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UN top court orders Israel to open more land crossings for aid into Gaza
The top United Nations court on Thursday ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.
The International Court of Justice issued two new so-called provisional measures in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide in its military campaign launched after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Israel denies it is committing genocide. It says its military campaign is self defense and aimed at Hamas, not the Palestinian people.
Thursday’s order came after South Africa sought more provisional measures, including a cease-fire, citing starvation in Gaza. Israel urged the court not to issue new orders.
In its legally binding order, the court told Israel to take measures “without delay” to ensure “the unhindered provision” of basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies.
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It also ordered Israel to immediately ensure that its military does not take action that could that could harm Palestinians' rights under the Genocide Convention, including by preventing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The court told Israel to report back in a month on its implementation of the orders.
Israel declared war in response to a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were taken hostage. Israel responded with a campaign of airstrikes and a ground offensive that have left over 32,000 Palestinians dead, according to local health authorities. The fighting also displaced over 80% of Gaza's population and caused widespread damage.
The U.N. and international aid agencies say virtually the entire Gaza population is struggling to get enough food, with hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine, especially in hard-hit northern Gaza.
South Africa welcomed Thursday's decision, calling it “significant.”
“The fact that Palestinian deaths are not solely caused by bombardment and ground attacks, but also by disease and starvation, indicates a need to protect the group’s right to exist,” the South African president said in a statement.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the order.
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In a written response earlier this month to South Africa's request for more measures, Israel said the claims by South Africa were “wholly unfounded," “morally repugnant" and "an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the Court itself.”
After initially sealing Gaza’s borders in the early days of the war, Israel began to permit entry of humanitarian supplies. It says it places no restrictions on the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to properly organize the deliveries.
The U.N. and international aid groups say deliveries have been impeded by Israeli military restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order.
Israel has been working with international partners on a plan to soon begin deliveries of aid by sea.
Israel has repeatedly feuded with the United Nations, particularly UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and main provider of aid in Gaza. Israel accuses the agency of tolerating and even cooperating with Hamas — a charge UNRWA denies.
The court said in its order that “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in." It cited a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that said at least 31 people, including 27 children, have already died of malnutrition and dehydration.
783 million people face chronic hunger. Yet the world wastes 19% of its food, UN says
The world court said earlier orders imposed on Israel after landmark hearings in South Africa’s case “do not fully address the consequences arising from the changes in the situation” in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the army said it inspected 258 aid trucks, but only 116 were distributed within Gaza by the U.N.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, has also run pilot programs to inspect the humanitarian aid at Israel’s main checkpoints in the south and then use land crossings in central Gaza to try to bring aid to the devastated northern part of the Strip. The agency had no immediate comment on the ICJ ruling.
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before it collided with Baltimore bridge, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent “routine engine maintenance” in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday, as divers recovered the bodies of two of six workers who plunged into the water when it collapsed. The others were presumed dead, and officials said search efforts had been exhausted.
Investigators on Wednesday began collecting evidence from the vessel that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge the previous day. The bodies of the two men were located in the morning inside a red pickup submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the bridge’s middle span, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, announced at an evening news conference.
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He identified the men as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, who was from Mexico and living in Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, who was from Guatemala and living in Dundalk, Maryland.
The victims, who were part of a construction crew fixing potholes on the bridge, were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore addressed their families in Spanish during the news conference, saying, “Estamos contigo, ahora y siempre,” which means, “we are with you, now and always.”
All search efforts have been exhausted, and based on sonar scans, authorities “firmly” believe the other vehicles with victims inside are encased in superstructures and concrete from the collapsed bridge, Butler said. Divers are to return to search for remains once the waters are clear of debris.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said authorities had been informed that the ship was going to undergo the maintenance.
“As far as the engine goes, we were not informed of any problems with the vessel," he said. “We were informed that they were going to conduct routine engine maintenance on it while it was in port. And that’s the only thing we were informed about the vessel in that regard.”
Baltimore bridge collapses after powerless cargo ship rams into support column; 6 presumed dead
The investigation ramped up as the Baltimore region reeled from the sudden loss of a major transportation link that's part of the highway loop around the city. The disaster also closed the port, which is vital to the city's shipping industry.
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship to recover information from its electronics and paperwork and to do interviews with the captain and other crew members, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said during a separate news conference. Twenty-three people, including two pilots, were on the ship when it crashed, she said.
