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A top Philippine security official demanded Friday the immediate expulsion of Chinese diplomats allegedly behind a reported leak of a phone conversation between one of the diplomats and a Filipino admiral about South China Sea disputes that have strained diplomatic ties.

National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said he was backing a call by the Philippine defense chief for Manila's foreign office to take actions against Chinese embassy individuals in Manila "who claim to have recorded an alleged phone conversation between a Chinese diplomat and a military official" in violation of Philippine laws and international diplomatic protocols.

Two Manila newspapers cited a Chinese Embassy source as saying that in a recorded call with a Chinese diplomat in January, a Filipino admiral agreed to a new way of transporting supplies to a Philippine-occupied shoal in the disputed waters. It required Manila to notify Beijing for such offshore missions and promise not to bring construction materials.

US AND PHILIPPINE MILITARY FORCES SINK SHIP DURING LARGESCALE DRILLS IN DISPUTED SOUTH CHINA SEA

"Those individuals in the Chinese Embassy responsible for violating Philippine laws and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and those responsible for these malign influence and interference operations must be removed from the country immediately," Ano said in a strongly worded statement.

"The Chinese Embassy’s repeated acts of engaging in and dissemination of disinformation, misinformation, and mal-information - now releasing spurious transcripts or recordings of purported conversations between officials of the host country - should not be allowed to pass unsanctioned or without serious penalty," Ano said.

It was not immediately clear from Ano’s statement if Philippine authorities had verified the news reports or if the phone conversation really took place. The Department of Foreign Affairs did not say if it was considering Ano’s call.

WWIII COULD START OVER PHILIPPINES DISPUTE IN SOUTH CHINA SEA, CHINA 'NOT RESPECTING' TREATIES, EXPERT SAYS

The Chinese government and its embassy in Manila have not confirmed the news reports nor denied them.

In Beijing, China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the "Philippines’ attitude just proves that they lack confidence in the face of facts and evidence and have reached the point where they are frustrated and have no bottom line.

"China solemnly demands that the Philippines ensures that Chinese diplomats can perform their duties, stops infringement and provocation and does not deny the facts, act indiscreetly or hurt itself by its own actions," he said.

The escalating word war and diplomatic row have been sparked by hostilities between Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships and other vessels since last year at the Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal.

The Chinese coast guard has used powerful water cannons, a military-grade laser and dangerous maneuvers that have caused minor collisions, injured several Filipino navy personnel and damaged their supply boats. The Philippine government has repeatedly summoned Chinese embassy diplomats in Manila to hand over protests.

President Joe Biden and his administration have repeatedly warned that the U.S. is obligated to defend the Philippines, its longtime treaty ally, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China.

Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have had overlapping claims in the busy seaway, a key trade route where many fear a major escalation of the conflicts could draw U.S. forces on a collision course with China military.

Eden Golan is in Sweden for the Eurovision Song Contest, but she is not seeing much of the country.

The 20-year-old Israeli singer is surrounded by security as she travels between her hotel and the contest venue in the city of Malmö. According to Israel’s public broadcaster, she practiced singing while being booed to prepare for her performance in the pan-continental song competition.

Golan has become a focus for protests by anti-Israel demonstrators who want Israel kicked out of Eurovision over its war against Hamas, which has killed almost 35,000 people in Gaza.

EUROVISION EXPLAINED: A LOOK AT THE MUSIC FESTIVAL'S ORIGINS, TOP CONTENDERS, AND THIS YEAR'S CONTROVERSY

A crowd estimated by police at more than 10,000 marched through the southern Swedish city on Thursday to chants of "Free Palestine" and "Israel is a terror state." Banners accused Eurovision of being complicit in genocide and called for a boycott of the competition.

Another protest march is planned for Saturday, hours before Golan competes in the live Eurovision final against acts from 25 other countries.

Golan has largely stayed out of sight in Malmö, apart from rehearsals and performances at the Malmö Arena. While other performers have taken the stage for fans in a Eurovision park in the city, Golan has not.

She was one of 10 acts who made it through Thursday’s semifinal, which was decided by votes from Eurovision viewers around the world. Golan has been greeted with a smattering of boos, as well as applause, from spectators in the arena. Bookmakers say she is likely to finish in the top half of the final competition, decided by a mix of public votes and national music-industry juries.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Golan for performing despite "contending with an ugly wave of antisemitism."

"So be blessed, and know that when they boo you, we are cheering you on," he said.

Golan’s song is a powerful ballad titled "Hurricane" – but that was not its original name. The song was first called "October Rain," an apparent reference to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis and triggered the Gaza war. That fell foul of contest rules banning "political" content.

The retitled song contains less specific lyrics about going through a tough time, and asserts that "love will never die."

Born in Israel to parents from the former Soviet Union, Golan spent much of her childhood in Russia and performed on TV talent shows there before moving back to Israel. She cites Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Whitney Houston and Justin Timberlake among her inspirations.

She has avoided direct political statements, but said it was "such an honor to represent my country, especially in these times."

Speaking after the semi-final, Golan said she was "overwhelmed with emotions."

"I’m just super excited to go on stage once more and share a bit of my love with everyone," she said.

Tens of thousands of disgruntled Polish farmers marched through downtown Warsaw on Friday to protest the European Union’s climate policies and oppose the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

The march under the slogan "Down with the Green Deal" was organized by Solidarity, a farmers' trade union that is strongly opposed to the EU’s farming policies, in particular a policy known as the Green Deal which aims to make agriculture more climate friendly. The farmers say it interferes with their work and imposes high costs on them.

"We are protesting because we don’t want to become slaves on our own land," said dairy farmer Grazyna Gasowska from eastern Poland.

EU PLAN TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE IS SHELVED FOLLOWING FARMER PROTESTS ACROSS EUROPE

"According to the Green Deal we are supposed to grow what they tell us to, when they tell us to," Gasowska said as she held a national white-and-red flag. "All those diversification requirements are very difficult for the farmers."

The noisy march stopped at the EU Warsaw office and then at parliament.

"Let Brussels eat worms, we prefer pork chops and potatoes," said one banner, referring to a general belief that the EU will advise eating insects and worms rather than cattle meat.

The demonstration came as Poland’s political parties campaign ahead of elections next month for the European Parliament. The protest was supported by Polish right-wing opposition party Law and Justice, which held power from 2015 until late last year and is looking to regain political momentum.

With an eye to the election, Tusk on Friday announced a reshuffle of his Cabinet to replace four ministers running for the European Parliament next month.

The changes are also seen as a chance to bring new energy into Tusk’s government, which took office in December and embarked on deep reforms in many areas, including justice, foreign policy and the media.

"Today comes the time of bringing order and this is one of the reasons for which we jointly decided to have these changes," Tusk said.

