Hamas accepts Gaza cease-fire; Israel says it will continue talks but presses on with Rafah attacks

Hamas said Monday it accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but Israel said the deal did not meet its core demands and it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Still, Israel said it would continue negotiations.

The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive — but only barely — for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the 7-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip. Hanging over the wrangling was the threat of an all-out Israeli assault on Rafah, a move the United States strongly opposes and that aid groups warn will be disastrous for some 1.4 million Palestinians taking refuge there.

Hamas’s abrupt acceptance of the cease-fire deal came hours after Israel ordered an evacuation of some 100,000 Palestinians from eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, signaling an invasion was imminent.

The Israeli military said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in eastern Rafah. Soon after, Israeli tanks entered Rafah, reaching as close as 200 meters (yards) from Rafah’s crossing with neighboring Egypt, a Palestinian security official and an Egyptian official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The reported incursion came a day after Hamas militants killed four Israeli soldiers in a mortar attack that Israel said originated near the Rafah crossing.

The Egyptian official said the operation appeared to be limited. The Associated Press could not independently verify the scope of the operation.

Israeli airstrikes also hit elsewhere in Rafah late Monday, killing at least five people, including a child and a woman, hospital officials said.

The Israeli military declined to comment.

Shortly after Hamas said it had accepted the Egyptian-Qatari truce proposal, Israel’s War Cabinet decided to continue the Rafah operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s office said. It also said that while the proposal Hamas agreed to “is far from meeting Israel’s core demands,” it would send negotiators to Egypt to work on a deal. Late Monday, Qatar announced it was sending a team to Egypt as well.

President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu and reiterated U.S. concerns about an invasion of Rafah. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said American officials were reviewing the Hamas response “and discussing it with our partners in the region.”

It was not immediately known if the proposal Hamas agreed to was substantially different from one that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed the militant group to accept last week, which Blinken said included significant Israeli concessions.

An American official said the U.S. was examining whether what Hamas agreed to was the version signed off on by Israel and international negotiators or something else.

Egyptian officials said that proposal called for a cease-fire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and partial Israeli troop pullbacks within Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal out of the territory, they said.

Hamas sought clearer guarantees for its key demand of an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal in return for the release of all hostages, but it wasn’t clear if any changes were made.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly rejected that trade-off, vowing to keep up their campaign until Hamas is destroyed after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

Netanyahu is under pressure from hard-line partners in his coalition who demand an attack on Rafah and could collapse his government if he signs a deal. But he also faces pressure from the families of hostages to reach a deal for their release. They say that time is running out to bring their loved ones home safely, and a ground operation would further endanger them.

Thousands of Israelis rallied around the country Monday night calling for an immediate agreement. About 1,000 protesters swelled near the defense headquarters in Tel Aviv. In Jerusalem, about 100 protesters marched toward Netanyahu’s residence with a banner reading, “The blood is on your hands.”

Israel says Rafah is the last significant Hamas stronghold in Gaza, and Netanyahu said Monday that the offensive against the city was vital to ensuring the militants can’t rebuild their military capabilities.

But he faces strong American opposition. Miller said Monday the U.S. has not seen a credible plan to protect Palestinian civilians. “We cannot support an operation in Rafah as it is currently envisioned,” he said.

The looming operation has raised global alarm. Aid agencies have warned that an offensive will bring a surge of more civilian deaths in an Israeli campaign that has already killed over 34,000 people and devastated the territory. It could also wreck the humanitarian aid operation based out of Rafah that is keeping Palestinians across the Gaza Strip alive, they say.

Israeli leaflets, text messages and radio broadcasts ordered Palestinians to evacuate eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, warning that an attack was imminent and anyone who stays “puts themselves and their family members in danger.”

The military told people to move to an Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi, a makeshift camp on the coast. It said Israel has expanded the size of the zone and that it included tents, food, water and field hospitals.

It wasn’t immediately clear, however, if that was already in place.

Around 450,000 displaced Palestinians already are sheltering in Muwasi. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it has been providing them with aid. But conditions are squalid, with few sanitation facilities in the largely rural area, forcing families to dig private latrines.

The evacuation order left Palestinians in Rafah wrestling with having to uproot their families once again for an unknown fate, exhausted after months living in sprawling tent camps or crammed into schools or other shelters in and around the city. Israeli airstrikes on Rafah early Monday killed 22 people, including children and two infants.

