RAMALLAH, 19 January 2023, (TON): The Palestinian health ministry said “two Palestinians were killed by gunfire during an Israeli army raid in the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin.”

The ministry announced the “martyrdom of Jawad Farid Bawaqna, 57, killed by a bullet in the chest, and Adham Mohammed Bassem Jabareen 28, after he was shot in the upper abdomen by the Israeli occupation army during its aggression on Jenin.”

The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

Palestinian social media indicated that Jabareen was a militant.

The Jenin incident raises the toll of Palestinians killed this month in the West Bank to 17, including civilians and militants, according to an AFP tally.

BEIJING, 18 January 2023, (TON): China welcomes a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the country, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said at a regular news briefing.

“China welcomes Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to China. Both China and the United States are in communication now over the specific arrangements,” Wang Wenbin said, responding to a question on a US media report that Blinken is visiting China on Feb. 5.

Wang said “China also hopes the United States will adopt a correct view of China, uphold dialogue rather than confrontation, win-win rather than zero-sum.”

BERLIN, 18 January 2023, (TON): German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is under pressure to approve an increase in international military support for Kyiv by allowing the export of Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine.

Germany has resisted such a move so far, saying Western tanks should only be supplied to Ukraine if there is agreement among Kyiv’s main allies, particularly the United States.

Western officials want to strike a balance between ensuring Ukraine can defend itself and not supplying arms that could encourage Kyiv to make attacks on Russia or draw NATO into conflict with Moscow.

Here are some facts about the Leopard 2 and the debate over whether to deploy it in Ukraine. The re-export of Leopards requires German government approval, so other countries with such tanks could not send them to Ukraine without it.

BUCHAREST, 18 January 2023, (TON): Romania has extradited the suspected leader of the country’s Hell’s Angels chapter to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and complicity in attempted murder, police said.

Romanian media identified the man as the biker club’s country branch leader, Marius Lazar, who is wanted for being a member of an international group of drug traffickers and for negotiating the attempted killing of two rivals.

Lazar, 49, was arrested in Bucharest in December. He was met by US Marshals with face coverings as he was led to a plane, according to a Reuters witness.

WASHINGTON, 18 January 2023, (TON): Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte said “his country plans to join the US and Germany’s efforts to train and arm Ukraine with advanced Patriot defense systems.”

Rutte signaled the Netherlands’ intentions at the start of a White House meeting with President Joe Biden. It remains unclear if the Dutch will ultimately send Patriot systems, take part in training or offer some other assistance related to deployment of Patriots.

The Dutch defense ministry said that Ukraine has asked the Netherlands to provide “Patriot capacity.”

“We have the intention to join what you are doing with Germany on the Patriot project,” Rutte told Biden. “I think that it’s important we join that.”

WASHINGTON, 18 January 2023, (TON): The United States is appalled by Iran’s execution of Alireza Akbari, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, vowing that Tehran’s abuses in its crackdown of widespread demonstrations will not go unpunished.

Blinken said “we were appalled by the execution of Mr. Akbari just as we’ve been appalled by everything we’ve been seeing on the streets of Iran over the last months since these protests began: mass arrests, sham trials, the executions, the use of sexual violence as a tool for protests’ suppression.”

He added “these abuses will not go without consequence. Together with many other countries, we’ve been moving forward with a variety of unilateral actions, multilateral measures, using UN mechanisms, to try to hold Iran to account.”

Akbari, 61, a British-Iranian national who once served as Tehran’s deputy defense minister, was handed a death sentence on charges of spying for Britain.

CAIRO, 18 January 2023, (TON): King Abdullah of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in Cairo to discuss the latest developments related to the Palestinian cause.

During the trilateral summit, the leaders emphasized the need to end all illegal, unilateral Israeli actions that are undermining the pursuit of a two-state solution and the prospects for achieving a just and comprehensive peace, the Jordan News Agency reported.

El-Sisi and Abbas reaffirmed the Hashemite custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, as well as Egypt’s critical role in safeguarding the sites and their inherent Arab Muslim and Christian identities.

MOSCOW, 16 January 2023, (TON): Belarus said its air force drills with Russia that start on Monday are defensive in nature to prepare for possible combat missions, but the move comes as concerns grow that Moscow is pushing Minsk to join the war in Ukraine.

“The exercise is purely defensive in nature,” said Pavel Muraveyko, first deputy state secretary of Belarusian Security Council, according to a post on the Belarusian defense ministry’s Telegram app.

“It will be a set of measures to prepare our and Russian aviation to carry out the relevant combat missions.”

Muraveyko added “the exercises which will last until Feb. 1 are to involve training for aerial reconnaissance, deflecting air strikes, air cover of important objects and communications.”

BAGHDAD, 16 January 2023, (TON): Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani defended the open-ended presence of US and other foreign troops in his country, in an interview published Sunday.

Sudani told “We think that we need the foreign forces.”

US and NATO forces have been training Iraqi soldiers on how to fight the Daesh group.

“Elimination of Daesh needs some more time,” Sudani added.

His comments are significant because the parties that back him and control parliament are aligned with pro-Iranian factions and very hostile to the United States. Iraq also depends on Iran for natural gas and electricity.

LOS ANGELES, 16 January 2023, (TON): The mayor of New York traveled to the Mexican border city of El Paso on Sunday and declared that “there is no room in New York” for busloads of migrants being sent to America’s most populous city.

Eric Adams, a Democrat, was also critical of the administration of Democratic US President Joe Biden, saying “now is the time for the national government to do its job” about the immigrant crisis at America’s southern border.

The visit of a New York mayor to a southern border city about the issue of immigrants is unprecedented.

Busloads of migrants have been shipped north to New York and other cities by Republican run states. That has exacerbated a housing crisis in New York and a worsening homeless crisis in the city.