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November 3, 2024

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In this StockCharts TV video, Mary Ellen reviews the negative price action in the broader markets while highlighting pockets of strength. She shares how the rise in interest rates is impacting the markets ahead of next week’s FOMC meeting. Last up is a segment on how to use longer term charts to uncover long term winners and ride out short term volatility.

This video originally premiered November 1, 2024. You can watch it on our dedicated page for Mary Ellen on StockCharts TV.

New videos from Mary Ellen premiere weekly on Fridays. You can view all previously recorded episodes at this link.

If you’re looking for stocks to invest in, be sure to check out the MEM Edge Report! This report gives you detailed information on the top sectors, industries and stocks so you can make informed investment decisions.

In this video from StockCharts TV, Julius begins by looking back at the completed monthly bars for October to assess the long term trends in the 11 S&P sectors. He follows that up with an updated view for SPY in coming weeks. After that, Julius looks forward using seasonality to find sectors that have strong seasonal tendencies and overlays them on a Relative Rotation Graph, in order to see whether these seasonals are aligning with current relative trends.

This video was originally published on November 1, 2024. Click anywhere on the icon above to view on our dedicated page for Julius.

Past episodes of Julius’ shows can be found here.

#StayAlert, -Julius

The Nifty largely consolidated over the past five sessions but did so with a bearish undertone. The Nifty traded in a defined range and closed the week with a modest gain. Importantly, the index also stayed below its crucial resistance points. The volatility also expanded; the India VIX surged higher by 8.68% to 15.90 on a weekly basis. Given the ranged move by the markets, the trading range got narrower. The Nifty oscillated in a 363-point range; this was much less than the previous week. Following a largely consolidating but bearish setup, the headline index closed with a modest weekly gain of 123.55 points (+0.51%).

It was a four-day trading week as Friday just had a short one-hour symbolic ceremonial Mahurat Trading session. In the week before this one, the Nifty had violated and closed well below the 100-DMA which currently stands at 24669. The Index has also violated the 20-week MA placed at 24744. This makes the zone of 24650–24750 the most important market resistance area. So long as the Nifty stays below this zone, no trending and sustainable upmove shall occur in the markets. In other words, so long as the Nifty stays below this crucial resistance zone, it remains vulnerable to continued selling pressure. The most immediate support zone for the Nifty now stands at 23900; the markets would get weaker if this level is breached on the downside.

The global markets are expected to give a stronger handover; given this thing, the Indian markets may see a stable start to the week on Monday. The levels of 24450 and 24580 would act as immediate resistance points. The supports come in at 24120 and 23900.

The weekly RSI stands at 51.24; it remains neutral and does not show any divergence against the price. The weekly MACD is bearish and trades above the signal line.

The pattern analysis of the weekly charts shows strong momentum on the downsides for Nifty. The 20-DMA is showing a steep decline; it has already crossed below the 50-DMA and it is about the cross below the 100-DMA as well. This indicates strong selling pressure and has increased the possibility of the Nifty staying in an intermediate downtrend for some more time. The resistances have been dragged lower; technical rebounds, as and when they happen, would find resistance between 24650-24750 levels.

All in all, even if the Nifty gets a stable and firm start to the week, it is not out of the woods as yet. Any technical rebounds, as and when they take place, should be chased very cautiously. All up moves shall face resistance at the levels of 24600 and higher; there is a greater likelihood that these rebounds are likely to get sold into at higher levels. It is strongly recommended that leveraged positions must be kept at modest levels and all profits on either side must be guarded vigilantly. A highly cautious approach is advised for the coming week.


Sector Analysis for the coming week

In our look at Relative Rotation Graphs®, we compared various sectors against CNX500 (NIFTY 500 Index), which represents over 95% of the free float market cap of all the stocks listed.

Relative Rotation Graphs (RRG) do not show any major change in the sectoral setup. The Nifty Pharma, Services Sector, IT, and Consumption Indices are inside the leading quadrant of the RRG. Even though a couple of them are slowing down in their relative momentum, these groups are likely to relatively outperform the broader markets.

The Nifty FMCG and Midcap 100 index are the only two groups inside the weakening quadrant; they may also continue to slow down on their relative performance against the broader markets.

The PSU Bank Index, Realty, Infrastructure, Media, PSE, Auto, Energy, and Commodities indices are inside the lagging quadrant. Among these, the Energy, Auto, PSE, and Media Index may relatively underperform the broader markets. The rest are improving sharply on their relative momentum and may eventually improve their relative performance against the broader market.

The Nifty Bank, Metal, and Financial Services index are inside the improving quadrant and may continue improving their relative performance against the broader markets.


Important Note: RRG charts show the relative strength and momentum of a group of stocks. In the above Chart, they show relative performance against NIFTY500 Index (Broader Markets) and should not be used directly as buy or sell signals.  


Milan Vaishnav, CMT, MSTA

Consulting Technical Analyst

www.EquityResearch.asia | www.ChartWizard.ae

Wall Street had a mixed week, with indexes rising early in the week but closing lower on Thursday (October 31) due to concerns about rising AI costs and weak economic data.

