Author: Gulf News Week

Rubio and Lavrov ‘confirmed their mutual desire to find peaceful solutions to conflicts’, Russian Foreign Ministry says.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have held rare face-to-face talks on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Malaysia, discussing the war in Ukraine, as well as developments in Iran and Syria. “A substantive and frank exchange of views took place on the settlement of the situation around Ukraine, the situation around Iran and Syria, as well as a number of other international issues,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the meeting on Thursday in…

Masafer Yatta villagers had their land deemed a military zone, and the Israeli army is trying to demolish their homes.Israeli soldiers bound Mohamed Yousef’s hands behind his back as they dragged him to a military camp near the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages in Hebron governorate, in late June. With him were his mother, his wife and two sisters, arrested on their land for confronting armed Israeli settlers. Settlers often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their…

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (news agencies) — Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip Wednesday night and Thursday, killing at least 34 Palestinians, including 10 people waiting for care outside a medical clinic, according to local hospitals and aid workers. The Israeli military also announced a soldier was killed in Gaza.The fighting in Gaza has shown no sign of slowing as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Donald Trump in Washington this week to work on a U.S.-led ceasefire plan. Hopes for an agreement in the near term appeared to be fading as Netanyahu prepared to return to Israel.Netanyahu is…

Centre StageProgress, Secularism and the Orientalist GazeOlivier Roy, a professor of Orientalism, joins Centre Stage to talk about the roots of Orientalism and the enduring myth of how only the West represents progress. From colonial-era narratives to modern-day politics, Roy explores how the Global South is still perceived through a Eurocentric lens — and what that says about our civilisation, modernity and the West’s ongoing struggle with pluralism. This episode is produced in partnership with the International Conference on Orientalism, an intellectual and academic platform that brings together leading scholars in the field to foster informed dialogue towards a balanced…

President Donald Trump expressed his disdain for wind power during a meeting with his Cabinet recently, calling it an expensive form of energy that “smart” countries don’t use. His comments on Tuesday contained false and misleading information about the use of wind power in the United States and around the world, and came on the heels of an executive order he signed Monday that would end subsidies around “green” energy.Here’s a look at the facts.CLAIM: “Wind is a very expensive form of energy.”THE FACTS: Onshore wind is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, with new wind farms expected…

Iran links future IAEA cooperation to impartiality, after deadly June conflict with Israel and US.Iran’s president has warned the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to abandon its “double standards” if it hopes to restore cooperation over the country’s nuclear programme, amid an acute mistrust following Israel and the United States’ attacks on Iranian nuclear sites last month, and the UN nuclear watchdog’s refusal to condemn the strikes. Speaking to European Council President Antonio Costa by phone on Thursday, President Masoud Pezeshkian said, “The continuation of Iran’s cooperation with the agency depends on the latter correcting its double standards regarding the…

GENEVA (news agencies) — Two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights on Thursday in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.The court’s 17-judge highest chamber said in a 15-2 vote that Semenya had some of her rights to a fair hearing violated at Switzerland’s Supreme Court, where she had appealed against a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in favor of track’s World Athletics.Her case should now go back to the Swiss federal court in Lausanne — to be watched closely by other sports…

LONDON (news agencies) — Years of American-led investment into AIDS programs has reduced the number of people killed by the disease to the lowest levels seen in more than three decades, and provided life-saving medicines for some of the world’s most vulnerable. But in the last six months, the sudden withdrawal of U.S. money has caused a “systemic shock,” U.N. officials warned, adding that if the funding isn’t replaced, it could lead to more than 4 million AIDS-related deaths and 6 million more HIV infections by 2029.“The current wave of funding losses has already destabilized supply chains, led to the…

Four sailors from Eternity C dead, 10 found alive, 11 still missing – and six believed to be in Houthi hands.Houthi rebels in Yemen attempted to strike Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport after sinking two vessels in the Red Sea this week, as the group ramps up its military pressure in support of Palestinians under Israeli fire in its bid to bring the war in Gaza to an end. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Thursday that the group had carried out a “qualitative military operation” with a ballistic missile after the Israeli military reported the strike had been intercepted.…

ROME (news agencies) — Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the U.S. commitment to Kyiv’s defense.Premier Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were opening the meeting Thursday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv.Italian organizers said 100 official delegations were attending and 40 international organizations and development banks. But…