GREEN MAG

By Renju Jose

SYDNEY, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Pro-Palestine demonstrators plan to rally in Sydney on Monday to protest the visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as authorities ​declared his visit a major event and deployed thousands of police to manage the ‌crowds.

Police have urged the protesters to gather at a central Sydney park for public safety reasons, but protest organisers ‌said they plan to rally at the city's historic Town Hall instead.

Police have been authorised to use rarely invoked powers during the visit, including the ability to separate and move crowds, restrict their entry to certain areas, direct people to leave and search vehicles.

"We're hoping we won't have ⁠to use any powers, because we've ‌been liaising very closely with the protest organisers," New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna told Nine News on Monday.

"Overall, it is all ‍of the community that we want to keep safe ... we'll be there in significant numbers just to make sure that the community is safe."

About 3,000 police personnel will be deployed across Sydney, Australia's largest ​city.

Herzog is visiting Australia this week following an invitation from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ‌in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at Bondi Beach.

He is expected to meet survivors and the families of 15 people killed in the December 14 shooting during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach.

In a statement, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Co-Chief Executive Alex Ryvchin said Herzog's visit "will lift the spirits of a pained community."

Herzog's visit has drawn opposition ⁠from pro-Palestine groups, with protests planned in major cities ​across Australia, and the Palestine Action Group has launched ​a legal challenge in a Sydney court against restrictions placed on the expected protests.

"A national day of protest will be held today, calling for the ‍arrest and investigation of Isaac ⁠Herzog, who has been found by the UN Commission of Inquiry to have incited genocide in Gaza," the Palestine Action Group said in a statement.

The Jewish Council of ⁠Australia, a vocal critic of the Israeli government, released an open letter on Monday signed by over 1,000 ‌Jewish Australian academics and community leaders, urging Albanese to rescind Herzog's invitation.

(Reporting by ‌Renju Jose in Sydney; editing by Diane Craft)

NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI collected ample proof thatJeffrey Epsteinsexually abused underage girls but found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.

Videos and photos seized from Epstein's homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn't depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.

An examination of Epstein's financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.

Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said "four or five" Epstein accusers claimed other men or women had sexually abused them. But, the agents said, there "was not enough evidence to federally charge these individuals."

The AP and other media organizations are still reviewingmillions of pages of documents, many of them previously confidential, that the Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and it is possible those records contain evidence overlooked by investigators.

Here are takeaways from what the documents show about the FBI investigation and why U.S. authorities ultimately decided to close it without additional charges.

Origins of the investigation

The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported that she had been molested at the millionaire's home in Palm Beach, Florida. Then-Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acostastruck a dealletting Epstein plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.

In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations.

Epstein wasarrested in July of 2019. One month later, hekilled himselfin his jail cell.

A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein's longtime confidant,Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she'd recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.

Lack of evidence for coconspirators

Prosecution memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the department's latest release of Epstein-related records show that FBI agents and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims, called in to tip lines, were examined.

Some allegations couldn't be verified, investigators wrote.

In 2011 and again in 2019, investigators interviewedVirginia Roberts Giuffre, who in lawsuits and news interviews had accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including Britain's formerPrince Andrew.

Investigators said they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused by Epstein. But other parts of her story were problematic.

Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time with Epstein containing descriptions of things that didn't take place. She had also offered shifting accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote.

Two other Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed were also "lent out" to powerful men told investigators they had no such experience, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo.

Photos and video don't implicate others

Investigators seized a multitude of videos and photos from Epstein's electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They found CDs, hard copy photographs and at least one videotape containing nude images of females.

No videos or photos showed Epstein victims being sexually abused, none showed any males with any of the nude females, and none contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an email for FBI officials last year.

Had they existed, the government "would have pursued any leads they generated," Comey wrote. "We did not, however, locate any such videos."

Investigators who scoured Epstein's bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that he was engaged in prostituting women to other men, prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors weighed the possibility of charging some of Epstein's close associates, including an assistant and business clients, but ultimately decided against it because of lack of evidence.

No client list found

Attorney General Pam Bondi toldFox News in February 2025that Epstein's never-before-seen "client list" was "sitting on my desk right now." But FBI agents wrote superiors saying the client list didn't exist.

On Dec. 30, 2024, about three weeks before President Joe Biden left office, then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate reached out through subordinates to ask "whether our investigation to date indicates the 'client list,' often referred to in the media, does or does not exist," according to an email summarizing his query.

