Junior Digest

Mar8,2020: Air India will operate 52 flights including eight on overseas routes with all-women crew to mark the International Women’s Day today.

The national carrier tweeted that it would operate 8 international and 44 domestic momentous flights with all women crew to mark the International Women’s Day.

Air India is perhaps the only single airline to operate so many domestic and international flights, operated and supported by women employees.

Mar4,2020: Dublin-based Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were awarded the Pritzker prize on Tuesday — the first time a female duo has scooped architecture’s most prestigious award.

The pair gained international fame for their brutalist-inspired structures, pairing strong, heavy materials like stark concrete with delicate human-scale detail like lookout points, meeting places and spots to loiter.

The pair met at university in 1974, and went on to found their firm Grafton Architects in 1978 in Dublin, where they have worked together for four decades.

McNamara, 68, and Farrell, 69, are the first female duo to win a Pritzker, and the first architects from Ireland to be awarded the prize.

“Pioneers in a field that has traditionally been and still is a male-dominated profession, they are also beacons to others as they forge their exemplary professional path,” read the jury citation.

Just three women have won Pritzkers before them: Zaha Hadid in 2004, Kazuyo Sejima in 2010 (with Ryue Nishizawa) and Carme Pigem in 2017 (with Ramon Vilalta and Rafael Aranda).
In announcing their selection, the jury cited Farrell and McNamara’s “integrity” and “generosity towards their colleagues” — both continue to teach, rare for architects of their repute.

The judges also praised their “unceasing commitment to excellence in architecture, their responsible attitude toward the environment, their ability to be cosmopolitan while embracing the uniqueness of each place in which they work.”

The pair say Ireland informed their focus on geography and shifts in climate, resulting in buildings that celebrate detail while remaining modest.

“What we try to do in our work is to be aware of the various levels of citizenship and try to find an architecture that deals with overlap, that heightens your relationship to one another,” the Pritzker committee quoted Farrell as saying.

– ‘Earth as client’ –

In 2008, Farrell and McNamara’s celebrated Grafton Building at Milan’s Bocconi University was named World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, a prize that thrust the pair onto the international stage.

The past four decades have seen them complete projects in Ireland as well as Britain, France, Italy and Peru — notably designing many educational and civic buildings — all with nuanced sensitivity to a site’s natural elements and needs.

“The collaboration between Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara represents a veritable interconnectedness between equal counterparts,” said Tom Pritzker, chairman of the foundation that sponsors the award.

“They demonstrate incredible strength in their architecture, show deep relation to the local situation in all regards, establish different responses to each commission while maintaining the honesty of their work, and exceed the requirements of the field through responsibility and community.”

In 2018, Farrell and McNamara curated that year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, entitled “Freespace,” which they defined as “a generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity at the core of architecture’s agenda.”

Mar 5,2020: Russian air strikes Thursday killed at least 15 civilians including a child in the last major opposition bastion of Idlib in northwestern Syria, a Britain-based war monitor said.

The strikes after midnight targeted an area where displaced Syrians had gathered outside the town of Maaret Misrin in Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

An AFP correspondent saw the bodies of some of the victims wrapped in thick winter blankets at a local hospital.

A rescuer carried in the body of a baby girl, her mouth filled with grey debris and her pink pyjamas caked in dust.

At the site of the strikes, two large one-storey out-buildings lay mostly in rubble near green orchards.

The strikes destroyed the poultry farm where the displaced families had been living. Dozens of surviving white chickens picked through the dust, as rescuers operated bulldozers to comb through the debris.

The Observatory said the toll was likely to increase as many wounded were in a critical state.

Moscow-backed regime forces have since December waged a deadly battle against the jihadist-dominated Idlib region, causing almost a million people — mostly women and children — to flee their homes and shelters.

Even before that offensive, Idlib was home to three million people, around half of them already displaced from other parts of the war-torn country.

The Observatory says it determines what plane carried out a strike according to flight patterns, as well as ammunition and aircraft involved.

The strikes comes as the leaders of Russia and Turkey meet in Moscow to discuss the situation in Idlib, where Ankara backs some rebel groups and has become directly involved in fighting in recent weeks.

Syria’s war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression on anti-government protests.

