UN General Assembly overwhelmingly demands immediate Gaza ceasefire

The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted on Wednesday to demand an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the immediate release of all hostages.

The ceasefire demand in the resolution - adopted with 158 votes in favor in the 193-member assembly - was expressed in more urgent language than one urging an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza that the body "called for" in October 2023 then "demanded" in December 2023.

General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight, reflecting a global view on the war. The United States, Israel and seven other countries voted against the ceasefire resolution, while 13 countries abstained.

The world body also threw its support behind the U.N. Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, adopting a second resolution with 159 votes in favor to deplore a new Israeli law that will ban UNRWA's operations in Israel from late January.

It demanded that Israel respect UNRWA's mandate and "enable its operations to proceed without impediment or restriction." The U.S., Israel and seven other countries voted no, while 11 countries abstained.

"The messages we send to the world through these resolutions matter. And both of these resolutions have significant problems," Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood told the assembly.

"One rewards Hamas and downplays the need to release the hostages, and the other denigrates Israel without providing a path forward to increasing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians," he said.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon last week accused the U.N. of having "an obsession with vilifying Israel," while Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour described Gaza as the "open, painful wound for the human family."

'HUNGER, DESPAIR, DEATH'

Israel says UNRWA staff took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza. The U.N. has said nine UNRWA staffmay have been involved and had been fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon - killed by Israel - was also found to have had an UNRWA job.

"By voting for these resolutions, you are not voting to protect humanitarian values, but to protect an organization that has become a haven for terror," Danon told the assembly on Wednesday before the vote.

UNRWA was established by the General Assembly in 1949 following the war surrounding the founding of Israel. The U.N. has repeatedly said there is no alternative to UNRWA, which provides aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

"Gaza doesn't exist anymore. It is destroyed. Palestinians are facing hunger, despair and death," Slovenia's U.N. Ambassador Samuel Zbogar told the assembly. "There is no reason for this war to continue. We need a ceasefire now. We need to bring hostages home now."

The war in the Palestinian enclave began after Hamas gunmen on Oct. 7, 2023, stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages back to Hamas-run Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israel's military has leveled swathes of Gaza, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing more than 44,800 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Trump criticizes Ukraine's use of US missiles for attacks deep into Russia

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump criticized Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied missiles for attacks deep into Russian territory in a Time magazine interview published on Thursday, comments that suggest he could alter U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

"It's crazy what's taking place. It's crazy. I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We're just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done," Trump said in an interview to mark his being named Time's Person of the Year.

President Joe Biden last month lifted the U.S. ban on Ukraine using U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia, his latest attempt to boost Kyiv in its battle to repel a Russian invasion force from his country.

The decision came after pleas from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The White House cited Russia's deployment of 15,000 North Korean troops along the battlefront as the main reason why Biden changed his mind.

Trump has said he would like to bring a quick end to the nearly three-year-old war but has been cagey on the details. He told Time he had a "very good plan" to help but that if he reveals it now "it becomes almost a worthless plan."

Pressed on whether he would abandon Ukraine, Trump said: "I want to reach an agreement, and the only way you're going to reach an agreement is not to abandon."

He said the entry of North Korean troops into the picture was a "very complicating factor."

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, met last weekend with Zelenskiy and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. Trump's promise to end the conflict swiftly has raised concerns in Kyiv that it could be largely on Moscow's terms.

Sources told Reuters that Zelenskiy used the meeting to explain Ukraine's need for security guarantees in any negotiated end to the war with Russia. He has long sought NATO membership.

Trump told Time that the number of people dying in the conflict, especially in the last month, was "staggering."

"I'm talking on both sides. It’s really an advantage to both sides to get this thing done," he said.

Asked whether he would cut U.S. military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine if Kyiv did not agree to a peace deal, Trump said, "I think I have a very good plan to help, but when I start exposing that plan, it becomes almost a worthless plan."

The war is entering what some Russian and Western officials say could be its final and most dangerous phase as Moscow's forces advance at their fastest pace since the early weeks of the conflict.

Russia fired a hypersonic ballistic missile known as the Oreshnik at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21. President Vladimir Putin cast the move as a response to Ukraine's first use of U.S. ATACMs ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows to strike Russian territory with Western permission.

Washington says more deliveries of U.S. air defense exports to Ukraine are on the way to the country.

