Nov 15(Jowhar)-Raysal Wasaarihii hore ee dalka Kenya iyo hoggaamiyihii ugu caansanaa mucaaridka Kenya, Raila Amolo Odinga, ayaa geeriyooday maanta isagoo ku sugnaa dalka Hindiya, halkaas oo uu muddooyinkii la soo dhaafay u joogay xaalado caafimaad.
Israel to reopen Rafah crossing; surge of humanitarian aid enters Gaza
Rafah reopens — a narrow corridor between aid and grief
The sun dropped low over Rafah and the convoy began to move. For weeks, the southern crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been a word on the lips of diplomats and aid workers — a lifeline and a bargaining chip. Now, after a grim exchange in which the bodies of four Israelis were returned, Israeli authorities cleared the way for trucks to enter once more.
“We will open Rafah,” one Israeli official told reporters, in a terse announcement that echoed along dusty roads and into the living rooms of anxious families. “Humanitarian assistance must reach those who need it.” The figure being discussed was stark: some 600 aid trucks, assembled under the coordination of the UN, approved international organisations, private sector donors and states, were expected to roll into Gaza.
A somber exchange: return of the dead, opening of a crossing
The exchange that precipitated the reopening was not a celebratory one. In the past 48 hours, after intense negotiations mediated by intermediaries, four bodies were transferred from Gaza to Israeli custody. Three of them were later identified by their families — Ouriel Baruch, a 35-year-old who vanished at the Nova festival last October; Tamir Nimrodi, an 18-year-old soldier taken from a border base; and Eitan Levy, a 53-year-old taxi driver found after dropping off a friend at Kibbutz Beeri.
“We prayed every night,” said a woman who identified herself as Baruch’s cousin, her voice tight with grief. “We imagined him coming home. This is not closure. It is a small mercy amid unbearable loss.”
Across town, a pale convoy of vehicles carrying the remains arrived at the National Centre for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv. Forensic teams moved methodically, the choreography of grief indistinguishable from the routine of laboratory work — names checked, DNA samples compared, families notified.
The fragile mechanics of a ceasefire
The latest returns were part of a broader, brittle deal negotiated in recent days: a temporary truce that envisaged the exchange of living hostages, the release of prisoners, and the transfer of remains — Israeli for Palestinian, body for body. Under the arrangement, Israel agreed to hand over the bodies of Palestinian detainees at a ratio reportedly of 15 for every deceased Israeli returned. The aim was to create reciprocation at the human level while larger political disputes remained unresolved.
But trust is a fragile thing in wartime. In the run-up to the transfer, Israeli authorities had announced a halving of humanitarian truck entries — a punitive measure they said was tied to perceived violations by Hamas of the surrender terms. Hours later, when the four bodies were delivered, the restriction was lifted and the engines of relief began to turn.
Who is being helped?
- 600 trucks of aid are slated to enter Gaza, coordinated by the UN and other international bodies
- 45 Palestinian bodies held by Israel were transferred to the Nasser Medical Centre in Gaza
- At least 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to local health authorities; hundreds of thousands face severe food shortages
On the streets of Gaza: rubble, resilience, and the return of fighters
Drive through Gaza City and the landscape reads like a map of loss: flattened apartment blocks, schoolyards that have become cemeteries of toys. Bulldozers from Gaza’s municipality clear rubble beside the shattered facades of cafés and mosques where the call to prayer still rises, unnervingly ordinary in a place so unsettled.
“You come to the market and you know what used to be here,” said Rania, a shopkeeper who has spent the last weeks salvaging tins of food and mending clothes for neighbours. “The tea shop that my father ran is only a wall now. But people still gather. We still talk about the children.”
Since partial troop withdrawals, Hamas fighters have reappeared on Gaza’s streets. Locals report checkpoints and patrols, the silhouette of armed men threaded through routes intended for aid deliveries. Palestinian security officials say clashes between rival factions have left dozens dead in recent days — a chilling reminder that a ceasefire does not erase deeper fractures.
Names matter: stories behind the statistics
Numbers can feel abstract: 600 trucks, 67,000 dead, nearly 2,000 prisoners freed in other parts of the agreement, 251 hostages taken on October 7th. But names and faces restore the human weight behind each digit.
“Eitan was the kind of man who spoke to everyone,” a neighbour said of the taxi driver whose body was returned. “He brought tea for old men by the kibbutz gate. He fell on his way back that morning.”
Families of other returned bodies have framed photographs at home, placing them beside candlesticks and prayer books. In many Jewish homes, the custom of shiva — mourning — has been reactivated, ritual anchoring for communities that have lived under the long shadow of war.
Global echoes and the question of accountability
The cadence of the crisis reaches beyond Gaza and southern Israel. International leaders have weighed in with stark rhetoric. “If they do not disarm, we will disarm them,” U.S. President Donald Trump said at a press briefing, warning of rapid and potentially violent action. Such statements amplify regional anxieties and underline a larger question: how do nations reconcile the need for security with humanitarian law and the protection of civilians?
