Worldcrunch
After the pagers explosions and the elimination of several key Hezbollah leaders, Israel massively bombed southern Lebanon, killing more than 550 people. Proportionality is over. Escalation has begun. The civilian death toll may start to pile up just like in Gaza.
Monday was the deadliest day in Lebanon since at least 2006 as Israeli strikes killed hundreds, including dozens of women and children. The strikes appear aimed at forcing thousands of Lebanese to flee their homes in the southern part of the country, as all-out war looms between Hezbollah and Israel.
As Israel pounds Hezbollah in Lebanon, after its well-orchestrated attack on the group’s remote devices, the militia’s patrons in Tehran were increasingly concerned they could become the next targets of Israel’s ruthless campaign.
Even if the exploding Hezbollah pagers was not the first supply chain attack, having thousands of remote, hand-held devices raised terrifying questions that hadn’t been widely considered before, marking a potential turning point in the public’s trust in their electronic devices, and in governments’ ability to protect them.
The upsurge in violence between Israel and Hezbollah in recent days carries the risk of regional conflagration that the United States does not want. But once again, for almost a year now, the Americans have been unable to get their Israeli ally to listen.
Mexico’s ruling party has reformed the constitution, forcing judges to run for office, supposedly to make them accountable to the people. But given the country’s history and singular problem with crime, it may turn them instead into ordinary politicians vulnerable to bribery and mob terrorism.
Since a military junta seized power in 2021, Burmese youth started fighting alongside established ethnic militias to free their country. To them, there is no such thing as the future, but only a present made of war and its horrors.
Logic suggests that continuing the fighting on the southern Lebanon front is no more than meeting Netanyahu halfway toward a full-scale war. It also suggests that disrupting this man’s mission requires finding ways to stop the war.
After a series of Hezbollah pager and walkie-talkie explosions attributed to Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, the movement’s leader, promised to retaliate, while Israel stepped up its air raids. But neither side has a strategic vision beyond the battlefield.
Striking with the knowledge that innocents will die is the same genocidal approach that has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza. The particular approach, detonating electronic devices by remote control, should worry everyone in the world.
With its unprecedented attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon that again killed innocent victims, Israel now faces the risk of losing the war not just on moral and legal grounds, but also from a strategic perspective.
The Wall Street Journal puts the number of Russian and Ukrainian dead and wounded at one million after two-and-a-half years of war, with more than twice as many Russians dead as Ukrainians. Yet this tragic toll only reinforces both sides to continue to seek victory.
Unprecedented attacks via pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members comes amid a growing consensus in Israel in favor of launching a war across the border into Lebanon. Meanwhile, the U.S. may have given its assent and the Lebanese government appears unable to intervene, with Hezbollah holding all the cards on this side of the border.
Nine dead and nearly 3,000 wounded. The unprecedented attack on the pagers of Hezbollah members is the larger explosion of a war already underway that could consume the whole Middle East.
Critics are right to denounce crooked politicians or elected leaders for undermining the democratic system of checks and balances. But defending those checks and balances is not the key to restoring democracy — because people’s pervasive distrust and discontent with politics is a much deeper problem to address.
With new border controls with its EU neighbors, Germany is once again proving that it does not trust its European partners. This puts the whole European single market project at risk.
The Muslim Brotherhood is heading back into Jordanian politics, 30 years after being excluded following the 1994 peace deal with Israel. It’s a post-Oct. 7 sign from Amman about the specter of masses of Palestinians flooding into Jordan from Gaza and the West Bank is scary enough to play ball with the Islamist Brotherhood.
It says a lot about the state of U.S. politics that Elon Musk, a powerful supporter of Donald Trump and owner of the X platform, used that same platform to joke about the killing of the American president and vice president. Will political violence and the reaction to it shape the results of November’s election?
A network of Ukrainian teachers, parents and administrators teach online classes to families trapped in Russian-occupied territories. But it comes with serious consequences if they are discovered.
The porn industry and amateur and professional adult content plays a role in the Israeli war on Gaza. Some pornographic companies did not only provide support to Israel, but adult content also contributed to drawing a violative imagination about Israeli soldiers and their relationship with the battlefield and the Gazan victims. It is part of a long history linking pornography and war.
