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Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended his handling of COVID-19 on Wednesday at a public inquiry into the pandemic, saying his government “got some things wrong” but did its best. Johnson began two days of questioning under oath by lawyers for the judge-led inquiry about his initial reluctance to impose a national lockdown in early 2020 and other fateful decisions. Johnson opened his testimony with an apology “for the pain and the loss and the suffering of the COVID victims,” though not for any of his own actions. Four people stood up in court as he spoke, holding signs saying: “The Dead can’t hear your apologies," before being escorted out by security staff. “Inevitably, in the course of trying to handle a very, very difficult pandemic in which we had to balance appalling harms on either side of the decision, we may have made mistakes,” Johnson said. “Inevitably, we got some things wrong. I think we were doing our best at the time.” Johnson had arrived at the inquiry venue at daybreak, several hours before he was due to take the stand, avoiding a protest by relatives of some of those victims. Among those wanting answers from the inquiry are families of some of the more than 230,000 people in the U.K. who died after contracting the virus. A group gathered outside the office building where the inquiry was set, some holding pictures of their loved ones. A banner declared: “Let the bodies pile high” — a statement attributed to Johnson by an aide. Another sign said: “Johnson partied while people died.” Johnson was pushed out of office by his own Conservative Party in mid-2022 after multiple ethics scandals, including the revelation that he and staff members held parties in the prime minister’s Downing Street offices in 2020 and 2021, flouting the government’s lockdown restrictions. Former colleagues, aides and advisers have painted an unflattering picture of Johnson and his government over weeks of testimony. Former Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance said Johnson was “bamboozled” by science. In diaries that have been seen as evidence, Vallance also said Johnson was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate.” Former adviser Dominic Cummings, now a fierce opponent of Johnson, said the then-prime minister asked scientists whether blowing a hair dryer up his nose could kill the virus.  Former senior civil servant Helen McNamara described a “toxic,” macho culture inside Johnson's government, and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, the country’s top civil servant, called Johnson and his inner circle “basically feral.” Johnson defended his government, saying it contained “challenging” characters “whose views about each other might not be fit to print, but who got an awful lot done.” The U.K. has one of the highest COVID-19 death tolls in Europe, with the virus recorded as a cause of death for more than 232,000 people. Johnson said he was “not sure” whether his government's decisions had caused excess deaths. He said deciding when to impose lockdowns and other restrictions had been “painful.” “People point, quite rightly, to the loss of education, the economic damage, the missed cancer and cardiac appointments, and all the other costs," he said. “When it came to the balance of the need to protect the public and protect the (health service), and the damage done by lockdowns, it was incredibly difficult." Johnson agreed in late 2021 to hold a public inquiry after heavy pressure from bereaved families. The probe, led by retired Judge Heather Hallett, is expected to take three years to complete, though interim reports will be issued starting next year. The inquiry is divided into four sections, with the current phase focusing on political decision-making. The first stage, which concluded in July, looked at the country’s preparedness for the pandemic. Johnson has submitted a written evidence statement to the inquiry but has not handed over some 5,000 WhatsApp messages from several key weeks between February and June 2020. They were on a phone Johnson was told to stop using when it emerged that the number had been publicly available online for years. Johnson later said he’d forgotten the password to unlock it. A Johnson spokesman said the former prime minister had not deleted any messages but a “technical issue” meant some had not been recovered. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered state-owned oil, gas and mining companies to “immediately” begin operations in a wide territory controlled by neighboring Guyana.  Maduro issued the order Tuesday, two days after Venezuleans voted overwhelmingly to approve a referendum that would annex the 160,000-square kilometer Essequibo region.   Maduro ordered state-owned oil giant PDVSA and mining conglomerate CVG to create local subsidiaries to operate in the region.  He also says he will introduce a law in the National Assembly that will officially declare the region a Venezuelan state.   Venezuela has long-claimed the Essequibo region as part of its territory, despite an 1899 decision by an international arbitration panel that placed it within Guyana’s borders.  Caracas intensified its claim to the region after ExxonMobil discovered oil there in 2015.   Maduro said that all oil companies granted licenses by Guyana to operate in the Essequibo region have three months to leave.   Sunday’s referendum was held in defiance of the International Court of Justice, which ordered Venezuela not to take any action over the disputed territory until it could rule on the matter.   Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.   

