The International Criminal Court prosecutor said Monday that he has requested arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel....
Lai Ching-te has been sworn in as Taiwan’s new president, urging China to “cease their political and military intimidation against Taiwan” and to keep the world free from the fear of more war....
BBC just reported that Iranian state media has confirmed their deaths:
President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and several others are confirmed to have been killed in Sunday's helicopter crash in north-western Iran, state TV says.
International far-right leaders, including France’s Marine Le Pen, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Argentina’s Javier Milei, came together in Madrid to rail against socialism and “massive illegal migration” three weeks before hard-right parties are expected to see a surge in support in June’s...
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi — often seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei— is missing after his helicopter went down in the northwest of the country on Sunday, officials said....
Russian troops attacked a recreation center in a northern suburb of Kharkiv at around 11 a.m. local time, killing six civilians including a pregnant woman and wounding 27, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office said on May 19....
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has warned of “apocalyptic” consequences due to aid shortages in Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive in the southern city of Rafah has blocked desperately needed food....
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he anticipates the upcoming peace summit in Switzerland will yield an action plan addressing three key areas: free navigation to protect port infrastructure, global food security, and Ukraine's economic development....
Georgia’s president has vetoed a “foreign agents” bill that has split the country and appealed to the government not to overrule her over a law she said was “Russian in sprit and essence”....
President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine's partners "are afraid of Russia losing the war" and would like Kyiv "to win in such a way that Russia does not lose," Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent....
I think that's one of the meanings. If a Russian loss led to the sudden collapse of the Russian state or a radical retraction of the Russian economy, who knows what the consequences would be?
I don't think that's a justification for not letting Russia lose, but it is a big bag of who-the-fuck-knows.
The concern isn't about the consequences faced by Russia, but the impact on the rest of the world. Like, if Russia were to collapse, I think most would agree that Egyptians don't deserve to find out what suddenly not having $1.7 billion in wheat would mean, right? I don't think anyone has any idea what that would mean for, say, Tajikistan and other post-Soviet states with economies closely tied to Russia. Collapse would be chaos and it wouldn't stay confined within Russia's borders.
And, again, I don't think that justifies preventing Russia from losing. There are worse concerns for Russia winning. And the idea that Russia neither winning nor losing could be a sustainable final state is probably a fantasy.
In the seven months since Israel started bombarding Gaza and imposed a siege in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, the enclave’s economy has been crushed. People have been forced to flee their homes and jobs. Markets, factories and infrastructure have been bombed and flattened. Farmland has been scorched by airstrikes or...
The Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has threatened to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza, calling into question the future of the Israeli government....
It's complicated. They don't have the ability to bring down the government but both Gantz and Gallant are much more popular than Netanyahu. Netanyahu's choice (again) comes down to placating the far-right to keep his government in power in the short-term at the expense of further alienating the Israeli public. If he bows to this pressure, the far-right might topple his government immediately. All paths probably lead to electoral (then legal) doom for Netanyahu at some point.
Netanyahu doesn't need Gantz's party to remain in power. They'd lose a more moderate voice in the war cabinet. The Unity government would probably lose legitimacy in the eyes of most Israelis. It would be very bad for Netanyahu politically. It would also probably be good for Gantz politically, as recent polling suggests that he might be starting to get some of Netanyahu's stink on him.
Vladimir Putin’s state visit to China this week was a show of strength. It was a chance for the Russian president to prove to the world that he has a powerful ally in his corner....
The Pentagon is rushing to expand its capacity to wage war in space, convinced that rapid advances by China and Russia in space-based operations pose a growing threat to U.S. troops and other military assets on the ground and American satellites in orbit....
Two years into President Biden’s term, his aides began negotiating with Saudi leaders to have the kingdom establish diplomatic relations with Israel. But when the Israel-Hamas war began last October, the talks withered....
The bodies of three hostages kidnapped by Hamas, including the German-Israeli Shani Louk, have been retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli military, it announced....
It was initially incorrectly reported that she was alive and unconscious. This isn't a new correction. She was declared dead in late October after investigators identified a piece of her skull:
A source involved with her identification told CNN Louk’s death was announced after forensic examiners found a bone fragment from her skull.
The bone fragment was from the petrous part of the temporal bone, which is at the base of the skull, normally near the carotid artery, a major blood vessel that provides blood to the brain. A DNA test concluded the fragment belonged to Louk.
. . .
The bone fragment, combined with the circumstances surrounding the October 7 attack and video that appeared to show Louk unconscious on the back of a Hamas truck, led investigators to conclude these were her remains.
Israel said on Thursday that it would send more troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas....
A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group....