A day later, an FBI official replied that the case agent had confirmed no client list existed.

On Feb. 19, 2025, two days before Bondi's Fox News appearance, an FBI supervisory special agent wrote: "While media coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case references a 'client list,' investigators did not locate such a list during the course of the investigation."

Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

___ The AP is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with journalists from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from each newsroom are working together to examine the files and share information about what is in them. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's government on Sunday released from prison several prominent opposition members, including one of the closest allies of Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, after lengthy politically motivated detentions.

Their releases come as the government ofacting President Delcy Rodríguezfaces mounting pressure to free hundreds of people whose detentions months or years ago have been linked to their political beliefs. They also follow a visit to Venezuela of representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela's acting president after the Jan. 3 capture in Caracas of then-PresidentNicolás Maduroby the U.S. military. Her government began releasing prisoners days later.

"I am convinced that our country has completely changed," Juan Pablo Guanipa, a Machado ally and former governor, told reporters hours after his release. "I am convinced that it is now up to all of us to focus on building a free and democratic country."

Guanipa, who spent more than eight months in custody, was released from a detention facility in the capital, Caracas. An armored vehicle and officers appeared behind him in the video he released.

Venezuelan-based prisoners' rights group Foro Penal confirmed the release of at least 30 people on Sunday.

In addition to Guanipa, Machado's political organization said several of its members were among the released, including María Oropeza,who livestreamed her arrest by military intelligence officersas they broke into her home with a crowbar. Machado's attorney, Perkins Rocha, was also freed.

"Let's go for the freedom of Venezuela!" Machado posted on X.

Guanipa was detained in late May and accused byInterior Minister Diosdado Cabelloof participating in an alleged "terrorist group" plotting to boycott that month's legislative election. Guanipa's brother Tomás rejected the accusation, and said that the arrest was meant to crack down on dissent.

"Thinking differently cannot be criminalized in Venezuela, and today, Juan Pablo Guanipa is a prisoner of conscience of this regime," Tomás Guanipa said after the arrest. "He has the right to think as he thinks, the right to defend his ideas, and the right to be treated under a constitution that is not being enforced today."

Her government announced on Jan. 8 it would free asignificant number of prisoners— a central demand of the country's opposition and human rights organizations with backing from the United States — but families and rights watchdogs have criticized authorities for the slow pace of the releases.

The ruling party-controlled National Assembly this week began debating an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners. The opposition and nongovernmental organizations have reacted with cautious optimism as well as with suggestions and demands for more information on the contents of the proposal.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez on Friday posted a video on Instagram showing him outside a detention center in Caracas and saying that "everyone" would be released no later than next week, once the amnesty bill is approved.

Delcy Rodríguez and Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke by phone in late January. His spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, in a statement said he "offered our support to help Venezuela work on a roadmap for dialogue and reconciliation in which human rights should be at the centre" and then "deployed a team" to the South American country.

Machado remains in exile after leaving Venezuela in December. After she was briefly detained in January 2025, she had not been seen in public for 11 months when she appeared in Norway after the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.

Guanipa on Sunday said Machado "exercises undeniable leadership" and is needed in Venezuela along with other exiled political leaders to move the country forward.

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI pored overJeffrey Epstein'sbank records and emails. It searched his homes. It spent years interviewing his victims and examining his connections to some of the world's most influential people.

But while investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.

Videos and photos seized from Epstein's homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn't depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.

An examination of Epstein's financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.

While one Epstein victim made highly public claims that he "lent her" to his rich friends, agents couldn't confirm that and found no other victims telling a similar story, the records said.

Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said "four or five" Epstein accusers claimed other men or women had sexually abused them. But, the agents said, there "was not enough evidence to federally charge these individuals, so the cases were referred to local law enforcement."

The AP and other media organizations are still reviewingmillions of pages of documents, many of them previously confidential, that the Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and it is possible those records contain evidence overlooked by investigators.

But the documents, which include police reports, FBI interview notes and prosecutor emails, provide the clearest picture to date of the investigation — and why U.S. authorities ultimately decided to close it without additional charges.

Dozens of victims come forward

The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at the millionaire's home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Police would identify at least 35 girls with similar stories: Epstein was paying high school age students $200 or $300 to give him sexualized messages.

