As he pursues the Republican presidential nomination for 2024, Donald Trump met with the leader of the Teamsters on Wednesday. He agreed to meet with rank-and-file members later this month, the former president and the union stated in releases.

Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and Trump had “an in-depth and productive discussion on worker issues most important to the Teamsters Union.” The labor organization, representing 1.3 million workers, including truckers, police, nurses, and film crews, posted about the meeting on the X social media platform.

The conference takes place amid a 2024 presidential campaign when unions are vying for power on the economic front, hoping to take advantage of the historic shift in the American labor market and secure a string of recent labor agreements with the backing of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.

If the Republican front-runner wins his party’s nomination, Biden, who defeated Trump’s 2020 reelection attempt and has long emphasized his union credentials, will almost certainly run against the billionaire in November.

“The Teamsters Union is making sure our members’ voices are heard as we head into a critical election year,” O’Brien stated Wednesday night. “There are serious issues that need to be addressed to improve the lives of working people across the country.”

“Looking forward to more discussions about important issues in the near future,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, describing the dinner meeting as “great.”

At a roundtable in Washington in January, he also promised to meet with union employees and other Teamsters leaders, according to the organization.

A self-described tough “SOB,” O’Brien is among a new generation of union leaders hoping to revitalize the struggle for workers’ rights, including Association of Flight Attendants (CWA) President Sara Nelson and United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain. Union members at Detroit’s Big Three automakers, significant airline carrier pilots, and UPS recently obtained labor agreements with significant wage increases and job protections.

Their support may be vital in a presidential contest with a sharply split electorate when a few thousand votes in a few pivotal states might make a huge difference. Trump has already had the backing of blue-collar workers, especially in conservative areas.

Like the Teamsters, the UAW has not yet endorsed a candidate. But before striking historic deals with General Motors (GM.N.), Ford (F.N.), and Chrysler parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI), the union’s head has been skeptical of Trump and welcomed Biden to a walkout picket line last autumn. While not going to a union picket line, Trump did give a speech outside of Detroit, asking autoworkers to back him.

Unions representing public employees have also opposed Trump’s desire to remove federal worker rights to replace loyalists in the civil service.

A UN report deplores the ‘rapid deterioration’ of rights in the West Bank. In a report made public on Thursday, the United Nations denounced what it called a “rapid deterioration” of human rights in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. They urged the Israeli government to stop using violence against the local Palestinian population.

It was said in the study that 300 Palestinians had been slain in the West Bank since October 7, the day when Hamas terrorists embarked on a violent rampage in southern Israel and carried captives back to Gaza. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued the report.

When Israeli security forces were engaged in operations or conflicts with other Israeli troops, the majority of the deaths took place.

Air strikes and other military actions carried out by the Israeli government in refugee camps and other densely populated regions are responsible for at least 105 deaths, according to the Israeli government. It said that Jewish settlers were responsible for the deaths of at least eight individuals.

Regarding the news, Israeli officials did not immediately provide any reactions or comments. Israel has asserted that its actions in the West Bank are preventative and are planned to reduce potential security risks.

“The use of military tactics and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary, and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling,” said Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“I call on Israel to take immediate, clear, and effective steps to put an end to settler violence against the Palestinian population, to investigate all incidents of violence by settlers and Israeli Security Forces, and to ensure effective protection of Palestinian communities.”

Furthermore, the Office for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that it has documented instances of mass arbitrary detentions, illegal detentions, and reported instances of torture and other types of ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees. Since October 7, it has been reported that around 4,785 Palestinians have been held in the West Bank.

“Some were stripped naked, blindfolded and restrained for long hours with handcuffs and with their legs tied, while Israeli soldiers stepped on their heads and backs, were spat at, slammed against walls, threatened, insulted, humiliated and in some cases subjected to sexual and gender-based violence,” according to OHCHR.

Over the 18 months leading up to the attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7, the West Bank had already been suffering the worst levels of unrest in decades. However, confrontations have drastically increased as a result of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza.

Turkey to reinforce military bases in Iraq after 12 soldiers were killed. Following the deaths of twelve Turkish troops in the region, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Turkey will strengthen its recently created permanent outposts in northern Iraq over the next few months.

In the last week, twelve people were murdered in northern Iraq as a result of battles with militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is a banned organization.

In the past few years, we have constructed highways in northern Iraq that are hundreds of kilometers long to accommodate our permanent bases. At a meeting that was broadcast on television in Ankara, Erdogan stated, “We carry out the same activities in new places that we have controlled.”

“By the arrival of spring, we will have completed the infrastructure of our newly established bases (in northern Iraq) and make terrorists unable to set foot in the region.”

The onslaught that Turkey is conducting against PKK militants includes frequent strikes carried out by the Turkish military in Iraq, which is a neighboring nation. After Erdogan announced “a new security concept in combating terrorism” and a strategy to “neutralize terrorism and terrorists at source,” Turkey has begun a series of operations in northern Iraq since 2019. These operations have been ongoing since 2019.

Turkey, the United States of America, and the European Union have all labeled the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization. The PKK strives for more Kurdish rights and maintains significant fortifications in the northern region of Iraq. Since 1984, when it began its campaign of violence against the Turkish state, it has carried out several assaults in Turkey that have resulted in fatalities.