Trump warns Zelensky he 'won't be around very long' if he refuses peace deal with Russia
Donald Trump stepped up the pressure on Volodymyr Zelensky Monday with a stark warning: Sign up to a peace deal or risk annihilation.
The U.S. president spoke to reporters at the White House after an investment announcement, and used the occasion to further ratchet up pressure on the Ukrainian leader.
He said Zelensky should be 'more appreciative' of American aid if he wants Washington's help and made clear his frustration after their Oval Office summit on Friday descended into a slanging match.
#Trump #Zelensky #DailyMail #News
Read More...
I've got 2 brain cells left and it's these two đ« đ€Ł
#meme #cartoon #funny follow for more đ Read More...
High-stakes Gaza ceasefire talks have ended. Hereâs what to know
The death toll in Gaza since Israel started its war against Hamas passed 40,000 this week, just as mediators arrived in Doha to discuss a ceasefire. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa/picture alliance/AP/File
Editorâs Note: A version of this story appears in CNNâs Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the regionâs biggest stories. Sign up here.
CNN
â
Mediators in talks for a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel made a last-ditch effort this week to revive stalled negotiations, with high-stakes discussions wrapping up Friday against a backdrop of tension and desperation in the region.
The meeting in Doha started on Thursday and has now ended, a diplomat familiar with the discussions told CNN. A breakthrough wasnât expected but efforts will continue. Technical teams will meet again in the coming days, starting Saturday, until the main figures meet again in Cairo next week, the diplomat said.
It took place as the Middle East braces for a possible Iranian attack on Israel, and after the death toll since October in Gaza reached 40,000 people, a bleak figure that underscores 10 months of suffering, malnutrition and despair in the enclave.
The fear of an Iranian attack poses a serious threat to any hopes of a ceasefire that have already appeared tenuous in recent weeks, after Israeli strikes took out Hamasâ former political leader and senior figures in Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
But the talks went ahead, despite some initial fears they would be scrapped. Participants on Thursday included CIA director Bill Burns, Mossad chief David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani and Egyptian intelligence head Abbas Kamel, a diplomatic source close to negotiations told CNN.
In the meeting, Qatar, Egypt and the United States were expected to present a plan to implement a deal that could bring about a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The deal was proposed by US President Joe Biden in May â but unresolved differences have left the path forward unclear.
Hereâs what we know about the status of the talks.
People protest in Tel Aviv ahead of the latest round of talks, calling for a deal that would secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
People protest in Tel Aviv ahead of the latest round of talks, calling for a deal that would secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Florion Goga/Reuters
What happened in the talks?
Mediators presented a bridging proposal to Israel and Hamas to close the remaining gaps of disagreement between both sides, a joint statement between the US, Qatar and Egypt said on Friday after talks wrapped up for the week.
The statement, published by the Egyptian presidency and Qatari foreign ministry, said the proposal presented to both sides âbuilds on the areas of agreement over the past week,â and âbridges remaining gaps in a manner that allows for a swift implementation of the deal.â
The talks were âserious and constructive,â the statement said.
video
Related video
Hear from woman whoâs husband is still held by Hamas
But the statement did not elaborate on what points of agreement were achieved over the past week.
Hamas had said it would not participate in talks but engaged separately with Qatari and Egyptian mediators, a source told CNN, adding that the mediators are still working to bridge the gap on the remaining key differences.
âOur position was clear⊠we will not go for new negotiation rounds. We will only go to implement what has been agreed on,â Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told CNN on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the militant group reiterated that there will be no hostage deal or ceasefire agreement without a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
What is Bidenâs proposal?
In May, Biden laid out a three-phase proposal the administration said was submitted by Israel that would pair a release of hostages from Gaza with a âfull and complete ceasefireâ and a release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
The first phase would last six weeks and include the âwithdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gazaâ and the ârelease of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisonersâ and the implementation of a temporary truce.
Related article
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in 10 months of war in Gaza, health ministry says
Phase 2 would allow for the âexchange for the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiersâ and a permanent end to the fighting.
In Phase 3, a âmajor reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence and any final remains of hostages whoâve been killed will be returned to their families,â the US president said.
Israel launched its war against Hamas after the groupâs cross-border October 7 attacks, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. More than 100 of those hostages remain in Gaza, their families back home pleading for a breakthrough to secure their safe return. It is unclear how many of the original hostages set for release are still alive.
Hamas and Israel have been engaged in tedious negotiations for months. Officials from Qatar and Egypt act as intermediaries, delivering messages to Israeli and Hamas representatives in shuttle-style diplomacy since representatives from the warring parties are not present at the same location. Technical teams have flown in and out of Doha and Cairo to iron out details for a potential agreement.
What are the key remaining sticking points?
