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Christians around the world are celebrating Christmas. But in the Holy Land, Israeli-Palestinian tensions have put a damper on festivities.

Bells at the Church of the Nativity summoned the faithful to celebrate Christmas at the traditional birthplace of Jesus in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. But turnout was sparse in the wake of three weeks of Palestinian protests against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

WATCH: Trump’s Declaration Overshadows Christmas in Bethlehem

Palestinian Michael Kumsiyeh sat in his empty souvenir shop in Manger Square and put the blame squarely on Trump.

“He makes a problem. He doesn’t make any solution. He doesn’t find any solution for the problem,” said Kumsiyeh.

Café owner Hader Kanaan said customers are few and far between.

“This Christmas this year is very sad. No celebration. Nobody happy. Bad situation. Everything [is] bad,” he said.

Some tourists cancelled their trips to Bethlehem, but others were not deterred.

“I wasn’t afraid to come. I’m not afraid being here at all. I’m pleased to see the security,” said Gail Perkins, who came from Los Angeles in the United States.

She said there no better place to be on Christmas than Bethlehem.

“It kind of makes the biblical stories that I’ve known all my life come alive because I can see the countryside, hear the language and smell the food,” she said.

Many pilgrims waited a lifetime to visit Bethlehem, but the Palestinians who live here are still waiting for better times.

IN PICTURES: Christmas Celebrations Around the World

 
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Doug Jones was a little speechless at first. Then he thanked the various voters who elected him the first Democratic senator from Alabama in 25 years.

“I have always believed that the people of Alabama have more in common than to divide us.” His stunning victory was a fallout from a barrage of sexual harassment allegations that shook the country in late 2017.

His Republican opponent, Roy Moore, campaigned while denying at least nine allegations of sexual misconduct, some involving women when they were teenagers. Accuser Beverly Young says she was terrified at the time.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” she said.

Despite an endorsement from President Donald Trump, and Moore’s insistence that the “allegations are completely false … malicious,” Moore lost.

​Opening the floodgates

By the end of 2017, more than 60 prominent men were suspended, fired or forced to resign from their highly visible jobs because of allegations of sexual harassment and even assault against women, some occurring years ago. More than 100 stand accused of sexual harassment or misconduct. The trend began in October when movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, was exposed as an alleged serial predator of young actresses who wanted to be stars.

Louisette Geiss says her heart raced as he told her “he could get me a three-picture deal, but that I had to watch him masturbate.” By December, more than 80 women had accused Weinstein of sexual harassment.

He admitted, “I got to get help, guys,” as he left for an Arizona rehabilitation facility. He stayed for a week. His business, the Weinstein Company, co-founded with his brother, is in jeopardy, plagued by lawsuits from women who claim the company knew about and hid his harassment.

WATCH: Dozens Shamed in Sexual Harassment Charges in 2017

The Weinstein effect

The public accusations against Harvey Weinstein emboldened other women to tell their stories. Suddenly, other high-profile men began to fall in what would be known as the “Weinstein Effect.”

Melissa Silverstein writes the blog “Women and Hollywood.” She says the outpouring of accusations proves that women are “reacting that our rights are being rolled back and we are tired of it.”

The “Weinstein Effect” hit others in Hollywood, including House of Cards star Kevin Spacey, accused of sexual harassment of a teenaged boy. Netflix suspended its filming of the show’s last season, then announced it would resume without Spacey as the main character.

In other media, NBC fired its Today show host of 20 years, Matt Lauer, after accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior on the job. CBS suspended its morning anchor, Charlie Rose, for similar allegations.

Comedian Louis C.K. is accused by five women of sexual misconduct for actions including stripping and masturbating in front of them. Louisiana Celebrity Chef John Besh, who’s known for the country’s southern food trend, stepped down after several dozen women claimed harassment and that his restaurant atmosphere allowed it to thrive.

In music, Russell Simmons, co-founder of the hip-hop music label Def Jam Recordings, and James Levine, the conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, face sexual assault allegations.

​More political fallout

Moore was not the only politician accused of improper behavior. A radio news anchor accused U.S. Senator Al Franken of groping her while she slept on a military plane headed home from a USO tour. Leeann Tweeden posted the photo as part of an essay she wrote about the 2006 incident. Tweeden also accused Franken of forcibly kissing her. 

“He just smashed his lips against my face,” she said in the news conference, “and he stuck his tongue in my mouth so fast.”

