Latest / The Rest of the World Podcast / The Rest of the World Report | September 29, 2026 — Morning Edition

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The Rest of the World Report | September 29, 2026 — Morning Edition · The Rest of the World Podcast

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Good morning from Paris.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez with The Rest of the World Report for Tuesday morning, September 29th.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smoltrich said Sunday that Israel should go to war
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  SPEAKER_00: in Judea and Samaria to do there what we did in Gaza.
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  SPEAKER_00: He made the comment in a podcast interview with Ynet.
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  SPEAKER_00: He called the Palestinian Authority a terror authority that should be dismantled
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  SPEAKER_00: and said no terrorist infrastructure,
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  SPEAKER_00: weapons, or tunnels should remain in the West Bank.
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  SPEAKER_00: Smutrich also called for annexing Gaza up to the Yellow Line,
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  SPEAKER_00: the line marking the roughly 60% of the Strip currently under Israeli control.
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  SPEAKER_00: He called for annexing Lebanon up to the Latani River,
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  SPEAKER_00: the unofficial line marking Israel's southern buffer zone.
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  SPEAKER_00: His reasoning?
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  SPEAKER_00: Wars that end where they started leave enemies free to restart them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Annexation, he argued, would force adversaries to pay a price.
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  SPEAKER_00: The remarks come about a month before Israel's general election.
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  SPEAKER_00: Smoltrich made a nearly identical call to annex southern Lebanon in March.
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  SPEAKER_00: Two days later,
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  SPEAKER_00: before dawn Tuesday,
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  SPEAKER_00: more than 100 Israeli settlers rioted in Jalud, a West Bank village near Nablus.
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  SPEAKER_00: The riot followed a high court order returning a Palestinian family evicted from
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  SPEAKER_00: the village in July.
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  SPEAKER_00: Settlers blocked the family from reaching their home and set fire
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  SPEAKER_00: to Palestinian houses and vehicles.
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  SPEAKER_00: One homeowner said his house was burned to the ground.
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  SPEAKER_00: Three border police were lightly injured.
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  SPEAKER_00: Police arrested three people,
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  SPEAKER_00: two of them minors, and said balaclavas and clubs were found in their vehicles.
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  SPEAKER_00: Separately,
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  SPEAKER_00: 11 people were arrested after Israeli youths attacked Arab men
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  SPEAKER_00: in Jerusalem's Damascus Gate during Sukkot celebrations.
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  SPEAKER_00: Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the Jalud violence a moral stain.
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  SPEAKER_00: He said it amounted to an attack on the rule of law.
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  SPEAKER_00: Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar called it serious and abhorrent.
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  SPEAKER_00: He said the perpetrators were harming Israel's own values and its settlement project.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Palestinian Authority's Foreign Ministry said Monday
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  SPEAKER_00: that Smotrich's remarks amount to a call for further military escalation in
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  SPEAKER_00: the West Bank.
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  SPEAKER_00: It said the comments reflected efforts to advance annexation and displacement.
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  SPEAKER_00: It urged the U.N. Security Council and the United States to take immediate, concrete measures.
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  SPEAKER_00: Qatar's foreign ministry followed Tuesday,
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  SPEAKER_00: rejecting the annexation remarks as a flagrant challenge to international law
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  SPEAKER_00: and legitimate international resolutions.
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  SPEAKER_00: It called on the international community to compel Israel to halt its expansionist plans.
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  SPEAKER_00: It reaffirmed support for a Palestinian state on 1967 borders and
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  SPEAKER_00: for Lebanese sovereignty over its entire territory.
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  SPEAKER_00: Translator's Notes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gulf and Palestinian sources are not treating Smutrich's remarks as
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  SPEAKER_00: a campaign rhetoric to be weighed against denials.
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  SPEAKER_00: Qatar's foreign ministry and
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  SPEAKER_00: the Palestinian Authority's foreign ministry both characterized the comments as
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  SPEAKER_00: a declared intention, not a negotiating position.
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  SPEAKER_00: Both called on outside powers,
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  SPEAKER_00: the international community broadly,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the UN Security Council and United States specifically,
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  SPEAKER_00: to force a stop rather than simply condemn.
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  SPEAKER_00: Al Jazeera's own analysis reached a similar place from a different angle.
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  SPEAKER_00: A legal director quoted by the outlet described the statement as
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  SPEAKER_00: a public declaration of intent to commit war crimes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Analyst Myrav Zonsign told Al Jazeera that Smutrich has been enacting the substance
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  SPEAKER_00: of this threat for four years,
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  SPEAKER_00: through settlement expansion and settler violence, not merely proposing it now.
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  SPEAKER_00: Reading Tuesday's rioting in Jalud as a second expression of the same policy rather
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  SPEAKER_00: than a separate story is my, The Rest of the World Report's, own editorial judgment.
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  SPEAKER_00: No outlet found for the edition drew the same connection explicitly.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: Washington has not commented on this week's remarks.
