World News Non-US

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16649219

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16641620

Former Israeli Knesset member Moshe Feiglin quoted Adolf Hitler as he called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip and create a "Hebrew Gaza."

Feiglin, who quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party to found the right-wing Zehut Party and plans to challenge Likud in Israel's next elections, made the comments during a panel discussion on Israel's Channel 12 that was shared on social media on Sunday, as Middle East Eye reported.

"We are not guests in our country, this is our country, all of it..." Feiglin said, adding, "As Hitler said, 'I cannot live if one Jew is left.' We can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16627397

Russia’s northern offensive isn’t going well.

Ukrainian forces have captured dozens of Russian troops in the embattled town of Vovchansk, just south of the Russia-Ukraine border, dealing a major setback to Russia’s faltering northern offensive.

In heavy fighting over the weekend, Ukrainian troops surrounded as many as 400 Russians in and around a chemical plant in central Vovchansk. Thirty Russians surrendered after repeated attempts to rescue them failed, the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported.

On May 10, a force of tens of thousands of Russian troops opened a new front in Russia’s 28-month wider war on Ukraine. Attacking south across the Russia-Ukraine border, Russian battalions quickly captured a chain of lightly defended border villages—and then advanced on Vovchansk, the first big town between the border and the city of Kharkiv, 25 miles to the south.

It was there in Vovchansk that the Ukrainians chose to stand fight. Elements of several Ukrainian brigades—including the elite 82nd Air Assault Brigade—rushed north and, in several weeks of hard fighting, blocked the Russian advance just north of the Vovcha River, which threads from east to west through central Vovchansk.

The Russians rallied. The equivalent of at least two battalions with hundreds of infantry stormed the PJSC Volchansky chemical plant, on the Vovcha River’s right bank. Factories and other industrial facilities are often the locus of the fighting in Ukraine, as their big sturdy buildings can shelter troops and protect them from artillery and drones.

The Russians’ plan was apparently to capture the chemical plant and then, from there, launch a river-crossing operation in order to force their way into southern Vovchansk.

The plan failed when Ukrainian troops—perhaps from the 9th Rifle Battalion, Russian Volunteer Corps or 36th Marine Brigade—attacked west of the chemical plant and advanced several blocks to the north, cutting off the Russians in the plant from their comrades to the west.

“The Russians are surrounded here with zero chances of evacuation or reinforcements,” one Ukrainian drone operator crowed. “A bunch of dead and wounded orcs,” they added, using a slang term for Russian soldiers.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16577490

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16562328

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reported on Saturday that over 50,000 children in the Gaza Strip are in urgent need of treatment for acute malnutrition, Anadolu Agency reports.

In a statement, the agency said that “with continued restrictions to humanitarian access, people in Gaza continue to face desperate levels of hunger.”

“Over 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition,” it added.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/20875967

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16522447

"Dozens of tons of cocaine have been taken out of circulation," German authorities said. The drugs were first uncovered in Hamburg last year.

Investigators in Germany have discovered a record amount of cocaine worth several billion euros, authorities reported on Friday.

"Dozens of tons of cocaine worth several billion euros have been taken out of circulation," the Baden-Württemberg State Office of Criminal Investigation and the Customs Investigation Office in Stuttgart, as well as the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office announced.

The huge quantity of drugs was first discovered in the port of Hamburg last year, and, according to the German news agency DPA, originated in South America.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16522427

The French political class is tearing itself apart with feuding and backbiting ahead of this month’s vote.

We’re only four days into France’s election campaign and the vendettas are already boiling over in a melodramatic flurry of grab-your-popcorn vaudeville acts. 

Humiliated in the EU election, President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called a national parliamentary election, hoping to stem the tidal advances of the far right. 

His rivals tried to seize on the historic moment to set enmities aside and unite — but things haven’t gone as planned, to put it mildly. 

In the country’s main center-right party, the besieged leader barricaded himself in party headquarters claiming he was still in command, until a rival turned up with a spare key to demonstrate that was no longer the case. 

On the far right, two prominent figures descended into open warfare, with one accusing the other of setting “the world record for betrayal.” 

Meanwhile, on the left, a co-operation agreement has been struck and parties seem intent on putting their differences behind them — but tensions still crackle between two star figures, in terms of both personality and issues including Ukraine and Gaza.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/23194544

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16523136

Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote in the European elections, with particular support in the east

Paul Friedrich, 16, could not wait to cast his first ballot and had no doubt which German party had earned his support in the watershed European elections.

“Correct, I voted AfD,” he said proudly in the bustle of the commuter railway station in Brandenburg an der Havel, an hour from central Berlin.

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland made particularly stunning gains on Sunday among young voters. For the first time in a national poll, 16- and 17-year-olds could cast their ballots – a reform that had been strongly backed by left-leaning parties.

After overwhelmingly supporting the Greens five years ago, Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote – an 11-point rise – helping place the party second behind the opposition CDU-CSU conservatives and well ahead of the Social Democrats of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz.

The AfD tapped deep wells of support in the former communist east, winning in every state including Brandenburg, where it claimed 27.5% of the vote.

…

And his concerns echo those of many teenagers and twentysomethings in town: fears of war spreading in Europe, inflation, economic decline, “unchecked” immigration and, above all, violent crime, which they say is rampant when they use public transport or hang out in public spaces at night.

https://archive.is/nZrrP

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16503267

From June 1 to June 11, Israeli forces killed over 800 Palestinians and wounded over 2,400 as they carried out bombardments and raids across Gaza, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported. This is an average of over 72 Palestinians killed each day at the hands of Israeli forces.