More complaints would come forward, and Franken announced in December he would step down: “I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.” Franken’s last day in office will be Jan. 2.

In late December, a group of Democratic senators used Franken’s resignation as a reason to demand President Donald Trump resign. They cited at least 15 women who have accused the president of improper conduct. Trump was elected U.S. president more than a year ago, despite the public accusations.

​#MeToo rally, Time award

The shift in attitudes against sexual harassment triggered a social media campaign. #MeToo became the rallying cry for women worldwide. Women posted the hashtag on Twitter and Facebook to acknowledge publicly their experiences and to demonstrate the extent of the problem.

Time magazine named “The Silence Breakers” as its “Person of the Year” for 2017. The issue is dedicated to those who have accused powerful figures of sexual misconduct, calling them the “voices that launched a movement.”

A Time magazine survey shows that 82 percent think women are more likely to speak out about harassment since the Weinstein allegations.

By the end of 2017, the movement changed the nation’s mores, as men and women better understood the definition of sexual harassment and no longer ignored it.
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Widespread allegations of sexual harassment rocked many American institutions in 2017, including Congress, the media and the film industry. By the end of the year, numerous prominent men were suspended, fired or forced to resign from their highly visible jobs because of allegations of sexual harassment and even assault against women that happened in many cases years ago. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti explains the change in social attitudes.
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With control of the White House and Congress, Republicans expected a historic opportunity to carry out an ambitious legislative agenda in 2017. But the party’s narrow margins in the Senate slowed progress on a range of priorities. VOA’s congressional reporter Katherine Gypson looks back on a consequential, and often unexpected, year for the U.S. Congress.
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President Donald Trump is sending Christmas greetings to U.S. troops stationed around the world.

From the Florida estate where Trump is spending the holidays, he spoke by video hook-up on Christmas Eve to members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, stationed in Qatar, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Trump told the troops that Americans are thankful for them and their families. He says they’re “the greatest people on earth.”

He offered renewed praise to the Coast Guard for saving thousands of lives during a series of deadly U.S. hurricanes.

Trump told the troops that “every American heart” is thankful for them and is asking God to watch over them and their families.

 
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A federal judge ruled Saturday that the U.S. military must provide legal counsel to an American citizen who was picked up months ago on the Syrian battlefield and accused of fighting with Islamic State militants.

The unidentified American, who has not been charged, surrendered to U.S.-backed fighters in Syria around Sept. 12 and is being held in Iraq as an unlawful enemy combatant.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a court petition challenging his detention and asking to act on his behalf to provide him access to legal counsel.

American detained

Late last month, the U.S. government acknowledged that it has detained an American citizen accused of fighting with IS for months without fulfilling his request to see a lawyer. Responding to a court order, the government said the man picked up on the Syrian battlefield indicated he was willing to talk to FBI agents but “felt he should have an attorney present.”

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied the Defense Department’s motion to dismiss the matter and ordered the military to let the ACLU “immediate and unmonitored access to the detainee” so that it can determine whether he wants the ACLU to represent him. The judge also ordered the Defense Department not to transfer the detainee until the ACLU tells the court of the detainee’s wishes.

“This is a landmark ruling that rejects the Trump administration’s unprecedented attempt to block an American citizen from challenging his executive imprisonment,” said Jonathan Hafetz, senior staff attorney for the ACLU. “Ensuring citizens detained by the government have access to a lawyer and a court is essential to preserving the Constitution and the rule of law in America.”

What to do with detainee

Kathryn Wyer, an attorney in the Justice Department’s civil division, earlier told the court that the U.S. military was working “diligently” on the matter, but had not yet decided what to do with the detainee. Wyer cited case law stating the executive branch should be given a reasonable period of time to determine a detained individual’s status.

The government said that during questioning that FBI special agents advised the detainee of his right to remain silent even though he might have spoken earlier to other interrogators. That was an apparent reference to intelligence agents who are believed to have questioned the detainee first. The government said the detainee also was advised of his right to an attorney.

But the government also acknowledged that the detainee said he “understood his rights and said he was willing to talk to the agents, but also stated that since he was in a new phase (of questioning), he felt he should have an attorney present.”
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In his newly unveiled National Security Strategy, U.S. President Donald Trump vows to “ensure the balance of power remains in America’s favor in key regions of the world.” 

