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​​​​GAZA CITY / ISTANBUL — The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned on Saturday that at least one million women and girls in the Gaza Strip are facing mass starvation due to Israel’s months-long blockade and devastating war on the enclave, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported.

“Women and girls in Gaza are facing mass starvation, violence and abuse,” UNRWA said in a post on the US social media company X. “They are being forced to adopt increasingly dangerous survival strategies, such as venturing out in search of food and water at the extreme risk of being killed.”

The agency pushed for the lifting of the Gaza blockade and the large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid.

Gaza is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in its history, with famine compounding the ongoing conflict.

Since March 2, Israel has closed all crossings into the territory, blocking humanitarian aid and pushing the enclave into famine despite thousands of trucks waiting at the border. Only a trickle of supplies has been permitted in, falling far short of the needs of Gaza’s starving population.

Earlier this month, the UN World Food Programme also warned that one-third of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents had gone without food for several days.

Israel has killed nearly 61,900 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and brought it to the verge of famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave. — BERNAMA-ANADOLU

TAGS: UNRWA, Gaza, women, girls, starvation, Israel

NBA2

Sunday , 17 August 2025

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PRESIDENT Volodymyr Zelenskiy will meet Donald Trump on Monday as he and European allies push for a trilateral summit with Vladimir Putin despite signs the Russian leader isn’t open to concessions to end the war in Ukraine. 

“Ukraine reaffirms its readiness to work with maximum effort to achieve peace,” Zelenskiy said in a social media post after a call with Trump on Saturday. Trump confirmed the Ukrainian president’s visit to Washington in a Truth Social post, and said a meeting with Putin and Zelenskiy could be scheduled “if all works out.”

We had a long and substantive conversation with @POTUS. We started with one-on-one talks before inviting European leaders to join us. This call lasted for more than an hour and a half, including about an hour of our bilateral conversation with President Trump.

Ukraine reaffirms… pic.twitter.com/64IPVhtFaB

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 16, 2025

Zelenskiy and European leaders spoke with Trump as the US president flew back from Friday’s talks in Alaska with Putin that failed to deliver a path to end the war, currently halfway through its fourth year. Still, Trump called his meeting productive, and signaled he would tell Zelenskiy to make a deal. 

Trump said on the call that while it’s up to Ukraine to decide on what to do with its territory, Putin’s stance hasn’t changed — he still wants Kyiv to cede control of the entire Donbas region in Ukraine’s east, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition on anonymity.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly ruled out giving up all of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Moscow’s forces only partially control and have so far failed to take militarily. Russia would halt advancing its claims over the parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson region it doesn’t now control, effectively freezing the battle-lines there, the people said.

Trump told the leaders that he was prepared to contribute to guaranteeing Ukraine’s security as long as it didn’t involve NATO, they added. The president suggested Putin would be OK with that, the people said. 

The US president said in the post that his meeting with Putin and the call with Zelenskiy both went “very well.” Trump wrote that “it was determined by all” that the best way to end the war was to achieve a peace agreement and “not a mere Ceasefire Agreement.”

The statement comes after Trump said previously that a ceasefire would be his key demand of Putin at the summit. He also threatened to walk out of the meeting and to impose new tough punitive measures if it wasn’t met.

Uneasy Relationship

Monday’s visit to the White House raises the stakes for Zelenskiy, who’s had an uneasy relationship with Trump. His last visit in the Oval Office in February descended in a shouting match between the two leaders and briefly led to the US pausing military aid to Ukraine, which undercut the country’s fighting capabilities. 

Trump and Zelenskiy have since met repeatedly, including at the NATO leaders summit in Hague and at the Vatican, and patched up their ties.

European officials welcomed Trump’s efforts during their call with the US president. They also reiterated the need for a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin, and Zelenskiy in a statement released on Saturday. That statement made no mention of earlier demands for an immediate ceasefire as a first step toward negotiations. 

The topic of a trilateral summit wasn’t raised in Alaska, Russia’s state TV channel Vesti reported on Saturday, citing Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov.

European leaders also said that it will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. “International borders must not be changed by force,” according to the statement, signed by the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Poland the UK and the president of the European Commission. 

Some European officials are concerned that Trump will now pressure Zelenskiy to make territorial concessions to reach a deal, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

“President Trump’s resolve to get a peace deal is vital,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. “But the harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war anytime soon.” 

