International relations

Governments around the world were quick to respond to requests for international assistance after Monday’s devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria, deploying rescue teams and offering aid. The European Union said it was urgently dispatching search and rescue teams from Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania to Turkey to help. In a statement, the bloc also said it was directing its satellite system to support Turkish efforts in mapping the quake and its aftermath. Greece said it was sending a C-130 transport aircraft to help neighboring Turkey, along with 21 members of the Greek fire service’s special disaster management unit, rescue dogs, a rescue vehicle, medics and the head of the government’s organization for disaster management, the Greek Civil Protection Agency said. India said it was sending medical squads, search and rescue teams and relief material to assist Turkey’s response. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, … [Read more...] about Governments Around the World Send Rescue Teams After Quake

BALI, Indonesia — President Biden returns home from a week of diplomacy and crisis management in the Middle East and Asia strengthened in his faith that this period of war and economic turmoil calls for his brand of coalition-building politics — reinforcing the leadership differences with his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, just as he announced another White House run on Tuesday. Mr. Biden’s swing through Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia was buoyed by a cascade of better-than-expected news for Democrats in the midterm elections and punctuated by a nearly three-hour meeting with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, that appeared to ease the rancorous rhetoric between the two increasingly rivalrous economies, the world’s largest. As reports emerged of Russian-made rockets killing two people in Poland, Mr. Biden convened an emergency meeting with NATO and Group of 7 leaders over the latest missile strikes in Russia’s war in Ukraine, declining to speculate on the source until more facts were … [Read more...] about Amid Crises, Biden Offers the World a Choice: My Way, or Trump’s

It’s a little after 8 p.m. on a frigid hill in the West Bank village of Beita, and Sa’ed Hamayyel is sitting in front of a crackling outdoor fire, his face framed by smoke, telling me how his son was killed. “He was 16 years old,” the Palestinian father says. “He was a student.” On June 11, 2021, Israeli soldiers “shot him from afar … He couldn’t have posed any threat to them.” Hamayyel is intimately familiar with the violence and loss that pervades this part of the world. Decades ago, his father, brother, and sister were all killed in combat with Israeli forces. Along with them, Hamayyel is claimed as a member by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an internationally designated terrorist group responsible for numerous attacks on civilians. But when his son Mohammed was killed, the teenager was not engaged in armed conflict. He was protesting an Israeli outpost called Evyatar, which overlooks Beita. Although few Israelis could pinpoint Evyatar on a map, and … [Read more...] about Unsettling the West Bank

This is my first newsletter after a four-month book leave, and I want to try something a little different. As I prepared to come back, I spent time talking with Times colleagues and outside experts about how the world has changed while I was gone. Which news developments will have lasting import? What has been surprising? What do we know now that we didn’t before? As I was making the list, I realized that it would be worth sharing it with readers. It helps give some perspective to a dizzying news environment in which all of us struggle to distinguish between stories that are ephemeral and those with lasting significance. During a cynical time in American life, the list also offers a reminder that there has been good news along with the bad. In descending order of significance — and, yes, this ranking is subjective and weighted toward the U.S. — here are the seven biggest stories of the past few months. The list 7. A.I. arrives. Artificial intelligence felt theoretical … [Read more...] about Seven Surprises

UNITED NATIONS — The Obama administration’s effort to step up asylum for Syrian refugees is going so slowly, it may not meet the president’s deadline for accepting at least 10,000 by the end of the fiscal year. More than seven months since the president pledged to resettle the most vulnerable Syrians, the United States has let in less than a fifth of that number — 1,736 through the end of April, according to government figures . That slow pace could undermine the administration’s diplomatic push to advance the cause of refugees at a time when other countries are putting up taller barriers to their entry. President Obama and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, have said they will raise the issue of refugee resettlement at this year’s General Assembly session, and Mr. Ban issued a report on Monday calling on world leaders to rally around a new “compact on responsibility-sharing for refugees.” Advocates for asylum seekers have urged the United States to do more, … [Read more...] about U.S. Has Taken In Less Than a Fifth of Pledged Syrian Refugees

