Category World News

The GHF stated in a statement posted on Facebook that it would “share information on opening times as soon as work is finished” and that its “distribution sites will not open as early as” Thursday morning.

The GHF also strongly advised aid seekers traveling to its locations to “follow the routes” the Israeli military had set out to ensure safe passage.

While “reorganisation work” was being carried out, the Israeli military warned Palestinians on Wednesday to avoid approaching GHF aid distribution sites, stating that access roads to those locations would be “considered combat zones.”

Since the GHF distribution sites are still closed for a second day, it seems that Israel’s military hasn’t issued any new instructions regarding the safety of them.

Israeli forces fired four rockets at Palestinians seeking aid early on Tuesday as they began distribution of food supplies in Gaza.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the Israeli attack claimed the lives of at least 27 people and injured about 90 more.

At least 31 people were killed and more than 150 were hurt when Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of aid seekers in Rafah on Sunday, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency. On the same day, one person was also fatally shot at a second aid distribution facility in central Gaza, south of the Netzarim Corridor.

Then, on Monday, when Israeli forces opened fire again near the Rafah distribution center of the GHF, killing three more people and injuring about 30 others.

Mass casualty incidents that are “Unprecedented” are unprecedented

The Israeli military had refuted reports that its troops shot at civilians Sunday near or within the GHF aid distribution center, saying only that its forces fired warning shots at those who didn’t use “designated access routes.”

The soldiers only fired at people who “were approaching in a way that endangered” the soldiers, according to Effie Defrin, a spokesperson for the Israeli army.

The GHF, which began chaotic aid distribution operations on May 26, has also labeled reports of aid seekers being killed in large numbers “outright fabrications,” claiming it has not yet seen any evidence of an attack at or near its facilities.

Following Sunday’s attack, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed that it had received “a mass casualty influx of 179 cases,” including 21 patients who were “declared dead upon arrival.” According to the group, there were both women and children among the victims, with the majority of them suffering “gunshot or shrapnel wounds.”

Palestinians in Gaza are “afflicted by an unprecedented scale and frequency of recent mass casualty incidents,” according to the ICRC.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded an independent investigation into the deaths and for “perpetrators to be held accountable” following reports of aid seekers being killed by Israeli forces in recent days.

On Wednesday, the United Kingdom called for an “immediate and independent investigation” into the tragic events. Hamish Falconer, the UK’s foreign minister for Middle East, described the deaths as “deeply disturbing” and called Israel’s new aid delivery methods “inhumane.”

At least 48 people were killed in Israeli-led attacks across the Strip on Wednesday, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense, as Israel continues to expand its wider assault on Gaza. At least 18 people were killed when a tent was attacked in southern Khan Younis to shelter displaced Palestinians.

Since Israel’s invasion of Gaza in October 2023, at least 54, 418 Palestinians have died and 124, 190 have been injured, according to health ministry data in the region.

Vietnam’s long-standing two-child policy has been discontinued in order to reverse its declining birthrate and lessen the strain placed on an aging society.

This week, all restrictions were lifted, and couples will be able to choose how many children they want, according to Vietnamese media.

According to Vietnam’s Minister of Health, a future population decline “threatens” its long-term economic and social development as well as its national security and defense, according to the Hanoi Times.

The replacement rate needed to prevent the population from shrinking from 1999 to 2022, according to the news outlet, has started to decline.

The birthrate in the nation was at a record low of 1.91 per woman in 2024.

Although their birthrates are declining, their economies are more advanced than Vietnam’s. Regional neighbours include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

The World Bank predicts Vietnam’s population will reach its highest point in 2040, avoiding the trap of “getting old before it gets rich.”

In 1988, the nation’s communist government implemented the two-child policy to ensure that it had sufficient resources as it transitioned from a planned to a market economy. Vietnam was also surviving decades of war at the time.

According to the Associated Press, Vietnam’s two-child policy was most strictly enforced by Communist Party members, but families everywhere could suffer from government subsidies and financial losses if they had a third or fourth child.

