Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly visited the United Arab Emirates during the Israeli-U.S. war with Iran, his office said Wednesday. The UAE later denied any secret visit had occurred. Netanyahu met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in a gathering that “resulted in a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” according to the Israeli statement. The Gulf nation normalized relations with Israel in 2020. The UAE’s official WAM news agency later posted an article denying “reports circulating” about a Netanyahu visit. According to WAM, the country’s relations with Israel “are public...
Trump’s talk of 51st US state met with near-silence in Venezuela
Twice this week, U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed interest in turning Venezuela into his country’s 51st state. The latest came via a Truth Social post Tuesday with a map showing the South American country filled with the U.S. flag. Previous statements doubting Venezuela’s sovereignty over the past 25 years have been met with immediate derision from senior government officials, including the president. The ruling party even organized demonstrations in the capital, Caracas, as recently as Jan. 3, hours after then-President Nicolás Maduro was captured by the U.S., that included chants of “Gringo go home.” This time around, however, the...
Russia Hits Kyiv With Drones And Ballistic Missiles, Killing 1 And Injuring 33
Russia attacked targeted Ukraine’s capital with a mass drone and missile attack early Thursday morning that killed at least one and injured 33 people, local authorities said. Ukraine’s Air Force said its air defenses shot down or jammed 693 targets overnight, including 41 missiles and 652 drones of various types across the country. Fifteen missiles and 23 drones scored direct hits across 24 locations, the Air Force said. Debris from downed drones fell across an additional 18 locations. The attack, in which Kyiv was the primary target, came hours after a rare daytime mass drone barrage Wednesday. Ukrainian officials said...
Palestinian Man Shot Dead While Climbing West Bank Barrier Into Israel In Search Of Work
Palestinian authorities said Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian man as he attempted to climb the concrete barrier separating the occupied West Bank from Jerusalem. The Palestinian Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent identified the man as Zakaria Qatusa, 44, from the town of Deir Qadis, about 20 kilometers (13 miles) northwest of the site of the shooting Tuesday evening in the West Bank town of Al-Ram, which abuts the wall. Israeli police didn’t immediately respond to queries about the shooting. The funeral for the man was held on Wednesday. Khalid Qatusa, his brother, said that he was...
Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi Needs Months Of Care After Collapse In Iran Prison, Foundation Says
Doctors who examined Nobel Peace laureate and activist Narges Mohammadi more than a week after she collapsed at a prison in Iran say she needs months of treatment, her foundation said Wednesday. An angiography procedure showed two of her main arteries have significant blockage and that her vascular disease has significantly deteriorated since she last had the procedure in 2024, the foundation said in a statement. Mohammadi, 53, was urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran on May 1 after she fell unconscious. She was released on bail nearly 10 days later and transferred to a hospital...
Jury Convicts Man Accused Of Running Secret Chinese Spy Outpost In New York City
A man accused of running a secret Chinese spy outpost from a nondescript office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood was convicted Wednesday of acting as an illegal foreign agent. Lu Jianwang, 64, was also convicted of obstructing justice by deleting text messages that U.S. prosecutors said included orders from Beijing to silence, harass and intimidate pro-democracy dissidents. He was acquitted on a related conspiracy charge. The weeklong trial in Brooklyn federal court pitted U.S. concerns about China’s crackdown on dissidents against the defense’s contention that prosecutors twisted a well-meaning Chinese American community leader’s bureaucratic misstep to put him in prison....
BRICS Foreign Ministers Meet In India As Iran War, Oil Prices And Divisions Test The Bloc’s Unity
Foreign ministers from the BRICS nations began a two-day meeting in New Delhi on Thursday as the expanding bloc faces divisions over the war in Iran, rising energy prices and growing global economic uncertainty. The meeting brings together diplomats from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa along with newer member countries. It comes as the war in Iran has disrupted global energy supplies and driven up oil prices and coincides with U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov are attending. China is represented...
Board Of Peace Envoy Mladenov Says Ceasefire Hinges On Hamas’ Disarmament
Nickolay Mladenov, the top diplomat overseeing the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, on Wednesday acknowledged that the truce was stalled, saying the deadlock over disarming Hamas had paralyzed reconstruction of the war-battered territory. Mladenov expressed frustration with the status quo that has emerged since the ceasefire was reached last October and said his office is addressing violations by both sides on a daily basis. But he repeatedly cited the disarmament issue as a central sticking point, saying Hamas’ obligation to give up its arsenal is “not negotiable” and that progress on all other issues — including reconstruction, Israeli troop withdrawals and...
