July 28, 2024

*) Israel intensifies its deadly raids on West Bank’s refugee camp The Israeli army stormed the Balata refugee camp in eastern Nablus in the northern part of the occupied West Bank for the fourth time in 24 hours. The Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported that military forces stormed the camp amid heavy gunfire, the deployment of snipers and the arrival of reinforcements, accompanied by a bulldozer. Activists on social media shared videos allegedly showing military reinforcements heading toward the camp, and videos that had the sounds of gunfire, which they claimed were from clashes between Palestinian groups and the Israeli army. *) Applause for Netanyahu ‘major eclipse of reason’: Erdogan Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed shame “in the name of humanity” over the incident in the US Congress, which not only hosted but applauded Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, the main architect of the massacres in Palestine’s Gaza. Erdogan said, “This is a major eclipse of reason for America to spread out the red carpet for someone like Netanyahu and then applaud his lies till their palms swell.” The president voiced concern that “the killer of 40,000 innocent people” received applause from an institution such as the US Congress. *) North Korea vows ‘total destruction’ of enemies if Kim Jong-un orders war North Korea vowed to “totally destroy” its enemies in case of war when leader Kim Jong-un gives an order, state media reported. Senior military officials made the comments “out of surging hatred” towards the US and South Korea at a meeting attended by Kim to celebrate the 71st Korean War armistice anniversary. North Korea and the United States do not have diplomatic ties and talks over reducing tensions and denuclearizing North Korea have been stalled since 2019. *) UK government declares country ‘broke and broken’ Britain’s government declared the country was “broke and broken” ahead of an assessment of the public finances. Elected to run the world’s sixth-largest economy in a victory on July 4, Labour has spent much of its first three weeks in power telling the public that things are worse than expected in almost every area of public policy. Finance minister Rachel Reeves will set out the findings of a fiscal review in a statement to parliament that will accuse the Conservative Party of making unfunded spending commitments to try to win public support. And finally… *) ‘Explosion’ threat evacuates Paris media centre during Games French police temporarily closed the area around the media centre that is serving journalists covering the Paris Olympic Games because of an “explosion risk”. Journalists and citizens were evacuated and the cause of the risk was not disclosed. Police later reopened the area to pedestrian traffic and access to and from the media centre returned to normal.