According to the Ministry of Health, Vietnam is also experiencing significant disparities between its population and its birthrate.

The highest-cost of living is in urban areas like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, where the birthrate is lowest. However, gender differences are also significant. At birth, there were 111 boys for every 100 girls in Vietnam last year.

According to the World Bank, the gender gap between male and female births is greatest in the Central Highlands and Mekong River Delta and the lowest in the region, which is most pronounced in North Vietnam and the Northern Midlands and Mountains.

According to Vietnamese media, doctors in Vietnam are forbidden from telling parents about their children’s sex in order to stop sex-selective abortions. However, the practice continues and doctors are communicating with patients using coded words.

The General Statistics Office warned that there could be an “surplus of 1.5 million men aged 15 to 49 by 2039, rising to 2.5 million by 2059 if left unchecked.”

The Health Ministry has also proposed tripling the fine for “foetal gender selection” to about $3,800 in an effort to reverse this trend.

On Thursday, June 5, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

• At least nine people were hurt when Russian drones struck apartment buildings in Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, early on Thursday, according to the city’s mayor.
• According to Russian-installed officials, new Ukrainian drone attacks have affected energy infrastructure in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Vladimir Saldo, the newly appointed Russian-appointed Kherson region governor, claimed the attacks left 97 settlements without power and with 68, 000 people living in them.
• According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the settlements of Ridkodub in eastern Ukraine and Kindrativka in the Sumy region of Ukraine are under Russian control.
• The Kremlin said that despite an explosion, the Crimean bridge, a major Russian-built rail and road bridge connecting Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, was still intact.

talks on a ceasefire

• After accusing Ukraine’s leaders of ordering a bombing attack in Western Russia on Saturday, which left seven people dead and 115 others injured, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he doesn’t believe they want peace.
• The attack, which crossed a railroad line carrying passenger trains, was viewed by Putin as a “terrorist” plot to scuttle the peace talks.
• Putin also stated in a phone call to Donald Trump that he would have to react to Ukraine’s Sunday drone attacks, which targeted Russia’s far-northern and Siberia-area bomber fleet.
• Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, claimed that in spite of Ukrainian attempts to “disrupt” them, the Russian leader said on the phone that the ceasefire talks “on the whole were useful.”
• About 20 Russian warplanes were hit by a drone attack in Siberia, according to two unnamed US officials, about 10 of which were destroyed by Ukraine, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine.
• Following Ukraine’s drone attack over the weekend, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, stated that the risk of an escalation was “going way up.”
• A ceasefire should be in place until a meeting with Putin, according to Zelenskyy. At a briefing in Kyiv, he said, “I think our partners can support” agreeing a ceasefire with the Russians until the leaders meet.
• According to the Vatican, Pope Leo urged Russia to stop its hostility of Ukraine when he for the first time phoned Putin, according to the Vatican.

International diplomacy

• Sergei Shoigu, the head of North Korea, and Kim Jong Un, the head of Russia’s Security Council, met and pledged to support Moscow’s position on Ukraine without condition.
• The military bloc’s head, Mark Rutte, stated that Ukraine will be invited to the NATO summit in The Hague.
• German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has stated that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will inform Trump when he travels to show that Europe is firmly on Ukraine’s side and that no chance for peace should be overlooked.
• Wadephul also claimed that Germany is urging Russia to impose new sanctions on Moscow, and that this should be coordinated with the US, because he claimed Russia is not seriously engaging in peace talks.
• By the end of the year, Ukraine and the US have discussed how to make a minerals fund operational. Yulia Svyrydenko, the country’s deputy prime minister, stated during her visit to Washington, DC that the first meeting of the fund is scheduled for July.
• Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, met with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, in Washington, DC, during his stay there.
• After meeting with Western counterparts at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov stated that Kyiv’s allies have expressed a willingness to pay for Ukrainian companies to manufacture defense in allies.
• With a goal of sending 100 000 drones to Ukraine, United Kingdom Defense Secretary John Healey announced that the country would increase by tenfold the number of drones it would supply there.

