geneva_convenience

An Israeli air raid has struck the coastal city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese government and several local media outlets have reported.

At least one person has been killed in Tyre from the strikes, the second wave of Israeli attacks Saturday, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Another Israeli attack in Qlaileh, southeast of Tyre, also wounded four people, according to the ministry.

Earlier in the day, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said his country was at risk of being drawn into a “new war” as dozens of other Israeli air strikes killed at least five people. Salam warned Israel’s “renewed military operations on the southern border” would bring “woes to Lebanon and the Lebanese people”.

The majority of the Israeli public, which opposes the war, thinks that the war jeopardizes the hostages' lives and that the fighting was resumed for political reasons. I was somehow able to understand the Israeli reaction at the start of the war, after October 7, 2023, even though it did not directly refer to the Palestinian victims. At that time, the response was intended to protect against being labeled as "traitors." But after 18 months of mass killing, which will enter the history books as an eternal disgrace, that mechanism can no longer work.

Although resuming the war will kill the hostages, it mainly kills masses of Palestinian men, women, children and the elderly. At what point will anti-war Israelis say aloud what should be said and stop being euphemistic? I understand there has been some coming to terms with being labeled "child murderers." Is it possible to reach a lower moral nadir? Doesn't it frighten them to be labeled as such?

It's already impossible to distinguish between things in Israel. It's impossible to distinguish the media from the public. Because even those who oppose the war are afraid to say that Gazans are human, too. Because it's impossible to separate the pilot from the bomb. He's told to push the button and he pushes it. The majority of the people not only tolerate mass slaughter, but demand it, either explicitly or tacitly.

There is something warped in the narrative, which is currently being presented by the liberal Jewish public in Israel, as a struggle to save Israeli democracy. This struggle exists in the near total absence of reference to the war's lethal consequences on Gaza and Gazans.

WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - The FBI has cut staffing in an office focused on domestic terrorism and has scrapped a tool used to track such investigations, in a shift that could undermine law enforcement’s ability to counter white supremacists and anti-government extremists, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The moves, sources said, are an indication that domestic terrorism investigations, which in recent years have largely involved violence fueled by right-wing ideologies, may be less of a priority under FBI Director Kash Patel, a prominent critic of the effort.

After five years of living in a tent near the Turkish border, Abdo Ahmad Saleh was finally able to return to his childhood home in Aleppo’s countryside when a rebel military offensive drove back forces loyal to former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year. Like many internally displaced Syrians and refugees who had fled the regime, Saleh was overjoyed at the prospect of coming home.

Shortly after returning, however, Abdo’s eight-year-old son, Mohammed Omar Saleh, ventured into a nearby field with a group of his cousins. As the children explored, they came across an unfamiliar object that they took to be a toy. The device they had found was, in fact, a landmine.

''When they were playing, we heard a huge explosion sound around nine in the morning. We went outside, running, and found pieces of flesh everywhere,'' said Omar Saleh Al-Ahmad, Mohammed’s uncle.

''Our village is full of mines,” Omar continued, as he stood next to the bed where Wardeh lay motionless, “We wish for help to remove them, but so far no teams came to clean up the area. We are afraid to go out. Everything is exploding—the land is full of mines.'

More than half a million people have signed an online petition calling for an independent investigation into whether security forces in Serbia used a sonic weapon – what the petition described as a “sound cannon” – during Saturday’s huge anti-corruption rally.

Days after as many as 325,000 people took to the streets of Belgrade, rights groups and opposition parties continue to allege that protesters were targeted with some sort of auditory device that briefly sowed panic and left some with symptoms that lingered long after the rally.

Serbian politicians and police have denied the allegations. Earlier this week, the country’s increasingly autocratic president, Aleksandar Vučić, described the claim as a “wicked lie” that was aimed at “destroying Serbia”.