The United States last Saturday unveiled a $988 million aid package of new arms and equipment to Ukraine.

Asked whether he had spoken to Putin since his election, Trump declined to answer, saying, "I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. It’s just inappropriate."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Trump wants EU to send troops to Ukraine – WSJ

US President-elect Donald Trump has proposed that EU members send peacekeepers to Ukraine to monitor a ceasefire with Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Trump ran for the White House on the promise of negotiating a swift end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but has been reluctant to reveal any specifics of his actual proposal since winning the election.

Speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last Saturday, Trump argued that “Europe”should play the main role in monitoring a ceasefire and that no US troops would be involved, the Journal reported, citing “officials briefed on the meeting.”

The Journal’s sources claimed that the proposal “started as quiet discussions between British and French officials about the possibility”before including Trump, Zelensky and other governments.

According to one source, Trump also pushed the EU to demand of China to pressure Russia to end the conflict, suggesting the use of tariffs as leverage.

Discussions are still at such an early stage, according to the Journal, that the questions of which countries would be involved, with how many troops, and any US role in supporting the mission remain unresolved.

The hypothetical peacekeeping or monitoring mission in Ukraine would not be under NATO command but would involve troops from member countries of the US-led bloc, according to the unnamed officials, who admitted this was something they were not sure Russia would accept.

It was likewise unclear whether Washington’s European allies would be able to spare the actual soldiers or have the political support at home for such a mission.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has invited the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland to meet with Zelensky in Brussels to discuss security guarantees for Kiev, two officials told the Journal.

According to unnamed aides, however, Trump is not “wedded” to any particular plan for ending the conflict and “hasn’t thought deeply about the issue” as he prepares the handover of power on January 20.

Russia has repeatedly said that Ukraine’s association with NATO would be a threat to its national security. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has described Ukraine’s membership in the bloc as “categorically unacceptable” to Moscow, citing it as one of the major causes of the current conflict.

Reuters/RT

The news from Ghana was not how John Dramani Mahama’s opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), defeated Nana Akufo-Addo’s ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The news was how Akufo-Addo managed to survive a full second term. Towards the end of his first and for much of his second term in office, he governed with his head on the block, just waiting for the axe to fall.

His party’s loss in the December 7 presidential election was a defeat foretold. It was barely two years after Akufo-Addo assumed office in 2017 when doubts about his party’s viability began to surface. It shouldn’t have been so.

His predecessor, the John Atta-Mills/Dramani government, made such a mess. Apart from divisions within the NDC, it was further weakened by a series of serious corruption scandals, the most remarkable of which were the government’s involvement in the transfer of $11 million and £9 million paid by a party financier and a litany of failed promises.

Dramani’s loss to Akufo-Addo relieved the loser, who only managed to finish Atta-Mills’ term after the latter died in office.

Hero to zero

As I wrote in a 2022 article, Akufo-Addo was off to a flying start. From New York to Beijing and Paris, he became the new face of the African Renaissance, saying the right things wherever he went on the global stage and raising a $3 billion Eurobond for Ghana’s restructuring that overperformed its order book by $21 billion.

Despite his best efforts, Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine War put Ghana in a tight spot. The country’s predicament was worsened by poor fiscal discipline, unstable commodity prices, and a capitulation to pressure from Labour to increase public sector wages to unsustainable levels.

Akufo-Addo’s party paid upfront for the country’s misery. Multiple protests rocked the streets of Accra and other major capitals, and voters couldn’t wait to bury the NPP with any remaining claims of good deeds at the polls.

Beyond elections

However, the election meant something more for the subregion than about angry and tired Ghanaian voters removing an incumbent government.

In the last four years, the subregion has been plagued by military coups reminiscent of a bygone era. Mali, Niger, Guinea and Burkina Faso have formed an arc of Delinquent States, with three of them sundering the decades-old Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by creating a parallel Alliance for Sahelian States in defiance of the regional powerhouses and even the AU.

Successful elections and transitions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana have offered a counter-narrative. It’s all the more heartening that the ruling party’s candidate in the election, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, did not wait for the official result before conceding defeat, reinforcing a trend started in 2015 by Nigeria’s former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Job for powerhouses

The successful transition is good news for regional economic stability. Although the four break-away states constitute half of the ECOWAS area and only seven percent of economic activity within the zone, the economic sanctions imposed on them by the subregional group impacted swathes of the primarily poor populations across the region, where informal cross-border trade, mainly in food, make up about 30 percent of regional trade.