Despite an initial positive reaction from Hamas and Israel, both sides failed to agree on the implementation of the finer details of the proposal including the sequencing of the hostage-prisoner exchange, the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and how far back Israeli forces should withdraw in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of undermining the deal as far-right members of his ruling coalition threaten to collapse the government despite pressure from the US and families of hostages.
Throughout the war, the prime minister has been caught between two potent political forces: the far-right members of his governing coalition who have been opposed to any suggestion that Israeli troops should leave Gaza, and the relatives of hostages held by Hamas, who have formed a powerful pressure group and have implored Netanyahu to reach a deal.
Last month, the prime minister reversed on a key Israeli concession in ceasefire negotiations, demanding that armed men be barred from returning to northern Gaza during an eventual ceasefire, an Israeli source familiar with the talks told CNN. Israel had previously agreed to allow Palestinians unrestricted access to northern Gaza.
Netanyahuâs office on Tuesday rejected claims that the prime minister had changed positions, saying his most recent stance âdoes not introduce extra conditions and certainly does not contradict or undermineâ the May proposal. Netanyahuâs office instead accused Hamas of adding unrealistic demands to its position.
A regional diplomat familiar with the negotiations told CNN that the remaining sticking points for Hamas are Israelâs restrictions on the movement of people from southern Gaza to the north, its demand for a veto over which Palestinian prisoners would be released, as well as its continued presence at the Philadelphi corridor and the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
What is Hamasâ position?
US officials had said that talks had reached an advanced stage until Hamasâ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran in late July in an assassination Iran blamed on Israel. Israel hasnât confirmed or denied responsibility, but Iran has vowed vengeance.
There were concerns that the assassination would throw a wrench in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The militant group replaced Haniyeh with Yahya Sinwar, the hardline Hamas leader in Gaza who is one of Israelâs most wanted men. While Haniyeh, a relative moderate, lived in Qatar and was susceptible to pressure from his host country, Sinwar is believed to be deep underground in a tunnel in Gaza and is hard to reach.
Hamas on Thursday denied it was having difficulty communicating with its leader Sinwar, after one of its top officials Osama Hamdan reportedly acknowledged in an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday that there are âsome difficultiesâ and delays in communicating with him.
Hamas hasnât ruled out an agreement with Israel, but said that it wonât engage in further negotiations. It instead asked mediators for a plan to implement a ceasefire proposal put forward by Biden.
A Hamas source told CNN on Wednesday that the group has adopted a position of âintentional ambiguityâ over whether it will attend ceasefire talks, adding that its position on a potential ceasefire is firm whether not it attends the talks.
Asked why Hamas has been unclear about whether it will attend the ceasefire talks, the source said: âThis ambiguity is the movementâs position, which was announced in its latest statement, is intentional and did not come by chance. It comes as a result of Netanyahuâs behavior.â
Why is this round of talks so important?
This latest round of ceasefire talks were the result of a major diplomatic effort by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US to push for a last-ditch effort to end the war and free the hostages as Iran prepares to attack Israel.
The urgency of the talks was highlighted by the three mediators, who issued a rare joint statement last week calling on the warring parties to return to negotiations and offered what they called a âfinal bridge proposalâ to overcome the remaining sticking points. The details of that proposal have not been made public.
In parallel, US and Middle East diplomats have been mobilizing to dissuade Iran from launching an attack on Israel that could lead to a wider regional war. Both Iran and the US have said that that lines of communication between them are open through intermediaries.
There have been some indications that Iran may abandon plans to attack Israel if a ceasefire deal is reached. But the countryâs mission to the United Nations said on Saturday that Tehranâs retaliation is âtotally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire.â
As of Tuesday afternoon, US officials didnât believe that Iran has decided on a course of retaliatory action against Israel, according to two US administration officials. Furious diplomatic backchannel efforts are ongoing to try to deter a wide-scale attack and de-escalate the volatile situation, one of those officials said.
The second official added that the Biden administration does believe that the USâs public warnings in recent days have affected Iranâs calculus.
The conversation between Al Thani and Kani was âpositive,â a diplomat familiar with the call said.
Biden acknowledged the challenges facing a ceasefire deal Tuesday, telling reporters traveling with him to New Orleans heâs âconcernedâ about negotiations between the two parties amid the looming threat of an attack on Israel from Iran.
The president rebuffed questions on what heâs doing to pressure Israel and Hamas to come to the bargaining table for proposed ceasefire deal talks Thursday, telling reporters, âIf I told you what pressure thaï»żt Iâm putting on it, it wouldnât be very much pressure would it?â
The regional diplomat who spoke to CNN said there is concern that Iran may not hold back on striking Israel, as the diplomat believes the Biden administration is not applying enough pressure on Netanyahu to reach an agreement.
The lack of clarity on whether the Israeli prime minister will adhere to Bidenâs May proposal, the source added, suggests time is running out to strike a deal before an Iranian attack. Qatar and Egypt, the source said, may not have enough influence to push Hamas to compromise.
