International News

Blinken Takes Gaza Truce Push To Egypt

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2 years ago

August 20, 2024

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Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was in Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US “bridging proposal” for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, flew to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle, and began talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace.

Afterwards, he will head to a meeting with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in Doha, the scene of ceasefire talks last week.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month Gaza conflict.

Washington put forward the latest proposal last week aimed at after the talks in Doha.

Blinken said Monday he had “a very constructive meeting” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal”.

Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on the mediators to implement the framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions”.

At the weekend, Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri said US optimism about the prospects for the deal was an “illusion”.

On Monday, the US secretary of state had said: “This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security”.

– ‘Sense of urgency’ –

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Fears of an escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond after an Israeli strike on Beirut last month killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, shortly before an attack in Tehran blamed on Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Hezbollah said it launched rocket salvos at Israeli army positions in the annexed Golan Heights, in the latest of the cross-border exchanges which have raged almost daily since the Gaza war began.

“There is, I think, a real sense of urgency here, across the region, on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible,” Blinken said.

The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.

Biden said in his farewell speech to the convention that the protesters “have a point”, adding that “a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides”.

He acknowledged Hamas objections to the latest draft. “It’s still in play, but you can’t predict,” he said as he prepared to leave Chicago.

“Israel says they can work it out… Hamas is now backing away.”

– ‘Permanent ceasefire’ –

Israeli military operations in Gaza have continued throughout the truce talks.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike hit a school housing displaced Palestinians and killed seven people. The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas command centre.

Medics reported six dead in two separate Israeli air strikes in and around the southern city of Rafah.

Western ally Jordan, hostage supporters who protested in Tel Aviv during Blinken’s visit, and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu for an agreement to be reached.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s governing coalition oppose any truce.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,173 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 105 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that negotiators were aiming to “release a maximum number of living hostages” in the first phase of any ceasefire.

– Bodies of six hostages recovered –

The Israeli military said it had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from the southern Gaza district of Khan Yunis in a joint operation with internal security agency Shin Bet.

The hostages were Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, Chaim Perry, previously announced dead, and Avraham Munder, whose kibbutz of Nir Oz near Gaza announced his death earlier Tuesday.

Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called on the government to ensure the remaining hostages are returned to Israel in a negotiated deal.

“The Israeli government, with the assistance of mediators, must do everything in its power to finalise the deal currently on the table,” it said.

Related Topics:ANTHONY BLINKEN Gaza Hamas

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International News

Israel Says Struck Two Naval Missile Production Sites In Tehran

Published

38 minutes ago

March 25, 2026

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The Israeli military announced on Wednesday it had struck two naval cruise missile production facilities operating under Iran’s ministry of defence in Tehran.

“In recent days, the Israeli air force acting on IDF intelligence struck two key naval cruise missile production sites in Tehran,” the military said.

It said the facilities were used to “develop and manufacture long-range naval cruise missiles, which are capable of rapidly destroying targets at sea and on land”.

The strikes “represent another step in deepening the damage done to the regime’s military production infrastructure”, the military added.

Last week, the military announced its fighter jets had struck several Iranian naval ships in the Caspian Sea, including vessels equipped with anti-submarine missiles.

AFP

International News

2025 ‘Deadliest Year’ Yet For Red Sea Migrants, UN Reports 922 Deaths

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40 minutes ago

March 25, 2026

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The number of migrants who died on the “Eastern Route” from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula doubled to a record high of 922 last year, the UN migration agency said Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia and neighbouring countries take the route across the Red Sea each year, mostly from Djibouti to Yemen, in search of work as labourers or domestic workers in wealthy Gulf countries.

“2025 was the deadliest year ever recorded on the Eastern migration route… with 922 people dead or missing — double the number from the previous year,” Tanja Pacifico, head of mission for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Djibouti, told AFP.

The majority of victims were from Ethiopia, the second most-populous country in Africa with more than 130 million people. It is plagued by multiple internal conflicts and deep poverty.

“IOM remains fully committed to working alongside the government of Djibouti to promote safe and dignified migration pathways, in order to prevent further tragedies,” said Pacifico.

Many migrants who cross the Red Sea find themselves stuck in Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, which has been embroiled in a civil war for nearly a decade, and some even choose to return.

Rapid economic growth in Ethiopia — estimated to reach around 10 percent in 2026 — could encourage less migration, IOM says, but that is mitigated by high inflation, also around 10 percent in February.