Humanitarian agencies warn that even when borders open, aid cannot instantly heal a collapsed infrastructure. The International Committee of the Red Cross has cautioned that searching through flattened buildings for the missing may take weeks, even months. Food scarcity is acute: famine-like conditions are reported for more than half a million people in Gaza, according to aid assessments.
What comes next?
For now, the Rafah crossing is open. Trucks will drive through with blankets, medical supplies, water purification units, and food. Aid workers will move from distribution points to neighbourhoods, trying to prioritize the most vulnerable — infants, the elderly, those with chronic conditions. But there are no guarantees the corridor will remain untroubled.
What responsibility do external powers bear when diplomacy hinges on exchanges of bodies and trucks? How long can a humanitarian pause stand in for a political solution? And above all, how do the living find a path forward when daily life is threaded through with loss?
“We want to go home,” whispered Fatima, a teacher in Khan Younis, as she handed out a small packet of flour to a young mother. “Home is more than a house. It is our dignity.”
Closing thoughts
The reopening of Rafah is, at once, a practical step and a fragile symbol — a corridor of aid stitched into an atmosphere of grievance. It is a reminder that even in the darkest hours, human compassion can still carve a route through politics and gunfire. Yet the exchange of remains that made the opening possible also unavoidably underscores the terrible cost of conflict: the people who will never return to their shops or to their children’s rooms, the towns that must make space for more tombstones.
As the trucks roll in and the forensics teams complete their work, the world watches. The question that follows those solemn deliveries is not merely about whether aid arrives, but about what kind of peace will be built around those lorries once the engines stop.
Masar oo safiir cusub u dirsatay Itoobiya oo xiisad culus kala dhaxeyso
Nov 15(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Itoobiya Taaye Asgedom, ayaa maanta ka gudoomay warqadda magacaabista Safiirka cusub ee Masar u fadhiya Itoobiya, Mudane Cubayda Al-Dandaraawi.
Madaxweynaha Syria oo maanta booqasho rasmi ah ku tagaya dalka Ruushka
Nov 15(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Suuriya, Axmed al-Sharaa, ayaa maanta booqasho ku tagaya dalka Ruushka si uu ula kulmo Madaxweynaha Ruushka Vladimir Putin, sida ay ku warrantay wakaaladda wararka dowladda Suuriya (SANA).
Read the complete official text of the Gaza declaration
A summit beneath the Red Sea sun: a pact, a promise, and a fragile hush
Sharm el-Sheikh woke to a different kind of dawn — one punctuated not by the routine calls of fishermen but by armored convoys and delegations stepping out of black sedans onto the sun-baked promenade. The resort town’s familiar palette of coral reefs and tourist shops suddenly framed a rare, high-stakes diplomatic scene: leaders from the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye gathered to endorse what they called a blueprint for ending a long, brutal chapter of violence in Gaza.
There was ceremony, but also something quieter and more human: faces in the crowd that had nothing to gain from photo ops. An elderly hotel doorman paused with a broom in hand. “We’ve had presidents before,” he said, eyes on the flags. “But people in Gaza sleep under rubble, not under flags. They need something real.”
What was signed — and what it tried to be
The document that emerged from the summit was presented as a comprehensive declaration — a commitment to halt hostilities, rebuild shattered lives, and pursue an inclusive political path forward. Its authors framed it as a “new chapter” for a region scarred by recurring cycles of violence and distrust. Signatories included the U.S. president, the Egyptian head of state, the Emir of Qatar, and the Turkish president, each affixing their names to a pledge that leaned heavily on diplomacy, shared security, cultural respect, and a public repudiation of extremism.
At its core, the declaration attempts three things at once: stop the bleeding; lay down a framework for political dialogue that includes both Palestinians and Israelis; and address the social conditions — education, opportunity, heritage protection — that are often overlooked in ceasefire deals. It reads as both optimistic and aspirational, a text designed to forge common ground among disparate interests.
Key commitments in plain language
- Immediate cessation of military hostilities and a move toward longer-term security arrangements.
- A pledge to address humanitarian needs and rebuild critical infrastructure in Gaza.
- Commitment to combatting extremism through education, opportunity, and social inclusion.
- Respect for religious and cultural sites and the communities they sustain.
- A vow to resolve disputes through diplomacy rather than force.
Those are promises, not laws. They depend on trust — the scarcest commodity in the region.
Along the shoreline: voices that matter
Walking the narrow alleys behind the beachfront hotels, the human texture of this summit came sharply into focus. A coffee seller named Amal — who has watched foreign ministers stroll by for years while she pours Turkish coffee into small cups — had a thought that was equal parts weary and hopeful. “We are tired of living in someone else’s headlines,” she said. “If this is the way to bring back our sons, our schools, then bring it.”
