In the extensive investigations conducted in the months following the publication of the position paper in November, some testimonies referenced within it have been disputed or deemed unverifiable, and more may face similar scrutiny in the future. We regret their inclusion in the position paper. As mentioned, a substantial portion of the information that is now available was not accessible when the document was originally drafted. The new information that has come to light further reinforces our call for an investigation into the subject. It is crucial to recognize that due to the fragmented nature of traumatic memories, they are often expressed in incomplete, confused, or contradictory ways. Therefore, it is neither accurate nor just for persons lacking the required expertise and tools to assess the credibility of witnesses. Accordingly, moving forward, we will rely on the Patten report and, when available, additional reports and documents produced by competent investigative bodies. We will continue to monitor their findings and reports while drawing necessary professional conclusions.

Since October 7, the Israeli government and other entities have been exploiting reports of sexual violence in a manipulative and cynical manner. These reports have been utilized as part of a campaign to dehumanize Palestinians and as a propaganda tool to justify Israel’s brutal military assault on the Gaza Strip. This assault has resulted, and continues to result, in the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, the forced displacement and starvation of most of the Gaza Strip’s population, and extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure, including health facilities. We are appalled by this cynical exploitation of the victims’ suffering, condemn it, and view it as a complete abandonment of any moral integrity.

Iranian police have arrested more than 260 people, including three European citizens, on suspicion of spreading satanism, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday.

The report said the suspects were arrested on Thursday night in Shahryar County, west of the capital of Tehran, for “spreading the culture of satanism and nudity.” It did not elaborate.

It was not clear how such a large number of arrests were made in one night — if the suspects were in one location, at some gathering or party, or not.

Gatherings where unrelated men and women are seen together are illegal in Iran and considered a sin under Islamic law.

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was involved in a hard landing while visiting a northern region and his condition is currently unknown, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on X on Sunday.

The aircraft came down in East Azerbaijan Province and emergency crews have so far been unable to reach it due to foggy conditions, Tasnim said. It is unclear what the exact status is of Raisi’s helicopter.

When consulted by EL PAÍS, activists, members of the Federal Police and local journalists confirm that it’s impossible to enter or leave Frontera Comalapa or Chicomuselo

When consulted by EL PAÍS, activists, members of the Federal Police and local journalists confirm that it’s impossible to enter or leave Frontera Comalapa or Chicomuselo, two municipalities in the state of Chiapas. They also point out that moving around has become extremely difficult in recent months, as violence and clashes in both municipalities have worsened. Last Monday, a confrontation in the area between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) left 11 people dead.

“At least since 2021, the residents of these towns [have been kept] as hostages. The people we’ve been able to speak with tell us that these criminal structures control their electricity, telecommunications and even their food, because by having key access roads closed, businesses are running out of supplies,” explains Dora Roblero, director of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center, known in the region as Frayba. “The Aurrera supermarket in Frontera Comalapa closed because it could no longer get access to food. Therefore, the population has to look for another place to find groceries. [This search for food] has to be done when the roads are open… and this only happens when the criminal groups decide to do so,” she adds.

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state television reported, without immediately elaborating.

Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather condition in the area. There had been heavy rain reported with some wind.

China and Cambodia will deploy their ships near the Gulf of Thailand for the naval section of their biggest ever "Golden Dragon" military drills.

Two Chinese warships docked at a commercial port in Cambodia on Sunday as the two countries stage joint military drills.

The two warships — Jingangshan amphibious warfare ship and Qijiguang training ship — arrived at Cambodia's Sihanoukville port. The commercial port is north of the Ream naval base, where two other Chinese corvettes have been docked for the last five months.

On Thursday, China and Cambodia initiated a 15-day-long military drill involving 760 Chinese military personnel along with around 1,300 Cambodians and 11 Cambodian vessels. The naval portion of the exercises is set be held near the Gulf of Thailand next week.

The annual maneuvers, known as Golden Dragon exercises, were first held in December 2016. This year's event is the second after a three-year hiatus over the COVID-19 pandemic, and the largest to date.

A Russian court has ordered that Deutsche Bank's and Commerzbank's assets, accounts, property and shares be seized in Russia as part of a lawsuit involving the German banks, court documents showed.

Governing Georgian Dream party can still force the controversial legislation through parliament.

The Georgian government’s plans to brand Western-funded NGOs, media outlets and campaign groups as “foreign agents” were rejected by the country’s president on Saturday, but the ruling party vows to pass them into law despite widespread public protests and international outcry.

Speaking at a press conference in the capital of Tbilisi on Saturday, President Salome Zurabishvili confirmed she had vetoed the bill — which was awaiting her signature after being passed in parliament earlier this week. Critics say the proposals, which would apply to organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad, are similar to ones used by the Kremlin to quash dissent in Russia.

“This law is, in its essence, in its spirit, a Russian law, which contradicts our constitution and all European standards, and is an obstacle to the European path,” Zurabishvili said.

In Ireland's capital, Dublin, tent cities set up by migrants who lack temporary protected status are repeatedly cleared. The situation has been aggravated by Ireland's housing crisis and anti-migrant laws in Britain.

The center of Dublin glitters with architectural showpieces, the offices of global corporations. But there are increasingly tents at the base of the glass facades. Some of these belong to people excluded from housing, a scarcity across Ireland and simply unaffordable for many people in the booming capital. The housing crisis is the dominant topic in Ireland right now. When he took office as taoiseach, or Ireland's head of government, in April, Simon Harris promised to provide 250,000 new homes by the end of the decade.

