U.N. investigator says U.S. sanctions over her criticism of Israel will seriously impact her life
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is a member of a group of experts chosen by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the 'genocide' by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.
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Toronto Sun
28 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
GOLDSTEIN: Carney touts Palestinian leader accused of Holocaust denial as his man in Mideast
Mahmoud Abbas, 89, was elected president in 2005 and he cancelled future elections Get the latest from Lorrie Goldstein straight to your inbox From left, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and MP Ya'ara Saks. Today, let's examine the record of the man Prime Minister Mark Carney is pinning his hopes on to deliver an independent Palestinian state living in peace beside a secure Israel. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account His choice is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as he explained in a prime ministerial 'Readout' of their conversation on July 30. Carney described Abbas as key to 'Canada's intention to recognize the State of Palestine at the … United Nations General Assembly in September 2025.' The PM said this 'is predicated on the Palestinian Authority's commitment to much-needed reforms, including the commitments by Palestinian Authority President Abbas to fundamentally reform its governance, to hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarize the Palestinian state,' adding he 'welcomed President Abbas' commitment to these reforms.' Abbas is an 89-year-old Palestinian leader accused of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, who has been in power for 20 years. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. He was elected president in 2005, cancelled future elections and has little popular support with polls showing the overwhelming majority of Palestinians believe the Palestinian Authority, which has received billions of dollars in foreign aid, is corrupt and that Abbas is ineffective and should resign. Read More Hamas won legislative elections in 2006 – the last time they were held – and today Hamas rules Gaza while Abbas' rival Fatah party rules the West Bank. Although Abbas described the Holocaust in 2014 as 'the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era' while he was currying favour during a previous failed international effort to achieve the forever elusive 'two-state solution,' he's been accused of antisemitism and Holocaust denial for decades. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Two years ago he was widely condemned for a speech to the Fatah Revolutionary Council in which he claimed Hitler didn't kill six million Jews because of antisemitism, but because they were money lenders. He expressed similar views in 2018. In 1984 he published a book – The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism – based on his 1982 PhD dissertation at a Russian university. In it, he falsely claimed Zionists were 'fundamental partners' of the Nazis, that it was a 'myth' and 'fantastic lie' that Hitler murdered six million Jews, and he cited figures of '890,000' or 'a few hundred thousand.' Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a conference to support Jerusalem at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 12, 2023. Photo by Amr Nabil / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A decade later, Abbas said he wrote the book while Israelis and Palestinians were at war, that he was quoting estimates of the number of dead by others and that he would not make such arguments today. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In 2006 he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz ,'The Holocaust was a terrible thing and nobody can claim I denied it.' Writing in the Jerusalem Post last year, Maurice Hirsch, director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs, described Abbas' longtime support of the Palestinian Authorities' so-called 'Pay for Slay' policy, 'which guarantees substantial monthly salaries to terrorist prisoners,' including murderers, mass murderers and the families of suicide bombers. 'In parallel' Hirsch wrote, 'Abbas funneled billions of shekels to the Palestine Liberation Organization to pay both monthly allowances to injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists, and fund the PLO member organizations that include internationally designated terror organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Last year, Abbas announced the ending of 'Pay for Slay,' but critics say the change is largely cosmetic and payments continue in other forms. Earlier this year, the Israeli NGO IMPACT-se (Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education) reported on a new curriculum for Palestinian children created by the Palestinian Authority's education ministry, funded by 380 million euros from the European Union, based on its promise to reform its existing content. IMPACT-se said the new curriculum 'replicates antisemitic material and content that incites to hatreds and violence' and is rife with 'antisemitism, glorification and justification of … terrorism, encouragement of martyrdom and jihad, dehumanization and demonization of Israel, and the erasure of Israel from maps.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli research institute, reported last year that Palestinian Authority officials 'consistently use the antisemitic themes of the Middle Ages to generate hatred against the Jewish state and to incite violence,' including the blood libel that 'Israeli leaders drink the blood of Palestinian children and always want more blood.' Despite this, the U.S. and Israeli governments view Abbas as a relative moderate compared to Hamas – he has made pro forma criticisms of terrorist attacks on Israeli and Palestinian civilians and called for Hamas to release the hostages. For Carney and other world leaders to tout Abbas as the best hope for ending Palestinian suffering and creating an independent Palestinian state – which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government unalterably opposes – is wishful thinking on steroids. lgoldstein@ Toronto Blue Jays Toronto & GTA Toronto & GTA Homes Columnists
