Last week, London signed a $4.6 billion deal to hand over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, while announcing a deal that will allow the U.K. to lease the strategic air base on Diego Garcia for £101m a year for “at least the next century,” which is also used by the U.S.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said last week that it shot down 485 drones launched from Ukraine in a two-day span that began on Tuesday evening and spanned across 14 regions.
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., said the quiet part out loud during an interview Thursday and argued that the U.S. should nuke Gaza like it did to Japan at the end of WWII because the Palestinians, as a people, are irredeemable.
Nicușor Dan, the newly elected president in Romania, said in an interview last week that his win was a mandate from his country to turn to the West and support Ukraine, the European Union, and NATO after presidential elections in Bucharest were canceled in December over allegations of Russian influence.
Diplomats from the European Union (EU) last week approved a new €150 billion weapons fund to help pay for the bloc’s military buildup amid what they see as a growing threat from Russia, and mixed messages about long-term support from Washington.
On 7 January, weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in, he told a press briefing that NATO countries were not paying their fair share for defense and floated the idea that Washington would not abide by its treaty obligations if these allies did not pump up their military spending.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said last week that Tehran would hold the U.S. responsible if Israel carries out military strikes on its nuclear facilities after a report emerged out of Washington that the Israelis have been planning an attack.
The Israeli military launched a missile strike on a home in Khan Younis that killed nine of 10 children of two Gazan doctors, which “encapsulates the ongoing genocide faced by the Palestinian people in Gaza,” according to the enclave’s media office.
Israel carried out new airstrikes across southern Lebanon last week, drawing criticism from the country’s prime minister, who urged the world to pressure the Israelis into respecting the ceasefire that was agreed upon in November.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pick to lead Shin Bet, Tel Aviv’s domestic intelligence service, has expressed opposition against any kind of hostage deal with Hamas to stop the fighting and called Gaza an “eternal war.”