DAVID AVERRE explains how Donald Trump's move to lift economic sanctions on Syria could mark turning point for the war-torn nation
This is a major milestone for the country demolished by civil war - and an endorsement of its new hardline Islamist rulers Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.
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The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, makes first public appearance since Israel war
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has made his first public appearance since the outbreak of his country's recent 12-day war with Israel, taking part in a religious ceremony in Tehran, state media reported. The octogenarian leader was shown in a video broadcast by state television greeting people and being cheered at a mosque on Saturday as worshippers marked the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, an important date for Shia Muslims. Khamenei, 86, can be seen on stage dressed in black as the crowd before him, fists in the air, chants, 'The blood in our veins for our leader!' State TV said the clip was filmed at central Tehran's Imam Khomeini Mosque, named for the founder of the Islamic republic. Khamenei, in power since 1989, spoke last week in a pre-recorded video, but had not been seen in public since before Israel initiated the conflict with a wave of surprise airstrikes on 13 June. His last public appearance was two days before that, when he met members of parliament. Israel's bombing campaign followed a decades-long shadow war with Iran, and was aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon – an ambition Tehran has consistently denied. The strikes killed more than 900 people in Iran, its judiciary has said, while retaliatory Iranian missile barrages aimed at Israeli cities killed at least 28 people there, according to official figures. After the US attacked three nuclear facilities as part of the Iran-Israel war, Donald Trump claimed the strikes had 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear capabilities. But last week the UN nuclear watchdog chief said Iran could produce enriched uranium 'in a matter of months'. Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the US broadcaster CBS News the strikes on three Iranian sites had clearly caused severe but 'not total' damage. He said: 'Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there. 'They [Iran] can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that … Iran has the capacities there: industrial and technological capacities.' His view was echoed in a preliminary US intelligence assessment that found that the bombings set back Iran's nuclear programme by just a matter of months. Speaking to Reuters, one source estimated that the programme could be restarted in one to two months. With Agence France-Presse
South Wales Guardian
an hour ago
- South Wales Guardian
Israel to send negotiators to Qatar for Gaza ceasefire talks
The statement also asserted that Hamas was seeking 'unacceptable' changes to the proposal. US President Donald Trump has pushed for an agreement and will host Mr Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to discuss a deal. Inside Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed 14 Palestinians and another 10 were killed while seeking food aid, hospital officials in the embattled enclave said. And two US aid workers with the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation were injured in an attack at a food distribution site, which the organisation blamed on Hamas, without providing evidence. Weary Palestinians expressed cautious hope after Hamas gave a 'positive' response late Friday to the latest US proposal for a 60-day truce but said further talks were needed on implementation. 'We are tired. Enough starvation, enough closure of crossing points. We want to sleep in calm where we don't hear warplanes or drones or shelling,' said Jamalat Wadi, one of Gaza's hundreds of thousands of displaced people, speaking in Deir al-Balah. She squinted in the sun during a summer heat wave of over 30C. Hamas has sought guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Previous negotiations have stalled over Hamas demands of guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war's end, while Mr Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting to ensure the militant group's destruction. 'Send a delegation with a full mandate to bring a comprehensive agreement to end the war and bring everyone back. No one must be left behind,' Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, told the weekly rally by relatives and supporters in Tel Aviv. Israeli airstrikes struck tents in the crowded Muwasi area on Gaza's Mediterranean coast, killing seven people including a Palestinian doctor and his three children, according to Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. Four others were killed in the town of Bani Suheila in southern Gaza. Three people were killed in three strikes in Khan Younis. Israel's army did not immediately comment. Separately, eight Palestinians were killed near a GHF aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, the hospital said. One Palestinian was killed near another GHF point in Rafah. It was not clear how far the Palestinians were from the sites. GHF denied the killings happened near their sites. The organisation has said no one has been shot at its sites, which are guarded by private contractors and can be accessed only by passing Israeli military positions hundreds of metres away. The army had no immediate comment but has said it fires warning shots as a crowd-control measure and only aims at people when its troops are threatened. Another Palestinian was killed waiting in crowds for aid trucks in eastern Khan Younis, officials at Nasser Hospital said. The United Nations and other international organisations have been bringing in their own supplies of aid since the war began. The incident did not appear to be connected to GHF operations. Much of Gaza's population of over two million now relies on international aid after the war has largely devastated agriculture and other food sources and left many people near famine. Crowds of Palestinians often wait for lorries and unload or loot their contents before they reach