Christopher Liew: How to avoid falling into a credit card debt spiral,

Credit cards can be convenient, and many swipe them every day without ever stopping to think about the consequences. However, if they’re not carefully managed, they can quickly evolve into a financial trap.

With current credit interest rates often hovering around 20 per cent or more, carrying a balance from month to month can make it difficult to catch up. This is how many consumers fall into a debt spiral; using credit for everyday expenses, only making minimum payments, and watching their card balances grow by the month.

By recognizing the warning signs early and building healthy credit habits, you can avoid falling into the cycle and keep your finances under control. Here’s what to watch for and the strategies to stay ahead.
Credit card debt is a growing problem

Canadians’ credit card debt is growing. According to TransUnion, the average credit card balance is $4,681 — a number that’s steadily grown over the past few years. The report also revealed that consumer delinquency rates are continuing to rise, as evidenced by the 1.4 million Canadians who missed a credit card payment in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Most credit cards have variable interest rates ranging between 19 and 24 per cent. At that rate, even a small balance can grow substantially if you’re only making your minimum payment. A $2,000 balance could take years to pay off, with hundreds of dollars going to interest instead of reducing the principal.

Consistently carrying balances can also harm your credit score, making it harder to qualify for loans, mortgages, or even rental applications. Additionally, high debt limits your financial flexibility, leaving you with fewer financing options when real emergencies arise.
How to avoid the credit card debt trap

Credit card companies make very little money from people who use their cards responsibly. They make the majority of their money from late fees and interest charged to consumers who frequently carry their card balances, which is one of the reasons why they try so hard to target university students and young adults who may be struggling to stay afloat.

When you’re barely treading water, sometimes it’s easier to take the short-term help that’s offered and worry about the long-term consequences later.

Here are some tips to help you avoid falling into a debt trap in the first place.
1. Always pay more than the minimum

The minimum payment is designed to keep you trapped in a debt cycle. Credit card companies offer low minimum payments to tempt consumers into overspending with the promise of a small, seemingly affordable payment.

A closer look at the minimum payment, however, will reveal that only a portion of that payment goes to your principal balance. The rest goes toward the monthly interest fees, which is essentially money you’re flushing down the drain every month by carrying a balance.

If you end up in a situation where you have to carry a balance, always try to pay more than the minimum payment. This will help you pay down your principal balance quicker, resulting in less interest fees over time.
2. Track your spending and create a budget

Ultimately, you shouldn’t be using your credit to pay for things that you wouldn’t be able to afford with your debit card, as this will put you over budget. To know how much you can actually afford to spend, though, you first need to have a budget broken down into needs, wants, and allow some money left over for saving and investments.
3. Set up automated payments on your cards

In addition to the ding on your credit score, most cards impose late fees if you miss your scheduled payment date. You can easily avoid this by setting up auto-draft payments through your card’s app.
4. Build an emergency fund

Emergencies happen. If you’re living paycheque to paycheque, using a credit card may be the only way to cover unexpected expenses. This is why it’s important to work emergency savings into your monthly budget, so that you don’t have to resort to a credit card.

An easy way to accomplish this without having to think about it is to set up a savings account alongside your chequing account. Use your bank app to set up an autodraft (either a dollar amount or a percentage) to be transferred from your chequing to your savings every time your paycheque hits your account. Don’t touch this money unless it’s an absolute emergency.
5. Look into lower-interest options

If you’re in over your head in debt, you have a couple of options to help you lower interest payments:

Transfer your card balance to a lower-interest credit card
Apply for a debt consolidation loan

Additionally, some credit card companies may offer a temporary break on interest. If you call your card company and explain that you’re going through financial hardship, they may offer to temporarily reduce your interest to give you time to catch up on paying down your principal balance.
Warning signs that you’re falling into a debt spiral

Credit cards can be a great tool to help you build your credit profile, earn cashback rewards, and receive points that can later be used to help fund vacations, purchase holiday gifts, or even cover groceries.

More opinion and expert analysis on CTVNews.ca

But if you’re not paying your balance off before the end of each billing cycle, you can end up on a slippery slope. Once the monthly interest fees hit, these will offset the value of any cashback rewards you may have earned, and may even end up costing you more money than you spent.

