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    Iran Suggests Pausing High Levels of Uranium Enrichment to Avoid Censure, Monitor Says

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    Iran has raised the possibility it would stop expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched to a purity of 60 percent — very close to the level needed for a weapon, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog says.Iran is dangling the possibility of halting its production of near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel in exchange for avoiding formal condemnation for its years of blocking some United Nations nuclear inspectors from doing their jobs, according to atomic experts and a report from the U.N.’s nuclear monitoring arm.The report, dated Tuesday and circulating privately among member states of the monitor — the International Atomic Energy Agency — says that during meetings the agency held in Tehran on Nov. 14, Iran raised the possibility that it would stop expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched to a purity of 60 percent, very close to the level needed for a weapon.On Nov. 16, the report added, the monitoring agency verified that Iran had “begun implementation of preparatory measures aimed at stopping the increase of its stockpile” at its two major enrichment sites.David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said Iran’s move came amid its “continued lack of cooperation” with U.N. inspectors.“Now it’s offering to cap its production in exchange for the I.A.E.A. board abandoning its push for a resolution” that would condemn Iran’s lack of cooperation, he said.The agency’s board of member states is meeting from Wednesday to Friday and will take up the resolution in a vote. If the measure passes, it would lead to a formal, detailed report that could ultimately send the issue to the U.N. Security Council for possible retaliatory measures against Iran.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Strikes in Central and Northern Gaza Kill More Than 30 People

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      As Israel’s military wages a renewed offensive in the northern part of the enclave, Al Bureij and Nuseirat in central Gaza came under attack.Israeli airstrikes pummeled two areas in central Gaza and a town in the north of the enclave on Sunday morning, killing more than 30 people and wounding several others, according to local rescue and emergency services.In central Gaza, a strike on a home in Nuseirat killed four people, the Palestinian Civil Defense said in a statement. Strikes in nearby Al Bureij killed 13 people, according to Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense, an emergency rescue group. He said that several others were wounded and that rescuers were still searching for people under the rubble.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes in central Gaza, which came as it is waging a renewed offensive in the northern part of the enclave. In an effort to stamp out what the military has called a Hamas resurgence, Israeli troops, tanks and armed drones have bombarded northern Gaza almost daily.On Sunday, the town of Beit Lahia again came under attack. Mr. Basal said that an Israeli strike on a house there killed 15 people, and that another strike hit a residential building where dozens of people were sheltering. Information on casualties from the strike on the residential building was not immediately available because rescue teams were unable to reach the area, he added.When asked about Beit Lahia, the Israeli military said that it had carried out several strikes on “terrorist targets” in the town overnight and that there had been continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from northern Gaza, where its forces have been operating for over a month.Gaza’s Civil Defense said it was forced to cease rescue operations in the north late last month because of attacks by the Israeli military on its members and destruction of its equipment.Gabby Sobelman More