South Africa has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to urgently order Israel to end its assault on Rafah, halt its military campaign across Gaza, and allow international investigators and journalists into the territory....
Russian President Vladimir Putin's appointment of a new defense minister, Andrey Belousov, is seen as an attempt to streamline Russia's economy and mobilize it for the war effort....
NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war....
They haven't been training Ukrainian troops in-country since the start of the full-scale invasion. The US in particular pulled all their troops out about 10 days before Russia invaded.
This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state...
Last month, a video began circulating on social media purporting to tell the story of an internet troll farm in Kyiv targeting the American election....
A luxury yacht belonging to Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk was officially transferred to the Ukrainian state on May 15, said Ukraine's Agency for Investigation and Management of Assets, known by its Ukrainian acronym ARMA....
Ukraine’s troops withdrew from several areas of the country’s north-east amid mounting pressure from a new Russian offensive, as the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, postponed all foreign trips underscoring the seriousness of the threat....
The UN has run out of tents and food to distribute to almost 2 million people in Gaza, the majority displaced from their homes and dependent on aid to stave off looming famine....
After months of slow Russian ground advances and technological leaps in countering American-provided arms, the Biden administration is increasingly concerned that President Vladimir V. Putin is gathering enough momentum to change the trajectory of the war, and perhaps reverse his once-bleak prospects....
Georgia has been warned by the US not to become an adversary of the west by falling back in line with Moscow, as its parliament defied mass street protests to pass a “Kremlin-inspired” law....
The UN has denied that the estimated death toll of women and children in the war in Gaza has been revised downward, pointing towards a confusion between the total numbers of dead bodies recorded, and the number of those who have so far been fully identified....
The change came because the United Nations switched to citing a more conservative source for its numbers — the Gazan Ministry of Health — rather than using Gaza’s Government Media Office, as it had in recent weeks.
. . .
That Gaza media office has consistently provided an overall death toll similar to the one given by the ministry of health, but different and often higher figures for the number of women and children killed.
Ismail Al Thawabateh, the office’s director general, said in an interview that the health ministry listed and categorized an individual as dead only when all of their details had been documented and verified by a next of kin. He did not explain why his office used a breakdown of women and children based on the overall death toll.
Most of the coverage, including this Guardian piece, makes it sound like they switched to a different dataset but this sounds like a switch to a different source. The HM numbers have generally been regarded as accurate -- historically, at least. I don't think that the media office has that same reputation. It seems like the previous numbers were calculated from the HM's total death toll figure, and not from observed data. I'm not really sure what that means for interpreting the numbers.
Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on humanitarian convoys and their facilities in Gaza since October, even after aid organisations provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities, according to a report by Human Rights Watch....
Vovchansk is ground zero of Russia’s new offensive into Kharkiv Oblast, the first time a serious push has been made to take territory across the border since the area was liberated from Russian occupation in Ukraine’s lightning counteroffensive in September 2022....
Israeli troops have continued their offensives across Gaza, deploying tank fire, artillery bombardment and airstrikes against Hamas militants in the most intensive round of fighting for weeks....
The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has for years overseen a secret police force in Gaza that conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians and built files on young people, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents reviewed by The New York Times....
People say the same thing literally any time there's a negative story about Hamas. That isn't how this story is framed. Israeli policy (blockade) and military are not portrayed as a relative good at all. It also speaks directly against a narrative by some Israelis that Palestinians bear collective responsibility for the actions of Hamas.
The idea that we must help Hamas cover up their crimes is a bad one, however well-intentioned. If they don't want their crimes and misdeeds reported by the world, they should consider not committing any.
President Biden laid it out for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel long before letting the public know. In a conversation bristling with tension on Feb. 11, the president warned the prime minister against a major assault on the Gaza city of Rafah — and suggested that continued U.S. support would depend on how Israel...
Tens of thousands of Palestinians were fleeing Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, on Saturday, after Israeli warnings to evacuate before an imminent military assault that will open a bloody new phase of the seven-month-long conflict....
The Biden administration has concluded it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has violated international law, but has not found specific instances that would justify the withholding of military aid, the State Department told Congress on Friday....
Russia already has nuclear warheads on its own soil that are close to Ukraine and NATO countries, but by basing some in Belarus, the Kremlin appears to be trying to accentuate its nuclear threat and bolster its nuclear deterrent....
A U.S. State Department spokesperson would not say if the United States was monitoring any particular site in Belarus, but said the department is keeping a close eye on the situation in order “to ensure Russia maintains control of its weapons in the event of any deployment to Belarus and upholds its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” An April 2024 State Department report said that the U.S. would not change its nuclear posture in response to the developments in Belarus.
