Tag: World News

Gaza Strip (TIP): “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive. They are walking corpses.”
This was the haunting message from a UNRWA staff on the ground this morning, ” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X.
In the heart of a war-ravaged enclave, the situation has spiraled into a catastrophic emergency.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), one in every five children in Gaza City is now malnourished, with the number growing by the day.
More than 100 people, most of them children have already died from hunger.
“UNRWA’s frontline health workers are now fainting on duty. They survive on a single, meager meal a day, often just lentils, if that. “When the caretakers collapse, so does the entire system,” Lazzarini said.
Children arriving at UNRWA clinics are skeletal, listless, and dangerously close to death. Without urgent nutritional treatment, they won’t survive, he said.
“This is not a crisis. It’s a collapse,” said the UNRWA official.
“Families are no longer coping ,they are breaking. Parents are too hungry to feed their children. They can’t even follow basic medical instructions. Their very existence is under threat.”
The agency said that it has 6,000 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies waiting in Jordan and Egypt. But they remain stalled as Gaza continues its freefall into famine.
“Allow humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted & uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently condemned the “accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions” in Gaza.
“The last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement. The United Nations chief “deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition.”
“The Secretary-General notes that the intensification of hostilities in recent days comes as the humanitarian system is being impeded, undermined and endangered,” Dujarric said.
“A new evacuation order in parts of Deir el-Balah — home to tens of thousands — pushes people into more desperate conditions and further displacement and restricts the United Nations’ ability to deliver life-saving aid.” (AP)

KYIV (TIP): Russian attacks killed at least five people, including three members of a displaced family, in separate attacks across Ukraine’s war-scarred east, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday.
A couple and their 36-year-old son were killed in a village in the eastern Kharkiv region late Wednesday, local officials said, while two more women were killed in the Donetsk region Thursday.
Russia has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Ukraine more than three years into its invasion, even as the warring parties meet for ceasefire talks.
Donetsk regional officials issued blurred images of one of the bloodied women killed in Kostyantynivka, where a dozen other people were wounded. Russian forces are gradually encircling the industrial hub.
A strike later on Kharkiv city wounded 37 people, including a 10-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy and girl, the governor said.
A separate Russian drone and missile barrage wounded seven people overnight, including a child, in the central Ukrainian region of Cherkasy, emergency services said.
And in the southern port city of Odesa, a Russian drone attack wounded four people and badly damaged a famous market. Ukraine’s prime minister said some of the buildings targeted were UNESCO protected.
“Russia continues its terror and obstructs diplomacy, which is why it deserves full-scale sanctions responses, as well as our strikes on their logistics, their military bases, and their military production facilities,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media in response.
He said Russia had launched 103 drones — mainly Iranian-designed Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles — and four missiles.
In Russia, a Ukrainian drone strike killed two women and wounded several others in the southern city of Sochi, regional authorities said.
The Russian defence ministry said its air defence systems had downed 39 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles mainly over southern regions of the country. (AFP)