Mohammed Jindiyah said that at the beginning of the war, he tried to hold out in his home in northern Gaza under heavy bombardment before fleeing to Rafah.

He is complying with Israel’s evacuation order this time, but was unsure whether to move to Muwasi or elsewhere.

“We are 12 families, and we don’t know where to go. There is no safe area in Gaza,” he said.

Sahar Abu Nahel, who fled to Rafah with 20 family members, including her children and grandchildren, wiped tears from her cheeks, despairing at a new move.

“I have no money or anything. I am seriously tired, as are the children,” she said. “Maybe it’s more honorable for us to die. We are being humiliated.”

The war was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Palestinian militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted some 250 hostages. After exchanges during a November cease-fire, Hamas is believed to still hold about 100 hostages as well the bodies of around 30 others.

 

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia says it takes control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine

Russian forces have taken control of the settlements of Soloviove in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region and Kotliarivka further north in the Kharkiv region, the defence ministry said on Monday.

Ukraine's military made no mention of either locality in its evening General Staff report. Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Monday that Kotliarivka, located near the town of Kupiansk, was one of several locations to come under Russian shelling.

But Ukrainian bloggers appeared to acknowledge that both villages were in Russian hands.

DeepState, a popular forum on the war, noted on Saturday that Kotliarivka had been captured by Russian forces and on Sunday said the neighbouring village of Kyslivka was also in Russian hands.

DeepState reported that Soloviove, northwest of the Russian-held town of Avdiivka, had been taken by Russian forces last week.

Russia has made slow but steady advances since taking Avdiivka in February, with a string of villages in the area falling to Moscow's forces.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia makes new gains in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region – MOD

Russian forces have driven Ukrainian troops out of two settlements in Kharkov Region and Donbass, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has announced.

In a statement on Monday, the ministry said forces from Russia’s ‘Western’ group had seized the village of Kotlyarovka in the north of Ukraine’s Kharkov Region. The settlement is around 25km east of Kupyansk, described as a key Ukrainian logistics hub, the capture of which would allow Russia to advance directly on the city of Kharkov or support further operations in Donbass.

The announcement came after several Russian Telegram channels posted footage last week of what appeared to be Moscow’s troops holding a national banner in Kotlyarovka.

Meanwhile, the ministry said Russia’s ‘Center’ group of forces had also taken control of the Donbass village of Solovyovo, around 40km northwest of Donetsk. Solovyovo is near the key supply hub of Ocheretino, a village captured by Russia on Sunday.

Russian military blogger Boris Rozhin suggested that within days Moscow could announce the capture of Kislovka, a village near Kotlyarovka, as well as several other frontline Donbass settlements. This came after the pro-Ukrainian, US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) last week reported the presence of Russian forces in Kislovka.

The new gains in Kharkov and Donetsk Regions come after Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said in April that Moscow’s forces are fully in control of the battlefield situation and are steadily expanding their gains.

Aleksandr Syrsky, commander-in-chief of Kiev’s armed forces, admitted last month that the Ukrainian military is in a “difficult operational and strategic situation.” In similar remarks, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Vadim Skibitsky, said last week that Moscow “always knew April and May would be a difficult time for us,” adding that Kiev’s main problem is a lack of weapons.

 

Reuters/RT

“Fools at the top would cause damage to any system not to talk of the fragile institutions of a fledgling democracy.” – Charles Archibong, A Stranger in Their Midst: A Memoir, 97 (2021)

In the last week of April, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Olukayode Ariwoola co-convened and chaired a “National Summit on Justice” in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital. Addressing the participants “with a profound sense of responsibility”, the CJN invited them “on a journey of comprehensive reform to ensure that justice is not only dispensed but also perceived to be dispensed fairly and impartially.” More specifically, he asked them to identify “gaps and inconsistencies that hinder the efficient administration of justice.”

No issue is as afflicted with such gaps in knowledge and inconsistencies of practice and yet so dispositive of outcomes in justice administration as judicial appointments in Nigeria. Yet, it is the one area about which little is public and debate is discouraged.

On 21 December 2023, the Senate consented to the appointment of 11 new Justices of the Supreme Court, all of whom used to be Justices of the Court of Appeal. In addition to the 11 vacancies, mortalities and retirements combined to create a total of 22 vacancies that the NJC approved to be filled on the Court of Appeal bench. On 24 January, the President of the Court of Appeal (PCA), Monica Dongban-Mensem, with consent of the National Judicial Council (NJC) led by the CJN, wrote to all heads of courts in the country to request nominations to the Court of Appeal.

