Rocket attacks on Israel continue into the night, even after the Israel Defense Forces launched airstrikes and tank bombardments against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip.

Israel says over 430 rockets have been launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Sirens were ringing most of Saturday and through the early hours of Sunday in Eshkol, Ashkelon and other cities in proximity of the Gaza Strip.

One man was reported killed in Ashkelon when a rocket hit his home, and nine people were wounded.

Several hours earlier, sirens wailed and a rocket barrage rained down on the city of Be’er Sheva. The largest city in southern Israel, Be’er Sheva is usually out of range of all but Hamas’ longest-range projectiles.

Many of the rockets launched were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Shortly before Be’er Sheva was targeted, interceptions were observed over Ashdod, less than 30km up the coast from the border with Gaza.

Amid the ongoing standoff, the Islamic Jihad released a video vowing to strike nuclear research facility in Dimona and other strategic sites, including Ben-Gurion International Airport. Footage showed militants loading rockets into a launcher, followed by a list of targets which also included Ashdod port and refineries in Haifa. Hamas also noted that the “next step is to blow up Tel Aviv.”

Palestinian death toll higher

Israel pinned responsibility for the attacks on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant groups, and launched airstrikes in response.

Israeli planes continued their raids into the Gaza Strip overnight, targeting various buildings, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Israeli tanks also pounded targets in Gaza, with the IDF claiming to have successfully hit Hamas weapons factories and intelligence headquarters, and destroyed Islamic Jihad “terror tunnels” used by terrorists to sneak into Israel.

The Israeli strikes claimed at least three Palestinian lives, including a 14-month-old baby and her pregnant mother, according to the Gaza health ministry. A 22-year-old man was also killed, although it is unclear whether he was a civilian or a Hamas operative.

At least eight Palestinians have died since tensions escalated on Friday, Palestinian News agency Wafa said, and at least 30 civilians sustained injuries. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli aggression on Gaza, noting that “the silence on Israel’s crimes and violations of international law encourages it to continue its crimes against the Palestinian people.”

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Minister Mai al-Kaila, called on the international community to urgently intervene and hold Israel responsible for “crimes” against the Palestinians. She also said that hospitals in Gaza are in urgent need of medicine and other supplies.

On the Israeli side of the border, an 80-year-old woman was severely wounded in a Palestinian rocket strike on the city of Kiryat Gat, and remains in “serious condition.” Another 49-year-old man in Ashkelon was moderately wounded, while a 15-year-old boy who failed to find cover in time managed to escape with mild injuries.

Violence resumed in Gaza this week after militants fired a rocket into Israel on Tuesday. Two Israeli troops patrolling near the Gaza border were then shot, triggering retaliatory IDF airstrikes. As the fighting escalated, Hamas promised a tit-for-tat response.

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Over a dozen Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed as well as scores injured on both sides in an ongoing spate of violence that saw hundreds of rockets launched by Gaza militants and massive air strikes by Israel.

At least 18 people were killed in Sunday’s Israeli assault on Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said, adding that dozens more have been injured. A pregnant woman and her 14-month-old baby were among those killed.

Israel said it killed at least eight Palestinian militants, claiming it struck 320 militant targets in the strip, including tunnels, arms workshops and depots. It blamed the deaths of a Palestinian woman and her daughter on a faulty rocket launch by the militants.

It also claimed that a Palestinian man killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday was a Hamas commander. Ahmed Abed Khudri, whose car was hit by an Israeli air strike, allegedly helped transfer funds from Iran to armed factions in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Hamas militant group that controls the Gaza Strip as well as another extremist organization called the Islamic Jihad fired as many as 600 rockets and mortar shells targeting the Israeli territory. At least four people in Israel were killed and at least 10 injured by shrapnel from rockets, missiles and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip.

One man was critically injured and later died from his wounds on Sunday after a rocket struck a factory in the southern city of Ashkelon, 50km south of Tel Aviv. Another man in Ashkelon died after his car was directly hit by a rocket.

The IDF also said that the militants hit a civilian van with an anti-tank missile near Kibbutz Erez, critically injuring the driver, who later died from his injuries. The Palestinian militants claimed it was a military vehicle transporting soldiers that they struck.

