dataDp/1032.jpeg

Worldnews

Frances Macron Begins UK State Visit, Calls For Support On Gaza, Ukraine

Emmanuel Macron’s three-day trip is the first state visit to the UK by a European Union head of state since Brexit French President Emmanuel Macron has called for British support to recognise the state of Palestine and help defend Ukraine as he arrived in the United Kingdom for the first state visit by a European leader since Brexit. Macron, in a rare address to both houses of the British parliament on Tuesday, celebrated the return of closer ties between France and the UK, and said the two countries must work together to end “excessive dependencies” on the United States and China. The French president’s three-day trip came at the invitation of King Charles III. Macron was earlier greeted by the royal family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife, Princess Catherine, before they travelled in horse-drawn carriages to Windsor Castle. Macron then set out to parliament where he said the two countries needed to come together to strengthen Europe, including on defence, immigration, climate and trade. “The United Kingdom and France must once again show the world that our alliance can make all the difference,” the French president said in English. “The only way to overcome the challenges we have, the challenges of our times, will be to go together hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.” Macron also promised that European countries would “never abandon Ukraine” in its war against invading Russian forces, while demanding an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. He then urged the UK to work together with France on recognising a Palestinian state, calling it “the only path to peace”. “With Gaza in ruin and West Bank being on a daily basis attacked, the perspective of a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is,” Macron said. “And this is why this solution of the two states and the recognition of the State of Palestine is… the only way to build peace and stability for all in the whole region.” He listed the geopolitical threats France and the UK face, and argued they should also be wary of the “excessive dependencies of both the US and China”, saying they needed to “de-risk our economies and our societies from this dual dependency”. Macron went on to set out the opportunities of a closer union, saying they should make it easier for students, researchers and artists to live in each other’s countries, and seek to work together on artificial intelligence and to protect children online. The speech symbolised the improvement in relations sought by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party, as part of a broader reset of ties with European allies following the rancour over London’s departure from the European Union. Later on Tuesday evening, King Charles hosted a banquet for the Macrons at Windsor Castle, with 160 guests, including politicians, diplomats and celebrities such as Mick Jagger and Elton John. Charles used his speech at the opulent state banquet to christen a new era of friendly relations, upgrading the “entente cordiale” – an alliance dating from 1904 that ended centuries of military rivalries – to an “entente amicale”. “As we dine here in this ancient place, redolent with our shared history, allow me to propose a toast to France and to our new entente. An entente not only past and present, but for the future – and no longer just cordiale, but now amicale,” the king said. The UK and France marked the three-day visit with an announcement that French nuclear energy utility EDF would invest 1.1 billion pounds ($1.5bn) in a nuclear power project in eastern England. The two also said France would lend the UK the Bayeux Tapestry, allowing the 11th-century masterpiece to return for the first time in more than 900 years, in exchange for London loaning Paris Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasures. Politics will take centre stage on Wednesday, when Macron sits down for talks with Starmer on migration, defence and investment. Despite tensions over post-Brexit ties and how to stop asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel in small boats, the UK and France have been working closely to create a planned military force to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. The two leaders will dial in to a meeting of the coalition on Thursday “to discuss stepping up support for Ukraine and further increasing pressure on Russia”, Starmer’s office confirmed on Monday. They will speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to the French presidency. Starmer is hoping the UK’s support for Ukraine will help persuade Macron to take a different approach to stopping people smuggling, with London wanting to try out an asylum seekers’ returns deal. This would involve the UK deporting one asylum seeker to France in exchange for another with a legitimate case to be in the country. A record number of asylum seekers have arrived in the UK on small boats in the first six months of this year. Starmer, whose party is trailing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party in the polls, is under pressure to find a solution. France has previously refused to sign such an agreement, saying the UK should negotiate an arrangement with all EU countries. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

