التصنيف: estaql

As the war enters its 635th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, November 20, 2023.

Fighting

• The Ukrainian army said it has pushed Russian forces back as far as 8km (5 miles) from the banks of Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region. Ukrainian and Russian forces have been entrenched on opposite sides of the Dnipro for more than a year after Russia withdrew its troops from the western bank last November. Ukraine said last week it had made a breakthrough. “Preliminary figures vary from 3 to 8 kilometres (2 to 5 miles), depending on the specifics, geography and landscape of the left bank,” army spokeswoman Natalia Gumenyuk told Ukrainian television when asked how much progress Kyiv had made. She added that there remained a “lot of work to do”.
• The United Kingdom’s defence ministry said that there were “few immediate prospects of major changes in the front line,” saying neither Russia nor Ukraine had made meaningful progress on the battlefield. In a statement, it said that intense fighting was concentrated near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, Avdiivka in the Dontesk region, and on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
• Russia launched several waves of drone attacks on Kyiv for the second successive night, triggering air raid warnings. Ukraine’s Air Force said its air defence systems destroyed 15 of the 20 Shahed kamikaze drones targeting the Kyiv, Poltava and Cherkasy regions. There were no initial reports of “critical damage” or casualties. On Saturday, Russian drone attacks caused power outages in more than 400 towns and villages in the south, southeast and north of Ukraine.
• Five people, including a three-year-old girl who was outside with her grandmother, were injured in Russian artillery shelling of Kherson, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. One person was killed by shelling in the northeastern Sumy region.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded swift changes in the operations of Ukraine’s military as he met Defence Minister Rustem Umerov. Zelenskyy said “priorities were set” noting there was “little time left to wait for results”. Zelenskyy said he had also replaced Major-General Tetiana Ostashchenko as commander of the Armed Forces Medical Forces, saying the armed forces needed a “fundamentally new level of medical support”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Bohdan Yermokhin, an orphaned Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Russia from the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol during the war and prevented from leaving in March, has returned to Ukraine. Yermokhin, now 18, told the Reuters news agency his return was a “very pleasant gift”. Ukraine estimates about 20,000 children have been taken illegally by Russia. Zelenskyy welcomed Yermokhin’s return and thanked Ukrainian officials, international organisations, and particularly UNICEF, and authorities in Qatar for help in mediation.
• Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on 37 Russian groups and 108 people including two former Ukrainian top officials now in Russia for their alleged involvement “in the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territory” and individuals who “in various ways help Russian terror against Ukraine”.
• Pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting extremism, said he wanted to run for president. Also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, the former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer has repeatedly said Russia will face a revolution and even a civil war unless President Vladimir Putin’s military top brass fight the war in Ukraine more effectively. Girkin helped Russia to annex Crimea in 2014 and then to organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine.

Milei, a self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist’, has promised to slash public spending by 15 percent and abolishing the central bank.

Argentina has elected libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its next president, taking a chance on the eccentric economist’s programme of radical economic reform after decades of stagnation.

Milei’s win on Sunday heralds a dramatic shake-up of the Latin American country’s economy and institutions amid public anger over high inflation and record poverty rates under the centre-left Peronist coalition.

In the capital Buenos Aires, hundreds of Milei supporters honked horns, set off fireworks, and chanted his popular refrain against the political elite – “out with all of them” – as rock music played.

Economic Minister Sergio Massa conceded defeat as provisional results showed Milei with 56 percent of the vote to his 44 percent, with nearly 90 percent of votes counted.

“Obviously the results are not what we had hoped for, and I have spoken to Javier Milei to congratulate him and wish him well, because he is the president that the majority of Argentines have elected for the next four years,” Massa said.

Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist”, has promised a series of radical reforms, including slashing public spending by 15 percent, abolishing the central bank and switching the Argentinian peso to the US dollar.

The 53-year-old political maverick, whose abrasive style has drawn comparisons with former US president Donald Trump, has also staked out conservative positions on social issues, opposing abortion and sex education, and railing against political correctness.