Despite a weaker-than-expected US jobs report on Friday (November 1), the market opened higher, helped by a strong earnings report from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), which closed a week of earnings reports by showing a massive spike in profits from its cloud and AI businesses.

1. Bitcoin teases all-time high

Bitcoin recovered over the weekend from a dip last Friday, climbing above US$69,000 by Monday (October 28), fueled by growing optimism that Donald Trump will win the upcoming election, as reflected in his favorable odds on betting platforms. This surge widened Bitcoin’s dominance to almost 60 percent, its highest since March 2021, fueled by strong ETF inflows.

The rally continued Tuesday (October 29), pushing Bitcoin past the elusive US$70,000 it had been stuck beneath for weeks to US$71,540. By Wednesday (October 30) it was near its all-time high, hitting US$73,295. This triggered some liquidations, but strong exchange-traded fund inflows suggested continued demand.

Bitcoin performance, October 26 to November 1, 2024.

Chart via CoinGecko.

However, profit-taking on Thursday led to a selloff, driving Bitcoin’s price below US$70,000.

The subsequent 24 hours were marked by extreme volatility, with Bitcoin’s price swinging from US$68,840 to US$71,500 and back to US$69,350 in less than a day. By the end of the trading week, Bitcoin closed at US$69,284, reflecting a 4.39 percent decrease from its highest point this week.

2. Mixed results in tech earnings reports

This week’s tech earnings reports were a mixed bag, with most companies facing investor skepticism. AMD (NASDAQ:AMD), the first to report on Tuesday (October 29), saw its share price decline due to a lower-than-expected sales forecast, despite exceeding revenue predictions and demonstrating growth in sales of its data center chips.

Similarly, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) strong revenue growth was overshadowed by concerns about a slowdown in its Azure cloud business. Executives attributed the decrease to capacity constraints rather than decreased demand, but it wasn’t enough to appease investors who sent its share price down by three percent after hours.

AMD, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Intel performance, October 28 to November 1, 2024.

Chart via Google Finance.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), despite reporting its highest quarterly revenue growth in two years, disappointed investors with its sales forecast, following a lackluster reception to its limited AI feature launch. Apple shares are down 4.54 percent for the week.

Both Amazon and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reported strong overall revenue growth, with their cloud computing businesses as a key growth driver. Alphabet was trading slightly ahead leading up to the release of its Q3 report, which revealed an increase in total revenue to US$88 billion, 15 percent higher than last year’s Q3 and beating estimates of US$86.44 billion. The primary contributor to Alphabet’s growth was its Google Cloud business, which expanded by 39 percent. This growth was fueled by AI, which attracted new users and increased engagement with existing ones.

Conversely, search ad growth decelerated, decreasing by 12 percent compared to the previous quarter’s 14 percent decline. Capital expenditures, which have set a running rate of around US$13 billion per quarter this year, are set to increase in 2025, although growth will likely be smaller than it was in 2024, which may have eased investors’ worries that spending on AI will eat into the company’s profits.

Amazon and Alphabet performance, October 28 to November 1, 2024.

Chart via Google Finance.

Later, on Thursday evening, Amazon’s Q3 report showed 50 percent growth in Amazon Web Services’ quarterly operating profit to US$10.4 billion. Revenue also increased by 19 percent to US$27.5 billion. Investors appeared unconcerned about Amazon’s significant capital expenditures, sending its shares up 6.75 percent on Friday morning.

This is likely because AWS’s generative AI business is rapidly expanding. Andrew R. Jassy, president and CEO of Amazon, explained during a conference call that AWS’ AI segment is growing at a triple-digit rate, exceeding even AWS’s early growth trajectory.

On the other hand, Meta’s (NASDAQ:META) 4.19 percent share price dip was triggered by plans for increased capital expenditure and anticipated losses in its AI division, highlighting growing investor impatience with the company’s ambitious spending on AI ventures, especially as its cloud business hasn’t generated the profits seen by Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft to offset these losses.

Finally, after a disastrous performance in Q2, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) managed to restore some investor confidence. Its Q3 results beat analysts’ expectations, despite reporting a 6 percent decline in quarterly revenue to US$13.28 billion and losses of US$16.6 billion, arising from the company’s ongoing restructuring efforts. The company’s stock is up 2.34 percent for the week.

3. Apple’s week of product launches

Apple had a busy week of product rollouts, starting with the launch of Apple Intelligence on October 28 (Monday). However, the initial release proved underwhelming due to its limited functionality, offering only AI enhancements to Photos and Writing tools. Most highly anticipated features are delayed until December, and users are required to join a waitlist to gain access to them.

Apple also introduced its new line of iMacs featuring M4 chips and built-in Apple Intelligence, which failed to garner enthusiasm. Apple ended the trading day slightly below its opening price.

Tuesday saw the launch of the new Mac mini, a compact 5×5 inch desktop designed for flexibility; the computer is sold as a stand-alone product and is compatible with non-Apple peripherals, allowing consumers to design their own system by adding their preferred display, keyboard and mouse. This product launch resulted in a marginal increase in its share value.