What in the article makes you think that governments don't know about this? I'd gamble that there's about a 0% chance that this is news to military intelligence.
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Requests Warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas Leaders ( www.nytimes.com )
The International Criminal Court prosecutor said Monday that he has requested arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel....
Taiwan’s new president takes office and calls on China to cease its hostile actions ( www.theguardian.com )
Lai Ching-te has been sworn in as Taiwan’s new president, urging China to “cease their political and military intimidation against Taiwan” and to keep the world free from the fear of more war....
Iranian President Raisi feared dead as helicopter wreckage found | Reuters ( www.reuters.com )
"We can see the wreckage and the situation does not look good," the head of lran's Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand, told state TV.
European far-right leaders gather ahead of EU elections ( www.theguardian.com )
International far-right leaders, including France’s Marine Le Pen, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Argentina’s Javier Milei, came together in Madrid to rail against socialism and “massive illegal migration” three weeks before hard-right parties are expected to see a surge in support in June’s...
Iranian President Raisi missing after helicopter goes down ( www.politico.eu )
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi — often seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei— is missing after his helicopter went down in the northwest of the country on Sunday, officials said....
Russian 'double-tap' strike north of Kharkiv kills 6, including pregnant woman ( kyivindependent.com )
Russian troops attacked a recreation center in a northern suburb of Kharkiv at around 11 a.m. local time, killing six civilians including a pregnant woman and wounding 27, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office said on May 19....
UN humanitarian chief delivers ‘apocalyptic’ warning over Gaza aid ( www.theguardian.com )
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has warned of “apocalyptic” consequences due to aid shortages in Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive in the southern city of Rafah has blocked desperately needed food....
Zelensky calls for three-point action plan at upcoming peace summit ( kyivindependent.com )
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he anticipates the upcoming peace summit in Switzerland will yield an action plan addressing three key areas: free navigation to protect port infrastructure, global food security, and Ukraine's economic development....
Georgian president vetoes ‘foreign influence’ law ( www.theguardian.com )
Georgia’s president has vetoed a “foreign agents” bill that has split the country and appealed to the government not to overrule her over a law she said was “Russian in sprit and essence”....
Zelensky: 'Our partners fear that Russia will lose this war' ( kyivindependent.com )
President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine's partners "are afraid of Russia losing the war" and would like Kyiv "to win in such a way that Russia does not lose," Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent....
Under Israeli Bombs, a Wartime Economy Emerges in Gaza ( www.nytimes.com )
In the seven months since Israel started bombarding Gaza and imposed a siege in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, the enclave’s economy has been crushed. People have been forced to flee their homes and jobs. Markets, factories and infrastructure have been bombed and flattened. Farmland has been scorched by airstrikes or...
Israeli minister vows to quit war cabinet if PM fails to agree new Gaza plan ( www.theguardian.com )
The Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has threatened to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza, calling into question the future of the Israeli government....
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping: No longer a partnership of equals ( www.bbc.com )
Vladimir Putin’s state visit to China this week was a show of strength. It was a chance for the Russian president to prove to the world that he has a powerful ally in his corner....
US confirms first aid trucks arrive via Gaza pier ( www.bbc.com )
The first shipment of humanitarian aid has arrived in Gaza via a temporary floating pier, the US military has confirmed....
New Star Wars Plan: Pentagon Rushes to Counter Threats in Orbit ( www.nytimes.com )
The Pentagon is rushing to expand its capacity to wage war in space, convinced that rapid advances by China and Russia in space-based operations pose a growing threat to U.S. troops and other military assets on the ground and American satellites in orbit....
Israel Resists Grand Bargain as U.S. and Saudis Work on Security Pact ( www.nytimes.com )
Two years into President Biden’s term, his aides began negotiating with Saudi leaders to have the kingdom establish diplomatic relations with Israel. But when the Israel-Hamas war began last October, the talks withered....
Israel recovers bodies of three hostages taken by Hamas, including Shani Louk ( www.theguardian.com )
The bodies of three hostages kidnapped by Hamas, including the German-Israeli Shani Louk, have been retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli military, it announced....
The Gaza Death Toll Is Confusing And Unreliable ( www.theatlantic.com )
These numbers matter—first, because of the dignity of those killed or still living....
Israel Sending More Troops to Rafah Amid Warnings of Famine in Gaza ( www.nytimes.com )
Israel said on Thursday that it would send more troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas....
Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show ( www.washingtonpost.com )
A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group....
South Africa calls on ICJ to order Israel to end Rafah offensive ( www.theguardian.com )
South Africa has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to urgently order Israel to end its assault on Rafah, halt its military campaign across Gaza, and allow international investigators and journalists into the territory....