Three years earlier, when they met on judicial elevations to the Court of Appeal on 19 November 2020, the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) had approved a rule proposed by Dongban-Mensem, that “judges that had not spent up to five years on the Bench” and “those who would not spend up to five years if appointed before retirement” should not be considered.

On 2 April, the same FJSC approved 22 nominees by Dongban-Mensem for appointment to the Court of Appeal, including six from the North-Central; five from the South-East; four from the South-West; three each from the North-West and South-South; and one from the North-East. To reprise the formulation of Chief Justice Ariwoola, this list is full of “gaps and inconsistencies.”

One of the nominees from the North-Central is Eleojo Enenche from Kogi State. He was only appointed a judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in November 2021, from his then position as personal assistant to the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court. Enenche spent nine months attached to Olukayode Adeniyi, a senior judge of the same High Court. At less than three years as a judge of the FCT High Court, few of his cases would have come to judgment and it is unlikely that any of his judgments would have been tested on appeal. On any objective reading of the applicable criteria, this is at best a profoundly premature preferment.

Enenche is not the only one in this category. Sister-in-law to a senior politician and former junior to an influential Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Victoria Nwoye, the nominee from Anambra State, became a lawyer in 2005 and worked in the Customary Court system in Abuja before being sworn in as judge on 2 December, 2019. She is currently studying for an LL.M at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka, the state capital. Of the 30 judges currently in service in Anambra State High Court, she is dead last at number 30 in seniority and clearly below five years as a judge.

Born on 9 March 1959, Henry Aja-Onu Njoku, the nominee from Ebonyi State, does not have five years before mandatory retirement at 70. Nominated from Lagos State, Lateef Lawal-Akapo was born 6 August, 1959. From Nasarawa State and born on 2 November, 1959, Abdullahi Liman is currently the third most senior judge in the Federal High Court. None among these three has judicial shelf-life to spare to the Court of Appeal.

The applicable rules of the NJC require all judicial nominations to be accompanied by a “detailed medical certificate of fitness issued by government hospital or medical institution.” Although health information is ordinarily confidential, this requirement makes the health status of judicial nominees a matter of public interest and for good reason too.

In June 2023, Nyesom Wike, the husband of one of the nominees from the South-South, Eberechi Nyesom-Wike, publicly announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer in 2022. Ordinarily, cancer survivorship is computed at the threshold of five years post-diagnosis. It is proper and human to wish a cancer patient full recovery. It is a brutal and relentless disease. But it is doubtful that advancing a cancer patient to an equally relentless judicial office necessarily enhances the cause of their wellbeing (unless the administration of justice is not the primary consideration).

On this list of nominees to the Court of Appeal, Oyo State, which already has two Justices of Appeal, will receive another two, the only state to be so favoured. This will bring to four the number of Justices from the state from which the outgoing CJN hails. By contrast, Ogun State, which is also in the South-West, has only one Justice of Appeal – Adebukola Banjoko. In this round of appointments, they got none.

To understand the perverse incongruities in the Court of Appeal preferments, it is relevant to mention that there is also a contemporaneous process of hire into the bench of the FCT High Court. That list contains a daughter-in-law of the CJN, a daughter of the PCA, and a daughter of the current CJ of the FCT, among many judicial daughters on it.

It does not take a major feat of insight to figure out that the CJ of the FCT High Court, the PCA and the CJN are clearly doing mutual back-scratching in judicial appointments. The CJN gets whom he wants into the Court of Appeal and the FCT High Court in return for looking the other way with what goes on in the court systems run by the PCA and the FCT Chief Judge. Meanwhile, the FCT Chief Judge and the PCA square nomination accounts too. In so doing, these three arbitrarily retrench applicable rules and reduce judicial appointments to cynical transactions. There’s no need to add “for profit”.

A recent article about this CJN notes “his nepotistic appointments, especially his unbridled appetite for Iseyin-centrism and shamelessly keeping too much in the family.” Iseyin is the community in the Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, South-West Nigeria, from which the CJN hails. The author seems oblivious to the contradiction when in another breadth he invites his readers to commend the same man for “being prudent and transparent with public money.” It is too much to expect anyone to produce evidence of financial breach by a person whose auditor is his own blood brother.