On October 30 (Wednesday), Apple introduced the powerful M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, designed for high-performance users with higher memory bandwidth and more GPU cores than the standard M4. However, in the lead-up to the company’s Q3 earnings report on Thursday, Apple’s share value dipped by over one percent.

Overall, Apple’s stock value has decreased by 4.54 percent this week.

4. Super Micro Computer faces financial turmoil

Shares of Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) are down a whopping 45.5 percent this week after the California-based server maker disclosed that global accounting firm EY had resigned.

The firm cited issues with the company’s financial reporting as the reason for terminating the relationship, saying it had identified issues that raised concerns about the Audit Committee’s representations. The news was reported by Reuters on Wednesday and resulted in a 33 percent drop in Super Micro’s share price.

Super Micro Computer, whose valuation peaked in 2024 at US$118.81 mid-March and was up over 65 percent year-to-date before this story broke, disagrees with the firm’s findings; however, investors seem to be airing on the side of caution, as this latest development adds to a series of unanswered questions surrounding the company’s financial reporting.

Super Micro delayed filing its annual report in late August to assess its internal controls over financial reporting after Hindenburg Research made claims of possible account manipulation. Super Micro then hired a special committee to investigate the matter, which EY said it could “no longer rely on” in a recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The US Department of Justice reportedly also began an investigation into the company in September, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

5. Google Cloud gains a new partner

Google Cloud announced a partnership with web3 infrastructure provider MANTRA on Tuesday.

Under the terms of the deal, Google Cloud will serve as the primary validator and infrastructure provider for the MANTRA Chain, a Layer-1 blockchain designed to facilitate the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). MANTRA Chain will be integrated into Google Cloud’s Web3 portal, giving developers the tools they need to build RWA solutions on the platform. The partnership aims to drive the adoption of RWAs in industries like finance and real estate.

Furthermore, MANTRA and Google Cloud are launching MANTRA Incubator in 2025, an accelerator program to support real-world asset tokenization projects with resources and expertise.

This agreement presents a potentially lucrative revenue stream for Google Cloud and strengthens the company’s presence in the Web3 space. As the primary validator for MANTRA, Google Cloud will earn rewards for validating transactions and securing the network. As the MANTRA Chain grows and handles more transactions, Google Cloud’s revenue will likely increase.

This collaboration marks a significant step for both companies, highlighting the growing interest and potential of blockchain technology in transforming traditional industries.

Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

Astral Resources NL (ASX: AAR) (Astral or the Company) is pleased to report an updated JORC compliant (2012 Edition) Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the 100%-owned Feysville Gold Project (Feysville), located 14km south of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (refer to Figure 2 below).

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Updated JORC 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) of 5.0Mt at 1.2g/t Au for 196koz of contained gold completed for the 100%-owned Feysville Gold Project (Feysville), located 14km south of Kalgoorlie in WA (Feysville MRE).
  • The Feysville MRE includes maiden MREs for both the Kamperman and Rogan Josh deposits, as well as an updated MRE for the Think Big deposit.
  • Mineralisation encompassing the Kamperman and Rogan Josh MREs was discovered at an average cost of approximately $19 per ounce. This compares to Astral’s peer group, members of which are currently trading at enterprise values in the range of $38 to $82 per mineral resource ounce2.
  • The Mandilla Scoping Study (Mandilla Scoping Study) reported during September 20233 included processing lower grade material of approximately 4.5Mt of Mandilla ore grading less than 0.70 g/t Au during the first five years of operations. The higher grade Feysville ore is expected to displace this ore, contributing significant economic upside to the Mandilla PFS compared to the Mandilla Scoping Study.
  • The Mandilla PFS is likely to incorporate a pit shell design parameter of at least A$2,600 per ounce for mine optimisation. This exceeds the gold price parameter of A$2,500 incorporated in the calculation of Mineral Resources for both Mandilla and Feysville and, therefore, is likely to support a relatively high conversion rate of Mineral Resources into the Mandilla PFS production target.
  • Including the Mandilla MRE of 37Mt at 1.1g/t Au for 1.27Moz of contained gold4, Astral’s total gold MRE is now calculated to be 42Mt at 1.1g/t Au for 1.46Moz of contained gold (Group MRE) (refer to Table 10).

Astral Resources’ Managing Director Marc Ducler said: “When we returned to drilling at Feysville in November 2022, we did so with a view to building critical mass to support our flagship Mandilla Gold Project. As our understanding of Feysville increased, we formed the view that the highly-underexplored Feysville tenement package had the potential to contribute several 100,000-ounce open pit opportunities to the broader Mandilla Gold Project as contemplated in the Mandilla Scoping Study3.

“With today’s Feysville MRE announcement, Astral is well on the way to delivering on this potential.

“The Mineral Resource Estimates across both Mandilla and Feysville are now consistently reported within pit shells incorporating a A$2,500 gold price and cut-off grades of 0.39g/t Au.

