parties

Israel’s top court has overturned an election panel’s ban on Arab parties contesting parliamentary elections this month, saying the decision had not met the legal requirements for excluding them, according to Israeli media.

The Supreme Court justices ruled unanimously on Friday to undo the Central Elections Committee’s disqualification of the country’s two main Arab-majority political lists – Ra’am, also called the United Arab List, and the Joint List, which is an alliance of Hadash, Ta’al and Balad.

The decision keeps Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about 20 percent of the population, in the race after critics accused the committee of double standards ahead of the October 27 Knesset vote.

The court also voted 7-2 to reinstate Ofer Cassif, a sitting Jewish member of the Knesset from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party and an outspoken critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, media reports said.

The two dissenting justices said Cassif backs “armed struggle against the state of Israel”, which is grounds for his disqualification.

In September, the elections committee voted to disqualify the Joint List and Ra’am as parties, as well as Cassif and Sami Abu Shehadeh, head of the Balad party, as individuals.

Balad leader withdraws

The Supreme Court has nearly always overruled the committee when it votes to ban candidates.

However, at a hearing on Thursday, Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit told Abu Shehadeh that a majority of the nine justices favoured disqualifying him from the election.

They gave him until Friday to withdraw, saying that if he did not, he would be disqualified, according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Abu Shehadeh withdrew from the election after that.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, led the push to bar him over an article written after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Abu Shehadeh described the attack as “an important historical event” in the piece, but denies supporting it.

Balad said in a statement that a court-ordered removal, rather than a voluntary one, would have had “grave consequences for the country’s political and parliamentary life” as it would set a precedent around the removal of Arab candidates.

Double standards

The Ra’am party made history after the 2021 election, becoming the first Arab party to join an Israeli government when it took part in a disparate coalition that briefly removed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power. Most Palestinian citizens of Israel had stayed out of coalition politics until then.

In this election, Ra’am is also fielding a Jewish Zionist candidate for the first time, Yoav Segalovitz, who won popularity in Arab communities for his work to curb crime as deputy minister for internal security.

The election committee’s September vote drew accusations of a double standard, as Palestinian-led parties faced exclusion while parties led by far-right ministers, some of whom have been sanctioned internationally, stayed on the ballot.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Friday, Abu Shehadeh said he withdrew because he “didn’t have any other choices”.

Although the Supreme Court has restored the Arab parties to the ballot, Abu Shehadeh said the reversal did not make the original disqualifications acceptable.

“In the end, what happened yesterday was a historical catastrophe for democracy, or the very narrow margins of democracy in the State of Israel,” he said. “I was disqualified because I think differently, because I have a different narrative on how to read history, the present, and the future in the place that we live today.”

BRIT Hollywood star Jodie Turner-Smith is accused of helping fund her brother’s drug use and sex parties, according to a bombshell lawsuit.

Three women have also filed a complaint against convicted felon Richard Smith – alleging sexual coercion, non consensual sexual conduct, and imprisonment.

One of them, named Jane Doe 2, alleged that Smith referred to her as his “white slave” and described himself as her “master”.

Turner-Smith is named as a defendant in the harrowing case, that is now threatening to derail her Hollywood career.

The actress, the lawsuit claims “knew of significant dangers associated with Smith and, despite that knowledge, continued to provide or make available resources that enabled [him].”

Smith used the housing and money that he received from his sister to carry out the sexual abuse, according to the claimants.

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Among Turner-Smith’s gifts to her brother was an Audi that he allegedly used to transport drug packages to USPS that were then moved across state lines.

Smith also used his famous sister to make some of the women feel safe and “lower her defences” during sex parties, it was alleged.

“I used to take care of her, now she takes care of me. She pays all my bills,” he told them, as per the papers.

Turner-Smith denies all the claims made against her.

Some of the more shocking accusations were made by Jane Doe 2, who said she met Smith in 2023 at an after hours party in Los Angeles.

He allegedly pressured her to take drugs where “trays of cocaine… and firearms or other weapons were present”, the papers say. 

The pair engaged in a sexual relationship that later turned “unhealthy” and “controlling”.

Smith is accused of pressuring her to have sex with him as well as multiple other men.

Jane Doe 1 also claimed he pressured her to take drugs and engage in unwanted sexual activity with him.