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  SPEAKER_00: The State Department said in April after an earlier Smutrich annexation call
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  SPEAKER_00: that Trump does not support the annexation of the West Bank.
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  SPEAKER_00: It pointedly declined at that time to address his broader ambitions in Gaza
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  SPEAKER_00: and Lebanon, the same ambitions he is now making outright.
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  SPEAKER_00: Winston Lee is one of seven Chi-Fi fraternity members
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  SPEAKER_00: a former Cornell student sued September 14th,
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  SPEAKER_00: alleging she was drugged with ketamine and marijuana and gang-raped at
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  SPEAKER_00: a fraternity house party in October 2024.
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  SPEAKER_00: The lawsuit was filed under the pseudonym Jane Doe.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lee is the only one of the seven whose case has become its own story overseas.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Korea Herald reported it has sent shockwaves through the Korean-American community.
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  SPEAKER_00: Korean and Korean-American coverage of the case has centered on Lee individually,
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  SPEAKER_00: not on Cornell's institutional response, the frame that dominates U.S. reporting.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Korea Times reported an active online search for Lee's current whereabouts,
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  SPEAKER_00: with conflicting claims circulating.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some posts say he has joined the South Korean military.
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  SPEAKER_00: Others claim he has returned to Cornell and is attending classes.
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  SPEAKER_00: One Korean-American outlet,
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  SPEAKER_00: KNewsLA,
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  SPEAKER_00: reported finding a LinkedIn profile showing Lee served in the Republic
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  SPEAKER_00: of Korea Army, according to the Korea Times.
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  SPEAKER_00: Unverified posts cited by the outlet,
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  SPEAKER_00: from users claiming to be former classmates,
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  SPEAKER_00: say Lee attended the Seoul Foreign School and UWC Atlantic,
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  SPEAKER_00: a boarding school in the UK, before enrolling at Cornell.
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  SPEAKER_00: Korea Daily reported that Lee's name and photo,
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  SPEAKER_00: along with the other six defendants, are circulating on the Cornell7.org website.
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  SPEAKER_00: The site was built by former South Park writer Toby Morton
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  SPEAKER_00: and publicly identifies all seven by name and photo.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten declined to prosecute in 2024
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  SPEAKER_00: after Doe's initial statement to campus police did not allege gang rape or drugging.
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  SPEAKER_00: He reopened the investigation this week citing new evidence.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cornell Vice President for University Relations Kyle Kimball disputed claims
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  SPEAKER_00: that essay writing was the university's only discipline.
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  SPEAKER_00: Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishment
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  SPEAKER_00: for those involved is false, he said.
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  SPEAKER_00: The university closed its Chi-Fi chapter and confirmed expulsions
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  SPEAKER_00: and suspensions were issued without saying how many.
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  SPEAKER_00: Translators note,
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  SPEAKER_00: Korean and Korean-American coverage
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  SPEAKER_00: of this case is doing something American coverage isn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: Treating Winston Lee's own exposure, not Cornell's institutional response, as the story.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Korea Herald led with his nationality and the community reaction it described.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Korea Times went further,
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  SPEAKER_00: tracking an active public search for his current whereabouts,
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  SPEAKER_00: including unverified claims that he has entered South Korean military service.
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  SPEAKER_00: Korea Daily reported his name and photo circulating publicly alongside
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  SPEAKER_00: the other six defendants on a dedicated website.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of the three outlets reported an organized South Korean government or diaspora response.
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  SPEAKER_00: The coverage is individual,
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  SPEAKER_00: one defendant's identity and location, not Cornell's institutional failures.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a domestic campus story for six of the seven defendants.
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  SPEAKER_00: For the seventh, it is something else.
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  SPEAKER_00: A Korean-American student individually identified,
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  SPEAKER_00: tracked,
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  SPEAKER_00: and speculated about online with an intensity that has no real counterpart in U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: coverage of the same case.
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  SPEAKER_00: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado failed three separate attempts
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  SPEAKER_00: to return home from exile in Panama within about 24 hours last week.
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  SPEAKER_00: That brings her total to seven failed attempts in 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: A sea crossing was called off Monday,
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  SPEAKER_00: September 21st,
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  SPEAKER_00: over what the accompanying journalist called strange mechanical problems
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  SPEAKER_00: after her passport had already been stamped for departure.
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  SPEAKER_00: A flight to Aruba never left the ground the next morning.
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  SPEAKER_00: A charter to Curaçao was blocked the same afternoon.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Netherlands control foreign policy for Aruba and Curaçao as part of the Dutch Kingdom.
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  SPEAKER_00: It refused landing permission for the Curaçao charter.
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  SPEAKER_00: The company running the flight said it never received the necessary permission
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  SPEAKER_00: to fly to either island, citing paperwork issues.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten declined to comment.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Dutch Foreign Ministry said only that the Netherlands has
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  SPEAKER_00: for years been unflagging in its support for the opposition while declining
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  SPEAKER_00: to discuss her travel plans.