The vessel was also carrying 56 containers of hazardous materials including corrosives, flammables and lithium ion batteries, Homendy said. She added that some containers were breached, and that a sheen on the water from those materials would be handled by authorities.
The agency also is reviewing the voyage data recorder recovered by the Coast Guard and building a timeline of what led to the crash, which federal and state officials have said appeared to be an accident.
The ship’s crew issued a mayday call early Tuesday, saying they had lost power and steering just minutes before striking one of the bridge’s columns.
At least eight people initially went into the water, and two of them were rescued Tuesday, officials said.
The debris complicated the search, according to a Homeland Security memo described to The Associated Press by a law enforcement official. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the document or the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Gov. Moore said the divers faced dangerous conditions.
“They are down there in darkness where they can literally see about a foot in front of them,” Moore said, adding that they were also trying to navigate mangled metal.
One missing worker, a 38-year-old man from Honduras who came to the U.S. nearly two decades ago, was described by his brother as entrepreneurial and hard-working. He started last year with the company that was doing the bridge maintenance.
Video showed the ship moving at what Maryland’s governor said was about 9 mph (15 kph) toward the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilometer) bridge. Traffic was still crossing the span, and some vehicles appeared to escape with only seconds to spare. The crash caused the bridge to break and fall into the water within seconds.
A last-minute warning from the ship allowed police just enough time to stop traffic on the highway. One officer parked sideways across the lanes and planned to drive onto the bridge to alert a construction crew once another officer arrived. But he did not get the chance as the powerless vessel barreled into the bridge.
Attention has also turned to the container ship Dali and its past.
Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship, said the impact happened while it was under the control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help guide vessels safely in and out of ports.
The ship, which was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the vessel.
The vessel passed foreign port state inspections in June and September 2023. In the June 2023 inspection, a faulty monitor gauge for fuel pressure was rectified before the vessel departed, Singapore’s port authority said in a statement Wednesday.
The ship was traveling under a Singapore flag, and officials there said they will conduct their own investigation in addition to supporting U.S. authorities.
The sudden loss of a highway that carries 30,000 vehicles a day and the disruption of the vital port will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters but also U.S. consumers who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays.
“A lot of people don’t realize how important the port is just to everything,” said Cat Watson, who used the bridge to get to work every day and lives close enough that she was awakened by the collision. “We’re going to be feeling it for a very long time.”
The Port of Baltimore is a busy entry point for new vehicles made in Germany, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom, along with coal and farm equipment.
Ship traffic has been suspended indefinitely. Windward Maritime, a maritime risk-management company, said its data shows a large increase in ships that are waiting for a port to go to, with some anchored outside Baltimore or nearby Annapolis.
At the White House, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Biden administration was focused on reopening the port and rebuilding the bridge, which was completed in 1977. But he avoided putting a timeline on those efforts. He noted that the original bridge took five years to construct.
Buttigieg also planned to meet Thursday with supply chain officials.
Barges, including some with cranes, were on their way to Baltimore to help remove the wreckage, Gilreath said.
Homendy said the NTSB investigation could take 12 to 24 months but the agency may issue urgent safety recommendations sooner. A preliminary report should come in two to four weeks.
“It’s a massive undertaking for an investigation,” Homendy said. “It’s a very tragic event.”
From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.
783 million people face chronic hunger. Yet the world wastes 19% of its food, UN says
The world wasted an estimated 19% of the food produced globally in 2022, or about 1.05 billion metric tons, according to a new United Nations report.
The U.N. Environment Programme's Food Waste Index Report, published Wednesday, tracks the progress of countries to halve food waste by 2030.
The U.N. said the number of countries reporting for the index nearly doubled from the first report in 2021. The 2021 report estimated that 17% of the food produced globally in 2019, or 931 million metric tons (1.03 billion tons), was wasted, but authors warned against direct comparisons because of the lack of sufficient data from many countries.
The report is co-authored by UNEP and Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), an international charity.
Researchers analyzed country data on households, food service and retailers. They found that each person wastes about 79 kilograms (about 174 pounds) of food annually, equal to at least 1 billion meals wasted worldwide daily.
Most of the waste — 60% — came in households. About 28% came from food service, or restaurants, with about 12% from retailers.
“It is a travesty,” said co-author Clementine O’Connor, the focal point for food waste at UNEP. “It doesn’t make any sense, and it is a complicated problem, but through collaboration and systemic action, it is one that can be tackled.”
