Hamas officials say Israel delaying aid delivery to Gaza, may affect hostages' release
Hamas officials say Israel delaying aid delivery to Gaza, may affect hostages' release/node/2588262/middle-east
Hamas officials say Israel delaying aid delivery to Gaza, may affect hostages' release
Displaced Palestinians cross a checkpoint manned by Hamas security at the Nezarim corridor as people make their way from the south to the northern parts of the Gaza Strip, on Salah al-Din road, in Mughraqa in central Gaza, on January 29, 2025. (AFP)
Hamas officials say Israel delaying aid delivery to Gaza, may affect hostages' release
Updated 29 January 2025
AFP
CAIRO: Two Hamas officials on Wednesday accused Israel of delaying the delivery of vital humanitarian aid to Gaza, as agreed in the ceasefire deal, and warned that it could impact the release of hostages.
"We warn that continued delays and failure to address these points (delivery of key aid) will affect the natural progression of the agreement, including the prisoner exchange," a senior Hamas official told AFP, while another offical said the group had asked mediators to intervene in the issue. Both spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
China ‘strongly’ urges India, Pakistan to avoid escalation
Updated 5 min 24 sec ago
AFP
BEIJING: China on Saturday urged India and Pakistan to avoid an escalation in fighting, Beijing’s foreign ministry said, as the conflict between its two nuclear-armed neighbors spiralled toward full-blown war.
“We strongly call on both India and Pakistan to give priority to peace and stability, remain calm and restrained, return to the track of political settlement through peaceful means and avoid taking actions that further escalate tensions,” a statement by a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
World No. 1 Nelly Korda grabs share of lead at Mizuho Americas Open
Similar to Scottie Scheffler on the men’s side, Korda had a white-hot 2024 but is still searching for her best play this year
Canada’s Brooke M. Henderson, a two-time major champion and a former top-10 player in the world rankings, missed the cut by one shot after a tough closing nine
Updated 17 min 33 sec ago
Arab News
REUTERS JERSEY CITY, N.J.: Nelly Korda used a late birdie spurt to claw her way into a tie for the lead at the Mizuho Americas Open on Friday in Jersey City, N.J.
The world No. 1 shot her second straight round of 68 at Liberty National Golf Club to move to 8-under-par 136 for the event, tied with South Korean Somi Lee, who shot a 67 Friday, and Andrea Lee, who also carded a 68.
The trio is a stroke ahead of six players tied at 7 under: Stephanie Kyriacou of Australia (69 Friday), Spaniards Julia Lopez Ramirez and Carlota Ciganda (both 70), Jenny Bae (70), France’s Celine Boutier (71) and Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul (73).
Similar to Scottie Scheffler on the men’s side, Korda had a white-hot 2024 but is still searching for her best play this year. Scheffler did not win on the PGA Tour until last week at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson; Korda is looking for her first title of 2025.
She started her day on the back nine and erased two birdies on par-3 holes with back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 17 and 18. After a birdie at the first, Korda made three more over her last five (Nos. 5, 6 and 8) to make a late move up the leaderboard.
“After making two bogeys in a row you (need) to reset and just know that you have nine more holes to go and there is some opportunities out there even with the tricky conditions,” Korda said. “So just had a little bit of a mental reset and it worked.”
Somi Lee was 7 under through her first 15 holes to get as low as 10 under for the event, but she made consecutive missteps at Nos. 7 and 8 to come back to the pack.
She and Korda are tied with Andrea Lee, who played earlier in the day and posted a simple, bogey-free round with four birdies to set the clubhouse lead at 8 under.
“I was kind of mentally preparing for the worst today,” Andrea Lee said. “The radar didn’t look great for the rain and it was dumping on us pretty hard for probably about 12, 13 holes honestly.
“So I knew that I just had to stay really patient out there, know that fairways and greens and pars were a good score, and stay really positive.”
Thitikul, the No. 2-ranked player in the world, led after the first round and had three birdies in her first four holes Friday to move to 11 under. She came undone the rest of the way with four bogeys and no additional birdies, including a water ball as her day wound down.