A Palestinian aid worker who had flown in from the West Bank, speaking quietly so as not to be recorded, described the complicated emotion the document stirred. “A line on paper is not a home,” she said. “But it can be a first brick.”
Regional analysts stressed the uneven incentives at play. “You can craft the most elegantly worded declaration, but if the incentives on the ground aren’t aligned — if power imbalances, economic desperation, and security fears aren’t addressed — it will be fragile,” said Dr. Leila Mansour, a political scientist specializing in Middle East peacemaking. “Durability requires institutions, money, and the daily administration of trust.”
Reality check: numbers, suffering, and the scale of the task
To appreciate what the declaration attempts to remedy, it helps to look at the scale of the human cost. International agencies have documented mass displacement, with hundreds of thousands of people uprooted, and essential services — hospitals, water systems, schools — damaged or destroyed. The United Nations and humanitarian groups cautioned that Gaza’s reconstruction will require billions in investment, extensive clearance of unexploded ordnance, and decades of social recovery.
That is not hyperbole: after protracted conflict, children go years with interrupted schooling, health systems collapse, and entire neighborhoods vanish from city maps. The declaration speaks to rebuilding — but rebuilding, experts point out, demands not just funds but long-term governance solutions that preserve dignity and rights.
The symbolism — and its limits
There is power in images: leaders shaking hands against the backdrop of the Red Sea, the flourish of signatures, the cameras capturing smiles. Such optics matter in diplomacy; they can catalyze momentum, attract donor pledges, and shift the tone from confrontation to conversation.
Yet symbolism alone cannot disarm guns or reopen hospitals. As one former diplomat present at the summit put it, “Photography creates a narrative of progress. But progress is a daily, stubborn grind. That’s where the hard work begins — negotiating passage for aid convoys, vetting reconstruction contractors, and making sure that security measures do not become a straitjacket on normal life.”
Questions that remain — and why you should care
Will this declaration translate into sustained ceasefire conditions on the ground? Can international guarantees be robust enough to prevent a relapse into violence? How will reconstruction funds be delivered and monitored so that they rebuild communities rather than bolster patronage networks? These are not rhetorical queries; they are practical ones that determine whether pages of pledges mean new homes and schools or simply press releases.
We should ask, too: what role do ordinary citizens play in this transition? For peace to endure, there must be social currents that run beneath elite agreements — teachers resuming classes, fishermen taking back the morning sea, market stalls re-opening in safe neighborhoods. Small acts of daily normalcy will be the true barometer.
From declarations to daily life: the long haul
There is a kind of moral urgency that the declaration leans into: a promise that future generations deserve more than the failures of the past. That is a sentiment easy to agree with and very hard to deliver. The pledge to counter radicalization through education and opportunity is meaningful, but it must be accompanied by measurable programs: vocational training, safe schools, trauma counseling, and reliable livelihoods.
As the delegations flew home, the town returned to its rhythms. Tourists drifted back to diving and dining, and local life resumed its quieter pace. But in Gaza and in homes across the region, the outcome of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit will be measured not by headlines but by whether lights switch back on in children’s classrooms.
Closing thought: what do we, far from the shore, owe this moment?
Diplomacy often asks us to imagine a future we cannot yet see. It invites external actors, donors, and ordinary citizens around the world to hold leaders accountable — not only for signing documents but for delivering results. So ask yourself: when a summit produces a pledge, how will you look for its proof? Will you follow the rebuilding plans and support credible humanitarian channels? Will you press for transparency and protection of rights?
At the end of the day, the truest test of any peace declaration is the quiet work that follows: the slow, stubborn return of daily life. If those first bricks are laid carefully, with local voices at the center, this moment on the Red Sea could be the start of something more than hope — it could be the first steps toward a life worth living again for millions.
Hamas Returns Bodies Following Israel’s Threat to Cut Humanitarian Aid
At the border of grief and relief: bodies, trucks, and the fragile pause in Gaza
The night air at the border crossing tasted of diesel and dust, a metallic tang that clung to clothes and memories alike.
At Kissufim, where aid convoys have crawled like a lifeline into Gaza, the slow drama of an uneasy ceasefire played out in three acts: the grim return of coffins, the sudden haircut of aid, and the reappearance of armed men on Gaza’s streets.
“You cannot fix a wound by wrapping it in paper,” said Amal, a nurse in Khan Younis who asked that only her first name be used. “Bodies returned, trucks halted—people will die waiting for the second act of this agreement to arrive.”
What was exchanged — and what was not
In the last few days, Hamas has handed over several coffins believed to contain Israeli hostages killed in the October 7 attacks that detonated this long ordeal.
Israeli authorities say they have received four coffins at a meeting point in northern Gaza; other transfers were confirmed by both Hamas spokespeople and international intermediaries. Hamas officials, speaking through local channels, said their teams were “continuing to oversee the implementation of what was agreed upon.”