Climate activists say a record number of lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry are attending the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, as the negotiations intensify over whether the world should commit to a complete phaseout of coal, oil and gas. Around 70,000 delegates are attending COP28, among them heads of state, politicians, scientists and campaigners — all advocating a myriad array of interests and ideas. Despite the complexities, the summit focus appears to be narrowing on a key question: Do we need to ban fossil fuels outright? Coal, oil and gas are blamed for much of global warming but are also the driving force behind many economies, including that of summit host United Arab Emirates. The latest figures show 2023 is expected to be a record-breaking year for global carbon dioxide emissions, with a predicted 40.9 billion metric tons sent into the atmosphere. Of that, 36.8 billion metric tons of CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels, and the remainder from deforestation and land use changes, according to research from the Global Carbon Project. “The growing emissions year on year are responsible for our climate change. And as long as they are not brought down to zero, then the warming is going to continue,” Corinne Le Quéré, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, told The Associated Press. Research from Kick Big Polluters Out — a coalition of environmental groups attending COP28 — suggests more than 2,400 delegates at the summit are connected to fossil fuel industries. “This is seven times larger than the Indigenous people’s delegation, and a four-times increase from last year’s 636 delegates who were lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry [at COP27],” said Eric Njuguna, a member of the Fridays for Future campaign group, which is part of the coalition. Scientists say greenhouse gas emissions need to be slashed by 43% over the next six years if the world is to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, beyond which they say climate change likely becomes catastrophic and irreversible. However, current trajectories suggest emissions will actually rise by 9% over that same time span. “And that is why at COP28, we need a strong commitment to phase out all fossil fuels — not just coal, not just unabated fossil fuels, but all fossil fuels — including oil, gas and coal,” Njuguna told VOA. Others say phasing out all fossil fuels is simply unrealistic and insist that fossil fuels will have to be part of the energy mix, alongside innovations like carbon markets and carbon capture. Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive officer of French giant TotalEnergies, is among those from the oil industry attending COP28. “Oil and gas will remain for quite a long time,” he told delegates Tuesday. “And so, we need absolutely to produce oil and gas in a different way by slashing down emissions. And we can do it. We have the technology. It's a question, again, of focusing on it,” he added. Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, president of COP28, is also head of the United Arab Emirates state-run oil company ADNOC, which plans to increase production substantially by 2030. Al-Jaber wants a phasing down of fossil fuels rather than a phasing out, insisting that this is the only way to rein in global warming while allowing for socioeconomic development. Facing a barrage of criticism on Tuesday, the COP president defended his stance. “I am quite surprised with the constant and repeated attempts to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency and the attempts to undermine the message that we keep repeating when it comes to how much we respect the science,” he told reporters. Al-Jaber's statement has done little to placate his critics. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, a climate activist, launched a scathing attack on the COP presidency. “They are abusing the public's trust by naming the CEO of one of the largest and least responsible oil companies in the world as head of the COP. … We cannot play games designed to protect the obscene profits of these oil and gas petrol states,” Gore told Reuters. Observers say that with the spotlight so firmly fixed on the summit president, the COP28 hosts face a tough challenge to oversee negotiations toward a final declaration.   

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Israeli troops and Hamas militants battled Wednesday in the Gaza Strip with the war putting increasing pressure on Palestinian civilians who are facing more difficulty finding shelter and access to humanitarian aid. Israel’s military said Wednesday it had carried out airstrikes on about 250 targets in the Gaza Strip during the past day. The United Nations reported a significant intensification of Israeli bombardments of Gaza since Monday afternoon, along with the intense ground fighting as well as an increase in rocket fire by Palestinian militants toward Israel. Israeli military officials said their forces were encircling the southern city of Khan Younis, the second largest in Gaza. The expansion of the war in southern Gaza followed an initial focus on areas in the north, including Gaza City.  It also followed weeks of Israeli military orders for civilians to move to the south in order to stay away from the fighting. But with the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and closed borders with Egypt and Israel to the south and east, the space for available for people to go to is shrinking. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says an estimated 1.9 million people are displaced within Gaza, amounting to nearly 85% of the population, and one million of them are registered at U.N. shelters in southern Gaza. The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said late Tuesday that for the third consecutive day, the Rafah area in southern Gaza was the only place where aid distributions were able to take place due to the fighting elsewhere. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza,” U.N. emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths said.  “Not hospital, not shelters, not refugee camps. No one is safe. Not children. Not health workers. Not humanitarians. Such blatant disregard for basic humanity must stop. The fighting must stop.” Israel has accused Hamas of embedding itself in and underneath hospitals and other civilian areas and encouraging civilians to ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate ahead of airstrikes, in effect using them as human shields, an accusation Hamas has denied.      Israel began its military campaign to end Hamas’ rule of Gaza after Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 people as hostages.         In its military offensive, Israel has killed at least 16,240 people in Gaza, 70% of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.              Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to appear Wednesday before a virtual meeting of leaders from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations. Zelenskyy will have the opportunity to brief the leaders on the situation in Ukraine nearly two years into a Russian invasion that prompted dozens of nations to provide military and humanitarian support for the Ukrainian side. Wednesday’s meeting comes a day after Zelenskyy canceled a video appearance with members of the U.S. Senate where he was expected to advocate for continued military support. "Zelenskyy, by the way, could not make it to — something happened at the last minute — to our briefing," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told a news conference. Schumer said Zelenskyy had been invited to speak via video at a classified briefing so those at the meeting could “hear directly from him precisely what’s at stake” and help lawmakers vote on a bill that includes billions of dollars in new aid for Ukraine. Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young warned in a letter to congressional leaders Monday that by the end of the year, the United States will no longer have the funds to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine. Ukraine "will not be able to keep fighting,” Young said, noting that the U.S. also has run out of money for propping up Ukraine’s economy. “We’re running out of money, and we are nearly out of time,” U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. “A vote against supporting Ukraine is a vote to improve [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s strategic position.” On the battlefield, Ukraine’s half-year-long counteroffensive has largely stalled against entrenched Russian forces, with only limited territorial gains in the eastern part of the country. In October, the Biden administration asked Congress for nearly $106 billion to fund ambitious plans for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. border security. But funding for Ukraine has become politically controversial, with some right-leaning lawmakers in the narrowly Republican-controlled House of Representatives opposing further assistance, contending the aid is not in U.S. interests. However, Young said in the letter released by the White House that cutting off funding and a flow of weapons to Ukraine would likely work to Russia’s advantage on the battlefield.  "I want to be clear: Without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine, to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks," she wrote. "There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment." Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.   

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Governments in more than two dozen countries are using threats, attacks and legal action to retaliate against journalists and critics who fled overseas, a new report has found. At a time when repressive laws, unrest and conflict are forcing high numbers of journalists into exile, the nonprofit Freedom House has seen an increase in efforts by hostile governments to retaliate against critics. Over the past decade, at least 26 governments targeted journalists abroad in a process known as transnational repression, according to a report released by the group on Wednesday. It documents 112 cases of physical transnational repression perpetrated against reporters between 2014 and 2023. Some of the journalists work for established media outlets, others are freelance, and the report cited cases of those who work for VOA's sister outlets. "All of those are attempts to stifle their critical reporting. And I think, ultimately, it's because governments in power do fear the truth and do fear information that can hold them to account," report co-author Jessica White told VOA. The perpetrators are a who's who of authoritarian governments, including Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Phnom Penh. "The latest chapter in the growing authoritarian playbook is to go after exiled journalists who tell the truth about a regime's priorities, performance, and misdeeds," Freedom House President Michael Abramowitz said in a statement. The tactics vary from assaults to detentions and unlawful deportations. But indirect and digital transnational repression — like online harassment and doxing, where private information about someone is posted online — is even more common, according to White. "The issue of these more indirect and digital forms of transnational repression is that they're harder to track," White said. China and Russia — both known for their repressive domestic media environments — are among those targeting critical reporters in exile. In some cases, family members who still live in the countries are harassed as a way to indirectly target the reporter. That tactic is documented in China's Xinjiang region, where the government threatens and detains family members of Uyghur journalists who live in exile. "The punishment for a person who speaks truth to power is punishing their entire family," Gulchehra Hoja, a journalist with Radio Free Asia's Uyghur Service, told Freedom House. Some of Hoja's family members were targeted after she started working at Radio Free Asia, VOA's sister outlet. In a statement emailed to VOA, a spokesperson at China's Washington embassy denied that Beijing retaliates against journalists and critics, saying there is "no such thing as 'transnational repression'" in China. Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson, said that China abides by international law, that journalists "enjoy full freedom" to report in accordance with the law, and that Beijing's mass detention of Uyghurs is about "countering violence, terrorism and separatism.... which has won the heartfelt support of the people." The Iranian government featured among the most brazen perpetrators, a fact VOA Persian host Masih Alinejad is acutely familiar with. Alinejad was the target of a 2021 kidnapping attempt in New York, which the FBI says was part of a Tehran plot to bring her to Iran.  And the Justice Department in January indicted three people it says are part of an Eastern European organized crime gang, who in a separate case allegedly plotted to murder Alinejad. Since the 2021 attempt, the Iranian American journalist has received U.S. government protection and moves frequently between safe houses. Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately reply to VOA's email requesting comment. To Alinejad, everyone should care about transnational repression — not just those who are directly affected. "Transnational repression is not just a threat for us, for dissidents. It's a threat to democracy," Alinejad told VOA. "That's why I think every single person who lives in democracy should care about it, because dictators are not targeting us — they're targeting democracy. They're targeting freedom of expression. They're targeting freedom of speech," she said. White told VOA that if transnational repression succeeds, "the risk is that we end up being cut off from whole segments of the world." Democratic governments around the world have a duty to better support and protect journalists living in exile in their countries, White said, including by making humanitarian visas more readily available. Social media companies also have a responsibility to protect exiled reporters, since digital transnational repression takes place on their platforms, White added. Transnational repression often takes a psychological toll on its targets, according to White, and can lead reporters to self-censor or stop working entirely. For Alinejad, the U.S. government has suggested she enter witness protection, she said. But stopping her work was out of the question. "I don't have any guns and bullets — I don't carry weapons. But this government, they have everything, and they're really scared of me," Alinejad said, referring to the Iranian government. "And that gives me power — that, wow, even with my words, even with my social media, I'm more powerful than them."  