“While we acknowledge that using a gold price of A$2,500 to constrain the Feysville MRE is too conservative given the current spot gold price exceeds A$4,000, we intend to update the Group MRE using a more appropriate gold price and cost assumptions as the current data becomes available through advancement of the Mandilla PFS. To adjust revenue pricing assumptions prior to gaining certainty over cost assumptions is not considered appropriate.

“Importantly, the maiden Kamperman MRE has yielded a 1.3g/t open pit resource with a 5.9:1 strip ratio. Given our intention is to use a gold price of at least A$2,600 for pit design for the Mandilla PFS, we are very confident that a strong conversion of this resource into the production target will be achieved and, hence, make a material contribution to the economics of the Mandilla PFS.

“It is also important to note that the Kamperman deposit offers further significant growth potential based on the results of the recent 31-hole/3,834 metre reverse circulation (RC) drill program recently completed. These results are not included in the Kamperman MRE; however, one of the reported intercepts – 3 metres at 177g/t Au from 74 metres as part of a broader intersection of 25 metres at 24.3g/t Au from 68 metres in hole FRC3785 – is quite outstanding and suggests there to be scope for considerable upside with further drilling.

“Similarly, the supergene deposits present at both the Think Big and Rogan Josh MREs are also likely to have a very high conversion rate into a production target.

“Astral remains committed to further increasing the Group MRE through extensional drilling, as well as increasing the geological confidence levels – and, hence, MRE categories – through further in-fill drilling. Two rigs are currently on site at Mandilla, a diamond drill (DD) rig and an RC rig, with the RC rig expected to relocate to Kamperman before the Christmas period for further in-fill and extensional drilling.

“Astral expects to report revised MREs for both Mandilla and Feysville in Q1 next year, ahead of the anticipated completion of the Mandilla PFS in Q2 2025.”

Click here for the full ASX Release

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

The Israeli military says it has captured a senior Hezbollah operative in an amphibious special forces raid in northern Lebanon.

The official added that the seized operative was now being investigated by Unit 504 – an intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Saturday that eyewitnesses had seen “an unidentified military force carrying out a landing operation on ​​the Batroun beach” at dawn the day before.

The troops “moved with all their weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, where they kidnapped the citizen Imad Amhaz and took him to the beach, (then) left by speedboats to the open sea,” NNA reported.

The Lebanese government said its security services were investigating “an incident that took place in the Batroun area,” at dawn Friday.

The raid comes a little more than a month after Hezbollah said it had targeted a naval base on Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast that houses an elite Israeli naval commando unit – thought to be a reference to Shayetet 13.

Hezbollah claims that attack took place on September 23. Asked at the time for comment, the IDF said “no injuries were reported” – but it did not confirm that the naval base had been targeted.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Midway through the documentary “No Other Land,” journalist and activist Basel Adra recounts a 2009 visit to his village by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In a navy suit and crisp tie, surrounded by security detail and photographers, Blair walked through the village for seven minutes, Adra says in a voice-over.

He visits the local school, Adra says. He passes by Adra’s family’s home. He nods along to something someone says off camera, the footage shows. He shakes a hand. He smiles.

Months later, after Blair returns to the UK, Israel cancels the demolition orders held for the school and home in the street he visited, Adra says. In the mere handful of minutes, Blair accomplished what villagers had been trying to do for years.

“This,” Adra says, “is a story about power.”

“No Other Land” tells of the continued demolition of Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the Hebron mountains of the West Bank where Adra and his family still live. But as we see the demolition — the local playground torn down, his family moving their beds and other belongings into a cave, his brother shot and killed by soldiers, attacks by Jewish settlers — Adra and the rest of the filmmakers also show us a community trying to survive.

Adra’s filming begins in 2019 and stretches until 2023, chronicling the Israeli government’s attempt to evict the villagers by force, having claimed the land for a military training facility and firing range in 1981. (During the lengthy legal battle, before the Israeli supreme court ruled in favor of demolishing homes in the villages in 2022, Israeli prosecutors argued that Palestinian residents only began squatting in the area when it was declared a firing range, after previously using the land as seasonal pasture. Residents countered, saying the IDF had blown up Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta decades earlier, in 1966).

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What motivated you to pick up the camera in the first place? Was making a documentary always the goal?

Basel Adra: No, it wasn’t. It was documenting. To document the things around me was the goal, and it always felt important to catch the incidents that’s happening around us as evidence of the reality of what’s happening. And then, after years, the guys joined, and we decided together that we want to make a movie.

Yuval Abraham: I came here as a journalist, so documenting was part of the job. It’s something that I believe in. I came into journalism out of realizing that there is so much that is not being told in the land that we live in that needs to be told. But for me, the act of documenting, whether it’s by writing or by filming, always has a purpose or an audience in mind, most of the time. Whereas for Basel, it’s also that, but as he said, it’s also the way to survive when you’re being attacked, or when your community is.

You started filming this in 2019 and you wrapped it up before the events of October last year. Do you think the film has changed or taken on new meaning because of what’s happened since then?