Some warning signs that you may be falling into a debt cycle:

You’re only able to make the minimum payment on your card (much of which goes purely to interest fees)
You find yourself relying solely on credit to afford everyday living expenses
You’re living above your means and using your card to afford expenses you wouldn’t be able to cover with your bank account balance
You’re frequently opening new cards to transfer your card balance to a lower-interest card

Know when to seek help

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, credit card debt becomes too difficult to manage alone. Recognizing when to reach out for support can prevent the problem from spiralling further. If you’re missing payments, relying on cash advances, or using one credit card to pay another, these are strong indicators that outside assistance may be needed.

Speaking with a financial or debt advisor can help you come up with a realistic solution to getting out of your debt spiral that fits into your budget. The sooner you take action, the more options you’ll have to regain control of your finances before it’s too late.

More from Christopher Liew:

How to deal with financial stress if you’re deep in debt
Smart moves for single seniors who are about to retire
Why so many young Canadians can’t find jobs
Are you responsible for your parent’s credit card debt when they die?

#Qatar hosting summit over the Israeli attack on Hamas in Doha, seeking to restrain such assaults.

The attack on Hamas leaders came as Qatar serves as a key mediator in an effort to reach a ceasefire in the war, something Doha insisted it will continue to do even after the assault.

Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Israel has retaliated against the militant group and others in Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance.” Israel has launched strikes in Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Qatar and Yemen. That’s led to a wider anger by Mideast nations already enraged by the over 64,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza — and a growing concern that the U.S. security umbrella in the Gulf Arab states may not be enough to protect them.

“It is time for the international community to stop applying double standards and punish Israel for all the crimes it has committed,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, told a meeting Sunday.

However, it remains unclear just what the summit will be able to achieve, given some nations already have diplomatic recognition deals with #Israel and may be reluctant to sever ties.

“Considering the deep tensions between the Gulf states and other regional actors, assembling the summit in less than a week, especially given its scale, is a notable achievement that underscores a shared sense of urgency in the region,” the New York-based Soufan Center said. “The key question is whether ... (the summit will) signal a shift toward more consequential measures against Israel, including diplomatic downgrades, targeted economic actions and restrictions on airspace and access.”
Iran, which attacked Qatar in June, attending summit

Iran, which struck Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after America bombed its nuclear sites in June during its war with Israel, sent President Masoud Pezeshkian to attend the meeting. Before leaving Tehran, Pezeshkian noted the wide breadth of nations Israel has attacked since Oct. 7.

“This regime has attacked many Islamic countries, including Qatar, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Yemen,” he said. ”It does whatever it wants, and unfortunately, the United States and European countries also support these actions.”

Writing on the social platform X, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added: “Iran stands with Qatar and indeed all Muslim brothers and sisters, particularly against the scourge that is terrorizing the region.” Araghchi and Pezeshkian did not mention Iran’s attack on Qatar.
Qatar has been key in Israel-Hamas war talks

Qatar, an energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that hosted the 2022 World Cup, long has served as an intermediary in conflicts. For years, it has hosted Hamas’ political leadership at the request of the U.S., providing a channel for Israel to negotiate with the militant group that has controlled Gaza for years.

But as the Israel-Hamas war has raged on, Qatar increasingly has been criticized by hard-liners within Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu himself has vowed to strike all those who organized the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, and in the time since the attack in Qatar, he has doubled down on saying Qatar remains a possible target if Hamas leaders are there.

On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump offered renewed support for Qatar.

“We’re with them. You know, they’ve been a great ally,” Trump said. “A lot of people don’t understand about Qatar. Qatar has been a great ally, and they also lead a very difficult life because they’re right in the middle of everything.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel on Monday for meetings with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to express America’s concern over the attack on Qatar and talk about Israel’s planned new offensive on Gaza City.

Netanyahu faces increasing pressure from the Israeli public over the fate of the remaining hostages held in Gaza. There are still 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed by Israel to still be alive. Israel’s offensives in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.

Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press

#Qatar hosts top diplomats before major summit on Israel’s attack in Doha targeting Hamas leaders.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister, made the comments before a meeting Monday of leaders from those nations.

Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar remained committed to working with Egypt and the United States to reach a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the Gaza Strip after Hamas’ attack on Israel nearly two years ago. However, he said that the Israeli strike that killed six people -- five members of Hamas and a local Qatari security force member -- represented “an attack on the principle of mediation itself.”