Putin continues to drag out negotiations and “left Anchorage without making any commitments to end the killing,” Kallas said.   

In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity after the Alaskan summit, Trump said that there were a few sticking points remaining after his discussion with Putin, even as he cautioned that the two hadn’t reached a deal, and shifted his focus to Zelenskiy, saying it was up to him to resolve the war.

“We are clear that Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity” and “no limitations should be placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries,” the statement from European leaders said. “Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine‘s pathway to EU and NATO.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force said on Telegram Saturday morning that Russia launched 85 drones and a ballistic missile at Ukrainian territory overnight, underscoring Moscow’s intention to press on with the war. “On the day of negotiations, the Russians are killing as well. And that speaks volumes,” Zelenskiy said on X. 

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on Telegram that Friday’s Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska showed that negotiations are possible even as the fighting continues. –BLOOMBERG

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IN 1981, the year Airbus SE announced it would build a new single-aisle jetliner to take on Boeing Co., the 737 ruled the roost. 

The US-made narrowbody, already in use for more than a decade, had reshaped the airline industry by making shorter routes cheaper and more profitable to operate. By 1988, when Airbus began producing its upstart A320, Boeing had built a formidable lead by delivering some 1,500 of its cigar-shaped best-seller.

It’s taken the better part of four decades, but Airbus has finally caught up: The A320 series is poised to overtake its US competitor as the most-delivered commercial airliner in history, according to aviation consultancy Cirium. As of early August, Airbus had winnowed the gap to just 20 units, with 12,155 lifetime A320-family shipments, according to the data. That difference is likely to disappear as soon as next month.

“Did anyone back then expect it could become number one – and on such high production volumes?” Max Kingsley-Jones, head of advisory at Cirium Ascend, wrote of the A320 in a recent social-media post. “I certainly didn’t, and nor probably did Airbus.” 

The A320’s success mirrors the European planemaker’s decades-long rise from fledgling planemaker to serious contender, and finally Boeing’s better. By the early 2000s, annual deliveries of the A320 and its derivatives had surpassed the 737 family; total orders eclipsed the Boeing jet in 2019. But the 737 stubbornly remained the most-delivered commercial aircraft of all time. 

At the outset, Airbus faced an uphill battle. The European planemaker, an assemblage of aerospace manufacturers formed in 1970 with backing from European governments, didn’t yet offer a full aircraft lineup. Infighting hindered everything from product planning to manufacturing, and leadership decisions had to finely balance French and German commercial and political interests. 

Yet it was clear even then that Airbus needed a presence in the narrowbody segment to firmly establish itself as Boeing’s top rival. Those aircraft are by far the most widely flown category in commercial aviation, typically connecting city pairs on shorter routes. 

Higher fuel costs and the deregulation of the US aviation industry in the late 1970s had given the European planemaker an opening with American airline executives, who clamored for an all-new single-aisle, according to a history of Airbus written by journalist Nicola Clark.

To set the A320 apart, Airbus took some risks. It selected digital fly-by-wire controls that saved weight over traditional hydraulic systems, and gave pilots a side-stick at their right or left hand instead of a centrally mounted yoke. The aircraft also sat higher off the ground than the 737 and came with a choice of two engines, giving customers greater flexibility. 

Airbus’s gamble paid off. Today, the A320 and 737 make up nearly half of the global passenger jet fleet in service. And the A320’s success contrasts with strategic blunders like the A380 behemoth that proved short-lived because airlines couldn’t profitably operate the giant plane. Boeing maintained that smaller, nimbler planes like the 787 Dreamliner would have an edge — a prediction that proved right.

Yet the longtime dominance of the two narrowbody aircraft raises questions about the vitality of a duopoly system that favors stability over innovation. Both airplane makers have repeatedly opted for incremental changes that squeeze efficiencies out of their top-selling models, rather than going the more expensive route of designing a replacement aircraft from scratch. 

Airbus was first to introduce new engines to its A320, turning the neo variant into a huge hit with airlines seeking to cut their fuel bill. Under pressure, Boeing followed, but its approach proved calamitous. The US planemaker came up with the 737 Max, strapping more powerful engines onto the aircraft’s aging, low-slung frame. 

It installed an automated flight-stabilizing feature called MCAS to help manage the higher thrust and balance out the plane. Regulators later found MCAS contributed to two deadly 737 Max crashes that led to a global grounding of the jet for 20 months, starting in 2019.