Stable transitions in Ghana and Nigeria, the region’s two economic powerhouses, would allow ECOWAS to reassess its options – a significant point in the agenda as the sub-regional group meets in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, this week.

Delinquent Four on the agenda

Should ECOWAS continue to engage the breakaway states in its efforts at faster regional integration, especially in light of the fragile relations between these states and France, in an era where Russia and China are lurking and the US is self-absorbed? Or has the time come for the group to chart a new course and accept a future without the four breakaway states?

That would not only be an economic decision. It also carries significance for subregional security. Burkina Faso and Mali are out of the ECOWAS multinational joint task force. Protracted or failed elections in Ghana would have further weakened the group’s crisis response mechanism at a time when Nigerian military authorities are grappling with new security threats from Lakurawa, an ISIS franchise.

It's unlikely that the new government in Accra, on the watch of Mahama, one of the mediators during the post-election dispute in The Gambia in 2016, would depart significantly from the leading role that Ghana has played in subregional peace support operations, which goes back to its role in ECOMOG in the 1990s.

Go to court!

At a more granular level, there are other reasons why Ghana’s election matters, especially in relations between Abuja and Accra. Already, the commentariat in Nigeria is holding up Ghana’s election as a model for the election management body in Nigeria. Apart from former President Jonathan’s pre-emptive concession of defeat nine years ago, Nigeria is perhaps the continent’s capital of disputed elections.

Of course, Nigeria’s election management body needs to raise its game. Fundamentally, however, the chaos reflects the winner-takes-all mentality among Nigeria’s political elite, which has increasingly seduced the courts to decide elections. Often, when Nigerian politicians taunt their opponent to “go to court” after an election, they are confident of a favourable outcome.

Ghanaian Jollof

Nigerians also envy Ghana’s rise as the new destination for big business, a prospect that could only have been enhanced by the smooth election. Despite Ghana's economic crisis, Nigeria has lost several fintech and manufacturing companies to its western neighbour in the last three years.

Guinness, for example, has moved its operational headquarters to Accra, while others, such as Afprint, President Industries and Aswani – all in the textile sector – are reportedly contemplating relocation. Because of Ghana’s stable and predictable political environment, tech giants, including Google, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook, have not hidden their preference for it despite Nigeria’s significant market size.

Whether, apart from its business attraction, Ghanaian jollof would also best Nigeria’s jollof in the unending cuisine war between both countries in the next four years under Mahama remains to be seen.

Voters’ psyche

If there’s anything that the outcome of Ghana’s election teaches, even beyond the subregion, it is that voters don’t forgive politicians who leave them feeling worse off. You may have saved them from Covid-19, the fallouts of global conflicts elsewhere, or the headwinds afterwards. However, what weighs on their mind when they cast their ballot is whether they’re feeling better off today.

That was why Rishi Sunak lost to Keir Starmer in Britain, and Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump in the US. It was also why Akufo-Addo survived his second term by the skin of his teeth but failed to handover the baton to his deputy in Ghana.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It.

In the days since Luigi Mangione was charged with murder for gunning down a top health insurance executive, more than a thousand donations have poured into an online fundraiser for his legal defense, with messages supporting him and even celebrating the crime.

In New York, "Wanted" posters with the faces of CEOs have appeared on walls. Websites are selling Mangione merchandise, including hats with "CEO Hunter" printed across a bullseye. And some social media users have swooned over his smile and six-pack abs.

Mangione has been charged with murder for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a father of two, in a brazen shooting on Dec. 4 outside a Manhattan hotel before an industry conference, setting off a five-day manhunt for the masked assailant.

The crime he is accused of has been broadly condemned, but the Ivy League educated, photogenic 26-year-old has become an unsettling mixture of folk hero, celebrity, and online crush in certain circles. His support has only seemingly intensified since his arrest on Monday.

Most of the messages on the crowd-sourced fundraising site GiveSendGo reflect a deep frustration shared by many Americans over the U.S. healthcare system - where some treatments and reimbursements can be denied to patients depending on their insurance coverage - as well as broader anger over rising income inequality and soaring executive pay.

"Denying healthcare coverage to people is murder, but no one gets charged with that crime," one donor wrote, calling the killing a "justifiable homicide."

