geneva_convenience

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that Kurdish fighters in Syria will either lay down their weapons or “be buried”, amid hostilities between Turkiye-backed Syrian rebels and other armed groups since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.

Following al-Assad’s ouster on December 8, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG militia must disband, asserting that the group has no place in Syria’s future.

Turkiye views the YPG militia – the main component of the United States-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militia, which has waged a rebellion against the Turkish state since 1984.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkiye, the US and the European Union. Ankara has repeatedly called on its NATO ally Washington and others to stop supporting the YPG.

OVERALL UN PERSON OF THE YEAR:

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian territories.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

SECOND RUNNER-UP: António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General

The New York Times deleted a video of violence in Amsterdam it published once it realized that the perpetrators were Israelis and not an anti-Semitic mob.

The Times had falsely claimed that the video showed Israeli football fans being attacked while in the Netherlands to support their team. What the video actually showed was a group of Israelis chasing and attacking locals. Instead of changing their story and highlighting the bad behavior of the Israelis, the Paper of Record decided to delete the video.

Crucial to understanding why corporate media outlets cover some events and not others is the sociological concept of “Worthy Victims.” If the perpetrator is our enemy, and there is political capital to be made from highlighting their crime, then the media will deem the victim “worthy” — especially if the victim is a pro-U.S. figure. If, however, you die at the hands of the U.S. or its allies, you can expect little sympathy or coverage from the press.

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said the ongoing ceasefire and prisoner negotiations exchange in Doha under Qatari and Egyptian mediators has faced a setback.

Hamas cited new conditions proposed by “Israel” related to their withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which has been an utmost priority for Hamas since the start of the aggression, as the reason for the delay.

“Israeli” also introduced new demands regarding the provisions of the ceasefire, captives, and the return of displaced Gazans to their homes.

The Houthis announced Wednesday that they had launched a ballistic missile toward central 'Israel', marking their second attack within 24 hours.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree stated that the missile, named "Palestine 2," targeted an 'Israeli' military site in Jaffa. He claimed the operation was successful.

An engine room explosion sank a Russian cargo ship called Ursa Major in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria and two of its crew are missing, the Russian foreign ministry has said.

The vessel, built in 2009, was controlled by Oboronlogistika, a company that is part of the Russian defence ministry’s military construction operations, which had previously said it was en route to the Russian far-eastern port of Vladivostok with two giant port cranes lashed to its deck.

The foreign ministry’s crisis centre said in a statement that 14 of the ship’s 16 crew members had been rescued and brought to Spain, but that two crew were still missing. It did not say what had caused the explosion.

Linke (The Left) party expelled with immediate effect Palestinian-German member and activist Ramsis Kilani for his vocal opposition to "Israel’s" ongoing genocide in Gaza. In doing so, it followed in the footsteps of the only other mainstream leftist party in the country, the Greens, in exhibiting the infamous Palestine exception to progressive politics.

Kilani, a self-described Marxist, called his expulsion "a sad commentary on a leftist, internationalist party", left-wing daily junge Welt (jw) reported. The decision made by the Landesschiedskommission, the party’s state-level arbitration body was damaging "to all of us who fight for universal human rights", the activist wrote on Instagram.

Katina Schubert, one of two members from the party’s right-wing who had brought forward the motion to expel Kilani denied that his Palestine solidarity activism had anything to do with the decision, saying that it was based on his "relativisation of Hamas terror, selective criticism of violence against women as a weapon of war and denial of "Israel’s" right to exist", the jw report went on to say.

In each of the companies, an internal culture developed that was largely shaped by junior commanders and charismatic soldiers. Initially, the norms instigated atrocities.

"A new commander came to us. We went out with him on the first patrol at six in the morning. He stops. There's not a soul in the streets, just a little 4-year-old boy playing in the sand in his yard.

The commander suddenly starts running, grabs the boy, and breaks his arm at the elbow and his leg here. Stepped on his stomach three times and left.

We all stood there with our mouths open. Looking at him in shock ... I asked the commander: "What's your story?" He told me: These kids need to be killed from the day they are born. When a commander does that, it becomes legit."

"I have no problem with women. One threw a slipper at me, so I gave her a kick here (pointing to the groin), broke all this here. She can't have children today."

"X shot an Arab four times in the back and got away with a self-defense claim. Four bullets in the back from a distance of ten meters ... cold-blooded murder. We did things like that every day."