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 @ISIDEWITHNewsElectionPro-Democracy ProtestsAlgeriaAbdulmadjid TebbouneVoter Turnout•••3mos ago

Algerian President Tebboune Eyes Second Term Amid Voter Apathy

Algerians headed to the polls on Saturday with President Abdulmadjid Tebboune, backed by the military, widely anticipated to secure a second term. Despite the competition from Abdelali Hassani Cherif of the Islamist MSP party and Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front, early turnout figures indicated a lack of enthusiasm among the electorate. This election comes five years after pro-democracy protests led to the military's removal of the then-president, marking a critical juncture in Algeria's political landscape. However, the low voter turnout suggests a possible disconnect between the political establishment and the Algerian populace.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…6 days6D

Trump Appoints Controversial Covid Critic Bhattacharya To National Institute of Health

President Trump announces the nomination of Dr Bhattacharya to Director of the National Institutes of Health.Bhattacharya has called for shifting the agency’s focus toward funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving career officials, among other ideas.Trump earlier this month selected Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH and other health agencies. Kennedy has played a central role in choosing top health-care staff and deputies for the next administration, including Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and writer whom Trump announced to lead the Food and Drug Administration, and Dave Weldon, an internal medicine physician and former GOP congressman whom Trump selected to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Bhattacharya emerged as a prominent critic of the federal government’s covid-19 response, co-writing an October 2020 open letter known as the Great Barrington Declaration that called for rolling back coronavirus-related shutdowns while keeping “focused protections” for vulnerable populations, such as older Americans. The proposal won support from Republican politicians and some Americans eager to resume daily life but was rebuked by public health experts, including then-NIH Director Francis S. Collins, as premature and dangerous as the covid-19 virus continued to spread and vaccines were not yet available.Bhattacharya has called for rolling back the power of some of the 27 institutes and centers that constitute NIH, saying that some career civil servants wrongly shaped national policies at the height of the pandemic and did not tolerate dissent. Bhattacharya and other critics have singled out Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious-disease expert who led one of NIH’s centers for 38 years and helped steer the nation’s coronavirus response before leaving the federal government in December 2022.Trump Appoints Controversial Covid Critic Bhattacharya To NIH

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…6 days6D

Netanyahu Shifts Focus to Iran After Cease-Fire with Hezbollah

Israel approved a cease-fire with Lebanon that is intended to bring a halt to more than a year of fighting with the Hezbollah militia and could help defuse a broader regional crisis that has threatened to ensnare the U.S. and other world powers.“I have some good news to report from the Middle East,” President Biden said on Tuesday, announcing a cease-fire that he said would begin at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the agreement earlier in the day, saying it would let Israel focus on the threat from Iran, allow the Israeli military to rest and rearm, and isolate Hamas.“The continuation of the cease-fire will be dependent on what happens in Lebanon. We will enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to every violation,” Netanyahu said.Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, welcomed the agreement, saying it would bring “calm and stability in Lebanon and the return of the displaced to their homes and cities.”The Lebanese cabinet is expected to meet on Wednesday to approve steps to enforce the cease-fire, including sending government security forces to areas of southern Lebanon near the border with Israel.Hezbollah has indicated openness to a deal in recent days. “What concerns us are Lebanese national measures and the protection of sovereignty,” Hassan Fadlallah, a member of Parliament affiliated with the group, told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.The announcements came after a day of heavy bombardment of Beirut while Israeli ground forces advanced deeper into Lebanese territory. Minutes after Biden spoke, a series of explosions thundered in Beirut. Northern Israel also came under renewed rocket fire.There was no immediate public comment from Hezbollah on the announced cease-fire.If implemented, the agreement would be a diplomatic success for Biden in the twilight of his administration, after more than a year in which the White House has tried to fend off the possibility of a wider regional war. It could also change the landscape that President-elect Donald Trump will face when he takes office in January.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…6 days6D

Mexico Slams U.S. Policies as Trump Renews Border War

President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Tuesday that Mexico could retaliate with tariffs of its own, after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% import duties on Mexican goods if the country doesn’t stop the flow of drugs and migrants across the border.Sheinbaum said she was willing to engage in talks on the issues, but said drugs were a U.S. problem.“One tariff would be followed by another in response, and so on until we put at risk common businesses,” Sheinbaum said, referring to U.S. automakers that have plants on both sides of the border.She said Tuesday that Mexico had done a lot to stem the flow of migrants, noting “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border.” However, Mexico’s efforts to fight drugs like the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl — which is manufactured by Mexican cartels using chemicals imported from China — have weakened in the last year.Sheinbaum said Mexico suffered from an influx of weapons smuggled in from the United States, and said the flow of drugs “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society.”Sheinbaum also criticized U.S. spending on weapons, saying the money should instead be spent regionally to address the problem of migration. “If a percentage of what the United States spends on war were dedicated to peace and development, that would address the underlying causes of migration,” she said.Sheinbaum’s bristly response suggests that Trump faces a much different Mexican president than he did in his first term.Back in late 2018, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was a charismatic, old-school politician who developed a chummy relationship with Trump. The two were eventually able to strike a bargain in which Mexico helped keep migrants away from the border — and received other countries’ deported migrants — and Trump backed down on the threats.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…17hrs17H

Biden will issue a pardon of his son Hunter Biden

President Joe Biden has decided to issue a pardon for his son Hunter and is expected to announce it Sunday night, according to a senior White House official with direct knowledge of the decision.The decision marks a reversal for the president, who has repeatedly said he would not use his executive authority to pardon his son or commute his sentence. The pardon comes ahead of Hunter Biden’s Dec. 12 sentencing for his conviction on federal gun charges. Hunter Biden also is set to be sentenced in a separate criminal case on Dec. 16, after pleading guilty in September on federal tax evasion charges.The pardon is expected to cover both Hunter Biden’s gun charges conviction and guilty plea.The senior White House official said Biden decided over this weekend to grant his son a pardon and began to inform his senior aides on Sunday. Using his pardon power to assure Hunter Biden does not spend time in jail comes as the 82-year-old president is near the end of his term in the White House and has no future election to face. In recent months Biden has said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence.“I will not pardon him,” the president said of his son in June after a jury found him guilty on three federal gun charges.President Biden has discussed issuing a pardon for his son with some of his closest aides since at least Hunter Biden’s conviction in June, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions about the matter said. They said a decision was made at the time for the president to publicly say he would not pardon his son even though doing so remained on the table.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier this month that the president’s position has not changed.

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