breakfastmtn

Sol Mamakwa, a New Democratic party member from the community of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, rose on Tuesday to give the province’s first-ever Indigenous language speech in Queen’s Park, telling colleagues the moment left him feeling “thankful and proud”.

Before speaking, Mamakwa asked for the unanimous consent of the house to speak at length in Anishininiimowin, also known as Oji-Cree, receiving applause from lawmakers in response.

“I am speaking for those who couldn’t use their language … and for every Indigenous person in Ontario,” he said. “The language was taken from us by the arrival of the settlers, colonization and residential school. This history removed the children from our ways of life.” He said that children had their mouths washed out with soap for speaking their mother tongue.

MBFC
Archive

The US does not believe Israel has launched a full-scale invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, White House spokesman John Kirby has said.

. . .

Mr Kirby told journalists that images from Sunday's strike, which killed mostly women, children and elderly people, were "heartbreaking" and "horrific".

"There should be no innocent life lost here as a result of this conflict," he added.

But he acknowledged that Israel was investigating the incident and said he had "no policy changes to speak to" following the recent events in Rafah.

MBFC
Archive

Ukraine should be allowed to strike military bases on Russian territory from which Moscow carries out missile attacks against Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said on May 28, Le Monde reported.

"We think that we should allow them to neutralize military sites where missiles are fired, from where... Ukraine is attacked," Macron said at a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. "If we tell them that you are not allowed to target the place from which missiles are fired, we are in fact telling them that we are providing you with weapons but you cannot defend yourself."

MBFC
Archive

The temporary pier that the U.S. military constructed and put in place to provide much-needed humanitarian aid for Gaza has broken apart in rough seas, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

The latest calamity to befall the pier endeavor punctuated a particularly grim several days in Gaza, where Israeli forces have ramped up attacks on the city of Rafah just two days after carrying out a deadly strike that killed dozens of people.

. . .

Army engineers are working to put the pier back together and Defense Department officials hope that it “will be fully operational in just a little over a week,” she said.

MBFC
Archive

Spain will provide Ukraine with €1bn in military aid this year after the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met in Madrid to sign an “enormously important”, decade-long defence and security deal.

. . .

The bilateral deal was agreed two days after Russia’s onslaught in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed 18 people, and as EU leaders grow increasingly exasperated with Hungary’s efforts to block aid to Ukraine.

“[This deal] will allow Ukraine to boost its capabilities, including its essential air defence systems to protect its civilians, cities and infrastructure, which are still suffering indiscriminate attacks as seen this weekend in Kharkiv,” Sánchez told a press conference after the signing.

MBFC
Archive

Some American-made, precision-guided weapons supplied to Ukraine have proved ineffective on the battlefield, their accuracy badly diminished by Russian jamming efforts, according to Ukrainian commanders and a Ukrainian military research project.

The projectiles performed well when first introduced to the battlefield, but lost effectiveness as Russian forces adapted their defenses, two confidential Ukrainian reports found. The problem prompted the Ukrainian military to stop using the weapons, two artillery commanders said.

The reports, first revealed by The Washington Post, focus on the American-made Excalibur, a 155-millimeter guided artillery shell, and the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb or GLSDB. One of the reports was shown to The New York Times by people familiar with the research. The second report was described but not shown to a reporter. The individuals asked not to be identified because the reports contain classified military information.

MBFC
Archive

China has begun its second day of military drills targeting Taiwan, in what it says is punishment for “separatist acts” after the inauguration of its new president on Monday.

The exercises, which involve Chinese military units from the air force, rocket force, navy, army, and coast guard, were announced suddenly on Thursday morning, with maps showing five approximate target areas in the sea surrounding Taiwan’s main island. Other areas also targeted Taiwan’s offshore islands, which are close to the Chinese mainland.

China’s defence ministry said the drills on Friday were testing its military’s ability to “seize power” and occupy key areas, in line with Beijing’s ultimate goal of annexing Taiwan. Taiwan’s government and people reject the prospect of Chinese rule, but China’s ruler Xi Jinping has not renounced the use of force to take the island. Western intelligence has claimed Xi has told the People’s Liberation Army to be capable of an invasion by 2027.

MBFC
Archive

Israel’s military said on Thursday that it was fighting in neighborhoods near the heart of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, apparently expanding its campaign against Hamas in a week when Israel has faced mounting diplomatic and legal pressure over its war effort.

The fighting came as the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the top court of the United Nations, said it would respond on Friday to a South African petition for the court to order an immediate halt to the ground assault in Rafah. The court has no means of enforcing its orders, but a call for Israel to rein in its offensive would be the latest setback to the country on the international stage.

MBFC
Archive

In the week since the U.S. military and allies attached a temporary pier to the Gaza shoreline, Pentagon planners have come face to face with the logistical nightmare that critics had warned would accompany the endeavor.

The Defense Department predicted that a steady stream of humanitarian aid would be arriving in Gaza via the pier by now, but little relief has reached Palestinians in the besieged strip, officials acknowledged this week. Several trucks were looted as they made their way to a warehouse, the U.N. World Food Program said, and the complexity of operating the pier project in a war zone is continuing to slow distribution.

The problems, as expected, are on the back end of the operation. Looting of aid trucks has continued, officials said, and forced the World Food Program to suspend operations for two days. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, suspended food distribution in Rafah on Tuesday, citing lack of security. It added that it had not received any medical supplies for 10 days because of closures and disruptions at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

MBFC
Archive

Ireland, Spain and Norway have announced they will formally recognise a Palestinian state on 28 May, triggering an immediate response from Israel, which said it would retaliate by recalling its ambassadors from Dublin, Madrid and Oslo, and withholding vital funds from the Palestinian Authority.

The three European governments made the long-awaited announcements in coordinated moves on Wednesday morning that they said were intended to support a two-state solution and foster peace in the Middle East.

“We are going to recognise Palestine for many reasons and we can sum that up in three words: peace, justice and consistency,” Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told the parliament in Madrid, to applause. “We have to make sure that the two-state solution is respected and there must be mutual guarantees of security.”

MBFC
Archive

Ukraine will receive the first delivery of funds stemming from the revenue of frozen Russian assets in July, the European Commission said on May 21.

Ukraine's Western partners and other allies froze around $300 billion in Russian assets at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Roughly two-thirds are held in the Belgium-based financial services company Euroclear.

In March, the European Commission submitted a proposal on using 90% of the generated funds to purchase weapons for Ukraine and allocate the remaining 10% to the EU budget to support the country's defense industry.

After many weeks of debates, EU ambassadors reached a political agreement on the proposal on May 8.

MBFC
Archive

The United Nations has suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity.

It also said no aid trucks have entered the territory in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the US for sea deliveries, and warned that the $320m (£250m) project may fail unless Israel starts providing the conditions humanitarian groups need to operate safely.

Several hundred thousand people remain in Rafah after the Israeli military launched an intensified assault there on 6 May, but relief agencies say food aid deliveries have been reduced to a trickle.

Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), warned that “humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse”. She said that if food and other supplies do not resume entering Gaza “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread”.

MBFC
Archive