More recently, Airbus has been bedeviled by issues with the fuel-efficient engines that power the A320neo. High-tech coatings that allow its Pratt & Whitney geared turbofans to run at hotter temperatures have shown flaws, forcing airline customers to send aircraft in for extra maintenance, backing up repair shops and grounding hundreds of jets waiting for inspection and repair. 

With both narrowbody families near the end of their evolutionary timeline, analysts and investors have begun asking about what’s next. China, for its part, is seeking to muscle into the market with its Comac C919 model that’s begun operating in the country, but hasn’t so far been certified to fly in Europe or the US. 

Boeing Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg said in July that the company is working internally toward a next-generation plane, but is waiting for engine technology and other factors to fall into place, including restoring cash flow after years of setbacks. 

“That’s not today and probably not tomorrow,” he said on a July 29 call. 

Airbus’s healthier finances give it more flexibility to explore design leaps. CEO Guillaume Faury toyed with rolling out a hydrogen-powered aircraft — potentially with a radical “flying wing” design — in the mid-2030s but has since pushed back the effort to focus on a conventional A320 successor.

The Toulouse, France-based company is considering an open-rotor engine that would save fuel through its architecture rather than the current jet turbines that push the limits of physics to eke out gains.

Speaking at the Paris Air Show in June, Faury called the A320 “quite an old platform” and affirmed plans to launch a successor by the end of this decade, with service entry in the mid-2030s.

“I have a lot of focus on preparing that next-generation of single aisle,” Faury said. “We are very steady and very committed to this.” –BLOOMBERG

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WASHINGTON – Donald Trump on Saturday dropped his push for a ceasefire in Ukraine in favor of pursuing a full peace accord – a major shift announced hours after his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin yielded no clear breakthrough.

Prior to the high-stakes meeting in Alaska, securing an immediate cessation of hostilities had been a core demand of Trump and European leaders including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who will now hold talks with the US president in Washington on Monday.

The shift away from an urgent ceasefire would seem to favor Putin, who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal — a strategy that Ukraine and its European allies have criticized as a way to buy time and press home Russia’s battlefield advances.

“It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere ceasefire agreement, which often times do not hold up,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform after the Alaska talks.

Before the summit, Trump had warned of “severe consequences” if Moscow did not accept a ceasefire.

In a call with European leaders on his flight back to Washington, Trump said the US was prepared to provide security guarantees for Ukraine — an assurance German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hailed as “significant progress.”

But there was a scathing assessment of the summit outcome from the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who accused Putin of seeking to “drag out negotiations” with no commitment to end the bloodshed.

“The harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war any time soon,” Kallas said.

The New York Times, citing two European officials briefed on Trump’s call with European leaders, said the president had expressed support for Putin’s proposal for Ukraine to cede territory it controls to Russia in exchange for an eventual ceasefire.

Zelensky back in White House

The main diplomatic focus now switches to Zelensky’s talks with Trump in Washington on Monday.

An EU source told AFP that a number of European leaders had also been invited to attend.

The Ukrainian president’s last visit to the White House in February ended in an extraordinary shouting match, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berating Zelensky for not showing enough gratitude for US help against the Russian invasion.

Zelensky said Saturday after a “substantive” conversation with Trump about the Alaska summit that he looked forward to his Washington visit and discussing “all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”

In an interview with Fox News after his sit-down with Putin, Trump had suggested that the onus was now on Zelensky to secure a peace deal as they work towards an eventual trilateral summit with Putin.

“It’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done,” Trump said. “And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit, but it’s up to President Zelensky.”

European pressure

The leaders of France, Britain and Germany are due to host a video call Sunday for their so-called “coalition of the willing” to discuss the way forward.

In an earlier statement, they welcomed the plan for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit, but added that they would maintain pressure on Russia in the absence of a ceasefire.

“We will continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia’s war economy until there is a just and lasting peace,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine raged on, with Kyiv announcing Saturday that Russia had launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile during the night.

Back in Moscow, Putin said his summit talks with Trump had been “timely” and “very useful.”

“The conversation was very frank, substantive, and, in my opinion, brings us closer to the necessary decisions,” he said.

In his post-summit statement in Alaska, Putin had warned Ukraine and European countries not to engage in any “behind-the-scenes intrigues” that could disrupt what he called “this emerging progress.” –AFP

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