U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will host a Hanukkah reception at the White House Monday evening. There will be a menorah lighting and the menorah, created by the Whie House carpentry shop, will become the first Jewish artifact added to the White House archives.

Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish celebration also known as the Festival of Lights, began Sunday. It commemorates the rededication during the second century B.C. of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

The National Menorah of the United States was lit Sunday in Washington on The Ellipse.

In New York City Sunday, the world’s largest menorah was lit in Grand Army Plaza where Mayor Eric Adams reminded the crowd that New York is home to more Jews than any place else in the world, except Israel.

Jewish families around the world will light their home menorahs for each of the eight days of Hanukkah. This year Hanukkah ends the day after Christmas.

Even in the concentration camps during World War II, Jews found ways to observe Hanukkah. An ornate menorah carved by an inmate in the Theresienstadt camp was recovered after the war and is now in The Jewish Museum in New York.
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Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized Monday on behalf of his government for the Netherlands’ historical role in slavery and the slave trade, despite calls for him to delay the long-awaited statement.

“Today I apologize,” Rutte said in a 20-minute speech that was greeted with silence by an invited audience at the National Archive.

Rutte went ahead with the apology even though some activist groups in the Netherlands and its former colonies had urged him to wait until July 1 of next year, the anniversary of the abolition of slavery 160 years ago. Activists consider next year the 150th anniversary because many enslaved people were forced to continue working in plantations for a decade after abolition.

“Why the rush?” Barryl Biekman, chair of the Netherlands-based National Platform for Slavery Past, asked before the prime minister’s address. Some of the groups went to court last week in a failed attempt to block the speech.

Some even went to court last week in a failed attempt to block the speech. Rutte referred to the disagreement in his remarks Monday.

“We know there is no one good moment for everybody, no right words for everybody, no right place for everybody,” he said.

He said the government would establish a fund for initiatives to help tackle the legacy of slavery in the Netherlands and its former colonies.

The Dutch government previously expressed deep regret for the nation’s historical role in slavery but stopped short of a formal apology, with Rutte once saying such a declaration could polarize society. However, a majority in parliament now supports an apology.

Rutte’s gave his speech at a time when many nations’ brutal colonial histories have received critical scrutiny because of the Black Lives Matter movement and the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in the U.S. city of Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

The prime minister’s address was a response to a report published last year by a government-appointed advisory board. Its recommendations included the government’s apology and recognition that the slave trade and slavery from the 17th century until abolition “that happened directly or indirectly under Dutch authority were crimes against humanity.”

The report said that what it called institutional racism in the Netherlands “cannot be seen separately from centuries of slavery and colonialism and the ideas that have arisen in this context.”

Dutch ministers fanned out Monday to discuss the issue in Suriname and former colonies that make up the Kingdom of the Netherlands — Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten as well as three Caribbean islands that are officially special municipalities in the Netherlands, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba.

The government has said that the year starting July 1, 2023, will be a slavery memorial year in which the country “will pause to reflect on this painful history. And on how this history still plays a negative role in the lives of many today.”

That was underscored earlier this month when an independent investigation found widespread racism at the Dutch Foreign Ministry and its diplomatic outposts around the world.

In Suriname, the small South American nation where Dutch plantation owners generated huge profits through the use of enslaved labor, activists and officials say they have not been asked for input, and that’s a reflection of a Dutch colonial attitude. What’s really needed, they say, is compensation.

The Dutch first became involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the late 1500s and became a major trader in the mid-1600s. Eventually, the Dutch West India Company became the largest trans-Atlantic slave trader, said Karwan Fatah-Black, an expert in Dutch colonial history and an assistant professor at Leiden University.

Dutch cities, including the capital, Amsterdam, and port city Rotterdam already have issued apologies for the historic role of city fathers in the slave trade.

In 2018, Denmark apologized to Ghana, which it colonized from the mid-17th century to the mid-19th century. In June, King Philippe of Belgium expressed “deepest regrets” for abuses in Congo. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for the church’s role in slavery. Americans have had emotionally charged fights over taking down statues of slaveholders in the South.
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Elon Musk had an eventful year, capping 2022 with a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, a takeover that almost didn’t happen. The controversial CEO has brought changes and disruptions, layoffs and resignations that put Twitter’s fate into question. VOA’s Tina Trinh has more.
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The Netherlands’ prime minister, Mark Rutte, is set to make a speech Monday in which he is expected to apologize for the country’s role in the slave trade and the lasting impact of slavery.

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports that Dutch ministers have traveled to former Dutch colonies for the event.

Not all the former colonies and activist groups are happy about the way the event has been organized, however, saying it has “a colonial feel” and that they were not consulted.

The Dutch trafficked approximately 600,000 Africans to work as slaves, mainly in the Carribean and South America.

