Source: Reuters
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Friday 19 July 2024 10:11:35
Russia's Medvedev Says Ukraine Joining NATO Would Mean War
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the accession of Ukraine to NATO would be a declaration of war against Moscow and only "prudence" on behalf of the alliance could prevent the planet being shattered into pieces.
The leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation pledged at their summit last week to support Ukraine on an "irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership," but left open when that membership could happen.
Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and a leading voice among the Kremlin's hawks, told the news outlet Argumenty I Fakty that Ukraine's membership would go beyond a direct threat to Moscow's security.
"This, in essence, would be a declaration of war - albeit with a delay," he said in remarks published on Wednesday.
"The actions that Russia's opponents have been taking against us for years, expanding the alliance ... take NATO to the point of no return."
In a standard Kremlin line since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev said Russia did not threaten NATO but would respond to the alliance's attempts to advance its interests.
"The more such attempts there are, the harsher our answers will become," Medvedev said. "Whether this will shatter the entire planet into pieces depends solely on the prudence of (NATO) side."
Medvedev, who during his 2008-2012 presidency was regarded as a pro-Western moderniser, has reinvented himself as an arch-hawk, warning the U.S. and its allies that their arming of Kyiv could lead to a "nuclear apocalypse".
Medvedev also reiterated Moscow's line that the appointment of Mark Rutte as the head of NATO will not change the alliance's stance.
"For Russia, nothing will change, since key decisions are made not by NATO member countries, but by one state - the United States," Medvedev said.
NATO was created after World War Two as a defensive bullwark against a feared Soviet invasion of western Europe, but its subsequent inclusion of countries in eastern Europe has been viewed by the Kremlin as an act of aggression.