Amid wave of stabbings, Israel’s prime minister accuses Arab lawmakers of incitement ADVERTISING Amid wave of stabbings, Israel’s prime minister accuses Arab lawmakers of incitement JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians carried out three stabbings Monday in Jerusalem, leaving a teenage Israeli
Amid wave of stabbings, Israel’s prime minister accuses Arab lawmakers of incitement
JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians carried out three stabbings Monday in Jerusalem, leaving a teenage Israeli boy in critical condition, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily accused the country’s Arab leaders of helping incite weeks of violence. Two of the attackers, both teenage boys, were killed.
In a fiery speech at parliament, Netanyahu accused Arab parties of “undermining” the country. He called on Israel’s Arab citizens to “kick out the extremists among you.”
Netanyahu spoke on another bloody day, the latest in a monthlong wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
In a new setback for efforts to restore calm, the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia __ postponed a trip to the region. Edgar Vasquez, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Near East Affairs, said it was at the request of the Israeli government due to the circumstances.
Israeli police reported three separate stabbings across the city, including an assault by two attackers in the east Jerusalem area of Pisgat Zeev. Police said the pair seriously wounded a 20-year-old man before attacking a teenage boy on a bicycle.
A Putin craze takes hold in the Middle East, praising his ‘personality and charisma’
BEIRUT (AP) — Amid the ornate walls of Damascus’ famed Omayyad Mosque, preacher Maamoun Rahmeh stood before worshippers last week, declaring Russian President Vladimir Putin a “giant and beloved leader” who has “destroyed the myth of the self-aggrandizing America.”
Posters of Putin are popping up on cars and billboards elsewhere in parts of Syria and Iraq, praising the Russian military intervention in Syria as one that will redress the balance of power in the region.
The Russian leader is winning accolades from many in Iraq and Syria, who see Russian airstrikes in Syria as a turning point after more than a year of largely ineffectual efforts by the U.S.-led coalition to dislodge the Islamic State militants who have occupied significant parts of the two countries.
The reactions underscore that while the West may criticize Putin for supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad, there is some relief in the region at the emergence of a player with a coherent — if controversial — strategy.
“Putin does more than just speak,” said Sohban Elewi of Damascus, summing up the views of Syrians on opposing camps who regard U.S. policy in Syria and Iraq as fumbled and confused.
Princeton economist Angus Deaton wins Nobel for work on consumption and poverty
Angus Deaton has dug into obscure data to explore a range of problems: The scope of poverty in India. How poor countries treat young girls. The link between income inequality and economic growth.
The Princeton University economist’s research has raised doubts about sweeping solutions to poverty and about the effectiveness of aid programs. And on Monday, it earned him the Nobel prize in economics.
For work that the award committee said has had “immense importance for human welfare, not least in poor countries,” Deaton, 69, will receive a prize of 8 million Swedish kronor (about $975,000) from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Deaton’s research has “shown other researchers and international organizations like the World Bank how to go about understanding poverty at the very basic level,” said Torsten Persson, secretary of the award committee.
He becomes the sixth scholar affiliated with Princeton to win the Nobel in economics since it was first given in 1969.
Zimbabwe official says US dentist is not wanted for killing Cecil the lion
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe is no longer pressing for the extradition of James Walter Palmer, an American dentist who killed a well-known lion called Cecil, a Cabinet minister said Monday.
Palmer can now safely return to Zimbabwe as a “tourist” because he had not broken the southern African country’s hunting laws, Environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri told reporters in Harare on Monday. Zimbabwe’s police and the National Prosecuting Authority had cleared Palmer of wrongdoing, she said.
Through an adviser, Palmer declined comment.
Palmer was identified as the man who killed Cecil in a bow hunt. Cecil, a resident of Hwange National park in western Zimbabwe, was well-known to tourists and researchers for his distinctive black mane.
Muchinguri-Kashiri had said in July that Zimbabwean police and prosecutors would work to get Palmer returned to Zimbabwe to face poaching charges.
Person familiar with case says lack of written contract led to Blatter, Platini suspensions
ZURICH (AP) — The toppling of soccer’s most powerful and recognizable leaders may have been sealed when FIFA President Sepp Blatter agreed to pay Michel Platini, the head of European soccer, 2 million Swiss francs (about $2 million) in 2011.
Both men told FIFA’s ethics committee that Blatter was making good on a verbal promise to pay Platini the bonus, a person familiar with the case told The Associated Press on Monday.
Now, just as Platini was hoping to finally succeed the 79-year-old Sepp Blatter as FIFA’s maximum leader, both men have fallen further into disgrace because Platini waited nine years before demanding the payment, despite the lack of a written contract, for work he did helping Blatter cement his leadership over professional soccer.
Unimpressed by their explanations and surrounded by criminal prosecutors, the FIFA ethics committee suspended both men from world soccer for 90 days, and could ban them for years once the probe is complete, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the decision.
Running in parallel are American and Swiss criminal investigations into soccer bribery. It was the Swiss attorney general who first disclosed details of the “disloyal payment” by Blatter after questioning him as a suspect following a surprise swoop on his office inside FIFA’s sleek headquarters.
Police: Man charged with possession of a firearm in fatal shooting of Memphis officer
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Terence Olridge was heading to his job as a police officer when he and a neighbor were involved in an argument that escalated into a shootout in a normally quiet neighborhood in suburban Memphis, authorities said.
Shot multiple times, Olridge tried to make it back to his house to get help. He was later taken to a hospital, where he died Sunday afternoon — becoming the second Memphis police officer to be killed in a shooting in less than three months, police said.
Details about what caused the altercation between Olridge, 31, and Lorenzo Clark, 36, in the suburb of Cordova are still not clear. But police said Monday that Clark has been charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm in connection with Olridge’s death. He has a court appearance Tuesday. Court records do not show if Clark has a lawyer.
Authorities are still investigating the shooting, Memphis police spokesman Louis Brownlee said. He declined to say whether more charges would be filed.
Olridge, who joined the department in September 2014, had a fiancee who is four months pregnant, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said.
EU climate boss says G20 countries can improve pledges to cut emissions
RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Europe’s climate chief has acknowledged for the first time that climate pledges made by national governments ahead of a major U.N. conference fall short of meeting the international goal of keeping global warming below 3.6 degrees.
In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said the EU’s projections show the current pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions would put world on a path toward 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming.
That’s a level that scientists say could result in dangerous changes in the Earth’s climate system, such as rising seas flooding coastal areas and small island nations.
Canete said the fact that almost 150 countries have made pledges ahead of a December climate conference in Paris is “an extraordinary result” — but not enough.
“In some G20 countries, there is margin of maneuver to increase the level of ambition,” he said, referring to the Group of 20 major economies.