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The report comes at a time when 783 million people around the world face chronic hunger and many places facing deepening food crises.
Food waste is also a global concern because of the environmental toll of production, including the land and water required to raise crops and animals and the greenhouse gas emissions it produces, including methane, a powerful gas that has accounted for about 30 percent of global warming since pre-industrial times.
Food loss and waste generates 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, it would rank third after China and the U.S.
Fadila Jumare, a Nigeria-based project associate at Busara Center for Behavioral Economics who has studied prevention of food waste in Kenya and Nigeria, said the problem further disadvantages many people who are already food insecure and cannot afford healthy diets.
“For humanity, food waste means that less food is available to the poorest population,” said Jumare, who wasn't involved in the report.
Brian Roe, a food waste researcher at Ohio State University who wasn't involved with the report, said the index is important to tackling food waste.
“The key takeaway is that reducing the amount of food that is wasted is an avenue that can lead to many desirable outcomes — resource conservation, fewer environmental damages, greater food security, and more land for uses other than as landfills and food production,” said Roe, who wasn’t involved in the report.
The report showed notable growth in coverage of food waste in low- and middle-income countries, the authors said. But it may fall to wealthier nations to lead in international cooperation and policy development to reduce food waste, they said.
The report said many governments, regional and industry groups are using public-private partnerships to reduce food waste and its contributions to climate and water stress. Governments and municipalities collaborate with businesses in the food supply chain, whereby businesses commit to measure food waste.
The report said food redistribution — including donating surplus food to food banks and charities — is significant in tackling food waste among retailers.
One group doing that is Food Banking Kenya, a nonprofit that gets surplus food from farms, markets, supermarkets and packing houses and redistributes it to schoolchildren and vulnerable populations. Food waste is an increasing concern in Kenya, where an estimated 4.45 million tons of food is wasted every year.
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“We positively impact the society by providing nutritious food and also positively impact the environment by reducing the emission of harmful gases,” said John Mukuhi, the group's co-founder and executive director.
The report’s authors said they found that the differences in per capita household food waste between high-income and lower-income countries were surprisingly small.
Richard Swannel, a co-author and director of Impact Growth at WRAP, said that shows food waste “is not a rich world problem. It's a global problem.”
“The data is really clear on this point: that here is a problem right around the world and one that we could all tackle tomorrow to save ourselves money and reduce environmental impact," he said.
Brazil, France presidents announce plan to invest $1.1 billion in the Amazon rainforest
The Brazilian and the French presidents on Tuesday announced a plan to invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in the Amazon, including parts of the rainforest in neighboring French Guiana.
The two countries’ governments said in a joint statement the money will be spread over the next four years to protect the rainforest. It will be a collaboration of state-run Brazilian banks and France’s investment agency. Private resources will also be welcomed, Brazil and France said.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are meeting this week to revive the relationship between the countries after years of frictions with former President Jair Bolsonaro, deepen cooperation to protect the rainforest and boost trade.
Macron started his three-day visit to Brazil in the Amazon city of Belem, where he met his long-time ally Lula. The French president then took a boat to the Combu island to meet with Indigenous leaders.
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Both Macron and Lula saw a protest by Greenpeace Brazil with banners that read “No oil in the Amazon.” Brazil’s government has contemplated allowing the tapping of oil in a region close to the Para state, where Belem lies.
Lula said during a speech that Macron’s visit is part of a global effort to beef up rainforest protections.
“We want to convince those who have already deforested that they need to contribute in an important way to countries that still have their forests to keep them standing,” Lula said in a speech next to the French president.
Macron’s office prior said to the trip that a potential European trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur won’t be on the agenda. The French president is an opponent of such an agreement as long as South American producers don’t respect the same environment and health standards as Europeans, after farmers raised concerns during protests across France and Europe.
The French president decorated Indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire with the prestigious Legion of Honor medal for efforts at conserving the rainforest.
“You were in Europe and I promised to come here to your forest and be with your people in this forest that is coveted,” Macron told the Indigenous leader, according to French radio RFI. “President Lula and I have a common cause for one of our friends in this land that belongs to you.”
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Lula and Macron will seek to “set a common course” to fight both climate change and poverty, Macron’s office said, as Brazil is to host the summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in Rio de Janeiro in November and UN climate talks in Belem next year.