Abraham: Of course, the movie meets the audience at the moment where the audience is. Now, Palestine and Israel are on the news 24/7 for the past year. To me, the film is showing the reality on the ground before October, and it’s showing essentially the decades-long occupation of Palestinians. And I think one of the reasons why we made the movie is, for me, is because — October 7 is an atrocity — but the world was not paying attention, almost at all, to the violent life that Palestinians are living under for decades before October.

This adds so much urgency for me to the film right now. It’s clear that, to anybody who watches our film and looks at the reality of the farmers in Masafer Yatta, living under Israeli military control is not something sustainable and it’s not something just. It’s not something that can continue. Me and Basel were born in the ‘90s. If we would have reached a political solution then, imagine how many more people would be alive today? And it’s unfortunate that people are now talking about the need for political change only after, in a way, human beings are paying with their blood.

I know with the recent escalation, you had to cut your time in the US short. How did it feel to go from touring this documentary all over the world, getting awards, etc., to zooming back home to Palestine and Israel?

Adra: It’s different. It’s not easy to go to the festivals and succeed, and journalists talk about it, the audience wants to see it, and it’s been sold out in many festivals. But coming back to the reality here, it’s sad to see that the situation is going, changing to be worse than it was even before.

Abraham: It’s a question that we always ask ourselves: What can we do to cause change? To end the occupation, to reach a political movement? Now, I think after really a year, it’s hard not to talk about Gaza, honestly, because you see every single day, literally, houses filled with families being bombed and little children obliterated or burnt alive. And now in the north of the Gaza Strip, there is an ethnic cleansing. It’s one of the biggest atrocities of our age and time, and the atrocities of October 7 cannot justify what has been going on every single day since.

What kind of footage do people need to see for the United States to change its foreign policy in a way which would be constructive for the people who are living here, in a way which will push us towards some kind of political solution?

Those of us who want to see a future where this oppression ends have to call for a change. And so can our film do that? I don’t think it can do that. It’s very hard to speak about the power now of documentary and footage, when there is so much footage. You can now Google. I mean, just open Twitter and open Facebook, you see so much endless footage of violence and nothing is changing. It’s a complicated position that we are in, so I don’t know what can change.

So, you don’t necessarily feel hope that things can change, because there’s footage everywhere?

Abraham: This is why we made a documentary, because there is a difference between just posting a random instance of violence to watching our film, which tells a very strong human story of a community for four years, trying to survive on their land. We hope that watching a film will have some kind of impact that these videos that we post on social media does not have.

At the end of the day, we’re not powerful people, and if the people who have power are not using their power to change the reality, then things are not going to change. We can make a million documentaries about it, but they’re not going to change their reality.

When was the moment where you decided, ‘I’m done waiting on other journalists; I’m going to tell my own story?’

Adra: Well, this is like back in the beginning, of documenting what’s going on. What I saw, like the missions happening, the attacks are happening here in Masafer Yatta. But it’s not a story, even, it’s a routine in our lives. So there I started using social media, writing articles and filming what is happening.

Abraham: There are times in history when policy becomes invisible to the people because it happens so much. It’s just routine. It’s part of the routine oppression. I think of South Africa, for example. There were times when it was just considered normal, under the apartheid regime, to have certain people who cannot vote for the main government. It was just normal. You didn’t need to report about it. And this is what’s really happening here in Masafer Yatta. Yesterday, houses were demolished. Was it reported anywhere? It’s not going to be reported, because this is the day-to-day life, the routine life, under the military occupation.

One of the challenges we face as journalists or even as activists, is how to take a policy that is a routine, that the people are not able to see, and to make them see it. And this is one reason to make the film, to make this policy a story that will be so strong that will show the human aspects of it in such a powerful way that people will be interested to see it.

I’ve heard some places have been hesitant to maybe distribute the documentary theatrically. Is that something that you have run into?

Adra: Yeah, we still don’t have a distributor in the US, we think it’s because of the subject, they’re not taking it. We wish this will change in the future, because we really want the movie to be shown around the US, and we want millions of people to see it.

What are you hoping the impact will be? 

Adra: We want political change for the situation here.

Abraham: Change is possible, especially if there is willingness from the US leaders to allow us to reach the point of change. The United States is very much complicit in what we are seeing in our movie. For a better future for Palestinians and for Israelis, we need change in US foreign policy, and we hope that the film will contribute to that.

Like that moment with Blair, for example. 

Abraham: It just gives you an example of people’s lives here are getting ruined, and for people in power who are sitting in Washington, DC or in New York or in London, to change that is a matter of lifting their finger to exert pressure on Israel to stop.

Of course, in the long term, we hope that the film — and not only our film, activism and work that we are doing on the ground and abroad — will lead to an end to this occupation, and to a political solution that is based on Palestinians having freedom, and Palestinians and Israelis both having political and individual rights. And the way to do that is the US changing their foreign policy. That is one of the main things that need to change, and if our film can contribute to that, even just a little bit, then I’m very, very happy that we made it.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Benjamin Netanyahu sat down for his regular cabinet meeting and had some words for a new ally – and an old enemy.

“Last week I met with US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley,” the Israeli prime minister told his colleagues. “I thanked her, on your behalf as well, for her decisive words in favor of the state of Israel – and against the anti-Israel obsession at the UN.”