He has also questioned the death toll under Argentina’s dictatorship, attacked Pope Francis, and denied that humans are responsible for climate change.

Milei’s red-faced rants against the “thieving and corrupt political class” struck a chord with Argentines, particularly young men, amid rising poverty and triple-digit inflation in the Latin American country, which has stumbled from economic crisis to crisis for decades.

“I think what moved me the most was the simple way he explained concepts,” David Urbani, a 20-year-old economics student at the National University of Mar del Plata, told Al Jazeera ahead of the election. “The guy is an academic, not a politician.”

Milei will face a daunting set of challenges when he takes office on December 10, including government coffers that are in the red, a $44 bn debt programme with the International Monetary Fund, and inflation nearing 150 percent.

Australia have won the Cricket World Cup for a record-extending sixth time, ending India’s dominant run in its home tournament with a six-wicket victory in a low-scoring final on the back of Travis Head’s 137.

A heavily partisan crowd inside the 132,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, India was silenced as Head, the player of the match, combined with Marnus Labuschagne (58 not out) in a 192-run partnership to chase down the target of 241.

“Not in a million years did I think that would happen,” Head said as his teammates celebrated their victory against an India side who had stormed into the final as the only unbeaten side of the tournament.

“What an amazing day. I’m just thrilled to be a part of it.”

The Indians, led by skipper Rohit Sharma, won all 10 of their matches before the final and were seeking a third trophy in their fourth appearance in a title match that brought a country of 1.4 billion people to a virtual standstill.

India, despite their vast riches, are without a global title since the 2013 Champions Trophy.

“Rohit Sharma was probably the unluckiest man in the world,” said Head.

Australia finished the 2023 tournament with a run of nine straight wins, after starting with back-to-back defeats to India and South Africa. India won the World Cup in 1983 and 2011. Its last major success was winning the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy in 2013.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were the longest-married presidential couple, having wed in 1946 when he was 21 and she was 18.

Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady of the United States and the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as president, has died at age 96.

The Carter Center on Sunday said she “died peacefully, with family by her side” at her rural Georgia home of Plains after living with dementia and suffering many months of declining health.

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Carter said in a statement.

“She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were the longest-married presidential couple, having wed in 1946 when he was 21 and she was 18.

After his term ended in 1981, he also enjoyed more post-White House years than any president before him and she played an instrumental role during those years, including as part of the nonprofit Carter Center and the Habitat for Humanity charity.

She was seen as unassuming and quiet before coming to Washington in 1977 but developed into an eloquent speaker, campaigner and activist.

Her abiding passion, which carried far beyond her White House years, was for those living with mental illness, not because of any personal connection but because of a strong feeling that advocacy was needed.

Before Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976, Roslynn was largely unknown outside of Georgia, where her husband had been a peanut farmer-turned-governor.

A Democrat, he served one four-year term, losing his 1980 re-election bid to Ronald Reagan, a Republican former California governor and Hollywood actor.

In Washington, DC, the Carters were a team, with the president calling her “an extension of myself” and “my closest adviser”. She was often invited to sit in as an observer at Cabinet meetings and political strategy discussions.

In a 1978 interview with magazine editors, Carter said he shared almost everything with his wife except top-secret material. “I think she understands the consciousness of the American people and their attitudes perhaps better than do I,” he said.

The first lady also was sent on important official missions to Latin America and was part of the unsuccessful campaign for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution to ensure equal treatment of women under the law.

The Iranian hostage crisis – in which American diplomats and others were held captive in Tehran after the Islamic revolution – occurred when Carter was seeking re-election. The crisis contributed to the downfall of his presidency as he refrained from campaigning while trying to resolve the standoff.

During that time, Rosalynn Carter sought to support her husband by speaking in 112 cities in 34 states during a 44-day tour.

Her speeches and forays into crowds were credited with helping Carter defeat Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy in the 1980 primaries, although he went on to lose overwhelmingly to Reagan in the general election.