Still, according to statements coming from Israeli circles, only eight coffins have been transferred so far — leaving dozens unaccounted for in the eyes of families and officials. Israeli tallies say some 251 people were taken hostage on 7 October 2023, and Israeli investigators estimate around 1,200 civilians were killed in the initial attacks. Gaza health authorities, meanwhile, say at least 67,000 Palestinians have died in the hostilities, figures that have become part of the wider human arithmetic of this conflict.
“When a mother receives a coffin, she does not ask which calendar month brought it,” said Miriam Katz, whose relative remains listed as missing. “She just wants the name back. That’s all.”
Aid reduced, needs magnified
Counterintuitively, amid these transfers Israel announced it would halve the number of humanitarian trucks allowed into Gaza — a punitive move officials described as a response to what they call Hamas’ failure to fully comply with the agreement on handing over remains.
Before the ceasefire, plans called for roughly 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza each day to prevent what United Nations and aid agencies have for months called a looming famine. More than half a million Palestinians, aid organizations say, have faced severe food insecurity. Now, as the clock ticks, the promised flow of goods looks compromised.
“We were told to prepare for 600 every day,” an aid worker at the crossing told me. “Now we wait to see how many will come. You cannot run a hospital, a bakery, a life on promises.”
The reality on the ground is brutal: flattened apartment blocks where children once kicked mango pits; makeshift tents under the shadow of shell-blasted mosques; water-scarce homes and a hospital corridor that smells of disinfectant and exhausted hope. Bulldozers deployed by municipal authorities sweep through rubble, trying to open routes for aid convoys, but roads are dangerous and drivers wary.
Hamas back on the streets — in force
With the partial withdrawal of Israeli ground forces, Hamas fighters have reappeared in Gaza’s urban veins, deploying in uniforms and civilian clothes, manning checkpoints and staging patrols along routes intended for aid deliveries.
Local residents reported seeing hundreds of security personnel — an unmistakable sign that Hamas has rushed to reassert governance and control. But the return has not been peaceful; in one harrowing video widely circulated by both local witnesses and regional media, a group of men were shown bound, forced to kneel and executed in public. Multiple sources verified the location and timing, and a Hamas source later confirmed its fighters were involved.
“When an armed group returns, they bring both protection and fear,” observed Dr. Leila Haddad, a Gaza-based sociologist. “Communities feel safer from external attack, but internal tensions rise. The long shadow of suspicion—who did what during the occupation—comes back like a fever.”
Local security officials reported dozens killed in recent internal clashes between rival factions. In addition, Israeli drones struck several targets, killing civilians who approached truce lines or houses in precarious areas, according to Gaza health authorities and Israeli military statements.
Trump, threats, and the politics of disarmament
Across the ocean in Washington, and after a speech to the Israeli Knesset that declared a “historic dawn”, former US President Donald Trump warned that if Hamas did not disarm, “we will disarm them. And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the war cannot end until Hamas relinquishes its weapons and cedes control of Gaza — demands that Hamas fighters and many Gazans alike have rejected outright. The result is a brittle bargain: a ceasefire punctuated by shadows of escalation, and a list of unfulfilled conditions on both sides.
“A ceasefire without accountability is simply the pause between two storms,” said Professor Isaac Ben-Ami, an expert in conflict resolution. “Weapons are only one element. The other is political will. Who will govern? Who will rebuild? And who will guarantee the next dawn won’t break into another night of violence?”
The human calculus
This is not just about missiles and militants. It is also about women in markets waiting for bread, about a schoolteacher trying to return to classes for the children who survived, about the forensic teams working in cold rooms to reunite names with faces. Gaza’s Civil Defence Service reported some 250 bodies recovered since the truce began — each recovery a story, each story a wound reopened for families on both sides.
“There is no checklist for grief,” said Omar, a volunteer with a local civil defence unit. “We mark recovery on paper, give a number, but for us it is still one person with a life, a list of things they loved.”
What does peace look like, really?
As readers, we must ask ourselves: what do we mean by an end to conflict? Is peace the absence of bullets, the return of hostages, or the slow, steady work of reweaving social fabric? The events at Kissufim show that the practical steps toward peace — safe corridors for aid, transparent exchanges of the dead, reliable governance — are as vital as summits and speeches.
Worldwide, the Gaza pause fits a larger pattern: asymmetric warfare where civilian life is the first casualty, hostage diplomacy that pressures negotiators, and humanitarian supply chains that hang by diplomatic threads. If the world has learned anything over the last two years, it is that agreements are fragile and that enforcement is messy.
“We should not trade dignity for speed,” Amal said, closing our conversation as the call to prayer echoed across the rubble-strewn skyline. “There are truths that must be faced. Otherwise, whatever bargain is made today may just be the cover for tomorrow’s fire.”
Where do we go from here?
For now, families wait. Aid convoys queue. Fighters patrol. Bodies are counted and not yet all returned. The calculus of life and death is being renegotiated in real time.