But such evidence not necessary in order to show that the methods of the CJN and his coterie is corrupt. He sits at the top of what is clearly a conspiracy by those responsible to subvert the rules governing judicial appointments in order to prefer members of their own families or intimate networks. It is condemnable because it makes judicial appointments hostage to irrelevant considerations and the judiciary liable to capture. It also disincentivises honest, hardworking judges.

This is also a clear violation of Rule 11(iv) of the Code of Conduct for judicial officers in Nigeria, which requires that “in the exercise of his administrative duties, a judicial officer should avoid nepotism and favoritism.” The irony is that Olukayode Ariwoola would not be able to get away with this tendency if he were to be Adajo Agba (Chief Justice) of Iseyin or of Oke-Ogun. That is a sad commentary on the current state of the judiciary that he will leave behind when Olukayode Ariwoola departs from office on 22 August.

** Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a professor of law, teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and can be reached through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Richard Branson doesn’t want to be defined by his money.

Specifically, he finds it “quite insulting” when he is introduced as “the billionaire Richard Branson,” rather than as the co-founder of Virgin Group, he tells CNBC Make It. The reason: Nobody should view their net worth as an ultimate measure of success, and it’s “very sad” when making money is the sole focus of a person’s life, he says.

“Maybe in America, ‘billionaire’ is a sign of success, but that rankles me,” says Branson. “I think that your reputation is what you create.”

In Branson’s case, his reputation is often defined by Virgin Group, a venture capital and holding company that owns businesses in a wide variety of industries, from airlines and telecommunications to spaceflight.

The company is largely responsible for his estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, according to Forbes — but he chafes at the idea he created it to make money.

“Your reputation is [whether] your team of people who work with you are proud of what they’ve created,” Branson says. “Paying the bills at the end of the year is important, but what entrepreneurs are doing all over the world today — and the only reason they’re succeeding — is that they’re making a difference in other people’s lives. And that’s all that really matters.”

Whenever Branson launches a new venture — citing Virgin Atlantic in 1984 and Virgin Mobile in 1999 — he asks himself two questions, he says:

• If I create this, can it be better than what everybody else is doing?
• Can it make a real difference in the world?

Financial success has often followed, but Branson is adamant that money has never been his chief motivating force.

His first successful business venture, a youth culture magazine called “Student,” was primarily meant to challenge “stale” traditional publications, Branson has noted. It tackled cultural issues like popular music and campaigning against the Vietnam War.

“I wanted it to survive. And yes, I wanted to have enough advertising to pay the printers and the paper manufacturers,” he says. “But money was certainly not the motivation for running a magazine.”

Branson’s top advice for becoming successful

Branson’s advice: Seek out opportunities you find interesting and exciting. It’s a recipe for greater happiness, and you’re more likely to end up successful than if you’re only thinking about the bottom line, he says.

“We only have one life,” says Branson. “We spend a lot of time at work and it’d be sad if we’re only doing it for our paychecks.”

Of course, success is never guaranteed. If you do follow your passions, you’ll still need factors like talent and perseverance on your side to avoid falling flat, experts say.

But Branson isn’t the only billionaire who advises that personal fulfillment doesn’t always have to come from amassing great wealth.

“Success isn’t necessarily how much money you have,” serial entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban told LinkedIn’s “The Path” podcast last year. “Success is just setting a goal and being able to wake up every morning feeling really good about what you’ve accomplished.”

Cuban, who grew up in a blue-collar family near Pittsburgh, has long held that his career path was dictated more by a desire to control his own time than any financial aspirations.

“Time is the one asset you can never get back. You can never truly own [it],” he said at SXSW in March. “I wanted to be ... in a position where I get to call my own shots [and] spend time the way I wanted to spend time. That was always my motivating factor.”

 

CNBC

Atiku Abubakar, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate for 2023, has voiced strong criticism against the handling of the Lagos-Calabar Highway project, alleging personal interests overshadowing national priorities.

In a statement released by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, Atiku condemned the lack of proper notification regarding the demolition of properties in the Oniru corridor, including parts of Lagos State's landmarks, for the construction of the Coastal Highway.

Atiku pointed fingers at President Bola Tinubu and Gilbert Chagoury, owner of Hitech, the project contractor, suggesting their close ties as the driving force behind the project's hastened progress. He raised concerns over procurement violations and conflicts of interest, notably Tinubu's son's involvement on boards of companies linked to Chagoury.

