CNN
–

How will Moscow respond to stunning Ukrainian drones in a strategic aircraft fleet?

So far, the Kremlin remains tightly trapped, only saying it is awaiting the results of a formal investigation into the attack that hit air bases thousands of miles from the Ukrainian border.

But Fury is openly vented throughout the Russian media, with Prokremlin experts and bloggers pursuing retaliation, seeking nuclear retaliation.

“This is not just an excuse, it’s the reason to launch a nuclear attack in Ukraine,” the well-known “two major” blogger told a popular telegram channel with over a million subscribers.

“After the mushroom cloud, you can think about who lied, made a mistake, etc.” they added, referring to the search for the Kremlin’s fiasco scapegoat.

At least one prominent Russian political analyst, Sergei Markov, warned in a social media post that using nuclear weapons would “reduce real political isolation.”

However, popular blogger Alexander Cott demanded that Russia “attack all our powers, regardless of the outcome.”

Of course, Russian hardliners are routinely clammer-sized figures for the removal of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons, yet are still shrouded in thin veils, but ultimately publishing Armageddon’s sky threats targeting Western allies. It is hardly surprising that they are doing so again after such a painful series of attacks.

But it would be wrong to be too satisfied to dismiss all Russian nuclear saber rat rings as mere propaganda.

In fact, this time there are several reasons to worry about taking the slim possibility of a catastrophic Russian reaction.

First, several Russian critics have commented on how the destruction of a considerable number of Russian strategic nuclear bombers in Ukraine is interpreted as violating Moscow’s legal nuclear threshold.

The Kremlin’s recently updated nuclear doctrine sets the conditions for launches — says attacks on military infrastructure “which “disturbs nuclear reactivity behavior” and “critically important” could cause nuclear retaliation.

The Ukrainian operation was “the basis for a nuclear attack,” says Vladmir Soloviviv, a TV firefighter host in the Russian province, calling for a strike in Kiev’s Ukrainian presidential office.

Whatever its legality, the barriers to the Russian nuclear reaction remain benevolent and high, and such strikes could be dismissed by the Kremlin world as a practical over-view.

The first will poison ties with major Russian trading partners such as China and India, causing potential military action against the Russian army.

The inevitable mass casualties will bring about universal caveats and ensure further isolation of Russia at the international stage.

But here is the problem. The Kremlin may feel overwhelming pressure to restore deterrence.

It was not only recent Ukrainian drone attacks deep in Russia that humiliated Moscow. Shortly afterwards, Ukraine launched yet another bold assault on the strategic Karch Bridge, linking Russia with Crimea.

Last year, another powerful blow was hit by the capture by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, and the Kremlin struggled to free its land. Meanwhile, if not weekly, drone attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure and airports continue to cause widespread disruption, far from the frontline.

At the same time, Ukrainian allies are gradually lifting restrictions on the use of Western-supported weapons against Russia, further challenging what was once believed to be Moscow’s red line.

Few people doubt that the Kremlin is itching to react decisively, but how?

A former Russian minister told CNN that the most likely response by Moscow was the “wild” traditional missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities where Ukrainians have already suffered for many years.

“Russia has no ability to launch a massive military attack, so there is no other way. They don’t have enough personnel,” said Vladimir Mirov, a former deputy energy minister who currently lives outside of Russia.

“People talk about the possibility of nuclear weapons and more. I don’t think this is on the table. But President Putin has shown many times that he relies on wildness and revenge.”

In other words, although very unlikely, nuclear options cannot be completely discounted. This Ukrainian conflict has already won multiple unexpected turns, particularly the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 itself.

And while Ukraine and its supporters enjoy the surprising success of recent military operations, thrusts at a humiliated, wounded Russian bear can have dangerous and horrifying consequences.

CNN
–

A dark chapter in Chilean history.

During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990, thousands of babies were stolen from biological mothers and sold to adoption by foreign couples, mainly in the US and Europe. In Chile, they are known as “Children of Silence.”

And now, for the first time in the country’s history, a Chilean judge has announced that he is indicting an individual who claims he has stolen a baby that was stolen in the country.

“In the 1980s there was a network of judges who detected and stole babies from Catholic priests, lawyers, social workers, and even poor mothers, who mainly adopted them and sold them to adoption,” said Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, a judge at the Santiago Court of Appeals, who was responsible for the investigation.

