Announcements

The Israeli military announced today that it has discovered hundreds of above-ground tunnel entrances and more than 300 underground tunnels in the Khan Yunis area of ​​the southern Gaza Strip, and will continue to search and destroy the tunnel network.

“Terrorists were also killed” during the operations, the Israeli armed forces said on their Telegram channel.

Israeli hostages were held in a tunnel under Khan Yunis, which appears to have been expensive to build, according to the Israeli military.

“Millions of shekels are estimated to have been invested in digging the tunnel and equipping it with ventilation, electrical and plumbing systems,” added the same source.

An entire network of tunnels stretches for many kilometers under the Gaza Strip. To withstand Israeli bombs, some of them are tens of meters deep. Terrorists also use the tunnels to appear out of nowhere and attack soldiers, the Israeli military said.

Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss said yesterday, Wednesday, that the army has now adjusted its strategy, according to the Times of Israel.

Initially only tunnel entrances were detected and destroyed, but now soldiers enter them. “There we will defeat the core of Hamas,” said the Israeli brigadier general.

The leadership of the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas, led by Yahya al-Shinwar, is believed to be inside the network of tunnels in the Khan Younis area.

Israeli media recently reported that Israel knows where al-Sinwar is hiding, but has refrained from attacking because the Hamas leader in Gaza is surrounded by Israeli hostages, whom he is using as human shields.

The German Agency notes that this information could not be confirmed by an independent source and that a military representative did not want to comment on it.

Source: protothema.gr

The scenario of taking additional and stricter measures to limit the spread of the COVID 19 virus is remote, the Professor of Microbiology/Molecular Virology of the School of Medicine of the University of Nicosia, Dr. Petros Karagiannis, told KYPE, who clarified that Cyprus is currently not it’s about an epidemic wave, but it’s about an outbreak.

Asked by KYPE if we are in danger of an epidemic breaking out again in Cyprus, Dr. Karagiannis stated that “we are not dealing with an epidemic wave, but we are dealing with an outbreak”.

He explained that at the end of last week Cyprus counted 4 thousand known cases, to note that when the Omicron variant invaded the community “we counted almost 4 thousand cases a day, with the highest number recorded daily reaching 7 thousand”.

Therefore now, he emphasized, “we are not talking about a wave, but about an outbreak which will complete its cycle and begin to recede”.

Fall in one to two weeks

Dr. Karagiannis estimates that in one to two weeks “we will start to see a decline”, however, he advises the public to be very careful, especially with the return of children to school, where there may be an outbreak.

When asked if a larger number of cases will be recorded in the coming days, on the occasion of the gatherings that took place during the Christmas holidays, Dr. Karagiannis said that “we will see an increase in the numbers, but not to the extent that we should be worried.”

In relation to the low attendance of vaccinations, Dr. Karagiannis does not express concern, since as he explained “there is a high level of immunity in the community, which mitigates the symptoms”.

“Where vaccinations need to be intensified is among the elderly, who are mainly hospitalized at the moment,” he said.

Besides, when asked if a new meeting has been scheduled at the Ministry of Health with the members of the Scientific Monitoring Committee of the COVID-19 disease, Dr. Karagianni said that the standard meeting with the Ministry of Health will take place at the end of the month or at the beginning of February, however, he clarified that the adoption of additional, stricter measures is a “remote scenario”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants large families to become the norm in Russia again. “In the past, most Russian families, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, had seven, eight or even more children,” the Kremlin chief told the World Council of the Russian People in late November, calling on Russian youth to have more children.

During Vladimir Putin’s 25-year term, Russia’s population not only did not grow, but decreased by about 6.5 to 7 million people, according to independent demographic researcher Alexei Raksha. It should be noted that the current president claimed power in 2000 promising to stop the shrinking population.

If we include Crimea, the Russian population today is about 140 million, the Russian researcher told the German news agency (dpa) in Moscow. Unfortunately the Russian population is still steadily declining. If this trend continues, the population will shrink by an additional 3 million by 2030, predicts Alexei Raksha.

However, the data are not enough to fully describe the demographic problem in Russia. For years the country has benefited from migration flows from poorer former Soviet republics in central Asia, such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. After the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea on the Black Sea in 2014, an additional 2.5 million residents were added. Without these population “injections” the population limitation would be even greater. According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the annexation of four Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia added another 5 million people to Russian territory.

Income inequalities and desertification

An aging and shrinking population is disastrous for Russia. The country’s workforce is already insufficient to meet current needs. Inequality in the distribution of income leads, in addition, to the desertification of entire regions, especially in the north and east of the country, in the vast expanses of Siberia.