KASTANIES, Greece/EDIRNE, Turkey :Mar 5,2020: Greece has repulsed nearly 35,000 migrants trying to cross onto its territory illegally since Turkey opened its border nearly a week ago, government sources said on Thursday, as it prepares to deport hundreds of others who made it through.
Thousands of migrants have made for Greece since Ankara said on Feb. 28 that it would let migrants cross its borders into Europe, reneging on a commitment to hold them on its territory under a 2016 deal with the European Union.

Ankara has accused Greek forces of shooting dead four migrants, a charge rejected by Athens, which says Turkish forces are helping the migrants to cross the border. Both sides used tear gas at the Kastanies border post on Wednesday.

Turkey’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, visited Edirne province bordering Greece on Thursday and announced the deployment of 1,000 special police to the area to halt the pushback of migrants towards its territory.

Soylu, who said on Wednesday that Turkey was preparing a case at the European Court of Human Rights over Greece’s treatment of migrants, accused Greek forces of wounding 164 people and pushing back nearly 5,000 into Turkey.

Greece on Thursday banned most vessels from sailing around the Aegean islands of Chios, Lesbos and Samos. They are all close to the Turkish coast and a regular target for dinghies packed with migrants trying to enter the EU.

Choppy seas discouraged dinghies from making the crossing on Thursday, though in the evening a boat carrying 42 mostly Afghan migrants reached Lesbos. The UN refugee agency handed out snacks and blankets to the group, which included about 10 children.

Lesbos already hosts more than 20,000 asylum seekers, many of them living in filthy conditions in overcrowded camps.
The situation at the Kastanies land border crossing in northern Greece was calm on Thursday.

Migrants, who include Syrians, Afghans, Pakistanis and Africans, huddled in tents and makeshift camps on the Turkish side of the border. Others stood in line to receive food packages from aid agencies.
Greek border guards rebuffed nearly 7,000 attempts in the last 24 hours alone, taking the total since Feb. 29 to 34,778 and the number of arrests of those who got through to 244, the Greek government sources said.

Migrants who arrived in Greece illegally after March 1 will be transferred to the northern city of Serres and deported back to their own countries, Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said late on Wednesday.
“Our aim is to return them to their countries,” he told the Athens News Agency.

Mitarachi said migrants who entered Greece prior to Jan. 1, 2019 and are living on its Aegean islands would be transferred to the mainland in the coming days.

Athens announced on March 1 that it would not accept any new asylum applications for a month following the build-up of migrants at the border. This has triggered criticism from human rights agencies.

Mar 5,2020:The Home Ministry on Thursday said preparations for Census 2021 and National Population Register update are at peak and the exercise will begin from April 1.

The ministry said this after a conference of the directors of the census operations on status of preparatory work around Census 2021 and NPR update.

“The preparations for Census and NPR update that is to begin from April 1 are now at their peak,” it said in a statement. The house-listing phase of the Census and update of NPR will be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30.

The conference was convened to discuss the status of preparatory work.

The major topics discussed in the conference were of jurisdictional changes which were made after the Census 2011 and finalisation of statutory towns and census towns.

The topics of urban agglomeration, creation of special charges and snow bound areas, status of training to the census functionaries at the state, district level and below etc., were also discussed.

Presentations were made by the state of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Rest of the states would make presentation on the status of preparedness for the exercise in their states on Friday.

The directors of Census Operations of different States/UTs also presented the level of preparedness in their respective States/UTs, the statement said.

Mar 1,2020: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday threatened to let thousands of refugees cross into Europe and warned Damascus would “pay a price” after dozens of Turkish troops were killed inside Syria.

Around 13,000 migrants have gathered along the Turkish-Greek border, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said as several thousand migrants were in skirmishes with Greek police firing tear gas across the frontier.

The escalating tensions between Turkey and Russia, who back opposing forces in the Syria conflict, after an air strike killed the Turkish troops sparked fears of a broader war and a new migration crisis for Europe.
Erdogan said he would let refugees travel to Europe from NATO-member Turkey.

“What did we do yesterday? We opened the doors,” Erdogan said in Istanbul.

“We will not close those doors…. Why? Because the European Union should keep its promises.”

He was referring to a 2016 deal with the European Union to stop refugee flows in exchange for billions of euros in aid.

Turkey already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees.

– Thousands to spend ‘cold night’ at border –

Erdogan’s comments were his first since 34 Turkish troops were killed since Thursday in northern Syria’s Idlib region, where Moscow-backed Syrian regime forces are battling to retake the last rebel enclave.
Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said nearly 50,000 migrants had left Turkey for Europe via the western province of Edirne, bordering Greece, in comments published in the official Anadolu news agency.

