World News

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/15194265

> From BBC: > - A series of fires has hit French high-speed rail lines, hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony > - Rail company SNCF says it's a "massive attack aimed at paralysing the network"; France's transport minister condemns the "co-ordinated malicious acts" > - Some 800,000 customers will be affected with disruption expected all weekend, the rail firm says > - Eurostar tells customers to postpone trips if they can, as it faces ongoing disruption > > See also: > - https://apnews.com/live/olympics-opening-ceremony-2024-updates > - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vandals-target-frances-high-speed-rail-network-olympics-get-underway-2024-07-26/ > - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-26/france-s-high-speed-rail-network-disrupted-by-arson/104148714

The UK is likely to introduce restrictions on arms sales to Israel, Middle East Eye can reveal. It is also expected to drop its objection to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for senior Israeli leaders.

Well-informed sources within the Labour Party told Middle East Eye that in the coming days the government is likely to introduce some restrictions on arms sales but not suspend sales entirely.

The development comes after Foreign Secretary David Lammy said last week that he requested a comprehensive review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law on his first day in office.

Emirati passports recovered in Sudan have provided damning evidence that the UAE has been intervening in the conflict in the north African country.

According to the Guardian, a document sent to the UN Security Council and seen by the newspaper contains images allegedly found in Sudan and linked to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group that has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the country since April 2023.

Middle East Eye has reported previously on the extensive support the UAE provides for the RSF through a network of supply routes that run through Libya, Chad, Uganda and Central African Republic.

The UAE continues to deny that it is arming and supplying the RSF, which is led by its longtime ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the general and former Janjaweed commander known as Hemeti.

International human rights groups have found “clear and compelling evidence” that the RSF is committing genocide against “non-Arab groups” in Darfur, the vast western region of Sudan that is now almost entirely controlled by the paramilitary force.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18378351

Israel’s male flagbearer at Friday’s opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games is believed to have signed bombs prior to them being fired against the Palestinians in Gaza, Anadolu has reported. Peter Paltchik, 32, used social media to show him writing “From me to you with pleasure” on munitions destined for Gaza.

!

A Russian kamikaze drone on Wednesday flew into NATO air space and detonated near a Romanian village, Ukrainian news reports said, but official Bucharest said the fact of the strike wasn’t confirmed and that they would check.

Ukrainian social media video recorded in the river port city of Izmail, opposite Plaura, showed an orange flash lighting up the night horizon and a booming blast on the Romanian side of the river. Flames and smoke reaching hundreds of meters into the sky were visible following the explosion. A Russian kamikaze drone strike against Izmail had been in progress at the time.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18344493

As 14 Palestinian leaders lined up for a photograph in Beijing on Tuesday, they each made sure to shake hands afterwards with one man: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Tuesday’s Palestinian unity talks, where an agreement for a post-war Gaza framework was signed, were an opportunity for China to provide a rival platform to Israel and its western allies on the future of Palestine and the Middle East.

“China’s major goal is to gain consent and acknowledgment among regional countries regarding its rising status as a responsible country with a superior moral role compared to the US,” Razan Shawamreh, a Palestinian expert on China's foreign policy in the region, told Middle East Eye.

For Hamas, China-backed discussions give it a rare platform to participate in international forums.

>The company said this was mainly due to orders from the German army using funds from a 100-billion-euro special fund created after the invasion of Ukraine to bolster the country's armed forces. > >The German company also said it had received an order from the Ukrainian government for the construction of an ammunition factory in Ukraine.

The Israeli parliament gave preliminary approval on Monday to a bill that declares the main United Nations relief organisation for Palestinians a terrorist organisation and proposes to sever relations with the body, Reuters reports.

The vote against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is the latest step in an Israeli push against the Agency, which Israeli leaders have accused of collaborating with the Hamas Movement in Gaza.

Israel has said hundreds of UNRWA staff are members of terrorist groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but has yet to provide evidence to a UN-appointed review.

Two American activists and a Palestinian were injured on Sunday in an attack by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to medics and local media.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medics transferred two Americans to the hospital after they were assaulted by illegal settlers in the town of Qusra in the northern West Bank.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said another Palestinian was injured in the attack.

According to the broadcaster, a group of illegal settlers attacked Palestinians and foreign activists as they were clearing and plowing farmlands.

>The legislation, currently being debated in the Knesset, would give a government-appointed committee the power to order the firing of academic staff that it decides have expressed “support for terror”. If the universities refuse, their funding would be cut.

>One of the academics targeted, Anat Matar from the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University, said the role of students in drafting and promoting a law to silence their lecturers was particularly disturbing. > >“Whether or not it passes, a significant damage has already been done,” she said. “The mere fact that it is supported by the national student union and by many local student unions, and that there is hardly any protest among students against, it manifests another step down the ladder towards full-blown fascism.”