He said there will be more changes in the future that would be dictated by the "interest of the state."

Tusk’s pro-European Union government has embarked on a wide reversal of the policies of the Law and Justice party, which put Poland on a collision course with the 27-member EU during its administration. Tusk's team is taking steps to free the judiciary and the state media from the political control that Law and Justice tried to impose, and bring to account those responsible for mismanagement and loss of funds by state-owned companies.

Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, who spearheaded a change in management at the state TV, radio and news agency, and the minister of the interior and administration, Marcin Kierwinski, were replaced. The ministers for state assets, Borys Budka, and for development and technology, Krzysztof Hetman, were also leaving.

The new interior minister is Tomasz Siemoniak, who served as the defense minister in Tusk's previous government in 2011 to 2015. He retains his job as coordinator of special services at a time of Russia's war on Poland's neighbor, Ukraine.

The culture minister is now Hanna Wroblewska, an art historian. Jakub Jaworowski, an economist and financier, was put in charge of state assets, where auditing is currently taking place and uncovering glaring cases of mismanagement under the previous government. Krzysztof Paszyk, an experienced politician and lawmaker, is the new minister of development and technology.

They will take office after formal appointment by President Andrzej Duda on Monday.

India's Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to a top opposition leader who was arrested nearly seven weeks ago in a bribery case that opposition parties called a political move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government against his rivals during a national election.

Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, is the chief elected official in the city of New Delhi and one of the country’s most influential politicians of the past decade.

The court ordered Kejriwal's release on interim bail, enabling him to campaign in the country's national election until the voting ends on June 1, Kejriwal's attorney said.

SUPPORTERS OF INDIA'S OPPOSITION LEADER FLOCK TO CAPITAL IN PROTEST OF HIS ARREST

Opposition leaders hailed the court verdict. "It will be very helpful in the context of the current elections," said Mamta Banerjee, the top elected official of West Bengal state.

However, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, a leader of the ruling party, said the court’s decision did not mean that Kejriwal has been exonerated in the bribery case. He will have to go back to jail on June 2 as pre-trial court proceedings are still taking place.

Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said in their order on Friday that the national election was an important event. They rejected the prosecuting agency's plea that their decision would put Kejriwal in a beneficial position compared with ordinary citizens.

They did, however, imposed some conditions on Kejriwal for granting interim bail. He will not be allowed to visit his office and some decisions he makes as chief minister of New Delhi must be approved by the capital’s governor. Also, he cannot interact with any witnesses in the case, they said.

INDIA'S POLICE DETAIN DOZENS OF PROTESTERS DEMANDING RELEASE OF OPPOSITION LEADER

Kejriwal was arrested by the federal Enforcement Directorate, India’s main financial investigation agency, on March 21. The agency, controlled by Modi’s government, accused Kejriwal’s party and ministers of accepting 1 billion rupees ($12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago. The arrest triggered days of protests by party activists supported by other opposition parties.

Kejriwal, who has remained New Delhi's chief minister, has denied the accusations. His party is part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called INDIA, which is the main challenger to Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party in India's six-week-long general election, which began last month.

Kejriwal's case was the first time that a chief minister in India was arrested while in office. His arrest, which occurred before the start of the election, dominated headlines for weeks.

His lawyer, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, said he was a serving chief minister and not a "habitual offender" and deserved to be released to campaign. Kejriwal’s deputy, Manish Sisodia, was also arrested in the case earlier, weakening his party’s campaign in national elections.

The Enforcement Directorate opposed his bail, saying that releasing Kejriwal to campaign would indicate that there were different judicial standards for politicians and other citizens.

"The right to campaign for an election is neither a fundamental right nor a constitutional right and not even a legal right," it said, adding that Kejriwal is not a candidate in these elections.

Kejriwal's party is the main challenger to Modi’s governing BJP in the Indian capital New Delhi and Punjab state where voting will take place on May 25 and June 1 respectively.

The national elections that started on April 19 are due to conclude on June 1. Votes will be counted on June 4.

While the federal agency accused Kejriwal of being a key conspirator in the liquor bribery case, the opposition parties said the government was misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken its political opponents. They pointed to a series of raids, arrests and corruption investigations of key opposition figures.

Kejriwal called his arrest a "political conspiracy" to prevent him from campaigning, and accused the Enforcement Directorate of "manipulating investigative agencies for political motives."

Modi’s party denies using law enforcement agencies to target the opposition and says the agencies act independently.

Kejriwal, a former civil servant, launched the Aam Aadmi Party in 2012. He promised to rid the Indian political system and governance of corruption and inefficiency.

The party’s symbol — a broom — and its promise to sweep the administration of graft struck a chord with Delhi residents, fed up with runaway inflation and slow economic growth.

Croatian conservative leader Andrej Plenkovic was formally appointed prime minister-designate on Friday for a third consecutive term after he forged an alliance with an extreme right party following an inconclusive election.

Plenkovic's ruling Croatian Democratic Union won the most votes at last month's parliamentary vote in the European Union nation, but not enough to stay in power on their own. The party this week agreed to form a coalition with far-right Homeland Movement for a parliamentary majority.

Lawmakers are set to approve Plenkovic's new government next week. It will have a slim majority of 78 lawmakers in the 151-member assembly, which could herald political uncertainty.

CROATIA VOTES IN A BITTER SHOWDOWN OF A PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION BETWEEN PRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER

"We will continue in our third mandate to work for progress," Plenkovic said on X, formerly Twitter, after he was appointed by President Zoran Milanovic.

Plenkovic's new Cabinet is likely to push Croatia further to the right ahead of next month's European election, which takes place as the continent faces a war in Ukraine, climate emergencies, migration and other problems.

The Homeland Movement, or DP, is a relatively new political party in Croatia, made up largely of radical nationalists and social conservatives who had left the center-right HDZ. The party is led by the hard-line mayor of the eastern town of Vukovar, which was destroyed during Croatia’s 1991 war for independence after it split from the former Yugoslavia.

For the first time in years, Croatia’s government will not include a party representing minority Serbs because DP opposed their inclusion. That has fueled concerns about ethnic tensions stemming from the conflict in the 1990s.

HDZ has largely held office since Croatia gained independence. The Balkan nation became an EU member in 2013, and joined Europe’s passport-free travel area and the eurozone last year.

Hundreds of volunteers have set up a makeshift dog shelter in an abandoned, roofless warehouse in the Brazilian city of Canoas, one of the hardest hit by floods since last week. They treat and feed sick, hungry or injured dogs, hoping to reunite them with their owners.

Their work was at full speed Friday morning as heavy rains are expected again in the region for the weekend.

