Israel’s former military chief Benny Gantz is set to receive an official mandate to form the country’s next government but has few options after last month’s elections left him in a near tie with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu was given the first opportunity to form a government after assembling a large right-wing bloc but announced this week that he failed to build a 61-seat majority. Gantz faces similarly steep odds, raising the possibility that Israel will hold a third election in less than a year.

President Reuven Rivlin is to formally grant the mandate later Wednesday to Gantz, who will have 28 days to form a coalition. It will mark the first time in over a decade that anyone besides Netanyahu has been given the task.

Still, Gantz faces steep odds in every possible path to forming a government. He has been endorsed by just 54 lawmakers representing an array of parties that are unlikely to sit together in a coalition.

Both Gantz and Netanyahu say they favor a national unity government. Together, Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Blue and White control a solid 65-seat majority. But the two men are divided over who should lead any new government.

Netanyahu has insisted he head the government, at least for the first two years, and that it include his right-wing allies, conditions that Gantz has repeatedly rejected.
 
Netanyahu is likely to be indicted on corruption charges in the coming weeks, and Gantz has said Netanyahu should resolve his legal troubles before returning to the top post.

Gantz could potentially break up the right-wing alliance and recruit some of the smaller parties to his coalition. But that might be seen as a major betrayal by those parties’ voters.

Another option would be to form a minority government with Avigdor Lieberman, who emerged as kingmaker after his party won eight seats and has refused to endorse either Gantz or Netanyahu. Gantz might be able to convince the Arab Joint List, which won 13 seats, to support the coalition from the outside.

That would bring down Netanyahu but result in a highly unstable government. It’s also far from clear that Lieberman, a nationalist with a history of harsh rhetoric toward the Arab minority, would support such a scheme. No Arab party has ever sat in an Israeli government.

The political deadlock dates back to April, when Lieberman refused to join a right-wing coalition under Netanyahu. In response, parliament voted to dissolve itself, leading to an unprecedented repeated election in September. A similar scenario could play out again.

The political deadlock has delayed the Trump administration’s release of its long-awaited peace plan. The Palestinians have already rejected the plan, accusing the administration of extreme and unfair bias toward Israel.

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From: MeNeedIt

Norway’s domestic security agency says early investigations into the injury of two toddlers in a stroller on an Oslo sidewalk by a man driving a stolen ambulance “doesn’t look like a terrorist incident.”

PST spokesman Martin Bernsen told Norwegian VG newspaper Wednesday that the agency continues to assist the Oslo police with the case.

A 32-year-old Norwegian man who was not named, was arrested Tuesday after injuring two toddlers when speeding in the ambulance while chased by police. He was finally stopped after officers shot at the tires and rammed the vehicle.

Inside the ambulance, police found an Uzi submachine gun, a shotgun and narcotics.

Another daily, Aftenposten, said the suspect had previously been convicted of a raft of crimes including robbery, illegal possession of drugs and arms.

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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. has postponed a resumption of refugee arrivals by at least another week, a State Department spokesperson confirmed to VOA on Tuesday, as the Trump administration pushes for further reductions in the number of refugees America takes in each year.

The postponement follows last month’s announcement that a pause in refugee arrivals would be in effect until Oct. 22 while the White House and Congress engaged in legally required discussions to determine how many refugees will be admitted for the 2020 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

The State Department now says refugee arrivals likely will resume next week “on or after October 29.”

Refugees who had been expected to travel to the U.S. in the interim will be rescheduled, according to an agency statement.

The U.S. reached its self-imposed cap of 30,000 refugee arrivals in FY2019, one of the lowest admissions levels since the program started in 1980. For FY2020, U.S President Donald Trump and the State Department have proposed a cap of 18,000 refugees.

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US Hits Lowered Refugee Cap for 2019 as Another Decrease Looms

Last year, White House set admissions ceiling at 45,000, of which less than half — 22,491 refugees — were resettled in the US

While the president issues the “determination” that sets the upper limit of how many refugees will be admitted in a year, that ceiling requires consultations with Capitol Hill lawmakers. A determination has not yet been announced, and no refugees have arrived in the new fiscal year to date.