The former Vice President noted that “Tinubu’s son, Seyi, is a director on the board of CDK Integrated Industries, a subsidiary of the Chagoury Group, which manufactures ceramic tiles and sanitary wares.”

Says Atiku: “To add insult to injury, this project that is being done more than $13bn was awarded without competitive bidding. From all indications, the so-called Badagry-Sokoto highway would be awarded similarly at an enormous cost to taxpayers purely because Tinubu has put his interest ahead of the Nigerian people.”

Atiku emphasized that the rushed execution of the project, without competitive bidding and amidst Nigeria's economic crisis, raises red flags. He lamented the disregard for local businesses and proper planning, attributing it to Tinubu's prioritization of personal interests over national welfare. Atiku highlighted discrepancies in project coordination, environmental impact assessment, and funding, accusing the Tinubu administration of bypassing legislative approval. He warned of adverse effects on investor confidence and the nation's economic standing if such practices persist unchecked.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed a substantial reduction in banks' loans to the private sector, amounting to N71.21 trillion in March. This marks a notable decline of 11.93 percent or N9.65 trillion from February's figure of N80.86 trillion, as reported in the CBN's money and credit data.

However, on a year-on-year basis, there was a significant increase of 65.57 percent compared to March 2023's N43.01 trillion.

Concurrently, credit to the government also witnessed a decline to N19.59 trillion in March from February's N33.93 trillion, representing a month-on-month decrease of 42 percent. Yet, on a yearly basis, credit to the government rose by 28.8 percent.

These shifts follow CBN's continued monetary tightening efforts, including consecutive interest rate hikes since May 2022 and a recent downward revision of the loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) from 65 percent to 50 percent in April. The LDR adjustment aims to regulate banks' liquidity, impacting their ability to extend loans to both businesses and individuals.

Exactly seven days after President Bola Tinubu attended the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Special Meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he has yet to return to Nigeria. The forum, aimed at addressing global challenges, concluded on April 29th, 2024.

With no official statement from the Presidency regarding Tinubu's prolonged stay, speculation arises about his whereabouts. While some speculate he may be in Paris for medical reasons, credible sources indicate he traveled to London from Riyadh.

As par Daily Trust, o highly placed official at the Presidency confirmed Tinubu's presence in London but remained tight-lipped about the purpose of the visit, labeling it as private. Another official from the Presidential Villa assured that there's no cause for alarm, stating Tinubu would return to Nigeria "this weekend." Previously, Tinubu had visited the Kingdom of the Netherlands on an official invitation, engaging in high-level discussions and attending the Nigerian-Dutch Business and Investment Forum. His attendance at the WEF meeting in Riyadh aimed to address global economic policies, energy transitions, and geopolitical challenges.

Truce Talks Shift to Qatar as Hamas Hits Israel Border Crossing

Israel closed the Kerem Shalom humanitarian crossing into Gaza on Sunday after a rocket barrage was fired by Hamas, as weekend talks on a potential truce broke up inconclusively.

The status of the talks was unclear after the latest round in Cairo: Hamas officials said their negotiators had returned to Qatar to consult with the group’s political leadership. CIA Director William Burns was also leaving Cairo for consultations in Qatar, Reuters reported.

Israel and Hamas have been negotiating for weeks through mediators toward a potential truce that would include the release of hostages held in Gaza and of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. At the same time, Israel has threatened to launch an operation in Rafah, where it says Hamas battalions remain intact, and where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians are sheltering.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to have lunch at the White House on Monday with King Abdullah II of Jordan, underscoring the broader desire to contain the nearly seven-month conflict.

On the ground, the Israeli army said about 10 projectiles were fired at Kerem Shalom, a corridor for humanitarian aid transfers that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited last week. Israel has been criticized for not allowing enough aid into the Gaza Strip, where US officials say a famine is deepening.

Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility for the attack. Three Israeli soldiers were killed in the barrage and three others were seriously injured, the military reported. Israel says it isn’t restricting aid into Gaza.

The attack came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is prepared to temporarily halt the war in Gaza to gain the release of the hostages held there, but won’t agree to the Hamas demand to end the war completely. Israel’s defense minister warned that its forces continue to prepare for a potential assault on Rafah in southern Gaza.