At times, his own children were present during some of the illicit activities at a 1555 Vine Street residence, the papers say.

Meanwhile, Jane Doe 3 said she did not feel safe in the Hollywood home, and said Smith even pressured her to sell drugs.

He further “forced sexual activity involving himself and a roommate,” she said.

The three women allege that “they have suffered and continue to suffer emotional distress, fear, anxiety, humiliation, trauma, loss of peace of mind, and other damages as a result.”

Representing the three women, Nissan Thomas, said: “This lawsuit raises serious questions about what happened, who knew about it, and what resources continued to be provided after warning signs allegedly became impossible to ignore.

“They are asking the court to examine the conduct of each defendant based on the evidence – not on family relationships, celebrity status or speculation.”

A representative for Turner-Smith told TMZ that this is a “fictional lawsuit.”

“[It] was filed by someone who has been harassing Jodie while hiding behind the name Jane Doe,” the statement said .

“The claims are not true. This is an abuse of the legal system, allowing someone to make up facts and file meritless legal documents.”

Political parties in Morocco are intensifying campaign efforts before legislative elections on September 23, which will ultimately decide Morocco’s next government.

Twenty-seven political parties are competing for 395 seats in the House of Representatives and the vote comes at a crucial time for the country.

Rising living costs, pressure on public services, and high youth unemployment – currently at 37.3 percent for Moroccans aged 15 to 24 – are all issues being hotly debated.

Party headquarters across Morocco and sites at packed city neighbourhoods and markets have been transformed into electioneering operation rooms. Campaign teams navigate crowded streets with loudspeakers, music, and leaflets to catch the attention of Morocco’s 15.8 million registered voters.

“We choose communication locations carefully; we start from a field map where we define the spaces where citizens meet naturally, then we divide the team according to tasks between direct communication and recording observations,” al-Wali al-Shtouki, campaign manager for the Justice and Development Party (PJD) in the Medina-Sidi Youssef Ben Ali district, told Al Jazeera.

“We also hold small meetings at the headquarters because they allow a calm and direct dialogue to understand what the citizen actually expects. What we hear in the field is what guides our daily work. After every tour or meeting, we collect observations and repeated questions and discuss them within the team, then we distinguish between local issues that need follow-up and those related to public policies and parliamentary work.”

While physical headquarters serve as hubs for election campaigns, a party’s success ultimately relies on its roots within a community, Jawad al-Shafdi, head of the Moroccan Observatory for Political Participation, said.

“In the Moroccan case, the strength of the candidate, their local extension, their network of relationships, and their electoral record also play essential roles,” al-Shafdi told Al Jazeera.

“We may find a party with limited organisational presence in a specific district achieving a significant result thanks to a strong candidate, and vice versa. Winning votes is achieved through a more complex system that combines party organisation, candidate strength, local extension, networks of elected officials, direct and digital communication, in addition to the party’s image and political offering.

“Therefore, the true criterion is not the number of people who enter the headquarters, but its ability to convert organisational movement into electoral mobilisation, mobilisation into votes, and votes into seats.”

Digital, direct engagement

The competition has forced political groups to adopt multi-channel strategies that balance street-level outreach with digital campaigns to reach a broader audience.

Fatima al-Tamni, a candidate for the Left Alliance in the Ain Sebaa – Hay Mohammadi district in Casablanca, highlighted the necessity of direct engagement with voters rather than superficial campaign displays.

She believes that party campaigns should serve as a space to listen to the concerns of the electorate and propose solutions, while building a strategic vision for transport, housing, pollution and other issues.

“We do not want to speak to the citizen from above, nor turn the campaign into a festival of pictures and slogans… We want to speak with them in clear language, and hear from them before we speak in their name,” she said. “[It] is not an end in itself, but the beginning of a new political relationship with citizens based on clarity, accountability, and fulfilling commitments.”

Youssef Ait Sidi Said, a political activist with the Progress and Socialism Party in the Chichaoua province, said campaigning remains an evolving process.

“For the party, this campaign is no longer just a specific period to introduce candidates and the electoral programme, but has become an opportunity for direct and continuous communication with the population and listening to their concerns and expectations,” Ait Sidi Said told Al Jazeera.

