Michael Debabrata Patra took over as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday.

He was an Executive Director of India's central bank before being elevated to the post of Deputy Governor.

An RBI release said that as Deputy Governor, Patra will look after Monetary Policy Department including Forecasting and Modelling Unit (MPD/MU), Financial Markets Operations Department (FMOD), Financial Markets Regulation Department.

He will also look after Market Intelligence (FMRD/MI), International Department (Intl. D), Department of Economic and Policy Research (DEPR), Department of Statistics and Information Management (including Data and Information Management Unit) (DSIM/DIMU), Corporate Strategy and Budget Department (CSBD) and Financial Stability Unit.

Patra, a career central banker since 1985, has worked in various positions in the Reserve Bank of India.

As Executive Director, he was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of RBI, which is invested with the responsibility of monetary policy decision making in India. He will continue to be an ex-officio member of the MPC as Deputy Governor.

Prior to this, he was Principal Adviser of the Monetary Policy Department, Reserve Bank of India between July 2012 and October 2014.

He has worked in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Senior Adviser to Executive Director (India) during December 2008 to June 2012, when he actively engaged in the work of the IMF's Executive Board through the period of the global financial crisis and the ongoing Euro area sovereign debt crisis.

The release said that his book "The Global Economic Crisis through an Indian Looking Glass" vividly captures this experience.

He has also published papers in the areas of inflation, monetary policy, international trade and finance, including exchange rates and the balance of payments.

A fellow of the Harvard University where he undertook post-doctoral research in the area of financial stability, he has a PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

He will hold the post for three years or until further orders. The post fell vacant after Viral Acharya resigned on July 23 last year.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

New Delhi, Aug 7: India's COVID-19 cases tally crossed 20 lakh mark with the highest single-day spike of 62,538 cases on Friday, said Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The COVID-19 tally rises to 20,27,075 including 6,07,384 active cases, 13,78,106 cured/discharged/migrated and 41,585 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

Maharashtra with 1,46,268 active cases and 3,05,521 cured and discharged patients continues to be the worst affected. The state has also reported 16,476 deaths due to the infection.

Tamil Nadu has 54,184 active cases while 2,14,815 patients have been discharged after treatment in the state. 4,461 deaths have been reported due to COVID-19 in the state.

Andhra Pradesh with 80,426 active cases is the third on the list. There are 1,04,354 cured and discharged patients and 1,681 deaths reported from the state.

Delhi now has 10,072 active cases and 1,26,116 cured and discharged patients. 4,044 people have lost their lives due to the disease in the Union Territory so far. 

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News Network
February 6,2020

Washington, Feb 6: U.S. president Donald Trump drew on staunch Republican support to defeat the gravest threat yet to his three-year-old presidency on Wednesday, winning acquittal in the Senate on impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Only the third U.S. leader ever placed on trial, Trump readily defeated the Democratic-led effort to expel him from office for having illicitly sought help from Ukraine to bolster his 2020 re-election effort.

Trump immediately claimed "victory" while the White House declared it a full "exoneration" for the president -- even as Democrats rejected the acquittal as the "valueless" outcome of an unfair trial.

Despite being confronted with strong evidence, Republicans stayed loyal and mustered a majority of votes to clear the president of both charges -- by 52 to 48 on abuse of power and 53 to 47 on obstruction of Congress -- falling far short of the two-thirds supermajority required for conviction.

"Two thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein, it is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted," said Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts, who presided over the trial.

The months-long impeachment of the 45th US leader shone a harsh light on America's political divide, with Trump's core support base united behind him in rejecting it as a "hoax."

One Republican, senator Mitt Romney, a longtime Trump foe, risked White House wrath to vote alongside Democrats on the first count, saying Trump was "guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust." He voted not guilty on the second charge.

But the verdict was never truly in question since the House of Representatives formally impeached Trump in December, and has now cleared out a major hurdle for the president to fully plunge into his campaign for re-election in November.

Trump to speak Thursday

Responding to the verdict, Trump announced he would deliver a formal statement Thursday from the White House "to discuss our Country's VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!"

Shortly before, the president tweeted a montage depicting a fake cover of Time magazine declaring him president for all eternity.

The White House declared that Trump had obtained "full vindication and exoneration."

But Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker and top Democrat in Congress, said that by clearing Trump, the Republicans had "normalized lawlessness."

"There can be no acquittal without a trial, and there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence," she said.

"Sadly, because of the Republican Senate's betrayal of the Constitution, the president remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to."

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the acquittal was "virtually valueless" since Republicans refused witnesses at his trial.

'Forever impeached'

The Democrats' intense 78-day House investigation faced public doubts and high-pressure stonewalling from the White House.

Concerned about the political risk for the party, Pelosi rejected a call early last year to impeach Trump on evidence compiled by then-special counsel Robert Mueller that he had obstructed the Russia election meddling investigation.

But her concerns melted after new allegations surfaced in August that Trump had pressured Ukraine for help for his 2020 campaign.

Though doubtful from the outset that they would win support from Republicans, an investigation amassed with surprising speed strong evidence to support the allegations.

The evidence showed that from early in 2019, Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani and a close political ally, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, were scheming to pressure Kiev to help smear Democrats, including Trump's potential 2020 rival Joe Biden, by opening investigations into them.

"We must say enough -- enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again," Adam Schiff, who led the House investigation, argued on the Senate floor this week.

"He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again," Schiff said.

'Colossal' mistake

In the trial, Trump's defence was not seen as having undermined the facts compiled by Schiff's probe, and several Republican senators acknowledged he did wrong.

But his lawyers and Senate defenders argued, essentially, that Trump's behaviour was not egregious enough for impeachment and removal.

And, pointing to the December House impeachment vote, starkly along party lines, they painted it as a political effort to "destroy the president" in an election year and insisted voters should be allowed to decide Trump's fate.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said impeachment will benefit Republicans.

"Right now this is a political loser for them. They initiated it. They thought this was a great idea. At least for the short term, it has been a colossal political mistake."

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