01/12/2025

MONDAY | DEC 1, 2025

9 Venezuela airspace closed, declares Trump on website

UK plans justice overhaul LONDON: Britain’s government is set to propose a criminal justice system overhaul this week aimed at cutting a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases that has left thousands waiting years for justice. The Labour government, which warned that the number of cases waiting to be heard could rise to 100,000 by 2028 without action, said the reforms would take forward recommendations from a review conducted earlier this year. Justice Secretary David Lammy’s office said in a statement yesterday that he would outline proposals to modernise courts and speed up cases to put victims “front and centre”. “Behind every one of the thousands of cases waiting to go to trial is a human life put on hold. For many victims, justice delayed is justice denied,” Lammy said Some hearings are listed as far ahead as 2030 and figures show more than a quarter of cases wait a year or longer, with many victims abandoning proceedings. In rape cases, 60% of complainants withdraw before trial. The recommendations suggested creating a new division for mid-level offences, limiting jury trials for minor cases and allowing judge-only trials for complex fraud. Legal groups have warned against restricting jury trials, which they say is a fundamental right. – Reuters NETANYAHU ASKS FOR PRESIDENTIAL PARDON TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has submitted an official request for his pardon to President Isaac Herzog. “The office of the president is aware that this is an extraordinary request which carries with it significant implications. After receiving all of the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request,” Herzog’s office said. Netanyahu has been facing a long-running corruption trial. He has pleaded not guilty. Netanyahu said the ending of his trial would advance much needed national reconciliation. “The continuation of the trial is tearing us apart from within, arousing fierce divisions, intensifying rifts,” the premier said in a video statement, referring to the split between his supporters and opponents. “I am certain, like many others in the nation, that an immediate end will greatly help to lower the flames and promote the broad reconciliation that our country desperately needs.” – Reuters EGYPT TRAINING PALESTINIAN COPS GAZA CITY: Egypt is training hundreds of Palestinian police personnel with an eye towards integrating them into a post-war security force in Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty announced the plan to train 5,000 officers for Gaza during talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in August. A first group of more than 500 officers were trained in Cairo in March and since September the two-month courses have resumed to welcome hundreds more recruits, said a Palestinian official. He said all members of the force will be from the Gaza Strip and paid by the Palestinian Authority. – AFP

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months of US strikes on alleged drug-running boats, speculation is mounting that Washington may launch some sort of military operation on Venezuelan soil. Trump’s warning comes days after US aviation regulators told airlines to use increased caution near Venezuela over the mounting tensions, prompting major carriers to suspend flights. Maduro’s government then issued a ban on the airlines for “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government”. A statement by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry called the US president’s latest remarks a “new extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the people of Venezuela”. It warned that the airspace disruptions would also mean a halt to repatriation flights of Venezuelan migrants from the United States, a

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US media reported that, despite the bellicose posturing, Trump and Maduro spoke last week. The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump and Maduro had discussed a possible meeting, while the Wall Street Journal on Saturday said the conversation also included conditions of amnesty if Maduro were to step down. Amid fears that Trump may launch a major operation in Venezuela, members of US Congress – both Democrats and the president’s own Republican Party – have expressed anger that he has not sought legislative approval. “President Trump’s reckless actions towards Venezuela are pushing America closer and closer to another costly foreign war,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said yesterday on X. “Under our Constitution, Congress has the sole power to declare war.” – AFP

PALM BEACH: President Donald Trump sharply escalated his threats against Venezuela on Saturday with an ominous warning that the country’s airspace should be considered “closed”, raising fears of imminent military action. Caracas, which views a large US military buildup in the Caribbean as a pressure campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro, slammed Trump’s warning as a “colonialist threat”. “To all airlines, pilots, drug dealers, and human traffickers,” Trump wrote on social media, “please consider the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety.” He did not elaborate, but after o Threat raises fears of imminent war

initiative. Venezuela’s military on Saturday also conducted exercises along coastal areas, with video broadcast on state TV showing antiaircraft weapons and other artillery being manoeuvred. Though Trump has not publicly threatened to use force to remove Maduro, he said last week that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon”. Maduro’s re-election last year was widely rejected as fraudulent, while Washington also claims the leftist leader heads an alleged drug cartel. A steady buildup of US naval and air assets in the region has seen the world’s largest aircraft carrier move to the Caribbean, while American fighter jets and bombers have repeatedly flown off the Venezuelan coast in recent days.

Actor Liam Cunningham (centre) leads demonstrators in Dublin on Saturday, the International Day of Solidarity. – REUTERSPIC

Israeli drone strike kills two boys KHAN YOUNIS: Family members said an Israeli drone strike killed two boys in Gaza on Saturday, with Israel’s military saying it had identified two suspects “posing an immediate threat”. Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Bassal named them as Fadi and Jumaa Tamer Abu Assi.

platinum plates in his legs. We went and found them in pieces, and we brought them back,” he said. Abu Assi said his brother had sent his sons out looking for firewood “because he has absolutely nothing ... and if my brother were able, he would have gone himself”. More than 60 people gathered for the funeral, bowing their heads as prayers were said. The boys’ father in his wheelchair, crying out, held on to the body bags, one on each side, as they were carried by mourners before burial. The fatal drone strike happened around the so-called Yellow Line

within the Gaza Strip, a boundary marked with yellow concrete blocks. Under the fragile, US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli army withdrew to positions behind the Yellow Line. Since the ceasefire came into effect on Oct 10, there have been multiple deadly incidents involving Israeli forces firing on people in the area of the Yellow Line. Baha Abu Assi, another uncle of the dead brothers, said: “They targeted the area ... we live here and we don’t know of any blocks or signs that prove what they say.” – AFP

Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis confirmed receiving the bodies of the children, adding that their funerals were held in the afternoon. Mourners grieved over the white body bags, with one man kneeling and putting his arms around one of them. Alaa Abu Assi, an uncle of the two boys, said they were “children who have no rockets and no bombs”. “They were gathering firewood to help their disabled father who has

The military said it saw two people who “conducted suspicious activities”. Uncles of the slain children said the boys were brothers aged eight and 10, and that they had been out looking for firewood. Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, said two brothers were killed in an Israeli drone strike in Bani Suheila, east of