Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that there will be no peace talks with the Palestinians as long as Hamas is part of the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s position is that Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and therefore there is no reason to hold any further negotiations. Interestingly, one of the members of Netanyahu’s government, Naftali Bennett, who holds a senior cabinet position, once told David Remnick of the New Yorker: “I will do everything in my power to make sure they never get a state,” he says of the Palestinians. No more negotiations, “no more illusions.” Consistency is not a strong characteristic of world politics.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned of “incalculable consequences” if the situation in Ukraine is not resolved. There still is no talk whatsoever of a Western military defense of Ukraine, even if the Russians were to invade. But the US has announced that it will initiate new sanctions against Russia and is working on yet a third round of sanctions if the crisis does not end soon. Russian has recalled its United Nations Ambassador back to Moscow for urgent consultations.
A new coronavirus, called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, has spread beyond its initial site of its discovery, Saudi Arabia, to a large number of countries. The virus was only identified in 2012, and it has a relatively high rate of lethality. The virus is similar to the SARS virus that was detected several years ago in China. Health officials, however, are becoming increasingly concerned as the virus has spread and because there has been a recent spike in the number of diagnosed cases.
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