The Taliban's "abusive" educational policies are harming boys as well as girls in Afghanistan, according to a Human Rights Watch report published Wednesday. The Taliban have been globally condemned for banning girls and women from secondary school and university, but the rights group says there has been less attention to the deep harm inflicted on boys' education. The departure of qualified teachers including women, regressive curriculum changes and the increase in corporal punishment have led to greater fear of going to school and falling attendance. Because the Taliban have dismissed all female teachers from boys' schools, many boys are taught by unqualified people or sit in classrooms with no teachers at all. Boys and parents told the rights group about a spike in the use of corporal punishment, including officials beating boys before the whole school for haircut or clothing infractions or for having a mobile phone. The group interviewed 22 boys along with five parents in Kabul, Balkh, Herat, Bamiyan and other communities in eight provinces. The Taliban have eliminated subjects like art, sports, English and civic education. "The Taliban are causing irreversible damage to the Afghan education system for boys as well as girls," said Sahar Fetrat, who wrote the report. "By harming the whole school system in the country, they risk creating a lost generation deprived of a quality education." Students told Human Rights Watch that there are hours during the school day when there are no lessons because there is a lack of replacement teachers. So they said they do nothing. Taliban government spokesmen were not available for comment on the report. The Taliban are prioritizing Islamic knowledge over basic literacy and numeracy with their shift toward madrassas, or religious schools. The Taliban have barred women from most areas of public life and work and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures they imposed after taking power in 2021. According to the U.N. children's agency, more than 1 million girls are affected by the ban, though it estimates 5 million were out of school before the Taliban takeover due to a lack of facilities and other reasons. The ban remains the Taliban's biggest obstacle to gaining recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. But they have defied the backlash and gone further, excluding women and girls from higher education, public spaces like parks and most jobs. The new report suggests that concerned governments and U.N. agencies should urge the Taliban to end their discriminatory ban on girls' and women's education and to stop violating boys' rights to safe and quality education. That includes by rehiring all women teachers, reforming the curriculum in line with international human rights standards and ending corporal punishment. "The Taliban's impact on the education system is harming children today and will haunt Afghanistan's future," Fetrat said. "An immediate and effective international response is desperately needed to address Afghanistan's education crisis."

