Foreign News
Hamas says no more hostage releases until war ends
Hamas, the group which controls the Gaza Strip, has ruled out any more hostage releases until Israel agrees to a “full cessation of aggression”.
Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza since a truce earlier this month when more than 100 hostages were freed. Around 120 people abducted from Israel on 7 October are believed to be still in captivity in Gaza.
Efforts continue at the United Nations to pass a resolution on the war. The Us has said it still has serious concerns over the draft UN Security Council resolution, with voting now postponed to Friday.
The week-long truce this month also brought an increased flow of aid into Gaza where the UN has warned that the population is at risk of famine if the war between Israel and Hamas continues.
Negotiations on a new truce have been taking place in Cairo, Egypt, though initial talks on Wednesday bore no agreement.
In a statement, Hamas said: “There is a Palestinian national decision that there should be no talk about prisoners or exchange deals except after a full cessation of aggression.”
It is unclear to which other Palestinian factions the statement was referring. Islamic Jihad, a smaller group in the Gaza Strip, is among those known to also be holding Israeli hostages. The Hamas statement puts the Israeli government in a very difficult position.
It has said it thinks the best way to get the release of hostages is military pressure on Hamas and by staging rescue operations. But so far that approach has not really worked. Only one hostage – Ori Megidish – has actually been rescued.
The government is also under huge pressure from the relatives of the hostages still being held, with some telling it the strategy of force is not working.
Hamas is putting pressure on Israel to stop the war altogether but without any guarantee that the group is going to stop its armed actions.
So the Israeli government is extremely reluctant to stop fighting until it feels it has completely degraded Hamas capability and it has not done that yet.
This will be a huge disappointment for the people of Gaza, who are desperate for this war to stop.
The Israeli report of killing 2,000 Hamas members in Gaza this month came a day after the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry put the overall death toll there since 7 October at more than 20,000 including 8,000 children and 6,200 women.
When Hamas and their allies broke through the heavily guarded perimeter with Israel on 7 October they killed 1,200 people.
(BBC)
Police in Ecuador say they have arrested four people in connection with an attack by gunmen at a cockfighting ring in which 12 people died.
Weapons and replica police and army uniforms were seized during police raids in the north-western Manabí province on Friday – a day after the attack in the rural community of La Valencia.
Footage of the attack shared on social media showed gunmen entering the ring and opening fire, as terrified spectators dived for cover.
Reports in local media suggested the attackers in fake military gear were members of a criminal gang whose rivals were at the cockfight.
A criminal investigation has been launched by the provincial authorities.
As many as 20 criminal gangs are believed to be operating in the Latin American country, vying for control over major drug routes.
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa has said that about 70% of the world’s cocaine now flows through Ecuador’s ports before being shipped to the US and Europe.
The drug is smuggled into Ecuador from neighbouring Colombia and Peru – the world’s two largest producers of cocaine.
This January saw 781 murders, making it the deadliest month in recent years. Many of them were related to the illegal drug trade.
[BBC]
Robots ran alongside humans at the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday.
Twenty-one humanoid robots, designed by Chinese manufacturers, raced alongside thousands of runners over a 21km (13-mile) course that included slopes, turns and uneven surfaces.
Some robots completed the race, while others struggled from the beginning. One robot fell at the starting line and lay flat for several minutes before getting up and taking off.
While robots have made appearances at marathons in China in the past, this is the first time they have raced against humans over the course of a half-marathon.
[BBC]
A United States judge has ruled that Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, dealing another blow to the tech titan in an antitrust case brought by the US government.
On Thursday, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that Google unlawfully monopolised markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges, which sit between buyers and sellers. Antitrust enforcers failed to show the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.
The ruling could allow prosecutors to argue for a breakup of Google’s advertising products. The US Department of Justice has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company’s publisher ad server and its ad exchange.
Google will now face the possibility of two different US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices.
A judge in Washington will hold a trial next week on the DOJ’s request to make Google sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its dominance in online search.
[Aljazeera]
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