For decades, the United States had been a global leader in third-country resettlement. The administration’s proposed refugee cap would be the lowest in the program’s history and would restructure the categories under which refugees would be admitted, including people fleeing religious persecution.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

Aid workers in northern Iraq say they are seeing increasing numbers of Syrians fleeing over the border into the mainly Kurdish region as the cease-fire in northeastern Syria is about to expire.

In the past day alone, the Norwegian Refugee Council reports that 1,736 Syrians crossed into Iraq, the highest number to cross in one day since the beginning of Turkey’s military operation.

They say that many have escaped with just the clothes on their backs. 

Ibrahim Barsoum is a program officer working with Syrian refugees for the Christian Aid Program Northern Iraq, run by a Catholic priest, Father Emanuel Youkhana. The group has been helping Iraqis displaced by Islamic State militants. Barsoum says the KRI, or Iraq’s Kurdistan Region authority, facilitates their transfer into the country.

“Usually the families come through the night because they are not allowed, for some reason, to cross the borders over there, Barsoum said. “They come with smugglers or just cross the borders through the night. The security forces for KRI receive them. “

Barsoum said that the U.N. refugee agency is taking the lead in providing shelter in a number of northern Iraq’s existing camps, some already hosting Yazidis, victims of Islamic State attacks in 2014. He said that many have escaped Turkish bombardment and attacks from Syrian militias allied with Turkey with just the clothes on their backs.

“Many of them need immediate and urgent support,” Barsoum said. “Food and basic needs for winter time — blankets and clothes, even.  They don’t have it. They just ran to save their lives and their kids’ lives. It is a tragedy. “

The Norwegian Refugee Council believes that more than 7,140 Syrians have crossed into Iraq since Turkey started its military operation, which has displaced around 165,000 Syrians.

A refugee from Qamishli named Rifaa told the NRC that she escaped into northern Iraq with her husband and three daughters. She says there were dead bodies on the street.  They managed to find a smuggler to bring them to northern Iraq, paying the man 2,000 U.S. dollars for five people. She said, “We saved our lives, but we suffered.”

NRC’s Tom Peyre-Costa urges for more to be done to facilitate the safe passage of Syrians escaping violence in their homeland.

“Most of them are children, women and elderly people in a huge state of physical and psychological distress,” Peyre-Costa said.  “We call on all fighters and authorities to guarantee safe passage for Syrian refugees for them to them to seek refuge and protection in Iraq.”

The United Nations and aid agencies are planning for up to 50,000 Syrian refugees expected to cross into northern Iraq in the coming months.

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From: MeNeedIt

A court established by Russia-backed separatists who hold parts of eastern Ukraine has sentenced journalist Stanislav Aseyev, an RFE/RL contributor, to 15 years in a penal colony.

In a ruling condemned as “reprehensible” by RFE/RL’s president, separatist news outlet DAN reported on Tuesday that the court had found Aseyev guilty of espionage, extremism, and public calls to violate the territory’s integrity.

Aseyev, who wrote under the pen name Stanislav Vasin, disappeared in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on June 2, 2017, and has been held in detention since by the separatists.

“The conviction against Stanislav Aseyev, which dates from August but was made public only today, is reprehensible,” said RFE/RL President Jamie Fly.

“Stas is a journalist and was only trying to raise awareness about the situation in eastern Ukraine. The ruling is an attempt by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk to silence his powerful, independent voice. Stas should be released immediately,” Fly added.

The 30-year-old journalist was one of the few reporters in Donetsk who continued to work in the city after it came under the control of the separatists.

Representatives of the separatists accused Aseyev of observing the deployment sites of their paramilitary groups and passing on the information to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), according to the news outlet Hromadske.

In August 2018, the bipartisan U.S. Congressional Press Freedom Caucus called for Aseyev’s immediate release, describing him as “one of the few independent journalists to remain in the region under separatist control to provide objective reporting.”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida) also called for Aseyev’s release in July.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders has also voiced concern about Aseyev’s treatment, which it has called “increasingly disturbing.”

RFE/RL has also urged the release of Ukrainian Service contributor Oleh Halaziuk, who has been held by Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk since August 2017.

