Author: Emmanuel

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group, which has been engaged in a two-year war with Sudan’s army, has been entirely pushed out of Khartoum state, says the military.”Khartoum State is completely free of rebels”, the army said in a statement published by Sudan’s News Agency. The announcement comes nearly two months after the military recaptured Khartoum city – including the presidential palace – from its rivals in a major victory.Earlier on Tuesday, fighting had broken out between the warring groups in the city of Omdurman – which is also in Khartoum state and part of the capital region. The army said on Monday that it had started a “large-scale offensive” in Omdurman, according to the AFP news agency. The RSF has not yet commented on the army’s latest claim.Khartoum had once been at the heart of Sudan’s government, but the country’s military leaders were forced to move east to Port Sudan after their rivals took control of the area.Until recently Port Sudan had been viewed as relatively safe, however it was at the centre of escalating fighting when it came under drone attack earlier this month, which the army blamed on the RSF. The attacks hit key infrastructure and led to water shortages and worsening blackouts.The war has also had diplomatic reverberations, with relations souring between Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), after Sudan accused the gulf nation of supporting the RSF, which it denies. Those accusations continued on Tuesday, with Sudan saying the UAE was responsible for an attack on Port Sudan earlier this month, Reuters news agency reported.The UAE has strongly denied the accusations, describing them as “unfounded allegations”.Since the civil war erupted more than two years ago, thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced from their homes – creating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes, which they deny.

MEXICO CITY — Two top officials of the Mexico City government were shot dead early Tuesday in the kind of attack on political figures that has become relatively common in much of Mexico—but has remained rare in the capital.The two victims were both aides to Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada, a key member of the Morena ruling bloc and a close ally of President Claudia Sheinbaum, herself a former mayor of the capital.The president was informed of the slaying during her regular morning news conference. The killings sparked immediate media speculation—but no confirmation—that the attack was timed as a warning to coincide with the president’s widely followed mañanera, or morning media briefing.Sheinbaum condemned the slayings as “lamentable,” but cautioned against speculation as to what was behind the attack. “We have to [wait for] the investigation to be able to know the cause and help as much as we can,” Sheinbaum told reporters.Since taking office last Oct. 1, Sheinbaum has been engaged in a wide-ranging crackdown on organized crime that has included hundreds of arrests nationwide, take-downs of scores of suspected drug laboratories and the transfer of 29 alleged gang capos to the United States. She has also dispatched thousands of troops to the country’s border with the United States in a bid to help deter drug-trafficking and illegal immigration. Tuesday’s dual assassination took place shortly after 7 a.m. near a major intersection in the neighborhood known as Colonia Moderna.Shot dead were Ximena Guzmán, first secretary to the mayor, and José Muñoz, a mayoral advisor. The two were traveling together in a car and did not have bodyguards, according to media reports here. Authorities did not comment on a potential motive. No arrest have been made. In an initial statement, Brugada said the “probable” assailants were traveling on a motorcycle.“There will be no impunity,” the mayor vowed in a statement. “Those responsible will be arrested and will face justice.”Dramatic video images widely circulating in the news media here—though not officially confirmed as authentic— show a single attacker in a white jacket and motorcycle helmet firing numerous times through the windshield of an idling car said to be carrying the two aides. The gunman appeared to have been waiting for some minutes by the car until a male figure entered the vehicle.After opening fire, the presumed killer runs off on foot against traffic down the street as the targeted car lurches forward, according to the grainy video. It was the most high-profile assassination attempt in the capital since a sensational assault in 2020 targeting a vehicle transporting then-Mexico City police chief, Omar García Harfuch, who was shot but survived—though two bodyguards were killed in the attack. García Harfuch, who now serves as national security chief under Sheinbaum, publicly pinned the blame for that attack on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.Mexico City has generally been spared the kinds of political slayings that frequently occur throughout much of the country, especially during election seasons. Dozens of candidates—mostly for mayoral and other municipal positions—were slain during last year’s national elections. Tuesday’s slayings spurred a rash of theories about what was behind the attack. David Saucedo, a Mexican security analyst, noted that some gangs operating in Mexico City view themselves as unfairly targeted by official crackdowns, including arrests and seizures of illicit drugs. They perceive that rival criminal groups do not face the same pressure, Saucedo said.“For a long time there is a sense that the government of Mexico City fights against certain groups of narcotics traffickers and allows others to act freely,” Saucedo said.Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed. More to Read

Israel has retrieved thousands of items belonging to the country’s most famous spy after a covert operation in Syria. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared some of the 2,500 items from the Syrian archive relating to Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy who infiltrated the political echelon in Syria, with Cohen’s widow. Sunday marked 60 years since Cohen was hanged in a square in Damascus.The items recently spirited into Israel include documents, recordings, photos, and items collected by Syrian intelligence after his capture in January 1965, letters in his own handwriting to his family in Israel, photographs of his activity during his operational mission in Syria and personal objects that were taken from his home after his capture.Among the items recovered was a handwritten will penned by Cohen hours before his execution, Agence France-Presse reported.Suitcases of items brought to Israel included worn folders stuffed with handwritten notes, keys to his apartment in Damascus, passports and false identification documents, missions from the Mossad to surveil specific people and places, and documentation of all the efforts of his widow, Nadia Cohen, begging world leaders for his release from prison.