According to a judicial statement, the investigation focused on the city of San Fernando in central Chile involves two babies who were stolen and handed over to a foreign couple.

According to a Chilean judicial statement, the ring is said to have focused on “adding or stealing babies for financial gain” with the aim of “emerging from the country to various destinations in Europe and the United States.”

The judge charged and issued arrest warrants against five people. He said “they should remain in pre-trial detention for crime associations, child abduction and intentional misconduct,” the release said.

The Chilean government has requested extradition to Israel against a former Chilean Family Court judge who is currently living there and allegedly involved, the release added.

CNN contacted the judiciary to determine whether the parties involved have legal representation and how they would respond to the claim, but so far there has been no response.

The judge held that the restriction law does not apply in this case because “these are crimes committed under military junta and must be punished in accordance with the American Treaty on Human Rights and the jurisdiction of the American Court of Human Rights.”

The investigation was released Monday, a day after Chilean President Gabriel Borik said the final report was issued by the task force, which he prepared to investigate a case of a baby stolen last year.

Following that recommendation, Borik said the Chilean government would “provide additional means of searching for origins and create a genetic fingerprint bank that will allow for the unification of many baby families that have been stolen for a long time and given to foreign families.”

Constanza DelRío, Founder and Director We are looking for ourselves (We’re looking for each other), the Santiago NGO, dedicated to reunifying the family of stolen babies, said she was cautiously optimistic because countries like Chile find the truth about stolen babies “are very slow and denying the victim.”

Del Rio was a victim of an illegal adoption and filed a lawsuit in 2017, demanding an investigation by the Chilean government. Authorities were appointed as special prosecutors, but the investigation was not anywhere, she said. According to Del Rio, another prosecutor filed a lawsuit last year solely to declare that he “didn’t establish that the crime was committed.”

President Borick said creating a task force proves his government is serious about the issue, speaks publicly about it, and recognizes the systematic theft of the baby at the time as fact.

There could be tens of thousands of cases. Theft of thousands of babies in Chile has been documented by non-governmental organizations for over a decade. Since 2014, CNN has reported on multiple cases in which stolen people have been stolen as the baby is reunited with a biological mother after DNA testing has proven to be indeed relevant.

River Constance We are looking for ourselves On its own, it built a database containing around 9,000 cases, which helped reunite over 600 parents with stolen children.

Ten years ago, Marcela Labraña (Sename, by its Spanish acronym), the then superintendent of the country’s Child Protection Agency, said her agency is investigating hundreds of cases but suspects there are thousands more.

“This is no longer a myth. We know this happened today, and it was true. It’s not the story that a few people were saying,” Labranya said.

CNN
–

Mexico’s ruling party Morena gains control of the Supreme Court after the country’s first judicial election.

Preliminary results from Sunday’s race were shown by a linked candidate with Morena, who won most of the judicial seats. The victory will bring the party to a firm grip on every department of the government. This is a change that democratic supporters weaken the country’s checks and balance.

Critics also warned that elections themselves pose a risk to democracy, and argued that by electing judges through popular votes, the independent authority of the court can be compromised, thereby having the ability to support the law and to curb crime and corruption that rampify other authority.

About 100 million citizens were eligible to participate in the Sunday event, but only about 13% appeared on the ballot. Experts say the figures reflect the confusion between many positions and voters overwhelmed by candidates.

Víctor Manuel Alarcón Olguín, a research professor at UAM-Iztapalapa University, focusing on political parties and elections, has also lost the way to design the process. He said lawmakers “didn’t provide an adequately well-defined way to electoral authorities, and election officials had to resolve many of these technical issues in turn, at least in order to make the system work.”

Among the nine predicted winners in the Supreme Court race are three seated judges, with former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the founder of Morena. Others include former legal counsel for Lopez Obrador, the current human rights prosecutor for the Attorney General’s Office, and Indigenous lawyers who are expected to become the next president of the court.

“At best, many of these people do not indicate affiliation or such obvious participation in the ruling party, but they have a very diverse range of interests, connections, or at least ideological or manifestation affinity.

All nine candidates appeared in the pamphlet, and Morena members were accused of distributing them to voters to suggest candidates to vote. Election rules prohibit political parties from promoting or supporting judicial candidates.