“Digital platforms allow reaching broad groups, especially youth, and grant them the possibility to interact, ask questions, and express their opinions. However, we do not consider that digitisation can replace direct communication. On the contrary, we see that each tool has its function.”

Ultimately, direct engagement with voters should remain the hallmark of party campaigns, he said.

“Field communication allows direct listening to the citizen, while digital platforms allow expanding the reach, interaction, and documenting activities,” Ait Sidi Said added.

KILLER drug fentanyl has long had a vice-like grip on the US, devastating everyone from high profile celebrities to everyday families across the country.

Just today it was revealed that actress Hayden Panettiere, who died last month age 36, had allegedly taken a pill laced with fentanyl before she passed away.

The mum-of-one was found dead of a suspected overdose of oxycodone at a luxury AirBnB in South Carolina on August 17 just days before her 37th birthday.

Cops are said to be “zeroing in” on her alleged long-term dealer from whom she is suspected to have purchased several black-market prescription drugs from.

Toxicology reports are still pending but, according to the US news outlet, the working theory within law enforcement is that it was the suspected fentanyl-laced oxycodone pill killed Hayden.

But she is far from the first celebrity to have succumbed to the drug.

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Others include music icon Prince, who died age 57 from an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2016, long before many had even heard of the drug.

Rappers Mac Miller and Coolio, rock star Tom Petty and actors Michael K Williams and Angus Cloud all lost their lives to the drug, while singer Demi Lovato survived but was left with life-changing side effects.

And the fentanyl crisis is showing no signs of going away as dealers use it to lace other drugs to maximise their profits.

A former NYPD chief of detectives James Essig explained: “Fentanyl is relatively cheap while heroin is expensive. 

“You take a kilo of heroin and then add in a tiny bit of fentanyl and stretch it out for more profitability.”

Fentanyl is an opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.

Opioid addiction became rife in America during the 90s when pharmaceutical companies flooded the market with super-strong painkillers.

But when the government began to crackdown in the 2000s, the Mexican drug cartels spotted a gap in the market and moved in with heroin, and before long they started adding fentanyl to juice up its potency.

Raymond Donovan, former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) chief of operations, says: “That really started the wave of the opioid crisis that we are in now. 

“Very quickly it went from increasing the strength of heroin to pure fentanyl. You had kilos coming across the south west border.

“The Mexican cartels started buying fentanyl directly from China, pressing it into pills and then selling it as if it was a known opioid, like something that was made by a scientist in a laboratory, but it is not, it is a fake pill.”

It was two years after Prince’s death when investigators finally released their findings.

They had found counterfeit Vicodin pills in his house, laced with fentanyl – but police were unable to establish who had provided the drugs.

Prince’s death put fentanyl in the headlines, but it wasn’t long before another famous name was tragically linked to the drug.

The following year rock n roll legend Tom Petty was found dead – and two forms of illicit fentanyl were found in his system. 

He was also using a medically supplied fentanyl patch for pain caused by a fractured hip.

His family released a statement saying they wanted his death to act as a wake-up call in a bid to save others from suffering their heartbreak.

But the opioid crisis was only just starting. In 2018 more than 30,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses – up by 10 per cent – and in July that year singer Demi Lovato almost lost her life.

The star had been open about her struggles with drug addiction and had been in and out of rehab.

Entertainment journalist Chris Witherspoon explains: “Despite years of sobriety Demi Lovato went out with some friends in Hollywood, ran into a dealer she knew and she got some heroin that was laced with fentanyl.”

Speaking about her ordeal Demi said: “I had three strokes, I had a heart attack. I suffered brain damage from the strokes. I can’t drive any more.

Her survival was down to being given the drug Narcan in hospital which helps to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

It was a huge wake-up call with celebrities including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Ariana Grande sending her public messages of support.

But another celeb was not going to be as lucky as Demi. Just two months later rapper Mac Miller was found dead at the age of just 26.

Like Demi he had been open about his own struggles with addiction, writing about it in his music.

Investigators discovered he had been looking to buy oxycodone, but ended up with something laced with fentanyl.

Miller’s drug dealer and the men who supplied him with the drugs were later jailed.

But it isn’t just celebrities that have fallen victim to the fentanyl crisis sweeping America.

