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Prominent groups, including traditional defenders of Israel, urge action on aid as Gaza humanitarian crisis worsens
‘We are dying slowly, save us’: starvation takes hold in Gaza after a week of appalling milestones
As global outrage intensifies over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a growing number of prominent Jewish American organizations, including some traditional defenders of Israel, are speaking out and imploring the country to ensure that humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza.
This week, a UN-backed food security group warned that a “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza and health authorities there report dozens of deaths from starvation.
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Witkoff says he is helping ‘craft a plan’ to deliver aid as UN reports that Israeli forces have killed 1,353 Palestinians who were waiting for food
Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has visited Gaza and been shown one of the controversial food distribution sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces.
Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy for the Middle East, had earlier met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, amid mounting international horror over conditions of starvation in Gaza occurring after months of Israeli-imposed aid restrictions.
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Russian president’s remarks come as Kyiv rescuers find more than a dozen dead in apartment block after strikes
Vladimir Putin has said he wants a “lasting and stable peace” in Ukraine but given no indication that he is willing to make any concessions to achieve it, after a week in which Russian missiles and drones again caused death and destruction across Ukraine.
“We need a lasting and stable peace on solid foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and would ensure the security of both countries,” said Putin, speaking to journalists on Friday, a week before a new deadline imposed by Donald Trump for hostilities to cease.
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Joe Biden has said ‘these are dark days’ in the US, and accused the Trump administration of ‘doing its best to dismantle the constitution’ with the help of the Republican-controlled Congress and the supreme court.
‘We see the apparent glee of some of our politicians while watching immigrants who are in this country legally torn from the arms of their family, dragged away in handcuffs from the only home they’ve ever known,’ the former president said
Joe Biden says US is facing ‘existential’ fight with marginalized groups ‘dramatically under attack’
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The two sworn enemies went to war twice over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan eventually captured in 2023
US president Donald Trump announced he will host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Friday for what he called a “Historic Peace Summit” aimed at ending decades of hostilities between the two former Soviet republics.
Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and president Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan “will join me at the White House for an official Peace Signing Ceremony,” Trump posted Thursday on his Truth Social platform.
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Nicolás Maduro was indicted in 2020 on federal charges of narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine
The Trump administration is doubling to $50m a reward for the arrest of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest narcotraffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said on Thursday in a video statement announcing the reward.
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US president contradicts reports Putin meeting Zelenskyy was a precondition of a US-Russia summit
Donald Trump has said he was ready to meet Vladimir Putin despite the Russian leader’s refusal to meet Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy – dispelling speculation that direct talks between the two warring presidents were a precondition to a high-level US-Russia summit.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said that Putin did not have to meet with Zelenskyy first before the US and Russian presidents could meet.
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Summit with Russian leader would follow ‘great progress’ made by special envoy Steve Witkoff during Moscow visit
Donald Trump could meet Vladimir Putin as soon as next week to discuss the war in Ukraine, White House officials have said, although senior aides warned that serious “impediments” remain to achieving a ceasefire.
Late on Wednesday, the US president told reporters at the White House, when asked when he would meet the leaders of Ukraine and Russia: “There’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon.” Trump said there had been no specific breakthrough leading to talk of a meeting but that US officials had been working on it for “a long time”.
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Clock ticking to secondary sanctions on Friday; majority still trust Zelenskyy but rating down after anti-corruption debacle. What we know on day 1,261
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia seemed “more inclined to a ceasefire” after a visit to Moscow on Wednesday by a US envoy. “The pressure on them works. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details – neither us nor the US,” Ukraine’s president said in his nightly address.
Despite the engagement, sanctions targeting Russian oil “are still expected to be implemented on Friday”, a senior Trump administration official said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. Separately, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said he did not want to exaggerate the progress made during Steve Witkoff’s talks with Putin. Many “impediments” remained, especially Russia’s territorial claims, and there was no concrete proposal for a ceasefire. There have been unconfirmed reports that the Kremlin could propose a halt to long-range strikes by both ..

State department condemns judge’s decision to place former Brazil president under house arrest as trial proceeds
The US has intensified its campaign to help Jair Bolsonaro avoid punishment for allegedly masterminding a failed coup, with the state department denouncing the decision to place Brazil’s former president under house arrest.
“Let Bolsonaro speak!” the department’s bureau of western hemisphere affairs tweeted on Monday night after the far-right populist was confined to his mansion in the capital, Brasília, and police seized his mobile phone.
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