Russia and North Korea have a lopsided deal, with Moscow reaping far greater support for its war in Ukraine than the benefits received by Pyongyang, according to a study. Published by German think tank Friedrich Naumann Foundation on Thursday, Unequal Partnership reports that North Korea has delivered up to $9.8bn worth of weapons, as well as fighters, to Russia since 2023. Pyongyang's gains may amount to as little as an estimated $457m to $1.19bn.
The BDS movement was officially founded in 2005 by Omar Barghouti. Just as it is factual to say that Israel is currently committing war crimes in Gaza, it is also factual to say that by any objective measure BDS has failed. Over the last 20 years international pressure has successfully stifled Israeli exports, but during that period the government of Israel has become more isolated and authoritarian, as conditions in Palestine have deteriorated, first slowly, and then with horrifying speed.
After the fortnight the prime minister has had, a spot of rarefied pageantry is just the ticket. The government weathered a three-hour monsoon of questions in the Commons on Tuesday, which amounted to MP after MP asking why on earth Lord Mandelson was appointed as our man in Washington in the first place, and then why it took so long for Sir Keir Starmer to realise his position was untenable.
He offered the BBC the rights to broadcast it live, but the corporation was nervous. Mandela had been in jail since 1962 and, to the extent that he was a well-known figure, he had been branded a terrorist. Hollingsworth met BBC executive Alan Yentob, who was wavering. Alan, Tony said, you've got to bite the bullet. Eventually Yentob agreed, replying: I'll give you five hours. If the bill improves, I'll increase the time.
Some of this bashing is never enough for you, you see. It doesn't matter how critical journalists are about Israel, it will never be enough for you. Because you want the rightyou want the right to suggest that Charlie Kirk was the subject of a hit job by Israel. You want the world to think that. That's why you said what you said.
China's annual international security gathering in Beijing is the first since the start of US President Donald Trump's second term. The event is part of Beijing's bid to bolster its recent power projection efforts in "upholding international order." The Xiangshan Forum, which runs from Wednesday to Friday, is widely regarded as China's answer to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier annual security gathering in Singapore, typically attended by minister-level officials from Western countries, including the United States and its allies.
There have been many times in American history when celebrations of the country's multi-ethnic, ever-changing demography served as powerful counterweights to narrow, exclusionary, nationalisms. In 1855, for example, the publication of Brooklyn native Walt Whitman's offered a "passionate embrace of equality," writes Song of Myself Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, "the soul of democracy."
Doha, Qatar Foreign dignitaries from across the Arab and Muslim world have gathered in Doha, and observers are expecting them to deliver a decisive response to Israel after its attack on Qatar. The emergency summit of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) opens on Monday, a day after foreign ministers from the participating states met behind closed doors in Doha to hammer out a draft resolution proposing concrete measures against Israel.
The United States and China have reached a framework agreement to transfer TikTok's ownership to US control. Officials from both countries made the announcement on Monday. list of 4 itemsend of list The short-form video app was set to be banned in the US by Wednesday if its owner ByteDance did not agree to sell the company to a US-based operation or if the US did not extend a pause of the ban, which the White House has already done three times, most recently in June.
My country's capital was subjected to a treacherous attack targeting a residence housing the families of Hamas leaders and their negotiating delegation, the Qatari emir said in his opening speech at the emergency summit of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). list of 4 itemsend of list Our citizens were surprised, and the entire world was shocked by the aggression and cowardly terrorist act, he said, referring to the global condemnation of the September 9 attack that killed six people.
US political analyst John Mearsheimer argues that Israel attacked Qatar to preclude any closure to the war on Gaza. In the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Qatar targeting the leadership of Hamas, American political scientist John Mearsheimer argues, The Israelis are interested in making sure there are no negotiations that settle the conflict in Gaza. Mearsheimer tells host Steve Clemons that the United States and Israel basically act as a tag team, and despite a mild rebuke by President Donald Trump, the US supports Israel unconditionally.
I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, which he described as a letter to all NATO nations and the world. Trump proposed that NATO, as a group, place 50-100 percent tariffs on China to weaken its economic grip over Russia.
The veteran negotiators Hussein Agha, representing Palestine, and Robert Malley, an American diplomat, played instrumental roles in that long effort, including the critical Camp David summit of 2000. But, in their new book, "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," they conclude that they were part of a charade. "A waste of time is almost a charitable way to look at it," Malley notes bitterly. "At the end of that thirty-year-or-so period, the Israelis and Palestinians are in a worse situation than before the U.S. got so heavily invested."
Dalio described a future where humanoid robots, smarter than humans, and advanced AI systems, powered by trillions of dollars in investment, could render many current professions obsolete. He questioned the need for lawyers, accountants, and medical professionals if highly intelligent robots with PhD-level knowledge become commonplace, stating, "we will not need a lot of those jobs." This technological leap, while promising "great advances," also carries the potential for "great conflicts."
In 2015, a scrappy group of Hong Kong film-makers imagined what their semi-autonomous city could look like under the increasing influence of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental, reads the first scene in the opening credits. But decade on, many of the predictions made in Ten Years have, in some form, come to pass.
No matter where you are, Israel's long arm' may be coming for you next. And so Israel has struck again. On Tuesday, the Middle East's favourite perennial aggressor launched missiles against the Qatari capital of Doha, targeting Hamas leaders involved in negotiations surrounding a proposal from the United States for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli genocide of Palestinians has officially killed more than 64,000 people in less than two years.
Israeli-Russian academic and Princeton University student Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was held captive in Iraq for more than two years, was released earlier this week in an exchange deal with Israel, according to a report by Iran's Tasnim News Agency. Two prisoners, including a Lebanese national seized in 2024, were released by Israel in exchange for the freedom of Tsurkov, whom Tasnim described in its report on Thursday as an Israeli spy.