“This attack can only be described as state terrorism, an approach pursued by the current extremist Israeli government, which flouts international law,” the minister said. “The reckless and treacherous Israeli aggression was committed while the state of Qatar was hosting official and public negotiations, with the knowledge of the Israeli side itself, and with the aim of achieving a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Sheikh Mohammed stressed the moment had come for consequences to Israel’s attacks in the wider Middle East.

“It is time for the international community to stop applying double standards and punish Israel for all the crimes it has committed,” Sheikh Mohammed said in footage later released by Qatar’s government from the closed-door meeting.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit separately criticized Israel and warned that “silence in the face of a crime ... paves the way for more crimes.”

There was no immediate response from Israel, which is hosting U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this weekend.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night again defended the strike.

“The Hamas terrorists chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza,” he posted on X. “They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war. Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.”

Hamas official Bassem Naim said in a statement that the organization hopes that the summit on Monday will produce “a unified and decisive Arab--Islamic stance” on the war.

Qatar, an energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that hosted the 2022 World Cup, long has served as an intermediary in conflicts. For years, it has hosted Hamas’ political leadership at the request of the U.S., providing a channel for Israel to negotiate with the militant group that has controlled Gaza for years.

But as the Israel-Hamas war has raged on, Qatar increasingly has been criticized by hard-liners within Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu himself has vowed to strike all those who organized the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, and in the time since the attack in Qatar, he has doubled down on saying Qatar remains a possible target if Hamas leaders are there.

Netanyahu faces increasing pressure from the Israeli public over the fate of the remaining hostages held in Gaza. There are still 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed by Israel to still be alive. Israel’s offensives in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.

Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press

Carney government launches ‘Build Canada Homes’ with $13B initial investment.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is making an initial capital investment of $13 billion to launch Ottawa’s new affordable housing plan.

Carney officially launched “Build Canada Homes,” a new government agency focused on building more affordable homes, at an event in Nepean, Ont., Sunday afternoon.

The prime minister announced today an initial plan to utilize public land to build 4,000 factory-built homes at sites in six cities across the country.

This is a developing story, more to come…

Charlie Kirk was assassinated in #Utah, deepening political tensions in the US as reactions to his death ranged from tributes to divisive criticisms.

Turkiye wary of Israeli threat following airstrike on Hamas in Qatar.

Turkish Defense Ministry spokesman Rear Adm. Zeki Akturk warned in Ankara on Thursday that Israel would “further expand its reckless attacks, as it did in Qatar, and drag the entire region, including its own country, into disaster.”

Israel and Turkiye were once strong regional partners, but ties between the countries ran into difficulties from the late 2000s and have reached an all-time low over the war in Gaza sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in southern Israel. Tensions also have risen as the two countries have competed for influence in neighboring Syria since the fall of Bashar Assad’s government last year.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a long-standing supporter of the Palestinian cause and of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The Turkish president has criticized Israel, and particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with strident rhetoric since the start of the Gaza war, accusing Israel of genocide and likening Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Hamas officials regularly visit Turkiye and some have taken up residence there. Israel previously accused Turkiye of allowing Hamas to plan attacks from its territory, as well as carrying out recruitment and fundraising.

Erdogan is close to Qatar’s leaders and Turkiye maintains strong military and commercial ties to the emirate. He is due to travel to Qatar this weekend for an Arab and Muslim leaders’ summit.

After Israel’s attacks on the territory of Iran, Syria, Yemen and now Qatar, Ankara is bound to be concerned by Israel’s ability to freely use the airspace of neighboring states.

“Israel’s ability to conduct strikes with seeming impunity, often bypassing regional air defenses and international norms, sets a precedent that deeply worries Ankara,” said Serhat Suha Cubukcuoglu, director of Trends Research and Advisory’s Turkiye program.

Turkiye sees these attacks as a “broader Israeli strategy to establish a fragmented buffer zone of weak or pacified states around it,” he added.
Turkiye has superior military might

In crossing a previously unthinkable line by attacking #Qatar, a close American ally that has been serving as a mediator in #Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel also has raised the question of how far it will go in pursuing Hamas targets.

Through its NATO membership, Turkiye would seem to have a greater degree of protection against Israeli attack than that afforded to Qatar by its close ties to the United States.