Floods in Rio Grande do Sul have killed at least 107 people. Another 136 are reported missing and more than 230,000 have been displaced, according to state authorities. There is no official tally for the number of animals that have died or are missing, but local media estimated the number to be in the thousands.

NEW YORK FIREFIGHTER ADOPTS PUPPY HE HELPED RESCUE AFTER SHE WAS HIT BY A CAR: 'I’D LOVE TO TAKE HER'

Since Sunday, the makeshift shelter, about the size of a football pitch, has welcomed hundreds of ill and agitated canines from inundated areas. Every hour, between 20 and 30 dogs arrive, many of them injured after having been run over or nearly drowned. The shelter sends some to veterinary hospitals, but others in need of medical attention are too frail to be transported.

Hairdresser Gabriel Cardoso da Silva, 28, is one of the main organizers of the improvised facilities. He came from neighboring city of Gravatai, which was not hit by the heavy rains.

"We came here on Saturday to help rescue people. When we were about to leave, we heard the barking. I and my wife felt so moved, we just cried; we have two dogs," said Silva.

With no government coordination for the displaced animals, many were drawn to the movement following a social media campaign.

LOST DOG IS SAFELY RESCUED AFTER IT SURVIVED ALONE IN THE WOODS FOR MORE THAN 6 YEARS

"Sunday we had 10 volunteers, now we have 200. We have tons of food. Our community chose to embrace this, but days ago we felt so alone."

Whenever a dog is reunited with family, the hairdresser shouts "One less!" so other volunteers can stop and applaud throughout the shelter, which is covered in dog food, chains to stop them from fighting with each other and donations.

Cardoso's cry often mixes with loud barks of small and jittery dogs, fights between distraught homeless pets and frantic movement by desperate families trying to locate one or more of their members.

Éder Luis da Silva Camargo, a garbage collector in Canoas, found two of his six dogs at the center after searching for two days. Hunter and Preta were separated from him on Tuesday, as they boarded different boats during a rescue operation.

"They were so scared then, they ran to the side and we couldn’t run after them. Now, thank God, we found them here," Camargo said.

He and his wife Jenifer Gabriela, 21, want to find their four dogs that are still missing: Bob, Meg, Polaca and Ravena.

"This is the third place we came to look for them. This is great, but we still want to find the others," Gabriela said.

Animal protection groups and volunteers have shared images of difficult rescues and heartwarming scenes of pets reuniting with their owners on social media, which has spurred Brazilians to send donations and brought veterinarians to the region.

One video that went viral showed a man crying inside a boat, hugging his four dogs after rescuers went back to his home to save them.

The tough situation of animals in southern Brazil became national news this week after a horse nicknamed Caramelo garnered attention for spending days stranded on a rooftop in Canoas, not far from the shelter.

About 24 hours after he was first spotted and with people clamoring for his rescue, a team in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state on Thursday successfully removed Caramelo, providing a dose of hope to a beleaguered region.

Carla Sassi, chairwoman of Grad, a Brazilian nonprofit that rescues animals after disasters, said she met with state government officials in Canoas to discuss emergency measures to rescue pets. So far, according to volunteers, only business leaders and local residents have acted to save pets in flooded areas.

After the coronavirus pandemic triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions, leaders at the World Health Organization and worldwide vowed to do better in the future. Years later, countries are still struggling to come up with an agreed-upon plan for how the world might respond to the next global outbreak.

A ninth and final round of talks involving governments, advocacy groups and others to finalize a "pandemic treaty" is scheduled to end Friday. The accord's aim: guidelines for how the WHO's 194 member countries might stop future pandemics and better share scarce resources. But experts warn there are virtually no consequences for countries that don’t comply.

WHO’s countries asked the U.N. health agency to oversee talks for a pandemic agreement in 2021. Envoys have been working long hours in recent weeks to prepare a draft ahead of a self-imposed deadline later this month: ratification of the accord at WHO's annual meeting. But deep divisions could derail it.

WHO DIRECTOR CALLS FOR WORLD PANDEMIC TREATY TO PREPARE FOR DISEASE X

U.S. Republican senators wrote a letter to the Biden administration last week critical of the draft for focusing on issues like "shredding intellectual property rights" and "supercharging the WHO." They urged Biden not to sign off.

Britain's department of health said it would only agree to an accord if it was "firmly in the U.K. national interest and respects national sovereignty."

And many developing countries say it's unfair that they might be expected to provide virus samples to help develop vaccines and treatments, but then be unable to afford them.

"This pandemic treaty is a very high-minded pursuit, but it doesn’t take political realities into account," said Sara Davies, a professor of international relations at Griffith University in Australia.

ALL GOP SENATORS PRESS BIDEN NOT TO SUPPORT EXPANDING WHO PANDEMIC AUTHORITY

For example, the accord is attempting to address the gap that occurred between COVID-19 vaccines in rich and poorer countries, which WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said amounted to "a catastrophic moral failure."

The draft says WHO should get 20% of the production of pandemic-related products like tests, treatments and vaccines and urges countries to disclose their deals with private companies.

"There’s no mechanism within WHO to make life really difficult for any countries that decide not to act in accordance with the treaty," Davies said.

Adam Kamradt-Scott, a global health expert at Harvard University, said that similar to the global climate agreements, the draft pandemic treaty would at least provide a new forum for countries to try to hold each other to account, where governments will have to explain what measures they’ve taken.

The pandemic treaty "is not about anyone telling the government of a country what it can do and what it cannot do," said Roland Driece, co-chair of WHO’s negotiating board for the agreement.

There are legally binding obligations under the International Health Regulations, including quickly reporting dangerous new outbreaks. But those have been flouted repeatedly, including by African countries during Ebola outbreaks and China in the early stages of COVID-19.

Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center at Geneva’s Graduate Institute, said it was critical to determine the expected role of WHO during a pandemic and how outbreaks might be stopped before spreading globally.

"If we fail to seize this window of opportunity which is closing … we’ll be just as vulnerable as we were in 2019," she warned.

Some countries appear to be moving on their own to ensure cooperation from others in the next pandemic. Last month, President Joe Biden’s administration said it would help 50 countries respond to new outbreaks and prevent global spread, giving the country leverage should it need critical information or materials in the future.

Yuanqiong Hu, a senior legal and policy adviser at Doctors without Borders, said it’s unclear what might be different in the next pandemic, but hoped that focusing attention on some of the glaring errors that emerged in COVID-19 might help.

"We will mostly have to rely on countries to do better," she said. "That is worrisome."

Israel continues a missile strike on the city of Rafah, Hamas' last stronghold in Gaza, after ceasefire talks with the terrorist regime once again fell apart.  

During negotiation efforts in Cairo, Egypt, Hamas reportedly demanded an initial 12-week ceasefire, double the six-week timeframe offered by the Israeli Defense Force.