Several others simply wrote, "Deny, Defend, Depose" – the words reportedly written on the shell casings found at the murder scene and intended to invoke tactics some accuse insurers of using to avoid paying out claims.

More than $31,000 had been raised as of Wednesday on GiveSendGo alone.

Felipe Rodriguez, a former NYPD detective sergeant, expressed dismay at the reaction.

"They've made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies," said Rodriguez, now an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "I mean, who hasn't had run-ins with their insurance? But he's a stone-cold killer."

Mangione is being held in Pennsylvania on gun and forgery charges while prosecutors in New York seek his extradition. His lawyer said he plans to plead not guilty to the Pennsylvania charges.

FRUSTRATION AND ANGER

On Wednesday, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said police have matched a gun found on Mangione with the shell casings recovered at the scene and his fingerprints with a water bottle and energy bar wrapper found nearby.

Other evidence includes handwritten documents found in his possession casting his alleged crime as a legitimate response to what he viewed as corporate greed, some media outlets have reported.

Mangione lashed out himself on Tuesday as he was led into a courthouse, shouting in part, "...completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people!"

Americans pay more for health care than residents of any other country, and data shows spending on insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs, pharmaceuticals and hospital services has all increased over the last five years.

Health insurers like UnitedHealth most often manage health benefits on behalf of employers and the government, which have a say in what services and drugs are covered.

Mangione suffered from chronic back pain that impacted his daily life, according to friends and social media posts, though it is unclear whether his personal health played a role in the shooting.

"It's hard to underestimate the anger and angst people have with their insurance companies," said David Shapiro, a former FBI agent and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Shapiro said he had never seen anything like the reaction to Mangione, but added: "It's not so farfetched given the mood of the country and the ease of cheering this anonymously on the Internet."

On TikTok, users shared videos and photos of Mangione's outburst with messages of praise, such as "this man is an absolute legend" and "class consciousness is rising."

Several sites were selling T-shirts bearing his face with messages such as "FREE LUIGI" and "In This House, Luigi Mangione Is A Hero, End of Story." Others sold hats with the phrase "Don't Deny My Coverage."

'DEEPLY DISTURBING'

Support was by no means universal, however.

Several commentators on social media noted Mangione's privileged background as a member of a prominent Baltimore, Maryland family, as compared to Thompson's working class upbringing in rural Iowa, and said the murder was an example of how anti-capitalist rhetoric can incite violence. Others described how their health insurance plans paid for life-saving treatment.

On Wednesday, UnitedHealth Group Inc CEO Andrew Witty sent employees a letter praising Thompson. "Brian was one of the good guys," he wrote. "I'm going to miss him. And I am incredibly proud to call him my friend."

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro condemned those valorizing Mangione on Monday, calling the response "deeply disturbing."

"In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint," he said.

At a panel at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York on Wednesday, executives from Pfizer and Amazon said health care companies are taking a step back to better understand patients' experiences.

"Our health system needs to be better ... There's a lot of things that should cause a lot of outrage," Amazon Pharmacy Chief Medical Officer Vin Gupta said. "It's also true that (the killing) should not have happened. There cannot be this false moral equivalence in our discourse."

Reuters

The World Bank has highlighted Nigeria's ongoing struggle with institutional corruption, emphasizing the critical need for comprehensive reforms to drive sustainable national development.

During a recent policy dialogue hosted by Agora Policy and MacArthur Foundation, key stakeholders delivered a stark assessment of corruption's devastating impact on Nigeria's potential. World Bank Country Director Ndiamé Diop underscored the systemic challenges, particularly in fiscal transparency and data management.

"Our current data systems are riddled with manual processes that create opportunities for leakage," Diop explained. "Genuine transparency requires accurate, reliable data – something Nigeria has yet to consistently achieve."

MacArthur Foundation's Africa Director Kole Shettima was equally direct, stating that corruption has systematically undermined Nigeria's future. "Corruption has robbed our youth of opportunity and denied fundamental necessities like infrastructure and education," he said.

Adele Jinadu, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Development, described the situation as a moral crisis. "We seem to have lost our ethical compass," Jinadu observed. "The abuse of power has reached unprecedented levels of impunity."