On Wednesday, Macron and Lula will launch a diesel-powered submarine built in Brazil with French technology at the Itaguai shipyard outside Rio de Janeiro. The French president will then head to metropolis Sao Paulo to meet with Brazilian investors. On Thursday, the French president will head to Brasilia to again meet with Lula.
Baltimore bridge collapses after powerless cargo ship rams into support column; 6 presumed dead
A cargo ship lost power and rammed into a major bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday, destroying the span in a matter of seconds and plunging it into the river in a terrifying collapse that could disrupt a vital shipping port for months. Six people were missing and presumed dead, and the search for them was suspended until Wednesday morning.
The ship’s crew issued a mayday call moments before the crash took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge, enabling authorities to limit vehicle traffic on the span, Maryland’s governor said.
As the vessel neared the bridge, puffs of black smoke could be seen as the lights flickered on and off. It struck one of the bridge’s supports, causing the structure to collapse like a toy, and a section of the span came to rest on the bow.
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With the ship barreling toward the bridge at “a very, very rapid speed,” authorities had just enough time to stop cars from coming over the bridge, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.
“These people are heroes,” Moore said. “They saved lives last night.”
In the evening, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent for Maryland State Police, announced that the search and rescue mission was transitioning to one of search and recovery. He also said the search was being put on pause and divers would return to the site at 6 a.m. Wednesday, when challenging overnight conditions were expected to improve. No bodies have been recovered, Butler said.
The crash happened in the middle of the night, long before the busy morning commute on the bridge that stretches 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) and was used by 12 million vehicles last year.
The six missing people were part of a construction crew filling potholes on the bridge, said Paul Wiedefeld, the state's transportation secretary.
Guatemala’s consulate in Maryland said in a statement that two were Guatemalan citizens working on the bridge. It did not provide their names but said consular officials were in contact with local authorities and assisting the families.
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A senior executive at the company that employed the workers also said, in the afternoon, that the workers were presumed dead given the water’s depth and how much time had passed.
Jeffrey Pritzker, executive vice president of Brawner Builders, said the crew was working in the middle of the bridge when it came down.
“This was so completely unforeseen,” Pritzker said. “We don’t know what else to say. We take such great pride in safety, and we have cones and signs and lights and barriers and flaggers."
Jesus Campos, who has worked on the bridge for Brawner Builders and knows members of the crew, said he was told they were on a break and some were sitting in their trucks.
“I know that a month ago, I was there, and I know what it feels like when the trailers pass,” Campos said. “Imagine knowing that is falling. It is so hard. One would not know what to do.”
Father Ako Walker, a Roman Catholic priest at Sacred Heart of Jesus, said he spent time with the families of the missing workers as they waited for news of their loved ones.
“You can see the pain etched on their faces,” Walker said.
Rescuers pulled two people out of the water, one of whom was treated at a hospital and discharged hours later. Multiple vehicles also went into the river, although authorities did not believe anyone was inside.
“It looked like something out of an action movie,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said, calling it “an unthinkable tragedy."
A police dispatcher put out a call just before the collapse saying a ship had lost its steering and asked officers to stop all traffic on the bridge, according to Maryland Transportation Authority first responder radio traffic obtained from the Broadcastify.com archive.
One officer who stopped traffic radioed that he was going to drive onto the bridge to alert the construction crew. But seconds later, a frantic officer said: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever, everybody ... the whole bridge just collapsed.”
On a separate radio channel for maintenance and construction workers, someone said officers were stopping traffic because a ship had lost steering. There was no follow-up order to evacuate, and 30 seconds later the bridge fell and the channel went silent.
From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.
Tuesday's collapse is sure to create a logistical nightmare along the East Coast for months, if not years, shutting down ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore, a major hub. The loss of the bridge will also snarl cargo and commuter traffic.
“Losing this bridge will devastate the entire area, as well as the entire East Coast,” state Sen. Johnny Ray Salling said.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said at a news conference that it was too soon to estimate how long it will take to clear the channel, which is about 50 feet (15 meters) deep.
“I do not know of a bridge that has been constructed to withstand a direct impact from a vessel of this size,” he said.
The Dali, which was headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka and flying under a Singapore flag, is about 985 feet (300 meters) long and about 157 feet (48 meters) wide, according to according to data from Marine Traffic.
Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship, confirmed that it hit a pillar of the bridge at about 1:30 a.m. while in control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help guide vessels safely into and out of ports. The ship is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd.
Synergy said all crew members and the two pilots on board were accounted for, and there were no reports of any injuries.
The ship was moving at 8 knots, roughly 9 mph (14.8 kph), the governor said.
Inspectors found a problem with the Dali’s machinery in June, but a more recent examination did not identify any deficiencies, according to the shipping information system Equasis.
Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the vessel.
Jagged remnants of the bridge could be seen jutting up from the water in the aftermath of the collapse. The on-ramp ended abruptly where the span once began.
Donald Heinbuch, a retired chief with Baltimore’s fire department, said he was startled awake by a deep rumbling that shook his house for several seconds and “felt like an earthquake.” He drove to the river's edge and couldn’t believe what he saw.
“The ship was there, and the bridge was in the water, like it was blown up,” he said.
The bridge spans the Patapsco River at the entrance to the busy harbor, which leads to the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Opened in 1977, the bridge is named for the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Wiedefeld said all vessel traffic into and out of the port would be suspended until further notice, though the facility was still open to trucks.
President Joe Biden said he planned to travel to Baltimore and intends for the federal government to pick up the entire cost of rebuilding.
“This is going to take some time,” Biden said.
Last year the Port of Baltimore handled a record 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo worth $80 billion, according to the state.
The head of a supply chain management company said Americans should expect shortages of goods from the collapse's effect on ocean container shipping and East Coast trucking.
“It’s not just the port of Baltimore that’s going to be impacted,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport.
The collapse, though, is not likely to hurt worldwide trade because Baltimore is not a major port for container vessels. its its facilities are more important when it comes to goods such as farm equipment and autos, said Judah Levine, head of research for global freight booking platform Freightos.
Moscow concert hall attack: 93 dead, suspects detained; Islamic State group claims responsibility
Eleven people have been detained after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow and opened fire on the crowd, the head of Russia's Federal Security Service told President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
At least 93 people were killed in the attack, including three children, Russian authorities said Saturday.
Images shared by Russian state media Saturday showed a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, a shopping mall and music venue with a capacity of more than 6,000 people in Krasnogorsk, on Moscow's western edge.
Friday's attack came just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide. The attack was the deadliest in Russia in years and came as the country's fight in Ukraine dragged into a third year.
Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. The roof of the theatre, where crowds had gathered Friday for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning as firefighters spent hours fighting a fire which erupted during the attack.
Four of those detained were directly involved in the attack, Tass said.
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The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on affiliated social media channels, although neither the Kremlin nor Russian security services have officially assigned blame for the attack.
In a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, the Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan said it had attacked a large gathering of "Christians" in Krasnogorsk. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.
However, a U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. intelligence agencies had confirmed that IS was responsible for the attack.
The official said U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and that U.S. officials had privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials.
The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
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Messages of outrage, shock and support for those affected have since streamed in from around the world.
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned "the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack" and underlined the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack "in the strongest possible terms," his spokesman said.
Meanwhile, in Moscow itself, hundreds of people stood in line Saturday morning to donate blood and plasma, Russia's health ministry said.
Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in this week's presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, had publicly denounced the Western warnings of a potential terrorist attack as an attempt to intimidate Russians. "All that resembles open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilize our society," he said earlier this week.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by the Islamic State downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt. The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia's volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
Russia and China veto US resolution calling for immediate cease-fire in Gaza
Russia and China on Friday vetoed a U.S.-sponsored U.N. resolution supporting “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, calling the measure ambiguous and saying it was not the direct demand to end the fighting that much of the world seeks.
The vote became another showdown involving world powers that are locked in tense disputes elsewhere, with the United States taking criticism for not being tough enough against its ally Israel, whose ongoing military offensive has created a dire humanitarian crisis for the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.
A key issue in the vote was the unusual language that said the Security Council “determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained cease-fire.” The phrasing was not a straightforward “demand” or “call” to halt hostilities.
The resolution reflected a shift by the United States, which has found itself at odds with much of the world as even allies of Israel push for an unconditional end to fighting.
In previous resolutions, the U.S. has closely intertwined calls for a cease-fire with demands for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. This resolution, using wording that’s open to interpretation, continued to link the two issues, but not as firmly.
Before the vote, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow supports an immediate cease-fire, but he criticized the diluted language, which he called philosophical wording that does not belong in a U.N. resolution.
