Riot police scuffle with demonstrators on Greek island during visit by Israeli cruise ship
Television footage showed a small number of protesters chanting 'Freedom for Palestine' near the port, with riot police pushing them back and minor scuffles breaking out. The cruise ship passengers disembarked in Rhodes without incident, Greek media said.
Anti-war activists had called for demonstrations on the island during a scheduled stop by the Israeli cruise ship, the Crown Iris, which was reportedly carrying more than 600 tourists. But representatives of local businesses on the island had opposed the protest.
Last week, the Crown Iris left another Greek island, Syros, early without its passengers disembarking after more than 150 protesters demonstrated at that island's port. The demonstrators unfurled Palestinian flags and called for an end to the war in Gaza. There were no reports of any violence in Syros.
Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar contacted his Greek counterpart, George Gerapetritis, over the Syros incident.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
14 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump injects new dose of uncertainty in tariffs as he pushes start date back to Aug. 7
WASHINGTON (AP) — For weeks, President Donald Trump was promising the world economy would change on Friday with his new tariffs in place. It was an ironclad deadline, administration officials assured the public. But when Trump signed the order Thursday night imposing new tariffs on 68 countries and the European Union, the start date of the punishing import taxes was pushed back seven days so that the tariff schedule could be updated. The change — while potentially welcome news to countries that had not yet reached a deal with the U.S. — injected a new dose of uncertainty for consumers and businesses still wondering what's going to happen and when. Trump has promised that his tax hikes on the nearly $3 trillion in goods imported to the United States will usher in newfound wealth, launch a cavalcade of new factory jobs, reduce the budget deficits and, simply, get other countries to treat America with more respect. The vast tariffs risk jeopardizing America's global standing as allies feel forced into unfriendly deals. As taxes on the raw materials used by U.S. factories and basic goods, the tariffs also threaten to create new inflationary pressures and hamper economic growth — concerns the Trump White House has dismissed. Questions swirl around the tariffs despite Trump's eagerness As the clock ticked toward Trump's self-imposed deadline, few things seemed to be settled other than the president's determination to levy the taxes he has talked about for decades. The very legality of the tariffs remains an open question as a U.S. appeals court on Thursday heard arguments on whether Trump had exceeded his authority by declaring an 'emergency' under a 1977 law to charge the tariffs, allowing him to avoid congressional approval. Trump was ebullient as much of the world awaited what he would do. Others saw a policy carelessly constructed by the U.S. president, one that could impose harms gradually over time that would erode America's power and prosperity. 'The only things we'll know for sure on Friday morning are that growth-sapping U.S. import taxes will be historically high and complex, and that, because these deals are so vague and unfinished, policy uncertainty will remain very elevated,' said Scott Lincicome, a vice president of economics at the Cato Institute. 'The rest is very much TBD.' The new tariffs build off ones announced in the spring Trump initially imposed the Friday deadline after his previous 'Liberation Day' tariffs in April resulted in a stock market panic. His unusually high tariff rates unveiled then led to recession fears, prompting Trump to impose a 90-day negotiating period. When he was unable to create enough trade deals with other countries, he extended the timeline and sent out letters to world leaders that simply listed rates, prompting a slew of hasty agreements. Swiss imports will now be taxed at a higher rate — 39% — than the 31% Trump threatened in April, while Liechtenstein saw its rate slashed from 37% to 15%. Countries not listed in the Thursday night order would be charged a baseline 10% tariff. Trump negotiated trade frameworks over the past few weeks with the EU, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines — allowing the president to claim victories as other nations sought to limit his threat of charging even higher tariff rates. He said on Thursday there were agreements with other countries, but he declined to name them. Thursday began with a palpable sense of tension The EU was awaiting a written agreement on its 15% tariff deal. Switzerland and Norway were among the dozens of countries that did not know what their tariff rate would be, while Trump agreed after a Thursday morning phone call to keep Mexico's tariffs at 25% for a 90-day negotiating period. European leaders face blowback for seeming to cave to Trump, even as they insist that this is merely the start of talks and stress the importance of maintaining America's support of Ukraine's fight against Russia. