Ministers approve bill to quiet Muslim prayer call

Zika case discovered in central Israel

The Rishon Lezion municipality is intensively spraying pesticides around the home of a person discovered to be carrying the dangerous Zika virus, Ynet reports.

The Health Ministry warned the municipality in central Israel that the move was necessary to stop the disease spreading to the patient’s neighbors, the report says.

No details were given about the patient. So far there have been about 10 confirmed cases in Israel.

The city is intensively spraying an area of some 4,000 square meters at a cost of tens of thousands of shekels, Ynet says.

A researcher looks at Aedes aegypti mosquitoes kept in a container at a lab of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the Sao Paulo University, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on January 8, 2016. (AFP/NELSON ALMEIDA)

Zika is transmitted by the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also spreads dengue, yellow fever and the chikungunya virus. It is named for the Ugandan forest, where it was first discovered in 1947, and is common in Asia and Africa. It began to spread more widely in May, when an outbreak was reported in Brazil.

Israel’s Health Ministry warns pregnant women to consider canceling trips to countries being swept by the virus, in light of the evidence of a link between Zika and fetal microcephaly.

The condition causes abnormal smallness of the fetus’s head and incomplete development of the brain.

Powerful quake strikes near Christchurch, New Zealand

A powerful earthquake struck New Zealand near the city of Christchurch, with strong jolts felt over 200 kilometers (120 miles) away in the capital, Wellington.

There are no immediate reports of major damage or injuries. There was no immediate danger of a tsunami, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The magnitude-7.4 quake struck just after midnight Sunday and was centered 93 kilometers (57 miles) northeast of Christchurch, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).

RT @khaleejtimes: Magnitude 7.4 #earthquake strikes near Christchurch, New Zealand https://t.co/9AyuBsKC1n pic.twitter.com/DkBbXHREhE

— ruppr3CH7 (@rupprECHT) November 13, 2016

Earthquakes tend to be more strongly felt on the surface when they’re shallow.

New Zealand sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes are common. An earthquake in 2011 in Christchurch killed 185 people.

— AP

New Zealand issues tsunami warning after quake

New Zealand is now issuing a tsunami warning for southern coastal areas following a powerful 7.4 earthquake near the South Island city of Christchurch around midnight.

“A tsunami is possible,” the national civil defense organisation, which is in charge of New Zealand’s emergency management, says in a bulletin.

“The first wave activity may not be the most significant,” it says, adding tsunami activity would continue for several hours.

The tsunami threat is for the east coast of all New Zealand (including Christchurch, Wellington and the Chatham islands) #eqnz pic.twitter.com/z85tsZ0e27

— MCDEM (@NZcivildefence) November 13, 2016

The warning comes after the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no immediate danger of a tsunami.

— Agencies

France’s Le Pen hails ‘new world’ after Trump win

Donald Trump’s US election victory heralds the “building of a new world,” France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen says Sunday in a BBC television interview.

Le Pen describes the Republican’s win as a “victory of the people against the elite” and says she hoped a similar outcome can be achieved in French presidential elections in May.

President of the French far-right party and presidential candidate for the 2017 French presidential elections Marine Le Pen delivers a speech on November 9, 2016 in the party headquarters in Nanterre, near Paris (AFP PHOTO / Martin BUREAU)

“Clearly, Donald Trump’s victory is an additional stone in the building of a new world, destined to replace the old one,” she tells the BBC.

Trump “made possible what had previously been presented as impossible,” she say, predicting that the “global revolution” that resulted in his election, as well as in the vote for Brexit, will also see her elected as president.

— AFP

Government votes to declassify Yemenite children archives

The government voted today to declassify some 400,000 documents relating to allegations that hundreds of Yemenite children were kidnapped from Israeli hospitals in the 1950s and handed over to wealthy families for adoption.

Since the 1950s, over 1,000 families — mostly Yemenite, but also dozens from the Balkans, North Africa and other Middle Eastern countries — have made these allegations.

Sunday’s decision means that those testimonies, which, along with several other collections of documents, were to be sealed in the state archives until 2071, will be freed up and even posted on the internet.