Turkiye also boasts significantly greater military might than the Gulf state, with its armed forces second in size only to the U.S. among NATO countries and an advanced defense industry.

As tensions rise, Turkiye has boosted its defenses. During Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, Erdogan announced an increase in missile production. Last month he formally inaugurated Turkiye’s “Steel Dome” integrated air defense system, while projects such as the KAAN fifth-generation fighter have been fast-tracked.

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, said an Israeli airstrike on the territory of a NATO member would be “extremely unlikely,” but small-scale bomb or gun attacks on potential Hamas targets in Turkiye by Israeli agents could be a distinct possibility.

Cubukcuoglu, meanwhile, said the Qatar attack could harden Ankara’s support for Hamas.

“This resonates with Turkish anxieties that Israel may eventually extend such operations to Turkish territory,” he said. “The Turkish government calculates that abandoning Hamas now would weaken its regional influence, while standing firm bolsters its role as a defender of Palestinian causes against Israeli aggression.”
Tensions could play out in Syria

While attention is focused on tensions surrounding the war in Gaza and Turkiye’s relations with Hamas, Unluhisarcikli warned the greater danger may be in Syria, where he described Israel and Turkiye as being “on a collision course.”

“To think that targeting Turkish troops or Turkish allies or proxies in Syria would be to go too far is wishful thinking,” he said.

Since Syrian rebels unseated Assad in December, rising tensions between Turkiye and Israel have played out there. Ankara has supported the new interim government and sought to expand its influence, including in the military sphere.

Israel views the new government with suspicion. It has seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria, launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military facilities and positioned itself as the protector of the Druze religious minority against the primarily Sunni Muslim authorities in Damascus.

Tensions also could spill into the wider eastern Mediterranean, with Israel potentially drawing closer to Greece and Greek Cypriots to challenge Turkiye’s military presence in northern Cyprus.
Turkiye mixes deterrence and diplomacy

Turkiye appears to be pursuing a mixture of military deterrence and diplomacy in Syria aimed at defusing tensions to avoid a direct conflict with Israel.

Turkish and Israeli officials held talks in April to establish a “de-escalation mechanism” in Syria. The move followed Israeli strikes on a Syrian airbase that Turkiye had been purportedly planning to use. Netanyahu said at the time that Turkish bases in Syria would be a “danger to Israel.”

Ankara and Damascus last month signed an agreement on Turkiye providing military training and advice to Syria’s armed forces.

Erdogan also may hope Washington would take a hard line against any Israeli military incursions.

While Netanyahu has sought support from U.S. President Donald Trump in the faceoff with Turkiye, Trump instead lavished praise on Erdogan for “taking over Syria” and urged Netanyahu to be “reasonable” in his dealings with Turkiye.

But as the strike in Qatar showed, having strong relations with Washington is not necessarily a safeguard against Israel.

The Qatar attack showed there was “no limit to what the Israeli government can do,” Unluhisarcikli said.

Sewell contributed from Beirut.

Andrew Wilks And Abby Sewell, The Associated Press

#Equatorial Guinea enforces yearlong internet outage for island that protested construction company.


Dozens of the signatories and residents were imprisoned for nearly a year, while internet access to the small island has been cut off since then, according to several residents and rights groups.

Local residents interviewed by The Associated Press left the island in the past months, citing fear for their lives and the difficulty of life without internet.

Banking services have shut down, hospital services for emergencies have been brought to a halt and residents say they rack up phone bills they can’t afford because cellphone calls are the only way to communicate.

When governments shut down the internet, they often instruct telecom providers to cut connections to designated locations or access to designated websites, although it’s unclear exactly how the shutdown works in Annobón.

The internet shutdown remains in effect, residents confirmed alongside activists, at a moment when the Trump administration has considered loosening corruption sanctions on the country’s vice president.

The Moroccan company Somagec, which activists allege is linked to the president, confirmed the outage but denied having a hand in it. The AP could not confirm a link.

“The current situation is extremely serious and worrying,” one of the signatories who spent 11 months in prison said, speaking anonymously for fear of being targeted by the government.
Repression ramps up

In addition to the internet shutdown, “phone calls are heavily monitored, and speaking freely can pose a risk,” said Macus Menejolea Taxijad, a resident who recently began living in exile.

