US to Israel: Stop shooting at UN peacekeepers in Lebanon – Newstrends
Connect with us

International

US to Israel: Stop shooting at UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

Published

on

US to Israel: Stop shooting at UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

US President Joe Biden has said he is “absolutely, positively” urging Israel to stop firing at UN peacekeepers during its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, following two incidents in 48 hours.

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops were responsible for the incident, in which two Sri Lankan soldiers for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) were injured.

IDF soldiers operating around the Unifil base in Naqoura identified a threat and opened fire, the Israeli army said, adding the incident would be investigated “at the highest levels”.

On Thursday, Unfil’s two Indonesian soldiers were injured falling from an observation tower after an Israeli tank fired towards it.

The leaders of France, Italy and Spain issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s actions, saying they were unjustifiable and should immediately come to an end.

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said it “strongly condemns” the IDF attack which injured two of its soldiers.

The head of UN peacekeeping said there was reason to believe some firing on UN positions in southern Lebanon had been direct, though he did not ascribe responsibility for the incidents.

“For example we have a case where a tower was hit by a fire and also damages to cameras at one of the positions – which obviously to us very much looked like direct fire,” Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

As Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon continues, the IDF and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah continued to fire missiles and rockets across the Israel-Lebanon border.

READ ALSO:

The IDF said it had detected about 100 rockets crossing into northern Israel from Lebanon within the space of half an hour on Friday. Two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were detected crossing from Lebanon, one of which was intercepted, the IDF said.

The Lebanese ministry of health said three people, including a two-year-old girl, were killed in an Israeli raid on the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon. Two Lebanese soldiers were killed after Israeli forces targeted an army post in the town of Kafra in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said.

In the capital, Beirut, emergency workers continued to comb through the wreckage of buildings hit by two Israeli air strikes on Thursday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attacks came with no warning and killed 22 people, all civilians, and injured another 117. Israel has not commented.

Israeli forces launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon last month as they escalated their response to rocket fire from Hezbollah.

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading near-daily cross-border fire since last October, when the Palestinian armed group Hamas in the Gaza Strip carried out a deadly attack in southern Israel.

The IDF has said the UN post struck in Naqoura on Friday was about 164ft (50m) away from the source of the threat identified by soldiers. It said it had told peacekeeping troops to stay in protected spaces at the time.

Unifil said Israeli military vehicles had knocked over barriers at another UN site in Labbouneh, closer to the border with Israel.

The incidents represented a “serious development”, it said.

Mikati said Friday’s attack was “a crime which is directed at the international community”.

Israel argues that Unifil has failed to stabilise the region, and has asked peacekeepers to withdraw northwards so it can confront Hezbollah.

READ ALSO:

The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, has reiterated Israel’s call for Unifil personnel to withdraw north by 5km (3 miles) to “avoid danger,” but the UN’s Jean-Pierre Lacroix said they would remain in position.

About 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries are stationed in Lebanon, alongside around 800 civilian staff.

Since 1978, they have patrolled the area between the Litani River and the UN-recognised boundary between Lebanon and Israel, known as the “Blue Line”.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on 8 October last year, the day after Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel. The Iran-backed group says it is acting in solidarity with the Palestinians and has said it will stop firing if there is a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Over the past three weeks, Israel has dramatically escalated its campaign against Hezbollah, intensifying air strikes against southern Lebanon and southern parts of Beirut, assassinating Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and launching a ground invasion.

Lebanon says more than 2,000 people have been killed, mainly in the recent escalation, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. This week Hezbollah rocket fire has killed two Israeli civilians and a Thai national, Israeli authorities say.

In a separate development on Friday, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying at least 30 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Jabalia town and refugee camp in the north of the Palestinian enclave.

The IDF has not commented on the issue.

Meanwhile, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said “thousands are trapped” in the Jabalia refugee camp, including five of its staff.

The MSF said Israeli forces had issued evacuation orders on 7 October in Jabalia, “while carrying out attacks at the same time”, meaning people could not leave safely.

Dr Mohammed Salha, the acting director of the al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, told the BBC’s Newshour programme the area had been under siege for seven days.

He warned that the hospital would run out of fuel on Saturday, as Israeli forces were “cutting Jabalia from the rest of Gaza”.

“No medication, no medical supplies, no healthy water, no fuel, so pressure, pressure on these people to move and go directly to the south,” Dr Salha said.

Israel has been conducting a new ground operation in the area, saying it is targeting regrouping Hamas fighters who aim to launch attacks, with dozens of people reportedly killed or wounded in northern Gaza in recent days.

US to Israel: Stop shooting at UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

BBC

International

Search for survivors continue as death toll in Myanmar earthquake exceeds 1,600

Published

on

Search for survivors continue as death toll in Myanmar earthquake exceeds 1,600

The death toll in Myanmar earthquake hit 1,644, the military government said on Saturday, according to BBC, CNN, Reuters and other reports.

In neighbouring Thailand, where the quake rattled buildings and brought down a skyscraper under construction in the capital Bangkok, at least nine people were killed.