Read More...
A black X is appearing on the doors of Maduro opponents in Venezuela
In a poor Caracas neighborhood, the letter âXâ is appearing on peopleâs homes â crude chest-high slashes of paint that residents say amount to a threat.
Residents living in 23 de Enero, once the stronghold of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, believe pro-regime paramilitary groups are behind the spray paint. The groups, known as colectivos, are marking people who had protested the outcome of Julyâs presidential election, residents told CNN.
âThere are some fifty homes in my street, and thirty-two have been marked,â said one resident, who asked to use the alias âPabloâ, due to fear of retaliation for speaking out.
The Xs appeared in Pabloâs neighborhood days after Venezuelaâs President NicolĂĄs Maduro claimed victory at the polls on July 28 â a result disputed by the opposition and questioned by foreign observers.
Members of a Venezuelan paramilitary unit took photos of his neighbors as they stood outside their homes and called for Maduro to step down by banging pots. The next morning, âwe woke up and all the houses were marked with a cross,â Pablo said.
Pablo told CNN he could hear the painting on his own door in the middle of the night, the rattle and spray waking him up from his sleep.
âThe following days, they would ride around the street saying this mark is for cowards and that they would come back with guns if anyone protested,â he said.
Paramilitary groups have historically been used by the Maduro regime to intimidate or attack opposition supporters. In many of Caracasâ poorest neighborhoods, they are the only law.
CNN is attempting to contact Valentin Santana, the leader of one of the most notorious ï»żcolectivo, La Piedrita, for comment.
Another resident of the same neighborhood said her home was not grafittied, but that she is now too intimidated to join planned anti-government protests on Saturday. She is fearful of a crackdown by the government, which has already detained hundreds of opposition supporters for protesting against Maduro or casting doubt about his disputed victory.
She says that paramilitary groups have installed surveillance cameras in her area, and she does not know who to trust. The Venezuelan government recently repurposed an app originally intended to report public administration malfunctions to allow anonymous charges against opposition supporters.
âThis is the app to snitch on the fascists,â Maduro himself told a recent rally, presenting the new service. It has since been blocked on Appleâs App store but is still available on Google Play.
She believes that about 80% of the area she lives in would be in favor of Venezuelaâs political opposition â but are too intimidated to make their voices heard.
âA couple days after the election, two young protesters were taken away, thereâs no trust among neigbhbors also because of the app,â Valentina said.
A pattern of repression
Venezuelans have felt this fear before. In 2019, when opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself to be the interim president of Venezuela, with widespread popular support, motorcycle riding colectivo members terrorized anti-government rallies with gunfire and prevented opposition lawmakers and journalists from entering the National Assembly.
That pattern of repression appears to be ramping up today.
Pablo accuses colectivo members of making threats, such as being taken to prison, blacklisting for vital government benefits for cheap gasoline and food handouts. There have also been threats of overt violence in the past few days, though he maintains he will keep protesting.
âGoing to jail, that is scary, because at my age that almost certainly means dying in jail. But I donât want to stop, people are angry⊠I am very angry, furious,â Pablo, who is in his seventies, told CNN.
Such accounts echo the warnings of opposition leader MarĂa Corina Machado, who told CNNâs Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday that Maduro is âexercising violence on innocent peopleâ in the aftermath of the disputed vote.
âYoung people are [taken] out of their houses, houses are marked with a cross at their doors. Journalists have been detained, four of them have been accused of terrorism. This is happening as we speak,â she said.
Since the contested election, Maduro has been at the forefront of the government crackdown, ordering the opening of two new prisons to accommodate detained protesters and openly calling for everyone in the streets to be imprisoned.
Maduro has also endorsed what is informally referred to as âOperation Knock-Knock,â that has seen security services knocking at opposition membersâ doors.
âKnock Knock! Donât be a crybaby⊠Youâre going to TocorĂłn (a jail)â Maduro shouted at a rally last week.
Even after Venezuelaâs electoral and judicial authorities announced the victory of Maduro, they have not shown detailed results and electoral records to support it, prompting anger and concern across the country and abroad.
Meanwhile, the team of opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia has released independently collected polling station data that, although partial, appears to suggest that Maduro lost.
Numerous countries say they will not recognize the official election result until the vote tallies are published in full.
In a report shared Tuesday, a panel of experts from the United Nations said the presidential election lacked âbasic transparency and integrity.â They also strongly criticized the National Electoral Council (CNE) for announcing the winner without revealing the tabulated results from each of the countryâs polling stations, saying it had âno precedent in contemporary democratic elections.â
âThe note ⊠from the UN is giving us a lot of hope. The world must know that we have a neo-Nazi for president,â Pablo said.
Read More...