It is only the latest of repressive measures that the country has deployed to crush criticisms, including mass surveillance, according to a 2024 Amnesty International report.

Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony, is run by Africa’s longest-serving president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who, at 83, has served as president for more than half his life. His son serves as the vice president and is accused of spending state funds on a lavish lifestyle. He was convicted of money laundering and embezzlement in France and sanctioned by the U.K.

On Friday, the UN’s top court declined Equatorial Guinea’s request for France to return a Paris-based mansion confiscated as part of a corruption probe, ruling that the African nation has not shown it has a “plausible right to the return of the building.”

Despite the country’s oil and gas wealth, at least 57 per cent of its nearly two million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank. Officials, their families and their inner circle, meanwhile, live a life of luxury.

The Equatorial Guinea government did not respond to the AP’s inquiry about the island, its condition and internet access.
Annobón has a troubled history

Located in the Atlantic Ocean about 315 miles (507 kilometres) from Equatorial Guinea’s coast, Annobón is one of the country’s poorest islands and one often at conflict with the central government. With a population of around 5,000 people, the island has been seeking independence from the country for years as it accuses the government of disregarding its residents.

The internet shutdown is the latest in a long history of Malabo’s repressive responses to the island’s political and economic demands, activists say, citing regular arrests and the absence of adequate social amenities like schools and hospitals.

“Their marginalization is not only from a political perspective, but from a cultural, societal and economic perspective,” said Mercè Monje Cano, secretary-general of the Unrepresented Peoples and Nations Organization global advocacy group.

A new airport that opened in Annobón in 2013, which was built by Somagec, promised to connect the island to the rest of the country. But not much has improved, locals and activists say. The internet shutdown has instead worsened living conditions there, collapsing key infrastructure, including health care and banking services.
Using internet outage to crack down on a protest

In 2007, Equatorial Guinea entered into a business deal with Somagec, a Moroccan construction company that develops ports and electricity transmission systems across West and Central Africa.

Annobón’s geological formation and volcanic past make the island rich in rocks and expands Malabo’s influence in the Gulf of Guinea, which is abundantly rich in oil. Somagec has also built a port and, according to activists, explored mineral extraction in Annobón since it began operations on the island.

Residents and activists said the company’s dynamite explosions in open quarries and construction activities have been polluting their farmlands and water supply. The company’s work on the island continues.

Residents hoped to pressure authorities to improve the situation with their complaint in July last year. Instead, Obiang then deployed a repressive tactic now common in Africa to cut off access to internet to clamp down on protests and criticisms.

This was different from past cases when Malabo restricted the internet during an election.

“This is the first time the government cut off the internet because a community has a complaint,” said Tutu Alicante, an Annobon-born activist who runs the EG Justice human rights organization.

The power of the internet to enable people to challenge their leaders threatens authorities, according to Felicia Anthonio of Access Now, an internet rights advocacy group. “So, the first thing they do during a protest is to go after the internet,” Anthonio said.

Somagec’s CEO, Roger Sahyoun, denied having a hand in the shutdown and said the company itself has been forced to rely on a private satellite. He defended the dynamite blasting as critical for its construction projects, saying all necessary assessments had been done.

“After having undertaken geotechnical and environmental impact studies, the current site where the quarry was opened was confirmed as the best place to meet all the criteria,” Sahyoun said in an email.

The residents, meanwhile, continue to suffer the internet shutdown, unable to use even the private satellite deployed by the company.

“Annobón is very remote and far from the capital and the (rest of) continent,” said Alicante, the activist from the island. “So you’re leaving people there without access to the rest of the continent ... and incommunicado.”

Ope Adetayo, The Associated Press

#Israeli settlers attacked his village, injuring two of his brothers and one cousin, Adra told The Associated Press. He accompanied them to the hospital. While there, he said that he heard from family in the village that nine Israeli soldiers had stormed his home.

The soldiers asked his wife, Suha, for his whereabouts and went through her phone, he said, while his nine-month-old daughter was home. They also briefly detained one of his uncles, he said.

As of Saturday night, Adra said he had no way of returning home to check on his family, because soldiers were blocking the entrance to the village and he was scared of being detained.

Israel’s military said that soldiers were in the village after Palestinians had thrown rocks, injuring two Israeli civilians. It said its forces were still in the village, searching the area and questioning people.