He accused U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield of “deliberately misleading the international community.”
“This was some kind of an empty rhetorical exercise,” Nebenzia said. “The American product is exceedingly politicized, the sole purpose of which is to help to play to the voters, to throw them a bone in the form of some kind of a mention of a cease-fire in Gaza … and to ensure the impunity of Israel, whose crimes in the draft are not even assessed.”
China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, said the U.S. proposal did not promote an immediate and sustained cease-fire, set preconditions and fell far short of expectations of council members and the broader international community.
“If the U.S. was serious about a cease-fire, it wouldn’t have vetoed time and again multiple council resolutions,” he said. “It wouldn’t have taken such a detour and played a game of words while being ambiguous and evasive on critical issues.”
The U.S. has vetoed three resolutions demanding a cease-fire, the most recent an Arab-backed measure supported by 13 council members with one abstention on Feb. 20.
Thomas-Greenfield urged the council to adopt the resolution to press for an immediate cease-fire and the release of the hostages, as well as to address Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and support ongoing diplomacy by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 11 members in favor and three against, including Algeria, the Arab representative on the council. There was one abstention, from Guyana.
After the vote, Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia and China of voting for “deeply cynical reasons,” saying they could not bring themselves to condemn Hamas’ terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, which the resolution would have done for the first time.
While the most recent resolution would have been officially binding under international law, it would not have ended the fighting or led to the release of hostages. But it would have added to the pressure on Israel as its closest ally falls more in line with global demands for a cease-fire at a time of rising tensions between the U.S. and Israeli governments.
Meanwhile, the 10 elected members of the Security Council have put their own resolution in a final form. It demands an immediate humanitarian cease-fire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that began March 10 to be “respected by all parties leading to a permanent sustainable cease-fire.” The Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told reporters the vote would take place either late Friday or Saturday morning.
The resolution also demands “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages ” and emphasizes the urgent need to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian aid throughout the Gaza Strip.
Nebenzia urged council members to support it, but Thomas-Greenfield said the text’s current form “fails to support sensitive diplomacy in the region. Worse, it could actually give Hamas an excuse to walk away from the deal on the table.”
The Security Council had already adopted two resolutions on the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, but none has called for a cease-fire.
Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution in late October calling for pauses in the fighting to deliver aid, protection of civilians and a halt to arming Hamas. They said it did not reflect global calls for a cease-fire.
A day earlier, the U.S. circulated a rival resolution, which went through major changes during negotiations before Friday’s vote. It initially would have supported a temporary cease-fire linked to the release of all hostages, and the previous draft would have supported international efforts for a cease-fire as part of a hostage deal.
The vote took place as Blinken, America’s top diplomat, is on his sixth urgent mission to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war, discussing a deal for a cease-fire and hostage release, as well as post-war scenarios.
Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people in the surprise Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel that triggered the war, and abducted another 250 people. Hamas is still believed to be holding some 100 people hostage, as well as the remains of 30 others.
In Gaza, the Health Ministry raised the death toll in the territory Thursday to nearly 32,000 Palestinians. The agency does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
The international community’s authority on determining the severity of hunger crises warned this week that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70% of people are experiencing catastrophic hunger. The report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC, warned that escalation of the war could push half of Gaza’s total population to the brink of starvation.
The U.S. draft expressed “deep concern about the threat of conflict-induced famine and epidemics presently facing the civilian population in Gaza as well as the number of undernourished people, and also that hunger in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels.”
It emphasized “the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to civilians in the entire Gaza Strip” and lift all barriers to getting aid to civilians “at scale.”
Israel faces mounting pressure to streamline the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, to open more land crossings and to come to a cease-fire agreement. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to move the military offensive to the southern city of Rafah, where some 1.3 million displaced Palestinians have sought safety. Netanyahu says it’s a Hamas stronghold.
The final U.S. draft eliminated language in the initial draft that said Israel’s offensive in Rafah “should not proceed under current circumstances.” Instead, in an introductory paragraph, the council emphasized its concern that a ground offensive into Rafah “would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement, potentially into neighboring countries, and would have serious implications for regional peace and security.”
Heavy fighting rages around Gaza's biggest hospital as Israel raids it for a second day
Explosions and shootings shook the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital and surrounding neighborhoods as Israeli forces stormed through the facility for a second day Tuesday. The military said it had killed 50 Hamas militants in the hospital, but it could not be independently confirmed that the dead were combatants.