AFP

International News

Denmark Faces Lengthy Negotiations To Form A Government

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60 minutes ago

March 25, 2026

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Election workers recount ballots in the Marselisborg Hallen in Aarhus, Denmark on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Mikkel Berg Pedersen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) /

Denmark’s political parties began the thorny process of forming a government Wednesday, with the centrist Moderates as kingmaker after the prime minister’s Social Democrats scraped through a general election without a majority.

Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit party member Naaja Nathanielsen (C) looks on in a polling station in Nuuk, on March 24, 2026, during the parliamentary election in Denmark (Photo by Oscar Scott Carl / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT

Danes were braced for a weeks-long process as Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen seeks to consolidate power in the deeply splintered parliament after Tuesday’s snap vote.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen arrives at Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen to inform the king about the election result one day after the parliamentary election on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Martin Sylvest / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP)

A left-wing bloc made up of five parties, including Frederiksen’s Social Democrats, won 84 seats; the right-wing and far-right claimed 77; and the Moderates won 14 in the election.

The Social Democrats posted their worst election score since 1903—though they remained Denmark’s largest single party, with 38 seats in the 179-seat parliament.

Chairwoman of the Social Democrats Mette Frederiksen attends a party leader debate hosted by Publicists’ Club one the day after the parliamentary election at the Confederation of Danish Industry’s building in Copenhagen on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Liselotte Sabroe / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP)

Frederiksen formally tendered her coalition government’s resignation to King Frederik on Wednesday, telling a televised party leader debate she wanted to try to form a centre-left government.

“The most realistic scenario” would be a coalition with the five parties on the left and the centre-right Moderates, she said.

But it is not certain the Moderates, led by Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, would agree to that.

“I don’t believe that Denmark needs policies aligned with” the leftist Red-Green Alliance, Lokke said.

Chairman of the Moderates Lars Loekke Rasmussen attends a party leader debate at the Confederation of Danish Industry’s building in Copenhagen on March 25, 2026, the day after the parliamentary election. (Photo by Liselotte Sabroe / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT

King Frederik was to meet party leaders individually later Wednesday to determine who should be asked to try to form the next government.

“My expectation is that Mette Frederiksen will become prime minister,” University of Copenhagen political science professor Rune Stubager told reporters.

“But I don’t know with the backing of which parties, like the left wing or the right wing,” he said.

He noted that Lokke, a two-time former prime minister, would likely vie for the position of prime minister, even though he has adamantly denied any interest in the job.

“Danes want me and not another prime minister. I still have the backing to be able to continue on behalf of the Danish people,” Frederiksen insisted during the debate.

Frederiksen has for the past four years headed an unprecedented left-right coalition made up of her Social Democrats, the Moderates and the Liberals.

The Liberals have refused to continue in a Social Democrat-led government.

‘Too Hard To Say’

Danes are now prepared for long negotiations. After the 2022 election, the talks lasted six weeks.

“It’s a long process, which means the government won’t be formed and it will be quite difficult to pass laws during this period,” lamented Jesper Dyrfjeld Christensen, a 54-year-old engineer.

“It’s really too hard to say who will be part of the coalition,” admitted Stubager.

With 12 parties in parliament, the political landscape is jagged — though Denmark is accustomed to minority governments.

“To some extent, this is the way Danish politics works. You have a minority government in the centre which forms a majority with the left on some issues and with the right on others,” he explained.

The negotiations are expected to focus on economic and pension issues, pollution and immigration, he said.

The traditional far-right party, the Danish People’s Party, which has heavily influenced policy since the late 1990s but slumped in the 2022 election, more than tripled its result to 9.1 per cent of votes.

The three anti-immigration groups together garnered 17 per cent, a stable figure for Denmark’s populist right over the past two decades.

“If negotiations take place in the left-wing bloc with the moderates, then there will be more focus on green issues than on immigration,” Stubager said.

“But if, instead, the Moderates negotiate with the parties on the right, then the central issue will be immigration.”

Four seats in Denmark’s parliament are held by its two autonomous territories — two for Greenland and two for the Faroe Islands.

While the Faroese renewed the mandates of the two outgoing lawmakers, with one for each bloc, Greenland overwhelmingly backed the left-wing party and Naleraq, which advocates rapid independence from Denmark.

AFP