Last month, China hosted closed-door meetings in Beijing between representatives of the Palestinian political parties Fatah and Hamas to push towards intra-Palestinian reconciliation and a united Palestinian leadership. While details of the meetings have been kept under wraps, leaks indicate that Azzam al-Ahmad headed Fatah’s delegation and Mousa Abu Marzook …

In the place of orchards, sandy beaches, and strawberry fields that were once the pride of Gazans, the coastal territory is now a dystopian landscape of military bases, craters, and ruins. “In northern Gaza, two-thirds of the land was agricultural – now there’s nothing left,” says Samar Safiya, a Gazan …

Four luxurious properties were purchased by Khudainatov’s longtime partner for a total of 26 million euros. A longtime romantic partner of Eduard Khudainatov, a Kremlin-linked Russian oil boss placed under sanctions by the European Union in June 2022, owns four villas in an upscale Austrian ski town, reporting by paper …

How Power Flows From the Systems That Connect the World Falling water levels in Panama’s Gatún Lake. A cyberattack on a payment platform. An earthquake disrupting silicon-chip production in Taiwan. Elon Musk deciding which countries have access to the Internet. At first glance, these things have nothing in common other …

The Power to Fight Without the Burden of Governing On May 6, in an effort to forestall an all-but-certain Israeli operation in Rafah, Hamas leaders said that they might be prepared to accept a hostage-for-prisoners agreement with Israel. Coming after weeks of stonewalling by Hamas, the announcement raised hopes in …

“The idea struck me to introduce the concept of a fatwa [during the 2004 nuclear] negotiations. There was no coordination [in advance],” Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator at the time recounted eight years after the incident. This was nothing short of a stroke of genius in shaping a false narrative about …

Was Xi Jinping’s first trip to Europe in five years a success? It certainly appeared that Xi’s visits to France, Serbia and Hungary, which had both a trade and a political agenda, were successful for the Chinese leader. Can we say the same for France, the EU or Europe? Well, …

Elsewhere, Czechia looks to toughen up EU migration pact as Hungary and Poland vote against it; EU Commission president visits Poland to talk defence; and hundreds of Slovak schools receive emails with bomb threats. In the same week that Chinese President Xi Jinping came to town, another less-heralded visitor to …

Israeli forces are re-clearing parts of the northern Gaza Strip, demonstrating that Hamas remains active beyond just Rafah.[i] The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a clearing operation into Zaytoun neighborhood, southern Gaza City, on May 8, marking the third time that the IDF has conducted a clearing operation there.[ii] The …

Hamas’ leaders have very likely calculated that Hamas will survive a Rafah operation and that Hamas should therefore pursue its maximalist ceasefire demands without major concessions. Hamas’ maximalist ceasefire demands appear to have solidified as the IDF drew down its forces in the Gaza Strip beginning in late December 2023.[i] …