Yemenite immigrants in a camp near Ein Shemer in 1950. (Pinn Hans/GPO)

Releasing the documents will put an “end to this unbearable situation, unjustified confidentiality, that has been imposed for seventy years on these materials,” says Minister-without-portfolio Tzachi Hanegbi, who was appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to oversee a probe into whether the government should declassify documents.

“This “will put an end to the suspicion, skepticism and mistrust toward the state agencies by the families,” Hanegbi says.

Over the past several decades the government has appointed three investigative committees to probe the case, with all concluding the majority of children died in the hospital and were simply buried without the families’ being informed or involved.

— Raoul Wootliff

Official ceremony held to mark 21 years since Rabin killing

Israeli leaders and members of the family of slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin are gathered on Mount Herzl for the official state commemoration of his assassination.

The official ceremony is held on the Hebrew anniversary of the 1995 killing. Two weeks ago, a private family ceremony at Mount Herzl and a mass gathering at the plaza where he was shot were held.

The event, attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu and President Reuven Rivlin is being marked with songs, music and speeches.

Rivlin says we need to learn the necessity of unity among the people from the incident. “How will we teach to love each other,” he says.

Young Israelis spell the word ‘Shalom’ (peace) with candles at a rally marking 21 years since his assassination, at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on November 5, 2016 (Iacopo Luzi)

Don’t remember Rabin only for the killing – Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the legacy of slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin should focus on his whole lifetime of accomplishments and not just on his killing.

Speaking at the official memorial service to mark 21 years since Rabin’s assassination, Netanyahu says the “scars on the nation from the killing of a prime minister in Israel, the killing of Yitzhak Rabin, will never disappear.”

But Netanyahu dismisses concerns that Rabin’s killing and its legacy present a threat to Israel’s democracy. “Israeli democracy is very, very strong.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the weekly cabinet meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office Jerusalem, November 13, 2016. (Emil Salman)

“I am concerned about that the story of Yitzhak’s life will always stand the under the shadow of its tragic final moments,” says Netanyahu.

“But that’s not the whole story. Every boy and girl, even those born after the killing, need to know the whole story, all that he did,” Netanyahu says, noting his accomplishments as chief of staff in the Six Day War and as a two-time prime minister

“He did everything he could for peace, but he never for a moment took his eyes off the dangers we face,” Netanyahu says.

UN recognizes IDF emergency medical team as best in world

The United Nation’s World Health Organization has recognized the Israeli army’s emergency medical response team as the world’s most capable, the IDF announces today.

The IDF unit, which is regularly sent abroad to provide aid at natural disaster sites, is the first unit in the world to receive a “Type 3 plus” designation, under a set of criteria recently created by the WHO to classify foreign medical teams in sudden onset disasters.

Israel is the first team to receive the top score.

An Israeli army medic team carry Krishna Khadka, who was pulled out alive from a collapsed building, to a more thorough medical check at the Israeli field hospital in Kathmandu on May 1 2015. (photo credit: AFP/MENAHEM KAHANA)

The IDF’s field hospital team, led by Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Ofer Merin, officially received the designation last week, though the army kept the information quiet until now.

“It’s a proud moment for all the Jews around the world and for people from Israel and for people from the IDF Medical Corps. It’s great moment for all of us,” says Merin.

This Type 3 classification ensures that Israeli teams will continue to be the first allowed on the scene and further cements Israel’s position as a world leader in emergency response.

— Judah Ari Gross

Reports of widespread damage in New Zealand quake

There are reports of widespread damage, with electricity and phone services cut in many areas after a powerful quake hit New Zealand just after midnight.

Although no injuries are reported, a tsunamni warning has been issued, calling it “an event of life-threatening or national significance”

Magnitude 7.5 earthquake jolts New Zealand's South Island  https://t.co/STfnviskbk via @MailOnline

— Susie Blackmon (@SusieBlackmon) November 13, 2016

The main tremor was followed by a series of strong aftershocks and there are reports of damaged buildings in the small rural township of Cheviot near the epicenter.

“It was massive and really long,” Tamsin Edensor, a mother of two in Christchurch, says. “We were asleep and woken to the house shaking, it kept going and going and felt like it was going to build up.”

— AFP

France marks one year since Paris attacks

France today marks the first anniversary of the Paris attacks with somber ceremonies and painful memories for the relatives of the 130 people killed.