The raid was a new blow to the Shifa medical complex, which had only partially resumed operations after a destructive Israeli raid in November. Thousands of Palestinian patients, medical staff and displaced people were trapped inside the sprawling complex Tuesday as heavy fighting between troops and Hamas fighters raged in nearby districts.
“It’s very hard right now. There’s heavy bombardment in the area of Shifa, and buildings are being hit. The sound of tank and artillery fire is continuous,” Emy Shaheen, who lives near the hospital, said in a voice message with repeated booms of shelling audible in the background. She said a large fire had been raging for hours near the hospital.
The Israeli military said it raided Shifa early Monday because Hamas fighters had grouped in the hospital and were directing attacks from inside.
The claim could not be confirmed, and the Hamas media office said all those killed in the assault were civilians. But the surge in fighting in Gaza City underscored Hamas’ continued presence in northern Gaza months after Israeli ground troops claimed they largely had control over the area.
Famine is said to be 'imminent' in northern Gaza as Israel raids the main hospital again
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza vowing to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. More than 31,800 Palestinians have been killed in the bombardment and offensive since. Much of northern Gaza has been leveled, and an international authority on hunger crises warned on Monday that 70% of the people there were experiencing catastrophic hunger and that famine was imminent.
The mayhem in the north came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his determination to invade Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah – one of the last major towns not targeted by a ground assault.
A day earlier, in their first phone call in a month, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Netanyahu not to carry out a Rafah operation, urging “an alternative approach” to more precisely target Hamas fighters there.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has expressed concern over attacking Rafah because some 1.4 million people from across Gaza have crowded into the area. U.N. officials have warned of a massive death toll and the potential collapse of the humanitarian aid effort if troops moved into Rafah.
Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss Rafah with Biden administration officials.
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But on Tuesday, he told a parliamentary committee that while he would listen to U.S. proposals “out of respect” to Biden, “we are determined to complete the elimination of these (Hamas) battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion.”
Airstrikes in Rafah overnight destroyed an apartment and several houses, killing at least 15 people, including six women and children, hospital officials said.
NEW SHIFA SIEGEThe army last raided Shifa Hospital in November after claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center within and beneath the facility. The military revealed a tunnel leading to some underground rooms, as well as weapons it said were found inside the hospital. However, the evidence fell short of the earlier claims, and critics accused the army of recklessly endangering the lives of civilians.
The hospital, which is the heart of Gaza’s health system, was severely damaged in the assault and has only been able to resume limited operations since. Gaza officials say some 30,000 displaced people were taking refuge in the compound when the new Israeli assault began.
The raid came before dawn Monday when tanks surrounded the facility and troops stormed into multiple buildings.
The military on Tuesday said two of its soldiers had been killed in the operation. It said Tuesday that 300 suspects were detained, including dozens it accused of being fighters from Hamas and the smaller Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Some patients were evacuated to nearby Ahli Hospital, said Mahmoud Bassal, civil defense spokesperson.
Abdel-Hady Sayed, who has been sheltering in the Shifa hospital, said troops had rounded up dozens in the hospital’s yard, blindfolding, handcuffing, and ordering them to strip their clothes before some were taken away.
He said those inside, especially men, were afraid to follow Israeli calls to evacuate the hospital. “They tell you to get out, it’s a safe corridor and once they see you they arrest you,” he said. “All are afraid here. The world should do something to stop them.”
The military has identified one person killed in the raid — Faiq Mabhouh, a senior officer in Gaza’s police force, which is under the Hamas-led government but distinct from the militant group’s armed fighting wing. The military said he was hiding in Shifa with weapons, but the Gaza government said he was in charge of protecting aid distribution in the north.
The raid prompted heavy fighting for blocks around Shifa. Hamas’ military wing said it struck two Israeli armored vehicles and a group of soldiers with rockets in the vicinity of the hospital.
Emergency services received multiple calls for help from people whose buildings had been bombed in the streets around Shifa, but rescue teams could not go to the scene because of the fighting, Bassal said.