KYIV (TIP): Opponents of a new law they say strips Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs of their independence called for a third straight day of street protests across the country on Thursday, despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attempts to defuse the tension with promises of legislative safeguards. After meeting with the heads of Ukraine’s key anti-corruption and security agencies, Zelenskyy promised to act on their recommendations by presenting a bill to Parliament that strengthens the rule of law.
“And very importantly: all the norms for the independence of anti-corruption institutions will be in place,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address late Wednesday. Zelenskyy acknowledged the controversy triggered by the new corruption law, which also drew rebukes from European Union officials and international rights groups.
“It’s not falling on deaf ears,” Zelenskyy said of the complaints.
“We’ve analyzed all the concerns, all the aspects of what needs to be changed and what needs to be stepped up.”
However, he didn’t promise to revoke the law that he approved.
The legislation that was adopted this week, despite pleas for Zelenskyy to veto it, tightened government oversight of two key anti-corruption agencies. Critics said the step could significantly weaken the independence of those agencies and give Zelenskyy’s circle greater influence over investigations.
The protests haven’t called for Zelenskyy’s ouster. But the first major anti-government demonstrations since the war began come at a tough time for Ukraine in its three-year battle to thwart Russia’s invasion.
Russia’s bigger army is accelerating its efforts to pierce Ukraine’s front-line defenses and is escalating its bombardment of Ukrainian cities. Ukraine is also facing a question mark over whether the United States will provide more military aid and whether European commitments can take up the slack, with no end to the war in sight.
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul for a third round of talks in as many months Wednesday. But once again the talks were brief and delivered no major breakthrough.
Zelenskyy had insisted earlier Wednesday that the new legal framework was needed to crack down harder on corruption. Fighting entrenched corruption is crucial for Ukraine’s aspirations to join the EU and maintain access to billions of dollars in Western aid in the war. “Criminal cases should not drag on for years without verdicts, and those working against Ukraine must not feel comfortable or immune from punishment,” he said.
Meanwhile, Russian planes dropped two powerful glide bombs on the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Thursday morning, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. At least 16 people were injured, including a 10-year-old girl who suffered an acute stress reaction, he said. The southern Ukrainian city of Odesa and Cherkasy in central Ukraine were also hit overnight, authorities said. The drone and missile strikes on the cities injured 11 people, including a 9-year-old, and damaged historic landmarks and residential buildings, officials said. (AP)

DEIR AL-BALAH (TIP)- European officials struck a new deal with Israel to allow desperately needed food and fuel into Gaza, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said Thursday as Israeli airstrike killed 10 children and five adults waiting for care outside a medical clinic.
The announcement came as prospects for a ceasefire agreement in the near term appeared to be fading as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to leave Washington after meetings with President Donald Trump. Still, US officials held out hope that restarting high-level negotiations — mediated by Egypt and Qatar and including White House envoy Steve Witkoff — could bring progress.
“We’re closer than we’ve been in quite a while and we’re hopeful, but we also recognize there’s still some challenges in the way,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Deal to increase aid
July 10 agreement could result in “more crossings open, aid and food trucks entering Gaza, repair of vital infrastructure and protection of aid workers,” said Kaja Kallas, the 27-member EU’s top diplomat.
“We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” she said in a post on social media. Aid groups say Israeli military restrictions and recurring violence have made it difficult to deliver assistance in Gaza even after Israel eased its 2 1/2 month total blockade in May. Experts have warned that the territory is at risk of famine, 21 months into the Israel-Hamas war. Kallas said the deal would reactivate aid corridors from Jordan and Egypt and reopen community bakeries and kitchens across Gaza. She said measures would be taken to prevent the militant Hamas group from diverting aid.
Israel has long accused Hamas of stealing aid and selling it to finance militant activities. The United Nations says there is no evidence for widespread diversion.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar acknowledged the deal while attending a conference in Vienna, saying it came “following our dialogue with the EU.” He said the deal includes “more trucks, more crossings and more routes for the humanitarian efforts.”
Neither Saar not Kallas said whetehr the aid would go through the UN-run system or an alternative, US- and Israeli-backed mechanism that has been marred by violence and controversy.
Israeli strikes kill at least 36
Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including 15 people waiting outside a medical clinic, local hospitals and aid workers said Thursday. The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in Gaza.
Gaza’s Nasser Hospital reported a total of 21 deaths in airstrikes in the southern town of Khan Younis and the nearby coastal area of Muwasi. It said three children and their mother, as well as two other women, were among the dead. The 15 killed early Thursday outside the clinic in the central city of Deir al-Balah were waiting for nutritional supplements, according to Project Hope, an aid group that runs the humanitarian facility.

