(BBC News) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will launch an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah regardless of truce talks with Hamas.
It comes amid ongoing attempts to try to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage releases.
But at a meeting of hostages' relatives, Netanyahu said he would invade "with or without" a deal.
His comments follow renewed warnings by the US against a Rafah invasion unless civilians were properly protected.
In...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) A senior Hamas delegation has reportedly left Egypt’s capital Cairo where it was discussing a ceasefire proposal with mediators, Egyptian media reported.
Hamas has repeatedly said it will not accept a deal that does not include a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza – which have been major sticking points in negotiations.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that the Israeli proposal was an “extraordinarily...
(BBC News) Pedro Sánchez has said he will stay on as Spain's prime minister, following five days of speculation over his future.
Sánchez cancelled official engagements last week after a court opened an initial inquiry into his wife over corruption claims.
He denounced them as a harassment campaign by right-wing media.
"Expressions of solidarity from all sections of society" meant he decided to remain in office, he added.
A series of demonstrations were held around Spain over the...
(BBC News) Ukraine's commander-in-chief has said the situation on the frontline has worsened in the face of multiple Russian attacks.
Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from positions in the eastern Donetsk region.
Russia is trying to take advantage of its superiority in manpower and artillery before Ukrainian forces get much-needed supplies of new US weapons.
The US last week agreed to a $61-billion package of military aid for Ukraine.
But new US weapons are yet to make their...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Russia and Ukraine renewed attacks on energy infrastructure overnight, damaging plants and causing fires, officials from the two countries said.
The Ukrainian army said in its regular situational update on Saturday that Russia hit Ukraine with a “massive missile attack.” Energy Minister German Galushchenko also said in a Facebook post that the “enemy” had again attacked Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
“In particular, facilities in Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lviv regions were attacked. There is...
(BBC News) Iraq's parliament has passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relationships with jail terms of 10 to 15 years.
Transgender people could also be sent to prison for between one and three years under the new law.
Supporters of the changes say they will help to uphold religious values in the country.
Rights groups say they are a further black mark on Iraq's record of violations against LGBT people.
Those who promote homosexuality or prostitution, doctors who perform...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Palestinian group Hamas has said it remains committed to achieving an agreement with Israel to end the war on Gaza, but only if its conditions including a lasting ceasefire are met.
Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s political bureau, said that Hamas “is serious about releasing Israeli captives within the framework of an agreement” that ensures the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
He told Al Jazeera Arabic in a...
(BBC News) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned Washington will act if China does not stop supplying Russia with items used in its assault on Ukraine.
Speaking to the BBC in Beijing, the US's top diplomat said he had made clear to his counterparts they were "helping fuel the biggest threat" to European security since the Cold War.
He did not say what measures the US was prepared to take.
But Blinken was also keen...
The Simon Abundance Index (SAI) quantifies and measures the relationship between resources and population. The SAI converts the relative abundance of 50 basic commodities and the global population into a single value. The index started in 1980 with a base value of 100. In 2023, the SAI stood at 609.4. All 50 commodities were more abundant in 2023 than in 1980.
Figure 1: The Simon Abundance Index: 1980–2023 (1980 = 100)
The SAI is based on...
(BBC News) The US space agency says its Voyager-1 probe is once again sending usable information back to Earth after months of spouting gibberish.
The 46-year-old NASA spacecraft is humanity's most distant object.
A computer fault stopped it returning readable data in November, but engineers have fixed this.
For the moment, Voyager is sending back only health data about its onboard systems, but further work should get the scientific instruments back online.
Voyager-1 is more than 24 billion km...