Pepijn Brandon, professor of global economic and social history at the Free University of Amsterdam, told the BBC, “The Netherlands is one of the European societies with the most direct and extensive links to slavery.”

According to the BBC, a recent report found that employees of color at the foreign ministry had been subjected to racist comments and passed over for promotions. The report also found that African countries had been referred to as “monkey countries” in internal communications, the BBC said.
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Britain’s High Court is set to rule Monday on whether the country’s controversial arrangement to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is legal.

The British government wants to send migrants who arrived in the country illegally on a one-way trip to Rwanda, a country with a questionable human rights record, to have their asylum claims processed.

Under Britain’s agreement with Rwanda, applicants granted asylum would be eligible to remain in Rwanda but would not be eligible to return to Britain.

Britain had to cancel the first flight to Rwanda in June after the European Court of Human Rights blocked the move, saying that the plan carried “a real risk of irreversible harm.”

Human rights groups say Britain’s pact with Rwanda is inhumane and the African nation does not the capacity to process the claims.

Politicians say the plan would deter the influx of migrants into Britain.

More than 40,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel to arrive on Britain’s shores this year. Last week, four people died on their trip from France when their dinghy capsized in freezing weather.

 
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Amid the biggest regional security crisis in decades, as Finland waits to join NATO, the defense minister has chosen to claim nearly two months of parental leave from his job.  

And Finns aren’t batting an eyelid. Ditto their Nordic neighbors, who are used to family-oriented social policies and work-life balance. 

Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen, a 48-year-old father of two, makes a stirring argument for taking parental leaving starting January 6 to dedicate mainly to his 6-month-old son. 

“Children remain small only for a moment, and I want to remember it in ways other than just photos,” Kaikkonen tweeted, assuring that Finland’s security “will be in good hands.” 

He later told Finnish news agency STT that “although ministerial duties are very important to me, you’ve got to be able to put family first at some point.”

The five Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden — have made gender equality a top priority in their policies, and that includes encouraging dads to spend more time with their children. 

In Sweden, both parents together receive 480 days of parental leave per child, with each parent able to use half — 240 — of those days, which are also transferable. In the case of multiple births, an extra 180 days are granted for each additional child. 

In September, Finland launched a gender-neutral parental leave system allowing both parents to take 160 days of paid leave each and to transfer a certain amount of days between each other. 

Top male politicians in the Nordic states have made use of their paternal leave rights to a certain extent but it’s still not common practice. 

In Denmark, Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen began a two-month paternity leave in late 2020, saying that his son “has mostly seen his father on TV.” Others in Denmark to do so include the former ministers of immigration, Mattias Tesfaye, and culture, Joy Mogensen. 

In Finland, former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, a trailblazer in combining politics and fatherhood, took paternal leave in the distant 1998, albeit for a much shorter period. Lipponen, now 81, received plenty of positive coverage in international media for his family arrangements. 

Beyond the Ukraine war and rumblings from neighboring Russia, the Finnish defense minister’s move also comes at a politically sensitive time: Finland faces a general election in early April, and its NATO accession is in limbo mainly due to resistance from alliance member Turkey — which claims Finland and neighboring NATO candidate Sweden must first address its concerns over alleged activities of Kurdish militants in the two countries. 

The parliaments of Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify Finland and Sweden’s applications. The 28 other NATO states have already done so.  

Finland’s leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat said in an editorial that the country is likely to join NATO only after the new government has taken office, and took a positive note on Kaikkonen’s leave, saying it contained “a message to society.”  

“Observers outside Finland may not only be surprised but also sympathize with the fact that the defense minister can take paternity leave right now. At least it shows that there’s no panic in Finland,” Helsingin Sanomat said. 

Emilia Kangas, a researcher on equality, work and family issues at Seinajoki University of Applied Sciences, said Finland has seen a substantial change in attitudes both in the corporate world and in politics over the past decade toward favoring parenthood that is equally divided between father and mother. 

Kaikkonen’s paternity leave “tells much about our (Nordic) values and welfare society,” Kangas said. 

Paternity leave has become common in the Nordic corporate world. 

“I do encourage everyone in efforts to take time off when kids are small,” said Antti Hakkarainen, a partner at financial consultancy KPMG Advisory Services in Helsinki. A father of three boys, he took eight months of leave in 2007. 

“That time has been one of the highlights of my life so far,” he said. 
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Along the U.S. southern border, two cities — El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico — prepared Sunday for a surge of as many as 5,000 new migrants a day as pandemic-era immigration restrictions expire this week, setting in motion plans for emergency housing, food and other essentials.

On the Mexican side of the international border, only heaps of discarded clothes, shoes and backpacks remained Sunday morning on the banks of the Rio Grande River, where until a couple of days ago hundreds of people were lining up to turn themselves in to U.S. officials. One young man from Ecuador stood uncertain on the Mexican side; he asked two journalists if they knew anything about what would happen if he turned himself in without having a sponsor in the U.S., and then gingerly removed sneakers and socks and hopped across the low water.