Morena’s leader, Mexican President Claudia Sinbaum, distanced himself from the pamphlet, condemned its use and sought to ask for an investigation into the matter.

Sunday’s race was the first time any country had held elections at any level of justice. Almost 900 federal posts appeared, including all nine Supreme Court seats and around 1,800 local positions in 19 states. Votes are still counting nationwide, with results expected to be gradually announced next week. In 2027, there will be a second vote for hundreds of other judicial positions.

Sheinbaum labelled the election on Sunday as a successful election.

“In Mexico, voting is voluntary. It’s not mandatory. It’s not mandatory, but it’s not here. Here it is free, direct, universal, and secret. That’s why 13 million people have decided to vote in judicial exercises. That’s a very good thing,” she said.

Lopez Obrador and his party approved the judicial election in September, claiming that popularity votes would help corruption and immunity within the courts.

But critics say Morena was robbing her popularity in order to select like-minded judges with the goal of passing reforms blocked by the earlier, more balanced courts. They also fear that votes could be affected by political actors and criminal groups.

The eight Supreme Court Justice, which had 11 seats at the time, announced her resignation in October and refused to take part in Sunday’s election. Most resignations come into effect on August 31, 2025, the day before the new court begins.

CNN
–

A new programme for desperately getting food in the hands of the hungry Palestinians of Gaza is just a few days ago, but it is already plagued by confusion and tragedy.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the past few days on their way to get help from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The group, backed by Israel and the US, aims to replace an unpublished system of distributing aid to Gaza to deal with the hunger crisis caused by Israel’s months of lockdown.

Over the past week, tens of thousands of Palestinians hope to converge on a GHF-operated distribution point and grab one of the limited number of packages before the speed runs out.

For the past three days, Palestinian authorities and witnesses have accused Israeli troops of shooting dozens of civilians who died at one of Rafa’s aid sites.

On Monday and Tuesday, Israeli troops fired “warning shots” towards what they called “subjects” approaching military positions, saying the military was investigating reports of casualties. During the first deadly shooting on Sunday, the military said it did not fire “near or inside” the distribution site, even if military sources admitted that Israeli forces fired at an individual about a kilometre from the site.

As international condemnation grows, there is something to know about Gaza’s aid and the humanitarian crisis.

Israel suspended all humanitarian aid in Gaza in early March, and government officials said it was to force Hamas to accept new ceasefire conditions and release hostages during the terrorist attacks by extremist groups against Israel on October 7, 2023.

The ban means supplies have not been in the territory for 11 weeks, bringing 2.1 million people in Gaza deep into the hunger crisis. In late April, one in five people were facing starvation, and the entire Gaza Strip warned that it was approaching starvation.

Facing rising international pressure, Israel eased the lockdown two weeks ago, allowing small amounts of aid into Gaza, distributing it through the UN channel and the GHF. However, according to Palestinian officials and international aid groups, a drop of aid is not close enough to meet the needs of the population.

Confusion broke out as thousands of Palestinians rushed to receive food supplies last Tuesday, with Israeli forces firing warning shots into the air and US contractors temporarily withdrawing, on the first day of GHF births in southern Gaza.

However, Gaza’s hunger crisis has long been ahead of the total Israeli lockdown. Since the Hamas attack, Israel has strictly limited the amount of aid that can enter the strip. And even before October 2023, Israel and Egypt had imposed a partial lockdown on Gaza. This meant that 63% of the population was food insecurity, according to the United Nations.

The GHF is a private nonprofit created by Israel and the United States to take over the provision of aid in Gaza, and will take over the provision of aid in Gaza following accusations that Hamas had stolen some of the humanitarian aid destined to civilians. The GHF relies on civilian military contractors for security and aims to replace Gaza’s traditional aid delivery methods employed by humanitarian organisations.

On Tuesday, the organization said it was continuing to “away the full shoot” as it claims it had delivered millions of meals to Palestinians. “In a complex and volatile operating environment like Gaza, the delivery of such safe, direct and large-scale aid is unprecedented,” GHF said in a statement.

The group is facing internal confusion. Executive Director Jake Wood confirmed that after GHF left the day before it launched its business in Gaza and further hit, Boston Consulting Group cancelled its contract with GHF on Tuesday.