Air strikes continue on Rafah as the IDF marshals manpower and military equipment outside the city limits in preparation for a ground invasion.

BIDEN VOWS TO WITHHOLD WEAPONS FROM ISRAEL IF NETANYAHU GOES FORWARD WITH RAFAH INVASION

Palestinians have fled the city en masse as the conflict comes to a boiling point, with over 100,000 internally displaced refugees setting up tent cities and temporary shanty towns outside Rafah.

The Israeli government's determination to enter Rafah is unpopular with Western powers, which have repeatedly urged the Jewish nation to avoid the operation due to the likely massive loss of civilian lives involved.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to follow through with the eradication of Hamas — even if it loses Israel its allies.

ISRAEL URGES PALESTINIANS TO EVACUATE RAFAH AHEAD  OF EXPECTED GROUND OPERATION IN HAMAS STRONGHOLD

"If we must stand alone, we shall stand alone," Netanyahu said. "If we must, we shall fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than our fingernails, and with that strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we shall be victorious."

President Biden is vowing to withhold weapons from Israel if the Jewish State goes forward with its invasion of Rafah. 

"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an interview released Wednesday. 

"I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem," Biden said.

Airstrikes were fired into Jabalya camp in the north of Gaza overnight. Further strikes occurred at the same time in the city of Khan Younis. A total of twelve people were killed in the bombings.

Fox News Digital's Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.

An upcoming Ukraine peace summit, ostensibly the most ambitious bid in years by neutral Switzerland to mediate a major conflict, is instead showing how Swiss economic and security interests increasingly align with Western Europe over Russia.

This is the view of both Swiss advocates of closer cooperation with Western powers and nationalist opponents who say Switzerland is abandoning its neutral tradition and should limit the scope for foreign entanglements.

Russia has not been invited to the June 15-16 talks taking place at a lakeside resort near the central city of Lucerne, which Switzerland agreed in January to host at the behest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

FAMOUSLY NEUTRAL SWITZERLAND PLEDGES $2B TO UKRAINE UNDER GLOBAL PRESSURE

Rather than ending the war, the summit is poised to work towards mitigating risks stemming from Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and trying to isolate Russia, according to Western diplomats and Swiss foreign policy experts.

"It's going to be about shoring up Ukraine rather than bridge-building for immediate peace," said Daniel Woker, a former Swiss ambassador to Australia, Singapore and Kuwait.

Responding to a request by Reuters for comment, the Swiss foreign ministry said Switzerland's neutrality is "constant" and will not be altered by the conference.

"But being neutral does not mean being indifferent," it added in the statement. "Switzerland strongly condemns Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Outside the military realm, the right to neutrality does not stand in the way of solidarity and support for Ukraine and its people."

The conference, which Switzerland says should pave the way for a "future peace process", will focus on issues of global concern such as nuclear safety, freedom of navigation, food security and humanitarian matters, the ministry said.

Switzerland says Russia must be involved in the process, but justified its lack of an invitation next month on the grounds Moscow had repeatedly said it had no interest in taking part.

The Kremlin has described Switzerland as "openly hostile" and unfit to mediate in peace-building efforts, in particular because of its adoption of EU sanctions against Moscow.

Bern has asked over 160 delegations to the summit, pressing hard to include Russian allies from the so-called Global South, notably China, which says it is considering taking part.

If the summit can craft consensus with Russian allies on areas of mutual concern it could increase pressure on Moscow to compromise, diplomats say.

European support for the summit is solidifying, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirming his attendance, alongside leaders from Spain, Poland and Finland, among others.

Thomas Borer, a former Swiss ambassador to Germany, said Switzerland's business and security interests are overwhelmingly tied to Western Europe, North America and their allies, making it strategically imperative to stand with Ukraine.

Government protestations of neutrality would not change that, he added.

"Neither the Russians nor our Western allies view us as neutral," he said.

Around two-thirds of Swiss exports go to North America, the EU, Britain, Japan and Australia. Less than 1% go to Russia.

Supporters of closer Western alignment also note Switzerland is almost completely surrounded by NATO countries, which act as a buffer against potential external intrusions.

"Neutrality is a cop-out for a country that's basically getting a free ride off the security that others provide," said Franziska Roth, a lawmaker in the Swiss parliament for the center-left Social Democrats.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, two of Europe's other historically neutral states, Sweden and Finland, have both joined NATO.

As a U.N. member, Switzerland had a duty to uphold international law, which the Russian invasion violated, Roth said. Helping Ukraine recover from that took precedence over outdated notions of neutrality, she added.

Neutrality is, however, firmly rooted in the Swiss psyche and ditching it would be akin to Britain abolishing the monarchy, regardless of the geopolitical forces pulling at the country, said former ambassador Woker.

A study published in March by the Center for Security Studies at the ETH Zurich showed 91% of Swiss felt the country should stay neutral, though 26% also backed taking "a clear stand" in favor of one side in foreign military conflicts, up 8 percentage points from 2021.

It also showed a majority in favor of Switzerland getting closer to NATO.

Woker and other critics argue neutrality is an anachronism used as a pretext for protecting Swiss economic and financial interests, and risks isolating the country.

Recognized in 1815 by European powers after Napoleon's defeat and enshrined in the 1907 Hague Convention, Swiss neutrality helped bind together the multilingual confederation during the World Wars.

The right-wing Swiss Peoples' Party (SVP), the biggest group in the Swiss lower house of parliament, argues neutrality is an integral part of Switzerland's prosperity and that Bern's support for Ukraine undermines it.

The SVP has initiated a referendum to embed neutrality in the constitution, though it is unlikely to be held before 2025.

The party's most emblematic figure, Christoph Blocher, this month criticized the peace summit, saying failure to invite Russia did not augur well for Switzerland.

"We're only bringing the Ukrainians," he said. "And we say we're neutral."

It was "unacceptable" that the U.S. decision to withhold some weapons from Israel became public while the two governments still were discussing Israel's planned offensive into the Gaza city of Rafah, the Israeli envoy to Washington said on Thursday.

The U.S. pause on some arms supplies to Israel "sends the wrong message to Hamas and to our enemies in the region," Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar a day after U.S. President Joe Biden warned Israel for the first time that Washington would withhold weapons if Israeli forces launch a major offensive into Rafah.

Biden's comments in a CNN interview were his strongest public warning to date in his effort to deter an Israeli assault on Rafah. They underscored a growing rift between the U.S. and its strongest ally in the Middle East.

NETANYAHU SAYS ISRAEL 'WILL STAND ALONE' IF NECESSARY AFTER BIDEN THREATENS TO WITHHOLD WEAPONS

Billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry remains in the pipeline for Israel, despite the delay of one shipment of bombs and a review of others because of U.S. concerns their use in Rafah could wreak more devastation on Palestinian civilians.