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A man hiding in a pit during the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on an outdoor music festival in Israel said he heard someone nearby screaming she was being raped. Elsewhere in the area, a combat paramedic saw the body of a young woman with her legs open, her pants pulled down, and what looked like semen on her lower back. An army reservist who was tasked with identifying those killed by the militants said some of the women were found wearing only bloodied underwear. Such accounts given to The Associated Press, along with first assessments by an Israeli rights group, show that sexual assault was part of an atrocities-filled rampage by Hamas and other Gaza militants who killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages that day. While investigators are still trying to determine the scope of the sexual assaults, Israel's government is accusing the international community, particularly the United Nations, of ignoring the pain of Israeli victims. "I say to the women's rights organizations, to the human rights organizations, you've heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities … where the hell are you?" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a news conference Tuesday, switching to English to emphasize the point. U.S. President Joe Biden called the reports "appalling" and urged the world to condemn "horrific accounts of unimaginable cruelty." Two months after the Hamas attacks on the music festival, farming communities and army posts in southern Israel, police are still struggling to put together the pieces. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, priority was given to identifying bodies, not to preserving evidence. Police say they're combing through 60,000 videos seized from the body cameras of Hamas attackers, from social media and from security cameras as well as 1,000 testimonies to bring the perpetrators to justice. It has been difficult finding rape survivors, with many victims killed by their attackers. The group Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, which has a record of advocating for Palestinian civilians in Gaza suffering under Israel's longtime blockade of the territory, published an initial assessment in November. "What we know for sure is that it was more than just one case and it was widespread, in that this happened in more than one location and more than a handful of times," Hadas Ziv, policy and ethics director for the organization, said Tuesday. "What we don't know and what the police are investigating is whether it was ordered to be done and whether it was systematic." Hamas has rejected allegations that its gunmen committed sexual assault. Screaming for help Ron Freger fled the music festival when Hamas attacked and said he heard a woman screaming for help. "I was lying in a pit (and) I heard (a girl) yelling: 'They're raping me, they're raping me!'" he told the AP. Several minutes later, he heard gunshots close by and she fell silent, he said. "The feeling in that moment is one of complete powerlessness. I'm lying in this hole and I have no ability to do anything. I have no weapon, I have nothing, I'm surrounded by other people who are hiding with me and we're completely powerless," said the 23-year-old from the northern Israeli town of Netanya. Last month, Israel's police chief presented to the international news media videotaped testimony of a rape witness at the music festival. Her face blurred, she said she watched militants gang-rape a woman. "I couldn't understand what I saw," she said. A combat medic told the AP that he came across half a dozen bodies of women and men with possible signs of sexual assault when he reached one of the attacked communities. At the Shura military base where victims are being identified, Shari Mendes, a member of the army reserve unit that deals with the identification and religious burial preparation of female soldiers, said some of the women's bodies came in with little clothing, such as parts of their pajamas. Some only had bloodied underwear. 'Widespread' crimes Based on open-source information and interviews, the Physicians for Human Rights in Israel report documents incidents at the music festival, homes around the Gaza Strip and an Israeli military base, all attacked by Hamas. "It is becoming more apparent that the violence perpetrated against women, men and children also included widespread sexual and gender-based crimes," it says. Before this war, Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel's destruction, wasn't known to use rape as a weapon, said Colin P. Clarke, director of research at The Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security consulting firm. Its tactics included suicide bombings and shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. A country like Israel should have the means to do rigorous testing to confirm if people were sexually assaulted in a more systematic way, said Nidhi Kapur, a specialist on sexual abuse in situations of armed conflict. "Forensic testing should have been a priority to build a full picture of the attack," said Kapur, who has worked in the region. "In a conflict you first take care of the survivors, you don't count bodies." On Tuesday, Netanyahu and members of his war cabinet held a tense and emotional meeting with recently released hostages and family members of hostages still held in Gaza. Some of the recently released hostages shared testimonies of sexual abuse during their time in Gaza, participants said. Separately, a doctor who treated some of the 110 released hostages told the AP that at least 10 men and women among those freed were sexually assaulted or abused but did not provide further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the hostages' identities. According to the Israeli military, 138 hostages, including 15 women, are still held by Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza. Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a military spokesman, said the army is "absolutely" concerned about sexual violence against female hostages. Failure to support women On Monday, Israel hosted a special event at the United Nations, where former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and top technology executive Sheryl Sandberg were among those who criticized what they called a global failure to support women who were sexually assaulted and in some cases killed. But some groups say Israel isn't making it easy to investigate. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said it requested access to Israel and the Palestinian territories to allow it to collect information from the events that took place on Oct. 7 and 8, and since then, but Israel has not responded to its requests, said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Office. Israel says the office has preexisting biases against Israel and it will not cooperate with it. Israeli officials said they would consider all options for independent international mechanisms to investigate. Rights experts say the United Nations is best placed to conduct a fair, credible and impartial investigation. "These accounts are horrifying and deserve an urgent, thorough, and credible investigation," said Heather Barr, associate director for the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch.  

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Families mourn the loss of their children in the Israel Hamas war. Ukraine's president unexpectedly canceled his appeal to senators as Congress debates sending more aid to Kyiv. The U.S. is imposing a visa ban on Israeli settlers engaged in West Bank violence against Palestinians. 

Former Israeli Missile Defense Organization founder Uzi Rubin on how Iran has helped its Houthi and Hamas proxies to improve their missile and rocket capabilities. German European Parliament member Hannah Neumann on Iran’s re-arrest of dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi and her plans to attend Nobel peace prize ceremony for Iran’s jailed rights activist Narges Mohammadi on Dec. 10. Former Israeli lawmaker Ruth Wasserman Lande on how Israelis have supported Iran’s Woman-Life-Freedom protests. Persian Israeli security researcher Beni Sabti on hosting new Israeli government video news program in Persian language, Daily Briefing Farsi.