The Indo-Pacific led the list of “key regions” identified by the White House, followed by Europe and the Middle East. How Washington will accomplish this strategic goal is being closely watched, as China, identified as a rival, shows no sign of lessening its interest in a region that is witnessing dramatic power shifts.

“The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy is remarkably critical of China,” but “they have yet to explain how this approach will apply to and be implemented in the South China Sea,” two American scholars recently wrote, referring to a contentious issue considered reflective of American and Chinese strategic intentions.

While power politics unfolds, at least one country in the region appears willing to downplay territorial disputes, for now, in favor of strengthening its economic muscle.

​‘No new construction’ in South China Sea

In a year-end speech, Jose Manuel G. Romualdez, the Philippines’ ambassador to the U.S., focused the audience’s attention on his country’s economic growth, citing “a massive redevelopment of the country’s physical infrastructure” as a top priority for the Filipino government, led by Rodrigo Duterte.

Asked if the urgency concerning the South China Sea has receded, Romualdez gave a qualified yes: The situation has “calmed down in the sense that we’re now working with China on how to resolve the issues,” he told VOA. “There’s no new construction going on; if that’s how you describe ‘calm down,’ that’s what it is.”

His government, he says, is talking with China both bilaterally and through the regional platform facilitated by ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with 10 member states.

Earlier, China’s construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea, where several Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, contest sovereignty, was widely criticized as acts that deliberately changed the status quo.

China insists that the vast majority of the waters comprising the South China Sea has belonged to China since time immemorial.

​Worries of China’s global investments

Since Duterte became president of the Philippines in June 2016, bilateral discussions between Manila and Beijing appear to be leaning toward trade and investments, and away from competing sovereignty claims.

China is now seen as bankrolling much of the Philippines’ ambitious infrastructure projects, and Washington has taken notice.

“China is investing billions of dollars in infrastructure across the globe,” the newly unveiled National Security Strategy pointed out.

To Washington, this could be worrisome. 

“China and Russia target their investments in the developing world to expand influence and gain competitive advantages against the United States,” the security strategy asserted.

Romualdez, the Philippines envoy, defended his country’s broadening approach: “With a view in diversifying our markets, we have strengthened our economic development and relationships with other major trading partners,” he said.

​China and Japan ‘competing with each other’

Romualdez singled out agreements signed between his country and Japan, another regional power, to illustrate this multipronged approach, part and parcel of the Philippines’ “independent foreign policy” put forth by President Duterte.

Tokyo has agreed to fund a subway system in Manila as well as flood mitigation projects, he added.

Japan and China are “competing with each other” to be the No. 1 investor in the Philippines, Romualdez later told VOA.

“We would like to see more from the United States; they’re our allies and our friends,” he added.

While Manila’s chief diplomat in Washington spoke of multilateral ties through the lens of economics and investments, scholars are less hesitant to point out the inherent strategic factor.

In a paper published on the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) website dedicated to issues surrounding the South China Sea, a researcher at the Philippines’ National Defense College describes the current Filipino government’s approach as “less ground-breaking” but “more of a return to the hedging strategy habitually employed by many countries in Southeast Asia.”

Manila’s strategic partnership with Tokyo, in Mico A. Galang’s opinion, “forms a crucial component to the hedging approach.”

US must compete for positive relationships

Manila’s overtures to Beijing and Tokyo aside, U.S.-Philippines relations remain important to both, said Hank Hendrickson, a former U.S. diplomat and current executive director of the US-Philippines Society.

“A strategic partnership with the Philippines has been integral to America’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific region,” Hendrickson told VOA. “From a Southeast Asian perspective, the United States continues to play a stabilizing role as the balancer of choice.’”

The former diplomat says he is also encouraged by continued high-level engagement between Washington and Manila under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) and Bilateral Strategic Dialogue (BSD). In addition, he points to both sides’ willingness to explore a potential free trade agreement following the Trump-Duterte meeting in Manila as among “concrete and positive measures” which, in his opinion, should encourage greater trade and investment between the U.S. and the Philippines.

The newly unveiled National Security Strategy indicates that Washington is waking up to an increasingly complex and competitive global environment.

“Today, the United States must compete for positive relationships around the world,” the document said.
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FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the focus of criticism over the past year from President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, plans to retire in 2018, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

McCabe, 49, is the No. 2 official in the FBI and had been acting director after Trump fired the former director, James Comey, in May. According to the Post, McCabe plans to retire once he becomes eligible for a full pension in March.