The U.S. has said it has not seen an Israeli plan to protect the estimated 1.4 million Palestinian civilians in Rafah, most of them displaced by fighting from other parts of the devastated Gaza Strip.

Herzog said Israeli officials had been discussing a Rafah operation for weeks with U.S. officials "and we told them point blank that we're not going to move automatically into the urban area without first developing a plan for the population and implementing" that plan.

"We told the administration that what we are going to do is not time based, it is conditions based and we showed them our plans," he continued.

"I think its unfortunate that before we completed this discussion...things went out in public in the sense that, you know, 'Don't do Rafah and if you do we withhold certain weapons," Herzog said. "I might say as well it is unacceptable."

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Oct. 7 onslaught into Israel by Hamas fighters who killed some 1,200 people and took 252 hostages back into the seaside enclave.

Israel's assault has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 80,000, most of them civilians, Hamas-ruled Gaza's health ministry says.

Herzog said the U.S. decision to withhold some weapons "puts us in a corner because we have to deal with Rafah one way or the other."

To achieve its goal of destroying Hamas as a military and political force and eliminate its threat, Israel must defeat four battalions of Hamas fighters deployed in Rafah, he said.

"I don't believe we can complete the job of defeating Hamas in Gaza without addressing this question," Herzog said.

A U.S. congressional committee on China has asked leading research university Georgia Institute of Technology to detail its collaboration with a Chinese university facing U.S. government restrictions due to its alleged ties to the country's military.

Georgia Tech partnered with China's northeastern Tianjin University on cutting edge technologies despite its documented ties to the People's Liberation Army (PLA), John Moolenaar, the new Republican chairman of the House of Representatives' select committee on China, wrote in a letter on Thursday to the U.S. school's president Angel Cabrera.

But the Georgia Tech scientist who led the project defended the research, saying all the results were available to the public, that it had passed extensive legal reviews, and that only a small portion of the funding came from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), which is heavily sponsored by the Pentagon.

CHINA COULD 'OVERWHELM' US MILITARY BASES AS BIDEN SHOWS 'ALARMING LACK OF URGENCY': HOUSE COMMITTEE CHAIR

The letter noted that Tianjin University and numerous affiliates had been added in 2020 to the Commerce Department's export restrictions list for actions contrary to U.S. national security, including trade secret theft and research collaboration to advance China's military.

"While Georgia Tech is now prohibited from exporting sensitive technologies to Tianjin University due to the Entity List's prohibitions, it has collaborated with Tianjin University and at least one other PLA-linked entity on developing sensitive technologies," Moolenaar said.

The Tianjin research center is affiliated with a Chinese company with subsidiaries that supply the PLA, the letter said.

A Georgia Tech press release from January said its researchers based in Atlanta and at the Tianjin International Center for Nanoparticles and Nanosysms had created the world's first functional semiconductor made from the nanomaterial, graphene, which it said could lead to a "paradigm shift" in electronics and yield faster computing.

OVER 40% OF AMERICANS SEE CHINA AS AN ENEMY, A PEW REPORT SHOWS. THAT'S A FIVE-YEAR HIGH

The U.S. and China, in the midst of an intense geopolitical and scientific rivalry, both view semiconductors as a strategic industry with civilian and military uses, including quantum computing and advanced weapons systems.

A spokesperson from Georgia Tech said it welcomed the congressional inquiry, but that GTRI "does not have a collaboration, research partnerships, or provide any funding to Tianjin University."

"We are continuously monitoring the evolving relationships between China and the United States and have implemented additional procedures and protocols to ensure security and maintain vigilance," Abbigail Tumpey, the spokesperson told Reuters in an email.

In a published article, researchers credited financial support from GTRI, which counted the Defense Department and the U.S. military as customers for more than 90% of its research in fiscal year 2023, according to its latest annual report.  

Moolenaar said Georgia Tech's collaboration with Tianjin University raised questions about its entity list compliance, and asked Cabrera to thoroughly disclose all of its joint work.

GTRI, Tianjin International Center for Nanoparticles and Nanosystems, and China's embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to Reuters' requests for comment.

Walter de Heer, the Georgia Tech professor who directed the program, told Reuters that only one Atlanta-based student had derived funding from GTRI for "nonproprietary" research related to the collaboration, which involved reproducing samples made in Tianjin.

He said deteriorating U.S.-China relations had derailed what had been a fruitful scientific endeavor with Chinese researchers. He said the research was still about a decade away from viable implementation, but that he had been unable to obtain U.S. government or private sector funding for follow-on research despite its promise.

"Everything I'm doing is public domain and open source," De Heer said.

The letter marks one of the first actions Moolenaar has taken as head of the bipartisan committee, a post he assumed in April after former Representative Mike Gallagher left Congress. No Democrats on the committee signed the letter.

The U.S. Justice Department under the Biden administration ended a Trump-era program called the China Initiative intended to combat Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft, but which critics had said spurred racial profiling toward Asian Americans and chilled scientific research.

Still, U.S. agencies and Congress have stepped up scrutiny of China's state-sponsored influence and technology transfers at American colleges and universities, concerned that Beijing uses open and federally funded research environments in the U.S. to circumvent export controls and other national security laws.

Various congressional bodies have recommended stricter China-related measures be added to the Higher Education Act of 1965 that requires U.S. colleges and universities that receive federal funding to disclose foreign ownership, control, gifts and contracts.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday announced a reshuffle of his Cabinet to replace four ministers running for the European Parliament next month.

The changes are also seen as a chance to bring new energy into Tusk’s government, which took office in December and embarked on deep reforms in many areas, including justice, foreign policy and the media.

"Today comes the time of bringing order and this is one of the reasons for which we jointly decided to have these changes," Tusk said.

POLISH LEADER WARNS OF 'PREWAR ERA,' URGES EUROPEAN NATIONS TO INVEST IN DEFENSE

He said there will be more changes in the future that would be dictated by the "interest of the state."

Tusk’s pro-European Union government has embarked on a wide reversal of the policies of its right-wing predecessors, the Law and Justice party, who between 2015 to 2023 put Poland on a collision course with the 27-member EU. Tusk's team is taking steps to free the judiciary and the state media from the political control that Law and Justice tried to impose, and bring to account those responsible for mismanagement and loss of funds by state-owned companies.

Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, who spearheaded the change of management at the state TV, radio and news agency, and the minister of the interior and administration, Marcin Kierwinski, were replaced. The ministers for state assets, Borys Budka, and for development and technology, Krzysztof Hetman, were also leaving.