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      Are US women protesting Trump by ‘swearing off sex with men’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Have rumours of a US sex strike been greatly exaggerated?Sex sells. Sex strikes, meanwhile, make for an irresistible headline. Ever since Donald Trump overwhelmingly won the election, there have been endless headlines about how American women are emulating South Korea’s fringe 4B movement (which encourages heterosexual women not to date, procreate, marry or have sex with men) and “swearing off sex with men” in protest.“A Sex Strike Is a Losing Strategy for American Women,” a recent op-ed in the New York Times proclaimed, for example.“No sex. No dating. No marriage. No children. Interest grows in 4B movement to swear off men,” a PBS headline declared.“Ahead of Trump’s Second Term, Calls for a Sex Strike Grow Online,” the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) wrote.It’s certainly true that there has been a spike in US interest in the 4B movement. Voluntary celibacy was growing in popularity long before the election but Trump’s victory gave it a huge boost. There are more than 100,000 videos about 4B on TikTok and there has been a surge in Google searches relating to it. There have also been various viral calls for women to withhold sex in order to protest against Trump. (Just in case you’re wondering if you have a severe case of deja vu, there were also calls for a sex strike during Trump’s first term.)But is this online chatter actually translating to offline action? It doesn’t seem that way yet. There is zero evidence that there are large-scale sex strikes protesting against Trump happening in the US. All the hand-wringing by the likes of the New York Times seems to be over something that doesn’t actually exist. The headlines treating women as some sort of monolith also obscure the fact that, according to AP VoteCast, 53% of white women voted for Trump this year.Still, that doesn’t mean that growing interest in 4B should be written off as some sort of meaningless fad. On the contrary, engagement with the movement points to the fact that many women are not taking Trump’s victory lying down. While there may be no proof of widespread strikes in the sheets, there have been plenty of demonstrations on the streets. Meanwhile, online sales of emergency contraceptives and abortion pills are rocketing before the “reproductive apocalypse” that will be Trump’s second term. With rights being rolled back and pregnancy growing increasingly dangerous in the US, women are also reconsidering whether they want to have children.Let’s say that sex strikes did actually take off, however. Might they be effective? The most famous sex strike certainly was. In the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, women withhold sex in an attempt to end the Peloponnesian war and the ruse pays off: peace is declared. Since then, there have been plenty of other real-world sex strikes with varying results, waged everywhere from Belgium to Liberia. A small town in Colombia held a “crossed legs” protest in 2011, for example; women refused sex with their husbands until the government paved a road linking their town to the rest of the province. The protest is widely considered to have been successful.Less headline-worthy forms of protest, however, tend to be rather more effective. This, by the way, is the rather less talked-about message in Lysistrata itself. As the cultural critic and classicist Helen Morales told the Guardian back in 2022, the play isn’t just about sex strikes: “There are elder women seizing control of the treasury and the younger women withdraw their unpaid labour at home. They’re much more a model for effecting political change.”How the Taliban are erasing Afghanistan’s women – photo essay“It was important for us to look beyond the traditional representations of Afghan women as passive victims of the Taliban and show them as active players in their own lives,” say journalist Mélissa Cornet and photographer Kiana Hayeri in this piece for the Guardian.Argentina votes alone against UN resolution combating misogynistic online violenceWhich is not a huge surprise as Argentina’s President Javier Milei is incredibly rightwing and a vocal critic of the UN.Gender-fluid Mary, Queen of Scots ballet to debut at Edinburgh festival 2025It’s the latest example of a trend of gender-neutral casting in artistic productions. You can guarantee that this will drive the usual suspects completely bonkers.Armie Hammer’s mother gifted him a vasectomy for his birthdayThe disgraced actor, who has been accused of sexual abuse by multiple women, has returned to public life via a podcast. He seems to be having trouble rustling up guests so recently had his mum on the podcast, where she shared this little snippet of info.What happened to Palestinian-Egyptian actor May Calamawy’s role in Gladiator II?When Calamawy was originally cast (long before 7 October 2023) it was reported that she’d have an “important” or leading role. Now it seems like she has been all but cut from the movie – relegated to a tiny non-speaking background part. There has been a lot of speculation that this is punishment for her pro-Palestinian advocacy. As we have seen, talking about a genocide and ethnic cleansing can be a real career-killer.Sydney Sweeney says female solidarity in Hollywood is ‘fake’Wait, you’re telling me that Hollywood – a place that fetishizes unrealistic beauty ideals and where women over 40 struggle to find roles – isn’t a utopia of intersectional feminism? You’re kidding me!Iran announces ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy strict hijab laws“It won’t be a clinic, it will be a prison,” one young woman from Iran told the Guardian.Sweden’s minister for gender equality is terrified of bananasAs someone who also hates bananas with a passion, I would like to extend my solidarity to Paulina Brandberg, whose banana-phobia has made international headlines. As one of her colleagues noted, we should be focusing on her work to help vulnerable women rather than her hatred for an alarmingly yellow fruit.The week in pawtriarchyJust in case you were wondering whether the US could get any more dystopian, it turns out that robot dogs are guarding Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. Still, probably better to have robots rather than the real thing considering how close Trump is to Kristi Noem. The South Dakota governor, whom Trump has just picked for head of homeland security, famously wrote about shooting and killing her family dog, Cricket, and an unnamed goat. More

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      Haiti’s Gang Violence Worsens as FAA Suspends Flights From the U.S.

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      The country’s security situation has deteriorated even further since Monday when at least three planes were shot at, forcing the closure of its main airport.Haitian gang leaders took to social media last weekend and promised trouble.They delivered.“If you are reckless in the streets, you will pay the consequences, as of tomorrow,” Joseph Wilson, a gang leader known as Lanmou Sanjou, said Sunday in a widely circulated recorded message.He spoke for Viv Ansanm — a coalition of gangs with the euphemistic moniker “Living Together” — that has sowed terror in Haiti for the past several months, and vowed that they would be “in the streets.”Within 48 hours, at least three U.S. aircraft had been shot at, forcing the closure of Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and stranding passengers all over the world.The Federal Aviation Administration suspended all U.S. flights to Haiti for 30 days, and American Airlines said it wouldn’t return to the country until at least February. Even United Nations humanitarian flights were grounded.The havoc was not limited to the airport: Dr. Deborah Pierre, a urologist, was shot and killed on Tuesday getting into her car in Port-au-Prince, and her father, a dentist, was wounded, her former boss in South Florida, Dr. Angelo Gousse, said.Doctors Without Borders announced that its employees were pulled over by the police Monday and then tear-gassed by a vigilante mob. Wounded patients they were ferrying in an ambulance — suspected gang members — were killed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. to Keep Sending Arms to Israel Despite Dire Conditions in Gaza