“It is time UNRWA be dismantled,” he declared.

It was June 2017: the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency. The possibilities for Netanyahu – who once bunked in the childhood bed of Trump’s son-in-law – seemed endless. In a few months, the American president would buck decades of foreign policy precedent and move his country’s embassy to the disputed city of Jerusalem.

In the case of UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees – Netanyahu would not get his wish so quickly. It would take another eight years.

The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, on Monday voted through legislation to ban UNRWA from Israel and prohibit any contact between it and Israeli officials. The two laws do not mean the immediate end of the agency. Nor do they technically prevent it from working in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. But given the near-inextricable link between the agency’s ability to function there and the Israeli authorities, they almost certainly mean the end of UNRWA’s operation as we know it.

There are as many opinions on why UNRWA, which provides services and aid to millions of Palestinians across the Middle East, was banned as there are people to ask.

Many point to allegations by the Israel Defense Forces that a handful of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the October 7 massacre, which saw 1,200 people killed and around 250 taken hostage. In a country still reeling from the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, this has been a potent and impossible to ignore argument against UNRWA.

Others see the move as another step in the erosion of Palestinian rights and the removal of their distant but long-promised right to return to the villages, now in Israel, from which they and their ancestors were violently evicted when the Jewish state was created in 1948.

In any case, the head of UNRWA has said that the legislation “will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell.”

‘Low-hanging fruit’

Boaz Bismuth, a Likud member of Knesset, wrote one of the two bills to ban UNRWA, which passed 92 to 10. In the wake of October 7, he believed that dismantling the agency was urgent.

“I did not see December ’49,” when UNRWA was created, he insisted. Nor, he said, was he motivated by the claim that UNRWA perpetuates Palestinian refugee status. “All this is totally irrelevant for me. What was relevant for me in my bill was the fact that they participated on the 7th of October massacre, and this is why they will not work in Israel anymore.”

The Israeli government in January said that 12 UNRWA staff members in Gaza had participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israel, and later added more to that list. The agency immediately fired most of the individuals concerned. A UN investigation found that nine employees “may have” been involved in the October 7 attack.

The Washington Post in February obtained CCTV footage from Kibbutz Be’eri on October, which it said showed one of the UNRWA employees accused by Israel of involvement, carrying the corpse of an Israeli man killed by Hamas militants.

UNRWA to this day maintains that Israel never provided it with evidence against its former employees. The agency says it had regularly provided Israel with a full list of its staff members, and has accused Israel of detaining and torturing some of its staffers, coercing them into making false confessions about ties to Hamas.

But Bismuth said that “for me, UNRWA equals Hamas” – and his view is widespread in Israel. In a country where Netanyahu is politically ascendant against the odds, supporting his party’s legislation was plain old good politics.

“UNRWA was low-hanging fruit for this Israeli government,” said Aaron David Miller, a longtime American policymaker in the Middle East who was a key player in the last serious round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in 2000.

A long history

UNRWA is nearly as old as Israel itself. The violence surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948 displaced close to a million Arabs from their homes in what had been British-mandate Palestine – an event Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”

The UN General Assembly, which had consented to Israel’s creation, declared that all the displaced Arabs should be allowed to return “at the earliest practicable date.” A year later, it created UNRWA “to prevent conditions of starvation and distress.”

To Israelis, UNRWA is an anachronism that represents the unrealistic and distant dream of millions of Palestinians to return to their homes in what is now Israel. That is what Netanyahu means when he says the agency “perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem.” Philippe Lazzarini, the Swiss commissioner-general of UNRWA, has made clear that even if his agency were dissolved, it “will not strip the Palestinians from their refugee status.”

Israelis have long accused UNRWA of perpetuating anti-Israel ideology in schools they run. A UN-commissioned inquiry found that examples in textbooks of anti-Israel bias were “marginal” but nonetheless constituted “a grave violation of neutrality.”

Israeli leaders believe that Palestinians do not deserve their own refugee agency and should permanently resettle where they now live – assisted, if need be, by the agency responsible for all other refugees in the world, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR.

“What makes Palestinian refugees different is that they’re not seeking refuge in a third country,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian human rights lawyer. “They want to go home.”

‘What more do they want?’

Saleh Shunnar, displaced from his home in Gaza by the year-long war, knows what it means to be a refugee.

“Israel has always wanted to do this,” he said, speaking from a tent encampment in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza. “If they shut down UNRWA, that means there is no Palestinian refugee cause. They took away the Palestinian cause.”

Those fears run deep for many Palestinians. But concerns about the impact on so-called final status negotiations are “tethered to a galaxy far, far away, rather than to the realities back here on planet earth,” said Miller, the former American negotiator.

“I can understand why the Palestinians would regard this as a systematic first step to undermine the right of return,” he said. But the issues facing any negotiations over a Palestinian state are so numerous and so fraught that the right of return is far down the long list of obstacles, he said.

That is particularly the case when so many Palestinians face an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.

