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Looking for a leap year lift? Check out this silly French newspaper that only publishes on Feb. 29
Read all about it, right now — or you’ll have to wait another four years. Satirical French newspaper La Bougie du Sapeur only comes out on Feb. 29.
It’s a leap year-only publication, filled with cringe-worthy puns and commentary on events of the past four years.
The 2024 edition includes an article suggesting France doesn’t need schools anymore thanks to artificial intelligence. Another floats the idea of dismantling the Eiffel Tower during the Paris Olympics to reduce security risks -- and having IKEA produce a manual for rebuilding it.
Some friends started the newspaper as a joke in 1980, naming it after a comic book figure who was born on Feb. 29. The last edition — in 2020, as the world went into COVID-19 lockdowns — sold 120,000 copies. Revenue from newsstand sales goes mainly to a charity for people with disabilities.
Its editors are proudly politically incorrect, and some articles seem rather, well, dated. But that’s the point. That, and lifting the mood a bit.
When the world goes out of whack, reads its once-in-four-years editorial, ‘’Sometimes you have to laugh about it.’’
Pope Francis has been taken briefly to a Rome hospital after his weekly audience
Pope Francis, who has been suffering from the flu, was brought to a hospital in central Rome after the papal audience on Wednesday, arriving at the Gemelli Hospital on Tiber Island in a small white Fiat 500 and leaving again under escort in the same car after a short period. The Vatican had no immediate comment.
The 86-year-old pope was pushed in a wheelchair into the audience hall at the Vatican earlier in the day, appearing weary as he dropped heavily into his seat. In recent weeks he has walked the short distance to his chair, but he has been struggling with mild flu symptoms the past week.
The pope also canceled appointments Saturday and Monday due to the flu, but appeared as usual for the Sunday blessing from a window overlooking St. Peter's Square.
Last week, Francis coughed repeatedly during Ash Wednesday services that he presided over at a Roman church, and opted not to participate in the traditional procession that inaugurates the church’s Lenten season.
This time of year in 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was starting to hit Italy, Francis also suffered a bad cold that forced him to cancel several days of official audiences and his participation in the Vatican’s annual spiritual retreat. The Vatican had already scrubbed the retreat for this year in favor of personal spiritual exercises
The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed as a young man because of a respiratory infection, and in 2021 had a chunk of his colon removed because of an intestinal inflammation. He has been using a wheelchair and cane since last year because of strained knee ligaments and a small knee fracture that have made walking and standing difficult.
The Pope used his brief words at the end of Wednesday's audience to mark the 25th anniversary of the ratification of the Anti-Personnel Mines Convention, expressing his “closeness to the numerous victims of these insidious devices that remind us of the dramatic cruelty of war.”
He also appealed for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and prayed for the victims of attacks in Burkina Faso and Haiti.
At the end of the audience, the pope spent about an hour greeting the faithful from his wheelchair, stopping to talk, bless babies and exchange gifts.
World Trade Organization to open biennial meeting in the United Arab Emirates as challenges loom
The World Trade Organization will open its biennial meeting Monday in the United Arab Emirates as the bloc faces pressure from the United States and other nations ahead of a year of consequential elections around the globe.
The WTO's 164 member nations will discuss a deal to ban subsidies that contribute to overfishing, extending a pause on taxes on digital media like movies and video games, and agricultural issues.
But headwinds remain for the organization and the world's economy, particularly as the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic remains uneven across nations. Meanwhile, there are more than 50 elections affecting half the planet’s population planned for this year — perhaps none more critical for the WTO than the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.
Running again is former President Donald Trump, who threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the WTO and repeatedly levied tariffs — taxes on imported goods — on perceived friends and foes alike. A Trump win could again roil global trade.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a dual Nigerian and American citizen, has pushed to insist the organization remains vital as 75% of the world's trade is done on its terms.