President Francois Hollande unveiled plaques at sites across the city that were attacked by the Islamic State jihadist group, starting at the Stade de France.

Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo also unveiled plaques outside bars and restaurants in the trendy neighborhood where gunmen sprayed bullets at people enjoying a Friday evening out.

Parisians about to release balloons in front of the city hall of the 11th arrondissement of Paris, on November 13, 2016, to mark the first anniversary of the Paris terror attacks. (AFP PHOTO / ALAIN JOCARD)

The final ceremony took place outside the Bataclan, the concert hall where 90 people were killed by three attackers during a rock gig in the culmination of the carnage.

The names of those killed at the concert were read out as hundreds of people gathered under rainy skies watched in silence.

—AFP

Flights temporarily halted at Ben Gurion due to drone

Landings at Ben Gurion airport were temporarily suspended today after a drone was spotted in the area, Ynet reports.

The drone was spotted by pilots coming in to land, the report says.

Landings have now resumed.

בגלל רחפן באזור השרון: הופסקו למספר דקות הנחיתות בנתב"ג @ynetalerts pic.twitter.com/74IxrY4GXj

— איתי בלומנטל (@ItayBlumental) November 13, 2016

Shaked crosses Netanyahu, brings Amona bill for vote

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked will bring a controversial bill recognizing illegal settler outposts to a vote in a ministerial committee today, despite a request from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to postpone it.

The bill was proposed as a way to prevent the upcoming evacuation of the Amona outpost, which lies east of Ramallah on what has been ruled private Palestinian land.

Netanyahu wanted it postponed because the government has asked the Supreme Court for an additional delay in evacuating Amona, to find a solution for its residents.

But the Jewish Home party are pushing for the bill to be passed as soon as possible, fearing that any further delay in passing the bill would leave insufficient time to push the legislation through the Knesset before December 25 — the date the Supreme Court has set for the demolition of Amona.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked in Tel Aviv, on August 30, 2016. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

And Shaked announced today that she would bring it for a vote anyway, despite Netanyahu’s objections.

Earlier today Netanyahu and Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett clashed over the bill in the weekly Cabinet meeting.

6.2-magnitude quake shakes northwestern Argentina

A strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit northwestern Argentina Sunday, the US Geological Survey says, but there are no immediate reports of damage.

The quake, at a depth of 62 miles (100 kilometers), struck shortly after 8 a.m. local time (1400 GMT) about 16 miles north of the city Chilecito in the South American nation’s La Rioja province.

The quake near the border with Chile follows a 6.4-magnitude earthquake of “great intensity” earlier this month in central Chile. That earthquake shook buildings in the capital Santiago, causing panic among residents, whose frantic phone calls clogged cellular networks and land lines, AFP correspondents said.

— AFP

Bennett slams Herzog at Rabin ceremony

Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett criticized opposition leader Isaac Herzog during a Knesset ceremony to commemorate 21 years since the assassination of slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“What you are doing here is the opposite of leadership. Because here in this house we can disagree and we are supposed to disagree, but what you are trying to do is put the blame for the assassination on half of the population of Israel,” Bennett says in a stormy speech that was frequently interrupted by hecklers.

Earlier, Herzog blamed the right-wing parties for the incitement against Rabin that he said led to his assassination by a Jewish extremist.

Trump vows to deport or jail up to 3 million immigrants

US President-elect Donald Trump is vowing to immediately deport or jail up to three million undocumented immigrants.

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump says.

“But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally,” he says

The comments are from an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that airs later today.

Police release 4 Israelis who went to Joseph’s Tomb

Police say they have released four Israeli men who were detained for visiting the West Bank city of Nablus without authorization.

The men were removed from the Joseph’s Tomb holy site in the city by Palestinian police early this morning, before being handed over to Israeli police officers.

A Petah Tikva judge later ordered them released them on bail. They have also been served with a restraining order to keep them out of the West Bank for the next 10 days.

— Judah Ari Gross

Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus. (keveryosef.org)

Israel lifts travel warning for Albania

The counterterrorism bureau is lifting its travel warning for Albania after a series of arrests there, as well as in Kosovo and Macedonia, after an Israel-Albania soccer game.

