Iran on Saturday warned that “all Resistance Fronts”, a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.
The comment from Iran’s mission to New York comes with fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. The two sides have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the genocide in Gaza began.
Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides. Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.
In a post on social media platform X, the Iranian mission said it “deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon”.
But, it added, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue. All options, incl. the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”
Alongside Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, Houthi rebels in Yemen have repeatedly struck commercial ships in the Red Sea area in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has not recognised Israel since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s United States-backed Shah.
Fears of regional war also soared in April, after an air strike that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
Iran hit back with an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13-14.
Iran’s state media later reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan as US media quoted American officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.
Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) member Karnell Singh was caught on camera threatening Muslims after an incident involving a cow’s head near a Hindu temple in New Delhi.
In a viral video circulating online, Singh is seen issuing a chilling threat to “slaughter 200,000 Muslims” in the vicinity if the culprits are not arrested. He can be seen warning an officer that he (the officer) has 48 hours only to solve the issue, or else he “will hand a sword in the hands of Hindus”, and Muslims will not be spared.
His comments have escalated tensions amidst communal sensitivities, drawing widespread condemnation from various quarters.
The incident underscores ongoing communal tensions in India, where issues related to cows, considered sacred in Hinduism, often ignite debates and occasionally lead to violent riots.
War and funding shortfalls have hampered progress toward the United Nations’ flagship development goals which include action to combat climate change, the organization’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday.
In 2015, UN member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, 17 targets to transform the world by 2030 including by completely ending extreme poverty and eliminating hunger.
But Guterres said Friday that “the world is getting a failing grade.”
“Our failure to secure peace, to confront climate change, and to boost international finance is undermining development,” he told a briefing in New York, unveiling the latest progress check on the targets.
“We must accelerate action for the sustainable development goals, and we don’t have a moment to lose — only 17 percent of the targets (are) on track.”
Efforts to devote money and attention to the goals have been repeatedly set back, including by the Covid-19 pandemic, the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, worsening climate catastrophes and sharp increases in the cost of living.
While countries were lagging on progress in many areas, there were glimmers of hope in the reduction of new HIV infections, growing internet access, and the “booming” use of renewables, Guterres said.
But “the denial of basic needs for so many is outrageous and inexcusable,” he said.
Guterres said action to bring peace to the major conflicts raging globally coupled with efforts towards a green transition were needed.
“It means multiplying the lending capacity of multilateral development banks to provide more resources for climate action and sustainable development,” he added.
A fired-up Joe Biden came out swinging on Friday as he tried to make up for a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, insisting he was the right man to win November’s US presidential election.
Biden’s appearance at a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina came amid rumblings in his alarmed Democratic Party about replacing the 81-year-old as their nominee — and shortly before the nation’s most influential newspaper urged him to step aside.
“I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden admitted to supporters in unusually confessional remarks.
“But I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job,” he said to huge cheers, vowing “when you get knocked down, you get back up”.
Biden’s team was in damage-control mode after Thursday’s debate when he often hesitated, tripped over words and lost his train of thought — exacerbating fears about his ability to serve another term.
He had hoped to allay qualms about his advanced age, and to expose Trump as a habitual liar.
But the president failed to counter his bombastic rival, who offered up a largely unchallenged reel of false or misleading statements about everything from the economy to immigration.
On Friday, Biden delivered the lines Democrats wished they had heard in the televised debate.
“Did you see Trump last night? My guess is he set — and I mean this sincerely — a new record for the most lies told in a single debate,” Biden said.
“Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation. He’s a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat for everything America stands for.”
Trump also returned to the campaign trail on Friday, speaking at a rally in Virginia and launching his familiar attacks on Biden in a rambling speech.
“It’s not his age, it’s his competence,” Trump said.
“The question every voter should be asking themselves today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate performance, but whether America can survive four more years of crooked Joe Biden.”
A new Democrat?
Trump addressed the chances of Biden being replaced by another candidate, saying, “I don’t really believe that because he does better in polls than any of the (other) Democrats.”
So far, no senior Democratic figure has publicly called on Biden to withdraw, with most toeing a party line about sticking with the existing ticket.