Both sides also said that many civilians were injured during the recent developments.The Israeli retaliation air strikes resulted in 125 Palestinians suffering various injuries, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The mediation efforts taken by the UN and Egypt have yielded no results so far as none of the sides appeared to be ready to stop the violence. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue striking Gaza with “massive airstrikes” in response to the militants’ rocket launches.

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Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned Israel for hitting the office of Anadolu Agency during its airstrikes in Gaza, saying that it won’t prevent Turkey from reporting on atrocities committed by the Jewish state.

“Turkey and the Anadolu Agency will continue to tell the world about Israeli terrorism and atrocities in Gaza and other parts of Palestine, despite such attacks,” Erdogan vowed on Twitter.

The Turkish news agency shared a video on Saturday, purportedly showing rescuers combing through the rubble of the ruined building which had hosted its bureau.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu described the alleged attack as a “new example of Israel’s unrestrained aggression.”

The ministry called on the international community to “to act swiftly in order to reduce the tension in the region with Israel’s disproportionate actions.”

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Statues made of high-quality limestone, picturesque wooden masks and intact colorful sarcophagi have been found at a newly-discovered burial site near the pyramids at Giza. Researchers have said the find dates back to 2,500 BC.

One of the oldest tombs contains the remains of two men who lived during the so-called Old Kingdom or the age of the pyramid builders.

“The two false doors that we found inside are really in a very good quality of limestone. To get a very good quality of limestone that came from Tora, you need to get permission from the King himself, and I believe that those guys even got very good titles to be able to ask the King for this good quality limestone,” said Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

According to the inscriptions inside the tombs one of the men was called Behnui-Ka. He was a priest and judge who served under several kings including Khafre, the pharaoh who ordered the construction of one of the Giza Pyramids. The other was Nwi, whose titles included “chief of the great state,” “the overseer of the new settlements” and “the purifier of King Khafre.”
Archaeologists believe that their mummified remains may be found in the sarcophagi, and suggest that some statues and masks depict them and their family members.

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Three days after clashing with police at May Day demonstrations, Yellow Vests protesters marched in Paris and across France, in the 25th straight weekend of anti-government anger.

According to the Interior Ministry, 18,900 demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday, the lowest turnout since the movement began as a protest against a planned fuel tax hike in November. However, the Yellow Vests have regularly disputed the figures released by the ministry, accusing officials of downplaying the scale of the protests.

In Paris, protesters demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. Castaner had accused Yellow Vests protesters of staging an “attack” on a hospital in the city during Wednesday’s May Day protests. Social media footage told a different story, with the protesters seeking refuge in the hospital to avoid police batons and tear gas.

Droves of protesters beat drums and chanted “Liar Castaner.”

Protesters in Toulouse also jeered at Castaner and demanded his resignation. The march in Toulouse quickly became violent, however, and clashes broke out between the Yellow Vests and police. Tear gas was deployed, and riot police at one point violently charged protesters.

Tear gas was also used by police in La Roche-sur-Yon, while protesters in Lyon joined a more peaceful youth march against global warming.

Although turnout on the streets was lower than on previous weekends, many Yellow Vests have not been pacified by President Macron’s promise of tax breaks, with one dismissing the president’s offering as “rubbish” last week.

In the wake of Castaner’s hospital “attack” claim, 1,400 French artists, celebrities and creatives –including movie stars Juliette Binoche and Emmanuelle Beart– signed an open letter of support for the Yellow Vests, printed in left-wing newspaper Libération on Saturday. In it, they slammed the French government and media for attempting to “discredit” the “citizens’ movement.”

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Ecuador traded Julian Assange for a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which can only be handed out with the approval of Washington, John Shipton, the WikiLeaks co-founder’s father, has said.

“Ecuador doesn’t have its own currency. It uses the US dollar,” Shipton told 60 Minutes Australia. 

In late February, Ecuador has reached a $4.2 billion staff-level financing deal with the IMF to keep its struggling economy afloat. 

Less than two months later, Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno revoked Assange’s political asylum. The publisher and journalist was detained by the UK police, which dragged him out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He had been holed up there for almost seven years fearing extradition to the US for publishing evidence of its war crimes and shady policies on his whistleblowing project WikiLeaks.