Toronto Sun
an hour ago
- Toronto Sun
From Laos to Brazil, Trump's tariffs leave a lot of losers. But even the winners will pay a price
Published Aug 02, 2025 • 5 minute read U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., Thursday, July 31, 2025. Photo by Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's tariff onslaught this week left a lot of losers — from small, poor countries like Laos and Algeria to wealthy U.S. trading partners like Canada and Switzerland. They're now facing especially hefty taxes — tariffs — on the products they export to the United States starting Aug. 7. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The closest thing to winners may be the countries that caved to Trump's demands — and avoided even more pain. But it's unclear whether anyone will be able to claim victory in the long run — even the United States, the intended beneficiary of Trump's protectionist policies. 'In many respects, everybody's a loser here,' said Barry Appleton, co-director of the Center for International Law at the New York Law School. Barely six months after he returned to the White House, Trump has demolished the old global economic order. Gone is one built on agreed-upon rules. In its place is a system in which Trump himself sets the rules, using America's enormous economic power to punish countries that won't agree to one-sided trade deals and extracting huge concessions from the ones that do. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'The biggest winner is Trump,' said Alan Wolff, a former U.S. trade official and deputy director-general at the World Trade Organization. 'He bet that he could get other countries to the table on the basis of threats, and he succeeded — dramatically.' Everything goes back to what Trump calls 'Liberation Day' — April 2 — when the president announced 'reciprocal' taxes of up to 50% on imports from countries with which the United States ran trade deficits and 10% 'baseline' taxes on almost everyone else. He invoked a 1977 law to declare the trade deficit a national emergency that justified his sweeping import taxes. That allowed him to bypass Congress, which traditionally has had authority over taxes, including tariffs — all of which is now being challenged in court. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Trump retreated temporarily after his Liberation Day announcement triggered a rout in financial markets and suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate. Eventually, some of them did, caving to Trump's demands to pay what four months ago would have seemed unthinkably high tariffs for the privilege of continuing to sell into the vast American market. The United Kingdom agreed to 10% tariffs on its exports to the United States — up from 1.3% before Trump amped up his trade war with the world. The U.S. demanded concessions even though it had run a trade surplus, not a deficit, with the U.K. for 19 straight years. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The European Union and Japan accepted U.S. tariffs of 15%. Those are much higher than the low single-digit rates they paid last year — but lower than the tariffs he was threatening (30% on the EU and 25% on Japan). Also cutting deals with Trump and agreeing to hefty tariffs were Pakistan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. Even countries that saw their tariffs lowered from April without reaching a deal are still paying much higher tariffs than before Trump took office. Angola's tariff, for instance, dropped to 15% from 32% in April, but in 2022 it was less than 1.5%. And while Trump administration cut Taiwan's tariff to 20% from 32% in April, the pain will still be felt. '20% from the beginning has not been our goal, we hope that in further negotiations we will get a more beneficial and more reasonable tax rate,' Taiwan's president Lai Ching-te told reporters in Taipei Friday. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Trump also agreed to reduce the tariff on the tiny southern African kingdom of Lesotho to 15% from the 50% he'd announced in April, but the damage may already have been done there. Bashing Brazil, clobbering Canada, shellacking the Swiss Countries that didn't knuckle under — and those that found other ways to incur Trump's wrath — got hit harder. Even some poorer countries were not spared. Laos' annual economic output comes to $2,100 per person and Algeria's $5,600 _ versus America's $75,000. Nonetheless, Laos got rocked with a 40% tariff and Algeria with a 30% levy. Trump slammed Brazil with a 50% import tax largely because he didn't like the way it was treating former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for trying to lose his electoral defeat in 2022. Never mind that the U.S. has exported more to Brazil than it's imported every year since 2007. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Trump's decision to plaster a 35% tariff on longstanding U.S. ally Canada was partly designed to threaten Ottawa for saying it would recognize a Palestinian state. Trump is a staunch supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Switzerland was clobbered with a 39% import tax — even higher than the 31% Trump originally announced on April 2. 'The Swiss probably wish that they had camped in Washington' to make a deal, said Wolff, now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 'They're clearly not at all happy.' Fortunes may change if Trump's tariffs are upended in court. Five American businesses and 12 states are suing the president, arguing that his Liberation Day tariffs exceeded his authority under the 1977 law. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized court in New York, agreed and blocked the tariffs, although the government was allowed to continue collecting them while its appeal wend its way through the legal system, and may likely end up at the U.S. Supreme Court. In a hearing Thursday, the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sounded skeptical about Trump's justifications for the tariffs. 'If (the tariffs) get struck down, then maybe Brazil's a winner and not a loser,' Appleton said. Paying more for knapsacks and video games Trump portrays his tariffs as a tax on foreign countries. But they are actually paid by import companies in the U.S. who try to pass along the cost to their customers via higher prices. True, tariffs can hurt other countries by forcing their exporters to cut prices and sacrifice profits — or risk losing market share in the United States. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that overseas exporters have absorbed just one-fifth of the rising costs from tariffs, while Americans and U.S. businesses have picked up the most of the tab. Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Ford, Best Buy, Adidas, Nike, Mattel and Stanley Black & Decker, have all hiked prices due to U.S. tariffs 'This is a consumption tax, so it disproportionately affects those who have lower incomes,' Appleton said. 'Sneakers, knapsacks … your appliances are going to go up. Your TV and electronics are going to go up. Your video game devices, consoles are going to up because none of those are made in America.' Trump's trade war has pushed the average U.S. tariff from 2.5% at the start of 2025 to 18.3% now, the highest since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. And that will impose a $2,400 cost on the average household, the lab estimates. 'The U.S. consumer's a big loser,″ Wolff said. — AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this story. Read More Toronto Blue Jays Homes Columnists Toronto & GTA Columnists
Toronto Sun
2 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
U.S. envoy meets Israeli hostage families in Tel Aviv
Published Aug 02, 2025 • 3 minute read U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff arrives to meet families of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Photo by - / AFP TEL AVIV — U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday met the anguished families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, as fears for the captives' survival mounted almost 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Witkoff was greeted with some applause and pleas for assistance from hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, before going into a closed meeting with the families. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum confirmed the meeting was underway and videos shared online showed Witkoff arriving as families chanted 'Bring them home!' and 'We need your help.' The visit came one day after Witkoff visited a U.S.-backed aid station in Gaza, to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory. Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old hostage Nimrod Cohen, told AFP in the square: 'The war needs to end. The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so. 'The Israeli government must be stopped. For our sakes, for our soldiers' sakes, for our hostages' sakes, for our sons and for the future generations of everybody in the Middle East.' Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. After the meeting, the Forum released a statement saying that Witkoff had given them a personal commitment that he and U.S. President Donald Trump would work to return the remaining hostages. The United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, had been mediating ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel that would allow the hostages to be released and humanitarian aid to flow more freely. But talks broke down last month and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is under increasing domestic pressure to come up with another way to secure the missing hostages, alive and dead. He is also facing international calls to open Gaza's borders to more food aid, after UN and humanitarian agencies warned that more than two million Palestinian civilians are facing starvation. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But Israel's top general warned that there would be no respite in fighting in Gaza if the hostages were not released. 'I estimate that in the coming days we will know whether we can reach an agreement for the release of our hostages,' said army chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, according to a military statement. 'If not, the combat will continue without rest,' he said, during remarks to officers inside Gaza on Friday. Of the 251 people who were kidnapped from Israel during Hamas's attack in October 2023, 49 remain in Gaza, 27 of them dead, according to the military. Palestinian armed groups this week released two videos of hostages looking emaciated and weak. Zamir denied that there was widespread starvation in Gaza. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'The current campaign of false accusations of intentional starvation is a deliberate, timed, and deceitful attempt to accuse the IDF (Israeli military), a moral army, of war crimes,' he said. 'The ones responsible for the killing and suffering of the residents in the Gaza Strip is Hamas.' Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. A total of 898 Israeli soldiers have also been killed, according to the military. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN. Civilian deaths Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed 21 people in the territory on Saturday. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said two people were killed and another 26 injured after an Israeli strike on a central Gaza area where Palestinians had gathered before a food distribution point run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). He added that Saturday's bombings mostly targeted the areas near the southern city of Khan Yunis and Gaza City in the north. Witkoff visited another GHF site for five hours on Friday, promising that Trump would come up with a plan to better feed civilians. Adnan Abu Hasna, of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, told AFP that the agency had 'approximately 6,000 trucks ready for the Gaza Strip, but the crossings are closed by political decision. There are five land crossings into the Strip through which 1,000 trucks can enter daily.' The UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories on Friday said at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza had been killed since May 27, most of them by the Israeli military. Israel's military insist that soldiers never deliberately target civilians and accuses Hamas fighters of looting UN and humanitarian aid trucks. Toronto Blue Jays Columnists Columnists Homes Canada