“I will never turn my back on President Biden,” California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has figured prominently on lists of possible replacement candidates, said immediately after the debate.
Forcing a change in the ticket would be politically fraught, and Biden would have to decide himself to withdraw to make way for another nominee before the party convention next month.
Biden overwhelmingly won the primary votes, and the party’s 3,900 delegates heading to the convention in Chicago are beholden to him.
If he exits, the delegates would have to find a replacement.
“Bad debate nights happen,” Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, wrote on X. But the election is “still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself”.
A logical — but not automatic — candidate to take Biden’s place would be his vice president, Kamala Harris, who also loyally defended his debate performance.
The show of Democratic loyalty and Biden’s defiance in North Carolina were not enough for The New York Times, however.
The daily newspaper slammed Biden’s campaign as a “reckless gamble” in the face of the threat posed by Trump, with its editorial board — which is separate from the newsroom — calling for the president to stand aside.
The “greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election,” it said.
Many election bettors, too, abandoned Biden, preferring to bet on Trump or other Democratic leaders.
Before the debate, bettors on the platform Smarkets were giving Biden a 35 per cent chance of winning in November, but on Friday that figure dropped to below 20pc.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was hurt and angry that a supporter of the right-wing Reform UK party passed a racial slur about him.
Sunak, Britain’s first ethnic-minority prime minister, currently campaigning for the July 4 national election that his Conservative Party is tipped to lose after 14 years in power, was responding to the comments broadcast by a man identified as Andrew Parker, calling Sunak a “f***ing Paki” – a British racial slur for people of South Asian descent.
“My two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign for Nigel Farage calling me an effing Paki. It hurts and it makes me angry, and I think he has some questions to answer,” Sunak told reporters.
“I don’t repeat those words lightly, I do so deliberately because this is too important not to call out clearly for what it is,” he added.
Nigel Farage, the leader of right wing Reform party initially said he was dismayed by the language when the comments were first broadcast on Thursday. But on Friday he suggested, without providing evidence, that Parker was an actor involved in “a political setup” to undermine Reform during the election. Asked during a television debate when he would accept some responsibility, Farage said: “I am not going to apologise […] it is a setup, a deliberate attempt to smear us.”
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck off the coast of central Peru on Friday, the United States Geological Survey said, but a tsunami threat from the tremor has passed.
The USGS said the tremor hit 8.8 kilometers (5.5 miles) from Atiquipa district.
The quake was felt in Lima and a large part of the southern and central coast of Peru.
The mayor of Yauca, Juan Aranguren, told local media that walls came down in his town.
A major highway running through the area also suffered cracks, he said.
“The children were crying, the earthquake was felt strongly,” said a villager from the area.
Speaking to RPP radio, Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzen: “I want to convey tranquility. The earthquake has passed, we are making the first evaluations, and so far there are no fatalities to lament.”
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had earlier said “hazardous tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts” but later said the threat had passed.
Peru, with some 33 million inhabitants, lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a vast area of intense seismic activity that runs along the west coast of the Americas.
Peru is hit by hundreds of detectable quakes every year.
A badly wounded Joe Biden looked to get his reelection campaign back on track Friday after a debate performance that unnerved supporters and left allies of Donald Trump unable to conceal their glee.
Democrats had hoped to see the president defiantly answering critics who say he is too old for a second term while hammering Trump on his criminal record and the threat they say he poses to democracy.
Instead, many acknowledged, they got a faltering display from a candidate who sounded hoarse for much of the showdown, stumbled over words, pulled punches, often stared open-mouthed and looked confused.
“There are no two ways about it — that was not a good debate for Joe Biden,” Democratic former White House communications chief Kate Bedingfield told host network CNN as the curtain came down on the match-up.
David Axelrod, a senior advisor in Barack Obama’s administration, said Biden’s performance had “confirmed people’s fears” about an 81-year-old being too old for the Oval Office.
The president, who had spent days in mock debates at his Camp David retreat, was scheduled to begin the clean-up Friday with his largest event of the campaign, in the battleground state of North Carolina.
Facing tough questions over his performance and immediate future, he told reporters he had done “well” as he stopped off at an Atlanta Waffle House with First Lady Jill Biden after coming off stage.