Adra has spent his career as a journalist and filmmaker chronicling settler violence in Masafer Yatta, the southern reaches of West Bank where he was born. After settlers attacked his co-director, Hamdan Ballal, in March, he told the AP that he felt they were being targeted more intensely since winning the Oscar.

He described Saturday’s events as “horrific.”

“Even if you are just filming the settlers, the army comes and chases you, searches your house,” he said. “The whole system is built to attack us, to terrify us, to make us very scared.”

Another co-director, Yuval Abraham, said he was “terrified for Basel.”

“What happened today in his village, we’ve seen this dynamic again and again, where the Israeli settlers brutally attack a Palestinian village and later on the army comes, and attacks the Palestinians.”

“No Other Land,” which won an Oscar this year for best documentary, depicts the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with Israeli directors Abraham and Rachel Szor.

The film has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened the documentary.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centres.

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

During the war in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during wide-scale military operations, and there has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians. There also has been a surge in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

Julia Frankel, The Associated Press

#Serbia’s opposing camps hold parallel rallies, reflecting deep political crisis.


Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party recently started organizing its own demonstrations to counter persistent student-led protests that have challenged the president’s firm grip on power in Serbia.

No major incidents were reported at the rallies held in a number of cities and towns with police separating the two camps. Brief scuffles erupted in the capital, Belgrade, when riot police pushed away anti-government protesters as Vucic joined his supporters in a show of confidence.

Vucic said that “people want to live normally, they don’t want to be harassed and want to be free.”

Vucic has refused a student demand to call an early parliamentary election. He has instead stepped up a crackdown on the protests, which have drawn hundreds of thousands of people in the past months. More than 100 university professors have been dismissed, while police have faced accusations of brutality against peaceful demonstrators.

Vucic has accused student-led protesters of being “terrorists” who are working against their country under orders from the West. He hasn’t offered any evidence for such claims.

The protests first started in November last year after a concrete canopy collapse at a renovated train station in the northern city of Novi Sad killed 16 people. It ignited a nationwide movement seeking justice for the victims and blaming corruption-fuelled negligence for the tragedy.

The Associated Press

#Venezuela says US marines raided a fishermen’s boat in the Caribbean as tensions rise.


CARACAS, Venezuela — Personnel from a U.S. warship boarded a Venezuelan tuna boat with nine fishermen while it was sailing in Venezuelan waters, Venezuela’s foreign minister said on Saturday, underlining strained relations with the United States.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tensions between the two nations escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump in August ordered the deployment of warships in the Caribbean, off the coast of the South American country, citing the fight against Latin American drug cartels.

While reading a statement on Saturday, Foreign Minister Yván Gil told journalists the Venezuelan tuna boat was “illegally and hostilely boarded by a United States Navy destroyer” and 18 armed personnel who remained on the vessel for eight hours, preventing communication and the fishermen’s normal activities. They were then released under escort by the Venezuelan navy.

The fishing boat had authorization from the Ministry of Fisheries to carry out its work, Gil said at a press conference, during which he presented a video of the incident.

“Those who give the order to carry out such provocations are seeking an incident that would justify a military escalation in the Caribbean,” Gil said, adding that the objective is to “persist in their failed policy” of regime change in Venezuela.

Gil said the incident was “illegal” and “illegitimate” and warned that Venezuela will defend its sovereignty against any “provocation.”

The Venezuelan foreign minister’s complaint comes days after Trump said that his country had attacked a drug-laden vessel and killed 11 people on board. Trump said the vessel had departed from Venezuela and was carrying members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but his administration has not presented any evidence to support that claim.

Venezuela accused the United States of committing extrajudicial killings. The South American country’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said Washington’s version is “a tremendous lie” and suggested that, according to Venezuelan government investigations, the incident could be linked to the disappearance of some individuals in a coastal region of the country who had no ties to drug trafficking.

The Trump administration has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a cartel to flood the U.S. with drugs, and doubled the reward for his capture from US$25 million to $50 million.

The U.S. government has given no indication that it plans to carry out a ground incursion with the more than 4,000 troops being deployed in the area.

But the Venezuelan government has nonetheless called on its citizens to enlist in the militias - armed volunteers - in support of its security forces in the event of a potential incursion. On Saturday, it urged them to go to military barracks for training sessions.

The Associated Press