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has already indicated that his country can no longer rely on the U.S. as an ally, and Trump declined to talk to him on Thursday. India, with its 25% tariff announced Wednesday by Trump, may no longer benefit as much from efforts to pivot manufacturing out of China. While the Trump administration has sought to challenge China's manufacturing dominance, it is separately in extended trade talks with that country, which faces a 30% tariff and is charging a 10% retaliatory rate on the U.S. Major companies came into the week warning that tariffs would begin to squeeze them financially. Ford Motor Co. said it anticipated a net $2 billion hit to earnings this year from tariffs. French skincare company Yon-Ka is warning of job freezes, scaled-back investment and rising prices. It's unclear whether Trump's new tariffs will survive a legal challenge Federal judges sounded skeptical Thursday about Trump's use of a 1977 law to declare the long-standing U.S. trade deficit a national emergency that justifies tariffs on almost every country on Earth. 'You're asking for an unbounded authority,' Judge Todd Hughes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit told a Justice Department lawyer representing the administration. The judges didn't immediately rule, and the case is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court. The Trump White House has pointed to the increase in federal revenues as a sign that the tariffs will reduce the budget deficit, with $127 billion in customs and duties collected so far this year — about $70 billion more than last year. New tariffs threaten to raise inflation rates There are not yet signs that tariffs will lead to more domestic manufacturing jobs, and the U.S. economy now has 14,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than it did in April. On Thursday, one crucial measure of inflation, known as the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, showed that prices have climbed 2.6% over the 12 months that ended in June, a sign that inflation may be accelerating as the tariffs flow through the economy. The prospect of higher inflation from the tariffs has caused the Federal Reserve to hold off on additional cuts to its benchmark rates, a point of frustration for Trump, who on Truth Social, called Fed Chair Jerome Powell a 'TOTAL LOSER.' But ahead of Trump's tariffs, Powell seemed to suggest that the tariffs had put the U.S. economy and much of the world into a state of unknowns. 'There are many uncertainties left to resolve,' Powell told reporters Wednesday. 'So, yes, we are learning more and more. It doesn't feel like we're very close to the end of that process. And that's not for us to judge, but it does — it feels like there's much more to come.'
Hamilton Spectator
14 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Judge blocks Trump administration from ending protections for 60,000 from Central America and Nepal
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Thursday against the Trump administration's plans and extended Temporary Protected Status for 60,000 people from Central America and Asia, including people from Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua. Temporary Protected Status is a protection that can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary to people of various nationalities who are in the United States, preventing from being deported and allowing them to work. The Trump administration has aggressively been seeking to remove the protection , thus making more people eligible for removal. It's part of a wider effort by the administration to carry out mass deportations of immigrants. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem can extend Temporary Protected Status to immigrants in the U.S. if conditions in their homelands are deemed unsafe to return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangerous conditions. Noem had ruled to end protections for tens of thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans after determining that conditions in their homelands no longer warranted them. The secretary said the two countries had made 'significant progress' in recovering from 1998's Hurricane Mitch, one of the deadliest Atlantic storms in history. The designation for an estimated 7,000 from Nepal was scheduled to end Aug. 5 while protections allowing 51,000 Hondurans and nearly 3,000 Nicaraguans who have been in the U.S. for more than 25 years were set to expire Sept. 8. U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson in San Francisco did not set an expiration date but rather ruled to keep the protections in place while the case proceeds. The next hearing is Nov. 18. In a sharply written order, Thompson said the administration ended the migrant status protections without an 'objective review of the country conditions' such as political violence in Honduras and the impact of recent hurricanes and storms in Nicaragua. If the protections were not extended, immigrants could suffer from loss of employment, health insurance, be separated from their families, and risk being deported to other countries where they have no ties, she wrote, adding that the termination of Temporary Protection Status for people from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua would result in a $1.4 billion loss to the economy. 