According to The Associated Press news agency, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that prohibits citizens from traveling in all 12 nations and restates citizens from seven.

Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen are among the nations that are prohibited.

People from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela will also experience more stringent restrictions in addition to the ban, which goes into effect on Monday.

In his directive, Trump said, “I must act to safeguard the United States’ national security and its interests.”

Trump claimed in a video message that the White House had “understood the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreigners who are not properly vetted” that the recent attack on a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado had “underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreigners.”

According to the president, “millions and millions of these illegals should not be in our country.”

We can’t, in any country, allow open migration from any country where we can safely and reliably vet and screen those who enter the United States, he said, adding, “We will not let what happened in Europe happen.”

We won’t permit foreigners who want to harm our nation.

“We cannot allow open migration from any nation where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen people,” I am signing a new executive order that places restrictions on travel in nations like Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Libya, and numerous others. – Photo of President Trump twitter.com/ER7nGM4TO2

Trump signed an executive order mandating citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations’ countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, during his first term in office.

People from the countries whose names were cited were either denied entry to the US on their flights or held hostage at US airports upon landing. Tourists, visitors to friends and family, businesspeople, students and faculty members in US institutions, and others.

The Supreme Court upheld the order in 2018, which prohibited categories of travellers and immigrants from Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, and Libya, as well as North Korean and some Venezuelan government officials and their families. The order was frequently referred to as the “Muslim ban” or the “travel ban.”

Trump argued that the initial travel ban was intended to safeguard the US and that it was not anti-Muslim, and that it was justified by the president’s assertions. Trump’s first campaign for the White House had pushed for a Muslim travel ban, though.

Following the president’s administration’s decision on Wednesday, Mohamed Soliman’s wife and their five children were detained in an effort to deport them.

Judge Gordon Gallagher ruled that Soliman’s wife, Hayam El Gamal, and her children could remain in the country as long as his decree is in place.

The judge argued that the Court also concluded that irreparable harm could be caused by deportation without recourse.

El Gamal had filed a legal petition for her release, which has not yet been proven guilty.

In addition to the 12 people hurt in the attack on Sunday, Soliman has been charged with a federal hate crime.

If Soliman’s relatives acted unfairly, or if they were merely targeted because of their ties to him, the Trump administration is unsure. Soliman appears to have been acting alone in the attack, according to authorities.

Trump’s administration, however, made it clear that they would aggressively look into and deport people they thought were connected to “terrorism.”

In a social media post on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “All terrorists, their families, and terrorist sympathizers here on a visa should be aware that under the Trump Administration, we will find you, revoke your visa, and deport you,” in light of the horrifying attack that occurred yesterday.

Elgamal, her three daughters, and her two sons, all of whom are minors, were detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday.

In a video released online, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated, “We are looking into how much his family knew about this heinous attack, if they knew about it, or if they provided support for it.” “Justice will be provided,”

Before applying for asylum, Soliman and his family, according to DHS, were granted temporary visas in the US in 2022.

In 2023, Soliman’s visa expired. El Gamal, according to media reports, applied for an employment visa while working as a network engineer.

Critics claim that the practice of punishing a criminal suspect’s family constitutes unlawful collective punishment.

Human rights organizations have criticized Israeli actions that targeted Palestinians who were suspected of being involved in armed attacks in the West Bank, for instance.

Israel’s occupation of Gaza, which UN experts have described as a genocide, has been linked to the attack in Colorado. During the firebombing, the suspect allegedly yelled “Free Palestine.”

Other violent incidents have occurred on US soil as a result of the Washington-backed conflict. Following the alleged murder of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington, D.C., last month, the incident in Colorado occurred.

Another crime connected to the war resulted in the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian boy in the Chicago area in October 2023. The 73-year-old suspect allegedly told the boy’s mother that Muslims “must die” as they were attacked. After being found guilty of murder and hate crimes, he received a 53-year sentence.

Three Palestinian American students were shot and seriously injured in Vermont a few weeks later.