But the IOM said its staff had observed “at least 13,000 people gathered along the 212-kilometre (130-mile) long border.

“Thousands of migrants, including families with young children, are passing a cold night along the border between Turkey and Greece,” it said.

There were skirmishes on the Turkish-Greek border at Pazarkule Saturday, as Greek police fired tear gas to push back thousands of migrants who hurled rocks at them, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.

“Look who’s lecturing us on international law!” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted. “They’re shamelessly throwing tear gas bombs on thousands of innocents piled at their gates.”

– Unimpeded flow –

In 2015, Greece became the main EU entry point for one million migrants, most of them refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war.

EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen expressed “concern” on the unimpeded flow of migrants from Turkey to the bloc’s external borders in Greece and Bulgaria.
“Our top priority at this stage is to ensure that Greece and Bulgaria have our full support,” she tweeted.

In Athens, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis held an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis.

“We averted more than 4,000 attempts of illegal entrance to our land borders,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas said after the meeting.

A Greek police source said migrants had started fires and opened holes in border fences.

Police and soldiers patrolled the Evros river shores — a common crossing point — and issued loudspeaker warnings not to enter Greek territory.

The Greek coast guard said that from early Friday to early Saturday 180 migrants reached the islands of Lesbos and Samos, crossing the eastern Aegean from the Turkish coast.

One rubber dinghy arrived early Saturday in Lesbos carrying 27 African migrants, many of them women, who wept and prayed on their knees, said an AFP reporter.

The UN says nearly a million people — half of them children — have been displaced by the fighting in northwest Syria since December, forced to flee in the bitter cold.

– Fresh strikes in Syria –

Turkey said its forces had destroyed a “chemical warfare facility,” just south of Aleppo.

Syria’s state media denied the attack and the existence of such a facility.

Turkish drone strikes killed 26 Syrian soldiers on Saturday, an independent war monitor said, after Erdogan threatened the regime would “pay a price” for its aggression.

Mar5,2020: The EU and Britain on Thursday underlined major differences as a first round of trade talks ended in Brussels, with no progress on the most contentious issues.

Both sides are trying to establish new grounds for the future of EU-UK relations, just a month after Britain’s divorce from the European Union following 40 years of an often tumultuous membership.

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier insisted that, while talks were cordial, “many serious divergences” remained after four days of meetings in Brussels that involved scores of officials on each side.

The British government offered a very similar analysis, warning that despite a “constructive tone… there are, as expected, significant differences,” a spokesman said.

The divergent positions have been known for a while, with the UK determined to make a clean break from EU rule-making and the EU insisting on upholding its standards on health, state aid and the environment.

“The UK spent a lot of time this week, insisting on its independence. Ladies and gentlemen, nobody, nobody contests the UK’s independence,” Barnier said.

“And we ask the UK to respect our own independence,” he said.

– ‘Very serious divergences’ –

Barnier said talks had snagged on all these issues including the ability to ensure fair competition from British companies, often referred to as keeping a “level playing field”.

“To be completely frank with you… there are many divergences, and they are very serious divergences, which is probably quite natural,” Barnier said.

“The British tell us that they still have these ambitions of high standards, but they do not want to translate these commitments into a common agreement,” he said.

Another problem was Britain’s unwillingness to accept jurisprudence from the EU’s top court as well as the European Court on Human Rights; London contends they are not a typical demand of trade deals.

However, “when it comes to the protection of the rights of European citizens, the interpretation of European law will and can only be done” by the EU court, he insisted.

Fishing also remained a major issue as Britain looks to more tightly control access to its national waters.

“The United Kingdom… wishes to negotiate reciprocal access to British waters and European waters on an annual basis,” Barnier said.

“I can say this as a former fisheries minister… it’s not practicable,” he said.

Barnier said that while a deal was still possible, it would be very difficult, especially since British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has refused to extend the talks beyond the end of the year.

Until that date, Britain can trade like an EU member with no tariffs or other barriers but with no say in deciding policy.

Barnier said the December 31 deadline left an exceedingly tight timeframe few see as feasible for anything but a bare-bones accord.

Both sides have planned a total of five rounds of talks before a June EU-UK summit where leaders will take stock of progress. The next negotiation session is set for March 18 in London.

