Israel Strikes Iran as Regional Tensions Soar: “A Time of Uncertainty and Division”
At the ZEG Storytelling Festival in Georgia, global voices warn that the escalating conflict risks triggering a broader Middle East war and deepening global instability
Israel's defence minister warns that "Tehran will burn" if Iran keeps firing missiles, after both sides exchanged strikes overnight. Explosions were heard in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Tehran after Iran launched waves of missiles in retaliation for Israeli strikes which targeted Iran's nuclear programme on Friday. In comments made during an assessment with military officials, Israel Katz says: "The Iranian dictator is turning the citizens of Iran into hostages and creating a reality in which they, especially the residents of Tehran, will pay a heavy price for the criminal attack on Israeli civilians." Meanwhile, Iran warned the UK, US and France it will target their bases and ships in the region if they help stop the strikes on Israel, state media reports. Downing Street hasn't responded yet, but it's understood the UK has not taken part in any military action, including efforts to defend Israel against strikes, our political correspondent reports. In Israel, officials say three people have been killed and dozens injured, while Iranian state TV reports 60 people have been killed in a strike in Tehran - BBC
Some air traffic resumed around the Middle East on Saturday, with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan announcing that they would reopen their airspace to commercial flights. In Lebanon, Middle East Airlines, the national carrier, better known as MEA, said that flights would begin arriving and departing from Beirut’s international airport starting this afternoon. The announcement yesterday that flights would be suspended sent rumors swirling through Lebanon that something terrible was looming, since the carrier continued flying throughout the conflict with Israel last year. But various international carriers had already said they were stopping flights to Iran, Israel and other nearby destinations for longer periods - NYT
A person pretending to be a police officer assassinated a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota and killed the lawmaker’s husband in “an act of targeted political violence,” Gov. Tim Walz said Saturday. The assailant also shot and injured another Democratic lawmaker and his wife, officials said. State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, died in the attack at their home in the Minneapolis suburbs. State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot multiple times at their house in a nearby suburb, but remained alive as of Saturday morning. The authorities were searching for the assailant, who shot at officers as they arrived at one of the lawmakers’ homes. Chief Mark Bruley of the Brooklyn Park, Minn., police said the gunman’s vehicle contained a manifesto and a target list with names of individuals, including the two lawmakers who were shot. “We must all, Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence,” Mr. Walz said. F.B.I. officials said they had joined the investigation - NYT
India's government is urgently inspecting all Boeing 787s after a devastating Air India crash that claimed at least 270 lives this week, the aviation minister said on Saturday, adding that the authorities were investigating all possible causes. The aviation regulator on Friday ordered Air India to conduct additional maintenance checks on its Boeing 787-8/9 aircraft equipped with GEnx engines, including assessments of certain take-off parameters, electronic engine control tests and engine fuel-related checks. "We have also given the order to do the extended surveillance of the 787 planes. There are 34 in our Indian fleet," aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu told a media briefing in New Delhi. "Eight have already been inspected and with immediate urgency, all of them are going to be done." Air India operates 33 Boeing 787s, while rival airline IndiGo has one, according to data from Flightradar24. The planes, however, have not been grounded, but a source on Friday told Reuters the Indian government was considering that as an option. Naidu also said the government will look at all possible theories of what led to the crash - Reuters
ZEG Storytelling Festival Highlights
As U.S. funding declines and support for UN agencies faces mounting threats, locally-led humanitarian organizations may offer a more sustainable path forward. Speaking at the ZEG Storytelling Festival in Georgia, Arwa Damon — former CNN journalist and founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance (INARA) — urged a shift in perception toward local NGOs. We need to move past the condescending view of local organizations and give them the space to lead in saving lives and easing suffering, Damon said. She also warned that the “weaponization” of humanitarian aid — such as the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — risks setting a dangerous precedent that could be replicated in other global crises.
U.S. President Donald Trump is now more in control of messaging than ever — a trait common among autocrats, said journalist Jon Lee Anderson. A Scottish humorist added that Trump appears incapable of absorbing detail or sustaining focus, noting that his presidential intelligence briefings are reportedly now delivered in the style of a Fox News segment — filmed and simplified for easier consumption. (According to NBC News, the new format of delivering the briefings was still under consideration. Currently, it is a digital document created daily for the president and key Cabinet members and advisers that includes written text, as well as graphics and images. The material that goes into the classified briefing, and how it’s presented, “can shape a president’s decision-making,” the network said).