In this undated photo released by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, identity documents of Eli Cohen are displayed. 

Israeli Prime Minister’s Office via AP

A Syrian government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters news agency request for comment on how the items had been retrieved from Syria.

Cohen, who was born in Egypt to a Jewish family, was sent by Mossad to Syria, where he posed as a Syrian businessman named Kamal Amin Taabet, the BBC reported.  After befriending influential political, business and military figures, he was able to obtain secret information, which he passed back to Israel. Cohen’s success in Syria was one of the Mossad spy agency’s first major achievements, and the top-secret intelligence he obtained is widely credited with helping Israel prepare for its swift victory in the 1967 Middle East War.Eli Cohen managed to forge close contacts within the political and military hierarchy of Israel’s archenemy in the early 1960s, ultimately rising to become a top adviser to Syria’s defense minister. In 1965, Cohen was caught radioing information to Israel. He was tried and hanged in a Damascus square on May 18, 1965. His remains have yet to be returned to Israel, where he is regarded as a national hero.Isreal previously recovered a watch belonging to Cohen from Syria, the BBC reported in 2018. Details of how Israel got hold of the watch were not disclosed, other than it was returned “in a special Mossad operation.”

In 2019, actor Sacha Baron Cohen portrayed Eli Cohen (no relation) in a six-episode Netflix series called “The Spy.””We conducted a special operation by the Mossad, by the State of Israel, to bring his (Eli Cohen’s) archive, which had been in the safes of the Syrian intelligence for 60 years,” Netanyahu told Nadia Cohen on Sunday in Jerusalem.Ahead of viewing the items, Nadia Cohen told Netanyahu that the most important thing was to bring back Cohen’s body. Netanyahu said Israel was continuing to work on locating Cohen’s body. Last week, Israel recovered the body of an Israeli soldier from Syria who had been missing for more than four decades, after he was killed during a clash with Syrian forces in Lebanon in 1982.”Eli is an Israeli legend. He’s the greatest agent Israeli intelligence has had in the years the state existed. There was no one like him,” Netanyahu said.

This picture taken on January 25, 2000 shows a close-up of a postage stamp commemorating Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who was executed by Syria in Damascus in 1965. 

MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images

The House has emptied out somewhat now, but Keir Starmer is still taking questions on trade deals and the EU. We are still expecting a statement from foreign secretary David Lammy this afternoon.Ellie Chowns, the Green party of England and Wales MP for North Herefordshire, has said the party “broadly welcomes” the UK-EU deal announced by the government yesterday.She told MPs:
On behalf of the Green party, I broadly welcome the progress that was made at the summit yesterday. It’s not quite the step change that we need, but it is a step forward towards the closest possible relationships with our closest neighbors that we continue to champion, although I would gently point out that it’s hardly unprecedented, because, of course, up until we left the EU we had a much better relationship.
She then asked why Keir Starmer was being “so timid on the youth mobility scheme, given the huge benefits that this would offer to our young people and our country as a whole.”Helena Horton has an update on Thames WaterThames Water has blocked controversial plans to pay executives “retention payments” out of a £3bn loan, the environment secretary told the Efra committee.Steve Reed said: “Just over the last few days we have seen a very unfortunate situation where Thames Water appeared to be attempting to circumvent that ban, calling their bonuses something different so they can continue to pay them. I am very happy indeed that Thames have now dropped those proposals. It was the wrong thing to do. They have now withdrawn their proposal to make those payments.”The company won a court battle that allowed it to accept the loan, which comes with an expensive 9.75% interest rate and fees. The chair of Thames Water has written to the committee to clarify his comments after the Guardian revealed he wrongly told it last week that the bonuses were “insisted upon” by the creditors.Sir Adrian Montague told the environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) select committee last week that the lenders had insisted that “very substantial” bonuses of up to 50% of salary should be paid to company executives from the controversial loan in order to retain key staff.The chair of Thames Water has now written to the committee to say he “misspoke” after the Guardian revealed his comments were not true.After the Guardian approached Thames to ask why its chair claimed the lenders “insisted” bonuses were paid, Montague wrote to the Efra committee to clarify his comments.“Following the session we have been approached by the Guardian who we understand intend to write a story suggesting that we misled the committee in relation to the Company’s management retention plan.“I appreciate that in the heat of the moment I may have misspoken when I stated that the creditors insisted on the management retention plan.”Helena Dollimore, Labour MP and member of the committee, said of Montague’s appearance: “He was trying to justify the paying of these retention payment … that the creditors of Thames Water had said it was a condition of the loan for top leaders to get retention payments. Since that evidence to our committee we’ve seen documents filed in the high court that suggest Sir Adrian misled in his wording … This is very serious behaviour from the bosses of Thames Water at our committee.”Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader, is in parliament today. He tells MPs that the government has “surrendered the fishing industry”, and that “my constituents are furious that you have surrendered on freedom of movement and on rule taking under the ECJ.”He continues, saying, “there is good news, prime minister. Do you accept that you have also surrendered the jobs of many of your backbench MPs at the next general election to Reform?”Keir Starmer gently replies “I will happily explain to his constituents the huge benefits of these deals, measured in jobs that will be saved, jobs that can now thrive, bills that will come down. And it is really important for our economy that we have these deals. That is in the interests of his constituents. It’s in the interests of the whole country.”Long-term Brexit campaigner Mark Francois has just angrily accused the government of making the UK a rule-taker again from the European Union. Keir Starmer wearily replies “I’d forgotten about some of the nonsense that gets spouted.”Francois continues to heckle the prime minister as he answers, with multiple MPs calling on the Conservative MP to shut up.Just to confirm what Keir Starmer mentioned earlier, the MP for Clacton and Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, has not attended parliament for this statement on the UK-EU trade deal.SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has given his response to the UK-EU deal in this debate, suggesting that people on the frontbenches of other parties “need to calm their jets.”He continued:
This is obviously not a surrender, just as it’s obviously no substitute for membership of the European Union. Nor indeed is it, as the prime minister has repeatedly said today, providing unprecedented access to the EU market. That is simply absurd.
He then calls for more investment in Scotland.Emily Thornberry, chair of foreign affairs committee, made a short intervention earlier, and opened by saying “Can I begin by thanking the prime minister for what he has said about Gaza? It couldn’t be clearer the message that he’s sending to the far-right government of Netanyahu, and it should have the unanimous support of this house. It is essentially: this must stop.”Responding to veteran Brexit campaigner Bernard Jenkin, who accused Labour of betraying the referendum result with this UK-EU trade deal, Keir Starmer said the fact that Labour was doing trade deals with India and the US show the government wasn’t rejoining the European Union.Starmer says they have stuck to their red lines about not rejoining the EU, “no single market, no Customs Union, no freedom of movement.”Starmer says the fact there are deals elsewhere “could be no better evidence that we not going back into the EU.”Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has said his party does not think the newly announced UK-EU reset deal “goes far enough to fix our broken relationship with Europe,” but says that nevertheless the party welcomes parts of it.Speaking in the House of Commons, Ed Davey said:
We have long been arguing for an agri-food deal to help British farmers export to Europe.
We have long argued for a youth mobility scheme to give our young people incredible new opportunities, and British businesses, especially in hospitality, a boost.
We have long argued for closer alliances on defence in the face of Putin’s imperialism and Trump’s unpredictability.
So can I welcome the progress on these issues, even it is only very limited progress on things like youth mobility, because we’ve all seen the terrible damage caused by the Conservatives Brexit deal.
Hearing the Conservative leader complain today is like listening to a back seat driver who previously crashed the car.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “trying to buy time” to “continue war”.“It is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation,” Zelenskyy said in a post on social media on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reports.Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Zelenskyy said Ukraine had no doubt the war must end at the negotiating table, but there must be clear and realistic proposals on the table, and called for more international sanctions pressure on Russia.He said he had spoken to Finnish President Alexander Stubb and that he would speak to more allies later on Tuesday.Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybiha has called on the Group of Seven advanced economies to reduce its price cap on Russian seaborne oil to $30 per barrel.The current G7 price cap is $60 per barrel.“The oil price cap, from our point of view, our position, (the) reasonable price cap (is) 30 dollars,” Sybiha, who was speaking in English, told reporters in Brussels, Reuters reports.Germany is still counting on the US to pile more pressure on Russia for an immediate ceasefire in its war on Ukraine, Berlin said on Tuesday.“We have repeatedly made it clear that we expect one thing from Russia – an immediate ceasefire without preconditions,” German foreign minister Johann Wadephul said on the sidelines of a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.“It is sobering to see that Russia has not taken this step, and we will have to react. We also expect our US allies not to tolerate this.”He added that there was a lot of readiness both in the European Union and in the United States to consider more sanctions on Moscow, but did not give any details regarding what additional sanctions might look like, Reuters reports.Here’s a little more detail from Reuters on Zakharova’s comments. Putin, after a call with President Donald Trump, has previously said Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum about a future peace accord, and that efforts to end the war in Ukraine were on the right track.Putin said discussions would include the principles of a settlement and the timing and definitions of a possible ceasefire – including its timeframe.On Tuesday, Zakharova tells reporters she hopes Ukraine takes what she calls a constructive position in relation to possible talks for the sake of its own “self-preservation”. She adds:
Now, accordingly, the ball is in Kyiv’s court.
