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I've Been Thinking:
North Korea claims that about eight hundred thousand of its citizens volunteered to join or reenlist in the nation's military to fight against the United States.
According to North Korea's state newspaper, the eight hundred thousand students and workers from around the country enlisted and re-enlisted in one single day.
This rather impressive claim came after North Korea launched its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in response to ongoing U.S-South Korea military drills.
North Korea fired the ICBM into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan just hours before South Korea's president flew to Tokyo for a summit to discuss ways to counter a nuclear-armed North Korea.
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Egypt and Turkey took another step towards mending relations when Ankara's top diplomat visited Cairo for the first time since ties were ruptured a decade ago and held talks with his Egyptian counterpart.
Relations between the countries were severely strained in 2013. That was when Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's then-army chief, led the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi, an ally of Ankara. Since 2021, tension between the two countries has gradually thawed. At a joint news conference with his Turkish counterpart, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said talks with Turkey on the possibility of restoring ties to ambassadorial level would happen at "the appropriate time". He termed the talks "honest, deep and transparent".
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Russian State Media reported that President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Mariupol. It was the Kremlin leader's first trip to the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine's Donbas region since the start of the war.
The visit to Mariupol came on the heels of an unannounced visit Putin paid to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia's annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine. It was, also, just two days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
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Ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Egypt hosted Israeli and Palestinian officials in the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh in a U.S. and Jordanian backed effort to calm a surge of violence in the West Bank. The five-way meeting followed the Feb. 26th U.S.-brokered summit in Jordan, the first of its kind in years, that secured Israeli and Palestinian pledges to de-escalate.
The best of intensions aside, that summit did not end in success. It was challenged by factions on both sides and failed to halt the violence on the ground.
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Syrian President Bashar al Assad arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for an official visit. On this trip, the Syrian president was accompanied by his wife Asma al Assad.
Long isolated by the Arab world, more and more Arab states have signaled an openness to easing the isolation of Damascus. This visit was marked with more ceremony than the trip Assad paid to the UAE last year. Last year was Assad’s first to an Arab state since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. During that war Gulf states, including the UAE, backed the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad and his regime.
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Iran and Saudi Arabia have begun to get cozy, diplomatically speaking. They are re-establishing ties and the Iranian government has offered a proposal to Saudi Arabia. According to the Iranian foreign minister, Iran has suggested three locations for a meeting at the foreign ministry level.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian told a news conference in Tehran that his country had agreed to the meeting. What he did not reveal, however, was the suggested locations or the time table for the meeting.
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Palestinian terrorist group Hamas praised a shooting attack in which an Israeli man was seriously wounded in the Palestinian West Bank town of Huwara. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem called the attack a "natural response to the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people”. "The resistance in the West Bank” he said “is getting stronger, more present and more rooted, and all security forces cannot stop it or bypass it".
One has to ask how it is possible to publicly support attacks against innocent civilians, in this case, an innocent family driving in their car. The father - a dual citizen of both Israel and America, and an ex-marine, managed to shoot and wound his attacker even after sustaining a shot to the head.
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The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange dipped after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank which sent shock waves throughout the global tech industry.
The stock exchange’s benchmark TA-125 index dropped three point thirty-one percent, while the TA-35 index of blue-chip companies lost three point one percent. Other prominent indices, such TA-Biomed, TA-RealEstate, TA-Investment Properties Abroad and TA-Banks5, fell by 4 to 5 percent each. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is the biggest lender to fail since the 2008 crisis.
The repercussions of this event are expected to have a substantial impact on tech companies and technologies worldwide, including those based in Israel.
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Russian forces suffered more than eleven hundred dead in less than a week of battles near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the focal point of fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The report comes to us via the nightly video address of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who said: "In less than a week, starting from 6th March, we managed to kill more than eleven hundred enemy soldiers in the Bakhmut sector alone, Russia's irreversible loss, right there, near Bakhmut.”
Zelenskyy also reported that Russian forces had also sustained fifteen hundred "sanitary losses" – those are soldiers wounded badly enough to keep them out of further action. Additionally, dozens of pieces of enemy equipment were destroyed as were more than 10 Russian ammunition depots.
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Israeli forces will hold an international earthquake exercise from March 12th to the 25th. The exercise will be led by the Defense Ministry’s National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA).
The announcement came from the ministry’s spokesperson. The move comes nearly a month after the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria that claimed the lives of over forty-six thousand people. The exercise will be “focused on receiving international aid in the case of an earthquake together with Israeli emergency and rescue agencies.” It will simulate all necessary emergency procedures including the initial decision to request international assistance, integrating foreign rescue teams, distributing aid to various locations within the country, and the receival process of international aid.