“What we are focused on at the WTO are what are the appropriate reforms we need to do — no matter who comes into power, when,” Okonjo-Iweala earlier this month, insisting that the trade body remains relevant. ”If we get to what you’re saying — that the WTO becomes irrelevant — everyone, including you and me, will be in trouble.”
But even if President Joe Biden is re-elected, the U.S. has deep reservations over the WTO. The United States under the past three administrations has blocked appointments to its appeals court, and it’s no longer operating. Washington says the judges have overstepped their authority too often in ruling on cases.
The U.S. also has criticized China for still describing itself as a developing country as it did when it joined the WTO in 2001. Washington, Europe and others say that Beijing improperly hampers access to emerging industries and steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology. The U.S. also says China floods world markets with cheap steel, aluminum and other products.
Then there's the voting format of the WTO itself. Major decisions require consensus. That means countries must actively vote in favor for proposals to take effect.
UN member states are meeting to plan how to tackle the world's environmental crises
The world’s top decision-making body on the environment is meeting in Kenya's capital on Monday to discuss how countries can work together to tackle environmental crises like climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity.
The meeting in Nairobi is the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, and governments, civil society groups, scientists and the private sector are attending.
“None of us live on an island. We live on planet Earth, and we are all connected,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, which is leading the process, told The Associated Press ahead of the talks. “The only way we can solve some of these problems is by talking together.”
At the meeting, member states discuss a raft of draft resolutions on a range of issues that the assembly adopts upon consensus. If a proposal is adopted, it sets the stage for countries to implement what’s been agreed on.
In the last round of talks in 2022, also in Nairobi, governments adopted 14 resolutions, including to create a legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution globally. Andersen described it then as the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.
Read: Some 257,000 acres of forest lands grabbed: Environment Minister
For this year’s talks, countries have submitted 20 draft resolutions for discussion, including on how best to restore degraded lands, combat dust storms and reduce the environmental impact of metal and mineral mining.
But with countries having different priorities, it’s often hard to get consensus on the draft resolutions. However, Andersen said, there’s generally “a forward movement” on all draft resolutions for this year's meeting, known as UNEA-6.
With this meeting's focus on multilateralism, UNEP wants to build on past agreements it led between governments, such as the Minamata Convention to put controls on mercury and the Montreal Protocol to heal the hole in the ozone layer, Andersen said.
Read: Wetlands to be mapped for conservation: Environment Minister
Björn Beeler, international coordinator for the International Pollutants Elimination Network, thinks there'll be slow progress on more complex issues such as financing around chemicals and waste.
Beeler also expects strong opposition on a draft resolution that wants to phase out the use of highly hazardous pesticides. The draft resolution, which was submitted by Ethiopia and is co-sponsored by Uruguay, aims to create a global alliance of U.N. bodies like UNEP, the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization.
“If this does go through, it would be very significant because it would be the first time ever to see global movement on highly hazardous pesticides,” said Beeler, who is attending the talks.
UNEP anticipates more than 70 government ministers and 3,000 delegates at the talks.
“What we should expect at UNEA-6 is decision makers looking into the horizon, being aware of what is it that’s coming to us that could potentially damage our planet, and taking preemptive action to prevent this,” said Andersen.
Read more: Collaboration key to conserve big cats for a sustainable future: Environment Minister
The body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been handed over to his mother, aide says
The body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been handed over to his mother, a top aide to Navalny said Saturday on his social media account.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, made the announcement on his Telegram account and thanked “everyone” who had called on Russian authorities to return Navalny’s body to his mother.
Earlier on Saturday, Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, accused President Vladimir Putin of mocking Christianity by trying to force his mother to agree to a secret funeral after his death in an Arctic penal colony.
“Thank you very much. Thanks to everyone who wrote and recorded video messages. You all did what you needed to do. Thank you. Alexei Navalny's body has been given to his mother,” Zhdanov wrote.