Asked about the impact of coronavirus on the talks, Barnier said the teams were looking at the problem “in a very pragmatic way”.

“We have a timetable and for the moment, we are bringing together people who are not ill…. There’s no ban on meetings,” he said.

The officials met at a Brussels conference centre and split into nine groups for negotiations on a wide range of topics.

Mar 7,2020: Saudi authorities have detained three princes including King Salman’s brother and nephew on charges of plotting a coup, the US media reported Friday, signalling a further consolidation of power by the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

The detentions cast aside the last vestiges of potential opposition to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and come as the kingdom limits access to Islam’s holiest sites in a highly sensitive move to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus.

Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a brother of King Salman, and the monarch’s nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef were accused of treason and taken from their homes early Friday by black-clad royal guards, the Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed sources.

The Saudi royal court has accused the two men, once potential contenders for the throne, of “plotting a coup to unseat the king and crown prince” and could face lifetime imprisonment or execution, the newspaper said.

The New York Times also reported the detentions, adding that Prince Nayef’s younger brother, Prince Nawaf bin Nayef, had also been detained.

Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The detentions mark the latest crackdown by Prince Mohammed, who has consolidated his grip on power with the imprisonment of prominent clerics and activists as well as princes and business elites.

Prince Mohammed has also faced a torrent of international condemnation over the murder of critic Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in October 2018.

Already viewed as the de facto ruler controlling all the major levers of government, from defence to the economy, the prince is widely seen to be stamping out traces of internal dissent before a formal transfer of power from his 84-year-old father King Salman.

Mar 07, 2020: Chennai : K Anbazhagan, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) General Secretary for 43 years, passed away here on Saturday at the age of 97.
He breathed his last at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, following a prolonged illness.
Anbazhagan was the General Secretary of DMK for nine times from 1977. He was a nine-time MLA, one-time Lok Sabha member and former finance minister of Tamil Nadu and a close friend of former Chief Minister late Karunanidhi.
He was called Peraasiriyar (professor) as he worked as a lecturer in Pachayappa college from 1944 to 1957, later he resigned and contested election.
DMK President MK Stalin released a statement on DMK Anbazhagan’s death on Saturday.
“DMK condoles the demise of General Secretary K. Anbazhagan. DMK postpones all its party functions for 1 week and all DMK flags to fly half-mast for a week,” the statement read.

Mar 5,2020: Almost 300 million students worldwide faced weeks at home with Italy and India the latest to shut schools over the deadly new coronavirus, as the IMF urged an all-out global offensive against the epidemic.

More than 95,000 people have been infected and over 3,200 have died worldwide from the virus, which by Thursday had reached more than 80 countries and territories.

The US state of California declared an emergency following its first coronavirus fatality — raising the US death toll to 11 — and a cruise ship was kept offshore after passengers and crew members developed symptoms.

Switzerland reported its first death from the outbreak on Thursday, while Bosnia and South Africa confirmed their first cases and Greece’s cases surged after 21 travellers recently returned from a bus trip to Israel and Egypt tested positive for the virus.

Mar 06, 2020: New Delhi : In the wake of coronavirus outbreak, the University Grants Commission has issued an advisory to universities asking students to avoid large gatherings on campuses.
“Avoid large gathering on campus, any student or staff with travel history to COVID-19 affected countries or in contact with an infected person in the last 28 days should be home quarantined for 14 days,” the advisory added.
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan earlier today held a review meeting with states over preparedness for coronavirus. State governments have been asked to keep the testing and quarantine facilities, isolation wards and labs in active readiness.
The country’s total number of positive cases of coronavirus touched 31 today.
COVID-19 has so far killed more than 3200 people globally.

Mar 4,2020: Tornadoes ripped through Tennessee early Tuesday, leaving at least 25 people dead, destroying buildings and toppling power lines hours before the southern US state voted in Super Tuesday primaries.

Voting hours were extended due to the devastation the twisters wrought when they touched down shortly after midnight — rubble was strewn across the state capital Nashville.

Residents ran for their lives as their homes came down around them. Tens of thousands lost power to their homes, officials said.

“TAKE COVER NOW! THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS STORM!!!” the National Weather Service tweeted as one tornado tore through an area west of Nashville.