dataDp/1032.jpeg

Worldnews

Critical Point: UN Pleads For Fuel For Gaza Amid Israeli Blockade

‘Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,’ UN humanitarian office says. The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, has warned that the fuel crisis in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade has reached a “critical point” and will cause further deaths and suffering in the besieged Palestinian territory. OCHA said the fuel powering vital functions in Gaza, including water desalination stations and hospitals’ intensive care units, is running out quickly, with “virtually no additional accessible stocks left”. “Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,” the office said in a statement. “The deaths this is likely causing could soon increase sharply unless the Israeli authorities allow new fuel in – urgently, regularly and in sufficient quantities.” Israel has imposed a suffocating siege on Gaza since early March. Over the past weeks, it has allowed some food into Gaza to be distributed through a United States-backed group at sites where hundreds of aid seekers have been shot dead by Israeli fire. But fuel has not entered the territory in months. Senior World Food Programme official Carl Skau also decried the lack of fuel in Gaza. “The needs are greater than ever, and our capacity to respond has never been more constrained. Famine is spreading, and people are dying trying to find food,” Skau said in a social media post. “Our teams in Gaza are doing their best to deliver aid and are often caught in the crossfire. We are suffering from shortages of fuel, spare parts and essential communications equipment.” The director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said that the situation at the medical centre is alarming due to the lack of fuel supplies. “We don’t have enough fuel left until morning. If fuel is not available, generators cannot run, and hospitals find it difficult to provide care,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera. “Blood banks, nurseries and oxygen stations are not operating because of a lack of fuel. Patients will be doomed to certain death if fuel is not provided to hospitals.” The health sector in Gaza has already been pushed to the brink under Israeli bombardment and repeated displacement orders. Aid workers and health experts have been reporting a rise in preventable diseases in the territory amid the dire humanitarian situation. On Tuesday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the enclave is seeing an uptick in cases of meningitis, a potentially deadly disease, especially among children. “The catastrophic conditions in shelters, the severe shortage of drinking water, the spread of sewage, and the accumulation of waste are driving the health situation to further deterioration,” the ministry said. Meningitis, which causes inflammation around the brain and spinal cord, can be caused by a bacterial infection. In addition to the humanitarian crisis, Israel is pressing on with its intense bombardment of the territory. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that Israeli attacks killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday. Israeli attacks killed dozens of displaced people in and around tents in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis and in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp. UN experts and rights groups have described Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza as a genocide. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

dataDp/1032.jpeg

Worldnews

Trump, Israels Netanyahu Meet For A Second Time About A Ceasefire In Gaza

The unscheduled talks come as Trump’s Middle East envoy said Israel and Hamas were closing their differences on a truce deal. United States President Donald Trump has met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for a second time in 24 hours to discuss a possible ceasefire deal in Gaza. The unscheduled talks on Tuesday evening lasted just over an hour, with no media access, and came as Israeli forces killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza. The two men had also met for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday, during Netanyahu’s third visit to the US since the president began his second term on January 20. Ahead of the talks on Tuesday, Trump said he would be speaking with Netanyahu “almost exclusively” about Gaza. “We gotta get that solved. Gaza is – it’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to,” he said. Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said “very little information” has come out from the latest talks, so “it has been difficult to ascertain exactly what’s going on”. “But the fact that it was so hermetically sealed, the fact that there has been no clear readout of what was discussed, the fact that the meeting lasted just over an hour – all of it may indicate that there’s some kind of stumbling block, something that is clouding the optimistic position that the two leaders have adopted over the past 24 hours,” Hanna said. Shortly before Trump met Netanyahu, his special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, suggested a ceasefire deal in Gaza is close and said Washington hopes to see an agreement finalised by the end of the week. He said the issues keeping Israel and Hamas from agreeing had now dropped to one from four. “We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we’ll have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff told reporters at a meeting of Trump’s Cabinet. But Netanyahu, speaking shortly afterwards, during a meeting with the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, said Israel’s campaign in the Palestinian enclave was not done and that negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire. “We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas’s military and government capabilities,” the Israeli leader said. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan, said Israeli media claim Netanyahu is facing “extreme pressure” from Trump to reach a deal on Gaza. “But still, there’s been no breakthrough,” she said from the Jordanian capital, Amman. “Israeli media is also talking about a delay in the travel plans of Witkoff to Doha, although earlier in the night, he had sounded very optimistic about possibly reaching a deal. Because according to him, only one issue remained problematic – which is, ‘Where will the Israeli army redeploy to?'” Odeh said. “Now, this is important, because Israel wants to maintain control over the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. According to the Israeli minister of defence, Israel plans to build a tent city in Rafah, where it will concentrate the population, control who enters, not allow anyone to leave, and then push the population out of Gaza to implement, according to the Israelis, the Trump plan of depopulating Gaza and taking over the enclave,” she added. The plan outlined by the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, calls for the initial forcible transfer of some 600,000 Palestinians to the tent city, followed by the remainder of the enclave’s 2.1 million people. Critics say the plan would then lead to Palestinians being forcibly transferred to other countries. Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East programme at the Quincy Institute, described the tent cities as “concentration camps” and said the Trump administration is unlikely to intervene in the Israeli plan. “Washington has significant influence over the details, although we did see Trump demure when asked if he would support the transfer of the involuntary transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza, saying that people should look to Nanyahu for that,” Sheline said. “We know the people Trump surrounds himself with tend to be sycophants and people who tell him what he likes to hear. So I don’t anticipate there are many people in Trump’s orbit who are telling him, not only would this be a horrific crime against humanity, to not only facilitate genocide, but then transfer the survivors outside of their land,” she said, adding that all of it also does “implicate the United States”. For his part, Trump has strongly supported Netanyahu, even wading into domestic Israeli politics by criticising prosecutors over a corruption trial against the Israeli leader on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges, which Netanyahu denies. Netanyahu has meanwhile praised Trump, saying that there has never been closer coordination between the US and Israel in his country’s history, and even nominated the US leader for the Nobel Peace Prize. Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 57,575 Palestinians and wounded 136,879 others. Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the war, and nearly half a million people are facing famine within months, according to United Nations estimates. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive. Some 50 captives remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

dataDp/9958.jpeg

P7as2

Supriya Pathak Talks About Her Heartwarming Relationship With Stepson Shahid Kapoor

In the glamorous land of Bollywood, family life is usually in the public eye, particularly in the case of celebrity stepfamilies. Such is the case of veteran actress Supriya Pathak and her stepson Shahid Kapoor, an actor who has transcended the challenges of stepfamilies to redefine such relationships with warmth and elegance. Contrary to the belief that blended families are complex in nature, Supriya and Shahid have enjoyed a robust and affectionate relationship over the years. Supriya Pathak recently openly discussed their relationship, referring to Shahid as her own son and reminiscing about their time together. During an interview with BBC News Hindi, Supriya Pathak was questioned regarding her relationship with Shahid Kapoor, and her answer was nothing short of affectionate. Without hesitation, she replied, “Mera beta hai. Bete ke sath toh normal jaisa maa ka rishta hota hai, vaisa hi hai mera aur Shahid ka bhi rishta. Malik ki badi daya hai.” (He is my son.) The bonding I have with Shahid is just like any ordinary mother-son relationship. By God’s great favor, we have this bonding.) The sincerity and simplicity in what she was saying indicated the depth of their bond. Supriya had met Shahid when he was six years old. While reminiscing about the first time they had met, she said, “Jab main usko pehli baar mili thi, vo 6 saal ka tha.” (When I first met him, he was six years old.) That moment laid the foundation of a relationship that has only grown stronger with time. Supriya Pathak and Shahid Kapoor’s bond may surprise those unfamiliar with their family history. Shahid, born to actor Pankaj Kapur and classical dancer-actress Neelima Azeem, was just three-and-a-half years old when his parents separated. He was primarily raised by his mother, Neelima, though he remained connected to his father. Pankaj Kapur later married Supriya Pathak in 1988, after they met during the shooting of their 1989 film Agla Mausam. Supriya, too, had gone through a divorce before marrying Pankaj. Together, the couple has two children: daughter Sanah Kapoor and son Ruhaan Kapoor. Despite the complex beginnings, Supriya Pathak embraced Shahid Kapoor with all her heart. Over time, their relationship matured into one of mutual respect, warmth, and friendship—a bond many families strive for. In the same interview, Supriya elaborated on her parenting style and how she sees all three kids, Ruhaan, Sanah, and Shahid, equally. “Ruhaan, Shahid, and Sanah are all my kids. I can fight with them, love them, and laugh with them. I am friends with all of them. This remark encapsulates Supriya’s loving and embracing personality as a mother. It also provides some insight into the family culture, in which emotional closeness and warm friendliness characterize their interactions. She self-consciously boasted that she likes to think of herself as not only a mother but also a friend to her children, a balance that is by no means easy to strike. Shahid Kapoor has been in the public eye throughout the years not only for his success at the movies but also for his life. Between his hectic work life and his celebrity status, Shahid has remained near and dear to both sides of his family, including his stepmother, Supriya. They’ve been spotted together on some occasions at family gatherings and at events in the public eye, emanating mutual respect. The actor himself never hesitated to credit Supriya for her place in his life. While not one to talk excessively about his personal life in interviews, Shahid has been dignified and affectionate towards her at all times, letting the public catch glimpses of their relationship through his mannerisms and family outings. While Shahid Kapoor continues to make waves in the film industry with his recent movie Devaa, released in January, and the upcoming project Arjun Ustra, directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, Supriya Pathak has also been busy with her own slate of work. Known for iconic roles in films like Masoom, Bazaar, Wake Up Sid, Khichdi: The Movie, and more recently Satyaprem Ki Katha, Supriya was last seen in Raid 2 alongside Ajay Devgn. Despite their hectic professional lives, both Shahid and Supriya have always managed to stay grounded when it comes to their family ties. In a world where celebrity families are often seen through the lens of gossip and speculation, the genuine affection between Supriya Pathak and Shahid Kapoor stands out. Their story is one of acceptance, emotional maturity, and unconditional love—a testament to how bonds can transcend biological ties. Supriya’s heartfelt words serve as a reminder that love makes a family. Whether bonded by blood or built through years of shared moments, trust, and affection, relationships like theirs inspire many to look beyond traditional definitions of parenthood. As Shahid continues to shine in Bollywood and Supriya continues her memorable journey on-screen, their off-screen story remains just as admirable and just as real.