On average, a Russian woman gives birth to fewer than two children. However, Vladimir Putin is by no means a role model. While he calls for seven or eight children per family, he himself has just two. But there have been periods in the Kremlin chief’s tenure in which he has recorded successes in the battle against population decline thanks to higher wages and greater social security. In addition, the Russian government took targeted measures until about 2015, creating new kindergartens, improving the health system, and fighting alcoholism and smoking.

In recent years, Putin’s bigotry has put the focus of his policy more on the annexation of territories and less on improving the standard of living of Russians. The war against Ukraine, which began almost two years ago, forces hundreds of thousands of young people to fight on various fronts, with significant loss of human life, while driving many Russians, together with their families, abroad in search of a better and safer life. It is estimated that more than one million Russians are temporarily or permanently outside the country, although there are no reliable statistics on exiled citizens.

Every year the population shrinks by 500,000

The grandiose idealism of the Russian president, as well as the Kremlin’s strategy of returning to “traditional values” and the “traditional family” could not, however, stop the birth control in Russia. So the Kremlin tried, under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church, to restore and establish “traditional family values” with laws against homosexuals and other sexual minorities. In Russian society, the forced conclusion of heterosexual relationships, as well as the procreation of children, has a long tradition. For years, the country has received international criticism from human rights organizations.

According to Alexei Raksha, the Russian population will decrease by 500,000 people this year alone. At the same time, due to the expansionist strategy of the Russian leadership, Russia has lost much of its attractiveness for economic migrants from neighboring countries. Two years ago, Vladimir Putin called population decline one of the biggest challenges. Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine has exacerbated the demographic problem in Russia.

Source: German wave

China will proceed with sanctions against five US manufacturers in retaliation for the latest US arms sale to Taiwan, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Beijing today.

Arms sales from Washington to Taipei are a source of frequent tensions with Beijing.

China considers Taiwan its province. The island’s current government rejects the Chinese position.

The sanctions are announced days before Taiwan holds presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday, January 13.

For Beijing, the choice in these is between peace or war.

In December, the State Department approved $300 million worth of equipment sales to Taiwan, particularly to help it maintain military IT systems.

For Chinese diplomacy, the recent sale “seriously undermines China’s national sovereignty and national security interests, seriously endangers peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

The companies to be sanctioned are BAE Systems Land and Armaments, Alliant Techsystems Operations, AeroVironment, Viasat and Data Link Solutions.

The authorities in Beijing will freeze any resources of these companies in their jurisdiction and will prohibit any natural or legal person in China from doing business with them, the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states.

The US embassy in Beijing has not yet responded to Reuters’ request for comment on the development.

Source: RES-MPE

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Cyprus and Head of UNFICYP, Colin Stewart, on Thursday expressed concerns about the increasing militarization of the no-fly zone and said that the report on UNFICYP’s peacekeeping force in Cyprus reflects these concerns.

Responding to a journalist’s question after his meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides at the Presidential Palace, Colin Stewart said he would also brief the Security Council on any new developments after December 12, when the report ends on January 17 at the New York. When asked about developments in Pyla, Mr Stewart expressed his concerns “about issues that threaten the integrity of the buffer zone and some issues that upset the military status quo”.

He also said that he discussed all these issues with both President Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar.

“The main concern we have is this increase in militarization along the dead zone, because our main purpose is to maintain stability, to create favorable conditions for the Cyprus issue to be resolved,” he said. He added that once the new UN Secretary General’s envoy is appointed, they want her to have good conditions to move forward.

When asked about his meeting with Mr. Tatar, Mr. Stewart said that they primarily discussed the buffer zone and related issues and did not discuss Cyprus per se. “I have not seen any significant changes in the positions of the parties,” he added.

Asked about the delay in appointing the UN Secretary-General’s envoy for Cyprus, Mr Stewart said “I don’t know if these things take time, but I’m sure it will happen very soon”.

He also stated that he is immediately awaiting the announcement of the Secretary General’s envoy and that he is looking forward to meeting her in New York when she is there.

At the same time, he referred to the expectations for 2024 and expressed the hope that there will be positive developments in the Cyprus issue.

“We hope for a positive 2024, as you know, 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the UN presence in Cyprus. It’s a very sad anniversary. We believe that the Cyprus issue should have been resolved a long time ago”, he noted.

He added that this 60th anniversary, which is marked on March 4, should be a reminder of how important the resolution of the Cyprus issue is.

Mr Stewart met President Christodoulides on Thursday morning and Ersin Tatar yesterday, Wednesday and informed them of his trip to New York next week. He noted that in New York he will brief UNFICYP’s police and troop contributing countries on January 10 and the Security Council on the 17th.

Source: KYPE