The experts collectively called for sweeping reforms, including:

- Restructuring the political recruitment process

- Strengthening institutional frameworks

- Reforming the judicial system

- Enhancing anti-corruption mechanisms

Their message was clear: without addressing institutional corruption, Nigeria cannot realize its full economic and social potential.

Nigerians were once again plunged into darkness on Wednesday, December 11, 2024, as the country’s power grid collapsed for the 12th time this year. The latest outage occurred around 1:33 p.m. due to a system disturbance that led to a total loss of power supply across multiple states. This incident comes just a month after the national grid experienced a similar breakdown in November.

According to reports from electricity distribution companies, the collapse was caused by a failure in the transmission lines, often attributed to issues such as over or under-frequency in the system. As of 2 p.m. on Wednesday, all power plants were down, with the grid failing to produce any electricity despite a combined output of approximately 3,087 megawatts earlier in the day.

Several distribution companies, including Jos Electricity Distribution Company (Jos Disco), Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), and Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), confirmed the outage. In statements issued to customers, they cited the loss of power supply from the national grid as the reason for the widespread outage.

The Jos Disco expressed hope that normal power supply would be restored once the grid supply was back to normal, while EKEDC assured customers that it was working with partners to restore the grid as quickly as possible. AEDC also confirmed the system disturbance and informed customers that gradual restoration of power had already begun.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which operates the national grid, has yet to issue an official statement regarding the cause of the outage or provide a timeline for full restoration.

This latest grid collapse highlights ongoing challenges in Nigeria’s power sector, including issues with electricity policy, regulatory uncertainty, gas supply, and transmission constraints. Despite efforts to improve the power sector, Nigerians continue to face frequent and widespread power outages, raising concerns about the stability and reliability of the national grid.

The United States Embassy in Nigeria has announced a significant overhaul of its immigrant visa application procedure, requiring Nigerian applicants to complete two mandatory in-person visits to the Lagos Consulate General starting January 1, 2025.

Under the new directive, applicants will now navigate a more structured visa application process designed to streamline documentation and reduce processing delays. The embassy outlined two critical stages for immigrant visa candidates:

First Visit: In-Person Document Review

Applicants must first undergo a comprehensive document verification with a consular staff member. This initial screening allows candidates to identify and retrieve any missing documentation before their formal visa interview, potentially preventing future application complications.

Second Visit: Formal Visa Interview

The second mandatory visit will be the actual visa interview, conducted by a Consular officer. The National Visa Center will schedule this critical appointment, with a clear warning that failure to complete the initial document review could result in interview rescheduling.

"This new process is designed to help applicants prepare thoroughly and prevent significant delays in immigrant visa processing," the embassy stated in its official announcement.

The changes reflect the embassy's commitment to improving administrative efficiency and reducing bureaucratic obstacles for Nigerian visa applicants. By implementing a two-step verification process, the US Embassy aims to create a more transparent and predictable immigration application experience.

Applicants are advised to carefully review the new requirements and ensure they have all necessary documentation before scheduling their visits to the Lagos Consulate General.

The Israeli Jews who spied for Iran in biggest infiltration in decades

Israel's arrest of almost 30 mostly Jewish citizens who allegedly spied for Iran in nine covert cells has caused alarm in the country and points to Tehran's biggest effort in decades to infiltrate its arch foe, four Israeli security sources said.

Among the unfulfilled goals of the alleged cells was the assassination of an Israeli nuclear scientist and former military officials, while one group gathered information on military bases and air defences, security service Shin Bet has said. Last week, the agency and Israel's police said a father and son team had passed on details of Israeli force movements including in the Golan Heights where they lived.

The arrests follow repeated efforts by Iranian intelligence operatives over the past two years to recruit ordinary Israelis to gather intelligence and carry out attacks in exchange for money, the four serving and former military and security officials said.

The sources asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

"There is a large phenomenon here," said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former top Shin Bet official, referring to what he called the surprising number of Jewish citizens who knowingly agreed to work for Iran against the state with intelligence gathering or planning sabotage and attacks.

Shin Bet and the police did not respond to requests for comment. Iran's foreign ministry did not respond to questions.

In a statement sent to media after the wave of arrests, Iran’s U.N. mission did not confirm or deny seeking to recruit Israelis and said that "from a logical standpoint" any such efforts by Iranian intelligence services would focus on non-Iranian and non-Muslim individuals to lessen suspicion.

