A highly decorated former Israeli defense minister has caused a firestorm by accusing Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza. Moshe Ya’alon, who served for three decades in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, and as the military’s chief of staff, also said that he believed Israel was losing ...
Toomaj Salehi, an Iranian dissident rapper and activist, has been released from prison, according to a statement issued Monday by his international legal team. Salehi, 32, had been held in the Dastgerd prison in the city of Isfahan for 753 days in total, according to his team. The rapper was arrested in October 2022 for supporting the nationwide Woman Life ...
French lawmakers said they had introduced a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Monday, setting up a vote that could see the far right topple his government within days. The motion was presented after Barnier attempted to pass part of his government’s budget for 2025, which includes 60 billion euros ($62.8 billion) worth of tax hikes ...
Eight years ago, Syria’s civil war shifted in President Bashar Al-Assad’s favor after a Russian blitzkrieg on Aleppo helped him regain control over the country’s second biggest city. In just over 72-hours last week, a coalition of Syrian armed rebel groups operating under the banner of Deterrence of Aggression captured the city in a surprise attack, dealing a significant blow ...
For the first time since a ceasefire went into effect last week, Hezbollah has fired two projectiles toward Israeli-occupied territory, responding to repeated Israeli strikes since the agreement. Israel has carried out daily strikes in Lebanon since Thursday, the day after a ceasefire went into effect. One person was killed in a strike in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese ...
A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld a death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan after rejecting her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement and bribery in a high-profile $12 billion fraud case, state media reported. Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in ...
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recalled her impression of Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, saying the new American president-elect showed a “fascination with the sheer power” of strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In the wide-ranging interview, Merkel discussed her new memoir, “Freedom,” which reflects on her 16 ...
The dawn assault inside Russia’s Kursk region never even got to a gunfight, yet betrayed the intensity of the battle in Kremlin territory. Five Russians edged forward in the grey Sunday dawn but, as thermal drone imagery shows, were killed or wounded by a drone as they tried to hide in the treeline. “I have this impression that (the Russians) ...
Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a record-breaking defense budget, setting aside a staggering third of the government’s total spending as the war in Ukraine drains resources from both sides nearly three years on. The budget for 2025, which was published Sunday, allocates about $126 billion (13.5 trillion rubles) to national defense – amounting to 32.5% of government spending. The ...
President-elect Donald Trump is wasting little time affirming that tariffs will be a Day One priority. With his inauguration less than two months away, small businesses are already making moves to avoid expected cost increases — or weighing whether to take a financial hit or pass it on to customers. On Monday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he plans ...