On newly announced European Union sanctions, Zakharova says Russia will never bow to ultimatums from anyone, claiming it’s clear Europe wanted to rearm Ukraine to continue the war.Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says Ukraine needs to decide whether or not it will cooperate in discussing a memorandum ahead of a future peace accord Moscow has proposed, Reuters reports.In her weekly briefing, Zakharova claims Ukraine’s European allies have sought, but failed, to prevent the resumption of direct dialogue with Russia.Referring to the latest EU sanctions announcement, Zakharova says Russia “never responds to ultimatums”.The UK and Europe have announced major sanctions against Russia as it became clear that Monday’s call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had failed to deliver any meaningful concessions from Moscow.The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accused Russia of “trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation”.The UK said its sanctions would target dozens of entities “supporting Russia’s military machine, energy exports and information war, as well as financial institutions helping to fund Putin’s invasion of Ukraine”.“Putin has so far not put in place the full, unconditional ceasefire that President Trump has called for, and which President Zelenskyy endorsed over two months ago,” the Foreign Office said.Shortly afterwards the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the EU had approved sanctions targeting Russia’s shadow fleet of about 200 vessels and that more sanctions were in the pipeline.You can read the full report here:The European Union has adopted new sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, focusing on Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, human rights violations and hybrid threats, the EU’s foreign policy chief said.Kaja Kallas said in a post on X:
The EU has approved its 17th sanctions package against Russia, targeting nearly 200 shadow fleet ships.
New measures also address hybrid threats and human rights.
More sanctions on Russia are in the works. The longer Russia wages war, the tougher our response.
The UK government has announced 100 new sanctions on Russia across Russian military, energy, financial sectors and those conducting “Putin’s information war against Ukraine”.In the press notice, the government said the UK and partners are “also working to tighten the Oil Price Cap, further restricting critical oil revenues for Putin’s war machine”.Here’s more of what Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram today.“It is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time to continue the war and occupation,” he said.“We are working with partners to put pressure on the Russians to behave differently. Sanctions matter, and I am grateful to everyone who makes them more tangible for the perpetrators of the war.”Zelenskyy added:
We have no doubt that the war must end at the negotiating table. There must be clear and realistic proposals on the table. Ukraine is ready for any effective negotiation formats. And if Russia continues to put forward unrealistic conditions and undermine possible results, there must be tough consequences.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “trying to buy time” to “continue war”.“It is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation,” Zelenskyy said in a post on social media on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reports.Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Zelenskyy said Ukraine had no doubt the war must end at the negotiating table, but there must be clear and realistic proposals on the table, and called for more international sanctions pressure on Russia.He said he had spoken to Finnish President Alexander Stubb and that he would speak to more allies later on Tuesday.EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Tuesday called for the United States to take “strong action” against Russia if Moscow does not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.“America said that if Russia doesn’t agree on an unconditional ceasefire, then there are going to be consequences. So we want to see those consequences, also from the US side,” Kallas said at a meeting of EU ministers in Brussels.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said following a separate call between Trump and European leaders Monday that the EU would “increase pressure” on Moscow through more sanctions.German defence minister Boris Pistorius has accused President Vladimir Putin of not really being interested in peace in Ukraine, saying the Russian leader was only “playing for time” in talks with the United States.Europe needs to increase the pressure on Russia by imposing more sanctions, especially on Russia’s energy sales, Pistorius added.“We have seen massive (Russian) attacks again in recent days … These speak louder than the lip service (to the peace process) we have heard for so long,” Pistorius said before a meeting of EU defence and foreign affairs ministers in Brussels.He added:
Putin is clearly playing for time, unfortunately we have to say Putin is not really interested in peace.
Pistorius said of Putin: “He is still not ready for concessions, only talks about a ceasefire under his conditions.”At least one civilian has been killed and 13 injured in Russian attacks across Ukrainian regions over the past day, regional authorities have reported.Ukrainian air defences intercepted 93 of the 108 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy drones launched by Russia overnight, the Air Force said.Thirty-five of them were shot down, while 58 were neutralised by electronic warfare systems, according to the statement, The Kyiv Independent reported.Russia has lost 975,800 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported on 20 May.This number includes 1,030 Russian casualties over the past day.Russia has also lost 10,834 tanks, 22,567 armoured fighting vehicles, 49,093 vehicles and fuel tanks, 28,067 artillery systems, 1,388 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,167 air defence systems, 372 aircraft, 336 helicopters, 36,621 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine, according to the report.China says it backs “direct dialogue” between Russia and Ukraine, after US President Donald Trump announced the two would “immediately” start peace talks after he spoke with Vladimir Putin.“China supports all efforts aimed at achieving peace,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.China said on Tuesday it supported “direct dialogue and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and advocate for the political resolution of the crisis”, Agence France-Presse reports.“It is hoped that the parties concerned will carry on with the dialogue and negotiation so as to reach a fair, lasting and binding peace agreement acceptable to all parties,” Mao said.Good morning and welcome to our blog covering developments in the Ukraine-Russia conflict following yesterday’s call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.While the US leader described the conversation as “excellent”, the Kremlin refused to agree to a ceasefire, despite pressure from Washington and European allies.Speaking to reporters in Sochi after the two-hour conversation on Monday, Putin described the call as “very meaningful and frank” and said he was prepared to work with Ukraine on drafting a memorandum for future peace talks.However, the Russian leader declined to support the US-proposed 30-day unconditional ceasefire, which Ukraine had already agreed to – and which Washington had framed as the call’s primary objective. Putin also suggested his country’s maximalist objectives in the war with Ukraine were unchanged.Trump said he spoke with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several European leaders after his call with Putin.In a statement late on Monday, Zelenskyy insisted Ukraine was ready for a full ceasefire and direct negotiations with Moscow, but said: “If the Russians are not ready to stop the killings, there must be stronger sanctions. Pressure on Russia will push it toward real peace.”Stay with us for all the day’s developments.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, has been speaking to the BBC’s Radio 4’s Today’s programme about the dismal amount of aid Israel is letting into Gaza.International pressure over a looming famine forced Benjamin Netanyahu to announce on Sunday night that he would ease the devastating 11-week aid blockade to prevent a “starvation crisis” in Gaza – but only to a minimum level.Fletcher said five trucks of aid went into Gaza yesterday, but described this as a “drop in the ocean” and totally inadequate for the population’s needs.He said the aid lorries, which contain baby food and nutrition, are technically in Gaza but have not reached civilians as they are just on the other side of the border.Fletcher said 14,000 babies could die in 48 hours if aid doesn’t reach them in time.“I want to save as many as these 14,000 babies as we can in the next 48 hours,” he told the BBC.Asked how the UN arrived at this figure, he responded: “We have strong teams on the ground – and of course many of them have been killed… we he still have lots of people on the ground – they’re at the medical centres, they’re at the schools…trying to assess needs.”At least 53,573 Palestinian people have been killed and 121,688 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.The ministry said 87 people were killed by Israeli attacks and 290 others injured in the territory over the past 24 hours.“There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, the ambulance and civil defense teams cannot reach them,” it added in its post on Telegram.Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that nuclear talks with the United States were unlikely to yield any results, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).“We don’t think it will lead to any outcome. We don’t know what will happen,” said Khamenei during a speech, adding that denying Iran’s right to enrich uranium was “a big mistake”.Iran and the United States have held four rounds of Omani-mediated nuclear talks since 12 April, the highest-level contact between the two countries since Washington abandoned the 2015 nuclear accord. They had confirmed plans to hold another round of discussions during their last meeting on 11 May, which Iran described as “difficult but useful”, while a US official said Washington was “encouraged”.Iran currently enriches uranium to 60%, far above the 3.67% limit set in the 2015 deal and close though still short of the 90% needed for a nuclear warhead.Western countries, including the US have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire atomic weapons, while Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. Iran has repeatedly insisted its right to maintain uranium enrichment was “non-negotiable”, while chief US negotiator Steve Witkoff has called it a “red line”.On Sunday, Witkoff reiterated that the United States “cannot allow even one percent of an enrichment capability”.“The American side involved in these indirect negotiations should refrain from speaking nonsense,” said Khamenei.Earlier, Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator Abbas Araghchi said “enrichment in Iran, however, will continue with or without a deal”.He said in a post on X:
If the US is interested in ensuring that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, a deal is within reach, and we are ready for a serious conversation to achieve a solution that will forever ensure that outcome.
The UK said on Tuesday it had sanctioned a number of individuals and groups in the West Bank who it said had been linked with acts of violence against Palestinians.More details soon …Syria’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that the lifting of sanctions on his country shows an “international will” to support his country, after EU countries agreed to end most of its sanctions, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).In a press conference in Damascus alongside his Jordanian counterpart, Asaad al-Shaibani said that “lifting sanctions expresses the regional and international will to support Syria”, adding that “the Syrian people today have a very important and historic opportunity to rebuild their country”.The PA news agency has more detail on Tuesday’s comments by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer.At the dispatch box, he told the House of Commons:
First I’d like to say something about the horrific situation in Gaza, where the level of suffering, innocent children being bombed again, is utterly intolerable.
Starmer later added:
We’re horrified by the escalation from Israel. We repeat our demand for a ceasefire as the only way to free the hostages.
We repeat our opposition to settlements in the West Bank, and we repeat our demand to massively scale-up humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
The recent announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza, a basic quantity, is totally and utterly inadequate, so we must coordinate our response because this war has gone on for far too long.
We cannot allow the people of Gaza to starve, and the foreign secretary [David Lammy] will come to the house shortly to set out our response in detail.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday he, along with the leaders of France and Canada, was horrified by the military escalation in Gaza, repeating calls for a ceasefire.“I want to put on record today that we’re horrified by the escalation from Israel,” Starmer told parliament, after releasing a joint statement with French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney (see 7.35am BST).According to Reuters, Starmer said that the foreign secretary, David Lammy, would set out the UK’s “response in detail” later on Tuesday.France seems increasingly likely to recognise a Palestinian state after Paris, along with London and Ottawa, threatened Israel with “concrete actions” for its renewed assault in Gaza.Asked if the UK was leaning towards official recognition of a Palestinian state, Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said on Tuesday:
We have been clear that the UK will never give up on the two-state solution, with a Palestinian state and Israel living side-by-side in peace dignity and security.
The prime minister is clear that statehood is an inalienable right of the Palestinian people.
The spokesperson, according to the PA news agency, said the UK was “ready to work with our allies” when asked if the UK would follow France in official recognising a Palestinian state.French president Emmanuel Macron has indicated he could do this at a coming UN summit (for context: Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognised a Palestinian state last year, provoking outrage in the Israeli government).Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN office for coordination for humanitarian affairs (OCHA), has responded to comments made by the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, who told the BBC this morning that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die over the next 48 hours if aid doesn’t reach them (see post at 08.59 for more details).Speaking to reporters, Laerke said:
For now let me just say that we know for a fact that there are babies who are in urgent life-saving need of these supplements that need to come in because their mothers are unable to feed themselves.
And if they do not get those, they will be in mortal danger. That is as much as I can say right now. If we have more specifics, we’ll go back to you on that.
Israel is not only conducting a war in Gaza, it is also launching frequent attacks in Lebanon.The Lebanese health ministry said earlier today that an Israeli airstrike injured nine people in a drone attack on the coastal Tyre district in the south of the country.Three people are now in “critical condition”, the ministry said, adding that two children were among the injured.Israel has continued to launch strikes on Lebanon despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah, which sates only UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army should be deployed in southern Lebanon.Israel, however, has retained its forces in five areas it has declared strategic. Lebanon has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw all its troops.Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires from Gaza:“We have requested and received approval of more trucks to enter today, many more than were approved yesterday,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for UN office for coordination for humanitarian affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva.Laerke added that “we expect, of course, with that approval, many of them, hopefully all of them, to cross today to a point where they can be picked up and get further into the Gaza Strip for distribution.”As we’ve reported earlier in the blog, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said only five aid trucks were allowed into Gaza yesterday.The UN has just confirmed it has been given permission to send “around 100” aid trucks into Gaza today (for context: pre-war an average of 500 trucks were entering per day).Fletcher earlier acknowledged the risks to staff who may be caught in Israeli airstrikes as they try to deliver the supplies.Charities have warned of a looming famine across Gaza caused by Israel’s food blockade, which was eased yesterday to a bare minimum level only because of fears key allies (i.e. US senators) were distressed by images of “mass hunger” and could pull support over such scenes.Israel imposed its blockade in early March, cutting off all supplies including food, medicine, shelter and fuel in what has been widely condemned as the collective punishment of the civilian population in Gaza. Israel claimed the blockade was to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages.Because of the blockade, most community kitchens have now shut down. Vegetables and meat are inaccessible or unaffordable. The World Health Organization said yesterday that two million people were starving in the Gaza Strip while tonnes of food was being blocked at the border.Al Jazeera is reporting that at least two people were killed by Israeli drone fire in the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City, while two others were killed by Israeli artillery shelling in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.Israel has justified its blockade of Gaza by claiming that Hamas steals food from humanitarian agencies and the UN. The Israeli government denies targeting civilians and says it is fighting a war of survival.EU policy on Israel has typically been hobbled by the difficulties in finding unanimity among 27 member states with different views, from countries that have recognised Palestine, such as Spain and Ireland, to staunch allies of Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic.While the EU-Israel can only be suspended by unanimity, key provisions, including on trade and Israel’s participation in Europe’s Horizon research funding programme can be suspended on the basis of a weighted majority vote.Jennifer Rankin is Brussels correspondent for the GuardianEU foreign ministers will discuss plans to review the bloc’s relationship with Israel, amid growing alarm about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank.Arriving at a meeting in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ministers would discuss a Dutch proposal to review the EU-Israel association agreement, a trade accord signed in 2000.“It’s going to be a very, very hard discussion on Gaza,” she said, noting that member states took different views in their approach to Israel’s government.France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot told local media earlier on Tuesday that Paris backed a review of the EU-Israel agreement to see if Israel was respecting its commitments to human rights.In a letter to Kallas, Dutch foreign minister Casper Veldkamp said Israel’s aid blockade was a violation of its obligations under international humanitarian law and therefore the EU-Israel agreement, which includes provisions to respect human rights. He also expressed concern about Israel’s plans to entrust the delivery of aid to Palestinians to private companies, rather than the UN and humanitarian organisations.He wrote:
All of this merits a broader reflection on and discussion of our relationship with Israel.
Ireland’s development minister Neale Richmond told reporters that ten countries now supported the decision to review the agreement, up from only a handful a year ago.Commenting on the growing momentum to review the agreement, he said:
I can only imagine it’s because other member states have eyes and ears and they can see the absolute horrors that are unfolding on a daily basis live on our television screens in Gaza.
Children are dying, children are starving, families are being murdered every day. This is not acceptable and it’s clearly now time for the EU to look at that EU-Israel trade association and the very clear breaches of the human rights under article 2 [of the agreement].
He called on Kallas to provide “a clear message [that] we won’t stand for the status quo”.