Navalny, 47, Russia’s most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony and his family have been fighting for more than a week to have his body returned to them. Prominent Russians released videos calling on authorities to release the body and Western nations have hit Russia with more sanctions as punishment for Navalny's death as well as for the second anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine.
Alexei Navalny’s mother files lawsuit with a Russian court demanding release of her son’s body
Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, is still in Salekhard, Navalny's press secretary Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly Twitter. Lyudmila Navalnaya has been in the Arctic region for more than a week, demanding that Russian authorities return the body of her son to her.
“The funeral is still pending," Yarmysh tweeted, questioning whether authorities will allow it to go ahead “as the family wants and as Alexei deserves.”
Earlier Saturday, Navalny's widow said in a video that Navalny's mother was being “literally tortured” by authorities who had threatened to bury Navalny in the Arctic prison. They, she said, suggested to his mother that she did not have much time to make a decision because the body is decomposing, Navalnaya said.
“Give us the body of my husband,” Navalnaya said earlier Saturday. “You tortured him alive, and now you keep torturing him dead. You mock the remains of the dead."
Authorities have detained scores of people as they seek to suppress any major outpouring of sympathy for Putin’s fiercest foe before the presidential election he is almost certain to win. Russians on social media say officials don't want to return Navalny's body to his family, because they fear a public show of support for him.
Death of Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny provokes Western outrage but few concrete actions to stop Putin
Navalnaya accused Putin, an Orthodox Christian, of killing Navalny.
“No true Christian could ever do what Putin is now doing with the body of Alexei,” she said, asking, “What will you do with his corpse? How low will you sink to mock the man you murdered?”
Saturday marked nine days since the opposition leader’s death, a day when Orthodox Christians hold a memorial service.
People across Russia came out to mark the occasion and honor Navalny’s memory by gathering at Orthodox churches, leaving flowers at public monuments or holding one-person protests.
Muscovites lined up outside the city’s Christ the Savior Cathedral to pay their respects, according to photos and videos published by independent Russian news outlet SOTAvision. The video also shows Russian police stationed nearby and officers stopping several people for an ID check.
As of early Saturday afternoon, at least 27 people had been detained in nine Russian cities for showing support for Navalny, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests.
They included Elena Osipova, a 78-year-old artist from St. Petersburg who stood in a street with a poster showing Navalny with angel wings, and Sergei Karabatov, 64, who came to a Moscow monument to victims of political repression with flowers and a note saying “Don’t think this is the end.”
Navalny’s wife expresses skepticism over reports from Russian government sources
Also arrested was Aida Nuriyeva, from the city of Ufa near the Ural Mountains, who publicly held up a sign saying “Putin is Navalny’s murderer! I demand that the body be returned!”
Putin is often pictured at church, dunking himself in ice water to celebrate the Epiphany and visiting holy sites in Russia. He has promoted what he has called “traditional values” without which, he once said, “society degrades.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Putin was involved in Navalny's death, calling them “absolutely unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state.”
Musician Nadya Tolokonnikova, who became widely known after spending nearly two years in prison for taking part in a 2012 protest with her band Pussy Riot inside Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, was one of many prominent Russians who released a video in which she accused Putin of hypocrisy and asked him to release Navalny's body.
“We were imprisoned for allegedly trampling on traditional values. But no one tramples on traditional Russian values more than you, Putin, your officials and your priests who pray for all the murder that you do, year after year, day after day,” said Tolokonnikova, who lives abroad. “Putin, have a conscience, give his mother the body of her son.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya said Thursday that investigators allowed her to see her son’s body in the morgue in the Arctic city of Salekhard. She had filed a lawsuit at a court in Salekhard contesting officials’ refusal to release the body. A closed-door hearing had been scheduled for March 4.
Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesman, said that Lyudmila Navalnaya was shown a medical certificate stating that her son died of “natural causes.”
Private US spacecraft is on its side on the moon with some antennas covered up, the company says
A private U.S. lunar lander tipped over at touchdown and ended up on its side near the moon’s south pole, hampering communications, company officials said Friday.