Shortly after the newspaper report was published, Trump retweeted his earlier contention that McCabe’s wife, Jill, who ran unsuccessfully for the Virginia Senate in 2015, had been given nearly $700,000 by allies of Hillary Clinton at a time when Andrew McCabe was involved in the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.

The FBI has said McCabe did not start overseeing the Clinton investigation until his wife’s state Senate campaign was over. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, the two major donations that Jill McCabe received, totaling nearly $700,000, came from a political action committee of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and Clinton friend, and from the Virginia Democratic Party.

Trump, who is spending the holidays at his Florida resort, said in a second tweet Saturday, “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!” 

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment.

Under pressure

McCabe has come under fire from Republicans over the past year because of the bureau’s investigation into the Clinton email issue as well as the probe into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. 

Earlier this year, the U.S. intelligence community released a report that stated Russia had meddled in the 2016 election, showing a preference for Trump over Clinton, his opponent. Russia denies meddling in the election, and Trump has denied any collusion.

Shortly after Comey’s firing, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel of an investigation into whether any members of Trump’s campaign conspired with Russian agents during the campaign. 

McCabe faced questions about that probe as well as the email issue when he testified earlier this week before three congressional committees.

“Andy’s in a difficult position now … because of the hyperpartisan political environment,” John Pistole, who held the FBI’s No. 2 job for six years under Mueller, told the Post. He said McCabe was “weathering the storm.”

Republicans have said they want answers to why Comey publicly discussed the Clinton investigation and then announced that the bureau would not seek to bring charges. Critics say the Republicans’ focus on Clinton is merely a tactic to distract from Mueller’s investigation.
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The new U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands apologized Saturday after denying he once said the country was in “chaos” because of Muslims and accusing an interviewer of peddling “fake news,” only to be caught out by Dutch television in a bizarre exchange.

Pete Hoekstra, who starts as ambassador to The Hague next month, made the blunder while being questioned by a journalist from Dutch broadcaster NOS over remarks made at a 2015 conference.

When the reporter challenged him about referring at that event to Muslim-inspired “chaos” and to dangerous “no-go zones” in the Netherlands, Hoekstra responded: “That is actually an incorrect statement — we would call it fake news.

“I never said that.”

But in a clip played from the event, Hoekstra can be heard saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands — there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned. …

“And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

When pressed further during the interview, the Dutch-born ambassador denied having accused his interviewer of disseminating “fake news.”

“I didn’t call that fake news,” said Hoekstra, a former representative from Michigan. “I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

Mocked on social media

The exchange, which appeared on Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur, has circulated on social media, drawing widespread mockery. One tweeter quipped that Hoekstra was “even giving fake news a bad name.”

In a Twitter message Saturday, Hoekstra said: “I made certain remarks in 2015 and regret the exchange during the Nieuwsuur interview. Please accept my apology.” 

He vowed to “move on in the spirit of peace and friendship with the people and the leaders of the Netherlands.”

NOS interviewer Wouter Zwart later told CNN that Hoekstra said the “no-go zones” comment was intended to refer to “a broader context of European problems with ‘those areas.’ ”

The “no-go” reference was reminiscent of remarks by Donald Trump during his campaign for the U.S. presidency.

Blaming Muslims, he said parts of Paris were so radicalized “that the police refuse to go there,” that London police in some districts were “afraid for their own lives” and that parts of Brussels were a “hellhole.” 
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Americans are traveling in record numbers this season, according to the American Automobile Association’s (AAA) annual estimate, which forecasts more than 107 million will travel by road, rail or air between now and the start of 2018.

Despite higher gas prices, travel volume is expected to be 3.1 percent higher than last year’s holiday season, the association said.

AAA said this season marks the ninth consecutive year of rising year-end holiday travel in the United States. Since 2005, it said, holiday travel has grown by 21.6 million, an increase of 25 percent.

The majority of travelers, 97.4 million, will make their way to their destinations by road, while 6.4 million people are expected to fly to see family and friends or to take holiday vacations. Only 3.6 million are expected to take to trains, buses or cruise ships for the holiday.

Apparently, not all holiday travelers are making family visits.

AAA said, for the second year in a row, the top destinations for holiday travel are Orlando, Florida, and Anaheim, California – the homes of theme parks Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

Sunny destinations also make up the next seven entries on the top 10 destinations: Cancun, Mexico; Hawaii, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and several locations in Florida. The only non-beach destination on the list? No. 10, New York City.

 
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