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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has started photocopying inmate letters and other mail at some federal correctional facilities across the U.S. instead of delivering the original parcels, in an attempt to combat the smuggling of synthetic narcotics like K-2, officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

The program is being implemented at a “number of Bureau facilities impacted by the increased introduction of synthetic drugs,” the agency said in a statement to the AP. At those jails and prisons, Bureau of Prisons employees are currently copying incoming mail and then distributing the copies to inmates, the agency said.

Officials would not say how many staff members are being assigned to make photocopies or whether they are removing correction officers to perform the task. The initiative raises questions about whether the agency, which has been plagued by chronic staffing shortages and violence, is reassigning staff members to spend time making photocopies instead of watching inmates.

The Bureau of Prisons has faced increased scrutiny since billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was able to take his own life behind bars at a federal facility in New York in August. Across the board, the agency has been down 4,000 jobs since 2017. Staffing shortages are so severe that guards routinely work overtime shifts day after day, sometimes being forced to work mandatory overtime.

 In the wake of Epstein’s death, Attorney General William Barr removed the agency’s acting director and named Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the prison agency’s director from 1992 until 2003, to replace him.

Officials did not provide details on the specific jails and prisons where the program is being implemented, but a person familiar with the matter told AP that one of the facilities is USP Canaan, a high-security penitentiary for male inmates in Pennsylvania. The person spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss jail operations.

Officials say wardens at each of the facilities have discretion under current policy to order the photocopying because they “may establish controls to protect staff, inmates, and the security, discipline, and good order of the institution.”

The agency is also exploring the possibility of using an off-site vendor to scan general correspondence and then send it as electronic files to kiosks in the correctional facilities where inmates would be able to view and print the letters.

The choice to have mail photocopied depends on the size and security level of the correctional facility, as well as the “degree of sophistication of the inmates confined, staff availability, and other variables,” the statement said.

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From: MeNeedIt

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro questioned on Friday whether a far-reaching oil spill on the nation’s northeastern shore may have been a criminal act designed to harm a major oil auction scheduled for November.

“Coincidence or not, we have the transfer-of-rights auction,” said Bolsonaro in a Facebook Live video, referring to an oil bidding scheduled for Nov. 6, in which an array of major oil players will compete for $26 billion worth of production rights in large offshore oil areas of Brazil.

“I wonder, we have to be very responsible about what we say — could it have been a criminal act to harm this auction? It’s a question that’s out there.”

Bolsonaro offered no evidence for his statements.

Oil has been washing up on the shore of northeastern Brazil for two months, but its origin has remained a mystery. On Wednesday, Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA said it had cleaned up some 200 tons of the oil from Brazil’s beaches.

On Thursday, the head of Brazil’s environmental regulator said tests had proved the oil was Venezuelan. He said that the cause of the spill was criminal in nature, as it would otherwise have been reported.

He added, however, that Venezuela may not be responsible for the spill, even if the oil originated there.

Venezuela has denied responsibility for the oil.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

The king of Thailand has stripped his royal consort of her titles less than three months after they was bestowed upon her.

An announcement in the Royal Thai Government Gazette said Sineenat Bilaskalayani, 34, was stripped of all her titles and military ranks for being “ambitious” and trying to “elevate herself to the same state as the queen.”

It said her actions “are considered dishonorable, lacking gratitude, unappreciative of royal kindness, and driving a rift among the royal servants, making misunderstanding among the people, and undermining the nation and the monarchy.”

King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who ascended to the throne in 2016, named Sineenat his royal consort just two months after he married his fourth wife, Queen Suthida.

This was the first time a Thai monarch has taken a consort in nearly a century.

Both Sineenat and Suthida had served as senior officers in palace security units. Suthida was previously a flight attendant with Thai Airways, while Sineenat was an army nurse.

Sineenat’s fate in the royal court is similar to that of the king’s second and third wives.

The king’s second wife fled to the U.S. after she was denounced by him. The kings has also disowned their four sons.

His third wife was also stripped of her titles and banished from the court. Their teenage son lives with his father.

The king’s first marriage also ended in divorce but that wife was also his cousin and part of the royal family so she didn’t share the fate of the others.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

When Germain Kalubenge gets a request for a ride on his motorcycle, it can be a matter of life or death. The 23-year-old is a survivor of the Ebola virus and often is the only driver his community trusts to help if someone suspects they are infected.