It is easy to be numb to numbers: 251 hostages taken, 1,200 killed on October 7, 67,000 Palestinians dead by local tallies, hundreds more missing and trapped under rubble. But behind every statistic is a face, a kitchen table emptied, a call that won’t be answered. For peace to mean anything, the world must do more than broker exchanges; it must ensure that survival and dignity outlast headlines.
What would you ask if you stood at that crossing for even one hour? What would you try to carry home?
Watch: Ancient dinosaur footprints unearthed at British quarry site
Steps from Deep Time: A 200-Metre Dinosaur Trail Emerges in an Oxfordshire Quarry
On a hot British morning this summer, a team of paleontologists and local quarry workers stood in silence as a new kind of road opened beneath their boots: a ribbon of ancient footprints, pressed into stone and laid out like a prehistoric boardwalk. The trackway runs more than 200 metres across a slab of rock at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire — an extraordinary stretch of fossilised steps that reads like a page torn from a Middle Jurassic diary.
“You don’t just find something like this; you rediscover a place where creatures once moved,” said Dr. Kirsty Edgar, a palaeontologist from the University of Birmingham, who helped lead this season’s excavation. “It’s rare to get such a long, continuous record. It gives you a sense of movement, of behavior — not just an isolated footprint but a story that walks by.”
The discovery isn’t entirely out of the blue. Dewars Farm has been generous in the past: track fragments were first reported there in the 1990s and again last year. But this year’s find came from a different seam of rock within the same working quarry, a fresh canvas that revealed a long procession of impressions — punctuated, like punctuation in a long sentence, by the fossilised remains of sea shells and even a sea urchin.
Reading the Stones: What Footprints Reveal
Fossilised footprints — or ichnites — are paleontology’s most intimate records. A bone tells you what an animal looked like; a footprint tells you how it moved, how it distributed weight, whether it walked alone or in a group. From stride length, scientists can estimate speed; from spacing and direction, they can infer whether the animals were hunting, migrating, or simply meandering along a shoreline.
“These impressions are behaviour made permanent,” explained Dr. Duncan Murdock from Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History. “When we find shells and a sea urchin near these tracks, it gives us ecological context: this wasn’t a dense forest. It was likely a lagoonal setting — shallow water, mudflats — where dinosaurs and marine creatures shared the margins of life.”
To put this into global context: the Jurassic Period lasted from about 201 to 145 million years ago. Many of Britain’s renowned dinosaur fossils date to the Middle Jurassic (roughly 174–163 million years ago), when sea levels and climates were in flux and the landscapes that would become present-day Oxfordshire were a patchwork of lagoons, floodplains and shallow seas.
The Human Side of Unearthing
At the quarry, the mood is a mix of childlike wonder and the quiet reverence of people who have come to care for a place of layers. “You get used to finding stones and fossils, but when you step back and see a sequence of footprints like a frozen parade, it stops you,” said Jade Hollis, who grew up a few miles from the site and now works at the quarry. “Everyone on site came over. Even the diggers had to pause their machines.”
Local residents speak of the quarry as part workplace, part landscape memory. In nearby villages, the discovery has become dinner-table conversation. “My grandfather used to tell tales of the old pits,” said Alan Brooks, a retired farmer who walks past the quarry most mornings. “But to think of beasts the size of buses padding through what used to be our moor — it’s humbling. It’s like the land remembers.”
How Scientists Capture a Walk Across Deep Time
Excavating a trackway is equal parts archaeology, geology and forensic science. Teams gently remove overburden, document layers, and use high-resolution photography, lidar and photogrammetry to make 3D models that can be studied by researchers anywhere in the world. Plaster casts may be taken of the most significant impressions, and samples of the surrounding sediment are analysed for microfossils and chemical signatures.
- Photogrammetry and 3D scanning preserve detail for future study and online exhibitions.
- Microfossil analysis (foraminifera, spores) helps define the age and environment of deposition.
- Trace fossils, like burrows or ripple marks, help reconstruct water depth and tidal influence.
Because trackways are surface features, they are vulnerable: exposure to the elements can erode them quickly. That’s why prompt documentation and conservation are essential. In recent years, digital archiving has allowed museums and universities to make these records public, sharing them with classrooms and citizen scientists worldwide.
Why This Matters Beyond Oxfordshire
There’s a human hunger in discoveries like this. We’re not merely adding a specimen to a cabinet; we’re connecting threads between deep time and our present moment. How did ecosystems respond to sea-level changes during the Jurassic? What can those transitions tell us about resilience and adaptability — lessons that are increasingly relevant as we confront climate change?
“Fossils are time capsules,” said Dr. Edgar. “They remind us that environments shift, that species adapt, migrate, or disappear. But they also remind us of continuity — that life leaves traces, and we, too, leave traces on the planet.”
