Saturday, May 17, 2025

Six In The Morning Saturday 17 May 2025

 

Hamas says new Gaza talks have begun, hours after Israel launched major offensive

Cachella Smith

BBC News


Hamas says its negotiators have opened a new round of talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza, hours after Israel launched a major offensive.

Taher al-Nounou, an adviser to the head of Hamas, told the BBC a new round of negotiations had officially begun in Doha on Saturday. There were no preconditions from either side, and all issues were on the table for discussion.

Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said Hamas negotiators were returning to indirect talks in Qatar to seek a deal on the hostages.




Kremlin cites past wars as it threatens long conflict in Ukraine

in Istanbul


Russian peace negotiator invokes Peter the Great’s 21-year struggle to defeat Sweden, as Putin is fond of doing

Peter the Great’s long war against Sweden – a grinding conflict that claimed countless Russian lives – is rarely held up as a model for modern diplomacy. Yet behind closed doors on Friday, during the first direct peace talks with Ukraine in three years, Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, cited it as an explicit warning: Moscow was prepared to fight for as long as it took.

Just like when Russian troops rolled into Ukraine in 2022, the great northern war in the early 18th century began with humiliating defeats for Moscow. The tsarist Russian army was ill-prepared, poorly armed and easily outmanoeuvred. But instead of backing down, Peter I dug in. He conscripted peasants by the tens of thousands, poured resources into rebuilding his army, and waited. Twenty-one years later, he emerged victorious.


Iran’s leaders slam Trump for ‘disgraceful’ remarks during Middle East tour


The pushback comes after the US president accused Tehran’s leadership of being ‘corrupt and ineffective’.


Iran’s political and military leaders are pointing the finger back at Donald Trump after the United States president sharpened his rhetoric during his first major tour of the Middle East.

In a speech to a group of teachers gathered for a state ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said some of Trump’s comments were not even worth responding to.

India’s caste system is controversial and discriminatory. So why is it being included in the next census?

By , CNN


For millions across India, a rigid caste system thousands of years old still dictates much of daily life – from social circles to dating pools to job opportunities and schooling.

The Indian government has long insisted that the social hierarchy has no place in the world’s most populous nation, which banned caste discrimination in 1950.

So, it came as a surprise when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration announced that caste would be counted in the upcoming national census for the first time since 1931 – when India was still a British colony.


Turkey: wanting to have it both ways on Israel

Though longstanding allies, Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has grown increasingly critical of Israel’s actions towards the Palestinians, but without renouncing Ankara’s broader strategic interests.

by Ariane Bonzon

There was a message from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a speech posted on X on 30 March on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr prayer marking the end of Ramadan: ‘We see and we know what’s happening in Palestine. May Allah damn Zionist Israel.’ It provoked a swift reaction on the platform from the Israeli foreign minister: ‘The dictator Erdoğan has revealed his antisemitic face. He is a danger to the region and to his own people. We hope that NATO member countries will understand this.’ The Palestinian question has long been a source of friction between Ankara and Tel Aviv. But tensions between these two longstanding allies, often seen as the big winners in the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, now extend to the situation in Syria.

Phantom cows and missing millions spark scandal in Uruguay


Sandra Palleiro is on the hunt for her lost cows. The 60-year-old accountant is standing in a muddy field at the end of a farm track in Uruguay's remote border region with Brazil.
She has traveled 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the capital, Montevideo, to find 61 cattle she owns, at least on paper. The missing bovines were part of a "cow bond" scheme that has collapsed, causing one of Uruguay's biggest ever financial scandals.





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