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  SPEAKER_00: Journalists traveling with Machado called the explanation implausible.
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  SPEAKER_00: The U.S. position is similarly murky.
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  SPEAKER_00: According to Merco Press,
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  SPEAKER_00: citing the Spanish newspaper El Pais,
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  SPEAKER_00: Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau approved an earlier return attempt.
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  SPEAKER_00: Assistant Secretary Mike Kozak separately signaled U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: policy actually opposes facilitating her return.
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  SPEAKER_00: Machado herself has offered a third explanation,
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  SPEAKER_00: saying Venezuela closed its commercial airspace to keep her out.
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  SPEAKER_00: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump both deny obstructing her return.
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  SPEAKER_00: Machado's own communications chief took a very different path home.
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  SPEAKER_00: Claudia Macero had taken refuge in Argentina's embassy residence in Caracas
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  SPEAKER_00: since March 2024 on conspiracy and treason accusations.
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  SPEAKER_00: She flew into Simone Boulevard International Airport outside Caracas
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  SPEAKER_00: on September 27th without incident and was met by hundreds of supporters singing
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  SPEAKER_00: the national anthem.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's time to come home, she said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Asked when Machado might fly home,
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  SPEAKER_00: Massero said only that her boss was trying every day to return.
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  SPEAKER_00: Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
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  SPEAKER_00: Two opposition members were briefly detained
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  SPEAKER_00: during concurrent protests demanding her safe return.
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  SPEAKER_00: Translator's note.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dutch and Latin American coverage is asking a sharper question than U.S. coverage has.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is asking why a NATO ally's own territories are the ones physically stopping
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  SPEAKER_00: a Nobel laureate's return, not why the U.S. isn't helping.
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  SPEAKER_00: NL Times documented Aruba and Kurosawa's landing refusals in detail
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  SPEAKER_00: that did not surface in this edition's U.S. search results.
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  SPEAKER_00: MercoPress is reporting on a split between two named State Department officials,
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  SPEAKER_00: one who approved an earlier attempt and one who signaled the opposite,
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  SPEAKER_00: is the most specific account found of Washington's own internal contradictions.
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  SPEAKER_00: Together,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Dutch and Latin American reporting documents active multi-front obstruction
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  SPEAKER_00: in more specific terms than surfaced anywhere else in this edition's search.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gang members killed at least 11 civilians in Haiti's Ardabonite region Monday.
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  SPEAKER_00: The attack was retaliation after
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  SPEAKER_00: a UN-backed security force dismantled illegal gang toll points nearby.
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  SPEAKER_00: Mayor Hubert Siniak said the death toll may reach 12.
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  SPEAKER_00: The bandits in retaliation attacked.
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  SPEAKER_00: They killed and burned homes, he said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Kokorat San Ross,
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  SPEAKER_00: the gang responsible,
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  SPEAKER_00: struck after a Sri Lankan unit of the UN-backed gang suppression force moved
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  SPEAKER_00: to dismantle the toll points.
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  SPEAKER_00: The unit is based in nearby Gonaive.
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  SPEAKER_00: Three gang members were killed in the initial operation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rosie Dusena is with Haiti's National Human Rights Defense Network.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her organization has already received a report of a single family
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  SPEAKER_00: that lost several members, she said.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Haiti's gang violence has been expanding beyond Port-au-Prince into rural areas,
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  SPEAKER_00: an escalating pattern noted in Monday's reporting.
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  SPEAKER_00: The gang suppression force was deployed to reinforce Haitian police against that expansion.
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  SPEAKER_00: The UN Security Council is scheduled to vote today on whether to renew
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  SPEAKER_00: the gang suppression force's mandate, which expires this week.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is what Haitians are being deported back into.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Trump administration ended temporary protected status for Haiti in July,
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  SPEAKER_00: and deportation flights have since risen from about once a month to one a week.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human Rights Watch reported this month that more than 450 people have been deported
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  SPEAKER_00: since late July,
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  SPEAKER_00: many arriving to one meal, about $77 in cash, and no sustained shelter.
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  SPEAKER_00: And a couple of briefs before we go.
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  SPEAKER_00: Iran says it expects a definitive U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: response today on its plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
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  SPEAKER_00: Foreign Minister Abbas Aragji met Qatari mediators
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  SPEAKER_00: as talks entered what Tehran calls a key stage.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump rejected an earlier version of the proposal last week.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Pentagon's defense casualty analyst system now shows 29 sailors
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  SPEAKER_00: and nine Marines wounded in the Middle East this month,
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  SPEAKER_00: one more Marine than the eight reported in last night's edition.
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  SPEAKER_00: A Navy official attributed the change to standard verification protocols.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's it for this morning's edition of The Rest of the World Report.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: I will see you all again this evening.