Thousands of ordinary families have been left grieving the deaths of their loved ones, too.

Matt Capelouto lost his college student daughter Alex to the drug in December 2019.

“We didn’t know anything about fentanyl at the time,” he says. “Lots of things were going through my head and this was a period of shock.”

Alex, 20, had contacted a drug dealer on Snapchat looking to buy the prescription painkiller Perocet.

But what he, in fact, delivered to her was counterfeit pills made with lethal doses of fentanyl.

“My daughter took half of one of these pills before going to bed and my wife found her dead in her bed the next morning,” says heartbroken Matt. 

“I wanted to find out who this drug dealer was. Who sold my daughter death?”

They eventually got into Alex’s phone and discovered the identity of the drug dealer.

But the family were told that the dealer was unlikely to face any charges as California does not have a death by dealer statute that holds dealers responsible for users’ deaths.

But the case was taken over for federal prosecution, which has a different burden of proof, and the dealer, Brandon McDowell, was charged with one count of distributing fentanyl resulting in death and jailed for nine years.

Matt says: “Locking up a drug dealer won’t bring my daughter back, but it will save someone else’s child.”

Michael K Williams, star of TV series The Wire and Boardwalk Empire, was the next celeb to lose their life after taking fentanyl-laced heroin in 2021.

He had been open about his battle with addiction, and just five days before his death spoke on a podcast about how acting offered him a road to recovery.

Two weeks after he passed away the New York City Medical Examiner said he died from an unintentional overdose from a deadly mix of drugs including fentanyl.

In April 2023, drug dealer Irvin Cartagena pleaded guilty to selling the mix of heroin and fentanyl to Williams that resulted in his death. He was jailed for 10 years.

In September 2021 comedian and presenter Kate Quigley went to a party in Venice, California, where she and her friends thought they were using cocaine, but it contained fentanyl.

Kate passed out, fell over and was unconscious for 17 hours. She woke up disorientated, unable to move her legs, and then made a harrowing discovery.

Three of her friends were lying dead; comedian Fuquan Johnson, Natalie Williamson and Enrico Colangeli had suffered fatal overdoses.

The dealer was never identified.

Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff says: “One of the many tragedies of the fentanyl epidemic in the United States is this repeat of mass overdose events.

“A group of friends partying together and they think they are buying cocaine or some other drug, and they don’t know that what they are buying is laced with fentanyl and because they don’t have any opioid tolerance, they drop dead. 

“So that’s why we have seen horrible crime scenes with three, four, five adults on the floor at a party where they have literally died in a couple of minutes.”

In July 2022, cops discerned a shocking new twist in the fentanyl story. 

The drug was now being used as a weapon by robbery gangs, and a famous fashion designer was one of their victims.

Katie Gallagher, who had designed for Rita Ora and Lady Gaga, was found dead in her bed.

Police told her parents that Katie had died from an overdose – but she had been murdered.

Detectives had uncovered a robbery crew that was using drugs laced with fentanyl to incapacitate victims before using facial recognition technology to open their phones and empty their bank accounts.

Police believed Katie had been given what she thought was cocaine, but it was laced with fentanyl.

Police arrested and charged Kenwood Allen, 33, in relation to five deaths and a drugging and robbery spree targeting a total of 21 victims. 

He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

In September 2022, rapper Coolio became the next victim of fentanyl. 

At first it was thought he had died of an asthma attack, but the medical examiner’s report revealed he had died from an accidental overdose of heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl.

The authorities are struggling to stop the flow of fentanyl from Mexico into the US.

The drug is so compact and so potent that it is easy for the cartels to smuggle it across the border.

In 2023, Homeland Security launched Operation Blue Lotus to try to stop the flood.

And the US targeted the Chinese suppliers that were selling fentanyl to the cartels.

But despite the Government efforts the fentanyl crisis continued to spread across America and claimed the life of yet another of Hollywood’s brightest stars.

Actor Angus Cloud was just 25 when he died at his family home in California.

He shot to fame playing a drug dealer in the hit series Euphoria. But his own struggle with addiction after suffering an ankle injury and losing his dad to cancer made him vulnerable.

He was found to have died of an accidental overdose of a cocktail of drugs, including fentanyl.