Netanyahu’s cabinet on Sunday also approved a decision to shut down Al Jazeera’s broadcasts out of Israel under a recently-passed law, drawing condemnation from the Qatar-based network and the Foreign Press Association.

Netanyahu doubled down on his position on Sunday.

“We are not ready to accept a situation in which the Hamas battalions come out of their bunkers, take control of Gaza again, rebuild their military infrastructure, and return to threatening the citizens of Israel in the surrounding settlements, in the cities of the south, in all parts of the country,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday. Hamas, not Israel, is preventing a deal, he added.

Giving in to Hamas’ demands would be a “terrible defeat” for Israel, a huge victory for Hamas and Iran, and would project a “terrible weakness” to Israel’s friends and enemies alike, Netanyahu said.

This weakness would distance any further peace agreement, Netanyahu said, in an apparent reference to potential normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia.

Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement that the group, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US and European Union, brought “seriousness and positivity” to the current talks.

Netanyahu, he said, wanted to “invent constant justifications for the continuation of aggression, expanding the circle of conflict, and sabotaging efforts made through various mediators and parties.”

Hamas is still keen to reach a comprehensive agreement that guarantees the withdrawal of Israel forces and achieves a serious exchange deal of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, Haniyeh added.

In response, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he sees indications that Hamas doesn’t want a deal, which would open the door to “intense” military activity in Rafah.

“IDF forces are ready for a powerful operation all over Gaza and especially in the Rafah area,” he said in a post on X.

Earlier on Sunday, an air strike blamed by Lebanon on Israel killed four civilians and wounded two others in a village in south Lebanon, prompting Hezbollah to fire rockets back across the border.

Israeli warplanes targeted Mays al-Jabal, causing “massive destruction,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported. Theres was no comment from Israel.

Tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have fled their homes near the borders due to cross-border fighting. That erupted around the time Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and triggering the war in Gaza that’s destroyed much of the enclave and killed more than 34,000 Palestinians. More than 100 Israelis captured by Hamas are still being held in Gaza, although it’s unclear how many are still alive.

 

Bloomberg

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian attacks on Ukraine energy system caused $1 bln in damages - minister

Recent Russian massive drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian energy system have caused more than $1 billion worth of damage to the sector, Ukraine's energy minister German Galushchenko said on Sunday.

Since March 22, the Russian forces have been attacking Ukrainian thermal and hydropower stations as well as main networks on an almost daily basis, leading to blackouts in many regions.

"Today, we are talking about the amounts of losses for more than a billion dollars. But the attacks continue, and it is obvious that the losses will grow," Galushchenko said in a statement.

Galushchenko said the main damage was to thermal and hydro generation facilities, as well as power transmission systems.

"The system is stable for today, but the situation is quite complicated," he said, adding that thanks to favourable weather conditions, the energy system is currently being supported by wind and solar power generation.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Zelensky can’t ‘mobilize God’ – Russian church

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has no way to enlist God in his fight against Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church has said, rebuking a statement Zelensky made during his Easter Sunday speech.

In a video address, Zelensky described God as “an ally” of Ukraine who “has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder.”

“The Lord is not a resident of the Kiev region for Zelensky to mobilize him and put him in the Ukrainian army. His statements don’t merit any attention,” Vakhtang Kipshidze, the head of the Russian church’s public relations department, told news outlet news.ru.

Kipshidze further blasted the Ukrainian leader as “a non-believer” who “claims that he can decide for God whose ally he is.”

Kiev has stepped up the crackdown on its largest Christian church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), accusing its clergy of being “agents of Moscow.” The UOC renounced its historical ties with Moscow after Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian authorities have since launched criminal cases against more than 60 priests and seized a number of monasteries and other assets in favor of the state-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

Last year, the Ukrainian government introduced a bill that would pave a way for an eventual ban of the UOC. The legislation, however, has since been stalled.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has repeatedly condemned the campaign against the UOC, denouncing it as a violation of religious rights.

 

Reuters/RT

 

 

“One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to convince them steadily with propaganda that they are still free.” N. A. Scott, American author.

Every human being currently living on earth came to this world and saw the United States of America posing as the cradle of democracy, a bastion of freedom and a citadel of human rights.

For those of us in Africa, especially West Africa, and particularly those along the coastline, that America ruptured family cohesion, ties and lineage by forcefully taking our able-bodied forefathers and enslaving them, was either forgotten, forgiven, or both.