The first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was an important reminder that the American election will help determine the fate of Ukraine. It did not take long to see which option was better. So much so the moderators had to ask Trump “Do you want Ukraine to win?”
With an economy in ruins and facing an unstable foreign environment, the Islamic Republic of Iran has signaled, with the return of seasoned diplomats to top positions, that it wants to talk again. But, as always, those who call the shots in Tehran are loath to negotiate anything crucial with the West.
It seems the White House will pay attention to your case depending on your ethnicity, but it’s actually your politics. The Biden administration’s response to the death of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi after the Israeli-American hostages killed by Hamas raises the question: does the United States only care about its citizens when they agree with US policy?
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutality and the escalation of Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities should prompt Ukraine’s allies to demonstrate total unity and solidarity against Moscow.
The two candidates for the U.S. presidential election presented two visions of the role of American power in the world. For Europeans, the choice of Kamala Harris may be more reassuring, but the fate of course is in the hands of the American people.
Cuba is approaching a state of economic collapse and has turned to the UN for food assistance for the first time in its history. While Havana blames the U.S. embargo for its economic woes, the reality is quite the opposite.
History happened instantly before our eyes 23 years ago on September 11, 2001 — and the global press was there to offer a first view on a day that continues to live in infamy. Here are 31 newspaper front pages and magazine covers.
The UN Security Council is paralyzed by the major powers, and the General Assembly, which opens today, has no binding power. At a time when conflicts are multiplying around the world, how can global governance be saved? Is it time to scrap the UN and start over?
Efforts to vaccinate children in Gaza are undoubtedly motivated in part by moral reasons, but they also stem from the world’s concern – especially in neighboring countries – about the virus becoming endemic in the Palestinian enclave. The writer recalls how it can all implode, or spread, at any time.
U.S. authorities have seized documents that expose a Russian-led fake news offensive in Europe. The devastating effects of this large-scale propaganda campaign are for all to see in the recent elections in Thuringia and Saxony.
Russians want to publish a translation of Polish author Szczepan Twardoch’s bestselling novel The King — a confusing development given that the writer has just been awarded for helping Ukraine.
Edmundo Gonzales, the opposition candidate who should have been declared the winner of the July election in Venezuela, has gone into exile in Spain. For the time being, President Maduro has won the day, even if he is denounced by the Latin American democratic left, notably Lula in Brazil.
The Left’s reluctance to denounce President Maduro’s fraudulent reelection in Venezuela may seem tactical or expedient to itself, but is nothing short of stabbing the very principle of democracy at a challenging juncture in modern history.
Ukraine’s Western Allies, which not too long ago were mired in “war fatigue”, have now begun allowing – and encouraging – Ukraine to strike Russian targets. And use their weapons. Is it time, again, to call Putin’s bluff? It’s a question right now for Washington to answer.
In both Algeria and Tunisia, societies were on the move to demand change. In two presidential elections scheduled so close together, on Saturday in Algeria and next month in Tunisia, the powers that be made sure that nothing would change.
If there is a real peace project and an Israeli intention to solve the Palestinian tragedy, Hamas would have lost its justification for existence. Not just Hamas, but all the resistance factions.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s choice of new prime minister isn’t without irony. Michel Barnier negotiated Brexit’s terms with the British, who were as divided at the time as the French are today.
Even Russians are unlikely to have noticed that since Vladimir Putin came to power some 25 years ago, the biography the Kremlin presents of him has been repeatedly altered. A new investigation revealing details about his two sons is but an exception in a long history of authorities carefully hiding facts and evidence about Putin’s life and his relationship with his family and friends — and the Russian people.
A spectacular summit is being held in Beijing, with almost all African leaders paying heed to President Xi Jinping, who has pledged another $50 billion to the Continent. The investment in Africa is a boost in Xi’s global influence and an insurance policy in China’s new Cold War with the U.S.
Mohammad Javad Zarif is among the most recognizable faces of contemporary Iranian political life. His return to government in a strategic position does not guarantee his project’s survival. Indeed, radical Islamic forces will likely make him a prime target for destruction.