RT’s Ruptly video agency was the only outlet present to capture the arrest on video. Shipton commented on the footage describing the “terrible” effect that the pressure has had on his son. “I’m 74, he looks as old as me. He’s 47.”

Assange’s father said his main fear now was that Britain will deport the whistleblower to the US. Formally, the Americans want to prosecute the publisher for an alleged cyber-conspiracy with former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who passed thousands of classified US military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010. But many believe the number of charges will pile up once the US gets hold of Assange.

“The US was determined to ruin his life, for whatever reason. They want to demonstrate that publishers and whistleblowers will be destroyed,” Shipton said.

He also laughed at the claims that his son was working with the Kremlin, which were first voiced by the Hillary Clinton camp. “Oh for god’s sake, Russian asset, spare me,” the father said.

Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential vote in the US not because the WikiLeaks published the emails of the Democratic National Committee, but because Clinton as Secretary of State “destroyed Libya and giggled like a madwoman seeing a bayonet that’s stuffed up Gaddafi’s a**hole,” he argued.

Shipton parted ways with Assange’s mother Christine Ann Hawkins when she was pregnant with Julian, but he kept in touch with his son and reportedly last visited him in the Ecuadorian embassy on Christmas.

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Sri Lankan security forces are on high alert amid warnings of more possible suicide bomb attacks in the country by assailants dressed in military fatigues using vans.

“There could be another wave of attacks,” the head of the police’s ministerial security division said in a letter to politicians, senior police and security forces officials.

“The relevant information further notes that persons dressed in military uniforms and using a van could be involved in the attacks.”

According to the report, seen by Reuters, the same groups behind the Easter Sunday bombings which killed over 250 people, National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim, were planning to target some five locations on Sunday or Monday. Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) claimed responsibility for the Easter attacks but solid evidence of its involvement has yet to emerge.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has banned all face coverings which may conceal a person’s identity including, but not limited to, burqas and niqabs, as authorities continue to investigate the bombing attacks.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping loves to watch the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, but believes the brutal fictional world of Westeros shouldn’t become a template for international relations, a local paper has reported.

HBO’s fantasy drama, based on ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ by George R. R. Martin, is as much a smash hit in China as anywhere else around the globe, despite local viewers being shown an edited version with less sex and violence.

With the show in its final season, it appears that even the Chinese leader has been unable to resist the phenomenon. However, due to his extremely busy schedule, Xi has a special – even more condensed – cut of the show prepared for him, an unnamed government official told South China Morning Post. “We call it the diamond version,” he said.

The Chinese leader recently showed his affection for GOT in public, telling his aides and foreign guests at a Beijing meeting that “we must all make sure the world we live in does not descend into the chaotic warring seven kingdoms of Westeros,” the source recalled.

Luckily, Xi has Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang to discuss the latest episodes with, as Li has apparently been watching too. The premier mentioned Game of Thrones during a recent summit in Dubrovnik – the ancient Croatian port town that served as the set for King’s Landing, the capital of Westeros, in the American show.

“While [Game of Thrones] is reaching its end, the new round of 16+1 [Central and Eastern European countries + China] cooperation is beginning… because this is not a ‘game,’ but a reflection of win-win cooperation,” Li said.

Curiously, George R. R. Martin’s books, which describe a medieval society (plus magic and dragons), mention the eastern empire of Yi Ti, ruled by god-emperors and clearly inspired by Imperial China. This land was never visited by the Game of Thrones characters on TV. One has to wonder, could the enthusiasm of top Chinese officials see the country’s Ministry of Culture sponsoring a Yi Ti-based spinoff of the cult show?

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Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez’ socialist party PSOE is set to come out on top in Sunday’s elections, but it’ll have to form a coalition in the fragmented parliament. Meanwhile, right-wing party Vox enters with over 20 seats.

With the Spanish political landscape increasingly fragmented, voters went to the polls on Sunday to take part in the country’s third general election in four years. Turnout was a high 75 percent, and all 350 seats in Spain’s Congress of Deputies were up for grabs.

With 84 percent of votes counted by Sunday evening, Sanchez’ decision to call a snap election in February looks to have paid off. His socialist PSOE party looks set to take 123 seats, or 29 percent of the vote. Previously, Sanchez led a minority government of 85 deputies, with the support of a handful of independence-favoring Catalonian parties.