The new interior minister is Tomasz Siemoniak, who served as the defense minister in Tusk's previous government in 2011 to 2015. He retains his job as coordinator of special services at a time of Russia's war on Poland's neighbor Ukraine.

The culture minister is now Hanna Wroblewska, an art historian, while Jakub Jaworowski, an economist and financier, was put in charge of state assets, where auditing is currently taking place, uncovering glaring cases of mismanagement under the previous government. Krzysztof Paszyk, an experienced politician and lawmaker, is the new minister of development and technology.

They will take office after formal appointment by President Andrzej Duda on Monday.

The reshuffle came just hours before a major protest planned in Warsaw by Law and Justice, seeking to win seats in the June 9 elections to the European legislature. They were joining with farmers protesting new EU agriculture policies to cut green gas emissions, called the Green Deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reappointed Mikhail Mishustin as the country’s prime minister on Friday, a widely anticipated move to keep on a technocrat who has maintained a low political profile.

Mishustin and other technocrats in the Cabinet have been credited with maintaining a relatively stable economic performance despite bruising Western sanctions for Russia's role in Ukraine. Most other Cabinet members are expected to keep their jobs, though the fate of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu appeared uncertain.

In line with Russian law, Mishustin, 58, who held the job for the past four years, submitted his Cabinet’s resignation on Tuesday when Putin began his fifth presidential term at a glittering Kremlin inauguration.

RUSSIAN PM MIKHAIL MISHUSTIN HAS CORONAVIRUS, KREMLIN ANNOUNCES

Mishustin, the former head of Russia’s tax service, steered clear of political statements and avoided media interviews during his previous tenure.

The speaker of the parliament’s lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin, announced that Putin submitted Mishustin’s candidacy to the State Duma, which will hold a session later Friday to consider it.

Under the constitutional changes approved in 2020, the lower house approves the candidacy of the prime minister, who then submits Cabinet members for approval. The changes were ostensibly meant to grant parliament broader power, but the procedure is widely seen as pro forma given Kremlin control over the body.

Most Cabinet members are expected to keep their jobs, but it was not clear if Shoigu, the defense minister, would be among them after last month’s arrest of his top associate, Timur Ivanov.

Ivanov, who served as deputy defense minister in charge of massive military construction projects, was arrested on bribery charges and was ordered to stay in custody pending official investigation.

The arrest of Ivanov was widely interpreted as an attack on Shoigu and a possible precursor of his dismissal despite his close personal ties with Putin.

Shoigu was broadly criticized for Russian military’s setbacks in the early stage of the fighting in Ukraine. He faced scathing attacks from mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who marched on Moscow nearly a year ago to demand the ouster of Shoigu and the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

After Prigozhin’s death in a suspicious plane crash two months after the rebellion — widely seen as the Kremlin’s revenge — Shoigu appeared to shore up his position. But Ivanov’s arrest, interpreted by many as part of Kremlin’s political infighting, again exposed Shoigu’s vulnerability.

One of the suspects believed to be connected to the murders of two Australian brothers and an American, who were on a surfing trip in Mexico, allegedly admitted to his girlfriend that he killed all three, according to her. 

During a court hearing on Wednesday, the BBC reported that Ari Gisel, the girlfriend of suspected killer Jesús Gerardo Garcia Cota, allegedly showed up at her house on April 28 and told her he did something to "three gringos." Gringo is a slang term used to describe English-speaking foreigners. 

When she asked what he meant, Gisel stated that Garcia Cota said "I killed them." 

In keeping with Mexican law, prosecutors identified him by his first name, Jesús Gerardo, alias "el Kekas," a slang word that means "quesadillas," or cheese tortillas. 

MOTHER OF AUSTRALIAN SURFERS KILLED IN MEXICO DELIVERS TOUCHING EULOGY AT SAN DIEGO BEACH

After admitting to the crime, Garcia Cota reportedly took Gisel outside to show her his vehicle, which reportedly had the tires on it that were allegedly stolen from the victims' truck, Gisel explained in court. 

Mexican authorities believe the surfers were all killed because thieves wanted the tires from their truck. 

The three men, brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad, were on a camping and surfing trip along a stretch of coast south of the city of Ensenada when they went missing last weekend.

Chief state prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez theorized the killers drove by and saw the foreigners' pickup truck and tents and wanted to steal their tires. But "when [the foreigners] came up and caught them, surely, they resisted."

MEXICAN AUTHORITIES REVEAL BIZARRE REASON THEY BELIEVE AUSTRALIANS, AMERICAN WERE MURDERED ON SURFING VACATION

The thieves then allegedly went to what she called "a site that is extremely hard to get to" and allegedly dumped the bodies into a familiar well. A fourth body was also found inside the well.

Ramírez said investigators were not ruling out the possibility the same suspects also dumped the first, earlier body in the well as part of previous crimes.

All three bodies had a gunshot wound to the head, Reuters reported, citing a source from the attorney general's office.

The mother of the Robinson brothers delivered a moving tribute to her sons Tuesday at a beach in San Diego.

"Our hearts are broken, and the world has become a darker place for us," Debra Robinson said, fighting back tears. "They were young men enjoying their passion of surfing together."

FOURTH BODY FOUND IN SEARCH FOR US AND AUSTRALIAN SURFERS WHO MYSTERIOUSLY VANISHED IN MEXICO

During her speech, Robinson noted that her son Jake loved surfing so much that, as a doctor, he liked to work in hospitals near the beach.

"Jake’s passion was surfing, and it was no coincidence that many of his hospitals that he worked in were close to surfing beaches," she said. "Live bigger, shine brighter, and love harder in their memory," she said.

Garcia Cota will be prosecuted for the crime of "disappearance committed by private individuals," and homicide charges are expected to be filed later, the BBC reported. 

The prosecution added that it is continuing to gather evidence in an effort to charge two other suspects, who remain in custody for alleged possession of methamphetamine.

Fox News Digital's Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A Boeing 737-300 plane carrying 85 people caught fire and skidded off a runway at Senegal's main airport, near the capital of Dakar. Ten people were injured in the crash, including the pilot, the country's transport minister said Thursday.

Passengers were evacuated from the burning aircraft at Blaise Diagne International airport and some described "complete panic" as they scrambled for their lives.

The Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako, in neighboring Mali, late on Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew, when the crash happened. The airport is located about 31 miles from Dakar.

BOEING WHISTLEBLOWER FROM KANSAS IS 2ND TO DIE IN PAST 2 MONTHS

It wasn't immediately clear what caused the plane to catch fire and skid off the runway. The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest, the minister added.

Passengers jumped down the emergency slides at night while flames engulfed one side of the aircraft and screams were heard all around, recounted Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko, who filmed the passengers' ordeal on his phone camera.