On the American side, by a small fence guarded by several Border Patrol vehicles, he joined a line of a dozen people who stood waiting with no U.S. officials in sight.

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego told The Associated Press on Sunday that the region, home to one of the busiest border crossings in the country, was coordinating housing and relocation efforts with groups and other cities, as well as calling on the state and federal government for humanitarian help. The area is preparing for an onslaught of new arrivals that could double their daily numbers once public health rule Title 42 ends on Wednesday.

The rule has been used to deter more than 2.5 million migrants from crossing since March 2020.

At a migrant shelter not far from the river in a poor Ciudad Juárez neighborhood, Carmen Aros, 31, knew little about U.S. policies. In fact, she said she’d heard the border might close on December 21.

She fled the cartel violence in the Mexican state of Zacatecas a month ago, right after her fifth daughter was born and her husband went missing. The Methodist pastor who runs the Buen Samaritano shelter put her on a list to be paroled into the United States and she waits every week to be called.

“They told me there was asylum in Juarez, but in truth, I didn’t know much,” she said on the bunk bed she shared with the girls. “We got here … and now let’s see if the government of the United States can resolve our case.”

At a vast shelter run by the Mexican government in a former Ciudad Juárez factory, dozens of migrants watched the World Cup final Sunday on two TVs while a visiting team of doctors from El Paso treated many who had come down with respiratory illness in the cold weather.

Constantly changing policies make it hard to plan, said Dylan Corbett, director of the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization helping migrants in both El Paso and Juarez. The group started the clinic two months ago.

“You have a lot of pent-up pain,” Corbett said. “I’m afraid of what’s going to happen.” With government policies in disarray, “the majority of the work falls to faith communities to pick up the pieces and deal with the consequences.”

Just a couple blocks across the border, sleet fell in El Paso as about 80 huddled migrants ate tacos that volunteers grilled up. Temperatures in the region were set to drop below freezing this week.

“We’re going to keep giving them as much as we have,” said Veronica Castorena, who came out with her husband with tortillas and ground beef as well as blankets for those who will likely sleep on the streets.

Jeff Petion, the owner of a trucking school in town, said this was his second time coming with employees to help migrants in the streets. “They’re out here, they’re cold, they’re hungry, so we wanted to let them know they’re not alone.

But across the street from Petion, Kathy Countiss, a retiree, said she worries the new arrivals will get out of control in El Paso, draining resources and directing enforcement away from criminals to those claiming asylum.

On Saturday, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser issued an emergency declaration to access additional local and state resources for building shelters and other urgently needed aid.

Samaniego, the county judge, said the order came one day after El Paso officials sent Texas Gov. Greg Abbott a letter requesting humanitarian assistance for the region, adding that the request was for resources to help tend to and relocate the newly arriving migrants, not additional security forces.

Samaniego said he has received no response to the request and plans to issue a similar countywide emergency declaration specifying the kind of help the area needs if the city does not get state aid soon. He urged the state and federal governments to provide the additional money, adding they had a strategy in place but were short in financial, essential and volunteer resources.

El Paso officials have been coordinating with organizations to provide temporary housing for migrants while they are processed and given sponsors and relocate them to bigger cities where they can be flown or bused to their final destinations, Samaniego said. As of Wednesday, they will all join forces at a one-stop emergency command center, Samaniego said, similarly to their approach to the COVID-19 emergency.

Abbott, El Paso city officials and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

Abbott has committed billions of dollars to “Operation Lone Star,” an unprecedented border security effort that has included busing migrants to so-called sanctuary cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, as well as a massive presence of state troopers and National Guard along the Texas-Mexico border.

Additionally, the Republican Texas governor has pushed continued efforts to build former President Donald Trump’s wall using mostly private land along the border and crowdsourcing funds to help pay for it.

El Paso was the fifth-busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors along the Mexico border as recently as March and suddenly became the most popular by far in October, jumping ahead of Del Rio, Texas, which itself had replaced Texas’ Rio Grande Valley as the busiest corridor at lightning-speed late last year. It is unclear why El Paso has become such a powerful magnet in recent months, drawing especially high numbers of migrants since September.

Recent illegal crossings in El Paso — at first largely dominated by Venezuelans and more recently by Nicaraguans — are reminiscent of a short period in 2019, when the westernmost reaches of Texas and eastern end of New Mexico were quickly overwhelmed with new arrivals from Cuba and Central America. El Paso had been a relatively sleepy area for illegal crossings for years.

Meanwhile, a group of about 300 migrants began walking northward Saturday night from an area near the Mexico-Guatemala border before being stopped by Mexican authorities. Some wanted to arrive on December 21, under the mistaken belief that the end of the measure would mean they could no longer request asylum.