Getty Images34 minutes ago20 CommentsFormer Spain and Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina will retire from playing at the end of this season.The 42-year-old is currently at Italian club Como, who will play the final game of their campaign when they host Inter Milan in Serie A on Friday.Reina, who came through the Barcelona academy, was part of the Spain squad which won the 2010 World Cup and the European Championship in 2008 and 2012.He joined Liverpool from Villarreal in 2005 and won the FA Cup and League Cup with the Reds as he also claimed the Premier League Golden Glove award – given to the top-flight keeper with the most clean sheets – three seasons in a row from 2005-06.Reina made 394 appearances for Liverpool before leaving in 2014 and going on to have spells at Bayern Munich, Napoli, AC Milan, Aston Villa, Lazio, Villarreal and Como.He played the 1,000th competitive game of his career in 2023 when he turned out for Villarreal in 2023. “A very beautiful career is coming to an end, a very full life,” Reina told Movistar. “I feel very fortunate for what I’ve experienced.”I didn’t expect it, but I think the time has come and I feel like bringing it to a close here.”Related topicsEuropean FootballFootball

A soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip and an increasingly vocal outcry over near-famine conditions in the Palestinian territory are piling pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a negotiated ceasefire with Hamas and drop his country’s near-total blockade of the enclave. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 87 people were killed by Israeli military strikes over the last 24 hours alone. The Israel Defense Forces have ramped up operations in Gaza over the last week, killing hundreds of people, many of them women and children, in what Netanyahu’s government insists is legitimate self-defense and aimed entirely at securing the return of 58 hostages still held by Hamas and its allies in Gaza, and destroying the group. Israel blames Hamas — long designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and the European Union — for all casualties in Gaza, accusing the group of operating in and around civilian infrastructure. On Monday, for the first time in two and a half months, Netanyahu permitted a handful of trucks carrying aid to enter Gaza. He said he had been pressured into easing the total blockade by allies who could not tolerate “images of mass famine.”