Spain’s center-right People’s Party (PP) looks to have been eviscerated at the polls, netting only 65 seats, or 16 percent of the vote. The PP won 137 seats in the 2016 election, but were ousted from power following a no-confidence motion from Sánchez last year.

Populist centrist party Ciudadanos – which represents Catalonians who oppose the region’s independence movement – looks set to take 57 seats, or 15 percent of the vote. The party scored 32 seats in 2016.

Left-wing anti-austerity party Podemos lost out on Sunday, taking 35 seats, or 12 percent of the vote. The party, which sought to attract left-wing voters dissatisfied with the PSOE, has been rocked by infighting since it won 45 seats in 2016.

The rise of right-wing contenders Vox has been watched closely by the world’s media. Strongly opposed to regional independence movements and proudly against the liberalism of Sánchez’s PSOE, Vox was supported by former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon. The hardline conservatives are on track to pick up 24 seats, or 10 percent of the vote. Although some media outlets hungry to depict the “rise of the far right” predicted a higher score, 10 percent is a significant jump from 2016, when the party won only 0.2 percent of the vote.

With the count continuing, these numbers could fluctuate. However, it is highly likely that the PSOE will look to form a coalition government as soon as possible.

The “most probable possibility is the socialist party supported by minority and regional parties,” Marc Sanjaume-Calvet, political science researcher at Universitat Pompeu Fabra told RT. Podemos could also lend their support to a left-wing coalition, as could the centrists of Ciudadanos.

Hopes for a right-wing coalition have been all but dashed. The PP, Ciudadanos, and Vox could band together, but would still come up more than 30 seats short of a majority, and could not dream of securing the support of any of the regional independence parties.

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The world has spent $1.8 trillion on its military in 2018. The US is leading the charge, while some of its NATO allies are also buffing their war budgets citing the Russian threat despite Moscow decreasing its military spending.

The past year has been immensely successful for the war industry, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). According to its newest report, released on Monday, global military spending went up 2.6 percent to reach its highest level since at least 1988, when researchers began tracking the data.

US military expenditure stood at $649 billion last year, which amounts to 36 percent of the world’s total. Washington outspent its closest rival, China, by almost 200 percent. It also spent almost as much as the next eight countries combined.

The surge in military spending has been fueled by the exacerbating rivalry between the US and China, as well as the strained situation in Asia where India increased its spending by 3.1 percent and Pakistan by 11 percent.

“The tensions between countries in Asia as well as between China and the USA are major drivers for the continuing growth of military spending in the region,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure (AMEX) program.

READ MORE: Military & civil cooperation between Moscow & NATO nonexistent – Russian deputy FM

While Washington has been an undisputed leader of the chart for years, last year it upped its game even more, increasing its military spending for the first time since 2010. The surge in US defense spending is a direct reflection of the Trump administration’s policy, according to SIPRI.

“The increase in US spending was driven by the implementation from 2017 of new arms procurement programs under the Trump administration,” Dr Aude Fleurant, director of the SIPRI AMEX, noted.

Staying true to an upward trend of 24 years, China increased its spending by five percent. However, the pace of its military growth has slowed down to its lowest since 1994. In total, Beijing forked out $250 billion for military needs.

Despite decreasing its military spending by a record six percent, Saudi Arabia retained third place, having spent $67.6 billion. India landed in fourth place with $66.5 billion, followed by France on $63.8 billion.

Russia slipped two places to claim sixth spot by spending some $61.4 billion on the military in 2018, 3.5 percent less than in 2017. Even though the numbers indicate that Moscow is not the country fueling a new arms race, SIPRI reported that a huge uptick in military spending by Poland (growing by 8.9 percent), the Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania and several others are due to the purported Russian scare.

“The increases in Central and Eastern Europe are largely due to growing perceptions of a threat from Russia,” Wezeman said.

While Trump has been behind a drastic increase in the Pentagon budget and that of NATO, the US president has recently lamented that the money would be better spent elsewhere, calling on China and Russia to “get together” and stop “making these weapons.” 

If the world were to spend this money on something else, the amount in question would constitute 2.1 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) or $239 per person, according to the SIPRI report.

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