The Fantasy of a New Middle East – Foreign Affairs

  1. The Fantasy of a New Middle East  Foreign Affairs
  2. This isn’t a real ceasefire in Gaza – it’s a holding pattern before war returns | Sanam Vakil  The Guardian
  3. The weekly cartoon  The Economist
  4. Trump’s ability to counter Netanyahu’s spoiler tactics in public may have been key to advancing a ceasefire in Gaza  The Conversation
  5. Optimism for Gaza Is Based on Shaky Assumptions  War on the Rocks
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Australia’s first formal treaty with Indigenous traditional owners passed in Victoria

Step towards reconciliation hailed as ‘a historic moment’ with premier Jacinta Allan saying it gives Aboriginal Australians the power to shape policies that affect their lives

The Australian state of Victoria has taken a historic step towards reconciliation, passing the nation’s first formal treaty with Indigenous traditional owners.

After two days of debate, the upper house of Victoria’s parliament passed the statewide treaty bill without amendment by 21 votes to 16, just before 9pm on Thursday.

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Man trapped in flooded basement dies as New York hit by severe rain

Officials say body of man, 39, pulled from Brooklyn basement as rainstorm closes roads and causes delays

A man’s body was pulled from a flooded New York City basement on Thursday during a rainstorm that shut down roadways and caused airport delays, authorities said.

A scuba team recovered the body of a 39-year-old man after firefighters received a call of a person trapped in a flooded basement in Brooklyn at about 4.30pm, police said. The man, whose name was not released, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

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More than half of Americans disapprove of Trump demolishing East Wing – poll

Survey, in which one-third respondents voted for the president, found 56% disagree with move

More than half of Americans disapprove of Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing and the construction of a new ballroom, according to a new poll from the Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos.

The survey was conducted between 24 and 28 October and indicates 56% of the respondents disagree with Trump’s recent move while 28% are in favor of it. Most of the survey’s respondents were white, one-third of them voted for Donald Trump and another third for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

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‘Yes, we’ve been to the moon before’: Nasa rebuffs Kim Kardashian conspiracy theory

Nasa chief Sean Duffy confirms 1969 landing was indeed real after US celebrity on TV show says ‘I think it was fake’

Nasa has rejected comments made by Kim Kardashian about the 1969 moon landing and confirmed that it did, in fact, happen.

During Thursday’s episode of The Kardashians, the Skims founder questioned whether the space mission ever took place while noting her interest in conspiracy theories.

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Radio Free Asia suspends news operations amid cuts and US government shutdown

RFA will begin closing overseas bureaus, as well as laying off and paying severance to staff members, with the hope that it could return in the future

Radio Free Asia (RFA) has said it is suspending its news operations due to the US government shutdown and the Trump administration’s cuts to government-funded news services.

“RFA has been forced to suspend all remaining news content production – for the first time in its 29 years of existence,” said Bay Fang, RFA’s president and CEO, in a statement.

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Nearly 150,000 aged 90 and above wait 12 hours in England’s A&Es each year

Older people left in their own excrement and wet beds for hours and forced to watch others die, Age UK report finds

Almost 150,000 people aged 90 and over in England are forced to wait longer than 12 hours in A&E every year, with some experiencing “truly shocking” waits of several days stuck in corridors, a report warns.

Older people are also being left in their own excrement and wet beds for hours, denied pain relief and forced to watch and hear other patients die next to them because they end up waiting so long for care, according to Age UK.

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