This includes Israel’s assault of Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday that killed 274 Palestinians, including 64 children, and injured 698 others, with Israeli forces carrying out one of the most deadly single attacks of their genocidal siege so far in order to retrieve four Israelis held hostage in Gaza. The attack was carried out on a bustling civilian center in the middle of the day, raising questions about whether Israeli forces violated international law.

The 11-day death toll also includes at least 70 Palestinians killed and over 300 wounded due to heavy Israeli shelling in central Gaza on June 4, MSF said; and at least 40 Palestinians killed and 74 wounded on June 6, when Israel bombed a UN school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat. The killings of hundreds of Palestinians in other Israeli attacks, ranging across southern, central and northern Gaza, in the first days of June have otherwise been largely ignored by news outlets, and are hardly documented by official sources.

Behind each death is a horrifying story of a Palestinian who lived through months of displacement, constant bombardment, hunger and likely the loss of family members, bearing witness to the 37,000 people killed by Israel in Gaza over eight months just to themselves be killed by Israeli forces. Survivors recall horrors, like children who recount being pulled out of the rubble of their homes, and the pervading smell of death.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/23165160

Vladimir Putin has demanded that Kyiv cede more land, withdraw troops deeper inside its own country, and drop its Nato bid in order for him to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Putin’s fresh ceasefire demands were issued as envoys from more than 90 countries, including Ukraine, convene in Switzerland this weekend to discuss a western-led peace plan. Russia is not invited to the conference and the president’s remarks on Friday were likely to have been timed as a spoiler to that summit.

Speaking with diplomats at the Russian foreign ministry, Putin publicly updated his terms for ending the war in Ukraine for the first time since he launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, when he demanded regime change in Kyiv and the country’s “demilitarisation”.

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Putin was in “no position” to make demands on Ukraine and could end the war he had started “today if he chose to do that.”

The products included MDH's Madras Curry Powder, Sambhar Masala Mixed Masala Powder, and Curry Powder Mixed Masala Powder, and Everest's Fish Curry Masala.

https://archive.is/MrM5W

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16439987

More than eight months into Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza, the territory’s healthcare system is barely functioning, with the World Health Organization reporting this week that there have been 464 Israeli attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system since October 7, affecting 101 health facilities.

Gaza’s Health Ministry warns that the few remaining hospitals still partially functioning could completely shut down due to Israel’s near-total blockade of the territory, which is keeping out parts needed to maintain hospital diesel generators, as well as crucial medical supplies.

Over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, and nearly 85,000 Palestinians have been wounded. “The situation in Gaza … remains catastrophic,” says Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor just back from Gaza, where he treated patients for nearly two months.

“There are no fully functional hospitals any longer in Gaza and no health facilities that are able to absorb the sheer scale of need now.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/23050589

British band Massive Attack have pulled out of a concert in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, in protest against the government’s “attack on basic human rights”.

The decision to cancel the performance at the Black Sea Arena was first announced by organisers, who claimed that it had been made due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

In a statement issued a few hours later on Wednesday, the trip-hop band clarified that they feared appearing in Georgia would be seen as an endorsement of the country’s political leadership.

Critics at home and abroad have been further alarmed this month by a draft law that would prevent same-sex marriages from being registered and ensure that only “heterosexuals” could adopt children.

At the same time, references to LGBTQ+ people would be erased from public spaces under the draft legislation, and schools would be banned from making available information that supposedly “promotes belonging to the opposite sex, same-sex relations or incest”.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16447403

The industry that has traditionally powered about a quarter of GDP has been in a downward spiral that policymakers have struggled to halt

All across China, from Beijing in the north, to Shenzhen in the south, millions of newly built homes stand empty and unwanted. There were nearly 391m sq metres of unsold residential property in China as of April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That is the equivalent of Manchester and Birmingham combined – and then some – sitting as vacant, unwanted property.

This glut of idle property has caused a headache for the government, shaken the world’s second largest economy and raised tensions over the purpose of housebuilding in a nation where property investment had been viewed as a safe bet.

Since the real estate sector was sent into a tailspin in 2020, caused by the pandemic and a sudden regulatory crackdown, the industry that has traditionally powered about one-quarter of GDP has been in a downward spiral that policymakers have struggled to halt.

The crux of the problem is that, with shaky faith in the economy and big property developers failing to deliver on paid-for apartments, potential homebuyers are keeping their money out of the market.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16431256

Paris police said 3,000 people gathered in Paris on Monday evening, at a demonstration against the far right, which made historic gains in the European elections on Sunday. Other gatherings took place around the country.

Thousands of people gathered in several cities across France on Monday, June 10, in the evening, following the far-right Rassemblement National's surge at the polls in the European elections and French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement of a dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale.

Paris police said 3,000 people had gathered on the Place de la République in Paris at 8 pm. Many of them were young people, chanting with middle fingers raised, slogans such as "Everybody hates Marine Le Pen."

"The prospect of having a far-right prime minister in three weeks terrifies me," said Alice, a 24-year-old student. Alba Bourreau, 19, an arts student, was taking part in her "first political demonstration," having voted on Sunday for the first time, saying she's "ready to come and demonstrate as much as we need to." "We've come to mobilize against fascism, and because we're fed up with this image that France votes right or far right. The left also exists. It's in the streets tonight," said Luna, 19.