Hopefully, this will remain an exercise and never need to be implemented.
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New York State published an official announcement in which it recommended that all citizens planning to fly to Israel get the Polio vaccine, due to the recent outbreak in Israel.
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Iranian state media reported that Tehran finalized a deal to buy Sukhoi-35 fighter jets from Russia, as defense cooperation between the two countries deepens. This is very important for IranTheThis is very important for Iran which is struggling under hard hitting sanctions imposed on them by the West.
The Iranian air force of sanctions-hit Iran has an aging fleet of aircraft and has struggled to obtain spare parts to keep its warplanes functional. In a statement to the United Nations, the Islamic Republic said it began approaching “countries to buy fighter jets” to replenish its fleet in the wake of the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988.
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Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies. This decision follows seven years of tensions. The major diplomatic breakthrough, which was negotiated with China, lowers the chance of armed conflict between the Mideast rivals - both directly and in proxy conflicts around the region.
While Saudi Arabia kept Washington informed of its talks with Iran to restore diplomatic relations, according to John Kirby, the White House Spokesman, the United States was not directly involved. Kirby explained that the road map that was announced appeared to be the result of several rounds of talks, including some held in Baghdad and Oman and that the United States has supported that process as promoting an end to the war in Yemen and to what he termed Iranian aggression. He said: "The Saudis did keep us informed about these talks that they were having, just as we keep them informed on our engagements, but we weren't directly involved."
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Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has hailed the resumption of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Normalization, he said, was a "good development" that could "help resolve crises" in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and the wider region. In a televised address, Nasrallah said: "It's a good thing” and then he added the caveat, “we are convinced that this will not be at our expense."
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El Al, Israel's flagship airliner, was having trouble manning a flight to take Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara to Italy. And so, the office of the prime minister reported that they were opening a tender to locate a pilot able to fly the 777 plane.
Since his government began its push to legislate a judicial overhaul, a move that has enraged countless many in the Israeli public, El Al pilots and cabin crew have been avoiding flights with the first couple of Israel.
In an official statement El Al explained – or perhaps explained away the difficulty saying that it was the result of a limited number of pilots attached to the 777 fleets. The Netanyahu's were travelling to Italy to meet with Italian far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In the end, El AL found a crew.
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Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and United Arab Emirates Ambassador to Israel Muhammad Mahmoud Al Khaja signed a customs valuation agreement.
The agreement will put into effect the free trade agreement they already signed in May of 2022. This agreement is expected to lower or remove customs on 96% of products imported and exported between the countries.
According to Foreign Minister Cohen: “The agreement will strengthen Israel’s economy.”
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Israel has criticized Brazil for their decision granting berth to two Iranian warships.
Brazil came to their decision despite pressure by the United States not to grant berth to the warships. Israel also urged Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government to send the ships, which are docked in Rio de Janeiro, away.
Reuters has reported that, back in January, Brazil declined to admit the Iranian ships as a gesture from Lula to Washington as he flew to DC to meet U.S. President Joe Biden.
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The United States imposed new sanctions on Iranian or Iran-linked shipping and petrochemical companies, including two shipping firms based in China. These sanctions can be viewed on the US Treasury Department's website. According to the website, the sanctions also targeted 20 shipping vessels linked to firms in China, Vietnam, and the United Arab Emirates.
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Hungary is set to move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. The move, which will take place next month, is an act of support by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu.
This dramatic move will make Hungary the first member state of the European Union to open an embassy in Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its capital, but which is not recognized by most countries because they question Jerusalem’s status under international law.
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Israel hosted top U.S. military officer, Army General Mark Milley. Milley came to Israel for a series of discussions including the need for cooperation on denying Iran nuclear weaponry. Milley’s trip was unannounced. America’s top military officer arrived in Israel ahead of a trip to Israel by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Austin’s trip also includes neighboring countries Egypt and Jordan – both U.S.-aligned Arab states that have influence on Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
According to sources, the real purpose behind Milley’s trip was to convey US insistence that Israel not act unilaterally against Iran.
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The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has indicated that talks were ongoing with Iran on two sets of important matters including the science sector, and there there was "great expectation" about the process.
Rafael Grossi began a series of meetings in Tehran by saying that diplomats said they were pushing Iran to cooperate with an IAEA investigation into uranium traces found at undeclared sites that had been enriched close to nuclear-weapons grade.
IN Tehran Grossi spoke to reporters and told them: "Globally speaking, there are two sets of matters that are important. Clearly, there is a great expectation about our joint work in order to move forward in the issues that Iran and the agency are working on, to clarify and to bring credible assurances about the nuclear program in Iran".
