01/06/2025

WORLD 8 ON SUNDAY JUNE 1, 2025

Israel threatens Hamas with ‘annihilation’

Turkiye widens opposition crackdown ANKARA: Turkish authorities ordered the detention of several opposition party members in Istanbul and raided opposition run municipalities yesterday, state media said, part of a widening legal crackdown against the opposition and city’s jailed mayor. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is also President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival and leads him in some polls, was jailed in March pending trial over charges of corruption and aiding a terrorist group, all of which he denies. Anadolu news agency and broadcaster NTV reported yesterday that detention warrants had been issued for 47 people in four graft investigations, with 28 of those being detained. Among those detained was former Republican People’s Party lawmaker Aykut Erdogdu, the mayors of several districts in Istanbul, senior staff at the Istanbul municipality or institutions tied to it, and the mayors of two districts in Adana. Police also searched the buildings of the Avcilar, Buyukcekmece, Gaziosmanpasa, Seydan and Ceyhan municipalities, whose mayors were ordered detained as part of the probe. – Reuters

GAZA CITY: Israel on Friday said Hamas must accept a hostage deal in Gaza or “be annihilated”, as President Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement was “very close”. It came amid dire conditions on the ground, with the United Nations warning that Gaza’s entire population was at risk of famine. Defence Minister Israel Katz said Hamas must agree to a proposal presented by US envoy Steve Witkoff or be destroyed, after the group said the deal failed to satisfy its demands. “Hamas will be forced to choose: accept the terms of the ‘Witkoff Deal’ or be annihilated.” Israel has repeatedly said that the destruction of Hamas was a key aim. Negotiations to end nearly 20 months of war in Gaza have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in March following a short-lived truce. Gaza ceasefire close, says US president

leaders for a two-state solution. Israel announced earlier this week the creation of 22 new settlements in the Palestinian territory, which Israel has occupied since 1967. London said the move was a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood while Egypt called it “a blatant violation of international law and Palestinian rights”. The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned Israel’s decision. On Friday, Katz vowed to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the West Bank. Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law and seen as a major obstacle to a lasting peace in the decades-long conflict. Katz framed the move as a direct rebuke to Macron and others pushing for recognition of a Palestinian state. Macron on Friday said that recognition of a Palestinian state, with some conditions, was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity”. – AFP

In the United States, Trump told reporters “they’re very close to an agreement on Gaza”, adding: “We’ll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow.” Food shortages in Gaza persist, with aid only trickling in after the partial lifting by Israel of a blockade. Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency, called Gaza “the hungriest place on Earth”. “It’s the only defined area – a country or defined territory within a country – where you have the entire population at risk of famine,” he said. Later, the UN condemned the “looting of large quantities of medical equipment” and other supplies “intended for malnourished children” from one of its Gaza warehouses. Aid groups warned that desperation for food and medicine among Gazans was causing security to deteriorate. Israel has doubled down on its settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, while defying calls from President Emmanuel Macron and other

‘M*A*S*H’ actress Loretta Swit dead

NEW YORK: Loretta Swit (pic) , the US actress who brought Major Margaret “Hot

Lips” Houlihan to life in the seminal Korean War comedy series “M*A*S*H” has died. She was 87. Swit who played the high-strung but flirty Houlihan for the entire TV run of the smash series, was nominated for 10 Emmy awards for her work, winning two of them. Her death, at her home

in Manhattan, was announced by her publicist, who said she was believed to have died of natural causes. “M*A*S*H” which sprang from an Oscar winning 1970 film, aired initially in 1972 and was a hit until it finished in 1983. The comedy was set in a field hospital for the US Army during the Korean War. It tackled a range of issues and was often seen as a satire on US involvement in Vietnam. – AFP

Police, supporters of

Israel and friends of Palestine gathering outside

Barclays Center for a graduation ceremony for Hunter College students on Friday in New

‘Ban flavoured tobacco products’

York City. – AFPPIC

NEW YORK: On World No Tobacco Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday launched a new publication and calls on governments to urgently ban all flavours in tobacco and nicotine products, including cigarettes, pouches, hookahs and e-cigarettes, to protect youth from addiction and disease. Flavours like menthol, bubble gum and cotton candy are masking the harshness of tobacco and nicotine products turning toxic products into youth-friendly bait. Flavours not only make it harder to quit but have also been linked to serious lung diseases. Cigarettes, which still kill up to half of their users, also come in flavours or can have flavours added to them. “Flavours are fuelling a new wave of addiction, and should be banned,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. – Bernama

The Blue Danube to waltz into outer space VIENNA: Austrian composer Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube has, for many people, been synonymous with space travel since it was used in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi film classic 2001: A Space Odyssey . the internet and also be shown at a public screening in Vienna, in New York at Bryant Park, and near the antenna in Spain.

“true unofficial space anthem” because of Kubrick. The timeless waltz is the “typical sound of space”, Kettner said, with the tunes being played “during docking manoeuvres of the International Space Station”. When the waltz is performed, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will make sure to underline the waltz’s airiness as if it were floating through space, its director Jan Nast said. According to Nast, who put together the programme for the concert, music is a language “which touches many people” and has “the universal power to convey hope and joy”. – AFP

“The digitised sound will be transmitted to the large 35m satellite dish at ESA’s Cebreros ground station in Spain,” Aschbacher said. And from there, the waltz will be “transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves”, the Austrian astronomer explained. Like no other waltz by Strauss junior, The Blue Danube evokes the elegance of 19th-century imperial Vienna, which lives on in the city’s roaring ball season. For Norbert Kettner, director of the Vienna tourist board, the Danube waltz is a

But the world famous waltz will truly travel among the stars, when the European Space Agency’s (ESA) antenna broadcasts early today a live performance into space to celebrate the composer’s 200th birthday. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra will play a concert in the Austrian capital from 1930 GMT (5.30am in Kuala Lumpur), said ESA Director-General Josef Aschbacher. The concert will be broadcast live on