Survivors in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city, dug with their bare hands on Friday in desperate attempts to save those still trapped, lacking heavy machinery and with authorities absent.

In Bangkok on Saturday, rescue operations continued at the site of the 33-storey tower’s collapse, where 47 people were missing or trapped under the rubble – including workers from Myanmar.

The US Geological Service’s predictive modelling estimated Myanmar’s death toll could exceed 10,000 and losses could exceed the country’s annual economic output.

A day after making a rare call for international assistance, Myanmar’s junta chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, travelled to hard-hit Mandalay near the epicentre of the quake, which brought down buildings and triggered fires in some areas.

Chairman of the State Administration Council instructed authorities to expedite search and rescue efforts and address any urgent needs,” the junta said in a statement on state media, referring to Min Aung Hlaing.

Airports closed

An initial assessment by Myanmar’s opposition National Unity Government said at least 2,900 buildings, 30 roads and seven bridges had been damaged by the quake.

“Due to significant damage, Naypyitaw and Mandalay international airports are temporarily closed,” said the NUG, which includes remnants of the elected civilian government ousted by the military in a 2021 coup that triggered the civil war.

The control tower at the airport in Naypyitaw, Myanmar’s purpose-built capital city, collapsed, rendering it inoperable, a person with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.

Hospitals in central and northwestern Myanmar were struggling to cope with the influx of injured people, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, warning that damage to roads was hindering access.

Seventeen cargo trucks of shelter and medical supplies were due to arrive on Sunday to address shortages of medicines, including blood bags and anaesthetics, the agency added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone with the junta chief, China’s embassy in Myanmar said on Saturday, and said Beijing would provide $13.77 million worth of aid, including tents, blankets and emergency medical kits.

The United States, which has a testy relationship with the Myanmar military and has sanctioned its officials, including Min Aung Hlaing, has said it would provide some assistance.

Relief supplies from India on a military aircraft also landed in Yangon, according to Myanmar state media, and India’s government said it was also dispatching ships with 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid.

Russia, Malaysia and Singapore were also sending planeloads of relief supplies and personnel.

Continue Reading

International

$100m coin collection buried for decades to be auctioned

Published

on

$100m coin collection buried for decades to be auctioned

A coin collection, much of which remained buried underground for over 50 years, is expected to surpass $100 million at auction, according to experts.

Named the Traveller Collection, this extraordinary assemblage is believed to be the most valuable coin collection ever brought to auction.

The coins will be sold gradually over the next three years, with the first auction set for May 20.

Beyond its immense value, the collection’s origins make for a fascinating tale.

Spanning over 100 territories and encompassing coins from ancient times to the modern era, the collection is being auctioned by Numismatica Ars Classica.

What sets it apart is that most of the coins remained hidden underground for half a century before resurfacing.

According to a press release shared with CNN, the anonymous collector behind the collection began acquiring gold coins after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Over time, he developed “a taste for coins with great historical interest, beauty and rarity” and eventually amassed approximately 15,000 coins.

During the 1930s, he and his wife traveled extensively across the Americas and Europe, acquiring rare and historically significant coins while meticulously documenting their purchases.

READ ALSO:

Despite settling in Europe at a time when Hitler’s Nazi party loomed over the continent, the collector sensed the impending danger. In response, he carefully packed the coins into cigar boxes, which were then placed inside aluminum containers and buried underground, where they remained undisturbed for five decades.

Among the collection is a 50 Toman coin, part of an “exceedingly rare” set minted in Tehran and Isfahan during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Continue Reading

International

AI will replace doctors, teachers, others in 10 years – Bill Gates

Published

on

Bill Gates

AI will replace doctors, teachers, others in 10 years – Bill Gates

Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft, has claimed that improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next decade may render humans superfluous for the majority of work.

In a recent interview with comedian Jimmy Fallon on NBC’s The Tonight Show in February, the billionaire philanthropist discussed how AI may take over many facets of life and business.

Gates remarked that expertise is currently “rare”, emphasising the continuous reliance on human specialists in industries such as medicine and education.

For example, we continue to rely on highly trained individuals, such as “a great doctor” or “a great teacher”, whose knowledge cannot be simply replaced by AI.

However, “with AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring,” Gates said.

READ ALSO:

In other words, Gates believes that the world is entering a new era of “free intelligence”, as he described in a recent interview with Harvard University professor and happiness specialist Arthur Brooks.

According to Gates, this transition will result in rapid breakthroughs in AI-powered technology, making them more accessible and affecting almost every part of our lives.

These breakthroughs will vary from more effective treatments and diagnoses to widely available AI instructors and virtual assistants.

“It’s very profound and even a little bit scary — because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound,” Gates told Brooks.

The discussion of how humans will fit into an AI-powered future continues.

Some analysts suggest that artificial intelligence will improve human productivity rather than completely replacing labour, hence driving economic growth and creating new jobs.

However, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman cautions that technological improvements in the coming years will disrupt the nature of most occupations across nearly all industries, potentially exerting a “hugely destabilising” influence on the workforce.

 

AI will replace doctors, teachers, others in 10 years – Bill Gates

Continue Reading

Trending