At least two suspects were from Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, police and the Shin Bet have said.

Unlike Iranian espionage operations in previous decades that recruited a high-profile businessman and a former cabinet minister, the new alleged spies were largely people on the fringes of Israeli society, including recent immigrants, an army deserter and a convicted sex offender, conversations with the sources, court records and official statements show.

Much of their activity was limited to spraying anti-Netanyahu or anti-government graffiti on walls and damaging cars, Shin Bet has said.

Nonetheless, the scale of the arrests and involvement of so many Jewish Israelis, in addition to Arab citizens, has caused concern in Israel at a time it remains at war with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and that a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah remains fragile.

Shin Bet on Oct. 21 said the espionage activities were "among the most severe the state of Israel has known."

The arrests also follow a wave of attempted hits and kidnappings linked to Tehran in Europe and the United States.

The unusual decision to provide detailed public accounts of the alleged plots was a move by Israel's security services to signal both to Iran and potential saboteurs inside Israel that they would be caught, Ben Hanan said.

"You want to alert the public. And you also want to make an example of people that may also have intentions or plans to co-operate with the enemy," he said.

Israel has achieved major intelligence successes over the past few years in a shadow war with its regional foe, including allegedly killing a top nuclear scientist. With the recent arrests Israel has "so far" thwarted Tehran's efforts to respond, one active military official said.

Iran has been weakened by Israel's attacks on its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the related fall of Tehran's ally, former president Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

SOCIAL MEDIA RECRUITS

Iranian intelligence agencies often find potential recruits on social media platforms, Israeli police said in a video released in November warning of ongoing infiltration attempts.

The recruiting efforts are at times direct. One message sent to an Israeli civilian and seen by Reuters promised $15,000 in exchange for information, with an email and number to call.

Iran has also approached expatriate networks of Jews from Caucasus countries living in Canada and the United States, said one of the sources, a former senior official who worked on Israel's counter espionage efforts until 2007.

Israeli authorities have said publicly some of the Jewish suspects were originally from Caucasus countries.

Recruited individuals are first assigned innocuous-seeming tasks in return for money, before handlers gradually demand specific intelligence on targets, including about individuals and sensitive military infrastructure, backed by the threat of blackmail, said the former official.

One Israeli suspect, Vladislav Victorsson, 30, was arrested on Oct. 14 along with his 18-year-old girlfriend in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. He had been jailed in 2015 for sex with minors as young as 14, according to a court indictment from that time.

An acquaintance of Victorsson told Reuters he had told her he had spoken to Iranians using the Telegram messaging app. She said that Victorsson had lied to his handlers about his military experience. The acquaintance declined to be named, citing safety fears.

Igal Dotan, Victorsson's lawyer, told Reuters he was representing the suspect, adding that the legal process would take time and that his client was being held in tough conditions. Dotan said he could only respond to the current case and had not defended Victorsson in earlier trials.

Shin Bet and police said Victorsson knew he was working for Iranian intelligence, carrying out tasks including spraying graffiti, hiding money, posting flyers and burning cars in the Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv for which he received over $5,000.

According to the investigation made public by the security services, he was found to have subsequently agreed to carry out an assassination of an Israeli personality, throw a grenade into a house and also look to obtain a sniper rifle, pistols and fragmentation grenades.

He recruited his girlfriend, who was tasked with recruiting homeless people to photograph demonstrations, the security services said.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia vows response after Ukraine used US-made ATACMS to strike airfield

Russia said on Wednesday that Ukraine had struck a military airfield on the Azov Sea with six U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles, a move that could prompt Moscow to launch another experimental intermediate-range hypersonic missile at Ukraine.

Russia's defence ministry said two of the missiles fired by Ukraine were shot down by a Pantsir missile defence system and the rest were destroyed by electronic warfare.

"On the morning of December 11, 2024, the Kyiv regime launched a missile strike with Western precision weapons at the Taganrog military airfield in the Rostov region," the defence ministry said.

"This attack by Western long-range weapons will not go unanswered and appropriate measures will be taken," it said.

Russia fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as "Oreshnik", or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine on Nov. 21 in what President Vladimir Putin said was a direct response to strikes on Russia by Ukrainian forces with U.S. and British missiles.

A U.S. official said on Wednesday that Russia could launch another hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine in the coming days, but Washington does not consider the Oreshnik weapon a game-changer in the war.

