Category: International Conflict

ISTANBUL: Turkey said it would impose trade restrictions on Israel starting Tuesday over the war in Gaza, covering a range of products including cement and steel and iron construction materials. The new measures come a day after Turkey said Israel had blocked its attempt to airdrop aid to Gaza. “This decision will remain in place until Israel declares a ceasefire immediately and allows adequate and uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the trade ministry announced on social media. It…

Chinese anti-corruption authorities are investigating a senior executive at one of the country’s top military equipment suppliers, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, in a new sign of turmoil in the country’s defence establishment. The probe into He Wenzhong, deputy general manager of CETC, a company subject to US sanctions, follows a shake-up of the armed forces last year, when the two generals in command of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force were replaced. The force controls China’s land-based nuclear missiles….

Nicaragua, a longstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause, is broadening the legal battle over the Gaza conflict at the International Court of Justice by bringing a case against Germany, a major supplier of arms to Israel. In hearings that opened on Monday in The Hague, Nicaragua argued that Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide in Gaza and violating the Genocide Convention by providing Israel with military and financial aid. Carlos Jose Arguello Gomez, Nicaragua’s ambassador to The Netherlands, told…

A unit of defunct lender Credit Suisse will seek to overturn an order to pay US$743 million (S$1 billion) to a billionaire client over the actions of a notorious rogue banker at Singapore’s top court on April 8. The sum was awarded after a lower court earlier ruled that the bank’s trust had failed to safeguard the assets of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former prime minister of Georgia. It was revised down from an initial US$926 million in a sprawling case…

JERUSALEM: A top Iranian military adviser on Sunday warned Israel that none of its embassies were safe following last week’s strike in Damascus blamed on Israel that killed two elite Iranian generals. Regional tensions threaten to draw West Asia into a wider conflict as Israel’s war against Hamas marks six months. The remarks by General Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signalled that the attack on a diplomatic mission could be met with a…

Israeli MK Nissim Vaturi, a representative in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, issued a not-so-veiled threat on Saturday suggesting that if America doesn’t supply Israel with weapons aid then Israel will use nuclear weapons. “In the event of a conflict with Iran, if we do not receive American ammunition – we will have to use everything we have…” Vaturi ominously said. Israel assassinated a high-ranking Iranian Brigadier General and 15 others in an airstrike on an Iranian embassy…

The US is warning allies that China has stepped up its support for Russia, including by providing geospatial intelligence, to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine. Amid signs of continued military integration between the two nations, China has provided Russia with satellite imagery for military purposes, as well as microelectronics and machine tools for tanks, according to people familiar with the matter. China’s support also includes optics, propellants to be used in missiles and increased space cooperation, one of…

CAIRO (AP) — Two basic mistakes, according to the Israeli military. First, an officer overlooked a message detailing the vehicles in the convoy. Second, a spotter saw something in one car – possibly a bag – that he thought was a weapon. Officials say the result was the series of Israeli drone strikes that killed seven aid workers on a dark Gaza road. The Israeli military has described the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy as a tragic…

The Palestinian Authority (PA), the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people, has taken the first steps in requesting an official vote of approval on its United Nations membership status, a letter from the body’s UN representative revealed on Tuesday. Based on documents seen by wire service AFP, the PA’s UN liaison, Riyad Mansour, penned a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on behalf of his government requesting that the Palestinian application for full membership be examined and voted on by…

IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi issued an apology early Wednesday for a devastating Israeli strike on an aid convoy in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of seven humanitarian workers, labeling the event as a consequence of “misidentification.” According to Halevi, the IDF has already conducted a preliminary examination of the strike. “I want to be very clear—the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers,” he said. “It was a mistake that followed…

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The bodies of six foreign aid workers killed in a series of Israeli strikes were transported out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt on Wednesday ahead of their repatriation, Egypt’s state-run Qahera TV reported. The deadly strikes have renewed criticism of Israel’s conduct in the nearly six-monthlong war with Hamas, and highlighted the perilous conditions aid workers face in trying to deliver food to the besieged enclave, where experts say nearly a third of…

Israeli air strikes destroyed a building belonging to the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing a senior commander in the Quds Force, the external military and intelligence service of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iranian state media reported on Monday. General Mohamad Reza Zahedi, 65, oversaw Iran’s covert military operations in Syria and Lebanon, Iranian officials said.He is among the senior most Iranian commanders believed to have been killed by Israel in a yearslong shadow war that has included assassinations of…

The Israeli parliament on Monday approved a bill granting top ministers the power to prohibit the broadcasting of Al Jazeera news channel in Israel—a move Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to pursue. The law, passed by a vote of 70 to 10, enables the ban of foreign channel broadcasts and permits the closure of their offices within Israel. The law empowers the prime minister and the minister of communications to declare international networks functioning in Israel to be in…

KAZAN: A Russian court on Monday extended until June 5 the pre-trial detention of US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who faces 15 years in prison on charges of spreading “false information,” according to her employer. In court in the central city of Kazan on Monday, Kurmasheva smiled but complained about the poor conditions in which she was being held. “This cell is five square metres for two people. There is no hot water. Instead of a toilet there is a hole…

Israeli strikes on the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early on Friday killed 38 people, including five members of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, two security sources said, the deadliest attacks so far in an intensified Israeli campaign against Iran’s allies in Syria. Israel has ramped up its airstrikes on both Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel led by Iran-backed Palestinian faction Hamas. Tehran and its proxies have entrenched themselves across…

Attorneys for Hunter Biden are expected in court Wednesday in Los Angeles, where he is accused in what prosecutors call a four-year scheme to avoid paying $1.4 million in taxes while living an extravagant lifestyle. President Joe Biden’s son has pleaded not guilty to the nine felony and misdemeanor tax offenses. He’s asking the judge to toss out the case, arguing that the prosecution was politically motivated, was tainted by leaks from IRS agents who claimed publicly the case was…