'The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood,' Thompson said. Lawyers for the National TPS Alliance argued that Noem's decisions were predetermined by President Donald Trump's campaign promises and motivated by racial animus. Thompson agreed, saying that statements Noem and Trump have made perpetuated the 'discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population.' 'Color is neither a poison nor a crime,' she wrote. The advocacy group that filed the lawsuit said designees usually have a year to leave the country, but in this case, they got far less. 'They gave them two months to leave the country. It's awful,' said Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for plaintiffs at a hearing Tuesday. Honduras Foreign Minister Javier Bu Soto said via the social platform X that the ruling was 'good news.' 'The decision recognizes that the petitioners are looking to exercise their right to live in freedom and without fear while the litigation plays out,' the country's top diplomat wrote. He said the government would continue supporting Hondurans in the United States through its consular network. Meanwhile in Nicaragua, hundreds of thousands have fled into exile as the government shuttered thousands of nongovernmental organizations and imprisoned political opponents. Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-President Rosario Murillo have consolidated complete control in Nicaragua since Ortega returned to power two decades ago. In February, a panel of U.N. experts warned the Nicaraguan government had dismantled the last remaining checks and balances and was 'systematically executing a strategy to cement total control of the country through severe human rights violations.' The broad effort by the Republican administration 's crackdown on immigration has been going after people who are in the country illegally but also by removing protections that have allowed people to live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis. The Trump administration has already terminated protections for about 350,000 Venezuelans , 500,000 Haitians, more than 160,000 Ukrainians and thousands of people from Afghanistan and Cameroon. Some have pending lawsuits at federal courts. The government argued that Noem has clear authority over the program and that her decisions reflect the administration's objectives in the areas of immigration and foreign policy. 'It is not meant to be permanent,' Justice Department attorney William Weiland said. ___ Ding reported from Los Angeles. Marlon González contributed from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Trump says his new high tariffs are going 'very well, very smooth' — but he's open to more deals
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump touted the expansive new tariffs on imports he imposed on global trading partners Thursday night, telling NBC News in a phone interview that it all was going "very well, very smooth." He also said that with just a few hours before his self-imposed midnight deadline for trade deals, it was "too late" for other countries to avoid tariff rates set to snap in place next week, which he formalized in a new executive order. But, he added, his door will always be open to compelling offers: "It doesn't mean that somebody doesn't come along in four weeks and say we can make some kind of a deal." In Thursday's executive order, Trump made official his agreements with trading partners such as the European Union, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the Philippines. Trump's order unilaterally sets rates for countries that did not reach agreements with him. For example, Switzerland's rate will be set higher than previously threatened, at 39%, while Taiwan's will be set lower, at 20%. Trump boasted of the tariff revenue the U.S. is already taking in — $26 billion in June, according to Treasury Department figures — and said there would be much more to come. 'We will be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars and very quickly,' he said. Asked if he's worried about potential price spikes on imported goods, Trump replied, 'The only price that's spiked is the hundreds of billions of dollars coming in.' Trump indicated that he was open to further discussions with Canada, and said he may even speak to Prime Minister Mark Carney later Thursday night, but he said he wouldn't make a new deal with the country before the deadline. Trump also said he was unfamiliar with Brazilian President Lula de Silva's recent New York Times interview suggesting Brazil was prepared to dig in and push back against the U.S. tariff program. Told of its tenor, the president responded, 'That's OK. But he doesn't have to do business with the United States which is fine with me.' In his interview with NBC News, Trump also discussed the upcoming trip by special envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who will travel to the Gaza Strip on Friday. "We want to make sure people get fed," he said, referring to the hunger crisis in Gaza and saying he was looking forward to hearing their report on the situation. Asked if he trusts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to administer U.S. aid in Gaza, Trump said, 'He's certainly a competent person,' and added that he remained concerned about Hamas stealing aid. 'Good management will stop that," Trump said. "Hopefully the Israelis will provide that.'
