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US to admit Israel into visa waiver program

US to admit Israel into visa waiver program
Travellers walk towards the departures area of Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, on March 9, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 27 September 2023
Reuters
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US to admit Israel into visa waiver program

US to admit Israel into visa waiver program
Updated 27 September 2023
Reuters
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WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is set to announce on Wednesday that it will admit Israel into the United States Visa Waiver Program (VWP), allowing visa-free entry by Israeli citizens from Nov. 30, officials said.
The decision, which Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday was expected, is a win for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist government, whose relations with Washington have been strained over its judiciary overhaul plan and its policies toward the Palestinians.
For admission to the program that allows visitors to stay for up to 90 days without a visa, Washington requires countries to meet requirements on issues such as counterterrorism, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, document security, and border management.
Countries must also treat all US travelers equally, regardless of other passports they hold.
In Israel’s case, that means free passage for Palestinian Americans at its airports and on journeys with the occupied Palestinian territories.
Some Palestinians have protested against Israel’s entry into the VWP, citing what they say are decades of discriminatory treatment of Arab Americans and harassment at Israel’s borders.
In a pilot period since July 20, Israel has eased access for Palestinian Americans through its borders and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Between 45,000 and 60,000 Palestinian Americans live in the West Bank, a US official estimated. An Israeli official put the figure lower, saying that of 70,000 to 90,000 Palestinian Americans worldwide, 15,000 to 20,000 are West Bank residents.
There are 40 countries in the VWP, with nations added infrequently, Croatia being the most recent in 2021.
A group of 15 US senators wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sept. 8, voicing serious concerns that Israel was not in compliance with requirements for reciprocal treatment of all US citizens.
On Tuesday, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee on Tuesday filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security, seeking to block Israel's entry to the programme.
A US judge in Detroit denied an emergency motion on procedural grounds, saying the department had not been provided proper notice of the lawsuit.
In Aug. 2021, the White House had said it was working with Israel towards its inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program.

Topics: US Israel Travel visa

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Tunisian court allows prominent politician Daimi to run in presidential election

Imed Daimi. (Twitter @imaddaimi)
Imed Daimi. (Twitter @imaddaimi)
Updated 31 August 2024
Reuters
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Tunisian court allows prominent politician Daimi to run in presidential election

Imed Daimi. (Twitter @imaddaimi)
  • Daimi became the third candidate to be restored to the race by the court
Updated 31 August 2024
Reuters

TUNIS: The Tunisian administrative court upheld on Friday an appeal by prominent politician Imed Daimi to be allowed to return to the race for the presidential election expected on Oct. 6, Daimi said.
Daimi became the third candidate to be restored to the race by the court, after Abdellatif Mekki and Mondher Znaidi, whose candidacies were previously rejected by the Election Commission due to insufficient endorsements.

 

Topics: Tunisia

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An Israeli boy who broke an ancient jar learns how the museum is piecing it back together

An Israeli boy who broke an ancient jar learns how the museum is piecing it back together
Updated 31 August 2024
AP
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An Israeli boy who broke an ancient jar learns how the museum is piecing it back together

An Israeli boy who broke an ancient jar learns how the museum is piecing it back together
  • The jar was one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbar Rivlin, the director of the museum
Updated 31 August 2024
AP

HAIFA, Israel: As her 4-year-old son perused the Israeli museum’s ancient artifacts, Anna Geller looked away for just a moment. Then a crash sounded, a rare 3,500-year-old jar was broken on the ground, and her son stood over it, aghast.
“It was just a distraction of a second,” said Geller, a mother of three from the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. “And the next thing I know, it’s a very big boom boom behind me.”
The Bronze Age jar that her son, Ariel Geller, broke last week, has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered. It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.

Ariel Heller, 4, center, is welcomed by Dr. Inbal Rivlin for a special tour after the child accidentally broke an ancient jar at the Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum in Haifa, Israel, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP)

What could be considered every parent’s worst nightmare became a learning experience Friday, as the Geller family returned to the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel. Ariel gifted the museum a clay vase of his own and was met with forgiving staff and curators.
Alex Geller said Ariel — the youngest of his three children — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash last Friday, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
“I’m embarrassed,” said Anna Geller, who said she tried desperately to calm her son down after the vase shattered. “He told me he just wanted to see what was inside.”

This undated image provided by the Hecht Museum of the University of Haifa shows a rare bronze-era jar that was accidentally smashed by a four-year-old child during a visit in the museum in Haifa, Israel. (AP)

The jar was one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbar Rivlin, the director of the museum.
She said she wanted to use the restoration as an educational opportunity and to make sure the Gellers — who curtailed their initial museum visit soon after Ariel broke the jar last week — felt welcome to return.
Nahariya, where the family lives, is in an area just south of Israel’s border with Lebanon that has come under Hezbollah rocket fire for more than 10 months, in a conflict linked to the war in Gaza. The family has been visiting museums and taking day trips around Israel this summer to escape the tensions, Alex Geller said.
There were a lot of kids at the museum that day, and he said when he heard the crash he prayed that the damage had been caused by someone else. When he turned around and saw it was his son, he was “in complete shock.”
He went over to the security guards to let them know what had happened in hopes that it was a model and not a real artifact. The father even offered to pay for the damage.
“But they called and said it was insured and after they checked the cameras and saw it wasn’t vandalism they invited us back for a make-up visit,” Alex Geller said.
Experts were using 3D technology and high-resolution videos to restore the jar, which could be back on display as soon as next week.
“That’s what’s actually interesting for my older kids, this process of how they’re restoring it, and all the technology they’re using there,” Alex Geller said.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Shafir, who was painstakingly reassembling the jar, said the artifacts should remain accessible to the public, even if accidents happen because touching an artifact can inspire a deeper interest in history and archaeology.
“I like that people touch. Don’t break, but to touch things, it’s important,” he said.
 