The find also sparks a conversation about land use and heritage. Quarries are working landscapes — sources of stone and employment — but they can also be windows into the past. Balancing industry with conservation is a delicate act that requires local engagement and scientific stewardship.
What the Trackway Could Tell Us Next
Researchers will be analysing the track spacing, footprint depth and associated fossils over the coming months. Those metrics could suggest whether the animals were bipeds or quadrupeds, whether they were travelling quickly or slowly, and whether the surface was firm or waterlogged when the impressions were made.
There are broader questions too. Could this be a multi-species corridor? Are there signs of hoofed mammals or crocodyliforms mingled among the dino prints? Each answer will reshape our portrait of an ancient Oxfordshire coastline.
Listen: The World Underfoot
Next time you walk along a hedgerow or across a field, consider the thin skin of time beneath your shoes. What will we leave on the world for future eyes to read? The Dewars Farm trackway is a reminder that our world is an archive, always being written and rewritten by acts of geology and life.
So, what do you think deserves to be preserved for future generations — the stories written in stone, or the landscapes we still shape today? If a strip of mud 165 million years old can bridge a gap between a quarry worker and a palaeontologist, perhaps we can do the same for other urgent conversations about stewardship, history and our shared planet.
For now, the footprints lie open in the quarry, a long, silent sentence from another age. Scientists will study them, the public will marvel, and the land will keep its slow, patient watch.
Kremlin lauds Trump’s renewed emphasis on Ukraine peace deal
Night in Kharkiv: sirens, glass, and the uneasy promise of talks
They woke to the sound of glass. Not the slow, sleepy rattle of a city shifting gears at dawn, but the violent shatter of windows and the metallic groan of hospital doors being forced open under blinking emergency lights. Outside, whole blocks were black—streetlamps dead, apartment windows dark—while the wind carried the thin, unmistakable smell of burned electronics and scorched insulation.
“We pulled blankets over the patients and moved them down the corridor by flashlight,” a nurse at Kharkiv’s main hospital told me, her voice raw with exhaustion. “Fifty people had to be evacuated in the middle of the night. You don’t prepare for that—no sheet exercise covers a night like this.”
That hospital was one of several targets in a wave of overnight strikes that sent drones and glide bombs into the city, officials said, wounding seven people and shattering windows across wards treating endocrine and other chronic conditions. More than a hundred patients were moved to safety after the attack, according to regional authorities—an emergency ballet in the dark, staged by exhausted staff with nothing but urgency and resourcefulness to guide them.
Between ceasefires and new threats: a fragile diplomatic opening
At the same time, in a very different theater of geopolitics, the Kremlin publicly welcomed a U.S. president’s offer to focus on brokering peace—on the condition, officials implied, that Washington use its leverage with Kyiv. The message was oddly domestic in tone: now that one war appeared to be cooling, the Kremlin suggested, perhaps the world could turn its attention to another.
“If a ceasefire in Gaza allows for real negotiations elsewhere, we are ready for talks,” a Russian government spokesperson told reporters, an olive branch wrapped in a warning. “But peace cannot be imposed; it must be negotiated with the parties who are actually fighting.”
The timing is combustible. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was preparing to fly to Washington to press for more military assistance as Russia continued to hammer at Ukraine’s power grid, infrastructure, and frontline logistics. The same day Kharkiv’s hospital windows exploded inward, Kyiv said a UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) convoy in the Kherson region was hit—one truck burned, another badly damaged, and two left intact—drawing condemnation from Ukrainian diplomats and fresh warnings about the shrinking space for aid delivery.
What’s at stake in the corridors of power
The conversations expected in Washington were to be consequential: Kyiv is seeking wider-ranging, longer-range weaponry to blunt Moscow’s aerial campaign—systems that could strike strategic targets at distances previously off-limits to Ukrainian forces. There is talk, even suggestion from the U.S. side, that long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles might be a possibility—a consideration that many strategists say would be a major escalation and a complicated diplomatic choice.
“Giving Kyiv the ability to strike deeper into Russia would change the bargaining calculus,” a European security analyst told me. “It could coerce Moscow to negotiate, but it could also harden positions—and that risk cannot be understated.”
For ordinary Ukrainians living under nightly outage warnings and winter fears, it’s not abstract policy calculus. “When they cut the power, they cut our lives,” said a shopkeeper in Kharkiv’s industrial quarter, rubbing his hands against the chill. “You can’t cook, you can’t keep medicines refrigerated, the kids can’t study. Talk of missiles feels far away until your boiler fails.”
Electric winter: a tactic that targets civilians
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, long-range strikes on energy infrastructure have become a grim seasonal reality. Power plants, substations, and gas facilities have been repeatedly struck, leaving million-plus populations to endure rolling blackouts in the dead of winter. Utility workers—heroes in reflective vests—splice cables in the middle of the night, trying to coax warmth back into apartments across cities where balconies are draped with blankets to trap heat.