"I saw my life flash before my eyes," he said. "I thought about my mother, my wife, my kids," Sissoko, 39, told The Associated Press from the hotel where passengers were recovering from the shock.

"Only the slide on one side opened, so there was complete panic during the evacuation," he added.

Ibrahim Diallo, 20, a Malian citizen aboard the flight, said the plane had attempted to take off earlier that night but failed.

"The pilot told us everything was under control and that we’re going to try to take off again," he told the AP. "The second time, smoke started coming from one of the wings."

Boeing referred all request for comment to the airlines.

"Carriers operate and maintain their airplanes for upwards of 30 to 40 years," a statement said. "We refer you to each operator for questions related to their fleet operations. We will provide any requested support to our customer."

Air Sénégal did not respond to a request for comment but posted a statement on teh social media platform X, saying that flights between Dakar and Bamako were rescheduled to a later date, without providing further details.

It was the third incident involving a Boeing airplane this week. Also on Thursday, 190 people were safely evacuated from a plane in Turkey after one of its tires burst during landing at a southern airport, Turkey’s transportation ministry said.

The company has been under intense pressure since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the plane. The Federal Aviation Administration in February gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building planes after the accident.

The incident has raised scrutiny of Boeing to the highest level since two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. About a dozen relatives of passengers who died in the second crash have been pushing the U.S. government to revive a criminal fraud charge against the company by determining that Boeing violated terms of a 2021 settlement.

In April, a Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, testified at a congressional hearing that the company had taken manufacturing shortcuts to turn out 787s as quickly as possible that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.

The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks airline accidents, described the plane in Senegal's crash as a Boeing 737-38J, an aircraft that was delivered in the 1990s. The network published photos on X of the damaged plane in a grassy field, surrounded by fire suppressant foam. One engine appeared to have broken apart and a wing was also damaged, according to the photos.

The network is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to promote safe air travel and tracks accidents.

Argentina’s biggest trade unions mounted one of their fiercest challenges to the libertarian government of President Javier Milei, staging a mass general strike on Thursday that led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and halted key bus, rail and subway lines.

Main avenues and streets, as well as major transportation terminals were left eerily empty. Most teachers couldn’t make it to school and parents kept their children at home. Trash collectors walked off the job — as did health workers, except for those in emergency rooms.

ARGENTINA'S NEWLY ELECTED PRESIDENT, LIBERTARIAN JAVIER MILEI, SWORN INTO OFFICE

The 24-hour strike against Milei’s painful austerity measures and contentious deregulation push threatened to bring the nation of 46 million to a standstill as banks, businesses and state agencies also closed in protest.

Thursday’s action marked the second nationwide union strike since Milei came to power last December, slashing spending, laying off government workers, and freezing all public works projects in a bid to rescue Argentina from its worst financial crisis in two decades.

He has also devalued the local currency, stabilizing the peso but also causing prices to soar. Argentina’s annual inflation rate now nears 300% — considered the highest in the world, outpacing even crisis-stricken Lebanon.

The government said transport service disruptions would prevent some 6.6 million people from making it to work. During the morning rush-hour on Thursday, few cars could be seen on streets typically snarled with traffic. Garbage was already piling up on deserted sidewalks.

Milei posted a photo on Instagram holding up a soccer jersey emblazoned with the words "I DON’T STOP."

The country’s largest union, known by its acronym CGT, said it was staging the strike alongside other labor syndicates "in defense of democracy, labor rights and a living wage."

Argentina’s powerful unions — backed by Argentina’s left-leaning Peronist parties that have dominated national politics for decades — have led the pushback to Milei’s policies on the streets and in the courts in recent months.

"We are facing a government that promotes the elimination of labor and social rights," the unions said, seeking to portray Thursday’s strike as an eruption of public outrage over Milei’s free-market policies that have disproportionately affected poor and middle classes.

The government downplayed the disruption as a cynical ploy by its left-wing political opponents.

"They want to keep Argentina on a path of servitude," said presidential spokesperson Manual Adorni of the union leaders, accusing them of "extorting Argentines to try to return to power."

Union leaders said they had no choice but to escalate their actions after Argentina’s lower house approved Milei’s state overhaul bill and tax packages last week.

Even as lawmakers scrapped the bill's most controversial articles, unions remain vehemently opposed to parts of the package that relax labor market regulations and grant Milei power to restructure and privatize public agencies. The bill is now being debated in the opposition-dominated Senate.

Rubén Sobrero, general-secretary of the Railway Union, said the unions were prepared to extend the strike if negotiations did not yield results. "If there is no response within these 24 hours, we'll do another 36," he said.

For months, most recently Monday and Tuesday this week, raucous demonstrations by leftist parties gripped Buenos Aires, the country’s capital — in sharp contrast to the silence prevailing on the streets Thursday.

Argentina’s main international airport warned travelers to check in with their airlines as flight boards in terminals displayed a stream of yellow cancellation notices. The country’s flagship carrier, Aerolíneas Argentinas, announced it had canceled nearly 200 domestic and regional flights and rescheduled over a dozen international flights, affecting 24,000 passengers and costing the airline $2 million.

Only one bus company said it would continue regular service on Thursday. Shortly after the strike began at midnight, police said protesters attacked two of the company’s buses in Buenos Aires, breaking windows but causing no casualties.

"We won’t let them (the unions) break everything we are achieving," conservative Security Minister Patricia Bullrich posted on social media with a photo of the shattered bus windows.

Experts say that both sides are politically motivated.

In using the strike to assail his rivals, Milei is compensating for worsening economic pressures, said Sebastián Mazzuca, a political science expert at Johns Hopkins University. In bringing the economy to a halt, unions that had their candidate defeated in the last presidential election are flexing their muscles.

"This conflict is sold to the public as a social conflict, but it's really a political conflict," Mazzuca said. "The outgoing government doesn't want to die. And the new government wants to stay in power."

Guyana’s government on Thursday said it gave permission for the U.S. military to fly two powerful F/A-18F Super Hornet jets over its capital to demonstrate the close military and other forms of cooperation between this oil-exporting South American nation and the United States.

The country had about three hours notice of the exercise through an American embassy announcement but most people appeared to have been surprised by the noisy and unprecedented fly over that comes in the midst of simmering tensions between Guyana and Venezuela over a large swath of Guyana’s territory.

VIDEO OF GUYANA’S PRESIDENT SNAPPING BACK AT BBC REPORTER’S CLIMATE QUIZ GOES VIRAL: ‘LET ME STOP YOU’

A Guyana government statement said the "exercise seeks to deepen the ongoing security cooperation between our two countries," but both sides stayed clear of any reference to moves by neighboring Venezuela to annex the oil and mineral-rich Essequibo region.