Television broadcast showed cars piled up, hangars destroyed and what appeared to be dozens of aircraft smashed into each other at Nashville’s John C. Tune Airport.
The Nashville Police Department circulated aerial photographs of many buildings missing roofs and homes destroyed — standing next to houses that escaped damage.

“In the hours ahead, we will continue deploying search and rescue teams, opening shelters across the state, and sending emergency personnel to our communities hit hardest,” Governor Bill Lee wrote on Twitter.

Lee said late Tuesday that the toll had risen to 25 during the day.

Among the victims were two people in Nashville killed after being struck by debris, police said.

Mayor John Cooper said around 150 people had been transported to medical facilities while nearly 50 buildings had collapsed in the city, the hub of the US country music scene.

Mar 2,2020:Turkish drone strikes in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province killed 19 government soldiers on Sunday, a war monitor reported, as tensions soared between Damascus and Ankara.

The 19 died in strikes on a military convoy in the Jabal al-Zawiya area and a base near Maaret al-Numan city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The report came hours after Turkey shot down two Syrian warplanes, in an escalating offensive against the Damascus government in Idlib, where Islamist fighters backed by Ankara pose the biggest obstacle to Damascus seizing back control over all of Syria.

Following weeks of violence in the province, Turkey confirmed a full military operation against Russian-backed Syrian forces after 34 Turkish soldiers were killed last week in an air strike blamed on Damascus.

However Ankara has insisted it does not want to clash directly with Moscow.

“One anti-aircraft system that shot down one of our armed drones and two other anti-aircraft systems have been destroyed, and two SU-24 regime planes that were attacking our aircraft have been downed,” Turkey’s defence ministry said.

Syrian state media said Turkish forces “targeted” two of its planes over Idlib. A rebel group and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, both said the planes had been downed.
The situation in Idlib was already volatile as the government supported by Russian air power pressed an assault on the region in a bid to retake the last opposition enclave in a nine-year civil war.

The confrontation between the Russia-backed Syrian forces and NATO-member Turkey, which supports Syrian rebels, has prompted worries over a wider conflict and a migrant crisis in Europe similar to 2015.

Beijing, Mar 5 ,2020: With 31 new deaths on Wednesday, the death toll from the deadly Coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, rose to 3012 on the Chinese mainland while the overall confirmed cases reached 80,409 by the end of Wednesday, Chinese Health authorities said on Thursday.
The authorities further said that they have received reports of 139 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection.

All the deaths were in Hubei Province, according to the National Health Commission.
On Wednesday, 2,189 people were discharged from hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 464 to 5,952.

Around 52,045 have been discharged after recovery while 25,352 patients are still being treated for the infections.
The commission said that 522 people were still suspected of being infected with the virus.
The commission added 32,870 close contacts were still under medical observation. On Wednesday, 6,584 people were discharged from medical observation.
Also on Wednesday, two imported cases of novel coronavirus infection were reported on the mainland, all of which were in Zhejiang Province. The Commission said that by the end of Wednesday, 20 imported cases had been reported, 104 confirmed cases including two deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 10 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 42 in Taiwan, including one death.
Forty-three patients in Hong Kong, nine in Macao and 12 in Taiwan had been discharged from hospital after recovery.

Tehran, Mar 2,2020: The number of coronavirus cases in Iran has increased from 593 to 978 over the past 24 hours, while 54 people have died of the disease, Iranian Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on Sunday.
“A total of 385 new cases have been registered, while the total number of those infected as of Sunday afternoon stands at 978. I want to say that there have been 11 fatalities among the new 385 cases that brought the total number of lethal cases to 54,” Jahanpur said, as aired by IRINN broadcaster.
A total of 175 people have recovered from the disease to date.
Iran is among the countries that are most affected by the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The novel coronavirus was first detected in China in late December and has since spread to more than 50 countries, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a global health emergency.
So far, the virus has infected nearly 80,000 people in mainland China, while over 2,800 people died and nearly 40,000 have recovered.
According to the latest WHO data, the number of those infected outside China has exceeded 7,000, while over 100 people have died.

Mar 7,2020:Dozens of people were killed when gunmen opened fire at a political rally in Kabul on Friday, the deadliest assault in Afghanistan since the US signed a withdrawal deal with the Taliban.

The attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, highlights a glaring lack of security in the Afghan capital just 14 months ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of all foreign forces.

It also calls into question a key element of the US-Taliban deal signed February 29 — whether the Taliban can stop jihadists such as IS from running amok in Afghanistan after US forces pull out.