“These are the simplest of needs,” Deir Al-Balah resident Ghalia Abd Abu Amra said of the aid she receives. “What more do they want to take from us than what they already have? Our homes are gone, now they want to take UNRWA too?”

The massive tent camps for internally displaced Gazans have steadily become entrenched. Cloth walls become tarpaulin. Mud floors are replaced with wood. This transformation has been happening for decades across the 58 refugee camps run by UNRWA in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere in the region, as tent camps became residential blocks.

For millions of Palestinians, UNRWA functions as a parallel government. It is a vast organization that provides services that governments – whether in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza, or the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem – are unable or unwilling to provide. It educates half a million students. It employs 3,000 medical professionals. It helps feed nearly two million people.

“UNRWA has saved Israeli taxpayers billions of dollars over the last 57 years,” said Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer who sits on the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “Israel, as the occupying power under the fourth Geneva Convention, is responsible for the care, protection, and the provision of services to persons under occupation.”

“The international community has been doing that by its financial support for UNRWA,” he told journalists in New York. “So if UNRWA is kicked out, the cost for the Israeli taxpayer is going to be ginormous. So this is a decision that is bad for the Palestinians and ridiculous for Israeli taxpayers.”

Bismuth, the Knesset member who authored the UNRWA legislation, said that Israel would step in.

“You will not have a vacuum,” he said. “I feel good with my bill. Because all the services that they got – not only will they continue to get it, but we will even upgrade it.”

Indeed, UNRWA’s benefit to Israel had long been recognized by those in the government responsible for Palestinian affairs, said Nadav Tamir, a former diplomat who now serves as executive director of J Street Israel, a left-wing lobby group. He characterized their view as: “‘Of course UNRWA is problematic, but we don’t have another option, we need someone to take care of the issues.’” Before October 7, he explained, politicians could not overcome the “realpolitik” that UNRWA was an asset in taking a problem off Israel’s plate.

What that will look like remains a mystery to most. Miller is blunt: “Israelis don’t have a long-term solution.” In conversations with UNRWA staff members in the refugee camps around Jerusalem – who asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak with the media – confusion reigned.

No one knows whether, when the legislation fully go into effect in three months, schools will remain open or medicine will be delivered. Tens of thousands of Palestinians who work for the agency could soon be unemployed.

“Most Israelis don’t really know the facts,” Tamir said. “They don’t really understand that there is no alternative. They think, ‘Oh, we can just bring another organization, or we could somehow do it on our own.’”

Even if the Israeli leadership decides that it can cast aside the moral issue of providing for Palestinian civilians, shutting down services for millions poses a threat for Israel itself.

“It’s a strategic issue that will promote more terrorism and of course all kind of epidemics that are not stopping at the border,” Tamir said. “So people who really know the situation I think are concerned. But most people and most politicians don’t really care about the reality. It’s all about the perception.”

Zeena Saifi, Abeer Salman, Mohammed Al-Sawalhi, and Shira Gemer contributed to this report.

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Russia is watching US policy like a hawk.

That was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s message to reporters last week in Kyiv as he answered a question about Moscow’s willingness to negotiate. “It depends on the elections in the United States,” he said.

If elected, Kamala Harris is expected to largely continue the policies of the Biden administration, which have been supportive of Ukraine despite some friction points, like the use of Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia.

Taking a drastically different position, Donald Trump has suggested he will end support for Kyiv’s war effort and claimed he could settle the war “in one day.” Terms of a peace plan floated by his vice-presidential nominee JD Vance are strikingly similar to Putin’s wish list.

American policy is at a crossroads, but that won’t necessarily translate to a turning point in peace negotiations, analysts say.

That’s because nothing suggests Russia is ready to come to the table, regardless of who ends up in the White House.

“What [Trump] thinks he can do, what leverage he has, is unclear at this point – but I don’t think it’s a quick process,” said Thomas Graham, a Russian foreign policy expert and distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A reduction in US aid spending could very well translate to changes on the battlefield, though, experts say.

Those cracks could come in the form of a Trump administration reducing US aid and taking a lesser role in NATO, or a split US Congress, among other factors. Financial pressures on European allies also play a role, as well as rifts in NATO, with pro-Russian leaderships in member states such as Hungary and Slovakia.

“Absent Western unity, absent a clear demonstration that the West and Ukraine have a common vision of what they’re trying to achieve… Putin has no reason to reconsider what he is doing in Ukraine at this point,” Graham added.

The scope of the war is also too large for a simple negotiation between Moscow and Kyiv, experts say. They argue it’s a much broader conflict between Russia and the West.

For Putin, “Ukraine is just a means to an end, and the end is to further limit US influence in international affairs,” said John Lough, an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the London think tank Chatham House.

“When [Trump’s] advisers explain to him what’s really going on here and the fact that China has played a key role in sustaining Russia’s ability to continue fighting this war… he may feel suddenly very strongly that he’s not so well disposed to Putin,” Lough said, adding that Beijing will perceive any concessions “as a further indication of US weakness.”

That goes against Trump’s tough rhetoric on the threat posed by China.

Attritional war playing into Putin’s hands

Ukraine is already outmanned, and Putin appears ready to accept a high number of casualties. More than 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, according to NATO.