They had issued the warning ahead of the game, which was played last night under extreme security. Israel won the World Cup qualifier 3-0.

Albanian special policemen take part in a security briefing at the Elbasan Arena stadium before the 2018 World Cup group G qualifying football match between Albania and Israel, on November 12, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / GENT SHKULLAKU

Ahead of the game, media reports said that 15 people had been arrested by local police.

The bureau, part of the prime minister’s office, says it lifted the travel warning due to “the meaningful prevention efforts of the Albanian forces” and the fact the game was completed.

Egypt detains 200 alleged Islamists over protest calls

Egyptian officials say some 200 supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood have been detained after the Islamist group called for illegal street protests against rising prices.

The officials say 229 people were detained Friday, but an unspecified number of minors and bystanders were later released. Those arrested came from seven provinces, including the capital, Cairo, the northern Beheira province, and Minya, south of Cairo.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity today because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Only several hundred Brotherhood supporters responded to the calls, staging flash protests in poor areas of Cairo and other cities on Friday.

The Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, was ousted by the military in 2013.

—AP

Ministers pass Amona bill over PM’s objections

Ministers unanimously approve a contested bill to recognize illegally built West Bank outposts, over the objections of the prime minister and attorney general.

The vote comes after Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked brought the legislation to a Ministerial Committee of Legislation vote after the leaders of the coalition parties and the prime minister failed to come to any agreements.

Ahead of the vote, Shaked was summoned to discuss the move with the party leaders and Netanyahu.

The talks were reportedly heated, with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman accusing Bennett of imperiling the settlement movement as a whole.

The bill, which is designed to prevent the court-ordered demolition of the Amona outpost on December 25, gets the backing of seven ministers on the panel.

The approval means that the measure will now recieve coalition backing as it moves through the Knesset.

Families walk on a street in the Amona Jewish outpost in the West Bank, on July 28, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The vote came Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit urged the ministers not to support the proposal, saying it would be indefensible in the High Court of Justice, and is against international law.

Reacting to the vote, Bennett hails the “historic process of regulating the settlements in Judea and Samaria.”

And he thanks the prime minister — who was opposed — and Likud ministers “for taking the responsibility required by a right-wing government and voting in favor of the national dream.”

The bill will likely be brought to its first reading on Wednesday.

— Marissa Newman

At least two dead in New Zealand earthquake

At least two people were killed and more fatalities were feared after a powerful 7.8 earthquake struck New Zealand just after midnight Monday, Prime Minister John Key says.

Nearly seven hours after the first quake struck, the prime minister confirmed two fatalities, saying “we cannot rule out” that number will rise.

City engineers inspect buildings in the central business district in Wellington on early November 14, 2016, following an earthquake centered some 90 kilometers (57 miles) north of New Zealand’s South Island city of Christchurch. (AFP PHOTO / Marty Melville)

“At this point we are unable to give precise details of what caused those fatalities,” Key said, adding that communication problems made it difficult to get information from the affected areas of the South Island.

Ministers approve bill to quiet Muslim prayer call

The Ministerial Committee of Legislation today approved a bill to bar mosques from using loudspeaker systems for the Muslim call to prayer.

Ahead of the vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he supports the initiative, pointing to similar legislation in Europe.

The prayer calls, traditionally announced through minarets five times a day and often amplified with loudspeakers, have been a frequent target of right-wing ire, with some claiming they are an unnecessarily loud nuisance that echoes in Jewish towns and neighborhoods.

Arab lawmakers attacked the proposal as a hate-fueled assault on Muslim freedom of religion.

The approval means that the measure will now receive coalition backing as it moves through the Knesset.

El Al flight to New York cancelled in labor dispute

El Al flight 027 to New York, due to depart early Monday, is cancelled due to a labor dispute, Hebrew language media report. The return flight will also be affected.

The flight was called off because the pilots refuse to fly as part of an ongoing dispute with management, El Al tells Channel 10.

However, the pilot’s union says El Al is lying and there are six pilots available for the flight. “The pilots have warned El Al of the immense damage being caused to the passengers.”

Walla news says that El Al will refund money to the passengers.

A boy looks down at El Al jets parked on the tarmac of Ben Gurion International Airport (Flash90)