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza US

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Sudan’s rains spread wartime suffering across the country

Sudan’s rains spread wartime suffering across the country
Updated 30 August 2024
Reuters
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Sudan’s rains spread wartime suffering across the country

Sudan’s rains spread wartime suffering across the country
  • Elsewhere in the eastern Red Sea State, the Arbaat Dam collapsed on Sunday, threatening the freshwater supply for Port Sudan, the country’s de facto capital
Updated 30 August 2024
Reuters

TOKAR: Since floods swept away their home in eastern Sudan, Ahmed Hadab and his family have survived by drinking water with milk from his last surviving goat.
“We don’t have any food,” he said after days of walking, trying to find something to eat, somewhere else to stay. “The torrent took the sorghum, flour, and two of my goats and my donkey.”
Floodwaters from heavy rains that started surging in earlier this month have brought devastation across a country already shattered by 500 days of fierce fighting between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Now, the natural disaster has spread destruction further than the conflict.
Near Tokar, in the country’s eastern region, which has escaped the violence, a Reuters reporter saw people pulling each other out of the water onto the remnants of a bridge with ropes.
Elsewhere in the eastern Red Sea State, the Arbaat Dam collapsed on Sunday, threatening the freshwater supply for Port Sudan, the country’s de facto capital, up to now a relative refuge for the government and aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced.
At least 64 people from the area are missing.
According to locals, others are stranded on higher ground with no food and little hope of rescue. Many hundreds of households are also displaced in Sudan’s Northern State, another region largely untouched by the fighting, according to the
United Nations.
In Darfur, where millions are threatened with extreme hunger, the rain has damaged displacement camps and delayed the arrival of crucial aid, according to the World Food Programme.
The UN estimates that the flooding impacts more than 300,000 people. It has brought cholera for the second year running, with 1,351 cases reported as of Wednesday, likely an undercount as the army-aligned Health Ministry struggles to access the large portion of the country occupied by the RSF.
Abulgasim Musa, head of Sudan’s Early Warning meteorological unit, said that the extreme rains that have unusually hit desert areas were likely caused by climate change. His unit had warned about them in May, he said.
In the land around Tokar, Mohamed Tahir joined scores of others on the roads.
An underfunded and overstretched aid effort has meant that only a few construction vehicles are dotted around the region, helping carry people across the flood water and fixing routes so they can escape.
“Homes are collapsed. Some have been taken by the water and not been found,” Tahir said.
“There are some who have died and they haven’t been buried.”

 

Topics: Sudan conflict

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EU missions gravely concerned about Libya situation

EU missions gravely concerned about Libya situation
Updated 30 August 2024
Reuters
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EU missions gravely concerned about Libya situation

EU missions gravely concerned about Libya situation
Updated 30 August 2024
Reuters

DUBAI: The EU delegation and EU country missions in Libya said on Friday they were gravely concerned about the deterioration of the situation in the country.
They said the intimidation of the Tripoli-based High State Council members and central bank employees, the closure of oil fields, and disruptions in banking services were exacerbating an already fragile situation.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that Libya’s central bank Gov. Sadiq Al-Kabir said he and other senior bank staff had been forced to leave the country to “protect our lives” from potential attacks by armed militia,
“Militias are threatening and terrifying bank staff and are sometimes abducting their children and relatives to force them to go to work,” Kabir told the newspaper via telephone.
He also said attempts by interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah to replace him were illegal and contravened UN negotiated accords on control of the central bank.
The crisis over the control of the Central Bank of Libya creates another level of instability in the country. This major oil producer is split between eastern and western factions with backing from Turkiye and Russia.
Early this week, the UN Support Mission in Libya called for the suspension of unilateral decisions, lifting force majeure on oil fields, halting escalations and use of force, and protecting central bank employees.

Topics: Libya

Libya’s oil production plunges 63 percent due to oilfield closures, NOC says

Libya’s oil production plunges 63 percent due to oilfield closures, NOC says
Updated 30 August 2024
Reuters
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Libya’s oil production plunges 63 percent due to oilfield closures, NOC says

Libya’s oil production plunges 63 percent due to oilfield closures, NOC says
  • The crisis over control of the Central Bank of Libya threatens a new bout of instability in a major oil producer
Updated 30 August 2024
Reuters

CAIRO: Libya’s National Oil Corporation said on Friday that recent oilfield closures have caused the loss of approximately 63 percent of the country’s total oil production, as a conflict between rival eastern and western factions continues.
The North African country’s oil blockade has widened, with eastern leaders demanding western authorities back down over the replacement of the central bank governor, a key position in a state where control over oil revenue is the biggest prize for all factions.
The crisis over control of the Central Bank of Libya threatens a new bout of instability in a major oil producer split between eastern and western factions that have drawn backing from Turkiye and Russia.
Highlighting that the oil sector represents the backbone of the Libyan economy, NOC said restarting the halted oilfields will require huge costs and double technical efforts.
It said the reasons for the oil closure have “nothing to do” with the company, adding that its teams are assessing losses resulting from the closures.
The repeated shutdowns have resulted in the loss of a large portion of the country’s oil production, caused a deterioration of the sector’s infrastructure, and dissipated efforts to increase production, the NOC added in its statement.
Eastern factions have vowed to keep Libya’s oil output shuttered until the internationally recognized Presidency Council and Government of National Unity in Tripoli in the west return veteran central bank governor Sadiq Al-Kabir to his post.
Presidency Council chief Mohammed Al-Menfi said he was dismissing Kabir earlier this month, a move rejected by the eastern-based House of Representatives parliament and eastern commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army.

Topics: Libya Oil

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