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Netanyahu in Court for Graft Trial Appearance 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacts as he arrives for the US President's address to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, 13 October 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacts as he arrives for the US President's address to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, 13 October 2025. (EPA)
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Netanyahu in Court for Graft Trial Appearance 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacts as he arrives for the US President's address to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, 13 October 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacts as he arrives for the US President's address to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, 13 October 2025. (EPA)

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was back in a Tel Aviv court on Wednesday for the latest hearing in his long-running corruption trial, which opened in May 2020.

The prime minister kept a smiling face as he and his entourage of several ministers from his conservative Likud party were heckled by protesters en route to the tribunal.

It comes after US President Donald Trump suggested on Monday that the Israeli premier should be pardoned in his three separate corruption cases.

His latest appearance at the Tel Aviv court also follows the return of the hostages taken by Hamas as part of Trump's US-brokered plan to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

In one case, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are accused of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods, including champagne, cigars and jewellery, from billionaires in exchange for political favors.

In two other instances, Netanyahu is also charged with attempting to negotiate better press coverage from two Israeli media outlets. He has denied any wrongdoing, claiming to be the victim of a political plot.

During his current term, which started in late 2022, Netanyahu has proposed far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say sought to weaken the courts.

Those prompted massive protests that only abated after the onset of the Gaza war, sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

In an address on Monday to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, Trump told the chamber that Netanyahu should receive a pardon in the graft cases.

"Cigars and champagne, who the hell cares about that?" Trump joked, before asking his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog: "Why don't you give him a pardon?"

The Israeli premier is also subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on suspicion of ordering war crimes in his government's assault on Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu holds the record for the most years spent at the head of Israel's government, having served 18 years in several stints as premier since 1996.

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World

Araghchi: Iran Ready for Serious Nuclear Talks with Washington

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (AP) 
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (AP) 
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Araghchi: Iran Ready for Serious Nuclear Talks with Washington

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (AP) 
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (AP) 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday Tehran is not convinced Washington was ready for real and serious negotiations.

But, the FM added, “If they change their approach and are prepared for a fair and mutually beneficial negotiation, we are prepared as well.”

In an exclusive interview with Japan’s Kyodo News, Araghchi called for Japan to share its expertise with past atomic disasters and help Iran secure facilities severely damaged by recent Israeli and US strikes.

“I have no doubt that Japan has good knowledge on how to improve the safety of nuclear facilities, and that knowledge can be shared with Iran,” he said, citing extensive work on environmental, medical and technical safety measures in the aftermath of nuclear crises.

Also, Araghchi emphasized that potential cooperation would pertain to technical safety, not to inspections, which is an IAEA mandate. “On the technical aspects of these safety challenges, cooperation with Japan can be very useful.”

The Iranian FM then noted that the Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were “perhaps the biggest violation of international law” ever committed against a safeguarded nuclear facility under the monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Fair and Balanced Negotiations

Touching on the prospects for stalled nuclear talks, Araghchi said Iran is open to diplomacy but only under conditions that guarantee a “fair and balanced” outcome. “It depends on the United States,” he said.

The minister said Tehran remains skeptical about the outcomes of future nuclear talks, due to Washington’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord and its support for the recent Israeli attacks on Iran.

“If they change their approach and are prepared for a fair and mutually beneficial negotiation, we are prepared as well. But negotiation is different from dictation. For the time being, we are not convinced they are ready for a real, serious negotiation,” he said.

Araghchi explained that the main disagreement remains Washington's refusal to acknowledge Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Japan is a member.

“Tehran is prepared to accept limits on levels of enrichment and centrifuge types,” he said, adding that negotiations could proceed quickly once the US takes a reciprocal approach by allowing Iran's peaceful nuclear program and lifting sanctions.

Araghchi then said Iran faces a complex mix of safety and security threats that it has never seen before, citing structural damage and potential radiation leaks after the June strikes.