New Defense Minister Belousov to put Russia's economy on war footing ( kyivindependent.com )
Russian President Vladimir Putin's appointment of a new defense minister, Andrey Belousov, is seen as an attempt to streamline Russia's economy and mobilize it for the war effort....
As Russia Advances, NATO Considers Sending Trainers Into Ukraine ( www.nytimes.com )
NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war....
The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel ( www.nytimes.com )
This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state...
Russian Disinformation Videos Smear Biden Ahead of U.S. Election ( www.nytimes.com )
Last month, a video began circulating on social media purporting to tell the story of an internet troll farm in Kyiv targeting the American election....
Medvechuk's yacht officially transferred to Ukrainian state ( kyivindependent.com )
A luxury yacht belonging to Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk was officially transferred to the Ukrainian state on May 15, said Ukraine's Agency for Investigation and Management of Assets, known by its Ukrainian acronym ARMA....
Ukraine’s troops withdraw from parts of north-east as pressure mounts ( www.theguardian.com )
Ukraine’s troops withdrew from several areas of the country’s north-east amid mounting pressure from a new Russian offensive, as the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, postponed all foreign trips underscoring the seriousness of the threat....
UN says it has no more food or tents for nearly 2m people in Gaza ( www.theguardian.com )
The UN has run out of tents and food to distribute to almost 2 million people in Gaza, the majority displaced from their homes and dependent on aid to stave off looming famine....
White House Worries Russia’s Momentum Is Changing Trajectory of Ukraine War ( www.nytimes.com )
After months of slow Russian ground advances and technological leaps in countering American-provided arms, the Biden administration is increasingly concerned that President Vladimir V. Putin is gathering enough momentum to change the trajectory of the war, and perhaps reverse his once-bleak prospects....
US warns Georgia not to side with Moscow against the west ( www.theguardian.com )
Georgia has been warned by the US not to become an adversary of the west by falling back in line with Moscow, as its parliament defied mass street protests to pass a “Kremlin-inspired” law....
Russia must pay for Ukraine rebuild, Blinken says ( www.bbc.com )
Speaking in Kyiv, Mr Blinken said Washington has the power to seize Russian assets in the US and will use them to help rebuild Ukraine....
UN denies Gaza death toll of women and children has been revised down ( www.theguardian.com )
The UN has denied that the estimated death toll of women and children in the war in Gaza has been revised downward, pointing towards a confusion between the total numbers of dead bodies recorded, and the number of those who have so far been fully identified....
At least eight Israeli strikes on Gaza aid groups since October, says report ( www.theguardian.com )
Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on humanitarian convoys and their facilities in Gaza since October, even after aid organisations provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities, according to a report by Human Rights Watch....
Russia's new Kharkiv offensive pushes Vovchansk to the brink of annihilation ( kyivindependent.com )
Vovchansk is ground zero of Russia’s new offensive into Kharkiv Oblast, the first time a serious push has been made to take territory across the border since the area was liberated from Russian occupation in Ukraine’s lightning counteroffensive in September 2022....
Israel deepens offensive in Rafah and re-enters northern areas of Gaza ( www.theguardian.com )
Israeli troops have continued their offensives across Gaza, deploying tank fire, artillery bombardment and airstrikes against Hamas militants in the most intensive round of fighting for weeks....
Secret Hamas Files Show How It Spied on Everyday Palestinians ( www.nytimes.com )
The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has for years overseen a secret police force in Gaza that conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians and built files on young people, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents reviewed by The New York Times....
The Long, Tortured Road to Biden’s Clash With Netanyahu Over Gaza War ( www.nytimes.com )
President Biden laid it out for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel long before letting the public know. In a conversation bristling with tension on Feb. 11, the president warned the prime minister against a major assault on the Gaza city of Rafah — and suggested that continued U.S. support would depend on how Israel...
Terrified families flee Rafah as Israel set to open all-out assault ( www.theguardian.com )
Tens of thousands of Palestinians were fleeing Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, on Saturday, after Israeli warnings to evacuate before an imminent military assault that will open a bloody new phase of the seven-month-long conflict....
The State Department said that Israel's military campaign in Gaza may have violated international law. ( www.nytimes.com )
The Biden administration has concluded it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has violated international law, but has not found specific instances that would justify the withholding of military aid, the State Department told Congress on Friday....
Satellite Images Reveal Where Russian Nukes Could Be Stored in Belarus ( www.nytimes.com )
Russia already has nuclear warheads on its own soil that are close to Ukraine and NATO countries, but by basing some in Belarus, the Kremlin appears to be trying to accentuate its nuclear threat and bolster its nuclear deterrent....