JERUSALEM (TIP)- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, July 10, that Israel was ready to negotiate a permanent ceasefire in Gaza during a 60-day truce but only if the Palestinian territory was demilitarised. Delegations from Israel and Hamas began indirect talks in Doha on Sunday to try to agree on a temporary halt in the war, which was sparked by the militant group’s October 2023 attack.
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has proposed a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of half of the 20 living hostages still in Gaza, Netanyahu said on Wednesday. “At the beginning of this ceasefire, we will enter negotiations for a permanent end to the war,” he said in a video message from Washington on Thursday, July 10.
He said Israel’s “fundamental conditions” were that “Hamas lays down its weapons” and no longer has “governing or military capabilities”.
“If this can be achieved through negotiations, great. If it cannot be achieved through negotiations within 60 days, we will achieve it through other means, by using force, the force of our heroic army,” he said.
Hamas said on Wednesday it had agreed to release 10 living hostages but on Thursday it said it opposed a deal that includes a large Israeli military presence in Gaza. It also wants the free flow of aid into the territory to ease a humanitarian crisis, and “real guarantees” for a lasting peace.
The Israeli premier called Hamas “a ruthless terror organisation” and said he wanted the release of all those being held. But he added: “We will do everything in order to maximise (the number of those released) in this round, in the best way possible. Not everything is in our hands.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was “hopeful” about the prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza, telling reporters on Thursday that negotiations were “closer” than they had been in some time.
Israel and Hamas began their latest round of talks on Sunday, with representatives seated in separate rooms within the same building.
“We’re hopeful… It appears that generally the terms have been agreed to, but obviously now you need to have talks about how you implement those terms,” Rubio said on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian countries in Malaysia.
“I think perhaps we’re closer than we’ve been in quite a while, and we’re hopeful, but we also recognise there are still some challenges in the way.”
He acknowledged that previous rounds of talks had fallen apart at similar stages. “One of the fundamental challenges is Hamas’ unwillingness to disarm, which would end this conflict immediately,” Rubio said.

SEOUL (TIP)- The top military chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan met in Seoul Friday, July 11, as US President Donald Trump piles pressure on Washington’s allies over defence spending and trade. General Dan Caine, the top US military officer, held talks with his South Korean counterpart Kim Myung-soo, and Japan’s General Yoshihide Yoshida, as part of an annual meeting on regional security.
They discussed growing military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, which has sent weapons and thousands of troops for Russia’s war in Ukraine. The talks covered “the potential transfer of military technology from Russia to the DPRK”, the three military chiefs said in a statement which used North Korea’s official name.
They called on the nuclear-armed North to “immediately cease” all such unlawful activities.
Speaking at the start of the trilateral talks, Caine said that North Korea and China are both “undergoing an unprecedented military build up with a clear and unambiguous intent to move forward with their own agendas”.
“We need to be mindful of that, we need to be able to demonstrate resolve, to be entrepreneurial and proactive in our partnerships,” he added. Separately, the three countries conducted joint air drills on Friday over South Korea’s southern island of Jeju, involving a US B-52H strategic bomber, according to the defence ministry. Washington, Seoul’s long-time security ally, stations around 28,500 troops in the South. The two countries signed a new five-year agreement in 2024 on sharing the cost of those troops.

BANGKOK (TIP): Thailand’s Constitutional Court suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office Tuesday pending an ethics investigation over a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian leader that followed a border row that erupted on May 28. The leaked call has set off political turmoil in Thailand as Paetongtarn faces growing dissatisfaction over her handling of the conflict. Here’s what to know about the latest controversy and the dispute between the two Southeast Asian neighbors.
What was said in the leaked call
The phone call between Paetongtarn and Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen was reportedly made on June 15 and was leaked days after. Hun Sen said on his Facebook post that he recorded the conversation and had shared it with at least 80 people.
In the call, the two were heard talking through a translator discussing the tensions at the border, and about whether they should lift restrictions imposed after the deadly clash.
Paetongtarn could be heard addressing Hun Sen as uncle. He is a longtime friend of her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, a popular but divisive former Prime Minister. She urged him not to listen to a Thai regional army commander who had publicly criticized Cambodia about the border dispute, and called him “an opponent.” She also told Hun Sen to let her know what he wanted, and she would try to manage that.
Critics said she went too far in appeasing Hun Sen, and that what she said, especially her comments about the army commander, damaged Thailand’s interests and image.
Paetongtarn has apologized but said she didn’t do any damage to Thailand, arguing that her comments were a negotiating tactic.
The recent dispute was triggered in May after armed forces of Thailand and Cambodia briefly fired at each other in a relatively small contested border area that both countries claim as their own. Both sides have said they acted in self-defense. One Cambodian soldier was killed.
While the countries said afterwards they have agreed to de-escalate the situation, Cambodian and Thai authorities continue to implement or threaten measures short of armed force, keeping tensions high. (AP)