As there is “no precedent of a peaceful nuclear facility being bombarded,” the foreign chief said, “the strikes exposed a critical procedural gap within the IAEA, in terms of how to inspect such a facility.”

Earlier this year, Iran and the IAEA reached a framework of cooperation during talks in Cairo to define a workable mechanism for inspecting and stabilizing sites damaged by military action.

However, Araghchi said, the agreement was undermined when the United States and the three European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal sought to restore past UN Security Council sanctions.

 

World

UN Cuts Its Aid Appeal for 2026 despite Soaring Need

FILE - Women displaced from El-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)
FILE - Women displaced from El-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)
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UN Cuts Its Aid Appeal for 2026 despite Soaring Need

FILE - Women displaced from El-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)
FILE - Women displaced from El-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

The United Nations on Monday appealed for an aid budget only half the size of what it had hoped for this year, acknowledging a plunge in donor funding at a time when humanitarian needs have never been greater.

By its own admission, the $23 billion UN appeal will shut out tens of millions of people in urgent need of help as falling support has forced it to prioritize only the most desperate, Reuters said.

The funding cuts come on top of other challenges for aid agencies that include security risks to staff in conflict zones and lack of access.

"It's the cuts ultimately that are forcing us into these tough, tough, brutal choices that we're having to make," UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told reporters.

"We are overstretched, underfunded, and under attack," he said. "And we drive the ambulance towards the fire. On your behalf. But we are also now being asked to put the fire out. And there is not enough water in the tank. And we're being shot at."

A year ago, the UN sought some $47 billion for 2025 - a figure that was later pared back as the scale of aid cuts by US President Donald Trump as well as other top Western donors such as Germany began to emerge.

November figures showed it had received only $12 billion so far, the lowest in 10 years, covering just over a quarter of needs.

Next year's $23 billion plan identifies 87 million people deemed as priority cases whose lives are on the line. Yet it says around a quarter of a billion need urgent assistance, and that it will aim to help 135 million of them at a cost of $33 billion - if it has the means.

The biggest single appeal of $4 billion is for the occupied Palestinian territories. Most of that is for Gaza, devastated by the two-year Israel-Hamas conflict, which has left nearly all of its 2.3 million inhabitants homeless and dependent on aid.

Second is Sudan, followed by Syria.

Fletcher said humanitarian groups faced a bleak scenario of growing hunger, spreading disease and record violence.

"(The appeal) is laser-focused on saving lives where the shocks hit hardest: wars, climate disasters, earthquakes, epidemics, crop failures," he said.

UN humanitarian agencies are overwhelmingly reliant on voluntary donations by Western donors, with the United States by far the top historical donor.

UN data showed it continued to hold the number one spot in 2025 despite Trump's cuts but that its share had shrunk from over a third of the total to 15.6% this year.

World

Netanyahu Says He Will Not Quit Politics if He Receives a Pardon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)
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Netanyahu Says He Will Not Quit Politics if He Receives a Pardon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would not retire from politics if he receives a pardon from the country’s president in his years-long corruption trial.

Asked by a reporter if planned on retiring from political life if he receives a pardon, Netanyahu replied: “no.”

Netanyahu last month asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon, with lawyers for the prime minister arguing that frequent court appearances were hindering Netanyahu’s ability to govern and that a pardon would be good for the country.

Pardons in Israel have typically been granted only after legal proceedings have concluded and the accused has been convicted. There is no precedent for issuing a pardon mid-trial.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in response to the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and his lawyers have said that the prime minister still believes the legal proceedings, if concluded, would result in a complete acquittal.

US President Donald Trump wrote to Herzog, before Netanyahu made his request, urging the Israeli president to consider granting the prime minister a pardon.

Some Israeli opposition politicians have argued that any pardon should be conditional on Netanyahu retiring from politics and admitting guilt. Others have said the prime minister must first call national elections, which are due by October 2026.