“A well functioning economy has to be based on good information and trust. If the information space is pollluted with disinformation, the economy cannot function. It’s even worse when you realise that tech companies have an incentive for misinformation. Unless you have a legal framework, it’s a lot easier to make money by lying” - economist Joseph Stiglitz
Tbilisi City Court has sentenced a 21-year-old man to four years and six months in prison for ‘hitting police officers with a stick’ during a protest, OC Media reported. Mate Devidze was arrested on 19 November during protests against electoral fraud during October’s parliamentary elections. The prosecution claimed that Devidze hit three police officers with a stick. His lawyers insist that what Devidze was holding was not a stick, but a rolled up paper poster, and that he was defending himself during the arrests. Before his sentence was announced on Thursday, the court building descended into chaos as hundreds of supporters, including the fifth president of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili attempted to enter the courtroom to observe the conclusion of the trial. The popular Georgian musician, Giorgi Gigashvili called the government “criminals and animals” in response to the news. He said Saturday evening that, given their past history, the Russian people should know what it is like to be brutally oppressed - “and yet they are doing the exact same thing to Ukraine. How can they let someone like Putin, he’s not the only one so it isn’t as easy to stop him.” He said: “In Russia there should be a lot more people who should be against these things. I wonder if they were oppressed by this brutal Nazi Germany how could they do this to Ukraine, Georgia and almost every country where they think they are superior. I hate Putin but I also hate Russians who aren’t doing anything.” To rounds of applause he said: “You and I will not shut-up. Even if we are thrown into the jail we will not shut-up. Be wild and brave.”
Visitors to Donald Trump’s Florida base are greeted by a playlist of some 2,000 songs while they wait to meet him — each track chosen to reflect his personal journey, according to renowned British photographer Platon. Among the selections: Frank Sinatra’s My Way. “I’ve never met a politician who sets the narrative before you’ve even entered the room,” said Platon, who has photographed world leaders and celebrities including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Recalling his shoot with Clinton for Esquire magazine, Platon quipped: “He was the first president I photographed — and some Americans wish he was their last.”
Hundreds of Russian soldiers wounded in the Ukraine war have been treated in Belarusian hospitals, including some from military units linked to alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The revelations come from a new report by the Belarusian Investigative Center done in conjunction with RFE/RL's Russian Service and Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. The disclosures are the latest stemming from a massive Russian Defense Ministry database of medical records that was leaked to RFE/RL earlier this year. Those records include hundreds of thousands of military personnel, officers as well as rank-and-file soldiers, most of whom served in Ukraine. They provide an unprecedented window into the scope of Russia's casualties over the 40-plus months since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine -- the largest and bloodiest land war in Europe since World War II. Belarus's military and security agencies have been closely integrated into Russia's security structures for years, a process that accelerated after the February 2022 invasion. Belarus's longtime leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has resisted suggestions from the Kremlin to send its own armed forces into Ukraine, but he's allowed Russian forces to use some parts of Belarusian territory for operations. Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer at the Ukraine-based Regional Center for Human Rights, said treating Russian soldiers wounded in the Ukraine could be considered direct support for the war -- therefore removing any Belarusian claim to neutrality in the conflict. "The treatment of Russian military personnel should be qualified as part of the general support for the war and the loss of neutral status," she said in an interview with the Belarusian Investigative Center, a consortium of exiled Belarusian journalists - RFE/RL
Millions of Americans are expected to attend “No Kings” protests across the country to denounce what organizers describe as President Donald Trump’s authoritarian policies and “militarization of our democracy.” It comes on the same day Trump will preside over a military parade in Washington, DC. Today’s rallies have been amplified by a week of protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles and other major cities. Trump federalized California’s National Guard and deployed Marines to the state in response to the unrest, sparking further outrage. The event is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US Army — which coincides with the president’s birthday — and is expected to feature the largest display of military might in the nation’s capital in decades. A massive amount of hardware, including 28 Abrams tanks, will roll down Constitution Avenue this evening - CNN
The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance. The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose. The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Mr. Trump made a rare concession this week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses. The guidance was sent on Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including work site operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations. On Thursday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the crackdown might be alienating industries he wanted to keep on his side - NYT
The United Nations Oceans Conference in Nice, France ended Friday with promises from world leaders to ratify a global, binding agreement to help protect the world’s oceans by September — paving the way for the world’s very first Conference of the Parties for a High Seas Treaty next year. “This is a considerable victory,” said French Oceans Ambassador Olivier Poivre d’Arvor in a press conference Friday. “It’s very difficult to work on oceans right now when the United States have withdrawn from almost everything. But the Argentinian president helped a lot. China [promised to ratify]. Indonesia just ratified a few hours ago. So, we won.” If that happens, it will have been a long time coming. The negotiating process started 20 years ago and the treaty was adopted in 2023, but countries have been slow to ratify and at least 60 must do so for the treaty to come into force. With marine and coastal ecosystems facing multiple threats from climate change, fishing, and pollution, the treaty’s main aim is to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which make up around two thirds of the ocean. But if getting 60 countries to ratify a treaty they already endorsed was hard, deciding which parts of the world’s international waters to protect from overfishing — and how — won’t be much easier. “Make no mistake, like every other convention, there will be opposition,” Dale Webber, Jamaica’s special envoy for climate change, environment, ocean and blue economy, told POLITICO. “I already know of some countries who are fishing on the high seas who are saying, ‘You're trying to limit my catch!’ but that's exactly what we need to do.” - Politico
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have fired their PR guys. The couple sacked communications chiefs Charlie Gipson and Kyle Boulia, reportedly blaming them for failing to turn around routinely negative media coverage of the pair. The couple have now hired a PR firm to manage their affairs - Daily Beast
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