SEOUL (TIP): South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said that it remained unclear whether Seoul and Washington could conclude their tariff negotiations by the deadline set by US President Donald Trump for next week, noting Thursday that both nations were still working to clarify their positions and identify areas of agreement.
Speaking at his first news conference since taking office last month, Lee also reiterated his intentions to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea, though he acknowledged that mutual distrust between the Koreas is too deep to heal anytime soon.
Trump’s tariff hikes and other “America First” policies are major challenges for Lee’s month-old government, as are North Korea’s expanding nuclear program and domestic economic woes. Lee, a liberal, came to power after winning a snap presidential election caused by the ouster of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated imposition of martial law in December.
Lee said the tariff negotiations with the US have been “clearly not easy” and stressed that the countries must reach mutually beneficial outcomes.
“It’s difficult to say with certainty whether we will be able to reach a conclusion by July 8. We are now doing our best,” Lee said.
”What we need is a truly reciprocal outcome that benefits both sides and works for everyone, but so far, both sides are still trying to define exactly what they want.”
Trump’s 90-day pause in global reciprocal tariffs is set to expire on July 9, potentially exposing South Korean products to 25% tax rates.
Washington has separately been seeking higher duties on specific products such as automobiles and semiconductors, which are key exports for South Korea’s trade-dependent economy.
There are growing concerns in Seoul that Trump may also demand a broader deal requiring South Korea to pay significantly more for the 28,000 US troops stationed on the peninsula to deter North Korean threats.
Lee has consistently urged patience on tariffs, arguing that rushing to secure an early deal would not serve the national interest. His trade minister, Yeo Han-koo, was reportedly arranging a visit to Washington for possible meetings with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
On North Korea, Lee said he would seek to restore long-dormant talks with Pyongyang, whose expanding military cooperation with Russia pose major security concerns to their neighbors.
“I think we should improve relations with North Korea based on a reliable coordination and consultation between South Korea and the US,” Lee said. “But I expect that won’t be easy as mutual antagonism and distrust are too serious.”
Lee previously faced criticism that he was tilting toward North Korea and China and away from the US and Japan. But since the election, Lee has repeatedly vowed pragmatic diplomacy, saying he would bolster the alliance with the US while also seeking to repair ties with North Korea, China and Russia. Some critics say it’s too difficult to satisfy all parties.
Lee’s government has made proactive efforts to build trust with North Korea, halting frontline anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts and taking steps to ban activists from flying balloons carrying propaganda leaflets across the border. (AP)

GILIMANUK (TIP): Indonesian authorities intensified on Friday a search operation for 30 people missing after a ferry sank near the tourist island of Bali. The KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank almost half an hour after leaving Ketapang port in East Java late Wednesday for a trip of about 5 kilometers (3 miles) to Bali’s Gilimanuk port. The search and rescue operation was halted Thursday evening due to visibility problems and resumed on Friday morning with more than 160 rescuers including police and soldiers, said Ribut Eko Suyatno, the deputy chief of operations at the National Search and Rescue Agency.
Three helicopters and a thermal drone were deployed to conduct an aerial search over the waters of the Bali Strait, while about 20 vessels were mobilized for the sea search, Suyatno said. As weather forecasts predict high waves and rough waters around the Bali Strait on Friday, he said at least three navy ships to being deployed to replace small boats.
Videos and photos released by the agency showed rescuers looking desperately from rescue boats in the waters but no new survivors.
The agency released the names of 29 survivors and six people confirmed dead late Thursday. It didn’t release names of the missing, but according to the passenger manifest there were 30 people missing. On Friday, survivors were being treated at Bali’s Jembrana Regional Hospital, while the bodies have been handed over to the families for funerals. Distraught relatives gathered at the port office in Gilimanuk, hoping for news of missing family members.
Indonesian authorities are investigating the cause of the accident. Survivors told rescuers there appeared to be a leak in the engine room of the ferry, which was carrying 22 vehicles including 14 trucks.
Ferry tragedies occur regularly in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, with weak enforcement of safety regulations often to blame.
Fifteen people were killed after a boat capsized off Indonesia’s Sulawesi in 2023, while another ferry sank in rough seas near Bali in 2021, leaving seven dead and 11 missing.
In 2018, an overcrowded ferry sank with about 200 people on board in a deep volcanic crater lake in North Sumatra province, killing 167 people. (AP)