President Nicolás Maduro recently signed a law annexing the region. The U.S. has made it clear it supports Guyana in the ongoing dispute and had assisted with surveillance flights for Guyana late last year when Venezuela had threatened to invade the country.

The military exercise came just a day after U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen Julie Nethercot visited Guyana for talks pertaining to "deterring aggression, defeating threats and rapidly responding to crises," as the Florida-based U.S. Southern Command reiterated its unwavering support for Guyana.

Guyana is awaiting a World Court decision on Venezuela's claim to the region but Venezuela has said it does not recognize the court and will ignore its decision whenever it is handed down.

A shipment of two types of precision bombs to Israel remains in limbo after being paused by the U.S. in opposition to Israeli forces’ operation in Rafah.

The shipment contains 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and 1,700 500-pound bombs the Biden administration has said may be used in Rafah.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed the shipment of bombs was paused, though the future of the shipment remains undetermined.

"We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment," Ryder said.

BIDEN VOWS TO WITHHOLD WEAPONS FROM ISRAEL IF NETANYAHU GOES FORWARD WITH RAFAH INVASION

A U.S. official said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the U.S. position has been that Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where over a million people are currently sheltering.

"We have been engaging in a dialogue with Israel in our Strategic Consultative Group format on how they will meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, and how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza," the official continued. "Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns. As Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision point on such an operation, we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah. This began in April."

Following this review, the U.S. decided last week to pause shipment of the bombs, according to the official, who said the administration is "especially focused" on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and "the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza."

MANY ISRAELIS FEEL ‘BETRAYED’ FOLLOWING BIDEN THREAT TO WITHHOLD ARMS TO DEFEAT HAMAS IN RAFAH

The official also emphasized that these shipments do not have anything to do with the Israel supplemental appropriations passed last month.

The statement from the U.S. official comes after two Israeli officials told Axios that U.S.-manufactured ammunition to Israel was paused last week for the first time since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack against the Jewish state.

On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that it had gained operational control of the Gazan side of the Rafah Crossing after troops began a "precise counterterrorism operation" in eastern Rafah aimed at killing Hamas terrorists and dismantling "Hamas terrorist infrastructure within specific areas of eastern Rafah."

Fox News Digital's Landon Mion contributed to this report.

Chad’s military leader, Mahamat Deby Itno, was declared the winner of this week's presidential election, according to provisional results released Thursday. The results were contested by his main rival, Prime Minister Succès Masra.

The national agency that manages Chad’s election released results of Monday's vote weeks earlier than planned. The figures showed Deby Itno won with just over 61% of the vote, with the runner-up Masra falling far behind with over 18.5% of the vote. Gunfire erupted in the capital following the announcement.

Preliminary results were initially expected on May 21.

CHAD HOLDS LONG-AWAITED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SET TO END YEARS OF MILITARY RULE

Chad held its long delayed presidential election following three years of military rule, a vote that analysts widely expected the incumbent to win. Deby Itno, also known as Mahamat Idriss Deby, seized power after his father, who spent three decades in power, was killed fighting rebels in 2021.

The oil-exporting country of nearly 18 million people hasn’t had a free-and-fair transfer of power since it became independent in 1960 after decades of French colonial rule.

Hours ahead of Thursday’s announcement, Masra published a speech on Facebook accusing the authorities of planning to manipulate the outcome.

During the 11 minute speech, Masra appeared in a blue suit at a podium with the national flag in the background and claimed victory, saying the incumbent was planning to reverse the outcome of the vote. He called on Chad’s military, police and other security forces to stop following Deby Itno’s orders.

"These orders will lead you to side with the wrong side of Chad’s history, these orders will lead you to fight your brothers and sisters, these orders will lead you to commit the irreparable and unforgivable," he said in the speech. "Refuse to obey these unjust orders!"

There was no immediate response from the president's office.

Masra, president of The Transformers opposition party, fled Chad in October 2022. The country’s military government at the time suspended his party and six others in a clampdown on protests against Deby Itno’s decision to extend his time in power by two more years. More than 60 people were killed in the protests, which the government condemned as "an attempted coup."

An agreement between the country’s minister of reconciliation and Masra’s political party late last year allowed the exiled politician and other opposition figures to return to Chad. He was later appointed prime minister.

Chad is seen by the U.S. and France as one of the last remaining stable allies in the vast Sahel region following military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in recent years. The ruling juntas in all three nations have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance instead.

About half of Zimbabwe’s population urgently needs food and water after the country’s worst drought in four decades, the U.N. humanitarian agency said Thursday as it launched an appeal for $430 million to help those most in need.

About 7.6 million of the country's 15 million people need "lifesaving and life-sustaining" humanitarian assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. But the agency is asking donors for the money to help the 3.1 million people in the most severely affected districts for the coming year, said Edward Matthew Kallon, U.N. resident humanitarian coordinator.

ZIMBABWE RELEASES OVER 4,000 PRISONERS UNDER AMNESTY TO REDUCE OVERCROWDING

A drought induced by the El Nino weather phenomenon is sweeping across much of southern Africa and has left both people and animals in desperate need of food and water. Zimbabwe, an agriculture reliant nation and one time exporter of food, is among the hardest hit by the drought.

Harvests for the staple corn for the 2023-24 season are estimated at about 700,000 tons, which is 70% down from last season. Zimbabwe requires 2.2 million tons annually to meet demand for humans and livestock, according to government crop assessment figures.

The U.N. appeal said that help will range from food assistance to cash transfers and construction of solar-powered boreholes that would provide drinking water for people and starving livestock such as cattle that are a key source of both food and labor.

El Nino, a naturally occurring climatic phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years, has varied effects on the world’s weather. In southern Africa, it typically causes below-average rainfall, but this year has seen the worst drought in decades.

In southern Africa it has resulted in some of the hottest days in decades in some areas and floods in others, destroying livelihoods in a region where many people rely on farming to survive.

More than 60% of Zimbabwe’s population live in rural areas, growing the food they eat, and sometimes small surpluses that they sell meet expenses such as school fees. With relatively little participation in the cash economy, many of those won’t be able to buy food even when it’s available in markets.

"Immediate action is required to avert loss of life and livelihoods over the coming months," read part of the 45-page appeal document.

Children under the age 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding women are more vulnerable, while the risk of gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse are heightening as a result of the drought, according to the appeal document.

In patriarchal Zimbabwe, children, particularly girls, are often tasked with trekking long distances to search for water, putting their safety at risk. Close to 2 million children, both boys and girls, could be forced to drop out of school due to the impact of the drought, the U.N agency said.

The drought also could exacerbate a cholera outbreak by leading to unsafe hygiene, such as lack of hand washing and and drinking from polluted wells.