Kareem al-Shawwa, a Palestinian living about a kilometer (less than a mile) from the hospital, said the past 24 hours had been “terrifying,” with explosions and heavy exchanges of fire. He said Israeli troops had told residents to evacuate the area, but he and his family were too afraid of getting arrested or caught in the fighting to leave their home.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian facilities to shield its fighters, and the Israeli military has raided several hospitals since the start of the war.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that at least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but it says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel that triggered the war and took another 250 people hostage. Hamas is still believed to be holding about 100 captives, as well as the remains of 30 others, after most of the rest were freed during a cease-fire last year.
US and Japan seek UN resolution calling on all nations to ban nuclear weapons in outer space
The United States and Japan are sponsoring a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on all nations not to deploy or develop nuclear weapons in space, the U.S. ambassador announced Monday.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a U.N. Security Council meeting that “any placement of nuclear weapons into orbit around the Earth would be unprecedented, dangerous, and unacceptable.”
The announcement that the U.S. and Japan had circulated a resolution follows White House confirmation last month that Russia has obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared later that Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, claiming that the country has only developed space capabilities similar to those of the U.S.
The Outer Space Treaty ratified by about 114 countries including the United States and Russia prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”
Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, who chaired the council meeting, said that even during “the confrontational environment” of the Cold War, the rivals agreed to ensure that outer space remained peaceful. That prohibition on putting any weapons of mass destruction into orbit must be upheld today, she said.
Thomas-Greenfield said all parties to the treaty must commit to the ban on nuclear and other destructive weapons, “and we must urge all member states who are not yet party to it to accede to it without delay.”
She said the United States looks forward to engaging with the other members of the 15-nation Security Council “to forge consensus around this text.”
Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky said Moscow's initial impression is that the proposed resolution is “yet another propaganda stunt by Washington,” “very politicized” and “divorced from reality.”
He criticized the text, saying the wording wasn’t worked out by experts nor discussed at specialized international platforms such as the U.N. Conference on Disarmament or the U.N. Committee on Outer Space.
Outside the Security Council, Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. is interested in engaging with parties to the treaty “to explore ways to increase confidence in compliance” with the ban on nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in outer space.
“The United States has already begun considering approaches to help ensure that countries cannot deploy nuclear weapons in orbit undetected, and we intend to engage with other states parties as our ideas evolve,” she said.
Thomas-Greenfield also reiterated to the council the United States is willing to engage Russia and China right now, without preconditions, on bilateral arms control issues.
But Russia’s Polyansky accused the West of “trying to inflict strategic defeat on my country.”
“Any interaction will only be possible if the United States and NATO review their anti- Russian course, and when they show that they are ready to participate in comprehensive dialogue, taking into account all of those strategic stability factors and removing all of the concerns that we have about our security,” he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres briefed the council, saying “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”
He said the movie “Oppenheimer” about Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the U.S. project during World War II that developed the atomic bomb, “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”
“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” the U.N. chief said.
Japan’s nuclear power plant finishes first-year ocean discharge of wastewater amid backlash
Despite opposition and concern from at home and abroad, Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has finished its initial year of discharging nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean, according to the plant's operator.
The plant completed the fourth and final round of discharge for the current fiscal year ending in March, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said on Sunday.
As per the initial plan, approximately 31,200 tons of wastewater, containing radioactive tritium, was released into the ocean since the discharge started in August 2023, with each round of discharge carried out for about two weeks.
Earlier this week, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi emphasized continued efforts in monitoring Japan's ocean discharge of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled plant, following his first visit to Fukushima prefecture since the discharge started.
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Stressing that the discharge marks merely the initial phase of a long process, Grossi said that "much effort will be required in the lengthy process ahead," and reiterated the organization's stance on maintaining vigilance throughout the process.
While the Japanese government and TEPCO have asserted the safety and necessity of the discharge, concerns have been raised by neighboring countries and local stakeholders regarding environmental impacts.
"All fishermen are against ocean dumping. The contaminated water has flowed into what we fishermen call 'the sea of treasure', and the process will last for at least 30 years," said Haruo Ono, a fisherman in the town of Shinchi in Fukushima.
"There is no good reason to dump radioactive materials into the ocean. There is no reason to just dilute them and flush them away," said the man in his 70s.
"Is it really necessary, in the first place, to dump what has been stored in tanks into the sea? How can we say it's 'safe' when the discharged water clearly consists of harmful radioactive substances? I think the government and TEPCO must provide a solid answer," said Chiyo Oda, a resident of Fukushima's Iwaki city.
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Concerns were fueled among the Japanese public over the recent leakage of contaminated water from pipes at the Fukushima plant.