Intuitive Machines initially believed its six-footed lander, Odysseus, was upright after Thursday's touchdown. But CEO Steve Altemus said Friday the craft “caught a foot in the surface," falling onto its side and, quite possibly, leaning against a rock. He said it was coming in too fast and may have snapped a leg.
“So far, we have quite a bit of operational capability even though we’re tipped over," he told reporters.
Japan becomes the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon
But some antennas were pointed toward the surface, limiting flight controllers' ability to get data down, Altemus said. The antennas were stationed high on the 14-foot (4.3-meter) lander to facilitate communications at the hilly, cratered and shadowed south polar region.
Odysseus — the first U.S. lander in more than 50 years — is thought to be within a few miles (kilometers) of its intended landing site near the Malapert A crater, less than 200 miles (300 kilometers) from the south pole. NASA, the main customer, wanted to get as close as possible to the pole to scout out the area before astronauts show up later this decade.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will attempt to pinpoint the lander's location, as it flies overhead this weekend.
India launches spacecraft to study the sun after successful landing near the moon's south pole
With Thursday’s touchdown, Intuitive Machines became the first private business to pull off a moon landing, a feat previously achieved by only five countries. Japan was the latest country to score a landing, but its lander also ended up on its side last month.
Odysseus' mission was sponsored in large part by NASA, whose experiments were on board. NASA paid $118 million for the delivery under a program meant to jump-start the lunar economy.
One of the NASA experiments was pressed into service when the lander's navigation system did not kick in. Intuitive Machines caught the problem in advance when it tried to use its lasers to improve the lander's orbit. Otherwise, flight controllers would not have discovered the failure until it was too late, just five minutes before touchdown.
“Serendipity is absolutely the right word,” mission director Tim Crain said.
It turns out that a switch was not flipped before flight, preventing the system's activation in space.
Launched last week from Florida, Odysseus took an extra lap around the moon Thursday to allow time for the last-minute switch to NASA's laser system, which saved the day, officials noted.
Another experiment, a cube with four cameras, was supposed to pop off 30 seconds before touchdown to capture pictures of Odysseus’ landing. But Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s EagleCam was deliberately powered off during the final descent because of the navigation switch and stayed attached to the lander.
Embry-Riddle's Troy Henderson said his team will try to release EagleCam in the coming days, so it can photograph the lander from roughly 26 feet (8 meters) away.
"Getting that final picture of the lander on the surface is still an incredibly important task for us,” Henderson told The Associated Press.
Intuitive Machines anticipates just another week of operations on the moon for the solar-powered lander — nine or 10 days at most — before lunar nightfall hits.
The company was the second business to aim for the moon under NASA's commercial lunar services program. Last month, Pittsburgh's Astrobotic Technology gave it a shot, but a fuel leak on the lander cut the mission short and the craft ended up crashing back to Earth.
Until Thursday, the U.S. had not landed on the moon since Apollo 17's Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out NASA's famed moon-landing program in December 1972. NASA's new effort to return astronauts to the moon is named Artemis after Apollo's mythological twin sister. The first Artemis crew landing is planned for 2026 at the earliest.
US and EU pile new sanctions on Russia for the Ukraine war's 2nd anniversary and Navalny's death
The United States and European Union on Friday heaped hundreds of new sanctions on Russia in connection with the second anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine and in retaliation for the death of noted Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny last week in an Arctic penal colony.
The U.S. government imposed roughly 600 new sanctions on Russia and its war machine in the largest single round of penalties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
The EU, for its part, added sanctions on several foreign companies over allegations that they have exported dual-use goods to Russia that could be used in its war against Ukraine. The 27-nation bloc also targeted scores of Russian officials, including members of the judiciary, local politicians and people it said were "responsible for the illegal deportation and military re-education of Ukrainian children.”