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      The State Department said Israel needs to take more steps to improve the situation among Palestinians. The United States had given the country 30 days to meet aid criteria.The State Department said on Tuesday that it did not plan to decrease weapons aid to Israel, as a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration passed without the country substantially improving the humanitarian situation in war-devastated Gaza.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had warned in a letter dated Oct. 13 that the United States would reassess its military aid to Israel if it failed to increase the amount of aid allowed to enter Gaza within 30 days.The letter said that the humanitarian situation for the two million residents of Gaza was “increasingly dire” and that the amount of aid entering Gaza had fallen by 50 percent since April.By law, the U.S. government cannot give aid to foreign military forces deemed by the State Department to be committing “gross violations of human rights.”U.N. officials have said Israel’s continued blocking of humanitarian aid and targeting of humanitarian workers constitute violations of international law and could amount to war crimes.Food insecurity experts working on an initiative controlled by U.N. bodies and major relief agencies said last week that famine was imminent or most likely already occurring in northern Gaza. U.N. officials say the entire population of Gaza is facing food insecurity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Exxon Chief to Trump: Don’t Withdraw From Paris Climate Deal

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      Darren Woods was one of only a few Western oil executives attending a global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, cautioned President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday against withdrawing from the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions, saying Mr. Trump risked leaving a void at the negotiating table.Mr. Woods, speaking at an annual U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, described climate negotiations as opportunities for Mr. Trump to pursue common-sense policymaking.“We need a global system for managing global emissions,” Mr. Woods said in an interview with The New York Times in Baku. “Trump and his administrations have talked about coming back into government and bringing common sense back into government. I think he could take the same approach in this space.”Mr. Woods also urged government officials to create incentives for companies to transition to cleaner forms of energy in a profitable way.“The government role is extremely important and one that they haven’t been successfully fulfilling, quite frankly,” he said.Mr. Woods’s presence in a stadium teeming with diplomats is all the more noteworthy because of who is not here in Azerbaijan, a petrostate on the Caspian Sea that was once part of the Soviet Union. Many heads of state, including President Biden, have taken a pass, as have the leaders of several big oil companies like Shell and Chevron.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      US climate envoy says fight against climate crisis does not end under Trump

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      The US climate envoy John Podesta said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed, speaking at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” said Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks.Trump has pledged to deregulate the energy sector, allow the oil and gas industry to “drill, baby, drill”, and pull the US from the Paris climate agreement, which committed countries to taking steps to avoid the worst impacts of the crisis. Yet while Trump will try to reverse progress, “this is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet”, Podesta said.Last week’s re-election of Trump to the White House, which will see him inaugurated for a second term in January, has cast a shadow on the UN talks after the Republican defeated Kamala Harris. Harris had been expected to continue the climate policies of Joe Biden, who passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest down payment on the green transition seen in US history.Experts say Trump’s second term could be even more destructive, as he will be aided by an amenably conservative judiciary and armed with detailed policy blueprints such as the Project 2025 document published by the rightwing Heritage Foundation.Trump’s incoming administration is already reportedly drawing up executive orders to erase climate policies and open up protected land for ramped-up oil and gas production. “We have more liquid gold than any country in the world,” the president-elect said on Wednesday.Staff at the US Environmental Protection Agency, which was targeted the last time Trump was president, are already bracing for a mass exodus. Swaths of work done by the EPA under Biden, such as pollution rules for cars and power plants, as well as efforts to protect vulnerable communities living near industrial activity, are set to be reversed.A June analysis warned that Trump’s forthcoming rollbacks could add 4bn additional metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere by 2030 when compared with a continuation of Biden’s policies. That “would be a death sentence to our planet”, said Jamie Minden, the 21-year-old acting executive director of Zero Hour, the US-based youth-led climate non-profit, at a press conference about the election result in Baku on Monday.Trump’s looming presidency could also place a damper on other countries’ climate action plans, said Todd Stern, who was the US special envoy for climate change and the United States’ chief negotiator at the 2015 Paris climate agreement – especially China, which is currently the top global contributor to planet-warming emissions.“The two biggest players in the ring are the US and China, and China is extremely aware of that. It has just got a guarantee that the US president won’t be bringing up climate change with them for the next four years and that means something,” he said. “It will make things easier on China and that can’t help but have some impact.”Yet “the fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country,” said Podesta. The UN climate conference in Baku represented a “critical opportunity to cement our progress”, he said.At Cop29, activists are pushing the Biden administration to file a bold climate plan under the Paris climate agreement – known as a nationally determined contribution – and to make big pledges to support global climate finance efforts.And the president “still has critical opportunities to cement his climate legacy” on the domestic level as well, said Allie Rosenbluth, co-manager of the climate NGO Oil Change International, including by rejecting pending permits for fossil fuel projects.At least $1tn is needed to help poor countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, shift to a low-carbon economy and adapt to the impacts of climate disasters. If the US fails to meaningfully contribute, other countries can also fill the climate finance gap left by the US, noted Teresa Anderson, the global climate justice lead at the climate non-profit ActionAid, at another Monday press conference.“This is a test for rich countries,” she said. “If they believe in the climate emergency then they should be willing to pay more than their fair share, not less.”The US senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a climate hawk who will arrive at Cop29 later this week, said Trump and other US Republicans were “aiming a torpedo” at climate progress, but that the pressure to slash US emissions would stay strong.“I’m heading to Baku to reassure the international community that large swaths of the US remain committed to steering the planet away from climate catastrophe, a catastrophe that is already doing massive economic harm and driving up prices for insurance, food, and other goods and services,” he wrote in an email.Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, noted that the Paris agreement had 195 signatories and “will not collapse in the face of a single election result”.“The Paris agreement has survived one Trump presidency and it will survive another,” she said. More