He added that he was croaking because of a “sore throat” and that, in any case, it is “hard to debate a liar.”
Although Biden managed to pin down Trump on abortion rights and his role in the violence that marred the 2021 handover, he waited bafflingly long — almost 45 minutes — to bring up Trump’s felony convictions and other legal woes in any detail.
He spoke under his breath and appeared at times to lose focus, pausing for several seconds after stumbling in the opening stages.
Trump’s performance was far from accomplished — his verbal fusillades were littered with falsehoods and he dodged several times when asked what he would do about the opioid crisis ravaging middle-class families.
He also refused to clearly commit to accepting the results of November’s election, playing into the narrative that he has little respect for democracy or the rule of law.
CNN reported that while Biden made nine false or misleading statements, Trump made a staggering 30, including “egregious” falsehoods on abortion, the US Capitol insurrection, health care and NATO.
But the Republican — who is countering Biden’s rally with an appearance of his own in Virginia on Friday — largely avoided the rhetorical landmines that exploded under Biden.
At one point, the president bizarrely declared that “we finally beat Medicare,” as the discussion turned to funding the health insurance program for seniors.
As the disappointment of Biden’s showing registered with Democrats, there was even talk of finding a new candidate before the Democratic convention in August.
“There’s been a lot of chatter in our circles about Newsom,” one party strategist told political outlet The Hill — although California governor Gavin Newsom quickly shut down suggestions that he could take Biden’s place.
In the Trump corner, pundits reveled at how the night turned out.
Keith Nahigian, a Republican veteran of six campaigns who helped prepare multiple election candidates including John McCain for debates, told AFP that Biden’s performance was “the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Biden called for this debate a few months ago. He pushed for this debate. I think he just sunk his presidency,” he added.
Ralph Reed, chairman of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, compared the debate to a prize fight “that should have been stopped in the early rounds.”
An outdoor partial roof at Delhi airport collapsed early on Friday morning after heavy rainfall in the city, killing one person and injuring four others.
Videos online showed huge pillars erected to support the roof, smashing into cars parked along the airport’s main terminal.
Rescue operations are underway at the airport, and the injured are being treated in hospitals.
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu rushed to the airport after the incident
India’s aviation regulator has advised airlines to accommodate passengers on alternate flights or offer them full refunds.
Federal Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu has announced a compensation of two million Indian Rupees to the deceased’s family and 300,000 rupees for the injured.
On social media, many users pointed out that the terminal had undergone a massive renovation at the cost of billions of rupees and had been inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March – a month before the recent general election began.
However, Kinjarapu later said the portion that collapsed was not part of the renovated section.
Local police in the Maldives have arrested two serving ministers for allegedly performing black magic on President Mohamed Muizzu. Ministers Shamnaz Saleem, Adam Rameez, and two others were apprehended, reported international media.
Maldives Minister Fathimath Shamnaz Ali Saleem is the state minister for Environment, Climate Change, and Energy in the Maldives. Her ex-husband, Adam Rameez, was a minister at the President’s Office. On June 23, they were arrested and remanded in custody for seven days on charges of allegedly performing black magic.
“Shamnaz, alongside two other individuals, was arrested on Sunday. All three of them have been remanded in custody for seven days. She was suspended from her post on Wednesday as per the Environment Ministry,” news portal Sun.mv reported, adding that Rameez was also suspended on Thursday.
“Rameez, during his time at Male City Council, was known as a close aide of Muizzu, who was the mayor at that time,” Sun.mv said. “However, he has been absent from the public light in the past five months or so,” the report added.
Shamnaz and Rameez worked with Muizzu as members of the Male City Council when he was mayor.
The Maldives government has yet to make an official statement on this situation.
Background
After Muizzu was elected President last year, Shamnaz resigned from the Male City Council and later transferred to the Environment Ministry. Her role is vital in a nation facing the brunt of the climate crisis.
A 62-year-old woman was stabbed to death by three neighbours in April 2023 after she was accused of conducting black magic, aalthough the police investigation found her to be innocent, according to a local Mihaaru news website.
