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Thursday briefing: Military plane crashes in Russia

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A large Russian military transport plane crashed yesterday in the Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine, killing everyone on board, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The ministry said the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were to be exchanged for Russian military personnel. It accused Ukrainian forces in the nearby Kharkiv region of launching two missiles that hit the plane. The plane also had six crew members and three other people on board, the ministry said.

The claims could not be independently verified.

Officials in Kiev did not immediately comment on the allegations, but the country's military intelligence hinted at what could have been a tragic mistake, saying Russia had not informed the country that prisoners would be flown to Belgorod airport, as had been the case in previous studies. exchanges. The airport is within range of Ukrainian drones and missiles.

Ukraine's statement does not deny that the transport plane was shot down. The country did say a prisoner exchange was planned that day, raising questions about whether it should have assumed prisoners would be flown to the region.

NATO: Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary vowed to push lawmakers to vote in favor of Sweden joining NATO. He gave no timeline, even though he essentially controls Parliament. The Hungarian leader has repeatedly stymied Europe's efforts to boost security during the Russian invasion, vetoing a $52 billion aid package to Ukraine.

Some analysts say the delays have put Orbán where he wants to be: the center of attention as a combative defender of national sovereignty, courted rather than pushed by more powerful nations.

Two tank rounds hit a UN training center in Khan Younis in southern Gaza yesterday, killing at least nine people and wounding 75 others in a facility where hundreds of displaced people had taken refuge, UN officials said.

The Israeli military said it was checking the UN report. Thomas White, the head of Gaza operations at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, did not blame Israel directly, but Israel is the only party involved in the Gaza conflict that has tanks.

Here's the latest.

White said the center had been inaccessible for two days and people were trapped. Khan Younis has been hit by heavy fighting as Israel says it is hunting down Hamas leaders and leaving hospitals and other facilities in the middle of a war zone.

Also in Khan Younis: Thousands of people were trapped in hospitals due to heavy fighting. Israeli forces also surrounded a second hospital where displaced people were sheltering, aid groups said, after the Israeli army ordered evacuations for that part of the city.

An agile new threat: The Iran-backed Houthis perfected irregular warfare tactics during years of conflict against a Saudi-led coalition, military officials say. Senior Pentagon officials knew as soon as the Houthis started attacking ships in the Red Sea that they would be difficult to tame.

A fire at a commercial building in the Chinese city of Xinyu, Jiangxi province, killed at least 39 people and left one person in critical condition yesterday, local authorities said.

According to Chinese state media and a local government announcement, the fire broke out in the basement of a building with an internet cafe on the ground floor and an education center on the upper floor. Xi Jinping, China's top leader, noted that the fire was “yet another major production safety accident that has occurred recently” and ordered officials to “overcome a mentality of laxity and pushing luck ,” state media said.

Scientists have devised a new video system that shows how animals see color, and us.

This allows the scientists to answer questions that may never have occurred to you: What does a rainbow look like to a mouse? How do honey bees see people? Is the sky really blue? For birds it is a vibrant ultraviolet.

Royal Caribbean's new Icon of the Seas weighs 250,800 tons and can accommodate almost 8,000 people. It's packed with amenities, including a 17-meter waterfall (apparently the largest at sea), six water slides and more than forty restaurants, bars and nightlife.

According to Royal Caribbean, the company is using a number of energy-efficient technologies to minimize the ship's carbon footprint, moving closer to the company's goal of introducing a net-zero ship by 2035. Some climate experts are skeptical. When it comes to sustainability, bigger is not usually associated with better.

“If you were really thinking about sustainability and not about your bottom line, you wouldn't build a cruise ship with a capacity of almost 10,000 people,” says Marcie Keever, director of the Oceans and Vessels Program at the environmental organization Friends of the Earth. .

That's it for today's briefing. See you tomorrow. – Justin

PS The Op-Doc “Island in Between” was nominated for an Oscar in the Documentary Short Film category.

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