During the filming of Gladiator, Oliver Reed (Proximo) died in a bar after challenging a group of sailors to a drinking contest.
Reed consumed 8 pints of beer, 12 shots of rum, half a bottle of whisky, and shots of cognac This photo of him was taken shortly before he died.
#Gladiator #OliverReed #Interesting #Movie
Read More...
Bright lights detected by NASA telescopes lead to a dancing pair of supermassive black holes
Two telescopes have spotted the closest pair of supermassive black holes to date. The duo, only about 300 light-years apart, were observed in different wavelengths of light using NASAâs Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.
While black holes are invisible against the dark void of space, these two blaze brightly as the gas and dust they feed on is accelerated and heated to high temperatures. Both celestial objects, which circle around one another, are known as active galactic nuclei.
Active galactic nuclei are supermassive black holes that release bright jets of material and high winds that can shape the very galaxies where they are found.
The black hole duo is the closest pair found through visible and X-ray light. While other black hole pairs have been observed before, they are usually much farther apart. Astronomers discovered these black holes dancing around one another at the center of a pair of colliding galaxies called MCG-03-34-64, which is 800 million light-years away.
Astronomers serendipitously found the black holes when Hubbleâs observations revealed three spikes of bright light within the glowing gas of a galaxy. They published their discovery Monday in The Astrophysical Journal.
âWe were not expecting to see something like this,â said lead study author Anna Trindade FalcĂŁo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a statement. âThis view is not a common occurrence in the nearby universe, and told us thereâs something else going on inside the galaxy.â
Zooming in on bright cosmic lights
The team was intrigued when Hubble picked up on three optical diffraction spikes in a concentrated region of the MCG-03-34-64 galaxy. Diffraction spikes appear when light from a small cosmic region bends around the mirror inside telescopes.
Hubbleâs observations were made in optical light, which is visible to the human eye, but the astronomers werenât sure what they were seeing. FalcĂŁoâs team took another look at the galactic region with Chandra in X-ray light.
When the scientists observed the galaxy using Chandra, they were able to pinpoint two powerful sources of X-ray light that matched the optical light sources spotted by Hubble, FalcĂŁo said. âWe put these pieces together and concluded that we were likely looking at two closely spaced supermassive black holes.â
The team also consulted archival observation radio wave data collected by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array of radio telescopes near Socorro, New Mexico. The black hole duo was also found to release energetic radio waves.
âWhen you see bright light in optical, X-rays, and radio wavelengths, a lot of things can be ruled out, leaving the conclusion these can only be explained as close black holes. When you put all the pieces together it gives you the picture of the (active galactic nuclei) duo,â FalcĂŁo said.
Meanwhile, the third diffraction spike observed by Hubble has an unknown origin, and the team requires more data to understand what it could be. The source of light might be from gas that was shocked by an energetic release of material from one of the black holes.
âWe wouldnât be able to see all of these intricacies without Hubbleâs amazing resolution,â FalcĂŁo said.
Astronomers have observed pairs of black holes that are closer together than these two through radio telescopes, but those duos havenât been observed in other wavelengths of light.
Both supermassive black holes once served as the centers of their respective galaxies, but a galactic merger brought the two objects much closer together. Eventually, their close spiral will result in a merger in about 100 million years, according to NASA, causing an energetic release of gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of space and time.
Such gravitational waves created by the collisions of supermassive black holes could be detected in the future by LISA, the European Space Agency-led Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission thatâs expected to launch in the mid-2030s.
#universe #news
Read More...
bastard staff app x, they did shadow ban again
while we have to gather people in underground communities to carry out resistance & war against Globalists, Cabals & Zionist Israel!!!
#news #community #alert #global #wars #globalist #ww3 #civilunrest #revolution #freedom #palestine
Read More...
Israel launches air attacks near Syriaâs Tartous
Israel has carried out air strikes near Syriaâs Mediterranean port city of Tartous, Syrian state media has reported.
An Israeli army statement on Monday said that its forces âstruck a military site where weapons belonging to the previous Syrian regime were stored in the area of Qardahaâ, the hometown of deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, some 60km (37 miles) north of the Tartous port.
#Aljazeera #News #Israel #Syria
Read More...
Canada is caught in a âdouble trade warâ â and one premier is urging Ottawa to drop its fight against China
OTTAWA â On top of threatened U.S. tariffs, China has brought down another hammer on many Canadian farm and seafood exports, hitting them with a âdouble trade warâ that industry leaders say will slam Canadian producers.
In response, B.C. Premier David Eby called on Ottawa to drop its tariff fight against China, saying Canada got nothing out of trying to align trade policy with the United States last fall ahead of President Donald Trumpâs election.
Eby, who stepped up measures against the United States along with Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Monday, said the government of Canada should offer a concession in the trade dispute it has with China.
#TheStar #News
#Canda
Read More...