their destinations. The lorries must pass through areas under Israeli military control. Israel's military did not immediately comment. The GHF said the two American aid workers were injured on Saturday morning when assailants threw grenades at a distribution site in Khan Younis. The foundation said the injuries were not life-threatening. Israel's military said it evacuated the workers for medical treatment. The GHF, a US- and Israeli-backed initiative meant to bypass the UN, distributes aid from four sites that are surrounded by Israeli troops. Three sites are in Gaza's far south. The UN and other humanitarian groups have rejected the GHF system, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and is not effective. Israel says Hamas has siphoned off aid delivered by the UN, a claim the UN denies. Hamas has urged Palestinians not to cooperate with the GHF. GHF, registered in Delaware, began distributing food in May to Palestinians, who say Israeli troops open fire almost every day toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points. Several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry and witnesses. The UN human rights office says it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid, most of them while trying to reach GHF sites. The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Israel responded with an offensive that has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which is led by medical professionals employed by the Hamas government. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but the UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
I chaired the FCC. The 60 Minutes settlement shows Trump has weaponized the agency
It is time to unfurl the 'Mission Accomplished' banner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Paramount Global, the parent of CBS Television, has agreed to pay $16m to settle a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Presumably, the FCC can now cease its slow-walking of the Paramount-Skydance Media merger. Just two days after the president took office, the agency's new chair, Brendan Carr, inserted the FCC into the issues in the Trump lawsuit that alleged 'news distortion'. As the New York Post headlined: 'Trump's FCC pick Brendan Carr says '60 Minutes' editing scandal could affect Paramount-Skydance merger review.' That lawsuit was filed in the final week of the 2024 presidential campaign under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a statute historically used against false advertising. The case was filed in a single-judge federal district court that one legal publication characterized as 'a favored jurisdiction for conservative legal causes and plaintiffs'. CBS characterized the case as 'without merit'. The 60 Minutes broadcast aired in October; the day before, a different excerpt had appeared on Face the Nation. Soon after, the Center for American Rights – a group that describes itself as 'a public interest law firm dedicated to protecting Americans' most fundamental constitutional rights' – filed a complaint at the FCC alleging CBS had engaged in 'significant and substantial news alteration'. The complaint was dismissed as seeking 'to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment'. Immediately upon becoming the FCC chair, Carr reversed that decision and ordered a formal proceeding on the matter (but let stand the dismissal of a complaint against a local Fox station over its 2020 election coverage). The election of Trump and the installation of a Trump-appointed FCC chair transformed the Paramount/CBS merger from a review of the public interest merits of the transfer of broadcast licenses into a broader question that included the 60 Minutes editing. Carr told an interviewer: 'I'm pretty confident that the news distortion complaint over the 60 Minutes transcript is something that is likely to arise in the context of the FCC review of that transaction.' The formal paperwork for FCC approval of the license transfers was submitted 10 months ago, on 6 September 2024. Now that the lawsuit has been settled, it will be interesting to see how quickly the FCC acts. The CBS case is just one example of the tactical leverage the Trump FCC regularly exerts over those it regulates. Carr, who wrote the FCC chapter in the 'Project 2025' Maga blueprint, has not been shy about using this authority to achieve such political goals. Even before formally assuming the FCC chair position, Carr began exercising chair-like authority to advance the Maga agenda. This began with a letter to the CEOs of Alphabet (Google and YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft and Apple alleging: 'you participated in a censorship cartel … [that is] an affront to Americans' constitutional freedoms and must be completely dismantled.' Going beyond traditional FCC authority, he threatened: 'As you know, Big Tech's prized liability shield, Section 230, is codified in the Communications Act, which the FCC administers.' Carr suggested he might investigate whether those editorial decisions were made in good faith. Recently, Carr conditioned the approval of Verizon's acquisition of Frontier Communications on Verizon agreeing to drop its corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies. Continuing his anti-diversity efforts, he launched an investigation into Comcast Corporation because it promotes DEI as 'a core value of our business'. In his pre-FCC chair days, Carr championed press freedom. In a 2021 statement, he wrote: 'A newsroom's decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official.' Once he became Trump's FCC chair, however, he not only picked up on the 60 Minutes matter, but also launched an investigation into the public broadcasters NPR and PBS 'regarding the airing of … programming across your broadcast member stations'. The FCC's regulatory authority directly covers about one-sixth of the American economy while also affecting the other five-sixths that rely on the nation's communications networks. What was once an independent, policy-based agency has been transformed into a performance-based agency, using any leverage it can discover or invent to further the Trump Maga message. Tom Wheeler was the chair of the Federal Communications Commission from 2013 to 2017