That after it was forced to abolish slavery by a changing world, it found a way to continue enslaving our able-bodied and intelligent youths in the name of providing greener pastures for them, which was either overlooked, not realised, or both.

As time went on, that it labelled those who wanted the best for their people as communists and demonised them, creating a bipolar world was either accepted as gospel truth by those who did not know the truth or parroted by those who were recruited to do that, or both.

That the then Eastern bloc (or communist/socialist countries), under the guidance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and its star boy, Fidel Castro of Cuba, all lined up to fight apartheid for African freedom was either lost on us or remained unappreciated, or both.

That Fidel Castro’s Cuba fought enslavers out of Angola for Angolans to taste freedom, training African youths in its universities and supplying Africa with medical doctors and free drugs while we still preferred to rush to America where we paid for everything through the nose reflected our slave mentality or lack of capacity to embrace truth, or both.

Truth is, we all grew up looking up to Uncle Sam as someone who cared for us in the third world, even when it was propping up the apartheid regime in South Africa or being a pillar of support to Ian Smith in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) and Zambia (Northern Rhodesia). Many of us did not see anything wrong in its support for Joshua Nkomo against the pan-Africanist Robert Mugabe.

For a long time, America has been working on the psyche of youths, especially in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the communist/socialist countries to make them see their society as primitive and America as modern. The youths see their cultures and traditions as backward and archaic, their religion as stories of old, and Western depravity as the new religion.

It found a way in 1989 to infiltrate and brainwash Chinese students to rise against their country, demanding "political and economic reforms and greater respect for human rights". The protesters gathered in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, where they were forcefully evicted by military units, who killed a lot of them.

Tiananmen Square, or Tian’anmen Square, is a city square, measuring 765 x 282 metres, in the city centre of Beijing, meaning “Gate of Heavenly Peace''. The square contains the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, who proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China in the square on October 1, 1949. It has great cultural significance in Chinese history.

America and its Western allies and propaganda machines did not allow what happened in China to be swept under the carpet or forgotten easily. It kept hammering on China’s “evil of repression”, that it emasculated and silenced the voice of the voiceless because that’s what students are. It told the world that China was an enemy of freedom, free speech, free association and democracy which it proclaimed as the only acceptable world order, despite its dalliance with repressive, autocratic and monarchic regimes, around the world.

Now fast-forward to 2024 and the pinching shoe is in America’s feet. Its students in no fewer than 15 universities and counting, with Columbia University in the lead, are protesting with the battle cry “Free, Free Palestine” for the freedom of Palestine that has been under Israel's subjugation for decades.

America, the self-acclaimed doyen of freedom of association and speech, the guardian angel of democracy, is cracking down on the students for freely associating and using free speech to seek the freedom of another country. So far, scores of them have been arrested, some suspended, and some dismissed outright, while lecturers have been threatened with sack if they showed any sort of support to the students’ cause.

But that will hardly deter academics used to free speech as a first nature. One professor in the university bravely declared: “This is about a genocide being carried on with American money and with American weapons, against a people enduring generations of occupation.”

In a cheeky, and poignant, role reversal, Iran, which had suffered American instigation of its youths over time and had to deal with as it deemed fit, called on the US not to jeopardise democracy, freedom of association and free speech.

Shiraz University, a globally ranked university in Iran, just announced that it will grant scholarships to the students of American and European universities who have been expelled for supporting Palestine. It is also going to hire professors who have been fired or threatened with sacking for their stance towards Palestine.

Before the breeze blew and we saw the anus of the fowl, this was what America was doing to others all over the world - instigating youths against their fatherland, and when the country attempted to rein in its citizens, they would cry foul. They will then dole out scholarships, grants or work and Green Cards to those who fought against their country and its system.

In the words of Samuel P. Huntington, an American political scientist and academic, "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion...but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do."

Now America is receiving a dose of its medicine and it has failed to behave better than those countries it accused of truncating democracy, free association, free speech and human rights abuses.

Truth, it is said, is the only one that lasts. Falsehood and hypocrisy are just as temporary as the time it will take to blindfold the people.

What America is showing the world today is exactly the echo of the time immemorial words of Abraham Lincoln, its 16th president, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared slaves forever free: “You can fool some of the people for all of the time, and all of the people for some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people for all of the time.”

** Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime.