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Blinken visits the Middle East
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Baghdad yesterday, showing his support for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani and sending a message to Iran about the Biden administration’s commitment to defending its personnel .
Blinken’s Middle East trip is aimed at containing the fallout from Israel’s war against Hamas and deterring Iran and its proxies (particularly Hezbollah, the armed group that controls parts of Lebanon along Israel’s northern border). of entering the conflict. These maps show where border clashes have escalated.
The officials said the Biden administration has sent messages to Iran and Hezbollah through regional partners that the United States would be prepared to intervene militarily against them if they launched attacks on Israel.
Earlier in the day, Blinken traveled to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the internationally backed Palestinian Authority. Blinken and Abbas discussed efforts to restore calm in the West Bank, where attacks by the Israeli army and deadly attacks by armed Israeli settlers have increased since the October 7 assault.
In Israel on Friday, Blinken privately outlined several measures to reduce civilian casualties in his military campaign, including the use of smaller bombs. Israel used at least two 2,000-pound bombs during an airstrike last week in Jabaliya, a densely populated area just north of Gaza City, according to a New York Times analysis.
Burst: An explosion overnight Saturday in a densely populated refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip destroyed several buildings and appeared to have killed and injured many people.
In Israel: Leaders and diplomats have quietly tried to rally international support for the transfer of several hundred thousand civilians from Gaza to Egypt for the duration of the war, raising Palestinian fears of permanent expulsion.
In the USA: Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Ohio, Utah, California and Washington, DC to denounce the scale of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Militants attack an air base in Pakistan
The Pakistani military said it had successfully repelled an attack by militants on the Mianwali Air Training Base in central Pakistan on Saturday. But the episode, which came on the heels of another brazen attack on the military, has renewed concerns about the country’s precarious security situation.
Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan, a shadowy militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack. The claim could not immediately be verified. The attempt to storm the air base came a day after 14 soldiers traveling in a convoy were ambushed and killed in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
Context: Extremist violence in Pakistan has increased substantially since the Taliban took control of neighboring Afghanistan in 2021, and defense analysts have noted a worrying trend of increased attacks on military targets.
A new push for divorce in the Philippines
Thousands of people are trapped in long-dead marriages in the Philippines, the only country in the world besides the Vatican where divorce remains illegal. High legal fees and reams of paperwork make an annulment virtually impossible for many.
But attitudes in the country, where almost 80 percent of the population is Catholic, have changed and the president has shown signs of being open to the idea. That has led some in the legalization camp to reframe divorce as a basic human right, like access to health care or education.
Background: This approach departs from the previous strategy of sharing personal stories in hopes of gaining sympathy from lawmakers. Now, activists are using science and statistics to present the long-term effects of keeping divorce illegal on millions of battered women.
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The rise of space junk
Earth’s orbital environment is no longer the realm of innovation and discovery. It is a resource that is at stake and that is being monopolized with impunity.
The number of satellites in orbit has increased more than tenfold since 1998, reaching approximately 8,500. Megaconstellations of satellites streak across a sky littered with man-made space debris moving at 17,500 miles per hour.
This crowding can hinder astronomical research carried out with ground-based telescopes. It also increases the risk of collisions in space and a scenario known as Kessler syndrome, in which Earth’s orbital space becomes so crowded that collisions cascade until it is no longer usable.