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Biden will give election-year roast at annual correspondents' dinner as protests await over Gaza war

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Biden will give election-year roast at annual correspondents' dinner as protests await over Gaza war

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to deliver an election-year roast Saturday night before a large crowd of journalists, celebrities and politicians against the backdrop of growing protests over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

In previous years, Biden, like most of his predecessors, has used the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to needle media coverage of his administration and jab at political rivals, notably Republican rival Donald Trump.

But with protesters pledging to gather outside the dinner site, any effort by Biden to make light of Washington’s foibles and the pitfalls of the presidential campaign will have to be balanced against concerns over the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the perils for journalists covering the conflict. Criticism of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s 6-month-old military offensive in Gaza has spread through American college campuses, with students pitching encampments in an effort to force their universities to divest from Israel. Counterprotests back Israel’s offensive and complain of antisemitism.

Biden’s speech before an expected crowd of nearly 3,000 people at a Washington hotel will be followed by entertainer Colin Jost from “Saturday Night Live,” who is sure to take some pokes at the president as well as his opponents.

There will also likely be a spotlight on the many journalists detained and otherwise persecuted around the globe for doing their jobs, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia since March 2023.

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But before the president gets to the Washington Hilton — where the event has been held for decades — he was expected to pass hundreds of people rallying along the path of Biden’s motorcade and nearby to bring attention to the high numbers of Palestinian and other Arab journalists killed by Israel’s military since the war began in October.

Law enforcement, including the Secret Service, have instituted extra street closures and other measures to ensure what Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said would be the “highest levels of safety and security for attendees.”

The agency was working with Washington police to protect demonstrators’ right to assemble, Guglielmi said. However, “we will remain intolerant to any violent or destructive behavior.”

More than two dozen journalists in Gaza wrote a letter last week calling on their colleagues in Washington to boycott the dinner altogether.

“The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering,” the letter states. “We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the ‘crime’ of journalistic integrity.”

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One organizer complained that the White House correspondents’ association — which represents the hundreds of journalists who cover the president — largely has been silent since the first weeks of the war about the killings of Palestinian journalists. WHCA did not respond to request for comment.

According to a preliminary investigation released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 100 journalists have been killed covering the war in Gaza. Israel has defended its actions, saying it has been targeting militants.

“Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price— their lives—to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in a statement.

Sandra Tamari, executive director of Adalah Justice Project, a U.S.-based Palestinian advocacy group that helped organize the letter from journalists in Gaza, said “it is shameful for the media to dine and laugh with President Biden while he enables the Israeli devastation and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.”

In addition, Adalah Justice Project started an email campaign targeting 12 media executives at various news outlets — including The Associated Press — expected to attend the dinner who previously signed onto a letter calling for the protection of journalists in Gaza.

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___ Associated Press writers Mike Balsamo and Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.

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COP29 Host Urges Collaboration as Deal Negotiations Enter Final Stage

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COP29 Host Urges Collaboration as Deal Negotiations Enter Final Stage
By Valerie Volcovici and Nailia Bagirova BAKU (Reuters) – COP29 climate summit host Azerbaijan urged participating countries to bridge their differences and come up with a finance deal on Friday, as negotiations at the two-week conference entered their final hours. World governments represented at …
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Man in India regains consciousness before his cremation on funeral pyre: reports

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Man in India regains consciousness before his cremation on funeral pyre: reports

A 25-year-old man who was declared dead and about to be cremated in India this week was found to be still alive by witnesses, according to reports. 

Rohitash Kumar, 25, who was deaf and mute, was declared dead at a hospital in the state of Rajasthan in the northwestern part of India without a post-mortem examination, according to The Times of India. 

Once it was clear Kumar was alive at his cremation on Thursday afternoon, his family reportedly took him back to a hospital where he died early Friday morning. 

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A crematorium in India.  (Rupak De Chowdhuri/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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Three doctors involved in declaring Kumar dead at the Bhagwan Das Khetan district hospital have since been suspended, the newspaper reported. 

Kumar had suffered an epileptic seizure and was declared dead after he flatlined while doctors were performing CPR on him, the Daily Mail reported, citing the AFP news service. 

Relatives carry the body of a person who died of COVID-19 as multiple pyres of other victims burn at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, in 2021.

Relatives carry the body of a person who died of COVID-19 as multiple pyres of other victims burn at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, in 2021. (AP Photo/Amit Sharma, File)

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“The situation was nothing short of a miracle,” a witness at the funeral pyre told local news outlet ETV Bharat. “We all were in shock. He was declared dead, but there he was, breathing and alive.” 

Ramavtar Meena, a government official in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district, called the incident “serious negligence.”

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Rajasthan, India

The state of Rajasthan in northwestern India.  (Vishal Bhatnagar/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“Action will be taken against those responsible. The working style of the doctors will also be thoroughly investigated,” he said. 

Meena added that a committee had been formed to investigate the incident. 

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Thousands march across Europe protesting violence against women

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Thousands march across Europe protesting violence against women

Violence against women and girls remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.

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Thousands marched across France and Italy protesting violence against women on Saturday – two days before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. 

Those demonstrating protested all forms of violence against women – whether it be sexual, physical, psychological and economic. 

The United Nations designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The goal is to raise awareness of the violence women are subjected to and the reality that the scale and nature of the issue is often hidden. 

Activists demonstrated partially naked in Rome, hooded in balaclavas to replicate the gesture of Iranian student Ahoo Daryaei, who stripped in front of a university in Tehran to protest the country’s regime. 

In France, demonstrations were planned in dozens of cities like Paris, Marseille and Lille. 

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More than 400 organisations reportedly called for demonstrations across the country amidst widespread shock caused by the Pelicot mass rape trial. 

Violence against women and girls remains one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations in the world, according to the United Nations. Globally, almost one in three women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their life. 

For at least 51,100 women in 2023, the cycle of gender-based violence ended with their murder by partners or family members. That means a woman was killed every ten minutes. 

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