After approval from the administration of President Joe Biden, Ukraine struck Russia with six U.S.-made ATACMS on Nov. 19 and with British Storm Shadow missiles and U.S.-made HIMARS on Nov. 21.

Putin, after those attacks, said that the Ukraine war was escalating towards a global conflict after the United States and Britain allowed Ukraine to hit Russia with their weapons, and warned the West that Moscow could strike back.

The war is entering what some Russian and Western officials say could be its final and most dangerous phase as Moscow's forces advance at their fastest pace since the early weeks of the conflict.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office next month, has pushed for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war quickly, leaving Washington's long-term support for Ukraine in question.

Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Zelensky rejected Christmas ceasefire – Orban

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has rejected a proposed Christmas ceasefire and a large-scale prisoner swap with Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday. 

Orban made the remarks on X in response to a post by Zelensky criticizing a phone conversation between the Hungarian leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier that day. 

“At the end of the Hungarian EU Presidency, we made new efforts for peace. We proposed a Christmas ceasefire and a large-scale prisoner exchange. It’s sad that [Zelensky] clearly rejected and ruled this out today. We did what we could!” Orban wrote. 

Zelensky accused Orban of merely seeking to “boost personal image”with his diplomatic efforts and mockingly expressed hopes that the Hungarian leader “at least won’t call [former Syrian President Bashar] Assad in Moscow to listen to his hour-long lectures as well.” 

“No one should boost personal image at the expense of unity; everyone should focus on shared success. Unity in Europe has always been key to achieving it. There can be no discussions about the war that Russia wages against Ukraine without Ukraine,”Zelensky wrote.

Shortly after the social media exchange, Dmitry Litvin, an aide to Zelensky, flatly denied that any contacts between Kiev and Budapest on a proposed Christmas ceasefire and prisoner swap took place, effectively suggesting that Orban was not telling the truth.

“As always, Ukraine has not authorized Hungary to do anything. As always, Ukraine is working on a daily basis to free prisoners, and for two weeks now, relevant contacts have been ongoing regarding a significant exchange by the end of the year,” Litvin told Ukrainian media.

The aide also appeared to echo claims made by Zelensky about Orban’s true motives, stating that Ukraine needs “not PR, but a fair peace, and not blabber, but reliable security guarantees.”

Reuters/RT

Contrary to assertions by some so-called experts who have been prattling all week that Dele Farotimi wrote what he could not logically substantiate in his book Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, this was a pre-meditated confrontation. Having depleted the legal means to get justice, he wrote to re-litigate the case in the court of public opinion. He seems calculatedly driven by the Yoruba proverb that says no one dies at the same spot they uttered blasphemy. In the time between your speaking and being punished, much can happen to change social dynamics. From the potpourri of events in the past week, Farotimi got what he wanted. One cannot say the same for Afe Babalola who, by now, would have realised that giving a traducer what they want is not the most prudent battle move. My reading is that Farotimi knew Babalola’s peculiar weakness and worked it to advantage. I will get to that momentarily.

The blowback from this case is another instance that hopefully teaches our elites to rein in their tendency to exploit the warped Nigerian justice system that allows criminal defamation as a legal recourse. Criminal defamation might be legal, but it is unjust. It is a law that exists to regulate the differentials of power and access, one of the many ways rich people further privatise public resources. Since lawmakers are too compromised to expunge the law and law enforcers incapable of the reflexivity that will enlighten them on the stupidity of using state resources to fight an individual over another’s integrity, the best we can do for now is pressure the entitled “big man” not to take that path. In a criminal case, the prosecutor investigates to convict. The Nigerian police, perennially short of resources, spares no expense when sent to prosecute criminal defamation on behalf of another narcissist. Why should the state do that on behalf of an ordinary individual? Babalola, especially, is a man of ample resources, who can afford to fight for his reputation on his own dime.

So, on Friday, Babalola’s legal team held a press conference in Ado Ekiti. Among several things, the lead lawyer Owoseni Ajayi said was: “Those pushing Farotimi are not his friends. By the time they led him to the dungeon, he would realise they were deceiving him. Let me advise his family members to apologise to Aare. Aare Babalola is a builder, not interested in destroying Farotimi.” I was intrigued by what he said it takes for them to call off the police hounds. If someone injured your reputation, and that reputation is truly worth the price you placed on it, why would you not be interested in watching them destroyed? Why would Ajayi, so sure of their victory that he boldly asserted that the only possible conclusion to the case is the dungeon, want to settle for the cheap spectacle of Farotimi’s family members with their clasped hands rolling on the floor and begging?