We are being told that Iran responded very positively to the meetings and have given sweeping assurances to the UN nuclear watchdog that it will finally assist a long-stalled investigation into uranium particles found at undeclared sites and even re-install removed monitoring equipment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran issued a joint statement just two days before a quarterly meeting of the agency's 35-nation Board of Governors.
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A man in NYC was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to a federal hate crime conspiracy charge for a series of antisemitic assaults her perpetrated in New York City. Saadah Masoud, 29, of Staten Island, was arrested in June after authorities said that in April he punched and dragged a counter-protester, who was draped in an Israeli flag, at a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
Prosecutors said that Masoud also admitted to attacking another person wearing a Star of David necklace in May of 2021 and another man wearing a yarmulke, a Jewish skullcap, a month later.
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German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius reacted with skepticism to a Chinese ceasefire proposal for the war in Ukraine.
During an interview with German public broadcast Deutschlandfunk, the defense minister said: "When I hear reports - and I don't know whether they are true - according to which China may be planning to supply kamikaze drones to Russia while at the same time presenting a peace plan, then I suggest we judge China by its actions and not its words.”
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Israel's Union of Social Workers announced that, because the Finance Ministry has not kept its commitment to devote NIS 200 million to reforming social workers' salaries, they will hold demonstrations throughout the country. If their demands are still not met, the demonstrations will be followed by a general strike.
The Chairman of the Union of Social Workers, Attorney Inbal Harmoni, said in a statement: "The Finance Ministry and the entire government of Israel [negated] the salary increase that was signed and agreed upon with us.
"In the coming days, we will disrupt all social services throughout the country until a complete shutdown [is achieved] and [stage] demonstrations throughout the country."
Social workers are an integral part of Israeli society. When they strike, countless Israelis suffer.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired a senior military commander, a man who helped lead Ukraine’s fight against Russian troops in the country's embattled east. But the Ukrainian president gave no reason for his decision.
In a one-line decree, Zelensky announced the dismissal of Eduard Moskalyov as commander of the joint forces of Ukraine, which are engaged in battles in the Donbas region.
Zelensky mentioned Moskalyov’s firing in his daily address when listing the military commanders he had spoken to. Moskalyov, who’s name was glaringly missing from the list of military commanders, had been in the post since March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.
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CIA Director William Burns said, while being interviewed by CBS TV, that Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity has been steadily rising and will soon be able to reach a level of 90%.
According to the CIA director, “They’ve advanced very far to the point that it would only be a matter of weeks before they could enrich to 90% if they chose to cross that line, and also in terms of their missile systems, their ability to deliver a nuclear weapon once they develop it, has also been advancing as well.” This is not good news.
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El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. announced that it has become the first Israeli national carrier to use a new corridor over Saudi Arabia and Oman. This flight path was made possible after Muscat joined Riyadh in allowing Israeli civilian overflights. As a result, when El Al Flight 083, departs Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport in the evening, it will take only around eight hours to reach Bangkok - two and a half hours less than previous trips.
El Al CEO Dina Ben Tal Ganancia spoke for the entire company when she said: "El Al is proud to be the first Israeli airline to fly over the skies of Saudi Arabia and Oman and take an active part in the State of Israel's history.”
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Israel’s Ministerial Committee on Legislation voted to give government backing to a bill that institutes the death penalty for terrorists. Convened on the day during which another deadly attack on Israelis had taken place, the Ministers decided that the State Security Cabinet will meet to discuss the text of the bill before it goes up for a Knesset vote.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the group and said: "we will act to deter terrorists and maintain security. We will strike terrorism with force." Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir added: "On this difficult day when two Israeli citizens were murdered, there is nothing more symbolic than passing the bill. It is a moral and fair bill."
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During that meeting, which brought together Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs for the first time in many years, Jordan's King Abdullah told U.S. President Joe Biden's top Middle East advisor that efforts should be intensified to bring "calm and reduce escalation" in Palestinian territories. Brett McGurk attended the meeting in the Red Sea port of Aqaba hosted by Jordan.
This meeting, which was attended by representatives of key parties in the region, was a very important step towards helping to reduce tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
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Officials from Israel, Jordan, Egypt the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. concluded their meeting in Jordan. As we mentioned in one of our columns, they had convened to reduce violence in the West Bank ahead of the Muslim month of Ramadan.
The result of the meeting was that the delegates decided to form a security commission to discuss the renewal of coordination between Israel and the PA on security.
They also agreed to meet once more before Ramadan and form a joint civil commission to discuss confidence-building measures. Israel, for her part, made it clear that they have no intention of suspending the government's decision to legalize 9 outposts and construct 9,500 housing units in the West Bank.
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