Ukraine’s PM makes stopover in Dhaka
President Joe Biden said the sanctions come in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “brutal war of conquest” and to Navalny’s death, adding that “we in the United States are going to continue to ensure that Putin pays a price for his aggression abroad and repression at home."
But while previous sanctions have increased costs for Russia’s ability to fight in Ukraine, they appear to have done little so far to deter Putin and it was unclear that the latest big round would significantly alter that.
In specific response to Navalny’s death, the State Department targeted three Russian officials the U.S. says are connected to his death, including the deputy director of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service, who was promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general on Monday, three days after Navalny died.
Ukraine’s PM scheduled to have stopover in Dhaka tonight
The sanctions bar the officials from traveling to the U.S. and block access to U.S.-owned property. But they appear largely symbolic given that the officials are unlikely to travel to or have assets or family in the West.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said to “expect more” action later related to Navalny's death, adding that "today this just a start.”
The Biden administration is levying additional sanctions as House Republicans are blocking billions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine. The war is becoming entangled in U.S. election-year politics, with former President Donald Trump voicing skepticism about the benefits of the NATO alliance and saying that he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to countries that, in his view, are not pulling their weight in the alliance.
Biden on Friday called on Congress to pass Ukraine aid, which has stalled since House Speaker Mike Johnson blocked votes on aid passed by the Senate for Ukraine and other countries.
“Russia is taking Ukraine territory for the first time in many months,” Biden said. “But here in America, the speaker gave the house a two week vacation. They have to come back and get this done, because failure to support Ukraine in this critical moment will never be forgotten in history.”
Biden spoke later Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron about Russia’s recent actions and the need to support Ukraine. A White House readout said they also discussed developments in the Middle East.
Many of the new U.S. sanctions announced Friday target Russian firms that contribute to the Kremlin’s war effort — like drone and industrial chemical manufacturers and machine tool importers — as well as financial institutions, such as the state-owned operator of Russia’s Mir National Payment System.
The U.S. also will impose visa restrictions on Russian authorities it says are involved in the kidnapping and confinement of Ukrainian children. In addition, 26 third-country people and firms from across China, Serbia, the United Arab Emirates, and Liechtenstein are listed for sanctions, for assisting Russia in evading existing financial penalties.
The Russian foreign ministry called the EU sanctions “illegal” and said they undermine “the international legal prerogatives of the UN Security Council.” In response, the ministry is banning some EU citizens from entering the country because they have provided military assistance to Ukraine. It did not immediately address the U.S. sanctions.
Overall, since the start of the war, the U.S. Treasury and State departments have targeted more than 4,000 officials, oligarchs, firms, banks and others under Russia-related sanctions authorities. The EU asset freezes and travel bans constitute its 13th package of measures imposed by the bloc against people and organizations it suspects of undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
“Today, we are further tightening the restrictive measures against Russia’s military and defense sector,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. “We remain united in our determination to dent Russia’s war machine and help Ukraine win its legitimate fight for self-defense.”
In all, 106 more officials and 88 “entities” — often companies, banks, government agencies or other organizations — have been added to the bloc’s sanctions list, bringing the tally of those targeted to more than 2,000 people and entities, including Putin and his associates.
Companies making electronic components, which the EU believes could have military as well as civilian uses, were among 27 entities accused of “directly supporting Russia’s military and industrial complex in its war of aggression against Ukraine,” a statement said.
Those companies — some of them based in India, Sri Lanka, China, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Turkey — face tougher export restrictions.
Some of the measures are aimed at depriving Russia of parts for pilotless drones, which are seen by military experts as key to the war.
A $60 per barrel price cap has also been imposed on Russian oil by Group of Seven allies, intended to reduce Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels.
Critics of the sanctions, price cap and other measures meant to stop Russia’s invasion say they are not working fast enough.
Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that primarily sanctioning Russia’s defense industry and failing to cut meaningfully into Russia’s energy revenues will not be enough to halt the war.
“One way or another, they will have to eventually address Russia’s oil revenues and have to consider an oil embargo,” Snegovaya said. “The oil price cap has effectively stopped working.”
Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo, in previewing the new sanctions, told reporters that the U.S. and its allies will not lower the price cap; “rather what we’ll be doing is taking actions that will increase the cost” of Russia’s production of oil.
The Treasury Department says the current cap is working, with an agency analysis finding that Kremlin oil tax revenue was more than 40 percent lower in the first nine months of 2023 because of it.
Adeyemo added that “sanctions alone are not enough to carry Ukraine to victory.”
“We owe the Ukrainian people who have held on for so long the support and resources they desperately need to defend their homeland and prove Putin wrong once and for all time.”
Shamima Begum loses appeal over removal of her UK citizenship
A woman who traveled to Syria as a teenager to join the Islamic State group lost her appeal Friday against the British government's decision to revoke her U.K. citizenship, with judges saying that it wasn't for them to rule on whether it was “harsh” to do so.
Shamima Begum, who is now 24, was 15 when she and two other girls fled from London in February 2015 to marry IS fighters in Syria at a time when the group’s online recruitment program lured many impressionable young people to its self-proclaimed caliphate. Begum married a Dutch man fighting for IS and had three children, who all died.
Authorities withdrew her British citizenship soon after she surfaced in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019, where she has been ever since. Last year, Begum lost her appeal against the decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a tribunal which hears challenges to decisions to remove British citizenship on national security grounds.
Shamima Begum and Mueen Uddin: Academics, international affairs experts in Bangladesh decry UK’s double standards
Her lawyers brought a further bid to overturn that decision at the Court of Appeal, with Britain's Home Office opposing the challenge.
All three judges dismissed her case and argued she had made a “calculated” decision to join IS even though she may have been “influenced and manipulated by others.”
In relaying the ruling, Chief Justice Sue Carr said it wasn't the court's job to decide whether the decision to strip Begum of her British citizenship was “harsh" or whether she was the “author of her own misfortune.”
She said the court's sole task was to assess whether the decision to strip Begum of her citizenship was unlawful.
“Since it was not, Ms Begum’s appeal is dismissed,” the judge added.
Shamima's statelessness: Rushanara against revoking someone's UK citizenship
Carr said any arguments over the consequences of the unanimous judgment, which could include a bid to appeal at Britain's Supreme Court, will be adjourned for seven days.
Begum's lawyer indicated that a further challenge was on the cards.
“I think the only thing we can really say for certainty is that we are going to keep fighting," Daniel Furner said outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
“I want to say that I’m sorry to Shamima and to her family that after five years of fighting she still hasn’t received justice in a British court and to promise her and promise the government that we are not going to stop fighting until she does get justice and until she is safely back home," he added.
Begum's legal team argued that the decision by Britain's then interior minister Sajid Javid, left her stateless and that she should have been treated as a child trafficking victim, not a security risk.
Javid said he welcomed the ruling which “upheld” his decision.
“This is a complex case but home secretaries should have the power to prevent anyone entering our country who is assessed to pose a threat to it,” he said.
ISIS bride Shamima Begum wins right to return to UK
Britain's Conservative government claimed she could seek a Bangladeshi passport based on family ties. But Begum’s family argued that she was from the U.K. and never held a Bangladeshi passport.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the government will "always take the strongest possible action to protect our national security and we never take decisions around deprivation (of citizenship) lightly.”
A number of campaigners voiced their disappointment after the ruling and said the solution rests with the government shouldering its responsibility.
“ It is now a political problem, and the government holds the key to solving it,” said Maya Foa, director of the Reprieve humans right campaign group. "If the government thinks that Shamima Begum has committed a crime, she should be prosecuted in a British court. Citizenship stripping is not the answer.”
World Insights: Arab states condemn U.S. for vetoing UNSC resolution on Gaza ceasefire
Arab states have condemned the United States for vetoing another UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as looming Israeli attacks on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah raise concerns that the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave may deepen.