What sealed the picture for me was an article by Kenneth Ikonne where he, like Ajayi, also urged Farotimi to go “beg” Babalola. According to Ikonne, he had won a preliminary objection against Babalola’s suit—which a lawyer is supposed to do, right? —but he was so intimidated by his own victory against the legal giant that he had to go beg Babalola. While Ikonne’s adulating article drips with flattery, it also unwittingly reveals a kabiyesi-complex. It is an attitude that revels in watching other humans’ heads perpetually bowed in servile reverence so they can repay your self-denigration with overwhelming niceness. Babalola seems like a man who likes to be liked, an attitude is consistently weakening because you must always play nice. Please note that there is a vast difference between being nice because you are a decent human and niceness as manipulation, a means to seduce others into becoming your subject. People of the latter category will take you to the top of the pinnacle, show you the extent of their power and glory, and nicely offer you a portion if only you would bend obsequious knees before them. If you refuse, they will then kick your calves until you fall on your face.

Babalola is so used to a world where junior lawyers who defeat him in court still come to his Ado Ekiti palace to prostrate before him that Farotimi’s boldness to confront him must have been jarring. He resorted to his standard weapons of warfare, but as he must have also found out in the past week, the battle terrain has changed. Even if he wins the case, what will be the social value of a reputation held up by the courts? If Farotimi begs him as his lawyer and others have enjoined, what is done cannot be undone.

However, this goes down, I commend Farotimi’s boldness. We all agree that the Nigerian judiciary is rotten, but the logic of producing rational evidence has made it virtually impossible to progress beyond merely abstract observations. Until we begin to mention names and point accusing fingers at specific people, the issues will remain intractable. Statistically, Nigerian judges and magistrates are the highest receivers of bribes in 2023, beating even the Customs/Immigration! This is according to the NBS. Those who facilitated these transactions are not ghosts. We have all been witnesses to the several instances where retiring judges have severely deplored the rot in the judiciary. It is amusing to see some people pretending Farotimi revealed what they did not already know.

Our society maintains an overly reverential attitude toward people who have money and power, and are elderly. When a person combines all three, we are virtually cowed before their almighty presence. Otherwise, why can we not ask, if defamation is an offence that supposedly lessens someone’s reputational worth, what exactly would constitute it in the case of persons who have practised law in morally decrepit and with progressively weakened institutions like Nigeria for 60-plus years? Which of the atrocities that presently bedevils the country does not have the hands of the so-called learned class in it? This is not to disparage the legal profession or caricature lawyers, but we cannot talk about what is wrong with Nigeria today without the role lawyers have played in vandalising the temple of justice. From the so-called “legal luminaries” who—through endless frivolous election petitions—rendered democracy incoherent to the ones with the “SAN” appendage to their names who fraternise with politicians, they remade the country in their amoral image.

We were all here when a partner in the firm of a high-profile lawyer solicited the client of another, saying their principal’s political influence would “significantly switch things in favour” of the prospective client. While that woman was disowned and eventually debarred, it was a moment of self-revelation as to how the justice system operates. Big names in the legal system do not necessarily correspond with a deep knowledge of the law. It just means they know which judge to buy and which string to pull. We witnessed a lawmaker publicly admitting that his judge’s wife helped his colleagues win their various cases. In a serious country, every case that a woman adjudicated would have been recalled and scrutinised, but this is Nigeria. Nothing ever happens here. This is the utterly compromised ecosystem in which Babalola has practised law and thrived to the point he built a magnificent university. He was also a lawyer and confidant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose administration reputation was thoroughly corrupt. Nobody, not even the staunchest of his defenders, has said of Farotimi’s allegations that “it cannot possibly be true”.  What they all say is, “It cannot be proven,” and that is telling enough.

Given the contradictions of his profession, Babalola should have been circumspect enough to not jump into a public contest over his reputation. He seems to me like a man who has invested in being nice just so that he would not be remembered as a villain in Nigeria’s story. Now he is no longer the man with the carefully curated legacy who set out to redeem his image but the one who proved his critic right.

Punch