Palestinians, struggling with hunger due to an Israeli blockade, wait in line to receive hot meals distributed by charity organizations in Jabalia Refugee Camp, in Gaza City, Gaza, May 17, 2025.

Mahmoud ssa/Anadolu/Getty

There were unconfirmed reports on Tuesday that as many as 100 trucks had been allowed to cross the Gaza border. But the United Nations’ World Food Program said this week that a few trucks would be just a drop in the bucket given the vast and urgent need for food in Gaza, where more than 2 million Palestinians have been trapped for more than two years of blistering war.Thousands of trucks have been lined up for weeks just across the Gaza border, waiting to cross in. No food, fresh water or medicine had entered the territory for nearly 80 days under the Israeli blockade. Hunger is so rife that full-blown famine is once again stalking Gaza’s population, according to the WFP’s director for the Palestinian territories, Antoine Renard, who’s just returned from the enclave.”You have around an estimated 14,000 children that I know are facing what we call severe acute malnutrition,” he told CBS News on Monday, meaning those children could die without rapid intervention. “We always wait for when ‘famine’ is on. But when famine is on, it’s already too late. That will be a failure of all the international community.”

A girl suffering from severe malnutrition receives treatment at the Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, May 17, 2025.

CBS News

Until this week, Israel’s government had insisted there were no food shortages in Gaza. But for the first time, in a message posted Monday on social media, Netanyahu acknowledged that Gaza is nearing a hunger crisis.

“Our best friends in the world, senators that I know as enthusiastic Israel supporters, who I know for many years, are come to me and telling me, ‘we give you all the support for a final victory — arms, support on your maneuvers to destroy Hamas, support at the U.N. Security Council. There is one thing we cannot endure — pictures of mass famine. This is something we are unable to witness. We will not be able to support you.'” As a result of that pressure, he’s allowing the limited amount of aid into Gaza.Renard said the WFP had sufficient food on standby, ready to enter, to feed the entire population of Gaza for a month. “It must stop,” he said of the Israeli blockade. “The civilian population shouldn’t be trapped. There’s no reason, actually, to hold them accountable for what they are not part of.”

Netanyahu did not name any of the nations exerting pressure on his government to ease the blockade, and while Israel’s closest and most vital ally the U.S. was almost certainly the country he referred to when mentioning long-friendly senators, it’s not just the U.S. calling for a resolution to the crisis — and other countries have been doing so more assertively.In a strongly worded statement published Monday, the leaders of the U.K., France and Canada called the level of human suffering in Gaza intolerable, and they threatened to take action. “The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law,” the countries said in a joint statement. “We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank … We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions.”Netanyahu decried the threat, saying in a statement that by “asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottowa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities.””The war can end tomorrow if the remaining hostages are released, Hamas lays down its arms, its murderous leaders are exiled and Gaza is demilitarized,” said the Israeli leader. “No nation can be expected to accept anything less and Israel certainly won’t. This is a war of civilization over barbarism. Israel will continue to defend itself by just means until total victory is achieved.”Israel has escalated its war with a new offensive that has killed nearly 600 people over the last week, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. Doctors are running out of supplies — barely able to treat malnourished children, let alone the hundreds of people injured by the Israeli strikes who stream in day after day.  

