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Israel-Hamas war: West Bank raid won't derail cease-fire
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Israel-Hamas war: West Bank raid won't derail cease-fire

Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week from Davos on World In :60.

Does the Israeli undercover hospital raid in West Bank destroy any chance of a ceasefire with Hamas?I mean what? The fact that you have undercover IDF forces going after people they believe are terrorists in a hospital? I don't see that as more significant in any way than the war that's been going on in Gaza. The issue is that in the West Bank, but there's been a lot of fighting in the West Bank, knocking a lot of news. No, no, no. The big point here is that the Israelis are under more pressure and are willing to accept a more challenging ceasefire deal than they were a couple of weeks ago, both in terms of of how long that cease fire would go on and also what they're negotiating for the number of hostages and what they have to give up in return. It looks like they are getting pretty close, but once again, would have to be approved by the Knesset and Hamas has to say yes. And that has been more challenging than getting the Israelis to the table, at least in the last couple of weeks.
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The Stormont Parliament Buildings in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

A breakthrough in Northern Ireland?

The Democratic Unionist Party, Northern Ireland’s largest pro-UK party, says it has cut a deal that allows the government to function after two years of political paralysis – but the EU, whose Brexit deal is at stake, is watching closely.
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Luisa Vieira

25 years later, is Brexit unraveling Northern Ireland’s delicate peace?

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended decades of bloody violence in Northern Ireland, as paramilitary groups agreed to disarm. The agreement was such a watershed that US President Joe Biden is expected to visit Belfast and the Republic of Ireland this week to mark its 25th anniversary.

But the stability of the 1.8-million-strong country has been thrown into question as a result of Brexit-induced bedlam.

Indeed, post-Brexit negotiations over trade and border arrangements have sparked some violence and raised fears of broader destabilization, prompting Britain's MI5 intelligence agency to recently raise the domestic terror threat level in Northern Ireland from “substantial” to “severe.”

Twenty-five years after the landmark accord — also known as the Belfast Agreement — how stable is the situation in Northern Ireland, and how has Brexit threatened the status quo?

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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy awards a Ukrainian service member at a position near a frontline, in Donetsk region, Ukraine March 22, 2023.

Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

What We’re Watching: Zelensky’s Bakhmut message, Rishi’s post-Brexit win, Trudeau’s take on Haiti, Ethiopia’s peace progress

Russia and Ukraine score points where they can

Volodymyr Zelensky visited frontline troops in war-ravaged Bakhmut, located in Ukraine’s eastern province of Donetsk, on Wednesday as Russian drones struck across the country. While planning for the trip was surely well underway before Vladimir Putin’s surprise stop in Russian-occupied Mariupol last weekend, the contrast underlined Zelenksy’s signal of defiance.

By appearing in Bakhmut very near the fighting, Zelensky reminded the world that, six months after Putin mobilized 300,000 new Russian soldiers for a deeper advance into Ukraine, even the small city of Bakhmut remains beyond their grasp.

In other war news, Russia has warned it will respond harshly to shipments from the UK to Ukraine of anti-tank munitions made from depleted uranium. Moscow claims this step adds an escalatory nuclear element to the conflict. In response, the UK insists the Russian position is propaganda, that the use of depleted uranium is common in anti-tank weapons, and that it contains nothing that can be used to make nuclear or radiological weapons. Finally, Russia has announced a plan to raise an additional $8 billion in revenue by changing the way oil profits are taxed.

All these stories underscore the reality that, while little has changed on the battlefield, Russians and Ukrainians are still looking for every small advantage they can gain in what looks increasingly like a war of attrition.

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Israelis demonstrate during "Day of Resistance" as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist coalition government presses on with its contentious judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, Israel.

REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

What We’re Watching: Chaos in Israel, Franco-British thaw, Trump's deepening legal woes, Biden’s budget battle

Israel’s unraveling

The situation in Israel continued to unravel on Thursday when protesters against the government’s planned judicial overhaul took to the streets in a national “day of resistance.” In a bid to create a balagan (state of chaos), Israelis blocked the Ayalon Highway, a main artery leading to Tel Aviv’s international airport, to try to disrupt PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s planned trip to Rome (he got out)! Indeed, footage shows police using heavy-handed tactics to break up the crowds, but that didn’t appear tough enough for far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who proceeded to fire the Tel Aviv district commander, decrying police for “not fulfilling my orders.” Israel's attorney general has since ordered the freezing of the police chief's ouster, citing legal concerns. Meanwhile, in a very rare emotional speech, President Isaac Herzog – who holds a mostly ceremonial position and remains above the fray of day-to-day politics – urged the government to ditch the judicial reforms. Crucially, things took a turn for the worse Thursday night when a Palestinian gunman opened fire on gatherers in central Tel Aviv, wounding at least three people. With deepening twin crises at home – a constitutional catastrophe and deteriorating security situation – Bibi is going to have a harder time than ever keeping his discordant far-right coalition intact.

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India's G-20 agenda overshadowed by Ukraine war
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India's G-20 agenda overshadowed by Ukraine war

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Delhi, India.

What was the outcome of the foreign ministers meeting of the G-20 countries here the other day?

Well, the Indians are trying to get the G-20 to focus on food security, energy security, to be the voice of the Global South in a complicated global situation. But of course, the meeting was dominated by the controversy over Russia's war with Ukraine. And while the Indonesian chairmanship last year managed to get the agreement on the text on that particular issue, this time the Russians, followed by the Chinese, are distinctly not. And the end result was there was no agreement. The Indians, anyhow, issued a communique noting that the Russians and the Chinese did not object and tried to focus the meeting as much as they could on issues that they considered important, rightly so, for the Global South in terms of the effect of the conflict.

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Northern Ireland deal: an improvement, but "Brexit is never over" for UK, says David Miliband
Northern Ireland deal: an improvement, but "Brexit isn't over" for UK | GZERO World

Northern Ireland deal: an improvement, but "Brexit is never over" for UK, says David Miliband

How will the impact of Brexit continue to shape the future of the UK and its relationship with the EU? On GZERO World, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee David Miliband expresses his views on Brexit and the Northern Ireland deal agreed upon by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Miliband, who served as the UK's Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010, supports the new deal and views it as “more honest than previous ones,” but notes that Brexit is "a journey, not a destination. And it’s forever in its impact.”

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Northern Ireland trade deal ends Brexit but not UK's economic woes
Can UK overcome economic challenges post-Northern Ireland trade deal? | World In :60 | GZERO Media

Northern Ireland trade deal ends Brexit but not UK's economic woes

Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.

Will the UK finally move past Brexit now that a Northern Ireland trade deal has been resolved?

Oh, it's only been, what, six years. My God. And Brexit finally concluded now that Prime Minister Sunak has taken on his own Conservative Party and said, "No, we're just going to finally move on this." And people are sick of the economic challenges, that's, in part, why Truss got washed out so quickly as former PM, and it's also why he had the space to get this done. It means that you're not worried about the so-called hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and therefore, between the UK and the EU, and it means that the Brits can move on. But moving on, of course, still means that they no longer have integration with the world's largest common market, and that means that their performance economically will continue to drag below all of the rest of Europe and the United States, and that's really unfortunate. It's a massive own goal.

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