In a statement, IS said two brothers had targeted a “gathering of apostates” with machine guns and grenades.

The gunmen inflicted devastating carnage at the crowded event in west Kabul, killing 32 people and wounding 58 others, health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar told AFP.

Interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi put the toll at 29 dead, with an additional 61 wounded. He said special forces units eventually killed the two gunmen.

The assault occurred at a commemoration ceremony for Abdul Ali Mazari — a politician from the Hazara ethnic group, most of whom are Shiite Muslims.

The Sunni-extremist IS had claimed an attack on the same ceremony last year, when a barrage of mortar fire killed at least 11 people.

Rahimi said gunfire had erupted from a construction site near the event.
Several top political officials were at the ceremony, including Afghanistan’s chief executive Abdullah Abdullah.

The interior ministry later confirmed that all the high-ranking officials had been “safely evacuated.”

“We left the ceremony following the gunfire, and a number of people were wounded, but I do not have any reports of martyred people for now,” Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq told Tolo News.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned the massacre as a “crime against humanity”.

Tel Aviv, Mar 5,2020: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday emerged as the front runner to become Israel’s prime minister for a record fifth time, even as his right wing coalition fell just short of a clear majority.
His Likud Party led coalition has got 58 seats, just two short 61 in the 120 member Israeli Knesset.
With 99 per cent of the votes counted by Thursday it became clear that the third election in Israel within a year failed to break the political deadlock that has plagued the country. Netanyahu reacted angrily to the result conceding that he did not have the parliamentary majority to form a new government right away
.
“This is what the nation decided,” he said. “The public gave me more votes than any other candidate for prime minister in the nation’s history.”
The exit polls right after the elections had given Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious allies a clear majority and Netanyahu had thanked his supporters for the “great victory”. But by Wednesday things did not look very good for the right wing coalition.
Netanyahu’s Likud Party is still the biggest party in parliament with 36 seats, three ahead of Benny Gantz’a Blue and White party which has 33 seats.
The Joint List, an umbrella group of Arab-led parties, finished third with 15 seats, an all-time high for Palestinian-majority electoral alliance.

While the Arab parties have never been part of any Israeli coalition, they have supported policies from the outside, something they could do again if they can resolve their differences with Gantz whom they have described as being the other side of the same coin as Netanyahu..
Gantz however ruled out a partnership with the Joint List, making it unlikely he can cobble together a coalition either, according to a report by Al Jazeera.
With corruption charges intensifying against him Netanyahu was desperate for a strong showing in advance of his trial, scheduled to start on March 17.
Netanyahu was indicted last year on fraud, bribery and breach of trust charges in three separate corruption cases. He denies any wrongdoing, blaming the liberal media and the justice system for trying to depose him.
Israel’s president will soon begin consultations with the elected parties, who will then recommend to him their preferred selection to lead the government.
Typically, the candidate with the most recommendations is asked to form a government. As leader of the largest party in parliament Netanyahu is likely to be asked to form the government, even though it is unclear how will he cobble up a working majority.
According to political commentators the most straightforward way out of the deadlock would be a power-sharing deal between Gantz and Netanyahu, whose parties together control a parliamentary majority. But Gantz has ruled out a partnership as long as Netanyahu heads Likud.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, insists on being prime minister of any unity government.
If neither candidate can form a government within the allotted time, Israel will be facing an unprecedented fourth election in a year.

Mar 5,2020: International war crimes judges ruled on Thursday that a probe into wartime abuses in Afghanistan must go ahead, including looking into possible atrocities committed by US forces, as they overturned a previous court ruling.

The call was immediately hailed by human rights organisations as a “pivotal moment” for victims of the central Asian country’s 18-year-war since the 2001 US invasion.

But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked the International Criminal Court’s decision as a “reckless” move and “a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body”.

Guissou Jahangiri, deputy president of the International Federation for Human Rights, called the ICC decision “a pivotal moment for victims in Afghanistan and beyond”.

It sends “a much-needed signal to current and would-be perpetrators of atrocities that justice may one day catch up to them,” Human Rights Watch’s Param-Preet Singh added.

Pompeo, speaking at a news conference however said it was “all the more reckless for this ruling to come just days after the United States signed a historic peace deal on Afghanistan, which is the best chance for peace and a generation.”