In 2012, during a crackdown on an opposition political rally, the police accused the organizers of hurling a “cursed rooster” at officers who were raiding their offices
Israel launched air strikes on Gaza Thursday after warning Hezbollah, Hamas’s ally in Lebanon, to avoid a large-scale war that would send the neighbouring country “back to the Stone Age”.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant made the comment during a visit to Washington, where he discussed the Gaza war, long-running efforts toward a truce, and ways to avoid a wider regional conflagration.
As cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have risen, Gallant stressed that “we do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario”.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during his visit to Washington this weekDrew ANGERER
“Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict massive damage in Lebanon if a war is launched,” he said of the fighter group.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded near daily cross-border fire since October 7.
But tensions have surged since Israel said this month that its Lebanon war plans are ready, sparking threats from Hezbollah that, in the event of all-out war, none of Israel would be safe.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Gallant this week that a war with Hezbollah could have “terrible consequences for the Middle East” and urged a diplomatic solution.
A Palestinian boy sits on a war-damaged road at al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 26, 2024Eyad BABA
UN humanitarian coordinator Martin Griffiths warned that Lebanon was “the flashpoint beyond all flashpoints” and that a full war would be “potentially apocalyptic”.
Germany has joined Canada in advising its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country, reiterating warnings first issued shortly after October 7.
In the latest clashes on Wednesday, Lebanese media reported about 10 Israeli strikes near the border, while Hezbollah claimed six attacks against Israeli military positions.
A US official said Washington was engaged in “fairly intensive conversations” with Israel, Lebanon and other actors and believed that no side sought a “major escalation”.
Meanwhile, the Gaza war at the heart of regional tensions ground on, despite comments Sunday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the “intense phase” of the assault on Gaza was nearing an end.
An Israeli Air Force F-16 Jet fighter aircraft flies over the border area between northern Israel and southern LebanonJACK GUEZ
Israeli air strikes overnight and early Thursday killed at least five people in Gaza City, said Gaza’s civil defence agency and Al-Mamdani hospital medics.
One person was killed when a warplane bombed a house in Beit Lahia, paramedics said.
Heavy fighting, artillery shelling and helicopter fire were reported Thursday around northern Gaza’s Shujayia market, as well as approaching Israeli ground vehicles.
Hamas’ press office in Gaza reported “a significant displacement of residents” there and said people “are fleeing to areas of refuge in Gaza City that are already overcrowded”.
An anonymous witness told AFP the situation was “very difficult and frightening in Shujayia after the arrival of occupation (Israeli) vehicles and air fire.”
“Residents are running through the streets in terror… a number of wounded and martyrs lie in the streets.”
A handout picture released by the Jordanian army shows humanitarian aid being airdropped from a military aircraft over southern Gaza on June 25, 2024-
Shelling also targeted Gaza City, sending plumes of smoke into the sky, and Israeli forces blew up several buildings in far-southern Rafah, witnesses said.
The Israeli military also said it had “attacked terrorists who were in a school complex in Khan Yunis” in the south, where the civil defence agency said it had recovered several bodies.
US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have voiced hope a Gaza ceasefire could also lead to a reduction in hostilities on the Lebanese border.
However, months of talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have so far failed as Israel has rejected Hamas’ demands for a permanent end to fighting and full troop withdrawal.
Israel has killed at least 37,765 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry.
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on June 25, 2024 shows an Israeli army tracked vehicle during operations in the Gaza Strip-
The war and siege have triggered a dire humanitarian crisis, with Gaza hospitals struggling to function and food, drinking water and other essentials hard to come by.
USAID officials said Wednesday that just 1,000 of the 7,000 tonnes of aid shipped from Cyprus to Gaza had been distributed, blaming looting and security problems.
Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is intense, said US doctors and nurses returning from the territory, who reported patients in the few remaining hospitals were dying in large numbers.
Israeli tanks seen in central Gaza, gunfire heard
One of the volunteer medics, former US army combat surgeon Adam Hamawy, said he had worked in many war-torn and natural disaster-hit countries in the past 30 years.
“But the level of civilian casualties that I experienced was beyond anything I’d seen before,” the 54-year-old told AFP.
“Most of our patients were children under the age of 14,” he said. “This has nothing to do with your political views.”