The war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and left 251 others as hostages in Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory war has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, displaced 90% of its population — most of them multiple times — and killed more than 53,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Officials said gunmen opened fire and killed seven people, including some minors, in Mexico’s most deadly state, where violence between warring drug cartels has triggered condemnation by the Catholic Church.The attack in the central state of Guanajuato occurred at around 2:00 am Monday in a plaza in the city of San Felipe where local police found seven bodies, all male, and a damaged van after reports of gunfire, the local government said in a statement.The officers also found two banners with messages alluding to the Santa Rosa de Lima gang, which operates in the area, the statement said. Messages are often left on victims’ bodies by cartels seeking to threaten their rivals or punish behavior they claim violates their rules.Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico’s deadliest state, according to official homicide statistics.The violent crime is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation.

Mexican leaders of the Catholic Church condemned the shooting on Monday, calling it “an alarming sign of the weakening of the social fabric, impunity and the absence of peace in vast regions” of the country, which is majority Catholic.”We cannot remain indifferent in the face of the spiral of violence that is wounding so many communities,” the Episcopal Conference of Mexico, an organization of Mexican bishops, added in a statement.The shooting was “one more among so many that are repeated with painful frequency”, it said.In December, the Church in Mexico called on warring cartels to declare a truce.

Guanajuato recorded the most homicides of any state in Mexico last year, with 3,151, 10.5 percent of murders nationwide, according to official figures.Since 2006, when the military launched an anti-drug operation, Mexico has tallied about 480,000 violent deaths.Recent bloodshed in GuanajuatoThe mass shooting marks the latest deadly attack in Guanajuato, where bystanders and police officers are often casualties amid cartel turf wars.In February, five women and three men were shot dead in the street in Guanajuato. The month before that, security forces clashed with gunmen in the state, leaving 10 suspected criminals dead and three police officers injured.In December 2024, eight people were killed and two others wounded after gunmen pulled up to a roadside stand in Guanajuato and opened fire on customers.Last October, the bodies of 12 slain police officers — all bearing signs of torture and left with messages by cartels — were found in different areas of the region. The state prosecutor’s office also said the perpetrators left messages in which a cartel claimed responsibility. The bodies were found less than 24 hours after gunmen attacked a residential center for people suffering from addictions in the same municipality, killing four.

In June 2024, a baby and a toddler were among six members of the same family murdered in Guanajuato. In April 2024, a mayoral candidate was shot dead in the street in the state just as she began campaigning.The U.S. State Department urges Americans to reconsider traveling to Guanajuato. “Of particular concern is the high number of murders in the southern region of the state associated with cartel-related violence,” the department says in a travel advisory.

Getty Images1 hour agoShelbourne manager Damien Duff says a viral photograph of him looking like “the fool on the hill” while watching his side during a touchline ban is “embarrassing” and “mortifying” for the League of Ireland. Photographs of the former Chelsea and Republic of Ireland winger viewing Shelbourne’s Dublin derby away to Bohemians on Friday from a grassy bank behind a stand at Dalymount Park attracted much attention on social media. Duff was serving a touchline suspension after picking up his fifth yellow card in his side’s win over St Patrick’s Athletic earlier this month. “Probably the most difficult thing of the whole evening was for the league,” Duff told Virgin Media before Monday’s draw with Drogheda United.”I thought it was an embarrassing, mortifying photo for the league when it’s in such a good place.”Speaking to reporters after the Drogheda game, Duff – who led Shelbourne to the league title last season – said it was an “awful reflection on the league”. “We call it the greatest league in the world, I call it the greatest league in the world, but a picture has gone to a lot of countries around the world, some big people in the football world have texted me laughing,” added the 46-year-old. “I think for too long now people have laughed at Irish football and everything about us.”InphoDuff added his comments were “not me having digs”. “Like I said, it’s probably got a lot of traction. I stood in a meadow on top of a hill. Here, as the Beatles sing, I was probably the fool on the hill.”But again, I was probably the butt of the jokes, but I shouldn’t be. Because it was an awful reflection of the league.”That’s all I’m saying. Embarrassing. Like I said, you can read into that what you want. I said it before, I said it after, because I utterly believe it.”Monday’s draw with Drogheda means Duff’s side have won just one of their past eight matches, leaving them nine points adrift of pacesetters Shamrock Rovers in sixth place.Last year, Duff – who was appointed in 2021 – led Shels to their first League of Ireland Premier Division title since 2006. Related topicsNorthern Ireland SportFootballIrish Football