“This is a war that targets the foundations of daily life,” a humanitarian coordinator who has worked in eastern Ukraine told me. “When you take away heat and water, you are weaponizing winter.”
Those strikes do more than freeze radiators. They strain hospital oxygen supplies, sabotage small businesses that cannot afford diesel generators, and send ripple effects into agriculture and food storage. In recent months, Ukrainian officials have said long-range strikes have also degraded Russian oil production in border regions—an indirect counterpunch as Kyiv’s drone and missile capabilities extend farther than before.
Between diplomacy and escalation: the Tomahawk question
Would supplying Tomahawks open a path to peace—or a road to a wider confrontation? It’s the question that hung over this week’s diplomacy. Tomahawks are precise and powerful, able to strike beyond Russia’s immediate border. For some advocates in Kyiv and abroad, they would be leverage: a way to impose costs, to make a blockade of strategy untenable.
“Weapons change options, they don’t create peace on their own,” said an arms-control specialist in Brussels. “They can buy space for negotiation, but only if there’s a political vision to use that space.”
Zelensky framed the moment bluntly on X: as one conflict ceases, another must not be allowed to ossify. “It is important not to lose the momentum for advancing peace,” he wrote. “The world must force Moscow to sit down at the table for real negotiations.”
Frontline life: aid convoys and the small rituals of survival
On the ground in Kherson oblast, where a UN convoy was struck near Bilozerka, people spoke of the logistics of survival as if reciting grocery lists. “We trust those blue trucks,” said a volunteer who helps load supplies. “They bring food for old men who cannot leave their cellars. When they’re hit, it’s not abstract—it’s the breakfast for a grandmother who depends on that bread.”
Ukrainian officials called the attack on the convoy a violation of international law—another sign, they said, of the indiscriminate nature of the offensive. International humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned that attacks near supply lines and convoys choke off life-saving aid at precisely the moment winter approaches.
- Over a hundred hospital patients evacuated in Kharkiv after windows shattered during overnight strikes.
- Seven people were reported wounded in the Kharkiv attack.
- One vehicle in a UN OCHA convoy burned and another damaged near Bilozerka in Kherson region.
What if peace is negotiable? What if it isn’t?
As diplomats trade notes and leaders weigh the unthinkable—supplying longer-range missiles, pushing for ceasefires, or pressing harder for talks—the people I spoke to live in the tension between hope and fatigue. “We are tired of both answers,” said an elderly teacher who has lived through Soviet times and three years of war. “We are tired of headlines that promise solutions and then turn into more nights like last night.”
So where does that leave us—the global audience reading from comfortable time zones, sipping coffee while the sky over another city is lit by flare and fire? Do we push our leaders for risk-taking that might shorten a war? Do we demand caution to prevent escalation? There are no pure answers, only trade-offs that real people pay for with their warmth, medicines, and sleep.
In Kharkiv, a child drew a sun on a blackout-stained windowpane the morning after the raid. It was childish, stubborn, hopeful—an ordinary act of resistance. It’s worth asking: if you were in power tomorrow, what would you do to keep that child warm tonight and bring everyone to the negotiating table tomorrow?
Madaxweynaha Somaliland oo si maqaam saraysa loogu soo dhaweeyay Adis Ababa
Nov 14(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Somaliland, Cabdiraxmaan Maxamed Cabdillaahi Cirro, iyo wafdi uu hoggaaminayo ayaa maanta gaaray magaalada Addis Ababa, caasimadda dalka Itoobiya, kaddib martiqaad rasmi ah oo uu ka helay Ra’iisul Wasaaraha Itoobiya, Abiy Axmed.
Javier Milei flies to White House seeking a vital political lifeline
The Visit That Could Rewire a Country: Javier Milei at the White House
There is a certain electric hush that follows an Argentine leader when he steps off the plane in Washington. That hush is part curiosity, part calculation — a measure of what his visit might mean for markets, for alliances, for the everyday life of people who live with pesos and mortgage payments and grocery lists.
Today, President Javier Milei finds himself at the center of such a hush. He arrives at the White House not as a tourist soaking up the monument-lit Mall, but as a leader whose political fortunes and an economy’s fragile stability now pivot on an unusually public show of support from President Donald Trump and his administration.
A bailout in the spotlight
The headlines are blunt. The United States has signaled a pathway to provide up to US$20 billion in support to Argentina, a move Washington framed as an effort to stabilize markets and prevent an acute liquidity squeeze. It is the kind of intervention that makes investors breathe easier and makes critics in Buenos Aires bristle — an unmistakable statement that Argentina’s economic fate is being watched and, to some degree, managed beyond its own borders.
“Argentina faces a moment of acute illiquidity,” said Scott Bessent, a US Treasury official, when the package was announced. “The US Treasury is prepared, immediately, to take whatever exceptional measures are warranted to provide stability to markets.” The news produced a visible uptick in Argentine bonds and equities — a temporary balm for a country that has been burning through foreign exchange reserves to defend the peso.