WASHINGTON — The top military commander overseeing North American airspace said Monday that some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons during the Trump administration were not detected in real time, and the Pentagon learned of them only later. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, the commander of the Pentagon’s Northern Command. One explanation, multiple U.S. officials said, is that some previous incursions were initially classified as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” Pentagon speak for U.F.O.s. As the Pentagon and intelligence agencies stepped up efforts over the past two years to find explanations for many of those incidents, officials reclassified some events as Chinese spy balloons. It is not clear when the Pentagon determined the incidents involved Chinese spying. When the determination was made, officials kept the information secret to avoid letting China know their surveillance efforts … [Read more...] about Previous Chinese Balloon Incursions Initially Went Undetected

In an International Monetary Fund (IMF)-conditioned review of Pakistan’s anti-corruption framework, the government has agreed to introduce more amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance and the Federal Investigation Act, revealed an interim official report. The task force has recommended amendments to the NAO, 1999, and the FIA Act, 1974, according to the report. The IMF slapped the condition last year after the government made changes in the NAO that equally benefited the politicians as well as the bureaucrats by saving their corruption of almost Rs 1100 billion. Pakistan, which is battling crippling economic, food, and energy crises, has already handed over SBP to the IMF by passing the State Bank of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill 2021. According to market experts, Pakistan is losing its economic independence by accepting IMF’s tough conditions but it has no way to refuse the international creditors. The IMF has agreed to release the tranche of $1.3 billion … [Read more...] about Pak may be surrendering its sovereignty to IMF, but here’s why it may have no choice | Exclusive

The Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL), Karnataka, has issued notice to at least 700 schools that have illegally claimed affiliation with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Over 600 of these private schools are located in the state capital, Bengaluru. Parents of children studying in a few branches of Orchids The International Schools, which also has been issued notice by DSEL, protested raising concern over their ward’s future, reported The Hindu. They alleged that the management claimed to have a Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)-affiliation, while they were affiliated with the State Board. The DSEL has currently formed a three-member committee to check the schools’ affiliation status and any other related issues in their jurisdiction. This three-member committee is headed by Block Education Officers in each taluk. “If there are any unregistered private schools running, we need to close them. But if the schools have been registered, but … [Read more...] about 700 Karnataka Schools Issued Notice For Faking CBSE Affiliation

WASHINGTON — When Ted Cruz attended Harvard Law School, he liked to study with people who had undergraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale or Princeton. “He said he didn’t want anybody from ‘minor Ivies’ like Penn or Brown,” one of his law school roommates told GQ . That may strike you as slicing the baloney of elitism awfully thin. But a new study has found that Supreme Court justices do much the same thing in selecting their law clerks. It is not news that the justices favor a handful of law schools in doling out clerkships, a glittering credential that all but guarantees success in a profession obsessed with status markers. But the study adds another factor: To get a clerkship, it really helps to have gone to college at Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Albert Yoon , a law professor at the University of Toronto and one of the study’s authors, said the finding was disturbing. “We don’t really live in a meritocracy,” he said. “The Supreme Court is guilty of perpetuating … [Read more...] about The Road to a Supreme Court Clerkship Starts at Three Ivy League Colleges

Over 120,000 views of a video showing a boy being sexually assaulted. A recommendation engine suggesting that a user follow content related to exploited children. Users continually posting abusive material, delays in taking it down when it is detected and friction with organizations that police it. All since Elon Musk declared that “removing child exploitation is priority #1” in a tweet in late November. Under Mr. Musk’s ownership, Twitter’s head of safety, Ella Irwin, said she had been moving rapidly to combat child sexual abuse material, which was prevalent on the site — as it is on most tech platforms — under the previous owners. “Twitter 2.0” will be different, the company promised. But a review by The New York Times found that the imagery, commonly known as child pornography, persisted on the platform, including widely circulated material that the authorities consider the easiest to detect and eliminate. After Mr. Musk took the reins in late October, … [Read more...] about Musk Pledged to Cleanse Twitter of Child Abuse Content. It’s Been Rough Going.