EGN NEWS DESK
Israel withdraws some troops
The Israeli navy mentioned it withdrew a division of floor troops from southern Gaza yesterday. The transfer raised questions on its plans because the conflict reached the six-month mark — Israeli media reported that the withdrawal meant there have been no Israeli troops actively maneuvering in southern Gaza.
It was unclear what the newest drawdown of forces meant for the prospect of an Israeli floor offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost metropolis. Israel has considerably diminished the variety of troops it has on the bottom over the previous a number of months. Only a fraction of the troopers that it had deployed within the territory earlier within the conflict stay.
Israel has routed Hamas in a lot of Gaza, and preventing appears to have slowed. But the battle is being drawn out by Israel’s reluctance to both maintain floor it has captured or switch its management to an alternate Palestinian management.
The withdrawal got here as worldwide mediators have been set to satisfy in Cairo to choose up stalled negotiations on a short lived cease-fire and the discharge of hostages held within the enclave. At the identical time, issues have mounted that Iran will retaliate for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed senior commanders of Iran’s elite Quds Force.
Mexico breaks ties with Ecuador
Mexico severed its diplomatic ties with Ecuador on Friday after Ecuadorean police arrested an Ecuadorean politician, Jorge Glas, who had been granted political asylum in Mexico’s embassy in Quito, the capital. The subsequent day, Nicaragua additionally introduced it was suspending its diplomatic relationship with Ecuador, characterizing the arrest as “neo-fascist political barbarity.”
That arrest, which Mexico described as a “violation” of its sovereignty, capped days of rising tensions between the international locations. Ecuador has thought-about Glas, a former vice chairman, a fugitive, and mentioned its police power was appearing on an arrest warrant for him.
Glas: He was convicted of bribery in two separate instances and fled to the embassy after going through extra embezzlement costs.
30 years after Rwanda’s genocide
Rwanda noticed the thirtieth anniversary of the devastating genocide within the central African nation, a 100-day rampage by which extremists from the ethnic Hutu majority killed 800,000 individuals — most of them ethnic Tutsis, a minority group.
The daylong tribute included a wreath-laying ceremony on the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the ultimate resting place for the stays of over 250,000 victims. “Rwanda was utterly humbled by the magnitude of our loss, and the teachings we realized are engraved in blood,” President Paul Kagame, who led Tutsi rebels throughout the genocide, mentioned yesterday.
Context: Rwanda has made spectacular features in maternal mortality, poverty, training and well being entry. But ethnic divisions persist underneath Kagame, an iron-fisted president who has dominated the nation ever because the genocide. He is up for election this yr and is anticipated to win one other seven-year time period.
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The Australia Letter: All hail the banh mi.
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Today’s whole eclipse
Today, a complete photo voltaic eclipse will transfer throughout North America. The path of totality — the strip the place the moon will utterly obscure the solar — begins in Mazatlán, Mexico. It crosses over greater than a dozen U.S. states, from Texas to Maine, and ends in Newfoundland, Canada.
Millions plan to look at the couple of minutes when the moon completely blocks out the solar and darkness swallows the sunshine. (At least, they hope to: Anxiety is constructing with cloudy forecasts.)
Some fanatics booked lodge rooms years forward, and lots of took day off work to see the awe-inspiring occasion. “It is a gift reminder to everybody, on the identical day, that life could be magical,” my colleague Elizabeth Dias wrote.