“I wake up every day at 5 in the morning to … wait for calls from suspected Ebola cases who do not like to take an ambulance,” he said. “In the community they are afraid of ambulances. They believe that in an ambulance, doctors will give them toxic injections and they will die before arriving at the hospital.”

Kalubenge is a rare motorcycle taxi driver who is also an Ebola survivor in eastern Congo, making him a welcome collaborator for health workers who have faced deep community mistrust during the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. More than 2,000 people have died since August of last year, and the World Health Organization last week said the outbreak still warrants being classified as a global emergency, even as the number of confirmed cases has slowed.

This is the first time Ebola has been confirmed in this part of Congo, and rumors quickly spread in Beni, an early epicenter of the outbreak, that the virus had been imported to kill the population. The community has been traumatized by years of deadly rebel attacks and is wary of authorities, blaming them for the insecurity that has killed nearly 2,000 people since late 2014.

Gaining people’s trust has been a constant challenge for health workers.

Imagine that you are running a fever and you see a dozen jeeps carrying doctors wearing head-to-toe protective gear, said Muhindo Soli, a young man who was arrested earlier this year for throwing stones at Ebola responders’ vehicles. “That would scare me,” he said, adding that some young people refuse to let patients be taken away.

Soli called on Ebola responders to stop working with military and police escorts, which he said only heightens tensions: “One wonders why the people who come to treat us come with soldiers?”

Dr. Muhindo Muyisa, who leads the response to Ebola alerts in Beni, said they have received more than 150 alerts daily about potential cases. They have intervened more than 90% of the time, sending an ambulance or other vehicle, when people refuse to go to centers where testing is done for the virus, Muyisa said.
 
Kalubenge, who as a survivor is immune to Ebola, saw the community resistance and decided to help. At times he has taken about 10 people a day to the Ebola centers after surviving the virus last year.
 
He and his motorcycle are sprayed with chlorine each time he arrives.

One day in August, he received a call from a parent whose 5-year-old had a fever and was vomiting. His first step was to convince the mother to allow her child to go to the center for testing. The symptoms were similar to other diseases common in the area such as malaria, which can add to people’s hesitation about Ebola. In the end, the child was found to have malaria.

Kalubenge makes sure to tell potential patients his own Ebola story and says they will only get better if they go to a center to be checked.
 
Riding with him draws far less attention than an ambulance would. People like to ride a motorcycle “to avoid neighbors’ curiosity,” he said.

Kalubenge is the only good link between the Ebola centers and the population, said Beni resident Sammy Misonia, who met the driver during a community question-and-answer session with Ebola survivors.

“There are too many rumors that make people afraid to go,” Misonia said. “With this initiative, people will always agree to go because we now see someone who has come out of the treatment center alive.”

Kalubenge said he is happy to help give people hope — even when some riders vomit on him during the journey.

“People need to know that doctors treat well, and I was well cared for,” he said. “Ebola is not the end of life. After Ebola, there is life.”
 

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From: MeNeedIt

At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday.

The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions’ property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Those incidents include 12 cases of vandalism involving white supremacist symbols and 35 cases in which white supremacist propaganda was distributed.

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US to Seek Death Penalty for Accused Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter

The massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue was the deadliest attack ever on Jewish Americans in the US

The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels. It has counted 780 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2019, compared to 785 incidents during the same period in 2018.

The ADL’s tally of 12 arrests for white supremacist plots, threats and attacks against Jewish institutions includes the April 2019 capture of John T. Earnest, who is charged with killing one person and wounding three others in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. The group said many of the cases it counted, including the Poway shooting, were inspired by previous white supremist attacks. In online posts, Earnest said he was inspired by the deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman killed 51 people in March.

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Nearly 50 Killed in New Zealand Mosque Attacks; 4 in Custody

Mass shootings at two mosques full of worshippers attending Friday prayers killed at least 49 people on what the prime minister called ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’

The ADL also counted three additional 2019 cases in which individuals were arrested for targeting Jews but weren’t deemed to be white supremacists. Two were motivated by Islamist extremist ideology, the organization said.