The second group of people sleeping in tents constitute the second-hottest topic in the Irish republic. More and more migrants are arriving here, to this island in northwestern Europe, and its capacity to accommodate them is at its limits — not least because of the housing crisis. The situation has been aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, 100,000 Ukrainian refugees have registered in Ireland. An EU-wide agreement means they do not have to apply for asylum first.

Ireland's government openly admits that it is unable to provide all asylum-seekers with accommodation while their applications are processed. According to the government, as of May 14, 1,780 male applicants were as yet unhoused.

Proposed restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights have proven far harder for politicans at home and abroad to unite against than the government’s “foreign agent” bill.

“No racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia,” reads a sign in a small vegan café in the center of the Georgian capital, an EU flag pinned across the counter.

“The other day, I was looking at a picture I took in 2013 with my friends who are queer activists, and I realized 90 percent of them have now left for other European countries,” said Atina Bregvadze, a feminist campaigner in Tbilisi, for whom the café is one of just a few remaining welcoming places.

At the same time, outside, thousands of parents, children and priests clad in black robes were gathering in the streets for a rally to celebrate “Family Purity Day,” the public holiday declared by the government to rival Friday’s International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).

Now, many in Georgia’s LGBTQ+ community fear their small country is running out of space to accommodate both of these very different worlds.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he anticipates the upcoming peace summit in Switzerland will yield an action plan addressing three key areas: free navigation to protect port infrastructure, global food security, and Ukraine's economic development.

Additional discussions will focus on nuclear and energy security to prevent attacks on critical infrastructure, and another key point will be about the exchange of captives and return of deported children.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine's partners "are afraid of Russia losing the war" and would like Kyiv "to win in such a way that Russia does not lose," Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent.

Kyiv's allies "fear" Russia's loss in the war against Ukraine because it would involve "unpredictable geopolitics," according to Zelensky. "I don't think it works that way. For Ukraine to win, we need to be given everything with which one can win," he said.

His statement came on May 16 amid Russia's large-scale offensive in Kharkiv Oblast and ongoing heavy battles further east. In a week, Russian troops managed to advance as far as 10 kilometers in the northern part of Kharkiv Oblast, according to Zelensky.

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Georgia’s president has vetoed a “foreign agents” bill that has split the country and appealed to the government not to overrule her over a law she said was “Russian in sprit and essence”.

Salome Zourabichvil followed through on her stated intention to use her veto on Saturday although the governing Georgian Dream party has the votes to disregard her intervention.

“Today I vetoed a Russian law,” she said. “This law is Russian in its essence and spirit.

“It contradicts our constitution and all European standards, therefore it represents an obstacle to our European path.”

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The United States is focused on tracking down Hamas's Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, amid a new push by the White House to help Israel declare "total victory" so it can bring an end to the war on Gaza, US officials have told Middle East Eye.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that the US was offering Israel new intelligence to help track Hamas leaders in exchange for Israel not launching the assault on Rafah.

That report was carried by some Israeli news outlets under the title: US withholding "sensitive intelligence" on Hamas from Israel. However, several current and former US and Arab diplomats, as well as defence and intelligence officials, told MEE it was highly unlikely the US would withhold information on Hamas from Israel.

The Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has threatened to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza, calling into question the future of the Israeli government.

During a press conference on Saturday, Gantz announced that if a plan for postwar governance of the territory is not consolidated and approved by 8 June, his opposition National Unity party will withdraw from the coalition government.

. . .

On Thursday, defence minister, Yoav Gallant, challenged Netanyahu over the same issue, saying he would not permit any solution where Israeli military or civil governance were in the territory. Gallant’s comments were immediately backed by his fellow minister Gantz, Netanyahu’s main political rival in the emergency coalition, plunging Israel’s leadership into a highly public row.

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Israeli soldiers appear to be using the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in the Gaza Strip as a br for military operations, and, since March, also a school in the village of Juhor ad Dik, which is located about one kilometer from the border with Israel and was destroyed in the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, indicated by aerial photographs that the Washington Post published on Friday.

The report states that the satellite imagery documents the construction of earth berms around the hospital, which halted operations early in the war, in late November, and near the school in Juhor ad Dik in the second half of March.

In the seven months since Israel started bombarding Gaza and imposed a siege in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, the enclave’s economy has been crushed. People have been forced to flee their homes and jobs. Markets, factories and infrastructure have been bombed and flattened. Farmland has been scorched by airstrikes or occupied by Israeli forces.

In its place, a war economy has arisen. It is a marketplace of survival focused on the basics: food, shelter and money.

Humanitarian aid labeled “Not for resale” and looted items end up in makeshift markets. People can earn a few dollars a day evacuating displaced people on the backs of trucks and donkey carts, while others dig toilets or make tents from plastic sheeting and salvaged wood.

. . .

“It’s not like any war we’ve seen before, where a certain area is targeted and other zones are less touched and they can quickly re-engage in economic conditions,” he said. “From Month 1, the economy was put out of commission.”

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More evidence that Turkey simply relabels Russian oil products and re-exports them to Europe as Turkish emerges from a new study by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD).

“Turkey, the world’s largest buyer of Russian refined oil products, has emerged as a strategic pitstop for Russian fuel products rerouted to the EU, likely generating hundreds of millions in tax revenues for the Kremlin’s war chest,” said Martin Vladimirov, senior energy analyst at CSD and co-author of the report.

The report reveals that from the point the EU/G7 Russian petroleum products ban took effect on  February 5 last year to the end of February this year, the EU has imported €3bn of oil products from three Turkish ports. The trio of ports—Ceyhan, Marmara Ereglisi and Mersin have no refining hubs and in the period analysed imported 86% of their oil products from Russia.