In a significant diplomatic move, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has officially recognized Palestine as a state, marking a historic moment in international relations. Sheinbaum, who enjoys an 80% approval rating, reaffirmed her commitment to Palestinian human rights as she welcomed the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to Mexico, Nadya Rasheed.

The move carries particular significance given Sheinbaum’s Jewish heritage, challenging prevailing narratives about political and religious allegiances in global diplomacy. Her administration has openly criticized Israel’s attacks on Palestinian territories, aligning Mexico with other nations advocating for Palestinian self-determination.

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that instructs the US education secretary, Linda McMahon, to start dismantling the Department of Education, seemingly attempting to circumvent the need to obtain congressional approval to formally close a federal department.

The administration may eventually pursue an effort to get Congress to shut down the agency, Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House on Thursday, because its budget had more than doubled in size in recent years but national test scores had not improved.

The federal government does not mandate curriculum in schools; that has been the responsibility of state and local governments, which provide 90% of the funding to schools. Nevertheless, at the White House, Trump repeated his campaign promise to “send education back to the states”.

An Indian postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown University who has spoken out against Israel’s war in Gaza is facing deportation after being detained under United States President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, was designated for deportation for “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism” on social media, Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said on Wednesday.

McLaughlin did not provide evidence for her claim of ties between Suri and Hamas, the group that governs Gaza.

The short video is shot from a public beach in China’s Guangdong province, the unidentified filmer standing quietly by some fishing boats and a few tourists out for a walk.

Just to their right, a line of strange looking ships loom in the mist. The enormous ships are unmoving, raised above the waves by thick pylons. Drop-down bridges connect them to each other, the front one extending down to the sand.

The original video reportedly disappeared from WeChat shortly after it was uploaded, but copies circulated widely among watchers of China-Taiwan hostilities. The 19-second clip was their first clear look at what many believe are China’s newest tool for its Taiwan invasion plans.

The barge-like Shuqiao ships were first seen during the construction phase in January, and reported by Naval News. The Zhanjiang beach test showed how together they can create a loading dock from almost a kilometre out to sea – exactly what China needs to overcome one of the key challenges of any land invasion of Taiwan.

CLAYTON — Two activists who participated in a pro-Palestine protest last spring at Washington University now face charges, the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office said Wednesday.

Those charged include Jill Stein, the presidential nominee of the Green Party in 2024, who is accused of hitting a police officer with a bicycle and kicking him at the protest. Stein, 74, was charged Friday with first-degree trespass and fourth-degree assault.

In charging documents, Washington University police said demonstrators were given numerous warnings to leave the university’s private campus. Officers moved in for arrests around 8 p.m. Court documents alleged Stein interlocked her arms with other demonstrators and refused to leave.

In an interview with the Post-Dispatch just days after the protest, Stein disputed accounts that she struck an officer.

“While I was being assaulted with a bicycle, one of the police bent down and picked up my foot in order to try to further destabilize me into falling backwards,” Stein said. “And I wiggled out of his grip, you know, in an effort not to fall back on my head.”

Under the current proposal, the €150 billion loan fund can be used only for procurement within Europe.

The draft proposal released yesterday shows that the French have prevailed. The headlines in Europe proclaimed that the decision excludes the US, UK and Turkish arms industries from European procurement in the billions of euros, but Israel too will be outside the fence.

According to the proposal, 65% of the cost of procurement of defense systems must be spent in countries in EFTA (the European Free Trade Association), which consists of the EU countries plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein, and also Ukraine.

The remaining 35% can be spent in other countries, but only if they have signed a security and defense partnership agreement with the EU. South Korea, Japan, and the UK are expected to sign such agreements, but the US is not, because of the fear that they will not allow countries to bar the sale of certain weapons systems.

Israel and its defense companies are liable to find themselves torn between the EU requirements and the security alliance with the US, which will prevent the signing of such a strategic agreement and deny them billions of euros in potential sales. The EU plan also excludes the possibility of European countries buying weapons systems entirely designed in a country that is not in EFTA or has not signed an agreement.