Tied for 10th just two back at 6 under are Kristen Gillman (69), Yealimi Noh (71) and Australia’s Hira Naveed (69).
Canada’s Brooke M. Henderson, a two-time major champion and a former top-10 player in the world rankings, missed the cut by one shot after a tough closing nine. She made four birdies through her first nine holes to get to 3 under, then had just one birdie and four bogeys — including on her finishing hole, the ninth — the rest of the way to drop to even par, one below the cut line.
Other notables to miss the cut included Sweden’s Madelene Sagstrom (2 over) and 2023 champion Rose Zhang (4 over).
Brazil’s Lula to visit China ahead of regional summit
Beijing is Brazil’s biggest trading partner. Its exports to China reached more than $94 billion last year
Updated 22 min 41 sec ago
AFP
BEIJING: Brazil’s president will begin a five-day trip to China on Saturday, Beijing announced, ahead of a gathering of Latin American leaders in the country next week.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s state visit comes at the invitation of counterpart President Xi Jinping and will last until Wednesday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.
Since returning to power in early 2023, Lula has sought to improve ties with both China and the United States.
Beijing is Brazil’s biggest trading partner. Its exports to China reached more than $94 billion last year, according to the United Nations Comtrade Database.
The South American agricultural power sends mainly soybeans and other primary commodities to China, while the Asian giant sells semiconductors, telephones, vehicles and medicines to Brazil.
The two presidents are expected to attend next week’s summit between China and the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
China is seeking to replace the United States as the main political and economic external influence in Latin America, where leaders have urged a united front against President Donald Trump’s global tariff blitz.
Two-thirds of Latin American countries have joined Beijing’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure program, and China has surpassed the United States as the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Peru and Chile, among others.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has targeted several Indian military sites and destroyed an S-400 missile defense system as part of ‘Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos,’ Pakistani military sources said on Saturday, after India reportedly fired missiles on three of its air bases.
Pakistani military spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said India targeted Nur Khan, Shorkot and Murid air bases, adding that Pakistani air defense system had intercepted a majority of missiles and the few, which had sneaked in, did not cause any damage to Pakistan Air Force assets.
The two countries have been engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday, when India launched missile strikes inside Pakistan on what it called “terrorist infrastructure” over an attack in the disputed Kashmir region. It was difficult to independently verify the claims made by both sides.
“Brahmos storage site has been taken out in general area Bias. Attacks on various other places [in India] in progress. Pathan Kot Airfield, Udhampur Airforce Station hit,” a Pakistani military source said early Saturday.
“All those air bases wherefrom Pakistan was attacked are being attacked simultaneously.”
This screengrab, taken from a handout video released by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on May 10, 2025, shows the launch site of missiles fired at India. (Photo courtesy: Handout/Screengrab)
The Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, where the military has its headquarters, is around 10 kilometers from the capital, Islamabad.
“Now you just wait for our response,” Chaudhry, the Pakistani military spokesman, said in televised remarks prior to Pakistan’s retaliatory attacks.
The Indian army said “multiple enemy drones were spotted flying over” a military cantonment in Amritsar in Punjab, a state adjoining India-administered Kashmir, and were “instantly engaged and destroyed by our air defense units.”
“Pakistan’s blatant escalation with drone strikes and other munitions continues along our western border,” it said on X.
Another Pakistani military source said “70 percent electricity grid of India has been made dysfunctional” through a cyberattack, a day after Pakistan’s economic affairs ministry’s X account was hacked and a post was published on it appealing to international partners for more loans.
The attack targeted websites, including those of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, Crime Research Investigation Agency, Mahanagar Telecommunication Company Limited, Bharat Earth Movers Limited, and the All India Naval Technical Supervisory Staff Association. There was no immediate comment from New Delhi in this regard.
Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors escalated this week as they both accused each other of violating airspaces by sending drones and other munitions, killing at least 48 people on both sides. The latest conflict was sparked by an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam resort town that killed 26 tourists on April 22.