The foundation has set up four “safe distribution sites” in southern Gaza and central Gaza with the aim of feeding about 1.2 million, an estimated 2.1 million people. This pales in comparison to the UN system, which relies on around 400 aid distribution points scattered over Gaza.

The Foundation coordinates with the Israeli military to specify specific routes for travelling the Palestinians. Many have to come a long way through the devastated strips to get food.

However, it is unclear how they recognize these detailed instructions and how access to any of the hubs designated on SDS-01 will approach the location of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

Over the past three nights, the Palestinians appeared to have come too close to these positions, and the IDF said they fired fire at people who left the designated route on Tuesday.

The UN had warned that Israeli military involvement in securing areas around the site could block participation or lead to beneficiaries facing retaliation.

How did the distribution of aid change and why?

Before the GHF arrived in Gaza, the UN Relief and Labor Bureau for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) were the main distributors of enclave aid. Additionally, UNWRA played a leading role in the delivery of education and health services.

However, Israel has long had controversial relations with UNRWA and the United Nations as a whole. The relationship burst completely in the aftermath of the attack on October 7th.

Israeli Parliament has since UNRWA banned activities within the country, making non-led humanitarian efforts extremely difficult.

Israel and the United States had accused Hamas of stealing aid distributed by the United Nations. Hamas has rejected these claims, and humanitarian groups say most food aid reaches civilians.

The UN has declined to participate in the new Gaza Aid Initiative, stating that the GHF model violates several basic humanitarian principles. It warned that finding initial distribution points only in southern Gaza and central Gaza could be perceived as encouraging the publicly stated goal of depopulating northern Gaza.

GHF says it is working to open new sites, including northern Gaza, but such distribution points are not yet open.

There isn’t enough food for everyone who needs it. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to seek assistance from a small number of sites, and the lucky few managed to secure some relief, but for the most part, the outcome was disastrous.

Palestinian authorities say over 60 people have been killed by Israeli forces near the GHF aid site near the city of Rafa in the southern city.

It is difficult to establish exactly what happened in all these incidents, as Israel prevents international media from entering Gaza.

Nearly 30 people were killed and dozens were injured on Tuesday, according to Nasser Hospital, Palestinian Health Ministry. Israeli forces said the force fired multiple times after identifying “several suspects deviating from the designated access route are moving towards them.”

Palestinians and hospital authorities said three Palestinians were shot dead on Monday and were injured while accessing aid. The IDF said Israeli forces fired a warning shot about one kilometer (about 1,100 yards) from the aid distribution site.

On Sunday, Palestinian health ministry, hospital officials and half a dozen witnesses said Israeli forces were responsible for the shooting that Palestinian officials said they had killed 31 people.

At the time, the Israeli forces said the forces “didn’t fire civilians while they were nearby or inside,” but sources from the Israeli military confirmed that Israeli forces fired at individuals about a kilometre away before the aid scene opened.

The GHF said on Sunday that none of the gunshots were found in the distribution centre itself or the surrounding area. After filming Tuesday, the organization directed IDF questions regarding the shooting at the aid site.

“This has been a field that went far beyond our safe distribution sites. We recognize the tragic nature of the situation and continue to be committed to ensuring the safety of all civilians during humanitarian activities at all of our sites,” GHF said in a statement.

There was widespread international condemnation, especially from the United Nations.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday he was “applauseful” when reporting Sunday’s death and injuries.

“It is unacceptable that Palestinians risk their lives for food,” Guterres said in a statement, calling for an “immediate and independent investigation” of the event and “seek for the perpetrator to be held liable.”

U.N. Human Rights Director Volker Tark said on Tuesday that Palestinians “die the most Grimm of choice: die from starvation or at the risk of being killed when trying to access the small amount of food available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian mechanisms.”

In the X post, UNRWA executive director Philip Lazarini also denounced the new mechanism, saying, “The aid distribution has become a death trap. It has become a massive casualty injured and killed among civilians who have been starved by gunshots.

Last week, European Union foreign policy director Kaja Karas criticized the new aid mechanism run by the GHF, saying the EU “does not support the privatization of any kind of humanitarian aid distribution.”

British, French and Canadian leaders are threatening to take “concrete actions” including targeted sanctions if Israel continues to stop new military attacks and block new invasions into Gaza.