After the FBI joined the probe, federal prosecutors drafted indictments to charge Epstein and some personal assistants who had arranged the girls' visits and payments. But instead, then-Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acostastruck a dealletting Epstein plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.

In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted New York federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations.

Epstein wasarrested in July of 2019. One month later, hekilled himselfin his jail cell.

A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein's longtime confidant,Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she'd recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.

Prosecutors fail to find evidence backing most sensational claims

Prosecution memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the department's latest release of Epstein-related records show that FBI agents and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims, called in to tip lines, were examined.

Some allegations couldn't be verified, investigators wrote.

In 2011 and again in 2019, investigators interviewedVirginia Roberts Giuffre, who in lawsuits and news interviews had accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including Britain's formerPrince Andrew.

Investigators said they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused by Epstein. But other parts of her story were problematic.

Two other Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed were also "lent out" to powerful men told investigators they had no such experience, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo.

"No other victim has described being expressly directed by either Maxwell or Epstein to engage in sexual activity with other men," the memo said.

Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time with Epstein containing descriptions of things that didn't take place. She had also offered shifting accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote, and had "engaged in a continuous stream of public interviews about her allegations, many of which have included sensationalized if not demonstrably inaccurate characterizations of her experiences." Those inaccuracies included false accounts of her interactions with the FBI, they said.

Still, U.S. prosecutors attempted to arrange an interview with Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He refused to make himself available. Giuffresettled a lawsuitwith Mountbatten-Windsor in which she had accused him of sexual misconduct.

Ina memoirpublished after she killed herself last year, Giuffre wrote that prosecutors told her they didn't include her in the case against Maxwell because they didn't want her allegations to distract the jury. She insisted her accounts of being trafficked to elite men were true.

Prosecutors say photos and videos don't implicate others

Investigators seized a multitude of videos and photos from Epstein's electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They found CDs, hard copy photographs and at least one videotape containing nude images of females, some of whom seemed as if they might be minors. One device contained 15 to 20 images depicting commercial child sex abuse material — pictures investigators said Epstein obtained on the internet.

No videos or photos showed Epstein victims being sexually abused, none showed any males with any of the nude females, and none contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an email for FBI officials last year.

Had they existed, the government "would have pursued any leads they generated," Comey wrote. "We did not, however, locate any such videos."

Investigators who scoured Epstein's bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that he was engaged in prostituting women to other men, prosecutors wrote.

Epstein's close associates go uncharged

In 2019, prosecutors weighed the possibility of charging one of Epstein's longtime assistants but decided against it.

Prosecutors concluded that while the assistant was involved in helping Epstein pay girls for sex and may have been aware that some were underage, she herself was a victim of his sexual abuse and manipulation.

Investigators examined Epstein's relationship with the French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who once was involved in an agency with Epstein in the U.S., and who was accused in a separate case of sexually assaulting women in Europe. Brunelkilled himself in jailwhile awaiting trial on a rape charge in France.

Prosecutors also weighed whether to charge one of Epstein's girlfriends who had participated in sexual acts with some of his victims. Investigators interviewed the girlfriend, who was 18 to 20 years old at the time, "but it was determined there was not enough evidence," according to a summary given toFBI Director Kash Patellast July.

Days before Epstein's July 2019 arrest, the FBI strategized about sending agents to serve grand jury subpoenas on people close to Epstein, including his pilots and longtime business client, retail mogul Les Wexner.

Wexner's lawyers told investigators that neither he nor his wife had knowledge of Epstein's sexual misconduct. Epstein had managed Wexner's finances, but the couple's lawyers said they cut him off in 2007 after learning he'd stolen from them.

"There is limited evidence regarding his involvement," an FBI agent wrote of Wexner in an Aug. 16, 2019, email.

In a statement to the AP, a legal representative for Wexner said prosecutors had informed him that he was "neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect," and that Wexner had cooperated with investigators.

Prosecutors also examined accounts from women who said they'd given massages at Epstein's home to guests who'd tried to make the encounters sexual. One woman accused private equity investor Leon Black of initiating sexual contact during a massage in 2011 or 2012, causing her to flee the room.

The Manhattan district attorney's office subsequently investigated, but no charges were filed.

Black's lawyer, Susan Estrich, said he had paid Epstein for estate planning and tax advice. She said in a statement that Black didn't engage in misconduct and had no awareness of Epstein's criminal activities. Lawsuits by two women who accused Black of sexual misconduct were dismissed or withdrawn. One is pending.