The ADL said its Center on Extremism provided “critical intelligence” to law enforcement in at least three of the 12 cases it counted.

Last December, authorities in Monroe, Washington, arrested a white supremacist after the ADL notified law enforcement about suspicions he threatened on Facebook to kill Jews in a synagogue. The ADL said it also helped authorities in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, identify a white supremacist accused of using aliases to post threatening messages, including a digital image of himself pointing an AR-15 rifle at a group of praying Jewish men.

In August, an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force arrested a Las Vegas man accused of plotting to firebomb a synagogue or other targets, including a bar catering to LGTBQ customers and the ADL’s Las Vegas office. The ADL said it warned law enforcement officials about the man’s online threats.

“We cannot and will not rest easy knowing the threat posed by white supremacists and other extremists against the Jewish community is clear and present,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.

The ADL said it counted at least 30 additional incidents in which people with an “unknown ideology” targeted Jewish institutions with acts of arson, vandalism or propaganda distribution that the group deemed to be anti-Semitic or “generally hateful,” but not explicitly white supremacist.

“These incidents include the shooting of an elderly man outside a synagogue in Miami, fires set at multiple Jewish institutions in New York and Massachusetts, Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogue windows in Chicago, damaged menorahs in Georgia and New Jersey, as well as a wide range of anti-Semitic graffiti,” an ADL report said.

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From: MeNeedIt

A committee guiding OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy has suggested other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains use Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the national opioid crisis.

The committee of unsecured creditors said in a letter sent Sunday to the parties and obtained by The Associated Press that the country “is in the grips of a crisis that must be addressed, and that doing so may require creative approaches.”

It’s calling for all the companies to put money into a fund in exchange for having all their lawsuits resolved.

The committee includes victims of the opioid crisis plus a medical center, a health insurer, a prescription benefit management company, the manufacturer of an addiction treatment drug and a pension insurer. It says that the concept may not be feasible but invited further discussion. It does not give a size of contributions from the company.

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Opioid Settlement Talks Broaden Ahead of 1st Federal Trial

Under the proposal, the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson would pay a total of $18 billion over 18 years

The same committee has been aggressive in Purdue’s bankruptcy, saying it would support pausing litigation against members of the Sackler family who own Purdue in exchange for a $200 million fund from the company to help fight the opioid crisis.

Paul Hanly, a lead lawyer for local governments in the lawsuits, said in a text message Sunday evening that he’d heard about the mass settlement idea, calling it “most unlikely.”

The proposal comes as narrower talks have not resulted in a settlement. Opening statements are to be held Monday in the first federal trial over the crisis. The lawsuit deals with claims from the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga and Summit against a half-dozen companies. More than 2,000 other state and local governments plus Native American tribes, hospitals and other groups have made similar claims.

There have been talks aimed at settling all claims against the drugmakers Johnson & Johnson and Teva and the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson ahead of the trial. One proposal called for resolving claims against them nationally in exchange for cash and addiction treatment drugs valued at a total of $48 billion over time.

The committee’s proposal went to those five companies plus nine others that face lawsuits.

Opioids, including both prescription painkillers and illegal drugs such as heroin and illicitly made fentanyl, have been linked to more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000.

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From: MeNeedIt

 The still popular former mayor of Baltimore and brother of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Thomas D’Alesandro III, died Sunday at 90.

The family said he had been suffering from complications from a stroke.

Pelosi, who is leading a congressional delegation in Jordan, issued a statement calling her brother “the finest public servant I have ever known…a leader of dignity, compassion, and extraordinary courage.”

D’Alesandro was known around Baltimore as “Young Tommy,” because his father, “Big Tommy,” was also mayor and a U.S. congressman.

“Young Tommy” was president of the Baltimore City Council and was elected mayor in 1967, leading Baltimore through four of the most tumultuous years in the city’s history. His challenges included a number of labor strikes that paralyzed city services, the push for urban renewal, and the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 from which Baltimore has never fully recovered.

D’Alesandro was also the first Baltimore mayor to appoint African-Americans to important city positions.

After deciding not to run for a second term in 1971, D’Alesandro went into private law practice and could still be seen dining in Italian restaurants and attending Baltimore Oriole baseball games until just before his death.

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From: MeNeedIt