Monday briefing
Israel’s allies urge Israel to scale back war
Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense, will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week. US officials are urging Israel to move to a more targeted phase in the country’s war on Gaza, with more precise, intelligence-based missions, and the foreign ministers of Britain and Germany have issued a joint call to a “sustainable” ceasefire.
Ten weeks after Hamas’s first attack on Israel, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to nearly 20,000, according to local health officials, and international rights groups warn the humanitarian crisis there is escalating further. The approximately 100 people kidnapped by Hamas and other armed groups are also at risk.
That reality became clear last week, when Israeli forces accidentally killed three Israeli hostages. The deaths have sparked fear in Israel and raised new questions about how Netanyahu’s government is prosecuting the war. Relatives of hostages have taken to the streets to demand a ceasefire so their loved ones can return home, and thousands have protested at weekly rallies.
Other news from the war:
An overlooked crisis in Congo
More than six million people have been displaced by the war in eastern Congo, where a conflict that has raged for nearly three decades has sparked a massive humanitarian crisis that has claimed more than six million lives, according to some estimates.
The country is now entering a volatile new phase, with more than a hundred armed groups and several national armies vying for power, complicated by the interference of foreign powers eyeing the region’s vast reserves of gold, oil and minerals. Corruption, massacres and rape are common.
Although millions of people are suffering, aid groups are struggling to draw attention to the conflict. “There is a sense of fatalism around Congo,” said Cynthia Jones, head of the World Food Program in the region. “People seem to think, ‘That’s just the way it is.’”
Putin’s enrichment plan
Companies that want to leave Russia do so on President Vladimir Putin’s terms – in a way that benefits his government, his elites and his war against Ukraine.
Western companies that have left Russia have declared more than $103 billion in losses since the war began, according to a Times analysis of financial reports, and their departures are subject to increasingly high taxes, which in the past have reached at least $1.25 billion dollars have been generated. years for the Russian war chest.
News analysis: How Hungary foiled the European plan to give Ukraine a $52 billion financial lifeline.
THE LAST NEWS
Around the world
There’s no Christmas lunch like a Korean-American Christmas church lunch, where hundreds of people gather in one room for elaborate banquet fare; beautiful stews; roasted favorites; party noodles; and all kinds of soups and stews.
For younger Koreans born and raised in America, church can sometimes be a painful reminder of a life they left behind. But Christmas lunch can bring about something else: an outpouring of good memories and a reminder of the beautiful aspects of that kind of community.
SPORTS NEWS
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Promoting a culture change: Analyze The impact of Fred Vasseur at Ferrari.
Jeff Koons killed her review
Remy Golan, professor of art history, had submitted an essay on Jeff Koons’ monumental sculpture “Bouquet of Tulips,” including an interview with the artist, to Brooklyn Rail, an art magazine in New York City. The editor was pleased – until the Koons studio read a copy of the unpublished essay and ordered it deleted, citing “Jeff’s concerns.”
Journalism experts say the essay should not have been read by its subject before it was published, with one describing the turn of events as ‘chilling’. Yet this is one of many cases in which writers accuse a publication of caving to issue pressure or undermining a critical narrative.