Her interest in mental health issues stemmed from the early 1970s when she began to realise the depth of the problem in Georgia and the reluctance of people to talk about it.

As first lady of Georgia, she was a member of a governor’s commission to improve services for the mentally ill.

The Israeli army claims it has uncovered a tunnel shaft under the beleaguered al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza.

In a statement on Sunday, the army said it found a 55-metre-long (180 ft), 10-metre-deep (32 ft) tunnel under Gaza’s largest medical facility, which has been under siege by Israeli troops for several days.

The army published a video on its official Telegram channel showing a soldier lowering himself into the tunnel. The footage was shot with two separate cameras on November 17, it said.

The videos show a staircase leading to an arched concrete passage that ends in what appears to be a door. The army says it is the entrance of the tunnel shaft with “a blast-proof door and a firing hole”.

According to the statement, the tunnel was found “in the area of the hospital underneath a shed alongside a vehicle containing numerous weapons including RPGs, explosives, and Kalashnikov rifles”.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters the entrance was uncovered when a military bulldozer knocked down the outside wall of the hospital complex and found a fortified shaft with a spiral staircase descending 10 metres.

“It’s a huge one which has metal [spiral] stairs, then it goes along for 55 metres… and reaches a blast door,” said Hagari, indicating that troops had not yet tried to open the door for fear it would be booby-trapped.

Beyond the door, intelligence suggested either the tunnel would split or there would be “a big room for command and control”, he added, saying troops would continue searching the area as there could be access shafts from nearby houses.

Israel has made al-Shifa Hospital a focal point of its operations since the army entered it on Wednesday, claiming it harbours a Hamas command centre – a claim Hamas as well as staff working at the hospital have denied.

“It’s probably one out of dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of tunnels. We all know there are tunnels in Gaza,” Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said.

“The problem is not finding a tunnel. The problem is the Israeli excuse – and their supporters in London and Washington too – that there was ‘a city under a city’.”

Israeli occupation forces breached the surgical department of Al Shifa Hospital today, staying for over 5 hours.
Medical staff and patients endured an unwarranted investigation, resulting in humiliation. One patient was arrested. Urgently calling on the @UN United Nations and…

— Ahmed El Mokhallalati (@AMokhallalati) November 19, 2023

The Israeli army on Sunday also said that a captive soldier was executed and two foreign captives held at al-Shifa Hospital. The army is searching for some 240 people Hamas kidnapped to Gaza after the October 7 cross-border assault.

One of the hostages was a 19-year-old Israeli army conscript, Noa Marciano, whose body was recovered near al-Shifa last week. Hamas said she died in an Israeli air strike and issued a video that appeared to show her corpse, unmarked except for a head wound.

The Israeli military said a forensic examination found she had sustained non-life-threatening injuries from such a strike.

“According to intelligence information – solid intelligence information – Noa was taken by Hamas terrorists inside the walls of Shifa hospital. There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist,” Hagari said without elaborating.

In his televised briefing, Hagari said Hamas attackers had also brought a Nepalese and a Thai captive, among foreign workers seized in the October 7 raid, to al-Shifa. He did not name the two hostages.

Hamas did not immediately comment on Hagari’s statements. It previously said it took some hostages to hospitals for treatment.

At least 13,000 Palestinians, 5,500 of them children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its air and ground assault, the Gaza health ministry said.

The siege of al-Shifa Hospital, the focal point of the six-week “genocide”, has sparked international outcry, with the World Health Organization describing it as a “death zone” when its team visited the facility on Saturday.

More than 7,000 people, including patients in critical condition and newborn babies fighting for their lives, were sheltered inside al-Shifa before those who were able to move were forced out this weekend.

Thirty-one premature babies were evacuated on Sunday and taken to the European and Nasser hospitals in the south of the Gaza Strip.

According to reports from medical staff inside al-Shifa, some patients remain at the hospital and were interrogated earlier on Sunday.