10/06/2026

WEDNESDAY | JUNE 10, 2026

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World conflicts hit peak o Africa most affected region are estimated to have left some 60,000 people dead.

Raman vs Bass in LA mayor runoff LOS ANGELES: Left-wing candidate Nithya Raman will face incumbent Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor’s runoff in November. Raman, a Democratic Socialist on the Los Angeles City Council, held 28.5% of the votes as of late Monday, advancing past Republican Spencer Pratt who was at 25.8%, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. Media outlets projected Raman had secured enough votes to advance to the runoff despite the ongoing ballot count. The second-place candidate will face incumbent Bass, a Democratic former congresswoman first elected to lead the second-largest US city in 2022, who has come under fire during her time in office. “I’m incredibly honored that voters have given us the opportunity to advance to the general election for mayor of Los Angeles,” Raman said on X. “Now our fight for a healthier, safer, more affordable, and more joyful Los Angeles continues.” Bass announced her win in a post on X, saying that “LA rejected Spencer Pratt and the MAGA agenda”. Pratt, a onetime reality TV villain whose house burned down in the 2025 fires that hit the Los Angeles area, centred his campaign on anger over the city’s slow rebuild process, potholed roads, the homeless and a city hall seen as inefficient. His candidacy sat in second place after polls closed last Tuesday, but it has since slipped in the standings as mail-in votes have been counted. Ballots in California are mailed out to all registered voters and are valid if they are postmarked by Election Day, meaning some do not even arrive at the counting centre until several days after polls close. – AFP Probe sparks Italy-Israel spat ROME: Italy yesterday condemned as “unacceptable” an insult by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, following a decision by prosecutors in Rome to investigate him over the treatment of activists in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Ben Gvir is being investigated for an alleged “war crime” and “torture” after activists accused Israeli authorities of mistreatment during their detention last month. “The land of the boot has become the land of the flip-flop,” Ben Gvir wrote on Monday on X – a derogatory reference to the geographical shape of Italy. Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani told a Senate hearing yesterday they were “unacceptable words ... unworthy of a minister”, and which demonstrate “the man’s political and moral standing”. “I have no words to comment on what he said about Italy yesterday, after learning that he was under investigation by the public prosecutor’s office,” Tajani said. Israel detained more than 430 activists after intercepting them in international waters on May 18 as they made the latest in a string of attempts to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory. Ben Gvir sparked condemnation after he posted a video mocking the flotilla activists while their hands were bound. Tajani said Rome “will continue to push” for the European Union to sanction Ben Gvir. – AFP

sided violence against civilians. Africa remained the region most affected by the first type of conflict with 29, followed by Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, and Europe. Rustad said Israel was “clearly one of the most aggressive countries at the moment”, pointing to its involvement in different types of conflicts in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, against Iran, and against Houthi rebels. She also pointed to the United States, saying President Donald Trump’s return to power had brought “not just attacking and increasing violence, but also the trade barriers they’re putting up”. “We are putting a lid on collaboration. The (UN) Security Council doesn’t work at the moment. We get a much more polarised world.” – AFP

invasion of Ukraine and Israeli military operations against Syria. “Unfortunately there is not a lot of positive things,” researcher Siri Aas Rustad told a group of media outlets. “Usually I’m able to sort of squeeze something positive out of it, but this year it’s shocking, the numbers.” Last year was the third deadliest since the end of the Cold War, with around 245,000 deaths directly related to fighting or political violence – nearly 76,500 of them attributed to attacks directly targeting civilians, compared with 14,200 in 2024. The sharp increase in civilian deaths is due to the conflict between the army and paramilitaries in Sudan, where the siege and massacres carried out in El-Fasher city in the Darfur region

Since the end of the Cold War, only 1994 and 2021 have seen more bloodshed, due to the Rwanda genocide and the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. “What has happened in the past five or six years is that we have several big conflicts going on at the same time and they seem to take over from each other. The world doesn’t get any break,” Rustad said. “And that’s different from previously – this continuous high intensity level of conflict globally.” The PRIO study is based on figures compiled by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), attached to Uppsala University. It distinguishes between three main types of organised violence: conflicts involving at least one state, non-state conflicts, and one

OSLO: The world last year saw the highest number of state conflicts since the Second World War, a Norwegian study said, warning of a surge in attacks targeting civilians. The annual Conflict Trends report from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) said 65 conflicts involving at least one state were recorded worldwide last year, a new high since 1946. Conflicts between states also hit a new 80-year peak, doubling from the year before to eight – including border clashes between India and Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Cambodia and Thailand, as well as Russia’s

Rosette Tannous, wife of Lebanese army captain Elie Khoury who was killed by Israeli bombardment, salutes as mourners carry her husband’s coffin past during the funeral in his home village of Kfar Jarra near Jezzine in southern Lebanon on Monday. – AFPPIC US helicopter crashes near Hormuz, pilots safe

DUBAI: President Donald Trump said yesterday that two US pilots were “fine” after their helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, following a report that the crew of an Apache gunship had been rescued after going down close to the Iranian-controlled waterway. It was not immediately clear whether the Apache had been shot down, experienced mechanical failure, or encountered some other problem. The White House, Department of State and Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Asked if he knew what had brought the helicopter down, Trump said a

struggling with record low approval ratings as November’s midterm elections approach, has often hinted at an imminent deal with Tehran. Iran had fired missiles towards Israeli territory late on Sunday, calling the strikes retaliation for attacks on the Hezbollah militia on the outskirts of Beirut. Israel then hit Iranian air defence systems and a petrochemical plant that it said was used to produce ballistic missiles. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it retaliated with a strike aimed at a similar Israeli plant in the city of Haifa. No deaths were reported by authorities on either side. – Reuters

The order included the Christian quarter, an area previously excluded from evacuation warnings. The military said Hezbollah gunmen were operating there, without providing evidence. Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon helped trigger the latest missile exchanges between Iran and Israel, the most direct confrontation since the April ceasefire, complicating Trump’s push to end a war that the US and Israel launched on Feb 28. Trump also told reporters he might have“an idea”for an Iran deal within a few days, without elaborating. The Republican president,

report would be issued later. “The pilots are fine,” Trump said, speaking on the runway at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport before returning to Washington. “Nobody injured.” Iran and Israel said on Monday that they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal from Trump, settling back into a tenuous ceasefire announced on April 8. Tehran warned, however, that it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to hit Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israeli military issued an evacuation order yesterday for the Lebanese city of Tyre.