New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, Islamabad denies it and calls for a credible, international probe into the assault.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called a meeting of the National Command Authority on Saturday, the military said. The top body of civilian and military officials takes security decisions, including those related to the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Security personnel cordon off a road near Nur Khan military airbase after Indian strikes in Rawalpindi on May 10, 2025. (AFP)
Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations. They have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, a region split between them, since gaining independence from the former British colonial rule in 1947.
The ongoing conflict alarmed the world powers, including China, US and the United Kingdom who all have urged restraint.
United States (US) Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken with Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir and urged both parties to find ways to deescalate and “offered US assistance in starting constructive talks in order to avoid future conflicts,” the State Department said.
The Group of Seven countries on Friday urged maximum restraint from both India and Pakistan and called on them to engage in direct dialogue. The United Kingdom’s High Commissioner to Pakistan, Jane Marriott, said on X they were monitoring the developments closely.
South Korean conservative party moves to switch presidential candidates as election turmoil deepens
The replacement still requires confirmation through an all-party vote Saturday and approval by the party’s national committee Sunday
Han and Kim have lagged well behind Lee in recent opinion polls. Lee, who spearheaded the Democrats’ efforts to oust Yoon
Updated 10 May 2025
AP
SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea’s embattled conservative party has taken the unprecedented step of nullifying its primary and replacing presidential candidate Kim Moon Soo with former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo just one week after Kim’s selection, deepening internal turmoil ahead of the June 3 presidential by-election.
Saturday’s move by the People Power Party’s leadership, which Kim denounced as an “overnight political coup,” underscores the desperation and disarray within the party following the ouster of former President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law in December.
Kim, a staunch conservative and former labor minister under Yoon, was named the PPP’s presidential candidate on May 3 after winning 56.3 percent of the primary vote, defeating a reformist rival who had criticized Yoon’s martial law. But the PPP’s leadership, dominated by Yoon loyalists, has spent the past week pressuring Kim to step aside and back Han, whom they believe stands a stronger chance against liberal Democratic Party frontrunner Lee Jae-myung.
Han served as acting president after Yoon was impeached by the legislature in December and officially removed by the Constitutional Court in April. He resigned from office May 2 to pursue a presidential bid, arguing his long public service career qualifies him to lead the country amid growing geopolitical uncertainty and trade challenges intensified by the policies of US President Donald Trump.
After failed talks between Han and Kim to unify their candidacies, the PPP’s emergency committee canceled Kim’s nomination in the early hours of Saturday and officially registered Han as a party member and its new presidential candidate.
The replacement still requires confirmation through an all-party vote Saturday and approval by the party’s national committee Sunday, which is the deadline for candidates to register with the election authorities.
Han in a message issued through the party claimed “if we unite, we can surely win.”
Speaking at a news conference, Kim lamented “democracy in our party died” and vowed to take unspecified legal and political steps, but it remained unclear whether any realistic path existed to restore his candidacy without the party’s cooperation.
Kim had opposed the legislature’s impeachment of Yoon on Dec. 14, though he said he disagreed with Yoon’s decision to declare martial law on Dec. 3. Kim had gained popularity among hard-line PPP supporters after he solely defied a Dec. 11 demand by an opposition lawmaker that all Cabinet members stand and bow in a gesture of apology for Yoon’s martial law enactment at the Assembly.
Han and Kim have lagged well behind Lee in recent opinion polls. Lee, who spearheaded the Democrats’ efforts to oust Yoon, ridiculed the PPP efforts to switch candidacies, telling reporters Thursday, “I have heard of forced marriages but never heard of forced unity.”
Lee has long cultivated an image as an anti-establishment figure capable of tackling South Korea’s entrenched inequality and corruption. However, critics view him as a populist who fuels division and vilifies opponents, warning that his leadership could further polarize the country.
He currently faces five trials for corruption and other criminal charges. If he becomes president, those trials likely will stop because of special presidential immunity from most criminal charges.
