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Thailand seizes more than $300m in assets and issues 42 arrest warrants in cyberscam crackdown

Seizures and warrants involve Chinese-Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhi, who heads US-sanctioned Prince Group, and Cambodians Kok An and Yim LeakThailand has seized assets worth more than $300m, including shares in a major regional energy company, and issued arrest warrants for 42 people in a high-profile push against regional scam networks, officials said on Wednesday.Parts of south-east Asia, including the border areas between Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, have become hubs for online fraud, with criminal networks earning billions from illegal compounds where trafficking victims are often forced to work. Continue reading...

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How 2 killings exposed the depths of cartels' grip in Mexico's Michoacan state

Two recent killings — one of an outspoken representative of the lime growers, the other a popular mayor standing up to the cartels — in Mexico's western Michoacan state have sent a clear message that organized crime is in charge, something residents ha...

China's Xi and France's Macron pledge cooperation on global crises and trade

China and France have pledged deeper cooperation to address global issues like the war in Ukraine and trade

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Gaza: Israeli strike kills five, including two children, says civil defence agency

Agency says missile struck citizens in Khan Younis, as Israel reports targeting ‘Hamas terrorist’ after clash with militants An Israeli strike on Palestinian territory has killed five people including two children, Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP on Wednesday.“Five citizens, including two children, killed and others injured, some seriously, as a result of an Israeli missile strike,” in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP. Continue reading...

A reckoning awaits these out-of-touch lawmakers hopelessly in denial

Last month, some House members publicly acknowledged that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a judgment that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch unequivocally proclaimed a year ago. Israeli human-rights organizations have reached the same conclusion. But such clarity is sparse in Congress.And no wonder. Genocide denial is needed for continuing to appropriate billions of dollars in weapons to Israel, as most legislators have kept doing. Congress members would find it very difficult to admit that Israeli forces are committing genocide while voting to send them more weaponry.Three weeks ago, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced a resolution titled “Recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Twenty-one House colleagues, all of them Democrats, signed on as co-sponsors. They account for 10 percent of the Democrats in Congress.In sharp contrast, a national Quinnipiac Poll found that 77 percent of Democrats “think Israel is committing genocide.” That means there is a 67 percent gap between what the elected Democrats are willing to say and what the people who elected them believe. The huge gap has big implications for the party’s primaries in the midterm elections next year, and then in the race for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.One of the likely candidates in that race, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), is speaking out in ways that fit with the overwhelming views of Democratic voters. “I agree with the UN commission's heartbreaking finding that there is a genocide in Gaza,” he tweeted as autumn began. “What matters is what we do about it – stop military sales that are being used to kill civilians and recognize a Palestinian state.” Consistent with that position, the California congressman was one of the score of Democrats who signed on as co-sponsors of Tlaib’s resolution the day it was introduced.In the past, signers of such a resolution would have reason to fear the wrath — and the electoral muscle — of AIPAC, the Israel-can-do-no-wrong lobby. But its intimidation power is waning. AIPAC’s support for Israel does not represent the views of the public, a reality that has begun to dawn on more Democratic officeholders.“With American support for the Israeli government’s management of the conflict in Gaza undergoing a seismic reversal, and Democratic voters’ support for the Jewish state dropping off steeply, AIPAC is becoming an increasingly toxic brand for some Democrats on Capitol Hill,” the New York Times reported this fall. Notably, “some Democrats who once counted AIPAC among their top donors have in recent weeks refused to take the group’s donations.”Khanna has become more and more willing to tangle with AIPAC, which is now paying for attack ads against him. On Thanksgiving, he tweeted about Gaza and accused AIPAC of “asking people to disbelieve what they saw with their own eyes.” Khanna elaborated in a campaign email days ago, writing: “Any politician who caves to special interests on Gaza will never stand up to special interests on corruption, healthcare, housing, or the economy. If we can’t speak with moral clarity when thousands of children are dying, we won’t stand for working Americans when corporate power comes knocking.”AIPAC isn’t the only well-heeled organization for Israel now struggling with diminished clout. Democratic Majority for Israel, an offshoot of AIPAC that calls itself “an American advocacy group that supports pro-Israel policies within the United States Democratic Party,” is now clearly misnamed. Every bit of recent polling shows that in the interests of accuracy, the organization should change its name to “Democratic Minority for Israel.”Yet the party’s leadership remains stuck in a bygone era. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, typifies how disconnected so many party leaders are from the actual views of Democratic voters. Speaking in Brooklyn three months ago, she flatly claimed that “nine out of 10 Democrats are pro-Israel.” She did not attempt to explain how that could be true when more than seven out of 10 Democrats say Israel is guilty of genocide.The political issue of complicity with genocide will not go away.Last week, Amnesty International released a detailed statement documenting that “Israeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” But in Congress, almost every Republican and a large majority of Democrats remain stuck in public denial about Israel’s genocidal policies.Such denial will be put to the electoral test in Democratic primaries next year, when most incumbents will face an electorate far more morally attuned to Gaza than they are. What easily passes for reasoned judgment and political smarts in Congress will seem more like cluelessness to many Democratic activists and voters who can provide reality checks with their ballots.Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his book War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine includes an afterword about the Gaza war.