Misinformation about U.S. immigration rules is often rife among migrants. The group was largely made up of Central Americans and Venezuelans who had crossed the southern border into Mexico and had waited in vain for transit or exit visas, migratory forms that might have allowed them to make it across Mexico to the U.S. border.

“We want to get to the United States as soon as possible, before they close the border, that’s what we’re worried about,” said Venezuelan migrant Erick Martínez.
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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will on Monday announce a major new artillery package for Ukraine during a meeting of Nordic, Baltic and Dutch counterparts in Riga.

Sunak will arrive in Latvia on Monday for the meeting to discuss ongoing efforts to counter Russian aggression in the Nordic and Baltic region with fellow members of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF).

Sunak will call on the leaders to maintain or exceed 2022 levels of support for Ukraine in 2023, a statement issued by the prime minister’s office said.

He will also announce that the U.K. will supply “hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition next year under a £250 million ($304 million) contract that will ensure a constant flow of critical artillery ammunition to Ukraine throughout 2023,” the statement said.

The U.K. had led the way in “providing defensive aid to Ukraine including sending Multiple Launch Rocket Systems and recently 125 anti-aircraft guns,” it said.

“We have also provided more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition since February, with the deliveries directly linked to successful operations to retake territory in Ukraine,” it added.

Sunak last month visited Kyiv to offer further support to Ukraine in its fight against Russian forces following the February invasion.

“The U.K. and our European allies have been in lockstep in our response to the invasion of Ukraine, and we remain steadfast in our ambition for peace in Europe once again,” Sunak said in the statement.

“But to achieve peace, we must deter aggression and our deployments across the region together are vital in ensuring we are able to respond to the gravest of threats,” he added.

The JEF meeting, which brings together the leaders of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom, will also be addressed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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U.S. lawmakers this week face a tight deadline to pass a massive bill funding the federal government through next September. The size and scope of the U.S. military budget and a new round of aid for the conflict in Ukraine are among the high-profile items being negotiated. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent, Katherine Gypson, has more.
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Judges at London’s High Court will rule Monday whether the British government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is legal, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stakes his future on stopping a record number of migrant arrivals in small boats.

Under a deal struck in April, Britain aims to send tens of thousands of migrants who arrive on its shores illegally more than 4,000 miles (6,4000 km) to Rwanda.

The first planned deportation flight was blocked in June by a last-minute injunction from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the strategy’s lawfulness was subsequently challenged by a judicial review at London’s High Court.

Judges Jonathan Swift and Clive Lewis are expected to deliver their verdict at 10:30 GMT.

A victory for the government Monday will not mean that flights can take off straight away because there may be a further appeal in the British courts and the ECHR injunction imposed during the summer prevents any immediate deportations until the conclusion of legal action in the United Kingdom.

In one of his first major policy announcements, Sunak set out a strategy to clamp down on illegal immigration and said he wanted to restart the flights to Rwanda despite opposition from lawmakers in all the main political parties, the United Nations and even King Charles.

The prime minister is under growing pressure from his own members of parliament and the public to deal with the arrivals, with figures showing more than 40,000 — a record number — have arrived from France this year, many having made the journey from Afghanistan or Iran or other countries suffering war to travel across Europe and on to Britain to seek asylum.

Immigration has climbed in voters’ priorities to become the third most important issue facing the country after the economy and health, polls show.

The deaths of four migrants in the Channel this week when their dinghy began sinking was the latest in a series of tragedies in the water between Britain and France that have underscored the government’s inability to stop the crossings.

Inhumane, not working

Lawyers acting for asylum seekers from countries including Syria, Sudan and Iraq, as well as charities and Border Force staff told the High Court in hearings this year that the government’s Rwanda policy was inhumane and does not comply with human rights conventions.

They said that Rwanda, whose own human rights record is under scrutiny, does not have the capacity to process the claims, and there is a risk some migrants could be returned to countries from which they had fled, citing concern raised by government officials themselves.

Britain says the Rwanda deportation strategy will help deter migrants from making the perilous trip across the Channel and will smash the business model of people smuggling networks.

Supporters of the Rwanda deal say that sending migrants to the country will reduce overcrowding in processing centers and give genuine refugees a home.

However, since the policy was announced tens of thousands of people have continued to arrive in Britain and until recently Rwanda had only set up one hostel to accept U.K. arrivals, with the capacity for about 100 people, representing 0.35% of all the migrants who arrived in Britain on small boats last year.

The strategy is based loosely on Australia’s program of sending migrants to Papua New Guinea and Nauru for processing.

Under the agreement with Rwanda, anyone judged to have entered Britain illegally is eligible for deportation, with the exception of unaccompanied minors.

Deportees granted protection by Rwanda’s government would be eligible to live there but would not be permitted to return to Britain.
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