During an emergency session of the UN Security Council held in New York on Tuesday, the draft resolution put forward on behalf of Arab states by Algeria won 13 votes in favor among the 15 members of the Security Council. The United States voted against it while Britain abstained.
MASSIVE OUTCRY
"The U.S. veto, which defies the will of the international community, will give an additional green light to Israel to continue its aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip, and to carry out its bloody attack on Rafah," the Palestinian presidency said in a statement carried by Palestine's official news agency WAFA on Wednesday.
Secretary-General of the Arab League (AL) Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday voiced his "deep regret" over the U.S. move, the third time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict in October last year that the United States interfered to fail a draft resolution aimed to reach a ceasefire.
The U.S. positions undermined the credibility of the international system and contributed to the paralysis witnessed by the United Nations, Aboul Gheit was quoted as saying in an AL statement.
Egypt and Qatar, having been actively brokering deals between Israel and Hamas since their conflict began, have expressed their regret.
Egypt strongly denounced the "selectivity and double standards in dealing with wars and armed conflicts in various regions of the world," the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry slammed the U.S. veto as "arbitrary and disgraceful," accusing the U.S. of being hypocritical, as it claimed to support human rights while allowing the Israeli "killing machine" to continue its attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Jordan, which borders Israel and has normalized ties with Israel, expressed on Tuesday its regret and disappointment at the failure of the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
"All those impeding such calls should review their policies and calculations because wrong decisions today will have a cost on our region and our world tomorrow. This cost will be violence and instability, " Algeria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amar Bendjama was quoted by the UN news as saying on Tuesday.
DEEP CONCERN
The resolution was put forward at a time when Israel has signaled its intention to conduct a ground operation in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city that shelters about 1.4 million Palestinians, to "eliminate" Hamas and rescue Israeli hostages who were taken by Hamas militants in October last year.
While visiting the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops on Tuesday in southern Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed that his country will continue the fighting until all goals are achieved. "There is no pressure, none, that can change this," he said.
Israel's reported plan for an assault on Rafah has sounded alarm bells globally, with many countries urging restraint or cancellation of the operation.
Regional countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain, voiced deep concern over the potential offensive on Monday.
Twenty-six EU member states called for an "immediate humanitarian pause that would lead to a sustainable ceasefire" in the besieged Gaza Strip, the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in Brussels on Monday.
U.S. ADDING TO CRISIS
Despite the mounting calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden administration is preparing to send a new package of weapons to Israel, which is estimated to be worth tens of millions of U.S. dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing anonymous U.S. officials.
"The Americans are not doing anything practical to stop the (Israel-Hamas) war," said Youssef Diab, a political analyst from the Lebanese University.
The repeated trips to Israel by U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as the U.S. financial and military support for Israel, have given Israel the green light to continue the war on Gaza and kill more children, he said. ■
New attempts at Gaza cease-fire are underway, Israel's Gantz says
New attempts are underway to reach a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that could pause the war in Gaza, a member of Israel’s War Cabinet said late Wednesday.
“Initial signs indicate a possibility of moving forward,” said Benny Gantz, a former military chief and defense minister. It's the first Israeli indication of renewed cease-fire talks since negotiations stalled a week ago.
However, Gantz repeated his pledge that unless Hamas agrees to release the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, Israel will launch a ground offensive into the crowded southern city of Rafah during the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
A UN agency says it can’t deliver aid to northern Gaza because of chaos, and famine fears are rising
Israel's war in Gaza has driven some 80% of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. Most heeded Israeli orders to flee south and around 1.5 million are packed into Rafah near the border with Egypt.
Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 67 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, including in areas where civilians have been told to seek refuge.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. About a fourth of some 130 captives still being held are believed to be dead. Israel has laid waste to much of the Palestinian territory in response. Gaza’s Health Ministry estimates more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed.
US vetoes Arab-backed UN resolution demanding immediate cease-fire in Gaza