Giles MacDonogh Profile picture
Mar 29 7 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
#NYTimes:

A possible compromise in Israel

A day after Benjamin Netanyahu announced a delay in efforts to weaken Israel’s judiciary, his government and the opposition in Parliament began the first direct negotiations to reach a compromise since the plan was introduced.
Emotions subsided after weeks of unrest.

Four government negotiators and eight opposition counterparts held a meeting hosted by Israel’s figurehead president, Isaac Herzog. Participants said the meeting was mainly procedural. But it was the first face-to-face negotiation
between MPs from the two sides on a dispute that has divided Israeli society more bitterly than any in recent memory.

The U.S. ambassador to Israel said that President Biden would invite Netanyahu to Washington and grant him a long-sought meeting in the coming months. The Biden
administration had avoided extending such an invitation in recent weeks, as officials grew increasingly concerned about the plan.

But even though the Biden administration signaled its support for the delay, it did not suggest a complete reset in relations.
The U.S. ambassador said that no date had been fixed, leaving open the possibility of a delay if Netanyahu pushes ahead with the plan.

Netanyahu’s proposal is overshadowing a speech Biden plans to give today at the White House-led Summit for Democracy.
The crisis is testing the U.S. stance on autocratic practices; opponents have called Israel’s proposal anti-democratic.

Netanyahu promised Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister for national security, that he would consider creating a national guard under his control.
Critics say that such a move would effectively place a paramilitary body under the control of a man convicted of racist incitement and support for a terrorist group.

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More from @GilesMacDonogh

Mar 31
#NYTimes:

Trump indicted

Donald Trump will be the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. A grand jury in New York City voted to indict him for his role in paying hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, people with knowledge of the
matter told The Times.

Trump’s surrender is expected on Tuesday. He will face arraignment, at which point the specific charges will be unsealed.

At Mar-a-Lago, Trump and his aides were caught off guard by the timing, my colleague Maggie Haberman reports. They thought any such
action was still weeks away and might not occur. Trump has consistently denied all wrongdoing.

The development will shake up the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump is a candidate: It’s uncertain if an indictment would rally Republican voters to Trump’s side — or erode his
Read 7 tweets
Mar 31
A French court has sentenced a Rwandan man to four years in jail for starting a fire that severely damaged a Gothic cathedral in the western city of Nantes in 2020.

On Wednesday, the court ruled that Emmanuel Abayisenga, a volunteer at the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul
was not mentally sound at the time of the fire, the AFP news agency reports.

In addition to the prison sentence, the court also banned Abayisenga from staying in the Loire-Atlantique region, where Nantes is located, for five years, and prohibited him from bearing arms.
Abayisenga is also facing legal action for a separate incident in which he allegedly killed a priest in western France in 2021.

He has reportedly asked unsuccessfully for asylum in France several times and in 2019 received a deportation order.

Prosecutors said the defendant
Read 5 tweets
Mar 30
An Irish friend has sent me a joke:

A Dublin man sees a sign outside a Kerry farmhouse:
'Talking Dog For Sale'... He rings the bell, the owner appears and tells him the dog can be viewed in the back garden

The man sees a nice looking Black Labrador Retriever sitting there
"Do you really talk?" He asks the dog.
"Yes!" The Labrador replies.
After recovering from the shock of hearing the dog talk, the man asks, "So, tell me your story!"
The Labrador looks up and says, "Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young.
I wanted to help the government, so I joined the Garda.
"In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world drug lords, because no one imagined that a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies
Read 6 tweets
Mar 30
#NYTimes:

Amsterdam’s tourist crackdown

The next time a British man between 18 and 35 searches for something like “pub crawl Amsterdam,” he may see an ad that bluntly tells him to “stay away.” The Dutch capital is trying to deter young British men from “coming to Amsterdam for
a messy night.” Ads warn that they could incur fines, criminal records or permanent damage to their health.

The campaign is part of a broader crackdown on rowdy tourists. Last month, Amsterdam introduced rules that banned smoking marijuana on the streets of the red-light
district and that required businesses to close by 3 a.m., three hours earlier than previously allowed. Cafes and restaurants must also close earlier, by 2 a.m.

But the Dutch capital is also fighting its own reputation: The city is known for marijuana and legal prostitution.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 29
#NYTimes
Russia’s eastern push levels city

In Avdiivka, a town in eastern Ukraine where just a few hundred people remain, the shelling barely stops. Residents hide in basements, as the thud of Russian artillery reverberates every minute or two. The assault is part of Russia’s
effort to capture the area around Bakhmut.

Russian efforts to capture Avdiivka began over a year ago, but the attempt to take the areas near Donetsk, the Russian-held regional capital, has recently intensified. The months-long advance has been slow — Russia has yet to capture
any major towns — but devastating. It has killed tens of thousands and reduced places to ruins.

My colleagues visited Avdiivka just hours before the Ukrainian military declared it off-limits and found it a wasteland. The top official there called it
Read 4 tweets
Apr 25, 2022
#NYTimes

Macron defeats Le Pen

In the second-round runoff of France’s election, Emmanuel Macron, the president, triumphed over Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, with a lead of about 17 percent points. In a solemn address, Macron said it was a victory for
“a more independent France and a stronger Europe.”

During the campaign, Le Pen was hostile to NATO, the U.S. and the E.U., as well as to the fundamental values that hold that no French citizens should be discriminated against because they are Muslim.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, said the result of the election reflected “the mobilisation of French people for the maintenance of their values and against a narrow vision of France.”

Le Pen, who conceded defeat, bitterly criticised the “brutal and violent methods”
Read 5 tweets

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