“The enemy is increasing its troops to drive the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of the Kursk region at any cost,” said Oleh Shiryaev, commander of the 225th Separate Assault Battalion that is fighting in Ukraine’s surprise incursion across the Russian border. “Russia’s main element in this war is the number of its troops – these are meaty assaults and offensive actions. They do this in all parts of the frontline.”

But Kyiv knows that’s not enough. On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Parliament voted to extend martial law and the draft for an additional 90 days. There are plans to call up an additional 160,000 people, the National Security Council announced.

Ukraine needs support for both its infantry and its equipment coffers, servicemen said.

“We have ammunition, but as artillerymen say, there is never enough,” said 15th Brigade National Guard Spokesman Vitaliy Milovidov, who is fighting in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces continue to make incremental gains.

If a potential Trump administration cuts US aid, Ukraine would become increasingly outgunned.

European nations are scrambling to increase ammunition production for Ukraine to prevent backsliding, in the event that US support drops off.

But even if US policy continues along the current trajectory, Kyiv’s Western allies don’t appear willing to send the level of resources needed to make major battlefield gains.

“My hunch is that this is going to continue, at a lower intensity possibly, but for a long time,” Chatham House’s Lough added. “A Harris administration certainly wouldn’t sell out the Ukrainians, but it would really test their Ukrainian resolve and whether they are prepared to continue to fight this attritional war.”

That’s why Putin’s strategy also appears aimed at demoralizing Ukraine’s population.

Russia has repeatedly attacked civilians and civilian infrastructure. It has also hammered Ukraine’s energy grid, which exacerbates problems for everyday Ukrainians who will face a winter marred by lack of heating and water.

Analysts say the Ukrainian population is certainly exhausted, but they too don’t appear ready to settle in any way. After the mass killings of civilians in Bucha and Mariupol, the brutal treatment of Ukrainian prisoners in Russian custody, and the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children by the Russian state, they know the brutal realities of Russian occupation.

Zelensky, meanwhile, continues to call for support from both parties. If Trump “just wants to force Ukraine to give up everything and thus reach a deal with Russia, I don’t think that’s possible,” he said Thursday.

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Furniture giant IKEA has agreed to pay 6 million euros ($6.5 million) towards a government fund compensating victims of forced labor under Germany’s communist dictatorship, in a move campaigners hope will pressure other companies to follow.

Political as well as criminal prisoners in Germany during the Cold War era were forced to build flatpack furniture for IKEA. The revelations came to light in Swedish and German media reports more than a decade ago, prompting the company to commission an independent investigation.

Prisoners were producing furniture for IKEA, a global giant in the home furnishings industry, as recently as the 1970s and 1980s, the investigation conducted by auditors Ernst & Young found. IKEA representatives at the time were likely aware that political prisoners were being used to supplement labor, the report found.

The former East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1949 until 1990, which installed a rigid communist state known as the German Democratic Republic, or GDR. Tens of thousands of its prisoners were forced into factory work, making it a key location for cheap labor that many Western companies are understood to have benefitted from.

Many of the GDR’s political prisoners would have been incarcerated for the simple “crime” of opposing the one-party communist state. Opposition to the state was stamped out by East Germany’s feared Stasi secret police, which spied on almost every aspect of people’s daily lives.

In a statement this week, IKEA Germany announced it would voluntarily put 6 million euros towards the new government fund established to provide compensation to victims of the East German dictatorship.

After decades of campaigning by victim groups, Germany’s ruling coalition government proposed in 2021 to set up the hardship fund. The German parliament will vote on its establishment in the coming weeks, although this step is seen as a mere formality.

The IKEA statement adds that the payment is the result of years-long conversations between the company’s German branch and the Union of Victims’ Associations of Communist Dictatorship (UOGK) — an organization that describes itself as working to ensure those wrongly convicted in communist Germany receive justice in today’s constitutional state.

“We have given our word to those affected that we will participate in providing support. We therefore welcome the implementation of the hardship fund and are pleased to be able to keep our promise.”

IKEA’s landmark payment is the first of its kind. The move has been welcomed by organizations that advocate for victims.

Dieter Dombrowski, the chairman of UOGK, described the development as “groundbreaking.”

“After it became known that the company was involved in forced prison labor, IKEA accepted our invitation to talk. Together we have taken the path of enlightenment and IKEA has met those affected on an equal footing.”

“We hope that other companies will follow IKEA’s example,” Dombrowski added.

According to UOGK, IKEA is one of many companies that benefitted from forced prison labor in communist Germany. Former UOKG chairman Rainer Wagner warned in 2012 that IKEA is “just the tip of the iceberg” as he called for companies to compensate former prisoners who still bear the psychological scars of incarceration and forced labor.

Evelyn Zupke, special representative for GDR victims in the German parliament, said: “IKEA’s pledge to support the hardship fund is an expression of a responsible approach to dealing with dark chapters in the company’s own history.

“We can’t undo what prisoners had to suffer in the GDR’s prisons, but we can treat them with respect today and support them.”

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