No client list

Attorney General Pam Bondi toldFox News in February 2025that Epstein's never-before-seen "client list" was "sitting on my desk right now." A few months later, sheclaimed the FBI was reviewing"tens of thousands of videos" of Epstein "with children or child porn."

But FBI agents wrote superiors saying the client list didn't exist.

On Dec. 30, 2024, about three weeks before President Joe Biden left office, then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate reached out through subordinates to ask "whether our investigation to date indicates the 'client list,' often referred to in the media, does or does not exist," according to an email summarizing his query.

A day later, an FBI official replied that the case agent had confirmed no client list existed.

On Feb. 19, 2025, two days before Bondi's Fox News appearance, an FBI supervisory special agent wrote: "While media coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case references a 'client list,' investigators did not locate such a list during the course of the investigation."

Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

___ The AP is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with journalists from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from each newsroom are working together to examine the files and share information about what is in them. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.

CAIRO (AP) — A limited number of Palestinians traveled betweenGazaand Egypt on Sunday as the Rafah crossing reopened after a two-day closure, Egyptian state media reported.

Israel Palestinians Gaza

The vital border pointopened last week for the first timesince mid-2024, one of the main requirements for theU.S.-backed ceasefirebetween Israel and Hamas. The crossing was closed Friday and Saturday because of confusion around operations.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 17 medical evacuees and 27 companions had begun the crossing into Egypt. The same number was expected to head into Gaza. Israel didn't immediately confirm it.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday, though the major subject of discussion will beIran, his office said.

Delays and mistreatment accusations

Over thefirst four daysof the crossing's opening, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to U.N. data. Rafah's reopening came after Israel retrieved the remains of the last hostage in Gaza and U.S. officials visited Israel to apply pressure.

Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza seek to leave for medical care that isn't available in the war-shattered territory.

A group of Palestinian patients gathered Sunday in the courtyard of a Red Crescent hospital in Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis before making their way to the crossing for treatment abroad, family members told The Associated Press.

Amjad Abu Jedian, injured in the war, had been scheduled to leave for medical treatment on the first day of the crossing's reopening, but only five patients were allowed to travel, said his mother, Raja Abu Jedian. He was shot by an Israeli sniper while doing building work in the central Bureij refugee camp in July 2024, she said.

On Saturday, his family received a call from the World Health Organization about traveling on Sunday, she said.

"We want them to take care of the patients (during their evacuation)," she said. "We want the Israeli military not to burden them."

Returning to Gaza

A group of Palestinians arrived Sunday at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing to return to Gaza, Egypt's state-run Al-Qahera News satellite television reported.

Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first few days of the crossing's operation described hours of delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. Israel has denied mistreatment.

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A European Union mission and Palestinian officials run the border crossing, and Israel has its screening facility some distance away.

The Rafah crossing, a lifeline for Gaza, was the only one not controlled by Israel before the war. Israel seized the Palestinian side in May 2024, though traffic through the crossing was heavily restricted even before that.

Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials mean that only 50 people will be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients — with two companions for each — will be allowed to leave, but far fewer people have crossed so far.

Hamas negotiations

A senior Hamas official, Khaled Mashaal, said the militant group is open to discuss the future of its weapons as part of a "balanced approach" that includes the reconstruction of Gaza and protecting the Palestinian enclave from Israel. Such issues are central in the ceasefire's second phase.

Mashaal said the group has offered multiple options, including a long-term truce, as part of ongoing negotiations with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators.

Hamas plans to agree to a number of "guarantees," including a 10-year period of disarmament and an international peacekeeping force on Gaza's borders, "to maintain peace and prevent any clashes" between the militants and Israel, Mashaal said at a forum in Qatar.

Israel has repeatedly demanded the complete disarmament and dismantling of Hamas and its infrastructure, both military and civil.

Mashaal accused Israel of financing and arming militias, like the Abu Shabab group which operates in Israeli military-controlled areas in Gaza, "to create chaos."

Mashaal was asked about Hamas' position on the new Board of Peace, a Trump-led group of world leaders that isexpected to meetfor the first time Feb. 19 to raise money for Gaza's reconstruction. He didn't offer a specific answer but said the group won't accept "foreign intervention" in Palestinian affairs.

"Gaza is for the people of Gaza. Palestinians are for the people of Palestine," he said. "We will not accept foreign rule."

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Find more of AP's coverage athttps://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war