Gaza City (tip): Young children wandered through the charred shell of what had been a school sheltering displaced Palestinians on Thursday, after a pre-dawn Israeli strike killed 15 people there according to the civil defence agency.
Tattered clothes hung from the blackened exterior of the building in western Gaza City, as rubble still smouldered below in the morning light. Bloodstains dotted the ground strewn with the remnants of daily life. Clothing, metal chairs, tins of food and part of an electric fan lay amongst the wreckage, AFP footage showed. “This is not a life,” said Umm Yassin Abu Awda, a Gaza City resident who stood amongst mourners at the city’s Al-Shifa Hospital following the strike. “Either you strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people’s conscience needs to finally wake up.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it “struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City”.
“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” it added.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, told AFP that most of the 15 killed in Thursday’s strike were women and children.
He also reported a large number of injuries in the “Israeli air strike on the Mustafa Hafez School, which shelters displaced persons, in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood”.
They were among 69 people that the agency reported killed by Israeli forces on Thursday in the Palestinian territory, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once during the nearly 21-month war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people living there.
Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence.
At Mustafa Hafez School, a colourful mural on a wall next to the wreckage showed a smiling boy walking past a tree and a woman next to a Palestinian flag.
A small group sat on chairs in what was once the playground of the school.
Inside the building, a group of young boys surveyed the damage and climbed on upturned furniture while others sifted through the debris.
Crowds of mourners gathered at Al-Shifa Hospital, where men and women wept over the bodies of the dead.
“We have no life left. Let them just annihilate us so we can finally rest,” said one woman who lost relatives in the strike and did not give her name.
“There’s nothing left for us. My two daughters are gone — and now my niece, along with her six children and her husband, were burned to death,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion.
At least 57,130 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.
The war was triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. (afp)

RIO DE JANEIRO (TIP): “Belem is ready,” Brazilian officials have insisted ahead of the COP30 gathering in November — but eye-watering lodging costs in the northern city have panicked many would-be attendees.
President President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has personally championed the symbolic choice of holding the major UN climate conference in the Amazon. And with months to go before the November 10-21 meeting, work is in full swing, AFP journalists witnessed recently. But members of national delegations, civil society, and the media have been faced with a major dilemma: how to find a room at a decent price?
“I’ve never seen anything quite like the situation unfolding in Belem. The soaring accommodation prices, which mean it will now cost thousands of dollars a night for even basic rooms,” Mariana Paoli, with the NGO Christian Aid, told AFP. The steep rates are “not just shocking, it is exclusionary,” said Paoli, a Brazilian who has attended several UN climate summits before.
“Delegates from across the Global South, particularly grassroots activists, Indigenous leaders, and civil society groups, already face immense barriers to participation… Now, they’re being priced out entirely.” In recent months, AFP has seen hotels offering rooms at $1,200 a night. On short-term rental platform Airbnb, some rates were even higher.
With a total of 50,000 people expected to attend, Claudio Angelo of the Brazilian Climate Observatory collective warned that delegations are mulling cutting back on the number of attendees.
“Everybody’s concerned because at this point, five months to the date, everybody should have hotels and no one has,” he told AFP in Bonn, Germany, where technical negotiations have been held over the past two weeks.
Brazil is no stranger to hosting major events, particularly in Rio de Janeiro. After the 2016 Olympic Games and last year’s G20 summit, Rio will host a summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies next month.
Some have speculated about a possible last-minute move to a large city, maybe Rio. COP30 chief Ana Toni, while sharing concerns over the lodging, ruled out any last-minute relocation to a larger city. “Let’s be very very clear, it’s all happening in Belem,” she told AFP in Bonn. (AFP)