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      Trump Offers Elise Stefanik Role as U.N. Ambassador

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      In one of his first cabinet-level personnel decisions, the president-elect has chosen the Republican member of Congress from New York to represent the United States at the United Nations.President-elect Donald J. Trump has offered Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, the role of U.N. ambassador in his upcoming administration.Ms. Stefanik, who represents an upstate New York district in the House and is a member of the Republican leadership in the chamber, has been a vocal supporter of Mr. Trump. His decision to name her to the post was reported earlier by CNN.Ms. Stefanik has accepted the offer, her office said.Ms. Stefanik, 40, emerged as a key ally to Mr. Trump during his first impeachment proceeding. She has been chair of the House Republican conference, but has minimal experience in foreign policy and national security. She has served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She has been an outspoken supporter of Israel, and had a high-profile role in the congressional hearings that led to the resignations of several university presidents over their handling of campus unrest following the terror attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.She also impressed Mr. Trump years ago with an outspoken defense of him during his first impeachment trial in the House. In a statement, Mr. Trump called her a “strong, tough and smart America First fighter.”House Republicans appear on track to win a narrow majority in the incoming Congress. Ms. Stefanik’s departure could make their margin even thinner until an election to replace her is held in what is considered a safe district for the party.It’s not yet clear whether Mr. Trump will be able to raid the House for his loyalists who serve there. Republicans are currently on track to keep their majority, but only by the similar razor-thin margin they have now, which has made it difficult to control the floor. Next year, they will be expected to produce major legislative results as a result of the party’s unified power in Washington.Ms. Stefanik, the first Trump ally from the House who has been announced as a cabinet pick, has long been positioning herself to rise in a Trump administration. But her situation may be particularly difficult. In New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, would most likely wait as long as possible to call a special election to fill her seat.Elon Musk, the billionaire and major Trump supporter, made clear on X that he had reservations about her appointment, based on the tight margin of control he is expecting in the House.“Elise is awesome, but it might be too dicey to lose her from the House, at least for now,” Mr. Musk wrote on the social media platform.Her selection comes after Mr. Trump last week named Susie Wiles, a longtime political operative who helped lead his campaign, as his White House chief of staff. On Sunday evening, Mr. Trump named Thomas D. Homan, an immigration hard-liner, to be his “border czar.”Annie Karni More

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      Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille Is Fired

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      As killings and hunger soar in Haiti, a political power struggle has cost the prime minister his job, another setback for a country plagued by gang violence. The former United Nations official tapped to lead Haiti through a gang-fueled crisis has been fired by the country’s ruling council, following a political power struggle that unfolded amid a wave of kidnappings and killings.The official, Garry Conille, 58, a medical doctor who previously ran UNICEF’s Latin America regional office, was hired in late May to serve as interim prime minister of Haiti. He and the country’s ruling council are supposed to pave the way for elections next year to choose a new president.Haiti’s transitional council named Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, the owner of a chain of dry cleaners and a former candidate for the Haitian Senate, as his replacement, according to an executive order published Sunday afternoon in the country’s official gazette, Le Moniteur. The former president of the Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce, he studied at Boston University and describes himself on LinkedIn as “an entrepreneur” and “engaged citizen.” Haiti’s last president was murdered in July 2021 and no elections have been held since. The prior prime minister was forced from office earlier this year by a coalition of gangs that had taken over the capital, Port-au-Prince, waging attacks on a range of targets, from police stations to prisons to hospitals.Unable to even return home from an overseas trip, the previous prime minister, Ariel Henry, stepped down in April as killings soared and thousands of people were forced from their homes because of gang violence.Mr. Conille, who speaks fluent English and was seen as someone removed from traditional party politics because he hadn’t lived in Haiti for more than a decade, was considered a favorite of the international community, who are key financial donors and have considerable weight in Haitian affairs. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More