That defense has not been cheap. In recent weeks Argentina reportedly spent more than US$1 billion to prop up the peso — a stopgap many economists describe as unsustainable. Which raises the question: is Washington buying time? Or is it buying influence?
Politics at a crossroads — October 26 looms
The timing of this financial lifeline cannot be separated from politics. On 26 October, Argentines will vote in crucial legislative midterms: about half the Chamber of Deputies and a third of the Senate are up for election. The results will determine whether President Milei can press ahead with a sweeping agenda of fiscal austerity and market-oriented reforms — or whether he will face a legislative gridlock for the next two years.
“If he loses Congress, those reform blueprints collect dust,” said María Silva, a Buenos Aires-based political analyst. “If he wins, the country could see dramatic, rapid change — for better or worse.”
What Milei is asking for — and what the US might expect
Milei has portrayed himself as a crusader against what he calls the old political caste and inflationary mismanagement. He’s a libertarian firebrand who promises austerity, privatization, and a smaller state. But delivering those promises requires more than rhetoric; it requires congressional votes and breathing room in foreign exchange markets.
“They know we are a true ally,” Milei told a radio audience before boarding for Washington, framing the support as an ideological and strategic partnership. In recent public moments, President Trump has praised Milei’s efforts, calling them “fantastic” and comparing their shared mission to clean up inherited economic “messes.” “We’re backing him 100%,” Trump has said in private meetings and public remarks.
In Buenos Aires cafés and neighborhood kiosks, reactions vary. “If Washington puts money on the table, that’s good for my small business,” said Carmen, who runs a bakery in Palermo. “But will prices stop going up? That’s the test.”
Others, like teacher Rodrigo Alvarez, sounded a different note: “We can’t sell sovereignty for a bailout. There needs to be transparency about what is being negotiated.”
Geopolitics in the background
There is more than domestic politics at play. Argentina sits on resources the world increasingly prizes — most notably lithium, a mineral central to electric vehicle batteries and renewable-energy storage. Before Milei’s ascent, Argentina had been deepening ties with China, a major consumer of lithium and a strategic partner for many Latin American states.
Speculation has swirled in Argentina: what, if anything, might Washington want in return for its financial help? Will backing come with strings attached? Will it tilt Argentina further toward the US orbit, at the expense of relations with Beijing? Milei’s government has been careful in public statements; his office said the leaders would discuss “multiple topics.”
Why this matters beyond Argentina
What unfolds in Washington and Buenos Aires is not merely a bilateral drama. It is a test of how modern financial diplomacy operates when a major power opts for a highly visible, targeted intervention. It is a lesson in how domestic politics — legislative math, voter sentiment, and campaign headlines — can reshape macroeconomic lifelines.
For global investors, the mechanics are straightforward: stability at the currency and bond levels reduces risk premia, lowers borrowing costs, and can quiet capital flight. For voters in Argentina, the stakes are visceral: jobs, pensions, the price of a kilo of meat, the safety of savings held in pesos.
“We must ask: stability for whom?” said Professor Elena Morales, an economist at the University of La Plata. “If the only form of stability is austerity that deepens inequality, the social and political costs may be enormous.”
The human weather of economic policy
Walk the streets of Mendoza or La Boca and you can feel the weather of this crisis. A vendor selling choripanes jokes nervously about “pesoophobia” — the anxiety that comes with each devaluation. An elderly woman in a government clinic asks why her pension buys less each month. A taxi driver in Córdoba counts out notes, glancing at his phone for exchange-rate updates.
These are the people who will live with, or suffer from, the results of deals struck in high-ceiling rooms in Washington. They will be the first to notice changes in subsidies, in public services, in the availability of foreign currency for imports of medicine and machinery.
Questions to sit with
- Can a foreign-led financial backstop buy a government the political capital it needs — or will it inflame nationalist opposition?
- Is this a short-term stabilizing move, or the opening chapter of a longer geopolitical reorientation?
- Who bears the immediate cost of reform: taxpayers, bondholders, or future generations?
These are not rhetorical flourishes; they are the contours of choices that will define Argentina’s near-term future.
Final note — the rhythm of risk and hope
Milei’s visit to the White House is a moment of high drama. It offers the promise of a breathing spell for an economy under pressure, a bridge to steeper reform, and a reminder of how intertwined domestic politics and global power play have become. But it also raises deep ethical and democratic questions about sovereignty, accountability, and the distribution of costs and benefits.
As markets cheer or fret and as campaign flyers multiply ahead of 26 October, ordinary Argentines will keep living their lives — sipping mate on balconies, catching a bus to work, counting pesos in their wallets. They will be watching, too. And so should we.
What would you do if your country was offered a lifeline that might come with strings? Would you trade a measure of control for the chance of stability? Think about it. Because these are not abstract questions for a faraway capital — they are the kinds of choices that shape everyday lives, across Latin America and beyond.
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